Red Knight Falling (11 page)

NINETEEN

We flew into the sunrise, our wheels touching down under the clear blue Florida sky. I squinted against the dazzling brightness outside my porthole window, the light telling me to wake up, shake out the sluggishness, and get moving. Orlando was a grimy diamond, catching every ray of sunshine and flashing it back to the heavens. As we disembarked, outside air breezed in along the accordion ramp. The autumn heat was tolerable—the thermometer pushing seventy-four—but a strange, gritty mugginess clung to my skin.

We strode down the concourse at Orlando International, blending in with the crowds. From the preponderance of mouse-ear hats and kids in princess T-shirts, everybody was either on their way to Disney or on their way back home. We stopped in at a Brioche Dorée to refuel; a spinach omelet croissant and an espresso helped to quiet the rumbling in my stomach and kick-start my brain into gear. I clutched a hot paper cup in one hand and my wrapped croissant in the other, eating on the go.

“A friendly inside NASA is a nice thing to have,” Jessie told us, “so we’re gonna humor the doc and turn invisible the second we make the handoff. He’ll never know we were watching over him.”

“A two-car pursuit, then,” I said. “I assume he’s not trained to watch for a tail, but better safe than sorry.”

“That’s a bingo. As for the actual handoff, I’ve got an idea to make sure he doesn’t give us the slip.”

We stopped in at the rental kiosk, driving off with a Taurus and a Grand Caravan in forgettable coffee brown. Common sights on any American road, and invisible in heavy traffic: perfect for a tail. If we didn’t slip up, and made sure to trade positions every few miles so he didn’t spot the same car in his rearview too often, Dr. Huerta would never know we were following him.

First, though, we had to deliver the goods. The lead tablet—stashed in a plastic bag from an airport magazine kiosk—weighed heavy in my hands as we pulled into the Mall at Millennia’s parking lot. Jessie whistled, long and low, and I could see why: this was serious shopping for high-end customers. Rows of perfect palm trees lined the front drive, resting in round beds set into glimmering pristine pools of water. A triumphant glass arch welcomed us into an air-conditioned paradise, the way lined with polished marble tiles in shades of chocolate and tan.

“Not sure I have enough money to set foot in here,” I murmured to Jessie as we passed the marquee for the Rolex boutique. Through the flimsy plastic of the shopping bag, the tablet felt like ice against my fingertips. Ice, and the throbbing tingle of a battery.

“Badges are better than money,” she said, and proved it when she flagged down the closest security guard and flashed hers. “Agent Temple, FBI. We need to speak to your supervisor immediately, please.”

He took us to the mall’s security-operations room. The nerve center of the entire complex, one wall bristling with feeds from at least forty different cameras. The head of security looked ex-military, a little pudgy but still fit, with a regulation-neat buzz cut.

“It’s a matter of homeland security,” Jessie explained. “We have reason to believe that two persons of interest in an ongoing investigation will be making contact somewhere in the mall today. We need to get eyes on them from a distance, for the safety of your shoppers.”

He gestured to the screens. “Well, you can see pretty much anything and everything from here. Do you expect trouble? I mean, I can call all my off-duty guys in—”

“Not to worry,” I said. “If we have to make an apprehension, we’ll do it off mall property. No one will be at risk.”

That, and a few more repetitions of “homeland security,” convinced him to give April a crash course in how to work the camera feeds. Once he left, heading back to his office just down the hall, Jessie put her hands on her hips and scanned the screens, while I put in my earpiece and connected it to my phone with a Bluetooth link.

“All right,” Jessie said, “we’ll make the handoff. Then Harmony, Cody, and I will jump in the Taurus, while Kevin runs back here to meet up with April. You two can use the cameras to figure out what exit the doc leaves from, then switch to the parking-lot cams to identify his car so we know what we’re looking for. As soon as we get on his tail, grab the minivan and catch up with us as fast as you can. From there we’ll use a standard two-vehicle rotation pattern until we reach the Kennedy Space Center.”

