The line went dead and Aaron Mitchell leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. His head still throbbed from where Huck Seavers had hit him with the vase, and despite pain — killers and the attentions of a skilled make — up artist to conceal the wound, Mitchell was for the first time in a long time at a disadvantage. His main concern was locating Mary Meyer or Amber Ryan, either of whom would give him the required leverage to bring the entire charade down and prevent a catastrophe that would end his career and ruin the reputations of many other men vastly more powerful than he. However, his second major concern was Ethan Warner and Nicola Lopez.
Mitchell felt certain that Warner would already be in the city. The men he had dispatched to Virginia had reported that both Warner and Lopez had escaped local police and the FBI once again, this time commandeering an elderly couple’s vehicle and covering forty miles to the outskirts of Richmond before vanishing once again. Mitchell suspected General Nellis’s involvement but could not prove it and didn’t have the time right now anyway. Likewise he wondered whether Jarvis had somehow been able to slip Warner a warning of some kind before he had been forcibly ejected from the Defense Intelligence Agency’s headquarters, hopefully for the last time.
Both Warner and Lopez had developed a nasty habit of appearing at the most vital moments and throwing spanners in the works of Mitchell’s missions, and he was growing tired of hearing their names. Freelancers, and bail — bondsmen at that, were harder both to control and to predict than paid employees of the government or armed forces.
Defense Intelligence Agency operative Douglas Jarvis had played a clever hand, keeping his own agents at arms — length and off the radar of the government, but that hand was now — defunct. Mitchell looked out of the windows at the glowing lights of the Las Vegas strip and cleared his mind of thought as he focused in on Mary Meyer and her single — minded mission to devastate the entire United States economy in a single, crushing blow. If Mitchell were in her shoes, where would he go and what would he do to complete his task before he was found and silenced?
Aaron’s eyes focused on the bright shimmering lights of the strip, and in an instant he knew that Mary intended to somehow subvert the power supply to the strip itself, and to do that she would need access to at least one of the main power stations serving the Las Vegas area.
A moment’s work brought up a series of power stations connected to the Nevada grid, and Mitchell knew that he would not have time to search them all in order to root out a single individual. More to the point, it would not be possible for Mary to hijack such vast industrialised sites in order to plug — in a fusion cage. In addition, how would Mary publicise the event? Nobody would know, and she had just one night in which to complete her task on her own…
Aaron thought of the commune that Stanley Meyer had hidden in, and in an instant he realized what Mary would most likely have done.
He reached for his cell phone, speed dialled a number and waited for the line to hook up.
‘What is it?’
‘I need every single resource we have in Nevada within the hour,’ Aaron snarled. ‘She’s not here on her own, she’s bought an army with her.’
XXXVII
‘We don’t have any record of those individuals passing through the airbase at this time ma’am.’
Special Agent Hannah Ford leaned against the security gates at Nellis Air Force Base and flashed her most winning smile at the soldier manning the gate house, let him catch a glimpse of her cleavage.
‘We know that a C–5A Galaxy aircraft departed Shepherd Field Air National Guard Base four hours ago and landed here,’ she said. ‘We also know that two fugitives with support from at least one government department of the intelligence services made it aboard that aircraft. All I want to know is where they went after that, or in what vehicle they were travelling.’
The soldier remained impassive.
‘I don’t know what to tell you ma’am,’ he replied. ‘I have no record of them passing through this airbase, and no amount of eyelash fluttering is gonna change that.’
Hannah’s winning smile evaporated and she pushed off the gate. ‘You know that hiding fugitives is a federal offence?’
The soldier shrugged. ‘Yes ma’am, but knowing nothing about it isn’t. You have a nice day.’
Hannah turned and stormed away from the gates of the airbase back to the pool car where Mickey was waiting for her. She yanked open the door and slumped into the passenger seat.
‘Never heard of them?’ Mickey hazarded.
Hannah scowled but said nothing as she covered her face with her hands, took a deep breath and then pushed her hair up and away from her face.
‘Warner and Lopez get out of that car somewhere near Richmond, and then we lose track of them. All we do have is the license plate of the vehicle they were seen arriving in, which was hired and later found abandoned outside a civilian airfield, and the occupants seen entering that field. The only aircraft that left that field in that time frame is a C–5A for Nellis, from where they’ve disappeared. Damn it, none of this makes any sense. Warner and Lopez arrived at the hotel in a vehicle! Why the hell did they steal another one?’
Mickey shook his head.
‘We’re chasing our tails here, Hannah. In my time at Quantico we were trained to track killers, to monitor suspected terrorists, to assist local law enforcement. Nothing I’m seeing here bears any reference to that. As far as I can make out, we’re chasing a bunch of lunatics across the country and have no idea, for sure, if they’re even criminals.’
‘Defense Intelligence Agency,’ Hannah said. ‘That’s what officer Morton said they’d claimed to be working for, right?’
‘They claimed to be working for, being the operative statement. Hannah, these people are likely con artists, frauds. Nothing they’ve said can be taken at face value.’
Hannah leafed through a folder that contained everything they had on the current case, and found herself once again looking at an image of Mary Meyer.
‘Why is nobody looking for this woman?’ Amber asked. ‘Her husband is now dead and she’s been missing for just as long, as has their daughter, Amber, who also showed up at the hotel with Warner and Lopez in tow.’
‘I don’t know,’ Mickey replied wearily. ‘They could be in Europe by now. This is a waste of time, Hannah. You’re just chasing this because you think that any success you have will piss Jenkins off.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Why are we here then?’
Hannah looked at Mickey for a moment, and then shrugged. ‘Because it might piss Jenkins off a little, obviously.’
Mickey sighed at the sight of the tiny smile touching Hannah’s freckled face. ‘I don’t know why I follow you into things like this.’
‘Because you know it stinks,’ Hannah replied, ‘just like I do. They’re all here, and they’re up to something. Whatever it is, I can’t just let it go — there’s also a homicide to think about, remember?’
‘Again, according to Ethan Warner, who then takes off before we can question him about how he knew there was a second person on the scene.’
‘The DNA profile will take a while to figure out, but we know the blood wasn’t Stanley Meyer’s. Warner was right, so why would he then take off, and why the hell is he being held up as a suspect in the case? He wasn’t there, can’t have been.’