Ragnarok (8 page)

“No sir, I wouldn’t imagine it would be.”

“And where am I heading?” King asked, closing his eyes and wondering how he would explain this to Sara and Fiona.

“Atlanta.”

KING’S MOOD GREW dark, matching the night sky. He was strapped into the second seat of a brand-new Air Force F-16V Fighting Falcon jet, traveling at Mach 2, and thinking over how quickly his vacation had been ruined. It had turned out that the threat in Atlanta ended before King even got there. He’d been in touch with Deep Blue, whom he’d be joining in Chicago. Deep Blue had filled him in on the situation, and also informed him that the FBI had the rest of the sweaty bomber’s compatriots in custody. Sara and Fiona were being transported to Endgame HQ in New Hampshire, and King had been squeezed like a sardine into the newest variant of the Air Force’s most versatile fighter, the F-16.

This version of the jet had a highly modified canopy that could slide back along the fuselage when desired, or come loose entirely when the ejection seats were activated. It was designed for exactly the purpose it was being used for this night—to get a soldier into a specific location as quickly as possible. When ejecting only the passenger, the bulbous canopy would retract and then move back into the closed position. In an emergency, the translucent shell would explode away from the aircraft as in a traditional ejection scenario and both seats could be launched out of the jet. King had commented on the experimental canopy and the pilot had gleefully replied, “Yes, sir. But it comes with a shit ton more head room.” King could see what the man meant. The glass of the canopy was nearly a foot above the top of the pilot’s helmet. In other F-16 variants that King had seen, the pilot chair was reclined so the pilot wouldn’t hit his head on the canopy.

Now past 1:00 a.m. and over Chicago, the latest city besieged by the threat of the energy domes, King mentally readied himself for what would likely be one hell of a fight. The pilot indicated that he had one minute until ejection. King took several slow breaths preparing for the insanity when the jet would swoop low, slow down and retract its canopy, before firing King higher into the air in a rocket-propelled ejection seat. The jet would swoop away, closing its canopy, and King would parachute down into the mayhem on the nocturnal streets of Chicago. And hopefully the G-forces wouldn’t snap his neck. At least that was the plan. It had never been done before. King was going to be the first.

King was no novice to parachute jumps, but he wasn’t too fond of ejection seats. He had trained on them, of course, but he really wasn’t keen on getting flung from one at night above a city full of tall buildings with radio antennas and other communications spires on top of them.

He glanced out the canopy as the F-16 banked and took in the glowing carnage across the river, north of the Loop. The ball of energy was huge. It ate into the small Water Tower Park, where King had had a chocolate Ghirardelli’s shake the last time he had been in the city. It chewed into buildings on all sides and hurled lightning bolts that were spraying glass and concrete shards down on the soldiers trying to keep a perimeter around the sphere. They seemed to be there more for holding back the crowd of onlookers that had gathered at the disturbance than for facing off against the ball of hellish light. That fit with what King had learned so far. Not much seemed to faze the energy balls; it was their cargo you had to watch out for the most, but those could at least be battled, even though they were supposed to be deadly fast.

As King watched, a blast of lightning ripped skyward from the glowing yellow energy dome, crunching hard into the F-16. King felt the jolt as a huge thunderous roar filled his ears. Electricity arced along the wing of the plane. He spoke to the pilot as the plane took a sharp dip sideways and King’s stomach lurched into his chest.

“Are we okay, Simmons?”

No response.

King reached forward and shook the pilot from behind, but the way the man’s neck lolled, King could see he was dead. The plane continued to plummet toward the energy fiasco below, as King reached for the ejection lever, which would pop the canopy as opposed to the computer-controlled retraction Simmons was supposed to perform. Both of them would launch into the sky, instead of just King.

King pulled the lever beside his chair and nothing happened.

“Just not fair.”

TWELVE

Endgame Headquarters, White Mountains, NH

3 November, 0200 Hrs

LEWIS ALEMAN WAS barely keeping up with the outbreaks of the energy domes around the world. He sat reclined in the central computer room, in Deep Blue’s specially designed chair. The thing reminded him of a dentist’s chair, if it had been made by Craftmatic, like an adjustable bed. It could rotate and even tilt so he could take in any view of the forty oversized flat-screen monitors that lined the walls of the room, or the giant 12-foot-wide monitor that filled one entire wall.

