by Dowell, Trey
“Nice outfit. You’re a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy?”
“I am today.” He removed the glasses and folded them into a breast pocket. “If you need to appropriate a helicopter from an aircraft carrier, it helps to be in the navy.”
“So I’m guessing Ford isn’t your real name?”
“No more so than Tucker.”
“You guys and your cloak-and-dagger routine.” I looked over at his towering companion. “Good to see you, too, Reyes,” I called out to the big man. He carried a briefcase handcuffed to his right wrist and was talkative as ever.
“He can speak, right?” I asked Tucker.
“Certainly, however, he’s a little angry with you.”
“Still upset about Colorado?”
“I’m sure, but even more irritated about today. You interrupted a weekend trip with his new bride.”
I caught myself staring at his prodigious size. “God, I hope she’s a stout woman.”
“Hardly. Quite petite and fetching, if I may be so bold.”
I thought Reyes bristled at the commentary, but it could have been my imagination. Tucker looked around the perimeter of the knoll, wandering a few steps with hands in his coat pockets.
“Interesting location. And thank you so much for flying us all over the United Kingdom as a warm-up. The American taxpayers wouldn’t approve of the fuel bill you’ve racked up on their account.”
“How many tactical guys did you have to abandon in Belfast?”
He smirked when he turned back. “Fifteen.” When I shook my head, he merely shrugged his shoulders. Hey, nature of the beast . . . whaddya gonna do?
“Money well spent, then,” I said. “Did you manage to get anyone to the golf course ahead of time?”
“A couple. You know, they weren’t a hit squad. They were there for containment. More for your protection than ours. A reminder: MI5 is still hunting the two of you. Leaks happen . . . there’s always a chance they could have interrupted our rendezvous.”
“Thanks for your concern, but let us worry about the Brits.”
“Speaking of ‘us,’ I take it Ms. Ravzi will not be joining us today?”
I nodded. “Lyla is a little gun-shy at this point. She sends her regrets.”
“A shame. I was looking forward to meeting her.”
“You really shouldn’t. I don’t think she’s a fan.”
With no comeback loaded in the chamber, he only stared back. When I couldn’t take the silence any longer, I forged on.
“So things are different at Langley now?”
“Yes. My previous orders to recruit you in collecting Aphrodite came from the section chief of national intelligence. Since then, the North Korea analyst’s summary made the bedside reading list of the deputy director himself. Director Shepherd has apparently become a progressive in his advanced years. I blame it on the upcoming nuptials of his granddaughter . . . he wants a safer world for his great-grandchildren, a legacy for the family name, etc.” Tucker waved a hand in contempt. “Regardless, to put it in terms you enjoy, Director Shepherd is a fan of Ms. Ravzi’s exploits. In fact, he wishes to give her a broader mandate and has ordered us to assist.”
“Assist in what, exactly?”
“He wants Ms. Ravzi to go home. To Iran.”
My jaw dropped.
“Are you serious?”
“Quite.”
“He wants her to embrace who, exactly? The Ayatollah, the mullahs, the president? You’d need all of them to accomplish what she did in North Korea. That’s a tall fucking order!”
“Again with the dramatics. Nothing so ambitious. We want to use her talents in her home country, yes, but on a much smaller scale.”
“You have no idea what you’re asking. Lyla was abused and tortured before she escaped Iran as a teenager. Her family was murdered. Now you want her to go back? Like it’s no big deal, like she’s popping over to Paris for a day at the spa. Let me answer for her: fuck you.”
Tucker dismissed my answer outright. “Stop being childish. You know she’ll want to do this. She’d love nothing better than to strike back at the country that killed her family. I’d be shocked if Iran wasn’t next on her save-the-world itinerary regardless. You’re a sharp tack; think about it.”
Oh, I was going to think about it, all right. With his thoughts. I was so pissed-off I didn’t care how much it was going to hurt. I let the needle plunge into my forehead and for once, the pain didn’t surprise me at all.
