Matthew turned to see Flight 229 out of Atlanta gliding in also, but without lights, navigation aids or computerized primary flight systems, it veered off its path and into the grassy median, where it turned to spin out of control, wings and tail breaking as it flipped and rolled. The remaining seven planes in his landing stick couldn’t be seen until they began crashing into the ground in the distance, bright gouts of superheated fire lighting the night sky.
From space, satellites captured the scene perfectly. All along the eastern seaboard of the United States, tendrils of bright ribbony lights burned, interconnected and constant since the introduction of electricity a century ago.
All except for one gaping black hole where the twenty million people of the New York metropolitan area lived.
Chapter 33
Skull sat in his car on a Boston street and assembled the cell phone Miles Vergone had given him, watching as it shook hands with the network and missed calls filled up the queue.
The man must be having a meltdown, given everything that has happened.
He hesitated, but then hit the redial button. Everything inside him screamed to run, but he couldn’t do that. Not with what was at stake.
“It’s me,” said Skull as the line picked up.
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” asked Vergone, nearly screaming.
“Poor signal. We don’t stay in the nicest parts of town.”
“Doesn’t matter. Not now. I’m transmitting your location to our Boston Field Office. Do not attempt to leave or you know what will happen. I’m flying there now.”
“Oh, I can’t wait,” Skull said, but the line had already gone dead.
He’s been tracking me. Knew I was in Boston and didn’t need my location for his thugs to come pick me up.
Within five minutes, a group of black SUVs and vans pulled up, lights flashing. Agents piled out of the vehicles and pointed guns at Skull.
“Out of the car! Hands where we can see them!” screamed an agent.
This is not good, thought Skull, climbing out of the car and raising his hands.
Two beefy agents threw him to the ground and handcuffed his hands behind his back. They searched him roughly, with a knee in his back and a few punches thrown in for good measure. Skull was panting with pain by the time they pulled him up and tossed him into the back of the van after pulling a cloth bag over his head. His butt had barely touched the metal bench before the van sped away.
Fifteen minutes later, they pulled him out of the van and took him up a short stairway and then down a dimly lit hallway. He could see the floor at his feet through the opening in the bag, but nothing else. Tossing him into an empty concrete room, the agents left, turning off the lights.
Skull sat on the floor, his back against the wall, and tried to count the seconds, but eventually lost track and admitted to himself that it didn’t really matter. The game would begin when it began.
He was dozing when the door slammed open and the lights came on. Several sets of feet walked in, dragging what turned out to be metal folding chairs and an old wooden table. Hands slipped under his armpits and lifted him off the ground to place him on one of the seats, and someone yanked the bag off his head.
Vergone stood across the room, taking off a shoulder bag and a jacket to place them carefully on the floor. The agents positioned the scarred and stained wooden table between them, setting up the other chairs.
“It’s okay,” Vergone told the agents. “Leave me the handcuff key. You can wait outside. Mister Denham and I are good friends.”
One of the agents slipped a key into Vergone’s outstretched hand and left with his partner.
“Feel free to take these off,” Skull said, twisting around so Vergone could see his hands in the small of his back.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Vergone set the key down slowly on the table between them. “I can see you’ve been playing games with me.” He drew a pistol out of the holster at his hip and lay it beside the key.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Do you know what happened in New York last night?”
Skull nodded. “Yeah, it was all over the news.”
“Your device.”
“Don’t call it my device. I’m following your instructions. I wouldn’t even be in this shit if you hadn’t blackmailed me into it.”
“As you can imagine, it was quite a surprise to me and my superiors. I expected at least a warning from you.”
“I didn’t know either. I told you before that neither Herschel nor I knew anything about when or how the contacts would get a detonation signal. Once he built the things and we left, it was completely out of our hands.”
“And I believed you,” said Vergone, leaning forward. “Which is why we put those contacts under electronic surveillance. The ones you told us about, anyway.”
“You probably wouldn’t get anything anyway, until they were given the signal,” said Skull.
“Here’s my problem. There was nothing on the lady you identified as the contact in New York. We arrested and interrogated her at great length and my experts believe that she knows nothing about any of this.”
Skull kept his silence.
“Imagine my surprise today after the Director ordered me to take down all the devices at the locations you gave us...and found nothing but confused citizens, now proven innocent.”
“I thought citizens were innocent until proven guilty, not vice-versa.”
Vergone leaned forward. “No more games, Mister Denham. You will give me the location of the other twenty-three devices starting with the one in Boston. You will tell me where to find Theodore Herschel. You will do all of these things or suffer the consequences.”
“Seems like a bit of a Mexican standoff to me,” Skull said with a faint smile. “You have three little girls. I have the entire eastern seaboard, from Florida to Massachusetts. Billions of dollars, thousands of lives, and a major embarrassment for the government. And you’d better believe the world media will have a field day with it, no matter what your tame news channels say.”
“You’re running out of time,” Vergone said. “What you don’t know is that right now, Special Agent Lisa Summers has drugged all three of the girls so that they will sleep for the next few hours. She has set up a secure video teleconference so you can watch as she kills little Samantha. Summers said that you and she made a sort of…connection during your visit.”
