by Roland Smith
There is an inherent problem in wiring a house for covert observation. Too many cameras and microphones increase the chances of them being discovered. But too few devices leaves any house or structure with blind spots that can be exploited. Malak was not a prisoner or being held against her will. She was being observed. It was a small advantage, but for the Leopard, it was enough.
When she stepped out of the bathroom she thought she heard something downstairs. It was a light click, like a door shutting, or maybe a chair in the kitchen scraping over the wooden floor. The house had been empty when she returned. She knew this because she cleared each room upon her arrival. She took no chances.
Carefully Malak made her way down the stairs. Her automatic pistol was in her hand. The stairs descended to the front door and a small foyer. To her left lay the living room, then the dining room. The kitchen was in the rear of the house, with a back door. To her right was a coat closet. She checked and found it empty. The living and dining rooms were undisturbed. She made her way quickly through those rooms to the kitchen.
Nothing.
She checked the back door. It was locked, just as she had left it when she reentered the house.
It must be stress and nerves, she thought. I’m hearing things. When she entered the dining room again, there was a manila envelope lying on the table. Malak tried to remain calm. If someone wasn’t already monitoring the cameras around the clock, then her reactions would be noticed when the cell reviewed the footage. The Leopard was never startled, the Leopard remained calm, the Leopard did not react with alarm. At least not on the outside.
But inside she was ready to burst. She was certain the envelope had not been there when she returned from running errands. Now there it was. And what’s more, she was almost positive it had not been there a few seconds ago. On her way into the kitchen she had glanced all around the dining room. No one had been there. There was no place to hide. How could this be? She took several deep breaths.
Tearing it open she found a handwritten note with a telephone number scrawled on it and a prepaid cell phone. The note read:
Call this number. The phone is secure.
Malak dialed the number. It was answered on the first ring.
“Who is this?” she demanded.
There was no response at first. But she knew someone was on the other end. She could hear background noises and the breath of the person on the line.
“I think the question is, who is this?” a voice said. Whoever it was spoke into a synthesizer that disguised their voice.
“You know very well who it is,” Malak said. She slipped easily into the Leopard persona.
“What I know is, until you arrived on the scene, our little organization had five leaders. First Number Five dies at the hands of a rogue agent, an attack you should have seen coming. In Kitty Hawk, you meet Number Four and a few hours later he dies at the hands of the SEAL team. Then Number Three dies under dubious circumstances. Interesting how they all died shortly after meeting you. That makes me suspicious. We have no tolerance for ambition.”
“You’re suspicious! I barely escaped alive after meeting your ‘Number Five.’ I nearly died trying to save Number Four, only to find out the next day from Number Three that Four had been killed. Now you’re telling me she is dead as well. How? When did this happen? Who is responsible? I want answers! Why am I here? What is the mission?” She paused, waiting several beats before she lowered her voice and continued. “I suggest you answer before the Leopard goes on the hunt.”
There were several seconds of silence on the other end.
“You’ll find out. When it’s time. Stay where you are. Keep this phone with you at all times. You’ll be contacted.” The call was disconnected.
Malak lay the phone down on the table. Barely able to maintain her composure, she made her way back up to the upstairs bathroom. Once inside she closed the door.
She pounded her fists on the sink in frustration.
Counterattack
Bullets zinged through air that was full of pieces of glass and bits of automotive upholstery. Boone ducked low behind the dash and in the next instant reappeared at the rear window in the master suite. Carefully lifting his head, he peered through the window. Felix and Uly were holding their own against the four guys in the Hummer, but the intellimobile was taking a beating. The noise of the automatic-weapons fire and the smoke from the expended rounds roiled through the air. Boone ducked as several shots chewed up the rear of the coach.
