7:15 a.m., Day 4, Washington State
The car juddered to a halt on the shoulder. Zoe watched Gray slam his hand against the glove box. “I don’t believe it. Of all the times to get a flat.”
“I’ll check the spare,” Murphy said. “The other car isn’t too far behind us.”
He let go of Zoe’s shoulder and opened the passenger door. The trunk flipped open.
She shivered as cold air rushed into the car. The highway was busy with morning rush-hour traffic. Zoe pondered her options. If she wanted to spring out, it had to be now. They were in a public place. A police cruiser might pass as she made her escape.
Gray turned in his seat. “A penny for your thoughts?”
“What?” Zoe said.
“What are you thinking? Are you scared? Excited? None of the above?”
“I’m—”
Murphy appeared by the door, holding a lug wrench. “We’re in business. If you all get out while I do this…”
“And don’t think about doing anything stupid, Agent Vega. We’re on a critical path now. I haven’t got the patience,” Gray said.
“You’re under my protection and control,” Murphy said. “If you attempt to run, you’ll be under the next truck.”
She lowered her eyes, shaking her head.
“Why bother fighting? Change is coming, be a part of it,” Gray said.
“You think your plan’s going to work?”
“People are naturally resistant to change,” Gray said, “in all forms of life. I’m sure you’ve seen it at the NSA?”
“Change isn’t always for the better.”
“Think about when new technology is introduced, the kind that brings significant improvement to mankind’s quality of life. When it changes a role or people can’t adapt, it causes problems. But for whom? Not the creators, nor the beneficiaries. It’s the whiners who can’t accept it. The ones who probably still brag about playing records, their hatred of cell phones and refusal to use the Internet. You know what happens?”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” Zoe said.
“The majority of people mock them as dinosaurs. When I show what’s possible, our integration plan, I’ll bring people along with me. XNA is the future. You can accept it and be a revolutionary. Or perhaps one day somebody will dig up your brittle skeleton, wondering if you were one of the last foolish deniers.”
“After you’ve been carbon-dated,” Murphy said.
Gray laughed. “That’s right, Michael. Now, everybody out.”
“Somebody’s stopping, Doctor,” the synthetic driver said.
An SUV pulled in twenty yards ahead. Its hazards started blinking. A tall man with a beard jumped out and walked towards the vehicle. Murphy stepped towards him.
“Need any help?” the man said.
“We’ve got it under control. Thanks for the offer,” Murphy said. The man gazed into the car. “Move along, sir.”
Using her legs, Zoe thrust herself out of the open passenger door. Her shoulder slammed against the shoulder surface. She held up her bound wrists.
“Run. Call the police. Go. Now!” she shouted.
The man looked around Murphy. “Hey, what the hell…”
He tried to push Murphy to one side.
Murphy swung the lug wrench. It thudded against the man’s arm as he raised it to protect his head. He staggered back, dazed by the blow.
The synthetic driver ran up behind Zoe, wrestling her into a double shoulder lock, forcing her head forwards.
The man tried to run for his vehicle. Murphy brought the wrench down onto the back of his head with a running jump. The man tumbled forwards. He tried to crawl. Murphy repeatedly beat the back of his head with five deliberate blows. The man’s legs twitched after the third.
Murphy returned to the car and grabbed Zoe by the chin. “You’re on thin ice. If I didn’t think you’d be useful…”
The other red vehicle from the airfield parked behind them.
“Leave the car here, no point wasting time,” Gray called out.
“Why don’t we take his?” Murphy said, pointing towards the fresh corpse. “We can put her in the trunk.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
10 a.m., Day 4, FBI Ops Room, Montana
Someone’s coming,” Emma said, pointing to a rising cloud of dust off to the east.
Jacob coughed, yawned, and stretched. He had dozed off the last hour or so, lulled to sleep by the warmth of the fire. The flames had died down. The windows were now blackened, charred holes. He woke with the image of the last soldier dying in the interrogation room. He thought of all those others, dead, left inside, burning. He doubted there was anything left. There would be no evidence that these people had even existed, apart from ashes.
