The Chimera Vector (16 page)

He tracked her through his telescopic sight. He didn’t even need to line her height against the mil-dots that formed the center of his crosshair; he already knew she was 400 meters away, having measured the distance with his range finder. 400 meters meant a four inch drop. And that meant he needed to aim four inches above her head to acquire the headshot. He knew she’d be wearing armor.

Sophia ran across the rooftop. Jay exhaled, the ball of his finger over the trigger. Sophia crouched down, ready to jump to another rooftop. He aimed for her head. He inhaled slightly, by accident, and had to exhale again. He squeezed the trigger.

Sophia never made the jump.

***

Sophia fell headfirst. Right through the giant Christmas tree. Blood flowed warm over her cheeks. A thick, unforgiving branch crunched against her shoulder. She slipped past it, plummeting further through the tree. At the risk of breaking her arms, she reached out, clawed desperately at branches to slow her fall. She could hardly breathe, the large-caliber round having knocked the wind from her. Bark scraped her neck. A branch smashed her wrist. Another caught her leg, slinging her entire body around. She was almost the right way up. She hooked a branch with her leg and swung upside down. Her bag hit her in the back of the neck. Blood rushed to her head. She’d stopped falling.

Opening her eyes, she found herself only five meters from the ground. There was nothing below but cobblestones and a stone carving of Jesus. She breathed. Hard. Her lungs burned but she didn’t care. She was alive. The Christmas tree had saved her.

Carefully, yet as quickly as possible, she climbed down the tree trunk. She landed quietly on her feet beside the Jesus statue. He stared blankly at her. She patted him on the head. ‘Thanks, Jesus.’

She found a dark crevasse of an alleyway and hid there for a moment, catching her breath. In the darkness, she let her night-vision adjust as she checked her body for injuries. Nothing broken, amazingly. But plenty of cuts and scrapes, most of them concealed. One very tender portion between her shoulder blades where the large-caliber round had struck just above her bag. She was wearing her vest and front and back plates, luckily. The sniper had hit her upper back, shattering the back plate, which had absorbed at least some of the blow. But it was going to be even more painful in the morning.

Whoever the operative was, they’d messed up the shot. She was lucky to be alive.

Denton’s Blue Berets might be incapacitated, but there would be more. And the operative was still out there. They’d be looking to recover her body. She had to get out of here right now.

She could hear the sound of guitars and singing up the road, along with the crackle of a bonfire. A cluster of people around what would be a very large heat source. Exactly what she needed to slip away undetected from Blue Berets, operatives and eyes in the sky.

Chapter 16

‘
Ti sei fatto male?
’ the woman behind the counter at the bookstore said.
Are you hurt?

Sophia winced. She smiled and shook her head. ‘
No, ero solo fare una corsa
.’
No, I was just running.

She placed her purchases on the counter: a blank notepad, two pens, a pocket-sized Polish–English dictionary and an English Lonely Planet guide to Belize. She paid in exact cash and headed for the exit, focused on walking as naturally as possible despite the incredible bruise that tarnished her shoulder blades.

She had stolen a car from Volterra and driven to Florence. She’d left the car in an alleyway and changed her direction three times before approaching the bookstore. As she made her slow walk out of the store appear leisurely, she double-checked everyone walking in and out.

Above the store’s entrance, a television displayed a newsreader covering the long-term health effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which was now being blamed for everything from the catastrophic weather, destroyed crops, rising cost of food and doomsday hysteria. Sophia slowed to watch. After the newsreader’s bit was done, they crossed to a reporter for some breaking news. In the background, US soldiers and armored personnel carriers patrolled the city streets. The reporter gave her most informed opinion on the rumors of martial law for the United States.

As Sophia walked under the television, it cut back to the studio where the anchorman and woman nodded stiffly as the teleprompter fed them their next story. Something about a dangerous cult called the Alquimie, suspected of being responsible for the recent spate of violent protests in Washington. Denton had probably written the script for them. Did this Alquimie even exist? If it was real, it’d surely be carefully managed by the Fifth Column. Even the Akhana could be. She didn’t know. But she wanted to find out.

