How Spy I Am (46 page)

At the corner, I
peeked around into the brightly-lit yard. The vehicles were still
there, the small house was still dark, and nothing moved. The main
door mocked me from its position directly under the light. But it
had a narrow window in it.

I shot another fearful
look around me, bit my lip, and ducked around the corner into the
light. My back crawled while I scuttled over to the door. God, talk
about conspicuous. My black leather would show up against the white
steel like a cockroach in a bathtub.

I crossed my fingers
and bobbed my head up to peer into the window. A fast scan showed
no movement, and I jerked the door open and slid through before my
better judgement could kick in.

A distant murmur of
voices made me dodge into the nearest darkened doorway, heart
pounding.

“That you,
Murren?”

The raised male voice
stabbed fear into my veins. Jesus, of course they’d have a security
system. The door monitor must have chimed, just like my security
system at home.

“Hey, Murren!” A
pause. “I don’t know. I’ll check. Be right back. Don’t start
without me.” The voice was closer now as the speaker apparently
approached the front door.

I shot a panicked
stare around the dim room. Just an office. No place to hide except
under the desk. The first place he’d look if he started
searching.

Shit, shit, shit!

I darted back to open
and close the door, activating the door chime again before dashing
back to dive into the footwell of the desk. I huddled there, easing
my trank gun free.

Idiot! There would be
three Knights. I only had two darts left. Why the hell had I shot
the damn guard again?

Footsteps stopped in
the corridor outside. I heard the door open and close as if the
searcher had leaned outside to look around. I clamped a hand over
my mouth to stifle my terrified panting.

The footfalls receded
along with the voice. “I don’t see anybody. He must’ve gone out
again.”

The voice faded to a
mumble, and my hide-and-seek instincts from childhood sprang alive.
I crept out of the shelter of the desk and scurried for the door.
I’d always had my best success following the seeker. They rarely
thought to look behind them.

I peeked around the
corner just in time to see the back of a stout white-haired man as
he disappeared into the third doorway on the left. The other rooms
along the hallway were in darkness, and at the end of the corridor
I glimpsed a large open space. Probably the lab.

I was sneaking along
the corridor when his querulous voice rose above the murmur. “How
should I know? I’m a scientist, not a security guard. Check it
yourself if you’re so worried. Or page Murren.”

I dodged frantically
into the nearest doorway to flatten myself behind the half-open
door, hardly breathing. Shit, this was the part where they called
the security guard and got no answer.

Right on cue, a second
voice spoke, sounding puzzled. “He’s not answering.”

“We’ve been breached!
I told you we should’ve hired more than one security guard!” The
thin, high-pitched voice quavered with age or fear, I wasn’t sure
which.

“Calm down, Plissol.
You’re such a worrywart. I checked. Nobody was there.”

“Because they’ve
already killed the guard and sneaked in!” The thin voice rose. “I
told you this was a stupid idea. We should never have sold Sam out.
Now we’re all going to die and for what? A few lousy dollars that
we’re too old to enjoy anyway-”

“Shut up, Frank!” The
third voice was deeper and more resonant, carrying with such
clarity I twitched with the feeling the speaker was standing right
outside the door.

The organ-like tones
continued, “Nobody’s here. We’re not going to die. It’s a hell of a
lot more than a few dollars, and I, for one, plan to live the high
life for a very long time. The guard’s probably having a smoke and
couldn’t be bothered answering his radio. Those rent-a-cops are
useless. I don’t know why we bother with them. We’ve had this
installation for nearly forty years with no problem.”

“But things have
changed. Now we’re dealing with criminals-”

“Who’ll want to
protect us, not kill us,” the deep voice interrupted. “Our
information is gold to them. We’re safer than we’ve ever been.”

“There’s somebody
here, I know it!” Plissol wasn’t giving up.

“Fine!” The first
speaker’s voice suddenly amplified as if he’d turned toward the
doorway. “Let’s all go and search the place, and then maybe Plissol
can relax and we can get on with tonight’s mission. Come on.”

