“What target?”
“The man you were with.”
What? They were after Theo Grant?
But before she could even begin to digest this stunning news, all hell broke loose fifty yards to the north. Machine gun fire began sounding, and as near as she could tell, it was continuous fire from multiple locations.
Alyssa glared at the man beside her. “Is that what you call no shots being fired?”
He opened his mouth to reply when an explosion erupted in the direction of her lawn.
“Wait here,” said her abductor, pulling an automatic pistol from his belt and dashing off through the trees.
Alyssa hesitated for only a few seconds before running to follow. She wasn’t about to put herself in the middle of a firefight, but she wasn’t going to wait in the woods like a deer in headlights while World War III was taking place at her house.
She arrived at the edge of the woods, at an angle to her house that allowed her to observe the front of it. What the hell?
It had become even more of a war zone than she had anticipated. Commandos were sprawled all over her yard in various poses, like little green plastic army men carefully set up around a model house and then toppled over, with a surprising lack of blood to be found anywhere. Light was streaming into her house through uncountable holes.
Rocket launchers were on the ground next to two of the unconscious or dead soldiers. Rocket launchers? She had seen a movie depicting the raid on Osama Bin Laden years earlier, and what she was seeing immediately brought this to mind.
Grant’s Mercedes was also on its back, a burning pile of wreckage, and Alyssa was near certain it had been the causality of one of the rocket launchers.
Her house, the car, and even her yard were burning outright, and smoke and the smell of sulfur pervaded the air. Shiny silver casings from a seemingly limitless number of rounds that had been fired were strewn about her lawn.
As she was taking in this war zone at a single glance, Theo Grant emerged from behind the burning car, his eyes frantically scanning the area. “Alyssa!” he shouted out at the top of his lungs. “Alyssa, where are you?” He seemed more worried about her welfare than his own, which was almost as shocking as the fact that he was even alive.
She shook her head as if to clear it. How was Theo Grant the last man standing?
Alyssa was out of his line of sight as she emerged from the tree line. But before she could respond to his desperate call, two more commandos appeared in front of him and began firing. She felt a sting and looked down to see blood running down her arm.
She had been hit! She was in the direct line of fire from one of the machine guns.
Hundreds of rounds were sprayed from the gun, its owner unaware that she was behind Grant, and so much bark flew through the air it seemed like the trees around her were being put through a wood-chipper.
Her only chance of survival was to take cover behind the trees once again.
She darted back into the woods as gunfire continued to kick up dirt and bark around her. In a blind panic, she tripped over a large root and cracked her head against the thick trunk of an oak tree.
She fell to its base as gunfire continued to sound.
An image of Theo Grant flashed into her mind’s eye, and from the deep recesses of her subconscious a flash of dark humor emerged. If I survive this, came the stray thought, I’m really going to have to reevaluate that whole, best first date ever, status.
And with that, Alyssa Aronson’s eyelids fell closed, the machine gun fire faded into the background as if it were a dream, and she lapsed into oblivion.
6
Alyssa’s eyes fluttered open.
She was alive!
She was in a conference room, one she immediately recognized. It was her conference room. From work. In the ten-thousand square foot building near the university that housed her lab and offices.
She shook her head to clear away the remaining cobwebs. Her arm had been bandaged and felt fine. The shot must have just grazed her.
Of course she was alive, she now realized. This wasn’t the first time she had come to.
She recalled regaining consciousness in the woods behind her house, brought back to life with a start by smelling salts held under her nose by a medic standing over her. The ammonia gas the salts had released had performed the same magic they had demonstrated since Roman times, triggering the inhalation reflex and activating her sympathetic nervous system.
The medic had examined her pupils, taken vital signs measurements, had her move in various ways, and had asked her questions to get a sense of her mental acuity. After ten minutes of putting her through his paces, he announced that she would make a full recovery, and handed her a pill.
Apparently a sedative, she thought with a frown.
A man rapped at the conference room door and then entered. She eyed him but didn’t say anything.
“You’re awake about ten minutes sooner than expected,” he said, checking his watch. “I’m Major Greg Elovic,” he added, holding out his hand.
Alyssa ignored it. “You gave me a sedative?” she said accusingly.
Elovic pulled his hand back and seated himself across from her. “The medic on the scene thought it would be best. Give your body a chance to sleep it off some more. And give him a chance to examine you more thoroughly.”
Bullshit, she thought. She had never met this man in person, but she knew who he was. A major in the Black Ops chain of command. But a major with broad responsibilities. He wasn’t really in the PsyOps chain of command, per se, but above it. And his rank didn’t fully reflect the scope of his responsibilities and the power he commanded.
It occurred to Alyssa with a start that he must have come to Bloomington just for her. They had sedated her to be sure she couldn’t receive or provide intelligence until his arrival. She knew how these bastard’s thought.
“How long was I out?” she said simply.
“Four hours,” replied the major. “How are you feeling?” he asked, but in such a way that she knew he didn’t really care about her answer.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on? Who the hell were those men? How did my home become a war zone?”
