Chasing zero, p.26
Chasing Zero, page 26
part #9 of Agent Zero Spy Thriller Series
From the SUV climbed two men in black suits. Maya froze.
The Feds?
“Ms. Lawson,” one of them said. “Please put the knife away.”
They didn’t have guns. Or at least they didn’t take them out if they did.
“We’ll take it from here,” said the other.
Maya let go of the forger, who just stood there, his hands up and trembling. One of the agents took him by an arm as the other handcuffed him.
What the hell is going on?
No one got out of the black sedan. But the rear window rolled down, and the familiar face behind it said, “Get in, Lawson.”
Maya was tired. Too tired to protest. While the FBI agents took away the forger, Maya got into the car beside Dean Hunt.
“Nicely done,” said the dean as the car pulled away from the house.
“You knew. You knew who he was.”
“Admittedly, no. We’ve been following you. We lost you for a little while there, but we had a hunch you’d come back here.”
“We,” Maya repeated. “Who’s we?”
But Dean Hunt ignored her question. “There’s a house on fire about thirty minutes north of here. We sent the fire department.”
“Great,” Maya said flatly, throwing honorifics and courtesy to the wind. “Look, you don’t know what I’ve been through tonight. I’d really just like to sleep for a while. So are we done here? Can I get back to work?”
“No,” said Dean Hunt. “I’m afraid that your time at West Point is done, Ms. Lawson. Effective immediately.”
Maya stared at her, jaw agape. She couldn’t believe she’d just heard the dean right. “I did what you asked. I found the forger. In less than twenty-four hours. You told me I had time. You told me—”
“I know what I told you,” the dean said sharply. “But the fact of the matter is that West Point is a place where we make officers. Simply put, you are not officer material, Lawson.”
Maya scoffed aloud at that. All she had gone through, all she had done, not just to catch the forger but to catch up when she was behind, to excel while doing so, it was all for naught. Her future was spiraling down the drain, all because she wasn’t “officer material”?
“You’re agent material,” Dean Hunt said.
Maya opened her mouth to respond, but then shut it. Had she heard the dean correctly? What did that mean? Hunt’s face was impassive, but there seemed to be just a hint of a smile in her eyes. “Sorry… what?”
“Your transcript will reflect that you caught up on the work you missed and were able to test out of your fourth year at West Point,” Dean Hunt told her.
Maya shook her head. “I wasn’t aware that was an option…”
“It’s not. You’ll be the first, and only on paper. Not that anyone will ever need to see it. There’s simply no point to you continuing your education at the academy when the skills you’d be acquiring aren’t suited to your abilities. DNI Barren and I are starting a new program. A junior agent program. You’ll be among our first recruits.”
Maya blinked in shock. “A junior agent program? You mean with the…”
“Yes, Ms. Lawson. With the CIA.”
“So… this was a test.” All a test. And she had passed. “So I’m in?”
“In the agency? Lord, no.” Hunt chuckled. “This is a training program. Pass it, and you’ll be in.”
This was all a test. She had spat in a lieutenant’s face, nearly gotten herself expelled, almost had her limbs broken, and set fire to a house.
Was it worth it?
Of course it was.
A junior agent. This was it, this was her shot at making the dream come true. One step closer.
“I can’t help but notice,” said Hunt, “that you haven’t said a word about Greg Calloway and his friends sneaking off academy grounds.”
“Oh, did they?” Maya asked casually.
“Mm,” Hunt confirmed. “I think the fire department is going to find evidence of arson at that house today. A fire marshal will investigate, and I’m fairly certain he will find evidence of their presence there.”
“Well. You know how boys are. They just love playing with fire.” Suddenly Maya remembered the news she had seen the night before, and she sat bolt upright. “Wait, the president. Is he still… Have they…?”
Dean Hunt shook her head. “He is believed to be alive. But no, he has not yet been recovered.”
Maya shook her head. “Do we know who’s out there? Looking for him?”
“Lots of people,” Hunt said cryptically. “Lots of organizations. Lots of authorities.” The dean knew what Maya was asking, and was being purposely coy. “You know, when I lost you for a little while there, I wasn’t terribly concerned. I had a feeling you would pop up again, and when you did, you’d have the solution. And you came through.” She glanced over at Maya. “I suppose now we all need to have faith that it runs in the family.”
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
“Goddammit!” Zero flung his pen against the far wall of the crumbling structure. He was quickly losing faith.
