Terminated (6 page)

The elevator doors opened, and Bryn stepped in, followed by the others. They arranged themselves at equal distances, the way people did in elevators, and so Bryn had a clear view of Annie standing there in her disheveled, just-out-of-bed glory one more time.

Annie raised her hand and waved.

Bryn waved back, and then the doors shut, and they left the security of what might have passed for normal life.

“Before we hit the surface, let’s make sure we all understand procedure,” Patrick said. “Pansy’s given us a hardened SUV from the motor pool; it’s registered to a shell company out of Belize, so it shouldn’t trip any alerts. We get on the road, and Pansy’s going to feed us intel as we drive. Within a few hours, she says she will break down the firewalls on their servers and start feeding us names and locations of people in the top ranks of the Fountain Group, or near it. We take out as many as we can, as fast as we can. If we run into trouble while we’re out of the vehicle, we run and stay in contact. Burner phones are in your packs. Do
not
engage in a firefight unless you’ve got no choice, understand?”

“Yep,” Bryn said. “And stay off the police radar.”

“They’ll probably have some kind of alerts out for us, and we can’t always avoid facial recognition; too many street cameras. But we should try to stay out of metro areas as much as possible. Anything else?”

Riley said, “I’ve got a friend who can help us. His name is Jonas. He’s retired Bureau—honest as they come. And he runs his own show now, mostly doing contract work in war zones.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Joe said. “Good man, by all accounts.”

“No,” Patrick said. “Nobody else unless we get in over our heads. We’ve dragged down enough good people.”

He wasn’t wrong, Bryn thought, but neither was Riley; it was good to have options, and there would inevitably come a time when they’d need someone to help who wasn’t already flagged. Maybe Patrick was thinking it, too, but the expression on his face said that there wouldn’t be any discussion on the subject.

Riley shrugged and let it go as the doors opened on the ground floor level. This exit had four security stops, and they passed through them all. As they entered the last room, a light flashed red and Manny’s voice came over an invisible intercom.

“As of now, your security creds are burned here,” he said. “Try to get in, and you’ll trigger the countermeasures. Trust me—you won’t like the countermeasures, and you won’t survive them. From this point on, it’s one way only: straight out the door. Understand me?”

“Manny—”

“Don’t, Patrick. You screwed me, you and your little girlfriend. I want the Zombie Apocalypse outside, not in here. Get it? So don’t come back. Ever.”

“What about my sister?” Bryn asked. “What about Liam?”

Silence, and then finally Manny said, “I’ll look out for them, because they had no choice. But not for you. As of right now, the store’s closed.”

The thick blast-proof outer door buzzed and winched itself open, and strobe lights flashed yellow. A recorded voice came on, advising them that they had thirty seconds to exit the room before countermeasures were employed.

They got out, and watched the blast door swing shut. Then, with a heavy crunch of gears, it locked.

“Right,” Patrick said. He sounded resigned, and a little bit bleak. “Let’s get moving.”

I
nfo came in an hour down the road, in the form of a text to Patrick’s phone from Pansy. It didn’t say much, but it did give them an address in Kansas City. Bryn sighed when she saw it, because it meant a long, boring drive . . . if they were lucky, of course. And for the first few hours, they were; they managed to stay at a constant, legal speed, and no one seemed to notice them. “It’s a little late to ask, but are we sure the anti-tracking shot worked?” she said. Riley glanced up from whatever she was doing on her phone, and nodded.

“I double-checked,” she said. “We’re dead air. Nobody’s tracking us.”

That was a relief, because Bryn was fairly sure that without Pansy’s countermeasure they’d have already been under attack. Jane wouldn’t be messing around, and she’d be investigating any avenue to finding them. Including, of course, going after their friends and family.

Her own family, in fact. The only saving grace to that was her family, with the exception of Annie, who’d gotten caught up in the madness, had no idea what was going on. Sometimes, dysfunction was good for something after all. She didn’t know about Riley, but she hoped Joe’s family was somewhere very, very safe. He had a lot of precious people he could lose.

