An Armageddon Duology (60 page)

T
he jumpsuits were ungainly
, awkward for the untrained bodies of Cohen and Savas. They breathed deeply from the oxygen tanks, a helmet fitted over their heads and a fighter pilot style mask to their mouths. In theory, the enriched gas was slowly pushing the nitrogen out of their bloodstreams. A second tank of oxygen would accompany them on the way down. Savas struggled to breathe regularly through his bandages.

“Remember,” said Williams, momentarily repositioning her own mouthpiece and shouting over the din in the aircraft, “you’re jumping at commercial airline cruising altitude. It’s minus sixty out there or worse. You can’t breathe the air. Stay with your chaperone. Keep repeating the thumbs-up sign if all is good. Stay calm. They’ll guide you through the jump at each step. The chutes will deploy toward the end of the jump, controlled by your chaperone. We’ll steer you to the target site.”

A sturdy Special Forces soldier crouched behind each agent, checking their suits and tanks. They were strapped lightly to their charge. Both reacted to the coming leap into the sky as a routine day at the office and treated the FBI agents as just another package they had to deliver. Savas couldn’t decide if that was comforting or alarming.

A red light began to flash above them, signaling the approaching jump point. Williams motioned for them to stand, and together with their chaperone they moved to the back of the troop transport, the bay doors opening and the loading ramp pointing downward.

The early morning light spilled brightly into the aircraft, a waterfall of sound churning from the wind turbulence around the opening. An abstract patchwork of boxes and lines passed below, different colored shapes separated by highways and intermittent urban clusters. A deep red ball rose over the horizon.

Williams waved her arm several times. “Go, go, go!”

One by one the soldiers stepped to the edge of the ramp and toppled over calmly, performing a short somersault before zipping from view behind and below the aircraft. At the line’s end, the FBI agents were positioned at the edge, Cohen briefly turning her helmet back to look at Savas, her eyes and face obscured by the tinted wind guard. The soldier pushed her forward, and she dropped, racing away toward the other members of the parachute team.

Soldiers guided Savas to the edge. He looked down, the height deceptive, the seven and one-half miles between him and the ground not registering to a mind utterly unused to such vertical distances. He felt a pat on the shoulder and gave the thumbs up. A push drove him forward into an explosion of white noise. He was flying.

Or falling. The sensations were overwhelming. First the noise hit him. The churning air racing against his plummeting form roared like an engine, nearly blocking out his ability to think. The vibrations were powerful, the air beating against the fabric of his suit and helmet, the invisible medium hardening into something powerful and tangible, slapping strongly across his body. The rising sun blinded him, even through the tinted visor. He could barely stare forward toward their destination and was forced to look straight to the onrushing earth.

He hardly noticed the soldier strapped to him above, his senses numb. Another series of hard pats on the shoulder reminded him he hadn’t signaled. He put out his hand and did the thumbs-up. He felt no nausea, no dizziness, the pummeling he took from the battering wind and sound overpowering all other sensations.

A line of skydivers approached ahead. He had lost all sense of time. The divers maintained a separated distance. Williams had said it would create a low radar profile. An obese shape trailed the others ahead of him. He realized it must be Cohen and her chaperone, and that he likely presented a similar image. Considering the enemies lurking below, he hoped they were indeed as invisible as the soldier predicted.

Down they were yanked by earth’s pull, their velocity now constant, the force from the air they pushed against equal to the force of gravity.
Terminal velocity
, thought Savas. Williams had said it would take only minutes to complete the jump, but it felt like they’d been falling for hours before he finally saw the jagged landscape of Manhattan. They plunged through a layer of clouds, momentarily blinding him, but he saw the chutes in front of him deploy. A second later, the soldier above him pulled the chord, and Savas was yanked upward harshly.

