The Fall (51 page)

The woman sitting across from him represented the future, his future. She was certainly worthy of his seed, of his family's gift. She had been smart enough to not get caught right away and to fight back in ways that even came close to hurting his operation, and that was quite impressive in itself. She had outfoxed his finest operatives, his best scientists, and top IT talent, and done so while on the run, hunted, operating with scarce resources.

Hastings couldn't even begin to imagine what she could do if properly funded, given anything her brilliant mind required, convinced to work with his engineers, taking his breakthroughs to the next level.

“What do you want from me, General?” she finally asked, reaching for her cup of wine and taking a sip, before raising her brows. “This is actually quite good.”

He nodded in approval. “Only the best for you, Dr. Taylor. Only the best.”

*   *   *

This time around he used only the best equipment available, including a Draeger rebreather, which he wore like a vest, secured to the waist of his battle dress with a heavy strap. Most of the critical equipment was in front, where he could reach it, including the flexible breathing tube projecting up at chest level into his full-face mask with integrated goggles. The oxygen tank was strapped horizontally at the bottom of the unit, just above his waistline, and would inject small amounts of oxygen into his breathing mix after the absorbing canister removed his exhaled carbon dioxide, eliminating bubbles.

Dago was with him in the small rented boat, which they had steered close to the middle of the lake, as close as Jack felt comfortable getting to the compound before going under, which he did, after giving his biker friend a thumbs-up and whispering, “Relax, buddy. I'll be right back.”

And the familiar darkness engulfed him as he adjusted his BCD to compensate for his weight as well as that of his heavy waterproof duffel bag at the end of a short lanyard, and dove to a depth of just fifteen feet, which was plenty deep, especially at night and without releasing bubbles.

He powered up the SeaScooter and used its luminescent compass to steer in the direction of the compound, which the GPS measured to be just over two miles away.

Jack focused on the task ahead, having forced himself to sleep most of the way up from Florida while Dago and Art-Z took turns driving nonstop, taking just under twelve hours to get to here after making a pit stop at his Cocoa Beach house, which he was glad to find unguarded, confirming his hunch that with Angela and Pete captured and Jack presumed dead, Hastings had no need to post guards there, allowing him full access to his favorite SEAL equipment.

The lake was cold, even with the wetsuit he wore over his battle dress, as he glided under the water, the constant hum of the single propeller tugging him at a constant five miles per hour as he managed his breathing, relaxing, conserving his energy.

He went over his insertion plan, which he had memorized from the satellite images that Art-Z had provided from who knew where. After watching him work for an hour, Jack had lost interest in the endless lines of indecipherable code as he hacked into a number of sites to reach the high-resolution imagery that he downloaded to a tablet computer.

The compound was certainly fortified, but not in the traditional sense.

Hastings, who had difficulty trusting people, relied more on gadgets than on guards to secure this secluded retreat, which played directly into the expert hands of Angela's bearded associate from her hacking days.

Jack checked his depth and his oxygen supply, verifying his direction, forward speed, and distance to target, slowing down as he got within a thousand feet of the shore, finally shutting down the unit a couple hundred feet out before surfacing slowly, barely breaking the waterline, his eyes surveying the grounds sloping up from a long deck with a number of moored vessels, including a pair of sailboats and three power boats.

He swam slowly, without making any ripples, like a predator, his gaze on the lone figure standing just beyond the shoreline, an arm resting on the stock of his rifle, the other holding a cigarette between his index and middle fingers, smoke coiling skyward.

While keeping his body immersed, Jack floated under one of the docks, out of direct line of sight from the guard as his feet touched the lake's sandy floor.

He removed the Draeger, the face mask, and unzipped the wetsuit, letting it all fall to the bottom, next to the SeaScooter, before pulling on the lanyard and retrieving his gear, taking another five minutes to secure all of his ammunition to the battle dress.

Jack reached down for his Heckler & Koch MP5SD submachine gun, similar to the ones Davis's team had used, but developed specifically for the U.S. Special Forces, including an integral wet-technology stainless steel sound suppressor, which, due to its ported barrel, didn't require the use of subsonic ammunition for tactical sound reduction, and which was capable of single shots, three-round bursts, and full automatic fire.

Finally, he strapped on the throat mike and earpiece and connected them to the tactical radio secured to his battle dress, before tapping it twice to test it.

“Hear you loud and clear, Jack,” said Dago from a motel across the lake. “Ready when you are.”

Quietly, he floated out from under the dock, his eyes converging on the smoking figure as he lifted the MP5SD, aiming it at the guard's head through the Prismatic scope while his finger shifted the ambidextrous selector lever from its safe position to single-shot.

He checked his watch, waiting for the second hand to reach exactly ten o'clock, the time when Art-Z would take control of the compound's security cameras while replaying an hour of taped video to fool the guards monitoring them, basically repeating the same trick that Angela had done with the NASA surveillance cameras.

He tapped his throat mike again, but three times, signaling his readiness.

“Art's in. You're clear.”

Slowly exhaling through parted lips, Jack pressed the trigger.

The 9mm round left the muzzle silently, impacting the guard's head a fraction of a second later, dropping him from view.

Jack waited, raising his head out of the water, listening, hearing nothing that alerted him, before crawling out of the water by a bed of rocks, slowly standing before donning his night-vision goggles, which amplified the available light, painting the terrain in hues of green.

The main house stood two hundred feet up a gentle slope of trees and waist-high shrubs, which Jack began to cross, avoiding the main path, ignoring the surveillance cameras atop every fourth or fifth tree trunk, red lights blinking, signaling their active status while Jack hoped like hell that Art-Z had control over them.

The terrain leveled off as it neared the mansion, where he spotted three more guards standing by the steps leading to a rear observation deck, just beyond a helipad housing a mid-size helicopter, its blades tied down to the ground with black ropes.

