Black Skies (27 page)

H
oisting himself onto the driver’s seat of the car was the hardest part. Smith’s legs were hardly working. Pulling himself up felt like a screwdriver was tearing at his insides. Blood flowed freely as he used both arms to hoist himself. But with gritted teeth and purpose of mind, he managed.

He reached a slumped position on the driver’s seat, with his face near the hand brake. Pressing against the wound with his right hand, he picked up the phone and tried Bloch, but hers was apparently off. He tried a few numbers for Zeta, but they wouldn’t go through, either. He was thinking of other numbers he could dial when the phone rang so unexpectedly that he nearly dropped it.

“Who is this?” said Smith, doing whatever he could to keep his voice steady

“This is Lily Randall.”

“The British agent?” he asked.

“Is this Smith?” she demanded.

“This is he.” Smith was holding his breath now to keep from screaming in pain, and it slowed his speech.

“Are—are you okay? You sound awful.”

“Just—say what you—called me to—say.”

“Cobra says the EMP is meant to for the President,” she said. “It’s going to take out Air Force One tonight.”

Goddamn it. That is bad.
“Is—that—all?” he asked, with the painful pauses in his speech.

“That’s it,” she said.

“I want—you to call—a number for me. Tell them—what you told me. Explain—everything. Can you—do that?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” she said. “Just for God’s sake tell me who to call.”

He gave her the name and number as fast as he could.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll call now.”

Hanging up, he turned on the interior light of the car and looked at the bullet hole. It couldn’t wait for an ambulance. He reached for the glove compartment and pulled it open. In there was a special first aid kit he’d put together for this kind of emergency.

First, he cleaned the area with a gauze pad. Then he took out a packet of chemical hemostat, which should help control the bleeding, and applied it to the wound. He couldn’t hold back the howl of pain. He opened three more packets of gauze and pressed them against the bullet hole, then took a roll of bandage and rolled it around his torso, pulling as tight as he could. He held it in place with a thick piece of surgical tape.

He pulled himself up again, so that he was sitting upright in his seat. Feeling himself weakening, he used all the will he could muster to hold out against unconsciousness. He tested his feet, and found that he could move them enough to operate the gas pedal with his right and the brake with his left. He turned the key in the ignition.

He pushed the accelerator too far backing out, and crashed against the car behind him. He shifted the car into drive, turned the steering wheel, and let go of the brake, applying the least pressure that he could. The car lurched forward. He managed to get it to move in the right direction. He scraped the entire right side of the car turning a corner a little further ahead, but in this stumbling style, he managed to leave the parking garage and get out into the street.

The hospital was only four blocks away. All he had to do was get that far. He felt his consciousness fading as he moved ahead in lurches, past one block, two, three. He could see it. The entrance to the emergency room lay one block ahead, its white fluorescent light seeming to be at the end of a long tunnel.

He pushed the gas pedal with his foot. It seemed so heavy, he could hardly control it, and the car picked up speed. His hands were weak now, so weak that he couldn’t hold on to the steering wheel. So close. So close. The car turned, from the open street into the grille of a storefront. The window held dark gray men’s suits, mannequins lit even this late at night.

He noticed the car wasn’t moving anymore, even though he could hear the roar of acceleration. As his mind faded, he thought he could hear voices of men screaming something that sounded like “hell, hell, hell.”

B
uck Chapman left the live feed of reporting from Liberty Island streaming on his computer. Hostages were now being ferried off the island, and the dead were being arranged in rows of black body bags. He listened to the news as he read reports coming in from both civilian news agencies and blogs and official secret channels within the US government.

In the outer office, people were still crowded around the TV. Others were at their workstations, probably doing the same thing as Chapman. He was startled by the vibration of Smith’s phone in his inner breast pocket.

He picked up the call and held the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Is this Philip Chapman?” It was a woman with an English accent.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “How did you get this number?”

“I’m calling on behalf of a Mr. Smith. He—I think he’s injured.”

“What happened to him?”

“It’s complicated. Listen! I have a message for you. It’s from Smith. There’s going to be a terrorist attack. They—tonate an EM—”

“I’m sorry, you’re breaking up,” he hollered. “Repeat that.”

“—M—P!”

“Did you say EMP?”

“Yes!” The call was suddenly clear. “An EMP is going to be detonated tonight over DC! It’s meant to take down Air Force One!”

