“Cowboy,” said Bunny, “I’m on the far side by the back corner. I can see a black—”
“I see it but I don’t see you.” I said quietly. There was a subtle movement to my right and I saw a muscular shoulder move into and back out of my line of sight. Bunny was at the far corner of the building, in a shaded cleft between the wall and a row of trees.
“I see you,” I said. “Any movement?”
“Nothing. You?”
I drew my weapon and moved away from the tree, cutting through the hedges to the side street to put them between me and anyone who might be in the car. I bent low and ran fast along the pavement until I reached the driveway, then stopped for a moment to study the scene from this new angle. The windows of the SUV were smoked to opacity. Both front doors were open. I lingered at the corner of the building, searching the scene with narrowed eyes.
Bunny spoke quietly in his ear. “I can see the plate. Federal tags. Running it now.”
“Copy that. I’m going to the car,” I said. “Watch me.”
I rose from cover and ran in a diagonal line to come up on the driver’s side blind spot. I reached the car in two seconds.
“Empty,” I said. “Nothing inside. Bug—what do you have on the plate?”
“Uh-oh,” said Bug, “MindReader’s kicking back a ‘no-such-number.’ These guys are either phony or deep, deep cover.”
“We’re not the only gunslingers investigating this thing,” I said.
“I’ll keep looking,” said Bug.
Bunny said, “You’re thinking these guys have cover that goes deeper than MindReader? Is that even possible?”
I hurried over to meet Bunny near the open back door. The big man had his gun out, too. We nodded to each other and then wheeled around the edge of the open door, bringing our weapons up in two-handed grips.
All we saw was a storeroom filled with boxes. No people.
There was an inner door at the back off the storeroom. It was closed.
We moved inside, each of us moving along one wall so our field of fire could cover a large portion of the room and offer crossfire backup. Very quietly I murmured, “Cowboy to Sergeant Rock, hold your position. We’re going inside.”
“Call and I’ll come running,” he said.
At the back Bunny and I faded to either side of the door.
“You open and cover,” I said. “I’ll go through.”
Bunny nodded and reached for the handle. But before he could even touch it the door opened and two men stepped through into the storeroom.
Two big men. Dressed exactly like us. Black suits, white shirts, dark ties. Wires behind their ears.
The newcomers stared at Bunny and me.
Bunny and I raised our guns.
“Federal agents,” we barked. “Turn and face the wall. Hands on the wall. Do it now.”
The strangers did not move. If the license plates hadn’t popped up as phony we might have handled this different, but my spider-sense was tingling.
“You’re making a mistake,” said the taller of the two. His voice was calm, his pronunciation of each word very precise.
“And you are pissing me off,” I said. “I told you to face the wall.”
“We’re federal agents,” said the shorter of the strangers. “We have identification.”
“Nice to know. But the man said to assume the position, chief,” said Bunny, getting close enough to fill the man’s line of sight with a lot of chest. “Don’t make a mistake here.”
The two men looked at each other. There was no change in their expressions, no obvious exchange of signals, however without another word they turned and placed their palms against the cinder-block wall of the storeroom. They spread their feet and waited.
Bunny nodded to me and I took up a shooting position, feet wide and braced, hands holding my Beretta rock steady. Bunny holstered his piece and used both hands to do a quick but very thorough pat down of each man. He wasn’t rough about it, but it wasn’t a Swedish massage either.
“Gun,” he announced as he pulled the first man’s jacket back to reveal what looked to be a Taser in a shoulder holster. “I think.”
Bunny took the gun and showed it to me. It wasn’t a Taser but I didn’t know what it was. It had a chunky frame with a slightly elongated square barrel. At each of the four corners of the barrel were curved metal prongs. There was no opening to the barrel, so whatever this gun did, firing bullets was not part of its function. That didn’t mean it was a toy. There were a lot of variations of Tasers out there and some of them were quite nasty. A few of them were even lethal. Bunny dropped the gun into his jacket pocket, then took the man’s wallet and ID case. He continued with the pat down and paused again, feeling along the agent’s arms. Then he grabbed the back of the man’s jacket collar and yanked the sports coat down and off.
