Brainrush 03 - Beyond Judgment

by Bard, Richard

  Jake tuned them out as he studied the icons representing the members of the Order. His brained captured, sorted, and analyzed the data. Nine hundred fifteen lights. Unevenly distributed. Fewer in the Americas. A higher concentration in Asia. Many of them over water—which meant aircraft or ships.

  The exodus had begun.

  He reminded himself that the freeze-frame he looked at was just before the lights had blinked off. “How far back can you rewind?” Jake asked.

  “Twenty-four hours,” Timmy said.

  “Do it.”

  Timmy made the entry. The blinking icons repositioned themselves. The change was dramatic. They were evenly distributed across the populated areas of each continent. Only a small percentage of them were over water. But what Jake found most intriguing was the fact that there were 322 additional markers. That brought the total to 1,237.

  “Now fast-forward at maximum speed.”

  The lights jiggled and danced in place at first. Then suddenly, as if they had been activated by a simultaneous signal, they started to move in concert with one another. Like scattered fish gathering in schools, they began to migrate. Jake imagined them on trains and planes and ships, all heading toward the same destination—converging on a body of water near Indonesia. But as the lights at the front of the pilgrimage neared the destination, they disappeared. It was as if a spatial black hole were drawing the lights into its vortex.

  “Zoom in on that point,” Jake said, pointing to the void.

  Labels indicated it was the Banda Sea. It was surrounded by the eastern portion of the Indonesian island chain, about 350 miles north of Darwin, Australia. The disappearing lights described a circle two hundred miles in width. Something within that circle was jamming the signal so the markers couldn’t be tracked to their final location.

  The area was dotted with hundreds of islands.

  “A needle in a haystack,” Tony said.

  “If we could get hold of one of the trackers, I might be able to narrow it down,” Timmy said.

  “By backdooring into whatever is jamming the signal,” Marshall added.

  Timmy nodded. “We’d have to counterloop the signal in order to—”

  “Work it out later, guys,” Jake interrupted. “Did this place come with a sat phone?”

  “Sure,” Timmy said. “It’s in the backpack.”

  “Let me have it. And let’s gather all the rest of the equipment and weapons, too. We need to hit the ramp running.”

  “Run where?” Lacey asked.

  “To the island. Where else?”

  Lacey blinked twice as she put two and two together. “The one we saw in Victor’s study,” she said, more as a statement than as a question.

  “Yeah, where we had our first kiss,” Jake said.

  Lacey’s eyes widened. She blushed.

  Ahmed grinned.

  “Huh?” Francesca and Marshall asked in unison.

  Jake’s comment achieved the desired result. He needed everyone to lighten up a bit—despite the enormity of what they faced. He knew from working with them in the past that tension relief was the key element in keeping them sharp.

  Tony was the only one who didn’t take the bait. “Aren’t we gonna need an army to help us?”

  “Nah,” Jake said, taking the sat phone from Timmy and dialing the first number from memory. “Just a few friends.”

  After a moment, he added, “And a prince.”

  Chapter 61

  Grid Countdown: 18h:01m:30s

  Darwin, Australia

  1:30 p.m.

  THE SIX-VEHICLE MILITARY caravan wound its way from the international airport toward Darwin Harbour. It was midday. The temperature was in the high nineties. The streets of Australia’s Northern Territory capital were desolate. Gone were the street vendors, bicyclists, and casual pedestrians—replaced by stalled cars, smoking buildings, and looted storefronts. The population of 128,000 had committed their worst deeds during the initial panic twenty-four hours ago. Now they huddled in their homes, glued to their computers and TVs, awaiting their doom. Many had ventured inland, hoping for refuge in the wilds of the outback.

  It was the same the world over.

  “Is she ready to go?” Jake asked. He was dressed in an Australian SASR—Special Air Service Regiment—multicam-pattern uniform, the same as everyone else in the caravan, including the women and Ahmed.

