Recon
Page 10
The maid cleared her throat, shaking Carter from his pondering. Shading his eyes with one hand, he held the tester next to the sensor as he had the others. This time, he hit a different button and a red light shone upon its face.
He turned to the maid standing in the doorway, holding it above his head for her to see. “Looks like this is the one.” The sensor was held to the window by two small screws. He pulled out a compact drill driver and pulled the trigger. With a dead battery he’d intentionally loaded, the device didn’t turn. He glanced around the room. “Battery’s dead. I got a spare, but mind if I plug this one in?” Without waiting for an answer, he removed a charger the size of a brick from his belt, pulled back a leather executive chair from a desk, and dropped to his knees. He ducked his head and slid under, next to a small Dell desktop. The power button glowed, but having nothing displayed on the screens meant the computer was probably in standby. Spying six spare USB ports in its back, he plugged a tiny dongle into one. A bug. It filled the port and concealed it nicely, looking as if part of the back of the case. Now, only a close inspection would reveal a port existed there at all. Carter allowed a slight smile of approval at Jamison’s handiwork.
Next, he spied a spare outlet in a surge protector and plugged in what looked like a mobile phone charging cord, another one of Jamison’s devices. It would recharge a phone, but that wasn’t its main purpose. It doubled as a signal repeater. The tiny USB bug couldn’t broadcast more than fifty feet, so this repeater, feeding off full household current, would take that signal and boost it over a mile. Lastly, he plugged in his drill driver’s brick. Before backing out, Carter dropped his cheek to the Persian carpet. Bare feet now stood in the doorway.
With a fist, he smacked the underside of the desk, pretending to hit his head. “Damn it! Oh. Excuse me.” He backed out from under the furniture and rubbed the back of his skull, as if he’d smacked it, hoping to distract Maurine from the fact he’d just been below the desk. He slipped in a spare battery into the drill driver. “Just needed to plug in my brick.” He loosed the screws on the window and adjusted the position of the sensor ever so slightly, pretending to test it after each adjustment. Several times he selected the red light till, moving it right back to where it had been, he hit the green button, holding it high over his head once more, in triumph. “That should do it!” He started toward the door.
“Don’t forget your battery charger,” Maurine said, smiling.
“Yeah. Thanks for reminding me.” He slipped beneath the desk, unplugged it, and stole a quick glance at the USB bug and the signal repeater, reassuring himself they were properly installed. Standing up, he wrapped his charger’s cord, dropping the spare battery onto the senator’s keyboard as he’d practiced. Reaching to pick it back up, he was careful to bump the mouse. One of the flat screens lit up, displaying a logon screen, and a low whir sounded from under the desk as a computer cooling fan spun up. “Yeah. Sorry. Hope I didn’t hurt nothing,” he said, walking back to the door.
Jamison had told him all he needed to do was get the machine out of standby and he could start hacking. He would make it simulate going back into hibernation, but in the background he’d be downloading the senator’s hard drive. And, while there, he’d adjust the network’s settings so Jamison could monitor the home’s computer traffic, with or without the senator’s desktop running, just in case. Jamison might have been a socially inept geek, but he was a belt-and-suspenders kind of hacker. An asset to the investigation.
To appear thorough, Carter checked the rest of the downstairs windows as well, but green-lighted them all. While in a marble-floored bathroom with plate glass shower, Jamison droned, “The bug and the repeater are active. It’ll take a while to gain direct access, but that’s all we need on-site. Clear to go.”
At the control box, Carter rapidly flipped through more menus, Maurine never less than twenty feet from him. He gave an occasional smile or Hmm of approval, then said, “Yeah. I think we fixed it. Thank you for your business. No charge, of course. It’s all a part of your service fees. We’ll let you know if another problem shows up.” He stepped back outside, moving toward the van, pretending to thumb his phone, being careful to stumble on a crack in the sidewalk.
