by Tom Clancy
"Well, I'm sure his majesty's government will see to whatever the problem is soonest."
"Yes, milord."
Applewhite went back to calm the maid and Cook, and Goswell rattled his ice cubes around in his drink. Had to hand it to that scientist fellow, he was dashedly good at the computer business. Not only had the airlines been knocked down again, but worldwide communications had been whacked solidly, most of the satellites taken off-line. And the telly and radio signals that depended on the network of satellites had been disrupted, along with telephonic operations. Quite a stroke. And, of course, operations in the U.K. would come back much sooner than the rest of the world, if Bascomb-Coombs's calculations were correct — and so far, they always had been. A brilliant fellow, he was.
A pity he would have to die. Good help was so hard to find.
Chapter 21
Saturday, April 9th
In the air over the Virginia coast
Net Force's military arm had cranked up one of the old overhauled and refitted 747s for the hop to England, and John Howard sat in the thing, wishing it was an SST. The sooner they got to the U.K., the better. Of course, he might as well wish for a time-travel machine so he could have gotten there yesterday. Government agencies went on diets and binges as often as attendees at a fat farm, and Congress had been in moderate belt-tightening mode when Net Force had been funded. It could have been worse, though. They might have come up with some old DC-3 prop jobs the DEA had confiscated from drug runners instead of the 747s.
He wanted to get his hands on Ruzhyo right now, but at least he was on the way. He'd have to work the logistics with the Brits when they got there, but they had an arrangement with his majesty's government, and having Alex Michaels already in England wouldn't hurt. Howard couldn't imagine the British would give them any flak about collecting a former Spetsnaz killer. Of course, they didn't have the death penalty over there, and if they went through formal extradition, that could be a problem. A lot of countries had gotten on their high horses about that, refusing to turn escaped scum over to the U.S. unless they agreed not to fry the bastards.
Well, it wasn't going to come to that. There wouldn't be any paperwork filed on the killer through his majesty's legal system. If he didn't come back with them to face American justice, then it would certainly be because he was beyond any earthly justice.
You didn't kill Net Force people and get away with it. Not on Howard's watch.
He was dressed for travel and not the field, but he had his smaller gear pack on the empty seat next to him, and now he pawed through it. He tended to recheck his gear frequently when he went on a mission, even though not much was likely to have happened to it since he'd checked it five minutes earlier. It was a nervous habit, and he'd realized a long time ago he was going to do it, so he didn't worry about it any longer. Better safe than sorry.
He looked around and saw that Julio was all the way back toward the tail, heading for an empty washroom. Good. It wouldn't do for Julio to see what he'd done to his good luck talisman, not yet anyway.
He removed the charm from the pack and looked at it. Talisman was a funny way of thinking about a handgun. But this was an ancient Smith & Wesson.357 model 66 stainless steel revolver, unlike the polymer H&K tacticals the rest of his unit had been issued. For years, he had carried the piece as it had come stock from the box — well, except for a little action smoothing by the armorer and a set of hand-filing, after-market grips. A six-shot wheelgun, plain iron sights, no bells and whistles. He was comfortable with it, it had been on his hip every time he had gone into a firefight, and like the old Thompson subgun he had inherited, there was a kind of energy wrapped around it. He wasn't particularly superstitious, didn't avoid black cats or worry about ladders or mirrors, but he did believe the Smith had some magic about it. Part of that was that the Smith was a trusted, dependable design, functional, nothing complex to go wrong. Not that he was a technophobe or some kind of Luddite, but Howard had always liked the simple-is-better philosophy when it came to hardware. The RA and Navy SpecForce elites, the Rangers, the SEALs, the green hats, had all kinds of new computer-augmented personal weaponry. Things like carbines with TV cams on them you could stick around a corner and shoot without being seen; pieces with built-in trackers, lasers, grenade launchers, the whole package, expensive as hell, and he could have put in for them, but Howard's Strike Teams carried plain-Jane — if top of the line—9mm subguns. They went bang when you pulled the trigger, you could get the ammo anywhere in the world if you ran out, it being the most common military handgun round, and he figured it was the operator's job to make sure the bullet was on target. Sure, they had the modified SIPESUIT armor, and it had plenty of tactical computer stuff built in, LOSIR corns and headset graphics and GPS and all, but if those failed, you could at least still shoot your weapon manually. The principle of KISS for the lethal hardware had always appealed, and he'd never been shy about letting people know he favored it.
