Emily saw Sam finish his walk around and slip up the stairs into the jet before she and the passengers got there. He was already doing the preflight in the cockpit when she ushered their guests to their seats and showed them the various amenities. There was a fully stocked bar and snacks on board should they desire to eat or drink. This wasn’t the fanciest jet in their fleet, but it was often used for high powered businessmen who didn’t want to deal with commercial flight schedules.
She shut the door between the cabin and the flight deck and locked it for good measure. They’d communicate with the cabin via intercom from here on in. All of their jets were carefully designed so that the intercom could not be tampered with. Their business clients demanded the utmost in privacy, which included that the pilots not be able to overhear any business that might be discussed in the cabin during flight.
No matter. Sam had his new gizmo to try out. Hopefully it would work and they wouldn’t get caught. Emily felt her heart race as she slid into her seat and joined Sam in the procedures necessary before getting the little jet off the ground.
“Did you take pictures?” she asked as they rocketed into the air.
“You saw that?” He seemed concerned.
“I don’t think anyone else would have realized it, but I’m familiar with the phone and its abilities now.”
He nodded, seeming to put his worries aside. “I sent the images back to base. Hopefully somebody back there will be able to I.D. our guests, though I have a sneaking suspicion I know who they are already.”
“Really? Who?”
“Not yet. I want to be sure first.”
“Tease,” she accused playfully.
He waited until they were about fifteen minutes into the flight to deploy his little gizmo under the door, in the corner, where it wouldn’t be easily seen. He put a small earpiece in one ear, taking off his headphones. The mic plugged into a small black box that looked like one of those miniature radios joggers wore on armbands. It had a dial he played with until he seemed satisfied that he could hear what was going on.
Emily flew the plane, trying to hold her curiosity in check, but it was a hard thing. She wanted to hear what he was hearing but there was only one earpiece. She’d have to wait until he chose to tell her what was going on back there.
Finally she couldn’t wait. She tapped him on the shoulder, drawing his attention.
“Anything?” she mouthed.
He shook his head. “Negative. They’re drinking but not saying much of anything useful.”
At least it was working. The little gizmo was picking up the cabin conversation and hadn’t been detected. So far, everything was stable.
It was only moments later when Sam suddenly tensed.
“Bingo,” he said absently, listening intently to the conversation in the cabin.
It was a good thing. The flight wouldn’t last much longer. It was only a quick hop from PDX to a small airstrip on the Oregon border with Idaho. Sam seemed to notice they were beginning their descent and he took the earpiece out to talk to her.
“Can we find a way to stay over? Maybe invent a malfunction with the jet?”
She thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, I can complain about a sticky rudder. That should ground us for a bit.”
“Sounds good. Work it out so we can stay overnight. There’s something going on here I need to check out. This thing records digitally,” he pointed to the little black box. “I can download it to my sat phone and send the file back to base. I’ll do that as soon as our guests deplane. This is hot intel. I’ll need to act on it and have a plausible reason to stay in the area while I check it out.”
“I’ll deal with the jet and the mechanics. I’ll throw a hissy fit if I have to, in order to get one of our mechanics up here from Wichita. They’ll arrive tomorrow, so that’ll give you tonight and part of tomorrow to do what you need to. Good enough?”
“Perfect,” he replied, a predatory grin stretching his lips. He was on the hunt and enjoying every minute of it, judging by that dangerous expression.
Emily landed the jet while Sam split his attention between cockpit duties and continuing his eavesdropping. She had no idea what he was hearing from the passenger cabin, but judging by the set of his jaw, it was something juicy.
They landed and Sam had to pull in his surveillance gizmo before she could open the cockpit door and help the passengers out of the cabin. She let him stay in the cockpit while she dealt with the pleasantries. She waited until the passengers were gone before asking for hangar space for the allegedly faulty jet. She set the wheels in motion to have the jet housed here for the night while demanding one of the Praxis Air mechanics fly in first thing in the morning to look at it.
Once she had that all settled, she looked around for Sam. She found him leaning against the hangar wall. He looked smugly satisfied.
“So what now?”
He swooped down to kiss her cheek, pausing to whisper in her ear.
“Now we follow the transmitter I planted on their rental car.”
“You didn’t.” She was truly impressed. She hadn’t thought there’d been time to get ahead of them or that he’d be able to get close enough to place a tracking device.
“Oh, ye of little faith.” He drew back and gave her a teasing grin.
They got a car from the rental guy. They were lucky. He only had one left in the lot. This airport was tiny compared to where they’d come from. A few minutes later, Emily was behind the wheel, taking directions from Sam. His phone may have looked like hers, but she quickly learned it had a few extra features. Somehow it was able to follow the tracker he’d planted on the bad guys’ car. He was able to direct her to turn right or left from quite a distance away, which meant their targets wouldn’t know they were being followed.
“I still don’t know how you got close enough to put a tracker on their car,” she mused.
“It was really a thing of beauty. I threw on a windbreaker over my uniform shirt as soon as I got out of sight and headed straight for the parking lot. There were only a few cars and only one with someone in it. I watched while the waiting man went to meet our two passengers. While he went to get them, I casually tagged his car with a tracker chip. They’re a variation on the chips we use to mark kills, only a little stronger. They use satellite technology, like our phones do.”
“This is a satellite phone?” she patted the new phone clipped to her belt. “It’s not any bigger than a regular cell phone and it doesn’t have that weird antenna I’ve seen on other sat phones.”
