Armageddon: The Cosmic Battle Of The Ages (7 page)

Rayford turned on his cell phone and called Mac McCullum in Al Basrah to debrief him. “Can you and Albie leave for Al Hillah today?”

“We been sittin’ here like a past-due hen.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. You’re pretty hot since Greece. How are you going to get around?”

“With bluster, charm, and only at night, of course.

I figure you pretty much just want to know what NC and his boys are up to.”

“Ideal would be your finding out where they’re meet-ing in Baghdad and bugging the place for us.”

“Oh, sure. I’ll just tell ‘em I’m his new valet and can I have a few hours in the meeting room before everyone else gets there.”

“If I thought it was easy, I’d do it myself,” Rayford said. “Albie knows everybody. If it’s gonna get done, he’ll get it done.”

Chang, Naomi, and Abdullah appeared, each laden with boxes and cases. Naomi looked ashen. Rayford opened the door and lowered the steps. “Good timing,” he said.

“We were on it all the way, Captain,” Abdullah said. “Thanks to this young genius.”

“Just showing off,” Chang said, handing cargo in and helping Naomi aboard. “I wanted to show her how David had bugged the whole place and that we could actually listen in on Carpathia.”

“So you knew he was coming,” Rayford said, letting Abdullah edge past to the pilot’s chair.

“Could we please talk about something else?” Naomi said.

That made everyone uncomfortably quiet. Rayford sneaked a peek. The pale orange silhouette was moving more quickly now. He must have abandoned Akbar and Fortunato or they were ailing anew. The pain didn’t seem to reach Carpathia. Maybe God was saving his best till last for him.

Rayford and Abdullah eschewed a formal checklist for a quick confirmation of the cockpit flow by checking the critical switch positions. “Crank ‘er up,” Rayford said.

But Abdullah just sat there, craning his neck to watch the glow grow larger as it neared the plane.

“What’re you waiting on, Smitty? Let’s move out.”

“A moment, please, Captain. How far do you assume he can see?”

“About as far as he glows. Now let’s go.”

“A moment, please.”

“What are you doing, Mr. Smith?” Naomi called out. “Isn’t that Carpathia?”

“He does not know where he is going. But I do.”

“Once we start up, he can do nothing,” Rayford said. “But I’d rather he not know who we are.”

“He won’t,” Abdullah said.

Rayford leaned past Abdullah and saw Carpathia hurry across the runway about twenty feet behind the craft.

“Here we go,” Abdullah said, firing up the engines and blowing the orange glow to the ground over and over until Nicolae was just an ember in the distance.

Once in the air, Naomi leaned forward. “Can I talk to you?” she said. Rayford removed his headphones.

“Is that stuff normal for you guys?” she said.

“Nothing’s normal anymore, Naomi. You’ve been through a lot yourself.”

“I never heard a man being murdered before. And I’ve never walked by so many hurting people without a thing I could do for them. We’re isolated in Petra, and I wanted to be where the action is. But if I never see any-thing else like this, it’ll be all right with me. And we can do more from our computer center than anywhere I can think of.”

“I’m sorry it was hard,” Rayford said. “It was for me too.” He told her of the woman he had tried to help and of his conversation with Nicolae’s assistant.

“We’ll watch for her uncle’s name on the system,” she said. “And I suppose we’ll hear from Mr. Weser too.”

“Hope so. What a character.”

She leaned closer, and while she had to raise her voice over the engines, Naomi seemed to speak so only Ray-ford could hear. “Chang’s not doing well, you know.”

“Why’s that?”

“This has been his home, crazy as it’s had to have been. It’s got to be strange leaving.”

“I should think he’d be glad to be gone.”

“I wish I could have met Mr. Hassid, the one Chang talks about so much. What they did in the palace and the setup at our place …”

Rayford nodded. “You going to be able to do the same thing-monitor this place-from Petra now?”

“With Chang, yes. It’s going to be wonderful to have him in our shop.”

“Is he going to be competition?”

“Hardly. I’ll just let him do what he wants. He likes the technical stuff, keyboarding and inside the box, more than managing people. But he can teach if he wants to.”

Rayford’s phone chirped. It was George Sebastian. “Been trying to get hold of you. Your phone down?”

