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  The Seraphim Sequence

  ( The Fifth Column - 2 )

  Nathan M. Farrugia

  The world is reeling in the aftermath of genocide.

  Former black operative Sophia is among the remnants of the Akhana, a once-strong organized resistance against the all-powerful world government known as the Fifth Column. Branded as the world’s most wanted terrorist, Sophia barely escaped her last encounter with the organization with her life.

  Now a new threat is emerging from inside the Fifth Column. Project Seraphim: a technology utilizing extremely low frequencies that can make anyone feel and do anything at any time. Mass populations will fall under the influence of an almost unlimited power.

  To stop them Sophia must join forces with former friends turned enemies and former enemies turned unlikely allies first among them Denton, a master manipulator whom she would prefer to run her knife through than work with.

  Sophia has four days. Four days before what little freedom the human race has left is gone forever.

  The brutal game of betrayal and counter-betrayal that began with the international bestseller, The Chimera Vector, continues in this highly anticipated sequel.

  Nathan M. Farrugia

  The Seraphim Sequence

  For my grandparents, Rita and Fred Farrugia

  Epigraph

  As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air — however slight — lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.

  U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

  Chapter One

  ‘How did you find me?’ Damien asked.

  He was standing directly behind her. He didn’t make any sudden movements, he knew she was aware of his presence.

  ‘Passport Pete, East Harlem,’ Nasira said, turning slowly, her gaze cast low. ‘Your one-stop identity shop.’

  He’d been aware of Nasira surveilling him for the best part of the morning. His morning run along the beach was the only routine he kept, and he kept it because he liked to know who was watching him, and most importantly who was trying to kill him. So far, one particularly clever, recently deceased mercenary. And now her.

  She’d waited until he’d finished his run before approaching, probably because he’d be too exhausted to evade her by then. To save her the trouble, he approached her as she left the yacht club. She had one hand in her pocket, so he kept a few feet between them. It was windy and there weren’t many people sitting at the tables outside.

  ‘Using the same supplier,’ Damien said. ‘That was a mistake.’

  Nasira raised an eyebrow. ‘Or was it?’

  ‘The first of many, I’m guessing,’ Damien said.

  ‘I bet you say that to all the girls. Which explains a lot, actually.’

  Nasira’s sudden appearance after so long didn’t bode well, Damien thought. He hadn’t even been sure she was still alive.

  ‘Thought you were killed in New York,’ he said. ‘According to the grapevine.’

  ‘Don’t believe all the hype.’

  Nasira’s arrival prickled him with anxiety. But also, he admitted, curiosity. His and Jay’s brief alliance with Nasira and Sophia had turned his world on end. Their objective to steal the Chimera vectors was achieved, but at considerable cost. Sophia lost most of her team, and Damien made a significant career change from deniable operative to top ten terrorist. Although, the more he thought about it, there wasn’t much difference to begin with.

  ‘You came all the way to New Zealand,’ he said. ‘Must be important.’

  ‘Not as far as you might think.’ She removed something from her pocket. ‘Your great-grandfather’s, right?’ She was holding a small gold wristwatch. ‘I was hoping to bring you more, but this was the only thing you had.’

  Damien remembered the possessions box from when he joined Project GATE. ‘Only thing worth keeping.’

  He carefully took the watch from her hand. The band was brown woven leather. The watch face read seven past seven. It was an old wind-up, the gold was soft and instead of quartz it ran smooth on rubies. The watch didn’t look like much but it was worth more than his car. Which was how he preferred it.

  ‘How did you find this?’ he asked.

  It was Nasira’s turn to check their surroundings. ‘You’re asking how but you’re more interested in why.’

  ‘I’m bracing myself in anticipation. This is my braced position.’

  Nasira’s brow furrowed. ‘You’re not bending over.’

  ‘Should I be?’

  ‘Sophia needs you,’ she said. ‘More specifically, she needs someone with your skill set, and Jay’s.’

