Targeted (2 page)

“Your dessert menu,” the waiter announced in a clipped
British accent.

“Not now,” Brandt rumbled.

The poor man’s eyes dilated as he awkwardly placed the menu
on the table, then scurried off.

“Sorry,” Brandt said as he gripped her hand. “But if I don’t
say this now…”

Rebecca kept a cheerful smile even though her heart sank.
They hadn’t really discussed life post-Knot. Had Brandt realized he wasn’t up
for not just a long-distance relationship but a transcontinental one? Had he
brought her to the shadow of the Taj Mahal to soften the blow of a breakup?

“Rebecca,” he said nearly pained. She hated seeing the
crow’s feet at the edge of his eyes pinched in worry. She hated it even more when
it spelled the bad news that was about to come her way.

“I, I…” Brandt stammered.

You what? She wanted to scream but also didn’t want to hear
the words that followed.

“Rebecca, will—” Brandt stopped, dropping her hand. “Crap. I
almost forgot…

Seriously this was going to go down as the worst break up
speech ever.

But then Brandt pulled something out from his pocket. A box.
A red velvet box. A box just the right size for a ring. Breath caught in
Rebecca’s throat. Brandt wasn’t breaking up with her. Not at all.

Was he really going to propose?

As Brandt fumbled with the box, he asked, “Rebecca Sasha
Monroe will you—”

Yeah, that’s about when the first explosion sounded.

* * *

Brandt slammed the box closed shoving it into his pocket
while his other hand found Rebecca’s and pulled her down, using his elbow to
knock the table on end so when the car right outside their window blew, the
wood took most of the damage.

Glass shattered, screams sounded, and chaos reigned.

The restaurant was plunged into quasi-darkness as the lights
were replaced by yellow emergency lighting.

Everyone here was well aware of the Mumbai attacks. This current
assault had all the earmarks for it. Car bombs to start then gunfire in the
distance. The terrorists were known for hitting tourist spots, especially where
Americans gathered. And the Taj Mahal on Valentine’s Day? This restaurant was
an all you can eat jihadist’s buffet. The fundamentalists were getting more
fundamental by the day. Even grabbing and beating native Muslims who expressed
their affection too outwardly in public.

He held Rebecca close as the other patrons scrambled to
flee. But he pulled in one breath after another, making certain that there
wasn’t a second car bomb waiting to go off. Once past five breaths, he tugged
Rebecca behind him entering the stream of panicked diners who fled in all
directions, falling, slipping, trampling one another.

Brandt grabbed a young girl who had tripped, lifting her
into her mother’s arms. Once free of the girl, he angled them across the restaurant,
away from the bulk of the crowd. Unfettered, they broke into a full run. Brandt
didn’t know whether to be proud of Rebecca or feel a little sorry for her. She
was so used to being under attack that she didn’t complain. The woman knew when
to run and when to ask questions later.

They found the stairwell and pushed through the throng
trying to get down from the hotel’s upper floors. Not Brandt.

Rebecca’s heels clanged on the metal steps as they rushed
upward. Making the turn from the second-floor landing to the third floor,
Rebecca balked as an older man and woman burst through the stairwell door and hurried
past them down the stairs.

“Our room is right here,” she said trying to urge him into
the second-floor hallway.

Yes, their room, booked under an assumed name with the best
forged passports that the CIA could come up with, was right there. The nearest
room to the emergency exit and on a floor they could make a jump from the
window and hope to live. But that wasn’t the room he was heading for.

“Trust me,” he said, not having time to explain.

And God love her, she did. Without another word, Rebecca
followed him up those stairs and through the third floor door. He pulled out
the keycard and swiped it in the first room’s lock but it flashed red.

Damn it. Wrong key. He fished for the second key, found it,
opened the door, and rushed inside.

* * *

Rebecca stumbled to a stop as the door hit her in the butt.
In the dim light, she scanned a room crammed with weapons. There were equipment
bags everywhere and enough machine guns and pistols to arm a militia.

“What is this?” she croaked out, finding it hard to speak
after the brutal shock of the last few moments. The explosion still rang in her
ears. And the blood. They had run over and around dead bodies. How much
devastation could one person see in a lifetime? And now this.

