Rock Killer (26 page)

“Why?”

“We believe he would use Syria’s nuclear missiles for a preemptive strike on Israel. Of course, we will retaliate as best we can. But still, Mr. Mitchel, millions of lives will be lost.”

“Also,” Elisa said, “This man is almost solely responsible for the GA having the resources to attack SRI-1961.”

Mitchel looked at the faces on the screen. Patai displayed no emotion but Morgan was so untypically distraught it visibly showed.

“This man must be stopped,” Patai stated firmly.

“What about your people?”

Patai’s fortitude seemed to falter. “We have political considerations,” he said sardonically. “The ruling party has placed many restrictions on the activities of the Mossad. It is hoped that SRI could do something.”

“Such as?” Mitchel asked.

“I do not know,” Patai admitted. “But something, anything.”

Wonderful
, Mitchel thought,
nuclear war in the Middle East
. N
ow, not only do we have to save our own people from terrorists, but stop Armageddon
.

Chapter Thirteen

“We can save them.”

The cops’ bodies were making an effective firebreak, halting the advance of the flames across the rug. The front of the house was an inferno and the smoke and heat were a mixed blessing. No one was shooting at Charlie or trying to come into the house, but Charlie knew she couldn’t stay put much longer.

She checked the stamp on the slide of the cop’s weapon; it was a .40 caliber Smith & Wesson. Again, her box of 9mm was useless. She thought that between herself and the female cop the other gun emptied in eleven or twelve rounds. That meant she had nine or ten to go in the male cop’s gun.

She waited until she thought the old lady had enough time to escape the house. Then she ran in a low crouch to avoid the smoke, putting her back to the flames.

As she got away from the roar of the fire, she could hear bullets impacting the exterior of the house. Glass shattered behind Charlie as she slipped into the backyard. From the fire or the bullets, she didn’t know.

The old woman was stooped on the lawn, praying in Spanish. Charlie grabbed her arm and pulled her with her. “
¡Vamanos!
” Charlie yelled hoping that meant what she thought it did.

She half led, half dragged the poor lady across the meticulously cared-for grass. They came to a waist-high chain link fence just as someone ran around the far corner of the burning house. Charlie literally threw the woman over the barrier then turned and fired at the man. He was looking in the wrong direction and never saw what hit him. Nine rounds left.

Charlie jumped the fence as Beatty appeared from behind the house where the body of the man Charlie had just killed lay. The old woman was trotting amazingly fast for her age toward the back door of the house next door.

Beatty yelled and fired a long burst. S
tupid
, Charlie thought. He didn’t control the weapon and missed her completely.

Charlie turned and squeezed off two rounds and Beatty ducked behind the corner. Seven rounds left, or maybe six.

The woman was pounding on the back door and yelling in Spanish. Charlie was going to be real surprised if anyone was foolish or brave enough to open it.

Charlie heard sirens as she saw Beatty look around the house corner and fire wildly. The flames were reaching the back of the house and Charlie suspected Beatty was starting to panic as he faced burning or risked getting shot by Charlie. She fired, driving Beatty around the corner again, closer to the inferno.

Six rounds left. She walked backwards, watching both corners of the old lady’s house. Flames were showing in the back windows and the entire scene was lit with the macabre orange light that cast dancing shadows. A movement near the street caught her eye and she turned to see a GA member, the man in the duo whose coupling had kept Charlie awake, bring up a weapon. Charlie fired two rounds at him and he took cover behind a parked car. Four rounds. Beatty discharged a fusillade at Charlie, still missing. She shot back at him. Three. The man behind the car rose and Charlie fired at him, shattering a windshield. Two, or maybe one round left.

Beatty released another burst and Charlie shot at him. The slide locked back; the magazine was empty. Charlie turned and ran. She heard both Beatty’s and the other man’s weapons split the air as each fired a long volley at her. The bullets hit her from behind and threw her forward, face down. She could smell dirt and grass and felt wet warmth cover her back.

Sirens screamed at her and stopped suddenly. She heard almost incessant gunfire: both bursts and single shots. A helicopter was overhead. She could feel heat from the conflagration that was the woman’s house; she smelled smoke and cordite. The reports from weapons slowed and finally stopped.

Someone touched her and said, “Ohmigod,” as Charlie lost consciousness.

***

In his pressure suit, Thorne moved through the mass driver section, pulling himself along handholds and equipment. Some machinery was damaged and some was, incongruously, still running.

He shut off what he could.

The lights were off and he used his helmet light to survey the damage. The beam passed through a cloud of silvery snow.

The equipment and rock walls were coated in frozen water. A water pipe had burst and the water flash froze as it boiled out.

It looked to Thorne as if a lot had been lost before life support shut off the water supply.

He found one body wedged in a supporting framework. It was Diana. Under a sheath of bubble-laced ice, black blood matted her long hair and her face was a swollen horror.

Thorne clamped his throat shut. Vomiting in a pressure suit in free fall was not only messy but potentially lethal. He moved away, toward the hole in the base of the rock where the missile hit.

He used a rope to secure himself to a handhold and then swung into the jagged hole. The sky was like black felt someone had spilled sugar on. Thorne looked at the base of the mass driver. It was still secured to the rock. To the limit of his vision its lactic-like structure was undamaged. But the missile had hit some of the Masuka drives.

Lastly, Thorne surveyed the sky. He would look at a point watching for any “star” that moved. He repeated this for all the space he could see. He didn’t find anything to indicate the
Rock Skipper
was still out there.

He pulled himself back into the relative security of the asteroid.

