by Jack Mars
“Smiley, where’s that bogey?”
“He has us on his nose. Collision course. Three miles out now. Uh… two miles.”
Russell took a deep breath. This was going to happen fast.
“Acquire surface targets.”
“Targets acquired and locked on.”
“One mile sir,” Smiley said. “Here… he… comes.”
Russell looked to his right. Through the window, he got a visual on the Chinese plane. It was dark gray, coming almost too fast to see. He tried for an ID on it. The sharp lines and single cockpit told him it was probably a J-11 Shenyang—lightning-fast, super-maneuverable. It had better be. Otherwise there was going to be a mid-air crash.
His heart skipped in his chest.
“Steady!” he heard himself shout. “Prepare to fire.”
The fighter zipped past just over their heads, way too close.
An instant later, the turbulence hit them and the big P8 shuddered. The P8 rode the unsettled air, then simmered down.
“Smiley?” Russell said.
“Copy,” came a shaken voice.
“Status?”
“Still here, sir.”
“Status on that bogey, Smiley. Not you.”
“Uh… three miles out, showing us his tail. Four miles. Five.”
Russell let out a long breath. He felt his heart now, thumping steadily, thumping hard, but almost like normal.
“Bogey on a heading change now, sir. On a western track, giving us his left flank. Looks like he’s going to link up with his buddy to the west.”
Russell looked over at Montgomery. The kid’s face was positively green.
“Montgomery,” Russell said. “I think you’re going to like this job.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
11:17 p.m.
Streets of Randal, Maryland
The cop car was fast.
Luke was faster.
He came tearing around a corner, driving effortlessly now, one with the machine. The car skidded, leaving rubber on the asphalt. He straightened it out and tore down the long, empty industrial parkway.
He had left the cops several streets back. But it was only a matter of time before they found him again. His eyes scanned the streets ahead of him, both hands on the wheel. He glanced at the speed: 130.
He blew through a red light. There was no one coming. There was no one out here at all.
Up ahead, he saw the prison van and the Hummer. He was coming like a missile, listening to the voices in his Bluetooth headset.
“Stay down!” the guard screamed. “Don’t you move a muscle. Don’t you even twitch. I’ve got backup coming and we’re going to wait right here, you and me.”
He was talking to Ed Newsam.
“Swann?”
“Yes, Luke.”
“How do we look on satellite?”
“Flashing lights converging from the south and the west. It’s going to get very hot in a matter of minutes.”
“Okay.”
It was all coming toward him, like a big package on a fast-moving conveyor belt. He could see the van clearly now. He could see the broad back of the young ex-marine, the man in a stiff ready pose, pointing something into the doorway. That guy wasn’t going to risk trying to cuff Ed for anything. He was going to wait until he had four or five guys with him. The danger here was Ed would blink wrong, or sneeze, and the jumpy guard would give him a blast of lead.
Luke was close now. Too close.
He slammed on the brakes, the car going into another skid. He steered with his left hand and picked up his dum-dum shotgun off the seat next to him with his right.
The skid was loud, and long. He steered into it, sliding sideways, showing the kid the driver’s side. He rested the shotgun across his left arm and poked the snout out the window.
Here he came, sideways, sideways… Too fast, he was going to crush the kid against the van. At the last second, the kid turned to face him, all big eyes, terror in those eyes, his mouth a big round O of surprise. The last thing he would ever see, a black car coming at him broadside. He didn’t even move.
The car stopped three feet short of the kid.
Luke had the drop on him, the muzzle of his shotgun bare feet from the kid’s belly. “Put the gun down, kid. Drop it! Right now.”
Something in Luke’s eyes said he meant business. The kid dropped his gun. It clattered to the pavement. He stood, staring at Luke’s gun, trying to make sense of what was happening, trying to decide if he was going to die right here.
Ed appeared behind and above him, on the lip of the van. He dropped down to the ground, punched the kid in the back of the head, then guided his body gently to the roadway.
Behind Ed, Trudy appeared in the doorway.
Luke shook his head at the sight of her.
“Luke?” Swann said inside the headset. “About to get very hot where you are.”
“Okay, kids,” Luke called. “We have to move right now.”
They piled into the car, Trudy in the back, Ed into the shotgun seat. He dropped his gun and his big blue kit bag in the well at his feet.
Luke peeled off onto the road again.
Far behind him, in the rearview mirror, he could see the approaching flashers. He could hear the sirens. He smiled.
“Is this a family reunion or what?”
*
August 17th, 1:15 a.m.
Ocean City, Maryland
The parking lot was on the ground-floor level of the luxury apartment building. There were no basements near the beach.
“Welcome to paradise, gentlemen,” Swann said.
He parked the car, a big white Range Rover that Luke had never seen before tonight. They climbed out into the empty garage. Luke wore a New York Yankees baseball cap, cut-off shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops. Ed Newsam wore a Miami Heat basketball jersey, blue jeans, and sneakers. He carried a giant hockey equipment bag slung over his shoulder. It had a Washington Capitals logo on it. He bent from the weight, but to the naked eye, didn’t seem to struggle with it.
