Page 95 of Cross Down
The squad leader hears the chiming, the music, the voices, and he realizes that all the cell phones in this little squad are announcing incoming calls, even though their phones were powered off an hour ago!
What the hell?
He pulls his cell out of his back pocket to see what in the world is going on. He has an incoming text:
Dear trespassers:
You four are currently being targeted by infrared lasers centered on your foreheads. Due to their unique frequency shifting, the lasers will remain invisible no matter what gear you possess.
Sounds high-tech, but if you think I’m bluffing, recall how all four of your cell phones were activated remotely.
You have fifteen seconds to reverse course and depart. If you don’t, your brains and fragments of your skulls will be scattered all over this backyard. Restore our communications and go.
He waits, heart racing, and then he lifts his right arm and makes the retreat motion, and the four of them go back into the woods.
Bree looks at her laptop screen with deep satisfaction at how she successfully negotiated with the Bluestone Group operations center. After some serious give-and-take, they released a classified stealth drone that had been doing contract work for Homeland Security.
The drone easily located the four gunmen moving through the woods, and through additional help from her employer’s operations center, she managed to trigger their four cell phones and pass on her text message.
She watches the four men retreat, the drone keeping pace with them, their thermal images visible through the trees and foliage.
The part about special infrared spotting lasers is so much bullshit, but it seems to be working.Well done,she thinks, a thought she carries for only a few seconds.
“Bree?” Jannie’s voice is trembling. “Willow is gone.”
Chapter
107
I stare atElizabeth Deacon, frozen with shock. She waves her pistol at me.
“In,” she says. “Now. We’ve got to get going.”
A lot of thoughts are racing through my mind, but now is the time for action, not for standing speechless on a sidewalk. And I won’t waste time asking her how she found me.
Finding people is her job.
I open the door wider, get in, and as I sit down and shut the door, I slip out my Glock. I turn and press it against her abdomen. “If you remember your training, Liz, this is what’s called a Mexican standoff,” I say. “Not particularly PC, but it is what it is.”
“I guess so,” she says, still pointing her pistol at me. “What now?”
“You put yours away, and I’ll do the same.”
“Why should I go first?” she says, pistol not moving.
“Because you started it,” I say.
We stare at each other, then she lowers her pistol to her side.
I lower mine too.
She puts the Mercedes in drive, and we get on the road.
We travel in silence for a few minutes. I decide to work my way through my list of questions and start with “You left me behind in Tajikistan. Why?”
Deacon says, “No, I didn’t.”
“You weren’t at the base when I got there.”
