by David Dun
"Yes. But I know these mountains. I'll be going fast. Very fast."
Yodo's frustration showed, but Sam knew that he would not disagree.
Yodo nodded. "Take the rocket."
"No. I will make my point another way. This is partly a mental war."
Yodo nodded and took the artillery.
Sam turned and began scrambling, carrying only the M-4 and his backpack. As he went, he slowed a moment to feel for the satellite phone that created a reassuring bulge in a pocket at the bottom of the pack. As soon as he was several hundred yards up the hill, he took out the phone and called Jill.
"We're being chased up the mountain into the wilderness by thirty men, maybe more. I'm guessing they're rogue French SDECE or mercenaries trying to take Raval back to France. Gaudet may be leading the attack. They've created two large rock slides into the river, one above us and one below. I imagine that a huge lake is forming above, It's only a matter of time before the dam bursts. When the second one breaks, there'll be an amazing debris torrent for miles downriver."
"In that case, anyone near that river is dead."
"Call the authorities just to make sure they are evacuating people. I know it's obvious but it is the government... and don't worry, we won't be near the river."
"I'll call the authorities." She paused. "You're pretty much on your own, Sam. Be careful."
"Uh-huh. Look, I've got to move. Any word on Benoit?"
"No."
"Do everything you can to find her, Jill."
"We've got men combing the warehouses. We're trying to get permission to go inside. It's slow work."
"I know. How many atomizer-equipped helicopters have they found?"
"Only three so far. There must be many more. We're running out of time. I figure twenty-four hours max."
"What about Grogg?"
"Government is showing no signs of letting us release the Internet antivirus."
"That's nuts. If Grogg gets into the Quatram server and gets a read on Gaudet's virus, call me before anyone else."
"Even the government?"
"Especially the government."
* * *
Benoit Moreau stretched her body as far as she could. Lying in a fetal position, she could not straighten anything but her back. It was becoming excruciating. The space was perhaps a foot high, but much wider. There was a water bottle and she could obtain water by sucking on a plastic tube. Gaudet had put her there and was holding her as an asset. He didn't care if she suffered, but he wanted to keep her alive. There would be many questions to answer about why the French didn't get Chaperone, and she was still valuable with respect to Chaperone and the French laboratory, and Gaudet might need all the bargaining chips he could get. Surely, he'd gone after Raval and Bowden now. A couple of Gaudet's guards came every so often to give her a little food and to let her use the toilet. One man reminded her of Saddam Hussein in appearance. She had taken to calling him "Hussein," and the other guard she had dubbed "Napoleon" because he was a short strutter.
Last time Hussein had come to let her out, he had looked at her too long for a man with no interest but his job. Of course she immediately thought about how she might use it. Although Gaudet had dropped her into the box with her hands cuffed behind her back, she had since managed to pass her wrists under her feet by turning on her side. The flexibility for the maneuver was the result of her Pilates and stretching. Strangely, Hussein, the more attentive of the two, did nothing about rearranging the cuffs. He underestimated her, and that was her first break.
As she waited, she thought about what she would do if she could escape. Sam might be the only person, aside from Raval, that she trusted. She had a phone number of his committed to memory. That was step one. Another number she remembered was one that Trotsky had used to access the mainframe with the laptop. She needed to get that info to Sam, including a warning about the cement trucks, before it was too late.
It had been hours since the guard's last visit and her bladder was bursting. If she had even the slightest chance, she would risk everything.
No sooner had she thought it than Hussein came. He was alone, no doubt with ulterior motives. This was her second break. He pulled up the boards, allowing a pinpoint of light into the hole. Then shining a bright flashlight, he was obviously perusing her. This time she made sure that one of her breasts was nearly exposed. For a long time he just looked and she didn't move, feigning near unconsciousness. Finally he reached down and felt her forehead. Then his hand drifted to her shoulder, caressing it and tugging at her dress. Making no move and not acknowledging him, she waited. It was instinct. Every man required a slightly different seduction. Finally he grabbed her arm.
"Stand up."
