“Just text that you had to borrow a phone,” said Heather. “Long story.”
Hall nodded, deep in thought. “Yeah. That should work, depending on my message.”
“As Fisher, tell them to gather in the room with the biggest monitor to await a call from you,” suggested Campbell. “While they’re waiting, Megan can get the hell out of there.”
“Won’t work,” said Hall. “Only Solomon knows Fisher’s identity and contact is always in private.”
“Then order them to gather to watch CNN,” said Heather. “As Fisher, tell them you’re in a crisis mode and had to borrow a phone. That there’s a critical news story they need to see. It will be on during the fifteen minute segment, but you aren’t sure when. But they’ll know it when they see it.”
Hall considered. “Nice,” he said in admiration. “I like it. Colonel?”
Campbell nodded. “There are no guarantees. But it should work. If it doesn’t, you’ll know it and can think of something else.”
“Okay, then,” said Hall, taking a deep breath. “Get the other Pave Hawk in the air. I’ll tell Megan what’s going on.”
43
Dom Olinda was in the kitchen waiting for a frozen lasagna to cook in the microwave when Solomon rushed into the room. “Gather up Sanchez and Bergum,” he said. “Just got an urgent message from headquarters. Meet me in the living room.”
Olinda found the other two men and joined Solomon as instructed. CNN was on the monitor in the room and Solomon was staring at it intently, waiting for a commercial to end. He motioned the three of them over. “We’ve been instructed to watch this channel. Didn’t tell me what we were looking for, but that we’d know it when we saw it. And it’s important.”
The TV cut back from commercials and a moderator explained enthusiastically that they were back to an hour-long special on the successes of charter schools.
“What the fuck?” said Bergum. “Charter schools?”
“Yeah. No shit,” said Solomon. “This doesn’t pass the smell test. Especially since the boss said he was using someone else’s phone to send the message. Let me re-read it.”
As he glanced down at his phone he noticed it was no longer getting any reception.
“Check your phones!” he barked. “Any signal?”
His companions quickly confirmed that reception was out for all of them.
“Fuck!” spat Solomon. “We’re about to be attacked. It’s the only explanation. And we’re sitting ducks in here.” He paused. “Bergum and I will gather up laptops and other shit we can’t leave behind. Olinda and Sanchez, find Megan and meet us in the garage. We’ll take the SUV into town where we can hole up separately and assess the situation.”
Olinda was impressed. Solomon could have chosen to dig in here. The attackers’ options would be limited for fear of hitting the girl. But long-term it was likely to be a losing strategy. And while they’d be exposed in the SUV, they could cover the three miles to town in just a few minutes, after which they could fade into the woodwork.
Olinda and Sanchez exited the living room to gather Megan. “Last I saw of her she was in her bedroom,” said Olinda as they made for the back stairs.
As he was nearing the staircase he passed a window and caught motion outside. He stopped in disbelief.
It was a Megan Emerson, forty yards away from the house and moving fast.
She couldn’t be outside alone. Their PDA set the inside locks automatically, so they couldn’t be left open by accident.
And yet she had somehow escaped.
Sanchez nearly collided into his partner, having not expected Olinda to put on the brakes so abruptly. “She escaped!” said Olinda, nodding toward the window. “I’m going after her! Tell Solomon.”
Without waiting for a response he rushed to the door, hastily entered the proper code, and raced outside. Megan was now barely visible in the distance.
He began sprinting after her at five-minute-mile pace. Since the ground was baked dirt, hard and smooth rather than sandy, this was a pace he could sustain for ten or fifteen minutes. He had been a track athlete in college and his special forces training had been rigorous in this regard as well, and he gained ground on her with every step.
In little more than a minute he was almost a quarter of a mile from the house and would overtake his winded quarry in seconds.
That was when he heard the roar of helicopters, flying low and moving in fast.
44
Hall explained the deteriorating situation to Campbell as the second Pave Hawk passed them low to the ground, eating desert at two-hundred and fifty miles per hour on its way to the target, which would become visible in less than a minute.
“Olinda has caught up with Megan,” said Hall, his stomach tightening. “The rest are just pulling out of the garage in an SUV.”
Campbell thought for a moment and then transmitted orders to the assault team in the second helicopter. “They’re exiting in an SUV. No hostages or friendlies in the vicinity. Shoot out their tires and try to capture them alive, but lethal force is authorized if necessary.”
“Roger that,” came the reply through the headphones.
“We’ll go after the hostage to the north,” continued Campbell. “When the hostiles have been captured, stay on the ground and sit tight for further orders.”
With that the colonel banked the Pave Hawk violently.
“Olinda’s heard us coming,” said Hall, ignoring the chopper’s stomach-churning drop. “He plans to hold a gun at Megan’s head and negotiate with us.”
Hall cursed under his breath. Couldn’t CNN have been showing something that might be relevant? Anything. Politics. Terrorism. But charter schools? Hadn’t the fates been cruel enough already?
“How good of a shot are you, Colonel?” asked Hall.
“Very good, but not great.”