Things were about to get worse. Two more Chevy Suburbans screeched to a halt alongside the Hummer. Four guys emerged from each one. All of them were carrying fully automatic rifles and knew how to use them. Felix and Uly cursed as more bullets pocked and pinged the van, and tried to fold their massive frames back inside the intellimobile. At first, Boone didn’t see Vanessa. Then she stepped out of the space between the intellimobile and the Range Rover it was towing. She let fly with two knives. Both of them found targets: Two of the attackers slumped to the ground. She must have climbed out the back window of the coach while Felix and Uly kept the shooters occupied.
The shooting in the rear momentarily stopped. Either they were reloading or changing tactics. Two men stood up and fired at the SOS vehicles. Six others split into groups of three and sprinted in opposite directions to the ditches by the road, barreling into the cornfield. If they could make it far enough, they would encircle the vehicle and catch them all in a cross fire.
The cornfield was a tactical mistake on their part. It was perfect for Croc and Boone. Boone whistled. Then he cracked the window on the rear of the coach and disappeared from the bedroom. He reappeared behind one of the shooters amid the rows of corn. The man jumped when Boone tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned around, Boone was gone—and so was his rifle. Confused, he looked back to where his companions should have been, only to find them both on the ground. The last thing he saw was the butt of his own rifle connecting with his jaw.
Boone inched out toward the road. Directly across from him, he saw Croc emerge. In the next moment he looked down to find the dog at his side. The shooting from the other side of the cornfield had ceased. Boone and Croc turned their attention to the shooters in front of and behind the coach.
The problem of the two remaining men firing from their rear was immediately solved for them. The back doors of the intellimobile burst open. Boone was shocked to see X-Ray emerge with a machine pistol in each hand. He jumped down to the pavement and darted around the Range Rover, rushing toward the Hummer. Boone had no idea X-Ray could move that fast.
“My van!” he shouted as he commenced shooting. “My computers!” He screamed curses as he ran. The two men were momentarily startled by this frontal assault. “Nobody messes with my data! My equipment! You lousy terrorist sons of guns!”
Boone couldn’t help but smile. The diversion allowed Uly and Felix to take out the two shooters. But X-Ray didn’t cease firing until he emptied the magazine of each pistol into whatever targets he could find.
“Felix, Uly!” Boone shouted. Both men whirled, bringing their rifles up, but relaxed upon recognizing Boone. He gestured from his position to the cornfield on the other side of the road.
“Croc took down three bad guys over there. Uly, go clean up. Vanessa, make sure X-Ray doesn’t shoot anyone else. Felix, search the bodies for ID. I doubt we’ll find anything. I’m guessing it’s a contract crew. Probably not even cell members. Use X-Ray’s handheld scanner doodad to run their prints. There are three down over here, too,” Boone said.
“Uh. Boone. What about the shooters up there?” Uly asked. All of them glanced toward the front of the coach, surprised that no one had fired from that position for a few moments. The assailants in the front were probably confused and uncertain at what was happening to their team at the rear of the coach.
“Don’t worry. I got them.”
Boone and Croc stepped back into the cornfield.
Then they were gone.
More Qu
estions
My phone pinged in my pocket. Right after my stomach had finished a rather long, low rumble of hunger. It was close to lunchtime. I was hungry. I’m always hungry. Roger was a vegetarian. He was trying to get us all to be vegetarians. So far I had learned one thing about vegetarians. They’re always hungry. So they just eat more of things like kale and artichokes. And stay hungry.
True to our word, we had stayed in our rooms with the adjoining door open. Angela was over at her desk, trying to catch up on our assignments. And looking up stuff about Boone. Which had been made easier because P.K. was sending us stuff we would never have known about Boone and his … I guess “secrets” is the only word.
I lay sprawled on the bed. I was absentmindedly practicing with a couple of magic scarves. My constant riffling and shuffling of the deck of cards had finally driven Angela crazy. Knowing she was under a lot of pressure, I left her alone and went into my room. There I commenced with the sprawling and making the magic scarves change colors in my hands.
The phone pinged again.
