Lethal Force (10 page)

Congresswoman Lori Freeman gave Jake a strange look and said, “What was that?”

“What?”

“Your ID.”

Jake smiled. “My old Central Intelligence Agency identification. Something I never carried when I was in the Agency, for obvious reasons. If they looked carefully, they'd see I was retired.”

“That's like a get out of jail free card,” Tramil said, a full mouth of fries in his mouth.

By the time they got to Kalispell the professor was done eating, a big burp from the soda disturbing the silence. Jake had a plan but he was still trying his best to decide on tactics. There were many ways to get information from someone, from outright beating it out of them with torture, which did work sometimes, to simply having a seemingly innocuous conversation, where the subject has no idea that the purpose was extraction of information. That was Jake's favorite method, and over the years he had become quite good at it. First, he waited until they got out of the city of Kalispell, on the lonely, dark road, US Highway 93, that skirted the western shore of Flathead Lake. Under normal circumstances that drive was beautiful, but in the darkness with snow blowing across the lake, the trip could be quite dangerous. So, to make matters worse, Jake slowly turned up the music, classic heavy metal.

Tapping his hands against the steering wheel, Jake said, “How did that guy treat you, James?”

“Huh?” Tramil said, leaning forward.

Jake repeated himself. It was all part of the game.

“Please call me Tramil,” the professor said. “All my friends call me by my last name. They have since high school.”

Jake already knew this. He continued, “Did he hurt you?”

This went on for many miles, with Jake almost driving off the road a number of times on purpose to increase the tension. He would ask the questions a little too softly at first, wait for Tramil to ask what he'd said, and then speak a little louder so he could hear him.

Jake learned that the man had gotten nothing out of the professor.

“You see,” Tramil screamed, “I realized that the man had probably screwed up trying to shoot me in Corvallis.”

“Is Corvallis what you call your butt?” Jake yelled back and smiled at Tramil in the mirror.

The professor laughed. “Right. So I guessed I could hold out until someone more important showed up.”

Jake guessed he knew some of their methods, considering his treatment in the cold tank of water with the oil and rat in DC. “They don't get what they want from you, Tramil, and they'll kill you.” Jake checked to make sure the man heard him. Based on the look he shot back, he had.

“I know.”

Glancing at Lori for a moment, Jake wondered what she was thinking. He intentionally put the vehicle into a slight fishtail. Nothing he couldn't control, though. Then he lowered the music a little.

“You get a grant from the Defense Department,” Jake said. “They're going to expect you eventually turn over your research to them. Or work through DARPA.”

“They've been trying to get me into DARPA for years,” the professor explained.

“And?”

“I like my independence,” Tramil said.

“When you're funded by the military, they own your ass.” Jake checked out the man's demeanor, which had changed from staunchly controlled to indifferently disturbed. He was stuck and he knew it. Now Jake would be the only one he could trust. The one who had saved him and the one who would keep him alive. With that going for him, Professor James Tramil had to trust Jake. His survival depended on it. “I know a little about your work, but I'm just a former field officer. Can you explain it to me?” Jake lowered the music a little more and waited.

“It's not so much a weapon,” Tramil said, “but a delivery system. Have you heard about the work Chad Hunter did with his Hypershot weapon?”

Of course, Jake had. He'd used the rail gun weapon with the Baldwin scope many times on covert operations. It was the first hand-held rifle that shot a tiny projectile at hypersonic speed, more than forty thousand feet per second, striking with tremendous kinetic energy. The gun had vaulted the average soldier into a super shooter. “I know about it,” he said, without saying he also personally knew Chad Hunter.

“Well, I took their concept and plan on using it on a grander scale. Hunter also came up with the Global Shot system using GPS technology on a hand-held round. What I've done is use my knowledge of nanotechnology and planned a series of objects that we could deploy from anywhere in the world and strike anywhere else.”

Jake almost ran off the road with a tight curve.

