by David Archer
She drove out of the lot sedately, then eased into the throttle. The road had a lot of curves and hills, but the car seemed to hold on to it as if by magic. “Oh, my gosh,” Sarah said, her eyes gleaming. “I don’t think I’ve ever driven anything as perfect as this car.”
This route took them through some scenic areas and then cut across Table Rock Lake. The rickety old iron bridge was narrow, but the mountains and the water made it an enjoyable ride. As early as it was, there was very little traffic on the road. Sarah shot across the bridge at over a hundred and twenty miles per hour, and the tires squealed as she rocketed through the S-curve that was waiting off the east end of the bridge.
It was only ten minutes later when they finally turned north onto 65, and Sarah followed the speed limit. They were rolling through the countryside and passing through part of the tourist town of Branson, where dozens of country music singers had opened theaters over the last three decades. Sarah pointed out several billboards about shows she would love to see, and Noah filed them away in his memory. He didn’t know whether they’d have a chance during the mission, but he planned to take her to see some of them whenever he got some free time. E & E didn’t forbid their agents from taking vacations, after all.
They stopped for lunch just after passing through Kansas City; then Sarah let Noah take the wheel again as they got back onto the road. The entire drive would take about nine hours under normal circumstances, but Noah decided to push the big Charger just a bit. Its cruise control was keeping the speedometer at just over eighty-five miles per hour, and he managed to shave almost an hour off the trip. They rolled into Kirtland at a little after three, local time, having gained an hour as they moved into Mountain Time.
Since Monique knew about the trip, and knew exactly where he lived in Kirtland, Noah couldn’t see any point in getting a hotel room. He rolled through town and headed straight to R&D, stopping at each checkpoint to show their IDs. The guards ignored the names on the IDs and simply scanned them with a small device that read the encrypted RFID chip inside each one. This was another of Wally’s innovations, so that no matter what mission ID they might be using, it was still fully functional for the secure areas at Neverland. They arrived at R&D just over a half hour after they got into town.
The guard in the lobby checked their IDs once more, then picked up a phone and pushed a button. “Camelot is here,” he said, and then he replaced the handset in its cradle. A minute later, Wally came running down the hall once again.
“Holy jumping Jiminy,” he yelled when he saw Noah. “Come on, hurry!” He grabbed Noah by the hand and started dragging him down the hallway with the others following. When he’d gotten far enough away from the security guard, he stopped and turned to face them.
“This is the highest-security operation we’ve ever had,” he said softly. “Only a handful of people are aware of what’s about to happen, and all of them have volunteered to go into lockdown until the mole is silenced. Allison isn’t taking any chances that she’ll find out what we’re doing, today. Now, come on, we’ve got to get you in right now. I’ve got the doctors…”
“Wally, hold on,” Noah said. “Did you get the message about the phones?”
Wally nodded his head vigorously. “Yes, yes, they’ll be ready before morning. Now, come on, I’ve got the doctors waiting at the hyperbaric chamber—it just got here an hour ago. They’re ready to get you in there and get that damn thing out, but we need an X-ray of it first.”
Noah nodded. “All right, then,” he said. The three of them followed Wally down the hall, and he led them to R&D’s medical clinic, where an X-ray machine and its technician were waiting. Wally, Sarah, and Neil waited outside while the operator did his job.
Noah was told to remove his shirt and stand against a box on the wall, where an X-ray plate was waiting. The operator had him lift his arm and extend it outward, and then stepped behind a leaden shield. There was a loud clank and a buzz, and the operator returned to remove the plate. He took it into another room, and a couple of minutes later he came back with the printed image.
“Okay,” he said, “it’s clearly visible in this picture. Show that to the doctors so they know what they’re dealing with.”
Noah thanked him and took the picture, then stepped out of the room. Wally took out a key card and swiped it, locking the technician inside the room, then grabbed the picture from Noah and glanced at it. He led them all through a doorway and into an outdoor lot where a semitrailer awaited them with a large steel box inside it. Numerous cables and hoses had been run to the box from the building, and there were a set of steps that led up into the open back doors of the trailer.
