| |
WE BROKE FREE OF THE graveyard’s twisting labyrinth, back into the dark, winding dirt tracks of the coastal islands. Even with the nanomites’ sure directions, it took us a while to reach a state road not much better than what we’d left—except that it had, at one time, been paved. When my tires hit the pitted and crumbling asphalt, I punched the gas. No bueno. The rough road forced me to slow down.
Gamble’s voice came from the back seat. “Gemma?”
I didn’t have the heart to correct him. “Yeah?”
“They saw you in action. The people watching on the tablet.”
“I know.”
“And I doubt that they can afford to let Trujillo go free after what they did to her. I had you drive because they may be setting up roadblocks . . . or sending aircraft to find us. To waylay us. I’m counting on you . . . you and Zander.”
“We’ll keep you and Trujillo safe, Gamble.”
Yeah, things might work out tonight, but it wouldn’t be as easy going forward. Had the unknown viewers gleaned any identifying information on Zander or myself from the video call? The smallest detail had the potential—the strong probability—of blowing our covers to oblivion.
Goodbye Jayda and Zander Cruz.
We must have left the cellular dead zone, because I heard Gamble dial his phone. “Mal? I’m in deep water, brother, and need your help.”
Mal? Of course—old military buddies. Loyal to a fault. I didn’t hear what Mal had to say, but it was short. After that, Gamble issued curt, precise instructions.
“I’m sending you the location of a mothballed ship. It’s out in the water a couple hundred yards from the nearest dock. Dispatch a small team. You’ll need an inflatable to reach the ship. You’ll find two targets, male and female, below deck. We’ve disarmed them, but it’ll be a race to beat their handlers to them.”
Gamble listened. “Yeah, we want them for what they know, so have your people hide them well. Right now, we’re on our way to the nearest trauma center, and I need the rest of your team for security there. Yes. Thanks, man. Hold on for the location of the ship and directions to the hospital.”
Gamble muted the phone. “Gem—sorry, Jayda—can you have the nanoguys send directions to Mal through my phone?”
“Yup. One sec.” A moment later, I said, “Done.”
Gamble unmuted his phone. “Mal? Did you get the directions? Good. Have your people follow the route to the ship exactly, because once you get near the inlet, the way in is treacherous. Yeah. See you at the hospital.”
He hung up. “Thanks, Jayda.”
“No problem.”
Like Gamble said, we needed Trujillo’s interrogators, but I wondered if Mal’s team would beat our enemies’ rescuers to the ship. The man and woman we’d left behind in our haste to get Trujillo medical attention had information our enemies would be loath for us to acquire.
Perhaps thirty minutes had elapsed since we released Trujillo. Although we’d been on the road less than half that time, our circuitous route away from the ship graveyard hadn’t taken us all that far from it—not far as the crow flies, anyway. I had punched our speed up another notch when a different and chilling possibility occurred to me.
“Hey, Gamble? What if . . . what if instead of rescuing Trujillo’s captors, their handlers decide to ‘clean’ the scene instead? Mal’s team could be walking into—”
Jayda Cruz, we are picking up rotor vibration. Pull to the side of the road NOW.
I swerved toward the shoulder and stomped on the brakes. Zander screeched to a stop near our rear bumper. As we scrambled out of our seats, we heard choppers approaching.
I shouted to him, “Cover the cars!”
Zander and I stood back-to-back between the two vehicles and extended our arms, mine over Gamble’s car, Zander over ours.
The nanomites flowed from us like a dense fog with their mirrors deployed. Two large vehicles were a lot of area to ask them to cover, but they only needed to shield what the helos could see of us from the air—in particular, the heat plumes from our engines.
Two choppers came in fast and low, one close behind the other, following the winding road, their wash kicking up dust and debris. The nanomites’ shields canted toward the helos, keeping our vehicles masked from downward-looking scopes.
The choppers blew by us without slowing. We stayed as we were for a minute.
Jayda Cruz, you may proceed now.
“Thanks for the warning, Nano.”
I leaned into the car. “Gamble, Mal and his team aren’t going to reach Trujillo’s captors in time.”
He pulled his phone out and dialed. When Mal answered, Gamble said, “Cancel the pickup, Mal. We just avoided two inbound choppers—”
I flinched as the sky behind us ignited. Out of reflex, I looked back—only to shield my eyes against the intensity of the flames shooting above the tree line . . . from the direction of the ship graveyard. Not long after, the concussion boom reached us.