It was too late to warn them or try to get them to safety—not that her family, never all that close, would have listened to what she had to say in any case. Certainly not to the extent of pulling up stakes and running away. It would be far, far better just to stay away from them. Any contact could put them in greater danger.

“We’re staying on I-40 all the way to Oklahoma City,” Joe said, “and then switching to 35. I figure we’ll need a gas and rest break in about thirty minutes. Sound okay?”

“Find someplace with lots of traffic,” Patrick said. “The more people that pass through, the better; major truck stop, preferably. Crowds are good cover. If that looks iffy, go for someplace off the beaten path with old pumps. If they haven’t upgraded those, chances are they won’t have state-of-the-art surveillance, either.”

“You’re really worried, aren’t you?” Bryn asked him. Patrick looked at her for a few seconds, and then nodded.

“I’m worried,” he agreed. “The Fountain Group hasn’t exactly been idle this whole time while we thought the government was in charge of Pharmadene’s research programs; they’ve been carrying things forward, and they’ve got Jane on their payroll. I know Jane. We both understand what she’s capable of doing, but more than that, I understand how tactical she is. She’ll be casting as wide a net as possible. For all I know, she might have already pinpointed every one of Manny’s secured bolt-holes, which means she might be satellite-tracking us right now; I don’t doubt the Fountain Group has that capability, or can buy it from those who do. So any stops we make are risky, and potentially deadly. We need to bear it in mind.”

“And I was looking forward to scoring some beef jerky and beer for the road,” Joe said. “You really know how to kill a good time, man.”

“Let’s hope I’m wrong.”

He seemed to be, at least for the first portion of the trip. Joe picked a huge truck stop, one with at least fifty cars, trucks, and vans crowding the lot, and dozens more giant tractor trailers. Joe pulled up to a pump, and the other three bailed out to head inside to the store. Even if they’d been willing to forego the magic lure of beef jerky and candy bars, Bryn needed to pee, and she knew she’d better grab the chance while it was available. The line was—inevitably—longer than she would have liked, and she felt tremendously vulnerable standing in one place . . . but the bathroom break passed without incident, other than a squalling two-year-old throwing a fit at the counter.

She bought a not-entirely-unflattering hat to shade her face from the cameras, and some candy bars, and was in the van before anyone else except Joe.

Odd. She’d thought Riley would have made it back first, since she’d been ahead of her in the bathroom line. Or Patrick. He didn’t strike her as much of a convenience store browser.

Bryn passed Joe a Snickers bar, and he unwrapped it and ate half. She had taken over the shotgun passenger seat, and they sat in chocolate-medicated silence for a full minute, but she didn’t stop watching their surroundings, and neither did Joe.

Patrick returned, bearing bottles of water and a ridiculously large coffee, which explained his delay.

But Riley was missing.

Joe finished his candy and said, “Bryn.”

“I’m on it,” she said, and bailed out to go back inside. The ever-shifting crowd had a certain weird sameness . . . mostly overweight bodies not flattered by baggy cargo shorts and overly patriotic T-shirts, with a few holding-their-noses sleek-looking elites scattered in for diversity, getting their chic diet water before climbing back into their high-dollar cars. She wasn’t sure how she fit in here, or anywhere. But one thing was certain: Riley wasn’t anywhere in sight.

Bryn checked the restroom. Nothing. She was on the point of calling an alert when she finally spotted Riley outside the windows, pacing back and forth at the side of the building. She was on the phone, and she closed the call just as Bryn headed toward her.

“What are you doing?”

“Hedging our bets,” the other woman said. She’d also invested in a hat, a khaki boonie-style thing that was oddly cute on her. “It isn’t that I don’t trust Pansy, but I want to be sure we have some options and backup.”

“You called your friend Jonas, didn’t you? Patrick said—”

“Nobody elected him Commander in Chief,” Riley said. “And trust me, we’re going to need help.”

