TWENTY-FOUR
Part of this high resistance to damage is due to
the altered physiology observed in subject’s full-body MRI and X
rays (see Appendix: “Medical Imaging”). Subject’s muscle density is
roughly the same as aramid fibers (Kevlar = 1.50 g/ml), or nearly
50 percent higher than standard human muscle (1.06 g/ml). His bones
have a tensile strength more than twice that of an average human
(300 MPa vs. 150 MPa).
—BRIEFING BOOK: CODENAME: NIGHTMARE PET
It took Zach a while to notice the black
car following him. All his attention was on Konrad’s Ferrari and
the unfamiliar L.A. streets.
Then, with a burst of acceleration, the Ferrari
sped through a red light. Zach slammed on his brakes as a delivery
truck swept through, horn blaring.
Konrad’s Ferrari was gone, and Zach had left a
burnt-rubber trail to the middle of the intersection. He put the
car in reverse, to get out of the oncoming traffic.
That’s where he saw the black car for the first
time, back at the light.
The tinted windows revealed nothing. Both cars just
sat there, as if waiting for the starting flag in a race.
Zach checked the streets around him, checked the
in-dash navigation system and realized something else. He was
almost in downtown L.A., and he had no idea how he’d gotten
there.
The light turned green. Zach didn’t move. Neither
did the other car.
Not a good sign, Zach thought.
Zach wasn’t completely stupid. He took his phone
out of his pocket, and hit the button on the touch screen marked
CADE.
Cade answered immediately.
“Is Konrad moving?”
“Oh, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do,”
Zach said.
“Where are you?”
“Not sure. I tried to follow Konrad . . .”
“And?”
“Sorry, I thought you were going to yell at me
there.”
“I assume you already know that was a bad
idea.”
Zach looked at the black car, still just sitting
there, next to him.
“You could say that. There’s someone after me.
Black car.”
“You’re sure?”
Another driver behind the two cars honked. Zach,
startled, hit the gas. The black car took off a few seconds after
he did, and maintained a steady pace a car length behind.
“Cade, they’re right here.”
“Don’t panic. I’ll be there soon.”
“I don’t know where I am.”
“I’ll find you.”
“Cade?”
“What?”
“You sure this car doesn’t have a rocket
launcher?”
“Just keep driving. I’ll find you.”
There was a click, and Cade was off the
phone.
Zach made a wild left turn, realized he was going
the wrong way down a one-way street.
The black car followed him, keeping its
distance.
Definitely not a good sign, Zach
decided.
CADE TOUCHED ANOTHER BUTTON on his phone’s screen,
and a map of Los Angeles popped up. Zach’s GPS beacon showed him on
the edge of downtown—about five miles from where Cade was
standing.
Wilshire was bumper-to-bumper with Friday-night
traffic.
Cade began to run.
A few people gave him looks, but he reached a side
street before he really started to move.
At the end of two blocks, he was sprinting. He
stayed in the center of the road, his feet making a sound like a
continuous drumroll. In one of the pocket neighborhoods behind the
Miracle Mile, a car ran a stop sign, right in front of him.
Cade vaulted it easily. The driver never saw a
thing.
Cade kept running.
ZACH WATCHED the rearview mirror, rather than the
road. Before he knew it, he was lost. He didn’t even know Los
Angeles had railroad tracks, but he’d crossed them several times.
Freeway overpasses, offering the promise of escape, were above his
head, but he couldn’t seem to find any on-ramps. He’d look up,
grinding his teeth, wondering why the hell anyone ever said this
city was easy to drive around.
Through it all, the black car stuck to his tail
like grim death.
He’d managed to find himself in an almost totally
deserted section of town, concrete on all sides, and a
bridge—bridge? Since when did L.A. have a river?—in front of
him.
A streetlight above went dark. As if that was a
signal, the black car revved its engine and closed the gap between
them. Its headlights grew huge in the mirror.
The car tapped his bumper.