“Are you going to get that?” she finally asked with a sigh.
“Probably not,” I said.
“May I ask why?”
“I’ll bet it’s spam.”
“Text spam? Um. Q. What if it’s from P.K.?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, scrambling off the bed.
Getting my phone out of my pocket is a complicated process. I almost always wear cargo pants or shorts, depending on the temperature. They’re the only pants with enough pockets for all my stuff. Usually three or four decks of cards, magic coins and scarves, a rolled-up baseball hat, a pair of sunglasses, a multi-tool, and whatever other stuff I might find interesting or decide I need.
Angela had tried to convince me to keep my phone in a pocket with nothing else in it. It would be easier to get to in an emergency. Or if I needed to call Boone. Or her. Or the president. But, it didn’t work out so well. I need to carry a lot of stuff. Finally I fished it out from underneath a deck of cards to find P.K. had sent me a text.
“Huh. What do you know? P.K.” Angela sighed again. I was only trying to keep things light. I forwarded it to Angela’s e-mail so we could open it on her computer. I walked to her desk to read over her shoulder.
HI Q and Angela.
I’m in the Solarium. With Bethany. The homework cop. Doing fractions. Pfft. Made me eat tofu 4 bfast. Ugh. Here’s some more stuff I found out abt the WH. Hope u guys r doing great. TTYL. PK.
There was a link. We opened it up and it was another scan of a really old photograph. It showed a bunch of guys in blue Civil War uniforms. They were standing in front of a tent. At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. There was a man sitting in a chair, in front of all the other men. He had a thick black beard and looked like he was in charge.
But one guy stood off to the side and a little behind the others. It was almost like he was trying to sneak out of the picture and didn’t quite make it. His face was a little blurry, but the dog lying on the ground beside him confirmed it. Croc.
“Boone was in the Civil War?” I asked.
“Apparently. And quite high up—that’s General U. S. Grant, commander of the Union Army. He became president after the war. I wonder how many POTUSes Boone has known?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe it’s not Boone in these photos. I mean not our Boone. Maybe it’s like his great-grandfather or great-great something or other. Maybe Boone’s family has always been involved in intelligence work going way back and that’s why there are all these pictures,” I offered.
Angela looked at me for a few seconds. She was determined to find out who or what he was. I just wanted to know how he did what he did. It was the greatest magic trick ever. Not having a clue how he accomplished it was driving me batty.
Part of the issue between Boone and Angela was trust. Even though he’d saved our lives a couple of times already, she didn’t completely trust him. Whenever I mentioned it, she’d just shrug and say she didn’t know what it was, but he was keeping something from us. I agreed, on a certain level. Boone wasn’t telling us everything, despite what he said, but I believed he was on our side. Everybody has secrets. Especially spies.
“That would have to be an uncanny family resemblance,” she said, still staring at the picture. “And it still doesn’t explain Croc.”
She had me there. In the previous photos P.K. had sent us—of Boone in World War Two and in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show—Croc was right there with him. And Croc was a strange-looking dog.
And Croc did the same magic trick as Boone. Poofing in and out of thin air like it was nothing. The thought of it made me kind of angry. How was I ever going to be a famous magician, and perform the greatest illusion ever, if I couldn’t even figure out how a dog did it either?
There was a loud knock at the door. It made me jump. Not hard to understand why. The last time somebody knocked on my hotel room door, I got taken hostage.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“It’s Callaghan,” came his voice from the other side of the door. “We need to talk.”
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
12 noon to 6:15 p.m. CST
We’re Going to Need New Stuff
Spent shell casings were scattered everywhere on the ground. The Range Rover and intellimobile were battered and broken, with tires shot out and windows obliterated. Remarkably the coach had taken the least amount of the damage, but it was still a mess. Uly and Felix were finishing changing one front tire that had been shredded by gunfire.
Boone put his phone to his ear. It rang several times before anyone answered, but sometimes that happened. Occasionally the man he was calling could not pick up right away.
