Breaking Point (24 page)

Again the SUV squealed into a one-eighty turn, and the lights came around to find Howard. But the car didn't start back, it just sat there. Ninety meters--okay, okay, he had time to reload again--

The SUV's door slammed shut. Somebody got out?

Howard ejected the empties, reached for another speed loader. Plenty of time--

He saw the muzzle flash, felt the kick in his belly from a heavy boot as he went down,
then
heard the
boom!
from the weapon.

Fuck! He was
shot
and his gun was empty. His side burned, over his right hip.
Get up, John, get up, now!

He half-crawled, half-rolled off the road and back to the woods. In the trees, he kept moving, his fist jammed over the bullet wound. He got as far as he could before his legs just quit working. He sat, fumbled for his virgil, managed to trigger the distress signal as he felt himself graying out. His last thoughts as he lost consciousness were of disbelief: How could somebody have hit a target at ninety meters like that? With a handgun, and only the headlights of a car in the dark?

Hell of a shot ...

Gakona, Alaska

"What the hell happened?" Morrison said again and again. "What the hell happened?"

The cool night air whistled through the car from the three holes in the windshield. Morrison, in the back, was probably in shock, but at that, he was a lot better off than Ventura's two men. One of them was dead on the seat next to him, slumped against the passenger door; he'd taken one right between the eyes. The other man was lying next to the fence back at the pickup point, and he was just as dead, one to the heart. Nice work.

The black man had done it. Ventura didn't know who the hell he had been, but he'd screwed things up pretty good. How had the black guy managed to find them and set up his ambush? That had been a good trick. Still, it didn't matter. He was probably dead or dying himself by now. Ventura had put one solidly into him; he wasn't going to be causing any more trouble. If he was the Chinese's primary attack, he'd failed, even though he had caused a lot of trouble. He should have been wearing a vest. Odd that he wasn't. Ventura had his on.

The client was alive, and they would rendezvous with more of Ventura's team in a couple of minutes. Nice try, but no cigar.

"What the hell happened?"

"Relax, it's okay now. They tried, but they failed. We'll regroup and wait for them to contact us."

"Are you crazy?"

"Listen, you can't take this personally. It's just business. They tried, they missed, so now they'll deal. Nothing has changed."

"I could have gotten killed!"

"And you still could. But none of this matters. What matters is that you aren't dead
now.
You still have something they want, and they are still going to have to pay to get it. You move on."

"This is madness," Morrison said.

"Way of the world, Doctor. If you don't want to get hit, don't step into the ring. You're here now, so we have to make the best of it. Think of it as a great story to tell your new friends someday."

He saw Morrison in the rearview mirror, his face dimly lit by the instrument lights. The man looked as if somebody had just told him there was a rattlesnake in his pocket.

Ventura watched the road, his pistol in his lap. Amateurs just didn't understand how the world worked. They took everything so personal.

Chapter
25.

Tuesday, June 14th

Quantico, Virginia

"Sir?"

Michaels came out of a shallow sleep, blinking. He was in his office, on the couch. What--?

One of the night crew--Askins? Haskins?--stood in the doorway. Must not be time for shift change yet. Michaels sat up. "Yes?"

"We got a distress signal from General Howard's virgil. From Alaska."

"What?" He still wasn't quite awake and tracking yet. Where was Toni?

"Federal Marshals found him, he's been shot. An Alaska National Guard copter is on the way; he's up near Gakona."

He looked at his watch. It was six A.M. He needed to wash his face and to find Toni. What had John gotten into?

But before he could reach the door, his own com chirped its top-priority tone. He hurried to the receiver and picked it up. "John?"

"No, it's Melissa Allison."

The director. What was she doing up at this hour?

She didn't give him time to wonder: "I just got a call from Adam Brickman in the U.S. Marshals office. One of his men was wounded in a shoot-out in Nowhere, Alaska, attempting to serve an arrest warrant authorized by your office. So was General John Howard. They are alive, just barely, on their way to a hospital in Anchorage, but Brickman isn't happy.
I'm
not happy, either, Commander, because when he started chewing me out for not warning his people this was a shoot-sit, I didn't know what the hell he was talking about."

Uh-oh.
"I'm sorry, Madam Director, I didn't realize there was any danger."

"You sent marshals and the head of Net Force's military arm to pick up somebody--which is outside your charter, unless there are special circumstances. I'm going to be in my office in forty minutes. I suggest you be there when I arrive."

"Yes, ma'am," Michaels said.

He cradled the receiver. Great. Just great. He had a federal marshal and John Howard shot up and the director of the FBI ready to tear him a new asshole. Great way to start the day, wasn't it? Maybe if he was lucky, a big meteor would fall on him.

"Alex?"

Toni. "Hey," he said.

"What's up? The place feels as if it's about to explode."

He rubbed at his face with both hands. "Walk with me and I'll fill you in."

In the air over British Columbia

Because Ventura wanted to have a few words with the Chinese, he had Morrison's phone when it rang. He used the headset, the engine and wind noise of the DC-3 being enough to interfere with hearing.

"Dr. Morrison?"

"No. Ventura."

"Ah, Luther. How are you?"

"Why, I'm just fine, Chilly. Though I can't say the same for your people. The feint was pretty good, but the follow-through was, well, sad. I expected better."

There was a moment's hesitation. Then Wu said, "Much as I'd like to turn this to my advantage, I have to confess I don't know what you are talking about, Luther."

"Come on, we're professionals here, I don't hold it against you, I realize it was just business."

"Nope, sorry, I'm not tracking."

