The Dig: A Taskforce Story (8 page)

She peered out the office, then took off running, me right behind. The men heard the clatter of our footsteps and shone lights our way, shouting at us to halt. I heard them break into a run just as we reached the balcony door. Jennifer swiped the badge and I held my breath.

It went green, and she ran through, out onto the metal grate. I followed right behind. She ran to the end, then leapt over the side without even pausing, making me think she’d just jumped to her death. I looked over the railing and saw her scampering like a monkey down the electrical conduit pipe we’d used to get her up.

I heard the door bang open and went over the side myself. I scrambled as low as I could before I heard the men reach the railing above me. I let go, falling fifteen feet and hitting the dirt hard. I rolled to my knees and saw Jennifer in a crouch, her Glock aimed at the railing.

For the first time, one of the men took a shot at us and Jennifer returned fire, causing them all to duck. We both leapt up, running toward our hole in the fence. I saw four muzzle flashes to my front and hit the dirt, Jennifer collapsing right beside me.

I said, “You okay?”

“Yeah, but we got them to the front and back now.”

They were still firing, but the rounds were nowhere close, so I knew they’d lost sight of us. I saw the bunker building to the right and said, “Come on. Let’s get inside some cover.”

We ran in a crouch, getting to the front door in time to hear one of the men yell. A light splayed across us and I hissed, “Badge, get the badge out.”

She did and I yanked the door open just as they started shooting again, this time knowing where we were. I ran down the main corridor, then slid to a stop, Jennifer plowing into me. She said, “Wha—” and heard the footfalls coming our way.

I saw a heavy metal door to our left, an access pad next to it. I said, “Open that damn thing.”

She did and we entered just as the men turned the corner. I slammed the door closed, and they badged it open, hammering their shoulders into it. I pressed against it with all of my might, saying into my earpiece, “Creed! I need you to stop all access for every card on the entire base. Code them all out.”

He said, “Pike, I need access to their LAN.”

Shit!

“Jennifer, get the thumb drives from my butt pack. Find a computer and get online.”

She rummaged around at my back and the door hammered an inch open. I put my shoulder into it and slammed it closed, saying, “Jesus, hurry. I can’t hold them forever.”

She ran around behind an ornate wooden desk and jammed in the drives, powering up a desktop computer. The door hammered four inches open and a man slid his foot through the gap. I slapped it closed again, but it stopped short, bouncing off the sole of his shoe.

They pushed again, and inexorably, I began to lose the battle. I said, “Jennifer, this is it. Get ready to fight.”

I pulled out my Glock, aimed at the man’s shoe, and fired. I heard him wail, and the leg disappeared. The action gave me some breathing room and I slammed the door shut again, saying, “Creed, what’s the damn status?”

“Working it.”

Nothing happened on the other side of the door, and I began to wonder what they were up to. I heard four rapid gunshots, and felt the rounds punch into the metal at chest level. They failed to penetrate, but they almost gave me a heart attack.

I heard a frustrated scream from outside, then the magic words from Creed in my earpiece: “Access denied.” They plowed into the door again, but this time it was the locks holding them back instead of my shoulder. I slid my hands onto my knees, gulping air.

Jennifer said, “What are we going to do now? Call the police?”

I said, “Creed, they’re going to try to fix what you did, so be on your toes. Someone goes green, turn them red.”

He said, “Roger that. I’ll bet you operators never thought you’d have your ass saved by me, huh?”

I said, “Definitely worth a case of beer.” I stood up and flicked on the lights, surveying. We were in some bigwig’s office, with a huge oak desk, pictures all over the walls from various NASA-type events, a floor-to-ceiling wooden bookshelf complete with ladder, and an expensive looking mini-bar. But no windows. Which really made me want to take a slug of the scotch.

Jennifer said, “Pike?”

“Yeah, I heard you. The problem with calling the police is that
we
broke in here. We’re the ones trespassing. I’m the one that shot that guy’s foot. They can lie about all this, then claim they had to use lethal force as self-defense. We’ll be the ones going to jail.”

She jumped up on the desk, looking above her and saying, “But we’ll be alive.” Her movement kicked over an engraved marble slab, causing it to fall to the carpet below. It landed upright, and I read, “The buck stops here—Dr. Deveron.”

Holy shit. We’re in the head guy’s office.

Jennifer said, “Pike, if you can get me up high enough, I can get out through this skylight.”

Ignoring her, I looked around the office, finding a large, upright metal safe with another access panel next to it. I said, “Jennifer, hand me the card.”

