Apocalyptic Visions Super Boxset (119 page)

***

The red ring twirled in a tight circle on Rick’s desk. The sunlight shining through the window caught the ruby and flashed red across the room like a lighthouse. Rick watched the ring spin in a trance. Just before the ring lost its momentum, Rick gave it another flick, which reignited another invigorating spin, continuing the flash of the ring’s ruby. Rick plucked the ring from the desk and rubbed the metal between his fingertips. A thumping pounded on his door. “Enter.”

Heath stepped inside holding a stack of folders. “Hill’s already taken out three board members. Finley, Dunst, and Kipp are gone.”

Rick picked up the files, flipping through the reports and scanning the pages haphazardly. “She can go after as many board members as she pleases. They don’t know anything. They never knew anything.”

“Sir, I haven’t been able to dig up a lot of information on our GSF mole,” Heath replied. “The only thing I’ve found is a name and a very modest bank account. I’ll be the first to admit, however, that I’m not specialized enough to fully break through the level of computer security needed to get a detailed scope of that man.”

Rick looked down at the ring, still performing flips under the skin of his fingers. The faint scent of metal filled the air underneath his nose, and he held up the ring for Heath to see. “Do you know what this is?”

Heath examined the ring, squinting in the glare of the sun. “I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking, sir.”

Rick slid the ring on and off his right index finger, rubbing the ruby stud with his left thumb. “This was the first piece of jewelry I bought for myself when I made my first big sales commission over twenty years ago. I was nineteen, working at a car dealership. I had a great month and made twenty thousand dollars. I worked fifteen-hour days every day that month. When I stepped in my boss’s office to get my check, I was worn down, tired, and could barely keep my eyes open. It was an exhaustion that permeated through my bones. But the moment I saw how much money I’d made, I pulled another fifteen hours the next day. It invigorated me, it fueled me, it gave me anything and everything I could have wanted.” Rick spread his arms out, gesturing to the office, the house, the land around him. “Even with all Hill’s resources, she still can’t find me. And if she thinks that mole squealing to her so she could kill off a few worthless sacks of expired meat will cause me to quake, then she’s sorely mistaken.”

“Sir, this woman,” Heath said, pointing to the stack of folders on Rick’s desk, “she has a vendetta. And I would like to make sure she doesn’t have a chance to continue her work.”

“All my wealth, everything I’ve done over my lifetime will not have been for nothing.” Rick’s voice was hard; each word that left his lips ignited his body in a heat. “Do you understand me? Kill the bitch. Bring her head to me in a bag, and let us be done with this.”

“Yes, sir.” Heath turned on his heel and exited.

Despite Heath’s ability and his track record, Rick wasn’t sure if he would be able to pull it off. This woman, the agency she worked for, they were relentless. Rick didn’t need Heath to kill her, just to wound her to give him the time needed to amass his countermeasures. He needed more time to find out who Branston Clark really was. Rick looked at the ring in his palm then picked it up, examining the ruby in the sunlight coming through the window. He grimaced then chucked the ring into the garbage. “I’ll get another one.”

The building Grimes and his partner Mallory worked out of was small, understaffed, and falling apart, but it was all he could get at the last minute. With the construction crews waiting for his team to get past the lawyers charged with protecting whatever secrets lay beneath the Chicago Packing Company, Grimes and his staff were stretched to their limits.

The Germans offered to help, but from across the ocean, they could do little more than process some of the data coming in. Grimes’s superiors had told him his mission was a priority, but with much of the country still dealing with the repercussions of the blackout, resources were scarce.

Mallory rushed into the office, out of breath, clutching a cluster of papers in his hand. “We have a hit.”

Grimes rose from his chair and followed him to the support center, where a series of monitors lined the wall. Hundreds of pieces of data were being analyzed, and a few of the screens displayed the data collaborations from the Germans.

“Let’s get it up on the main screen,” Mallory said. The large monitor filled with a picture of Sarah, along with her flight data. “It’s coming out of Ukraine, heading for Miami. It’s a twelve-hour flight, and she left eight hours ago.”

“And we’re just getting that data now?” Grimes asked.

“The servers we’re using are sharing space with FEMA, who’s still dealing with the reconstruction efforts from the blackout, and the recognition software takes time to sift through all the data points, especially with our net this wide.”

