Nowhere to Hide (17 page)

“Let's get it done,” King said. “Twenty-four hours and counting before some homicidal maniac starts filling that chamber with water.”

CHAPTER 41

There was a knock on the door of room 1010 at precisely five a.m.

Mack checked the spy hole in the door and looked back at the assembled group and nodded. He opened the door, and the athletically built black woman with trimmed short hair from the FaceTime conversation stepped inside the room.

She gave everybody her now-familiar neutral smile. She had used it at the beginning of the FaceTime conversation to introduce the president and again at the end to announce she was on the way.

Now, however, she was wearing a cashmere sweater and blue jeans.

“Good to see you, parents,” she said. All three families were in room 1010. “I expect you'll be in the other rooms, and you can call anytime to check up on us. In the meantime, I can assure you that local security teams have moved into place. So we are good then.”

She opened the door, pointed the parents out, and said, “Every minute matters. I'm glad you understand.”

Mack made the first move, and the other parents followed.

When the suite had cleared except for Kelli, King, MJ, and Blake, she gave them a smile that was warmer than her professional one.

“I need coffee,” she said. “I need it bad. Surely in a place this fancy, we should be able to brew something.”

With coffee in hand, Kelli sat on a chair facing the three, who were on the couch in the center of the suite.

“I was serious when I said we have no time to waste,” she said. “So I'm going to start by talking about the Harry Potter movies. I don't want to know if you've watched them. I only want to point out that the movies made something famous that until recently seemed impossible for the real world—invisibility cloaks.”

She sipped from the coffee and sighed with satisfaction. “Imagine the difference in warfare and intelligence work if agents, soldiers, tanks, or even airplanes could be rendered invisible.”

Blake was unable to help himself. “I know—it's mind-blowing! Composite films with nanoscale patterns stacked in a three-D architecture! That kind of structural manipulation allows precise control over the propagation of light. And with electromagnetic resonances over the three-D space—”

“Stop, stop, stop,” Kelli said. “You're hurting my head. But I'm impressed. You not only knew about what's been publicly released on invisibility materials, but you even know the science behind it?”

“I knew it too,” MJ said.

“Yeah,” King said. “MJ absolutely knew it.”

“I need more coffee,” Kelli said, smiling. “Hard to keep up with you guys.”

She took a large sip and then continued. “So if you're up to speed on that, now I'm going to move into classified material. It's one thing to build a fabric, it's…”

She stopped. Blake had put up his hand.

“Yes, Blake?”

“So far,” Blake said, “as I understand it, this material has only been manufactured at micron-scale sizes. Are you saying the technology is there to make it cloak-sized?”

“Probably within months. And not only cloak-sized, but tank- and airplane-sized. But that's not enough. The cloaks, or sheets, also need software programming.”

Kelli stood and grabbed one of the cushions MJ had tossed on the floor to make room on the couch. With her right hand, she held it in front of her at waist height. “For this to be invisible, you would need to see what's behind it.”

She moved her left hand directly behind the cushion. “If you didn't see my lower arm and wrist and hand, that would be a visual cue that something was abnormal. If the cushion just disappeared but there was a cushion-sized area of darkness, the cloak would not be effective. Agreed?”

“Sure,” King said.

“If you had a camera on the cloak at the back of the cushion, the camera could show the image of my hand and project that on the front. But you would need a wide-angle camera, and even then, the image would be strange enough to again cue your eyes that something was abnormal.”

Kelli looked at Blake. “So how do you solve that?”

“Some kind of film with thousands of little eyes,” he said. “Transmitting the shifting images behind the cushion.”

“Sharp,” she said. “I can see why Evans and Moore wanted to work with you guys.”

King jumped in before MJ could speak. “MJ absolutely knew that too.”

“Yeah,” MJ said, either unaware or pretending to be unaware that King was giving him a verbal jab.

“The trouble is,” Kelli said, “the computing power to make it happen takes monstrous amounts of memory to embed it in the fabric. And that's where Delamarre's software comes into play. His research team found a way to make it happen.”

She paused. “Are you aware of his reputation?”

“He's on the run for terrorism links,” MJ said.

“Aside from that. His reputation for secrecy as the head of a software company.”

“He's like Steve Jobs was,” Blake said. “Like with the first iPhone. Jobs made sure each research division was working on just one piece of a puzzle. No one team knew exactly what they were building.”

“Yes,” Kelli said. “Now imagine all the pieces are completed, and Jobs is the only one who has all of them together. And then Jobs steals all of it from the company. Even though many of the pieces have been duplicated and stored on the cloud, it takes all of them to deliver the product. So if several key pieces are missing…well, you get the picture.”

“Yes,” King said.

