by Jon Land
Go for his gun!
But the man’s gaze was back on her too fast. Still, an open window, a distracted captor, the driver’s attention divided between the stalled traffic and the opportune appearance by the panhandler.
Go for the other door now . . .
But Katie felt too heavy to move, her legs like lead weights. She was aware of her rapid breathing and nothing else.
Until a sudden blur of motion wiped out the rest of her thoughts, so fast as to seem impossible for anyone to manage, much less a man the size of the disabled beggar. In one blink he was seated and in the next he was out of the wheelchair and through the window, seemingly with no space or time in between.
Before the window had fully lowered, the giant’s left hand had swallowed the throat of the man seated next to Katie and slammed his head against the car’s roof, the pistol gone from his grasp and clamoring to the floor. Then, just as the glass sank all the way into the sill, the giant launched his entire torso up and forward, gliding smoothly and agilely into the car itself. Katie thought she smelled something like incense, as the giant’s right hand clamped onto the throat of the driver whose attempt to draw his pistol was left suspended between intention and action.
Katie watched the giant bring the heads of her two captors together with a force that resulted in a mashing sound that reminded her of ice crunching under a boot in winter. They looked like rag dolls in the giant’s huge hands, discarded to the sides with an effortlessness that appeared almost superhuman.
The door on the other side jerked open and Katie spotted her second rescuer for the first time, a stubble-faced man with gray-tinged thick hair and a gun palmed like an extension of his hand.
Wait, Katie thought, I know these men. . . .
Her rescuers from the K-Paul’s in the French Quarter yesterday!
“The name’s McCracken,” the bearded man said behind fierce eyes that seemed to burn right through her. “Nice to see you again.”
CHAPTER 52
New Orleans
Back at Homeland Security regional headquarters in New Orleans’s City Hall, McCracken led Katie DeMarco into an office Folsom had emptied for him on the eighth floor, the middle of the three Homeland occupied in the building. He closed the door behind her and watched the young woman collapse into a high-backed leather chair behind the desk.
“I froze back there on the causeway,” she said, seeming to melt into the leather. “They were going to kill me and there was nothing I could do.”
McCracken sat down on the edge of the desk directly before her. “Ever had a gun pointed at you before?”
“No,” she said, almost shyly.
“It tends to have that effect on people.”
“Nothing new for you and that big friend of yours, I guess.”
“You guess right.”
Katie rocked her chair forward and leaned over the desk closer to McCracken. “So I guess I was lucky you showed up. Again.”
“First time, in K-Paul’s, we were already there. It was you who showed up.”
“And I didn’t even get to enjoy the food.”
“Neither did we, as it turned out.”
McCracken was captivated by the young woman’s energy and vivaciousness, as well as the sense of vulnerability she was showing. Not bothering to pretend she was strong and fearless. He guessed she was in her late twenties, but the raven black hair tumbling past her shoulders cast her as even more, and perhaps perpetually, youthful. That hair had the dual effect of disguising her features, cloaking them in shadows as if she’d made friends with the sporadic lighting of an office that seemed to be missing bulbs somewhere. But she regarded McCracken with gray eyes filled with a distinct unease, something furtive and faux about her entire demeanor, as if she were posing for a picture. And there was something sad and empty about her as well that was hardly befitting a young woman of her energy and beauty.
In his world, trust came at a premium; it was a commodity to be brokered like any other and valued as much for its importance as the lack of it that more often than not prevailed. Thanks in large part to that, McCracken had learned long ago how to read people’s intentions and see through the masks they wore as if every day was Halloween. He didn’t know much about Katie DeMarco for sure right now, but he was as certain as he could be that she was hiding something she wasn’t about to share no matter how much or hard he prodded. The key was to hear what she didn’t say, conclusions to the truth gained by what he liked to call listening between the lines.
That skill had helped keep him alive for forty years through more battles than he could count.
Katie DeMarco seemed to stiffen a bit, or pretended to.
What are you hiding? McCracken thought to himself.
“Was it really only yesterday?” she said, trying to sound casual. “It seems like a month.” She looked at him closer, running her gaze from his dark eyes to ridged chest, broad shoulders, and forearms that were knobby with muscle.
“Welcome to my world.”
“Same world those guys in the car come from?”
“If it was, you’d be dead now.”
Beyond the windows, the sky darkened with the first signs of night. After Johnny Wareagle had disabled the men pretending to be Homeland Security agents, they’d placed their unconscious forms on either side of him in the backseat. By the time McCracken climbed behind the wheel with Katie alongside him, the drawbridge had been lowered and the causeway reopened. At that point, he’d simply driven across to the other side of Lake Pontchartrain where he instructed Folsom to arrange pickup for the three of them and the two unconscious gunmen.
