Somewhere out there was a sleek, dark craft that had no business being in the skies of our world. An impossible machine flying at impossible speeds to fulfill the dark dreams of a greedy and murderous madman. Would our fighters knock it down? Could they?
And if they didn’t, what would happen to the world?
If the Truman Engine detonated over Beijing, how could we ever convince a shocked and grieving Chinese people that this was not an act of war? How could they ever hear our explanations through the roar of their own hurt and outrage? They would attack us because that is what countries do. We are a warlike people, but beneath the technology and the machines and the sophistication of our weapons we have that primitive imperative to lash out when struck. To hit back, even if our blows land on the wrong flesh.
Shelton thought that this would lead to the end of war, to a kind of peace through conquest. And how wonderful it would be to live in a world where we could lay down our arms and never again fire a shot in anger. How idyllic.
The price tag was the thing, though. If the deaths of tens of millions was the cost of a future without war, how could we actually call that peace?
These thoughts hammered in my head as Lydia Ruiz, Pete Dobbs, and I prepared to rush into the cavern.
And a twisted little voice whispered to me as I checked my ammunition and adjusted my gear. It said, If the bomb goes off over Beijing and the Chinese retaliate, won’t we need these other ships? Even if it’s a war we don’t choose to start, how can justify taking away our best hope of surviving the inevitable retaliation?
Man … those were ugly, ugly questions.
Questions for which I had no answers.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-one
The Situation Room
The White House
Monday, October 21, 8:22 a.m.
President William Collins sat at the head of the table, with the Joint Chiefs on his right, the national security advisor and chief of staff on his left. On a large OLED screen, a real-time satellite showed a white dot moving at incredible speeds toward the Pacific Ocean. The satellite tracked scores of other dots, some in front of the fast one, some behind, all of them moving many times slower.
“It reached Mach sixteen over Ohio,” said General Croft. “We’re currently clocking it at Mach nineteen point four.”
“What are our options for shooting it down?” demanded Collins. Hands were clutched together on the tabletop, fidgeting like frightened mice.
The generals and admirals and secretaries looked at each other and away.
“Come on, what are our options?”
“Mr. President,” said Croft, “we don’t have anything that can catch it.”
“We have prototypes, we have experimental ships that go that fast.”
“None of them are in the air, sir. None of them have successfully cleared the test phase.”
“I don’t care,” Collins exploded. “Get them in the air.”
“They aren’t armed yet, sir. It would take a few weeks to—”
“Then what the hell do we do?”
“Mr. President,” said Admiral James, “everything that has wings and a gun is in the air. We’ve got seventy jets converging on it from three points and we’ll fill the air with missiles and rockets.”
“Good,” said Collins, jumping on that, clutching the thread of hope it offered. “When? How soon before they shoot it down?”
“Six minutes until contact.” James paused. “Mr. President, at this speed we’re going to get one shot. Just one.”
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-two
VanMeer Castle
Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Monday, October 21, 8:28 a.m.
“What’s the game plan, jefe?” asked Warbride.
“It’s real simple,” I said. “Kill anything in a jumpsuit. Put a bullet in anything that looks like a computer. Don’t die.”
“Hell,” said Prankster, “even I can remember that.”
I held up my fist. They bumped it.
Corny, I know. Juvenile, sure.
If you’re one second away from running into hell—actual hell—you can do whatever you damn well please.
We turned, set, closed everything out but the mission.
“Go,” I snapped.
We burst from the hallway and split, Warbride went wide and left, Prankster cut right and I ran dead up the middle, all of us firing, firing, firing.
Rounds hammered into pilots and technicians, into Blue Diamond guards and machines. People screamed, men and women.
We did not discriminate, we didn’t pick targets. We killed everyone we saw. It was butchery.
Men fell from ladders that were hooked onto the sides of T-craft. Men sprawled over computer consoles, their blood soaking into the machines and shorting them out. Men toppled screaming from catwalks.
Return fire was confused. There were so many techs, so much valuable equipment that the Blue Diamond guards had to pick and choose their targets. We did not.
Prankster paused under a T-craft, plucked a grenade from his vest, pulled the pin and hurled it high overhead. It hit the top of the machine and exploded. If that did any damage, I couldn’t see it.
“The struts,” I yelled, hoping he could hear me through the din.
A moment later I saw a grenade go rolling and bouncing beneath the same T-craft. It rolled to a stop at the base of one of the steel struts. The blast bent the strut inward at a forty-five-degree angle.
That was enough. It was too much for the ponderous weight of the massive vehicle. The black ship canted toward its crippled leg and in its fall smashed a whole row of important-looking computers.
Then I saw Shelton. He was surrounded by a cadre of guards, two of whom had to help him limp along. I must have clipped him when I’d shot Mr. Bones. They were hustling toward a big industrial elevator. I broke into a run. I don’t think I’ve ever run that fast in my life, firing the weapon I’d taken from a dead guard. Emptying one magazine from a hundred feet away, dropping two of the guards. Hitting Shelton at least once in the arm. I dropped the magazine and swapped in a fresh one, fired, fired.
