by Ty Patterson
One of the negotiating team gestures to Connor, and he asks, ‘How do I know they’re even alive?’
‘Mr. Balthazar, what good would they be to me dead? Wouldn’t I lose my negotiating strength? I’m guessing that you’re surrounded by the FBI, who are guiding you, and you have profilers looking over your shoulder reading into every voice inflection of mine.
‘Is my friend Isakson there? Hello, Isak? I know you’re there, and I know you were stringing me along. But guess what, asshole? I was stringing you along, too. Most of the shit I gave you was so old and useless that it had even stopped stinking. But I guess you guys are so desperate to find the Ts under any and every rock that you’ll bend over and spread ’em for anyone who sings about them.’
Isakson’s face becomes thunderous, and his agents shift uneasily, but he keeps quiet.
Broker is studying his laptop, trying to locate where the signal is coming from.
Holt’s voice hardens. ‘Oh, and, Mr. Balthazar, who does the exchange is important. If you want to see your wife and son again, then Carter is the one I want to bring all your shit to me. I’m betting he’s there right now. Why don’t you put him on?’
Connor looks up helplessly at Zeb, who steps forward and takes the phone.
‘Holt?’
‘Ah, Major. We meet again, if this can be called a meeting.’
‘The first time was also not a meeting. You turned tail while I was dispatching your friends.’
Holt pauses. ‘The past. Let’s plan the exchange. Tomorrow afternoon at Grand Central. You alone, with my criminal record in a manila envelope.’ He chuckles. ‘And you can take the lovely Mrs. Balthazar and the brat back.’
‘Penn Station. The exchange will be at Penn,’ Zeb counters.
Holt laughs incredulously. ‘Back up, Major. Read the script. I’m the one with the hostages. You do as I say.’
Zeb hangs up. He looks at Broker, who mouths silently, ‘Some more time.’
Isakson strides to Zeb and shoves him away from the phone.
A blur of motion too fast for Connor to register and Isakson is lying on his back with Zeb’s foot on his throat.
Bear and Broker have cornered Isakson’s agents.
After a tense second, Zeb takes his foot off Isakson and pulls him up. He turns his back on the FBI agent, allowing him to gather himself, his dignity, and lower the tension in the room.
When Zeb turns back to them, he behaves as if he hadn’t dumped Isakson on his ass, and they all take that cue.
Broker goes back to his laptop, and Bear leaves the room.
Connor swallows his shock and asks Zeb, ‘Why did you hang up? Aren’t you risking my family by this? Wouldn’t it have been better to continue talking so that the FBI could trace his call?’
‘He’ll call back.’
‘Like fuck he will,’ replies Isakson angrily.
‘Boss, he did the right thing, not giving Holt control,’ pipes up a diffident voice, one of the profilers.
Isakson whirls on him just as Broker murmurs, ‘And these guys are supposed to protect us?’
‘I heard that,’ Isakson shouts, ‘and anyway, what are you doing in that corner?’
The phone rings. ‘Don’t fucking hang up on me, you bastard! Who the fuck do you think you are?’ Holt shouts.
Zeb hangs up again.
The third call comes less than a minute later.
‘You want to see these two dead? You know what I’m capable of!’
‘I am least interested in the two of them. I’m here just because you asked for me and I know Mr. Balthazar. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a dead man walking. You have run out of fuel and are running on fumes.’
He hangs up again, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see Broker nodding.
Isakson is peering over the shoulders of his tech guys to see if they’ve triangulated the call. From his expression he can see that the agents aren’t having much luck. Broker, on the other hand, uses tech that’s a few years ahead of the FBI or the NSA or any other agency. Broker buys start-ups that specialize in security and surveillance, takes them off the market and then uses them in his business.
The phone rings again.
‘You had better not ring again if you have any stupid demands to make,’ Zeb tells him and looks across at Connor, who is drawing in a shocked breath.
There is silence from Holt then. ‘What do you want?’
‘The exchange will be tomorrow evening at Penn Station.’ Zeb names the exact location and hangs up.
