6:49 P.M.
Jada swung the crowbar at the beast’s head, ready to cleave it clean off the man’s shoulders.
After diving into the lake, she remembered Duncan abandoning the tool below after cracking open the satellite’s bulk. She might not be good with a pistol—but from years of racing triathlons, she had stamina and knew how to swim. While crossing the lake, she had taken a few breaths by surfacing on her back, bringing just her lips and nose up enough to get air. Once in position, she dove deep and used the moonlight through the clear water to find and seize her weapon.
Then she swam back, gliding through the shallows, trusting the reflection of starlight on the midnight lake to hide her.
She waited until the man was turned fully away to leap forth and attack. But alerted at the last minute, he shifted enough to take the blow to the crown of his helmet.
Steel rang against steel.
The shock ran up her arm to her shoulder, numbing her fingers enough to lose the crowbar. It clanked against the stone.
Still, the resounding strike dented the man’s helmet and staggered him back. He dropped the sword, weaving on his legs—but unfortunately he kept hold of his pistol.
He raised it to point at her chest and swept his damaged helmet off with his other hand. He cursed at her in his native language, his face as much a mask as before, but now one of fury and vengeance.
He shoved the pistol at her—then winced in shock, dropping heavily and suddenly to his knees.
Behind him, Khaidu held his abandoned sword, bloody after slashing him across the back of the legs, where he had little armor, hamstringing and crippling him.
Jada kicked out with a waterlogged boot and struck the gun from his stunned fingers. The weapon flew and splashed into the water. She then retrieved the crowbar from the ground, and with an uppercut swing, cracked him in the chin. His head flew back—then the rest of his body followed.
He crashed to the stone, knocked cold, bleeding from his legs.
Jada hurried to Khaidu’s side and helped her to her feet.
They weren’t out of danger yet.
6:52 P.M.
As panic slowed time, Duncan ran through molasses. He staggered toward the tableau of Sanjar pierced clean through, of Monk turning too slowly, of Arslan aiming his rifle at his partner’s back.
Underfoot, the rock ran slick with the blood of men and horses. Large panicked bodies shoved around him.
Never make it.
Sanjar slumped to his knees—then glanced up and yelled, “HERU!”
Arslan flinched from that name, dropping back and ducking, raising his rifle in defense against the falcon.
A bird that wasn’t there.
Monk used the shock to swing around, shifting his pistol up.
But Sanjar surged to his feet, dagger in hand, and slammed it to the hilt into Arslan’s neck. The falconer had used the phantom of his own bird to terrorize his cousin, knowing Arslan would react with panic and alarm after his recent mauling.
Sanjar dragged Arslan down, twisting his knife as he did so. Blood poured thickly from Arslan’s mouth and nose, drowning him in racking quakes. As the man finally slumped, his eyes glassy, Sanjar shoved him away—then fell onto his back himself.
A shining dark pool quickly formed under him.
Duncan finally reached the others and slid on his knees to Sanjar’s side. But someone beat him first to the young man.
A shadow of wings swept down, and a sleek form alighted onto his master’s chest. The falcon fluttered and rustled, bending his head down, brushing Sanjar’s chin and cheek.
Hands rose to cradle the bird. Fingers freed the leather jesses from around Heru’s talons. He then brought the falcon to his lips, whispering something into the ruff of feathers.
Done saying good-bye, Sanjar let his head drop back, a shadow of a smile on his lips as he gazed up at the open starry sky. For several breaths, he lay there—then his hands went slack, slipping away, freeing his companion.
Heru leaped forth and sailed high into that same sky.
Sanjar stared upward, but he was already gone, too.
7:10 P.M.
Fear stoked them all to move faster.
Jada had changed into dry clothes and hurriedly secured her pack to her horse, patting the gyroscopic casing inside. So much blood had been lost to secure this piece of the wreckage. She refused to let those sacrifices be in vain.
Poor Sanjar . . .
As she worked, she kept her back to the carnage on the plateau, trying to hold it together. But she could not escape the stink of death. She kept her eyes averted from a body trampled into the rock nearby.
A few minutes ago, she had been relieved to see Duncan climbing over the rockslide, coming to their rescue. He was late, but at least he made up for it by helping her get Khaidu to the other side.
Monk still worked on the girl’s injury. He was plainly a skilled medic, performing a swift triage using the team’s emergency field kit. He had snapped off the steel arrowhead and did the same with the feathered end, leaving the wooden shaft pierced through her abdomen. He plainly feared to extract it. Instead, he had applied a tight belly wrap, working around the broken ends.
“Get ready to move!” Monk called out as he finished patching Khaidu for the ride back to civilization.
Duncan nodded and stepped to his own horse. He had been keeping tabs on the lower forests with a night-vision scope. Other combatants might still be out in the dark woods or reinforcements could be on their way.
But that wasn’t the only fear driving them to hurry.
Howling rose like steam out of the dark woods, growing steadily louder, drawn by the scent of blood and meat.
They dared delay no longer.
Monk passed Khaidu up to Duncan, who cradled the girl across his lap as he sat astride his horse, prepared to carry her down the mountain.