  ‘I should be bending over.’ He handed her the watch. ‘Can you hold this while I assume the position?’

  She pushed it back toward him. ‘The watch is yours.’

  ‘Bribes only work if I accept the condition. But I suppose killing all the motherfuckers was your strong point.’

  ‘That can be arranged,’ Nasira said.

  ‘See, that’s the Nasira I know. Besides, Sophia can’t need me that badly if she sent you.’

  ‘She would come if she could,’ Nasira said. ‘But she’s tied up right now.’

  * * *

  Sophia was tied up right now. She pulled at the plasticuffs yet they only closed further. Her two captors, standing over her and sucking cigarettes through balaclavas, had the foresight to fasten her to a gym bench with her wrists plasticuffed to the strap tied over her upper legs. The bench was bolted to the van floor. This was going to be a little harder than she’d thought.

  The van turned a corner and the classical music started once more. She would never think of Bach in the same way again.

  One of the men laid a thin cloth over her face and held it there. Darkness. She closed her eyes, knowing what was coming. Water soaked the towel, pressing it against her face, smothering her. Water gushed down her throat. She choked. Her body writhed under the straps. She couldn’t breathe. She was drowning. Her throat burned. Her lungs burned. Her nasal passages burned. Any second now, she would die.

  The cloth peeled from her face. She coughed up water, drew in air, sucked more water with it. She coughed some more.

  Bach continued.

  The man holding the cloth shrugged. ‘Twenty seconds, better than most.’

  He shoved it back over her face. She inhaled, her mouth sucking in the cloth. Bad move. Water swelled over it, pushing the cloth into the back of her throat. All she could do was think of breathing, of trying to breathe, of water surging down her throat, filling her lungs. She was drowning and there was no stopping it.

  The van shuddered. Her body shook beneath the straps, and the cloth peeled from her face. Above her, the men flailed through the air, their bodies smashing into one side of the van. Water poured from her mouth — upward. Her stomach lurched. The van was rolling.

  Sophia was stuck, the bench bolted to the floor. The van tumbled and the two men bounced helplessly across the walls, the ceiling, past the bench. A cigarette pack blossomed cigarettes. The large bottle of water spiraled over her chest, splashing her.

  The van stopped turning. She hung from the ceiling. The two men were crumpled below, bleeding and unconscious.

  She spat the last of the water from her mouth. ‘Well, that’s good.’

  The van door opened and in walked DC, Owen Freeman’s bodyguard. At least, he had been Freeman’s bodyguard until Hurricane Stacy hit the Akhana base in Manhattan. Everyone evacuated and Freeman had assigned DC to Sophia. Now she was stuck with him.

  ‘What are you doing here
?’ she said.

  DC began to shake his head but thought better of it. ‘Saving your ass.’

  ‘My ass doesn’t need saving.’

  In defeat, DC held up his hands. One of them clasped a Heckler & Koch MP7A1 personal defense weapon. Not quite a sub-machine gun, not quite a pistol. ‘I’ll leave you to it then.’

  Sophia coughed some more water. ‘I might need a … little bit of help.’

  DC raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Just some loosening up,’ she said.

  ‘Your mindset or the straps?’

  ‘The straps.’

  DC tucked the MP7 into his waistband and unsheathed the tachi sword from his back.

  ‘That’s a bit overkill, don’t you think?’ Sophia said.

  Using the tip, he cut open the plasticuffs on each of her wrists. ‘You’re a bit overkill, don’t you think?’ he said.

  ‘That’s what all the boys say.’

  DC cut the straps along her legs and let her take care of the rest. She jumped down and checked herself for injuries.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Where did you learn to intercept like that?’ Sophia said, recovering her pistol from one of the unconscious men. ‘Monster truck derby?’

  ‘It’s called saving your life.’ DC stepped out of the van. ‘Which I seem to be doing a lot of lately. You’re welcome, by the way.’

