minute?”
“Because I’m not going to be the one to tell Bahame that we don’t have the woman.”
Kaikara suddenly understood the enormity of his mistake. “No! It wasn’t my fault. I’ve never failed Bahame before.”
“Shut up!” Haidaar yelled, kicking him again, but not as hard this time. His own survival was now in serious doubt, but if he didn’t return with someone to focus Bahame’s rage, death would be certain.
“Go!” Haidaar said. “Get a doctor!”
Kaikara tried again to escape, crawling painfully toward an open sewer as the Nigerians began to argue. If he could make it, he might be able to drown himself. Or find a piece of glass to plunge into his heart. He couldn’t allow himself to be taken back to Uganda. To Bahame.
“We transport things and people over borders,” one of the Nigerians said. “We’re not a hospital.”
“Fine,” Haidaar said. “I’ll call Caleb and tell him that you can’t help him. That he’s paid you for nothing.”
There was a brief silence before an argument that Kaikara couldn’t understand broke out between the Nigerians. His hand fell on the sharp edge of a section of barbed wire, but there was no pain, only elation. He pulled it free from the rotting stake it was wound around and brought it to his jugular. One deep gash and no one would be able to save him. He would be free.
The rusted steel had barely touched his skin when the wire was wrenched from his hand and he felt himself being dragged back toward the line of vehicles.
17
What in God’s name is going on in here?” Fred Klein said, coming to an abrupt halt in the doorway. Covert- One’s massive bank of computers and the cinema-like screens built into the walls were all dark, their power cut off at the supply.
Jon Smith finished winding tape around a garbage bag covering the security camera above him and jumped from the chair he was standing on. “Marty’s the best computer guy on the planet. But he also has an overdeveloped sense of curiosity. You don’t want him in your system.”
“It’s just a videoconference, Jon. Our system is completely compartmentalized and our security is state-of- the-art. I’ve been assured it’s unhackable.”
“Trust me, that’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull to this guy. The only way to be sure he doesn’t learn about you and Covert-One is to go low-tech.”
Klein shrugged and entered the room, examining Smith’s face with a strange intensity. “How are you doing, Jon? What happened to Rivera was horrible. But you understand it wasn’t your fault, right?”
Smith smiled weakly. In truth, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken Klein’s call. Maybe they should have given the young SEAL more time before running in there with a bunch of questions. Maybe he could have been a split second faster.
“Yeah, I’m fine, Fred. Thanks for asking.”
“Okay. Are we ready, then?”
“Just about.”
Smith sat at a small table and opened a brand-new laptop, covering the built-in camera with a piece of tape and connecting it to one of the room’s oversized displays. He slapped a 3G stick in the side to get an Internet connection independent of the one Covert-One used and pressed the power button.
The login screen that he expected didn’t appear, replaced by a full-screen image of the evil clown from the Stephen King movie
“Where’ve you been, Jon?” It said. “I’ve been waiting around for, like, a year, now.”
Smith frowned as the image morphed into the puffy, disembodied face of Marty Zellerbach. How did he do this stuff??
“Sorry, buddy. I had a few things I needed to take care of.”
“What? Cleaning your oven? Are you kidding me? Have you
He and Zellerbach had known each other since grammar school, when the sickly boy had first displayed both his stunning intellect and the mental instability he continued to struggle with. They’d formed an unlikely friendship, and ironically Smith’s early training in hand-to-hand combat came from defending the helpless genius from jocks who mistook his mania for disrespect.
“Hey, I can’t see you, Jon. What’s up with your camera?”
“Must be on the fritz.”
The face on the screen turned perplexed. “I’m showing everything working, but I’m just getting a blank screen. Hold on. Let me fix it.”
“It’s not important, Marty. You know what I look like.”
“But there shouldn’t be anything wrong,” he whined. “I can figure it out. I’m not going to be beaten by some crappy webcam. Not now. Not ever.”
“Marty! Focus, okay? We’ll fix the camera later. How’d you do on the video?”
“The video. Yes! The video. Horrifying! Fascinating! Like nothing that’s ever been recorded before! Can you imagine—”
“Did you
“What are you talking about? Of course I did. So are you living in Prince George’s County now?”
Klein’s eyebrows rose and he glanced nervously at the bags covering the security cameras. Smith pointed to the 3G stick and mouthed “cell tower.”
“No, I’m just here for the afternoon. We were talking about the video?”
“Right.” Zellerbach’s head faded and was replaced by a stream depicting a blood-soaked woman running down one of Rivera’s men. The images had been significantly sharpened and were even more horrifying than they were before. Smith had to fight the urge to turn away as the woman began beating and tearing at the struggling soldier.
“Did you see how fast she overtakes him?” Zellerbach said. “It’s like Praman was moving in slow motion.”
Klein shot him a stern look and Jon shrugged helplessly. He hadn’t told Zellerbach who the men in the video were or anything else beyond a broad idea of what he wanted analyzed. The drawback to hiring the best information guy in the business was that you had to live with the fact that he was going to figure out things you’d rather he didn’t.
“Yeah, Marty. It’s hard to miss. I figured he was maybe injured or just really tired from the hike in.”
“
“Lord only knows why anyone would be stupid enough to join the army,” Smith said wearily.
“I’m not even sure the Lord’s figured
“What do you mean ‘too fast’?”
“I mean I ran simulations, and her speed just didn’t make sense.”
“Hard to accurately simulate the real world.”
“Completely untrue, but I knew you’d say that, so I created a three-D map and handed it over to some contractors. They reconstructed it as an obstacle course on a piece of land I own in West Virginia.”
“You did what?”
“I had that piece of jungle built.”
“You’ve only had the video for three days.”
