by Brandt Legg
“Thirty-two minutes,” she said. “A train will be along in twenty-three. We need to start walking. Stay in the trees as long as possible.”
“There aren’t a lot of trees out there.”
“Keep your gun ready.” Wen slipped the Antimatter Machine back in her pack, then kissed him.
Sixty
“What the hell?” Tess said, jumping to her feet as the screen went dark and an error message appeared. “Who took the sat down?”
“You think somebody took it down?” an analyst asked.
“Of course someone took it down. When was the last time you remember one of these failing? And timing like that is never coincidental. We were right on top of them. IT-Squad, where are you? What are you seeing?”
“We’re blind, too,” the squad leader responded. “We’ve got nothing but prairie and open highway.”
“We’ve been trying to borrow a helicopter,” Travis said, about to board his flight. “But we’re probably still twenty minutes from getting something in the air.” Travis and Tess regularly approached problems differently, with her always believing the ends justified the means and him wanting to do things “by the book,” but they managed to get results by giving each other the room needed to do their job.
“Damn,” Tess said. “Anybody got a guess on when the sat gets eyes again?”
“Thirty minutes?” a technician replied. “Could be an hour. There’s a programming, synching, acquiring sequence, and—”
“Okay, I don’t need details,” Tess said. “Just get it up.” She grabbed her laptop and stuffed it in her travel case. “I’m heading to Taos. I’ll be on a company flight, so I will be monitoring the situation in transit. Travis, Quent, I want constant updates.”
Travis was about to second-guess her decision to go to the regularly scheduled and highly secretive intelligence conference already underway in Taos, New Mexico. But then he remembered Chase Malone had hired Flint Jones to head his security, and her decision, as usual, made perfect sense.
Rong Lo rattled off a string of obscenities in Mandarin as soon as the data feed was interrupted. Everything from the AT tracking system blanked out. At the same time, one of the MSS agents in the backseat announced he believed they were being followed.
“Who would be following us?” Rong Lo asked, as if ready for war.
“My guess is it’s those idiots from GlobeTec,” the agent said. “Or maybe someone from US Intel.”
“Slow down,” Rong Lo ordered. “See if they pass us.” “
“They may know something we don’t,” the driver said.
“Apparently everybody knows something we don’t,” Rong Lo snapped.
“What if they recognize us, or decide not to pass?” the other agent asked.
“Killing someone right now would not hurt my feelings,” Rong Lo said, readying his gun.
CHIP-0830 eased the car back slightly when he noticed the vehicle ahead of them slowing. “It is now ninety-four percent certain that they are connected to our situation,” 0830 said, continuing a conversation they’d been having. “Seventy-two point three percent they are Chinese MSS.”
Before Franco could respond, 0630, who was monitoring the drones and had opened a third split screen, began cycling through all known MSS operatives in the region while syncing with data from classified government networks. “Likelihood nearer to one hundred percent they are MSS.”
“‘The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed,’” Franco said.
“The Gunslinger by Stephen King,” 0830 and 0630 said in unison.
Franco was both amused and annoyed by their immediate knowledge. “They’re slowing even more,” Franco said. “Obviously whoever they are, they know we’re following. What’s going to happen if we pass?”
“There is a strong likelihood they may fire upon us,” 0830 said.
“Lovely,” Franco said. “Buzz them with the drone.”
“Are you sure?” 0630 asked. “That’ll take away our only advantage with Chase Malone.”
“Do you see Chase anywhere?” Franco asked. “No, we’ve lost him, so buzz these jerks with the drone. It’ll only take a minute, and then you can resume surveillance.”
“There is a fifty-two point four percent chance the drone could be damaged in this—”
“We’ve got another one!”
“It would take drone-two twenty-six minutes to get here, and that’s—”
“Buzz the damn car, now!”
Chase and Wen moved at a swift pace, staying to whatever cover they could find. The late afternoon sun, still high enough to heat up the dusty plains, gave them another reason to seek shade.
“How far to the tracks?” Chase asked as they worked through a cattle fence of rusty barbed wire.
“Maybe ten minutes.”
“Just enough time for you to tell me how you and I got from those glorious days in Shanghai to here, the hinterlands of Alberta, being pursued by the Chinese MSS, the CIA, and evil corporate tyrants.”
“That is quite a story,” Wen said, trudging through tall grass and weeds. “I think it will take longer than ten . . . Do you hear that?”
“What?” He looked around.
“Get down!”
They both collapsed onto the ground and crawled to the thickest vegetation nearby.
“It’s the drone,” Wen said. “Why is it diving toward the highway?”
Sixty-One
Chase and Wen were too far from the highway to see any vehicles, but they witnessed the drone circle, dive, and swirl above the road. Then, after a burst of machine-gun fire, the drone crashed.
“That’s our chance,” Wen said. “No drone, no satellite—they can’t see us. Let’s go!” She started running in the direction they’d been going, no longer worried about finding cover.
Chase sprinted to catch up. By the time they reached the train tracks, the sun was low. Clouds, hanging on the horizon, screened it enough that, with a cool wind, Chase suddenly missed its warmth.
