The Stefan Mendoza Trilogy Boxed Set, page 92
part #1 of Stefan Mendoza Trilogy Series
I finally found a place with a sign on the lawn—dark, empty. Not even two miles out from the warehouse.
I parked in the street out front, popped the trunk, and pulled out two of the drones I’d purchased, then connected to the team back at the house. “Ready.”
The drones spun up, quiet as mosquitos.
From the back seat, Pitsamai said, “Video’s good.”
She pushed it to the dashboard display. The drones were climbing fast, accelerating toward the warehouse. The parking lot was lit, and little shadowy forms moved around in patrol patterns. There was no activity visible at any of the other buildings in the area.
I started the car up again. There was a darkened parking lot halfway between us and the warehouse. I pulled in and parked just outside the security camera coverage.
And waited.
Ichi tugged at her gloves. “It is not personal. That is what you said.”
“It’s not.”
“Then I should go.” She raised her eyebrows. Challenging me to counter the suggestion.
“I don’t want to put you at risk. ”
“We go into the compound together later. Why is that not risk?”
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. “I don’t like last-minute changes.”
“This is not a change. It is an improvement.”
“You can’t clear that security fence. I can.”
She pulled a tube from the small backpack she’d brought with her and unrolled a black piece of rubber the size of a body towel. It would cover the concertina wire along the top and shield her from current. “Is it electrified?”
“We don’t know. They may have all sorts of security in place already.”
“You could trigger security as well as me—is that not so?”
“Yeah.”
A smirk. “Then I will go. Since it is not personal.” She rolled the sheet back up and returned the tube to the backpack, then held out her hand.
I gave her the spare data device. “A window, a door. Anything that gets a good signal inside the building for a few minutes.”
“I have worked with Chan before.” She pulled the chameleon suit up over her tank top, pulled off her shorts, then pulled the hood of the suit over her head.
Despite the backpack and NVGs, she was nearly invisible to the naked eye once she was away from the car. I lost track of her on UV and IR after a couple minutes and switched to tracking her through the signal coming over the drones. She was moving at a good clip. Not what I could manage, and she still wasn’t up to what she could have done a year before, but it was a good clip just the same.
Chan connected to me privately. “Did Ichi go?”
“Yeah. To show everyone it’s not personal.”
“Oh.”
“You ready for this?”
“I…think so.” Not confident. Not like before.
“You’re the best there is, Chan.”
“I—I know. It’s just… ”
“You worried Jacinto’s still around?”
A couple breaths. “No.”
“Then it’s just Stovall. It’s not the same sort of threat, is it?”
“No.” Still anxious.
I needed an easy win. “Any luck finding where they’ve shacked up?”
“I think so. Yeah. There’s no four-star hotel anywhere close by. You said Stovall likes good accommodations.”
“The Russians do, too.”
“Okay. I switched to condos and stuff like that. There’s a place about two miles from here. A nice condo. Rented out a couple days ago. Security cameras went offline. Lots of Grid traffic in the last several hours.”
“Two miles, huh? Can you get one of those RC cars over there?”
“Almost there. Dodging cars.” The first hint of joy.
“If it checks out, tag it. We penetrate the warehouse’s security, we should be able to connect the two sites.”
“Yeah. Leak them both at the same time.”
“Bingo. But we have to be sure. These SunCorps guys don’t mess around. They had a civilian jet shot down. They’re not going to hesitate to wipe that place clean.”
“I—I know.”
Ichi’s signal stopped. She was closing on the fence. After a few seconds, a grainy image came back over our connection: the fence; a tall, lanky man with an assault weapon; people loading dune buggies with gear. Two dune buggies. Bigger than ours but the same low profile. Matte black but with the look of actual radar-dampening coating.
They were readying the recon run. Now.
In the background, two more vehicles. SUVs. Armored.
In the image alone, there were eight people, four of them in charcoal gray jumpsuits, two of those standing away from the others. Special.
I glanced back at Pitsamai; she nodded. I texted Ichi: Recon team. Proceed with caution.
Ichi texted back: Going in .
Her signal headed south, paralleling the western fence, then stopped.
I connected to Danny. “Ichi’s going in. Looks like they’re about to roll a recon team out. You two packed and ready to go?”
Danny mumbled something, then said, “Katy’s working on it. The rib’s really messing with her.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, um, about the whole personal thing? It’s personal for me, too, y’know? I liked Norimitsu, too.”
