by Ward Larsen
“I don’t know,” replied DeBolt, “maybe. But I know she’ll try to help me.”
They were in the kitchen, the colonel boiling a pot of water to make instant coffee. They all needed a lift. “How much did you tell her?” he asked.
“Most of what I told you. She knows about the META Project. Knows you guys were tracking me.”
“But you didn’t give her any specifics on us?”
“Didn’t see a need for it.”
Freeman nodded, and said, “Thanks for that.” He searched through a cabinet, and pulled out a handful of sweetener packets, all either red or blue. “Damned feds—doesn’t anybody use real sugar anymore?” He pulled two coffee cups out of a different cupboard, and winced slightly as he set them down. Freeman flexed his hand open and closed, and looked accusingly at DeBolt. “My arm is still sore from when you whacked me with that damned fencepost.”
“It was a rail from the staircase—and if I hadn’t done it you would have shot me.”
“I still might if you piss me off.”
“So you don’t know anything about META?” DeBolt asked.
“Never heard of it. Our only contact was Benefield, and like I told you, the mission brief he gave us was about a terrorist plot involving biological agents.”
“But he never told you who was behind it?”
“He said it was domestic, not Middle Eastern. Looking back, he’d have to say that, wouldn’t he? You’d never pass for a Paki or a Saudi. Nobody working on this project would have.”
DeBolt nodded. “So you didn’t even know our names?”
“No. We were given the locations of the strikes, and a photograph of each target. There should have been more—I should have demanded it. Now the whole thing has been shuttered the hard way, Benefield included.”
“And you guys had nothing to do with that?”
The two exchanged a hard look.
“Benefield?” Freeman replied. “You’re accusing me of murdering my commanding officer?”
DeBolt shook his head. “Sorry—I guess I’m a little desperate. But if not you, then—” He was cut off when the lights suddenly went out.
The room fell to a frozen silence, until Freeman said, “Did you—”
“No!” DeBolt cut in. “It wasn’t me!”
A muffled thump sounded from the living room.
“Trigger?” Freeman called out.
There was no response. The darkness wasn’t absolute—an emergency floodlight, obviously battery powered, sputtered to life somewhere out back. It cast in through the windows, channels of light amid shadowed voids. A glow from a distant streetlight shone pale through the front windows, creating a no-man’s-land of illumination in the adjacent dining room. DeBolt saw Freeman glide silently toward the dining room, a gun materializing in his hand. “Randy!” he barked.
Nothing.
Freeman backed up to one side of the wall at the dining room entrance, and with rapid hand motions he pointed to the opposite side. DeBolt rushed over and put a shoulder to the wall.
The colonel peered around the corner, and whispered, “Shit!”
DeBolt ventured a look. In the living room he saw one of the other men—he couldn’t say who—splayed motionless across the couch. The sheen that glistened over his face and upper body was colorless in the dim light, but he knew it could only be red.
Freeman looked again at DeBolt, and was raising his hand for another command when all hell broke loose. The wall near Freeman exploded in a hail of gunfire. The colonel fell back, clattering to the floor, then scrambled onto his knees, still gripping the handgun. He was moving low in the doorway when a massive figure lunged through. Freeman was sent flying, and the two men slammed into a dinette, chairs and table legs splintering under their combined weight.
They began grappling in close quarters, and DeBolt dove into the fray, trying to disable the bigger man’s arms. A shot rang out, but nothing seemed to change. DeBolt had one of the attacker’s arms barred, but it was like trying to hold back a lever in some immense machine. Freeman suddenly rolled clear, and the assailant turned his attention to DeBolt, lifting him completely off the ground in a wrestler’s move and throwing him across the room. DeBolt slammed into a row of cabinets and fell to the floor stunned.
Another shot rang out, and this time DeBolt looked up to see the big man holding a gun and Freeman sinking to his knees. Clutching his chest, the colonel toppled face-first onto the tile and went still. The killer stood rigid and alert, his chest heaving like a steel-mill bellows. He was broad and powerful, his bald head glistening in a channel of light.
