Текст книги "Fallout (2007)"
Автор книги: David Michaels
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"Yeah, I did. Do we know anything? Anything from Seltkins?" Even as Fisher had boarded the plane for Oregon, the CCCD's labs had yet to determine what had killed Peter.
Grimsdottir pulled a manila folder from the stack before her and slid it across the table to Fisher. She said nothing. Fisher stared at her eyes for a few seconds until she looked away. Very bad news,Fisher thought.
Grimsdottir's official designation was computer/signals intel technician, but Fisher thought of her as more like a free safety. To operatives in the field she provided tech and information support and she was, at least for Fisher, that constant voice in his ear during missions that represented his lifeline back to Third Echelon and the real world. Fisher had yet to see a computer-related problem too tough for Grimsdottir to crack.
Fisher opened the folder and skimmed the CCCD's report. Finally, he looked up and said, "What in God's name is PuH-19?"
"Plutonium hydride-19," Lambert answered. "It's a negative hydrogen ion that attaches itself to Plutonium-239 that's exposed to pure oxygen. Usually comes in the form of fine particulates–think of flour, but about a thousand times finer."
"Almost a gas," Grimsdottir added. "It's also pyrophoric, which is a fancy way of saying it's an autoigniter. Its flash point is below room temperature; it's also reactive to water or even humid air. In fact, it's so touchy, the only safe way to handle it is in a pure nitrogen or argon atmosphere."
"Sounds lovely," Fisher said. "Contagious?"
"Not once it's inside the body," Grimsdottir replied. "The hydride particles settle in the tissues and organs and begin . . . dissolving them. Sorry, Sam, there's really no other word for it."
"It's okay. Where's PuH-19 come from?"
"Plutonium-based weapons production."
"Which is good news," Lambert said. "It sharply narrows the list of where Peter picked it up."
Where, maybe, but not how,Fisher thought. After ten years as a Justice Department investigator, Peter had resigned in protest during Gonzales-gate and gone into business for himself as a security consultant. While certain Peter had an inkling of what Fisher did for a living, they'd never discussed it, and neither did they discuss the specifics of Peter's business. Fisher had long suspected the nature of their work was similar.
"What else?" Fisher said.
Grimsdottir said, "It's about a hundred times deadlier than plutonium. A speck of PuH-19 the size of a head of a pencil is enough to kill a room full of people–which is why its production and storage has been banned by all countries of the world save two: Russia and the United States."
Fisher closed the file and slowly slid it back across the table to Grimsdottir. He looked at Lambert and said, "We need to talk."
Anna took the hint and excused herself. When the door clicked shut, Fisher said, "I'm going to need a leave of absence or–"
"Now, Sam, hold on a second–"
"Or, if you'd prefer, I'll have my letter of resignation on your desk by–"
"Not necessary."
"Colonel, I'm going to find whoever did this to Peter."
"I know."
"And break a lot of laws doing it."
"I know that, too."
"And when I find them, I'm going to kill each and every one of them."
Lambert laid a hand on Fisher's forearm. "Stop. Take a breath. I mean it, Sam, take a breath."
Fisher took a breath.
"While you were in the air with Peter's body, I was at Langley," Lambert said. "We've got the green light from both the DCI and the NID." The director of central intelligence at the CIA and the national intelligence director–the president's intelligence czar. "The mission's ours. Find where and how Peter was infected, track it back to its source, and find out if there's more out there. A coffee cup full of PuH– 19 could kill every living thing in New York City. Believe me, we've got a free hand on this."
"They know about my connection to Peter?"
"Yep. It took some doing, but I convinced them you could stay objective. Can you?"
"You have to ask?"
"Normally, no, but there's nothing normal about this. We need live, talking bodies, Sam, understood?"
Fisher nodded. "Understood."
"You step outside the rules of engagement, and I'll take you off this mission faster than you can blink."
"I hear you, Colonel."
"Good. Mission briefing in twenty. Anna's got a lead for you." Lambert stood up and started for the door. He stopped and turned around. "Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry about Peter."
7
LA FONTAINE PARK, MONTREAL, CANADA
FISHERrefolded his copy of the Montreal Gazetteto the Arts & Life page and shifted his eyes left, keeping his target in view. The man was a creature of habit, Fisher had found over the last two days. Same park, same bench, same sack lunch containing a baguette sandwich, an apple, and a pint bottle of milk. Keeping such a routine was a dangerous tendency for a private detective, but then again, Jerry Pults's seeming laziness was Fisher's gain.
