Coby looked at his passenger and wondered if he was having a fit. "Hey, everything's okay, man. Chill."
"No, it's not. We're being followed. Watch out!" Steven braced himself. An SUV had pulled out right in front of them. Coby noticed it just in time to slam on the brakes and the car came to an abrupt stop inches from the vehicle.
Steven reached for the door handle, his heart racing and already going into flight mode when he found himself looking down the barrel of a gun. He turned and saw that Coby was looking down a similar barrel. "Don't kill him! Please! He doesn't know anything," Steven pleaded, terror filling him as yet another person who had gotten close to him was about to suffer.
"Don't worry kid. He'll wake up in a few hours with a bad case of cotton-mouth." The agent pulled the trigger and Coby went limp almost immediately. Steven yelled, reaching for the dart, but it was too late.
Steven turned and saw a puff of smoke emerge from the gun pointed at him. Something hit him in the chest. Shocked, he looked down and grabbed the dart. Another one hit and he grabbed that one as well. Many more came, more than Steven could remove. It occurred to him that he wasn't even the slightest bit sleepy. He looked around. There was no chance of escape. Instinctively he decided to go limp like Coby, hoping an opportunity would present itself later on.
Laurence was yelling into his bluetooth as he put his car in gear and sped off toward the trap. The SUVs parked by him followed behind. "Keep darting him! Dart, dart, dart!" He was frantic. His quarry wasn't responding to the darts. He wanted Steven incapacitated where he sat before they even pulled him out of the car so there'd be no chance of him running away.
"I got it, sir. He's out."
Laurence felt a huge wave of relief. "Get him on the monitor and keep adrenaline handy if he crashes." That many darts in him can't be a good thing. He was still amazed it took so many to take him out and eagerly looked forward to the dissection of this kid to see just what made him tick.
"Already on it, sir," the agent replied curtly.
Laurence hit his steering wheel in elation. This was the messiest collection he had ever been a part of, but it was finally over. "Take him back to base and shut the net down." Laurence was half tempted to stop for a drink, but he really wanted to see Steven with his own eyes, just to be sure. Then he was going to sleep for a week. After that, maybe a drink.
Steven peeked as someone put something on his finger. It started beeping in tune with his heart. Looking around without moving, he noticed that there were too many people for him to get up and run as he was dragged out of the car. They carried him bodily and put him in the back seat of a waiting SUV. Someone else was pushing the car off to the side of the street so it wouldn't be found. Steven felt horrible for Coby, but at least he was still alive, which is a vast departure from the norm for anyone who got close to him.
Two agents got in the front seat and Steven felt the SUV shift as it was put into drive and started rolling. He started thinking desperately, looking around while trying not to move. He could jump out of the doors but they were in a vehicle that could go faster than he could run and the men were well armed, and he was sore and nearly spent in spite of a long sleep. There was nothing in the back seat for him to use either, no tools or anything on the floor. As he lay there, Steven felt something in his hand. The darts he had removed. They had dropped from his other hand when his fingers were opened to put on the heart monitor, but he still had a handful of them. Steven had no idea if they were still effective.
He looked up at the agents. One was turned a little to listen to the beep of the monitor and they were busy talking about their next assignment. Steven recalled his discussion with Coby and it dawned on him that these guys really did love their job. As they came to a stop at an intersection, waiting for the light, he heard one complain about missing the light and the other one indicate that they'll catch up easy enough. Were they isolated from the convoy? Steven wasn't going to wait to find out. He shifted half of the darts into his other hand, then sat up as fast as he could and jabbed the darts in their necks before they realized something was wrong.
Both reached for the darts then slumped. Steven was surprised it actually worked. The SUV started rolling just as the light turned green and Steven scrambled over the seats and steered the vehicle into a parking lot. He could hear the bluetooth earbuds buzzing with voices and knew that someone had noticed them. He opened the driver's door and shoved the driver out onto the pavement and closed the door, then did the same with the passenger. Suddenly it occurred to him that he should have retrieved their phones so he could listen in, but it was too late now. He wasn't about to take the time to get out and get them now.
