AMPED w-2

by Douglas E. Richards

  While Jake had taken the precaution of removing all of Rosenblatt’s clothing, including his underwear, and scanning it for bugs—not finding any, of course—he had left the clothing near his second in command, Kolke, who had listened in to the entire interrogation.

  But he hadn’t been the only one listening in.

  The Icarus core council had been totally blindsided by the emergence of this black-ops colonel, this Jake, and the threat he posed could not be overstated. But there hadn’t been time to cancel with van Hutten, so Desh and Connelly had done their best to multitask. They had told their guest about the attack that had killed Metzger, but not about the one they knew was ongoing even while they spoke. What would they have said? “No hexad has ever been compromised—well, until today that is.” Not exactly something to inspire confidence in the newbie.

  Desh and his old commander, Connelly, were in charge of security and operations, which were more than full time jobs. While enhanced, both men had come up with numerous security related inventions and innovations.

  They hadn’t built just one headquarters set-up in Denver and Kentucky. They had built two. Not identical, but very similar. A real facility and a decoy facility in each city. Both of the Denver facilities had mirrored exteriors, were the same approximate size, and were in proximity to similar warehouses, outfitted in the same way. Kira made sure each recruit was accidentally shown a slide pointing them in the direction of the decoy rather than the actual facility being used—just in case.

  “Isn’t the fact that they bombed it rather than raiding it a good thing?” asked Griffin from the front seat. “With a raid they’d know they’d been tricked. This way, the colonel will be convinced we’re all dead.”

  “He will be for a few days, at least,” replied Jim Connelly. “But when he doesn’t find even a hint of physical evidence he’ll eventually conclude that we’re not. The good news is that he’ll never guess he hit a decoy building. He found the structure he was looking for, and he’ll find labs in the warehouse that we’ve cluttered up to look like they were in use. He’ll decide we figured out he was coming and used advanced technology to plant false heat signatures. He’ll know we’re alive and well, but he won’t doubt for a moment he took out our headquarters.”

  “Are you positive?” pressed Griffin. “Seems like if he gave it some thought, it would be pretty obvious.”

  “All magic tricks seem obvious once you know their secret,” said Desh.

  Kira turned to Connelly with a pensive expression. “How are the rest of Rosenblatt’s hexad doing?” she asked.

  “They’ve all checked in,” he replied. “And they all followed the evacuation plan perfectly. After I gave them the signal they had plenty of time to get to an airport before this colonel was anywhere near them. I’d like to visit with each of them personally, make sure the transition to ghost is going well, but we don’t have that luxury.”

  “Let me guess,” said Kira. “You’re going after Rosenblatt’s family?”

  Desh nodded. “Good guess. This Jake will continue to keep them under surveillance. We need to get them started on our version of the witness protection program.” His expression darkened. “We’re going to have to uproot a family with three young children. It’s going to be a nightmare for them.”

  Kira met his eyes and nodded sadly. “Omaha is three or four hundred miles from here,” she said softly. “Why not fly?”

  “The colonel and I discussed this while van Hutten was being enhanced,” replied Desh. “We have some weapons and other equipment we’d like to have with us that makes flying, uh . . . problematic. Also an RV is kid friendly. The Rosenblatts can live inside until we spring Seth and come up with a more permanent arrangement.”

  Kira Miller had made great use of RVs to help her stay off the grid before she had met Desh. They were mobile, and yet when they were parked inside a trailer park they could offer a stable address. And while authorities would leave no stone unturned when it came to residences and hotels, trailer parks would fly beneath their radar, having been stigmatized as bastions of ignorance and poverty. The idea of Ph.D. scientists living in trailer parks was something not likely to ever occur to them. So Icarus maintained a number of these vehicles around the country, with several near their headquarters buildings in Denver and Kentucky.

  “Won’t it be dawn when you arrive?” said Griffin. “Wouldn’t it be better to go at night? To avoid satellites?”

