Internal Threat (21 page)

Matt had to think before finally answering. “Nike Air Max, black and blue leather. Size six. I got them at the Beverly Center a few weeks ago.”

“You sure?” Larsen demanded.

“Yes, positive. Why?”

Larsen nodded and waved him over. Matt joined him. He saw that the detective was studying a small pool of oil-slicked water that had collected in the center of the sidewalk. To his left, Matt saw the source - a rusty dripping spigot poking out from a nearby wall.

“What are we looking at?” Matt asked.

Larsen withdrew a pen from inside his pocket. He waved it in the air over a space in front of the water. “That,” he said.

Matt squinted but the only thing that he saw was a wide streak of wetness that looked like an extension of the pool. “I don’t see anything,” he said.

“Back up a bit,” Larsen told him.

Matt adjusted his position and realized what Larsen was referring to.

From his new vantage point, the light from above was shining in a different direction. He now clearly saw what Larsen had been drawn to: the unmistakable form of a footprint.

Larsen stabbed his pen towards the middle of the print. “See the logo?”

Matt did. Even though it had frayed edges, it was clearly the Nike swoosh. His heart leapt.

Using his pen, Larsen again described the outline of the footprint. “Looks to be about a size six, wouldn’t you say?”

“I would,” Matt agreed.

“Can’t tell the color but my gut tells me it’s a black and blue shoe.”

Matt glanced at this man who had been his enemy mere hours ago. He placed a firm hand on the detective’s shoulder and gripped it in thanks. Larsen grunted, then looked away with discomfort. He rose back to standing position, Matt following.

“We’re on the right track,” the detective said. He strode forward, Matt and Ashley now close on his heels. They continued down the darkened side street until they had reached its end. The trio rounded the corner and found themselves deposited on to Sunset Boulevard.

People filled the sidewalks. Matt’s heart sank back down to its previous level. He heard Ashley let out an exasperated breath beside him.

“Do you see him anywhere?” Larsen asked.

Matt scanned the vicinity, then shook his head, “No.”

Larsen rubbed his jaw in thought. He turned and gestured down the boulevard. “That way goes into Los Feliz, Koreatown. Any reason you can think of why he’d go that way?”

“Not really.”

“How about Dodger Stadium?” Ashley offered. “Is he a fan? Did you guys go to games together?”

“I always said I would take him. When there was more time.” Matt winced, hearing the words come out of his mouth.

Larsen was facing the other direction now. “Alright, what about this way then?”

“It goes into Beverly Hills, Bel Air…” Ashley said.

Matt shook his head. “I can’t think of any reason he would want to go that way either.”

Larsen glanced at his watch. “Start thinking, Weatherly. The kid’s been gone almost thirty minutes. Every second he’s ahead of us extends the search radius. Not to mention-”

“You think I don’t know that?” Matt snapped, shutting down the rest of the sentence. He did not need the detective to remind him that every minute was precious since each one that passed meant Luke was closer to detonating. Each sweep of the second hand brought his son and the people of this city an inch nearer to their deaths.

People. Matt clenched his jaw and forced himself to scan the sidewalks again. He tried reminding himself that this was what he had excelled at on the battlefield; taking in the entire picture and spotting the details. Obviously, Larsen had a similar talent. However, Matt’s emotion was blinding him instead of aiding him as it had been the rest of this night.

As he looked, he batted away the other major worry that was nagging at his brain.

If we find him, then what?
Matt was no closer to obtaining the antidote from John than he had been at the beginning of this nightmare. If anything, he had actually managed to make his situation worse. John would not stand for him straying off the tight leash he had kept him on for the past hours. If Matt had learned anything about the cold-blooded murderer, it was that John’s mission was all that mattered to him.

No time to dwell on that now. His first objective was to find his son. Once he did, everything else would have to fall into place.

He glanced eastward down the stretch of the boulevard. As Larsen had said, it headed deeper into the heart of Los Angeles. Matt was still convinced that Luke would not have headed in that direction, seeing the street lined with squat darkened buildings. He spun and looked down the busy westward stretch of Sunset instead.

Think like Luke
, he told himself.

