by Kyle Mills
“It’s from Star,” he said.
There were no words, just a black-and-white picture of a young Naval Academy cadet with a familiar scar rising from the collar of his dress uniform. A second image had him digitally aged to around seventy.
Even without Photoshop, there would have been no doubt. It was him.
“Son of a bitch,” he said, shaking his head in admiration.
“What?”
“She found him,” he said as he dialed.
Star picked up on the first ring. The smugness in her voice was thick and obviously intentional. “Why, hello there, Jon.”
“Okay. How did you do it?”
“Child’s play. A forty-three-year-old Naval Academy yearbook.”
“Uh-uh. No way. I looked through that one. The picture you sent wasn’t there.”
“And where did you get your copy of the book?” she said, clearly enjoying herself.
“You can just order them online. I had it FedExed.”
“What did they teach you in all those years of higher education, Jon? The devil is always in the details. I used original books from people who’d graduated in those years.”
He let that process for a moment. “Are you telling me this guy’s picture has been removed from the current version?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Books are living things, Jon. They don’t just—”
The line went silent.
“What? Say that again, Star. You’re breaking up.”
He lost the connection and started to try to call her back but when he looked down at his phone, it indicated no signal. A moment later the power went out and left them sitting in the dim glow bleeding through the west windows.
The darkness lasted only a moment before a backup generator came on but the comfort provided by the return of electric light faded with the sound of shattering glass and a grenade bouncing across the wood floor.
43
Prince George’s County, Maryland
USA
THE EIGHT-BY-TEN PHOTOGRAPH was centered on the desk when Fred Klein walked into his office. He didn’t bother to sit, instead examining the digitally aged face looking up at him. The scar on his neck pegged him as the man who had threatened Smith, but there was something else. Something in the eyes, the severe turn of the mouth. He was certain he’d seen the face before.
Klein flipped the picture but there was no further information on the back. Only a note from Star scrawled in the corner: “Found him!!!!!!!” followed by a number of smiley faces and a few hearts shaded with a red Magic Marker.
He grimaced and took a sip from the steaming cup in his hand. For a long time he’d thought she did these things just to irritate him but now he knew it wasn’t true. And even if it was, it wouldn’t have mattered. When you managed to find someone with her level of talent, you learned that the tattoos, the bizarre piercings, and even the glittery hearts punctuating her reports were things you just had to let go.
“Star!” he shouted, knowing his voice would carry the short distance to her office. When she didn’t come running, he leaned his head around the door. Before he could call her again, though, Maggie tapped one of her many computer screens. “Quit yelling, Fred. She’s dialing out to Jon.”
Klein let out a long breath but didn’t immediately move. Finally, he slipped out of his office and began the reluctant but all-too-familiar trudge down the hall.
By careful design, his visits to her office were infrequent. He hated everything about it: The grinding music played at elevator volume. The plastic dolls, old records, and commemorative plates that covered nearly every surface. And then there were the framed pictures of her with men—all very famous, she assured him—who looked like they had just been released from prison.
Star held up a finger when he appeared in her doorway but she seemed to be looking right through him. It was an increasingly common phenomenon known as the Dresner Stare. Cell phones had been annoying enough, but at least you knew when people were using them. Now there was no way to tell what someone was seeing when they looked at you.
“Damn,” she muttered and then pushed the intercom button on the phone at the edge of her desk. “Maggie? I had a perfect connection with Jon and it just went dead. Now I’m rolling to his voicemail. Do you think you can get him?”
“He’s with Randi,” Maggie responded over the speaker. “Hold on. Let me give her a try.”
Finally, Star’s eyes seemed to focus and she smiled pleasantly. “What can I do for you, Mr. Klein?”
He held up the photo he’d found on his desk. “Who is this?”
“Pretty impressive, huh? All I had was a vague description and it’s only been…”
“Too much information.”
“Sorry. He’s former military intelligence guy. Name’s Whitfield.”
Klein felt a dull rush of adrenaline in the pit of his stomach. “Major James Whitfield?”
“Yeah. Do you know him?”
He didn’t answer, instead dropping the photo and rushing back to Maggie Templeton’s desk. “Have you been able to get Jon yet?”
She shook her head. “He’s still rolling over. And I can’t get Randi’s cell either.”
“What about a landline?”
“There is one at the cabin but it seems to be out of service.” She tapped a few commands into her keyboard. “I’m not sure what the problem is. The cell tower servicing the area seems to be online and they normally get good signal…”
“Shit!”
Maggie looked up at him with alarm as he ran to the safe and began digging through it. Klein rarely swore. And he never ran.
“Get a team to where Randi’s staying,” he said. “Now!”
“A team?” Maggie responded. “What do you mean? What kind of team?”
“Anyone and everyone we can get with whatever weapons they can put their hands on.”
“But we don’t have any people available, Fred. Kate’s on the East Coast, but she’s in Philadelphia right now. And you just sent Darren to Kazakhstan.”