“Had it off for the palace mission. I was going to report in when I knew you guys were up. It’s still early there, isn’t it?”

“We’ve got a situation.”

“Why are you whispering? Where are you?” “Outside.”

“What time is it there?”

“Just before five in the morning. We can’t find Chloe.”

It hit Buck that the figure on the periscope had been Chloe, so where was she? It was just like her to be out without a walkie-talkie or a phone, which he attributed to strategy rather than impetuousness. He would have a hard time convincing anyone else of that, though.

He and George had split up, fully armed and in con-stant touch with each other. George had found the empty GC personnel carrier-which had to be some sort of a decoy-but no GC or Chloe. Buck hoped he wouldn’t have to call for more help and further expose his people or their location.

Two hours later, when the sun left Buck and George with no choice but to retreat inside, they had covered two square miles with nothing to show for it. In the compound, everybody was up, worried, praying, and eager to be brought up to speed. Ming Toy took Kenny and George’s daughter, Beth Ann, to her place “for as long as is necessary.”

George and Priscilla set up a command center in the workout room. Ree Woo sat at a small folding table in the corner, digging through files to see if any of their aliases had been underused or uncompromised.

Buck admitted he was going to be of little help. “I’m paralyzed.”

“Snap out of it,” George said. “You do Chloe and us no good that way.”

Buck glared at him, knowing he was right. “Easy for you to say, Sebastian. It’s not your wife out there.”

Priscilla looked away. George let his papers fall on a table and approached Buck. He put a hand on each arm of Buck’s chair and leaned close to his face. “I’m only gonna say it once. If it was my wife out there, I wouldn’t be sitting in here with my hands in my lap. I owe your wife big time. She risked her life for me in Greece. I can only imagine how you feel. Not knowing anything is worse than knowing the worst, but we know nothing. Maybe you’re just a little mad at her because she didn’t seem to follow protocol and skipped a lot of steps here.

“Maybe you’re feeling guilty about being angry with her because you’re scared to death she’s into something over her head. I don’t blame you. I don’t. I’m telling you, we need everybody on this, especially somebody with your brain. Now, you want to find her so we can get her back safe and sound, or you want to assume the worst and start grieving now?”

“George!” Priscilla scolded.

“I’m not trying to be a hard case,” George said. “It’s just that there’s nothing we can do outside in the day-light unless we know the coast is clear and we’ve got someone with a good disguise and alias. Meanwhile, we’ve got to rest and strategize, and we don’t need Buck sitting here feeling sorry for hims-”

“All right, George, I got it! Okay?”

“You and I are all right then?”

“Of course.”

“I mean, you think I was out there in the middle of the night for my health?”

“Not so good news,” Ree said. “Chloe’s ‘Chloe Irene’ and Mac’s ‘Howie Johnson’ are no good after Greece. Hannah’s ‘Indira Jinnah’ might still be okay, but only she can use it and she’s too far away. Rayford and Abdullah’s Middle Eastern brothers IDs may still be okay, but Abdullah is staying in Petra and Rayford will need R and R when he gets here.”

“Don’t be so sure,” George said. “He’ll go till he drops.”

“Tell me about it,” Buck said.

“Has Albie’s `Commander Elbaz’ been exposed yet?” Ree asked.

Buck nodded. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Too far away too,” George said. “What else have we got?”

“One more. Ming’s guy persona, ‘Chang Chow.”’

“Let’s not risk Ming,” Buck said.

“Why not?” George said. “She’s still got the uniform. She can cut her hair and-”

“Hey!” Ree said. “You’re talking about my fiancee.”

“So?”

“She at least ought to be consulted.”

“No, Ree,” George said. “I thought we’d just drag her in here, hold her down, and cut her hair.”

“Cool down, boys,” Priscilla said. “Nobody knows who I am. I could be given an alias and-”

“No you don’t,” George said.

“Shoe’s on the other foot now, eh?” Buck said.

“Prospect of sending your wife out there-”

“Stop it!” George said. “I’m just saying she’s inexperi-enced and not all that healthy.”

“Ming is not very physical,” Ree said. “Not trained in weapons.”

“Don’t give me that,” Buck said. “She worked at Buffer.”

