Genocide of One: A Thriller (54 page)

When he spotted him, Jeong-hoon took his right hand off the handlebar and made a call-me
motion. Kento hurriedly switched on his cell phone. He got a signal and heard Jeong-hoon
through his earphones. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Kento lied. Jeong-hoon was not about to abandon his friend. If he knew
the predicament Kento was in, he would rush inside to help. “I’m going to throw you
GIFT,” Kento said. “Then take off for Narita!”

“Okay!”

Kento leaned out, holding the bag with GIFT inside. He aimed and tossed it down. The
white bag flew through the air, and Jeong-hoon, left arm stretched up, neatly snagged
it.

“Jeong-hoon, go!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll save Justin!” he yelled out. Then he flipped his visor closed and
roared off into the night.

Kento watched out the window until the motorcycle raced out the back gate. This might
be the last time he ever saw his friend.

As the roar of the motorcycle faded, the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs got
closer. Kento opened the door and slipped into the seventh-floor corridor, looking
for a place to hide. Next to the lavatory was a small equipment locker for mops and
other cleaning tools. It was cramped and didn’t look like anyone could hide in it,
but someone as small as Kento just might be able to squeeze inside.

He clambered into the locker, which was full of buckets, rags, and brooms and smelled
like disinfectant. He sat there, rolled up in a ball, clutching his knees. All he
could do was pray he got lucky.

After Kento had raced away, Yoshihara was about to toss the medicine into the trash.
But something his friend had said made him stop.

If you don’t do anything she’s going to die!

Human pulmonary alveolar epithelial cell sclerosis. A fatal disease that not even
cutting-edge medical science could cure. Could drinking this colorless liquid really
be all it took to cure it?

In his mind Yoshihara saw Kento, a shadow of his former self, and knew this was no
joke. When they’d had drinking parties back in college Kento had always sat in the
corner, unable to join in, a nothing guy who blended into the wallpaper. Yet here
he was, almost crying, pleading with him to give this medicine to his patient. He’d
been pale and ghastly-looking, desperate that Yoshihara listen to him.

If he didn’t do anything, Maika Kobayashi was going to die. If she were still alive
twenty-four hours from now, it’d be a miracle. Would giving her that liquid make the
miracle come true?

Maybe I should try it, Yoshihara began to think. Though this would break every rule
in the book.

The automatic door slid open, and the attending physician, nurse, and Maika’s father
emerged from the ICU. The father, in his midthirties, turned a haggard face to the
attending physician and was thanking him for doing all he could for his precious daughter.

The mother had stayed behind in the ICU at the bedside of her daughter, whose face
was purplish. Yoshihara looked at the mother and found it incredible how so many tears
could come from one person’s eyes. The mother might well be whispering her final good-bye
to her beloved daughter.

Yoshihara waited until the attending physician had returned to the doctors’ office
and approached the father. “Mr. Kobayashi, a word?”

“Sure,” Maika’s father replied weakly, and came over to where there was a bench.

Yoshihara spoke in a low voice so no one else could hear. “What I’m going to tell
you now you have to keep secret.”

Kobayashi frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Please. You have to promise me you won’t tell anybody.”

Kobayashi seemed dubious, but said, “All right.”

Yoshihara showed him the bag in his hand. “Inside this bag is a Chinese herbal medicine
that might be effective against pulmonary sclerosis.”

“Huh?”
The man had had his hopes crushed so many times, but still a slender thread of anticipation
showed on his face. “There really is a drug like that?”

“It hasn’t been proved safe, which is why the hospital can’t give it to Maika. I can’t
hand it over to you.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” Kobayashi shot back. His tone made it clear he couldn’t
stand one more ordeal. “The medicine exists, but we can’t use it?”

“No. There
is
a way. I’d like you to sign Maika out of the hospital right away. Then she won’t
be a patient here. And we won’t have to be bound by the hospital’s ethics regulations.
The minute she’s discharged, then we can give her the medicine. Even while she’s still
in the ICU.”

The father was too taken aback to respond, so Yoshihara continued. “You have to get
going. It takes thirty minutes for the medicine to work. You’ve got to do it while
she’s still alive!”

