AMPED (12 page)

A call came in on Jake’s cell phone from his second in command, thousands of miles away. “How’d it go?” he asked Kolke, his tone upbeat.

“Not well, I’m afraid, Colonel. The assault teams went in, but came up empty in both cases. Neither scientist was in his home or office.”

“Any chance this was just coincidental?”

“No, sir. They’d been
warned
. Their computers were either gone or wiped. They knew we were coming.”

Jake’s expression hardened. He didn’t care about missing the two scientists. Now that he had cut off the head of the snake, they had become nothing more than harmless bit players he needed to interrogate for the sake of thoroughness. But the fact that they were warned introduced just the slightest uncertainty into the results of the operation he had just conducted.
Shit
. “How long after I gave you the signal did your men arrive?”

“The soonest twenty minutes. The latest forty-five.”

“Any evidence of disarray or hasty packing?”

“None.”

Jake frowned. This was getting more troubling by the second. Still, if the destruction of Miller’s headquarters had set off a warning signal the two scientist’s had received immediately, they would still have had time to disappear. They could have kept a suitcase packed and money on hand as a precaution. Given Miller and Desh’s paranoia, each cell member was almost certainly prepared to disappear at a moment’s notice.

Even so, the possibility that they’d been warned
before
the JDAM hit couldn’t be ruled out either. And if this were the case, it could only mean that Miller and Desh had known he was coming.

Jake walked the short distance to where Captain Ruiz was watching the firefighters at work through a pair of high-powered binoculars. “Captain, I want to go through this entire op from start to finish. I need to be sure there’s no chance they slipped the noose somehow.”

“Slipped the noose, sir?” said the captain dubiously. “We recorded their heat signatures the entire time, right up until the instant the building was turned into slag. They couldn’t have escaped. And they couldn’t have survived.”

“I appreciate your assessment, Captain, but let’s do this anyway. You saw both of them enter the building. And the physical match was unmistakable, correct?”

“Correct.”

Jake stared off into space for several seconds in thought. “Okay, I assume this was before you were fully in position. Any chance they saw you as well?”

“None at all, sir. I was five miles away at the time. We had just identified this facility as the likely target and wanted eyes on the scene as soon as possible. While in route, we discovered there was a street camera close enough to get clear images of the facility’s entrance. So we commandeered it.”

Jake reeled as though from a physical blow. His eyes widened in horror, and for a moment he looked to be in danger of exploding into a bigger fireball than had the building behind them.

It was impossible for the captain not to notice his superior’s reaction and he swallowed hard. “Colonel, it was
real-time video
,” he said defensively. “And it was Miller and Desh. Their images couldn’t have been any clearer.”

Jake nodded and walked quickly away, knowing that this was the only way to prevent his mounting fury from escaping and lashing out unfairly at the young captain.

Their quarry had escaped
. He was sure of it.

But it wasn’t the captain’s fault. He hadn’t been briefed on the Rosenblatt intel. It was
Jake’s
fault, and his blood almost boiled from a mixture of frustration, anger, and self-recrimination.

He had been duped. Miller had been on to him even
before
the captain and his team were in place around the facility. But how?

Even as he posed this question, one possible answer presented itself. This group—Icarus according to Rosenblatt—could have hacked into defense computers and placed watchdog programs that would warn them if anyone was using satellites and pulling records looking for specific real estate northeast of the airport. He should have been more cautious. He should have located their facility without using satellites or computers.

And he should have considered this possibility earlier. He hadn’t because things had been going so well.
Too
well. He should have known an op against a team as formidable as this couldn’t have been as easy as this one had seemed to be.

