Wired. Part 8

Desh frowned. Because she was confident it wouldn't matter. She knew he couldn't catch her, even still. She wouldn't have planned an impeccable ambush and a way to exit the motel undetected without planning an escape route as well. He had no doubt she had another car ready to go, parked and waiting for her just on the other side of the stretch of woods that ab.u.t.ted the motel.

Desh pocketed the gun and keys and made quick work of his ankle restraints with the knife. It was a relief to have complete freedom of movement again. He strapped the goggles on his head and grabbed a neatly folded towel from a small shelf in the bathroom. He rushed back to the wounded man as he lay unconscious, wrapping the towel tightly around his thigh.

The men had carried identical guns that were now lying on the floor near them. Desh picked one up and examined it, surprised that he didn't recognize the make. As he pulled the clip his eyes widened. It was a tranquilizer gun! Designed to shoot darts instead of bullets.

He patted both men down. While neither possessed any personal items or identification, which didn't surprise him, they each carried semiautomatic pistols along with the tranquilizer guns. They had possessed lethal firepower but had been intent on taking their quarry alive. Interesting. But who were they, exactly? And what were they doing here? Kira Miller's explanation that he was being followed by his own people was the most likely, but still didn't make sense. It wasn't as though he couldn't be trusted to report back once he had found her.

What now? He could charge after her, but he was certain he wouldn't catch her. Desh knew he didn't have much time before the police would be arriving. The man she had shot may have been lying about the sniper, but it was just as likely he hadn't been. And Desh didn't have her supposed ability to become invisible to thermal imagers. He wasn't about to be the first heat-emitting humanoid to rush out the front door. Still, he had to regroup, and the last thing he needed was to be in the room when the police came calling. This left only one choice: he had to leave out the back, through the adjoining room, as she had done.

Kira Miller had told him to trust no one, and regardless of what he might think of the veracity of anything else she said, this was sensible advice. He was in far over his head, and until he had a much better sense of what was happening and who the players were, he wasn't prepared to trust his own shadow.

Desh pocketed the shorter man's cell phone and tranquilizer gun and wrapped the other tranquilizer gun and the two pistols in a towel. He moved into the adjoining room, tossed the towel on the bed, and closed both doors, plunging himself yet again into darkness. He felt for the dead-bolt, locked the adjoining door on his side, and then flipped open the cell phone he had taken. The phone's glow provided enough illumination with which to dial and navigate the room. He had memorized Jim Connelly's private home number and dialed it rapidly.

The phone rang three times while Desh waited anxiously.

"h.e.l.lo," rasped Connelly sleepily.

"Colonel, it's David Desh."

"David?" mumbled Connelly in surprise. "Jesus, David, it's three in the morning," he complained, but then began to awaken more fully as the significance of the call registered on his barely conscious brain. His voice picked up strength as his adrenaline levels spiked. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, but I need to know something," said Desh in hushed tones.

"Are you under duress?" said Connelly carefully, now fully alert.

"No, I'm alone."

"We need to get to a secure line," insisted Connelly. "I know you remember our discussion. I hadn't expected to hear from you," he added pointedly, as if Desh needed reminding that Connelly had given him explicit instructions not to call him and to stay well clear of military channels.

"Yeah, we wouldn't want to tip off our quarry," said Desh sardonically. He paused and then added, "Unfortunately, it's a little late for that."

"She knows you're on the case?"

"You could say that," replied Desh. "In fact, you could say that I was just abducted," he continued. "And it wasn't by aliens."

"What?" whispered the colonel in disbelief. "But why? It makes no sense." He paused in thought. "Unless she thought you were getting close."

"She didn't, and I wasn't," continued Desh hurriedly, acutely aware that the police could arrive at any moment. Worse still, the two men in the adjoining room could regain their consciousness, or their sniper friend could lose his patience with his colleagues and come to investigate. "She tried to convince me she was innocent. I have very little time, so I'll tell you about that later. But I need to know something. Two military types crashed the party and ran her off. Were they yours?"

"I didn't know about the party, so I sure as h.e.l.l didn't send the party crashers," he replied.

"Did you set them up on their own recognizance to tail me?"

"Why would I do that?" said Connelly, genuinely confused. "You aren't the target here, and I have every confidence you'll do your job and then call your contact."

"Then who are they?"

There was a long pause. "I have no idea," came the uneasy reply.

