“Are you done?” asked Stuart Quinn.
“Sorry,” said Jon. “Just a little jumpy. I’m about to head south.”
“You might want to reconsider that.”
“You found something.”
“It may be nothing. It may be everything,” said Quinn. “First things first. Pack up and get out of your house immediately. Five minutes and gone. Go dark, except for this satphone.”
“That bad?”
“I’m already on the road, if that answers your question,” said Quinn. “I did a little classified-level digging into Sentinel Group and didn’t like what I found. First, they’re without a doubt bankrolling the One Nation Coalition. They’re heavily invested in every major business sector that stands to lose significant revenues if California splits, and like your son suggested, bad shit happens when Sentinel Group faces big losses. Think small wars, coup d’états, genocides, terror attacks, infrastructure damage, and targeted assassinations. Starting to sound familiar?”
“Remarkably,” said Jon, whispering a few obscenities.
“Here’s the real kicker. They’re connected to a nasty group few people know about called Cerberus International—essentially Sentinel’s private black-ops army. We don’t know a lot about Cerberus, but extrapolating from the list of misfortunes I recited earlier, they’ll stop at nothing to guarantee Sentinel’s profits. You know: Kill a congresswoman here, a lieutenant governor there. Maybe wreck a nuclear reactor or two along the way.”
“I thought they determined that the reactor shutdown was a mechanical issue,” said Jon, somehow knowing that Stuart had an answer waiting.
“That’s a preliminary assessment,” said Quinn. “Your son saw two low-profile boats at the beach by the Del Mar station?”
“That’s what he says, but I don’t think Nathan would know a Boston whaler from a submarine,” said Jon, glancing at his wife—who glared at him disapprovingly.
“Hmm. Guess who recently purchased the Mark X Stealth Delivery Platform program?”
“I thought that program was scrapped by General Dynamics.”
“So did I, until about twenty minutes ago,” said Quinn. “Turns out they found a buyer.”
“Let me guess,” said Jon. “Cerberus International?”
“Actually, Sentinel Group bought the program, but from what I can tell, that’s like parents putting their name on the dealer paperwork for their teenager’s first car. The program included two Mark X SDPs.”
Nathan was in serious danger.
“Jesus,” whispered Jon. “I need to go. I have to get in touch with Nathan. Did your son ever bring him the phones? Shit. Sorry. I don’t want to involve your son. I’ll figure this out.”
“Jon,” said Quinn forcefully, “this may be nothing at all.”
“Or everything,” said Jon. “Like you said.”
“Right, which is why we’ll treat this like the worst-case scenario until proven otherwise,” said Quinn. “David is on his way with the phones. There was no stopping him—especially after I explained the situation. The Fishers are in good hands; however, I suggested that David execute a radically different plan. With Cerberus involved, I don’t think driving long stretches of empty desert highway is a healthy idea. They can hide at Camp Pendleton until we figure out how to proceed. The base isn’t exactly airtight, but it’s a shit ton safer than anywhere else I can think of.”
“I can’t thank you enough, Stu. Or your son,” said Jon. “Shouldn’t I wait here until I hear from Nathan, or David?”
“Nathan’s phone will be tapped, at the very least,” said Quinn. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Cerberus was tracking his car through the California Resource system. David will take them back to Pendleton in his car. They’ll call you with one of the throwaway phones once they’re on the road. Right now, I highly suggest you get out of there. Once Nathan disappears, they’ll start turning over stones. You don’t want to be under one.”
“All right,” said Jon, turning to a very concerned-looking wife. “We’re out of here in the next few minutes. I appreciate you sticking your neck out like this for me.”
His wife gave him a knowing look, quickly leaving the garage.
“Anything for the illustrious Sergeant Major Fisher. Say hi to Leah for me, and tell her everything will be fine.”
“I’ll pass that along,” said Jon, fighting the reflex to reciprocate the sentiment. Stuart’s wife had passed away two years earlier, after a short, unexpected battle with ovarian cancer, but Jon still thought of them as a couple. As did Stuart, he was sure. The call disconnected without a response.