Freeman remained motionless, and DeBolt saw no sign of the other team members. That quickly, he was again alone. The attacker had his gun raised, fixed on DeBolt’s chest with only the narrow kitchen island between them. The man knew he was physically superior, and that DeBolt would have drawn a weapon if he had one. He had every advantage. So DeBolt did the only thing he could in that instant. He stood perfectly still. Anyone who didn’t know him would have viewed it as surrender. He waited for the gun to waver, for the man’s stance to relax. Neither happened.
With the lights already out, DeBolt could think of no electronic trick, no distraction he could manufacture using META. Without shifting his gaze, he tried to be aware of what was around him. He saw one possibility—on the front burner of the stove, the pot of water that had been on a rolling boil seconds ago, before the power had been cut. With his eyes locked on his attacker, DeBolt searched for the pot’s handle in his peripheral vision—which way was it facing? Such a simple thing two minutes ago. Now his life depended on it. He caught a glimpse—the handle was at the pot’s four-o’clock position from where he stood. Good. Not perfect, but good. All he needed was an opening.
“Who the hell are you?” DeBolt asked.
The man’s lips seem to quiver, as if he might speak, but nothing came. He raised a finger, telling DeBolt to wait. I’ll be with you in a minute.
Was he mad?
No. He was too determined, too efficient. DeBolt saw what he’d done to Freeman, and the man in the living room. He knew why no other team members had responded to the melee. This assassin had single-handedly defeated five of the most lethal soldiers on earth. DeBolt stood waiting, willing the man to come just a bit closer. Then the most incredible thing happened.
In the heat of battle, amid the killing and the blood, DeBolt had ignored the screen in his head. Now, for no apparent reason, it flickered to life with three words that stunned him to the core. He looked at the monster five steps away, then again at the message.
The man seemed to understand. He knew. DeBolt’s obvious bewilderment made his victory complete. And maybe it was.
Then out of nowhere, an unexpected intervention. Freeman, who’d gone still on the floor, whipped out his arm. It was a feeble blow, striking the killer in the leg and imparting no damage. But it served its purpose. The big man reacted instinctively, arcing his gun low toward the downed Green Beret colonel.
DeBolt didn’t hesitate.
He grabbed the pot, took one step toward his adversary, and flung the scalding water. It splattered across the killer’s face and he screamed—only it wasn’t a scream at all, but rather a massive exhalation of air, surprise and pain venting from his body in a surreal hissing sound. His hand went to his face, and temporarily blinded he let loose a wild shot.
DeBolt was already moving. He swung the cast-iron pot with all his might, a blow that glanced off the killer’s shooting arm. This time he grunted in pain, but his movements soon organized, and he shoved DeBolt away with his other arm.
DeBolt stumbled as shots splintered cabinets above his head. He ran for the dining room, turned the corner, and dove straight at the big window with his arms outstretched. He was in midair when more shots came, grouped in pairs, and the window shattered the instant before he struck it. Crystalline shards exploded all around him. He landed in a heap outside, tumbling through dirt. DeBolt scrambled to his feet, pushed th
rough shrubs, and ran for the road.
He passed the Explorer and saw Baumann and Stevens on the ground, blood pooled beneath their lifeless bodies. He looked back and saw the big man vaulting through the window. DeBolt had a fifty-foot head start—not much, but a difficult shot with a handgun against a moving target. He cut randomly left and right, like a halfback juking linebackers, hoping to make himself even harder to track. It seemed to work. No more shots came.
He ventured another look back and saw the man giving chase. His next glance, a hundred yards later, was more satisfying. The gap was increasing. The killer had every advantage but one—speed. DeBolt didn’t let up, his stride steady, his lungs heaving. Something splashed into his eye, and he looked down and saw his right arm covered in blood. He kept going, made a few turns, and soon the killer was no longer in sight. His pace slowed, but only slightly, survival instinct driving him forward. He considered whether Colonel Freeman might still be still alive. Doubtful, to be sure, but he had to help if he could. Then DeBolt heard a siren approaching, and he realized the colonel’s fate, for better or worse, was out of his hands.
