Frantic with fear, Jake complied.
The crop duster swooped low over the All-American Clambake.
Chapter 28
The crowd had gone quiet as four of Pierce’s goons climbed onto the stage and began to advance menacingly on hip-hop’s biggest star.
Jonah still had the microphone. “What’s the matter, fellas? Has the Wiz used up his ninety seconds?” He began to back away, but his shoe caught on an electrical cable, and he went down flat on his back. It was there, staring straight up, waiting for his field of vision to fill with enemies, that he spied the biplane. An instant later, he noticed it — a fine, cold mist descending in clouds on everything and everybody. Nothing had ever felt better. “Yo, people, is it just me or is it raining?”
The effect on the goons was instantaneous. The four dropped to their knees, doubled over in pain. All throughout the crowd, members of the serum-enhanced Pierce team twisted in discomfort as they breathed in the aerosolized formula that was misting down on them. In the family box, Debi Ann was the only Pierce still upright. Cara, Galt, and their father were in the throes of agony as the antidote attacked the serum in their bodies.
Throughout the crowd, a wave of confusion was cresting into hysteria. People could feel the atomized liquid coming down, could even see the clouds of vapor spewing from the wings of the plane. What was being dropped on them? Were they being poisoned? Chaos broke out across the lawns and beach as fearful spectators tried to run away, but were hemmed in by the dense crowd around them. Screams resounded. There was a stampede into the ocean as people tried to cleanse themselves of whatever it was that had rained down from the sky. And all of it was being televised and broadcast around the world by equally shocked and fearful TV reporters.
In the family box, Pierce picked himself up and gazed out over his ruined clambake. The seizure was over, but he could feel the physical reaction still churning through his body. He knew with absolute certainty what it was. Loss. Weakness. Limitation. His serum-enhanced powers were deserting him.
Those Cahill brats — Hope’s children — had done it. They had perfected the antidote and found a way to deliver it. His eyes turned skyward to the crop duster, which was making a second pass. Worse, they had accomplished this while the eyes of the entire planet were upon him.
Well, it wouldn’t work. He still had a small stockpile. He’d find another lab and replicate it! This was nothing more than a temporary setback. He was J. Rutherford Pierce, media tycoon and front-runner for the presidency!
He ran out onto the stage, somewhat disturbed that his stride wasn’t quite as masterful as it had been a few scant minutes before. Snatching up the microphone from where Jonah had dropped it, he called, “Calm down, everybody!” Even his voice wasn’t as commanding as before. “Nothing to worry about! That is just somebody’s idea of a bad joke! The clambake’s still on!”
It did little to restore order.
Pierce tried a different tack. “You came here to see our country take the first step on the road back to greatness. It all starts with an important announcement. Well, I’m ready to make that announcement right now!”
He looked out over the turbulent crowd. Pandemonium reigned. People were running for cover, under trees, under tables and chairs. There were fistfights over tablecloths that could be used for protection. A huge migration was in progress toward the marina, where the waiting boats bobbed. Choosing the next president was no longer high on the list of priorities.
And in the midst of this debacle, the last person he wanted to deal with came up to embrace him.
“Rutherford — you poor dear!” Debi Ann blubbered to her husband. “It’s all ruined! What are we going to do with a hundred thousand clams?”
He was instantly enraged. Even in the middle of a disaster of colossal proportions, leave it to his useless, dizzy wife to seize on the only part didn’t really matter. “The clams?” he roared. “I’ll tell you what we can do with the clams! I’m going to shove them, one by one, up your nose into your empty head! Shells on!” He pushed her away with such force that she fell to the stage.
Lying flat on her back, she grinned up at him with such diabolical glee that it left no doubt she’d provoked him on purpose. Heart sinking, he turned to face the news cameras. Every single one showed a red light. His bullying of his wife had been broadcast around the world.
The American people tolerated a lot from their leaders, but never would they vote for a man who was low enough to mistreat his wife. Pierce would never be president. He’d be lucky to get elected dogcatcher.
Debi Ann laughed a cruel laugh. “This is for Letitia Tyler!”
Jonah Wizard reached down and helped her to her feet.
She smiled at him. “Thank you, Jonah.”
“No problem, yo.”
The words had barely left Jonah’s lips when he spied a furious Galt bearing down on him like a charging rhino.
The crop duster lurched as the last of the antidote misted down over Pierce Landing and the wind-driven spray mechanism shut itself off.
In the cockpit, Amy was still slumped in the pilot’s seat, unable to move her arms or legs. Jake was crammed into the tiny space between the chairs, leaning half around and half over her to reach the controls. But nothing could spoil the sense of triumph in the biplane. They had dispersed their payload over the clambake. From the sky they had no way of knowing what effect the antidote was having. But the turmoil down there was evident, with waves of people running in all directions.
“You did it, Amy!” Jake’s voice was husky with emotion.
“You did it,” Amy amended.
“All I did was exactly what you told me. Without you, it never could have happened. And I’m not just talking about today. All this impossible stuff lands in your lap, and somehow, you get it done. There’s no one like you, Amy Cahill. . . .”
