Nerve Center (44 page)

“Shut the fuck up!”

Stoking Madrone’s anger was the only weapon Jeff had. Down here there’d be no one to stop him. Zen couldn’t walk, but he would pit his upper body strength against anyone’s. As soon as Madrone lunged, he’d grab his neck and strangle him. Whatever it took to subdue him, he’d do.

Whatever it took to help him, he’d try; he hadn’t been lying about that.

“You going to hit me?” he told Kevin. “Come on, Monkey Brain. Hit me, Twig.”

Madrone didn’t move.

“What are you waiting for, Monkey Boy?”

“I’m not going to hit you, Jeff.” Madrone’s voice sounded sad, and far away. “You tried that before and it worked. But it won’t work now. No.”

“Come on, Monkey Brain. Microchip Head. Mack Smith nailed it for once. Come on. You’re a wimp. Come on.” But Madrone no longer spoke to him.

Pej, Brazil
8 March, 0647 local

BISON’S HANDS SHOOK AS HE ANGLED THE screwdriver blade beneath the small metal band. He nodded. Danny closed his eyes.

Something snapped. But there wasn’t an explosion. “Okay, we’re ready to work on the native timer and lock mechanism,” said Bison. “It’s hot.”

As Danny relayed the information to Annie, he saw that his sergeant’s hands were shaking violently.

“Undo the LED panel on the code-lock assembly right next to the explosive that launches the pellet,” said Annie. “You see it?”

Danny told Bison. The munitions expert nodded, then pushed a Phillips-head screwdriver down toward the light green panel.

The blade slipped and clattered on the floor.

Danny grabbed Bison’s arm as he reached for the screwdriver. “Kevin, let me try.”

“I’ve d-done this a million times.”

“I know. Let me take the responsibility, though. It’s not just us who’s blowing up.”

“We evacuated the Army guys, Captain,” said Bison, but then he slid back.

The panel wouldn’t come off.

Bison held the Satcom to his head. “Now what, Annie?” said Freah.

“Try it again,” she said.

“Shit.”

“It’s either that or reattach the timer and reset the detonation time.”

“Jesus.”

“You sound nervous, Captain. We will try sorting through the wires. Just don’t cut them all. As I told you before, complete power loss will trigger—”

There was a click and the line went dead.

“Annie? Annie?”

“I think that storm’s blocking the satellite,” said Bison, working the radio. “Time’s down to two minutes,” he added.

Danny stared at the back of the LED panel. The large integrated circuit had several small solder points at the back, but nothing that gave any clue about how it worked.

“Let’s short the thing out,” offered Powder from behind him. “Dump it in water. I got a bucket right here.”

“What the fuck are you doing here, Powder?” said Freak “You were supposed to bug out.”

“None of us are going to leave you, Captain,” said Liu. “Don’t tell me you’re all here. Are you?”

“No, sir. We’re not here,” said Reagan.

Danny turned his attention back to the Satcom. “Annie? Annie?”

Nothing.

He leaned over the bomb. He could cut the wire that connected the LED lock mechanism. Annie had said that doing that would probably kill power to the spytron, the highly sensitive and accurate trigger that activated an accelerating explosive lens around the “catcher’s mitt” of uranium once the radioactive seed was launched toward it. But the explosive that sent the radioactive seed into the rest of the material would still ignite, as would the lens itself—a nanosecond or two too late to start a chain reaction maybe, but definitely in time to kill them.

“Everybody out of the hangar,” Freah shouted, taking the thick combat knife in his hand and reaching it across the thick wires. “That’s a fuckin’ order. Get out of here.”

“Captain!” shouted Powder.

“Go!”

“Nuke’ll get us anyway, Captain,” Bison said. “Rather be able to tell St. Peter I didn’t run away.”

“Just the explosive is going off,” said Danny. “Go!”

“Klondike said that might not work.”

“Go!”

“Thirty seconds,” said Bison, studying at his own watch.

“Here, Captain,” shouted Powder, running across the floor with a ceramic cup and a plastic gallon jug of water. He slipped on the smooth concrete, managing a leg-first slide near the bomb. He held the cup and jug out in front of him. “Douse it. We got nothing to lose.”

“Twenty seconds. He might be right,” said Bison.

