Predator One (56 page)

“Is Solomon keyed to defend against this
system?” he asked.

Brierly was too long in answering.

“Solomon was built as a can’t-fail system in the event of a hijacking by technologically savvy intruders.”

“How clever. You must be proud.”

Church removed a set of wires and plugged the leads into ports on the terminal. Several lights flicked on along the face of the device he held. The lights were all red.

“Is that good?” asked Brierly.
“Can you access the system?”

Church ignored the question. He pressed a button that caused two thin panels to open like wings from the lower part of his device. As they locked into place, tiny lights switched on to illuminate a holographic touch-screen keyboard. Church peeled away a strip of plastic film and pressed the top end of the device to the bulkhead below the terminal, held it in place
for ten seconds, and then released it. The device stuck fast.

“What is that?” asked Brierly, his breath pluming with frost. “Portable MindReader?”

“Something like that.”

“Will it allow us to bypass Solomon? Or should we wait for—?”

“For what, exactly, Linden?”

“The Kings to make their demands. We can negotiate something with them.”

Church turned and looked at him for a moment. “Linden, do
you grasp what’s happening here?”

“Yes, the Kings have taken over the plane. They probably want to kill POTUS, or hold him hostage for some kind of payoff.”

Church shook his head. “I don’t think it’s that simple.”

“Then what?”

“The Seven Kings have spent a lot of time and money to infect the Regis and Solomon systems. They’ve outsmarted us at every single turn. If this was a grab for money,
they’d have made their first hit on a Monday after opening bell at the market. They didn’t. They hit the park and killed a great hero of the war in Afghanistan while also inflicting an injury on the American people at the launch of our national pastime. Seen together, that looks more like a symbol than an attempt to influence the market. In fact, it’s become harder and harder to connect the chain
of events with any kind of big-ticket swindle.”

“Then what?”

“I think the Kings may have other motivations.”

“Like?”

“Revenge comes to mind,” said Church. “We did considerable damage to their organization. It is entirely possible they built a fail-safe into their infrastructure. Something to throw the last punch. It would be very much like Hugo Vox to do that kind of thing. Even if he loses,
he wins.”

“Wins how? Wanton destruction?”

“Or a historical statement. Perhaps a political one. After all, the last King to be killed was Osama bin Laden.” He nodded to indicate the plane around them. “This would be a very apt statement.”

“How?”

“Because the very first major attack by the Seven Kings was to hijack planes and fly them into the World Trade Center. Into the symbol of American
financial power. And into the Pentagon, the symbol of our military superiority. If the fourth plane had hit its target instead of being forced to crash, it would have hit the White House, the symbol of leadership. Using Solomon is so appropriate.”

“I don’t see how. By killing the president?”

Church sighed. “Where are we headed, Linden?”

“New York.”

“Correct. The Seven Kings have taken control
of Air Force One, turned it into a drone, and aimed it at New York. Would you like to guess what their target is going to be? Now that it’s been rebuilt? Now that it’s a gleaming spike symbolizing how America rises from any defeat? You tell me, Linden. What could the Kings do to strike a more devastating blow than that?”

Brierly said nothing. His mouth hung open.

Church pointed toward the window.
“They blew up the Golden Gate Bridge. Now they’re going to destroy the World Trade Center with Air Force One. From sea to shining sea. And we are all fools for not seeing it soon enough.”

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty

Tanglewood Island

Pierce County, Washington

April 1, 3:44
P.M.

Ghost and I moved along the dock as silently as we knew how. Any noise that rose louder than the rain, and we were dead. Maybe my whole team was dead. There were rows of wooden barrels on shelves and stacks of supplies in metal or plastic tubs. Through the plastic I could see canned fruits in one
tub, boxes of medical gauze in another.

The two sentries were not winning points for alertness or vigilance, which meant I liked them a lot. But they were on an island, inside a boathouse, carrying automatic weapons and wearing microphones. They probably felt safe.

