Wired. Part 12

Desh let out a heavy sigh and frowned deeply. "Me either, Matt," he mumbled wearily. "Me either."

23.

David 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 compliments 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 cus.h.i.+on 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 pa.s.sage 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 a.s.sume 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 a.s.sault. 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 cus.h.i.+on 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 imbedded 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 a.s.sailants. 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 h.e.l.l 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 Griffina"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 orda""

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 m.u.f.fled shot rang out from above, and an armorpiercing 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. .h.i.t 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 commando's 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 gla.s.ses or makeup to alter her appearance. She was unarmed and protected by nothing more than a black sweats.h.i.+rt 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 sweats.h.i.+rt from the night before. She must have bugged both garments. G.o.d, 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 sweats.h.i.+rt on longer, because she had destroyed his s.h.i.+rt. 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 d.a.m.ned," 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 weaponsa"" She paused for effect. "Or I commit suicide."

The commando nearest to Kira smirked. "That's the dumbest threat I've ever a" 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 chancea"any chancea"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 commandoes 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 h.e.l.l 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 b.i.t.c.h!" he spat hatefully.

"Jesus, Des.h.!.+" said Smith in alarm, the smug look vanis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.s 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. Sixa""

"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.