Solstice

by David Hewson

  They veered to one side, and Davis was pointing. 'See the ridge?'

  He couldn't even make it out at first. Off in the distance was a tiny spur of flat rock ending abruptly in nothing. It seemed incredible that they could even dream of landing there. Lieberman clung to the door handle, looked across the cabin. 'Okay,' he said. The man's eyes said it all. And in a long, halting swoop, the helicopter half-flew, half-fell out of the sky, skimming the steeply inclined rock face, catching strands of scrub as the life died in its airframe.

  The pilot took his right hand off the stick and grabbed Lieberman's arm. 'We come in running. As soon as you can open the door, get these people out of the back. Take your belt off now.'

  Lieberman shook his head. 'You want the belt off?'

  'Please.' His eyes were begging. 'We have one chance with this. If it goes over, a belt's going to do you no good. If we manage to stay on the straight and level, I want you out ASAP, and clear of this bloody machine. Understand?'

  Lieberman nodded and looked at Mo and Annie. 'You heard?' It was Mo who was crying. She seemed more scared than Annie in some way he couldn't quite understand. Something snagged the machine, bounced them briefly out of their seats. Lieberman looked at the pilot, fighting the controls, all arms and legs, and thought: This is one way to go, so wrapped up in the mechanics around you that the idea of moving from life to non-existence never really enters your head. Then the world turned upside down, there was screaming again, and something louder, the constant, ear-piercing screech of metal meeting rock, blood on the glass in front of him, pain shrieking in his head. And, in a moment, stillness.

  He opened his eyes and looked across the cabin. Davis was breathless, holding the stick; above them the rotor was slowly winding down. They were on an incline. Not a gentle one.

  Davis still looked scared. 'You're bleeding,' he said.

  Lieberman felt his head. The scalp was damp and sticky.

  'It's okay.'

  'Good. Now get out of your side, mine's too close to the edge. Go carefully. Keep your heads down, that blade is still alive. Get well clear of the machine once you're out. I'll follow you. Now move!'

  He didn't need to be told twice. Lieberman kicked open the door, saw the thin line of flat rock of the tiny plateau between them and the edge: no more than eight feet. He grabbed Mo by the arm, took the strain as she eased down onto the ground, then did the same with Annie. He looked again at the pilot. It was hard to tell. Even if he was hurt he wouldn't want to show it. 'Let me give you a hand.'

  'For God's sake, man, get out!' The metal skeleton of the machine grumbled. Lieberman kicked and pushed and was out the door, let go of the frame, and heard it groan.

  'Michael!' Mo yelled.

  He registered the noise and knew, in an instant, what it was. The helicopter was shifting, off the plateau, off the edge. Their weight had changed the balance. It was slipping away from them, the pilot locked inside. He wheeled around and saw just how bad it was. The ridge was less than twenty feet wide, and the machine had moved so far to the left that half the frame now hung over the precipice. Davis was struggling to get out of his belt, and every time he moved, the machine tilted gently farther toward the edge.

  'Stay still,' Lieberman shouted, and grabbed hold of the land-side leg, now rocking gently toward the sky. The pilot looked at him, afraid.

  'Easy for you — '

  'Shut up and stay still. I'm thinking.'

  The helicopter rocked once more on the cliff ledge, Davis instinctively leaned inward, and Lieberman knew he couldn't hold this thing, all of them couldn't stop it from tipping over when it decided to go. One hand on the strut, the other working feverishly, he undid the cord on the videophone. 'Mo, help me. Please.'

  She took the strap, unthreaded it from its fastenings, and pulled it clear. Extended, it ran to almost three feet, all solid nylon, strong too, he guessed. He threw it inside the cabin. 'Are you free of the harness yet?'

  Davis nodded. 'I think so.'

  'Good. When you're ready, take the strap by both hands and come toward me. This thing is going to fall away from under you pretty quickly. Know that now. But I can pull you free if you do your part. Understand?' Davis nodded.

  'Your knee is trapped behind the stick thing,' Annie screamed.

  'Yeah.'

