Undetectable (Great Minds Thriller)

by M. C. Soutter

  Elias, confident that he had successfully made his report to the nearest possible adult, stepped back to give Mr. Brooks space. He liked what Mr. Brooks had said. Frankly, he did feel like a hero.

  Kevin scanned the contacts list: “Doctor,” “Assistance,” “Secondary,” “Central,” and “Tracking.” He could remember feeling confused by these names, but now they all made perfect sense to him. He pushed the contact labeled “Assistance” and held the phone to his ear. There was an immediate answer.

  “Go.”

  “Give me ambulance and fire on Lexington. You’ve got three south-bound white Ford vans, slow them down but do not try to stop them. I want a funnel until 56th, then an apparent road block, use the fire engines. Let the first van break through, that’s LPN with a trailing 033. Let them keep going south. Divert number two west on 57th, then north on Park. That’s LPN with last three digits 464, and I don’t give a shit about number three. Do the northbound re-direct with lights, do you understand? No barrier, just traffic flow. Keep Park Avenue on permanent green and they’ll merge uptown to keep moving. I’ll take it from there.”

  “Got it.”

  Kevin returned the phone to his pocket, and then he turned and began jogging back the way he had come, toward Park Avenue.

  “Are you going to rescue Anselm?” Elias called.

  “Yes,” Kevin called over his shoulder.

  Elias smiled. “Okay, good.”

  A Single Shot Through The Window

  Kevin ran back past the main entrance. Danny was still there on the ground, surrounded now by a throng of students trying to help him, and Kevin didn’t slow down. He kept running until he came to Park, then turned left and headed downtown. He could hear the sound of sirens on Lexington, which was good. People were doing their jobs. He ran another three blocks south, to 71st street, and then he stopped at the south-east corner and took out his cell phone.

  Again he pushed the “Assistance” contact.

  “Go.”

  “I want the lights.”

  “Hold on.”

  Kevin waited for a minute, watching the steady stream of yellow taxi cabs pass by. A few of them hesitated when they saw him standing there, hoping for a fare, but Kevin waved them on.

  The person on the other end came back. “Okay, what – ”

  “Put it on the phone,” Kevin said.

  “One second.”

  Another cycle of lights. Another wave of taxi cabs.

  “All set. You’ll see it. Grid.”

  Kevin ended the call and brought the phone back to its main screen. He found the new program tile, a little icon of a red traffic light with the word “Grid” underneath. He pushed it, and his screen lit up with a layout of the whole city. He was able to zoom in, select any intersection or group of intersections, and then toggle the traffic lights there from red to yellow to green, with any order or timing he wanted.

  He crossed onto the median strip of Park Avenue, walked half-way down so that he was between 71st and 72nd street, and then he held out his hand. A taxi appeared beside him almost at once. The driver looked puzzled to be picking up a passenger from the no-man’s land of the Park Avenue median, but all he asked when Kevin climbed in was “Where to?”

  “Sit right here,” Kevin said. The man turned and gave him a questioning glance, but Kevin shook his head. “We’ll double the meter,” he said. “And if you get a ticket I’ll give you a thousand dollars.”

  The driver shrugged and put his hands back on the wheel. The thousand dollars for a ticket was an empty promise – the cops usually left Park Avenue alone in the mornings – but doubling the meter was better than nothing. He shifted the transmission into park and relaxed.

  Kevin took out his phone, called up the contacts list, and then hit “Tracking.”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you have the second van? It’s LPN 646, should be north-bound on Park by now.”

  “We don’t have eyes yet.”

  “What? Why not? Get a helicopter in the air.”

  “It’s restricted airspace. It’s Manhattan.”

  “This is level seven, are you kidding? Get the – ”

  “We don’t control the air force. They haven’t been briefed, and they’ll shoot us down before that information can – ”

  “So get shot down, I don’t care. In the meantime, give me a location, tell me something.”

  A pause.

  “Spotters on the ground have the van at 63rd street ten seconds ago. Heading north on Park Avenue. Fifteen seconds ago. Eighteen seconds – ”

  “Quiet,” Kevin said, ending the connection. He brought up the traffic control application again, and then he twisted around in his seat to watch the approaching traffic.

  He had a brief moment of uncertainty in which he thought the van might already have passed, but then he saw it. Three blocks away, and in no apparent rush. Just another white van on its way to a construction site or a fish market or a flower shop. It was in the middle lane, right where Kevin wanted it. He selected the intersection at 72nd street, waited another moment, and then switched the light to yellow. Then to red.

