Extraordinary Retribution (17 page)

Startled, he didn’t know what to say. She continued. “I need someone there, okay? You might think of me as some super-agent. I’m not. Right now, I’m really damn tired, and I’m feeling anything but super. I’ve lost people I loved. My career is over, and to send it off in style, I’m about to break into my own government building and steal information. I could end up in jail until I’m old and gray. You’re the brother of someone I cared for deeply, and you want to find justice for him as much as I do. Besides you, I’ve got no one. You’re coming.”

Lopez nodded in accord, but he was again surprised. Her vulnerability seemed to lurk inside of a shell of adamant and catch him unprepared.

“Okay, Sara, but what happens when this system sees I’m not supposed to be there?”

“All hell breaks loose.” She pointed to the building plans. “The doors lock so that no ID will get them open until an external command code is given.”

“Great.”

“Even better. They electrify. Lethal voltage. No lock picking or control panel hacking. Touch anything around the door and you’re dead.”

Lopez just stared at her.

“Once the alarm triggers, security is called, as well. And, to make sure you’re docile when they deactivate things and enter, they gas the building.”

“
Gas the building?
Nerve gas? Poison?”

“Non-lethal incapacitating agent. Some derivative of BZ that has better clean up and more drowsiness.”

“BZ?”

“Ever heard of Agent 15? No? Well, Saddam Hussein used to love using that stuff. The walls of the building are filled with a much more sophisticated version.”

Lopez shook his head. “So they make it as hard to get out as to get in.”

“Maybe harder. They don’t think anyone is dumb enough to break in. But if they do, then they want to prevent anything getting out. No bodies out. No information, either—so once the alarms go off, Wi-Fi dies, extra-strong cellular jamming goes into effect. You’re gassed and left for pickup.”

“Sara, then we are back to me staying. This is crazy.”

“Or,” she said, interrupting, “you outwit it.”

“How?”

“We don’t have time for everything here. It’s already eight o’clock, and we need supplies. I’ll explain on the way. Besides, if I tell you now, you won’t come.”

That’s encouraging
. It was suddenly too real. Talking and planning had a certain safe abstraction to it. Lopez watched Houston as she packed a duffle bag with numerous items. He noted that among these items were several firearms.

She paused staring at the weapons. “Don’t have time to train you with these, or I’d give you several.”

Give me several guns?
He played over what was coming. Razored walls. Robotic machine guns. Intelligent buildings with electrified doors and spy-film knockout gas. A priest with guns.

She’s insane.

28

H
ouston parked next to a darkened light pole, the large parking lot of the discount warehouse shut down and empty. Although it was one in the morning, Lopez had never felt more awake in his life. He buzzed from some sort of electric charge running through him, the looming madness they were planning just a few steps away. Their ticket awaited in the trunk of her car.

“Help me get this out of here,” she grunted, pulling on the green canvas. The incredible weight of it shocked Lopez as he helped her heave it onto the asphalt. She began unlacing the sides. He shook his head. This was completely mad.

“Newest model of the Bervedine Cloud-hopper,” she smiled as the canvas dropped away. “We’ll need the inflation fan from the back seat. Julio could manage it; I can’t lift the thing by myself.” She eyed his frame mischievously. “But I bet you can, Francisco.”

As she set up the metal harness and propane tank, Lopez headed to the backseat. The inflation fan would sit outside of the nylon envelope, which when unfolded would be much larger. He glanced back toward Houston—she was unfolding it now. The fan was big and heavy, but he managed to extract it without too much trouble. Fortunately, it was built with an attached set of wheels. He lowered it with a grunt onto the ground and wheeled it forward. Soon he had the device alongside the burner.

“Julio had this one specially designed. He’s a big guy, as you saw.” She spoke through clenched teeth, pulling hard on the straps and ropes tying the envelope to the seat.

Lopez noticed that the gas-tank was bolted into the back of the makeshift chair. “Have you ever done this before?” he asked, expecting a negative.

