“‘Hot,’” he heard Alex say, as the sound of her footsteps quickened and the shaking of her flashlight beam grew more agitated.
“Careful,” he called to her before remembering that was exactly what he used to say to her when she ran too close to the stairs during the game play. Just like then, she ignored him.
He looked after her, seeing puddles of mud and sludge on the ground—evidence of leaks. The Big Dig had been rampant with them, causing millions of dollars in damages to steel supports and drainage systems when the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean had mixed with the fresh water of Boston Harbor for a corrosive cocktail.
“Careful!” he called again, louder this time.
But Alex was beyond caring. “‘Burning hot!’” she cried, and turned a corner ahead.
Dan heard her shriek, and then he was beyond caring too. He charged forward with abandon, reached the spot where she’d disappeared, and slid around the corner like a drifting hot rod.
He didn’t shriek, but he did drop—between a set of tracks. He hadn’t fallen like Alex, so he stood behind her, one booted foot on either side of her dark gray-covered haunches. They both stared up, amazed, by what was on the platform above and across from them.
They were in a nearly renovated subway stop, and, on the platform, was what appeared to be a hastily put-together but effectively workable, office, complete with desk, chairs, computer, drafting table, refrigerator, and water cooler. Even the station lavatory, locker room, and shower seemed to be working.
And sitting behind the desk, looking calmly down at them, was Diana Bloch.
“What took you so long?” she asked.
Chapter 33
“You’re kidding,” Dan Morgan demanded. “Right?”
Diana Bloch was not wearing dark gray. She was wearing cooling-tech, sweat-wicking, UV and odor-protecting dark blue pants that could be unzipped above the knee to make shorts, an aqua-blue long-sleeve hoodie, a black vest with multiple pockets, and what looked like a combination of black socks and slippers that had a fairly aggressive tread.
“Yes, I’m kidding,” she said in a way that sounded like she wasn’t kidding.
Dan and Alex vaulted to the platform. Even though they were certain no electric power was coming from the city, they still avoided any metal rails, especially since the entire office area was dimly, but clearly, illuminated by something.
The father marched up to the desk while the daughter examined the setup with a certain wonder.
“And I shouldn’t punch you in the mouth, why?” he asked her, also seriously not serious. “And don’t say it’s because you shouldn’t hit a lady.”
“Wouldn’t think of it,” Bloch told him. “I gave up my ‘dainty lady’ status long before I joined the CIA.” She stood and faced Dan. “You shouldn’t punch me in the mouth because my split lips and broken teeth might make my answers unintelligible.”
Alex came to both people’s rescue without guile. “This is amazing,” she said sincerely to Bloch. “How did you set it up so fast?”
“Fast?” Bloch echoed in her usual supercilious way. “My dear girl, I’ve been preparing this little getaway from the moment I heard about all the nooks and crannies the collapse of the Big Dig’s Inner Belt project left in its wake. Oh, I thought, what possible use could I put all those lovely hiding places to?”
“As far back as 1974?” Dan marveled.
Bloch gave him a sad, yet still withering look. “Yes, as far back as that, Cobra …when I was still in the Office of National Intelligence.” She looked over to Alex. “I took the office’s name seriously.” She returned her attention to Dan while pointing at her forehead. “After all, the most powerful muscle in even an un-dainty lady’s body needs to be stronger than the biggest one in a mouth-puncher’s.”
It was Dan’s turn to feel his face flush. “You looking for an apology?” he asked her.
She stared back at him. “Only if you hadn’t found me.” Then she turned her head back to Alex, motioning at the hide-out. “This all came together the moment I received Smith’s first tentative feeler about joining Zeta.”
“Why then?” Dan said, more interested.
She took a position between the two Morgans, so she could look at either or both at the same time.
“Because, as soon as I was recruited I saw the cracks in Zeta’s foundation—and started planning ahead accordingly.”
