Encrypted (41 page)

On the other hand
,
Amanda was grateful. It provided her with a wealth of information.
Almost too much information.
She had zeroed in on any household or complex that was not showing extreme stress regarding the plague. Even better yet, dwellings
without
television. The Hidden Hand seemed like an organization that would be primetime
-
averse.

Still
,
she struggled to isolate populations. Nothing she found edged into the statistically relevant category. Amanda looked
at
Jennifer
,
but her assistant shook her head. Apparently
,
she was having no better luck.

So far, their calculations had been based on a stringent theorem. Take
,
for instance
,
the fact that they only counted a single
occurrence
of apparent resistance
—
even if an entire family seemed immune. The theorem stipulated that if one person in the family had resistance to the plague, the rest of the family was highly likely to as well.

However
,
didn’t that apply to the Hidden Hand as well? Wouldn’t they have vaccinated clusters of families
,
or members of the rank and file
?

“What if we counted each resistant case as its own nidus?” Amanda asked Jennifer. Her
assistant’s
eyes widened
,
and
then narrowed. Her fingers rushed over the keyboard.

A new set of
parameters
came up. With many more islands.

Now to just figure out which
was
the Hidden Hand.

CHAPTER 18

El Paso
FBI Field Office

8:32
p
.
m
.,
MST

Zach
lay
belly
-
down on the roof, peering through a set of binoculars to the building he used to call his work
—t
he El Paso FBI
F
ield
O
ffice. Now he was surveilling it for
what amounted to a jailbreak. However
,
Ronnie couldn’t get any further with the decoding unless they had Francois
,
and Zach didn’t think
that
the FBI was just going to hand the old guy over to them.

Still
,
it gave him pause to think of the number of laws he was about to break.
Infinite
number
s
of laws.
His
indictment
would read like a laundry list of class one felonies
,
and even treason. The only silver lining in this entire screwed
-
up scenario was Ronnie lying next to him. Of course
,
he wished it
were
under completely different circumstances, but just having her chest rising and falling next to his
felt right
. As a decorated FBI agent
, it
shouldn’t, but it did.

“Looks like about twelve agents
,
plus another seven support staff,” Ronnie said as she swung the binoculars down. Their eyes met. She studied his features. Her mind seemed to work like a micro-expression computer. “You still okay with this?”

“No,” he answered honestly.

It was one thing to get caught up in the moment after a helicopter crash.
He was
all full of adrenaline and fury. But now? In the cool of the El Paso night? Considering an armed assault on his colleagues?

Again
,
she seemed to read him perfectly
.
“Quirk’s going to do everything
h
e can to neutralize the people in there. We should be able to get in and grab Francois without a shot being fired.”

The “should” in that sentence was the one that worried him. If Ronnie
were
so damned sure
that
they wouldn’t need to fire a shot, she probably wouldn’t have had them haul
enough armaments to lay siege to Fort Knox
up five flights of stairs. The remains of Ronnie and Quirk’s equipment
were
scavenged from the helicopter. Half
of
the stuff he didn’t even recognize as weapons, like the large metal disc that supposedly could alter a bullet’s course
—
or even pull a gun from an assailant’s hand.

However
,
if Ronnie thought she was going to need all of this,
then
that told Zach just
how deadly these items
are
. Jorge’s expression as those iPod earbuds’ directional charge blew his brains out would never fade.

Ronnie laid a hand on his arm. Zach was sure
that
she meant it to be comforting
,
but it only reinforced how worried
she
was.

“They’ve declared you rouge, Zach. They have shoot-on-sight permission.”

Ronnie was right
,
of course. Quirk had intercepted the communiqués from Mexico to Quantico. There was no coming back from this. No matter
that
it was Grant
who
kidnapped and tortured
him
. The official story had the facts flipped. The entire twenty-four hours had gone sideways
—
seriously sideways. Too sideways to ever recover his career.

He was an outlaw. Plain and simple.

His mom was going to be so proud. Like Thanksgiving dinners hadn’t been awkward enough. Now he might never get to eat overcooked turkey and barely defrosted green beans. Damn it, but he had to choke back tears.

Unfortunately the well
-
coif
f
ed hacker sitting next to him had no problem
s with
weeping softly as he typed. Quirk’s distress at having to leave “The One,” their pilot
and
grudging chauffeur, at the border
was
still evident in every sigh and sniffle.

“Um, that would be shoot-on-sight for all three of us,” Quirk corrected
,
wiping a tear from his cheek.

