Wired (15 page)

23

Desh
glanced impatiently at his watch once again and frowned. He was hidden from
view behind a large tree trunk at the outer edge of the clearing, which was
roughly the size of a basketball court, waiting for Connelly’s arrival. He and
Griffin had picked up a cab in Emporia. After instructing the driver to drop
them off a quarter-mile from the meeting point they had finished their journey
on foot. Desh had the tranquilizer gun in one pocket of his windbreaker and two
spare clips for his .45 in the other.

Griffin
was waiting twenty yards farther into the woods. Few of the trees were totally
bare, while many of them held full complements of leaves that hadn’t even begun
to change color. Given the significant number of evergreens added to the mix,
the woods provided adequate cover as Desh had hoped, with a thin cushion of
colorful, newly fallen leaves on the ground.

Desh
came to full alert. A car was approaching.

He
relaxed slightly as it came into view and he recognized the colonel behind the
wheel. Connelly carefully chose his route over the hardened ground, which
hadn’t experienced any of the rain that had fallen to the north, trying to
minimize any evidence of the passage of his car. He killed the engine and
cautiously got out, alert for anyone following. He was wearing civilian slacks
and a heavy green knit sweater. Judging from his bulk, Desh guessed he was
wearing a vest as well.

Connelly
surveyed the tree line methodically. When his eyes reached Desh’s hiding place,
Desh moved his head into Connelly’s line of sight and nodded meaningfully. The
colonel caught his eye and gave him an all but imperceptible nod of
acknowledgment in return. Satisfied that Desh was in place as expected,
Connelly scooped up an arm-full of fallen leaves and returned to where his car
had exited the road, placing the leaves strategically so they would hide any
visible tracks but would still look random.

He
then carefully returned to the clearing and stood by his car as if waiting for
someone.

Desh
knew it was possible that Connelly had lost whoever was tailing him, but if
these followers could authorize satellite time this would be little
consolation. It was also possible that whoever had been following the colonel
had no intention of taking any hostile action, but Desh had no choice but to
assume otherwise.

Desh
quietly made his way to the oversized hacker. “It’s showtime,” he whispered so
softly that Griffin wasn’t sure if he had heard it or had simply read Desh’s
lips. “Don’t move. Don’t even have noisy thoughts,” he continued in hushed
tones, his lips almost touching Griffin’s right ear. “A single snap of a twig
can give away your position.”

Griffin
glared at him angrily for putting him in harm’s way but nodded his
understanding.

Desh
picked his way through the woods noiselessly, with cat-like grace and
light-footedness. The tip of his tongue protruded just slightly from his mouth
as he concentrated carefully on avoiding pine cones and twigs, and more
plentiful still, fallen leaves that had become dried out and would crunch
noisily at the slightest touch.

Desh
was convinced that whoever was following Connelly would have enough respect for
the colonel not to try a frontal assault. Given Connelly’s location in the
clearing they were sure to take a textbook approach through the surrounding
woods to surprise him on multiple flanks. Desh was on Connelly’s southern flank
and calculated the angle he would take, coming from the road, if he were
attacking Connelly. He chose a post that gave him a full view of this expected
approach while keeping him hidden.

He
waited behind a dense evergreen, ringed by a thin cushion of needles, now
brown, that had fallen from the tree. He remained perfectly still as several
minutes ticked by.

He caught movement from the corner of his
eye
.

A
man dressed in black commando gear and wearing a bulletproof vest was
stealthily approaching along the exact line Desh had visualized, a militarized
and silenced version of Desh’s H&K .45 automatic, a favorite of Special
Forces commandos, gripped in his right hand. Desh’s heart began to jackhammer
wildly in his chest but he was able to steady it through force of will alone. The
soldier scanned his surroundings alertly while he moved silently and
athletically through the woods toward Connelly’s position.

Desh
leveled the tranquilizer gun at the commando and waited for him to get closer. He
had no interest in harming a fellow member of the Special Forces who might just
be a dupe in this situation. Given the soldier’s body armor, a tranquilizer gun
would be his most effective weapon in any case.

The
man slowly crept closer. Closer. Closer.

Now
, thought Desh, emerging from behind
the tree and squeezing off a shot before the man could begin to react. The
tranquilizer gun was as silent as a bow. The dart scored a direct hit to the
soldier’s thigh, and he crumpled to the ground as the tranquilizer took
immediate effect.

