Two sedans pulled out at the same time and followed.
Nathan rocketed down the access road toward Virginia Beach, foregoing the congestion of the highway for the white-knuckle thrill of speeding along the two-lane road with its nonexistent shoulders. He drove entirely too fast, which was how he first noticed the two sedans—they not only kept up with him, they were closing in.
“Damn it, Gordon. What did you do?” Nathan knew it was nothing he himself had done. He had been dealing in proprietary technology and beyond bleeding edge weapon systems, but nothing shady or illegal. Some of Lee’s plans, however, were more esoteric than others.
A third sedan, as dark and nondescript as the other two, suddenly pulled out from a hidden driveway along the access road and stopped in Nathan’s lane, blocking him. Two suited heavies scrambled out holding weapons.
Instead of coming to a screeching halt, he floored the accelerator and swerved into oncoming traffic. Alert drivers and collision avoidance logics drove all but one of the few cars there off into the tall grasses abutting the road. As Nathan zoomed by the men and their car, an old minivan appeared in front of him in the oncoming lane. They both swerved into Nathan’s right-hand lane, still headed for collision.
Nathan checked his turn at the last instant and the two vehicles scraped by one another in a shower of sparks and flattened fenders. The BMW fishtailed down the centerline while the minivan spun around and came to a stop just in front of the third sedan. Nathan got his car under control and slid back into his lane, flooring the power to the wheels once more.
It was all for naught. Apparently deciding the sedans and armed heavies were not enough, two tactical vehicles merged onto the access road and blocked both lanes. Their occupants exited bearing automatic weapons. Nathan continued to debate his options for escape, but then he saw the letters emblazoned on the sides of the tac trucks: DHS.
Nathan cursed and slammed on the brakes, bringing the coupe to a screeching sideways stop. The three sedans arrived and also came to screaming halts, arrayed behind him to block any escape he might still be considering. There were guns everywhere, all pointed at him, and he still had no idea what this was all about.
A severe looking woman in a dark gray suit emerged from the back seat of one of the first sedans. She held up an ID, though it was impossible for Nathan to read from this distance. “Mr. Kelley, this is the Department of Homeland Security. Step out of the vehicle and come with us. We have some questions for you.”
He carefully opened the door and climbed out of the low-slung car, hands held high. No sooner was he out than there were three agents in black utilities on him, his arms held painfully against his back, his face and chest pressed hard against the hood of the car. They frisked him with brutal efficiency while others began rifling through the car and cracking the encryption on his suite. He heard the rapid clipping of heels on asphalt and the female agent, undoubtedly the leader of this merry band, was behind him, whispering in his ear. “Why were you running from us, Mr. Kelley?”
Nathan fought a losing battle to keep the pain out of his voice. “Why were you chasing me? I didn’t know who you people were until your trucks showed up! You didn’t exactly go out of your way to introduce yourselves.”
“Mr. Kelley, we often find introducing ourselves to someone like you merely an invitation to bullets or the destruction of evidence. My sincerest apologies for any discomfiture you may have experienced, but you’ll have to excuse us for learning from our bloody past.”
A fresh jab from the man holding his arms elicited a long groan. Nathan gritted his teeth to cut it off and said, “What do you mean, ‘Someone like me’?”
“Nuclear terrorists, Mr. Kelley. And one of our modern war heroes as well. How very sad.”
“What!?”
Nathan’s spluttering denials and protestations went unacknowledged. They dragged him from the hood of his car and walked him into the back of one of the tactical trucks. In a few more minutes, the access road had been cleared, and their convoy moved along the highway with both trucks, the three sedans, and Nathan’s BMW. They were gone before the first regular police arrived with an ambulance to check over the frazzled occupants of the old minivan.
In the well-appointed back seat of the truck, Nathan sat with two dour-faced agent/soldiers in black utilities. The female agent sat across from him on a rear-facing bench seat. They drove in silence for several miles until Nathan could stand it no longer, exactly as they had intended. “I’m not a terrorist, nuclear or otherwise.”
“That remains to be seen. I am Special Agent Stanton, Homeland Security. We’re acting on credible intelligence received concerning you and your employer’s recent activities.”
“Mr. Lee isn’t a terrorist either.”
“Which I am sure will be either confirmed or not in the very near future, but everything depends upon your cooperation. Do we have it?”
“You have it! Absolutely. Nothing would make me happier than to help you, especially given your kind and gracious offer to chauffeur our meeting.”
“You can lose the sarcasm, Mr. Kelley. Sarcasm ends this interview and gets you safely behind lock and key as an accessory in the illegal trafficking and use of nuclear materials.”
Nathan glared. “Belaying sarcasm, aye, ma’am.”
She glared back at him for several more miles in silence. Nathan used the opportunity to try to assess his situation. They had not arrested him yet. In fact, they had not even bound him, with the obvious exception of the two hulking guards on either side. That probably meant that though they suspected him of something, they did not have enough certainty or evidence to proceed with impunity. In fact, if they did arrest him, he could probably have it thrown out of court because of the manner of his arrest. Homeland Security might have become overcautious and extreme in their procedures over the years, but they were still ostensibly a law enforcement agency. Nathan tried not to repeat that to himself as a mantra.
This was a fishing expedition. Not only that, but it had all the classic trappings of a shakedown rather than a legitimate interrogation. These people were likely experienced at this sort of thing, and did not appear to be stupid. That meant that their method of snatching him could hardly be an accident. It was intentional, calculated, probably intended to intimidate him or cow him into a cooperative frame of mind. He was unsure of what that meant for him, but it did serve to relax him somewhat.
Special Agent Stanton saw Nathan settle a bit from his earlier position atop pins and needles. It only seemed to infuriate her. No longer content to wait for his frightened, nervous babbling of what they wanted to know, especially since it did not seem to be working, she started in. “Who is Lee working for?”
“As far as I know, Mr. Lee only works for Mr. Lee.”
She smiled. “So Lee is taking it upon himself to become a nuclear power? He’s trying to acquire weapons grade and reactor grade fissile material for some perfectly legitimate reason?”
Nathan winced inwardly, hoping his poker face betrayed nothing to the Homeland Security agents. “Overseas procurement problems,” Lee had said. It had been nothing for Nathan to worry about—that is until he had been snatched up by the most paranoid, overreaching law enforcement/defense agency since Hoover’s FBI. Now, it might be considered Nathan’s problem.
“Ma’am, if something that outlandish were true, I’m sure that Mr. Lee would have a perfectly legitimate reason. As it’s not true, I think this discussion is probably unnecessary.”