Ripper (53 page)

It was over.

THE NEW YORK, NEW YORK
HOTEL AND CASINO, LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

The fifty-five-year-old man who had worked all of his life in his family’s dry cleaning business in Wheeling,
West Virginia, one who had saved for this vacation for he and his wife for two years, watched as the smiling but sorrowful blackjack dealer pulled the last of his chips away. His last card was a queen of hearts, breaking him at twenty-two. His wife placed her arm around him as the last of their savings had disappeared in less than twenty-four hours. The man hung his head as a stranger patted him
on the shoulder.

“Tough luck, buddy,” he said with a less than genuine smile. “Think I can have that seat now that you’re done?”

The dry cleaner could only nod as he finally looked over at his wife. He expected her to be angry, but instead she smiled and leaned into him placing her arm on his waist and making the man waiting for an empty seat roll his eyes at the sentiment being displayed.

Suddenly the lights in not only New York, New York but every building inside the Las Vegas city limits went out. The power was taken from lines all the way to the outskirts of Los Angeles as Europa had done the only thing she could do—she had hacked directly into the power grid streaming outward from Hoover Dam.

Women screamed and men jumped in the seconds just prior to the emergency lighting
coming on. The dry cleaner was knocked to the swirling red carpet as he lost his wife of thirty-two years in the confusion. The blackjack table was knocked over on to him and was literally broken in two as men scrambled for the thousand chips that were loosed on the floor.

What everyone thought was mass panic was actually the largest robbery in the history of the United States, as every casino
in Las Vegas attempted to fend off every man, woman, winner, and loser inside of their darkened establishments. The revenge for sixty years of casinos in Las Vegas separating people from their money had started.

The dry cleaner tried desperately to gain his feet as men and women rushed around him in the dim lights of the battery-powered system. The backup generators for New York, New York kicked
in at thirty-one seconds, but not before mass chaos struck the strip.

Suddenly the dry cleaner felt hands on him and was helped to his feet. He was bleeding badly from a scalp wound as he realized it was his wife who had helped him escape the stampede. As they tried to traverse the gaming floor and make it to the front doors, security men came running in every direction. Then the backup generators
kicked in. The bright lights illuminated a historic mess as men and women fought hand to hand for the spoils on the tables and floor. Security was doing its best to get the situation under control, making people drop their chips and warning them that all chips on the floor that night were accounted for and their surveillance systems knew exactly which players were winners and which ones were
losers. The frenzied crowd didn’t really care. They looted anyway.

As the couple made it to the front door, the two security men pushing people back into the main floor saw that the man being helped by the woman was cut badly on his head. Looking around to make sure they weren’t being watched, the two large guards had a moment of sympathy and allowed the couple to get free of the mess inside
the main casino.

As they hit the hot night air they saw that the situation outside wasn’t any better than inside. Cars had rear-ended each other and there were massive jam-ups on Las Vegas Boulevard. The couple walked until they found a stone bench that had been placed in an area designed to look like Central Park, another place they had always wanted to travel to. The woman used a handkerchief
to wipe some of the blood away from her husband’s head. She leaned over and kissed his cheek.

“I’m sorry honey,” the man stammered. “I should have known I wasn’t a gambler. I’m an idiot.”

The woman smiled and put her arm around the man who struggled to get by at their dry cleaners in Wheeling all of their married lives.

“Oh, you’re not that bad,” she said smiling. Then she reached over and
showed him the inside of her purse. It was full of cash from the drop box located on the bottom of the blackjack table. When the locked steel top had been stepped on so hard that it was forced open, his wife had struck as fast as John Dillinger. While everyone was fighting for chips they would never be able to keep, she had grabbed the one thing that would never fail—cash. The man looked inside the
purse and his eyes widened.

“What … how—”

“Look, I would say we came out of our little foray to Las Vegas about five thousand dollars ahead of the game. What do you say we go home?”

The man leaned over and kissed his wife deeply.

“Yeah, let’s get while the gettin’ is good.”

