Point Of Impact (2001)

by Tom - Net Force 05 Clancy

  Tad stumbled, fell, and managed to get back to his feet. Oh, they were gonna pay for killing Bobby.

  He was fucking going to make them pay.

  "No sign of the zombie?" Jay said.

  "The DEA people haven't found him yet. Local deputies will be joining the search soon," Michaels said. "General Howard went down with them and found this." He held up a purple capsule. "There were several of them under a bush down there. DEA got the rest, but it doesn't look as if they have turned sour yet. So this is still an active capsule."

  "No great loss. We got the chemist."

  "We have his body," Howard said.

  Jay nodded and blew out a sigh. What a fuck-up this had been.

  "I bet forensics will match that rifle George had to the bullets they found in my agency car at Manassas," Howard said. "George was the shooter. That's why Lee had such a great alibi."

  "So they were in it together all along. But why shoot this guy Drayne?"

  "I don't know," Michaels said.

  Lee had recovered from the fall and taser shock and was handcuffed and sitting in the back of one of the DEA vehicles that had finally arrived. He was more than a little distraught when he saw the body of George covered up and waiting for the coroner.

  He'd sobbed and begun crying. Not really the kind of reaction an op from one agency usually had for an op from another agency, certainly not the same sex. Something there, all right.

  "Bastard," Lee had said to Howard. "You killed him!"

  "Damn straight," Howard had replied. "I only wish I'd shot him two seconds sooner."

  "Bastard. You're a dead man."

  "Not by your hand, pal. You're an accessory to murder and attempted murder, probably seven kinds of conspiracy, and God knows what else. You're going away for a long, long time."

  "Maybe not. Maybe I have something to trade."

  "Better be damned good, whatever it is," Howard said. "And between you and me and my colleagues here, if I see you on the street anywhere close to me or mine, I'll drop you and worry about the consequences later."

  "You threatening me, General Howard?"

  Michaels said, "You must be mistaken, Mr. Lee. I didn't hear any threats. Jay?"

  "Nope, I didn't hear anything at all."

  Howard nodded at Michaels and Jay.

  Jay smiled. Well, what the hell, they were a team, right?

  On the drive down the hill, Michaels called Toni.

  "Hey," she said. "How's the glamour there in Tinsel-town?"

  "Great, if you like chase scenes and shoot-outs."

  "What?"

  "We tracked down the dope dealer. He's no longer with us, however."

  "What happened?"

  Michaels filled her in on the operation.

  When he was done, she said, "That's good work, Alex. Nobody got hurt except the bad guy, and Net Force gets the credit. How are they going to play it with the media?"

  "Straight, I hope," he said. "But I wouldn't bet on that. Camera teams were all over us ten minutes after it happened, news choppers circling like mechanical vultures. I let Jay talk for us and he kept it vague, but I don't know what the DEA and FBI guys had to say. Rogue operatives are never a good spin for any agency. You can say, 'Yeah, we had a problem but we cleaned it out,' but the first question from the reporters will be, 'How'd you get a problem like that in the first place?' It's a no-win situation."

  "Not for Net Force."

  He grinned at the small image of her on the virgil. "Well, yes, that's true. We get off smelling like roses."

  "So, when are you coming home?"

  "Probably tomorrow morning. We need to file reports with the local FBI and DEA offices, talk to their supervisors, like that."

  "Couldn't you file those reports on-line from here?"

  "You know how that is, they want to see us when we tell it. Won't take long, but by the time we get done, it'll be late, and we're flying into a three-hour time difference. Might as well wait until the morning."

  "At least it's all wrapped up."

  "Not completely. The zombie--that's Thaddeus Bershaw, we got that from his car registration--got away."

  "That's not major, is it?'

  "Not that we can tell. We don't know for sure what his part was in things, but he wasn't the brightest bulb on the string. Jay dug up his background, and he was an uneducated street kid. Probably no more than an errand boy. The dealer was Robert Drayne; he had a degree in chemistry. Also had a father who was with the Bureau for thirty years, retired to Arizona."

  "Interesting."

