Jericho Iteration

by Allen Steele

  Down on the ground, I could make out one of the Hummers coming to a stop behind the German-American memorial. Its doors opened and four ERA soldiers leaped out, hugging their G-11s against their flak vests as they dashed for cover behind the bronze nude, cumbersome night-vision goggles suspended in front of their eyes below their helmets.

  Another helicopter roared past the tower, a little farther away this time but nonetheless louder. I raised the scope and caught the second chopper in its lens: an Apache, identical to the one that had stalked me earlier this evening, except for one chilling difference—this one had two racks of Hellfire missiles slung beneath its nacelles.

  “How the hell did they find us?” I yelled.

  “I was afraid of this.” Payson-Smith was still seated in front of the computers, feverishly typing on the keyboard of the one on the left. “It was only a matter of time before they managed to trace our phone link to the nets,” he said, “but I rather thought we’d be out of here before they figured out where we were. I guess I was wrong …”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Keeping low, I dashed back across the room. Morgan was huddled on the floor away from the windows, his knees drawn between his arms, his shoulders visibly trembling; the man was having a full-blown panic attack, but I didn’t have time to hold his hands. I kneeled by one of the western windows and peered down at the park again. Two ERA troopers were standing over the teenager who had tried to mug me earlier; he lay facedown on the ground, his hands locked together behind his head, the barrel of a Heckler & Koch pressed against the back of his neck. One of the troopers finished twisting a pair of plastic handcuffs around his wrists, then they hauled him off the ground and hustled him toward the Piranha parked on the street. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about getting mugged when I left here.

  If I left here.

  “Talk to me,” Richard snapped. “How many soldiers are out there?”

  I scanned Grand Avenue and the front of the park, but I couldn’t see any other soldiers. “At least a platoon,” I replied. “Maybe more. Can’t see ’em, though … most of ’em have taken cover. The ones I spotted were wearing night goggles.”

  “Uh-huh. Vehicles?”

  “Two LAVs, three Hummers. The choppers are a Cayuse and an Apache … and I hate to tell you this, but the Apache’s carrying missiles.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Oh, really.” I paused, then added, “If you want any good news, though, it looks like they’re taking prisoners. They just nailed our friend Skippy down there.”

  “Very good. I hope they find a nice little cell for him.” Richard’s fingers were tapping nonstop at the keyboard; his face, backlighted by the faint blue glow of the computer screen, was taut with concentration. “Won’t do us much good, though, I’m afraid. If they get us now, they’ll put us away where the sun doesn’t shine. They won’t let—”

  The rest was submerged beneath the roar of one of the helicopters coming in for another low pass.

  I looked through the window again, just in time to peer directly into the canopy of the Apache as it slowed down to hover less than fifty feet from my window. For a moment I thought it was going to attack; the gunner had a clean line of fire through the windows for the chopper’s 30-mm chain gun. Through the nightscope, I could see the pilot and copilot; the helicopter was so close that, if the window had been open, I could have taken a rock and bounced it off the armored glass.

  But the chain gun didn’t move on its mount beneath the cockpit. Instead, the TADS/PNVS turret mounted at the chopper’s nose rotated toward the tower. As I watched, the man in the rear seat looked my way. He grinned broadly, raised his left hand, and pointed his forefinger straight at me: you see me, I see you.

  I pointed back at him, he nodded his head, then the chopper lifted away once again and sailed away over the trees. “We have met the enemy,” I said once the noise subsided, “and he’s a smartass.”

  “Why don’t they just rush the tower?” Morgan muttered. He was still cowering next to the wall, his arms wrapped around himself as if they would protect him from caseless 34-mm shells. “If they’ve got us surrounded, why don’t they …?”

  “Because they’re probably unsure how many people are in here.” Payson-Smith’s voice was emotionless, as matter-of-fact as if he was discussing a moot intellectual point. “After all, we’re the renegade mad scientists out to blow up the world. For all they know, we’ve got an entire army holed up in here. Only an idiot would mount a frontal assault if he didn’t know what the odds were, now would—”

  “But we don’t have an army!” I snapped at him, frustrated by his objectivity. “We don’t got so much as a spit wad and a rubber band, and that Apache’s carrying tank busters!”