She made as if to stir and struggled to her feet while she remained hunched over. She hoped he wouldn't think about her hands. In the near darkness she fell against him, making sure that her arm and even her hands rubbed his crotch. He took her by the shoulders to try to draw her to him.
Violently snapping her head up, she hit him hard under his chin and knew instantly she had hurt him badly. Blood spurted from his mouth and he half screamed, half moaned. Then she found his face and drove her thumbs into his eyes, trying to squish them like vintners' grapes. When he grabbed her wrists, she kneed him in the testicles as hard as she could. He wore a shoulder holster and she grabbed the gun. Then she ran.
She was terribly stiff and she stumbled as she went, nearly falling. It was a huge warehouse full of drums in the area of her captivity. Two more men came running; they were shooting, and almost unconsciously she shot back. Then she ran down an aisle, turned, and was out of sight. She found an alcove and went in it, trying to get her wits about her, to stretch cramped muscles, to clear her head.
Looking around, she could see that she could easily reach another aisle by crawling over some barrels. She moved quickly across barrel tops on her hands and knees. In the next aisle she ran and took the first turn. Then she stopped. Running footsteps approached the next intersection. She leveled the gun. The steps slowed. She leaned into a small space between the barrels so that she would not present an obvious target. As she watched, she saw the barrel of a handgun; then a hand came slowly around the edge. The man was no more than twenty feet away. Weakness paralyzed her arm and it shook. The sights wobbled. Part of a man's head came into view—too small to hit. She waited. In the dim light he hadn't seen her. He kept coming. His face was full on. It was a wide face, with a big nose. The snarl in his soul was captured in the lips. He was squinting over his gun. She fired. Flesh blew out the back of his head in the instant before he dropped.
Benoit shuddered and nearly collapsed, but she forced herself to run past the body, around the turn, and perhaps a hundred feet more to the next four-way intersection. As she approached, she slowed. There was another alcove, where barrels had been removed.
Her chest heaved, her legs still cramping from confinement. A headache behind her eyes made her nauseated and she knew she had to get away. She had no more fight in her. A man burst into the aisle, right into her sights. She started shooting at the same time he did. He dropped. She felt a stinging in her shoulder. She reached and felt blood. Her head spun. Footsteps, running. She tried to raise the gun, but her arm was crazy. The ceiling spun and she fell. For some reason the floor felt soft.
* * *
Sam scrambled up the mountain through the oaks and then into the timber, careful to watch the lay of the land for the formations he had studied through the binoculars. Some ravines ended in vertical faces high on the mountain, where water tumbled down over bare, smooth rock. In these areas the rock was harder and the water's etchings were displaced to areas where the stone was softer and more easily worn away. It was one such ravine that Sam had in mind and it was the watercourse that he now followed. About two thousand feet up it ended in a waterfall on a stone face that only a rock climber could scale. To either side of the face there were ridges that could be scaled, but they were widely separated. It wou
ld be very difficult for climbers to take an alternate ridge, get above him, and then come back down. At night he would use the terrain. When his grandfather had taught him, it was to stalk deer, but it would serve equally well for hunting men.
Sam turned after forty minutes of rapid climbing and looked down the mountain. The snow had abated briefly. He saw many following him—maybe twenty or so. No doubt most of Gaudet's force.
It was growing dark and Sam resumed his climb. A few minutes later, he veered out of the ravine onto the ridge, broke a few branches, and made the trail ridiculously obvious. After he had gone high on the razor-sharp ridge near the head of the rock wall, he found the deep chasm that would stop the climb of Gaudet's men, even assuming they could reach it before nightfall. He dropped off the ridge and went down its shoulder, leaving no trace. If he were being followed by Tiloks, they would laugh, go down the mountain, and take a different route, but these men were from the city and they would not laugh, nor would they double back in darkness. They would be trapped for the night with Sam below and impassable terrain above.
