Nerve Center (40 page)

He pointed toward the large screens at the two stations before them.

“Diagnostic complete. No errors. System ready,”
read the screens.

“The most difficult thing was arranging to keep the units in the fuselage cool,” Andre told her. “We rerouted a duct in the plane. It may affect other equipment, but Captain Madrone did not seem overly concerned.”

“Very well,” she said. “Tell the captain we are ready for him.”

Minerva allowed herself one last look at the flight deck before leaving the plane. An amazing warbird, a plane of immense potential.

She could learn much from the Americans. If she was willing to wait, rather than simply take their weapons, she would do much better.

It was a pity the 777 had to be destroyed as well. But there was no other way. Her course was set. To change anything now meant only doom.

Minerva considered not seeing Kevin off, but decided that that might upset him, and in some way tip her pilots off that they were about to die. So she waited by the plane for him to arrive.

A final kiss. A supreme indulgence. But after years of letting her body be used by others—wasn’t she owed it?

Mayo walked toward her, saluting smartly.

“Madame Colonel,” he said. Mayo was young, without a family; though he’d been with her a long time, she didn’t feel his loss as much as she would that of Gerrias, who had three children. Still, she would make sure his parents had a double pension.

“You’re confident you can fly this?” she asked, though Gerrias had assured her twice already it would be easy.

“Once Captain Madrone used his security codes to open the computer for us, we had no trouble with the controls. There is a computer that does all of the work. Of course, in flight there may be a few wrinkles.”

“The small planes?”

“Picot declared them ready. Captain Madrone is inspecting them all. There are codes, apparently, that are entered directly into them. It is all voice-coded. Picot had no trouble.”

“Picot is a genius.”

“Madame Colonel, are we really attacking San Francisco?” asked Mayo.

“Not San Francisco,” said Minerva. “A complex nearby.”

“The Americans will try to stop us.”

“If you are afraid, Lieutenant, Captain Gerrias can fly alone.”

“I am not afraid. I don’t know if it is right. Captain Madrone says all of San Francisco will be destroyed.”

Minerva sighed. “Captain Madrone is brilliant, but unfortunately he exaggerates. You’ve been rewarded for the other flights?”

Mayo said nothing. She knew that he took the implication that he valued money above loyalty to her as an insult.

“Don’t worry,” she told him. “In a few hours, you will return here, and then—off to wherever you will. You are already a rich man, and you will be ten times richer.”

“I fly because you saved me from death,” said Mayo stiffly. “It is a debt 1 will never forget.”

“A debt that will be discharged today. Start your engines. Quickly,” she said, saluting to dismiss him.

Madrone approached from the runway.

“We are ready,” he told her. “The Flighthawks are all fueled and loaded with bullets.”

“Can you handle all three?”

“I can handle twenty.”

The door to the hangar behind them creaked on its rusty wheel hinge. The three Americans and their guards emerged.

“Is that your robot master?” shouted the one in the wheelchair.

Even in the dim light, Minerva saw Madrone’s face turn red.

“Calmly,” she said, touching Kevin’s chest. “He’s trying to provoke you.”

“What was it Mack called you? Monkey Boy? Microchip Brain? How’s your thumbnail these days? Still biting it?”

“That’s enough out of you,” said Madrone.

“His hands are not bound?” Minerva asked the guards.

“To wheel his chair,” said the guard. “If—”

Mayo, already aboard, spooled up the two outboard engines. They were surprisingly quiet for being so close, but even so drowned out the guard.

“He’s harmless,” yelled Madrone. “Just a cripple.”

“You should have told us about your daughter, Kevin,” said the woman pilot. “I’m so sorry—it must have been so horrible.”

“You don’t care. None of you care.”

Minerva gripped Madrone’s arm. In an instant, he had changed from a confident, cocky pilot to a trembling, fearful man. Tears rolled down his face.

She should have shot the Americans.

“They’re trying to trick you, Kevin,” she said. “Perhaps we should give them something to make them less disagreeable.”

“Is she coming with us?” said the one in the wheelchair. “Your master?”

“There isn’t room on the plane,” answered Minerva.

“Actually, there is,” said the man. “There are four stations in the cockpit, two downstairs, two upstairs, and that’s not even counting the roll-out cot.”

