Codename: Bear II: Secret Agent (Codename Universe Book 2) Read online

  Codename: Bear

  Secret Agent

  Book II

  Thirteenth Draft

  By Geoffrey C Porter

  Copyright 2016, Geoffrey C Porter.

  ISBN-13: 978-1523415441

  ISBN-10: 1523415444

  www.facebook.com/GCPWriter/ Author Facebook Page

  Chapter Zero

  The movie let out, and I lost my two sisters in the crowd leaving for the parking lot. I figured they stopped at the bathroom since they have bladders like chestnuts. I pulled my Toyota Corolla up to the curb by the exit and watched for them.

  The car moved. In the rearview mirror, a vehicle was against mine pushing on me. Something inside my mind snapped. I slammed the car in park, threw the emergency brake, and climbed out. Leaping onto the other person's hood, I made a fist with my right and raised it high over my head. I brought it down hard on the car's windshield and winced in pain. The windshield spiderwebbed. A man jumped out of the driver's side carrying a baseball bat.

  I hopped off and snarled. "Come on, dirtbag!"

  He came at me. I lashed out with the fingers of my left hand in a spear at his throat. He choked, and I clobbered him with my right across the jaw. He raised the bat as if he was going to swing it at me, and I grabbed for it. He tried to wrestle it out of my grip, but I was too strong for him. He let go of the bat with his left and clocked me in the nose. I pulled the bat from his other hand and tossed it aside. He lashed out with his right, and I ducked low aiming my fist at his groin. He crumpled to the ground like most do when you punch them in the groin.

  A whistle blew. Two mall security guards had their guns out, pointing at me.

  I raised my hands. "He started it! He came at me with a bat!"

  One of the security guards smiled. "We caught it on tape. You'll have to come with us and answer a few questions."

  The other guard put cuffs on my assailant and dragged him to his feet. I didn't want to go with the security guards. I had a small satchel of marijuana in my left pocket, and if they found it, I'd likely get a ticket, and they'd take my shit. Typically wouldn't even be traveling with it, but before the movie, my sisters wanted to get stoned.

  I went with the security guards. They hauled the other guy off to another room and sat me down in a chair. I said, "What's this all about? You said you caught it on tape. I'm not at fault."

  "If you want to file charges," a guard said, "we'll have to call in the police."

  A man in a three-piece suit entered the room and smiled from ear to ear. This new man asked, "Have we got the right guy?"

  The guard said, "I think so."

  The man in the suit looked at me. "My name is Jones. Does your hand hurt? Would you like some aspirin?"

  I noticed, my hand did hurt a little, but not like there were any broken bones. "I'm allergic to aspirin."

  "Have some anyway," Jones said. "It'll help you think."

  "No. I'll get sick, man."

  The guard asked, "Are you sure he's the one?"

  "Go over him with a metal detector," Jones said. "See if he's armed."

  My eyes opened wide as eggs. "I'm not armed!"

  The guard took out a hand held metal detector and started running it along my body. I had my hands on my pants trying to cover up the bulge from the weed. It beeped when it neared my hands. D'oh, does it detect drugs?

  "We got the right guy," Jones said.

  I looked to Jones with wide, pleading eyes. "Look, it was just a little scuffle. Nobody was hurt. There's no need to press charges."

  "Take the aspirin. You'll feel better."

  "I'm ALLERGIC!"

  Neither the security guards nor Jones said anything. I said, "Can I go?"

  Jones pulled out a cell phone and dialed. "Is the car ready?"

  He nodded. "You can go."

  I frowned. I walked out of the mall expecting to find my two sisters in a rage waiting by my car. My car was there, but it had all four wheel covers. I had lost two. Knew I had. I looked at the license plate. It was mine. I stepped up to the driver's side. The emblem on the side by the engine compartment was different. It read: Corolla military sport. I was like, what the Hell? I looked in the car. Black leather seats and a five-speed gear shifter where my automatic was. The car was off and locked. I went around to the passenger side to stash the marijuana in the bottom of the glove box and look to see who the car belonged to.

