JET V - Legacy (30 page)

His torso jerked like a marionette as he staggered backward against the now-shattered glass wall, and then he was falling, weightless, his last conscious impression the patchwork of listless clouds drifting across the placid blue sky as he dropped at nearly two hundred feet per second toward the concrete’s cold embrace.

Jet stood and walked to the yawning chasm in the glass and looked down, taking in the bloody lump on the concrete sidewalk surrounded by glittering shards, and then pirouetted and raced for the stairwell door, an eye on her watch as she ran.

Behind her, the elevator panel blinked twice, and then one of the floor indicator lights moved from twenty-eight to twenty-seven. The radio by the crate lay silent, but even if the volume had been turned up there was nobody to hear Solomon’s alert that the power was back on, followed by a strident demand for an update.

~ ~ ~

Downstairs in the elevator room, Solomon tried again, murmuring into the radio one final time. When he didn’t get any response, he assumed the worst and shut off the electrical power to the elevator controller console. With a final look at the silent radio, he moved to the far wall where a fire extinguisher and an axe rested in a red metal case, and pulled the wooden handle free. Gripping the chopper with both hands, he returned to the console and delivered a powerful blow to the control cabinet beside it, destroying the electronics inside and eliminating any ability to operate the elevators remotely. He knew the emergency backup power hadn’t been connected yet, so he didn’t need to worry about the computer returning the cars to the ground floor – they would remain where they’d stopped, frozen in place for the duration. Anyone trying to move the elevators would be out of luck.

His last act before leaving was to hack apart the thick cables below the power switch, cleaving them with two swings of the heavy steel blade. Stepping back, he studied his handiwork with satisfaction, then dropped the axe and made for the exit, his final errand to kill the security guards before making his escape.

Chapter 38

Jet tapped her earbud as she wheeled into the stairwell from the penthouse, taking the steps at a run. The bomb had to still be on the twenty-eighth floor – that’s where the bomber had been working and where the elevator had been stalled. She cursed as she sidestepped Eric’s body on the bloody stairs and threw the exit door open. When no gunfire greeted her she hurried into the room in a crouch, her reloaded weapons sweeping the area; the partially constructed office walls offered plentiful places for an accomplice to be hiding or for the bomb to be stashed.

Wary of a trick but sensing no threat, she did a methodical grid search of the offices, confirming that she was alone.

And that there was no bomb.

Which was impossible. It had to be there.

Her eyes roved over the space before settling on the bank of elevators. The last one on the right had been stopped at that floor. The indicator lights were dark, but she crouched down and placed a hand on either door and pushed outward, and as before the polished steel panels inched apart, allowing her to slide the left one open. She peered into the darkness and saw the car stopped a story and a half below.

Jet swung into the shaft and eased herself down the service ladder that ran along the side. Once on the roof of the car, she pried the service hatch open and held her phone inside, again using its screen for scant illumination, noticing as she did that it had a dent in the case from where she’d fallen on it in her earlier elevator escape.

The screen’s dim light caught a flash of blue aluminum on the floor. There, in the corner – a metal suitcase, its contents capable of turning the building into a supernova unless she was able to stop it in time.

She slipped the phone into her pocket, slid her legs through the hatch, and lowered herself in, supporting herself with her arms. Counting the seconds in her head, she dropped down beside the case and retrieved her phone, then stabbed the screen to life before holding it up and studying the bomb. Her eyes roved over the latches searching for an obvious booby trap; seeing none, she unclasped first the left, then the right, and swung the top open.

A timer with a digital readout blinked neon red digits at her, with four and a half minutes remaining on the display as it counted down. She swallowed hard, then raised her phone to her ear and hit the call button, and when the director answered on the second ring, gave him the abridged report.

“I’ve got the device in front of me. It’s got four minutes to go on the timer. Get the technician on the line, now. This is cutting it way too close,” she spat, a bead of sweat running down her forehead.