“Keep going,” Jake said.

Tramil moved forward in his seat again, his hands on the driver's and passenger's seats. “Here's an example. That tracking device you just sent on a ride aboard the Empire Builder. . .I can make that with nanotechnology ten times smaller than the one they put in your phone. I can shoot a projectile from Montana to say Paris. But I can slow it down as it comes down out of the stratosphere, it breaks away from the main projectile like we used to do with MRVd ICBMs, splitting from one to ten warheads and able to continue on to ten different targets. Then let's say you want to track a car. We drop the nanotracker onto the hood of the car, moving or not, and can follow it for days on the nanobatteries.” He paused.

But Jake knew it was more important than just that. He'd heard about the use of other nanotech weapons that could be deployed with this method. “I'm guessing the guys who want your technology don't just want to track people. What else makes this so important?” He slowed for a corner ahead, grasping the wheel with both hands.

“Well, my former partner was a biochemist and had worked for the government in the past on a number of projects that would now be considered illegal,” Tramil explained. “That was years ago. The Army and Air Force wanted him to consider modifying his work to the nanotech level, which is my specialty.”

“Speak English, professor,” Jake implored. He picked up speed on a straight stretch that ran parallel to the lake. He knew exactly what the man was considering, but he needed him to say it.

“You could take an incapacitating poison and produce it at the nanotech level,” Tramil said before hesitating.

“Go on.”

“The element is so small it makes it through any filter currently on the market.”

Time for a wrap-up, Jake thought. “So, essentially the two of you have developed a weapon that could be shot from anywhere in America, that could be placed on target with GPS accuracy, based on Hunter's Global Shot technology of more than ten satellites, and could infiltrate any filtering system out there. Is that correct?” He looked back through the rearview mirror and saw the professor's jaw slacken.

“When you say it that way, we sound like monsters.”

Jake shook his head side to side as he checked out the look on Lori's face. She looked confused. “I'm trying to be as objective as possible, Tramil.” Time to bring it on home. “I don't judge you. It's a scientist's job to discover. It's a politician's job to develop policy and direction to implement or not implement these discoveries. The military's job is to use this technology as force equalizers to reach their objectives. Only God can judge if any of our actions are just. I'll leave that up to Him.”

Tramil, who had deflated himself somewhat into the leather chair, now pushed his frame forward. “Exactly. If we didn't think of this, surely someone else would have. Someone who might actually use it. And we've also come up with civilian uses for our technology. We've thought about cloud seeding in drought-ridden regions, or blasting an approaching hurricane with nanotech particulates that would turn a Cat-5 into a Cat-1 or a tropical depression. This is an important discovery.”

Now he had him right where he wanted him. Jake said, “Right. Will you still be all right without your colleague?”

“Of course,” Tramil said. “Besides, I still have his work. Another biochemist could pick up on that easily enough.”

Someone already knew that, or they wouldn't have killed Professor Stephan Zursk. But here it comes. “That's great, Tramil. However, what if we all crash tonight and die in this vehicle? Should only one person be trusted with this important discovery?” He checked out the man for response. From his reaction, he had thought of it. But perhaps the reality hadn't set in until just now. He wanted to get this off his chest to someone. And who better than to a former CIA officer and a respected US congresswoman? Two people with the highest security clearance in the country.

The professor looked down at his right shoe and then removed it. With great difficulty he pried open the heel and removed something, holding it up for Jake and Lori to view. “It's been with me the whole time,” Tramil said.

Jesus, Jake thought. “That's good to know. I'm guessing you've made copies.”

Tramil shook his head and pointed to his skull. “Only up here.”

“All right. Now we know what we're dealing with. We need to get you somewhere safe, make a copy of your work, and store it in a secure location.”

