The Fall (39 page)

He inspected the metallic surface of the rear door, making his decision.

“Now,” he whispered into his throat mike, and a moment later one of his men, almost six-five and weighing close to three hundred pounds of solid muscle, removed the battering ram strapped across his back, clutched it in both hands, and swung it back once, his neck muscles pulsating as he shoved it with all his strength right into the center of the door, just above the lock while also stepping in the direction of the blow to increase the momentum.

The heavy door creaked and caved in, but it didn't open.

“Again,” he whispered, getting behind him as he swung it once more, delivering a second strike, ripping the door off its hinges, and sending it crashing into a hallway.

“Move, move, move!” he whispered, leading the charge, rushing across the hallway and into a deserted living room, his M4 up near his face, his goggles peering through the sights into every corner, looking for movement, for any sign of occupancy, his shooting finger poised over the trigger, the adrenaline heightening his senses.

But a moment later those same senses told him something was seriously wrong.

“Check the bedrooms,” he ordered, going into the kitchen, staring at the dirty dishes in the sink and the empty pizza boxes on the counter, opening the refrigerator and noticing the cans of Red Bull and Budweiser Light.

“Bedrooms clear,” one of his men reported.

He checked the front room again, looking under sofas, behind curtains, going into the utility room and then the garage, noticing it was empty. No bikes. No cars.

Not a fucking thing.

Slowly, Davis lowered his weapon and returned to the living room, confused. The tip had reached him just twenty minutes ago. He had literally accomplished nothing short of a minor miracle by deploying a team in such short notice, running a textbook operation.

Except the intelligence had arrived too late. The house was empty.

And as he stood in the middle of a living room he knew had just been abandoned, he had the strangest feeling that—

Davis turned around, hearing a faint mechanical noise, looking up to the far corner in the living room, near the foyer, where the walls met the ceiling.

A security camera.

And it was moving, following him.

For the love of …

Davis paused in front of it, making sure the bastards at the other end got a good look at his dark figure, before giving them the finger, aiming his M4, and firing once.

*   *   *

“Whoa,” said Art-Z, blinking at his tablet computer when the wireless video feed went blank as they hid in the woods to the east of the house. “Not a happy camper, that one.”

“No shit,
amigo,
” said Dago, kneeling next to him in the knee-high shrubbery lining the floor of the forest.

“See, Bonnie. You can't trust The Man even when he's supposed to be on your side.”

Angela frowned while standing behind Art-Z and Dago, also looking at the screen, before shooting Riggs a look that could grind the pine trees surrounding them.

“So much for your fucking safe house.”

The large FBI agent was about to reply when Pete put a hand on his shoulder and slowly shook his head.

Riggs looked away while mumbling, “Oh, God.”

“It's okay, man,” Pete said. “At least your handler was able to give us a little head start to get the hell out of Dodge.”

“It's not that,” he said. “It's … my family. If Hastings can find us this easily, he can also…”

“Where are they?”

“Atlanta. My handler's moving them to another location. But apparently nothing's beyond Hastings's reach.”

“Wrong,” she said. “His operation relies on the good guys following the rules. He knows how the system works and has created a way to operate within it by taking advantage of the established processes at the FBI, the CIA, and the other agencies. But we're hackers. And he's having a hard time figuring out how to handle us.”

“So, what are you suggesting? Should I go get my family? Maybe hide them somewhere not even the FBI knows?”

Angela regarded the agent while frowning.

“What?” he asked.

“Before I answer your question on what we do next, I have a … delicate question for you.”

Riggs crossed his large arms. “Shoot.”

“Hastings found our hideout. What makes you think he hasn't found your family already?”

He blinked and hesitated, before saying, “I just got word that they're safe … just got moved to another location.”

“Word from whom?”

“My handler.”

“This is the same handler who told you we were safe in there?” She pointed at the house beyond the woods.

He looked away. “So what are you saying? That I forget about them?”

“Of course not. I agree with your thought to get them off the system, like we did with Olivia's daughter. No FBI handlers. No FBI safe houses. And bring them down here, where we have options. I completely believe that if we continue operating this way, Hastings won't find us because he doesn't have any moles planted in our little group, so he's probably pretty frustrated since he's used to getting his own way all the time. I'm just questioning the timing given that we were almost caught. Do you think it is safe to go get them now?”

“I don't have a choice,” he said. “I have to try. The longer I wait, the higher the chances of Hastings finding out the location of their new hideout.”

Angela patted him on the shoulder. She understood of course. Family was family, and Riggs was willing to do whatever it took to ensure their safety just as she had done from the moment Jack vanished off the screens.

“You do what you need to do,” she finally told him. “Just be careful. There's a chance he could be using your family as bait.”

“I know. I will.”

“Then I'm going with you,” Pete said. “In case you need backup.”

Angela looked at both of them, her stomach souring at the thought of them walking right into a trap, but again, she couldn't argue with rescuing family. “Atlanta's a seven-hour drive,” she said. “If you leave now you can be there before noon and be back in the evening.”

Angela watched them drive away, before turning to Dago and Art-Z.

“Ready to turn up the heat?”

*   *   *

She had already anticipated the heat he would be experiencing during a fitting session and had lowered the thermostat to sixty degrees, turning the beachfront into a meat locker.

Jack wore the undergarment plus the battle gear underneath the dry suit before stepping into the one-piece restraining layer, which she zipped up to his neck while Dago sat in the corner, wrapped up in a blanket, his massive hands holding a cup of steaming coffee.

“How does it feel?”

He walked around the room, stretching his arms, moving up and down and to the sides, before slowly dropping to a crouch and standing back up.