She walked out onto the cobblestoned street, her bag hugging her bruised back. She avoided a large middle-aged woman on a bicycle, then made her way past a fleet of parked Vespas and down the narrow sidewalk of an equally narrow one-way backstreet. The right-hand side was lined with Smart cars, Volkswagen Minis, Renaults and other conveniently compact cars. Even in the afternoon, the street was void of any foot traffic, with only the occasional scooter, van and a single black Porsche.

Florence had a lot in common with Volterra. The tall, arched wooden doors, the wrought-iron street lamps extruding from the buildings, the wooden shutters on the windows of the three-story buildings. She reached a small intersection with a theater on the left and a newsstand on the right. She continued ahead, cutting through a small park and past a church. In front of her was a large grassy traffic circle. Beyond it, the Firenze Santa Maria Novella train station, which looked somewhat drab when compared to the Gothic architecture that surrounded it. She lined up at the automatic ticket machines to purchase a ticket.

As she’d expected for Christmas season, the station was swarming with families. She weaved through them, doing her best to smooth out her limp on the striped marble floors. Despite the ticket-machine lines, she reached her platform with twenty minutes to spare. The high-speed train would take her to Rome. Then a traditional train would take her to Naples, and then another high-speed to Palermo. From there, her best way out of Europe was by tanker ship to South America. It would take quite some time to reach her destination, but it was the safest option. It also meant she could keep the Glock.

Seven hours of travel time awaited her. The first two trips she planned to spend working out where this Akhana base might be, and on the last trip, the longest, she would plot exactly how she was going to get there.

***

The train jolted, banging Sophia’s head against the window and waking her. The carriage was almost empty. She remembered deciding to rest her eyes as the train entered the underwater tunnel. Now, she found herself looking out at the coastline. The population was sparse out here in the Sicilian countryside. A few houses overlooked a calm, pale blue ocean. Out the other side of the carriage, she could see rocky knolls and a main road buzzing with small cars.

Sophia blinked several times, pushed herself upright in her chair. Her bag was sitting on her lap, her hands still gripping it. She pulled her notes out. During her travels so far, she’d read Leoncjusz’s journal from when her name was first mentioned to the very end, checking every word she didn’t recognize in case it offered a hint to the location of the Akhana base. It had gradually become clear to her that even Leoncjusz didn’t know the exact location. It would’ve been smarter to find the Akhana liaison he’d met with, but that had been at least twenty-four hours ago.

With only an hour and a bit of her train ride remaining, she dug out the Lonely Planet guide to Belize. Despite it being a book for tourists, she thought it would offer enough about the terrain to help her figure out the most likely place for a secret resistance base. Or at least that was what she hoped to do.

She found a full map of the tropical country and sketched it out on her notepad. Then she returned to the first page and started from there. The first thing she noted was that forty percent of Belize was protected, mostly in the form of national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and marine reserves. The second thing was that it had the lowest population density in the world. Page by page, she marked on her notebook all the places mentioned by Lonely Planet. By the time she was done, she had a map of every area where the base would
not
be. Now it was up to her to fill in the gaps.

She circled the Cayo District, affectionately known as the Wild West of Belize, and took note of the areas that were unmarked. There were a couple of forest reserves and national parks that looked promising, especially since the book warned that vehicles passing through were sometimes ambushed by bandits. She paused for a moment. It was dry season, but there would still be a great deal of rain, and in the south there’d be at least one downpour every day. That meant the base had to be on high ground so it wouldn’t get flooded out during the wet season.

Sophia crossed out her selections and instead circled the Maya Mountains, just south of where she’d been looking. Lonely Planet had mentioned limestone caves inside the mountains, once used as gateways to the underworld by the Mayans to give sacrifices to their gods. It made sense to utilize existing cave networks to fashion a base. All the more reason to suspect the Akhana headquarters might be hidden inside a Belizean mountain.

