He suddenly stiffened, lowered the paper, and sat with his head cocked in an attitude of listening.
“Someone’s coming. I have to be quick. If you get this, if you come . . . then broadcast on this frequency.” He read off the numbers. “It’s only short range, but I made it myself. If you’re here, I can help you get past the guards . . . but you have to be careful of the dogs. The dogs aren’t dogs.”
He turned his head again.
“Oh no! I have to go.”
And with that he punched a button and the screen went blank.
Without waiting for comments Church ran it again and then froze the image on the map.
“Bug,” he shouted, “download that image and find me that island. Now!”
“On it.”
“Grace,” Church said, “prep the TOC. By the time Bug locates that island I want birds in the air.”
The Tactical Operations Center was the mission control room. It had MindReader stations, satellite downlinks that fed real-time images, and was networked into every branch of the military and intelligence network. And I don’t mean just ours. . . . MindReader didn’t give a crap about nationality.
Grace hesitated. “I want to—”
“I know what you want, Grace,” he said, “but it looks like we’re going to have multiple targets. This site . . . Arizona, and maybe the Carolinas or an island. I need you to prepare Alpha Team for a trip out west.”
As she hurried out, she threw me an evil look. “Teacher’s pet.”
Church looked at me. “You’re up, Captain.”
I leaned across the table. “Church . . . the kid said that the answers were on the hunt video, but that file sucked and we got maybe one word in twenty. Can you get someone who reads lips? Maybe they can pick up something. . . .”
“Good call. Now—go!”
But I was already running for the door.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
The Deck
Sunday, August 29, 5:38 A.M.
Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 78 hours, 22 minutes E.S.T.
Otto Wirths stood at the foot of the bed, his hands clasped behind him so that he could feel the comforting outline of the pistol holstered at the small of his back. He was patient but cautious, and he didn’t say a word. Not while Cyrus Jakoby was throwing a fit. The floor around the bed was heaped with torn bedding; down stuffing was scattered like snow, and tiny feathers floated past Otto’s impassive face. Cyrus had already smashed the twenty-seven vases and ground the exotic flowers under his bare feet. He even had destroyed the portrait of his beloved rhesus monkey. Now he knelt on the floor and used a salad fork to stab one of his doubles to death. And it wasn’t even Tuesday.
The double had long since stopped screaming, though he wasn’t dead yet. Otto thought a salad fork to be an inefficient weapon but conceded that outright murder was not as important to Cyrus as inflicting hurt. Otto waited it out, one finger hooked under the hem of his smock in case he needed to pull the gun.
Cyrus stabbed down again and again.
Then, as if his internal passion triggered some pressure valve, the rage abruptly stopped. Cyrus sagged and slumped, the fork tumbling from his trembling fingers. The double coughed one more time and then he, too, settled into stillness.
Otto took this as his cue to step around the edge of the bed. He caught Cyrus under the arms and gently lifted him to his feet. Cyrus was as passive as a sedated old man and allowed himself to be led over to an armchair. Otto fetched him a glass of water and produced two pills from a cloisonné case he carried at all times in his pocket. One for heart and one for head.
“Take these, Mr. Cyrus,” he murmured, and held the glass as Cyrus washed them down.
Cyrus gasped and shook his head. “I can’t believe it! All of them? Dead?”
“All of them,” Cyrus confirmed. The news had come back to the Deck from one of their pursuit craft. Both infiltration teams had been lost at the Dragon Factory, and the Zodiac with the extraction team had been taken out with a rocket-propelled grenade. The hit was a complete wash.
“Were any of the team taken alive?” All of Cyrus’s people had tiny transponders implanted under their skin. The devices were the size of rice grains and they sent two signals: one for the GPS and another to a biotelemeter. As long as the wearer’s heart continued to beat, the second signal was sent.
“None of the units are still active,” said Otto.
“God damn it! How did the Twins know?”
