The Siren Project (29 page)

“My people will put him in storage, in case
we need him again, although, there isn’t much we can do with him.”

“How did you get him?”

“Really Mitchell, I thought you of all
people would know. Ex Secret Service, admittedly dishonorably discharged, but
even so.”

“Echelon?”

McNamara nodded. “We almost had him sooner,
but the Monitors went off the air. It became obvious they knew we were
receiving Echelon intercepts. I’m still not sure how they figured that one out.”
He watched Mitch for any hint, then shrugged. “No matter. It turned out some
assistant to an assistant just had to call home to find out how her sick
daughter was doing. A mother’s love, is there nothing sweeter?”

Christa voice betrayed her fear and anger. “How
many did you get?”

“Knightly’s entire command unit, more than
thirty people. We were lucky Knightly wasn’t one of those killed when we took
them out, but unfortunately he didn’t survive the conditioning process. He’s
alive, but you know what I mean. We knew it was a risk with him, but he was
very uncooperative. He left us no choice.”

“How did you know there was a risk with
him,” Mitch asked, “As opposed to anyone else?”

McNamara’s face showed some surprise. “So,
your investigation hasn’t got that far. It’s the alpha waves, the signatures
generated by the brain itself. Squiggly little lines as distinctive as fingerprints.
We can tell who is susceptible to ENP conditioning and who isn't. Unfortunately,
Knightly was about three standard deviations out, which means he had a very low
chance of surviving. Surviving intact that is. We explained it to him, but he
just wouldn’t cooperate.”

Mitch felt a sudden burst of respect for
Knightly, resisting until the end, knowing what he faced. He hadn't
particularly liked the man, but he always admired courage. “So you fried his
brain.”

“Like bacon,” McNamara gloated without
remorse.

“You bastard!” Christa raged.

“Let it be a warning to you, we’re not in the
business of negotiating.”

“You’ll pay for that one day,” Christa
promised coldly. “And for all the others.”

He smiled confidently. “I doubt it. We’re
very close to perfecting the technology, and your little group is the last
organized resistance against us. Very soon, we will have nothing to fear,
because nobody else knows we exist.”

“So who is ‘we’?” Mitch glanced
meaningfully at the two strong men seated either side of them and at Bradick. “Certainly
not this brains trust.”

“We the people, the people who matter. The
people who make decisions, the people who run things. I mean, the people who
really
run things.”

“You mean the fat assholes who screw over
everyone else.”

McNamara ignored the comment. “Now about
your two friends, Szilinsky and Wartenburg. If you call them in, we’ll consider
merely incarcerating you. Otherwise, well . . . you look to me like the kind of
man who won’t respond well to a few billion neurological adjustments to your
brain structure. Surely you don’t want to become just another cigar store
Indian?”

“Why don’t you do me a favor, and shoot
yourself.”

“And if I don’t, I’ll turn around one day
and you’ll be there?”

“No. You won't get a chance to turn around.”

“Like the drug dealer you whacked. Or was
he a pimp? They never did find the body, did they?” McNamara leaned forward
conspiratorially. “You can tell me Mitchell, what did you do with the body?”

“The same thing I’m going to do with yours,
asshole,” Mitch said, his eyes fixed on McNamara with a burning intensity.

The ex-NSA officer's confident exterior
faltered for a moment. “Perhaps you're more of an extremist than I’d realized. I
can see it'd be a mistake to let you live, or at least to let you think unclean
thoughts.”

Bradick drew his gun and checked the load. “You
don’t want us to do the girl as well?” He glanced lasciviously at Christa. “At
least not until the boys and I have entertained her a while.”

Mitch lunged forward at Bradick, but the
muscle man beside him caught his arm, as Bradick raised his knee, catching
Mitch in the chest. Mitch threw a crashing punch into Bradick’s jaw with his
free hand, then Bradick pinned his free arm and placed his gun against Mitch’s
forehead.

A slight trickle of blood appeared on
Bradick’s lip where one of his teeth had punctured skin. He licked the blood
and smiled. “For that, when you’re gone, we’ll be extra rough with the little
lady.”

“I’m going to remember you!” Mitch said
menacingly.

The heavy beside Mitch dragged him back
into this seat and pinned him with his weight.

“Really Mr Mitchell,” McNamara said, “These
displays of testosterone just make my choices all the clearer. Of course, if
you were to call in your two friends, I could ensure that Miss Malleson will
not have to endure the intimate company of my three associates.”

So that’s their game,
use Christa to blackmail me.

Christa sensed the intention. “Nothing you
say will make us do anything to help you.”

Mitch glanced at her, knowing she was
saying it as much to him, as she was to them.

“Besides, I know you’re not going to harm
me.”

Mitch at first thought she was bluffing,
then realized she was speaking with certainty.

McNamara looked from Christa, to Mitchell
and back, then chuckled. “True. You’re far too . . . unique . . . to damage. Mitchell
however, doesn’t possess your special talents. He's completely expendable.”

They know about her! How?

The small intercom mounted on the side
panel near McNamara buzzed. He picked up the telephone and listened as the
driver made his report. “Call Arizona. Tell them to get control of the traffic
system and give us a clean ride out of town. I want to be moving in two
minutes.” He hung up with a trace of irritation. “I’m sure you’ve noticed we’re
stuck in traffic?”

Mitch glanced outside, amused.

“Yes, of course you have,” McNamara
continued. “Thanks to all the little toys you were carrying, your friends no
doubt know you are enjoying the pleasure of our company. Unless I’m mistaken,
we can thank your pet computer geek for hijacking the city’s traffic computer
to prevent our departure.”

Mitch couldn’t confirm McNamara’s
suspicion, but the longer the car sat gridlocked in traffic, the more likely it
was that Mouse was scrambling the city’s traffic systems. “Maybe your driver
just doesn’t know his way around town.”

