by Ben English
The only thing he hadn’t tried hacking was the American ship in the harbor, the Bata’an, and as his thoughts turned in that direction the desk lamp flickered, died, and then came on again with a weak, brown glow. Steve swore. The network was down. His computer was attached to an uninterruptable power source, but damn near worthless without another machine to talk to.
His phone rang. “Steve?”
“Ian, thank God! Are you still alive?”
“What? Listen, I’m at the FBI crows’ nest, about a block from the convention center off the square. All our systems are kaput. What do you know?” He was running.
Steve moved too, loathe to leave his computers but needing a more useful view. “Jack started to shout something on the all-channel, and then everything shut down. A few seconds before that, the systems at the ops center stopped broadcasting; I just thought the feed was lost.”
“Let’s hope that’s all we lost. Damn. Wish I knew where to go.”
Steve thought a moment. “What patterns do you see?”
“Say again?”
Steve tore the blackout curtains from a window facing that area of the city. He instantly recognized a wedge of total darkness spread out against the glow and wink of the urban lights. “Describe what you see, how many floors of lights are out, do they go in any single direction, what.”
“The emergency lights in the bottom floor of the building across from the convention center are on, but the other floors are dark. Lights are off in the back of the building, too. Even on the first floor.”
That fit the wedge. “Ian, whatever this was, EMP or something else, it looks like it originated from somewhere close to the convention building and spread out like a cone from some center point.” Steve pulled a Chapstick from his pocket and began marking the glass, tracing the edges of darkness back to their source.
“It came from the American embassy compound. Probably the south building. Look for a window or someone on the roof.”
Ian shrugged with his voice. “Something like this goes down, and you think I’m going to get access to the embassy?”
Steve shrugged back. “You’ll think of something. Try the roof. All the buildings are mushed up against each other in that part of town. Get in, sneak in, break a window.”
No Limits
The erupting geyser of glass blew Lopez backward. He lost his grip on the rifle and fell over Mercedes. Jack blasted up in a shower of sparkling glass and landed hard to the side of the skylight, stunned. Off-balance, he pushed himself to his feet and shrugged out of his shredded jacket.
Silvery bits of glass fell from his clothes to chime and sing against the ground.
"Jack!" gasped Mercedes.
"Lopez." Jack said evenly. He blanched when he saw Mercedes.
"How, what, glug," said Lopez. Then his fingers found a pistol. "You should be dead. A year or more, dead.” His voice was deceptively calm. “Let me help you with that.”
Ignoring Mercedes, he stepped close and cocked his arm back, almost as if he was going to punch Jack with the firearm. The pistol plunged forward. Before he could connect, Mercedes stomped into Lopez's instep and bit his arm. Her camera went off in his face. Lopez bellowed loudly, but the sound was lost in the sudden roar of the helicopter as it cleared the roof.
Jack kicked the pistol out of Lopez's hand, drew his own, and fired three rounds in the general direction of the helicopter's blinding spotlight.
Missed every time, damn it.
The lights, he couldn’t see. Too exposed.
Instinct took over; Jack dashed around the side of the stairwell housing, into the shadows. A body lay there but all Jack could clearly see was the afterimage of the dazzling spotlight.
Mercedes slipped out of her high heels and leaped onto the adjacent building. She hit the roof running for her life.
Lopez picked up a handful of pebbles from the roof and threw them at her, then whirled on the men pouring out of the helicopter. "You, all of you, get in and get after Espinosa!
“Enrique! Fernando!" he shouted. "You come with me! Bring me a new gun. Bigger gun!”
Jack ran up the narrowing stretch of shadow concealing him and shoulder rolled onto the next roof, never slowing. Good thing Havana's designers made up for their lack of space by practically laying the buildings one on top of another. The rooftops were a maze of uneven slopes, jutting edges, and unprotected pipes and ducting.
