Alienation (26 page)
“A fair question,” she said. “I'm an undercover agent working for the DAA, and I was given the task of earning Lobo's trust.”
“Then you know about Operation Nemesis.”
She nodded.
“So why haven't you arrested him?” Colt asked. “I mean, if you're in his inner circle, hasn't he mentioned anything about murdering his rivals?”
“I'm afraid not,” she said. “He's rather paranoid at the moment, as I'm sure you understand. He considers me a trusted colleague, but his trust only goes so far.”
“But you want us to trust you, is that it?”
“That's enough,” Grandpa said.
“It's a fair question,” Giru Ba said. “Trust is something that is earned, not freely given. And I understand your reservations.”
Colt looked around the room, wondering if he could trust any of them. When his eyes fell on Danielle, her shoulders were slumped and her head was down. “I know it wasn't you,” he said.
She looked up at him, confused.
“With the syringe . . . it wasn't you.”
Danielle's lips curled into the slightest smile. “Do you want something to drink? There's some root beer in the fridge.”
“I'm okay.”
“I for one want to know what we're going to do about Lobo and his killer,” Agent O'Keefe said. “The real reason we haven't arrested him is because all we have is circumstantial evidence. That man is a slippery one, and if we charged him now, his lawyers would have the charges dismissed before the case went to trial.”
“What kind of evidence do we need?” Colt asked.
Agent O'Keefe didn't hesitate. “A confession.”
“Then I'll get one.”
“And how do you propose to do that? We've been trying to build a case against him for over a year, and we don't have anything.”
“We set a trap that he can't resist.”
“And what do you propose to use as the bait?”
“Me.”
A
t first Oz didn't want to play any part in the scheme, and Colt felt guilty asking a son to turn against his father. But as Danielle said, “How else will you know if your dad is innocent?”
Oz reluctantly agreed.
They needed to lure Lobo to a site they could control, and so far everything had gone according to plan. Oz told his dad that Colt was meeting with an instructor who had been working with the Department of Alien Affairs, and he thought it had something to do with a shapeshifter having infiltrated the campus. The meeting was supposed to take place at midnight in a dilapidated barn that used to be part of the school's animal sciences program back when it was a university. When Lobo pressed for details, Oz said he didn't have any, but that he'd overheard Danielle and Colt talking while they were studying in the library.
Once everything was set in motion, Danielle worked with Agent O'Keefe and Ms. Skoglund to set up a network of wireless cameras and microphones inside the barn. The hope was that Lobo would be lulled into a false sense of comfort and confess to Operation Nemesis. He might not have pulled the trigger or poisoned anyone directly, but at the very least he was guilty of conspiracy to commit five murders, and attempting a sixth.
To keep Lobo from bolting, they needed someone to play the part of Colt's contact at the academy, and after a heated debate they settled on Ms. Skoglund. Agent O'Keefe and Giru Ba both volunteered, and Grandpa said that Lohr was willing to do whatever they asked, but Ms. Skoglund pointed out that she would be the least threatening of the group. They needed Lobo to feel confident or he was going to run.
“Besides,” she said, “if anything goes wrong, the cavalry will be waiting in the wings to rescue us, right?”
Once that was settled, Giru Ba was assigned a team of two dozen DAA agents who would be waiting with Grandpa just out of sight, ready to storm the building and arrest Lobo once his confession had been recorded. There would also be a sniper with a clear line of sight to a bank of windows on the side of the barn. Grandpa wanted him there as a precaution, but Colt made sure the sniper was armed with tranquilizer darts instead of bullets. He knew what it was like to lose a parent, and he didn't want Oz to go through the same thing.
Colt spent the day holed up in Grandpa's apartment, trying to plan contingencies for every possibility. What if Lobo didn't show up? What if he spotted one of the DAA agents? What if he tried to take Colt to a new location? What if something happened to Ms. Skoglund?
“She knows the risk,” Grandpa said. “We all do.”
“But I don't want anyone to risk their life for me.”
“This isn't about you, it's about doing whatever it takes to get the job done. Besides, I don't think you have much to worry about. She's a resourceful one.”
“I hope you're right.”
Colt baked a frozen pizza and distracted himself with a stack of comic books Grandpa had brought from home. As he flipped through the pages, he watched time and again how the Phantom Flyer overcame the odds to defeat villains that should have destroyed him. He wondered if he would be able to do the same.
As the night went on, Colt felt like a Thoroughbred horse stuck behind a gate, waiting for his race to start. Somehow he was frustrated, terrified and excited all at the same time. Then the clock finally struck eleven thirty and it was time to go.
It was cold out, but the sky was clear, and he could see the stars shining overhead as he cut through a patch of trees that skirted the cemetery behind the chapel. Thanks to a schedule that Ms. Skoglund found on one of the servers, Colt knew where the security detail would be stationed, and when. The last thing he needed was to get caught outside after curfew and blow the entire operation.
Colt wore a ballistic vest beneath a hooded sweatshirt, but Giru Ba had also given him a jacket that was constructed from the same nanotechnology used to make his cadet uniform. It was warm, but it also had hidden pockets that held some useful gadgets, just in case he ran into trouble. There was a set of Bola Cuffs that came in a metal disc about the size of a hockey puck. All he had to do was throw it, and four lengths of rope made with polyethylene fibers would eject and wrap around his target, effectively tying the person up. Each strand was as strong as a steel cable, but much thinner, and they only weighed about a tenth as much.
He also had a high lumen LED flashlight that didn't require batteries. Instead, it used electromagnetic induction, which had something to do with magnetic fields and conductors, although Colt couldn't remember the specifics of how it worked.