The chair itself was a comfortable memory-foam affair with ergonomic armrests and a keyboard that had been split, so that one half was at the front of his left armrest and the other was at the front of the right one. On his hands he wore special computing gloves that allowed him to not only type, but which also acted like a mouse when he pointed and moved his fingers. The gloves had built-in neon blue LED lights, and he couldn’t put them on without thinking of the
TRON
films. He could toggle any of the room’s screens to his control and could zoom in and out with a slight movement of one hand.
Strange
, Aleman had thought, until he’d had a chance to get used to it. Now he loved it and couldn’t imagine doing without it. The entire setup allowed Deep Blue to network into several satellites simultaneously, and to provide computer support for the field team. Of course, with Deep Blue in the field, much of that role fell to Aleman.

“That’ll be King’s plane coming into Chicago,” George Pierce said from across the room, running a nervous hand through his black curly hair.

Aleman looked first at Pierce, and then up at a monitor near the corner of the room. This screen showed the view from Deep Blue’s faceplate—the scene in Chicago, lit up as bright as day by the harsh glow of the energy signature. Aleman reached a finger on his right hand forward and toggled the view to the main screen in the densely packed computer room.

In the distance, between skyscrapers, an F-16 could be seen coming toward the viewer. Deep Blue had been on the ground for a few minutes now, and Aleman had been keeping close tabs on the former president’s screen.

He knew Tom Duncan well, and considered him a close friend, but it was still hard not to think of him as “Mr. President” or “Deep Blue.” In either case, Aleman was concerned that his friend might be getting a little old to be out in the field. Then there was the whole secret identity thing. Aleman had helped design Duncan’s field helmet that would conceal his identity as the former president while allowing him to remain as connected to the Internet and communications arrays as any mobile human being could hope to be.

“Yeah, looks like it. George, any luck on the research?”

“Nothing yet. I’ll keep at it.” George Pierce was a former professor of archeology and a lover of myth and folklore. As King’s friend and the man who had been engaged to Julie, King’s deceased sister, Pierce had gotten involved with Chess Team when they had taken down a corrupt genetics firm that was tinkering with human regeneration. Since then, he had earned a place on the team as a constantly useful researcher. At first he had tried to live two lives—that of a professor and that of an asset for the team. Eventually, Deep Blue offered Pierce a full-time position with the Endgame organization.

Pierce had been feverishly working all night to find some mention of the energy domes in history, myth or folklore. He figured it stood to reason that the phenomenon was either something scientifically produced or something that would have affected the planet before. Aleman was looking for the science angle and Pierce was in charge of the historical one.

Both men looked up as Sara Fogg entered the room with Matt Carrack, callsign: White Zero. Fogg had the confident look and high cheekbones of a model, but kept her short black pixie hair messy and a glint of good humor in her eyes. Carrack was the head of security at the base, and after a recent security incident, had been promoted to the position of White Zero—Deep Blue’s main assistant at the New Hampshire headquarters. Fogg was dressed in snug jeans and a tight Mickey Mouse t-shirt. Carrack wore all-black military battle dress uniform, and was armed with a 9 mm Beretta in a low-slung quick-draw harness on his leg.

“Nice outfit, Sara” George started.

“Shut it, you. The t-shirt was King’s idea of a joke.” Fogg smiled at Pierce. “What’s going on? Is he okay?” The two of them had become quite close over the last few months, with both King and their connection to the team as civilians bonding them.

“He’s just getting to Chicago,” he pointed to the shaky image on the main view-screen on the wall. “Where’s Fiona?”

“Just put her to bed. Long day of ruined vacations and transit at Air Force bases.”

Pierce winced, knowing full well how the last two attempts at a vacation with King had turned out for her.

Carrack stepped over to a free computer terminal and sat down to flick through screens of all the currently affected cities. Fogg looked up at the approaching F-16 on the screen.

“Where are the others?” Carrack asked.

