Split Second (18 page)

28

Jack Rourk was resting in a seated
position on a bed, watching a movie on the room’s main monitor. While the nineteenth
floor of the twenty-two-story building was simply called the infirmary, it was
as sophisticated as any hospital and just as well equipped.

He looked out a window at the
lake off in the distance. It was hard to imagine he was in the middle of one of
the most brutal deserts in the world, and less than an hour away from the neon
lights, gaming tables, glamorous shows, and hookers of Las Vegas.

Dr. Susan Schlesinger had wasted
no time patching up his arm, stitching the wound as neatly as a seamstress, and
hooking him up to an IV drip for meds, hydration, and nutrition. She had no
idea what was really happening on the man-made island, but she was being paid a
fortune not to display unnecessary curiosity, or complain about the lack of
cell phone coverage or outgoing Internet. She had been told to care for every
patient as though he or she were a head of state, and since she had only been
there a week, and Rourk was her first patient, she had maintained a bedside
vigil while he slept.

She had left a few minutes
earlier, after
Rourk
had awakened, and when he heard
someone approaching he assumed she was returning.

But he was wrong. It was not
Susan Schlesinger.

It was Edgar Knight.

Knight didn’t make personal
visits to wipe the noses of his underlings, so it must be something important.
And one glance at his boss’s face made it clear it was something
bad
.

“The flash drive is shit!”
barked Knight immediately, not one to prolong suspense. “We cracked it, and
it’s a huge data file of baseball statistics through the ages. Just in case the
real file was somehow hidden, encoded, the consultant turned over every last
possible stone.”

He glared at Rourk with an
intimidating intensity. “That asshole on the mountain played you, Jack. Like a
fucking fiddle.”

Rourk blew out a long breath.
“Shit,” he said softly, embarrassed. “I don’t blame you for being pissed,
Edgar. But the guy was good. It was the exact same brand and style of memory
stick the real file is on. I had to assume it was real. If I’d have gone after
this guy, while Cargill’s men were figuring out I killed Argent, I could have lost
both the PI and the flash drive.”

“Which is what happened, anyway,
isn’t it?” snapped Knight caustically.

He paused and made a visible
attempt to calm down. “I’m not saying it’s your fault, Jack,” he added in more
controlled tones, “or that you made the wrong choice. But I thought we had it, the
holy fucking grail, and learning otherwise has put me in a foul mood. So quit
lounging around and find me this private
dick
.”

“You know he probably isn’t
really a PI?”

“Thanks, Jack. Any other
brilliant thoughts you want to share? I know he probably lied. But where else
are we going to start? So assume he really is a PI. When you’ve finished looking
at photos of every PI on earth, then we’ll think of something else.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

“See that you do. It goes
without saying that if you find him, I want to know about it seconds later.”

29

Joe Allen stood in a secure
conference room within Camp Pendleton, a Marine Corps Base in Oceanside,
California, halfway between San Diego and their target in Orange County. Retracing
Aaron Blake’s steps had proven quite valuable. When they discovered he and
Jenna Morrison had visited a computer expert, one he had served with in the
military, their purpose in so doing had been obvious.

Allen’s tablet computer was wirelessly
synched with a sixty-inch monitor hanging like a picture from the wall, capable
of displaying images and video in three dimensions without the need of glasses.

His four-man team, who knew
nothing about Cargill or his black project, looked on in anticipation, having
wondered why a team of Army Green Berets had been flown into a Marine base. The
only conclusion they had come to was that they were about to conduct an op on
US soil, and this was a nearby staging area, a prospect they found troubling.

Allen swiped the tablet computer
with his fingers and an image of a soft-looking blond man hung in the air, as
though he was personally in attendance, just in front of the monitor.

“This is Gregory Soyer,” began
Allen. “He’s a civilian now, and looks like he’d be a pushover, but don’t be deceived.
He spent six years with the Rangers and is extremely dangerous. He specialized
in computers and electronics, hardware and software, and left the military a
few years ago. Since then he has built a thriving computer consulting practice.”

He slid a finger and the next
image appeared. “This is his home in Orange County. He’s wealthy enough, and
quirky enough, to have bought a home that is fairly isolated, which is ideal
for our needs. The house is one-story and relatively small, but it is secluded,
and backed up against a canyon.”

