‘Get the security team out there!’ Wilms shouted. ‘And get LeMay out of the building, now!’
XXXII
‘They’re onto us!’
Vaughn started the car’s engine as Lopez fought to bring the drone down to street level as fast as she could as the car jolted to the right, Vaughn cutting up a small goods vehicle as he struck out into the flow.
Lopez had seen everything: the faces of the men in the room, LeMay among them, who had collapsed in their midst. The expression of one of the men, Wilms, as he pointed directly at the drone before Lopez had cut the throttle and let the device plummet out of sight.
She turned the drone in mid-flight and swung it around to point the cameras at the elaborate entrance to the hotel, where she instantly saw a dozen men burst out onto the sidewalk of 5th Avenue, all of them looking up into the sky above Central Park. Dark suits, designer sunglasses and likely concealed weapons beneath their jackets.
‘Multiple agents,’ she reported as Vaughn drove down the avenue toward the intersection close to the hotel. She saw one of the agents point up at the drone and then the men sprinted across the street. ‘They’re onto the drone.’
Vaughn nodded as he saw the agents cross the street a hundred yards in front of them, heard a salvo of horns honking them as they dodged the traffic and vaulted over the wall into the park. ‘How much battery do you have left?’
‘Less than ten per cent,’ she replied. ‘We need a way to get that drone back into the car.’
Vaughn offered her a tight grin in the rear view mirror. ‘Nice to hear you’ve planned ahead. Is the downlink working?’
Lopez blinked as she looked at the screen. ‘Yeah but it’s slow, I need another couple of minutes.’
Vaughn drove past the hotel, the lightly tinted windows of their vehicle effectively concealing them from observation as Vaughn turned right onto the Plaza and then followed East Drive, the trees surrounding them concealing the vast city that enveloped the park.
‘You got a bead on the agents?’ Vaughn asked.
Lopez turned the drone and looked down to see the four agents sprinting through the forest, following trails between the trees as they pursued the tiny drone.
‘They’re not going to make it,’ she said. ‘Head to the far side and we’ll pick up the drone and get the hell out of here.’
Vaugh nodded as he accelerated toward the center of the park, where Terrace Drive would pick up 5th Avenue again and let them head north out of Manhattan. Lopez descended the drone, skimming the treetops as she flew it toward the park exit. Vaughn was almost there when she spotted the two glossy black SUVs pull into the park and block the entrance as armed agents got out and began waving vehicles down and peering inside.
‘Damn, that was fast’ she uttered. ‘They’ve got support and they’re checking vehicles, stay off Terrace.’
Vaughn did not reply, simply slowing down and easing the vehicle past Terrace and further into the park.
‘How the hell did they figure this out so quickly?’ he asked. ‘We could have been anywhere in the city.’
‘Majestic Twelve,’ Lopez murmured. ‘They’ve likely got tech just as advanced as some of our own. Maybe they scanned for the drone’s controller signal and picked it up coming from out of the park.’
‘We need to get out of here,’ Vaughn snapped. ‘If they identify us in this vehicle we’re done.’
Lopez focused on the drone as she sought a way out of the park.
‘They’re following the drone right now, not us,’ she insisted. ‘I can give them the run around while you drive out of here.’
‘If you get too far out of range with a low battery we could lose the drone,’ Vaughn warned her. ‘If we lost that downlink and the drone gets picked up…’
‘It won’t,’ Lopez insisted. ‘I’ve got an idea. Drop me off.’
‘They’ll see you.’
‘Just do it.’
‘The drone is the priority,’ Vaughn insisted. ‘We can’t lose you or it!’
‘Then pull over now!’ Lopez shouted. ‘Get the car out of the park on Terrace and I’ll meet you on Central Park West!’
Vaughn yanked the car into the sidewalk and braked as Lopez got out and slammed her door behind her and dashed across the street into the trees. She heard Vaughn pull away as she ducked into some bushes and hurriedly unfolded her laptop to see the view from the drone as it flew overhead.
To her surprise she could hear its engines buzzing somewhere above her, and gently she began turning the drone to the north, continuing on over the park toward the Reservoir. She ducked down as she heard running feet pounding the path nearby, and peered through the trees to see four agents run past her, one of them speaking into a microphone as he stared up at the speck in the sky.
‘Run Forrest,’ Lopez smiled to herself as she watched them sprint desperately after the little drone.
She toyed with the idea of turning the drone in a big circle to tire the agents out further, but quickly scratched that from her list as she realized that it would give the game away and force the agents to search for controller’s signal instead. The battery was low, five per cent now and falling fast and the downlink had not yet completed.
‘Come on, damn it!’ she whispered, urging the downlink to hurry.
Moments later, a warning signal appeared on the screen.
DOWNLINK FAILED — SIGNAL LOST
Lopez hissed an expletive as she slammed her fist into the soft earth beside her, and then she saw through the drone’s lens Vaughn’s vehicle stop at the exit of Terrace Drive, four agents surrounding the vehicle.
Vaughn dropped the window of the car as two armed agents with stern expressions peered down at him.
‘Is this your vehicle, sir?’
‘Yes it is,’ Vaughn replied, affecting the air of a New York businessman on his way to work. ‘Is there a problem?’
One of the agents walked to the rear doors of the car and opened one of them, leaning inside.
‘No problem sir,’ came the reply, ‘we’re looking for somebody.’
Vaughn knew damned well that law enforcement officers could not simply open the doors of a citizen’s vehicle and search inside without a warrant, but he also knew that revealing too much knowledge of the law might arouse suspicions as to his identity.
The agent behind him rummaged around and lifted out a charger attached to a series of wires.
‘What’s this?’ he demanded, looking at Vaughn.
‘It’s my laptop’s battery charger,’ Vaughn replied. ‘Why?’
The agent peered at the device as though uncertain. If he looked in the trunk, Vaughn knew that he would find the rest of the drone’s paraphernalia and then he’d be done. The agent climbed out of the vehicle and pointed at Vaughn.
‘Pop the trunk, sir.’
Vaughn frowned, cursing mentally. ‘Don’t you need a warrant for that?’
‘We don’t need warrants to arrest you and impound the vehicle,’ the other agent assured him as he produced a US Marshall’s badge. ‘Pop the trunk.’
Vaughn glanced at the badge, which appeared genuine enough although he knew that the men confronting him were most likely not US Marshalls. Vaughn glanced past the men at the sidewalk and saw two police officers strolling their beat on the sidewalk. It was illegal in the state of New York to fly drones, for obvious reasons, but facing down that charge with the DIA behind him was far preferable to being apprehended by the MJ-12 agents starting to surround the car.