Powder spilled water from the jug into the cup, his hands wobbly as he tried to slip it in place under Freah’s hand.

Would that work?

If it didn’t, he’d cut the wires.

Danny hesitated.

Do both at the same time.

“Fifteen.”

One way or the other, everyone in the hangar would die.

Bison reached over, trying to steady Powder’s hands. But he was shaking just as bad.

“Go!” Danny yelled.

“No time!” shouted Liu.

Danny closed his eyes and pulled back on the knife, sliding the blade through the collection of wires. He waited for the long millisecond before death, heard the fizzle of the explosion as it began.

But it wasn’t the explosion at all.

“Jeez, Louise, that was close,” said Powder. He pulled the LED into the water.

The fizzle had come from the clock circuit shorting.

“Captain, did you cut the wires?” asked Liu.

“They’re cut,” said Freah, looking at them.

“Shit,” said Powder.

“Got Ms. Klondike!” yelled Liu.

Danny sat back on the floor. The fluorescent lights in the hangar seemed very yellow. Liu came over on his knees and held the handset to Danny’s ears.

“Where have you been?” Annie asked.

“I cut the wires,” he said. “Powder dumped the timer in water and shorted it. I think that saved us.”

“No,” said the weapons expert. “The mechanism is impervious to moisture. Water wouldn’t have done anything.”

“It fizzled.”

“You cut the wires. It is odd, though—at least one end of the device should have exploded when all current was lost, unless the designer was completely inept. Are you sure you cut all the wires?”

Danny looked over at the harness. Fourteen of the sixteen wires had been cut clean; two remained.

“Shit,” said Danny. Then he told her what he saw.

“Out of curiosity, Captain, what’s your birthday?”

“Why?”

“I was thinking one of us ought to run down to Las Vegas and play those numbers on the roulette wheels.”

Aboard EB-52 M-6
Dreamland
8 March, 0351 local

BOTH MCADEN AND FENNER INSISTED ON STAYING WITH M-6 even after Bastian ordered them to stay on the ground; he finally decided it didn’t make much sense to argue with them. No one would blame them for flying, and besides, Magnus’s order applied to him, not them.

McAden wasn’t all that happy about taking the copilot’s seat, but there Dog had an easier argument—Dog had very little experience using the EB-52’s weapons systems, which were more easily handled from the copilot’s station.

As they got ready to fly, a black SUV hurtled up the ramp toward them, blue light flashing.

Dog watched the Jimmy screech to a halt. Undoubtedly Magnus had gotten to the security people somehow; he was about to be placed under arrest.

He edged his hand toward the throttle bar. As soon as the men were out of the car, he’d hit the gas and lurch away. By the time they got back in the vehicle he’d be on the runway.

But instead of heavily armed security men, a thin figure jumped out of the Jimmy. Dog stared at the shadow, which seemed to have small wings.

Or just very long hair.

Jennifer Gleason. She waved frantically and ran toward the plane. Another person jumped from the SUV—Dr. Geraldo.

“What should I do, Colonel?” asked McAden.

“Let’s find out what they want,” said Bastian.

McAden dropped the ramp. Gleason appeared on the flight deck a few seconds later.

“Colonel, let me aboard,” she said.

“We’re just flying backup,” he told her.

“I can override C3,” she said. “I can send feedback through the command link. It’ll break the connection with ANTARES and disable the Flighthawks.”

“That’ll work?”

“It’s either that or you’ll shoot them down, isn’t it?”

“Colonel!” yelled Geraldo from below.

“And what exactly is your plan?” he asked the psychologist as she came up.

“I want to try talking to him,” said Geraldo.

“It’s not going to work.”

“Better than shooting him down.”

“We almost certainly will have to,” said Dog.

Neither Gleason nor Geraldo said anything else.

“This won’t be a joy ride,” he said finally.

“I fly in Megafortresses every day,” said Jennifer.

“Shut the hatch,” Bastian told McAden. “Jen, show Dr. Geraldo how to strap herself in downstairs.”

Aboard Galatica
Approaching U.S.
8 March, 0805 local (0705 Dreamland)

THE FINGERS OF THE AWACS GROPED THE AIR, reaching for him, desperately trying to grab him. Two F-16’s cruised not five miles to his left, at less than five thousand feet, determined to ferret him out.