The predawn sky
at eleven thousand meters above the Florida peninsula was dyed a mysterious color.
The heavens revealed a clear gradation from deep navy blue to orange, while below
the ocean was still in darkness.

But for Yeager, in the copilot’s seat, this wasn’t a time to enjoy the scenery. The
low-fuel indicator light had been on for some time now. More than 90 percent of their
fuel was gone.

An artificial voice spoke up from the computer behind the pilot’s seat.
Change heading to zero-nine-three. Altitude fifteen hundred feet.

With his unsteady little fingers Akili had typed in their instructions.

“Another steep dive?” Meyers asked.

“Do it,” Pierce replied. “Timing is key here.”

Meyers inputted the numbers into the autopilot. The control stick moved on its own,
banking the Boeing plane to the right as it began its descent. As the nose faced directly
east they spotted a slice of the sun peeping up above the horizon.

Yeager gazed at the point of red light and was struck by a thought. A defense strategy
to deal with the fighters. Was Ema, their Japanese “control tower,” planning to use
the sunlight to confuse the infrared guided missiles that would be targeting their
engines?

“We’re not at our destination yet?” Meyers asked.

“Not yet,” Pierce replied.

“Fuel’s down below three thousand pounds. We have less than twenty minutes before
we crash.”

“Don’t worry. Everything’s going according to plan.”

“How about the radar? Are fighters after us?”

“No sign of them scrambling.”

“I can’t believe it,” Meyers said as he left the pilot’s seat, trying his best to
keep his balance in the descending plane. “No way is the air force going to overlook
an unidentified aircraft entering the air defense zone.” He hunched over the radar.

“Anything?” Yeager asked.

“No. Nothing.”

Yeager felt relieved, but Meyers’s face visibly stiffened.

“Problem?”

“This isn’t good news. In fact the opposite. They didn’t scramble F-15s. These are
Raptors we’re talking about.”

Yeager had heard the nickname. “F-22s?”

“’Fraid so.”

Raptors were the latest stealth fighters, invisible to radar. The most powerful fighter
jets in history, with an astonishing 144:0 kill ratio in mock battles. And now they
had slipped in, unseen, behind the Boeing. Ready to shoot it down.

“They only show up on the radar when they fire a missile,” Meyers said. “When you
know where they are, it’s already too late. Their air-to-air missiles travel at Mach
four.”

The four-fighter squadron scrambled out of Eglin Air Force Base in Florida continued
to fly toward the Sargasso Sea. Cruising speed was Mach 1.8. The weather over the
North Atlantic was perfect, not a cloud in the sky, and as the sun rose above the
horizon an infinite blue stretched out ahead.

Captain Grimes, the flight leader, felt honored to be part of the mission. As the
War on Terror had intensified—after the incident in which the Colombian had violated
US airspace, and with the raising of the defense alert to DEFCON 3 following the assassination
of the vice president—these latest stealth fighters, still in the testing phase, had
been secretly assigned to the Thirty-Third Tactical Fighter Wing. And the scramble
this time was the first real action the F-22s had seen.

Grimes was told the target was a hijacked Boeing prototype 737-700ER. The radar image
sent by data link clearly showed the plane. It was flying at high altitude, making
the occasional minor course correction, 120 kilometers ahead.

Grimes was surprised that the target was sending out such a strong radar signal and
knew it must be the kind of military radar a civilian aircraft did not carry. This
must have been why the stealth Raptors were given the attack order. But though the
target had search capabilities, it was essentially a defenseless business jet. He
wondered why they had to take such precautions.

The Boeing, with its odd flight path, suddenly began to descend. With Grimes in the
lead, the horizontal formation of Raptors began to descend. The F-22s had already
deviated from normal scramble flights and had left the Air Defense Identification
Zone behind a while ago.

Grimes was worried about fuel. How far should they follow the plane over the open
sea? At this rate they’d have to return to base before they caught up with the target.
And he finally understood what orders they would be receiving.

In three minutes the target would be close enough for medium-range air-to-air missiles.

