2. Light-sensor response unit. Once inside the proximity perimeter, the user must establish a wireless modem connection with the disarm system. This is effected by satisfying Axon's patented light-sensor interface. It is here that the principles of pattern recognition play their crucial part. (See NATO MNRR Research Program results, USAMRMC, 1996.)
3. Security code. Entry of the relevant disarm or override code.
To this last line Rosenthal had added: 'Universal Disarm Code insertion was supervised by subject Weitzman. Latest intelligence suggests use of a yet-to-be-determined Mersenne Prime.'
Another page, however, was clipped to this protocol section. It was a Mossad telephone intercept transcript:
Trans log: B2-3-001-889
Date: 25 April, 1515 hours E.S.T.
Rec from: Axon Corp, Norfolk, VA, USA
Katsa: ROSENTHAL, Benjamin Y (452-7621)
VOICE 1 (DALTON, P.J. AXON CHIEF OF ENGINEERING) : Sir, the D.O.D. inspection report is in. It's good. They're very pleased with our progress. And they particularly loved CincLock. Couldn't get enough of it. Christ, they were like kids with a new toy, trying to crack it.
VOICE 2 (KILLIAN, J.J. AXON CHAIR AND CEO): Excellent, Peter. Excellent. Anything else?
VOICE 1: (DALTON) The next oversight inspection. D.O.D asked if we had a preferred date.
VOICE 2: (KILLIAN) Why don't we make it October 26.
I believe that date would suit some of our partners on this project very nicely.
Book II leaned back in his chair.
So there was the significance of the date.
October 26.
Killian had set it as the date for a Department of Defense oversight team to examine his installation plants.
But then Book saw the next document, and suddenly the meaning of the bounty hunt became clear.
Ironically, it was the most innocuous of all the documents he had seen so far. An internal email from Axon Corp:
From: Peter Dalton
To: All Engineering Staff, Project C-042'
Date: 26 April, 2003, 7:58 p.m.
Subject: NEXT D.O.D. INSPECTION
Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that last week's six-monthly inspection by the Department of Defense Oversight Committee went spectacularly well. I thank you all for your hard work, especially over the past few months.
They were impressed with our progress and amazed by our technological gains.
The next six-monthly inspection is slated for 26 October at the Norfolk installation plant, to commence at 12 noon, department heads only. As usual, strict security clearance provisions will apply for the week preceding the inspection.
Regards,
PD
And that was it.
At 12 noon today, October 26, the Department of Defense would be sending an inspection team into Axon's missile construction facility in Norfolk, Virginia.
And presumably at that time, they were going to discover that something was amiss at the plant, that the missiles had been tampered with in some way, or perhaps even gone—stolen—at which point. . .
. . . the US Government would go searching for the only men in the world who were able to disarm the CincLock system.
Men with abnormally quick reflexes.
The men on the list.
And then it dawned on Book—for some reason, Jonathan Killian and Majestic-12 wanted the US Government to carry out that inspection today. Although he didn't know why yet, somehow today's inspection was an integral part of their plan.
Which made him understand something else more clearly. It had always bothered Book that this bounty hunt might only serve to warn the very men who could foil M-12's plans.
But now this explained it.
At 12 noon today, the US Government was going to discover something at Axon's Norfolk plant, something about the state of the Chameleon missiles and the Kormoran launch ships. Something which was crucial to Majestic-12's plan to start a new Cold War.
'We have to get to that plant,' Book said aloud.
He turned to Scott Moseley. 'Mr Moseley. Call the Department of Defense. Tell them to send their Kormoran-Chameleon inspection team in early. And get on the horn to our people in Guam. Get someone to check out Axon's plant there as well.'
'Got it,' Moseley said.
Book then turned his attention to the stream of decimalised numbers on the launch list: the GPS co-ordinates of the launch sites and
the targets. 'Better find out where these missiles are going to be fired from and what they're aiming at.'
As he booted up a GPS plotting program on his computer, he keyed his satellite radio. 'Scarecrow! It's Book! Come in! I've got some big news for you . . .'
