Bruce led him past the pavilion and over to one of the permanent buildings. A hand-stenciled sign said “Operations.”
Inside, rooms bustled with activity. A great number of people in civilian clothes mingled with small groups of military personnel. They walked halfway down the corridor and into the third room on the right. Maps, photographs, and charts covered the walls, and indeed every flat surface. Most of the charts showed part of the solar system—not Earth.
“We had the same thoughts you did,” Bruce said. “When Erebus was first detected, the Planetary Defense Group at NASA jumped through countless hoops trying to find the best way to prevent the impact.” He pulled up next to a whiteboard with several images of Erebus, including one with a scale.
“Holy crap!” Dash glanced at the scale. “It’s enormous.”
“Precisely.” Bruce traced the long axis. “Forty kilometers tall, sixty-seven kilometers long, and just over eighty kilometers deep. Roughly the size of Rhode Island, traveling quite fast. It’s not a regular asteroid either. It isn’t orbiting the sun, but rather passing through the elliptical plane of the solar system.”
“A rogue planetoid.” Dash nodded.
“Mmm.” Bruce drew a circle, labeled it E, then drew an arrow coming from beneath the circle. “As you can see, the asteroid is going to—”
“Strike in Australia.”
Bruce’s eyes widened. “What? How?”
“I’ve been working on this for a few days now.” Dash paused. Had it only been three days? “I’m a journalist and I’ve been following this story after my brother broke it to me.”
“I see. And, where is he?”
Dash’s anger burned hotter. “The Air Force murdered him to keep the secret.”
“I’m sorry.” Bruce sighed. “That’s awful.”
Shaking his head, Dash asked, “Why can’t we stop it? Michael Bay it or whatever.”
“Two problems.” Bruce tapped the whiteboard. “It’s approaching from the south, while all of our land-based missiles are in the northern hemisphere. Our submarine-launched missiles could be fired from southern waters, but they’re not designed for actual spaceflight. They might be able to destroy smaller asteroids as they approached the Earth, but nothing so large or fast.”
“But the ships have Orion engines,” he protested. “You could turn them around and fire the bombs at it.”
Bruce shook his head. “I’m afraid not. The bomblets aren’t very large and have a miniscule payload. Even if we could detonate them far from the ship, we’d need to hit it with a few thousand a second to have much of an effect.”
He strode across the room to a diagram of the ships. “The Orion engine uses those bomblets to push the ship into space. It’s like riding a pogo-stick. We have just enough to break out of the gravity well, start a low-velocity journey, slow down, and land one time. About eighteen hundred bomblets in total.”
“I had no idea,” Dash whispered.
“It will be a sight to behold,” Bruce added. “We’re not alone. Russia, China, France, India, Great Britain, and Japan are doing the same thing we are, and we sold carriers and bomblets to Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Europe, and Israel. Fourteen ships in total.”
“Incredible!” He remembered why he’d begun this journey in the first place. “What about all of the rocket launches?”
“Ah, Operation LONGHAUL.” Bruce nodded. He walked over to a planetary diagram. Earth and Mars were the largest bodies on it. “The ships can carry a lot—people, supplies, equipment, and power—but we’ll need more. Most of the rockets are carrying—”
“Liquid oxygen, nitrogen, soil, rations, and other consumables.”
Bruce frowned. “I’m sorry, are you a journalist or a spy?”
“Just a journalist.” Dash sighed. “You’re not coming back to Earth?”
“We can’t. Not for a long time, if ever.” Bruce said. “Mars would be safest.”
“How many?” Dash asked. “How many will be saved?”
Bruce’s expression fell. “Not enough, I’m afraid. Roughly one thousand aboard each of our nuclear carriers. Less than a thousand on each of the others.”
“Less than fourteen thousand people?” Dash’s heart broke as the scale of the disaster sunk in.
“I’m afraid so,” Bruce replied.