Suddenly, Jake was overwhelmed by a feeling that he was talking to himself. “Amy?”
He leaned forward and twisted to get a look at her. Her eyes were closed; she was deeply unconscious. Faint breath was coming from her nostrils, but that was as much life as he could find.
Oh, no! Amy — no!
He’d known this moment would be coming, but nothing could have prepared Jake for the jolt of fear that tore through him.
The drive to save her overcame every urgency, even the need to fly the plane. He propped Amy’s limp body against the yoke in an attempt to keep the crop duster’s altitude steady. Then he scrambled behind the seats in a frantic search for the syringe she had knocked out of his hand.
For a shattering instant, it was nowhere. Then he spied it, wedged between the base of the pilot’s chair and a fire extinguisher. He snatched it up, jammed the needle into her upper arm, and pressed the plunger, draining the contents into the muscle tissue.
“Wake up, Amy!”
There was no response.
“Come on! Stay with me!” He shook her, but she was dead weight.
He was so wrapped up in the drama that it took a moment for him to notice that the cockpit had tilted forward. With strength he didn’t even know he had, he heaved Amy into the passenger seat and took her place at the controls. As he had seen her do, he pulled back on the yoke in a last-ditch attempt to stabilize the plane.
“Up! Up!” he screamed at the whirling propeller in front of him.
Icy fear clutched at his belly as he realized that the crop duster was going to crash.
Chapter 29
All Jonah could do was cover his famous face and prepare for the onslaught of Galt’s rage.
A large figure swung down from the catwalk above, riding on a bundle of electrical cables. Hamilton Holt took out Galt with a flying double-kick, knocking him across the platform and over the apron. Galt landed in the first row of seats, dazed.
Jonah looked on in admiration. “Cuz — that was OG!”
“Cara!” Ian made his way to the Pierce box, where Cara was holding on to the arms of her chair, trying hard not to slide off to the floor. “Are you all right?”
She nodded bravely, but her expression was pained. “I didn’t think it was going to be so hard,” she said faintly. “I’ve been off the protein shakes for a week.”
He helped her out of the box to where Dan had joined Hamilton and Jonah.
Pierce took in the spectacle of his strong and brilliant daughter standing with the hated Cahills. His mind wasn’t as sharp as it had been before the antidote, but this wasn’t difficult to figure out.
“Traitor!” he roared, and she flinched in spite of the fact that she knew she was safe.
Dan rubbed his stomach, smiling sweetly. “Are those clams ready yet? I’m starved.”
“Cahill punk!” Pierce spat. “You think you’ve won? All you’ve done is bust up a beach party!”
“You can’t touch us now,” Dan retorted. “Not with the whole world watching!”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Pierce seethed. “You and your cousins are like ants — I can stomp you out at my leisure. The kind of mayhem I can unleash is beyond anything your puny mind can imagine. And then the American people will see how much they need J. Rutherford Pierce!”
Cara understood even better than the others that her father did not bluff. “What does that mean?”
The line of inquiry never got further than that. The goons who had rushed Jonah had recovered, and one of them had a headlock on Hamilton. But these were no longer the serum-enhanced henchmen who’d been training on “protein shakes.” They were ordinary bodyguards now, and not even that, as their systems were shocked and weakened by the antidote. Hamilton shrugged the first man away and flattened a second with an open hand to the chin. The third reached for Dan, who danced deftly out of range and then stomped so hard on the man’s foot that he doubled over in surprise and pain. The last made a run at Cara. Ian, who considered American football uncivilized, knocked the man’s legs out from under him with a tackle that could have starred in an NFL training film.
“Where’s Pierce?” Dan called, scanning the riot that roiled all around them.
“There!” Hamilton pointed. The would-be president was scurrying away from the ruins of the clambake in the direction of the mansion.
“Follow him!” Cara exclaimed. “Last night he was talking about big things in small packages. I’ve got a really bad feeling about what that might mean.”
Without Amy to instruct him, Jake’s pilot skills amounted to zero. The only thing he knew, by instinct alone, was to try to keep the biplane’s nose up. If they went into a straight dive, they would be killed on impact. But if they could come in flat — skim the waves and then belly flop — they might have a chance.
His muscles screamed in pain from the effort of pulling back on the yoke.
He gave the unconscious Amy a play-by-play. “We’re coming in hard, so if you’re considering waking up, now would be a great time!”
Why hadn’t she responded to the antidote? The growing lump in his throat told him there was only one reasonable explanation — that he’d given her the injection too late, and he was talking to a dead girl.
The water was no more than twenty feet below him. He had lost track of the island and couldn’t break his concentration by looking for it. He hoped the mission had been successful, but right now the only mission of any consequence was staying alive.
A sudden downdraft brought them within ten feet. Or less! That sound — was it the landing gear splashing in the swells?
The impact, when it came, was monumental. It felt more like bouncing off concrete than a soft landing on water. On the recoil, Jake’s head whacked against the instrument panel. His vision began to darken.