  “It wouldn’t help much,” replied Connelly. “The NRO has launched several IR and radar satellites that can see in the dark.”

  “They’re supposed to be secret,” added Desh, “but the NRO purposely leaks their existence. After one supposedly secret launch they passed out patches with the slogan, we own the night, written on them. Raised a lot of eyebrows in the press at the time.”

  Griffin parked next to one of Icarus’s RVs and announced they had arrived. He slid open the side doors of the van and peered inside as his colleagues rose from their seats.

  Desh caught the eye of the brilliant hacker and said, “Matt, I need you to take a gellcap. I need you to get as much intelligence on this black-ops colonel and his unit as you can, including this Major Kolke. And we’ll need to find a way to free Seth Rosenblatt. So anything you can learn that would help in this effort would be great. You know the drill. But wait a few hours. I’ll call you beforehand with further instructions.”

  “Why wait?”

  “While we’re driving, I’ll put myself in this colonel’s shoes and think about how he’ll try to find us. Now that we’ve been compromised he knows our MO. Hiring recruits as consultants, paying them an advance before they fly out, etc. Before now, it wasn’t critical to totally cover our tracks. But now I’ll need you to hack into banks, change the records of Icarus members, that sort of thing. To more properly erase any trails.”

  “Makes sense,” acknowledged Griffin.

  Kira stared into Desh’s eyes worriedly, and then shifted her gaze to encompass both her husband and Jim Connelly. “Don’t forget about your key rings,” she said.

  “We shouldn’t need them,” said Desh. “But we won’t be shy about it if we run into trouble.”

  After the raid that had killed Ross Metzger, the core counsel decided they should each carry a single gellcap with them at all times, after all, as a measure of last resort. Kira had devised a gumball-sized container for the pills that attached to their key rings. The container would detect the fingerprints of whoever tried to open it, and if it wasn’t the owner, would dissolve the gellcap inside.

  Kira sighed, and lines of worry continued to mar her delicate forehead. “Good luck, gentlemen,” she said. “And be careful.”

  15

  Desh and Connelly arrived in Omaha, Nebraska just after five in the morning. They had switched off driving duties during the long trip and had each managed a few hours sleep. During the time they were both awake, they had performed a virtual recon of Omaha via computer and had planned out their mission.

  They had two objectives: extract Rosenblatt’s family and capture one of Jake’s men to interrogate. They couldn’t waste any opportunity to learn what they were up against. They had come up with an elaborate plan to accomplish these objectives—probably too elaborate—but they had always erred on the side of paranoia and overplanning and it had served them well.

  They parked the RV at a campground deep within an Omaha woods and jogged the quarter mile to where they had instructed a cab to meet them. Fifteen minutes later the cab deposited them at a twenty-four hour rental car company where their vehicles were waiting for them, which they rented using false identities.

  Desh drove to Rosenblatt’s house in a blue, family-friendly Toyota SUV, with three rented children’s car seats strapped in, amused at himself. It seemed like all he ever drove anymore were RVs, vans, and minivans. Why didn’t any of his missions ever call for expensive sports cars?

  When Desh arrived at the professor’s small Tudor home just outside the Universit
y of Nebraska grounds, he drove around the neighborhood in ever larger circles to recon the area for physical surveillance, but found none, as expected. Rosenblatt’s family was harmless and would never suspect they were under surveillance. And Jake had no reason to believe anyone would be trying to extract them just now, so a physical stakeout was a waste of effort and manpower.

  Even so, the colonel’s men had certainly hacked into the Rosenblatt family’s computers. And they must have been inside their home to gather the video footage that, with special effects added, had been used to break the lanky physicist. While inside, they were sure to have hidden bugs, cameras, and intruder alerts. Seth Rosenblatt was Jake’s only current lead to Icarus, and even though the black-ops colonel thought their leadership was now dead, he would make certain that any communication to or from the physicist’s family was intercepted and recorded.