The strangest gadget of the three was something called concrete foam, which came in what looked like miniature whipped cream cans, complete with red nozzles. Inside was a chemical compound that produced rapidly expanding foam that looked a bit like cement when it hardened. Colt wasn't sure how useful it was going to be, but it was there in case he needed it.
The enormous barn was nestled against a bank of trees that overlooked the Potomac River. From a distance it looked like the subject of a postcard, but as he got closer he could see the damage from years of neglect. The white paint was faded and peeling, casting the barn in a dull gray. Wide swaths of shingles were missing, and one of the doors that opened to the loft hung at an odd angle, threatening to fall at any time.
“All right, I'm here,” Colt said, wondering if the tiny two-way radio transceiver implanted inside his auditory canal would really work.
“I know, I can see you,” Danielle's voice said in his ear. She was back at Ms. Skoglund's apartment, where she sat in front of nine monitors that hung from the wall like oversized picture frames. One of the screens was a map of the school grounds, where a tracking device that doubled as Colt's belt buckle allowed them to see where he was at all times.
“How do I look?”
“Right now, you're just a little red dot on my screen. But once you're inside, we'll have full audio and video feeds.”
He crossed the field and entered the barn through a side door that creaked as it opened. The sound triggered a flutter of activity, and when he shined his flashlight into the rafters he saw a colony of bats swarming overhead. Eventually he found a light switch that triggered a single bulb. It was feeble, but at least he could see where he was going.
It had been years since any animals had been stabled inside the barn, but Colt could still smell the faint scent of manure as he walked past three empty stalls. On the other side of the aisle was a tack room, but outside of a rusted lawnmower and workbench with an old Philips radio, it was empty. Next to that was a storage area, where an array of farm implements hung from the walls. Someone had managed to park a 1952 Ford Country Squire inside, which didn't leave much room for anything else. The tires were flat and it was buried under a thick layer of dust, but there were no dents, and the wood paneling that ran along the doors and fenders looked like it was in perfect condition.
Colt glanced at his watch. Three minutes to midnight. Suddenly he felt nervous. Getting Lobo to confess about his involvement in Operation Nemesis had seemed like a simple thing when he was in a room full of people, but now that he was alone in a secluded location, he had no idea how he was going to do it.
“Is everyone in place?” he asked.
“Yep,” Danielle said. “Ms. Skoglund is outside, and we just got a report that Lobo is on his way.”
“And you tested everything, right?”
“More than once.”
As he waited, his fingers absently rubbed the medallion that Grandpa had given him. One minute he was worried that Lobo was going to walk through the door and shoot him; the next minute he was concerned that Lobo wasn't going to show up at all.
There was no knock. The door simply opened, its rusted hinges resisting as Ms. Skoglund walked in. Her cheeks and nose were bright red, and she looked out of breath. “This place looks a lot different at night,” she said as her eyes fell on a sickle that hung in the storage room. “It's definitely creepier.”
The door shut with a click, and Colt watched as she stood there as though listening for something in particular. She cocked her head and frowned, but then she shrugged. “So,” she said, sounding strangely casual given the circumstances, “do I look conspiratorial enough?” She held her arms out and spun in a slow circle; she was dressed in black from her stocking cap to her boots.
“More like a cat burglar, but yeah, I guess so,” Colt said.
She walked over to one of the windows and peered out across the lawn. “Are you nervous?”
“A little.”
“Me too,” she said, turning to him and smiling. “The anticipation is the hard part. Once he walks through that door, you're going to be great.”
“Okay,” Danielle said. “He's pulling up now, and he's not alone.”
“Is it Krone?” Colt asked.
“We think so, but we aren't sure.”
The sound of tires crunching over gravel broke the silence, and Colt ran over to join Ms. Skoglund at the window. They watched Lobo pull up in his silver Mercedes G550 SUV and cut the lights before he shut down the engine. He stepped out of the vehicle and onto the drive, but Krone wasn't sitting in the passenger seat. It was Agent Graves, which meant Krone was out there somewhere, unaccounted for.
“Now what?” Colt asked.
“We improvise,” Ms. Skoglund said.
They walked back over to the center aisle and tried to act inconspicuous. Colt could feel his heart beating in his throat and his palms itched.
Then the door swung open.
D
irector Romero? What are you doing here?” Ms. Skoglund asked, her eyes wide with shock.
“I'm sorry,” Lobo said, smiling as he walked into the light. “I didn't mean to interrupt.” Instead of a uniform, he was dressed casually in a ski jacket, blue jeans, and work boots. Agent Graves stood behind him in a driving cap, scarf, and a long coat that was big enough to hide at least one gun.
“You didn't. It's just that . . . well . . .” Ms. Skoglund looked at the floorboards. “I know this might seem strange, but . . .”
“Now that you mention it, a midnight rendezvous between a teacher and student is a bit odd,” Lobo said, his manner calm. “Particularly since Cadet McAlister isn't in any of your classes. Or am I mistaken?”
“No, sir, you're not.”
“It's not her fault,” Colt said. “I asked her to meet me.”
Lobo raised a single eyebrow.
“I overheard my grandpa on the phone this afternoon,” Colt said. “He was talking about something called Operation Nemesis, but when I asked him about it, he wouldn't tell me anything. I figured Ms. Skoglund would know what it was.”
“And what did you find out?”
Colt looked over at Ms. Skoglund, then stared at the ground.
“That's not an answer,” Lobo said. He took a step toward Colt and his eyes narrowed. “Tell me what you know.”