Cyber Dawn (A Ben Raine Novel) (26 page)

“Not good,” I whispered to Sarah.

She looked back at me, eyes wide. “CyberLife?”

I nodded. Just then a new dot appeared on my HUD. It came from behind. Then a second dot appeared. I spun around and saw a pair of bright headlights behind us. James turned and noticed them too.

“Sir!” he said.

My HUD flashed red.

Hellfire missile incoming.
5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . .

Before I could call out a warning, a white streak flashed from the sky.

41

At only fifty yards away, the heat and energy from the blast smashed into our vehicle. Our driver jerked the wheel, but it was no use.

Too close. Too much speed.

At fifty miles an hour, the Tahoe clipped the flaming debris of the destroyed vehicle and careened off the road, down an embankment.

“Hold on!” the driver yelled.

The Tahoe hit something soft, causing it to swerve violently as the driver fought for control. I looked out the windshield just in time to see the SUV clip a stack of industrial supplies. The world turned on its side as the Tahoe flipped. It skidded another fifty feet before stopping against something heavy.

The inside was full of smoke and shattered glass. The female FBI agent, Sarah, and I were all piled on top of Agent James.

“Ouch!” Sarah exclaimed.

I looked up to see Lauren’s shoe on Sarah’s face, apparently using it as a step ladder. She climbed up and out the shattered passenger window without saying anything.

“You two okay?” Agent James asked.

“I’m all right,” I replied. Sarah lay on top of me, her long brown hair splashed over my face.

“Other than your friend stepping on my head, I’m fine, too,” she said between heavy breaths.

“Two vehicles on the road above,” yelled Wolfe, who stood half in, half out the driver door. Blood trickled down his forehead.

An instant later came the now all-too-familiar sound of gunfire. Bullets smashed into the Tahoe. Wolfe returned fire. Compared to the automatic gunfire from the two vehicles above us, his pistol sounded like a toy.

From the front of the Tahoe, DiMaria fired his own weapon, and yelled. “Everybody out! James, get the kids!”

“Yes, sir!”

James reached into his pocket and pulled out a wire cutter. He clipped my flexicuffs, then handed me the cutters. I took them and did the same for Sarah.

“Through here,” James said.

Instead of climbing out the top of the truck, he crawled around the back seat and into the cargo area. Bullets continued to thud against the undercarriage, although most seemed to be hitting the front where the other agents were taking cover and firing back. I helped Sarah around the seat and we joined James in the cramped space.

Over the roar of gunfire, DiMaria yelled, “James, get the MP5’s out of the back. And the tactical case. Call Ops. We need the locals and SRT here now!”

James opened a large metal case and pulled out a pair of stubby-looking assault rifles. He grabbed a second, smaller case, and handed it to me. “Carry this, Ben. When I start shooting, you and Sarah run out and get behind the vehicle.”

I nodded rapidly and grabbed the case. With my other hand, I took Sarah by the arm.

James kicked the back door open, leaned out, and sent a stream of bullets up at the two SUVs. I pulled Sarah out and around the back of the wrecked Tahoe.

DiMaria and Wolfe crouched near the front. Lauren was ten feet to their right, behind the large tire of a Caterpillar dump truck. A quick glance around and I realized we had crashed into a construction site. Looming behind us was an unfinished concrete building, large enough to be a mall or hotel. All around were parked tractors, dump trucks, and piles of industrial supplies.

James flew up behind Sarah and me, breathing hard. “Come on, you two,” he yelled. “We need to find better cover. This Tahoe is turning into Swiss cheese.”

Keeping low, all three of us made our way to the dump truck. Its heavy metal body and giant rubber tires provided decent cover from the hail of bullets.

DiMaria yelled at James. “You get SRT?”

“Not yet! On it!”

James pulled out his mobile phone and pressed it to his ear.

I stole a quick glance up at the road and spotted two black Range Rovers. They were identical to the one Sarah and I encountered at the school on Friday night.

CyberLife.

You were wrong, Ben,
I thought.
CyberLife is not scared of the police.