“I can move in it,” he said. “At least before pressurization. And it's lighter than the OSS. Is it going to hold?”

“It'll do the job,” she said in a reassuring tone. “Plus it's still missing layers and most of the plumbing.”

She made adjustments, took measurements, tucking this and that, working the neck, stiffening the edges that would meet the helmet's base with stainless steel wire, which she looped multiple times around the opening, leaving enough space for Jack's head, before folding the nylon over the wire frame and hand-stitching a seam all around using Nomex thread, careful not to stab him with the curved needle, going over it several times until she felt it was sturdy enough.

She reinforced it with a circle of half-inch-wide nylon lanyard, again hand-stitching it before turning her attention to the sleeves, also getting them ready to accept the Russian gloves.

“All right,” she said, holding a measuring tape and tailor chalk to mark the locations where she would insert the rubber restraint joint mechanisms to help localize air displacement.

Jack knew exactly what she was doing, having been through this more times than he cared to remember. The concept was to place those rubberized structures so that bending one joint, like an elbow or a knee, didn't result in another joint being forced to move due to the air pressure inside the suit.

Angela applied marks to the elbow areas as well as the knees, shoulders, and upper thighs, before also marking the spot across the shoulders where she would fasten perforated metal ribbons to keep the upper section structurally sound to allow Jack freedom of movement during the jump. The ribbons also formed the foundation for the heat shields.

It lasted close to two hours, and Jack was glad to be out of it probably as much as Dago, who had bailed on them and waited out back, sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs watching the waves. Jack joined him after helping Angela lay out the suit on the dining room table.

“Too cold for you, man?”

“Brrr,” the biker replied. “I'm a south Florida guy. Don't get how people live up north.”

“I just reset the thermostat. Should be back to normal in a little while,” Jack said, sitting down next to him.

“I gotta tell you, Jack, these have got to be the most bizarre days of my life. What a mind fuck.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Especially for Angie. She's still in there working on the suit I'll use to leave this world. I don't think she's slept much in the past couple of days.”

Dago crossed his arms. “She did that before, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“After you … died, she spent time down at the shop.”

“I didn't know that.”

The biker kept his gaze on the breaking waves. “Getting her hands dirty somehow helped her process her loss. She would work for days on end overhauling engines, rebuilding transmissions, welding frames—doing anything to keep from thinking about you.”

Jack stared at him.

“And I'm afraid she's doing it again in there. She's already began her mourning process … even before you leave.”

“Yeah. Assuming I
can
leave. We still need to get that solar antenna from Pete,” he said, before pointing a finger at the sky. “Plus find a way to get me back up there.”

Jack headed back inside after a while and helped Angela cut the aluminized Mylar panels, deciding that three layers should be enough insulation buffer from the outer layer of flexible insulation material. As expected, the latter was the hardest to manage because it was so bulky, but together they marked it and cut it, before stressing the sewing machine during stitching.

By mid-afternoon the suit had all of the layers it would need, and it was time for another fitting, which ran Dago out of the house.

Jack got dressed layer after layer, doing it by himself, starting with the undergarment and the battle dress, followed by the dry suit, the restraining layer, which had the Mylar layered over its surface, and finally the outer shell.

“What do you think?” she asked.

Again, Jack walked around, feeling the weight, deciding that he could still manage by himself. The suit was certainly bulkier than the OSS, and that was before pressurization. But he gave her a thumbs-up.

Angela helped him out of it, but told him to keep the liquid-cooled undergarment on.

“Time for a little test,” she said after they took the suit back to the dinner table.

“What kind of test?”

“Stand still, Jack,” she ordered, taking a few minutes to connect a modified aquarium pump to the manifold built into the garment at waist level.

She plugged it in and the pump began to circulate the thermal liquid, which was distributed over four quadrants, two symmetrically for both the upper and lower body. No active heating would be incorporated into the closed system, but Angela felt that the parasitic heat transfer from Jack's body should be enough to keep his temperature reasonably comfortable as long as the outer layers—especially the Mylar and outer shell—did their jobs.

Temperature control would be critical during the ascent phase, and Angela planned to use a pair of car batteries connected to an inverter to generate the required AC current to drive not just the aquarium pump but also the pressurization and oxygen delivery system.

Once he jumped, however, Jack would be at the mercy of a small oxygen canister to deliver air until he reached normal atmospheric conditions.

“Seems to be working,” she said, walking around Jack to inspect the entire garment. “I don't see any leaks. Circulation looks nominal.”

“Good,” he said.

She unplugged him and he changed back into jeans and a T-shirt.

“Tomorrow I'll work on the plumbing,” she said, returning to the table and taking more measurements. “While you and Dago fetch me the last components.”

Jack nodded, grabbed two beers, and headed back outside.

“Here you go,” he said, handing one to the biker, still staring at the ocean.

“Thanks, Jack,” he replied, tipping it toward him before sitting down.

They drank in silence, listening to the sea, the evening breeze whistling.

Jack gazed into the dark horizon, letting his eyes get used to the darkness, like he did in his SEAL days, scanning the ocean beyond the breaking waves, remembering the training at Coronado, the insertions, the missions, the—

Dago stood, walking up to the short railing. “It's peaceful out here,” he said.

But Jack had stopped listening, his eyes trying to focus on a shadow just beyond the break and the silvery surf.

Squinting, he leaned forward, staring at it through the bottom of the railing, catching the sudden glint of glass flashing from the middle of the shadow.

“Dago! Get down!”

But the large biker didn't, his hands gripping the top of the railing as he jerked, a circle of blood forming on the back of his denim vest by his left shoulder.