The Fourth Law

by Paul Stein

  Morris was unflinching, prepared for the shooter to defend his position. He knew a shot to the chest was useless; the protective Kevlar vest was impenetrable. His only choice was a head shot. He squeezed off one shot, hitting Starkovich in the temple as he continued to turn, the impact force causing him to flip over backward onto the ground. He landed awkwardly, his neck snapping from his full weight falling forcefully on his head.

  Morris now pointed his weapon at Emil, who stood with his hands high above his head. “Don’t move and keep your hands up,” he ordered, moving cautiously toward the slain man on the ground.

  “Yes, sir,” Emil replied, holding his hands steady. “I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life.”

  Morris moved warily toward the slain gunman, holding his weapon with both hands as he approached. He kicked aside the automatic weapon and reached down to unzip the Velcro patch on the vest holding his pistol. He glanced at the man’s face and could tell he was dead from the severe head wound. To be sure, he felt for the carotid pulse to confirm his impression. Nothing. The man was gone.

  “Put both hands on your head,” Morris said, now focusing back on Emil. He advanced toward the man and handcuffed his left wrist, attaching the free cuff to the door handle of the truck. Only then did he re-holster his weapon to consider his next move.

  “This is a sorry mess we have here, mister. I don’t know what your involvement’s been, but there’s going to be hell to pay.”

  “I’m not part of this, Officer,” Emil tried to explain.

  “Shut up. You have the right to remain silent,” he said irascibly, reciting the rest of his Miranda rights before adding, “I don’t want to hear another word.”

  Morris dialed 911. “Dispatch, this is Lieutenant David Morris from the Palo Alto Police in California.” He listened patiently while the dispatch officer confirmed his statement. “That’s correct…I need immediate assistance. I’m on Route 13 just outside Fort Knox. I have a prisoner in custody, and another dead at the scene. We’ll need the coroner.”

  When the call was over and help was on the way, Morris felt himself begin to relax for the first time since he’d arrived at the Louisville airport. His sense of relief was somewhat blunted by having missed arresting the men responsible for the theft at Stanford. He took comfort, however, that he had at least helped thwart the master plan—a plan that set him on this course four days before.

  My God, has it only been that long? he thought. It seems like Quantum was an eternity ago. He hung his head, trying to make sense of it all. What some people will do for money….

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  FORT KNOX

  AGENT JASON HENRY and Emerson Palmer were holding steady a few hundred yards from where the Peterbilt tractor-trailer was positioned. They had front row seats when Conrad set his antigravity machine in motion, completely spellbound by the awesome manifestation of the new technology in action.

  As they watched, Henry trained the night-scope on the trailer and for a moment he thought he’d lost his mind. He rubbed his eyes and took a second look at the man shadowing Conrad inside the Plexiglas control module. His first impulse of skepticism quickly turned to incredulity. No way. It couldn’t be, he thought. What the hell would he be doing here?

  “Emerson, take a look at the guy standing next to Conrad. Who does he look like?” Henry asked, handing him the spotter’s scope. He couldn’t be certain given the distance, but the man in question resembled a fellow cleaner.

  “Sweet Jesus! That’s Major Nuzam!” Palmer exclaimed. “What in tarnation is Rafie doing here?”

  “Beats me,” Henry replied. “I thought he looked like Rafie. I’ll be damned…Freeman’s got a cleaner on the inside we didn’t know about.”

  “You have got to be shittin’ me!” Emerson said, irked they were just now learning of vital operational information. “This setup stinks. It reminds me why I hate that son-of-a-bitch. We could’ve killed Rafie... and I’ll bet my last bullet he doesn’t know we’re out here, either.”

  “Okay, ease down,” Henry coolly replied. While he agreed with Emerson’s sentiment about General Freeman, this was no time to rehash past misguided operations. “I agree this stinks, but as far as I’m concerned our job just got a lot easier knowing Rafie’s up front. I’ll bet anything his orders are to protect Conrad. That gives us way more latitude.”

  “How so?” Palmer asked, peering through the scope, trying to determine Rafie’s role in the operation.

