by David Koepp
Naomi, completely deaf in her left ear and overwhelmed by a loud ringing in her right, turned and saw the woman standing behind her, holding the smoking weapon.
Teacake rose, looking at the woman with eyes wide.
“Mrs. Rooney?!”
Mary Rooney lowered her dead husband’s service weapon, the one she had reported lost rather than turn in when he died, the one she’d brought to the storage unit in the shoebox that very day.
She turned from Mike’s scattered remains and looked back at Naomi and Teacake. “That boy just wasn’t right.”
THE GUNSHOTS WERE STILL ECHOING IN THE LOBBY WHEN SHORTY AND the Rev turned on their heels and took off for the pickup truck. The situation wasn’t the sort of thing you needed to stick around and try to figure out. Six gunshots—like cannon shots, these things—coming from what sounded like a semiautomatic weapon somewhere a hundred feet ahead of you, while you were in the process of loading stolen merchandise into your truck in the middle of the night? Yeah, you go ahead and get the hell out of there as fast as you can.
They jumped in the truck, Shorty threw it in reverse and stomped on the gas, and gravel flew so hard and so far that it left a spatter of cut marks in the glass entry doors. She spun the wheel, the truck skidded around in a neat 180, and they took off up the driveway without a look back.
Griffin and Dr. Steven Friedman weren’t positionally advantaged in the same way, however. They were already on their way back to the storage locker for another load of TVs, just around the corner from it when they heard the blasts. Dr. Friedman ducked low and threw his hands up to cover his ears, a biologically useless response that left him a sitting duck in the middle of the hallway, but his years in dental school included no training for this sort of predicament.
Griffin was different. Griffin had gamed out this kind of scenario a hundred times while playing School Shooter: North American Tour 2012, a modification for Half-Life 2 that he’d downloaded off the internet. He responded instinctively, joyfully, flattening himself against the wall and pulling the Smith & Wesson M&P 40C from the shoulder holster under his jacket. Before the shots had faded, he’d done a quick recon, left-right-left, and saw the hallway was clear except for Dr. Friedman, who was still crouched in the middle of it. Griffin took one step forward, grabbed the dentist by the collar with his hammy left hand, and dragged him back against the wall.
Dr. Friedman looked up at him, still crouched, terrified. “What the hell is going on?” he asked in a trembling whisper.
“Active shooter,” Griffin said.
He hadn’t felt this good in years.
Twenty-Six
Roberto was on Highway 73, just eight miles outside of Atchison, when Abigail’s call came. His cell phone was still sealed in the pouch, so he’d left his laptop open on the passenger seat, using an AT&T card to stay connected to the internet. He put in his Bluetooth, hit the space bar to answer, and listened while she explained the latest development from inside the storage place.
He wasn’t quite sure he actually understood. “They left? What do you mean they left?”
“They’re not in the unit.”
“Why the hell not?”
“She said there were others inside the facility and they had to warn them.”
“Great. They’re noble. How many others?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Can you get her back on the phone?”
“I’ve tried four times. She doesn’t answer.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Less than two minutes.”
“What about the other person?” he asked. “The infected one, outside their door.”
“She didn’t say.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“It was a very short conversation. She hung up on me. You know everything I know.”
“Okay,” he said, thinking. “Okay. Okay.” He repeated everything she’d just said, because that’s what he’d been taught forty years ago. “Naomi told you she and the other clean body were leaving the storage unit because they heard others had arrived. She did not say how many. You have not had contact with her since. This was about two minutes ago. Do I have that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you know their names?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Roberto thought quickly. Damage assessment, diminishing returns, risk versus reward, evaluating the rotten situation and deciding on the least rotten course of action. He had an idea, but it meant widening the circle. Could help, but it would have to be a cloudless night. He put down his window, stuck his head outside, and looked up. The sky directly overhead was clear, a brilliant canopy of stars. Okay, they got lucky on the weather. He put the window back up.
“I’m going to need some aerial help,” he said into the phone.
There was a pause on the other end. “I don’t see how that’s possible.”
“Anything’s possible, Abigail. Some things are just more possible than others.”
“I don’t have those types of resources.”
“I know exactly what kinds of resources you do and do not have, okay?” He didn’t mean to snap at her, and he softened his tone. He had exactly one ally at the moment and couldn’t afford to lose her.
“You want satellite reconnaissance.” She said it the way someone would say, “You want a billion dollars.”
“I want a Global Hawk directly overhead at ten thousand feet, but we’d never get one here from Edwards in time. I’ll settle for a Keyhole. A ten-minute redirect would do it.”
“That would require attorney general approval.”
“Yeah, if we were going that route. But we’re a little more informal on this one.”
“You’re crazy. Operationally, I mean. You’re almost delusional.”
“No, I’m ambitious, Abigail, and so are you. Come on, who do you know at the NRO?” The National Reconnaissance Office handled coordination of surveillance satellites and dissemination of data within and among the NSA, CIA, FBI, and Homeland Security.