  “Right as rain, Jake,” Becker said in his rich Aussie accent. “Gassed up, well guarded, and most of the equipment Cal and Kenny brought with them should be onboard by now.” Despite the six years that had passed since the last time Jake had seen him, Becker hadn’t hesitated when Jake had asked for his help.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Becker had said on the phone after he got over the shock of finding out Jake was alive. “Pyramids launched into the sky across the globe, and the world is about to come to an end. Who else but my old pal Jake Bronson could make an entrance like that?”

  Becker’s uniform bore a squadron leader insignia. It suited the blond-haired, blue-eyed, chocolate-skinned ranger from the outback. He’d been a city boy until the age of twelve, when his parents had died. Then his aboriginal grandfather had taken over. He wore the coveted sand-colored beret affixed with a badge shaped like a black shield and topped by a silver dagger with gold wings, as did the sixty fully kitted operators who accompanied them. It distinguished them as the best of the best.

  Darwin Harbour was nearly empty. All serviceable civilian vessels had disappeared within hours of yesterday’s event. Three military tenders waited at the end of the loading dock. A trio of armed operators was posted at the dock’s entrance. They held F89 Minimi Para light machine guns. Becker slowed the jeep long enough for them to acknowledge his presence with a sharp salute.

  Jake stared at the ship that would become their mobile command post. It was moored outside the confines of the harbor.

  “She’s a beaut. That’s for sure,” Becker said.

  Jake couldn’t disagree. The 296-foot megayacht was the picture of luxury, with sweeping lines, four decks, and a rooftop sporting an array of domes and antennae that hinted at the state-of-the-art command-and-control center underneath. The only thing that looked out of place on the white vessel was the matte-finish stealth chopper that rested on its stern. Jake suspected it could only have come from Kenny’s arsenal of “toys.”

  “Damn,” Tony said from the backseat. “The prince don’t mess around when he lends a helping hand. First the private jet to get us here, and now this.”

  No question about that, Jake thought. It seemed like only yesterday that he’d met the young Kuwaiti royal at the Grand Casino in Monte Carlo. The two of them had won a small fortune at the roulette table—with a little help from Jake’s rewired brain. The prince had later played a key role in bringing down the international terrorist Luciano Battista. In light of the current stakes, Jake wasn’t surprised at the man’s eagerness to help in any way possible.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Jake said. “Both of his personal yachts were too far away, so he bought this one for us.”

  “Bloody hell,” Becker said. “That must have run him a pretty penny.”

  “Yesterday morning it was listed for sale at one hundred seventy-five million euros,” Jake said. “But after the sky lit up, he had to fork out four hundred twenty-five million to get the owner to let it go.”

  Tony whistled.

  “How do you feel about the crew?” Jake asked.

  “Top-shelf,” Becker said. “Most of the original crew stayed on, including the captain. They were too far from their home port of Johannesburg to make it back before zero hour anyway. They don’t know any details of the mission, but they understand they’re sailing into harm’s way.”

  Jake glanced at the ominous grid overhead.

  The entire planet is in harm’s way.

  Jake, Tony, Becker, and the rest of them were greeted with hugs and slaps on the back from Cal and Kenny. They met up with the men on the
compass bridge deck after stowing their gear. The ship was just getting under way.

  “What the hell kinda mess have you got us into this time, flyboy?” Cal said. The blond-haired, blue-eyed airman was a crack pilot, avid surfer, and party animal. Jake had known USAF Major Cal Springman since pilot training. He and his copilot, Kenny, had been part of the assault and rescue missions in Afghanistan, Mexico, and Venezuela. Without their help, Jake would’ve died two or three times over.

  “Aw, you know,” Jake said. “Rescue the kids, defeat a megalomaniac intent on ending the world. Same ol’, same ol’.”

  “Rad,” Cal said with a grin. “It’s been pretty boring since your funeral.”

  “Yeah, for me, too.”

  “It’s really you!” Kenny said, holding his hand up for a high five. Jake obliged the freckle-faced redhead, taking care not to smack the slender man’s hand too hard. He had to be close to thirty years old, Jake thought, but he still looked like he was in his late teens. He wore a faded USAF flight suit that had seen better days.

