Sleeper Code

  Sleeper Code

  Sleeper Conspiracy

  Book I

  Thomas E. Sniegoski

  Scanned & proofed by the N.E.R.D’s.

  Cleaned, re-formatted & proofread by nukie

  Converted to LIT by B.D.

  CONTENT

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Ecuador

  November 22, 2002

  Away From Prying Eyes.

  The sleeper awoke knowing that his life was in danger.

  There was a man somewhere in the thick, dark jungle who had been hired to kill him.

  Springing up from the bed of moss and leaves where he was lying, the sleeper was immediately in tune with his surroundings. The jungle was alive with the cries of birds, the chirps and hum of a variety of insects, the growls of nocturnal predators. But the sleeper was silent as he moved through the thick underbrush.

  It was a test, his superiors had told him.

  They had given him a file on the man who was somewhere nearby, a professional killer known as the Mensajero de Muerte—Messenger of Death. He had read the file with great interest; the messenger was proficient in all means of killing, from guns to knives, poisons to explosives.

  The sleeper came to a steep slope, almost vertical, and used the gnarled roots protruding from the face of the muddy cliff to aid his descent. Once down, he again paused to listen to the cacophony of the nighttime jungle. In the distance he heard the sound of a stream and moved toward it.

  A fog had developed close to the ground, and it grew thicker as he traveled closer to the water. Carefully he left the concealment of the tropical forest and approached the water, squatting at its side. The movement of the stream was barely discernable below the veil of fog. He plunged his hand down into the liquid’s coolness, bringing it up to wash the sweat and residue of sleep from his eyes.

  As he rubbed the grime from his face, the fog pulled back momentarily, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed the partial impression in the soft earth left by the sole of a boot.

  Death’s messenger had been there already.

  The sleeper was starting to rise, every sense tingling, when the figure exploded from concealment behind him.

  Correction. Death’s messenger was still there. Waiting.

  The moonlight glinted fleetingly off a lash of thin wire as it passed over his head. Instinctively the sleeper’s hand shot up in front of his throat, stopping the garrote from wrapping around his neck. He grunted in agony as the wire dug into the soft flesh of his hand, stopping only when it hit bone. The pain was excruciating, but the alternative was worse.

  He drove his heel back into the knee of his attacker. There was a sharp crack and the messenger grunted, his body listing to one side as the garrote went slack, enough for the sleeper to get out from beneath the wire and spin to face his foe.

  The messenger had already recovered, the garrote discarded, a knife appearing in his hand. There would be no second chance.

  The messenger launched himself at the sleeper and the two of them hurtled backward into the stream. The killer was on the sleeper, the blade of his knife descending toward his throat. He shifted his weight beneath the man’s attack. The point of the knife plunged through the water and into the streambed where he had been lying.

  The sleeper did not have a weapon. It was part of the plan—part of the test.

  The thick, cottonlike clouds slid across the velvet Ecuadorian sky to reveal a fat moon, its jaundiced light shining down into the jungle below, penetrating the openings in the thick canopy of foliage. And as the concealing darkness momentarily burned away, the combatants saw each other for the first time.

  Truly saw each other.

  The sleeper looked up into the chiseled features of the man who was trying to kill him. He did not look the part at all. This wasn’t some wild-eyed lunatic starving for the taste of blood but a professional. He could have been a carpenter or a grocery store manager, but instead he had chosen to make killing his job.

  That was where he and his attacker greatly differed.

  He had never been given a choice. Killing was all the sleeper had ever known.

  And as he saw his attacker, his attacker saw him.

  “You’re just a ch—” the messenger began in Spanish, but didn’t get the chance to finish.

  The sleeper’s fingers probed the muddy riverbed, wrapping around a jagged rock. He brought his arm up out of the water; rock clutched in his hand, and savagely struck it against the man’s temple.

  The messenger let out a howl of pain, falling to one side in the stream.

  Rock still in hand, the sleeper splashed to his feet, advancing toward his attacker. A deep gash ran from the man’s temple to his eyebrows. Blood flowed freely from the open wound. The messenger had managed to retain his knife and held it before himself defensively as he struggled to stand.

  Taking aim at the messenger’s hand, the sleeper let his rock fly, the crushing impact forcing the killer to drop his weapon.

  And then time seemed to slow. The sleeper watched as the rock rolled into the thick foliage and the knife dropped from the killer’s grasp into the water.

  The messenger wiped blood from his eye with the back of his injured hand while reaching for a weapon holstered beneath his arm with the other.

  The sleeper reached down for the knife. His hand closed around the hilt, and he noted that it was still warm from its owner’s grip as he plucked it from the stream.

  The gun—a nine-millimeter Ruger—had left the leather holster and was swinging in the sleeper’s direction.

  The sleeper stared into the deep black hole of the muzzle. Calculating the seconds it would take for the killer to aim, for the signal to travel from his brain to the finger now poised on the trigger.

