Quantum Lens

by Douglas E. Richards

  What the fuck? thought Patel.

  What the fuck?

  Ahn’s voice shouted into his ear, “I’ve got Aronson!” it said, but this didn’t even register as Craft continued to advance.

  “I’ve got the girl!” screamed the voice again several seconds later. “Acknowledge!”

  Patel shook his head to clear it. “Acknowledged,” he said finally. “Get her to Ridley and get the hell out of here!”

  Bruno Haas had had enough. As Brennan Craft continued to hurry toward their position, his progress inexorable, Haas sprinted for his sedan behind the base of the turbine, shouting for Patel to join him.

  Patel didn’t need to be asked twice. If you couldn’t stop a man with a four thousand pound truck, tactical retreat was the only option. He threw himself into the passenger’s seat while Haas frantically started the car and began racing away across the field of dirt and turbines.

  Patel felt a moment of relief, but this was short lived, as seconds later Haas crashed down against the steering wheel as though he had been shot.

  But he had not been. His entire head had been crushed. And blood and brain matter were seeping onto the floor of the sedan.

  What the fuck? thought Patel again. He didn’t tend toward this expletive, but it was the only response that came to him as he struggled to comprehend the horror show this op had become.

  The car continued driving aimlessly across the eerie plain, slowly losing speed, as Patel dived across the seat and out of Craft’s line of sight. Perhaps Suave’s warning about this hadn’t been so ridiculous after all.

  Patel’s mind raced, but he was all out of ideas.

  What the fuck had they run into?

  ***

  Two down, one to go, thought Craft as the driver of the sedan that had been hidden behind the turbine collapsed and the car rolled to a halt.

  So much had happened so quickly that Craft hadn’t had the chance to think. But now that the stun grenades and machine gun fire had stopped, and he was getting the upper hand, his faculties returned in full.

  What was going on? This attack almost had to be Al Yad’s doing. But if so, what was the point? The Syrian knew full well that these men couldn’t succeed. Only Al Yad himself could possibly kill him. So why the assault?

  Craft was just thankful they had been after him, and not Alyssa. He had only known her for a few days, and already the thought of losing her made him physically ill. The ambush had been planned with great precision, and the attackers had made sure to attack from his side of the car.

  Craft stopped dead in his tracks as the truth finally penetrated.

  They were after Alyssa!

  Al Yad knew Craft couldn’t be killed. So what other purpose could this attack serve?

  But they wanted to keep Alyssa alive. At least for the time being. If not, the sniper shot would have been meant for her.

  It was a brilliant plan. Make him think he was the target of an attack mounted solely on the left. Provide perfect cover for Alyssa to get out of the line of fire on the right. And then ambush her there as she moved out of the frying pan and into the fire, perfectly obscured from his sight.

  The other man in the sedan had ducked down after Craft had taken out the driver. Craft had been intent on tracking him down as well, but instead now sprinted back toward the road and the cornfield on the other side, as raw panic coursed through his veins along with adrenaline.

  An image of Alyssa, an incandescent smile on her lovely face, appeared in his mind’s eye, and he somehow found a way to run even faster.

  ***

  Santosh Patel slid out of the car from the floorboard and onto the ground, making sure the car continued to block Craft’s view. He crawled beneath the vehicle and peered out.

  Craft was sprinting full speed in the opposite direction!

  Patel jumped up, opened the driver’s door, and dragged Haas out of the car and onto the hard ground, his lips curling up in disgust at the German’s bloody and disfigured head. He then quickly started the sedan, ignoring the blood and tissue on the steering wheel, and accelerated toward the cornfield.

  ***

  Craft entered the green maze of corn, thousands upon thousands of closely planted stalks towering far above his head, which only intensified his panic. The air was thick with the smell of dirt and the musk of nearly ripened corn.

  Finding Alyssa in this impenetrable forest was hopeless.

  He saw a corn stalk that was slightly askew. Was he only imagining it?

