by Roland Smith
He let it ring until it stopped, then called X-Ray.
“I don’t know the number,” X-Ray said. “But it’s an encrypted satellite phone.”
“Must be John Masters’ sat phone,” Boone said. “He’ll call …” Incoming call flashed across the small screen. He ended the call to X-Ray and answered. “Boone.”
“John Masters.”
“Welcome aboard. Where are you?”
“Norfolk.”
“What’s the weather like?”
“Lousy. Rain. Fifty mile an hour wind gusts. As soon as I do an equipment check, I’ll head your way. I’ll be in a black SUV. Are you still on I-95 south?”
“Yeah. Does your SUV have an onboard computer?”
“Hang on.” He came back on a few seconds later. “The computer’s booting up.”
“Can you link to it, X-Ray?” he said, getting him back on the line.
“Send out a ping,” X-Ray said.
John laughed. “I would if I knew what you were talking about. You’re going to have to walk me through this new technology. I’ve been unplugged for a long time.”
X-Ray told him what to do and within a couple of seconds a video of John Masters fiddling with something on his dashboard appeared on our screen. With his blue eyes and chiseled features he looked like a Hollywood version of a Navy SEAL.
“Got it,” John said. “Is that the target?”
“Affirmative,” X-Ray answered.
“You’re flying a drone in this weather?”
“So far,” Boone said.
“Do you have a tracking device on the car?”
“After a fashion,” Boone said. “Malak has one of our cell phones. Providing the battery holds its charge, or she doesn’t dump it to keep it away from the bad guys, we’ll be able to track her. The operative word is her. We have no way of knowing if Malak will be allowed to stick with Bethany, but my guess is she’ll stick regardless of what the ghosts have planned.”
“Someone knows the plan,” John said.
“Maybe more than one,” Boone said. “Malak thinks there’s an elite inner circle. Half a dozen people, maybe more. To take them down, we’re going to have to cut off all the heads at the same time.”
“Medusa,” John said.
“Not a bad operational name,” Boone said. “We’re hoping the delivery of Bethany will transform Malak from a leopard into a snake head. Then we’ll snatch Bethany back and make it look like it’s not Malak’s fault.”
“Complicated,” John said.
“It always is,” Boone said.
“What about the battery on that cell phone she’s carrying?” John asked.
Boone glanced at me. I looked at my Seamaster, trying to figure out the last time I had charged it. The cell phone Malak was carrying was mine. She had swiped it from the White House just before she snatched Bethany.
“It’s been over thirty hours since I charged it,” I said, feeling a little sick to my stomach.
“Did you copy that, John?” Boone asked.
“Unfortunately. What you’re saying is that we’re going to be operating unhooked by sunup or sooner.”
“Looks that way.”
“I’ll be in touch,” John said.
“Keep your comm set on. All of our cells are encrypted and can be linked. You’ll know everything we know and you’re welcome to chime in whenever you like.”
“Is J.R. hooked into the phone tree?”
“Negative. And I know you’re his guy, but I want to keep it that way.”
John laughed. “I’m not his guy. I’m your guy by order of the president of the United States. Operation Medusa is all yours. You’re in command. He made that crystal clear.”
“Good to know,” Boone said.
“See you down the road.” John ended the call.
Boone’s cell phone rang again.
“They’re pulling over,” X-Ray said.
Boone switched back to the drone stream.
“It’s a rest area,” X-Ray said.
The SUV pulled in next to three other SUVs.
“Uh-oh,” Boone said.
“What?” Angela asked.
“The heat signatures.” Boone pointed at the screen. “Four people in each car. Two in front. Two in back.”
“They’re all Chevy Tahoes,” Vanessa chimed in. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep the drone up.”
“You have to keep it flying long enough for us to see what they’re doing,” Boone said calmly.
“They’re getting out,” Angela said.
The orange blobs were morphing into people as they climbed out of the SUVs.
