by Jon Land
The skull shattered with a pop! Blood and brains splattered the walls. The Wakinyan’s eyes locked unseeingly with Johnny’s. Blood streamed from his nostrils. Wareagle left him there and headed back for the door.
“What the fuck, Professor?” Sal Belamo shouted back into the truck from his post near Obie Seven.
“I’m trying! I’m trying!”
“Ain’t good enough, chief.”
Patty Hunsecker emerged from the truck with machine gun in hand. “We’ve got to go out there, Sal. We’ve got to help them.”
“What you gotta do is stay here. Like you were told.”
“Screw what I was told!”
She made a motion to leave on her own, and Belamo restrained her. “MacBalls wants you safe, and that’s the way you’re gonna stay,” he said quite calmly.
“You read me, Sal?” jabbered Belamo’s communicator almost on cue.
“Got ya, boss.”
“Any luck?”
“Professor says he’s almost got it licked.”
“Almost ain’t good enough. Case you didn’t notice, we got a situation here.”
“Just stay out of sight a little longer, boss.”
“No can do, Sal. No can do at all.”
McCracken ended up back in the center of Duke of Gloucester Street, pursuit having forced him that way. He whipped his remaining pistol out just as Johnny Wareagle emerged between a pair of buildings directly in front of him, crossbow in hand. They had barely met each other’s gaze when the remaining disciples appeared, three from the west end of the street led by Abraham and two others from the east end, effectively enclosing them. “No more running, Indian.”
“Indeed, Blainey.”
A hundred and fifty yards separated them from the disciples at either end of the street. The Splats in Blaine’s pistol were effective from only fifty yards and less, giving the disciples even more of an advantage.
“Good idea to bring the crossbow, Johnny.”
“I’ll take west, Blainey.”
“East sounds fine to me.”
As he spoke the disciples began to move forward.
“We’ve got to do something!” Patty yelled at Sal Belamo as he sprinted back for the truck.
“Just what I had in my mind, lady.”
While Professor Ainsley continued working feverishly on his keyboard, Belamo grabbed an automatic chambering shotgun and rushed back for the front of the Capitol Building.
Patty blocked his path. “You stopped me from leaving, and now I’m stopping you! You go out there and you’ll get killed. We’ll all get killed! You’ve got to get that damn thing working!”
“Right,” Sal snapped as he raised the butt of his shotgun in front of Obie Seven’s chest, “I’ll just give him a smack and the reception will turn crystal clear.”
In frustration Belamo did just that and, suddenly, lights flashed everywhere inside of Obie Seven’s oblong head. Its cylindrical hand openings returned to their ready position, 7.62-mm miniguns locked and loaded. Its tread began to roll through the arches of the Capitol toward Duke of Gloucester Street.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” muttered Sal.
Johnny tightened his grip on the crossbow as the Wakinyan slid closer. It was suspended near his midsection, held in both hands so he could load it with a fresh arrow; less than two seconds after firing. But that wasn’t good enough, Blaine knew. He had to figure out a way to use the Splats to at least slow them down.
A hundred and twenty-five yards…
Blaine suddenly thought about the many buildings the disciples had to pass between on their way to the kill. The colonial structures were constructed of heavy wood and brick with lots of windows dotting their exteriors.
Lots of glass.
Fire an exploding bullet into a few and that glass might, might, shatter into deadly flying projectiles. It would buy Johnny some time for his crossbow, if nothing else. But none of that would work until the disciples were dangerously close.
He felt Johnny’s hand coming for him before the blow lashed hard against his side. Impact from the big Indian’s shove pitched him airborne off the street, behind the cover of a huge chestnut tree.
“Johnny!”
His scream reached Wareagle as his first arrow shot outward from his bow, another following in its place as the bullets punched into the big Indian and drove him backward. He saw blood leap out as Wareagle went down.
“Johnny!”