  No! Alyssa had managed to push or damage a stalk every so often, leaving a trail for him to follow. His heart surged with newfound hope.

  A minute later he came to a narrow dirt road the farmer must have carved at periodic intervals through his field so he could reach each section by motorized vehicle. Craft raced onto this road just in time to see a car receding into the distance, about a hundred yards ahead.

  He zeroed in on the driver, tiny in the distance, and imagined clapping him hard on the ears. The car suddenly careened back toward the paved road and out of his sight, cutting a random swath through the corn, and he could no longer see the man who was in the back seat with Alyssa.

  Not wasting a moment, Brennan Craft rushed forward to locate the runaway car.

  ***

  “Ahn, report!” shouted Santosh Patel into his phone, stopping the sedan he was driving just short of the corn. Although it seemed like forever, the attack had begun only minutes before.

  “We had her and were driving away,” replied Ahn immediately, traces of panic in his voice. “But Ridley just collapsed at the wheel. Unconscious but still breathing. We’ve veered into the cornfield and have rolled to a stop. I’m going to drive us out of here.”

  “No!” screamed Patel. “Change of plan. Leave the car immediately. Take Aronson and head back toward the paved road. Make sure Craft doesn’t have a line of sight on you.”

  “Roger that,” said Ahn.

  Patel heard Aronson cry out, and realized Ahn was manhandling her, in no mood to be slowed down. He nodded absently in approval.

  “How far did the car get before Ridley collapsed?” said Patel.

  “About a hundred yards to the east of our original position.”

  “Okay, cut a perpendicular line to the road, and I’ll be waiting for you there.”

  Patel drove an estimated hundred yards to the east and then exited the car. Minutes later, Ahn emerged with the girl, only nine yards away, holding a gun to her back and shoving her forward. Their coordination had been good, given the circumstances. Aronson had a welt on her face from where Ahn must have struck her.

  Patel ran to join them. “Hurry!” he said to Ahn when he arrived. “Back into the field! There’s only one possible way out of this.”

  Patel shot Ahn a grim look. “Just make sure you don’t lose her,” he added. “Whatever you do. She’s our only hope of survival.”

  32

  Patel scanned the field frantically in every direction, straining to catch a glimpse of Craft amongst the inexhaustible stalks. The fact that he couldn’t was somewhat comforting, since it implied that Craft wasn’t able to see him, either. They had become rats in the ultimate maze.

  “Brennan Craft!” yelled out Patel as loudly as he could. “Stop moving! Now! Call out so I know where you are, or I kill your friend. You have three seconds. Three, two, . . .”

  “You’re bluffing,” shouted Craft, thankfully still far enough to the west that he had no chance of spotting them through the thousands of intervening stalks of corn.

  “Take another step and you’ll find out!”

  “You could have killed her at any time. You must have orders to take her alive.”

  “We do,” replied Patel. “If she dies, we don’t get paid. But if we die, we don’t get paid either,” he added pointedly.

  “Leave her, and I’ll let you go in peace. Kill her, and no power on earth will stop me from killing you.”

  “Good point,” replied Patel after a moment of th
ought. “So I won’t kill her, after all. I’ll shoot her in the gut, instead, and then we’ll run. Making sure you can’t see us. You can come after us while she’s bleeding out. Or you can get her to a hospital. Your choice.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Say something so I know you aren’t coming closer!” demanded Patel.

  “I haven’t moved,” shouted Craft, and his voice did originate from the same location.

  “Okay. Here’s the deal. Retreat back to your car. Drive off. I’ll watch you leave while my colleague stays in the corn with the girl. If you attack me, he’ll shoot her in the gut. But if you disappear to the west, I promise not to hurt her.”

  “Can you make that promise for the man who hired you?”

  “This is the best I can do, Craft. Take it or leave it. Gut shot coming in five seconds.”

  “I need to know she’s okay.”

