by Mark Henwick
“Go!” He hissed as he lurched up, waving his arm. “Not us, you fools,” he yelled. “Over there.” He sprinted away from me across the gardens, pointing ahead. “She’s getting away.”
That was smart. Even Athanate eyes would be confused in the darkness. He’d gained us valuable seconds. I bent double and ran straight ahead towards where the dart had come from. Those things take a while to reload.
They were in the trees.
I’d caught them just in time. They weren’t in position. The guy with the dart gun came up out of the shadows and I used our combined momentum to drive my forearm into his neck. He fell, choking and clutching at his throat. Matlal Athanate.
A second man was behind me now. I could hear him running after me. I couldn’t stop for anything or he’d catch up. I vaulted over the third, hoping he’d tangle up my pursuer, but that just left me with two people chasing, and I was heading for the fourth man. Woman, I corrected.
She was in the open, waiting, balanced on the balls of her feet. Good stance, but not going to help you, bitch. I outweighed her. I gritted my teeth, lowered my head. This is gonna hurt you more than…
I was flying. Crap! That would teach me. I tucked and spun, slamming the ground with my arm before I hit and converting my momentum into a roll quick enough to spin me right onto my feet again. She was good, but her throw had just sent me in the direction I was going anyway. I sprinted for the streetlights of 11th Avenue and vaulted the close-parked cars. She was House Matlal, without a doubt, and a whole heap of trouble to boot.
One of the chasers followed, coming between two cars. Big mistake. He couldn’t balance, couldn’t evade. I stunned him with a punch and slammed his face down into the car’s hood. The second man grabbed for me. ZK, not Athanate, I registered as I broke his wrist. As he gasped and stumbled, I high-kicked and sent him reeling into another attacker.
She was already behind me, scary quick. I slipped her headlock and jabbed back with my elbow. I hit, but it did me no good. She was padded up. Not Kevlar, but body punches were a waste of energy. I grabbed and twisted, trying to throw her, but she slipped out like water, landing a punch as she jinked back.
I was in a fix. I outweighed and outreached her. She was quicker than me. I needed to disable her, soon. All she needed to do was slow me down. There would be too many of them here, or another tranquillizer dart would end it.
She took advantage of my hesitation, ghosting in and landing a body punch combination. I wasn’t wearing any padding, but she wasn’t going to hurt me that quickly and she’d made the mistake of coming within my reach. I went for a grip.
For the second time that night I was flying. This time she wasn’t letting go. I could see her planned sequence, like a textbook example. Land me on my back and flip me, or land me on my front. Either way, get my arm behind me and immobilize me. No way.
I balled up and twisted to get my feet beneath me, yanked her sideways. Her punch hammered my jaw. Damn, but she was real good. A couple more of her friends sprinted out from the park. Looking bad.
“FREEZE! Federal agents!” came from the other direction.
Oh, hell. Frying pans and fires.
But he was too far away. She lit off, and her buddies went with her, clearing their wounded.
Griffith fired. I dropped to the ground and lay there, hands outstretched. He ran up and fired twice more into the dark, but he was wasting his time and bullets. Worse, he was Endangering The Public in the words of The Manual. At least I hadn’t done that. I could almost hear him swallowing painfully as the thought of his post-event report struck him.
I stayed still and swallowed my pride. “Thanks, Agent Griffith. That was very good timing.” No harm in a bit of crawling now. I’d stay flat until he put that gun away.
“You…” He knelt beside me and I felt his hand on my wrist. The touch of the slick metal was shocking.
He wasn’t going to…
“You have the right to remain silent.” The cuffs snapped closed. “You—”
“Now, Ray.” A drawl overrode the Miranda. “I’m thinking there’s no need for them.”
I closed my eyes and gave silent thanks. “Agent Ingram. I didn’t think I’d be saying what a pleasure it is.”
He chuckled like everyone’s favorite uncle at the barbeque. Griffith sulkily unfastened the cuff and let me get back to my feet. The adrenaline burn was easing and my breathing was already back to normal. I shivered, checking out a couple of bruises. That woman had been hardcore.
