Momentary Stasis (The Rimes Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Momentary Stasis

  P R Adams

  Contents

  Also by P R Adams

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  THE END

  Author’s Notes

  About the Author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

  * * *

  MOMENTARY STASIS

  * * *

  Copyright © 2016 P R Adams

  * * *

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  * * *

  Cover Art by Adam Burn.

  * * *

  Logo Text Design © Tom Edwards.

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Created with Vellum

  Also by P R Adams

  For updates on new releases and news on other series, visit my website and sign up for my mailing list at:

  * * *

  http://www.p-r-adams.com

  * * *

  The Rimes Trilogy

  Momentary Stasis

  Transition of Order

  Awakening to Judgment

  * * *

  The ERF Series

  Turning Point

  Valley of Death

  Dedication

  For Tina, who made this possible.

  1

  20 February 2164. Singapore. Pei Fu Complex, Hougang Industrial Sector.

  * * *

  Sergeant Jack Rimes jerked awake as his Battlefield Awareness System chimed. The BAS's display showed a string of green text, bright against the evening dark: Mission authorized by United Nations Special Security Council.

  Even before the Special Security Council's approval, Rimes had been running on adrenaline. He needed something more now. He popped a stimulant and winced at the bitter aftertaste.

  Nearly twenty hours to give the go. So much for the element of surprise.

  Rimes looked through the window he’d been leaning against, taking in the shadowy shell of the abandoned house he and the rest of the team had been hiding inside since their arrival. The BAS overlaid what he could see with imagery and data harvested from every security system it could discreetly access. A rusty, wrought-iron gate hung limply from a crumbling brick wall that enclosed a cratered courtyard. Beyond the gate, a cracked asphalt road ran southeast, framing apartment complexes before connecting to Lim Teck Boo Road.

  Rimes was tense, a compressed spring waiting to be released. The rest of the team, all in black nano-particle bodysuits, weren’t much better. In particular, the Indian Marine Commando, Tendulkar, was driving them nuts, pulling a boot-knife out and jamming it back into its sheath for hours on end.

  Rimes had shared his concerns in private with Major Uber, the German in command of the mission, and his second, Captain Nakata. The three had worked together before. Petty Officer Tendulkar and Senior Sergeant Pachnine, a Russian who towered over even Rimes, had been inserted into the team at the last minute.

  “Now we see if this was just politics or if these two are legitimate,” Uber whispered to Rimes over a private BAS channel.

  Rimes returned his gaze to the window and softly snorted. “Taking out four LoDu agents? Not the sort of mission I’d like to use as a learning opportunity. I’m already missing the old team.”

  The road was still deserted. A line of amber lamps lit a towering wall that sealed off a maze of sagging, scarred apartment buildings to the southwest. To the northeast, the wall transformed into a security tunnel and disappeared under a sickly forest. Inside the complex, a dozen uniformed guards patrolled on foot and in electric cars, their locations marked by the BAS. A light rain had fallen, leaving behind a mist that covered everything, clinging to the walls and twisted vegetation. Rainbow halos formed around the lamps, washing the street in ghost light.

  Uber subvocalized the mission’s final details over his BAS, then whispered, “Let’s go.”

  Rimes glanced over the data: imagery and incontrovertible evidence connecting the agents to the Indonesian Finance Minister's assassination; criminal records; and most importantly, authorization for elimination.

  They slipped out the building’s front door in a loose line with Uber leading. From the courtyard, they ran low onto Lim Teck Boo Road, while the mist hid their boots and enhanced their camouflage systems.

  The wall of the Pei Fu Complex rose four meters with pressure sensors and a meter of concertina wire lining the top. Rimes’s BAS showed the closest security guard twenty-eight meters out and moving away.

  Rimes looked the other team members over. One mistake, any sudden shift in the situation, and Pachnine or Tendulkar could derail the mission without fear of reprisals. It was the sort of political reality that Rimes hated having to deal with.

  Uber turned to look at the team.

  Captain Nakata raised his hand; Uber nodded. Rimes raised his hand, then Pachnine, then Tendulkar. After Uber nodded, each settled into place, eyes focused on his BAS display.

  Nakata slowly extended a hand until he touched the wall. Then he leapt nearly three meters up, his now-tacky gloves gripping the surface, but stopped short of the top. He then extended his left hand to unleash a data burst that overwhelmed all sensor systems within range.

  Rimes climbed after Nakata. As Rimes reached the top, Nakata leapt, easily clearing the concertina wire, twisting and catching the wall’s opposite side with his gloves. Rimes waited as Nakata released his grip and dropped to a crouch on the opposite side, then followed. The others cleared the wall quickly and settled in its shadow.

