Freedom (TM)

The Major sat on the arm of a sofa in their Emperor Bungalow, talking on his encrypted cell phone with a broker in Hong Kong. He glanced at his watch. Eleven fifty P.M. “Yes. It should be part of the dark liquidity pool. Right. Two hundred thousand shares.”

He looked up at the dining room to see half a dozen senior managers of international security and military providers gathered around a table strewn with maps of the Midwestern United States, photographs, and documents. No two of the men had the same accent—South African, Eastern European, Australian, American, British, Spanish. Several were smoking as they pondered the maps. They were debating something, and the British executive motioned for The Major to rejoin the table.

He knew he wouldn’t have too many more chances to shift his investments. And he wasn’t about to miss the upcoming event.

The Major nodded and spoke into the phone. “Yeah. Empty the Sutherland—”

His phone co

“Damnit!”

The Major looked up to see one of the nearby security executives putting his own phone onto his belt clip.

The man shrugged to the others. “No signal.” Then pointed to a map. “Look, I’ll call them back, but we’re going to need materiel in-country for security teams well before then.”

But The Major was no longer concerned with logistics for the counterinsurgency campaign. He was suddenly concerned about his own survival.

They had just lost wireless co

The Major reached for a remote control on the coffee table in front of him. He used it to turn on the radio in the living room entertainment center. Nothing but static. He kept sca

The South African executive frowned at him. “Ag, Major. We need you to make a decision here. Can we hold off on the stereo?”

The Major wasn’t listening. His combat instincts had kicked in. The chatter of the senior executives at the table faded, and his senses focused on his immediate surroundings. On the significance of every sound. It brought him back to El Salvador. Listening for the snap of a branch—or for an unearthly animal silence that signaled a hastily prepared ambush. He heard the nearby men arguing as only muffled sounds. The footsteps of a Romanian private security contractor walking to the service tray near the curtained window to pour more coffee commanded his attention. The heavy drapes behind the man billowed as conditioned air washed over them.

Then an unexplained sound, like a tent door being unzipped, came from the courtyard outside—and it kept unzipping—getting louder.

The next few moments, he felt as though he were pulling himself through a pool of water—his mind racing ahead, screaming at his body to keep up. He pushed off the sofa and charged toward the contractor standing near the drape-covered window.

The man started to turn, apparently sensing danger, but The Major leapt into the air, delivering a flying dropkick that sent the Romanian headlong through the thick drapes and French doors altogether, with a deafening crash.

Just then, the front door to the bungalow burst open as a human-sized piece of twisted machinery blasted through it going eighty miles an hour. It careened across the room sending pieces of metal and plastic ricocheting off the walls, overturning the table, and clearing the men there off their feet.

The Major didn’t look back as the deafening sound of powerful motorcycle engines suddenly erupted all around the bungalow. Behind him, he could hear screaming and motorcycles engines so loud the noise was physically painful. He ran through the smashed French doors, and once outside he saw the stu

The man tried to squirm out from under The Major’s foot and breathe. Powerful motorcycle engines were coming his way fast across the lawns, green lasers stabbing at the darkness.

The Major drove his heel into the contractor’s throat, causing the man to grab at his own neck, pawing for air. He then reached down beneath the Romanian’s jacket and felt the holster there. A polyurethane harness. He tugged at it in the darkness and felt the gun come free. No more time. The engines were close.

The Major took off through the bushes, hugging the side of the building, and ducked around the nearest corner moments before the razorbacks arrived. He felt the contours of the newly acquired pistol in the darkness. Twin safetys. Probably a Sig Sauer. He hefted it. A .45—and loaded, judging by the weight. He chambered a round as the engines revved behind him. He heard agonized screams and ringing of steel.

The Major ran blindly through the bushes now under cover of the screams and engines. Branches hit his face as he pushed through the thick of it and soon he emerged into a golf cart lane flanked by soft landscape lighting and dense tropical shrubbery. In his peripheral vision he caught the movement of men in black tactical gear pointing his way. Although he didn’t hear gunshots, he heard projectiles whine past his head as he plunged into the bushes on the far side of the path. He fired two shots to get them ducking and kept cover as motorcycle engines kept pace with him out on the lawns and driveways beyond the decorative jungle.

The Major ran headlong into a rough-hewn beam railing, but without missing a beat he clambered over it, collapsing onto a tiled walkway between resort buildings. It was brightly lit. He glanced right and left and could see fire strobes flashing in the interior corridors. He suddenly noticed the warning Klaxons sounding. Someone had tripped a fire alarm. Good.

He crawled across the tiled floor on his belly and peered through the gap between the handrail and the wall on the far side. He could see more shrubs and a small parking lot behind the reception building.

The Major rolled over the railing and into the bushes on the far side. He was quickly out to the parking lot and trying car doors. Locked. Locked.

He tried to remember how to hot-wire a car, and then it occurred to him that cars had utterly changed since his days of twisting wires in the dark in Belize City. They were computer-controlled now—in fact the damned things had lately become smart enough to hunt him.

Motorcycle engines trolled the grounds out in the darkness. Lights were coming on in the guest room windows. Shouts echoed across the grounds.

“Call the police! Someone call the police!”

It suddenly occurred to him that he still had his phone. He pulled it out of his jacket pocket and hurled it as far as possible across the parking lot, where it shattered against something hard in the dark. For all he knew, that’s how the Daemon tracked him here. It was an untraceable phone. He’d only had it for a few days. How had they found him? He started thinking of possible vectors but decided he’d have time to worry about it later if he survived the night.

He saw car headlights approaching from the direction of the clubhouse and peered down the lane from behind a nearby car tire.

A well-dressed man in his seventies was behind the wheel of a Bentley Continental Flying Spur. It was doing about ten miles per hour.

The Major hid the pistol behind his leg and affected a stiff limp, rushing to block the road. He held up his free hand and did his best to look panicked. The car slowed and came to a stop. The Major limped over to the door as the driver lowered his window.