Читать книгу Perfect Weapon - Amy J. Fetzer - Страница 6

7:31 A.M.

Like an ancient Apache, Jack put his hand on the ground, feeling the vibrations.

The trembling stopped as quickly as it had started. Frightened deer loped deeper into the valley, away from the scent of blood. Smaller animals dug frantically into hollows and underbrush. Earthquake? Cave-in? Crouching, he sniffed the air, scenting only mist and morning.

Slipping his binoculars from his leg pocket, he sighted on the mountaintop. His fingers flexed, and he wished they were around the killer’s throat. Tucked against the truck fender, Jack examined the area three-sixty. He was far enough from Skyline Drive not to feel the rumble of trucks or buses. No personal vehicles could have made such a rumble anyway. So what caused the shaking? There was nothing, no one. And, there was no easy line of sight for shots accurate enough to kill three men a hundred yards apart. That meant more than one shooter.

He was hoping for a head to scalp. Instead, he was alone with three dead friends and no one to blame.

And possibly with a shooter still sighting on him.

He threw a fistful of rocks, keeping low and expecting the soft pop of silenced gunfire. None came, but he still wasn’t taking chances and using the trees for cover, he moved slowly back to the point where he’d first seen the woman. He found large footprints, blood smeared on the underbrush. The man Jack had shot was hit badly. To die and left for the animals, he thought. The woman’s prints were there too. The toe of her shoe made more of a mark than the heels. That meant running at top speed, he thought, then hotfooted it to his deer stand and climbed past the jump seat. He sighted again through the binoculars, his gaze clawing the hillside from the cavern entrance. Nothing. Impatient rage rushed inside him, but he moved slowly, finally swinging right and higher.

The air was dusted, and from this distance, he couldn’t tell if it was smoke, or lingering morning fog; the smudge in the sky was too faint. He climbed down, dropping the last dozen feet into a pile of leaves, then heading toward the top. He hadn’t gone a hundred feet when he heard the whine of motorcycles and knew he was too late to catch them.

He didn’t stop.

7:58 A.M.

The dark sedan pulled up to the contact point, the door popping open without help. Sydney climbed in and shut it. The locks clamped down automatically. Her gaze snapped to the driver, but he was hidden behind black glass. Probably wearing dark glasses, black suit, and no recognizable jewelry, either, she thought, feeling creeped out even as she was relieved to be on her way to safety. She wanted to ask the driver about the others, her colleagues, the sentries. But she knew no one she encountered would talk. It was their job not to.

She stared out the window, her stomach churning miserably, then she looked around, saw the small leather hatch and opened it. It was filled with water bottles, and she took one, cracked the seal and drained a third of it. Her hand shook as she swiped it across her mouth, and she held it out to steady it.

Blood was knitted deep into the cracks of her nails and knuckles. The urge to rub it was overpowering. The young Marine’s death played in her mind again and again.

I’ve never seen anyone die.

She didn’t want to again.

She gulped more water, then tossed the empty aside and grabbed another bottle. She drank.

Her composure wavered and she clamped her hand over her mouth, her eyes stinging. Don’t. Crying won’t help. You’re stronger than this. You have to be.

In the back of her mind, she heard her dead father’s voice, cold and imperialistic, telling her logic defeats emotion, fear is the easiest to conquer. She’d bet a grand her father never had anyone shoot at him, either. But he was right, her fear was drowning under the flood of anger flowing through her like overripe wine. Thick and slow. Bitter rage churned in her, spilling over any remaining terror until there was nothing left but the urgent need to find out what happened—and see that someone paid.

She leaned back and waited. Let her thoughts brew. The ride toward Washington would be long. She ought to be flaming mad by then.

How nice.

8:22 A.M.

Cisco grabbed the oh-shit strap and held on as the chopper took a dive over Annandale. “This isn’t an F-18, hot dog. Go silent, we’re alerting the entire county,” Cisco said into the mike, and when the noise inside the chopper died down, he pulled off the headset and tossed it aside. The roadblocks were up, but he had to lock down the mountain before suspicions got out of hand and the local cops pushed their noses into his business. The park opened in—he checked his watch—less than an hour. He’d been forty minutes from Langley when he’d gotten the call, and the gridlock traffic had chiseled into his time. He didn’t have any left to make it clean and accepted it. The fictitious “gas leak” was going to be deadly.

Turning his attention from the view out the chopper window, he stared at the bank of monitors. The sensors were off, way off. He sent the computer an arched look, his gaze hopping across the data spitting across on the small screen. “Copy?”

