Cybernation (2001)

by Clancy, Tom - Net Force 06

  As she reached for the phone, somebody knocked on the cabin’s door. No, not knocked, pounded on it, as if they were trying to punch a hole in it.

  “Jackson! You in there, boy? Open up!”

  Santos!

  “No! No! Go away!” Keller yelled, before Toni could stop him.

  Uh-oh. They were in trouble now—

  Chance felt like a caged beast. She paced back and forth in her office. Where was Keller? Where was Santos? Why hadn’t he left yet? Neither man was absolutely necessary at this point—the plan would go with or without them—but the lack of either would cripple things more than a little. Dammit! What was happening here?

  In the Air

  It was dark, the wind rocked the copter like a leaf blown by the winds of fate, and the rain was coming down pretty steady. Not a great night to be flying way the hell out over the ocean.

  “There it is,” Howard said.

  Michaels looked through the window. A smear of bright light shined through the darkness. The helicopter barge. Past that, at least half a mile or so, he’d guess, was the gambling ship, also lit up like a Christmas tree.

  Fernandez lurched back from the front of the copter, holding onto the seats as he came down the aisle, just barely able to stay on his feet. He got to them, sat, buckled up. “Landing is gonna be tricky,” he said. “Our pilot wants to let the captain do it, it’s his bird, he knows her better. The barge is rocking some, and their flight control doesn’t really want to let us try it, but we have insisted—too dangerous to fly back, the captain said. They said we’re gonna have to ride the storm out tied to the deck, ’cause they ain’t running the transport boats, it’s pretty choppy out there.”

  “It’s a little far to be swimming in this weather, isn’t it?” Michaels said.

  Howard grinned. “Oh, I’m sure we can convince them to let us use the shuttle boat, if we ask real politely.”

  The copter dropped lower, spiraling in toward the landing barge. The deck didn’t look very big from here. Kind of like a postage stamp.

  Michaels leaned back from the rain-streaked window. The helicopter bounced and jerked to the left, then back to the right, and caught another wind shear that dropped them like a stone so suddenly that his stomach tried to climb up into his mouth. Behind him, he heard somebody vomiting. Into a puke bag, he hoped.

  “Hang on, folks,” the captain said. “We’re going in.”

  36

  On the Bon Chance

  Toni had, she figured, about two seconds before Santos came through the door, either by using a keycard or by kicking it down. He knew Keller was in here, no question.

  But Keller was a quivering lump on the bed, curled now into a fetal position, hands over his face.

  She had to get this information to Alex. And she didn’t want to go one-on-one with Santos, not in a space as cramped as this cabin. Maybe she could take him. Maybe not. He was big, strong, fit, and trained, and she couldn’t risk losing the data she had gotten from Keller. What to do?

  The moment of panic flared, but then her brain started working. She realized that Santos didn’t know who she was, or what she was doing in Keller’s cabin. She could play that, but she’d have to do it fast.

  She grabbed her shirt, pulled it off, then peeled off her sports bra. She held them in one hand, loosely covered her breasts, and hurried to the door.

  Santos was having trouble getting the keycard override to work. He kept dragging it through the slot, but the little light stayed red. He was about to kick the door when it opened.

  A half-naked woman stood there.

  The secretary!? She was here with Keller!?

  What god had he pissed off that this man, this picaflor, was sleeping with two of his women? That was it. He was gonna kill the guy.

  “Roberto? What are you doing here?”

  “I need to talk to Keller. He’s supposed to be working. But I guess I can see why not. No wonder I couldn’t find you.”

  “He’s putting his clothes on,” she said. “In there.”

  “Yeah, well, you wait right here. I got something for you.” He cupped his groin, hefted it. “Bigger and harder than anything Keller has.”

  She smiled at him. Moved her hand with the shirt in it out of the way and took a deep breath.

  Ah. Nice mambas.

  Oh, yeah, this would have to be quick, but he could do that. Get Keller out of here, pronto, and get back to her. Leave Missy with a little something to think about—he’d make sure Keller told her about it.

  He was already halfway ready as he moved past her through the short hall toward the bedroom.

  Toni ran. She sprinted as if she were trying out for the Olympic hundred-meter dash team. She passed a couple in the hall, saw the man grin at her. Well, a half-naked woman running down the hall was probably not something they saw every day. She didn’t have time to stop and dress. By the time Santos realized something was wrong, she wanted to be far away. She had to find another hiding place, fast.

  The rain slashed down like a first-class hotel shower with good water pressure, and the blue-and-white-striped canvas roof on the shuttle boat didn’t do much to keep the people under it dry.

  Michaels was soaked by the time he got on the craft, as were the other “tourists.” The rain came in almost horizontally when the wind gusted. The spider silk vest he wore under his shirt didn’t help anything.

  Next to him, Howard yelled, “I’ve left the pilots watching the crews of the two birds and two other troopers guarding the barge crew. They just developed serious radio and com trouble.”

  The way the boat was bobbing up and down, pitching and yawing, the helicopter crews were the least of Michaels’s worries. There was enough light here to see the whitecaps and foam blown from the waves. He tasted salt then yelled, “Nice night for a boat ride!”