His statement was
greeted by grumbling in two-part harmony, but the increasing volume
told me they were approaching.

I stopped breathing
entirely, scouring the contents of the tiny room for a hiding place
and finding none. A few boxes of copy paper were stacked against
one wall, and a copier hummed quietly across from me. Not even
enough space to squeeze behind it.

Petrified, I watched
through the crack behind the door as the stout white-haired man
stumped past in the hallway, followed by a tall, thin, bald man. A
few seconds later, I identified Plissol as the short, slight man
trailing them when he spoke again in his fearful quaver. “I don’t
agree with this so-called mission tonight, either. We’ll attract
far too much attention…”

As he passed, I
recognized my chance. I was trying to force my trembling legs to
move when the stout man’s voice rose as if he’d turned back to
speak to Plissol. “We won’t attract any attention at all, because
nobody will ever know it’s us. And when we’re done, there won’t be
anyone left who can identify us.”

I froze again,
blackness pulsing at the edges of my vision until I managed a few
shallow breaths.

“Except our mages,”
Plissol muttered. “And Sam’s still out there somewhere.”

“Our mages are safe
and sound. They won’t be talking to anybody. And Sam isn’t going to
talk. He won’t take a chance on going to jail. We can eliminate him
at our leisure. Now can we please go back to our mission?”

“No.” Plissol’s thin
voice sounded frightened but determined. “I think there’s somebody
in here, and I think something’s happened to the guard.”

The voice faded as the
speaker apparently turned away again. “Fine. Let’s get this over
with so we can get down to business.”

I waited a few more
rapid heartbeats before peeping out the door to see Plissol
disappearing around the corner. I made a silent dash in the
opposite direction, praying the lab would be unoccupied.

Luck was with me. It
was deserted, computer screens glowing softly in the dim ambient
lighting. Behind the desks and workbenches, a couple of rows of
pallets marched off into the darkness, their boxes stacked
head-high. I fled for their comparative safety and dodged behind
the middle row.

I hooked my fingers
over the top of the boxes and dug my toes into the shrink-wrapped
cracks between them to scramble atop the row, wincing at the noise
and at the realization that I was undoubtedly leaving deep obvious
dents in the cardboard. At least the boxes were solid enough to
hold my weight.

I flopped down on top
of the dusty stack, gasping as quietly as possible. My waist pouch
dug into my stomach, and I released its catch and set it in front
of me while I lay prone, straining my ears to hear over my thumping
heart.

A faint rumble of
voices drifted from the front of the building, but they’d
apparently searched the front offices and decided they were secure.
After several minutes of waiting, I began to relax when I realized
they weren’t going to search the back areas.

Thank heaven for
arrogant brainiac scientists. If they’d been spies, I wouldn’t have
had a chance.

I crept forward on my
stomach to get a view of the lab. The equipment might have meant
something to Spider or Kasper, but it just looked like a bunch of
computer stuff to me. Although over in the corner, on the
workbench…

I carefully freed my
binoculars and peered through them. A jumble of silvery metallic
frames came into focus, and I sucked in a breath as the dark mound
beside them resolved itself into a pattern of regular brown and
black markings. I was looking at the frames and skins for the
animatronic goose models I’d seen when I was in their network.

Squirming backward
again, my waist holster caught on one of the box flaps, and I sat
up cautiously to detach it. Curiosity made me peel back the flap a
little farther to peek into the box.

My hands began to
tremble as I eased the flap back into place. I sat very, very
still.

I’d only seen plastic
explosive in movies, where it looked like grey modelling clay. The
contents of the box beneath me sure looked a hell of a lot like
grey modelling clay wrapped in clear plastic.

I was sitting on
enough C4 to blow my ass to hell in a fine red mist.

I swallowed panic.
Plastic explosive needed a detonator, didn’t it? It was perfectly
stable otherwise, wasn’t it?