Their fall slowed dramatically, but the approaching skyscrapers only intensified the sense of plunging recklessly forward. The group of jumpers passed over the lower tip of Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty a flattened speck below, the Freedom Tower reaching upward toward their feet. Ahead the white, snow-covered rectangle of Central Park loomed, the chutes angling steadily toward it. Adrenaline coursed through him as they approached midtown, their height appearing to put them on a collision course for many of the taller buildings surrounding the park. But they skirted over them, the penthouse balconies a short drop below, the barren trees of the park rushing up to greet them.

The soldier slapped his shoulder three times. The signal for landing. Savas looked down and set his legs, the trees inches below. They exploded over a wide space, descending rapidly over a field of bright white. His feet slammed roughly into to the snow-covered grasses of the Great Lawn.

They maintained their balance, and the chute collapsed neatly behind them. Savas removed his helmet and exhaled deeply, relieved to be on the ground and to see Cohen disengaging from her chute. While cold, the air tasted fresh compared to the bottled gas from the tank. He squirmed out of the jumpsuit and let it fall to the ground. The Special Forces soldiers were grouping together. Savas and his chaperone jogged up and joined them.

Williams pulled out a GPS device. “We have the coordinates of the target here. We’ll make as direct a course as possible through the park and city to that location.”

“Don’t bother,” said Savas, interrupting her. The eyes of the other soldiers turned to him in surprise. “No need for GPS. This is my city. Follow me.”

T
hey stood
at the bottom of a large hill, a twenty-foot arch with the university’s name and logo engraved on the side. Towering metal rods barred the entrance, the gate locked in place. A gleaming set of turnstiles occupied the space on the right and left, refusing entrance without an activated ID card.

The young man stared intensely at Savas, his eyes nervously darting to the crowd of armed soldiers behind him. He licked his lips and grasped the security badge on his uniform.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t let you in the university unless you have an invitation. Now, we can try to call—”

“Let me repeat,” said Savas. “This is a matter of
national security
.”

“You have no ID, you’re armed. I’m sorry, sir. Now, I’m going to call the police if you don’t move on.”

Savas laughed. “Seen much of the police these last few months?” The man said nothing. Savas motioned to the soldiers who stepped closer, their weapons aimed slightly over the head of the guard. “Now, look. We can do this easy,” he growled, “or we can do it
real
easy.”

The security guard stared at the soldiers, his eyes wide.

“Richard, what the hell is going on here?” A tall black man with a thick Jamaican accent rounded the security booth and stared through the gate’s bars at the assembled teams. “Who the hell are you?”

The young gate guard spoke, wiping sweat from his forehead. “They claim they’re sent from the
president
. President York. They don’t have
any
clearance. No invite.
Nothing
. They have guns.”

The older black man nodded. “Yes, son, I see those guns. Do you know what they do with those guns?” The young man swallowed. “Those are Special Forces. Look at those insignias. Rangers, Seals, Green Berets.” He looked at Savas. “Why are you here?”

“A matter of national security. We have to see the president of this institution. Immediately.”

The older guard nodded, a last look at the weapons removing all doubt. “Good enough for me.” He punched in a code inside the booth and the mechanism for the large gate engaged, the two halves swinging back and in. “But you better hurry. Something strange is happening. All the docs running to the tunnels, following the president.”

Savas turned to Cohen and the others. “He’s rabbiting.” The doors opened and the troops moved in. Savas turned back to the guards as he headed up the hill. “You made the right call. You have access to the security system?”

“I do.”

“Shut it down. Shut every camera in this place down.”

“Yes, sir,” said the guard. He pointed up the hillside. “To Patron’s Hall. Building at the top. Left stairs down to the tunnels.”

Savas nodded and turned to sprint up the hill, catching up to Williams.

“Heard him, agent Savas, but slow it down. We’re going to treat this as hostile territory. Move smart.”

“We might not have much time!” he seethed.

“Better late than dead, sir. We can’t do nothing if we’re dead.”

