The Minus Faction: Episode Three: Meltdown

By Rick Wayne

In Episode Three . . . After losing his girlfriend and his job, Ian Tendo's sensible life has fallen apart. When he's arrested by the FBI, he doesn't imagine things could get any worse.

That is, until dark forces recruit him to be an agent of terror. Forced to commit horrible acts in secret, Ian knows death is close — either at their hand or his own.

But unexpected help comes in the form of an eleven-year-old prodigy. Wanted by the police and pursued by a living nightmare, the pair's only hope is a mysterious organization known as the Minus Faction.

“Wayne gives his characters realism, depth, and heart.” -amazon reviewer

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rick Wayne
• Release date: Apr 15, 2015

Rick Wayne

Rick Wayne is a cretinous mass who's dissected a cadaver, climbed the Great Wall, jumped from an airplane, designed sampling systems, swam naked in the Mediterranean, and felt the blast of a terrorist's bomb, although not in that order. When he's not vomiting words, he's planning his next adventure. He can be found at RickWayne.com.

Book preview

Twelve years ago . . .

The team converged on the target in silence as the last minutes of night hung over the bay. John Regent turned his eyes to the glow of dawn at the horizon. He glanced at the clock in his heads-up display. Right on schedule.

He turned off his night vision. They'd arrived under cover of darkness. They'd extract the target in daylight. He checked the map on the touchscreen in his hand. Straight ahead.

Tower, this is Nomad. We're in position.

Roger, Nomad. It was a woman's voice. A technician. Proceed to target.

SOCOM had outfitted them each with a special sensor: a small black node on the side of their helmet. The individual relays connected wirelessly to the handheld display, which interpreted the data and triangulated a position. As long as they were within half a mile of their objective, they would at least get a bearing.

During the mission briefing, Regent had asked how the device worked. With electromagnets was the curt reply. When he asked who gave it to them, all he got was Any other questions?

John knew the army didn't buy anything that wasn't mass produced, deployable. But as he'd turned the device over in his hands, he could tell it was custom. And it didn't look military. The interface made complete sense, for one.

But then everything about the operation was strange, right down to their choice of command. John was only first lieutenant, and his last mission hadn't gone well. He was eager, looking to redeem himself. So he dropped the subject.

He'd assembled a five-man team: his old friend Danny at second lieutenant; Sergeant Cruz, the lone woman; Wilson, a fellow Special Forces instructor; and Derks, the big Dutchman, in case shit got bad.

They moved through the slums that stretched along the steep foothills southeast of Kuala Lumpur. It was an irregular mix of squat, concrete apartment blocks, single-room shops, and tarp-roofed hovels. Half-paved roads and dirt walkways wound through it without order. Back toward the bay, the city's famous twin towers shone in the distance. They were the bright fire around which the country's wealth huddled. Here there was nothing but squalor.

John pulled the small binoculars from their brace on his chest. He pressed the button on top and switched to infrared. He looked. He looked again.

Can't be.

He lowered the binoculars and checked the bearing to target. He lifted the binoculars back.

A narrow brick house capped the end of the short alley across the street. Huddled in the far room was a group of small, warm bodies. Children. John scanned back and forth. There wasn't one adult in the single-story structure. In fact, there wasn't anyone else at all.

It didn't make sense. They'd been told the target was dangerous. There was even some kind of custom-built transport waiting for them at the airport. John looked at Danny in the gray dawn light. Danny looked back, curious, but stayed silent.

Regent motioned his team down. They took crouching positions as he shuffled forward and put his back to a short block wall. Tower, this is Nomad. He didn't know what to say. We have a problem.

Nomad, this is Tower. It was Colonel Sharpe's voice, steady but impatient. Sitrep.

John looked again at the device. He lifted his head over the wall and looked again through his binoculars. Tower, the target appears to be . . . a child.

Confirmed, Nomad. You are cleared to proceed. There wasn't even a pause.

Confirmed? John cursed in his head. They fucking knew. Tower, please reconfirm target.

Nomad, target has been confirmed. The colonel was obviously annoyed. Proceed with the mission.

John unplugged the jack from his radio and swiped his hand through the air over his ear. It was a sign to the others to do the same. They shuffled low in the dirt and gathered around John.

Danny shook his head. He kept his voice low. "Christ. Do they really want us to take a kid?"

John nodded.

Shit. Cruz looked down. That's messed up. She was a stout woman, tall and muscular, with dark skin and steel eyes.

Wilson was confused. He seemed paler than usual in the aura of first light. Gotta be a mistake. Why wouldn't they tell us that in the briefing?

So that we wouldn't refuse the mission, Danny said quietly. So that we wouldn't even know until we were right on top of him.

Derks, the big man, didn't speak.

Cruz shook her head. She looked at John. We're not actually gonna do it, are we?

Regent plugged the jack back into his radio. As soon as it clicked, he heard Tower's frantic calls.

—ad? Nomad? Do you copy?