Jada climbed into her saddle. She had her own reason for a hasty flight off this mountain. She rested a palm on the gyroscope’s case. If this hard-won prize held any answers, she needed to get it to safety, back to the States, back to her lab.
And soon.
She would let nothing stop her.
Monk waved an arm and pointed below. “Go!”
7:25 P.M.
Batukhan woke to the sound of thunder.
Dazed, he rolled to a seated position beside the steam-shrouded lake. He frowned at the clear skies.
Not thunder . . .
As his head cleared, he recognized the fading echo of trampling hooves, heading away.
“Wait,” he croaked out, fearing his men were abandoning him.
The single utterance flared pain in his jaw. His fingers rose and found his chin split and bloody. Memory filled in slowly.
Fucking bitch . . .
He rolled to his feet—or tried to. Agony lanced up his legs. He stared down at his blood-soaked limbs, confused by their lack of cooperation. His hands probed the fire behind his knees, discovering deep slashes, the tendons shredded, turning his legs into floundering appendages that refused to hold his weight.
No . . .
He needed to signal his men.
Fools must have left me for dead.
He hauled his leaden bulk toward his fallen horse, dragging his legs, pulling with his arms, each movement a new torment. Sweat pebbled his forehead. Blood dripped from his chin. It felt as if the lower half of his body had been set on fire.
Just need to reach my phone.
Then all would be fine. He could rest until rescue came.
Lifting his head, he spotted a shift of shadows on the far side of the lake, over the top of the rockslide.
Someone was still here.
He raised his arm—then heard the low growls.
More dark shapes flowed over the wall, leaping down.
Wolves.
Primitive terror keened through him.
Not like this.
He rolled toward the edge of the cliff. He would rather die a qui
ck death by his own hand than be torn apart alive. His useless legs still fought his efforts, leaving a trail of blood. Shadows closed toward him, moving so silently for such large beasts.
But at last, he reached the edge and flung himself over, relieved in some small way. Then something snatched his trailing arm, latching hard onto his wrist, piercing flesh and locking onto bone.
Another jaw snatched the leather armor of his forearm, halting his fall. Strong legs and powerful hearts dragged him from the abyss.
More teeth found him, rolling him to his back.
He stared up as the pack leader loomed over his face, lips curled back into a growl, showing sharp teeth, long fangs.
This was no mask.
Here was the true face of Genghis Khan.
Merciless, relentless, indomitable.
Without warning, they tore into him.
24
November 19, 7:52 A.M. EST
Washington, D.C.
On the other side of the globe, Painter stood in his office, staring into space. Literally. The large wall-mounted LCD screen on his back wall displayed a large dark rock against a backdrop of stars. Its surface was pitted and blasted, an old battle-scarred warrior.
“NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii sent us this picture a few minutes ago,” Kat said behind him. “The asteroid’s official designation is 99942, but it goes by the name Apophis. It’s already been pegged as a troublemaker in the past, being the first asteroid to ever have been raised from a one on the Torino impact hazard scale to a two.”
“The Torino scale?”
“It’s a way of categorizing the risk of a near-Earth object striking the planet. A zero meaning no chance. A ten meaning a certain hit.”
“And Apophis was the first asteroid to get upgraded to a two?”
“For a brief time, it climbed all the way to number four, when it was believed it had a one in sixty-two chance of hitting the earth. Its risk factor got lowered after that—that is, until today.”
“What are you hearing out of the SMC in Los Angeles?”
“They’ve been tracking the gravitational anomalies around the comet, extrapolating how it will affect local space, monitoring the largest of the NEOs in the path of the comet. Like Apophis. Right now, if the gravitational effects of the energy field around the comet remain static and don’t change from here, Apophis is still a solid five, pushing it into the threatening level. But if the size of the anomaly continues to grow in proportion to the comet’s approach, the asteroid’s ranking will steadily climb up the Torino scale.”
Painter stared over at her. “How high will it reach?”
“The SMC believes it will reach into the red zone. An eight, nine, or ten.”
“And what’s the difference between those upper levels?”
“The difference from a survivable impact—a number eight—and a planet destroyer.”
“A number ten.”
Kat nodded and pointed to the screen. “Apophis is over three hundred meters wide and lists a mass of forty megatons. That is what is headed toward the East Coast if our extrapolations hold true.”
“But I thought it was determined that a cluster of meteors was destined to strike the Eastern Seaboard, not one big one.”
“The SMC believes Apophis exploded in the upper atmosphere and the pieces peppered across the seaboard. What the satellite showed us was the aftermath of that barrage.”
Painter read the lines in Kat’s face like a map. Something else still had her worried. “What haven’t you told me?”
“The timeline.” Kat turned fully back to him. “The image from the satellite was dated about forty-six hours from now. But like I said, that’s the aftermath. From burn rates, smoke density, and the level of destruction, an engineer at the SMC calculated that the actual time of impact was likely six to eight hours earlier.”
“So we have even less time to stop what’s coming.”
