The contact was a spherical curve of liquid crystal cells that projected high-def images. Invisible to all but the user, the lens created a virtual display several feet from the face.
She fluttered her fingers, the metallic press-on nails catching the dim light. The radio-frequency identification-tagged fingernails allowed her to type in the air without a keyboard.
Before hooding Candy and Jaggers and loading them in the private jet, René’s men had searched their luggage compulsively for any communication devices. They had no way of knowing that Candy had been wearing her phone.
She let her gaze loosen to focus on the floating display. It always took some time for the double-blind comms connection to initiate.
The cursor blinked red, red, then finally turned green.
Van Sciver’s text scrolled before her face: HAVE YOU SECURED THE ASSET?
She lifted her fingers like a pianist and typed a reply text in thin air: POWER PLAY FAILED. WILL WIN HIM @ AUCTION TOMORROW.
She chewed her lip, waited nervously.
I’M UNWILLING TO TAKE THAT RISK.
OK. She took a deep breath, studied the bathroom walls. WHERE AM I? DID U BACKTRACE SATPHONE CALL?
REMOTE LOCATION IN MAINE.
Maine didn’t make sense given their travel time. To throw off their estimates, René’s men must have flown them back and forth in the jet before loading them into the helicopters.
She waited, watched the blinking green cursor.
After a moment another text appeared: WE GOT THROUGH THE CRYPTOGRAPHIC CIPHERS ON HIS SATPHONE, BUT WE ONLY HAD TWO SATELLITES VISIBLE FOR THE GPS TRILATERATION. WE’RE MAKING TIMING CORRECTIONS NOW, ZEROING IN ON PRECISE COORDINATES.
R U GOING 2 SEND A DRONE?
GETS TRICKY OVER U.S. SOIL.
She typed, WE LIVE 4 TRICKY.
I’M TAKING NO CHANCES, Van Sciver texted.
WHICH MEANS?
BOOTS ON THE GROUND.
She pursed her lips. A physical raid backed by numbers? Van Sciver didn’t operate this way. Ever. It would take a different level of coordination, logistics, mission planning. Which meant time.
CAN U GET HERE BY MORNING? she typed.
IF NOT, he texted, YOU’D DAMN WELL BETTER STALL THE AUCTION.
COPY THAT.
THERE IS NO VERSION IN WHICH ORPHAN X EXITS THAT BUILDING UNTIL I ARRIVE. UNDERSTOOD?
She took a breath. UNDERSTOOD.
The cursor went from green to red. She lowered her hands. The display vanished, leaving her looking at her own reflection in the mirror.
Her conscience, long buried and atrophied from lack of use, rolled over from its sleep. She kicked it in the face and put it back down. It had no business being awake for what she was about to do.
52
Some Kind of Advantage
Despite the drugs Evan was awake and alert with the first light of dawn. He lay on his back. Waiting. He sensed the planks compressing in the hall before he heard them creak. Dex could put some serious weight down on a floor.
The dead bolts clanked open, one after another, and the hinges gave a soft complaint as the mahogany door swung inward. Evan rolled over, feigning sleep, his eyelids cracked enough to register Dex’s massive shape entering the room.
His cinder-block fist raised the transmitter to aim at Evan, and Evan reacted appropriately, jolting awake, shuddering on the sheets, clawing at his shock collar. It was, he thought, a convincing performance.
He’d had plenty of practice.
Dex led him into the hall where Xalbador waited, less-lethal shotgun in hand.
Not a word was exchanged as Evan headed to the stairs and wound his way down.
Dead man walking.
When they reached the ground floor, Evan caught a whiff of espresso in the air, the distant murmur of chatter. The library was empty, but a few early risers had gathered in the sunroom — the guests being catered to, pampered like Sotheby’s VIPs at a pre-auction reception. The Great White Sark held forth by the banquette, swapping war stories with the others. The Widow Lakshminarayanan sipped tea in a corner, sitting ramrod straight. Conversation ceased as Evan passed by, all those sets of eyes lifting to trace his path across the doorway.
Candy McClure and Orphan M were conspicuously absent. Even if Van Sciver chose to deploy Orphans in pairs these days, they were built to operate alone. Old habits were hard to break. It was tough to imagine them chewing biscotti with war criminals and drug lords.
Evan kept on. He sensed Xalbador’s shotgun trained at the space between his shoulder blades. Dex kept several paces ahead of him, walking sideways to hold him in view, the pistol dwarfed by his hand. Their three-man procession was coming up on the ballroom now. Evan felt his skin tingle as it did before a mission kicked off. Not fear, no, nor even the stress of anticipation, but an overwhelming sense of his own aliveness. He hated to admit how much he loved this, especially given the horrors he would face if he failed.
His vision sharpened until he could make out the knuckle grooves on Dex’s trigger finger. He sensed the cadence of Xalbador’s footsteps, the vibrations through the marble floor. Reading the rhythm of the men’s movements, he predicted and gauged and prepared.
The makeshift garrote stuffed in his sock pressed coolly into his flesh.
They turned the corner, their boots tapping the hardwood. The rows of empty chairs were set out neatly, as if in anticipation of a wedding service. The Lexan vault waited. They crossed the freshly polished spot on the floor where David had bled out.
Ten more steps.
Evan used the chirp of Xalbador’s boots against the floor to measure the man’s distance behind him. He slipped a hand into his pocket, digging for his bootlaces, curling his fingers around one side of the improvised noose.
Six more steps.
His muscles tensed. His cells sang. It would come down to instinct, timing, and luck.
Four.
The high-set windows threw Xalbador’s shadow forward next to Evan. He flicked his eyes over, reading the dark outline, noting the shotgun’s position. Letting his right hand dangle, he gripped his jeans at the thigh and gave a little tug, the pant leg riding up a few inches, putting the garrote within reach.
Dex cast a last glance back at Evan before pivoting, his hand starting to rise to the sensor panel beneath the big steel handle of the Lexan door.
Two steps.
One.
The fine hairs on Dex’s arm glistened in the morning light. His big hand spread, that tattooed grimace growing even broader, the blood-dripping canines coming clear. Everything moved in slow motion, as if Evan were again living inside that single drop from René’s syringe.
Dex’s giant palm touched the panel.
The inset screen flared to life, reading the road map of veins beneath the skin.
MATCH.
The lugs released.
The foot-thick door swung open. Three inches. Six. A foot. Dex’s hand was still raised, the flared fingers starting to retract.
Evan yanked the bootlace noose from his pocket. He stepped not for Dex but past him, lunging for the widening gap in the door. As he skimmed by Dex’s shoulder, he lassoed the still-raised hand. Xalbador shouted, the shotgun aimed, but Evan had already put Dex between himself and the barrel.
Dex wheeled, disoriented by the fact that Evan was fleeing into the Lexan room instead of away from it. Dex was spinning in one direction, Evan in the other. With his free hand, Evan grabbed for the .45.
And missed.
For an instant he tumbled toward the Lexan vault, his left hand gripping the end of the bootlaces, his right flailing.
Then the slack came out of the laces.
The noose cinched around Dex’s wrist. His arm snapped straight. Evan held on with everything he had.