by Kari Nichols
“I swear I don’t know his name! Freemantle hired him and had the gun delivered, but I don’t know anything more about the theft!”
“Who is Freemantle?”
“Walter Freemantle. He’s Sector,” McMaster admitted.
“Searching,” Tommy’s voice whispered in her ear. If Walter Freemantle worked for The Sector, Tommy would find him.
While she waited, Tate pressed McMaster for more details about the man who had delivered the gun. He gave a vague description that could have fit any of a million men in the world. No distinguishing characteristics. No names. No way to contact him. If Walter Freemantle proved to be working for The Sector then it meant an inside job, which is what she’d suspected all along. Bailey’s precautions were too stringent to have failed this completely. And yet, an inside job still meant that they’d failed, in some way. But it would give them a place to continue looking.
Tommy announced that his search was going to take some time. The information he was trying to access was classified beyond his level. He’d have to fake the system into believing he had the right access and then convince it to forget he’d even gone looking for it. Not difficult for him, just time-consuming.
Tate didn’t have the time to hang around and wait. Calling up the remote’s main function, she keyed in the destruct sequence and pressed the button. McMaster’s belly bomb exploded, igniting the white phosphorus and sending a flash fire throughout his torso. His lungs, heart, in fact everything within his chest cavity disintegrated in seconds. The bones of his ribs were scorched. The skin would be burnt on the inside, but the outside remained unmarred.
With no muscle or tissue to support it, the ribcage and spinal column crashed down onto his hip bones. His body sagged forward, his head smashing onto his desk. Tate came around beside him and picked up the dart from where it had fallen on the floor. She tucked it into a pocket and headed out of the office and down the hall to the elevator.
She reentered the parking garage and headed for the ramp up to the street. A scraping sound off to her right had her swinging around, her dart gun up. Panning the area, she searched for the source of the sound. There were very few cars in the parking garage. The lighting was less than helpful to her. Stepping into the shadows, she surveyed the entire level.
McMaster’s building had three levels of parking. She’d entered by the front entrance, on the main level. There was a second entrance off the rear of the building, on the second level. Few cars were parked in the underground at this hour. The security guards used the first dozen spots, leaving the remainder of the level empty. Flipping the selector on her gun, Tate chose a tranquilizer dart.
Dropping to the ground, she searched beneath the cars. No feet. The sound had come from very close by. The parking levels were separated by half walls. A short jump over the edge would take her down one level. Tate scanned the lower level, but her view was cut off the next level. Vaulting over the edge, she dropped straight down. Landing with her booted feet planted, she dropped to a crouch. The entrance was in front of her and so was her tail. He rounded the corner at a dead run.
Tate bolted up the ramp and charged around the corner. Her quarry had gained a half a block on her. He turned a corner and she poured on the speed to make the same corner ten seconds later. She watched as the runner entered Chinatown. By the time Tate passed through the gates, her runner was gone. Chinatown never slept. The roads and sidewalks were crowded with people. She had a vague idea of who she was looking for. If he’d stopped and attempted to blend in, she’d never be able to pick him out from the tourists.
After ten minutes of searching, she gave up and returned to her bike. Kicking up the stand, she fired it up and roared down the street. She drove randomly for twenty minutes, checking for a tail, keeping to the speed limit. The city was quiet this time of night, which suited her fine. She didn’t spot anyone following her, so she rode on to the motel.
She removed the sweaty leather gear and hopped in the shower. Letting the near-scalding water pour over her, she felt the tension ease from her neck and shoulders. Later, wrapped in a towel with another twisted around her hair, she dumped the contents of her nylon bag onto the bed and sorted through it.
The prototype that McMaster had stolen was created by Bailey Rhodes. She was head of R&D for The Sector and had an annual budget that was larger than the GDP of Lichtenstein. She had reported the theft of the gun eight months earlier. Since then The Sector had kept an eye on sales and development of new weaponry, in the hopes that they’d spot someone peddling it. Follow the leak. Find the people. Plug the leak.