McCracken lunged out from behind the tree and threw his body over Johnny’s. He grabbed the Indian’s pistol from his belt and fired it, along with his own, at the buildings as planned. But the Splats’s limited range merely created a path of debris and destruction through which the disciples continued to converge on them. Blaine had grasped Johnny’s crossbow when they opened fire on him from Abraham’s side of Duke of Gloucester Street. A trio of hits into his Kevlar chest protector blew him backward, and he groped desperately for one of the pistols again.
So this is how it ends.
He remembered forming that thought, when his eyes locked on the most wonderful sight ever. Rolling fast down Duke of Gloucester Street, from the area of the Capitol, came Obie Seven. Massive and ominous, the last of Professor Ainsley’s droids tore forward toward the disciples, approaching from the east. They swung, and one of them fired a grenade that exploded just in front of the droid, but Obie Seven rotated his torso slightly and kept on coming.
If the sight of him had been the greatest ever, then the sound that came next rivaled it. A metallic clanging burned through Blaine’s ears as the dual miniguns blasted an incessant hail of fire toward the two disciples closest to him. Obie-Seven might have appeared to be the most advanced of the OBD series, but in essence he was the most simple. In design he was powered by a tanklike tread. His torso could spin in a full 360-degree turn on top of a four-and-a-half-foot-high square base. His oblong head contained his visual sensors, which were programmed to find—and fire—at motion.
Any motion.
Blaine saw his dual cannons fix on the first pair of disciples and literally tear them apart with targeted fire. Obie Seven never even stopped through it all, just rolled right past then-ravaged bodies as a hail of bullets from the west end of the street greeted him. When even a pair of direct grenade strikes didn’t slow him in the least, Abraham and the two other remaining disciples abandoned the battle and attempted to flee. Obie Seven traced their motions and rotated his arm extremities accordingly. The resulting paths of gunfire stitched lines of total destruction through colonial Williamsburg as Seven sought out his prey. Windows exploded. Huge segments of structures blew apart and showered into the air. A few of the smaller buildings collapsed under the onslaught. Some of the larger ones had been peppered with enough gunfire to look as if they had been through the Civil War for real this time.
Blaine had to cover his ears from the clamor when the droid moved between Johnny and him, safe in the knowledge that the medallion flopping near his chest would keep the robot from firing on them. McCracken saw one disciple literally blown to pieces by the robot’s fire and a second perish when its fire obliterated a small stand he had taken refuge behind. In all, Obie Seven’s fire raged for just over a minute. That period saw him expend sixteen hundred rounds of ammunition, which filled the air with the smell of sulphur and cordite. Smoke rose from the debris created in the paths the disciples had used trying to escape. There was nothing still standing in that grid that did not show the effects of the droid’s powerful bullets.
“Johnny,” Blaine muttered, moving his way. “Johnny…”
He reached him expecting the worst. What greeted him was the slightest of smiles from the Indian.
“It seems we have found an able partner at last, Blainey.”
“You’re alive! You son of a bitch, you’re alive! Why the fuck didn’t you say something?”
Wareagle raised himself gingerly to a sitting position. The front of his Kevlar vest showed a dozen splotches where hits had been recor
ded. The blood had sprouted from a flesh wound just above his collarbone. Blaine knew Johnny wouldn’t bother to feel it until he was ready.
“I didn’t come around until our friend made his appearance. You wouldn’t have heard me at that point.”
“I’ll say.”
With that Obie Seven’s torso suddenly whirled. Its empty miniguns traced a diagonal path across to the northwest of Williamsburg and the Governor’s Palace. A continuous beeping sound was its way of pleading for more ammunition.
“Abraham,” Johnny said.
“No way, Indian. No way.”
“He’s out there, Blainey.”
“He couldn’t have survived all that. No one could.”
“I feel him,” Wareagle insisted, trying unsuccessfully to get up.
“Take it easy, Johnny,” Blaine said. “This one’s on me.”