“Yes, sir,” an agent said, pulling at his headset. “It’s the latest relay.”

The data pour stopped, the screen blanking to a gray haze. He didn’t look at anyone else. He didn’t need to. They understood. The surveillance feed from the Cradle to Mother was gone. Something had taken it—or the power source—out. Cisco turned his attention to the mountain below.

“Sir?”

He could almost feel the other agents in the chopper exchanging confused looks. “Do nothing,” he said. “I can’t judge what I can’t see.”

An agent turned back to the screen in a desperate effort to pull up the images. It was useless. The security cameras and sensors were able to survive a blast that would wipe out a city block. If they weren’t receiving, then Mother, the electronic caretaker, wasn’t just down. She was dead. That meant the air supply was enough to last maybe ten hours if it wasn’t contaminated. If it was, then he couldn’t vent the facility.

Whoever had hit the Cradle knew its most tender spot. That didn’t leave Cisco many suspects. “I want infrared before we set down,” he said.

An agent looked at him, doubtful.

“You want to walk in there blind? Make it happen.”

Jack saw a black combat boot, then a dark pant leg, and found a body nestled like a sleeping child in the underbrush. Circling for unfriendlies before approaching, he knelt, the business end of his gun pressed to the man’s temple, just in case, though the hole in the man’s back that had blown flesh and fabric four inches wide was a real clue. So, his aim was dead on. Good, Jack thought. But was this guy number one, or number two? He’d no idea how many there were up here.

He searched for identification, knowing there wouldn’t be any. Not if they were good—and they were. They’d infiltrated into this area without a sound, right under his nose, then slaughtered his friends and did God knew what else in the hills. He pulled off the dead man’s hood and pushed the body over.

It was cocky not to wear Kevlar, he thought, frowning at the dead man’s face, hair. He yanked off the black gloves, peeling the fingers back. What the hell is this shit? Quickly, he hunted through the front pockets and found C-4 fuses, and a detonator. This ain’t Radio Shack crap, he thought, leaving it where he found it. Moving against the ground in slow increments, Jack found the machine pistol a couple yards away. It was cold. Since he’d no intention of anyone slipping past using it on him, he removed the ammo and disabled it, left the weapon for the Feds, then headed up the mountain. Toward the area where he’d heard motorcycles.

One killer down. Satisfaction still didn’t taste nearly good enough.

On the hill, he tracked the woman’s footprints into the dense woods till they just stopped. He covered the area like a madman, trying to find more and put his foot on something soft. He dug and found a parachute pack. No chute, no release buckles, just the pack. He gave it the once-over, knowing he’d have heard a plane, and although a silent fall was possible with a HALO drop from thirty-five thousand feet, no one had free-fallen while he was here. That meant the attackers had staked their territory before he and his friends arrived. Before five A.M. Or they simply hadn’t seen them until he and his buddies had advanced up the mountain. That would explain why the shooters hadn’t shot him out of his deer stand. Jack had been the only who hadn’t moved. He’d been point man and the others moved forward in a straight line toward him, pushing deer his way.

Under the canopy of trees, he threw down the chute pack and looked around. Find the reason and you’ll find them. The woman could have free-fallen dressed like that. Not wise, but doable. Where had she come from and what were they after? Big questions, he thought. There was something hidden in the Shenandoah Mountains, something worth killing for. He let his gaze move over the forest and felt as if he was hunting down a grain of salt in a sea of snow. There was just too much ground to cover alone.

Wind blew across his face, leaves rustled and he saw a reflection that appeared and vanished with the breeze. The ground was scraped near the flicker of light and moving slowly, he parted the brush and hit pay dirt. A laminated I.D. tag. The back bore a magnetic strip like a credit card, the front, a thumbprint and the woman’s picture. Dr. Sydney A. Hale. Doctor of what? And what the hell was a doctor doing out here in the cold with a man in black ops gear shooting at her?

It didn’t add up, but it didn’t matter either. He’d never let this rest. Not until he had the satisfaction of a life for a life. He canvassed the area again before heading toward the cavern entrance below, each step magnifying the grief he wouldn’t allow himself to feel right now. If he did, he’d go postal on the wrong target. So he banked it.

Right now, rage was his only comfort.

8:45 A.M.

The rank smell of blood and her own fear filled the back of the sedan. People were dead, killers were on the mountain and it was a stroke of luck she hadn’t been caught in the crossfire. The cold eyes of the hooded man flooded her mind. He saw me. And he really wanted to kill me. It wasn’t easy to accept that another human being wanted you six feet under. She didn’t have to ask why again. The gas. It was like candy to hungry terrorists. That meant someone directly involved had talked. The list was short, but someone had slipped up.