  ‘Saving my life?’ Sophia followed him onto the wharf. They were in a shipping yard somewhere on the southern edge of Tokyo, flanked by forty-foot containers and gargantuan red cranes. ‘I think you’re confusing saving lives with screwing everything up,’ she said.

  ‘Excuse me,’ DC said, as a man appeared from around the side of the van, a Heckler & Koch G36C carbine aimed at Sophia. DC kept his gaze on Sophia while he smashed the small carbine with his blade, knocking it from the man’s hands. His second swipe found the man’s neck. The man collapsed against the van, spurting blood.

  The van’s driver jumped out of his seat, carbine aimed at Sophia. She shot him twice with her pistol.

  ‘You’re the one who got herself captured by a band of jacked-up mercenaries,’ DC said.

  ‘Yeah, on purpose! One of them’s ex-Fifth Column. Not these jokers. The guy back at their warehouse. He was involved in these constructions popping up all over the place.’

  The Fifth Column wasn’t actually a real name but a label used internally and by a small number of outsiders — mostly former employees and service personnel — to identify what on first glance might be mistaken for a clandestine US intelligence service. But the Fifth Column wasn’t just one service or just one nation; it was an international military and intelligence framework that sat spider-like over existing agencies and departments. It was unique in that it maintained its own ranks and structure while usurping intelligence apparatus and armed forces across the globe. Due to its heavily compartmentalized structure, there were few — even those inside — who knew every component and outfit that operated under its rule.

  DC started walking. ‘He was killed early this morning. Shocktroopers.’

  ‘Oh,’ Sophia said. ‘Well, that was a waste of time then.’

  If the Fifth Column had gone to the trouble of sending shocktroopers to wipe out her only lead, they clearly didn’t want anyone knowing about whatever it was they were building. As far as the general population was concerned, the construction sites didn’t exist. But Sophia had noticed the sudden, furious building activity taking place around the world and had discovered that it was all being carried out by just three dummy corporations, all of which led back to the Fifth Column. She didn’t know what the construction was for yet — ramping up shocktrooper production and training, expanding research and development, or something else altogether — but it seemed critically important to the Fifth Column.

  ‘Hey.’ DC gripped her arm. ‘We need to move.’

  She blinked, followed him to his motorbike.

  ‘When are you going to stop this?’ he said.

  ‘Probably never.’ She looked over her shoulder. Police cars wailed in the distance.

  He sighed. ‘At least you’re honest.’ He jumped on the bike. ‘Get on.’

  Chapter Two

  Nasira pulled up outside Jay’s apartment block and unbuckled her seatbelt.

  ‘I’m going in alone,’ Damien said.

  Nasira suppressed the urge to draw her pistol. ‘The hell you are.’

  ‘You’ll blow your chance before you even set foot in his door,’ Damien said.

  Who the hell did he think he was? She was the one who didn’t trust Jay. She drummed the steering wheel.

  ‘Don’t even want him anyway,’ she said.

  Damien shrugged. ‘I don’t have to—’

  ‘Just do it.’

  He got out of the car and made his way toward Jay’s apartment block: a cuboid green and hot-pink building that looked like a misshapen watermelon.

  This was the last place Nasira wanted to be right now — at Damien and Jay’s doorstep asking for help. They were good at what they did, she’d give them that, but they weren’t exactly the sort she’d bet her life on. After the Desecheo Island incident, stealing the Chimera vectors, she’d been more than relieved to part ways with them. Jay was charming and he meant well, but he was also a pain in the fucking ass. If ever there was a real-life equivalent to James Bond, including the sexist quips and mommy issues, it was Jay. Of course, in real life there weren’t any tuxedos or high-end luxury sports cars. Real deniable operatives like Jay weren’t paid much, but at least it was tax free.