The scanner caught his attention and Steven's jaw dropped. It had not dawned on him that he had been bugged. He saw other dots starting to converge on his location so he put the SUV in drive and hit the gas, erupting out of the parking lot and speeding down the road toward Brandon's home. Steven figured the dots represented the other cars out there so he left the main avenue and started driving down side streets to avoid the dots. They continued to converge on him. If he could see them, they could see him. That was a double curse on him, since he also had whatever bug they put on him, plus the tracking the vehicle had. He decided he needed to ditch the SUV as fast as he could.
Desperate, he looked around for another car and saw one that looked like a pizza delivery car. It had its driver's side door open and Steven guessed the driver was busy making a delivery. Steven mashed on the brake pedal then jumped out of the SUV before it fully stopped and it continued until it rolled into a telephone pole. He remembered something and ran back to the vehicle, reached back in and grabbed the scanner, then ran to the car. Its engine was still running so he jumped in it and hit the gas without looking back. As he turned the corner, he ducked as SUVs sped past him heading down the street. Looking back, he saw them box in the SUV he just left, and also saw a fella waving his arms. He figured it must be the pizza driver. Steven hated stealing the car but he was running for his life. Before they noticed him, he turned off the street and started taking random turns as he tried to cool down his trail before making a beeline toward Brandon's home.
Steven looked at the scanner. What could he do if they could follow him? He patted his clothes but didn't feel any bumps. He didn't even know what the tracking bug would look like. He felt violated. But it made sense because no matter where he went, they always seemed to show up.
His stomach grumbled as he sped down the road and he realized he was smelling something. Looking around, he saw a pizza bag. He reached back and pulled a box out of the bag and opened it. Smiling, he figured Brandon would appreciate that if he was home. Steven pulled out a slice and started eating it as he continued sticking to the side streets, taking the longer way to Brandon's neighborhood. The dots on the scanner had congregated around the SUV he had just left and no one appeared to be following him just yet, so he relaxed a little. The pizza was horrible, but he was starving. He missed his meals back home and determined that as soon as he wrapped all this up, he was going to make things right with Sally and Jonah. They were right on so many counts.
"No, no, no!" Laurence yelled as he pulled up to the SUV. His men were milling around it as they secured the scene. He jumped out of the car and ran up the them. "What? This was perfect!" The operation could not have gone smoother. He looked into the abandoned SUV and noticed the scanner missing. "Perfect," he grumbled.
He was waved over to another SUV and saw the two limp bodies of his men laying in the back seat.
It appears that he darted them, sir," an agent explained. A medic had been working on them but shook his head. "They didn't make it."
"How did he get his hands on a dart gun?" Laurence looked at them. They were good men but he was furious with them.
"He didn't. I think he used darts that were shot at him." The agents held the darts that were extracted from the necks of the deceased agents.
"There was enough left in them to do t
his?" Laurence was surprised as he picked up one of the darts and examined it. There were several, so even if the darts weren't full, there was enough of a collective dose to kill the men. A dose that was only supposed to sedate Steven, and still seemingly failed.
"Apparently. It was a really concentrated dose," the agent said. "It would also seem that the dose is still insufficient to take down our target."
"We don't have anything else." Laurence had hoped it was just a matter of dosing. Without knowing Steven's physiology, he couldn't know for sure. Until now. "We're going to have to do this the hard way."
"Like it's been easy so far?" The agent was not amused, no doubt mirroring the sentiment of most of the men. Laurence had to concede, they'd all been working with little rest and no success and it was no doubt affecting them. The sooner they closed this operation down, the better.
"Okay, get them out of here." Laurence turned around and was about to address the rest of his team when a gangly looking teenager walked up to him. Laurence looked at him, "What?"
