“How could you possibly know that?” Danielle asked.
“Because,” Dillon explained patiently, “I once had a working theory that certain cars were being marketed specifically to hit men. Greater trunk capacity equals more bodies. More bodies means more hits, which means more money. Right? It’s simple math.”
We all laughed. It died out quicker than usual, however as we neared the edge of town. Which meant we were getting closer and closer to the grand finale.
Hopefully just the finale of our plan, and not of our lives.
CHAPTER 60
THE FIELDS OF FIRE
IT WAS STILL DARK OUTSIDE, EVEN AT 5:00 A.M. IT WOULD HAVE been pitch-black where we were, outside of town, a mile or so away from Augustine Church. That is, if not for all the fires.
They burned all around us, massive rolling flames that looked like small torches in the distance. Up close, the flames would have been hot enough to melt off our skin. These fires that dotted the vast plains around us looked even more eerie in the winter at night than in the summer. They were natural gas fires. Oil companies had moved into western North Dakota years ago to start fracking. Which is what they call the way they basically blow up the ground with explosives to get to the oil underneath the bedrock. Anyway, when they do that, a bunch of natural gas escapes. And so they light it on fire to controllably burn it off instead of just letting it pour into the atmosphere.
It’s quite a thing to see at night. Miles and miles of darkness dotted by hundreds of massive flames, all underneath a sky blanketed with billions of stars. It should have been pretty, but instead it sort of gave me the creeps.
Fortunately, they weren’t close enough to the county road we were on to even provide enough light to see where we were going. Which is precisely how we wanted it. The headlights were off and Danielle squinted over the steering wheel in an effort to stay on the snow-covered gravel road.
It helped that she was only going ten miles per hour. Any faster and we’d have been in a ditch a long time ago. Driving on these county back roads was dangerous enough by itself in the winter, let alone in the dark without headlights. These roads were used so rarely that by January they were typically undrivable due to snow accumulation.
Keeping the headlights off was a necessary precaution. After all, the Agency was already expecting the exchange to get ambushed. So surely they’d have agents out here on advanced recon for signs of Medlock or his men.
Luckily, I knew these back roads well. My brother used to have a summer job scouting farm fields for crop diseases and he’d brought me along a few times. He’d have reams of old county road maps with him, and I learned them pretty well since he usually let me be the navigator. These were roads not found on any other map and so I was pretty sure we’d be able to sneak in undetected on foot after we silently parked the car in the dark a mile or so away from the church.
“Is this good, you think?” Danielle asked as she pulled the car over onto a flat section of the ditch.
“Yeah, I think so,” I said, checking out our location on their mom’s GPS. “It’ll be a cold walk to the church, but we’ve got good boots and coats.”
“Okay, let’s get to work,” Dillon said.
We all got out of the car and circled around to the trunk. Danielle popped it open and I stared at the contents with wide eyes and the sudden feeling that what we were about to do was very, very stupid.
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” I said.
“It was your idea,” Danielle reminded me. “You said it’s all surface burn, remember?”
I nodded nervously. “I just don’t want anybody to get hurt.”
“Neither do we,” Dillon said, plopping two large plastic sleds from the backseat onto the ground. “Which is why we need to do this. Come on, no backing out now.”
He was right. And so I started helping him and Danielle unload our cargo onto the two sleds. It didn’t take as long as you’d think, considering just how much of it there was. Still, we were all breathing hard and sweating under our winter coats and hats by the time we finished.
“This will definitely do the trick.” I panted, while looking down at the two three-person sleds packed to capacity with the payload.
“I hope so,” Dillon said, picking up the rope to one of the sleds. He pulled it, testing the weight. It slid smoothly across the ground, but was still a struggle for him.
“Should we lighten the load some?” Danielle suggested.
“No, if we’re going to do this, we need to go all out,” I said. “No point in taking any chances.”
“Yeah, it will be mostly flat ground,” Dillon said. “Well, except for the last part anyway.”
