Lady Liberty (31 page)

They’d spotted him.
Damn it!
He couldn’t outrun them, couldn’t hide from them even in the weak dawn light, and he didn’t dare risk abandoning the chopper. There simply wasn’t time for him and Liberty to hike through more rough terrain to get back to D.C.

The chopper circled, came back, and hovered on the other side of the clearing. They couldn’t be lining up for a shot—at this proximity, any angle would be a gallery shoot.
What the hell were they doing?

“Are they going to shoot us?” Fully awake, Sybil stared at the chopper.

“I don’t know.” Jonathan spotted a pair of binoculars near the dead man’s left leg. Scrambling, he grabbed them, returned to his seat, then lifted them to his eyes. The pilot was ticked, clearly arguing with a passenger.

Conlee’s voice sounded through the transmitter. “Stay put.”

Fight-or-flight adrenaline gushing through his veins, Jonathan watched and waited. Was someone on the Ballast chopper conversing with Conlee?

“You don’t smell death, right?”

He did. But not wanting to tell her that, he squinted against the weak dawn light slanting in through the windshield and spoke into the radio. “Visual confirmation on three. One’s pulled his gun.”

Sybil scurried from her seat, dug through the press equipment, but returned to her seat empty-handed. “Damn it, you’d think they’d have arms on this craft.”

“Press choppers don’t carry arms.” But the men in this one had been armed to the gills.

“They don’t dress all in black like this guy, either.” She waved a hand at the dead body. “A box of bullets isn’t going to do us any good without a gun.”

“A gun can’t compete with Sidewinders and that M230.”

“Something
would be nice.”

“The M230 fires 625 rounds per minute, Sybil. It’s a moot point.”

“They’re opening the door,” she said. “What are they tossing out?”

Jonathan regretted having to answer the question. “Bodies.”

The phone ringing awakened Gregor Faust from a dead sleep.

Mandatory crew rest was three hours, but from the sluggish feel of his body, he had been down thirty minutes, max, and for command to break his crew rest, the news had to be bad. Steeling himself to hear it, he rolled over in bed, shoved a pillow out of his way, and grabbed the receiver. “Yes?”

“Austin Stone is calling, sir.”

Stone phoning Gregor direct didn’t signal bad news, it signaled a crisis. “Put him through.” He sat up and rubbed at his face. His stubble of beard grated against his hand. He glanced at the bedside clock and converted the time— 5:30 A.M. in the swamp.

“She’s not dead.”

Austin.
Never in his career had Gregor experienced more complications on a single mission. “So you’ve reported.”

“She stole a helicopter, Gregor. One of
your
helicopters. Even as we speak, she’s en route to D.C. And I suspect you have Ballast bodies in the swamp.”

Why hadn’t command briefed him on this before putting through the call?

“You picked the wrong man to cross.”

Not a declaration, a threat. From the one man on the planet who could make it Gregors nightmare. Fully awake, he shoved his legs into his slacks and rushed through the tunnels toward the command center. He could deny crossing Austin, but there was little use in it. They both knew the terms of their agreement. Austin aided Gregor in ending the Peris-Abdan peace talks, and Gregor facilitated the execution of Austin’s sole requirement: Lady Liberty’s death. “I gave the order to cancel her.”

“Well, someone didn’t obey it. I don’t care why. All I want to know is what are you going to do about it?”

Patch and his damn Madonna complex?
“What do you want me to do, Austin? Take her out in the White House?”

“How you keep your end of our agreement is irrelevant to me. Just do it. You have exactly eighteen hours and thirty
minutes. Fail, and I will make good on every threat I’ve made.” Austin slammed down the phone.

A dial tone droned in Gregors ear. He rounded the corner into the command center. Adam, compact and feral with rock-ledge features, sat at the station, manning the monitors. “Talk to me.”

“ET lost communication with Bravo Team while it was in transit. Storm-related,” Adam said. “He located Bravo on the ground and reported in about three minutes ago.”

