by David Archer
Noah shook his head. “I don’t know anything about this,” he said.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Townsend,” Faulkner said, “while you may be telling the truth, the level of coincidence is just too high for us to take a chance.” He looked past Noah at the men standing behind him and nodded once, and Noah heard the hammer pulled back on a pistol. “Ross,” Faulkner said. “I think you better get Harold Conley on the phone. He’ll need to handle that new man that’s running things in Galveston at the moment.”
He looked up at the men behind Noah again. “Mr. Townsend is no longer welcome,” he said. “Anywhere. Please see that he is never seen again.”
* * * * *
Marco pulled into the office parking lot at nine o’clock, before any of the transporters arrived. He walked up to the door and unlocked it, then stepped inside. He went about the routine of flipping on lights and then stepped into Noah’s office. As he shut the door behind him, he heard the click of a hammer being cocked back and froze.
“That’s very smart, Mr. Coolidge,” said Harold Conley. He had been standing behind the door, with Bill Mayweather. “Now, you stand very, very still, or I’m going to blow the head right off your shoulders. We wouldn’t want to waste anything salvageable, now, would we?”
Marco put his hands out to his sides and Mayweather stepped in front of him. He patted Marco down, quickly removing the Glock forty caliber automatic from his holster, then continued to search him. When he found no other weapons, he aimed the Glock at Marco and stepped back.
“What the hell is this, guys?” Marco asked. “I do something to piss you off?”
“Let’s just say we don’t like cops sticking their noses into our business,” Conley said. “Our man in Vegas has caught the three women you people sent out there, and Rob Townsend is already on his way to be processed, too. You just have yourself a seat, because the helicopter will be here in about ten minutes to pick you up.”
With both guns pointed at him, Marco didn’t think he had a chance to put up a fight. He sat in the chair Conley had indicated and put his head in his hands.
Despite Noah’s suggestion that they avoid distractions, Marco and Neil had kept their subcoms on and connected over a single channel. They could talk to each other without disturbing any of the others, and neither of them had bothered to turn it off the night before. With his head down, Marco carefully whispered, “Neil? Are you there?”
“I’m here, buddy,” Neil said. “How’s it going at work this morning?”
“Conley and Mayweather are here,” Marco subvocalized. “They said Noah and the girls have been captured. They have me at gun point and took my weapon, said the copter is coming to get me. Don’t think they know about you, so get yourself out of here.”
“They got Jenny, and the other girls? And Noah?” The panic in his voice was obvious and Marco instantly regretted telling him.
“Chill. Just get away, call for help. They will take me out to the ship, so call the Dragon Lady.”
“Geez, yeah,” Neil said. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”
Marco could hear him dialing his phone, and then he heard Allison’s voice come on the line.
“Neil? It’s Allison, what’s going on?”
“They got Jenny,” Neil said, “they got Jenny and the other girls out in Vegas, and they got Noah in New Jersey. They just got Marco here, they’re going to take him out to the ship.”
“What?” Allison shouted. Neil tried again to explain what was happening, but Allison was already shouting orders at someone. He waited for her to come back to him, which took a minute. “Neil, are they on to you?”
“Marco doesn’t think so,” he said. “I never met any of them, so I don’t think they know about me. You gotta get somebody out to help the girls and Noah.”
“I’m already on that,” Allison said. “Neil, I don’t have anybody close to you. You and Marco were going to handle everything, so I didn’t send a team or the FBI down there. You are the only one I’ve got within an hour of where you are, so you are going to have to do something to help Marco. Can you do that? Can you help him?”
“Um, um, I—I don’t know, I don’t know what to do. Noah always makes the decisions, that’s his job.”
“Well, today it’s your job! You’ve got weapons and you’ve been trained, now go do something to help Marco!”
The line went dead. “Marco, she—she wants me to come do something, but I don’t know what to do.”
“No, do not come here,” Marco said silently. “Get out of Galveston, protect yourself. If they save the girls, you tell Renée—you just tell her I love her. Subcom off.”
