by Jude Hardin
Dorland was right. He was holding all the cards now.
Wahlman lowered the weapon.
“What’s your real name?” he said.
“I don’t see how that’s relevant, now that you’ve found me.”
“It’s going to be relevant when I take the story to the media.”
“You have less than four minutes to live. You’re not taking the story anywhere.”
“If I die, you die,” Wahlman said.
“That seems to be the case. At any rate, I’m not telling you my real name. As a member of the intelligence community, it’s imperative that I maintain a certain degree of—”
“You have three minutes left on the timer.”
Wahlman decided to move on to the next question.
“You’ve been trying to have me killed for months,” he said. “Why?”
“Because I was ordered to have you killed,” Colonel Dorland said.
“Okay. But there must have been a reason. You targeted me, and you targeted a man named Darrell Renfro.”
“How much do you already know about that?”
“I know you got Renfro. I saw the tractor-trailer he was driving go off a bridge and crash into a canal a few miles east of New Orleans. I tried to save him, but I couldn’t. I know that Renfro and I were products of a human cloning experiment, exact genetic duplicates of a former Army officer named Jack Reacher.”
“Did you know that you and Mr. Renfro were the first human clones ever produced?”
“No.”
“And did you know that no others have been produced since then?”
“No. Get to the point. Why did the Army decide to—”
“That is the point,” Colonel Dorland said. “A certain four-star general decided that history needed to be altered a little bit. He made this decision for the reason that a lot of decisions are made, because of money. Our current project is not being funded by the United States government. It’s being funded by a group of ordinary citizens—ordinary except for the fact that they’re all billionaires. This group has been assured that the human clone soon to be produced in our laboratory is going to be the first in history.”
“Why is that so important?” Wahlman said.
“Think about it. Do you remember the name of the second man who walked on the moon?”
Wahlman shrugged. “I guess that’s a good point,” he said. “But I didn’t even know I was a clone when this first started. You could have said whatever you wanted to say about your new project. Nobody would have ever known the difference. There was no reason to kill anyone.”
“We couldn’t take a chance on you or Mr. Renfro ever finding out about the facts behind your true heritage, couldn’t take a chance that those facts might eventually become publicized. It would have exposed us as frauds, and it would have cost us billions of dollars.”
“You have two minutes left on the timer.”
“I picked up a hitchhiker named Rusty,” Wahlman said. “He was coming here for some kind of procedure. What was that all about?”
Dorland was silent for a couple of beats.
“So that’s how you found out about the facility,” he said. “What did this Rusty fellow tell you?”
“Nothing. He just needed a ride.”
“He was supposed to report this morning, no later than zero seven hundred. What happened to him?”
“Answer my question first,” Wahlman said. “Then I’ll answer yours.”
“Rusty is going to provide the donor cells for our first clone,” Dorland said.
“Why him?”
“Because he volunteered. And because his condition is terminal. If something goes wrong during the procedure—”
“Why would anything go wrong?” Wahlman said. “It’s a simple blood draw. That was how they harvested the cells from Jack Reacher, right?”
Dorland nodded. “I suppose I should explain that what we’re doing now is much different than what they were doing when you and Renfro were born. There was a codename for that project, but it was long and alphanumeric and everyone eventually just started referring to it as The Reacher Experiment. The goal back then was to manufacture super-soldiers. Entire battalions of them. Huge, strong, intelligent. Like Jack Reacher. Like you. It was ambitious, and revolutionary. But it was illegal, and it was costing a fortune, and the administration at the time decided to ditch it in favor of a new line of fighter jets.”
“All this stuff is written down somewhere?”
“It was. The files have been destroyed. You and Renfro were the only loose ends. Now it’s just you.”
“Human cloning is still illegal,” Wahlman said.
“Not for long. There’s a bill right now in the—”
“I’ve heard about the bill. It’s not going anywhere. The sponsors don’t have the votes.”
Dorland laughed. “Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers,” he said. “The bill will pass, and it will be signed into law. Guaranteed.”