She did so, and I magically opened the safe as Dr. Broadmoor, now authorized to do anything I wanted. Inside, the cavernous space was empty, with all the shelves vacant save for one. It had six file folders containing about ten pages each. I pulled them out and flipped the first one open. In big red letters it said,
EYES ONLY
. Below that, I saw the word
FAIL
. I shoved them down the front of my shirt, saying, “Okay, time to go. What have you figured out?”

She rolled her eyes and said, “You want to go out through the skylight or call the cops?”

I said, “Skylight.”

She aimed her Glock straight up, drapped an arm over her head, and fired three times. The glass shattered, raining down on her. She shook the pieces free and said, “Get on up here. Time to play cheerleader again.”

I climbed on the desk and she said, “Let me have your shirt.”

“What for?”

“I have to break out the rest of that glass, and I need to protect my hands.”

“What about your shirt?”

“Pike, really? I’m not stripping in front of you.”

“But you’ll still have on a bra. I won’t have anything.”

“Give me the damn shirt!”

I did so, grumpily pulling out the files first and handing them to her. I then squatted down, letting her climb on my shoulders. She wrapped my shirt into her right hand and said, “Okay, up, Simba.”

Just as I raised myself there was a huge boom on the other side of the door. I knew instantly what it was.
Police battering ram.

I said, “They’re going to get through in about five minutes. Get to work.”

She said, “Duck your head,” then began smashing the remaining glass from the frame. I felt the pieces coming down and realized I had no protection for my upper body.

Damn it. I should have kept my shirt.

She said, “Okay, it’s clean.”

“Give me my shirt back.”

She dropped it to the desk, saying, “Here, grouchy.”

She looked above her and said, “I’m going to stand up on your shoulders. From there, I can grab the frame and shimmy up.”

“What am I going to do?”

She put her hand on my head and started to rise, saying, “You’ll figure something out.”

I said, “What?” And the weight left my shoulders. I looked up in time to see her legs disappear. I heard the door gong again from the battering ram and knew I was in trouble. Her head reappeared and she said, “Want me to call the police for you?”

I jumped down from the desk, cursing under my breath. I grabbed the multifunction giant desk chair and locked in all variables—tilt, rock, wheels, everything. I hoisted it up on the desk, then stood precariously on the chair. It was still about a five-foot leap. Too much.

I glanced around the room again, seeing the door beginning to buckle from the repeated blows of the battering ram. Across the way, I locked onto the library ladder. I jumped down and ran over to it, seeing it hooked over a rail that went the length of the bookshelf. I hoisted it off, ran back to the desk, and climbed on the chair.

I stood up, saying, “Jennifer, hook this thing to the frame.”

She did so, and I tested the hold. It swung around wildly. Jennifer said, “I can put a foot against each hook and it won’t go anywhere. It might feel like it, but it won’t.”

I took one more look at the door and felt a spike of adrenaline. There was now a gap between the frame and the knob. It was giving out. I put my hands on the ladder and began to climb. As soon as my feet left the chair, the ladder swung under me, the hooks rotating precariously. Jennifer said, “Pike, it’s going over!”

I kept climbing, watching the hooks. Each movement made them shift, getting closer and closer to the edge of the frame, Jennifer’s ankles going white with the pressure to prevent that from happening. She grunted, “Pike. I can’t . . .”

The ladder slipped and I pushed backwards, turning in midair and catching the far side of the frame, one spear of glass puncturing my palm. I hung there for a minute, ignoring the pain, then heard the door shatter inward. I frantically pulled myself up, flopping out onto the roof.

Jennifer said, “Well, it almost worked.”

In a high-pitched voice I said, “It won’t go anywhere, I promise,” followed by “Pike! I can’t!”

She backhanded my stomach, saying, “You didn’t have any ideas.”

I heard the men below and said, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Jennifer came skipping through the office door, waving a letter in the air while tossing our usual pile of junk mail in the trash.

“We got the check from Sweetwater! First profit for Grolier Recovery Services. We should cash it and frame a dollar bill.”

I said, “I cannot believe you’re calling that debacle a profit for Grolier. Did you pay off the ground-penetrating radar?”

She slit the envelope and said, “I told Sweetwater it was an expense.”

“And he bought that bullshit?”

She pulled out the check, grinning. “I may have mentioned that you considered it an expense, and that he should as well.”

I laughed and said, “I’m surprised he lived long enough to sign the damn check.”

* * *

We’d managed to get out of the Aegis compound without getting caught, running through the desert like a couple of illegal immigrants crossing the Rio Grande. Our hole in the fence was still tied loosely together, surprising me. Clearly, that wasn’t how they’d discovered our entry.

