Surveillance (Ghost Targets Book 1)

by Aaron Pogue

  Katie fell silent. After a while, a tear leaked from her eye, and he reached up to brush it away. She batted his hand down. "There has to be something—"

  "He's holding all the cards, Katie." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Whatever it is he's missed, it can't be anything major. He'll spot it eventually." He leaned in close, until their heads were almost touching. "He's going to figure it out, no matter what we do. I have a chance to get you help—"

  "No," she said. "You don't. I'm FBI, and he knows it. There's no way he lets me out of this alive."

  "Don't say that."

  She pushed away from him and caught his eyes. "It's true," she said. "You need to understand that. You need to accept it and make your decisions accordingly. No matter what he promises, he's not letting me go."

  He caught her hands in his, still trying to comfort her, but something else caught her attention. She said, "I think I have an idea." She hoped the drugs weren't leading her astray again.

  He put a finger on her lips, and when her eyes widened he leaned close again, pretending to kiss her, and whispered in her ear, "He can hear everything we say." Before she could mention the pad of paper, he shot down that suggestion, too. "And he could read any notes you wrote me. We're in a cage, here. If you have a plan, if you think it might work...try. But don't say it out loud."

  He sat back, and she held his eyes for a moment, trying to think of a way to warn him what she had in mind, but nothing came to her. It might have foiled the plan, anyway. At last she said, "Are you sure?"

  He nodded.

  She said, "You could get hurt."

  He shrugged. "I think it's my turn."

  "Then turn around." His eyes narrowed and he frowned, confused, but he turned where he sat, his back to her. She sidled up close to him on the couch and leaned up against him, wrapping her arms around his neck in a hug. Taking a cue from him, she whispered in his ear, "This might not even work."

  He chuckled. "Whatever it is, just try it."

  She gave him no more warning. It might not have worked if she had. She shifted quickly, forcing her weight onto her right knee. She lifted herself up off the couch, behind him. She shifted her grip around his neck, and bent her right elbow around his throat. It was the same choker hold she'd tried on Velez the day before. She crushed his throat with a squeeze, cutting off his air, and his hands came up instinctively to claw at her arm. "Katie!" he choked. "What are you—"

  "Call for help," she said in his ear. She could feel him start to panic in her grip, and she repeated herself more firmly. "Say, 'help.'"

  "Help!" It came out a grunt, but clear enough.

  "Good," she said. "Now say my name."

  "Katie, please—"

  "My full name, Martin. Say my name."

  "Katie...Katie Pratt." His eyes rolled wildly. He struggled to get a glimpse at her face, to comprehend what was going on. She could feel his pulse pounding, feel the strength going out of his fingers as he scrabbled to pull her forearm off his throat. Another tear escaped her eye, and she said softly in his ear, "I'm sorry, Martin."

  A moment before he would have passed out, the door swung open and Velez strode in. As he entered the room he said, "Lock target on the girl." The camera above the door swung to point at her, aiming center mass on her chest, and she could imagine the one above the computer desk pointing at the back of her head. For his part, Velez was carrying a baseball bat, but he was swinging it freely, more like Charlie Chaplin's cane than the deadly club he intended it for. Velez's voice was cool. "Let him go."

  She did, and he fell forward off the couch and landed on the floor on his hands and knees, coughing violently. He tilted down until his forehead was on the ground and put a hand to his throat, massaging it lightly. She could just hear him weeping through his gasped breaths.

  She looked up to find Velez eying her. "What was that about?" he said. She tilted her chin up, unwilling to answer, and his mouth twisted into a smile. "On your feet." When she didn't respond right away, he looked menacingly toward the camera high on the wall behind her.

  She gulped down her fear and gingerly lowered her feet to the floor, then pushed herself up off the couch to stand. Even with all her weight on her right leg, the pain shot up her other leg in waves, crashing thunderously at the base of her skull, and she had to bite back her own whimper. She saw Velez's smile widen.