“Hey,” Emma said, her arm around his shoulder. They’d hugged each other in the back of the chopper as Jacob fell asleep. “How you doing?”
“I’m okay, thanks to you. I still can’t believe we survived all that.”
“If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t have made it out. How’s the ankle?”
He tentatively moved it and felt a dull pain. “It’s still painful, but it’s not as bad as before. I doubt I’ll be able to walk far on it, though. Let’s just hope we don’t have to run anywhere.” Jacob looked out of the helicopter’s window.
A black sedan was approaching from the west, the sun gleaming off its windshield, a cloud of dirt and dust kicking up behind its tires as it bounced across the makeshift road.
“I can see two people in there,” Jacob said, already checking for the gun inside his jacket. They were only expecting Officer Jameson. He wondered if this was the director’s final move, the last throw of the dice. “Have you still got your pistol?” he asked.
“Got it right here. Round in the chamber.” Emma patted the front pocket of her hooded jacket. She looked nervous, pale. Jacob didn’t blame her. He didn’t so much have butterflies in his stomach as vultures.
Given the speed of the car, they’d be on them in seconds. There was no point in running. There was nowhere to run to, and Jacob wouldn’t get two feet before they gunned him down. They’d just have to play it out, see what might happen.
The sedan pulled up between the helicopter and the safe house, the engine ticking over like early morning crickets.
A dark-blond-haired woman, wearing mirrored Wayfarer sunglasses, peered out at them as the electric window wound down.
Jacob turned on the bench seat in the back of the chopper and turned to face the woman. Emma was beside him, her body trembling. Jacob leaned forward to open the door with his left hand, keeping his right hand in his pocket, gripping the pistol. He got out gingerly.
From the passenger side, an agent stepped out and unfolded himself until he stood tall, his back to the chopper. He looked over the compound and shook his close-shaved head. He wore a well-tailored charcoal gray suit over his broad shoulders.
“Who are you?” Jacob finally said, unable to stand the tension. “I was expecting Officer Jameson. Director Hatfield and I made a deal.”
Pulling her Wayfarers partway down her nose with her index finger, the woman dipped her chin and looked over at Jacob. “Mr. Miller?” Her elbow rested casually on the car door.
“I asked who you are,” Jacob said, feeling his hand cramp around the pistol. The hunger, dehydration, and sheer fatigue of the last few days made him feel weak, nervous. He doubted he’d even be able to shoot straight if it came to it. But there was something calm and professional about these two. They didn’t really strike him as assassins, although he rationalized that assassins would hardly be easy to identify.
“We’re FBI,” the woman said. “I’m just reaching for ID, okay?”
Jacob kept an eye on the tall man as he surveyed the carnage. The female agent reached into her suit jacket and pulled out a black leather wallet with a badge shield and blue ID card. She held it out to him.
“I’m Agent Chavez, that’s Laramore,” she said, indic
ating her partner. “I understand your hesitance, Mr. Miller. But if you just give me a few minutes to explain the situation, you’ll realize we’re on the same side.”
Jacob hobbled forward and took the badge wallet with his left hand, keeping the right in his pocket. The way the pistol stretched the fabric must have made it obvious that he was carrying, but Chavez didn’t show any sign of concern. That in itself gave him confidence.
Looking at the ID card, he didn’t see any red flags to indicate it was fake. He’d seen enough of the fakes that Brian had printed off the ’Net to know this wasn’t one of them. The shield certainly looked real.
Emma joined Jacob by his side. “If you are who you say you are, what happened to Officer Jameson and the director?” she asked after glancing at the ID.
Jacob handed it back to Chavez, convinced they were telling the truth, or at the very least accepting they weren’t going out of their way to sell him a lie.
Laramore turned to face them, resting his arms on the sedan’s roof. “We dealt with Jameson. He was on Director Hatfield’s payroll. I suspect if he were here now, neither of you would be alive.”
