WIRED.

Douglas E. Richards.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Douglas E. Richards is the author of a science fiction series that has won rave reviews in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine, Kirkus, School Library Journal, Odyssey Magazine, and numerous others. In 2010, in recognition of his work, he was selected to be a "special guest" at San Diego Comic-Con International, along with such icons as Stan Lee, Ray Bradbury, and Rick Riordan. Douglas has a master's degree in molecular biology and has auth.o.r.ed a wide variety of popular science pieces for National Geographic, the BBC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Earth and Sky, Today's Parent, and many others.

"What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome."

a"Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher (1844-1900).

PROLOGUE.

Bill Callan extended his silenced Ruger .45 and crept soundlessly toward the woman calling herself Pamela Saeks. She was seated at an old wooden desk with her back to him, busily manipulating an expensive laptop computer. She was undeniably cute, reflected Callan, not for the first time. But he liked his women on the sleazy side, and her look was too wholesome for his tastea"even though her appearance was probably the only thing wholesome about her. And she was too smart for his liking as well. Far too smart.

Her driver's license pegged her at twenty-seven, but she looked younger, as if she had just finished college. Except for her eyes. There was a maturity there, a street savvy, far beyond her actual age or appearance that suggested this soft-looking girl had seen her share of hard times.

Why did she need to hire two mercenaries to protect her? Not bodyguards, but mercenaries. And how was she able to afford them without any visible means of support? She had fed them a story about having been the girlfriend of a mobster who wasn't prepared to let her go, but Callan hadn't bought it for a second. So he had made a study of her. And sure enough, his investigation had hit pay dirt. Pay dirt far richer than he could ever have imagined.

The girl was so engrossed in the computer she was completely oblivious to Callan's approach. He cleared his throat and she spun around, startled. "Oh," she said in relief, noticing it was him, but her relief was short-lived as she saw the gun pointed at her, ominously fitted with a silencer. "What's going on, Bill?" she said anxiously. And while she kept her face pa.s.sive, Callan had an unmistakable sense that her agile mind was racing; evaluating these new circ.u.mstances and weighing possibilities.

"You need to come with me," said Callan evenly. And then, raising his eyebrows he added, "Kira."

Her eyes widened for just an instant before she caught herself. "What the h.e.l.l is going on?" she demanded. "Why are you pointing that at me? And why did you call me Kira?"

"Because that's your real name," he said simply. "Kira Miller."

She shook her head in annoyance. "If this is your idea of a joke, Bill, it isn't funny."

Callan ignored her. "Catch," he said, tossing her a set of car keys. She s.n.a.t.c.hed them from the air with athletic ease, her gaze never wavering from his.

"I took the liberty of removing the pepper spray from your key ring," he told her. "Let's go. You're driving."

"Where's Jason?" she asked.

"He's in the garage," replied Callan with a sly smile. "Waiting for us."

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what this is about!" she snapped.

Callan closed the gap between them in the blink of an eye and shoved the long barrel of the silencer roughly against the side of her head. He reached out with his other hand and grabbed her chin, forcing her face mere inches from his. Callan was a muscular six-foot-three and his meaty paws were enormous.

"For a smart chick, you're just not getting it," he hissed. "Things have changed. I don't work for you anymore. I'm the one giving the orders now! You'll do as I say or I'll break you in half." He gave her chin and lower face a quick, powerful squeeze, so strong that several of her teeth cut into the inside of her mouth, drawing blood. "Have I made myself clear!" he whispered through clenched teeth, finally releasing her chin.

She rubbed her chin and glared at him with such a feral intensity he expected holes to appear in the back of his head.

"Admit your real name is Kira Miller or I'll break your left arm," he growled fiercely.

She continued to glare at him as she considered his threat. "Okay," she said finally. "So I'm Kira Miller. So what? I'm paying you and Jason a small fortune to protect me, and you're putting that in serious jeopardy."

Callan laughed. "You think?" he said sarcastically. He shook his head. "Thanks for your concern, but I won't be needing your small fortune anymore. I'm trading it for a large one." He grabbed her arm and shoved her in the direction of the garage. "Let's go," he barked. "I'm not going to ask again."