“You really have to wear your weapon, Ingram,” Griffith murmured, trying not to let me hear.
Ingram shrugged it off. “Wouldn’t have made a difference here.”
“What were you going to arrest me for?” I asked Griffith, rubbing my wrist with one hand and my jaw with the other. He ignored me.
“Would you care to fill us in on what happened, Ms. Farrell?” asked Ingram.
“I just finished jogging in the park. I was heading for my car, when I got jumped by a group. Seven at least. You showed up.” That was simple enough; I could remember it. And it wasn’t untrue.
Ingram grunted and nodded at Griffith, who called it in to the police. Attempted mugging, FBI on site. No one would come out here.
“We going to do any good in there?” Ingram waved generally at the park.
“I doubt it.”
“Then why dontcha come sit in our van over yonder,” Ingram said. “We can have some coffee, an’ we can spin our wheels for awhile.” He took my arm gently and we walked back towards the Quinns’, where I’d left my car.
That was fine by me. Some of the ambushers had been ZK, and they might think twice about taking on federal agents, but the Matlal Athanate wouldn’t. If they figured out that this hadn’t been a smart trap set by me, and there were only two agents here, they’d come back and finish the job.
Their van was parked a couple of spaces down from my car. It was a slab-sided Dodge 8-seater with mirrored windows in the back. The outside was ordinary, but I’d bet money the engine was tricked. The inside was full of tech. The cabin was arranged around a small table and I settled apprehensively into one of the seats.
Ingram pulled a thermos flask from a container and poured the three of us some coffee in small mugs. It was good stuff. We took a moment to savor it.
“Well, y’know, I’m mindful that a rich person, a really rich person, can get to the point that they have so much money that they can’t ever get to spend it all.” Ingram slumped back in his seat and looked up at the roof of the van. “I wouldn’t want to think that there was a point like that with questions.” His eyes came back down to look at me and he smiled like an alligator.
I shrugged. “Y’all need to talk to the colonel.”
Stop it, demon. Do NOT start talking Texan.
“Ahh,” Ingram nodded. “Yup. The colonel. Fact is, I called that number, right after you left.”
I shivered. It was cold, even in the van. The colonel hadn’t picked up my calls for a couple of days now.
“Mighty interesting,” said Ingram.
I refused to rise to the bait. I sat and sipped my coffee.
“Especially after we pulled your police file. And spoke to Lieutenant Krantz,” Griffith said.
I was in stealth mode. I was determined I was not going to respond to this sort of probe, but Krantz’s name made me twitch.
“Lordy, he’s got your goat, hasn’t he?” chuckled Ingram. “Thing is, they none of them can agree. Your police file says military, and when they don’t say anything else that usually means woo-woo stuff. Now Krantz, he swears blind he has access to everyone’s military pay records and you were never there. Says there are no women in any of that kind of unit. Anyhow, I called that number you gave me. I didn’t speak to any Colonel Laine. No sir, I spoke to a Captain Baker.”
Ingram was watching me like the fox he resembled.
There was no Captain Baker in Ops 4-10 when I was there.
“Don’t know him,” I sai
d.
“Much what he said ’bout you. I asked about the special forces stuff and he laughed. Boy, oh boy, he laughed. Said that if every person who claimed to be in special forces actually had been, the whole US government would have gone bust trying to pay them.”
I just sat and waited him out. It was like having my head pushed through mud, but there was a point to this. Agent Ingram was a man with a point.
“Thing is,” he said, “this Baker fellow, he claims that phone number’s in army pay administration. Now they aren’t woo-woo, so their numbers are up there for me to check, and here’s the funny part. It’s got the right area code, but it ain’t no admin number, and no one called Captain Baker works for army pay. I even asked your friend Krantz.”
The number was a blind. It went into some system that rerouted it to the colonel’s cell. Or it had before.
“So, where does that leave us?” I asked.
“Still not believing you,” muttered Griffith.