“I want the first flight there, and whoever we have stationed in South Florida, I want them ready to go in less than an hour. We get her right from the gate, seal everything off, but we do not let this shutdown get into the media. The last thing we need is for some tourist to check their news updates before they land and tip off our girl.”

Grimes dialed the chancellor on his cell. He walked back to his makeshift office and desk while the phone rang. An operator answered, and he told the woman who he was. A few seconds later, the chancellor picked up.

“We have her,” Grimes said.

“Where is she?”

Grimes picked up a duffel bag and shoved spare magazines and field gear inside, including Kevlar. “She boarded a plane from Kiev and will be landing in Miami in less than four hours. I have a team preparing to intercept, but I wanted to give you a heads-up.”

It could have been the fact that Grimes’s heartbeat was running a thousand miles per hour or the dozens of thoughts racing through his head, but he felt the silence between him and the chancellor was a very long moment. “Chancellor?”

“Do you need any support?”

“You’re not suggesting that you have German spies in the area that would be willing to out themselves for the good of the American people?”

The chancellor must have heard the smile coming from his face as he slung the duffel bag over his shoulder. He didn’t think the Germans grasped sarcasm.

“From a surveillance standpoint,” the chancellor said.

“No, but the moment I have something for you, I’ll call.”

“Thank you, Agent Grimes.”

“Thank you, Chancellor.” Grimes ended the call and met Mallory with a small unit of men in the support center as they walked in step toward the helipad. He knew how important this was. The fact that they were so close was almost too much. He hadn’t felt this overwhelmed before a field mission since he had first become an agent. Excitement returned in a roaring fervor. This would be the defining moment of his career. This would make him. Or kill him.

***

The fabric from the long-sleeve shirt Sarah wore itched, and she found herself clawing at the collar for most of the flight. She was wedged between two very large, very loud, very obese individuals who didn’t know each other but found they had much in common. When Sarah suggested she switch seats with one of them so she wouldn’t be caught in their verbal crossfire, they simply waved her off. The fat man to her left enjoyed the window seat, and the fat man to her right had a small bladder, which Sarah replied was the only small thing on him. The two men laughed until their belly fat thundered from all the jiggling.

The pilot’s announcement of their landing was a welcome one, and once the plane touched down and they taxied down the runway, she managed to get a glimpse at the windows over by her gate. All the seats were empty, and she couldn’t see a single person walking in the terminal. Her brow furrowed, and she pulled out her mobile, checking social media tags for the Miami airport. And she found quite a few. Massive delays and lines people had posted about said something about the computers being down, but with the pilot not mentioning any of that on his end, Sarah knew there had to be someone out there waiting for her. She pocketed the phone and squeezed her way past the large man before he could block her in. She grabbed her bag, which held both her guns and her jacket, pants, and boots, from the overhead compartment. The suitcase manipulated the images of the contents during the x-ray, and her pistols were coated with a sealant that allowed her to pass through metal detectors unnoticed. Bryce had tried explaining the process to her once, but she’d stopped listening once the word “molecular” left his mouth.

Everyone on the plane was in a hurry to get off, although Sarah couldn’t imagine what the couple in front of her had to complain about considering the three seats they’d bought to have leg room. She couldn’t be sure exactly what they had been doing under that blanket during the flight when everyone else was sleeping, but she had a few ideas.

The less attention she could draw to herself now, the better. She made her way to the back of the plane, pointing toward the bathroom, still carrying her bag. Once she made it inside, she locked the door. Sarah opened the bag and ripped off the “I love Kiev” shirt. She slid her holster over her shoulders and loaded the pistols. She pushed her arms through her jacket sleeves and exchanged the shoes for her boots.

Sarah unlocked the door and cracked it open to peek into the plane. Most of the passengers had made their way off, and the two fat men that had sat next to her were long gone. One of the flight attendants was making her way down the aisle, checking the seats for anything that might have been left behind. Sarah pushed opened the door, still clutching her bag, and the attendant gave her a smile.

“How was the flight?” she asked.

“Long, but the two walruses I sat next to kept things interesting.” The flight attendant gave a few stuttered attempts at a reply as Sarah brushed past her. She kept her eyes peeled for any agents. Her right hand lingered on the side of her jacket, itching to grab the pistol underneath.

The flight attendants and the pilot smiled as she approached the exit. She gave a polite nod back and stopped at the threshold of the terminal’s gate. She looked up at the material between the terminal and the plane. It was nothing but a heavy piece of cloth. Sarah set her bag down and started searching through it.

