The Fall (47 page)

*   *   *

Jack knew he was in trouble the moment the F22 broke away in a wide circle.

Gun run,
he thought, his heartbeat skyrocketing while he checked his altitude, realizing that the fighter had to be struggling to remain airborne.

And that gave him an idea.

The Raptor came at him from the west, gaining altitude, approaching fast.

Jack gauged the distance, realizing that at this close proximity the pilot wouldn't be using a Sidewinder but just his guns, meaning he would have to get even closer, almost as if he were engaging him in a dogfight.

He waited, as the distant grayish shape grew against morning skies staining the atmosphere in hues of red and yellow-gold.

And just as the fighter got within a couple thousand feet, as Jack's SEAL sense decided the pilot was about to open fire, he pulled the lever, releasing all of his ballasts at once, feeling the sudden upward surge tugging at him as he shot up to a rate of nearly three thousand feet per minute. He watched the fighter jet open fire, its traces shooting through the altitude he had just crossed a second before.

Bastard isn't screwing around,
he thought as the altimeter read sixty-seven thousand feet and continued climbing awfully fast.

*   *   *

Kelly pressed the trigger for a couple of seconds but stopped the moment the balloon soared away from his crosshairs, almost as if attached to an invisible rocket, a mix of surprise and relief sweeping through him as he broke his run and descended to fifty-five thousand feet.

“Base, Red Leader.”

“Red Leader, Base. Go ahead.”

“Ah … the target has climbed beyond the range of my guns.”

“Hold, Red Leader.”

“Roger,” he replied, entering a ten-mile holding pattern while maintaining 350 knots centered beneath the runaway balloon.

The order came a minute later. “Red Leader, you are approved to use a Sidewinder. Repeat. Shoot the target down with a Sidewinder. Acknowledge.”

“Roger that, Base. Acknowledge use of a Sidewinder missile to shoot down unidentified and unarmed civilian balloon with one soul aboard,” he replied, wanting to make sure his ass was completely covered on this one since he had a really,
really
bad feeling what he was about to do would trigger a media shit storm for the Air Force.

He broke off from the holding pattern, dropped to fifty thousand feet and engaged the afterburners, placing the Raptor in a steep ascent while arming one of two Sidewinder missiles.

So sorry, pal,
he thought as he waited for the heat-seeking head to latch on to the weak but still relatively warmer signature of the crate beneath the balloon, now over ten thousand feet above him, but well within the missile's range.

He achieved lock a moment later.

“Fox one,” he said as the F22 released the missile from its left bay just as his altimeter indicated sixty thousand feet, watching it ignite and hurtle skyward while he cut power and nudged the stick forward, dropping back down to a safer altitude.

*   *   *

Jack knew what was coming next, as the Raptor broke off the climb an instant before releasing a missile, which rocketed toward him.

Clutching the M32 grenade launcher, Jack fired two shells in rapid succession, watching them drop beneath him in long arcs, detonating in a burst of flames as their magnesium cores heated the surrounding air to incandescence, creating a much hotter signature for the Sidewinder's heat-seeking head, drawing it away from him, exploding almost a mile under the crate.

He exhaled in relief as he watched the brief fireworks display, though he wasn't certain how many more times he would get lucky as he topped seventy thousand feet or twenty-one kilometers, as his oxygen level dropped below seventy percent and battery power was reduced to two thirds.

And I still have another twenty-seven kilometers to go,
he thought, for the first time starting to wonder if he was actually going to make it as he watched the F22 circling below him, finally losing sight of it as his altimeter read eighty thousand feet.

*   *   *

“Patrick, Red Leader. Missile failed. Repeat. Missile failed. He released flares.”

“Flares?”

“Affirmative.”

The channel went silent for a moment.

“Red Leader, engage target with AMRAAMs.”

Kelly checked his altitude and the altitude of the target, before he said, “Ah, target's above twenty-four kilometers, Base, well above the AMRAAM ceiling. But he eventually has to come back down. Requesting permission again to hold until he does.”

More silence, followed by, “Hold approved, Red Leader.”

*   *   *

United States Navy Captain Ray Rodriguez, commanding officer (CO) of the USS
Roosevelt,
an Arleigh-Burke Class Destroyer patrolling the waters south of Daytona Beach, put down the radio after receiving the strangest of orders, which he asked to be confirmed twice, finally getting it directly from Admiral TJ Perry, commander of Task Force 20, which operated in the Atlantic Ocean from the North to South Poles, and from the Eastern United States to Western Europe and Africa.

He glanced over to his executive officer (XO), Lieutenant Commander Tricia Moore, almost ten years his junior, and frowned.

“Pretty fucking strange, sir,” she said.

He almost laughed and shrugged at the number two officer aboard a vessel he had commanded for almost three years. “Like they said in the
Charge of the Light Brigade
, Commander, ‘theirs not to reason why.'”

Moore relayed the order to the RIM-174A missile operator, arming one of the
Roosevelt
's primary strike weapons, a two-stage surface-to-air missile with a flight ceiling well over 110,000 feet and a range of 240 kilometers.

“Range to target?” she asked while Rodriguez observed her in action.

“One hundred and seventy kilometers. Altitude of … one hundred fifteen thousand feet.”

Rodriguez frowned again, shaking his head. “That may be a bridge too far.”

“What happened to ‘theirs but to do and die,' sir?” she said, smiling.

Now he finally smiled. She was right, of course, even if it meant wasting a five-million-dollar missile.

With a single nod, he gave her the order to fire.

*   *   *

Jack regulated his breathing as the altimeter climbed above 120,000 feet or thirty-six kilometers, the altitude where he had vanished on the way down over a week ago. OAT had increased to almost negative ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit as he got above the ozone layer, smack in the middle of the stratosphere.

