Net Force--Eye of the Drone

by Jerome Preisler

  “Careful, Dario,” Long said.

  Lau stopped cold. Five seconds passed.

  “About the woman,” Braithwaite said. “Our mutual goal is to find her. We can help each other.”

  “And after?”

  “We deal.”

  Carmody’s arms remained crossed. “Your proposition isn’t too high on specificity,” he said.

  “No,” Braithwaite said. “But the alternative’s for all of us to keep going nowhere fast.”

  Silence again. Carmody looked at him.

  “I’d rather we talk about NORN Aerospace and Gunther Koenig,” he said. “Starting with whatever she’s got on them.”

  He could see the surprise on Braithwaite’s face. The sudden uptilt of his head, the straightening of his shoulders. He recovered quickly, though. “You want to play games? I—”

  The sentence went unfinished, drowned out by the explosion that suddenly punched through the still country night.

  Carmody saw a jetting spurt of fire leap over the treetops to the south like the head of a giant torch, felt a quivering movement in his eardrums as its reverberations rippled in the air. The blast was close, maybe a quarter mile off. He gazed at the soaring flames and suddenly pictured Outlier on her motorbike.

  Lau chose that instant to make a move. His weapon jumped into his right hand from under the sleeve of his blazer. It was a custom job, 3-D printed polymer. Slim cylindrical barrel, sound-suppressed, designed for a hidden wrist assembly.

  The gun rose in his hand, directed at Carmody. Then suddenly jerked up high, Lau’s knees folding underneath him.

  Long had rushed him from the left side, grabbing his right arm with both hands and snapping it up at the elbow. He moved in close, using his hip as a fulcrum to shift Lau’s weight, twisting his right arm with one hand as he closed his other hand around the gun and snatched it away. A second later the operator was down with his back flat on the ground, Long now in possession of his weapon, angling it down at him in a two-fisted shooter’s grip.

  He fired it once. Blood spurted from Lau’s leg below his knee. He grunted in pain and covered the bullet hole with his hands.

  Carmody had spun toward Braithwaite, reaching under his hoodie for his weapon. But the Australian was just standing there alongside the BMW, facing him, his hands still at his sides.

  “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said. “Trust me, mate.”

  Carmody nodded.

  “Okay,” he said, and took a big step forward, hitting Braithwaite with a hard right hook to the jaw, putting all his strength behind it.

  Braithwaite was about Carmody’s height and weight, and in buff shape. But he was caught by surprise. Carmody saw his eyes glaze slightly, and knew he’d hurt him.

  He wasn’t out of it, though. Recovering, or partly recovering, he countered with a low uppercut to Carmody’s side, a kidney punch that would have been devastating if it was on target. But he was still shaking off the blow to his jaw, and that probably slowed him and threw off his balance and aim. Carmody danced back a little on his toes, and Braithwaite’s fist glanced off his side, jarring him, but not stalling him. Pressing forward, Carmody moved down and in on him with his knees bent, bobbing under his arms, then coming up close.

  The flurry got to Braithwaite. He wobbled slightly in place, like a tree shaken on its roots, and looked for a second as if he might stumble off his feet. But instead he directed his momentum forward, trying to bull Carmody with his weight and mass, while simultaneously propping himself up against his body so he could catch his breath.

  He didn’t get the chance. Instead of falling back when he saw him coming, Carmody planted his feet wide apart, put both hands flat against Braithwaite’s chest, and shoved, grunting with the effort, pushing him back hard against the driver’s side of the BMW.

  Braithwaite hit it with a bang, and Carmody didn’t give him time to recover. He came in on him again, jabbing at his head, a left-right-left cross that whipped his neck one way and the other and then the other. Braithwaite managed to lift his arms defensively, but Carmody drove another jab right through them into his face.

  The last one did the trick. Braithwaite sagged back and leaned loosely against the vehicle.

  “What the fuck,” he said, swiping a hand across his bloody lip. “You goddamned sucker punched me.”