James hung up the phone. DiMaria ran up and grabbed the second MP5 from him. They shared a glance and DiMaria’s face hardened. “Locals are closer than SRT,” James said. “Ten minutes.”

My stomach tightened. Four agents had just been killed and four more were now outnumbered and outgunned. All because of me.

I stared at Agent DiMaria. The man had been having dinner with his family earlier that night. Now he was in a firefight. For the first time all week, I tried to do the
right
thing. And so far it only ended up getting more people killed.

“They’re here for me,” I yelled over the sound of bullets plinking off the dump truck’s metal body. “Let me go. They’ll follow.”

“Right, kid,” snapped DiMaria. “They’d just finish us and come find you anyway.”

I was about to protest when DiMaria continued, “But this is no place for a couple of kids.” He handed me my canvas bag then turned back to James. “Get them out of here, Garrett. Take one of the MP5s and the tac case and head west. Based on our last position, there should be a large subdivision there. Find cover until SRT arrives.”

Movement drew my eyes downward. On my sphere, three red dots separated from the larger group.

“Agent!”

DiMaria turned to face me.

“Three of them have moved off,” I yelled. “Coming around that way.” I pointed to the back corner of the dump truck.

He looked like he was about to ask how I knew, but instead called over his shoulder to Lauren. “Cover our three.” He turned back to me and nodded. “Go!”

Sarah and I fell in behind Agent James, who had crept to the back of the dump truck and was plotting an escape route through the construction zone. I turned to take one last look back at the other three agents.

“Come on, Ben,” said James forcefully. “They’ll be fine.”

I stared for one more second, then turned and ran.

We moved quickly into, and then through, the large concrete building. James pulled out his mobile phone and updated Ops that he and two civilians had broken off and were trying to escape west. Ten seconds later he put his phone back in his pocket.

“How long?” I asked.

“SRT is on the chopper already, but they won’t be here for at least another thirty minutes. Local law enforcement is on their way, too, including the county SWAT team. But again . . .”

Near the back of the building, we stopped and took cover behind a large stack of cinder blocks. Sarah and I pulled up next to him and crouched low.

“Is the Reaper still up there?” James asked.

I glanced at my HUD. “Yeah. Still not sure where though. My system can’t seem to crack its signal.”

“Okay. The good news, they must want you alive,” James said.

“How do you know? I asked.

“The Reaper hasn’t fired its other Hellfire.”

“The bad news?” Sarah asked.

“Those things are made for surveillance and detection. It has infrared. Radar. High-res cameras. You name it. It’s not going to be easy to evade.”

I looked down at Sarah who was crouched close, next to me. She was breathing hard and trembling. I put my arm around her and squeezed. “You okay?”

She stared back and nodded.

In the distance, the gunfire abruptly stopped. James peeked over the stack of blocks and then looked back down at us. “They will be coming soon,” he said.

“DiMaria?” I asked.

James shook his head. I knew DiMaria, Wolfe and Cessna didn’t have much of a chance. Three agents against two vehicles full of heavily armed commandos were not good odds. I swallowed hard and felt my anger at CyberLife swell even greater.

I will make them pay.

James reached over and grabbed the tactical case from my hand. He opened it and pulled out a matte black pistol and three clips. I stared at the gun as my system quickly identified it as Sig Sauer P226.

“Take this,” James said. He handed it to me and then pointed at it. “Pull the slide back. Aim. Pull the trigger. This button to release the clip. Got it?”

I tried to follow along. I had never held a gun before, much less shot one. It felt heavy and awkward in my hand. My eyes darted to a new message on my HUD.

Weapon sync active. Fire to calibrate.

I narrowed my eyes, but didn’t have time to investigate the new feature further. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to fire it and find out.

“Ben. Are you listening?”

“Slide. Trigger. Clip. Got it.”

James nodded. “Great, let’s go.”

The three of us turned and headed for an unfinished door cut into the back wall of the building. We made it five feet before bullets slammed into the cinder blocks and wall ahead of us.

“Back!” James yelled as he returned fire with his MP5.

I slid back and crouched next to him behind the cinder blocks. I reached behind to pull Sarah close, but all I got was empty air.

“Sarah?”

