Nemesis: A Jordan Quest FBI Thriller Page 5

She needed to find a place to hide, and she needed it now.

  Maddy inspected the fence, found a break in the chainlink, then squeezed her battered body through the opening and entered the yard.

  12

  AS THE TOWN car exited the condominium parking lot, Jordan turned to Hallier. “Colonel,” she said, “I think it’s time you read me in on whatever Madelaine was working on that was important enough to warrant her being kidnaped.”

  “You’re right.” He let out a deep sigh. “Dr. Coltraine was in charge of developing Project Overlord.”

  “Why come to Farrow for this?” Jordan asked. “Couldn’t DARPA have developed the technology in-house?”

  Hallier shook his head. “We tried. But when it comes to matters pertaining to machine learning and artificial intelligence, no company on the planet understands that field of study better than Farrow Industries.”

  Jordan nodded. “It was the basis upon which my father founded the company and why it grew to become one of the biggest in the world.”

  “Exactly. Your father did something quite remarkable with his life. The legacy he left behind through Farrow Industries is nothing short of spectacular. You should be very proud of him.”

  “I am.”

  Hallier continued. “To answer your question, we received a mandate from the Secretary of Defense six months ago to get Overlord underway as soon as possible. We were told to develop an impenetrable new software program that our deep cover field operatives could insert into the computer systems of foreign multinational companies.”

  “In other words, spyware.”

  “That’s right. But not just any kind of spyware. Something that could not be detected, but if it was, would destroy itself immediately after sending its last report. Our primary target was the Chinese government. Russia and North Korea were next.”

  Jordan thought about the parking garage video. “The figures caught on camera looked to be Chinese.”

  “MSS agents, no doubt.”

  “You’re saying Maddy was abducted by spies?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Jesus,” Chris said. “How long have you been watching them?”

  “The Chinese?” Hallier replied. “Forever. But it’s only within the last ten years that their Ministry of State Security has escalated its efforts to infiltrate American interests. We’re monitoring the activities of twenty such MSS cells with the assistance of the NSA as we speak. We’ve been able to insert operatives into every one of them.”

  “How did you do that?” Chris asked. “You’d have to recruit Chinese citizens.”

  Hallier nodded. “Precisely.”

  “That must have been difficult.”

  “These are no longer the days of the Cold War, Agent Hanover. Today’s foreign youth don’t share the same ideologies and beliefs their parents once held. Many of them are unhappy with their government. They want to be agents for change, and they’re prepared to do whatever it takes to make that happen in their lifetime.”

  “If they’re discovered by their government, they’ll be killed.”

  Hallier nodded pensively. “It’s a risk they’re willing to take.”

  The colonel’s phone rang. He answered the call through the vehicle’s sound system. “Hallier.”

  “Colonel, this is Agent Tamblyn calling from the Coltraine condominium. I have an update for you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “You were right about Mr. Coltraine’s reaction to having his package opened.”

  “Meaning?”

  “To put it mildly, sir, he was upset.”

  “What did he say about the microdot trackers? Did he explain how he planned to use them?”

  “No, sir. He just reamed me out, told me I had no place opening his shipment, then stormed out of the room and went to his office. I heard him lock the door. Then he made a phone call.”

  “Set up a trap and trace on his home phone,” Hallier ordered. “Tell tech ops you’re requesting it under my authority and to monitor his cell activity as well.”

  “Copy that, sir.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “The garage. Anderson and I are waiting for him to pull out. We’ll shadow him.”

  “Good. Don’t let him out of your sight. I can’t put a finger on it, but there’s something about him I don’t trust.”

  “Yes, sir.” Agent Tamblyn paused. “I have him, sir. He’s on the move.”

  “Go.”

  Tamblyn ended the call.

  Jordan turned to Hallier. “I don’t believe Spencer had anything to do with Maddy’s disappearance, Colonel.”

  “You sound pretty sure about that, Agent Quest.”

