The two men made small talk for another few minutes. She watched through the binoculars as the taller man—four inches high instead of three—checked his watch. “She’s late,” he said.
The other man didn’t respond.
“Well, it’s not like there’s any danger of her being delayed by traffic around here,” explained the taller man.
“Maybe she’s in the john,” said the other. “And we’re not in that much of a hurry anyway. Although I am curious to see if she’s as hot as advertised.”
“This is a helicopter, Adam, not a singles bar,” said the taller man, more in amusement than reprimand. “I brought it up because I’m wondering if she got cold feet. Fuller said he was surprised she agreed to fly out on such short notice without doing more checking. Or asking him more questions.”
“And he used the Advanced Science Applications routine?” said the shorter of the two.
“Right,” said the other man.
“Did he actually use his real name with her?”
“He did. Which surprised the hell out of me. That’s getting rare for him.”
The other man said nothing. Perhaps he shrugged, but Erin couldn’t make it out at this distance.
Just great, she thought miserably. Fuller rarely used his real name. And the corporate identity must be fake, since one of the men had said it was just part of a routine.
Why was truth suddenly such a precious commodity? Was she wearing a sign around her neck that said Lie to Me? She had begun to feel paranoid and ridiculous pointing a fricking satellite dish at these men, but not anymore.
Erin saw movement out of the corner of her eye and jumped so high she nearly hit her head on the ceiling of the car. Two men, both athletic looking and clean-cut, were standing by the door with grim expressions on their faces.
She had been so intent on listening to the conversation hundreds of yards away, and the headphones had been so effective at blocking out local sound, she hadn’t even heard their car pull up and park on the other side of the church. They had left the doors open so as not to risk the slightest sound alerting her to their presence.
She took off her headphones as one of the men reached in through the fully open window, removed the keys from the ignition, and slipped them into his pocket. Sitting in a cramped position inside a car was as poor a defensive position as one could get—or offensive position, for that matter. Before she did anything else her instincts—which had now redeemed themselves after their failure with Raborn—told her she needed to change this. She threw open the door, slid out of the car, and rose to a standing position in one smooth motion.
The two men backed a few steps away as she did. They both ran their eyes up and down her body, no doubt looking for signs of a weapon.
“Well this is unfortunate,” said one of the men, gesturing to the tripod and parabolic dish. “And unexpected. You need to come with us.”
“Who are you?”
“We’re with the people you’re going to meet.”
“Give me back my keys!” she demanded.
“You do realize that actively intercepting private conversations is illegal,” pointed out the man who had done all of the talking, while his partner continued to stand quietly beside him.
Erin didn’t reply. She had no idea if this was true or not. It might well be, but she guessed that even if it was a crime, it was almost surely just a misdemeanor.
“Come with us, and we’ll, ah … escort you … to your helicopter.”
Who were these men, and how had they found her? Erin didn’t believe in coincidence—not for something like this. Which meant they had been tracking her somehow. When they realized she had stopped for an extended period, they must have decided to break cover and check things out. If they had been physically following her, she would have seen them on the largely deserted roads she had taken to get here, and they would have arrived sooner. They had probably tracked her cell phone.
Erin shook her head in disgust. “Tracking people via their cell phones,” she said, “without their permission, is against the law too.”
The look of surprise in both men’s eyes told her that her hunch had been right, although their expressions returned to impassive almost immediately. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said their spokesman pleasantly. “But we should go. We don’t want to be too late.”
“Thanks,” she said with an insincere smile, “but I’ve changed my mind. I think I’ll pass on this meeting, after all. Please send my apologies to, ah … Steve Fuller.”
“I’m afraid we’ve gone beyond that now. The problem is that we have no idea just what it is you managed to overhear. So now you don’t have a choice. You are coming with us.”
“No,” she said calmly but defiantly. “I’m afraid I’m not. I’ll take my keys now,” she added.
The years she had spent learning multiple martial arts, the many hundreds of hours she had spent training and competing and winning tournaments when she was a teen, had been in preparation for exactly this moment. She had never been forced to use her training in an actual physical confrontation, but she had been physically and mentally prepared to do so for countless years. She had vowed never to be helpless, or freeze up, or even hesitate. Never again.
As a soft, helpless child she had looked into the eyes of pure evil, of utter ruthlessness and utter lack of mercy, and these two men could not intimidate her now. They clearly had no idea just who it was they were dealing with. In the looks-can-be-deceiving department, she would take grand prize.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to keep your keys for now,” said the man, all traces of friendliness having left his voice. “You need to come with us. I don’t want to have to use force,” he said pointedly.
“Yeah. Me neither,” replied Erin, an intense, hard gleam in her eye.
There was something about the calm, confident, matter-of-fact way she said this that unsettled both men. They glanced at each other and then both began to reach for their guns at the same time.
They never made it. Erin executed a devastating roundhouse kick that connected with the silent partner’s head, and he dropped like an anvil to the cement of the parking lot, unconscious before he hit the ground. Erin landed lightly in a crouched position well before he completed his fall, and in a continuation of her original move, swept the other man’s legs out from under him before he could react, and he, too, catapulted to the ground.
To his credit, the man who had been their spokesman recovered immediately, and showed considerable athleticism jumping back to his feet to face her. For fifteen seconds he showed impressive skills of his own, blocking the flurry of blows she threw at him and even attempting a few of his own, without any of them landing. For a moment, Erin had a flashback to her many tournaments, when she had faced opponents who were very good, but not as good as she was. Her current opponent was firmly in this category.
She sensed that he was coming to the same realization. As well trained as he was, she expected him to switch tactics and try to change this from a martial arts contest into a wrestling match, where his superior strength would win the day. He rushed at her to do just this, attempting to tackle her and bring her to the ground, but she had been prepared and sidestepped his rush, landing a sideways kick to his knee as he passed, causing it to buckle and him to crash to the ground. She could have taken out his entire knee, but had purposely modulated the blow so as not to do permanent damage to such a vital part of his anatomy. He whirled and drew his gun, but she kicked it from his hand and scrambled for it, grabbing it while he was still on the pavement.
She didn’t recognize the make of the weapon, and its weighting was unusual, but she didn’t have time to dwell on this as she extended it toward her adversary. He brought himself to a sitting position, nursing his knee.