  “If I’m right and Rafie’s there to protect Conrad, we can concentrate exclusively on the machine,” Henry replied. “Easy peezy, buddy.”

  Henry started the car, preparing to advance their position. It was time to engage. “I’ve seen enough. To hell with Freeman…the machine works just fine. Let’s shut this down before someone gets hurt.”

  Henry looked at Palmer with a Cheshire grin. “And I’ll tell you something else…I’ll stake you anything Morris has waylaid the Kenworth. These guys have no backup. We’ve got ’em… Rafie needs to know he’s got allies watching his back. He’s gonna be surprised to see us, too, pard’,” he said with delight.

  As Henry was about to pull onto the roadway, a glance in his side mirror gave him a start and he slammed on the brake. Approaching at high speed was another vehicle. It was moving too fast to be the Kenworth. He figured base security was sending its first counterforce to investigate happenings at the depository. His speculation was short-lived, however, when the Lincoln Navigator came barreling by, making a beeline for the Peterbilt.

  “What in the world?” Henry asked. “Who the hell would that be? Isn’t that one of the vehicles from the fish farm?”

  “It is indeed,” Palmer replied. “Well, that’s some good news…it appears your Lieutenant Morris was as good as you claimed. But on the downside, it also looks like he’s lost control of one of the hostages,” he chuckled. “What’s your bet Marshall’s driving that car?”

  Henry stomped on the gas and their vehicle spun gravel as he entered the roadway in fast pursuit of the Navigator. “Given Marshall’s unmanageability up to now, I wouldn’t dare take a bet against him. How he got past the MPs is a story worth hearing I’d wager, though. Christ…the guy never quits!”

  Jarrod Conrad recognized from Kilmer’s body language that he’d just received unexpected news. He’d lost his swagger, and from the noticeable droop in his shoulders there was no doubt something had gone terribly wrong. It was time to make his move. It’s now or never.

  “Mister, I don’t know what your game is,” Jarrod said, looking back toward Rafie, who was peering over his shoulder, “but I suggest you get as far away from this rig as possible.”

  “Don’t, Professor,” Rafie yelled, lunging at Conrad, who was just entering some new command at the control consol. A red warning light began flashing and the antigravity machine shuddered.

  Rafie’s admonition came too late. Jarrod had keyed his secret code to scram the machine. He called it the F-13 kill switch, an override that immediately shut down the machine in case of an unexpected malfunction. Jarrod had devised the code as a protective feature more than anything else. Because the machine used fissionable material in the generator’s core, the F-13 command could be used to bring it to an abrupt halt.

  The problem with activating the scram switch was that it was another untested application of his technology; there was no research to support what would happen when the generator was immediately shut down. Gravitrons that were already flowing from the generator would need to be dissipated. If the flow was summarily disrupted, the reasonable speculation was they would implode back into the nuclear core. If this conclusion was correct, the gravitrons would cause the nuclear material to begin fusing, generating tremendous surplus energy. Uncontrolled nuclear fusion could precipitate a thermonuclear event. If that worst case came to pass, everyone near the generator was in peril.

  “Too late, mister…get out now before the machine implodes,” he ordered.

  A powerfu
l vibration coming from the ground gave both men pause. Jarrod couldn’t be sure if the vibration was the result of the generator scram, or if the gravitrons were already backing up. Either way, it wasn’t a good sign.

  “Move, Professor, you’re done here!” Rafie yelled, grabbing him by the collar and jerking him to his feet. “Jesus, what have you done?”

  As Jarrod emerged from the command module, he couldn’t believe his eyes. The vibration wasn’t coming from the generator at all. Rather, a sortie of M1 Abrams tanks was rumbling on fast approach toward the depository. The roar of the M1 Honeywell aircraft engines propelled the sixty-ton tanks with incredible speed and precision. It was an ambush. Base Commander Brigadier General Sam Hershey had secretly deployed the Fort Knox 3rd Cavalry Tank Regiment to defend the Treasury Depository. Kilmer’s siege was over; his men were sitting ducks.

