Boggs moved to Adair. He smiled down at him—then spat in his face.
He turned and clicked the switch atop the bomb. A small plastic window on the casing lit up, displaying a digital countdown.
4:00 … 3:59 … 3:58 …
“The clock is now ticking, Hunter. You now have less than four minutes to guess and second-guess yourself—to death.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
“Nightstalker, did you hear that? You’ve got about … three and a half minutes, now.”
A tangle of tall brush had overgrown the path, slowing her progress. As she forced her way through, thin branches whipped at her face, knocking the NVGs askew and snagging her backpack. Enraged, she lowered her head and with a low growling noise powered forward. She broke through to the other side suddenly, momentum and the unexpected loss of resistance pitching her forward to the ground.
She pushed herself to her feet. Her heart was pounding, her breathing labored, and she was soaked with sweat beneath her leather jacket and jeans. Her thighs and calves were on fire, and through the goggles the green world around her seemed to darken and brighten.
“Nightstalker, do you copy? Why did you stop? Are you all right?”
She stumbled forward on unsteady legs, weaving up the slope.
“Copy … proceeding,” she panted.
“Tango Two is in position on the ridge near his vehicle. Tango One has just left the residence and moved east, a few feet into the treeline.”
“Roger … that …”
She couldn’t catch her breath. Her heart felt as if it were going to burst. She began to feel faint … disembodied. Her field of vision narrowed to a tunnel. She saw only the faint outline of the track ahead, a path leading toward the top of the hill.
She had to make it to the top of the hill …
“Three minutes, Hunter.”
Boggs’s voice, taunting him from the cell phone on the coffee table.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Heroic Journalist? Can’t you make up your mind? I see four frightened people around you. They are depending on you, you know.”
Hunter glanced at the camera across the room. Then at the Adairs.
Nan, trembling violently, had twisted away from the sight of the bomb. Will slumped forward, his body wracked with sobs and loud moans. Kaitlin’s eyes were fixed into the distance. “My babies,” she was whispering. “My babies …” Hunter followed her gaze to a photo on the wall—a family shot of her on a beach with her husband and two children.
Adair sat in silence. His haunted eyes moved back and forth between Hunter’s face and the digital clock on the bomb. His eyes were telling Hunter that they all were at the mercy of whatever decision he made …
“Two-and-a-half minutes, now.” He heard a faint chuckle. “You’re running out of time, Hunter.”
Don’t let him distract you. Think …
He thought about the Technobomber cases, about the M.O. in the various bombings. Most were letter or package bombs, triggered by release of pressure on a switch when they were opened. But two had been set off remotely, by cell phone.
He thought of the more recent bombings. CarboNot: another mail bomb, set off by release of a pressure switch. The bomb in the cabin: a trigger-switch device. The one that killed Silva: cell-phone activated …
He looked at the cell phone on the coffee table.
At the cell-phone-operated videocamera across the room.
At the twin-button electrical switch at his hand.
Then back at the digital clock on the side of the time bomb, three feet away.
2:15 … 2:14 … 2:13 …
Time bomb?
His eyes returned to the two buttons. His index finger hovered above them …
“Only two more minutes, Hunter!”
Boggs’s voice in her ear sounded distant now. She had pushed so hard she knew she was in danger of passing out. She tried to concentrate, to focus on following that faint green path into the glowing green tunnel ahead of her. Her throat and lungs ached. She pushed one foot after the other, her legs leaden.
“Nightstalker—you’re still too far away. Why are you walking? You’ve got to move faster!”
That’s not Boggs, she thought … that’s Grant …
“The tangos are positioned on the east and south sides of the house. You’ll be coming in behind its northwest corner. They shouldn’t spot you. But you have to move a lot faster. Do you read? You have to run, now.”
Run now, she thought.
Her heavy legs continued to walk.
He stared at the timer, only vaguely aware of commotion around him.
And it hit him.
Boggs had never used a timer in his previous bombings. Only cell phones or electrical switches.
He had a cell-activated detonator inside this bomb, as a backup.
But—a backup to what? To a time bomb?
He considered the black and white buttons beneath his fingertips. Pondered the psychology of the fanatic who devised this “game” …
“Ninety seconds, Hunter. I see that the ladies are praying. Will you be the answer to their prayers?”
A sociopath. A sadist who enjoys inflicting physical and psychological suffering …
“Eighty seconds. I’m sorry, ladies. It seems that Hunter doesn’t want to even try to save you.”
… a narcissist who needs to believe he’s smarter than everyone else … who enjoys symbolically outsmarting everyone …
“Seventy seconds. What are you waiting for, Hunter?”
… goading him to press one of the buttons, black or white …
Black or white. Suddenly, he remembered Boggs’s email to the Inquirer.
“You believe in a black-and-white morality … you and I both make binary moral choices … That makes you predictable—and that is your Achilles’s heel …”
Black or white … a binary choice … a predictable binary choice …
Hunter sat back. Looked up into the camera. Grinned.
Moved his hand away from the buttons.
“What are you smiling about? Just one minute more and you’ll die and kill all your friends, Dylan Hunter.”