“You said that the experiments you’re doing now are different from the ones they were doing back when Renfro and I were born. How so?”
“Our project has nothing to do with national defense. It’s more of a business venture than anything else. A couple of years ago, one of the principal scientists approached the four-star general I mentioned earlier, and soon after that the four-star general approached me. It’s going to make us very wealthy men, and it’s going to assure our places in history.”
“You have one minute left on the timer.”
“I don’t know about the general, but in sixty seconds your place in history is going to be a greasy spot on the highway,” Wahlman said. “Cancel the timer.”
“Give me the gun, and I will.”
“I’m not giving you the gun.”
“Then I’m not cancelling the timer.”
“You’re willing to die for this shit?”
“I am.”
“You’re bluffing.”
Dorland laughed. “Do you really think so?” he said.
“Yes,” Wahlman said.
“Gertrude, please make the self-destruct timer irreversible, starting now.”
“Your last command requires a positive confirmation. You want the self-destruct timer to be irreversible, starting now. Is this correct?”
“Yes,” Dorland said. “And please start an audible countdown immediately after executing the next verbal command.”
“Audible countdown ready to start following the next verbal command.”
Dorland sat up straight, checked his seatbelt.
“You were right,” he said. “I was bluffing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Gertrude, please eject the passenger seat now.”
The roof receded and Dorland shot out of the top of the car like a rocket. Wahlman glanced into the rearview mirror, saw a parachute open, saw the lines become tangled, saw Dorland dropping like a rock into the forest. It was doubtful that he made it to the ground. He was probably up in the trees somewhere, skewered on some splintered branches, bleeding out slowly and painfully. Wahlman cringed at the thought of it. He couldn’t think of a worse way to die.
The roof closed as quickly as it had opened. It mated into the slot at the top of the windshield with a definitive click.
“Twenty-five…twenty-four…twenty-three…”
“This is insane,” Wahlman said. “It can’t end like this. It just can’t.”
“Eighteen…seventeen…sixteen…”
“Shut up, Gertrude.”
There was a brief pause.
“Discontinuing audible countdown,” the computer said.
“Gertrude?”
“Awaiting next verbal command.”
Dorland must have been lying about the computer being programmed to recognize his voice and his voice only. Wahlman felt like an idiot now for taking him at his word.
“Gertrude, discontinue the self-destruct timer.”
“Negative. The command
to self-destruct was made irreversible.”
Shit.
“How much time is left?” Wahlman said.
“You have eight seconds left on the timer.”
Shit.
Wahlman considered his options. He had command of the vehicle now. He could use the brakes to come to a complete stop, and he could unlock the doors, and he could unbuckle his seatbelt and climb out and take off running.
But there just wasn’t time.
So he did the only thing he could do.
He gave the command, even though he’d seen what had happened to Colonel Dorland.
“Gertrude, eject the driver seat,” he said.
And she did.
20
Phoning from a second story hotel room on the outskirts of Myrtle Beach, Wahlman had spoken to ten different investigative reporters at ten different major metropolitan newspapers. Every one of them had told him the same thing. You can’t go after a story like that without some kind of proof. Photographs. Documents. Video recordings. Voice recordings. Witnesses willing to come forward and corroborate.
Wahlman had nothing.
He knew for a fact that the Army was planning to conduct secret human cloning experiments out on that island, and he knew that there was more to it than that, but he didn’t know any of the details. It’s going to make us very wealthy men, and it’s going to assure our places in history. Dorland had seemed ready to spill it all, but then time had run out.
Wahlman couldn’t prove that he’d been captured and held against his will, and there was no physical evidence that any harm had been done to him. He’d watched the fancy little spy car explode from fifty feet in the air, and then he’d floated safely to the grassy area that ran parallel to the shoulder along Highway 30. He’d hiked through the woods and had waited until dark and had paid a rather inebriated fishing boat captain to take him back across the bay. He was fortunate that he’d made it off the island alive, but now all he could think about was going back. He needed more details about what the Army was doing out there, and he needed documentation. Then maybe the media would listen. Maybe they would believe that someone was trying to kill him.