As Brandt dug around in the bags, tossing weapons like they
were baseball mitts into a gym bag, he answered, “A shadow room.”

“Shadow room?” she repeated even though she’d heard Brandt
perfectly fine the first time.

“A room booked under a completely different identity used
solely for this purpose,” Brandt said as he nodded to the weapons. “An
emergency armory.”

“How did you… ?” Rebecca tried really hard to process
everything that happened. The explosions. The gunfire. And now a shadow room.
Not that she minded having a room full of guns, it was just, you know, not
where she expected to end up on Valentine’s night. “How did you know to have
it?”

“I didn’t,” he said, grabbing fistful of ammo clips and
shoving them into a thick black canvas bag.

“Then how…?” she felt like she was trying to understand
quantum physics with an abacus.

Brandt shrugged. “We’ve had one of these everywhere we
stayed.”

Rebecca stumbled back, glad the door was closed behind her. “Everywhere?”
she repeated yet again. They had been to Madrid, Monaco, and Mozambique. And
each time they’d had a room above them loaded with weapons?

Brandt glanced over his shoulder a fierce smile on his face.
“Why do you think I kept tipping the bellmen twenty bucks?”

For a moment a silly question, given their dire
circumstances, flared though her mind. Did she want to marry a man who thought
a shadow room was an essential part of any vacation plan?

He indicated the second bed. “That’s your stuff over there.”

Willing her legs to move, she found a scientist’s equivalent
of an armory. There were laptops, encrypted hard drives, satellite phones, the
works. She opened a leather case, revealing a laptop that looked exactly like
her own, sans the dents and scratches. When she opened the lid, the computer
bloomed to life with exactly the same security window. Typing in her password,
the desktop appeared, again identical to her own. How often did they clone her
laptop?

“Clothes are on the pillow,” Brand instructed.

She found a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, thick cotton socks,
and hiking boots.

Rebecca reached for them but heard that distinct thunk,
followed by a whistle. Having no time for the clothes, she grabbed the case
with her cloned computer and sat phone. Brandt grabbed what he could as they
headed for the door.

It was barely closed behind them when an explosion rocked
the hotel. Thrown forward into the opposing wall, they fell to the floor as the
door they just went through glowed red from the fire behind it.

Rebecca looked up at Brandt, ears squealing in protest. “This
isn’t random, is it?”

* * *

How Brandt wanted to lie to the woman he loved. To tell her
everything was going to be all right. That they weren’t the targets of a
concerted and well-orchestrated ambush meant to mimic the Mumbai attacks. That
this wasn’t the Knot’s last, grand attempt to wipe them from the face of the
planet.

But he loved her, so he couldn’t lie to her. He just shook
his head and helped Rebecca to her feet. Brandt went to get them moving but she
paused.

“Hang on just a second.” They didn’t really have a second,
but he waited as she kicked her high heel against the stairwell concrete.
Finally the heel broke off. She repeated with the other shoe. “Okay.”

Again, he wasn’t sure if he should be proud of her, standing
there in her torn and bloody dress, or feel sad for her that this was her life
now.

“What are we waiting for?” she asked.

Yeah, on second thought, he was just pretty damned proud. He
took point as they rushed back down the stairs, hitting a logjam of people that
poured out onto the second-floor landing, slowing their descent. Brandt went to
follow the crowd done to the ground floor but Rebecca pulled him toward the
door.

“Our room is toast,” he said, confused on why she was obsessed
with the second floor again.

“Trust me,” she said.

And he did.

She rushed past their burnt-out room, took a sharp left,
then went down a hallway and took another left. It wasn’t until they were
nearly in the room that Brandt realized that they were headed to the hotel’s
business office. What could they use here? An emergency fax? Nevertheless,
Rebecca burst into the room and started pulling wiring out of the electronics.

Gunfire sounding from outside was met by answering screams.
The Knot was advancing on their position. They had very little time to make it
out of the hotel before the gunmen breached the hotel.

“Hon?”