So when he looked at his trusty six-gun with the Tasco Optima 2000 dot scope mounted where the notch-and-post sights used to be, it felt, well, a little weird. And after all the years of shaking his head and calling the polymer sidearms "Tupperware guns," his new acquisition might be thought by those who knew him to have shaded right on into the hypocritical.
It wasn't all that complex, the scope. What you had was a tiny, clear plastic window mounted an inch and a half or so in front of a tiny red diode that projected a red dot onto the window. Unless the safety cap was over it, the sight was always on, and the battery was good for a lot of use. The way you turned the thing off was, you put the cap on it, and the tiny computer in the scope put it to sleep. How it worked in practice was also simple: You popped the cover off, held the gun up, both eyes open, and the little red dot floated in the air in front of you, just over the piece. Wherever you put the dot — once you had it zeroed — that was where the bullet went, assuming you didn't jerk too much when you dropped the hammer. No parallax. And unlike a laser, there was no beam or glowing dot for an enemy to see and target — the dot wasn't visible from the muzzle side, and if it had been, it was a seven-minute-of-angle pinhead, anyhow.
The unit weighed about as much as a round of starfish ammo, didn't add much bulk, and was a lot easier to line up than standard iron sights. It was almost indestructible, too, according to reports. While Howard didn't need glasses to read his newspaper yet, the front sight on his short-barreled pistol had seemed a little fuzzy the last few months. When the rangemaster showed him this little toy on one of the range pistols, he'd tried it, just for the hell of it.
And had shot 15 percent better the first time he tried it.
For a man to improve his combat efficiency with a handgun by 15 percent just like that was nothing to wave off lightly. After a couple more magazines, that went up a couple more points, too.
At first, he'd tried to ignore it. But on subsequent visits to the range, he'd used the thing again. The armorer told him he could pull the back sight, grind the front post off, and bead-blast the Smith, mount the electronic replacement, and get it done in a few days. Hell, he'd said, begging the colonel's pardon, but at real close range you were gonna point-shoot that antique and not use the sights anyhow, and outside six or eight yards, the red dot would make the colonel a better shooter. What was the problem?
Howard hadn't said, but mostly the problem would be the taste of crow.
Julio would never let him live it down.
It had taken a month or so, but once he started down that road, it was impossible to go back, there was no arguing with the numbers. Same gun, same ammo, and he was more accurate and faster with the dot scope. So it was a done deal, he'd had this technological marvel mounted on top of a weapon whose basic form went all the way back to Samuel Colt's first designs, in what? The 1830s? Even the double-action revolver wasn't a new invention; it was used on Robert Adams's self-cockers only sixteen or eighteen years after Sam Colt's early revolvers. The scope and the Smith thus made for an inte
resting marriage: seventeenth-century technology and twenty-first.
And this was a May-December marriage Howard didn't want his sergeant to notice, just yet. Maybe when he did, things would be heated up enough so it wouldn't require an explanation.
He looked up and saw Julio coming back from the can. He shoved the revolver back into his bag. At the same time, one of the flight crew, the navigator, approached from the other direction. "Colonel?"
He looked at the navigator. "Yes?"
"We, uh, have a problem, sir."
Saturday, April 9th
Johannesburg, South Africa
The new light-rail shuttle train, carrying 674 passengers from Pretoria to Johannesburg, blew through the scheduled stop at Tembisa Station at almost 140 kilometers per hour. The engineer threw the manual override, took control from the computer, applied the brakes, and the train began slowing. It would have been all right — except for the second passenger train stalled just south of Tembisa.