Twenty seconds went by before a younger voice came on the line. “This is Ben. Tell me exactly what you see.”

Then the signal cut off, the phone crapping out, damaged from her fall. Grimacing, she slammed it against her leg twice and then tried again.

“Repeat. Didn’t get the last part,” she said.

“Tell me what you see.”

“There’s a timer with a digital readout. Next to it is a circuit – no, two circuit boards, with what looks like four wires disappearing underneath them. And there’s a battery outside of a long gray casing; the bomb casing–”

Ben cut her off. “Did you say wires? There shouldn’t be any wires. Are you sure?”

“I know what I’m looking at.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I’ll take a picture and send it to you. Stand by,” Jet said, then pointed the phone’s tiny camera lens at the device and closed her eyes as the flash went off. She checked the image, took another close-up of the timer, and then pushed send.

There was silence on the other end of the line, and when Ben’s voice came back on, he sounded far less confident than he had before.

“It’s been modified. I don’t know exactly why, or how. It’s impossible to tell from here without dismantling the casing for the circuit board, but that will take too long, and there’s no guarantee of a quick workaround,” he said.

“How about just unplugging the battery?”

“No – it’s set up so that if you do that it’ll detonate. There’s a secondary lithium battery that acts as a backup inside the charge detonator. The bomb is basically that explosive element, and the two uranium sections – the bullet and the target. The charge explodes, the two sections collide, and the reaction occurs in a split second.”

“Thanks for the dissertation. How do I stop it?” Jet asked between gritted teeth.

“I’m thinking. Let me study this for a minute…”

“In case nobody explained this to you, every minute counts. Why can’t I just take it and throw it in the ocean?”

She heard the director mutter something in the background.

“Because you wouldn’t get there before it went off. You wouldn’t even make it to the lobby in time. And immersing it in a sink or tub won’t work – it’s water-resistant. Now stop talking. I’m thinking,” Ben said, his voice sounding slightly panicked. Jet decided it wasn’t the time for assertiveness and bit her tongue, allowing him some breathing room. After what seemed like forever, he came back on the line.

“You see that long chip in the socket next to the timer? With the 89-whatever number printed across the top? That’s the timer controller. If you pull it, assuming they haven’t done anything to it, it should stop the clock.”

“And what if they have?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Shit. This is the best you can do? Something that
might
work? What about clipping one of the wires, like in the movies?”

“I don’t know what those wires do. And unfortunately, this isn’t the movies.”

“Put the director back on,” Jet ordered, seething.

“I’m here. I put you on speaker,” the director said.

“I now have just over two and a half minutes. And no way of stopping the damned thing from exploding. What do you want me to do?” she demanded, an edge to her voice.

“Take a deep breath, and then….” The latter part of his instruction broke up, distorted so she couldn’t make him out. She shook the phone in frustration –
of all the times for the damned thing to be shorting out –
then held it up to her ear.

“What did you say?”

“I said pull the chip.”

Jet eyed the device distrustfully and brushed sweat out of her eyes before reaching into her back pocket and flicking open her knife. She looked skyward and offered a silent prayer, then carefully slid the tip under the chip and levered it out of the socket, wincing as she did so.

The display flashed on and off several times.

“It’s blinking,” she reported, and then nearly choked as the display resumed its countdown.

“Oh God. It’s still ticking. Looks like…I have less than two minutes before it goes off.”

“Wait. Clip the–”

“What?” The signal broke up again. She rapped the phone against the floor and then punched at the screen, putting it in speakerphone mode.

“I didn’t hear you. What?” she barked.

“I said clip the wire on the–”

Static cut off the last words.

“On the what? Clip the wire on the what?”

“…left of the…”

More interference. She squinted in the darkness at the bomb, the timer’s pulsing glow shimmering against the black rubber wiring insulation.
Left of what?

“Repeat. I didn’t get that last part,” she said, a deadly calm now settling over her.

Ben’s voice was distorted, but she thought she made out the word ‘timer’.”

