Origin (12 page)

‘Now,’ he said to them, ‘take off all your clothes.’

Like many things in life, the discovery of the handcuffed police officers was down to sheer bad luck. Adams and Lynn were only sixty miles from the border; if the policemen had been undiscovered for only an hour, then the two of them would have made it in their stolen police car, their borrowed uniforms allowing them to cross over into Peru unquestioned. On the empty desert roads of the Atacama, it was certainly feasible. Traffic here was scarce, and it certainly wasn’t unheard of for hours to pass without any vehicles whatsoever.

Adams had taken the police team fifty yards off the main road and hidden them behind a small copse of trees. He had considered taking the vehicles off the road as well but had decided against this, as he couldn’t be sure if the area was being monitored by satellite. It was unlikely such units would be zoomed in, but the absence of vehicles at a requested roadblock would certainly be noticed. He had just prayed that no driver would come across the empty vehicles in the next hour or so.

But it was not to be. Not more than twenty minutes after Adams and Lynn had accelerated away in the sergeant’s police car, a small livestock truck came trundling slowly up the road. The driver had slowed even further, and then stopped. After waiting in his vehicle a few moments, he had got out and wandered over to the first car. Seeing nobody, he had then checked the second police car, and then the Fiat. Still nobody. Not a soul.

The driver stood there wondering what to do when he caught motion out of the corner of his eye. His head turned, and he first of all saw the copse of trees further back from the road. And then he saw the movement again – a leg, kicking out from behind one of the trees.

Nervous, he had grabbed the shotgun from the passenger footwell of his truck and tracked slowly across the dirty scrubland towards the trees. Under a minute later he was at the copse, rounding the first tree, shotgun at the ready.

His eyes widened in disbelief as he saw the six police officers, bound back to back on the ground, screaming silently at him through their gags.

Once freed, Vega found that the police radios had been broken. Likewise, their personal cellphones had all been smashed to pieces by the crazed terrorists.

Upon quizzing the truck driver, it appeared that he had a cellphone, and Vega quickly commandeered it, finally managing to get through to headquarters.

‘We have a major situation here,’ he told his commander breathlessly. Terrorists were on the loose with anthrax.

Eldridge heard the conversation between Sergeant Vega and his captain in virtual real-time, and cursed his own bad luck. They were low on fuel, and were holding position as they waited for aerial refuelling. The refuelling aircraft would be with them within the next ten minutes, but the delivery of fuel would take a further hour. During this time, they would continue to head towards the fugitives from their current position due east of Santiago, but at a seriously reduced speed.

Given the current speed of the stolen police car, Eldridge knew that it was unlikely that he and his onboard team would make it to the border in time. His other men, currently scattered at various points around central Chile, would also not be able to make it in time, which meant he was going to have to trust the local authorities to pick the pair up.

But what was this about anthrax? The police sergeant had said that the pair had shown them a glass, freeze-packed test tube, which they claimed contained weaponized anthrax.

Did they? Eldridge thought it highly doubtful. Where the hell would they have got such a thing? Did they have contacts in Chile? Or did Adams use his old government contacts and get some before he came here? But if that was the case, how would he have got it past customs?

The fact that it was in a test tube was also strange, given that weaponized anthrax was designed to be used in aerosol form. But they nevertheless had a test tube, which led Eldridge to consider whether—

Damn!

What if Edwards had collected samples from the body? She always seemed to have a backpack with her, and as Eldridge cast his mind back to the Antarctic, he realized that it was the same one she had boarded the helicopter with. Why the hell hadn’t he picked up on that before?

Thinking back further, he remembered their conversation in the dining room of the Matrix base camp.

‘So since talking to Atkinson last night, you didn’t go back out to the body until this morning?’ he had asked her, pretending at the time to be Major Daley of the US Army Engineers.

Edwards had looked at him, and then shaken her head. ‘No,’ she had replied. ‘Samuel ordered us to return here and stay until you guys arrived.’