“He’s going to ask us to disarm. But I could lodge a gun in my pants, in the small of my back. You could stand just a little behind me. What if you pulled the gun at the same instant I told Megan telepathically to lurch down as hard as possible? Could you hit him in the head if you only had one chance at it?”
“Four out of five times,” said Campbell. “I wish I could give you a guarantee, but I can’t.”
Hall considered. “I’ll hide the gun,” he said. “We may not have another choice.” He paused. “We need a trigger word. Something it would be normal for me to say.”
“How about, be reasonable?” suggested Heather.
“Good choice,” said Campbell. “Nick, tell Megan to duck the instant she hears this.”
Hall broadcast the plan to Megan as she and Olinda came into view in the distance, two insects that were growing into people rapidly as the Pave Hawk stormed over the cracked brown terrain.
Campbell reduced speed and landed fifteen yards away from them. The three passengers exited the Pave Hawk and approached Megan, who was in Olinda’s iron grip with a gun pressed against her head.
In the distance machine guns fired, followed by the boom of tires blowing out and being shredded as the other helicopter took out the fleeing SUV.
“Drop your weapons!” demanded Olinda. “Now!”
The colonel was about to comply when Hall held up a restraining hand. “Wait a minute, Colonel,” he said as he rooted through Olinda’s mind. The man was a soldier for hire, yes, but until he had followed Solomon to his current assignment he had performed this job with honor, with stints in Iran and Turkey.
Hall faced the man and stared deeply into his eyes. “You know if you shoot her, my friend here is going to kill you, right?”
“Maybe. But you aren’t going to make that sacrifice,” shouted Olinda with certainty. “So don’t act like you don’t give a shit about her. Drop your weapons!” he bellowed. “Or you’ll be wearing her brains. Now! I won’t ask again.”
“Keep your weapon, Colonel,” said Hall calmly.
“What are you doing?” broadcast an understandably panicked Megan Emerson.
“Trust me,” replied Hall, and then turned his entire focus on Olinda.
“So let’s suppose we call your bluff,” he said out loud to the mercenary. “You’re telling me you’ll shoot her rather than surrendering. Knowing we’ll kill you if you do?”
“Absolutely!” thundered Olinda. “Let’s see who blinks first.” He moved his gun so it was now pressed into her cheek. “Say goodbye to your girlfriend. You have five seconds. Five. Four —”
“I’m a mind reader, Dom Olinda,” interrupted Hall unhurriedly, knowing that only Solomon had been made aware of this. “Let me demonstrate. Your ATM password is Adam Wulff, after a fallen comrade. You had two dogs in high school named Dash and Myla.” He shook his head. “See? So no matter how scary a performance you put on, you can’t bluff me.”
Olinda’s eyes widened at the accuracy of these proclamations.
“And you aren’t going to shoot this woman,” continued Hall. “I know this for an absolute fact. I’ve seen it in your mind. So surrender, and we’ll take your cooperation into account.”
“I’m not buying it,” said the mercenary. “What foreign language did I take in high school? And what are the last four digits of my social security number?
“Chinese. And five one two eight.”
Olinda looked at Hall as though he were an outer space alien, but he knew that he was beaten. He dropped his arm and his gun slid from his fingers and onto the hard, parched ground.
While Campbell affixed plastic handcuffs around Olinda’s wrists, Megan rushed over to Hall and threw herself into him, and both blinked back tears of joy.
They kissed, but only briefly, continuing to hold each other tightly, soaking in the warmth and feel of body against body.
The colonel escorted the prisoner to the Pave Hawk, and he and Heather waited for their two friends to finish their passionate reunion. When they finally separated an eternity later, Heather and the colonel hugged the newly freed prisoner as well.
“Thanks for the rescue,” said Megan happily.
“Glad to help,” said the colonel. “But I have to say, I feel like I’m the lucky one.”
“What do you mean?”
“You and Nick were using telepathy just now, right?”
“Right,” said Megan in confusion.
“You were expressing your love for each other, weren’t you? In sickening, syrupy detail, right?”
She grinned. “Right again.”
“So I’m the lucky one,” he finished with a twinkle in his eye. “If I’d have been forced to actually hear this, I’m pretty sure I would have had to kill myself.”
45
The small helicopter lifted from a helipad at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego and headed southwest, with Campbell piloting and Hall the sole passenger.
Marc Fisher had homes in Des Moines, Iowa, Washington DC, and La Jolla, California. But they had learned that he was currently at the home he considered his primary residence, the La Jolla beach house, hosting meetings of the party faithful until eight p.m. It was probably not a coincidence that this was five o’clock in Washington, about an hour before he expected Hall to be back in his warehouse prison and ready to report his findings.
Campbell had left Heather and Megan in capable hands at Miramar. The group had flown the four hundred miles between Tucson and San Diego in a military jet considerably less flashy than the F14. But while the jet they had chosen was only capable of commercial airline speed, they made it to Miramar in just over an hour, and the two men were back in the air within minutes of landing.
Hall checked the time in his mind’s eye. He had escaped a little more than six hours earlier from the hotel.
Could it really have only been six hours? He felt like a supersonic pinball that had been bounced around at incredible speed from DC to Tucson to here, but he still had an hour before Fisher’s last guest was scheduled to leave, and two hours before Fisher was planning to call him in DC for his report.