“Cracks?” Dan repeated, finding himself forgetting his anger, since he had felt somewhat the same way when Smith had started trying to recruit him.
Bloch had a special subtle skill at doing that—deflecting anger. As she continued, he realized she had been able to do it with any emotion, which she always managed to fold into her own plans, to power her own goals.
Bloch looked at Dan with a certain camaraderie, even conspiratorially. “Yes, Cobra, cracks. You saw them too, but I’m guessing you chose to ignore them, because it was like a dream come true for you, yes?” Dan’s expression became ruminative as his boss continued. “All the power, few of the rules. Seemingly unlimited expense account, truly evil targets, unsullied by base politics…” Bloch returned her attention to Alex. “What’s that adage again? ‘If it seems too good to be true…’”
“‘It probably is,’” Alex finished for her.
Bloch came around the desk, nodding sadly. “So, little by little, bit by bit, month by month, year by year, I had things moved, powered, protected, shielded, and prepared for the day when this sanctuary would be needed.”
“What?” Dan exclaimed. “So you just ran away and hid while the rest of your agents’ lives got destroyed?”
“Dad…,” Alex began, but stopped when she saw that Bloch’s face hadn’t taken on any regret, remorse, or even indignation.
“No,” he spat. “She has to know the effect of her actions.” He marched up to Bloch until his chin was at her forehead and his hands were near her throat. “So while you were safe, my house was a fiery hell-hole. My dog was drugged. My wife …!” His fingers began to tremble. “I don’t care about anything until I get my hands around the throat of the one responsible for my wife’s…”
“Death?”
Bloch had said it. Dan looked at her in utter disbelief, convinced, maybe for the first time, that only this hidden mastermind could have the knowledge and experience to betray Zeta …all because she was rankled at being under Smith’s command.
But before he could act on his conclusion, he heard his daughter’s voice.
“Dad?” He looked over at Alex, who was watching him with love and sympathy. “Mom says stop.”
“God damn it!” he exploded. “When will you realize this is all in your head! It’s all…”
“It’s not, Cobra,” Bloch interrupted as she moved back toward her desk. “I was only telling you all this to give her time to get safely back here to ground zero.”
“Her?” Dan echoed, not daring to hope.
“Yes,” Bloch said, sitting down. “You can’t get revenge for a body that’s not dead yet.”
And, with that, Jenny Morgan stepped out from the tunnel her husband and daughter had entered by, wearing much the same outfit as Bloch.
About a minute into the family’s joyful, tearful reunion, Dan realized Bloch had gone back to her desk to give them enough room.
* * * *
“It took some effort,” Jenny told Alex once they had all calmed down. “The nano receiver Diana managed to give you only worked within a certain range. That’s why I wasn’t talking to you all the time.” She gestured toward Bloch. “Once she identified a threat, we had to race there, hoping to warn you in time.”
“How did you ‘give’ me the thing?” Alex asked. “The same way you gave Dad the Threat Assessment Software?”
Bloch sniffed. “I wish it had been that easy,” she explained. “Although it’s as small as a pore,
I couldn’t slip it into your water bottle until I could make it bind to your cell surfaces through proteins marked with sugar molecules.”
“Stop, stop,” Dan surrendered, waving his hands. “Say it in English, please.”
Alex laughed. “I drank it, but I didn’t poop or piss it out.” She looked to Bloch. “Is that close?”
“Close enough,” the woman agreed with a sardonic smirk. “Rest assured you’ll …evacuate …it out eventually.”
“You’re kidding,” Dan said in disbelief.
“No, I most certainly am not,” Bloch replied.
“Will I poop or piss out the Threat Assessment Software?”
They all laughed, despite the circumstances.
Bloch gave him a knowing, somewhat sadistic grin. “How can you evacuate something you never ingested?”
It took a second, but Dan’s eyes widened and his eyebrows rose. “Are you telling me…?”