Ingram smiled, and I shivered again. This time the chill was more than the temperature or the aftereffects of adrenaline. I desperately needed to talk to the colonel and House Altau, as soon as possible. I couldn’t call anyone on my cell with the FBI listening to my calls. I needed to get out of here. Altau at least I could reach. As long as these guys didn’t take me in for obstructing an investigation or for my own safety. I couldn’t think they’d be able to use any other excuse.
“Tell you what,” said Ingram, reaching behind his seat. “I got me a couple of little tests here.”
He put a package wrapped in chamois on the table. It was heavy. It clunked. I knew it was a gun.
“Spoke to a friend of mine. He says you should be able to field strip this, sweet as a nut.”
I sat up and flicked the chamois back. A smirk tugged at one corner of my mouth. “Almost any grunt would be able to do that,” I said. It was an HK Mark 23, the same model as the one in my jogging bag. It was a special forces gun rather than general army issue, but the principles would be the same. “I’ll make it more interesting.”
I didn’t know that this would prove anything, but if Ingram felt it did, I was happy to go along. No skin off my nose. I took the chamois, spun it into a strip and tied it around my head as a blindfold. By touch, I safed the gun, checked the chamber and ejected the magazine.
I stuck my hand out. “Ballpoint,” I said. I felt one drop into my hand. I pushed the stiff release pin with it, put the ballpoint down, and felt the familiar components of the gun separating in my hands like a well-worn puzzle. How many times had I done this?
I placed the parts in the right order on the table, clapped my hands and re-assembled the gun in five seconds.
“Well, that’s mighty impressive, Ms. Farrell, but now, that might just be because you have one.” Of course, he would have that on file about me. “Keep the blindfold on, if you would, and try this.” There was a much heavier clunk as he pulled something out of the back and laid it on the table in front of me.
I felt the weight and size of the weapon. A rifle. My hands roved over it.
“Special operations combat assault rifle, known as the SCAR. Made by FN for SOCOM,” I said as I started disassembly. It was stiff, probably brand new. “This is the heavy, for the 7.62mm NATO cartridge. Long barrel.” I placed the last of the pieces on the table. “Taken on officially after I left. I only got to play with it a couple of times.”
I put it back together in a dozen seconds and tossed the chamois on top.
Ingram was still smiling, a professional smile that meant nothing. A little worm of doubt punctured my self-satisfied feeling.
Why had he done this? What was going on behind those eyes? Sure, someone with my history would be able to do what I’d done. But so might a spy or a hitman.
Or a terrorist. My heart skipped a beat. Had I just earned myself a stay in a lockup under the Patriot Act? Or worse. My fingerprints were all over those weapons now, and only the two of them witnessing how that happened. Had I been set up for something, or was this a threat to hold over me?
I couldn’t figure out what was going through his head, but he’d probably gotten every single thought I’d just had like it had been written on my face.
But he was playing a long game.
“Well that’s about it, I guess,” he said, finishing his coffee. “For now.”
I chewed my cheek to keep my face blank and made to go, but he put his hand up. “Just one last thing, Ms. Farrell,” he said. “For tonight, anyhow. That’s a mighty fancy car you got there for the amount of money you’re clearing.”
“It was goods in lieu for a job I did.” House Altau had given me the car in exchange for work I had done for them, so I wasn’t lying.
Ingram grunted. “Hope you remember it on your tax returns,” he said.
“Gods, Ingram. Set Homeland Security on me, but leave the damn IRS out of it, will you?” I opened the panel door.
He laughed, the good ole uncle at the barbeque again.
“We’ll need you to come in again, Ms. Farrell,” said Griffith. He was bagging the SCAR. Wearing gloves.
“It would be unfortunate if we had to…retrieve you,” said Ingram.
Yeah. Very unfortunate for me. ‘Wanted in connection with’ type of unfortunate. I got out and walked away, furious with everything, myself included.
I drove around the south side of the park, desperate for any sign of Larry. It was futile; if he’d gotten away, he’d still be running. There was a good chance. It’d all happened too quickly, but I had the feeling that every one of Matlal’s people was after me, not Larry. That was better than a chance, and Larry was smart enough to take it.