Two men stood at the base of the steps, both of them wearing anticontamination suits. Wally grabbed Noah by the arm and hurried him up to meet them.
“Dr. Slocum, Dr. Reed, this is Camelot,” he said. He turned to Noah. “Camelot, this is Drs. Slocum and Reed. When we told them what was going on, they both volunteered to perform the operation. Once it’s complete, they’ll also be locked in here at R&D until this is all over.”
Noah shook hands with both of them and Wally handed over the X-ray image. Both of the doctors began looking it over, but then Noah looked up at the hyperbaric chamber inside the trailer. “I appreciate this,” he said, “but do you both actually need to be in there? If this thing goes off, there’s not much chance anybody inside there is going to survive it.”
“We know,” Slocum said. “Dr. Reed is going to perform the procedure, while I handle anesthesia and vitals. You’ll be awake throughout the procedure, but I want to make sure you feel as little pain as possible.”
Noah looked at the man and nodded. “Okay,” he said. “What do we do first?”
“This chamber was designed as a positive-pressure emergency operating room,” Dr. Reed said. “It’s normally used when deep-sea divers require surgery before they can be fully decompressed. It was flown in on a C-130 this morning from the naval base in San Diego, then loaded into the trailer to bring it here. There is a decontamination room just inside the door, where we’ll scrub you down and get you prepped for surgery; then we’ll go into the main room and get this done as quickly as possible. The pressure inside should be greater than the pressure your muscle tissue is applying to the device, so we’re confident we won’t run into any problems—like getting ourselves blown to bits.”
“And then,” Dr. Slocum said, “we’ll put the little bastard into a canister that can keep the pressure constant, but contain the explosion if it does go off. That way it can be held safe for as long as necessary, then detonated whenever it needs to be.”
Noah turned to Wally. “Before we do anything else,” he said, “I need to know if this thing is putting out any kind of signal. If there’s a GPS signal, for instance, the person who put it here might be able to monitor its location. I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to show up somewhere else when it says I’m supposed to be here.”
Wally looked at him for a moment, then pulled out a walkie-talkie and spoke rapidly into it. A moment later, two men bearing several types of electronic equipment came rushing out the door. They surrounded Noah on the asphalt and started scanning him with the various devices, and then one of them nodded toward Wally.
“It’s emitting a signal, but it’s weak. It’s nothing that could possibly be detected from more than a few feet away.”
Wally furrowed his brow. “Damn, we should’ve thought of that,” he said. “It’s a close-proximity transmitter, and you can bet that little bitch carries something that can detect its signal. If she gets close to you and it isn’t there, there’s a whole new kind of problem called you’re dead.”
Sarah’s eyes were wide. “But, there’s got to be some way to beat this,” she said. “Come on, Wally, you’re the genius.”
“Oh, I’ve already got it figured out,” Wally said. “It just means we have to not only take out the device that’s there, we have to put another one back that will emit the sam
e signal.” He turned to the man who had spoken to him. “Have you got it?”
“Yes, sir,” the man said. “It’s just a simple repeating numerical sequence. As low as the signal strength is, the transmitter can’t be sophisticated enough to do anything else, but it could run for fifty years just on the natural electricity present in his body. Give me a couple of hours and I can make up one that will give off the exact same signal at the same strength.”
Wally nodded. “Then get on it,” he said. He snatched the X-ray from the doctors and handed it to them, and both men hurried back inside. He turned back to Noah and the rest. “Okay, sorry about this, but we’ll have to do this a little later. We can’t take the chance that you run into this little monster again and she can’t detect that signal. Tom and Bob, there, they’ll have one ready in pretty short order, and we can get on with this, and then they get locked in, too.”
The doctors were standing there looking at each other, then at Wally and then at Noah. Everyone seemed upset, so Noah took charge.
