Mastermind: A Theo Cray and Jessica Blackwood Thriller Page 6

  “Viper’s down!” someone shouts.

  Blackwood motions for me to freeze, which is no problem, because I’m already frozen.

  She tilts her ear up so she can listen. I do the same.

  “They must have got him when they were leaving,” one American says. “What’s that down there?”

  “Cop car,” says his partner. “Looks like they took these assholes’ car and bailed. Let’s go. Tell Woody to stay with Viper. Check?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Footsteps start jogging down the hill. From the distance comes the sound of more sirens. That would be backup police. I’m not sure what’s going to happen when they collide with this group.

  “Now.” Blackwood motions for me to follow her.

  We emerge from the tight alley and onto a street. Two SUVs are parked in front of our hotel, blocking traffic.

  Blackwood holds her hand down low, signaling for me to hurry as we cross the street.

  I don’t hear anything, but suddenly she says, “Damn. We’ve been spotted. Faster!”

  We leap down the broken steps of a staircase and come to another road. Blackwood moves toward a tiny Honda that should be in a children’s amusement park, not on the street.

  “Get in.”

  She starts the car with a key from under the floor mat. I don’t ask how she knew. She knew because she put this car here. She planned everything, down to this detail.

  Tires squeal behind us, and I spin around to see the SUV racing down the street in our direction, ready to ram us.

  Blackwood guns the tiny motor of our car, and it leaps forward. We narrowly scoot out of the path of the truck before it can knock us into the nearest building. She moves our little car up the road at top speed, but the truck’s engine is too powerful. It’s almost on our bumper. In a moment it’s going to slam into our rear and drive us into a telephone pole.

  “We’re not going to—”

  “Shut up,” she says.

  The truck gains and is almost touching our back window when Blackwood jerks the wheel to the left and sends us down an alley. Garbage bags and newspapers go flying as we hurtle downhill.

  I turn back and see the SUV trying to figure out how to solve the physics problem of squeezing between concrete pillars spaced too narrowly to accommodate it.

  Blackwood catches the action in the rearview mirror. “Good luck with that,” she says as we hit a bump and the car goes flying through the air. I smack my head against the roof and see stars for a moment.

  “Seat belt,” says Blackwood.

  I look down at the two pieces of rope on either side of my seat. “Uh, I don’t really have a seat belt.”

  “Then hold on.”

  We smash through a fence and cross a road before going down another hill, bouncing around like coins in a dryer. We’re heading for a soccer field, it seems.

  The car hits the grass, and Blackwood doesn’t stop accelerating. I’m afraid our car’s going to fall apart around us at any moment. The radiator is already sending out steam, and I can smell burned oil.

  We reach the end of the field as scattered players watch us in either confusion or delight.

  The car stops, and Blackwood bails out. “Move it,” she orders.

  She runs and I jog across the dirt lot to another car parked at the edge, near the exit to the playing field. She climbs in, picks up another key from under the mat, and pushes open the door for me to get in.

  We’re on the highway a minute later, weaving between all the other insane drivers.

  Even now, Blackwood doesn’t relent. She keeps going, coming close to bumpers, getting yelled at by other drivers. Not caring.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “Airport.”

  “I don’t have a passport to get on the plane.”

  “We’re going to steal one.”

  “A passport?”

  “No. A plane.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FLIGHT PLAN

  I’ve never been in a tornado, but twenty minutes next to Jessica Blackwood is as close as I ever hope to come. I’ve watched her commandeer three cars, take out two armed police officers, and evade an entire commando squad while dragging my weak-ass self along with her. And I still don’t know why.

  Blackwood’s eyes are on the road, never wavering. “Those men were with Information Data Retrieval,” she explains.

  “What’s the difference between data and information?” I ask.

  She blinks and looks at me for the first time since we took this car. “What?”

  “Why not call it IR or DR? Never mind . . . I guess they just like the acronym.”

  “I need you to focus, Dr. Cray.”

  “Theo. Just Theo.”

  “Okay, Theo. We need to steal a plane. I need you to go along with what I do. Okay?”

  “Why not just grab the key from under the floor mat? That’s worked really well so far,” I reply.

  “I couldn’t arrange that.”

  “Oh. So we didn’t steal this car?” I ask.

  “What? No. Not quite. Focus, please? We’re not technically stealing the airplane, either. We’re just re-requisitioning it.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “The details don’t matter. But the men who were after us, IDR, they used a government jet to get here. We’re using that jet to get out.”

  “And how do we do that?” I ask. “Superior firepower?”

  “No. Paperwork. I filed a maintenance request right after they landed. I then had it rescinded. Their replacement plane is supposed to be in Thailand, but it actually got diverted to the Philippines. Understand?”

  “Not really. But I think I get the drift.”

  Blackwood pulls onto a road that runs along a metal fence separating us from a runway. At the end of it is a small guard gate. A man with a thin mustache and a military uniform steps out and asks for our paperwork.

  Blackwood shows him her FBI badge. He makes a gesture that looks like an eye roll, then lifts the gate and lets us pass. We drive through a row of hangars and park the car in a small lot at the edge of the tarmac. A Gulfstream jet is waiting in the otherwise-empty airfield.

