Rage (31 page)

Raine put the clip back on the dart.

“Okay.” He looked up at the clock. “What else?”

“Don’t want you weighed down too much,” Portman said, “but I put together a good array of ordnance for you. Wait here.”

When Portman came back, he put down four guns and a half-dozen roughly made incendiaries.

“These handguns fire hollow points. Better than what you had. Your M16 was okay, but this one features an expanded clip and autotargeting. More rounds, faster shooting, better aim.”

Raine picked up the fourth weapon, a full-sized shotgun. A monster of a weapon.

“And this?”

Portman nodded. “In some situations, having something that can kick a door in or knock someone’s head off is always welcome.”

Then Raine pointed to one of the explosives.

“Homemade?”

“Yeah. Like grenades from your day. But no adjustable timer. Got about fifteen … twenty seconds—”

Raine laughed.
“About?”

Portman didn’t grin back. “Just pull the pin and throw it. Gave you a half dozen. Any more and you’ll have too much damn weight. Especially with the ammo.”

Elizabeth reached up to her head. “You’d be amazed how surprisingly rare these are.” She handed him her headlamp. “If you get stuck in the dark.”

He took the lamp, then looked over to the table with the drawings of the Capital. “I think I have to do another review of the Capital and the plan.”

“You could do a quick sketch,” Elizabeth said.

Raine stood up. “No—I best get it locked in my head. Doubt I’ll have much time to stop and look at any notes.”

He walked back to the table.

After what seemed too short a time, he felt Elizabeth behind him. A hand on his shoulder. “Raine, time you got going. I can lead you to where we got you a car. Will get you to your point of—what did you call it?”

“Infil.”

“Yeah. Think you’re set?”

Another glance down at the large drawing.

“Okay, let’s—”

They heard a loud near-shriek from behind them, Lassard at the computers.

Then words.

“I got it! I fucking
got
it!”

They moved to stand behind him.

“You see, the Authority,
they
can communicate with all the Arks. Was built into every Ark computer. That was no problem for them.”

He turned around, eyes wide with excitement. “But what they couldn’t do, what they
wanted
it to do … was control when the Arks emerged. To override the Arks’ internal controls and get them all up. The resources in the Arks, the people … all that stuff the Authority wanted. So even though they could
check in on a buried Ark, they had no way to command it to come up.”

“The Arks have operational autonomy?” Raine said.

“Precisely.”

“What we have been trying to do,” Elizabeth added, “was crash the Arks’ systems.”

Lassard pointed at a screen. “This is from one of the Arks—damaged, but with enough systems intact that it gave us a clue. But what you brought, in that hard drive—last piece of the puzzle.”

“What do you mean?”

Lassard turned, looking annoyed.

As if it’s obvious.

“The Authority was able to use their I.T. people, all survivors, all prisoners, to establish communication with the buried Arks.
That
program’s built into all their computer systems, including the one in the Dead City that you brought us. But they still couldn’t override each Ark’s integrity.”

“You’re losing me, Lassard.”

He rolled his eyes and looked at Elzabeth. He was beside himself.

“Don’t you get it? The Authority couldn’t crack each Ark’s program, which made them totally autonomous. They tried, did they ever. But see”—Lassard gestured at his own machine, to all the screens surrounding him—“I did. We can override the Arks. That’s what!”

“Great. Then you can get to them, get the resources? Right now?”

Just as quickly, his smile faded. He looked from Portman to Elizabeth. “We got the override. But what we
don’t
have is the program—and certainly not the damn range—to reach all the Arks.”

Everyone went quiet for a few moments while Raine played
catch-up and began to understand why Lassard was racing to get this thing down before he left.

“But the Authority does? You need to use the Capital’s system to reach each Ark, to communicate with them?”

Lassard nodded. “Right. So now, if we can plant a hard drive with my control program in their system, we can—for a short time—operate from here using their computers.”