Tucker’s mind did, though. It was different than any I’d entered before. At first it seemed like Lyla’s sleep-deprived nightmare dreamscape: roiling clouds and tumultuous thought streams pulsing away. But cascading through the streams I saw an overriding sense of order where Lyla had barely corralled chaos. Tucker had discipline. He maintained parallel conscious thought, on many levels, running different scenarios, different plans . . . all the time. I couldn’t focus on just one. The longer I tried, though, the longer my real body in the outside world remained silent. As an increasingly befuddled Tucker wondered why I was in a trance and not speaking, his parallel thought streams began to merge, creating one overriding attention point for his thoughts . . . a single train of consciousness that proclaimed his real focus loud and clear.
Is McAlister retarded?
In spite of how I looked, I wasn’t ready to give up my link yet. I needed to know more. Maintaining a foothold in his mind gave me barely enough control of my own body to utter a few words.
“Sorry, I need a sec,” was all I managed.
You’re pathetic, his thought stream projected. Nothing compared to Aphrodite. You win the Genetic Lottery and get to associate with gods. A court jester to the queen.
I knew he didn’t like me, but that seemed overly harsh. Especially from a midlevel field operative with no idea what real power was. And if he wanted to see real power, a court jester like me could do it. I bored in hard, trying to pick up the stream beneath the insults, find out what he really wanted. As I did, I heard a faint murmur.
My God. He can do it. He can really do it—
Then his mind screamed out like a loudspeaker: Ba-da-duh-dah-dah-dah! HEY! Duh-dah, duh-dah!
The sudden intensity and volume severed the link and I was staring back at Tucker through my own eyes again. Took a few seconds for the searing pain to dissipate, and all I was left with was anger at the pompous prick. Fuck him.
“ ‘Rock and Roll, Part Two,’ by Gary Glitter?” I waited to see the surprise in his face, the look of astonishment at what my pathetic self could do. For just a moment, I wanted to bask in his fear. See what I’m capable of now, you piece of garbage, I thought.
Instead, he grinned. Smiled like he’d just won first prize.
Shit.
“Well, isn’t that special. Knockout can read minds now, can’t he?”
He’d played me. Suspected I was hiding something, and used my bruised ego to flip over the cards and show my entire hand.
Goddammit, I can be a first-class idiot.
Tucker noticed my jaw muscles contract. “Come now, don’t grind your teeth on my account. The lab boys estimated a thirty-eight percent probability your sleep-induction power came from mental projection rather than pheromones. Provided that was the case, there was an eighty-five percent chance your ability’s evolution would include telepathy.”
“Is that right?” I grumbled, still disgusted with myself.
“I bet on telekinesis in the office pool. You’ve cost me five dollars.” He motioned to Reyes. “This means you can take off that silly mask.” Reyes made no move to do so. Obviously he was of the better-safe-than-sorry school of thought.
Anger overwhelmed my patience. “We’re done here. I listened, and the answer is no. Run the world without us.” I pivoted to walk back to the boat and heard the click.
“
No, Mr. McAlister, I don’t believe we’re finished,” Tucker said.
I turned to see Reyes with a .45 pointed at me. Were they kidding?
“Seriously? Like I can’t just drop both of you right now and walk away? Your lackey thinks it’s a good idea to pull a gun on me?”
“Relax, he won’t shoot you. That was just to get your attention.” At a sideways glance from Tucker, Reyes slid the gun back inside his suit jacket. “I’m the real obstacle you should be worried about.”
I advanced on the smaller man with quick steps, saying “. . . what exactly do you think you can do . . .” and he brought his hand up out of his uniform coat pocket. I was less than five feet from him and in the precious seconds it took my brain to realize Tucker held a fragmentation grenade, he pulled the pin and tossed it away. The live grenade sat in his closed fist, safety lever depressed. If his grip released, I’d have less than three seconds before detonation. I’m a pretty fast runner, but not that fast.
“Go ahead, Knockout. Drop me.”
“What do you want?” I said, eyes on his fist. I took a hesitant step backward, and he countered by stepping forward. Maintaining the kill zone around me guaranteed his consciousness.
