And this story was far from over. If Bostic could do what he had done so effortlessly, what other feats were now possible? Operations that entire armies couldn’t accomplish could be completed by a lone man in a few days.
Bostic had suggested during one recent communication that he was now more valuable than Superman. Cochran had taken this as a joke at the time, but as he sat alone in the Oval Office at two in the morning he realized Bostic had been right. Superman was unmatched at kicking ass, but without mind reading he often wouldn’t know whose ass to kick, unable to zero in on bad actors before they acted.
As elated as Cochran felt, this last thought sent a momentary chill up his spine. Hall and Bostic had both shown that a single mind reader could be devastating to the bad actors of the world.
So just how devastating could a single bad actor who possessed this ability be to America?
Cochran had pondered this before, but the ease of Bostic’s success made him realize by just how much he had underestimated the answer.
Hall’s utter paranoia over allowing the ESP data off its leash, even for a moment, wasn’t paranoid at all. His fears of what could happen if this ability got in the wrong hands were even better founded than Cochran had realized.
“President Cochran,” said his PDA, “incoming text message from Lieutenant Craig Bostic.”
He had asked Cali to alert him whenever he received a message from any member of SEAL Team Six-and-a-half, especially its leader.
Cochran closed his eyes. “Emulate Bostic’s voice and read it to me,” he ordered.
“Starting now,” said Cali in her own voice.
“Greetings, Mr. President,” the PDA continued, her voice now indistinguishable from Bostic’s. “As you know, our four-man-team is safe in the hands of friendlies and preparing to leave for the States soon. We accomplished all of our mission objectives without suffering so much as a scratch. I would like to report that the performance of each member of the team was extraordinary, and trust that their records will reflect accordingly. They did great honor to me, the service, and their country.
“I am writing to let you know that I won’t be on the plane with them. But in case you think you can change this decision, you should know that I’m composing this message on a time delay. By the time you read this, they will be in the air, and I will be off the grid and gone. But no need to worry about my safety. I’m pretty confident I can handle myself in a rough world, without need of any of your chaperones.
“My life has changed dramatically, to say the least. Not only is this something you’re well aware of, it’s something you’ve been responsible for. One doesn’t become able to surf the Web with thoughts, and especially read minds, without needing an adjustment period. The voices in my head never stop. Ever. It’s awesome, and it’s maddening.
“I need to reassess my life. My goals. Decide if I think I can fully adjust to mind reading, or if, in time, it will drive me insane. I need time to think things through. So I will be seeking privacy and solitude to do just this.
“I have other things to consider too. For example, I had a sense while I was at the farm that you were taking pains to prevent me from reading your mind. I don’t blame you. Still, I couldn’t resist the chance to find out what you were hiding. So I did read your mind before I left for Iran. Extensively.”
“Pause message!” demanded Cochran in shock.
How had this happened?
He had begun listening in a state of peace and relaxation, a Zen state of tranquility from being awake and alone in the calm of the wee hours of the morning. But he wasn’t at peace any longer. Even the beginning of the message had been alarming, but it had just taken a giant turn for the worse.
He took a deep breath and braced himself. “Resume message,” he ordered Cali.
“Resuming now,” said Cali, and then after a pause, continued once again in Bostic’s voice.
“Reading your mind was even more eye-opening than I had expected. You have a lot going on in your head. I have to say my trip down your memory lane was a remarkable experience. I spent several hours at it, and I came upon so much fascinating and valuable material that I ended up streaming it all to a private cloud account, so I could access it later at greater length. It will take me some time to digest it all. You have as many personal secrets, and knowledge of as many national secrets, as one might expect a president to have.
“I was fascinated to learn that Nick Hall is alive and well and working for a group called THT in Utah. Based on your knowledge of what I would face as a new mind reader, I can’t say I was entirely surprised.
“I do have to admit to some disappointments, however. For example, I was what you might call, very, very, irritated to learn that you had armed my implants, adding software to give me a fatal stroke at your sole discretion. Maybe even more than just irritated. I’m sure you can appreciate my displeasure at learning that you were prepared to act as my judge, jury, and executioner.
“In case this message makes you nervous, and you’re planning to reach for your kill switch to ‘keep me under control,’ please don’t bother. I also read from your mind the incoming command that will trigger this stroke. So I took the liberty of instructing my BrainWeb PDA to block this exact command, refusing to receive it or carry it out. Simple enough to do. About the same as having your e-mail system block any message coming from an unwanted e-mail sender. Your failsafe mechanism works great, as long as the person on the other end doesn’t know about it, and doesn’t learn the command used to trigger it.
“So, like I said, I have a lot to process. When I’m finished making some life decisions, I may let you know.
“But don’t call me, I’ll call you.
“I was tempted to do my soul searching at the expense of the Iran mission, but I decided that this mission was too pressing, too important to the world, with too many lives on the line. So I hope you appreciate that I waited to go on my walkabout until after I had done the job in Iran.
“In any event, I’m signing off and getting ready to disappear from the grid. When I may reappear, if ever, is unclear—even to me.
“Please tell my team I couldn’t be prouder of the job they did. And tell them not to come looking for me.
