by Jack Mars
The rear cargo hatch of the Antonov rumbled downward then, instantly bringing a frenzy of whipping, frigid wind over the boat. Krauss zipped up his jacket. February in this part of the world was anything but pleasant.
Then a buzzer sounded, even louder than the engine, so loud he winced. Before he could exhale, the boat rocketed backward. Suddenly he felt his stomach drop out with the telltale sensation of falling; he was able to register a single thought (I wonder how far the fall is) before the boat crashed into the water, stern first, and then bow dropping.
Stefan Krauss grunted as his body pitched forward. He caught himself on his forearms and slid into the railing at the bow. Somewhat painful, but at least the rope had been unnecessary. The Atlantic in February could kill a man.
Glimmer rocked a few times and settled, the waves they had created growing smaller with each ebb. Krauss stood then, the Antonov droning in his ears as it took to the sky again, climbing in altitude.
“Good?” he asked the Saudi commandos at the stern, flashing a thumbs-up.
“All good,” one of them said in English, though at least two of them looked queasy. Krauss couldn’t help but wonder why Salman had sent five when he only needed two others to effectively pilot the boat and fire the weapon. Perhaps they were going to kill him when their goal was accomplished. Though that made little sense either, since Krauss had already been paid. For now, he was still the only one who could use the railgun, and he moved to the console to exhibit that now.
The heavy doors at the center of the boat whirred as they opened upright. The head of the railgun rose slowly, almost casually. He appreciated this weapon immensely; it had no interest in showing off. It was in no hurry to demonstrate its power. It had purpose, and performed it efficiently and quickly. The railgun, in many ways, reminded him of himself.
“What are you doing?!” shouted one of the two Saudi commandos he had heard speak English thus far.
Krauss keyed in the line-of-sight targeting (there were no coordinates needed, and their target was not a static one) and locked onto the plane before answering. “There can be no trail. No one to answer questions.”
“Those are our people!”
Krauss frowned at the commando. “I was told you and your men knew the plan. But now I wonder how much Sheikh Salman did not tell you?”
The man’s jaw flexed; he wanted to say more, but he refrained.
The railgun pivoted upward, aiming skyward, and then the apparatus swung around one hundred and eighty degrees. Krauss flicked up a small red plastic shield, and then the switch to fire. He directed his attention to the long barrel of the railgun, enjoying the way that it made minute adjustments, tracking its target even during the eight seconds it took to power up.
And then, in the most beautiful blue flash, the Antonov exploded in the air.
Krauss smiled as he started the engines and powered down the weapon. Glimmer did an about-face, and then he opened the throttle toward their destination. It was cold, but he didn’t mind it. They were only about six hundred miles from the coast. They could reach the eastern shore of the United States in four hours.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
The EA-6B Prowler on loan from Sergeant Flagg’s “friends” in Algeria roared into the air from H-6 in Morocco and headed north by northwest toward the Strait of Gibraltar. Alan took the yoke, he and Maria seated side by side in the front-most of two cockpits. Zero sat behind them in a secondary cockpit, strapped in with a headset over his ears so they could communicate.
It had been a while since Zero felt this claustrophobic, boxed in by a domed windshield overhead and his black pack between his feet. But that was the least of his concerns. They needed a hit on the railgun, and soon. Otherwise they were flying aimless.
“We’ll head to the Strait and go east,” Alan’s voice crackled through the headset. “If you’re right and the boat headed up the Gulf of Aden to the Mediterranean, we should be close enough to find it by visual.”
“Close enough to do what?” Zero couldn’t help but ask. The decommissioned Prowler had no missiles, no armaments.
“This plane was built for electronic warfare,” Alan explained, “with an AN/ALQ-99 system. That’s fancy-talk for advanced signal jammers. If we can locate the boat, we might be able to at least keep the railgun from being able to lock onto a target. The pods are still there, affixed under each wing. They should still be operational…”
“Should?” Maria asked.
“Do we ever work on certainty?” Alan retorted.
“Fair point. And if that fails?”
“Then we get coordinates and call in a strike to anyone that will listen,” Zero said. It was a long shot, but it was the only one they had—short of crashing the plane right into the damn boat, which was not an option any of them would discount.
The screen of the sat phone in his lap lit up with an incoming call, the ring tone muted by the Prowler’s twin engines. Zero patched the call through the headset so Alan and Maria could hear. “Penny? Give us good news.”
“Wish I had some,” the young doctor’s voice was low and urgent. “ILDN got a hit on the railgun’s signature, just now—”
“Where?” Zero interrupted, realizing sheepishly that she was about to tell them.
“In the Atlantic. About six hundred miles off the east coast of the United States.”
“What?!” Zero’s heart skipped a beat even as Reidigger instantly changed their heading. That was impossible; even a ship as advanced as the one the South Koreans had built couldn’t get that far that quickly.
Unless…
“What was the target?” Maria asked.
“Unclear,” said Penny. “Something exploded over the Atlantic. Satellites are trying to determine what it was. A ship, maybe, or a—”
“Plane,” Zero interjected again. That was how the boat got to the Atlantic as fast as it did. “They moved it by plane, and then blew it up.”