“You know what I want,” was his measured reply. “Accept the mission I’m offering, go to Iran, and do what you’re told.” He kept coming and I stood my ground. His voice got colder as he got closer. “I am sick of dealing with coddled children playing comic-book heroes.” In three steps, he was face-to-face with me and the grenade pushed against the titanium chest plate beneath my shirt. “You are a tool, McAlister . . . nothing more. No different than a missile in a silo. You don’t get to decide when you launch. The grown-ups do.”
“And what happens when we do this job for you? Do we walk away then?”
His eyes flicked back and forth between mine. They seemed to relax for an instant as he took a step back. “Of course.”
“Wow, I so don’t believe you.”
“Why don’t you try reading my mind, then?” He looked smug in the knowledge he’d been able to shout me out the first time.
“Maybe I don’t have to.” My head twisted to Reyes.
If Tucker’s thoughts had the detailed, intricate workings of a Swiss watch, Reyes’s brain had the complexity of a seesaw. It was like watching a brightly lit movie with zero subtlety. And to top things off, it was a porno.
His thoughts focused on a lithe blond woman, writhing and moaning beneath him. Carmen . . . Carmen . . . Carmen echoed through his mind like a metronome. Someone was mentally still on his romantic weekend getaway. Useless.
When I looked back at Tucker, he was completely at ease.
“Violate Mr. Reyes as you see fit . . . he has no knowledge and even less control over your destiny. Unlike me.” Tucker motioned to the big man, who unlocked the briefcase and walked it over. After delivery, Reyes retreated out of the kill radius with a kick in his step.
Tucker shoved the case at me with his free hand. “If I recall, you’re fond of dog metaphors. So go be a good little doggie and do what I say. Oh, and in case you get any urges to simply vanish over the horizon with Ms. Ravzi, I should warn you . . .”
My eyes switched from the briefcase back to Tucker’s malicious grin.
“. . . the gloves will come off. If I don’t hear from you within one week, I will sign the TOS order myself.”
Terminate on sight. No arrest. No jury.
“. . . and it won’t just be a CIA directive. It’ll go to every agency, every ally, and probably a few enemies, just to be safe. I’ll put a price on your heads so high, it’ll make the bin Laden bounty look like cab fare. I’ll even smile while I do it.”
There was nothing I could do but accept the case and fume. Tucker needed to be dealt with, but today wasn’t the day. Before I could whip myself into a complete frenzy, Tucker’s head tilted to the side and his gaze fixated on the horizon. Five seconds later he turned all the way to Reyes and I saw the tiny microphone jutting out of his left ear.
“Get to the chopper,” he ordered his partner before smiling at me. “It appears MI5 has located Ms. Ravzi. They are on their way to your pickup point.”
“But how . . .”
“You called me as soon as I got off the helicopter at the golf club in Inverness. Someone told you I’d arrived. I assume the Brits found your lookout.”
And Calvin had Lyla’s cell phone number . . .
Jesus. She left her phone on. They’d had enough time to triangulate her exact position.
“Dammit! How did MI5 even know about Inverness?”
“Because I called them. Extra motivation for you to abandon Scotland and accept your mission. Run along now. You’ve got to take Ms. Ravzi and get out of the United Kingdom. I’d offer you a ride, but sadly, I don’t feel like it. My mission was to brief you, not help you.”
Tucker took a couple of self-satisfied steps backward, granting the permission I needed to turn and sprint for the dock. When I started the boat I heard his discarded grenade explode in the loch fifty yards to my left . . . he hadn’t been bluffing. I didn’t wait to troll away from shore before punching the engine to full power. The boat rose out of the black water and shot up to speed. Despite the scream of the motor, I heard the navy Seahawk rotors spin to life. The chopper passed over my head by the time I hit the midpoint of the loch.
I prayed Lyla was ready to run, because I was coming in hot.
CHAPTER 21
Docks are for pussies.
I rode the boat right up onto shore and was running with the briefcase before the speedboat stopped moving. Lyla must have seen the king-sized wake kicking up behind me on the loch, because the car was idling and the passenger door was already open.
