The President turned to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “Stanley? Where are we?”
“Every EMP weapon in the arsenal is in the air, full coverage except for some remote areas. And if you want something burned, odds are we can do it in under twenty minutes. We pulled all the MK-77 incendiaries that we could, including all the old Vietnam-era stuff that was mothballed at Fallbrook Detachment. And we’ve got the MOABs. Biggest non-nuke in our arsenal, blast radius of a couple of football fields. That’s what I’m recommending, Mr. President. If it comes to it. No mistakes with a MOAB. The Mother of All Bombs.”
“What about boots on the ground?”
“That’ll take longer. Depending on the location. Hour, half-hour at best.”
The head of the NSA cleared his throat. “If I can interrupt. The first tracker is set to go off in ten seconds. Nine, eight, seven…”
Dunne watched the screen displaying a map of the eastern United States. When the tracker in the money blipped, satellites would record the signal and the location, and have it on the screen in less than a second.
“Five, four, three, two, one.” A moment of silence, then a blue blip appeared along the coast, north of the tendril of Cape Cod. The satellite perspective zoomed in, the coastline magnified, the grid of human cities defined, along with the tangled web of the Boston road system.
Dunne recognized the Charles River, the haphazard buildings of the MIT campus on one side, Back Bay Boston on the other. He felt nauseated. Finally the zooming stopped, the screen at maximum resolution.
The blue blip was on Beacon, two blocks from Mass Ave.
“They’re waiting for the go.”
The President said, “All right, folks. Look sharp. You gotta take a piss, it’s too late. This is about to get hot.”
IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG FOR THINGS TO GO WRONG.
Jake Sterling was behind the wheel, Kitano in the passenger seat. The car was a silver 2006 Toyota Camry, just as they’d been told. It wasn’t lost on Jake or his handlers that the Camry was the most popular car in America, and silver was the most popular color.
It was a quiet Saturday morning in Boston, the sky clear, only a few clouds. A cold front was predicted to move in by the afternoon. Leaves swirled off a maple on the side of the road.
They arrived at the parking lot on Boylston, following Orchid’s instructions emailed hours before. They had with them a cellphone that had been mailed to Fort Detrick the previous day. The Langley spooks had studied it as though it was the Rosetta stone, looking for anything that would reveal the nature of their quarry. They took it apart, checked every component, every diode and RF filter, but there was not a damned thing special about it. It was a cheap cellphone with a phone number. Nothing else.
As expected, the phone now rang. Jake answered. The synthesized voice on the other end told him to leave the garage they were in and drive to another garage across town. The phone went dead. Jake did as commanded, sure that the call had been intercepted and a surveillance crew was on its way to the new location.
Jake kept glancing at Kitano. The old man’s features were dead. He had a bandage on his face from his fight with Dunne. He was sweating like hell, a rank odor coming off him. Jake didn’t bother with small talk. Instead he simply drove.
The Air Force guy, Lexington, had told Jake to keep a close eye on the old man. Kitano was here under duress-a sheep offered to the predator-and he might try to run for it. Lexington wanted to cuff Kitano to Jake, but Orchid’s instructions forbade any weapons, ropes, watches, anything at all.
Ten minutes later, they reached the garage. Jake took the little parking ticket from the machine, entered, began ascending the slow spiral upward.
They were on the third level when the phone rang again. Jake answered, and the voice said, “Take the next available slot.” Jake and Kitano did as ordered. “Go to the fourth floor. There is a Red Taurus with Michigan plates. Get in it. Pull down the visor.”
In they went. Jake pulled down the visor.
The card said:
GET OUT.
GO TO THE FIRST LEVEL.
ENTER A GRAY VAN THROUGH THE REAR DOORS.
The interior of the van was outfitted like a cross between a Geek Squad van and an ambulance. Two video cameras looked down from mounts in the corners. A laminated sheet of paper dangled in the center of the van’s storage bay. On it were a series of instructions, to be followed sequentially.
Step one was to strip to the bone. Jake and Kitano did as ordered. Jake soon was naked except for his hands. He slowly unwrapped the gauze covering the burns, the air stinging the wounds.
Per step two, they put all their clothing and possessions in a pair of metal boxes, then stored them in a locker at the back of the van and locked it with a Yale padlock.
On to step three. As instructed, Jake took the battery-powered clippers and trimmed his hair short, tight against his skull. He handed the clippers to Kitano, then turned around before the camera. Kitano trimmed his wisps of hair, his face showing the indignity of being old and naked, a body in decay. Jake felt a twinge of compassion for Kitano, his shrunken arms barely anything, just bits of skin and sinew. But then he thought of Harbin, Unit 731, the torturing, the experiments.
Jake turned away, studied his short-haired reflection in the back window of the van. He felt as though he were nineteen again, a soldier-to-be, not yet schooled in the currency of death.
Step four. Stand before a white panel on the side wall of the van. Some sort of full-body scan, Jake guessed. Altair had assured him that the carbon tracker they’d put in him was invisible to almost anything, but Jake couldn’t help but worry. Engineers always believed in the infallibility of their latest technology, like Icarus, right up until they fell from the sky.
Steps five through seven, according to the laminated sheet: get dressed-jeans, sunglasses, and red shirts for both. Leave the van. Bring the money. Get in the VW Golf with tinted windows parked three spaces down. Instructions on the visor.
Jake and Kitano got in the Golf. Jake pulled down the visor.
OPEN THE GLOVE BOX.
The glove box was completely empty, save for an iPhone.
Jake picked up the phone, and the display lit up. On screen were driving instructions. The first direction said:
LEAVE THE MONEY
IN THE PARKING SPACE.
Jake got out of the car and placed the backpack containing the money on the asphalt, Kitano watching closely from the passenger seat. Jake got back in, put the Golf in gear, backed out, started down the spiral ramp to the exit.
One hundred tracers were now sitting in an empty parking space.
45
ORCHID WALKED ALONE TOWARD THE CABIN. THE SUN CUT through the trees, the snow bright. The air was cold and fresh, a break from the underground shelter. Soon Orchid would be free of that place-it smelled like something had already died down there. Minutes before, she had left Maggie Connor in the shelter. Tied up, her prisoner was shaking uncontrollably and had been for the last half-hour. The hotshot granddaughter looked just as