Chapman’s heart sank. “When?”

“Soon!” she exclaimed. “The plane is already in the air!”

“Dear God. Is there anything else?”

“No! Are you someone who can do something about that?” she asked. “Because maybe you should see to that now.”

He felt a surge of adrenaline and hung up the phone. “Cyn!” he yelled out. “Cyn, in here, now!”

She ran to his door, breathless and alarmed. “What is going on, Buck?”

“An EMP device is going to detonate over DC. Spread the word. The primary target is the Air Force One and the President, but we need to get the word out to as many people as possible. Enlist everyone here to make calls. Get in touch with FEMA first. They have emergency protocols in place. Then call every other government agency you can, starting with Homeland Security. I’ll take care of warning the President.”

“But how do you—”

“Cyn,
now.
Oh, and tell them to use speakerphone and take their cell phones out of their pockets. No one should be holding
any
electronic equipment when the blast hits. Spread the word.”

She turned to the office and banged on the wall for attention. “I’m going to need everyone’s attention here!”

Chapman turned his attention to making the most important call of that day.

M
organ waited, crouched behind the Jeep in Weinberg’s cargo plane, as the Airbus Beluga got off the ground. He held the straps on the right side of the plane against the g-force of takeoff, hoping that the Jeep would not skid and crush him—although the vehicle was secured to hooks on the airplane’s fuselage.

He didn’t have much time to make his move. Soon enough, Weinberg’s men would get up and move around. He counted six of them, and their semiautomatics were close by, hanging from the side of the plane near the seats. At least one was bound to have a handgun on him. Plus, gunfire in an airplane was never a good idea, although the option of bringing down the plane would always be there as a last resort.

He looked around at the other cargo. There were some boxes that might have contained weapons, but Morgan couldn’t reach them without exposing himself. On the ground was a box of heavy duty buckled canvas straps, like the ones that were holding the Jeep in place. Emergency flotation devices and military-grade parachutes lined about ten feet of the floor across from the Jeep.

In the middle of the cargo hold, on the conveyor belt that led to the ramp in the back, was the EMP device. It was painted a dark, purplish blue to blend in with the night sky. It consisted of a sturdy metal frame about the size of a refrigerator with an ovoid shape suspended inside—the device itself, with what seemed to be a thick enough protective metal shell to make it impervious to bullets. It had a control panel with an LCD display on the side and a large flat box on top that had some kind of opening mechanism. Morgan surmised that it was a parachute to keep the device aloft as the airplane put some distance between itself and the blast.

The Jeep that had been loaded into the plane was outfitted for military use, which meant it probably contained a box in the back. Morgan raised his head just enough over the spare tire to confirm that it was there. Then, slowly, gingerly, he opened the latch and lifted the lid.
Jackpot.
Inside were two M16s and a row of magazines.

He looked at the men, but their heads were obscured by the seats. He reached over the back of the Jeep and pulled out one of the rifles, then two magazines. As he did, he caught the glint of something moving side to side—the key to the Jeep was in the ignition. He took another magazine and crouched behind the Jeep again. He loaded one magazine into the M16 and slipped the other into the waist of his pants in the back. The third he left on the floor, safely ensconced between two slats.

Morgan felt the forces shift—the plane was leveling off, ending its ascent. He could hear the men speaking, though he couldn’t hear what they were saying. He peeked around the Jeep and saw that two of the men standing. It was time for action.

Morgan picked up the spare magazine and leapt onto the Jeep. He turned the key in the ignition, put the car into gear, and put the magazine on the accelerator. The straps still holding on tight to the vehicle, the motor roared furiously and the tires skidded on the floor.

All six of the men heard this. Those who were sitting down stood up to look backward with fear on their faces, while those already standing lunged for their guns. Not fast enough. Morgan bounded off the back of the Jeep and released the buckles on both safety straps. The car charged forward, the curve of the airplane turning it toward the center of the cargo hold. It missed the EMP by several feet and hit the seats head-on, plowing through them and stopping against the cockpit door, its still rotating tires raised off the floor by the debris.

Two of the men were caught in the seats when the Jeep hit, and two had managed to dodge to each side. The plane rocked upon the impact of the Jeep, and everyone was sent sprawling. Morgan tumbled forward, crashing against one of the men on the right front corner of the cargo hold.

