Surveillance (Ghost Targets Book 1) (16 page)

"No...."

"Hathor, coding. Do duplicate stream to Katie's headset using background is true, no input is true. Done."

She heard Rick, then, his familiar bluff voice. He didn't sound cheerful, but he didn't really sound angry, either, as he had when she brought Ghoster in. He sounded...determined. "Reroute to checkpoint delta. Jesus, guys, you should've done that in the first place. Elevators are locked until I get there. If any of you get there first, don't try moving without me."

"What about Katie?" Reed said, and Katie held her breath.

Rick answered right away. "She killed her audio feed, Reed. That was the last straw. She's rogue, and whoever she's with is trouble. You have your orders."

"No!" she shouted. "No, I'm here! Craig, connect me to Rick. Hathor, connect me to Rick!"

It didn't work, Martin's handiwork cutting her off, but she heard Reed speak up. "Dammit, Rick, you need to think this through."

Katie stopped, astonished. Reed?
Reed
 was standing up for her.

Rick's answer was a low growl. "Careful, Reed."

"No, Rick. You're the one who needs to be careful. I don't know what's gotten into you, but you're running way too hot on this. There's no way Katie—"

"She's a mole, Reed."

"She's not a mole! She's not a rogue. She's just a dumbass rookie who didn't know any better, and you're out of line."

"That's it," Rick said, that same calm in his voice. "You're relieved, Reed. Go home. Everyone else, I'm ninety seconds from checkpoint delta. Guns hot."

Katie's eyes snapped toward the elevators, as though he were already there, and she shouted, "No! Martin!"

Martin wasn't paying attention to the audio, or Katie's shouts. As soon as he'd shared the audio with her he had turned away, looking around again with his head swinging wildly. Now he was reading over location details for the building on his handheld. He tapped the screen and said, "Got it." When he looked up, he saw the fear and the fury in Katie's eyes. "What?"

"What? They think I'm rogue!" Katie said. "Just unlock my headset. I can sort this out."

"Can't." Martin shook his head. "He's coming here to kill me. You heard him, Katie. If I gave you voice, he'd maybe tell them not to shoot you, but there's no way in hell you could talk him out of putting a bullet in me."

"I can take you down," she said, and she didn't know if she was floating an idea or threatening, but it didn't matter. "If I have you under control when they come through those doors, if I can report that I've restrained you—"

"Then I go to prison, Katie. For the rest of my life. There's no Hathor record to clear my name. Your word wouldn't matter once a judge saw my doppelgangers roaming the world. I'd be in prison for the rest of my life, and," he stopped and caught her eye to make sure she picked up on his point, "I wouldn't have access to the tools I would need to find Janeane's killer." Before she could argue, he shook his head. "Not for the stuff they'd pin on me. No way in the world they'd give me command access to Hathor."

"So—"

"So we have to get out of here." He pushed himself to his feet. "If we can just get out of this building, I'm gone. I'll reconnect you to Rick, you can arrange a surrender and once they hear your story, you're in the clear. I'll make sure Hathor has the information you would need to clear you. But first we have to get out, and I have an idea." He tapped his handheld again. "If we can trigger a fire alarm, it should let us out."

Rick spoke into their ears, "I'm here," he said, loud and clear, and they both jumped. "Where are you guys?"

"Minutes out."

"Arriving now."

"Driver says six."

Katie and Martin stood frozen for three heartbeats, listening, and then Reed's voice came through, chillingly quiet. "Don't do this, Rick."

Rick grunted in response. "Screw it," he said. "I'm going in. You guys catch up."

Martin's eyes shot wide, then he ran out into the bullpen, rapidly scanning the walls, spinning in circles like a little kid. "Nothing," he said. To Katie, frantic, "Do you have a lighter? No, why would you? That's how they used to do it, though. Lighter under the sprinklers." He stopped, and for a moment she thought he had calmed down, then he started hopping up and down, bouncing on his toes and screaming, "Fire! Fire! Help, fire!" as loud as he could.