Rosenblatt had told him the Icarus team had invented technology that could prevent street cameras and satellites from getting a clean image of them. The core council carried this technology in a tiny device on their key rings and kept it with them at all times. While the scientific expert listening in on the interrogation had said this was flat out impossible, and that Rosenblatt was lying to him, Jake knew otherwise. Rosenblatt’s psyche was truly shattered. He was well beyond the ability for elaborate deception. And Jake thought this scientific expert was a narrow-minded idiot. Electricity had once been flat out impossible. The microwave oven as well.
And
the cell phone. The word
impossible
had little meaning where Kira Miller was involved.

The fact that the captain had seen a clean image from a street camera—especially one they had allowed to point at their headquarters—was a dead giveaway. This could only have happened if Miller and Desh
wanted
it to happen. The images had been faked. And the heat signatures must have been faked as well. No known technology could do either of these things as effectively as they had been done, but this was hardly noteworthy. Being able to interfere with cameras was just the beginning of Icarus’s capabilities. Rosenblatt had told him Miller’s group had perfected any number of breakthroughs in the fields of optics, electronics, and holographics over the past several years.

Yes, he had destroyed their headquarters, set them back, but that was all. They had managed to disappear again without sustaining so much as a scratch, and had done so in a way that seemed effortless. And the remaining members of Rosenblatt’s cell had gone to ground as well—at least for now.

He had held all the cards. He had wrung their location out of Rosenblatt in record time and then hadn’t hesitated in the slightest before mounting an attack.

Yet still he had failed.

He had been so sure that he would find and eliminate Kira Miller—eventually. But his confidence was now badly shaken.

And for the first time, he was beginning to wonder if he and his unit might have finally met their match.

14

The entire group drove van Hutten to the airport. Kira, Desh, and Connelly kept him company in the back of the van while Griffin drove. Seven hours earlier van Hutten was a total stranger and now, because of the shared experience of enhancement and a shared vision to better humankind—he was now family. He shook the men’s hands warmly and hugged Kira as he exited the back of the van, both exhausted and exhilarated.

As soon as the door was closed, Griffin hit a switch that threw his image on the screen in the back of the van, and video of his three colleagues appeared on a small monitor next to him. “Where to, gentlemen?” he said somberly to his two special forces colleagues. “Or will you be leaving us here to take a flight?”

“Drive to the trailer park,” said Connelly. “We’ll fill you in on the way.”

“Will do,” acknowledged Griffin, moving back into traffic.

 
“They bombed the shit out of the decoy facility,” reported Desh grimly. “Just like we thought.”

“Under the circumstances,” said Kira, “you and Jim did an impressive job of keeping your focus on our meeting.”

When Kira had kidnapped David Desh almost three and a half years earlier, she had stripped him totally naked. At the time he had said something on the order of, “What are you worried about? Do you think I’ve imbedded some kind of subtle tracking device in my
underwear
?” At the time she had laughed and admitted this was pretty unlikely, but always liked to err on the side of caution. But Desh had given her an idea.

Once Icarus was up and running, she turned her attention to creating undergarments more technologically advanced than cell phones. She had already invented a powerful but tiny bug and transmitter combination; one easily hidden, which worked on principles so unlike those in use that it was undetectable even by the most advanced equipment. Desh had been at the wrong end of this technology once, having been sure that he was clean, while all the while Kira had listened to his every word.

Kira had simply combined this advance with technology capable of non-invasive monitoring of certain vital signs, which was already available. She had married the two technologies, seamlessly, in elastic waistbands, and while this was never discussed during a first recruiting meeting, each member of Icarus was issued a set of custom made undergarments to wear at all times with this technology imbedded. She made sure the components were nearly microscopic and able to withstand the immersion and thrashing they received in a washing machine.

If an Icarus member was in trouble, they could press the section of waistband below their navels and the bug/transmitter would activate. It their vital signs indicated they were having a heart attack, stroke, or had been rendered unconscious in any way other than sleep, the bug/transmitter would activate automatically. In this way the core council would be alerted to any attack, whether the member remained conscious or not, and would also be alerted to medical emergencies—very useful functions for a pair of underwear to have.