  “I know how it looks. But I’m not getting a negative read on him. If something was off, I’d have felt it.”

  “Are you saying you’ve never been wrong before?”

  “Not psychically.”

  Hallier was impressed by Jordan’s confident reply. “All right. Then let him prove he can be trusted. Until Evidence Recovery gets back to me on any DNA or fingerprints they’ve pulled from Dr. Coltraine’s car, we’re chasing shadows. And I don’t like being in the dark.”

  Chris interjected. “I thought that’s where DARPA preferred to operate.”

  “Only when it serves us,” Hallier replied. “And right now, with Dr. Coltraine’s life in danger, I want to throw as much light on this investigation as I can.”

  “Agreed,” Chris said.

  “We need to get to the port,” Jordan said.

  Hallier nodded. He stepped on the gas.

  13

  BOATS OF ALL models and sizes sat dry docked in the marine storage yard. Madelaine shuffled along its dusty gravel road. She wanted desperately to pick up the pace and run as fast and as far away from her pursuers as she could, but her injured ankle prevented her from moving any quicker.

  From the service road behind her, headlights illuminated the boatyard, then fell away, just long enough for her to gain a perspective of the storage facility’s layout. Less expensive vessels sat atop trailers covered with cheap nylon tarpaulins, some so well worn they surely offered little to no protection from the elements. The larger, grander craft were shrink-wrapped from bow to stern in heavy white plastic and were completely inaccessible. Furthermore, these boats sat upon elevated platforms which positioned their hulls six feet or higher above the ground. Without the use of a ladder, access to the swim platform at the back of the boat would be impossible. Madelaine looked around, searched the area for somewhere to hide. If the headlights that had fractured the darkness of the yard seconds earlier were any indication, her pursuers were already here, looking for her, either in the boatyard or preparing to enter it. It would be only a matter of time before they found her. Even if they did, she was not altogether at a disadvantage. She had the man’s knife and gun, as well as his cellphone. She could use the phone, call the police, wait it out. No, that would not be the best plan. There were two of them and one of her. If they were professionals, she wouldn’t stand a chance in a gunfight. They would close in on her first, outflank her, then make their move, shoot her in the head and leave her dead in the boatyard. Or would they? Madelaine’s mind whirled with the options. No, they wouldn’t shoot or kill her. Had that been their mission, they would have done so already. She was clearly valuable to them, worth more alive than dead.

  As Madelaine focused, another of her father’s Navy SEAL expressions played in her mind: The only easy day was yesterday.

  Then she saw it. Across the yard.

  The boom lift.

  The hydraulic crane, with its integrated control panel and aerial work platform, was used by boat yard employees to gain access to the decks of the larger dry-docked watercraft.

  Madelaine kept low, staying in the shadows as she crept around the boats, stopping several times to test her wounded ankle. It was better now. The sprain had been minor. The pain was abating.

  She crouched behind the keel of a large motor yacht and listened
intently to the telltale sounds of the yard and the night. Above her, steel wire pinged against a metal mast in the faint breeze. Feet away, a field mouse scurried over a discarded candy bar wrapper and found shelter under an overturned canoe. In a sudden rush of wind, poorly secured tarpaulins rose and fell atop the craft they protected and made slapping sounds.

  The boom lift was a fair distance away… sixty feet, maybe more. Madelaine formulated a plan, then assessed her options. She could take a chance, go for it, make a mad dash, run like her life depended on it, which it did, or continue to move slowly, silently, one calculated step at a time until she reached the machine.

  The decision was made for her seconds later when she heard gravel crunching underfoot several yards away.

  Madelaine dropped to the ground, laid flat, peered around the keel.

