The Siren Project (33 page)

Lamar, flanked by a group of FBI agents,
came running from the command vehicle. “We got a report of a gun!”

“Can we go now?” The sound engineer
demanded irritably.

The first agent nodded, holstering his
weapon, then gave a quick report to Lamar, who turned toward Mitch with
suppressed anger. “Damn it, Mitchell! I told you, no cowboy bullshit!”

“They weren’t checking the cases. They were
walking them in through the front door”

“The FBI went over them at the end of the
street,” the audio technician snapped, scowling at Mitch in disgust, “Before
they even let us in here.” The technicians finished locking the cases and
hurried off toward the entrance.

Lamar stepped close to Mitch. “Do you know
how much heat I could get over letting you in here with a gun?”

“It could have been a bomb.”

“Yeah, and it could have been a sack of
potatoes! But it wasn’t, was it? It so happens, a short inside the convention center
blew the PA system this morning and they’ve been searching all over town for
replacements. But as you’re not part of the security team, you wouldn’t know
that, now would you?”

Mitch nodded, realizing he'd made a mistake.
“I guess I’m a little jumpy.”

“Give me your piece.”

“If there’s something–”

“You give me the piece, or you take a ride
down to the watchhouse, and this time, no fake email crap is going to get you
released.”

Reluctantly, Mitch placed his gun in
Lamar’s hands.

Lamar pocketed the weapon. “Stay out my
face, Mitchell. Your credibility with me is in the toilet.” He turned and
stormed back to his command center while the FBI agents dispersed around them.

“That could have gone better,” Christa
said.

“Yeah, I could've shot the sound guy!”
Mitch said bitterly.

The two way radio crackled to life with Gunter’s
voice. “Mitch, you receiving?”

“Go ahead,” he said, lifting the two way to
his lips.

“We are on the southern side. Nothing so
far. People everywhere. This is a hopeless security situation.”

“That’s an understatement,” Mitch muttered
without sending, then transmitted, “We’re going to swing back past the
entrance. Meet you at the western corner.” He gave Gunter the FBI frequency in
case he needed to call Lamar directly, then slid the radio back into his
pocket. They started back along the street toward the entrance. “I hate
situations like this. I used to get stuck with them on protection duty. Fool
politicians walking around with targets tattooed on their heads saying ‘shoot
me’.”

“Relax. The FBI know what they’re doing.”

“Do they? Then why the hell are all these
vehicles here? All these people?”

“It’s the nature of the beast,” she replied
as she hooked her hand into the crook of his arm.

Mitch continued to study the faces and
vehicles all around them with suspicion as they approached the entrance to the
convention center. “How about them?” he asked, indicating the red jacketed
convention security men at the entrance checking everyone who entered with hand
held metal detectors.

Christa sighed, feeling it was pointless
but nevertheless concentrated on the first security man. She fell silent as her
focus sharpened, then she gripped Mitch’s arm. “Yes! Him!”

“How about the other one?”

She studied the other security guard as he
ran a metal detector over a visitor’s pockets. “Yes. Both of them!”

Two more guards came through the convention
center doors. One began speaking to the two guards on duty while the other
stood silently by.

“What about the two new guys?”

Christa took a slow breath and
concentrated. “The guy talking is.” She changed her concentration to the other
man. “The fourth one isn’t. He’s okay.”

Mitch guided them slowly across the street,
behind a news van. When they were out of sight of the security guards, he
switched on his radio. “Gunter?”

“We are here, waiting for you,” Gunter’s
voice crackled back.

“It’s the convention security guards. Christa's
confirmed three are conditioned. Could be more.” He pocketed the radio, wishing
Lamar had not confiscated his gun. “This is beating the odds. No way they can
condition so many without frying enough people to give the game away.”

“Remember what McNamara said in the car? They
can test alpha waves to identify who is susceptible.”

Mitch changed frequencies and called the
FBI command vehicle. “Lamar, you said the convention security had been
thoroughly tested. What kind of testing? Who did it?”

“How the hell do I know?”

“Find out. The convention security guards
are compromised. They’re part of it.”

“How do you know?”

“It’ll take too long to explain, but it’s them.
Have your people arrest them. Arrest them all.”

“I can’t go in there and arrest forty or
fifty security guards. They can’t all be in on this.”

“Check how they were tested. If there was a
brain test using something called alpha waves, then all of them are part of it.
They were hired because of their alpha wave patterns.”

“Alpha waves? What the hell are talking
about?”

“Just do it, Lamar. Find out. You want
proof, this is it!”

“Okay Mitchell, alpha waves, but if this is
another wild goose chase -”

“It isn’t.”

Lamar grunted unconvinced and switched off.

Mitch stepped back around the news van to
take another look at the entrance. The third security officer finished giving
instructions to the two men on door duty, then hurried down the stairs with the
unconditioned guard toward the rear of the convention center. The conditioned
security officer glanced behind him, checking they were not being followed,
while the fourth followed apparently unconcerned at being seen.

Mitch raised the two way radio to his lips.
“G, there’s two security guards heading south around the building, one
conditioned, one not. Tail them, but keep your distance.”

“Affirmative.”

“Come on,” Mitch said to Christa as he
started after the two guards.

The two convention security officers disappeared
into a cross street, while Mitch and Christa hurried to the corner. The cross
street was almost as crowded as the main road, but the security officers were
nowhere to be seen. Gunter and Mouse appeared out of the crowd and joined them.

“Did you see them?” Mitch asked.