  Standing within arm’s length of him, Carmody reached under his hoodie for his Sig and brought it level with Braithwaite’s chest.

  “Face your car, Aurelion,” he said. “Slow. Hands in front of you against the door.”

  Braithwaite did not move.

  Carmody cocked the Sig, holding it steady.

  “Don’t try me,” he said.

  Braithwaite spat blood and saliva. Then he nodded and turned and put his hands out against the vehicle.

  Carmody patted him down. He took a Glock .45 from a shoulder holster under his blazer, then bent and found a Smith & Wesson .380 ankle gun above his right sock. He ejected their magazines, stuffed them into his hoodie, and tossed the guns one at a time over the white concrete wall to his right.

  “All right,” he said. “You can turn around.”

  Braithwaite turned, his back against the BMW. He looked like he needed its support.

  “About games,” Carmody said. “I don’t play them. For the moment, you aren’t my business, and I would rather keep it like that. But you get in my way, or come after Hell on Wheels again, I’ll kill you.”

  Braithwaite looked at him. “We’ll see,” he said. “We’ll see how you do next time, hero.” He spat a second time, nodded his head in the direction of the explosion. “‘Hell on Wheels,’” he said. “Good one. Be tragic if that’s her burning up back there...hey?”

  Carmody stood there facing him for a long moment, his features without expression. Then he lowered the gun, firing several quick bursts at the BMW’s tires, the front pair first, then the rear ones. The punctured rubber went flabby and the hatchback sagged downward.

  “I figure you have a spare in back,” he said. “You can pick and choose where to put it.”

  Braithwaite stared at him, his lips parting in a grin that was full of malice. But he said nothing.

  Carmody glanced over at Long, nodded. Long nodded back and moved away from Lau. Then they returned to their vehicles and got inside. Leaving the two men in the cul-de-sac with the lamed BMW, they pulled onto the access road and drove off.

  * * *

  Hidden from Franz Scholl in the pines and darkness, Chaput listened apprehensively to the warble of emergency sirens, wondering what could have caused the explosion that shook the night minutes ago. The earsplitting boom had tightened his rectum and dropped his jaw.

  Two or three yards in front of him, Scholl continued to wait between the trees and cemetery hedges. He had flinched at the sound of the blast as if stung by a wasp, the phone flash jerking in his hand, its bright light skipping wildly about the path he stood upon. But his startled expression had since turned into a look of profound worry. Twice he began to pace. Then the screaming sirens froze his feet.

  Franz Scholl was to all appearances a man who feared something was terribly wrong, and Chaput could only suppose his concerns were linked to Outlier. She had many powerful enemies, after all. And Scholl would not be meeting her at the cemetery tonight without some pressing reason.

  He waited, thinking. In the near southern distance now, the sky showed bright splashes of glare in his night-vision goggles. He briefly raised them from his eyes and saw that the glow was an ungodly red. The conflagration was visible above the forest trees, and that in itself was odd. No natural gas lines ran through these woods. Chaput could not imagine anything that would create such a powerful detonation. Could there have been a crash? An aircraft? A car? A motorcycle?

  The sirens howled and the red light flickered in the sky. Chaput lowered his go
ggles, his Beretta in his right hand, his left once again lifting the IR camera on its neck strap. Whatever he decided to share, or not share, with his Interpol superiors, he wanted a complete record of tonight’s affair. He took several photos of the worried Scholl.

  Then he heard a sound to his left. A rustling of branches, then silence. Could someone be out here with him? He turned to look, raising his gun.

  Kali stole up from behind him and to the right. Her left hand snapped out over the top of the Beretta’s barrel and gripped the slide. Chaput gave the trigger a reflexive squeeze, firing his chambered round harmlessly into the woods. Moving closer behind him, Kali kept her hand locked over the slide so it would be unable to eject the casing and pull the next round from the magazine.

