Free Agent Hill: Powerless by James Hunt Page A

to appear too eager or too desperate, but the fact that he’d managed to get both of them on the call together was quite a feat.
    “Gentlemen, I’m giving you the opportunity to retake control of the world,” Rick said. “It’s just waiting for you to pick it up and run with it.”
    “Your price is very steep, Mr. Demps. And even in the current climate, it is still a risk. How long do you think before the Americans find out? Hm?” the Russian president asked.
    “That’s why time is of the essence,” Rick answered.
    “Your arrogance is a great risk to you. What is stopping us from locating you and taking control of your weapon by force?” the Chinese president asked.
    “Right now, each of your respective intelligence agencies is attempting to break into our server firewall.” Heath entered the room and handed Rick a small piece of scrap paper. “My associate has just informed me that your security efforts have failed.” He dropped the paper, and it floated to his desk. Heath stood behind and to the right of Rick with his arms folded behind his back, staring at the two leaders on the screens. “I have better equipment, better men, and better facilities than either of you do. I’m a very rich man, and that wealth has afforded me nothing but the best.”
    “Lower your utility rates to thirty-five percent,” the Chinese president said.
    “I’ll lower them to forty-five, as long as my company is the main provider of energy for whatever lands you conquer.”
    The Chinese and Russian presidents were silent for a long time before the two of them gave each other a curt nod. Rick clapped his hands together, allowing the first smile of the interaction. “Excellent! Once we have confirmed your deposits, we’ll begin rebooting each of your grids. And may I recommend you have your soldiers in place before that happens? The quicker both of you strike, the likelier you are to achieve success. We’ll be in touch, gentlemen.”
    The screens went blank, and the lights came back on in his office. He turned to Heath, who had retained his stoic presence. “Where are we at with GSF?”
    “The techs have already begun the process of assimilating the information from the hard drives. Most of it was wiped, but we did manage to recover quite a few files on both Europe and Asia.”
    “Anything we can use to help us in our current deal?”
    “Nothing of that significance, but we did manage to track a few of the organization’s safe houses.”
    “Let’s pay them a visit.”

 
    ***
    The air strip at the Minot, North Dakota, Air Force Base was packed with a line of cargo planes that stretched around the entire length of the taxiway. The massive engines whined as soldiers loaded into the steel bellies. Sarah sat with Bryce on the edge of the tarmac while Mack spoke to one of the commanders, hammering out the details of their flight.
    Bryce fiddled with his fingertips, his knee bouncing nervously. She pushed his shoulder, and he nearly fell over. “What’s the matter with you?”
    “We don’t have anything,” Bryce answered.
    “What are you talking about?”
    The buttons on Bryce’s pants scraped against the asphalt as he shifted his body to face her. “HQ is completely destroyed, we don’t have access to the satellite, and we’re hitching a ride with the U.S. military to Alaska.”
    “Is it the fear-of-flying thing? ’Cause I can tell you those cargo planes are much safer than any commercial flight, and look”—Sarah reached around, stuffed her hand into her pack, pulled out a paper bag, and smiled—“I got you a barf bag.”
    “Sarah,” Bryce said, lowering the barf bag, “I wasn’t able to wipe all the files before we lost connection with the satellite link.”
    “We had all the support agents working on that, Bryce, not just you.”
    “You and I both know that they’re examining our servers and hard drives, trying to get whatever piece of data they can about us. Safe houses, agent profiles, mission