  Tappa-tappa-tappa-tappa. “You don’t say?” said Herr von Frankenstein.

  He was too cool to be insane. Something was going on over there.

  I scurried across the deck and knelt down next to where he was sitting. The search-and-retrieve program had vanished from the screen, replaced by long lines of LISP program code I couldn’t read.

  “I’m explaining things to Ruby,” Richard said. “She knows a little of what’s going on, but she needs a little human intuition right now.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “We’re working on something, but we need some time. If you’ve got any ideas how to—”

  “You! Up in the water tower! Listen up!”

  An amplified male voice through a megaphone from somewhere down below. Payson-Smith’s hands froze above the keyboard as we both raised our heads.

  “This is the Emergency Relief Agency …”

  “Now there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one,” Richard said dryly.

  “You’re completely surrounded! We know you know this! If you surrender immediately, you will be arrested but nothing else will happen to you!”

  “Right.” Payson-Smith bent over his keyboard again and continued writing cybernetic cabala.

  “You have two minutes to obey our orders! Come out with your hands above your heads, or we will be forced to use force!”

  “Oh, my!” he exclaimed. “He sounds rather forceful, doesn’t he?” He shook his head. “Typical—”

  “Goddammit, Dick, you can’t let ’em do this!” Jeff Morgan scrambled across the floor toward us. “C’mon, it’s not that important! Just … let’s just give up and let ’em take us downtown. If we cooperate—”

  “Shut up, Jeff.” Payson-Smith shot a dire look at him; Morgan fell silent again, and Richard glanced back at me. “I need another few minutes here,” he went on. “As I was saying, if you’ve got any ideas how to hold them off …”

  In that instant, I remembered the last ace I had up my sleeve. It was a long shot, but … “You got a phone up here?”

  “Jeff, give him the phone, please,” Richard said, “then stop whining and get behind the other ’puter. I need you to do something.”

  Morgan’s face reddened. He looked at me querulously as I rolled over on my side, pulled out my wallet, and searched through a stack of dog-eared business cards until I found the one I had forgotten up until now. God, if I had lost it …

  No, it was still here: the phonecard George Barris had given me at the Stadium, little more than twenty-four hours ago. “Phone!” I snapped. “Hurry up!”

  Morgan dug into his windbreaker and pulled out a pocket phone. I snatched it out of his hand, snapped it open, and ran the card’s codestrip across its scanner. Holding the receiver against my ear, I heard a faint buzzing. The second buzz was interrupted halfway through by a calm, familiar voice:

  “Redbird Leader.”

  Barris.

  I took a deep breath. “Colonel Barris, this is Gerry Rosen. Remember me?”

  A brief pause. “Of course, Gerry. I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”

  “I’m sure you have,” I replied, trying to keep my voice easy. “Just wanted to give you a little how-do, see what’s on your mind—”

  “Just a moment, please.”
A click, then a moment of silence as I was put on hold. The bastard was probably trying to have the call traced. The phone clicked again, and Barris came back on the line. “I’m sorry, Gerry, but I’m a little tied up just now. If you’d care to let me know where I can reach you, I’ll—”

  “Sure thing, Colonel,” I said. “I’m in the Compton Hill water tower. There’s about a dozen of your boys surrounding me, so I’m kinda busy myself … you still want to call me back?”

  I heard a sharp intake of breath.

  “I thought you’d be interested,” I went on. “Look, you asked me to call you if I happened to find Dr. Payson-Smith or Dr. Morgan. Well, here they are. I’ve lived up to my side of the bargain. What about yours?”

  “Mr. Rosen,” he replied evenly, “I appreciate your assistance. If you surrender yourself to my men, I promise that you’ll be treated well—”

  “The same way you treated Beryl Hinckley this afternoon?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gerry, but I can assure you—”

  I heard Richard snap his fingers; looking around, I saw him hastily gesturing for the phone. “Well, Colonel,” I interrupted, “I’d love to discuss this further, but I think Dick here wants a few words with you.”