“Yeah. But it’s not personal. Not just personal. It really is about the money.”
“I—I get it. And I appreciate you keeping us in for a cut.”
“You’ve earned it. We all have.”
“Oh. Chan says the car’s at that condo. It’s what you thought. I guess you called this right all along, huh?”
“We’re creatures of habit, aren’t we?”
“Creatures of habit. Yeah, I guess.”
Ichi’s signal moved again. She was inside the fence now. Danny had dropped one of the drones low enough that I could make out human forms more clearly. Not hers, but the people on patrol. Her signal had her near the southwestern corner of the building.
She sent a text: Going to the roof.
I replied: Caution and speed .
“Danny, tell Chan we’ll have that device in place in a few minutes. I want to know everything that’s running on their personal Grid. What kind of numbers do they have, what kind of gear, when are they hitting the compound. All of it.”
Ichi sent an image: the interior of the building. Open space. Crates. Workstations stacked with computing devices, banks of displays, standing air-conditioning units, a couple chairs—the command center. Another area with more crates—larger—empty, but stuffed with strange packing material. Gear I couldn’t recognize, most of it attached to what looked like powerful computing device arrays. Not something I was familiar with, maybe something EEC had put together specifically for the mission. An assault weapon leaned against a wall, a deluxe coffee brewing machine. Couches covered by blankets. People sleeping beneath them, identities hidden .
Except one was the perfect hair. Stovall.
Danny’s voice in my ear. “Stefan?”
I’d lost track of whatever he’d said. “Yeah? Sorry. What was that? I got distracted.”
“I said Chan’s nodding at me. Everyone remembers the planning session. We were all there. All of that data’s being collected.”
“You still think I’m wrong?”
“No.”
“It sounds like it. Like you resent all of this.”
“I…” He sighed. “Not you. I resent that it’s turned into this, that’s all. Just a bunch of bad decisions coming back to bite me. I wish I’d never become dependent on people like Stovall, I guess.”
“Sure. It’s pretty tough when the mistake you make in life is trusting someone.”
“Yeah.” The sadness in his voice was matched by resolve.
People inside the warehouse compound started moving suddenly, congregating toward the northwest corner of the building.
I texted Ichi: Trouble?
She replied: No. A little.
Some of the guards were running.
I texted: Get out of there.
Nothing. I rolled my window down. I would’ve heard gunfire through the glass. The forms were bunched at the front. It looked like they were watching the roll-up doors. There were floodlights there. A chameleon suit wouldn’t help much if she tried exiting at that point, would it?
An image came through from Ichi: Steel beams and struts. A small window.
Then a text: Only way out .
How small could she get?
Some of the guards moved toward the entries, guns at the ready.
I texted: Hurry .
Caution wasn’t applicable. Something had set them off. A noise? Had one of them seen something ?
The people in jumpsuits climbed into the buggies. Someone ran for the rolling gate.
The recon team was heading out.
I started the engine, connected over the open channel. “Chan, what’s it look like?”
“I…don’t know.” Chan sounded sluggish, distant, the words slurred.
“We need this. Need you focused.”
“I…” Typing, tapping. “See it. Strong signal. Running scripts. Lots of chatter. Military comms.”
The aircraft carrier, the fighter jets outside Mexico’s territorial waters.
The dune buggies sped out of the compound, headed east over the desert, toward the SunCorps compound.
Ichi’s signal was still. The people who’d moved toward the entries were out of sight, somewhere inside the building. From what I’d seen and from Ichi’s image, there weren’t a lot of places to hide.
Chan grumbled softly.
I scanned the outer compound, hoping to see Ichi somewhere. “What’s wrong, Chan?”
“Nothing. Good security, that’s all. Launching some specialized stuff at the military channel.”
Pitsamai whispered from the back seat. “I can help. I think she hasn’t tried one of the more common attack methods.”
Would it rattle Chan if Pitsamai got us in? I muted. “Go ahead.”
Tapping. Typing.
Still no movement from Ichi.
Come on. Come on!
“In!” Chan sounded excited. “Security’s down. Downloading data. Uploading packages. Still hacking military channel.”
Pitsamai looked up from beneath arched brows. Her attack had worked. Chan was having trouble.
“Thank you.” I wanted to be relieved, but there was still—
Ichi’s signal moved. South. Fast. Then west.
