Operation Chaos Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PART ONE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  PART TWO

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  PART THREE

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  PART FOUR

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  Other Works by Richter Watkins

  About the Author

  OPERATION CHAOS

  Richter Watkins

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locals, is entirely coincidental.

  Operation Chaos

  Copyright © 2014 by Richter Watkins

  Published by Pryde Multimedia, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the author and/or publisher.

  For all the warfighters who never made it home.

  PART ONE

  1

  The man who’d been dead for three years stood beneath a full moon and watched the helicopter, carrying six of America’s most powerful military and intel operatives, drop out of the predawn sky, falling like a predator hawk seeking its prey.

  The dead man was getting worried about their arrival. But they made it. He had a big surprise for them.

  The op he wanted to show them was only about half an hour away. He was Doctor Lester Raab, long considered dead by the world, but very much alive and rapidly becoming one of the most powerful men on the planet.

  The unmarked chopper spun down across the palms and over the high, barbed-wire-topped wall into his compound in Baja at the center of one of Mexico’s wealthiest enclaves south of Tijuana.

  Raab, who’d faked his death three years before, was on the verge of his personal resurrection. But he had a big problem that, if not solved, would threaten everything they’d worked for.

  Four heavily armed Mexican Special Forces soldiers immediately surrounded the chopper as the rotors slowed and the engine wound down.

  Three forcibly retired American army generals and one four-star still on active duty exited the chopper, along with an admiral and an intel operative connected the “dark floor” of the CIA, an organization known only to a handful as V4.

  They strode quickly toward the main house of the compound as Raab hurried to greet them. He was thrilled at their arrival, not only for what he had planned for them, but for his power to bring them here at this hour.

  These men, who had funded and protected him and his program, were the big guns behind the “dark” research and development for the future of the military, were about to witness confirmation of their successes. And to relax their anxieties about a problem that had arisen.

  He said, as he greeted them, “Gentlemen, I was getting worried.”

  “We’re a lot more worried than you are, Doctor,” Admiral Harris said as he shook hands with Raab. Harris headed of one of the most powerful contractor companies working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA.

  General Snyder said as he came up to Raab and shook hands, “General Dexter sends his regards. He’s a great admirer of your work. He can’t wait to meet you once you’re relocated in Virginia. After you’ve solved the problem.”

  “I can’t wait. I’m ready to go as soon as the problem is solved. And it will be very soon.”

  “Good,” Snyder said. “One of the fifty buildings at Fort Meade stands waiting for you, fully equipped.”

  “It will be resolved soon,” Doctor Raab said. “There is only one person on the planet, in my estimation, who can do so quickly. And she will be with us maybe by tonight.”

  The idea of having his research labs moved to Virginia and in the same complex with the most powerful man on the planet was exciting to say the least. General Dexter had just recently become the commander of the Fort Meade complex and that made him director of the NSA, chief of Central Security Service, and head of the US Cyber Command. On top of that he had his own secret military force that consisted of the 24th Air Force, Second Army, and the Navy’s 10th Fleet. And in the global cyber war, no one was his equal. And he would soon have control of the Internet as well.

  These men were the nation’s top guns. They ran the enhanced warfighter projects designed to keep America well ahead of the rest of the world in developing the war technologies of the future.

  And Raab found himself at the top of the single most important of those projects. The one that would change everything. But there was a problem and it had to be fixed soon.

  Raab led them into the villa and down a long hall to the “war” room that was filled with high-tech equipment, interactive screens, and wearable brainwave scanners more advanced than anything on the planet.

  The interactive headpiece—nothing like it anywhere but here—lay in front of each of their chairs at the long, curved, mahogany table, where coffee and pastries were laid out for them by the house staff.

  They settled, had coffee poured, got comfortable.

  Dr. Raab then explained the operation they were going to witness. “We have about twenty minutes before the live op, featuring the most enhanced warfighter on earth, Seneca, is coming our way. But first, to adjust you to the experience—and you’ve never been involved quite the way you will be now—I’ll show you an op from a few days ago. You’ll experience it viscerally, and that takes some adjustment. It’ll get you ready for what you’ll see live very shortly.”

  Raab was a little nervous. It was one thing to show a past operation, but the one that would be live was not under his control. It either would go or not. And its success was critical to everything he’d worked for.

  Lester Raab had big plans for this day.

  “All right, gentlemen, put on the headsets.”

  The headsets were thin bands with goggles. They would calculate and adjust to each individual after reading their metrics. These men were now going to enter a world they had financed and helped create, but wasn’t available until now.

