Freedom (14 page)

Fossen sat in his La-Z-Boy chair with the television off. He listened to the old house settling. To the ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer and the refrigerator fan turning on and off as the minutes passed.

It was late.

Then he heard the dogs barking and a car coming up the long drive. He didn’t move. He heard footsteps on the back porch, and then the door in the mudroom squeak open and thump closed. Still he sat motionless.

A creak on the floorboards nearby. Jenna’s voice. “Dad? It’s late. You okay?”

He just held up a letter on embossed stationery. “You know, it’s been nearly five years. And after all that time, it’s just takes one letter.”

She stood in the doorway.

“How did you do it?”

“I told you.”

“No. You really didn’t, Jenna.” He looked up at her. “How does a twenty-three-year-old kid get a multibillion-dollar company to drop a lawsuit?”

“It was the Daemon.”

“What
is
the Daemon?”

“It’s a digital monster that eats corporate networks. They’re scared to death of it—because it has no fear.”

He turned to face the dark television screen again. They sat in silence for several moments.

“What happens now?”

“That depends on whether you want to continue running this place as part of their system.”

Fossen looked up at the framed photograph of his eldest son in dress uniform on a nearby bookshelf. He nodded. “I didn’t realize we had two warriors in the family.”

He turned around to face her. “What do we do?”

She smiled. “The first thing we do is stop planting corn.”

“And plant what?”

“What people need.”

S
outhhaven was a self-styled “six-star” golf resort catering to business. Pharmaceutical companies marketing blood thinners to cardiovascular surgeons, investment retreats, political fund-raisers—all of them were capable of filling the two hundred and eighty outrageously expensive guest bungalows. In another age it might have been a duke’s estate—a place where the affairs of men might be discussed with sophistication while wives strolled the gardens and the children took riding lessons. Now it was a rental that offered double mileage points.

With a world-class golf course, four restaurants, and a bar that permitted cigar smoking, Southhaven Golf Resort was the ideal place to get business done in a relaxed atmosphere. The resort was located on Ocean Island—one of several barrier islands off the southern Atlantic coast of Georgia. Gated and patrolled, the private island consisted of the Southhaven resort, its golf course, and a hundred or so sprawling Mediterranean-style beach houses—third or fourth homes to people looking for somewhere to dump capital gains. Most of the homes were unoccupied at any given time.

A big selling point for Ocean Island was its remoteness. It was buffered by a mile and a half of marshland to the west and north and linked to the mainland by a single causeway. To the east and south lay only the Atlantic Ocean.

In short, it was perfect for The Major’s purpose. He’d long ago graduated from clandestine meetings in run-down safe houses or industrial spaces. He was the establishment now, and he enjoyed its perquisites.

The Major sat on the arm of a sofa in their Emperor Bungalow, talking on his encrypted cell phone with a broker in Hong Kong. He glanced at his watch. Eleven fifty P.M. “Yes. It should be part of the dark liquidity pool. Right. Two hundred thousand shares.”

He looked up at the dining room to see half a dozen senior managers of international security and military providers gathered around a table strewn with maps of the Midwestern United States, photographs, and documents. No two of the men had the same accent—South African, Eastern European, Australian, American, British, Spanish. Several were smoking as they pondered the maps. They were debating something, and the British executive motioned for The Major to rejoin the table.

He knew he wouldn’t have too many more chances to shift his investments. And he wasn’t about to miss the upcoming event.

The Major nodded and spoke into the phone. “Yeah. Empty the Sutherland—”

His phone connection suddenly dissolved in a wave of static. The Major looked at the phone’s display and saw the message “Connection Lost.” He cursed and moved to dial again when he realized he suddenly had no network signal.

“Damnit!”

The Major looked up to see one of the nearby security executives putting his own phone onto his belt clip.

The man shrugged to the others. “No signal.” Then pointed to a map. “Look, I’ll call them back, but we’re going to need materiel in-country for security teams well before then.”

But The Major was no longer concerned with logistics for the counterinsurgency campaign. He was suddenly concerned about his own survival.

They had just lost wireless connectivity. The Major remembered all too well that the attack at Building Twenty-Nine was preceded by radio jamming. The FBI operation at Sobol’s mansion was also plagued by wireless communications problems—all caused by ultrawideband signals. The same technology used by the Daemon’s automated vehicles to communicate with the darknet. It was battle-level bandwidth that steamrolled everything else.

The Major reached for a remote control on the coffee table in front of him. He used it to turn on the radio in the living room entertainment center. Nothing but static. He kept scanning stations.

The South African executive frowned at him. “Ag, Major. We need you to make a decision here. Can we hold off on the stereo?”

The Major wasn’t listening. His combat instincts had kicked in. The chatter of the senior executives at the table faded, and his senses focused on his immediate surroundings. On the significance of every sound. It brought him back to El Salvador. Listening for the snap of a branch—or for an unearthly animal silence that signaled a hastily prepared ambush. He heard the nearby men arguing as only muffled sounds. The footsteps of a Romanian private security contractor walking to the service tray near the curtained window to pour more coffee commanded his attention. The heavy drapes behind the man billowed as conditioned air washed over them.

Then an unexplained sound, like a tent door being unzipped, came from the courtyard outside—and it kept unzipping—getting louder.

The next few moments, he felt as though he were pulling himself through a pool of water—his mind racing ahead, screaming at his body to keep up. He pushed off the sofa and charged toward the contractor standing near the drape-covered window.

The man started to turn, apparently sensing danger, but The Major leapt into the air, delivering a flying dropkick that sent the Romanian headlong through the thick drapes and French doors altogether, with a deafening crash.

Just then, the front door to the bungalow burst open as a human-sized piece of twisted machinery blasted through it going eighty miles an hour. It careened across the room sending pieces of metal and plastic ricocheting off the walls, overturning the table, and clearing the men there off their feet.

