Book 1 of the H&K Series : Path of Knowledge

Chapter 15

Katharine drove deep into the New Jersey Pine Barrens, far from any houses or cities. She turned down a dirt road, taking her farther away from civilization. Her passenger would be unconscious for a long while yet. Her destination was an old water pump house from some century long ago. When the headlights of the Audi shone on the pump house, Katharine pulled to a stop. She opened the driver's door and got out.

The sounds of the night came to her from the darkness as she approached the pump house. She forced the door open. An automatic light came on. The small box Graff had recently deposited there rested just inside the door along with several other items within the building. Opening it, Katharine pulled out a smaller box with a switch on one side and what appeared to be a small satellite dish on another side. She walked away from the pump house.

As she approached the Audi, she pointed the device at the vehicle and flipped the switch. The device hummed and started to heat up. Katharine allowed the device to hum for almost a minute as the Audi's electrical system started going crazy. The headlights flashed, the horn honked, turn signals flashed, and the doors locked and unlocked. Finally, with a loud bang, the battery exploded as all the electronics within the Audi short-circuited. The EMP device fried all the electronics including Samantha Craig's cell phone and tracking device in her purse. Luckily, Katharine remembered to take her purse inside the pump house.

Katharine returned to the Audi, opened the passenger door, and dragged the unconscious Samantha Craig from the car and into

the pump house where she handcuffed the assistant DA to the large pipe sticking up out of the ground. She wrapped a vest about the unconscious woman's torso that she retrieved from a locked case in the far corner, an innocent-looking vest made of canvas with small pockets all over it in the front, back, and on sides. Wires ran from each of the pockets to a small electronic box between the unconscious woman's breasts. Katharine flipped a switch on top of the small box. She then retrieved another device, one with a handle and an antenna.

Katharine took a seat on the box at the door to wait. Soon, Samantha Craig would be waking up. Katharine smiled to herself. She had to remember to thank Graff at the next opportunity she had.

As dawn approached, a groggy Samantha Craig began to wake up. Then everything started coming back to her as she spotted Katharine sitting by the door.

"Where the hell am I and why am I handcuffed?" Samantha Craig demanded.

"I'll ask the question, bitch," Katharine glared at the assistant DA. "Do you know what I'm holding?"

"It's a dead man's detonator," Samantha Craig stated. "Correct. And have you noticed your new vest?"

"My god!"

"Scream all you want. GOD isn't about to help you."

"Why am I wearing a suicide vest?"

"Because, the moment you lie to me, I walk away and release this trigger."

"Why are you doing this?" Samantha Craig quietly asked.

"Because you had my cousin killed and you are trying to hurt the rest of my family," Katharine caught herself as she voiced the one thing, she had not uttered but to one other person until now.

"Who am I trying to hurt? I haven't done anything wrong."

"You had Liam O'Reilly killed, bitch," Katharine nearly screamed.

Samantha Craig's face went pale. She brought her face down to her handcuffed hands and rubbed the side of her neck, pressing briefly behind her left ear. She looked up at Katharine, a look of defiance on her face.