The Fall (43 page)

Pete sat against a heavy wooden table a few feet from the hanging agent, metal shackles anchored to its rough surface at both ends.

He slowly looked about him, gazing at the disturbing metal objects on shelves, at the furnace in the corner. This was no ordinary building or warehouse, resembling some sort of medieval blacksmith shop.

And what was even more disturbing was the video camera on a tripod angled to capture the table as well as Riggs.

“You and … Hastings can go … fuck yourselves,” Riggs hissed, coughing, his bloody lips twisting in anger.

Javier smiled. “You are so brave, my friend,” he said in his thick accent. “But the only ones getting fucked tonight are you … and your family.”

Riggs's arm muscles throbbed as they stressed against the iron restraints. “Don't you dare … fucking bastard … don't you dare … lay one of your greasy hands on them.”

Javier pressed the tips of his right index finger and thumb against the corners of his mouth and let out a near-deafening whistle.

A door slid open and two large Latinos, as big and muscular as Riggs, dragged Riggs's wife into the room. She also had duct tape over her lips and had been crying, her cheekbones smeared with mascara. Pete had met the tall and slender brunette, who went by the name of Susan, when they'd arrived at the FBI safe house the day before. But at least she was still dressed and seemed unharmed.

Pete inhaled deeply in relief.

“Leave her … out of this,” Riggs hissed. “This is between Hastings and—”

Javier punched him hard in the solar plexus. The FBI agent gasped for air while swinging from the meat hook.

“
Colgarla al lado de él.
”

The men shackled Susan's wrists and hung her from a second meat hook adjacent to Riggs.

“Look at that,” Javier said with a grin. “Husband and wife about to die side by side.”

“Okay … wait … I'll tell you everything.”

Javier rubbed his bearded chin. “Oh, will you, now?”

Riggs looked at Pete who shook his head.

Don't do it, man! They'll kill us anyway.

“Yes. Just don't hurt her. Please,” Riggs said.

“Very well, my friend,” Javier said, pointing at the camera.

Riggs began to talk, telling them how they were supposed to contact Angela after reaching Orlando and setting up his family in a hotel. He even gave them her phone number, told them about Art-Z and Dago, and how they had masterminded the banking transactions.

“You speak the truth, my friend?”

“Yes … I swear it.”

Javier pressed his lips together and nodded solemnly at him. “I believe you.”

As Riggs exhaled slowly, Javier turned to his men and ran the tip of his thumb across his own neck while shifting his gaze to the terrified woman.

“Wait!” Riggs pleaded. “I told you everything that—”

Javier kicked him hard in the groin.

Riggs groaned, twisted, and screamed, before nearly passing out, his eyelids fluttering as one of his men slashed her throat.

Pete watched as she thrashed about, moaning, eyes wide open in shock, the duct tape muffling her screams.

Riggs went crazy, screaming, jerking against the metal restraints, howling at the top of his lungs, cursing, swearing.

Javier laughed before punching him in the gut, sending him swinging again.

Pete closed his eyes, unable to see this, wanting to shout, tugging at the zip ties.

“Bastards … you fucking … bastards. I … told you … everything,” Riggs hissed, his bruised chest expanding and contracting as Susan stopped moving, hanging limp from her restraints, eyes staring into the distance.

Javier walked over to Riggs, who was breathing heavily, his face twisted in pain.

“Take a good look at her, my friend,” Javier told him, reaching for his face, forcing him to stare at his dead wife, before shoving the ends of his thumbs into the base of his eyes, gouging them.

Riggs screamed, lurching against his restraints to no avail.

Javier ripped them out of their sockets and threw them in the bucket, before producing a switchblade and castrating him, letting him bleed out.

Riggs howled, blood streaming from his face and groin as his back bent like a bow, tight fists fighting the restraints, before slowly going limp.

Pete shrunk back in his chair, his throat dry, his mind in turmoil, the coppery smell of blood filling his nostrils.

Slowly, a door slid open and General Hastings stepped in.