“Easily done,” April said, rolling into position in front of the screens.

“What happens when we get there?” Cody asked.

“That’s plan D,” Jessie told him.

“Plan D?”

“Yeah. We’ll come up with it while we’re driving, on the way over. You know your science—think if we get a lab coat and a fake badge on you, you could act like you belong there?”

Cody blinked. “I . . . could
try
.”

Kevin pointed at the bank of screens. “Got him. There he is, first floor.”

Even on a small, grainy screen, there was no mistaking Dr. Huerta—or at least, no mistaking that enormous mustache. He paced back and forth outside a storefront, shoulders hunched and wringing his hands, looking equal parts nervous and conspicuous.

“He’s sticking out like a sore thumb,” I said. No sense of tradecraft. Then again, this wasn’t his line of work. As long as we made the handoff fast and kept him in sight all the way to the space center, he’d be perfectly safe.

“The fate of the world may rest in this man’s hands,” Jessie deadpanned. “Let’s go make friends.”

As borderline panicked as he looked, Dr. Huerta still didn’t see us coming. The four of us cut through the crowds, coming up behind him.

“Starshine,” I said softly, and watched him nearly jump out of his skin.

“O-oh!” he said, whirling to face us. He looked down at the bag in my hands, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Is that it?”

I nodded, but I didn’t give it to him. We stepped aside, out of the flow of foot traffic, and he did the same.

“You know your part?” I asked, lowering my voice under the roiling din of the crowds.

His head bobbed like a metronome. “It’ll be going up tonight, on the next resupply capsule for the International Space Station. I’ve arranged to hide it in a bulky piece of equipment: no reason anyone on board would look inside and discover it.”

April’s voice crackled over my earpiece. “Agent Black? We may have a complication.”

Cody stood beside me. His brow furrowed just a bit. “It’s going up on the
Progress
resupply vehicle? The one that’s based on the
Shenzhou
?”

More head bobbing from the doc. “Yes, that’s right.”

While they talked about space, April had my full attention.

“Six men just entered the mall together,” she said. “Military strides, jackets too heavy for Florida weather. They’re headed your way. ETA thirty seconds.”

“So that’s . . . launching tonight, you said?” Cody asked.

“Indeed,” Huerta said, “so if we could
please
just do this, and I’ll be on my way—”

Cody reached over, as if to caress my back. Instead, though, I felt only the tip of his index finger. Drawing an
X
on my shoulder blade.

Jessie, a step back, saw the gesture. She moved a little to the side, narrowing down the places Huerta could move.

“Sure,” I said, “we just need the counterphrase.”

“Running facial scans now,” April’s voice said. “Pulling strings to get top priority. I’ll know who they are in just a moment.”

Huerta gave us a nervous smile. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. “Counter . . . counterphrase? You
know
who I am.”

I wasn’t so sure. As he stumbled over his words, protesting, one sweat-damp corner of his mustache peeled ever so slightly from his face. I eased my free hand back, not reaching for my gun—not yet, with so many civilians around us—but ready for anything. The tablet throbbed in my other hand, cold against my palm through the thin plastic and giving off what felt like a warning. I clutched it tight.

“Why don’t we all step outside?” I asked, keeping my tone as light as I could.

One of Dr. Huerta’s trembling hands snaked behind his back. As he stammered a protest, April’s voice came back, crisp and sharp in my right ear.

“Confirmation. Xerxes men. Angus Caine leading them. Repeat,
Angus Caine is on-site
.”

Chrome flashed in Huerta’s hand, and he grabbed Kevin’s arm, yanking him close. Kevin froze with a snub-nose .32 pressed into his ribs. My hand closed over the grip of my pistol, but I didn’t draw it—not here, not yet. The crowds churned around us, oblivious to the danger in their midst, but escalating things could turn the mall concourse into a human stampede.

