Orders of Magnitude (The Genie and the Engineer Series Book 2) (15 page)

She shook her head in amazement. Of course. All the pieces
fit together nicely now. The bomb in Iran hadn’t been detonated on the ground.
It had been dropped from a plane! And that’s how they planned to attack the
Olympics, by plane, from the air.

They had left early this morning, with more than enough time
to get to Rio before even the opening ceremony. So where had the plane gone?
Was it just circling around in midair somewhere? Or was it on the ground at
another small airstrip someplace, waiting to take off again?

Those answers she didn’t have. But one she did. If she and
Paul didn’t stop that plane, nearly everyone inside the stadium would die horribly
in the fireball of a gigantic thermobaric fuel air explosion.

She dug the satellite phone from a pocket and stepped
outside to get a clear shot at the satellite. It was time to call Paul.

Maracanã Stadium

Av. Maracanã

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

August

Friday 5:35 p.m. BRT

P
aul’s
satellite phone ‘rang,’ playing the invisible monster sound effects from the
film
Forbidden Planet
.

He was hovering ten feet over the roof of the stadium, doing
another visual inspection of the structure’s exterior and still not finding
anything out of place or suspicious. He quickly dug the satellite phone from a
pants pocket and answered it.

“Dear, I was just about to call you.”

“Uh, huh. I bet,” Capie responded with more than a little sarcasm.
“Where are you?”

“I’m at the Maracanã Stadium. I’ve just about finished the
second sweep of the place. No dice. No bomb here.”

“And I’m in Jundiai, a small city thirty miles northwest of
Sao Paulo,” she told him. “The bombs, and there are two of them, were assembled
here, at a small airport. They left on a large four engine prop plane of some
type, early this morning, not long after dawn. I’m told it looked North
American.”

“Probably a Hercules C-130,” Paul responded automatically.
“They’re all over the world. Even the smaller countries have one or two of them
stashed away somewhere. So, the $64,000 question, where is the plane now?”

“Not far from Rio is my guess,” Capie said quickly. “Since
it’s only, what, twenty-five minutes to the opening ceremony.”

“Let’s waste no more time then. You start an air search from
your end. I’ll stay here and stand guard in case it shows up. Call me if you
spot it. And good luck.”

• • • •

The time element was really starting to bother Paul and he
couldn’t stop fretting about it. If the attack wasn’t supposed to happen until 6
p.m., then why had the Hercules aircraft left Jundiai so early in the morning?
Why not wait until an hour before the opening ceremony started and then
takeoff? An hour is all they needed in a C-130 to fly from Sao Paulo to Rio. And
where were they now? Flying around somewhere in the interior of Brazil? Or out
at sea? That made no sense. Maybe they needed to pick up something or somebody
else at some other airport? But where?

A quick check of Wikipedia told him that the C-130 only
needed a runway 3,600 feet in length even when fully loaded. That got him to
thinking. Even the shortest of local runways was probably longer than that.

He levitated higher in the air, climbing to 200 feet,
running another 360 degree visual scan of the horizon. It was getting late and
the sun had already set behind the Mantiqueira Mountains, and even twilight was
fading away fast. Beneath him, he could hear the roar of the crowds through the
open roof of the stadium. The opening ceremonies had already started. No
surprise there since his watch told him the time here was 6:10 p.m.

“Uncle Sam, please.”

The simulacrum appeared, hovering beside Paul.

“Where do you think their plane is?” Paul asked. “Best
guess.”

“A local airport,” the image answered firmly without
hesitation. “The Iranians will want to be out of sight until their attack but they
will also want to be nearby, to increase the odds in their favor of a
successful outcome under nighttime conditions.”

Paul nodded in agreement. It made sense. For them, a short
flight also lessened the time that local authorities could intercept the
Hercules as well.

He called up a map of southeast Brazil on an internet
display and started looking for local airports. There were at least a dozen of
them. With a quick spell, he opened up a microportal, the other end of which
was ten miles overhead. Then he created a second display, greatly magnifying
the image through the microportal. It was almost like looking down at the Earth
through Google or Bing maps, except, now that the sun had set and dusk was
fading, it was getting hard to make out details. A light amplification spell
solved that problem.