Of course it was. I’d
climbed up these boxes, jamming my toes into the cardboard, and
nothing had happened. They wouldn’t store it piled up like this if
it wasn’t safe. And surely all these boxes weren’t C4. A quick
glance down the row assured me I was right. There were only a
couple of pallets like this one.

Hurray. Because that
made me feel so much better about sitting atop a mountain of
plastic explosive.

I eased myself down to
prone position again, shaking from head to toe.

Ocean waves. Stay
calm. I was in no more danger than I had been before. Breathe.
Focus on the mission.

I laid my head gently
on the box, careful to turn my face to the side so I wouldn’t
inhale a lungful of dust. So far, so good. I’d found the Knights.
I’d found the weapons. Robert was nowhere to be seen, so there was
still a chance he wasn’t involved with the Knights.

Only one thing left to
do before I got the hell out.

I closed my eyes and
stepped into their virtual reality network.

Inside the virtual
corridors I floated invisibly, contemplating the blank doors of sim
rooms. Surely they wouldn’t be running any sims tonight. But I’d
already scoured their data files earlier in the day without finding
any information about their plans.

What the hell kind of
scientists were they, anyway, making plans without documenting them
in the network? Assholes.

I swallowed fear
cleverly disguised as irritation and floated up to the first door.
I’d have to check each sim. A vivid memory of doing exactly the
same thing in Harchman’s network months ago made me contain a
virtual shudder.

If only I’d ignored
the call of duty and refused to go to Harchman’s, I could’ve lived
happily ever after. No spying, no decrypting, no porn star alter
ego, none of the horrible memories that haunted my dreams…

I shook my invisible
self and willed a tiny window to peek into the first sim.

As I’d surmised, the
sims were deserted, and I made my way rapidly through them all,
cursing the wasted time. At the last door, I turned away to seep
through their firewall and into their data stream.

It was considerably
more active than the sims. I zigzagged back and forth, chasing
stream after stream of data packets, trying to make sense of what I
was seeing.

At last, I sniffed out
the last few packets. My nonexistent heart clenched in my virtual
chest.

Oh shit, no!

No wonder there was so
much activity. Seven flocks of flapping bombs take a lot of
guidance.

Cold horror filled me
when I cross-referenced the GPS coordinates and the targets popped
up one by one. My farm. Sirius Dynamics. Kane’s office. I only
recognized two of several other addresses. Kane’s and Spider’s
homes were both targeted. I didn’t take time to guess at the
rest.

They were going to
blow up half the town, and most of my friends with it. And I had
about ten minutes to stop them.

I gulped down terror,
snatched at the data packets, and went to work.

I was on the verge of
sending a detonation signal when a sudden thought stopped me. If I
blew up the geese simultaneously in the air, the Knights would know
their network had been hacked. They’d know damn well I was the only
person who could do it, and since the network was contained in the
building, they’d know I was here. They’d find me and kill me, send
out more geese, and it would all be over.

If I guided the geese
to fly randomly into the ground, there was no telling who might be
harmed when they hit.

Vibrating frantically
in the data stream, I felt the seconds ticking away like kicks to
my chest while I racked my brain for an idea. At last, inspiration
struck.

I could send new
destination coordinates. The Knights might not notice right away.
And even if they did discover the geese were coming right back at
them, resetting the coordinates would keep them occupied long
enough for me to drop out of the network and contact Stemp.

One quick phone call,
and then I could pop back into the network and keep the Knights
distracted with what looked like more guidance malfunctions. As
soon as Stemp’s team arrived, I could harmlessly explode the geese
in the air.

Congratulating myself
on my clever solution, I zipped in to look up the GPS coordinates,
and called the geese home. I was heading for the exit portal when
the network blazed into red-hot hell.

Agony ground my bones
to powder, my screams only a faint echo in the torment. My body
flailed and twisted in a useless struggle to escape the suffering.
Boiling colours seared my brain like technicolour lightning.

At last, the pain
abated enough for me to hear my own raw screams trail off into
whimpering. Long moments later, I slowly uncurled to squint up at
the four men and one dog peering down at me. The guard’s gun was
trained shakily on me.