“Give me the tablet,” Huerta said, his voice on the edge of pleading. “I
need
it.”

“I’m kind of an ISS fan,” Cody explained. “The station isn’t getting another supply shipment until next month. And the
Progress
is based on the
Soyuz
capsule, not the
Shenzhou
. Whoever this guy is, he doesn’t work for NASA.”

“You want to let my man go,” Jessie said. “Or this is gonna end really badly for you.”

A cockney voice boomed behind us, rising above the din of the mall.

“Looks like the commercial was true, lads: you really
can
find anything you want here.”

I knew his voice before I turned. Angus Caine. His back was straight as an iron bar, his eyes hard enough to cut glass. The SAS commando turned mercenary wore his salt-and-pepper hair in a tight crew cut, and for a man in his fifties, he looked like he could go toe to toe with a heavyweight boxer and not break a sweat. His followers, five of them, fanned out at his sides. Bulges showed under track jackets and windbreakers.

“You ladies,” Angus said, “have something that belongs to me.”

“It’s
mine
,” Huerta said, jabbing the pistol into Kevin’s ribs hard enough to make him wince.

Frying pan on one side, the fire on the other. Would Caine and his men open fire in a crowded shopping mall? I couldn’t risk that. Whatever happened next, we had to find a way to clear the civilians out without starting a panic.

“We have reached the point,” Jessie murmured, “where things officially can’t get any worse.”

Then I saw the crowds part like a sea, off to the side, and a wave of rainbow hair. Mikki sauntered toward us, and she wasn’t alone. A motley crew followed in her wake, all chin stubble, shorn heads, and flashes of cheap Moscow prison ink.

“Gosh, I’m sorry,” Mikki said. “Am I interrupting anything?”

“The hell are you even doing here?” Jessie snapped.

“I wanted to make an introduction, and this seemed like a good time.”

I knew the man who strolled up behind her. Not personally, but from his photographs. Jessie’s eyes narrowed to slits as Mikki curled her arms around his shoulders, draping herself against him like a mink coat.

“Just wanted you to meet my boyfriend,” Mikki told us.

“A pleasure,” Roman Steranko said, offering a polite tilt of his head.

TWENTY

Roman’s men lined up at his side. Now we had a three-way showdown brewing in the heart of an oblivious crowd: us, the Xerxes commandos, and Roman and his gang. And the man impersonating Dr. Huerta three feet away from me, with his gun in Kevin’s ribs.

Kevin didn’t care about the gun. His eyes were on Mikki as she trailed a hand down Roman’s arm and leaned in to kiss his neck.

“How long?” Jessie said. “How long have you two been working together?”

Mikki chuckled. “I told you I found a surgical team to get that poison implant out of me, didn’t I? Sweetie here arranged it for me. He arranged everything. He’s
so
considerate.”

Roman shrugged amiably. “Once we spotted you in Boston, Mikki tailed you to Oregon, where I and my colleagues
intended
to recover the Red Knight. Too bad a certain pack of GI Joe wannabes had to get in the way.”

“’Ere now, watch it,” Angus barked. Then he squinted at them. “Wait a second. I know you—you go by Mikki Howl, don’t ya? You pulled that bank job in Belfast with the Delaney brothers.”

“The one and only,” she said with a smile.

Angus scowled. “You’re a bloody Nazi, is what you are.”

“Oh,
please
,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That’s just for the rubes in the cheap seats. I’ll pledge allegiance to any flag if there’s a paycheck in it. My creed’s the same as yours, and it comes printed on little green slips of paper.”

We were starting to get looks now, shoppers going out of their way to avoid the growing confrontation, sensing trouble brewing. Farther up the concourse, I saw the head of security coming our way with a pair of uniformed guards in tow. I gave a furtive shake of my head, eyes hard, and he held back.

I turned my attention to Mikki. “So if you were teaming up with Steranko, why show yourself at the lodge? What was that whole bit about coming back to work for us?”