While Jake had taken the precaution of removing all of Rosenblatt’s clothing, including his underwear, and scanning it for bugs—not finding any, of course—he had left the clothing near his second in command, Kolke, who had listened in to the entire interrogation.

But he hadn’t been the only one listening in.

The Icarus core council had been totally blindsided by the emergence of this black-ops colonel, this Jake, and the threat he posed could not be overstated. But there hadn’t been time to cancel with van Hutten, so Desh and Connelly had done their best to multitask. They had told their guest about the attack that had killed Metzger, but not about the one they knew was ongoing even while they spoke. What would they have said? “No hexad has ever been compromised—well, until today that is.” Not exactly something to inspire confidence in the newbie.

Desh and his old commander, Connelly, were in charge of security and operations, which were more than full time jobs. While enhanced, both men had come up with numerous security related inventions and innovations.

They hadn’t built just one headquarters set-up in Denver and Kentucky. They had built two. Not identical, but very similar. A real facility and a decoy facility in each city. Both of the Denver facilities had mirrored exteriors, were the same approximate size, and were in proximity to similar warehouses, outfitted in the same way. Kira made sure each recruit was
accidentally
shown a slide pointing them in the direction of the decoy rather than the actual facility being used—just in case.

“Isn’t the fact that they bombed it rather than raiding it a good thing?” asked Griffin from the front seat. “With a raid they’d know they’d been tricked. This way, the colonel will be convinced we’re all dead.”

“He will be for a few days, at least,” replied Jim Connelly. “But when he doesn’t find even a hint of physical evidence he’ll eventually conclude that we’re not. The good news is that he’ll never guess he hit a decoy building. He found the structure he was looking for, and he’ll find labs in the warehouse that we’ve cluttered up to look like they were in use. He’ll decide we figured out he was coming and used advanced technology to plant false heat signatures. He’ll know we’re alive and well, but he won’t doubt for a moment he took out our headquarters.”

“Are you positive?” pressed Griffin. “Seems like if he gave it some thought, it would be pretty obvious.”

“All magic tricks seem obvious once you know their secret,” said Desh.

Kira turned to Connelly with a pensive expression. “How are the rest of Rosenblatt’s hexad doing?” she asked.

“They’ve all checked in,” he replied. “And they all followed the evacuation plan perfectly. After I gave them the signal they had plenty of time to get to an airport before this colonel was anywhere near them. I’d like to visit with each of them personally, make sure the transition to ghost is going well, but we don’t have that luxury.”

“Let me guess,” said Kira. “You’re going after Rosenblatt’s family?”

Desh nodded. “Good guess. This Jake will continue to keep them under surveillance. We need to get them started on our version of the witness protection program.” His expression darkened. “We’re going to have to uproot a family with three young children. It’s going to be a nightmare for them.”

Kira met his eyes and nodded sadly. “Omaha is three or four hundred miles from here,” she said softly. “Why not fly?”

“The colonel and I discussed this while van Hutten was being enhanced,” replied Desh. “We have some weapons and other equipment we’d like to have with us that makes flying, uh . . .
problematic
. Also an RV is kid friendly. The Rosenblatts can live inside until we spring Seth and come up with a more permanent arrangement.”

Kira Miller had made great use of RVs to help her stay off the grid before she had met Desh. They were mobile, and yet when they were parked inside a trailer park they could offer a stable address. And while authorities would leave no stone unturned when it came to residences and hotels, trailer parks would fly beneath their radar, having been stigmatized as bastions of ignorance and poverty. The idea of Ph.D. scientists living in trailer parks was something not likely to ever occur to them. So Icarus maintained a number of these vehicles around the country, with several near their headquarters buildings in Denver and Kentucky.

“Won’t it be dawn when you arrive?” said Griffin. “Wouldn’t it be better to go at night? To avoid satellites?”

“It wouldn’t help much,” replied Connelly. “The NRO has launched several IR and radar satellites that can see in the dark.”