  My key unlocked the passenger door, and I climbed inside. I opened the glove box and looked at the title. The car was mine. The insurance card was up to date of course. Behind the title was a 9mm Beretta. My mouth dropped open. I felt the weight of the gun and knew it was loaded. I turned the interior light on in the car and started rifling through the glove box. I found a modern fragmentation grenade: smooth all round and just smaller than a baseball. How did I know it was a fragmentation grenade? I found a larger canister of sorts with a similar pin, and the letters WP stamped on its side. I knew it was an incendiary white phosphorous grenade. How did I know?

  The driver's side door opened, and the most beautiful woman of Asian descent climbed into the car with me. She wore black leather that shined under the street lights. Her face seemed like it had been caught tensed up and frozen in place. I said, "What are you doing? Who are you?"

  "Did you take the aspirin?" She replied.

  "No! I'm allergic."

  "You need some aspirin, Bear."

  "What did you call me?"

  She shrugged. "I called you Bear. That's your name. It's not Henry."

  "Who are you?"

  "Sphinx."

  She grabbed my car keys and turned the machine on. She cranked the wheel, and we rocketed through the parking lot. The car sounded like an airplane engine whistling up a torrent. The wheels chirped as she dropped it in second. She turned out of the parking lot onto the main road without letting off the accelerator.

  I shouted, "Stop the car!"

  "No."

  "Who are you?"

  "We used to be partners. They retired you. You did your ten missions. Only, Centurian is back in business, and the Agency needs you."

  The name Centurian rang a bell in my mind, but I couldn't place it. I thought back. I tried to think back.

  "Take the aspirin."

  I looked over at the woman driving at breakneck speeds and tried to remember. I'd never seen her before in my life. She steered the car onto the freeway. She was doing 215 kph. The car made it clear from its smooth vibrations that it would happily go faster. I shouted, "EXPLAIN. NOW."

  "You smashed a car windshield tonight without breaking a bone. The bones in your hands are steel reinforced."

  "What?"

  "We learned the technique from the Chor'Tan. It's a kind of osmosis of steel and flesh. I had my feet done. Some people have their whole bodies done, but they end up spending most of their life training with weights, so they can move."

  "Chor'Tan?" I asked.

  "One of three alien species we've been in contact with."

  "What?"

  "Aliens. Don't you watch movies?"

  I shook my head. "Why don't I remember any of this? I think you're crazy."

  "You don't remember because you went through the conditioning. Everybody who retires goes through the conditioning. Aspirin will reverse it."

  "You're full of shit! Stop the car right now!"

  She peered forward and pressed the accelerator down even more. We took the exit for the airport. Quite calmly, she said, "Do you see that black Mustang in the distance? That's our target. No matter what you do, don't put a bullet in the truck."

  I sat b
ewildered. She opened the sunroof on the car and shouted, "Take the wheel!"

  She stood up in her seat and let go of the wheel. I grabbed it. She poked her head up through the sunroof and drew a Beretta from a shoulder holster like in the glove box. "Drive!" She shouted. "Stay close to the Mustang!"

  I climbed under her into the driver's seat. The Mustang must have seen us, for blue jets of fire streamed out of the car's exhaust, and it accelerated away from us. Sphinx shouted, "Faster!"

  I pushed down on the accelerator, and we jetted forward. Sphinx started squeezing off rounds. I could see she was aiming for the tires. She hit one, and the Mustang skidded out of control. I slammed on the brakes, and we ground to a halt. Sphinx jumped out of the car doing a flip in mid-air. The passenger of the Mustang climbed out and started shooting at us. Sphinx gunned him down and tossed her spent weapon to the side.

  The driver of the Mustang stepped out and approached Sphinx. She threw a vicious roundhouse at his head splitting his skull open to reveal brains. At least, I assumed those were brains--the stuff came out of his skull. She looked to me and said, "Come here!"

  I gingerly exited the car and walked up to her. She went to the Mustang and clicked the trunk open from the driver's control panel. I looked inside: stacks of C-4. Enough C-4 to level a skyscraper or three. How did I know that? I didn't know, but I knew I was right.