“That was just a cover story to get me
out
of there once you’d spotted me. See, I had to save
you
idiots,” she said, pointing at me and then at Angus, “from
those
idiots. We thought getting the satellite data out of your pal Lawrence would be all we needed, but once the woods filled up with hired guns playing soldier, we figured it’d be a lot easier to let you do all the hard work. You’d find the Red Knight’s cargo, then we could hunt you down and take it from you. And look: it worked!”

“The only people taking anything,” Angus said, “is
us
.”

“So you’re the one who killed Lawrence,” Jessie said, her voice hard.

“Oh, did you find the body?” Mikki asked. “Did you like that, with the bed frame and the car battery? I mean, I couldn’t exactly set him on fire, now could I? Kind of a dead giveaway.”

“Mikki,” Kevin said, with a creaky tremble in his voice, “what about . . . what about you and me?”

“Ooh,” she cooed. “Remember last time we said good-bye, that night at the lodge? When I pulled you close and sliiiid my hands down into your back pockets?”

Slowly, as if dreading what he’d find there, Kevin reached back with his free hand. Huerta jabbed the gun harder into his ribs, and Kevin hissed at him through gritted teeth.

“It’s my
back pocket
.
Easy.
I’m not armed.”

His fingers slid into the back pocket of his jeans. They came up with a tiny silver disk, about the size of my thumbnail.

“A tracker,” Roman explained. “You led us right to you, no effort required.”

“‘No effort’ is right,” Mikki said.

“But,” Kevin said, haltingly, “what about
us
?”

“Us?” she blinked. “There is no us. Come on, seriously? There never was. You had to have known that. You can’t be that dumb.”

“But . . . everything we talked about, everything we
did
together.”

“Oh my God, are you going to cry about it?” Mikki gaped at him, letting out a little giggle as she looked to Roman. “I think he’s actually going to start crying.”

Roman shook his head. He curled his arm around Mikki’s shoulder, pulling her close.

“Come on, kid. Wake up. That phone tap in Boston? Weak. I saw you coming from a mile away. Hacking’s the only thing you’re good at, but you’re
not
good at it—at least not compared to
me
. You wear T-shirts, I wear Armani. I drive a vintage Porsche, and you . . . well, you hit people with surveillance vans and make an ass of yourself on YouTube. Seriously, I watched that video ten times, and it just gets funnier every time I see it. What do you think you could
possibly
offer a woman like her?”

Mikki gave Kevin a slow, hungry smile.

“Let’s face it, sweetheart,” she said, “I’m way out of your league.”

Kevin’s jaw trembled, taut, his lips pursed. He stared straight ahead, not saying a word.

“The lad looks like a bit of a runt,” Angus grumbled, “but you don’t have to be an utter gobshite about it. Now, how about one of you hands over the goods before we have to take this from word nasty to bullet nasty?”

“The tablet.” Huerta’s finger tightened dangerously on the trigger. “Give it to me!”

The seconds ticked by in slow motion, and I could feel the clock counting down to doomsday. We were a heartbeat from turning a crowded shopping mall into a re-creation of the gunfight at the OK Corral. I needed to clear the playing field, and fast, before anybody got hurt in the cross fire.

“April,” I whispered under my breath, trusting the earpiece to pick it up. “Fire alarm.
Now.
”

A few seconds later, a warning klaxon split the air, three earsplitting bursts. A recorded voice, soothing and friendly, echoed over every speaker in the mall.

“Your attention, please. Due to an emergency, we must evacuate the mall immediately. Please proceed calmly to the nearest exit, where our trained security personnel will be on hand to assist you.”

The energy of the crowd shifted all around us—but it was nervous, excited confusion instead of the all-out panic I feared if the shoppers saw guns in our hands. As people milled around us, making their way to the mall’s front doors, the klaxon and voice recording went on repeat.

Soon we stood in an empty concourse.

“Emergency services are on their way,” I announced. “That includes cops. Unless you want to get in a shootout with the Orlando PD, clear out now.”