  The van came to a gentle, panic-free stop behind the two cars in front of it. Kevin could almost read the driver’s thoughts: no one seemed to be chasing them, and there was nothing at all on the police frequencies. Plus, the first van was busy speeding through intersections as fast as it could, doing its best to draw attention. Everything was going perfectly.

  There was no reason to risk breaking any rules.

  You came to a red light, you stopped like anybody else.

  One car length behind and to the left of the van, Kevin stepped calmly from his taxi. He pulled Danny’s semi-automatic Smith & Wesson .45 from his back belt loop, walked up to the driver’s side door, and fired a single shot through the window. The bullet went straight through the man’s temple. He slumped over without a word, instantly dead, and Kevin brought the gun down quickly and fired a shot into the left front tire, which ruptured and went flat at once. The van canted forward, leaning over on the wheel’s now unprotected rim, but in the next moment the vehicle leapt away and turned as if it had been stung, smashing its way between the cars in front of it. Kevin danced out of the way, and then he sprinted for the side of the building on the east side of the street, his gun still out. The van broke into the intersection and then pulled a hard right, heading east onto the cross street between Park and Lexington.

  Okay, good, Kevin thought. Operating on remote control now, as expected.

  Kevin focused on his breathing, counting deliberately so that he could accurately gauge his timing. The no-pursuit illusion had been dispelled, and strategies were being re-evaluated. He would have to be very precise.

  He counted.

  One. They’ll need to neutralize whoever, two, just took out the driver – me – which means the doors, three, should be opening… now. And letting out, four, ground forces… now. And one of them should be, five, coming to the south side of the building…

  Now.

  Kevin stepped around the corner and fired in one quick motion, and the man there was flung backward just as he was settling into position.

  But he’s not the only one. And his backup will see me…

  Now.

  Kevin scurried away from the building as the wall erupted in a barrage of machine-gun fire. He dove for the curb, and took cover behind the line of cars parked there.

  Second man on the far side of the street. Much better weapons. Maybe a G36 or a TAR-21.

  He peered carefully over the hood of the car he was behind, ignoring the whine of bullets zipping past him. The white van was still there, idling in the street. Its back doors were still open.

  A trap.

  It was fully controlled, which meant they – whoever they were – had decided to leave the doors open.

  They want me to jump in there. They’ll close the doors on me, lock me in, and then I won’t be able to shoot any more tires. Then they can just driv
e to a midway point, execute me, and continue on their way.

  He waited for the machine-gun fire to pause, which would be his cue to run to the van.

  The machine-gun fire paused.

  Kevin shut his eyes, plugged up his ears, and used the moment to go through every other conceivable scenario. It took several minutes, but not as far as the rest of the world was concerned. The clocks stopped.

  No, this is my only shot. There are other scenarios, but too many of them end with Anselm dumped into the East River.

  He opened his eyes, came out from cover, and sprinted for the van. The second man resumed firing, herding Kevin through the doors like a shepherd who had swapped his whistle for a machine gun. Kevin landed with a thump on the floor of the van. His eyes adjusted to the dimness, and there was Anselm. He was strapped to the side wall of the van like a fragile piece of furniture. His arms, legs, and mouth were securely taped.

  The doors of the van swung closed immediately, and the vehicle sped away, its front left tire rim bouncing and gnawing into the pavement. It was not a smooth ride.

  “Good morning, Anselm,” Kevin said into the newly dark cargo space.

  There was a muffled reply.

  “I know,” Kevin said. “We’re trapped. That’s all right. They’ll have to switch you into a different vehicle shortly, which will require, as a first step, opening the doors and shooting me.”

  Anselm did not try to reply this time. The scenario Mr. Brooks had outlined did not sound all right.

  “You’ll be fine,” Kevin said. “I’m ready for this.”

  A Complication

  Kevin held up his cell phone to give himself some light. He found the switch for the overhead lamp and turned it on. That piece of the van, at least, did not seem to be under the control of whoever was currently driving. Now that he could see, he took a minute to un-tie and un-tape Anselm.

  “You have a gun,” Anselm said when his mouth was free, as if pointing out an asset Kevin might not yet have considered.

  “Yes, but they’ll have lots of guns.”

  “Who will?” Anselm’s nose and face still bore the cuts and bruises from his two run-ins with Jimmy Fleiss, but his expression was one of simple curiosity. He might have been asking Kevin to give him a new programming challenge. Remember those tricky problems you said you were going to give me? What happened to those?

