I faked a sneezing fit and made a show of patting my pockets for a tissue. I pretended to wipe my nose on my sleeve and Bug said, “You’re good to go.”
I removed the newly recoded master keycard and opened the door.
No problems.
I was inside the Deck now.
“The image feed is back,” said SAM. “You’re right near a big hallway that runs the length of the upper level. The staff calls it Main Street.”
The doorway led to a wide central corridor that was packed with people wearing a rainbow assortment of lab coats and coveralls. Most people ignored me. No one cared about my pants or boots: I saw everything from sandals, to sneakers, to high heels. Several people in orange lab coats passed by and they were the only ones who appeared to notice me, but they gave me nods and went about their business.
Then SAM walked right past me.
I was so surprised I began to say something to him, but I immediately clamped my mouth shut. This boy was at least a year older than SAM. He looked just like him, though. Same gap in his front teeth, same soft chin and dark eyes. I tried to turn the camera his way, but there were too many people.
When the boy was gone I discreetly tapped my earbud. “Hey, SAM… I think I just saw your brother.”
“I don’t have a—,” SAM began to say when suddenly there were three long, harsh bleats from an alarm system. Everyone froze in place.
I began to slip under my lab coat for my gun, but then a hugely amplified voice blared from speakers mounted in the ceiling, “The Deck is going into Visitor Mode. Please prepare to receive visitors.”
It repeated several times and suddenly everyone was in motion. Wall panels shifted to close off whole wings of the building; scores of staff members filed through hidden doorways that closed behind them so seamlessly it was as if the people had vanished from this reality. The blaring message repeated and repeated.
Then Church’s voice was in my ear: “Cowboy… there is a small commercial jet inbound to your location.”
“I know,” I said. “We’re about to have visitors.”
Chapter Ninety-Nine
Hecate and Paris were all smiles as they stepped down from their jet. Cyrus and Otto were dressed in suits that were ten years out of style, and a stack of suitcases was piled on an electric cart. A tall, austere man in a modern suit stood next to them.
“Alpha!” cried Hecate, and ran to her father. Instead of bowing, she hugged him and buried her face in the side of his neck. Cyrus was momentarily nonplussed, but after a hesitation he hugged his daughter. “Alpha… Daddy…,” she murmured.
Cyrus looked wide-eyed at Paris, who adjusted his own expression from a glad smile to one of concern. “Alpha… ever since we were attacked Hecate’s been very upset. So have I, as a matter of fact. If the government is sending black ops teams against us then we’re out of our depth. We—”
Hecate cut him off. She had tears in her blue eyes. “We need you. Daddy… we need you.”
“I—” Cyrus looked truly at a loss.
“She’s right, Alpha,” said Paris, stepping close so he could pat Hecate’s back. “We’re afraid of losing everything. We’re… well… we just don’t know what to do. I can’t tell you how grateful we are that you’re willing to come to the Dragon Factory. We need to know how to make it more secure, and if we have to abandon it… then we need your advice on how to preserve our research.”
Hecate leaned back from the embrace, staring deep into her father’s eyes. “If we have to… if you don’t think we’re safe there… can we transfer our data to your computers here? We have to keep it safe.”
“We have to keep it in the family,” said Paris.
Cyrus looked at Otto, who raised a single eyebrow. The tall man with him wore no expression at all.
“Why… certainly,” said Cyrus, though his voice was anything but certain.
Hecate threw herself back into Cyrus’s arms and wept with obvious relief. Paris closed his eyes as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “Alpha… Father… thank you.”
Eventually they climbed aboard the jet.
Otto Wirths and the other man lingered for a moment before following them.
“Those are his children?” the man asked, a note of skepticism in his voice. “Those are the Twins?”
“Yes,” said Otto.
“They’re more effusive than I expected.”
“Aren’t they.”
“Mr. Jakoby brought me all the way out here because of them?”
Otto wore a smile that did not reach as far as his eyes. “We are being played, Mr. Veder.”
Conrad Veder smiled thinly. “No kidding.”
They climbed aboard. Once the jet was refueled, it taxied in a circle and took off for the Dragon Factory.
Chapter One Hundred
“The Deck is in Work Mode,” said the voice from the speakers. “All duty personnel return to assigned tasks.”
There was a pause and then, “Supervisor protocols are in place.”
The doors and hidden panels shifted again and the multicolored swarms of people emerged. I found a men’s room and ducked inside. Once I made sure I was alone I said, “What was that all about?”
Church said, “A Learjet owned by White Owl, a dummy company that MindReader traced back to Paris Jakoby, just landed and picked up three passengers. From the satellite image SAM thinks that the passengers were Otto Wirths and Cyrus Jakoby. We didn’t get a good angle on the third man.”
“Swell. Looks like I came to the wrong party.”
“Amazing and Alpha Team are in follow-craft. They’ll assess and take the next steps to find the device.”
“What about me?”
“Your call. If the Jakobys are heading to the Dragon Factory, then Amazing will infil and attempt to secure the device. Once she succeeds, the fist of God in the form of three DMS teams and National Guard units will pound the Deck.”
It was a crappy set of choices. If I left I still wouldn’t catch up to Grace before she caught up to the Jakobys. If I stayed here I might learn something, but I might also get caught.
“Keep SAM on the line and give me a quick tour. I’ll see what I can see, and then I want to collect Echo and follow Alpha to the frat party.”
“Roger that.”
Chapter One Hundred One
Maj. Grace Courtland sat hunched over her laptop watching a white dot move across the satellite image of the southern United States. The dot kept just inside U.S. airspace, cruising fifty miles north of the Mexican border as it crossed Arizona and New Mexico; then it cut across the Texas midlands and out over the Gulf of Mexico south of Houston.
She tapped her commlink. “Bug, have you gotten through to the FAA yet?”
“Just finishing with them now. The jet filed a flight plan for Freeport, Grand Bahama Island. The FAA have records of the same jet making the run twice monthly for the last few years.”