The Silent Army Read Free Page A

voice answered, “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
    “They’re here.”
    The thermal footprints I was following skipped for a second. A few steps later, the glitch happened again as more rats scurried down the hall.
    “Leave them alone,” the woman said up ahead.
    Around the corner, I saw Takanawa standing in front of a good-looking woman in an expensive suit. There was a metal briefcase on a desk next to her, lying open. Inside I saw a series of boxes, each the size of a brick, nestled in a bed of black packing foam. One of the slots was empty, and Takanawa held the box in his hand.
    “Hard to believe they’re so small,” he said.
    “Put it back, and get out of here already.”
    He slipped the box in his jacket pocket instead. She made a face and reached over, slamming the case shut.
    “What about you?” he asked. “Aren’t you coming?”
    “Shortly. Go.”
    He shrugged and stepped out of view. A service door began to grind open.
    Keeping low, I moved in as the door began rattling shut again. When I looked around the corner, I saw Takanawa’s expensive shoes just before the door came down. A green light on the wall turned red as the lock engaged.
    “There you are,” a man said from somewhere off to my right, his voice echoing in the open space. Three sets of footsteps were approaching the woman. She crossed her arms and leaned back on the desk, waiting.
    “Yes, here I am.”
    Two men in suits came into view, tailed by a big revivor.
    “The fucking Feds are here,” one of them said. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
    She drew a pistol from inside her jacket fast enough to surprise both men. The first shot caught the man who’d just spoken in the face, and his head jerked back. The next hit the other man in the side. He staggered, and managed to draw his gun as she shot him a second time.
    I crossed in front of the chain-link cages, my weapon drawn.
    “Federal agent!”
    “What the fuck are you doing?” the bleeding man grunted to the revivor that was with him. “Kill her!”
    He went down on the floor next to his friend. The big revivor stepped over them, toward the woman. It reached out and grabbed a fistful of her shirt as she shot it three times in the chest. Her heels came up off the floor as it hauled her forward, then slammed her back down on the desk.
    It grabbed her head in its hands and leaned in, baring its teeth. I fired a shot into its temple and it jumped back, letting her go. It swung one arm at the open air, black blood squirting from the hole as I put a second shot through its open mouth.
    It gagged, black specks spraying from between its teeth, then fell onto its back. Its signature warbled, then blinked out.
    The woman sat on the edge of the desk, wincing as she looked over at me. She still held her gun in one hand, pointed down at the floor.
    “Who are you?” she asked.
    The other revivors had started shaking their cages, trying to get out. The closest one had its face pushed into the chain-link, fingers straining through the holes as it ground its teeth.
    “FBI.”
    “You with Sean?” she asked.
    “Slide the gun over.”
    She did. I stopped it with my foot, then picked it up.
    “Put your hands up.”
    She nodded, cracking her back and wincing again as she lifted her hands up over her head.
    Scanning her, I didn’t see any hidden weapons. She wasn’t wired and didn’t have any physical augmentations. Her face didn’t match anything in the databases.
    “What’s your name?” I asked her.
    “Jan Holst. Can I put my hands down?”
    “What is that?” I asked her, nodding at the briefcase. She frowned, but didn’t answer.
    “Open it,” I said.
    She turned and keyed in the combination to the case, then lifted it open and stepped away. I looked inside, and a warning appeared in the JZI.
    Radiation detected.
    The particles were coming from the case. I looked through one of the bricks and saw it contained a metal capsule. Inside the shell