Meandering down into a forested hillside, he stayed away from loose rock to avoid slides and broke no branches. Stepping on the balls of his feet, as Grandfather had taught him, he avoided making deep heel imprints that would be easy to spot. Where he could, he walked on hard rock. After twenty minutes of rapid downhill progress he moved back near the ridge and waited. It was only minutes until he heard the heavy, labored breathing of men who were not in shape to climb mountains. They were noisier than a herd of elk. Rocks bounced down the mountain; branches were fractured; they tried to whisper, but their voices were nearly shouts when they found his sign. They would stop for the night, spread out along the shoulders of the ridge.
When Benoit awoke, her mouth felt dry as dust. The first thing she saw were plastic tubes hanging all around her. As she turned her head to the left, she noticed her arm and shoulder in a giant cast and her hand above her, off the bed. The terrible ache came from her shoulder. By her bed stood a woman she did not recognize. The room was unsteady. She still had the awful headache. At once she remembered the box in the floor; then she was running and they were shooting. She felt so tired—exhausted, really. She closed her eyes.
When she next opened her eyes, she tried to put things together. There had been a hamper and a large crate in a store. She had been with Gaudet and in the river. Somehow it didn't seem to fit. The woman next to the bed was still there, although now she was asleep. It must have been a long time. As she lay there, things began to become less elusive in her mind, and suddenly she remembered coming from France and prison, the government job, Baptiste and the admiral, the meeting with Sam and Spring. Georges.
"Cordyceps," she whispered.
The woman by the bed jerked and her eyes flashed open.
"It's okay," she said. "I'm Jill. I'm with Sam, but officially I'm your sister. Outside are the French SDECE and the FBI. Sam's people found you in the warehouse. During the shoot-out."
"Jean-Baptiste Sourriaux. Is he here?"
"No, a Rene Denard seems to be in charge."
"Don't let him in!"
"Yes. I understand."
"We have to get out of here."
"That will be tough."
"Cement trucks. Tell Sam that Cordyceps is cement trucks and helicopters."
"Got it."
"Did you get the laptop?"
"Yes."
"There is a code. Let me see. The year of the French revolution, 1789. Then the telephone city code for my sister in Bordeaux, fourteen. Next one year after I was born, but one decade off. So 1977. Next it is ... let me see... oh yes... it is BMW backward so WMB ... then it is Gaudet's age transposed, so it is fifty-four instead of forty-five. Next it is the number of my driver's license. Gaudet did that because he used to be fond of me. I don't remember the number on my driver's license, but you should be able to look it up. Last it is Trotsky's birthday. He was born in 1959 on the day before Christmas. Put those numbers together, and if I have remembered correctly, you can enter a folder on the laptop where you will find another much more complicated code. Use that to get into Gaudet's computer, if he hasn't shut it off. I doubt he has because it's about to release a major computer virus."
The woman called Jill pulled out a cell phone.
"Grogg, take this down. There is a password to a folder in the laptop." Benoit helped Jill repeat what she had told her. "Call me back when you've cracked it.... Tell us your assessment of what we can do and we'll call Sam." Then there was a pause. "I don't care what you have to do to hide it. Tell them you have to take a shit and smuggle it into the rest-room." Another pause. "Okay, well, if that won't work, then take advantage of their boredom. But just do it." Another pause. "Yes, you can bring in gourmet food. Anything. Wine, whatever. Get it downloaded to Big Brain, give them the wrong code, and get back to our offices."
Jill hung up and dialed again.
"Ernie, it's cement trucks and helicopters." A pause. "Yeah, good. That's a hell of a lot of helicopters, but she says definitely also cement trucks." Then after a moment. "I have another call. Yes?" A pause. "That's all the French know? Shit, Figgy, you'd think they'd know more than that. What the hell good does it do to know Gaudet is going to do something in the next sixty hours?" A pause. "No. Benoit's still unconscious." She gave Benoit a wink. "We'll call you the minute she wakes up." A pause. "Figgy, of course we'll let the SDECE interview her, but only when the doctors say she's ready." Another pause. "I can't promise that. Hell, I probably won't even be here." A pause. "I gotta go, Figgy. Can't talk now. Sam's calling." A pause. "He's in New York looking for Gaudet. Where else would he be?" Jill disconnected. "Lying bastard."