“And not just six to eight hours less.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you that even if we could somehow switch off that comet, Apophis would still be a category five. The field has already shifted its trajectory that much.”
“And turning it off won’t reverse that new path.”
“No.”
Kat looked scared, as she struck for the heart of the matter. “I spoke to the physicist monitoring the gravitational anomalies. He has calculated how long it will take for Apophis to reach a Torino level of eight, passing into that set of rankings that guarantee a planetary collision. Once that point is reached, the asteroid will hit Earth. Whether we turn off that field or not after that, it won’t matter.”
“When will it reach that point of no return?”
Kat eyed him. “In sixteen hours from now.”
Painter leaned back on his desk, finding it harder to breathe.
Sixteen hours . . .
He allowed himself a moment of horror—then forced it back. He had a job to do. He faced Kat, determined and resolute.
“We need Dr. Shaw.”
8:14 P.M. ULAT
Khentii Mountains, Mongolia
After forty-five minutes of hard riding, Jada gladly slipped out of her saddle to the ground. Monk had called for a short rest stop in a small copse of trees in the dark meadow below the mountain. He helped get Khaidu down from Duncan’s lap, where he had cradled her during the ride down the mountain’s flank.
“Ten minutes,” Monk said, moving off with Khaidu to a fallen log to check on her bandages.
Duncan headed back to Jada.
She knelt down and lowered her pack from her shoulders. Flipping back a flap and unzipping it, she reached inside and pulled out the gyroscopic housing unit. Undoing the latch, she opened it. She wanted to make sure her prize was intact after the rough handling of late.
The perfect sphere lay cradled in its housing, catching every bit of starlight, reflecting the sky along its curved surface.
It appeared to be fine, but looks could be deceiving.
She glanced over to Duncan. He must have read her concerned expression and moved his hand over the open casing.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “The energy signature is still strong.”
She sighed in relief.
Monk called over to her, straightening up, apparently satisfied with Khaidu’s wrap. He held up his satellite phone. “I’ve finally got a signal. I’m going to try to reach Sigma command.”
Jada stood up. “I want to speak to Director Crowe, too!”
She needed to set things in motion over at her labs, so everything would be ready as soon as they touched down in California. Even a couple of hours could be the difference between success and failure.
Monk waved her over, but after she took a few steps in his direction, he held up his palm. “Stop! Signal just dropped off.”
Jada glanced down at her hands. She was still holding the gyroscopic case. “Must be the energy field given off by the Eye,” she yelled back to him.
“Leave it there then,” Monk ordered.
Jada turned, searching around. She didn’t want to abandon it on the ground.
Duncan came over, wearing a hangdog look, and held out his hands. “I’ll take it and move off. I suspect the farther away I am, the stronger your reception will be.”
“You’re probably right.”
Duncan took the prize with his sensitive fingers as if accepting the gift of a cobra. “Find out what’s going on,” he urged her and strode off toward the open meadow.
Free of the burden, Jada hurried to Monk’s side. He already had Painter on the line and spoke in a terse fashion, quickly and efficiently describing all that had happened. Monk had clearly done such a debriefing many times, turning bloodshed and mayhem into clean, precise facts.
Once done, Monk handed over the phone. “Seems someone is anxious to speak to you.”
Jada raised it to her ear. “Director Crowe?”
“Monk told me you recovered the gyroscopic co
re of the satellite and that it’s charged with a strange power source.”
“I believe it’s the same energy as the comet, but I can’t say for certain without reaching my lab at the SMC.”
“Monk informed me of your plans. I agree with you. Kat will expedite a fast evacuation and get you to California as quickly as possible. But I wanted to inform you about what has transpired during your absence.”
He then told her everything, none of it good news.
“Sixteen hours?” she said with dismay as he finished. “It’ll take us at least two hours just to get back to Ulan Bator.”
“I’ll tell Monk to head straight for the airport. There will be a jet fueled and waiting for you and that Eye.”
“Could someone also transmit the latest data from the SMC to my laptop? I want to review everything en route to California. Also I’ll need a secure channel to speak to personnel out there while I’m flying.”
“It’ll be done.”
She detailed her final preparations and passed the phone back to Monk, leaving him to work out the logistics.
Jada stepped away, hugging her arms around herself, chilled and scared. She stared up at the blaze of the comet across the night sky.
Sixteen hours.
It was a frightening, impossible time frame.
Still, a deeper terror settled through her, born of a nagging sense that she was still missing something important.
8:44 P.M.
Duncan stood at the edge of the meadow, trying to hold the gyroscopic case between his palms, keeping his fingertips away from its surface. Still, that dark electric field pushed against him, pulsing very faintly with tiny waves, giving off that feeling of holding something with a beating heart.
He shivered—but not from the cold.
Gooseflesh covered his arms.
C’mon already, guys, he thought as he listened to Monk murmuring over the satellite phone, likely making plans to leave here.
He was more than happy about that.
And getting rid of this thing.
Trying to shake the nervous feeling, he paced along the edge of the forest. His toe hit a root poking out of the soil. He stumbled a few steps, feeling stupid—until something worse happened.