Chapter 12
Rabbit
Red’s knee burned, sanded by the damp denim of his jeans. He’d been low-crawling for a hundred meters across yet a third ridge, injured leg stretched stiffly, rubbing off patches of skin. A few yards ahead a yellow-and-black butterfly soared on a pine sap–scented breeze, fluttering more in random staggers than coordinated flight. It swooped past a thick green bush with crimson thorns, then turned to light upon a lone pink flower. A perfectly synchronized landing. A slender siphon unwound and probed between the petals, wings flapping, flashing yellow and black. A few seconds later it mounted the breeze again, dropping out of sight behind the gray granite slab toward which Red crept.
He glanced over his shoulder. Penny smiled back, only her face visible next to a thick spruce trunk, its low dirty-blue branches blanketing her body. He’d left a scrawl in the earth after him like a sidewinder upon hot sand. Up to now, he’d been so careful not to disturb the forest floor, but low-crawling with a bum leg made it impossible.
They’d be most visible while crossing these ridges. He inched forward to the edge of the sun-warmed slab, ducking below an overhanging branch of a long-needled pine rooted in a fissure. He timed his forward thrusts with the breeze, moving when wind rocked the branches. Peering over the boulder, he pushed a sigh of relief through tight lips. Thank God. The red metal roof of a small two-story cottage came into view near the bottom of the shallow ravine. A narrow clay-packed road led to it. A lake lay to one side like a shining meadow. A small brown stone outbuilding sat near a narrow cut of water.
Sunlight glinted off the rear cab of a tan pickup pulled across what could otherwise be three parking spaces. Skid marks lay behind the huge tires. An older-model Jeep, jacked skyward in the style rednecks favored. Hard to tell for certain from this distance, but splintered reflections made the rear window appear shattered. He stared at the vehicle for several minutes, trying to make out some sort of cargo in the bed. Actually looked as if someone was lying in it, taking a nap. Or, someone could have killed the truck’s owner, stolen the vehicle, and stashed the body in the back. No—it couldn’t be a body. The wet team wouldn’t leave a corpse in plain view. It would warn their prey.
He scanned the far wall of the narrow valley, then across the lake, and back down the road. The scene reminded him of a recent op in North Korea. It had been winter then. And the valley had been snow-blanketed meadow, not silver lake. He didn’t like to recall it. Other than completing the mission, not much had gone well.
He shook his head and drew his thoughts back to the present problem. Down those blunt boulders, there were so many places a hunter could be waiting. Watching the house and valley. Assuming the hunter knew it was here.
He lowered his arm and beckoned to Penny.
* * * *
Blue-green needles pricked Penny’s cheek. Their color matched her jacket, at least before it had been stained by grass and clay while she was crawling on her belly. A stinkbug landed on one sleeve, but she didn’t dare swat it away. Dad had said being on top of a hill was dangerous. That someone could see them a mile away.
It had taken him forever to crawl to the boulder. His leg must be getting worse. He pretended it didn’t hurt, but couldn’t bend it much now.
They should’ve seen the house from the last ridge. Maybe she’d pointed them in the wrong direction. It had taken so long to get here, carefully placing her feet every step. Dad had glared if she even snapped a tiny twig. And she had to watch the woods around them. “Keep your eyes up,” he’d whispered. But how was she supposed to keep her eyes up and not step on pinecones? There was no way Mommy knew all this stuff. She was probably rattling through the forest like a squirrel on coffee.
Something moved near the branch next to Dad. He was waving her forward. She crawled just the way he’d told her, belly on the ground like a snake. Mommy was going to yell when she saw the ruined new jacket. Dust tickled her nose, and she stifled a cough. A few minutes later, needles of the branch next to Dad brushed her neck.
He smiled and leaned close to her ear. “You did that better than a lot of the guys I know. I couldn’t even hear you.”
Eeew! His breath stunk. Since when did the guys that protect the president need to crawl through woods? Maybe that’s not what he did now, after all. But where’d he learn all this hiding-in-the-woods stuff? Probably growing up on the farm with Grandpa.