Mikki thought it over. “Huh. That could actually be fun. But . . . let’s have one gunfight at a time.”

We all drew at once. Jessie and I, Roman and his hired help, Angus and the Xerxes mercenaries. The air bristled with handguns, barrels aimed in all directions.

Nobody pulled the trigger. Yet.

“Harmony,” Cody said softly, easing back with empty hands, “we’re a little outgunned here.”

Not all the civilians had left. I glanced to one side at the group strolling up to us, without a care in the world. Then I recognized them.

“Hey, guys,” Bette said, “where’s the fire?”

The college students from the lodge, apparently no longer on a UFO field trip, casually took in the scene. Then they drew their weapons, pistols bristling from pockets and messenger bags, and joined in the fun.

“Oh,
come on
,” Angus shouted, throwing up one of his hands. “Who are
your
lot working for?”

“Who are
you
working for?” Bette replied.

“Does anyone,” Roman said, pointing at Dr. Huerta, “want to know who the walrus is working for? Is it just me?”

“Listen,” I said, “
all
of you. We are all in serious danger. If this tablet isn’t placed back into orbit, and fast, there could be global consequences.”

Mikki bumped her hip against Roman’s. “Ooh, like gloom and doom and explosions? Sounds like good times.”

“Seriously, I want to know.” Roman waved at Huerta. “Hey! Walrus! What’s the deal? I mean, look, the guy you’re holding at gunpoint is the one literally
nobody
here is going to miss. Learn to take hostages, am I right?”

“That is
it
,” Kevin said through gritted teeth.

“April,” I whispered, “is there a fire-suppression system? Can you trigger it manually?”

“Looking for it,” she replied, voice tight.

Huerta’s gun dug into Kevin’s ribs, harder, his finger tensing. He was about to pull the trigger, and from the strain in his eyes, Kevin knew it. He didn’t give Huerta the chance.

He threw an elbow into Dr. Huerta’s face, shattering his nose, and ripped the stubby .32 from his hand. Then he spun, aimed at Roman, and opened fire.

The mall exploded like fireworks on Chinese New Year as every gun in the concourse went off at once. The glass window behind us shattered, falling in a broken crystal cascade, as bullet-riddled bodies hit the floor. Gunfighters dived for cover, scattering, sidestepping as they blazed at anyone in their sights. I was drawing a bead on Mikki when Huerta hit me from behind and tackled me to the cold tile floor. We rolled, and as I tried to wedge my pistol between us, he managed to rip the plastic bag from my other hand.

One of Bette’s people ignited in flames, shrieking as he strode through the battle like a living inferno. Mikki’s delighted laughter rang out over the deafening peals of gunfire. Huerta scrambled off me, yanking the lead tablet from the bag and clutching it to his chest as he ran blindly for the doors. He made it five feet before a bullet blasted open the back of his skull.

“Harmony!” Jessie shouted behind me. “C’mon!”

She stood behind a pillar about ten feet away, waving me over. Not far from her, Cody and Kevin hunkered down behind a long marble planter. Cody had picked up a gun—a long-barreled Colt—from one of the fallen, and he and Kevin broke cover just long enough to fire off a few wild shots.

“Cover me,” I shouted and jumped up from a sprinter’s crouch. A bullet whined past my ear, slamming into the wall and blasting a fistful of tile into white powder. Jessie laid down a curtain of suppressing fire, her pistol snapping dry just as I slid behind the pillar at her side.

“Do you have eyes on the tablet?” Jessie gasped, trying to catch her breath.

I peeked out from around the fat pillar. Huerta’s body lay sprawled on the blood-streaked tile. My gut clenched as I looked to his outstretched, empty hand.

“Lost it, someone must have—”

“Harmony!”
Kevin shouted.

He held out a trembling arm as the air around him boiled like a heat mirage. Pinpricks of light, like tiny fireflies, glistened on his skin.