“After what’s happened the last few days, this shit doesn’t surprise me one little bit.”
Far below the streaking F-35s, their sonic booms rolled across the landscape, their supersonic shock waves slapping against the ground like an unseen, gargantuan beast galloping wildly across the plains.
“I don’t like this, Brian.”
“Me neither, Harv. Me neither. Sixteen minutes to intercept . . .”
CHAPTER 67
“General, Air Force One is changing course.”
“What?”
“They’re heading one-seven-zero, descending through thirty thousand feet.”
“Damn. Any air assets in the vicinity?”
“Nothing in the air, sir.”
“Send a scramble order to the nearest air defense unit. Their orders are to escort Air Force One back to Andrews AFB. If Air Force One doesn’t comply, they’re to contact me personally for guidance. Got it?”
“Yes, sir!”
In less than a minute, the Northeast Air Defense Sector command director’s order was transmitted from the center. Ten minutes later, two Air National Guard F-15 Eagles leapt into the air armed for air-to-air combat, with orders to escort—or if it didn’t respond, to force down—the aircraft carrying the president of the United States.
CHAPTER 68
“You got him, Harv?”
“Negative, lead. I can’t see him . . . Nothing on radar, either. Not a goddamned thing.”
“He should be at our twelve o’clock, straight ahead, two hundred feet below.”
Captain Marshall knew they should be almost on top of the B-2 any second now, if the bomber crew had stayed on course, and if they’d maintained speed. If not, Ripper flight might blow right by.
The B-2 was a large airplane, and that was in their favor. It was the kind of shape that could be picked out of the sky at a distance, unless you happened to be at the same altitude. The flat shape of the bomber presented a very small profile when viewed edge-on. From their position two hundred feet above, they should be able to spot it against the top of the low cloud deck below.
For a split second, Captain Marshall saw something on his radar. “Harv, I just got a—”
“Tally ho! Got him!”
“Where?”
“At our twelve, right below the horizon!”
“I see him! Bandsaw, this is Ripper. Target in sight, Ripper is attacking!”
Inside the bomber were two fellow airmen, Air Force pilots doing their best to follow the order they’d received from the president of the United States, sweating in their flight suits and wishing they were somewhere else, doing something—anything—other than what they were doing right now.
Just as he was.
Screw the orders . . . I can’t just blow him out of the sky without giving him a chance to disengage! It’ll only take a couple of seconds. “Two, burn across his nose, see if you can get him to abort. I’ll stay at his six.” And then gun the living hell out of him if he doesn’t.
Ripper Two flashed ahead, a long tail of blue flame shooting from the F-35’s afterburner.
Ripper lead took position at the B-2’s six o’clock position—directly behind—and armed his 25mm Gatling gun. Capable of spitting out 3,600 rounds per minute—sixty rounds per second—the rotary cannon could chew through the bomber with just a short burst. Since they’d been on a ground attack mission, their aircraft weren’t equipped with any air-to-air missiles. The gun was all he had: 180 rounds of cold steel.
Captain Marshall watched as his wingman rocketed toward the B-2, positioning himself for a pass across the bomber’s nose and then frantically pulling into a high-g climb when the massive bomber banked hard right, into his path, the two aircraft missing each other by a matter of feet.
As Ripper lead kicked right rudder and slewed his F-35’s nose to follow the B-2, placing the bat-winged bomber in his gunsight, he noticed a glint of sunlight off to his left.
Below, and to the left.
No . . .
He reversed his turn, rolled inverted, and pulled back on his stick, dropping the nose of his aircraft.
And he saw it.
A small, cylindrical object, reflecting the sunlight and falling toward the cloud deck below.
The bomb.
The B-2 had released its weapon before they had a chance to stop it and then pulled away to escape the blast.
“Bandsaw! Weapon released! Weapon released! Ripper Two, get the hell out of here!” Captain Marshall shouted the words into his oxygen mask, grunting against crushing g-forces as he banked hard to turn away from the bomb, slamming his throttle to the stops and diving at a shallow angle toward the ground, keeping the tail of his aircraft toward the coming blast.
Through the cloud of vapor that enveloped his aircraft as he slammed through the sound barrier, he could see the B-2 diving away also, its two-person crew rapidly increasing the distance between them and the hell they’d released. Every second meant increased chances of survival.
As he screamed by the subsonic bomber, he knew the extra seconds he’d given them—to try to avert having to drill 25mm shells through a couple of pilots just doing their duty—had been a few seconds too many.
Twenty seconds later, the remaining residents of Minneapolis-St. Paul witnessed a man-made sun appear in the sky above their beloved Twin Cities, tearing a miles-wide hole in the cloud layer.
It had already happened over Oklahoma City.
And over Little Rock, as well.
For all the people left in those cities who’d turned their faces to the sky wondering if the jet engines’ thunder was a sign of salvation from the horrors they’d seen, the last milliseconds of their lives became an insufferable eternity.
