Project StrikeForce (27 page)

Nancy stirred. “He’s gone. Get over it.”

Eric glared at her.

“What next?” John asked.

“We hope Karen finds something,” Eric said. “Dyer
intended for the caesium to wind up in Los Angeles, but we’ve identified the
bodies from Dallas. They were members of the 39th Street Bloods, an L.A. street
gang turned Muslim militants. Dyer got played. The caesium is with Abdullah. He
could be anywhere. The VIPR teams in Dallas and Los Angeles are coming up
empty.”

“You think they’ll attack Dallas?”

Nancy slammed her palm on the cafeteria table, and
people in the cafeteria turned to stare. “For Christ’s sake, John, give it a
rest.”

Eric’s phone beeped and he sat up, read the text
message, then pointed to them. “Karen’s got something. Let’s move.”

They dumped their trays at the door on their way
to the War Room, their feet pounding against the tunnel floor. Karen greeted
them on the inside. “We found something.”

“Put it on the screen,” Clark prompted.

She typed furiously and the audio file displayed
on the overhead screens, next to a phone number with a New York address. “I
figured if Abdullah was in New York in the nineties and he was a devout Muslim,
he had to spend time in a mosque. I cross-referenced the list of known Muslim clerics
from that time with ones who have ties back to Afghanistan and the Mujahideen,
then put taps on their phones. This man, Muhammad Al-Hamid, made this call ten
minutes ago.”

They listened to the voice speaking in Arabic.
Karen translated. “Al-Hamid is speaking to a man named Ahmed, pleading with him
to abort the operation. Ahmed is saying that it will be a great blow to the
city and to the Americans. Al-Hamid says he will pray to Allah that Ahmed will
come to his senses, that the operation is a mistake. Ahmed says it is no use
arguing, their friend has too much influence and the youth are behind him. The
attack will happen by noon.” Karen turned to them, her face ashen. “Noon? If
that’s the East coast, that’s only forty minutes from now.”

They all sat back, stunned. Clark was the first to
speak. “City? Does he mean New York?”

Eric nodded. “Sergeant, pass the info along to
DHS, they need to issue an imminent threat alert. Nancy, get Kelly and get the
jet ready, I want wheels up in fifteen.”

“There’s not enough time,” Nancy said. “We need a
contingency plan.”

Eric turned to Clark. “We have one. Is the Black
Lady still on standby?”

Clark’s eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.”

Eric nodded and grabbed John by the shoulder.
“Grab the Battlesuit and meet me at the entrance tunnel in five.”

* * *

John grabbed the plastic cases and
ran to the tunnel entrance, the cases swinging wildly and banging into his
legs. Eric was waiting in a Humvee, and when John tossed the cases in the back,
Eric gunned the engine and they went screeching out of the tunnel into the hot
desert air.

“Put on the suit and VISOR,” Eric said.

John opened the cases, strapping on the Battlesuit
armor. He struggled to clip on the combat harness as the Humvee bounced across
the desert floor, barely managing to click the tabs in place. He put on the
VISOR and activated the electronics, the HUD winking into existence before his
eyes. “If you keep driving like this, I’m going to puke inside this thing.”

“You won’t be able to take your HK, just your
handguns. There’s not enough room.”

Not enough room?
“Eric? What’s the Black
Lady?”

Eric floored the Humvee and headed for the main
runway at Groom Lake. He pointed his finger and John’s mouth dropped as the
plane pulled onto the tarmac. It was a giant black dart, one hundred and forty
feet long, with bulges in the middle and gigantic engine nacelles near the
rear. Men worked on something underneath the plane’s belly, but John could not
make out the details.

Eric smiled. “
That
is the Black Lady. Smith
dug it out of black budget. You’ll be in New York in no time.” Eric hit the
runway, the tires squealing as they bit concrete, and brought the Humvee to a
screeching halt near the middle of the aircraft.

John struggled to load his M11’s, and he shivered
when finally got a good look at what the men were working on. “You’ve got to be
kidding.”