The humid tropical air enveloped him, even indoors. It was a balmy eighty-five degrees, yet Dash couldn’t remember being so cold in his life. His hands trembled, and the room seemed to spin. Bruce grabbed his shoulders and held him upright.
“Steady now,” he said. “You all right?”
“Uh, yeah.” Dash squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. “Sorry. The room just went whoa on me.”
The sound of heavy boots echoed down the corridor. Dash turned around and spotted McConnell and a quartet of Navy men with SP bands around their biceps.
“Hey, McConnell!” Bruce smiled and let go of Dash’s flight suit.
“Sorry to interrupt you, Alistair, but that man is a stowaway and a security risk. We’re here to place him under arrest.” McConnell pointed at Dash. “Cuff him and get his ass out of here.”
Surprise splashed across Bruce’s face. “Wait, what?”
The four shore patrolmen walked up and flanked Dash. “Sir, we’d like you to come with us, please.”
“I want him in cuffs,” McConnell repeated.
One of the sailors turned to him. “Sir, we’ll handle this, thank you.” He turned to Dash. “Please come with us, sir.”
Dash nodded.
They led him out of the room. As they filed through the door, Dash glanced back at the charts, hoping to find some glimmer of hope, some way to change the course of fate. Finding none, a long-forgotten verse from Surah Zumar drifted into his mind.
Allah is the Creator of all things and He is the guardian and disposer of all affairs.
Despair clutched at his heart. What manner of God could allow the destruction of his creation?
Dash was locked in an office, rather than a jail cell. The musty air gave him a headache, which the humidity exacerbated. The shore patrol didn’t search him, for which he gave silent thanks. Having access to his phone meant he at least could check the time. They’d left him in there for over an hour. The glass slats for the window would be easy to remove, but where could he go?
Just to be safe, the shore patrol had posted a sentry outside the window.
Dash sat down on the battered gray desk, the kind issued to government agencies for decades. Whatever else was about to happened, he refused to roll over and wait for the end of the world to come. He was a journalist and even if he couldn’t save anyone, he could do his damned job and break the story to people.
Rasul had died to bring the truth to Dash. It’s not like the Olympus Initiative could do worse to him.
McConnell wanted him under arrest. He assumed that meant he’d be taken to one of the ships ringing the atoll and put in a brig. The delay was probably just arranging for a boat or helicopter to pick him up. Given how long he’d already waited, Dash assumed his ride wasn’t that far off, which left him little time to act.
Trying his OSI badge on the sentries wouldn’t work now. He still had the SIG Sauer pistol, but he didn’t want to shoot his way free. The best bet would be the window, so he needed a way to draw the sentry away from their post.
Suicide? Dash considered the idea. If he were found hanging, people would come to investigate, but he’d be tied up. If he fired a round from his pistol, the noise would bring too many people to evade. He needed some sort of compromise. As he drummed his fingers on the desk, an idea came to mind and he grinned.
He hopped off the desk and opened the drawers, happy to find them empty. He lifted one end of the desk and inched it onto its side. Gritting his teeth, he turned the desk, so it was aligned with the door to the room, then moved the chair closer to the window.
Dash only got one shot at this and getting caught meant the end of any sort of goodwill fro
m the Navy personnel. He slipped his duffel bag on like a backpack, took a few cleansing breaths, then pushed the desk over onto its top. It struck the floor with a terrific racket, shaking the floor, and startling even him.
But nothing happened.
Dash scowled. Was his room unguarded? He peered through the window, but the sentry hadn’t moved.
Damn it. Just his luck to get a guard too professional to be taken in by some Wile E. Coyote scheme.
Someone inserted a key into the lock and tried to open the door behind him. Clearly, they’d left more than one guard to watch over their intruder.
Dash grabbed the swivel chair and grunted as he lifted it up. This was his chance to escape.
Another key went into the lock, but again the door merely rattled.
His muscles ached, holding the chair like a massive club. Dash rolled his eyes and willed the guard to find the right damned key.
This time the door opened, and Dash swung the chair with all his strength.
