Alex Bobl - Memoria

“The girl and the veteran,” Frank nodded at the burly man by the platform edge, “they helped me. We’re not guilty. Claney and Dickens are the ones to blame…” he stopped and pointed at the blond man.

“Search the roof,” Jessup ordered. “Keep all exits under your control and contact our guys inside.” He turned to Shelby. “I need to know about the transmitter.”

Frank shook his head.

“Dickens couldn’t turn the equipment on. I stopped him transmitting…” his gaze shifted to the girl who’d crossed the platform once the fighters had left it.

She hauled the large man over onto his back, placed her hands on his disfigured face and spoke, but the rotating helicopter blades beat the air drowning out her words.

“Please help,” Shelby held out his hand.

Jessup squeezed it, pulled it toward himself and caught a glimpse of a movement out of the corner of his eye.

“Watch out!” Frank lunged forward.

The blond man sat up raising a gun. His shirt was torn on his chest revealing a Kevlar vest split by the axe blow.

A shot rang out.

Shelby froze for a second. He looked back. Jessup lowered his gun. He stepped toward the man, who was now lying on his back, and kicked the gun aside.

“His name is Dickens, then?” he nodded at the dead man — now dead for real. The pale eyes stared into the starry sky. Blood seeped from the bullet hole in his forehead.

“Yes. He and his men tried to run me down on Claney’s orders. I’ll give you the details…”

“Later.” Jessup holstered his gun.

“Do you have Claney?”

“No. He’s flown the coop.” Jessup looked at Shelby. “Any idea where he could be heading? We’ve blocked off the roads and the airport.”

“He said he’d go to the airfield.”

“The airfield?” Jessup frowned. Airfield, he thought. Airfield… but of course! The flyboys. Their base is the only remaining strip from which he could take off unhindered.

He swung his arm, ordering the pilot to prepare for take-off. More special-forces men appeared on the roof, among them a civilian. Short and thickset, with sharp features, he ran up to Jessup. He glanced at the dead man, then at Shelby.

“Salem! Speak up,” Jessup shouted.

“We’ve suppressed their resistance, now we’re mopping up in the building.”

“Very good. Take care of the witnesses and whip up some help for the wounded,” Jessup pointed at the girl and the big man. “Get Archer on the line and tell him to go to the airdrome. I’m going straight there.”

“I’ll come with you,” he heard.

Salem stared at Frank who’d dared to interrupt them.

“You’re wounded,” Jessup sized him up, surprised.

“That’s nothing,” Frank winced. “You and I, we’ve got something to talk about.”

“All right,” the captain nodded and waved to the drop team leader. “Take off in one minute!”

He gave Salem a few last-minute instructions and ran to the helicopter. Frank followed. The team was already piling on board.

They didn’t have a chance to talk in flight. First Frank had his wounds dressed, then Jessup had to keep the Feds posted on the radio. Soon the chopper started to snake over the river. A long chain of lights came up from the right marking the landing strip where a charter jet was just taxiing onto the runway.

“We’ve arrived!” the captain shouted. “The Feds are at their gates. But they have access problems. We’ll have to break through from the air.”

The drop team leader nodded. His fighters started checking their weapons and equipment.

“We’ll hover over the strip to prevent the plane from taking off,” Jessup said. “The group will then rappel down and take over the jet. We need Claney alive.”

“Yes, sir,” the fighter said.

“Shelby,” Jessup turned to Frank, “we’re staying in the chopper.”

Frank paused. “I’ll go with them.”

“No, you won’t,” Jessup snapped turning away from him.

Frank glanced at the team preparing for the descent. He shuddered, raised his collar and put his hand into his pocket. His fingers found a sharp object. He pulled it out and stared, disbelieving, at the syringe he’d picked up in Bow’s lab.

Maggie had already told him a little about the capsules and the way they were programmed in the elevator on their way to the tower roof. She’d seemed to have another one of her revelations like when she’d switched off the biocurrent machine in the lab. Her personality correction procedure hadn’t been finalized. They’d only managed to download the data into her brain so that she could share it at the press conference flawlessly, confessing to the crime she hadn’t committed.

Frank looked at Jessup’s back and put the syringe away. No points for guessing what it contained. The opaque greenish solution held the mnemocapsule, and the liquid itself had to be the chemical mind lock he kept hearing about. The transmitter’s signal had to activate both, provided the vaccinated subject had his electronic bracelet on. That’s why Bow and his techs had been scared shitless at the sight of the needle.

One question remained unanswered for Frank: how had Dickens managed to get Barney under his control? Without the transmitter signal and without Barney’s bracelet…

“Get ready!” the captain shouted distracting Frank from his ponderings.

The chopper banked to one side hovering over the runway. The team slid the doors open, hung their backs to the wind and dropped the ropes.

“Go! Go!” Jessup ordered.

The men rapped down and disappeared under the helicopter. Frank stared at the long shape that was rapidly looming up toward them. Headlights shone on the jet’s wings, blinding him. The plane put its nose down. Clouds of smoke billowed from around its undercarriage.

“Put her down!” the captain ordered the pilot.

Sluggishly, the chopper descended. The plane swerved, ending up on the grass. Its wing tips flapping, the plane shuddered over the uneven ground. The drop team ran toward it.

By the time Frank and Jessup left the chopper, the aircraft had come to a stop. A hatch opened in the fuselage letting out a baldheaded man with a gun. Shots resounded. Bullets ripped holes in the jet’s skin around the door. The man convulsed and fell out onto the grass.

“Shit!” the captain cursed as he ran.

“This isn’t Claney!” Frank shouted behind him. He’d already recognized the corpse.

He felt a total wreck. He could barely move, the bullet wound in his shoulder hurt like hell, his ribs ached so much that he had difficulty breathing. He couldn’t catch up with the captain.

“Who is it, then?” Jessup reached the body first and turned it over toward him.

Frank stopped next to him, gasping.

“This guy is a cab driver,” he collapsed onto the grass. “You see this scar? He gave me a lift. I remember him…”

More shots rang out, this time inside the plane. Three of them, then all went quiet.

“What cab driver?” Jessup looked up clutching the revolver.

“From La Guardia. This was Dickens’ plan A. He killed Kathleen in my apartment, and his people had to kidnap me from the airport… exactly what he planned to do after that, I don’t know.”

A soldier stuck his head out of the hatch.

“Clear!” he reported and jumped out onto the grass.

“What about Claney?” the captain asked.

The team pushed the handcuffed Congressman out of the plane, then jumped out themselves. One of them had his helmet split, his bulletproof vest dented, but he stood up with confidence.

“No casualties on our side,” the leader reported.

Sirens wailed from the airfield. Everybody turned their heads to the sound. Frank scrambled to his feet. Several army Jeeps sped to the plane followed by patrol cars, their lights flashing.