ARCHIVE: No

This story follows the events of Max Allen Collins official DARK ANGEL novel "After the Dark." The plot for part of this chapter was inspired by a 2002 episode of the television series ALIAS that I've adapted as an Alec adventure in the DARK ANGEL universe. -- Author's note

The objective was relatively simple. Penetrate a top secret Syrian military base and steal a prototype "suitcase" nuclear weapon -- a nasty little toy the Arabs had liberated from the French several months ago. The U.S. didn't want that bad boy under enemy control, and since no other country seemed inclined to intervene, its retrieval was left in the hands of American Black Ops. Lydecker had gotten wind of the mission, and offered to send in one of his "kids" for the job -- a way to prove to his financial backers that New Manticore was worth their billion dollar investment.

"Why not send Lane or Devon?" Alec had asked as he stood in the cargo bay of the DC10 strapping on his parachute before takeoff, and thinking how this was an odd little deviation from his usual day-to-day life as an agent in the art and antique business. He felt a little bit like Superman with a secret alter ego.

Lydecker and Max (who'd eventually calmed down and insisted on coming along, much to Logan's consternation) would be anchoring the mission from a base station in Turkey, but the colonel had come out to the airport to see him off.

"Because," Lydecker said, "to be perfectly honest, most of my kids can't make the kind of quick decisions a strategic strike mission like this may call for, and I can't afford a failure."

"I thought we weren't supposed to have minds of our own," Alec said nastily. "Now all of a sudden independence is a desirable trait in an X5? And here I wasted over a year of my life in psy-ops with you guys tryin' your damnedest to beat that 'think for yourself' DNA outta me." He reached up and pushed hair out of his eyes before snugging his helmet on and fastening the chin strap.

"Shut up," a familiar voice said in his ear -- Max, who was listening in on a discrete receiver from the Turkish ground control station where Lydecker would soon be joining her. "Alec, thanks to your stupidity, you've put your ass in this guy's hands for the next few hours, so if I were you I wouldn't get him angry."

She'd absolutely refused to let him do this by himself, even though she was totally against this moonlighting job, and had insisted on monitoring the operation. Alec still wasn't sure if that was a good thing, or a bad thing. Nor did he understand why Max suddenly seemed so concerned about his ass.

"Aw, Maxie," Alec cajoled, "can't a guy have a little fun?"

"What's fun?" Lydecker snapped, hearing only Alec's words. "You think this is fun, soldier?"

"No, sir," Alec responded, the "sir" coming automatically.

Lydecker noticed, and smiled. Alec felt like kicking himself for the slip.

The colonel spread a large map on the metal briefing table that served the cargo bay, and pointed out the objective one last time to his on-loan X5 Unit -- an abandoned missile silo in the middle of the Syrian desert that intelligence sources said had been converted into a weapons storage facility. They were 85 percent certain the suitcase nuke was there. Alec had already checked satellite intel on the terrain with Max, memorizing emergency egress routes in case his means of extraction was compromised. He sincerely hoped his ride would be on time though, because it looked like an awfully long walk across the desert if he missed the boat, and unlike Devon and Krit, his body wasn't optimized for 10-day food and water deprivation. Six would be the most he could survive, although that was still three days more than a human. Mole would have been good for this mission, too, the lizard man's heat resistant body and affinity for sand a definite plus. However, Lydecker refused to allow a transhuman to operate independently -- something about Manticore protocol, not to mention Mole's Syrian was rusty.

"Any questions?" Lydecker asked.

"Just one," Alec said easily. "That hundred grand is after taxes, right?"

Lydecker glared at him, jaw clenching. "You have no idea how this galls me, soldier," he said. "Being forced to issue a pay check to what should rightfully be considered military property."

"The U.S.Senate says I'm a free man," Alec reminded him, with an emphasis on "man."