Not in his theory; no, that had proven sound. Reidigger had arrived at H-6 with Mr. Shade in tow and quickly employed some creative interrogation tactics. As promised, Shade sang like a bird; he was aware that the plan was to bring Rutledge to the Libyan Desert, but a specific place had not been determined. Like the Israelites, Dawoud and his party had wandered out there, aimless but for their faith, and set up shop somewhere in a country of nearly seven hundred thousand square miles.
The theory was sound. But finding them was like a needle in a cornfield.
“We need to stay positive,” Maria said, but her voice was tight. She’d repeated that phrase no less than a dozen times during the night, and clearly she was struggling to abide by it herself.
“We’re wasting time,” Zero argued.
“It won’t be a waste if we find him—”
“And a complete waste if we don’t!” Zero stood forcefully and paced. He was tired, his eyes hurt, his body hurt. He was irritable, and all the more so because he knew the rest of the team was too and wasn’t showing it the way he was.
The night prior, they had flown across the border from Egypt, the plane’s lights off to avoid being shot out of the sky by the Libyan government. Chip had put the Gulfstream down on an abandoned airstrip that had been unused since the Libyan Civil War in 2011. They set up shop in an old building beside the airstrip, a one-room boxy structure that still held a few rusting desks and creaking chairs, all of it covered in a fine coating of sand blown in through broken windows.
They’d set to work instantly. Penny had digitally parceled sections of the Libyan Desert and carefully scanned with live satellite images for signs of life. There were dozens of hits, either creatures or nomads or even people living out there, each one carefully reviewed by Maria and Strickland via the tablet. Zero marked off the grids on a physical map with the pen, which now was across the room in his frustration.
It was morning. Dawn had come and gone. The minutes ticked by.
05: 41: 17…
05: 41: 16…
05: 41: 15…
Possibly their only saving grace, the one thing that had kept them going, was that their search wasn’t completely random. For one, they knew that the location would be within what was considered to be the fabled Desert of Paran in the Islamic faith, which hugged the Egyptian border. They also knew that the second video had been uploaded less than nine hours after Rutledge’s capture. Including necessary travel time, they could surmise that the location was no more than seven hours’ distance, by vehicle, from an airstrip.
That still left tens of thousands of square miles to painstakingly and manually check.
A needle in a cornfield.
The American president still lives. That’s what Dawoud had said on the second video. But he will die when zero reaches.
Zero had watched the video at least five more times, searching for any sort of additional clue, something that Penny had missed, and had found nothing. Now they had less than six hours remaining on the clock, and absolutely no assurance that even if they found him that they could reach him in time.
To make matters worse, Foxworth and Mendel weren’t back yet. The two of them had gone on foot to an oasis town about fifteen miles northeast to procure a vehicle. Whether that meant stealing, bartering, or paying for it, Zero didn’t know and hadn’t asked. All he knew was that even if they located the place where Rutledge was being held, they had no way to get there.
Hopeless, he thought. This is hopeless.
The Secret Service team led by Agent Chubb had hit another dead end in France, as expected. No more videos had been posted. No signals from the desert to track. They were sentenced to satellite images, Penny’s motion-detecting software, and bleary, naked eyes.
“Look, guys,” said Penny through the satellite phone. The battery was dying; she’d been up all night with them, periodically checking in as she sent them parcels of desert and updates. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but maybe it’s time to let someone know what we know. Bring in others on this.”
Zero shook his head. He’d thought the same thing before, on other ops, only to have things fall all to hell when some hothead like Chubb decided to try to take charge or do something foolish.
“We can’t do that,” he said, trying to keep the irritation and exhaustion out of his voice. “Any official channels we go through will alert the Libyan government. One way or another, they’ll want to get involved—and that’s a recipe for disaster. Our own people will want to put drones in the air, if not choppers or planes. They’ll send whoever they can. And at the first sign of trouble, that countdown… well, it’ll mean nothing.”
He had little doubt that the people behind this would be true to their word and end Rutledge’s life before zero reached if they thought there was a chance their plan could be thwarted.
“I suppose you’re right,” Penny said quietly. “Another motion detection incoming.”
“Received.” Maria rubbed her red-rimmed eyes.
Am I wrong? Zero wondered. Were they withholding information that could prove vital to rescuing the president? Or were they safeguarding it from those who would put Rutledge’s life at unnecessary risk?