* * * * *
“Marco? Marco, come back!” Neil looked frantically around himself for a moment, but didn’t find any answers. “Activate all! Noah, can you hear me? Jenny? Sarah? Renée?”
Only silence came back to him for a second, but then he could hear the sounds around Marco again. He had turned on all the subcoms that his could reach, but that was only the one in Marco’s head.
He got up from where he was sitting and paced around his living room, trying to think of something to do. Instinctively, he ran into the bedroom and grabbed his MP9, shoving extra magazines into his pocket as he did so. He came back to the living room, feeling in his pockets for the keys to the GTO he’d been driving, but he couldn’t remember where he’d put them. He started to go back to the bedroom, but then he spotted the keys Noah had left with him.
“The Charger!” Neil said. “I’ve got the Charger!” He snatched the keys and ran out the door, startling a neighbor, who was just stepping out of her apartment as he ran past with a machine gun in his hand.
He got to the parking lot and hurried to the Charger, then hit the button on the fob to unlock it. He yanked the door open and started to get inside, but then his long legs forced him to stop and move the seat back as far as it would go. He jumped in and shut the door, wrapped the seatbelt around himself out of habit and hit the starter button. The big hemi roared to life, and he grabbed the shifter and threw it into reverse.
Neil had ridden in the car before, but had never driven it. The acceleration startled him, but he recovered instantly. He turned the car onto Stewart Road and hit the throttle, fishtailing around the corner as he raced toward the transport office.
“Back off, Neil,” Marco said. “It’s too late, the chopper is here. Just get out of town while you can.”
“Like hell I will,” Neil growled. He could hear the sound of the idling helicopter through the subcoms, and then the noise grew louder as the engine revved up. He looked toward where the office would be and saw the chopper rising. It was headed over the Gulf and was gaining speed. Neil slammed on the brakes and came to a stop, staring as the helicopter flew off, carrying his friend to almost certain doom.
The chopper passed over him and then it was over the water. Neil stared at it for a couple of seconds, then pounded the steering wheel with his fists. “No!” He screamed. “No!” He leaned his head on the steering wheel and began to sob, but then he suddenly stopped.
He sat up straight as cars behind him began honking their horns. He hit the button to lower the top, then stepped on the gas. The next intersection brought him to the light at Pabst Road, and he turned left and headed toward the beach.
“Amphibious,” he said. “It’s an amphibious freaking Charger!” He raced down Pabst until he saw the beach ahead, then shot right off the pavement and onto the beach sand. The car flew across the beach at more than a hundred miles an hour and then plowed into the waves.
Water splashed over him, but he didn’t care. He reached inside the ashtray and felt around for the button, then pressed it as he tried to remember what Rodney had said about the amphibious conversion. “Just leave it in gear, and give it all she’s got!” Neil mumbled to himself, and then he felt a thump as the wheels were fully retracted.
The car was moving across the water, but he had instinctively lifted his foot from the gas as he splashed into it.
He looked up and saw the helicopter in the distance, then shoved his foot down again. The front end of the car rose into the air and it shot forward.
On the heads up display in front of him, a compass had appeared. Neil remembered roughly where the ship had been the last time he had looked at it and set his heading accordingly. He wasn’t that familiar with navigating on the water, but he knew how a compass worked. Another gauge on the HUD indicated that he was making almost eighty-five knots, which would equate to almost a hundred miles an hour. At that speed, he would reach the area the ship was in within twelve minutes.
The helicopter was already out of sight, but Neil kept going. He was sure he remembered the direction properly, and he kept the compass pointed that way. Ten minutes later, he was rewarded with the sight of the big yacht just slightly to the right of straight ahead.
And then it dawned on him that he didn’t know what to do when he got there. Sure, he had an amphibious car, and it was loaded down with weapons, but what was he supposed to do with it? How was he supposed to rescue Marco? Was he really only racing to his own destruction?
His eyebrows came down. He turned the wheel slightly to aim himself toward the ship as the helicopter rose from the deck and started to swing around.