He pointed at the video recorder and one of Javier's men turned it off and walked away with it.

Hastings took a moment to inspect the bodies.

“I see you haven't lost your touch, Javier.”

“
Gracias
, General.”

Slowly, he turned to Pete and approached him.

Pete tried to control his breathing, his rocketing heartbeat, his mind still trying to comprehend what he had just witnessed.

Hastings stood in front of him awhile, looking larger than life, and finally said, “Riggs didn't have a choice, Flaherty. But you do. I could use someone as talented as you and Dr. Taylor in my operation. Now, are you finally ready to talk?”

*   *   *

He came in from the water.

Under the cover of darkness.

Like a SEAL.

He had used one of Pete's WaveRunners to get him close enough, before ditching it and diving the rest of the way, using his compass to hold a course of one seven zero, heading south for two miles in the Banana River, which bordered the east end of the Kennedy Space Center's industrial park, at a depth of just ten feet, letting the SeaScooter do most of the work.

Jack relaxed in the pitch-black waters, the battle dress keeping him comfortable, enjoying the ride, surfacing only once to check his position, spotting the NASA Parkway bridge in the distance, which connected the Industrial Park to the launchpads by the Atlantic Ocean.

He went under again for another fifteen minutes, surfacing for the last time by a narrow bay that curved inland from the main river, leading to Tenth Street, the southeast corner of the Industrial Park.

Jack followed it, reaching the marshes a few hundred feet beyond, stopping by a narrow sandy path that sneaked up to the street past a narrow forest.

He remained immersed, except for his eyes and ears, which surveyed the surroundings under a star-filled sky, listening for several minutes, examining the terrain beyond the protection of the water.

The place was quiet this time of night. Jack removed his tanks, masks, fins, and BCD, leaving them partly hidden in the marsh alongside the SeaScooter, before reaching the waterproof pouch strapped to his left thigh, removing his Sig Sauer 9mm semiautomatic, a sound suppressor cylinder, and four spare clips. He screwed the suppressor to the end of the muzzle and slipped the extra clips in elastic pouches on his battle dress. He also secured three fragmentation grenades and three M84 stun grenades, which he hoped he wouldn't need to use tonight.

Before heading out, he put on a black bandanna, reapplied camouflage cream on his face, donned a pair of skin-tight gloves, and hooked up his throat mike.

“In position,” he whispered.

“Read you loud and clear, Jack, but I can't see you on any cameras,” Angela said from Pete's house.

“Good. That means they can't see me either.”

“Starting the loop now,” she said. “Give me a second.”

Jack waited. Angela had recorded an hour's worth of video footage for each camera in the Industrial Park and was now launching an algorithm that would replay them so anyone watching wouldn't see the live feed for sixty minutes—the time he estimated he would need to complete this mission.

“It's done,” she reported.

“What's the guard situation?” he mumbled.

“Looking now,” she replied. “Pretty dark out there.”

Jack crawled out of the water, staying low in the thick forest separating the marsh from the road, like a predator in the jungle, reaching the gravel by the edge of the trees, peering beyond it, inspecting the street, devoid of any traffic this late at night.

Jack followed the tree line east, for almost a half mile, using the forest to shield him as he reached the intersection of Tenth and F Avenue and quickly crossing it, entering another narrow forest in between E and F Avenues, and continuing north for five more blocks, arriving at the west end of Fifth Street, where it met D Avenue, and telling Angela where he was.

Again he paused, listening, observing, measuring his approach. His eyes, long accustomed to the darkness, probing deep beyond the edge of the woods, searching for figures, for shadows, for anything that would break the natural pattern of the—

Jack held his breath, his ears picking up the sound of soles crunching gravel.

“I just spotted a guard by the edge of the parking lot.”

“Taking a look now,” he mumbled, inching forward, peeking around the corner of the waist-high grass separating the woods from the parking lot, spotting the guard's silhouette fifty-some feet away, dark against the streetlights on C Avenue at the other end of the parking lot, walking at the edge of the tall grass in his direction.

“I see him,” he whispered.