Chilled, she reached to turn up the heat and realized the driver was breaking the speed limit about the same time the car rocked hard over uneven ground. She looked out the tinted windows at the terrain shadowed with trees. They were climbing higher. Oh, hell. It’s not D.C. Behind them, another car and an SUV pulled up and flanked them as the car skidded to a halt outside a cabin surrounded by trees. A man in a dark suit and heavy coat hurried to open the door. He offered his hand, but Syd ignored it, stepping out on her own power. He didn’t even glance at the blood covering her clothes and took her arm, two more men rushing close and walking backwards as he led her inside.

She felt almost presidential.

No one spoke, no one informed her where she was, or what was happening. Inside, she stood still as they moved around her in a choreographed dance of secure and lock. The interior had a great room, kitchen/dining, a hall leading off to the right. Lots of wood, and rustic. A nice retreat, but she could see that the windows had steel shields that would slide into place, the locks computerized. And there were, of course, five men with guns.

A safe house. She let out a long slow breath, then heard the vehicles outside move off.

“Someone tell me what happened.” Sydney waited for an answer.

No one stopped doing their check of the house, going about their business with a silent determination. Creepy. Syd shivered just as lights blinked on, and warm air pushed up through the vents.

Worry nibbled at her insides. “Gentlemen, it’s going to get rough if one of you doesn’t start talking.”

Still nothing.

“I’m working up to some major hysterics, people.” Only fair to warn them.

They paused, glanced at each other, then one blond-haired man stepped near and stared down at her. He was gigantic, a Mac truck with arms. “We have orders to secure you and nothing more, ma’am.”

Okay, they were keeping her safe. That was good. But she needed to know more and somebody had better start talking. “Then get on your nifty radios and find out what happened! Why didn’t the alarms and sensors go off? How did those people get inside my lab? Where is the rest of my team?”

“Ma’am, you need to calm down.”

Sydney removed the gun from her waistband. It was muddied with Tanner’s blood. “Calm is not an option. You be calm when a man dies in your arms, pal.”

The others reached for weapons hidden inside their coats until the big guy waved them off. The agent’s features tightened, even though he tried not to show a thing. “Yes, ma’am. I do understand. And I’m sorry for your loss.”

Sydney wrapped her fingers around the weapon as she stared ahead, seeing Corporal Tanner with a hole in his chest and breathing his last. She looked at the 9mm pistol, blood prints over metal black. And for the first time in her life, she wanted to watch someone die for that.

Deliciously slow. Yeah, that worked for her.

“You want to give me that, ma’am?”

She met his gaze. “No, I don’t.”

“You’re safe here, Dr. Hale.”

“I was supposed to be safe in the Cradle too, Agent…?”

“Combs, ma’am.”

She didn’t think that was his real name, but it would do. “But now my team is probably dead, a Marine guard is dead and I’m here, under house arrest.”

“Protection, Dr. Hale. For your own safety.”

Sydney wanted to hit him just for the emotionless chill in his words. But she accepted that she wasn’t getting a thing out of him and he likely didn’t know any more than she did. NSA agents had taken her away within minutes of her phone call and left the disaster of the Cradle behind them.

“There are bedrooms that way.” Combs nodded to the hall. “With clothes in the closets and drawers.” He sized her up and looked doubtful. “You might find something to fit.”

Sydney flipped the safety on the gun, but kept it. “I’ll be in the shower.” She took a few steps to the hall, then stopped and turned. He hadn’t moved, but now the others were staring at her. “You aren’t asking any questions, Agent Combs. Why is that?”

“Following my orders, ma’am.”

And not letting one hand see what the other’s doing, she thought. NSA field agents, a necessary evil. “Let me know when they change.”

Luray Caverns 8:58 A.M.

The pilot started his descent. Pebbles and dry leaves spun upward like a twister, then were beaten back down by the slowing pound of the blades. Infrared painted the area clean, which wasn’t a plus on their side. Cisco didn’t doubt that if there was a “they” out there, they were long gone. He had to assume they’d made off with the gas vials. It was the only thing of value down there aside from the research. But until he received the satellite shots in increments, he wouldn’t know a thing. Infrared was wading in official channels.

The building came into sight below. Mother, a cheezy acronym for Mechanized Operation Tether/Habitat Environmental Regulator was a fireproof building that housed the air filtration, sewage, computer, surveillance and electricity systems—and just about anything else the Cradle needed to operate. Cisco didn’t know who had come up with the cute names, but at least they were easy to remember. Mother was self-contained, designed to not need a keeper. There were only eleven people in the underground facility, including armed sentries and there was no way now of telling if anyone was alive.