  Just enough time for him to strike first.

  The sleeper plunged the eight-inch blade into his attacker’s heart as he dove to the left. The pistol fired repeatedly at where he had been standing a second ago.

  The messenger tried to remain standing, but the effort was too much, and he dropped to his knees. He was dying.

  The sleeper moved closer, gazing into the eyes of the man as his life force left him. He had expected more from this adversary, this professional killer.

  The messenger slumped sideways to the ground, a wheezing sound escaping his lungs as he struggled to hold on to his last breath.

  Squatting beside the dying man, the sleeper reached down to the assassin’s belt, removing a small communication device from its leather case.

  “This is Sleeper One,” he said casually into the device. “Exercise complete.”

  There was a brief period of silence, then, “Very good, sleeper one,” came the reply. “Proceed to the extraction zone.”

  The sleeper let the walkie-talkie slip from his grasp. Remembering his injury, he inspected the wound on the side of his hand made by the garrote. He’d need to see a doctor on his return to the base.

  He hoped this would be the last test; he was growing tired of these exercises. After all, killing had become second nature to him.

  So natural, he could do it in his sleep.

  Chapter 1

  Hawthorne, Ma June 8, 2005

  At first there is nothing.

  Silent black oblivion enfolding body and soul—and then, an instantaneous spark of awar
eness.

  It’s like suddenly coming into being in the deepest part of the ocean—so far down that not even the sun burning in the sky can pierce the impenetrable blackness. And as your sense of self grows, you emerge from the bottomless pocket of black, daring to rise, swimming up through the sea of ebony pitch. Ascending.

  Awakening.

  Tom Lovett opened his eyes, focusing on the white ceiling above his bed. He immediately began to search out the imperfections—the cracks in the plaster and blistering paint that had become familiar and, in a way, comforting since his family had moved to this house. They had lived in Hawthorne, a tiny town northwest of Boston, for just over a year now.

  He pulled his arms out from beneath the covers and stretched them over his head, grunted with exertion, and then let them fall limply to his sides. He wasn’t especially stiff—a good sign.

  He flipped onto his side, reaching for his glasses and watch on the nightstand next to his bed. He put the glasses on and felt his heartbeat quicken, followed by an anticipatory tingling in his scalp, before looking at the time—and, more specifically, the date. He always hated this part.

  It had been Tuesday, June 7, when he’d gone to his room to surf the Net before finally giving in to exhaustion. He distinctly remembered shutting down his computer and placing it on the floor beside his bed. Then he’d taken off his glasses and watch before turning out the light and crawling beneath the covers.

  Just like any normal person does.

  Tom gazed over the side of the bed to see that his computer was there, just as he remembered, but he was still hesitant to look at his watch—to see how much time had passed while he slept.

  Disgusted with his lack of courage, Tom resolutely turned onto his back, held the watch up, and focused on its face.

  He breathed a sigh of relief.

  It was a quarter past seven on Wednesday, June 8.

  “Yes,” he whispered, slipping the cold metal band around his wrist and snapping the clasp. He pulled back the blankets and sat upright, throwing his bare feet over the side of the bed. Yellow sunlight sneaked into the room from beneath the drawn window shade. It looked like a nice day, in more ways than one.

  It was close to two weeks now since he’d last had an attack, Tom thought, glancing at the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition calendar hanging on the wall above his desk. He had marked the last time with a big red X. Cautiously he counted the days to be sure. Yep, thirteen this morning.

  He shuffled across his room toward the door, feeling healthier than he had in months. It’s going to be a good day, he decided, reaching for the knob, already making plans for that morning and afternoon.

  He stumbled slightly as a sudden knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. The door opened, and his mother stuck her head inside the room.

  “Oh, you’re up,” she said, surprised to see him standing there. “Good,” she continued, not missing a beat. “Remember you have an appointment with Dr. Powell at eight-thirty, so you might want to get moving if you’re planning to shower and have something to eat before we go.”

  Then, just as suddenly as she’d been there, she was gone, message delivered.

  An appointment with Dr. Powell. Tom’s stomach did a sudden flip, as if the floor had just dropped from beneath him.

  So much for a good day.

  She had been awake for a little while, listening to the sounds of a house not her own. The faint hum of the air conditioner in the window, the barely discernible morning radio voices filtering up from the kitchen, the clatter of dishes.

  Madison Fitzgerald pushed her face deeper into the pillow and pulled the covers up tighter, trying with no real success to drift back to sleep.

  She attempted to ignore the sounds her aunt and uncle were making from the kitchen as they got ready for work. The heavy aroma of coffee enticed her, but she would wait until they were gone.

  Until she was alone.

  It wasn’t like she didn’t love her aunt and uncle. Ellen and Marty Arsenault would do anything for family, and letting her stay in their home was a prime example of their enormous generosity.