She was at the fence. Then moving again. Running .
I put the car into gear and pulled out.
I glanced back at Pitsamai. “We’re heading out as soon as we get Ichi. Can you send the truck out now?”
“On the way.”
It was a struggle to keep below the speed limit. Ichi was sprinting toward us, alone, maybe with people searching for her.
Except there wasn’t anything on the screen to indicate an alarm.
She’d escaped clean.
I slowed. Parked.
She materialized out of the darkness. Smiling mischievously. I opened the door, waited until she was buckled in, then pulled away.
She caught her breath, pulled the NVGs and hood off. “There was a loose wire. Something fell. I made it look like a piece of equipment had slipped.”
“No one saw you?”
“No.” Absolute confidence.
“We’re headed out to the insertion site. They’ve sent their recon team out, so it’s—”
Chan was in my ear. “Stefan?” Urgent.
“Yeah?”
“Their gear? The warehouse group?”
“What about it?”
“They’ve got androids. Two pair. One pair went out with the recon team.”
“Any sign of Jacinto or the snowcrash?”
“No. Stovall’s running one, I think. I don’t know who’s running the other. It’s a lot of data to dig through.”
“All right. Let me know when you’re ready to leak the EEC network.”
“Okay.”
I sped up.
Androids. I hadn’t counted on that. I wasn’t sure there was much we could do to counter them.
I wasn’t sure there was anything we could do to stop them.
Chapter 29
The shakes were coming on hard. Warm wind thrummed through the car’s open windows, letting in warm but fresh air. Traffic was light on the highway, disappearing completely once I turned onto the road that would take us out to the grove. I turned the lights off and used my eyes’ UV. The landscape was peaceful, the organic shapes of cactus and grass in dark hues of green. There weren’t any lights to speak of, and Pitsamai’s stilted breathing told me she wasn’t in favor of the idea.
I asked over my shoulder, “How many vehicles do you think go out this way at night?”
She snorted. “Not many. I bet we’re the first without lights.”
Ichi smiled at that, but the smile quickly faded. “What did Chan say? You seem worried.”
“Nothing. I just thought it would cool down more. We’re going to cook in these chameleon suits. We should’ve brought water.”
She crossed her arms and squinted at me, probably trying to read my expression.
“Androids,” I finally said. “Two of the recon team were androids.”
“Jacinto?”
“No. Chan’s sure it isn’t. There’s a lot of work behind wiping that old AI out—code signatures, some sort of weird memory footprint…things the bots and Trojans and who knows what else would spot and destroy. Once you let someone like Chan inside your system, it’s game over. Jacinto’s dead. I believe that. But I also believe they brought androids with them for a reason. I’m betting Stovall’s running one of them. Chan thinks so. They must have something running the other. Maybe someone else from the Agency. Maybe they had a backup of the twins somewhere.”
Ichi thumbed the hilt of her wakizashi . “It will be hard to kill two at once.”
“Unless we let the SunCorps people do the killing for us.”
That seemed to calm her.
Pitsamai slapped the back of my seat. “Ahead. On the right.”
I saw the rented van on the side of the road. It looked safe, but I drove past and parked a couple hundred feet beyond. I pulled an R60 and shoulder holster from the glove compartment and strapped the holster on. “Stay here.”
The night was silent: no helicopters, no gunfire, no explosions. Always a good sign.
I circled the van and checked the buggy for any sign someone might have touched them.
Nothing.
The restraining straps popped free, and I slid the buggy off the trailer. The motor showed fully charged; the gear was still strapped into place.
SunCorps isn’t infallible.
I connected to Ichi and Pitsamai. “Clear.”
It was going to be a tight squeeze, especially for me. There were two front seats with limited legroom and a smaller back seat between them that would require someone to almost lie flat. Only Ichi would be able to fit in that space. As they approached, I flipped on the interior bulbs, lighting the front a dull amber.
Pitsamai pulled the top of her chameleon suit over her dark T-shirt, then climbed into the driver seat. “How far do we go in this?”
“Not far. Fifteen minutes, tops. I’ll give you the coordinates. There are some rises between us and the compound. Just pilot through your computing device, and we’ll be fine. They’ll give us cover from anything other than a helicopter or drone.”
Ichi grabbed the roll bar and slid into the back seat without complaint.
Pitsamai frowned and slid her NVGs on. I checked the gear one last time, sent the coordinates to her, then got into the passenger seat.