  Davis struggled. So much stuff inside this thing, Lieberman thought. It was hard to believe he could avoid every wheel and pulley and projectile as it fell past him.

  'On my three,' the pilot said.

  'You're still behind the stick.'

  He nodded at Annie. 'I know… One.'

  Lieberman took up the slack. The helicopter groaned.

  'Two…'

  Mo and Annie weren't watching this. He knew that, without having to see it.

  'Three!'

  And Lieberman thought his arms would be pulled from their sockets. Davis leaped up in the cabin, banging his head on the roof panel, yelling wordlessly, fighting with his legs. The machine began to topple over, creaking, sighing.

  'Kick your leg free,' Lieberman shouted. 'Your leg, man.'

  It was like a fight, a brawl. Davis was battling every piece of metal in the cockpit, and each stood in his way. Suddenly the aircraft pitched violently upward, the strut catching Lieberman in the face, the sky went dark for a moment, the strap fell free from his hand. He clutched at his eyes, wanting to scream, listening to the groaning metal, the rush of air, the sound of this huge contraption tipping itself into space.

  'Michael,' Mo said, something in her voice bringing him back down to earth. He looked down. Mo was flat on the rock, the strap in her hands, Annie holding her ankles, being dragged gently toward the edge of the precipice. He leaped down to the ground, added his hands to the strap, held firm, dug in his toes, felt the movement slowly come to a halt.

  'You're heavier than you look, Bob,' Lieberman yelled. 'I don't know how long we can hold this.' Something grunted from beyond the ledge. It was too hot. The sweat was running from every pore, making the harsh plastic weave of the strap cut into their hands. A dead weight tugged on the line, like a giant fish, then Davis's angular face appeared, inch by inch, at the cliff edge, then one arm, pushing upward, then a second.

  The pilot rolled over onto the rock plateau, came to a halt on his back, closed his eyes, and let out a long sigh. Lieberman felt Mo's body come close to him, put an arm around her, felt Annie too, held them both, not knowing who was sobbing, who was laughing right then (and still something nagging away inside). When something like sanity returned, he opened his eyes and saw Davis watching them.

  'You're bleeding,' the pilot said. 'Cut on the forehead. Stitches, if you ask me. Any other problems?'

  'No.'

  'And you two?' Mo and Annie looked just fine.

  'Good. Well, Professor, it seems you came off worse. Now shall we see if we can get that little toy of yours working before we burn to a crisp?'

  'You bet.' Lieberman retrieved the videophone from where he'd left it. He turned the thing on and they stared at coloured snow.

  'I guess it's time to walk,' Bob Davis said, and started out for the goat track that led down the dry, rocky escarpment.

  CHAPTER 34

  Something Visible

  Rosslyn, Virginia, 1432 UTC

  'They could still win this war,' Tim Clarke said quietly on the portable videophone parked on the dressing table in Helen Wagner's bedroom. 'You both ought to understand that.'

  He was on his own again, talking to Helen and Schulz, circumventing normal channels as usual. Clarke hadn't melded with his advisers yet. There was something between them, she thought, something that might even amount to mistrust. In his own head, she thought, he had calculated the time scale of events and decided there was no room here for niceties. Either he led directly, from the front, or the response descended into committees and meetings. It was a high-risk strategy, but she could understand why Clarke was following it. He was still a stranger in the Oval Office.

  "T
here's someone inside, sir,' she answered, pushing some spare clothes into a bag. 'They're second-guessing what we're doing. They seem to know so much. And don't forget about Belinda Churton, my predecessor. Someone killed her, and she'd be doing a much better job here than me.'

  'Maybe, but I'm not sure we want to be diverted by that right now. And by the way, you're doing just fine. I'd tell you if I thought otherwise. You got your team right for this little trip of yours?'

  'I think so. Barnside handles the practical side. I got Larry Wolfit, my number two, with some of his computer team too. If we get their installation intact, we can get it back on our side, don't doubt it.'

  'I wouldn't dream of it. You and Barnside going to manage to get along out there?'

  Clarke was quick to spot these things, she thought. 'The protective older figure act gets a little wearing sometimes, to be frank.'