The Major didn’t look back as the deafening sound of powerful motorcycle engines suddenly erupted all around the bungalow. Behind him, he could hear screaming and motorcycles engines so loud the noise was physically painful. He ran through the smashed French doors, and once outside he saw the stunned and bloody Romanian trying to get up in a field of broken glass and splintered wood. The Major stomped on the man’s chest, flattening him on the patio stones.

The man tried to squirm out from under The Major’s foot and breathe. Powerful motorcycle engines were coming his way fast across the lawns, green lasers stabbing at the darkness.

The Major drove his heel into the contractor’s throat, causing the man to grab at his own neck, pawing for air. He then reached down beneath the Romanian’s jacket and felt the holster there. A polyurethane harness. He tugged at it in the darkness and felt the gun come free. No more time. The engines were close.

The Major took off through the bushes, hugging the side of the building, and ducked around the nearest corner moments before the razorbacks arrived. He felt the contours of the newly acquired pistol in the darkness. Twin safetys. Probably a Sig Sauer. He hefted it. A .45—and loaded, judging by the weight. He chambered a round as the engines revved behind him. He heard agonized screams and ringing of steel.

The Major ran blindly through the bushes now under cover of the screams and engines. Branches hit his face as he pushed through the thick of it and soon he emerged into a golf cart lane flanked by soft landscape lighting and dense tropical shrubbery. In his peripheral vision he caught the movement of men in black tactical gear pointing his way. Although he didn’t hear gunshots, he heard projectiles whine past his head as he plunged into the bushes on the far side of the path. He fired two shots to get them ducking and kept cover as motorcycle engines kept pace with him out on the lawns and driveways beyond the decorative jungle.

The Major ran headlong into a rough-hewn beam railing, but without missing a beat he clambered over it, collapsing onto a tiled walkway between resort buildings. It was brightly lit. He glanced right and left and could see fire strobes flashing in the interior corridors. He suddenly noticed the warning Klaxons sounding. Someone had tripped a fire alarm. Good.

He crawled across the tiled floor on his belly and peered through the gap between the handrail and the wall on the far side. He could see more shrubs and a small parking lot behind the reception building.

The Major rolled over the railing and into the bushes on the far side. He was quickly out to the parking lot and trying car doors. Locked. Locked.

He tried to remember how to hot-wire a car, and then it occurred to him that cars had utterly changed since his days of twisting wires in the dark in Belize City. They were computer-controlled now—in fact the damned things had lately become smart enough to hunt
him
.

Motorcycle engines trolled the grounds out in the darkness. Lights were coming on in the guest room windows. Shouts echoed across the grounds.

It suddenly occurred to him that he still had his phone. He pulled it out of his jacket pocket and hurled it as far as possible across the parking lot, where it shattered against something hard in the dark. For all he knew, that’s how the Daemon tracked him here. It was an untraceable phone. He’d only had it for a few days. How had they found him? He started thinking of possible vectors but decided he’d have time to worry about it later if he survived the night.

He saw car headlights approaching from the direction of the clubhouse and peered down the lane from behind a nearby car tire.

A well-dressed man in his seventies was behind the wheel of a Bentley Continental Flying Spur. It was doing about ten miles per hour.

The Major hid the pistol behind his leg and affected a stiff limp, rushing to block the road. He held up his free hand and did his best to look panicked. The car slowed and came to a stop. The Major limped over to the door as the driver lowered his window.

“What’s the problem, son?”

“My wife and I were hit by a drunk driver coming back from the club. I need someone to call an ambulance.”

“My god, that’s horrible.” The old man put the car into park and searched for his phone.

Putting the car into park was crucial.

By the time the driver looked up again The Major had the pistol pointed at his head. The Major fired a shot into the old man’s forehead at close range. The ivory leather interior spattered with blood.

Small caliber pistols were better for this sort of thing. The bullet wouldn’t go out the back of the head.

Suddenly The Major heard a razorback turn a corner a hundred yards behind them. He looked away quickly, knowing that they carried blinding weapons. He’d read Dr. Philips’s after-action report.

A green laser played across The Major and the Bentley’s mirrors in a brilliant light show. He could hear the bike roaring in his direction. The Major dove headfirst through the open driver’s window and climbed across the still-twitching corpse of the old man. As The Major turned right-side up in the passenger seat he reached his leg over the console hump to get his foot onto the accelerator. He could hear more razorbacks converging on the site from nearby. Suddenly a razor-sharp katana-like blade shot into the old man’s neck through the open window. A second slash took the old man’s head clean off.

The Major fired three shots into the motorized gimbal that held the sword, deforming the mount and causing the bike to eject the blade and pull away from the car, swinging around to aim its beam weapons. The Major ducked his head down and dropped the pistol as the cabin filled with green laser light. He finally managed to reach the gas pedal with his left foot. The shifter between his legs, he jammed the car into drive and felt the powerful engine accelerating him down the narrow road. He ignored the blood all over the seats and the headless man beside him—along with the head now rolling around on the floor.

“Goddamnit! Goddamnit!” He pounded the dashboard. He’d lost his cool. There were surveillance cameras all over this place. He’d need to get ahold of this security video. He was panicking. He needed to get his shit together. And what about the military plans back in the room? He tried to steady himself.
You used to be good at operations once.

The Bentley was roaring up to sixty now, and he barely had control of it. He dared a glance into the rearview mirror and could see several razorbacks coming up on him very fast. Soon they were flickering laser light all over the car. He smashed the rearview mirror off the ceiling with his fist.

“Fuck!”

The Bentley caromed off the sides of several cars parked along the restaurant drive, and he struck one of the parking valets. The man’s body tumbled into the bushes.