Just like the South Korean crew had entirely been eliminated, and the Somali pirates who stole it, now the crew of whatever cargo plane had transported the boat were dead too. This was a suicide mission for all involved—which meant that whoever was on that boat with the railgun was not only willing to die for their cause, but knew damn well that they would.
“Feds are investigating the explosion currently,” Penny said quickly, “but you know that the railgun is going to be at the forefront of everyone’s mind. They’re going to know what we know pretty soon, and then it’s going to be havoc.”
“She’s right,” Maria agreed. “If anything within two hundred miles of the coast can be a target, the choice would be massive chaotic evacuations or heavy loss of life.”
But, Zero realized, not anything could be the target.
“The railgun doesn’t fire like a missile,” he pointed out. “It fires like a gun, requiring a direct and unobstructed path. Which means that something like the White House or the Pentagon can’t be a viable target to strike from the sea.”
“But the United Nations building in New York could be,” Reidigger pointed out. “It’s right on the water.”
“Unless their goal is simply heavy casualties,” said Penny, “in which case any major metropolitan hub on the coast would be fish in a barrel.”
Think! Zero shouted internally. The perpetrators had gone through a hell of a lot of trouble to get this far, and the railgun had traveled halfway across the planet. To do all that just for heavy casualties didn’t make sense, especially considering the pinpoint accuracy of the weapon. No, their target had to be specific. It had to be calculated. So far it had been used on three warships and an airplane—but no static targets.
“Moving targets,” he murmured aloud.
“Zero, repeat that?” Reidigger said.
That was it. The railgun was adept at hitting moving targets. Perhaps the only reason they fired on the cargo plane at all was to let their location be known. The threat of its proximity to the US coast would be cause for evacuation—movemen
t.
They won’t have to hit the White House. Because that’s not where Rutledge will be.
“Alan, can we make it before the ship reaches shore?” Zero asked suddenly.
“Before it reaches shore? Yes. Before it gets into range of the coast? I… don’t know.”
“Let’s try like hell. I think I know what their target is. Penny—I need you to do whatever you can to keep the president from getting on Air Force One.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
It was almost nine in the morning by the time Maya reached the city limits of Columbus, Ohio, in search of the agent formerly known as Seth Connors. She had decided against getting a motel room and tried to drive straight through the night, but around three in the morning her eyelids grew heavy and she feared she’d fall asleep at the wheel, so she pulled into a rest stop and caught a couple hours’ sleep in the parking lot, setting an alarm on her phone that she almost ignored. But she forced herself awake again, purchased three sixteen-ounce energy drinks (which had a disconcerting warning on the side to not consume more than two in a twenty-four-hour period) and pressed on.
The morning traffic of the city was surprisingly not heavy, and her GPS told her she should reach the address that Dr. Bliss had given her—501 Willow Street—in ten minutes. The Skylark had performed better than admirably, making the eight-hour drive almost pleasant.
She clicked on the radio for some background noise, hoping for some music but instead getting a rapid female voice reporting on some new development out there in the world.
“Breaking news from the United Nations’ Security Council, an investigation is being launched into a weapons project developed by South Korea in secrecy. Anonymous reports claim that the weapon was stolen three days ago, though the perpetrators and the nature of the weapon are currently unknown…”
A short blast of a honking horn startled Maya. She checked the rearview; a black car had swung into traffic on an illegal left turn right behind her, cutting off a honking truck.
Ordinarily she might have chalked it up to rude drivers. Except she recognized the car. It was a late-model Lincoln with a boxy grille and wide headlights. She’d noticed it earlier, as the sun was rising and she was still on the highway. That same model car had been within a few paces of her for a good fifty miles.
Maybe even that same car.
Did Bliss sell me out? she wondered. Or am I being paranoid?
There was only one way to find out. At the next intersection, as the light was turning from yellow to red, Maya hit the gas and did a quick left turn without signaling. She elicited a few honks herself but ignored them and kept an eye on the rearview.
The Lincoln didn’t follow. She breathed a sigh of relief, and even allowed herself a chuckle at her own expense and paranoia.
I guess that’s what happens when you spend too much time around Dad, she thought wryly as she made a right turn to go around the block and double back on her route. But as she made the second right, a car turned from the opposite direction, only a few feet away, practically on her bumper.
The black Lincoln.
“Okay,” Maya told them in the rearview. “Never been in a car chase before, so this should be fun.” She slammed the accelerator.
The Skylark lurched forward, forcing her further into her seat. She came up fast, too fast on the car in front of her and swerved quickly into the oncoming lane. A blue sedan screeched to a halt as Maya narrowly zipped around it, putting a car between her and her pursuers.
Her heart leapt into her throat as she ran a red light, missing a T-bone collision with an SUV by no more than an arm’s width. But the Lincoln was not far behind her, using the path of stopped cars in her wake to keep pace.
You can’t outrun them in the city. She slowed the Skylark and fell into the flow of city traffic, doing about thirty and coming up on the next traffic light. The Lincoln stayed right on her tail, close enough that she couldn’t see its headlights. Nor could she see through the dark-tinted windshield enough to discern who might be driving.
