“Ready?” Jack asked.
“Ready,” Jennifer replied.
“Start the loopback now.”
Jennifer’s long fingers whispered over the keyboard.
When Heather looked around, Jack and Janet were already gone.
Lieutenant Morrow gave the signal that brought his assault team to a stop. Although he saw and heard nothing, Master Chief Hob Lucero materialized at his elbow.
“Yeah, Chief?”
“Something’s seriously wrong here.”
As good as Morrow was, he knew his master chief was better. In SOCOM, the man was a living legend. Two Silver Stars, the Medal of Honor, and a chest full of so many ribbons he tilted to his left whenever he wore dress whites. But that barely hinted at the man’s story. Hob was a warrior from a different age: off duty a gentleman straight out of King Arthur’s court, in battle a Viking warrior his men would follow into hell itself.
“Yeah, I’ve had that feeling, but what is it?”
Hob snorted. “It’s this goddamned high-tech crap. This shit’s screwing us.”
“Care to be a bit more specific, Chief?”
The master chief pulled out a map, spread it on the ground, and flipped on a red lens flashlight. His finger circled a spot on the map. “The GPS puts us here, right?”
“Right.”
“Bullshit. I may not be one of the Pentagon’s sci-fi whiz kids, but I can read a cocksuckin’ map well enough to know the difference between a ridgeline and a valley. We’re sitting smack at the bottom of a valley, but that GPS says we’re right here on top of this ridge.”
Morrow stared at the paper map, then shifted his view to the GPS version on his digital display. He paused for several seconds, analyzing the disparity.
“NGA hasn’t spent a lot of effort producing high-quality maps of this area.”
“Fine. I’ll grant you a map error of plus or minus a hundred meters. But I swear to God, we’re half a click from where GPS says we are.”
“Which direction?”
“Due south.”
Once again Lieutenant Morrow paused. As much as he wanted to believe what the fancy SOCOM gadgetry was telling him, he trusted his master chief more.
“OK. So how do you figure it?”
“Sir, didn’t Gregory reprogram the GPS birds to deactivate the nanites?”
“He did.”
“So that tells me he knows we’re here. And he knows how addicted to technology special ops has become. He’s screwing us with our own technology.”
“Recommendation?”
“Somehow he’s tracking us through our transmitters. We need to strip off all the high-tech gadgetry, you and me. Put it in two packs, give those packs to a couple of our guys and send our team on, just like before. Then the two of us veer off and deliver a little surprise to Jack the Ripper.”
By the time Master Chief Hob Lucero finished proposing his plan, Morrow had already begun dropping every high-tech gadget on his body in a pile on the ground in front of him.
“Almost time to go,” Mark said, the watch in his head ticking off the seconds. He pointed at the map display. “The SEAL team is too far off course now to get here before we’re long gone.”
Mark saw Heather’s eyes go white, saw her stagger under the weight of her vision and reached out a hand to support her.
As her eyes cleared, she shook her head. “Escaping through the tunnel and blowing the compound isn’t going to work. The Global Hawk’s synthetic aperture radar and infrared sensors are just too good. They’ll see us through the surrounding jungle. After that, there’ll be no escaping the B-52.”
Turning her attention back to her console, Heather redirected her subspace receiver-transmitter at the B-52.
“I’ve got control of the B-52 targeting system.” Heather’s voice sounded tight in her throat.
“I thought we couldn’t do that.”
“It’s possible for the crew to manually override my control, but only if they recognize what’s happening. That’s not going to happen until it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?” asked Jennifer.
“Give me the SEAL team’s center of mass, latitude-longitude.”
The light dawned in Mark’s mind. He calculated the coordinate to tenths of a decimal second, reciting it aloud.
“Team spread?”
“One hundred seventy three meters.”
Heather punched in the targeting data.
Jennifer gasped. “We’re going to kill Americans?”
“They’re here to kill us.”
Her icy tone held an edge Mark had never heard from Heather, but it didn’t surprise him. He could feel their training kicking in, siphoning away all paralyzing emotion. They would have to deal with those emotions at some point, just not now.
“Jen,” Heather continued. “Get ready to give me the Global Hawk feed. I’m going to want live infrared video of the SEAL team.”
“I already have sensor control. Ready any time.”
“Mark, get me a satellite shot, best NIIRS resolution it can do.”
Mark focused on his own console. “Imagery coming down now. It’s a pretty large data stream. Download will take thirty-five seconds.”
The data appeared on the monitor to Heather’s left, members of the team visible, but without the detail she wanted. Heather shook her head.
“Something’s wrong. I’m only seeing fourteen people.”
“I’m still showing sixteen GPS blips within that area,” said Mark. “Maybe a couple are terrain-masked.”
Heather glanced at the map display. “Can’t be. The blips for the two I can’t see are right next to SEALs I can see.”
Suddenly Mark saw her eyes go white again. Not good.
Heather came out of her trance almost as quickly as she had entered it. “Jen, give me the Global Hawk feed now!”
“Where the hell did my Global Hawk feed go?” Commander Patterson’s voice came from a spot immediately behind Chief Petty Officer Swan’s right ear.
