by Patrick Lee
* * *
When Dryden was a block away, still visible, Eversman took out his phone and switched it on. He called the driver of one of the other Suburbans. The man picked up on the first ring.
“Slight change, but nothing serious,” Eversman said. “The woman, Calvert, is at a café two blocks downhill from me on Sixth Street. After Dryden connects with Claire Dunham, Collins and I will pick them up. When that happens, you’ll get Calvert and meet us at the third team’s location.”
He ended the call, his eyes still tracking Dryden as he moved closer to the bar. The guy’s movements were casual; he wandered along a street of storefronts, looking in some of the windows, glancing up every so often to study the target location. At last he came to a little ice cream shop with a few metal tables and chairs out front. He bought something—it looked like a sundae, but it was hard to tell—and took a seat, watching the bar from maybe two hundred yards’ range.
Eversman opened the glove box and took out a silenced .45. He turned and mentally rehearsed how things would play out, the moment Dryden got back into the vehicle with Claire Dunham.
It would be fast and brutal, no fucking around. It would also be invisible to anyone outside; the windows in back were heavily tinted. And when the three vehicles rendezvoused, Marnie Calvert would be dealt with in the same manner.
Eversman was more than confident it would work: He knew. He had already used the system to verify it. He had already seen the headlines to come.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
11:53.
Dryden was still sitting at the metal table in front of the ice cream shop. Someone had left a Best Buy flyer on a nearby chair, and he was leafing through it, raising his eyes to the distant bar often enough to keep tabs on everyone approaching it.
Which wasn’t many people. It was clearly not a popular lunch spot, at least on Sunday. Probably not on any day.
In the past ten minutes he’d seen only six people enter the bar. A young couple. A college-aged girl. Three men.
11:54.
He set down the flyer and simply stared at the place.
* * *
Claire gave the bar one last scan with the binoculars, then set them aside and started the Tracker. She considered driving right up to the building, parking in the narrow lot along the waterfront, but discarded the idea. If things went bad, there would be no time to get back in the car, start it, and drive off. There might be time to simply run, in which case it would be better to have the car hidden somewhere in the blocks close to the bar. She might be able to lose pursuers in a foot chase, then make her way to the car unseen.
She still had the Tracker in park. She stared at the distant structure, thinking.
The way she went into the place might matter. It would be impossible to go in undetected, but there were ways to make it less obvious who she was. Anything that could make potential observers less certain was worth doing.
She exhaled softly and shut her eyes. The whole logistical calculation felt wishful. Was wishful. If the Group was somehow watching, it would be game over a few minutes from now.
Nothing to do but try.
She put the vehicle in gear and pulled out of her space.
* * *
11:56.
Eversman was holding the binoculars Dryden had used earlier. He was leaning forward, bracing his elbows on the dash, training the binocs alternately on Dryden—still sitting at the ice cream shop—and the bar.
Eversman found his thoughts already wanting to move on, past all this. Like the attention of a child nearly finished with his schoolwork, thinking ahead to free time. With the cat-and-mouse game wrapped up, he would use the system for its real purpose again. Even now, his subordinates were back at it, tucked away in their little haven, tapping at the keys. Scouting the world to come. Finding the pivot points on which decades and centuries could be tipped. The future was filled with those, just like the past was. How many times had the track of humanity been shifted by some one-off event, some unheard-of person? Like Gavrilo Princip. Like Vasili Arkhipov. The future was no different. History was a surprisingly workable medium, before it was written down.
He thought of his superiors, too. The higher ranks of the Group, back in the old countries. Their ideas for what the world should be—what it should have been for seventy-plus years now. A world set to strict but beautiful standards. Clean architecture and infrastructure. No muddy backwaters full of shanty towns and hovels. No slums laced with graffiti and broken windows. Clean people, too. Better people. Better stock. He thought of the movie star, decades back, sitting at the fireplace in that Italian villa, rubbing the haunches of a Rottweiler at his feet. We bred filthy wolves into these things. Why in God’s name wouldn’t we refine ourselves?
Eversman agreed with most of those sentiments still—the big picture, if not every brushstroke. None of it would happen overnight, of course, even with all the advantages the system offered. It would be the work of decades. It already had been. His whole life had been a preparation, in the hope that this technology would end up in his hands. Positioning himself in the best possible way to make use of it, if it ever arrived—every decision had been made toward that end.
Renewable energy had been just one part of all that, a long political bet: that by the middle of the 2020s, voters’ hearts and minds would favor the greenest candidates. He hadn’t needed a machine to tell him that; the curving trendlines had been obvious even by the late ’90s, and were only more so now. It was a smart way to place himself, no more or less.
Even the presidency would only be another link in the chain. So much more would need to be done to trigger the changes the Group had in mind. He would need their help soon enough, though for now, he had not even told them about the machines or the system. That could wait a bit. When he’d fortified his position, when he’d set enough in motion that there was no going back, when his control was incontestable, then he would let them in. Everything in its time.
