Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(142)

Heather leaned over the laptop and pressed the speakerphone button on the QT chat program. “Janet. Something’s wrong with Jack. Are you there?”

After several seconds of silence, she tried again. “Janet. We have an emergency. Please respond.”

Silence.

“Shit!” Mark repeated, his level of anxiety rising with each passing moment.

“How much time do we have before they detect our spoof?” Jennifer asked.

“Twelve minutes, fourteen seconds or so,” Heather responded.

“Or so?”

“It’s just an approximation.”

Mark stopped pacing. “What about a subspace hack?”

Jennifer shrugged. “I already told you, that won’t do any good.”

“Not on the control center. Can we get the coordinate on the uplink line at the antenna?”

Heather jumped up. “That’s it. Mark, you’re a genius. I should have thought of that.”

The unexpected compliment brought a smile to Mark’s lips. But before he could respond, Heather and Jennifer had turned their focus back to the laptop.

“There,” Heather pointed at some numbers scrolling across Jennifer’s display. “That’s the coordinate of Janet’s laptop, and that other is the triangulation to the wireless signal Jack set up at the antenna.”

“Got it.” Jennifer’s fingers increased their staccato pace. “Now I just have to search for nearby signals that match the downlink data signature.”

“Nine minutes, twenty-three seconds.”

Heather’s countdown didn’t help Mark’s mood. He glanced at Don Espe?osa, sitting in the wicker chair to which they had tied him. The man’s eyes showed no trace of the panic in which Jack’s instructions should have left him.

Looking into that face, Mark felt a sickness creep into his soul. He had no doubt that before this night was over he would kill the drug lord, if only because Jack had tasked him. What was it Jack had said?

“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?”

As he stared into that impassive face, Mark felt his resolve harden. He had once done a report on a quote from the Israeli military leader, Yerucham Amitai.

“In the end, we may have to choose between actions that might pull down the Temple of Humanity itself rather than surrender even a single member of the family to the executioners."

He’d always thought the statement was over-the-top. But now, he understood.

“I’m in,” Jennifer said.

“What’s the link status?” Heather asked.

“Good packets on the line. I’m receiving satellite downlink, which closely matches our spoofer signal.”

“Try uplinking a test signal to the satellite.”

“Already done. We have positive acknowledgement.”

“Okay. Start the program uplink.”

Mark leaned in close. “Then what.”

“Then we wait. We’ve got to stay online long enough to ensure the commands get relayed through the military communications satellites to the entire fleet of GPS satellites. It’s all or nothing.”

“How long will that take?”

“It’ll be close.”

“How close?”

The tightness in Heather’s face told him all he wanted to know.

As the minutes ticked away, the tightness increased, adding age to her face until it reminded him of their Las Vegas disguises. Something in that look told Mark that if they failed now, they weren’t likely to get another chance.

A sudden sense of being watched nudged him, the intensity of the feeling making his scalp tingle. Moving away from the girls, he circled the room, his enhanced vision searching for the source of his discomfort.

There it was, suspended in the air. A tiny pinpoint of nothingness, ever so slightly twisting the light that passed through it. The same thing he had seen in his room, all those many weeks ago.

“Got it!” Jennifer breathed.

Heather reached down and hugged her friend. “You did it, Jen. Amazing!”

So intense was his concentration that Jennifer’s exclamation and Heather’s excited response barely registered on Mark’s consciousness.

There it was again. That tiny pinprick in space. And on the other side, someone was watching. Who could have betrayed them?

Mark’s eyes locked with those of Jorge Espe?osa.

“You son of a bitch!”

Mark moved so fast that the girls’ heads had barely started to turn when he reached the drug lord. Grabbing Espe?osa’s head between two palms, he twisted violently. A sharp crack echoed in the room, then the drug lord’s lifeless body slumped forward in the chair, his head dangling at an odd angle.

At the corner of Mark’s eye, the shock that registered in Heather’s face matched Jennifer’s. But, as he felt his vision pulled back toward the anomaly, Mark thought he glimpsed something else in Heather’s face—disgust.





147


Eduardo finished tying Janet’s hands and ankles behind her back, leaving her lying naked on her side. He reached over to rub his hand gently across her belly. The fire of hatred still reflected in those moonlit eyes. Good. He wouldn’t be done with her until he’d erased all remnants of that strong spirit. And if that took a while, so much the better.