Bloch interrupted with another question. “How do you think we identified the threats Jenny warned Alex about?”
“…I never had it?” Dan finished.
Bloch’s cunning smile widened. “If Smith said you had it, who would disagree? Certainly not most of the world’s intelligence organizations. Besides, like Sureshot’s little nano visitor, it only needed to be there for a relatively short amount of time.” She shrugged while pointing at him. “Or, in actuality, not be there.”
Dan waved his hands again. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Time enough for what?”
All hints of humor left Bloch’s face as she leaned forward and stabbed her forefinger into the desk.
“To borrow another evacuation term, to flush Alpha out.” Her eyes bore into Dan’s. “But even before Alpha reared its ugly head, I knew we had to do something to make your wife safe. The fact that your daughter was Zeta but your wife wasn’t made her a ridiculously dangerous liability, with no real way to protect her.”
Dan wanted to counter that he could protect her, but he knew by her close call during the last mission that was no longer the case. Maybe it never had been.
So, apparently, did Bloch. “Mrs. Morgan proved herself against the seeds of Alpha during your previous major mission, and in no uncertain terms. Then, when the growing Alpha threat started showing their true objective—to wipe us all out in one surgical strike—I knew the most vulnerable target would be your wife. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Dan complained.
Bloch looked at him with narrow eyes and narrow lips. “Oh, come now Cobra,” she chided. “I needed a blunt instrument, and no one’s blunter than you when you’re enraged.”
Dan marveled at his boss lady, realizing that she had somehow wounded and inflated his ego at the same time.
“At great risk,” Jenny told her family, “Diana made sure I was safe.”
“After all,” Bloch added, “who had the greatest reason of all to serve as a literal and figurative guardian angel to her family?”
Dan looked to his soulmate with the most relieved, loving smile he’d ever felt, but it was tinged with a renewed sprinkle of ego. “But if you could only talk to one member of the family, why not me?” he asked, only half joking.
All three women reacted with varying degrees of mirth.
“Now, honey,” Jenny soothed him. “I figured of the two of you, you didn’t need it as much as Alex…”
“And because,” Bloch interjected, “of the two of you, you usually have your hands full, while Alex waits for just the right moment…”
Jenny, being the ever wise, faithful, generous wife, brought Dan’s attention back to her. “Besides,” she said to him, “Alex would never accuse me of nagging…!”
The long-time married couple smiled warmly at each other, until Jenny saw Dan’s smile disappear.
Then the agent known as Cobra yanked his Walther PPK out of his shoulder holster under his dark gray jacket, pointed it at Diana Bloch’s face, and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 34
The thirty-two caliber automatic pistol round just grazed Diana Bloch’s earlobe.
Bloch had started ducking to her right the second Dan’s hand had moved under his jacket, and she continued to drop, her right hand snaking under the desk to grip her Canik Elite automatic, which was in a holster attached to the side of the desk leg.
As the Walther bullet sped past her ear, she had the wicked-looking red-and-green fiber optic front sight of the Canik pointing back at Dan’s face as she pulled her single action trigger. Her nine millimeter round almost trimmed the middle of Cobra’s sideburn.
Both their bullets went by the still-moving Zeta ops, and continued on to their intended targets: people in visored helmets and assault gear coming in from the hole in the wall Alex had fallen through, as well as the furthest opening of the planned subway tunnel.
Dan knew their targets wore bulletproofing, but Diana didn’t, so the lead from his Walther smashed into the needle gun the first attacker was holding up, and her Tungsten missile slammed into the middle of the second attacker’s visor.
The effects were impressive. The PPK bullet ricocheted off the needle rifle, sending it down, while the Canik bullet sent the second attacker’s head snapping back as if hit by a shot put. The first attacker’s needle went into his own foot, and the second attacker’s concentrated light beam sliced a divot in the tunnel ceiling.