  “Gentlemen, you will now see through the eyes and mind of the operative. We’ve never had the ability to do what we can now. You won’t have to read his thought transmission on some computer screen. You will be him. You will actually feel the heart rate, the anxiety level, and see through his eyes. It’s a little strange at first, but you’ll get used to it. And on th
e right upper view, you’ll see data that correlate with the essential stats. You will become a warfighter of tomorrow . . . here today. These are men whose damaged brains were saved by technology you made possible. These metabolically enhanced warfighters are the tip of the spear. Enjoy.”

  Watching these men, a team who’d financed his programs, protected him, and were the dominant players preparing America’s resurrection as well as his own, Doctor Raab felt the moment, his moment, and theirs.

  The operation rerun he showed them was of an assassination outside Mexico City, one they experienced as if they were the assassin, yet also the field commander. It was like being, and controlling, all at once. It took some time to get used to. It was beyond an advanced 3D video game. This one was you.

  It was a nice prequel to get them adjusted to the medium. They were familiar with many advances, but nothing quite as sophisticated:

  A Mexican security agent opened the limo door for a powerful politician. He turned and, the assassin’s dot appearing on his forehead, the shot, the quick death, the assassin’s reaction, heart rate, brain wave, the communication, all felt directly as if each man at the table was the assassin, had pulled the trigger.

  Raab saw their reactions. He smiled deeply, broadly. On some level, he and those with him in the neuroscience field ruled the future. These men, for all their power, were really just his soldiers.

  “Was the operator cloaked?” General Snyder asked. “He seemed very close.”

  “Yes. But what you are going to witness live won’t be. He’ll be very visible to the target.”

  Everything now turned to the real-time op. It would be the main feature. Seneca, the most advanced, metabolically enhanced, warfighter on the planet.

  When Raab got the signal from his assistant, he said, “We’re going live, gentlemen. Real time. This enhanced warfighter you will interact with was a Tier One who suffered extreme traumatic brain injury in Afghanistan. He’s undergone multiple operations and transplants over the years and chip sets that make him one of a kind. Seneca. He’s our future.”

  Raab waited for the signal. When it came he said, “Gentlemen, we’re live in La Jolla. The target is a woman I had the honor of working with on this very program. And the reason why the program was shut down and had to be moved out of the States. She’s the creator of the Z-chip set.”

  The men picked up their headsets again and entered the brain of Seneca, an experience they wouldn’t soon forget.

  Raab said, “He has, among other advanced attributes, the ability to outrun any sprinter, thanks to the third generation piezoelectric transducers in his shoes. He’s a cheetah among men. His cognitive functions allow him to go for days without sleep. He can adjust his vision the way owls do. A kind of dual focus—one eye sees long distance while the other sees up close. Owls need that for night hunting, chasing their prey through the trees. It’s a little weird at first, but once you’re used to it, it’s really cool.”

  At first they saw only the predawn darkness in the trees and glimpses of the white tops of the ocean waves out from the cliffs. Then their vision became the soldier’s vision. And it was more intense, more real—so real, it would be almost traumatic if they didn’t understand.

  Seneca, they, “he” moved through the palms near the ocean in La Jolla. They-he saw the bare first flicker of morning filtering across the bluff.

  They were now Seneca. His pulse, visions, movements. And it took them away from their individual beings and into the world of one of the great warrior-assassins on the planet.

  The target, and Raab’s personal obsession, came into view as she jogged along the bluff. She had long, easy strides, a female in her prime, a female Doctor Raab had great admiration and affection for. And anger and bitterness.

  If it went as planned, and he knew it would, life would be as it should. And Seneca was not just the best—he was beyond anything they had created.

  Raab had full, joyful confidence. Life had its moments and this was one. He became Seneca, became the ultimate warfighter. It was a very powerful and, for him, delicious moment and would be for all of them.

  2

  Ocean breeze filled her lungs, the flow of blood, the predawn, the freedom to do what she wanted.

  Doctor Rainee Hall’s strong legs looped easily along a well-worn path on the bluff above the Pacific, moving to the cadence of her personally mixed soundtrack pulsing through her earbuds.

  For the workaholic, and one of the premier neuroscientists in the world in rebuilding sub-damaged brain regions and neuromodulation technologies, this was her regular predawn run, her ritual, enjoying this moment when she was alone in her world and away from her work, her obsession.

  Her strong, conditioned legs ate up the trail as she jogged along the cliffs near the Scripps Institute in San Diego where she did much of her work with the study of brain injuries.

