Killer Instinct - James Patterson Page 0,16

left without his phone, he’s still there.”

“NROL?” Elizabeth had asked, not waiting for an introduction.

“National Reconnaissance Office Launch,” said the agent. Otherwise known as a secret satellite.

Elizabeth could tell the agent had been up working all night. Beneath the stubble and wrinkled mess of a suit, though, was a good-looking guy. If Ryan Gosling had a brother, perhaps.

“Needham, meet Sullivan. Sullivan, meet Needham,” said Pritchard, doing the honors. “Needham just joined the unit.”

“And not a minute too soon,” said Sullivan. “Nice tackle yesterday.”

He had clearly seen the video, too.

What he wasn’t getting to see, however, were the fruits of his labor. Sullivan wasn’t in the truck, probably because he was running on fumes. Dead tired is no way to be when raiding the home of a terrorist. Especially since terrorists tend to have a very strong aversion to being taken alive.

Hence, all the toys in the truck.

“Two minutes!” barked the agent sitting by a GPS display mounted on the wall behind the driver. He smiled wide. He lived for this shit; they all did. And thanks to her new boss, Elizabeth was along for the ride.

For the first time, Pritchard looked over at her and caught her eye.

How’s your first week on the Task Force going, Needham? Having fun yet?

CHAPTER 18

WHEN THE truck stopped, things really got moving. One after another, all the toys were put into play.

Elizabeth tried her best to watch and learn. If there had been a ticket for her seat, it would’ve read obstructed view, but she could see just enough of one of the myriad surveillance screens toward the front of the truck to get a sense of what was happening, and what she couldn’t see was filled in by what she could hear.

“Jesus, we might as well be back in Baghdad,” muttered one of the agents at the console while shaking his head. He was looking at an external camera feed of the neighborhood.

Jersey City was never going to land on anyone’s top ten list of places to live, and the house that matched the address was a sorry reminder of that. It was a run-down 1950s split-ranch with aluminum siding that had turned a shade of puke green. Four windows in the front, two on either side of the front door. All curtains drawn closed.

“Give me thermal …”

The screen changed to an overhead shot of the house using an infrared camera, which was too detailed to be from a satellite. No one commented on the irony, but it certainly wasn’t lost on Elizabeth. Drones.

That explained the launch van remark she’d overheard Pritchard make to someone before they boarded the truck. Apparently there was a sister vehicle in the vicinity that had released the drone. Make that drones, plural, after the thermal imaging revealed no movement inside the house.

“Send in Santa Claus …”

Down the chimney went another drone as the monitor switched to a split screen. The infrared feed showed this second drone to be no bigger than a bumblebee.

What had to be one of the world’s tiniest lenses was providing crystal-clear images, room by room. At least the rooms the drone could get into. Some of the doors were closed.

“Switch to Doppler, twenty kilohertz …”

What the drone couldn’t see, the drone could feel. Sound waves. And when there was still no motion detected, the drone could smell. A built-in filter could test the air for trace explosives, the readings streaming straight back to the truck.

This was truly the Swiss Army knife of drones.

“Well?” asked Pritchard, arms crossed, standing behind the men at the console.

One of them turned to him, a baby face with a perfect left part in his hair. He reminded Elizabeth of a guy in her high school chemistry class who always had raised his hand when the teacher asked a question.

“Double-checking p and z,” he said, tapping away feverishly on a keyboard. He was accessing the planning and zoning files for the city. “Yeah, no basement and no attic. There’s a boiler room with heating and cooling off the kitchen.” He looked up at Pritchard, nodding confidently. “Looks like no one’s home, sir.”

Pritchard turned to Munez, standing next to him, who immediately took his cue. “Okay, we pulse the house first for IEDs. Four men on the perimeter, one to a side. Williamson, Foltz, Hernandez, and Meyer, that’s you.”

The four guys stood in unison. They sounded like a law firm but looked like linebackers. Each got handed an electromagnetic-pulse gun—not exactly standard-issue equipment—and out the side door they went.

Within minutes