“Punch it!” Boone said. “We need to get in front of them. Everyone needs to get in front of them.”
The speedometer readout on-screen leapt from 70 MPH to 90 MPH in an instant. The laptop started to slide across the table. Angela caught it.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
I didn’t understand either.
We stared at the screen.
“What do we have, X-Ray?” Boone asked.
“Sixteen people, but I can’t say what gender they are.”
“Can you sort them out?”
“Negative. There are trees in the way. I’ll have to slow the video down and run it through a software program. That’ll take at least an hour. Maybe longer.”
“In an hour they could be seventy miles away heading in four different directions.”
“Malak has my iPhone,” I reminded them.
“But this is obviously a vehicle switch,” X-Ray said. “There’s no guarantee Bethany and Malak will stay in the same car.”
The video started to go crazy.
“I’m losing the drone,” Vanessa said. “It’s going to crash.”
“Land it,” Boone said. “Preferably not on top of the terrorists.”
“Not yet!” X-Ray cut in. “They’re getting back in the cars. I need the vid of all the sequences or I won’t be able to sort it out.”
“Fine with me,” Vanessa said. “It’s not my million-dollar drone.”
“Do your best,” Boone said.
“We’re passing the rest area,” Felix called out.
Vanessa’s best was about twelve minutes. We held our breaths as we watched them get back into the SUVs and turn back into orange blobs. One SUV backed out and started toward the exit followed several minutes later by a second, then a few minutes later a third, and then the drone crashed into what looked like a tree.
“Sorry,” Vanessa said.
“You did your best,” Boone said. “There’s an interchange ten miles ahead with a truck stop. Everybody exit. We’ll regroup there. X-Ray, keep tracking Q’s phone.”
“Got it,” X-Ray said. “It’s still at the rest area. Presumably with the last Tahoe.”
The speedometer readout now read ninety-five miles an hour.
The Switch
Malak and Bethany had been yanked from the back of the car, thrown onto the ground, and covered with a large tarp.
“Stay perfectly still,” someone said. “No talking.”
Malak nearly laughed. There was no one to talk to. Bethany was still unconscious.
But she won’t be for long on the cold wet ground with the wind and rain pelting this tarp, she thought.
The switch and scramble was a precaution against the Eye in the Sky. She doubted the SOS had a drone at their disposal, but the cell didn’t know that. They were acting as if the full might of the U.S. government were after them, which was wise. They were taught to always proceed as if they were being watched. You are a stranger in a strange land, the manual of arms taught them. You have no friends. Only enemies. And they are always watching. The tarp was made out of a special material that cloaked heat signatures. Malak had laid under a cloak like this many times before in the deserts and mountains in far-off countries. She was pleased they had not tried to separate her from Bethany when they pulled them out of the Tahoe. If that had happened, the game wou
ld have been up. A lot of blood would have been spilled. She told the president that she would keep Bethany safe. She could not protect her if she wasn’t with her.
So far so good.
She touched the pistol stuck in her waistband and hoped she wouldn’t have to use it.
Yet.
She heard people shuffling aimlessly around the tarp.
Mixing themselves up. Confusing the Eye in the Sky. Little pieces being moved on a giant board.
Like the game “Simon Says.”
Malak was not interested in the little pieces. She wanted Simon and his lieutenants.
It was difficult to hear above the wind and the rain, but after several minutes, it sounded like people were starting to move away. Carefully, she lifted the edge of the tarp. Car doors slammed, engines started. Malak pulled her pistol out and switched the safety off. If they were going to try to separate Bethany from her, it would be now. One of the Tahoes backed out, then a few minutes later another. She looked at her watch. Five minutes had passed. The third Tahoe backed out and drove away. Malak breathed a sigh of relief.
One left. They aren’t going to separate us.
A gust of wind nearly blew the tarp off of them. Malak grabbed the edge and held it down. Bethany let out a moan and started to stir.
Not yet! Not now!
