The staging area handled all helo traffic to and from the Copernicus. A U.N. security force patrolled the perimeter and ensured that no weapons were smuggled aboard the international ship.
A Humvee pulled up as they exited the Sikorski and drove them to the American quarters, consisting of several hangers, temporary barracks, and a hastily constructed office building that had been designated as headquarters.
As they emerged from the car, now beyond the U.N. perimeter and on what was considered American soil for the duration of the Copernicus mission, four soldiers surrounded them, each aiming a semi-automatic pistol at the group.
“You’re under arrest!” barked one of the men, a lieutenant.
“At ease, Lieutenant,” snapped Jake, a hint of barely contained rage in his tone. “These men are my guests. I gave explicit orders that a jet was to be readied to take us all stateside.”
None of the men moved in the slightest.
“Lower your weapons!” shouted Jake. “That’s a direct order!”
The lieutenant shook his head. “You are no longer in command,” he said. He turned to face John Kolke. “What are your orders, Colonel?”
“Colonel?” snapped Jake incredulously.
“That’s right,” confirmed Kolke. “I’ve been given a field promotion.” His lip curled up into a snarl. “And you’re under arrest for crimes against your country you son of a bitch.”
57
Desh was exhausted, but his body and mind snapped to full alert, not that this would do him any good. Jake had intended to keep his word, as Kira knew he would. But as they had feared, those around him had no intention of doing so, although it was surprising they had enough power to throw Jake under the bus. Desh glanced at his bearded friend, but he was as emotionless as a zombie, his body still in a low energy state as it fought to regain equilibrium.
“What crimes?” demanded Jake, his eyes burning like twin lasers.
“Don’t worry,” replied Kolke as he joined the soldiers, obtaining a spare weapon from one of them. “I’ll list the crimes and show you the evidence against you soon enough.”
“And you’ve seen this evidence?” asked Jake skeptically.
“That’s right,” said Kolke. He gestured to the men who surrounded them. “We all have. It’s as tight as a drum.”
“It’s a frame and you know it!” spat Jake.
“Not this evidence,” insisted Kolke. “But enough of this. You’ll have your day in court.”
At Kolke’s order, plastic handcuffs were ratcheted around the wrists of all three prisoners. Kolke gestured to Desh and Griffin. “Bring them to the C-20 and have the pilot take off as soon as possible. As for the colonel, I’m taking him into the headquarters building for immediate interrogation.”
“We were told he’s to be sent to the States in a separate jet,” said the lieutenant.
“Keep it ready,” said Kolke. “This won’t take long. But there’s some key intel I need from him immediately.”
“How many of us would you like to accompany you, sir?” asked the lieutenant.
“None, Lieutenant.” He raised his gun and pointed it at Jake’s chest. “I’ve got this. And I need to be alone. If he doesn’t talk willingly, things may get a little . . . messy.”
Desh and Griffin were driven to the airfield several miles away and marched into the C-20 waiting for them there, a military version of the Gulfstream corporate jet. Once inside, additional restraints were added, and Desh knew they had no chance of escape during the flight—not with elite soldiers on board to mind them. Desh could only hope that once they landed, whoever they were up against would let down their guard long enough for him to make an escape attempt. But the odds of this were long.
Eric Frey had told him he had someone planted inside Jake’s camp, and it looked like this someone was John Kolke—or at least the recently promoted colonel was working closely with whoever it was.
But regardless, the stench of Eric Frey was all over this. He had no doubt that the captain of the recently deceased Codon would be paying a visit soon after they landed. Desh’s last encounter with the man had been a disaster. But he was certain his next encounter would be even worse.
58
John Kolke entered the office behind Jake and ordered him, still at gunpoint, to take a seat. He closed the door and took a seat himself behind a large desk, facing his ex-commander.
Kolke lowered the gun. “I’m really sorry about this, Colonel,” he said earnestly. “But I do have a plan.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “Does that mean you’re still with me?” he asked in surprise.
Kolke nodded. “Dutton has unimpeachable evidence against you. Evidence of treason, payoffs, millions of dollars in accounts in the Caymans, and more. Much more. It’s a spectacular frame.” He allowed himself a shallow smile. “Hell, I was half expecting to see evidence that you were responsible for 9/11.”
“If the evidence is so good, why don’t you believe it?” asked Jake.
“I don’t care if God himself came down and told me you were a traitor, I wouldn’t buy it. I’ve worked with you too closely not to have gained a sense of your soul. I’ve seen what this job has done to you. I’ve seen you make hard choices when a lesser man would have made easy ones. I’ve seen the agony you feel when you cause others unnecessary pain. You wouldn’t work against this country.”
“Thanks, John. Your faith in me means more than you’ll ever know.”
Kolke gave Jake an almost imperceptible nod to acknowledge these words and then continued. “Dutton says he’s long suspected you. He shared his evidence with me and the men here at the staging area, so we could move on you the moment you left the Copernicus.”
“And you decided to play along.”
