Kill Decision (55 page)

“You’re such a drama queen. . . .”

Odin helped McKinney inside. “Careful, it’s steep.” He held her hand as she climbed in.

She had never seen such a boat. The seats were heavily padded and facing backward like a theme park ride. Only Foxy’s seat faced forward, looking through what appeared to be a reinforced pilot’s window. Otherwise there was only one other forward-facing window to let light in. The thing resembled a big orange torpedo angled downward at forty-five degrees.

Odin glanced toward the bow of the ship, and then ducked inside, slamming the hatch shut and throwing the bolts.

Foxy peered through the narrow side window. “If I’m not mistaken, those are rocks up ahead. Get seated, people!”

McKinney was already strapping herself in as Odin climbed into a seat across the aisle from her. He raced through the fasteners, and then shouted, “Hit it, Foxy!”

Foxy pounded a release button, and they dropped in free fall for a second or two before plunging into the sea, fully submerging. The impact knocked the wind out of her. The rescue boat rolled and bobbed like a cork and finally surfaced, as the roar of drones and something even deeper came to them.

Then she heard a water jet engine kick to life and saw Foxy push the throttle lever forward. “I don’t give us much chance of outrunning them.”

Odin unbuckled from his seat. “I do. They’re otherwise occupied.”

McKinney unbuckled as well and joined him to look out the narrow porthole above the rear entry door. She held her breath as the massive container ship, swarming with drones, thundered past behind them—a wall of blue steel the size of a shopping mall.

She craned her neck to look ahead, toward rocks rising ten meters out of the sea in a swirl of crashing waves.

And then the bow of the ship crumpled and ripped apart as it steamed full speed over itself along the line of jagged rocks. The water reverberated with the horrendous shrieking of metal, but the momentum of two hundred thousand tons of ship and cargo going twenty miles an hour just kept it plunging forward, rippling the bowline and spilling thousands and thousands of forty-foot shipping containers into the sea and over the shoals.

The cloud of drones dispersed, while many were caught in the collapsing towers of containers. The ship was already grounded up to its center tower when it started to break in half, flames erupting as the crash continued for nearly a minute more before the wreckage finally came to a stop.

The whole time Foxy roared away at full speed from the scene, increasing their view of the wreck.

The stern of the ship settled back against the shallows, and the bow remained buried under a ridgeline of multicolored shipping containers crawling with thousands of agitated and completely disorganized drones—some now flying around on fire. Billowing clouds of black smoke climbed into the sky, marking the spot.

McKinney nodded to herself. “Looks like colony cohesion has collapsed. That’s not precisely how it works in the real world. I’ll have to look at the model.”

Odin just glared at her. “The hell you will. . . .”

CHAPTER 31

Reap the Whirlwind

H
enry Clarke stood
in front of his Reston, Virginia, office looking up at a crescent of ghostly white moon in the daytime sky of early spring. He’d never noticed that this place was actually beautiful.

A powerful V-8 engine rolled up somewhere behind him, followed by a few taps on a horn. He kept gazing at the woods just beyond the business park. How far did they go? Funny that he’d never wondered about that.

The whine of an electric window rolling down came to his ears, and he heard a familiar woman’s voice shout, “Get in the car, Henry. We’ve got a disaster on our hands.”

Clarke turned to see Marta peering out from the rear passenger seat of a black Cadillac Escalade. Steamlike emissions trailed from the tailpipe as the driver stood by, idling. Clarke walked toward the SUV as Marta’s fingers drummed impatiently on the window frame.

She didn’t look happy. “Why haven’t you been returning messages? You’re not even carrying your phone. I’ve been trying to find you all morning.”

Clarke just stood silently at her window.

“What the hell is going on with you?” She grabbed her sunglasses from her purse and put them on with exaggerated irritation. “Get in the car!”

Clarke shook his head and looked around the parking lot. “I’m not coming.”

She frowned and leaned forward. “Get in the damned car. I can’t believe you aren’t already scrambling to deal with this.”

He gave her a blank look that must have spoken volumes.

She looked horrified. “Are you telling me you have no idea what’s just happened?”

He shrugged. “I sure don’t. And you know what? It’s kind of nice not to know what’s going on.”

“I hope you’re not still freaking out over your midnight visitor.”

“He could just as easily have killed me, Marta. And what would have happened to him? Nothing. You and I both know it.”

“Probably, but that’s not the way it—”

“I had no idea I was signing on for that. I’m not a soldier.”

“This is how the world works. Power comes at a price. Maybe now you’ll realize there are one or two things I can still teach you.”

He shook his head. “I’ve learned everything I want to know already. This isn’t fun anymore. I need to get busy finding out what I want from life.”

“Get in the damned car.”

Clarke shook his head again. “I’m not getting in the car, Marta.”

“This isn’t a request.” She pulled off her sunglasses again, her eyes boring into him. “There’s a news story about to break in media outlets we have no control over. We’ve got to get out in front of this—disarm the opposition before our support in the House and Senate crumbles. There are hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, Henry. We need a full-court press, and it’s going to take all of our resources to contain the damage. So get your ass in the car.”