  Whichever trooper was operating the engine cranked it up, and the shuttle, built to hold sixty people and only half full, moved away from its moorings against the barge. The motion got worse. Anybody who was prone to sea-sickness was going to be giving up everything they’d eaten for a month. Fortunately, that wasn’t one of Michaels’s afflictions.

  The boat rocked and shook, pitched dangerously, but with its back finally turned to the wind, straightened out a little. It was still a long way to the ship.

  As the boat slogged through the four-foot seas, Michaels’s virgil buzzed against his hip. He’d left it on vibratory mode. Good, since he’d never have heard it in this wind and rain. He grabbed the unit. The caller number ID didn’t mean anything, and the little screen was blank, no visual. He held it to his ear so he could hear better.

  “Hello?”

  “Alex, it’s me.”

  Toni!

  “Babe, what—?”

  “Where are you?” she cut in.

  “On a boat heading for the ship,” he said. “We’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “Thank God. Listen, I’m on a public phone. Jay was right, about everything. The balloon goes up tomorrow. I’ve got all the details. I’ll call again later, but right now, I’ve got to go. I love you.”

  She discommed.

  A malignant worm roiled in his gut.

  “What?” Howard said.

  “Toni. She’s in some kind of trouble. Enough to risk calling on an open line. She says she’s got the evidence we need.”

  “My God,” Howard said.

  “Hurry this thing up,” Michaels said.

  Howard made a hand signal. The boat’s engine roared louder, but it didn’t seem to move any faster.

  Santos couldn’t figure it out for a second when he saw Keller lying on the bed. What, had she screwed him stupid? He was just lying there, no shirt, in his pants, curled up in a ball. Was he afraid Santos was going to beat him again?

  “Keller. Keller!”

  The man whimpered. “Don’t! I didn’t mean to!”

  Santos strode to the bed, reached down, and grabbed Keller by the hair, jerking him up. “What are yo
u whining about?”

  “I didn’t mean to!” he said. “She beat me. She made me tell her!”

  Santos turned to look behind him. “Tell her what?”

  “About Omega!”

  Santos let go of Keller’s hair and slapped him with his free hand, but only once, then ran back to where he had left the woman.

  She was gone, of course.

  He looked out into the hall. No sign of her.

  Santos pulled his com from his belt and thumbed the emergency button. “This is Santos,” he said, when security answered. “There’s a woman on board, short, black hair, maybe twenty-eight, thirty, calls herself ‘Mary Johnson. ’ Dressed in jeans, running shoes, a black T-shirt. Find her. Find her now!”

  The officer at the boat moorage was amazed. He looked at the boat with its drenched tourists. “You must be crazy to come across in weather like this! Somebody’s head is gonna roll!” He looked at the boat’s pilot. “And who the hell are you? Where is Marty? This is his shift.”

  The pilot grinned and shoved his Walther pistol into the officer’s belly. “Marty got sick. If you behave yourself, you won’t catch what he’s got.”

  The officer froze; his face went white under his rain hat.

  “Let’s move it, people!” Fernandez said.

  Michaels was first up the ladder.

  Toni had solved the problem of where to hide by running past doors until she found one that was open. She slipped into a passenger cabin, saw a maid cleaning the room, and stepped into the bathroom before the woman got a good look at her.

  In Spanish, Toni said, “Hey, you can leave that,” she called out. “Come back later please, okay?”

  The maid said, “Esta bien, Senñora,” and left.

  Once the maid was gone, Toni checked out the cabin. No computer, so she couldn’t try to upload the disc into a Net Force receptacle, or even some friend’s mailbox. Damn!

  She couldn’t stay here long, she knew. Santos would have put out an alarm by now. If somebody asked the maid if she’d seen a norte americana, maybe Toni’s speaking Spanish would throw them off. Maybe not. But the ship was rigged with surveillance cams all over, and she didn’t want to let one of those see her. Alex had said he’d be here in a few minutes. If they were about to start some kind of operation, all she had to do was stay hidden until it was done.

  That was all.

  Michaels looked at his watch. In ten minutes, everybody on the assault team was supposed to be in position. In fourteen minutes, everybody would put on their specially augmented LOSIR headsets, and sixty seconds later, they would pull guns, fire off explosive charges that would blow open secured doors, and, in theory, take over the ship before anybody could wipe the computers. He had already slipped his headset from the bag John Howard had given him, and had it tucked away in his shirt pocket, ready to go.

  But—where was Toni?

  Michaels went belowdecks, and wandered the halls, looking. There were some security types with headcoms of their own moving around purposefully, and he was sure they were looking for Toni. Or maybe they were looking for tourists carrying bags. He slipped the bag with the gun in it behind a potted plant as two of the men approached him.

  Unfortunately, one of them spotted the bag. “This yours?”

  Michaels looked at them. “What? Never saw it before.”

  One of the guards picked up the bag.

  Alex didn’t want them opening it. Quickly, he said. “Hey, you looking for a little brunette?”

  The man about to open the bag stopped so suddenly he almost fell. “You’ve seen her?”

  “Yeah, she came out up on the deck. Back by the swimming pool.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The man took off, talking into his com.

