Daniel Suarez - Freedom (TM)

“They will be soon.”

“But I just heard them.”

Jon pointed at a device affixed to his forearm. “Hypersonic sound projector. I created the impression of an approaching mob.” He looked up. “We should get to cover.”

“Jesus Christ! It’s only you?”

Suddenly they heard automatic weapon fire crackling in the distant fields. The students and farmhands ran for cover along with Fossen’s wife and daughter.

Jon put his night vision goggles back on and nodded to himself. “Cover your eyes, folks . . .”

“What . . . why?”

In answer the fields erupted in mind-blasting bursts of light and skin-crawling eruptions of sound that seemed to be tearing apart reality.

Fossen turned away and covered his ears. “My god, what is that?”

“Sensory assault. You might feel some nausea. Battle armor is synchronized to cancel out the effects.” Jon helped Fossen get to his feet.

The gunfire had stopped.

“Then we’re safe?”

Jon nodded toward the darkness. “We’ve got friends close at hand, now. I see call-outs approaching.”

“Hank!”

Fossen turned to see his old friend, Sheriff Dave Westfield, at the front of a dozen armed townspeople from Greeley, all of whom wore HUD glasses. They were running up from the darkness behind them. “God, am I glad to see you guys.”

They lowered their weapons as they arrived. “Well, don’t thank us. Thank Jon. He’s the one who detected these bastards and sent out the alarm.”

Fossen looked at his wife and daughter, then back to Jon. “I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

“That dinner was plenty.”

“Look . . .”

The crowd turned to see a group of darknet fighters coming out of the night from the direction the paramilitaries fled. The fighters were led by a darknet soldier in full composite body armor and enclosed helmet. He had an electronic pistol in one hand, and was guiding a dazed-looking prisoner with the other. Fossen knew at a glance that the prisoner was the Big Man who had tried to hang him.

The townspeople cheered and clapped as the party came in from the darkness. Jon pulled off his night vision glasses again.

The heaviliy armored soldier passed his prisoner into the custody of the sheriff. Then he just stood nodding to himself as he beheld Jon. He twisted his helmet to remove it, revealing a vaguely familiar face and a shaved head. He smiled and laughed hard as he grabbed Jon into a backslapping hug. “I can’t believe it! Jon Ross!”

“It’s been a long time, Pete. I’m glad you’re still alive.”

They exchanged world-weary looks. “Likewise.”

“How’s your quest going?”

“It’s hard to tell.”

He turned and shouted, “Price!”

A voice in the darkness answered. “Yes, Sergeant.”

“Make sure this prisoner gets brain-scanned. Let’s find out who sent him.”

As Fossen, the sheriff, and the others looked on, Jon and the bald-headed soldier walked off. “There’s a lot we need to talk about, Jon. . . .”

It had been twenty-one years since Stanislav Ibanescu had worn the uniform of the Securitate, but he had never stopped making a living as a soldier. The world over, war was a growth business, and he knew he’d never go unemployed like his brothers. And earlier in the evening he had thought that no one back home would have believed that he was invading America. It had all been a dream come true.

But that was three hours ago and a long drive down dark roads into unknown captivity. Who these people were who held him was anyone’s guess—but they sure didn’t seem like a ragtag group of terrorists.

He considered the night’s events. The op had gone off without a hitch, and they were about to kill the target subject and leave. But a counterstrike team had assaulted them out of nowhere. The look-outs hadn’t reported a thing. In fact, Ibanescu hadn’t seen more than half a dozen of his men since they’d been captured.

Were they U.S. Army? Socom units? They were supposed to have free rein in this area. That’s what they’d been told by their contact, but it must have been a setup. Now he knew half his men were either dead or wounded, and the other half had been divided up and trundled off to god knew where. Now the tables had turned, and men who looked like science-fiction convention warriors in plastic armor and full headgear with mother-of-pearl faceplates were marching him down a white hallway glowing with light. Ibanescu was strapped to a backboard—even his head had been completely immobilized, and he knew what was coming next was torture. They were going to waterboard him, like he’d heard the Americans did. He was just hoping that this was a professional crew—one reachable by logic. One not doing this for kicks. He could then clear up this mistake. Because that was what it must be. Perhaps they were a local unit—one that hadn’t been informed. One thing was sure: this was going to cost extra. In any event, it couldn’t be worse than what he’d received at the hands of the Chechens.

The two armored soldiers brought Ibanescu into a strange chamber filled with what looked to be medical scanning equipment—like some sort of MRI or CAT scan equipment—cold and efficient. And even though he didn’t see anything around that could be used to torture him, he didn’t imagine it was far away.

Mercifully, he didn’t see any place where they could waterboard him without getting some expensive equipment wet.

The guards lifted the backboard holding their prisoner up onto a platform beneath the scanning equipment, and then lashed the board to the scanner bed.

Here we go.

He was suddenly sliding with the whir of electric motors, moving deeper into the scanning machine. Were they perhaps checking him for injuries? That seemed odd.

The backboard jerked to a stop, and Ibanescu soon heard the telltale sound of MRI magnets hammering, chirping, and pinging for one or two minutes. He’d gone through this before in Switzerland after a head injury while skiing.

As the scanning continued, a soothing female voice came to his ears, speaking English. Inbanescu knew some English, and he was able to decipher it.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

It was an oddly synthetic-sounding voice. He decided to pretend he didn’t understand and just kept staring up at the interior of the scanning machine.

“Yes. You do understand me.”

They were bluffing. He felt certain.

“Is English your primary language?” A pause. “No. It isn’t. Let’s find your primary language.”

This was strange. It definitely sounded like an artificial voice. Like something he might hear from a credit card or airline customer service line. Very strange. He wondered if this was some sort of automated interrogation system. Leave it to the Americans.

The soothing female voice spoke in a dozen different languages, waiting five or six seconds between each. Ibanescu didn’t understand any of them, although he thought he could detect French and German. Also Czech. Eventually she came to Rumanian. . . .

“Is your native language Rumanian?”