Gamble ended his call with, “Mal? Yeah, the tangos we left in the ship are toast. Make all speed for the trauma center.”
I was listening to Gamble’s call when the nanomites broke in.
Jayda Cruz, we are receiving information from Lawrence Danforth’s nanobug array.
“What about Danforth?”
Zander, who was hovering nearby, tuned in on our conversation.
We have ascertained that NSA Deputy Director Danforth was one of the two individuals watching Agent Trujillo’s interrogation via video call.
I had to tamp down the anger that surged in me. Lord, please help me to remain calm and objective. I cannot allow my feelings to dictate what I choose to do.
To the nanomites I said, “Who was the other person with Danforth?”
Unknown at this time, Jayda Cruz—and it is not of first importance. Danforth and his companion observed the means by which you took down Agent Trujillo’s captors. Soon after, Danforth called for the helos to locate your vehicle as it fled the shipyard, and he ordered the helo strike to sanitize the NSA black site.
“But you hid us from the helos, right, Nano?”
Yes, Jayda Cruz. However, we are not in continuous communication with Danforth’s array. The nanobugs were able to report only while he was giving orders over a phone, and we were able to receive their communication only when we reentered cellular range.
“I understand not being able to receive from the arrays while we are without cell service, but why not continuous communication when we do have service?”
We postulate that Danforth is operating from within a shielded facility such as a SCIF. When he used the facility’s secure phone, the array utilized that connection. However, because we were out of cellular range, they were unable to reach us directly. They, instead, sent an information packet to a predetermined network location. We picked up the packet when we reacquired cellular service.
Jayda Cruz, this is what is of first importance: Danforth’s associate recognized Zander Cruz from the tablet’s video feed and has deduced that Jayda Cruz is Gemma Keyes.
The blood drained from my face, and I turned to look at Zander. His face reflected the dismay I felt.
We will keep you abreast of further information as we receive it.
“Thanks, Nano.”
Half numb, I got back into Gamble’s car and drove on. Eventually, we merged onto a state highway and, ten minutes after that, I stopped the car in front of a hospital emergency entrance. The ER team raced out and took Trujillo from us. We followed them inside, but even though Gamble showed his cred pack, when the ER team reached the double doors to the treatment area, they shut us out.
“We’ll park,” I said to him, “and meet you in the waiting room.”
Zander and I parked our vehicles, and we joined Gamble in the half-filled lounge. He was already fretting.
“I can’t protect her if I can’t keep track of where they’ve taken her.”
“We know where she is, Gamble. Before they took Trujillo from your car, I sent a nanobug array to her. The nanomites will keep tabs on her condition and exact location. Right now, she’s still behind those doors,” I pointed to the double doors we’d been prevented from entering. “The doctors are assessing her injuries, but her vitals are good.”
Gamble’s gratitude showed on his face. “Thank you.”
I smiled. “Not a problem. She’s one of ours now.”
“I guess you’ve figured out . . .”
“That you’re sweet on her? Kind of hard to miss.”
I knew, too, that it had been a long time for Gamble. Not since a woman named Graciella, who had been an undercover DEA agent working with Mexican Federales. The coordinated drug bust had gone bad, and Arnaldo Soto had captured, tortured, and killed Graciella. The ghost of that failure was partly why Gamble was so agitated. He would never again let a woman he cared for suffer if he could prevent it.
He would die first.
Zander blinked his surprise. “Oh.”
I chuckled and tipped my head toward my wonderful but sometimes clueless guy. “Not always the sharpest stick in the stack.”
Zander bristled. “Hey!” Then he grinned and slapped Gamble on the back. “Glad to hear it, man.”
It was the friendly banter Gamble needed to loosen up a little.
“How about I get us some coffee?” I asked. “We’re going to be here a while.”
Forty minutes and several cups of coffee later, Mal and his crew rolled into the hospital’s ER. His men were way overdressed considering the warm humid night, but t-shirts and shorts didn’t provide the best concealment for the kind and amount of weaponry they carried.
An anxious security guard spied Mal and his team at the same time Mal spotted our little group. Sending his guys to mount a guard outside the ER entrance, Mal walked up to the guard and had a word with him. Several words, in fact.
The guard finally capitulated, but he kept an anxious eye on Mal as he sauntered over to us.