When McMaster and the other three had shown their hands, they’d sent in Tate. The Sector didn’t care why they’d done it. That was obvious. All they’d wanted to know was how. Bailey had some of the most stringent security measures known to man, yet someone had still managed to get into her lab, remove the weapon from the lockup and smuggle it out of the building without her being aware of it and without triggering any of her alarms.
Weapons, devices and gadgets were her stock in trade and a very profitable arm of The Sector. If one weapon could be stolen, the whole lot of them could. The Sector couldn’t afford to lose their edge. They were holding on to it by a thread as it was.
Tate flipped through the various reports and memos she’d collected from the safe. She scanned a report on the JM1084-WP, the gun she’d dubbed the Belly Bomb Dart gun. Not all of the darts were bombs, but the best ones were and they had to be shot into the belly, so the dart could deploy its cargo into the chest cavity. McMaster’s name for it wasn’t anywhere near as catchy. JM would be his initials. 1084 meant nothing to her. WP stood for white phosphorous.
The appeal of the gun was readily apparent to her. In addition to the vast array of darts that were available, each cartridge carried twelve shots and one gun could hold and fire from three different cartridges at any given time. The dart and the computerized housing were both built on a nano scale. The ampoule of liquid was the largest part of the entire system. Each dart weighed a maximum of 6 ounces and was a little over two inches in length.
According to his papers, McMaster hadn’t intended to change the gun in any way, he’d just wanted to replicate it. Same with the darts. He had a few notes about the various different drugs that could be used in the ampoules. Bailey made an excellent gun. It didn’t surprise Tate any that people wanted to get their hands on her designs. There was nothing in the paperwork to indicate who had brought him the prototype.
Flipping through the rest of the stack, she first noticed a report on the locators they had hired McMaster to manufacture. Tate set that aside. The page at the very bottom of the pile caught her eye. It was a fax, written on Sector letterhead and it was addressed to McMaster. The note was brief and didn’t make any sense to her.
Jonathan,
Parker, Jarvis, Engleton, they’re all dead. We’re the only two left. I can’t find any information on the hitter. I don’t know who to watch out for. I have to disappear. I suggest you do likewise. If I can determine who is coming for us, I’ll get a message to you. Good luck.
Walter Freemantle.
Tate had no idea who Walter Freemantle was. If he was Sector, she’d never met him. The Sector employed over four thousand people around the world. She couldn’t know them all. She’d never heard of the other three people Freemantle had mentioned in his letter, either.
Knowing there was no secure fax anywhere close to her, Tate sent a coded message to Tommy with the details of the letter and a request for information on all names provided.
Freemantle had written the letter five days earlier and had faxed it the same day. McMaster hadn’t changed his personal security in any way. Tate had reconnoitered the area and observed her target for a full week before she’d paid him a visit. Either he hadn’t taken the threat seriously, or he’d thought he would have more time.
Likely, he would have had more time, since Tate wasn’t the hitter Freemantle had alluded to.
The S
ector, HQ
Why the hell had Tate gone after McMaster? Blackburn cursed Morrison for being too slow in getting around to the McMaster job. He had arrived at the building just as Tate was leaving it. She’d damn near caught the bloody idiot, but he’d managed to lose her in the crowds of Chinatown.
McMaster was a side project of Blackburn’s. Godin hadn’t requested the hit, Blackburn had. McMaster had other contacts inside The Sector, namely Bailey Rhodes. If the man developed a conscience, he could fuck Blackburn over. Godin had everything he needed from McMaster, but he’d failed to complete the payment schedule.
McMaster had called Blackburn in an effort to put some pressure on Godin to pay up. Godin was not a man to be pressured and Blackburn wouldn’t jeopardize his relationship with the merciless dictator by harassing him about finances. But McMaster had wanted his money.
The second time he’d called, McMaster had threatened to get others involved. He hadn’t specified who those others would be, but Blackburn could take a guess. McMaster had signed his own death warrant with that phone call. Blackburn had called in Morrison to deal with the man. So how had Tate beaten him to it?
