Fear the Survivors (22 page)

She knew that she could not fly in these skies for long. Sure enough, within moments of her shaking the pursuing Apache, three F-18 hornets just scrambled from nearby Langley Air Force Base came in hard and fast, acquiring the rogue as it flew west out of the city. They did not wait for further confirmation. They had all the clearance they needed. For the first time in US history the US Air Force fired in aggression over the nation’s capital.

But by the time three hypersonic missiles blanketed space around the chopper, enveloping it in volcanic fire, its cockpit was empty. In the moments between the second Apache losing sight of her and the jet fighters coming in on her tail, Lana had switched to autopilot and leapt into the Potomac River as it rushed by beneath her.

Her systems damaged again, her real target still alive, she swam away in shame and fury.

Chapter
20: Lockdown

Quavoce stood on a
lower tier of the fortress that Rolas Island had become. He looked north over the channel that separated the island from the mainland, visible some quarter of a mile away.

The massive platform was a quarter of a mile along each side, and its bulk utterly dominated the small island. It towered up some two hundred feet from the rocky shore, its steep walls touching the water at several points. Some part of Quavoce was sad at the obscuring of the equatorial paradise, but necessity must sometimes mandate callousness, as it had so many other times since he had landed on Earth.

The SpacePort was built like a fortress of old, surrounded on all sides by fortifications and weaponry. The building itself was a steep, blunted pyramid made of two vast blocks. The lower block, accounting for more than half of the base’s volume, was solid, a massive, heavy mass of concrete and crushed stone held together by a lattice of steel girders, reinforced with fibers of carbon nanotubing. The whole was woven into the bedrock of the island through deep piles that gripped the earth. On top of this stupendous foundation, the SpacePort proper rose. Slightly smaller across than the solid base, the building that housed the machinery of the SpacePort was without window. Built into the twenty-foot-thick walls were a series of guard posts and maintenance ports that were accessed by a network of tunnels that ran through the wall, but only opened onto the central space at four broad gateways, each sealable behind a series of thick blast doors. The central space itself was an open plan, allowing the movement of the huge cable riders on to and off the main dock.

In the center of the cavern’s roof, a wide square was laid open to the sky. Guarded by the interlaced fire of twenty autocannons mounted on the building’s roof that left the nearby sky clear of anything larger than a mosquito, this wide skylight was where the space elevator came to ground. Coming down from the Terminus station in geosynchronous orbit thousands of miles above, through the square hole in the ceiling, to the central quad of the SpacePort.

Finishing a quick tour of the armament on the lower tier of the SpacePort, Quavoce came to one of the four gatehouses and started heading through its extensive security procedures. Five minutes later, he was walking down one of the ‘avenues’ that led to the central square. The area was a hive of activity. Once the skilled three-helicopter team had brought the cable’s end to ground, they had been working round the clock.

They were getting ready to attach the first rider, itself another wonder coming out of the Research Group. Powered by another of Birgit Hauptman’s fusion reactors, it would drive upward along the tether using a long string of thick rubber tires clamping the cable from either side. This first pod would carry the end of the next tether, pulling the second cable up to allow two-way traffic to pass into and out of the SpacePort.

Birgit had travelled with the elevator machinery from the Research Team’s base, along with Amadeu and several other members of the pod’s design team.

“Major Garrincha,” said Dr. Hauptman in greeting as Quavoce walked up to the table where she was working. She was looking intently at the machine and Quavoce was happy to see it was working diligently away under her gaze. A strap around her neck secured a primitive prototype of an interface to her spine. It was not intrusive, relying only on information it could glean through her skin. As such, it could not send information back to the brain, only take instruction from it. But Amadeu had done well, and it was surprisingly efficient at acting out her whims on the computer in front of her.

The text on the screen momentarily stopped scrolling, pausing after a ‘reflexive command’ was registered from her mind. A clever device, Quavoce thought. He had been able to get hold of some of Amadeu’s papers and schematics via his colleague John Hunt. John himself remained with the rest of the Research Group, but they updated each other on progress remotely, John stressing that Amadeu’s team was ever closer to fully codifying the essential spinal interface lexicon.

