The Minus Faction, Episode One: Breakout by Rick Wayne Read Free Book Online Page B

center. Nothing happens for a week or so. But then, last Saturday afternoon, Alvin—who never scored above average on any of the army's aptitude tests—woke up from his coma, disabled his monitors so that the nurses wouldn't be aware of his absence, locked his door from the inside , snuck past the hospital security cameras—not a single one so much as caught a glimpse of him, and you know how hard that is—procured street clothes and a disguise, infiltrated a crack house across town, and took down three armed men after being shot in the leg. Isn't that amazing?"
    "You need to work on your delivery. The story takes way too long to develop and the punchline is predictable."
    "Maybe you could give me your version."
    "Never met the man."
    "What's this symbol?" Ayn pulled a color printout from her file. Three circles connected in the center by three lines. "You Googled it from the fourth-floor nurse's station shortly after you were admitted."
    John didn't answer.
    "After that, you either figured out we had the whole network on watch or you learned to cover your tracks better."
    Regent looked Ayn up and down. She was a blank. She was dressed nicely in a white shirt and gray slacks, but there was nothing to identify her as a human being, nothing personal. That wasn't an accident. He knew the type.
    Ayn put the sheet back in her file. "What were you looking for, Captain?"
    "Funny thing about you people." John shook his head in disgust.
    Ayn raised her eyebrows. "Us people?"
    "Bureaucrat spooks. You act all noble, but you don't actually care if the country's secrets are being stolen."
    "Oh?"
    "Not as long as you know they're being stolen. Known security breaches take months to fix, years sometimes. I've seen it. And why would you care? That's a score for the other team. They already got it. Fixing it quick doesn't change anything. They already got one over on you.
    "But when something new pops up . . . Well, then you'll move mountains. It's a chance to score, to get one over on someone else. It's all about reputation, appearances, being seen as the best, the smartest, the most ruthless. Ain't got a damn thing to do with national security." John said it with acid.
    Ayn didn't deny it. "And leaving Special Forces for a team that doesn't exist had nothing to do with ego? With 'being seen as the best?'"
    "You like stories, huh? Okay, here's one for you. Once upon a time, something falls out of the sky. Something big. Lands in Siberia near the Kazakh border. Only it doesn't burn up, not totally. Leaves a big scar in the ground. Suddenly everyone's worried that the Russians or the Chinese had a satellite—or worse, some kind of orbital platform—that no one knew about. My God, that could affect the score."
    Ayn scowled.
    "My team gets mobilized. And we're the best, so we get there first. Only for us, being the best means we don't ever get seen. Radar absorbent wingsuits out of the back of a modified commercial aircraft, dropped with oxygen masks from thirty-five thousand feet. We each covered almost a hundred miles in the fall, crossed the border in the night sky. We met at the rendezvous and made it the rest of the way on foot. When we got--"
    "Don't tell me." Ayn was flat.
    Regent stopped. "I thought you'd have seen the files, big important person like you."
    "They're gone." Ayn sat back and crossed her legs. She was unapologetic.
    "Huh." The soldier frowned. She must have looked into the symbol during her investigation. "You tellin' me you aren't curious?"
    "No."
    John smiled. "Yes, you are. You hate not knowing. What happened? You ask and get an earful of 'don't ever ask again'?"
    Ayn leaned forward again and pulled more pictures from her file. She tossed them onto a little side table covered in old magazines. "The police documented six incidents, but I'm guessing there were more."
    Regent ignored her. "This thing, this smoking wreck, whatever, was over eighty meters long."
    "Very few witnesses. But like you said, you guys are