Chapter Thirty-Five

Harvard

We’d been here before. Bouncing around in the back of a truck or van, gearing up for a takedown. Except, for me, the stakes had never been so high. Sami was at the mercy of a psychopath willing to destroy the country to get his revenge on me. I couldn’t let it happen. I’d let Adrian ruin me before he hurt her.

“Mon ami,” Jean-Luc said and nudged my knee with the butt of his weapon. He’d obviously been trying to get my attention for a few minutes. His teeth flashed against the dark greasepaint covering his face. “You’re finally getting your shot in the field, true?”

I scoffed at that. I rarely saw combat and was only on the entry team this time for two reasons. One: I knew the enemy better than anyone else. And two: we were short on manpower. Marcus was…well, nobody really knew where he kept disappearing to, and whenever he did finally decide to show up, he was always walking-sideways drunk. So we had Quinn, who was no longer active duty, driving and me going in with the team for the first time ever.

Jean-Luc nudged my knee to again get my attention. “Hey. For the record, I didn’t start calling you Harvard because of some piece of paper. I call you that because, degree or not, you’re the smartest man I know.”

A lump rose in my throat as I stared at him across the dim interior of the van. “I’ve been a shit lately, haven’t I?”

“Yes,” everyone said.

Jean-Luc was the only one who tried to sugarcoat it by making a so-so hand signal.

I sighed. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Hey, we’ve all been there,” Jean-Luc said. “I mean, consider Ian. He’s a massive pile of shit on a daily basis, and we still love him. Mais, tolerate him. Actually, does anyone but his dog like him?”

Ian’s middle finger shot into the air, and a ripple of laughter went through the group, breaking the tension.

Man, I loved this team.

We unloaded on a road well away from the substation and trudged through the woods to the fence. The plan was to cut the lock on the gate, but first we had to deal with the infrared sensor so we didn’t tip Adrian off to our presence. Someone had to go over an eight-foot electrified fence topped with barbed wire and block the IR before the rest of us could go inside. I voted Jean-Luc, since the guy could climb like a monkey, but he vehemently shook his head and shoved the wool blanket back at me.

“You want fried Cajun, I’ll take you to my favorite restaurant in New Orleans.”

“I already took care of the electric current.” I pushed the blanket back at him. “You’re the best climber.”

“Trees, mon ami. I climb trees. Not electric fences.”

“It’s not electric right now,” I insisted. “I rerouted the current.”

“Nuh-uh.” He shook his head again. “My balls aren’t going anywhere near that fence. I wanna make beautiful babies with Claire someday.”

“Okay, fine.” I held out a fist. He scowled at me for a second, then sighed with acceptance, and we rock, paper, scissorsed it. His rock beat my scissors, and he dropped the blanket back into my hands with a grin.

“You wanted to be in the field…” He motioned to the fence with a dramatic flourish. “Embrace the suck, kid.”

With a groan, I approached the fence and tossed the blanket over the barbed wire at the top. “Give me a boost.”

I stepped into his cupped hands and hoisted myself up to straddle the fence. “Hand me the shield.”

He passed me a piece of cardboard wrapped in tinfoil, and I jumped down to the ground on the other side of the fence. The infrared camera had a two-hundred-and-eighty-degree view. I landed behind it, directly in its blind spot, and slid the shield in front of it. The aluminum would reflect back on the sensors, showing no change in heat. Adrian wouldn’t see us coming.

By the time I finished and walked around to the gate, Ian had cut the padlock and was pulling the chain free.

“Let’s go,” I said. We fanned out to take care of the rest of the cameras. All of them were regular, run-of-the-mill security cameras. Nothing a little spray paint on the lens couldn’t fix. The security feed wouldn’t normally route to the substation’s control room, but to the local power company. I knew without a doubt we didn’t have to worry about them sending anyone out to investigate. Adrian had likely already looped the feed so it showed nothing happening, then rerouted the cameras to his own monitors. I just had to hope that Sami was working for us on the inside, drawing Adrian’s attention away from the suddenly blacked-out cameras.

Jean-Luc and I jogged over to the control room. The door needed a keycard. Too easy. I grabbed my laptop out of my bag and plugged it into a small, square device.

“Boomer to Vespa,” Ian’s voice said over the mic.

Vespa was the call sign we used to address the entire team, so I stopped what I was doing and tuned in.

“Tank found explosives here near the transformers. They look to be set for remote detonation.”

“Shit,” I said under my breath. Adrian wasn’t just aiming for a cyberattack here. “The nine-substation problem.”