As the elevator doors shut.
I sprayed the narrowing gap, throwing as much death as I could into the metal box.
It closed.
There was a second elevator waiting right there. Give chase or stay with my team.
I tapped my earbud. “Warbride, Prankster, Shelton’s in the freight elevator.”
“Go get the fucker,” screamed Warbride. “We got this.”
It was the only choice I could make. I dove into the elevator. There were three buttons.
GARAGE
HOUSE
HELIPAD
I knew where Shelton was going and stabbed the top button. As the doors swung shut I looked out at the carnage. Two of the best and the bravest against a cavern full of people.
As the door closed I saw something that absolutely horrified me. Two of the T-craft suddenly pulsed with brilliant white light. Truman Engines were firing. Some of the craft were going to escape.
The world was going to burn.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-three
The Situation Room
The White House
Monday, October 21, 8:33 a.m.
President Collins leaned forward, hands balled into fists, as the phalanx of slow dots moved toward the single light that tore across the Pacific. Suddenly the screen was littered with hundreds of smaller lights that erupted from the oncoming jets.
“All missiles have been fired,” said Admiral James. “Ten seconds to impact.”
The missiles flew in a converging line, like a net being drawn tight around a fish.
“Come on, come on,” breathed Collins. The room crackled with tension.
And then the white dot changed direction. It was a shockingly fast eighty-degree turn. The direction and altitude meter for the craft ripped through a new sequence of numbers.
“It’s turning,” cried James.
“God, it’s climbing.”
“It’s accelerating,” said General Croft.
The T-craft shot over the line of missiles at Mach 23.6.
The missiles still flew toward where it was.
But it wasn’t there anymore.
Every second it was closer to China.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-four
VanMeer Castle
Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Monday, October 21, 8:36 a.m.
Yeah, there’s nothing like a slow elevator ride in the middle of a wild and crazy firefight. Very relaxing. The frigging thing lumbered upward. Should have been playing some silly damn piece of music. “The Girl from Ipanema.”
I reloaded and took up a defensive position to one side of the door in case they ambushed me.
The doors opened.
They ambushed me.
Two shooters opened up with automatic weapons from ten feet.
Didn’t do them much good though, because as soon as there was a crack in the door I lobbed out a fragmentation grenade. Maybe they were too sure they had me. Maybe they didn’t see the grenade fly out as I dove to the corner. Didn’t matter. They capped off about a third of a magazine each before the grenade blew them apart.
I ran over the pieces.
I expected the helipad to be on the roof, but it wasn’t. We were on a flat pad to the east side of the castle. All the fighting seemed to be on the other side of the building.
Damn.
I opened up with the machine gun, dodging out and left in the smoke. I caught a third guard across the thighs and he fell, his weapon punching rounds into the asphalt on the helicopter deck.
I saw six men trying to squeeze into a business helicopter built for five. I helped with the problem by firing into the crowd. Shelton shoved one man straight into the path of the bullets and the man danced backed and knocked his boss into the chopper.
“Kill him,” shrieked Shelton. There was blood on his face and he held one arm tight across his belly. I realized the man next to him was Sullivan, the guard from the front gate.
They were trying to fight while trying to climb into the helicopter. All I wanted to do was kill them.
In combat, sometimes it’s about the choices you make.
I emptied the magazine into them. Dropped the rifle, pulled a block, fired and fired.
From over the edge of the roof I heard a lot of gunfire. More of it over the mike, inside the house. Lot of people were dying. In all the confusion I thought—just for a moment—that I heard a dog barking. Was it the Dobermans or was it Ghost? Was my dog even alive? Was any of my team still alive?
My slide locked back and I reached for a fresh magazine.
Which I did not have. All I had left was one grenade, but Sullivan and the remaining guards opened up on me. I threw myself into a dive roll and came up behind the housing of a huge air-conditioning unit. Bullets whanged and pinged off its skin, but the internal workings blocked any penetrating shots. I pulled the pin on the grenade, said a prayer to Saint Jude and tossed it.
He’s the saint of lost causes. I figured, what the hell?
The grenade exploded in the air. Someone screamed.
I peered around the corner and saw the last guard down with no face, and Sullivan sitting on his ass trying to hold the outside of his head on. He looked at me with an expression of profound confusion, as if there was no way on earth that something like this could possibly happen to him.
And then he fell over.
I came out from behind the air conditioner. I had no bullets and no grenades, but nobody seemed to be moving. Only the helo’s rotors were moving, spinning with desultory slowness. Whup, whup, whup.
I ran low and fast to the machine, bending on the way to scoop up Sullivan’s fallen pistol. I peered inside the bird. The pilot was slumped over, his face full of shrapnel.
Howard Shelton was curled into a ball. With one bloody hand he clutched the Majestic Black Book to his chest. There were red bullet holes above and below the book.
I took it away from him.