“But how?” Jacob said. “I don’t understand.”
Chavez took the ID back and got out of the car, leaning against the door. “Okay, I’ll explain everything,” she said. “But first, I would really appreciate it if you stopped pointing that gun at me.” She nodded to his jacket. “Listen, I understand you’re scared right now, and you have every right to be. Let’s start this off civilly.”
“Sorry,” Jacob said, putting the gun into the waistband of his jeans and showing his empty hands. “We’ve been through a lot lately.”
“I know. Now please listen up; we don’t have a lot of time. Earlier this morning Director Hatfield informed us of an imminent internal terrorist attack. We were assigned to look into this.”
“Terrorist? How?” Emma said.
“Julian Gray apparently had eight of his synthetics approach a nuclear power station.”
“Shit,” Jacob said. “We didn’t know any of this.”
“You wouldn’t have; it happened while you were still locked up,” Laramore said. “Which we know was unlawful.” He gestured to the compound. “This whole place is. Hatfield was running a number of black ops in various locations across the country. No one in any official capacity knew about this until recently.”
Jacob hobbled back and sat on the edge of the helicopter to take the weight off his foot. He thought about what Laramore said. It made sense, explained how they’d been treated, confirmed his suspicions that the place wasn’t legal. But what about Agent Vega? Was she part of the scheme? One of the bad guys too?
“We discovered this after Hatfield escalated the situation,” Chavez continued. “When we sent out a team to intercept the synthetics, we found nothing but dummy transceivers.”
“A distraction?” Jacob asked.
“It certainly seems that way.”
“But for what?”
“That, Mr. Miller, is what we need your help with. We intercepted all communications to and from Director Hatfield with his cleanup squad and with you. We learned that Julian Gray and Michael Murphy were using a laptop attached to a biochip to communicate with a number of synthetics. We believe that network is the key to finding his true intentions.”
“That’s what a soldier gave us,” Emma said. “One of the cleanup crew.”
Jacob looked at the compound, picturing the poor guy’s expression as death took him.
“The director was sending Jameson to dispatch you two and recover that laptop in order to cover his own ass,” Laramore said. “He’s under arrest within NSA HQ right now, helping us in our inquiries.”
“What about Agent Vega?” Jacob asked. “She’s not involved with Hatfield, at least not in a criminal way. She let us go when she was ordered to kill us. Gray took her.”
“We know,” Chavez said. “She activated her radio beacon a few hours ago. Our guys are tracking her right now. A Rangers team will intercept her within the hour. What we really need is for you to help us connect to Gray’s network. We need those laptop parts and biochip. If those others were a distraction, we need to find out from what, and then stop it.”
“There was another one,” Emma said. “It took a transport plane that way.” She pointed to the east.
“We took care of that,” Chavez said. The agent checked her watch. “When was the last time you had anything to eat or drink?”
Jacob looked at Emma and shrugged. It was hard to think. As for food, it was probably when they were at Phillip’s. Cooley had brought them a cup of water when they’d first arrived at the compound. “Too long,” he said.
“Get in the car, then. We’ll grab something on the way to the ops room.”
Chavez seated herself back inside as Laramore collapsed his near-seven-foot body into the passenger side.
Jacob hesitated for a moment, considering if what they were saying was true. They could well be Director Hatfield’s goons, but the ID seemed authentic, and everything they had said sounded plausible. Or at least it corroborated what he had thought.
“What do you think?” he asked Emma.
“I think I’m tired, thirsty, hungry, and just want to get the hell out of here. If they wanted us dead, they’d have done it by now,” Emma said.
“You want to go with them?”
Jacob admitted to himself that he was too tired to do anything else. The promise of warmth, water and food was tempting.
Emma gave him a quick hug. “I think it’s time we stopped running and trusted someone, even if they are feds.”
Jacob agreed. “Okay, let’s go.”
Emma helped Jacob into the back of the car. Chavez looked over the seat at Jacob. “You do have the parts and chip, right?”