She circled all of the mountainous regions not frequented by tourists. One such region fell into two forest reserves that joined: the Columbia Forest Reserve and the Deep River Forest Reserve. According to the map, the Southern Highway ran straight through the middle of the Deep River Forest Reserve, so that immediate area was out. But further along she spotted an interesting cluster of mountainous terrain. There was the occasional camp listed, but that was it.

Rivers. It seemed likely the base was located within range of a river. They couldn’t get all their water from condensation or shipping. Unless they had their own underground well. She hoped not, and marked the one notable river that could supply them with good water: the Rio Grande.

She followed the river as it snaked north, deep into the forest reserve. She circled it twice. If she wanted to build a concealed base, she would build it there. She just hoped these Akhana folk thought the same way.

Chapter 17

Every time, the dream was the same. He was six years old again. He looked up to see the twisted olive branches weaving into each other, creating a thick-latticed arch above that broke the crystal-blue sky into slivers. It was the longer way home from school but Damien liked it better than the gloomy alleyways. He was knee-high in soft emerald grass, his schoolbag slung over his right shoulder. A breeze tickled the grass. It reminded him of the way the fur moved on the back of his dog, Primo, when he shivered at the back door, wanting to be let inside. The shivering was just for show, but if no one was looking Damien would let him inside anyway.

He heard voices not far behind him. They sounded about his age. He recognized one of the voices as Ernesto’s. It wasn’t surprising: the olive grove was no secret and lots of kids played here. Damien sped up just a bit, not too much in case it caught Ernesto’s attention.

Not that it mattered. Ernesto had already seen him.

‘Damiano!’

Damien ignored him and kept walking. This was the ‘pretend to be your best friend’ part. He could hear them stomping through the grass behind him. He stayed his course and let Ernesto sidle up to him and slap him on the back.

‘Damiano, I have to ask you something.’

Damien kept walking. He knew Ernesto’s boys were surrounding him. He’d thought that if he stayed quiet and kept from drawing attention to himself, Ernesto’s gang wouldn’t notice him. But they had. Last time, Ernesto had told Damien he could beat him in a fight. Damien knew that if he disagreed, Ernesto would want to prove it. So he’d agreed. But Ernesto had just pushed him over and laughed.

Damien had never fought anyone before. He had an older sister and no brothers to fight with. But he’d seen his father punch a few grown-ups. He’d held his thumb outside of his fist and aimed with his knuckles to the side of the face. Damien wasn’t sure he could do that to Ernesto. But if Ernesto tried to punch him, he couldn’t just stand there.

Damien’s heart pumped faster. He gripped onto his schoolbag with his right hand. If he was going to punch anyone, he’d be better with his left. He was left-handed, and kicked the ball with his left foot.

Ernesto spent most of his time with his finger up his nose or scratching dandruff, but this time his meaty hands dangled at his sides.

‘Damiano, are you heterosexual?’ he said.

Damien didn’t know what a heterosexual was. It had to be something embarrassing, he guessed.

‘No,
non credo
.’

Ernesto burst out laughing. His boys joined in. They slapped Damien on the back and shoved him around as they laughed. He continued walking, making sure to keep his steps steady so he wasn’t knocked over. He could hear voices at the far end of the olive grove. If he could make it that far he’d be alright.

‘You’re a fag!’ Ernesto said, and shoved Damien’s schoolbag hard from the side.

Damien moved quickly, leaping to the left. Just managed to keep his footing. But another boy was waiting for him and shoved him back the other way. He stumbled towards Ernesto, tripped in the long grass and fell on his side. Ernesto kicked him hard in the back. Damien’s schoolbag absorbed the blow.

He quickly got to his feet. The wind whistled through the grass, making it ripple around him.

Ernesto grabbed clumps of Damien’s shirt at the shoulders. He swung Damien around, trying to make him lose his balance again. As Damien staggered past, one of the boys extended a foot. Damien stumbled but managed to stay upright. His bag came free, dropping into the long grass. Ernesto and his boys surrounded him, chanting together, ‘Fag!’