He started searching at the closest airport, the Galeão
International. The C-130 was unlikely to be there. Too public a place, too out
in the open. But it was the closest. If not there, then he would check the Santos
Airport next.

• • • •

Capie was flying along at 5,000 feet on a general heading to
the east northeast, more or less in Rio’s direction, as she carefully scanned the
airspace and terrain around her, looking for any planes at all. She saw more
than a dozen airliners heading either toward or out of Sao Paulo. Nothing else.

She was thinking pretty much along the same lines as her
husband and wondering where to look for the terrorist plane. Her watch said the
time was now 6:15 p.m.

She kept scanning, the frustration building up inside her
with each passing minute.

• • • •

Just as he thought. There were no C-130’s parked out in the
open at Galeão International.

The time was 6:45 p.m.

He pulled out the cell phone and called Capie.

“Seen them yet?” she asked.

“No,” he replied in a frustrated tone. “Nothing on your end
either, huh?”

“No.”

“I’m starting to wonder about that,” Paul admitted. “We’ve
been assuming that they would attack at the start of the opening ceremony. What
if we are wrong? I mean, here it is almost 7 p.m. and there’s no sign of them. What
if they picked a different time?”

“I know that tone of voice,” she said uneasily, her posture
suddenly rigid. “What are you thinking?”

“You know how the opening ceremony goes,” he said in a cold
sweat. “There are speeches, presentations and such, followed by the Parade of
Nations where they introduce the athletes by country, in alphabetical order.
The Iranians might wait until—”

“Until the Israeli athletes come out on the field!” Capie
hissed.

“My thought exactly.”

“What a political statement that would make!” she growled as
she clenched and unclenched her left hand repeatedly in anger. “The Taliban got
off easy compared to what will happen to Iran if they succeed.”

“Ah, but we aren’t going to let them succeed, now are we, dear?”
he declared. “I’m scanning the local airports from near space, in case they are
parked at one of them.”

“I’m only fifty miles west of you now,” she informed him. “But
it’s slow going. It’s more difficult searching in the dark.”

“Tell me about it,” he commented sarcastically.

“I’ll be there in another hour or so, at this rate.”

“I’ll let you know if they show up before then,” he promised
as he hung up the call and started a search at the Santos Airport.

• • • •

 Not at Santos either, which was also a fairly sizeable
airport and too public a place. The next closest was Jacarepagua, a few miles
to the southwest of Rio. It was much smaller, consisting only of a single
runway. A quick visual search up the length of the tarmac there was conclusive.
Not there either.

It was 7:28 p.m. and fully dark now. And still no plane.

Okay, the Maricá was next, a small airstrip across the
harbor and up the coast twenty five miles away.

And there it was, just as pretty as you please, the big Hercules
aircraft rolling down the runway as he watched, gathering speed and lifting
gracefully into the night air. But what disturbed Paul the most and caused a
strong tingling sensation to run up and down his spine was the sight of several
human-shaped silhouettes flying alongside the plane.

Oni.

He couldn’t get a decent count. It was too dark and they
were weaving in and around the aircraft. No doubt they were invisible to the
pilot, who would otherwise be freaking out at the sight of such creatures
flitting around his aircraft. It reminded Paul of the
Twilight Zone
episode, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” but he put that thought away.

He whipped the phone out and frantically punched the
buttons.

“Capie? Capie! The plane is at Maricá Airport, to the east
of Rio! Get here as fast as you can! And get this! It’s being escorted by a
bunch of Oni! That’s right, a lot of them! Ten or more, at least! Right! And
yes, I’ll be careful!”

• • • •

Capie shoved the phone back in her pocket and was on the
verge of opening a portal straight to the Maracanã Stadium, throwing caution to
the wind. After all, any Oni around would shortly know that she and Paul were
in the area anyway. Why hide anymore?

And then she stopped suddenly as she carried that thought
through to an obvious conclusion.

No. Going to Rio was not the best first choice. There was
somewhere else to go first. Then Rio.

She just hoped that Paul would understand and that he could
hold out until she got there.

• • • •

Paul dissolved the microportal and opened a portal toward
the east, stepping through and cutting his distance to the C-130 by twenty
three miles. The sooner that he intercepted the terrorist aircraft, the better
the chance he had at taking it out.