The shuttle was still doing more than 90 when it plowed into the back of the stopped train that was supposed to be ten minutes ahead and moving at speed.
Both trains buckled, and more than two thirds of each left the tracks, accordioned like toys jammed together by a spoiled child.
Half the people in the rear car of the stopped train were killed instantly. Others were thrown from the smashed car to their deaths.
A few were electrocuted by downed power lines.
The engineer of the moving train stayed at his post and died there, along with scores of panicked passengers just behind him. His last words, as recorded by the black box, were, "Oh, shit!"
A fire, started by sparks from the impact or maybe electricity, set the interior of one of the stopped train's cars aflame. Smoke boiled forth and laid a black cloud over the scene.
Estimates of the dead were ballpark, but the number was more than 200. More would doubtless die on the way to area hospitals or later from injuries.
Nobody even worried about the third shuttle following ten minutes later. They should have. The engineer on this train frowned as he realized that his communications gear was out and that his vehicle was going too fast as it approached the station.
By the time he wrested control away from the computer, it was too late.
His last words would never be known, as the impact was sufficiently violent to destroy this train's black box, leaving only a burned-out husk.
Saturday, April 9th
Kona, Hawaii
The beacon switched off just as the L10-11C3 wide-body jumbo jet from Japan came in for a landing at Kona during a tropical shower. The pilot apparently overreacted as the plane yawed, and JAL Heavy dropped hard enough to collapse the rear landing gear on the port side. The big craft slewed starboard, spun, and slid sideways across the runway, square into a Hawaiian Air MD-80 waiting to taxi for takeoff for the short hop to Maui. The smaller bird spewed flaming jet fuel, ignited, and the resulting fireball set the larger craft on fire. There was a terrific explosion. Tourists waiting inside the airport were killed as shattered aluminum sleeted like shrapnel through the open-walled terminal, cutting down everything in its path.
Pieces of the jumbo jet and human body parts rained down as far as half a mile away.
Four hundred and eighty died in the crash, fourteen were killed outright in the terminal or on the aprons, and fifty-six more were seriously injured.
Saturday, April 9th
Perth, Australia
Despite heroic measures, eighteen polio patients breathing on respirators in the Dundee Memorial Hospital died when the backup generators failed after a power outage blacked out the city. The problem was worse because it was so dark in the building away from the battery-powered lighting that nobody could find some of the dead until almost an hour later.
Saturday, April 9th
MI-6, London, England
"Oh, Lord," Alex Michaels said. "He's killing people."
The video of the South African train accident came from a security cam at Tembisa Station. The plane crash was recorded by a tourist waiting for a passenger on the JAL jet. The Australian deaths were vox only, no video.
Just as well, Michaels thought. The idea of watching almost a score of people die trying to breathe might have been more than he could stand. At least the train and jet crashes had been quick for those who perished.
"Yes," Cooper said. "He's bollixed dozens of major systems. I don't see how it is possible."
Neither did Michaels, but like the apocryphal ostrich with his head in the sand, not seeing it didn't make it go away. Communications, transportation, even traffic signals were screwed up. Who was this guy? How could he do such things all over the world at the same time?
They were in the office that MI-6 had provided, and the building around them hummed with frantic energy that matched their own. He looked at Toni. "We need to talk to our people at home."
"Unless you have a fast carrier pigeon, good luck," Toni said. "The landlines that work via the Atlantic cable are jammed, and anything going up to satcoms is scrambled worse than Humpty Dumpty."
"I can't believe it. He's managed to shut down virtually everything tied into a major computer net. The power is beyond anything we've ever seen," Cooper said.
That was for damn sure. Worse, why was the hacker doing it? What did he stand to gain? Was he a terrorist? Michaels knew he needed to do something. But — what? What could you do when the tools you normally used were all broken?
Better come up with some new ones, Alex, or this guy is going to bring the whole planet to a screeching halt. Maybe he's already done so. You can't get good intel, so how would you know?
"We got these vids and reports on our shielded and hardened lines," Cooper said. "We'll get as much input via them as possible. I'll go and see if we can obtain time on one to contact your agency in the States."
