Encrypted (71 page)

All those hours Grant spent training in deception, he really should have spent some time in hand-to-hand combat. Zach elbowed Grant in the wound
,
forcing the man to drop his guard on the left side. Zach grabbed Grant’s gun hand and forced it back around. Pulling the trigger again and again and again, Zach put three bullets in Grant’s belly.

The man looked downright shocked as his knees gave out. Zach snatched the gun away as Grant slumped to the floor.

“How’s that retirement plan working out?” Zach asked as he turned back to the task at hand.

Leaning over the control keyboard
—
now smeared with Grant’s blood, Zach typed in his name. Ronnie was supposed to keep this specific
,
yet simple. The
back door
to the auto-detonation system opened. Then
,
of course
,
came
the dreaded security question.

Who is the leader of the
Ewok
nation
?

Seriously? A ray beam from outer space was about to fry his ass
,
and he had to remember something from
Star Wars
? Okay, so maybe there was some irony there, but still…

* * *

Ronnie rushed down the stairs still trying to get the laser
under control. The damn stone castle dampened her signal then the
X
-ray beam itself was ionizing the atmosphere enough to really fritz the connection.

No matter how hard she tried, the beam seemed to have a mind of its own. Basically the laser had gone rogue. Out the window
,
she watched the beam blink out for a moment only to appear two hundred feet to the left then back to the right.  Right inside the security room. If the central mainframe was damaged
,
they could forget about any escape.

She stopped on the steps and used the stone wall to help increase her keystrokes
’
accuracy. It didn’t make any difference. The beam danced along the wall, gouging it, then headed out into the fields, only to come back again.

Okay time for the beam to go beddy-by
e
. Ronnie typed in the override code only for the satellite to reject it. Um, not a great time for the beam to go all HAL-9000. She tried every trick in her very extensive list of tricks, but nothing worked. Then she realized why.

Sure
,
the satellite’s job had been promoted as a way to knock nuclear missiles out of the sky
;
however
,
it
’
s higher purpose
and
function was to actually take out the missile silo itself. Specifically
,
the computer system running the silo.

Unfortunately
,
the only way she could hack into the satellite’s controls so quickly was to convince the satellite that a castle in Cutler, Maine was actually a Russian missile silo in Siberia. At first
,
she could control the direction of the laser
,
but now that the satellite had locked on to the Hidden Hand’s mainframe?

There was no keeping the satellite from the electronics hub.

* * *

The name of the
Powerpuff
Girl
s
’
creator?

Come on, Ronnie. It is
me
you built these questions for. Ask me the Kansas City Royals overall ERA or something.
That
he could answer.

He typed in Groucho Marx, knowing it was wrong but hoping the next question was one he could answer.

The screen flashed red
,
and
then letter
s
scrolled across.
Dude. Seriously
,
have you listened to nothing I’ve ever said?

Clearly, no.

The walls vibrated as the laser chewed its way back through the castle’s thick stone.

Okay. Last chance. What is the proper answer to this greeting… Hey, sexy
.

Zach smiled. This one he could answer.

“Hey there, yourself,” he typed.

The rest of the monitors went blank. The remaining screen bloomed a bright, happy green. A timer began ticking down as the laser broke through the door, aiming straight for him. There was nowhere to run
and n
owhere to hide as the air shimmered in advance of the blazing energy beam. Still
,
Zach wedged himself in the furthest corner.

Then the laser stalled, sputtering. It wove right, then left. As if it were a hunting dog who’d lost its scent. Still
,
the beam set fire to anything it touched. Zach covered his nose with his tunic. How to get around the laser without getting crispy
-
fried himself?

Inch by inch
,
the beam advanced on his position. Then the laser stopped, burning straight down. The floor melted away as the room thrummed with energy.

Zach turned his face away from the blistering heat. His last thoughts
were
of Ronnie.

Okay, maybe not last thoughts
,
as the beam suddenly lurched, buzzing away from him and the security room, making a beeline away from
here
. Not waiting for the laser to change its mind, Zach skirted around the now
-
gaping hole in the floor, Grant’s body, and made for the stairs, only… well… there weren’t any steps, at least not anymore.

* * *

Ronnie watched as the laser angled away from the turret and made for the southern fields. They were in luck that the Hidden Hand had planned for a lot of different attack scenarios, including a site-wide power outage. They had a generator and backup computer system in an underground bunker near the edge of the property.

All she had to do was boot that baby up, remotely. With the main computer system going down for the auto-destruct sequence, the satellite had latched on to the next most active electronic bay. And since that computer system was busy trying to figure out the last digit of pi and the Star Wars satellite was running out of fuel, they should be set.