  "DEA and FBI put out an APB net and street on Bershaw. They'll find him eventually. Anyway, he's not our problem anymore."

  "I miss you," she said.

  "Yeah, I miss you, too. See you tomorrow. I'm thinking maybe I'll take a couple personal days and we can do something."

  "I'd like that."

  Michaels discommed and leaned back in the seat. It had been a long day, and he wasn't looking forward to the double debriefing. It would be nice if they could do it once, with ops from both the DEA and FBI listening together, but that wasn't how it was going to go, of course. That way would make too much sense.

  They were way too slow coming down the hill to find him. By the time he heard them yelling at each other, Tad was six hundred yards away, and the double-hit of magic purple was coming on strong. Ten minutes after that, he was feeling good enough to jog, and ten minutes after that, he was able to run like the wind, hopping over rocks and bushes in his path, covering ground much faster than any normal man would be able to do on foot in the gathering darkness. He could run faster, see better, and make quicker decisions, and no way were they going to catch him from behind, if they even had a clue which way he had gone. Probably still looking for his body under the bushes back there.

  Three miles or so away, he angled back up toward the road, then paralleled it for half a mile until he came to a tiny shopping center. He found a motorcycle chained to a light pole, and it took all of thirty seconds to find a rock big enough to smash the lock. The owner had trusted the lock and chain, and so he'd left a spare ignition key under the seat, tucked in the cushion springs, where Tad and ten other guys he knew always kept their spare bike keys, and the sucker, a midsized Honda, cranked right up.

  They'd probably have roadblocks set up on both sides of the hill looking for him, but he could dance that or maybe go off road and around it. Now that it was fully dark, he would have an advantage: He didn't need to use the headlight; there was enough city glow for him to see the road. Time they spotted him coming, it would be too late.

  The double dose of Hammer was something. He had never felt so strong, so fast, or so quick-witted. They didn't have a chance. If they did stop him? Well, he would just kill them all.

  Tad sailed eastward down the hill in the dark, hitting speeds of eighty, ninety miles per hour with the lights off, whipping past startled drivers who heard him but couldn't see him him until he appeared in their headlights. Must have scared the crap out of them.

  If the fed had roadblocks, they must have been closer to the place where the copter had been, which made sense, sort of. They weren't figuring on a guy who could run three miles in the dark before he got back to the road. They didn't have the Hammer and he did.

  Once he was down and in the flats around Woodland Hills, he flicked the headlight on. He didn't have far to go now.

  He made it to the safe house without incident. Inside, he flipped on the television and tuned it to CNN Headline News. He didn't feel like eating, but he knew he needed fuel and liquid, so he grabbed a big can of ham slices and a six-pack of Evian water. He peeled ham slices off two at a time and washed them down with water as he watched the news. He needed information as much as he needed fuel.

  The info wasn't long in coming. A local camera crew had gotten to the site of the shooting, and while most of what the reporter had was probably total bullshit, there were a couple of things that stood out: The drug dealer who had been slain had been
located through the efforts of the FBI's computer arm, Net Force; the leader of that organization, Commander Alexander Michaels, had come all the way from Washington, D.C., to be in on the raid. The newscam had footage of Michaels, right out there on the road, looking down at the body of some agent who had been killed by the drug dealers during the raid.

  Yeah, well, if one of theirs was dead, the feds had done it themselves. Bobby hadn't done it, and except for that one shot Tad put into the sky, he hadn't fired, either. Lying fuckers.

  There were interviews with local DEA and FBI agents, as well as some computer geek for Net Force. It had been a coordinated operation among the three agencies, so it seemed, but Net Force got the big pat on the back for coming up with the information that led to the suspected drug dealers. One of said drug dealers had escaped, was still at large, and considered armed and dangerous. They flashed a picture of Tad, along with his name. Driver's license photo. So they had IDed him, no big deal.

  The news moved on, and he shut it off.

  When he looked down at the ham can, it was empty. He had eaten two pounds of ham and downed six bottles of water, and he didn't even feel full. Probably his last meal.

