Flee (6 page)

My
encrypted cell had a touch screen, but it didn't dial out like a regular phone.
There was a nine key sequence that changed according to the date, and entering
a wrong number made it shut off for ten minutes. I pressed the buttons
carefully, not hitting send, and waited for Jacob to answer.

Jacob's
phone didn't ring. Instead, it played a recording that the number had been
disconnected. I silently counted five seconds after the message ended and said,
"This is Yolanda. I'm in Ontario."

I
waited. Jacob didn't pick up.

I
disconnected by pressing zero and tucked the phone away, walking to the bedroom
closet. Among the men's shirts, sweaters, and suits, there was a small
selection of female clothes. Jeans, culottes, some shirts and blouses, a
sweater, a pants suit and a jacket. All size six. I took the jeans and a long-sleeved
shirt. They smelled like
L'Air du Temps
and fit me perfectly.

Then
I headed for the second bedroom. Sure enough, Victor had transformed it into an
office of sorts. I recognized the beige sofa I'd seen on the webcam. Some free
weights cluttered the floor under a small window. I sat at his desk in front of
his computer. Windows 7 and IE were already running. While I downloaded Google
Earth, I accessed the backdoor for the Department of Defense, which almost
certainly wasn't aware it had a backdoor. Jacob changed the passwords several
times a day, to make sure one else could use his entry route. He'd told me
Diciassettesimo
papa
. I knew Italian, but hadn't brushed up on my Catholic history in a
while. Wikipedia informed me the seventeenth Pope was
St. Urban I
. That password
got me in.

For
one of the most encrypted, expensive websites on the planet, the DoD database
was a bitch to navigate. It took me a minute to access their facial recognition
software, and six more to create an adequate likeness for the scarred hitman
who knocked on my door.

I
had to give our government some credit, though, because it only took seven
thousandths of a second to get me a match.

Alex
Sokolov. Ex-KGB. Records reported he died seven years ago, but most Russian
records said that. I didn't have time to go through the whole dossier, so I
saved it as a text file, named it Alex, and buried it on the C: drive.

In
a separate window, I accessed www.NBC5.com for local news. There was a link
about the two-week manhunt after the prison break at Stateville, but that wasn't
what I clicked on. Instead, I fixated on the lead story.

3 Dead in North Side Killing Spree

I
quickly skimmed the details about the three assassins I'd retired at my
apartment. It didn't give out names, but there were the obligatory pictures of
the corpses, sanitized for the public, low resolution, no gory details. In the
case of the two men, just bodies, no faces. The woman in the elevator must have
had a lot of her body torn up by the grenade, too gross for the website. But I
was sure someone took a photo of her.

I
logged onto Usenet, and after downloading an NZB reader I quickly located a
pirated ftp program with a keygen. I snatched it, installed it, and accessed
the ftp URL for Channel 5 News. It was a site I'd hacked before, and the
passwords were still the same. Their ftp address was where the www.NBC5.com
server was located and all their online data was stored, and it took me less than
a minute to open the file locker with the full-sized unused png photographs of
the death scene.

I
found what I was looking for on the fifth photo I viewed; a close-up of the
woman from the elevator. Her lower body was a mangled mess, but her face was largely
untouched.

Like
the hit woman at
Stretchers
, she had short dark hair and blue eyes. And
like the woman at
Stretchers
, she was a dead ringer for me.

"My job is to train you," The Instructor said. "But I
don't know what I'm training you for. I can guarantee you'll be told to do
things you do not want to do. Things that violate your principles, your humanity,
even your patriotism. But a weapon doesn't question why it was fired, or what it
was fired at. You're a weapon, a tool to be used by the government or the
military. I pray your handler has enough principles, humanity, and patriotism
for the both of you."

Two
hitwomen, both with my face and body. A former KGB assassin. Jacob compromised.
Stretchers
compromised. My ID blown. Cory on the loose. Kaufmann
kidnapped.

I
had no idea what it all meant, and which facts were related to each other. Nor
did I have time to dwell on it. Protocol dictated I establish a perimeter,
interrogate my unwilling host, then evaluate the intel.

Kaufmann
threw a wrench into normal operating procedure. If I'd been on a mission, things
would be different. But the only bright spot in the fact that I was operating
on my own, not under any direct orders, was that I could make saving him my
first priority.

Whether
Uncle Sam approved or not.

The
ICU—a spook acronym that wasn't actually an acronym at all but rather a literal
meaning—was a net of spy satellites that could be aimed by field operatives.
Any agent with a laptop computer and the required longitude and latitude could
zoom in on almost any area on the planet, within two minutes of giving the
command.

Unfortunately,
Jacob was cut off before I could get the latest ICU uplink data. But Google
Earth wasn't a bad substitute.

I
loaded the program, which began by filling the screen with the familiar round
and blue view of the earth from space, conveniently facing North America. I
used the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in, each revolution bringing the world
closer and closer, first over Illinois, then over Chicago, streets and buildings
and eventually cars and people coming into detailed focus.

Instead
of degrees I punched in the street address, and got a close up satellite
picture of 875 N. Michigan, revealing a familiar Chicago landmark. Google Earth
also let me superimpose street names and store locations over the picture. Then
I clicked on a camera icon at street level, and got a full, 360 degree panoramic
view of the whole area, dated from ten minutes ago. I quickly figured out a
route, entry and exit points, and visualized how Cory would run it.

If
his plan followed my assumptions, and I knew him well enough to be sure it
would, neither Kaufmann nor I would live through this.

Steering
my thoughts away from Kaufmann's fate for a moment, I pinged Victor's router,
got the URL, and quickly synced my phone to his WiFi. A minute later, I was
uploading my doppelganger's fingerprint to Jacob's database. I wasn't at all
surprised I didn't get a hit. I saved the search offline, then spent two
minutes erasing all of my tracks from Victor's hard drive.