“Of course!” she said, finishing off the assembly and firing the flame. The blast of air from the heat hit Lopez in the face, and he instinctively backed off. “Twice, for your information. Julio had several of us out once. The Agency loves to have everyone tightly knit. Friends, lovers. One big paranoid family.”

“Twice.”

“With one unassisted landing!” She positioned the fan behind the flame and started the engine. It sputtered once, then took, and a loud humming filled his ears, followed by the white noise of rushing air. The balloon slowly began to inflate. “These small one-man balloons are actually kind of fun. Better than parasailing, unless you like the greater risk of that. These guys are very maneuverable, relatively cheap, and, important for tonight, allow you to take off and land in very small areas.”

Lopez shook his head. “You know, after all this high-tech biometric auto-fire face-recognition spook-talk, you’d think you’d have a less primitive way to defeat their security.”

Houston laughed. “See, Francisco, that’s why it’s going to work. They planned for all kinds of brutal and sophisticated assaults on their security system. But it was all two-dimensional thinking. All we need is a tank of propane, a metal harness, a big patch of nylon, and a fan, and we’re in!” She smiled broadly. Lopez thought she looked like an excited little girl about to get on a roller coaster.

He took several steps back. The balloon was nearly inflated. Personal balloon or not, it was
big
. “We aren’t in there yet, Sara,” he said grimly, looking at the towering shape. He hoped no random police patrol car would pass by. “And you said
one-man
balloon—will it support one man and one woman?”

“Like I said,” she began, strapping herself into the harness and motioning Francisco over. “Julio had it made for him. Two hundred and seventy-five pounds of former linebacker, with over-design for safety. You’re about one hundred and eighty pounds, if I can guess. I’m one hundred forty. Should work.” That smile again.

Already she was beginning to lift off the ground. He stood next to her, and she strapped a second harness onto him. This was not going to be comfortable.

“The only issue is navigation with all this priest deadweight underneath me,” she said musingly as she fired the tank, driving hot air into the balloon. Lopez felt his weight lessen dramatically, and he rose up without effort on his toes. “And, of course, landing.”

Landing
. Landing with
him
underneath. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Sara.”

Instead of replying, she burned the flame harder, and instantly his feet were no longer on the ground. The balloon gained altitude at a frightening rate, and within seconds the food warehouse and her car were small below them, twisting out of his field of vision as she piloted the cloud-hopper over the forest nearby. As they increased their altitude, Lopez gained a greater eye-line to the horizon, the orange necklaces of street lights radiating outward underneath them, a reflection of the full moon shining back at him from a small lake on his left. The wind rushed over his face.

He surprised himself with a laugh as the euphoria of the moment swept over him.

I’m flying.

29

T
he landing was rough, and he skinned his right leg enough to draw blood. Fortunately, nothing seemed to be broken, and after a split-second look, Houston anchored the balloon to a drain grating and unhitched the two backpacks she had brought. They hoisted one apiece.

They left the balloon “parked,” fully inflated, right in the middle of the CIA lot. She had landed in what she called a security camera blind spot, the largest of four around the property. Even so, “largest” meant that they had a very narrow landing pad in which they could work, but somehow, she had done it, even with him underneath to complicate the touchdown. He assumed that the tradeoff was bouncing him off the asphalt.

Lopez carried the tablet, checking once more that the app was running correctly, displaying the strangely out-of-focus image of Houston that was supposed to defeat the face-recognition algorithms. Houston pulled out four small containers marked with several warning labels:
ultrahigh pressure
,
explosive
,
extremely cold gas.
She had briefly explained that it was highly compressed nitrogen that when released in the small spaces they would enter, would momentarily lower the temperature in the room by tens of degrees. While not much, it was enough to decrease the sensitivity of the tracking equipment. Exactly why this was the case, he didn’t have time to pursue. Because of this, they were to don oxygen-supplied gas masks immediately after entry, both for the volume of released nitrogen, and for the moment the security system would detect Lopez as an intruder and release the neuro-suppressant sleeping gas.