Jon walked into the garage, slightly dazed by the conversation.
“The only thing we’re missing are my last-minute bags,” said Leah. “I can have those ready in a few minutes.”
He forced himself to smile at her joke. “We’ll head a few hours north to the Montana border,” said Jon, conflicted about driving away from his son. “I have a Marine friend in one of the survival groups up there.”
“How bad is it?”
“It might be nothing,” he said, looking into her eyes.
“Or it might be everything?” his wife whispered.
He nodded, his mind more than nine hundred miles away, in Mira Mesa.
CHAPTER 26
David Quinn waited at a stoplight on Camino Ruiz, anxiously thrumming his fingers on the steering wheel. What the hell was he getting himself into here? This had gone from delivering a few untraceable phones—a sketchy proposition in itself—to whisking away a family and hiding them on base. He still didn’t know exactly why the Fisher family was on the run, only that they might be in the crosshairs of a notoriously ruthless military contractor—and that this favor might be dangerous.
It still sounded a little far-fetched, though he had to admit that his dad sounded serious. He had repeatedly insisted that David take precautions, which gave him pause. He’d thrown a few precautionary items in the jeep before taking off, just in case. Now he was glad he’d listened to his dad. For some odd reason, the closer he got to the Fishers’ neighborhood, the more uneasy he felt.
“Typical pre-mission jitters,” he told himself.
When the light turned green, he cruised south on Camino Ruiz, passing a rundown strip mall on the left. A liquor store, hair and nail salon, Mexican taco shop, chain pizza counter, Laundromat, and dental office—the usual collection of fluorescent storefronts standing guard over a mostly empty parking lot. The place looked like every other strip mall in the state. Unappealing and dingy in every aspect, except for the lure of finding the perfect taco. Some of the best Mexican food was concealed in the most hideous strip malls in Southern California.
His jeep’s Heads-Up Navigator displayed a left arrow and a distance on the windshield above the dashboard. One thousand feet until Camino Morelos. He squeezed the wheel, telling himself he was relieving tension. Damn it! His dad had done a number on him. “Shadowy black-ops group working on US soil. Be careful. Watch your surroundings. Don’t trust anybody. Don’t make any assumptions. This group will not hesitate to flick you out of the way.” Thanks, Dad. Thanks for turning a simple favor into mission impossible with your new brand of conspiracy melodrama. David eased his grip on the wheel and forced a grin.
He turned onto Camino Morelos and drove a short distance to Virgo Place, the first street that connected with his destination. The streets darkened significantly after turning onto Virgo. San Diego City ordinances prohibited the use of streetlights or outdoor home lighting along secondary suburban roads. His fingers started tapping the wheel again.
Deciding to indulge one of his father’s more paranoid suggestions, he stopped the car and unzipped the backpack lying on the front passenger seat. Reaching inside, he produced the thermal riflescope given to him by his father a few years ago. Many of his dad’s retired Marine Corps friends took lucrative jobs in the defense-contracting sector, and every time his dad visited, he brought some kind of high-tech gadget provided by one of his
buddies. The thermal scope was one of David’s favorites, though he rarely had an occasion to use it. He’d spotted a few coyotes camping with Alison and had dragged it out to impress his nieces and nephews a few times. Tonight he’d put it to better use, more to ease his fears than anything else.
He rolled down the jeep’s windows and activated the scope, letting it adjust to the cabin’s ambient temperature. A few minutes later, he pulled onto the street and continued his journey with the scope in his left hand, scanning the road ahead of him for heat signatures appearing through parked car windows. Then he’d search the roads parallel to Pallux Way, driving a loop through the neighborhood. Once he cleared the streets, he’d relax and embrace babysitting duty.
Two blocks from Pallux Way, he raised the scope to his left eye for a few seconds, which was as long as he dared on a dark, narrow street with parked cars. Huh. He could have sworn he’d picked up a sizable white spot in one of the cars on the left side of the road just past Pallux. Probably a warm engine. The cars on that side faced him, exposing their engine hoods to the scope. He slowed the car and raised the scope again, keeping it leveled for several seconds. The digital image came into sharp focus.