McCracken had no doubt they were independent operatives, just like the ones in K-Paul’s yesterday. Men part of nothing bigger than the assignment they were brought in to complete, in this case to deliver Katie DeMarco to someone somewhere. Their involvement would end there. They had no idea for whom they worked or the purpose of their assignment beyond that. It was the way such things were done these days, and the explosion of private security companies, like the infamous Blackwater, left a glut of paramilitary pros on the market for jobs just like this. The pair would be interrogated appropriately, but McCracken was under no illusions that would yield anything; they knew what they needed to know and nothing more.
“So what is it you do exactly, when you’re not saving kidnapped women?” Katie DeMarco asked him from behind the desk.
“Saving the world.”
“I’m being serious here.”
“So am I. We thought you might be able to help us this time.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because you were on the Venture and the Venture’s gone.”
“I don’t know anything about what destroyed the rig. I’d tell you if I did. All I know is that they were drilling for oil where there wasn’t any oil.” Katie rested her elbows on the naked desk with chin cupped in her hands. “Why don’t you call Ocean Bore, the company that owns the Venture?”
“That’s someone else’s department.”
“Someone else who doesn’t carry a gun or save kidnapped women, Mr. McCracken?”
“Call me Blaine.”
“Blaine. Are you like a spy, some kind of agent or something?” she asked him.
“Something, young lady. Goes all the way back to this war called Vietnam, fought before you were born, and you have no idea how old it makes me feel saying that.”
“You don’t look old.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean it. Not a day over fifty.”
“Just don’t say I remind you of your father.”
“I won’t, don’t worry,” Katie said stiffly, her sudden change in tone making McCracken take notice.
“Good. Bad enough I turned sixty yesterday. You interrupted my birthday lunch at K-Paul’s.”
“Sorry, Blaine. What about the other guy, the big man?”
“Johnny Wareagle. We were in the same special-ops team back in what Johnny likes to call the Hellfire. St
ayed together pretty much ever since.”
“Sounds tiring.”
“Not for the last two years. Things cooled off.”
“What changed?”
“They got hot again.”
CHAPTER 53
New Orleans
“The cold period mostly started with 9/11 and the new mind-set it brought to the country. Suddenly the work Johnny and I had been doing without anyone noticing was replaced by the likes of SEAL Team Six and drone attacks. The rules of engagement changed, and old dogs like us fell out of fashion.”
“You don’t look like the retiring type.”
“Figure of speech.” McCracken folded his arms and leaned further forward over the desk. “What about you?”
“I wasn’t finished yet.”
“I get a turn too, young lady.”
“I feel a lot older than I did yesterday.” Katie DeMarco looked at him, those light gray eyes narrowing into focused beams of intensity. “I guess being kidnapped twice in twenty-four hours will do that to you.”
“Twice?”
“Last night it was Aum Shinrikyo’s turn.”
“The Japanese doomsday cult?”
“I see you’ve heard of them.”
“I thought they were history.”
“Far from it.”
“So where does their interest lie with you, young lady?”
“They thought I knew something I didn’t too.”
“So what’s the source of their interest in the Deepwater Venture?”
“They didn’t say exactly, other than it had to do with bringing on the end of the world.”
“Is it my turn to ask the questions yet?”
“That’s your second one already. And the answer to your third is twenty-eight.”
“I didn’t ask it yet.”
“You didn’t have to. You wanted to know how old I am, so I’m telling you. Not as far from fifty as you think.”
“Too bad I’m sixty.”
“What else would you like to know, Blaine?” Katie said, leaning forward too.
“Everything you can tell me about the Deepwater Venture for starters.”
“I infiltrated the crew for an environmental organization called WorldSafe.”
“Your purpose being . . .”
Katie didn’t answer.
“You need to tell me the truth, young lady.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t call me that.”
“This isn’t the time to change the subject. We’re on the same side here. Or would you have preferred if Johnny and I had just left you with those guys in the SUV?”
“I was on board the Venture to gather intelligence . . .”
“To use for propaganda purposes, no doubt.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. A few pictures here and there, maybe steal a video of oil leaking out of a well seal. You know the problem I’ve got?”
“What?”
“You could have managed that a lot quicker than the three weeks you were on that rig.”
Katie looked away. “There was something else.”
“You want to look at me when you’re talking?”
This time she did. “I planned on sabotaging the rig’s software to shut down its operations.”
McCracken nodded, weighing what she’d told him. “They’ve got a word for that where I come from.”
“What’s that?”
McCracken met her focused gaze with his own black eyes. He felt warmth radiating through his cheeks and knew Katie DeMarco had noticed the scar that ran through his left eyebrow, courtesy of an errant bullet a million years ago. She had the look of someone who had just realized you can’t eat Halloween candy through the mask that earned it.
“Terrorism,” was all he said.
“WorldSafe wasn’t a terrorist organization.”
“Past tense?”
“Our leadership was wiped out yesterday. Murdered in Greenland, I suspect by the same group that sent those fake Homeland Security agents to kidnap me.”