Without a list handy, Cisco knew the name of only one person—Dr. Sydney Hale—on shift. Average height, better than average-looking. Reddish brown hair, brown eyes, with a smart mouth and a brain like a vault. She was the reason this facility was in operation and as much as he’d trained himself not to feel a thing, the thought of her dead pissed him off.

Cisco shoved open the helicopter door, hopped down. Field agents were combing the ground in a line up the mountain like black bears scouring for honey. He headed toward the flat-roofed building surrounded by an electric fence. Fishing in his pocket, he tossed his keys at the fence. Nothing. Damn. He punched a code and still nothing.

Lock-out. Cisco popped open the keypad and jimmied a wire. If it were that easy, he thought, anyone could get in. It took another ten minutes for the explosive experts to set the charges and blow the gate. It took prima cord, and a considerable C-4 to get through the eight-inch-thick doors.

A flood of men and women followed him inside the yard. He hadn’t had time to brief them, and wouldn’t now. The closer he played this to the vest, the better. He opened the steel door and stepped inside Mother. He motioned to Marcuso.

“Get in there.”

The technologist opened the back of a tall box that looked like a freezer. “It’s probably fried.”

“Of course it is. Find out how. This pumps air below and as far as we know there are a dozen people down there.”

People scrambled.

“Don’t turn on the generators till I give the word.”

They frowned collectively. He didn’t give them a reason. Aside from the scientists and technicians working in the Cradle and NSC, less than five people knew what was really six hundred feet below the surface. He was one of them. If the cold room had been breached, and the vials damaged, he didn’t want Sarin gas sucked up the air vents and into this building. He almost hoped that the attackers had left with the vials. Better it killed them than Cisco’s team.

“Wickum’s here, sir.”

Cisco glanced at the door as Pete Wickum rushed inside with a silver case. He reached for it. “You get a speeding ticket?”

Wickum smirked and shook his head. “Stellar evasive maneuvers.”

“Cocky little bastard.” Cisco kept an ear tuned to the radios, sliding the silver case on top of a steel gray utility box. Opening it, he slipped on a set of thin headphones and flipped a switch. A pulse beat across the screen without sound. Around him, agents tried to get the sensors up and running. Cisco listened to the sonar pulse.

If confirmed the Cradle’s tunnels were under rubble, yet as far as he could tell, the main body of the facility was intact—which wasn’t much. Nor was he certain if anyone was still alive down there. Thermal imaging wouldn’t pass through that much stone. “Wickum, get excavation equipment up here.” He closed the case, taking it with him as he moved to the door.

“That’ll scare the tourists.”

“It’s a gas leak,” he reminded them, then swept out like a black wind.

An agent watched him. “When I grow up, I wanna be just like him.”

A few chuckled, and Wickum glanced back from the door. “Trust me. You don’t,” he said and followed his boss.

Jack was about two seconds away from killing a park ranger. Which would damage the hell out of his military career, but what the hell. He was pretty much on the edge right now.

“What do you mean you can’t go get them? They’re up there on the mountain and they’ll be raccoon fodder if you don’t.”

“There’s a gas leak. We’ve been restricted until it’s contained.”

“Where? They’re caverns, for crisssake!”

The ranger, patient, huge and Jack counted, dumb as a bag of hammers, said, “The area has lodges, the tower, gift shops.”

Not that close, Jack thought, frowning. “Who reported it?”

“We have official word.”

Jack gestured to the walls of the dinky office. “Who’s official here except you guys?”

Then he knew. Government. He leaned over the desk to put his face in the pansy-assed ranger’s. Smeared black and tan camo paint sharpened his features. The effect was scary and he wanted to see this man piss his pants. “You listen, pal. I have three buddies who are dead, murdered, and you’d better hotfoot your ass up to where they died.”

“Murder has to be investigated by the police.”

He slammed both fists on the desk. “Then get them in here!”

Ranger Pearl reached for the tottering water bottle. “Sir, calm down and please take your seat. I’ll record your statement and the Luray police are here.”

“Hey, Pearl?”

Jack’s gaze snapped to the door. A blond man stood half in, half out. He wore jeans, a sports jacket, and Jack recognized the bulge of a shoulder holster. “Who the hell are you?”

The blond man’s features tightened, then he motioned to the ranger.

“I’ll be back to take your statement in a moment,” the ranger said as he left with the big blond guy.