“Plenty of FBI guys hanging around, no
convention security guards,” Mouse said.

“They’re either in one of those vehicles,
or down that side street over there. Gunter, you and Mouse keep an eye on those
trucks. Christa and I will take a look in the side street.”

The side street’s entrance was blocked by a
barricade, although there was no FBI agent on duty. Parked thirty feet down the
narrow street was a large white eighteen wheel semi, with guards at either end.
A thick, orange, insulated cable joined the prime mover to a smaller truck,
which hummed furiously with the sound of a generator at full power. One of the
guards standing outside the white truck saw Mitch watching them. Mitch turned
away, then arm in arm with Christa, casually crossed the side street.

“Could you make either of the guards?”

“Neither of them are conditioned.”

They had almost passed out of sight of the
side street when Mitch felt Christa’s legs buckle under her. He caught her,
taking her weight until they were out of sight of the alley, then she slumped
into his arms. “What is it?”

She rubbed her forehead weakly. “Something
hit me.”

“Like before, from the chopper? That energy
weapon?”

“No . . . different, very different.” She
pushed him back, dropped to her knees and retched.

Mitch raised the two way radio to his lips.
“Gunter, I need you here, now.”

He knelt beside her, putting his arm across
her shoulder while she heaved again, then broke into spasmodic coughing. He
produced his handkerchief and wiped her nose and mouth. While Christa recovered,
Mitch noticed a thick black cable stretching across the road, from the side
street. It ran back past the FBI barricade to the prime mover, and ahead to a
TV news truck with a large satellite dish mounted on the roof. There was
another guard standing outside the satellite truck, but he was watching the
activity down the street and hadn’t noticed them. Christa indicated her wave of
nausea had passed, so he helped her to her feet.

He noticed her eyes had dilated. “What happened?”

“It was like a knife. It hit me so suddenly
I thought my head was going to explode.”

“Could you tell where it came from?”

“The big truck back there. There’s
something in it.” Her face had turned a sickly green.

Mitch glanced behind them, but no one was
coming. “They’re not after us. Maybe they weren’t aiming at us.”

She took a deep breath. “Then I hope they
never do.”

When Gunter and Mouse appeared beside them,
Mitch indicated the side street. “There’s a truck down there putting out
something that knocked Christa off her feet. It’s outside the FBI cordon and
the FBI people watching the back door are missing.”

“Could they be conditioned?” Gunter asked.

“That or dead,” Mitch replied. “No way that
alley would not be watched. And there’s something in that news truck, but only
one guard.”

“ . . . On the outside,” Mouse cautioned.

Mitch released his hold on Christa, and
turned his attention towards the satellite truck. “They won't be expecting this.”

“Expecting what?” Mouse asked
uncomfortably.

Mitch smiled, then strolled casually toward
the satellite truck. He stepped onto the road where the solitary guard stood. “Excuse
me.”

The guard turned to look at him. “Yeah?”

“Is there an ex-NSA asshole by the name of
McNamara hiding in there?”

“Huh?”

“Nah, I didn’t think so.” Mitch nailed the
guard’s chin with a punch that drove him back against the side of the satellite
truck. The guard reached for his gun, but Mitch rushed forward, pinning the weapon
as he slammed the guard's head against the metal skin of the truck. As the
guard sank to the ground unconscious, he relieved him of his weapon, then gave
the others a concerned look. “How did he get this gun inside the cordon?”

“They've penetrated the FBI!” Mouse
concluded.

“Not Lamar,” Mitch said. “Someone on his
team.”

Mitch opened the truck's rear door and jumped
in, holding the captured gun level. A man sitting at a control panel looked up
surprised, then reached for a button on the console. Mitch caught the man’s
hand over the alarm button, as he clubbed his head with the gun. The operator
slumped forward unconscious, then Mitch pushed him onto the floor. Behind him,
Mouse and Gunter hauled the first guard into the control room and dumped him
beside the sleeping operator. Christa climbed in last, pulling the door shut
behind her.

Positioned above the console were four
screens, three of them were relays feeding information to and from the semi. The
fourth screen displayed information for aligning the dish antenna with a
communications satellite in geostationary orbit. It was the three feed screens
that caught their attention, displaying three green luminous perspectives of a
human brain with crosshairs moving rapidly from one point to another. Where the
crosshairs met, a small pinpoint of light glowed for a fraction of a second,
then the targeting reticules moved to new coordinates. The retargeting occurred
so rapidly that at times the reticules blurred.

“That’s how they do it!” Mitch exclaimed. “The
damn thing is mobile! It’s in the truck!”

“And it is highly automated,” Gunter added,
judging the speed of the retargeting process.

“At least we know what happened to the
unconditioned security guard,” Mitch noted dryly.

“We’ve got to do something!” Christa said. “Get
him out of there.”

“It’s too late.”

“They’ve only just started!” she said.

“At that rate,” Gunter said, “It will be
all over before we could get in there.”

“If we could get in there,” Mouse
corrected.

“Ya, and even if we could stop it, we do
not know what damage we would do by ending the process prematurely.”

“That’s what hit you, Christa,” Mitch said.
“You must have caught some of the fall off.”

She swallowed, remembering the shattering
pain in her mind as she stared at the glowing translucent green brain in triple
perspective on the screens. The knowledge that a man was being transformed as
they watched made her feel ill again, but for a different reason.

“Let’s get Lamar over here,” Christa said.

“Soon.” Mitch motioned for Mouse to take
the controls.