“They know better than anyone that they have no chance of success.”
With that, Cali reported that the message had ended and fell silent.
The president threw his head back against his chair and closed his eyes. “Shit!” he shouted, to an empty office.
The Iran mission could not have gone any better. But now he was truly screwed. He had let the genie out, and the tether he had created to reel him back in again had been severed.
The genie had grown into his powers, and was no longer answering to him—or anyone.
It was the absolute worst case scenario. One that had suddenly come to life.
PART 7
Victor
49
Nick Hall was in the backseat of the Cockroach heading to yet another of what they were now calling a ninety-nine terrorists on the wall interrogation, the second since the sarin gas attack. Or what Hall could only think of as a trip to the dentist—times ten.
It was still early morning and he was mentally fresh, alert, and happy. He tried not to dwell on the grueling hours to come, when he would become spent, brain-dead, and miserable. He squeezed Megan’s hand beside him, knowing, as always, that he couldn’t do it without her.
To keep Hall as fresh as possible, they were taking the scenic route to Hill Air Force Base, taking their time and avoiding even small aggregations of humanity. It was now late September, and the never-ending mountain ranges surrounding the area were capped with bright white snow, more majestic than ever.
Lieutenant Floyd Briarwood was driving, as usual, having insisted on accompanying Hall and Megan on every one of these interrogations, but the other three bodyguards to make the trip varied. Chris Guest, tragically lost during the sarin gas attack, had yet to be replaced, and the
other two men who had been with them that day, Joey Plaskett and Kevin Wellman, were both attending to duties on base. In their place were three others from the team, men the two civilians also considered family: Lieutenant Herschel Trent and Sergeants Tim Herman and Eddie Ontiveros.
“I heard through the grapevine that Homeland is running out of top terror suspects for us,” said Briarwood, pulling onto a two-lane highway that was the only sign of civilization for miles.
“If only that were true,” said Hall wistfully.
“I’m not kidding,” replied the lieutenant. “I think it really is true. I mean, you’re so thorough that you either put these suspects away, or you clear them, so they have to give you a new set of ninety-nine each month.”
“I knew I always got a fresh batch,” said Hall, “but I never thought I was making that big of a dent.”
“You are,” said Briarwood. “And the intel you get from these guys ends up taking out far more than just ninety-nine each time.”
“We knew that, too,” said Megan. “But I think we just assumed the Jihadists were making more,” she added. “As fast as Nick took them down.”
“They’re doing their best,” said Briarwood. “But they aren’t even close to keeping up with Nick.”
Hall smiled. “Good to hear,” he said. “I was beginning to think they were inexhaustible.”
“I guess not,” said Megan happily. “And no one is as inexhaustible as you are, Nick.”
“Megan!” he sent to her telepathically, his mental tone playful, “I can’t believe you’re sharing details of our sex lives with these guys.”
“I said inexhaustible,” she sent back, “not insatiable. Two different things.”
“If I’m going to be insatiable,” he pointed out with a grin, “I need to be inexhaustible.”
He was about to send another telepathic observation to her when a malevolent thought pierced through the modest surrounding level of mental static like an ice pick.
Someone was watching them. Gaining on them in a sports car.
Hall instinctively tried to connect to Girdler and Nessie but the Wi-Fi signal had suddenly vanished. The implants had become every bit as much a part of him as his eyes or ears, and the loss of a signal was almost as rare, and troubling, as temporary blindness would have been.
“Slow down!” he said to the driver, his voice just shy of panicked.
Briarwood slowed slightly, watching him dubiously in the rearview mirror. “Another cat up a tree?” he asked.
“Anyone able to connect to headquarters?” snapped Hall, ignoring him.
Seconds later he had his answer. The rest of the men in the vehicle confirmed they were now in a communications black hole, and all were instantly stone-faced and alert.
Hall located the mind who was watching them and raced through it. “We’re in trouble!” he said ominously. “Slow as much as you can without being obvious while I learn more.”
This time Briarwood complied without hesitation, while Trent, Herman, and Ontiveros removed concealed weapons and readied them for action.
“There’s a guy following us,” said Hall after almost a full minute of mind reading. “From an ISIS sleeper cell. Activated recently. His job is to kill our signal and make sure we continue on our usual route. He’s using the same tech we ran into two months ago on the drones.”
“Is it similar,” asked Briarwood, “or the exact same tech? Did he get it from Lucas?”
“He doesn’t know its origin,” said Hall. “And Lucas still hasn’t installed a set of implants, so we don’t know all he’s been up to. My guess is that he sold this tech more broadly after killing his father. Regardless of how he got it, it’s working just fine.”
“So he’s jamming our signal,” said Eddie Ontiveros, “but to what end?”
“There’s an ambush waiting for us in about fifteen miles,” replied Hall. “If we do anything suspicious, anything that looks to the guy tailing us like we’re aware of what’s waiting, they’ll bring the ambush to us. In a hurry.”
“The Cockroach is all but ambush-proof,” said Briarwood.
