4 Real Dangerous Place

by K. W. Jeter

  After a moment, Cammon slowly nodded.

  “So you were deploying the HoBo substance – also right?”

  “You have to understand –” It was Weiss who spoke up, leaning forward in his chair. “There are conditions in the field – in more than one strategic theater overseas – where it’s urgently needed. The balance of power in those regions could be completely shifted. Just a few targeted air strikes with the HoBo substance – the propaganda value alone would be enormous.”

  “Somehow,” said MacAvoy, “I don’t really think you and your boss here give a rat’s hindquarters about the balance of power. Or anything else – except your own careers. You were on top of the appropriations pile when the HoBo project was fully funded. And when the plug got pulled, there’s not a lot of places to go to now, for people with your kind of resumés.”

  “That’s not important, Colonel –”

  “The hell it isn’t.” The contempt in MacAvoy’s glare was obvious. “Especially since I know there’s an active elimination order on you two and everyone else connected with the project. You talk about it, to try and sell your expertise to a black-budget operation here or somebody in a foreign country, and you’re dead meat. So the only way for you to get back to the cushy salaries and expense accounts you had before is to have this stuff go live somewhere. Then the government would have to not only acknowledge its existence, but get behind it. Then the HoBo project’s fully funded again, with you back in charge. Nice plan, doctor.”

  Remember what I said at the beginning, about how your boss sucks? The way everybody’s boss sucks? Here’s further proof, not as if you needed it. As smart as Cammon was about some things – like coming up with this nasty HoBo stuff – in a lot of other ways, she was really stupid.

  “There’s just one thing you didn’t count on.” MacAvoy went on taking her apart, piece by piece. “You didn’t figure that if you were sneaking around behind other people’s backs, keeping the HoBo substance instead of having it all destroyed, then smuggling it out – then somebody might’ve been going around behind your back. Either it was somebody on your team, or somebody farther up the chain of command, who you thought was covering for you. But somebody talked – because Richter paid them to. That’s what he does. He’s been after this for a long time. And now –” MacAvoy pointed to the freeway. “He’s got it.”

  SIXTEEN

  ELTON AND I climbed back up into the panel truck front seats. From there, we could watch as the big articulated arm of the Claw, with that thug Scavulos manning the controls, stretched across the freeway and picked up the dairy truck. Before Richter and the two others had walked away with their prize – not that we knew what the hell it was they’d been after – they’d tossed a thermite grenade on top of the two delivery guys’ bodies. I caught just a glimpse of them wrapped in flames as the whole mess was tossed over the guardrail.

  “Okay –” I looked over at Elton. “We need to make some plans.”

  “You’re right.” He slowly nodded. “There’s something else going on here. We can’t just sit around and wait for it to be over and hope that we’re still around when it is. These people have got some other agenda on their minds.”

  I looked over at the empty spot ahead of us, where the dairy truck had been plucked from. Richter’s crew had left the corpse of their team member, the one that the deliverymen had managed to take out before they’d been nailed, just lying there on the concrete. They obviously weren’t a very sentimental bunch. Which wasn’t a good sign for the rest of us.

  “What do you think it is?” I squeezed my hands on the steering wheel. “What they’re cooking up, I mean?”

  “If I knew,” said Elton, “I’d tell you. And then we could both say we’re geniuses. But if this was supposed to be just some run-of-the-mill hostage situation, with that funky bit about doing it by the numbers . . .” He shook his head. “It’s not adding up. Maybe . . . maybe they just want the police and everybody else to think that’s what they’re up to. As a cover for what they’re really doing.”

  “Like what?”

  “Hey – you watched it, same as I did.” He pointed to where the dairy truck had been. “They went to an awful lot of trouble just now, to get something out of that truck, which wasn’t supposed to have been there at all. Not if those guys had really been just dropping off milk at the convenience stores.”

  “True.” I nodded, trying to piece it all together. This had been the sort of thing that Cole had been good at, figuring out what other people were up to and what they were likely to do next. But I was drawing a blank right now, at pulling up my own inner Cole. “Must be something valuable. Or maybe just to them.” At that point, I didn’t know squat about HoBo – that was all stuff I found out later. “Doesn’t really matter, right? I mean, what it is and all.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Well . . . they’ve got it now. Whatever it is. If that’s what all this is about, instead of bottling up a bunch of hostages and getting some whopper ransom for them, then these guys are done. They’ve got what they came for, and now they can just take off with it.”

  “Good luck with that,” said Elton, “when you’re surrounded by every SWAT team between here and Ventura County.”

  “You got a point there.” The puddle of milk on the freeway had turned pink with all the blood that had leaked into it. “For people who just wanted to grab something and run, they seem to have arranged for a lot of attention. A lot more than you would think they’d have wanted.”

  “Exactly. I’ve worked with outfits like this –”

  “When?”