  Madison’s parents were in the midst of a divorce, a breakup that seemed to become nastier with each passing day. Mom and Dad had thought it would be best for her to be removed from the war zone until things became more settled. It’s nice of them to think of me. Yeah, right. But no matter how welcome Ellen and Marty tried to make her feel, it still wasn’t her home. She wondered if anyplace would ever feel like home again.

  Madison listened for the inevitable closing of the back door and the distant sound of a car starting in the garage outside. They wouldn’t be back until at least six o’clock that night. Madison wondered what she would do with herself until then.

  It had been pretty much the same thing, day in and day out, since she had arrived in Hawthorne almost two weeks ago. She would get up when she couldn’t stand to lie there another minute, make her way downstairs for a cup of coffee and maybe a bowl of cereal, and then she would sit, thinking about how blind she had been not to see what was happening to her parents.

  The breakup had taken her completely by surprise. At first she thought her mother was joking when she had picked her up from school that cold and rainy March afternoon. Doesn’t it figure it was cold and rainy?

  But the strange, dull look she had seen in her mother’s eyes had convinced her otherwise.

  Your father and I have decided to split, Mom had said with very little emotion before pulling away from the front of the school. Said so casually, as if she had no idea what a shock this was to her daughter.

  Madison rolled onto her side. She wanted to go back to sleep in the worst way, but the dark thoughts had already started to fly around inside her head.

  How could I have been so oblivious? she thought. It was all one big lie; her life had been disintegrating and she had been too stupid to notice.

  Sometimes she thought that maybe it was a cosmic punishment. Several of her friends’ parents had broken up over the years, and she could remember talking with them, proudly bragging that her parents would never split up. She had seriously begun to wonder if this wasn’t some higher power’s way of sticking it to her.

  Closing her eyes tightly, Madison tried to think of nothing, to find that dark, quiet place where she could hide—where she could lose herself in the embrace of unconsciousness, if only for a few more hours.

  Chasing sleep.

  His mother had the oldies station playing on the car radio again and Tom was tempted to reach out and switch the channel to something less annoying. It wasn’t the music; it was the absolutely obnoxious morning show DJs. They thought they were funny but weren’t even close. Normally he couldn’t stand to listen to them, but this morning he decided to let them stay because he didn’t want to get his mother started.

  There were other things he wanted to discuss, things that weren’t going to make her very happy.

  Billy Joel was singing about the faces of a stranger and how we’d love to try them on, whatever the hell that meant, as his mother sang along. She didn’t know all the words, but that didn’t keep her from trying.

  They were stopped at a light and Tom glanced through the passenger window at a group of kids his age on the way to school, backpacks slung over their shoulders. The two guys kept shoving each other and play fighting, acting like idiots in an obvious attempt to impress the two girls walking behind them. The girls stuck together, pretending to ignore the guys, but it was apparent that they loved the attention.

  What Tom would have given to be a third idiot out on the street.

  The light changed to green and they were driving again, the high school kids growing smaller in the side mirror.

  “Won’t be long before they’re finished for another year,” his mother commented.

  “What?” Tom asked.

  “The kids back there,” she answered, her eyes going to her rearview mirror. “Probably another week or so and they’ll be done for the summer.”
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  Tom played with the excess material at the end of his seat belt. “So that means I’ll be done too,” he said, no longer looking at his mother. He already knew what she would say. She took the whole homeschooling thing pretty seriously.

  She was silent for a minute. “Doesn’t work that way for you, my boy. Sorry,” she finally said, quickly looking in his direction and then back to the road. “But let’s see what we can do about getting you some time off for good behavior. How does that sound?”

  It was his turn to be silent.

  “How are you doing with your reading? I know you’re a little behind on Grapes of Wrath, but—”

  “I’m fine with it,” Tom interrupted.

  “What? Fine with being behind or …?”

  “No, I’m caught up. I read it over the weekend. I’m working on the essay questions now.”

  She nodded her approval, pausing at a stop sign before continuing. “Excellent. How are we doing on the math? If you’re still having problems with the trigonometry, you’ll have to ask your father. That stuff makes my eyes cross.”

  The DJs were jabbering, laughing raucously at their own jokes, and Tom reached over to turn the volume down. He had something to say and didn’t need the competition. He’d been thinking about this moment for some time—thirteen days, to be precise—but hadn’t been sure when the time would be right. This looked to be as good a time as any.

  “I remember my old trig teacher,” his mother was continuing. “Mr. Cunningham. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t get it into my thick skull.”

  “I don’t want to be homeschooled anymore,” Tom blurted.

  His mother acted like she hadn’t heard him, gunning the engine of the Toyota Corolla and switching lanes to get around a minivan.

  Tom was considering repeating his bombshell when his mother finally responded.

  “All right, what brought this on?” she asked, her tone slipping into rational parent mode.

  But he was ready. “I haven’t had an attack in two weeks,” he explained. “I think I might be growing out of it or something. I feel better than I have in ages, and I want to start living like a normal sixteen-year-old.”