Aim and Fire (32 page)

“Fine, just do it in the next four minutes.”

Kate watched the seconds tick away, knowing that the Aim and Fire

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rocket with its deadly cargo was racing closer and closer to her home, and that of about twenty million other people, with each passing moment. She pushed away the imagined carnage and destruction that something like this would spread in its wake.
Not on my watch,
she told herself. But at the moment, she was stuck in an all-too-familiar position—watching as one of her people tried to stave off disaster. Come on, girl, you can do it! Her screen flashed.

“All right, I’m in! I’ve got telemetry control of the rocket. Where do you want it?”

“Where is it right now?” Kate asked.

“At its current rate of speed, it’s crossing out of Missouri and into southern Illinois. How about putting it down in a large body of water?”

With the tap of a finger, Kate brought up a map of the southern half of Illinois and highlighted every body of water. “The only problem is finding one that isn’t right next to a populated area.”

“You better find something fast, ’cause this sucker’ll be hitting Indiana in about ninety seconds. Why not Lake Michigan? It’s close enough by now.”

Kate increased her scrolling, searching for any lake large enough to serve her purpose. “Now’s who’s putting the pressure on? Besides, I want that warhead, assuming it survives impact, and I’d rather have it not irradiating a Great Lake for about fifty thousand years.” Kate scanned through huge swathes of land with finger flicks, trying to find the right combination of depth and remoteness. “Jesus, why couldn’t they have flown over Minnesota? Wait a minute—I might have something. It’s not perfect, but it’ll have to do. Can you put it down in the westernmost fork of this lake?” She transmitted coordinates to B2S.

“I can try—you realize there’s a good chance the whole 298

thing might burst apart on impact and scatter plutonium all over the place?”

“Better than plunging several million people into chaos.

I’ll fix it with the DNR later. Just do it now.”

The hacker switched to a phone line so she could talk to Kate as she worked. “Okay, here goes…coming up on the coordinates…sending the new change of course.

Guidance system has accepted it. According to my calcs, it should be hitting the lake right about…now. Hope we didn’t scare the crap out of some early-morning fisher-men.”

As Kate watched, the red line abruptly terminated in the southeast quadrant of Illinois. She sighed with relief.

“Congratulations, B2S, you probably saved about a million people’s lives.”

“I’ll be sure to remind you of that at my next evalua-tion. You need me for anything else?”

“Yeah, as long as you’re inside the Spaceworks network, make sure they can’t destroy any of their data. I have a feeling the FBI folks are going to find it very interesting. Let me know when you’ve got it locked down.”

“I’m on it.”

Kate was already switching to another channel to the Super Hercules. “MR-1, this is Primary. Repeat, this is Primary. I am altering your flight plan, priority one.

Change course and proceed to the downloaded coordinates. And tell the team to break out their hazmat gear and their scuba tanks, because they’re about to go swimming.”

Next, she dialed Tracy’s line, wanting to tell her the good news.

Tracy noticed a dull ringing in her ears, accompanied by a throbbing behind her temples that felt like a hundred tiny men were playing drums inside her skull. An acrid smell invaded her nostrils, and her eyes fluttered open to see a SWAT team member crouched over her, holding something under her nose.

“Hey, you are alive.” He helped her sit up slowly. “Careful, you took a pretty nasty jolt.” His voice sounded muffled, as if he was talking through thick cotton.

Tracy tried to speak, but her throat felt as dry as the desert. “Water,” she whispered. The SWAT officer produced a canteen, which she grabbed and lifted to her lips.

“Slow down, too fast and—”

“I know, I know, I might get cramps.” Tracy took one more big gulp of water, then looked around. “What happened? The last thing I remember was Nate going into a small room….”

“We heard an explosion. When we found you, Briggs was knocked out, lying on top of you—we think he tried to get 300

you out of harm’s way—and there was what was left of a person blown across the hallway. Uh, don’t look over there.”

“Nate…oh, my God…” Tracy’s gaze involuntarily went to the red spray against the far wall. She winced and looked away and swallowed, trying to control the bile rising at the back of her throat.