Shafts of light sheared across the skyline. Obviously the spotlight operators had noticed something strange going on. The moon hid behind cloud wrack, painting the angled landscape in an abundance of shadows for Jack to cling to as he crept along the rooftops. Lopez was ranting somewhere out in the night, somewhere close by.
Shouting about leprechauns.
Jack caught a glimpse of Mercedes racing along the peak of a roof not far ahead. She was fast. He almost called out, but the wicked glitter of a knife's edge at his periphery of vision demanded immediate attention. Jack dodged to one side as the knife darted, then grasped the man's wrist and slammed him in against the concrete wall until he stopped squirming. Silently, he eased the unconscious man to the ground and continued the chase.
*
There is nothing efficient about running in a dress, and Mercedes was nearly ready to shuck the whole thing and sprint in her underwear. This was worse than the ugly morning jog. Perspiration streamed into her eyes as she sprinted up another peaked roof. As she crested the top she dared a look over her shoulder. Sure enough, not more than two hundred feet behind her a figure slid out of the darkness, pursuing. Mercedes careened down the steep incline and lowered herself to the next building. She paused for a moment, peering into the blackness under the eaves.
It seemed luck hadn't totally forsaken her. The jutting overhang made by the roof she had just tumbled down made a space large enough to conceal her. Mercedes crawled in and turned around, then froze when distorted shadow leaped onto the wall opposite her. Lopez is on the roof behind me! She fought down the panic and clicked off a flashless picture of the silhouette. The spotlight behind him probed away, and darkness closed in on the area.
Mercedes held her breath as the man dropped onto the roof directly before her and began to stealthily move away. Then she choked as ice-cold fingers closed around her throat. "Right there, Jack Flynn, right there. Do not move."
Lopez dragged her out of the gloom where they had been sitting. His other hand held a short-barreled, pump action shotgun.
“This game, this hide-and-seek. No more, thank you.” The man's eyes were dead as they turned on Mercedes. "No more little tricks, my darling." The shotgun's muzzle gouged into her side. Lopez turned his smile on Jack. "Be good fellow and throw your gun over the edge. Then you two can take me to our good friend Espinosa and the four of us can have a nice little chat.
“Afterward we find your black Irish rose and have an even longer discussion. She’s around here somewhere, isn’t she? Never alone.” He grunted. “Neither of you could survive without the other.”
*
Jack hesitated. Mercedes was the variable. She’d surprised him with the inside stomp and the camera flash, but he couldn’t count on something like that working twice. Cold fury burned inside him as his mind raced toward a plan. What did he have to use? Anything in their surroundings, circumstance, his pockets?
Lopez twisted the shotgun and the muzzle dug into her side. Vanished into the sable folds of her dress. Her expression created an echo of pain in his own body. Slowly, Jack reversed his grip on the pistol and threw it off the roof.
He was out of ideas.
Someone moved off to his right; probably another one of Lopez's cronies. "The helicopter is airborne again, jefe."
His master’s face lit up. "Excellent! Hah! That means Espinosa is a corpse. Flag him down, Enrique!"
The little man ran to the peak of the roof and waved his arms wildly. A spotlight sliced past him and flashed over the area as the sound of whirring rotors grew nearer. Lopez looked toward th
e spot of growing light, and Jack tensed for a last desperate lunge.
Suddenly the helicopter burst directly over the roof's summit, much too low, catching Lopez's goon crossways with a landing skid. As the little man tumbled through the air, Mercedes brought her camera around hard to the side of the shotgun's barrel.
Jack's hand dipped into his pocket and withdrew the crystal falcon. He didn’t hold anything back.
The falcon thunked solidly into Lopez's forehead. Reeling, the frothing man attempted to re-aim the shotgun at Mercedes. As if released from physical restraint Jack sprang forward and planted a very solid right fist on Lopez's jaw. The shotgun went off and Mercedes screamed, falling back. The helicopter`s lights blinded them all.
Cold fury turned warm, fast. He couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t even slow it down.