With everyone strapped in, Pitsamai brought the motor to life. It sounded like a small fan set on high, although the frame vibrated with its power. We sped out into the desert.
Sand blasted against the undercarriage, and we quickly discovered that one of the sacrifices made in the design of the low buggy was suspension. Each bounce and twist vibrated through the frame and into us. I felt the strain on the belt straps, and Pitsamai yelped a couple times; Ichi stayed silent.
I caught the glow of the compound in the sky to the east. Somewhere to our south, the EEC team was probably already in position, watching.
I texted Danny: You can bring the rental back to the house and load it up .
He replied: Bringing it back. We’ll park it around back .
Pitsamai slowed as the hill drew closer. The hum of the motor dropped in pitch and volume. She parked the buggy, powered it down, took off her NVGs, and climbed stiffly out. I helped Ichi out without receiving a glare, a sure sign of how draining the trip had been.
Then I unloaded the gear: Danny’s sniper rifle, our electronics and weapons, the foam ball assembly and scuba tank, and another pair of drones. I broke it into two piles—mine and Ichi’s—and bundled them into the black bags.
I set the bags up for easy grabs, all the while straining for any hint of noise besides ours.
The desert was silent.
I crawled around the dune—a rock with some sand on it—with a pair of binoculars and scanned the compound wall: no activity. No flashing lights, no gate door bursting open and unleashing a horde of armored vehicles to hunt us down .
We’d made it as far as I thought we would undetected.
I connected back to Chan while Ichi stretched the kinks out and Pitsamai assembled the rest of her computing gear.
Chan accepted. “You made it?”
“Yeah. There’s a buzz on the connection. Is the signal strength too low?”
Tapping. “No. Something’s on the same frequency.”
“Change frequency. Now.”
I flipped to our second channel, listened.
Chan connected to me. “It’s scrambled. We’re okay.”
“Yeah, except whoever was on that frequency heard the same buzzing we did.” Not a good start. “What’s the status on breaking the Agency’s private Grid?”
“Ready. They had some new encryption, but I found cracks.”
I glanced at Ichi, who was now fully covered by the hood and NVGs again.
She flashed me a thumbs-up.
“Do it, Chan.”
Chan coughed. “There was something, though. You might want to know.”
I parked in the street out front, popped the trunk, and pulled out two of the drones I’d purchased, then connected to the team back at the house. “Ready.”
The drones spun up, quiet as mosquitos.
From the back seat, Pitsamai said, “Video’s good.”
She pushed it to the dashboard display. The drones were climbing fast, accelerating toward the warehouse. The parking lot was lit, and little shadowy forms moved around in patrol patterns. There was no activity visible at any of the other buildings in the area.
I started the car up again. There was a darkened parking lot halfway between us and the warehouse. I pulled in and parked just outside the security camera coverage.
And waited.
Ichi tugged at her gloves. “It is not personal. That is what you said.”
“It’s not.”
“Then I should go.” She raised her eyebrows. Challenging me to counter the suggestion.
“I don’t want to put you at risk. ”
“We go into the compound together later. Why is that not risk?”
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. “I don’t like last-minute changes.”
“This is not a change. It is an improvement.”
“You can’t clear that security fence. I can.”
She pulled a tube from the small backpack she’d brought with her and unrolled a black piece of rubber the size of a body towel. It would cover the concertina wire along the top and shield her from current. “Is it electrified?”
“We don’t know. They may have all sorts of security in place already.”
“You could trigger security as well as me—is that not so?”
“Yeah.”
A smirk. “Then I will go. Since it is not personal.” She rolled the sheet back up and returned the tube to the backpack, then held out her hand.
I gave her the spare data device. “A window, a door. Anything that gets a good signal inside the building for a few minutes.”
“I have worked with Chan before.” She pulled the chameleon suit up over her tank top, pulled off her shorts, then pulled the hood of the suit over her head.
Despite the backpack and NVGs, she was nearly invisible to the naked eye once she was away from the car. I lost track of her on UV and IR after a couple minutes and switched to tracking her through the signal coming over the drones. She was moving at a good clip. Not what I could manage, and she still wasn’t up to what she could have done a year before, but it was a good clip just the same.
Chan connected to me privately. “Did Ichi go?”
“Yeah. To show everyone it’s not personal.”
“Oh.”