She heard the name in her earpiece … then immediately saw him, saw him crawling across the floor to her, crawling to her covered in his own blood, never stopping, refusing to stop because he was coming to save her …
“… Nightstalker, I said: Do you copy? You have to run! Annie—run!”
Suddenly there was only one all-consuming thought:
You have to run to Dylan …
She found herself stumbling forward, then trotting, then running again, running up the path. The green tunnel before her began to widen and the pain in her lungs faded and the weight of her legs lightened. The path began to level out and she saw bright light ahead through the trees and an opening at the end of the path, an opening that grew with every stride …
“Copy!” she heard herself whisper.
“Thirty seconds, Hunter! Why are you just sitting there, laughing? Are you crazy?”
She saw a yard at the end of the trail before her, fifty meters ahead.
“Fifteen seconds! Aren’t you going to do anything?”
She pushed ahead with everything she had. Her lungs felt like they were tearing.
“Ten … nine … just eight seconds, Hunter! … seven …”
She burst from the tree line into the yard.
Then saw that the house was another hundred meters distant.
“Grant,” she gasped, “I won’t make it in time!”
But she continued to run, run as fast as she could, knowing that she had failed him, knowing that he was about to die, her only hope now that the blast that killed him would take her, too …
The whole family was screaming at him.
“It will be okay,” he said quietly, his eyes never straying from the camera lens.
“… five … four …”
“Pick one! Just pick one!” Adair shouted, straining at his bonds.
“Do something!”
Dylan continued to grin. “I am.”
“… two … one …”
Their shrieking stopped and they closed their eyes.
“… zero!”
Nothing happened.
Five more seconds passed.
He turned to them, still smiling as they opened their eyes in disbelief.
“I told you it would be okay.”
“I told you it would be okay.”
Dylan’s voice—instead of the blast.
She slowed and stopped. Stood paralyzed, fifty meters from the house, gasping for air, not understanding.
“Annie! Keep moving!” Grant shouted in her ear.
Then she realized that he was still in danger. She started to run again.
Adair’s face was white and his eyes were riveted on the bomb, uncomprehending.
“It’s all right, Dan,” Hunter said softly. He turned back to the camera and raised his voice. “Well, Zachariah: Didn’t I say you’re really not as smart as you think you are?”
“You think you outsmarted me? Well, let me disabuse you of—”
Hunter cut him off. “Do you want to know how I figured it out?”
“Not rea—”
“It was very simple.” He chuckled. “Because your mind isn’t particularly subtle. In fact, you’re stupidly predictable. It goes back to that letter you sent to me at the newspaper. You stupidly revealed the clue to your psychology, right there. Care to know what the stupid clue was?”
“You haven’t won! Right now—”
“You were boasting that you had me all figured out, that I was predictable. You said, ‘You’re like me. You’ll always make a binary choice.’ Well, that was your stupid blunder. ‘You’ll always make a binary choice.’ So, what did you do? You designed a trap that depended on me acting predictably: predictably making some binary choice. Any choice. Because either choice, black or white, would have set off the bomb—right, Doctor Boggs?”
He paused to waste a few more precious seconds. He heard Boggs take a breath, but before he could speak, Hunter pressed on.
“I’ve seen a few bombs in my time, Doctor Boggs. You wouldn’t know that, of course. But I had reason to believe that this one isn’t a time bomb at all. You see, I’ve studied your M.O., Doctor, and you always used either cell phone or electrical switch detonation. This button gadget is a just a simple electrical switch. It’s rigged to set off the bomb at the press of a button—either button. Isn’t that right, Doctor?”
With a last burst of energy she raced across the yard, listening to Dylan banter with Boggs, knowing he was trying to buy time, knowing he could salvage less than a minute more—perhaps only seconds.
She reached the corner of the house, then clawed at the straps of the backpack, frantic to get it off …
“You’re still going to die! Right now!” Boggs shouted, so long that the cell phone speaker crackled.
“Sure, sure, because you have a back-up detonator inside the bomb—right, Doctor? A cell-phone activated one—right, Doctor? You plan to use your smartphone, right from out there in the trees where you’re hiding—right, Doctor?”
Silence.
Then:
“You think you’re very clever, don’t you? But you’ve given yourself only a very brief Pyrrhic victory. There’s not a thing you can do now. We’re going to play the game again, Hunter, and in ten seconds you won’t think you’re so smart. You won’t be thinking anything at all. So now, as I count down from ten, you may all say your goodbyes.”
Adair looked at his wife. “I love you, Nan.” His voice was hoarse.
“I love you,” she whispered back, holding his eyes.
“Oh, Daddy!” Kaitlin cried out to Adair.
His features were tortured. “I’m so sorry, baby!”
Hunter had to grit his teeth to keep the smile fixed on his face.
She finally shrugged off the backpack and swung it in front of her. Now her fingers fumbled to undo the snaps at the top.
“Ten … nine … eight …”
She yanked it open, shoved her hand inside among the four spiky black antennas protruding from its top … found and flipped a switch.