He palmed one of the pistols loaded with Splats and rushed off to the northwest.
The Governor’s Palace was a stately baked red brick building enclosed by the most elaborate landscaping Williamsburg had to offer. McCracken approached warily. Mazelike in construction, the exterior offered an infinite number of hiding places. But Blaine knew Abraham would be after escape, not concealment, and tuned his thoughts accordingly. The disciple would not have entered the building itself because it would give Blaine the advantage of a confined space to work in. A faint hope that Johnny was wrong, that Abraham had perished with the others, flickered inside McCracken. Only Johnny wouldn’t—couldn’t—be wrong about something like that. If he felt Abraham was still alive, then Abraham was still alive.
Blaine passed through the tall iron gate and looked quickly around the grounds. It was a sound, though, that grabbed his attention, from somewhere on the right. Familiar somehow, but what? The sound came again, a deep chortling.
It was a horse, a goddamn horse!
McCracken bolted for the stables on the eastern side of the grounds, sure now of how Abraham intended to make his escape. Blaine had reached the closed double doors out of breath and was raising his pistol when the doors blew outward. A team of horses, latched to a carriage Abraham rode from a standing position, charged straight for him. The pounding hooves made the ground tremble. Blaine tried to keep his balance to steady his shot, but one of the horses’ hindquarters slammed into him, knocking him senseless. The pistol went flying. Abraham snapped the reins and tore off across the fields.
By the time Blaine recovered both his pistol and his bearings, the final disciple had passed out of range on Lafayette Street, en route to the main roads away from Williamsburg.
Halfway back to Duke of Gloucester Street, McCracken met up with Sal Belamo and Johnny Wareagle. Patty Hunsecker was pushing Professor Ainsley’s wheelchair in an attempt to keep up. Wareagle was walking gingerly, a makeshift bandage already tied around his bleeding shoulder wound. His eyes asked the question for him. Blaine’s answered.
“Can you believe what Obie Seven did?” Ainsley said after Patty and he had caught up to them. “Can you believe it? Amazing! Truly amazing!”
“He missed one, Professor.”
The professor looked disappointed. “Oh.”
“I missed him, too.”
“We will find him, Blainey,” Wareagle said.
“For sure, Indian. But it won’t be here. Time to haul ass.”
“Where to, boss?” Belamo asked.
“Tell you once we’re on our way.”
Chapter 34
VIRGINIA MAXWELL’S SUMMER home in Hampton Roads, Virginia, was a sprawling estate that had been in the family for generations, long before the town had become a popular spot for vacationers. The guards who had surrounded the area since late in the afternoon did so openly, their show of force obvious. Gossip would result, though not a great deal. Plenty of important Washington types kept homes in the area. Security guards, both uniformed and otherwise, were not an unusual sight.
By the time darkness fell, there were twenty patrolling the three-acre grounds. Virginia Maxwell spent the evening alone, and allowed herself a pair of brandies in anticipation of retiring early. Guards had been stationed both inside and outside her bedroom all evening, and Maxwell felt safe in locking the door behind her. Two guards would spend the night in chairs by her door, a shout away. Relaxed in her bedclothes, she sat down in her favorite chair to read for a bit.
The hand closed over her mouth as she opened to her place in the book.
“Hello, Maxie.”
The book fell to the rug. At first Virginia Maxwell’s bulging eyes swam wildly, then they were drawn to the cold stare of Blaine McCracken.
“You would do well to keep quiet. Screaming won’t end pleasantly for either of us.” McCracken took his hand away. Virginia Maxwell did not scream.
“How?” she managed.
“Did I get in or remain undetected? Neither was all that difficult. You really should hire better people next time. I’ve been in this room for hours.”
McCracken came around to the front of the chair and loomed over her.
“It’s over, Maxie.”
“And that’s why you’re here?”