NEAR THE FORTERESSE DE VALOIS BRITTANY, FRANCE
26 OCTOBER, 1500 HOURS LOCAL TIME (0900 HOURS E.S.T USA)
The Axon chopper that had swung to a halt in front of Aloysius Knight and Libby Gant could be seen zooming away along the coastline, getting smaller and smaller, heading back toward the Forteresse de Valois—with Knight and Gant now inside it.
A lone figure treading water in the ocean waves at the base of the cliffs watched it fly away.
Schofield.
Naturally, when his blazing Mack had launched itself off the roadway and smashed into the hovering Mirage fighter jet, Schofield hadn't been in it.
As soon as his truck's tyres had left the road, he had bailed out the driver's side door, dropping into the air beneath the flying rig.
The truck hit the fighter.
Gigantic explosion. Colossal noise. Metal flying everywhere.
But Schofield had been under the blast when it had happened— well below the fireball, but also out of Gant or Knight's sight—and he fell like a bullet through the air.
His first thought had been: Maghook.
Not this time. Out of propellant.
Damn.
He kept falling—not vertically, but at a slanting angle thanks to the inertia of the truck—the cliff-face streaking past him at phenomenal speed. He saw the ocean waves below him, rushing upwards. If he hit the water from this height, his body would explode against the surface and burst like a tomato.
Do something! his mind screamed.
Like what!
And then he remembered—
—and quickly yanked the ripcord on his chest webbing. The rip-cord that was attached to the attack parachute still on his back. He'd been wearing it ever since the battle on board the Hercules. It had been so compact that he'd almost forgotten it was there.
The attack parachute blossomed above him, a bare 80 feet above the water.
It didn't slow his fall completely, but it did enough.
He lurched in the air about 20 feet above the waves, his downward speed significantly reduced, before—shoom—he entered the water feet-first and disengaged the parachute, allowing himself to shoot into the ocean trailing a finger of bubbles above him.
And not a second too soon.
For a moment later, the Mack rig and the Mirage fighter crashed down in a flaming metal heap into the waves nearby.
Schofield surfaced a short distance out from the cliffs, amid some of the burning remains of the fighter jet.
Careful to stay out of sight, he trod water amid the floating debris and sure enough, a minute later, he saw the Axon chopper swing around a nearby cliff-bend and zoom back toward the castle.
Had Gant and Knight got away? Or were they in that chopper?
'Fox! Fox! Come in! This is Scarecrow,' he whispered into his throat-mike. 'For what it's worth, I'm still alive. Are you okay?'
A single laboured cough answered him. It was an old technique—she was up there but she obviously couldn't talk. They'd caught her.
'One for yes, two for no. Are you in that Axon chopper I just saw?'
Single cough.
'Are you wounded badly?'
Single cough.
'Really badly?'
Single cough.
Shit, Schofield thoug
ht.
'Is Knight with you?'
Single cough.
'Are they taking you back to the castle?'
Single cough.
'Hang in there, Libby. I'm coming for you.'
Schofield looked around himself and was about to start swimming for the shore when abruptly he saw the French destroyer surging to a halt 200 yards away from him off the coast.
On the side of the great ship, he saw a small patrol boat being lowered into the water, with at least a dozen men on board it.
The patrol boat dropped into the ocean and immediately zipped away from the destroyer, heading directly for him.
Schofield could do nothing except watch the French patrol boat approach him.
'I'm sure the French have forgotten about that thing in Antarctica,' he muttered to himself.
Then his earpiece burst to life.
'Scarecrow! It's Book! Come in! I've got some big news for you.'
'Hey, Book, I'm here.'
'Can you talk?'
Schofield rose and fell with the waves of the Atlantic. 'Yeah, sure, why not.' He eyed the patrol boat, now only 150 yards away. 'Although I have to warn you, I think I'm about to die.'
'Yes, but I know why,' Book II said.
'Book, patch Gant and Knight in on this transmission,' Schofield said. 'They can't talk, but I want them to hear this, too.'
Book did so.