Madrone turned toward her. “Come with us,” he told her. “You must.”

“I have to attend to things here, lover,” she said softly.

“You will come,” he told her sternly.

She reached to pat his hand, then saw he had a pistol in it.

“Kevin.” She stared, but before she said anything else she heard the loud whine of another jet popping up over the nearby mountain.

Aboard Quickmover
Over Western Brazil
18 March, 0445

IN A PERFECT WORLD, THE TARGET WOULD HAVE BEEN under real-time surveillance from an army of recon drones and maybe a satellite or two, with a highly trained team aboard a JSTARS command craft interpreting the images and giving advice.

But Whiplash operated in a decidedly imperfect world. So the fact that Danny Freah was able to turn on his Combat Information Visor and get an image off the C-17’s chin array of infrared and optical cameras as they popped up over the mountains two miles from the target seemed like a real luxury.

Which didn’t make it any easier to read the blurs.

Danny pressed his hands against his helmet, trying to steady the image in the CIV. There were two large planes near hangars alongside the runway. The glowing bursts near the wings of the larger made it clear that its engines were just being started.

The EB-52? Too hard to tell.

Danny pressed the underside of the left lenses to adjust the contrast, reducing the image glare caused by the jet exhaust. He saw the image of a man in a wheelchair.

“Pop the ramp, we’re going out!” he shouted to his men over the shared laser-com system. “Get the chutes! We have thirty seconds! Planes at the end of the ramp. Engines are hot.”

The pilot, who was tied into the circuit, immediately cut in. “Captain, that’s not the way we planned it.”

“You go ahead and circle around to land. We’ll try and pick off the guards holding the crew at Galatica. Just hold on your course,” said Danny, who could see through the visor that the C-17 was aimed to pass right over the Megafortress.

“Captain, I can get back around and land in two minutes, maybe three.”

“Too long!” said Danny. The people near the plane were moving. “Go! Go! Go!” he shouted to his men. He unhooked the feed from the back of his helmet, the wire whipping back as wind began gusting through the rear of the plane.

Danny’s command was superfluous. Prepared for any contingency, the team members had been wearing their jump gear and night goggles on the approach. Team Jumpmaster Geraldo “Blow” Hernandez was already pushing guys out the open ramp. Danny went out with him, dragging his tethered rucksack clear.

He kicked his chute open on a two-count after sliding into the air. The cells flapped full and he swung backward slightly, his weight not quite balanced due to the rush. As he grabbed the toggle handles to steer, he realized he faced in the wrong direction; he leaned his body as he steered back, knowing that the ground would be coming up tremendously fast.

Low-altitude jumps into a combat situation were incredibly hazardous, as dangerous as jumping off a bridge with homemade equipment. A half second of disorientation could be fatal. That was especially true at night, even when you had help from advanced gear like the CIV. The images in the starlight view flared back and forth as Danny managed to steady his descent; the runway was dead ahead, fifty yards off, with the Megafortress beyond it. He pulled the right steering tog, hoping to coax his way across the runway and onto the parallel access ramp. He couldn’t see any defensive positions, but as his feet accelerated toward the ground he saw the flare of tracers on his right.

Pei, Brazil
8 March, 0450

ZEN WATCHED MADRONE SWING HIS ARM AROUND, revealing the gun.

“With us,” Madrone shouted to Lanzas.

“Kevin, no,” she said.

“They’ll kill you here.”

The Megafortress’s engines roared. A soldier with a rifle came down the EB-52’s ramp to see what was going on. Madrone fired his gun and the man’s body flew backward. In practically the same motion Kevin grabbed Lanzas and threw her onto the ramp. One of the guards took out his pistol, but then slumped downward. Gunfire erupted beyond the runway—the plane passing overhead had dropped paratroopers.

It has to be Whiplash, thought Zen. He saw Chris lash out at one of the guards, then felt himself pitched to the ground. He swung his arms, but realized he was being dragged by his useless legs toward the plane.

“Up,” Madrone told him. Automatic weapons barked around them. Madrone pointed a small, blocky pistol in his face. “I’ll kill you, Zen.”

“I can’t get up.”