We all just stood there for a few moments and looked at the two sleds. None of us wanted to say it again, but I think we were all starting to get the idea in our heads that we were making a mistake. That was perhaps the dumbest plan, or prank, any of us had ever come up with.
But, like Dillon said, there was no turning back now.
Right?
CHAPTER 61
INTERCEPTOR, SIGHTSEER, AND THE PUSHMAN
NONE OF US SAID ANYTHING AS WE DRAGGED THE HEAVY sleds a half mile to the low hill in between where we’d parked the car and Augustine Church. There was a small row of trees that ran across the hill and we positioned the sleds in between them to keep them as much out of sight as possible.
Dillon gave Danielle and me each a walkie-talkie and then sat down between the two sleds and saluted us.
“See you guys on the other side,” he said. “And stay frosty.”
Danielle and I continued down the other side of the hill together. We each somehow resisted the urge to look back up at Dillon. I didn’t want to think about what might happen to him if things all went wrong. Or to us, for that matter. But looking back wouldn’t have accomplished anything since it would have been too dark to see him anyway.
Danielle and I stayed low and ran between the trees and boulders and abandoned farm shacks as we moved toward Augustine Church. We said nothing as we slowly picked our way to the top of another small hill. Of course, these were hardly hills by most people’s standards. More like bumps in the landscape, as if the prairie had acne or something. But in North Dakota, even a small ant mound could be called a hill.
There was an old, crumbling farmhouse near us. Danielle crouched inside it with a riflescope she’d taken from her dad’s cache of hunting gear. She peered at Augustine Church down the hill, several hundred yards away. It was still plenty dark, but the faintest hint of pink on the horizon indicated that the sun was on its way up. Which meant the exchange was nearing.
Danielle put the scope down and gave me a thumbs-up.
“Okay then,” I said. “I’ll see you afterward, right?”
She looked away, clearly struggling not to cry. She nodded without looking up again.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I got this. This is what I do. I’m Codename Zero, right?”
Danielle didn’t respond and so I didn’t waste more time spouting off false confidence. But just as I got to the gaping hole in the western wall of the old house, Danielle finally spoke.
“Carson,” she said. I turned around. “Stay frosty.”
I gave her a single nod and then dashed outside.
At the bottom of the hill, I hit the deck and flattened down onto my stomach. From here on out, I’d need to be careful. There wasn’t much cover between me and Augustine Church.
Still, the Agency was on the lookout for Medlock and probably a whole team of armed men, not one small twelve-year-old crawling across a snow-covered field in the pitch-black. So I actually did believe I had a chance.
It was even colder near the ground, but the adrenaline shooting through my body seemed to work like antifreeze in my veins. I was aware of the cold but didn’t feel it. And so I kept crawling across the ground, staying behind the dead stubs of winter wheat stalks.
After several minutes my walkie-talkie crackled with activity.
>
“Interceptor, this is Sightseer, come in. Over,” Danielle’s voice said.
I pulled the transmitter from my pocket and hit the button.
“This is Interceptor. Over,” I said.
“We have some activity northwest of your position,” Danielle said. “Two Agency spotters with binoculars. Only proceed when I give you the go-ahead. Over.”
“Copy that,” I said.
Then a third voice crackled over the receiver.
“This is Pushman,” Dillon said. “Anything near my position, Sightseer?”
“Pushman, you’re supposed to say over at the end of the transmission. Over,” Danielle said.
“Whatever. Over,” Dillon said.
“Negative on anything near your position. Over,” Danielle said. “Just stay low.”
“You forgot to say over after the last part. Over,” Dillon said.
I heard Danielle sigh into her receiver. Then silence.
I waited for Danielle to give me the go-ahead to proceed. It seemed to last for hours.
“Okay, Interceptor,” Danielle finally said. “They’re not looking your way. Proceed, but stay low. Over.”