  That would help, Michaels thought. As long as Toni wasn’t hiding out at the swimming pool. But this was bad. He looked at his watch. Twelve minutes.

  Santos didn’t know what was going on, but he knew the little secretary was not what she pretended to be. He should have known. Those legs didn’t belong to somebody who sat on her butt all day. This woman had moves. He was getting stupid to trust what he saw.

  He had to find her. She was a spy, and if Keller had rolled over and given up the operation, it could mean big trouble. And as much as he hated to do it, he had to tell Missy.

  When he found her in her office and did, she was not pleased.

  “What?! Are you sure?”

  “I left Keller lying on his bed curled up like a baby, sobbing,” he said. “He gave it up.”

  “We’ve got to find her before she can get any of this off the ship!”

  “My men are all looking. Somebody saw her by the swimming pool.”

  Missy shook her head. “Why would she go there? She can’t get off the ship there. She can’t hide there. Shut off all the outgoing communication.”

  “Already done.”

  “The swimming pool, no, that doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe she isn’t alone,” he said. “Maybe she’s meeting somebody.”

  “Find her, Roberto!”

  Howard looked at his watch, then at Jay Gridley. “Stay behind me,” he said.

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  Howard adjusted the spider silk vest under his still-wet Hawaiian shirt. It was too tight. But that’s what he got for letting Michaels have his and using one of the spares. He loosened the side tabs a little. Better.

  On the minute, Howard and Jay both pulled their augmented-LOSIR com headsets from their packs, designed especially to work indoors and around corners, and slipped them on. “Don’t forget your nose plugs,” he said.

  Jay nodded, touched his nostrils. Already in.

  “This is Howard. We are still on.”

  Howard stepped to the card reader, put a strip of plastic explosive onto it, and waved Jay back. He looked at his watch, counted down the seconds.

  “—four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . now!”

  The card reader flashed like a strobe and exploded.

  After a beat, the door slid open and two armed guards jumped out, waving pistols.

  Howard sprayed them with emetic foam, a burst that looked as if a can of shaving cream had exploded. Thick white billows of the stuff enveloped the pair. They both screamed, and both started retching. Great night for reverse peristalsis, he thought.

  It would have been safer to have shot them, but they didn’t want to kill anybody if they didn’t have to.

  Even as the guards fell, he was moving. “Go, go!”

  Jay was right behind him.

  37

  Michaels heard Howard over the headset, then felt the small explosions through his shoes, and knew the teams had begun their assault on the computer decks. It would take only a few seconds, and with luck, they’d be able to shut down the computers before they destroyed their information.

  He looked up and saw a ship security man with a drawn pistol running in his direction, and he flattened himself against the wall, playing the frightened tourist. The man didn’t seem interested in him, but kept running.

  As he passed, Michaels stuck his foot out. The guy tripped, sailed a good eight or ten feet, and came down on his face, screaming as he fell.

  Michaels ran up behind the downed man and as he tried to stand, he kicked him in the head. The guy collapsed.

  Score one for the good guys.

  Santos was about to open the door of the room where the Cuban maid had seen a woman come in when his com buzzed stridently, the emergency pulse, long and loud rings.

  “What?”

  “Sir, we have some kind of trouble belowdecks! There’s a—aaahhh!”

  “What?! What?!”

  Santos heard the sound of somebody vomiting noisily.

  He snapped the com shut. The woman? Or her friends? Whatever, it was serious. He headed toward the stairs. He’d better see what was going on.

  He rounded a corner in the corridor, and saw two men in Hawaiian shirts heading away from him. They we
re dressed as tourists, but they wore com headsets and carried submachine guns. He could see what looked like body armor under their wet shirts.

  Not his people.

  He pulled back out of sight. Grabbed his com, triggered the emergency caller.

  This time, there was no answer. A minute ago, it was working fine.

  Either his people were too busy to answer, which was not likely, or the ship’s communication system had been shut down. Neither was good for him.

  He knew what had happened. The spy had arranged to get her people on board. Maybe they had been here for hours, days. The place was done. If he hung around, he was going to be done, too.

  It was time to leave this party.

  If he could get to the launch, he could escape. The cigarette boat had a couple hundred miles of range, easy. In the storm, nobody would see him, and even if they had a ship with radar, they’d never catch him in it. It would beat him half to death in this kind of weather, but the cigarette could outrun anything afloat in these waters. Florida had a long and unprotected east coast. He would find a secluded spot. Once he was ashore, he would be safe.

  Yes. He needed to go. Now.

  But as he cut up and through the gym, he came across another tourist with a headset. Fortunately, this one wasn’t holding a gun.

  “You’re Santos,” the man said.

  “That’s right. And who are you?”

  “I’m a federal agent. You’re under arrest. Sit down and put your hands on top of your head.”

  Santos laughed.

  Chance realized when the com system shut down that something grave had happened. She saw a stranger run past, men with guns, and she knew instantly that the ship was under assault.

  Her people weren’t prepared for that, not a full-out military attack. They could dump the computer drives, but the security had not been designed to hold out against SEAL or Special Forces teams once they actually got onto the ship—that had never been in the cards.