“You mean what you can develop.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ll be heading up the development of the Merge’s military potential.”
“Me? I’m a medical doctor, Fred. A microbiologist.”
“False modesty doesn’t suit you, Jon. You’re a gifted leader and an extremely capable scientist with extensive combat experience. Who better?”
“I really don’t think this is going to be workable, Fred. General Pedersen will go absolutely ballistic if I end up running this thing.”
Klein’s expression turned thoughtful. “And yet, the president still doesn’t care.”
24
Sean Maher accelerated to within fifty meters of the Ford in front of him and then slowed to match its speed. Even at that distance, it was impossible to keep it fully in sight as it ducked and twisted through the rocky landscape. A far cry from his home in Ireland, but perfect for the task at hand. The last car had passed in the oncoming lane almost fifteen minutes ago and the wind was starting to gust strongly enough to rock his SUV. No-man’s-land.
He’d been told what to expect, but still wasn’t fully prepared when it happened. The vehicle had been traveling at exactly the posted speed since he first got a visual and it maintained that monotonous pace as it started into a sharp right-hand curve.
This corner was no different from any of the hundreds of others in the area. This time the Ford veered left, heading toward the steep, unprotected slope at the road’s edge. Through the glare coming off the rear window, Maher could see the man in the passenger seat lunge for the wheel.
The vehicle lost traction and the sound of straining rubber rose above the rumble of his engine and the wind. It might have actually stayed on the road had the passenger not panicked and overcorrected. Instead, the rear drifted out over the slope and gravity did the rest.
Maher released the accelerator and let the SUV drift, watching the car drop backward onto the steep grade and pick up speed. It hit a rut near the bottom and rose up on two wheels, teetering precariously before rolling onto its roof.
By the time Maher came to a stop on the shoulder, the Ford had flipped again and come to rest on its wheels with a boulder rammed into the left front quarter panel.
He jumped out and began running as best he could down the loose terrain, looking for movement through glass spiderwebbed by the partially collapsed roof. Nothing obvious. Maybe this was going to be one of those rare instances of easy money.
As he got closer, though, he spotted motion in the passenger seat and was forced to abandon his fantasy of collecting payment with clean hands.
He swung around the trunk and gave the driver’s-side door a few hard jerks, only to find it jammed. A rock and his elbow were enough to break out what was left of the safety glass.
As he’d been assured, the driver was dead — staring sightlessly at the ceiling with his head crammed between the pillar and the edge of the seat. Unfortunately, the man in the passenger seat wasn’t in the same condition. He was badly dazed but fully conscious, blinking hard and pawing ineffectually at his seat belt.
Maher confirmed that the road above was still empty and pulled himself through the window frame, using the driver’s body for leverage. The surviving passenger finally realized that he wasn’t alone and squinted at him, confusion turning to relief.
“Help me get this—”
Instead, Maher grabbed the man’s head and slammed it into the side window. He was caught entirely by surprise but quickly began to fight. Not that his resistance was the issue — he was old and weak from the crash. The problem was that the broken safety glass was soft enough to absorb impact.
The dashboard would have been better but the deployed air bags could raise the suspicions of an overzealous medical examiner. Not that it was likely anyone would give two traffic deaths on a treacherous road that much thought, but there was always a chance. And this operation was sloppy enough as it was.
Maher kept at it, breathing hard and working up a sweat as he hammered the man’s skull into the glass, dodging fingers clawing weakly at him. His public role as unsuccessful rescuer would look suspect if his skin was found beneath the old man’s meticulously buffed nails.
His shoulders burned with fatigue and the sound of his own ragged breathing filled the confined space, but he continued until the man finally slipped into unconsciousness. There was not time to rest, though. Not yet.
He shoved himself back through the window and dropped to the ground, sliding beneath the car to tear through the fuel line with an array of multi-tool implements that wouldn’t leave an obvious cut mark. Again, probably unnecessary, but it was impossible to be too thorough in his line of business.
Fuel leaked onto the sun-heated ground and he used a lighter to ignite it. The smoke rose quickly, curling thick and black in the unpredictable winds.
Maher held a sleeve to his face, choking as he retreated to a safe distance. The sound of an engine became audible above and he saw a car pull up behind his rented SUV. A middle-aged couple jumped out and he swore under his breath as he moved back into the smoke and tugged uselessly on the superheated door handle — a quick and extremely painful show for his new audience.
They shouted at him as he retreated, but it was impossible to understand what they were saying. Both were seriously overweight and neither looked capable of getting down the slope. Just to be sure that there would be no futile heroics, though, he let them off the hook by a cautionary wave that indicated he was fine and there was nothing more to be done.
Maher moved back a few more meters as the flames grew, keeping a close watch on the man in the passenger seat through occasional breaks in the smoke. He was consumed without ever regaining consciousness.
25
Randi Russell fired a quick burst at the Afghan fleeing up the slope, but only managed to kick up a cloud of shattered rock three meters to his left. It would have been nice to get lucky, but the real purpose of wasting the ammo was to give her two teammates time to find cover.
She’d spent the last three months tracking the men who’d carried out an attack on a CIA outpost. Her normal zeal for this kind of work had been magnified by her guilt over being in Sarabat indulging Fred Klein’s curiosity instead of watching her colleagues’ backs. If she’d been where she was supposed to be, maybe she could have stopped it. Maybe her friends wouldn’t have died.
Five of the six men responsible were already in the ground. And the last was less than a football field away.
Behind her, Billy Grant slid on his hip and dropped into a rocky furrow just deep enough to make him disappear. Deuce had found similar cover and from her position all that was visible of him was the top of his helmet.
It wasn’t the normal government-issue headgear she was familiar with, though. This one was created by a retired SEAL who now made a living building custom racing bicycles. Molded to the owner’s head, it bristled with the ever-increasing array of gadgets that fed information to the Merges that had become nearly ubiquitous in active special forces. Apparently, he couldn’t churn them out fast enough for the ops guys, who were willing to trade the dismal protection offered by carbon fiber for the weight savings.