Supercritical Page 7

  “Copy, boss,” he heard Bryce answer through the headset.

  “Get those miniguns ready to fire. We’re going to try and help out some Marines on the way. Hale, can you put me on with them?”

  “You’re on, sir.”

  “Fox Co, 2-6 MEU, do you copy?” Nick said.

  “This is Fox Co! We copy!” It was the same voice from earlier, but sounded even more panicked now.

  “This is 4-7 Echo. We’re going to be flying by you in —” Nick looked to his left and saw Hale hold up three fingers, “—zero-three minutes. We can’t stop and render aid, but we’re going to try to make a run on your adversary.”

  “Roger that, 4-7. I’m having one of my guys throw an infared strobe to mark the target. Estimate more than fifty ground troops and at least some light armor.”

  “Copy that. Hang tight, 2-6.”

  Nick pulled off his headphones and jogged to the back of the chopper.

  “TotalVis goggles on infrared, guys. Targets will be marked,” he told his people. “Don’t wait for an order, just fire if you see them.”

  Bryce and Peter slipped on their goggles and readied their miniguns. Less than a minute later, Peter started firing. A few seconds after that, so did Bryce. The noise was intense, and Nick couldn’t hear anything over his headphones. He slipped on his TotalVis goggles, switching to night-vision.

  What he saw shocked him. The Black Hawk was flying low, maybe twenty-five feet off the ground. As he looked out the doors, he could see Renegade troops on either side of the chopper—Hale was flying directly through the center of them. A bullet zinged right next to Nick’s head, slamming into the Black Hawk’s ceiling.

  “Everyone on the floor!” Nick yelled, and his people flattened themselves to the deck, all except for Bryce and Peter, who kept firing.

  Nick looked up to see Mary’s face right next to his.

  “We safe on the floor, Nick?” she asked, yelling over the high-pitched whine of the electronic miniguns.

  Nick pounded the floor with his palm.

  “Kevlar!” he yelled back.

  She nodded and pressed her body flat against the floor.

  Less than a minute later, Bryce and Peter stopped firing. Nick could hear through his headphones again, though there was a low-level ringing in his ears to remind him just how loud the miniguns were.

  “We’re clear, Lieutenant. Continuing to objective,” Hale told him.

  “We take any damage?”

  “Scratched the paint a little. Everything reads green up here. Transferring a call back to you now.”

  “4-7 Echo, this is Fox Co, 2-6 MEU,” the voice buzzed in his ears. It was the same voice, but calmer now.

  “4-7. We copy,” Nick said.

  “Thanks for the assist, 4-7. And tell your pilot he is one crazy motherfucker. Most of the hostiles are down. We can mop up the rest.”

  “Roger that. Glad to help,” Nick said.

  As Nick pulled himself up onto one of the bench seats, he noticed his right hand was shaking. His stomach felt light and full of acid. Adrenaline, he realized. In addition to the stress of the New York announcement, his body was now letting him know he was also terrified. Jesus. That was nuts.

  “Nice flying, Chief,” he said into his headset, trying to keep his voice steady.

  “It’s what they pay me for,” Hale responded. His voice was flat, a monotone.

  * * *

  By the time they made it to Research Station Tiger, their miniguns were almost out of ammo. They’d come across two more ground units of Russian Renegades, and Bryce had managed to shoot down a Chinese helicopter. They’d taken a few more hits, but Hale assured him the chopper was fine.

  “Arriving at the coordinates now, Lieutenant,” Hale told him as the helicopter hovered fifty feet off the ground.

  “Thanks, Chief,” Nick said. “All right. Chris, Briggs, with me. The rest of you, keep your eyes open and cover us.”

  Nick threw three high-tensile nylon ropes out of the chopper and tested them with his right arm. All seemed securely tied off, so he put on a pair of Kevlar gloves.

  “Um…I really don’t know how to, you know,” Christopher said, making a vague downward motion with his hands.

  “You’ve never done a fast-rope?” Briggs asked. “I do ’em all the time. Simple. Grab the rope with both hands and slide down. Your gloves’ll probably burn up, but them’s the breaks—your hands’ll be okay. Just make sure you look down and tighten up your grip as much as you can just before you hit the ground.”