The bastards would all miss. He was within sixty minutes of San Francisco, sixty minutes of having revenge.

And then?

Then they could kill him. He wouldn’t even bother to run.

“Losing connection,”
warned C3.

“Closer,” he screeched on the interphone.

“But—” Breanna began.

“Closer!”

The Megafortress lurched upward and to the left. C3’s warning flashed off.

“AWACS tracking,”
warned the computer.

“Impossible,” Madrone muttered. The threat screen on the Flighthawk showed he was clear.

Breanna had tricked him—the F-16’s had seen the Mega-fortress.

“F-16’s being vectored for mother ship,”
said the computer.
“Attempting to activate ident.”

Madrone started to slip out of Theta. His view of the U/MF screen went blank.

Kevin took a deep breath, felt himself relaxing. The feeds returned. But he couldn’t feel Galatica across the gateway. He was too drained, and his brain worked in slow motion—he had too much to hold in his mind.

“We’re being targeted by a pair of interceptors,” he told Minerva.

“What?”

“This!” He flashed the computer’s threat screen into the cockpit HUDs.

He’d have to take over Galatica as well as the Flighthawks. He’d have to find the strength somehow.

ZEN SAW THE F-16S ON THE FLIGHTHAWK SCREEN AS they turned to target the Megafortress just under forty miles away. But the slippery black plane danced at the edge of their radar coverage; they would have to ride much closer to lock on. Most likely their rules of engagement demanded visual identification before firing anyway.

Or maybe not. The launcher indicators on the Flighthawk went red. Sparrow radar missiles were in the air.

BREANNA PUSHED DOWN ON THE STICK, AIMING TO USE the confusion to her advantage. But the plane moved in the opposite direction—Kevin had somehow taken control.

The rest was automatic. Tinsel shot from Gal’s backside as its ECM computer zeroed in on the AIM-7Ms and knocked them senseless with a blast of Gangsta Rap fuzz. At the same time, Galatica accelerated toward the F-16’s to keep its connection with the Flighthawks. The Air National Guard F-16 Vipers launched another salvo of missiles at approximately twenty miles; these two were easily confused.

Thirty seconds later, Hawk One began a front-quarter attack on the lead Viper. The fireball trailed across the left windscreen; as it flared out, a second appeared on the left.

“Why are you doing this, Kevin?” Breanna said.

“I’m destroying Livermore,” he said. “They poisoned my daughter there with their radiation. They claimed they were treating her, but it was a lie.”

“You’ll destroy all San Francisco.”

“So be it.”

HE WANTED SAN FRANCISCO TO BE DESTROYED. HE saw it, saw Karen there, shriveling in the flash as the nuke went off. That would serve her right for giving up on him.

Maybe she’d been in on it.

He saw his wife crying at the graveyard, sobbing as she knelt on the fresh-packed dirt. Then he saw Christina, helpless on the gurney, head shaved, the tape for the lead shields still dangling on her skin.

She screamed like he’d never heard her. The two nurses came to wheel her away. He jumped for her, but some bastard grabbed him and held him back.

Kevin fell from the sky, tumbling backward into the jungle. He landed flat on his spine, staring up at the sun overhead. The red orb pulsated, then began to descend. He tried to get up, but couldn’t.

IT TOOK JEFF A MOMENT TO REALIZE THAT NOT ONLY had the Flighthawks defaulted to Trail One, their favored preset mode, but that ANTARES was no longer hooked into C3. When he finally saw it, he grabbed for the controller with his right hand and threw his left on the two rockers that connected his microphone with the computer.

“Command authorization Zed Zed Zed,” he said, telling the computer to recognize him. “Zero Stockard Zero.”

“Zed Zed Zed.”

“Erase ANTARES plug-ins.”

“Command unrecognized.”

“Computer: Delete the connection with ANTARES!”

“
Command unrecognized.”

“Manual control, Hawk One,” he said, pulling back on the controller. The cockpit cam showed the rear of the Megafortress in the moonlight, flying above an array of jagged peaks.

Down, he thought, pushing the stick forward so hard it nearly snapped out of its socket.

HE NEEDED TO BE IN THETA NOW.

Christina’s face floated in the dim blue void before him. Her mouth moved.

Daddy,
she said.
Daddy.

I’m here.

It’s the computer. It took me away.

ANTARES?

Yes.