It was a bomb casing, split in half, with a hollow
center. Eric thumped him on the shoulder. “The Black Lady is a one-seater
bomber, but we’ve turned it into a delivery vehicle. For one man. You. When you
reach your destination the pilot will drop you. A couple of hundred feet above
ground the top will blow off, the retrorockets will kick in and slow your
speed. When you’re within five feet of the surface the harness will blow and you’ll
have a short drop to the ground.”

John’s mouth went dry. “That’s insane.”

“They got the tech from an egghead at NASA. They
call it a skycrane, they’re going to use it on some Mars probe.” Eric smiled.
“Don’t worry, either it’ll work or you’ll be paste. It’s a tight fit, I hope
you’re not claustrophobic.”

He wanted to scream at Eric that he was, indeed,
claustrophobic. He keyed off the comms on the VISOR so that no one could hear
their conversation. “I don’t want to go.”

Eric turned to him, his gaze unwavering. “I know
you’re angry at us. I know you probably want to take a swing at me—”

“I don’t,” John interrupted. “I don’t want to hurt
anybody. I don’t ever want to hurt anybody again.”

Eric paused. “Think of what happens if Abdullah
succeeds. You want that on your conscience? Think of it as karma. You can’t
ever make up for what you did, but maybe this can pay some of it back.”

John shook his head. “I’m not ready.”

“You’re ready,” Eric reassured. “You’ll do this
because you’re a good man who wants to do the right thing. No matter what else
you may think, understand this. I believe in you.”

John realized he’d been holding his breath,
waiting for Eric to shoot him, but Eric’s words filled him with hope. He didn’t
want to let the man down. He keyed his comms back on. “How do I get in that
thing?”

* * *

John felt suffocated inside the
bomb casing, even though the VISOR was piping fresh air across his face. His
HUD showed his elevated vitals and erratic pulse. He blinked rapidly as the
aircraft vibrated, preparing for takeoff.

The bomb casing provided its own heating and
cooling and two hours of air. When he asked Eric why two hours, Eric shrugged
and said within two hours he would either be where he was supposed to be or
dead.

“John, can you hear me?” Eric’s voice crackled
over comms.

John took slow breaths in an attempt to calm his
breathing. “Yes.”

“As soon as the Black Lady is airborne, we’ll be
following in the Gulfstream. You’ll be in New York in less than thirty minutes.
We have a ground team ready and waiting, we’re going to drop you on the edge of
the city. They’ll pick you up. Just hang in there.”

John hesitated. He tried not to think of how
little space there was inside the bomb casing, but no matter how tried, even
the tiniest of movements reminded him that he was flat on his back and packed
in like a sardine. “Eric? It’s tight in here. I feel like I can’t breathe.”

“John? It’s Doctor Barnwell. We can help with
that. We can trigger the Implant to inject a mild sedative until your
deployment.”

John sighed. “That would be fantastic.”

“Activating the Implant.”

Calm washed over him as his vitals dropped to
normal, and he suddenly felt sleepy instead of panicked. “Thanks, Doc.”

A whine increased in pitch, becoming a dull roar,
and the VISOR worked hard to dampen the sound of the engines. The plane shook
as it rolled down the runway, then the g-pressure increased.

The sense of motion increased and the roar of the
engines could no longer be muffled by the VISOR. He felt his entire body shake
like a taught bowstring, and then his stomach dropped out and knew they were
airborne.

aren slammed down her tenth large
coffee. Her bladder was killing her, but she was too caught up in her work to
pee.

She shook her head. They really needed to put more
coffee machines in the War Room. Or, maybe she could requisition a coffee
machine just for her desk. No, Clark would never agree. Everyone thought she
had a problem with caffeine. She tried to explain that it kicked her mind into
overdrive, but no one listened. Her husband understood.

She stared at her monitor. She missed Brad. The
casual sex on base helped, but it wasn’t the same. It might be interesting with
Eric, though, and if she had her way he would be next on her list.

Focus, Karen.

Somewhere in NYC, there was a clue to Abdullah’s
plans.

