“What the hell is that?” Ryan said, completely unable to keep the revulsion out of his voice.
“A locational tracker. No microphone, no GPS, just a tiny little ULF pulse generator.”
“‘ULF?’”
“Ultra Low Frequency Radio. Three hundred hertz to three kilohertz. Really low. Sends out such a tiny little informationless pulse that standard scanners would only detect if they were looking for it.” He shook his head and chuckled. “What a joke. I block their surveillance by going under it with my scramblers, and they go under me with this little bitch.”
“This is how they tracked Jonathan-and us,” Simon added, understanding it completely for the first time.
“Exactly,” Ryan said. “When he fell off the grid, when the CCTV cameras couldn’t see him, when even thread interrogation didn’t work, they started looking for this thing’s little ping, ping, ping. And they found it.” He crushed it in his palm, and for one instant, Andrew looked so filled with hate his eyes were nearly on fire. “They found him.”
Ryan just stared at it. “Why didn’t Jonathan know he was carrying it? He must have changed clothes, searched his-you know, himself.”
Andrew nodded. “They put it in a perfect place. Right here.” He cocked an elbow and pointed over his shoulder to the small of his own back. “The one spot on your body you can’t see or touch. Just under the skin, flat and flexible. Probably couldn’t feel it anyway. And powered with a micro battery, trickle-charged by Jonathan’s own bioelectricity.” He gazed at the device again, almost admiring. “It could have been there for months. Years. Since he started working for UNED.”
Simon started. “Battery? You mean it’s still working?”
Andrew shrugged. “Might be. Or it might have quit when he died.”
God, he thought, what a mess. Aloud, he said only, “Get rid of it. “
Andrew put the device in his pocket and then bent over the body one last time. Together, the three men carefully dragged Jonathan’s corpse to the edge of the water and rolled him in until it was entirely, if only slightly, submerged. Then they weighed the body down with a few large stones and a concrete block, gathered from the trash-strewn shoreline.
The wind and rain were beginning to pick up again as the last of the light drained away. Ryan had never felt so miserable.
“Won’t stay hidden forever,” Andrew said shortly. “But long enough. And the crap in the water, along with fish and vermin, should destroy any forensic evidence.”
Ryan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood there for a moment.
They were dumping a person’s body. Dumping it, as if they were the cold-blooded murderers. Ryan was speechless, rendered mute by all he had just seen.
Andrew was the first to turn away. Ryan followed him almost gratefully. Simon stood alone over the body for a moment longer, saying nothing, revealing nothing.
Finally, he turned away and trudged back to the Rover.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.
They drove away from the polluted pond. No one spoke for a long time.
* * *
They drove to a working tube station.
“I can’t bloody believe this is happening,” Ryan muttered as Andrew pulled to a stop.
“It isn’t,” Samantha said dully. It was the first thing she had said in more than an hour. “None of it is.”
Andrew popped the door so suddenly it sounded like a gunshot. “I’ll be right back.”
He hopped out of the car, carrying the small silver device in his right hand. Without looking back he crossed four lanes of traffic, dodging expertly between the oncoming cars. When he reached the far curb, he turned on a dime, scanned the vehicles, and raised an arm.
“Taxi!” he said. “Taxi, here!”
One of the semi-automated electrics that scoured the city pulled up almost immediately. The cabby was an older man-semi-retired, Andrew guessed-with chubby cheeks and a bright red drinker’s nose.
The back door opened automatically, and Andrew jumped in.
“Where to?” the cabby said, already abysmally bored. The car would do all the work: plot the course to the destination, avoid traffic problems, and calculate the fare. His presence was more a matter of union politics and public jobs programs than necessity.
“Heathrow Airport!” Andrew crowed with absurd enthusiasm.
The door started to close as the cabby punched the destination into his console…and Andrew stuck his foot half-out of the cab, so it couldn’t close.
“Oh!” he said in the same giddy tone. “Silly me! Forgot my luggage, forgot my wallet, and forgot I’m not leaving ‘til tomorrow. Never mind!”
He hopped back out of the cab and walked briskly away, leaving the old cab driver gaping at him.
“Bloody drunkards,” the driver said and veered back into traffic, returning to the never-ending quest for passengers while carrying the ULF locational tracker with him, wedged between the cushions of the cab’s back seat.
“Take that, you bastards,” Andrew said between clenched teeth. “The Invisible Man strikes again!”
Three minutes later, he was back behind the wheel, guiding the Rover and the rest of the team toward their destination. He almost managed a smile when the familiar black helicopter, still flying far too low to the ground, passed overhead, going in entirely the wrong direction.
* * *
They stopped at a nearly deserted pub, miles from the estate and the pond. As they ate, Andrew took each of them to the restroom-even Samantha-and used his handheld scanner to check for implants. At the same time, Ryan began to make phone calls-half a dozen of them, all very quiet, all very intense. As the rest of them lingered over bad coffee and lukewarm tea, he excused himself from the table, drove off in the Rover, and returned in less than fifteen minutes.
Ryan and Andrew both returned to the table almost at the same moment, from different directions. Andrew broke the silence with a ghostly imitation of his old chirpiness. “Finished!” he reported. “I think we’re clean.”
“Good,” Simon said, feeling a bit better about the entire journey.
Ryan cleared his throat politely, all business. “I have something for you all.” He began to pass out packets to each of them, dealing them across the filthy table as if they were oversized playing cards. “Made the calls, cashed in a few favors, greased a few palms, and hacked a few databases.”
The packets contained old-fashioned paper airline tickets and shiny new passports for each of them: Hayden, Andrew, Simon, and Samantha. He shoved his own into the pocket of his sports coat. “Different airlines, different times-for most of us-and names you won’t recognize and will never see again. These are temporary identities. They’ll last for seventy-two hours or so and then poof, dissolve into thin air.”
Andrew smiled-his first genuine grin since he could remember. “Very nice,” he said, examining the documents closely.
Ryan laughed. “I’m flattered. And I am now officially out of the forgery business.”
He turned to Simon with a very serious expression. “I think you should go with Sam. I set you up as brother and sister, traveling together. I hope that’s okay.”
Simon glanced briefly at Sam. “It’s fine,” he said quietly. “A good idea.” He was frankly unsure if she could have made it out of the country on her own-not in her current state. She didn’t look back at him. She didn’t even bother to push the hair out of her eyes.
“Okay, then,” Simon told them all, “I think we’re set. Andrew, why don’t you drive us all to the nearest hotel. We can catch individual cabs or busses or shuttle from there-split up and fade away. You can just leave the car in extended parking. It’ll be weeks before they notice something odd.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Andrew said.