“… seven … six …”
She hoisted the bag into her arms again and staggered along the back wall of the house, moving toward the den …
Smartphone in hand, Zachariah Boggs watched the house from his hiding place in the trees. When his countdown reached five, he ducked behind a thick tree trunk for protection and pressed the speed-dial button that rang the cell inside the bomb.
“… three … two … one … Bye-bye, all!”
He braced himself for the blast.
Five more seconds passed.
Nothing happened.
He frowned and pressed the speed-dial number a second time.
Waited …
Nothing.
He smacked his phone a few times, thinking the batteries may have been jostled loose—only to realize that the screen was lit, but the videocam feed from inside the house was gone.
What the hell?
He quickly thumbed in the entire nine-digit number of the cell phone inside the bomb.
Still nothing.
Desperate, he pulled out and keyed his walkie-talkie.
“Rusty, something’s wrong with my phone!”
He released the key.
And heard nothing. Not static. Not anything.
“Rusty!”
Dead air.
Hunter wondered why Boggs halted the countdown at six. Dead silence gripped the room as they all held their breath, waiting for him to resume.
But no more sound came from the cell phone on the table.
“Boggs?” Hunter ventured.
Silence.
Some new twisted game?
“I’m talking to you, you pompous little prick.”
No response.
Then he knew …
He began to laugh. Then he turned to the Adairs.
“We’re okay, now, folks. The Marines have landed.”
He took a long, deep breath and released it.
Grant Garrett, I owe you yet another box of cigars.
Eyes closed, back against the wall, Annie cradled the jammer and waited for the world to shatter.
Thirty seconds passed.
Then her lips began to tremble and her legs grew wobbly and gave way and she slid slowly to the ground. She sat there, shaking, staring into blurry green space, trying to stifle her little sobs. She flipped up the NVGs and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
I did it, love … I did it …
It all caught up with her in an instant. She felt beyond exhaustion, physically and emotionally drained. She wanted to collapse right here, right now, on the cold earth.
Then she remembered that Boggs and his partner were somewhere close by. With a rifle, shotgun, and handgun.
She carefully placed the Man Pack Jammer on the ground next to her and slid it out of sight behind a shrub. It would continue to block any transmissions within a sixty-meter radius for hours. But of course that included her own commo with Garrett and the Predator. Until she got out of its range, she would be on her own.
Against two armed killers.
She drew the Beretta from her jacket pocket. Struggling to her feet, she teetered dizzily and leaned against the wall. After a few seconds she felt a little steadier. Weapon in hand, she lowered her NVGs once more and began to creep slowly along the back wall, toward the eastern side of the house.
Behind the tree, Boggs was eyeing the house, trying to figure out what had happened, when he thought he saw faint movement. He stared intently, wondering if it was only his imagination.
No—there.
A dark, spectral figure was sliding slowly along the lighter-colored wall.
FBI hostage rescue?
Now he knew why his communications weren’t working.
And suddenly, Zachariah Boggs was scared.
Moving cautiously to
avoid being spotted, he pocketed his smartphone and placed the cell phone and walkie-talkie on the ground. He picked up the shotgun lying there, then began to move, one careful step at a time, back into the trees. After a moment, he started to run toward the road, stumbling and crashing heedlessly through the branches.
Annie heard noise out in the trees. She recalled what Grant had reported.
That would have to be Boggs.
She was torn: Go inside and free Dylan—or go in hot pursuit and take out the threats?
He won’t be safe as long as they are out there.
She knew the guy on the ridge had not just the rifle, but their vehicle. She had to prevent Boggs from reaching it and escaping. But to do that, she needed to re-establish commo with Grant.
Taking a breath and hoping her taxed legs wouldn’t fail her, she dashed out from the house across the lawn, and into the trees at the eastern edge of the property. Nobody shot at her.
She immediately encountered an ATV trail heading through the woods back toward the road. And heard crashing noise in that direction. She hustled off after Boggs. And as she left the range of the jammer, her earpiece crackled to life.
“—stalker, do you copy?”
“Nightstalker copies. The bomb is neutralized. Repeat: bomb neutralized … I’m now in foot pursuit of Tango One.”
“Thank God! … The UAS has eyes on you and both tangos. Tango One is heading east, away from the vehicle.”
She made a snap decision. “Direct me toward the vehicle and Tango Two. That’s their only escape. The Predator can track Tango One.”
“Roger that.”
She reached the roadway a moment later. When Grant reported that the man on the ridge appeared to be moving around the truck, she took the opportunity to run across the road and into the trees over there.
Grant directed her to a relatively easy path up the slope of the ridge, then guided her to circle behind the man’s position. She crept toward him through the trees from the rear.
Soon she spotted his pickup truck on a narrow dirt road. He stood beside it, on the driver’s side. Despite the cold, he wore only a flannel shirt. He held a pair of binoculars to his eyes, aimed toward the house; in his other hand he held a walkie-talkie. A rifle and handgun rested on the passenger side of the truck’s hood, lying on what looked like the man’s jacket.
BAD DEEDS: A Dylan Hunter Thriller (Dylan Hunter Thrillers) Page 36
