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“Got it. Hope explained the situation. I’ll rendezvous with your guys and bring the Antz and the controller. Make sure I have their GPS coordinates. We’ll nail this guy!”
“Thanks Ranesh. Pierce Jordan will be giving you the coordinates. You’ll rendezvous with Pierce and Jacob Black and his men.”
Silence. “Jacob Black?TheJacob Black?”
“Yeah. He doesn’t bite.”
Riley blacked out the monitor and muted the sound. “Hear that, Jacob?” she said without turning around. “You willnotbite my friend. He’s sensitive.”
“Promise,” Black growled.
She turned everything back on. “Okay, Ranesh. I’m counting on you. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that you will be saving my life.”
“Count on me, Riley.” The voice shook but sounded determined.
Riley turned around, hugged Pierce tightly. She felt taut as a wire.
“Pierce, Jacob, send drones, the quiet kind, over the area and find Sommers’ men and take them off the board. Quietly. And not permanently. Have Emma guide the drones, she’s the best we’ve got.”
Pierce remembered Raul saying that Emma’s mastery of drones saved the day, and saved their bacon back in San Francisco. He said she was the best he’d ever seen.
“Right.”
“And you all will be swathed in the new graphene suits. You have them don’t you, Jacob?” She put her face in front of the monitor camera and saw Black nod.
She addressed both of them. “Emma will neutralize any drones that aren’t ours. She’ll put their recordings on a loop. Behind the picnic table, about 50 or 60 yards from the creek, is the densest bush. If you can stage there, you should be okay. I’ll make sure Sommers is facing the bushes. Ranesh will be directing the Antz. Put what we’re saying and the video images directly online. On YouTube and Instagram. Have Hope piggyback on to a big TV network, live. Several networks, if she can. I don’t think anyone can crydeepfakeon something that is happening live, though they will try. God, with any luck we can stop everything in its tracks. We’ll need snipers with a laser pointer in the bushes across the creek, able to send a laser beam to Sommers’s heart where he can see it.”
She was rattling off commands, and ordinarily Pierce would have bristled at commands from a civilian, and he knew Black would resent it, too, except the commands were sound. They had to trust her.
“Okay, off with you. Pierce, either steal another car, or have one of Jacob’s men pick you up. I’m Ubering.”
“What?” Pierce shot a glance at the monitor where Black looked as dumbfounded as he did.
“I might beat him to the place, but you can be sure he’ll be checking cameras. I need to have him see me as weak and defeated. Arriving in an Uber will just show how alone I am.” She lifted her hands, turned around. Unzipped the hoodie, showed the tight tank top. Lifted her ankles, the tight yoga style pants hid nothing besides her lovely legs. “He’ll make me show that I don’t have any recording equipment. I’ll just have my fanny pack with some cash in it, and a thumb drive, and that’s it. The thumb drive will have the original video of his soldiers and that’s it. I’ll convince him that I only have one copy that is in a safe deposit box, and if I am convinced he’ll let me be, I’ll send the message to self-destruct.”
“He’s perfectly capable of torturing you for it,” Black said evenly.
“Yes, but he would have to take me prisoner first. And what are you guys there for? To look pretty?”
No, Pierce and Black weren’t going to be there for decoration, they would be there armed and ready to blow Sommers’ head off, if necessary. Pierce really wanted that, but knew it would be much better to have Sommers unmasked and humiliated, his life ruined, and this whole fucking mess with China resolved.
But he also really,reallywanted to blow Sommers’ head off. He’d nearly had Riley killed.
Riley was almost hopping with nerves. “Oh God, oh God,” she chanted. “Let it all go well.”
Yeah, they all hoped it would go well. A lot was hanging on the next couple of hours. Maybe even the fate of the world.
Her phone chimed and she looked at it. “Uber’s here. Gotta go!”
And she ran, slamming the door behind her.
Riley was agitatedon the ride to Rock Creek Park. That was fine. She wassupposedto look nervous. Nervous and timid and scared. Easily intimidated. Manipulable. She was nervous, it was true, but also enraged, so she had to operate on two levels. Looking scared and hiding her rage.
She was also really scared, too. The plan to unmask Sommers had been created on the fly, with a thousand moving parts. It depended on Pierce and Jacob working well with the nerdiest nerd on the face of the earth, Ranesh. Who didn’t react well to being dominated, having been bullied as a child. But she trusted them to figure Ranesh out and treat him with kid gloves.
Everything also depended on the Antz, which were being field-tested for the first time right now.
Ranesh was a genius, but beta trials were necessary for a reason. The Antz had never been used before. They could be a flop and this whole thing could end in a bloodbath.