She left, and Michaels stared at the desk. "We've got to do something," he said.
"I know."
But — what?
Chapter 22
Saturday, April 9th
London, England
Ruzhyo stood in front of the post office across from Westminster Cathedral. He was aware of the frantic scurrying around him. There had been a major computer and power failure, it seemed. He had been buying stamps when the electricity failed, and the machine had gone blank and eaten his coins. He had left the building and noticed that the traffic signals were out, and that there was a kind of puzzled worry in the air. Policemen arrived and began directing traffic at the intersection. He listened to snatches of conversations from passersby and got the buzz of what they knew and didn't, and he wondered about it. But that did not distract him so much that he missed the man angling in toward him from the left, dodging traffic as he hurried across Victoria Street.
That the man was coming toward him — for him — was certain. The man was young, fit, smiling, but that meant nothing, Ruzhyo had smiled at some of the people he had deleted. It was disarming, a big smile, it allayed suspicion. How dangerous was a man grinning at you?
Such a man could be deadly, Ruzhyo knew. But was this one so?
Though dressed like a layabout in a leather jacket and jeans, the young man moved like a soldier, Ruzhyo thought. He had a definite military bearing to his step. This one had spent time in uniform, no question. Either that, or he was wearing a back brace.
Ruzhyo considered his options.
What should he do? Run? Stand his ground?
He looked around. No others were focused on him, at least not that he could see. If it was just the one, what did that mean? The smiling man showed no hardware, and though he certainly could have a pistol hidden under his motorcycle jacket, his hands were swinging loosely, making no move to draw a gun.
Ruzhyo was unarmed, save for a small pocket knife, not a particularly formidable weapon. True, he could kill with the knife at grappling range, if need be, but if it came to that, the situation would be bad.
If he was bracketed by
a collection or deletion team, one good enough that he could spot only the one who was making no effort to hide, then he was already caught or dead. They would be keyed on the smiling man who was almost all the way across the street now, and a gesture from the smiling man would end the game.
Ruzhyo put his own hand into his right trouser pocket and found the small knife. It had a three-inch blade he could flick open with his thumb as fast as a springloaded switchblade. But even so, if he was targeted, and if he took his hand out of his pocket with a weapon, he'd probably be dead before he could get the knife cleared. If he had been a designated shooter on a delete team, he would be aiming at the head — a central nervous system hit being the only certain way to be sure of an instant stop. A rifle bullet through the brain generally brought things to an end.
Were there crosshairs laid upon his brow? A jittery laser spot dancing on the back of his head?
He looked around again, but could not spot the shooter. Nor did he see any others on the street paying him undue attention. Were they there? Had he gotten so old he had lost his ability to spot death watching him? Or was the leather-jacketed man alone?
While he was ready to go if beaten by players better than he, Ruzhyo found this scenario bothersome. He hadn't thought it would be this easy for them. He had expected to give a better account of himself in the final moves. Perhaps he was too far gone, too burned out, and perhaps this was his final play.
The smiling man achieved the curb and stopped three meters away, well outside the range for a quick lunge with a short knife.
"Mr. Ruzhyo," the man said. It was not a question. His right hand had drifted down to the hem of his jacket by his hip. There was a weapon there, a knife or a gun.
"Yes." No point in denying it. This man wouldn't be taken in by a protestation of mistaken identity. If he'd had the knife out and opened, it would be no contest. Ruzhyo could move five or six meters and stab a man clawing for a pistol nestled in a concealed holster before the man could draw his weapon. This was not an especially challenging feat. Any good knife fighter could do it; it was a simple matter of speed and reaction time. But with the knife in his pocket, it was a different proposition. Maybe he could get there first, maybe not. Probably he could take his killer with him, at the very least. But if there was a shooter in a car or hiding in a building already lined up? Well, in that case, any sudden move would end with Ruzhyo facedown on the concrete, probably dead before he got there. It would be a clean, quick end. It was tempting to see.