Olympus Device 1: The Olympus Device (30 page)

Dusty finished wrapping
the pretend coil, holding the rifle at arm’s length to examine his handiwork. Four paperclips, part of an empty superglue tube, and a half dozen salvaged parts had been pasted together on the toy rifle, the result remarkably resembling Dusty’s original invention.

Were it not for the lack of an optic and aiming laser, he’d have trouble telling the fake from the real rifle. Looking at his watch, he realized he’d been absorbed at the task for almost two hours – a record in the close confines of his cage.

He picked up the empty coffee cup and decided to reward himself with another before starting lunch. Glancing at the toy again, he was kind of sad to see the project finished – wondering what he would find next to occupy his time. I guess this is better than being in a cell, he mused.

He filled the cup at the sink and then programmed the microwave. Habit moved him toward the sliding glass doors, his hand moving back the curtain just a bit so he could check the street below.

He stood motionless for almost a minute, waiting to see a car roll down the street, giving the traffic lights a chance to cycle. None came.

He then moved to the other side of the door, checking to the east where a more traveled street was just a block away. His heart began to race when nothing but empty, black pavement met his gaze. Something was wrong.

He moved back to his original spot, checking every sidewalk for as far as his limited angle would allow. Nothing – not a single person or car came into sight. Had they found him?

Several blocks away, Monroe’s earpiece sounded with a calm voice, “This is Eagles Nest to all assets – I have movement at the suspect’s window. Repeat, I have movement at the suspect’s window.”

Dusty pushed down the panic. There could be a million reasons why there weren’t any cars or people, random circumstance being one of them. The microwave dinged, signaling his coffee water was ready, but he ignored it.

He needed a better vantage. Looking down at the real rail gun, he decided to use the weapon’s powerful scope to check
the area. Carrying it back to the window, he shouldered the device and began sweeping his surroundings using the optic’s magnification. The microwaved again sounded its bell.

“Gun! Gun! Gun!” s
ounded the voice in Monroe’s ear. “The suspect has a weapon, repeat, the suspect has a weapon. Appears to be a shoulder-fired rifle with a large optic.”

Monroe keyed his mic, “Do you have a shot?”

A brief moment passed, every officer with a radio pausing to wait on the response.

On the sixth floor of the bank building, the sniper pressed a button protruding from the black box attached to his riflescope. The circular view inside the optic changed, red numbers flashing in sequence as a laser rangefinder scanned the
doorframe next to Dusty’s enlarged image. The readout in the sniper’s eyepiece read 1260 meters, well within the range of the .338 Laupa Magnum chambered rifle.

“I have a shot.”

Monroe didn’t hesitate. “Take the shot.”

“Sir,” sounded the calm voice, “I need you
r authorization for the record.”

“Monroe, Special Agent in Charge, BN171433 – take the shot.”

“Acknowledged.”

The ballistics computer mounted to the sniper’s rifle was a marvel of modern technology. Fully integrated with the optic, rifle and even the actual round being fired, the shooter again pressed a single button, the action followed by small electric motors automatically adjusting the crosshairs for
windage and bullet drop.

The spotter, watching Dusty’s window with an even more powerful optic,
looked at his teammate and instructed, “Send it.”

The sniper pulled the trigger.

The .338 Lapua Magnum was named for the Swedish company that assisted in the cartridge’s development. Designed as a possible replacement for the heavier .50 BMG round, the terminal ballistics of the bullet were considered by many experts to be the most efficient in the world.

By the 1990s, practically every military and police organization on the planet was evaluating weapons that fired the big cartridge.

A 250-grain bullet left the barrel, aimed 61 inches above the center mass of Dusty’s chest, and traveling at 3,000 feet per second. After leaving the muzzle, there was nothing more the sniper could do but wait the nearly two seconds it would take for the round to impact on the target.

The microwave dinged again, the annoying sound reminding Dusty of the elevator’s chime from down the hall. Frowning, he turned to shut the damn thing off so it woul
d quit adding to his paranoia. He took one step toward the kitchen, and then the entire room exploded with flying glass and splinters of wood.

Dusty froze for just a moment, his racing mind unsure of what had just happened. Instinctively flinching into a crouch, he first thought someone had thrown a hand grenade into the room, but a quick glance at the door revealed it was still securely closed.

“Shit,” mumbled the spotter, “I think he moved at the last moment. Switch to infrared.”

The sniper nodded, pulling a small tubular device from his chest-rig and quickly snapping it onto the rifle in front of the optic. The view through the scope
was now a world of bright hues, the new addition to his weapon displaying variations of color, each object reflecting different levels of heat. The human body, at an average of 98.6 degrees, normally showed solid red or yellow.

Dusty finally figured it out, a large bullet hole in the wall directly behind where he was standing just a moment before. “They’re shooting a
t me from outside,” he said aloud, and then he dove for the floor.

The curtains covering the sliding glass door blocked some of Dusty’s body heat, but not all. While the thermal imager couldn’t see through walls or solid objects, it could detect heat as it was transferred through fabric. The sniper caught Dusty’s movement as he went prone, his mind thinking it was logical for the target to go low after the first missed shot. He pulled the trigger again, this time rushing the shot ever so slightly.