  Jake pointed at the dark spot on the shoulder where a rank insignia had apparently been removed. “Did you get demoted or what?”

  “Heck, no,” Kenny said with a boyish Midwestern lilt. “I got out five years ago and started my own toy company. I brought a few of ’em with me.” Kenny was a genius with remote-control aircraft.

  “Now he’s raking in the dough as a big-time government contractor,” Cal said. He threw an arm around Kenny’s slim neck and knuckled his hair. “But he’s still just a kid copilot to me.”

  Kenny grinned under the abuse. But when he pulled away, he was all business. “A lot’s changed since you’ve been away, Jake. The stuff I’ve been working on lately is top secret. I brought it anyway.” He pulled a smartphone out of his breast pocket and tapped the screen. “Here’s a quick preview.”

  The group gathered around. It was a live aerial shot of the bridge deck. Another tap on the screen, and it zoomed to an overhead view of the four of them talking. The definition was incredible.

  Jake said, “That’s from a drone?”

  Kenny chuckled. “A very low drone.”

  “How low?”

  Kenny pointed to a spot in the sky. Jake followed his gaze, expecting to see a tiny dot in the distance. But he couldn’t spot it. From the squints and headshakes of the rest of the group, they couldn’t either.

  “Keep watching,” Kenny said. He slid out a tiny keyboard from the body of his phone and tapped a quick entry.

  There was a brief shimmer of light above their heads. It was as if a part of the sky suddenly shifted in color. And then it was there. Twenty feet overhead. A hovering square platform no larger than two side-by-side shoe boxes. It was held aloft by four inset fans that spun without a whisper of sound. Suspended twelve inches beneath it was a convex mesh sheet that appeared to support a thousand tiny reflective surfaces. There was a similar umbrella of mesh above it.

  “This is our latest urban stealth surveillance drone. The hemispherical webs surrounding it provide the camouflage that makes it invisible to the eye. Each of those sparkles is a miniature video screen. Switch ’em on, and each depicts what its slaved minicam sees on the opposite side. When you look at it from below, all you see is the sky above.

  Timmy and Marshall were particularly engrossed by the technology. Ahmed, too.

  “Whoa,” Marshall said. “What else you got?”

  “That’ll have to wait,” Jake said, as he felt the engines kick into full speed ahead. The ship had just cleared the outer reef. “We’ve got work to do.”

  As they made their way to a lower deck, Jake overheard Kenny answer Marshall’s question.

  “Have you ever heard of robotic swarms?”

  “Dude!” Marshall and Timmy said in unison.

  Chapter 62

  Grid Countdown: 13h:01m:30s

  Banda Sea

  6:30 p.m.

  BY NOW JAKE had stopped being amazed at the incredible opulence he encountered around every corner. The ship was a floating testament to self-indulgence, with rooms and amenities that rivaled the finest suites in Trump Tower. There were three VIP suites, ten guest cabins, and a variety of salons and dining areas. Unfortunately, the ship was built for luxury—not speed.

  “It’s going to be another ten hours before we reach the center of the target zone,” Jake said, as he and Tony made their way down the corridor. Marshall had paged them over the ship’s intercom to meet in the boardroom.

  “Just before dawn,” Tony confirmed.

  Jake checked his digital watch. Its timer matched the countdown being transmitted by the grid. “That’ll give us three hours to identify our target, infiltrate its security, rescue the kids, and stop Victor from doing whatever it is he’s got up his sleeve.”

  “Three whole hours?” Tony said. “That’s a lot to do on an empty stomach. I hope they have decent grub on this tug.”

  The boardroom was decorated in polished teakwood, plush carpet, and seafaring oil paintings. It was dominated by a racetrack-shaped conference table surrounded by fourteen cream-colored leather chairs, all but three of which had been pushed up against the perimeter wall to make it easier to walk around. Kenny, Marshall, and Timmy sat along one side of the table. Each huddled in front of his own self-made command-and-control center. There was an impressive arrangement of computer equipment and displays. A waterfall of wiring spilled through the oval slit in the center of the table. Soda cans and energy drinks dotted the tabletop. The three men were intent on their work. None of them looked happy.

