King waited with bated breath for Terry to say where he’d found the nuke and why he couldn’t reach it. Except for Marcus breathing heavily through his pain, it was quiet around them.
“Terry?” King said. “Spit it out!”
“It-it’s in a small boat, anchored in the middle of the river!”
King looked back at Marcus, and that’s when he noticed a shimmer to his clothes, and his hair wasn’t slicked back because that was his style; it was slicked back because it was wet from swimming in the river.
“I told you we are all dead now,” Marcus said, his voice weak from the loss of blood. “I could’ve watched this from the air and you took it from me. Now you get to die here too.”
“No,” King said as he shook his head. Then he slid his M4 from around his neck and began unclipping the nylon sling from the gun. “You’re going to die, Marcus. But it’s going to be after you see your plan fail, and it’s going to be in a prison cell.”
King moved over to Marcus, punched him in the nose so he would lay down, then began tying a tourniquet above the gushing wound in the middle of his thigh. Marcus grunted in pain but managed words.
“He told you the nuke was out in a boat, didn’t he?”
King didn’t answer. He stayed focused on the task at hand.
“What he can’t tell you is why,” Marcus said before a wail of pain from King pulling the sling super tight around his thigh. “The reason it’s in a boat anchored in the river is because the spot beneath it is the most active spot in the entire seismic zone. By over two thousand percent!” Marcus started to laugh again, but King cut it short with another rough pull of the sling.
King had heard him, and he didn’t like what he heard. But he wasn’t going to react and give Marcus the satisfaction.
“Terry,” King said as he tied off the tourniquet off, “strip down to your underwear, take out only the tools you’ll need to diffuse the bomb and my knife. You hear me? We’re going to do this.”
There was a pause for a moment as King got to his feet.
“O-okay, I hear you.”
King was relieved to hear Terry wasn’t in full panic mode.
“After you do that, go back upriver about fifty yards and wait at the edge for me. I’ll be coming in hot.”
“Xander?” Sam interrupted. “What the hell are you doing? If there is around eight minutes left on that timer, you’ve got time to get back here and we can drive away from the worst part of this.”
“Yeah? What about Terry?”
“He has time to make it out too. We’ll bring a four-wheel drive in and get him. You, too, for that matter. Everybody move in!” Sam shouted. “Let’s get them out of here and get as far away as we can from the blast!”
“Sam, I’m going in to get this bomb shut down.”
“You’re not, Xander! The people in the vicinity have been evacuated. The nuke will cause some damage, but it will be okay! Start running our direction right now. We’ll be to you in just a minute. Terry, start back the way you came—”
King started running toward the river.
“Terry! You stay right where I told you to be, and be ready. That is an order!”
“Xander!”
“Sam, you felt the earthquake after the last explosion! Marcus just told me this nuke is over the most active part of the fault. Send your people in to get Marcus and then get the hell out of here. That’s an order too!”
“You don’t give me orders, Xander! Now listen to me and get your ass away from that bomb!”
King was in a full sprint. “Sam, if you don’t direct me with that drone to where Terry is, give the screen to Omari and get the hell out of here. Omari, you see me and Terry on your screen, right?”
“Yeah, X, I got you. You need to move a little more to your left.”
“Sam, stand down.” The words tasted sour in King’s mouth, but he didn’t have a choice. He didn’t have time to argue with her. “Omari is taking over! Am I heading the right direction now, O?”
“You’re good—”
“Oh, give me that screen, for God’s sake,” Sam said. King was happy to hear it. “You’re good for now, Xander. Just concentrate on your footing in the trees. You fall and break something now, your antics have cost me my life. And I’m not okay with that.”
“You got it. On my way through the trees.”
“The men will get Marcus, and we will be ready for you when the two of you walk out of there with an inactive nuke.”
“That’s my girl.”
King took branch after branch in the face, but he was able to avoid falling by catching himself after a couple of stumbles.
“O, set a timer for six minutes and update us every thirty seconds.”
“You’ve got at least seven minutes according to when Marcus said we had ten,” Sam said.
“Let’s err on the side of less time than more. Hopefully we’ll be pleasantly surprised when we get to the bomb.”
“Six minutes starting now,” Omari said.
“Terry,” King said as he broke through the trees and onto the sand-filled, crusty bedrock. “You in position?”
“I’m here. Half naked. And ready to shut this thing down.”
41
King spotted the bright green outline of Terry standing at the water’s edge. He almost lost his footing as a rock rolled under his heel, but he stayed upright and made it to him.
“We don’t have enough time!” Terry said.
“You’re going to have to disable it on the boat,” King said.
“That’s not possible. I can’t be rocking around when I’m trying to pull wires. It just won’t work!”
King looked around for another solution but decided there was just no other way. “You’ll have to make it work.”
“Four minutes,” Omari announced.
“Four minutes! Not even under optimal conditions—”
King yanked the backpack from Terry’s hand. “These the essentials to shut it down?”
“Y-yes. And your knife.”
King threw the backpack on, then yanked Terry into the cold Mississippi river by his T-shirt.