The park was abuzz with Montrealers flocking to one of the city's many green spaces. With the last patches of snow gone and the tulips in bloom, spring had fully arrived, and the locals were taking advantage of it.
At ninety acres and more than 125 years old, La Fontaine Park was not only one of the city's largest green spaces but also one of its oldest. It reminded Fisher of New York's Central Park, with enough hills, ponds, bike paths, playgrounds, tennis courts, and cafes that it had become one of Montreal's default get-together spots. In the distance, over the tops of the trees, Fisher could see the row of Second Empire-style houses that lined Rue Sherbrooke.
Pults, a former RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) detective, though ten years past retirement age, looked a lean and fit fifty years old–save one feature: a stiff left leg that he supported with a cane. Even so, Fisher wasn't about to underestimate the man. Grimsdottir had worked her cyber magic and hacked into the RCMP's personnel bureau database. Pults had had a long and distinguished career and had spent the last three years of it at the RCMP Academy in Regina, Saskatchewan, after a crackhead's bullet had shattered his hip. He was thrice decorated for bravery, an expert marksman, and had for five years been the lead unarmed combat instructor at RCMP Toronto. On the personal side, Grimsdottir had found nothing damning; in fact, Pults and his wife, Mary, his high school sweetheart, had been married for thirty-seven years. Three children, a boy and two girls, all upstanding citizens without so much as a parking ticket.
Unless Pults was hiding some deep secret they'd yet to uncover, he looked as clean as they come. Even so, the man's detective agency was either failing or going through a slump. Over the past two days, Fisher had seen Pults meet with no one, nor did he leave the office for anything but lunch in the park and to go home at night. Grim's probe into the agency's financials showed little activity, and Pults's personal accounts were exactly what you'd expect from a retired cop.
The lead Grimsdottir had found for Fisher involved Peter's last credit card purchase a week earlier at Brulerie St-Denis, a cafe off Chemin Rheaume. A discreet canvass of the cafe with Peter's picture led to Jerry Pults, a regular customer.
The question was, what was Pults's connection with Peter, and had it contributed to his death?
AFTERa five-minute head start, Fisher followed Pults back to his office, which was sandwiched between a Vietnamese restaurant and a Thai restaurant/Internet cafe in a four-story building on Rue St. Andre. Fisher popped into a gift shop across the street and browsed their selection of snow globes and watched Pults's building until he saw Pults's secretary, a mid-forties redhead wearing CD-sized gold hoop earrings, come out the front door and head down the street. Another creature of habit, Fisher had found. She and Pults staggered their lunch hours, same time every day.
Fisher crossed the street, pushed through the building's door, and took the stairs to the third floor. Pults's office was the first door on the right; the silver-painted plastic plaque beside it read PULTS INVESTIGATIONS. Fisher turned the knob and walked through. In the back, behind a Formica-topped reception desk, a muted bell sounded.
"Be right with ya," Pults called.
Fisher walked past the reception desk, turned at a copy machine/coffee room, and stood in Pults's doorway. Pults was sitting on the edge of his desk, one sock and shoe off, clipping the toenail on his big toe. Behind Pults was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase packed to overflowing. Fisher saw some Herodotus and Plutarch, dozens of World War II and Civil War history books, Shakespeare's sonnets, and a compendium of Three Stoogestrivia. Clearly Pults was well-read and had eclectic taste. Beside the bookcase was a five-by-seven picture of a dog, a bichon frise, Fisher guessed. It was wearing a superman costume with the word SNOWBALL emblazoned across the front.
"Hey, hi there," Pults said, looking up. "I'll be right–"
"That's okay," Fisher said. "This won't take long. You had lunch with a man named Peter a couple weeks ago at Brulerie St-Denis. As far as I can tell, you were the last man to see him alive."
Pults squinted at Fisher for a few seconds, slipped his sock and shoe back on, then limped around his desk and plopped down in his chair. "Peter's dead?"
Pults looked genuinely surprised. Fisher nodded.
"And who are you?"
Fisher had already given his approach a lot of thought. Both his gut and Pults's personnel file told Fisher the former RCMP detective was an honest man. If he had anything to do with Peter's death, it was probably unintentional. Plus, Pults, being a cop, had heard a lifetime of crap from criminals trying to get over on him. Fisher's best chance was to simply lay his cards on the table and ask for the man's help.
"My name is Sam. I'm Peter's brother."
"Yeah? Huh. Funny, Peter never mentioned a brother."
"He never mentioned a private detective to me."