Ignoring the glass on the floor, Dusty was just starting to wiggle toward the window when the curtain puffed inward and a solid thud sounded behind him. The bullet’s impact pulled the curtains partially off their rod, the uneven drapes creating a small opening that he could look through.

Glancing at the damage the bullet had caused in the wall
, he judged the shooter was in a position higher than his condo, and that made sense. Any hunter preferred to be above his target if possible.

Despite shaking hands and short, nervous breathing, Dusty managed to move the rail gun to the opening and began searching the horizon, a desperate attempt to locate the man trying to kill him. It only took a moment to see the high-rise building in the distance, a bit more time and he realized that structure was the only possible option.

He was scanning floor by floor with his scope when a small flash and puff caught his eye. He rolled hard to his left as the bullet hit the doorframe not two inches away from his face.

Shards of aluminum stung his
cheek, large pieces of the concrete sub-floor slashing his arm and shoulder. The pain changed Dusty. The fear seemed to melt away, replaced by a hot anger that boiled up inside him. They weren’t even giving him a chance, not even making an attempt at an arrest. They were hunting him as if he were some animal, and it enraged him.

The green LED glowed bright, soon followed by
the closing of a full breech. His hand brushed the power selector, turning it up. He really didn’t know how much juice he was giving the rifle; he really didn’t care at that point in time. Fully expecting another bullet to slam into his head, Dusty rolled back to the open window, centered the aiming laser’s dot on the distant building and pulled the trigger.

The line appeared larger this time, its existence in earth’s universe lasting longer. The darkest black
streak ever witnessed by mankind flashed, drawing a super-black pencil mark between Dusty’s wrecked balcony and the far-off bank building.

The stripe
absorbed every color in the spectrum, sucking light, time, and all matter into another dimension. Then it was gone. Moving radially away from the core of the dimensional pipe, the blast wave shredded everything in its path.

A huge trench, over 20 feet wide and just as deep
was plowed through the ground underneath the line of Dusty’s shot. Trees were shredded; the roofs of buildings crushed inward, like the footprint of some giant monster had just walked through.

For blocks in every direction, a wall of supersonic air slammed into parked cars, street signs and pedestrians, knocking down anything in its path. 

A cloud of dust, powdered concrete, pulverized pavement, and soil was thrown into the air. Rising almost 50 feet above the tortured ground, the airborne debris soon began mingling with the smoke of exploding automobiles, propane tanks and natural gas lines caught in the aftermath of Dusty’s shot. 

The inter-dimensional pipe
met the bank building one floor below the sniper team. The FBI shooters experienced a slight shuddering, almost as if a small earthquake were rattling the structure. It was the last sensation they would ever feel. The entire building exploded, structural steel crumpling like tin foil, supporting concrete shredded into talcum powder.

Monroe was on the street below the bank building, watching and listening to the police communications through his earpiece. The small, tight-fitting
, plastic speaker saved his hearing on that side, the other ear suffering a busted drum.

When the building above him started to collapse, there wasn’t
really any time to run. He managed two steps, diving for the back of a nearby car as chunks of cement, glass, and steel rained down on the area.

With his cheek against the cool pavement, Monroe cringed as the ground shook, the choking fog of debris burning his lungs and stringing his eyes. When it was all over, he pulled himself out from under the back of the car, kicking several large
masses of wreckage out of the way.

When his vision finally cleared, the scene before him was unbelievable, the destruction stretching off into the distance. It was as if an enormous plow had swooped down from the sky, curling a furrow of devastation right through the middle of the urban area.

It took a few moments for the shock to wear off, a few more before the reason it had all happened to return to the forefront of his mind. Weathers!

After brushing off a thick layer of grim
e, he was stunned to see the radio transmitter on his belt still showing the red LED of power. He pushed to talk, “This is Monroe, any assault team on the command frequency, please respond.”

He repeated the message a short time later, his voice becoming desperate. He thought they were all dead or badly injured. Finally, a weak voice sounded through the earpiece, “HRT unit one reporting,
sir.”

“Thank God,” replied a re
lieved Monroe. “Go get that son of a bitch. Go right now.”

“We’re on our way.”

Shultz appeared at his side, the junior agent covered from head to toe with a thick coating of dirt and white powder. A slight smile crossed Monroe’s face, genuinely happy to see his co-worker had survived the attack.

Grabbing the still wobbly agent by the arm, M
onroe said, “Come on, Tom, they’re storming Weather’s building. I want to be there to see the end.”

Looking around, the two agents found every car in the vicinity heavily damaged. Not to be
denied, Monroe hurried along on foot, determined to arrive in time to see his quarry either dead or in handcuffs.

Dusty chanced a glance around the
doorframe a few seconds after his shot, uncomfortable with exposing himself and unsure if he’d eliminated the sniper threat.

What he saw caused his soul to go cold.

Starting below his balcony, it appeared as if a huge
earth-moving machine had dug a trench from his condo all the way to the sniper’s building. Anything that bordered the gash in the earth’s surface was pushed away or toppled over, as if a massive downdraft had blown everything over.

Trees were snapped
off at the base, entire sections of buildings crushed and crumbling, automobiles and trucks lying on their sides or roofs. The devastation was incredible.