As she walked toward the garage she detoured a few yards to s.n.a.t.c.h a jean jacket draped over the back of a chair, and quickly slipped it on. Callan shook his head in disbelief. It was still almost sixty degrees outside. In November! Positively balmy. Callan had lived in Chicago much of his life, but he knew that after only a few years of being spoiled in the paradise climate of San Diego the pathetic residents became hypersensitive to cold.

As they reached the door that led to the garage, she turned completely around to face him, looking as though she wanted to ask a question, her right hand now buried in the coat's right pocket. Callan reacted instinctively, twisting away from her before his conscious mind knew why, just as a small caliber bullet tore through her pocket and dug a shallow, five-inch-long groove across his stomach. If he had not turned when he did, the bullet would have bored a hole straight through his gut.

Callan threw his ma.s.sive body into Kira Miller and slammed her into the door before she could get off another shot. While she was still dazed, he wrestled her arm from her pocket and easily ripped the Glock subcompact she had hidden there from her fingers.

He could feel the wetness of his blood as it slid from his wound and soaked into his nowtorn shirt, but he knew the injury was superficial and not in need of immediate attention. He spun his former client around roughly and began to frisk her, something he should have done from the start. He had a.s.sumed she was content to leave security to her two hired mercenaries, but it was clear she had taken additional precautions of her own. He found a small canister of pepper spray attached to her lower leg, but no other weapons.

He considered roughing her up a bit as punishment for her attack, but decided against it. If he injured her, she would be more difficult to manage, and it was his carelessness that had allowed the attempt anyway. Besides, he had made certain she was all out of surprises.

Callan opened the door to the garage and shoved her through, hitting the light switch as he did so. The girl almost tripped over the body of Jason Bobkoski lying face down on the gray concrete floor, a hole drilled through his heart from behind by a silenced weapon at point blank range. Streams of bright-red blood branched out from the body like so many fingers and disappeared under Kira's white Lexus sedan.

Kira glared at Callan with contempt, but said nothing. Most women would have shrieked in horror had they been surprised by a b.l.o.o.d.y corpse, but apparently not this one. After her bold attack just moments before, he shouldn't have been surprised. His instincts had been dead on: this bright, attractive girl was far more than she seemed.

They were on the road minutes later. Kira was at the wheel and Callan sat in the pa.s.senger seat with his gun trained on her. The sun had set a few hours earlier, but despite the darkness the roads were still fairly active. A crescent moon hung in the still night sky, and the typical Southern California a.s.sortment of tropical flowers and palms made steady appearances outside the windshield, a living testament to a growing season and a summer that never seemed to end.

"Where are we going?" asked Kira finally, breaking a long silence.

"You'll know when we get there," said Callan.

"How did you learn my true ident.i.ty?"

"This isn't twenty questions."

"Look, I paid you well and you're obviously selling me out in return. The least you could do is answer a few question. What's the big deal?"

Callan considered for several seconds and then shrugged. "Okay," he said. "Why not. I never bought your bulls.h.i.t story from the start. Your driver's license and credit cards are flawless, but I dug a little and became certain you were using a false ident.i.ty. This intrigued me. Not many people have fake doc.u.ments and superficial histories as good as yours." He paused. "Then I got lucky. I found a crumpled United Airlines luggage tag inside the outer pocket of your suitcase, with the name Kira Miller scribbled on it in pencil." He pointed ahead to the next intersection. "Turn left here," he said.

Kira did as instructed. "So how did you go from finding a luggage tag to abducting me at gunpoint?"

"I made some public inquiries into Kira Miller's background," he explained, "and let it be known I had stumbled onto information that might lead me to you. It was a fishing expedition. I baited my hook with your name and waited for an interested party to bite. I had no idea I'd be catching Moby f.u.c.king d.i.c.k," he said in amazement, shaking his head as if still unable to believe his good fortune. "The government contacted me almost immediately. They told me you were a fugitive and warned me you were highly dangerous." Callan glanced down at his b.l.o.o.d.y shirt and decided he should have taken their warning more seriously. "They wouldn't tell me anything more, but they offered me a ma.s.sive finder's fee if I could bring you to ground." The corners of his mouth turned up into a broad, self-satisfied smile. "After a little negotiation, we settled on two million dollars."

Kira shook her head in disgust. "You're an idiot, Bill. Did you consider they were lying about being with the government?"