The elevator was all carpeting and glass walls. A long double line of buttons ran along a metal panel. At the top of the buttons was a key slot. Swann stuck a key into the slot and turned. The elevator doors closed and the chamber lurched skyward.
“It’s a nice town,” Swann said. “You guys ever spend much time here?”
“I go to Virginia Beach,” Ed said.
Swann shrugged, then nodded. “Yeah. I probably should have guessed. Virginia Beach is good. This is better. I think you’re going to enjoy it here.”
Luke was silent. Swann still hadn’t explained what they were doing here. All Luke knew was that they needed somewhere to hide out, and Swann thought this would be a good place. Luke was reluctant to say anything in the elevator. He would wait to see once they got inside.
The elevator climbed to the top of the building. It opened directly into the foyer of an apartment. There was no hallway. There were no other doors except the tripled-locked double doors in front of them. Swann opened those with an eight- or ten-digit code he punched from memory into a keypad on the wall.
They went in.
The apartment was big. In the darkness, Swann took a remote control off the table and used it to turn on a few lights throughout the place. There were two floors. A steel and cable staircase went up to the second floor, where it connected with a catwalk. There was a living room here in front of them with a large white sectional couch. A modern art piece hung behind it, the canvas four feet wide and ten feet long, the painting a crazy horizontal blood-red scrape, like a person scratching at the walls of their prison cell with the last of their fingernails.
To their left, sliding glass doors opened to what appeared to be a deck.
Ed gingerly put his equipment bag down on the couch. He pulled the zipper along the length of it. Trudy’s head popped out, hair mussed, eyes wide and blind. Her hand came up, slid her red glasses on, and she focused. She still wore her orange prison jumpsuit.
“Are we there yet?” she said.
“We are there,” Swann said. “Come on out and make yourself at home.”
“That begs the question, Swann,” Luke said. “Where are we?”
They were in a penthouse apparently, at the top floor of a thirty-story oceanfront building. Whoever owned the apartment was rich. But it was important to know: how did Swann have access to this place?
Swann shrugged. “Does it matter?”
Luke stared at him. “You bet it matters. It’s not going to take long for them to figure out who took Trudy. When they do…”
“They won’t find us here, Luke.”
Luke soaked in the sight of Swann. Tall and thin, with long sandy hair and aviator glasses. His hair was pulled into a ponytail. Unlike a lot of desk jockeys, he seemed reasonably fit. He wore a black T-shirt with the words BLACK FLAG in white across the front. He wore faded jeans and red Converse All-Star sneakers.
“How can you be sure?”
“No one knows about this place. It’s owned by a guy named Albert Helu. He keeps a low profile. He doesn’t bother anybody. No one bothers him.”
“Who is he?” Ed said.
Swann didn’t answer.
“Swann…” Luke said.
“He’s me.”
Swann paused, then saw that it probably wasn’t good enough. He was going to have to give them more.
“Listen, there’s a lot you guys don’t know about me. I was arrested twelve years ago. That’s how I got into government work. I was a twenty-three-year-old kid. Hacking. I was hitting investment firms. Transferring money from large institutional brokerage accounts to accounts owned by me. I hit big companies because nobody got hurt that way. But I got caught. I was looking at a lot of time, but when they saw what I could do, they offered me a job instead. Provided I stopped doing the other. Who could argue with a deal like that one?”
“And Albert Helu?”
Swann raised his eyebrows. “I had about a dozen aliases at the time, and they rolled up most of them. But not all. I kept Albert compartmentalized and they never found him. I know this because I started using his accounts and his property again within a year or two, after I figured they weren’t watching me anymore.”
Swann stood, looking at them. Then he put his hands up.
“I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not true. They might be watching me, but they’re not watching Albert. I never come here straight from being Mark Swann. I’ve had carte blanche access to worldwide criminal databases, satellite surveillance, email, and web traffic servers for years. No one is looking for Albert. He is on no one’s radar. No one knows he’s here except the staff, and mostly I steer clear of them. When they do see me, they call me Mr. Helu. I tell them to call me Al.”
“So you own this place?” Ed said. He walked around the living room. He looked up at the catwalk above his head. “Not bad.”
“Well, Albert owns it. But I can use it anytime I want. You should check out the deck. There’s a hot tub out there.”
“If you have all this money, why even bother working for the government?” Ed said.
Swann shrugged. “Why does anybody do it? The benefits are good. And if I hang around long enough, I’ll get a pension. Listen, you guys want a beer?”
Trudy had climbed all the way out of the bag now. She sat on the white couch. She looked like a tiny orange spot in the giant apartment.
She looked at Luke and Ed. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
Luke smiled. “You’re welcome, Trudy.”
Ed shrugged. “It was the least we could do.”
Trudy shook her head. “No, I mean thank you for rescuing me. I am very glad to be out of there. There was a guard… she was about as mean as it gets.”
I have a funny feeling,” Ed said, “that I’ve met meaner people.”
“Ones that were in charge of de-lousing you, and checking you for contraband? You know, really checking you?”
Ed grimaced. “Ah,” he said.