“You ready for this?”
“I…think so.” Not confident. Not like before.
“You’re the best there is, Chan.”
“I—I know. It’s just… ”
“You worried Jacinto’s still around?”
A couple breaths. “No.”
“Then it’s just Stovall. It’s not the same sort of threat, is it?”
“No.” Still anxious.
I needed an easy win. “Any luck finding where they’ve shacked up?”
“I think so. Yeah. There’s no four-star hotel anywhere close by. You said Stovall likes good accommodations.”
“The Russians do, too.”
“Okay. I switched to condos and stuff like that. There’s a place about two miles from here. A nice condo. Rented out a couple days ago. Security cameras went offline. Lots of Grid traffic in the last several hours.”
“Two miles, huh? Can you get one of those RC cars over there?”
“Almost there. Dodging cars.” The first hint of joy.
“If it checks out, tag it. We penetrate the warehouse’s security, we should be able to connect the two sites.”
“Yeah. Leak them both at the same time.”
“Bingo. But we have to be sure. These SunCorps guys don’t mess around. They had a civilian jet shot down. They’re not going to hesitate to wipe that place clean.”
“I—I know.”
Ichi’s signal stopped. She was closing on the fence. After a few seconds, a grainy image came back over our connection: the fence; a tall, lanky man with an assault weapon; people loading dune buggies with gear. Two dune buggies. Bigger than ours but the same low profile. Matte black but with the look of actual radar-dampening coating.
They were readying the recon run. Now.
In the background, two more vehicles. SUVs. Armored.
In the image alone, there were eight people, four of them in charcoal gray jumpsuits, two of those standing away from the others. Special.
I glanced back at Pitsamai; she nodded. I texted Ichi: Recon team. Proceed with caution.
Ichi texted back: Going in .
Her signal headed south, paralleling the western fence, then stopped.
I connected to Danny. “Ichi’s going in. Looks like they’re about to roll a recon team out. You two packed and ready to go?”
Danny mumbled something, then said, “Katy’s working on it. The rib’s really messing with her.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, um, about the whole personal thing? It’s personal for me, too, y’know? I liked Norimitsu, too.”
“Yeah. But it’s not personal. Not just personal. It really is about the money.”
“I—I get it. And I appreciate you keeping us in for a cut.”
“You’ve earned it. We all have.”
“Oh. Chan says the car’s at that condo. It’s what you thought. I guess you called this right all along, huh?”
“We’re creatures of habit, aren’t we?”
“Creatures of habit. Yeah, I guess.”
Ichi’s signal moved again. She was inside the fence now. Danny had dropped one of the drones low enough that I could make out human forms more clearly. Not hers, but the people on patrol. Her signal had her near the southwestern corner of the building.
She sent a text: Going to the roof.
I replied: Caution and speed .
“Danny, tell Chan we’ll have that device in place in a few minutes. I want to know everything that’s running on their personal Grid. What kind of numbers do they have, what kind of gear, when are they hitting the compound. All of it.”
Ichi sent an image: the interior of the building. Open space. Crates. Workstations stacked with computing devices, banks of displays, standing air-conditioning units, a couple chairs—the command center. Another area with more crates—larger—empty, but stuffed with strange packing material. Gear I couldn’t recognize, most of it attached to what looked like powerful computing device arrays. Not something I was familiar with, maybe something EEC had put together specifically for the mission. An assault weapon leaned against a wall, a deluxe coffee brewing machine. Couches covered by blankets. People sleeping beneath them, identities hidden .
Except one was the perfect hair. Stovall.
Danny’s voice in my ear. “Stefan?”
I’d lost track of whatever he’d said. “Yeah? Sorry. What was that? I got distracted.”
“I said Chan’s nodding at me. Everyone remembers the planning session. We were all there. All of that data’s being collected.”
“You still think I’m wrong?”
“No.”
“It sounds like it. Like you resent all of this.”
“I…” He sighed. “Not you. I resent that it’s turned into this, that’s all. Just a bunch of bad decisions coming back to bite me. I wish I’d never become dependent on people like Stovall, I guess.”
“Sure. It’s pretty tough when the mistake you make in life is trusting someone.”
“Yeah.” The sadness in his voice was matched by resolve.
People inside the warehouse compound started moving suddenly, congregating toward the northwest corner of the building.
I texted Ichi: Trouble?
She replied: No. A little.
