“It’s a textbook burner, sir,” said the lieutenant.
For Cardston, that explained quite a bit. Terrorists and provocateurs made sacrifices when they used a burn-a-bomb. They were easy to smuggle, but they were also easy to defuse. The only advantage burn-a-bombs offered was ease of concealment. Their innards were simple, straightforward, easily disarmed—separate the chemicals before they oxidized, and the bomb became as benign as a child’s chemistry set.
“Alert me when the bomb is disarmed,” said Cardston.
“It’s disarmed,” said the captain.
“That was fast,” said Cardston.
“Almost not fast enough,” said the captain. “Twenty seconds more, and it would have gone critical.”
“Major, sir, we’re closing in on him,” said Goldsmith. “We got a flash on him.”
On the display, the five white dots representing the MPs had gained ground on the red dot representing the provocateur. Once he passed the seventh floor, Herman had run out of options. The stairs led to the roof, but the roof access door was locked, and Goldsmith’s security team waited one flight below with M27s raised and ready.
The stalemate lasted nearly a minute.
Goldsmith asked, “Major, did he make it out to the roof?”
Cardston looked at the floor schematic. Something had happened. The provocateur couldn’t have opened the door to the roof without a bomb or a bazooka or possibly a laser torch, but the red pixel no longer showed in the stairwell.
The pixel had disappeared.
“Bring up a map!” Cardston yelled to the officers around him. When the map showed on the monitor, he needed only a moment to spot the escape route, then he pulled the microphone close and said, “Sergeant Major, one-two-one connects to a service floor. He’s entered a machine-and-maintenance area just below the roof.”
“Can you see him?” asked the sergeant major.
“Negative, Sergeant Major. We don’t have eyes on that floor.” Once they had the bastard, Cardston would personally oversee the installation of cameras and sensors. What a speck-up, he thought.
“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant major.
The flight of stairs leading to the seventh floor was clear. The flight leading beyond it was clear as well. Bright light shone down from the ceiling, illuminating the entire concrete enclosure. The open door to the service floor stood out like a dark cave on a chalk mountain. Goldsmith led his team as carefully as if they had entered an enemy base.
• • •
The alarms went silent, but their ringing still echoed in Sergeant Major Gregory Goldsmith’s ears. Speaking much louder than needed, he said, “We’re going in.”
They moved slowly, stepped softly, traveled as silently as possible. Step . . . step . . . step. The door to the service floor hung open.
One step from the door, they paused.
Goldsmith signaled for his men to wait while he checked the doorway. He pressed the muzzle of his M27 against the doorjamb. He checked his men to make sure they had taken their positions, then he counted to three in his head and sprang through the door. MPs on either side of the jamb lunged in behind him, forming a cross fire, covering the entrance from every angle on the off chance that the provocateur had smuggled help onto the service floor.
The floor seemed to stretch the entire length and breadth of the Pentagon. Heavy machinery stood like twenty-foot-tall buttes on the floor, reaching up into the open ceiling. Wires, cables, and vents snaked this way and that above the unadorned light fixtures.
In the center of this, fifty feet from the door, the provocateur stood facing the men. The moment the MPs entered, he smiled, opened his right hand, allowed the grenade to roll across his fingers.
The explosion all but ionized the provocateur’s body. It killed the three MPs who had entered the service floor. The two standing outside the door were deafened for life.
• • •
Once his team had checked the service floor for chemical and radiation, Cardston surveyed the damage. As men in combat armor swept for traps and photographed damage, the major looked down at the bodies of the MPs he had sent on a fatal assault.
The blast from the grenade had smashed two of them into a wall hard enough to leave bloody imprints. The remains of Sergeant Major Gregory Goldsmith, who had been standing directly in front of the door, lay in the stairwell.
The only parts of the provocateur that remained recognizably human were his feet. His chest, shoulders, and head were gone, plastered all over the walls in every direction.