Tower, this is Nomad. Mission is a no-go. We need to abort.

Negative, Nomad. Negative. Engage target. Do your fucking job, Lieutenant.

Tower, there must be a mistake. Order an abort.

Colonel Sharpe took a breath loud enough that everyone could hear. Nomad, are you refusing to obey a direct order from a superior officer?

John felt his teeth grind involuntarily. They'd court-martial him in a week. Or worse. Tower . . . you're ordering us to kidnap a child. John had been on a couple ops that had targeted foreign nationals. But they were legitimate threats. Terrorists. Mercenaries. Adults.

That's not an answer, Nomad.

John exhaled through his nose. You heard stories every now and then of guys refusing to carry out a mission, but no one he ever knew. You don't get very far if you can't follow orders, even the tough ones. Especially the tough ones. But then, nobody had ever been asked to take a kid.

Fuck it. Yes, sir. I am.

Jesus fucking Christ, the colonel cursed. Lieutenant, relieve Nomad of command.

John looked at Danny. Danny chewed his gum and looked back. He was thinking. He touched his transmitter and rocked it back and forth. Everyone heard static on the line.

Tower, did not copy. Can you repeat that order?

Fuck!

Something hard hit a wall in frustration. There were muffled voices and the shuffling of a microphone. John raised his fist and was about to signal a return to port when a different voice came over the radio.

Nomad . . . This is Tower. I wonder if we could have a moment.

It was a man's voice, older, steady, patient. John looked at Danny. He shrugged.

My name's Burke. Call me Edmund.

John rolled his eyes. Fake name. Agency man. Must be his op. Go ahead, Tower.

I understand what you're feeling. I do. I appreciate that men like you often have a highly cultivated moral aptitude.

John sneered. Moral aptitude? Like it was some arbitrary measure, just another thing people could be good or bad at: a golf handicap or a standardized test score.

It's why I like working with the military. Keeps me honest.

Are you saying you don't have a conscience, Ed?

Danny laughed silently. Sergeant Cruz smiled at Regent. He'd get in trouble for that.

I'm saying I like the men on my missions to be able to provide me with a variety of points of view I might not otherwise possess. We're going to send you some images now. You'll see them on your heads-up display. But I gotta warn you. It ain't pretty.

John watched as photographs appeared, one after the other, in the upper right hand corner of his visor. Bodies, most of them burned free of flesh in several places, bright red framed in black.

"This kid is responsible for the deaths of at least thirteen people, including both his parents and his little sister, age three."

Another picture appeared. John saw the girl's tiny body, dirty and silent. Her skin was charred in branched, winding grooves like the course of a wild river. All her hairs had shriveled to nubs. It looked like she'd been cooked in her nightgown, like she was an old doll caught in a rubbish fire. Her eye sockets were empty.

Shit. Derks flipped his visor up.

The man on the radio continued. "The Malaysians have been trying to kill the little bastard. Oh, they'll tell you they want to arrest him, give him a home and all that, but you know how it goes in that part of the world. A street kid wanted for multiple homicides . . . he'd never make it before a judge. Not there.

"So here's the deal. I'm not going to bore you with stories about how long it took to put this op together, to get funding, to get the locals on board. Even though we have the target in sight, you can refuse the mission. Come home. And you have my word, neither you nor your men will be punished for your decision."

The corners of John's eyes cringed. It was a lie and an underhanded warning. He looked at his team. Their welfare was his responsibility. They were stoic, but they didn't make eye contact either.

"But consider this. Leaving him there in all that filth, it's a death sentence. Sooner or later, they're going to catch up with him. Or worse, someone else will. It's a fair bet that if we know about him, other agencies do as well. Let me remind you that your mission parameters were very clear. Your country wants him alive. We intend for him to stay that way. I'm not sure anyone else will give him the same deal.

So you tell me, son, given the size of the sharks circling him, what do you think is best for this little boy?

Agent Burke was playing to John's moral aptitude. He looked around at the slum. It smelled of dirt and animal feces. It was a helluva place to grow up. An even worse place to die.

Nomad? There was a pause. Bring him in unharmed and I will personally write a letter of commendation for you and each member of your team.

So much for moral aptitude. Now the agency was buying them. John swiped his hand through the air over his ear and his team unplugged their radios. He looked at their faces, one by one. He stopped at Danny.

The second lieutenant shrugged. Follow your lead.

Wilson, Derks, and Cruz nodded each in turn.

John clicked his radio back on. Tower, keep your damned commendations. Proceeding to target. He raised his fist and motioned his team forward.

Out of habit, everyone raised their weapons, although they all wondered why. Light was coming. Dawn was here.

Agent Burke came over the radio. Nomad, remember your briefing. Target is highly dangerous. Proceed with maximum caution.

Regent heard a scuffle. He turned and saw the hind end of a barefoot kid disappear around a corner.

They'd broken silence. They'd been made.

John ran forward and burst through the door of the hovel, but the children had already scattered through a dug-out hole at the back.

Shit! He took