The Cyclops Initiative (47 page)

“And I'll be the one who decides when that is,” Norton pointed out.

“The ­people will be very angry,” Hollingshead said. “They'll hate this. But they won't blame you—­after all, you'll just be doing what the president asked you to do. They'll blame him.” Hollingshead very much wished his hands were free. He would have liked to polish his glasses. It was what he did when he needed time to think. “Simplicity itself. A flawless plan. I suppose one doesn't rise to a vital cabinet position if one isn't a little brilliant.”

“Thank you, Rupert. That actually means a lot,” Norton said, with a genuine smile.

Hollingshead grinned back. “Of course, it won't last. Tyranny never does. The ­people will revolt.”

Norton opened his mouth to say something more, but he was interrupted by the sound of more gunshots out in the hall.

“Do you suppose,” he said when silence fell again, “that was mine or yours?”

“I imagine,” Hollingshead said, “we're about to find out.”

GEORGETOWN, D.C.: MARCH 26, 08:57

Chapel had lost so much blood he could barely stand upright, but he was still strong enough to shoot. He leaned against the wall of the storeroom, right next to the door. He closed his eyes—­the better to hear the approaching guards, he told himself. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was about to pass out.

He could hear them getting closer. Since his only plan relied on getting off two perfectly placed point-­blank shots the second he stepped into the hallway, he wanted them as close as possible. He forced himself to wait, to concentrate.

He kept thinking about the fact he hadn't said good-­bye to Julia. Not properly, anyway. Nor had he told Angel what she'd meant to him over the years.

He hoped that she knew.

He forced open his eyes.

He stepped out into the hall and started shooting.

CAPITOL HILL, D.C.: MARCH 26, 08:58

“More,” Angel said. “One more. Come on!”

At least now Julia could understand what showed on the laptop's screen. It showed a simplified map of Washington, covered in tiny red dots. Each of those was a cell-­phone tower. As Angel seized control of them, one by one, they turned green.

“I don't understand,” Julia said. “I thought the drone was jamming all the radio frequencies.”

“It is,” Angel said. “Those towers aren't getting any phone signals through. But GPS is different. It was designed by the military, originally, and it includes a technology called DSSS to get around jamming. Anything I send through those towers, if it uses DSSS, is going to look like GPS coordinates. If I can send the bombs fake coordinates, I can fool them into hitting the wrong targets.”

“Doesn't GPS come from satellites, not cell towers?” Wilkes asked.

“Yeah. The drone would know it was being fooled, but the bombs aren't smart enough to tell the difference. Any radio signal with DSSS looks the same to them. The trick,” she said, tapping at her trackpad until another tower turned green, “is to get enough towers up and running. The bombs are still getting
real
GPS data from the satellites. That signal is still stronger than what I'm putting out. But if I can take over enough cell towers, I can overwhelm the satellite signal and fool the bombs.”

Wilkes started to ask another question, but Julia put a hand on his arm and shook her head. Angel needed to concentrate.

On the screen another tower turned green. And another. Angel nodded encouragingly. Then she spat out an obscenity as one of her green towers turned back to red.

Wilkes bent his head down to whisper to Julia. “Is this going to work?”

“No idea,” Julia told him. “Normally I'd say it was impossible. But it's Angel. So—­maybe?”

On the laptop, three more towers turned green.

A fourth.

Two more.

“Please,” Angel said. “Please just work.”

Julia glanced out the plateglass windows of the bakery, as if she could see the drone out there. As if she could see the bombs falling from the sky.

“Please,” Angel said.

“Please.”

OVER CAPITOL HILL, D.C.: MARCH 26, 09:00

A logic gate in the electronic guts of the Gray Eagle clicked open, and a signal moved forward through the maze of its processors. A circuit was completed and a command issued.

Under its belly, four clamps opened simultaneously. The clamps were all that held the Viper Strike bombs to the drone, and now they dropped away.