He was a mile clear when his thoughts regained order. Only then did he realize that the message, the one that had set him reeling, was still fixed in his visual field. It was there because nothing had taken its place, but might as well have been branded for eternity. It was an answer to the question he’d spoken to the killer, a query intended as nothing more than a distraction: Who the hell are you?
Out of nowhere, a three-word reply had arrived. An answer so startling, so outlandish in how it had arrived, that it displaced the world around him. Delivered by META, three words DeBolt could never have imagined:
I AM DELTA.
40
DeBolt had no idea how long he’d been running. Fifteen minutes? Twenty? He kept moving in the same general direction, twisting through a labyrinth of neighborhood streets until he reached a dated commercial district. His pace was slowing, his body beginning to protest. Still, he couldn’t stop looking over his shoulder.
His left arm was covered in blood, and as adrenaline wore off the pain sank in. His arm, a battered shin, his ribs on one side—all had taken a beating somewhere in the melee. His lungs were straining, heaving, magnifying the ache in his rib cage. DeBolt at least took solace in the fact that he’d been here before, at the limits of physical endurance: in both training and real-world ops, he had pushed himself to the edge countless times. He knew his body and its signals. That being the case, when one leg began cramping, he knew it was time to let up.
He stopped in the shadow of a high wall, slumping against the stone and feeling the cold on his back. He closed his eyes, allowing his mind the same chance to reset. He had to think, had to recover. After a few minutes, with the world coming right, he opened his eyes. DeBolt took one cautious scan all around. He saw no sign of Delta.
Even better, he saw exactly what he needed a hundred yards up the street.
* * *
It was a typical convenience store, an older building with broad plate-glass windows across the front, crass advertisements for beer and lottery tickets displayed in every one. Best of all, a sign above the entrance attested that the store was OPEN ALL NIGHT.
DeBolt approached slowly, trying to time his arrival. Through the windows he saw the restroom sign, and he waited outside until the clerk had a line at the register. He wanted a straight shot down an aisle where there were no other customers. DeBolt wasn’t going to do anything illegal, but his appearance was bound to draw attention, and he didn’t want anyone calling the police.
When he saw three people in line, he made his move, keeping his back to the checkout stand and cradling his injured arm close to his chest as he made his way to the men’s room. Once inside, he locked the door and leaned over the washbasin. He paused there, once again allowing shock to run its course.
In the harsh fluorescent light he saw the wound, a deep gash on his left forearm. There was no way around it this time—he was going to need stitches. Was there a 24/7 clinic nearby? A place that wouldn’t ask questions? Possibly, if he paid in cash up front and created a plausible excuse. A broken window, he thought. When Freeman had returned his burner phone, he’d also given back the wad of cash they’d confiscated—done it without so much as a questioning look. DeBolt decided the colonel and his team were probably accustomed to working with rolls of cash. Or had been. Five experienced operators, all dispatched by Delta. DeBolt pushed that thought away, discomforting as it was. He tried to be glad for his foresight—since leaving the Calais Lodge he’d made a point of keeping cash in his pockets.
The lessons I’m learning.
He cleaned the wound at the sink using water and paper towels. When he was done, he looked into a blood-soaked trash bin and fleetingly wondered how much of it was Shannon Lund’s. He scrubbed his shirtsleeve until it was no longer red, but simply wet, and finally took stock: a few other cuts and abrasions, but nothing worrisome. He tested his injured arm, flexing and grimacing, but knowing it would heal.
DeBolt leaned into the basin and splashed cold water on his face. For the first time he looked in the scratched mirror. He looked haggard and stressed, which wasn’t altogether unfamiliar—it was how he usually looked after a long helo mission. The difference, of course, was that helo ops were finite, limited on any given day by fuel supply. The duration of his new assignment was measured in a far more fundamental way—how long could he stay alive? DeBolt recalled friends kidding him about being an adrenaline junkie. Backcountry skiing, rescue missions, big wave surfing. That all seemed laughable now, child’s play compared to being hunted.