Wahlman knew what he needed to do, but he was getting low on cash and he didn’t have a car anymore and the security at the research facility was going to be even more insane now than it had been to start with. So maybe it would be best to just disappear for a while. Maybe hang out in Norfolk for a month or so. Find some sort of work, save some money, take some time to think about how to proceed. Take some time to regroup, keeping in mind that none of this was over yet, that even if Dorland was out of the picture now, someone would be assigned to take his place.
21
General Foss steered into the gravel driveway that ran alongside the cabin, veered off onto the pine needles and parked beside the boxy little hatchback that Colonel Dorland had been issued for his drive back to Tennessee, a no-frills temporary replacement for the ultra-high-tech multimillion-dollar vehicle he had destroyed. Foss climbed out of his SUV, walked around to the back of the cabin and joined Dorland on the deck. Dorland was sitting in a folding chair, staring out at the valley below. There was an orthopedic brace strapped to his left leg and a pair of aluminum crutches leaning against the railing.
“There’s a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen,” Dorland said.
“I can’t stay. I just wanted to stop by and talk to you for a few minutes. In person. I figured I owed you that.”
“Sir?”
“There’s a helicopter waiting for me in Nashville. I have some business to take care of in Washington.”
“There’s a meat and cheese tray in the refrigerator. Case of beer. I thought—”
“I’m relieving you of your command,” Foss said. “You are to vacate the premises immediately, and you are to report to the Senior Officer Processing Station in Memphis no later than midnight tonight.”
“You’re sending me to SOPS?”
“You’re off my team. I need people I can trust. You’re no longer one of those people.”
“General, please. Things just got out of hand for a while. There’s no reason we can’t—”
“I have nothing else to say to you.”
Dorland took a deep breath.
“I’ll need some time to pack my things,” he said.
“Your uniforms and other personal items will be boxed and shipped to Memphis first thing in the morning. The only thing you need to do right now is to get in your car and drive.”
“What about our business venture? I have a lot of time and money invested in—”
“You’ll be reimbursed. We’re going to need for you to sign some non-disclosure agreements. I’m sending a man to SOPS to talk to you about all that. He should be there tomorrow.”
Dorland reached up and grabbed the deck railing, pulled himself to a standing position.
“All I can say is that I’m sorry,” he said.
“Get out of my sight,” Foss said.
Colonel Dorland grabbed the crutches and positioned them under his arms and crossed the deck. He turned and saluted, and then he walked through the cabin and exited through the front door.
General Foss pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and pressed the SEND button on a text message he’d composed earlier. He heard Dorland start the boxy little hatchback, and he heard the sound of rubber on gravel as he backed out of the driveway. And that was all he heard. He didn’t hear Dorland skidding to a stop when he got to the roadblock a mile or so down the mountain, and he didn’t hear Dorland shout and scream as he was being dragged out of his vehicle and forced to walk into the woods. He didn’t hear any of that, and he certainly didn’t hear the gunshot that drove a bullet into Dorland’s brain, because the lieutenant he’d sent the message to—a promising young deep encryption expert named Driessman—always used a sound suppressor on these types of occasions.
Thanks so much for reading REDLINE!
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My Nicholas Colt thriller series includes these full-length novels: AMERICAN P.I., LADY 52, POCKET-47, CROSSCUT, SNUFF TAG 9, KEY DEATH, BLOOD TATTOO, SYCAMORE BLUFF, and THE REACHER FILES: FUGITIVE.
THE REACHER FILES: VELOCITY takes the series in a new direction, and sets the stage for THE BLOOD NOTEBOOKS.
And now, for the first time, 4 NICHOLAS COLT NOVELS have been published together in a box set at a special low price.
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Thanks again, and happy reading!
Jude
Copyright © 2018 by Jude Hardin
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.
April 2018
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