  Desh and Connelly could have devised a cleaner extraction, especially with some of the technology they could access, but in this case flawless execution wouldn’t serve their needs. They needed Jake’s men to come after them, so they could capture one for interrogation.

  Desh returned to Rosenblatt’s residence and pulled the SUV quietly into his flagstone driveway. He disabled the alarm and broke silently into the house. He guessed he had from ten to fifteen minutes before the two men responsible for surveillance were alerted to his breach and arrived on the scene. If they arrived while he was still there this would put the Rosenblatts in greater danger, which he didn’t want, but he was confident he could take care of a few men at the low end of Jake’s field hierarchy who had been assigned this tedious job.

  It was just after six when he slipped into the master bedroom and leaned over Lauren Rosenblatt, who was sleeping peacefully. These would be the last few seconds of peace this poor woman would have for a long time to come—and she had done nothing to deserve this. He frowned and shook his head. This was his fault. Rosenblatt had been compromised only because he had failed in his security responsibilities.

  Desh reached down and put his hand over Lauren Rosenblatt’s mouth as firmly but as gently as possible, and held her head steady with his other hand.

  She bolted awake instantly and began screaming. The sound was muffled by his palm.

  “Seth sent me,” said Desh quickly as her muted screaming continued. “Lauren, listen to me. I’m not here to hurt you.”

  Recovering from her initial shock, she stopped fighting and trying to scream and her eyes almost returned to their sockets. Desh loosened his hold, but didn’t remove his hand from over her mouth. “I’m with the think tank Seth consults for in Denver. There are some very bad people who want to get their hands on something he invented,” he added, knowing this wasn’t true, but needing to give her a simple explanation she could grasp instantly to justify his actions. “Your husband isn’t in Japan. He’s in trouble and so are you.”

  Desh could tell she was fighting to get her panic under control and concentrate on what he was saying, which was a good sign. “Your phones and computers are tapped, so I couldn’t warn you,” he continued. “But I’ll do everything I can to protect you and your children. I’m going to remove my hand now. You can scream, but you’ll only panic your kids and make it harder for me to help you.” As he finished he released his hand from her mouth and took a few steps back.

  She flipped on a dim lamp by the end table. “Where is my husband?” she blurted out in a tone that was just shy of hysterical.

  “He’s in danger,” said Desh. “But he’s being looked after and he should be fine.” This last was a stretch, but he knew it was necessary.

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “Seth told you not to mention his consulting to anyone, correct?”

  She nodded.

  “So how would I know about it? Or that he wanted you to keep it secret? If I wanted to hurt you or your family, I could have done so already. The men I told you about are monitoring this house. The second I broke in I put myself in as much danger as you’re in. If we don’t work together, we don’t have a chance.”

  She looked scared and unconvinced, and Desh sensed she was seconds away from either becoming paralyzed with indecision or breaking down. He made a decision instantly. “Look,” he continued, “we have to trust each other. So I’ll go first.”

  He removed a taser from his pocket and tossed it gently beside her on the bed. “I’m guessing you’re not comfortable with a gun, but this will give you some protection.” He turned his back to her and sat on the floor by the side of her bed, facing away.

  Lauren pressed the button on the black device, which looked like a smooth, extra-wide TV remote, and tiny bolts of brilliant white light arced between the electrodes at its business end, emitting a crackling, buzzing sound that was unmistakable. The device was only inches away from Desh’s neck, but he made no effort to move away or protect himself.

  After a few seconds, she removed her finger from the button and the mini lightning bolt and the buzzing sound disappeared.

  “We have to get moving,” urged Desh, lifting himself from the floor. “Get your kids and tell them we’re going on a surprise trip. No school today. Try to keep them groggy so they’ll fall back asleep when they’re in the car. I’m parked in the driveway. I’ll be in the car waiting. Every minute counts.”

  Lauren stared at him uncertainly.

  Desh gestured to the taser, still in her hand. “Look, there’s nothing else I can do right now to gain your trust. Either you’re with me or you’re not.”