He dried his face, finger-combed his choppy postoperative haircut as best he could. DeBolt then input a command: Emergency clinic nearby.
The answer came quickly, mercifully, and Delta’s unsettling three-word response was finally supplanted by something useful. An address and a map came into view. Six blocks east.
He unlocked the bathroom door and walked outside into a deepening night.
* * *
DeBolt was right about the walk-in clinic. He gave them a name but didn’t have ID. He admitted to a few beers before he’d broken the damned window. He got questions and hard stares, but the spirit of Hippocrates carried the day, and they stitched him up and took his cash, and half an hour later he was back on the street with his arm properly bandaged.
His next stop was an all-night chain pharmacy where he purchased extra gauze and tape, along with a pullover hoodie to cover his filthy shirt. That done, he looked presentable, and he diverted to the Starbucks next door because he wanted to think and get out of the cold. And because a shot of caffeine never hurt. He found himself wondering loosely how that might interact with META. Would a double shot of espresso send his mind into hyperdrive?
He settled at a table with a simple cup of hot coffee. It felt warm between his hands, and the aroma was soothing. DeBolt tried to design a plan, tried to think forward. He always ended up in the same cul-de-sac. The META Project. There was a peculiar comfort in knowing he was not alone: Delta too had survived the surgery. If the kitchen hadn’t been so dark, DeBolt knew he would have seen the telltale scars on the man’s bald head. A vicious killer, no doubt with a military background, who had the same abilities he possessed.
Were there others? he wondered. Alpha and Charlie? Zulu, for God’s sake? Was there an army of men like Delta roaming the world? DeBolt saw countless divergences between Delta and himself. He was trained to rescue, Delta to kill. There was but one overriding commonality: META. A project whose creators were seemingly being eliminated en masse, the only residue being its product—at least two highly altered individuals.
He considered the manner in which Delta had communicated with him, some direct, inter-META link that DeBolt knew nothing about. He might be able to figure it out, but did he want to? And what else didn’t he know? Did his requests for information compromise his position? Could he be tracked like a cell phone, his position
triangulated? He looked around the coffeehouse, then out into the darkness beyond. How much more did Delta know? Where was he now? The uncertainty was demoralizing, dark, and confining. Like a box closing in from all sides.
There was only one place to get answers. If any of META’s designers remained alive, DeBolt had to find them. He tried to consolidate his thoughts into one desperate request. After considerable deliberation, he settled on: Need information on META. Are there any surviving creators?
He waited for a reply.
Nothing came.
The first threads of despair began to envelop him. DeBolt was accustomed to physical challenges. He knew how to recover a lost line in the sea. How to stay warm in subzero temperatures. How to bring back a human heartbeat. But this—the interminable waiting, relying on the whims of some unseen computer before taking action. It was counter to everything he had ever done. Everything he had ever been. He needed META more than ever, and he hated it for that reason.
He finished his coffee, and still nothing came. DeBolt went back to the counter for a refill, this time adding a pastry. He should have been hungry, yet his appetite was nonexistent, quelled by the trauma and fatigue of the last days. He was wiping a blob of sugar from his lip when, quite literally out of thin air, an answer struck into view:
META CHIEF PROGRAMMER, DR. ATIF PATEL
CURRENT LOCATION: VIENNA, AUSTRIA
41
Lund was on an airplane, but she wasn’t heading west. She’d bought a ticket on the last southbound shuttle to Washington, D.C., and first thing tomorrow morning she would visit the Coast Guard’s national headquarters, the St. Elizabeths campus on the southeast side of town.
As she sat in a middle seat deep in coach, Lund finished off a much-needed beer and mentally mapped out how she could best help DeBolt. There seemed only one good lead—the suspect Jim Kalata had uncovered while investigating William Simmons’ climbing accident. Douglas Wilson of Missoula, Montana. Was he one of the men who’d abducted her and DeBolt that morning? Possibly. Kalata thought Wilson might have traveled from Vienna to Alaska, intent on killing a man who’d been asking too many questions about DeBolt. Lund thought her partner might have that much right.
