Chapter Five

Holy Redeemer Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland

Saturday, August 28, 8:16 A.M.

Time Remaining on Extinction Clock: 99 hours, 44 minutes

The NSA guys had split into four teams, taking the corners of a big box with Helen’s grave as the center point. Not imaginative, but not bad. I made sure they saw me checking them out, which in turn made them front me a bit more. They stood tall and tried to look tough as nails from where they stood. Believe me, I was impressed.

Even so, I play a pretty good hand of poker, and the game’s as much about what’s on your face as what’s in your hand. I got up and as I walked toward Agent Andrews I let my shoulders sag a bit and deflated my chest so that I looked a good deal smaller than I was. He’d already seen me up close, but there’s a lot to be said for second impressions. Along the way I took a couple of sips from the water bottle.

“Are you ready to come with us, Captain Ledger?” he asked.

“Still waiting on a ‘why’ or a warrant.”

Andrews’s face was harder and I guessed he’d been in contact with his seniors. “Sir, we’re here by Executive Order on a matter of national security. We are not required to explain ourselves at this time.” Andrews’s partner shifted a bit to the right; I guess he wanted to show me how big his chest was.

I made a show of surprise at this pronouncement, stopping the water bottle halfway to my mouth and looking over the rim at Andrews. “You’re saying that the President himself ordered this pickup?”

Andrews didn’t blink. “Our orders come directly from the White House.”

He was being cute, which told me that he knew about the Vice President’s little maneuver. He was being very careful in how he phrased things.

“Okay,” I said as I took a sip.

Andrews blinked, surprised.

I spit a mouthful of water into his eyes, then threw the bottle at the other guy—not that it would hurt him, but it made him flinch and evade. Before they could recover I was on them. I grabbed Andrews by the hair and one lapel and pivoted him around into a foot sweep that caught him on the shin. My foot acted like a fulcrum and with his mass and the force of my spin he came right off the ground like he weighed nothing. I threw him into the second agent’s big flat chest and the two of them went down in a heap. I heard a huge whoof! and a cry of pain as the second guy fell with all of Andrews’s mass atop him. Andrews was no lightweight.

I wasted no time and sprinted for the parked cars. I had my Rapid Response folding knife in my hip pocket and with a loose wrist flick the blade locked into place. I ran past Andrews’s Crown Vic and did a quick jab job on one tire, and then knifed the tire of a second government sedan. But before I could run back to my Explorer, the Nose and the Surfer cut me off. Nose could run like a son of a bitch and he reached me eight strides before his backup. Dumb ass.

When he was three steps out I pocketed my knife and jagged out of my line of escape to drive right at him. He had a lot of mass in motion; he was coming in to sack the quarterback and he’d built up such a head of steam that there was no way for him to sidestep. I jerked left and clotheslined him with a stiffened right forearm across the base of the nose. There’s an urban myth that hitting the base of the nose can drive bone fragments up into the brain—even some karate instructors insist it’s true, but it’s not physiologically possible. However, a smashed nose, especially at high speed, can give whiplash, fill the Eustachian tubes with blood, set off fireworks in the eyes, and generally make you feel like your head’s in a drum and a crazy ape’s beating on it with a stick.

The Nose flipped backward like someone pulled the rug out from under him and he was out cold before he hit the deck. He’d need a lot of work on that nose of his, but he should never have put his hand on me. Not ever, and especially not here at Helen’s grave. I take that shit very personally.

As he fell the Surfer closed in at a dead run and he made a grab for his gun, but I pulled mine and pointed it at him. He skidded to a stop.

“Pull it with two fingers and throw it away,” I ordered. “Do it now!”

He did it. Four other agents were closing on us, the closest nearly fifty yards out. I kicked the Surfer in the nuts, then knotted my fingers in his short hair and used him as a shield while I backpedaled to my Explorer.

I spun Surfer-boy around and gave a palm shot across the chops that would put him in a neck brace for a week, and as he crumpled I popped the lock on the Explorer and dove behind the wheel.

From the time I dropped my human shield to the moment I roared through the exit of the cemetery they had maybe six separate opportunities to take a good shot at my vehicle or me. They didn’t.

I found that very interesting.