That is, if they could get to the rendezvous point. Ronnie hurried down the rest of the stairs, jumping over a jagged gouge in the floor. All those hideous tapestries
were
now on fire, singeing down to their last thread. The only thing that kept the place from burning was the torrent of rain.

Ronnie kept to the center of the dining hall
, and
then made the first right. She hit the chapel doors at a run.

Streaks of light, from the lightning, the laser, or from those on high shone through the high, narrow stained glass windows. Windows decorat
ed with angels of all types were
each casting their own set of swirling angelic script on the floor.

Tentatively
,
Ronnie step
ped
inside the chapel. If the symbols had been captivating at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this was…well, heavenly. She glanced up at the windows. Where were the symbols coming from? The stained glass, while beautiful in its own right
,
did not appear to have the pattern etch
ed
into the paint. How were the symbols appearing?

Then she noticed thin strips of glass within the glass. Though they appeared nearly indistinguishable from the other pieces, these clearly were picking up the ultraviolet waves from the laser, splashing the symbols on the chapel’s floor.

It made absolutely no sense
,
though. How could the craftsmen of the stained glass windows know there would be ultraviolet light to reveal the symbols? For a devout non-believer, Ronnie’s denial in the unknown was wavering a bit. Okay, maybe a lot.

Especially given the message of the symbols. It would take her several hours on the computer to read them all, but their meaning was clear.

Peace. Love. Hope.

Ronnie’s eyes involuntarily filled with tears. Francois would have loved this place. A bastion of respite at the heart of such evil.

She took picture after picture of the symbols. They had to be recorded, but as the laser moved further and further away, sputtering more and more, the symbols faded.

A noise came from behind her.

“Zach?” she asked as she turned around, her voice still filled with wonder.

Only it wasn’t Zach at the entrance. Instead
,
there
stood a half-burned
Lino
. His right side
was
marred by heat and radiation. His face melded into a Picasso-like visage.
Lino’s
skin, okay not really skin, but an oozing film glistened in the light.

The features untouched by the laser were equally contorted. Contorted by rage.
The
rage kept him moving despite his body’s fatal injury.

Ronnie backed down the aisle toward the altar. She had no weapon
, and
no
defense as he stalked toward her.

“Bitch,” he slurred as saliva dripped from the lipless side of his mouth.

“Look around you,
Lino
,” Ronnie urged, pointing to the floor and the fading symbols. “Even the angels are begging you to let it go.”

He closed his good eye against the
sight
, but the eye without lids must have seen what lay before him.
Lino
chose to ignore the message. “You will die,” he spat out, sending chunks of tissue to the floor.

Ronnie gulped
,
keeping her eyes from the ground. Unfortunately
,
that meant looking at
Lino’s
ruined body. But even in ruin, he seemed intent on revenge. And Ronnie was all out of toys. She’d even take the untested fibrillator, but it was back on the helicopter.

And where in the hell was Zach?

* * *

Zach’s foot slipped. His finger
s
dug into the tiny cracks in the stone wall. His foot fished in thin air, then found a purchase. He hissed out a breath. Glancing beneath him, the ground was still too far down to jump and take his chances on a good roll.

Given the state of panic and disarray below in the courtyard
,
there wasn’t going to be any help soon. Some were fleeing
,
while others stuck to their post
s
, trying to put out the myriad of fires that the laser had started, while others were combatting flooding. He hated to tell them that in about two minutes, none of any of their efforts would matter
.
T
he entire complex
would be
blown sky
-
high.

Yeah, that kind of thinking wasn’t going to get him off this turret any faster. Taking in another breath, Zach edged his way to a window ledge. He glanced in, but the room was blown out. No way down there. Nope, he had to make it down the sheer drop. Just another fifty of these holds on the way down
,
and he’d be good to go. Somehow
,
that did not make him feel any better.

After another slip, Zach righted himself.

“You!” a voice called.

Zach looked down to find the knight from before shouting at him.

“Page, to me!”

This was a bad idea. He wouldn’t even try it, except for the fact that every other idea was actually worse.

Steeling himself for the impact, Zach pushed himself off the wall, twisting
in
midair. He hit the knight, knocking him from his saddle. The two crashed to the ground, but the knight’s armor shielded them both from the brunt of the impact.

They sprang to their feet.

“That’s a good man,” the knight said
,
patting Zach’s shoulder.

The guy was making it really hard for Zach to attack. After all, the knight had quite possibly just saved his life.

“I must
be
off,” Zach said
,
pointing to the collapsing castle.

The knight nearly let him go,
and
then noticed something along Zach’s neck. The tunic must have gotten torn in his fight with Grant, revealing the camouflage beneath. The knight went for his sword. Turned out
that
the guy was Hidden Hand through and through. The full set of armor probably should have clued Zach in
to that fact.