  Nothing relaxed her as this morning ritual. It was her high, her meditation, her necessary endorphin fix and Zen where she escaped her work which, at the moment, was modeling the latest “brain dust” that was so powerful, so energy efficient, and so much a mimic of the brain, they could map the synaptic layout in biometric algorithms that promised an evolution of brain rehab with carbon-based cells.

  Doctor Hall didn’t just love her work, it was her religion. It was, to her, the creation of the future. Her work, now well beyond stem-cell innovations, had done near miraculous regenerative and enhancement salvation for so many soldiers with serious TBI. She had just returned from IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, where they were developing neurosynaptic chips that actually mimic carbon-based brain cells, an idea advanced by the great Dharmendra Modha.

  Rainee, obsessed with the new lines of research, felt the future was coming at warp speed—even as the civilization seemed to be falling apart—at times echoing Einstein’s fears that technology was like putting an axe in the hands of a psychopath.

  But she tried to stay away from that view. In her mind, technology was the salvation of man and the planet. She refused to take a negative view.

  Now, bathed in a light sweat as she ran into the most precious time of the day—the evolving mystery of approaching dawn, with the soft slap of the sea below, her and the pelicans on their morning patrols—all was good.

  Seneca tracked his prey, admiring her gait, her attitude, with that straight back, easy stride, as he moved through the trees, sliding along with her. His own stride light and easy through the sprawling eucalyptus, his body calm yet coiled tight as a big cat, the darkness slipping away, soon to be infused with morning light that would shrink his one normal pupil, not his left eye, which worked on a different modality.

  He appreciated the target’s fluid grace as she jogged along the ragged rim of the Pacific, her body lithe, her strides emanating from long, muscled hamstrings and thighs, from firm buttocks. Women who could run, who were athletes, had a very nice way they kept their shoulders back. Men ran different—harder, more aggressive. His target was a very fine athletic female.

  Rainee Hall had never had a call interrupt her run, so it had to be an emergency. She pulled her earbuds and answered.

  It was the lab night assistant asking her, on behalf of Doctor Linn, what time she was coming in.

  “Carol, I told you, unless it’s a real emergency, don’t call me on behalf of Doctor Linn. If the university isn’t on fire, or a tsunami on the way—look, I’ll deal with Doctor Linn. Don’t call me with something like this. Have a good morning.”

  Rainee slipped her phone back in her pocket and took a deep, slow, calming breath, thinking, What am I going to do with her? She’s so determined, comes to work early, and leaves late! She needs more of a life

  Rainee watched a wedge formation of long-beaked pelicans ride smoothly over the rocks and out over the predawn surf like a flight of miniature drones. They were going out to fish. She loved those birds.

  Of all the creatures she admired, the pelicans with their long beaks, their military-like w
ings, and their perfect formations were her favorite.

  But then, as a former military surgeon and the daughter of a navy pilot, one of the first females to fly the F-18 and land it on carriers, it was natural she would admire these beautiful aerial formations. The way these birds would drop to the waves and ride the wind, it looked like they were surfing rather than hunting.

  As she was about to put her earbuds back, she stopped. Another disturbance. This one not clear, just a sense that something was wrong. She glanced around, saw nothing.

  I’m getting paranoid, she thought. I need to stop watching the goddamn news.

  After the target slowed to answer her cell he sensed a change in her. The target showed signs of some nervousness or irritation. It was time to move on her.

  Seneca left the full dark of the palm trees and glanced toward the trail that overlooked the ocean: white-crested waves, over which the formations of pelicans, supreme riders of the wind, great sea hunters, pirouetted in the changing breeze.

  Though Seneca hadn’t slept in days, his cognitive faculties remained on high, a steady efficacy.

  He adjusted with a light press of his finger just behind his left ear. It broadened the visual spectrum. One eye focused for short distance and close peripheral while the other functioned for long distance.

  He had over two hundred microchip sets, and the latest Z3 fibers, assisting his senses and the transmission of his processes.

  Nothing in the immediate environment was outside his field. No wolf, no mountain lion, no hawk was better equipped.

  Then, with cheetah-like speed, he made his move on the long, lithe, female target.

  3

  In her peripheral vision, Doctor Rainee Hall caught a glimpse of the swift, silent approach of a big man as he cut across the first gray hint of dawn, moving in on her at a full sprint.

  She swore softly. There were times when she considered carrying a weapon, given what was going on in the country, but never did. The thirty-four-year-old neuroscientist knew she couldn’t escape from what was heading her way. Not with that speed. And he wasn’t out on a morning run.