“What?” I asked.
“He’s wearing something under his shirt.”
The agent said, “Don’t ruin your career with a bad choice.”
Bunny showed him a lot of white teeth. “How about you pour yourself a nice big cup of shut the fuck up?”
Then he hooked his fingers between the folds of the man’s shirt and yanked. Fabric tore, buttons flew everywhere and Bunny stepped back to let me see. Beneath the crisp white shirt was what looked like a gray leotard. It was very thin and formfitting, and it was crisscrossed with a mesh of thin wires.
“The hell is that?” I asked.
“Thermal underwear,” said the agent.
Bunny pinched some of the fabric between his fingers and rubbed it. “I think it’s some kind of Kevlar. Like that new spider-silk stuff, but thinner.” He gave the agent an uptick of the chin. “What’s with the wires?”
“Insulation for duty in cold weather.”
“Uh-huh,” murmured Bunny. He repeated the pat-down procedure with the second man, found another four-prong gun, and confirmed that the man wore the same micro-thin Kevlar. He took their ID cases and flipped them open. “FBI. Agent Henckhouser and Special Agent Spinlicker.”
I glanced at the pictures on the IDs Bunny held up, but I didn’t lower my gun.
“May we turn around?” asked the shorter man, Spinlicker.
“Turn around,” I said, “but stand right there.”
The agents turned slowly. Their faces were bland, their eyes dark and calm. Spinlicker asked, “Are you with the Cyber Crimes Task Force?”
“Are you?” I countered.
“You’re required to show us your identification,” said Henckhouser.
“Blow me,” I said.
Bunny backed six feet away and drew his gun. With his other hand he tapped his earbud and read the ID info to Bug.
I lowered my pistol, letting it hang by my side. “Okay, gents, you want to tell me who you are and why you’re here?”
Henckhouser said, “How about returning our weapons and possessions?”
“How about I don’t and you answer my questions?”
The agents said nothing.
“Where’s the staff?” I asked.
Henckhouser and Spinlicker exchanged a look, but said nothing.
Top buzzed me. “You need backup, Cowboy?”
“Negative, we got this,” I said. “Let me know if you see anyone else.”
“Copy.”
Then Bug was on the line. “Got something for you. The names and descriptions match active agents, but I have a couple red flags. The first is that they are currently assigned to the Alaska bureau. They’re not supposed to be all the way down here.”
“That’s interesting,” said Bunny. “Maybe they’re allergic to moose.”
It was a joke but it was also a code for Bug’s ears. Alaska was where the Poker Flat testing range was. One of the first sites of the cyber-terrorism campaign.
“Give me something better.”
“That’s the second red flag. MindReader kind of burped while running these guys down. At first we got a message saying that they were inactive, with a pop
-up screen providing details of how they were both KIA while on that white supremacist terrorist thing in Pine Deep, Pennsylvania, ten years ago. But then the system did an autocorrect and replaced that with an error message. Now I have data saying that they are on active status.”
“So—is that a computer error or what?”
“I’d go with ‘what,’” said Bug. “Doesn’t feel good, Cowboy. We’re contacting the FBI deputy director to the lowdown.”
“Keep me posted,” I said. “In the meantime I think we’ll take these jackasses into custody. Maybe they’ll enjoy sitting in a holding cell for the rest of the month.”
Agent Henckhouser said, “You’re making an unfortunate mistake, Captain Ledger.”
That froze the moment.
I took a half step forward and pointed my gun at Henckhouser’s face. “Now how in the wide blue fuck do you know my name?”
Henckhouser continued to smile. “We’re working toward the same goal, Captain. We both want to know who is behind the sabotage.”
“Not liking this, boss,” murmured Bunny.
I sucked my teeth. “Okay, I want both of you ass-clowns facedown on the ground, hands on your heads, fingers laced.”
Bunny produced a fistful of plastic flexcuffs and reached a hand out to turn Spinlicker.