“At least,” Elizabeth added, “until they discover it.”

“You mean,” Raine said, “plant it tonight?”

“Your number one goal is to get Marshall out.” She took a breath. “But as you do, you have to try and plant the drive.”

“Captain Marshall,” Lassard said, “well, he knows how the Capital’s computers work. Not the most complicated system. Just need to find a main terminal. Link this”—he spun around and pulled out the drive, now altered, from the one Raine had brought back from the Dead City—“and once we get a signal, we can get the Arks rising.”

“And at the same time, our cells can get into position. No way will the Authority be able to get to all of them.”

Lassard held out the drive in his hand.

Raine took it.

“Want me to lighten your load a bit?” Portman said. “Take out one of the grenades?”

Raine gave the hard drive a heft.

“No. I think I’ll keep everything you’ve given me.” He turned to Elizabeth. “Now, it’s getting late, Dr. Cadence,” he said with a grin. “And you promised me a shot, some pills?”

She nodded, and went over to her medical case.

“All set? I’ll lead you to the buggy. It’s a Monarch. Fast. Reliable.”

Raine nodded. Loaded down with his pack of bombs and weapons, he looked at the others, studying him.

Their hope for the future, recently arrived from the past.

He felt the injection that Elizabeth had given him doing its work. Though it was now near two in the morning, he felt ready.

How long before it wore off? How long would the shot last?

“All set. Thanks. Portman, Lassard.”

Portman nodded. “Just bring our leader back.”

Raine nodded.

“I will do my best.”

Then, with a tug at his sleeve, he turned to follow Elizabeth out of the hideout, through the tunnels of Subway Town, and out to the cold, moonlit night again.

T
he Monarch screamed through the night, a class of vehicle made for the rough terrain and speed. Driving with no lights, the engine adequately muffled, Raine could drive to the outskirts of the Capital with just the reflected moonlight to worry about—and the car’s black matte paint minimized that.

And, possibly because this was a route used by the Authority, no bandits appeared along the way to attempt to stop him.

He felt the chemical cocktail in his veins. His fatigue had vanished, though he knew you could only push a body so far. Drugs could mask when you’d reached that tipping point. Mistakes could be made. So as he drove, he reviewed the steps in the plan again and again.

He knew one thing: he didn’t have time to critique it. No. The
time for evaluation of the whole plan was past, and he certainly hadn’t been any part of that. The only thing to do now was think on each component. Think of them as separate entities, separate challenges.

Self-contained exercises.

Get to A, take care of B, and then move on to C.

And on and on, until it was completed.

All the while being careful to not fall into the trap of thinking about when it was over. When you might be safe.

So he stayed with reviewing the individual pieces of the plan, keeping them in their separate boxes, never once letting himself attempt to answer the big question …

Will I survive this night?

The night progressed, and then he saw it, straddling the great gorge ahead, leading up to a higher plateau.

A goddamned aircraft carrier.

It was like something a Greek god had dropped from the sky.

The USS
Gerald R. Ford
was one of the country’s last carriers before the hammer fell. It had been state-of-the-art and named for a President whose biggest accomplishment was holding the country together when the shit hit the fan.

I wonder how much confidence that inspired in the sailors aboard her?

A road led up to the carrier, to where there’d be guards and electronic defenses.

But not the way he would gain entry.

The carrier’s nuclear reactor powered much of the Capital. Whatever insanity brought it here, left its hull battered and dented, had somehow left the reactors working fine.

The Capital might have backups. Generators. Elizabeth didn’t
know how many, or how long they would take to kick in. But as best they could figure it, taking the carrier’s power out would bring down their defenses … if only for a short time.

Raine stopped the Monarch.

He had smeared some grease on his face back at the Resistance hideaway. He had on a black jacket, his pack also dark.

From here he’d be on foot. He grabbed his weapons and started moving.

Climbing down, Raine stumbled in the darkness, handholds slipping as rock crumpled.