He smiled. "Of course. But I don't really give a s.h.i.t who they are and why they're after you. So long as I get paid."

"What if they're lying about the money also?" pressed Kira.

"After I convinced them I could find you, they wired half a million into my numbered account as a gesture of good faith. A half million bucks buys a lot of credibility."

"So this is just about money?" she said in contempt. "Betraying a client. Killing Jason in cold blood. With absolutely no idea of what's really going on or what's at stake."

"What the f.u.c.k did you expect!" he snapped. "That's the very definition of the word mercenary for Christ's sake: someone who's just in it for the money."

"I thought you guys had some sort of code."

Callan laughed. "Not for two million dollars we don't." He shook his head irritably. "And spare me your preaching. You're not innocent. Innocent people don't have flawlessly forged ident.i.ties. And innocent people who feel threatened hire bodyguards. Guilty people hire mercenaries."

"Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better," said Kira bitterly. "But you're wrong. You're in way over your head, Bill. You're playing with fire. The people who contacted you aren't from the government. And you're never going to see the rest of that money. In fact, no matter what else happens, you're a dead man walking right now, Bill. You're on borrowed time, and you're too clueless to know it."

She said it with such chilling conviction that she gave Callan pause. But this was her intention, he realized. She was bluffing. Trying to get him to second-guess himself.

"So you're taking me to them now?" said Kira.

He nodded. "That's right. At a location I specified," he said.

"They insisted I had to be delivered alive and well or the deal was off, didn't they? They told you that if you screwed up and I ended up dead, your own funeral wouldn't be far behind. Didn't they, Bill?"

"So what?" he said dismissively, trying not to show how much she was beginning to unnerve him.

"Any idea why they were so adamant?" she pressed. She shot him a look of disgust, as if unable to believe the depth of his stupidity. "Of course you don't," she continued, not waiting for an answer. "Because you have absolutely no clue as to what you've gotten yourself into. If you want any hope of living through the night, you'll let me go now and disappear."

Callan's eyes narrowed. She was probably bluffing, but could he afford to take that chance? Maybe he was in over his head. As eager as he was to get his hands on the rest of the money, with stakes this high, perhaps it did pay to interrogate her properly and gain a clear picture of what he had gotten himself into. He could always reschedule the handoff. They wouldn't be happy, but they'd go along with a short delay. He'd bet they'd do almost anything to get her.

"Turn the car around," he said finally. "We're going back to your house. Since you're so eager to tell me what's really going on, I'm going to give you that chance."

She raised her eyebrows. "What's the matter, Bill?" she taunted. "I thought you didn't give a s.h.i.t who I was or why they're really after me."

"Turn around!" he barked angrily.

They drove for several minutes, maintaining a tense silence. They were in the far left lane, slowing for a red light that shined like a beacon against the night sky, a hundred yards distant, when Kira pressed the b.u.t.ton near her waist, retracting her seatbelt.

"Put it back on," ordered Callan.

"You bruised my shoulder and the belt is aggravating it," she said.

"I said, put it back on!"

"Okay, okay," she said as they neared to within fifteen yards of the intersection, reaching for her belt.

But she never touched it.

She threw the door open instead, and without a moment's hesitation launched herself from the car onto the gra.s.sy median that paralleled the road. She tried for a gymnastics roll, but hit hard on her right shoulder and half rolled, half skidded into the trunk of a small palm tree planted in the median.

Callan was stunned by her audacity. He could have shot her as she dived from the car but he couldn't risk killing her; something she must have counted on. He frantically released his own belt and hurled himself toward the driver's seat to take control of the runaway car, when he realized with a sinking feeling that he was too late. Kira's rudderless Lexus shot through the red light, and Callan heard the wail of a horn and the screeching of tires coming from his right. The driver of the oncoming car, a small Honda, managed to reduce his speed considerably, but couldn't stop from slamming into the pa.s.senger door of the Lexus, creating a violent and unmistakable explosion of sound that could only arise from the collision of two steel-and-gla.s.s missiles, each weighing thousands of pounds.

The collision occurred just as Callan was reaching the driver's side to take control of the car, and it threw him violently against the side of the steering wheel, fracturing one of his ribs. While the air bags had inflated instantly, Callan had been unbelted, and in such an awkward position they had been unable to prevent injury.