She fed video from NYC to all the available
analysts, everyone watching in real-time for aberrations, for the pattern in
the stream. There were thousands of video cameras, though, and the analysts
were overwhelmed.

If only they had more time. If only there were
fewer cameras.

She was leading a shared instant message chat with
the analysts when a private IM alerted her that Dewey Green wanted to speak.
She had met Dewey at the NSA on one of her first projects. She thought he
suffered from Asperger’s syndrome, and every time he opened his mouth she was
proven right. He was brilliant, in his own way, and she had submitted his name
for recruitment. Dewy had a preternatural ability to process information and
seemed like a perfect fit for the Office, until his personality quirks quickly
got him banished from the War Room. Now he worked on special projects in his
own office, on the lowest level of the base, far from prying eyes. Or people to
offend.

It was for the best. His constant
stream-of-conscious talk frazzled her nerves.
If I have to listen to another
recap of WKRP in Cincinnati, I’ll go crazy. God, why can’t he at least obsess
about something recent.

CAN’T CHAT DEWEY, she typed.

WORKING ON SOMETHING?

YES.

HAHA, I ALREADY KNOW, I TAPPED YOUR VID STREAM.

She sighed.

Of course he did.

YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE WORKING ON THIS. I
THOUGHT YOU WERE ON A PROJECT?

I’VE BEEN WORKING ON THE O/R WITH AI/NEURAL
NETWORK THING. YOUR VID STREAM WAS THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO TRY IT OUT. IT
FLAGGED SOMETHING.

Her heart skipped a beat. Dewey was weird and
could come across a little creepy, but he was also the smartest person she had
ever met. WHAT?

HERE.

Her IM client collapsed, replaced with video from
a single camera. She growled in frustration as he took over her workstation.
Sometime soon, they were going to have a serious talk about boundaries.

The video was clearly from a tunnel entrance, but
she didn’t recognize it. Vehicles passed through, each outlined in a white
pixelated box, each popping a tag with a brief description. Then, a white and
blue panel truck approached and entered the tunnel. The truck was tagged with a
description.

SERVICE TRUCK/FIDELITY 95%/ANOMALY 73%/FLAGGED FOR
REVIEW

The video collapsed and her IM client resumed.
THAT WAS THREE MINUTES AGO, AT THE HOLLAND TUNNEL, INBOUND TO NEW YORK CITY.

She almost spit out the last of the coffee as
alarm bells started ringing in her head. WHY WAS IT FLAGGED AS AN ANOMALY?

THE PROGRAM NEVER MATCHED A TRUCK LIKE THAT IN NEW
JERSEY. SHOULD BE CON ED. PEPCO IS DC. PRETTY COOL, HUH?

ARE YOU TRACKING IT?

OF COURSE. IT’S HEADING FOR MIDTOWN.

A series of videos displayed quickly, showing the
progress of the truck, and she knew that it was Abdullah.

THANKS, DEWEY.

NP, K. WANNA COME WATCH SEASON 2 OF WKRP?

IT’S ALL HANDS ON DECK, DEWEY. THINGS ARE CRAZY. I
OWE YOU ONE.

* * *

Western United States

They had just left Area 51 when
Nancy joined Eric and Mark Kelly at the video monitor in the Gulfstream. Karen
and Clark were on the split screen and both appeared worried.

“Show them, Karen,” Clark said.

An aerial shot of Manhattan appeared. “Times
Square,” Karen said. The photo zoomed in until they could see the area in
detail. “This is a stock photo. Now, watch this.” The stock photo was replaced
by a series of grainy video cameras, showing different angles of the famous
landmark. “This is from the Bank of America on 46th.”

Eric sucked air over his teeth as he watched the
panel truck with the blue PEPCO logo pull up on the curb. “You think it’s him?”

Karen nodded. “It’s an anomaly. It should be a Con
Ed truck. PEPCO is in DC. What would a DC power truck be doing in Manhattan?”

A cold pit settled into Eric’s stomach. “Clark, is
there time to call DHS and get a VIPR team?”