  "You're dangerous, aren't you, Katie?" He looked down to Martin, still collapsed on the floor. "Not to me. You should know that. Here, in my lair, you're no threat at all. All it takes is a word, and you're nothing but a puddle of leaky meat on my floor. I could break your bones or burst your head. Name an organ and I can put a hole through it with surgical precision. My cameras have an amazing grasp of human anatomy." Tears leaked from her eyes, at Martin still helpless on the ground as much as from the pain in her leg, but she made it clear in her expression that she wasn't impressed with Velez's speech.

  He rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said. "Look, I heard your conversation. You know that, right? All your precious plotting. You should have listened to Martin. Killing him wouldn't have done you any good, anyway. I can figure this out without him. It's just faster with his help." He glanced up at the camera again, and sighed with obvious regret. "And I can get his help more easily if you're about to die than if you're dead. I can't let behavior like that go unpunished, though."

  He hefted the bat, and she reacted in fear. "No!" she said, reaching out a hand to him, but he ignored her plea. He stepped into the swing, throwing the bat at her ruined calf. She tried to turn away, but her leg gave under her and she fell. She caught the full impact of the swing on her hip, then an instant later her knee crashed into the floor. The pain that accompanied the dual blows doubled her over with a sob. Her stomach cramped in a dry heave and she fought desperately to catch her breath.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Velez's foot fall as he stepped closer. She glanced up and saw the bat coming down. This time she couldn't dodge at all. It slammed into her skull, and the world flickered scarlet. And blinding white. And then totally, blissfully black.

  She woke to a pounding. With no windows to let in light from the world, no clocks on the walls and her watch stripped from her, she had no way of knowing how much time had passed. This prison was outside the real world, outside of time and hidden from the eyes of gods and men. A shiver chased down her spine, and she yelped at the pain that accompanied movement. Her head pounded, and the wound in her leg stabbed at her.

  It took some time to realize the pounding wasn't only in her head. A steady thunder, muted by distance, broke the silence that otherwise reigned in Velez's subterranean stronghold. She opened her eyes, forced them to focus, and found herself lying on her side once more on the bedroom floor, her face inches away from the door, which stood slightly ajar. She titled her head down to get a good look through the crack, and saw Velez hurrying across from left to right—from his computers to the doorway that led upstairs.

  At last she placed the pounding. Someone was knocking on the closet door in the rundown apartment up above. Insistent and strong, the thudding knocks echoed down the spiral stairway and slipped past the closed door downstairs, refusing to be ignored. She could tell from Velez's gait that he was irritated.

  He yanked open the door at the bottom of the stairs and shouted up the stairwell, "What?"

  A voice answered, muffled by the echo, but Katie thought she heard, "I'm coming down."

  Velez stepped back a pace, and a moment later his visitor came through the door. Rick Goodall, her boss, her white knight, her cavalry. Her heart soared, and she bit down a cheer, realizing at the last moment that Velez still didn't know she was awake. His cameras were still armed, too, which meant Rick would have to be careful making his move. She couldn't think of a way to warn him about that without giving away her position.

  As Rick stepped into the workshop, his eyes must have fallen on Martin, out of sight to her left, because he froze. His eyes darted to Velez. "What's
going on here?"

  "Rick, this is Martin Door," Velez said, making polite introductions. She remembered her own arrival in this basement, Velez playing the part of polite host, bragging about his technology until he'd shot her where she stood. He played out the same game with Rick. "He's my old partner in crime. He's here because someone murdered his niece. Your girl Katie was working on the case."

  "Pratt?" he said. In just the one syllable she heard the disgust in his voice begin to change to comprehension. "They tracked you here—"

  "I invited them here," Velez said, condescending. "Because I needed Martin's help with something."

  "He's in pretty bad shape for an invited guest," Rick said, irritated now. He towered over Velez, threatening, but Velez turned his back and walked back over to his computer desks. Rick followed him, barking angrily, "Just what do you think you're doing here, Jesus?" He didn't bother with the Spanish pronunciation, but leaned on the long "e," pronouncing it "Jee-zus." He dropped a heavy hand on Velez's shoulder, heavy enough to make the smaller man wince as he pulled away. "What have you done with Pratt?"