“Swim as hard as you can out to the middle! The current will pull you to the boat!”
“What if I miss it?” Terry shouted, gasping from the cold water.
“I won’t let you if you swim hard to the middle!”
King swam out and away from Terry. The current was pulling a little harder than he thought it would, but he still thought Terry could make it. But he couldn’t be sure. This was the only shot they had. He managed to keep his head above water so that he could keep the night-vision goggles on. The one thing he couldn’t do was guess where the boat was. And he was glad he wouldn’t be guessing, because he would have missed it. It wasn’t much of a boat at all really. Just an old fishing boat, from the green outline King could barely make out.
When King looked back over his shoulder, Terry wasn’t swimming very fast. King was starting to get nervous. Maybe Terry wouldn’t be able to make it to the middle of the river. King was kicking himself for only telling Terry to walk fifty yards upriver. He should have told him a hundred. It might be the mistake that gets them all killed. All King could do was get to the boat and do whatever he could to catch Terry as he drifted down.
One step at a time. First step, get himself on the boat, and do it fast.
“Three minutes and thirty seconds,” Omari said, offering a time stamp.
King’s heart sank. It was the first moment the thought that what they were attempting wasn’t going to work threatened to creep inside his head. And it hit him hard. There was a lot that needed to be done to defuse the bomb in that short amount of time—and that was if everything went absolutely perfect. But one thing was for sure: King wasn’t a quitter, and if he was going to die out there, he was going to die trying to defuse the nuke himself if he had to.
King dug in and overswam the boat, then let the current draw him back to it. He grabbed the back end where
an engine should have been, then pulled himself up and over the side. Marcus and James must have dislodged the engine as a backup in case someone did make it to the boat; that way, they couldn’t get it to shore. King moved to the middle of the boat, which wasn’t far because the boat couldn’t have been more than twelve feet long. Beside him now was potentially the most deadly thing in American history, and he couldn’t believe that he hadn’t even known about it until a day ago.
The bomb was in a massive canvas backpack. King looked back out into the water and saw Terry at least twenty feet from the middle of the river. He wasn’t going to make it.
“Swim upstream! Buy me some time to move the boat!”
There was no answer.
“Terry, swim upstream!”
“I’m trying! My arms are dead!”
King should have realized Terry wasn’t in any kind of shape. What seemed an easy swim for King was like climbing a mountain for Terry. A desperate feeling washed over King.
“Three minutes,” Omari said.
That didn’t help matters.
“How’s it going out there, Xander?” Sam said.
King moved over to the anchor and began pulling it up as fast as he could. “I’m in the boat with the bomb, but Terry’s not going to make it. I have to call an audible.”
“There’s no time for an audible, X!”
“No shit, Sam!”
Sam was quiet. She realized whatever she said wouldn’t help. King looked back out over the water. Terry was barely moving toward the middle, but he was being pulled pretty fast by the current. What King was doing wasn’t helping. He dropped the anchor rope and searched the bottom of the boat for an oar, or anything he could extend outward for Terry to grab ahold of. There was nothing.
King reached down and unzipped the backpack. The bomb was larger than he thought. And heavier. It weighed at least a hundred pounds. But attached to the top he saw a counting clock and the wires attached to it. The clock read four minutes and thirty seconds. More than he’d had Omari counting down, which had been his hope, and it gave him a short-lived sigh of relief.
“Terry!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Swim!”
King rushed over to the side of the boat Terry would be going by. He leaned out as far as he could. Terry was about twenty feet away, trying to swim upstream, though it really wasn’t working. However, when King outstretched his hand as far as he could, he thought maybe, just maybe there was a chance he could grab him.
King looped his foot around the strap of the backpack holding the bomb behind him. Because of how heavy it was, it was able to hold him while he stretched even farther. He could do this. He could reach Terry.
“Swim toward me, Terry! Kick your legs! Kick them!”
King watched as Terry gave it one last effort, but he had nothing in the tank. King leaned a little bit farther, anticipating the worst, but his foot almost came out of the strap.
“Swim! Come on, Terry!”
It was time. Terry was about to pass. King gave it his best stretch, full extension all the way to the fingertips.
“Reach for me now! Reach out!”
King watched as Terry lifted his hand while his head went under. The water pulled at Terry. Just as Terry was floating by, King ripped the backpack from his back and slung it out toward the water, keeping a death grip on one of the straps. The end of the bag splashed right next to Terry’s head, and in a stroke of luck, or divine intervention, Terry’s hand raised out of the water and slapped down on the back. Terry slapped at the bag, grabbed for the strap, but it just wasn’t enough. Terry was too weak to rise up long enough to squeeze and hold the strap. The strap slipped from his fingertips, and King watched helplessly as Terry floated right on by. It was over. A morbid question crossed King’s mind, one he tried to deny but couldn’t but help ask himself. As he sat there on the edge of the boat, death ticking down behind him, he wondered if Terry would drown before the nuke killed him. It was something King would never know.
42
As Terry floated down the river toward certain death, King dove back over to the nuke and stared at it like it was speaking a foreign language he’d never heard. He had no idea which wire did what, and with under four minutes now, the ticking down wasn’t helping his nerves.