She was, of course, right about that. They did, and Bryn finally shook her head and said, “Fine, I won’t tell him. But we need to get going. By the way, I bought Snickers. What’ve you got?”

“Hair dye,” Riley said. “And scissors. We’re both getting makeovers.”

•   •   •

They had one more stop before night closed in around them, and after some discussion Joe and Patrick decided to choose a motel for the night. No-tell roadside inns were plentiful, at least; the pink stucco place that Joe picked seemed likely to have been in business since the 1950s at least. It catered to kitsch, but it was definitely not much in terms of technology. Flat screen televisions still only existed in the realm of science fiction, and air-conditioning was a leaky window unit. At least it was clean, and quiet, and the hot water worked.

Bryn cut her hair short, and applied the hair dye, which turned her from dark blond to a brunette. Riley, on the other hand, elected to go punk—shaggy hair with purple streaks, and a black dog collar with spikes.

“That’s not regulation FBI. I’m pretty sure,” Bryn said, as Riley fluffed her hair into a spiky shag.

“Good,” she said. “If we get time, I’ll get some nose studs and a low-cut top. The less they look at my face, the better.”

They had an uneasy night’s sleep—and a short one. Bryn ate protein bars every few hours, and it seemed to help assuage the anxious feeling of hunger . . . not completely erasing it, but pacifying it.
We still need meat,
she thought. She wondered if she could convince her friends to find a diner for breakfast that didn’t mind serving an almost-raw steak. The very thought made her mouth water.

She was on her way to the van when she noticed how
quiet
it was. Yes, it was a rural area, off the freeway’s constant hum, but there seemed to be such a deep well of stillness in the early morning that it keyed her instincts up to alert.

Bryn changed directions and went to Patrick’s door, and rapped softly. He took only a couple of seconds to open it, and she stepped in and shut it behind her. “Trouble,” she said. She wasn’t sure, but she also wasn’t willing to be gratuitously stupid.

Patrick didn’t doubt her, or even take a glance outside. As she dumped her kit on the floor and opened it to remove the PS90, he did the same, only he took out his shotgun. It was a good choice, she thought. They also silently separated out their ammunition on the bed, ready for reloading.

Patrick paused in the act of reaching for another shotgun shell as a voice called out from beyond the window. “Hello, honey, I’m home!” It was Jane. Bryn couldn’t possibly forget that voice, and she saw Patrick close his eyes briefly in a storm of emotion that probably wasn’t love and relief. It lasted only a second before he gathered himself, slammed the shell home, and pumped the shotgun.

“They’ll already have us boxed,” he said. “She wouldn’t announce anything until she was sure of her position. She thinks she’s got us cold.”

“Maybe she does,” Bryn said.

“We’ll make it a fight unless she’s got more upgraded models with her like you and Riley, which I doubt; Jane always did want to be the strongest person in the room. She won’t want anyone who’s in danger of upstaging her. If she’s got an Achilles’ heel, it’s her ego.”

He was talking calmly, but quickly, and he took up a position to the right of the curtained plate glass window. Bryn took the left side. She knew, from her own reconnaissance of her room, that the bathroom’s high, narrow, barred window wasn’t so much of a threat. It’d take time and energy for an enemy to get through, and it would be noisy as fuck.

No, Jane would favor the frontal assault, as usual. Patrick was right, Jane needed to show them who was boss. Especially Patrick.
Especially
Bryn.

“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” she asked Patrick, without really looking at him.

He didn’t look back, either. “Probably.” She saw a ghost of a smile in her peripheral vision. “Let’s make the bitch pay for the privilege of killing us.”

They didn’t actually have the chance, because right about then, there was the sound of a helicopter. No, not just one—
lots
of helicopters. The dull chopping sound got loud, crisper, until it was an overhead drone.

Bryn swept the curtain aside to look, and saw ten military helicopters hovering over the little motel—fully armed and armored, state-of-the-art death from the air. They were in perfect formation, tightly grouped, and the threat could not have been clearer. They didn’t even make any announcements.