Beyond the parking lot rose the main set of structures making up the heart of the space center, including its headquarters, labs, office buildings, processing facilities, and, most important, Building M7-1345, the old Project Phoenix location, where Angela guessed Pete was hiding the damaged OSS.

The guard, armed with a standard-issue M-17 SCAR-H rifle, patrolled the edge of the parking lot, focused on the perimeter, scanning the top of the grass.

Jack frowned. Angela was right, as always. Pete and Hastings had certainly turned this place into a military facility.

The guard continued his assigned route, moving methodically, in Jack's direction, slowly, his eyes probing the woods.

Jack waited, blending with the tall grass, his eyes on his prey as the man's left boot came into view.

He surged from the grass, surprising the guard, their eyes locking for an instant, as Jack chopped him in the neck before clapping his hands over his ears.

“Jack, the guard just fell.”

“Not quite,” he said, dragging him into the marsh.

“Oh, I see you.”

He removed the guard's jacket and rifle, pretending to be him while crossing the short parking lot, while ignoring a pair of guards posted a few hundred feet away at Gate 2F, which led to State Road 3—ironically the way Angela and he took to reach their house in Cocoa Beach.

The guards glanced in his direction and one even waved at his dark figure, and he waved right back.

“Jesus, Jack,” Angie said.

“It's okay,” he said, walking up Fifth Street and reaching an alley, dumping the rifle and jacket. “All right. Which way?”

“There are guards at every intersection down Fifth. You just can't see them because they're around the corners on B, C, and D Avenues. So take a right on D and a left on Fourth street. I don't see anyone there now.”

Jack complied, rushing down for a block on D Avenue, stopping short of the intersection and peeking around the corner, looking down Fourth and verifying it was clear.

“On Fourth now,” he said.

“Yeah, I see you,” she said. “Coast looks clear.”

Jack rushed down the street, stopping at every corner, before crossing intersections, quickly making his way to the southeast corner of the KSC Industrial Park, reaching A Avenue, his eyes—

“Hold it right there.”

Jack stopped, feeling the muzzle of a barrel pressed against the middle of his shoulder blades.

“What the hell do you think you're—”

Instincts took over.

The human brain, as amazing as it is, has a key flaw: it delays physical reactions by a second or two whenever the subject is talking, which allowed Jack to pivot on his right foot while also sweeping his right forearm, shoving the gun out of the way and palm-striking the guard, driving the heel hard up his nose, shocking him as bone and cartilage pressed against the brain's prefrontal area.

Thank God for amateurs,
he thought when the guard dropped the gun as his legs gave out from under him.

Jack caught him and the rifle, keeping his counterstrike silent as he dragged him into a recess between buildings, knocking him out completely with a chop to the neck, stressing his vagus nerve system.

“Just got surprised by a guard,” he said into his throat mike.

“Oops. Sorry. Hard to see clearly in the dark.”

Jack sighed, realizing he would have to be more careful. Angela's ability to use the security cameras was limited to areas illuminated by streetlights.

“But it looks good to the target,” she added. “And by the way, Pete's car is parked in front of the building.”

Jack peered beyond his hideout at the street leading to M7-1345. He could see its worn-out facade, which looked the same as when he saw it a week ago, when Angela and he had arrived to meet up with Pete the night before the jump.

“I have eyes inside the building, Jack,” she said. “One camera in the lobby and another one upstairs, in the hallway.”

“Guards?”

“Two in the lobby and two more on the second floor, standing by a door near the stairs. All four have rifles. I'm guessing that's where Pete's hiding the OSS.”

He narrowed his gaze.

Pete Flaherty.

It was time to pay his old friend a little visit.

*   *   *

Pete crossed his arms while looking out the second floor of the old Project Phoenix building, trying to decide if he would bring Hastings in on his discovery.

The general was due in from Washington in the morning, and as much as he hated to admit it, Pete's multiple attempts to secure his runaway friends had only resulted in more disasters.

The body count, between his own soldiers and mercenaries was close to twenty dead and twice as many wounded.