by Tom Clancy
But she did know she wasn’t putting up with it any longer.
Megan had to do something!
She gave the computer the private communications code for Marcus Kovacs. That had been the one useful item of information she’d been able to dig up in all her hacking. Even with the speed of her computer, there was a bit of a time lag as the signal bounced all over the Net, even popping into sites in other countries.
Ah! There was the bleep that meant the connection had been made!
“Hello,” a drowsy voice said. Megan had aimed for a time when most normal people would be asleep.
The voice became more alert. “Why isn’t there a visual? Is there a problem?”
“I know who you really are.” Megan whispered the words, but they were nearly washed out of her own ears by the amplified voice that mimicked her speech. True to its description, it had the hoarse, gravelly tones of an old man.
“Don’t be so sure you got yourself off the hook by murdering all those people,” she went on. “I think you only postponed the inevitable. But I’m not the patient type. So I took a page from the old Iron Mike Steele playbook. When you don’t have evidence to incriminate people, just make it up and plant it on them.”
“What—?” Kovacs’s voice was sharp now. Obviously, he was fully awake. Best of all, Megan could detect a note of alarm in his voice. Time to wrap this up.
“Search all you like. You’ll never know where this little bit of information is hiding. But it will be somewhere, tick, tick, ticking away, waiting for just the right moment to wreck your life.”
She cut the connection and pulled out of the Net, bouncing through another set of cutout addresses to foil any chance of a trace.
The computer finished its program and automatically shut down. Megan flopped back against the cushions of her computer-link couch, feeling drained — and a little silly.
It would be great if she could actually do what she’d threatened. But she didn’t know how to pull off such a scam. Not only was it wildly illegal, it was impractical. She hadn’t even managed to get access to the guy’s computers.
Megan sighed, massaging her temples. But even if what she’d done was little more than an elaborate prank call, Marcus Kovacs — or rather, Mike Steele — knew his number was up. He might get away with taking people’s lives, with taking James Winters’s reputation, but he knew somebody was on to him.
At least the scuzz-bucket wouldn’t get away with his own peace of mind.
19
The next afternoon, after classes, Matt came out the side door of Bradford Academy. He was on his way to the bus, but as he glanced toward the parking lot, he saw a familiar figure.
Captain Winters stood beside what just had to be an unmarked Net Force van. Two agents sat in the front seat of the waiting Dodge SUV.
“Matt!” the captain called. “I thought we’d be able to catch up with you here.”
“What’s going on, Captain?”
“These gentlemen are just on their way to I-on Investigations to talk to Marcus Kovacs…and bring him in.”
“So the fingerprint thing turned out okay?”
“Several partial prints were recovered from the silver rattle,” Winters confirmed. “Astonishingly, they don’t bear any resemblance to the impressions in Mike Steele’s files. But they perfectly match segments of Marcus Kovacs’s fingerprints on file with the licensing authorities. That’s pretty odd, since Mr. Kovacs was still supposedly in the Balkans when I got that piece of silver. There’s no record of him ever entering the U.S. until he arrived to take over I-on. And that baby rattle has never been out of the USA.”
Once again Winters looked the very picture of a Net Force agent, every inch the hunter. “Those will be difficult enough questions for him to answer. Adding in what the Fuhrman girl told us about I-on’s activities, I think we’ll be able to put him through the wringer.”
Winters stopped for a second. “Well, not we, exactly. The gentlemen in the car will take care of that. I’m not only too close to the case to handle the investigation, I’m still on suspension.”
A cloud seemed to pass over the captain’s features, but then he smiled. “On the other hand, Jay Gridley offered you and me the opportunity to ride along — as observers, I guess you’d say. You can’t fault the man’s sense of justice. Right now neither of us has any police power. But Jay thought we might like to see the payoff on an investigation where we’ve both made so many contributions…and sacrifices.”
Gridley certainly got that right, Matt silently agreed.
He glanced at the two athletic-looking men in the van. “And it’s all right with them?”
“It’s not as though we’re going to be in at the kill. We’ll just be spectators.” Winters pointed to another car parked in the lot. “That’s mine,” he said. “We’ll just follow along, park in some inconspicuous spot, and watch as the so-called Mr. Kovacs is led off. I don’t intend to wave or call attention to myself at all. I just want to see this case through. And I thought you might like to join me, as well.”
Matt grinned. “How could I say no?” he asked.
The captain introduced him to the two Net Force operatives in the official car, Agents Grandelli and Murray. Grandelli had a face that looked more Irish than Italian, with blunt features and a hint of humor hiding in the quirk of his lips. Murray had a sort of baby face that he tried to counteract with a fierce expression. He looked as though he was working himself up to storm an enemy fortress and kill everybody inside.
They look like typecasting for good cop/bad cop, Matt thought. That was the interrogation technique where one questioner did his best to terrorize the suspect while the other tried to soften him with kindness. These two agents could probably run that exercise in their sleep.
Murray didn’t look very welcoming, restraining his greetings to a nod and a grunt.