  'Yeah. I guess he can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. But then, so can you.'

  'We'll cope.' She threw some things into the bag as they talked, trying to picture Barnside in the field. Maybe he got a new kind of fluency, of naturalness out there, found his true environment, like a seal rolling clumsily off the land into the ocean and finding how easy it was to swim.

  'You do that,' Clarke said. 'We've got the world on a knife edge. There's no room for personal stuff. Yesterday all we got was phone calls asking when we were going to bury Bill Rollinson. Now the phone doesn't ring so much any more. People are retreating behind their own borders, back into their shells, wondering what the hell is going to fall from the sky next. Nothing works. Not the markets, not half the telecommunications north of the equator. I got the UN on my back like it's my fault, and half of that is because the phone lines between New York and Washington still work and we're the only people they can call. And if these Gaia people are right, things are going to get a whole lot worse tomorrow, in ways no one seems sure of. Isn't there anything else we can do on the ground now that the Spanish base is down?'

  Schulz said, 'The Shuttle's our best hope, sir. Failing that, we're going to have to find them and take over their unit. That's the only other option.'

  'There's nothing you can do to resuscitate La Finca or Kyoto, Irwin?' Helen asked.

  Schulz shook his head. 'Not in time. Kyoto's still full of that VX crap and it's going to be a couple of days before we Can put people in there safely, a week or more before we can rely on what we have here.'

  'What's the timing on the storm?' Clarke asked.

  'Not good,' Helen said. 'As far as we can tell. Lieberman is still missing. We don't know whether he got out or not.'

  'There's people been seen in the mountains,' Schulz said. 'But we haven't made contact yet. It's a big, wild area out there.'

  Clarke grimaced. Behind his dark, thoughtful face they could see the bright midday light in Washington, the corner of what looked like the seal of office. All these icons, Helen thought, and their power on the wane.

  'Where are we now?' the President asked.

  'You just have to take a look out the window, sir,' Schulz said. 'This thing is clearly visible with the naked eye if you use a filter. And our guess is the peak is going to be big. Huge. Whatever effects we've seen so far, whether Charley caused them or not, they're nothing compared to what we might get from now on, with or without Sundog. We face massive disruption of telecom, power grids, maybe some geological activity too. Add in what Charley has under her belt and I think you could see localized peaks of radiation, maybe up to the strength of serious physical human damage. At this kind of level, it's hard to predict exactly what Sundog will spit out. We never envisaged its use in these circumstances, but she's got a lot of different levers she can throw — microwave, electromagnetic emissions, particle beam.'

  'When does it peak, Irwin?' Helen asked.

  'Too erratic to be exact, even if I was confident we had the right people to guess that one. Sometime between 1200 and 1250 UTC tomorrow, that's my best guess.'

  Clarke swore softly, then said, 'So what you're saying is that we've got a little over nineteen hours to get this thing back? Or she can do what the hell she likes?'

  'No, sir,' Schulz said, genuinely puzzled this point hadn't got home to them yet. 'What I'm saying is what Lieberman said, and no one seems to be listening. You have an emergency on your hands whatever happens. It just gets a whole lot worse if we leave Charley holding that magnifying glass in her hands.'

  And with that, Schulz made an excuse and was gone. The line to La Finca went dead.

  Clarke sighed. 'He's a smart guy, Helen. If he's right and we have a big problem either way, maybe you should be staying here.'

  'No, Mr President,' she said, glancing at her watch. It was a twenty-minute drive from her house in Rosslyn to the national airport where the Agency Gulfstream would be waiting. There was another twenty minutes to spare. Time was ticking beneath their feet, and she didn't like the look on Clarke's face. It had a touch of the confessional about it. 'We have plenty of people capable of handling a natural disaster. What we need to make sure of is that we don't have an unnatural one that's much worse on our hands.'

  'I guess so.'

  She stole him a glance that said shoo. You weren't supposed to treat the President like that; but then, the President wasn't supposed to call you in your bedroom while you were packing. 'Excuse me a moment.' She yelled out into the hall, 'Martha? Will you feed the cat while I'm gone?'