They had also discussed the stunning attack in Washington two days beforehand. Neal had considered fleeing the country, coming to join the efforts at SpacePort One or heading to join the Research Group. Both were well outside the United States, and both were protected by either John Hunt or Quavoce Mantil. But as riots began to spring up all over the United States, the situation was turning critical there and he needed to stay with the vice president and try to stem calls for the return of US components of the forces currently deployed around Sao Tome and the nearly operational SpacePort.

“How are you, Dr. Hauptman?” said Quavoce as she disconnected her interface. He used her native German, lilting his voice to the softer accent of her hometown of Munich. “Everything seems to be proceeding according to plan?”

She nodded, standing. “Indeed, Major, I am happy to say things seem to be going very smoothly here. Though I worry about some of my American colleagues,” she replied, also in German. John had told Quavoce that Birgit knew about he and Quavoce’s real identities, as did the young Amadeu. Knowing this, Quavoce had decided to talk with both of them in their native languages, ignoring their unease at how easily he slipped between them.

Quavoce did not ignore the woman’s comment, but limited his acknowledgement to a nod. There was enough tension in the group already, and it was best to focus on the task at hand. So he talked instead of the planned attachment of the rider, and the final preparations for the second cable’s long ascent.

But while they chatted, Quavoce did study the American members of their team. Though this was an international enterprise, there were numerous US scientists and military folks involved across the gambit of their efforts.

It was clear that no one could be unaffected by the tragedy in Washington. The authorities had shut down the area around the White House and the Washington Memorial since the terrible attack. But even late at night, when Lana had perpetrated her treason, there had been hundreds of people on the Mall, and photos of the horrific way the president had died had circulated the planet on youtube, facebook and a million forwarded e-mails and text messages.

There was no real way to identify what had been left of the man. He had been thrown, bodily, over a quarter of a mile. Though he had apparently been unconscious when he was sling-shotted into the night sky, his death had not actually come until his body, travelling at over forty miles per hour, impacted the Washington Monument itself. A bloody, red flower of gore marked the spot he had hit the hard stone, underlined by a long red stain running down the white marble obelisk to the ground where his shattered body had finally come to rest.

Riots raged around the country. People were demanding to know what could possibly have happened. The government was still denying all details of the event, including that the remains at the base of the monument were even human, let alone the pulped body of the president himself. But trying to deny that the president was indeed dead would have been next to impossible.

With all the uproar around the country, a president who was absent in office would have been even worse than a dead one. So the vice president had come forward and, in a closed statement that did not allow questions, he had told the world that the president of the United States had been assassinated, and that he, Frank Denchey, was assuming the office of president for the remainder of the term.

The gravity of the announcement had sparked a storm of conjecture. Media speculation was running ever further into paranoia. It was ironic for those working in Sao Tome, and the Research Group’s underground vaults, that some of the more outlandish pundits were now positing that this was all linked to some alien conspiracy. If there was room for laughter amidst the turmoil, Neal and his colleagues might have found this amusing.

But no one was laughing.

And so Neal had to stay in the US, for now. He was trying desperately to stop the vice president from recalling all of the US personnel from abroad, most notably pulling the battle group from around Sao Tome. Ayala was trying to rebuild the Secret Service to a new, hardened standard to protect the vice president and Neal from further attacks.

- - -

Neal stalked out of his office in a wing of the White House with fury boiling in his veins. Ayala had called him to yet another meeting with the acting president, this time due to an argument over uniforms.

Neal stomped down the hallway, powering through the sounds of workmen, drills, and hammers without thought. Forty-eight hours after the attack, the House and its grounds were now surrounded by a full battle group; Armored Personnel Carriers, anti-aircraft cannons, and a new breed of Secret Service agent being brought rapidly up to speed. The city was locked down for a mile in every direction, with nothing getting in or out without passing through the full array of firepower the combined might of the US Army and Air Force could lay down.