  Chaput tried to fire the gun again, but it made a sound like the empty click of a toothless mouth. The spent shell was still in the barrel, and he would have to manually clear it. He started turning toward his attacker, but then an arm came around his neck, the inner part of its elbow locking over his windpipe. He struggled to free himself, his free hand coming up to the arm, closing around a leather sleeve. He tried to pry it away, but it did not budge. Suddenly, he was straining to breathe. He made a gagging sound.

  Kali put more pressure on his windpipe, careful not to completely cut off his oxygen.

  The chanciest part was next, because she would have to release the gun. Letting go of the barrel, she put her left hand on the back of his neck and pushed forward while flexing her right bicep and forearm. He made another strangled noise and thrashed against her. With two hands, he might have wrenched her arm away from his throat, but he did not want to let go of the gun in his right hand. With two hands, he might have cycled the slide and cleared the cartridge from the gun barrel, but he did not want to let go of his attacker’s arm. He therefore had two separate moves to make, each of which could have turned the tables on his attacker, each requiring both hands. But he was caught between them.

  Kali kept flexing her right arm and made a fist against his neck with her left hand, putting pressure on his carotid arteries while continuing to clamp off his windpipe. She turned her body slightly so her right hip was against him, pressing into the small of his back. It would give her leverage and tighten the hold. He made more straining, gagging noises, like a man with a fish bone stuck in his throat. He flailed up and back with the gun, trying to hit her with it. She felt him go limp.

  Then movement to her right. A dazzling light. Someone pushed through the branches. She glimpsed pulled-back white hair. A split second later, Franz came rushing up, grabbed the Beretta with both hands, and yanked it from Chaput’s fingers.

  It came out of them easily. The brain can only withstand five seconds without air before it shuts down all conscious functions. Chaput was already sinking into a blackness deeper than the forest’s.

  Kali felt his struggles cease. She held on to him as his legs folded, bending her knees, easing down to the ground with him, her hip helping to support his weight. She did not want him injured in the fall.

  When he was on the ground, she released her sleeper hold and pressed three fingers to his neck to feel for a pulse. It was strong. He would awaken in a few minutes.

  She looked up at Franz and their eyes met.

  “We have to hurry,” she said.

  “Yes, engelein,” he said.

  * * *

  “His name is Renault Chaput,” Franz said. “He’s Interpol.”

  Kali nodded. It made sense. If American and BfV teams were hunting for her in alliance, it would be standard procedure for Interpol to coordinate.

  They stood on the cemetery trail listening to the sirens. She had taken Chaput’s ID wallet along with some other items—his service pistol, night-vision goggles, camera, and phone—and given all but the phone to Franz. A small pouch on his belt had contained zip ties, which she snatched as well, using one to bind his wrists behind his back.

  Kali turned toward the hedge bordering the cemetery. On the other side of the hedge, in Lot 73, were the burial plots of Sophie and Hans Scholl—Franz’s cousins a generation removed.

  He saw her looking over the top of the bushes at the simple gravestones.

  “No white roses tonight,” he said. “There wasn’t time.”

  “They would surely understand,” Kali said.

  Hans was twenty-four when he died in 1943. Sophie, his younger sister, twenty-one. University students and founders of a pacifist group called the White Rose, they were arrested for tossing anti-Nazi leaflets from a third-floor window at their school. Jailed, beaten, and guillotined in Stadelheim Prison, their execution was a message to those who opposed Hitler’s tyranny.

  And the message endured, Kali thought. But it was not what the tyrants intended.

  “‘There is a higher justice,’” she said quietly now. “‘They will go down in history.’”

  Franz came up behind her.

  “Their father’s words, as guards dragged him from the People’s Court,” he said. “He lived until I was seventeen years old, and spoke of peace, mercy, and Christ’s forgiveness. I often wonder how his heart did not die with his children.”

  Kali turned to him.

  “His words were true to it,” she said. “And to their hearts. He knew he had to carry on.”

  He smiled. “Now you’re sounding like your Oma,” he said.