"He took my car. You guys need to help me get it back." The kid was angry.
"Why?" Laurence was completely taken aback by the teenager.
"He was one of yours, right?" The pizza delivery driver pointed an accusatory finger at him.
"No, he was a prisoner." Laurence walked past him, not wanting to continue the discussion.
"That you... allowed to escape?" The kid persisted. Laurence winced. Teenagers so love to run their mouths.
Laurence turned around. "Look, do you have a GPS locator on your car?"
"No." The driver looked surprised by the sudden change in the conversation.
"Then you're useless to me." Laurence drew his dart gun and shot the kid who fell down on the sidewalk. "Sweet dreams." Laurence holstered his weapon, remembering just then that the potency of the dart could probably have a much more permanent affect on the kid. He waved his men over to prepare for the next stage of their operation.
"Okay, he has one of our trackers and knows where we are and knows that we know where he is. Have tech reset the beacon frequency in our vehicles and reprogram our scanners. I don't want him seeing us." One of the agents walked off to contact technical support. He couldn't reprogram the chip lodged in Steven's gut so that would be something they'd just have to deal with. Of course, a reminder that they knew where he was at any given time would no doubt have a psychological value to the operation, keeping their target off balance and making mistakes.
Laurence grabbed his GPS and pulled up Brandon's neighborhood block. The team commanders mirrored his data on their devices and followed along. "Thankfully, we know where Steven is going." He looked around. "Tracking is no longer a problem." He changed to a camera view of the residence. "This... this is the problem."
The image showed a tall concrete wall surrounding the property and a heavily armed security gate. Of course, Laurence's people don't often go by the front gate, so that's pretty much irrelevant. But the presence of armed resistance ratcheted up the risk factor significantly and Laurence couldn't help but kick himself for blowing this easy opportunity. He couldn't fathom why things had gone so abysmally wrong and was extremely eager to put all of this behind him. Just who did he tick off to maintain this constant stream of bad luck? Laurence rubbed his eye brows. Focus.
He looked around at his men. "Okay, I want all 911 calls in this neighborhood and closest cell towers rerouted and proxied. I want a team on power." He looked at the image and rotated it around. "We'll blow the wall here. I want a diversionary team on the entrance and we'll synchronize to keep the guards distracted. Do not attempt to go through the main entrance or kill the guards. I want as many of them there as possible and I don't want them to think this is an organized assault." Laurence zoomed on the mansion itself. "We'll enter here, here, and here." Laurence pointed to large, low windows. I want a team up here with sniper rifles." The roof looked like it provided good coverage. He zoomed the image out. "I want a secondary net set up here and here to cover any avenue of escape," Laurence continued, pointing to strategic locations further from the house. "Most importantly, Steven is to be taken alive. Other than that, anything goes."
His team went to their respective SUVs to prepare for the assault. They exchanged their dart magazines for bullets and attached silencers on their weapons. One was already coordinating the proxying of the 911 system in that area and still another was working to reset their beacons and scanners. Laurence sat in his car looking at his scanner. Steven appeared to have made it to Brandon's. An agent walked up to him and he got out of the way as the agent reset the beacon in his car. He stood up and Laurence handed the scanner to him. All the dots but Steven had disappeared. The agent reset the frequency detector on it and the dots returned. At least Steven was blind again and wouldn't see them coming.
Chapter 20
The dots still seemed to congregate around the vehicle he had abandoned, and Steven started to relax. The scanner sitting in his lap was his first connection to technology in what seemed like an eternity and he was exhilarated to finally be able to see where his pursuers were. And he was even more thrilled that it didn't look like they were chasing him. He only hoped that Brandon was at the mansion. They had remarkable security there and he would feel much safer behind their walls.
