Predator One (50 page)

Brierly nodded. “I remember that very well. We all thought the man walked on water. Even the release of
seif al din
was done to scare us into putting billions into new R and D to combat it. He never really planned to release it. But the threat of it had to be real or the plan wouldn’t have worked. It almost worked, too.”

“Still leaves Gault dead and the NF in Chula Vista,” said the president.
“What are we supposed to think about that?”

“It seems pretty clear to me,” said Brierly.

Church nodded. “Whoever the Seven Kings are now … they apparently have Sebastian Gault’s research. And that is a very, very troubling thing.”

Chapter One Hundred and Thirteen

Tiger Mountain State Forest

Washington

April 1, 11:39
A.M.

“Heads up, guys,” said Brian as he studied the electronic map. Nikki had switched the drone’s video-surveillance controls to him. “They’re making a turn.”

The truck turned left onto a fire-access road in the state park.

“Where’s he going?” I asked Brian, who was integrating the drone feed with
Google Maps. He hit some buttons to overlay the image with data collected by MindReader.

“Nothing out there except a two-man ranger station,” he answered. “And after that there’s a whole lot of nothing.”

“Side roads?”

“Hiking paths, some utility roads. Scattered Forest Service buildings. Mostly empty this time of year.”

“What about a clear space for a helicopter?” I asked.

“Plenty of places
if the pilot has some stones. Oh, wait—on the far side of the park, there’s a concrete slab used by fire department helos. No birds on it now, but that could be where they’re going. You could put a Chinook down on it.”

I tapped my earbud for the team channel. “Cowboy to Java and Odin. Be advised, target has gone into the forest. Sending possible coordinates. Find an alternate route in to take
them from the far side.” I growled at Brian. “Where’s that drone feed? All I’m seeing is trees.”

He put the thermal scan back online, and the heat signatures from the three vehicles flared from under the dense canopy of leaves.

“Got ’em.”

“Jumper to Cowboy,” said a voice in my ear. Jumper was the top kick of Odin Team. “We’re fifteen minutes out. Can you hold the party for us?”

“Doesn’t look
like it.

“Traffic’s a bear, and there’s construction on the shoulder. Can’t get around it in time, so this in on you. Don’t stop for coffee.”

“Copy that.”

“I have a gravel road that cuts around to the far side of the landing pad,” said Brian. “Sending coordinates to the GPS now.”

“Got it,” said Bunny, and he swung the wheel to send the Escalade crashing through some weeds. He thumped and bumped
over underbrush and then skittered onto the gravel.

“Boss,” said Brian, “we’re going to hit the road they’re on directly in front of them. Shit, this is going to be close.”

“Perfect,” I said.

We left the gravel road, and Bunny spun the wheel as we thumped back onto the service road. In the side-view mirror, I saw the convoy right behind us. The lead SUV braked for a moment, then began accelerating
toward us. The passenger-side window opened, and an arm leaned out with an AK-47. Even over the drone of engines, the buzz-saw roar of the machine gun filled the air, and rounds pinged and whanged off the armored skin of Ugly Betty.

“Okay, kids, party time,” I said. “We’re going with a Baltimore slam. Hit it!”

Bunny punched a button on his steering column that popped the rear hatch and launched
a spike net. It shot backward as a rolled bundle but immediately sprang open and dropped flat sideways across the road. The spike net was fifteen feet long and shaped like a carpet runner, except that it was covered with heavy-grade steel spikes. The front wheels of the lead SUV hit the spikes and exploded.

The driver tried to control the vehicle, but he was going too fast, and there was no room
for ballet. The pickup truck slammed into the back of the SUV and sent it into a wild fishtail. We could all feel the thump as the SUV crunched sideways into a ponderous maple tree.

The pickup driver was in trouble from the impact, too. It began a long, bad turn that chunked the sides of two tires against the uneven side of the road. The truck canted over and went crunching down into a slide,
the metal skin hissing as it rasped over stones and tree roots.

That left the follow car.

“Can I, Boss?” asked Bunny.

“Have some fun,” I told him.

“Fun with what?” asked Brian.