After Rong Lo took out the drone with his automatic rifle, the vehicle that had been tailing them did a fast 180 degree turn and sped away back toward Edmonton. Rong Lo told the driver to forget about the “clowns” as he replaced the magazine in his weapon. “Keep heading this way a little longer. They couldn’t have vanished into thin air.” Although, with Wen, he knew anything was possible.
Franco ordered 0830 to turn around as soon as the drone was destroyed. Without saying, “I told you so,” 0830 spun the car as if on a racecourse and punched it. He was secretly surprised the Chinese did not pursue them.
“We’ll keep scanning and monitoring all available networks,” Franco said, “but I’ve got another way to stop Chase Malone. He’s got a partner at Balance Engineering.”
“Back to San Francisco then?” 0830 asked.
“As quick as possible,” Franco said. He’d actually all but given up on Chase. Enough time wasted. He’d get back to the Balance Engineering problem later. Right now there was a more pressing matter, a new priority from the Chairman. Franco needed to pay a visit to Sliske.
The train came along right on time. Freight cars passed in an endless procession nearly two miles long. Chase thought it might be going too fast to jump on, but then, somewhere up ahead, as the tracks turned to run parallel to the highway they’d been on earlier, it slowed.
“This is crazy,” Chase said, as they ran alongside. “Are we just going to jump on and sleep in a box car?”
“No,” Wen said, breathing hard. “Ever since 9/11, they padlock and tag the cars from outside. They’re regularly checked.”
“The more I know about this idea, the less I like it.” They ran full speed, and were almost close enough to touch the train.
“We can ride on the roof until we get to another town. It’s our best shot at shaking them.” Wen pointed to a handle on the edge between two cars. “There. Now!”
Chase, surprising himself, caught one of the steel rungs in his hand and h
oisted himself up to a small platform between the cars, then managed to grasp Wen’s outstretched arm and pull her on. “All aboard,” he said, laughing breathlessly.
“Thanks,” Wen said, kissing him. They held each other for a long time. “We should get up to the roof.”
“You said we could ride up there until we get to another town,” Chase said. “Won’t they see us when the satellites come back online?”
“Yes,” she said. “It was a little test, and you passed.”
“Then what?”
“We need to break into one of the cars. Still got your multi-tool?” She winked, and then climbed up.
Once he joined her up top, she checked her clock. “We have about nine minutes until the sat can see us again.”
They headed to the back of the train, walking and crawling along the roof, jumping from car to car, checking to see if they could get in anywhere. Several times they went back down to try entering from below, but found nothing. Finally, five cars from the end, they came across a white car, different from the heavy boxcars they’d been on. The next two cars were the same, three of them joined together, each looking like it belonged in a trailer park instead of on a freight train.
“What about that?” Wen pointed to a silver exhaust fan as the train picked up speed.
“I’ll give it a try.” Chase pulled out his multi-tool and went to work. “How much time?”
“Three minutes.”
“Could be worse,” Chase said. “It could be raining.”
“Or someone could be shooting at us.”
Chase moaned.
“Hey, you’re pretty good,” Wen said as he made progress. “Better stay low. We’re along the highway now.”
“Any sign of them?”
“Not yet,” Wen said, watching the road and then checking the timer. “Two minutes to sat.” She looked over his shoulder as he wrenched at a security bolt. “Your mother taught you well.”
“You remember that?”
“I remember everything,” Wen said, putting her hand on his back. “You told me she could fix anything. She put a pair of vise-grips in your hand before you were big enough to hold it.”
“Wish I had vise-grips now.”
“You said that you were good at improvising,” she made her voice sound deeper. “Give me duct tape, WD40, and a paperclip, and I can repair a fighter jet in midair.”
He laughed at her mocking him.
“Let’s hope we’re never in that kind of predicament,” she said.
“This is awfully close!”
A minute later, with fifty seconds remaining, he got the vent off. Although the opening was narrow, Wen managed to drop through. Chase went next, barely squeezing through the tight space. He carefully held onto the clunky fan cover until Wen found some wire and he could reattach it.
“Sat is back in operation,” she announced.
“Glad we didn’t cut that too close,” Chase said sarcastically. “Now, what in the world is this place?”
Sixty-Two
Even before he reached the entrance of the Sagebrush Inn, Flint could hear the music. He pulled open the heavy wooden door, nodded to a couple of cowboys standing sentry, and walked into a crowded room that had always felt like an old west saloon to him. Immediately, Flint began searching the faces in the dim light, looking for Tess or for any of the agents she would have brought with her. There would be others he’d known for decades, people he’d fought through life and death with, “making the world safe for democracy.” The thought of those days, of those missions, twisted his insides. I did what needed doing, he told himself, but he really didn’t believe it anymore.
Being in Taos, and especially at the Sagebrush Inn, was like traveling back in time. He’d danced this floor with his late wife many times, and with Tess. The old wooden walls, surrounded by earth adobe, held many good personal memories painful to recall.