He slammed on the gas, and the sedan nearly leaped
off the road, pushing him back in the seat.
Whatever special government engine he had under the
hood, his pursuer had something better. The black car closed the
gap, tapping his bumper harder this time.
Zach’s phone started beeping. Not really a good
time to take a call, he thought.
CADE PUT HIS PHONE AWAY, with a small amount of
frustration. The boy wasn’t answering. That would make this
slightly more difficult.
As he thought this, he was running at about
forty-five miles an hour on the overpass, not yet breathing
hard.
The phone’s GPS tracker put the boy right below
him.
He saw both of them—the sedan, driving wildly, and
the black car behind it, smoothly accelerating to follow
Slightly more difficult, but not too bad, he
decided.
Without breaking stride, Cade jumped over the
concrete barrier, out into the empty air.
ZACH SWERVED AROUND A CORNER—and slammed on his
brakes.
Dead end. The only thing between him and a concrete
drainage canal was a chain-link fence, topped with razor
wire.
He didn’t have a lot of time to consider his
options. The black car appeared at the end of the street, then
accelerated toward him.
CADE STOOD IN THE ALLEY where he’d landed. Zach
had raced by a second before. Cade heard the screech of brakes that
told him Zach had just discovered the dead end.
Cade put both hands on the edge of the dumpster,
filled with metal parts from the machine shop out front.
The pursuit car’s engine told him it had found
Zach. He heard it rev and then peel rubber.
He waited, for just a second, calculating the time
it would take for the black car to reach the end of the street, for
him to reach the end of the alley.
Then Cade put his legs into it and started running,
pushing the dumpster along in front of him.
ZACH BRACED FOR IMPACT and wondered if it was
going to hurt when he was knocked over the edge.
He couldn’t take his eyes off the rearview mirror.
The headlights got bigger again, the sound of the engine
roaring—
Something hit the car, knocking it clean off the
road. The headlights jerked out of view so fast it was like they
were shut off.
Zach turned around in the seat, not believing
it.
A dumpster had come out of the alley like a
missile, T-boning the black car at the driver’s door.
The dumpster rolled away, crushed from the impact.
The black car, crumpled up on one side, rested against a row of
parking meters, some of them bent and snapped.
Zach felt eyes on the back of his neck, and turned
in the other direction.
Standing in the street, in the sudden burst of
steam from the black car’s smashed radiator, was Cade.
Cade walked over to the car.
A thick man in a suit stumbled out of the ruined
driver’s-side door, fumbling for a gun in a shoulder rig.
Cade knocked him to the pavement. Then he grabbed
the edge of the crushed door, pulling it right off its hinges, and
flung it away.
He dragged the passenger out. Zach caught a glimpse
of bright blond hair as Cade deposited her on the ground by her
companion.
Zach got out and ran to Cade’s side.
Cade examined him. “Are you all right?”
Zach got a really good look at the side of the car
now. It was totaled. The wheels were bent off the axle.
“Yeah—I just—holy shit, Cade, how did you do
that?”
The blonde shook herself and tried to stand.
Cade moved between her and Zach. She staggered a
little on her high heels.
Zach felt a little ridiculous, being protected from
a 105-pound. He stepped forward, brandishing his fake creds like a
shield.
“You’re in big trouble, lady,” he shouted. “We’re
with the Department of Homeland Security.”
She focused on his badge. Then she laughed and
stood up straight.
At first glance, you could have mistaken her for a
corporate lawyer, or maybe even a TV reporter. She had that kind of
brassy, too-perfect attractiveness.
“No, you’re not,” she said, as she brushed the
broken safety glass from her blouse. “We are.”
She flipped out her own badge.
“Helen Holt,” she said. “Special liaison to
DHS.”
Zach stood there looking at it for what seemed like
a long time. Cade didn’t say anything.
Zach looked at the blonde again. She gave him a
smile that would put any spokesmodel to shame.
“Well . . . crap,” Zach said.