Bunny just grinned and hit another button. We heard the rumble as the rear taillights swung down and two M242 Bushmaster 25 mm chain-fed autocannons rolled out.

“When you only care to send the very best,” said Bunny.
He pressed the button again, and the air was filled with thunder. The heavy rounds punched into the SUV and tore it apart.

No joke.

The armor-piercing Sabot rounds killed the engine, blew apart the windshield, and turned everything inside that car to junk. Red, screaming junk.

The vehicle slowed to a smoking stop and died.

Bunny stamped on the brakes, spun the wheel, and turned us around so
fast that a tower of smoke rose all around us. We were out and running before the echoes of that screeching turn had reached the far wall of trees. I had my Sig Sauer P226 in a two-handed grip and began firing as I stepped through the smoke. Top and Brian had CQBR carbines, and Bunny had his drum-fed combat shotgun.

Men were crawling out of the crashed SUV and up through the windows of the fallen
pickup. They were all dressed in unmarked black BDUs. None of them looked like Aaron Davidovich.

I have to give them credit for trying to make a fight of it.

We weren’t here for a fight. Not a fair one, anyway.

We cut them down, and we didn’t feel a flicker of mercy, compassion, or regret.

One of the men staggered away from the SUV and was clearly dazed by the crash. His face was covered with
blood, and his eyes were wild. His pistol was in his hand, but it was pointed at the ground. He looked at the bodies that littered the grass and the road and then at us. We stood in a line, our smoking barrels pointed at him.

I aimed my Sig at his face. “Drop the weapon.”

Blood ran from a broken nose into his mouth, and he spat it at me. Too far to reach me, but he made his point. I took a step
closer.

“Drop the weapon or I will kill you.”

He suddenly smiled at me. His teeth were bright red. “Say good-bye to—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. My world’s going to burn. Blah, blah, blah. Put the gun down right now.”

The man kept smiling.

He was still smiling when he jammed the barrel of his pistol up under his chin and blew off the top of his head.

Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen

Tiger Mountain State Forest

Washington

April 1, 12:22
A.M.

Brian Botley said, “Well … holy shit. Why did he
do
that?”

“Fanatic much?” murmured Bunny, annoyed but unimpressed. “Frigging Kingsmen.”

“Welcome to the DMS,” grumbled Top. “Okay, stop gawking. Hotzone, check the lead car. Green Giant, check the follow. Go.”

Brian and Bunny ran forward, weapons
up, eyes wary. Top and I approached the pickup from two sides.

“Clear!” called Brian, and a second later Bunny echoed it.

I squatted down in front of the shattered windshield of the pickup. The interior of the truck was a shambles. There was a lot of blood but only one body.

And thank God it still had a pulse.

Strapped into the passenger seat, his wrists bound by zip ties, a trickle of blood
on his forehead from a small cut, was Doctor Aaron Davidovich. He looked absolutely terrified.

“Please,” he begged. “Please don’t hurt me.”

I lowered my gun. “Doctor Davidovich,” I said, smiling at him, “we’re the good guys. No one’s going to hurt you again.”

He stared at me in doubt, in disbelief. Then his eyes widened. “J-Joe…?”

“Good to see you alive, doc.”

“My … my son?”

“We have him.
Your wife and mom, too. All safe.”

A fragile smile blossomed on his face. Then he put his face in his bound hands and began to weep.

“Doc,” I said, “we need to get you out of there.” I took out my knife and cut the zip tie. “How badly are you hurt?”

“It’s my thigh. I was shot!” He said it as if that was the most extraordinary thing that had ever happened to anyone. He raised his head, and I
could see that he was a few ticks away from falling off the edge of the world. I had no idea what he’d been through since he’d been taken from the CIA safe house, but there wasn’t a lot of what you’d call sanity burning in his eyes.

“Let me take a look,” I said, and I climbed into the truck. He had a rough field dressing taped to his thigh, and I peeled it back to reveal a nasty-looking exit
wound. The wound was bleeding sluggishly, though no arteries were ruptured. From what Davidovich had said on the radio, I expected something far worse than this. Of course, to the average person, any kind of violent wound was huge. I replaced the dressing. “It’s not too bad. You’re not in any immediate threat, and once we get you out of here, we can give you something for the pain. First, though,
we need to get you out. Looks like you’re in here pretty good, though. I’ll need to get some tools from my truck.”