EVENT GROUP COMPLEX
NELLIS AFB, NEVADA

Suddenly the overhead fluorescent lighting came to full power, stunning the
beast as it entered the computer center. It shielded its eyes as Europa came back to full life. Immediately alarms resumed sounding throughout the complex as Niles slapped Pete on the back.

“At least we gave those below a fighting chance!” Compton yelled happily.

The creature above them finally recovered its vision and shook its giant head once more. It took a moment to reacquire the two men,
and when it did it smiled, once more exposing enlarged, crooked teeth. It was the most frightening grin either man had ever seen.

Before they realized what was happening, the beast stopped in its tracks and its body started to convulse as a cacophony of noise so loud it brought the men down accompanied by bullets teasing through the broken glass of the computer center. The beast roared and turned
toward a threat it hadn’t seen coming. It tried to shield its eyes and head from the onslaught, but there was just too much metal-jacketed lead flying. Bullet after bullet struck the former mercenary. Large-caliber rounds tore its upper body to pieces as it went to its knees. The eruption of gunfire continued until four very loud blasts echoed inside the center. The head of the beast, along with
the hand and arm that had been covering its face, exploded in a spray of red mist. The firing ceased as the body of the mercenary fell forward out of view of Niles and Pete who managed to look up in time to see the creature’s demise.

“Clear!” called out a voice from the hallway.

Niles looked over at a stunned Pete Golding who had covered his head with his arms after they had hit the floor.

“I said clear damn it!”

“C … c … clear!” Niles shouted.

As they looked up over the stair risers above them, a small man along with five others came through the hole in the glass wall. One of the men emptied a full magazine of nine-millimeter rounds into the twitching torso of the giant at his feet.

“Identify yourselves, please,” the man in the lead wearing an old bush hat called down. He reached
up and handed his ambient-light goggles to one of his men.

“Dr. Niles Compton, Dr. Pete Golding!” the director called out as Pete slowly helped him to his feet.

“Dr. Golding, answer a question for me please,” the small man with camouflaged black and gray greasepaint covering his features said as his five men came forward and aimed their weapons at the two stunned men.

Niles could now only shake
his head as the events of the last minute finally zapped his remaining strength and the adrenalin rush started to ebb.

“What is your nickname that the president uses when speaking to you?” the man asked as he cradled the Barrett fifty-caliber rifle across his chest. At that moment their savior didn’t look at all friendly, and neither did his men.

Niles looked from the six men above them to Pete.
Then his eyes went down to examine his broken ankle.

“Baldy,” he mumbled.

“Sorry, sir, I didn’t hear your response,” the man said as the five aimed weapons zeroed in a little tighter than before.

“Baldy, damn it!” Niles answered loudly enough for his voice to echo inside the computer center. He finally looked up, angry as hell his nickname had been exposed in front of Pete.

The man smiled
and gestured for his five men to lower their weapons. He used hand gestures to order them to take up station out in the hallway. He stepped down the risers as agile as a man walking on cotton and came face to face with Niles and Pete.

“I’ll have one of my men look at that ankle, Dr. Compton,” the small man said as he took in the haggard men before him.

“Who are you and who sent you?” Niles asked
as he leaned on Pete even more than before.

“Well, sir, I am a major in the United States Army. I cannot tell you my unit, but I can say that we were sent by the president. Now, is Colonel Collins here and is he alive?”

“Yes, he’s here and was alive the last time I saw him.”

“Excellent,” Major Garcia said as he turned and started up the stairs. “Where is he located at the moment,” he asked
as he moved back up the risers.

Suddenly Europa came fully awake. “There are fifteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds left till core meltdown. Repeat, there are fifteen minutes,
twenty
-
five
seconds remaining till core meltdown.”

Garcia pointed at the overhead speaker system. “I take it the colonel’s location has something to do with that?” “Grateful Dead” Garcia asked as he came to a stop on
the stairs and then half tuned to look down on the two men once again.

“Level eighty-four, the reactor section, and he probably has some very angry and insane company down there with him.”

“Then that’s where we have to be,” Garcia said as he started back up the steps. “It was an honor to meet a friend of the president’s, Dr. Compton, and a man this mission was codenamed for.”