“Deep Blue is on the ground in Chicago; Bishop and Knight in Shanghai,” Aleman responded, as his hands flew over the split keyboard.

“And Queen?” Carrack asked calmly as he flipped through video footage of city after city affected by the strange glowing disturbances.

“No idea,” Aleman turned and smiled at Carrack, “But Rook is back on the grid.”

Carrack turned to look at Aleman, across the room. “No shit?”

“Where is he?” Fogg asked, her attention diverted from the main screen momentarily, as the F-16 got closer to Deep Blue’s location and he kept his eyes (and therefore the image on the main screen) on the approaching plane.

“Norway,” Aleman said. “With another problem waiting for us once we finish dealing with this one.” He sounded tired. Fogg came over and laid her hand on his shoulder.

“You holding up, Lewis?”

“I’ll manage, I—”

“Holy shit!” Pierce stood up in his chair and stared at the main screen. All eyes in the room went to it as the lightning bolt reached skyward to stab at the approaching F-16. Sparks flew from the chassis of the jet and arced in a wide swath to a nearby building before dissipating.

Deep Blue zoomed his camera view in on the plane, as Carrack, Aleman and Fogg watched in horrified silence from their remote location.

Aleman toggled Deep Blue’s channel onto the room’s loudspeaker.

King, Deep Blue here. You okay? King? Talk to me buddy.

The view zoomed in as the wounded plane dipped and tilted wildly. Tracking software in the helmet kept the view on the vehicle. As the camera got in closer, they could see King moving in the second seat of the plane, but the pilot wasn’t moving at all.

“Oh God,” Fogg said.

King was attempting to climb over the top of the pilot’s seat and the dead pilot, head first, squeezing between the pilot’s headrest and the canopy.

His comms must be out. C’mon, King. Punch out of there. C’mon…

As Deep Blue’s voice began to trail off, Fogg and the others watched, horrorstruck, as the plane dipped further and headed for a hard smackdown in the middle of Chicago.

Just then, the canopy blew off the top of the plane and the pilot’s seat ejected, with the pilot still strapped in it, and with King, in a flight suit and leaning over the top of the chair, clutching the dead pilot’s knees for dear life. The ejecting seat rocketed out of the diving F-16. The plane rolled so it was perpendicular with the oncoming ground and the surging energy sphere when the seat shot out, the port wing of the plane pointing straight down.

Aleman understood what it meant as soon as he saw the canopy launch off. “Oh no!”

The ejection seat, with King precariously clinging to its passenger, shot horizontally across the concrete canyon between skyscrapers, heading right for one of the upper floors of the Park Hyatt building, thirty feet away, with the growling energy dome 800 feet below it.

THIRTEEN

Olderdalen, Norway

ROOK WAS STUNNED as Asya held her own against Queen.

Blow for blow, block for block, kick for kick, the small, lithe dark-haired woman was going up against Queen—the biggest hand-to-hand bad ass that Rook had ever seen in any branch of the military. And while Rook loved to watch Queen go to work with her hands, he had to admit to himself that Asya was going about it with more efficiency and a ballet-like dexterity that was awe-inspiring. He’d even noticed Queen giving the little woman an approving look a time or two as they huffed and grunted while trying to rip each other apart.

Initially, Rook feared for Asya’s life in a fight between the two, but once he saw how deftly she could block and parry Queen’s attacks, his concern for her life left him, and he struggled to stand against the battered Volvo so he could get a better view of what was sure to be an epic fight.

As the snow continued to fall, laying a quick blanket of white on the small town street, Queen danced in between parked cars, and launched a flying sidekick at Asya. The small Russian woman nimbly ducked and rolled in the snow. As Queen was landing on the sidewalk, Asya launched a similar kick at Queen’s spine. But Zelda Baker was no easy chump when it came to fighting. She went for the dirty moves herself, and therefore expected them too. She twisted at the last second and caught Asya’s ankle in her armpit, then pivoted in the slippery snow, using Asya’s momentum to swing the short, dark-haired woman against the side of the general store. The thud was devastatingly loud and it shook a cloud of dust out from between the wooden siding.