He tried to protest, but I assured him that I wasn’t going to abandon him. I began worming my way out when he caught my wrist.

“Joe,” he said, gripping me with desperate force, “you swear that my son is safe? You swear that Matthew is going to stay safe?”

“You have my word of honor,
Doc. No fucking around.”

He studied me for a long moment, his eyes jumpy and wild. “You’re telling the truth? You’re not lying to me so I tell what I know.”

“No, Doc,” I said, “we’re helping your family, and we’re here to help you, but you have to help us. If you know what the Kings are doing, then tell me. Help us stop them.”

“God, you have to stop them. They’re insane. Pharos and the Gentleman.
They took me and tortured me and did things to me…”

His voice trailed off and he started to cry, but there was something about it that seemed like performance.

“Who’s Pharos?” I asked. “Who’s the Gentleman?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. They’re crazy, and you have to stop them before they can hurt Matthew.”

“Focus, Doc. Did they make you work for them?”

He nodded, not meeting my
eyes.

“Doc, did they make you tell them about Regis? We think they’re hacking it.”

“Of
course
they are. Those maniacs … They’re going to use the system to launch missiles, make ships crash, open valves on submarines, take over firing controls on jets. And not just military. It’ll cause autonomous cars to crash. I think they even want to override active controls on planes in flight and initiate
a suicide firewall.”

“How can we stop them?”

“The reset codes will shut the whole thing down.”

I almost sobbed with relief. Reset codes. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

“What are the codes?”
I begged. “And how do I—?”

He shook his head. “There’s a whole set of them. You have to input them manually. No cut and paste or it triggers a deadfall subroutine.”

I knew about those from other jobs. If you
try too many times to input a password, or in this case use the wrong password, the deadfall kicks you out and won’t allow your computer to connect again. Ever. Bug has stuff like that in MindReader.

As if he could read my thoughts, he said, “And don’t let Church use the MindReader system. I built countermeasures for that. My QC can spot MindReader a mile off, and it will retaliate by giving
all the go codes at once. You have to log on with a regular computer and Wi-Fi.”

“Okay, but where are the reset codes?”

“They’re still on the island in my notebooks, hidden in a piece of old game code that I stopped working on. It looks like junk unless you know the key to using it.”

“Which fucking island?” I said, losing patience with him.

He didn’t answer but instead kept rambling. “Get
my notebooks. The key to finding the codes Pi from nine, backwards,” he said, as if that should mean something. “Page two. I’d have put them in myself, but I had to get out and took the first opportunity I could. Had to go right then.”

“Doc, you’re not making sense. Tell me what—”

“Fuck it!” he snarled. “You’re too stupid to understand. You
all
are. Get me out of here. If I can get to a computer,
I can—”

Suddenly a voice yelled in my ear. “Jumper to Cowboy, Jumper to Cowboy, do you copy?”

I touched my earbud. “Go for Cowboy.”

It was Nikki, and she sounded hysterical. “Be advised, we have lost control of the drone.”

“Say again?”

“We have lost operational control of the drone. We’re getting signals that the bird has gone weapons hot. Jesus Christ, Cowboy, it’s coming right at you. Get
out of there!”

Outside, I heard Top and Bunny and Brian yelling.

I heard gunfire.

Hands reached through the smashed hole where the windshield had been. I fought them, fought to hold on to Davidovich as he tried to cling to me.

There was a hissing sound outside, above me.

Then the world seemed to come apart. There was so much heat, and yet my brain seemed to go dark. I felt my body moving
through the air, pushed by a burning fist of superheated gas. Then leaves and branches were whipping at me. I was falling, crashing, tumbling as I plummeted through the brush. I still had hold of Davidovich’s hand. Somehow, impossibly, I still clutched his hand in mine.

It was only after I landed that I realized that his hand was all I held.

Chapter One Hundred and Fifteen

Tanglewood Island

Pierce County, Washington

April 1, 12:33
P.M.