“And who would that be?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“I don’t believe that. I think you know exactly who you’re dealing with here, but something’s stopping you from telling me.”
“Like what?”
“Haven’t figured that out yet.”
Katie leaned closer to him still, her expression lightening. “I think you’ve got me wrong.”
“You’re not a terrorist?”
“Environmental activist,” she corrected, shaking her head.
“So it was environmental activism, not terrorism, that was responsible for the Hastings Chemical plant bombing three years ago. Environmental activism, not terrorism, that was behind the sinking of a Royal Dutch Shell supertanker the year before that. Environmental activism, not terrorism, that was linked to the poisoning of two-dozen coal mining company officials in West Virginia. How am I doing so far?”
“You forgot to blame WorldSafe for destroying the Deepwater Venture, too.”
“Well, someone less informed might be curious about the timing of your departure.”
“Maybe we should be focusing on the execution of the WorldSafe team in Greenland instead.”
“Okay, let’s,” McCracken agreed, seeing the sadness, even guilt, building in her dark eyes now. “Who was responsible?”
“I have no idea.”
“You’re lying, young lady. I think you’ve got a very good idea who was behind it. I think it was the same party that ordered the Venture to drill where there was no oil, and now you’re going to tell me who they are so I can stop them before they kill millions. That clear enough for you?”
Katie propped her elbows on the desktop and rested her chin in her palms. “Maybe you were right before.”
“About what?”
“You’re too old for the tough guy act to work.”
“And you’re just young enough to figure you don’t need me.”
“For what?”
“To help you. You’re not telling me who’s behind this because you plan on going after them yourself.”
“Really?”
“It’s in your eyes. Everything else lies, but not the eyes, young lady, and yours aren’t the eyes of an environmental activist.”
“You’ve got me wrong, Blaine.”
McCracken had started to respond when gunfire rang out in the hallway beyond.
CHAPTER 54
New Orleans
“Stay here!” McCracken ordered, shoving Katie back into her chair when she started to jerk out of it.
Then he burst into the hallway with the Glock Hank Folsom had provided him drawn. He expected to find Homeland headquarters under a full-scale assault by a commando team, likely residue of the group from which he’d just rescued Katie DeMarco. But he saw nothing.
At first.
Then an armed security guard lurched out at the far end of the hallway, opening fire down the adjacent corridor only to be pulverized by a quick barrage, thrown backward with his torso stitched by bullet wounds. McCracken heard a light mechanical whine and watched one of the SWORDS robots round the corner at the head of the hallway, angling its 7.62 mm center-mounted machine gun right on him.
Shinzo Asahara felt as if he were in some kind of trance as the fingers of his right hand danced across his laptop’s keyboard. He had bypassed the firewall of Homeland Security’s regional office altogether, choosing instead to tap into the control systems of the building’s robotic security force.
The system had been manufactured in Japan, the required access codes having been provided months before by an Aum Shinrikyo supporter who worked for the company in question.
Ordering the SWORDS machines to open fire indiscriminately had been as simple as changing their programming to fire on all motion and heat signatures. Six of them operating on three floors creating the chaos needed for the six-man Aum Shinrikyo team he’d dispatched to storm the building and get the woma
n back. The front-mounted cameras of the robots showed him all he needed to see on a screen now divided into six separate grids.
Hopefully, Shinzo thought, the woman would not fall victim to their fire, as a bearded man lurched out into the center of a hallway, caught immediately by one of the SWORDS robot’s targeting systems.
McCracken dove to the floor just in time, opening fire with his Glock on the robot at the other end of the hall. His bullets clanged off its steel frame, having no effect at all as it righted its gun barrel in line with him.
McCracken rolled, feeling the heat of the machine’s bullets singe the air over him and then carve out chips from the tile floor that followed in line with his roll. The machine’s treads squeaked slightly, as it churned on, and McCracken escaped its line of fire only by pinning himself behind the thin cover of a wall abutment fronting the offices within which Katie DeMarco was now hiding.
He stilled himself in the hope the machine keyed its actions off motion sensors. But when it kept right on coming he knew it must have been relying on thermal imaging as well, meaning there was no hiding from it even behind doors and walls.
McCracken’s intention was to lie in wait for it here and pounce when he caught sight of the barrel that extended slightly ahead of its frame. With turret raised, the machine remained barely three feet high, hardly imposing if its weaponry was neutralized.
The churning and squeaking grew louder. McCracken readied himself.
Only when the SWORDS bot reached the abutment, he saw its gun turret already angled straight his way, the moment frozen until fresh gunfire flashed from the far side of the hall.
“Blainey!” Johnny Wareagle called.
He spoke as the robot spun its gun turret around and headed back in the opposite direction, firing anew. McCracken could visualize Johnny diving for cover, even as he rolled back into the center of the hall and opened up on the machine with his Glock. It actually seemed confused, caught between responses before ultimately twisting back toward McCracken.