He’d found a road. He couldn’t see it, couldn’t tell where it went, there was no light to make anything out, but—
Then, suddenly, there was far too much light, and the screaming noise of a car horn going off right next to his ear.
It was all he could do to lift his artificial arm in the air and wave it, to try to get the driver’s attention, to make them stop in time.
PART 3
Wilkes got some stares as he walked into the little restaurant. He had some visible bruises, but he didn’t think that was it. This was some kind of upscale place with folded linen napkins and chairs that looked like they would collapse if you sat down in them too hard. The tables were covered in shiny goblets of orange juice and ice water, and the people were all dressed in suits or business skirts and they all had great haircuts.
It was pretty tough for the marine not to plunk himself down, put his boots up on one of the tiny tables, and order a cheap domestic beer.
Instead he walked up to where Charlotte Holman sat with another man — Arnold Grauen, the director of the whole NSA. Her boss and, just then, his. He came up to the table and saluted, even though they were both civilians.
There was an almost audible sigh from the other tables. They’d had trouble figuring out what a roughneck like Wilkes was doing in their fancy eating establishment, but this was, after all, D.C. You saw soldiers in D.C. all the time. Once they’d put him in the right pigeonhole, the fancy people could all forget that he existed and go back to enjoying their fancy lives.
“Please,” Holman said, “sit down. This is just an informal meeting.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Wilkes said. He took one of the empty chairs — careful to make sure it would support his weight — and put one of the starched white napkins in his lap.
The two of them, the subdirector and the honest-to-god director, both had plates of fruit and brown bread in front of them. Holman was drinking orange juice or maybe a mimosa and Grauen had a Bloody Mary. Wilkes wondered if he could get some good, plain coffee. It had been a long night.
“I was just bringing the director up to speed,” Holman explained. “I’ve told him that you secured the remaining hard drive of the Angel system and that you made contact with Captain Chapel.”
“Winged him, did you?” Grauen asked, dabbing at his lips with a napkin. He didn’t look like much, even if he was one of the top spymasters in the country. Weedy and thin, with a receding hairline and wire-framed glasses. Wilkes had heard Holman talk about him before and he knew she thought Grauen was worse than useless. A presidential appointee who had almost no experience in real intelligence work, and no great desire to learn how things were done. The man was an impediment to her work.
Still, sometimes you had to play nice. Even though the secretary of defense had put Holman in charge of this mission, she still had to report to her boss on her progress. Wilkes had been called in from the field to brief the man. A bullshit job, but it had to be done. He folded his hands in his lap. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“Were you trying to kill him?” Grauen asked, his eyes blank. As if he’d just asked for the time.
“No, sir,” Wilkes said. “It was my intention to detain him for questioning. However, he assaulted my person and I was forced to defend myself. He evaded capture, but when I last saw him he had lost a great deal of blood. It’s possible he died in those woods. I requested assistance from local law enforcement this morning and they are right now searching the area, looking for his body.”
“You think they’ll find it?” Grauen asked.
He was asking if Chapel was dead. “I believe so, sir. Until they do I wouldn’t like to assume anything, however.”
The director took a sip of his drink. “What about the hard drive?”
Wilkes opened his mouth to answer, but Holman beat him there. “We have it at a secure location, sir,” she said. “I have my best man, Paul Moulton, working on it right now. He’s already given me a preliminary report, and I’m afraid the news isn’t good.”
Intelligence people were trained to be pretty good at telling lies, but this woman was a pro. It was hard for Wilkes not to crack a nasty grin as he listened to her spin out her line of nonsense.
The director bought it, of course. He sighed deeply. “We’ve inherited quite a jackpot, haven’t we? All right, spit it out. What’s gone wrong now?”
Holman pursed her lips. “We found concrete evidence that rogue elements of the DIA — namely, Rupert Hollingshead’s working group — were behind the attacks in both New Orleans and California. It’s helpful to be sure about that. Unfortunately we also discovered that while the Angel system is no longer operational, there are other systems. Other neural networks, scattered around the country. Still online and ready to carry out more attacks.”
“Fuck,” Grauen said, his eyes going wide as if he was choking on his cantaloupe. “How many? When? Where?”
“That remains to be determined. My analyst is working on it nonstop. He’ll have more soon. The main thing right now is that we need to make sure that Chapel is dead. And then we need to start thinking about bringing in Hollingshead for… questioning. It will of course have to be done quietly, perhaps under the National Defense Authorization Act provisions.”
The director stared at her. He put his fork down very carefully.
“Am I hearing you correctly?” He asked. “You want me to bring in a subdirector of military intelligence under a secret NDAA warrant? You understand what that means, I’m sure. They’ll stick him in front of a military tribunal without any due process. Jesus, Charlotte. You know I can’t do that without presidential approval. You really have enough evidence for that?”
“We do — it’s all on that hard drive. And I think we need to move on this right away. The NSA is already monitoring all his communications and anyone he meets with, but I’d like to have guards put on him to observe his movements at all times. We still don’t know if he has the capacity to activate one of those neural networks and initiate another attack.”
“You’re suggesting he’s personally behind all of this,” Grauen said. “I’ve known Rupert for years. He never struck me as the type to betray his country.”
“He didn’t? He’s never gotten along with the rest of the intelligence community. A few years ago he went to extraordinary lengths to destroy Tom Banks over at the CIA. He’s not one of us. He’s made that very clear. What if he decided we were the traitors, and somehow thought he could bring us down with these attacks?”
Grauen pushed himself back from the table. “I’ll authorize the guard detail around him,” he said. “And I’ll talk to the president. But you’d better be sure about this. If Hollingshead goes down, it’s going to tear the entire intelligence community in half. Every director at every agency is going to wonder if they’re next.” He stood up and adjusted the sleeves of his suit jacket. “I want constant updates,” he said.
“You’ll have them,” Holman assured him. She gave him a very warm smile and reached up to touch his hand. “Please give my best to Sarah and the children.”
The director nodded and then hurried off.
“You are one sly fox, lady,” Wilkes said when he was out of earshot. “When you called me into this meeting, I thought it was going to be some pointless backgrounder. Politics and bullshit. Instead I got to watch you crucify your worst enemy. Even if the president says no, he’ll have to lock Hollingshead down tight, just to cover his ass in case there are more attacks.” He wanted to applaud, he was so impressed. Instead he reached for a menu. “French toast sounds pretty good, if they don’t have pancakes. And I am in serious need of coffee.”