“Who is to say if they knew at all? They’re quite capable of reacting to an unexpected attack, and we should not be concerned until we know they have connected the attack with us.”
“They’re too smart, damn it.”
Otto tut-tutted him. “Oh, please, Mr. Cyrus . . . we’re so much smarter than those children. They don’t even know who we are!”
It took a moment for Cyrus to shift gears, but eventually he nodded.
“So!” said Otto sharply. “We have much work to do.”
Cyrus nodded and glanced over at the dead man on the floor. “I’m sorry I killed him,” he said. “Kimball was the best of the doubles.”
“He’s replaceable.”
“Oh, I know that . . . it’s just that I was saving him for a special occasion.”
“Today is special, Mr. Cyrus.”
Cyrus looked up at him, momentarily confused.
“Today we discovered where the Dragon Factory is located. So what if we didn’t breach it or kill one of the Twins? We know where it is now. Which means that by one method or another we will take it from your young gods and with their computer resources . . . well, we’ll remake the world.”
Cyrus’s eyes sharpened and he bared his teeth. “I want that facility, damn it, and I want it right now.”
Otto straightened. “Then what do you want to do?”
“Contact your Russian friend. I want as many men as he can provide. Don’t haggle, Otto. Pay him whatever he’s worth, but I want to hit the Dragon Factory with an army. I want to take it away from the Twins.”
“That will take at least a day or two.”
“I want to do it tomorrow at the latest. At the latest, Otto. Do you understand me?”
Otto Wirths smiled. “Yes, Mr. Cyrus, I understand perfectly. But you need to understand that in a full-out assault we can’t guarantee the safety of the Twins. Neither of them.”
Cyrus answered with a sneer. “Then so be it. I made them; I can make more. And I still have the SAMs.”
“Very well.”
“And contact Veder. I want him in on the assault.”
“He doesn’t do team hits.”
“What is the line from that movie? ‘Make him an offer he can’t refuse.’ ”
“If we pull him now, then it’ll delay the final hits. Church and that bitch who calls herself Aunt Sallie.”
“So be it,” Cyrus repeated. “Taking the Dragon Factory is more important. All we need is access to their computers and six or eight hours to trans-load all of their data via satellite to our off-site networked hard drives our friend is supplying. Once that’s done we can hide it even from MindReader.”
Otto looked pleased. “Fair enough.” He looked at his watch. “I’d better make some calls. I’ll have to wake up the Russian.”
Chapter Sixty-Nine
In flight
Sunday, August 29, 6:01 A.M.
Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 77 hours, 59 minutes E.S.T.
Top and Bunny were still loading their gear into a Black Hawk when my earbud binged and I heard Grace’s voice: “Joe—Bug located the island. MindReader matched the geography to Isla D’Oro, a small island in the Pacific, forty miles due west of Playa Caletas.”
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“Costa Rica. I’ll have him download everything to your PDA. You have flight clearance to the Air National Guard Base at Martin State Airport. From there you’ll switch to an Osprey.”
“They’re slow as hell—”
>
“Not this one. It’s a prototype being developed for the Navy. Has a cruising speed of six hundred kilometers per hour and a twelve-hundred-mile range, which means you’ll be refueling midair.”
“Where’d you find something like that so quickly?”
“Mr. Church has a friend in the industry. The Osprey is on its way to the air base and should be refueled by the time you touch down.”
“Do we have any local support?”
“I called one of my mates at Barrier and he said that the carrier Ark Royal’s in those waters. The Osprey will put you on their deck, and then you’ll go to the island in a Westland Sea King. You can also have Royal Marines, Harriers, and anything else you need.”
“That’s fast work, Major. I’ll take the ride, but for now let’s go with me, Bunny, and Top. Until we know what’s what, I don’t want to bring in the Light Brigade.”
“I’d rather you took the whole fleet,” she said. “But I can see your point.”