He stepped forward slowly, his mind echoing with the imagined voice of his son. “I’m eight years old,” it began. “I don’t know where the hell I am. I feel like crap. I’m scared out of my mind. But I’m also brave. I want to protect my dad. I told Larsen that I was leaving because I didn’t want anyone to get hurt because of me.”

Matt stopped, causing Larsen and Ashley to bump into him. He had not realized that they were following him closely.

“I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” he repeated, aloud this time.

The answer suddenly flashed in his head. He whirled to face the direction they had just come from. Seconds later, his feet were carrying him down the sidewalk in a sprint. A confused Ashley and Larsen struggled to keep up with his speed.

“Matt!” Ashley shouted. “Where are you going?”

There was no time to stop. Matt simply yelled over his shoulder.

“Back to the car! I know where Luke is!”

J
ason placed his gun back in its holster, leaving the top unsnapped as a precaution. He tried standing up but fell back against the desk as a hot arc of pain shot through his leg.

“How is it?” Emma asked him.

“It’s fine,” he lied.

“I’m sorry,” she told him again. “Instinct kicked in. I automatically went for your most vulnerable area.”

Worth got himself back to an upright position, rubbing his thigh but feeling the searing discomfort slowly ebbing away. “Let’s face it, Emma. You kicked my ass.” They shared a small smile. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“After Stanford, Mike said I still needed official agent training. I excelled at hand-to-hand combat class.”

“Clearly,” Jason agreed. “So, you’re not the mole.”

“No.”

“But you agree that there is one.”

“Absolutely. It’s the only thing that makes sense. You’re correct about that.”

“Who do you think it is?”

Emma opened her mouth to speak but the words were lost. The shrill blare of a klaxon cut the air. A voice quickly followed over the office intercom system. “Emma Hosobuchi, report to Situation Room A immediately.”

She locked eyes with Jason. “Do you trust me?” she asked.

“What do you-”

She held out her hand for him to take.

“Do you trust me?” she insisted.

Jason hesitated for only a second before grasping her hand. “Yes.”

Eighty feet away, General Griggs was leaning over a hi-resolution monitor embedded in the conference table of Situation Room A. Text scrolled across it in quick bursts. He tried catching all of the information that was ticking past but doing so only succeeded in making him dizzy. At last, he pushed away from the table. He turned to Feltz, who was hovering at his side.

“You’re sure about this?” Griggs asked him.

“Absolutely, sir. We now have confirmation that FALCON operations one through five have been disabled.

“Incredible,” Griggs muttered. He ran a hand over his face. This was even worse than he had imagined.

“Are you alright, sir?” Feltz asked.

“Considering our supposedly impenetrable defense systems are nearly down, putting the lives of millions of innocents Americans at stake, I would say I am not fine at all, son. In fact, I would call that a rather stupid question.”

“Of course, sir,” the soldier backpedaled.

“Where the hell is Emma Hosobuchi?” barked Griggs, cutting off any further questioning.

“She’s been ordered to this room ASAP, sir. Should be here any second.”

The general’s eyes were drawn to movement outside the window of the conference room. Without his glasses, it was difficult to discern but it appeared that two figures were furtively making their way towards the rear stairwell that lay across the length of the office floor. One of those figures looked disturbingly familiar. He shot out of his chair.

“Isn’t that her?” he shouted at his underling, squinting to get a better look.

Feltz instantly joined Griggs at the window. The door to the stairs was shutting just as it came into his sightline. “I can’t be sure, sir. I didn’t really see.”

“Get the goddamned MP’s!” roared Griggs.

“MP’s?”

“Did I stutter? Was that order somehow unclear to you?”

“No, sir,” stammered Feltz. He snatched up the handset of a nearby conference room phone and punched a series of numbers. “We have a Code Yellow situation. MP’s needed on the lower level.” He listened for a few seconds, then cupped his hand over the phone to whisper to Griggs. “Sir, they want to know what they’re supposed to do when they get here?”

Griggs seethed in silence. Must he always be surrounded by people so dense? He glared back at Feltz, saying through gritted teeth. “Tell them to follow Emma Hosobuchi, exercise extreme caution and authorize the use of lethal force.” His eyes turned back to the stairwell door, uninterested in the shocked reaction registering on Feltz’s face. “We have a traitor that needs to be dealt with.”

