Net Force--Kill Chain by Jerome Preisler (e book reader txt) 📕

“Tasha,” he said, “you might have a problem.”

She looked at him. His face was concerned.

“What is it?”

“We might find some shell deposits,” he said. “But no way you’ll get a fishing permit for those lobsters.”

Fifty yards west in Fallout’s small VIP parking lot, Tai watched the Pilot leave the loading area, then pass slowly under the bridge ramp and turn right, uptown, at the intersection of Pearl and Dover Streets. He was in a steel-gray Honda Civic hatchback,

He raised a pair of lightweight digital camera binoculars to his eyes, keeping the Pilot in sight. A blue, infrared illuminator attachment enabled him to see clearly in the darkness while recording crisp high-definition video of the SUV.

“What the hell is this?” he said to himself. He had not expected the Mori girl to get into the Pilot or any vehicle besides her partner’s equipment van after she left the nightclub...and with someone other than him. Also meaning he did not know what to make of the bloody kayak strapped to the Pilot’s roof, except that it might represent a significant hitch in his plan.

The binocs had instantly uploaded the video to his neurotech wearable. Within a second, the imagery was relayed to nerve fibers in his optic tract, bypassing his eyes to project directly onto his brain’s visual cortex. Within two seconds, he was running his ocular image of the license plate against a database of several billion plate numbers.

A total of three seconds after capturing it, he got a definitive hit.

The Pilot’s owner was listed as Get Up and Go New York, a subsidiary of a large national car rental group that went under the corporate name Ventura Holdings.

Taken with the kayak, it added up to the girl and her friend heading off on a trip—a long one judging by their vehicle. There were added rental fees for the large-size class. Higher fuel costs. No one paid extra for anything without a reason.

Tai inhaled, lowered the binocs, and started up the car.

A hitch, indeed.

He pulled from the lot behind the SUV, then turned onto Pearl Street before any other drivers could come between them. As he tailed it onto the FDR Drive North, staying about three car lengths back, he chirped his twin on their comlink.

It was lucky he’d suggested they take separate cars tonight.

Kai was parked outside a Starbucks café on Pearl Street, a block north of its intersection with Dover. The front of his MINI was facing south, downtown, so he could keep a close watch on the corner. He was looking through a pair of digicam goggles identical to his brother’s.

Five minutes earlier, he had seen the Pilot SUV reach the intersection and swing onto the FDR, Tai a short distance behind it in his Civic. Both vehicles headed north toward the river crossings to New Jersey and New England. Tai had told him to be on the lookout for the Transit van, which he’d felt would show at any moment.

He waited. Sitting there in the darkness. Staring steadily out at the corner.

New York, he thought. Amazing. Who would have imagined he and his brother would ever come this far from Taikura, on the South Island, where they were born? Who could have predicted the direction their lives would take?

At their naming ceremony, the town’s tohunga had advised that the Great and Mysterious Cause of All Things in the Cosmos had delivered them as living omens to the Maori community. Or so the story was passed down by their clan. But no one seemed sure what kind of omens they were. Good or evil, they didn’t have an answer.

In any case, the twins hadn’t stayed in town long enough to find out. When they were twelve, their father got steady work in the Taranaki Basin’s offshore oil fields and moved the family to Wellington City on the North Island. A military recruitment drive at secondary school had led them into the Air Force and then to their eventual selection for the NZSAS. Which in turn led them to meet Braithwaite.

Kai abruptly pushed all that out of his mind and sat up straight. There it was. The van had reached the corner, just as his brother anticipated. The binocs to his eyes, he waited to see whether it would follow the other two vehicles onto the highway. But it remained on Dover Street, went straight across the intersection, and bore crosstown in a westerly direction.

He peeled smoothly away from the curb, cut ahead of a yellow cab, and turned right to fall in behind the van. Kai realized his mark was driving along the same route he’d taken into Brooklyn the night before. A left on South Street, two more quick lefts, a right onto Delancey. Then a few blocks to the Williamsburg Bridge.

Once on the narrow span, the Transit immediately slid into the right lane. Kai played things low-key, remaining well back of it, on the left. The van was doing a moderate speed, and there were only two other vehicles on the rattly, graffiti-splashed bridge—one several car lengths ahead of it and one directly behind Kai in his own lane. He didn’t have to risk getting too close to keep it in sight.

After a minute, his thoughts went back to what he’d been pondering outside the Starbucks. He was like that sometimes. His brother saw it as losing focus, but he was wrong. It was just that their minds worked differently. Tai’s being tight and analytical, putting a time stamp on every moment. He, Kai, was more relaxed about things, letting his nose guide him. And so far it hadn’t failed. Tai talked like all their big moves were his idea. But he hadn’t been the one to join up with Braithwaite.

Kai remembered that meeting distinctly. It was in the Kunduz hills, where Braithwaite’s RatHawks had been running around for months, working with US and New Zealand Special Forces to gain control of the province from the Taliban.

Their introduction came through a guy named