Enraged to the point of insensibility, Jack slammed the drug lord a double-fisted punch to the chest and a knee to the pit of his stomach. Lopez had a knife in each darting hand, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. Stepping in close, Jack hit him again, without elegance, then tripped him so he fell backwards, sprawling, onto a lower roof.
Stunned, he turned to Mercedes.
She sat up and sadly held the shredded fragments of her camera. Its innards lay scattered across the roof. Sobbing with relief, Jack helped her to stand and examined her closely. The pellets had ripped away a patch of her dress and torn off her belt buckle, but she was barely marked. The camera and her belt were the only fatalities.
Lopez was still moving, still on the attack. Whirling, he flung a long knife—whether at him or Mercedes, Jack couldn’t tell. He brought his palms together hard, slapping them together against the flat planes of the blade.
The knife clattered against the roof, and Jack met the Colombian again. He all but ignored the second knife, throwing himself at Lopez like water, a deluge, flowing all around the weapon. Overpowering him on every level.
He threw Lopez headlong onto the lower roof again, and followed. The helicopter shied away from the scene, toward a section of the roof marked for landing.
Ian Whitaker, chest heaving, appeared in a doorway near them. Face full of questions, he moved nevertheless toward Lopez.
Jack beat him there.
The Colombian struggled to stand. Jack seized him by the lapels and heaved him backwards into a flagpole. Lopez tripped over a small spotlight and sprawled in the bright dust at their feet.
With a measure of deliberation, Ian withdrew a pair of handcuffs. The other Americans behind him moved to form a rough semicircle. Two drew side arms.
“Armand Lopez,” Ian began. “For illegal transport of controlled substances and firearms across national and state borders, for drug trafficking and distribution in violation of both state and federal laws of the United States of America, I place you under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.”
Lopez spat out a broken tooth and laughed in his face. "This isn't America.” He turned on Jack. “You can't arrest me here, Flynn!"
Jack leaned close. "Do you know what building we're standing on, Lopez? Look up." Both men tilted their heads heavenward and stared at the flag snapping overhead; one with admiration, the other with exactly the opposite expression.
Lopez groaned. "Embassy."
By the time the helicopter finally settled onto the landing area, Lopez was wearing three pairs of handcuffs and his own belt as a gag. Jack and Mercedes stood together apprehensively. The side door slid open, and Alonzo emerged. He grinned despite his dirt-streaked face and tattered tuxedo. Beneath his shirt several bullets had flattened themselves against his body armor.
His attention fixed on the black lump at Jack's feet, Alonzo didn't see Mercedes until the last moment, and performed a textbook double take. "Okay. Jack: Everything’s under control back at the reception. They moved everyone down the service tunnel to the lower level. Power’s out in half the city, but Espinosa insisted—”
“—the show must go on,” Jack finished.
“Yeah. Here, look."
They walked to the edge of the building and Alonzo pointed across the plaza to the conference center. The Cuban Guard surrounded a large group of handcuffed figures as they entered armored vans. The crowd parted as the police vehicles left the square. Above, Espinosa stepped out onto the balcony to the roaring adulation of his people and the multinational throng below. The square was filled to capacity.
Alonzo looked at them closely. “Are you okay?” he asked Mercedes.
“Al – Alonzo, right? I’m fine.” She looked at Jack. “The day is getting better.”
A perspiring figure joined them. “Special Agent Whitaker, FBI.” He actually flipped open his ID. “We’ll be needing you three to submit statements; our people will be with you as soon as we get this mess sorted out. Should receive the all-clear any minute now,” he added.
“Meantime, I’ll need you with me,” he said to Alonzo. “Downstairs.” The roof was rapidly clearing.
Whitaker took a closer look at both of them. “Say, you’re Jack Flynn, aren’t you? The actor, right? Well! My wife loves your movies. We sat through the MacArthur show twice in a row. Well, well.”