“You’ve probably seen the commercially available sat phones. These aren’t on the market. Hell, they’re not even available to most military outfits. Our team already had the model you’re carrying but when we added a CIA operative to the team, he upgraded a few of us to the one I’ve got. Real James Bond stuff.”
He seemed like a kid with a new toy and it made her smile. She’d seen that look on her brothers’ faces many times.
“So who are we following?”
“If I’m not very much mistaken, Aleksander Krychek and Bin Zhao. Two potential buyers of the zombie tech. Krychek is a freelance arms dealer who pretends he’s a businessman. He’s made billions off the death of others with the arms he’s supplied—often to both sides of a conflict. Zhao’s background is shadier, though I personally think he’s working for one of the unfriendly governments on the other side of the Pacific. Could be North Korea, China, a few others. He’s Chinese by birth but even our CIA friend had a hard time digging up any more than that.”
The seriousness of the situation was driven home by his words. This was bigger than anything Emily had imagined in her naïveté. By comparison, she almost wished it had been a simple drug ring operating in her airline.
“Why only two buyers? Wouldn’t the seller want to open this up to a broader group in order to get more bids and raise his profit?”
“Normally, yes, but this technology is too hot. We’ve been a half step behind them since the beginning, constantly gaining ground. We’ve taken care of many of the original threats. We believe only this one single corrupt member of the original team remains. He’s got to be cautious. Inviting more people to bid means disclosing the nature of the weapon to them and increasing his risk. All he needs are two competitive bidders to get a good price and it looks like that’s exactly what he’s got.”
“But why would they travel together if they’re on opposite sides? They didn’t seem very chummy, but they were cordial to each other from what I saw.”
“Some ridiculous notion of honor among thieves, no doubt. Both men seem to live the high life and enjoy all the trappings of the elite rich. They make a show of being polite and businesslike in their outward dealings but they’re both ruthless when there’s blood in the water. Don’t let the urbane act fool you.” Sam kept his eyes glued to the small color screen on his phone that displayed a GPS map while he spoke. “But the more likely reason they came in together is simple logistics. They probably flew to PDX separately from wherever they were in the world and the seller—Jennings—provided transport to the meeting place. If they don’t know where they’re going, they can’t set up a snatch and grab. It’s a wise precaution on Jennings’ part. These kinds of men would gladly kill him and each other if it meant they could grab the technology free of charge.”
“Wow. I find it hard to believe.”
“Believe it, Em. Your life depends on your taking this seriously.”
“Oh, I do,” she was quick to protest. “It’s just that I find it hard to wrap my head around some of this stuff. It seems so unreal—like a movie playing out and I’m trapped inside.”
“I know what you mean, but trust me, this is about as real as it gets.”
“I understand, Sam. Truly I do. Don’t mind me. I just . . .” she trailed off, not knowing how to express what she was feeling inside. It was such an alien world she’d stumbled into.
“Are you starting to feel a little bit like Alice when she fell down the rabbit hole?”
She was surprised by his understanding, though she guessed she shouldn’t have been. He’d probably already dealt with this persistent feeling of disbelief back when he’d first learned there were actual zombies in the world.
“Did you feel the same way when you learned about it?”
“That would be a giant affirmative.” He let out a big sigh. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. Either that, or it will all be over by the time you come to grips with it. Pray for the latter and in the meantime, keep on truckin’. As long as you can continue to function and work toward the goal of eliminating this threat, the better off you’ll be. Take my word for it. It’s not good to feel useless.”
The terrain was getting more desolate the farther away they got from the airport. For the past few miles, all they’d passed was wire fence meant to hold in cattle, though there were few in sight, and acres and acres of farmland.
“It’s pretty empty up here,” she commented.
“Lots of space to do things where nobody would know,” Sam agreed. “And we’re about to head into more mountainous areas if they keep going the way they’re going now. Logging country that’s still heavily forested in most places. Perfect for the creatures because of the dense tree cover.”
“You said they don’t like sunlight, right?” She didn’t want to ask, but she probably needed to know more about the zombies if they were going into the lion’s den.
“Most encounters have been at night or in shade, like heavy tree cover or inside a dark building. They don’t usually come out in the open unless it’s dark outside. They move deceptively fast. They never run, but the slow, steady pace eats ground. If you encounter one, run as fast as you can. The newer models are capable of basic strategy and they’ll surround you like wolves—encircle you so you have no way out.” He watched the scanner carefully. “They’re slowing. Looks like they’re heading down a private road. Probably a ranch driveway or something similar. Be ready to stop the car. I’ll tell you when.”
“You’re not going to bail out on me again, are you?” she asked, only half joking.
“Maybe. But I think there’s enough room on this road to pull over. If you recall, that road in West Virginia had no shoulder and the spot I needed to get out was on a blind curve.”
“Are you trying to convince me that the reason you scared me half to death and risked life and limb jumping out of a moving car was for safety?” The convolutions of the male mind still managed to astound her sometimes, despite being Henry’s shadow the majority of her life.
“Yes, ma’am.” He shot her a quick glance and she could see he was laughing. “I’m all about safety.”
“You’d better be,” she muttered, following a long, sweeping curve of the road as it rode up the side of a heavily wooded hill.
“We should be entering a small town in a few minutes. Keep your eyes peeled for a bed-and-breakfast. There are lots of them in this part of the country. If we can find one close to where our targets just stopped, we can use it as a base of operations.”
“So do you want to tell me what Zhao and Krychek were talking about during the flight?”
He frowned and a muscle ticked on the side of his jaw. Whatever it was, it had to be something bad.