The neighborhood changed gradually as he drove. Properties and homes got bigger. Steven started recognizing more details as he drove by. He had been to this neighborhood a few times when he was in town taking exams for college and the familiarity brought back a sense of security that Steven sorely missed. Starting to get excited, he slowed as he got to the gate of Brandon’s property, then drove past it. Grimacing as he drove by, Steven remembered he was in a stolen car, so he would have to ditch the ride first. He found a neighbor’s access road and stashed the car there, out of sight from the street. Grabbing the pizzas, he trotted and limped back to the gate and buzzed the attendant. Looking up at the camera, he waved, smiling.
The gate opened and a stern security guard stood there glaring at him. Steven smiled weakly. "I have pizza." He held up the boxes.
The security guard lifted an eyebrow as he gave Steven a withering stare. "Pepperoni?" he asked firmly as he looked at Steven.
"And sausage and I think mushrooms," Steven answered, looking in the box. "Oh, and also garlic bread."
The guard grinned. "Well, why didn't you say so? Come on in, Steven."
Steven walked in while the guard looked up and down the street then closed the door. The door was actually part of the larger sliding door that allowed vehicles to drive in and out and was extremely well armored. Steven waited while the guard secured the door. Suddenly he felt a massive wave of relief wash over him as he realized that he was with friends now, and safe, for the moment at least. No one here was trying to kill him and he wasn't having to hide. All of the guards here were combat veterans too and were heavily armed and prepared for an attack. Part of Steven still wondered if that was deterrent enough, but he pushed that thought aside as he began to mentally unwind.
Steven went into the guard house where another one of the guards was monitoring the cameras around the entrance. He sat up and called over his shoulder to a guard in the other room, "Hey, where's the napkins?"
"Over here," the other guard said. "Hi, Steven. Brandon will be here with the cart in a second."
"Oh, cool. He's home." Steven sat down heavily in one of the chairs. He was so exhausted, and yet so happy to see friendly faces finally.
"You look like you've been through Hell, kid," one of the guards observed as he bit into one of the slices. He made a face. "Needs hot sauce." He went to look for the sauce as the other guard grinned at him.
"That guy puts hot sauce on ice cream." He shook his head and Steven grinned.
"Hey, save some for me!" Brandon said as he burst in, grabbing a piece.
"Relax, I have another box." Steven lifted the first box up and slid the other one out. "Canadian bacon and something, I think." He p
eeked into it. "Pineapple?"
"Dude, it sure is good to see you. I worried all day." Brandon beamed and gave him a hug then looked at him. "You're a mess. What's up with these?" Brandon pointed to his cuts and scrapes.
Steven got serious. "You were right, Brandon. Those are some really scary people."
"Did they do all of this?" Brandon grabbed his arm and led him to the golf cart. "Why didn't you call me?"
"Oh, man, it's been a really bad couple of days." Steven sat back, feeling the exhaustion and the stress starting to weigh on him. "I couldn't remember your number. I can now. Go figure." Steven rubbed his eyes. Brandon's number was right there in front of him as he closed his eyes.
"Stress does that to me too, bro," Brandon said, smiling at him. He was amazed Steven made it there intact.
"I can't stay long, Brandon. They've got a tracker on me somehow. I can't find it, but they know where I am." Steven pulled out the scanner.
"Whoa, that's intense, dude!" Brandon's eyes got wide when he looked at the scanner. Steven nodded, feeling subdued. He was delighted to be here, but even with the guards, he decided he needed to leave as soon as possible.
"I'm sorry. I should have believed you from the beginning." Steven sat back.
"Nothing to it, Steven." Brandon kept driving. "You're staying here. If those guys want you, they're going to have to go through me and our guards."
"That's what I'm afraid of, Brandon." Steven looked at him. "Brandon, people are dying because of me. They blew up cars to try to trap me. I saw her and she was looking right at me when her car blew up." Steven shuddered.
"Who?" Brandon looked at him, agast.
"I don't know. Someone's wife. Or mother." Steven took a deep breath and looked out over the property. "I can't get the look on her face out of my mind." Steven rubbed his eyes.
Crow - The Awakening Page 47