At first the bombs fell like ungainly bowling pins, tumbling through the air. But after a second of free fall, spring-­loaded wings and tail fins popped out of their fuselages and they caught the air, pulling out of their spins like diving birds. They settled into long, shallow trajectories as if they wanted to take their time and enjoy the breeze.

The bombs lacked jet engines or propellers, but by adjusting their fins they could change their course radically after they were deployed. One by one they turned away from the path they'd been on, the same path the Gray Eagle had flown. They sniffed the air for the signals they were designed to follow, the GPS coordinates programmed into their tiny brains.

But something was wrong. There seemed to be two signals, with very different values. The two targeting solutions were nearly a kilometer away from each other.

Which signal was correct? There was no way of knowing. For the first few seconds of their descent, the bombs' fins twisted back and forth helplessly and their warheads swayed like dogs choosing between two perfectly identical bones.

An insoluble problem for computers as simple as those inside the bombs. They might have just kept twisting back and forth until they simply fell out of the sky. But then the problem solved itself, as things always do—­for better or worse.

Little by little, one of the GPS signals grew stronger. Little by little the computers grew sure and certain of where they should go.

Down on the Mall a quarter million ­people waited to hear what the president had to say. One of the GPS signals indicated that the bombs' target was right in the center of that crowd. Right where their explosions would do the most damage.

Kill the most ­people.

The protesters might hear a whistling sound, in the last moment. The bombs would be moving too fast for them to see their deaths streaking toward them.

At least . . . that might have happened. But the second GPS signal was stronger. At the critical moment, the bombs twisted away from the crowd and headed west. They stretched their wings as wide as they could to gain distance as they slid toward the ground, their noses coming up as they tried, desperately, to reach their new target, nearly a kilometer away. They flicked over the roof of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, just barely avoiding a collision, then nosed down to strike their target with pinpoint accuracy.

Their computer brains were not smart enough to wonder why. Why they had been told to attack a target fifty feet below the surface of the Tidal Basin, the nearest body of deep water. They were deeply submerged when they detonated. The high-­explosive warheads sent a shock wave through the water, a concussive blast of incredible magnitude. The whole surface of the basin lifted and then a plume of water shot fifty feet up into the air.

Those few ­people who had gathered outside the Jefferson Memorial, perhaps to see the famous cherry trees, were soaked to the skin. Some of them screamed in panic—­some ran for shelter. Most stared at each other with wide eyes, wondering what had just happened.

Antiterrorist units and uniformed police were mobilized and they raced to the scene, but there was nothing for them to see when they arrived except for some very wet, very confused tourists.

The attack was already over.

Meanwhile, over in the Capitol building, the president took the podium to enthusiastic applause and began to deliver the most important speech of his career.

GEORGETOWN, D.C.: MARCH 26, 09:01

Patrick Norton's cell phone rang inside of his jacket.

Hollingshead did not know at the time about the ECM pod mounted on the Gray Eagle. He did not know that for the last ten minutes or so not a single cell phone in Washington had been able to receive a call. He did not know that the drone had now switched off its jammer, specifically so that this phone call could get through.

Nor could he know who was calling or what they had to say. He could only hear Norton's side of the conversation, which was limited to a scant few words. “What? What do you mean—­ I see. All right, just stand by for now. Soon.”

That was all the information Hollingshead had. Those few words. But it was enough to let him inhale deeply for the first time all morning.

He waited for Norton to put the phone back in his pocket.

Then Hollingshead asked, “Things not going exactly to plan?”

Norton was too good a politician to let his face show any real emotion. Still, he couldn't quite control the tic that made his left eyelid jump. “You didn't come here to talk me out of the attack, did you?”

“No, I knew from Charlotte that it couldn't be aborted,” Hollingshead agreed.

Norton lowered his head a fraction of an inch. He appeared resolute and determined, though, when he looked up again. He went to the window and looked down into the street. “Those protesters of yours are still down there. I'll have to go out the back way. I'm sorry, Rupert, but you've pushed me too far. I don't have any more time to talk.” He shook his head. “I'm afraid this is it for you. I still have a chance, I have plenty of ­people in sensitive positions who can arrange another attack, but—­”

He stopped because there was a knock at the door.

