The Cyclops Initiative (39 page)

Chapel wasn't going to get a better chance. He rushed forward, pounding across the gangplank, a pistol clutched in both of his hands, the barrel pointed right at the MP. “Don't move!” he shouted. “Down on the ground!”

Maybe the MP could tell that Chapel wasn't willing to kill him. Maybe he just didn't like being told what to do. He chose the one action Chapel wasn't prepared for, the one that ruined everything. He stood his ground. Lifting his M4 to his eye, he started shouting back, almost echoing Chapel word for word.

“Looks like we have a standoff,” Chapel told him as they aimed their weapons at each other.

“Doesn't look like that at all to me,” the MP said.

“Oh? How's that?”

“You've got a pistol. I've got an assault rifle,” the MP pointed out. “That means I have the advantage. You have to aim.”

It was a fair point. Chapel had no doubt he could kill or incapacitate the man with one shot, and at this range he wasn't likely to miss. But pistol shots didn't just knock ­people down or make them incapable of pulling their own triggers. The MP could cut Chapel in half with automatic fire at any time.

“Maybe we can just talk about this,” Chapel pointed out.

“Maybe you can throw that gun in the water,” the MP replied. “Then maybe you can get down on your knees and lock your fingers behind your head, like—­”

He didn't finish his sentence. Instead he looked very confused for a second, and then he lowered his weapon. With one hand he reached behind himself and touched his back and when he brought his hand around to his face, it was covered in blood.

In another second he was facedown on the boards of the deck, collapsed in a spreading pool of darkness. The hilt of a big hunting knife stuck up from his back.

Behind him, Chapel could see Wilkes perched on the far rail, a mischievous grin on his face. “Miss me?” he asked.

DAINGERFIELD ISLAND, VA: MARCH 25, 23:43

“Jesus,” Chapel said. “You didn't have to kill him.”

“Yeah, I did,” Wilkes insisted. “If I just winged him, he would have opened fire. You'd be a goner.”

Chapel didn't have time to argue. He went to the rail where Wilkes perched and looked over the side, down into the small powerboat Wilkes had brought up along the yacht's hull. “I didn't hear you coming.”

“I cut the engine about a quarter mile out,” Wilkes said. “Paddled the rest of the way. Figured if there were any police boats out here I didn't really want to meet 'em.”

Chapel could see why. A body was stuffed into the powerboat, its hands bound and its head covered in a black sack. That would be Charlotte Holman. “Just tell me she's still alive.”

Wilkes slapped Chapel on the back. “It's your show, buddy. I just follow orders.”

Then he dropped back down into the powerboat and, with just a touch of its engine, brought it around the side of the yacht. Together Chapel and Wilkes lifted Holman out of the smaller vessel and carried her across the gangplank. She didn't fight them, though Chapel could tell she was awake.

He pulled the hood off her head and helped her to her feet. Wilkes hadn't bothered to gag her. Most likely he'd threatened to kill her the instant she made the slightest sound.

“I'm sorry about the rough treatment,” Chapel told her. “Really.”

She snarled at him. “Fucking Boy Scout. If you were more like him,” she said, nodding in Wilkes's direction, “life would be so much easier.”

Chapel shrugged and grabbed the rope that bound her hands. He marched her down a short stairway to the lower deck of the yacht. A companionway ran the length of the vessel, with doors opening on four sides. “Director Hollingshead?” he called out. “Are you here? It's Jim Chapel.”

A doorway popped open at the bow end of the corridor. The director peered out of the shadows beyond. He was dressed in pajamas with a neat pinstripe, and he wasn't wearing his glasses, so his eyes looked small and only half open. Apparently he'd been sleeping.

He also had a big silver revolver in his hand. Clearly he'd been ready for whoever had come to wake him up. Maybe, Chapel thought, he could have kept the assassins at bay on his own.

“Son,” the director said, “I assume you have a good reason for being here.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hollingshead nodded. Then he peered down the darkened corridor at the other two ­people in the narrow space. “Blast,” he said. He disappeared for a second and came back with his glasses. “Charlotte? And . . . Wilkes?” He shook his head. “The whole menagerie. Well, ah, I suppose if I'm entertaining I should make some coffee.”