He stared at me with eyes that were filled with such pure hatred that I felt my skin grow hot. I tapped my earbud. “Cowboy to Deacon, Cowboy to Deacon.”
“Go for Deacon.”
“I have the package. Repeat, I have the package. Transmit the message, we have the Majestic Black Book.”
“Thank you, Captain.” He disconnected to make perhaps the most important radio message in history.
Would they be listening?
Was it too late for that to even matter?
I had few illusions about it. The T-craft was going to be in China soon. We were almost out of time.
“Damn you,” whispered Shelton. I turned to him.
He had a little .25 belly gun in the same hand that had held the book just a moment before. It wobbled in his grip. Tears of sweat ran down his face. His skin was gray.
“Shelton, listen to me,” I said. “There’s still time to climb down off this ledge. Tell me what I need to know to recall that ship.”
He gave a single slow shake of his head. When he tried to speak he blew a big pink bubble that burst and dottled his face with tiny red dots.
“We can work something out,” I said. “We can step back from the brink. You don’t have to do this. This isn’t how you save America.”
His face contorted. I thought he was trying to smile, but his mangled lips curled into a sneer of total contempt.
“Fuck America,” he said.
And the son of a bitch shot me.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-five
The Situation Room
The White House
Monday, October 21, 8:41 a.m.
On the screen, the T-craft flew over the North Pacific Ocean at Mach 25. It flew straight along the Tropic of Cancer and then at Marcus Island changed course on a flight path that would take it directly over the city of Hiroshima on its way to mainland China. It would pass over Pusan in South Korea, fly above the Yellow Sea, and hit the mainland at Dalian.
President Collins and his executives sat in stunned silence as they watched doomsday approach. No one said a word. Everything had already been said. Everything had already been done.
Now all that was left was to watch the horror unfold.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-six
VanMeer Castle
Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Monday, October 21, 8:42 a.m.
Junie Flynn crouched behind a tree and watched hell unfold before her.
Top and Bunny had left her there because the fight on the grounds was going south. Blue Diamond guards were everywhere. Murderous Dobermans raced along inside the fence, hunting for Ivan and Sam.
From this distance, even with the binoculars Top had left her, she couldn’t make out who was who.
The air flashed and popped with gunfire as the Blue Diamond men tried to hunt down the kill team on the grounds. And somewhere down there was Erasmus Tull.
A hybrid, like her.
A monster.
She listened through the din, trying to make sense of it all. Listening for Joe.
He was such a strange man. Incredibly savage and yet capable of more tenderness that any man she’d ever been with. She could recall everything about last night. The heat of that first kiss. The way his hands had been as he undressed her—urgent and yet never rough, never a sense of taking. She remembered the lean hardness of his body. The many scars, old and new. The sensation of oneness as he entered her. His muffled cry as he buried his face against her throat as he came.
“Joe,” she whispered to the night, then immediately clamped a hand over her mouth.
God, was the microphone on?
There was movement over to the left, far away from all the action. Junie raised the binoculars and focused them, saw a helicopter and several men. Then flash after flash as they fired at each other.
And there he was.
Joe.
She saw him throw a grenade, and
that seemed to end the fight. Then he leaned in through the open door of the helicopter.
A few seconds later there was a single flash and Joe staggered backward, reeling awkwardly, turning, dropping.
She screamed his name, and before she knew what she was doing, Junie Flynn was up and running. The binoculars in one hand, a microwave pistol in the other.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-seven
VanMeer Castle
Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Monday, October 21, 8:46 a.m.
I staggered back, my chest on fire. I heard another pop and another as Shelton continued to fire at me. A second round punched me in the gut. A third hit somewhere near my hip and spun me half around. His aim sucked, but I’d made it easy for him with that first shot. I’d leaned right into the helicopter.
I reeled away from him, hiding behind the front end of the chopper as he squeezed off shot after shot.
The microfiber Kevlar I had on kept those bullets from killing me, but the foot-pounds of impact, even from a small-caliber gun, smashed me. When I took a breath, two ends of a broken rib grated together in an internal shriek of white hot agony. I clamped a hand to my mouth to stifle a scream—and tasted blood.
I stared at my hand, at my arm. And down at my chest.
The Kevlar was completely intact. But there was a neat round hole one inch to the right of the arm hole. As I lifted the arm I could feel the wrongness of torn muscle and shredded flesh. Suddenly my legs buckled and I dropped to my knees. Somehow I kept hold of the pistol, but I felt like the effort of lifting it was going to take more than I had to spend.
Shit.
“Did I kill you, you son of a bitch?” yelled Shelton.
“No,” I growled back, “but thanks for trying, ass-hat.”
He actually laughed.
Weirdly, so did I.
I wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t killed me. With each breath my lungs felt worse, wrong. Wet.
“Don’t worry about it, Mr. Shelton,” said a voice behind me. “I’ll be happy to take care of this piece of shit.”
I turned slowly. Turning fast wasn’t happening. The bullet had gone in but it hadn’t come out. Low-caliber round, must have hit bone and taken a detour deeper into my chest cavity.