  Pachnine raised his hand, and Uber nodded. Pachnine sprinted east, choosing speed over cover. Inside the complex, time became the enemy.

  They approached Building 5, breathing heavily. Before the Third Great Depression of ‘62, Building 5 had been a specialty manufacturing facility, a boutique operation for discriminating customers. Now it housed their targets, four unmoving red squares glowing brightly on their optics, data signatures captured nearly two days prior.

  Tendulkar whispered, “Halt.”

  They dropped to their knees simultaneously. Rimes scrutinized his image over the BAS’s display. Pachnine
was blinking rapidly, his hand over his boot. Something must have changed—they’d been spotted, an alarm had gone off, a guard had modified his patrol …

  It only took a second before Rimes saw it on his BAS. Their targets were moving, separating.

  The mission had been compromised.

  2

  20 February 2164. Singapore. Pei Fu Complex, Hougang Industrial Sector.

  * * *

  They squatted, caught in the misty open space between their ingress point and target. Heads swiveled as the team sought a consensus. Tendulkar shook his head. Pachnine immediately nodded, as did Nakata.

  Rimes hesitated for a moment before shaking his head. This far into such a critical mission, he would normally be in favor of proceeding, but normally he would be with his own team, people he could trust with his life. He didn’t know if he could trust Tendulkar or Pachnine yet. There was too much at stake to continue forward with so much unknown.

  Everyone turned to Uber. He considered for a moment before nodding.

  There was no further discussion, no protest.

  Pachnine went into a crouching run, absolutely silent, even for his bearlike size. The others trailed him in a staggered line, carbines out. Pachnine reached the western cement wall surrounding Building 5 and pressed himself tight to the left of the gate. Rimes and Uber took position to his left, with Nakata and Tendulkar opposite. The Pei Fu security teams had showed no deviation from regular patrol patterns, but the four icons inside Building 5 were now dispersed across four floors.

  Uber signaled to Tendulkar to open the gate, then waved Pachnine inside. Rimes and Nakata followed, and Uber pulled up the rear.

  They crossed the fifteen meters to the front entry of Building 5, at times struggling to keep their footing on the fractured cement. Nakata quickly destroyed the door’s lock with a rapid carbine buttstroke, and they entered the building.

  The interior was drywall, dust-covered posters proclaiming the company’s greatness, and a door—dented and scraped from years of use—that opened onto a stairwell. A ten-meter corridor led to another door, and beyond that was the manufacturing floor. The nearest of their targets was in a room on the manufacturing floor, four meters to the left of the door.

  Uber assigned Pachnine to the fourth floor, Rimes to the third. Nakata he signaled to go to the manufacturing floor. Then Uber headed into the stairwell, stopping only long enough to spray silicone on the door’s hinges. Pachnine and Rimes followed.

  Uber stopped at the second-floor door, once again spraying the hinges. He searched the corridor, then stepped through.

  Rimes proceeded to the third floor with Pachnine close behind. At the third-floor door, Rimes stopped and sprayed the hinges, quietly popped the door open, then checked the hallway beyond. According to the BAS, his target was hiding in a room three meters away.

  He nodded Pachnine on, watching him until he’d disappeared up the stairs. Rimes stopped just inside the corridor and waited.

  The Special Security Council’s intelligence agency had identified the LoDu lead agent as Wen Jintao, a Chinese native with political connections. Wen’s muscle included Dung Trang, a fugitive Vietnamese gunman, and Akkarat Suttikul, a Thai known as much for his knife-work and kickboxing as his connections to what remained of the Tongs. The mystery man of the four was Kwon Myung-bak, a Korean with an impossibly small background file.

  All four agents had combat experience. Whatever advantage Rimes had from his gear would be diminished by the building’s tight quarters. He switched out his carbine for his pistol, his eyes never leaving the BAS display, then brought up another overlay that set down a three-dimensional wireframe of the building interior.

  Rimes watched his teammates’ icons on the display, then focused on the agents’ icons.

  Why separate? Why not create a single ambush point? There are a lot of great places to attack from. Were our systems compromised?

  No, I’m being paranoid.

  Uber and Nakata waited, motionless, for Pachnine to get into position. Pachnine approached the fourth-floor door. His target was just across the hall. Pachnine hesitated, probably bracing for a quick shot when he opened the door.

  Pistol arm straightened to his waist, safety off, left arm extended for the door handle, Rimes moved down the corridor toward his target.

  The BAS showed a cubicle to the immediate right of the door. The cubicle made any shot through the wall risky with his pistol, probably ineffective. He toyed with switching back to his carbine.