Ventura considered it. There was no real reason for Wu to be coy. He knew that if they tried to snatch Morrison and failed, Ventura wouldn't care; it was how things were done, they were men of the world here. "So you didn't send people to, ah, have an informal chat with my client?"

"No."

Ventura heard the "Not yet" in that single word, but he also had to stop and think real hard about the implications. Of course Wu would lie if it was to his advantage, that was to be expected. But Wu had to know he couldn't gull anybody into believing that the Chinese were benevolent businessmen who'd never stoop to such a thing as kidnapping and torture. Sure, they'd pay if they had to pay, but if they could get what they wanted for free, they'd do it. They were as cheap as anybody else.

So lying wouldn't serve him at this point--Ventura didn't trust Wu as far as he could fly by flapping his arms, and Wu knew it. And if Wu
hadn't
sent a team, then who were those men?

Had he just shot a couple of
real
federal marshals?

"Dr. Morrison is okay, isn't he?" Wu asked. "No problems with our little transaction? We were quite impressed with the test. We are ready to get down to brass tacks."

"He's fine. Here he is." Ventura waved at Morrison, who was listening to his half of the conversation. He held his thumb over the transmitter mike. "Wu. He's ready to deal. And don't get bent with him--he didn't send his people after you. Those were legitimate feds."

Morrison's eyes went wide. "It couldn't be--"

"You screwed up, Doctor. They figured it out, somehow, and now we have a whole new set of problems."

He handed Morrison the phone and headset. He had to make a couple of calls on his own to verify this, but if it turned out to be what he was now sure it was, he had some serious thinking to do. Very serious thinking.

Quantico,
Virginia

Alex had gone off to see the director, and Toni took the opportunity to go to the gym. It wasn't as big as the rooms in the main FBI compound, but she didn't need much space. And early as it was, she was the only person there.

Nobody had gotten around to cleaning out her locker--there was still a pair of sweats and a sports bra folded neatly there, along with her Discipline martial arts shoes, and, by chance, the clothes were still clean, though a little stale. She shook everything out and dressed, then padded into the gym. She could have worked out in her street clothes, she made a point of doing that every so often, but since she didn't have any clean ones to change into afterward, that would have to wait for another time. If you couldn't do it in your ordinary wear, it didn't matter how terrific a move was; if you couldn't use it when you needed it, it was pointless for self-defense. In a streetfight, you wouldn't have time to take off your shoes, get dressed in your gi, nor ten minutes to stretch and warm up. Sweats and limbering exercises saved wear and tear on your clothes, muscles, and joints in the long run, that was why you did them, but they were luxuries, not necessities--

"Toni?"

She looked up and saw Jay. "Hey, Jay."

"Boss around?"

"He had to go see the Dragon Lady."

"Okay, I'll call him." He was in a hurry. He turned and started to leave.

"What's up, Jay?"

He paused. "You knew they found John Howard shot in the woods across the road from the HAARP compound?"

"Yeah."

"He was choppered to a hospital in Anchorage, and it looks like he's gonna be okay."

"Thank God."

"Yeah. He was supposed to be on vacation with his family. How'd he get to Alaska?"

Toni shook her head. Here was another problem for Alex, one he didn't need.

He needed
her.
But she couldn't go back to work for him. She couldn't.

Madam Director Allison was royally pissed. In her shoes, Michaels might have felt the same way, but he wasn't in her shoes, he was in his, and they were getting real damp from nervous sweat.

"And you felt you couldn't pass this along to me? I had to find it out from some other agency?"

He sat in the chair in front of her desk and nodded. "I didn't see the need. Four federal marshals went to pick up one desk-jockey scientist. I met the man. He could hardly stand up without losing his balance. He had no history of violence, no record of having purchased weapons. I asked John to go along to keep us in the loop. It was a milk run."

"Yes, a run that turned into the milkman taking a bullet in the pelvis under the edge of his vest, and your meek scientist disappearing, not even to mention the head of your military arm taking a round." She looked at the flatscreen on her desk. "According to the guards at this HAARP place, Morrison wasn't alone. He was accompanied by a Dr. Dick Grayson. His identity turns out to be bogus."

Despite the situation, Michaels smiled.

"Something funny about that I'm missing, Commander?"

"Dick Grayson is the secret identity of Batman's side-kick, Robin."

"Yes, well, 'Robin' is likely the man who plugged the marshal, along with John Howard, on his way out of town. The rest of the arrest team managed to gather themselves enough to pick up the trail. Morrison and his gun-toting friend took a small cart through the woods, cut a hole in the fence, and were presumably picked up by accomplices. The marshals found an armed dead man next to the hole in the fence, shot in the heart. No ID on the man.

"There were signs that a car had left the road and plowed into the fence fifty yards away. The marshals called in the state police, and a few minutes ago a shot-up Ford Explorer was found at an old airstrip. There were three bullet holes in the windshield, five more holes in the back loading gate and bumper, and another dead man in the front seat. No identification on him, either. Probably Howard's work."

"Huh," Michaels said.

"Oh, you can do better than that, Commander. You are supposed to be playing with computers. You are supposed to be finding and busting pirate ships in the Gulf peddling Viagra and steroids and diet pills over the internet without prescriptions, or hunting down teenaged hackers who post porno in church web pages. You went outside your authority, and I don't know what it is you stepped into, but whatever it is, it is on your shoes and it is your responsibility now. I want to know just what the hell is going on--"

His virgil, which he had forgotten to turn off, bleated the opening notes from the old rock and roll song, "Bad to the Bone."