He nodded to Gamble and arched one brow at Zander and me. “John-Boy. Ripley. Guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised to see you two here.” To Gamble he said, “Heard reports on the radio of an unannounced military test lighting up the sky.”
“Our adversaries have some serious connections. They had those helos in the air in no time. It was apparent that they were looking for us—and the two tangos we left behind. The problem is, we don’t have many resources we can trust.”
“I see.” Mal gestured toward the ER doors. “Who’s in there?”
“An invaluable black-ops ghost.”
“And you need us to keep him and you three off-grid?”
“Her. And, yes.”
“How long?”
“Unknown.”
“I can send John-Boy and Ripley away with Deckard and McFly; the rest of us can stay with you.”
“Until we see how this plays out, I want to keep John-Boy and Ripley close for the, uh, added fire power.”
“Added fire power? Them? They don’t know one end of a gun from the other.”
When Gamble didn’t reply, Mal’s eyes narrowed. “These two are not the nubes you led us to believe they were, are they.” It was a statement, not a question.
I frowned. “Uh, guys? We’re right here.”
Gamble ignored me. “Not exactly, Mal, but it’s . . . complicated.”
“Complicated? Between us?”
“Need-to-know, Mal.”
I turned inward as the nanomites spoke. Jayda Cruz, when the helos failed to locate you and Zander Cruz as we fled the shipyard, Danforth tasked NSA resources to search local hospitals for agent Trujillo. As we speak, Danforth is assembling a tactical strike team. Their objective is to capture you. All others are expendable. They are coming.
I scanned the waiting room, seeing innocent civilians whose lives Danforth considered worthless. Mere collateral damage. “Nano, expunge Agent Trujillo’s records from this medical facility. Hurry!”
They answered softly, We tried but were too late, Jayda Cruz. Danforth had already accessed her chart. He has tasked satellite surveillance over this facility and dispatched the assault team. Estimated time of arrival is ten minutes.
I interrupted Gamble and Mal. “They know where we are. We have ten minutes before an assault team arrives. They have orders to take me alive—but everyone else is expendable.”
Gamble cursed. “Assault a hospital? Are they crazy? This is the absolute worst place for close-quarters battle! All these civilians—it would be a blood bath. We need to grab Trujillo and get out of here, lead them away from here.”
“No,” I whispered. “They aren’t focused on Trujillo at this moment. Just us, Zander and me. They have satellite coverage? Fine; we’ll let them see us leaving. They’ll follow us and leave this place alone.”
“That’s suicide,” Mal said evenly.
“Maybe not.”
“Where to, then?”
“What do you mean?”
“My team and I will go with you. Do you have a plan? A defensible position to fall back to? If not, we can lead them back to the clubhouse.”
I looked at Zander; he replied to Mal, “Their goal is to capture us, not kill us, but they will view you as fair game.”
Mal grinned. “I have twenty-five years of acting the role of ‘fair game,’ much to my adversaries’ dismay. Listen, if they intend to take you, then we don’t need to worry about another helo strike, right? The clubhouse is fortified and armed. Trust me when I say that we’re prepared for any contingency.”
His generosity and courage choked me up. “But this . . . this isn’t your fight, Mal.”
“The *blank* it isn’t. This is America, and what they’re doing is patently illegal. Any unwarranted attack on a fellow American is an attack on all of us. So, come on, Ripley. We’re wasting precious time.”
Zander and I looked at each other. Nodded.
“Thank you, Mal.”
“Thank me later. Gamble, I’m leaving Logan with you for backup. The rest of us will escort Ripley and John-Boy back to the clubhouse.”
Gamble stared at me. “I wish you good luck, Jayda.”
Zander had my arm and was dragging me toward the exit. I smiled a little. “I trust in someone bigger than luck, my friend. I’ll be praying for you and Trujillo.”
***
ZANDER AND I STOOD next to our car in the parking lot for several seconds. We turned our faces up to the sky, giving Danforth a good look. I even waved.
See me, Danforth? Come and get me yourself, if you dare, you coward.
Seconds later we peeled out of the parking lot with Mal’s team riding our bumper. The nanomites had the assault team’s vehicle location; they guided our little convoy away from them and set us on the most direct route to Malware, Inc.’s clubhouse.
Zander and I held our breath, waiting for the nanomites to tell us that whoever was watching the satellite feed had seen us leave the hospital and had conveyed our present location to our pursuers. The strike team was less than four minutes from the hospital when they slowed, turned, and darted forward on a different bearing.