Suddenly I heard a voice and nearly had a fucking heart attack.

“Deacon for Cowboy. Deacon for Cowboy.”

The earbud transmitted
directly into my ear. No one else could hear it, but I froze and became part of the stacked supplies. I think I even adopted a wood-grain pattern on my skin. I was that determined not to be seen.

The guards didn’t turn my way, and after about five seconds my sphincter unclenched, and my heart started beating again. I shifted slowly to my right and ducked down behind a stack of wooden boxes. There
is a trackball stitched into the lining of my pocket, and I used it to activate my Scout glasses. The screen display flicked on and confirmed that the incoming call was indeed from Church. I used the cursor to indicate that I couldn’t make a verbal reply but was able to receive intel. Church began speaking quickly and quietly.

He told me very bad things.

He told me about Air Force One.

He told
me about a bunch of people freezing to death in a drone that was heading for New York.

“Bug thinks he can help me bypass the security and gain access to the cockpit. If that happens, I’ll be able to key in an override. Have you secured the reset codes from the target?”

I tapped the cursor once to indicate that I had not.

Church’s voice was calm. Too controlled, too dry. “We’re running out of
time, Cowboy. You know they can’t let this plane cross into New York airspace. Not near the city. They’ll shoot us down before they let that happen.”

He disconnected the call.

I sat there, stunned. Horrified.

And really goddamn pissed off.

I raised my Sig Sauer and took it in a comfortable grip, left hand cupping the right and supporting the gun, finger laid along the trigger guard. I made
a small clicking sound to tell Ghost to stay back and stay silent. He sat and seemed to turn to stone.

Then I moved forward. Not running, but taking many small steps that allowed me to limit sound, move quickly, and keep the gun rock steady. The guards were looking in the wrong direction, laughing at something one of them said, unaware that I was there.

I opened fire from twenty feet away.

Shot after shot.

Taking them both in the body and then the head. Watching them go down. One of them fell over the edge into the water. The other collapsed like a scarecrow onto the deck. Four shots, two seconds.

Dead.

“Ghost,” I said quietly, and he bounded forward. “Clear.”

He veered off and moved as silent as his name around the dock, looking with keen dog eyes and sniffing with his incredible
dog nose. Then he cut and returned to me. If there had been another man standing somewhere out of sight, Ghost would have taken him.

I slipped my gun into my shoulder rig and squatted down over the dead man, praying that it wasn’t the other one who had the keycard.

I sighed with relief when I found the keycard in his trouser pocket.

Unfortunately, that’s where my hand was when the door behind
me opened.

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-one

UC San Diego Medical Center

200 West Arbor Drive

San Diego, California

April 1, 3:44
P.M.

Lydia Ruiz saw the man first.

Him.

The priest.

For reasons she could never explain to herself, she touched her chest, where, beneath her clothes and body armor, a silver cross hung over her heart. Her mother had given it to her for her first confirmation a million
years ago. Another life ago. She wasn’t even sure she believed in God anymore. Not after the things she’d seen. The things she’d done.

But now the cross and all that it meant to her mother, her aunts, her grandmother, her family seemed to pull at her hand. She touched the shape of it beneath her clothes.

Lydia had never met this man before. Not in the flesh. She’d been on the fringes of DMS
actions involving him, including the thing in Iran with the Red Knights.

The priest smiled at her.

“I’m not armed,” he said.

Lydia’s hand left the cross and drew her gun faster than she had ever done anything in her life. The Glock was in its holster and then it was in her hand and her finger was inside the trigger guard and she was firing.

The priest was forty feet away. At twenty-five feet,
she could put nine rounds into a hole the size of a dime. At fifty, she could kill anything she aimed at. Even at fifty yards, she could put eighty percent of her shots through a six-inch dirty-bird target. She was a superb shot, and she’d killed hostiles with handguns and long guns on five continents.