With no radio warning or warning shots, they would be shooting down this target BVR—beyond
visual range.

“Four more states have been hit—Nevada, California, Colorado, and New York,” Holland
intoned, reading from a memo over the videoconference system. “There are also problems
with the control system at the Hoover Dam. The oil pipeline in Texas has shut down,
and the online systems for all major financial institutions aren’t operating.”

The cyberattack against the United States was ramping up. Thirty states were now without
electricity, and the northern half of the country had been forced back to the frontier
era.

If this goes on until morning, Rubens thought, doing some quick mental calculations,
all economic activity will be disrupted, not just industrial production and the financial
system. Losses to the United States will be in the hundreds of billions. And people
freezing to death won’t be the only human victims. With the traffic system snarled
and violence spreading, countless people will die.

This battle with a superhuman being was becoming a game of chicken. If you wanted
to win you had to plow straight ahead, willing to die. But if your opponent adopted
the same strategy you’d both crash into each other.

Ema wasn’t about to steer away, Rubens believed. To save her species she would barrel
straight ahead and step on the gas, for she had to win.

“It’s the Chinese! The Chinese are behind this!” Secretary of Defense Lattimer barked.
“We have to retaliate!”

“The NSA is investigating the cause, but until they determine which country is behind
this let’s not jump to any hasty—” As Watkins, director of national intelligence,
was saying this, the image on the screen wavered, and the electricity in the command
center began to fade. The light soon came back on, but the cabinet members in the
White House and everyone in the Operation Nemesis command center were speechless.
Electric power had been cut off to the capital, Washington DC.

Auxiliary power switched on in the Situation Room, and President Burns spoke up. “I’d
like to hear what the director of the CIA thinks. Are you still harping on that preposterous
idea?”

Holland didn’t flinch at this attack. “Which idea?”

“That this is also the work of that child.”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Holland said. “We immediately halt Operation Nemesis.
For real. I’m asking you to halt all operations and transmit that order to all concerned.
If our opponent is really Nous, then he’ll hack these transmissions and stop the cyberattack
right away.”

Burns was silent, and Holland continued. “There’s no downside to doing that.”

“What do you want us to do?” the air force general broke in. “The F-22s will reach
their maximum range soon. If we’re going to attack, we have to do it now. We can shoot
them down the moment they come in range.”

“The enemy’s heading due east, right into the sun,” Lattimer said. “What kind of missiles
are they carrying?”

“AIM-120s. Radar-guided missiles, so the sunlight won’t interfere. They
will
be shot down.”

“But shooting a plane down over international waters…” Holland said, raising his doubts.

“There are no civilian aircraft nearby,” Lattimer cut in. “And who’s going to complain
if we down a CIA plane?”

But Holland wasn’t about to back down. “Look. There’s no need to fire any missiles.
The hijacked plane is nearly out of fuel. They’re heading to Bermuda, but they won’t
make it. They’ll crash into the Sargasso Sea.”

“Your orders, Mr. President?” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff asked, waiting
for a decision from his commander in chief. “Do we shoot the plane down, sir?”

As he watched this back-and-forth, Rubens was counting on Burns to act rationally.
In a game of chicken, the most logical answer was for one side to keep on coming and
the other side to avoid the collision. The one who lost wasn’t chicken. The loser
was the most rational one. The present situation presented Gregory S. Burns with the
greatest decision he’d ever have to make. This creature beyond human intellect was
urging the most powerful man in human society to make the right call.

“Let me get this straight.” Burns broke the silence, facing Holland. “You’re saying
this cyberattack is the work of that Pygmy child.”

“I am,” Holland said.

“Well, he’s going to regret he ever attacked the United States,” Burns said, and turned
to the air force general. “Permission to shoot down. Down the hijacked plane now.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” the air force general replied.

Rubens knew he was standing at the crossroads of history. All that was dangerous about
human society was condensed in this moment. An instant of madness residing in a political
leader would put the lives of hundreds of millions of people at risk. A future nuclear
war, too, might start the very same way, through a decision by a single mad politician.