Skull glared hatred at Vergone so pure it felt like fire in his veins. Even with the agents watching, even with his hands in shackles, he knew he could kill this man before anyone had time to intervene. It might be worth dying here and now, knowing his enemy would be gone with him and a powerful blow would be struck against the evil strangling his beloved America.
But if he did, three children would also die…or if they were allowed to live, they would undoubtedly be indoctrinated, twisted, poisoned.
That might be a fate worse than death.
“You, and only you, can stop this,” said Vergone.
Skull looked away. “Herschel’s at the Brewer Inn out on Highway 20. That’s where you’ll find Boston’s device. It’s being built inside the electrical room beside the ice machine.”
Vergone speed dialed a number on his phone and relayed the information before hanging up and looking at Skull. “You better hope we catch them...for that little girl’s sake.” He then pulled out a laptop computer and began typing furiously.
“If you kill any one of them, I’ll clam up. You won’t get another word out of me.”
Vergone merely smiled.
He thinks he’s won, Skull thought. And he has, unless I can get the upper hand again. This is a game of poker, and scared money is dead money. Whoever is more afraid of the consequences loses.
Can I throw my nieces to their fates?
Soon, Vergone’s phone rang. “Tell me the good news,” he said with a smile already on his face.
The smile slowly faded and Ve
rgone became pale, and then red. He looked at Skull with wide eyes and ended his call. “You son of a bitch. There’s no one there!” He screamed and threw his phone at the wall, where it shattered.
“I told you the truth. Someone else must have tipped them off or maybe your guys spooked them. Doesn’t mean it’s not too late to salvage the situation. I know where all the other devices are.”
“You’re right,” said Vergone breathing heavily. “It isn’t too late to salvage this situation, but I can see I have to teach you that I’m serious. Fortunately, there are three of those little girls.”
“Don’t do this.”
Vergone typed into the computer furiously before saying. “Lisa, you there?”
“Read you loud and clear, sir. Good picture,” came the female voice.
“Let’s do this,” Vergone said, spinning the laptop so Skull could watch. The screen showed the girls’ playroom except it appeared that the furniture and floor was covered in plastic. There was also an out-of-place gray metal folding chair in the middle of the floor facing the camera.
Summers walked heavily into the picture and set a sleeping Samantha in the chair. She tucked the little girl’s blanket around her to keep her from falling.
“You don’t have to do this, Lisa,” Skull pleaded. “I know you care for her.”
“I do,” the woman said, pulling a wicked knife from a nearby table. “Which is why I’m pissed as hell at you for making us do this. What kind of irresponsible uncle are you anyway?”
“If you do this,” Skull said slowly, menacingly, “wherever you run, I will find you and kill you, very slowly. If you’re really an Eden like you said, I can stretch it out for days, weeks maybe. Then I’ll kill anyone you ever even thought you cared about.”
“You’re assuming I care about anyone except these little girls.”
Skull had never been so frustrated in all his life. He nearly screamed, “What the fuck kind of psycho Eden are you anyway? Where’s your virtue effect?”
“Fortunately, I’m free of such limitations.” The woman picked up Samantha’s limp hand and waved it at the camera. “Bye-bye, Uncle Alan,” she said in an eerily good mimic of the little girl’s voice. She wound her left hand several times into the girl’s long blond hair, and then pulled her limp head back before placing the knife at the bottom of a closed eye.
“No!” screamed Skull, leaping up from the chair as the knife went in. Blood spurted, and then welled in a sticky mess as the eyeball came out on the tip of Lisa’s knife.
There came a thud from the computer speaker, and then a muddle of voices. The woman still held the knife with Samantha’s eyeball, but her head turned to focus off-camera.
“What’s going on there?” barked Vergone, racing around the table to look at the screen.
Two more thuds sounded, matched by thin bursts of blood and brain from the side of Lisa’s head. The knife fell, but her left hand was still wrapped in Samantha’s hair. As Lisa fell sideways, the comatose girl went over with her, and the camera ended up on its side, showing a blank floor.
Skull and Vergone could see three sets of boots. One walked over and picked up the little girl. “What a mess. Thank God she’s an Eden. She’ll get her eye back.”
“The other two are asleep in here,” said a voice from off camera.
“What the hell?” whispered Vergone.
Skull elbowed Vergone as hard as he could in the face, feeling the man’s cheekbone crack. He fell against the table, sending it and its contents flying, and Skull kicked Vergone savagely in the groin.
Skull scrabbled after the pistol that had skittered into a corner, hands still cuffed behind his back. Turning awkwardly, he fired three shots toward Vergone, who had managed to stand and open the door. All missed, and his nemesis slipped out, slamming the door behind him.
Shoving the pistol awkwardly into his pocket, Skull twisted his cuffed hands and shut the deadbolt lock on the steel door just in time. Someone from outside rattled the knob, and then kicked at it, but it held solidly. He heard yelling for a battering ram and shotguns.