  The sound was soon accompanied by a melodic whistle, then the sound of a ringing phone. A man’s voice answered the call. “Hi baby… miss you too… nah, super quiet. Kids in bed?” The man laughed. His voice sounded warm, caring, kind. “They made what? A holiday dream board?” He laughed again. “Let me guess. Disney World, the Grand Canyon, Hawaii. Did I miss one? A trip into space? That had to be Justin. I know, I know… the money. It’ll be tight. But that’s why I’m here instead of home with you guys. Another couple of months and we’ll have banked enough to get away somewhere.” More laughter. “No, not space. Yeah, Disney sound like a plan. I’ll call around in the morning and get a few prices. I think they’ll love…” The man stopped walking, looked up. The tone of his voice changed abruptly. “I gotta go, baby,” he said. “No, everything’s fine. I’ll see you soon.” He ended the call.

  Madelaine watched as the night watchman removed a flashlight from his belt, clicked it on, panned the yard with its powerful beam, called out. “Who’s there?”

  The yard remained quiet.

  The guard called out again, identified himself. “Armed security. Who’s there?”

  From the area of the gate, a female voice called out. “Hello?”

  Madelaine recognized it. The woman from the car. Her kidnapper.

  The guard moved down the road, closer to the unseen voice. Madelaine took advantage of the distraction, rose to her feet, crept around several of the boats, then closed the gap between her and the boom lift.

  The guard’s flashlight beam found the woman at the far end of the yard standing inside the locked gate next to the service road. “What do you want?” he demanded.

  Madelaine ran ahead, hid behind the keel of a forty-foot Carver motor yacht, then stopped and looked back. She watched the woman slowly come into view.

  “Stop right there,” the guard said.

  “I’m sorry,” came the distant reply. “Can you help me?”

  “This is private property,” the guard replied. “You need to leave.”

  Past the Carver, around the freshly sanded hull of a vintage wooden Chris Craft under repair. The boom lift was now in sight.

  The woman again. “I’m very sorry to bother you,” she said. “I must have run over something on the road. My tire is flat, and my cell is dead. Do you have a phone I can use to call my husband?”

  Madelaine wanted desperately to shout out, warn the man, tell him that the woman asking for his help was not the damsel in distress she was portraying herself to be and that his life could very well be in danger, but she couldn’t. She needed to get away, to find her way to safety, to Spencer. No doubt the security guard was trained to deal with such matters. Everything would be fine.

  Until now, the cloud filled night had kept the yard steeped in shadows. The bright moon peeked out from between the clouds and cast its gaze upon the machine. Madelaine saw a lanyard hanging from the safety basket. Beneath it, the operator’s key swayed in the breeze. As a teenager, she had operated a machine like it one summer while working for her uncle’s commercial window cleaning company. Her father had insisted she accept his brother’s job offer, that the time off base would be her good for her. She visualized the control panel in her mind and recalled its simple operation: insert the key, manipulate the joystick, elevate the safety platform until it reached the desired height which, in this case, was the roofline of the adjoining building. From there, she would jump from the platform to the roof and make her escape. She felt better. She had a plan. All that remained was to execute it.

  The muffled sounds she heard next… thwup, thwup, thwup… were followed by the guards’ agonizing screams as he crumbled helplessly to the ground.

  Terrified, Madelaine ran between the boats, reached the boom lift, grabbed the lanyard, climbed on to the safety platform, inserted the key, turned it.

  The machine whirred to life.

  14

  SPENCER LEFT THE parking garage with no specific destination in mind. He needed to do something, to get away from the agents who had taken over the condominium and looked at him with suspicion at every turn. He had done nothing wrong. Maddy was everything to him. He would never, could never, hurt her. He knew the DARPA team assigned to investigate his wife’s sudden and unexplained disappearance were only doing their jobs. His rational mind told him he should expect no less from them. His wife was one of the most important scientists in the country, if not the world. It stood to reason they would pull out all the stops to look for her, even if that meant trying to unravel his life in the process. He stared at the box on the passenger seat which contained the microdot trackers. He had reacted inappropriately when the agent presented him with the opened package. He should have told him the truth about why he had ordered them, but something told him that no explanation would have been good enough. The contents of the package may have aroused the agents’ interest, but it was his sudden and explosive reaction to it being opened that made the agent take notice.