“I’m glad you liked it. Thanks. Look, if it’s all the same, I’ll just go—”
“You’ll stay right here, sir.” Agent Whitaker spoke with the full weight of his Bureau of God voice. “Both you and your girlfriend. You are both material witnesses to a crime on U.S. soil. You are part of this crime scene.” He actually tapped Jack on the chest. “You’ll both stay right here until told otherwise. Handcuff you to each other if I have to.”
But he’d already used his cuffs.
Working his jaw, Agent Whitaker glanced at each of them, then looked at a point in the extreme distance. Turning quickly to the other figures on the roof, he bellowed, “Rest of you, get out, out! Everybody off the roof! Out! And keep your hands off my crime scene,” he said to Jack.
Jack caught Alonzo’s eye, and mouthed. You in on this?
Rather than reply, he answered aloud, “I'll make sure Lopez gets to his cell downstairs. Maybe watch Espinosa’s speech on TV with him. Boy, do I need a drink. I'm dead tired."
Normally Jack wouldn't have noticed it, but the bit of skin between Alonzo's mouth and nose remained stiff as he spoke. It was a microexpression, a tell he'd had since childhood. Usually meant his friend thought he was getting away with something sneaky.
As Alonzo walked back into the dark, he threw Jack a questioning look and nodded at Mercedes. She watched the scene below with rapt attention. Jack shrugged and turned back to the crowd. Overhead, a million fireworks exploded as Espinosa raised his hands and began to speak. The distance made it impossible for them to hear clearly, but they made out the words "freedom" and "dawning of a new day."
“Are you really alright?” he asked.
“Better than I look,” she replied.
He thought about that. Mussed hair, torn dress, broken camera, and more unburned gunpowder than makeup.
The last thing he wanted to do was blink.
Mercedes looked back at him. For a long time, neither spoke.
Finally she said, “How about if we do this like when we were kids.”
“You mean, I’ll ask a question and then you ask a question?”
She nodded.
“Fair enough. I’m not really supposed to talk to the media. Kind of a rule.”
All she held was the shred of a camera strap. “You’re looking at a weaponless paparazzi, Jack. No danger here.”
Sure, he thought. “Ask away.” His mind raced. Jack felt something like regret when he glanced away from her for a quick look around the roof. They were alone, or seemed to be. Hard to think about his surroundings, for some reason. Dangerous, in his line of work.
A lone firework burst overhead.
“How is it that you came to be on this roof, right this minute?” She said the words deliberately, with a touch of exaggeration.
He forced himself to look away, to do a qu
ick inventory of the wreckage of the fight. While a portion of his brain cataloged their surroundings, the fine details of the night, he wondered how much he would tell her. There were all sorts of strategies he could use to deflect the conversation. Countless social engineering techniques and ploys to move her questions to safe, easy topics. Many tricks.
What were they again?
He realized he was hesitating. “I’m wondering how bad it could get if I tell you.”
“How bad could it get?” she asked.
“Pretty bad.” His eyes found her again. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
Then he spotted something a few feet away. The memory card from her camera, ejected and safe.
“The pictures actually survived?” Mercedes was incredulous. She laughed and punched his arm. Lightly.
He felt like he should say something. “It looks okay. That’s unbelievable. Must have bounced out when you were fencing Lopez. That was pretty amazing. I thought I’d seen everything when you bit him, but camera versus shotgun, I never would have thought of that.”
I can't believe this is all I can come up with to say, thought Jack. The adrenaline still coursed through his body, heightening his perceptions, electrifying his mind, doubling his pulse. It must be the adrenaline. It couldn't be the sight of Mercedes illuminated on one side by the city and on the other by the moon.
His mind’s eye flew back, unbidden, to the time when a sight of her had always stolen his senses; how she had always mentally ripped the carpet out from under his feet. Kid stuff, Jack, he told himself. Pay attention. She's talking.
“Oh? What would you have thought of? Really Jack, I`ll admit, I never would've pegged you for a spy.”
He stood. “A spy? Hah! No, Mercedes. I don't play the Great Game; I'm nobody's pawn.” He knelt and began picking up fragments of her belt buckle.
“Then what do you call all this – this—”