  “She raised me from the age of nine, when I was an orphaned bird, and showed me how to use my wings,” Kali said. “How can I not?”

  Franz nodded, unbuckled the strap fastening his old army pouch to his belt, and held it out to her.

  “The NORN files are inside on the floppy disks Eric Bergmann left me,” he said. “They’re written in his original programming language for the games.” He paused. “I also duplicated them on a Jumpdrive for you.”

  “And there are no other copies? Nothing on your computer? Or online?”

  “Just what’s in the pouch,” he said. “I was careful.”

  Kali nodded. Even cloud archives were too vulnerable for their storage or transmission. In an age of high-tech encryption and sophisticated hackers—government and freelance—it was an irony that cloak-and-dagger dead drops and handoffs were now and again the most secure way to communicate secrets.

  She opened the pouch, found the Jumpdrive with her hand, and pulled it out.

  “Here,” she said. “Take this back with you.”

  He looked surprised. “I don’t understand.”

  “If Munsey is alive, it’s her only hope,” Kali said. “Is there a way of getting it to the Americans without placing yourself in jeopardy?”

  “As your criminal collaborator, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  He thought a moment. “Possibly,” he said. “Are you sure they can be trusted?”

  “No,” Kali said. “But we haven’t any choice.”

  Franz stood there a minute. Kali thought of the courage it had taken for him to come tonight. Then thought of his wife.

  “How is Lotte?” she said.

  “No worse than before,” he said. “Her body is sound. She is well cared for. On occasion, she recognizes me.”

  “It must be very painful.”

  “I will take it over losing her entirely.”

  She nodded. The chorus of sirens seemed to be growing in number and volume. He took the little external drive and put it in his pocket.

  “Where will you go now?” he said.

  “Malta,” she said. “I have a friend there.”

  “And you’ll be safe?”

  “As safe as I can be.”

  Franz nodded. “Valletta, the golden city. Again, I’m reminded of Norma. The story of the piscatores.”

  Kali’s eyes widened.

  “She told you? About the fishermen?”

  “Yes. And her little wager with
them.”

  She suddenly broke into a grin. “Ha!” she said. “Oma had quite the wicked streak, didn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  They looked at each other as sirens wailed like banshees in the night.

  “You must go,” he said. “It is too dangerous to stay another minute.”

  “Yes.”

  Franz stepped forward and hugged her.

  “I love you like my own daughter, engelein.”

  Kali held him close. “When I see you again, we’ll laugh about the wager,” she said.

  A moment later, she pulled away from him and was sprinting off down the path.

  Franz watched until she vanished into the darkness, then hastened back to his van.

  * * *

  Carmody and Long stood in the forest wearing military facepiece masks with particulate filter cartridges on the sides. A helicopter chopped overhead in the night sky, and a unit of the Bavarian State Police had set up powerful xenon lights fed by cables running to large, wheeled mobile power units on the ground. There were three red fire brigade vehicles and an ambulance back on the two-lane road that was Landstrasse this far to the south.

  The old US military installation a few miles away was now a police headquarters, and most of the vehicles and the bird came from there. Although jurisdictional control of the scene was initially held by the state police, the BfV had pulled strings to gain Carmody and Long unrestricted access to the scene.

  An hour after the explosion, the fire had mostly burned itself out. The channel water helped douse the blaze, which was also contained by the earthen sides of the gully. There were gouges in the gully walls from the explosion, their edges scorched and blackened. Rock fragments littered the upper embankment. Some of the saplings along the top of the bank had been uprooted by the blast wave. The responders stepped carefully over scattered pine limbs. It looked like a large meteor had crashed through the tops of the pines.

  At the bottom of the channel, the charred, mangled Ducati smoked in the gurgling creek. The two CIA men stood atop the embankment looking down at it. Even with the masks on, their nostrils stung from the odor of burned rubber and wiring, and the rotten egg smell of combusted gasoline.