  I handed the phone to Payson-Smith; he cupped it between his chin and shoulder. “Colonel Barris?” he said, his hands still racing across the keyboard. “Yes, this is Richard Payson-Smith. How do you do …?”

  A long pause. “Well, the offer is quite flattering, but I’m afraid I cannot trust you … no, no, that’s out of the question—”

  The Apache buzzed the tower again. I picked up the nightscope, crawled across the floor to an eastern window close to where the two scientists were seated, and peered out. More troopers had taken up positions on the crumbling limestone stairway just below the reservoir wall, while the Cayuse continued to hover above the reservoir itself.

  “Let me make you a counterproposal instead,” Richard went on. “If you’ll withdraw your men and the helicopters immediately and allow us to leave the reservoir, I promise you that no one will be harmed.”

  What the hell?

  I glanced over my shoulder at Payson-Smith. He now held the phone in his right hand, his left forefinger idly tapping the edge of the Apple. Jeff Morgan was no longer in a blind panic; he had quietly settled down in front of the Compaq and was now quickly entering commands on its keyboard.

  “No, sir, I’m not joking,” Richard said. “We do not intend to give ourselves up, now or … Colonel, please listen to me …

  Not bothering to crouch, I dashed to the other side of the room and raised the scope to a western window. The Apache was now hovering in midair at a parallel distance and altitude from the Cayuse, slightly above the height of the water tower; like the other one, it was now facing the tower.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted swift movement on the ground; looking down through the scope, I saw ERA troopers sprinting away from the tower, giving up their cover behind trees and benches. I ran the scope to the armored car closest to the park; troopers were practically shoving each other aside in their haste to get through the LAVs’ rear hatches.

  It looked like they were retreating.

  I felt a momentary surge of relief … then the nightscope almost dropped from my numb hands as I realized what was about to happen.

  “The Apache’s going to launch its missiles!” I shouted.

  “Just a moment, Colonel …” Payson-Smith cupped his hand over the receiver. “Ruby confirms TADS lock-on and Hellfires arming.”

  “Sentinel flyover in sixty-six seconds,” Morgan said softly, his eyes riveted to his screen. “Initiating satellite uplink and c-cube interface.”

  “We don’t have sixty seconds!” I shouted. “That chopper’s going to—”

  “Gerry,” Richard said, “please shut up and get away from the window.”

  I took a couple of steps away from the window, then stopped when I saw what was displayed on the computer screens. Payson-Smith’s had opened a window depicting a cutaway view of an Apache AH-64; Morgan’s screen displayed an aerial map of downtown St. Louis, with the Compton Hill Reservoir epicentered within a red bull’s-eye.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Colonel,” Payson-Smith said, uncupping the phone again. “But you’ve been warned—”

  There was a bright flash through the western windows.

  I looked around just in time to see sparks erupt from beneath the nacelles of the Apache as two Hellfire missiles launched from the chopper.

  Then I threw myself to the floor.

  I didn’t even have a chance to scream before the supernova erupted.

  There was a brilliant white flash, then an immense thunderclap pummeled my ears. Windows shattered, glass spraying across my back, as the stone floor trembled beneath me. I lay still, my eyes squeezed tightly shut, my hands wrapped around my head, waiting for the tower to collapse around me.

  But that didn’t happen.

  The light faded, the thunder subsided, the floor stopped shaking.

  The missiles hadn’t hit the tower.

  I raised myself to my elbows and looked around, not quite believing I was still alive. Glass from the broken windows on the eastern side of the room was strewn across the floor; a cool predawn breeze wafted through the shattered panes, carrying with it the harsh odor of burning aircraft fuel.

  “What the fuck happened?” I murmured.

  “Hello, Colonel?” I heard Payson-Smith say. “Do you hear me?”

  Richard and Jeff were picking themselves off the floor from where they had ducked for cover. Payson-Smith still had the phone in his hand; he was listening to it as Morgan crawled to the computer terminal and tapped a couple of keys.

