“A bullet not from me, but from them. Get back!”
She turned back to the car and sat on the backseat in silence.
Sitting down at the steering wheel, Barkov felt sudden fatigue and weakness. Here it is again. I’ve got to do something.
He recalled that he had bought a cola recently. There was caffeine in it, so it had to help.
“Take a cola can out of the backseat pocket, please.”
“Where?”
“Behind me.”
Although Andrew didn’t try to prolong sounds anymore, Emily understood him. It meant that his adrenaline-rushed metabolism had started to “brake’.
The girl handed him the can. Barkov held it in his hand with difficulty. It seemed to him the can weighed about ten kilograms. He put the can on his knee and pulled the ring. To his surprise, the ring did not unclasp. Andrew didn’t have enough strength! He tried once again, to no avail.
He didn’t want to confess to the girl that he couldn’t do it.
“You open, please. It might splatter over the controls.”
Emily took the cola, and in a second there was “Click’!
Taking the can back, Andrew raised it with both hands and took a few gulps. The liquid reached his stomach quickly. The can seemed to be lighter at once. He continued drinking, feeling an increase of strength with each gulp. It’s amazing how fast the caffeine works!
Finishing the cola, Barkov squeezed the can with one hand and dropped it onto the right seat. He felt neither weakness nor sleepiness anymore. Now I’m ready.
He started up his Ford and drove to the road.
Bypassing broken cars, Andrew ignored them. He had the curly-headed man in his eye at the moment. It was the first human being Andrew had killed in his life. An unpleasant gnawing at his gut had spread through him. In the past, he had managed to take criminals alive, wounded at times, yes, but alive nonetheless. He should have guessed that the driver could also take part in the encounter. He shouldn’t have been so sure in his fast reactions.
Cocksure idiot! I’d had a clear view of them both. I should have figured it out and disabled him before I was forced to kill him! Or found a safer vantage point to start the attack and avoided this altogether.
He remembered that there was a park at Virginia Key that skirted the road. If Andrew and Emily had hidden among the trees, the criminals would have had to follow them on foot. It would have been easier to injure them either in a leg or an arm.
“Damn!” he exclaimed as he banged his fist on the wheel.
“What’s wrong?” Emily asked with caution.
“I hate this job. I should have quit long ago. Did you know that those people were going to attack me?”
The girl rounded her eyes. “Me? How?”
“You said you knew them. According to you, they were ordinary guards from a vegetable company.”
“I just saw them a couple of times when I went there with my father. They stood at the entrance and opened doors for us!”
Emily’s tone was convincing, but he knew she couldn’t be trusted. It was possible that she had known about the attempt on Andrew’s life or even ordered it herself.
I’ll sort it out later. Now I must solve a more important problem.
They entered the wide causeway of the Virginia Key island.
Occupied with his own thoughts, Barkov didn’t pay attention to the familiar surroundings – sand beaches to the right and the harbor to the left.
“Good heavens! The boats are lying alongside!” Emily exclaimed suddenly.
“So what? Haven’t you seen a marina before?”
“They are lying literally! On the soil!”
Barkov looked left. At the location where the smooth blue-green water surface had been seen before, there were bumps of slimy sea bottom covered with algae. The harbor had turned into something like a swamp. Snow-white boats stuck in it, tilted and resting on each other like a pile of beached sea creatures.
Andrew cast a glance to Biscayne Bay on the right, the other shore identified by dim contours of Miami skyscrapers. The width of the nearby beaches had increased noticeably – from usual fifteen meters to two hundred or even more. Oh my, is that the low tide? It has never been like that before!
“I know what’s happening!” Emily exclaimed even louder now. “When water pulls away from shore like this, it’s the first sign of tsunami. We must go somewhere higher – now! Drive faster, please!”
Andrew’s skin prickled – she was right. Before a tsunami, water recedes far from the shore making the seabed visible. Earthquakes are often the cause of that. Now they faced two signs of an oncoming disaster.
“Computer!” Barkov pronounced loudly.
A semitransparent screen flared up above the gauge panel and a pleasant female voice replied, “I’m listening.”
“Is a tsunami possible in the Miami region?”
“Unfortunately, the forecast is unavailable at the moment. Repeat your request later.”
It meant that the connection with the central server was broken.
After waiting for a couple of seconds in expectation of further commands, the screen finally went out.
“To go somewhere higher’ on Virginia Key and Biscayne Key wasn’t possible. Both islands were absolutely flat. The tsunami wave height could be a few dozen meters, so the only chances to survive would be on the top floors of high-rise buildings. There was no such construction on Virginia Key, but there was one on Biscayne Key. It was the 70-floor condominium where the man that Andrew was going to visit lived.
Barkov pressed the pedal harder, hoping he could make it in time.
Chapter 6
In the center of a multi-colored flowerbed surrounded by manicured green bushes there was a stone plate with inscription White Reef Condominium. Bypassing the flower bed, Barkov stopped the car under a portico with columns in the form of sea horses and had a look around. This place gave a clear view of the ocean. The water was quiet to the very horizon.
It seems we still have some time.
Andrew turned off the engine and looked at Emily.
“We’ve arrived. Listen to me carefully. We need a man whose name is Lippo Lorenzetti. He’s a hacker. He lives in the penthouse. His job is rendering services to various companies, namely hacking their computer systems.”
“Why do they need such services?” Emily expressed surprise.
“To search for vulnerabilities. He steals commercial secrets of a customer and then explains to the customer how he has done it. They then pay him to improve their security. The government hires him for that too. Washington needs to ensure the protection of the President’s secret data. In our case, Lippo’s task will be getting the data and delivering it to us. You’ll pretend to be a secret agent. And your name is… say, Rosalinda.”
Emily frowned. “No way!”
“Why? Are you scared of the consequences? Our lives are at stake here, you know.”
“I don’t like the name Rosalinda. Katherine is better.”
Andrew shook his head. We’re facing death from an asteroid, tsunamis, assassins and the government’s secret plans, and she objects to a name! “As you wish. Only I will talk. Your task is to accompany