  “Whoever’s waiting for us when we get there,” Kevin said. “They’ll have big guns. Assault rifles, probably fully automatic. M4 Carbines at the very least. Or the equivalent, depending on who we’re dealing with.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Kevin shrugged. “I don’t know, but we’ll be there soon. This van has a good engine, but even with independent front suspension it’s going to break something soon if we try to go much farther on that blown tire. They probably have a staging point close by, and they’ll have to re-set before they open up a line of communication. Thankfully, I’d say we’re on their third or fourth contingency by now, so there shouldn’t be too many people at this site.”

  “But they’ll have guns?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the subject.”

  “On which subject?”

  “All of them.” Kevin waved a hand to move on. “Listen, I need to ask you: do you have a mom?”

  Anselm looked taken aback. “Everybody has a mom.”

  “Does she live in the city with you, or does she stay with your dad?”

  “In the city. Lately I don’t see my dad that much. He’s working on something really important, I think.”

  Kevin nodded. “Okay, what about brothers and sisters?”

  “Nope. It’s just me.”

  “All right. Sorry about this.” Kevin took out his cell phone again, and he pressed the contact labeled “Central.”

  “Yes?”

  “Did they take his mother?”

  “Hold on.”

  Kevin glanced at Anselm, whose expression had quickly turned to one of real fear. Being tied up and kidnapped was unpleasant, certainly, but Mr. Brooks was here, after all. And Mr. Brooks said everything was going to be all right. The idea that his own mother might be going through a similar experience, on the other hand, was unbearable. Mr. Brooks couldn’t be everywhere at once. Who would save her?

  “Yes,” the voice from Central came back. “They’ve got her.”

  Kevin managed to avoid cursing into the phone, but he had to close his eyes for a second. And Anselm saw. He knew.

  If they’ve got them both, we’re in serious trouble.

  “Can you get her back?”

  “One second.”

  He looked again at Anselm, who was crying quietly and watching Kevin with his clear, hyper-intelligent eyes. Waiting to see how Mr. Brooks would react when the answer came back to this last question. This very important last question.

  “We can,” the voice replied. “She fought them well, slowed them up. We’ve got them pinned down and surrounded.”

  Kevin allowed his face to relax, though this news did not sound like a guarantee. “How long?”

  “What do you need?”

  Kevin considered. “Seven minutes at most. The quicker the better.”

  “Okay. We’re on it.”

  “Listen, ring my phone when she’s secure. Ring it loud.”

  “Yeah.”

  Kevin put the phone away, and he turned to Anselm. “Everything really is going to be all right now,” he said, leaving the rest of his explanation unsaid.

  When I told you it was going to be all right before, I was making that up. But now I’m giving it to you straight.

  Anselm nodded up at him seriously.

  I had a feeling, his eyes said.

  Kevin squatted down on the floor of the van, and he closed his eyes. “Give me a second to think,” he said, plugging up his ears.

  It didn’t work. The naked steel rim of the front left tire was now scrapping the pavement so loudly that time refused to wait. There would be no stalling anymore. Kevin opened his eyes, looked at Anselm watching him, and suddenly he realized that he didn’t need to stall. He knew what was happening, and he knew what was going to happen. The information was all there in his head, simple as could be. You could read as many textbooks as you wanted on advanced game theory and negotiation tactics and cognitive psychology and multi-target fire fights, but none of it would matter very much in the end.

  He was going to get shot.

  The problem, of course, was that getting shot was not going to be enough. Sacrifice was not going to be enough. He would need some help to save Anselm. Something good would have to happen. Something unexpected, something the books couldn’t tell you about.

  “Anselm, do you have a favorite song?”

  “What?”

  “Or a poem, something your mother used to say to you before bed?”

  Anselm thought for a moment. “Sure.”

  “Okay. When this is over, I’m probably going to have a bullet or two in me – ”

  “No, you said it was going to be all right.”

  “It will be all right. I’m not going to die.”

  Possibly bullshit.

  “But when I’m lying there, you’re going to want to help, because I know you’re helpful. People are going to come find us, and they’ll help me, so don’t worry about it. But until then, what I’ll need from you is that song or poem or whatever you’ve got. Just come over and say it to me, again and again until the medical folks show up. Whatever you do, don’t stop talking. You’re going to help me pass the time, and that’s really important if I’m lying there with metal in me. Got that?”

  Anselm nodded silently. “I got it.”

  “All right. I think we’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Mr. Brooks?”

  “Yes, Anselm?”

  “What’s wrong with these people?”

  Kevin smiled sadly at Anselm. I
t was a question that would have taken a long time to address, and even then the answer would not have been satisfying. “I think they’re scared of your dad.”

  “But my dad’s nice.”

  “I know.”

  “And anyway, why’d they throw me into a van?”

  Kevin shook his head. “Because they’re not nice.”