Some of the guards were running.
I texted: Get out of there.
Nothing. I rolled my window down. I would’ve heard gunfire through the glass. The forms were bunched at the front. It looked like they were watching the roll-up doors. There were floodlights there. A chameleon suit wouldn’t help much if she tried exiting at that point, would it?
An image came through from Ichi: Steel beams and struts. A small window.
Then a text: Only way out .
How small could she get?
Some of the guards moved toward the entries, guns at the ready.
I texted: Hurry .
Caution wasn’t applicable. Something had set them off. A noise? Had one of them seen something ?
The people in jumpsuits climbed into the buggies. Someone ran for the rolling gate.
The recon team was heading out.
I started the engine, connected over the open channel. “Chan, what’s it look like?”
“I…don’t know.” Chan sounded sluggish, distant, the words slurred.
“We need this. Need you focused.”
“I…” Typing, tapping. “See it. Strong signal. Running scripts. Lots of chatter. Military comms.”
The aircraft carrier, the fighter jets outside Mexico’s territorial waters.
The dune buggies sped out of the compound, headed east over the desert, toward the SunCorps compound.
Ichi’s signal was still. The people who’d moved toward the entries were out of sight, somewhere inside the building. From what I’d seen and from Ichi’s image, there weren’t a lot of places to hide.
Chan grumbled softly.
I scanned the outer compound, hoping to see Ichi somewhere. “What’s wrong, Chan?”
“Nothing. Good security, that’s all. Launching some specialized stuff at the military channel.”
Pitsamai whispered from the back seat. “I can help. I think she hasn’t tried one of the more common attack methods.”
Would it rattle Chan if Pitsamai got us in? I muted. “Go ahead.”
Tapping. Typing.
Still no movement from Ichi.
Come on. Come on!
“In!” Chan sounded excited. “Security’s down. Downloading data. Uploading packages. Still hacking military channel.”
Pitsamai looked up from beneath arched brows. Her attack had worked. Chan was having trouble.
“Thank you.” I wanted to be relieved, but there was still—
Ichi’s signal moved. South. Fast. Then west.
She was at the fence. Then moving again. Running .
I put the car into gear and pulled out.
I glanced back at Pitsamai. “We’re heading out as soon as we get Ichi. Can you send the truck out now?”
“On the way.”
It was a struggle to keep below the speed limit. Ichi was sprinting toward us, alone, maybe with people searching for her.
Except there wasn’t anything on the screen to indicate an alarm.
She’d escaped clean.
I slowed. Parked.
She materialized out of the darkness. Smiling mischievously. I opened the door, waited until she was buckled in, then pulled away.
She caught her breath, pulled the NVGs and hood off. “There was a loose wire. Something fell. I made it look like a piece of equipment had slipped.”
“No one saw you?”
“No.” Absolute confidence.
“We’re headed out to the insertion site. They’ve sent their recon team out, so it’s—”
Chan was in my ear. “Stefan?” Urgent.
“Yeah?”
“Their gear? The warehouse group?”
“What about it?”
“They’ve got androids. Two pair. One pair went out with the recon team.”
“Any sign of Jacinto or the snowcrash?”
“No. Stovall’s running one, I think. I don’t know who’s running the other. It’s a lot of data to dig through.”
“All right. Let me know when you’re ready to leak the EEC network.”
“Okay.”
I sped up.
Androids. I hadn’t counted on that. I wasn’t sure there was much we could do to counter them.
I wasn’t sure there was anything we could do to stop them.
Chapter 29
The shakes were coming on hard. Warm wind thrummed through the car’s open windows, letting in warm but fresh air. Traffic was light on the highway, disappearing completely once I turned onto the road that would take us out to the grove. I turned the lights off and used my eyes’ UV. The landscape was peaceful, the organic shapes of cactus and grass in dark hues of green. There weren’t any lights to speak of, and Pitsamai’s stilted breathing told me she wasn’t in favor of the idea.
I asked over my shoulder, “How many vehicles do you think go out this way at night?”
She snorted. “Not many. I bet we’re the first without lights.”
Ichi smiled at that, but the smile quickly faded. “What did Chan say? You seem worried.”
“Nothing. I just thought it would cool down more. We’re going to cook in these chameleon suits. We should’ve brought water.”
She crossed her arms and squinted at me, probably trying to read my expression.
“Androids,” I finally said. “Two of the recon team were androids.”