Desh nodded. "I have to go, Colonel. Do me a favor. Investigate this entire Op from top to bottom. Something's not right. Starting with the party crashers. Make sure you have the straight skinny on this deal."

"After what you've just told me," said Connelly, "you don't need to ask."

"Good. I'll be in touch," said Desh, ending the connection.

Desh pocketed the phone and pushed aside just enough of the curtain to be able to peer out of the window. The coast appeared clear, although this guaranteed nothing.

Desh heard heavy footsteps coming from the adjoining room and jerked his head away from the window, his senses hyper-alert.

"Holy s.h.i.+t!" bellowed a man in the other room, his shocked voice easily carrying through the wall. "Are they alive?"

"I'll check," said another man. "You call for back-up," he added anxiously.

Desh guessed from their reaction to the two unconscious men they were uniformed cops with no military experience, which was somewhat of a relief. Even so, he didn't wait to hear more. He opened the outer door and cautiously stepped outside, crouching low and keeping to the darkness.

16.

David Desh entered the woods near the back of the motel, the night vision equipment that Kira had provided now firmly over his eyes, and picked his way through the trees as quickly as he could. The woods at night provided a spectacle few would ever witness, requiring both the interest and expensive IR night vision equipment to maximize the experience. Desh had been lucky enough to be properly equipped on many occasions and see the woods come alive at night as nocturnal birds, amphibians, mammals, and reptiles scurried onto the stage under cover of darkness, unaware that technology could now offer night-blind humans a peak at their previously hidden universe. Warm-blooded bats, normally invisible against the night sky, now showed up clearly as they winged after insect meals, and owls terrorized rodent populations, often swallowing their prey whole.

Tonight, though, Desh didn't have the luxury of letting himself get distracted. His entire focus was on plotting a path that would allow him to traverse the quarter-mile wide strip of trees as quickly as possible. Ten minutes later he emerged from the trees. A road paralleled the woods, but Desh stayed close to the tree line and out of sight of headlights, continuing to put distance between himself and the motel.

After jogging for a few miles he spotted the steeple of a church across the road, with a small parking area in front, and hurriedly approached it. He pa.s.sed a sign that read Saint Peters Lutheran Church. Pus.h.i.+ng aside feelings of guilt, he forced the lock on the front door of the brick building and slid inside.

He went straight to the main sanctuary, stepped onto the altar, and deposited the cell phone he had removed from Kira's a.s.sailant behind the pulpit, leaving the phone closed but still on. Within minutes he was back just inside the tree line, staying out of sight and watching all access points to the church carefully.

Desh settled in for what he expected to be a long vigil. Periodically, he retreated farther into the woods and did jumping jacks to keep his blood flowing and to generate warmth on the chilly autumn night. He had the odd feeling that if Kira Miller had had an extra coat in her magic bag, she would have left that in the bathroom for him as well.

So what to make of her? Could her story have been true? It was impossible to say. But regardless, Desh had to admire her competence. She planned brilliantly, was quick on her feet, and was decisive.

But was she too decisive? She had shot one of the intruders to get information with a ruthless efficiency. Few people were capable of acting so callously. On the other hand, she could easily have killed them all. A true psychopath wouldn't have hesitated. Unless for some unfathomable reason it continued to be of importance to her to convince Desh she was innocent, so much so that she was able to sublimate her psychotic nature.

Or was she not a psychopath at all? Had she really been a model citizen before she had altered her own brain chemistry? Maybe. But even if she was, it was equally possible that the changes to her nature she claimed to have come about as a result of her experiments had become permanent, despite her a.s.surances to the contrary.

But this still wouldn't explain the deaths of her parents and uncle and teachers, Desh realized. Even if the murder of her brother and her collaboration with terrorists could be explained as a result of self-induced psychopathic behavior, a horrible side effect of the rewiring of her own brain, these earlier murders could not be. Could it be that she honestly was unaware of her own true nature? What if she had suffered from schizophrenia and had developed a split personality at a young age? Maybe it had always been a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde thing with her, with the changes to her brain chemistry doing nothing more than allowing the Mr. Hyde personality to become more dominant.

Desh shook his head, annoyed with himself. Why was he trying so hard to identify some part of her that was innocent! He knew that she was getting to him, but he hadn't realized just how much until now. Along with a powerful intellect that he found stimulating and those soft, expressive eyes, there was a charm and sincerity to her that was undeniably appealing, even though he knew it was nothing but an accomplished acting job. He had to hand it to the ancient Greeks: they knew that a treacherous woman who could still captivate a man was far more dangerous than the most powerful of sea monsters. How many others had been mesmerized by Kira Miller's siren song, he wondered, letting down their guard and cras.h.i.+ng against the cliffs. If their paths crossed again, he had better find a way to tie himself to the mast if he wanted to have any chance of surviving the encounter.