  Pachnine reached his door. They were all in position.

  Rimes signaled he was ready. Uber’s signal showed ready, then Nakata’s. Finally, Pachnine’s.

  Two seconds. One. Uber gave the go.

  Rimes twisted the doorknob and pushed the office door in. He caught a flash of movement—a large, frighteningly fast shadow—and then the door slammed back at him, bending his arm aside and knocking him off-balance.

  He dropped.

  Three muffled gunshots sounded as three holes appeared in the door at chest level. He rolled away and returned fire, sending three rounds into the door in a diagonal, starting at an imaginary thigh and ending at an imaginary torso. He rolled again, this time coming to a stop to the door’s right, flat on the ground, pistol ready. He breathed shallowly, not making the slightest sound, and listened.

  Gunfire sounded again, first from upstairs, then from the room before him. Holes appeared above him, cutting a left-right diagonal one-and-a-half meters above the floor. Rimes counted to three and sat up, again guessing where his target might be, based off the BAS. Rimes fired three shots, pivoted on his butt, and kicked off from the floor. He came to a stop halfway to the door’s left side.

  He waited a moment before reaching for a magazine, another moment before reloading. Gunfire echoed throughout the building.

  Rimes stood, twisted the handle, and threw a shoulder against the door’s center.

  The shadow came again, this time slower. Rimes saw the flash of a metal blade and knew he’d drawn the Thai. Rimes got off a shot before the shadow was on him, knives flashing terrifyingly fast. Rimes managed to block three of the slashes with quick forearm strikes, and then let his left shoulder take a fourth. The nano-particle weave absorbed the worst of the blow.

  Rimes drove an elbow into the Thai’s face, provoking a satisfying grunt. The Thai staggered for a moment, and Rimes stepped back, getting off another shot.

  The Thai collapsed in a wheezing heap. Rimes kicked the Thai onto his stomach and fired three rounds into the base of his skull, then knelt to confirm the kill. Gunfire still echoed throughout the building.

  Rimes took the Thai’s communication earpiece and extracted a blood sample from the corpse for confirmation before exiting the office and collecting his discarded magazine.

  As Rimes headed for the stairwell, he reloaded. Uber’s and Nakata’s icons were moving slowly. He could hear gunfire from below, less frequent now: confrontations reaching their conclusions. Pachnine had stopped moving. The fourth floor was silent.

  As Rimes entered the stairwell, he brought up the vitals overlay long enough to see Pachnine’s signals. Dead.

  Rimes squatted and edged toward the stairs leading up. He sighted up the stairwell with his pistol, then ascended—slow, quiet.

  The agent's red square moved toward the stairwell door as Rimes reached the midway landing. He squatted, sighted on the door, and braced for a shot. The square stopped and moved away from the door.

  Rimes blinked.

  Now the square was accelerating away from the door.

  As though he had my signature, too.

  Rimes moved up the steps, struggling to maintain his calm. The gunfire below was more infrequent now, a single shot followed by seconds of silence.

  Rimes stopped at the fourth-floor door. Holes had penetrated the door and the cement wall beyond. The LoDu agents were using specialized ammunition capable of penetrating cement walls—not to mention the team’s armor. The BAS showed Pachnine j
ust beyond the door. He’d probably been shot immediately after entering.

  Rimes watched the icons on his display. His target was at the other end of the floor now, hiding in an office there.

  Rimes tried to push the stairwell door open, but Pachnine’s corpse was in the way, and Rimes had to throw his body into the effort. The corpse gave ground grudgingly. Pistol aimed down the corridor, Rimes squeezed through the opening.

  He set his back to the wall and advanced in a low crawl. The gunfire below had stopped. He switched back to the vitals overlay.

  Rimes mouthed a curse.

  Uber’s vitals were dropping, his target moving into the stairwell two floors below. Nakata’s vitals were steady, but he’d been wounded. At least his target was down.

  Rimes switched back to the wireframe overlay.

  Five meters from the office door, the target was coming toward Rimes’s position. He went to his belly. A second later, rounds tore through the wall centimeters above him. He returned fire, emptying his magazine before rolling across the floor to the opposite wall. He reloaded and crawled forward two meters before holstering the pistol and readying his carbine.

  Belly-crawling, he advanced another meter before focusing on the BAS again. Below him, Uber’s target had now reached the first floor, heading toward the exit.

  “Target exiting building west,” Rimes whispered.

  The Council took too long. If anyone had the element of surprise, it wasn’t us.

  Rimes’s target was edging away from the door separating them. Rimes brought his carbine up and fired three short, controlled bursts. The target accelerated for the building’s edge. Rimes heard a window shatter.