“Was that his name? He must have triggered some kind of booby trap on the hatch in the floor. It collapsed the entrance to the tunnel or whatever’s down there. He took the brunt of the blast, too, actually ended up protecting both of you. I’m afraid that’s what’s left—it was pretty nasty, sorry.”

“What about the rocket?” Tracy asked.

“We couldn’t stop it in time. It’s already launched.”

“Can’t we stop it from here?”

“They’ve locked us out of the system. No one’s willing to give up the codes to gain access. They say they’re all willing to die for Allah.”

“Shit.” Tracy pulled out her cell phone, hoping it hadn’t been broken in the impact. It rang just as she flipped it open. “Stephanie?”

“Tracy, we’ve stopped the rocket. It’s splashed down in Illinois, and we’ve got people heading over there right now. Is the compound secure?”

Tracy asked the SWAT member who nodded. “Yeah, but al-Kharzi got away. He took off in a bolt-hole that led to an escape tunnel—Nate was killed going after him.”

“How’d you like to catch up with him?” Kate asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Our plans show the main tunnel under the building. It goes north, and comes out near a normally unused access road. If you hurry, you might be able to intercept him. Take him alive, if you can.”

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Tracy rose, fighting off a wave of dizziness. “I’m on it.

Thanks, Stephanie, for everything.”

The SWAT officer eyed her dubiously. “Where are you going? You need to lie down, and should really have someone look at your head. You’ve probably got a concus-sion—”

“I’ve got one more thing to take care of. You got keys to a vehicle?”

“Well, yeah.”

Tracy scanned the corridor for her pistol, finding it a few yards away. “Hand them over.”

“What?”

“Listen, Officer, the man behind this entire plan, who almost destroyed half of the United States, is about to get away if I don’t stop him. I’d hate to have to tell my superiors—and yours—that he got away because I couldn’t get a vehicle. Now hand over those keys, dammit!”

Stunned by her commanding tone, the officer produced the keys. “The truck is out by the back entrance to the compound. Two doors down, turn right, go past the huge room and out the back—you can’t miss it.”

“All right. If your superiors ask, Agent Tracy Wentworth commandeered your vehicle. If they want to make an issue of it, have them contact the FBI. Who’s your commanding officer, so I can let them know who to expect to hear from?”

“Lieutenant Marcus. Uh, ma’am, shouldn’t I accompany you, for reinforcement?”

Tracy was already trotting down the hallway. “Thanks, Officer, but you’ll probably be in enough trouble as it is.”

Besides, I’m not planning on capturing him alive,
she thought.

Following the officer’s directions, Tracy quickly made 302

her way out of the main building, flashing her badge at any SWAT or Border Patrol agent who even looked at her.

Another minute brought her to the armored vehicle, which was being guarded by another officer.

“You Collins?” she asked, reading his name tag on his shirt pocket.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Tracy showed her DHS badge again. “Your commanding officer, Lieutenant Marcus, is here. He wants to see you inside. I’ll keep a watch out here.”

“Thanks.” He jogged inside, and as soon as he was out of sight, Tracy got into the truck, turned the key, strapped herself in, flicked on the headlights and gunned it into the desert.

The trip through the barren land was much like the first one she had taken only a few hours earlier, but now Tracy drove without hesitation, without any fear at all. The events of the past twelve hours had changed her in some fundamental way—shattered her preconceived notions of how things operated in the field. What she had seen had reshaped them profoundly. Everything she had seen and done, from the illegals to the break-and-enter to the assault on the compound, had altered her view on a lot of things, and it was all about to culminate in the next few minutes.

The truck dipped and bounced as it bulled its way across a rutted desert plain, carved out by a flash flood thousands of years ago.

Her phone rang, and Tracy risked taking one hand off the bucking wheel to flip it open, leaving it on the seat beside her. “Yeah?”

The cell automatically went to speaker. “Tracy, it’s Stephanie. He’s almost at the end of the tunnel, and will be reaching his truck soon. We’re sending a helicopter to back you up.”

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“They already shot one down, but I’m almost there—just give me another minute. He’s not getting away this time.”

“Remember, take him alive if you can—he’ll be a wealth of information if we can interrogate him,” Kate said.