He glanced to his right, down the long antique bar top, but he knew she wouldn’t be there. If it’d been colder outside, she likely would’ve been standing next to the big adobe fireplace at the far side of the room.
All the table seats were filled. Not only had the intel convention brought in more than a hundred top people from the seventeen US intelligence agencies, but a popular singer, Michael Hearne, was playing with his band, and he always packed the dance floor. Hearne was singing one of his favorites. Flint stood listening to the lyrics for a moment:
Well the smoke cuts the lights
In this old honky-tonk bar
Thinking where’d I’d rather be
Maybe chasing senoritas in Old Mexico
Or standing at the edge of the sea
If I had the money, I tell you honey
We’d be on that first plane to Spain
But as long as we’re here, the answer is clear
We’ll dance in the New Mexico rain
An old associate, from his agency days, noticed Flint and gave him a cautious wave. Flint nodded back, but had no intention of joining him. He checked the tables again for other agents—he always needed to know the players in a game, how much he’d be up against. He’d seen one of her agents in the back, near the restrooms, and another at the far end of the bar to the right of the stage. All along, Flint had known just where Tess would be, and he spotted her there on the dance floor, just as Michael Hearne sang:
If I ain’t happy here, I ain’t happy nowhere
New Mexico rain, when my mind starts to roam
Marcus, a Sagebrush regular with a barrel chest and black cowboy hat, was dancing with one of the most powerful women in the country without even knowing it. Flint would have cut in, but he knew the song would be over in less than a minute. He stood there taking her in as her gray snakeskin boots slid along the hardwood floor. Her long, chestnut-colored hair, in a ponytail, whipped around as Marcus spun her. She could have been in her thirties, but he knew her to be closer to fifty.
As the song finished, Flint met Tess coming off the floor. She greeted him with a smile and a comfortable embrace, giving him one extra squeeze before they came apart, as if to reassure him they were still on the same team.
“Don’t you look great,” Tess said with another big smile.
“I don’t know how you do it, Tess. You look younger than when I last saw you.”
“And you’re still the best damn liar I know.”
“No, I mean it,” Flint said, laughing, holding her on the emptying dance floor.
“Thank you all for coming out tonight,” Michael Hearne spoke from the stage. “Great to see so many dancers. I’m surprised you all got tickets, they told me the show was sold out.” No one responded to his joke. “Is this thing on?” he asked, tapping the mic and laughing at himself, a twinkle in his soulful eyes, before going on to introduce his band and the next song. “This is an old Grateful Dead tune, Me and My Uncle.”
“Shall we?” Flint asked, still holding Tess.
“I’d love to,” Tess said, slipping her left-hand onto his shoulder. They began two-stepping around the now crowded dance floor. “Fine music.”
“Wish I could stay for the weekend. Tomorrow it’s Don Richmond and the Rifters, next night it’s Jimmy Stadler.”
Another cowboy asked Tess for the next dance in passing. The memories of hundreds of songs danced to filled Flint's mind as they circled the floor in a soft silence while Hearne sang.
Cowboys, they was all around
Wheat liquor and money, they loaded down
“So where is Chase right now?” Tess asked.
“I was hoping you could tell me.” He spun her one, twice, then a surprising third time, feeling his grip tighten as he caught her.
“Aren’t you supposed to be protecting him?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“And isn’t it usually easier to do that if you know where your client is?” Their hands expertly wove in and out of each other.
“He kind of gave me the slip,” Flint admitted as Tess’s hands slid down his
back. He spun around; her hand landed in his. They squeezed tight before releasing in a double spin. “Too many people after him. Including your people.”
“My people?” Tess echoed as they twirled past the stage. Michael Hearne smiled, remembering Tess. “You say that as if we’re the enemy. You haven’t forgotten, have you, that we’re all in this together?”
Flint spun her in another triple turn and then stepped around her back under her arms before joining again back to a two-step.
“Maybe it used to be like that,” he said. “I’m not so sure anymore, but I know things are a little different now. You know as well as I that the MSS and GlobeTec Security forces are after him.”
“Is that so? Sounds like your boy is dragging you into a mess of trouble.” She rested her chin on his right shoulder. “Are you sure you’re up for it?”
“Who is the MSS working for, and why are you protecting GlobeTec?”
“Why do you think . . . I see we’re not just dancing here at the Sagebrush anymore,” Tess said. “If I’d known you wanted to do this kind of verbal dance, I would’ve met you at the office.”
“Tess, we go way back, and I’ve always loved you—”
“Like a sister,” she interrupted.
“Like a sister,” he agreed. “But you detained an American citizen. You still have him under surveillance, and you’re clearly trying to intimidate him. And he’s the good guy.” He spun her into a complicated turn called “the pretzel,” wishing he could dance with her every night.
“You know better than that. There are no good guys anymore. It’s not that simple. It hasn’t been that way for long time. My job is not just to protect individuals, I’m trying to keep the whole thing from falling apart so everyone can keep on dancing.”
“Come on, Tess, you know that’s not right. What’s going on? Why is CISS all over Chase?”
“It’s the end,” she said as the song concluded.