“Not quite. I meant it’s over for you. I’ve still got some unfinished business. You heard about Williamsburg.”
“Some. Enough.”
“I hoped to use you as bait to lure the disciples there. Neat trick with the double. Almost worked. But you wanted me so badly, your legion walked right into the trap and now they’re finished. Your project is finished.”
“Then you’re here to kill me.”
Blaine shook his head. “Not my style.”
She regarded him questioningly.
“Abraham got away, Maxie. I want him, and I want you to deliver.”
“Abraham’s…alive?” Her surprise looked genuine.
“The sole survivor.”
So there was still a slight ray of hope for the operation. Virginia Maxwell’s eyes darted briefly to the door. If she screamed now, what chance was there the guards could burst in and kill McCracken before he killed her? None at all, reason told her and, more than that, without the rest of the disciples the project could not go forward. Another time, perhaps, but not now, not effectively.
“You want me to help you?” she asked incredulously.
“We can help each other.”
“How?”
“It’s all finished. You know that as well as I do. Takahashi gave me the list. I know the identities of you and the other Children of the Black Rain. I know about your plan to kill the president and your operation to destroy those nuclear power plants. Finally, without the disciples, I know the means to accomplish all this has been lost.”
“And how does that help me?”
“I’m going after the Children, Maxie, and I’ll find them no matter where they run. You know I will.”
“There’s still Abraham to consider.”
“My point exactly. You’re going to tell me where I can find him—and also the bunker where the Children have gone.”
“And in return…”
“I’ll let you live.”
“If I run away and disappear, of course.”
“Not at all. Just quit as director of the Gap. You can keep your money and your houses.”
“How benevolent.”
“I try.”
“I could scream for the guards now,” Virginia Maxwell snarled. “They’d kill you.”
“No, they wouldn’t, and then you’d die for nothing. Let’s talk, Maxie. It’s the best thing. Really.”
“And, of course, I trust you because you would never go back on your word.”
“You’re right; I wouldn’t.”
“Bastard!”
“You drew me into this. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”
She sighed. “What do you want?”
“For starters, where’s Abraham?”
“Listen to me, McCracken. If he hasn’t called in, it can only mean he’s going on with his part in the operation. H
e’s like a computer following its programming. You can’t stop him. No one can.”
“Try me.”
“He had two major roles in the operation, a second added after you killed one of the disciples in Rio—That was sabotaging one of the power plants: Pennsylvania Yankee.”
“A weather system’s distance from New York City, Boston, the whole upper East Coast…”
“Precisely. But his primary role was to assassinate the president.”
“Do you know how?”
“Only where and when. It’s tomorrow, as the presidential motorcade makes its way through Boston. But I can deal with that. A few well-placed phone calls and the president doesn’t leave Washington.”
“Which means we don’t get a shot at Abraham, risk him disappearing underground. No, Maxie. You’ll have to convince 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to go through with at least the facade of the motorcade. Leave the chief out of the limo, but make sure the limo rolls on schedule. Tell them it’s our only chance to catch a determined assassin. That’s language they can relate to.”
“Maybe.”
McCracken nodded. “Okay, so that leaves us with the Pennsylvania Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. I catch him there, and he doesn’t even make it to Boston.”
“He’s probably already been to the plant,” Virginia Maxwell said. “He’s had twelve hours since Williamsburg. Plenty of time.”
“And the timetable?”
“Everything was set to key off the assassination. Anytime after tomorrow morning and evening. It was left to the disciples’ discretion.”
Blaine looked at her very closely. “And now you’ve cost the operation these disciples. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that their presence at Gap headquarters was your doing. You knew they made for the only chance you’d have against the Indian and me so you took it. Now I’d say you’re an outcast in your own right. Otherwise, you would have gone to the bunker with the others.”
Virginia Maxwell’s first response was the slightest of smiles. Then she said, “A year from now we could still have an army of disciples in place. The power plant operation could be reactivated.”