Isakson replies to Connor’s unasked question of what now? ‘The Major here will go make the exchange alone, but not really. We’ll surround the place with undercover agents and rescue your wife and son. I’m surprised that Holt agreed to this so readily, though.’
Broker snorts. ‘He won’t be there. If I were him, once I calmed down, I’d realize that I still hold all the cards. I’d go to the exchange, hide, and observe Zeb and whoever else comes with him. I’d then call him and arrange an exchange at another place. Zeb would have no choice but to comply.’
Turning to Connor, he adds, ‘With respect, sir, I don’t want you to have false hopes. This man is dangerous, and unfortunately for us, he’s smart, too. The fact that he’s walking around free after mass murder proves how smart he is. He has the FBI by the balls because they were harboring and sheltering him, and that’s something they will desperately not want to go public. Your family will be back, but it may not be tomorrow.’
That muscle in Isakson’s cheek twitches again, but he refrains from striking back. He nods reluctantly in Connor’s direction. ‘He may be right. All I can say is we will do everything possible to get your family back.’
Broker pushes his chair back and puts his equipment away as Zeb gets up and tells Connor, ‘Your family will be back – safe.’ Then he nods at Isakson. ‘See you tomorrow to work out the logistics.’
Bear and Chloe slip out as they leave. ‘What was that with the hang-ups? Weren’t you taking a risk?’
‘Yup,’ Broker replies, ‘but we wanted to able to pinpoint where the phone signal was coming from and needed a few cut-outs to be sure.’
He goes on to explain how they knew what to look for. ‘A couple of years back, I came across a couple of Chinese students at Stanford who had developed a triangulating software program. A mobile phone’s location can be detected within a tower’s grid by the signal it gives out. The FBI, NSA, CIA…all those guys use this to locate a phone – but it gives you a very rough location. These Chinese guys went one step ahead. They mapped this triangulation against two other signals, one – the radiation signal of the phone, the other – something called location leaks. A mobile phone service provider keeps a database of where phones are likely to be and keeps polling the phones so that it’s quicker to connect when a call happens. These polling messages were used by these two guys as the third triangulator. I bought their software before they went to market. But it does require a few cut-outs to home in on the phone.’
Bear nods. ‘So what’s the plan now?’
‘We come back tomorrow, take orders from the big cheese.’
Bear smiles at Zeb and Broker and then gets serious. ‘You’re going in tonight?’
‘Yep.’
‘I’ll tag along.’
‘Nope. I need you here.’
Bear nods, grips Zeb’s shoulder hard, fist-bumps Broker, and goes back inside the apartment.
Broker looks at Zeb. ‘How about a fancy, motivating speech?’
Zeb grunts and moves past him.
‘That’ll do,’ says Broker. ‘For a moment I thought you would bring me to tears. Where to now?’
‘Weapons, wheels, Williamstown. That’s where he is, isn’t he? His mother’s house?’
‘Right. Anyone ever tell you, you talk a lot? And what’s wrong with these wheels?’ He indicates the shiny red Jeep they have driven in.
Zeb says nothing, just taps the red paint.
‘Okay.’ He buckl
es up and turns to Zeb. ‘What do you think Isakson will say when he hears about this?’
Zeb stares straight ahead. ‘What do you think we’ll say to ourselves if that kid doesn’t return tomorrow?’
He revs the engine in the ensuing silence.
The first few stops are at the various caches he has in the city, and they load up with night vision, Mossberg shotguns, the AWM rifle, an Armalite, Sig Sauers, and Glocks.
‘You know that’s a residential neighborhood?’ Broker reminds him.
He answers himself when Zeb doesn’t respond. ‘The residents should have known better, obviously.’
They pack the equipment, then switch their vehicle to a Hummer Broker has customized. Zeb scans the interior, noticing the mobile and wireless communication system, radar and various switches and gadgets that would make James Bond envious.
He casually flicks one, and out pops a screen that shows a rocket launcher easing out of its recess beneath the chassis. He flicks an eyebrow at Broker, who waves his arms in the direction of downtown Manhattan.
