“There are no houses up here,” the driver told him.
“I know. Just pull over when I tell you.”
“You going for a hike?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
Half a mile later, he gave the driver the signal. He handed the man a twenty for an eight-dollar fare and got out near the mountain’s peak. His small hidden road — the access point for his visitors — was closer to the mountain’s base. He normally climbed up the hill toward his home. Today he’d climb down, checking the security map on his phone as he did. From what he could make out from the motion detectors, his visitors were approaching the capsule slowly and carefully and from all sides with almost military precision.
Disturbing.
Why were they coming for him? And equally if not more important: Who was coming for him?
One might think it a stroke of luck that Wilde happened to be out the night of this invasion, but that wasn’t the case. If he’d been home, the alarms would have roused him. He would have taken off before they got within five hundred yards of the Ecocapsule. He’d long ago set up escape routes and hiding places, just in case anyone ever tried to get to him.
He could be gone in no time.
No one knew these woods like he did. In here, in this thicket, they would have no chance against him. It didn’t matter how many of them there were.
But the questions remained: Who were they, and what did they want?
Wilde eased down the mountainside, letting gravity make the journey easier. He veered to his right by a forked tree, toward the closest triggered motion detector. Being in the woods, amongst animals and wildlife, the motion detector could be accidentally set off quite easily. A deer goes by. A bear. Even squirrels or raccoons sometimes. But Wilde had a system, one alarm dominoing to the next before any warnings were issued, proving the movements had to be somewhat calculated and thus most likely human. Between the car parked on his road — ding one — and the follow-up triggers, he knew that this was no false alarm. It wasn’t one man or even two or three. More likely there were five or more.
Coming for him.
It was eight a.m. The woods were cool, that early crisp still in the air. Wilde moved with pantherlike quiet. He didn’t really have a plan here. It was mostly reconnaissance. Keep your distance. Learn about your adversary. Check out their positions and numbers.
Try to figure out what the hell they want with him.
He slowed when he reached the rock formation with a trigger motion detector. He checked the device, just to see if there was some kind of malfunction that might explain why so many had gone off. The detector was intact. He picked up the pace now.
And there they were.
Two men together working in tandem. Smart. One he could pick off, take out before he communicated with the others. But two would be much more difficult. They were dressed head-to-toe in black. They had their heads on a swivel, one taking the lead and looking forward, the other pulling up the rear. They stood far enough apart, so again they couldn’t be taken down by one assailant.
Professionals.
Wilde moved in for a closer look. They both wore earpieces. Probably communicating with the others. These guys were coming in from the north. There were teams coming in from the south, east, and west too. Assuming two men a team, that meant a minimum of eight opponents.
Wilde was good at tracking, obviously better than any of these guys, but that didn’t make him invisible. Overconfidence leads to mistakes. The men were armed. Their eyes constantly swept the landscape, and realistically, if Wilde wasn’t careful, there was a decent chance he could be spotted.
Every once in a while, the taller man checked something on his smartphone screen and changed their direction slightly. Whatever app they were using, it was clearly leading them to the Ecocapsule. Wilde had no idea what the technology was, but then again if someone wanted to find his home badly enough, there were tracking devices that would eventually lead them to it. He’d always known that. He’d prepared for it.
Knowing the men’s ultimate destination made it easier. Wilde didn’t have to follow closely. He veered off toward one of his safe boxes. He had six of them in the woods, all hidden in spots no one would find, all opened by using his palm print rather than a combination lock. This one was up in a tree. He climbed, found it taped under the large branch, opened the box. Wilde took out the gun. He was about to close it up without taking out the false identity papers, but then he thought better of it. Suppose he had to run?
Better safe than sorry.
He slid back down the tree and made his way toward the Ecocapsule. He moved quickly now, wanting to arrive before the tentatively moving team he’d been following got there.
And then what?
He’d figure that out when the time came. He hurried ahead, moving with ease.
He located the hill approximately two hundred yards from where the Ecocapsule sat. He climbed a tree so that he would be high enough to look down on the clearing. He’d wanted to put the capsule in a denser part of the forest, but that blocked the sun, which made storing solar energy that much more difficult. Still, it would pay off now. Once he reached the top of the tree, he’d be able to see the men approaching from a safe spot.
Wilde grabbed a branch, pulled himself up, and looked down.
Damn. They were already there.
Four men. Surrounding the capsule. Armed. Two more — the two Wilde had been following — came into the clearing. So now it was six men.
The leader approached the capsule cautiously.
Wilde recognized him.
Wilde scrolled through his phone’s call history and hit the return-call button. Gavin Chambers was reaching for the Ecocapsule’s door when he must have felt the vibration in his pocket. He took out his phone, looked at it, glanced at his surroundings. He hit the answer button and put the phone to his ear.
“Wilde?”
“Don’t touch my house.”
Gavin took a harder look around now, but there was no way he’d be able to spot Wilde up in the tree. “Are you inside this thing?”
“No.”
“I need you to open it.”
“Why?”
“Something has happened. Something big.”
“Yeah, I figured that.”
“How?”
“Are you joking? You have at least four armed teams circling my place in the woods. You don’t have to be a trained detective to figure out ‘something big’ has happened. So what is it?”
“The Maynards.”
“What about them?”
“I need to look inside your home. Then I need to take you to them. Are you nearby or are you watching me on some kind of camera I missed?” He looked up again, shading his eyes. “Either way, I’m not going to find you, am I?”
“No.”
“I’m trespassing on your turf.”
“Yet here you are.”
“Had to do it, Wilde. Had to flush you out one way or the other.”
“So now what?”
“I could take an axe to your house and see what’s inside.”
“Not your style,” Wilde said.
“No, it’s not. Tell you what. I’ll send my men away.”
“Sounds like a good start.”
“But then I’ll need to see you.”