Desh
didn’t waste another moment. The man’s colleagues were sure to be advancing
from alternate flanks. Desh was racing toward the clearing when the word
“Freeze!” thundered through the woods. He reached the tree line to see Connelly
with his hands up and two men, mirror images of the man he had shot, emerging
alertly from the woods on Connelly’s northern and western flanks, their weapons
held expertly in front of them with two hands and pointing unerringly at the
colonel’s forehead.

Desh fired
. The soldier on Connelly’s
northern flank collapsed to the ground.

Desh
wheeled around the instant the shot was off and fired again at the last
remaining commando, but the man had caught Desh’s motion and instinctively threw
himself into a roll. Instead of hitting an appendage, Desh’s shot bounced
harmlessly off his vest. The soldier came up firing but Desh had already darted
back behind a tree.

Bark
flew past Desh’s face as a bullet embedded itself in the tree he was using for
cover. The soldier was about to shoot again when his arm was blasted backwards
and his gun clattered to the ground. A stunned expression came over his face as
he realized he had been shot. Blood poured from his arm. Connelly rushed
forward and kicked his gun away, and then retreated to a safe distance with his
own weapon still trained on the wounded man. Connelly had known Desh was on his
southern flank and had been primed to act once Desh had made his expected move.

Desh
circled the clearing at the tree line, his gun drawn, looking for additional
assailants. There were none. He returned to his original flank and motioned
Griffin to leave his hiding place and join him in the clearing. They emerged
from the woods and quickly joined Connelly. Desh was calm and alert while
Griffin was pale and clammy, looking as if he had seen a ghost.

“All
clear?” said Connelly.

“It
looks that way,” replied Desh, “for the moment at least. Let’s question this
guy and get the hell out of here.”

Connelly
motioned to Griffin. “Is this your friend?” he asked.

Desh
nodded. “He’s a computer expert I’ve been working with who got drawn in. I
think we can trust him.” He paused. “Matt Griffin—Jim Connelly,” he said.

The
men shook hands while Desh turned to the wounded soldier and stared at him
intently. “Who are you working for?” he barked. “And what were your orders?”

The
soldier remained silent.

“You’re
obviously US military; ex-Special Forces. I’m guessing you’re working for a black-ops
group, am I right?” Once again there was no response. “Do you have any idea who
it is you were attacking?” He gestured toward Connelly. “You’re looking at a
highly decorated officer in the US Army Special Operations Command.”

The
soldier’s expression suggested that he knew exactly who it was he was attacking
but didn’t care.

Desh
pocketed the tranquilizer gun, drew his .45, and pulled back on the slide to
chamber a round. He pointed it at the prisoner’s kneecap suggestively. “I’m
only going to ask one more time,” he growled. “Why are you after him?”

The
soldier’s face remained stoic but he glanced from his kneecap to Desh’s fiery
eyes and swallowed hard. “We were told he went off the reservation.”

Desh
glanced at Connelly and raised his eyebrows. “How so?”

“We
weren’t given details. We were just told he had gone rogue and was extremely
dangerous. That he was working against the interests of the United States and
had to be brought in. The orders came from high up the chain of command.”

“Brought
in or executed?” said Connelly.

“Brought
in.”

“But
you weren’t told he
had
to be taken alive, correct?” said Desh.

The
soldier didn’t respond, but the look on his face spoke volumes.

“Just
as I thought,” said Desh. “So if you were able to bring him in without a fight
to interrogate him, great, but if you had to kill him, no one would lose any
sleep over it.”

The
soldier glared at Connelly. “You sell out your country and you get what you
deserve.”

Desh
shook his head. “You’ve been lied to. The colonel hasn’t sold out his country. Whoever
is ultimately giving the orders has, and is afraid the colonel is on the brink
of finding out. So I’ll ask again, who gave you your ord—”

Desh
jerked his head toward the sky in mid sentence as he detected the faint but
unmistakable sound of helicopter blades overhead, his heart accelerating
wildly. The chopper was already less than two hundred feet away and was closing
fast.

Impossible
.

Desh
darted for the tree line as a muffled shot rang out from above, and an
armor-piercing bullet screamed through Connelly’s vest and drilled a hole just
below his left shoulder, sending his gun flying. Two soldiers in the helicopter
tried to follow Desh’s sprinting form with their silenced rifles but held their
fire as he entered the woods.