“I don’t know, sir. One second the signal was great and now it’s like the bird quit transmitting.”
“You talking to the Global Hawk Mission Control Element?”
“They’re working it, boss.”
“Not good enough. Those are my men in harm’s way out there. You tell those air force video jockeys, if they don’t get my video-feed working right now, they’re gonna find my boot so far up their asses they’ll be gagging on laces.”
“Wilco.”
Swan had heard that tone before. It was the sound of one pissed-off Navy SEAL.
Mark watched as Jennifer directed the Global Hawk’s powerful infrared camera, panning across the SEAL platoon’s position. Fourteen SEALs, not sixteen.
“Bring it back to us,” Heather said. “Give me eyes on this compound, white hot.”
The infrared image shifted from black hot to white as the camera zoomed in on the Frazier hacienda’s headquarters.
“Shit!”
Mark’s exclamation escaped his lips as he saw the two glowing white forms kneeling by the barn, less than fifty meters from the comm center where they now stood. By the time the single syllable reached the ears of the two girls, he was already at a dead run, the SIG Sauer nine-millimeter pistol rising into firing position as the window and blinds exploded inward.
From the corner of his eye he saw Heather press her laptop’s ENTER key.
Forty-five thousand feet above, the B-52’s bomb bay doors began to open.
Lieutenant Morrow knelt in the darkness, his M4 leveled to provide covering fire for his master chief should that become necessary. But it wasn’t going to be. Master Chief Lucero had already applied the setting from the laser range finder to the nonlethal munition that currently occupied the chamber of his M25 counter-defilade rifle, his finger tightening on the trigger. The M25 normally fired high-explosive air burst rounds. It was a lovely weapon that denied enemies the chance of hiding behind walls or ledges. The user just aim
ed the sight at the wall or windowsill, got the range from the laser sight, thumbed in an extra meter, and fired just above the ledge. The munition’s safe-arm circuit armed it thirty meters downrange, the round continuing on to the programmed range before exploding. Bye-bye, bad guy.
But, if possible, this was a live-capture mission. So the master chief had loaded the magazine with nonlethal rounds the troops had nicknamed goobers. These little guys armed themselves upon exiting the barrel, but exploded at the programmed distance. The difference was the way they splashed the target with an instant-drying goo with a tensile strength greater than that of superglue. To get the target free from a goober you had to apply a special spray-on solvent.
Gazing through the thermal sight, Morrow could clearly see the heat signatures of three people gathered near computers through the drawn window blinds. With a thump, the round accelerated from the M25’s short barrel. Almost simultaneously, one of the three people inside spun toward the window. Moving with impossible speed, the glowing figure drew its sidearm as it raced toward the window.
The Ripper. The thought flashed into Morrow’s mind as the grenade penetrated the blinds, exploding one meter beyond, detonating exactly as programmed. The Goober filled the room with sticky strands and globs, trapping everything it touched in a rapidly hardening web that would have made Spider-Man salivate.
Morrow could see the blast catch the running man, spinning him backward in the air, then locking him in place before he hit the floor. The other two figures also froze to their positions in front of the computer consoles.
The man he had tagged as the Ripper continued to struggle against the tremendous tensile strength of the aero-gel, and although Morrow had been told that such a thing was impossible, he appeared to be breaking some of the strands, the weapon in his hand gradually rising toward the two special operators.
“Enough of this.” Morrow fired a single round into each of the three individuals, the tranq darts burying themselves deep in the targets’ exposed flesh.
For several seconds the webbed man continued to struggle, but then he, like the other two before him, hung limp in the clutches of the goo web.
Beside Morrow, Hob Lucero rose up, lifting the goo-solvent sprayer as he stepped toward the target. “Mission accomplished.”
Morrow hesitated, scanning the area with his thermal scope, seeking additional heat signatures. Intel had said to expect five baddies. Just as he had convinced himself that the action was over, and turned to follow his master chief, the sky burned white and orange. Then the shock wave lifted and flung him like a rag doll in the wind.
Flashes lit the southwestern sky brighter than a Bolivian sunrise, the fireball rolling above the bomb line, swirling high in its own heat tornado five seconds before the blast wave passed over the deep canyon. Janet glanced down at Robby’s wide eyes, expecting her child’s scream, but failing to have her mother’s expectation rewarded. Although his tiny hands pressed tightly to his ears, her baby’s face held a look of awed fascination.
Ten feet to her left, Jack’s black-clad form stared back toward the hacienda.
“Are you going back?” Janet’s voice seemed a whisper in her own ringing ears.
“No point,” Jack replied. “Either they’re already in the tunnel and will catch us or they’re dead.”
Janet shrugged off the wave of dread that clenched her heart, snuggled the M4 up against Robby’s front-pack, and turned to follow Yachay down into the outstretched arms of the Amazon.
“Mr. President, we have a solid update from Bolivia.” James Nobles pressed a button on the remote control, replacing the large-screen monitor’s map display with an infrared image showing some thatch-roofed buildings and a number of glowing figures spread out around the compound.
“Go on.”
“SEAL Team Ten has its Second Platoon on the ground at the Frazier compound. Perimeter is secure.”