“Then we’ll pull from our security detail. Tell Jason to bring the helicopter.”
“Here? You want him to bring it here?”
“Just do it!”
She dialed and then held her hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. “Fred!” she said, starting to sound a little panicked. “What in God’s name are you looking for?”
“My gun.”
“Gun? What are you going to do with a gun?”
He found it at the back under some files and checked the clip while rushing back down the hallway. “Just bring in the helicopter! And get Jon on the damn phone!”
“What do you want me to tell him if I do?” she shouted after him.
“Tell him to try to hold out. Help is on the way.”
44
Outside of Washington, DC
USA
THE GRENADE HADN’T EXPLODED, which turned out to be a mixed blessing. Instead, it was rolling across an imported Oriental carpet spewing a bluish gas that Smith couldn’t identify. He held his breath and squinted in an effort to protect his eyes as Randi launched herself around and over furniture with customary athleticism. He had no idea where she was going, but she seemed to have a plan, so he followed with lungs already starting to burn. If it was a nerve agent, one breath was all it would take.
They made it to the hallway at the back of the house and Smith ducked when a sighting laser came through the window and diffused in the haze. Randi bounced off the doorjamb leading to the room she’d claimed when they arrived and immediately dropped, sliding across the polished floorboards until she slammed against the wall between the two east-facing windows. Smith hit the ground, too, staying out of the reddish beam probing above him while Randi pulled the shades. With the windows safely covered, she got to her feet again and ran for a small walk-in closet, grabbing his collar as she passed and dragging him along with her.
Despite the cramped fit—and the fact that even children consi
dered closets too obvious a place to hide—she slammed the door behind them. Smith dropped to his knees in the darkness, ripping clothes from the wall and stuffing them in the crack beneath the door. If the gas was just some kind of an irritant or anesthetic, it might help. If not, there was probably already enough in the closet to kill them. And worse, now they’d cornered themselves. Had she taken a breath? Was her judgment compromised?
There was a muffled crack of wood and suddenly the closet was bathed in the dim glow of a keypad similar to the one next to the front door. Randi’s eyes were bulging a bit from lack of oxygen as she punched a code into it.
Was it a panic button that signaled the alarm company? Had she sucked in enough gas to think a bunch of rent-a-cops were going to come riding to their rescue?
It turned out that he’d once again underestimated her obsessive thoroughness and well-justified paranoia. Instead of connecting them to ADT, the entire wall slid silently back to revealing a room of about the same size as the closet, illuminated with red emergency lighting. He crawled in after her and she slammed an open hand against a large red button. The door slid shut and Smith felt a cold breeze as a fan came to life and began flushing the tiny space with outside air. His vision was blurring from lack of oxygen and he could see Randi’s chest starting to convulse as her body tried to force her to breathe, but they just stared at each other. Both wanted to let as much gas as possible clear but, even with people trying to kill them, there was no denying that it was also a competition.
No more than five seconds passed before the breath exploded from Randi. He lasted another two before they were both desperately sucking in air that might kill them.
There was a slight chemical odor that he couldn’t place but it was probably just coming off their clothes and seemed to have no effect. It took almost a full thirty seconds before he could pull himself to his feet and look around.
A short laugh was all he could get out.
Most of the back wall was hung with combat equipment—everything from gas masks to assault rifles to knives. There was even a crossbow. Smith wasn’t quite sure what she intended to do with that.
“I told you I spared no expense,” she said, pulling her shirt over her head and starting to unbutton her pants. Feeling inexplicably uncomfortable, he turned toward a bank of video monitors while she donned the camo fatigues neatly folded on a shelf.
“Does your friend know about this?”
“To be completely honest, I may have forgotten to mention it.”
In the reflection off a monitor, he saw her finish dressing and reach for an HK416 assault rifle suspended above a row of communications equipment. A moment later he spotted movement on the top left screen.
“We’ve got a man coming for the back door. Looks like he’s getting cover from someone in the trees on the west side. I can’t see anyone in front, but I think we can be sure there’s at least one man watching the north and east aspects. Okay, the man in back is kicking the door…He’s in.”
Despite the remaining haze in the rest of the house, Smith could make out the details that mattered. The man was wearing all-black and his helmet was a familiar custom carbon-fiber rig bristling with electronics that he not only recognized, but had helped design. The rifle was an M4 carbine with a Merge-linked targeting system.
“Shit…”
“What?” she said, pulling two throat mikes off the wall and handing him one.
“They’re Merged up. Military-issue.”
“What the hell, Jon? Are you guys selling those things at Walmart?”
Smith didn’t respond, instead inserting an earpiece that now felt like the technological equivalent of a plastic cup with a string attached.
The man moved through the gloom with complete confidence, using an efficient pattern that would make it impossible for anyone to get by him.
“He knows the layout of the house. Is there any way he could have found out about this room?”
Randi shook her head. “Not unless he notices that the closet and powder room are a little smaller than they were on the architectural drawings. A friend did it for me.”