Niles looked from
Garcia’s back to Pete and then back at the army major again. “And what was the code name?” he asked as his anger started immediately to grow.

“Operation Nerdlinger, Doctor. My medic will be down to help you ASAP.”

“Operation Nerdlinger, that bastard!”

LEVEL EIGHTY-FOUR

As Collins traveled down the length of the darkened elevator tube he heard the beast they had just escaped from fall silent.
He thought for sure the altered mercenary would have done what he had noticed the giants had become adept at—following them. As he slowed three levels from the bottom, he adjusted his grip on the rope and managed to get a small flashlight out and examine the sides of the stainless-steel shaft. His hunch was correct as he examined the deep indentations from one of the creature’s efforts to traverse
the slippery sides. That confirmed in his mind that one of them was below on the reactor level waiting for them, and his soldier’s instinct told him who that would be—Smith.

Jack pocketed the small light and slowly continued his descent toward the lowest level of the complex.

Before he reached level eighty-four, he saw the top of Charlie Ellenshaw’s head. The white hair acted as a beacon to
tell him where the bottom was. As he gently touched down he realized that Charlie wasn’t on the bottom of the pneumatic tube, he was kneeling on the top of the disabled elevator rubbing his knees and rocking back and forth. When he heard the whine of Jack’s hands on the rope, Ellenshaw nearly panicked and tried to grab the M-14 he had lain beside him. He fumbled it as Jack lightly landed on the elevator’s
torn top.

“You alright?” he whispered as he undid his rigging.

“I damn near broke both of my legs,” Charlie said as he continued to rub his scraped-up knees.

“Are you going to live?” Jack asked as he examined exactly where they had landed.

The top of the air-assisted elevator had been wrenched open like a can of soup. Jack kneeled down and looked inside the dark interior. It was empty.

“I
think I heard something a minute before you dropped in,” Ellenshaw said as he finally reached for his fallen weapon. Charlie shook his head as he wiped blood from his chin.

“Damn, Doc, did you slow down at all before you hit?” Collins asked as he placed his legs over the edge of the hole.

“I slowed down just fine,” he said and slapped the two weapons still slung in front of him. “Then these
damn things came up and nearly coldcocked me when I hit.” He looked over at Jack. “I made one hell of a lot of noise, Colonel. If one of those things is in there he had to have heard me yelp like a schoolgirl.”

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now, right?” Jack asked, feeling the stickiness of his gloves as he braced himself at the opening. He raised his hand and smelled the substance
and knew immediately that it was blood—thick, rich, and still wet.

“Right,” Charlie answered, sad that he had let Collins down.

Jack looked at Ellenshaw one last time and slowly lowered himself into the black hole of the elevator. He hit softly, making sure nothing on his person rattled or made a noise. As Charlie’s foot came through the top, Collins reached up and tapped his black shoe. He
saw Ellenshaw look down and Jack held his hand up and pointed. Charlie frowned as he understood that the colonel wanted him to stay put for the moment. Ellenshaw nodded his head, thinking that Jack was condemning him to once more stay out of harm’s way.

Jack hesitated as he leaned against the frame where the doors of the elevator once were. He saw one of the doors about ten feet away. In the
dim lighting of the emergency lamp near the far wall, he saw even more blood on the sidewalls of the car. He looked out and saw the rail lead off toward the reactor. He just hoped that whichever creature was down here was too wounded to fight, or possibly even dead. Collins took his first step out onto the concrete floor of the reactor room.

Charlie watched as the colonel vanished. He knew he
just couldn’t hang back like Collins wanted. He hated disobeying his order to stay, but as he was reminded time and time again by the security men he admired, he wasn’t a soldier. So orders meant little to him. Charlie eased himself through the hole, careful not to go crashing down and making him look the fool again. When he eased his aching feet onto the carpeted floor of the car, he quickly removed
his glasses and wiped them clean. With a deep breath that he was careful to hold and expel silently, Ellenshaw stepped out into the open to follow the colonel.