As she lay back on her bed and closed her eyes, giving in to the need for sleep, she had no answer.
Later that night, she awoke in a cold sweat, nightmares from the helicopter crash swamping her unconscious, disturbing her inner demons.
And then Matt was there with her, holding her close, whispering in her ear that she would be OK, everything would be all right.
He climbed in next to her, arms around her, and as she felt his strong embrace, she knew that he was right.
Eldridge smiled to himself as the aeroplane shot through the thin air of near-space at over four thousand miles per hour, one hundred thousand feet above the earth.
The Aurora stealth aircraft was a secret military project many thought was still years from completion, although it was in reality already mission-ready. Powered by a radical new pulse detonation wave engine, it could reach speeds once thought impossible. From the airstrip at Groom Lake in the Nevada desert to the skies above Santiago would take less than an hour.
The only unfortunate thing, Eldridge reflected as he checked the harness on his chute, was that the aircraft wouldn’t be able to land — the risk of people seeing it was just too great. Instead it would take the lesser risk of slowing down and reducing altitude so that he could parachute out of it once it had reached its destination.
Eldridge was no stranger to parachute drops and was looking forward to liaising with his team. There were six members of the Alpha Brigade already on the ground in Santiago, who had been searching for Lynn Edwards in Punta Arenas since the email had been sent. More of his team would join them later; at the moment they were being recalled from other operations, and tasked to Eldridge in Santiago. They would have to travel by more conventional, slower aircraft, but they would be there by late the next morning.
And then the hunt would begin in earnest.
Jacobs rubbed his chin in contemplation as he relaxed in his private sauna. Sweat dripped from every square inch of his body, pooling on the Scandinavian pine-wood floor, and he breathed in deeply, then exhaled, expanding his chest.
The information had come in unexpectedly and had to be acted on fast, and he was pleased he had managed to arrange for the Aurora to get Eldridge there quickly.
Once there, Eldridge would capture Matt Adams and Lynn Edwards, and arrange for the pair to be delivered covertly to the base in Nevada for interrogation. It would be tidier if Adams and Lynn could just be taken out, executed on the spot, but it was vital that Jacobs knew what had been going on for the past week — who else Lynn had told, who they had told, ad infinitum until the situation was entirely contained.
And that was a definite possibility, now that the pair’s location had been determined. Computer power had defined a possible area that Lynn could have reached since the crash, taking into account various factors such as data from ports, airports, train stations and bus depots, credit card use, availability of cash, use of passport, feeds from CCTV units, and basic triangulation algorithms.
This area was then cross-referenced with every available scrap of information about the past lives of Matt Adams and Evelyn Edwards, and further computer searches had finally found a seventeen-year-old credit card bill for two train tickets from Lynn’s family home in Maine down to Mexico. Time-consuming manual labour had at last unearthed the circuitous route through South America taken by the young couple, and card purchases along the way provided further confirmation that it had in fact been Lynn and Adams who were the travellers.
Once the data was cross-checked, the triangulation zone matched almost perfectly with the couple’s prior visit to Santiago, Chile. It made perfect sense, too — Lynn could easily have gone that far north in the time available, without having to cross any borders, and it would be easy to get lost in a city of five million people.
Once the target city had been located, it was then a matter of checking hotel bookings, travel companies, taxi services, CCTV footage, and satellite photography.
Evelyn Edwards’ features had finally been caught on CCTV going into the Parque Metropolitano, and the data was immediately fed to the Alpha Brigade members who were already in Chile.
Further CCTV followed Lynn as she met a second person, whose features were subsequently confirmed as belonging to the second target, Matt Adams. The pair were then electronically followed back to the Hostal Americano, where the primary target had apparently booked a room for cash under the name of Patrice Leaky.
The five men from the Alpha Brigade were on-site within the hour, ready to roll, and as Jacobs sat in his sauna, the sweat rolling off his body in fat, thick droplets, he had to admit that it was an impressive turnaround.
With Eldridge also en route for Chile, Jacobs was confident that the pair would be in Nevada by nightfall. They would be expertly interrogated, every last drop of information forced from them.
And then they would be executed.
6
‘They intercepted the email?’ Lynn asked over the small breakfast table, incredulous.
Adams nodded. ‘They even showed me a copy. I wouldn’t have known about it if they hadn’t, I hadn’t been home for days.’
The night before, Adams had purposely not told Lynn the details about the attack on his house, knowing how she would react. She had a terrible night as it was, and Adams knew she wouldn’t have slept a wink if he had told her his own story.
But now Lynn looked as if she had been bitten by a snake, recoiling with sudden terror. ‘They might know where we are!’ she whispered, trying to contain her rising panic. ‘If they intercepted the message, they could know anything!’
Adams shook his head. ‘No. They came to me because they had no idea where you were. They needed to get the information from me.’
‘And you’re sure you weren’t followed?’
‘Pretty sure. I had a borrowed passport, used a random route, never noticed anything out of the ordinary. And I’m pretty good at that.’ Adams winced even as he said it. That might once have been true, he thought, but not any more. He hadn’t even seen Lynn come up to him in the park. He was out of practice, plain and simple. As it stood, Lynn seemed to be doing a better job than he was. What if he had been followed?
‘It might not have even been people following you,’ Lynn warned. ‘Electronic surveillance — credit card purchases, closed-circuit television with facial recognition software, satellite photography, the list is endless!’
Since her escape, Lynn had been meticulously researching the techniques and methods of her potential enemies, and her razor-sharp mind had absorbed an incredible amount of information on the subject. She didn’t have the practical experience but certainly now knew the theory well enough to be worried.
‘Hey,’ Adams said as soothingly as he could, all too aware that Lynn was right. ‘I only used cash, I don’t even have any credit cards, and I was careful to avoid cameras. I didn’t use a phone either. I think we should be OK for now.’
Lynn looked at him for a moment before making her decision. ‘No. We have to leave. Now.’
Adams nodded his head. He actually agreed, he just wanted Lynn to calm down, to try and relax. Mistakes were made when tensions were high, and Adams knew that better than most. ‘OK,’ he said, grabbing his bag from the second bed. ‘I’m ready. Let’s go.’
Within three minutes, Lynn was ready with him at the door. Reaching out to touch the thin wooden partition, his hand stopped, and he reflexively put out his other hand to stop Lynn, a finger going to her lips to silence her.
He pressed his head closer to the door, listening, senses tuning to the world beyond the door.