There was a long intake of breath on the other end of the line. “Mr. Cole, I’m afraid we’ve encountered a little interference.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your party is being tracked.”
“By who?” Before the question left his lips, Cole already knew the answer. There was only one group who had the means to even know where to start looking for him, and only one man with the desire.
“Your base of operations was compromised earlier this afternoon by an assault team.”
Mir let the words hang. Up until now, save for his surname, Cole had believed he was anonymous to his buyer. It was clear now that this had not been the case. Mir knew far more about him and his operation than was comfortable.
“That same team is now shadowing you in a vehicle fifty meters back down the road.”
Cole used the center console to angle the rear-view mirror for his benefit. Ten cars behind there was a large, gray panel van.
“Obviously,” said Mir, “the last thing we would want is for the item to end up in a competitor’s hands.”
“Obviously,” Cole agreed. “What would you like me to do?”
Another measured intake of breath on the on the other end of the line. “Nothing,” said Mir. “We’ll take care of this… Then we’ll take immediate delivery of the weapon.”
“That was never part of the deal,” said Cole. “We can’t do business like that. It’s not a bloody shotgun you people are buying here. It’s a precision instrument.”
“We have an expert of our own who can look after that side of things. As for the ‘deal’, the terms of that particular contract are void now. The conditions have changed. So now too does the deal. Think of the funds we have supplied you with so far as a security deposit on the merchandise. You have proven to us that the weapon is viable, but I think it’s safe to say you can no longer guarantee its safety. So we’re going to ensure that ourselves.”
Before he could say anything in his defense, Mir started again.
“Stand by, Mr. Cole. Hold your course whatever happens and stay inside your vehicle.”
The traffic slowed almost to a complete standstill. The only movement was from impatient drivers inching their vehicles forward into whatever available space they could squeeze them.
“What’s going on?” said Kane.
“Mir. He’s coming to meet us,” said Cole. “Here. Now.”
24
“I hope they’re not in a hurry,” said Morgan looking out over the roofs to the dark blue Yukon up ahead.
“Watch them, Dice,” said Powell, noting how close the vehicle was to the off-ramp. “If they make us they could break for it, up the shoulder.” He glanced in the rear-view. “How’s our passenger?”
“Messy,” said Morgan.
Burke didn’t make eye contact. He was doing his best to ignore his captors, struggling hard to stay in an upright sitting position on the bench, lathered in the slick black lubricant.
Dyson tapped the screen of the GPS unit. “Plenty of places to run from here if they do decide to bolt.”
“I’d prefer not to have to chase them if we can avoid it,” said Powell. “Not if we can take them down now.”
Morgan hoisted his weapon into the ready position, pressing the stock of the rifle into the front of his shoulder. “Locked and loaded.”
“Two of us will handle it, Dice,” said Powell.
Morgan secured Burke to the bench in the rear with plastic cable ties.
“Our boy’s not going anywhere soon,” said Powell, “but I’m not going to chance leaving him on his own. Even tied up with that crap all over him.”
“No sweat,” said Dyson. “We can exchange notes.”
Burke may not have trusted Cole, but there was still every chance he would raise the alarm if he got the opportunity.
A huge Peterbilt snailed up alongside. The rig’s towering cab gave the men the perfect cover to exit.
Morgan pulled the side door back just far enough to allow space for them to sidle out. Powell climbed out over the console from the front seat and stepped out on to the asphalt behind him. They each looked left and right, throwing a habitual eye over their flanks. In the dwindling evening light, it was clear that the lion’s share of drivers in the vehicles surrounding them were weary commuters heading home, or at least trying to head home, for the evening. Heads were either back against headrests or leaned forward in palms, fingers rubbing eyes. So much so that none of them seemed to give the two men wearing big bulked-out jackets in the warm evening Florida air, in the middle of a freeway, on foot, even a casual second glance.
The two men stepped into the shadow of the Peterbilt’s trailer and crouch-walked underneath. It provided the perfect cover to skip into the same lane as the Yukon without any of its occupants spotting them.
Kneeling at the massive rear wheel arch of the rig, Powell took out the goggles they had procured from the McArthur Causeway wreck. He stretched them over his head as far as his brow, ready to pull them down over his eyes should he need them.
Morgan followed his example.
“If they’re under, and they break out of the car before we get to it, I want to be able to see them,” said Powell.
Morgan tapped the barrel of his rifle. “If this turns into a firefight, how the hell are we going to know who’s who?”
“I seriously doubt the kid is going to be packing. Escape is going to be first order of the day, so I don’t think any of them will. If they’re under, the carrying of any foreign object would be like holding up a flag saying ‘Here I am’.” Powell put his hand on Morgan’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “But if you need to, and you’re in any doubt, ask me. I’ll know. Trust me.”
They emerged from the cover of the trailer into a gap between the grille of a Greyhound, with a driver perched too high to notice them, and the back of a minivan, with two children in rear-facing booster seats peering right out at them.
“How we gonna do this?” said Morgan.
