Illumini

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Dark tinted security vehicles rolled quietly into position.  They had completely sealed all access routes and side streets to a busy bar and restaurant.  From the pack, a single black SUV slowly took the point.

A heavily armored team, dressed in black, jumped out and moved into a synchronized, forward position to make visual confirmation of the suspects.  They communicated secretly via advanced, encrypted radio transmission.  Digital maps, displayed on helmet-mounted eyepieces, showed the position of all the men in the unit as they surrounded the parking lot and building.

In the dim light, the ghostly outline of a high-powered, automatic weapon rises from the shadows.  Then, slowly, the outline of a second weapon came into view.  Faces, smeared black, peered through high-magnification sites mounted on the rifles.  Enabled with night vision they methodically scanned the parking lot and street, taking the measure of every person walking outside the bar.  Unable to make a visual confirmation of the suspects targeted by the GPS identified phone signal, they radio back to command.

In the bunker, a thousand miles away, a decision was made to launch the attack.  The order comes clearly now through the over-the-ear headphones inside their helmets.  Across the parking lot and street, in every direction, the dark, low outline of many agents was visible now in the shadows moving forward through the parked cars.

"Go, go, go!" the deep voice suddenly screamed over the headset.

                                                       *

Nick drove cautiously down the avenue.  He and Kate were quiet now, moving with the mesmerizing flow of taillights, a palpable anxiety weighing on their thoughts.  Turning down a narrow side street, he pulled up to a small apartment building.  In the street, in front of the building was an old blue Volkswagen GTI.  It had seen better days, but the car was clean and had no connection to them.

He parked the jeep on the side of the street and stepped out, looking around cautiously.  It was a very quiet street, and he did not expect to see surveillance cameras.  He knew, from his growing sense of perception, that he had a head start.  His instincts heightened, he could feel how close they were to him, that sixth sense speaking to him again.  He knew exactly how much time he had.   He ran toward the GTI, opened the door and felt for the key under the sun visor.  It was there as arranged.  He looked up at Kate and motioned for her to join him.  In the distance, he could hear sirens drawing closer.  She grabbed her bag and hurried back to the GTI.  Within a minute, they were gone.

He had agreed to swap cars with a friend, his Jeep for an old VW GTI.   They had dumped their cell phones and now he had ditched his car.  They had gone dark, no electronics, and no way to be traced.  The friend, with whom he had traded his Jeep, left the GTI parked on the street and made sure he had a good alibi for the next few hours.  He would report it stolen in the morning.

Nick drove hurriedly now down the street and toward the freeway.  His mind and body open to the vibrant and vivid energy of the city that rose up to meet him.  He embraced it willingly, the rigid, hard crust of denial, that had encased his thoughts melted away.  His skin tingled with the vibrations that emanated from the road, the steady beat of the earth, a pulse of life from the city that pushed ripples out into the atmosphere around him that he could feel.  He steadied himself for a minute, the intricacy of it all almost overwhelming, and gripped the steering wheel tight, holding on fast to the moment.

It clung to him, persistent and evocative, this new way of experiencing the world, like his hearing or his sense of touch.  He could not shake the feeling; escape its hold, the perceptive power cascading over him.  The flowing river beside the road, the beat of Kate's heart next to him, the energy of the city reflected in the orange sky, everything coming clearly into his conscience, his awareness, with a rhythmic pulse that seemed to synchronize with the broader universe all around him.  From the stale melting waves of light from distant stars in the sky, to the scratching and crawling of the smallest insect beside the road, he was suddenly, and strangely conscious of everything.

                                                       *

The black SUVs, which the population called 'Dreads', swarmed the parking lot of the bar with tremendous speed, red lights blazing.  Within seconds, a small army of agents had exited the vehicles and moved on the bar, tossing a stun grenade and ordering everyone on the floor.  After securing the premises, and checking all the patrons, the suspects were nowhere to be found.

"We got nothing," a voice crackled over the headset.

An agent came back holding the phone.

"Here's our suspect," his wry smile concealing his frustration.

"What the hell," another voice echoed.

The commanding agent radios back to base via a small, embedded microphone.

"Negative, we've got nothing, suspects have fled."

Within seconds, the bunker issued a new set of coordinates.  They had just picked up a signal; the jeep was moving a few blocks away.

"Come on lets go," came the command.

They moved rapidly back to the vehicles, jumped in, and with a squeal of the tires they were off, accelerating rapidly down the street.  Moving swiftly, they burst through intersections, wafting through with a heavy wake, gliding as though suspended just above the ground.

The Dreads raced past the low, sleek brick buildings, down the avenue, moving at a high rate of speed.  In the lead vehicle a graph of the city streets appeared as a two dimensional panel in the car, a single blinking reference point identified a moving vehicle ahead.  The set of coordinates selected, they immediately synchronized with the vehicle, the grid appearing in front of the driver, overlaying the road in front of him.  The coordinates in front of the driver directed him to the right and onto Pearl Street, a split second before the car actually reached the turn.  The driver following on trained command would have as likely drove the SUV into a building if the computer sent him that way, off for only a millisecond.

The blinking dot on the graph inside the lead vehicle had stopped moving.  As they approached the target, a group of vehicles split off and came up in the rear.  The suspect was just ahead, down a narrow side street.

The radio crackled confirming the position of the second group of SUVs, on the grid they had the Jeep surrounded.  The command comes from the bunker quickly and the agents do not delay this time.  A stealth unit moved forward to locate the tan Grand Cherokee parked at the curb beside the road.  They signaled the other units who instantly swarmed the street, the Dreads screeching to a halt, sirens wailing, agents on the move quickly surrounding the Jeep.  The vehicle was empty.  More agents emerged from the Dreads in teams that immediately moved on several surrounding houses.

A helicopter hovered in the night sky, the heavy sound of blades passing low overhead, barely visible in the darkness against the orange night sky.  Agents peer down with heat seeking sensors, watching for the movement of any life.  Weapons raised, the agents moved in rapid synchronization toward the front door of the houses.  A large metal battering ram, carried by two agents, battered down the door.  The team swarmed the property and aggressively searched the dwelling.  A terrified family was dragged out onto the front lawn and held face down at gunpoint -- in the house next door, another helpless couple was brought out and lay prone on the pavement.  Other teams searched the surrounding houses and apartments.

The search turned up nothing.  The agents realized the suspect had gone dark, no electronics, no possessions; it was as if they could simply melt away into the population.  Walk down the street, turn a corner and disappear.  If they slipped out of their grasp the Feds would find them eventually, but it could take years amidst the sprawling urban landscape, riddled with a network of sympathetic underground organizations that could offer protection.