Scott’s gut tipped over then righted itself.
It would happen any second now. Any second, then nothing would bring her back.
This was the plan, he thought, as his palms started dripping, and his vision went cloudy with stress. This was the plan, and now you’ve gotta stick to it.
With that thought, he felt himself get to his feet. He turned to Rosy Cheeks, and they shared a half-second of eye-contact, in which they shared their mutual understanding of what was about to unfold; of the imminent attack on the Secretary of State.
Then Scott did it: he whipped out his Walther, swung it up, and tugged the trigger.
The only thing still rosy was the wall behind where Rosy Cheek’s skull had been.
Scott pivoted to take aim at Under Bite, knowing as he did so it would probably be too late; knowing that on average it takes a trained shooter 2.5 seconds to react and draw a weapon and take aim, and that it’d been more than that since he’d drawn his gun…
The next moment, Under Bite was in Scott’s field of vision.
But though Under Bite was a half-second behind Scott’s expectations, he was still raising his weapon, which was currently leveled at Scott’s stomach. Scott knew that Under Bite was still going to shoot him before he could get his own shot off. Because even though Under Bite’s aim wasn’t ideal, he’d fire in the hope it’d stop Scott shooting at all.
Almost in the same moment, Under Bite squeezed his trigger, and a bullet plummeted into Scott’s gut.
But Scott was calm now. Calmer than he’d ever been. So even though the pain shocked him, made him experience the world in a way he’d never experienced it before, he somehow compartmentalized it, and continued taking aim.
A second later, it was Scott’s turn to pull the trigger. So he did.
Please hit home. Please.
A half-second after that, Under Bite’s jaw shattered off his face. A lethal head shot.
And a fine piece of dental work, Scott thought, with a spike of dark humor.
But he knew there was no time for triumphalism – Shuai Zhang was still active.
But while Shuai had no doubt heard the action, he hadn’t yet appeared in the five seconds since the shooting had first begun.
With his head swimming, and yet still with consummate calm, Scott darted as lightly as could over to the closed door Shuai had retreated behind, barely registering the blood and guts he left in his wake. He pressed his back against the wall next to the door.
As he did so, he could hear Shuai scuffling urgently over to the other side of the door.
Scott glanced at the door. It was constructed to open into the lobby, and he was standing on the side opposite to the hinges, meaning he was about to get a clear shot at Shuai.
But he couldn’t kill Shuai: needed him alive. So, instead, he had to incapacitate him.
Scott leveled his gun at knee-level, and waited.
A second later, the door opened.
Scott pulled the trigger, expecting Shuai to step into his line of fire. But immediately he saw it was a misjudgment – Shuai had held back. Then three things happened at once: Shuai entered the room; one of Shuai’s hands grabbed Scott’s gun, and redirected it away from his body; and his other hand leveled his own Walther at Scott’s chest.
Scott thought: react or die.
With his free hand, he snatched Shuai’s gun and redirected it away from his body. Then he charged forward, and slammed himself into Shuai. And though Shuai had half a foot on Scott, he was caught off-guard. And, as they toppled, both guns discharged at once, bullets whizzing off into two separate walls.
When they hit the deck, Scott lost the grip on his weapon, and it skimmed across the carpet and under the sofa.
The next instant, they were grappling – messily, scrappily, breathlessly – as they fought for Shuai’s gun. And though Scott started off on top, and managed to drive a knee into Shuai’s testicles, a fist into his kidneys, the tide quickly changed: Shuai mercilessly smashed his own free fist twice into Scott’s gut, into his bullet wound. And the lack of air and internal damage sent Scott’s mind into a dizzying oblivion. And next thing he knew – though he still had a hold on the gun – he was on his back, and the punches kept on coming.
Fight back, he told himself dimly. Fight back. But his body didn’t obey. All he could manage was to keep a hold on the gun.
It’s all over. I’ve let everyone down.
As he thought this, Shuai jerked the gun, and Scott finally lost his grip.
