An Armageddon Duology (57 page)

“
B
ad time for a selfie
?” mumbled Savas. Blood stained his face and clothes, gauze and tape in and around his swollen nose.

“You might say,” said Cohen, her tone flat as she tossed aside several bloody tissues.

“Camper packs a hell of a right hook,” he said.

He looked up to the crowd around him—Cohen, the president, and an Air Force pilot in heavy gear. An oak tree towered above him, the broad branches spreading over their heads like an umbrella. Behind them gleamed the hull of a powerful aircraft. Several hundred feet to his right, a foul smoke continued to poison the air from the flaming remains of the vehicles. A blue commercial helicopter thundered in from the west.

The Air Force pilot turned to face York. “We’ve got to get you out, ma’am.”

“On that?” asked York.

“All we had,” said the pilot. “Not much of a selection out there right now. They called us in from across the front. Mopping up any of Hastings forces that didn’t surrender and survived the bombing. I was given your vehicle description and told to neutralize anything else.”

“You sure as hell did that,” said York.

He indicated the approaching helicopter. “That bird was the only thing near enough—my Hog’s a single seater.”

York nodded. “Too bad. Yours is the plane I want.”

The pilot smiled. “Smart call. She’s a fortress. But I’ll be escorting you if that helps.”

The noise from the helicopter became deafening as it touched down several hundred feet from their position.

“Can you get up?” Cohen asked Savas.

“Have to,” he groaned, grasping the tree trunk and rising unsteadily to his feet. She helped steady him as he grabbed her shoulder. Savas nodded to the pilot. “Fire her up. I’m coming.”

The pilot instead escorted York directly to the helicopter. Savas and Cohen passed the huge airplane, the rugged exterior impressing upon them a lethal practicality. The hull and cockpit were heavily armored with thick plates of metal. Two hulking engines were mounted just in front of the tail, disproportionate to the body. The wings themselves were unusually thick and extended, housing underneath five or six missiles. Several slots were empty, the pilot likely having launched some of his arsenal already. An enormous Gatling gun was embedded in the nose of the plane.

“What the hell is this thing?” said Savas.

York climbed into the helicopter. The pilot turned back toward Savas, following his gaze to the plane. “A-10 Warthog. Hell of a fighting machine.”

“That’s a big gun.”

He smiled. “Yes, sir. Made confetti out of your friends over there.”

Savas looked slowly toward the skeletal forms of the SUVs. “Damn,” he said, grabbing his neck. “I’m all kinds of beat up.”

“Let’s get you in the air, sir.” With the pilot’s help, Cohen eased Savas into the helicopter and he took a seat beside York. They buckled in, the A-10 pilot slamming the door shut and waving. He turned to jog back to his plane.

York spoke to the FBI agents. “Some interesting news from the pilot while John was down. We have assets in the Netherlands.”

“They reached you?” asked Cohen.

“Not me, NORAD. Same folks as called in our escort. Seems your hacker busted into their system and demanded to speak to the brass.”

“Angel. Then they’re okay?” asked Savas roughly.

“They were, but all bets are off now. They tracked Bilderberg down. Called in my directive to back them. Military and some remaining CIA support got them on the ground in Europe, flew them past Hastings. Now NORAD’s lost contact. But they were headed to the hotel.”

“Things move fast,” said Cohen. “I hope they’re right, and they can do something.”

“We could use some victories right now,” agreed York.

“Zhanna Mouradian, your pilot.” A woman’s voice came from the cockpit, her helmeted face briefly looking back into the cabin. “US Geological Survey, actually.” She turned back to the controls and began to lift the craft off the ground. “Nothing to do with the pterodactyl over there. Called me in for my National Guard service. Proud to be carrying you, Ms. President.”

“Just get me to the mountain,” said York. “This bird can make it?”

“Yes, ma’am. We got about two hundred miles to travel and we’re fully fueled. No problem.”

York smirked. “Don’t be so sure. There’s been nothing but problems on this ride. Combat, nuclear weapons for God’s sake. And firing shotguns out of an RV like it was some damned Old West wagon chase. Take
nothing
for granted. Some nasty folks want us dead.”

The ground receded behind them and the helicopter banked sharply west. The roar of the A-10 rumbled around them as the airplane managed a takeoff from the empty fields behind. They watched the armored bird of prey gain altitude and turn in their direction.