“Okay, then this has to wait,” he said. “Let’s go look at the phones.”
Wally hesitated for only a moment, then nodded and led them all back into the building. The doctors did not follow but simply sat down in a pair of folding chairs to wait.
In one of the many shops within the building, Wally showed Noah the assembly line that had been set up. Several of the phones had already been completed, their electronic innards taken out of the original cases and inserted into the new ones that had come out of the printer. Nearby, two women were taking more phones apart, while two others were putting them back together. Noah picked up one of the finished ones and compared it to one of the originals. Except for an embossed label on the new cases that said “Delphine,” they were identical.
“Delphine?” Noah asked, looking at Wally.
“Delphine was an electronics company in Louisiana,” Wally said. “They went out of business about three years ago, and they were owned by some other, now-defunct company in India, so we decided to put their logo on these. If anybody asks, you can always say that your supplier bought out the last of their inventory. We even put some crap on the internet about how they used to make these kind of phones.”
Noah raised one eyebrow and nodded. “Good thinking,” he said. “I’ll be sure to use that. What about the explosive force? Is it going to be enough to make sure nobody can survive it?”
Wally burst out laughing. “Are you kidding? There’s enough of our best explosive in one of these cases to blow up a Volkswagen. Anybody who has one in a pocket is going to disappear in a big greasy cloud.”
Noah looked at the phone in his hand. “That only leaves a stronger possibility of collateral damage,” he said. He turned to look at Neil. “I hope we can get everybody away from their families when we set these off.”
“Yeah,” Neil said.
Noah put the phone back and turned to Wally. “Okay, well, it looks like we’ve got time for dinner. Care to join us?”
Wally’s big smile was answer enough. “Sure, yeah,” he said. “Where you want to go? I’m buying!”
They went back out to the car and climbed inside, with Wally tucked in behind Noah. It cramped Neil a bit, but Sarah pulled her seat as far forward as she could to give him a little more legroom. He thanked her, and they decided to stay in the restricted area and visit the Assassin’s Club. Neil had never been there, and Noah had only been there once with Gary Mitchell, but he knew they had a full kitchen.
They saw several people they knew and said hello, and then Neil almost jumped out of his skin when a pair of small hands suddenly wrapped themselves over his eyes.
“Guess who?” The voice was obviously feminine, and Neil’s face broke into a big grin. He yanked the hands away and spun in his seat to find Jenny grinning at him.
“Hey,” he said. “I didn’t know you were back.”
“We got in yesterday,” she said, “and I was really pissed that you were gone, but that’s the way it goes. I knew you were supposed to be coming in sometime today, though, because the boss lady told me this morning, so I bribed Renée to let me know when you showed up. She called me a few minutes ago to tell me you guys were headed here, so I snuck out to join you. You mind?”
“Of course not,” Neil said, and then he snagged another chair from a nearby table and put it between his own and Sarah’s. Jenny slid into it and leaned over to give Sarah a quick hug.
“Allison briefed me on what’s going on,” she whispered into Sarah’s ear. “You doing okay?”
“I’ll be better once they get that damn thing out of his arm,” Sarah whispered back. “They had to make something to put in its place so nobody will know it’s gone. It’s supposed be ready in a couple of hours, but I’m nervous. If anything goes wrong…”
“If anything goes wrong,” Jenny said, “I’ll be right there with you.” The two girls exchanged a little smile, and Jenny turned back to Neil.
The conversation around the table was simple, sticking to things that could be overheard in such a place. The only subjects that were not acceptable, they all knew, was any mention of Monique, or any talk about the explosive device in Noah’s arm that anyone else might overhear.
Several people stopped by to say hello and shake Noah’s hand, and a few even congratulated them on their wedding. These were people who had been out of the country when it took place and were not able to attend. Sarah smiled a lot as she showed off her wedding rings, and more than one of the girls who spoke to her told her they were jealous.