  “One more thing,” says Blackwood. “I need to have you cuffed. At least until we get onto the plane.”

  “What?” I’m trying to figure out what kind of a trick this is.

  Blackwood gently lifts my wrists. “It won’t be tight. It’s just for show.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Click.

  I glance down at the handcuffs now around my wrists. “For crying out loud.”

  “Sorry. We don’t have time to debate this.” She gets out of the car and walks around to my side and holds the door open. “Just keep your mouth shut and act like a prisoner. It shouldn’t be hard.”

  She puts a hand on my shoulder and shoves me ahead of her. As we get within a hundred feet of the jet, a man in a pilot’s uniform steps down the stairs and watches us approach.

  “Where’s the rest of the team?” he asks.

  “They’re taking another way back. We need to get him out of country ASAP before the locals change their mind.”

  “I need to check with Kieren,” he says.

  “Check the paperwork,” replies Blackwood.

  “I know. But I’m still going to check with her. Hold on.” The pilot goes back into the plane.

  This doesn’t look good.

  “Now what?” I whisper to Blackwood.

  She holds up a finger and turns her back to the jet. A moment later, she speaks in a lower register that doesn’t quite sound like her voice.

  “Affirmative. We need to get Cray back now . . . Yes. The authorization is correct . . . Understood.”

  A moment later the pilot emerges from the doorway. “Sorry about that. Just had to check.”

  “No problem,” says Blackwood in a voice much softer and sweeter than the one she just used. She pushes me up the stairs. “Cooperate and I’ll take the handcu
ffs off,” she says loudly enough for the pilot to hear. “Understood?”

  I nod and let her shove me into a seat in the back, where I sit quietly while she talks to the pilot up front. I can make out the words security matter and not to be disturbed before he steps back into the cockpit to explain the situation to his copilot.

  “What happens once they realize we’re not supposed to be on this plane?”

  “Technically, Dr. Cray . . . Theo . . . you’re supposed to be on this plane. They’re not going to risk sending you back and having the Myanmar government try to arrest you again. Fortunately, the people that control where this plane goes aren’t the ones that want you killed.”

  “And where exactly is this plane going?”

  “That’s what we need to determine right now. First, why did you help that man back there? He was ready to put a bullet in you.”

  I try to put it into words that make sense to me. “I’m not a monster. A survivor, a killer, yeah, but I’m not a monster—at least, I don’t see myself that way.”

  She undoes my handcuffs and slips them into her pocket. “Fair enough. The problem is that monsters rarely see themselves that way.” She reaches into her bag and drops a stack of folders in front of me. “This is all about what happened in New York. The question is: Why would whoever did that be trying to keep you as far away as possible?”

  “I’m sorry, but what happened in New York?”

  Blackwood sits back in her seat opposite me and buckles her seat belt as we prepare to take off. “Oh, right. You couldn’t know . . .”

  “Is it something bad?”

  “Very. And now we’re trying to stop it from happening elsewhere,” she explains. “And I’m supposed to figure out how you’re connected to all this.”

  I’m curious to find out what happened in New York and eager to understand my place in everything, but I’m also tired. I try to stifle a yawn but find myself falling asleep before I can ask any more questions.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MASTER OF LIES

  “So, a group of terrorists set off a series of EMPs around Manhattan, knocking out the electrical grid and destroying most of the microprocessor-based electronics across the city?” I ask, trying to understand if this is a movie plot or a real thing.

  “Yes. We have some suspects in custody, but we don’t know if they’re aware of who actually initiated this, let alone why,” she replies.

  “What kind of EMPs?” I ask.

  “Chemical EMPs is what they’re calling them.”

  “Interesting. I don’t think I’ve heard of that before.” I think for a moment. “I guess it makes sense.”

  “How so?”

  “Know anyone who was around when they went off?”

  “Yeah. Me. One took out our helicopter. We had to crash-land. Why?”

  “Just curious. Was there kind of a burned-ozone smell in the air? Maybe something kind of acrid, too?”

  “I’d say that’s exactly how I would describe it.”

  “Hmm.” I try to imagine how you’d take the kinetic force of the explosion and convert it into electricity. It wouldn’t be terribly efficient, but if I understand it right, once you have the manufacturing down, it would be extremely inexpensive.

  “The strands . . . were they toxic?”

  “The strands? What are you talking about?” She leans in to study me more closely.

  “From the carbon fiber. I assume it was some kind of long-stranded carbon nano sheet rolled into long threads . . . like a microscopic tube?”

  “Uh, yeah . . .”

  “Wrap that around a cylinder, put an explosive charge in the middle, and when it explodes, they’d create friction rubbing against each other, building up a charge. Hmm. I guess a second wave could act as a kind of compression wave, which would make them all discharge close together. You time that and you control the kind of EMP they generate?” I ask aloud, trying to understand the weapon in my head. Physics was never my strongest subject. I have always preferred biology and computer science, where things were either too complex for me to have to engineer them or else could be reduced to lines of code. I hate that middle area.