“Silver lining,” said Penny. “Looks like Barkley has successfully negotiated with the Israelis to hold off on a missile strike until the end of the countdown.”
“So it’ll be retaliation for two dead leaders,” Maria muttered.
Zero and Strickland both looked up at her in shock.
“Sorry, I’m sorry.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “That was uncalled for. I’m just running on empty.” She passed the tablet to Strickland. “Check this one out. I can’t look at these anymore right now.”
Zero heard a sound then, a rumbling that grew louder. He ceased his pacing and watched through a broken window as a half-rusted, clattering Jeep rolled to a squealing stop outside.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” He stepped out to meet them as Chip and Talia climbed out. “This was the best you could get?”
Foxworth held up a hand. He had a thin trickle of blood on his temple. Mendel had streaks of soot on her face.
“You do not know what we had to do to get this,” he said shortly.
“Any luck?” Mendel asked. She winced with each step, favoring her left hip.
Zero shook his head as the three of them headed back inside.
Hopeless. This is hopeless.
At least they couldn’t say they didn’t give it their best shot. Cyprus, Bulgaria, Egypt, Libya; they’d trotted hundreds of miles to get this far, and even if it wasn’t far enough, they could still save those trafficking victims from Shade. They could still end the financing of a dozen insurgent groups. They had no idea if Rutledge was even still alive right now…
My god. I’m resigning myself already. There’s still time on the clock and I’ve thrown in the towel.
His face warmed with shame at the thought.
Strickland dropped the tablet onto the pockmarked desktop. “It’s nothing. Just another patch of sand and rock.”
Zero picked it up and examined the image. Todd was right; it looked like another barren stretch of desert. He put two fingers against the screen and spread them, enhancing it, but still saw nothing of note.
“Penny, what zone is this?” He couldn’t give up. There was still time on the clock. “I’ll mark it off.”
“That would be… E-17 on the map.”
He checked the map he’d printed on the Gulfstream, showing the easternmost stretch of Libyan Desert. Then he frowned. “E-17 was already marked off.”
“It must have set off the motion detection again,” Penny replied through the phone with a yawn.
“Maybe some animal’s territory,” Strickland suggested. “I don’t see anything. No vehicles, no people, no setup.”
“Me neither,” Zero murmured. “Penny, check when E-17 was set off before, would you?”
“Sure. One moment.” She paused and then said, “It was set off twice before, actually. Once during the night. Three seventeen a.m. Libya time. Then again just after dawn. But nothing was spotted. No lights in the night, no shapes in the day.”
“Probably an animal,” Foxworth agreed.
But what animal? Something nocturnal wouldn’t be active now. Something not nocturnal wouldn’t have been active in the night. “Penny, can you pinpoint where the motion was captured?”
“Sure can. Incoming… now.” A new dialogue opened on the tablet screen. Zero clicked it and the same image appeared, now with a small red circle showing the point of motion.
Zero magnified it as much as he could. Was there something there? It was hard to tell; the image lost resolution the further he zoomed. But he could have sworn he saw something there. It just couldn’t be what he thought it was…
Then Talia was at his side, one hand on his shoulder as she too leaned over and examined the image. “This may sound crazy,” she said. “But that looks to me like a horse’s head.”
“Yeah,” Zero agreed. “Me too.”
Suddenly all five of them were crowded around the desk, staring at the magnified image, the gray oblong mass that looked remarkably like a head on a long neck.
Like a horse. Stretching its neck to eat…
“From under a canopy,” he murmured aloud. “Son of a bitch. They’re under a canopy! They set up a sand-colored canopy!”
It was visible then, like a Magic Eye puzzle shaping into a 3D image. A roughly square patch, just barely a shade off from the surrounding desert. The horse beneath it giving them their final clue as it was trying to reach some breakfast.
“Penny!” Zero was already reaching for the nearest bag of gear. “Where is that?”
“E-17,” she said quickly, “is fifty-seven miles southeast of your location!”
“Chip, there’d be better be gas in that bucket,” he said breathlessly.
“The bigger concern is it making fifty-seven miles,” Chip admitted.
“Grab the gear. Let’s go!”
The five of them rushed out of the crumbling old airstrip station and piled into the Jeep. It clattered to life with Chip behind the wheel, kicking up sand and small rocks as it lurched forward.
They had them.
They had them.
Now they just had to get there in time, form a plan, and take them out, all without any harm coming to Rutledge.
If he was still alive.
