For the past ten days they had all been feverishly preparing to get the Spacerider, and those who would ride in it, ready for launch if necessary. Claire had never been through such an intense, physically demanding training regime in her entire life. For 14 to 16 hours a day, she, Scott, Christina, Tomas and Felicia had been schooled in every aspect of the arduous task they faced. Herc had been their primary instructor. Among the many things he’d taught them were how to get into and out of their massive, complicated space suits; how to climb into and out of the Spacerider using the clamshell airlock; how to eat and sleep in a zero-g environment, as well as the intricacies and delicacies of the bizarre space toilet. He had also spent considerable time showing them how to use the complex, difficult-to-use, but essential, exercise machines. Every night she’d gone back to her quarters, literally fallen into bed and been asleep within seconds.
Now they were all waiting for the President to announce the success or failure of his administration’s attempt to shatter and deflect the asteroid. Claire’s heart rate was approaching 120. She had no doubt everyone else’s was also.
The President was scheduled to go on-air at 2:00 p.m.. The actual time the bombs would impact the asteroid was around 1:00. NASA scientists needed the extra hour to see what effect the explosions had before relaying it to the President. Because of its orbital trajectory with respect to the Earth’s rotation, those on the other side of the world—now in darkness—would be able to see the explosions. They would essentially occur on top of the new “star” that everyone could now clearly see.
Finally, an on-air announcer broke into the conversation of the panel of astronomers who were discussing what was likely or not-so-likely to happen.
“We will now go to the Oval Office at the White House where the President will announce........”
The President suddenly appeared on-screen. Claire instantly knew what he was about to say. He looked haggard—almost as if he’d been crying.
“Good day, my fellow Americans. As you know by now, NASA scientists, in close coordination with the United States Air Force, recently launched a modified Apollo missile, with two, large, nuclear weapons, toward the asteroid. Our hope was the simultaneous, precisely aimed explosions would shatter it, sending all, or at least some of the pieces away from the Earth. I must now tell you we were not successful. For reasons we cannot explain the explosions had no appreciable effect. We can only surmise that its very-high iron and nickel composition made it much harder than we had anticipated. So, as I speak to you now, the asteroid is continuing on its projected impact in the Atlantic Ocean three days from now, on January 16th at approximately 3:23 a.m. eastern time. Accordingly, I am ordering immediate and mandatory evacuations of all low-lying coastal areas. I am also declaring that a state of national emergency now exists for.........”
Without warning Claire felt, as much as heard, a loud pop close to her head. At the same moment the TV screen shattered. She instinctively ducked away from the door frame as several women screamed. She looked to her right and saw a chrome-plated, semiautomatic gun aimed into the room.
“Everybody stay exactly where you are!” a familiar voice demanded.
Claire leaned forward slightly trying to see who she suspected was there, just as Quinten Gnash stepped into the room.
He looked to his left and smiled as he saw her. “Ah! Miss McBeth. How good it is to see you again! And Mr. Ramond! You’re looking fit. It’s wonderful to make your acquaintance again!”
Claire saw Herc glare at him. For a split second Claire thought Herc would say something.
“Don’t bother with a witty reply, Mr. Ramond. It would be so inappropriate at a time like this.” Gnash looked at the rest of those in the room while slowly swinging his gun to point at each. “And of course, Mr. Seok. No doubt the woman next to you is your lovely wife. Unless I’m mistaken your name is Kyung-Hee. Am I correct?”
Claire and everyone else in the room could clearly see that Kyung was frozen with fear. She could no more have spoken than she could have piloted the Spacerider.
“No need to reply, Mrs. Seok. It’s your husband I’ve come to deal with, not you.”
He continued his perusal of those in the room. “Now. One of you other gentlemen is Mr. Anderson, I believe; one of the pilots of that magnificent Antonov-225 now sitting on the flight line waiting for takeoff. Which one of you is that? Please stand.”
No one in the room made a move.