The Yukon was six vehicles up from their position, the dipping sun in their eyes. They would be floodlit-illuminated in the Yukon’s rear views. No way they wouldn’t be seen coming.
Powell ducked his head out and surveyed their approach. He slid down against the trunk of the minivan and motioned for Morgan to do the same. “God bless America,” he said. “Nothing but Navigators and big soccer mom-mobiles between here and the target.”
“We’re going underneath?” asked Morgan.
“Like moles,” said Powell. “They’ll never see us coming.”
Morgan wasn’t listening. He was looking over Powell’s shoulder. “They mightn’t. But someone else has.”
Powell swiveled to see three men approaching, two lanes back across the log-jammed freeway.
They hadn’t see Powell or Morgan. The trio was on a fixed course for Dyson and the panel van, two with assault rifles in the ready position, the third carrying a grenade launcher, which at that very moment he raised and fired through the rear window of the van. Before Powell could process what he was seeing, the vehicle erupted in a fireball, billowing black smoke, the force of the blast rocking the trailer on the back of the Peterbilt.
Morgan got to his feet and started for the carnage, but Powell grabbed him by the arm, pulling him back. Of course the first thing they both wanted to do was go and see if there was anything they could do.
But Powell already knew. There wasn’t.
Dyson was gone. Along with his opposite number, Burke.
Immediately there was a second eruption. This time, of pandemonium. Left, right and center, people spilled out of their vehicles on to the road and started retreating hysterically away from the scene.
Powell and Morgan stood out by the fact that they weren’t.
As the man with the grenade launcher stepped back to admire his handiwork, he turned in their direction and locked eyes with Powell.
In the man’s eyes, it was clear he realized he had missed a c
ouple of targets.
The doors of the Greyhound burst open and fifty travelers stampeded over each other into the road between the two parties.
Their available paths of escape blocked with panicked hordes, Powell grabbed the opportunity to climb up on the rear bumper of the minivan and check on the Yukon. Unlike all the other vehicles around, its doors were still closed, its windows still shut.
“Stick to the plan,” said Powell, both he and Morgan dropping to the ground and crawling as fast as they could, on knees and elbows, underneath the minivan toward it.
“Who the hell are they?” Morgan said through gritted teeth.
“The buyers, I guess,” said Powell, “trying to buy themselves a little extra insurance.” He looked back and could just about see the men’s boots battling through the tide of people doing their best to get as far away as they could. “You get to Cole,” he said to Morgan. “Make sure neither he nor the boy get away. I’ll work on these guys.”
“Understood,” said Morgan and scurried on at speed, like he was being put through his paces back on the Fort Bragg training ground assault course.
Powell rolled over and saw the men, two breaking to the right and one to the left around the minivan. He reached out a hand and caught that one tight around the ankle bringing him crashing to the ground, where Powell was able to smash a boot into the man’s already stunned face, rendering him unconscious. He pulled himself out into the open and kneeled on the crumpled man’s back, grabbing the assault rifle he had been carrying.
The weapon was some AK-47 derivative with a ridiculous, oversized suppressor that looked more like an exhaust pipe than an attachment for a firearm. Powell used it to steady his aim and fixed a bead on the back of the one carrying the grenade launcher. Two short, controlled bursts from the suppressed weapon brought the man down easily and relatively quietly, given the noise all around. Powell stood and sidelined the man at his feet with a single shot to the back of the knee.
***
Morgan got to his feet one car away from the Yukon. He didn’t want to come up right behind it and give up his back, where one of the so-called buyers, or even one of Cole’s guys, could be waiting for him.
There were no more people fleeing down the lanes between the vehicles. Everyone who had decided to make a break for it had already done so.
Or at least that was the way it looked.
Morgan poked his head around the fender of the vehicle next to him and came face to face with a woman with chin-length black hair. Her arms were wrapped tight around the tire; she was paralyzed with fear.
Her eyes registered Morgan’s presence and then widened when they spotted the gun in his hands.
He put his finger to his lip. “Sssh,” he whispered. “Relax, I’m with the good guys. Stay down and you’ll be okay.” Or at least she would be if she were at the back of the vehicle rather than the side, out in the open, and in the line of fire if it came.
He beckoned her to crawl forward and join him.
She scrambled around behind and hugged into him, wrapping her arms around his waist like she was his little sister. She grabbed at his belt and then pinched him. Weird.
Hell of a pinch.
Hurt like hell.
Morgan felt at his shirt. There was something sticking out of his stomach. He looked down and saw the handle of his KA-BAR. It made no sense. The woman had taken his knife out of its sheath and then stuck him with it. Thick, deep red blood was pulsing from the wound it had made. Morgan’s legs gave out underneath him and he fell back against the fender of the car.
The last thing he saw before his eyes closed forever was the woman walking away in the direction he had been heading.
***
Powell hadn’t heard anything yet.
Morgan should have reached the Yukon by now. So if things had gone according to plan, he had done it cleanly.
Something was not right. The Yukon was in the same place, and the same state it had been in minutes ago: doors closed, windows up, no sign of life.
Or Morgan.
Before he could process the situation, there was movement to his right.