  Velez said, "The girl is out of the picture."

  Katie didn't know what she expected for Rick's answer, but when he just shrugged it broke her heart. "Well, whatever you're up to, I don't have time for this. Dammit, Jesus, I was on my way to meet with the president when you called me down here. He wanted an explanation for the modification I installed on the DoJ mainframe—" He wasn't even there for her.

  "All in due time," Velez said, offhand. "The president can wait." They were all outside Katie's vision now, so she quietly eased the door open wider and inched closer, out into the alcove, peeking around a corner to the end of the room where Velez did all his work.

  She saw right away what had stopped Rick in his tracks. Martin sat in a chair in the corner, his hands bound behind his back. His face was puffy, purpling with bruises, and one of his eyes already black. A bloody nose and split lip further marred his kindly face, attesting to the violence Velez had inflicted upon him. Katie imagined he had used the bat that lay discarded nearby. A little guy like that couldn't have done so much damage with his bare hands.

  Rick stood right behind Velez now, looking over his shoulder as Velez picked through the same page of code he'd been looking at since she arrived. Rick wasn't done chastising Velez.

  "You're gonna have to make this right, Jesus. I told you how to get in touch with me. You can't just reroute my plane—"

  "I can and I did," Velez said, clearly unafraid of Rick's size. He reached past the younger man to grab a handheld off his other desk and poked at the screen. "Is the DoJ going to revert the changes you made?"

  "No," Rick said, frowning. "No, I had full authority. Your change is in place, and I can't think of anyone with both the clearance and the technical knowledge to change it back."

  "So—"

  Rick bulled over him. "So now it's your turn. I did what you asked me to do, now give me access to direct input." Katie remembered Martin on the train, looking over a list of his own invisible actions to find the record of his conversation with Velez. She remembered something Rick had said on the day she had first met him, too, insisting that was everything he needed to track down all the criminals in the world. And that he was close to getting it.

  "I don't think I will," Velez said, and turned to Martin. Even from across the room, Katie could tell that Martin looked dazed, punch drunk. Velez said, "Martin, Martin!" He snapped his fingers to catch his attention. Then he jerked his head toward Rick, towering behind him. "You see this man here? Martin!" Martin finally nodded, dully, and Velez said, "This is your man."

  Martin tilted his head, quizzical, clearly not understanding, but Katie figured it out. She didn't yet know why, but she understood. She gasped, horrified, and Rick started to turn toward the sound. Velez hadn't heard her, though. He wanted Martin to understand, so he leaned down in his face. "This bastard here is the one who killed Janeane."

  Rick turned on Velez, and roared, "What!" But Velez ignored him.

  "She stumbled across the blackout code right after I uploaded it, and she called the FBI about it. He killed her for being too smart." He said that last like a playground taunt, trying to get a rise out of Martin, but all he got was a moan, and a trickle of tears out of his puffy right eye.

  Rick reacted more violently. "You little shit," he said. He drew his gun, and the click of him releasing the safety echoed in the open room. He chambered a round and pointed the gun at Martin's head. "You've got a big mouth, you know that? Now I've got to kill this sad sack."

  She couldn't let him do that. She was huddled against the wall now, up on her hip, her legs curled around behind her, most of her weight resting on the wall and just a sliver of the right side of her face peeking around the corner at the three men. She glanced up at the cameras she could see, but the only one with an angle on her hiding place was tracking Rick. She didn't think he knew.

  She took a deep breath, desperate to sound authoritative, not like the pathetic, weak girl she was. She forced her voice to a bark, "Don't do it, Rick." She saw him whirl toward her, eyes wide, and instinctively drew back into hiding. She went on, though. "You're in a bad spot right now, whether you realize it or not. Don't make it worse."

  He didn't answer right away, and she felt a rising panic that he was stalking straight toward her. She risked a peek around the corner and found that he had turned on Velez instead. "What the hell is this? You told me Pratt was taken care of."

  Velez shrugged, still entirely unthreatened by Goodall's menace. Katie could tell that it irked Rick the little man could so easily ignore him. "Pratt is not an issue," he said. "She's as good as dead."