His grip on the wheel tightened. Three people sat in the vehicle, their heads and shoulders visible through the windshield. No engine thermals. They’d been there awhile. The image was distant, but there was no mistaking the obvious human shapes. He lowered the scope, taking in the road ahead. Completely dark beyond his headlights. Maybe they’d just gotten in the car.
The jeep’s navigation system indicated he was about to pass Summerdale Street, one block away from Pallux Way. He turned the scope down Summerdale as he cruised through the intersection. Fuck! Two more people in a vehicle halfway down the street. Engine cold. He lowered the scope and kept on toward Pallux Way, wondering once again what the hell he’d gotten mixed up in. His pulse had quickened, his skin suddenly clammy. He wiped his forehead, feeling a light sheen of perspiration.
As the turn onto Pallux approached, David debated how to proceed. He couldn’t just pick up the Fisher family and drive away. That much was clear now. This would take a decidedly different approach. First, he needed to make a better assessment of what he was up against. A plan had started to form based on what he’d seen so far, but he needed more tactical intelligence. Instead of turning onto Pallux, he kept driving on Virgo, toward the first set of thermal signatures he’d spotted.
His headlights probed the street ahead, illuminating cars on each side of the street and shining right through the windows. When the lights reached an oversize black SUV on the left, the windshield remained dark—impervious to the human eye. He kept his eyes forward as he passed the ominous hulk, worried what the occupants might do if he looked in the window. If any of what his dad had told him was true, someone in the SUV had a rifle pointed at his head while the jeep rolled by.
Clearing the SUV with his head still intact, he rapidly approached Westmore Road, where he planned to turn left and approach Pallux from the other side of the neighborhood. He was very interested to see if Fisher had additional admirers. After making the turn, he lifted the scope to scan the road, immediately dropping it in his lap. Three cars away, fully illuminated by his headlights, a black cargo van towered over the street’s collection of vehicles, its tinted windows denying any hint of who or what might be inside. A second dark-colored van, sporting a serious antennae array, sat directly behind it.
He could only hope they hadn’t seen his scope. If they had, there was little doubt in his mind that his car would never reach the end of the street. Sweating profusely, he drove the speed limit past the two blatantly out-of-place vehicles and continued down Westmore. The situation had drastically changed, calling for new rules of engagement. Four vehicles indicated more than surveillance, especially since they were parked well out of sight.
The vans worried him most. One clearly contained a highly sophisticated surveillance and communications suite—overkill for a stakeout involving anything less than a terrorist cell. The other van? He only needed to know one thing about the other van. Keep Nathan Fisher and his family out of it.
By the time his jeep reached the end of Westmore Road, his heartbeat was back to normal. He’d come to terms with what had to be done.
CHAPTER 27
Nick Leeds watched the jeep cruise by from the passenger seat of his command-and-control vehicle. The team assigned to the SUV on Virgo had reported the car a few minutes ago, indicating that it had briefly stopped at the top of the street before continuing on its way. The driver, a buzz-cut male in his early thirties, hadn’t paid any attention to the SUV—and it didn’t appear that he’d taken an interest in either van. Leeds scrutinized the man’s face through the one-way tinted windshield, detecting nothing unusual about the man’s mannerisms.
“What do we have on this vehicle?” he asked once the jeep had passed.
“Car is registered to Alison Quinn. Current address one-four-six-six-two Camino Alto, Oceanside,” said one of the technicians in the back of the van.
“Alison isn’t driving her car tonight,” said Leeds. “Check her associations for a white male, late twenties or early thirties. Possibly a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton.”
The high and tight haircut, age, and Oceanside address made this a distinct possibility.
“Copy that,” said the tech. “Running associations now.”
Leeds checked his watch. Eight fifty-two. About an hour to go until showtime, if Fisher didn’t take off early. Leeds had decided to grab the family a few blocks away, before they reached Camino Morelos. Three-dimension pulse-burst Doppler radar, cross-referenced with real-time thermal imaging, suggested that the Fishers had packed one car for their midnight run to Nevada.