Cohen grabbed his arm and stared at him. Savas exhaled. The soldier was right. Given what Hastings and Bilderberg had at their disposal, a squad of mercenaries wouldn’t be out of the picture. This invasion could end before it began.

They reached the hilltop, the Special Forces group moving cautiously, examining vulnerable angles and approaches. A six-story building from another era rose before them, a set of marble stairs leading to a set of glass doors. Around them, the campus was utterly deserted.

A different welcome greeted them in the foyer. The armed team of soldiers burst through the doors in tactical formation, weapons aimed forward, their posture aggressive. In front of them stood a buzzing crowd of older men and women, many in ill-fitting suits or lab coats, pacing the marbled room. At the sight of the soldiers, they fell backward, eyes wide and fearful, conversation extinguished.

“Where is the president?” asked Savas, stepping forward and acting as the group’s spokesman. No one responded. “This is a matter of national security. Where is your president?”

A rotund man with a beard, resembling some baron in an Armani suit, stepped toward them authoritatively. “I’m Joac Ratkvetch, Full Professor and Head of Laboratory. We need some answers. Are you with the police?”

Savas motioned to Williams. “The stairway. See if it leads to the tunnels.” Williams and several soldiers moved to their left and a doorway to a set of steps leading down.

“Tunnels,” said Ratkvetch. “Yes, it most certainly does. Our president went that way, but seems to have lost his mind.”

“Explain,” said Savas.

“First tell me who you are? You wouldn’t believe how we have been treated these last days. Herded, shouted at! Can you imagine—”

“
Explain,
” growled Savas.

The professor startled. “Well, he came here with
armed men
. They’ve destroyed the president’s office, all the records. They’ve stolen important samples. The noise brought us all here. We know something terrible is happening. He’s heading to the river campus access.”

“And so?”

“To escape the island! The war is coming here, no? You have to get us out!”

Several heads nodded as the university professors crowded around Savas.

“We’re important people!” cried one.

“I’m Michelle MacKinnon, Nobel Prize winner.”

“Korgie Barfmour,” cried a botoxed blonde.

Two men stepped forward. “Seth Burley and John Harrison. We need protection!”

Pandemonium erupted.

A burst of automatic gunfire exploded. Marble chips and dust rained from the ceiling. Williams stood at the stairwell, her weapon smoking. Savas nodded to her.

“Stairwell’s clear,” she said.

Savas motioned to the rest. “We move. To the tunnels.”

The tall blonde grabbed his collar. “And what about
us?”

Savas swiped her hand away and continued to the door. “Write your damn memoirs or something. Stay here and panic. I don’t give a damn. Stay out of our way or you’re going to get a bullet.”

She gasped, and fell back with the others. Williams led the way down the stairs, Savas and Cohen behind her, the remaining soldiers following closely.

“Little harsh, John?” asked Cohen with a raised eyebrow as they rounded a turn in the steps.

“
I have a Nobel Prize
. What a bunch of self-important blowhards.”

The stairs ended, the passageway opening to a broad tunnel leading down into the bowels of the island.

“Why does a university have a series of underground tunnels?” asked Cohen, staring in disbelief as the passageways plunged down in front of them.

“For something that needs to hide underground,” he mumbled. He drew his sidearm and began to head down the tunnel. He felt a firm hand on his shoulder.

“No disrespect, agent Savas,” said Williams. “We’re all combat vets. Seen more tunnels than we’d like to think about. We’ll take the lead here.”

Savas nodded, stepping to the side. “You have point, Sergeant. We’ll stay out of your way and watch your back.”

“Glad you’re not going to go alpha on me,” she smiled, moving forward.

“Too damn tired for that, ma’am.”

Williams turned around and motioned the soldiers forward. They swept into the tunnels.

T
hey did not get far
. The group had been moving cautiously down the main tunnel passage, ignoring side branches and the many closed doors and hatches dotting the walls. Most of those were locked on examination, and the maps York had provided indicated none led to anything more interesting than storage or machinery rooms. The maps did not show where the main path ended, which was all the suspicion they needed to continue following its course.