Three minutes. That explained why Adam hadn’t briefed Gregor before putting through Austin’s call; he hadn’t yet received ET’s field report. That introduced a new complication.
Who had given Austin the information?

“Bravo hit hostiles on arrival.” Adam reclaimed Gregors attention. “One man down, one missing, and one chopper lost. Confiscated, sir.”

“By whom?”

“Widow-maker and Lady Liberty” Adam grimaced. “Those identities have been confirmed and ET is in pursuit.”

“How much lead time does Liberty have?”

“ET reported an ETA intercept in under an hour.”

So Patch hadn’t refused to cancel her, or assisted in her escape, or been involved in the loss of a helicopter. Gregor weighed his choices. He could stick with the original plan, but, at this point, that boiled down to a piss-poor strategy that left him and all of Ballast hunted and blamed for starting a world war. The battle lines were clearly drawn, and the decision was Gregors to make:

Did he throw his support to Austin Stone or to Lady Liberty?

Gregor lifted his stress ball and squeezed it flat. Admittedly, they were well-matched adversaries, yet Austin carried the odds for winning. He never issued idle threats, and he had the expertise and ability to carry his threats out. He also had the most intense personal motive: greed.

Liberty had formidable, proven assets, and a determination to succeed that would carry her places expertise and ability alone couldn’t take her. She also had ethics and values she consistently had refused to violate, which made her more predictable.

Bottom line, they were selfless and selfish in approach, and that had Gregors instincts humming a warning only a fool would ignore: Austin would protect himself and his personal interests at all costs. Liberty would take higher risks and make greater sacrifices to attain success. And if she succeeded, she would avert a war for which Gregor would be blamed.

Play the odds, Gregor.

Still, he hesitated. Austin likely had done all he could do to negate Gregor having any real choice but to support him. Still, there was an interim-measure option. He turned to Adam. “Peris and Abdan are still on-site in Geneva?”

“Yes, sir.”

That settled it. “Revoke the cancellation order on Liberty and reverse the lockdown.”

“Yes, sir.” Adam relayed the orders to the men in the field and lifted the plastic cover on the control panel, revealing the flashing red indicator light and the green button beside it. He depressed the green one.

Nothing happened.

The system refused to release the site from the lock-down. “Try it again.”

Adam again pushed the release button.

“It’s still not working, sir.” Panic etched his voice.

“Once more.”

Adam repeated the procedure a third time, but the red indicator light continued to flash. “Someone’s hacked into our system and taken control.”

Austin.
He would die for that, but right now Gregor had to countermand him and get someone into the inner hub to get the key and stop the launch. He stepped closer
to Adam’s back. “Have Systems look for a fail-safe device. Remote activation. And tell them to expect viral consequences for running diagnostics. Search and destroy.”

Adam relayed the orders to Systems, and Gregor again focused on the flashing red indicator light. His most feared mission risk had now happened. He’d wanted Liberty away from the peace table. He did not want to be blamed for Austin Stone’s war.

Reviewing precautionary measures taken, Gregor asked, “What’s Marlowe’s status?”

Adam tapped furiously at the keys, searching frantically for a back door into the system. “He’s in critical condition, sir. Gibson has been on the horn with the flight surgeon, a Dr. Richardson, most of the night.”

“What’s the prognosis?”

“They figure he’ll be lucky to last another couple hours.”

With Marlowe’s survival in jeopardy, Liberty’s return to D.C. became vital to everyone, especially to Gregor.

“They still haven’t located Mendoza,” Adam said. “But when they do, they’ll bust him.”

Gregor frowned. “Odds are good they’ll have to go to hell to do it.”

Mendoza had to be working with Austin, which meant he now was dead. But why hadn’t the murder been observed on the A-267 monitor? “Adam, we need to review the tapes of Marlowe inside the inner hub.”

“What are we looking for?”

“I’m not sure exactly. But I doubt Mendoza left his station under his own steam or by divine intervention.” There had to be something on the tape. “Did we run a chemical check after the lockdown?”