"You're not a man," Lydecker replied quietly. "You're not even human. You're an X5 animal/human hybrid -- an advanced biosynthetic weapons unit. And as hard as you might try, you're never going to be able to run away from what you really are -- Max either. I suggest the two of you remember that, and live your lives accordingly."

Alec grinned and said low under his breath, "Max should've just let Mole shoot your ass when he had the chance."

"What's that soldier?"

"Nothin'," Alec said, his voice level. "X5-494 mission ready." Then, as green-gold eyes met cold blue, he tagged on one more oh-so-sarcastic "Sir."

*****

Twenty minutes later, the plane was coming up on the coordinates. This would be a halo jump, from the highest possible altitude, so they wouldn't be detected. An ordinary man would need to carry an oxygen tank for this, but Alec's lungs had capacity to spare -- one of the little details of his genetic tampering that was going to come in handy. There also wouldn't be any problem seeing once he was on the ground -- no bulky night goggles to mess with -- his cat vision perfect for this kind of mission.

One of Lydecker's men opened the door in the side of the plane, letting whistling wind fill the cabin. "Don't screw it up, soldier!" the operative yelled over the rushing air as Alec adjusted his goggles.

"And don't get cocky," Max said brusquely in his ear.

Alec took a deep calming breath, steadied his racing heart (skydiving had never been his favorite pastime), and dropped out of the plane into the star studded sky.

*****

His black parachute and black commando suit making him for all intents and purposes invisible, Alec glided through the night toward the small beacon of light that he knew was his objective, guiding his descent by tugging on the chute strings. Ten minutes after stepping out of the plane, he landed several hundred yards away from the silo, stripped off the goggles, snugged the chute into a ball that he quickly buried in the sand, and was on his way to the target.

"I'm down," he said low into the mic attached to the front of his bullet proof vest.

"Take it slow," Max replied in his ear. "There's no hurry yet. Our informant says they won't be expecting visitors because this installation is supposed to be off the charts, even for their own military.

The "informant" Max spoke of was an Syrian defector, Abdul Jamine, -- a former military major who was cooperating with the United States in return for being granted asylum.

Alec heard a voice in the background. "What's that?" he asked.

"Jamine says there shouldn't be more than three guards on the outside," Max replied.

"Piece of cake," Alec said lightly, rubbing his gloved hands together and cracking his knuckles in anticipation of a good fight. He'd reached the perimeter of the silo clearing and could see two guards. Waiting patiently, the third soon came around from behind the building.

"Three spotted," Alec said. He waited a minute more, to make certain there weren't really four, and then he moved.

Donald Lydecker had always secretly feared his "kids," and with good reason. The X5's, moreso than any of the previous or later X series, were bred to be killers -- and they'd been given the physical equipment to live up to that reputation. Alec sprang out of the night like a panther striking, taking down the first guard with his fist, and the second with a vicious round kick. Then, he whirled to face the third who was pointing a machine gun at his chest and staring at him in open-mouthed wonder.

"Min wayn inta?" (Where did you come from?) the guard screamed.

"Mush muhim," Alec snarled. (It doesn't matter.) And then he blurred, streaking across the clearing to grab the gun and wrench it from the guard, at the same time bringing an elbow back into the man's face that both broke his nose and robbed him of consciousness.

"Why do they always ask questions instead of just shootin'?" Alec said aloud to the desert night air, shaking his head at the irony. It was a fatal mistake many made when confronted with an X5 -- the sheer astonishment at their attacker's incredible speed and strength often rendering the targets as immobile as actual physical force.

Alec secured the guards with their own handcuffs, then crept to the silo door. According to Jamine, there wouldn't be anyone inside, just a series of code pads and security checkpoints to get through.

He'd memorized the numbers he needed. Stripping of the gloves and stuffing them in a pocket, Alec quickly punched in the combination at the main panel, and breathed a sigh of relief when the huge metal door lifted, granting him access to a flight of narrow stairs that looked (and smelled) like it led straight down to Hell. His nostrils twitched. Was that sulfur?

