Cold Spectrum

by Craig Schaefer

  “Nadine is already hunting for us. And thanks to Roth, now she’ll know exactly where we’ll be, supposedly waiting for a sit-down with the good senator.”

  “You wanna pit one faction of hell’s stooges against another faction of hell’s stooges,” Jessie said. “Nadine versus Director Crohn.”

  “We grab Linder and escape in the chaos,” I said.

  Jessie broke into a grin. “You know that’s gonna get messy.”

  “We can handle it.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You’re damn right we can. What are we waiting for?”

  SIXTEEN

  We huddled around Kevin’s laptop, poring over maps, while Aselia went shopping. She came back two hours later with an aluminum-sided briefcase.

  She slapped it down on the table next to an empty bottle of wine.

  “Called in some old favors,” she told us. “Got a few goodies.”

  The briefcase’s handles clicked in unison. She lifted the case open and swiveled it around. Inside, straps fastened a pair of matte-black Sig Sauer handguns to the inner lid.

  “I know you Bureau types generally go for the Glock,” Aselia told us, “but trust me: once you try the P226 TacOps, you’ll never go back. Clean, sturdy, reliable.”

  “Sold,” Jessie said.

  Aselia reached into the case and set a pair of thin black tubes on the table. “Also picked up a couple of SRD9 sound suppressors. Titanium tube, stainless-steel baffles, all quality. Didn’t know if you’d need ’em, but it’s always better to have and not need than to need and not have.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “We’re going to need more than guns,” I said. “Linder carries a bottled demon in his pocket. He showed it to me, back when he first recruited me for Vigilant Lock.”

  Aselia snorted. “He’s still got that thing? Flashed it to me, too, on day one.”

  “His mutually assured destruction policy,” I said. “The locals back in Des Allemands seemed to think you had some magic, too.”

  “Some,” she said. “I know a little rootwork, and I can fix a charm or two. Nothing good for a fight, though. Most of the tricks I lay serve my specialty: getting from point A to point B with nothing hassling me in between.”

  “I’ll take care of his pet, then. Any other goodies in that briefcase?”

  “Your partner’s special request.” She handed Jessie a slim, flat case. “Folding tactical knife. Not the brand you asked for, but it’ll do.”

  The blade, serrated and gleaming, unfolded from the slender hilt. Jessie turned it, catching the light from the electric chandelier on the steel. Her turquoise eyes shone. “Yeah, it will. Thank you.”

  “What’s that for?” I asked her.

  Jessie showed me her teeth. “Might feel like cutting on somebody.”

  “Also picked up ammo for the pistols and my shotty. Enough to take on a small army. Which is what we’ll be doing if this plan goes sideways.” Aselia slid a slim cardboard box toward April. “And some fresh rounds for your pocket .32. Hollow points. He threw that in as lagniappe, just a little something extra.”

  “Much obliged,” April said. She reached into the canvas tote dangling from the arm of her wheelchair, slipping out the revolver, quietly reloading while Kevin typed beside her. He looked over, one eyebrow slowly lifting.

  “So . . . what did you bring for me?” he asked.

  “Got a couple sticks of chewing gum,” Aselia said. “Spearmint. You want ’em?”

  Kevin sighed. “Pass.”

  He tapped a few keys. The map on his screen, streets drawn in streaks of neon green, slowly turned and zoomed in.

  “The National Mall in Washington DC,” he said. “Roth’s schedule is public info; he’s in DC this week. And Linder is there, more often than not. Now, traffic around the Mall is tight, but you’ve got all these footpaths and decent cover for a lot of it. You could get out on Constitution, Independence, Seventeenth Street Northwest . . . basically, if something goes really wrong, at least you won’t get cornered.”

  Aselia came around to stand at his shoulder.

  “We’re gonna need two exfil vehicles. One to leave the scene with, and one to swap once we’ve thrown off anyone on our tail. We could stash it . . . here,” she said, tapping a blunt fingernail against the screen. “I think that’s an overpass. Gonna need to scope it out in person.”