Then he told them all about the Kormoran 'supertankers' and the Chameleon clone missiles, and Majestic-12's plan to start a new Cold War—on Terror—by firing those missiles on the major cities of the world. He also told them about the CincLock VII security system which only Schofield and those on the list could disarm, and the incorporation by Ronson Weitzman of the US Universal Disarm Code into it, a code which Rosenthal had described as 'a yet-to-be-determined Mersenne Prime'.
Schofield frowned.
'A Mersenne Prime . . .' he said. 'A Mersenne prime number. It's a number . . .'
The image of General Ronson Weitzman in the Hercules flashed across his mind, babbling incoherently under the influence of the British truth drug: it wasn't just Kormoran. It was Chameleon, too . . . oh God, Kormoran and Chameleon together. Boats and missiles. All disguised. Christ. . . But the Universal Disarm Code, it changes every week. At the moment, it's . . . the sixth ... oh my God, the sixth m . . . m . . . mercen . . . mercen—'
Mercen . . .
Mersenne.
At the time, Schofield had thought Weitzman was just mixing up his sentences, trying to say the word 'mercenary'.
But he wasn't.
Under the influence of the drug, Weitzman had been telling the truth. He had been naming the code.
The Universal Disarm Code was the sixth Mersenne prime number.
As Book relayed his tale to Schofield and the others, behind him Scott Moseley was busy inserting the GPS co-ordinates from the launch list into the plotting program.
'I've got the first three boats,' Moseley said. 'The first co-ordinate
must be the location of the Kormoran launch boat, the second is the target.'
He handed Book the document: now with place names added to
it and highlighted:
Book relayed this to Schofield, 'The first boat is in the English Channel, near Cherbourg, off the Normandy beaches. It'll fire on London, Paris and Berlin. The next two boats are in New York and San Francisco, each set to take out multiple cities.'
'Christ,' Schofield said as he hovered in the water.
The patrol boat was 50 yards away, almost on him now.
'Okay, Book. Listen,' he said, just as a low wave smacked him in the face. He spat out a mouthful of salt water. 'Submarine interdiction. Those missile boats can't launch if they're on the bottom of the ocean. Decode the GPS locations of all the Kormoran supertankers and contact any attack subs we have nearby. 6881s, boomers, I don't care. Anything with a torpedo on board. Then send them to take out those Kormoran launch boats.'
'That might work for some of the tankers, Scarecrow, but it won't work for all of them.'
'I know,' Schofield said. 'I know. If we can't destroy a launch vessel, then we'll have to board it and disarm the missiles in their silos.
'The thing is, a light-signal response unit would require the dis-armer—me—to be reacting to a disarm program on the unit's screen. Which means I'd have to be sitting within sixty feet of each missile's control console to disarm them, but I can't be everywhere around the world at the same time. Which means I'll need people on each launch boat connecting me via satellite to that boat's missiles.'
'You need people on each boat?'
'That's right, Book. If there are no subs in the area, someone's going to have get on board each Kormoran boat, get within sixty feet of its missile console, attach a satellite uplink to that console and then patch me in via satellite. Only then can I use a CincLock unit to personally stop all the missile launches.'
'Holy shit,' Book said. 'So what do you want me to do?'
Another wave splashed over Schofield's head. 'Let's tackle the first three boats first. Get yourself to New York, Book. And call
Moseley plotted the points on a map. 'The first boat is in the English Channel—off Cherbourg, France, up near the Normandy beaches.'
David Fairfax. Send him to San Francisco. I want people I know on those tankers. If I get out of this alive, I'll try for the tanker in the English Channel. Oh, and ask Fairfax what the sixth Mersenne prime number is. If he doesn't know, tell him to find out.
'And last, send that Department of Defense inspection team in early—the one that was going to visit Axon's missile-construction plant in Norfolk, Virginia, at 12 noon. I want to know what's happened at that plant.'
'Already done that,' Book II said.
'Nice work.'
'What about you?' Book said.
At that exact moment, the French patrol boat swung to a halt above Schofield. Angry-looking sailors on its deck eyed him down the barrels of FAMAS assault rifles.