  “That’s not important.” Elton’s tone was all business now. “The last thing guys like this go for is having people watching what they’re doing.” He pointed up through the windshield. “So why’d they allow that news copter to cover what’s going on? Plus that whole business of torching a car every half hour and tossing it over the side? I mean, even bringing in a whole piece of heavy machinery just to do that. When it would be just as effective to plug one of the hostages and toss the body.” Deep creases formed on Elton’s brow as he mulled it over. “This whole setup is way too theatrical. But they’re professionals – you can tell that.” Another shake of his head. “Boy, I don’t get it. At all.”

  “You’re right.” A couple of pieces had clicked together inside my own head. “It’s like a fireworks show or something . . .” I glanced out the side window at the electrical wires and ominous little packets that Richter’s crew had strung along the lanes of motionless cars. “So maybe . . . maybe they didn’t set things up here, just to keep the cops from busting in.”

  Elton had caught my drift. He was looking at the same stuff I was, and not looking too happy about it.

  “Maybe –” I pointed to the wires and packets. “Maybe it’s all part of the show. The grand finale.”

  “Could be.” Elton raised an eyebrow, nodding as if almost in appreciation. “The bigger a mess you make, the easier it is to get away. This whole place goes up, the police are going to have a lot more on their hands than just chasing down the bad guys who pushed the button.”

  “Umm . . . small question here.” I waved my hand, gesturing at the freeway around us. “These guys are all bottled up in here with us. They light the place up, how do they get out? Call a taxi?”

  “Not our problem, is it? They didn’t exactly hire me as a consultant.”

  “It’s kind of a significant detail to overlook.”

  “Fine.” Elton sounded a little irritated. “Whatever. These guys want to blow themselves up along with everybody else, I gotta figure that’s their lookout. Call me heartless; just the way I am.”

  “That’s okay.” I reached over and touched his arm. “I’ve gotten a little callous as well. Must come with the territory. I’m really just concerned about our hides. And my brother’s.”

  “Then just sitting here waiting isn’t going to do it for us. We need a plan.”

  “Got one?”

/>   “Maybe . . .” Elton slowly nodded, deep in thought. “If blowing stuff up works for these people . . . maybe it would for us, too.”

  † † †

  There were other people discussing their plans. Like Richter and his bunch.

  Over at the jackknifed truck at the front of the bottle, Mozel shoved the HoBo cylinder into Richter’s arms.

  “This is what you wanted, right?” He was visibly seething. “Now tell me why it was worth getting one of our crew killed.”

  “Don’t worry.” Richter gave him a thin smile. “You’ll see.”

  “See what? All I can see is that we’re already sitting on a couple hundred hostages. So why the hell should we screw around with –”

  “I told you.” The smile disappeared. “That you don’t need to worry about it. You just need to worry about doing what I tell you.”

  “Yeah, but –”

  “Patience is a virtue.” Richter turned and set the cylinder inside the open rear door of the big rig. “And rewarding.”

  † † †

  Other people, besides Elton and me, had figured out that there was something funky with this whole business.

  “It – it doesn’t make sense.” Down in the police command post, Dr. Cammon looked puzzled. “Richter must know that there’s no way he’ll be allowed to leave here with the HoBo substance. No matter how many hostages he kills.”

  “Affirmative,” said MacAvoy. “You might have had a chance of sneaking it up to some Air Force base, then getting it out of the country on some transport to wherever it was going to be deployed. But the lid’s blown off your operation now.” He glanced over at Glover beside him. “We’re on lockdown now, aren’t we?”

  “Pretty much.” The police captain nodded glumly. “The orders already came in. From way up the line. They’re giving us a little more time, to get it worked out at the local level –”

  “That’s only because they don’t want to go public with something that’s not even supposed to exist, like this HoBo stuff.” MacAvoy pointed his thumb toward Cammon and Weiss handcuffed in their chairs. “These people have put the ones I used to work for in a tight spot. They’d just as soon avoid sending in a full-scale military operation to clean up the mess. But if they have to, they will. They’ve probably already got the strike teams on standby, just waiting for the go order.”

  “Great.” Glover shook his head. “How hard will they come in?”

  “Hard enough that you won’t have to worry about Richter and his crew killing the hostages. They’ll just be collateral damage.”

  “But if Richter knows he can’t get away –” Cammon spoke up again. “Then he must be planning on doing something with the HoBo substance here. But that doesn’t make sense, either. If he were to disperse it, with an explosive device or any other method, then he’d be exposed to it as well. Why would he do that?”

  “Give the woman a prize,” said MacAvoy. “Let me show you something, doctor.”

  He went over to the video equipment. Reaching past the technician sitting there, he punched the playback control buttons. Running the hard drive back to the sequence of Richter standing on top of one of the cars trapped in the bottle, MacAvoy froze the image on a closeup of Richter’s face.