Grandelli, however, was more talkative as he shook hands. He gave Winters a keen glance. “After all this guy put you through, are you sure you’ll be content just to stand by and watch while he gets his?”
But Winters simply shook his head. “I don’t want to do anything that will allow our friend — or any smart lawyer he might hire — to squirm out from under the case we’ve built. If that means the best I can be is an audience member for this arrest, so be it. After the events of the last few weeks, I’ll be happy just knowing my old buddy will be going through the machinery.”
“Okay,” Grandelli said. “Then let’s get this show on the road.”
Winters led Matt over to his car while the Net Force agents started their engine. By the time he had the car in gear, they were at the parking lot gate. The captain pulled in behind them and easily trailed them to the Potomac River and the bridge to Reston, Virginia.
Reston had enjoyed a building boom about the turn of the century, and boasted a modest collection of office towers located at just the right distance from D.C.
I-on Investigations had a floor in a fifteen-story building quite close to the Newseum, the museum devoted to print and broadcast media.
I guess that’s bizarrely appropriate, Matt thought. They were making broadcast history in their own weird sort of way.
Taking advantage of their authority, the Net Force operatives pulled in beside a fire hydrant right by the front door of the building. Matt noticed that Agent Murray took the precaution of displaying the Net Force seal in the front windshield.
Nothing more embarrassing than collecting a perp for questioning downtown and finding your car towed, Matt thought.
Captain Winters had to circle around a bit, finally finding a legal spot across the street. By the time he and Matt were settled, Agents Murray and Grandelli were already inside the building.
Matt noticed that Winters remained slightly crouched behind the wheel of the car, scanning everyone on the street. “Are you expecting trouble?” he asked.
“More like preparing for the unexpected,” the captain replied. “The first time I went to nab a corp
orate big shot in his lair, my partner and I were held up by his receptionist while Mr. Big ran down the stairs.”
“So what would you do if you saw Marcus Kovacs running out the door?” Matt asked.
“Stop him,” Winters said briefly.
From the way his fingers gripped the wheel of the car, that seemed to translate into “Run him over.”
Matt decided this was not the time for idle conversation. They spent several long minutes in silence, until Winters burst out, “What’s keeping them?”
That was when Agent Grandelli pushed his way out through the revolving doors…alone.
He strode over to the unmarked car, opened the door, and spoke briefly into the microphone hooked under the dashboard. Then his eyes swept the street for a moment, looking for the captain’s car. When he spotted Winters, Grandelli hustled across the street.
The captain already had his window down. “Problems?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” Grandelli admitted. “We buzzed right past the firm’s receptionist, but Kovacs’s secretary told us he’d called in this morning, saying he was taking some personal time. Kovacs’s office was empty, and his absence seemed to be for real. The executive staff is running around like proverbial headless chickens. There were supposed to be some big client meetings today, and it was clear they were failing miserably to do things right without the big man in place.”
“What now?” Winters asked.
“I left Murray upstairs to make sure no warning calls get out — he’s good at that,” Grandelli said. “Then I got on the horn to send another team over to Kovacs’s home. See if we can catch him there.” The agent hesitated for a second. “We didn’t see him as a flight risk. He shouldn’t have known this was coming.”
Matt realized that two sets of eyes were turning on him. “Hey,” he said. “Nothing came out of my mouth.”
“Yeah,” Grandelli said, a little embarrassed. “Well — I’d better get back to the radio.”
Matt and the captain sat in silence again. This time it was even more tense than when they’d been waiting to see Kovacs led out.
Pretending to shift in his seat, Matt stole a quick look at his watch. It felt as if sundown should be coming soon. Instead, only a few minutes had passed since Grandelli had spoken to him.
Matt noticed the agent was inside his car, speaking into the microphone again. When Grandelli emerged, he walked slowly across the street, a puzzled frown on his face.
“Mr. K wasn’t in his lovely condominium at the Watergate,” Grandelli reported. “In fact, nobody seems to have any idea where the heck he might be.”
“Hey, folks!” Megan O’Malley called out as she came in the door. “I’m home!”
Since both of her parents worked as freelance writers, she could usually depend on one or both of them to be around when she got back from school. A brother or two might also turn up, back from college classes.
So it was odd when she got no response. It was possible that research of some sort might have sent Mom and Dad venturing out, although the in-house library had an amazing variety of resources. The last time she’d looked, her father was simultaneously researching immigration of the 1890s, the suffragette movement to win votes for women, ghosts, and the Norman invasion of Sicily in the 1080s. What amazed her was that these were all supposed to tie up in one book.
So nobody was home? The silence was almost eerie.
Still, the situation was a little weird. The weather outside was warm, and the house air conditioners were running full blast. The folks would have turned them down, Megan knew, if they planned going out for any amount of time. Megan decided to check out the kitchen.
“Mom?” she called tentatively. He voice seemed to echo oddly in the air.
“Where’d everybody—” Her sentence broke off in a big gasp when she saw her mother on the floor. Schoolbooks tumbled from Megan’s hands and crashed on the floor tiles. She rushed in and dropped to her knees.
Thank God, she’s breathing.