  “Maybe we only need one,” I said. “Linder hates getting more than fifteen feet from that damn limo of his.”

  “Meaning it’ll be on the scene,” Jessie said.

  I nodded. “Nice and close. We steal him and his car.”

  Aselia rubbed her chin. “Not gonna be winning any car chases in a stretch limo.”

  “No,” I said, “but I guarantee it’s been armored. Less chance of us getting shot on our way out. Or him getting shot. If Linder dies before we can question him, this will all be for nothing.”

  “Could work,” Aselia said. “Could work. Still, we’d better have a diversion somewhere along the route to the switch car. I could handle that, if you and Jessie can take Linder on your own.”

  I gazed at the glowing lines on the screen. A labyrinth of streets in neon green. I had dreams about labyrinths, sometimes. Running, turning corner after corner, hearing the Minotaur’s hooves pound as he closed in on me.

  This time, I was the Minotaur.

  Aselia’s Cessna cut through the murky night sky like a hot knife, skimming over storm clouds. The airframe shook, rattling as she fought the wind. Jessie and I sat side by side toward the back of the small plane, Kevin’s laptop open and paired to my phone, forest-green lights glowing on his anti-trace program. We wore bulky headphones to cut the chop of the engine. The dial tone was a tin whistle in my ears.

  It wasn’t hard to get hold of Senator Roth, even in the small hours of the night. All it took was finding the right intern and saying the right words.

  “Tell him we’re calling about Glass Predator. He’ll know what that means. And if he doesn’t get on the line in the next five minutes, our next call is to the Washington Post.”

  He got on the line.

  “This is Special Agent Harmony Black,” I told him. “Do you recognize my name?”

  The sleepiness in his voice faded fast. “You’re that . . . that rogue agent. You murdered those people out in New Jersey.”

  “Can’t trust everything you see. Of course, you know that all too well. We e-mailed you a page from the Glass Predator dossier, so you know what we have. Enough evidence to burn you at the stake.”

  “Nobody will believe it,” he said, blustery.

  “You won’t end up in handcuffs, if that’s what you mean, but even if it gets debunked by your hired experts, that document will haunt the rest of your career. A little question mark in the minds of the electorate. Bye-bye, White House.”

  He fell silent for a moment. Then he grunted, “What do you want from me?”

  “My partner and I are fleeing the country. Going permanently dark. We need funds to make that happen. You’re going to be at the Washington Mall at 8:00 a.m. sharp with a briefcase containing one hundred thousand dollars in nonsequential bills. We’ll text you the specific location just before the meeting.”

  “I can’t—that’s unreasonable! I need time to gather that kind of money.”

  “I think you can make it happen if you need to,” I said. “And you need to. One hundred thousand dollars and we’re out of your life forever. Not a high price when you think about it.”

  I hung up on him and gave Jessie a questioning look.

  “Now that’s some quality bait.” She held her palm up for a high five. “The second Nadine hears we might be about to disappear for good? She has to show up.”

  “That’s one fish,” I said, slapping her palm. “Let’s go for two.”

  Vigilant’s inner switchboard routed me to Linder. I wasn’t surprised to find him awake and on the move. I wasn’t sure when or if he ever slept.

  “Mission ac
complished, I suppose,” I said.

  “Meaning?”

  “You know what we were after, Linder. Cold Spectrum. There were two survivors, the only two people—beside Douglas Bredford—who escaped your assassination order. And now they’re both dead. So congrats. You win.”

  “Aselia?” he said. I heard the tone in his voice perk up. Halfway between curious and hopeful.

  “Gunned down on the bayou. She died before she could even tell us what Cold Spectrum was. So there you go. You wanted the truth buried forever. Now it is.”

  “This wasn’t any of your business in the first place,” Linder said. “Agent, I . . . I tried to warn you. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this.”

  Time for the real gambit. I had to lure him in and make him believe it. I had to help him set us up for the kill.

  “You owe us,” I said. “Again and again we’ve risked our lives for you, for this program. You owe us.”

  “What do I owe you?”