He had already consumed well over half his oxygen and battery power had decreased to forty-five percent as the pumps continued to hold pressure and body temperature.

Jack was in the middle of doing some mental math again when he noticed a flash of light well below him, probably several kilometers, although it was hard to tell this high up, as he could see almost two-thirds of the Earth's curvature projecting around him.

Now what?
he thought, as he spotted a distant speck growing by the southern tip of Florida, followed by another flash, much closer than the first.

And that's when he understood.

A two-stage rocket.

A missile.

Jack watched it rise up toward him, almost in slow motion, its second-stage booster glowing.

“Fuck me,” he hissed, right hand reaching for the seat belt strap, while his left clutched the hoses tethering him to the crate, ready to disconnect them.

The rocket continued its skyward trajectory, its booster glowing bright orange against the darker surroundings, backdropped by a spectacular view of planet Earth.

But an Earth in which he didn't belong.

The missile grew in size, probably just a few miles below him.

Jack stopped breathing, tightening his grip on the hoses as the index finger of his bulky Russian glove reached under the seat belt release latch.

But he stopped when the incoming warhead, gray with green stripes, suddenly slowed down, its propellant firing intermittently, before going out.

Jack stared at the missile in disbelief, no more than a thousand feet away, floating in space, before slowly dropping back to Earth.

What are the odds of that?
he thought, as he continued rising, passing the forty-kilometer mark or 131,000 feet with 32 percent oxygen left and 30 percent battery power.

He tried to relax, lowering his breathing rate, conserving the cold oxygen hissing inside his faceplate as the balloon began to slow down to around 750 feet per minute, as he watched his digital altimeter inch toward his option altitude, approaching the upper boundary of the stratosphere.

Almost there.

He forced himself to relax, to imagine his fall, the skydiving profile he would need to adopt as he reentered the atmosphere, as he went supersonic, though he had no way to gauge that. He just had to trust the physics that Angela and Layton had worked out.

Kilometer 46

Oxygen level 16%

Battery power at 12%

Ascent rate 550 feet per minute

Jack glanced at the heavens, momentarily surprised at the size of the balloon at the other end of the ropes. It was almost round in shape, massive, the expanded helium stretching the silvery fabric, in sharp contrast with the long and thin shape during launch.

It's all in the physics, Jack.

He managed a smile.

Jack was definitely going to miss her.

Kilometer 47

Oxygen level 12%

Battery power 9%

Ascent rate 400 feet per minute

Jack unstrapped the seat belt and set the pressurization pump on high, increasing pressure to 6 psi to give himself a safety margin before untethering the hoses providing thermal circulation and pressurization.

From this point on he would rely on the suit's hermeticity to hold internal pressure and hope the G-forces of the jump didn't stress the multiple layers to the point of losing pressurization below 3 or 4 psi before he reached a safe altitude. He would also now be at the mercy of the multiple insulation layers to keep his body at a reasonable temperature for the duration of the jump.

He watched the altimeter tick off the last remaining feet before he disconnected the oxygen hose from the crate and turned on the valve of his portable oxygen canister.

And as the altimeter read exactly forty-eight kilometers—and without hesitation—Jack dove head first into the abyss.

*   *   *

Pete slammed the phone and stood up, turning his hands into tight fists.

Jack had managed to escape, and the irony was that he did it all under his damned nose, using Pete's own resources against him.

He closed his eyes, hoping like hell that when Jack jumped from that balloon, somehow he would just fall back the same way he went up, landing in the waiting arms of a dozen helicopters and a pair of circling F22s, not to mention the dozens of soldiers he had deployed to southern Florida to grab him the moment he—

There was a knock on the door.

He turned around and before he got a chance to say he was busy, Pete stared at the bulky figure of General George Hastings standing in the doorway.

“Pete? Do you mind telling me what in the world is going on?”

 

17

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

It began slowly.

A frozen bank account here, a canceled credit card there.

Then it picked up momentum.

The private accounts of his contractors were hit, tens of millions in funds vanishing overnight.

It became critical when shipments were intercepted by anonymous tips, when his supply chain came under attack, crippling his ability to coordinate his operation, to sustain the production of his suits, when the delicate formula to process salolitite was corrupted, sending Salazar and his team into a tailspin.

Then he lost access to the digital video files, to the real power he held over his people. He thought that those servers were secure, beyond the reach of anyone but him.

But General Hastings had underestimated his enemies.

Standing and walking over to the windows overlooking the peaceful meadow surrounding his salolitite production facility, while Salazar and the rest of his scientists worked feverishly to stabilize the operation, Hastings stared at the eastern skies, at the looming sun breaking the horizon with blinding shafts of orange and gold, staining the indigo sky, washing away the darkness.

A new day.

Hastings thought of those who came before him, of Theodore Hastings, of the legendary GW, of his own father. He would not let them down. He would find a way to survive this attack and continue his legacy.

And I will do so with Dr. Taylor,
he thought, after giving the order to Javier and Davis to follow the digital trace that Raj from SkyLeap had detected in the most recent attack.

In their obsession to destroy him, the hackers had gotten careless, leaving behind a path, a trail for his people to follow in the cyberworld, converging on an IP address that would lead them to a physical location.

Hastings watched the rising sun, squinting, momentarily blinded by the piercing light, his mind already at work outlining the required damage control, which albeit more painful than the first strike, was still manageable.

But his coordinated defense would soon be followed by a carefully choreographed offense the instant Raj and his team provided him with an address.

And this time around, as he continued to stare at the amazing sunrise, he would make sure there would be no tricks.

No mistakes.

No decoys.

Only results, including transporting Dr. Taylor, completely unharmed, to his secret compound deep in the mountains of West Virginia.