“Handling inmates at a women’s prison is not like rescuing one of our people from the local GC.”

“We wouldn’t be looking for her to do that anyway,” George said. “Buck and I and maybe you, Ree, would have to go get Chloe. We need Ming, or somebody, just to find out where she is.”

Chloe had caught sight of two more GC vehicles, both moving, to the south as she was in the middle of her loop around the compound. As she watched, both trucks stopped and more than half a dozen troops disembarked from each. It became clear that they were walking a care-fully planned grid to check for hidden encampments. And the underground safe house was in their path. They may have looked bored to Buck through the periscope a few hours before, but something had sent them for reinforcements.

These guys were serious. They had metal detectors, probes, and what appeared to be Geiger counters. Chloe debated whether she had time to race back to the com-pound to alert the others. If she erred, she could lead these guys right to her door.

Determined to distract them and knock them off course, she started moving again. She had to make them see her without appearing to want that. She moved stealthily, but with a purpose.

Rather than take a right at the edge of the property and circle back to the entrance, Chloe continued west on the south side. When she heard at least one of the vehicles heading her way, she broke into a trot, then a jog, then a full run. She was not going to outrun a truck, but maybe she could go where it couldn’t.

The Uzi, light as it was, weighed her down. Unless she believed she could take on an entire platoon or two of GC with it, it made more sense to ditch it and come back for it later. She would never be able to explain a weapon like that. With the sound of a truck, and maybe two of them, just a block south and closing fast, Chloe detoured and flung the Uzi and her ski mask behind some trees. She picked up her pace and sprinted about a quarter of a mile, succeeding in getting both trucks to bear down on her.

Chloe was out of sight of the underground complex and decided the best approach was indifference, so she kept her head down and kept running. The lead truck pulled up beside her, but she didn’t even turn to look.

From the passenger-side window a young woman called out, “Need a lift?”

“No thanks.”

“Get in.”

“No thanks. I’m good.”

“We want to ask you a few questions.”

“Go ahead.”

“C’mon, stop and let us talk to you.”

“Talk to me anyway.”

“Where you from?”

“About six miles west.”

“That was underwater from the tsunami not that long ago.”

“How well I know.”

“What’re you doing down here?”

“Running.”

“How’d you get here?”

“Ran.”

“Where you going?”

“Home.”

“What’s your name?”

“Phoebe.”

It sounds biblical.

“Phoebe what?”

“Phoebe Evangelista.”

“Ethnic?”

“Husband is.”
He’s a
WASP
.

“Have any ID?”

“Not on me.”

“Okay, ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to stop and let us talk with you a minute.”

“No thanks. You can follow me home if you want.”

I’ll run as far from the underground as I can until I drop.

“I need to know your original region and see your mark.”

“I’m not taking off my hood or my gloves in this weather after working up a sweat.”

“What, you’ve got marks both places?”

Chloe waved her off and kept running. The truck veered off the road in front of her and stopped. Chloe swerved around it and kept going. She heard doors open-ing and boots on pavement. Soon armed GC in full uni-form flanked her, a man on each side, keeping pace.

“Okay,” one said, “fun’s over. Stop or we’ll have to put you in the truck. Come on now, ma’am, you know we can take you down, and there’s no need for that.”

Chloe kept running. The man on her right tossed his weapon to the one on the left, and the next thing she knew he had both arms around her neck and was draw-ing his knees up into the middle of her back. He had to weigh two hundred pounds. She staggered and fell. He shifted his weight just before she hit the ground and drove her face into the dirt. Chloe knew she had been scraped deep, and blood ran down her forehead. He slid up and pressed his knee behind her neck, pulled her hands behind her, and handcuffed her.

Desperate to stall them, Chloe let herself go limp. “Have it your way,” one of the men said. He grabbed the cuffs to drag her toward the truck. She purposely kept her face down, letting sand and pebbles and pave-ment tear at her face.

On her stomach next to the truck, she could not be lifted by the handcuffs without wrenching her shoulders out of place, which the GC almost did. “There’s an easier way,” a young guard said, “if that’s what she wants.”

He grabbed her feet and bent her legs up to where he could bind her ankles to the handcuffs with a plastic band. He tossed her into the truck.