“Right. I figured it was the only way I could help you. If he suspected I didn’t buy the evidence against you, he’d have rolled over me as well.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“That bastard was relentless making sure this happened. He told me he’d pulled strings to have me promoted to colonel—just to ensure my loyalty, I’m guessing. But the thing is, he arranged all of this after the nanites came on the scene. Before Matt figured out exactly what they were up to, true, but at a time everyone was pretty sure we were in deep shit. Can you imagine? The world is coming to an end and all he’s worried about is taking you off the board.”
Jake thought about this for several seconds. “No. Taking me off the board isn’t what he wants. I was just in the way. He’s after Icarus. But he knows I’d have honored my commitment to Matt and David, and let them go—which he has no intention of doing.”
“So he’s willing to destroy you,” said Kolke in disgust, “and break a promise to the man who just stopped doomsday?”
“Yes. And I won’t be given my day in court, either. Believe me, he’ll see to it that a rogue black-ops agent like me is taken care of quietly and discretely.” He paused and stared intently at Kolke. “So what now?”
Kolke pulled a pair of plastic handcuffs from his pocket. “I’ve prepared these. I’ve sawed the teeth off the strips, so it’ll look like you’re bound, but you can free your hands whenever you want. You’ll have the element of surprise, and I’m well aware of your reputation in hand-to-hand. Can I assume you’ll be able to overpower a lone escort, no matter how well armed?”
Jake nodded. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Good. Escaping from me would arouse Dutton’s suspicions. So I’ll call the lieutenant in here to take you to your plane. If you can overpower him quickly enough that he doesn’t even realize you escaped your cuffs, so much the better. But whatever you do, be sure to take the cuffs with you. If anyone gets a look at them, they’ll know I was behind the escape.”
Jake nodded grimly.
“Once you’ve escaped, I’m afraid you’re on your own in South Africa for awhile. But just until I can find a way to clear your name. I’ll pretend to be loyal to Dutton and get to the bottom o
f this as fast as I can.”
He removed Jake’s cuffs and replaced them with the ones he had doctored. When he finished, he put his hand warmly on Jake’s shoulder. “Good luck, Colonel. I’ll get you out of this. I promise.”
“You’re a good man, John,” came the heartfelt reply. “I will never forget this.”
Jake’s mind raced as Kolke called for the lieutenant. Escaping should be doable, although the next five or ten hours were not going to be fun. But then what?
What did this all mean?
For one thing, it called into question everything he thought he knew about Kira Miller. If he could be framed so skillfully, then perhaps she had been also, just as she claimed.
And Desh had warned him there was an insider in his camp. It could be that Dutton was just power hungry, or even thought he was being patriotic by hanging on to Desh and Griffin. But given that Dutton had no qualms at all about framing Jake, and probably having him killed, it was far more likely that Dutton was the inside man, taking orders from a deceased USAMRIID scientist named Eric Frey.
Maybe Kira Miller was just who she claimed to be.
What if he and Icarus were on the same side, after all?
59
The story broke around the globe within an hour of the disaster being averted. First, the nanites had disintegrated while literally millions of people were examining them under scopes. And then the full story came out. Rumors and whispered suspicions had already been leaking like water through a cracked concrete dam, but when this dam burst the force behind it was unthinkable.
The aliens had designed the nanites to migrate preferentially to uranium and plutonium. Their goal had been to set off a nuclear Armageddon and reshape the planet’s atmosphere to their needs. And they had been minutes away from success. Only the efforts of a supremely gifted man on the Copernicus, an American known simply as Matt, had thwarted this terrible plan.
The news of the failed attack was met with stunned shock and horror. It was met with curses and prayers and words of outrage; uttered in Chinese, Hindu, Bengali, Spanish, Punjabi, Vietnamese, and Hebrew. In Russian, Javanese, Turkish, Pashto, German, Korean, and Telugu. Within twelve hours almost eight billion people, speaking thousands of languages, knew that the Earth had been under attack; that Homo Sapiens had been targeted for extinction; not out of hatred or malice or misunderstanding—but as an afterthought. As part of an ice cold calculation made by beings uncountable trillions of miles distant.
Shock, horror, and relief were quickly followed by fear. These aliens were far ahead of humanity technologically. And they were on their way. The Earth wasn’t a mighty planet hanging majestically in space—it was the mother of all sitting ducks.
And while fear remained the prevailing emotion in many; in many others fear had quickly turned to anger—and to resolve.
Who did these aliens think they were? They didn’t know us. They sent their little bugs as impersonally as could be to pave the way for their arrival. And they knew the Earth was filled with sentient beings, because they fully expected nuclear warheads to be available to infiltrate. They just didn’t care.
Yes, Earth had been lucky to survive the initial surprise attack, but now it was personal.
Humanity might go down, but it would not go down easily. So much of the planet’s resources were squandered by governments with only their own interests at heart, by countries jockeying for position on the world stage like so many chess pieces, and by war and preparations for war.
This would have to stop.