She followed him out of the conference room and walked past him. Then she scanned the windows, drew her weapon, and fired three shots through the window directly above her desk. The gunfire thundered in the room and Martin dove to the ground, hands covering his neck and head. The glass shattered, exploding down in a rain of shards, and Katie rushed to the window. She leaned out, and saw the telltale markings of an emergency escape, pinhole-sized jets perforating the building's facade in a horizontal line just below the window. She said, "Craig, deploy emergency escape," but nothing happened. "Building receptionist, deploy emergency escape." Still nothing. She turned to Martin. "Do you think the sensor will work during a lockdown?"

He nodded. "Has to," he said. "This place is not registered as a holding facility, so they'd be breaking so many laws if they deactivated emergency mechanisms for a private—"

"Then we have to jump." He said something, probably in objection, but all she heard was Rick announcing he was in the elevator. For a moment she thought about trying to fight him at the door, to take him down, but she knew she wasn't prepared to fire on him, and from the sound of it he wouldn't even hesitate. She climbed up onto her desk, took a deep breath, and then stepped out through the window.

She fell. The sensors outside her window didn't trigger, or the emergency escape really
was
 locked out, but she plummeted down through the chill, dark night, too terrified to scream. It lasted for just a heartbeat, until she saw the windows of the floor below flash past, and then she landed in a bag that ripped upward to close over her head.

She'd never used an emergency escape before, so the sensation was unexpected and awful. Intense claustrophobia welled up inside her, and she scrabbled against the fine, almost invisible net that held her. It wasn't necessary, though, because the net broke an instant later, dropping her lightly past the windows another floor lower down, where another nanofiber net shot out of the wall to wrap around her. This time she had time to see it deploy, spiderweb threads blasting out of thousands of tiny jets in the wall, out and up and twisting around her as she drew level with the jets, clinging for just long enough to slow her fall before the web tore free of the wall. After that first free fall, the rest of the way wouldn't be nearly as frightening. The nets would pass her along, from one to the next, gently down to the ground.

She had almost calmed herself with the thought, just as the second net released her, when she heard a terrified scream above. She twisted her neck and just had time to recognize Martin plummeting past the floor above before the net below fired. As it twisted up to catch her, some of the fibers spun around Martin, too, but not all of them. She grabbed his wrist with her right arm but her left was already pinned under her in the cocoon, and he was falling too fast. He fell against her hard, slamming her back against the building, and then tore free of her grip just before the net broke underneath her. At the next floor he was the one caught in the net, and she landed with a thud on top of him. This time the net caught them both, and the next was enough to slow them to a safe descent together. The pain and fear in Martin's eyes took a moment to subside, but as the next net broke, he wrapped his arms around her and they fell together the rest of the way to the ground.

As soon as they hit the ground she was on her feet. The net fell away easily, and she hauled Martin to his feet and dragged him down the street, away from the corner that should already be swarming with the rest of Rick's agents. She could hear Rick shouting down at them from above, but couldn't make out the words, and for that she was grateful.

Martin limped along, and she dragged on his arm urging him forward. "Come on," she said. "They're going to know exactly where we are."

"No," he panted, his breath coming ragged. "No, I locked out his headset before I jumped." He pulled free of her grasp and stopped, doubled over with his hands on his knees, gasping for air. "We should have a minute or two."

"That's not a lot of time—"

"I know." He looked up to meet her eyes, and she saw his pain. "I know, Katie, but I'm—"

Her eyes grew wide. "Are you shot? Martin, did he get to you?"

He chuckled, wheezing. "No, Katie. I'm just an old man."

"And you need your freedom for Janeane's justice," she said, taking a step back toward him. "You can do it, Martin. We have to get out of here, or all of that was for nothing."

He nodded, still panting, and then forced himself upright. They ran to the end of the block at a full sprint, then Katie squeezed his hand tight and dragged him out into the street, darting through the traffic. They went another block down, cut across the street again, and then down into the subway, Martin stumbling along behind her all the way.

She pulled him toward the first train at the platform, wanting to put more distance behind them, but he dug in his heels and stopped her. When she turned, ready to urge him on again, she found him looking determined. Before she could say anything, he put a finger to his lips, then looked around and led her toward a back corner. It stank of urine and spoiled trash, but it was darker than the rest of the platform.