Allen sent several images to the
screen in quick succession, close-up and panoramic satellite photos of the back
of Soyer’s house, as crisp and clear as if they were taken by an expert
photographer standing twenty yards from the residence.

“Notice that the back of the house
abuts a forty-foot cliff,” said Allen. “Soyer has a backyard we judge to be
eleven yards wide, then a wrought iron fence so no one accidentally falls, and
then an immediate and sheer drop off into the canyon below.”

The men took in everything he
said but remained expressionless.

“Soyer is known to mostly work
from his home, and satellites show his car, a white Mercedes C300 sport sedan, is
still there, even as we speak. We believe he will remain at home for at least
the next few hours. I know you’ve been assigned to me on a temporary basis and haven’t
been read into the bigger picture. I’d love to do that for you—but I can’t.
Just know that your actions are serving the national security and will be
instrumental in averting one of the gravest threats this country has ever faced.”

Allen paused to let this sink
in, his face grim. After several seconds he continued. “Our objectives today
are threefold. First, and most importantly, we believe Soyer has a flash drive
on premises that is vital to national security. I need to retrieve this drive,
undamaged. Which is what makes this mission tricky. Because if we fail to nullify
Soyer quickly, we run the risk that his first action will be to destroy the
drive. So he can’t have any indication that we’re coming. He has to be taken
out of the equation the moment he knows that we’re there.”

Allen frowned. “The problem is
that he’s experienced and fairly well prepared. We’ve pulled the plans for his
house and studied satellite images. He has video and sensors protecting the
lead up to his house in the front. Given he’s now a civilian living in Southern
California, he isn’t too worried about anyone scaling the short cliff in his
backyard, so he doesn’t have any monitors pointed in this direction, and no
alarms. It’s his only real blind spot. At least electronically. When he’s in
the office, he does look out through a large sliding glass door, so anyone
coming this direction has to be mindful of him spotting you the old-fashioned
way.”

Allen gestured to the leanest
member of the team, who had short black hair and Hispanic features. “Lieutenant
Recinos, this is where you come in,” he said. “I understand you’ve done some
competitive bouldering?”

Ricardo Recinos nodded. “Yes,
sir, I have,” he replied.

There were different types of
recreational and competitive rock climbing, but bouldering was the climbing
discipline in which participants didn’t use safety rope typical of other
styles. Instead, bouldering required the ascent of relatively low routes, with
at most a cushioned bouldering pad below the climber to protect against injury.

“What’s the most difficult outdoor
climb you’ve flashed recently?” asked Allen.

Recinos was impressed that Allen
knew this term.
Flashing
a climb
meant completing it on the first try.

“I flashed a V12 two weeks ago,
sir,” replied Recinos, now confident Allen would know what this meant. Bouldering
climbs were rated from V0, for beginners—although even these could confound
strong athletes with no climbing experience—to V16 for the elite of the elite.

“Excellent,” said Allen. “I’ve
had a climber pore over dozens of close-ups of different sections of the cliff below
Soyer’s backyard. In his judgment, if this were a bouldering climb, he’d rate
it a V4, maybe a V5. You’ll have time to study the photos yourself. Impossible
for a beginner, but fairly comfortable for you. Except that it’s forty feet up,
so you’ll have no choice but to flash it. And you’ll be carrying a backpack,
which will add weight and change your center of gravity.”

“What equipment will be
required, sir?” asked Recinos.

“You’ll need a gas grenade
launcher, about twice as large as your current weapon, but no heavier. It can
shoot a baseball-sized canister of highly compressed gas through
Soyer’s
sliding glass door in the back. The gas is colorless,
odorless, and has dispersal kinetics that are off the charts. Non-lethal, but
will knock him out within seconds of a single breath.”

“I see,” said Recinos. “So scale
the cliff, quiet as a mouse, and shoot the gas canister through the slider?”

“Yes. Wait until you’re certain Soyer
is in his office. But also make sure he doesn’t see you.”

“And if he’s not in his office?”

Allen chewed his lower lip.
“Give it five minutes. All of his computer equipment is in there, so he won’t
be anywhere else for long. If he doesn’t show after five, shoot multiple
canisters through as many different windows as you can. If he’s anywhere in the
house, the gas will reach him in seconds.”