Jayda Cruz, Zander Cruz, the assault team has changed direction. They are receiving real-time guidance from an NSA post watching the satellite feed and are on an intercept course to our projected location.
Zander was driving our car, and I saw his jaw tighten.
“Zander, why don’t we have the nanomites freeze the satellite feed? The NSA won’t have eyes on us anymore. It will give us time to hide.”
“If they lose us, won’t they go back to the hospital to take Gamble and Trujillo? You know Gamble won’t let them have Trujillo. He and Logan have guns and will fight. All those people . . .”
“Yeah. You’re right.”
Intercept within three minutes.
“Nano, can you spoof the feed, have them turn the wrong way a few times, throw them off our route long enough for us to get ahead of them?”
Consider it done, Jayda Cruz.
A moment later, they said, Jayda Cruz, we have bought you some time. Turn left ahead.
We were breaking the speed limit in every zone we rolled through, but we did not slow. The nanomites spoofed the satellite feed twice more, recouping time for us to reach the clubhouse ahead of the assault team.
I never dreamed I’d be so glad to see the dregs of Baltimore, but those abandoned warehouses may as well have been sided in sheets of solid gold, so relieved was I for their rundown silhouettes to come into view. Then we turned a corner and the clubhouse was dead ahead—that three-story brick island in the middle of what already resembled a war zone.
Zander pulled aside for Mal’s SUV. The clubhouse’s garage door swung open, and we drove inside after the SUV.
It was all business after that. Baltar and McFly raced into the clubhouse. Deckard and Dredd yanked down a second garage door over the first and locked it in place—the second door also constructed of reinforced steel panels.
Mal gestured for us to follow them. “That was some circuit you led us on, John-Boy.”
“The strike team almost cut us off three times. Had to reroute.”
“Huh. And how do you know that?”
Zander shrugged. “Let’s just say I had overwatch assistance of my own.”
“Yeah? Well, when this is done? We’re gonna have a nice, long chat, you two and me.”
“We’ll see,” I answered.
“Fair enough. Let’s get busy. We don’t know how much time we have before they get here.”
Jayda Cruz, the assault team is two minutes out.
“We’ve got exactly two minutes.”
Mal slid his eyes over to me. “Then we need to hop to it.”
He led us into what can only be described as their operations center. It was down a short hallway from the training center, also located in the interior, the hub of the building. Baltar sat at the controls, watching multiple exterior views on a wall of monitors.
“Holy guacamole. You guys have a better setup than the White House.” Zander whispered.
When three sets of eyes swiveled his way, he cleared his throat. “Please tell me I did not say that out loud.”
Then the strike team, in two assault vehicles, rolled around the corner, and we were occupied with their approach.
“Lenco BearCats,” Baltar expounded. “Customized jobs. Each one accommodates ten armed personnel. Looks to me like these rigs carry the Mk 19, 40mm belt-fed grenade launcher.”
I squirmed inside. Malware’s clubhouse suddenly felt like tons of brick rubble looking for a place to fall down.
Mal answered my disquiet, “We spent two years reconstructing this place, Ripley. The exterior walls are three feet thick, concrete reinforced with high-grade steel overlaid with recycled brick. If, after a few hours, their guns were to breach the perimeter, they’d meet similar obstacles in the interior walls surrounding us and the training center.”
He tapped a monitor. “But not to worry. Watch there.”
I squinted and located a dark form emerging from the third-floor hatch—the one I’d accessed during our first SDR drill. It was McFly. He aimed something at a warehouse across from the clubhouse. A line snaked over and went taut. Moments later, McFly zipped across the way and disappeared into a window.
The camera view switched to the warehouse where McFly had disappeared. He reappeared two floors up. Again, a line shot across the street—this time directly over the assault vehicles to the warehouse opposite him.
“We own both those buildings. Certain aspects of them have been, uh, modified, for our needs. We let the ‘neighborhood’ use parts of these properties to keep up the pretense that they are abandoned, but we keep the locals locked out of our tactical spaces.”
Movement caught my attention. Men in black gear poured from the two vehicles and spun away in two stacked lines, one to the left, one to the right. They melted into the shadows of the warehouses.
As soon as they cleared the vehicles, the BearCat gun turrets took aim at the clubhouse.
“Watch now.”