“Jacinto?”
“No. Chan’s sure it isn’t. There’s a lot of work behind wiping that old AI out—code signatures, some sort of weird memory footprint…things the bots and Trojans and who knows what else would spot and destroy. Once you let someone like Chan inside your system, it’s game over. Jacinto’s dead. I believe that. But I also believe they brought androids with them for a reason. I’m betting Stovall’s running one of them. Chan thinks so. They must have something running the other. Maybe someone else from the Agency. Maybe they had a backup of the twins somewhere.”
Ichi thumbed the hilt of her wakizashi . “It will be hard to kill two at once.”
“Unless we let the SunCorps people do the killing for us.”
That seemed to calm her.
Pitsamai slapped the back of my seat. “Ahead. On the right.”
I saw the rented van on the side of the road. It looked safe, but I drove past and parked a couple hundred feet beyond. I pulled an R60 and shoulder holster from the glove compartment and strapped the holster on. “Stay here.”
The night was silent: no helicopters, no gunfire, no explosions. Always a good sign.
I circled the van and checked the buggy for any sign someone might have touched them.
Nothing.
The restraining straps popped free, and I slid the buggy off the trailer. The motor showed fully charged; the gear was still strapped into place.
SunCorps isn’t infallible.
I connected to Ichi and Pitsamai. “Clear.”
It was going to be a tight squeeze, especially for me. There were two front seats with limited legroom and a smaller back seat between them that would require someone to almost lie flat. Only Ichi would be able to fit in that space. As they approached, I flipped on the interior bulbs, lighting the front a dull amber.
Pitsamai pulled the top of her chameleon suit over her dark T-shirt, then climbed into the driver seat. “How far do we go in this?”
“Not far. Fifteen minutes, tops. I’ll give you the coordinates. There are some rises between us and the compound. Just pilot through your computing device, and we’ll be fine. They’ll give us cover from anything other than a helicopter or drone.”
Ichi grabbed the roll bar and slid into the back seat without complaint.
Pitsamai frowned and slid her NVGs on. I checked the gear one last time, sent the coordinates to her, then got into the passenger seat.
With everyone strapped in, Pitsamai brought the motor to life. It sounded like a small fan set on high, although the frame vibrated with its power. We sped out into the desert.
Sand blasted against the undercarriage, and we quickly discovered that one of the sacrifices made in the design of the low buggy was suspension. Each bounce and twist vibrated through the frame and into us. I felt the strain on the belt straps, and Pitsamai yelped a couple times; Ichi stayed silent.
I caught the glow of the compound in the sky to the east. Somewhere to our south, the EEC team was probably already in position, watching.
I texted Danny: You can bring the rental back to the house and load it up .
He replied: Bringing it back. We’ll park it around back .
Pitsamai slowed as the hill drew closer. The hum of the motor dropped in pitch and volume. She parked the buggy, powered it down, took off her NVGs, and climbed stiffly out. I helped Ichi out without receiving a glare, a sure sign of how draining the trip had been.
Then I unloaded the gear: Danny’s sniper rifle, our electronics and weapons, the foam ball assembly and scuba tank, and another pair of drones. I broke it into two piles—mine and Ichi’s—and bundled them into the black bags.
I set the bags up for easy grabs, all the while straining for any hint of noise besides ours.
The desert was silent.
I crawled around the dune—a rock with some sand on it—with a pair of binoculars and scanned the compound wall: no activity. No flashing lights, no gate door bursting open and unleashing a horde of armored vehicles to hunt us down .
We’d made it as far as I thought we would undetected.
I connected back to Chan while Ichi stretched the kinks out and Pitsamai assembled the rest of her computing gear.
Chan accepted. “You made it?”
“Yeah. There’s a buzz on the connection. Is the signal strength too low?”
Tapping. “No. Something’s on the same frequency.”
“Change frequency. Now.”
I flipped to our second channel, listened.
Chan connected to me. “It’s scrambled. We’re okay.”
“Yeah, except whoever was on that frequency heard the same buzzing we did.” Not a good start. “What’s the status on breaking the Agency’s private Grid?”
“Ready. They had some new encryption, but I found cracks.”
I glanced at Ichi, who was now fully covered by the hood and NVGs again.
She flashed me a thumbs-up.
“Do it, Chan.”
Chan coughed. “There was something, though. You might want to know.”