“Well, ma’am, we’ve got the flying Terminator behind us, if it counts for anything.”

The helicopter continued to climb rapidly. As the ground receded, the trio squinted into the bright light of the setting sun ahead of them. In the distance, the horizon blurred, a smear rising from the ground. Peaks formed at the top of the blur, some dusted with a faint white cap.

The Rocky Mountains.

W
eapons at the ready
, they rushed down the spiral staircase, the smoke thickening as they descended. Fires flickered from where the blasts had ignited materials below. As they neared the bottom, Lightfoote stopped and held a hand up to stop Lopez and Houston.

“Ladder’s disengaged.”

The stairs stopped abruptly, exposing a ten-foot drop to the floor below. A ladder lay among the still forms of several bodies, its latch to the stairwell damaged by the explosions. A flashing red light from an alarm system strobed the walls around them.

“Watch the hallway.”

Lightfoote holstered her pistol and turned her back to the passage. Bending and placing her hands near her feet, she grasped the edge of the last stair and swung down. Her hands anchored her to the stairwell for one swing before she let go to land a foot beyond one of the bodies on the ground. She drew her weapon and turned to the hallway, still crouched.

“Next!”

Lopez followed, his descent less acrobatic, his landing far heavier. While Lightfoote kept watch, he reached up and helped Houston down, softening the landing of her weak leg. Lightfoote moved toward a small booth. The window glass had been blown inward, a bloodied figure inside slumped over a security system. She reached in through the narrow doorway and pulled him off the chair, the corpse falling against the back wall.

The shattered remains of a panel of five monitors coated a long desk, only one still operating. It showed multiple camera views of the underground bunker. Lightfoote sat in the chair and put her pistol on the table surface, pulling a keyboard up from under the counter. Her hands flew over the keys, opening command line prompts, navigating her way through the system. A map of the structure’s below-ground levels appeared, and Lightfoote had the video cameras zoom in on each room in succession.

“Only two floors,” she said as Lopez and Houston looked on. “Look at this. It’s like one giant server farm. Especially the second floor. Hundreds of computers stacked to the damn ceiling. The whole floor below is nothing but computers and this one room at the far end.”

A plush office centered on the screen, three figures within it. A smaller shape moved arthritically but with authority. Beside him, two hulking men with wide stances stood at attention, one holding a weapon. The old man spoke on a telephone.

“If this were a video game,” said Lightfoote, “he’s the Big Boss.”

Houston scoffed. “Camera’s labeled
Director
.”

“Other guards?” asked Lopez.

“Not finding any,” said Lightfoote, racing through the feeds from different rooms. She paused on the stream from a large room, the space packed with office cubicles.

“Who are these guys?” asked Houston.

“Don’t know,” she said. “Room’s right down the hall, though. We’ll check it out.” She squinted at the screen. “What are they doing?”

“Looks like they’re hiding under their desks,” said Lopez. “I don’t think we’ll need to worry about them.”

“You were right about the security,” said Houston as Lightfoote continued to roll through camera views of different rooms. “I don’t think they had more than ten guards.”

“For the seat of global power, this place is a little disappointing,” said Lopez.

Lightfoote stood up and grabbed her gun. “I guess it’s white collar crime. Push the banks, pull the politicians. Throw money around. All the dirty stuff happened outside these walls.”

“Not anymore,” said Houston. “Time to visit
The Director
.”

Lightfoote nodded. “The map shows a stairwell in the middle of the hallway. Let’s sweep this floor and make sure there are no surprises, then down.”

“We should hurry,” said Lopez. “Didn’t see any other exits on the map, but the longer we wait, the longer they can plan for us below.”

“Or bring in reinforcements,” said Houston.

The three stepped back into the corridor. They formed a staggered line, spaced apart and giving room for each to react and maneuver. Lightfoote ran point, swinging into rooms in succession, verifying they were empty. Lopez took the middle, prepared to back Lightfoote if confronted by a hostile. He carried a pistol in his right hand, and with his left continued to spray the cameras along the way, cutting off any surveillance the Director might have from below. Houston brought up the rear, spending half her time pivoting to defend against an attack from behind.