  The stench of burning gasoline was stronger now. I raised myself to my knees and stared through the broken windows. A thick plume of black smoke billowed up from behind the reservoir walls, obscuring the downtown lights. I could hear the steady thrum of a helicopter’s rotors from behind me, but it sounded more distant than before.

  “I’ll tell you what happened,” Payson-Smith was saying. “Ruby Fulcrum—and I’m sure you’re aware of what that is—has accessed the source codes of the programs controlling your Apache’s onboard computers.”

  I could hear the faint voices of men yelling outside the tower, sounding almost as confused as I was. I felt around with my hands until I located the nightscope where I had dropped it.

  “In case you don’t know this,” Payson-Smith said, “the avionics of your Apaches are controlled by eleven computers, including the ones that operate the weapon fire-control systems. When its missiles locked on to the tower, my friend Ruby took command of the laser targeting computer. Even though your copilot thought he was aiming at us, he didn’t really have any control over …”

  I crawled to an eastern window and raised the nightscope to my eye, but I saw only an opaque black spot through the eyepiece. The scope was broken.

  “We’ve achieved uplink with Sentinel,” Morgan said quietly. “Ruby’s making the snatch.”

  Richard smiled and held up a finger. “Yes, Colonel,” he said into the phone. “Ruby took over their TADS computer, so when the Apache launched its Hellfires, the laser guidance system instantly retargeted the other helicopter instead. That’s the reason why one of your choppers has just been destroyed and the other one cannot attack us …”

  He paused and listened. “No, Colonel,” he replied, “that wouldn’t be very wise. Just ask the Apache’s gunner. Everything on that chopper runs off its computers. If he tries to fire another missile or use his guns, he’ll probably hit everything except us, and that includes your men on the ground … I’m sorry, sir. I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t—”

  Even without the nightscope, I could see the troops clambering out of the LAVs where they had taken cover and swarming toward the base of the tower. I bent closer to the window, trying to see what they were doing …

  Poppa-poppa-p
oppa …

  I ducked below the sill as I heard full-auto gunfire. “They’re sending in the ground troops!” I yelled; the window above me shattered, and there was the high zing of bullets ricocheting off stone walls. I hit the floor and began to crawl toward the center of the room.

  “Colonel, listen to me!”

  A double beep from the Compaq; Jeff Morgan leaned closer to read the message he had just received. “Oh, fuck,” he murmured. “They just got wise to us.”

  Richard turned around to look at him, his eyebrows raised in silent question. “Ruby reports a jet just took off from Scott AFB,” Morgan said softly. “Strong probability that it’s a YF-22.”

  A window had opened on the Compaq’s screen, displaying dorsal and side views of an YF-22 Lightning 2: a small dual-engine fighter that looked like a hybridization between an F-18 Hornet and a Stealth fighter.

  “Excuse me, Colonel …” Richard said, then clapped his hand over the receiver again. “What’s its ETA?”

  Morgan typed a query into his keyboard, then shook his head. “Five minutes, thirty seconds. Ruby says its onboard computers are inaccessible … must be using a program she hasn’t wiggled into yet. Sentinel is trying to track it, but the sucker’s down in the grass—”

  “Ground track?”

  More tapping of keys, almost drowned out by the popcorn rattle of gunfire from below the tower. “No good,” Morgan said, shaking his head as he stared at the screen. “Thermal emission zeroed out … ground-air shadow almost negligible … Sentinel’s got something, but it can’t lock on. The pilot’s flying evasive. ETA five minutes and counting.”

  Scott Air Force Base was located in Illinois, not far across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. The YF-22 was made for just this sort of mission: radar-deflecting fuselage, low-visibility paint, engines designed to reduce its heat-exhaust signature. Even flying below radar, the fighter would be here in only a few minutes … and I had no doubt that its Sidewinder missile could finish the job the Hellfires had botched.

  “Where’s Sentinel?” Richard snapped.

  “Directly above us.”