  Lauren Rosenblatt considered him for several additional seconds and then slipped the taser into one of her pajama pockets. She blinked as though fighting back tears. Given what he had thrown at her all at once, that she and her family were in jeopardy, and that her life was about to take a dramatic change in course, she was handling this well.

  She wiped away a few tears that managed to escape, despite her best efforts. “Have the car doors open,” she said, her features hardening in determination. “I’ll be with you in two minutes.”

  Desh returned to the driver’s seat of the SUV. True to her word, the garage door opened almost immediately and she walked out to his car. She carried one little girl on each hip, and her eight-year-old son Max trailed behind her like a baby duck, dressed in Iron Man pajamas and clinging to a small stuffed lion. All three kids looked at least half asleep.

  Lauren’s eyes bored into Desh’s face. “You’d better not be some kind of psychopath,” she whispered to him as she began placing children in car seats in the back of the hulking Toyota.

  Desh began driving the moment the door was closed, while Lauren continued to seatbelt her kids.

  “Mommy,” said tiny Jessica sleepily from inside her pink, heart covered pajamas. “I have to go potty.”

  “I know, Honey, and we’ll stop soon. Just hold it for a little longer.”

  “I’ll try, Mommy,” she mumbled, closing her eyes once again. Her brother and sister had already fallen back asleep.

  Lauren Rosenblatt leaned forward toward the front seat. “Where are we going?” she said in low tones.

  “To just before an on-ramp near the intersection of the I80 and 480,” he whispered back. “Where several intersecting overpasses will screen us from satellites.”

  “What?” she said in disbelief. “You’re not saying there are satellites watching us, are you?”

  “Maybe not this second, but there will be soon enough.”

  Lauren digested this for several seconds. “This is totally insane, you know.”

  Desh sighed. “I know. And I couldn’t be sorrier.”

  There was silence in the car for the next ten minutes. Desh checked his mirrors often, but saw no evidence they were being followed, although he was confident that this was now the case. Once a satellite was locked on, their pursuers could follow at a leisurely distance and not have to risk discovery.

  Desh called Jim Connelly.

  “Everything on track?” asked the colonel upon answ
ering.

  “So far. Our ETA is approximately five minutes.”

  “Copy that,” said Connelly. “I’ll be ready,” he finished, breaking the connection.

  “What’s going on?” asked Lauren from the back. “Who was that?”

  “We’re about to arrive at our destination. There’s a traffic signal there. We’ll stop at it, whether it’s red or not, and conduct a bit of a fire drill. My partner, who is a very nice man, by the way, will be in a Chrysler minivan pointing the other way, with his hazards blinking.”

  “What do you mean by a fire drill?”

  “The instant we stop, you and your kids are going to switch to the minivan. As quickly as possible. I’ll continue on, taking the eyes of the satellites and any followers with me. No one will have any idea you’re in the minivan.”

  “And then what?”

  “We have a large RV parked at a campground nearby, close to the Missouri River. With plenty of trees to block the view of satellites. You’ll leave Omaha in that.”

  “I thought you said no one would know we were in the minivan. So why are you still worried about satellites?”

  “Just paranoid. Two switches out of sight of prying eyes are better than one. And the RV is very nice. Big. With a bedroom, bathroom, living room, kitchen—the works. Have your kids ever been in one?”

  “Never.”

  Desh nodded. “Well, this is a horrible situation, but being driven to your next destination in an RV will at least be more fun for the kids than being strapped in a car.” He paused. “We’re almost there. If you’ll carry the two girls into the minivan, my friend can carry Max. I need to stay in the driver’s seat so I can pull away the moment the light turns green.”

  Lauren took a deep breath and nodded. She reached over and shook her son gently. “Max, honey. Wake up.”

  “Huh?” he said sleepily.

  “Wake up, Honey. In a minute we’re going to do something kind of silly. We’re going to switch from this car to another one—in the middle of the road. But it’s a little dangerous, so I’m going to have an old friend of mine carry you. Okay, Max?”