Now Jake did his best to not screw around with the snowy roads. He couldn't let his scenario come true, killing this man's dream. That's what the practical Jake kept telling himself. The realist within him said he should take the scientist out into the mountains, shoot him, and bury him in a shallow grave. He wasn't sure if this discovery would render nuclear weapons obsolete, or just make it more likely that politicians would actually use the weapons at some time in the near future. And it could save the government billions of dollars with no need for forward deployment of troops. A moral quandary, Jake thought.

The two men had traveled all day from Washington DC to Montana, touching down at Glacier Park International Airport in Kalispell just before midnight in a lull from the snow squalls earlier in the evening. From there they had rented a huge black Chevy Suburban and driven north to Whitefish, noticed the road block on the southbound lane, and found the rural farmhouse around one a.m.

Neither of them had guns. Those would be provided by their comrade who was babysitting the scientist. Problem was, they had tried to call their friend after landing and he wasn't answering his cell.

Now they sat out front of the farmhouse, their lights on and engine running, a light snow falling across their path. Both of them were prepared for this cold weather, both from their upbringing in Eastern Europe, and from the weather reports they had read before departing.

The driver grasped the steering wheel with his leather gloves. He had taken off his black watch cap, exposing his completely bald head. He didn't shave it. He had started losing his hair in his early twenties and in twenty years it was all gone for good.

The passenger, on the other hand, had a full head of thick, black hair, and it flowed out from his watch cap nearly to his shoulders. Most guessed he grew it long to cover up the scar on the left side of his face that ran from his forehead to below his left ear, the result of a car accident in his youth after too much drinking.

“What do you think, Alex?” the driver asked.

The long-haired passenger shook his head. “I don't know. Try calling him again, Danko. I don't want that idiot shooting us thinking we're someone else. Like he did with that scientist in Oregon.”

Danko did as he was told, but flipped his phone shut after four or five rings. “Still no answer.”

“I don't like this,” Alex said. “Call Milena.”

“It's the middle of the night in Washington,” Danko said.

Alex checked his watch. “So what. We are awake, she can be awake. We need her to check the tracker.”

Danko punched in her number from memory and waited.

“Put her on speaker,” Alex demanded.

After a few rings, a woman's voice came from the phone, “This better be good, Danko,” Milena said.

Alex pulled his friend's hand closer to him. “It is important.”

“Sorry, Alex. I thought it was Danko.”

“You have us both on speaker phone,” Alex said. “Check the tracker.”

“Certainly.” The sounds of a computer clicking came through the speaker. “Where are you?”

“Not our position,” Alex yelled and shook his head. “The tracker for Jake Adams.”

“I know that, Alex. I was just saying. . .never mind. Okay, I have the two of you in Montana at Bogdan's last location with the scientist.” She hesitated and then said, “I have Mister Adams traveling at about sixty miles an hour east of Spokane, Washington. Wait.” She clicked on her computer again. “There are no roads there. They must be on a train.”

Alex let loose a string of swear words in his native tongue. “All right,” he finally said. “Find out the train, where it stops again, and check the passenger list for Jake Adams.”

Milena cleared her throat. “That might be difficult. I will try. But would he travel with his own name?”

She had a point. “Do what you can. Keep track of the location and let us know if it deviates from the train tracks.”

“Will do.”

They clicked off.

“Now what?” Danko asked.

“Now we go see what that idiot Bogdan has done.” Alex reached inside his jacket to where is gun normally sat, but it wasn't there. He knew this could be a trap, yet he had no choice but to go inside the farmhouse. Defiant and unreasonably confident, he got out into the cold mountain air, the light breeze throwing snow into his face.

As he got to the front door, his partner Danko had caught up with him.

“You want me to go around back?” Danko asked.

“No.” He checked the front door. It was unlocked, so they simply walked inside and Alex shifted his eyes around the room. Lying on the floor near the entrance to the kitchen was their junior associate, Bogdan, blood crusted out from his thigh and soaked into a dried pool beneath him. The air had already started to smell of death, with blood iron, gun powder and human excrement wrapped up into one fragrance.