05: 31: 57…
05: 31: 56…
05: 31: 55…
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
The old Jeep’s shocks protested with every rut in the sand. Every small rock sent them bouncing in their seats. The engine clattered; the brakes squealed terribly with every light touch.
With every minute that ticked by, Zero worried that the Jeep wouldn’t make it. As it was, Chip could barely top forty-five miles an hour without the thing shaking terribly, threatening to come apart at the seams.
With every rut in the desert, he was afraid that he wouldn’t make it, his body aching in protest. He dug in his pocket for the plastic pouch there. The second Tramadol shot from the ambulance in Jerusalem. No time like the present. He jabbed himself in the thigh with it.
They needed to go faster. But faster might mean a breakdown, and they couldn’t afford that. They had no water. The sun was dangerously blazing overhead. They would be stuck out in the desert with miles to go and many more to return.
04: 09: 15…
Zero sat in the passenger seat, holding the roll bar since there was no seat belt to be had. Behind him, Strickland was squeezed between Maria and Mendel, the latter doing a weapons check. He wasn’t even sure what they had available to them, but a glance over his shoulder told him that Mendel had brought along a collapsible rifle, which she was currently assembling.
“Penny!” he said into the sat phone, practically shouting over the desert wind that whipped over the windshield. “When we arrive I want you to give us a ten-minute lead time, and then call it in!”
“To whom?”
“To Barkley. Directly to Barkley. No one else!”
“Got it. You’re only about two miles—”
Penny’s voice fell away. “Hello? Penny?” The satellite phone was dead in his hand. “Damn it! I lost her. We’re dark. But she said about two miles—”
A gunshot went off, and Zero instinctively covered his head. He felt the Jeep slowing as Chip swore loudly.
It wasn’t a gunshot. White smoke eked from beneath the hood of the Jeep.
“That was our head gasket, if I had to guess,” said Foxworth.
“Can you still drive it?” Maria asked from behind them.
“Technically? Yes, but there’s no coolant going to the engine. And considering we’re in the freakin’ desert, it’ll probably be about a minute before the engine overheats completely.” Chip shifted and eased down on the accelerator. “Come on, baby. Just a little further…”
But he was right. Not even another full minute passed, another half mile at best, before the Jeep slowed to a crawl, then stopped, refusing to go any further.
The Feds?
“Ms. Lawson,” one of them said. “Please put the knife away.”
They didn’t have guns. Or at least they didn’t take them out if they did.
“We’ll take it from here,” said the other.
Maya let go of the forger, who just stood there, his hands up and trembling. One of the agents took him by an arm as the other handcuffed him.
What the hell is going on?
No one got out of the black sedan. But the rear window rolled down, and the familiar face behind it said, “Get in, Lawson.”
Maya was tired. Too tired to protest. While the FBI agents took away the forger, Maya got into the car beside Dean Hunt.
“Nicely done,” said the dean as the car pulled away from the house.
“You knew. You knew who he was.”
“Admittedly, no. We’ve been following you. We lost you for a little while there, but we had a hunch you’d come back here.”
“We,” Maya repeated. “Who’s we?”
But Dean Hunt ignored her question. “There’s a house on fire about thirty minutes north of here. We sent the fire department.”
“Great,” Maya said flatly, throwing honorifics and courtesy to the wind. “Look, you don’t know what I’ve been through tonight. I’d really just like to sleep for a while. So are we done here? Can I get back to work?”
“No,” said Dean Hunt. “I’m afraid that your time at West Point is done, Ms. Lawson. Effective immediately.”
Maya stared at her, jaw agape. She couldn’t believe she’d just heard the dean right. “I did what you asked. I found the forger. In less than twenty-four hours. You told me I had time. You told me—”
“I know what I told you,” the dean said sharply. “But the fact of the matter is that West Point is a place where we make officers. Simply put, you are not officer material, Lawson.”
Maya scoffed aloud at that. All she had gone through, all she had done, not just to catch the forger but to catch up when she was behind, to excel while doing so, it was all for naught. Her future was spiraling down the drain, all because she wasn’t “officer material”?
“You’re agent material,” Dean Hunt said.
Maya opened her mouth to respond, but then shut it. Had she heard the dean correctly? What did that mean? Hunt’s face was impassive, but there seemed to be just a hint of a smile in her eyes. “Sorry… what?”
“Your transcript will reflect that you caught up on the work you missed and were able to test out of your fourth year at West Point,” Dean Hunt told her.