“That bastard just killed a Border Patrol agent, almost killed me and came within a hairbreadth of wiping out much of the East Coast, and you want me to go easy on him?”

Stephanie’s calm voice almost soothed Tracy out of her plan. “I understand you’re upset, but you have to look at the bigger picture. Al-Kharzi is a link in a bigger chain, connected all around the world. The people who took that bomb and sent it to his people in Texas, and the people all across the world who funnel them money, those are the people that we’re trying to stop. The ones behind all of this.

But we need the people who know them, who can tell us who they are, to get to them.”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do. I just found him.” Tracy pressed the accelerator to the floor, and the truck leaped forward, its headlights illuminating an unarmored pickup truck. A startled face looked at her from the driver’s-side window. “Yeah, you better look surprised, you prick.”

“What was that?” The phone bounced on the seat, and Tracy thought Stephanie’s voice might have taken on a concerned tone. She smiled grimly. “Have sighted suspect and am in pursuit. Will call after apprehension is made.”

Tracy flipped the phone closed and tossed it on the floor, removing the last distraction from the chase.

There was a small ditch separating the road from the desert, and she didn’t hesitate, pushing the truck as fast as it would go to clear the obstacle. The plain she was on was higher and she cleared the trench and landed on the road 304

with a bone-jarring crash, feeling the stiff suspension bottom out for a moment. Tapping the brakes just enough, she forced the truck into a bootlegger’s turn, slewing it around ninety degrees and ending up facing the direction al-Kharzi had gone. The steering felt looser, and she thought she’d totally fucked up the alignment, but the truck was still moving forward, and that was all she cared about.

Stomping the pedal to the floor, Tracy shifted into two-wheel drive and raced after the fleeing terrorist. No doubt he was heading for the border, but if he thought he’d be safe there, she had a big surprise for him. Tracy had already made up her mind; she’d chase him all the way to Mexico City if she had to.

The modified Ford F550’s powerful V-10 engine roared as it ate up the miles between Tracy and her target.

Although the road was narrow and winding, her driving skills made all the difference as she navigated the dirt lane, gaining on the truck ahead of her with every passing minute. It helped that the terrorist was having a hard time controlling his vehicle, having to sacrifice speed for safety.

Tracy powered around a final turn and her headlights lit up the back of the fleeing truck just as it sailed down a small hill. She followed, gaining enough speed to draw to within inches of his rear bumper.

Okay, now what? Tracy frowned as she realized she had been concentrating so hard on catching him that she hadn’t thought out much of a plan beyond that. The road was too narrow to pull alongside and force him off the road.

Shooting at him was also out of the question; not only would it be a wasted attempt here, but she needed both hands to control the steering wheel. That left only one thing to do.

Flooring the accelerator again, Tracy crept up to within Aim and Fire

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a yard of the other truck’s bumper, then surged ahead, tapping the lighter truck with her much heavier vehicle.

The pickup slewed from side to side as the terrorist fought to regain control.

One more oughta do it… Tracy pulled up and rammed the rear bumper just as they were about to head into a turn.

The additional force kept the first truck going in a straight line. It crashed into the desert scrub, destroying trees and brush as it plowed across the land.

While Tracy had hoped to overturn it, she wasn’t about to miss her advantage. Dropping the SWAT truck back into four-wheel drive, she followed the trail of destruction into the plain, scanning the hardpan for any sign of him.

About twenty yards ahead was the pickup truck, its driver’s side facing the front of her truck. Al-Kharzi was trying to get back to the road. Every detail was highlighted as if the truck were parked in daylight, from its dust-caked fenders and windows to the face looking through the window at her.

Tracy grinned and crushed the accelerator to the floor.

She surged ahead, aiming squarely at the midsection of the truck. Frozen between driving away and running, Sepehr made a halfhearted attempt to move the truck out of her path, then ducked out of sight a second before impact.

The big truck slammed into the pickup’s side with a tremendous screech of crumpling metal and broken glass. It sent the smaller vehicle skidding across the ground with enough force to flip it over, crushing the roof of the cab as the truck completed its roll and landed on its side, the undercarriage facing her.