***

The control room crew was donning emergency pressure suits. The air was breathably thick but slightly cooler, about like being on a high mountain; but safety demanded that precaution.

Naguchi was having trouble fitting her lean frame into the one-size-fits-none suit. Banda pulled his suit on and helped Chun.

It allowed them to talk.

“What was the message from Mitchel?” he asked.

Chun waited to seal his suit and flicked on the radio control on his arm. “A warning we may be attacked.”

Banda smiled and shook his head in the bubble helmet. “We need to tell them.”

“It takes about 20 minutes,” Chun said. “I think we should radio Ceres first for help. They’re closer.”

Banda shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know what they can do for us. They have trouble keeping enough air themselves.”

“I know, but it’s worth a shot. How about Mars?”

“Farther than Earth now.”

“Well, I didn’t want to pay the Russians’ price anyway.”

Both smiled grimly. “Get on those messages,” Chun ordered. “I’m going to life support. Find out how bad it really is.”

The director of life support, Taylor, shook her head. “It’s really bad. We have some reserve air but I won’t release that until the second emergency door is in place.” Standard procedure was to place two emergency doors between the inside and any irreparable breech.

“Then what?”

“Eight hours at most.”

Alex stared in disbelief. “What about the air recycler?”

Taylor shook her head again. “Look,” she said pointing.

Alex saw a group of people working on the device, which took up one wall in the cavern.

“The second missile hit blew it off its supports,” Taylor said. “The third bounced it around. I don’t know if we can fix it. It wasn’t designed for combat.”

“I know,” Alex said. He looked at the device. They didn’t carry a spare. The added weight and expense was deemed superfluous. It was triple redundant inside. The odds of all three of its systems, any one of which could keep the crew alive, failing simultaneously were considered as remote as, well, someone lobbing missiles at them.

“I was thinking,” Taylor said, “what if we found some ice?”

“That would help. But M-type asteroids don’t have much, if any, water. Our chances of finding ice in this rock are slim. And the exertion of mining will use our air faster.”

“I meant, maybe there’s a carbonaceous chondrite nearby. They have a high percentage of water.”

Alex shook his head. “Even if there were, we couldn’t maneuver to it.”

“I understand,” Taylor said as if she didn’t want to. Understanding meant knowing how desperate their situation was.

“What are our options?” Alex asked.

“Stop all activity that’s not absolutely necessary and try to rendezvous with a ship that can supply us with air or pull us off.”

“That’s my plan. I just don’t think there’s anyone that can get to us in eight hours.” He’d have to ask Bente. The nearest ship was probably the
Kyushu
. He doubted it could get to them in eight hours. Alex involuntarily thought of Kirsten. N
o
, he thought,
I have to keep my mind here.

Thorne’s voice over Chun’s suit radio shook him out of his thoughts. “We’ve got the leak stopped. The miners say they broke the record for emergency door installation. In three minutes they’ll have a second, back-up door installed.”

“Thanks,” Chun said.

“And,” Thorne continued, “I went out. I didn’t see anything but that doesn’t mean much.”

“Understood. We need to find out if we can repair the mass driver and the Masuka drive.”

“I already looked. I don’t know about the mass driver. It looks repairable to me. A tech could tell you better.”

Damn
, Alex thought. T
he off duty techs should be down there looking at it right now. Why hadn’t I thought of that
? “Okay, I’ll send some down. What about the Masuka drive?”

“Useless. Four of the six drives are gone. The two left are right next to each other, off the center of mass. If we used them, we’d tumble.”

And moving them would take much longer than eight hours. “Understood. Good job.”

“Thanks,” Thorne said.

“And, Taylor.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Eight hours is unacceptable. Think of something, anything.”

***

Charlie opened her eyes to see green. Green, like her eyes. I
thought I was supposed to see a tunnel first,
she thought
.

Then she heard talking, and something beeping. Something stabbed her arm just above the wrist.

“Okay, the IV’s in,” a woman’s voice said.

Charlie smiled. She was alive and lying prostrate with her head turned to the side. A nurse’s uniform had been blocking her vision. She looked around without moving her head to see more green-suited figures orbiting her prone figure. Her vision looked like her father’s attempt to use a manual camera: out of focus.

“Where am I?” she asked. Her voice was thick. Drugs, she decided. She should be in extreme pain.

“You’re okay,” a man said and Charlie realized it was the nurse. “You’re at a hospital. Now be still and rest.”

“Call the FBI,” Charlie breathed. “My life is in danger.”

A swatch of blue came into her vision. “It’s okay. I’m a police officer.”

“Call the FBI.”

“Excuse me?”

Charlie felt herself going to sleep. She fought it; damned drugs. “FBI, Freeman, Washington, please.” Consciousness slipped away like a wet bar of soap on the shower floor.

***

Noon prayers were over and Faruq walked with the president as they headed back to their offices. The president’s loyal guards followed at a discrete distance behind.

“There are those,” the president said, “that say we are not doing enough against the occupiers of Palestine and the West that supports them.”

“I have heard that,” Faruq answered.

“There are those,” the president went on, “that say if one man showed leadership against the West he could take my place.”

“I don’t think that is possible, Mr. President.”

“You don’t?”

“No,
aquid
.”

“Good,” the president said. “Because your dealings with that eco-terrorist group could be construed as leadership against the West, and word of it is spreading in the party.”

“Everything I’ve done has been in your name and for the Baath Revolution.”

“Did you catch,” the president said, “before going to pray, that the environmentalists you supported had attacked an asteroid.”

“No,” Faruq lied. The president was fishing. Did he see his support failing? Did he know Faruq had labored hard to erode it?