I began crawling again, faster this time. I’d need to cover as much ground as possible when I could. It was imperative that I got to the church before the people from the Agency who were making the buy, the people selling the technology, or Medlock arrived. My plan depended on it.
“Cease progress, Interceptor,” Danielle said.
I stopped crawling and flattened myself to the ground. More waiting. I was breathing hard, not realizing until just then how much I’d been pushing myself. I wanted to peek up and see just how close I was getting, but knew better. I tried my best to slow my breathing, to remain as still as possible. My radio crackled to life again.
“Sightseer, this is Pushman,” Dillon said. “I’ve got some possible activity on highway fifty-three. Over.”
“Copy that,” Danielle said. “I see it also. We’ve got two black sedans approaching from the southwest. They look to be slowing at the county road junction. Over.”
I waited and listened.
“The two sedans just turned onto County Road Sixteen, headed this way,” Danielle said. “I think it’s the Agency buyers. Over.”
A few minutes later, Danielle gave me the go-ahead to keep crawling. I did, keeping my eye on the area around the church. There were several good hiding spots nearby. A few trees, an old gazebo, a few outhouses, a row of snow-covered bushes, and even a massive pile of snow that had been plowed behind the church, perhaps by the Agency for this very meeting.
I was getting close enough to start plotting where I’d hunker down until the exchange, when Danielle told me to stop moving again.
“The two cars were definitely Agency,” she said. “Agents Smiley and Nineteen and one unidentified agent are all here. And an unidentified fourth individual still inside one of the cars. Over.”
I lay there waiting, trying to muffle my visible breath into my gloved hands. In the silence of the early morning, I heard faint talking. I couldn’t make out who was speaking or what they were saying, but I heard them nonetheless. If they spotted me, would they shoot on sight, before even figuring out it was me? Or would they shoot anyway, even if they knew it was me? I tried to shake the morbid questions from my head. There was no time for that kind of thinking.
“A large SUV is approaching from the south,” Danielle said. I turned the volume on my receiver down. “Interceptor, if you want to get close, now’s your chance. All eyes are on the newcomer.”
I didn’t even wait for her to say over before making my move. I quickly sprang into a crouching run and sprinted toward the back of the church, already knowing where I was going to hide. Staying low, I made my way toward the row of bushes next to the church and then dived right into them face-first. Of course I covered my face with my arms, assuming the bush had branches and everything. Several of them still managed to scratch my cheeks, but the winter sparseness of the huge shrub left plenty of room for me to basically perch inside it.
With all of my winter gear, I sort of figured the best place to hide was inside the snow-covered shrubs. I felt pretty secure and out of sight, oddly cozy even, crouching inside the huge bush. From this vantage point, I could certainly see the two Agency cars pretty clearly, even in the darkness of early dawn. I was perhaps only thirty yards away, obscured slightly by the corner of the old church.
“Interceptor, where are you? Over,” Danielle asked.
“Inside the bushes. Over,” I whispered into the receiver.
There was a long pause, and I was debating whether or not to risk repeating myself more loudly when she finally responded.
“Wow, took me a long time to spot you,” she said. “Great hiding spot. Don’t move. Over.”
“Any sign of Medlock yet?” Dillon chimed in. “Over.”
“Not yet. Over,” Danielle said.
We waited and watched in silence from our three triangulated positions. The large gray SUV approached from the south, drawing closer by the second. It turned on to the county road and then eventually pulled up and stopped ten yards away from the Agency’s sedans, even closer to me than I was hoping. I’d only been in this business a few months now, but in my experiences, I rarely caught breaks like this.
Once the car pulled up, the fourth person finally stepped out of the Agency’s sedan. It was Director Isadoris himself.
Three people got out of the gray SUV. Two were large men in black suits, like bodyguards or something. The third person was a younger man with glasses that looked way too large for his face. He held a small metal case that was handcuffed to his right wrist.
The Exodus Program.