  “You done this before, Nick?” Christopher asked.

  “Once, out of a treehouse when I was five,” Nick said. “You’ll be fine. I’ll go first. You can go after me. Briggs can bring up the rear.”

  “Well, at least I’ll have someone to land on,” Christopher mumbled as he put on his gloves.

  “In position!” Hale yelled.

  Nick jumped out of the side of the chopper and grabbed his rope. Briggs was right—he could feel heat from the friction of the rope through his gloves. Just as his hands started to hurt, he tightened up his grip, and his boots hit the ground. He quickly moved a few feet away from the rope, raising his M4.

  “Fuck!” he heard Christopher yell as the younger man hit the ground.

  “You okay?” Nick asked.

  “Yeah. Think I twisted my ankle. I’m fine.”

  “Move away from the ropes, unless you want Briggs to land on you.”

  Through the night-vision mode on his TotalVis goggles, Nick saw Christopher back up several feet. Briggs landed softly a few seconds later, bringing up his M4 in one swift movement.

  “Uh, I don’t want to call our pilot’s navigational skills into question, but there’s nothing here,” Christopher said, looking around.

  Nick kicked at a large rock in the seemingly empty field they found themselves in. He tapped a few commands into the screen on his sleeve. The rock slid to one side. Underneath was a metal hatch.

  “What? Did you expect a flashing neon ‘Secret Base’ sign?” Nick asked, tapping a few more commands into his sleeve.

  The hatch slid open, and Nick led his men inside.

  Chapter Nine

  God Bows to Math

  “Dead soldier,” Christopher whispered. They were the first words spoken inside the Research Station.

  There were no lights on in the long hallway just off the main hatch, which made the night-vision goggles a necessity. It was almost silent in the corridor, so Christopher’s two words sounded much louder than they actually were.

  Nick took two steps forward to catch up with his second in command and looked where Christopher pointed. The soldier was young, probably not even twenty. He was dressed in BDUs with no markings. Special Forces of some stripe, Nick thought. The lack of markings was a dead giveaway. He’d been shot in the neck, his blood pooling on the floor next to him.

  “He’s cold. Probably been dead a couple of hours,” Briggs said, kneeling next to the body. He reached inside the man’s BDU jacket and felt around. “No dog tags.”

  “Weapons? Radio?” Nick asked.

  “Nothing. Stripped clean.”

  Nick checked the map on his sleeve. There were four main rooms in the complex, two on each side of the long hall, plus two small rooms at the end that the map identified as living quarters.

  “One room at a time, and let’s keep as quiet as possible. Whoever shot this poor kid might still be here,” Nick whispered.

  Christopher nodded and raised his M4, slowly creeping toward the first door on his left. He tried the handle. It was unlocked, and he carefully opened the heavy steel door. Nick crouched at the right side of the door, covering the room’s left side as he crept in. Nick shivered a bit, but it wasn’t at all cold in the facility. Briggs covered the right. Christopher came in last, sweeping around the room with the barrel of his rifle.

  “Clear,” he whispered.

  The room looked like a large laboratory, full of computers and workstations. Ther
e was no light in this room, either, but a quick walk around found no one, alive or dead.

  They searched the next three labs and both living areas and came up empty. They did, however, find more bodies. Just like the kid in the hall, they wore unmarked BDUs and were stripped of all their gear. Under one soldier’s body, however, they found a hand radio set to an encrypted channel.

  Nick picked up the radio and toggled it.

  “Dr. Eaton, if you’re within radio range, please respond. This is Lieutenant Nick Morrow, 4-7 Echo SRF.”

  “This is Eaton. That you banging around out there, Lieutenant?” the response came back almost instantly.

  “Um, yeah. Where are you, Doctor?”

  “One second.”

  Out of the corner of his right eye, Nick saw movement. He jerked his head to the right and saw the wall next to him slide away.

  A large man fell out of a small alcove behind the panel, hitting the metal floor with a solid thud.