"Can you prove it?" Pults asked.
"What'd you have in mind? An old Christmas card?"
"You guys had a cat when you were kids. What was its name?"
Interesting,Fisher thought. Pults's question implied more than a simple business relationship, but a friendship.
"Pod," Fisher said. "Short for Tripod. He lost his right front leg in a raccoon trap in the woods behind our house. Peter found him, ran home with him, and pestered our mom till she gave in and let us keep him."
"And how'd he stop the bleeding?"
"He didn't. I did. Used the rubber tubing off my sling-shot."
Pults smiled, showing a gap between his front teeth the width of a nickel's edge. "Man, I always liked that story. Tell me what happened to Peter."
Fisher did. After he finished, Pults was silent for a few seconds. He clasped his hands on top of his desk blotter, dipped his chin, and shook his head. "I should have gone with him. This goddamned hip . . ."
"Gone where?" Fisher asked. "Start at the beginning."
He and Peter were business partners, Pults explained, and had been for nearly two years. He was Peter's link to the RCMP and the Canadian underworld, which Pults knew inside and out after two decades. Peter paid him under the table and kept their relationship off the books.
"He played his cards close to the vest," Pults said.
"Runs in the family."
"Anyway, he had a lot of big clients. When he had something for me, I'd handle it. It wasn't often, but it was enough to keep me in salmon lures and fishing trips."
"Which explains your business's low traffic."
"Yeah. I've got a decent pension, so whatever Peter tossed my way was gravy. This last thing, though, was a different animal."
"How so?"
Pults opened his top desk drawer, withdrew a manila folder, and slipped a newspaper clipping from it. He handed it to Fisher, who scanned the article, which included a picture of a woman. She had long black hair, delicate cheekbones, a nose with an ever-so-slight bump in it, and flashing brown eyes. Fisher read the picture's caption and looked up at Pults in surprise. "Carmen Hayes? You're kidding?"
Pults shook his head. "Price, Carmen's father, hired Peter to find her."
Four months earlier, the twenty-eight-year-old daughter of Price Hayes had disappeared on a trip to Montreal. While Price Hayes was infamous–a colorful and crotchety old-money Texas oil baron with a family name as old as Sam Houston's–his daughter, Carmen, was renowned, but only within her chosen field, hydrogeology, the study of how fluid moves through and affects rock. Since graduating from college, Carmen had worked in the exploration division of her father's company.
According to Price Hayes, his daughter had responded to a corporate headhunter's invitation to meet with the CEO of Akono Oil, a Japanese firm specializing in deep-water petroleum exploration and extraction. The day after arriving in Montreal, Carmen disappeared. Through its general counsel, Akono Oil claimed it never extended such an offer to Carmen, and none of its corporate staff had been in Montreal during that time.
Both the FBI and the RCMP had worked the case with fervor, turning over every rock and every lead, large and small, but to no avail. No sign of Carmen could be found. Her trail ended the moment she stepped out of her hotel that morning. For the first month after her disappearance, the mystery of Carmen Hayes had been a regular on every cable news channel and tabloid show.
"Mr. Hayes had pushed and rousted every government official he could get on the phone on either side of the border," Pults said. "But there was nothing they could do. Before he hired Peter, Price had gone through three other private investigators, some of the biggest and best in the business."
"How long had Peter been on it?"
"About a month."
"And?"
"And I think he had something. He didn't share much with me, and that had me worried. He said it was for my own good. He was looking at a man named Aldric Legard."
"I've heard the name," Fisher said. "Quebec Mafia."
"Right. A brutal son of a bitch. Was the number two man until one night five or six years ago. He and the boss are sitting down to a nice dinner of potage aux pois chiches. The boss had a spoonful of it halfway to his mouth when Legard jammed a stiletto into his eye. Boss goes headfirst into the potage,Legard keeps eating. Piece of cake."
"That'll put you off your soup," Fisher said.
"And then some. So, Legard moves to number one and starts shaking up the business. The old boss was into contracts, unions, high-end escort services, and so on. Legard ditches all that and starts up with heroin, coke, and white slavery."
"Pardon me?"
"White girls, late teens or early twenties, mostly blondes, shipped over to Indonesia and the Middle East for stripping or sex–or both. Legard has quite a customer base. He even takes requests: height, weight, eye color . . . you know. Legard's also–"
"How many?" Fisher said.
"Girls?" Pults shrugged. "Who can say? Most of them live off the grid. They disappear, and no one notices except their friends–who rarely report anything, given the way they feel about police. If I had to guess at a number, though . . . Well into the hundreds."