  Tad thought about it for a few seconds. Commander Alexander Michaels. Net Force. Washington, D.C. A long way to travel for somebody in his shoes. And nothing he did would bring Bobby back, dead was dead. Why bother?

  Yeah, well, fuck it. He'd almost reached the end of his string anyhow.

  He went into the bathroom. Bobby had stocked the place with all kinds of shit they might need if they had to run. He found scissors and an electric razor with a trim attachment and cut his already-short black hair into a flat-top. The Hammer made him want to jump up and down, but he held himself steady by force of will so that the do wasn't too ragged. He used half a bottle of hair coloring on his new cut. He shaved off his lip-hanger goatee. Pulled out his earrings and tossed them.

  After the hair color was done, bleached to an ugly yellow, he showered. Got out, and rubbed himself down with bronzing gel, applying it carefully with the little sponge thing.

  Okay, so he wasn't gonna pass for a surfer, but he wasn't the same fish-belly white beatnik in the picture, he was blond and tanned. He found some slacks, a dress shirt, socks, and running shoes, all in pale gray or white, not his look at all. There was a pair of wire-rimmed glasses with plain glass lenses, and he put them on. He could almost pass for normal.

  There was about fifty thousand in cash in frozen food packages in the freezer. He took about ten grand. He didn't expect he'd need that much, and if he somehow got back here--unlikely--he could get the rest then.

  There were some fake photo IDs in a desk drawer, three or four sets each for him and Bobby. Tad picked up a set, looked to see that the driver's license was from Texas, and that the name was Raymond Selling. Bobby's little joke: Selling was the winner of last year's Los Angeles Marathon race. He'd done one for Richard Kimball, too, from the old TV series, The Fugitive. The last one was for Meia Rasgada, which was Portuguese for "torn stocking," yet another kind of runner.

  Bobby was a riot.

  Had been a riot.

  He needed to move, he really needed to move, but he had one more thing he had to do before he could. He took one of the clean digital phones in the kitchen and punched in a number from memory. His memory at the moment was excellent; he could draw on anything he had ever seen, smelled, tasted, heard, felt, or done if he needed it, and he knew it would be there.

  "Yo," came the deep voice.

  "Halley, it's Tad. I need something."

  "Yeah, me, too. Your money in my pocket. Go."

  "I want an address for Commander Alexander Michaels, M-i-c-h-a-e-l-s. He's the head of Net Force."

  "I can give you that without having to burn an electron, dude. Net Force HQ is in Quantico, Virginia, part of the new FBI complex next to the Yew-Nite-Ted States Muhrines--"

  "No, I want his home address."

  "Ah. That'll take a little more. They'd keep that buried pretty good."

  "How long?"

  "Ah, forty, forty-five minutes."

  "Call me back on this number when you get it."

  "Cost you five hundred."

  "Not a problem."

  "I'm on it, dude."

  Tad took his new self outside. There were two cars in the garage. A year-old tan minivan with a Baby on Board sticker on the back window, and a three- or four-year-old Dodge Dakota. Both had keys in the ignitions. He paused long enough to grab the rear bumper of the truck, to squat and lift the tires clear of the pavement a few times, to burn off some of his excess energy. Then he climbed in and cranked the engine.

  He pulled out of the driveway and headed for the airport. On the way, he called and booked a first-class seat on the next nonstop flight to Washington, D.C. The plane wouldn't leave for three hours. Another five or so hours to fly there, figure on maybe two more to find the place. Call it ten hours all totaled, be there by eight or nine A.M. at the absolute latest. He'd be riding the Hammer for that long, and when he started to come down, he had a whole shitload of caps that would be good until noon, and another twelve hours of Hammer to ride after he took it. Midnight tomorrow, easy.

  That should be more than enough time to have a long chat with Commander Alexander Michaels of Net Force, and to teach the fucker what a bad mistake he had made in helping get Bobby Drayne killed.

  Plenty of time.

  38

  Los Angeles, California

  Michaels had just finished shaving and was getting dressed when there came a knock on the hotel room's door.