Nous must be at the end of his tether. Along with a sense of anxiety, Rubens felt
boiling up in him a brutal impulse.

Kill
, Rubens said silently to this superhuman intelligence.

Kill
, Ema.

Become the goddess Nemesis, who brings divine punishment, and give these arrogant
lower creatures exactly what they deserve.

An order appeared on a multifunction display in the glass cockpit:
ENGAGE TARGET
. Captain Grimes broke radio silence for a moment to relay the command to the other
planes in his formation.

The image on the data link showed the enemy plane, flying low, turning north and ascending.
A business jet like that could try as much as it wanted to evade them, but there was
no way it could avoid an air-to-air missile.

Grimes switched on the master arm. The underbelly hatch opened, and the AIM-120 slipped
down from the weapons compartment. This cutting-edge missile was the latest fruit
of mankind’s intelligence and murderous intentions. The missile flew at Mach 4 and
had internal radar, so it would certainly hit its flying target, forty kilometers
ahead. In less than one minute the Boeing would be blasted from the sky. Over the
past two hundred thousand years humans had continued to evolve more precise and more
lethal antipersonnel weapons. Starting with stones and cudgels, they’d now reached
weapons of this magnitude.

Grimes switched on radar and locked on to the target. The radar waves let the enemy
know for the first time of the Raptor’s presence, but it was already too late. There
was no way the Boeing could escape.

The head-up display showed
SHOOT
. Grimes put his thumb on the control stick trigger, called out “Fox three,” the medium-range
missile’s call sign, and pushed down hard on the trigger.

With a roar the air-to-air missile left the mother ship. Flames leaped out as it hurtled
across the ocean. Right when it was clear the Raptor was going to feed on its prey,
Grimes saw a strange sight. The missile, two kilometers away, was enveloped in a reddish
light that had suddenly appeared, and it vanished.

What the hell? Sure enough, the missile had vanished from radar. Was there a glitch
in the guidance system? He was about to order the other planes to shoot a second missile,
but instead he grunted in surprise. His plane rapidly lost altitude and was suddenly
spinning out of control. He made an instant decision and pulled the escape handle
between his legs. But his seat didn’t eject. An explosion at the rear of the Raptor
sent Grimes and the plane spiraling out of the sky.

When he saw the planes suddenly appear on radar where nothing had been before, Yeager
felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. The enemy was closer than he ever
imagined. Within range for air-to-air missiles. The Boeing was making a rapid descent,
but wasn’t maneuverable enough to shake off a fighter jet. “Enemy planes forty kilometers
behind us!” he yelled out.

Meyers, at the controls, turned. “Radar picked them up?”

“Yeah.”

“They’ve locked on to us!” Meyers yelled, and looked helplessly around him. “Missiles
are away!”

“Don’t panic!” Pierce told the two of them, but his voice, too, was shrill and fearful.
“Do not change course! Stick to the plan!”

“Is it just one plane?” Meyers asked Yeager.

Yeager stared at the radar and saw two points of light now, one moving more quickly
than the scrambled jets toward them. “There’s a second plane now. It’s moving at an
unbelievable speed!”

“That’s a missile! How can we evade it?”

“If it’s an infrared guided missile maybe the sun will—”

“No!” Meyers cut in. “At this range it’s radar-guided. No mistake: we’re going to
get hit!”

“Hold on!” Yeager cried out. All indicators on the radar screen had suddenly vanished.
“The enemy’s disappeared.”

“Disappeared? That’s impossible. The missile should still be on the screen!”

“Forget about the Raptor!” Pierce yelled. “What’s our altitude?”

Meyers checked the instrument panel. “Seventeen thousand feet.”

“Good. We’ll let the autopilot handle it from now on. We’re into the final stage.”

“This is it?”

“Right!”

Even if the air-to-air missile were to continue its pursuit, they had no defense.
They let the autopilot take over and hustled back to the passenger cabin, fearful
they would be shot down at any moment. They hurriedly put on their parachutes. A couple
of minutes passed, but the passenger jet was still flying. Yeager was amazed they
had not yet been shot down.