  Without looking up, Marshall said, “Me first.”

  “Go for it,” Timmy muttered without breaking the cadence on his keyboard.

  Jake and Tony moved behind the trio.

  Marshall’s central screen showed a satellite map of the Indonesian island chain. His finger described a two-hundred-mile-wide circle east of Sulawesi—formerly known as Celebes—and west of New Guinea and north of Timor. “This is the target area. Dead in the middle of what used to be called the Spice Islands. There are nearly one thousand islands here.” He pointed to an area at the eastern edge of the Banda Sea. “By projecting the trajectories of the tracking signals that disappeared, we’ve narrowed the target down to this region.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “It’s composed of nearly five hundred islands. Even after eliminating those that are too small to accommodate Victor’s plans, there are still ninety remaining.”

  “You can’t do better than that?” Tony asked, glancing nervously at the flat-panel display dominating the wall at the end of the conference table. The sound had been muted, but the slide show of damning evidence against mankind continued to stream—as did the countdown clock.

  Timmy’s eyes were bloodshot. He pointed to a pill-size capsule that he’d wired into an open circuit board connected to his computer. “I thought I could do something with the bloody present you got for me. By the way, the man’s name was August Schmidt.” He was referring to the RFID that Tony had extracted from under the tattoo on Pit Bull’s shoulder. He and Jake had made a side trip to the morgue on the way to the Geneva airport. In the midst of the mayhem, it had been a simple matter to find time alone with the body. “I’ve been able to reactivate it,” Timmy said. “But backtracking it to the jamming source simply isn’t working. I’ve still got one or two things to try, but I’m not hopeful.”

  If Timmy couldn’t do it, nobody could, Jake thought. They’d have to find another way.

  Marshall switched to a different screen. It depicted the same map of the Spice Islands region without the satellite overlay. Islands were highlighted in green. “This is a static image from ten days ago. The black dots on the water represent vessels.” There were hundreds of them. It looked like a still shot of an army of ants moving from point to point. The majority of them seemed to be traveling single file along trade routes between the major islands.

  Marshall continued, “I thought maybe we could learn something from the traffic patterns.
You know, look for an island that boats were heading toward. But when I go to a live feed, here’s the problem.” He tapped a key and the image shifted. Hundreds of dots were replaced by thousands. “It’s as if every boat in the region had taken to the water, scattering in every direction. And that’s not the worst of it. Watch this.” He zoomed in on a random cluster of about a hundred ships. Several of the blips jiggled on the screen and disappeared—only to reappear an instant later somewhere else.

  “What the hell?” Tony said.

  Kenny took over. “They’re using random signal generators. The same type we used to cover our entry into and exit out of Mexico six years ago. But this is on a scale like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Heck, until we get overhead with the drones, I can’t be sure that some of the islands we’re seeing are even there. These dudes must have been setting this up for years.”

  “How long before the drones are on scene?” Jake asked. Kenny had brought three vertical-takeoff reconnaissance drones onboard. Unfolded, the gull-shaped aircraft had twelve-foot wingspans, rotating nacelles that allowed for both vertical and horizontal flight, and a full complement of recon equipment. It had taken a few hours to unpack and assemble them above deck. Jake had watched them take off an hour ago.

  “They’re built for endurance, not speed,” Kenny said. He rolled his chair to one side so that he sat in front of a tri-screen remote-control center. It was compact and ruggedized, designed for field use. He checked a readout on the center screen. “They’ll hit the edge of the target area in forty-seven minutes.”

  “That’s good, right?” Tony asked.

  But Jake already knew that wasn’t the case. His mind had already completed the calculation. The circular target area was approximately 150 miles wide. That was 17,662.5 square miles of search area. “Three birds can’t complete a grid search quickly enough,” he said.

  Timmy’s lips tightened. He nodded. “He’s right. There’re thirty islands for each bird to inspect in order to isolate the real ones from the red herrings.”