He swung the binoculars from Dryden to the bar. Watched the place for ten seconds. He was just about to swing them back when he saw something:
Three people approaching the bar on foot. Two were a couple, probably in their fifties. Close behind them, jogging a bit to catch up, was a woman in her early thirties. Under other circumstances, Eversman might have guessed it was a party of three, the older couple and the younger woman going in together. Then he swung the binoculars and saw that Dryden had already stood from his chair and set off walking. Fast.
“He’s identified her,” Eversman said.
Collins turned the key in the ignition and reached for the gear selector.
Eversman held up a hand. “Hold here for now. Let him get inside first. Don’t spook her.”
* * *
Claire stepped across the threshold and found the interior of Myrtle’s disorientingly dark, after the harsh sunlight outside. Even the windows along the back wall, overlooking the harbor, didn’t help much; they seemed to offer more glare than light, leaving the rest of the place deep in gloom.
She crossed the entryway, the ancient wooden floor creaking beneath her feet. As her eyes adjusted, she swept her gaze down the row of booths along the left wall, and the line of bar stools on the right. The place was dotted with the handful of people she’d watched drifting in over the past half hour.
She crossed to the nearest booth, which was empty, and sat facing the front door.
* * *
Eversman watched Dryden cover the last fifty yards. Watched him cross the street and the front lot, reaching the bar’s entrance maybe two minutes after the woman had gone in.
“Let’s go,” Eversman said.
Collins put the Suburban in drive, and Eversman turned his phone on again, tapping the number for the team that would pick up Marnie Calvert.
* * *
Dryden pushed the front door inward and stepped through into the dark space of the bar.
A college kid in an apron looked up from a table he was clearing.
“Welcome to Silver’s,” the kid said. “Is it just gonna be you?”
Dryden nodded. “Just me.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
12:00.
Claire watched the door for Sam, her pulse already thudding in her eardrums.
Something was wrong.
She’d been here three minutes now. More than enough time for Sam to have reached this place, after seeing her walk in.
If he’d seen her.
If he was anywhere nearby at all.
If he was alive.
Footsteps outside, scraping the blacktop in front of the building. Someone moving fast, almost running.
For an instant her mind drew a picture of men with pistols in hand, swooping in to get her. The end of the line, just like that.
She was unarmed. There wasn’t a thing she could do.
Then the door swung in and a woman came through. Dark hair to her shoulders, dark eyes. She was winded, like she’d just covered serious distance on foot. The woman blinked, taking in the dim space of the room, scanning it quickly. When her eyes found Claire, they stopped.
* * *
Marnie saw her. The only woman alone inside Myrtle’s—which was decidedly not the location Dryden had named hours earlier, before the two of them had saddled up along with Eversman’s people.
The place Dryden had directed them to, Silver’s, was twenty blocks away from here.
Marnie let the door fall shut behind her and took three steps toward the woman in the nearest booth.
“Claire Dunham?” she said.
The woman, who’d gone dead still the moment Marnie locked eyes with her, only stared now.
“Who the hell are you?” the woman asked.
“Marnie Calvert. Sam Dryden sent me to find you. He said to tell you Biscuit was still a weak name for a dog, and that you should have used Chet, like he recommended. As in Chet Baker.”
The woman—Claire, beyond a doubt—seemed to register three or four different emotions all at the same time. Relief and confusion were chief among them.
Strictly speaking, Dryden hadn’t told Marnie to say that. He’d written it down on a piece of notebook paper—along with a great deal more—and folded it into a tiny square lump. A lump he’d pressed against her when he’d clapped her shoulder in the Suburban, then allowed to fall out of sight behind her. She’d pocketed it unseen before leaving the vehicle herself.
Then she’d gone to the café and stood outside it, reading the message on the page, each sentence pushing her a little closer to a nervous breakdown.
Claire slid out of the booth and crossed to Marnie. The competing emotions in her expression fell away, leaving only intensity. There was a distinctly military edge to it. It reminded Marnie of Sam.
“Where is he?” Claire asked.
“It’s complicated.”
“Then uncomplicate it.”
“He has a plan,” Marnie said. “He wrote it down.”
“What plan?”
Marnie stared at her and thought, You’re not going to like it. I already don’t like it.
* * *
Eversman kept his eyes on the front door of Silver’s as he and Collins pulled into the lot. The Suburban rolled to a stop thirty feet from the entrance. He expected Dryden and Claire to emerge immediately. Expected them to be watching at the door for the vehicle’s arrival and to come running the moment it stopped.
The bar’s entrance stayed shut. No one came out. No one was even looking through the strip of glass in the door.
Collins shoved the selector into park, and the two of them sat staring at the place. Five seconds passed.
“Go take a look,” Eversman said.
Collins got out and crossed to the door at a fast walk. He went through it. Another five seconds went by, and then he shoved it back open, leaned out, and waved his arm for Eversman to come.
“What the hell is this?” Eversman said.
He opened the passenger door, stuffed the silenced .45 into his waistband, and rounded the Suburban’s hood. He broke into a run and grabbed the front door of Silver’s and hauled it open. Collins had already gone back inside—Eversman could hear him yelling at someone.