DAINGERFIELD ISLAND, VA: MARCH 25, 23:48

The main cabin of the yacht was a cozy room with a low ceiling, all finished wood and brass. It was warm and the carpet was soft. When Chapel tried to pull out a chair, however, he found that it was bolted to the floor.

“This is a seagoing yacht,” the director explained. He still wore his pajamas, but he'd put on a silk dressing robe as well. He handed a coffee mug to Wilkes and another to Chapel. Holman didn't get one, but then, her hands were still tied. “I always considered the possibility that I might, have to—­you know. Make a sea crossing on short notice.” He gave them a wry smile.

“You should have gone to Russia the second the secretary of defense relieved you of duty,” Holman said. “You might have had a chance, then. Like Snowden.”

The director favored her with one of his most genial smiles. “Please have a seat, Charlotte. I have no desire for you to be uncomfortable.”

“Oh, I'm fine,” she said. “Whatever indignities I suffer tonight, I'll come out on top. These two will get thirty years for kidnapping. And as for you, Rupert—­I imagine we'll be shipping you to a secret detention facility overseas. You won't be coming back.”

Hollingshead's smile never faded. “Looks like we have nothing to lose, then! I take it, boys, that if she's here, then you've managed to dig a few things up.” He turned to face Chapel.

“That's right, sir,” Chapel said. “For instance, we know she was a major player in the Cyclops Initiative.” He had played enough poker with Wilkes to know not to let on that he still had no idea what the Cyclops Initiative was. “Her workgroup over at the NSA was directly responsible for hijacking the drones in California and in New Orleans, and for the robot that tried to blow up Angel's trailer.”

A brief flash of something like worry crossed the director's face. It disappeared almost instantly. Chapel had a feeling that if they ever sat down to a hand of Texas Hold 'Em, Hollingshead could give Wilkes a run for his money.

“Most important,” he continued, “and why we're here now, is the fact that we know she's planning on having you executed at midnight. That is, in”—­he checked his watch—­“about ten minutes.”

“We'll keep you safe, sir,” Wilkes said. He pulled a pistol from his belt and laid it on a table.

“If that's even necessary,” Chapel said. “I'm thinking that if Holman is here, her assassins won't attack. They'll abort, rather than risk harming her by mistake.”

“Oh, you think so, do you?” Holman asked.

Chapel turned to face her. “Are you going to tell me I'm wrong?”

She gave him a nasty smile. “Yes,” she said. “In a few minutes, Captain Chapel, you're going to be dead. So will Rupert. And there's nothing you can do about it.”

IN TRANSIT: MARCH 25, 23:54

Up in the wind, high over Alexandria, the Reaper made one last, tight turn and began its final run, straight and true, straight for its target.

Normally it had to search for its prey for hours, sifting through signals in a variety of spectra, or homing in on a particular cellular phone or the IP address of a computer. This time its masters had made things easy. They'd given it a set of map coordinates. The Reaper consulted the GPS satellites one last time and began its descent.

Already the hunter was being hunted. Waves of active secondary radar washed over its hull, demanding its transponder codes. Fighter jets had been scrambled to bring it down if it didn't respond. None of that mattered—­its masters had assumed this would happen, but they'd also known exactly how long it would take for the fighter jets to find and destroy the Reaper. Approximately three minutes too long, in point of fact. The Reaper's defection, the parameters of its final mission, had been designed around that timetable.

Nothing in the air could stop it before it could launch its deadly payload.

DAINGERFIELD ISLAND, VA: MARCH 25, 23:56

Wilkes lifted a hand as if he would strike Holman across the face.

Only Hollingshead stopped him. In this case by clearing his throat. “Is there something you'd like to tell us, Charlotte?”

“The assassination can't be aborted or stopped or even postponed,” she said. “If we don't run away from here, right now and as fast as our legs will carry us, we'll all die. Even then, there's no guarantee we'll make it to safety in time.”

Chapel stared at her. “Surely you don't want that.”

“I don't have much choice. Unless you let me go. It's your only chance, Captain. It's the only chance any of us have. What time is it?”

He glanced at his watch. “Three 'til.”

“And that's assuming your watch isn't slow,” she told him.

Chapel turned to look at the director. “Sir, maybe you
should
get out of here.”