“So,” Jenny said when all the extra attention died down, “how’s the mission going? I heard you’re going to be there for quite a while.”
Noah shrugged. “Maybe not,” he said. “We’re here to pick up a load of special cell phones, designed so that I can make the cases explode all at once. Each of the top people in the organization will get one when I get back, and I may be able to bring this to a conclusion a lot sooner than we thought. It seems I’m just exactly the kind of person the head guy wants for his right-hand man, so I’ve been introduced to all of his most trusted people. Unless something comes up that I’m not expecting, those are exactly the people I’m supposed to eliminate.”
Jenny’s eyes went wide. “Seriously? Like, how soon?”
“I’m going to give it a few days after I get back,” Noah said. “I need to be sure I’m getting everyone who could possibly resurrect the organization, because this thing needs to come to an end. This guy Morgan is bad news for everybody around him, and that is the truth. I never knew a lot about organized crime before this, but I bet he’s worse than any of the big mob bosses. Capone probably could have learned things about running a criminal operation from Jimmy Morgan.”
Jenny frowned. “Damn,” she said, “I wish I was in on this one with you. He sounds like the kind of guy I love to take out.”
Neil looked at Noah. “Hey, boss, how about that? Think she could come on down for a while? I mean, we could tell everybody my girlfriend was visiting, right?”
“No,” Noah said. “I don’t have the authority to okay that, and I’m already in place. We got Marco coming in a few days from now; it might look funny if too many new people start showing up.”
Sarah patted Neil’s arm. “Don’t worry, baby brother,” she said, “this mission should be over pretty soon, and you can get back to your cuddle bunny.” She giggled when she saw Jenny blush slightly. “Oh, my gosh, does he actually call you that?”
Jenny shrugged but didn’t say anything. Neil glared at Sarah for a moment, then leaned over and put an arm around Jenny and whispered to her. Whatever he said made the girl smile, and she turned around to give him a kiss.
“Hey, Noah,” Wally said as they were waiting for their orders to appear, “we got a few new gadgets you might like. Are you gonna have time to take a look at some of them tomorrow morning, before you leave?”
“Possibly,” Noah said. “What kind of gadgets?”
Wally grinned,
and Sarah thought once more that he really did look a bit like a mad scientist. “I had this wild idea a few weeks ago,” he said, “and I turned it over to a couple of new kids we hired, and they handed me a working prototype day before yesterday. I call it a smart gun. It looks like a brick on a small tripod, but it has a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree camera mounted on top. You use a cell phone or a computer to feed it a photo of the target and then just set it someplace where you expect the target will pass by. When it sees the target, it will lock on and track until it gets the perfect shot, and then it will fire. You can actually give it several dozen targets, and it will look for each and every one and shoot them. Well, until it runs out of bullets, anyway. The base model only holds fifteen rounds.”
Noah’s left eyebrow went up a notch. “Like having a sniper in your pocket,” he said. “I can think of times it would’ve come in handy.”
“I can’t wait to demonstrate it for you,” Wally said, and then he leaned close to whisper into Noah’s ear. “Another thing you might like is super classified—a pair of sunglasses that can tell you when someone is lying to you. It has a super-micro-computer built into it, along with a camera so small you can’t even see it, and it reads microexpressions. It can tell you instantly if someone is being deceptive by flashing a little display that only the wearer can see.”
“Now, that could be interesting,” Noah said. “How accurate would you say it is?”
“We’ve tested the technology, before we used it in the glasses, on over four hundred subjects, including a hundred who were specifically told to lie, and none of them have been able to fool it. So far, it’s running a hundred percent accuracy. The only drawback is that it can’t necessarily tell you exactly which part of what the subject says is untrue, but it can definitely tell you if the subject is trying to conceal something. In testing, however, we’ve been able to spot the actual lie about ninety-eight percent of the time.”
Noah looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “I want one,” he said, still in a whisper. “Do you have one I can take back with me tomorrow?”