Gnash abruptly pointed the gun at one of the men Claire didn’t know and fired, hitting him in the forehead. All the women and most of the men either screamed or shouted in horror. The man looked startled for a fraction of a second then slumped down into his chair. Two women starting whimpering, another wailing.
“There, there, ladies. No need for grief. He is now in a far better place than what this world is about to become. Unless, of course, he was a bad little boy while he was here! So, if you will please stop your ridiculous blubbering, I want to get on with why I’m here!”
Everyone instantly quieted down.
“Again, which one of you is Mr. Anderson? If you don’t stand up by the time I count to three I’ll shoot someone else! One.....two.......”
Slowly, another man stood up that Claire didn’t recognize. Gnash cooly raised his gun and fired again, hitting the man who must have been Anderson in the center of his chest. He toppled over backwards, knocking over a small end table as he did. More screams erupted in the room which quickly ended when Gnash raised his gun and started randomly pointing it at people.
“There. That wasn’t so difficult, was it? Now, of course, there’s no way you can complete your humanity-saving mission into space. You have no pilot for the Antonov-225 to ferry you up. How tragic! Now you’ll just have to die like the rest of us! You see, it wasn’t really difficult to figure out what you intended to do. I’m a lot smarter than you people! Now, without further ado, Miss McBeth, Mr. Ramond and Mr. Seok, if you will come with me.”
Claire didn’t move. She wasn’t sure she could do anything given how much she was in shock. Herc and Kay looked at each other. Herc nodded slightly and Kay then stood. Kyung gave a feeble cry and grasped at her husband’s hand. He gently pulled it away, gave her a hint of a smile and made his way toward Gnash. The big man backed out of the lounge and into the hangar. Herc took Claire by the elbow and led her out the door as Kay joined them. As they moved into the hangar Claire saw that Gnash was dressed in a light jump suit and track shoes as if he was planning to exercise.
Gnash continued backing away from the three, keeping at least 10 feet of distance between them. Finally, he stopped and said to Herc, “Get one of the heavy chairs from the lounge. Bring it back out, close the door and wedge the backrest under the knob.” When Herc hesitated, Gnash snarled, “You aren’t going to make me go back in there and start shooting people are you?!”
Claire watched as Herc did as he was told. Those left in the lounge were watching what was happening outside in stark horror. As Herc turned around from the door she saw his eyes darting around the space, desperately trying to find a way out of the trap.
Gnash reached into a pants pocket, pulling out two, narrow, eighteen-inch long zip ties. He waved the gun at Claire. “Miss McBeth, come here and take one of these zip ties. I want you to very carefully bind your boyfriends hands behind his back.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I will immediately put a bullet in his kneecap. There are those who say it is the most excruciatingly painful injury one can sustain. Some die in agony simply from the shock.”
Claire slowly eased toward him and took one of the ties from Gnash’s outstretched hand. As she walked toward Herc, Gnash turned to Kay. “Mr. Seok, sit down with your butt on the floor and cross your feet in front of you.”
As Gnash talked to Kay, Herc urgently whispered to her, “Make the tie as tight as you can and place the locking tab right between by wrists and facing up!”
Claire wanted to ask why but knew she did
n’t have time to wait for the answer. Herc placed his wrists together behind his back and Claire wrapped the tie around them just as he had asked. She cringed as she tightened it until they were nearly cutting into his skin. If they stayed that way too long she was knew the blood flow to his hands would be cut off.
“I’m sorry!” she murmured to him.
“It’s okay!” he quietly replied.
“Now get away from him, Miss McBeth, so I can check your work!”
Claire slid sideways until she came near to Kay a few feet away. She watched as Gnash checked the tightness on Herc’s zip tie. “Very good work Miss McBeth! Now, sit down Mr. Ramond, just as Mr. Seok. And Miss McBeth, take another zip tie and secure Mr. Seok’s hands in the same manner.”
Claire completed the task but didn’t tighten the tie as severely.