  “Dr. Hank Eaton, at your service,” he said, waving awkwardly as he tried to pick himself up.

  “Easy, there, Doctor. Looks like you’ve been shot,” Briggs said, rushing to the downed man.

  “No shit. You must be the smart one. Took one in the knee before Richards chucked me in the panic closet, there,” Eaton, said, waving one massive hand at the open alcove behind him.

  Nick looked the doctor over as Briggs bandaged his right knee. The guy looked like a bodybuilder, not a mathematician. He was dressed in plain black BDUs and had a small pack strapped on his back.

  “What happened here?” Nick asked.

  “Soldiers. North Korean, I think. They came in and started shooting up everything. No idea how they found us—we’ve been on-site for almost a year without the slightest problem. Maybe they found a way to track our Razor under stealth.”

  “You have a Razor here?” Christopher asked.

  “Had one. They killed the shit out of it. Wreckage is probably a mile away. Wilkins and Cohen were just coming back from assignment. Without them, we would’ve never known the North Koreans or whoever were coming.”

  “All right. Let’s get you on your feet, Doctor. Your knee’s going to hurt like a son of a bitch, but we should be able to get you up to the chopper,” Briggs said, trying and failing to lift the large man to his feet.

  Nick reached down and helped, but Eaton was heavy. Finally, between Briggs, Nick and Christopher, they managed to get him to his feet. He was taller than any of them, and Nick estimated his weight as north of three hundred pounds.

  “You sure don’t look like a math geek,” Nick said.

  “Yeah, and you don’t look like an American. You look like one of the motherfuckers who shot up this place,” Eaton spat.

  Nick resisted the urge to drive a fist into the scientist’s face, though he realized neither Briggs or Christopher would probably stop him if he did.

  “Hey, Doctor. Calm down before I put you down,” Christopher growled.

  Eaton glared at Christopher but said nothing for several seconds.

  “So, we getting out of here, or what?” Eaton finally asked.

  * * *

  Eaton started firing orders around the Black Hawk almost as soon as he got strapped into the copilot’s seat.

  “I’m putting a course up on this netbook, flyboy,” he told Hale. “Follow it exactly.”

  “No offense, sir, but just who the fuck are you?”

  “I’m the guy who’s smarter than everyone on this bucket combined. Look at the screen—you’ll see it gets us to Firebase Zulu. I don’t have time to explain it to you, but if you follow this course, and I mean exactly, your chances of encountering hostiles are near zero.”

  “Lieutenant?” Hale asked as the chopper lifted off.

  “If it’ll shut him up, sure,” Nick told him.

  He’d known Eaton all of ten minutes—the seven it took to get him out of the research station, the one it took for Hale to land the chopper, and the two it had taken to get him loaded up and strapped in—and he already wanted to punch the guy right in the testicles. Nick sighed and strapped himself in as the chopper started to move forward.

  Christopher motioned for Nick to take off his headset then leaned in close.

  “What the fuck is with that guy?”

  “No idea. Nothing in my mission profile said anything about the guy being an asshole,” Nick said. “In fact, all it had was his name and a picture.”

  “I think I can help there,” Mary said as she sat down next to Nick and opened her netbook. She typed furiously for a few minutes.

  “What are you up to?” Nick asked.

  “Oh. Sorry. Forgot to talk again, didn’t I? Um, homeboy up in the passenger seat isn’t too good with data security,” she said, waving a hand in Eaton’s general direction and smiling. “That netbook he put up in the cockpit? I’ve broken into it. Seeing what I can figure out about him.”

  “What have you got so far?” Christopher asked.

  “Well, he’s not married. No girlfriend. No surprise there, really, as charming as he is. Ah. Here.”

  Mary turned the netbook screen to face Nick, and he saw a short dossier. He recognized the format immediately.

  “Fuck. He’s a convict?” Nick said, shaking his head.

  “Yeah. Apparently tried to manipulate the stock market. Almost got away with it, too. His CU-ASVAB tests off the charts for math, though. He is, like he keeps saying, actually pretty brilliant.”

  “Any clue as to what he was working on?” Nick asked.