But then, out of nowhere, an opportunity. Shuai had jerked too hard, and his follow through had him collapse heavily on top of Scott, his neck in Scott’s face.
Without thinking, Scott bit hard into the side of Shuai’s neck. Shuai screamed a blood-curdling scream, and tore himself away from Scott’s jaw. He was bleeding a thick flow over Scott, their blood mingling.
Capitalize, now.
Scott’s drove a thumb into Shuai’s right eye, and pushed hard, and Shuai screamed again. Then, while keeping the pressure on Shuai’s eye, Scott – with a burst of newfound energy – toppled Shuai, regained the dominant position, and pried the gun from his hand.
Then he whipped the pistol across Shuai’s face. And Shuai immediately stopped screaming and started making guttural sounds.
Scott scrambled to his feet, and aimed the gun at Shuai’s knees, and waited for Shuai to catch his breath. Ten seconds later, Shuai – still on his back, his right eye swollen over and distorted – was looking up at Scott with his good eye, with a hand pressed to his neck.
‘You traitor,’ he spat.
‘The Secret Service man in the Command Center that Yuelin has under her control – what’s his name?’
‘You animal. Yang guizi.’
‘Tell me, or I’ll put a bullet in your knee. They say nothing’s as painful.’
‘It won’t help you, guizi. He’s out of contact. There’s nothing you can do.’
‘Tell me the name.’
‘Fuck you.’
Scott pointed the gun at his arm, and twitched the trigger.
Shuai screamed again as the bullet smashed through his elbow.
‘Guizi, guizi.’
Scott felt himself sicken, his skin crawl. Again, he’d been forced to torture.
‘That’s a taste, you piece of shit. Now, the name, or it’s your kneecap.’
Shuai panted frenziedly, looking at Scott with the one manic eye. Then, all at once, he made a decision.
‘Agent Tom McVries.’
‘If you’re lying—’
‘It’s Tom McVries,’ Shuai broke in. ‘McVries, McVries.’
At that, Scott swooped down, and again whipped his pistol across Shuai’s face. Shuai went unconscious.
Scott didn’t want him dead – it was possible he’d need him again – but he also had to make sure he definitely wasn’t going interrupt what Scott planned to do next. Although of course there was no guarantee that what he’d planned to do next was even possible.
That would really be something, if this turned out to be nothing more than a wild goose chase, Scott thought suddenly, his gut seizing again. If this plan had been doomed from the start. If it had never been here at all.
He glanced at the TV – still no developments. Then he scrambled over to the door to the second bedroom, the bedroom in which he’d seen the two pieces of luggage with the words L. Kelden on the side.
As he entered the room, the luggage, sure enough, was still on the bed.
He was after the device that Lawrence Kelden, during Operation Buckshot Yankee, had invented to disable the virus that’d been implanted on US Government air-gapped computers. In 2008, the Russians, using a rogue USB stick, managed to implant a virus onto a US government computer and this virus ingeniously bypassed the fact these computers weren’t connected to the internet by making use of radio technology. Basically, it allowed someone to remotely send instructions to these computers, as well as receive data from them, via radio. This meant that the
y were suddenly hackable. But before the Russians could exploit what they’d implanted, Lawrence Kelden had created a device – a unique combination of hardware and software – that he’d used to communicate with this virus. That he’d used to tell the virus to go to sleep, and to obey orders from no other device.
Only, rumor had it that he didn’t create just one machine that was able to communicate with this virus, he’d created two, and kept one for himself. And Ellen Kelden had confirmed this rumor to Scott just a few hours ago; had told him that Lawrence had taken this device with him wherever he went.
So, if it was here, it was a game-changer. Because while there seemed to be no way to contact the blackmailed Secret Service agent in the Command Center, Scott knew that pretty much all the agents in that room would be at air-gapped computers linked to internal databases and CCTV cameras. And if he had the ability to hack the computer McVries was using, he had the ability to communicate with him – since hacking is simply one computer forcibly communicating with another.