  She was here, she reminded herself, for Sophia. While Owen Freeman, the leader of the Akhana, might want the best for Sophia, he wasn’t around right now. He was tucked away in a Shadow Akhana base somewhere. The Fifth Column would like nothing better than to dispose of the leader of a resistance group like the Akhana, comprised mostly of former Fifth Column employees and servicemen and women. Not everyone under the Fifth Column’s employ was completely comfortable serving the psychopaths of the civilized world.

  Freeman had assigned DC as Sophia’s bodyguard, but all he seemed to do was get in the way. And he didn’t genuinely want to protect her; he did it only because he was under orders. Nasira and DC maintained a mutual respect, but it was difficult at times. Nasira was the only one who really cared about Sophia.

  Nasira almost laughed. When Sophia had first attempted to deprogram her a couple of years ago, she’d wanted to kill her. She’d wanted to separate Sophia’s head from her shoulders with a few strokes of her knife. But now Sophia was her closest friend — her only friend. Just as Damien and Jay were like brothers, she and Sophia were sisters. And now Sophia needed help. Outside help. If anyone could understand that, she hoped they could.

  After the hurricane in New York had decimated the Akhana base they were stationed at, everyone had migrated to other Akhana bases, mostly in the US, some to Canada, others to parts of Asia, and others to Australia. Damien and Jay had long ago declined Sophia’s offer to join the Akhana, and Nasira had no idea how long they’d remained in New York, or even if they had remained there at all after they’d dropped off the grid entirely. It had taken her the best part of a month to track Damien down, and she’d only managed it because he’d left a New Zealand post office box number with Passport Pete.

  The more she thought about it, the more she was certain Damien had purposely left that loose end untied. Maybe he wanted to be found.

  * * *

  Jay’s vision cleared. He rubbed his nose and rolled over. Damien was standing at the end of his bed.

  ‘Um, how long have you been here?’ Jay said.

  Damien didn’t move. ‘I watch you every night.’

  Jay cleared his throat as noisily as possible. ‘Most people buy me a drink first.’

  Damien eyed the empty whiskey glass in Jay’s hand. ‘Most people don’t have to.’

  He walked out.

  Jay dropped the glass on the floor and located some clothes. H
is limbs were heavy and it felt like someone had emptied a bag of rocks inside his head. He found Damien in the lounge room, staring out the window of the balcony he never used.

  ‘You’re here early,’ he said.

  ‘Aren’t you normally out surfing at this time?’ Damien said.

  ‘I quit.’ Jay walked into the kitchen and filled the percolator with coffee. ‘Got bored of it.’

  Damien was grinning. ‘It’s only been three days.’

  Jay ignored him. ‘Thinking of taking up windsurfing. Coffee?’

  Damien shook his head. His hands were in his pockets. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘Sure.’ Jay put the percolator on the stove and gestured to the couch. ‘So … is this a job?’

  ‘Didn’t you just get back from one?’

  ‘A week ago. I told you.’

  ‘Sorry, I lost track,’ Damien said.

  Jay crossed his arms. ‘So it’s not a job. Girlfriend problems? No, can’t be that. Erection problems? I mean, when you’re in front of the computer.’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Damien sat on the edge of the couch. Not a good sign.

  Jay looked around the apartment. It was almost as empty as it had been when Jay had moved in a few months ago. Decoration ended at a couch and table. He’d told Damien he hadn’t gotten around to paintings or a television or anything yet, but the truth was he couldn’t be bothered.

  Jay waited. He really needed to piss, but he didn’t want to delay this any more.

  ‘We haven’t been compromised, have we?’ he said. ‘You run the same route every morning. You know that’s stupid, right? But you keep doing it.’

  Damien shook his head. He dug into a pocket and offered him something. Jay leaned forward to find a Christian cross hanging from a fine gold chain. He plucked it from Damien’s hand and let it hang.

  ‘I’m not religious,’ he said.

  ‘Your father was.’

  Jay’s stomach turned. He was mostly sure it wasn’t the hangover. He placed the necklace on the coffee table. ‘Do I want to know where you got this?’