He shook off the severe pain, put the car in park, and stumbled out of the door as the air bags began deflating automatically. He spotted the girl running out of sight through a brightly lighted gas station on the opposite corner, noting with satisfaction that her daredevil stunt had not left her unscathed. A jagged hole had been torn in her pants and gra.s.s-stain and blood now decorated her exposed thigh.

Callan went after her as fast as he could given the pain in his ribcage, ignoring the startled shout of, "Hey, where are you going?" from the owner of the Honda.

He made it to the gas station and scanned the area in all directions, searching frantically for his multimillion dollar ticket to retirement. He entered the station's large food mart and stormed into the women's room, yanking open the stall, but it was empty. He raced back outside, his eyes darting in all directions.

And he spotted her!

The b.i.t.c.h had circled back to her car.

Smart. Despite a ma.s.sive cave-in on the pa.s.senger side, the car was probably still drivable, and he had left the keys in the ignition. The driver of the Honda was yelling something at her, but she ignored him, gunning the engine and taking off in the direction the car was pointed. Bits of gla.s.s from the door's shattered window rained onto the pavement as she hastily drove off.

Callan scanned the gas station. A Mercedes with a powerful engine was just pulling up to a pump. Perfect! The driver was a plump man with a short beard, and when he exited the car to fill the tank, Callan emerged from behind the car with a gun pointed at his gut. "The keys!" he demanded. "Now!"

The man was stunned but managed to hold out his hand helplessly.

Callan s.n.a.t.c.hed the keys and seconds later was tearing onto the street after Kira. She had a considerable head start, but her severely damaged car was easy to identify from a distance, even at night, and the car he was now in had more than enough horsepower to catch her.

As he cut the distance between them, she shot onto the onramp to highway 52, heading east. The Lexus was like a wounded animal and he caught up to her struggling vehicle only minutes after she had entered the highway. She was in the far left lane. He brought his car parallel to hers, one lane over, close enough that they could see each other's dark silhouette by the glow of their dashboard lights, and gestured her over menacingly with his gun.

She ignored him.

Callan wasn't sure what to do next. Shooting a tire or trying to force her off the road could cause her to lose control of the car, and he couldn't have that. He needed to deliver her alive and well, and he could tell from her determined face, unconcerned by his presence beside her, that she knew full well the advantage this gave her.

As they approached the eastbound bridge that crossed Tecolade Canyon, the girl slammed on her breaks and skidded noisily, her squealing tires leaving a trail of rubber behind her. As her speed plummeted below thirty, she veered sharply to the left, leaving the highway and entering a twenty-yard wide strip of gra.s.s that separated the eastbound and westbound lanes of the 52. The car bouncing jarringly, its shocks no match for the unpaved terrain. She came to a stop just ten yards short of a concrete barrier that had been erected in the median to prevent cars from inadvertently plummeting into the canyon, and then calmly completed her turn. With her car now pointing to the west, she picked up speed and carefully entered the westbound lanes of the 52.

Callan slammed on his brakes to follow, but was too late. Her timing had been perfect. As she had no doubt planned, in the few seconds it had taken him to react, he had continued onto the eastbound bridge over Tecolade Canyon. The westbound bridge was only twenty yards away, but instead of a gra.s.sy median separating them, there was now nothing but air, leaving him no way to mimic her maneuver short of flying.

He screeched to a halt in the middle of an active lane and several cars behind him were just able to swerve in time to avoid hitting him. Additional cars shot past him, leaning on their horns angrily. He briefly considered backing up against the oncoming traffic, but realized it would be suicide.

Furious, he picked up speed and continued to cross the long bridge, stopping the Mercedes on the shoulder when he had done so. He exited the car and surveyed the westbound lanes. As he expected, the girl's battered Lexus was nowhere in sight.

He slammed both hands against the top of the car in rage. "s.h.i.t!" he thundered angrily.

As he stood there, fuming, he could just make out three helicopters in the distance, their powerful searchlights probing the darkness in an ever-widening pattern whose epicenter was over the exact part of town at which the hand-off was supposed to have taken place. They were looking for Kira Miller. Somehow he was sure of it.

But he was beginning to doubt they would catch her.

Who in the h.e.l.l was she! he thought in frustration.

And what could she possibly have done to warrant this kind of attention?

PART ONE.

Pursuit.