Elovic winced. “They were ours,” he said without preamble, quickly ripping off a band-aid he knew would tear out hair along the way. “And I was the one who ordered them in.”
“Ours?” she said incredulously. “You unleashed an army with more firepower than the Bin Laden raid on a private home in Bloomington, Indiana? What are you telling me, that I just went on a first date with Bin Laden’s second coming?”
“I wouldn’t say that. But he is definitely what you might call . . . a person of great interest to us.”
“Don’t you mean, he was a person of great interest?”
The major shook his head. “I said it right the first time.”
Alyssa Aronson shrank back in disbelief. “Are you telling me he survived that barrage? I didn’t see what happened. I was too busy bleeding and trying to avoid getting killed by, incredibly enough, friendly fire. But Grant was their target. No way he survives that. There were so many bullets flying, a mosquito couldn’t have survived in his position.”
“And yet he did,” replied Elovic with a deep frown. “And he escaped, as well. We had a shot at him once before. Four months ago. Our forces had instructions to capture him, and several of our best men had him cornered. But he slipped that noose. We’re still not quite sure how he did it. We actually assumed he had been caught in an explosion and was no longer with us. Anyway, this time, we decided to come at him with overwhelming force.”
“And decided to ditch the capture part.”
The major frowned. “No, the orders were the same. Capture. Again, I’m not sure what happened, but it was a major cluster fuck. I don’t know who fired the first shot, but if I ever find out, that man will wish he had never been born. But as you saw, things got out of control quickly. Under the circumstances, you’re right. There is
no way he survives. No way he escapes. But he did.”
Incredible, she thought. More than incredible. Impossible. “How?”
“We don’t know. The men got off enough rounds to kill an army. They all ended up unconscious, but not injured in any way. We think he may have used a new weapon. Some kind of concussive technology. Most likely sonic. Compressed sound waves knocking out all conscious life within a certain radius of him.”
“You’d think I would have heard or felt something then, or have been affected in some way. I was almost certainly within this radius.”
“Look, we’re at a total loss. Which is one of the reasons we’re so interested in this guy. To be honest, the fact that he did escape is a blessing in disguise. I gave strict orders that he was not to be harmed. He doesn’t do us any good dead.”
“So you’ve been tracking him?” said Alyssa coldly, finding it hard to adjust to the reality that Grant wasn’t just the harmless man who had so effortlessly won her over. “So why did you wait until he showed up at my house to make another attempt to get him? Did there just happen to be a special forces convention in Bloomington, Indiana?”
The stone-faced major laughed. Alyssa was surprised that his face didn’t shatter from being twisted into such an unfamiliar position. “As I told you, we thought he was killed four months ago. So we weren’t following him, only to randomly decide to hit him today. We only discovered he was still at large yesterday. He only reemerged on our radar when he made a date with you.”
She was an idiot, she realized. Just fricking great!
“Really?” she said, outraged. “My dating life is being monitored?”
“I’m afraid so. Good thing, too, don’t you think? It’s for your own protection. It’s not likely anyone could ever learn who you are and what you do, but it’s not impossible. Our intent isn’t voyeurism. But new relationships being forged by anyone on sensitive black projects are monitored. Anyone trying to get close to you, male or female, friend or lover, is scrutinized. Unless there is good reason to suspect someone is trying to approach you under false pretenses, they’re cleared, and you can have whatever relationship you want with them. I know you’re not a field agent, but you’ve been trained. You know the Honey Trap has probably been used to get information more successfully than any other technique throughout history. On both men and women.”
Alyssa clenched her fists upon hearing a term she considered odious. She was in a poison mood and was barely able to avoid taking it out on the major. And who could blame her? Too many commandos and ugly revelations for one day.
Of course it had been a Honey Trap, the term used by the clandestine services when they sent in an appealing agent to seduce a mark, get them to fall in love or in lust, and then use this level of trust to exploit them, or put them in compromising positions so they could be blackmailed into revealing state secrets. But she had always thought this was mostly effective with male targets, who were more susceptible to the manipulations of a hot woman fawning over them, and the lure of sex.
The whole idea of the Honey Trap was abhorrent to her.
Sleep with a man after he gives you a thousand dollar necklace, and you’re a girlfriend. Sleep with a man after he gives you a thousand dollars in cash, and you’re a prostitute, and can be arrested. Sleep with ten men, simultaneously, for a thousand dollars in cash—as long as this encounter is being filmed—and you’re a porn star, doing nothing illegal. And sleep with a man, not for money, but for information or leverage at the behest of a spy agency, and you’re considered by many to be a hero. By the same people who would arrest you if you screwed the same man for money rather than secrets. Human behavior was never dull, that was for sure.
But knowing she had fallen for Theo Grant’s charming act was filling her with hatred and bile. He had studied her. Sized her up.
Of course they were compatible. Of course he shared her interests. He had made certain of it.
She had begun to view him as quite possibly the perfect man for her. She should have known that when someone seemed too good to be true . . .