And if it was here, if it did exist, Scott reckoned it probably looked fairly indistinguishable from a standard laptop. Only, seeing that it needed extensive radio functionality, it’d probably have some external radio equipment affixed to it, too.
Scott shuffled across the room, fighting off a fresh wave of blood-loss-induced dizziness. When he reached the two bags, he picked one at random, and opened it.
His heart sank. It contained mostly clothes, accompanied by a few bits of innocuous technology – a monitor, webcam, cables.
Scott moved onto the second, and prayed as he worked the zipper…
This one was instantly more promising: it contained a wealth of technology. And Scott’s heart thumped and gut throbbed as he ferreted through it wildly.
Then he spotted it: a medium-sized, unbranded laptop, with what appeared to be a radio transmitter affixed to the side.
This has to be it.
No sooner did he think this than another wave of light-headedness struck. Whereas the adrenaline had previously silenced his pain, it was now getting harder to ignore. He’d never been so self-conscious about his body. About this cumbersome, fragile thing he was struggling to make work.
But he was so close. Just had to concentrate a little longer.
He delicately picked up the laptop, sat down at a small desk in the corner, and turned it on. He watched nervously as it fired up. Then a desktop appeared, and there was just one icon, entitled Buckshot Yankee.
With tentative excitement, he double-clicked the icon.
The machine started whirring. A few seconds later, a program filled the screen. A simple, minimalistic program, that took the form of a database list of hundreds of government computers; a list that included the names of the individuals logged into these computers, their locations, and which department they belonged to.
And there was a search-bar at the top right.
Scott clicked the search-bar, and typed “McVries.”
Suddenly every single entry below disappeared. Except one.
A computer, situated in San Francisco, belonging to the Secret Service, and operated by one Thomas McVries.
Scott gulped back the emotion thickening his throat; then, he right-clicked on this lone entry. He was presented with a list of options. One was to “remotely control” McVries’s computer. That meant, if it worked, Scott would be able to view, and control, McVries’s computer from where he was sitting.
He clicked this option. A new window popped up, and took up the entire bottom half of his screen. Contained in it was what was appearing on McVries’s screen right that second – he could tell because there were icons for Secret Service databases. And he could see that McVries was using his computer that very moment, because his cursor was moving around.
Scott clicked a button that gave him exclusive control of McVries’s computer. Then he opened up a word processing software, knowing as he did so that McVries would already be taken aback – would have immediately realized he’d been hacked.
Then, once it’d loaded, Scott wrote the following:
McVries, I know you have been blackmailed to be complicit in a plot against Forsyth. But if you do not derail the plot immediately, I will release the incriminating evidence against you, and you will be held accountable for the atrocity. You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t – so do the right thing.
Then Scott clicked the button that allowed McVries to control his own computer once more, and waited for a response.
Chapter 33
Sunday, December 12, 2:43 p.m. – 525 University Avenue, Palo Alto, California.
I broke into a sprint – a mad, lunatic, adrenaline-soaked sprint. And before I knew it, I was also pounding up the concrete stairwell.
We both knew we were racing for Forsyth’s life. Everything hung in the balance.
And as we ran, it struck me that I must’ve been a complete spanner in the works for this guy: he would’ve been told that he’d be allowed to get on with his task undisturbed. And I reckoned he would’ve realized I wasn’t law enforcement: I was simply someone who’d stumbled across his plan. And I imagined he’d decided that, while I might be able to hurt him, nothing I could do was as bad as what the terrorists were threatening.
He’d rather die than fail.
As I hit the seventh floor, and knew we couldn’t be heading up much further now, it occurred to me again that I may have to kill this guy. I didn’t want to. But if I had to choose between his life and Forsyth’s, Forsyth’s would have to win out.
A door slammed above – on what I reckoned was the ninth floor. He’d exited the stairwell. Eight seconds later, I too was on the ninth floor, and passing through the stairwell door. And I did so cautiously, because I was nervous he might try to ambush me.