"Christ," Fisher said. "What else?"
"Legard's also elbow deep in Ottawa. He's on a first name basis with half the House of Commons. Just a rumor, of course, but it would explain why he's not locked up in some hole somewhere."
"So Peter thought Legard had snatched Carmen Hayes?"
"That's my guess, but she doesn't fit the profile: brunette, closer to thirty than twenty. Most of Legard's acquisitions are runaways or street kids. I think Peter figured Legard had been contracted to snatch Carmen and deliver her somewhere for someone. Not a regular customer. If you want someone kidnapped, why not go to someone who's done it a lot?"
This was an unexpected turn, Fisher thought. He'd never had the slightest inkling Peter had been involved in the Hayes kidnapping. How did an oil baron's missing daughter, a Canadian crime boss, and white slavery tie into PuH-19 and Peter's death?
Fisher said, "Okay, so Peter asked you to do a background check on Legard . . ."
"Yeah, he was looking for a way in–a corner he could peel back. He never told me how he got interested in Legard, but the theory was that ifLegard had snatched Carmen, she'd probably gone down the same pipeline Legard uses for his other girls."
"You told me you should have gone with him," Fisher said. "What did you mean? Someplace specific?"
"One of Legard's front companies is called Terrebonne Exports. Fish canning and export. He's got a fair-size fleet and warehouses all along the St. Lawrence Seaway and on Nova Scotia. Peter thought Legard was using his ships to smuggle the girls overseas."
This made sense. There was a reason why ships and ports were the preferred venue for smugglers, terrorists, and sundry criminals. Ports were virtually impossible to fully secure, and ships were, by their very nature, a warren of nooks and crannies tailor-made for hiding contraband, inanimate and human alike.
The question was, did he follow what was likely Peter's course and look at Legard's warehouses, or did he go to Legard himself and ask–not so nicely–what had happened to Peter and why?
The truth was, Fisher had made up his mind before he even asked the question.
8
SAINT-SULPICE, QUEBEC, CANADA
FISHERheard a muted squelch as the subdermal receiver implanted beneath the skin behind his ear came to life. Then, a few seconds later, Grim's voice: "Do you read me, Sam?"
Fisher lowered his binoculars and shimmied backward, deeper into the underbrush. The night was chilly, hovering at fifty degrees Fahrenheit, and a low mist clung to the ground. Overhead he could hear the occasional pinging screech of bats hunting the darkened treetops for insects.
Before him lay a half-mile stretch of the St. Lawrence River and beyond that, the village of Saint-Sulpice and, on its outskirts, Aldric Legard's estate, a sprawling three hundred thousand square-foot French country mansion set on ten acres of rock elm and white oak.
The approach Fisher had chosen seemed tailor-made for him. This section of the St. Lawrence was bisected by Iles de Boucherville, a series of narrow, tree-covered islands that ran parallel to both shorelines and were uninhabited save the dozens of strobe-topped navigation towers designed to warn off passing ships. Lined with hundreds of tiny coves and inlets, the islands appealed to the SEAL in Fisher as not only the perfect insertion point but also the perfect E&E (escape and evasion) route. If he ran into trouble and had to retreat under pursuit, the islands' geography would work to his advantage.
Fisher said, "Grim, you know I gave up trying to read you long ago. You're an enigma."
"Sweet-talker."
Fisher's communications system, specially made for Third Echelon by DARPA, the Pentagon's version of James Bond's Q division, consisted of two parts: the subdermal receiver, which directly vibrated the set of tiny bones in the ear known as the ossicles, or more colloquially, the hammer, anvil, and stirrup; and the second part, the transmitter, which was a butterfly-shaped adhesive patch known as an SVT, or subvocal transceiver, worn across the throat just above his Adam's apple. This had been the hardest of the two components to master and required a skill Fisher likened to a cross between whispering and ventriloquism. For all that, though, he loved the system; it allowed him to communicate while bad guys stood five feet away.
"I'm loading your OPSAT now," Grimsdottir said, referring to the operational satellite uplink. Fisher had come to think of the OPSAT as his own personal Palm Pilot on steroids. Worn across the forearm, the OPSAT served not only as Fisher's encrypted satellite communications hub, but it also fed him images and data that ranged from a simple weather readout to a real-time satellite feed from a fifteen-ton Lacrosse-class radar-imaging satellite orbiting four hundred miles above the earth's surface. More than that, like Grimsdottir's voice in his ear, the OPSAT had come to represent for him a link back to the real world. Working alone, in places filled with people only too happy and capable of killing him on-site, was challenging enough. With the OPSAT, lifesaving information and a friendly voice were only a few button presses away.