It was clear she wanted to say more, but this wasn’t the time and certainly wasn’t the place. So instead she simply held out her hand. I took it and if we held our clasp a few seconds too long, screw it.
“Good hunting,” she said.
“Thanks.”
The Black Hawk was in the air in under five minutes.
I SPREAD OUT a map and we gathered around. “This is Isla D’Oro. Gold Island. Supposed to be uninhabited except for a biological research station funded by Swiss grants and managed by a team from the Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica. We’re looking into that to see if it’s legit. Satellite images tell us there’s a compound with buildings on the island that match with the construction plans filed by the university. Thermals are tricky because the island is mildly volcanic.”
“ ‘Mildly volcanic’?” echoed Bunny. “That anything like ‘somewhat pregnant’?”
“It hasn’t popped its cork in over a century, but there are vents and geothermal activity, so thermals won’t give us a reliable body count. We’ll probably be relying on what we see rather than gadgets.” I tapped the map. “Choppers from the Ark Royal will set us down here. The terrain is rocky with thick foliage. Combat names for the mission and keep the chatter down. Full team on channel two, direct to me on channel one. The TOC command channel is channel three. Call signs only once we hit the ground.”
“What’s the op?” asked Bunny.
“Mission priorities are flexible,” I said. “We look first. If we can find the kid who sent the videos, then we extract him. Everything else after that is based on what we find.”
“Rules of engagement?”
“Nobody gets trigger-happy,” I said, “On the other hand, we’re not flying two thousand miles to take anyone’s shit.”
“Hooah.”
“The USS George H. W. Bush is heading this way in case this really turns into something. The Bush will be in fighter range about two hours after we make landfall. That means ninety fixed-wing and helos ready to pull our asses out of the fire if it comes to it.”
“Wow . . . it’s nice when Washington likes us,” said Bunny. “Say, boss, what do we do if we run into any of those guys with the body armor?”
“Aim for the head,” said Top. “Always been a fan favorite.”
“Works for me.”
Top took a slow breath. “Cap’n . . . about Jigsaw . . .”
“Yeah.”
“We don’t know which team took them out. Russians or the other guys.”
“No.”
“I’m of two minds. On one hand, I want to know who did it and nail their hides to the wall, feel me?”
“Completely.”
“On the other hand, I get either side in my sights I’m not sure I’m going to indulge in a lot of restraint. You have any issues with that better tell me now and make it an order.”
I considered how best to answer that. “Top . . . Church and the geek squad are working on connecting the dots. We got some new info off the second video, and he has a lip-reader working on recovering info from the hunt video. We’re all hoping that by the time we put boots on the ground in Costa Rica we know who the bad guys truly are.”
“Wasn’t goons in exoskeletons put Big Bob in the ICU,” said Bunny.
“Uh-huh,” agreed Top. “And it wasn’t the goons who killed the staff at Deep Iron. Now . . . I don’t see how Russian mercs tie into a buncha assholes who still think Hitler’s a role model, but I’m leaning toward them being the ones who need their asses completely kicked.”
“Probably so, but we have to be open to any possibility. Church sent us on an infil and rescue, not a wet work.”
“Okay, Cap’n, loud and clear.”
“Bunny?” I asked.
“You’re the boss, boss.”
FOR THE REST of the flight we went over the information from the conference and I played the second video. I watched their eyes when the kid said, “You have to do something before everyone in Africa dies. And maybe more than that. You got to stop them!”
Top leaned back, folded his arms, and said nothing. Bunny looked at me. “Holy shit. Is this for real?”
“We’ll find out.”
Top took a toothpick from his pocket, put it between his teeth, and chewed it. He didn’t say a word for the rest of the flight.
Chapter Seventy
Cyprus
Sunday, August 29, 11:59 A.M.
Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 72 hours, 1 minute E.S.T.
Aleksey Mogilevich, nephew of Semion Mogilevich, who was the lord of the Red Mafia in Budapest, looked at the name on the screen display of his phone and smiled. He waved away the redhead with the platinum nipple rings and flipped open the phone.