Eldridge tried to examine his memory of that day, extract the image of Edwards from the recesses of his mind, examine it for any evidence of lying. It was a hopeless task, he knew, and yet he tried, searching his image of her face for any waver, anything that hinted at dishonesty.

But he already knew the answer. Of course they had been back out. What scientist wouldn’t? It hadn’t seemed an issue at the time, as Eldridge knew he was going to kill them all anyway, but it was now apparent that he hadn’t given it enough consideration at the time. Yet another mistake.

It wasn’t one he would bother Jacobs with yet. If the pair was stopped at the border, he would be there within another hour, and the whole sorry incident could be wrapped up.

But they had to be caught first, and so Eldridge immediately contacted Nevada, who in turn ordered the NSA to retask the necessary satellite to provide real-time footage of the escaping police car. He next ensured that the border patrols at the checkpoint at Arica were on full alert, and reinforcements from the Chilean military were en route, just in case.

Talking to the border patrol, it transpired that they had a Lynx scout helicopter on loan from the British Army Air Corps, and Eldridge immediately gave the order for it to fly south on Interstate 5 to intercept the fugitives if possible, or at least to provide close surveillance.

Part of him was tempted to let the pair get to the border, where more forces would be ranged against them, but another part told him that they had lost them several times already, and waiting was no longer an option – the fugitives had been located, Eldridge knew where they were
right now
, and the border patrol forces had the capability of getting to them within the next ten minutes.

Yes, it was definitely a good idea to send in the helicopter, and send it in hard. Eldridge called back to make sure the men aboard the chopper were well-armed.

And then he called the authorities in Peru, to warn them what was happening over the border. And to get them mobilized.

Just in case.

T
HEY HEARD IT
long before they saw it, the slow, steady
whump, whump, whump
of helicopter rotors, high in the sky above them.

Lynn turned to Adams. ‘How far are we?’

Adams glanced quickly at the odometer. ‘Just twenty miles,’ he answered. ‘Damn.’

Somebody must have discovered the roadblock cops and called it in, or else they must have escaped somehow. Either way, the border had been alerted, which meant they were going to have to come up with a new plan, and quickly.

He turned to Lynn. ‘Any ideas?’ he asked hopefully.

‘It depends what they’re up to,’ she said, craning her neck up to look through the windscreen, catching just a glimpse of the Lynx scout helicopter above them. ‘If they’re just monitoring us, they’ll follow us to the border, where the police will arrest us. We can use the anthrax ploy again, but I don’t know if it’ll work a second time. If the helicopter crew has been ordered to make the arrest, though, it’ll have to land at some stage . . .’

Adams nodded his head, following her reasoning instantly. Given Lynn’s last experience in a helicopter, he hoped she wouldn’t panic. He turned to her. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked gently.

She nodded her head. ‘It’s our only chance.’

Adams returned his gaze to the road, determined. ‘Then we’ve got to get that chopper to land.’

What was this?
Captain Marco Delongis saw the police car on the highway below his helicopter brake to a screeching halt, then watched as the two fugitives leapt from the vehicle.

What was the man holding? Delongis narrowed his eyes.
Pistol!

He fought the natural urge to command the pilot to pull up, knowing that a 9mm handgun round would do absolutely nothing to harm the helicopter. Instead he continued to watch in dread fascination as the man loosed off all fifteen rounds from the gun until it clicked empty. He then saw the man look at the gun in disgust, and fling it to the ground.

He had obviously taken the pistol from one of the policemen at the roadblock but he hadn’t had the good sense to take their spare ammunition. He saw the woman screaming something at her partner, pointing up at the helicopter, and then they were running, straight off the highway and into the scrubland that bordered it.

They were obviously panicking, the sight of the helicopter causing them to flee on foot in blind fear. Delongis was always surprised when this happened, the effect his little aircraft could have on people, and always glad. It made things substantially easier.

The fact that the pair had stopped the car and fled on foot also made life easier. His orders had been to stop the vehicle and arrest the two fugitives. He would have had to manoeuvre the chopper in front of the speeding car, hovering above the highway, in order to get it to stop, and he was glad he didn’t have to. Who knew how crazy this pair was? They might have driven straight at him.