But the other side of the stairwell door was eerily calm. Austere hallways stretched away both left and right, and there were multiple doors to either side. But unlike earlier, when I had to gamble between left and right, I knew he had to have turned right, and entered one of the doors on the right: those were the rooms that looked out in the direction of the hotel.
But the problem was, there were over twenty doors to the right, each a good distance apart. And though disaster could strike at any second, I’d no choice but to investigate them one by one, since there was nothing to indicate which one he’d entered.
With a rising dread, I fell urgently to action, and burst silently through the first door on the right. An empty office. No cigar.
I re-entered the hallway, and paced to the next door. Again, nothing doing. And as I returned to the hallway again, I started to panic: I wasn’t gonna find him in time—
Scarcely had I thought this when I heard someone bumping loudly into some furniture – maybe a chair or table. My head snapped in the direction of the sound. The ninth door on the right, that’s what it sounded like.
As I began sprinting, more sounds emanated from that same room – the guy surely preparing to shoot. He knew he’d given himself away, and was just trying to get his shot off. And it was about to happen, any second, and I’d still be uselessly chasing down a hallway…
I was ten yards from the door. Then five. Then I was at the threshold.
The guy was laying on his front, on top of a white plastic desk, and his arms were wrapped around a sniper rifle aimed out the window. And though I couldn’t see his hands, I could tell by the way he was breathing – the hard exhale – he was about to do it.
I had no choice.
I whipped out the Walther, aimed at his head, and worked the trigger.
A fraction of a second before the bullet hit, the guy worked the trigger of his rifle.
Then two things happened seemingly at once: there was a big blast of noise, and the guy’s head burst into a hundred pieces.
He was dead, but he’d still got his shot off. I’d failed. It was all over.
Only, there was one thing I didn’t understand.
The sniper rifle he’d used, no
w entangled in his body, unlike every other sniper rifle these nationalists had used hadn’t been silenced. It didn’t make sense.
Although my instinct told me to run, I moved into the room, and approached the neighboring window.
Then my confusion only deepened.
The guy hadn’t been aiming at the hotel. He’d been aiming at an apartment block next door, and from what I could see, all the bullet had done was smash a large window. What’s more, not only was I fairly sure I hadn’t disrupted his aim, but it was also nearly impossible – given the angles – to get a clear shot at the hotel’s frontage from his window at all. You could see the area in front of the hotel, but little of the hotel itself.
The crowd were dispersing in disoriented panic. And already, the Secret Service had kicked into gear. The agents behind the rope barrier worked to stop the crowd surging forward. The guy behind the wheel of the reinforced limo maneuvered so that it was placed between the front entrance of the hotel, and the general direction the bullet had come from.
A few seconds later, I could just about make out some movement beyond the limo – and knew that a group of agents, who’d formed a circle around Forsyth, were moving her from the hotel to the limo. The next instant, the limo was belting away from the scene.
I took a step back from the window, knowing that sharpshooters would be desperately seeking out where the bullet came from.
Then, just as I’d thought I couldn’t get more confused, the walkie-talkie in my pocket – the one on Yuelin’s frequency – came to life.
It was Scott Brendan.
‘Saul, please tell me you’re there.’
* * *
I withdrew the talkie.
‘Scott?’ I replied, with obvious confusion.
‘There’s a bomb at Secretary Forsyth’s safe-house – 563 Los Ninos Way, Los Altos. That’s 563 Los Ninos Way. The road’s just south of El Camino Real. It’s half a mile long, runs north to south, and the house is about mid-way. The bomb’s a plastic explosive, molded to the shape of a lamp-shade. The shooting at University Avenue is just a catalyst to induce a retreat to the safe-house, because they knew that getting a clear shot at Forsyth would be practically impossible. The guy they’ve put up to creating a threat at University Avenue, his finger-prints – unbeknown to him – have also been planted at the safe-house.’
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