A
helicopter was far too noisy to have made it so close undetected, thought Desh
in alarm. But this one had. Which meant it was one of the few, next generation
choppers designed to have a dramatically reduced acoustic and radar signature. Whoever
was after them had access to the military’s most advanced equipment, which was
extremely disconcerting.

The
helicopter approached the clearing and four men, clutching automatic rifles and
donned in commando gear, rappelled down a green rope that had unfurled like a
streamer from the floor of the chopper. As soon as their boots hit the ground,
two of them captured Griffin and Connelly, and two raced into the woods after
Desh, fanning out. The helicopter gently settled onto the ground next to
Connelly’s car as they did so. The man who had called himself Smith was at the
controls.

Desh
sprinted through the woods ahead of his pursuit, stopping abruptly to take up
residence behind a particularly thick tree trunk. The two men approached
cautiously, keeping to trees for cover, no doubt aware of Desh’s credentials. He
was outnumbered, but they had the unenviable task of rooting him out, and he
had access to any number of fortified positions. One of the men would circle
around and they would coordinate an attack from opposite sides of him. That is
if he remained stationary, which he had no intention of doing. Experience told
him that he had a better than fifty-fifty chance of escape.

Smith
killed the helicopter’s engine and entered the woods. “Stand down, Mr. Desh,”
he bellowed into the trees. “It’s Smith,” he added, in case Desh failed to
recognized his voice.

Desh
said nothing.

Smith
made several crisp hand signals and seconds later the two commandos retreated
back toward their commander. “I’m recalling my men,” yelled Smith in Desh’s
general direction. “We have your two friends,” he continued. “Cooperate and
they get treated like royalty. Help me get the girl and I’ll even let them go.”
He paused. “Don’t cooperate and I’ll have them executed. Right here, right
now,” he bellowed. “So how about it, Desh?”

Smith
paused and waited for Desh’s response, which didn’t come. Desh wasn’t about to
be goaded into giving away his position.

“Look,
Desh, my men and I will be waiting in the clearing for you to come to your
senses. Your friends’ lives are in your hands. You have three minutes!” he
finished, his booming voice reverberating off the trees.

While
Desh didn’t believe Smith would ever let Griffin and Connelly go, he
did
believe he would execute them if
Desh didn’t play ball. He had already proven this by shooting the colonel. But
as long as they were alive, there was a chance Desh could get them out of this
mess. He had no other choice but to give himself up, and Smith knew it.

He
approached the edge of the tree line. The colonel and the bearded giant were
sitting on the ground next to Connelly’s car, their hands and feet bound, while
Smith’s men were spread throughout the clearing. Desh was relieved to find
Connelly still looking alert despite his gunshot wound.

Desh
planned to announce himself before he broke from the woods in case any of the
soldiers were trigger-happy. He opened his mouth to announce his presence but
slammed it closed in shock as he heard something that took him completely by
surprise.

The
voice of Kira Miller coming from the opposite side of the clearing.

24

“Drop
your weapons!” commanded Kira as she calmly entered the clearing, not wearing
either glasses or makeup to alter her appearance. She was unarmed and protected
by nothing more than a black sweatshirt and tan jacket.

An
image flashed across Desh’s mind of the sweatpants Kira had provided, which he
had unceremoniously thrown into the hall. But he was still wearing the gray
sweatshirt from the night before. She must have bugged
both
garments. God, she was clever. She told him she had placed a
bug in the sweatpants, knowing he would have changed back into his own pants
anyway, but she also knew he would keep the sweatshirt on longer, because she
had destroyed his shirt. Like a master magician, she had diverted his attention
in one direction while she had continued to operate in another. So she was
still listening in when he had read the GPS coordinates of this clearing to
Connelly. How had he become so inexcusably sloppy?

“I
repeat,” said Kira firmly. “Drop your weapons. Now!”

The
soldier nearest to Kira shook his head in dismay. “Are you out of your mind! What
are you threatening us with, girl power?”

“Girl
power. Very witty,” she said sarcastically.

“Who
are
you?” said another of the soldiers, his eyes widening in wonder.

Smith
had been as stunned as Desh by Kira’s sudden arrival, but finally snapped out
of his trance. “Don’t let down your guard,” he instructed his team. “This girl
is dangerous. Don’t let her appearance and lack of weaponry fool you.”

The
commandos nodded, but found it hard to take her seriously even so. Desh knew
from their reactions they had no idea who she was.