Norton stared at the door for a moment, breathing heavily. Then he called out, “Come in,” in a clear voice.

The door swung open.

Jim Chapel stood there, covered in blood, holding a pistol tight in his right hand.

He took a staggering step inside the room, lurching like an incarnation of red vengeance.

“I didn't come here to dissuade you from the attack,” Hollingshead said. “I came here today to make sure, when the attack was foiled, that you didn't get away. This has to end, Patrick. It has to end this instant.”

Norton watched Chapel carefully. He licked his lips, as if they were suddenly very dry. Hollingshead wondered if the man would try to run. Force Chapel to shoot him. Suicide by field agent might seem better, perhaps, than facing what was to come.

Norton surprised him, however. The SecDef set his face very carefully. Then he lifted both hands in the air in surrender.

For a moment no one moved.

It was like they couldn't believe it was over.

Eventually, though, Hollingshead decided the time had come to speak. “Mister Secretary, you're under arrest for the crime of treason. Captain Chapel, would you please secure the prisoner?”

Chapel took out a pair of plastic handcuffs and locked Norton's hands together. He frisked the man and took away his phone. Then he told the SecDef to sit down while he went over and cut Hollingshead free.

“Are you hurt?” Chapel asked.

“Son, you're not the one who should be asking that question,” Hollingshead whispered back, while rubbing at his chafed wrists. “Are you going to—­”

“I'll be fine, for now,” Chapel told him.

He handed the SecDef's phone to Hollingshead, then went back to watching Norton. Hollingshead made a few quick phone calls. Within minutes a squad of military police arrived at the safe house. They stood down Norton's security guards—­the ones out front, still arguing with Top—­then came up the stairs to the room where Hollingshead waited for them. Their commander, a second lieutenant, blanched when he saw who he'd come to arrest.

“It's all right,” Hollingshead said. “He's been removed from office. You can take him into custody.”

Hollingshead didn't technically have the authority—­or the rank—­to do that, but Norton didn't protest. The MPs took him away without another word.

Only when they were gone did Hollingshead see Chapel sway on his feet.

“Is it hot in here?” Chapel asked. “It feels really hot.”

Hollingshead went over to his agent and placed a hand on his forehead. Chapel was burning with fever. “Son—­maybe you should sit down,” he said.

“Not until,” Chapel said. But he didn't finish the sentence.

“Not until what?” Hollingshead asked.

Chapel looked at him with the strangest expression. Then he collapsed, tumbling headfirst toward the floor.

GEORGETOWN, D.C.: MARCH 26, 09:33

It took forever to get over to Georgetown, creeping along through every traffic light, fighting weird traffic patterns as ­people kept trying to cram themselves into the Mall. Wilkes drove because Julia kept thinking she was going to throw up.

In the backseat, Angel was all but catatonic. Whether that was because of the news they'd gotten from Hollingshead or if she was just burned out after having to work so hard in the middle of so many ­people, well, who knew? Julia had stopped worrying about Angel.

She had somebody else to occupy all of her worrying faculties, now.

When they reached the DoD safe house Julia pushed open her door and jumped out onto the pavement even while Wilkes tried to park the car. Ralph, the one-­armed vet, was standing by the door and he tried to say something to her as she pushed him away. He tried to grab her hands. She bulled past him and inside, then realized she didn't know where to go next.

“Where is he?” she demanded.

Ralph tried to calm her down. “Just—­”

“Where the fuck is Chapel?” she said, and then there was somebody else there. The house was full of Top's boys. They tried to talk to her, maybe they even tried to answer her question, but she couldn't hear them. Her heart was pounding in her ears and she wouldn't have heard anybody. She couldn't think, could barely see. Dolores appeared, briefly, but didn't even try to get in Julia's way. Somebody pointed up a flight of stairs stained with blood. She should have known. Blood in the hallway upstairs. You want to find Jim Chapel, follow the trail of blood. Inside Julia's head a whole symphony of worry and fear was just tuning up.