  The scene unfolding before them was surrealistic. Sirens continued a relentless blaring and the night sky seemed brighter than a football stadium under lights. The hulking but agile tanks surrounded the perimeter of the depository within minutes of their arrival. With infrared night-vision, unparalleled firepower, and a top speed of thirty-five miles an hour, anything threatening the security of the vault was about to bear the brunt of the M1’s considerable resistance. The $7-million price of each tank made it an invincible adversary.

  Jarrod saw one tank split off and quickly bear down on their location. The Abrams tank fired a 120-mm missile with a deafening roar, hitting the electrical pole adjacent to the Peterbilt. The direct hit from the cannon knocked out the power to the antigravity generator in a single blow. All hell was breaking loose below their feet.

  Kilmer’s men used their automatic weapons to no avail. Lacking Army personnel to shoot, they directed their futile resistance at the tank, but the M1’s steel-encased depleted uranium mesh armor was impervious to their bullets. The tank’s gunner laid down suppressive fire with the onboard .50mm-caliber machine-gun keeping the bullets low and focused at the wheels of the Peterbilt. It was rendered immobile in seconds, while the generator atop the trailer remained intact and unharmed.

  Kilmer and Ventura recognized what was happening and hastily jumped onto the trailer, dodging the tank’s lethal strafing fire. Mills and Marlon were not as fortunate. Mills had been taking cover behind the tandem wheels of the trailer and the .50mm rounds cut him in half. He never felt a thing. Marlon, too, made a bad choice. Rather than hop on the trailer, he chose to run and a round caught his upper left thigh, ripping the leg from his body. He lay about fifty yards from the trailer, his screams of agony barely discernable above the commotion of battle. Colt and Sully recognized the danger and fell face down, the bullets whizzing closely over their heads.

  God have mercy, Jarrod thought. He was trembling from fear. While the heavy machine gun fire was unsettling, his greater concern was the state of the gravity machine. The trailer on which he stood was violently vibrating, much more than when the tanks first appeared. He looked at the microwave dish but saw that the waves of gravitrons were no longer spewing toward the depository. The generator housing containing the plutonium rocked back and forth, the bolts staining to keep it mounted to the trailer. The excess gravitrons predictably fought to reseat themselves within their previous physical construct. The nuclear core was being heavily bombarded.

  “We’ve got to warn these people to get away,” Jarrod screamed over the relentless sirens. He grabbed Rafie’s arm. “It’s beginning to implode. If it reaches critical mass, it’ll go nuclear. Tell everyone to move back!”

  “We stay right here, Professor,” Rafie yelled back, gripping Jarrod’s wrist. “The tank’s gunner is watching our every move. You’re an infrared object…the safest place is on this trailer. If she blows, she blows. Nothing we can do about it now,” he retorted authoritatively.

  From the front of the trailer, Kilmer looked past Rafie to the two vehicles fast-approaching their position. Even with his night goggles he couldn’t make them out at first but didn’t imagine they would help his cause. When he finally did recognize the Navigator, he realized it had come from Wildcat and was most likely responsible for cutting off Starkovich. “Bag that piker,” he said, triggering a volley of lead from his automatic machine pistol. “I want the prick dead.”

  Ryan Marshall had the Lincoln traveling 100 miles per hour, driving toward a destination he couldn’t begin to fathom. Everything on the horizon was either lit up, exploding, or on fire. Suddenly a wicked pain creased his shoulder as if he’d been stung by a hornet. Another sting swiped his neck; then another parted his scalp. It was then he noticed the bullet holes peppering his windshield. He set the speed control to keep driving forward and instinctively slumped behind the dash. He could barely make out the road ahead anyway, blinded by the intense searchlights coming from the depository. His entire focus was to stay the course until he reached the Peterbilt or die trying, whichever came first.

  His progress measurably slowed when a stray bullet pierced the radiator, disabling the engine. A cursory peek above the dash showed the Peterbilt just a few hundred yards straight ahead. He figured momentum alone would carry him the remaining distance. Go, you dog…go!

  The Lincoln Navigator remained steadily ahead of Henry and Palmer as they tried to overtake Marshall advancing to the scene. Emerson couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the vehicle had been hit; wisps of steam were curling from beneath the chassis.

  “Stop the car, Jason,” Palmer yelled. “Shut off the lights.”

