The Cyclops Initiative (45 page)

He moved to the bottom of the stairs that led to the second floor. He drew a fresh Taser and started climbing the risers, one by one, careful to test each step with his weight, making sure it didn't creak. He thought he could hear ­people moving in the floors above him and he stopped perfectly still to listen for a second, but the sound didn't repeat.

He took another step. Another.

He couldn't see any shadows moving at the top of the stairs. No sign that anyone was aware of his presence. He didn't even hear anyone cough or clear their throat. He took another step.

He lifted his foot, got ready to take the next step, just three from the top of the flight. Put his foot down very gently.

That was when an armed guard leaned out into the stairs and started firing.

CAPITOL HILL, D.C.: MARCH 26, 08:46

Angel tapped at a key. Her screen filled with new data. She tapped another key and shook her head. “Okay,” she said.

Julia nodded in excitement. She rubbed at her mouth because her lips were very, very dry. “Running out of time here,” she said.

“How far away is the drone?” Wilkes asked.

“About ten kilometers. It looks like it'll be here right when the president starts his speech.”

“How are we looking?” Julia asked.

“Bad,” Angel told her. “I've got access to the onboard sensors, which is the first step toward switching off the camera. But I need more time, and—­”

“And we're not getting any,” Wilkes growled.

Angel shook her head. “I know, I know—­Jesus. There are four bombs on this thing.” She rubbed at her face. “Viper Strikes.”

Julia had no idea what that meant, but clearly Wilkes thought it was bad. He actually went pale when he heard it. “Not Hellfires. You're sure.”

Angel grunted. “I can tell the difference! And that's very bad, very, very bad. Because. Because I think I know how to stop this thing.”

“So do it already,” Julia insisted.

“I can release them,” Angel said as if Julia hadn't spoken. “I can send the rails hot signal, and the bombs will just . . . fall off the bottom of the drone. Before they were supposed to. That means they won't hit the Capitol.”

Wilkes nodded. “And they're Viper Strikes. Glide bombs, with GPS targeting. But they won't have targets.”

“Yeah,” Angel said. She took a deep breath.

“What's the big problem?” Julia asked. “Just do it already.”

Angel looked up at her. “Julia, the drone is already inside the Beltway. If I release those bombs, there is absolutely no way of saying where they'll go. They're glide bombs, which means they can fly a little on their own, they don't just fall straight down. Normally they're guided to their targets, but because they won't have any target information, they'll just glide on the wind until they hit something. Maybe they hit an IRS building and blow up everybody's tax returns. Or maybe they hit schools and hospitals. If I do this, we can't predict how many ­people will die. But we'll be dropping four bombs on a crowded population center, and I guarantee you they'll hit somebody.”

“It means saving the president, and everyone else in the Capitol,” Wilkes pointed out.

“You think he's got more of a right to live than anyone else?” Angel asked. Julia was surprised at the younger woman's tone—­she made it sound like an honest question, like something that could be debated.

“Yeah, I do. I think right now this country needs the president,” Wilkes replied. “I think without him we're utterly screwed. So if you don't want to push the button—­I will. And make up your mind right now, because we're out of time.”

Angel stared at him for long, desperate seconds during which Julia felt like she couldn't breathe. Like her heart was just going to stop beating.

Then Angel nodded and broke the spell.

“I'll do it,” she said.

She tilted the screen of her laptop back up and reached for the keyboard. Her finger hovered over the enter key. Then she tapped it, just once and closed her eyes. A shudder went through her small body. “Forgive me,” she whispered.

Julia put her hand over her mouth. She couldn't bear to think what they might just have done.

She didn't get a chance to think about it. Someone on the other side of the bakery shouted “Hey!” and everything stopped.

All three of them turned to look at the middle-­aged woman who had called out. She was holding her cell phone up as if she wanted to show it to everybody. “I had four bars,” she said. “Four bars!”

A guy in a business suit took his own phone out of his pocket and stared at it as if it had turned into an avocado while he wasn't looking. “No signal,” he said.