  Patel gestured to his captive. “Tell him!” he ordered. “Nice and loud.”

  Alyssa hesitated.

  “Do you really think I won’t shoot you?” he asked her.

  Alyssa stared deeply into his eyes and found nothing but resolve. “I’m okay, Bren!” she shouted.

  “Alyssa, I promise you,” said Craft, “you’re going to get through this. I’m going to get you back. I swear to it!”

  “I know you will,” she replied.

  “Enough talking!” Patel hissed at Alyssa. He cocked his arm with the back of his hand showing and glared at her, sending a clear message that if she spoke again he would backhand her across the face.

  “So we have a deal, then?” Patel shouted in the direction of Brennan Craft.

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” said Patel. “And Craft, I want to hear you call out every five seconds on your way to your car. I want to be certain you don’t accidentally go the wrong way.”

  “You’re making a big mistake. Give her up now, or I’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think so,” shouted Patel. “But it’s about time I heard your voice growing more distant,” he added.

  33

  Brennan Craft took deep breaths, repeatedly, in an effort to calm down and stay centered. Panic and self-recrimination wouldn’t help Alyssa. How had she come to mean so much to him in so little time?

  He drove off to the west as agreed. When he was out of sight he planned to wait five minutes and then return, but he came to a tree that was lying across the road and helped a man and his seventeen-year-old son push it enough to the side that traffic could get through, albeit single file.

  The good news was that this truly was the road less traveled, and traffic was never heavy. The bad news was that the tree had been cleanly felled, and Craft had no doubt the men who had ambushed them were responsible.

  They had been even better than he had thought. And whoever he had negotiated with at the end was nobody’s fool. Perhaps Al Yad’s time in Craft’s camp had taught him the importance of surrounding himself with highly competent people. Craft had tried to instill this lesson, and others, in the entire group. He only wished this was one lesson Al Yad had failed to learn.

  Craft returned to the site of the ambush and parked his car as far off the road as he could to let others pass. He raced through the field until he found the car which had first been used to transport Alyssa.

  The driver was still slumped over. Craft pulled him from the vehicle and slapped his face several times. He began to stir.

  A few minutes later he was fully awake, shocked to find Craft standing over him with this own gun pressed into his cheek.

  “What’s your name?” spat Craft.

  “Hank Ridley,” replied the man, having no interest in withholding information in this situation.

  “And who are you?”

  “I’m a gun for hire. A merc. Ex-special forces.”

  Craft wasn’t surprised. These men were very high-end.

  “Who hired you?”

  “I don’t know who he is. He calls himself John Smith.”

  “Describe him,” said Craft.

  None of Ridley’s team had ever seen their employer, but a short description of his accent was all Craft needed. Not surprisingly, these men had been hired by Al Yad’s right hand man, Tariq Bahar, whom they had nicknamed Dr. Suave.

  “Where are your partners taking Alyssa Aronson?” growled Craft, his voice now guttural and his eyes gleaming like a predatory cat.

  “I have no idea,” said Ridley.

  “Where are they taking her?” shouted Craft, and Ridley suddenly felt an intense pressure on his face, as if an elephant were resting its foot there.

  “I don’t know,” said Ridley, finding it hard to move his lips. “I don’t know. We didn’t have much of a head start on you. Had to set up the ambush. Once we had Aronson, we planned to call Suave for further instructions.”

  Craft nodded. As much as he didn’t want to believe him, he did. “Where is Suave now?”

  “London. Don’t ask me what he’s doing there. This is all I know.”

  Craft’s expression was tortured. How could this have happened? How could he have let it happen?

  He had to get her back. Even if she hadn’t been instrumental to his plans, he would move heaven and earth to save her. He had been in love before. And while he wasn’t there with Alyssa yet, the trajectory was already obvious. And none of his other relationships had rocketed to this point nearly as quickly. This one promised to be the real thing.

  If anything happened to her he would never forgive himself.