  Sphinx held out a white envelope. "Take the aspirin."

  I looked at Sphinx. "Have we had sex?"

  She glared. "I'm a professional!"

  "That doesn't answer my question."

  "Are you going to take the aspirin?"

  I popped the aspirin and started chewing.

  I knew as the aspirin hit my bloodstream that I'd made a mistake. Muscles all over my body started to tense up and spasm. Unable to stand, I convulsed on the ground. Sphinx wedged her leather wallet into my mouth, so I wouldn't bite off my tongue. My guts twisted in a knot. I began to see flashes of memories. People I'd killed. Women I'd slept with. Aliens I'd slept with. Sphinx had lied; we'd done it on at least three occasions.

  My two sisters weren't really my sisters. My mom and dad weren't my parents. The three cousins I thought I had were strangers to me. The shared memories we had were simply implants by the Agency. The Agency had recruited me out of college because I had no family to speak of. I thought back to my training: all sorts of classified information from alien technology to hand to hand combat techniques. My hands, I remembered now, over the years I killed men with my bare hands. More than once in the past I split my knuckles open on somebody's skull to reveal the steel underneath.

  The spasms slowly died down, and sirens shrieked in the distance. I spat out the wallet. Sphinx picked it up and wiped the drool off it. "We have to go. Locals will ask too many questions."

  I realized something. Didn't smoke pot. Didn't like pot. I took the bag of narcotics out of my pocket and dumped the noxious weed onto the ground. I stuffed the bag back into my pocket for proper disposal.

  I looked at Sphinx. "What about my questions?"

  "Everything will come to you."

  I grimaced as I climbed to my feet. Sphinx hopped in the supercharged Corolla, and I climbed into the passenger side. She punched down the accelerator, and off we went. I looked over at her. I remembered her soft caresses, but they were vague and fuzzy. "We have had sex."

  "It was a mistake."

  "We did it more than once, and they weren't mistakes."

  Her grip tightened on the steering wheel. "Those bastards. They promised to bury those memories so deep that the aspirin wouldn't bring them to the surface."

  I reached over to her leg and softly caressed it with my fingertips. "We're doing it again."

  "We are not!"

  "My memory is far too foggy for keepsakes, Sphinx. We have to do it again!"

  She shook her head. She stared at the road, passing car after car, sometimes using the emergency lane to go around other vehicles. "We don't have time. Our contact inside Centurian's hierarchy may have given herself away by giving up that Mustang."

  My memories flashed to the bodies we'd found of people Centurian thought crossed him. Sometimes they were our agents, and sometimes Centurian made mistakes and mangled loyal followers. He didn't seem to care either way.

  The idea of Centurian's followers flashed in my mind. Reports of armed prison breaks. Centurian would assault a federal prison, killing countless guards, free people off death row, murderers and rapists; then he would demand their loyalty, and they gave it. He commanded the most ruthless, cutthroat band of criminals the world had ever known with the exception perhaps of Genghis Khan. Centurian's army, and it could be called an army, would stop at nothing to achieve Centurian's goals.

  Sphinx drove the car to the airport. Driving through an armed gate, she sped the car right into a cargo plane and parked it. We got out. She attached chains to the car's underside. I sat down on a rather comfortable padded bench. The plane started rolling down the runway. We climbed into the heavens.

  I looked at Sphinx. She was sitting across from me on one of the benches. I moved in close to her and kissed her on the lips. She pushed me away. "Do you have a rubber?"

  I paused. Perhaps before the conditioning, I carried one, but not after. "No."

  "We're not doing it without a rubber. I know how you sleep around."

  "I don't sleep around."

  "You do, too. Back in Myanmar? You caught that shit, and your balls swelled up like melons?"

  "That was some kind of swamp rot! Remember, we had to wade through that swamp!"

  "It was an STD."

  "It was not. I didn't even get laid in Myanmar!"

  She turned away. "You're a walking Petri dish!"

  I sighed. I happened to glance around the cargo hold and noticed we were on camera. Went back to my side of the plane.