As Kevin ducked down to him, something flew onto his back. It tumbled over his shoulder, a heavy weight that smashed against Zen’s upper torso, pinning his right arm.

Breanna.

Madrone, somehow not surprised by her, nor fazed by the chips of cement and bullets dancing around them, grabbed her by her bound hands and pulled her to her feet.

“Help Jeff into the plane. Now, or you die here!”

“No!” she shouted.

“He dies first.”

She reached for Jeff, starting to pull, going slow. Jeff tried to hold back, but Madrone pushed them both over onto the middle of the ramp. He swung his left arm wildly. Either he hit the lever to close the gangway, or someone in the cockpit issued the command; in any event, the ramp sprang upward moving quickly despite their weight.

As long as he was alive, Zen thought, there was a chance he could stop Madrone. He had to stay calm and work out a plan.

Then Madrone smashed Breanna on the head. Jeff propelled himself with an enraged shout, swinging both fists toward Kevin with all his might.

Had he connected, he surely would have knocked Madrone out. But he missed by at least half a foot. As his momentum carried him downward, he felt a hard smack against the side of his temple. He smelled the metal tint of blood tickle his nose. His lips tasted the smooth aluminum of the deck floor. Then everything went black.

DANNY HAD HIS M-16 IN HIS HANDS AS HE HIT THE ground, but the drop-off between the runway and the ramp kept him from getting a good view of the hangar area or the rest of his team.

It also made him lose his balance. He rolled forward, struggling to his feet. Snapping clear of his gear, he ran up the slope toward the ramp and hangar area, still without a target. He heard the distinct whap of a flash-bang grenade, thrown by one of his team members to paralyze the resistance.

The large planes near the hangars were definitely theirs. The EB-52 sat on the right. Someone fired from the ground near it; the shots were immediately answered with a spray of gunfire from the left.

Danny raised his rifle, clicking his thumb against the target switch that allowed him to use the CIV to aim.

Someone sat in the cockpit. He put the body in the cross-hairs and fired. The bullet hit the target square, but the figure remained unharmed behind the EB-52’s thick glass. The 5.56mm bullets in the M-16 were no match for the reinforced windshield and hull of the Megafortress.

The Flighthawks should be more fragile. Danny clicked the visor into IR mode and began scanning for them.

MADRONE KICKED JEFF’S HEAD WITH HIS BOOT TO make sure he was truly unconscious, then leapt into the right control seat, quickly pulling the ANTARES head gear on. Breanna moaned behind him, but he didn’t have time to worry about that now—he had to get into Theta and get the Flighthawks off the ground.

He felt his scalp tingle as soon as the liner band slid over the spider connection.

Already? The panel wire hadn’t even been connected.

He stood in the forest, rain storming all around. Balls of hail pelted him.

Hawk One, start procedure.

Two, Three.

Systems green.

Go.

A NARROW FLARE ERUPTED AT THE EXTREME LEFT OF Danny’s vision; by the time he turned toward it, two others had lit, small cigarette bums in the visor. He brought his rifle up and began to fire as the first object—undoubtedly a Flighthawk—moved behind a row of low bushes or some other obstruction. Danny burned the clip as it disappeared; he reloaded quickly and hiked sideways to get a shot on the U/ MFs as they rolled in the direction of the Megafortress. He figured he didn’t have to stop them, just slow them down—the C-17 ought to be landing any second and would block the narrow runway. But as the first Flighthawk reappeared, something hard slammed him down against the ground—a fifty-caliber machine gun had opened fire near the hangars.

His armor saved his life, but the heavy gun had cracked the suit and possibly his shoulder blade. Worse, as far as Danny was concerned, the fire was so severe he couldn’t raise his head or the gun. The Flighthawks whipped around the end of the runway, not bothering to wait for the Megafortress. They turned and thundered down the cement to take off—just as the C-17 appeared above.

Aboard Galatica
Lower Deck
8 March, 0453

BREANNA WRITHED ON THE FLOOR, HER HEAD STILL spinning from the bang she’d gotten as Madrone tossed her over his shoulders. She lay at the base of the Flighthawk tech station at the left side of the bay; the tubes were flashing above, and she could hear Kevin moaning and muttering to himself at Zen’s control station. His arms flew in the air as if he were conducting some mad symphony only he could hear.