She inched forward, toward the sun. The big rock on which she lay warmed her belly. She pressed her ear to it, resting her head for a second.
“Can’t go to sleep now. We need your sharp young eyes. The house you saw is just down there.”
Excitement leaped in her chest. Still, she didn’t pick her head up off the rock for a minute. At last, she pushed forward and peered over its edge. “Yep, that’s the one.” A square, white-painted chimney stuck from its red roof like one of Jackson’s Lego houses. “Can we go down and call for help?” she whispered.
“Not yet. Think like the bad guys. What would they do?”
She shrugged. “Wait inside the house?”
“Maybe. But being inside a house makes it harder to see and hear stuff. They’d probably wait outside and watch for us.”
Penny glanced around the valley, studying the shady bases of trees. “So, why’d we come here, then?”
His beard twisted in a smile as his eyes still searched the distance. “You and I need to be better than them. Study everything. Take a picture in your mind of the trees. Then, if something changes, you’ll notice. Right now, this rock’s warm from being in the sun all day. There’re lots more hot rocks along this ridge too. So, we’re fairly safe if someone has thermal optics.”
Penny wrinkled her nose. “Has what?”
“Special binoculars to see heat and cold. We’re hot, and right now so are these rocks, so they won’t be able to tell us from them. But when the sun goes down and the rocks cool, we’ll need to move beneath thicker bushes. Then, we’ll try to make it to the house.”
She frowned, not liking this plan. “But, you said the bad guys would be watching the house.”
“Maybe. Or, maybe they already left. What I’m really hoping is they didn’t climb a tree like a gangly girl spider, so they don’t even know about it.” He turned his head to her slowly and smiled. “We’re safe for now. But, to stay safe later, study the valley. Take pictures in your mind. Whisper to me if anything changes.”
* * * *
Red slowly dropped to one knee. A fingernail paring of the moon hung high over Pikes Peak. Even so, the sky was clear enough he could’ve read a newspaper beneath the glow of the Milky Way. He glanced back toward a stand of tall grass, but could no longer see Penny’s silhouette. She’d be safe up there. If someone caught him, she was tucked down far enough they’d never find her, even in daylight.
Tufts of grass and pine needles showered from his sleeves where he’d woven them into the sweater to break up his form. He crawled below a thicket of scrub oak on a hillside above the parking lot. The plump form of a chipmunk, or maybe a rat, scurried out of a burrow, toward the pickup truck. A brown-and-white flash descended. An owl’s claws scraped the sand next to the creature. It dashed into the shadow of one of the massive tires.
Red stretched his neck over a branch and peered into the bed. Damn. Two empty, open eyes dully reflected starlight. The corpse was a woman, not one of the shooters at the visitor center, arms crossed neatly over her stomach. Not much blood on the floor, so she’d been dead when they’d placed her body. Whoever had put her back there had done so carefully, respectfully. Not the work of the enemy, whoever they were.
Should he chance checking the body for a cell phone? Maybe an old CB radio in the truck? Exposing himself in the open would be a risk, but making a call out would put an end to this mess.
Slowly, he crawled down the short slope, leaned over the bed, and felt the front pockets. The body was stiff; full rigor. Fingertips brushed metal lumps, and he pulled out a small key ring. Maybe for the truck? No, the shanks were shorter, like for a house.
Another glance around the valley and he vaulted into the back. He straddled her thighs and felt beneath for the back pockets. One held something flat and stiff. He yanked out a cell phone. Cradling it tightly to his chest to hide any escaping light, he pressed its face. Nothing. He held the power button, and for a split second swirling dots appeared, but quickly faded. Dead battery.