Angel stared at the man in horror. Then she looked down at her laptop. “No,” she said. “No, no, no—­not now!”

Julia looked out the plateglass windows at the front of the shop and saw something incredible. All over the sidewalk, as far as she could see in any direction, ­people were taking out their phones and staring at them, tapping wildly at the screen as if that would help, holding them high up in the air in an effort to catch even the slightest cellular signal, all to no avail. Her attention was drawn back when Angel tapped at the laptop screen, specifically at the icon in the status bar that indicated what kind of Wi-­Fi signal the computer was receiving.

The icon had turned a useless gray, indicating the laptop had no signal at all.

“Not now!” Angel said again, grabbing her hair in both hands.

GEORGETOWN, D.C.: MARCH 26, 08:48

Chapel fell backward, half intentionally, trying to get away from the bullets that smashed into the wooden stairs all around him. He went down hard on his left arm—­his artificial arm, which was good because if he'd landed on his right arm like that, it would have broken. The prosthetic twisted under him as he shoved himself downstairs, almost sledding over the risers until he reached the bottom. Then he twisted around to get the banister between himself and the shooter.

He was pretty sure he'd been hit, at least once. Looking up he saw blood on the risers and knew it was his. He also saw his Taser up there, sitting three steps down from the top of the staircase.

From above he heard the sound of a walkie-­talkie, the voice of someone desperately trying to connect to his superior. There was no reply. Maybe the superior was busy out front with the protesters. Maybe he was the guy Chapel had Tased out back. What a lucky break that would be.

Chapel just hoped he would live to make use of it.

He didn't dare look—­he had to keep his eyes on the top of the stairs, in case the shooter came back. But with his good, living hand, he reached down and tried to figure out where he'd been hit.

Two places, it turned out. Once in his right hip, though that just looked like a flesh wound. Once in his back, where he found a neat little hole that was leaking blood in a steady stream. That was a lot scarier. He couldn't reach the wound well enough to even put pressure on it.

Upstairs he heard a footstep creak on a loose floorboard.

He'd lost his Taser. But of course he'd come armed with more than one weapon. He drew a 9 mm handgun from one of his pockets and worked a round into the chamber. He hadn't wanted to kill anybody today. The guards in the safe house all worked for the Department of Defense. They were his colleagues. But if he had no choice, then—­

Another footstep.

The shooter swung out into open space at the top of the stairs and fired three shots down in quick succession, none of them coming close to hitting Chapel, but it was enough to make him dive behind his cover. When he dared to look again, the shooter was gone.

Damn. The shooter had the high ground. To get a clear shot Chapel would have to run all the way up those stairs, leaving himself exposed the whole time. The shooter could just pick Chapel off at his leisure.

But if he stayed down at the bottom, Chapel knew he would bleed to death before he could get to Hollingshead.

He tried to think of what to do. He tried to—­

More gunshots fell around him, still wide of the mark. Close enough to make Chapel throw his artificial arm over his head for protection.

The shooter pulled back and Chapel heard the floorboard squeak again.

Maybe. Just maybe,
he thought.

The stairs ended at an abrupt landing and turned to the right up there. Where the staircase met the ceiling was exactly where the shooter's floor began. That creaky floorboard had to be about a foot and a half from the top riser, about . . . there . . .

Chapel heard the creak again, and this time he was ready. He aimed his pistol at the ceiling and fired six shots, one after the other.

Somewhere in the roar of the shots he heard a scream. He thought.

For nearly a minute he just sat there, bleeding. Waiting for the creak of the floorboard or the sound of gunshots coming from above. In the end, though, neither of those things gave him his signal. Instead, he looked up and saw the circular holes he'd punched through the ceiling with his own shots. A nice, tight grouping right where he thought the shooter had been.

As he watched, a drop of blood dangled from the edge of one of those holes. It grew larger and larger and then it fell to splash on the floor right next to where Chapel lay.

