Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(139)

“I understand.” Heather’s voice carried a minor tremor, as if dreading what he might say next.

“There’s one more thing. It’s hard, but absolutely necessary. Before you leave the estate, you need to kill Don Espe?osa. If you don’t, you’ll have no chance of getting out of Colombia alive. Mark, do you understand me?”

Mark’s voice sounded stressed, but steady. “I understand.”

“Good. Remember, find the Robertson Mennonite farm. Stay with them until I come for you. Do what you can to fit in. They are good people.” Jack leaned away, turning the microphone back to Janet.

Despite her curiosity, Janet returned the conversation to the job at hand. “As much as I’d love to chat with you all, we’re a little tight on time. Jack and I have the supplies we’re going to need to splice into the antenna’s data cable.

“Right now we’re in a maintenance building a couple hundred yards from the antenna. It’s unoccupied and a good spot for me to set up this laptop. In a few minutes, Jack will take his kit and move on out to the antenna to make the splice. He’ll wire in another laptop with a wireless network card that I can tie into from here. Once he’s done that, I’ll let you know we’re ready.”

Heather answered, her voice shaky. “Okay. By then we’ll have run a complete analysis on the data link so that we’ll know the signals to feed back to the control center. We have to make them think the antenna and satellite downlinks are operating normally, even when Jack cuts the line.”

“Then he’ll get going.”

“Wait. On second thought, there’s no need for you to tell us when Jack’s ready. We’ll know as soon as he cuts the line. When we see that, we’ll substitute our own signal through the QT on your laptop and out through the wireless card at the antenna.”

“Anything else?”

“No.”

“Okay. Be strong. Talk to you later. Janet out.”

Janet clicked off the speakerphone button, briefly considering the possibility that the young savants were still listening. It didn’t matter. They could do that any time they wanted.

Janet rose from the chair, stepping up beside Jack as he opened the door. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she kissed him deep. “Watch yourself.”

“Always do.”

With that, Jack moved away around the side of the building and disappeared into the darkness. Janet closed the door behind her, set the Heckler & Koch 9mm on the desk beside her laptop, and sat back down.

She wouldn’t have long to wait.





144


In the past, Eduardo would have needed the artificial enhancement provided by night-vision binoculars to see the dark landscape stretched out before him. But the growth of his abilities since he had first placed the artifact upon his head had changed all that. While it wasn’t like looking out at daylight, this spectrum of illumination was almost as clear. Tonight, the darkness shrouding Schriever Air Force Base would not help conceal its secrets.

It was almost as if he could see into the Ripper’s head. The man had done exactly what he would have done, skirting the perimeter fencing of the air force base until he found the perfect spot, cut a hole in the fencing, and gone through, directly toward the GPS antenna visible in the distance. As pleasurable as it was to kill guards, dead guards attracted more attention than live ones, failing to respond to radio queries, failing to check in on required intervals. Best to bypass them, letting them cluelessly continue their ineffective patrols.

The man was good. But tonight, the Ripper was his.

Eduardo slid through the cut in the fence, the sniper rifle slung across his shoulders. In the distance, he could see the GPS antenna silhouetted against a number of lighted buildings farther away. Closer at hand, perhaps two hundred yards away from the antenna, a steel building jutted up from the ground, obviously a maintenance building of some type.

As Eduardo began to move forward, the door to the building slid open, causing him to sink down to the ground. A man moved into the doorway, paused momentarily as a woman moved to embrace him. As they separated again, the man paused, like an animal sniffing the night air, his gaze sweeping outward. Then he moved away rapidly, rounding the building toward the antenna. The Ripper.

Eduardo’s gaze refocused on the woman in the doorway, backlit by a dim glow from inside, something only he could see. Her extended belly told him all he needed to know. She was pregnant.

Why in the world would Jack Gregory bring a pregnant woman along on this mission? There could be only one reason. This was more than just a member of his team. This was his lover, and in her swollen stomach, his unborn child. Funny that Garfield Kromly hadn’t mentioned that. Had he known? Was it possible that he had taken that secret with him to his grave? A last, small victory?

Eduardo smiled. He didn’t think so, but it didn’t really matter. He now knew. And it was perfect.

Stepping back inside, the woman pulled the door closed. Immediately, El Chupacabra was up and moving again, covering the intervening distance in a ground-burning lope that kept the building between him and the antenna. Between him and the Ripper.

The metal building rose up before him like an ancient Sphinx rising out of the night, vainly trying to protect its Pharaoh. Eduardo paused just outside the door, a grin of anticipation spreading across his face. There would be no protection from that which had been summoned. Not here. Not tonight.