A car door, slightly ajar to begin with, kicked out and slammed into his upper arm, deadening it for a split second. The assault rifle fell to the ground. Powell shouldered the door shut and the man inside reached out through the open window. He tried to reach an arm around Powell’s neck, but Powell caught a hold of it and twisted, forcing the man to turn with it.
Powell pressed his knees in against the car’s door for leverage and wrenched the attacker out through the opening, just enough for the back of the man’s neck to be sitting neatly above the window frame. Then he released the arm and put both his hands under his assailant’s chin, dropping to the ground with his full body weight and snapping the man’s neck.
Four seconds.
The whole exchange.
Start to finish.
25
A loud explosion came from behind them somewhere followed by a whole lot of panic. Buried within it, Kane could pick out the distinctive tap-tap sound of suppressed gunfire closely followed by the nearing sound of sirens. “Jesus, this place is going to be crawling with cops in a minute. We can’t just sit here,” he said.
“We can’t go anywhere,” said Cole. “Mir was explicit.”
“We’re exposed here,” said Erikson.
“I know that,” Cole barked back, “but what choice do we have? Mir is watching. If we make a move, so will he.”
“So?” said Ben. “What can he see?”
They all turned to look at him.
“This guy’s watching a car with tinted windows,” said Ben. “He can’t see who’s inside. You guys do have the element of surprise on your side, if you choose to use it.”
Kane and Erikson looked at Cole.
His face remained empty. He swallowed.
“You can’t see the wood for the trees, Cole, can you? Look around. Listen,” said Erikson. “Put us under. Now. Before this Mir guy comes in and screws us.”
Cole yielded and took the case from the foot well. Inside, arranged and slotted in neatly packed rows were maybe thirty injector pens containing the compound infused with his blood, Ben had to guess. Cole dealt them out to Kane and Erikson, who duly self-administered them.
“No point in you popping one,” Kane said to Cole, pressing the lid down into the closed position. “Mir already knows you’re here.” With the compound already in their system, the transition took place very fast.
By the time Cole and Kane had swapped seats, it was almost complete. Both Kane and Erikson’s faces were nothing more than watermarks. They shrugged off their clothes and dropped them to the floor.
By the time the knock came to the window, they were one hundred per cent transparent.
A woman with short black hair stood on the other side of the glass, looking right in at Cole.
Even from the side, Ben could see Cole’s eyes widen and glaze over.
The woman knocked on the glass again.
Cole’s finger found a button on the console. The driver’s window lowered with a barely audible electronic whine.
“Hello, Lucas,” the woman said.
“I thought-” said Cole.
“-I was dead? A lot of people thought that. Suited me right down to the ground.”
The woman looked past him into the car, her eyes passing over the seemingly empty passenger seat and rear bench.
“You might want to put your clothes back on, guys,” she said, rolling up her sleeve. Around her wrist she had some kind of tablet device strapped like a huge digital watch. She tapped a command on the screen. Kane and Erikson rematerialized in less than half the time it had taken them to go under.
Kane looked down at himself in disbelief and went for the gun at his feet.
“Before you do that,” she said, angling the tablet on her wrist at him. “This device, as well as enabling me to control the nanotech in each of your bloodstreams, also gives me the pow
er to destroy them. Along with their host.”
Kane raised the weapon and pointed it at her. “You’ll be dead before you get a chance to press a single button.”
“So will you,” she said. The woman was very convincing.
“If the computer detects any irregularity with, interruption in, or cessation of my heartbeat, you and your colleagues will die.”
Erikson leaned into the forward cabin and placed his hand on the barrel of Kane’s gun, gently directing it down so that it pointed at the floor. “You have our attention, lady. Now care to tell us exactly who you are?”
Cole cleared his throat. “This,” he said, “is the scientist responsible for the development of the nanotech inside us.”
“What the hell did you shoot us up with, Cole?” barked Kane.
“Don’t be so harsh on him,” the woman said. “Lucas had no idea about the modification I made.”
“This, uh, ‘modification’,” said Erikson. “What exactly are we talking about?”
“Each of the nanotransmitters is loaded with a dormant signal designed to elicit a rather violent reaction in the cells surrounding it when activated,” the woman said.
“What kind of reaction?” Erikson probed.
“The initial effect is like that of an organic electromagnetic pulse, you might say, shutting down all of your major organs at once. Massive hemorrhaging follows, then your muscle and tissues break down at a hyper-accelerated rate. In a nutshell, gentlemen, you cease to exist. It’s not very pretty. And from what I’ve witnessed, I gather it’s not a pleasant experience either.”
Erikson nodded. “Understood.”
“Jesus,” said Kane. “She’s got us by the balls.”
“Speaking of which,” she said. “I did ask. Would you all please mind getting dressed?” Her gaze moved to where Ben was sitting. Clearly wondering why he had not reappeared with the other two men, she returned to the device on her wrist.
“That’s interesting,” she said.
There was no sense in Ben trying to pretend he wasn’t there. “Would have been a lot more interesting if you could have done to me what you did to them,” he said. “Believe me.”
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