Time to try something fancy. At the green light she suddenly jerked the wheel to the right, into a sudden turn. The Lincoln predictably kept right up with her—but instead of braking into the turn, Maya hit the gas and spun the wheel further.
The sports car responded perfectly, the back wheels fishtailing out as the Buick did an about-face almost in place. She hit the accelerator again, passing the Lincoln in the opposite direction and, even though they couldn’t see through her windows either, gave them the finger.
“Ha!” she shouted victoriously. Behind her, the Lincoln was struggling to do a K-turn on the tight city street, cars blaring their horns as it cut off traffic. She made a quick right, zoomed two blocks and then a left, turning randomly and hoping to lose them.
You’re in one of the most conspicuous cars you could possibly be in, she thought. She had to get the Skylark off the street. There was a good chance, she reasoned, that her pursuers knew the car but not her.
Two blocks later she saw it, a large white sign with vertical letters in red spelling PARK. She turned quickly into the parking garage, drove up the ramp, and threw the car in park, grabbing her cell and the purse that still held the Glock inside. She left her rucksack in the trunk and shoved the keys and a credit card to a bewildered attendant.
“I need this parked somewhere that’s not visible from the street or the entrance. Please.”
The young attendant blinked. “Um… sure. Okay. Just give me a sec to print you a ticket…”
“No time.” Maya glanced over her shoulder. If the Lincoln passed by the garage they could easily see her and the car there. “I won’t be long; you’ll remember me. Is there a back exit to this place?”
“Are you in some kind of trouble?” the young man asked, as if seeing a possibility for a chivalrous act. “Because I can call someone if you need.”
“I’m good, thanks. Back exit?”
“Uh, yeah. Through that door and down the stairs.”
“Thank you.” Maya hurried through a white-painted steel door, took the concrete stairs two at a time, and jogged down a short corridor to a security door that opened onto the street at the rear of the three-level garage. She checked her GPS; her short car chase had led her closer to the address, but not by much. She still had a twenty-five-minute hike to get there.
She pushed through the door and out onto the street.
They don’t know your face, she told herself, despite having nothing much to base that on. She walked as quickly as she could while still looking casual, keeping her eyes cast downward at the sidewalk while clutching her phone in her hand and trying to keep passing cars in her periphery, like her dad had shown her. It was hard resisting the urge to look up, to check behind her every few seconds to make sure no cars were slowly tailing her.
It was a fraught walk, but after about twenty minutes she entered a less-than-attractive neighborhood, crumbling brick facades tagged in graffiti and bars over windows. A few minutes later she reached her destination—and frowned as if it had personally offended her.
The address that Bliss had given her was a Chinese food restaurant. And given the early hour, it wasn’t even open yet to question anyone.
There must be something. She refused to believe the doctor had lied to her and sent her all this way for nothing. Either he’d been a terrific actor or he’d shown true remorse over what he’d done.
She took a few steps back and looked up—the building had a second story. Possibly some sort of apartment, she reasoned. It too had bars over the windows, like many of the buildings in this part of the city, but they were dark, obscured by curtains behind them. And if Maya wasn’t mistaken she thought she could make out something else covering the panes behind the bars, something yellowed with age. Newspaper, taped over the glass.
She hurried around to the side of the building and then to the rear, finding a set of gray wooden steps leading up to a door. Each step creaked under her feet, broadcasting her arrival
to anyone who might be inside no matter how much she tried to shift her weight.
The door was white, the paint chipping badly, with a small window to the left of it with the same bars, curtains, and newspaper over it as the ones she had seen from the street.
Suddenly this entire ordeal felt very strange. She was in a city she didn’t know at an address she couldn’t confirm to find a man she wasn’t certain still existed and had definitely been pursued by someone.
But she was here, and she didn’t know what else to do—so she knocked.
There was no answer. She put her ear to the door but heard nothing. No fluttering of the newspaper at the window to see who was out there.
“Hello?” She knocked a second time, louder. Still nothing.
Maya scoffed. She didn’t come all this way, didn’t take Alan’s car and drive through the night and get into a car chase just to be stymied by a closed door.
She identified two locks, both deadbolts, one a standard residential and the second a heavier commercial grade lock. From her purse she fished two tools, one an L-shaped pick with a flat head and the second a thin pick with a jagged, almost key-like tip, called a long rake pick. She inserted the head of the L-shaped pick in the bottom of the commercial lock’s tumbler and carefully maneuvered the long rake in, making subtle adjustments as she worked the first pin.
A gentle touch and patience were virtues in lock-picking; force and speed had no place here, though expedience came with a practiced hand. Often she found that once the first pin fell, the others came easier.
When she felt the final pin in the tumbler fall into place, she took out the long rake and slowly twisted the L-shaped pick counterclockwise. The deadbolt slid into the door. Then she repeated the process for the standard lock. Both were open in less than two minutes.
“Okay,” she bolstered herself aloud. “If someone was in there, they would have made themselves known by now.” No one sat idly by while watching their locks forced open.