In the chaos, Morgan saw that the man who had cushioned his fall had a Glock semi tucked into a hip holster. Morgan pulled it out and fired the first bullet into that man’s gut, then two into the torso of the other man who had fallen just a few feet away. On the other side of the Jeep were another man and Anse Fleischer.

Morgan stood up and ran around the Jeep and the debris of the seats, but the tumble had left him dazed. He fell forward and rolled onto his side. He pushed himself into a standing position and, a little more carefully, made his way around the Jeep. He saw the other soldier first, struggling to get up, and fired. His aim was not as good as usual—the first three bullets were embedded harmlessly into the fuselage. The last hit home on the man’s neck.

Morgan barely saw the hulking shape of Anse Fleischer barreling toward him and tackling him backward toward the EMP device. Morgan lost his grip on the Glock and smashed backward into the floor of the plane, with his own weight combined with Fleischer’s. The meaty white left hand came down hard with two punches to Morgan’s temple. Morgan grabbed for anything too use as a weapon, and his hands closed on a jagged and pointed piece of metal from the mangled seats. He thrust the makeshift knife just as Fleischer’s fist came for another punch, and the metal plunged deep into the German’s hand. The man bellowed.

Morgan held tight as Fleischer jerked away, and the shard came free in Morgan’s hand. Fleischer had pulled his torso away instinctively, giving Morgan the opening to stab the jagged metal into his abdomen and push it up into his rib cage, trying to drive it through his heart. Morgan evidently missed, and Fleischer emitted a gurgling scream.

The giant got up. He lifted Morgan clear off the ground and shoved him hard against the floor. Morgan blacked out. When he came to, he saw Fleischer kneeling by the EMP device, operating the LCD panel with his still-intact right hand. He was obviously weakened, his fingers shaking, his breathing ragged.

Morgan staggered toward him. His mind was clear enough to know that he couldn’t kill Fleischer if he wanted any hope of disarming the EMP. His eyes fell on the security straps, which were now strewn all over the floor. He picked one up, then grabbed Fleischer’s right hand. Fleischer was too weakened to shake Morgan off. Morgan secured his hand to the EMP’s armature, then took his mangled left hand and did the same.

“You’re stuck,” said Morgan.

“It’s armed,” Fleischer said, and smiled with reddened teeth. Blood oozed from his lips to the floor. Morgan looked at the display on the EMP device. It was counting down from seven and a half minutes. He tried pressing a “cancel” button on the touchscreen, and it prompted him for a six-digit code.

“Disarm it!” cried out Morgan.

Fleischer laughed.

“You’re tied to it!” yelled Morgan. “If it goes off, you die!”

“I am already dead!” Fleischer exclaimed.

“Tell me how to disarm the bomb! Give me the code!”

“You can’t stop it,” he said. “The EMP will detonate, and there is nothing you can do!”

“You have the opportunity to do one last good thing!” Morgan roared. “Of not dying a mass murderer!”

“I die serving the Weinberg name!” he said in ragged, gasping breaths. He spat out a wad of blood, but he was so weak that it dribbled off his lips and down his chin. His head lolled on his shoulders, and he slumped against the EMP device.

Morgan tried to input random codes, and only got as far as three when the keyboard locked and wouldn’t allow him to try any more. He tried to remove the panel from the frame, but it was welded in place, and all the wires ran through the steel armature. He looked around for some way to destroy the device. Bullets wouldn’t do it, explosives would just set it off.

This thing was going to be triggered, no matter what he did.

He looked back at the Jeep, which trapped the pilot in the cockpit. There was nothing Morgan could do for him, either.

Morgan stumbled to the left side of the cargo hold, which held the parachutes. He took one down and hit the button to open the back ramp as he strapped himself into the pack. A crack of blackness appeared, widening, a powerful gust of wind enveloping Morgan’s bruised and aching body. As soon as the opening was large enough, he jumped off the back into emptiness. He let himself fall, getting as far away from the plane as possible.

Morgan felt the shock wave first, almost hot enough to melt his skin, and the hairs on his body stood on end with static electricity. Below, all the lights went out for miles, as far as the eye could see, all the way to the brightly lit cluster of DC itself. He pulled the ripcord and felt the violent upward tug as the parachute deployed. He looked up at the airplane, high above him already, and saw it sputter in the moonlight and fall out of the sky.