Then without a word or a change of expression, Agent Spinlicker lunged at Bunny.
It just happened.
There was no tensing of muscles, no sign at all. Spinlicker went from bland immobility into a full-speed attack that was so blindingly fast—so improbably fast—that Bunny was caught totally off guard.
Before I could even react, Henckhouser’s left hand whipped out and knocked my gun arm aside and he chopped at my throat with the stiffened edge of one callused hand.
Chapter Four
Shelton Aeronautics
Wolf Trap, Virginia
Thursday, October 17, 10:41 a.m.
I turned, sloppy but fast, and took the blow on my shoulder. Spinlicker pivoted and did his level best to bury his fist in my kidney. I twisted away and the punch hit at the wrong angle, skittering up my spine. Even so there was enough solid force behind the blow to knock me forward.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bunny stagger backward into a stack of boxed computer paper. The whole stack canted and fell, hammering Bunny down to the floor. Reams of paper flew everywhere, sliding like bulky hockey pucks across the concrete floor.
Then I was too busy to look. Henckhouser drove straight at me, throwing rather conventional karate-style kicks and punches at me, but throwing them with insane force and speed. He was like Chuck Norris in his prime, and then fed a shovel full of uncut coke. I blocked, evaded, and parried as fast as I could.
Son of a bitch was dishearteningly good.
Then I saw an opening and changed the game on him. He tried to smash my nose with a back fist but I ducked directly into it so that he crunched his knuckles against my forehead. It hurt me, but it had to have done damage to him. The backfist isn’t intended as a bone breaker. He hissed in pain—the most human reaction he’d had so far—and yanked back his hand like it had been scalded. I dove into that, following the hand back, making the long reach to slap his elbow up, and then drove one mother of a straight right hand into his short ribs.
It knocked air out of him with a whoosh and he fell back in a sideways series of tiny overlapping steps. He kept his balance, though, and when I closed on him he tried to kneecap me with a low side-thrust kick.
I dropped into a crouch and used the sudden dip in weight to drive a pile-driver fist into the hard meat on the outside of his thigh. That’s usually a deal closer. You put 80 percent of your body weight into a downward punch that concentrates all that speed and mass into the surface area of two knuckles and the other guy sits down and cries for mommy. If he’s lucky, and if he has friends to help him, in two hours he’ll be able to limp out to the car. That was the basic plan, and I hit him a doozy. I think the inventor of the side-thrust kick suddenly rose from the dead and yelled ouch.
Agent Henckhouser winced.
Didn’t fall down. Didn’t burst into girlish tears.
He winced.
Balls.
And I remembered the thin Kevlar he was wearing. There are all sorts of new experimental body armor materials out there, and some of them could stop more than a bullet. Some were designed to slough off the foot pounds of impact. I had a bad feeling that Henckhouser’s longjohns were making my attacks feel like baby taps.
Shit.
He abruptly dropped, spun, caught up one of the fallen reams of computer paper and, while still moving, twisted and flung it at me with all the skill and precision of a competitive Frisbee player.
I got my arms up to block it.
The second one he threw caught me right in the gut and knocked all the air out of my lungs. I went whooooof and fell backward into the stacked boxes of office supplies—which tore apart as they toppled over, showering me with packs of Post-it notes, plastic boxes of pushpins, packages of pens, and rolls of toilet paper.
I was buried up to my teeth. As I began to thrash and flounder my way out, I saw that Bunny was on his knees and he had his weapon. Then there was the thunder of gunfire as he opened up on the agents. His first round went wide, but he kept firing. Henckhouser started for the open loading door, but that was Bunny’s best line of fire; so the agent shoved some stacks of boxes at him and made for the inner door. Bunny corrected his aim, but then Agent Spinlicker plowed right into him, driving him all the way across the loading bay. Bunny clubbed the agent with the gun and twisted his massive body and they were halfway into a turn when they crunched into another stack of boxes. Whatever was in the boxes was too fragile to withstand the impact and the two men collapsed into a deep, ragged hole. More cartons rained down, smashing Bunny and Spinlicker to their knees.