He’d always hated the mountains. Whether because he was clumsy or just couldn’t get a good read for handholds and places to wedge his feet, he always felt out of his element on a mountain patrol. Here the rock was jagged, with razorlike slivers, slowing his progress even more.

Bad place to make a mistake.

Of course, this made the idea of trying to get in and out before dawn seemingly more impossible.

And was there any guarantee they wouldn’t drag Marshall out before morning? That he’d find an empty cell, the Resistance leader dead before telling the Authority butchers anything?

He forced himself to hurry, even though that made him tear his hands on the rock. Nothing deep—just bloody scrapes—but it still made him realize that his body had taken more abuse over these few days than all the combined tours of duty from the past.

At the bottom, he looked up to see whether any guards monitored the gorge floor.

But all he saw was the incredible flat bottom of the carrier hull.

He started walking to the other side. The drawing he had
been shown appeared accurate, though the light was even more scant here, with the ship blocking the moon.

In one drawing the carrier had been lodged on the other side of the gorge at about the two-thirds mark. And there was a place in the hull where they dumped garbage out, whatever leftovers and junk were created by the garrison of Enforcers inside.

And how many Enforcers?

No intel on that.

Could be five. Ten. Twenty. A hundred.

He reached the other end of the gorge floor and started the difficult climb up.

He could see the opening in the hull. Though there didn’t seem to be any nearby rocky perch that would allow him simply to slide in, there was an outcrop close to the opening. He’d have to jump.

Shit.

Yet, he still felt awake, alert. Muscles responding well. He could do this.

He looked at the rock, calculating his move. He could throw the pack in. Might create too much noise, though. Worse, he might even lose it. And he had to remember that even though the hard drive was wrapped up, it was fragile.

No. He’d have to jump with the pack.
Making life a little less easier.

He made his way cautiously to the rock, as close to the hull opening as he could get. A ship the size of a city was above him, and he was about sneak into it like a wharf rat.

Raine could now see a bit of the inside.

Dark. He stopped, listened. No talking. All quiet on the good ship
Gerald R. Ford.

He edged out on the rock some more, as far as he could without falling off. He crouched.

Eyes locked on the opening.

The smooth metal. No visible handholds within this garbage chute of an opening.

No time like the present, he thought.

He leapt.

His midsection slammed into the floor of the opening, his feet dangling, pointing straight down to the gorge floor below. His palms were flat, hands pressed hard against the smooth metal.

While being careful not to lose any of his precarious purchase, he slid first one hand, then the other, to the side, searching for something to grab. At first he felt nothing, and still dangling, getting into the carrier had turned even harder than it first seemed.

But then he felt an edge. He closed his left hand on it, and now in one great effort worked to pull and kick himself in. Wriggling, he slid into the aircraft carrier.

No alarms, no guards.

Sloppy damn security, he thought.

He started making his way forward to the generator then, and the cable feeds that led into the fortress beyond the carrier.

Raine knew he didn’t have time to move slowly; he had to get through the maze of hallways as fast as he could.

He opened his pack. The muzzle of his M16 stuck out.

Time to take it in his hands.

If he met anyone, he would just have to deal with it fast.

As if on cue, when he turned the corner he walked into a pair of Enforcers, their helmets off, talking.

They didn’t look all that intimidating with their robotic head gear off. But their weapons—they looked powerful.

They both did a double take seeing him.

Guess they don’t get too many visitors down here.

Noise or not, he had no choice. He started firing, and the two Enforcers fell to the ground.

Now he began a steady jog, taking care not to go so fast as to slip into oxygen debt.

As Raine ran, he heard alarms go off. Had cameras picked him up? Were the bodies found? Whatever it was, they knew he was here.

Not something he didn’t expect.

Ahead, four Enforcers started marching in his direction. Two stopped, took aim, and started laying down covering fire while the other two raced ahead.

Damn.