The priest did not fall.

Did not stagger.

And he did not stop smiling.

When the slide of
her Glock locked back, Lydia dropped the magazine and reached for a fresh one with the smooth fluidity of years of practice, even though her mind was reeling. As she slapped it into place, she heard her own voice reciting a prayer the nuns had drilled into her.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

Nicodemus said, “Amen.”

Behind him, the doors to
the stairwell banged open and a horde of Kingsmen came rushing out.

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-two

Tanglewood Island

Pierce County, Washington

April 1, 3:46
P.M.

There was no time to draw my gun. I wheeled and saw another pair of guards in the doorway. Shift change? Who knows. Two men. Big, startled, armed.

“Ghost,” I said. “Hit!”

He was a blur as he shot past me and leaped high at the first man. Ghost is one hundred and five pounds of muscle and
teeth. All that weight hit the guy in the solar plexus and drove both guys back inside. As I leaped after Ghost, I whipped my rapid-release folding knife from its pocket sheath. It flicked open and snugged into my palm.

Ghost sank his teeth into the first man’s throat, and blood sprayed up and hit the ceiling. I jumped over him, slapped aside the barrel of a machine gun the second guard didn’t
quite have time to raise, and slashed him across the throat. The short, wicked blade took him just below the Adam’s apple and cut a two-inch red trench.

He staggered backward and sank down to his knees, eyes bugging out as he used both hands to try and staunch a flow that could not be stopped. I bashed his hands aside and shin-kicked him in the throat. He flopped backward and down and stopped
moving. I pivoted to see the man beneath Ghost give a final frenzied kick of his legs and then settle back into that terminal stillness that can never be mistaken for sleep. Blood pooled out beneath him, and Ghost raised his head and turned toward me.

When he does a kill there is a little bit of a disconnect from the dog I know and love and the predator that lives inside his heart. I’m sure there
is a similar look in my eyes when I let the killer out to play. So for a moment we stood there, two monsters, linked by the blood we had just spilled.

Then I pulled myself back from the edge and listened to the building around me. For shouts, for alarms. Heard nothing except the slap of water against the pilings outside.

When I was certain that no one was coming, I tapped my earbud for the team
channel.

“Cowboy to Echo. The boathouse is clear. Four hostiles are down. I’m inside the building.”

“Copy that,” replied Top. “Did you get the message from Deacon?”

“Affirmative. Clock is ticking. I’m going for it.”

“Call the play,” said Top.

“Give me five minutes and then kick the doors.”

“Hooah,” he said.

I glanced at Ghost. He was himself again, but I knew the wolf was not far away.

“Let’s go,” I told him, but he was already moving. He’d tasted blood, and he wanted more.

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-three

Air Force One

In Flight

April 1, 3:46
P.M.
Pacific Standard Time

“How’s it coming?” asked Brierly. He was shivering and stamping his feet.

Church knelt with a blanket draped around his shoulders. His fingers were nearly blue, and the tools kept slipping as he gradually lost muscular control to the biting cold.

“Questions aren’t particularly useful
right now,” said Church.

“I need to do something.”

“Then go find me a satellite phone. I don’t care if you have to take it away from the president. I’ve hit a wall here and I need to call in an expert.”

Brierly nodded and backed away, then turned and ran. In the main cabin, the press and the White House staff had clustered together into huddled masses under layers of coats and blankets. The
air inside the jet was subzero and falling. He could hear people weeping. A few were praying.

When he reached the conference room, he saw the president hunched in his chair with the others sitting close. Not quite a communal huddle, but it was getting there. The president wore his blue parka and gloves. A few others had coats, but there weren’t enough on board for everyone.

The president had
the satellite phone to his mouth and was speaking softly, tenderly, soothing someone at the other end. The first lady, no doubt. POTUS looked up as Brierly came over.

“Any luck?”

“Some,” lied Brierly, “but the Deacon needs the sat phone.”