  The truth was, he was afraid for his wife. Maddy had told him about the strange occurrences of the past few weeks, of the woman who seemed to appear at every turn wherever she went. The first few occurrences were at the Galleria Mall when she had gone shopping. She had observed the woman three times that day, first seeing her reflection in the store mirror when trying on a dress she admired. The second time was when she was trying on a pair of shoes. The last was when she sat in the food court enjoying a coffee and a muffin. Although the woman had been sitting with her back to her, she watched her repeatedly remove her compact from her purse to check her face but never touch up her makeup. The action was performed so often it had gotten her attention. Her next encounter had been with the man. She had described him as Asian, in his early thirties, attractive and very fit. He had stood out to her because of his movie-star good looks. She wondered if that was exactly what he was, an actor. He had a familiar face, one that she kept trying to place, like she had seen him before, perhaps on television or in the movies. He had been driving a black Mercedes with diplomatic plates. She recalled the vehicle not for the designation the plates inferred but because Spencer had been talking about buying the same make and model. He had even visited the local dealership and test drove the car. Maddy had liked it but thought the practicality of the Range Rover outweighed the luxury of the Benz. That was so like his wife, to think of what made the most sense for their lifestyle. She had reminded him of why he had purchased the luxury SUV in the first place. They had planned to use the vehicle for weekend getaways as soon as their schedules would allow. Maddy loved the outdoors. Kayaking had been a passion of hers when she was a teenager. They needed a vehicle that could easily accommodate as much camping gear as they required for a weekend away, plus carry two kayaks on the roof. That had been the plan. A year later, Farrow Industries had presented her with the opportunity to run Project Overlord. It had taken another six months to solidify the offer. Once Maddy had assumed the role, their recreational plans had come to a screeching halt. DARPA stepped up Overlord’s delivery timeline and established an insanely high budget for the project. Any semblance of a normal life disappeared the moment Maddy stepped into the role. The added work pressure
was also taking a toll on their relationship. They reminded each other that the situation was only temporary. Once Overlord was delivered, they would take time for themselves, regardless of any objections the top brass at Farrow might have. For some couples, career was everything, regardless of the cost. That was not the case for either of them. Theirs was the kind of love that was rare to find. After Overlord was concluded, Maddy would be able to write her own ticket. She could ask for any amount of money she desired and would get it, along with the freedom she desired. They had talked about starting their own company, perhaps partnering with a player in the private space exploration sector. He would go along with whatever Maddy wanted. Although they were both well-respected scientists, she was clearly the rising star. He felt just as satisfied watching her succeed as he did navigating his own success. Maddy had always told him she would never have been able to soar to the heights she had achieved in her career had it not been for his love and support. Spencer also knew the beautiful thing about what they had together was, when his time finally came, if it ever did, his wife would be equally as supportive of him in the pursuit of his dreams.

  He glanced once more at the package on the passenger seat beside him. He had known something was wrong the minute Maddy had first shared her strange experiences with him. She had chalked it up to coincidence, but he knew better.

  He had bought the Bluetooth enabled microdot GPS trackers not to spy on his wife, but to watch over her. One was to be installed in her Porsche, another in the Range Rover, and several more throughout their home. He had even secreted several of the devices into her clothing and purses. Paranoia had gotten the better of him and he had ordered more of the devices. Staring at the box served as a grim reminder that he had failed to keep his wife safe. He responded to the thought by slamming his fist against the steering wheel.

  There was another reason he was so angry. Maddy was not the only one the black Mercedes had been following for the past two weeks. He had seen it, too. Once, when the opportunity presented itself, he waited until the sedan was several car lengths behind him, then slammed hard on the brakes and jumped out of his vehicle to confront the driver. The Mercedes responded by tearing around him and disappearing down the road. When he had tried to follow the car, the driver had been too fast for him. Spencer had lost him in the traffic.