“I don’t know anybody there,” she said with irritation.
“Can you please lose the attitude? I will be on-site in nine minutes.” He looked down at his speed and saw he was over eighty. He lightened up on the gas.
There was another pause on the other end of the line, then Abigail’s voice came back, still tentative, but he could almost feel her mind engaging with the problem. “My friend Stephanie dates a guy at the ADF-E.” The Aerospace Data Facility–East was located just on the other side of Fort Belvoir and was the operational hub of reconnaissance satellites all over the world.
“See?” Roberto said. “You see what you can do?”
“But I’d have to wake her up—he’d have to be on duty—”
“We’ll need a few things to break our way, no question.”
“I’ll call you back.”
“Wait,” he said. “Have you ever met this guy?”
“No. I saw a picture of him once.”
“Who’s better looking, him or Stephanie?”
“I don’t know. Do we really have time for that?”
“Stephanie, I mean, Abigail—goddammit.” He was getting tired and seriously cranky. “Please just answer the question. Who is better looking?”
“Stephanie is gorgeous. She’s way out of his league.”
“That’s our first break right there. Wake her up. You have the coordinates already. I need eyes overhead in five minutes. If any infected people leave that place, I need to know how many there are and where they go. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“And get me some personal information on both of the people inside that place. The clean ones. Work history, favorite ice cream, whatever you can come up with, I might need it. Understood?”
“Understood.” Abigail hung up to get to work.
Roberto pulled out the earpiece and closed the laptop. He allowed himself a tiny sigh. This was sort of, possibly, maybe going to work out. He’d forgo
tten how many people he knew and how good he was at getting the best out of the ones he didn’t. Wrinkles appeared, and he ironed them out. There’s just no substitute for experience. You take a lifetime of acquired skills, season it with the wisdom of age, throw in some good instincts and reflexes—you can’t learn those, you have to bring ’em to the party—and you’ve got yourself a pretty damn effective operative. Hell, maybe he never should have retired in the first place. He’d be there in eight minutes and have this resolved within the hour. He smiled.
Then the cop popped his lights.
Roberto looked up into the rearview mirror, a familiar sinking feeling in his stomach. The cop was so close behind him and the flashing red cherries so bright they stung his eyes. He looked down at the speedometer. The needle was pushing ninety. Speeding? He was speeding? Yeah, you’re a real genius, Roberto.
He banged a fist off the steering wheel and drove on for a moment, his mind racing in eighteen different directions, every single one of them a dead end. The cop double-tapped the siren, and the whoop whoop almost made Roberto jump out of his skin.
He had no choice. He pulled over.
The gravel shoulder crunched under Roberto’s tires and he brought the minivan to a smooth and responsible stop. He looked up into the rearview to see if there was anything he could learn. The cop’s car was a standard four-door sedan, probably a Chevy Impala. It had a red light bar on the roof, square headlights with alternately flashing high beams, and a blue zipper light in the front grille. This information, taken as a whole, was of absolutely no use whatsoever.
A look back over his shoulder was too much an admission of guilt, so Roberto switched to the side view, where the angle would mean he was a bit less blinded. The police car hadn’t pulled as far onto the shoulder as he had, so he could make out the cop’s silhouette through the windshield. The man was looking down, radio in hand, probably just ran the plates and was waiting for a response. Roberto steadied his breathing, running through options. There weren’t any good ones. Taking off was the worst—you can’t outrun radio waves. He’d end up in a high-speed chase that he would lose.
He thought about throwing the minivan in reverse and slamming into the cop’s front end, hoping he’d get lucky and pop a tire, but he was just as likely to blow one of his own, which would make it a real short chase. And even if he got lucky and disabled the police car without damaging his own, see section regarding radio waves.
Reluctantly, he thought about killing the cop. Even if he could get his head around murdering an innocent officer of the law who was just doing his job, he had no weapon on his person. The nearest gun would be an unloaded M9 in one of the trunks in back. Trini would have left a full clip in the foam packing beside it that he could slap in in a second, but getting to it would be a problem. If he made the slightest move toward the rear of the car, that cop would be out of his own vehicle and crouched behind his door with his weapon drawn in seconds.
And then there was that part about killing an innocent cop. He’d never done that before.
The door of the police car opened, and the cop got out. He was tall, maybe six feet four inches, and he had his round-brimmed hat in one hand. He paused, closed his door, and took a good long time putting on his hat and adjusting it just so. Great, he was a dick on top of everything else.
He started to walk toward Roberto’s car. Roberto watched in the side view, still thinking. A bribe seemed unlikely to have any effect, and he had only a few hundred dollars in his pocket anyway. As the cop reached his window, one last desperate thought popped into Roberto’s mind. Maybe try the truth?
Never work in a million years.
He opened the window. The cop glanced at him, bent down ever so slightly, and checked to reconfirm that Roberto was the only passenger. “License and registration, please.”
“Was I speeding?” Jesus, that was it? The skilled professional, and that was what he came up with, the exact same thing that every single motorist who has ever been pulled over in the history of the interstate highway system said? Was I speeding?!