“Hello, my good friend.” He never used names on the phone and preferred calling everyone “friend.” Repeat customers were always his “good friends.”
“Hello, and how is the weather?” asked Otto Wirths. The question referred to the security of the line and any prying ears where Aleksey was.
“Fine weather. Not a cloud in the sky. I hear that you’ve used up all the products I sent.”
“Yes. Unfortunate.”
“There are always more.”
Of the twenty ex-Spetsnaz operatives leased to Otto by Aleksey only one was still alive, but as he was merely a coordinator his value was negligible. Neither Aleksey nor Otto was very broken up over the losses. Assets were assets, to be used and either disposed of or replaced depending on need.
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” said Otto, “because I do need more.”
“How many and how soon?”
Otto told him, and Aleksey whistled. The two girls sunbathing topless on the forward deck of the Anzhelika looked up, thinking that he was signaling them, but he shook his head. He got up and walked along the rail and gazed out into the vastness of the sea.
The yacht was an elegant 173 footer with a 37-foot beam, built by Perini Navi of Italy. The first time Aleksey had been aboard it had been a charter for which he’d paid $210,000 for a single week. He liked it so much he bought the boat after the trip was over. It had a crew of eleven, and though it was slow—twelve knots—Aleksey never needed to be anywhere fast. His business was conducted by satellite and cell phones and computer.
The Anzhelika currently floated in the wine dark waters thirty miles off the coast of Cyprus.
“Can you supply those assets?” asked Otto.
“There is a surcharge for overnight delivery, you understand.”
“I understand.”
“Then . . . yes. I have assets in Florida who will do nicely.”
“If the assets fulfill my patron’s needs, Aleksey, I’ll send you a five percent bonus on top of that.”
“Ah, it’s always heartwarming to know of the generosity of my good friends.”
They discussed a few details and hung up.
Aleksey watched the beautiful water and the pure white gulls and thought about how wonderful it was to be alive. Then he sat on a
deck chair and made calls that would send several dozen of the most vicious and hardened trained killers he knew to the rendezvous point with Otto Wirths. As Aleksey made the calls he never stopped smiling.
Chapter Seventy-One
Isla D’Oro
Sunday, August 29, 2:29 P.M.
Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 69 hours, 31 minutes E.S.T.
The chopper from the Ark Royal flew just above the waves and put us down on the far side of the island. We jumped out and faded into the green shadows of the trees until the chopper was far out to sea. We were in full combat rig, with all of the standard equipment plus a few special DMS gizmos. We crouched behind a thick spray of ferns until the jungle settled into stillness. Ambient sounds returned as the birds and bugs shook off their surprise and resumed their perpetual chatter. We waited, ears and eyes open, weapons ready, watching to see if anyone came to investigate.
No one came.
I switched on my PDA and pulled up a satellite image of the island. There was a cluster of buildings on the other side and nothing but dense rain-forest foliage wrapped around a terrain so rough and broken that it looked like an obstacle course designed by a sadist. Gorges, cliffs, broken spikes of old lava rock, ravines, and almost no flatland. All of it sweltering in 102-degree heat and 93 percent humidity. Fun times.
I dialed my radio to the frequency the kid gave us but got nothing but static. Then I tapped my earbud for the TOC channel.
“Cowboy to Dugout, Cowboy to Dugout.”
“Dugout” was the call sign for the TOC. Immediately Church’s voice was in my ear. The fidelity of our equipment was so good it felt like the spooky bastard was right behind me.
“Go for Dugout. Deacon on deck.”
“Down and safe. No signal yet from the Kid.” Not an imaginative call sign for the boy who’d contacted us, but it would do.
“Our friends from abroad wanted me to remind you of their offer of support.”
The Ark Royal and its attendant craft could invade and take a small country, and if we got into a real jam I had no problem calling on them for support.