The temperature within the tunnel spiked dramatically as they moved forward. Enormous steam pipes ran overhead and alongside the walls, the thermal energy radiating outward and noticeable from a few feet away. After less than ten minutes, having seen no one and no clues, the passage began to slope upward and a large opening to another building came into view.

“Damn,” said Williams. The extended line of soldiers stopped along with Savas and Cohen in the back.

“The new research building,” said another soldier, pointing to the map. “The tunnel connections fade out in the middle, but we’ve just gone from building to building. No secret lair. No escape route.”

“He had to go somewhere!” Williams said. “What did we miss?”

“About fifty doorways that aren’t on the maps,” said Savas, moving toward the front of the group. “And that might have something else behind them the maps don’t show.”

“We go back over it, carefully this time,” said Cohen. “There’s got to be more to this than a simple passage between buildings.”

“We’re running out of time,” said Savas.

Cohen nodded. “Then let’s work fast.”

Williams moved through her team and toward the FBI agents. Savas interrupted her.

“No disrespect, Sergeant, but this is where we take over.”

Williams smiled. “Touché.”

“Only Rebecca has point, and we give her some cover. She’s the real sleuth.”

Williams positioned men at the beginning and end of the tunnel, blanketing all entrances and exits. She and another soldier accompanied Savas as he followed behind Cohen while she meticulously swept along the tunnel walls. Her deliberateness was painful. Time was running through their hands, every second an hour. When she stopped in front of a rusted door, he checked his watch, surprised only five minutes had passed.

“This is it,” she said, crouching and touching the ground.

Williams shook her head. “This is what? What do you see?”

Cohen held up a finger, a dull orange powder coating her skin. “Rust,” she said and stood up, gesturing to the door. “This thing’s been here a long time. The metal’s built up a layer of rust ignored for years, maybe decades. But look. Around the handle and the hinges, the rust is disturbed. Some scratched, some cracked. It fell to the floor here,” she pointed to a thin film of red on the rock below.

“There’s a shoe print in it,” said Savas.

Cohen nodded. “Not from your team,” she said to Williams. “I got a lot of looks at the boots from behind. Not John or my shoes.” She placed her hands on the door handle. “Someone’s opened this door very recently.”

Williams called the soldiers back from the tunnel extremities. They took positions near the doorway as Cohen yanked on the handle. It didn’t move. Savas stepped up and together they forced the rusted hinges to yield, a screeching sound echoing around them.

The red glow of emergency bulbs lit an empty passage. The rank smell of sea and grime spilled outward, and the shoe prints continued into the thick muck coating the floor. But the prints were far more numerous, a confused stampede of footsteps preserved.

Savas checked the map. “Definitely not a machine room. And judging from all these prints, it looks like the president has a few friends.”

Williams motioned to her team. “We move in separated pairs. Khyber spacing.”

A soldier stepped forward and into the tunnels. “Back in the hellholes, snake-eaters,” he said and disappeared. One by one they entered, and again, Savas and Cohen were relegated to the rear.

Moving through the hatchway Savas nearly struck his head on the low ceiling, the sounds of footfalls ahead of him echoing in the concrete tube. The red emergency lighting painted an infernal glare on the roughly hewn stone surrounding them.

The sounds of pounding metal reached his ears. The tight tunnel opened broadly to reveal a small chamber, a ladder racing upward, a four-way intersection of passages running from the focal point. The twelve soldiers were spaced to cover the passages, several training weapons on the ladder.

“Now what?” asked Cohen. “Four possibilities.”

“This doesn’t exist on the maps,” said Williams. “We’ll have to split up.”

Savas felt his stomach drop. Too much time wasted, and now their forces thinned.

The soldiers conferred, pairs moving down the three new tunnels. Williams pointed to the ladder.