Clark shook his head. “We’re trying. It will take
thirty minutes to get through the proper channels, and besides, the VIPR team
in New York is running light, most of them are deployed to Dallas and Los
Angeles.”

Eric watched as two men got out and placed rubber
cones around the truck. “Damn it. We don’t have thirty minutes. How far out is
the Black Lady?”

“You can’t be serious,” Clark said, eyes widening.

“Get the Old Man on the phone. I want it
authorized.”

Clark sighed. “On it.” His screen went black.

“Karen? What can you do for us?”

Karen scowled. “What can I do?”

“Let’s assume he’s not a suicide bomber. Let’s
assume a remote detonator.”

Karen squinted, then her face lit up. “He’d
probably use a cell-phone. I can kill cell phone service in Manhattan, but
people are going to freak. Eric? What you’re suggesting with Frist? It’s crazy.
We’re supposed to be a secret organization.”

Eric’s mind raced, but he dismissed the negatives.
They were simply out of time. “Do it.”

Nancy stared at him from across the small table.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Eric noticed the rare display of concern. “Let’s
hope John can do this,” Eric said, “otherwise parts of New York will be
uninhabitable for years to come.”

* * *

Eastern United States

Jim Blix was piloting the Black
Lady through the thin atmosphere at one hundred and twenty thousand feet when
the new destination popped in his HUD. In that moment, he knew something had
gone terribly wrong.

When the CIA came knocking on his door, it was a
no-brainier for him to leave the Air Force. The Lockheed X-100 bomber,
code-named the Black Lady, was a test bed for experimental scram-jet
technology. His first experience in the Black Lady was close to orgasmic, and he
was crushed when the aircraft was scrapped after 9/11. He was surprised when a
man showed up on his doorstep the next year, offering him a new job in an
organization so secret that even mentioning it could get him locked away for
treason.

He triple-checked the new orders as the ship’s
computer recalculated his flight plan, then called to confirm. “Pleasure
Palace, this is the Black Lady. Requesting a confirmation of new orders.”

“Please hold, Black Lady.”

There had to be a mistake. He knew what was in the
weapons-bay. The man’s vitals displayed on his HUD. Someone must have made an
error.

“Black Lady, do you copy?”

He recognized Fulton Smith’s voice and gulped.
“Roger that, Pleasure Palace.”

The Old Man’s voice was crystal clear. “Please
verify your orders.”

He punched in the challenge code and there was a
pause, then the orders came back with the correct response.

“Orders are confirmed,” the Old Man said. “You
have your destination.”

He felt the plane roll, making the corrections.
The HUD displayed his new trajectory and speed.

He was coming in over Pennsylvania at 7800 miles
per hour and was headed for New York City, starting his descent. In the
distance he could see the curvature of the earth. He knew that he had to slough
off the majority of his current speed to deploy the package. Opening the
weapons-bay doors at his current speed would make the aircraft unstable. The
computer couldn’t compensate and the aircraft would disintegrate.

His stomach dropped as the plane dove into the
heavier atmosphere, the air piling up in front of the ship as it became a
glowing hot ball across the sky.

He began to shake as the ship plunged towards the
earth and he felt the airframe skidding through the air as the computer worked
the control surfaces, too fast for any human being, to maintain the
configuration that kept the ship aloft. Airspeed dropped dramatically and the
airframe whined as the weapons-bay door opened. The ship vibrated wildly, the
aerodynamics now compromised.

He considered the talk button, then pushed it and
said to the man in the weapons bay, the man he saw for the first time just
minutes before, “God go with you, son.”

The skyscrapers of Manhattan approached, the ship’s
speed finally dropping to sub-sonic as the scramjets flamed out, slow enough to
finally release the package. He imagined the people below, looking up as the
roar of the sonic boom finally caught up to the sight of the black aircraft,
and wondered what they would think.

The skyline rushed closer, the tall buildings a
giant canyon so close he felt he could reach out and drag his fingers across
the concrete and steel, and then the ship jumped and he knew the package had
been released.

