LeMay toppled sideways, unable to control himself as he was caught before he hit the thickly carpeted floor of the apartment. The two men lay him down on his back, and LeMay stared helplessly up at them as the members of Majestic Twelve moved into a circle around him and stared down with a strange, detached interest.
For a brief moment LeMay wondered, hoped, that this was all some bizarre ritual, a part of his acceptance into Majestic Twelve, but somehow he knew that it was no such thing.
Number One looked down pityingly at LeMay as he spoke.
‘Dear Gordon, such a shame to have been deceived in such a way, but I’m afraid that deception is what we’re all about. Surely you must have known that a man with such shamefully limited financial means could never expect to become a member of our cabal?’
LeMay tried to answer, his mouth gaping open and closed.
‘He looks like a beached fish,’ Number Three said as though examining an injured insect. ‘For God’s sake, put him out of his misery.’
‘Not yet,’ Number One replied, ‘we can’t allow the Defense Intelligence Agency the luxury of recovering his body with that implant in place, can we? Better that we remove it soon and ensure that they don’t learn anything of our identities.’
LeMay felt tears flood his eyes as he tried to understand what they were referring to. He tried again to speak but nothing came out, his body completely paralyzed and his heartbeat feeling slow in his chest.
‘Pancuronium bromide,’ Victor Wilms explained, staring down at LeMay. ‘It’s used with general anesthesia in surgery for muscle relaxation. Side-effects include moderately raised heart rate, excessive salivation, apnea and respiratory depression, rashes, flushing, and sweating. Did you know that in Belgium and the Netherlands, pancuronium is recommended in the protocol for euthanasia? After administering sodium thiopental to induce coma, pancuronium is delivered in order to stop breathing.’
LeMay knew that he would die if he did not do something to prove his worth to the group, and he looked at Wilms and swivelled his eyes back to the suite’s main windows. Wilms frowned for a moment as LeMay repeated the motion, and then he turned his head and stood up and he noticed the speck hovering outside the suite.
Wilms’s composed expression collapsed into panic.
‘We’re being watched!’
The twelve members of Majestic Twelve whirled to look out of the window, and in an instant they all saw the drone staring back at them. For a moment it hovered there right before them and then it suddenly descended and shot out of sight toward the north.
‘Get the security team out there!’ Wilms shouted. ‘And get LeMay out of the building, now!’
***
XXXII
‘They’re onto us!’
Vaughn started the car’s engine as Lopez fought to bring the drone down to street level as fast as she could as the car jolted to the right, Vaughn cutting up a small goods vehicle as he struck out into the flow.
Lopez had seen everything: the faces of the men in the room, LeMay among them, who had collapsed in their midst. The expression of one of the men, Wilms, as he pointed directly at the drone before Lopez had cut the throttle and let the device plummet out of sight.
She turned the drone in mid-flight and swung it around to point the cameras at the elaborate entrance to the hotel, where she instantly saw a dozen men burst out onto the sidewalk of 5th Avenue, all of them looking up into the sky above Central Park. Dark suits, designer sunglasses and likely concealed weapons beneath their jackets.
‘Multiple agents,’ she reported as Vaughn drove down the avenue toward the intersection close to the hotel. She saw one of the agents point up at the drone and then the men sprinted across the street. ‘They’re onto the drone.’
Vaughn nodded as he saw the agents cross the street a hundred yards in front of them, heard a salvo of horns honking them as they dodged the traffic and vaulted over the wall into the park. ‘How much battery do you have left?’
‘Less than ten per cent,’ she replied. ‘We need a way to get that drone back into the car.’
Vaughn offered her a tight grin in the rear view mirror. ‘Nice to hear you’ve planned ahead. Is the downlink working?’
Lopez blinked as she looked at the screen. ‘Yeah but it’s slow, I need another couple of minutes.’
Vaughn drove past the hotel, the lightly tinted windows of their vehicle effectively concealing them from observation as Vaughn turned right onto the Plaza and then followed East Drive, the trees surrounding them concealing the vast city that enveloped the park.
‘You got a bead on the agents?’ Vaughn asked.
Lopez turned the drone and looked down to see the four agents sprinting through the forest, following trails between the trees as they pursued the tiny drone.
‘They’re not going to make it,’ she said. ‘Head to the far side and we’ll pick up the drone and get the hell out of here.’