“First Platoon?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President. It’s not good. Fourteen KIA. Lieutenant Morrow, the First Platoon commander, has a broken arm, but remains on the scene coordinating with Second Platoon.
“Gregory?”
“No sign of him or Janet Price.”
“Damn it! What the hell went wrong?”
“We don’t know for sure yet, but early indications are that they managed to hack into a number of secure national systems.”
President Jackson felt the blood drain from his face. “How is that possible?”
“We don’t know.”
“Find out!”
His national security advisor nodded. “We’ve recovered two laptops from the Frazier compound. The information on those computers could prove invaluable.”
“Two laptops...” It felt like a hollow prize, especially considering the loss of life.
There was a pause. Then his advisor said, “But that’s not all, sir. The Ripper and Janet Price had help. Significant help.”
The president felt hope rise within him. Perhaps the mission hadn’t been a total disaster.
“We’re still getting an injury assessment, but SEAL Team Ten reports the capture of three terrorists. We think they might have been the hackers who inserted errors into the GPS feed and took control of our Global Hawk sensors. They also managed to retarget the B-52 payload, killing fourteen of our Navy SEALs. We’re bringing the terrorists and the laptops to one of our special facilities. Interrogation may take some time, depending on the condition of the detainees and the interrogation methods you authorize.”
President Jackson didn’t pause. “You have my direct authorization to use any methods required.”
As his advisor nodded and headed for the door, the president held up a hand.
“Oh, and James, in case somebody has forgotten, I want Gregory. Dead will be just fine.”
Dr. Louis Dubois sat in his office staring at the computer screen, his red-veined eyes testament to the fact he hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours. Despite the angry grip captivity had on the quarantined scientists, engineers, and technicians under his direction, their professionalism and love of their work had again produced spectacular results. First-phase analysis of Dr. Stephenson’s design had found no fault with his equations, which meant, considering the hatred the LHC team directed at the Rho Project physicist, Stephenson’s theory was correct.
True science revolved around peer review to validate a confederate’s work. The more controversial the paper, the harder other scientists and mathematicians tried to find its weaknesses. The fact that this massive collection of the world’s greatest minds couldn’t punch a hole in Dr. Stephenson’s work didn’t prove he was right, but it was good enough for Louis. And that frustrated the hell out of him.
As he stared at the engineering report, a cold sweat dripped down the back of his neck, dampening his once-dapper ponytail and staining his shirt collar. The project to build what Louis had dubbed the Rho Gate would require an effort that dwarfed the construction of the Large Hadron Collider. Not in physical size. The device itself would be contained within an expansion of the ATLAS chamber. But its complexity, the power required to generate the wormhole, and the seven-month timeline for its construction—that combination truly boggled the mind. It would take a project the like of which the Earth had never known.
Louis brought up the computer-aided design diagram of the Rho Gate. The exploded CAD diagram filled screen after screen. For the LHC engineering team to have produced this level of detail for the Rho Gate in such a short time represented a monumental effort, one that should have even impressed Donald Stephenson. Of course it hadn’t, but that hardly mattered. It meant the world had a chance, slim as it might have been, at survival. It was up to Louis to put together a draft proposal to the politicians of the world’s greatest powers that would get them all on board without delay.
Popping the top on another energy drink, Dr. Dubois tilted back his head and drained it. Staring down at the tiny bottle, he grinned. Another six of these and he should be just about fini
shed.
Gil McFarland watched as the two FBI men walked up his driveway, a mixture of hope and dread preceding them through the open front door. Gil directed the agents, clad in identical navy blue suits, white shirts, and black ties, into the living room, where Anna and the Smythes waited expectantly. The agents remained standing as Gil took a seat beside Anna, taking her trembling hand in his.
“Mr. and Mrs. Smythe and McFarland,” the agent on the left began. “I’m Special Agent Crowly, here with Special Agent McKee.”
“Have you found our kids?” The words spewed from Anna McFarland’s mouth, an accusation befitting the setting.
Agent Crowly pursed his lips, inhaled deeply, and continued. “I’m sorry to say we have. At around midnight last night, they died during a SEAL Team raid on a terrorist compound operated by Jack ‘the Ripper’ Gregory.”
The words hammered Gil in the chest, a battering ram that expelled his breath in a ragged gasp.
“No!” Linda Smythe’s agonized cry was the only other sound to break the stunned silence.
“As the Navy SEALs entered his Bolivian compound, the Ripper executed your children with a single shot to the head before detonating a booby trap that killed fourteen members of the SEAL team attempting their rescue. We’re here to express the United States government’s deepest sorrow for your loss.”
Time froze.
Gil McFarland finally broke the silence. “Wait just a minute. We call you bastards in to help our kids and now you lay this crock of shit on us? You killed them!”
Moving toward the door, Agent Crowly spoke. “I know this is hard.”
“Hard? You sorry sons of bitches!” Fred Smythe’s voice cracked with emotion.
The glass lamp left Gil’s hand before he noticed that he’d risen, and appeared to sail across the room in slow motion. As the two FBI agents ducked out, it exploded into the edge of the closing door, sending a hail of multicolored fragments chasing them into the White Rock night.
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