  “There’re a lot of equations on his machine. Some next-level programs. It’ll take a while, but I can probably copy them and figure out what they do.”

  “Do it.”

  “Might need Martin to help me out with some of the higher math. I mean, I’m good, but he’s better.”

  “We should be back at Zulu in a couple of hours. I’m sure he’ll be happy to lend a hand.”

  “Wait a second. One of these programs—it’s running right now. It’s mapping out the course as we fly,” Mary said.

  “Will that stop you from copying it?”

  “Shouldn’t.”

  “Okay. Let me know what you figure out.”

  The rest of the flight was, as Eaton promised, uneventful. After the past couple of hours, it almost seemed boring. That gave Nick’s mind time to wander and, of course, it decided to wander back to New York. He was almost sure now that Stan’s trip was this week, but had he already left Los Angeles and arrived in New York City before the attack? His brain spun around in maddening circles, and he suddenly wished they were being shot at again. At least that would give him something to do.

  Nick wondered how Stan’s wife and kids were handling the New York situation. Even if Stan was safe, even if they’d heard from him, how could they explain it to his niece, Lia? She was only five. If you hadn’t decided to join the Marines after your acquittal, you could be there right now, an annoying part of his brain told him.

  As they approached Firebase Zulu, Nick saw a crew of men in BDUs repairing a large hole in the front razor-wire barricades. Nick wondered if the rest of his friends were all right, if the base had taken many casualties in the attack. Hale landed the Black Hawk, and two Army Ranger medics ran out to help Eaton out of the chopper. Mary shot Nick a look as they hopped out of the chopper, and he knew she’d pulled everything useful off of Eaton’s computer. They’d have time to look at it soon, hopefully.

  “Hey! Careful with that leg! And get me to a fucking doctor!” Nick heard Eaton yell as he and his crew headed for their bunkhouse.

  * * *

  “Lieutenant Morrow. Eventful day?” Colonel Ross asked as Nick walked into his office.

  “You could say that, sir. Dr. Eaton’s secure. He’s in the infirmary now.”

  “Good work. I’m sure you’re wondering about the New York situation. Have a seat.”

  Nick sat in one of the chairs across from Ross’ desk. The Colonel poured two mugs of coffee and set one in f
ront of Nick.

  “All right. Here’s what we know. The Chinese military modified an Airbus to act as a bomber. They then cloned a transponder from a Lufthansa plane en route to New York and shot it down over the Atlantic. Air Traffic Control didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, so they let the flight approach the city. It dropped thirty canisters of Soman—that’s one of the nastier chemical weapons—then turned around and hightailed it out of there. Air Force shot ’em down a few minutes later, but the damage was done.”

  “How many?”

  “More than ten million. Dead within minutes. Might as well have nuked the place,” Ross said, shaking his head. Nick couldn’t remember ever seeing more than one facial expression out of the colonel, but he saw one for just a second. Ross’ mask slipped, and Nick saw his eyes shine and his face slacken. A moment later, Ross looked like himself again—the emotion was gone.

  “Civilian communication lines with the States are still jammed, so if any of your people are wondering—no, we can’t have them contact any affected family yet.”

  Dammit, Nick thought. He had an image in his mind of his nephew, Cedric, and couldn’t shake the thought that the boy was the same age now as Nick had been when he’d lost his own father to war. And it wouldn’t be just Cedric, either—millions of kids had lost their fathers today, their mothers. Millions of kids were gone, too, never to have the chance to be fathers or mothers. His stomach flipped on him then, and he had to swallow hard before speaking.

  “And that was combined with the attacks today?” he asked.

  “Correct. My feeling is they wanted to try to end the war in one move, but we got lucky. Remember Lieutenant Nathan? Backed you up on the Pyongyang mission?” Ross continued.

  Nick nodded.

  “He and his men were at the forward observation post they set up back then. Let us know about a massive movement across the North Korean border. We got our planes up in time to stop the majority of the Chinese and North Korean forces from getting through to us. Turned most of them back before they crossed our lines. A lot of the damage today was done by Renegade Russian elements already in the country. Our casualties…well, the numbers aren’t good, but they could have been worse.”