“No, sir.” Adam shrugged. “It didn’t seem necessary since we caused it.”

“Run one now.”

Adam keyed in the order, then glanced back at Gregor.

“The inner hub being empty during lockdown wasn’t in the plan, was it, sir?”

“No, it wasn’t.” In six months of observations, the inner hub had never been unoccupied. Gregor wasn’t sure which man he wanted to see dead most, Austin Stone or Cap Marlowe. Both had caused him unnecessary challenges.

“Systems is coming up empty, sir,” Adam said. “They’re pulling a hundred percent cross-check now. And I bombed out. There is no evidence of a back door.”

“That is not what I want to hear.”

“I don’t much like saying it either, sir, but there it is.” He looked back at Gregor. “We can’t reverse the lockdown without Liberty. Dr. Stone has reconfigured A-267’s security system. By the time her engineers figure out how to intervene and resume control, it’ll be too late.”

Rubbing the bristle on his jaw, Gregor stared at the countdown board. Fifteen hours, thirty-two minutes, seven seconds.

“What do you want me to do, sir?” Adam asked.

Gregor wished he knew. Adam expected to hear their exit strategy. Gregor always included a strong exit strategy in his mission plans. But he couldn’t exit this mission. Austin had seen to that. And Adam’s blind trust weighed down on Gregor. The mission logistics were a nightmare, the timing critical, and—hell, not even a strong strategist could predict exactly what Austin had done or what he intended to do next. “Have the Marlowe tape readied for review—in here, not my office. And keep looking for a way to reverse the lockdown.”

Adam blinked hard three times. “Sir, if we don’t pull assets and abort the mission—”

“I understand the ramifications, Adam.”

“With all due respect, sir, you can’t start World War III. There’s no profit in it.”

More important, there was no safe haven. Gregors
stomach threatened to heave. He thought of John Kennedy during the Bay of Pigs crisis and felt a pang of sympathy. He didn’t want a war on that scale any more than anyone else did, except for Austin Stone. “If World War III starts, technically it will be the esteemed President of the United States who fires the first-strike missile. Not I. I’ll just be blamed for it.”

“After the rest of the world bombs the hell out of the U.S.”

And it retaliated. “Exactly” Gregor set the stress ball down on his desk.

“Tape’s ready for review.”

Gregor sat down and began watching it. Austin had gone over the edge. Even if Liberty died, he had too many other grievances with too many people to end this reasonably. Gregor had no choice now but to nail the genius doctor’s ass to the proverbial wall and help Liberty stop the launch. He didn’t have to like it, and he damn sure didn’t have to advertise it, particularly since he wasn’t convinced he could pull it off, but he had to do it. It wouldn’t be easy; this was Stone’s system, and no doubt he had covered himself well.

An unexpected frame shift caught Gregors eye. He halted the tape, reversed it, and then viewed it a second time. Well, well. He rocked back in his chair. It appeared the good doctor hadn’t covered himself well enough.

“Son of a bitch.”

Gregor shot his gaze to Adam. “What is it?”

“The inner hub, sir. It’s contaminated. Carbon monoxide level is off the charts.”

Mendoza hadn’t left the inner hub.

“What time is it?”

Jonathan checked his watch. “One P.M.” “We lost a lot of time parked in that clearing.” They had. Conlee had maintained his stay-put order for hours. Finally an Apache Longbow had shown up, carrying sixteen Hellfire missiles under its wings. Four men wearing Special Operations gear had jumped out and retrieved the two Ballast bodies. Finally the Apache and the Ballast aircrafts had departed, heading in opposite directions. Fifteen minutes later Conlee had transmitted the “all clear” and Jonathan had taken off. “We’re still eleven hours out from the deadline.”

A frown creased Sybil’s brow. “I have a feeling this crisis won’t resolve easily.”

Jonathan’s neck tingled, warning him that she was right. Tensing, he set the chopper down on the White House lawn.