In addition, she had packed electronic equipment, several small firearms, and a bag full of gray bricks, which he assumed were plastic explosives. As they ran from the balloon toward the glass pyramid, he suppressed a bitter laugh as he gazed toward the razor walls and robotic weaponry they had skipped over.
Down the rabbit hole, I go.
A parish priest only recently teaching bored students was now sprinting through what should have been an adolescent’s video game.
Except that the deaths are real. The bullets real. The pain real. My brother’s death, real.
His smile faded, and he focused ahead as they approached the entrance.

At the facial-recognition device, there was the turnstile she had mentioned, after which was a short ten-foot walk to a stairway leading downward, ending at a heavy-looking door. Houston indicated that through the door was a short tunnel, embedded in the ground next to the building, which would lead upward to the main floor.

She motioned for him to keep at a distance. “Don’t get close enough for it to scan you until you have the tablet positioned right against your face.”

“How will I see to walk?” Lopez had not thought of this until now.

“You won’t. Eyeball a line, look down at your feet, and walk straight. When you get close to the turnstile, quickly align yourself—it spins counterclockwise—and just push your way in. You should be able to lower the tablet once it engages.”

Lopez nodded, and she turned and walked toward the turnstile and invisible camera system. “Walk slowly to this spot,” she said, coming to a stop, “and stand still until you hear the mechanism.”

At that moment, a green light appeared next to the door, and he heard a metallic clanking sound. Houston walked forward and pushed her way through the turnstile. As she did so, a loud click came from the far door, and it opened automatically, pivoting on its hinges slowly. She motioned for him to approach.

Taking a deep breath, he verified again that the image was showing, and walked forward with the device pressed closely to his face. As he neared the location she had indicated, she called out, “Stop!” Lopez halted. There was a pause. He was sure that it was longer than it had been for her. He felt sweat trickle down the side of his face, but he did not move the tablet or change position. Just when he began to panic, he heard the same metallic sound he had a moment ago. “Francisco, move!” He lowered the tablet. Houston was motioning animatedly. He walked forward quickly, pressing against the turnstile bars. They moved! He pushed through and felt his knees nearly buckle.

“Damn it, Francisco! Don’t get shaky on me now! This is just starting.” As she spoke, she removed one of the slabs of gray plastique and attached it to the turnstile. Embedded in the putty was an electronic device.
Radio receiver?
He didn’t ask.

Lopez placed the tablet back into the backpack and followed her through the second door. He had hardly entered a foot when she held up her hand and stopped him again.

“Okay, beyond this point and we’re in the range of the tracking system. Help me with these.” She removed her pack and knelt down, yanking on the large zipper. She reached in and removed four small gas tanks. “Get the masks.”

Lopez mirrored her position and opened his pack. He removed the two masks with their small oxygen canister. Houston grabbed one and strapped it on. “Like this.” She showed him how. Clumsily, he mimicked her motions, and with some help, soon had his on.

“Wow, this is heavy.” His voice sounded strangely resonant.

“Bad for the neck, but it beats having to lug a back-mounted cylinder. Especially if you’re traveling by personal balloon.” She didn’t smile. Her voice was substantially muffled, but she spoke loudly enough for him to understand easily. “Second drawback is that the small tank means we only have clean air for twenty minutes. Enough time for us to get to where we need to go before the nitrogen will have dispersed. I don’t think we’ll get close to fooling the system that long. We’ll be lucky to make it to Jesse’s office before all hell breaks loose.”

Houston transferred most of the remaining items to one pack and indicated that Francisco should take it. She kept the two guns, strapping them tightly to her waist with a utility belt, and then reached up and touched Lopez’s mask on the side. It was nearly as if she had placed her hand on his cheek, and it felt like an oddly intimate gesture. He felt and heard a click.

“Opening your supply.”

He felt a pressure change in his ears, and there was a strange taste in the air suddenly. Houston affixed another large charge to the doors and then handed him two of the canisters.

“Do what I do.”

With a firm motion, she twisted a valve-like object at the top of the canister, and like the pin in a grenade, it came off. She then rolled the canister along the floor, and it immediately started spewing a dense cloud of white vapor into the air, spinning in circles as it did so. Together they repeated the procedure with the other canisters. Soon the room was noticeably colder, the air becoming slightly foggy.