Hall shook his head vigorously. “Not from this it isn’t. All hell is about to break loose. We could be inside of a tank and it wouldn’t matter. This guy trailing us doesn’t know precise details, but he has general knowledge. They aren’t just armed with assault rifles. They’ve pulled out all the stops. They know all about the Cockroach’s enhancements. They know that Nessie and her satellites are looking out for us. The ambush is completely camouflaged by some advanced stealth tech, probably something else out of Victor’s shop that his son is selling.”
“At least you’ve given us fair warning,” said Briarwood.
“But without communications, we’re still vulnerable,” said Megan. “We try to avoid the ambush and they come after us. Even if forcing them to break cover allows Nessie to see through their stealth technology, she won’t have time to get enough reinforcements here to matter.”
“How is any of this possible?” asked Tim Herman. “How could ISIS know about you, Nick?”
“They don’t,” he replied with a deep frown. “Not precisely. If they did, this guy wouldn’t be within mind-reading range. He’s taking orders from Ali Jalili, a name I’m familiar with from some of my interrogations. A higher-up in the caliphate. The guy following us and the ambush team have only been told that whoever is in this vehicle needs to die. They know about the interrogations at Hill each month. They have no idea how we’re doing it, but they’ve come to believe that we’re connected to the devastating losses they’ve been suffering lately, and the disruption of their plans in America.”
“I don’t see how they could know that,” said Herschel Trent.
“I don’t either,” said Hall. “But they do. And their ambush strategy is excellent. Fortunately, I think we’ve gotten lucky and may have a way out.”
“May have?” said Herman.
“We’ll see,” replied Hall grimly. “Floyd, I need you to take the next exit and then follow my instructions from there. Drive calmly until you reach the exit. Then I’m going to need you to set speed records. As fast as the Cockroach can go without wiping out.”
“Where are we going?” asked Briarwood.
“ISIS has taken so many losses recently,” said Hall, “that they aren’t prepared to sacrifice their ambush team. They’ve given them an exit strategy. They constructed a large steel bunker near our route over the past month. Spared no effort. Including weaponry that can be controlled by computer. Once they’ve killed us, they’ve been instructed to hightail it to this bunker before Nessie can send in the cavalry.”
“I tend to think of the phrase, ‘send in the cavalry’ to mean a force that comes to the rescue,” said Megan. “So if we’re already dead, what Nessie sends in won’t be the cavalry. More like the revenge squad.”
“Really?” said Hall, unable to stop a smile from flickering across his face. “You felt the need to point that out right now?”
“Sorry,” said Megan sheepishly.
“To repeat,” said Hall, “before Nessie can hit them with a . . . revenge squad, they’ve been told to move into the bunker to escape. Requires a password for entry. Once they’re all in the room is hermetically sealed. Pretty impenetrable.”
“Won’t help them for long,” said Briarwood. “Nessie will know where they are. They’d just make themselves sitting ducks. Granted, they’d be ducks sitting under a steel shell, but they still wouldn’t survive.”
Hall shook his head. “They’ve thought this through,” he said. “There’s a tunnel in the center of the bunker. While our forces are trying to find the best way to breach, and taking computer-controlled fire, they’re escaping, emerging somewhere our people aren’t expecting, and going on their merry way inside stealth ground transportation.”
“Let me guess,” said Briarwood. “Your plan is for us to use this escape hatch instead. Is that it?”
“Exactly. I’ve read the location and the
password needed to enter. We just have to make it there before they can attack. Nessie will see the Cockroach taking a detour and investigate. We just have to hold out underground until she can send help.”
“I have to admit,” said Eddie Ontiveros, “the idea of stealing their escape plan really works for me.”
Briarwood was quickly nearing the exit, his driving measured. The calm before the storm. Once the terrorists knew they were veering off course, they’d have only a few minutes to reach their destination.
“Tighten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen,” he said as he rolled onto the off ramp, still in the middle of nowhere. “The ride is about to get a little more . . . wild.”
50
Troy Browning had made more progress in only a month than he ever could have hoped for.
The mind reading brought on by the implants, and the implants themselves, were extraordinary beyond measure, the power and possibilities they brought immense.
The first few days had been brutal, but he had tamed his mind reading and learned to reduce the blaring, discordant orchestra of thoughts in his head, far faster than the president’s man had done, as evidenced by the calls between Bostic and Cochran he had intercepted.
Browning had become fascinated with the man named Victor since their first meeting and had been studying him ever since, hacking into computers the old-fashioned way, even before mind reading, to learn everything the authorities knew of him. And his study had accelerated many fold once he had implants and mind reading in place.
The more he learned, the more impressed with Victor he became. The man had a massive organization and was a master of many things, including staying off the grid. He had set up any number of remote bases around the world, specializing in islands. But even in the US he had found a way to hide and isolate himself, the same way Browning wanted to do in order to wait out the coming storm that he would bring about.
Victor’s bases in the US had a similar theme. He bought huge tracts of land, either deep within America’s vast wilderness—which most Americans, living in cities and suburbs, had no real conception of, hundreds of thousands of square miles in total—or on farmland. He would quickly have several structures built, establishing a small living and working quarters for himself and close associates, and then several others for the numerous soldiers on his payroll.
MindWar (Nick Hall Book 3) Page 28