I wanted to head to Monroe right now and wait for Larry. But he could take hours to get there, and there was nothing I could do to help him in the meantime.
Think.
Training kicked in. I had other responsibilities as well.
Refocus on the next objective. Altau telecommunications had been compromised. I had to get that message to them.
But I couldn’t drive there in this car. And I couldn’t use it to check out Monroe either.
It was no freaking coincidence the FBI van had shown up right next to me. They must have planted a bug on me that I hadn’t been able to spot.
I went through how big it might be and where they could have hidden it in the hour I was at the CBI building. It needed power, it needed a transmitter, it probably had GPS or movement detection, it needed to be able to send and receive. There’s a limit to how small you can make stuff like that, and where you can plant it, even for the FBI spooks. Trouble was, I didn’t know what that limit was. I’d need to ask an expert.
It was dark and I couldn’t do it now. I couldn’t risk driving the car out to Haven, I couldn’t call, and I shouldn’t delay telling Altau their phones were being monitored.
I’d have to get unconventional.
Chapter 19
I drove across to Aurora, and parked the car near the main mall.
I changed out of my jogging gear in the back seat and walked down to Colfax Avenue. No one followed me. I made double sure of that. My paranoia was on overdrive.
Late as it was, I got lucky; Rom was still working in his garage.
Rom had helped me maintain my old car for next to nothing, officially renting me out the space and tools, and ignoring all the advice and assistance he gave. And we’d met at raves and parties. We weren’t exactly friends, but he’d lent me his motorcycle when my car was up on jacks and I’d needed to go somewhere. That was what I needed from him now.
Rom was cooler about it than I was. I didn’t like banking favors, but he laughed it off and handed me the keys and his heavy biking jacket and gloves. Five minutes later, I was on the road, enjoying the rumble of the Harley and weaving sinuously through the nighttime traffic on the I-70. I started to feel better and gave the bike its head out on the Parkway. The wind whipped my hair out in a banner behind me. Tears leaked out the corners of my eyes, f
reezing on my cheeks, and I had a stupid grin on my face listening to the thunder of the engine. I was thankful for the loan of the jacket and gloves.
And it was at about that point my brain got over the FBI and started processing what had happened in the park.
Seven people? More like a dozen. Tracking Larry? Completely uninterested in him once I broke cover. Elite Matlal people taking over. Tactical comms. A trank dart. This wasn’t Hoben anymore, this was Matlal. Larry knew. He had known that as soon as he saw the size of the hunt—he’d run off yelling she’s getting away, not they’re getting away.
Shit, Matlal was after me and he wanted me alive. Skylur’s chilling warning from last night came back to me: if Basilikos heard about my Blood, they’d do anything to get hold of me.
I had to pull over and kneel next to the bike, shaking with reaction.
Who told them? Ahead of me waited Haven. Everyone else who knew anything about what had been said at David’s house was there. Who was I going to trust?
I flashed back to Ops 4-10 training for covert solo ops.
Red Team. Tied up as an involuntary guest of Blue Team. Caught stupid, sold a pup. Awake for forty hours straight and doused in icy water every ten minutes as punishment. Instructor Ben-Haim screaming in my face, inches away—“Trust no one! Do. You. Understand. Now?”
And whispering in the silence afterwards, his voice sad. “Only people you trust can ever really betray you, Amber.”
What would you tell me to do now, Ben-Haim? Run.
I could run. With my training I could disappear forever. I’m no instinctive mechanic like Rom, but I could work with engines. I could do fitness training. I could dye my hair, buy a fake ID, trail up and down the coasts. I could almost smell the sea. Always working cash in hand, always moving. Always alone.
And I would have to leave behind Alex, Jen, David, Pia, Tullah and whatever was left from the wreck of my family. No. I wasn’t going to do that.
You were wrong, Ben-Haim. I’m a team player. I was always better in 4-10 working in a team. I tried being alone for two years and it sucks. I need a team now.