‘The neighborhood. It’s not what it used to be.’
Broker turns serious, pulls out a map of Williamstown, and lays it out on the hood. He traces a finger around Mama Holt’s property. ‘Close to the street, six bedrooms, three stories, large windows both at the front and back, tall hedge surrounding the gardens, neighboring houses not too far off, neighbors might remember you from earlier visits…not easy, but would we enjoy it if it was easy?’ He looks sideways at Zeb, who listens calmly.
‘How many men would you have about you, in his situation?’ he asks Zeb.
‘Six or seven in the house including myself.’
Broker nods. ‘Was thinking the same. How do you want to do it?’ He rolls out the house plan and lays it next to the street plan.
Zeb examines the house plan for a long time. ‘Flat or sloping roof?’ he asks, already knowing the answer.
‘Sloping.’
‘I need some special equipment.’
‘I can get you anything, even a frigging aircraft carrier, in one hour within ten clicks.’
He folds the maps and puts them away when Zeb nods, and throws the keys to him. ‘Drive.’ And Zeb does, leaving New York behind.
They reach Williamstown at dusk, with Zeb making one pass of the street and parking in a faraway parking lot. Hoofing it back, they flit from shadow to shadow, observing the entire street, the foliage, its dark spots, the streetlights and proximity of the houses.
They hide in thick foliage by the side of the street a house away. They have a good view of Holt’s house, which has a well-lit front, darkened windows and just a smidgen of light in the window of the second floor.
‘Watch out for dogs,’ mutters Broker.
Broker takes out a pair of night-vision goggles, parabolic mics and a thermal-imaging monitor, setting the screen with a filter that protects it from detection even from six inches away.
Both of them don the mics and watch the house and imager alternatively.
‘Two bodies downstairs, four in the middle, and two more upstairs; lot of light in the front. They can be in the dark of the house, spot us, and pick us off without a problem,’ murmurs Broker as the blobs appear on the monitor. The blobs at the top and bottom of the house are moving back and forth at regular intervals.
‘Sentries covering the front and back of the house. No windows to the side of the house,’ whispers Broker.
They settle down and try to pick up any noise, but either the mics are not powerful enough or the house is well insulated, and they hear nothing. In the middle floor only one blob is pacing; the others are stationary, with two blobs next to one another. Broker taps the two blobs, pulls up his watch, and starts to time the sentries.
‘They alternate from back to front every ten minutes. Pause in front of each window, look around, and then walk back. No head popping out of a window, which is good for us, bad for them. As usual, good help is always hard to come by. One sentry either at the top or bottom is always covering the two sides. We need final confirmation, and I don’t see how we’re going to get that unless we can hear or see them.’
Broker looks at him sideways. ‘Uh-oh, don’t even think of going in the garden on a recon round. Suicide missions are so last week. They could be looking out the windows, and pop goes the weasel!’
Zeb opens Broker’s backpack, removes an earbud and collar mic, and puts them on. He hands another pair to Broker, who gives a long-suffering sigh and does the same.
‘Where?’ he asks Broker.
Broker shakes his head. ‘Cross Keys, not far from here. Driving directions are keyed in.’ He waves in the direction of the Hummer.
Zeb takes the keys and sets off, pointing in the direction of his earbud and collar mic in response to Broker’s urgent, ‘How will I know when you’re back?’
Broker settles into the darkness, takes out a range finder from his kit, and checks out the range to Holt’s house even though he has gauged the distance down to the last inch. He assembles the AWM, sights, zeros it, and lays it down again.
He then calls Bear and briefs him on the situation and in return hears an earful of curses. ‘Hold your horses. I did tell him, but you know him. Once he has a plan in mind, only changed circumstances deter him. No, you stay there.’
* * *
Zeb reaches Cross Keys airport and finds a Super Otter waiting for him, with its pilot leaning against the fuselage.
‘You Zeb Carter?’
Zeb nods.
‘Broker told me about what you want done. Have you done this before? It’s foolhardy to–’
Zeb waves him off, signs the disclaimer papers, and checks out the kit that the pilot has brought for him.