“He’s headed for the bedroom…Okay, he’s in.”
They watched the man sweep his rifle smoothly around the small space and then turn. His teammates outside would undoubtedly be following his progress with an overhead map application, probably superimposed onto the house’s floor plan.
“He’s coming our way.”
Smith grabbed a silenced pistol from the wall when the man threw the closet door open, but Randi put a hand on his wrist.
“Half-inch steel,” she explained. “Even if he somehow figures out we’re in here, it’ll take a lot more than what he’s carrying to get through.”
The man backed into the center of the room again, standing next to the bed as he reported. A microphone picked up his voice, but Smith had designed the military version of the Merge to pick up very low-level speech and he had to strain to hear.
“The house is clear. Any activity out there?” Pause. “Damn. Well, we know they didn’t leave. Let’s burn it.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” Randi said, leaning over to the monitors as the man pulled off a small pack and begin digging through it. “Tina will kill me.”
“Let’s worry about her later,” Smith said. “Can we survive the fire?”
“No way. Basically we’ve got the steel, a little insulation for sound, and some drywall. One outside source for air, but it’s just a normal duct that connects to the roof.”
“Then we’ve got to get out of here. If we move fast, maybe we can take him out and get to the window—”
“Where they’ll be waiting for us with all that supercharged infrared targeting crap you seem to be handing out at parties.”
“You have a better idea?”
She pointed to a small wheel in the ceiling that looked like a submarine hatch mechanism. “That leads to the attic. According to the blueprints, though, the only way in or out is with a ladder on the back deck. There’s a little door about three meters up.”
She stepped up onto a stool that seemed to have been purpose-built and began opening the hatch while Smith selected a Swedish-made submachine gun from the wall. When he turned back to her, the hatch was open and she was pulling herself up into it.
He followed. Once he was safely through, she went to the door she’d described and quietly moved an old pair of skis out of the way.
“The guy covering the back looked like he was about forty degrees to our left at the edge of the trees. Call it twenty meters out. We should have the element of surprise, but it’s not going to last long. The Merge will lock on and the dark isn’t going to help you. This is a daylight fight to them.”
She pointed to a brass knob on the door and then walked to the back of the attic. “You pull it. I’ll go through first. Ready?”
He grabbed hold of it and nodded hesitantly. Normally, he preferred to put a little more thought into these kinds of things but there was no time.
“Don’t land on the grill when you go,” she said. “It cost five grand.”
Randi sprinted at the door and he jerked it open at the last possible moment, hearing the roar of her assault rifle as she launched herself into the air. He went through a moment later, seeing her hit the deck and roll into the overgrown grass beyond.
Flashes from the east immediately started tracking her as she sprinted for the cover of the woods. Despite her warning, Smith clipped the grill with his ankle on the way down and landed hard on his side, slamming a shoulder into the unforgiving wood planks.
By the time he’d struggled to his feet, Randi was in the trees firing controlled bursts at the men mobilizing against them. He ran toward her, but at a slower pace than he would have liked. The damage to his ankle caused it to want to collapse every time he approached a full sprint.
Smith held the compact weapon behind him, spraying blindly and trying to coax a little more speed from his awkward gait. Cover was only ten meters ah
ead, but with Merge-equipped men behind him, it would likely prove to be ten meters too far.
45
Outside of Washington, DC
USA
DAMNIT!” SMITH SAID in a harsh whisper.
The bullet went well wide of him, but it barely missed Randi, slicing through the branches only inches from her left shoulder. She cut right, nearly losing her balance on the soft earth as she tried to put a tree between her and the shooter.
His ankle was in bad shape and combined with the weak moonlight penetrating the trees, his progress had slowed to an unsteady jog. They’d made it farther than he’d expected into the wilderness but their pursuers were gaining ground fast.
Smith turned and fired at a fading flash behind them, but when he did, his ankle finally gave out. He splayed out on the ground and a moment later a bullet that should have found its mark passed overhead.
Randi came back for him, pulling him to his feet and taking some of his body weight as they hobbled down a slippery bank toward a stream turned black by the moonlight. They dropped to their stomachs in the mud and searched behind them, but there was only the dark outline of the forest. The three men were still coming—of that there was no doubt. But they’d gone silent.
“Damn!” she said, so quietly that he barely heard despite the fact that they were lying nearly on top of each other.
Her frustration was understandable. He’d played a similar game countless times over the past months. Their opponents had heat detection, light amplification, outline enhancement, targeting, and a host of other military-specific apps. What he had was a thin polo shirt, a swelling ankle, and a pair of slick-soled penny loafers.
“I can’t keep up,” he said, lips brushing Randi’s ear in an attempt to defeat their pursuer’s audio enhancement. It would be canceling out the sound of the wind and the brook behind them, searching for any noise that could be human-generated. “I hit your damn barbecue on the way down. But even if I hadn’t, we’re outmatched.”