“There! Isn’t this better. Now I can put the gun away......and deal with each of you the way I intended to all along: face-to-face, with my bare hands!”
He casually placed the gun in his waist band at the small of his back. Then, suddenly, with a burst of speed that she could hardly believe, he took three quick strides and grabbed her by the collar of her blouse just below her chin. He wadded up the material in his massive fist until it nearly choked her, then rapidly slapped her hard, twice, with the back of his hand. In her life she had never been hit by anyone, let alone by a very big, very strong man. The term “seeing stars” was only an abstract term she had used on rare occasions in some of her creative writing. Now she knew exactly and personally what it meant and how it felt. For a moment she though she might black out. Her head lolled on her shoulders. He shook her like a rag doll. “Now, now Claire! No passing out on me!......and by the way, do you mind if I call you Claire? I feel like we’ve become so close.”
Somewhere, far in the distance, she thought she vaguely heard Kay and Herc furiously screaming at him to stop.
He slapped her again, even harder. This time she felt her legs give out but for some reason she didn’t go down. As she looked down she could see through the fog that he was easily keeping her upright with one powerful arm. In fact, the only part of her touching the floor were the tips of her shoes. She could feel one eye and her cheek beginning to swell. A trickle of blood began to ooze out the corner of her mouth.
“I think it’s only appropriate that you know why I’m doing this. You see, I wasn’t able to complete my assignment—you survived! And that was embarrassing! I don’t like being embarrassed, Claire!” He grabbed her chin and yanked it violently back and forth. “And of course, there’s something else! At this moment around the world, millions of people are dying because of you. They’re being shot, stabbed, run over, beaten to death and dying in ways that you couldn’t possibly comprehend. So this is for them!” Again, he struck her. This time the blow was more of a sharp cuff across her left ear. For a second, she couldn’t hear out of it, then it started to ring. She wondered if he’d ruptured her eardrum.
“Journalists like you are so arrogant!” he shouted. “You think you’re smarter than anyone else. You think the great masses of the ‘unwashed’ out there need your personal guidance and protection from themselves. You think you should use your journalistic pulpit to expound on the answers to all the great unanswerable questions of the universe!”
For a few seconds as he jerked her around, Claire could see over Gnash’s right shoulder to where Herc was seated on the floor perhaps 30 feet away. Suddenly, he stood up, raised both of his tied hands high behind his back, then slammed them down across his butt. Somehow, amazingly, the zip tie broke! His arms were free and instantly he was sprinting toward them. She knew she had to somehow distract Gnash for a fraction of a second. She did the one thing she had the strength for—she spit full in his face. His face turned bright crimson, his battleship-grey eyes bulged and he drew back his fist to punch her in the face. She knew if he connected he would give her at best a severe concussion and at worst......”
Abruptly she felt Herc slam into Gnash’s back. She felt and heard a loud “Oomph!” as the air was forcibly expelled from his lungs. She and Gnash tumbled to the floor in a tangled heap, with her on the bottom. She managed to look up in time to see Herc fumbling behind Gnash’s back. A second later he stood up with Gnash’s gun in hand.
“Claire! Get away from him!” Herc barked.
Somehow she managed to summon the last vestiges of strength she had left and roll away from her assailant. She stood up and staggered toward Kay, then slumped back down next to him, too woozy and hurting to go any further. She turned back to see Gnash slowly getting to his feet as Herc aimed the gun at him and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He stared at it in exasperation, then tried to recharge it.
Gnash laughed manically. “Very good, Mr. Ramond! You’re far more resourceful than I’d given you credit for. Unfortunately for you and your friends, that Ruger you hold has the latest in security measures. It has an electronic palm print reader built into the stock. It will only fire if I’m holding it.”
Herc looked at Gnash, smiled himself, then repeatedly smashed the gun down on the polished concrete floor, breaking it into several pieces.