“Jeep’s turning left onto Giraldo,” said one of the techs.
The guy had already come from that direction. Was he backtracking? Lost?
“Left?” asked Leeds. “How are we doing on those associations?”
“I found him,” said the tech. “David Quinn. Same address. Checking Department of Defense database now. Give me a second.”
“I want access to all of his personal devices.”
“Already working on that,” said the tech. “Here we go. Captain David Quinn, United States Marine Corps. Infantry officer assigned to Second Battalion, Fourth Marines. Camp Pendleton.”
“Anything else jumping out at you?”
“Regular infantry career according to his quick profile. I’m not seeing anything—wait,” said the tech. “Attended the counterinsurgency course in Quantico after Expeditionary Warfare School.”
“Abbreviated or full course?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Transfer the screen to monitor three,” said Leeds, trying his best not to sound annoyed.
His rightmost dash-mounted monitor changed from a digital map of the neighborhood to David Quinn’s DOD profile page. “Counterinsurgency Course 8/0380.” He’d attended the specialized eight-week course, which gave him a secondary Marine occupational specialty as a counterinsurgency officer. In all likelihood, David Quinn commanded Second Battalion’s counterinsurgency company. Not a group of Marines Leeds would want to meet in a dark alley—or a dark neighborhood in Mira Mesa. He hoped Quinn’s presence in the neighborhood was just a coincidence. If not, they might have a problem.
Leeds opened his communications channel to the other teams. “All units, keep an eye on the black four-door Jeep Wrangler headed north on Giraldo. I want to know if it stops again.”
“This is Hudson,” said a voice through his wireless earpiece. “I have a Jeep Wrangler turning onto Pallux from Giraldo. Came from your direction.”
“I want you watching that vehicle and its driver closely,” said Leeds.
“Streaming video and audio to the van,” said Hudson.
John Hudson led a small team of field-surveillance operatives stationed in the house diagonally across the street from the Fishers. They had maintaine
d the direct surveillance gear used to spy on the family and watched the neighborhood for the past two days.
“Copy,” said Leeds. “All units stand by to move. We might have to do this right at the house.”
Once all the units responded, he ordered the tech in his van to activate the full surveillance display. The three monitors arranged side by side in a slight curve on the passenger side of the dashboard changed to various displays of the surrounding area. He had a three-dimensional, thermal, see-through-the-wall image of the house, which showed the Fishers as indistinct orange-red masses. Another screen showed a two-dimensional, green-scale schematic of the house, with blue icons indicating the real-time locations of the family members. The burst pulse Doppler through-wall radar penetrated the entire house, detecting movement and mapping whatever was inside. The Doppler image was by far his favorite. The third screen displayed a full-color, near-daylight image of the front of the house.
“What do you want on the HUD?” asked the tech.
“Whatever Hudson is transmitting on the jeep.”
The windshield directly in front of him transformed into a semitransparent screen, featuring a live image of the jeep driving down Pallux Way and a green audio-wave readout. The audio wave looked active.
“Patch audio to my left ear,” said Leeds.
“I don’t recommend that,” said the tech. “Loud music.”
“Hudson, can you see what he’s doing in the car?”
The HUD image zoomed in on the jeep, clearly showing Quinn talking into a phone.
“Talking on a phone,” said Hudson. “It’ll take me a while to separate his voice from the music track. I need to upload the track.”
“Do it,” said Leeds, watching as the jeep pulled into the Fishers’ driveway.
A voice deep down inside told Leeds to take Fisher and the Marine now, but Flagg had been specific about how he wanted the events to unfold. Fisher’s tortured, mangled corpse would be found by a California Border Division patrol near Mexico, alongside the bodies of his wife and son. One of the Fishers’ vehicles, fully packed for a long trip, would be discovered parked outside a Mexican car-insurance storefront in a San Ysidro strip mall, not too far from the bodies. The implication would be unavoidable. The Fishers had tried to flee to Mexico.
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