Maya shook her head. “I wasn’t aware that was an option…”
“It’s not. You’ll be the first, and only on paper. Not that anyone will ever need to see it. There’s simply no point to you continuing your education at the academy when the skills you’d be acquiring aren’t suited to your abilities. DNI Barren and I are starting a new program. A junior agent program. You’ll be among our first recruits.”
Maya blinked in shock. “A junior agent program? You mean with the…”
“Yes, Ms. Lawson. With the CIA.”
“So… this was a test.” All a test. And she had passed. “So I’m in?”
“In the agency? Lord, no.” Hunt chuckled. “This is a training program. Pass it, and you’ll be in.”
This was all a test. She had spat in a lieutenant’s face, nearly gotten herself expelled, almost had her limbs broken, and set fire to a house.
Was it worth it?
Of course it was.
A junior agent. This was it, this was her shot at making the dream come true. One step closer.
“I can’t help but notice,” said Hunt, “that you haven’t said a word about Greg Calloway and his friends sneaking off academy grounds.”
“Oh, did they?” Maya asked casually.
“Mm,” Hunt confirmed. “I think the fire department is going to find evidence of arson at that house today. A fire marshal will investigate, and I’m fairly certain he will find evidence of their presence there.”
“Well. You know how boys are. They just love playing with fire.” Suddenly Maya remembered the news she had seen the night before, and she sat bolt upright. “Wait, the president. Is he still… Have they…?”
Dean Hunt shook her head. “He is believed to be alive. But no, he has not yet been recovered.”
Maya shook her head. “Do we know who’s out there? Looking for him?”
“Lots of people,” Hunt said cryptically. “Lots of organizations. Lots of authorities.” The dean knew what Maya was asking, and was being purposely coy. “You know, when I lost you for a little while there, I wasn’t terribly concerned. I had a feeling you would pop up again, and when you did, you’d have the solution. And you came through.” She glanced over at Maya. “I suppose now we all need to have faith that it runs in the family.”
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
“Goddammit!” Zero flung his pen against the far wall of the crumbling structure. He was quickly losing faith.
Not in his theory; no, that had proven sound. Reidigger had arrived at H-6 with Mr. Shade in tow and quickly employed some creative interrogation tactics. As promised, Shade sang like a bird; he was aware that the plan was to bring Rutledge to the Libyan Desert, but a specific place had not been determined. Like the Israelites, Dawoud and his party had wandered out there, aimless but for their faith, and set up shop somewhere in a country of nearly seven hundred thousand square miles.
The theory was sound. But finding them was like a needle in a cornfield.
“We need to stay positive,” Maria said, but her voice was tight. She’d repeated that phrase no less than a dozen times during the night, and clearly she was struggling to abide by it herself.
“We’re wasting time,” Zero argued.
“It won’t be a waste if we find him—”
“And a complete waste if we don’t!” Zero stood forcefully and paced. He was tired, his eyes hurt, his body hurt. He was irritable, and all the more so because he knew the rest of the team was too and wasn’t showing it the way he was.
The night prior, they had flown across the border from Egypt, the plane’s lights off to avoid being shot out of the sky by the Libyan government. Chip had put the Gulfstream down on an abandoned airstrip that had been unused since the Libyan Civil War in 2011. They set up shop in an old building beside the airstrip, a one-room boxy structure that still held a few rusting desks and creaking chairs, all of it covered in a fine coating of sand blown in through broken windows.
They’d set to work instantly. Penny had digitally parceled sections of the Libyan Desert and carefully scanned with live satellite images for signs of life. There were dozens of hits, either creatures or nomads or even people living out there, each one carefully reviewed by Maria and Strickland via the tablet. Zero marked off the grids on a physical map with the pen, which now was across the room in his frustration.
It was morning. Dawn had come and gone. The minutes ticked by.
05: 41: 17…
05: 41: 16…
05: 41: 15…
Possibly their only saving grace, the one thing that had kept them going, was that their search wasn’t completely random. For one, they knew that the location would be within what was considered to be the fabled Desert of Paran in the Islamic faith, which hugged the Egyptian border. They also knew that the second video had been uploaded less than nine hours after Rutledge’s capture. Including necessary travel time, they could surmise that the location was no more than seven hours’ distance, by vehicle, from an airstrip.
That still left tens of thousands of square miles to painstakingly and manually check.