“Was there a woman?” Collins shouted.
Eversman’s eyes adapted to the low light. He saw Collins ten feet away, leaning in on one of the servers, a guy in his early twenties.
“Dude, what the fuck is your—”
Collins dropped his volume but managed to sound more intense at the same time. “Did you see him with a woman? She’d be about thirty.”
The kid shook his head. In the same moment, Eversman’s eyes took in three people in a booth to the left: the fiftyish couple and the younger woman who’d jogged to catch up with them on the way in. Party of three, after all.
Collins turned from the waiter and crossed toward Eversman. “Kid says Dryden came in, and then he was gone a minute later. He didn’t see where he went.”
Eversman’s mind raced. He and Collins had maintained visual on the bar the entire time they were driving up to it. Dryden had not come out the front door.
“Check the restrooms,” Eversman said. “Both of them.”
Collins nodded and moved off. Eversman crossed to the back of the barroom, where a screen door led onto a dining patio. Beyond the patio’s railing was a three-foot drop to the ground: a shallow lawn that led to the edge of a pine forest. The bar’s property was butted right up against the woods, a forested hillside rising along the edge of town.
Eversman called on his own mental picture of the wooded slope, as it had looked from his stakeout position five hundred yards away.
The hill was a forested circle, maybe half a mile by half a mile, some kind of protected wilderness land. There was city sprawl on this side, the north edge, and probably farmland beyond the hill’s southern boundary.
If Dryden had entered the woods here—however in God’s name he had known to do so—then he could come out anywhere.
At that moment Eversman’s phone rang. He answered and heard the driver of one of the other SUVs. “We’re at the café. The Calvert woman’s not here.”
Eversman heard a door slam somewhere behind him. He turned and saw Collins coming from the ladies’ room, shaking his head.
Eversman’s thoughts felt as scattered as a crowd running from flames. What was happening? And why? He let the panic stir for two seconds, and then he clamped it down and spoke into the phone. “Look at the wooded hill behind the bar. Dryden is somewhere in those trees. Collins and I are going in from the north. I want you and the other team to go in from the southeast and southwest. Fan out, don’t miss him. Call the other team and coordinate it.”
By this time, Collins was standing next to him. He didn’t need to be told anything. Eversman shoved open the screen door, crossed the patio, and dropped over the rail to the grass. As he sprinted for the treeline, Collins beside him, Eversman thought of Dryden’s background. He had researched the man during the night—had tried to, at least. His résumé was impressive, most notably for the fact that six years of it were invisible. But even that work, whatever it had been, was now eight years in Dryden’s past. He had to be a bit rusty. He was also one against ten.
Crossing into the cool space of the forest, Eversman drew the .45 from his waistband; beside him, Collins took a SIG Sauer from his shoulder holster.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Dryden was only a little winded when he reached the top of the hill. He had moved as quickly as possible through the trees, seeking the high ground in the middle of the woods. Now he stopped and held still and let his pulse slow. He turned in a circle, listening. To the north—it was easy to keep track of direction, because the bay was visible through the pines—he heard someone slip and catch himself on loose soil. The sound was hundreds of yards away.
In almost the same moment he heard another sound: a heavy engine running hard, then braking and shutting down. It was somewhere to the south and west. Dryden had no sooner pr
ocessed that than he heard it all over again—racing engine, skid of tires, shutdown—this time south and east of his position.
Eversman and his men were coming into the circular woods from three equally spaced points along its edges: the corners of a triangle laid over it. Eversman and Collins were entering at the top of the triangle; the guys in the Suburbans—four men per vehicle—were starting from the two bottom corners.
They would all fan out. Like hunters driving prey. What they thought was prey, anyway.
Dryden took the Beretta from his waistband. He had only one of Claire’s two pistols, but he had both magazines. One of them was loaded into the weapon, full with fifteen 9mm Parabellums. The other magazine, in his pocket, held nine. It was missing the two that had gone into Harold Shannon in the Mojave, and the four that’d gone into Dale Whitcomb in the scrapyard.
Ten adversaries. Twenty-four shots.
He heard vehicle doors open and shut at the lower corners of the triangle. Heard footsteps on concrete, and then nothing.
He looked down and considered his clothing: the khakis and flannel shirt he’d borrowed from Eversman last night. Not quite what he’d worn during wilderness training, fifteen years back, though at least the flannel was black and green.
He heard the trickle of a flowing stream, a spring breaching the slope somewhere downhill toward the west.
He moved. Fast and silent. He covered fifty feet and found the stream. It was hardly more than a mudslick, like someone had left a garden hose running in a flowerbed.
Good enough.
He crouched and set down the pistol. He took handful after handful of the mud, smearing it on the cream-colored khakis until a fine layer of it was ground into the fabric, rendering it brown. He smeared more of it on his face and neck. Then he wiped his palms on his shirt and picked up the gun again.
He moved thirty feet from the stream and listened.
Nothing.
It was tempting to find cover right there and wait, but the location was wrong. Too close to the center of the woods. Too likely to be a convergence point where he might encounter all of Eversman’s people at once.