He patted his jacket. “I’ve got them right here.”
“Buckle up. We’re getting you two out of here.”
“What about the bodies, the soldiers?” Emma asked.
“And Hatfield?” Jacob added.
“Forensics team is on the way,” Laramore said. “And as for Hatfield, after this, he’ll never experience freedom again.”
“What about Vega?” Jacob asked. “Is she facing charges too?”
“Most probably,” Chavez answered. “But we’ll question her once we have her safe and alive; that’s our priority right now.”
She turned the key in the ignition, firing the engine, and pulled away from the compound, turning a wide circle until they were on the dirt road heading west. Laramore took two cans of diet cola from the glove compartment and handed them to Emma and Jacob. “We’ll get you something more substantial when we get to the ops room.”
“Thanks,” Jacob said, taking the can. He didn’t think it was appropriate to explain to Laramore that he refused to drink soft drinks with artificial sweeteners because of their connection to brain cancer and suggestive radio waves from HARP. He just smiled his gratitude and placed the can in a cup holder on the back of the front seat.
The rumble of the engine and tires against the road soon lulled him into sleep. Before unconsciousness could take him completely, he was aware of Emma’s hand gripping his.
***
Thirty minutes later they arrived at the Royale Rooms Hotel in some backwater town. The car’s clock read 10:33 a.m. Chavez pulled the sedan up to the single parking space outside the ramshackle building. Its porch roof sagged in the middle. Old paintwork, cream and salmon in color, was peeling off the eaves in thick flakes.
The sign hanging off the front had numerous letters missing and squeaked as the gentle breeze blew it to and fro within its iron frame. The lettering reminded Jacob of an old fairground sign with its bright yellow and green color scheme.
Emma and Jacob eased out of the car and stepped onto the sidewalk, following Chavez and Laramore.
All around them, the street was deserted; it felt like a ghost town. A few old rusted cars sat like stray dogs outside small, single-
story buildings: an old barber’s shop with a fading photo of a cheap Elvis impersonator hanging in the window; a pharmacy that could have come right out of the nineteenth century; and old timber-framed houses with stoops that looked as droopy as the chairs that sat on rotting floorboards.
“Quite the town,” Jacob said as he approached the hotel, favoring his leg.
“Creepy,” Emma replied. “Like something out of a slasher film where teenagers get murdered.”
“I was going to say old-fashioned.”
“Yeah, that too.”
“Come on, you two, let’s get you both settled and introduced to Kowalski. He’s probably having an aneurism while waiting for us,” Chavez said.
Emma helped Jacob up the steps and into the hotel. A worn, wooden countertop with a bell on it waited for them. Behind the counter, a balding man with heavy bags under his eyes watched them like a retired eagle. He raised a single eyebrow in greeting to the two agents. He didn’t say a word as Chavez led them to the ancient elevator.
It was one of the old types with concertina doors. Jacob closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing as he entered, not wanting to freak out from claustrophobia.
Emma squeezed his hand, already understanding what he might be feeling. That was always a good sign, he thought. When the person you’re with has that almost psychic level of empathy, it surely meant that something was right.
With a jolt, the elevator came to a rest and Laramore reached out to slide the door back. Chavez led the way down the corridor until they came to room 35. She turned the handle and opened the door.
The smell of stale cigarette smoke wafted out.
“Come on,” Chavez said. “This is the temporary ops room.”
Jacob and Emma entered. Laramore closed the door behind them.
“This is Agent Kowalski, our IT expert,” Chavez said as she walked further into the hotel room.
A haze of cigarette smoke lingered around the dull green drapes like ghosts of guests past. The cloud revolved slowly throughout the room, settling in swirling pockets, encompassing Kowalski, a gray-haired man hunched over a series of laptops wired together on a round table covered in cheap veneer that was peeling in long ribbons along its edge. It had taken on the role of a command center, by the looks of it. As for Kowalski, he looked like every stereotypical fed Jacob had ever seen.
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