He wasn’t looking for a road or an escape route. He was looking for a signal.
Another field and a high hedge stood in his way. The final field was heavily rutted and smelled of recently turned earth. At last, after twenty minutes of scrambling, the signal flashed up strong on his cell display. He’d reached the edge of Coyote’s net.
Crouch tapped in Karin Blake’s number, listening to the beeps as the call tried to connect. The night was cool out here, exposed to the scathing winds; the vast patchwork skies arching above like the roof of some great gladiator dome. The silence that lay over these rugged fields was unbroken, millennia-strong, but nothing more than a deception. Everywhere the struggle continued unabated, unsolved.
Crouch stayed low as the call was answered by a woman’s voice.
“Karin? My name is Michael Crouch. Have you heard of me?”
A moment of silence, and then, “I’ve heard the name, but how do I know you are who you say you are?”
Crouch reeled off a favorite Dinorock quote of Drake’s, and Mano Kinimaka’s phone number. He also brought her up to speed on the events of the tourney. Karin’s silence attested to her shock.
After a moment another voice joined them. “What do you need?”
“I take it you are Komodo? Good. This game they have going is dependent on one thing alone — their ability to control their environment. At the moment they are doing it well — they’re prepared. We need to disrupt that advantage.”
“How?”
“Take their cyber superiority away from them. Once we have that we own them.”
“Sir,” Komodo said respectfully. “I get you. But this ‘game’, as you call it. This is Coyote’s challenge. This is her laying down the gauntlet. If we end it too soon won’t she just pop up somewhere else, in a month or a year, and make things even harder?”
Crouch agreed, in essence. “Not the point,” he said. “We have civilians involved. Local authorities held captive. The threat of brutal force. Even if we feared this woman might slit our throats in our beds a fortnight from now, we should still act to stop this.”
“Of course. What’s the plan?”
Crouch was about to go over Karin’s role but a moment of doubt stopped him. A leader for decades, his competency was currently in question. Who the hell was he to ask this tormented woman to put herself on the line again?
“It’s me, isn’t it?” She spoke up into the void. “You want me to take down Coyote’s network. Damn…”
“Do you think you can do it?” Crouch ventured.
“I guess. Do you have any idea how good their circuit boy is?”
Crouch narrowed his eyes. “Their what?”
“Circuit boy. Circuit girl. It’s what we hackers used to call ourselves back in the day…” she paused. “Maybe still do. Who knows?”
“No ID,” Crouch affirmed. “But the guy must be good. If not for what he’s already achieved then because Coyote chose him. In itself, that is a bold endorsement.”
“Sure,” Karin said blandly. “Are they… are they in trouble?”
“None more than usual. But they appear to be happy enough. Drake for one finds it easier to fight an axe-wielding madman than fight through the crowds at Meadowhall.”
“Yeah, I can’t see any of them shopping at the mall.”
Crouch took all the emotion out of his voice. “The night will be a long one. Will you do it?”
Karin sighed. “Of course. Of course I’ll help them. All of them, even Alicia and Smyth, are my life now. We’re family.”
Crouch didn’t dare speak for a moment. The girl had lost her parents, her brother, but still continued to speak of family so strongly. It made him hate his own weakness.
Eventually, he gave her an address in Leeds and a high-priority password.
“Go now. This will probably be our last communication until this all pans out. Hit ‘em hard, Karin, and take no prisoners.”
“You have my word.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Karin took only a moment to review Crouch’s request and then rose quickly to her feet.
“Let’s go.”
Komodo held up a hand. “We should communicate with Washington. They may be able to help.”
“Do it on the way.”
Karin forced all thoughts of death and tragedy from her mind. The only way she could help her friends was to give them her full attention, allowing every thought process chance to live and develop and breathe on its own. The demands of cyberwarfare were huge, both on the brain and the subconscious, affecting not only instant cognitive reaction but also those thought processes that matured in the background, usually developing at length into the idea that won you the endgame.
Karin started the car, a rented Mini Cooper, and swerved out into traffic. Horns honked. Karin fiddled with the satnav whilst Komodo called DC. Luckily, the traffic lights through Leeds city center were frequent enough that they didn’t need to pull over. Karin took the route past a statue called the Black Prince and accelerated up Kirkstall Road.
Komodo spoke at last. “Smyth? What’s going on?”
Her boyfriend listened as Smyth unleased a veritable tirade. Karin cold hear the furious tones clear enough, especially as Komodo had to lift the phone away from his ear.
“Safe house got hit.” He shook his head, translating Smyth’s bluster. “Everyone’s safe. Kinimaka fought an… elephant, I think. Smyth did all the work. Saved the day. Fell off a building… the usual.”
Komodo stopped the man in his tracks with a few choice comments and brought him up to speed. Smyth’s rejoinder was surprisingly heated.
“What the hell are the Brits up to? They having Terrorist Amnesty week or something?”
“Coyote has prepared and planned this with the Blood King’s help and money,” Komodo said. “If the man can kidnap President Coburn he can sure engineer the shutdown of a town for twenty four hours.”
“Damn Russkie,” Smyth said. “Bastard’s in the ground and still haunting us.”
Komodo agreed, but didn’t say so out loud. Instead he explained Karin’s new role as she shot past a Vue cinema and restaurant area, then negotiated a series of bends. Soon, the main road was left behind and darkness closed over the car. Even the streetlights were sparse. Komodo didn’t like it, and ended the call saying he would get back to the DC team.
“Where the hell are we?”
Karin shrugged. “Almost there. I trust Crouch. Don’t you?”
Komodo grunted. “Drake does. But the man’s been compromised for years. How’s that affecting him right now?”
“Dunno. Maybe when this is over he and Michael can sit down and talk about it.”
Komodo wondered at her brusque tone but ignored it. “Well, it’ll take more than a coffee at Starbucks with Crouch to convince me, that’s all I’m sayin’.”
Karin stopped the car outside a nondescript warehouse. The place was in darkness, streetlights out for blocks around, surrounding businesses either closed down or shut for the night.
A man glided out of the shadows ahead. For all intents and purposes he looked like a local security guard, even to the apparent paunch at his waist. The only things that gave him away was the chiseled face and observant eyes; the hand that never left his pocket. He signaled to Karin to turn the car headlights off.
Komodo climbed out of the car.
“Stop,” the guard said, carefully listening to a walkie-talkie and watching the big American.
“Karin Blake?” he asked.
“Not me, dude. She’s in the car.”
Not impressed, the guard turned away. “Follow me.”