  “Right there –” He pointed to the monitor screen. “You can see it. Richter’s already infected.”

  The others all stared at the thick black fluid caught trickling from one nostril.

  “That’s what went down at the research facility in Kansas, when Richter first tried to get hold of the HoBo substance.” MacAvoy studied the image. “My team was able to stop him then – but Richter still got his hands on it, just long enough to be exposed. I thought that might’ve happened, but I wasn’t sure. At least, not until now.”

  “I think I’m starting to get the picture.” Glover turned his gaze from the monitor and toward the colonel. “Things didn’t go the way he planned – because you got in the way.”

  “That’s right,” said MacAvoy. “I had more than one encounter with him – but those were just business for a professional like him. The last one made it personal. It’s why Richter wanted me to be here and in charge. Then whatever happens, I’ll be the one who screwed up.”

  “So that’s what this setup is for.” Glover gave a slow nod as everything became clear to him. “He never planned on getting away – he just wants company when he dies.”

  “Exactly.” MacAvoy jabbed at the playback controls again. The image jittered, then froze on a news broadcast, with a still photo of MacAvoy’s face visible behind the anchor desk. The text crawl at the bottom of the screen said FORMER ARMY COUNTERTERRORIST EXPERT CALLED IN. “That’s why Richter had you bring me in here. This isn’t about money – at least not for him. It’s personal now. That’s why Richter’s been stalling, playing for time. He wanted to make sure the whole world’s looking when it all goes down.”

  “But –” Cammon spoke up again. “You don’t know what he’s planning – you can’t know! It could be anything . . .”

  “That doesn’t matter, doctor. As long as whatever happens –” MacAvoy’s face set grim. “Happens on my watch.”

  † † †

  They were both right – Cammon and MacAvoy. He’d figured out the main thing that Richter was after – but just like she said, there was no way that he could know what else was being set in place, to get there.

  A major piece of Richter’s operation wasn’t even at the freeway yet. It was still in the air, heading south from the commercial airport it had taken off from.

  Richter’s partner Cray, up in the cockpit, wasn’t in good shape. The shop rag he taken from his back pocket was now shiny-wet, blackened by the thick, blood-like fluid that was trickling from both nostrils now. He’d started coughing up some of the same stuff, its taste of decay and salt lying heavy on his tongue before he spat it out. That was the effect of the HoBo substance progressively moving through his body, disconnecting one tiny piece from another, cell by cell, molecule by molecule, atom by atom. Without his being able to inject the coagulant factor, it wouldn’t be too much longer before there wouldn’t be a human being at the plane’s controls – at least not one that you’d be able to recognize. Instead, there would just be a black, oozing puddle. Still alive, still conscious even – but not human. Not any more.

  Before that happened, though, Cray still had a job to do. Maybe there would be enough time left, before the plane reached Los Angeles. And if there wasn’t – what would it matter then?

  He set the plane on autopilot, then pushed himself up from the seat. Weakened by the HoBo’s effects, he steadied himself against the bulkhead, stumbling as he made his way back to the cargo area.

  Somebody was waiting for him there. Somebody Cray had left for dead, when he’d first taken over the plane. Lying on the cargo hold floor, with one arm pressed tight against the gunshot wound in his side, the copilot watched as Cray dragged himself into sight.

  The gun tucked inside Cray’s jacket seemed to weigh him down, making every motion into an insurmountable effort. He pulled the gun out and set it on the floor, near the freight igloos. And the copilot’s hand.

  Breathing heavily, Cray pulled one of the igloos closer to the cargo area’s hull door. It was the freight container that he had loaded aboard the plane before taking off. He opened up the igloo’s front hatch, revealing the custom mechanisms he had painstakingly crafted and welded inside. Wiping the black fluid leaking from his nostrils with his sleeve, Cray unfolded a set of steel braces, their joints locking tight as they extended from the hatch. With a socket wrench, he fastened the braces’ ends to the cargo hold’s circular frame sections. When the last bolt was tightened, Cray’s trembling hand dropped the wrench, his head hanging low with exhaustion. The igloo was secured in place, its open hatch only a couple of feet away from the hull door.

  If he’d been in better shape, he might’ve noticed that his gun wasn’t where he had left it. The copilot had stealthily reached out and
fastened his hand upon the gun, drawing it back toward himself.

  After a minute or so, Cray had gathered up enough of his dwindling strength that he could go on working. He reached inside and flicked a metal switch. A row of green LEDs lit up on another piece of equipment, about the shape of a steamer trunk, with a deep circular socket on its face, roughly the width of a man’s hand.

  At the same time, the copilot made his move. When Cray drew back from the igloo’s opening, the copilot raised the gun and fired. The bullet went past Cray’s shoulder and hit the hull door controls behind him. The door cracked open, depressurizing the plane. Cray grabbed hold of the igloo, his fingers clawing at its edges to keep from being sucked outside.