Gnash chuckled some more. “Oh, come now! Do you really think that by destroying my gun it will make any difference?!” He straightened up as he finally caught his breath. “So I guess it finally comes down to just you and me, Mr. Ramond, doing what we both suspected would eventually happen from the moment we met in the hospital. It’s going to be a pleasure beating you to a pulp, then doing the same to your girlfriend and the old man.”
He crouched slightly and positioned himself in what to Claire looked like some sort of martial arts stance, then cautiously edged forward. She saw that he was not as confident as his words. Herc eased closer himself, his weight balanced on the balls of his feet. Claire knew this would not be a boxing match governed by the gentlemanly, 160 year-old Marquis of Queensberry rules. This would be no carefully scripted movie fight where Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, or Jean-Claude Van Damme obliterated their opponents who obligingly froze in place as the heroes waded in. She suspected it would be nothing less that a fight to the death governed by no more than who could kill the other in whatever way possible. In spite of her suspicions she prayed it wouldn’t end that way. At least not with Herc being killed. She felt her pulse begin to pound, exacerbating the pain building in her head and jaw.
The two men had closed to within 9 or 10 feet of each other when Gnash charged, feinting in one direction then spinning into a classic, roundhouse leg kick, aimed at Herc’s head. Instead of dodging back, Herc surprisingly ducked under Gnash’s leg then darted forward to get inside his adversary’s superior reach. For the next several seconds there was a blur of knee and leg kicks and punches thrown by both men that were all blocked by the other. Suddenly Herc staggered sideways and back from one of Gnash’s knees that had caught him just above the hip. Gnash smiled and moved forward, then lashed out with a straight-right punch aimed at Herc’s head. Herc deflected the blow with his left forearm, then chopped downwards with his right hand at Gnash’s exposed right elbow. Gnash grunted in pain but managed to dodge Herc’s left hook that narrowly missed the bigger man’s jaw a tiny fraction of a second later.
The two separated again, warily circling each other, looking for any opening in their opponent’s defenses. Without warning, Gnash did what she’d been fearing and expecting from the beginning. He simply charged forward, managed to avoid several of Herc’s counter blows, and wrapped his massive arms around Herc’s rib cage. He picked the smaller man up and squeezed. Claire heard a rib crack from where she was lying. Herc yelled in pain but managed to savagely head-butt Gnash in the nose causing blood to spurt. He instantly followed that up by brutally smashing Gnash’s ears with cupped hands. The big man howled in agony. Claire knew the blows to his ears had ruptured Gnash’s eardrums. Herc fell to the floor as Gnash released him, then watched as Gnash stumbled back in anguish. Without hesitation Herc leaped up, rushed forward a
nd viciously kicked Gnash in the kneecap. He screamed again and crashed to the floor on his back, writhing in misery from the pain in his elbow, nose, ears and knee. Claire was certain at any other time the injuries would have landed Gnash in the hospital for at least a week. Herc stared down at the fallen giant. She could see he was deciding how to finish what Gnash had started. There were many ways to kill another man with just bare hands or feet. He then turned to look at Claire and Kay. He had an expression she’d never seen before. She knew what he was asking for.
“No!” she said quietly. “Don’t do it! Not even him! Not even now! We must not become what he was!”
“You’re about to begin a journey that no modern man has ever faced,” Kay added. “Start it with a clear conscience.”
Breathing heavily, Herc looked down again at former FBI special agent Quinten Gnash, now bleeding, contorted and moaning on the floor “You’re right. He’s not worth it.”
Chapter 48
Claire sat quietly on a bench in the spacesuit assembly room. A half dozen technicians were nearing the end of the complex process of putting on her multimillion dollar, life-support system. It had taken far longer than she had anticipated. Each meticulous step required infinite patience from both her and her “dressers” to ensure they got it precisely correct. Any mistake would almost certainly result in a very ugly death. She now had a better understanding of why Kay had wanted to charge his space tourists so much for their joyrides into orbit.
Seated around her were Herc, Scott, Christina, Tomas and Felicia as they too watched and assisted as needed as Kay’s spacesuit support team finished up.
Blinding Fear Page 32