“The nine what?” Jean-Luc asked.

“Studies have shown it’d only take a physical attack on nine key substations and a transformer manufacturer to cripple the power grid for at least a year. That’s why he wanted the Cricket. Jesus.”

Although I doubted Adrian actually planned to destroy the whole system. He was just as reliant on electricity as the next computer geek. My guess: he planned to blow up one or two substations to prove he could and therefore get a faster ransom payment. Once he had the payment, he’d send the authorities chasing after me and disappear with the money.

I spoke into my mic. “Boomer, you need to disarm them. He might blow them as we’re breaching the control room.”

“Already on it,” Ian said.

“Don’t get electrocuted,” I said and went back to setting up my device. Adrian had probably cloned an employee’s card to get in. I didn’t have the time to social engineer my way to a cloned card, so I was going to open it with a brute-force attack—basically, the device would run through code until it hit on the right one to unlock the door. It took less than fifteen seconds, and the lock clicked.

Behind me, Jean-Luc shook his head. “You scare me sometimes, kid.”

I slid the device into my leg pocket, handed my laptop to him, and picked up my rifle. I covered him while he returned the laptop to my pack. Once he had his weapon in hand again, we silently breached the door—

And a blast of energy hit us with such force that it knocked us on our asses. My head fuzzed, my stomach rolled, and my comms buzzed with white noise in my ear.

Jean-Luc groaned and rolled to his hands and knees. “What—the fuck—was that?” he gasped out between dry heaves.

I opened my mouth to respond, but another blast landed us on our asses again. Every nerve fired, and every synapse in my brain short-circuited.

Jean-Luc scuttled backward on his butt like a crab, his expression filled with terror. I’d never seen the guy scared. Even during our last mission together, when we thought he’d been infected with a deadly virus, he’d held on to his sense of humor.

I dragged myself up to a kneeling position and stared through the open door ahead of us. I couldn’t see anything on the other side. Just bright white light that spilled out in a square across the dirt in front of me. The blast slammed into me again, and this time it not only scrambled my brain like an egg, but my insides felt like they wanted to swap places with my outsides.

I lurched after Jean-Luc, staggering like a drunk until I reached the fence. Jesse crouched in front of Jean-Luc but jumped up when I listed sideways. He caught me with an arm around my waist and guided me the final few steps into the safety of the trees beyond the fence.

“What was that?” Lanie gasped from her seat on the ground next to Jean-Luc. Her light brown skin had taken on a greenish tint. “It was like everything inside me… I lost control. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t make myself move.”

“Did I piss myself?” Jean-Luc asked. “Merde. I think I pissed myself.”

I opened my mouth but didn’t trust that only words would come out and closed it again.

Jesse sat me down and shoved his canteen at me. “Drink.”

My stomach rolled, but I obeyed. And, after a moment, as the effects of the blast faded, I did feel better.

I cleared my throat and tried again, “I think that was a psychotronic weapon.”

“A zombie gun?” Ian said. He also sat on the ground a few feet away, his hand buried in the raised scruff on Tank’s neck. “That’s sci-fi shit. Not real.”

“No, it’s real enough. Ask Tuc. One of his companies has the government contract to build a prototype.” I glanced back toward the substation. “But that’s all it should be right now. A prototype.”

“Felt like more than a prototype,” Jean-Luc muttered. “Nobody mention this to Claire. Ever.”

“Prototype or not, your pal Adrian got his hands on one,” Jesse said. “So how do we get past it?”

A blast of static crackled in my earbud. From the way the others reacted, they heard it, too.

I pressed my hand over my ear and faintly heard Gabe’s voice through the noise: “Stonewall…coming…your position…copy?”

“Stonewall, say again,” Lanie said. “Negative copy. I repeat, negative copy.”

More static. Then his shout broke through loud and clear: “Incoming!”

My gaze shot to the sky, but if it was the Cricket, I wouldn’t see the drone. Jean-Luc grabbed my shoulder and shoved me deeper into the trees just as bullets sprayed our location. But the bullets didn’t just shower us. They targeted us. They fucking changed direction mid-flight and came right at us, and nobody escaped damage. One bullet creased Jean-Luc’s thigh. Another sliced across my upper arm, opening a hot gash just above my elbow. Lanie collapsed to her knees as a bullet bored through her calf. Jesse took one in the shoulder as he reached to help his wife up. Seth and Ian both dropped to the ground. I even heard Tank yelp and swung toward the sound. The dog belly-crawled over to where his owner lay unmoving in the grass.