No! he thought, and bit his tongue until it bled just to keep himself awake. If he allowed himself to black out, they would both surely drown.
The biplane jounced across the water as if a giant had skipped it like a stone. The propeller stopped spinning and snapped. The wings sheared free of the fuselage, the pilot’s-side door tore away, and the ocean came pouring in on them. One moment they were hanging precariously still afloat; the next they were going down fast.
The water was ice cold. Jake’s pulse raced, which made holding his breath nearly impossible. But he knew he had to get Amy out of the sinking crop duster. He grabbed her around the midsection and wrestled the two of them free of the cockpit.
In horrified dismay, Jake felt her limp body slip from his grasp. He dove after her, reaching frantically.
His fingers brushed against something solid. Driftwood? A fish?
No — human skin!
He clamped hold of Amy’s wrist and pulled for the surface, kicking with an effort that was nothing short of maniacal. They broke through into the sunshine, and he drew in great gulps of air. Amy gurgled and coughed up water, but did not regain consciousness.
Turning amid the swells, he scanned the horizon. Hope drained from him when he located Pierce Landing. It had to be a mile away, probably more. He wasn’t sure he could swim that far himself, much less towing an unconscious girl.
He was treading water, supporting Amy Red Cross–style, when something big bumped him from behind. His mind reeled with images from Jaws — could a shark add anything to the disaster that had already befallen them? But when he confronted his attacker with nothing more than one fist to fight with, he found himself facing the crop duster’s large payload tank.
It must have broken free when the fuselage came apart, Jake thought in wonder. The plane sank, but the empty tank floated to the surface!
However it had happened, he was grateful. He draped Amy across the top of the dull metal. It bobbed a little and stabilized.
He established a solid handhold, pried off his shoes, and began to kick for shore.
Chapter 30
Cara threw open the door of the residence, ushering Ian, Hamilton, Jonah, and Dan ahead of her. “Dad!” she exclaimed. “Where are you, Dad?”
There was no reply. The mansion echoed like a barn.
“He’s in here somewhere,” said Hamilton. “How hard can it be to find him?”
Jonah looked around. “I knew a record producer with a crib this big. His kid’s pet rabbit got loose, and it took three months to track it down.”
“Let’s split up and search the house,” said Ian.
“But watch yourselves,” Cara added. “All his plans are coming apart, and we already know he’s not afraid to kill!”
That was when Dan saw it — a strip of light beneath a closed door in the hallway that led out to the garden and the pool. “What’s in there?” he asked Cara in a low voice.
“Sauna and Jacuzzi,” she replied.
Dan marched up and tried the knob. It was locked.
“Come on, Dad. Let us in,” Cara called.
No answer.
“I got this!” Hamilton took a running start and plowed shoulder-first into the door. He bounced away as if he’d hit solid rock.
“Back off, everybody.” Cara pulled a bobby pin out of her long blond hair, twisted it straight, and inserted it into the lock. “Be careful. He could be armed.” After a few seconds of probing, there was a click and the door swung wide.
Ian tried to move protectively in front of her, but she brushed him aside. “I’m going first. He’s my father.”
Whatever defensive moves or counterattacks they feared, no one expected what they encountered inside the sauna room. J. Rutherford Pierce sat alone on the edge of the marble hot tub. He seemed not to notice them, so focused was he on the tablet computer resting on his knees.
“What are you doing, Dad?” she asked in a voice that was not unkind and even betrayed some regret.
“Don’t call me that. You’re not my daughter. You think you’ve stopped me? I’m alrea
dy on my way back to what I used to be. I had the first shake a minute ago!”
Cara shook her head almost apologetically. “Ovaltine. The serum’s gone, Dad. I spilled it into the Atlantic last night. Yours, the staff’s — every drop.”
His eyes bulged. “You were going to live in the White House. You would have been my most trusted adviser. My heir.”
Her face, fair like his, radiated sincerity. “I couldn’t let you do it. One day you’re going to look back and see what a crazy, twisted plot this was — with that awful serum at the heart of it.”
Pierce’s face twisted into a cruel scowl. “My plan will still come to pass, I promise you that. Maybe I won’t win this election, thanks to your meddling. But there are other ways to show the American people that they need me!”
“You’re bluffing!” Dan accused.
“We’ll know in” — he consulted the tablet in his lap — “seven minutes.”
A tense quiet descended. What was he talking about?
Cara had gone ghostly white. “The ‘big things in small packages’?” she prompted in a small voice.
Some of the glow returned to Pierce’s cheeks. “It was originally part of my campaign strategy, but it’s even more perfect now that the clambake has fallen apart. I’ve got six small nuclear devices hidden in suitcases planted in cities around the world. When they go off, half the planet will be at each other’s throats. Americans will forget about today and beg me to lead them through the perilous times ahead.”
“Nuclear?” Dan was horrified. “You’re going to kill millions to help make you president?”
“Just thousands,” Pierce amended. “The nukes are small. The body count isn’t what’s important; it’s the unrest that’s created when all these foreigners start blaming each other.”