“So I assume I’ll also need a
gas mask,” said Recinos.

“Yes. So you can confirm that
he’s down. Sorry, I know this will add extra weight and bulk to your ascent,
but it won’t be too bad.”

“I’m sure I’ll manage,” said
Recinos.

Allen gestured to one of the
other men before him, a balding man with a wide face. “Captain Thompson will be
piloting a—let’s call it an experimental helicopter—with the rest of the team
inside. A helo that runs so quiet you could set it down in a library without
attracting attention. We’ll be at high altitude and out of sight, but minutes
away. So fire the canister, Lieutenant Recinos, and call us down. Soyer’s front
lawn is large enough for us to land there. We’ll gather up his unconscious body
for later interrogation and I’ll do a methodical search of his house for the
flash drive I’m after.”

“Is that it, sir?” said a lieutenant
named
Akke
Wilmes
, correctly
wondering why he and Lieutenant Brandon Laub were required for this mission.
Recinos and Thompson would seem to be all the manpower required.

“Not quite,” replied Allen. He pulled
up two additional photographs, which now appeared to hover in the air behind
him, side by side. “You’re looking at Aaron Blake, ex-Army Ranger with
considerable combat experience, and Jenna Morrison, a genetics graduate student
at UCSD. We have satellites monitoring Blake’s car. While it’s still parked at
his apartment complex in LA, we think the chances are reasonably good that he’ll
visit Soyer later today. We’d ideally like to capture these two as well, alive
and unharmed. That’s why I’ve opted to go with a slightly larger team. I’ll
brief you on how I want to play that portion of the op after we’ve completed
the higher priority half of the mission.”

The men nodded their
understanding.

“Recinos, I’m afraid you’re the
man of the hour,” said Allen. “Study the photos. If you aren’t certain you can
flash this climb, I need to know it, because we’re only going to get one chance
at this.” He shrugged. “Not to mention that a fall from this height onto jagged
rocks will almost certainly be fatal for you.”

 
“Thank you, sir,” said Recinos with just the
hint of smile. “Believe it or not, that thought had already occurred to me.”

30

Lieutenant Ricardo Recinos was
flown by helicopter to a staging area near Soyer’s home, where the latest model
Ford Raptor, known for its off-road tenacity, was waiting for him. The
vehicle’s GPS was already programmed with the best route into the canyon, and
he drove as close to Soyer’s home as he could before hiking the remaining short
distance to his destination.

Once he arrived, he achieved a Zen-like
state of calm and studied the wall face before him—and above him. He had studied
close-up images and had also brought a scope to plot out his route up the rock
face.

He laid out three crash pads at
the foot of the cliff, wondering just how helpful these would be if he fell. He
had to admit there was a good chance they would save his life, but this wasn’t
something he was keen on putting to the test, because if he fell from near the
top, he would require hospitalization at the very least.

He didn’t mind risking his life.
He wouldn’t have undergone the insanely brutal and arduous training necessary
to join the Green Berets if he was afraid of hard work or risk. But he liked to
know what he was risking his life
for
.

Say what you wanted about
terrorists, but fighting them was nicely black-and-white. They harbored an
ideology that would tolerate no dissent. If you didn’t subscribe to Sharia Law,
to Islamic justice, you needed to be erased from existence. Period. They
couldn’t be reasoned with. They believed their god wanted them to kill you, and
it didn’t matter how they had come to this belief—only that it was either kill
or be killed.

When a stampeding herd of cattle
were coming your way, it didn’t much matter what had caused the stampede. You
only had to know that no argument would alter its course, no persuasion would
save your life if you were standing in its path.

Recinos
was willing to risk his life to battle extremists, to attempt to prevent barbaric
zealots from slaughtering as many innocents as they could manage.

But having this Joe Allen
assigned as his temporary CO, knowing the man was part of an off-the-books Black
Ops group with incredible power and little accountability, was something he found
very troubling. Conducting a mission on US soil even more so.

What was on that flash drive?

There was no way of knowing.
Maybe it was as important as Allen had said. Maybe it listed the locations of
thirty nukes hidden in the thirty biggest cities in America, set to detonate
later that night.