“What’s wrong?” she yelled through the window when I got close.
I slammed the door behind me yelling, “Go! Go! MI5 is coming! Dump your phone . . . they’re tracking the signal.”
“Shit!” I honestly couldn’t remember if I’d ever heard her cuss before. She clawed at the center console, found her phone, and threw it past my face out the open window. We spun out of the gravel lot and headed south, directly away from Inverness. Both of us scanned the mirrors for pursuit, expecting to see a caravan of military vehicles, but none looked back. Lyla kept the pedal to the floor, quickly reeling in and passing the only car within a half mile ahead. The road along the southern contours of Loch Ness mirrored the water’s edge, so it was a pretty straight shot for more than ten miles—but it didn’t mean I had a perfect view forward and back. We were still in heavily wooded terrain and the road wound back and forth as it clung to the shoreline.
Lyla’s eyes were full-on saucers while she negotiated the curves, but on the straightaways her gaze would flick back to the mirrors.
“I don’t see anything.” Her voice was stern, not panicked. “You?”
“No, but they’ve gotta be back there . . .”
I twisted full around to see out the back window and realized we hadn’t been looking high enough. About a half mile behind and above, a small black helicopter shadowed our path. My desperate hope for the pursuit to be Tucker’s sadistic version of a joke wilted. I lowered my gaze to the twisting ribbon of roadway unspooling behind the car, and within seconds two SUVs got close enough for me to see.
“They’re coming,” I told Lyla. The whine of our econobox’s four-cylinder engine was pathetic; no matter how good Lyla was with the car, two powerful SUVs were going to catch up fast.
Too bad for them.
I scrambled into the backseat so I could concentrate and get a better look. Lyla kept plowing ahead, but she knew what I was going to do.
“How close do they need to be?” she said.
“Not sure, never done it from a moving car before. Hundred feet, maybe less . . . the motion makes it hard to lock in.” Finding someone’s specific consciousness i
n the distance was like trying to identify them in a crowd. Bouncing around turns and up over bumps in the road made it tough. Sending out a blanket wipe, dropping everyone in the vicinity, was easier but the range was a lot smaller; they’d need to be close enough to shoot at us—closer than I wanted.
Lyla eased up on the gas and the first SUV gobbled up the distance between. The second vehicle dropped back to give the leader room to engage. I closed my eyes. I could see the buttons far off, jumping and jostling with the terrain. Found the driver, he was coming into range.
Still hazy. Just a few more feet . . . almost there . . .
Before I could lock in, the rear window splintered in a web of cracks and the interior of the car exploded with high-intensity sound waves. Just as bad as the alley behind St. Moritz, but with the bonus challenge of trying not to crash at fifty miles an hour. I couldn’t even hear my own scream.
The car zigzagged violently in the road. I turned to the front and saw Lyla fighting for control—one hand on the wheel and one clutched against an ear—as a curve to the right came at us way too fast. The approaching tree line gave her enough willpower to grip the wheel with both hands and force the car into the curve, kicking up a curtain of gravel from the shoulder. As we cleared the bend, our pursuers lost line of sight and the sonic suppression cut off like somebody had pulled the plug. Lyla kept the pedal down, moving with a purpose as the road straightened. Within seconds the first SUV came around the curve and I knew the ultrasonic assault was closing in. Less than a half mile ahead another bend in the road waited, this time to the left.
“Get to that curve! Clear it and stop—”
The piercing sound waves cut me off, but this time Lyla was ready. She ducked in the seat and intentionally jerked the wheel from side to side, careening across the two-lane road. The sonic waves lessened, then charged back, then faded. Our pursuers couldn’t focus the beams as Lyla swerved, which was unfortunate news for the lead SUV: Lyla could drive, and I could do worse.
We dove into the turn and she braked hard—not all the way to a stop, but enough to ensure they’d be right on top of us when they followed. I took a deep breath and cleared my head. Lyla saw a flash of the SUV grill as the driver gunned it out of the curve and she yelled, “Now!”
