Predator One (48 page)

“Stolen the day before from a private EMT service in Rancho Santa Fe. It was actually reported missing, too. The GPS tracker and security lockout systems were hacked and disabled. Plates were swap-outs stolen from another ambulance company in Solana Beach. Very professional.”

“What about the NachoCopter. Anything there?”

“Kind of. We figured out what happened, but
that doesn’t get us very far,” said Nikki sadly. “The UAV left with the food order, and everything was normal for the first four minutes of the flight. Then it landed on a rooftop of a one-story gas station that’s been closed for three years. We think that someone hacked into the GPS controls and forced the machine to land so they could plant the disease pathogen in the food. It was done fast, though,
and the drone was on its way in under three minutes.”

“Anyone see who was on that roof?”

“We have one vague description of a quote ‘guy with a San Diego Padres cap and a dark colored T-shirt. Maybe jeans. Maybe the guy was white. Maybe he was black. Maybe he was Latino.’ Unquote. The witness wasn’t looking and didn’t much care. Old retired guy on his porch.”

“I used to like you, Nikki. But
you’re about to fall off my Christmas-card list.”

“Doing the best I can with what you give me, Cowboy.”

“We anywhere with the drone itself?”

“No. Doctor Hu’s team pulled it apart. Everything. It’s standard. No QC drive. But it does have the commercial version of SafeZone, so there’s that. Yoda’s looking for a Trojan horse with a virus, but none of the MindReader scans are pinging anything.
Bottom line is the drone was hacked with software that, right now, anyone and their grandmother seems to have access to. SafeZone’s everywhere. There are ten versions of it at BestBuy. Any kid in eighth-grade computer-science class could install it.”

“Balls.”

“The hard part wasn’t the UAV,” she continued. “The hard part was that NF disease. I spoke with Hu half an hour ago, and he’s been working
with John Cmar down at Johns Hopkins and a few other top infectious-disease docs. So far, they’re all impressed, but none of them know who cooked it up.”

“No clue at all?”

“Well…” Nikki said diffidently. “Doctor Cmar said it reminds him of something he heard about from a World Health Organization conference ten years ago. A lab in Angola was trying to do something with necrotizing fasciitis,
but Barrier shut them down. Supposedly all materials, records, and samples were destroyed. MindReader verified this, and there’s nothing else we can find about anyone else trying to develop something along the same lines.”

“Another dead end.”

Rudy cut in, “Nikki, can you get us a list of everyone who attended that conference? Maybe someone there might have ties to the Kings.”

“Um … sure. No
problem.”

She signed off.

We left the hospital and piled into Ugly Betty. A sore, heartsick, and angry Brian Botley was with us. However, Bunny hadn’t even started the engine when Nikki called back.

“Joe, oh my God, Joe! I think we caught a break. I think we have something big.”

“Talk to me.”

“Do you remember the code name Doctor Detroit?”

I stiffened. “Yes, I do.”

“I … I think he just
called the CIA.”

Everyone in the car froze.

Doctor Detroit.

Yeah, we all knew that code name. It was the name assigned by DARPA.

It was the name of a man every law enforcement agency in the world looked for.

Doctor Detroit.

Otherwise known as Doctor Aaron Davidovich.

Chapter One Hundred and Ten

In Flight

April 1, 9:11
A.M.
Pacific Standard Time

We burned a long patch of rubber heading back to the Coast Guard air station. Instead of taking
Shirley,
we hopped aboard a muscular C-130 Hercules that had been arranged for us by Church. That allowed us to take Ugly Betty with us as we flew north to Washington State. The five of us—Top, Bunny, Brian, Ghost,
and I—loaded Ugly Betty aboard, and we were wheels up in minutes. I had Montana drive to the airfield to bring Rudy back to San Diego. She wanted to come with us, but I told her I needed the rest of Echo to secure the hospital. The Kings were coming after us from all angles, and Nicodemus had already proved that they could get past the hospital security. She didn’t like it, but from the look in her
eye I knew she’d take her frustrations out on any Kingsmen who had the bad luck to show up.

Our flight plan was straight as an arrow, and we were riding an executive order. It’s about eleven hundred miles, runway to runway, and I told the pilot to push it all the way to the red line. He didn’t like it, but he did it.