No blood, Megan thought. Nor bruises, or any sort of burns or welts. It was almost as if Mom had gently lay down on the floor, curled up, and gone to sleep.
“Mom?” Megan gently shook her. “Hey, Mom!”
Her mother didn’t wake up.
Megan’s heart was thudding so hard, it was the only thing she could hear. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm as she checked her mother’s neck for a pulse. It was there, strong and steady. She needed to call for help.
Acting on a hunch, she popped out of the kitchen, and headed down the hall to the room Dad used as an office. She heard a faint beeping as she came into the room. A second later Megan staggered back, clinging to the door frame. No need to search for her father. He was home, sacked out in his computer chair. Not merely online and virtual, but completely unconscious. The noise she’d heard was a complaint from the machine, because his hands were mashing down on several key computer controls at once.
Megan’s heart was hammering away as if she were running the fifty-yard dash, and her breath came in short, shallow gasps. Spinning away from Dad’s office, she spotted one of her older brothers in the doorway of his room, on the floor — out cold.
What to do?
Three family members had keeled over. That didn’t sound like the result of bad tuna salad. Megan took a step toward the kitchen. Should she start dragging Mom out? Should she go to the living room and call Emergency Services?
No, to both questions, she decided. If this was a gas leak, or carbon monoxide, she was breathing the stuff herself. The thing to do was get out, then call for help.
She dug in her shoulder bag for her wallet-phone even as she dashed into the living room. The floor seemed spongier with every step she took. Either that, or her legs were getting rubbery.
Bad sign, Megan thought. Means whatever is in here is getting to me as well.
Her groping fingers encountered her wallet, but seemed to be having a hard time flipping aside her IDs and stuff.
Should still be set to phone mode, Megan thought fuzzily. Who had she called last? Right. Leif. Warned him that what’shisname? might be after them. Silly idea. What was the emergency code?
Inside the bag her fingers didn’t seem to belong to her anymore. They fumbled over the foilpack keypad. What should she press? What was she doing here?
That was when she spotted the figure coming toward her. A guy dressed in dark blue slacks and a matching zippered jacket. Could be casual clothes, could be some sort of delivery uniform.
The thing she really noticed was the gas mask covering his face.
Megan knew she only had one chance. She snapped a high kick at the masked intruder. At the same time she stabbed blindly down on the top row of wallet-phone keys.
For about the fifth time in the last few minutes, Megan knew something was wrong. She’d misjudged the distance her kick would have to traverse. Her foot was nowhere near the guy in the gas mask when it was time to recover.
And…she couldn’t seem to get her balance. She seemed to be flying through the air in slow motion. No, she was falling. No, the room must be turning. Was that the floor or the ceiling coming at her?
She tried to position her arms and body so they would take the force of landing on…whatever…and turn it into a roll that would bring her back to her feet.
But Megan never felt the impact. She knew her arms were drooping, her head lolling, as if all the bones had been removed from her body.
Strangely, for a brief second, the world seemed to snap into focus.
It’s the floor, she thought, seeing the rug at very close quarters.
Then everything went black.
20
Megan didn’t know how much time had passed before she regained consciousness. Slowly, though, blackness turned to misty gray, and then she opened her eyes. She found herself in a dimly lit space, on a very narrow, rather hard bed. The wall curved beside her, and the ceiling seemed very close. Megan couldn’t go far to explore her new
surroundings. One wrist was handcuffed to a railing at the edge of the bed.
The cuffs weren’t really necessary. Megan felt as if all the strength had been bled out of her muscles. And the merest motion made her head pound while starting the room spinning sickeningly. Worst of all, the room seemed to move by itself with a horrible slopping sound. Right then the room suddenly heaved up, and so did everything in Megan’s stomach.
Now she knew why the basin had been placed beside her pillow. With a supreme effort she forced her body to move, bringing her head over the side of the bunk to barf on the carpeted floor.
Too bad it wasn’t expensive carpet. That rebellious thought seemed to help clear Megan’s throbbing brain. The floor covering’s quality fell somewhere between the stuff found in offices with heavy traffic and Astroturf.
“That wasn’t very friendly.” The mild voice coming out of the dimness sounded very disappointed in her.
“Kidnapping didn’t seem very friendly to me,” Megan replied in a creaky voice. She peered into the semidarkness, finally making out an outline by the wall. Lights came on, and Megan dropped back to the pillow, feeling as if someone were hammering a spike into her head.
“It should pass in a minute,” the mild voice assured her.
Megan squinted up. The only guy she could imagine kidnapping her was Marc Kovacs-Mike Steele. But the guy in the gas mask hadn’t had Kovacs’s big mane of graying black hair. His hair had been cut businessman-short, and it was an unremarkable shade of mousy brown.
Of course, Steele had changed the color and length of his hair to become Kovacs. One thing was sure: Her captor didn’t want her to see any alterations he’d made to his face. He was wearing one of those face masks for the worst winter days, with holes for your mouth and eyes, and a sort of beak with a strainer on it for your nose. It was jokingly known as a “mugger’s comfort.” The thing must be almost unbearably hot in the warm cabin of this boat….