“Neil! Get out of here!” Neil heard through the subcom, Marco’s voice, and it steeled his resolve.
“I’m coming after you,” he shouted, hoping Marco could hear him over the sound of the chopper. His foot hit the gas pedal, and the nose of the car rose over the waves.
“Buttons, buttons,” he said to himself. He tapped the screen in the center of the dashboard to bring up the explosive rounds and the shotgun, then watched the screen until the bouncing of the front end of the car brought the helicopter into its view. He tapped the helicopter on the display and was rewarded with a ring around it, then squeezed the trigger button on the steering wheel. He heard a boom, and then another, and realized he had fired twice.
The computer that controlled the weapons was a marvel of technology, something that Wally’s people had worked hard on. It not only could focus on a target, but it could also anticipate where the target would be by the time one of its rounds reached it. He was close enough to be within range with the big shotgun behind the headlights, and both high explosive rounds that it fired were dead on target. The first one struck the bubble windshield of the helicopter and exploded, and the second struck the engine bay, turning the bird into a fireball. Seconds later, the chopper rolled over and crashed into the waves.
“Yeah!” Neil shouted. He tapped the screen to switch to machine guns and then squeezed the trigger buttons again, strafing the yacht from stern to bow. People moving about on deck dove for cover, and Neil knew he was at least causing a lot of confusion up there.
TWENTY-THREE
Marco had been dragged out of the helicopter when it settled on the deck, his hands zip tied behind him. Conley and Mayweather had ridden along on the flight, just to be sure Marco didn’t pull anything on the way, even though there were three armed men in the bird when it landed.
“It’s too bad,” Conley shouted to him over the sound of the idling helicopter. “You were pretty good at rounding up people for us. Imagine what the world would think if they found out that the FBI was helping us pick up our victims. Too bad you won’t ever get to tell anyone about it, though.”
The men holding onto Marco dragged him away and Conley and Mayweather settled into their seats as the chopper blades began to spin faster. The bird lifted off, and the sound started to lessen, and that’s when somebody standing at the rail of the deck pointed to starboard and shouted something about some crazy boat coming their way. Marco turned his head without thinking and looked, and his mouth fell open.
That crazy kid, he thought, seeing the front end of the Charger coming across the waves. He had absolutely no idea what Neil thought he was doing, but he still felt a swell of love for that skinny nerd. “Neil! Get out of here!” Marco said, not caring who might overhear.
“I’m coming after you,” Neil shouted back through the subcom. They were just within range of each other. Then, Marco saw a couple of flashes come from the front end of the car. There was a loud noise behind them, and they all spun in time to see the second HE round strike the helicopter. When it flipped over and crashed into the water, Marco couldn’t help letting out a cheer.
One of the men with him hit him in the side of the head and he fell to the deck. He lay there looking up at the men above him, and then both of them began to dance. Neil had fired the machine guns and some of the bullets had come over the side of the deck. Both of his escorts fell beside him, bleeding from several holes. Neither of them moved, and Marco rolled over to get his hands on the knife that was strapped to the belt of one of them. Seconds later, his hands free, he snatched up both the machine guns they had dropped and started forward.
* * * * *
Noah stared at Faulkner for a couple of seconds, then let himself sag in his chair. One of the men behind grabbed hold of his arm and lifted him, and Noah raised his eyes to Faulkner once more.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay, I’m with the FBI. I was sent in deep cover, to try to figure out what you folks are up to, and I’ve already made my report. Backup teams know exactly where I am, so there really isn’t a lot of point in trying to get rid of me now.”
“You don’t think so?” Faulkner asked. “Don’t you think we expected something like this to happen sooner or later? Every one of us has a new identity set up already, and we already have a way to escape. By the time anyone finds your body, we’ll already be on the way to Europe.” He grinned and Noah heard the men behind him chuckle.
He started to turn toward the door, flicking his eyes to the right as he did so to gauge the position of the other men. Beside the one that held onto him, there were two more, each of them holding automatic pistols. The other two, seeing how docile he was acting, had relaxed slightly, their own weapons dripping toward the floor.
