Waters manipulated the hand controls and placed a computer “square” on the bomb factory that had made the IED that killed General Bushey. An X appeared on the screen. Waters moved it to overlap the square on the target. A quick thrust of his thumb, and a Hellfire entered the screen. A couple seconds later, it exploded. As the smoke cleared, I could see the building was totally flattened.
Waters put his controls on the table and sent an e-maiclass="underline" Mission complete.
Waters pushed open a bulletproof glass door and faced me. Smiling, he said, “So, Dr. James, before I kill you, I’d like to know, have you been enjoying my old girlfriend?”
Refusing to take his bait, I instead shook my head. “What happened to you, Herb?”
Waters laughed. “The hospital’s just a sideline for me, a front, a triviality. I assume you’ve already figured out that I am selling it.”
As long as I kept him talking, I could stay alive, so I answered, “Yeah, but it’s such a money-maker for you. Why sell?”
“It’s chump change compared to what I’m making with my drones. Within a year, I’ll make another couple of hundred million, retire, and play with my drones full time. And — I’ve never really enjoyed hospital work.”
“Really? Who knew?”
“I’ve come to see that the rules that apply to most people don’t apply to me.”
I looked around for a way to escape.
Waters had his henchmen kill Barnes, Jolly, and probably Dr. Carey and Willie Wilson, too. Keyes and I are his next victims. But I can outsmart him. He wants to brag on himself. I’ll just keep him talking until I find a way to overpower him.
“Are you delusional or what?” I goaded him.
“For example, I have an extraordinary libido, and my wife is a true nymphomaniac. We each have a villa in the Mediterranean. We have an agreement that we each take on a new lover every two months. Actually, she takes two or three young guys and generally swaps them after a month or so.”
“So you got horny and brought Keyes here to seduce her yourself.”
“I don’t believe in romantic involvement with employees. Besides, I wanted her planted firmly in your office. I didn’t care about her involvement with Farok at that time. I knew having access to an operative like Elizabeth would give me the chance to discredit you. Get rid of all the stories in town about the great, kind Dr. James.”
“Jefferson, Farok is going to bomb this hospital!” Keyes pleaded. “I need to make a call to stop him!”
“Tell that story to the chief, sister.”
CHAPTER SIXTY
Keyes broke free for a split second and jumped for the phone. Waters saw her trick. He grabbed it from her. “So, my dear, is this phone your detonator for a bomb you’ve planted?”
Waters looked at the contact numbers on the cell phone. “Ah! And these will be your detonation codes, isn’t that right, Elizabeth? Well, I’ll have to press them all when I leave you people to do my errands. What a pity. ISIS will get all the credit.”
I suddenly went at Jefferson with the only thing I had, my fist. My shot to his chin was solid, but it didn’t hurt him at all. He slapped my face, nearly knocking me down.
Then he pointed his gun at my head.
“Go ahead! Shoot me!”
He looked like he was about to pull the trigger, but then he said quietly, “Mr. Waters wants you alive. At least for now.”
Waters held my gun on me while Jefferson tied my hands behind my back with a plastic zip-tie.
Waters seemed to notice the brilliant, blue-white diamonds in Keyes’ Rolex. He walked over and looked at the watch. “That’s very nice. Which of your boyfriends gave that to you?”
“A very rich one.”
“Yes. Omar Farok is almost as rich as I, and I admire his taste in jeweled watches.”
Waters returned his attention to me. “I should kill you both right now, but I can’t resist giving you one final demonstration.”
I sighed in relief. I had a few more minutes to whip them. I just needed something sharp to cut the plastic hand restraint.
Waters opened the bulletproof glass door, and gestured to the controls. “Dr. James knows what these are.”
“Video games.”
Waters shook his head. “No. These aren’t games, and I don’t play. This is the operational brain for the deadliest drones the world has ever seen. My control chair operates them all.”
Jefferson interrupted. “Kill them now, boss! Before the cops get here!”
“Be patient, Jefferson. It’s entertaining to play with mice before you destroy them.”
I studied the controls, the joysticks, the animated screen.
“They’re all mine. The drones. They’re the world’s finest; I paid more than thirty million apiece for them. This hobby is more expensive than the horses I used to own. But unlike the horses, they yield a real return rather than a capital write-off. The CIA marks the targets, and I eliminate them — for a price, of course. In the last six months, I’ve made thirty kills. Today, I have another job, and then I will take care of my unfinished business.”
A flashing orange light appeared on the board. Waters went to the controls. “Watch how the master does it. Here’s my last target for the day.”
I watched every move Waters made and the corresponding response on the monitor. It was déjà vu: I saw myself at the video arcade with Herb Waters, flying planes with control panels that looked remarkably like this one. Even the target sights were like those on the fifty-caliber machine guns on the arcade planes. At one time I was better than Waters. But not anymore. I was out of practice and Waters had been honing his skills for years.
Waters stared at the screen. “Abu Al Baghdadi is hiding there in that truck. He’s third in command in ISIS. The people who pay my bounty made the decision. My job is to carry it out. I kill; I get twenty million bucks.”
Taking advantage of Waters’ attention on the drone, I began cutting the plastic tie on a jagged corner of aluminum where the wall had been shot up.
Waters used a mouse pad to move the cameras on the nose cone of the Reaper drone. A dozen still pictures showed on the monitor. One pictured Al Baghdadi.
Waters fired a missile. As the smoke cleared, the badly ripped truck appeared on the screen, engulfed in flames.
“I just made twenty mil taking out Al Baghdadi. And you and your little girlfriend here are next!” he said, shoving my gun in my face, pressing it on my cheek. “I’ve looked forward to this since we were kids. I’m going to make you suffer before I kill you. I want the satisfaction of beating you to a pulp and then putting a bullet in your fucking head.
“People used to look up to you and paid no attention to me,” he ranted. “But I was the one who opened holes in the line so you could run through. I was the hero of all those games! But the papers never mentioned that; they just lauded the farmer’s kid who ran through my holes in the line.
“But all that’s changed. The paper, the town, the stockholders — they all adore me now. I’ll shoot you and your whore, the disgraced killer plastic surgeon and his accomplice. First, though, I’ll bash in your face. In self-defense, of course.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
I had to keep him talking. I had to. “I have a couple of questions… ”
“Fuck you! I don’t have to answer any of your goddamn questions.”