Once we were airborne, I played the message from Doctor Aaron Davidovich the
CIA had passed along to us.

“
…
not sure if this is the right number. Been a long time since I had to use it. First chance I’ve had to get near an untapped phone. Please, I need you to pass this along to the Department of Military Sciences. They’ve dealt with this before. No one else. Please, no one else. Don’t try to figure out a better way. Trust me, nothing you do other than to contact Mr.
Church’s people will work. Tell them this is Doctor Detroit. That’s not a joke. It’s a code name. This is not a hoax. Tell them Doctor Detroit is alive and he needs help
.
”

The CIA handler had tried to stem the flow of words and hold an actual conversation with Davidovich, but the scientist was in full-blown panic mode. His words tumbled over each other in a nearly unbroken flow that floated near
the high-water mark of hysteria.

“Is that his voice?” asked Brian. “This was all before my time.”

“It’s him,” said Top. “No doubt about it. That whiny rich-boy voice? The contempt for lesser beings? Yeah, even scared, it’s still there in his voice.”

“Don’t sugarcoat it, Top,” said Bunny.

“Guy’s an asshole. Always was.”

“Yeah, okay, fair enough. Play the rest, Boss.”

I played the rest.

“I am in Washington State. I’m using a stolen phone. I had to kill someone to get it. I stole some money, too, and a pickup truck. I’m going to find a store where I can buy some burners. Track this phone if you know how to do that. I’m not taking it with me, but it will get the DMS into this area. I’ll call again once I find a burner, and then they can come find me. I’ll call this same number
.
”

“
Doctor, tell me where you are
,” said the CIA handler. “
We can—
”

“You can’t do shit. You guys were supposed to be protecting me in Israel, and look what happened. The Seven Kings came in and took me anyway. Fuck you. I want the DMS. I want Colonel Riggs or Captain Ledger
.
”

“Doesn’t know Riggs is dead,” said Bunny. “He’s been out of touch.”

The CIA handler kept trying to work his way into the
scientist’s confidence.
“Doctor, believe me, we can keep you safe. Let us know where to find you and
—
”

“Hey, moron, are you listening to me?”
snapped Davidovich.
“I’m not telling you squat. I’ll tell the DMS where I am. For now, all I want you clowns to do is track this phone. I’m not going to give any specific locations. You have to track me, and you have to get in touch with the DMS. Use the
GPX-11 cellular satellite system and triangulate my call between that and ground cell towers. Even you should be able to find where I’m leaving this phone.”

The handler tried, but there was no more from Davidovich. After a few minutes, it was clear the scientist had simply abandoned the phone without hanging it up.

I called the CIA handler and grilled him pretty thoroughly. Even with an executive
order, he was reluctant to turn over the case. I insisted. I’m good at insisting. I also had Nikki take control of the number Davidovich had used, and now it was routed directly to us, closing the Agency out completely. There would probably be a sternly written memo. Fine. I can always use fresh toilet paper.

The GPX-11 satellite Davidovich mentioned was another DARPA Tinkertoy. Specifically
for ultrafast tracking of cell phones. Davidovich was using burners, though, and that complicated things. Burners were cheap, disposable cell phones that came preloaded with minutes. No plan or contract needed. They are the go-to phone for everyone from drug dealers to global terrorists. Very efficient, but a bitch to trace. I told Nikki to do her best.

I called Church and went over it with him,
but he had nothing new to add to my game plan because the plan was simple. Get to Washington and wait for Davidovich to call again. Church took my call while aboard his own plane, which was about to touch down in LA, where he would transfer to Air Force One.

“How’s the political shitstorm?” I asked.

“Raging,” said Church, and he disconnected.

Our plane was nearly to the airfield in Seattle
when Nikki called me.

“Cowboy, we have Doctor Detroit on the line again. New number. A burner. Routing it to you now.”

“I’m in a stolen pickup, heading north toward Seattle,” said a familiar voice. “Did you idiots get in touch with the DMS yet?”

“Doctor,” I said, “this
is
the DMS. We are attempting to locate you now.”

“Who is this?” Davidovich demanded.

“We don’t use names on an open line,”
I reminded him.

“Christ, is this Joe Ledger? Holy fuck, it is you.”