  “Protection. From Benjamin Crohn and Mikki. Look, whatever Cold Spectrum was about, it’s over now. The only reason to silence us was to protect the secret. It’s protected. We’re good agents. The most reliable team you have. Are you really going to let Crohn sanction us and throw that all away?”

  He went quiet. Weighing his options. I gave him a little nudge.

  “Meet with us,” I said. “Just us. Let’s talk it out in person.”

  “I . . . think I can convince Director Crohn to call off the dogs. Possibly. I’ll need assurances, though. You’ve put me in a difficult situation here.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  Then he told me exactly what his intentions were.

  “Bring your entire team. I want everyone there, in person.”

  “Of course,” I said. “It’s a debriefing.”

  “Where are you now, please?” he asked.

  “En route to DC. Meet us at the Washington Mall, 8:00 a.m.”

  “Specifically where?”

  “I’ll text you just before the meet,” I said.

  I hung up on him.

  “Yep,” I told Jessie, “he’s planning to kill us.”

  “Glad to hear that.”

  I glanced sidelong at her. “Yeah?”

  She was playing with her tactical knife. Unfolding the blade from the hilt, running the ridges of her thumb along the edge, tucking it closed again.

  “Given what I’m probably gonna have to do to him,” she said, “I’d hate to think he was trying to do the right thing for a change.”

  We coasted down into the heart of the nation, chasing dawn, over a field of shimmering scarlet lights.

  SEVENTEEN

  Washington was in motion before the sunrise. A clockwork beast with a paper heart, its gears strung with red tape. Dawn’s light shimmered on the Mall’s great reflecting pool, with the spire of the Washington Monument rising up at its back. A spear built to pierce the heavens. Jessie and I walked side by side along a crowded path, stepping to one side as a pack of joggers in reflective windbreakers hustled past. I tapped my earpiece.

  “Status check. April.”

  “At the overpass,” she said in my ear. “The swap car is acquired and in place. I’ve just verified that the interrogation site is clear; I contacted the bank, posing as a prospective buyer, and they confirmed the foreclosure took place four months ago. Nobody has been or will be setting foot in there, except—if all goes well—us.”

  “Good. Aselia.”

  “Positioned at the distraction point. My timing’s going to have to be perfect for this to work, which means your timing is going to have to be perfect. Don’t screw it up.”

  “Not planning on it,” I said. “Kevin?”

  “I’m on overwatch. Drone’s airborne and running initial sweeps. By the way, just thought I’d point out that DC is the most restricted airspace on Earth. Like, what I’m doing right now is super-illegal.”

  Jessie adjusted her dark glasses, her turquoise eyes concealed.

  “Harmony and I are wanted for murdering about a dozen innocent people, and they’re calling us traitors on national television,” she said. “You wanna switch places?”

  “No, no, I’m just saying, the longer I’m flying this thing, the more attention it’s gonna get.”

  I checked the time. Fifteen minutes to the meet.

  “Shouldn’t be much longer,” I said. “Are you patched into the fire-suppression system?”

  “Done and done,” he said.

  We walked.

  Up the winding path, past the rippling sheen of the reflecting pool, the towering steps of the Lincoln Memorial awaited. A Greek temple with white marble columns over forty feet tall. And beyond, in the vast memorial chamber, the statue of Abraham Lincoln sat silent and titanic upon his graven throne.

  We walked into the south chamber, where the words of the Gettysburg Address stood engraved upon the wall, flanked by marble eagles. Above the text, a mural spanned the wall, the only splash of color in the white stillness beyond the amber skylights. An angel spread her wings over the emancipated.

  “You’re quiet,” I said.

  “I’m angry,” Jessie told me.

  I reached out and touched her arm. She didn’t pull away. She stared at the inscription, her eyes hidden behind her shades.

  “My glasses aren’t rose tinted,” she said. “Let’s get that right. America isn’t perfect. I wasn’t considered a human being until the Thirteenth damn Amendment was ratified. Neither of us could vote until the Nineteenth. We have fought and we have struggled and we have bled for every inch of ground we’ve ever got.”

  She turned, facing me.