  She nods. “That’s pretty much exactly how it works. So, hypothetically, if someone wanted to make carbon-based EMPs, where would they get the carbon threads?”

  “Good question. I know they’re trying to manufacture something like that in microgravity.”

  “Space?”

  “Yes,” I reply. “But not at scale. These fibers—they weren’t much longer than a foot or so, were they?”

  “Correct. We figured it was because they broke,” she replies.

  “Yes. Or it was the maximum size they could manufacture. If you could make them continuously, then that would be something different. This sounds like some kind of failed industrial experiment that they found another use for.”

  “They? Who would they be?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. It sounds like some kind of offshoot of government-funded research into a supercapacitor. But that’s not my area. Sorry.”

  “Okay, but, just guessing: Chinese? Russian? Texas A&M?”

  “Could be anyone with the resources. I’d focus on research papers. Basically, anyone who was working on manufacturing carbon nanotubes at scale.”

  “And then tried weapons applications?” she asks.

  “Maybe. But I was thinking about someone who couldn’t get a job in that field because of a security clearance issue.”

  “But not someone such as yourself?” she asks.

  “Me? Ha, no. Why?”

  “Dr. Cray, do you realize that if some of my colleagues heard you say what you just told me, they’d have you locked up on suspicion of being a coconspirator?”

  “Huh.”

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  I shrug. “Saying stuff is what got me into trouble in the first place. I didn’t know when to shut up. Do you really think I’m a suspect?”

  “I think you’re suspicious. But I don’t think this attack is something you’d do. To be honest, until an hour ago, I didn’t think you cared about anything.”

  “An hour ago? What happened?”

  “You were mumbling in your sleep, ‘Make sure Johnny’s okay.’ Who’s Johnny?”

  “A local kid, very bright. Taught himself English and Chinese by watching YouTube videos. He was our guide and translator.”

  “And now?” asks Blackwood.

  “I don’t know. When things got bad, I told him to run. I think he went to his cousins in the hills. To be honest, I tried not to think about him when I was being interrogated.” I still pray that I didn’t say anything about him. I tried to drown myself when I came close. “Anyway. I’m sure he’s fine.” Keep telling yourself that, Theo. “So, let’s get back to why you don’t think I was involved?”

  “Well, your alibi’s obviously solid. More importantly, your name popped up on a list of potential suspects, which seemed more than suspicious to me, considering who I think is really behind this.”

  “Heywood.”

  “Yes. And also, I don’t think his ego could handle working with you,” Blackwood explains.

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  “How about you? How does your ego handle working with people smarter than you?”

  “I think we’re getting along fine.”

  “Tactful response.”

  She thinks I’m kidding. In the last few hours, I’ve gained an understanding of how she thinks. While I’m good at focusing on one problem and seeing all the possible solutions, I’ve watched her deal with every threat around us while thinking several steps ahead. She was watching the road, conversing with me, and listening in on the radio that we grabbed to keep tabs on the IDR team.

  She probably doesn’t think she can multitask well, but under pressure her bandwidth is enormous. Her greatest skill is not trying to focus on any one thing, but reading the entire world around her.

  If I had that gift, I woul
dn’t be in a lot of the trouble I’ve found myself in. I probably wouldn’t be who I am, either. But it might not be a bad trade-off.

  “Why New York? Why the EMPs?” she asks.

  “Was anything missing?”

  “Like Rockefeller Center? No. First things we checked were the Fed, the banks, and all the other high-value targets. Ordinary looting was in the hundreds of millions of dollars. But no, there was no heist. At least none we’ve detected.”

  “Test run by a foreign power? Maybe they wanted to see what they could pull off?”

  “And risk the repercussions? We doubt it. You worked in counterterrorism, right? You had a whole lab, I understand.”

  “Yes. Until I went nuts chasing a serial killer and it was taken from me. Oh? Is that one of the reasons I’m a suspect?”

  “It’s been thrown around.”

  “They did me a favor. It was too much pressure. The office politics, the meetings, worrying if my lab manager was going to infect me with some kind of rage-inducing virus. I’m better off without it,” I say, not exaggerating.

  “We have very different workplace experiences,” she says. “So, let’s talk about Heywood. What else do you know about him?”

  “Besides the secret handshake and the nicknames we have for each other when we’re playing video games and plotting to take over the world?”

  “Funny. A few liters of water and your sense of humor’s back in business.”

  “I bounce back fast.” And then hit the ground twice as hard. “Tell me about Heywood. What’s his pattern?”

  “His pattern?”

  “Frogs eat flies, hop around, keep wet. All my killers had patterns. That’s how I caught them. After the fact, it seemed obvious. Joe Vik owned a lot of businesses. One of them was a towing company. Sometimes he’d take stranded-motorist calls and kill the motorists. What’s Heywood’s pattern?”

  “He loves spectacle. He loves things that look supernatural. He wants people to think they’ve seen a miracle.”

  “But this wasn’t a miracle. This was a bunch of EMPs.”

  “You weren’t there. We called it the Void. It looked like Manhattan got sucked into a black hole. It’s—I still can’t quite process it . . .”