Hollingshead sighed. “Unless that's what she wants. Perhaps there's a sniper out there waiting for me to step out onto the deck and make myself a target.”

Chapel reached for the hands-­free unit in his ear. “Angel, what about imaging? Do you see anyone out there? Anybody skulking around?”

“Negative.”

“There's nobody out there,” he told the rest of them. “Unless—­” He slapped his forehead.

“You've figured it out, have you?” Holman asked. “We're the NSA, Captain. We don't have field agents. Much less human assassins. When we want to kill someone—­”

“They send a drone,” Chapel said.

Wilkes jumped up and ran to the stairs that led above deck.

“You can't send an abort signal?” Chapel asked. “Even if we gave you access to a computer, a phone, whatever?”

Holman laughed. “No. We knew we weren't going to change our minds. Hollingshead knows too much—­he has to die. If I'm going to die as well, then so be it. The Initiative will go on without me. What time is it?”

“Thirty seconds,” Chapel told her. “You could call them, call whoever it is you answer to, get them to—­”

“There is no abort signal,” Holman said. She closed her eyes. He could tell she was trying to play it cool, but she was shaking, her breath coming raggedly as fear overcame her. “Good-­bye, Captain. Good-­bye, Rupert—­”

OFF DAINGERFIELD ISLAND, VA: MARCH 25, 23:59

An electronic signal from the Reaper's command module readied itself to trigger. It only needed to run down a length of wire, headed for a contact point where the aircraft met the AGM-­114 Hellfire missile it bore. When the signal reached the missile, its thruster would fire and the missile would streak down toward its target, the yacht
Themis
. It was designed to blow apart armored vehicles. The yacht, which was mostly made of fiberglass, would provide little resistance.

Before the missile could launch, however, Julia Taggart stood up from where she'd been lying in a rowboat a few hundred meters south of the marina and lifted a FIM-­92 Stinger missile launcher to her shoulder.

“Ten o'clock high,” Angel said, in her ear.

The launcher weighed thirty-­five pounds, but Julia had done a lot of Pilates and she managed it. She slammed the Battery Coolant Unit into the handguard, just as Wilkes had shown her. In the complicated eyepiece, the sky turned blue and yellow, with a big orange dot right where Angel had said it would be.

No need to aim. The Stinger was designed to be foolproof. Fire and forget.

Julia pulled the trigger.
Fwoosh.
The missile jumped out of its launch tube with a modest noise, followed a second later by a bone-­shaking roar as its rocket motor kicked in.

“Drop the launcher and get out of there!” Angel said.

Julia tossed the launcher over the side of her boat and let it sink in the Potomac. She pulled the cord on the boat's little outboard motor and started downriver, away from the yacht, away from everything.

Behind and far above her, the Stinger tracked the Reaper by its heat signature. It adjusted its course to home in on the drone, and they met in a burst of light and heat and smoke that filled up half the sky. The noise followed a moment later, loud enough to make the boat rock back and forth.

Julia did not turn around to watch.

She did let a little smile cross her face.

“Badass,” she said.

DAINGERFIELD ISLAND, VA: MARCH 26, 00:01

At the last second, Holman clamped her eyes shut and buried her face in her shoulder, as if that could protect her from a Hellfire strike. The noise and light of the explosion made her cry out in terror.

When she finally opened her eyes again and looked up, Hollingshead was standing over her, peering down at her through his thick glasses.

“Charlotte, my boys aren't fools. They knew you might send a drone.”

Wilkes came thudding down the stairs from the deck. “It's awesome out there.” He laughed. “Every car alarm from here to Foggy Bottom is going off.”

Holman's eyes went wide. “You blew it up? You blew up a plane this close to Ronald Reagan airport?”

“To be fair, it was a drone, not a plane,” Chapel pointed out.

Holman shook her head. “Every cop in D.C. is going to be after you now.”

“Because of you they already were,” Chapel told her.

He knew she was right, though. They had only a few minutes before the entire river would swarm with police boats. Still, heading out by water was the better option. Moving overland would be impossible. The capital police drilled constantly for something like this and they would act quickly to shut down every road in the city. Chapel didn't intend to go very far, but he wanted to be away from the epicenter of the search, and soon.