The most powerful jet engines ever developed
roared to life, slamming him skyward. He felt his body compress and his flight
suit inflate against his skin, desperately trying to counteract the g-force and
keep the blood flowing to his brain. The ship headed for the edge of space
where the scram-jets could once again come to life—a quick burn over the
Atlantic to meet up with the modified KC-135 for refuel and he would soon be
heading home.

* * *

New York City, New York

John was barely conscious of the
outside world until the ding of his comms alerted him to Eric’s incoming call.

“John, we have a development.”

He blinked sleepily. “Where am I?” His body
vibrated, shaken by an invisible hand, and then he remembered.

He was a human bomb.

“They’re activating the Implant, John.”

He felt a surge of adrenaline through his veins
and gasped for breath. The previous experiences with the Implant had never felt
so intense, his body and mind going into overdrive as his heart tripwired in
his chest.

“What’s happened?”

“We believe a PEPCO truck loaded with the stolen
cesium just pulled into Times Square.”

The Black Lady shook and he felt grinding through
the airframe.

His VISOR displayed a grainy video and he watched
as two men dressed in PEPCO uniforms walked steadily away from the truck,
heading west.

“We believe the taller one is Abdullah,” Eric
said. “The younger one is a member of the Islamic Brotherhood, a kid named
Ahmed. They’re two blocks west on 46th street, and Karen says they are looking
at a manhole cover. They’re probably going to try and trigger the bomb
remotely, but Karen’s locked down the cell towers in Manhattan. Are you ready?”

He wanted to scream.
Of course I’m not ready!
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Good answer, because you’re going to be dropped
any second now.”

He heard an unfamiliar voice whisper through the
VISOR. “God go with you, son.” Then the Black Lady shook and his stomach
dropped away as the bomb was released.

He watched the altimeter plunge in the VISOR. The
HUD showed his trajectory as he came in over 8th Avenue at six hundred miles
per hour, and then there was an thump and a jerk that took his breath away as
the sky-crane deployed.

With a mighty bang the bomb casing split in half
and the carbon fiber panels blew apart, the sky now open to him.

The view was incredible.

He rocketed through the air, feet first, clear
blue sky above him. As he arced down, the skyscrapers of Manhattan came into
view over the tips of his boots, and he knew that he was seeing something no
one had ever witnessed—Manhattan in the open air, at six hundred feet. The
g-forces added up and the altimeter continued to plunge, and then the sky-crane
was blasting away.

He was coming in hot, the people below him turning
to look up, their faces shocked. The numbers continued to drop, slower now, and
the sky-crane’s rockets blasted harder and there was a metallic snap as the
wires from his harness released.

He was just meters above the hood of a passing tan
Volkswagen, stopped to honk at someone in the crosswalk. He had time to
register the driver, a harried silver-haired woman, face frozen in fear, before
he slammed into the hood, crumpling it like a beer-can, the impact sending a
stinging pain through his legs.

He jumped from the hood onto the crosswalk at the
corner of 46th and 7th, pedestrians shrinking back in fear, pointing at him.

He had arrived in Times Square.

* * *

Abdullah pulled the truck onto the
curb in Times Square as the noon-day traffic rushed around them. He absently
fingered his coat with the PEPCO label. The New Yorkers went about their
business, oblivious, as he got out and Ahmed helped him place orange cones
around the truck.

They each took a stack of cones and headed west,
down 46th street, against the flow traffic. Police officers milled to the
south, but none had noticed the truck. Ahmed walked faster, but Abdullah pulled
him back.

“Do not rush.”

They continued past the theater and the New York
Church of Scientology headquarters until Abdullah motioned to the manhole cover
in front of the Paramount Hotel. “Here.”

Ahmed placed a cone on the west side and Abdullah
placed a cone on the east, then they withdrew steel rods with rings on one end
and hooks on the other from their coats and worked together to lift the manhole
cover out of place. The midmorning rush of traffic stopped in that lane, cars
honking. Abdullah smiled and waved at them to go around. A turbaned cab driver
in front of him saluted him with his middle finger but Abdullah just waved
pleasantly.