Jack took a knee and pressed his right shoulder against a tree for stability as he aimed the MP5SD, aligning the first figure in the crosshairs while setting the selector lever on full automatic fire.

The guards faced each other, making it impossible to kill one without alerting the other two, leaving him with no other choice but to perform an aim-and-sweep technique first developed by Israeli commandoes with the venerable Uzi submachine gun.

Here we go,
he thought, lining up the rightmost guard while using his right hand to grip the barrel hard to counter the gun's natural upward motion when firing multiple rounds.

Making a final adjustment to his stand, Jack exhaled and pressed the trigger while slowly shifting the barrel to the left.

The MP5SD released twelve rounds in the two-second sweep, and all three guards dropped to the ground.

“Talk to me, Dago.”

“Three more guards on the right perimeter fence and another two on the opposite side. We're also seeing four guards up in front, drinking coffee by the front steps. No alarms yet.”

“Any sign of Angie?”

“Still looking. The man's got hundreds of cameras in this place, Jack. We're prioritizing the ones relevant to you now. Art's going to start browsing the interior cameras in a moment.”

He waited, listening, and once again hearing nothing, confirming Dago's report, he moved around the side of the house, spotting the three guards by the perimeter fence looking out, like they should, expecting the threat to come from the outside.

They made easy targets, and Jack removed them quickly with another aim-and-sweep strike that consumed his first thirty-round magazine.

He removed it and let it drop to the ground by his feet, grabbing one of five magazines he had strapped to his chest.

Jack clicked it in place and chambered a round, resuming his hunt, going around the back again and up the other side of the mansion, a light breeze cooling his camouflaged face as he listened to insects clicking nearby.

He spotted the other two guards just as Dago had reported, also looking out through the fence.

Slowly, he dropped to one knee and set the MP5SD back to single-shot once more, lining them up in the Prismatic scope and firing twice in rapid succession, watching their figures drop to the ground before advancing to the front, where four more guards stood, drinking coffee from paper cups. Two of them were smoking.

They looked relaxed, comfortable, feeling safe behind the electrified perimeter fence and the dozens of surveillance cameras.

Jack frowned, recognizing one of the guards, the muscular Hispanic who had abducted Angela.

Hello, asshole,
he thought, switching to fully automatic fire while dropping to one knee, lining him up first, and once again doing an aim-and-sweep routine, taking them all down before they knew what had hit them.

And that's when he heard shouts from around the corner.

“Shut it all down now,” he spoke into his throat mike. “I need total darkness.”

“But we lose the cameras, Jack.”

“Now, Dago!”

*   *   *

Hastings finished his meal and stood, regarding her with a stare that signaled something more than interest in her scientific mind.

Up to now, the general had made his case over dinner to get her to not only join his scientific team, but to lead it, to help him exploit the untapped potential of salolitite, to go beyond dimensional jumps and turn Einstein's theories into reality.

But now, as he stood across the table staring at her, she began to wonder what other ideas this crazy bastard had floating in that sick mind of his.

She considered her options. After all, something that came with prime rib was a sharp steak knife, which she hadn't touched, along with the rest of her food, finding it difficult to stomach eating anything after seeing how they had treated Pete, and even worse, knowing the horrors they had done to Riggs and his wife.

She smiled at him as he got near.

Cut off the head and the rest of his house of cards will come crumbling down.

And just as Hastings was about to walk over and do whatever it was he intended to do, just as Angela planned to grab the steak knife and do as much damage as she could before the waiters could stop her, the lights went out.

*   *   *

Jack moved quickly, the night-vision goggles allowing him to see two more targets by the front of the house, green figures shifting in the night, trying to navigate in the darkness.

They were easy marks, taken down in single-shot mode one after the other, as he made it to the front steps, pushing open the double front doors and storming into the foyer, rolling once, twice, before rising to his feet and searching for hostiles, finding none.

He started at one end, going room by room, in textbook urban warfare fashion, reaching a large office, its walls full of medals and cases of old rifles and pistols.

A short, bearded man stood by the window, looking out, apparently trying to figure out what was going on.

The man slowly turned around, squinting to see in the darkness.

Jack recognized him as the driver of the white van yesterday in South Miami.

Hello, asshole number two.

He stared at him for another moment before shooting him in the head, spraying half his brain on the glass, watching him collapse on the desk.

Giving the office a final glance, he moved on to the next room, clearing the right side of the mansion, disabling everyone he spotted, from two more guards to the kitchen staff—a half-dozen men in white uniforms which he forced into a large meat locker and closed the door.

He heard shouts coming from the adjacent dining room, just as the emergency lights came on across the compound.

*   *   *

Angela shifted aside in the twilight of the room after slashing the steak knife at Hastings's larynx, but she underestimated the distance and barely nicked the skin.

The general stopped, put a finger to his throat, and grinned.

The waiters started to approach, but Hastings held out an open hand. “Stay back! This is between Dr. Taylor and me.”

Angela remained calm, the blade protruding from the bottom of her left fist, just as Jack had shown her.

Hastings moved on her again.

Angela shifted her gaze between the waiters and the incoming general, stepping sideways to him, resting most of her weight on her rear leg while slashing the knife at him again, keeping him at a safe distance.

The general paused to remove his jacket, wrapping it around his right forearm as he started to circle her.

Angela kept her gaze on Hastings's torso, which she knew from Jack would telegraph his intentions.

The general faked a punch with his right fist before pivoting on his left foot while extending his right foot in a semicircle inches from the floor to sweep Angela's legs from under her.

But she had stepped aside an instant before, when Hastings's torso had betrayed his attack, leaving him standing in front of her for the single second that it took Angela to kick him in the groin.