Cardston stared down at the feet, ignoring the grinding of machinery around him. The Pentagon air-conditioning system was stored in this area, fifteen enormous turbines made of aluminum and sheet metal. Ten of those turbines spun silently. The force of the grenade had split two of the turbines wide open, their chambers and tubes exposed like a metal model of human viscera. Three more limped along, spinning in twisted cabinets.
Cardston saw oil running down vents, dripping into the industrial air conditioner. It wasn’t oil, though. It was blood. You painted the room, you bastard, he thought as he saw bone and hair and shreds of clothing.
CHAPTER
FOUR
Location: EME Correctional Institution, Sheridan, Oregon
At precisely 08:00, the gunship dropped out of the sky looking more like an oversized insect than a bird of prey. She descended out of the clouds and hovered in place about 150 feet above the forest, her stubby steel-and-carbide body beneath dual rotors gleaming in the sun.
The Sheridan Correctional Facility didn’t have radar; the first officers to notice the gunship were the guards in the southwest tower—a nest made of steel and bulletproof glass with window walls and a wraparound balcony. One of the guards spotted the gunship, and asked the other, “Where the speck did that come from?”
The gunship remained a few hundred yards away, looming like a dragonfly looking for prey. At this distance, the guards could barely hear her rotors. The glass walls of the nest blocked the sound.
The first guard flipped a switch on the communications console, and said, “We got a helicopter flying out here. You know anything about that?”
“A helicopter? What the hell is a helicopter doing there?” asked the dispatcher.
“Flying,” said the guard. He meant it as a joke.
“What kind of chopper?” asked the dispatcher. “Can you identify it?”
Sheridan Correctional was a federal penitentiary, run by the Enlisted Man’s Empire. A few of the guards were clones, retired military. The dispatcher was a local civilian.
The first guard, a natural-born who had never served in the military, said, “How the speck would I know that? If you want aircraft information, call a specking air traffic controller.”
The second guard in the nest was a clone, a retired airman. He leaned over the console, and said, “It’s a gunship, maybe a TR-40.”
“A gunship?” asked the first guard. “Are you sure?”
“No, sir, I’m not entirely sure it’s a TR-40, could be a forty-two.” He picked up his binoculars, equipment made for searching prison yards, not skies. “Two racks for rockets . . . Yes, sir, it’s either a forty or a forty-two.”
“What’s it doing here?” the dispatcher asked.
Below the tower, guards started lining up along the prison wall for a better look. There were no military bases near Sheridan, the gunship was an unusual sight. Off in the distance, the gunship dropped slowly until she was almost even with the tower, then she remained in place, as still as a toy on a shelf. She hung in the air about fifteen feet above the tips of the pine trees.
“Are you sure that’s a gunship?” asked the dispatcher. “I just checked with the tracking station at Newport. They say there’s no air traffic in the area.”
“Speck that,” said the first guard. “That sure as shit ain’t no seagull.”
The dispatcher said, “Let me check with . . . hey, Astoria isn’t answering.” A moment later he added, “I c
an’t reach Coos Bay.”
A civilian, he didn’t know that gunships carried equipment that could block satellite transmissions; the retired airman did. He ran the military math in his head and asked, “Have you tried using civilian communications?” Military consoles used a satellite link. Civilian lines used underground laser cables.
The dispatcher said, “Hey, there it is; we have it on our security cameras now.”
“I told you it wasn’t a seagull,” said the natural-born guard.
The clone guard didn’t join in their conversation. If that bird is one of ours, he asked himself, why didn’t we know it was coming? But gunships were not known for their stealth capabilities. There was no way the Unified Authority could have flown one in without being spotted.
“What’s it doing out here?” asked the dispatcher.
Still staring out at the bird, the clone guard said, “Once you broke in, what would you do with a gunship?” A silent moment passed before he answered his own question, “You couldn’t land it, not in here. You’d only need it for . . . cover.” Speaking to the dispatcher, he said, “We’re in deep. They have infantry out there.”