Next Jill dialed Sam's satellite and left a message.
Chapter 24
If the wolverine chooses the fight, it will defeat the bear.
—Tilok proverb
Sam turned on the sat phone every thirty minutes on the half hour when he could. This time he got an immediate incoming call.
"What's happening?"
"We got her. She's alive and awake. The vector is to be delivered in cement trucks and helicopters. The FBI found more helicopters painted like state police choppers and fitted with atomizers. A lot more. They've arrested some pilots. Now they're going after the cement trucks."
"Good."
"Benoit also gave us a way into Gaudet's server. Grogg's working on it. He's gotta get around the government guys."
"I'm gonna cover us the best I can. Tell him to call me when he gets it figured. If I'm unavailable, then release the antivirus."
"The government has forbidden us."
"I've cleared it with the vice president and the head of the FBI."
"Is that true?"
"For you it's true. Do what I say."
Thankfully, Jill didn't argue.
Next Sam did call the office of the director of the FBI and spoke to an assistant director with connections to Homeland Security.
"I need something."
"Go ahead."
"If I do something brilliant that works, I want you to say that the director gave his approval. Likewise, Homeland Security."
"Take credit for something brilliant that's already worked? What are we talking about?"
"Saving the free markets."
"This is the antivirus for the Internet, isn't it?"
Sam said nothing.
"We'll look into it. You got that?"
"Got it."
That meant they would more than likely do it. They wouldn't call him back or discuss it further.
With that business done, he turned his attention to the mountain. It was nearly dark and snowing hard. Fortunately, the wind had picked up and it was creating a blizzard. The hunters would try to bed down or get under cover, probably under the big trees. Now was the time to start back up the hill. Without a light he crept along, weaving back and forth across the ridge. Most of them would be just below the ridge on the leeward side—all but Gaudet,
who would see the mistake in doing the obvious. Sam was certain they hadn't made it to the chasm; they would still believe that the task was to climb and to catch the group high on the mountain.
Sam kept low to the ground and moved at a snail's pace. In the dark and these conditions he would have to feel whoever was ahead. Then he saw the first fire. It surprised him. Yes, it was bitter cold on the mountain and these men weren't up to the elements. But to lose the advantage of surprise? He could smell the overconfidence.
As Sam crept to within thirty feet, he tried to figure how he might take out all five men around it without being shot. They sat close to their guns and looked jumpy.
Sam settled down and waited, the cold penetrating his clothes, making him miserable. First his ears started to ache; then things started tingling like they were going to sleep. A bit of a snowbank began building next to a log and he tried crawling into it and under the log for some insulation. Under the log he found moss and leaves and packed it in his clothing. It helped to insulate and cut the cold further. The part of him that was in the snowbank was 32 degrees Fahrenheit outside of his clothing. Inside his clothing, with the leaves and moss, it was considerably warmer. The part of him that was outside the snow was subject to windchill and below-freezing temperatures, so he did all he could to get himself covered in the white powder. After an hour the men near the fire were nodding off, but they frequently stirred because of the bitter cold and the need to throw on more wood. One man had his back near the fire and he appeared to be in a deep sleep.
Shooting all five didn't appeal to Sam. Carefully he searched the ground beneath him, digging down with his fingers and a large skinning knife. The ground was very hard, frozen, and without the heavy knife it would have been nearly impossible. After twenty minutes he had located ten small stones. Waiting until they all appeared asleep, he came out from his shelter and belly-crawled near the fire. He went to the man farthest from the fire, whose gun leaned against a log. Reaching carefully, he slowly picked it up. Moving back into the shadows, he pushed the barrel into the icy snow and plugged it. For certainty he poked in a rock. Then he returned it to the log, just as it had been. After waiting a moment and satisfying himself that they all still slept, he crawled to a second man whose gun was leaning against his leg. This was more tricky. He removed three small stones from his pocket and put them quietly down the barrel. With the third man, who had his hand wrapped around his gun, he did the same. Getting to the other two men was too dangerous, but perhaps the problem would solve itself.