Vaugh nodded as he accelerated toward the center of the park, where Terrace Drive would pick up 5th Avenue again and let them head north out of Manhattan. Lopez descended the drone, skimming the treetops as she flew it toward the park exit. Vaughn was almost there when she spotted the two glossy black SUVs pull into the park and block the entrance as armed agents got out and began waving vehicles down and peering inside.
‘Damn, that was fast’ she uttered. ‘They’ve got support and they’re checking vehicles, stay off Terrace.’
Vaughn did not reply, simply slowing down and easing the vehicle past Terrace and further into the park.
‘How the hell did they figure this out so quickly?’ he asked. ‘We could have been anywhere in the city.’
‘Majestic Twelve,’ Lopez murmured. ‘They’ve likely got tech just as advanced as some of our own. Maybe they scanned for the drone’s controller signal and picked it up coming from out of the park.’
‘We need to get out of here,’ Vaughn snapped. ‘If they identify us in this vehicle we’re done.’
Lopez focused on the drone as she sought a way out of the park.
‘They’re following the drone right now, not us,’ she insisted. ‘I can give them the run around while you drive out of here.’
‘If you get too far out of range with a low battery we could lose the drone,’ Vaughn warned her. ‘If we lost that downlink and the drone gets picked up…’
‘It won’t,’ Lopez insisted. ‘I’ve got an idea. Drop me off.’
‘They’ll see you.’
‘Just do it.’
‘The drone is the priority,’ Vaughn insisted. ‘We can’t lose you or it!’
‘Then pull over now!’ Lopez shouted. ‘Get the car out of the park on Terrace and I’ll meet you on Central Park West!’
Vaughn yanked the car into the sidewalk and braked as Lopez got out and slammed her door behind her and dashed across the street into the trees. She heard Vaughn pull away as she ducked into some bushes and hurriedly unfolded her laptop to see the view from the drone as it flew overhead.
To her surprise she could hear its engines buzzing somewhere above her, and gently she began turning the drone to the north, continuing on over the park toward the Reservoir. She ducked down as she heard running feet pounding the path nearby, and peered through the trees to see four agents run past her, one of them speaking into a microphone as he stared up at the speck in the sky.
‘Run
Forrest
,’ Lopez smiled to herself as she watched them sprint desperately after the little drone.
She toyed with the idea of turning the drone in a big circle to tire the agents out further, but quickly scratched that from her list as she realized that it would give the game away and force the agents to search for controller’s signal instead. The battery was low, five per cent now and falling fast and the downlink had not yet completed.
‘Come on, damn it!’ she whispered, urging the downlink to hurry.
Moments later, a warning signal appeared on the screen.
DOWNLINK FAILED – SIGNAL LOST
Lopez hissed an expletive as she slammed her fist into the soft earth beside her, and then she saw through the drone’s lens Vaughn’s vehicle stop at the exit of Terrace Drive, four agents surrounding the vehicle.
*
Vaughn dropped the window of the car as two armed agents with stern expressions peered down at him.
‘Is this your vehicle, sir?’
‘Yes it is,’ Vaughn replied, affecting the air of a New York businessman on his way to work. ‘Is there a problem?’
One of the agents walked to the rear doors of the car and opened one of them, leaning inside.
‘No problem sir,’ came the reply, ‘we’re looking for somebody.’
Vaughn knew damned well that law enforcement officers could not simply open the doors of a citizen’s vehicle and search inside without a warrant, but he also knew that revealing too much knowledge of the law might arouse suspicions as to his identity.
The agent behind him rummaged around and lifted out a charger attached to a series of wires.
‘What’s this?’ he demanded, looking at Vaughn.
‘It’s my laptop’s battery charger,’ Vaughn replied. ‘Why?’
The agent peered at the device as though uncertain. If he looked in the trunk, Vaughn knew that he would find the rest of the drone’s paraphernalia and then he’d be done. The agent climbed out of the vehicle and pointed at Vaughn.
‘Pop the trunk, sir.’
Vaughn frowned, cursing mentally. ‘Don’t you need a warrant for that?’
‘We don’t need warrants to arrest you and impound the vehicle,’ the other agent assured him as he produced a US Marshall’s badge. ‘Pop the trunk.’
