Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(112)

Mark exploded into action, his thunderous sidekick catching the door as it started to open, the violence of the blow ripping the hinges from the frame and catapulting it back into the garage, sending two large men rolling backward into a jet-black suburban.

Continuing his forward momentum, Mark’s fist crashed into the jaw of the nearest as he attempted to bring a gun around. Without bothering to watch him hit the ground, Mark grabbed the right arm of the second man, feeling the muscles in the three hundred pound frame tense with effort as he struggled to wrap his massive arms around Mark’s body.

With a yell of satisfaction, the big man dragged Mark toward him. What happened next changed the yell into a scream. Mark’s grip tightened, snapping the bone of the right forearm, sending the sharp end jutting out through the skin, accompanied by a spray of blood that robbed the big man’s face of color. Without releasing his grip, Mark pivoted, sending his elbow crashing into the side of his opponent’s head. The sound of the heavy body hitting the floor was like a dropped watermelon. The screaming stopped.

Mr. Billings froze, too shocked by the explosion of violence to move.

Heather leaned in close, her voice barely rising above a whisper as she gathered the documents into her handbag. “As I said. Not a penny more than the agreed price.”

“F…Fine.” Billings’ eyes remained locked on Mark as he moved back into the office.

As they turned to leave, Heather turned toward him one last time. “Make sure this closes our business dealings. I’d hate to send my associate back for a more vigorous discussion.”

Billings swallowed. “We’re all done here.”

“Good.”

Mark walked Heather back to the car and backed out of the driveway. As they rounded the third corner onto East Washington Avenue, Heather leaned forward and vomited onto the floor mat.

“Oh, Christ,” she muttered as the gagging subsided. “That’s so gross. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. I felt the same way after I broke Priest’s neck. At least until the * shot me in the butt with that tranquilizer dart.”

Heather laughed. “But you don’t have to sit here smelling it.”

“Oh, I smell it.”

Her elbow caught him in the shoulder, interrupting the grin just as it got started.

In a matter of minutes they were on highway 147 headed west out of Las Vegas. Vomit cleanup would have to wait for a truck stop on I-15, somewhere along the road between there and Salt Lake City.





119


Freddy Hagerman leaned back against the tree in the darkness, feeling the rough bark through his wet shirt. His breath panted out hard enough to scrape the skin from his throat. As a child, his mother had always given him a shot of Jack Daniels and honey to cure a sore throat. If he survived the night, he vowed to revisit that treatment. Hold the honey.

Now that he had stopped, the warmth that had come from his desperate scramble to get away from Henderson House leached away in the icy water that dripped from his clothes. The tremors that started in his extremities now moved into his core, growing in power until his teeth chattered audibly.

His janitor’s pants were ripped from crotch to knee, thanks to an old piece of razor wire just beneath the surface of the stream. Just how badly he had cut himself he could only guess. Considering the fact that he hadn’t yet passed out, the wound couldn’t be that bad. Then again, the shaking might not be solely due to hypothermia.

Freddy sank to the ground, hugging the small pack with his camera and recorder tucked damply inside, trying to clear his head enough to come up with a plan. A quick review of his situation wasn’t comforting.

His f*cking car was half a mile away, inside the Henderson House compound. No chance of getting that. In his desperate flight he hadn’t even had a chance to grab his jacket. At least the dogs had lost his trail in the stream. If he could just make his way down to the lake, he could steal a boat. Not that a boat would take him far on that little lake, but it would give him more separation from his hunters. Plus, if he could get down to the flood-control dam, it was only a short hike to a warehouse where he had seen some interstate trucks and trailers.

After that…well, one step at a time.

Success Lake had a marina just a short distance from where Success Valley Drive crossed highway 190. To Freddy it sounded like it had been named at a multilevel marketing convention. Hell, if he got that far he might just sign up for their business opportunity himself. After all, a little extra soap never hurt anybody. Those poor bastards in the depths below Henderson House could have used some.

Freddy shook his head to clear it. He must be f*cking delirious. One thing was for sure, if he stayed here much longer, he’d find himself down in that hellhole. So much for his second Pulitzer. So much for putting a stop to that madness.

Patting the camera bag one last time, Freddy forced himself back into the cold water. He might have lost all the photos left hanging in his hotel darkroom, but what he carried in that bag was enough. Enough to bring down Dr. Stephenson. Enough to bring down a president.





120


Pieces of the alien machine floated in the air around him as Raul worked, each one tracked and catalogued by the ship’s improving neural network, each compared against specifications stored deep in the Rho Ship’s database.

If he had worked hard before, it was nothing compared to the way Raul now drove himself. As shocked and angry as he had been to discover Dr. Stephenson’s ability to override his commands to some of the Rho Ship’s systems, the task the deputy directory had offered him captured his imagination so vividly that Raul put everything else aside. Dr. Stephenson’s interest focused on a particular machine, one that had been heavily damaged by the weapon that had sent the Rho Ship crashing to earth.