The key had to be somewhere. Skull searched, finally finding it under the edge of Vergone’s discarded jacket. He squatted down and grasped the key, quickly unlocking his right wrist, and then snapping it again to the left, creating a nice set of steel bracelets before dropping the key into his pants pocket.
The yelling died down and now Skull heard whispering outside the room.
Probably getting ready to bust in, thought Skull. They’ll come charging in here shooting, with nowhere for me to go.
Checking the pistol, Skull saw he had twelve rounds left. He grabbed the fallen laptop and shoved it into Vergone’s bag, along with the remnants of the man’s broken cell phone, and then slung it over his shoulder.
He could now hear a soft counting outside.
They’re stacked up. Getting ready to clear this room. There wasn’t enough time to get a tactical team in here, so those guys out there are ordinary agents, probably doing this for the first time. Have to surprise them, throw them off their game plan. They won’t be used to killing the way I am.
Skull strode to the door, threw the deadbolt and yanked the door open, lifting his pistol immediately.
The foremost agent stood with a battering ram in his hands, a startled look on his face.
Skull shot him in the head at point-blank range and immediately shifted his aim to the next, and then the next. It was like shooting plastic ducks at a target range, one-two-three-four-five. As another agent came flying around the corner behind them, evidently drawn by the gunfire, Skull shot him in the torso, and then stepped forward to finish him off with one in the forehead.
Listening in the sudden silence, Skull didn’t hear any other agents coming, but that proved nothing. His ears were ringing from the shots in the enclosed space. He would love to find Vergone, but the agent-in-charge was either gone or barricaded somewhere, waiting for reinforcements.
Survival was always the top priority. Skull knew he needed to run.
Rifling through the dead agents’ pockets and holsters, Skull dumped pistols, ammo, wallets, and radios into Vergone’s bag, and then raced down the hall toward the door he’d entered. Peeking out slowly, he found no one waiting for him.
Yet.
Someone might try to ambush him, but Skull realized he didn’t have time to be careful. As a sniper, he knew the hardest target to hit was the one that was moving laterally and erratically, so he raced through the door toward the nearest alleyway. A single shout came from behind him, but no gunfire.
Skull didn’t stop running until he was at the edge of the industrial area he found himself in, a multi-block section of warehouses. As he heard ordinary street traffic and the voices of pedestrians, he slowed to a walk, reloaded the pistol, and placed it in the belt at the back of his pants.
Emerging on a street corner, Skull stood and caught his breath next to what were likely a street prostitute and a thin, unhealthy-looking drug dealer.
“You need somethin’?” the man asked.
“Lookin’ for a date, honey?” The hooker said immediately after.
Skull smiled. “I’m good, thanks.” Before either could answer, Skull walked across the street toward a brightly lit convenience store, dodging several cars.
Striding in, he saw a group of customers and the salesgirl gathered around the television behind the counter, engrossed in the special news report.
An attractive brunette broadcaster stood in front of the White House. “...just announced that the so-called Republic of Texas has accepted the President’s demand for an immediate and unconditional surrender after a second demonstration nuclear strike, this one near Amarillo. We at CBN News remind you that these explosions were targeted on thinly populated areas, and were intended to bring a peaceful resolution to this tragic rebellion. The President regrets being forced to take this action, saying, ‘the leaders of the Texas rebellion bear the entire blame for this unfortunate tragedy.’
In other news…”
“Liars,” whispered Skull. Unfiltered internet news and social media had already told about the strike that wiped out Austin, but as long as the U.S. channels kept repeating the party line, the sheep would begin to believe it, the “Big Lie” of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” a lie “so colossal no one would believe that someone could have the audacity to distort the truth so infamously.”
Skull walked back outside and looked over the cars in the lot, choosing the oldest one he could find, a large Chevy very similar to one Skull could remember his family owning when he was a young boy, a car without any microchips in it. If the Boston device went off and fried all electronics, Skull wanted a vehicle that would still run.
Forcing the edge of the window open using the barrel of his pistol, he looked around to see if anyone watched. Though at least five people eyed him from various positions up and down the street, no one seemed to care in this run-down, high-crime area. Skull tossed his bag onto the passenger seat and then bent under the steering column to quickly hotwire the ignition.
Within a minute, the engine was rumbling. Older cars were always the easiest. Skull pulled out of the parking lot and an older man came running out of the convenience store, screaming at him to stop. He ignored the distraction and drove away as energetic and inventive curses followed him.
He’d ditch the car soon and get another, as the owner was probably already calling the police to report the theft. For now, though, he’d drive and hope. He needed to get some distance from Vergone’s people.
Skull looked at the bag beside him containing the laptop and cell phone remnants. Clearly, he had a lot of work to do.
Chapter 34
Prudence Layfield sat in the small sunlit library at Camp David. The President, Paul Milligan, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State were all there. They had recently arrived and sipped coffee nervously.
Milligan cleared his throat. “Okay, the Texas delegation will arrive here via helicopter in approximately fifteen minutes.”
Apocalypse Austin Page 26