"We can't just hide here," she said. "That's the FBI chasing us."

"I know, I know," he said, his voice a whisper barely audible above the noise of the station. "Keep your voice down. There's only so much I can do."

She answered him with a whisper. "What do you mean?"

"I didn't expect any of this. If I'd been prepared...." He shook his head. "None of this had to happen. I'm sorry, Katie."

"He's nuts," she said. "Rick, I mean. He seemed perfectly normal, but when I brought Ghoster in, when he found out you were there—"

"He's very good at what he does." Martin sighed, then shook his head as though to wake himself up. "Katie, this is important. You don't want to meet Rick like this. You've got to shake him, wait for him to cool off. Do you think you can stay off the grid for a couple hours?"

She shook her head, looking blank. She could maybe figure it out, but she'd never even thought about it. Most people worked their whole lives at making sure Hathor had a good solid read on them.

Martin sank back against the wall until it was supporting him. "All you have to do is make him give up running. We may have already done enough. If you can just force him back to his office, he'll think to check his recordings, and he'll know enough to clear you." He took a deep breath, and nodded as if to comfort himself. "Man like that, I guarantee you he has his own recorders running. Wouldn't trust Hathor as his only source."

"That helps," Katie said. "I wouldn't have a clue how to get away if he had all his tools available. I don't even know what they are."

"No, you shouldn't have to do that. I'm assuming he'll check the recording first, because he'll want to know exactly what happened. They're short enough, he should have the patience for that. He might even be doing it right now."

"Good," she said, straightening up. "Then we can go back. Unlock my headset and I'll talk to him. We'll—" She stopped, because Martin was shaking his head. "What?"

"I'm not going near that man." He closed his eyes, and let his head fall back against the wall. "I don't trust him. He's smart, but he can be wild. To turn on you so quickly...." He sighed again. "I'll go home. I don't need FBI software to figure this out. I'll go home and I'll figure out who did this. I'll...I can get in touch with you. Okay? I can be anonymous, and provide you the information you need." He laughed bitterly. "Or Rick, if they pull you off the case. Whatever. That Reed sounded like a good guy." He looked her in the eyes. "I can't go back there, but I'm not going to let this go."

She nodded. "I understand."

"I'm sorry, Katie. This...this is going to be really bad for you. There's no getting around that. We can keep you out of prison, but—"

"I know," she said. "It's okay, I guess. Whatever. We did what we had to do."

"I can take care of you." He hesitated, clearly uncertain. "I can... I have a lot of power inside Hathor. I can—"

"Don't worry about it," she said, faking a bravado she didn't really feel. "I'll figure this out. This isn't the first time I've pissed off my boss." He smiled, relieved, and she clapped him on the shoulder. "Now get out of here."

He nodded, stepped away from the wall, and then his eyes grew wide and he shoved her, hard, both hands to the chest. He caught her so off guard that she fell, and he tumbled down next to her. At the same moment a voice barked from twenty feet away, "Freeze!" and she thought she recognized Phillips from their brief conversation Monday morning. At the same moment, two shots rang out from somewhere behind Phillips, to the left, and ricocheted off the wall Martin had been leaning against a moment earlier.

She heard Phillips curse, and rolled to her feet in time to see him drawing his gun. Behind him, Rick was charging forward from the stairway, looking for a clean shot past Phillips' shoulder.

Martin was on his knees, and she caught his shoulder and hauled him up onto his feet, wrenching her shoulder with the effort. A departure message played over the public address system as a train prepared to leave the platform, and Katie shouted over it, "Come on!" Dragging Martin behind her, she darted headfirst into the crowd. She heard another shot and hated Rick for it.

She fought through a sudden press of panicked people, elbowing and outright shoving others out of the way, with Martin in her wake. She forced her way on to the train seconds before its doors slammed closed. The train jerked into motion, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Suddenly the butt of Rick's gun slammed against the glass window, inches from her head, and spiderwebbed it with bright white cracks. She could see him running along beside, and when she met his eyes, he raised his gun to fire, at full sprint. She ducked out of sight and shouted, "Down!" for the rest of the train as much as for Martin. Rick was wild now. It had been mad for him to take that last shot on the platform.