  “It won’t matter, Emerson, they’re all wearing night goggles,” Henry argued.

  “Just do it; now!”

  Henry came to a screeching halt in the center of the road and Palmer jumped from the car with the night-scope. Henry then realized that the headlights would overamplify the night-vision, disrupting Emerson’s view. Stupid.

  “Okay, there’re four men on the trailer. Man, it’s rocking hard… looks to blow any moment,” Palmer reported. “Rafie’s standing apart from the other two. There’re shooting at Marshall’s car. You’re right about Rafie…he’s covering the professor. There may be others I can’t locate. But we’re out of time…we’ve got to engage right now.”

  Palmer grabbed the second Winchester 30.06 the men had bought from the Bass Pro Shop. He steadied the rifle on the open door of the car. Concentrating on the men near the back of the trailer, he took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. The bullet missed the mark. Damn, no time to adjust these sights.

  Richard Kilmer heard the bullet zing past and knew counter-forces were drawing closer. His final priority was Jarrod Conrad. No way he makes it out alive.

  “Rafie…move,” Kilmer yelled, pointing the gun in his direction. “I want Conrad dead!” When Rafie didn’t immediately respond, he roared, “Ya gone berko? Move yer arse…hear me?”

  A second bullet came from nowhere, hitting Kilmer in the stomach just below his Kevlar vest, doubling him over. He knew wounds to the gut were always lethal, but took time to put a man down. Kilmer figured he had about ten minutes before he bled out and lost consciousness. He would take great pleasure knowing that the last man he’d kill would be Jarrod Conrad. See you in hell, Professor.

  Kilmer straightened up and was met by a startling sight. Rafie had now leveled his gun directly back at him.

  “It’s over, Richard. I’m a federal agent…you’re under arrest. Give it up.”

  “Nooo…ya motherfuckin’ traitor,” Kilmer bellowed. He was apoplectic to discover that his second-in-command was a double agent. His shriek of outrage reverberated through the night like the cry of a wounded animal sensing the hunter, closing for the kill. “Yer a mug! I’ll cut yer heart out,” he said, spitting blood. Kilmer drew a knife and staggered toward Rafie, meaning to make good on his threat.

  At that same moment, shots rang out from multiple directions. Rafie fired a shot at Kilmer’s head, a crimson spray of blood and brains erupting from his skull as the bullet entered just below his right eye. Two other shots
hit him almost simultaneously in the torso—the frontal shot arched him backward but was stopped by his body armor; the .50-caliber round from the tank’s gunner, however, entered his back, ripping the vest and both arms off his body. What remained of Richard Kilmer collapsed in a dead heap and lay twitching for several seconds. Then he drew his last breath.

  “It’s your choice, Terry,” Rafie yelled over the din of rumbling tanks and sirens, still blanketing the frenetic commotion all around. He was pointing his gun at Ventura now, who stood frozen by the unexpected discovery that Rafie was an undercover federal agent. “Think it through, Terry,” he paused. “Two other shots hit Richard from the front and from behind. You’re surrounded.”

  No one could have predicted what happened next. The Lincoln Navigator, with its windshield peppered and headlights shot out, suddenly plowed nonstop into the back of the Peterbilt, hitting it with such force that everyone standing lost their balance. The airbags deployed, hiding the identity of whoever might have been driving but there was no subsequent movement from the vehicle. It remained wedged underneath the back of the trailer, steam hissing from its ruptured radiator.

  The Navigator’s surprise impact caused Rafie to divert his attention momentarily to this unanticipated new threat. Terry Ventura seized the lapse in concentration to settle the score with the traitorous secret agent. He raised his gun to shoot both Rafie and Conrad but before he could take the shot, an unknown shooter’s bullet cut him down. From the way he was hurled backward, it was clear that an expert marksman with a high-powered weapon was systematically picking off the assailants—and it wasn’t anyone associated with the Navigator.

  Agent Henry had joined Palmer outside the vehicle. He grabbed the spotter’s scope and was relaying vital information on the distance and direction of each shot. He had a perfect vantage point to identify misdirected shots and to offer alignment corrections.