Rules of Deception (39 page)

85

“Mahdi I, all systems green.
You are cleared for takeoff. May God be with you.”

Major General John Austen ran up the engine. The RPMs of the Williams turbofan jet rose smoothly. He released the brake and the drone began to roll down the runway.

Over the headset, he heard the crackle of fireworks. On the screen to his left, he saw sparks flying. No, not sparks. These were muzzle blasts from his men’s weapons. A voice came over his headset. “Police.”

“Keep them away.”

As Austen powered the throttle and the drone began to roll down the runway, he felt a surge of pride and accomplishment. He had done it. He had fulfilled the mission entrusted to him. Israel, in rightful possession of the Holy Land, was gearing up for attack. Iran itself was properly armed. The Forces of Gog and Magog were set to do battle on the plains of Armageddon.

In brilliant detail, he envisioned how the conflict would unfold, all according to God’s plan.

Israel’s bombing offensive would fail.

Iran would retaliate with the Kh-55 cruise missiles in its arsenal, missiles whose sale he had personally brokered. The nuclear weapons armed with ten-kiloton warheads would fall upon Tel Aviv, but not upon Jerusalem itself. The Lord, in His power, would protect His holiest of cities. The Americans would, in turn, fall upon Iran. The Fundamentalist Islamic Republic would cease to exist.

All was in place for the Lord’s return. And the Rapture that would follow.

Austen blocked out the noise of the escalating gunfight, focusing his eyes, his concentration on the screen in front of him. The trees passed by with increasing rapidity. The runway lights were flashes. The speedometer read one hundred knots…one hundred ten…he eased the joystick back. The nose began to rise…

It was then that he saw it. A pair of headlights barreling toward the drone. A car where no car should be.

He grasped the joystick in his fist and pulled it back while punching the throttle.

“Fly!”

86

“Did you hear that?”
Jonathan asked, alarmed.

Emma glanced in his direction. “What?”

He rolled down the window and craned his neck out of the car. “I’m not sure, but…” A loud pop cracked the air, followed by another. The sounds were tinny, toyish, like the cap guns he used to play with as a kid. “Gunshots. Can you hear them?”

Emma pulled the car to the side of the road halfway up the hill. A medieval forest cloaked the slope. Remnants of an ancient wall were visible close to the road, clawed basalt blocks splashed with lichen. Deep amongst the trees, the shots burst like fireflies.

“Von Daniken. That will keep them occupied.” She shifted in her seat and leveled her gaze at him. “Are you certain you’re prepared to do this?”

Jonathan nodded. He’d made the decision days ago.

“Switch seats,” said Emma. “You drive. Unless, that is, you know how to shoot a gun.”

Jonathan paused halfway out the door. “I was going to say you hate guns.”

“I do.”

The two crossed round the front of the car, their shoulders brushing. Jonathan slid into the driver’s seat and adjusted it for his height. Emma closed the door and told him to get going. He noticed that she no longer looked so much the professional. Her face had lost its confident veneer and her breath was coming fast and hard. She was every bit as scared as he was.

He put the car into gear and accelerated up the slope. They’d hardly covered ten meters when their headlights illuminated a riot barrier spanning the road.

“Whatever you do,” said Emma. “Don’t stop.”

The car gained speed, hurtling toward the barrier.

“Cut the lights,” she said.

Jonathan doused the headlights. Darkness cloaked the road. He pushed his face closer to the windscreen. The top of the barrier was barely visible, a white line cutting through the heart of darkness. He floored it. The car smashed the barrier, spraying shards of wood everywhere. The road flattened out. Lanterns placed at even intervals on either side of it lit his path.

The sound of gunfire picked up, frighteningly close. A salvo of bullets struck the car like hail pounding a tin shack. A bullet shattered the windscreen, leaving a large hole and a sagging web of glass. Wind rushed in. He caught sight of several figures kneeling in the snow, their silhouettes flickering in the wake of their weapons’ muzzle blasts.

“Keep going!” Emma leaned out the window, firing at the shadows.

Then he saw it. A silver beast with tremendous wings and a large pod hanging from its belly.

“Emma!”

The drone was coming at them, advancing from the far end of the road.

“Faster,” she said. “Ram it.”

“But…” He looked at Emma. It was suicide.

“Do it!”

Jonathan downshifted into third gear and pushed the accelerator to the floor. The engine screamed as the burst of torque hurled the car ahead. The drone showed no sign of taking off. It came at them relentlessly, a malevolent metallic insect. Emma was firing at the aircraft. He had no idea if her bullets were going home. His eyes focused on the teardrop-shaped pod attached to the fuselage. It was the bomb. Twenty kilos of Semtex, she’d told him. The equivalent of a thousand pounds of TNT. A bomb large enough to obliterate an airliner.

“Faster,” said Emma, ducking her head into the cabin.