A needle in a cornfield.
The American president still lives. That’s what Dawoud had said on the second video. But he will die when zero reaches.
Zero had watched the video at least five more times, searching for any sort of additional clue, something that Penny had missed, and had found nothing. Now they had less than six hours remaining on the clock, and absolutely no assurance that even if they found him that they could reach him in time.
To make matters worse, Foxworth and Mendel weren’t back yet. The two of them had gone on foot to an oasis town about fifteen miles northeast to procure a vehicle. Whether that meant stealing, bartering, or paying for it, Zero didn’t know and hadn’t asked. All he knew was that even if they located the place where Rutledge was being held, they had no way to get there.
Hopeless, he thought. This is hopeless.
The Secret Service team led by Agent Chubb had hit another dead end in France, as expected. No more videos had been posted. No signals from the desert to track. They were sentenced to satellite images, Penny’s motion-detecting software, and bleary, naked eyes.
“Look, guys,” said Penny through the satellite phone. The battery was dying; she’d been up all night with them, periodically checking in as she sent them parcels of desert and updates. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but maybe it’s time to let someone know what we know. Bring in others on this.”
Zero shook his head. He’d thought the same thing before, on other ops, only to have things fall all to hell when some hothead like Chubb decided to try to take charge or do something foolish.
“We can’t do that,” he said, trying to keep the irritation and exhaustion out of his voice. “Any official channels we go through will alert the Libyan government. One way or another, they’ll want to get involved—and that’s a recipe for disaster. Our own people will want to put drones in the air, if not choppers or planes. They’ll send whoever they can. And at the first sign of trouble, that countdown… well, it’ll mean nothing.”
He had little doubt that the people behind this would be true to their word and end Rutledge’s life before zero reached if they thought there was a chance their plan could be thwarted.
“I suppose you’re right,” Penny said quietly. “Another motion detection incoming.”
“Received.” Maria rubbed her red-rimmed eyes.
Am I wrong? Zero wondered. Were they withholding information that could prove vital to rescuing the president? Or were they safeguarding it from those who would put Rutledge’s life at unnecessary risk?
“Silver lining,” said Penny. “Looks like Barkley has successfully negotiated with the Israelis to hold off on a missile strike until the end of the countdown.”
“So it’ll be retaliation for two dead leaders,” Maria muttered.
Zero and Strickland both looked up at her in shock.
“Sorry, I’m sorry.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “That was uncalled for. I’m just running on empty.” She passed the tablet to Strickland. “Check this one out. I can’t look at these anymore right now.”
Zero heard a sound then, a rumbling that grew louder. He ceased his pacing and watched through a broken window as a half-rusted, clattering Jeep rolled to a squealing stop outside.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” He stepped out to meet them as Chip and Talia climbed out. “This was the best you could get?”
Foxworth held up a hand. He had a thin trickle of blood on his temple. Mendel had streaks of soot on her face.
“You do not know what we had to do to get this,” he said shortly.
“Any luck?” Mendel asked. She winced with each step, favoring her left hip.
Zero shook his head as the three of them headed back inside.
Hopeless. This is hopeless.
At least they couldn’t say they didn’t give it their best shot. Cyprus, Bulgaria, Egypt, Libya; they’d trotted hundreds of miles to get this far, and even if it wasn’t far enough, they could still save those trafficking victims from Shade. They could still end the financing of a dozen insurgent groups. They had no idea if Rutledge was even still alive right now…
My god. I’m resigning myself already. There’s still time on the clock and I’ve thrown in the towel.
His face warmed with shame at the thought.
Strickland dropped the tablet onto the pockmarked desktop. “It’s nothing. Just another patch of sand and rock.”
Zero picked it up and examined the image. Todd was right; it looked like another barren stretch of desert. He put two fingers against the screen and spread them, enhancing it, but still saw nothing of note.
“Penny, what zone is this?” He couldn’t give up. There was still time on the clock. “I’ll mark it off.”
“That would be… E-17 on the map.”
He checked the map he’d printed on the Gulfstream, showing the easternmost stretch of Libyan Desert. Then he frowned. “E-17 was already marked off.”
“It must have set off the motion detection again,” Penny replied through the phone with a yawn.
“Maybe some animal’s territory,” Strickland suggested. “I don’t see anything. No vehicles, no people, no setup.”
“Me neither,” Zero murmured. “Penny, check when E-17 was set off before, would you?”
