Republican Guard. Styles changed his stance, a bit more angled.
The man's hand thrust straight out with Styles first catching the man's wrist and pulling him forward while stepping into him, catching him with his hip. In a nonstop move, Styles flipped the man onto the pavement, never letting go of the wrist. Now he turned it completely over in one quick jerk, snapping it, sending the knife to the ground. The man gave a large grunt and flailed at Styles with his other hand. Styles raised his leg and brought it down square in the man's chest, knocking all the breath out of him. The man was done.
Styles turned at the sound of scuffling on the pavement. The second man had been able to regain his feet, only to find himself facing Starr. The man tried to gouge at Starr's eyes, only to receive two straight left jabs that backed him up and a solid right cross that connected perfectly with the man's liver. As he doubled over, Starr grabbed him by his long hair and brought his knee up into the man's face three times. He then threw the man to the ground. While the man was not out cold, Starr had driven the fight from him.
"Get them inside," Styles directed. He opened the door, grabbed the big man by his feet, and unceremoniously dragged him into the RV. Starr grabbed the second man under his arms and followed.
Styles yelled, "Phillips, come on out!" Looking at Starr, he said, "Nice job."
Starr nodded.
"Phillips, juice these guys."
Retrieving her small leather satchel, Phillips injected both men with her special sauce. Within minutes, both men sat tied on the couch, eyes glazed.
Styles walked over and slapped the smaller man across the face. The man barely stirred. He slapped him three more time, hard. This brought a reaction, slurred words of protest.
"What are you doing here?" demanded Styles.
Gibberish.
Styles slapped him twice more.
"Hold up a second," said Phillips. She gave him a second injection — Adrenalin. "That should help."
"What are you doing here?" demanded Styles.
"Pro… Protct, Ellhad."
"Protect Ellhad from what?"
"Amerkans."
"Are there any other attacks planned?"
"Nooo."
"Who is the man with you?"
"Bu… Butchr…"
Styles turned and looked at Starr and Phillips. "I don't think Ellhad even knew these two were following him."
"How do you figure that?" Starr asked.
"If he'd known he had backup, he'd never have stopped in here just to get laid. I mean, think about it. You're on your way to perform one horrific terrorist act, and you stop to get laid? How stupid is that?"
"Pretty stupid," agreed Phillips.
"Stupidity caused by arrogance. I told you about these Republican Guard assholes. They think they're invincible. Starr, take the crate and put it in the backseat. See if you can secure it with the seat belt somehow. Phillips, check to see if the keys are in their car. If they are, go park it. When you get out, assume there are cameras watching; try to hide your face, and don't leave prints. I'll be right out."
Starr and Phillips left.
Styles took out his Beretta and shot both men right at the bridge of the nose. Then he took out his knife and carved up their foreheads. Then he was out the door.
Back on the road in their own sedan, Styles directed Starr to drive to Vegas. "Phillips, get hold of J. C., and tell him to pick us up in Vegas."
"Got it."
Styles, who was looking out the window at the passing landscape and seeing little, was deep in thought trying to plan their next move.
Myra Banks sat at her desk, her brain trying to comprehend what her eyes were reading. You should have known better! was the simple message she was staring at. At first, the scripture was large and bold, and then gradually it began to shrink and slowly disappeared altogether. The page was blank and after about three seconds went totally dark. Suddenly, a new page came up, which read: Next time, I take out everything outside the country, as well. Consider yourself lucky. Then that page followed the action of the preceding page. She frantically clicked her mouse and ran her fingers all over the keyboard. Her entire computer was down. She rolled her desk chair across to another desk and looked at another screen. Nothing. Her phone started ringing. Picking it up, she yelled, "I know!" and slammed the receiver down. For a minute, she put her head in her hands. I knew it. You wouldn't let me leave her alone. Possibly madder than she had ever been in her life, she stormed toward her director's office. She blew past his secretary and entered his office in a fury.
"Damn you, Bernie. I tried to tell you to stay away from Phillips, but no, you wouldn't listen. I all but begged you to leave her alone, but your damned arrogance just wouldn't let you. Now we're fucked."
Bernard Backersley was furious. "What's wrong with the computers? What do you mean we're fucked, and what's Phillips have to do with it?"
Myra Banks wouldn't even sit down. Standing across from him, she yelled, "What do you think I mean? She's hacked our system and wiped out everything. Hard drives, mainframes, I mean everything. It's gone. The only backup we have is what wasn't connected. Otherwise, it's all gone. Everything."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Myra Banks rolled her eyes as she sat. "Okay, I'll use little words to try to make you understand," she said, purposely chastising her boss. "Against my better judgment, which I made perfectly clear to you, I continued investigating Darlene Phillips. She found out and set a trap, which I walked right into. She baited me into hacking into one of her e-mail accounts, and I fell for it. I opened up an e-mail that I shouldn't have. When I did, somehow something got into our system. A Trojan horse containing a virus like nothing I've ever seen infiltrated our entire computer network. Don't ask me how because I don't know. What I do know is this: right now, the CIA does not have one damned computer in this entire country that is up and running, at least not one that is hooked into our mainframe. She left me a message that said the next time she'd take out everything outside our borders too."
"Message? What are you talking about?"
"Christ, Bernie, are you that fucking dense? I can't show it to you because it's gone. Right now, I can't use one of our computers to log on to Facebook. We are going to have to rebuild our entire system. Everything. We're going to have to depend on backups that were not wired in, what we have in our foreign systems, and our own memory. She has virtually left us blind."
"How in the hell could she have done that? Myra, that's impossible. You have to be mistaken."
The anger had subsided, taken over by sheer resignation. "Bernie, you don't know how much I wish you were right. I don't know how she did it; it doesn't matter. I warned you about this woman, and you chose to ignore me. Now we have paid the piper, and there's not one damn thing we can do about it. We can't even prove she's the one who did it."
Bernard Backersley was refusing to accept this information. "Myra, no one could have done that kind of damage."
"Bernie, is your computer working?"
"No!"
"Now do you get it? And it's not going to work until I've rebuilt our entire network, and until I get that done, we are completely out of the game. We can't send an e-mail from here. We're going to have to rely on our personal laptops or whatever to contact anyone electronically. We have a backup mainframe that, thank the good Lord, was not wired into the system, so I'll have to go down and supervise the swapping out of the systems. That is only the beginning. It'll take at least twenty-four hours before we are operational, and that will only be limited. It'll take the better part of a week to get everything back. The important thing for you is to figure out how to keep this from getting out. Good luck with that. If it does, we're going to have our asses hauled up to the Hill answering some extremely difficult questions by the Senate that we do not want asked."