Rebecca opened her laptop and plugged a cable into a port. “Like
the lights, the Knot’s knocked out phone reception, including our sat phones.”
Brand pulled his phone from his hip. Sure enough. Only interference. “Along
with all Wi-Fi.”

He didn’t doubt her. But that still didn’t answer why they
were here.

She pushed back a stray lock of blonde hair. “I’m hoping I
can find a cable modem. A separate line I can patch into. One that they hadn’t
thought to cut.”

That was his girl, always thinking.

“Bingo.” Smiling, she typed rapidly. “Let me fire off an
email…”

And by fire off an email, Rebecca meant sending a highly
encrypted message to the E-Ring. Ever since Belgium, Rebecca and the Pentagon
had been BFFs. Basically, if Rebecca was sending a message, you could bet it
was about a threat to National Security.

* * *

Rebecca typed in the third security code. She understood why
the enhanced vigilance but when under fire it would sure be nice to have some
kind of 9-1-1 code. Once the final key was accepted, her computer bloomed with
real-time heat-seeking satellite imagery.

It was a riot of yellow and oranges as people fled the
hotel, fanning out into the street. Green and blue images didn’t move, marking
the dead bodies as they cooled off. Then there were the dots moving in a slow
and methodical pattern toward the hotel.

“Nine total,” Brandt said, mainly talking to himself. “Four
creating a noose from each side with one left over for RPG duties.”

By the way his eyes scanned the reading, Rebecca could tell
he was memorizing the pattern of the assault. However, she had other concerns.
Like how far away was back up? Not the Indian police, but back up that knew how
the Knot worked and could stand up to them. Rebecca sent an email asking if
Brandt’s team was in the region before she turned her attention to an even more
pressing concern.

Like how the hell the Knot found their room on the third
floor? It seemed highly unlikely the Knot were taking potshots and just
happened to hit a room she and Brandt occupied. And after the gaggle in the
stairwell it would have been impossible to tell which heat signatures were
theirs versus guests of the hotel.

Quickly, she made a small screen in the corner for Brandt
with the heat-seeking readout as she pulled up other feeds from the satellite,
trying to determine what, if anything, made her and Brandt’s signatures
different.

“We probably should be moving,” Brandt suggested, and she
couldn’t agree more, but something in her gut wouldn’t let her leave. For an
ancient society, the Knot loved their technology. How many times had the Knot
outflanked them in Paris, Hungary, and Turkey?

“Let me just check the last feeds,” Rebecca said as Brandt
shouldered the gear, getting ready to head out.

Feeling his urgency, Rebecca flipped through the various
feeds, infrared, motion enhancement, and ultraviolet so quickly she nearly
missed the one that only had a few small blips, not the hundreds on the other
screens. Scrambling back Rebecca brought up the isolated feed. Sure enough two
brightly glowing objects were on the second floor, within the business center.

“What the…?” Brandt breathed out.

There were two other blips downstairs, but that was it. Four
blips total. No wonder the Knot had known where they were.

“It’s Gamma radiation,” Rebecca explained as she checked the
feed’s source. “They are tracking us through Gamma.”

It seemed impossible, but here was the proof positive.

“But how the hell did they paint us?” Brandt asked. “I’m not
an expert but that crap doesn’t last long. We had to be tagged within the hour.”

Rebecca shook her head. “More like fifteen minutes, and at
these levels…”

She couldn’t say it. How could they have been at dinner one
minute and not only radiation-tagged, but poisoned as well?

“At these levels?” Brandt pressed gripping his gun. If only
bullets could fix their problem.

“Within an hour, if we don’t find some way to decontaminate
ourselves…”

Again, she couldn’t finish. As an expert in DNA, Rebecca
knew all too well what radiation could do to the delicate strands of nucleic
acids and the horrific long-term consequences that this much Gamma could do.

Then a light flared on the smaller heat-signature window.
That would be an RPG being fired. Rebecca grabbed her laptop. Brandt urged her
under the desk as the second floor was rocked by another explosion.

Luckily, the business office was located in the back of the
building, so the rocket didn’t penetrate that far. However, it would only take
a few more rockets would eventually break through into the office.