I
checked my watch, saw I only had fifty-two minutes remaining, and went to the
dryer for my shoes and socks. I locked the door behind me when I left the
apartment, using the keys I'd found on Victor's kitchen table. I took the alley
exit, pausing for a moment to get my bearings. I smelled garbage and car
exhaust. The wind had picked up a bit, chilling my still-damp gym shoes. The
alley was quiet, vacant, and I took it south, holding the duffle bag full of
ten thousand dollars in my bad arm, keeping my right thumb hitched in my rear
pocket, near the weapon nestled against the small of my back.

Fourteen
steps out of the alley, I spotted a tail.

She
was standing at a bus stop, a stylish wool cap on her head, staring intently at
a tablet PC no bigger than a paperback novel. Her large sunglasses broke up the
contour of her face, making her anonymous and unidentifiable as an agent.

Except
to me.

 The
woman was doing isometric calf exercises. First flexing the left calf, then the
right, then lifting the left toes, then the right.

I
knew she'd lift the left heel next, then slightly bend the knee. I knew this
because it was the same exercise The Instructor had taught me during training, used
to keep the leg muscles warm and limber in preparation for quick action.

This
woman proved me correct, following the sequence exactly. I was too far away to
tell if this was another lookalike. But I would know soon enough.

I
crossed the street quickly, keeping an eye on her, then approaching from the
side at an angle beyond her peripheral vision. She kept her nose in the tablet,
legs still twitching, oblivious to my presence.

  I
wanted to interrogate her, to know how she'd found me so quickly, to learn who
she was and what she wanted. But I was short on time, and leaving her here to
try my luck later could lead to her interfering with the Cory meeting. Contrary
to the movies, subduing and capturing someone was incredibly difficult,
especially without preparation and the proper equipment. A thousand things
could go wrong.

Murder,
however, was pretty straight-forward.

My
best bet was a quick shot right behind the ear. I did a discreet check for cops,
then reached for my weapon.

The
move was so fast I almost missed it. While keeping both eyes on the computer
screen, she yanked a pistol from under her sweater and pointed it right at me.
I jerked sideways, two shots zipping through the space I'd occupied a
nanosecond ago, bringing my suppressed .22 around and catching her in the
chest.

Unlike
the jacketed rounds for my Glock which were for penetration, the .22 was loaded
with star frags—special bullets shaped like a pointed king's crown. When they
hit a target the crown opened up like flower petals, allowing for maximum
energy transfer and creating an internal wound up to three inches in diameter. For
a small caliber they packed a big punch.

So
big, my stalker went down instantly, glasses spinning off her face, dropping
both her gun and the tablet, then slumping to the sidewalk like a length of cut
rope.

The
whole thing was over in less than a second, all the shots fired blending
together like a car backfiring. Once again I checked the street for any
witnesses, then hurried to the body, keeping my weapon alongside my thigh.

When
I got close enough, several things struck me at once. The first was her face. Eyes
closed, lips parted, undeniably my features. While her chest didn't seem to be
moving, there also wasn't any blood. Her blouse and bra beneath were shredded
by the star frags, and there wasn't a vest under them. Rather, her skin showing
between the fabric tears was brownish and lumpy, almost as if it had been
slathered with peanut butter.

Bringing
up my gun again, I pressed it under her neck while I touched her sternum. The
brown goop was moist and sticky, and her heart thrummed under my fingertips.

I
pulled the trigger the moment I realized what the paste on her skin was. But my
doppelganger had anticipated the move. She swept my gun to the side. My round
hit the sidewalk. She brought up the heel of her hand and clipped me clean
under the jaw.

I
toppled backward, my teeth crunching together so hard it rattled my brain, the
sparkly motes in my vision quadrupling in size when my coccyx hit the street. I
blindly brought the gun up, reflex squeezing the trigger even as I felt a foot
connect with my knuckles, knowing I hit her somewhere in the legs, knowing it
didn't matter if she had that stuff smeared all over her body. Liquid body
armor. I might as well have been shooting case-hardened steel.

My
gun went flying—a testament to the power of her kick. During training, I'd had
to hold onto a gun for a week straight without ever putting it down, but she
knew right where to hit me to make me lose my grip.

Then
I was on my back, and she was on me, and I knew she'd had the same training I'd
had, meaning I'd likely be dead within the next two seconds.

"Your body is a weapon," The Instructor said. "Hands,
feet, elbows, knees, head. In close combat, commit immediately and fully, aim
for your opponent's vital points and nerve points, and hit and stick to deliver
maximum damage. Strike fast, strike hard, and try to strike first."

I
struck, going for her eyes. My fingers hit their target, jabbing the cheekbones
and sliding upward into the soft tissue. I could feel her grunt of pain in my
own chest. I thrust harder, trying to gouge her eyes out, or better yet,
penetrate the thin bone behind the optic nerve and plunge into her brain.

I
wasn't so lucky.

She
moved her head to the side and brought the edge of her hand hard against the
front of my good shoulder, connecting with the large bundle of nerves that
passes in front of the joint. My fingers buckled. My arm slumped, numb and
useless.

She
brought her hands to my throat, her thumbs pressing right below my larynx,
aiming to crush my trachea. I clawed at her with my other hand, still tingly
from the Demerol. My vision blurred. But through the motes I could see her eyes
were half closed, tears and some blood glistening on her cheeks.

Flexing
my stomach muscles, I lunged upward, smacking my forehead straight into her
nose. She released her grip, stunned for a moment, reflex bringing her hands to
her face.