Vaughn glanced at the badge, which appeared genuine enough although he knew that the men confronting him were most likely not US Marshalls. Vaughn glanced past the men at the sidewalk and saw two police officers strolling their beat on the sidewalk. It was illegal in the state of New York to fly drones, for obvious reasons, but facing down that charge with the DIA behind him was far preferable to being apprehended by the MJ-12 agents starting to surround the car.
‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Officer!’ The two cops looked in Vaughn’s direction as he called to them. ‘These guys are impersonating Marshalls!’
The effect was startling. The agents scowled and immediately dispersed toward their vehicles as the police officers changed their route and began marching quickly toward the entrance to Terrace Drive.
Vaughn put the car into reverse and pulled gently away as the officers attempted to intercept the SUVs, both of which were pulling out of the park and onto 5th Avenue. Vaughn saw the officers speaking into their radios as he turned away and drove north. He drove for thirty seconds before he then pulled the car into the sidewalk, killed the engine and jumped out. He locked the vehicle and then abandoned it, knowing that to use it further would be suicide as it would be tracked by MJ-12. He crossed the park toward the west and hoped against hope that Lopez had gotten the downlink sorted before escaping the park.
He walked as casually as he could, fighting the urge to sprint for the west side of the park among the joggers and dog walkers as he sought the nearest exit. He was headed for the denser trees of the Ramble, which would take him to the footbridge over the lake and onto West Drive and West 77th, perfect for losing himself on Central Park West and finding Lopez.
He crossed the footbridge and turned onto West Drive, then stopped as he saw two agents making their way toward him. Both reached for their weapons in an instant, aiming at him. Vaughn looked over his shoulder at the footbridge and the lake, but one of the agents shook his head.
‘You won’t make it,’ he snapped. ‘Hands on your head!’
Vaughn complied, glancing up and down the road but seeing no pedestrians, no police officers or any other source of assistance that he could use to scare off the agents. One of them maintained their aim at him as the other hurried forward and produced a pair of handcuffs.
‘Where’s the drone?’ he demanded as he fastened one cuff around Vaughn’s right wrist.
Vaughn’s arm was yanked down off the top of his head and pinned against the small of his back.
‘What drone?’
A grim chuckle and the agent behind him reached up for the other wrist. Vaughn dropped his head forward and then snapped it back, the back of his skull smacking into the agent’s nose with a dull crack that echoed among the silent trees. Vaughn spun around, swinging his free left arm around to grab the agent and pull him against his chest as a human shield, the other cuffed wrist slammed up into the man’s throat and pitching him backwards and off his feet as Vaughn reached beneath his jacket and drew the man’s pistol from its holster and jammed it against his jaw. The entire move took no more than two seconds, far too fast for the other gunman to pick his target without fear of hitting his comrade.
‘Walk,’ Vaughn snapped at the gunman, ‘or I’ll sink him in the lake.’
The gunman shrugged.
‘Sink him then but you’ll go down with him. There’s no escape pal, the rest of our team will be here soon.’
Vaugh betrayed no emotion as he cursed silently and sought an escape route.
‘You’re done,’ the gunman insisted. ‘Drop the weapon or I’ll shoot you straight through him.’
Vaughn knew that he had no option but to kill both men and hope that he didn’t take a bullet in the process. Lopez and the drone were the priority and he knew that he could not afford for them to fail in escaping MJ-12’s agents.
A sudden whining noise roared in from nowhere and Vaughn saw something streak across the sky above them in a blur of motion. The other gunman threw his hands up in front of his face as the drone rocketed down and smashed into his head at full speed. Vaughn turned the agent in his grasp and rammed one knee into his thigh, crippling the man’s leg with a single blow. The agent crumpled onto the path as Vaughn drove his boot down onto the man’s face, incapacitating him and then he dashed forward.
The gunman hit by the drone tumbled onto the pathway, his face bleeding profusely as he tried to aim his gun at Vaughn. Vaughn swung his boot and it impacted the gunman’s wrist with a loud crack like a snapping twig as the delicate bones shattered under the blow.
The gunman’s pistol flew from his grasp as he cried out in pain. Vaughn jumped over him and dashed to the drone, which had smashed into the pathway and was now scattered into dozens of pieces all along the bank. Vaughn saw the drone’s camera drive and grabbed it, ripped it from the drone’s frame as he turned and sprinted down West Drive toward Central Park West. He tossed the guard’s gun into the bushes as he hurried out onto the main street and saw Lopez on the sidewalk opposite, beckoning him to follow.