“Um, ma’am?” the flight attendant asked. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Actually, yes, there is,” Sarah answered, looking up from the bag, the handle of a knife clutched in her fist. “Wait a couple minutes, if you can, before you scream.”

“What?”

Sarah whipped the knife out and sliced through the fabric, cutting a body-sized hole that she slipped through, and despite her request, the flight attendant screamed the moment the blade penetrated the fabric. “Thanks for trying.” Sarah landed on her feet on the tarmac then sprinted away from the plane and the luggage workers. She looked back over her shoulder to see a cluster of law enforcement officers at the window in the terminal, pointing and screaming and watching her get away.

The tarmac was thick with trams and luggage cargo and stares from every airport employee watching her blurred figure sprint across the pavement. An equipment shed rested on the opposite end of the airport—she had noticed it during their taxi along the runway. She needed a vehicle and cover. No doubt the CIA had already assembled choppers in the area.

The shed was in sight, and when Sarah heard the screech of tires, she didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. Warning shots landed to her left, and just before the truck chasing her tried to mow her down, she veered left, turning more sharply than the truck could keep up with.

A luggage cart was just ahead of her, and Sarah dug her heels into the concrete, skidding to a stop. She reached for the latch on the back of the cart that connected the luggage boxes and separated them. The workers still unloading the cart chased after her, but she was long gone before they could catch up.

Even with the cart’s accelerator floored, it was only slightly faster than Sarah was on foot, and the truck behind her was still in pursuit. Helicopter blades thumped in the air, and the gunshots that followed blew out the rear tires. With the air support so close and the fact that she was outnumbered, she chose not to fire back. Shooting a federal agent wouldn’t help her in the long run. Evasion was the name of the game.

With the cart maxed out in speed, Sarah didn’t bother slowing down as she careened into the shed connected to a larger hangar filled with trucks. The cart crashed into the fence, sending a mangled heap of metal wires flying up and over her head. She jumped from the cart, landed in a running stride, then shot the lock off the shed door.

A man in an orange jumpsuit shot his hands into the air when Sarah burst inside. He had a piece of sandwich hanging from his mouth, and a small lunchbox sat on the card table in front of him with an US Weekly magazine. “I think that Avis car sales rep sent me to the wrong place,” Sarah said, “but while I’m here…” She grabbed a set of keys and checked the front of the shed where the cart had parked itself, and the agents chasing her had positioned themselves at the hood and the back with their guns aimed at the shed. Sarah looked back at the man in orange, who still had his hands up in the air. “Will you do me a favor?” The man nodded. “When these guys storm through the door, will you tell them I said I’m heading to New York?” Again the man nodded. “Thanks, bud. Sandwich looks good.”

Sarah burst through the shed’s back door, toward the trucks. The helicopter circled overhead, and she heard someone calling her name over a loudspeaker, telling her to come out with her hands up. She found the truck that paired with her borrowed keys and climbed inside. Burger wrappers and empty, coffee-stained Styrofoam cups lined the floorboard. She pushed a pile of plastic Coke bottles off the seat, cranked the engine to life, shifted the truck into drive, and made a beeline for the feeble side door.

The front of the truck crashed through the door, sending a spray of wood and aluminum onto the tarmac. She was met with another flurry of gunfire that peppered the hood and bed of the truck. A line of cop cars headed her way, and the remaining airport traffic had been shut down. The truck offered a four-wheel-drive capability, which she shifted into.

Given the fleet of police vehicles on her tail and the chopper above, with another wall of law enforcement heading from her left, Sarah wasn’t left with a lot of options. “Right it is.”

Sarah kept her foot glued to the accelerator, aiming for the open space of the airport, which led to a fence that cordoned off a piece of swampland. The rear window shattered from gunfire, and the metallic thump collided with the back of the truck, intertwining with the hum of the helicopter in hot pursuit.

The airport’s perimeter chain-link fence bent and crumpled upon impact, and Sarah kept hold of the steering wheel tight as the wheels dug into the slippery grass, which turned into a thick layer of mud. Red and blue lights flashed in her rearview mirror. She followed the mud until it ran into water. Most of the cars behind her couldn’t make the trip into the swamp, and only a handful of the dozens of vehicles sent after her ventured onto the terrain.