'They haven't killed me yet,' Schofield said. 'Which means someone wants to talk with me. It also means I'm still in the game. Scarecrow, out.'
And with that Schofield was hauled out of the water at gunpoint.
THE WHITE HOUSE,
WASHINGTON, USA
26 OCTOBER, 0915 HOURS LOCAL TIME
(1515 HOURS IN FRANCE)
The White House Situation Room buzzed with activity.
Aides hustled left and right. Generals and Admirals spoke into secure phones. The words on everyone's lips were 'Kormoran', 'Chameleon' and 'Shane Schofield'.
The President strode into the room just as one of the Navy men, an Admiral named Gaines, pressed his phone to his shoulder.
'Mr President,' Gaines said, 'I've got Moseley in London on the line. He's saying that this Schofield character wants me to deploy attack submarines against various surface targets around the world. Sir, please, I'm not seriously supposed to let a thirty-year-old Marine captain control the entire United States Navy, am I?'
'You'll do exactly as Captain Schofield says, Admiral,' the President said. 'Whatever he wants, he gets. If he says deploy our subs, you deploy the subs. If he says blockade North Korea, you blockade North Korea. People! I thought I was clear about this! I don't want you coming to me to check on everything Schofield asks for. The fate of the world could be resting on that man's shoulders. I know him and I trust him. Hell, I'd trust him with my life. Anything short of a nuclear strike, you do it and advise me later. Now do as the man says and dispatch those subs!'
OFFICES OF THE DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE
AGENCY,
SUB-LEVEL 3, THE PENTAGON
26 OCTOBER, 0330 HOURS LOCAL TIME
(1530 HOURS IN FRANCE)
A battered and bruised David Fairfax trudged back into his office on the bottom floor of the Pentagon, flanked by a pair of policemen.
Wendel Hogg was waiting for him, with Audrey by his side.
'Fairfax!' Hogg roared. 'Where in all hell and d
amnation have you been!'
'I'm going home for the day,' Fairfax said wearily.
'BuWshit you are,' Hogg said. 'You are going on report! Then you are going upstairs to face a disciplinary hearing under Pentagon Security Regulations 402 and 403 . . .'
Too tired to care, Fairfax could only stand there and take it.
'. . . and then, then, you're going to be outta here for good, you little wise-ass. And you're finally gonna learn that you ain't special, that you ain't untouchable, and—' Hogg shot a look at Audrey— 'that this country's security is best left to men like me, men who can fight, men who are prepared to hold a weapon and put their lives
on the—'
He never finished his sentence.
For at that moment a squad of twelve Force Reconnaissance Marines stomped into the doorway behind Fairfax. They wore full battle dress uniforms and were heavily armed—Colt Commando assault rifles, MP-7s, deadly eyes.
Fairfax's eyes widened in surprise.
The Marine leader stepped forward. 'Gentlemen. My name is Captain Andrew Trent, United States Marine Corps. I'm looking for Mr David Fairfax.'
Fairfax swallowed.
Audrey gasped.
Hogg just went bug-eyed. 'What in cotton-pickin' hell is going on here?'
The Marine named Trent stepped forward. He was a big guy, all muscle, and in his full battle dress uniform, a seriously imposing figure.
'You must be Hogg,' Trent said. 'Mr Hogg, my orders come direct from the President of the United States. There is a serious international incident afoot and at this critical time, Mr Fairfax is perhaps the fourth most important person in the country. My orders state that I am to escort him on a mission of the highest importance and guard him with my life. So if you don't mind, Mr Hogg, get out of the man's way.'
Hogg just stood there, stunned.
Audrey just gazed at Fairfax, amazed.
Fairfax himself hesitated. After this morning's events, he didn't know who to trust.
'Mr Fairfax,' Trent said. 'I've been sent by Shane Schofield. He says he needs your help again. If you still don't believe me, here . . .'
Trent held out his radio. Fairfax took it.
At the other end was Book II.
Scarecrow ss-3 Page 22