“Sure. One moment.” She paused and then said, “It was set off twice before, actually. Once during the night. Three seventeen a.m. Libya time. Then again just after dawn. But nothing was spotted. No lights in the night, no shapes in the day.”
“Probably an animal,” Foxworth agreed.
But what animal? Something nocturnal wouldn’t be active now. Something not nocturnal wouldn’t have been active in the night. “Penny, can you pinpoint where the motion was captured?”
“Sure can. Incoming… now.” A new dialogue opened on the tablet screen. Zero clicked it and the same image appeared, now with a small red circle showing the point of motion.
Zero magnified it as much as he could. Was there something there? It was hard to tell; the image lost resolution the further he zoomed. But he could have sworn he saw something there. It just couldn’t be what he thought it was…
Then Talia was at his side, one hand on his shoulder as she too leaned over and examined the image. “This may sound crazy,” she said. “But that looks to me like a horse’s head.”
“Yeah,” Zero agreed. “Me too.”
Suddenly all five of them were crowded around the desk, staring at the magnified image, the gray oblong mass that looked remarkably like a head on a long neck.
Like a horse. Stretching its neck to eat…
“From under a canopy,” he murmured aloud. “Son of a bitch. They’re under a canopy! They set up a sand-colored canopy!”
It was visible then, like a Magic Eye puzzle shaping into a 3D image. A roughly square patch, just barely a shade off from the surrounding desert. The horse beneath it giving them their final clue as it was trying to reach some breakfast.
“Penny!” Zero was already reaching for the nearest bag of gear. “Where is that?”
“E-17,” she said quickly, “is fifty-seven miles southeast of your location!”
“Chip, there’d be better be gas in that bucket,” he said breathlessly.
“The bigger concern is it making fifty-seven miles,” Chip admitted.
“Grab the gear. Let’s go!”
The five of them rushed out of the crumbling old airstrip station and piled into the Jeep. It clattered to life with Chip behind the wheel, kicking up sand and small rocks as it lurched forward.
They had them.
They had them.
Now they just had to get there in time, form a plan, and take them out, all without any harm coming to Rutledge.
If he was still alive.
05: 31: 57…
05: 31: 56…
05: 31: 55…
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
The old Jeep’s shocks protested with every rut in the sand. Every small rock sent them bouncing in their seats. The engine clattered; the brakes squealed terribly with every light touch.
With every minute that ticked by, Zero worried that the Jeep wouldn’t make it. As it was, Chip could barely top forty-five miles an hour without the thing shaking terribly, threatening to come apart at the seams.
With every rut in the desert, he was afraid that he wouldn’t make it, his body aching in protest. He dug in his pocket for the plastic pouch there. The second Tramadol shot from the ambulance in Jerusalem. No time like the present. He jabbed himself in the thigh with it.
They needed to go faster. But faster might mean a breakdown, and they couldn’t afford that. They had no water. The sun was dangerously blazing overhead. They would be stuck out in the desert with miles to go and many more to return.
04: 09: 15…
Zero sat in the passenger seat, holding the roll bar since there was no seat belt to be had. Behind him, Strickland was squeezed between Maria and Mendel, the latter doing a weapons check. He wasn’t even sure what they had available to them, but a glance over his shoulder told him that Mendel had brought along a collapsible rifle, which she was currently assembling.
“Penny!” he said into the sat phone, practically shouting over the desert wind that whipped over the windshield. “When we arrive I want you to give us a ten-minute lead time, and then call it in!”
“To whom?”
“To Barkley. Directly to Barkley. No one else!”
“Got it. You’re only about two miles—”
Penny’s voice fell away. “Hello? Penny?” The satellite phone was dead in his hand. “Damn it! I lost her. We’re dark. But she said about two miles—”
A gunshot went off, and Zero instinctively covered his head. He felt the Jeep slowing as Chip swore loudly.
It wasn’t a gunshot. White smoke eked from beneath the hood of the Jeep.
“That was our head gasket, if I had to guess,” said Foxworth.
“Can you still drive it?” Maria asked from behind them.
“Technically? Yes, but there’s no coolant going to the engine. And considering we’re in the freakin’ desert, it’ll probably be about a minute before the engine overheats completely.” Chip shifted and eased down on the accelerator. “Come on, baby. Just a little further…”
But he was right. Not even another full minute passed, another half mile at best, before the Jeep slowed to a crawl, then stopped, refusing to go any further.