“He isn’t helping you. All he’s doing is
giving us a chance to trace him. Our systems are so powerful, he has nowhere to
hide, no hope of beating us. I would have thought Szilinsky would have figured
that out by now.”

“We escaped,” Mitch said.

“Yes, you did,” McNamara conceded. “But I
have you now.”

Mitch saw through the front windshield the
lights turn green.

McNamara followed his gaze, glancing over
his shoulder. “You see? We now control the city’s traffic system. We could
drive from here to LA, and never get another red light.”

The lead cars started to move, then the
traffic lights went out, along with every store front light the length of the
street. At the intersection ahead, impatient drivers trying to force their way
across the road became gridlocked worse than before.

“No red lights, asshole,” Mitch grinned. “No
green ones either. No power!”

McNamara’s face betrayed his irritation,
then the intercom buzzed. He snatched up the phone. “ . . . I can see that! Tell
them to fix it!” He slammed the phone into its cradle, glaring at the cars
crowded around them.

Through the armor plate of the limousine,
Mitch became aware of distant sirens. Drivers outside began honking their horns
while others climbed out of their cars to get a better look at what was
happening.

“Maybe if you call Arizona again,” Mitch
suggested, “They could send us a pizza. We aren’t going anywhere and I’m
getting hungry. By the way, I like anchovies.”

McNamara ignored the taunt as the shop
lights came back on and the traffic lights flashed to green again. Once more
the traffic started moving, and McNamara relaxed. “I don’t think you’ll have
time for pizza.”

The sirens grew louder as the cars ahead
began to move, then suddenly all the cars ahead stopped, even though the traffic
lights were green. The honking of car horns began again, as impatient motorists
tried to badger those ahead to move.

“Now what?” McNamara said, looking forward
again.

Several large fire engines appeared at the
end of the street, sirens blaring, lights flashing. Firemen jumped down and
began unraveling hoses, connecting them to fire hydrants. The engines blocked
the street, trapping the cars.

Mitch grinned. “You were saying?”

McNamara glanced at the heavy beside Mitch.
“Shut him up!”

The guard thumped Mitch hard in the
stomach, knocking the air from his lungs. He suppressed a cough as he stared at
the guard. “You call that a punch?”

The sirens kept growing in intensity as
more fire engines approached, and then behind the fire engines, ambulances began
to appear.

McNamara picked up the intercom again and
buzzed the driver. “Enough of these games! Tell those eggheads to get control
of every single system in this city, not just the ones Szilinsky is using. A
simpleton can see he’s changing tactics as soon as we counter. I want this
street clear. Now!” He slammed the intercom phone down again.

Mitch leaned forward. “Did he say anything
about my pizza?”

“Enjoy yourself Mitchell. You’ll have
little to laugh about soon enough.”

The car seemed surrounded by sirens now as
emergency vehicles descended on the crowded street from all directions. The
sound of rotors rhythmically beating the air, drowned out the sirens as a shadow
passed over the limousine, and ropes fell onto the cars beside them from above.
More shadows played over the cars as black clad men rappelled down the ropes
fast. They landed on the cars and the road, then light weight machine guns
appeared in their hands a moment later. In seconds the NYPD Emergency Services Unit
team had surrounded the limousine. Overhead, the helicopter loud speaker
roared:

“THIS
IS THE POLICE, COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!”

McNamara hesitated, for the first time
genuinely confused.

“I guess you should have paid that parking
ticket, huh?” Mitch remarked.

Anger surged across McNamara’s face. He
glanced at Bradick, who was studying the situation outside with a professional
eye.

“Our car’s armored, windows, doors,
everything,” Bradick reported. “We could take them SWAT pussies easy, but it’s
crowded outside. Would be a lot of civvy casualties. With this traffic, there's
no way to extract. No chance to exfil on foot with that chopper overhead. And
we got no anti-air with us.”

“JOHN
MITCHELL, WE KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE. THROW OUT YOUR WEAPONS.”

Mitch glanced at McNamara with surprise. “What
do you know? It’s not you after all. I guess Arizona screwed up again.”

An ESU officer stepped up close to the
limo, his black clothes and body armor now clearly visible. He tapped the
window with the barrel of his machine gun a couple of times, then his muffled
voice could be heard, “Open up!”

McNamara sighed, defeated. “Open it!”

The guard beside Mitch unlocked the door
and pushed it open.

“We’re coming out. Don’t shoot.” Mitch
yelled as he took Christa’s hand and gently pulled her from her seat, intending
her to go first.

Christa pushed toward the door, driving her
heel into Bradick’s shoe, making him jump as it crushed a toe, then she stepped
out, straightened and raised her hands. Mitch then pushed his way past his
burly guard until his face was close to McNamara. “And they say there’s never a
cop around when you need one.”

Mitch moved to climb out past the guard
that had punched him. Without warning, he struck the guard in the head with his
elbow, knocking him out. “Oops!” he said as he stepped out of the limousine and
raised his hands. “I’m John Mitchell. Don’t shoot, I’m unarmed. I surrender!”

The ESU officer grabbed Mitch and threw him
against the rear of the limo. He searched Mitch for weapons, then cuffed his
hands behind his back. Another ESU officer advanced and frisked Christa,
cuffing her also.

“Nice elbow,” she said to Mitch.

“Nice heel,” he replied with a grin, then turned
to look back at the ESU officer behind him. “Those guys in the car have got
guns. Big guns! Lots of guns! They’re going to resist arrest. You better shoot
them. And the guy in the Armani suit is a drug dealer!”

“Guns inside,” the ESU officer called to
the other team members. “John Mitchell, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the
murder of Mathew Prescott, you have the right to remain silent . . .”