The dispatcher shouted, “I tried the landlines; I can’t reach anyone!”
“They cut the lines,” said the clone guard.
“Who cut the lines? Who the hell are they? What are they doing here?” asked the natural-born guard.
“Here they come,” said the clone guard.
Five military transports approached in the air, drifting in behind the gunship, then touching down along the highway that led to the gates of the penitentiary.
Isolated and alone, the penitentiary at Sheridan was protected by gates and walls and a handful of guards. The warden addressed his men over the intercom. He said, “Sheridan FCI is now under lock . . .” Before he finished the sentence, the prison went dark.
“They cut the lights,” said the natural-born guard. “What do we do now?”
Raised in a military orphanage, having survived airman training and a life at war, the clone guard had duty programmed into his brain. He said, “We lock down.”
“Lock down? With that thing out there? Lock down? Bullshit! I didn’t sign up to fight gunships. I didn’t sign up for this!” His mind decided, the natural-born guard fled. He sped down the stairs of the tower and disappeared into the tunnel that led into the wall.
The second guard, the clone, hustled to the rail and prepared to shoot. He saw enemy Marines dressed in combat armor marching up the street. They marched in a column. They did not carry guns. Seeing this, he knew that the battle was forfeit.
Unified Authority Marines, he thought, knowing that U.A. Marines wore shielded combat armor. Bullets and batons were useless against men in shielded armor . . . “glowboys” as the EME Marines called them.
The gunship fired her chain gun into the fences that surrounded the prison perimeter. Sparks danced on the electrified wire as bullets tore the posts to pieces. The gunship opened fire on the inside fence.
Across the wall, guards fired at the gunship and the troops on the ground. Useless, thought the clone guard, as he chambered and fired another bullet.
The gunship raised a few feet higher and fired a rocket. A thin arc of white smoke hung in the air, like a thread made of cloud, connecting the gunship to the outer wall of the cell block. Flames and smoke and clouds of concrete dust flushed into the air as the façade crumbled in an avalanche. The crack of the rocket still echoed in the air, drowning the dull thud of the demolition.
The gunship pivoted nearly imperceptibly, then fired chain guns at the guards manning the towers. Bulletproof, but not chain-gun-proof, the guards’ nests shattered, splattering nuggets of glass around the guards’ dead bodies.
• • •
The guards clustered around the entrance to the cell blocks on the second floor of the building. With the electricity out, the halls had become dark as a moonlit night, lit mostly by squares of light slanting in from small windows above the cells. A line of emergency beacons shone red along the wall.
A few yards deeper into the darkness, prisoners stood in their prison cells, screaming at the guards. They couldn’t hear the battle outside. Concrete walls and shatterproof glass drowned out the sound of rifles.
Then the rocket struck the front of the building, and a thunderous blast shook the facility down to its foundation, followed by a soft rumble as the wall collapsed in a concrete avalanche. Smoke and dust filled the hallway, sunlight slowly creeping in through the miasma.
That first rocket didn’t harm the guards, but it sent them scurrying into the building’s depths. Outside, beyond the tattered ruins of the electrified fence, men in combat armor marched across the grounds unopposed. The gunship hovered protectively above them, no more than fifty feet from the ground.
Some of the guards approached the ledge where the wall had been. They saw troops crossing the scraps of the outer gate and the gunship hovering above their heads. Death had come.
One of the prisoners taunted the guards. He yelled, “You better run, rabbits.”
“Shut up, Andropov,” said the warden. “Shut the speck up.”
“Warden, you must really love your job,” said Andropov. Once a powerful politician, he knew how to slash at enemies with his words.
The warden raised his riot gun and pointed it at Andropov. “I told you to shut the speck up.”
Andropov lifted up his hands, palms out, and backed away, as silent as an altar boy.
“He’s right,” said one of the guards.