  'Sure thing, Helen,' said a middle-aged voice from the hall. 'It'll be a pleasure.'

  Helen smiled at the videophone. 'The world champion cleaner. I'm a lucky sort of person.'

  'Good. You're going to need it. Even after all I said, there's one hell of a goddamn range war brewing over this thing. If this goes wrong, a lot of people go down with it. Me included.'

  She moved out of the range of the video camera for a moment so that he couldn't see the concern on her face. 'I didn't hear that, sir.'

  'You deaf or something?'

  'Sir, this is a crisis we have to deal with, one way or another.

  I don't even want to think about failure, about some kind of retribution.'

  'That's agreed. But if this does fall apart someone is going to have to draw a line in the sand. We're going to need new beginnings. And, in case you hadn't noticed, I am driving on this one. Not the military. Not the intelligence community. I chose to take control here because, in my judgement, that was the right thing to do. If that judgement proves wrong, I go. No one needs to push me.'

  'Sir,' she said firmly, 'do you think it was the wrong judgement? Do you have doubts?'

  'No. Not for a minute since this began. But that doesn't mean I'm right.'

  'These are extraordinary circumstances, Mr President. They merit extraordinary solutions.'

  'Yeah,' he replied, and shrugged. 'You're right. Forget what I said. Sometimes I just need to talk out loud, and right now I don't have a family here to inflict that on. Back to business. And the range war.'

  'Over what?'

  'Who goes in there and takes control. The Agency is shipping down an HRT. They leave just before you in some fancy damn 767 they keep for the purpose. Meantime the Army is calling up a Delta Force crew from Fort Bragg. And I know those guys very well. They'd eat you and me for breakfast and chew on the bones.'

  'You don't need both of them. They'd just get in each other's way.'

  'Exactly. And I would have told them so if I'd found out earlier. So what do you think?'

  She threw the last few clothes and a washbag into her travelling case and zipped it closed. 'Who, exactly, is HRT, sir?'

  'HRT is the Hostage Rescue Team,' Clarke replied. 'They took a lot of stick after the mess at Waco. And that was their call. Fogerty says they're more than just hostage rescue. You think that's on the ball?'

  'I guess so. As my colleagues are forever pointing out, though, Operations is not my field.'

  Clarke nodded. 'You got a good enough grasp. We need these people, Helen. But if we get a line on thi
s dome, my guess is you and Irwin — and Lieberman too, if he's still alive — stand more damn chance of turning it around than any number of hard-assed soldiers. You can talk.'

  'I guess it depends on what you see as the threat.'

  'Meaning?'

  'Are these people going to be armed and dangerous? And I think the answer is: Not in a conventional terrorist sense. Look at the profile of the guy in Vegas. Look at Charley. They're smart enough to plant bombs, screw up systems, but they're not soldiers.'

  'I agree.' Clarke nodded. 'If we thought we'd have to fight every inch of the way in there, then Delta would be the only option. But we won't. We need to enter the place with as little damage as possible, then contain and control it.'

  'Pretty much like a hostage situation.'

  Clarke nodded. 'My feelings exactly.'

  'The military won't like hearing it,' she said, glancing again at her watch.

  'The military can do as they're damn well told.'

  'Either way, the problem is time. They know we don't have a working dome or the chance of owning one now. In theory, they might be best placed to set the satellite up to do maximum damage, destroy the dome they have, and get the hell out of there. They could disappear in Nevada, Utah, Arizona… we'd never find them.'

  'Is that likely?' Clarke grimaced.

  'Maybe not. I talked to Lieberman about this. Charley's no fool. She can read the signs as well as we can and she knows this cycle is so erratic she can't be sure how to hit the peak. My guess is she'll hold it to the last possible moment.'

  'The longer she holds on, the more likely we are to pick up a big bunch of people like that,' Clarke said.

  'Maybe. But Charley's dying anyway, so I guess she thinks she's special. The volume work they needed — setting up the systems, stealing their way into Sundog — that's done. A couple of people could run that thing through the peak. Whatever the truth, the clock's fixed. We will probably wind up going in during darkness, sir.'