True, but the hackers were used to it. Even a few hours of life on the lam left a sour taste in Zach’s mouth. His badge hadn’t just been a form of identification. It had been
him
.

“If there was any other way…” Ronnie said as her fingers slid down to his hand and gave it a squeeze before she went back to surveying the area.

But there had to be, didn’t there? The answer to their dilemma couldn’t be breaking out a known arsonist from his FBI field office. Could it? Yet running through all of the other scenarios, Zach came up
with nothing
. Even if they went to Washington and tried to get Ronnie directly into Langley
,
no guarantee
s
existed—
for her or their safety.

Still. He had contacts. Contacts
whom
he trusted. Maybe they should try to work through
established
channels before taking such rash action.

He went to open his mouth when lights across the street flickered
, and
then went off.

“Quirk, we are still at
T
minus five,” Ronnie hissed at her assistant.

“Hey, that was
not
me.”

Well, clearly the power to
the
field office and the entire side of the street had been cut off.

“This couldn’t just be a coincidence?” Zach asked
,
pretty much knowing the answer as emergency lighting bloomed to life
,
then crackled brightly, blowing itself out. In the darkened office, agents scrambled for flashlights. Zach scanned the building, his eyes finding the tech support department. Warp rushed into the room, nearly knocking over his Green Lantern coffee cup. “But if that isn’t us, then who?”

Ronnie sucked in a breath. Her eyes wide
ned
with surprise. “Um,” she said. “I think I just spotted some ninja priests.”

“What?” Zach asked as he raised his own binoculars. But sure enough
,
f
our men draped in black
made
their way into the building. Zach would have assumed
that
they were a mercenary team
,
except each of the men had a bright
,
white collar at
his
neck. A priest’s collar. Ronnie’s assessment was pretty damn accurate. They did appear to be ninja priests.

Quirk grabbed the binoculars from Zach
,
and
then whistled. “Sometimes I love my job.”

Then the flash of a gun muzzle,
and
then another. Those were shots. Shots fired with a silencer. These assailants didn’t give a damn about the agents
’
welfare. His friends’ welfare.

Zach leapt up.

“Wait!” Ronnie called out as he made
his
way to the fire escape. “We’ve got to modify
our
entry plan.”

Zach swung his leg over the metal ladder. Whether Ronnie followed was her business. He couldn’t let his colleagues get slaughtered. Securing his instep
s
on either side of the ladder, he loosened his hold and let gravity take him down.

* * *

Ronnie watched Zach slide down the ladder. Her eyes flickered to Quirk
,
whose jaw had dropped. And to think that she might one day, after they got clear of the CIA and ninja priests, she might actually date the guy
who
had just
performed
that feat? She watched as Zach hit the ground, unholstered his weapon
,
and crouched in perfect FBI
-
trained position, running across the street.

Shaking off the awe, Ronnie grabbed as many items
as
she could carry.

“Figure out how they got in,” Ronnie ordered Quirk as she climbed onto the ladder. She tried to replicate Zach’s maneuver
,
but nearly broke a finger and risked plummeting three stories. Reverting to the step-by-step
method
, Ronnie rushed down the stairs
—t
he metal clanging.

“What did I tell you about clod-hopping?” Quirk complained, not seeming to realize or perhaps care that his voice was equally painful against her eardrum
s
.

Trying to strap the diversion disc onto her back, Ronnie raced across the street. Guess their meticulous plan to enter through the rooftop and come down the elevator shaft, exiting right next to the locked prisoner’s cell
where
Quirk, in a perfectly timed hack, blew
the
lock. As she caught up to Zach
,
it looked
as though
he planned on walking, or more accurately, barging, in the front door.

He stopped at the entrance
,
and
then held up three fingers. Each one that went down tightened Ronnie’s chest. Sure
,
she was a world
ly,
elite hacker. Sure
,
she liked to be out in the field. But she also went up against kids with water guns. As another muzzle flash flared from the interior of the building, Ronnie realized
that
she wasn’t quite so fond of live fire exercises.

Shoving open the glass door, Zach charged in, gun at the ready.

“I can’t tell FBI from ninja priests, but we’ve got three bodies moving together down the corridor to your right,” Quirk informed.

“They’re off to the right,” Ronnie whispered to Zach as they made their way through the lobby.

Zach nodded. “That’s the direction of the holding cells.”

Behind the desk
,
they found their first victim. Even Ronnie recognized the man. It was Special Agent
Markum
. Blood splatter
ed
his white shirt, pooling around his head. Zach knelt
, tried to find
a pulse
,
and
then shook his head.