McFly sailed across the street, over the assault vehicles. The short gun slung from his shoulder burped twice. Whatever he fired floated toward the first vehicle’s turret and touched down like a feather. The same with the second vehicle. McFly coasted across to the opposite warehouse window, but not before streaks of semiauto rounds tried to tag him.
The armed attackers had noticed him too late, though.
As McFly zipped into the warehouse window, the top of one of the assault vehicles blew. Then the other. A soldier crawled out the back of one burning vehicle, coughing and hacking. I didn’t see a similar form crawl out of the second.
Mal winced. “$300k+ taxpayer money per vehicle. Molten slag.”
“I know they’re trying to kill us and all, but won’t you have to answer for destroying expensive government property?”
“Two things, Ripley. First, you’re assuming they’ll win and take us into custody. They won’t—they just lost their control comms and heavy artillery. Second, you’re assuming they’ll get around to prosecuting us afterward. They won’t do that, either. This operation is completely off-book, illegal as all get out. See any insignias on the attackers’ uniforms? No? Take it from me: Whoever is behind this, they don’t want the public—chiefly their Congressional funding oversight—to know a blessed thing about this op.”
“Hey, Gamble must have called in the cavalry,” Baltar said, pointing. “Look there.”
A vehicle similar to the two assault vehicles (both of which were now burning like bonfires) turned the corner. The new vehicle was dark blue with bright white lettering that read “FBI.”
Baltar indicated another monitor. The black-clad attackers were fleeing. Keeping to the shadows of the warehouses across from the clubhouse, they raced to the end of the block and evaporated into the night.
“Is that it?” I asked, my throat tight.
“I doubt it,” Mal answered. “They’ll stay away as long as the FBI is here, but you can be sure we haven’t seen the last of them. They seem to want you pretty bad, Ripley.”
He jerked his chin at Zander, then me. “You two. Time to have that talk.”
We followed along after him, but I’d left nanobugs on Baltar. I wanted to keep tabs on the FBI presence.
Mal showed us to his office. “Have a seat.”
We sat. He sat.
“Well?” I asked.
“Well, for starts, you and John-Boy here know each other.”
“You introduced us at our first tradecraft class a couple weeks back.”
“Nope. You guys ‘know’ each other.”
“Know each other how?” Zander asked.
“Come on, guys; I don’t care if you’re together.” He pointed at my hand. “Look. Neither of you wore a wedding ring in class. Kind of a giveaway.”
We didn’t respond.
Mal sat back and considered us through lazy, speculative eyes. “It’d be too bad if they were to take you, Ripley, because you’re a fine-looking woman, and I thought maybe we’d shared a moment back there. I was even thinking of asking you out. You know. Dinner, drinks, dancing . . . a long night of getting to know each other . . . intimately?”
He raked his eyes over me and smiled. “Or should I consider you off limits?”
I’d seen Zander’s anger only a few times, like when Mateo Martinez had provoked him. I’d seen him angry, and I’d seen him deadly serious. As he answered Mal through stiff lips, though, he was neither angry nor serious—just the deadly part.
“Yeah. You should.”
Mal chuckled softly. “You’re way too easy to provoke, John-Boy. You should work on that.”
“And you should move on.”
Mal cleared his throat. “I was just proving my point. ’Nuff said.” He jumped back to business.
“Everything else notwithstanding, we’re wondering what the deal is with you guys. Too many things don’t add up. You aren’t ex-military. You don’t know guns. You aren’t spooks. You aren’t analysts. We can’t tell what you guys are—but you managed to lose my guys during our SDR exercises and break into the clubhouse. And you—” he jabbed a finger in my direction, “you knocked Dredd on his can. So . . . what gives?”
Zander shrugged; he was still letting off steam. I gave Mal my wide-eyed “who, me?” routine. Neither Zander nor I spoke.
Mal sighed. “Okay. I get it. Whatever it is, it’s above my pay grade. Meeting over.”
“Uh, do you mind if John-Boy and I hang out here a while, Mal?”
“What do you mean?”
I slanted a look at Zander. It hadn’t dawned on him that our covers were “blown,” but I knew they were—and using our real identities to work the President’s assignment now seemed like the most colossal mistake ever.
“I think we need to stay with you guys until we hear from Gamble.” Meaning the President.
“Of course. I already told you we haven’t seen the last of the assaulters, but not to worry. You’re safe here. Feel free to hang out in the training center as long as you need.”
Turns out, it’s a good thing we did.
~~**~~