"I'm in," he said into the mic. "Three down, none to go. One suitcase nuke comin' up."

"Be careful," Max chirped in his ear.

Alec grinned at that familiar admonition. Then, with one last reassuring look at the star lit sky above, he crept with catlike stealth down the stairs.

*****

It seemed like an hour had passed before he reached the bottom of the missile silo, although in reality it had probably taken him less than 5 minutes to traverse the hundreds of steps. The only light came from small red-glowing safety bulbs interspersed at regular intervals along the descent. A human would have had difficulty seeing enough to put one foot in front of the other, but to Alec's feline DNA-enhanced retinas the stairwell shone as bright as day.

The air got thicker and heavier as he descended, his sensitive nose taking offense at the odor of decay and must. Twice, he paused and sneezed (a "quiet" sneeze being a near impossible feat he discovered). Each time that happened, Alec waited a moment, listening, all of his preternatural senses on alert -- and each time everything seemed clear. It appeared Jamine was being straight with them about there being no guards inside the facility.

This job is a piece of cake, Alec thought cockily as he reached the bottom at last, stepping off the final stair onto the smooth metal floor. Easiest money I ever made.

"Alec?" Max said in his ear, the mic's enhanced signal thankfully penetrating the depths as Lydecker's tech guy had promised. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," he said, keeping his voice low even though there was really no reason to. Something about that vast space looming above him, and the knowledge how deep underground he was, made a hushed tone appropriate.

"Do you see the entrance door?"

"Right ahead. Panel's on the left."

Without hesitation, he punched in the second set of code numbers he'd memorized. A buzzer sounded briefly, a light next to the door turned green, and the entrance to the weapons storage room slid open. Alec stepped forward onto the threshold, but hung on the sill, surveying the room before him -- a room so dark even his cat eyes were having trouble penetrating the blackness. However, there was a switch to his right ...

Alec thumbed the little lever and a string of light bulbs snapped on overhead, illuminating the room and nearly blinding him in the process, his fully dilated pupils unable to compensate quickly enough for the brightness.

"Crap!" Alec swore, throwing an arm up to shield his eyes.

"What?" Max yelled in his ear. "Alec, what's wrong?"

"Nothin'," he reassured her, blinking away the spots, and scolding himself for being stupid. "I'm fine."

"Do you see the package?"

"Yeah, I think its--" He stepped completely into the room, and the door fell shut with a loud bang behind him.

Alec whirled.

"Max," he said in a low voice. "The door closed. I'm stuck."

"No, you're not," Max reassured him. "Look to the right. There's another panel. Jamine told us this might happen. He's got an exit code."

"So glad I was fully briefed," Alec replied sarcastically. With one last suspicious glare over his shoulder at the offending door, he then crossed the room, and cautiously picked up a metal box that had French words inscribed on the outside -- "Guarantee! Radiotion!" (Caution! Radiation!).

Nice of them to label the goods for me, Alec thought. Thumbing the double catches, he opened the lid. Lying nestled on a bed of foam lay a slender silver cylinder with a black tip on one end and a control nodule of some kind on the other. He recognized the nuclear device from the picture of it Lydecker had shown him. Bingo. He closed the case, and turned back to the door, at the same noting that there were other interesting items in the room as well: racks of advanced targeting rifles, satellite equipment, state-of-the-art detonators ... However, Alec's old Manticore training stood -- if it's not within mission parameters, leave it alone -- and he resisted the urge to do additional "shopping."

"Got the goods," he said. "I'm comin' home. What's the exit code?"

"Three, four, sixteen, nine, eleven, three," Max said.

Alec punched in the numbers and waited for the expected buzz. However, instead of the door sliding open, there was a sound from overhead followed by the scream of an alarm that threatened to deafen him.

"What the--!" Cringing at the harsh ringing, he looked up and saw that a number of smaller panels had opened around the ceiling of the room with wands of some sort extending from them.

"Max," he shouted. "I think I did something wrong!"

"What do you mean?"