La Jolla was a mere thirteen miles southwest of Miramar and they made it to Fisher’s house in minutes, flying over it once to make it easier for Hall to locate Fisher in the highly populated area. Once he had, Campbell took them a mile out over the Pacific and hovered while Hall probed Fisher’s mind at length.
While the colonel had no idea what Hall was reading, his body language said it all. The mind reader was in revulsion, a man with thousands of roaches crawling over his body. A man who had been thrown in a septic tank filled with feces and rotting bodies. Hall’s face was contorted with horror and disgust and he looked physically ill.
Hall wasn’t aware of his own body language, but he did know that he had to work hard to keep the gorge from rising in his throat. If Campbell hadn’t been keeping the helicopter perfectly steady he would have vomited.
Being inside Marc Fisher’s head was agony. The man had the outside appearance of a human being, but he was not. It was like taking a bite of a perfect, shiny apple to find nothing but squirming maggots inside. Hall couldn’t have said if people had souls, or located one if they did, but he was sure of one thing: Marc Fisher had been born without one.
Fisher was a relentless, ruthless, compassionless machine, covered in a friendly, polished veneer. He had memories of two rapes and three murders, and had never felt the slightest remorse over these actions.
There was nothing he wouldn’t do if he could get away with it. For power, or even just for the thrill of showing his superiority and basking in the freedom he knew his complete lack of conscience provided. He was an absolute psychopath, at the most severe end of the spectrum.
Not only was he fully aware of this, he couldn’t be prouder of it.
He had used people all of his life. Seduced a number of women to fall in love with him, used them financially and sexually, and then spit them out without a care. Stabbed countless others in the back. Betrayed people who thought they were his friends. Taken credit for others’ work, and poisoned their careers and reputations if it afforded him the slightest gain.
Hall didn’t even need to dig. Fisher’s mind was a seething, disease-ridden cesspool, made even more disgusting by its cold, analytical nature, by its clear intelligence. Hall had now read thousands of minds, and many of these had been despicable, but none could match this one.
Marc Fisher was an abomination to the species.
Hall relayed some of what he learned to Campbell, including Fisher’s intention of killing him and Megan when he had what he needed.
“Any unimpeachable evidence of the murders or rapes?” asked the colonel when he had finished. Both men were once again wearing headphones so they could communicate without having to make their voices hoarse from shouting over the steady roar of the blades.
Hall shook his head. “You said he was rumored to be pure evil, and that’s an understatement. But he’s also very smart. And careful. Not the kind to leave much evidence behind. I’ve found overwhelming circumstantial links to certain crimes, but he’s left no smoking guns.”
“You said that one of the mercs knew he was working for Fisher. When we interrogate him, maybe we can get him to turn on this son of a bitch.”
“And what if he won’t?” asked Hall.
“That’s complicated. Mind reading is inadmissible, so just because you know what he did, this isn’t enough. And even if this mercenary does take his boss down with him, this is still problematic, since we all agree your survival depends on you staying off the grid. Even when only a handful of people knew about you, it led to your capture. So would you charge him with kidnapping? If you did, you’d have to show up in open court. Your abilities would come out. Your cover would be blown.”
Hall chewed his lower lip, deep in thought. “We’d have to get him on something else. And while there isn’t any perfect, direct evidence of his crimes, like I said, in certain cases there is a mountain of compelling circumstantial evidence. I’m sure he’d still go down in flames.”
“I’m not,” said Campbell. “I think
it’s less than fifty-fifty. He has a huge amount of power. And members of Congress have an uncanny knack for keeping their jobs after doing things that would get civilians thrown in jail.”
Hall frowned deeply. “Unfortunately, this is a good point. Worse, I read that he’s made great use of the information I’ve been feeding him. He’s been as ruthless and effective as ever, and has some real power players in his pocket. If he threatened to release what he has on them, they’ll move mountains to help him slip any noose.” He shook his head in disgust. “And if he does, with the leverage I’ve given him, I still think the odds are good he makes it to the White House, even without any more help from me.”
Hall shuddered at the thought of a President Marc Fisher. After being in the man’s mind for just a few minutes he doubted he would ever feel clean again.
He paused in thought for an extended period, oblivious to the breathtaking beauty of the mighty Pacific around him, an endless canvas of deep blue broken up only by the occasional yacht or sailboat.
“Colonel,” he said finally. “Let me read him for a few more hours. Maybe if I dig even deeper I’ll find something that will nail him. But I’d feel better if you were back watching Megan and Heather. I know they’re at a military base, but even so . . .”
“I understand.”
“Is there anywhere nearby you can set me down?”
“Yes. There’s a helipad a few miles from Fisher’s house.”
“Great. Set me down, and I’ll take a cab back to the base when I’m finished. Tell Megan I’ll be with her before she knows it.”
“Are you sure this is wise? No one has recognized you yet, but you need to lie as low as possible until we can regroup.”
“I agree,” said Hall. “But I’m willing to take the chance I won’t be discovered for the next few hours. I really need to take care of this.”
Campbell nodded. “I’ll have you on the ground in five minutes.”
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