The warden looked down the line. He saw only forty men. The others had run away or died defending the building. Most of the men who remained were clones, retired military men who didn’t have it in them to run.
Forty men, he thought. He’d started the day with over one hundred.
Sheridan held few prisoners, all of them labeled war criminals. Tobias Andropov had been a member of the Linear Committee, the executive branch of the Unified Authority. Most of the others had been senators or generals. Had this been a military facility, the guards might have had orders to kill the prisoners, but Sheridan FCI was civilian. No such orders had been given, and the clones who made up the bulk of the remaining guards were created without initiative. They would need orders before they could kill the prisoners; that was in their programming. The warden could have given the order, but he was a civilian; he cared more about his own survival than the survival of the prisoners.
The first of the invaders entered the hall. He looked like a ghost, a glowing silhouette of a man that materialized out of the sunlight. Two more followed. Many more came after them, their armor glowing a dull orange-gold as they entered the shadowy building.
Though he knew it was too late to surrender, the new warden handed his shotgun to the nearest guard and walked out to meet the invaders. He held his hands out so they could see that he came without weapons. Squinting into the sunlight, he took slow steps. He inhaled and held his final breath.
The first of the invading Marines stood about fifty feet off. He did not carry a gun.
Don’t shoot me, the warden willed. There’s no need to shoot.
He came within thirty feet of the invaders before the man on point raised his arm and fired three fléchettes—hair-width fragments of depleted uranium that penetrated both the front and back of the warden’s skull.
One of the remaining guards, a clone, raised his riot gun and fired. The buckshot spread, forming a two-foot-wide pattern. Shot that went wide of the invader cut ellipses in the wall on either side of him. The shot that should have hit his shielded armor flashed like sparks and evaporated.
The gunfight lasted five minutes. In the depths of the hall, their shotguns echoing like thunder and flashing like lightning, the guards, shot, pumped, shot, pumped, retreated farther and farther into the hall, gave up ground, unintentionally freeing prisoners as they backed away from the attack.
A clone guard hid behind a corner, gripping the butt of his shotgun a
s tightly as he could. Fear surged through his brain. As an invader passed his hiding place, the guard rose to his feet, and fired a shot at point-blank range.
The U.A. Marine turned, grabbed at the guard, and the power running through his shields both burned and electrocuted the man. His face and shoulders charred as the clone died of heart failure.
One of the guards threw his riot gun to the side, turned, and ran. The invaders shot him in the back. Blood drained from his body through dozens of pinprick holes. Another guard raised his hands high above his head and tried to surrender. He was a natural-born, something he hoped might save him. The invaders shot him.
Once the guards were dead, the invaders turned on the prisoners. They freed Andropov and most of the politicians, then killed the incarcerated former Unified Authority military officers in their cells like penned animals.
When investigators came to search the scene, they found no survivors.
CHAPTER
FIVE
Location: The EMN Churchill, orbiting Earth
At the time of his death, Admiral Don Cutter had not heard about the attacks on Sheridan Correctional or the Pentagon. It was 16:00 by the Space Travel Clock, which was synchronized to Greenwich Mean Time, five hours ahead of Washington, D.C., and eight hours ahead of Sheridan, Oregon.
As the provocateur armed his bomb, and the gunship approached the penitentiary, Don Cutter, the highest-ranking officer in the Enlisted Man’s Navy and de facto leader of the Enlisted Man’s Empire, sat alone in his office.
Cutter maintained a deck for himself and his staff on the Churchill, the flagship of the Enlisted Man’s Fleet. He was not the captain of the ship or the commander of the fleet. As the head of the Enlisted Man’s Navy, he no longer participated in the tasks that he loved. He had risen from commander to “commander in chief,” which, in his mind, meant the same thing as being put out to pasture. He had become the kind of officer he had most despised throughout his career. Instead of leading space leviathans into battles, he now settled political squabbles.
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