And now, learning that she was simply a mark he had targeted, twisted every positive feeling she had for him into its grotesque, funhouse mirror image. The more delighted she had been by his praise, the more disgusted she now was with herself for having fallen for it. The more she had liked him then, the more she despised him now.
And she had liked him more than she cared to admit, even to herself. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. But she had been scorned in the past, and what she was feeling now made the fury she had felt then pale by comparison.
“So who is this . . .” she paused and considered several choice expletives, but managed to retain enough of her professionalism not to use them. “Person of interest?”
“When you set up a date with him, our computers automatically took note and ran his face through all the databases. He didn’t show up anywhere, which is almost impossible in this day and age. So he was flagged for human eyes. And he was identified. We’re not sure how the computers missed him, but since he’s someone I had tracked previously, the identification ended up on my desk.”
Elovic changed his position at the conference table and locked his eyes onto Alyssa’s. “His real name is Brennan Craft. He grew up in Clearlake, Iowa.”
“Brennan?”
“Usually it’s a last name. But it’s not unheard of as a first. He goes by Bren.”
Alyssa nodded. So long forever, Theo Grant, she thought angrily. You and Brennan Craft can both burn in hell.
7
Al Yad had had no trouble moving into his new headquarters, trading in his tent for a residence kings of old would envy. As he had expected, President Khalil Najjar was too much of a simpering coward to attempt to block the move. But in this case, cowardice happened to be good judgment, since he now had an inkling of Al Yad’s capabilities, and didn’t know who he could trust in his own military.
Despite the opulence of his residence, which was nothing less than a palace, Al Yad had chosen to continue his theme of simplicity and purity. He allowed no fountains or statuary of any kind. His furnishings were simple and few, and everything around him was white, including his robes and headdress.
He had been meeting in the palace’s main chamber with a man named Ahmad, one of His most trusted lieutenants, for almost an hour, reviewing mundane items such as the number of new followers, logistical concerns, and his financial holdings.
Al Yad’s wealthy followers provided a forty percent tithe to him, and he was certain they considered this their greatest honor. What man wouldn’t be honored to be of service to the Great One, to an appendage of Allah on earth.
Even though Al Yad could increase his funds by calling upon his grateful followers at any time, Ahmad thought it wise for him to keep track of his holdings and investments. But the smallness of the exercise was becoming infuriating to him. It was beneath him. He was a god, and shouldn’t have to deal with such mundane matters.
But what was really getting under his skin, rubbing his every nerve raw, was that he was still unable to fulfill his divine destiny. He had spent more and more time thinking, deploying men around the globe, weighing options, but until he solved the ultimate thorn in his side, he couldn’t unleash his true and terrible might on the world.
Allah had often extolled the virtue of patience, and Al Yad continued to remind himself of this. And he had thrown off the shackles of his humanity to become a god, and was now immortal. So what were a few years of delay to a god? A mere blink of an eye.
Still, as Ahmad continued to ramble on, the affront of being unable to assume his rightful place atop a paradise of his own creation, respected as a god by every being on the planet, galled him. Finally, he could contain his justified fury no longer. “Enough!” he shouted, interrupting his aide in mid sentence. “These are trivialities. I need to speak of greater things.”
Al Yad paused in thought. “Tell me, Ahmad, what is the mood of my followers? What is in
their hearts?”
Ahmad swallowed hard. “Love and respect for you, oh Great One. They have heard your vision and witnessed your power. Your glory is on high. They dream of the promised land that you will lead them to. When you wipe the scourge of the infidel from the planet.”
Al Yad found himself annoyed. Ahmad had adopted his speech patterns, which was blasphemous. As a god, he was expected to speak poetically, but as a lowly man, Ahmad would do well not to assume he could also. “And do they voice any concerns? Complaints?”
“None, Al Yad,” said Ahmad hurriedly, as if the very thought of this was abhorrent to him. “You are the Great One. They only count their blessings that they are lucky enough to live during the age of your coming.”
“You are not being honest with me, Ahmad.”
Ahmad’s face began to glisten from perspiration, even though the palatial room was perfectly climate controlled. He trembled, ever so slightly. “I would never lie to you, oh Great One.”
“And yet men are men. They have concerns. And they have complaints. There are temptations and dark places in men’s souls conjured by the king of evil to test their beliefs and resolve. So you shall tell me their chief concern, right now. Or I shall smite you where you stand. I shall crush your heart into paste.”
Ahmad’s tremor increased to a noticeable level. “Yes, oh Great One,” he said, terror etched into every line on his face. “Just a few, a very few of them, and only on rare occasion,” he began, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. “One or two, perhaps, have wondered why we have yet to carry out your glorious vision of our future. They have seen your might and wisdom, oh Great One. And they are eager to see the world transformed as you have foretold.”
And this was the crux of it, thought Al Yad. He could afford to be patient. He was a god.
But his followers wanted him to strike. And he was not about to explain to them what was holding him back. He would have to ratchet up his hold on them. He would have to make it clear that his divine judgment was never to be questioned. He would make it clear, violently so, that he would strike when he decided to strike, and not a moment sooner.
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