“Right,” Patrick said softly. “That’s it, then.” And he was right. If Jane had managed to summon up that kind of firepower, they had nothing to match it. Their armory—however good it might be for a running operation—wouldn’t stand for long against rockets and high-capacity aerial machine guns.

But then something very odd happened, because the helicopters didn’t attack; they just hung there in the sky. It didn’t look like the formation was aimed at
them
at all.

It was, she realized, aimed straight at
Jane
. Patrick’s ex—tall, strong, and crazy—was standing beside a fleet of five converted Humvees, and even if she was trying not to look intimidated, her posse with her wasn’t doing the look so well, staring up at the hovering ceiling of doom. Big guys, heavily armed and Kevlared, but as nervous as mice in a field with a hawk soaring overhead. They were disciplined enough to hold their ground until she gave the signal, at least, but once it was given, the retreat was decidedly not casual.

“Did you expect this?” Bryn asked. Patrick gave her a curt shake of his head. “Are we in bigger trouble?”

This time, the skin around his eyes crinkled in what was almost a smile. “You know, I’ve learned not to assume anything,” he said. “Let’s wait and see.”

Jane was the last to retreat. She was holding an assault rifle—hard to see what it was, but it looked deadly enough—and she lifted it and aimed it at the window. Bryn stepped back, out of sheer instinct, but Patrick—Patrick didn’t move. He was a clear, easy target if Jane decided she didn’t care about the consequences.

But she did after all, because she laughed, lowered the weapon, and got in the Humvee. As soon as her ass was in the seat, it did a fast U-turn and sped away, all the others falling into formation behind it. Three of the helicopters split off, following, but the trucks distributed their retreat, too, and the remaining formation shifted. Bryn couldn’t understand what was happening at first, but then she saw it—
more
helicopters coming, from the direction to which the Humvees had fled. Not as many in this formation, but enough to make it an
Apocalypse Now
kind of fight.

The two formations settled into a hovering standoff, each protecting their own forces.

“Jane has air support, too,” Patrick said. He sounded a little numbed, which was pretty much how Bryn was feeling about things as well. “Christ.
We’ve
got air support. What the hell is happening?”

“I think ours came from Riley,” Bryn said. “She made a call yesterday, to her friend Jonas. I’m guessing he pulled in some favors, just in case. I didn’t tell you because I knew you wouldn’t take it so well.”

“I’d have been angry about it,” he acknowledged. “And we’d all be dead because of me being too low-profile. I expected her to bring a small strike force, not the frigging armored division.”

“She knows what you expect. Which is why we can’t let you run the strategy against her, Patrick. You know her, she knows you, and you can’t get out of each other’s way. Let Riley run it. Jane won’t see that coming—just like she didn’t expect this.” Bryn gestured at the helicopters. One was dropping out of formation, graceful as a falling leaf, toward an open spot in the sparsely occupied parking lot. It touched down, rotors still at speed, and a tall man disembarked. Like Jane’s people, he’d come prepared for war, with body armor and fearsome personal weaponry. At his side was another man, shorter and wider, who was wearing what looked to Bryn’s eyes like the uniform of an army major.

Riley stepped out of her room, and a second later, Joe Fideli followed her. He had his own PS90 with him, but carried at port arms—a friendly but cautious gesture. There was no question he had Riley’s back.

Bryn and Patrick exited, too, and reached the two newcomers about the same time as Riley and Joe.

“Brick,” Riley said, and extended her hand to the man who wasn’t in uniform. He ignored it and pulled her into a hug. “Ooof. Been working out, madman?”

“Yep, little bit, here and there. Looks like you were right about the trouble, Riley,” Brick said. He let Riley go, and his lively dark gaze fixed first on Joe, then Bryn, then Patrick. “I’m Jonas Wall. Brick, to my friends. Riley says you’ll fall into that category. Hope she’s right, because I just put my ass on the line for you.”