The drone’s nose lifted off the ground, then touched back down. Jonathan braced himself for impact, squinting in anticipation of the collision, the exquisite burst of light…

The drone began to take off. The nose rose into the air. The front wheels left the asphalt. It was no good. They were going to collide with it. Every instinct told him to brake. He grasped the wheel harder and pressed his foot into the floorboard.

He screamed.

A gleam of silver whisked over their heads.

It was gone. The drone was airborne.

A second later, one of the car’s front tires exploded. The car bounded to the left, abandoning the paved road. Jonathan spun the wheel in the opposite direction, but it did no good. The snow was too deep. The car plowed ahead, speed bleeding rapidly. It hit an underlying patch of ice, and slid sideways, coming to a halt in a hollow between several oaks some twenty meters from the house.

Emma slapped the pistol into his right hand. “The man you want is inside the house. Find the controls and he’ll be there. Don’t bother talking to him. He won’t stop until he’s accomplished what he set out to do. You have eight bullets.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll stay here,” she said. “When I start firing, run into the forest and circle the house. You can reach the terrace by climbing on pylons built into the hillside. From there, you’ll have to find a way in.”

It was then that he saw that she’d been shot. Her shoulder drooped strangely and blood was spreading across her jacket. “You’re hurt.”

“Go,” she said, her eyes deflecting his concern. “Before they spot you.”

Jonathan hesitated for a split second, then took off. Behind him, Emma stood and began firing at the house.

87

The power.

Von Daniken lay in the snow, beyond cold, beyond feeling. During the briefing two days earlier, he’d learned that the control apparatus for a drone consumed an enormous amount of electricity. If he cut the power to the house, the drone would be incapacitated. It might fly, but it would be rudderless. Sooner or later, it would run out of gas. Odds were that it would fall to earth and explode harmlessly in the countryside. Regardless of where it fell, it would not take six hundred lives.

Rolling onto his belly, he raised his head and searched the hillside. Bullets struck the ground in front of him, spraying ice and dirt into his eyes. He ducked, eating a mouthful of snow, but not before seeing the rectangular metal casing that governed electricity to the neighborhood.

The junction box sat a few meters away on a flat plot carved into the slope. A section of the ancient citadel wall occupied the ground above it. The large stone blocks would provide a measure of protection.

He pulled himself up the hill, burrowing through the deep snow. He was shivering uncontrollably. He rested after a few meters and lifted his head, ready to throw himself back down at any moment. Gunfire was more or less constant, but the shots were no longer aimed at him. They were coming from the other side of the hill. A different caliber, too. It was Ransom and his wife.

The sound of a jet engine came to life. He thought it impossible that a small aircraft could generate such a deafening noise. The noise changed pitch, growing higher, straining. The drone was taking off. He turned onto his side and looked into sky. For a moment, he caught sight of a silver blade whisking over the treetops.

Pushing himself to a crouch, von Daniken scuttled up the hillside. He didn’t give a damn about seeking any kind of protection. He knew that he made an easy target, but the absence of gunfire spurred an irrational confidence within him. The house loomed ahead, looking like a concrete bunker. And then, suddenly, he was there.

He fell against the side of the box, panting. A padlock held it closed. He distanced himself from it, took aim with his pistol, and fired. The lock was obliterated. The junction box opened like a clamshell. He looked inside. A sticker warned him not to touch anything for fear of electrocution. A skull-and-bones decal drove the point home. He was confronted with a maze of wires, some woven together in dense, multicolored braids, others bound by protective rubber housing. It all looked terribly complex. He had expected there to be some kind of master switch he might throw. He craned his neck to get a better view.

The bullet caught him in the shoulder and spun him around. Before he knew what had hit him, he was lying facedown in the snow. He turned over, stunned, breathless, robbed of purpose. He lay there for a few seconds, while the circuitry in his own mind got itself sorted out.

Forcing himself to a knee, he aimed his pistol at the house and got off a few wild shots. The pistol’s kick made him feel powerful and optimistic. He aimed at the junction box and emptied the clip into it. Nothing happened.

He tottered, and in his fuzzy mind, decided that the situation was absurd. The first time he’d fired his weapon in thirty years, and it was at a giant metal box. He eased himself to the ground. The snow at his feet was red. He tried to move his left arm, but it was frozen and had no feeling whatsoever. Suddenly, he found himself fixated by the snow.

Water, he thought.

He didn’t need a gun to do the job.

Reaching into the box with both hands, he grabbed a bundle of wires and yanked them free. A flurry of sparks drizzled to the ground. One wire in particular fired a steady blue pulse. He picked up a handful of snow with his good hand and lobbed it into the junction box. The wire sizzled, then continued to spark. He didn’t know what to expect, but surely that wasn’t it.

He felt around inside the box until his hand came to a larger bundle, a tube the size of a police baton. He pulled at it repeatedly. Finally, it tore loose, exposing a fountain of frayed copper wiring.