A cluster of trees and waist-deep water were up ahead. Sarah pulled her pistol, keeping one hand on the steering wheel, and fired shots into the corners of the windshield. She pushed out the shattered glass until there was a hole big enough for her body to fit through. The speedometer of the truck pushed past forty, then fifty as the tires struggled to gain traction in the mud. She tipped sixty miles per hour just before the front of the truck splashed into the swamp.

Water filled the cabin as the truck’s forward motion came to a stop. Sarah holstered the pistols and zipped up her jacket. She pushed her way through the opening in the windshield as the police vehicles behind her came to a stop just before the mudbank turned to water.

Sarah crawled over the hood of the sinking truck and took one look behind her then a deep breath and dove under the murky waters. She paddled her arms and legs as hard as she could. Underneath the water, the gunshots from above the surface echoed lightly in her ears, followed by someone screaming for them to stop, most likely because they wanted her alive. She kept count in her head as she swam along the muddy bottom. She could hold her breath for three minutes at this pace, which would put her at least one hundred yards from the bank. The cluster of trees and the fact that it would take at least ten minutes to scramble some boats gave her confidence that she’d be able to put some distance between herself and her pursuers.

The water rippled lightly as Sarah broke the surface. Her vision blurred from the water rolling off her face, and the water stung her eyes. While she couldn’t see the bank of the swamp any longer, the water still carried the long echo of the shouts of the officers chasing her. The humid stench of waterlogged plants and animals filled Sarah’s nostrils. Her boots reached the ground, and the water level came up to her shoulders. A light wake trailed her. She knew that if she kept heading east, she’d run into the Atlantic. From there, she could get a boat to take her up the coast. The farther away she was from cameras right now, the better.

The whine of a boat engine caused her head to cock to the side. A spotlight bounced off swamp trees, and she heard the echo of voices over the idling engine. “She can’t hold her breath forever.”

“Wanna bet?” Sarah asked. Her voice bounced off the trees and water, making her sound as though she was coming from all directions.

The boat’s engine cut off, and she saw the spotlight swinging and scanning the area, looking for the body attached to the voice. “Give it up, Sarah. We’ve got eyes everywhere. We found you once, and we can find you again. Don’t make it hard on yourself.”

“I could say the same for you.” Sarah maneuvered around the trees, continuing her trek north. The water grew deeper, coming up to her chin. When she rounded the base of a tree, she got a good look at the skiff and the agents on board. Four men, armed with assault rifles, and the spotlight fruitlessly looking for her. From what she saw, there was only one boat, but most likely more were on the way.

“This isn’t what your family would want, Sarah,” the voice called out.

“You have no idea what my family wants.”

“They’re hurting. And you being out here isn’t helping that.”

Sarah had to admit the guy was smart. Most likely CIA, judging by the gear and the haircut. She circled around to the back of the boat, mindful of the pattern of the spotlight. Each agent on board, except for the one speaking, had his gun aimed into the water. She held her breath when she made it to the back of the transom and reached for the blade tucked into her belt, keeping both her pistols holstered. She lifted herself halfway out of the water and slammed the tip of the blade into the instep of one of the men with an assault rifle closet to her. He screamed, and before the rest of the team could turn around, she yanked his foot toward the edge of the boat and tossed him overboard, making sure to retract the blade before she lost the knife.

Sarah ducked underneath the hull of the boat as she watched the bullets fly into the water and the man with the bleeding foot scramble for the side of the boat. She swam up next to him, hovering just below the surface, and when a hand reached out to help him, up she broke through the plane, ramming the knife into the shoulder of the man trying to lift him up, and they both splashed into the water, along with their rifles, which sank to the sandy bottom.

The agents flailed their limbs, trying to get back in the boat, rocking it viciously as the man in charge ordered them to stop. There were still two men on board, with the other two in the water, clutching their wounds and trying to stay afloat. “Sarah! You’re only digging the hole deeper.”

Even under the surface of the water, she could hear the words loud and clear. She watched the shadows shift above her, waiting for the one wielding the last assault rifle to turn his back. When he did, Sarah jumped from the water, flinging the blade into the man’s shoulder, swung herself onto the boat deck, and knocked him overboard—right after retrieving her blade.

Before the man who had been speaking could draw his weapon, Sarah had one pistol aimed at him and the other switching between the three men in the swamp. Water dripped from her jacket, and her hair was plastered to her head. “Looks like I’ve reached the bottom of that hole.”