Clarke looked into her hazel eyes. He could see the unhappiness there. He’d never realized that before. It seemed a dismal prospect to think that this was all he could aspire to. “I’m done.”

“You’re done when I say you’re done. There is the slight technical detail that you have a contract.”

Clarke could smell her fear. “My company has a contract with your company. Remember, you didn’t think enough of me at first to require my personal involvement. All you’ve got over me is a three-year noncompete clause.” Clarke laughed ruefully. “And I won’t be remaining in the profession.”

Her eyes narrowed at him. “If you leave now, in the middle of this crisis, we will blackball you. You don’t want to know what we can do to marginalize you, to discredit you—oh, but then again, maybe you do know.”

He couldn’t help but grin as he looked at her with something amounting to pity. “Who acts like this, Marta?” Clarke started walking along the horseshoe drive.

The black SUV rolled alongside him, keeping up. “You’re like a mental patient.”

He laughed, feeling lighter and happier with every step. “You know, I actually feel more sane than I’ve ever felt.”

Her cell phone started warbling. “Last chance, Henry. If you don’t get in this car immediately, you’ll regret it.”

At that he doubled his walking pace. It really was a beautiful spring day. He heard the electric window whine closed behind him, as the SUV’s engine thrummed. It accelerated past him, the blacked-out windows sparing him her disdainful look.

Clarke smiled to himself—as though a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He’d been dreading that conversation, and now it was over.

He watched her SUV halt at the entrance to the business park, signaling a right turn, heading to the centers of power.

Let them fight over it. He was done.

Suddenly a dark object streaked in silently from above—moving so fast he could barely perceive it. It impacted the black Escalade, waiting at the intersection, instantly detonating into a shock wave that sent metal parts, glass, hurtling into the air, followed quickly by a rolling fireball and a deafening BOOM that broke windows in the nearest office building. Car alarms started wailing all over the parking lot.

“Jesus!” Clarke was frozen in place on the sidewalk, watching the roiling flames as they consumed the twisted remains of Marta’s SUV. People abandoned nearby cars and ran for safety. Others came out of nearby office lobbies to watch the vehicle burn. As spectators began to gather, Clarke pushed through them, passing dozens of people holding up their smartphones as they tried to take video of the wreckage.

CHAPTER 32

Prodigal Son

P
rofessor Linda McKinney descended
the folding steps of an unmarked Gulfstream V jet on the military side of Standiford Field in Louisville, Kentucky. It was early afternoon and a bright spring day, though a tad breezy. Cumulonimbus clouds dotted the sky like floating mountains. She closed her eyes and breathed in the fresh air. She was actually home—or at least where her parents had settled after her father retired.

She turned to see Odin in khaki slacks and a button-down blue shirt carrying a rucksack as he descended the steps behind her. A hard-faced Special Forces colonel stood waiting for them at the bottom of the steps. She recognized him from the video screen in Colorado—only this time he was real.

He extended his hand to Odin and gripped it firmly. “Congratulations, Master Sergeant. I knew if anyone could wreck their system, it would be you.” He grimaced. “But did you really have to use a ship filled with BMWs to stop these things? That was quite a bill.”

“I had to improvise, Colonel.”

Odin stood alongside McKinney as the colonel nodded to her in turn. “Remember the terms of your debriefing, Professor. Until we locate the people behind this plot, you’re still in danger. Are you sure you want to do this?”

She nodded. “I need to.”

He nodded back. “Very well. Odin here will accompany you.” He extended his thick, scarred hand to her. “Professor McKinney, the United States is grateful for your service.”

She accepted his crushing grip.

“We might have reason to call on your expertise in the future. I hope you’ll be willing to help us.”

McKinney raised her eyebrows.

Odin stepped forward. “We can talk about that later, Colonel.” They moved away across the tarmac.

The colonel called after him. “Take your time, Master Sergeant. Take all the time you need.”

With that the colonel climbed into the jet, and a uniformed crewman pulled up the steps behind him, closing the door. The plane’s engines whined to life as McKinney and Odin walked to a nearby hangar and a waiting civilian passenger van. It all seemed surreal as she looked around her. So normal.

After a few minutes of travel in silence, the van stopped near a public terminal. They disembarked, and Odin led them through a restricted access door, where two customs officials in uniform with IDs on lanyards waited for them.

Both men were in their fifties. One was pear-shaped and balding, with an extra chin; the other was thin and fit with a clean-cut appearance, despite his graying hair. He smiled to them both.

“Welcome back to the United States, Mr. Shaw. Ms. McKinney.” He handed them both new, unstamped American passports. “You two have a nice day.”

McKinney opened the passport, relieved to see her familiar, terrible photo. To have her identity back.

The other man entered a code on a keypad that unlocked a nearby steel door. He opened it to reveal a stairwell that led up.

Odin nodded to them both, and he and McKinney headed upstairs to a push door marked with warning signs that it must remain locked at all times. They pushed through and found themselves on the other side of the customs station and in the public air terminal among aircraft gates. Travelers walked past them.

People crowded around the many flat-screen televisions bolted at intervals along the length of the terminal. Cable news was on, and as they walked past, McKinney could see video images of a massive, smoking wreck viewed from the air—a colossal ship burning on shoals in the South China Sea.