I was in the middle of a comedy act. The more I tried to fight my way free of the office supplies, the more of it rained down on me.
Looking dazed and hurt, Bunny still managed to swing the gun around, but Spinlicker swatted it out of his hand. The agent punched Bunny in the chest.
Bunny was six and a half feet of lean muscle and brute strength, but even so the punch half lifted him off his knees. He exhaled with a mighty whooof that was identical to my own.
That Kevlar underwear had to be more than protection. Those wires must be part of a muscle enhancement system. I’d read reports on those but no one had perfected the science yet. Or, so I thought.
I hate it when I’m wrong about stuff like that.
The only upside was that these guys were bozos with high-tech Underoos. Not vampires, not genetically enhanced supersoldiers. Though, at the moment that “upside” sucked ass.
Even with all the power of that blow, Bunny did not go down, and Spinlicker gaped at him. People often underestimate Bunny. Few things short of a cruise missile can put him down for the count.
With a roar, Bunny swung a roundhouse left that caught Spinlicker in the stomach and lifted the man all the way off the floor and sent him crashing against the wall. The agent’s mirrored sunglasses flew off and shattered against the cinderblock. It should have ended the fight right there, but all it did was send the agent sprawling.
“You’re making a mistake,” Spinlicker wheezed as he struggled to his feet. Blood trickled from his ear. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
“Yeah, well kiss my ass,” said Bunny and threw himself at the agent, hooking a big right into his stomach and a left across his chin. Spinlicker canted sideways, but he still did not fall. Had to give the guy points for that because he didn’t have fancy superhero underwear to protect his jaw.
With a growl, Spinlicker whipped around and drove a backward heel kick into Bunny’s midsection that folded the big man in half and put him back down on his knees.
I finally kicked loose of the office junk. My own gun was buried, but I had the Tasers we’d taken from the agents and I pulled on
e out of my pocket and pointed it at them.
“Freeze!” I bellowed.
They did. For about a second. They stared in horror at the gun in my hand.
Then they whirled and ran for the inner door.
I pulled the trigger.
There was no blast. The gun didn’t launch any flachettes.
Instead it made a hollow and rather disappointing tok sound.
Suddenly a stack of boxes beside the inner door exploded in a fireball that showered everything in the room with melting packages of staples that hit us like hot bricks.
I gaped at the pistol. The tiny sound and the power of that explosion seemed to be part of two separate events rather than cause and effect. I was actually flummoxed for a moment. Not sure I’ve ever actually been flummoxed before. Thought it was just an expression.
The agents jerked open the door. “Go!” yelled Henckhouser, as he pushed Spinlicker before him.
Bunny was on his knees and he had my Beretta in his hand. “Freeze or I will kill you.”
They leaped toward the doorway.
Bunny opened fire. His first bullet hit the metal handrail, the second struck the wall, but the third punched Henckhouser between the shoulder blades and slammed him into the doorjamb.
“I said freeze!” yelled Bunny.
Top must have heard the shots because his voice was suddenly bellowing in my ear.
“Top!” I yelled. “Two hostiles coming your way. Put ’em down.”
“Hooah,” was Top’s growl of a reply.
Bunny staggered to his feet, firing, filling the room with new thunder. Rounds punched into the agents as they disappeared. I saw the impacts slew them around, stagger them.
I pulled the trigger on the clunky pistol. It tokked again.
Whatever it was firing hit the metal security door as the agents dove inside the building. The door was instantly wrenched off its hinges and flung against the wall. Big pieces of it flew everywhere. One chunk struck Bunny in the chest and sent him sprawling backward.
I raced over to him, but he moaned and waved me away. “Get the fuckers,” he said with a wet groan.
Clutching the weird gun, I ran toward the open door. The frame was smeared with blood, and there was a large pool of it on the floor. Either Bunny or the flying debris had tagged one of the bastards. I quick-looked through the doorway, but the hall was empty.