“I’ll
be damned,” continued Smith. “Kira Miller in the flesh. It’s nice to finally
meet you. But I must say I’m surprised you would just walk into our hands like
this after proving so elusive for so long.”

“Mr.
Smith, I presume?”

“That’s
what I called myself last night, at least. Which means you must have been
listening in to my conversation with Desh.”

“Maybe,”
she said. “On the other hand, maybe I was just paying attention when you
shouted your name a minute ago loudly enough to wake the dead.”

“Also
a reasonable possibility,” he conceded.

“I
need you to order your men to drop their weapons.”

“Or
what?” said Smith contemptuously. “Have you invented a super weapon you can
activate with your mind that can disable us all? I doubt it. If you had
something like this you would have used it already.”

Kira’s
eyes burned with a steely resolve. “I don’t need a weapon to get what I want. Either
you and your men lay down your weapons—” She paused for effect. “Or I commit
suicide.”

The
commando nearest to Kira smirked. “That’s the dumbest threat I’ve ever . . .”
he began, but stopped in mid-sentence as he noticed the expression on Smith’s
face. Smith wasn’t laughing.

“I
can have you captured and pacified long before you could kill yourself,” said
Smith.

“Really?”
she said smugly. “I have a cap on a tooth with cyanide enclosed. I bite down on
it with all of my strength and I die very quickly. And you can’t have that, can
you? Because if I die, you’re next. Your boss would serve your brains as an
appetizer at his next dinner party.” She paused and motioned to Smith’s men
with her head. “Tell them, Smith. You obviously didn’t expect me here or you
would have warned them already. Tell them what happens to them if they
accidentally kill me.”

“She’s
right,” said Smith hurriedly, realizing they knew nothing of the stakes and
couldn’t risk that they would decide to take matters into their own hands. “None
of you are to take any hostile action against her if there is any chance—
any
chance—that it could result in her
death, accidental or otherwise. Am I clear?” he hissed.

“Clear,”
responded his men in turn, looks of disbelief across the board.

Desh
watched her performance in awe. She was the most remarkable woman he had ever
known. She had waltzed into an elite group of heavily armed commandos without
even flinching and was attempting to pull off a plan more audacious than any in
his memory.

“Good,”
said Smith. He turned once again to Kira. “As for you, you’ve watched too many
old spy movies.
A suicide tooth?
You’re
bluffing. And even if you aren’t, you’ll never go through with it.” He pulled a
tranquilizer gun from his pocket and raised his eyebrows. “I can have you
unconscious in a few seconds,” he said smugly.

“Even
think
of pointing that at me and I crack the tooth. You might think I’m
bluffing, but are you willing to bet your life?” Kira cast a furtive, nervous
glance at the tree line in Desh’s direction and nodded ever so slightly.

Her
nod jolted Desh out of the trance he was in like a cattle prod. “Even if the
tooth isn’t real,” he thundered from beyond the clearing, taking the cue she
had given him. “I sure as hell am! I have a gun trained on her head and an
itchy trigger finger. I’m happy to be the instrument of suicide for this
psychopathic bitch!” he spat hatefully.

“Jesus,
Desh!” said Smith in alarm, the smug look vanishing from his face as he
realized he had neglected to factor Desh into the equation. “Back off! She
could be our only hope of stopping the Ebola attack. You kill her and you’re
sentencing millions of others to death as well.”

“I
don’t believe that and you know it!” growled Desh. “I think killing her
ends
the threat. So I’ll tell you what. Have
your men drop their weapons and hug the ground or I put a bullet through her
head.”

There
was no response.

Desh
fired, missing Kira’s head by inches.

“Do
it!” he thundered. “Or be prepared to bend over and kiss your ass goodbye when
the powers that be discover you allowed her to be killed. I’ll at least die a
happy man knowing I stopped her.”

Desh
could tell that Smith’s mind was racing, weighing the possibilities.

“You
have ten seconds,” said Desh forcefully. “Nine. Eight. Seven. Six—”

“Do
what he says!” ordered Smith anxiously. “Now!”

His
men were incredulous, but did as ordered: they dropped their weapons and fell
to the ground.

Smith
remained standing.

“You
too, Smith,” demanded Desh. “On the ground. You and I need to have a nice long
chat.”

Smith
shook his head. “I’m really not feeling all that chatty,” he said.

And
then, before Desh could react, Smith pointed his tranquilizer gun at his own
leg and pulled the trigger.