The Jeep’s brakes slammed on. The vehicle reversed itself.
Charlie sat, impatiently tapping his foot, until an Apache helicopter, hovering roughly five miles away, launched a Hellfire missile aimed at the Jeep.
The light on the Jeep’s dashboard changed to red; the Hellfire radar had locked on; The missile would strike in eight seconds. Before it hit, Charlie would have to fire the DE Laser and incinerate it. The laser beam traveled at the speed of light and would strike the target at almost the same time it was fired. The challenge, therefore, was in holding the sights on the fast-moving target.
The Jeep shifted gears and screeched forward, circling the field at thirty miles per hour with the red radar warning light flashing.
Knowing the brevity of his opportunity, Charlie kept his eye on the missile from the second it launched. Weizman’s laser had sufficient energy to discharge eight times. In the excitement of his first testing of the system, it took Charlie precious seconds to get his sights on the Hellfire. He felt stiff as he pulled his trigger twice.
And missed.
He sighted and fired four more times, but each time he was too late. He couldn’t score a hit on the Hellfire before it blew up the Jeep — in spectacular computer screen glory.
He had failed.
He pounded the desk with his fist and shouted, “Goddamn it!” into his mic.
Edwards’ star trigger man had missed.
Edwards barked out his analysis. “First of all, that Hellfire was moving at Mach 1.3, 950 miles per hour. Even though Weizman thinks his laser will kill at Mach 2, 1,500 miles per hour, that may not be a reality. But before you undercut his prediction, you should practice more with your controls. Practice is something you’ve done little of, Charlie.”
Charlie bristled. He squeezed his fists so tight that his knuckles went white.
Edwards continued. “You overpowered the targeting mechanism. Weizman said the DE controls respond to electrostatic charges of hands near the controls. You should manually sight the gun up to the moment of firing and then ease your hands off to allow the target reference to take over.”
Charlie stood and put his face in the camera. “I know what the fuck I’m doing! I wanna try again. Now, get off your ass and recharge the DE. Call me when you’re ready!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
the news of Andy’s death unnerved me, to say the least. And the name “Joshua Brightman” echoed in my head. My sole ally in researching Waters’ dealings with AHS, Andy Fowler, was dead. Swiftly cremated, in fact. The only people, besides me, who’d ever questioned Herb Waters’ management of the Jackson City Hospital, Cabot Barnes and Quinton Jolly, were also dead. Were the deaths truly related? Were they indeed murders—all of them? Could Waters’ be so desperate to keep things a secret that he would go on a killing spree? He could if he could make it all look like an accident.
My mouth was still dry and still tasted awful, no doubt from the drugs I’d given myself. I brushed my teeth over the kitchen sink, threw some water on my face and combed my hair. I looked around for a razor, but couldn’t find one.
I went into Keyes’ bedroom, to go to her bathroom. With all the power cables stretched across the floor, connected to a dozen odd-looking electronic boxes, it was difficult to walk without tripping. She was into electronics big time, apparently. Every surface was covered with them.
Brushing past her worktable, I saw a canvas shopping bag filled with documents, lying on its side, next to two TV screens and an electrical circuitry diagram. There were several papers splayed over the carpet beside the bed, too, including some official looking documents that she’d obviously wadded up in anger, and flung off the bed. In the middle of the debris, I saw a page of rough brown stationary, with handwriting on it: “Celena, Bombings resuming in Islamic State. Hormand is ready to proceed. Target must be located soon. Our missiles are ready to fire. Quasart.”
I stopped in my tracks.
There was another handwritten message in what looked like Arabic.
I couldn’t help but start to look around.
I knelt down and picked up a blurry memo that had been photocopied numerous times. It was from a CIA director in Langley, Virginia: “Terror alert red. Target, Mid-Atlantic region. Pakistani Operatives possibly assisting ISIL/ISIS.” It was dated four days ago.
My mind started racing.
I looked nearby for anything that might explain what I was looking at, but found nothing. Standing up, I looked around the room and spotted a shredder next to the dresser filled with strips of stationary of the same type as the intact message from Quasart. In the jaws of the shredder I found a business card made of a thicker version of the coarsely textured paper. The shredder had chewed away only a third of the card. After flattening the ridges created by the shredding, I could decipher the printed name: “Harold Simpkins,” and a phone number. Below it was a handwritten address. It was hard to read, but I finally made it out. It was in Chapel Hill, 4360 Emmaus Church Road. There was another phone number, but I could read only five of the numbers: 919 55. The rest was smudged.
What does Keyes have to do with bombings in Pakistan? Why does Keyes have a CIA memo? Target? I cringed. What target is this Quasart going to strike?
CHAPTER FORTY
I had to get out of that apartment. I grabbed the business card from the shredder, went to the guest bedroom, got a few things, and then ran out the door.
I jogged down the street. I didn’t know what was happening to my world. After about ten minutes of simply running, I sat down at a bus stop and buried my face in my hands.
I sat there thinking. My life was in the hands of this woman, Elizabeth Keyes. I didn’t know her, really, but since I’d gotten out of jail we’d become very close. I couldn’t help but feel real affection for her. She’d saved my life. But she’d lied to me, several times, and now something was clearly wrong.
Keyes claimed that she was an experienced medical office manager, that she’d received her training at St. Mary’s hospital in Texas. Harold Garner, the chief of the medical technologist program at St. Mary’s, had personally written a letter of recommendation for her. I took out my smart phone and began to look up phone listings for the administrator of St. Mary’s Hospital. After one ring, the main operator at St. Mary’s said, crisply, “Mr. Garner will be with you shortly.”
Garner answered on the second ring. He said that Keyes had been in the office manager’s program for three weeks, moving into the advanced courses after the first week and making perfect scores on all the exams. She’d even taken night classes in the OR tech school, and after ten days, she’d passed the final exam given to the second-year class.
“No wonder you wrote such a glowing recommendation of her,” I said.
“I didn’t write a letter of recommendation for Elizabeth Keyes to anyone,” Garner responded. He explained that Keyes had spent so little time in his class, he didn’t feel qualified to evaluate her.
“But Herb Waters sent me an email. He said it was your personal recommendation.”
Garner paused. “It’s his hospital. He owns Saint Mary’s. He can say or do anything he wishes.”