The largest room on the floor waited at the end of the corridor. A sheet of glass took the place of a wall from waist high, revealing workers inside. As the camera had shown, they cowered in a packed office space littered with cubicles and desktop computers. Whiteboards full of scribbled equations lined the walls inside.

“What the hell is this place?” asked Houston from the hallway. “Some economics crisis center?”

The workers would not have appeared out of place in a Silicon Valley programming company or a mathematics department at an Ivy League school. Behind their cubicles, many flinched as Lightfoote entered.

“Who’s in charge?” she barked, her weapon aimed slightly over their heads. Lopez stood behind her to increase the show of force as Houston continued to watch the hallway. “No one?” She fired a shot into the ceiling. People screamed.

“Gelieve, ons niet doden! Wij zijn slechts werknemers hier!” cried a man on her right.

“English! Who’s in charge?”

“The Director!” came his accented voice. “The Director is in charge!”

She leveled her gaze at him. “And in this room?”

The man swallowed. “Ah, I am.”

“What do you do here? Tell me now or I’ll fucking end you!” She aimed her weapon at him.

The man began a high-pitched info download. “We run models! Economic models, world politics, national power and resources for the Director! We predict the nations, world economy!”

“Stop!” cried Lightfoote. “You run simulations on the servers? Models for Bilderberg?” He nodded. Lightfoote turned her head to Lopez and Houston. “This is it. These are the fucking Nash equations incarnate.”

Lopez shook his head. “You mean the world’s being run by a bunch of nerds crunching numbers?”

Houston laughed softly. “Plus the money and mercenaries.”

Lightfoote turned back to the room. “Access codes, to all your systems.”

“We can’t give those—”

Lightfoote’s pistol blasted an empty terminal beside the man.

“Godverdomme!” He screamed, his khaki slacks darkening around his crotch.

“I’m not asking. Last chance.”

He grabbed a sheet of paper and scrawled madly on it. As he wrote Lightfoote walked up to him, keeping her gaze across the rest of the room, coming to a stop with her gun inches from his head. “Show me.”

“Show you?”

“I see the codes. Log in. Show me what I’m getting. They better not fail.”

The man sat down in front of a monitor and moused the screen saver away. He opened a series of windows, entering in usernames and passwords for each.

“The first is the modeling system,
ja?
I have root access, I can access all inputs and results, all weights and fundamentals.”

“The others?”

He swallowed, opening a window. “Bank access. National intelligence systems. Ah, other things.” Sweat dripped from his face.

Lightfoote stared at the screen, her eyes wide. “Is there a terminal that gives me access below?”

“Yes, at the control desk for the farm.”

“The backup power—how long will it last?”

The man looked like he wanted to cry. “I don’t know. This has never happened.”

Houston cried from the hallway. “Let’s move, Angel. Seal them inside. I’ve rigged a little deterrent.”

“One more thing,” she called back to Houston. Lightfoote went to the main power strips, following several cables to sockets in the walls. She spoke over her shoulder to Lopez, “Watch them.” Placing her gun on the ground, she removed a sharp knife from her belt. One by one, she removed the plugs and beheaded them, cutting off the pronged ends. A minute later all the monitors in the room were dark, the computers without power. She tossed the plugs out in the hallway.

“Your mobile devices. I want to see each of you bring me one. And I don’t want to find out that even one was left out.” She placed an empty box on a table and turned to the man in front of her. “Explain it to them.”

He did. Eagerly, with terrified expressions, the workers brought smartphones and tablets and dropped them into the box. After the last, Lopez carried it into the hallway.

“We’re going to go down this stairway, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to follow us or go get help. Sara?”

Houston banged on the glass and the heads of those inside darted toward the window. Her muffled voice spoke from the hallway. “This is a
detonator
. It’s tied to a block of explosives right there,” she indicated, pointing behind the wall. “When we close the door, don’t open it! It will trigger the bomb.
Boom.
” She paused for effect. “You’ll all go home to mother in a bag.”

“Now, under your desks! And stay there!”

The figures didn’t need to be told twice. They scrambled to move chairs and fit themselves within the cubicles. Lightfoote closed the door and examined the wires Houston had rigged. The detonator didn’t connect to anything.

“I thought so.”

Houston raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t think I’d risk sealing off our only exit?”

“And we might need the explosives below,” said Lopez opening the door to the stairwell. “Here we go.”