“You were. License and registration?”
“I’m going to open my glove compartment,” Roberto said. See? I’m a good citizen. I’m a reasonable guy like you. You can trust me. See?
“Go ahead,” the cop replied.
Roberto leaned over and opened the glove compartment, having no idea what he would see inside. It occurred to him, as he pushed the button on the front, that there very well could be a weapon in there. Trini was thorough, and she would have sent him out into that good night fully prepared for any situation that might arise, including a sudden need to arm himself. He hesitated, his finger on the button of the glove compartment, and thought about how mistakes can cascade on you. He let it hang there for a second while he thought. Revealing a gun in the glove box was going to deteriorate this situation in a big hurry.
“Sir?” Roberto’s head was turned toward the glove compartment, so he couldn’t see the cop, but he could feel his presence, and he could hear the rustle of the man’s shirt as his arm moved. There was a very subtle creak of leather, and Roberto knew the cop’s right hand was now resting on the butt end of his sidearm, moving it infinitesimally in its holster to make sure it wasn’t stuck.
Things were falling apart fast. Again, he had no choice. He had to open the glove compartment and hope. He released the button, it clicked, and the door fell open.
There was no gun. He closed his eyes and willed himself to breathe. Still okay. Not only was there no gun, but there was a neat yellow rental car jacket, the paperwork exactly where it should be. Roberto picked it up, turned, and offered it out the window to the cop. “It’s a rental.”
The cop took the papers. “Your license?”
“Inside my jacket.” He held up his hand, just outside his jacket—May I?
“Go ahead.”
Roberto reached into his jacket, took out his wallet, removed his license, and handed that out the window too. The cop took it.
Roberto waited while the cop inspected the documents. If Trini had rented the car in her own name, he would have some explaining to do, but that was the least of his problems at the moment. That one he could talk his way out of. He looked at the dashboard clock. He’d lost three minutes already, he needed to be rolling in another two or the satellite window he’d asked for, which he had no reason to think Abigail was even going to be able to open, would be closed by the time he needed it.
How could everything be so much worse now than it was just 180 seconds ago?
“Thank you, Mr. Diaz.” Roberto heard a slight pause and the tiny bit of spin the cop put on his last name, tried to think about whether that casual racism would help or hurt matters, and concluded it made no difference. The policeman handed him back his documents, saying nothing about the rental car registration. Damn, Trini was a star, she’d even put the car in his name. Roberto took the papers.
As the cop turned his focus from the documents to the inside of the car, his gaze stopped abruptly on the back. The tarp that Trini had thrown over the military crates wasn’t big enough to completely conceal them, not with the addition of the half-barrel-shaped T-41. To anyone who had any experience at all, or even watched the right kind of TV shows, the stuff in back looked exactly like what it was—crated weapons.
The cop pulled a flashlight from his belt and clicked it on. He couldn’t look in a trunk without permission or cause, but he could sure as hell look into a car through an open window. Roberto glanced up at the cop, taking advantage of the momentary distraction to size up his opponent. He thought briefly about throwing open the driver’s door, slamming it into the cop hard enough to knock him over or wind him or get a lucky door handle in the guy’s balls. If that went his way, he’d keep his momentum going, lunge out of the door, disarm the cop, and pop him twice in the head with his own gun. That was a lot of ifs, and most likely it ended with Roberto dead by the side of the road or stuck in a Kansas jail cell while a plague-like fungus rav
aged the land.
So, not so good, that one.
But then he saw the tattoo. Because the cop had to keep his right hand near his weapon at all times, he’d pulled the flashlight with his left and had to reach across his body to shine it into the back of the car. The warm weather meant he was wearing his summer uniform, a short-sleeved light blue shirt that cut just below the biceps. His arms were big, worked, and as the cop moved his arm around with the light, the sleeve slipped up over the curve of muscle, revealing an extra four inches of bare skin.
Roberto saw the thick black X tattooed there, meant to fall just above the line of the uniform, discreetly kept under the fabric. But tonight, at this moment, in this position, it was revealed, lit by the red flashing lights of the cop’s own cherries.
The X was just two thick bars, their tips pointed into triangles at either end. Nothing fancy, nothing colorful, just black ink, but Roberto was reasonably certain it was a southern nationalist flag symbol. The bars were meant to evoke the St. Andrew’s Cross and the blue star-spangled X of the Confederate battle flag. But the color and stars had been removed for those who wanted or needed to keep their alt-right political views to themselves in certain situations. Like being at work, when you’re a police officer.
The cop shifted the flashlight back to the front seat, momentarily shining it right in Roberto’s face as he put it away. “What have you got back there, Mr. . . . Diaz?”
Aha! The pause was longer this time, and the tiny emphasis on Roberto’s last name confirmed any lingering suspicions. Aha, you racist son of a bitch, I got you figured out now. You’re a white nationalist. Okay. That was something. Roberto could work with that.