They felt the heat.
Thermal radiation, traveling outward from the fireball at over three hundred thousand kilometers per second, caressed them.
Searing. Blinding. Flesh-eating.
The fireball itself, tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit, floated silently above them, expanding, reaching out with strange tentacles toward the earth, exploring its surroundings in its first wink of existence, gorging itself on the atmosphere around it.
Unimaginable, insatiable.
Milliseconds ticked slowly by.
Skeletons cleaned of flesh stood in place, some pointing, some staring eyeless at the ravenous brilliance, instantly vaporized as the detonation’s roar embraced them. An ancient noise it was, cracking, rolling. The voice of Legion commanding.
I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
Silhouettes on pavement remained.
CHAPTER 69
Carolyn checked the time. Sundown would occur in thirty minutes.
Over the last few hours, she’d watched as the things inside the casings changed.
They hadn’t doubled, as they’d done during the last three days.
There was a single creature in the humanoid casing, and a single creature in the rodent casing, but they were . . . almost normal. Both creatures now possessed a small, dense mass in the center of their brains, the purpose of which she couldn’t ascertain. The rest of their bodies looked as though they’d returned to their premutated states.
The body of Sergeant Wilson—who she’d seen pacing back and forth in the containment chamber as some sort of hellish beast, who she’d seen soak up without any detrimental effects enough soman gas to kill a thousand people—looked human again.
Normal size.
Normal bone density.
Normal musculature.
And the rat, a run-of-the-mill sewer rat. Normal, except for the mass in the middle of its brain.
She’d watched her readouts record the gradual disintegration of the casings, a steady thinning of the thick, bone-like shells that, at their current rate of decomposition, would lose their integrity at roughly the same tim
e the sun went down topside.
If the same thing was happening to the ground wave casings, and to the bird casings in Minneapolis, Little Rock, and Oklahoma City, they should’ve cracked open by now.
But they hadn’t heard anything yet.
Nothing at all.
General Rammes had been topside for the last hour, apparently called away by something more pressing.
Carolyn couldn’t think of anything more pressing than what they were doing right now, but he’d sure been in a hurry.
Garrett had gone with him, as well.
After Garrett’s little scene with the security guard, forcing her to get some sleep, she’d gone out like a light. She’d been completely exhausted, and thirty minutes of sleep made a world of difference. She was energized, on top of her game, able to think clearly instead of trying to absorb all she was seeing and doing through a thick fog of total exhaustion.
Regardless, she couldn’t explain what she was seeing.
There was nothing in any of the data they’d been able to glean from the creatures so far that would even remotely suggest the course of their current state of mutation. Or was it more correct to say, de-mutation?
It shouldn’t be happening, but it was. Right in front of her eyes.
Both casings were locked in the containment chamber again, behind steel doors, and thick, impenetrable Plexiglas. Even though it appeared as if the two creatures were returning to normal—at least physically, apart from the unexplained brain masses—there were no guarantees of what would actually emerge when the casings cracked open.
Would it be just a normal field rat?
A normal Sergeant Wilson?
She didn’t know what to expect, but she doubted it.
It was now just a simple waiting game.
Waiting to see what they’d become.
CHAPTER 70
Jessie gripped the edge of the small conference table in the president’s airborne situation room as Air Force One dove from its cruising altitude, its four huge turbofan engines screaming like enraged beasts, yearning to tear free from their wing pylons and bolt ahead of the rest of the aircraft.
General Metzger sat in one of the cabin’s large, padded chairs, staring at the president, who at that moment was slumped at the head of the conference table, eyes closed, mouth hanging open, oblivious to what was happening around him. Sleeping.
“How long until he’s functional again?” he asked.
“An hour, maybe two. It’s hard to tell.” In reality, Jessie had absolutely no idea how long it would take. Andrew was proving to be stronger than any of the other men she’d conquered, and it had taken a much larger amount of the drug to force him to succumb to her will. As she looked at him, she was afraid he might never be fully functional again. She was definitely in unfamiliar territory with this man. The situation was unpredictable. For a few seconds, he’d thrown off the chains she’d wrapped around his mind and had been the Andrew Smith, aware of what was happening to him, and knowing he had to alert his vice president. Deep down, she admired his strength of will. But she also knew she couldn’t afford to have the real Andrew Smith come to the surface again.
Not now.
Not when their moment was finally at hand.
If it happened again, she would kill him.
“We need him awake,” Metzger said. “Without him, this is going to be difficult. When they start calling to speak to him—and if you’ve done your job, they should be calling soon—he’s got to be ready. There can’t be any mistakes.”
Jessie’s eyes blazed defiantly. “I did my job. The Russians, the Chinese, the British, even the peace-loving French are in the process of making moves right now that should inflame the entire situation.” She smiled as she thought about how the process would eventually unfold, due in large part to her meticulous efforts laying the groundwork for the chaos that would surely ensue. “Their leaders will go ape once they learn we’ve nuked our own country to try to kill these things. From that point on, everything should start happening quite rapidly. Our people abroad have done their jobs, too. We’ve all waited for a moment like this to arise, and they were ready for it, just as you and I were.”