“We’ll leave two here to guard against someone coming up our ass from the first tunnel. Leaves us four and you two to try this ladder. Here’s what—”

Her words were cut off by gunfire. Echoes rang from the passageway in front of them. “Found them! Henson, Ripley, hold this point. The rest of you, with me!”

The automatic weapons discharge continued, and Williams and three other soldiers sprinted down the tunnel. Savas turned to Cohen.

“I guess we stay—”

Above him, metal screeched. Savas glanced up to see a hatch over the ladder open briefly, and momentarily caught a glimpse of a face. The man vanished, omitting to even seal the hatch, panic in his eyes.

“John, no!” cried Cohen.

Savas leapt onto the metal rungs and raced upward, thrusting his torso through the opening, weapon raised. A blurred shadow turned a corner down a narrow hallway, and Savas vaulted from the ladder to sprint down the passage. As it veered left, he spun quickly, gun raised, poised to engage.

He found himself in a claustrophobic space hewn carelessly out of the bedrock, a wall of guns aimed his way. Light poured from a broad opening behind the mercenaries. A brief glimpse showed Savas a short ramp leading down to the East River. An armored yacht approached on the water.

A thin man, in a suit, his hair graying, stepped forward. He held up a hand to the four bodyguards who had trained their weapons on Savas.

“A firefight at this juncture would be most unwise,” he said to them, his eyes darting behind him.

“Luc Osomer-Levitt,” said Savas, refusing to lower his weapon. He recognized the face of the Ramsey president from the last-minute dossiers York had sent them. The man appeared even more robotic in person than he did in the still photos, his face hardly displaying a flicker of emotion. “Or should I say:
Zero
.”

“Agent Savas,” he said. “I’m impressed, but please put your gun down before someone gets killed.”

Savas heard the sound too late, distracted by the men in front of him. A heavy blow struck the back of his head as he tried to pivot. The ground raced up surreally. On his hands and knees, the world spinning, his gun kicked across the floor, powerful arms raised him to his feet.

“We wondered how you escaped,” said Osomer-Levitt. “You live up to your reputation.”

His head exploding, the figures around him only slowly returned to focus. The arms dragged Savas before the man. He winced as a gun pressed against his head.

“How do you know...”

“Who you are? Don’t be coy, agent Savas. If you’re here, you’ve clearly put together enough to know I have been involved in your capture and interrogation. I took a very personal interest in everything you and your Intel 1 group had to say.”

“You bastard,” Savas managed, his head pounding. “You have my people’s blood on your hands.”

“Collateral damage is such an unfortunate part of war. And this has been a war, agent Savas. Anonymous nearly destroyed us, and your cybercrimes head had radioactive material we could not allow to be released. We had no choice.”

“The Nash Criterion.”

“Yes. That madman was a double-edged sword for all of us. Useful for his time, but it’s over now. Your people have put the planet on a course of self-destruction. We may not be able to fix this.”

His fogged head still couldn’t process much of his surroundings, let alone rebut the man. Adding to the confusion, a new voice spoke from behind the phalanx of guards

“Bring him forward. Let me see him.”

The voice rasped and carried a striking tone of authority. For the first time, Osomer-Levitt’s mask cracked, and concern flickered briefly over his features. The guards instinctively shifted, opening a small wedge to what lay behind. Savas strained to focus, the blurred outlines of a short and squat figure refusing to clarify. A grotesque form rolled forward, the legs swollen beyond possibility. Unless...
wheels!
The figure sat in a wheelchair.

Osomer-Levitt spoke. “We don’t have time. There may be others with him. At the least his agent wife.”

A woman’s voice came from behind him, and Savas flinched.

“Too late,” said Cohen. “She’s already here.”

Savas’s head throbbed as he looked over his shoulder. Cohen stood alone, an army-issue coat wrapped around her, eyes trained on Osomer-Levitt.

“Time for parlay,” she said.