Inside this cordon, the gloves had been well and truly taken off. Ayala had been tasked with standing up a full-time security team, fully equipped with the latest armament coming off the Research Group’s lines. With the requirement that at least one team be permanently suited up at any time on the White House grounds, Ben Miller and the other team leads in Ayala’s crack squad took the time to drill over a hundred new recruits on their revolutionary equipment. The recruits had been pulled mostly from the Navy Seals and the British SAS, allowing for commonality of language, with some candidates coming from the French Foreign Legion and the brutally effective German shock troops known as the Kommando Spezialkräfte.

The troops had been leant to Ayala’s command in part because of the critical need to protect a fellow world leader in the face of such unprecedented assault, and in part because of the equally unprecedented opportunity to gain access and training on the new weaponry coming out of the Research Group.

Neal arrived at the West Wing and was faced with two men completely clad in black, their guns leveled at him. But they had been forewarned of his arrival by another team, in another part of the building, and they waved him passed.

“Mr. President,” said Neal as he entered the Oval Office. The president sat at his desk, Jim Hacker behind him, clearly cementing his relationship with the new leader. Chuck Crawley sat on one couch facing Ayala. Until two nights ago, Chuck had been a team lead on an advance team preparing Camp David for a visit from the now dead president. Now he was the most senior member of the Secret Service still alive, and therefore its proxy leader.

“Neal,” said Frank Denchey, somewhat surprised to see the advisor again so soon.

Ayala interposed, obviously frustrated, “I asked Neal to come and join us, Mr. President, as he is so close to this crisis.”

“Yes, well, maybe I should have the advisory group here as well, Ms. Sue-bye-duh.” He brutalized her name for the third time that day, and Neal saw shivers of anger run down her arms to her fingertips, as she harnessed it and steadied the ingratiating smile on her face.

Neal held out his hands palms up and smiled, “Mr. President, before we go widening the group that knows about our dilemma ever further, I think maybe we should try to resolve whatever question is at hand amongst ourselves.

“Whatever it is that Ms.
Zubaideh
[he emphasized the correct pronunciation, and noted the slightest hint of a wry smile on Ayala’s face] is doing, or wants to do, that does not meet with your approval, I can tell you most adamantly that Ayala does not offer opinions in areas that she is not qualified to speak on, and that her definition of ‘qualified’ is very, very high indeed.”

Ayala did not react to the compliment, but stayed neutral, allowing Neal to try to take control of the situation. The president responded, “Yes, well, I am sure that you are right about Ms. Zubayderr’s qualifications,” he mumbled his closer but still unpleasant rendition of her name this time, clearly aware, at last, of his misstep. But it did not deter him from his point, “But on this topic I am afraid I just do not agree that she
is
qualified.”

Neal cocked his head in candid curiosity, ignoring Ayala’s barely contained sigh and the president went on, “You see, I am just not comfortable with the number of new members in the team she is training up. More to the point I am not comfortable with the number of them that are not Americans. Overlooking for the moment that the majority of the team leads are Israelis, as she is herself, more than half of the new recruits are from Europe.”

Neal drew a deep breath as the source of Ayala’s frustration became clear. “So you are uncomfortable with the number of people in your personal guard that come from the ranks of our allies?” As he clarified the point, Neal glanced at Mr. Crawley to see where he stood.

Chuck Crawley was a new factor in this. At this point, Jim Hacker was a known quantity, and Neal felt confident that he could rely on the ex-president’s chief of staff to at least remain neutral, and not argue against Neal. That meant that Mr. Crawley was probably adding to the issue. No doubt trying to gain a handle on his new responsibilities, and seeing Ayala and her ‘new recruits’ as some kind of competition for the role of Secret Service chief.

The president shrugged at Neal’s paraphrasing, “Not uncomfortable, per se. God knows I am grateful for the offer of help from our British, French, and German allies in our time of crisis. And the speed with which they responded is a real demonstration of how close our countries have become in these difficult times.”