Extinction Machine (59 page)

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.

Two men stood by a gate that led from the helipad to a parking area. One was tall and broad and very Italian. The other looked a little like me. Big, ropy muscles, blond hair and blue eyes. His hair was curly, though.

I sagged down, dropping my butt onto my heels, fighting my body’s desire to simply collapse.

They towered over me. Both of them held guns, barrels pointed casually down at their sides. Both of them were smiling. This was going to be easy for them and they knew it.

I looked up at Blondie.

“Erasmus Tull?” I asked.

“Yeah. Ledger?”

“Yeah.”

He smiled. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

I sighed. “I figured.”

“You have a lot of friends at the Warehouse?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded.

“Time to join—”

I shot him in the face.

Hey, fuck it.

Tull stayed on his feet for one full second, his eyes wide with astonishment. Then he fell backward in a boneless sprawl. Maybe I didn’t have dysentery like Harrison Ford, but seeing Tull definitely made me sick to my stomach. I figured Indiana Jones would be proud.

Tull’s friend yelled in shock, his face splashed with blood. He brought his gun up.

I could have taken him, too. In that moment of astonishment.

Except after that single shot the slide locked back on Sullivan’s gun.

The Italian guy raised his piece. He was screaming something. But I wasn’t tracking very well. The empty gun toppled from my hand.

And then the Italian exploded.

As an after echo I heard a single dry
tok!

It was all very messy and immediate and for a moment the air was stained with a lingering pink mist. But as it cleared I saw Junie Flynn standing there, legs wide, both hands wrapped around a microwave pulse pistol.

“Junie,” I said.

She rushed through the gate and ran right to me and damn near bowled me over, but when she saw the blood she skidded to a stop and fell to her knees in front of me.

“Joe, oh my god, Joe … you’ve been shot.”

Her hands were everywhere, probing, touching. She pulled her sweater off and gently stuffed it inside my vest and pushed my arm down to hold it in place.

In my earbud I heard Mr. Church. “Cowboy—give me a sit-rep. Is the package still in hand?”

The package lay on the ground, covered in blood. I used my good hand to pick it up. There was a bullet drilled three quarters of the way through it. I remembered the shot that had hit my hip.

“Confirmed,” I said. “The package is in hand.”

Then I remembered the cavern.

“Listen to me, Deacon, that cavern is still open and they’re firing up the T-craft. You have to—”

“Captain,” interrupted Church, “I am channeling in a visitor.”

“Who am I on the line with?” I demanded.

There was a burst of squelch, then an unfamiliar voice said, “Captain Andrew Murray, sir, Pennsylvania Air National Guard. Requesting permission to join the party.”

Junie’s grave face blossomed into a smile.

“I hope you brought more to this pig roast than a beer bong, Captain.”

“If you have any use for a six-pack of A-10 Thunderbolts, then we’re forty miles out, coming hard, locked and loaded.”

I had to laugh. “Guess we ain’t the left-handed stepchildren no more.”

“We are acting on orders of the commander-in-chief,” said Murray.

“Captain,” I said. “There is a cavern opening on the north side of this property.” I gave the coordinates to Murray. “If
anything
—any craft of any kind—gets out of that cavern we are going to be at war with China before lunchtime. That is not a joke. Confirm.”

“Advise on location of your personnel, Cowboy.”

I thought of Warbride and Prankster. One old friend, one new. Both family, born as children of war.

My heart wanted to break.

“There’s no time left on the shot clock, Captain,” I said. “Pull the trigger.”

“Understood, Cowboy. Go with God and let the devil take the rest.”

Then I tapped my earbud. “Warbride, Prankster … Evac now. Repeat—evac now!”

There was no answer.

Junie touched my face. “Joe,” she said.

And then the sky was full of missiles and fire rained from heaven.

Chapter One Hundred Twenty-eight

The Situation Room
The White House
Monday, October 21, 8:54 a.m.

The white dot—so puny and absurd a representation of what it was—crossed over into Chinese airspace.

Bill Collins got up from his seat and walked down the row of generals and officials until he stood in front of the screen. His face was a mask of shock.

He had been president for just over twenty-four hours.

If there was a country left after this was all over, he would be remembered as the president who could not stop an unwinnable war from killing millions. He would be reviled. The captain of the ship always takes the blame.

Distantly, vaguely, he wondered how this all might have played out if he hadn’t done everything he could to remove the DMS and cripple their power. Even now reports were coming in from a terrible firefight in Pennsylvania. Collins had reluctantly agreed—in light of Shelton’s confession—to send air support to Ledger’s assault on VanMeer Castle. A second, small screen showed the impact of missiles from six fighters. It was too soon to tell if any more of the T-craft had escaped.

“The message about the Black Book,” he said, “was it sent?”

The question was not directed to anyone in particular.

A second white dot appeared on the screen. Collins knew from Mr. Church’s intelligence that this was probably China’s T-craft, scrambled to confront the enemy. The Chinese craft was on the far side of the country, though. It could never intercept Shelton’s craft in time.

On the screen the white dot was one second away from Beijing.

“God help us all,” Collins said, but for a moment he thought he saw a third white dot. One that blipped in out of nowhere right beside Shelton’s craft.

Then there was a huge white burst on the screen. Intensely white, too bright to look at.

Collins shielded his eyes with his hand for a moment. He cried out like a terrified child.

Silence.

When Collins dared to open his eyes he saw that only one white dot was still there. The other one—or perhaps two—were gone. The last dot had stopped, though, and it hovered directly over Beijing.

And, against all sense, Beijing itself was still there.

Then the dot began moving. It headed out to sea. And then the altimeter began rolling madly, insisting that the craft was moving upward.

Upward.

Upward.

Until it passed within miles of the satellite tracking it and passed beyond its observational range.

Everyone at the table stared in total, stunned silence.

Then a voice behind him said, “The message was sent and received, Bill.”

Collins whirled around. Everyone turned.

A man sat at the head of the table. In Collins’s seat. In the seat reserved for the president.

Collins’s mouth worked and worked.

And then he screamed.

The man at the head of the table leaned forward wearily. He looked worn and thin. His color was bad. But he smiled.

“Gentlemen, the message was received,” said the president of the United States.

Epilogue

(1)

“We’re losing him!”

I’ve been a cop, I’ve been a soldier. I’ve heard people say that. EMTs working on an accident victim by the side of the road as a family SUV incinerated their vacation dreams. ER docs with blood smeared to the elbows as they massage the failing heart of a gunshot victim. Trauma surgeons charging the paddles for the fourth time while a rookie cop slides down into the big black.

I’ve heard it ten times. Twenty. More.

“Put pressure there … no,
there,
damn it!”

Familiar words. A routine of haste and desperation that seldom ends well.

“BP is falling. Sixty over forty.”

You stand by and watch. You have faith in the pros, in what they can do. You’ve seen them pull off Hail Marys with two seconds on the clock, or drop sixty-foot jumpers at the buzzer. Not always, but enough times so you don’t lose all your hope.

“He’s flatlining!”

I’ve heard it, seen it.

“Charging, charging…”

“We’re losing him.”

I’ve heard it all so many times.

But never when it was me down there. Not when I was the one losing the blood, not when I was the one feeling the black ice creeping in through the pores, listening to the doctors and nurses, hanging on every word, hoping to catch a lifeline.