He was still lost in thought, forty minutes after he had abandoned the cell phone, when a large, two-door sedan pulled off the road a hundred yards before the church. Two men with night-vision equipment of their own jumped out and without a word began to double-time it to the church, leaving the driver waiting in the car. They had taken the bait already. Impressive. Whoever they were, they were exceedingly well connected. Despite the police presence in the motel, they had been able to pull the required strings to retrieve their men and track the missing cell phone in record time.

Desh pulled out the tranquilizer gun he had borrowed. Despite the fact they had been tailing him, they were still most likely friendlies. He wasn't exactly in a trusting mood, but he wasn't about to consider lethal force, either, until he knew who they were.

Desh sprinted along the tree line in the opposite direction from the church so he could circle back around behind the car. As the two men entered St. Peters, Desh cut quietly across the road and noiselessly lowered himself into a military crawl. He inched forward toward the pa.s.senger door, not even allowing himself to breathe. He was betting the driver had not locked the car.

Desh let out a slow, preparatory breath and quietly removed his goggles, leaving them on the ground next to him. Then, in a single fluid motion, he shot up from the grounda"catching the door handle on the way upa"and yanked the door wide open. It wasn't locked! Wasting no time congratulating himself, Desh pointed the gun at the startled driver, who had just begun reaching for his own weapon. "Hands on the das.h.!.+" he barked fiercely.

17.

The driver studied Desh thoughtfully, and then calmly placed his hands on the dash as instructed. The tip of Desh's tongue protruded just slightly through his lips as it tended to do whenever he was engaged in any physical activity that required his absolute concentration. He slid through the car's open door and into the back seat, his gun never wavering from its target.

"Slide over and close the door," commanded Desh in hushed tones.

The man did as he was told.

"Now slide back and get us on the road. Quickly!" demanded Desh. "Head farther away from the Church." Desh had no interest in pa.s.sing the man's colleagues who he knew would be exiting the church at any moment after they discovered they had been set up.

The driver did as instructed, and the church rapidly receded in the rear-view mirror.

"Very impressive, Mr. Desh," the driver allowed. "But then, I have heard good things."

"Who are you?" demanded Desh. "And why were you and your people following me?"

"Call me Smith," said the driver, a short, wiry man in his late thirties, with short brown hair and a two-inch scar under his ear that followed his jaw line. "After a session with Kira Miller you get a little paranoid, don't you? Don't know who to trust or what to believe."

"Smith, huh," said Desh to himself. The man was unmistakably military. And along with the obvious alias, there was a peculiar arrogance about him, as though he considered himself above it all; unenc.u.mbered by rules that might apply to lesser men. "Black Ops, then?" guessed Desh.

A self-satisfied smile flashed across Smith's face. "That's right," he said. "We had a shot at the girl and we took it. Sorry we surprised you. Given what you've just gone through you're reacting the way any smart soldier would. But we're on the same side you and I. Really."

"Why was I under surveillance then, if we're on the same side?"

"I would be happy to explain that and much more, Mr. Desh. I'm the one who authorized putting you on this Op in the first place. I trust that Colonel Connelly gave you a number to call when you found the girl?"

Desh didn't respond.

"I'm going to lend you a cell phone," said Smith. "I have two of them. I'm going to reach in my pocket for the phone but remain facing the road. I'll throw it back to you. If I begin to pull out a gun, shoot me," he added.

Desh knew that at their current speed any hostile exchange would cause them to crash, killing them both. Mutually a.s.sured destruction. Smith would realize this as well.

"Okay," said Desh, nodding warily. "But very slowly."

The man reached into his pocket and carefully inched out the phone, lifting it with his hand facing backward so Desh could see. Still facing the road, he flipped the phone over his shoulder. Desh caught it with his left hand while he continued to train the tranquilizer gun on Smith with his right.

"Dial the number that the colonel gave you," instructed Smith.

Desh flipped open the phone and dialed the number he had memorized. As the call went through, a ringtone melody issued from Smith's s.h.i.+rt pocket. He looked at Desh in the rear-view mirror and raised his eyebrows. "Mind if I get that," he said smugly.