“That’s right,” Trudy said. “That’s the look I had on my face, too. She looked around. “So what am I even doing here? If they catch me again…”
“You tell them we took you against your will,” Luke said.
“But why? Why did you do it?”
“I don’t know. I figured we’d get the band back together, take a little vacation together, and hang out here in Swann’s fabulous apartment. You know, relive the good old days a little.”
“I don’t remember those days,” Ed said.
Trudy shook her head. “That’s funny. Me neither.”
“Well,” Luke said. “In that case, I must be thinking of somebody else. Oh, right. You’re Trudy. You’re the one who’s going to help us figure out who is carrying out these cyber attacks.”
She heaved a heavy sigh.
“That’s why you broke me out?”
“Yes. Sound fun?”
“Better than jail,” she said. “So how do I do that from here?”
Swann came back through a tall swinging door with four beer bottles in his hands.
“Oh, let me show you,” he said.
He put the bottles down on the glass coffee table in front of the couch. He picked up the remote control again and hit a button. To their right, spotlights came on in an area of the room that was in darkness a moment before. A glass partition automatically slid away into the wall. A big leather chair sat at a desk with three tower hard drives on the floor beneath it, and two flat-panel screens on top of it. Wires ran all over the floor.
“Encrypted super high-speed internet,” Swann said. “Masking programs that run the data all over the world before it comes here through a secure portal. Untraceable. Access to hundreds of cable and satellite television stations throughout the world. Access to communications satellites, surveillance satellites, thousands of databases through pirated subscription services, hijacked network traffic, email servers, you name it. You need information? This is where you will find it.”
Trudy stared at Swann’s computer setup. “I’m really tired,” she said. “I’ve been through the wringer these past several weeks. When do you want me to start?”
Luke picked up a beer and took a long sip. It was cold and delicious. He gestured at Swann’s command center.
“This thing is operational?” he said.
Swann grunted. “Operational? It’s ready to rock.”
Luke knocked back another swig of the beer. “Well, in that case, I guess we start right now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
7:07 a.m.
United States Naval Observatory – Washington, DC
“How’s the atmosphere?” Susan said.
She and Kat Lopez were descending the main staircase together, coming down from Susan’s study. Two big Secret Service officers led them down. Another one brought up the rear behind them.
Susan hadn’t gotten much sleep. But today, at least, when she came out of the shower and into her private kitchen, she found a bag of Peet’s Dark Roast Coffee on the counter. That was almost enough to make her day.
Kat looked the worse for wear. By the time she reached home last night, tumbled into bed, woke up, and came back here, she’d be lucky if she got three hours sleep.
“In the Situation Room?” Kat said.
“Yes.”
“It’s bad, Susan. I need to tell you something about it.”
Susan shook her head. She tried on a smile. It didn’t fit. Smiles weren’t going to work today. She was looking for someplace inside of herself, some island of calm. She wasn’t finding one.
“Don’t worry about it, Kat. I can handle these people.”
“I’ve got more bad news besides that,” Kat said.
Susan stopped. Could things get any worse? Could there really be more bad news?
“Hit me,” she said. “If I’m still standing after all this, I doubt there’s much that can knock me down now.”
“Trudy Wellington broke out of prison last night.�
��
Susan nearly grabbed the hand railing for support. How could that be? Trudy Wellington, who knew about the assassination and coup plot? She wasn’t a major player. She was Don Morris’s mistress. Heck, they were keeping her in jail to squeeze her for information, not because they thought she had done anything.
Don Morris was in a SuperMax in Colorado. He didn’t have the reach to get Wellington out. He didn’t even have access to the outside world. And no one else on his side would care enough to…
She stopped.
“Luke Stone.”
Kat nodded. “We think so. He visited her yesterday afternoon. Then late last night, someone hacked into the Bureau of Prisons database and got her transferred from the detention facility up in Randal, to the DC municipal lockup. It was an uncommon transfer, but not unprecedented. No one caught it. Two men hijacked the transfer van and freed her.”
“A white man and a black man.”
Kat nodded again. “Bingo.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
Kat shrugged. “Some scratches, a few lumps on the head. Not really.”
Now Susan really did smile. “Okay. I’m sure the police are looking for them. We don’t need to contribute any of our own people. Let’s just keep any eye on the situation, all right?”
“All right, Susan.”
They walked down the hallway toward the Situation Room. The double doors were open, with a Secret Service officer on either side of the doorway. They had ramped up security again. After the subway attacks, it seemed to make sense. But if they were just going to attack computer systems…
Susan walked into the Room.
Kurt Kimball was there, standing as always. He wore a dress shirt and slacks, both clean and starched. His posture was upright and erect, energetic as always, but his face looked tired. There were black rings under his eyes. It was starting to get to him. For a second, Susan wondered if he had even gone home last night.
Sitting among the small crowd was Michael Parowski, looking alert and refreshed. He seemed mighty pleased with himself after his television news show tour-de-force the night before. She had to hand it to him. He was built for this. Crisis. Turmoil. In-fighting. She’d be curious to see how well he was built for the African desert.