“Haven’t I told you never to call during a Cabinet meeting?” President J. R. Culpepper said. J.R. didn’t really speak. He gave commands. Even when he was asking questions.
“We just got ambushed. I’m going to need a bigger than usual clean-up crew. You’ll need a couple of semis for the vehicles alone. Get the Illinois state police to close off this road until they get here. Make up some Homeland Security training exercise story or something that’ll keep everyone away but won’t make the media too suspicious. We do not want to send people into a panic. Also, I need a brand-new Marathon coach. X-Ray is going to send you the specs. You’ll need to get it to Chicago ASAP, and I mean right away, J.R. If Roger and Blaze find out what’s happened, we’re done. They’ll either cancel the tour or send Q and Angela home. If we change things up at all now, the ghost cell will disappear. And after what happened in Texas, I don’t want Q and Angela out of my sight.”
“Boy, Boone,” J.R. said. “You don’t ask for much, do you?”
Boone could hear the sound of a keyboard in the background. He knew J.R. wasn’t really complaining. He wanted to destroy the ghost cell as much as Boone did. Maybe more.
“The clean-up crew is already deployed. The coach is going to be an issue. It would be easier getting you another drone on such short notice. Do you have any casualties?”
“No, just our wits,” Boone said. “And a burning question. How did they know where we were? I mean, Match tour dates and venues are out there, so they knew we were on our way to Chicago. But how did they know our route? Somehow they shut down the freeway, set up a detour, and led us right into a shooting gallery.”
“They’ve got more resources than we even thought. Boone, this is bad. I don’t like this. Not at all,” J.R. said.
“Me neither,” Boone said.
“All right, I’ll take care of things at this end. Call Callaghan and tell him what’s going on and to stay alert. I’ve got to get back to the Cabinet meeting. You all should probably get out of there. Be careful, Boone.”
“J.R.?” Boone said.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think we could get another drone?”
J.R. snorted and disconnected the call.
The SOS team performed their tasks with calm efficiency. Vanessa cli
mbed aboard the coach. Boone was relieved when it started up. X-Ray had finished removing his hard drives from the intellimobile. Uly and Felix had offloaded their luggage and equipment to the coach and were now dragging the bodies of the assault team into the intellimobile. When they had pushed all of the vehicles into the corn, everyone clambered onto the coach.
“Now what?” Felix asked.
“Chicago. Then we have to figure out a way to make this coach identical to the new one, and we’re going to need Q and Angela for that,” Boone said.
Vanessa put the coach in gear and headed east. In twenty minutes, after a series of turns and driving down back roads, they were back on the freeway. Speeding north toward the Windy City.
On the Move
“What’s the password?” I said through the door.
“Open the door, Q,” Callaghan sighed.
As soon as Callaghan entered the room, I could tell by his face something was wrong.
“I just got off the phone with Boone. He and the SOS team got ambushed a couple of hours south of here. No one was injured. The coach is shot up pretty badly. POTUS is getting another one identical to it. We’re going to need your help getting all the stuff off the old coach and into the new one. It will have to look right or your parents will get suspicious.”
“Are you sure everyone is okay?” Angela asked.
“Yes. But Boone and I discussed it. I want you guys out of here for now. Somehow, they got eyes on the SOS crew and managed to stage an elaborate ambush. I’m probably being overly cautious, but it feels like the ghost cell is always a step ahead of us. If they could find Boone, they can find you.”
“Where are we going to go?” Angela asked.
“I thought about that. You’ve got homework, right? Can you sell your parents on the need to go to the library? We’ll go there first. You can study. I can watch and wait to hear from Boone. After a while there, we’ll move on to someplace else if Boone isn’t here by then. Staying on the move is the best defense we have right now. I called Ziv. He’s sending Eben to run countersurveillance on us, while he watches Malak, who is sitting tight at the safe house. Eben will call me when he’s ready.”