"The door's not opening and--"

He recognized the smell, the vapors, even before the nozzles on the overhead pipes opened. Gasoline. Suddenly spraying down from a dozen pipe heads like noxious rain, the flammable liquid began drenching the room ... drenching him.

Alec choked and ducked his head, trying to protect his face.

"Alec! What's happening?"

"I'm locked in!" he shouted. "And there's gasoline sprayin' all over everything!"

Which is when he remembered the strange looking wands that had popped out of the ceiling. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he zoomed his vision in on one of them and recognized it for what it was -- an ignition coil.

"Oh, shit," Alec said, turning desperately to the door, fighting the urge to beat on it with his bare hands in his panic as he realized what his fate was going to be. "Max!" he screamed. "Get me the hell outta here or I'm cooked, and I do mean that literally! There are flamers overhead! If they light, this whole place is gonna go up like one of Dix's fireworks!"

*****

Max, seated in the Manticore control room where Alec's mission was being overseen, whirled on Lydecker. "It was a trap!" she yelled. "You sent him into a trap!"

But from the look in Lydecker's eyes, Max realized he was as surprised at this turn of events as she and Alec were. And then, both of them stared at Abdul Jamine, who was seated in a chair in the far corner of the room observing the proceedings.

The Syrian major was smiling.

"What did you do?" Lydecker snarled.

"I gave your man the wrong code," Jamine replied easily. A rotund little fellow with shifty eyes, swarthy skin, and a black goatee, he glanced at his watch. "Your precious X5 now has about a minute and a half before he's burned alive. Those ignition coils are set to light two minutes after the gasoline is released -- a rather primitive, but effective, fail safe device.

"Why?" Max cried out. "Why are you doing this? We've granted you asylum. Why betray us now?"

"Max?" Alec called in her ear, his voice husky. "I'm havin' trouble breathin' in here. Can you hurry it up?"

"I'm working on it," Max snapped. "Just ... don't touch anything."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Alec replied in the receiver. Then she heard him coughing -- and a surprising pain clutched her heart as she realized he was in all likelihood going to die.

She turned on Jamine, her eyes on fire. "Get him out!"

"Meet my demands first," Jamine replied calmly.

"I told you we can't do what you ask," Lydecker said.

Now Max's wrath was for her hated former C.O. "What's he talking about?"

"I demand not only asylum for myself, but also for my wife and children, as well as their safe extraction from the Iraqi refugee camp where they're being held." Jamine said. "And I want it in writing." He looked at the time, and smiled again. "One minute left before you hear his screams."

"No," Lydecker said coldly.

*****

Alec couldn't breathe, the fumes burning his lungs and eyes. There was a sound behind him. He turned, wondering what was happening now, and his stinging, watering eyes widened.

"Where the hell did you come from?" he yelled at the guard standing with a machine gun on the other side of the storage room.

In reply, the black suited figure raised his weapon.

"Don't shoot!" Alec literally screamed, raising both hands in surrender. Then, more calmly, hoping he could reason with the man, "The room is filled with gasoline. If you fire the gun we'll both be barbecued." He suddenly realized he was speaking in English, and was about to repeat in Arabic when the guard waved the gun and snarled, "Down on your knees, infidel!"

Alec complied without question, dropping to a squat on the floor, his hands still in the air -- anything to keep that gun from setting off an explosion.

*****

"Give him what he wants, Lydecker," Max said, her brown eyes as cold and hard as his.

"Or what?" the colonel said harshly.

"Or you lose your precious nuclear device as well as all credibility with the Committee."

"I don't give in to terrorist demands."

"Not even for the future of your New Manticore?" Max tried, hoping desperately Lydecker was still as obsessed about his supersoldier program as he used to be. "Lose Alec, and you lose it all," she added.

Lydecker narrowed his eyes, and Max held her breath. But her words had struck home. He nodded at an assistant. "Modify the agreement," he said. "Include the wife, kids, and an extraction for them from the refugee camp."