Bethany Culpepper tried to sit up.
The Itch
“Ziv and Eben. Cover the east exit. If a Tahoe comes by, follow it. Try to get a visual of the occupants, if you can. Uly, you cover the west exit …”
I looked out the window with longing as Boone snapped orders over his cell phone. There was a McDonald’s at the truck stop. I didn’t think I was hungry, but the golden arches got my stomach rumbling.
“… X-Ray, keep working on those vids. We need to know which Tahoe they’re in before we get too far away from each other.”
“He’s working on it,” Vanessa said. “I don’t think it’s going well. He just plugged his noise cancellation headphones into his iPod Touch and turned the volume up to max.”
“What about Q’s cell signal?” Boone asked.
“I’m watching it while X-Ray tries to untangle the vid. The signal’s weak. It’s still at the rest area. Stationary. It hasn’t moved an inch.”
“That could be good or bad,” Boone said to no one in particular. “Let’s brainstorm this thing. They could have taken it from her and dumped it …”
My brain was split between the conversation and the golden arches. …
Why are they called the golden arches? The arches are actually yellow. I guess yellow arches doesn’t sound right, so they called them golden. But why didn’t they just paint them golden? Probably because no one would see them. Gold doesn’t stand out like yellow. I could look it up on my laptop. Why am I thinking about this anyway? It’s not like I’m hungry. When I get nervous, the last thing I want to do is eat. There’s something else going on. Something…
The itch.
Twice in twenty-four hours, which was a new record for me. The itch is kind of like a premonition, like absolutely knowing something is going to happen before it happens. The problem is that I never know what that something is going to be. This time it was more like a tickle than an itch, but it was definitely there, like a small spider crawling on my neck.
I tuned back into the brainstorming session. I’d missed some of the conversation. Ziv was talking. Of all of us, he knew Malak the best. “I’m the monkey that watches the Leopard’s tail,” he had told us. “I’m her second pair of eyes and ears. I make certain that no one stalks her while she stalks her prey.” He had been covering Malak’s tail since she became the Leopard. This included killing terrorists who suspected that his daughter was the Leopard.
“… the phone perhaps,” Ziv was saying. “But she would not leave the side of the daughter of your president.”
Ziv wasn’t from the U.S. I don’t think anyone knew where he was from.
“If they had found the phone, they would have smashed it,” Vanessa said.
“Unless they want us to believe she’s still there,” Felix said. He had unbuckled and joined us in the kitchen. His crew cut cleared the ceiling by only about two inches. Croc sat next to him with his tongue hanging out because there weren’t enough teeth in his mouth to hold it in. “There’s only one way to find out.”
“We have four directions to cover and only three vehicles,” Vanessa pointed out.
“Truck stop is full of cars,” Felix said.
Felix was big, but he was not a big talker. When he talked, it always sounded like each of his sentences took up a whole page—and he paused as he turned each page.
“Some of the cars belong to people working here,” he said.
“They won’t miss ’em ’til their shift ends,” he added.
“Saw a nice Caddy parked in back when we drove in,” he continued.
Boone grinned. “I don’t know if the Cadillac is the best choice, but the idea is sound.” He turned back to his cell. “Everybody got that? Felix is going to jack a car and head back to the rest area. If you see a Tahoe doubling back and heading north, let him know. He can pick it up and follow when it passes by.”
Felix was out the door and heading across the parking lot before everyone had checked in. I watched him out the window. He bypassed the Caddy and stopped by a sports car he couldn’t possibly fit into. He looked to his right and left, then did something with his big hands that I couldn’t see. He opened the door and squeezed himself in. Five seconds later, the headlights came on and he drove out of the parking lot.
“First Tahoe,” Vanessa said. “It’s turning west.”
Boone cursed. “You drive, Vanessa. Have Uly jump out and spot.”
“No one to monitor Q’s cell,” Vanessa said. “X-Ray has his hands full. Their taillights are disappearing.”