“Did you say left of the timer? Nearest the battery?” she demanded, her voice tight.

Nothing. The phone sat as silent as a rock, an occasional burst of static squawking from its tiny speaker, the garbled words unintelligible.

Jet watched as the timer continued its relentless countdown, and prayed for something intelligible to come through the phone. Ten seconds went by, then another ten. She reached over and banged the cell repeatedly, each
crack
as it struck the floor like a coffin nail being hammered. Only white noise emanated from it, and with resigned frustration she abandoned her punishment of the cell and stared at the bomb, its timer mocking all of her efforts to thwart it.

With a deep breath, she slid the knife blade under the wire she thought Ben had singled out, holding either end with her fingers, and pulled up, slashing it. The blade came free, cutting only half the wire’s copper core, and she swore, the timer blinking its taunt as it continued its countdown to destruction, now reading only thirty seconds as it blurred toward zero.

Jet blinked sweat out of her eyes. At the current rate she’d be dead before she could exhale her final breath. She slipped the blade back under the wire with a trembling hand and then slashed again with all her might, knowing that this would be her last act on Earth if she’d called it wrong.

The wire severed and the timer froze.

At twelve seconds remaining on the clock.

She fell back against the elevator wall, her pulse pounding in her ears, and glared at the battered phone.

“Did – you – do it?” Ben asked, his distinctive voice choppy, barely discernible.

“It worked,” she said simply.

She heard cheering on the director’s end, and then the line crackled and dropped out.

Jet exhaled noisily and slowly rolled her head, working the tension out of her neck muscles, and the phone vibrated insistently from its position near the case. She answered it, but the director’s words still sounded distorted.

“G – job. Congr – lations.”

“Thanks. My phone is damaged so you’re breaking up. What do you want me to do with the device?”

“Hand it off to Eric. Your part in this is over,” he said.

“I can’t. Eric’s dead.”

Silence.

“What about sshhccrrssshhh?”

She banged the cell on the marble elevator floor again, hating the little device more than she could have thought possible.

“What?” she asked.

“Aaron. What about Aaron?” he asked, then the signal deteriorated from more interference.

“Let me check. Hold on.” Jet tapped the earbud and spoke softly. “Aaron. Respond. Come in.”

Nothing. Only silence on the com line.

She tried again, but got no reply.

“I’m not getting anything. Assume he’s compromised,” she said, suddenly tired.

“Damn. All right. Get – device out – Doha. There’s a fort a hundred kiloshshhsh north, near – coast. Al Zubara. It’s a mushshhgsh now, but it’s desolate. Go now, shhcrrshh I’ll arrange –”

White noise hissed from the speaker in an obnoxious burst. She held the phone away from her and hit it again. The call went dead, and when she tried to redial the director, all she got was the dull hum of nothingness.

Perfect.

She tapped the earbud again and tried Aaron, but there was no response.

Jet looked overhead at the escape hatch and quickly calculated that the case wouldn’t fit through it. She closed the lid and re-latched it, then stood and searched for a pressure bar release on the interior of the elevator. Finding none, she slid her knife between the doors and then twisted, forcing them open an inch – just enough room to wedge her fingers in. She braced her boots and heaved against the right one until it slid aside with a low scrape. Scowling, she spied the tops of the next floor’s doors occupying the bottom three and a half feet of the elevator doorway and knelt down in front of them.

This time it was harder to force them apart, but driven by determination, she managed, using the pressure from her palms to slide them wide. After a brief look through the opening to gauge the distance to the floor, she slid the heavy case to the edge of the elevator and shouldered the carrying strap. Her stomach tensed as she jumped onto the marble tiles, absorbing the heavy case’s drop with her legs and back, which shrieked in protest at the impact.

Ignoring the pain, she moved to the stairwell and began the long process of descending twenty-four stories, gripping the handrail with all her might in case she lost her footing, her mind racing over the latest cryptic instructions from the director – take the nuke to a fort in the middle of nowhere.