  "She is now," Rick said, looking toward her corner again. She didn't duck back in time, and when his predator's gaze fell on her she couldn't move, she just cowered in her corner while he stalked toward her. Over his shoulder, he grumbled to Velez. "Dammit, Jesus, I wasn't planning on killing anybody today." He stopped, two paces from Katie, and raised the gun. A thoughtful frown creased his brow, though, and his arm kept moving. He straightened it out to the side, holding the gun out at shoulder level and turning to look back as he pointed right at the back of Velez's head. "Maybe I should just get rid of you while I'm at it."

  Velez didn't even look up. He kept typing, working away at his code, but he answered Rick almost distractedly. His voice was that same, infuriating cool. "The girl will sort herself out, and I still need Martin," he said. "I don't need you. Kill Goodall."

  Rick didn't have time to pull the trigger. Three of the roving security cameras fired rounds into him—one shot slipped past his spine, smashed through his heart and breastbone and blasted a hole through the door above Katie's right shoulder. Two more tore through his head, exploding it like a melon. The silence of it was eerie, but more so the dispassionate look on Velez's face as he finally looked up from his work to watch a man being obliterated. He frowned at the mess that splashed across his walls, stained his carpet, and then again when his eyes fell on Katie, still alive.

  Then he turned to Martin.

  "There," he said. "Happy birthday. Janeane is avenged. Will you help me now?"

  15. Unmasked

  As Rick fell, his gun flew from his hand, bouncing once on the carpeted floor and landing enticingly close to the corner where Katie was hiding. She inched forward, pressed her feet painfully against the wall so she could make a good lunge into the room, and just before she moved she glanced up and found Martin's eyes locked on her. She was surprised at the awareness in his eyes now, matched with a blazing intensity as he finally caught her gaze. He shook his head, subtly but enough that she picked it up, then looked up to Velez.

  "Yes," he said. He took a deep breath and let it out. "I'll help you. I've seen enough bloodshed."

  "Whatever does it for you," Velez said, shrugging. He pointed up to the code, displayed large on the wall. "This is it. The main function is at the bottom, but it mostly just calls other functio
ns that are in roughly chronological order from top to bottom. The big math functions are here," he pointed to a section of code on the display, then scrolled down a couple pages, "and here. It has to be a math problem because of the way it's compounding, but I've been over both of these a thousand times. See if you can find something I missed."

  "I'll need my hands," Martin said, and Velez nodded and spun Martin's chair around so that he faced the wall opposite Katie. Velez ripped open a drawer on one of his desks and pulled out a pocket knife, and for a moment Katie had a terrible vision of Velez spotting Martin's bluff, and cutting his throat like a butcher. Instead, he dropped to his knee behind Martin's chair, and began sawing at the knots binding Martin's wrists.

  Katie inched forward, stretching out a hand in front of her, but something Martin had said earlier swam up in her memory. He had watched Velez program the cameras to prevent them escaping the room. She didn't know what that entailed, exactly, or how it had been overridden to let Martin out. And she still didn't know how many shots a single camera could fire, but three of them had just used up a round each on Rick there. One had shot at her, too, but that had been days ago. Surely it was reloaded by now.

  There were two cameras she could see clearly, from her hiding spot, and another just out of sight around the right corner. The three on the near wall were completely hidden from her, but she had a pretty good idea where they were located. For now, her attention was all on the two she could see, swinging lazily back and forth. Lying perfectly still on the floor, she watched the middle one rove in her direction. Her whole body tensed painfully as its dreadful gaze passed over her, but there was no alarm, no silent shot accompanied with screaming pain. The camera moved on, peeking over at the TV on the wall.

  The gun was two feet away. She didn't know how much effort she could get out of her damaged leg without passing out, but there would be enough for that lunge. It would also put her well in sight of at least five of the six cameras, though, and for all she knew, motion could be the triggering effect that would leave her in the same messy state Rick was in. She closed her eyes, breathing slow and steady while she summoned the courage to do what had to be done.