“Follow them, Uly,” Boone said.
He looked at Angela and me. “One of you is going to have to spot.”
“I’m faster,” I said. “I’m better at sneaking around.”
“I’m older,” Angela said. “And I have a black belt in tae kwon do.”
“Speed trumps age and we need to spot them, not kick them in the ears.”
“Is your cell phone charged up?” Boone asked.
I knew he wasn’t talking to me. I didn’t have a cell phone. Angela pulled her phone out of her ratty backpack with a smirk.
“Eighty-five percent,” she said.
“Give it to Q.”
I’m not sure who was more surprised, me or Angela.
“Why?” Angela asked.
“Short answer, I promised your mother I would protect you.”
I guess that meant I was expendable. But I didn’t care. I wanted to do something. I needed to do something.
“And,” Boone said, “someone has to monitor the computer. I’ll be driving. You’re more tech savvy than Q.”
This seemed to satisfy Angela. She handed me her phone.
“You’ll need to conceal yourself near the off-ramp, where you can see in all four directions,” Boone said to me. “Croc will go with you. Hurry.”
I wasn’t sure how a toothless geriatric dog was going to help me spot terrorists, but I didn’t stop to argue. I put on my coat and baseball cap and rushed out the door with Croc at my heels. I was nearly blown back into the kitchen by a gust of wind. Angela grabbed the laptop to protect it from the rain.
“You okay?” Boone asked mildly.
“Yeah. No problem. I can handle a little wind and rain.” But this was a lot of wind and rain. Croc put his ears back, and waddled outside. I followed him, trying to hide my grimace as I struggled to close the door. I finally got it closed and looked around for Croc. He was christening the coach’s rear tire.
“See you on the other side!” I said, and leaned into the wind. The truck stop was on the east side of the interstate. The off-ramp was on the west side. I had to get across the overpass before another Tahoe showed up. The wind
was much worse over the interstate than it was at the truck stop. Halfway across, I glanced back at the coach. Croc was still frozen in place, staring at me with one brown eye and one creepy blue eye, like some obscene statue. I stuck earbuds in my ears so I could listen in on the spook phone fest. I had to turn the volume up to max to hear anything against the howling wind.
Felix was on his way to the rest area. The intellimobile was heading west behind Tahoe #1. Ziv and Eben were watching to the east.
I was about to report in when I saw a car driving up the off-ramp. It was too far away to see what kind of car it was, but it looked big enough to be a Tahoe. Its left-turn signal flashed. I hurried along, trying not to be too obvious, which was hard, because what was a kid doing walking across an overpass in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, in a wind storm? I bobbed my head like I was rocking out through the earbuds—a pitiful cover, but what else could I do? The car turned and I saw the gold Chevy emblem on the grill.
Gold.
Yellow.
The itch.
There was something teetering on the edge of one of my brain cells that I couldn’t seem to tip into consciousness. Something that had to do with the Tahoes and the rest area switch, something …
Something bumped into my leg. Croc. Two seconds ago he was still answering the call of nature fifty yards away. He wasn’t even panting. Impossible. I glanced back at the coach to make sure he didn’t have a toothless twin and saw that Boone had fired up the coach. Diesel exhaust was burbling out of the twin mufflers in back. I turned and saw that the Chevy was just about even with us. It was a Tahoe! I tried to see through the windshield without being too obvious. There were two men in the front seat, but I couldn’t see them clearly. I turned my head away and spoke into the mic.
“Second Tahoe on the overpass heading east.”
I tried to get a peek into the backseat as they passed. It was no good.
“Too dark to see into the back,” I said. “I’m not sure if they’re in there or not.”
“They are heading east,” Ziv said.
“Follow them,” Boone ordered. “Q?”
“I’m here.”
“Is Croc with you?”
“Yeah. Right next to me.” I didn’t mention that I had no idea how he had gotten right next to me.