Blackburn paced the confines of his office, glaring at the computer monitor. Was Tate onto them? He hunched over his desk, his stubby fingers pounding the keys of his computer as he called up her file. There were no directives coming in from other handlers, but Blackburn wasn’t satisfied. If someone had moved her onto a special project, they should have made a note of it in her file.
He could assume she was working on her own and that would mean she’d gone rogue. A rogue agent could be marked as splintered and terminated. No agent wanted that. Yet there was nothing in her file to state that she was acting under orders. If he took this information up the chain and it turned out that she was acting under orders, then people would start to take a closer look at him.
But dammit, he needed to know what McMaster told her before he’d died! He didn’t think, not even for a minute, that the little fucker had kept his mouth shut. Tate could be very persuasive when she needed to be. It’s what made her one of their best Sector Agents to date. He’d have to put a watcher on her. He needed to know where she went and who she spoke to. But more, he needed to know if she started to look in his direction.
If she came for him, she’d make him bleed and then she’d make him talk.
Chapter 4
South China Seas - Con Dao
“Tell me again, what you think happened,” Godin demanded. Finn had wasted a full week before telling Godin about his mistake. It had taken a supreme force of will on Godin’s part to keep from blowing Finn’s brains out the back of his head.
Finn had spent the past few days running diagnostics on the system trying to determine what McMaster had done. “I believe the new locators were created with a secondary GPS signal that fired when the first signal failed to get out. That signal is directed toward a different source.” Finn sat in a chair across the desk from Godin. He tried to keep his voice firm, but his hands were shaking.
“And what was the source this secondary GPS signal was directed at?”
“Another satellite,” he admitted. He watched as Godin’s face turned a vivid shade of red. Sitting perfectly still, like prey that knew it was being hunted, Finn endeavored to mitigate the damage. “I called Walter Freemantle and explained to him about the secondary signal. He said that he would talk to their Signals Department about it.”
“What did he determine?”
“No one has said a word. My replacement, a woman named Fiona Engleton, disappeared without a trace. Her car exploded, but the police say she wasn’t inside. So she’s running.”
“She’s on the run with a piece of information that could destroy us,” Godin whispered. He pressed a button on his desk and a door opened off to the side of the main door. Pleski walked in.
Finn ran a nervous hand through his dark hair. He’d been forced to watch Pleski at work. The sight of what he could do to the human body had caused Finn to puke on his own shoes. Pleski was a small man, but he was very fit. Finn was a nerdy engineer and had the physique to match. His dark hair was graying, his body was soft and his glasses were thick. If Pleski came for him, Finn wouldn’t have a hope in hell of evading him.
“Pleski, I’ll need you to take care of these loose ends. Walter Freemantle knows too much and must go. Then you must find this woman, Fiona Engleton. Do what you will with her.” Godin waved his hand to dismiss his man.
Pleski nodded once and turned to Finn. He smiled and the glee in his eyes brought on Finn’s gag reflex. He knew that if he failed Godin again, he would be given over to Pleski. Pleski walked out the door, leaving Finn with Godin.
“You have one more trial before I decide you can’t deliver what I need from you. Don’t disappoint me.” He waved his hand and Finn shot out of his chair and hurried out the door.
Godin’s island was now compromised and he’d have to order its immediate evacuation. He had received confirmation from external sources that several of the world’s military sectors had accepted delivery of the modified locators. The numbers were still very small, with 100,000 locators in circulation, but that number would grow over the next few months. By the end of the year they expected to have implanted a half a million soldiers with the modified device; in two years, they would have five million. And then Godin would have one hell of a surprise for them.
Finn’s tests showed that the signal caught on any satellite that happened to be close enough, rather than looking for a specific one. Somehow, Bailey Rhodes had managed to temporarily hijack the world’s satellites and block her usage from their monitors. If he’d thought she could be turned, he would have offered her the moon to work for him. Instead he’d been forced to settle for significantly less.