I shifted my gaze to the sky again. When the drone swung back around, we were dead. Gabe could launch a counterstrike drone from The Hive, but it wouldn’t reach us in time. And there was always the danger that Adrian could take control of any drone we launched.

“Go, go, go!” I shouted. “Get out of here!”

Jean-Luc helped Jesse haul Lanie to her feet. I ran over to Seth and Ian, relieved to see them both already stirring. The bullets had caught in their vests, knocking the wind out of them both, but there was no blood. Thank God, there was no blood.

Ian bolted upright. “Tank!”

“Got him.” I scooped up all eighty pounds of whimpering dog, ignoring the pain that sizzled down my arm to my hand. Oh, yeah, that wasn’t good. Definitely some nerve damage going on in there. “We gotta move. Now!”

“Fucking self-guided bullets,” Ian muttered as he took Tank’s weight from me. At the dog’s whimper, his scowl dropped off his face. “You’re okay, buddy. You’re okay. We’re gonna get you home and patched up. Fucking self-guided bullets,” he said again under his breath. “I’m gonna guide one right through Adrian’s head for hurting my dog.”

“They’re called smart bullets.” I lead the way, running toward the road where Quinn would be waiting with the van.

“Another prototype?” Seth asked as he kept pace beside me. Ian, with the added weight of Tank, was slower, but only by a handful of steps.

I shook my head. “No. DARPA has been working on them since 2008.”

“What other technology should we expect to face tonight?”

“I don’t know.” And I hated that I didn’t. Adrian as Nomad, with the ShadowBazaar at his fingertips, could have anything.

We reached the van. The rest of the team had beaten us there, and Quinn had the motor running hot. As soon as the back door shut behind me, the tires spit gravel.

“How’s our good boy?” Jean-Luc asked, reaching out to pet Tank’s head.

Ian settled against the van’s wall with the dog on his lap. “His vest caught the bullet. Scared him, knocked the wind out of him, but I think he’s okay.”

“That’s a relief,” Jesse said and winced as he shrugged off his rifle sling. He dragged his medical bag to him with his one good arm and started bandaging himself. He glowered at me. “Call of Duty, huh?”

I rubbed at the ache building behind my eyes. “Okay, yeah, I’m sorry. I underestimated Adrian.”

“No shit,” someone said.

“But I’m still not wrong. He has zero combat training. He’s hiding behind his technology. If we can get past—” An idea began to take shape. Not a good idea, but the only option I could see.

Jean-Luc pointed a finger at me. “I know that look. You have a plan.”

“Better be more than twelve percent of a plan this time,” Quinn snapped from the front seat.

“It is,” I said, “but you’re still not gonna like it.”

“He never likes it,” Lanie said through clenched teeth. Jesse had moved on from his shoulder and now worked on bandaging her calf. “Let’s hear it.”

“I set off a bomb.”

“Now we’re fucking talking,” Ian said. “That’s a plan I can get on board with.”

“Yeah, don’t like it,” Quinn said.

I ignored them both. “An EMP.”

“Really don’t like it.”

“No, hear me out,” I said, holding up my hands to hush more protests. Which reminded me that my left arm was fucked up. The sizzle of pain made me hiss through my teeth, which caught Jesse’s attention.

He scooched toward me, medical bag in tow. “Let’s see it, kid.”

I gave him my arm but focused on the rest of the team while he did his exam. “We need to strip Adrian of his technology. Without it, he’ll be helpless. The fastest way to do that is with an electromagnetic pulse.”

“Harvard, you set off an EMP in a substation, you’ll knock out power to all of Jackson Hole,” Quinn pointed out. “Including our facilities and our homes. It’ll leave us vulnerable to our other enemies.”

“Yeah, mon ami,” Jean-Luc said. “We’re trying to keep the power on, or did you forget?”

I shrugged with the shoulder not attached to my damaged arm. “Better the valley than the entire west coast.”

Quinn exhaled a long, slow breath and stopped the van. “Jesus. Christ.” He took his hands off the wheel, shook his head, and turned in the seat. “All right. What do you need?”

I glanced around the van. Jean-Luc sat on an old toolbox. I shooed him away and opened it up. All kinds of tools and old electronic parts I’d thrown in over the years, and yes, even an old camera. That made my gadget nerd heart happy. “Ian, you have explosives?”

Ian grunted. “You gotta ask?”

“Then I have everything I need right here.” I grinned at my teammates. “Let’s blow this bastard back to the Stone Age.”

“For real, mon ami, you scare me,” Jean-Luc said, and slapped me on the back. “I’m glad you’re on our team.”