He didn't waste any more time. He got to his feet—­which made his new wounds burn like fire, and his old, Wilkes-­inflicted gunshot wound flare up like a smoldering ember—­and staggered up the stairs, as fast as he possibly could.

At the top he found the shooter staring up at him, one hand reaching toward the stairs. One of Chapel's shots had gone through the bottom of the shooter's chin and out again through the top of his head.

The man was dead.

Chapel kicked his pistol away, back down the stairs, just to be safe. Then he started down the hall, toward the room where they were keeping Hollingshead.

Judging by the trail of blood he left behind him, he knew he'd better make this quick.

GEORGETOWN, D.C.: MARCH 26, 08:51

When they hadn't heard any gunshots in a while, Norton smiled. “That was your man, I think. The one we heard scream.”

Hollingshead hoped not. For everyone's sake, he sincerely hoped not. “Then I suppose all is lost. I came here on a fool's errand and threw away the life of my last asset. And, ah, well, of course—­my own.”

“Looks that way,” Norton told him.

“Then—­since it no longer matters—­maybe you can fill me in on a few details. Assuming, of course, that you aren't needed elsewhere.”

Norton shook his head. “No, I'm fine right here. I'm expecting a phone call a little after nine o'clock. From the president. Until then my schedule is clear.”

Hollingshead nodded. “Very good. A call from the president. And here I assumed your coup required that the man was dead. You set things up so you would be the designated survivor, then put most of the executive branch in one room—­”

Norton waved a hand dismissively. “I had no idea I was going to be the survivor. I never planned to hurt anyone at that level.”

“Then why—­I'm sorry, I find myself baffled. Not that I wish to give you any ideas, but—­why not? Why not assassinate the president, now that he's basically given you the perfect opportunity?”

“Because what you accused me of—­of fomenting a military coup—­that's impossible in America.”

“Indeed?”

“Yeah. Aaron Burr tried it all the way back in 1807, and he failed. Douglas MacArthur and Alex Haig both considered it, I think—­though neither of them went far enough for there to be any proof. I like to think they figured out the same thing I did. You can't pull off a military coup in America because we're a nation of loudmouths.” He laughed. “You know how many ­people would have to be in on such a thing? How many generals and colonels and majors I'd have to swing over to my side? And if even one of them decided they didn't like my scheme, all they would have to do would be to make one phone call and I'd be in the stockades by dinnertime. Forget it. And even if I could get all those officers on my side, what about the actual soldiers? American soldiers are the best trained and best equipped in history. They're also the best educated. You really think there's a single private anywhere in the army who would shoot the president because I asked him to? No, they know their rights too well. They would just refuse.”

“I can't say it's something I'd considered before,” Hollingshead said.

Norton got up and paced around the room, waving his arms in the air as he spoke. “No, a coup was out of the question. Anyway, why would I want to be chief executive? The second I declared myself president for life, the UN would be on my ass. China and Russia would send their navies to blockade our ports. There would be no shortage of Americans calling for me to step down, and no shortage of self-­styled patriots willing to martyr themselves if it meant they got a good shot at me.”

“So you don't want to be in charge,” Hollingshead said. “You don't want power. Despite everything you said about great men taking control of history.”

“Oh, I'm going to have the power. But I'm going to stay anonymous at the same time. I'll be the man behind the throne.”

Hollingshead squinted at the SecDef. “And how, exactly?”

“By making myself so vital to the president that he won't dare make a move without consulting me. When this country is reduced to utter chaos—­when ­people are running wild in the street—­”

“Ah!” Hollingshead said. “Of course. It will become necessary to declare martial law. And you will, of course, most modestly and in the ser­vice of your country, agree to take charge of the military clampdown that will follow.”

“Now you're getting it, Rupert,” Norton said, his eyes shining.

“And lo and behold, the drone attacks will stop. Your efforts to protect the nation will bear fruit and you'll be proclaimed a hero. Except, no—­they won't quite stop, will they? Any time there's a threat to your power, there'll be another attack.”