Metzger lit another cigarette. “Let’s hope you’re right.”
“Oh, I’m right, General. I’m right.” Jessie shot a glance out a cabin window, gripping the table to keep her balance. She could see the horizon tilted at a crazy angle, the massive jet diving to a lower altitude to duck under the radar, and hopefully, to safety.
The pilot’s voice came from the overhead speaker. “General, this is Colonel Jepperson. We’ve been in contact with Pasture. They’re ready to receive.”
“Very well. How long until we land?”
“Approximately thirty minutes, sir.”
“Copy. Keep us informed.”
When the president divulged the details of the duress phrase to Jessie—after she’d administered a dangerously large dose of the drug—Metzger immediately ordered Air Force One to head toward a supersecret government relocation facility located just outside of Louisville, Kentucky, code-named Pasture, an underground compound with all the command and control equipment needed to guide the nation during a time of crisis.
Metzger was old friends with the Kentucky adjutant general—the state’s top National Guard officer—and had explained their need to land immediately at Louisville International Airport, home of the Kentucky Air National Guard.
He’d assumed—correctly—that the orders issued by the vice president hadn’t made their way through National Guard channels yet, so he wasn’t forced to persuade the adjutant general to disregard any previous orders. It would’ve been troublesome, but he could’ve done it. The adjutant general wasn’t one of them—a soldier of the cause—but he had a weakness to please his superiors. A weakness that could be exploited.
Metzger knew he wouldn’t be so fortunate when it came to dealing with active duty forces, though. They’d surely received their orders—lawful orders—and were hunting down Air Force One at this very moment, under the direction of the vice president.
He and the national security advisor had certainly been branded rogue elements by this point. Dangerous people who’d somehow managed to co-opt the president’s decision making. Dangerous people who had control over the country’s fearsome arsenal of nuclear weapons and had used them against three American cities.
If he were in the vice president’s shoes, he’d have immediately ordered fighters to intercept Air Force One and force it to land. And if it didn’t land—with a president under duress dropping nukes on American soil—he wouldn’t hesitate to blow the aircraft out of the sky. Eliminate the threat.
The vice president was a Coastie, but he wasn’t going to make the mistake of underestimating her again.
They had to get on the ground. Fast.
Given a hurried description of the vice president’s coup attempt—spiced with just the right amount of fatalistic urgency—his old friend had offered up the entire resources of the Kentucky National Guard to protect Air Force One, and, of course, the president. A call to the governor would have to wait. After all, national security was at stake.
As far as the adjutant general was concerned, he’d just been officially federalized and would answer to no one other than his commander in chief, the lawfully elected president of the United States.
The huge jumbo jet groaned and shook under the stress as it leveled off its decent, g-forces pushing Metzger deeper into the chair cushion as the plane pulled out of its dive. Outside the cabin windows, the landscape screamed by as Air Force One hurtled across the green Kentucky farmland a little over one hundred feet above the ground.
Under the radar and toward safety.
CHAPTER 71
“Admiral, we have three confirmed nuclear detonations. High yield.”
“Mother of God.”
Admiral Grierson stared in disbelief at the three circles glowing on his status board, pulsating blood-red orbs overlaid on a map of the United States.
Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Oklahoma City.
Little Rock.
Gone.
Destroyed.
His command center was absolutely quiet. The people serving with him were dealing with what they were seeing in their own way. Silently.
He’d always figured the day would come when he would see a nuclear detonation of some sort on American soil. Once the Soviet Union imploded, and Moscow’s iron-clad control over its nuclear arsenal rusted away, it was only a matter of time before one—or more—of the weapons fell into the wrong hands and made its way to American soil.
Only a matter of time until the terrorists—any one of a multitude of radical extremist groups sworn to destroy the Great Satan—would explode a device in his country.
He’d grown to expect that possibility.
But this . . .
The red circles on his status board were supposed to be caused by them, not by American bomber crews.
“Admiral, Northeast Air Defense has lost radar contact with Air Force One. They think he’s flying low to—”
“Where?”
“Over Kentucky, sir. They have fighters inbound to intercept. Two F-15s. The vice president’s orders are to escort Air Force One back to Andrews and shoot it down if it doesn’t respond.”
The last few days had seemed like a nightmare, completely unreal, unimaginable.
He’d watched as the reports had rolled in, reports of some kind of mutated things literally devouring cities full of people, reports of mutated birds—birds, for Christ’s sake—tearing people to shreds where they stood. Doubling their numbers during the day, killing as darkness fell.
And now, he had three nuclear detonations glowing on his status board.
Three major cities blasted into oblivion.
A rogue president being hunted by American fighter planes.
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