Emma was taking the stairs two at a time. Her mind was clicking at rapid-fire speed, permutations and scenarios flashing and then disappearing as they were instantly dismissed. The door to her destination lay just above the next staircase. As she was about to take the last few steps, she noticed that she was alone.

“Jason?” she called out.

“Down here,” came the answer. Emma bounded back down the stairs she had just climbed to find Worth leaning against a metal handrail. She noticed his right knee slightly bent to the side. “I’m sorry,” he offered. “I can’t keep up with my leg.”

Without a word, Emma stepped down to him and placed her diminutive frame underneath his right shoulder. “Put your weight on me.”

“Ms. Hosobuchi, I-”

“It wasn’t a question, Specialist Worth. It was an order.” She heard Jason sigh in frustration, then felt him maneuver so she was bearing the brunt of his right side’s heft. Together, they made their way up the stairway.

“Technically, I don’t have to follow your orders, you know,” Worth said.

“Yes, well, you never were very good at obeying the rules.”

Jason gave a thin smile. “Where are we going?” he asked.

“The third floor. We need to find Cameron Allen.”

“The IT guy? What’s he going to do for us?”

Emma remained silent as they hit the door to the third level. She yanked it open and waved Jason through. He stepped as quickly as he could and had just crossed the threshold into a carpeted hallway when there was a metallic bang from below. He whirled but only saw Emma hurriedly shutting the door behind her. “What was that?” Worth asked.

“Most likely, it was the MP’s that Griggs has ordered to find me,” Emma said off-handedly, scanning the nearby wall. “Ah, here we go.” She pressed a small panel set into the wall and it swiveled open on hidden hinges. Inside, a keypad rested beneath a steadily glowing green light. Emma rapidly punched a series of numbers and then cocked her ear to listen.

Ker-thunk.

She nodded, satisfied. Grabbed Jason’s hand to lead him down the hallway. He opened his mouth for another question but she interrupted him before he had a chance. “It’s a lockdown program I created for internal threats. It locks all stairways and freezes the elevators.” Suddenly, there was pounding at the stairway door that they had exited through. Muffled shouts from beyond confirmed what Emma had just told Jason.

Emma paused and turned to Worth. “This is your chance to leave me. It’s still possible for you to say I coerced you into coming this far. But if you go ahead with me, then you’re as much a danger to Griggs as I am.” She jerked her neck towards a high corner of the hall. “There is a high probability that the camera over there has a feed going directly to Griggs. An even higher probability is that we will not leave this building alive tonight. I’ll understand if you want to stay here.”

Without a beat of hesitation, Worth met Emma’s eyes and gave his answer. “Ma’am, you picked the wrong soldier to leave you behind.” He straightened. “I can walk on my own now. Lead the way.”

Emma allowed herself a thin smile before telling him, “Let’s go find Cameron Allen. Then we’ll know if we’re going to survive the night.”

M
att was pressing so hard on the Porsche’s accelerator that his foot was throbbing. Spotting an upcoming corner, he downshifted and crossed one hand over the steering wheel to pull it. Tires shrieking in protest, the car skidded in a perfect arc to make the turn.

“Jesus!” Ashley shouted from the passenger seat. Larsen slid the length of the back seat and banged into the passenger door.

“I’m not slowing down,” Matt grumbled.

“Luke needs us alive,” she reminded him.

Matt ignored her, keeping his focus on the road ahead. Street names flashed past in rapid succession. His knowledge of this residential area of Beverly Hills was spotty at best since he never had listings in the area. However, he prided himself on knowing the way around every busy route in Los Angeles. Sunset Boulevard was one of those; heavy with traffic at any time of day or night. The path that he was on now ran in a circuitous parallel to the Boulevard. If he was correct, they would arrive just in time to –

Blue and red lights flashed in the rearview mirror.

“Weatherly, we have a problem,” Larsen said from the back seat.

“I can lose them,” Matt answered, pushing his foot down to the carpeted floor.

“Then you’ll have a bigger problem.”