“So the situation is this,” Kelli said. “Delamarre began the software research for the invisibility cloak for the government, but when it came together, he decided it had so much value, he wanted to put it on the open market. In return, the government threatened to arrest him for terrorism and ruin not only his reputation but the whole company's reputation as well. After Apple and Microsoft, his company is—was—one of the biggest. Delamarre thought the government was bluffing and proceeded without them. As you know from the headlines, the government wasn't bluffing. He was indicted for terrorism and escaped custody. Now he needs them to publicly admit that the charges of terrorism were based on faulty intelligence, but the government won't do it unless he hands over the key pieces of software.”

“Got it,” MJ said.

King and Blake nodded.

“So Delamarre's plan was to force someone in the CIA to find files that prove the terrorism charges were put in place to blackmail him to give up information.”

“Moore,” King said. “With Evans.”

“But it goes way deeper than that,” Kelli said. “There are betrayals of national security that do involve terrorists, and they're hidden deep inside the CIA. That's why the president is involved. And that's why I'm here to get your help on his behalf.”

“We're ready and willing and able,” MJ said. “Anything for POTUS. You and me, on his team.”

She gave MJ a funny look, then reconsidered anything she'd been about to say.

“Yes,” she said. “Anything for POTUS.”

“What do you need?” Blake asked.

“You have information from Moore on how to hack into the CIA main servers,” she said, “so let's start there and see where it leads us.”

CHAPTER 42

This time, King decided he didn't need to use his belt like a choke chain. He hated the thought of attacking a woman, and besides, he and MJ and Blake had already planned their next move.

“I have this thing about not touching a monitor screen with my fingers,” Blake told Kelli. “Drives me crazy to see the poke mark. So follow the arrow of my mouse and look at this. It's okay, you can lean over my shoulder.”

MJ was in the way. This had been planned.

Blake said. “Dude, give her some room. It's important that she sees this. We're in the email server. There's some serious stuff here.”

MJ stepped aside.

“Okay if I look over your shoulder while you're looking over his shoulder?” MJ asked Kelli.

She nodded, hardly giving him any attention.

MJ stood behind her. He reached behind his back, and King was ready—pillowcase in one hand, duct tape in the other.

King put the pillowcase in MJs fingers.

In one swift move, just as they had practiced with Blake, MJ dropped the pillowcase over Kelli's head like a hood.

“Hey—” she started to say, raising her hands to pull at the pillowcase.

King was ready. He tossed the duct tape from Walmart on the desk for Blake. King grabbed her left hand. MJ left the pillowcase over her head and grabbed her right hand.

She tried to kick and lost her balance.

“Let…go…” she grunted.

King was glad she wasn't screaming. But he'd guessed that she wouldn't. If she screamed for help, she'd have to explain what she was doing in the room—something she didn't want to do.

King and MJ held their grips, holding her wrists.

She landed on her knees with her hands above her head.

King pushed her left hand to center, and MJ did the same with her right hand.

“You…guys…are…” She didn't have a chance to finish.

Blake had the duct tape and made a quick wrap around her head, guessing where her mouth was. He guessed correctly. There was a muffled high-pitched noise, as if she was trying to yell at them through a closed mouth.

“Hurry,” King said to Blake. “She's strong.”

Blake moved to Kelli's forearms, and with three more wraps, they were pinned together. But when they let go, she stood and kicked blindly.

“Ankles!” King said. Duct tape was so much better than the shoelaces they'd been forced to use against Mundie. Was that only the day before?

“Don't want to hurt you,” King said to Kelli. “Don't fight this, okay? It's going to happen anyway, so make it easy on yourself.”

She kicked again.

“Oh man,” King said. “I hate this.”

He judged the next kick and then grabbed her ankle. She stood like a stork on her other leg, unable to swing that leg.

King pushed her backward, toward the couch. She had to hop to keep her balance, and he pushed her in baby one-hop steps until the back of her knees hit the couch and she fell backward into a sitting position.

She kicked with her free leg.

“Guys,” King said. “Some help here?”

MJ grabbed Kelli's other ankle. She was so strong that King and MJ each had to lock her ankles under their arms and hold them against their ribs.

Blake darted in and wrapped the duct tape around her knees. Another few rolls around her calves. And then, when King and MJ dropped her ankles, he wrapped them securely together.

They backed away.

The pillowcase hid her face. Her arms were in front of her, her hands resting.

More muffled sounds from below the duct tape around the pillowcase.

“Scissors?” MJ asked.

King nodded and then spoke to Kelli. “We don't want to hurt you. We're going to cut away the pillowcase above your mouth so you can breathe okay and see. But I'm going to be using scissors, so don't move. If you're good with that, raise your hands.”

She waited a moment and then slumped her shoulders and raised her hands.

MJ appeared with tiny scissors from the toiletry kit in the bathroom.

King snipped away the pillowcase and pulled it from her head.

The bottom half of the pillowcase was still in place, with duct tape around it and her mouth.

Their eyes met. She was glaring with laser anger. King was glad her hands were not free.

“I know,” he said. “This isn't what you expected. But now we need some answers.”

She shook her head violently from side to side. Negative.