“Xander, are you all right?” Sam said. He could tell she was in a near panic. “Is he disarming the bomb?”
“Sam, you and Omari get in a car right now, and drive away as fast as you can.”
“But—”
“Sam! Don’t argue with me, you have got to go!”
Before Sam could protest further, King heard Terry let out a gargling scream. He was going under.
“Terry, if you can hear me,” King said as he pulled his knife from the bag on his back, “tell me what to do.” King pulled up the goggles onto his forehead and switched on the light that was on the outside. It gave him just enough to see four colors: red, blue, green, and yellow. “Terry, please!” He could hear the panic in his own voice. The clock on the bomb was at 3:30. Terry never responded with words, just more gasping and the sound of taking in water.
“Sam.” King’s voice was calm now, resigned. “I don’t know which wire to cut, so I’m just going to have to guess. While I do, please leave the area.”
“Xander, I—”
“Please, Sam!” he shouted. Then he returned to calm. “Please. I need you. I need you to watch over my sister and my niece. I need you to make sure that Kyle doesn’t mess things up with Dbie. And I need you to tell the president that I’m sorry I couldn’t win this one.”
Sam tried to speak, but King heard her stop as she swallowed her emotion.
“It’s okay, Sam. We knew this day was coming. I didn’t think it would be in Bumtown, Missouri, but this is as good a place as any. I love you, Sam.”
“Xander, don’t give up,” Sam said through tears. “Please!”
The clock hit three minutes.
“O, you there, brother?”
“I’m here.”
“Sorry we didn’t get to know each other better. Seems we’re cut from the same cloth.”
“That it does.”
“Can I ask one favor of you?”
“Anything.”
“Good. ’Cause this is important. Please, if it’s the last thing you do, don’t let Sam get back together with Thomas.”
Sam had an outburst that was half laughter and half sobs.
“’Cause I saw how cute they looked together in the front seat of that SUV on the way here. I’m just begging you not to let that happen.”
“You son of a bitch,” Sam said. Then the real tears came.
“I’ll tie her up if I have to, X.”
“That’s my guy.”
King couldn’t listen to Sam cry any longer. He removed the earpieces from his ear and stuck them in his pocket. His favorite color had always been red, so that was the wire he was going to cut. The timer was ticking down to 2:45 as he thumbed open the blade, pinched a loop in the red wire with one hand, and readied the blade under it with the other.
The air was calm around him. The delicate rushing of the river water past the boat helped him stay calm enough to keep from shaking. King had never been much of the praying type; he’d always figured it was up to one’s self to make things happen. But this time, this one was out of his control and square in the hands of whatever it was in the world that created such a bitterly beautiful thing as human life.
It was as if the air around him came to a complete halt. He pulled the loop in the red wire down, and he pushed up on the back of the blade. And that’s when the air around him became a lot less quiet. It was as if he could hear a . . . a helicopter?
King released the wire he was a millimeter from cutting and spun around so fast he nearly sprained his neck. He wasn’t imagining things; coming straight for him was a helicopter. And it started to slow down as it got close to him. In the light that was shining down from the helo’s belly, he could see a ladder danglin
g and a man holding on to it at the bottom.
The swirling wind almost toppled King in the boat, but he widened his stance and regained his balance. He couldn’t see the man’s face, but he could tell he was big.
“Xander!” the man was talking through a bullhorn. “It’s Juice! Let’s get you the hell out of here!”
“Juice! You beautiful son of a bitch!”
Then a terrible idea came to King’s mind. And once he thought it, there was no turning back. He looked down at the bomb by his feet, the red numbers were showing 2:10 left. Then he looked back up at Juice.
“No!” King shouted. “We can’t leave!”
“What?” Juice was dumbfounded. “Xander, that thing’s gonna blow. We gotta get up high and fly wide. Now!”
“We can’t!” King was shouting over the rotors. “We still have a chance to stop it! Millions of lives are at stake!”
“Well, hell, what do you want me to do?”
“The bomb guy is floating down the river! He’s our only chance!”
King shot down toward the bag and zipped it up. Then he hoisted the nearly hundred-pound bag over one shoulder. “Get closer!”
Juice signaled up to the helicopter. The helicopter moved in.
“Take this! It’s heavy!” King hoisted the bomb-filled bag over to Juice. Juice hooked his arm under the strap, and it nearly dropped off his arm. He wasn’t ready for that much weight. But then the big man curled it back up.
“You might not want to drop that one!” King shouted. “Now have them take us downriver until we see Terry! As soon as I pull him from the water, you get me to shore and land the helicopter. It’s our only shot!”
“Copy! Hop on!”
King watched Juice turn, swing the other strap of the bomb bag to hook it on his back, then climb the ladder. King jumped from the boat and grasped the rung of the rope ladder—his feet just above the water’s surface. In his head he was counting down, and every second felt like ten. He reached inside his pocket, placed the earpiece back in his ear, and held on as the helicopter surged forward.
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Power Move (Alexander King Book 4) Page 17