He shoved the device into his own pocket. Never know if a charger might be in the house and could bring it back to life. Easy for a cell phone. Not so much for a life. From her other hip he pulled out a man’s wallet. He flipped it open, and a photo of the woman fell onto her cold belly. In it, she was kneeling in front of a jungle gym, flanked by a freckled boy in a Superman T-shirt and blond girl gripping a Barbie by the hair, all smiles.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. Who was doing all this? Such an intense effort meant government funding and support. But which one? And why? How could you murder an innocent mother just to… He shook his head. Couldn’t go there. To an operative, the woman was collateral damage. Unfortunate, assuming the gunman had a conscience at all. But the mission came first. Such an enemy would continue until Red and his family were eliminated.
Briefly, a glimmer of light reflected from the side of her eyes, like she was staring at him. A chill ran up his arms. Rage heated his belly. Focus on the present, he told himself. Anger was like adrenaline. It provided only a momentary boost, but drained you in the end. When things go to shit, an alert mind makes the difference. He had to get Penny out alive.
A large metal toolbox lay at the front of the bed. He opened the top and grabbed a screwdriver. Might need it to break into the cottage.
A rust bubble pocked the metal bed. This Jeep was old, so it wouldn’t be difficult to hot-wire. The enemy may be watching the roads, but they couldn’t keep their eyes everywhere. It was worth a chance. As he swung his good leg over the side rail and stepped back down, gasoline vapor burned his nose. He slipped beneath the rear bumper and peered up at the tank. Too dark beneath to see, but the odor was strong. He lifted a hand and softly tapped the bottom. A hollow twang. Empty. Must’ve drained out and evaporated off. He smacked the back of his head upon the gravel, chest tense, wanting to scream. What was God trying to do? Why couldn’t he catch a break?
He rolled out and shuffled back beneath the cover of sage-scented scrub oak. A last glance back to Penny’s hideout, then to the house. If the wet team had already been inside, they’d have destroyed any phone or radio. But on the outside chance someone had left a phone charger, one that would fit his or the dead woman’s, maybe he could get a signal to make a distress call. With his bum leg, that plan might provide his only chance of getting out with Penny. He had to try.
He ducked again and crawled around the small parking lot, approaching the far side of the cottage. Two dry, scraggly bushes grew against the foundation, branches flailing as a gust of wind whipped around the house. Red scurried behind them, into the shadows, like the rat. Held his breath to listen, but nothing sounded over the gusts. He squeezed under the porch rail, rolled to the threshold, reached up, and tried the doorknob. It turned easily, and he crawled inside.
* * * *
Penny stared at the cottage’s side window, lit a glowing green. It felt like Daddy had crawled from their grassy hideout a hundred years ago. But being afraid made time go slow. And now, she was even more scared than the time she’d snuck out of her room to eavesdrop on that movie
with the serial killer that Mommy and Daddy were watching. So maybe it hadn’t been as long as she thought.
That dim green glow still hovered in the window like the shiny eye of a huge monster. Daddy had said it was probably from a clock or microwave. Once inside, he would cover the light to let her know he was safe.
They’d ripped off handfuls of stalks with long, narrow leaves, sticking them all over his sweater and legs, even tucking them down his neck to cover his face. He’d smelled like the hay bales back at her riding stable, but with bad breath.
She peered through a slender gap in the leaves and…yep, still glowing.
Crunch!
Something moved near the front of the hideout. She pulled her knees beneath her, ready to spring like a rabbit and run. But no… Daddy had said to stay still, no matter what. That no one would see her here, that the grass covered her even from those special binoculars.
Crunch. Crunch.
Like boots on dry leaves. She gripped some stalks and stared out the narrow path, toward the house. The green light was still on. She’d been careful to stay back, away from the edge, just like Daddy said. How had they found her?
Last month, while walking Heinz with Grandpa, she’d spied a skinny bunny at the edge of a freshly mowed field. The rabbit held still as a statue. The half-blind dog had trotted right past it, nose to the ground, sniffing eagerly back and forth as if smelling but not seeing it. The lab never spotted his prey.
Penny’s fists quivered in rhythm with her racing heart. Her tongue throbbed too.
Crunch. Cruuunch.
It was closer. She would stay still, like Daddy had said, like the bunny rabbit. But she was ready to spring if spotted.
Crunch.