As it was, he just had to land near them, deploy the four-man team from the rear, and wait for the arrest. Easy, especially as the pair was now unarmed.

But there was, Delongis reminded himself, the problem of the anthrax. The word was that the fugitives had a test tube, which indicated that it wasn’t weaponized, but its presence would still be enough to make his men wary. Their orders were to bring the pair in alive, but Delongis had given his own orders: if it looked like either the man or the woman was going to use the anthrax, they should be shot immediately. There was no point taking unnecessary chances.

Adams and Lynn ran as hard as they could, legs pumping over the coarse, uneven terrain, doing their very best to give the impression of panicking, fearful fugitives.

They heard the helicopter closing in, sensed it nearing them, but they didn’t turn to look, they just kept on running, eyes ahead.

Lynn’s peripheral vision picked it up first, the gunmetal grey body swooping past their flank, whipping up desert sand all around them as it banked, lifted, and landed just twenty yards away.

The pair turned, exchanging glances. This was it.

Lynn held up her backpack defensively as the black-clad four-man arrest team deplaned into the swirling sands, assault rifles up and aimed.

‘Down, down, down!’ the lead man shouted at them as the team sprinted forward.

‘Wait!’ shouted Lynn, holding up the backpack higher. ‘Anthrax!’

The lead man lifted one gloved fist, and the other team members stopped short. ‘Put the bag down!’ he announced with heavy authority. ‘We are authorized to shoot you if you do not comply!’

When there was no immediate reaction from her, he pushed the muzzle of his gun threateningly towards her. ‘Put it down!’ he called again. ‘Now!’

Lynn looked across at Adams, who reluctantly nodded his head.

Defeated, Lynn put the bag at her feet and waited helpless as the men surged forward.

A
S
D
ELONGIS WATCHED
with his co-pilot from the cockpit, he was delighted to see that this was going to be even easier than he had hoped. Obviously, the sight of the black-clad SWAT team had taken the fight right out of the terrorists and they had capitulated without a struggle. There had been the threat of the anthrax, of course, but it had been dealt with swiftly.

And now his men were moving forward to make the arrest, removing handcuffs from their belts, and—

Delongis watched in horror as the man and the woman both produced handguns and grabbed one man each, arms going round their throats, guns aimed at their heads.

This was impossible. Two of his men held at gunpoint! They must have taken more than one gun from the police, and Delongis cursed his reckless stupidity. He gripped the arms of his seat, his knuckles turning white, as the other two team members threw their assault rifles to the side and then lay down on the dusty ground, forced to handcuff themselves.

And then he saw the fugitives take their hostages, the woman careful to retrieve her backpack, and begin moving steadily towards his helicopter.

Within seconds, Adams and Lynn were at either side of the helicopter, next to the cockpit doors.

‘Open the doors!’ Adams shouted fiercely. ‘Or we’re gonna blow their heads off!’

When there was no instant response, Adams pushed the muzzle of his gun further into the man’s head, forcing his face into the cockpit’s plexiglas window, so the pilots could see the man’s fear up close.

Seconds later, the man on his side nodded his head and released the door, his partner doing the same thing on the opposite side.

‘Leave the rotors turning and get out,’ Adams ordered, and again both men complied. Adams glanced across at Lynn and noticed the quizzical look she gave him, but ignored it.

‘Now run to your friends,’ he instructed them and was gratified to see the men do as he said, running to join their compadres in the dirt.

Adams looked at Lynn and nodded his head, and the two of them simultaneously cracked their pistols across the back of their hostages’ heads, knocking them both out cold.

Seconds later, they were safely ensconced in the cockpit, Adams taking the controls with swift, confident actions.

Lynn looked at him, confused. ‘You know how to fly this thing?’ she asked, bewildered. ‘When did you learn that?’

Adams finished his checks and looked at Lynn. ‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me,’ he said, and pushed forward on the gyro.