Godin picked up the phone and dialed Kirilenko’s number. Nicolai Kirilenko was the captain of Godin’s naval fleet. He would see to the evacuation details, having run numerous drills to ensure a speedy and efficient removal process.
Godin did not want any fuck-ups with the prisoners.
“He’s ordered a full-scale evacuation of the island,” Kirilenko explained. He started barking orders to his crew. Godin wanted to be gone in twelve hours. The submarine was ready. The prisoners would be drugged and then transported aboard. He had ordered a nine-bunk crew compartment to be modified into a temporary prison cell. His men had stripped the bunks from the room and welded the chains to the floor and ceiling.
Vladimir Aleksandr Godin sprawled in his chair, watching as Nicolai directed his men to their tasks. His father trusted Nicolai to see to his defenses. The elder Godin ruled through fear. Everyone in his employ was subjected to a surgical procedure. They didn’t undergo one; they were forced to watch one. Godin’s right-hand man, Pleski, had a fondness for excising organs from the human body. He ensured that his ‘patients’ were alive and awake for a large portion of the procedure. They died eventually. The shock, the pain, or the loss of blood took its toll. But they felt; for the last few hours of their lives, they felt a whole lot.
Nicolai wasn’t cowed by the display. Sergei Godin could snap his fingers and order Nicolai’s death, but the younger man always appeared at ease. Vlad harbored a small seed of resentment over that. He was Sergei’s own flesh and blood, but his father could still frighten him.
Nicolai was a very useful person to have on his side. Vlad wouldn’t have gotten as far as he had if not for the younger man’s support. Vlad wasn’t seen as a trustworthy person. His coke habit was under control. He indulged, but he used caution. His father saw it as a weakness, but Vlad knew that cocaine gave him enormous strength.
He dumped a small pile of powder onto Nicolai’s desk and carved it into two neat lines. Two quick snorts and he felt like a god. He was too preoccupied to notice the look of disgust on Nicolai’s face. It was gone when Vlad looked over.
“My father played his hand too soon.”
Nicolai nodded, but remained silent. They’d had this c
onversation before. Vlad couldn’t keep things straight when he was on the coke. He was a weak link, but one that Nicolai needed to keep around. He waited for Vlad to continue, but he’d lost his train of thought, again. He’d lost his youth, as well.
Vlad was four years older than Nicolai’s thirty-two, but the cocaine had aged him another ten, easy. They were similar in appearance. Both had blonde hair and blue eyes. Nicolai, at six-foot-three, was two inches taller than Vlad. He weighed a solid two hundred and ten pounds. Vlad had wasted away to one hundred and seventy. He was skin and bones, except that he had a paunch. He looked haggard.
Nicolai agreed that Sergei had played his hand too soon. The senior Godin didn’t confer with anyone. He made a decision and then ordered his men to carry it out. If he had asked, Nicolai would have suggested they wait before taking the Sector soldiers captive. Finn hadn’t even begun trying to crack the code on the locators when the soldiers had arrived. He wasn’t ready for field tests. Godin should have given the man more lead-in time to get some of the bugs worked out.
Now, due to Godin’s haste, they had to abandon a secure place of operation. It was warm, the waters were relatively calm. They were safe from prying eyes. But soon they would be headed back to the deep freeze. Nicolai was Russian by birth, but he’d grown up in the south of France. He would never get used to the intense cold of a Russian winter. He had other, more personal, reasons for not liking Russia. Before those reasons could eat away at him, Nicolai threw himself into the evacuation plans.
Sausalito, CA
Tate sat in the diner across from her motel, sipping decent coffee and flipping through the local paper. McMaster’s security team had found the body a couple of hours after she had left the area. It was big news in San Francisco and that news had trickled down to this small newspaper. She’d spent the previous day twiddling her thumbs, waiting for Tommy to figure out who Freemantle was and what he had done. Tommy would pass any information he had onto her handler and then she’d get a call about her next job.