“Nice use of protocol, doc,” I said. “Proves you’re smart. Now be smarter and tell me where you are.”

“Oh, bite me, Ledger. Like I give a shit about protocol? Where was the protocol when I was taken and—?”

“Really, doc? Now’s the time for that conversation? How about you tell me where you are so me and a whole bunch of very
scary guys with guns can come and rescue you? Sound like a plan?”

“All right, all right. Let me see. There’s a road sign up ahead. I’m on Route Five, heading north. Just saw a sign for Edgewood.”

Bunny had a map out and said, “West of Tacoma. Route Five turns north and runs all the way up. We’re less than an hour from him.”

“Doc,” I said, “we can get to you in less than an hour.”

“Oh … wait,”
said Davidovich.

“What’s wrong?”

“That SUV behind me. I’ve seen it before. A couple of times now. God. I think they found me.”

“Keep driving,” I ordered. “Don’t stop for anyone. Run red lights if you have to, but don’t take any unnecessary risks. We’re going to find you, and we will keep you safe.”

“Listen, Ledger,” he said, “you don’t know what’s happening. You may think you do, but you don’t,
and you need to. Those maniacs on the island are totally batshit crazy. I’m not joking. I can help you stop what’s coming. But you have to help me first. You need to get me out of this, you understand? And you need to get people to my son. You need to protect Matthew.”

“We can do that, but—”

“No. You do that right now. You make sure he’s safe. My mother, too. I’m not going to tell you a thing
until you can prove to me they’re safe. What’s the expression? Proof of life? Get them into protective custody, and then I will tell you everything. Screw it up, and this whole world is going to catch fire and burn. Think I’m joking?”

Top signaled to me that he was on it, and I heard him speaking to someone at the tactical operations center in Brooklyn.

“No, doc,” I said, “I really don’t think
you’re joking. Neither am I. We’re sending teams right now to take your family into protective custody. My people, not the FBI or anyone else. I know you trust us. We’ll protect them, but we don’t have time to play games here. People are dying. Tell me what’s going on and—”

That’s where the call ended. There was no sound, no gunshot or anything. Just a drop-off.

The call was gone.

Chapter One Hundred and Eleven

In Flight

April 1, 9:58
A.M.
Pacific Standard Time

“Jesus jumped-up Christ in a motor-driven sidecar,” I snarled as I jabbed my earbud for a line to the Hangar. “Nikki, please tell me you tracked that call.”

“No, there wasn’t time. We’re working on it.”

Then she was gone.

“What happened to Davidovich?” asked Brian. “He playing games with us?”

“There’s a
game,” I said, “but he’s not running it.”

Bunny nodded. “The Kingsmen could have tracked his call, too. If he just escaped from them, they’re closer. They might even have a tracker on him. Don’t know. But maybe they worked a car stop or ran him off the road.”

“You mean killed him?” asked Brian.

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. We lost the call, but it doesn’t mean he’s dead.”

“Hope your angels
are listening to you, Boss,” said Brian, “because we could use a damn break right about now.”

While we waited for more, I made calls to scramble Odin and Java Teams out of Seattle and told them to get onto the road heading south in unmarked cars.

The Hercules pilot bing-bonged to tell us we were on final approach.

“If Davidovich is still on Route Five,” I said, tapping the route on the map,
“then we might be able to catch him between us and the Seattle teams.”

“We don’t know how many Kingsmen are out there,” said Bunny.

“I don’t fucking care,” I said. “There won’t be enough.”

“Hooah,” he said, and bumped fists with Brian. They seemed happy about the likelihood of an impending firefight.

Top ended his call. “Okay, Cap’n, we’ve got three four-man teams on pickup duty. Wife, mother,
and son. Local law’s running backup. Cars and helos. Anyone looks funny at the doc’s family, they’re going to get their dicks handed to them in Ziploc bags. All three will be taken to a secure location for assessment and then flown to the Pier.”

“Outstanding,” I said.

Suddenly Nikki was shouting in my ear. “Cowboy, he’s back. He’s on the line.”

“Christ, kid, put him through.”

Just as the wheels
thumped down, there was a click, and suddenly I heard the nasal voice of Aaron Davidovich in my ear.