As he stared at the wires, he thought of the drone and the plane from Israel. He knew that the plane had no chance of escaping the drone, just as a man, however frightened, could not outswim a shark. Then he thought of Philip Palumbo, lying there in the dark, riddled with holes.

Von Daniken scooped up more snow. This time, however, he pushed it onto the exposed wires and packed it down. There was a smart, crackling noise, then silence.

For a moment, he was sure that he’d failed, but then a surge ran up his arms and into his chest. His back arched in spasm. He opened his mouth to scream, but his throat was paralyzed by the voltage coursing through his body. With a last effort, he yanked his hands clear of the snow. Something exploded in his chest and he was flung violently backward through the air.

Jonathan ran in a line
perpendicular to the car, dodging through the trees. The snow was deep and uneven, making the going difficult. Twice he tumbled to his knees and had to struggle to pull himself clear. After fifty meters, he veered to his right along a track parallel to the road. He quickly found the remains of the Roman-era wall that had once protected the city. He hopped over it and, crouching, followed it to the rear of the house.

The home was cantilevered over the slope. Twin steel pylons anchored in the mountainside rose at a forty-five-degree angle to support the structure. Reaching the pylons, he stopped and cocked his head. The gunfire had ceased. The silence that took its place was just as ominous. From the crest of the hill, he heard several motors turning over, and at least one car leave some rubber behind.

The pylons were slick and wet and deadly cold. They were hard enough to hold on to, let alone climb. Wrapping his arms around one, he shimmied up the incline. By the time he reached the top, his hands burned with cold and his clothing was soaking wet. Wedging his knee into the gap between the foundation and the pylon, he stood and extended his hand onto the balcony. With a breath and a prayer, he swung clear and reached up with his other hand and pulled himself onto the terrace.

The sliding door was locked.

He stepped back and fired into the glass door. The window shattered and a shard landed on his ankle, embedding itself. Wincing, he pulled it clean. Blood welled up, filling his shoe.

The house was silent. No lights burned anywhere. If there had been any guards, they’d abandoned ship. He was aware only of a low-frequency thrum given off by an electrical current of some kind. He crossed the room and entered a corridor. A door at the far end barred his passage. A numeric keypad governed entrance. He fired at the lock. It did no good. The lock and door were both made of steel.

Putting his ear to the door, he made out a low hum and could feel a vibration against his cheek. Suddenly, the humming died. The vibration calmed. The entire structure went as still as if it had been unplugged.

Jonathan’s eyes shot to the keypad. The pinlight was blinking green where before it had burned red.

The power had gone out.

He threw his hand to the door and turned the knob.

It opened.

Leading with the pistol, he walked into what could only be called an operations center. To his left, a picture window looked out over the Zurich Airport. Directly ahead, an array of instruments and monitors rose from the ground to the ceiling. A man sat in a chair, his back to him, his hand on a joystick. It would be John Austen.

A few feet away, another man was working feverishly at a bank of controls.

“Auxiliary power on,” said the second man, who, Emma had told him, would be the flight engineer. “Satellite connection reestablished. We have picture.” He looked up and saw Jonathan and aimed a pistol at him. Jonathan shot him twice. The man fell back against the wall.

Jonathan approached the pilot. “Step away from the controls.”

The pilot didn’t answer. The hand controlling the joystick moved to the right. The screen in front of him emitted an eerie green glow. At first, Jonathan wasn’t able to make out anything. Looking closer, he observed a gray shape looming in the distance. The shape was gaining in definition. Now he could see a head and tail and a host of pinpricks that were the lights from passenger windows. It was the jet as seen by an infrared camera.

Jonathan’s eyes moved to the radar screen. The two blips at its center were incredibly close to one another. The letters beneath one read, “El Al 8851H.” The other blip had no designation.

“I said, step away from the controls.”

“You’re too late,” said John Austen.

He won’t stop until he’s accomplished what he set out to do,
Emma had said.
Believe me, I know him.

Jonathan walked up to him, placed the gun to the nape of his neck, and pulled the trigger.

The pilot slumped forward.

Jonathan pushed his body out of the seat.

The image of the plane was closer now. He could make out a wing and the outline of the fuselage and the landing lights flashing. All impossibly close.

Jonathan shoved the joystick forward.

The image of the plane grew closer still. He was too late. The drone was going to strike the aircraft. A red light on the console was blinking.
Proximity fuse armed.
He looked at the radar. The two blips merged as one. Then back at the camera. The plane filled the entire screen.

Reflexively, he braced for impact.

Just then, the plane darted out of view. The screen went dark. Jonathan looked at the radar. The blip bearing the designation El Al 8851H was still there. Moments later, the second blip reappeared. The distance between the two aircraft had widened.

He kept the joystick pointed down, as the drone flew into the darkness.

He located the altimeter on the console and watched the numbers fall from twenty-seven thousand feet to twenty to ten, and then, to zero.

The picture dissolved in a blizzard of white noise.