“Shit, Dash! No!” Yifei yelped as she jumped to the side.
Dash’s fingers burned as he struggled to halt the chair’s forward motion. He didn’t mutilate his best friend’s face, but he still made a hell of a racket as the chair came down.
“You idiot!” Yifei cried out. “Scared me to death!”
A wave of emotion broke over Dash and he wrapped her in a crushing embrace. “I’m so glad to see you!”
“You should be, after you ditched me to follow Captain Handsome.” Yifei snorted.
Dash chuckled and wiped a tear from his eye. “Commander, actually.”
“Whatever. Let’s go. I don’t think our prison break is going to buy us much time.”
Dash’s phone didn’t work as Midway Island had zero cellular coverage, so he couldn’t call out to break the story. His best bet was either a network connection or radio. First, though, he needed to put some distance between him and the guards.
“Right. Let’s find a way to phone home.”
The two journalists sprinted across the street, past the smaller buildings. They hunched down as they scurried past some windows, then rounded the corner and saw a row of portable buildings leading out toward the runway.
And the control tower.
“I bet they’ve got a radio,” Yifei said.
“I bet they’ve got internet access,” Dash countered. “If they’re coordinating flights from all over the country, they’ll need it. Much more useful.” He pointed at the smaller buildings. “Come on. Let’s check those out.”
They walked this time, trying to look like they belonged, rather than like escaped criminals.
Dash peered into the window of the first portable and spotted a row of urinals, so they moved onto the next building, where he discovered the island’s laundromat. They hurried inside and ran to the dryers, scanning each one for clothes. He didn’t see any loads of flight suits, but he did spot the same blue outfits the naval personnel wore.
“Come on. The more we blend in, the longer we’ll stay free,” Dash said.
“If we can find one that fits,” Yifei whined. “Why did my dryer have to belong to Bigfoot?”
Dash chuckled as he unzipped his suit and put on the uniform. He didn’t have the boots, but he pulled his hair up and slipped his ballcap on. It wasn’t a perfect disguise, but it might be enough to buy them some time.
No one in the distance would order them shot at any rate.
Probably.
That wouldn’t happen until they could see the whites of their eyes, he reasoned.
Dash stuck his head out and heard more commotion back the way he’d come.
“I think they just found out about our jailbreak.”
Yifei waved at the door. “Let’s not waste time then. Come on!”
Stealth was more important than speed now, so he forced himself to walk, holding his heavy duffel rather than carrying it. It was the best he could do to change his profile. Yifei walked beside him, clasping her hands behind her back.
“What are you doing?” Dash asked.
“Officers in war movies always walk like this,” she explained. “No one is going to expect us to saunter.”
Dash stopped his friend. “Be my backup. Don’t get caught with me. Find a group and blend in.”
Yifei frowned. “You’ll need help!”
“I won’t, not for this,” Dash said. “If they catch me, they’ll shoot me or arrest me. Doesn’t matter either way, but I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Pain flashed in Yifei’s eyes. “We’re in this together,” she protested.
“I know,” Dash replied, nodding. “And you’ve come so far. Thank you. Even so, I want you to live through this. Find some cute sailor and tell him you lost your way. Stick with your group and get on that ship tomorrow.”
Yifei’s chin quivered, but she shook her head once, then nodded. “Fine. Okay.” She hugged Dash, then stepped back. “Be careful.”
“I will.” He cocked his head. “Get going.”
Yifei walked off, wiping her eyes as she went. Dash counted to thirty to give her enough time to get away from the scene of his next crime.
The wind carried the smell of the sea across the island, but Dash couldn’t appreciate it. His stomach twisted itself into knots as he considered his next move. He strode to the control tower and walked inside.
The base of the structure was a makeshift spartan barracks. A quartet of bunk beds lined the walls, with plastic footlockers at each end. A folding table and green folding chairs sat in the middle. The only other feature was the ladder leading up to the control room. Dash set the duffel bag on the table and retrieved his pistol and spare magazines. He had no intention of hurting anyone, but this was the most important story he’d ever had, and he needed to see it through. He put Rasul’s flash drive in his pocket and stuffed the papers and pictures into his numerous pockets, then ascended.