Smith reached into his s.h.i.+rt pocket and flipped open the phone. "h.e.l.lo, Mr. Desh," he said, his voice arriving in stereo from both the front seat and through the phone in Desh's hand. "I think it's time we had a little talk."

18.

David Desh still wasn't sure who to trust, but Smith had established his authenticity, even if Connelly hadn't been aware of his activities. Even so, Desh had an uneasy feeling in his gut that wouldn't seem to go away.

"Okay then," said Desh. "Let's talk." He continued to point the gun at the Black Ops agent.

"I'll tell you what, Mr. Desh. How about I pull off to the side of the road and we have a disarming ceremony first."

Desh remained silent.

"What do you say?" pressed Smith. "You can keep your gun on me while I toss all of my weapons into a bag in my trunka"including the gun strapped to my ankle You can frisk me to be sure." He paused. "In return, you can hang on to your weapon. Just don't point it at me."

Desh gazed at the scarred man thoughtfully, but said nothing.

"And while we have a little discussion and get to know each other," pressed Smith, "I'll even drive you home. As long as you sit in the front seat. Be easier to talk that way, and I refuse to be your chauffeur."

Desh thought through all the angles and finally agreed. Five minutes later two guns and a combat knife were tucked in a bag and locked safely away in the trunk, and Desh was satisfied that Smith was now unarmed. After allowing the wiry man to contact his men to give them a quick situation report, Desh settled into the pa.s.senger seat, safely restrained in a seat belt, but angling his body so he was facing Smith rather than the road and was out of the man's easy reach.

"All right," said Desh, as Smith accelerated back onto the road, his left hand on the steering wheel and his right arm resting on the storage console between them. "Why don't you tell me what's going on."

"I'm afraid that isn't how this needs to work," said Smith evenly. "I will tell you everything. Make no mistake about that. I do understand how confused this woman can make someone and that we surveilled you without your knowledge. So I'm willing to cut you some slack. But we're going to do this my way," he insisted. "First you answer my questions. Then I'll answer yours. Despite heading a Black Ops agency that doesn't formally exist and using an alias, I am still your superior officer. I'm sure Connelly told you that."

Desh raised his eyebrows. "Superior officer?" he said, unimpressed. "Come off it, Smith. You've been calling me Mr. Desh. You know I'm a civilian. Connelly did tell me to follow your instructions, but Mr. Desh can tell you to go to h.e.l.l anytime he wants."

Smith sighed. "All right, Mr. Desh. Let's try this another way, then. If you want to know what's going on, you'll have to answer my questions first. Period. Otherwise, I'll leave you completely in the dark." He glanced sideways at Desh. "Well?"

Desh glared at him for several long seconds but finally nodded irritably.

"Good," said Smith. "So tell me how Kira Miller got the drop on you."

Desh told him about receiving the fake message from Griffin and what had happened at the hacker's apartment. Smith interrupted occasionally for clarification but said very little otherwise. When Desh described how Kira had stripped him and had him dress in sweats, Smith glanced at his gray outfit, considerably worse for wear since Kira had pulled it from her duffel, and an amused smile came over his face.

Smith listened intently as Desh described the precautions Kira had taken at the motel. Smith was well aware that they had worked to great effect on his men. Desh ended his narrative at the point at which Kira had exited through the adjoining motel room, leaving out any mention of her claims of having invented material that could hide her heat signature.

"d.a.m.n she's slippery," commented Smith when Desh was finished. "It's uncanny how she manages to stay at large. And then, to risk kidnapping the elite soldier coming after her practically in the middle of the nation's capitala"and get away with it. She has b.a.l.l.s the size of Texas," he said, partly in frustration and partly in admiration.

Smith paused in thought as they shot along the dark highway, nearly abandoned at this early hour except for the occasional trucker hauling cargo through the night. The car's ride was smooth and its well-tuned engine issued only the softest of roars to interrupt what would have otherwise been a coc.o.o.n of silence. Desh's entire universe had been reduced to the luxury interior of an expensive sedan, the twenty-foot swath made by its headlights as they cut through the enveloping darkness, and a stranger using an alias whose motives were currently just as hidden as the stretch of road beyond the headlights.

"Okay," began Smith, having finally plotted his interrogation. "You said she talked with you for an hour or so. What did she talk about?"

"She claimed she was innocent," said Desh. "She wanted to convince me."

"Did she say why this was important to her?"