Noah moved. He whipped his left arm up and over the arm of the man holding him and drove the heel of his right hand into his nose. As blood gushed all over him, Noah snatched the pistol from his hand and used his body as a shield as he shot the two armed men. They dropped like stones, and he spun quickly and fired four more times. Faulkner, Bennett, Carlson and then Carrigan fell forward onto the table as the nine millimeter rounds pierced their skulls.
Noah dropped the gun he was holding and snatched the other two pistols, then kicked open the door into the hall. Two more men stood outside, both of them pointing their guns at the door, but Noah had stepped slightly off center. He fired once from each hand and both men dropped.
Noah looked quickly into the hall and saw no one else, so he hurried toward the front of the building. As he neared the reception desk, he saw the woman raise a gun and point it toward him, and he snapped off a single shot. She fell, and he raced out the door.
Esmeralda was parked a hundred yards away and he ran toward her car. As he did so, four men jumped out of a van parked right in front of her, and Noah recognized Ralph Morgan. Ralph was the murderous kid he had met in Arkansas and recruited into the organization. He was now the assassin for Team Pegasus.
“Noah?” Ralph shouted. “What’s going on?”
“They are all dead,” Noah said. “Get with the FBI team and go after the people out there, and the doctors who were involved. I have something else to take care of.”
Noah saw Ralph staring at him as he jumped into the passenger seat of the Mustang, and a moment later, it started up and roared away. He yanked out his phone and dialed Allison.
“Camelot, report!”
“I’ve taken down the primaries,” Noah said, “and I’ve sent Pegasus to work with the FBI and deal with the secondaries out here. These men knew that I was with the government, but they weren’t aware of who I really am. They thought I was FBI. According to them, Sarah and the other girls have been captured in Vegas.”
“Yes, Neil just told me
the same thing fifteen minutes ago. I was just about to try calling you, but you beat me to it. I’ve got FBI scrambling in Vegas already, trying to figure out where they were taken, and I’ve requested assistance for Neil in Galveston. Can you reach Sarah or Jenny on your subcom?”
Noah tried, then said, “No, no response. What’s happening with Neil and Marco?”
“Marco has been captured by Conley, and Neil is trying to do something about it, but I don’t know what. I told him to put on his big girl pants and go help Marco, but I’m not sure if there’s really any hope. The trouble is, I don’t have anybody close enough to Galveston to do any good.”
“All right,” Noah said. “Let me see if I can reach Neil. In the meantime, I need the fastest possible transportation to Vegas. Give me something serious, military!”
“Military? Hang on a second.” She set the phone down and Noah could hear her talking to someone on another line. She was gone for almost a minute, then came back. “You said military, so I called in a favor from the Joint Chiefs. You’re not far from McGuire Air Force Base, and there is a squadron of F-15 E Strike Eagles based there. They just got three new birds, and you are authorized to commandeer one of them. At Mach 2.5, it can have you in Vegas in about three hours.”
“What about a pilot?” Noah asked. “Have they got somebody ready?”
“Find somebody when you get there,” Allison said. “They have to have pilots if they got the planes.”
“Roger, I’m on it. I’ll call you when I know more, and you do the same.”
He ended the call without another word, then turned to Esmeralda. “McGuire Air Force Base, as fast as you can get us there.”
“Yes.” Esmeralda turned at the next corner and the car shot forward.
“Activate all,” Noah said. “Noah to Neil, can you hear me?”
“Noah? Oh, I am so glad to hear your voice! Marco said you were dead!”
“No, I’m alive. What’s going on down there?”
“Conley and Mayweather took Marco by surprise and they loaded him in the helicopter and took him out to the yacht. I didn’t know what else to do, so I took the Charger. I’m in the middle of the freaking Gulf of Mexico in a car that floats, and I just shot down the damned helicopter. I blasted the yacht with the machine guns, and it looks like there’s some kind of battle going on on the deck. I don’t know what to do, I’m in the middle of the freaking ocean!”