Jack dropped into the chair, and leaned forward, his head in his hands. Gas leak, my dyin’ ass. Bristling, he scraped his hand over his head, then shot out of the chair, walking the room, flipping at files. A lot of litterbug citations, he smirked, then got a drink from the water cooler.

They were still out there. His friends. His men. Decaying, attracting creatures and insects when they should be draped in their country’s flag, paid the respect due for men sworn to protect their country. He crushed the thin paper cup, staring out the office window, then pushed the blinds down.

Cooling his heels just got old.

Cisco approached the escape route, stopping to study the footprints.

There was enough moisture and dead leaves to give them a hand full of casts, but he saw three sets, one was very small. Female.

The escape entrance in the underbrush was intact. Gravel crunched beneath his shoes as Cisco moved behind the partition and walked the corridor. Power had been routed to a generator and lit the stone interior. The sensors were already registering the area free of toxins. At the end was a single steel elevator, bullet and impact proof to ten thousand PSI. It was unmarred but for the bloody handprints smeared all over. He leaned near.

“Small. Frantic. Female. Look how many times they touched. Get a sample.”

“There’s another blood trail here,” Wickum said and Cisco turned.

His assistant squatted near the entrance and gestured with a pen at the bloody stones.

“Type match it to the blood on the doors. Let’s see if we have more than one runner.”

“You think this was one of the attackers?”

“I hope so. There were two females working the graveyard shift.” And alive, he hoped. Neither were the killer type.

Cisco’s pager went off. He leaned toward the light to read it. The bosses, he thought bitterly. They could wait. He had to collect something other than theory before he could give an initial report. He who makes the gold makes the rules, he thought as he moved out of the stone corridor and into the morning light.

He slipped his cell free and punched numbers, securing the line, then moving to his car.

“We have Dr. Sydney Hale,” the agent said on the other end of the line.

Instead of being relieved, Cisco was instantly suspicious. “Anyone else?”

“No, sir.”

Cisco cursed. “No discussions, Combs, and double check your security. Remove all outside traces. Dr. Hale is a witness and a suspect.”

“Sir?”

“So far, she’s the only one alive.”

Cisco cut the line, then dialed again. His boss went off on him the minute Cisco spoke. “No, sir, I don’t know exactly what happened.”

“Your best scenario, Agent Cisco?”

“I’d rather not speculate just yet.”

His boss growled into the phone. “Give it a shot.” It was an order.

“The attack occurred at zero seven hundred hours. Mother was down seconds before that. We’re locked out of the system, still. The escape lift is covered with blood, three, possibly four sets of footprints on the mountains. For unknown reasons, Dr. Sydney Hale escaped and is now secured.” There was a small stretch of silence while Cisco waited for that to sink in. “We have reports of ground tremors and considering nothing is opening the doors, my first analysis is the Cradle suffered an explosion. We have to assume they took the gas and anything else of value, killed the inhabitants and escaped out the emergency lift.”

“Good God. How?

“That I can’t speculate, sir. Until I have something, I’d ask that you not inform the council yet.”

“And just why should I do that?”

“This assault team got into one of the most secure facilities in this country, sir.”

There was a grunt, and then the line went dead.

Cisco cut the line and tucked the satellite phone inside his coat. He scrubbed a hand over his face, then walked down the mountainside.

Wickum was right behind him.

Cisco stopped, gauging footprints. He touched something, rubbing his fingers together. “Someone definitely got hit.” He showed the other man the blood on his fingertips. Cisco snapped out a handkerchief, bright white against the dark clothes. As an agent took pictures and a sample, he stared toward the cavern’s tourist side. He’d bet a hundred that the carefully disguised door at Tatiana’s Veil hadn’t been destroyed. Inside the cavern formation Tatiana’s Veil hid the interior doorway into the facility. The only other route in or out was the escape lift. Likewise disguised from the untrained eye, the escape hatch was locked from inside the Cradle and a Marine guard had the only codes and turnkey. The inhabitants of the lab didn’t know it existed. Except, apparently, Dr. Hale. Wickum met up with him, pressing on the earpiece that wasn’t hidden all that well. Cisco wondered if that made him feel important. He hated the things. Communication aside, it was like someone in your head just to annoy you.

Wickum spoke softly while Cisco lit a slender Cuban cigar. He dragged on the smoke, his gaze narrow and moving over the mountain, the caverns. He tried to visualize how it went down.

“We’ve found a body.”

He glanced at Wick. “Excellent. Now we have something.”

“Victim’s wearing black ops gear and has a semiautomatic machine pistol.”

Cisco clenched the cigar between his teeth. “Crap.”