Humanity had been in a boat rowing in thousands of different directions, pausing only long enough to shoot holes in the boat on a continuous basis—and yet had still moved the boat forward a remarkable distance. But things would be different now. When the aliens arrived in thirty-four years they would find out what eight billion humans could do when they were all rowing in the same direction. And when they were fighting for their lives. Humanity could be weak and pigheaded and barbaric; a tribal species quick to take offense, war on neighbors, and succumb to violence and self-destructive behavior.
But it was a species you did not want to piss off.
Thirty-four years wasn’t long to prepare, and the aliens had a clear head start. But much could be done in thirty-four years. In the thirty years preceding the turn of the century, technology had advanced in ways that were nothing short of stunning. From bulky black and white televisions to huge, sleek monitors with vibrant colors, so thin they could be hung on walls like paintings. From card catalogs in libraries using the Dewy Decimal System to a repository of billions and billions of pages of text, audio, and video, extensively cross-referenced and instantly searchable. From primitive telephones that had to be tethered to walls to cell phones bouncing signals off satellites and across towers to seamlessly connect callers thousands of miles apart; phones possessing far more processing power than computers that had filled entire buildings thirty years before.
No one knew just how much further humanity could propel itself in the next thirty years, but with everyone working in cooperation, it would be even more unimaginable than had been the progress of the previous thirty.
Human beings could be lazy and petty and shortsighted. But they were nothing if not goal oriented. And now the entire species shared a goal. And a purpose.
And they had become very, very motivated.
60
Desh and Griffin landed at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. Griffin had slept for most of the trip, and Desh had convinced their captors to feed the nearly comatose hacker continuously during his brief periods of consciousness. Given that Griffin had just saved the world, the elite soldiers sharing the ride with them were eager to help him in any way they could—short of releasing him. After they landed, the prisoners were whisked to a safe house at an unknown location by a mercenary posing as a civilian, under Dutton’s orders.
Once inside the safe house, the two men were placed on a black leather couch, their hands cuffed behind their backs, while four mercenaries kept a close watch.
Matt Griffin was sound asleep yet again when Eric Frey walked through the door several hours later, along with Andrew Dutton, fresh from the Copernicus.
Frey motioned to two of the mercs, who promptly pulled Desh off the couch and into a standing position. The pudgy scientist had kept his toupee but had shaved his beard, so he now looked like a cross between himself and the fictitious Adam Archibald. He walked over to Desh with a self-satisfied grin on his face. “David Desh,” he said. “Good to see you again. I have to say, I was a little pissed off that you escaped from the Codon.”
Desh kept his face passive and didn’t respond.
“You know you cost me an identity,” he said, and without warning punched Desh as hard as he could in the exact place Desh had been shot. Desh’s face recoiled in pain and it was all he could do not to scream out. “Not to mention a very nice yacht,” finished Frey, seething, as though Desh had tortured a loved one.
“I don’t know,” spat Desh through clenched teeth. “I thought it was a little garish.”
Frey delivered another blow to the same spot, and this time tears came to Desh’s eyes.
“I’d heard your gunshot wound was progressing nicely,” said Frey. “But still not fully healed, I see.”
Desh gritted his teeth while he waited for the waves of pain to recede. Not a good idea, he thought. It was stupid to wave a red cape in front of a bull for no reason. If he was going to risk this kind of retaliation, at least it should be for a purpose—like trying to stir the pot. He straightened to his full height again and shot Andrew Dutton a look of contempt. “So how do you feel about being the lapdog of this pudgy asshole?” he said. “That’s got to be humiliating. I bet it gets under your skin, doesn’t it?”
Desh braced himself for another blow, but instead Frey just gave him a look of mild amusement. “It’s not going to work, Desh,” he said calmly. “Andrew knows where his bread is buttered. I created his identity and arranged for him t
o assume the role he’s in now. His title is little more than a cover. He wields more military and black-ops power than any other civilian in Washington. And I finance a lifestyle far above his pay grade. He knows if he sticks with me he’ll have more power than he’s ever dreamed of.” He smiled icily. “He also knows I’ve taken out an insurance policy. If anything happens to me, a hit is put out on him, financed by a considerable sum of money that becomes available for this purpose upon my death. I learned from Putnam and Alan Miller that when working with people of, um . . . questionable . . . morals, you can’t be too careful. You need to have leverage.”
“So what shoe did you scrape Dutton off of?”
Frey laughed. “I don’t think I’m going to tell you right now. But suffice it to say, he’s one of my kind of people. In fact, he makes me look like Santa Claus.”
Desh’s upper lip curled up in revulsion. Given how much Frey liked having kids on his lap, the thought of him as Santa Claus was highly disturbing.
Frey nodded toward Matt Griffin on the couch. “While your friend is sleeping—which is rude if you ask me—I need you to call Kira Miller for me. When she answers, tell her you want to have a video call with her and have her go to a desktop computer to receive it.”
“We have a secure version of Skype on our phones,” noted Desh.
“First off, since you’ve forgotten, you didn’t bring your phone with you to Copernicus. So you’ll be using mine. And second, I want to have a steady, crisp image of her from a high-end webcam. She’s a beautiful girl. I want to be sure to see every last line in her face.”
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