Like night cockroaches caught in a kitchen light, the attackers seemed to freeze while Dan and Diana seemed to move in slow motion. But then the shock snapped as more helmeted, visored, assault-geared attackers started pouring in from both openings.
“Goddammit!” Alex hissed as she sprung to her feet, pulling out not one, but two Sig Sauer P320 nine-millimeter automatics—one in each fist—from under her dark gray jacket.
As they rose, both Dan and Diana used their left hands to push Jenny down under the desk while their gun-filled right hands pointed at their attackers.
Then all three Zeta ops opened up. Dan used his Walther’s remaining five rounds to destroy the first attacker’s needle gun power unit, sending up a spray of diamond-tipped missiles in a mirror ball pattern.
Bullet-proof or not, the tactical gear material was not strong enough for something that small and fast, so the first attacker, as well as the three men beside and behind him, went down screeching, grabbing at their limbs and bodies as the needles made them look like a porcupine had rolled across them.
Alex, in the meantime, had marched forward, both guns straight out in front of her, and made perfect targets out of the three men falling over each other to get to the platform from the tunnel opening. Alex’s rapid-eye movement was astonishing as she used her guns—personally chosen for speed, power, and accuracy—to find the attackers’ weak spots as they appeared to her.
One looked up, leaving a quarter-inch gap between visor bottom and shirt top. Alex’s bullet found it. Another twisted down and to the left, creating a space between their boot and pant leg. Alex’s bullet found it. The third pushed their laser rifle up, trying to nail Jenny under the desk, but created a gap between his gloves and sleeves. Alex’s bullet found both. And all without pausing between trigger pulls.
Meanwhile, Diana crouched among the three Morgans, and filled whatever gaps they left. First, a shot into the cracked visor of the second attacker, shattering the thing. It might not have killed him, but it did blind him. He started wrenching off the helmet as Diana shifted her aim to a fifth man trying to climb over the writhing, porcupined attackers. As he looked up, Diana pounded a round under his chin, then shifted back to put a bullet between the eyes of the one who had yanked off his shattered helmet.
Two things happened simultaneously. First, another attacker launched himself over the men whose throats, ankles, and wrists Alex had shattered, bringing a concentrated air cannon to bear on the Morgans. Second, Dan scra
mbled to cover Jenny.
Dan found himself shouldered out of the way by his own wife, who came barreling out from under the desk carrying a sawed-off black synthetic Beretta gas-operated semi-auto A400 Xtreme Plus twelve-gauge shotgun that had been sheathed there.
The man with the air cannon did a double take as he noticed that the middle-aged woman had a hand cannon on her hip, but by then it was too late for him. Just as the attacker was pulling the trigger to try making a hole in her daughter and husband’s sides, Jenny unloaded the two ounce ball of buckshot point blank into his chest.
The pellets did not penetrate his bulletproofing. They didn’t have to. The power of them crushed his sternum, the shattered bones tearing open his heart like claws. The man was thrown back, as if by a wrecking ball, to crash into the next two attackers.
As Dan gaped at that, he noticed Diana running in the opposite direction while throwing her Canik at him.
“Catch,” she advised as Jenny and Alex kept firing, facing opposite directions, side by side. “It’s got eleven left in its belly to your Walther’s zero.”
“Are you running again?” Dan blurted despite himself as he snapped the Canik out of the air.
“Hardly,” Bloch sneered as she reached the opposite end of the tunnel. “Cover me.”
Dan gave a quick look over his shoulder to see the Morgan women keeping the wolves at bay. But, as he turned back he saw more and more of the attackers crowding the two openings. There was no one crowding the opening Diana was running toward, because it seemed to have been blocked off by a cave-in.
As he watched, Diana stopped and spun, producing a hammerless FN Mk2 semi-automatic revolver from under her vest, then shooting an attacker who was sidling past the desk.
“I said cover me!” she snarled as Dan stepped up and pumped the Canik into the man’s back.
War of Shadows Page 23
