Silent Assassin(88)
“True,” she said. “But you did prevent a massive biological weapons strike in the United States. You saved a lot of lives, Morgan. And I want you to know that I recognize that.”
Morgan chuckled. “Does Diana Bloch have a heart after all?”
“Don’t push it,” she said. “All I can say is that I’m glad to have you on our team. You did good, Morgan. But he is still out there, and so are the people he worked for.”
“Do we have any developments on that?” he asked.
“We handed it over to U.S. government intelligence, which we managed to do without revealing the precise nature of the organism. They have better man power and resources to deal with this kind of search. We got lucky with the mycologist. But the kinds of paper trails we’re talking about takes a little more than we have here. For now, anyway.”
Morgan didn’t respond, but he filed away that for now in his head.
“Meanwhile, why don’t we take a little walk to Barrett’s workshop?” she said. “We’ve got a little something for you.”
Morgan followed her through the corridors of Zeta Division, then upstairs. Bloch put her hand on a panel, and the door opened to Eugenia Barrett’s workshop. The space itself was cavernous and brightly lit, with numerous worktables and electronic devices lying open with their innards exposed. There was a truck-sized door on the far end that Morgan knew opened up into the building’s garage. Heavy metal was blasting from speakers in the middle of the room, reverberating far and wide in the enormous room. In the middle was a something large. It was covered by a tarp, but the shape was unmistakable.
“You got me a car?” he asked.
“Hold on,” said Barrett. “Let me get the fanfare ready.”
“That’s unnecessary, Barrett,” said Bloch. “Just show it to him.”
Morgan’s eyes were already tracing the shape of the vehicle, making conjectures about what it was. Even covered up, he had a pretty good idea.
“Just wanted to add a little theatricality to the mix.”
Bloch shot her an impatient look.
“All right, all right.” With a flourish like a circus ringleader, Barrett pulled the tarp to reveal the vehicle underneath.
Morgan’s face lit up as he realized it was a black-on-black Ford Shelby GT 500 Cobra. Barrett then said, “We had it customized just for you. I haven’t gotten around to writing a user manual yet, but I can show you the ropes. It has a six-fifty HP supercharged V8 capable of more than two hundred miles per hour, with a six-speed manual transmission. It has nineteen-inch front and twenty-inch rear wheels, which will give you much better handling at high speeds.”
“Holy crap,” he said, like a kid on Christmas. “It’s . . . perfect.”
And Morgan knew perfection. He had loved muscle cars since his teenage years. He had approached his cover job as a classic car broker with the passion of the enthusiast. He could rattle off car stats from memory, and he had personally taken apart and put back together a few.
“I thought you might like it,” said Barrett. “It’s totally custom-made. Heavily armored with overlapping titanium alloy plates. Lightweight, and still it laughs in the face of assault weapons. In fact, anything not mounted on a tank is not going to pierce this bad boy. The tires are made of carbon nanotubes. Ridiculously strong. They can’t be shot out and won’t go flat.”
“Plus,” she said, “I’ve added a few personal touches. The exterior appears to be completely stock, but the headlights swing open and are equipped with heat-seeking missiles. The parking lights drop down and can fire lasers. Both of these have steering-wheel controls that will recognize your palm and thumb prints to prevent anyone else from activating these weapons. And then you have two nozzles hidden under the back bumper.”
“The old oil slick trick?” said Morgan.
“Oil slicks are for sissies,” she said. “This has an amazingly potent rubber solvent. A car behind you runs over it, and whichever tires touch this thing are going to become streaks on the asphalt. The inner tubes give out pretty much instantly, too.”
Morgan got into the car to get a feel for the leather seats and layout of the controls. Barrett continued her description, “Both front seats can be ejected. It is fitted with a state-of-the-art onboard computer system linked to several satellites and programmed for voice commands. Once we get you registered, it will respond to you, and you alone, and allow you to send audible text messages. It has detection radar and a GPS with 3-D mapping with a tracker so we’ll always be able to find you. It also has a remote or sixty-second-delayed self-destruct button, if you should ever need it.”