‘Dude, you do know what you’re doing, don’t you?’ the pilot asks, conscious of lawsuits.
Zeb ignores him and unfolds the kit and lays it on the tarmac. He inspects it fully and then folds it carefully and takes it inside the plane. The pilot has unfolded an aerial map of Williamstown and is tracing their route when Zeb rejoins him.
‘This is where I want to be,’ Zeb tells him, pointing to the exact location.
The pilot does his calculations. ‘You’re lucky it’s not very windy, but it is dark.’
‘Dark is good. Let’s go.’
The Super Otter roars to life in the stillness of the night and takes off after a short taxiing run. The pilot swings wide away from Williamstown and climbs to 13,000 feet and then takes a long circle back to Williamstown.
The pilot looks over his shoulder when he’s twenty miles away from Williamstown.
He sees Batman.
Zeb and Broker had discussed the best way to approach and enter Holt’s house and had eventually agreed, though Broker would vehemently deny it, on a wing-suit jump. The unknowns were too many to risk any other kind of approach. Holt was likely to have access to sophisticated surveillance, and the closeness of the neighborhood made even a covert approach risky. The one factor that finally got Broker to agree to what he thought was a suicidal approach was Holt’s personality. They just didn’t know enough about Holt to risk being detected in any other approach. For all they knew, Holt would kill Lauren and Rory and go down shooting, since he’d no longer have anything to lose.
Zeb has strapped up the US Special Forces wing suit that Broker has mysteriously procured and puts on the backpack that contains the square canopy parachute, reserve chute, and oxygen bottles, and adjusts the shoulder and leg straps. He then dons the helmet, adjusts the oxygen mask receivers, and after checking the suit instruments, asks the pilot the wind velocity and direction. The pilot shouts back at him and then warns him they are fifteen miles away from Williamstown.
Zeb pushes open the door of the aircraft, causing the aircraft to judder before the pilot brings it under control, steadies himself on the frame, and waits for the pilot’s signal.
The pilot steadies the aircraft, and when they hit a patch of clear sky, he lifts his thumb to Zeb.
Zeb dives into the dark and spreads the suit wide open to steady himself once clear of the plane.
In the distance he sees the taillights of the aircraft disappearing, and below, vast emptiness. The suit has a glide ratio of 3:1 and is fully equipped with a navigation system, altimeter and various gadgets to help the flight. Zeb has already fallen a thousand feet since his jump and is eleven miles from Williamstown.
At a hundred and twenty-five miles per hour, with the wind rushing in his face, darkness around him, he is alone in the universe, but then, Zeb has been alone all his life.
He plans his landing and every step he will take once he lands. After a few minutes he can see lights far below and, ahead of him, pinpricks piercing the dark, playing hide and seek with the clouds.
He steers in their direction, guided by the navigation system, and sets himself up a glide path. There is a mild headwind slowing his descent, but it will help him once he opens his chute. He makes a mental check of the weapons and kit he is carrying. Given the wing-suit approach, he has had to be very selective in what he can carry, just a couple of handguns, a knife, his cable camera, and night-vision goggles.
His suit starts beeping when he’s four thousand feet away, indicating that he is nearing the chute-opening altitude. He opens his chute at three thousand five hundred and feels the kick on his back and the slowing down of his speed as it unfolds without any hitches. He can see it above his head, a dark shadow in the surrounding darkness. Below, Williamstown is growing with every second, the lights and the town becoming clearer with every foot he falls.
He enlarges the map on the navigation system and starts toggling the chute across to move above Holt’s house. There’s a slight headwind he has to compensate for, and he descends vertically. From his surveillance and topography, he knows that the roof of Holt’s house isn’t surrounded by trees, so all he has to do is land soundlessly on a sloping roof. He can imagine Broker snorting at that – he has had far more difficult landings than this on other missions.
He clears his mind and focuses on the fast-approaching terrain below, now sharp and clear; the street lighting casting a yellow glow, a flame Zeb is rushing toward.