Jamine smiled broadly. Max simply held her breath while the aide rapidly typed the words into the computer, printed the document, and held it out for Lydecker's signature.

"Twenty seconds," Jamine said calmly, as he read the paperwork. "The code is thirteen, three, six, eight, eleven, nine.

"Alec!" Mac shouted into the receiver, and repeated the code. But Alec didn't answer.

*****

Alec deliberately hadn't gone to his knees, but had crouched instead. Hearing Max's words in his ear, he sprang, leaping high into the air -- over the tables of stolen weapons -- landing directly on top of the astonished guard who'd obviously never faced an X5 before. But the Syrian was surprisingly strong for a human, and Alec's own abilities were hindered by the little fact that his lungs were on fire. They wrestled for the gun for precious long seconds, until at last Alec tore it from the man's hands and knocked him unconscious with a crescent kick to the head.

In his ear Max was desperately repeating the numbers. "Hurry!" she pleaded. "You've only got ten seconds left!"

Alec blurred to the panel, and punched in the code. Immediately the siren's wail ceased, the gasoline valves closed, and the torches retreated back into the ceiling. Then the door slid open. Gasping, Alec fell through into the outer hallway -- the stinky, musty air of the silo the sweetest thing he'd ever breathed. However, he also knew he didn't have time to linger. If there was one guard down here, there could be others, perhaps in a barracks on the other side of the storage room.

Clutching the nuclear device close to his body, Alec took the stairs three at a time, legs pumping, throwing himself toward the surface, the gasoline fumes he'd inhaled making every breath agony.

He was only one flight from the top when it happened. Beneath his booted feet the stairs began to vibrate even as the roar reached his ears. Oh shit, Alec thought, pushing his X5 strength to its limits as he raced for the closed exit door. The guard must have regained consciousness and done something to set off the gasoline -- perhaps even a last ditch suicidal effort to stop the enemy. Which meant--

Frantically, Alec punched in the final set of numbers he'd memorized, the sequence that would let him out of the missile silo. Behind him he heard another explosion, and there was a flicker of light from the depths of the well. He was actually surprised when the door opened -- the way his night had been going he was beginning to feel like Indiana Jones in one of those booby-trapped temples.

From the bowels of the silo a louder, more ominous, sound was building, the vibration around him increasing to an eerie hum. Not looking back, Alec ran into the night, sprinting at top speed away from the structure. He had a bad feeling about this ...

*****

"Alec?" Max called into the transceiver, trying to keep her voice calm. "Alec, can you hear me?"

No answer.

"Damn it!" Lydecker swore from where he was monitoring the satellite screen.

"What?" Max cried, turning to the older man. "What is it?"

Lydecker banged a clenched fist on the desk top and uttered another oath. Then he pointed to the image. There was a bright flair of light glowing in the center of the ground grid on the screen -- an explosion big enough to be seen from outer space.

"The silo blew," Lydecker said, his voice grim. "He screwed up."

"What do you mean?" Max yelled at the man, staring at the monitor and trying to make sense of the data.

Lydecker typed a command on the keyboard and the picture zoomed closer to show a fiery hole in the ground where the missile silo/weapons storage facility had been.

"He's not dead," she said firmly. "He can't be dead."

"494's incinerated," Lydecker said, his blue eyes hard, "along with my credibility with the Committee."

"Max?" a faint voice rasped in her ear.

Her heart leaped. "Alec? Alec, are you all right? What the hell happened? Where are you?"

She heard him cough, his breath wheezing. "Things went boom is what happened. And now I'm standin' out here in the middle of the desert drenched in gasoline and holdin' a thermonuclear device under my arm. Tell me my pick-up is on the way because this shit is burnin' my skin."

"Your extraction team will be on site in ten minutes," Lydecker said, his tone of voice giving no indication at all of the immense relief he must feel that his precious mission had been successful afterall.

It was Max who said softly into her mic, "Good job, soldier."