  It was Jay. He said, "FBI got a lead on Bershaw."

  Michaels waved Jay in as he continued to button his shirt. "Yes?"

  Jay held up the flatscreen so Michaels could see the image thereon. A blond-haired man with glasses, dressed in casual sports clothes.

  "They sure this is him?"

  "Check the side-by-side."

  A magnified image of the blond appeared next to an identical-sized head shot of Tad Bershaw. Overlay grids appeared, numbers scrolled, and yellow highlight outlines pulsed over the features.

  "The feeb surveillance matchware doesn't worry overmuch about hair, eye, and skin coloring, it compares ear size and lobe shape, nose length and nares spacing, eye spacing and brow angle. Plus somatotypes, though those can be altered by shoe lifts and padding. This is him."

  "Where was this taken?"

  "LAX, last night. The matchcam sent a sig to FBI HQ, but the priority tag imprint apparently was malfunctioning ; instead of an A-1 stamp, the file was batched with a bunch of routine no-hurry PPOIs ... that's possible persons of interest. So they should have seen it last night, but nobody got around to scanning the file until a few minutes ago."

  "So much for infallible technology," Michaels said. He sat on the bed, pulled on his socks. "So where did he go?"

  "According to the gatecam at CrossCon Air, he took a nonstop red-eye to Washington, D.C. Plane landed around two A.M. this morning, eastern time. Dulles matchware showed him getting off the jet, but that's the only image they got. FBI checked the rental agencies, he didn't get a car, and they are talking to bus and limo drivers and cabbies. No hits yet. From the passenger list, they know he's using the name Raymond Selling."

  "Like the marathon runner?"

  "Who?"

  "Selling is the fastest long-distance man in the country, probably the world."

  "I don't follow the sport. Running for twenty-six miles hurts me just to think about it."

  "Why Washington?"

  Jay shrugged. "Why not? Maybe he's got an old girlfriend there, somebody he used to run with. Easier to disappear in a big city than a small one."

  "Well, maybe we'll bump into him when we get home."

  "I hope not," Jay said. "If he's got any of that dope left, he's not somebody I want to meet face-to-face."

  Michaels tied his shoes, stood, and reached for his sport coat, which hung on the bathroom door. "What time does our
flight leave?"

  "Couple hours. Be back in Washington about seven P.M. Five-hour flight, add three for the time zones."

  "Well, let's go have breakfast and enjoy the L.A. sunshine. It'll probably be raining when we get back to the East Coast."

  Jay closed the flatscreen, and they started for the door. He still had a worried look.

  Michaels said, "Something else?"

  "Yeah, a major problem. In-house Security says somebody got past the Net Force firewalls and into the mainframe last night."

  "I thought that wasn't possible."

  "It's not, for most people. I could do it. And if I could, some others could. A handful."

  "Was anything damaged or stolen?"

  "Fortunately not. The file protection programs make that real hard without the encryption keys. Even I might have trouble wrecking any big part of the system from outside. Security says the probe rode in on a GAO line and managed to get into the personnel files. It didn't damage them, they are read-only for the GAO auditor, who, by law, we have to let in. Somebody had to know about that to use it."

  "Who would know?"

  "Ex-programmer, maybe ex-ops, FBI, GAO. Maybe even Net Force."

  "Really?"

  "We've had people quit. Fired a few, too. Programmers always leave themselves a back door when they are building secure systems. We vetted ours, and I had our people checking, but the guy who builds it can hide a few things when you are talking millions of lines of code."

  "So what now?"

  "We'll run down all ex-employees with enough skill to pull it off. My hope is that it'll turn out to be some kid hacker counting coup. But that wouldn't be the way smart money bets."

  "Mm. Stay on it, Jay. In the meantime, let's don't keep General Howard waiting."

  On the way to the elevator, something about what Jay said bothered him. He couldn't quite nail it down as they stepped into the lift. Jay pushed the button for the lobby; they were on the sixteenth floor.

  As the elevator descended, pinging as it passed each floor, Michaels said, "That intrusion last night. Do we know where it came from?"