“That must be it, guys,” Dillon said. “Should I release the kraken? Over.”
“No, not yet,” I whispered into my walkie-talkie. “I’ll let you know when. Over.”
“Okay, will do. Over,” Dillon said.
“Pushman, do you have eyes on anyone aside from those at the church?” Danielle asked. “Why haven’t we seen any sign of Medlock?”
I had been wondering the same thing. What was his plan? Perhaps he was waiting, and his plan was to intercept the program after the exchange. Which sort of made sense: Then there’d be fewer people to deal with. But then what did the Agency have in mind once he made his move? I guess it didn’t matter, since I would be laying down my cards first hopefully, and then neither of their plans would even come into play.
The seller and his bodyguards approached the four agents. They shook hands and then Director Isadoris handed a briefcase to one of the bodyguards. The large woman popped it open and showed the contents to the seller.
“Now?” Dillon asked.
“Just wait!” I snapped. “Sorry, but you need to wait for just the right moment. Over.”
There was no reply. The seller peered into the open briefcase, and even from a distance, I saw him smile. I didn’t know how much money the Agency was paying for the ability to spy on the world, and I didn’t want to know. It was probably over a billion dollars. Which was an impossible amount of money for me to even imagine. My parents made, like, eighty thousand a year combined. That alone seemed like a lot to me.
The bodyguard closed the case. The other one began helping the seller detach his own briefcase from his wrist. This was it. My heart was like a car spinning out of control on a patch of ice.
“Get ready, Pushman,” I said into the walkie-talkie.
“Copy that,” he said back.
Once the case was detached, he punched in a code on the front while one of the bodyguards held it.
“Now, Dillon, now!” I said.
I took as many deep breaths as I could possibly fit into the next thirty seconds.
The seller reached inside the open briefcase and removed something very small. This was it, my window. Why hadn’t anything happened yet? Had Dillon not heard me? Had we been wrong about what we suspected would happen?
; “Payload is being delivered,” Dillon said, “if you’re gonna go, do it now.”
I took one last breath and then fired out of the bushes like a bullet. I had only taken a few steps in my sprint toward the exchange when an explosion nearly knocked me off my feet. I stumbled, but stayed up, and then next thing I knew there was screaming everywhere.
Not people, but bottle rockets. Which went along with a massive fireball blossoming just over a nearby hill.
CHAPTER 62
THE CONGRATULATIONS BOOM-BARROW
EVERY HEAD TURNED AWAY FROM ME TOWARD THE CHAOS. They instinctively watched as rockets streamed across the sky, exploding into showers of green and red lights. The main explosion itself was even more intense than I’d expected. It had only been two sleds full of fireworks pushed into a natural gas burn-off flame, after all.
We’d spent years saving up those fireworks. Every Fourth of July we all hung out at nearby Cherry Lake and launched fireworks for hours. We always bought huge variety packs and then stashed away the extras. Over time, we began supplementing the stash with post–Fourth of July discount sales. After six years, we’d amassed a huge stockpile of fireworks. Our plan had been to load them all into a giant wheelbarrow and then set it on fire during our eighth-grade graduation ceremony. We were going to call it the Congratulations Boom-Barrow. But this seemed like an even more important use for them.
The point was this: It was a lot of fireworks. And it served its purpose. Every agent, the seller, and both bodyguards were looking away from me. Which meant I needed to keep moving. I couldn’t pause, even for a second, to watch the incredible fireball surrounded by thousands of multicolored fireworks going off.
Instead, I quickly fired a few leftover smoke disks from my hidden wrist launcher that I had recovered from Chum Bucket’s supply closet. I’d aimed them right at the exchange point. I’d need to make a clean getaway, after all.
I already had in the special contact lenses that I’d also found among his stash. They had night vision and antifog vision, which would let me see the program, even if the smoke was thick. As I approached, there it was, still clutched in the seller’s hand.
Crisis Zero Page 19