"Data dump complete," Grimsdottir said.
Fisher pressed his thumb to the OPSAT's screen. A red horizontal laser line scrolled down the screen as the biometric reader captured his thumbprint.
// . . . BIOMETRIC SCAN ENGAGED . . .. . . SCANNING FINGERPRINT . . .. . . IDENTITY CONFIRMED . . . //
The OPSAT booted up, showing a transreflective screen in black, green, and amber. Fisher pressed a few buttons, checked the database and uplink, then said, "Good to go."
Lambert's voice came on the line. "Sam, the ROE are tight on this; you're on allied soil."
In this case, Fisher's rules of engagement were straight from the manual, and he knew the words by heart: Avoid all contact. Leave no trace of presence. Less-than-lethal force authorized if contact unavoidable. Lethal force authorized only to maintain mission and/or operative integrity. Translation: Don't be seen and don't kill anyone unless the mission will otherwise go to hell in a handbasket. Fisher had always enjoyed the line, "operative integrity." This was yet another euphemism: Getting captured or killed was the same thing as a failed mission.
"Got it. No war with Canada," Fisher replied. "I'm on the move. Call you on the other side."
FISHER'Schoice to go directly to the source–Montreal's godfather, Aldric Legard–had been an easy one. Not only was Legard his best chance of finding out what had happened to Peter, and why, but also of finding Carmen Hayes. While the mystery of her disappearance had piqued Fisher's curiosity, his first concern was of a more practical nature. Regardless of whether his visit to Legard provided him a lead, he knew one thing: It seemed clear that Peter's pursuit of Carmen's disappearance had gotten him killed, and so, logically, if he could retrace Peter's steps he would eventually run squarely into the people who had not only killed Peter but also whoever had the PuH-19.
Fisher slipped the face mask over his eyes and slithered belly first down the embankment and into the water. He coiled his legs and shoved off the muddy bank, propelling himself into the channel. The current caught him, and his weight belt slowly drew him beneath the surface. He fitted the microrebreather, which was roughly the size and shape of a five-pound hand weight, into his mouth and took a sharp breath to activate the chemical gas scrubber; he was greeted by a slight hiss and the cool, metallic taste of oxygen flowing into his mouth.
As his body descended through the water, he felt its chill envelop him. After a few seconds his tac suit quickly absorbed and redistributed the cold.
Fisher was biased, he knew, since the thing had saved his life more times than he could count, but as far as he was concerned, his tac suit–officially, the Mark V tactical operations suit–was as close to magic as DARPA had ever come.
A one-piece black coverall festooned with the various pouches, pockets, and harness attachments needed to carry all his equipment, the tac suit's interior was fitted with the latest generation Gore-Tex while its exterior was made up of Kevlar and Dragon Skin, the world's first "move when you move" body armor. Dragon Skin could stop shrapnel and any bullet short of a sniper's high-powered penetrator round. The Gore-Tex was designed to maintain Fisher's core body temperature and could do so down to ten degrees and as high as one hundred ten.
The truly magical part was the camouflage system. The outer Kevlar layer was impregnated with a substance code-named Cygnus, after the first officially identified black hole. The liquid polymer fiber was matte-black and micro-roughened so as to trap and diffuse–if only for a fraction of a second–light particles. It wasn't invisibility per se, but Fisher had found that shadows seemed much deeper while he was wearing the tac suit. Completing the camouflage was the use of disruptive patterning through the odd placement of his pouches and pockets, all of which were of different sizes and shapes. In low-light conditions, the human eye was drawn to movement, color difference, and geometric form. Of the three, form was the most challenging problem, but by rearranging and resizing the pouches, the outline of the body becomes fuzzy.
He reached up and touched a button on his face mask. Two halogen lights, one built into each side of his mask, came to life, emitting a pair of pencil-thin red beams. As designed, they converged directly ahead of him, at arm's reach. He lifted the OPSAT to his face and studied the screen. His course to the opposite shore, marked as a green parabolic line, took into account the river's current and would, barring any miscalculation, bring him to the surface within ten feet of the outer stone wall of Legard's estate.
He slipped on his webbed swimming gloves and started swimming.