  "Get some sleep," Sphinx said. "We'll be in Phoenix in three hours. And the clock will be ticking on our arrival."

  I said, "We're picking up our contact?"

  "Yes."

  "We'll be outnumbered and outgunned?"

  "Very likely."

  I thought back to the two grenades in the glovebox.

  "There are clothes for you in the trunk," Sphinx said.

  I nodded. Standard Agency fair. I lay down on the bench and closed my eyes. I started to drift away. As I dreamed, a faint touch of lips on my forehead. I opened my eyes, and Sphinx turned away and lay on her bench.

  I slept. Sphinx nudged me awake when we landed. I changed into the Agency's woven-armor clothes. Tan slacks that fit me perfectly. A sturdy leather belt that hid a garrote. A shoulder holster for my 9mm. A white button up collared shirt. A leather jacket that might indeed stop a bullet with pockets big enough for my grenades. Shoes made of Kevlar. I donned everything. Sphinx watched me change clothes. I didn't mind, for I planned to acquire some condoms. I grabbed my 9mm from the glovebox including two extra magazines. The grenades went into my pockets with the WP grenade in my left pocket just where it belonged. The WP grenade was for when I got angry. 'Cause I get angry sometimes.

  Sphinx pulled her attaché case from the trunk, and I mentally logged its contents: bolt cutters, wire cutters, razor knife, sliding impact hammer, electric screwdriver, and adjustable wrench. I didn't even have to look in the bag. I knew its contents by heart.

  We both climbed in the car. Sphinx drove. She drove fast which seemed to be a curse she had. She had no problem using the oncoming traffic lane to pass slower vehicles. I thought back. I drove the same way when the clock was ticking. We entered a warehouse complex and started dodging around stacks of pallets and forklifts. This place teemed with life. We parked next to a small building lined with windows in the center of the complex.

  The door was padlocked, and Sphinx snapped it open with the bolt cutters. We stepped into the building, and the faintest beep went off. We just hit a booby trap. I took off in a run to the center of the building. A crate made of wood maybe two meters on
each side stood in the center of the room. Sphinx chased after me. Through the wood, I could see into the crate, and it was full of bricks of C4.

  I hopped on top of the bomb, and a timer device counted down. Just over a minute left. I snarled, "Screwdriver!" but Sphinx already had it out. I snatched it and undid the four screws holding the top of the timer in place. I lifted the cover off. Three red wires led away from the timer. One to a wiring mechanism in plain view; the other two went deeper into the box. Four more screws came undone easily enough, and I found the second mechanism. My fingers pried the bottom plate out, and there was a third mechanism.

  I knew Centurian must have gotten the explosives and detonators from the chaotic Razdorans, and if I knew my Razdorans, they would have provided the cheapest detonators. Each of the three timer wires led to integrated circuits, which led to capacitors, which led into the crate below me. If the cheap little toys were live, cutting those wires would make the bomb go off. If the integrated circuits were sending signals back to the timer, cutting the timer wires would make a big mess.

  "Thirty seconds!" Sphinx shouted.

  I had to assume that I needed to cut the fuse wires, but if one was a trick wire, it might be hot, and if it was, boom. I wished for a volt ohm meter. Sphinx had the wire cutters out and was holding it out to me. I grabbed it. Wanted to cut the timing wires so bad. I really did. The wire cutters went after the first fuse wire instead. Snip. No boom. I smiled. I clipped the second wire. No boom. I cut the third wire.

  I looked at the timer… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Beep-Beep-Beep… Silence.

  I climbed off the crate and started to shake all over. I looked around the warehouse hoping to find some clue. I noticed cameras. One in each corner pointed at the crate. Sphinx kissed me. I held her tight.

  I asked, "How much C4 do they have?"

  "Two semi-trailers full."

  "Dear Lord."

  We walked out of the warehouse back to the car. Sphinx dialed the local bomb squad and told them about the C4. She started driving, only slowly, like a normal person. I asked, "What's the plan?"

  "There's no plan." Sphinx sighed. "We have to wait. We're going to a safe house."