I whirled around and spotted her kneeling several feet away. Her head was tilted down, arms limp at her sides. She stared at her chest. My eyes followed hers and went wide when I realized what she was looking at.

Her jacket was covered in blood.

Just like Megan and Sofia before, Sarah had been shot.

42

Bullets whizzed by over our heads.

“She’s hit,” I called to Agent James as I dragged her back to cover.

He glanced down while he fired at the approaching commandos.

“I–I’m okay,” Sarah muttered.

I unzipped her jacket and winced. The top left half of her t-shirt was soaked in blood. I pulled it down over her shoulder and let out a momentary sigh of relief. The hole was in her shoulder and not her chest.

James ducked down and reloaded. “She’s hit?”

“Yeah, shoulder,” I answered.

He fired another volley in the general direction of the approaching commandos, then looked down at Sarah’s shoulder. With his free hand, he reached around and felt her back.

“Through and through,” he said. “That’s good. Ben, cover me.”

James bent down and popped open the tactical case.

I continued staring at him.

“Ben, shoot!” he yelled.

Hands shaking, I slowly stood until I could just reach over the cinder blocks. I lifted the black pistol and noticed a new crosshair appear on my HUD. It followed the trajectory of the gun. I aimed in the general direction of the red dots on my sphere and pulled the trigger twice. The gun kicked in my hand, but I managed to hold on. When I dropped back down, a new message read:

Calibration complete.

A volley of bullets answered my shots. The rounds thudded off the cinder blocks, sending clouds of concrete dust into the air. When the firing stopped, I rose again, placed the crosshair on a pile of supplies I thought the commandos were using for cover, and pulled the trigger as fast as I could. The gun recoiled, but I managed to keep the crosshair aimed where I wanted.

A bullet hit a white canister in the pile, sending a giant fireball into the air.

I took cover again.

“Nice shot!” James said as he snapped the case closed. “Good news. The bullet missed her axillary artery.”

“How do you know?”

“If it hadn’t, she’d be dead.”

I looked down at Sarah. She was noticeably paler and breathing hard.

“She’ll be okay,” James reassured, placing his hand on my shoulder. “I stuffed some gauze in the wound. There’s no time for more.”

He handed me the case.

“Tactical first aid kit,” he said. “Specific for bullet wounds. The pouches are labeled and numbered. When you get clear of these guys—” He rose and fired another volley from his submachine gun. “—apply them to the wounds, in order. Then get her to a hospital ASAP.”

He reached down and took the P226 from me, dropped the clip out, and slipped in a new one. He then handed the gun back to me.

I hesitated, feeling overwhelmed and not sure what to do. My instinct told me to curl up into a ball like I had when facing the sentries. I wasn’t a soldier or a trained FBI agent. Just a high school kid, in way over his head.

“It’s now or never,” James barked. “When I fire, you run.”

I looked down at Sarah. She was staring back, waiting for me to make a decision. I wasn’t going to let her down. “Got it!”

James patted me on the back. “Good luck, kid. Keep her safe.”

I checked my tracking sphere. Three dots were close by, less than twenty feet away. Off to the left, there were three more. One of the black-clad commandos rounded a half-height concrete wall. I aimed the P226 and fired.

He ducked back.

“Six guys remaining,” I said to James. I then pointed my arm in the general direction of each of the two groups. “Three there, three over there.”

“Thanks, Ben. Now get out of here!”

I put my arm under Sarah’s and lifted her to a crouch. Her face was a mask of pain. But she also looked pissed. “Can you run?” I asked.

“Just leave me, Ben. I’ll stay with James.”

“Yeah right,” I replied.

When James rose to fire again, I sent another three rounds into the concrete wall, then picked Sarah up and half-ran, half-carried her through the unfinished doorway and into the nearby trees. I bit back tears, realizing how horribly outgunned the young FBI agent was.

Another casualty.

Another death on CyberLife’s hands.

43

Not nearly far enough
, I thought.

I had hoped the trees would stick around longer to provide cover from the lurking Reaper drone. Not to mention the approaching commandos. The gunfire had stopped a minute earlier and I could see the red dots on my tracking sphere moving our way.