On the other hand, just because
Allen suggested it was vital didn’t make it so. It could just as easily contain
evidence that Allen’s girlfriend was cheating on him.

Allen seemed like an upstanding
guy, but tyrants could pretend to be saints when it suited their purposes. So
the motives of his temporary CO might be heroic, but they also might be
treacherous. For all Recinos knew, the world would be better off if he
did
fall from the cliff.

And he didn’t like the fact that
two Rangers were part of this. Why did Allen want them? Recinos vowed to make
sure this operation went by the numbers so Soyer and Blake were taken cleanly. Rangers
and Green Berets were both Army Special Forces, and he felt a kinship with these
men almost as great as if they had been Green Berets themselves.

Joe Allen’s voice whispered
through his earpiece, informing him that the chopper was in position, hovering far
above him, just out of sight, and ordered him to begin his climb.

The lieutenant took a deep
breath and launched himself off the canyon floor, his hands locking onto a
five-inch-wide handhold that was as secure as the rung of a ladder. It was good
that the lower part of the climb was the easiest so he could get used to the added
weight of his backpack and his new center of gravity.

Climbing wasn’t just about strength.
It was about training fingertips to cling to small crevices with superhuman
tenacity, about making them bleed so often they grew calluses as tough as
Kevlar. It was about turning tendons into steel. About wedging the tips of
shoes into the tiniest of imperfections in a smooth wall and hanging upside
down when this didn’t seem possible. And it was about balance and body control.

The lieutenant gained confidence
as he continued to climb. Halfway up he hung from one arm while he worked the
kinks out of the other, and then calmly and methodically worked out the next
necessary moves as though solving a crossword puzzle at his kitchen table.

His focus was as absolute as the
life-and-death stakes required, and minutes later he finished his ascent,
grasping the wrought iron fence at the back of Soyer’s yard.

He peered through the fence to
be sure he wouldn’t be seen, and then silently, effortlessly, pulled himself
over and onto Soyer’s lawn.

* *
*

Greg
Soyer
sipped a Piña Colada
and wondered
idly what kind of ribbing he would receive from his fellow rangers had they
spied him nursing such a girly drink. Not that he would care. He liked what he
liked, and the best thing about having been a ranger was that his masculine
self-image could not be brought down in the slightest, even if he were wearing
a pink tutu and high heels while preparing a scented bubble bath.

He had finished work on Aaron Blake’s
project the night before, which had been even more straightforward than he had
expected, even given the care he had used. He had opened the file and confirmed
that it wasn’t gibberish, but only because there were a few recognizable
English words between the unrecognizable math symbols and diagrams. Once he had
succeeded, he then set about protecting the file once again, only this time far
more securely, and setting up a secure copy in the cloud.

He checked the time on the
bottom of his computer monitor. It was already after ten. He had expected Blake
and his female client to return the night before, or if not, at the crack of
dawn. Not that it was time to panic. Not yet. He would give his friend another
few hours and then he would be forced to take steps to investigate.

If it was anyone other than Aaron
Blake he would have been more worried, but after having served with him for
several years and traveling through hell and back, he had decided that when the
world self-destructed, the only creatures remaining would be the cockroach and Aaron
Blake.

Boom!

Soyer was blasted from his
reverie as a thunderous explosion rang in his ears, and he jumped as if hit by
a cattle prod. This was accompanied, almost simultaneously, by the sound of
shattered glass as a large hole appeared in his sliding door, created by what
could have been a small cannon ball from the look of it.

He instinctively dived for cover
while pulling out the H&K he had armed himself with after Blake’s visit. He
came out of a roll searching for an intruder, his eyes frantically scanning his
office and just beyond the slider, but instead of an intruder, he spied a small
canister that had bounced against one wall and had come to rest in the middle
of his office, five feet away.

At that instant he realized two
things, just before his world went black.

First, his instincts had
betrayed him. Diving for cover wasn’t any help against a fast-acting gas. He
should have held his breath the moment he heard the crash of glass, but it was
too late: he had already inhaled.

And second, the bluff the girl
had advised, an insistence that the data on the drive would be released if he
were killed, would not work.

A bluff only had a chance of
working if you were alive to deliver it.