And then she withdrew, telling reporters that she was going back to fight this on a different front — the donations of money, food, and clothing pouring in from the “wonderful Americans who want to do their part even if they’re hundreds of miles away.” It was a great sound bite, and once more she contrived to have tears — this time of pride — in her eyes.
She made her way to her car and was driven out of D.C.
During the trip, she made over forty phone calls, doing a lot of what she had just promised to do. Then, when the broken city was behind her and the green of Virginia wrapped itself around her, she told her driver to take her to the Barn. It was the code name for a division of DARPA that had ostensibly been closed down. The official story of its current use was testing flight simulators for a proposed virtual reality training center for drone pilots. Intriguing enough to convince the right people to keep the facility’s top-secret clearance in place, but boring enough to keep congressional spooks from nosing around.
The guards at the Barn were repurposed military. Not MPs or anyone who had a propensity for problem-solving or investigation. These were the kind of soldiers who could stand post all day, never ask a question, and be content with that. There were plenty of them in any branch of the service anywhere in the world.
Her driver presented the credentials for someone other than VanOwen. The soldiers barely looked in the back, and if they did, they saw a woman with curly black hair, garish lipstick, and horn-rimmed glasses. Later, when investigators checked this all out, they would match the description and the ID with Gloria Paley, a seasoned representative from Iowa. Ms. Paley would never afterward be found, and any blame would land solidly on her. Her credit card would be used in Guatemala over the next couple of days and then never again. VanOwen did not know, nor care, what would happen to the body. Her employer had people to handle those kinds of details.
The driver parked near the eighth in a row of sixteen Quonset huts that stretched down between stands of trees. VanOwen got out and went inside quickly. Her driver stayed outside. His ID was fake, too, as were the plates on the car.
VanOwen used Paley’s ID to access an elevator that went down two levels to a lab that actually ran beneath all of the Quonset huts. The guards did not question her at all, because it was Paley’s job to oversee this project. They never looked closer than the wig and glasses and lipstick.
In the rear corner of the massive lab was a row of small aircraft. Eight of them, each with a slightly different configuration, but all following a similar design philosophy. Only three people were in the lab, the rest having gone upstairs to the staff lounges to watch the news. Or home to be with family; or to D.C. in the hopes that they did not have to think about grief and funerals and loss.
The three remaining staff members were in white lab coats. Two were senior techs and one was the project manager. They all turned as VanOwen approached. The techs nodded and turned back to their work. The scientist rose from a chair and came to meet VanOwen, but nearly missed a step as she closed. Confusion clouded her face, and it was clear she realized who it was behind the glasses and fake hair.
“I—” she began, but VanOwen touched a finger to her lips, then took the scientist by the elbow and led her a few paces away.
“I’ll explain later,” said VanOwen, touching her wig. “Did you prepare everything?”
“Yes,” said Yuina Hoshino.
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure? We will index everything.”
Hoshino looked pained. “I told you from the beginning that I will do anything and everything you want. I have all of the designs, the metallurgy, the chemistry, the complete genomes of over forty candidates, everything. It’s a complete copy.”
“Good.”
“But it’s still a waste of time,” she said. “Without tissue samples from host pilots, none of these will fly. Ever.”
They turned and looked at the line of craft. Each of them was much smaller than the machine that Howard Shelton had sent to try and destroy China. They were similar, though. Triangular hulls with no obvious front, a central dome, and round white lights on the undersides of each point. They stood on metal platforms, but VanOwen knew that under the right circumstances they would not need landing struts. They would hover, floating on a cushion of charged air, defying gravity as if it was irrelevant. These T-craft were not intended for combat use, but were instead scaled prototypes that allowed for redesign and modification more quickly than full-sized machines.
“Get the files,” ordered VanOwen. Hoshino nodded and went over to her desk, where an oversized metal briefcase stood. VanOwen followed and told her to open it. Hoshino did, revealing that it was crammed with ultra-high-capacity storage drives. “Close and lock it.”
As Hoshino did, VanOwen beckoned to the technicians to come over. They obeyed at once, and as soon as they were within range, VanOwen drew a Glock 19 from inside her coat. It was fitted with a sound suppressor. She shot each of the technicians in the face. They dropped at once, and as a horrified Hoshino watched, VanOwen walked over and shot them each again. Three shots in head and heart.
“What… what…?” gasped Hoshino.
VanOwen gave her a radiant smile. “Thank you for all of your loyalty and hard work, Doctor. You are really quite amazing.”
“But I…?”
VanOwen shot her through the heart and then put two rounds in her head. Brass tinkled and she did not bother to pick it up. There were no prints on the spent cartridges and the gun was unregistered. The driver, stone-faced, walked between the corpses and picked up the case. He took the gun from VanOwen and they left the lab, the building, and the base together without saying a word.
On a deserted road, VanOwen got out of the car, leaving the disguise behind. Her own Lexus GS was parked in the dense shadows of a side road. The driver put the heavy case in the trunk, turned, got back in his car, and drove away. Except for a brief exchange with the gate guards, he had not spoken a word since D.C. Likely he would vanish from all public records and be reassigned by their employer to some other work.
VanOwen got behind the wheel but did not start the engine. Instead she turned on the inside lights and stared at her face in the rearview mirror. The murders in the Barn were easy. Very easy, and she knew it should frighten her. Or sicken her. But there was nothing in her eyes and nothing in her heart.
The lack of feeling was what frightened her. She licked her lips, tasting the last of the garish lipstick.
“Christ,” she said. She switched off the light but did not start the car for nearly half an hour, preferring instead to sit in total darkness. Without, and within.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Church closed the door to the solarium, shook hands with us both, allowed Ghost to sniff his black-gloved hand, and then sat.