The voices at the top of the ladder sounded calm and professional.
“Beeliner-Zero-Two, be advised. Blade-Zero-One is approximately sixty minutes out,” said a controller.
Dash poked his head up through the floor and saw two women with headsets relaying instructions via radio. A short, fat man stood next to a map, drawing marks with a grease pencil. A man with an average build, tapped away at a laptop keyboard.
Dash climbed up and cocked his pistol. “Ladies, gentlemen, don’t move and please don’t speak.”
Everyone turned to face him, but the sight of his gun brought fear into their eyes.
“Headsets off without a word,” Dash ordered.
The two controllers complied.
“Map guy, have a seat and cross your legs.” Dash glanced at the typing man. “You sit next to him. Cross your legs, too.”
“Do what he says,” the typist said. “Let’s not overreact,” he added to Dash.
“Yes, let’s not do that.” He pointed at the laptop. “Internet connection?”
The typist nodded. “Slow, though. We’re on satellite.”
“Well, reporters can’t be choosers.” Dash moved over to the laptop, still training the pistol in their general direction. He slipped the flash drive into the side and called up Rasul’s files. He opened a browser and logged into his corporate cloud storage account. He sent the smallest files first, the Olympus Initiative rosters and the photos, then uploaded the videos.
He glanced around and saw a couple of phones. “Which one of these can reach California?”
The two men stared in silence, but one of the women’s eyes darted toward a drawer.
“Don’t move,” Dash ordered. He worked his way around the drawer and reached in with his free hand. His fingers encountered a heavy plastic brick and pulled it out, thrilled to discover a satellite phone.
“Perfect.” Dash flipped open the antenna and the device powered up. He punched in his editor’s phone number and hit SEND. The phone clicked several times, then rang. “Come on,” he urged.
The phone kept ringing.
And ringing.
“You’re kidding me. You pick today to go radio silent?”
Motion out the window caught his eye and he spotted two riflemen lying on top of the Globemaster, weapons aimed at him.
“Shit!” Dash dropped down, then rolled to the side. “No one move. There are snipers watching us. If you move, they might hit you.”
“You should give yourself up,” said the second woman. “They’re not screwing around. They’ve killed other people who broke through the security net.”
“Hello?” Nancy’s voice sounded tinny on the satphone.
“Boss! It’s me, Dash.”
“What? Where the hell are you?” Nancy demanded. “You don’t check in, you space out for days, then abandon the McCann story—”
“Nancy! Shut up! There’s no time for this. I need you to open my cloud account. I’m uploading some files.” Dash looked around for actual cover but didn’t see anything. The control tower was a temporary structure, aluminum sheeting and hollow frames. Nothing that would stop a bullet.
If the snipers really wanted to silence him, they’d just kill everyone in the tower.
What would it really matter? In three weeks, everyone would be dead anyway.
Nancy said, “It wants a password.”
“Right. It’s—”
A woman’s voice from below interrupted him. “Dash, it’s Captain Onsurez. I need you to hang up, please.” She sounded close, probably standing on the ladder.
“Dash? Are you all right?” Nancy asked.
All his strength seemed to evaporate as he glanced at the ladder. “No, I’m not. I’m in a control tower on Midway Island. I’ve found the launch site for the Navy’s space warships.” Dash gulped down a lungful of air. “There are snipers ready to kill me, Nancy. You’re the only line I have.”
“Space warships?” Nancy parroted. “Is this some kind of joke?”
Onsurez’s voice sounded calm, but firm. “We’re not going to kill you, Dash. I need you to hang up the phone. It’s all right. No one will hurt you.”
Dash snorted. “Yeah, the OSI said that, too. They drove me into the desert to kill me and leave me for the fucking coyotes. I’m not falling for that twice.”
Erebus Page 18