9
WHENthe parabolic course line on the OPSAT screen shortened to a few millimeters, Fisher turned off his mask lamp, stopped stroking, and let his momentum carry him forward. He let his arms hang down until he felt his fingertips scraping the soft mud bottom. He jammed his fingertips into the muck until he had purchase, pulled himself down until his belly touched the mud, then began easing himself forward, inch by inch, until the upper rim of his face mask broke the surface. He waited a moment for the water to drain away from the glass, then removed the rebreather and looked around.
He froze.
Standing on the bank, not five feet before him, was a figure, silhouetted by moonlight. Fisher's breath caught in his throat. Slowly the man raised his arm up across his body, then stopped. The orange tip of a cigarette glowed to life, then went dark. Fisher scanned the man's outline until he found what he was looking for: Jutting from shadows at the man's right hip was the stubbed nose and raised triangular sight of a compact submachine gun–a Heckler & Koch SL8-6, by the looks of it. The SL8-6 was the civilian version of the German army's G36 assault rifle.
The guard's presence here answered one of Fisher's questions; Grim's research into Legard's home had turned up the presence of twelve to fifteen full-time, live-in guards, but what she couldn't tell was how far their patrols went. Now Fisher knew their patrols extended beyond the walls to the rest of Legard's estate.
Fisher remained still, barely breathing, until the guard finally finished his smoke break. He tossed the cigarette butt into the water, where it hissed out, then turned and started back up the tree-lined embankment toward the wall.
Fisher counted another sixty seconds in his head and then, with exaggerated slowness, dipped his face back beneath the surface, removed his mask, and clipped it to his harness. From a pouch on his chest, he withdrew his op goggles and settled them over his head. He pressed a button, and goggles powered up, emitting a barely perceptible whirring hum followed by a soft click that told him they were fully operational. He flipped to NV, or night vision, and the darkness turned to a field of gray green before his eyes. Instead of simply clumps of indistinguishable foliage, he could make out individual shrubs, could even count leaves on the end of a nearby branch.
Gotta love technology,Fisher thought. But only to a point.He was and always would be, old-school. Gizmos and gadgets were useful, but without trained hands and experienced brains to apply them, they were worthless. There was no substitute for eyeballs and boots on the ground.
He flipped the goggles through the other two available modes: infrared, or IR, for thermal; and EM, or electromagnetic, for electrical signals that could range from a radio beacon to invisible electrical barriers. He paused in each mode, scanning the ground before and around him, then up the embankment to the wall. He saw nothing.
He looked left, downstream, then right, upstream. About a hundred yards up the shore, he could see Legard's private dock, a canopy-covered structure that jutted thirty feet into the river. Tied to slips on either side of the dock were four blue-on-white Baja 26 Outlaw speedboats with what looked like MerCruiser engines–600 horsepower, Fisher guessed. Each boat also came with its own radar antenna jutting from the stern air foil.
He belly-crawled from the mud and into the tall grass along the shore until he reached heavier foliage, where he rose to his knees. Weapons check. His loadout for this mission was standard: a 5.72mm/anesthetic dart pistol with a twenty-round magazine and muzzle noise/flash suppressor; fragmentation and disruption grenades; a genuine Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife; and finally the 5.56mm SC-20K AR assault rifle, another gift from DARPA.
The SC-20, chambered for a 5.56mm bullpup round, was a marvel of versatility and compactness. Equipped with a flash/sound suppresser with a 97 percent effective acoustic dampener, when fired, the SC-20 emitted a sound no louder than a tennis ball being thrown into a down pillow. What truly made the SC-20 special, however, was its modular design. With its subbarrel-mounted launcher, Fisher had access to a variety of weapons and sensors including ring air foil projectiles, adhesive cameras and microphones, and shock projectiles–each appropriately nicknamed the Sticky Cam, the Sticky Ear, and the Sticky Shocker–and gas grenades of varying potency.
All told, Fisher's gear, which weighed over forty pounds, allowed him to see, hear, move, kill, and incapacitate better than any covert soldier on the planet.
Now he went through each item, checking its operation, securing pouches, and tightening harness points until satisfied all was in order. He took one more scan of the surrounding forest, then rose to a crouch and sprinted toward the wall.
He stopped and dropped to a crouch beneath the drooping boughs of a hemlock tree. Ten feet ahead lay the wall, a patchwork of mortared black, gray, and brown fieldstone. The top of the wall, ten feet from the ground, was rounded and topped with jagged triangles of clear glass, like staggered rows of sharks' teeth glinting in the moonlight. It was well-designed, Fisher had to admit. There were neither jutting edges for handholds nor crevices for grapnel points.