By the time they’d realized we were outside the compound, we were on the road in our rented pickup. It didn’t burn down the street like a Lamborghini, but it sure could tear up the terrain going cross-country. I bounced down the dirt roads so hard that Jennifer hit her head on the ceiling like someone who’d forgotten to buckle up in a space shuttle mission. Although I’m pretty sure the mission commander never got cursed out the way I did saving our ass.

We holed up back in the roach motel and took a look at what we’d found. Sweetwater thought it was the Holy Grail, but I wasn’t so sure. It was full of technical details that meant nothing to me—or Jennifer. We just didn’t have the expertise to decipher what the tests were telling us.

I called Kurt and told him what we had, saying I needed some help sorting the whole thing out. He was incredulous, as we’d only talked a couple of days before. He accused me of exaggerating my claims and I snapped, jumping upright and spilling all the test results from my lap. A brochure fell out of one folder, the cover showing a collection of smiling faces all in lab coats. Supposedly the brain trust of Aegis.

I said, “Sir, beyond the fact that we actually have the evidence, are you going to do anything with it? We risked our damn lives for this. With no help or gratitude, I might add.”

He said, “What the hell are you talking about? No help? Creed’s running all over the damn building talking about how he saved an operator’s life the other night. But he ‘can’t say who’ because it’s all ‘classified.’”

Sweetwater bent over and picked up the brochure. He said, “Hey, this is Chris!”

Jennifer said, “What are you talking about?”

I said, “Okay, so Creed helped me a little. Can you shut these guys down? They fucking tried to kill us the other night.”

“Because you broke in and starting shooting the place up?”

Now focused on Sweetwater, I said, “No, damn it. Because we broke in and stole their test results.”

Jennifer took the brochure and held it in front of my face, pointing at a man in the picture, saying, “Sweetwater thinks this is the guy named Chris, and I’ll tell you, from my brief contact with him, it bears a startling resemblance.”

Kurt said, “Send what you have. I’ll sort it out. In the meantime, get the hell out of there before you get arrested. That’s the last thing I need.”

I mumbled, “Will do, sir,” and hung up, staring at the brochure. I looked at Sweetwater and said, “You sure?”

He said, “Yeah. Of course I am.”

Jennifer said, “He wasn’t a foreign agent. He was a disgruntled employee. I think he either quit or got fired after the crash of the UAV and he was trying to get some payback. I’ll bet he was going to blackmail them.”

I thought about that, then said, “I’m going to Walmart for a scanner. Jennifer, get us some plane tickets for tomorrow. Sweetwater, type up an affidavit about Chris. Where you met him, how he contacted you, all that shit.”

We’d sent all the stuff we had right from the room. I’d donated the scanner to A. J. Sweetwater and the Historical and Preservation Society, and we’d flown out at five in the morning. Truthfully, I’d figured he’d be out in the desert next to Chris in a matter of hours. Getting the check was a nice surprise.

Jennifer said, “So we get the money from Sweetwater, but hear nothing from the Taskforce. What’s up with that?”

I felt my phone vibrate, looked at the number and said, “Speak of the devil.”

She said, “It’s Kurt?”

I held up my finger and said, “Hey, sir, I was wondering if you’d ever call.”

“Well, it took a little clandestine investigation. More time than I thought. But it looks like you guys were right on the money. The UAV technology they’ve been selling is a complete bust. It’s not even as good as the earlier stealth stuff.”

“What about the bodies?”

“They’re working it now. It’s all coming out. Not our issue, but the SECDEF sends his thanks.”

There was one word in his sentence that really made me perk up. “Good to hear, but what do you mean
our
issue.”

He said, “I got the Oversight Council to sign off on using your company for infiltration purposes. They were impressed with the mission, although I didn’t mention all the shooting that went on. I’m setting up a cover development trip to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but it will depend on Jennifer.”

“What’s that mean? We’re a team. She comes regardless.”

Jennifer’s head perked up at my words, looking at me quizzically. Kurt said, “Did Jennifer really make the connection on this thing? Or did you give her credit?”

I said, “She did it. All her.”

Jennifer mouthed, “What’s he saying?”

Kurt said, “That’s what I figured. You got one month. She makes it through A-and-S, and she goes on the trip.”

I hung up, having a hard time believing I’d actually heard the words. Jennifer said, “What’s wrong? What did he say?”

“He said we’re going to Angkor Wat. By way of Boone, North Carolina.”

“What’s that mean?”

I gave her a grim smile. “You got your shot at Selection. End of the month.”

She sat down, her eyes unfocused, running through the ramifications. After a second they returned to me.

She said, “Can we go shoot today?”