  Hank Ridley was watching him with a calculating look, surely waiting for Craft to let down his guard so he could kill him, having no idea what he was up against.

  Why are humans so despicable? thought Craft, allowing hatred to consume him, replacing the fear and helplessness he felt at the prospect of losing Alyssa Aronson. Barely repressing a powerful urge to unleash a primal scream, he wielded zero point energy to clap Ridley in the ears to knock him unconscious a second time.

  Craft fought to control his now blinding rage. He needed to regroup. To check on the car and driver he had disabled on the other side of the road. And he needed to place an immediate call to Eben Martin.

  But as he prepared to walk back to the road, he noticed that blood had begun dripping from Ridley’s eyes and ears. How could that be? He felt for a pulse, and fell to the ground beside Ridley in shock.

  The man was dead!

  And he had killed him.

  Craft reeled from the knowledge that he had taken a human life. He wasn’t violent. In fact, he treasured all life. He had only wanted to knock this man out.

  But a small part of him wondered if, in his rage, he hadn’t accomplished exactly what he had set out to do, and a chill ran down his spine.

  34

  As soon as Patel confirmed that Craft’s black SUV was finally out of sight to the west, he got behind the wheel of the car and shouted for Ahn, who emerged from the corn and shoved Alyssa Aronson into the back seat.

  The road stretched on in a perfectly straight line as far as the eye could see. Patel sped off to the east, checking his rearview mirror nervously in case Craft had doubled back, and making sure to stay within the posted speed limit. The last thing they needed was police attention with a hostage in the back seat being held at gunpoint.

  “Why are you doing this?” whispered Alyssa.

  “Nothing personal,” said Ahn. “But someone has a real hard-on for you.”

  Alyssa shook her head in disapproval at this turn of phrase. “Who?” she said simply.

  “You’re going to find out soon enough,” he said. “So sit back and relax. Try anything cute and I’ll shoot you in the chest.”

  She glared at him defiantly. “Nice try, genius. But did you forget I heard you admit you have orders to keep me alive.”

  Ahn flashed a humorless smile. “True enough. But we don’t necessarily have to deliver you conscious.” He bared his teeth. “Or uninjured. I’d keep that in
mind—genius.”

  Alyssa turned away from him and broke eye contact. She had to relax and not do something stupid. Fight her justifiable fury at being passed around like a football. Provoking a ruthless mercenary could only make things worse for her.

  Brennan Craft had promised to get her out of this. Craft was brilliant and resourceful, even without his quantum lensing ability. But could he find her? If these men made a single mistake, she was confident Craft would catch it. But if they made no mistakes, Craft could have the power of Al Yad and it wouldn’t matter.

  Ahn surveyed the road behind them through the rear window. “No sign of him,” he said.

  Patel nodded, and blew out a breath it seemed he must have been holding since Craft had driven away.

  “What the fuck was that back there?” said Ahn, continuing to issue expletives and American slang with a slight Korean accent. “Jesus! We were driving off when Ridley just collapsed. That is some crazy, fucked-up voodoo.”

  “Yeah, that was the fucked-up voodoo,” replied Patel sarcastically. “You were in the corn and missed it, but this freak split a car in two. Not to mention Dmitri Volkov. Volkov rammed him with his pickup and didn’t disturb a single hair on Craft’s head.”

  Patel glanced back at Alyssa. “Who is this guy? How did he do that?”

  Alyssa looked confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I never saw him do anything special. On the other hand,” she added pointedly. “I was busy getting manhandled in an ocean of corn at the time.”

  Patel studied her in the rearview mirror for several long seconds, but decided not to pursue this further.

  “Let’s call Suave and find out where he wants his delivery,” said Ahn. “I, for one, will be happy to get rid of this bitch and get on with my life.”

  “Amen to that,” said Patel, removing a phone from his pocket.

  The car lurched to the left as the left front tire exploded with a burst of sound. Patel’s phone fell from his hand as he wrestled the car to a stop.