  “But we’re getting there. And now we find out that the director of the FBI is in some demon’s hip pocket. And Alton Roth, that motherfucker—he’s bought and paid for by the powers of hell. And he’s probably gonna be our next president. But that’s nothing compared to the cherry on top. Vigilant Lock, the organization that’s supposed to stop all this from happening, my organization, was nothing but a con game all along.”

  “Now we know,” I said.

  “Now we know.”

  She folded her arms. Her jaw set, resolute.

  “Not having this, Harmony. I’m not having it. Maybe our country isn’t perfect, but we’re trying, and it’s ours. The American experiment isn’t gonna end like this. Our freedom isn’t gonna end like this. And if the courts of hell think they can take what we built and put us back on our knees . . . they’re gonna have to get through me first.”

  “Us,” I told her. “Through us first.”

  My earpiece crackled.

  “Multiple incoming,” Kevin said. “Linder’s limousine dropped him off on Independence Avenue. Looks like the driver’s been told to keep circling the Mall. Meanwhile, spotted Mikki—from a mile away, with that hair—and Ben Crohn coming in from the reflecting pool.”

  “Just them?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I mean, the best description I have of these Panic Cell guys is beards and Oakley sunglasses, either of which could be different now. Spec-ops soldiers are trained to fade into crowds—they could be anywhere.”

  “What about Nadine?” Jessie said.

  “Don’t see her.”

  That was bad. Our plan depended on pitting our enemies against one another. If one decided to sit the fight out, we were already sunk.

  “Doesn’t make sense,” Jessie muttered. “Why wouldn’t she take the bait?”

  I touched my ear. “Kevin, stay on the limo. We’ll improvise something, but when the fireworks start, we’ll need to know exactly where that car is.”

  “You got it.”

  Nothing to do now but wait. I read the writing on the wall.

  Linder arrived first. He moved politely, silently through the growing throng of tourists, dressed in a bland gray suit. Even in Washington, in the seat of his power, he was a forgettable shadow. He stood before us, five feet apart.

  “You said you were going to br
ing the rest of your team,” he told me.

  “Guess that makes us all liars.” Jessie rolled her neck, joints popping, and stretched her arms behind her back. Her prefight warm-up.

  “We know everything,” I said. “Aselia survived. We know what Cold Spectrum was. We know what Vigilant Lock is. And we know what you’ve done.”

  His thin lips tightened.

  “I just have one question.” I pointed past his shoulder. To the chamber exit, and to the colossus on his marble throne. “When you walked in here and saw Lincoln staring down at you . . . did you feel any guilt at all for the things you’ve done? For selling out our entire nation? Our entire species?”

  A wave of emotions passed over his face. Anger, denial, fear. Then his eyes turned to frozen steel.

  “No,” he said.

  “You traitorous piece of shit—” Jessie moved in, her fingers curling into claws, and I put my hand on her arm to hold her back.

  We had new arrivals to deal with. Director Crohn sauntered into the south chamber with Mikki at his side, both of them looking like cats with a fresh saucer of cream.

  “Kevin,” I murmured, “fire alarm. Now.”

  Tourists milled, confused, as a warning Klaxon rang out. Officers from the park police rushed into action, herding them out and down the memorial steps. We held our ground. So did the enemy. Mikki gave a theatrical eye roll.

  “Aw, can’t have any innocent people getting hurt.” She looked to Crohn, then glanced upward. “She pulled this same move in a shopping mall once. Probably got her pet hacker tapped into the sprinkler system, thinking it’ll stop me from burning anybody. Hey, Jessie, guess what?”

  Jessie tilted her head, not saying a word. Mikki beamed and opened her jacket. She flashed a fat .45 automatic and a badge clipped to her belt.

  “I brought a gun for your ass, just in case. Aw, yeah, that’s right: I’m a federal agent now.”

  “Provisional,” Crohn sighed.

  A paunch-bellied park officer walked up to us from the left. “Everyone, please, gotta have you move along—that’s the fire alarm. I’m sure everything will be sorted out and we’ll be open again in a few minutes.”