“Uncle Sam, any suggestions?” he asked, incredibly afraid of
the danger he would shortly be in. He watched the Oni apparently taking notice
of him in the darkened sky. Several of them began moving ahead of the plane, in
his direction.

“You already know what’s at stake,” the tall specter
reminded him. “The Oni will probably split up, some to guard the plane and the
rest to attack you. Don’t get bogged down in trying to take out the Oni. That
plane is your goal. Deception and illusions won’t work on the Oni, but they
will work on the Normal piloting that plane.”

The image took a deep breath and quickly added. “Your pledge
not to kill anyone. You might have to break it, to save the lives of more than
eighty thousand Normals.”

Paul swallowed hard and gritted his teeth. “Right. I thought
Capie might be here by now, but it’s just as well that she isn’t. This is going
to be dangerous. Time to go.”

He ramped up his night vision even more, the better to see
his target and the Oni guarding it. The plane was now only a mile away, still
climbing and accelerating. With his stomach tied in knots, his heart thundering
in his chest, Paul gritted his teeth and launched himself forward.

Gathering his powers, he cast a spell for a huge fiery apparition
in front of him, half phoenix and half dragon, its wings spread wide, its mouth
spewing fire, its entire body glowing a bright red.

 But the plane showed no reaction at all, continuing on a
steady course in his direction. The Oni must be casting a counter spell,
blocking the pilot’s ability to see the illusion.

Frustrated, the distance to the plane now a half mile, he
cast a spell to fire a large plasma bolt at the plane. However, the bolt
dissipated into nothingness before it was halfway there, again apparently at
the instigation of the Oni. Was there no way to reach the plane?

Paul would have loved to have used his fusion spell but they
were over dry land, no water nearby. He could portal in a few pounds of H
₂
O,
of course, but probably never get it close enough to the plane to use it.
Moreover, there were people on the ground below him. At their low altitude, the
risk was too high.

The combined closure rate between him and the plane was
nearly 300 miles per hour and he was now out of time. The leading edge of Oni
started firing plasma bolts at him. Paul ducked and weaved, firing back at them
and every now and then, at the plane. Very few of his shots hit an Oni,
bouncing off their shields and none ever hit the plane.

He was forced to turn with and match the plane’s speed and
direction. By his estimate, they would be at the stadium in less than twelve
minutes.

As he dodged another bolt of plasma, he wondered again where
Capie was.

• • • •

At only fifty feet off of the ground, Capie was zipping down
the Esplanade de Ministerios in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, conducting a
strafing run. Only, she wasn’t firing bullets but magical spells.

They were for fireworks, various characters from Disney
films, gremlins, creatures from Harry Potter films, from
Lord of the Rings
,
spells for griffins, dragons, monsters from various Japanese and Hollywood
Films, amongst others. Whatever illusion she could think of that would draw a
lot of attention, she created it.

There was panic in the streets. Fire trucks and police cars
were roaring up and down the boulevard, chasing the chimera.

Gee, how long would it take for the
Errabêlu
wizard
here to notice?

• • • •

The wizard in question, Guillermos Olivos, wasn’t in
Brasilia. He was in Rio de Janeiro. In fact, he was in the VIP section of the
stands in the Maracanã Stadium riveted to the opening ceremony.

Olivos was a huge fan of the Olympics and he had expended
considerable political and financial capital campaigning to have his country of
Brazil selected to be the host for the games. It gave him great pride for his
nation to have that honor this time.

So he was quite angry indeed when one of his Oni brought him
word that another wizard was terrorizing Brasilia. The timing involved
infuriated him, with the perpetrator invading his country, his capital city
when he, Olivos, was in Rio trying to watch the Olympics! Such insolence! Such
effrontery!

And the flagrant tawdry deluge of magical spells that this
depraved immoral wizard was using, in a public venue! It riled and enraged
Olivos to the extreme. If they agreed on nothing else, the wizards of
Errabêlu
took great pains not to display the use of their magical powers where Normies
could see them! Why, this was more than a crime! It verged on an act of war!
How dare the upstart! To do this to him, a senior member of the Conclave of
Magi, no less!

Red faced, he hotly issued orders to the Oni messenger, then
dashed out of the VIP box himself. He would see to this personally.