“It protected me. Held me like a baby. I could feel it dying all around me, but it would not let them get me.”
Flynn took his friend by his shoulders. “You got a hell of a lot of guts.”
“Listen,” Miller said.
It was a rushing sound, like a great wind or the long thunder of breaking waves.
“What?” Mac asked.
“I don’t know.”
It was coming from back along the catwalk. Flynn could feel deep trembling.
Flynn went to the end of the platform, followed by the other two men. As they moved toward the door, the entire room seemed to fold in on them. Rolling out from behind them, there came a thick mass of dark blue smoke and a choking odor, sharp and hot, of some unknown fire. Flynn didn’t turn; he didn’t slow down.
Ahead of them, the door began closing automatically. Klaxons started, then emergency lights.
Flynn dived through the door and onto the catwalk above the portal to the jungle world. Mac and the doctor came behind, but the doctor’s shoe got caught as the door slid closed.
He ripped it out, but then fell backwards and off the catwalk.
The portal appeared to be about twenty feet below them, but the doctor did not fall twenty feet. He kept falling and falling, his body twisting, his arms and legs windmilling. As they watched, he grew slowly smaller and smaller, until he was a dot moving across the green of the jungle.
There was a flash of light, and Dr. Miller was much more visible again, lying on the jungle path, one shoe missing, his legs twisted. As they watched transfixed, he shook himself. He stood up. Looked around. His hands went to his head. He understood what had happened to him.
He stood there screaming silently, looking up, his eyes wild with terror, as the portal grayed and went dark. The portal shuddered like the surface of a lake, and then Flynn realized that the whole room was liquefying around them.
They ran, dashing down the catwalk and out into the staging area, stumbling and falling as the pressure door closed behind them.
The elevator was across the room, its forbidding black steel door closed.
“Can we get out of here?”
“I don’t know.”
He went to the elevator and pressed the button. There was a moment’s hesitation, but then it slid open. Before they could board the elevator, Flynn noticed that the Klaxons had stopped. Movement behind him caused him to turn, gun at the ready.
The pressure door was reopening.
“Jesus,” Mac said as they got closer and looked together into the now completely empty space, a large bare room, its floor twenty feet below the doorframe. It was gleaming white, lit from above by rows of ordinary LED panels. There was a faint odor of something that had burned, but a long time ago. Old smoke.
The aliens had withdrawn.
“That poor guy,” Mac said.
Flynn nodded. Dr. Daniel Miller had become the most profoundly lost man in the history of the species.
They got into the waiting elevator and returned to the surface.
The signs on the office doors were now all in English only. Here and there, a white space marked a place where a sign in some alien language had been removed.
Flynn touched a door handle. It was unlocked. He opened the door and stepped into the office of a Dr. William Richards. It was a typical office in a secret lab: There was a heavy-duty file safe, locked. On the desk was an in/out-box, which held some trivial memos about supply issues and a lighting problem. No references to aliens, nothing about what must have been taking place here just this morning.
“The parade’s gone by,” he told Mac. “Let’s get out of here.”
“What about that dog?”
“They’ll be gone, both of them. And the aliens we saw out in the mounds. All gone. This place has been sterilized—and so has the rest of the planet, would be my guess.” He thought of Aeon’s more primitive portal, a massive gravity well out near Saturn. “Probably the whole solar system.”
“And the disk?”
“Morris is still here, you can be sure.”
“Here, in this place?”
“Obviously his crew got here somehow. But he got his nose bloodied tonight, so I’m thinking that he’ll pull back, at least for a time. He’d better—we have exactly two bullets left in the Bull. The Special doesn’t matter, since it’s not accurate enough.”
As they talked, they walked toward the main exit. Outside, the floodlights were off. The gate in the compound’s fence stood open. The dog was nowhere to be seen.
Flynn tried his cell phone, but there was no coverage.
“I guess let’s walk up,” he said.
“Is it safe?”
He looked up at the sky. A late moon had risen, and still hung low in the east. To the south, the faint glow of the Northeastern megalopolis created an illusion of dawn.
“Three thirty,” he said. “Hard to believe we were down there that long.”
They started up the road. Flynn was alert for any movement, any sound, but all was quiet.
The disk rose up from behind a saw grass–covered dune and was on them in an instant.
Flynn threw himself to the ground and rolled off the road, but it was too late. It had been too late since the moment they left the facility.
Morris had really surprised the hell out of Flynn this time. “He got me, Mac. The attack down in the facility was there to put me off my guard.”
He found himself looking up into the center of the disk’s underside, a roiling circle of fire that would soon generate the light that would drag both of them into the hands of somebody who was going to hurt them very badly before killing them.
“Can you see that seam?”
“Man, it’s dark.”
There was a dull booming sound, and the light hit them. They rolled in opposite directions, and the light followed Flynn. As he felt himself rising, he grabbed the Special and thrust it at Mac. “Don’t miss!”
The gun tumbled up into the light and was gone. Flynn felt his body leaving the ground. He yanked out the Bull and made sure it was in Mac’s hand. “Two shots, but get outta this light!”
He rose further, seeking as he did so for his knife—not to defend himself, but to kill himself. His mind flashed regretfully to the cyanide capsules.
The end of the game, and the human side had lost.
What in hell could he expect?
The glowing maw of the thing was just above him now. He spread his arms and legs, and was just able to catch himself on the edges. Immediately, though, he began to slip inside.
A shot rang out. He heard the bullet whine off past his head—passing so close, he could feel its hot slipstream. The fingers on his left hand lost their grip. His arm thrust up into the thing. Hands, cold and strong, grabbed at his wrist, then clutched it.
His right leg went in. It also was grabbed.
“I’m goin’!” he screamed. He who was never scared was scared now—he was scared sick. It was going to end like this for him, in this monstrous machine, being cut to pieces, dying in his own vomit and in agony.
There came a tinkling like the laughter of children, cruel children.
A sharp sound followed, but in the distance. A shot? He was unsure.
There was a rush of air, then a flash of agony. Then there was darkness.
The darkness gathered him into itself. It was nice. It was good and kind and he belonged to it. Then he saw something that at first he didn’t understand: a circle of fire overhead, slowly spinning.
There was a flash like a million suns, which left them both night blind. The flash was followed by a chest-slapping shock.
There was a silence.
“Are we still alive, Flynn?”
“Mac?”
“Are we?”
Flynn realized that he was on the ground, not in the disk. He said, “I’m thinking that we are.” He tested himself, moving first one leg and then the other, then his arms. “I’ve got an issue with my right hip and arm. Mu
st be my landing.”
Mac sat up. “You fell a long way.”
“I’m good at falling. I’ve practiced.”
“The machine worked. I could shoot that fisherman over there right between the eyes.”
Flynn looked around. “We’re in the middle of the island.”
“Look due south. See that little piece of water?”
“No.”
They both got to their feet. “There’s a boat that’s got three guys on it. Two of ’em are asleep, the third one’s got a line in the water.”
They were both hurt bad, which became clear when they began trying to resume their hike up to the main building. They moved along arm in arm, leaning on one another.
“How in hell did I break my leg?”
“What’s that wet stuff? That goo?”
“That’s blood, Mac. You damn well shot yourself.”
“I did not!”
“Yeah, you did. You winged your own leg with the first shot.”
“Aw, shit.”
Lights bore down in their faces, hard, bright rows of them.
“Is it another disk? ’Cause the gun’s empty.”
“It’s the security patrol.”
“Hey, we need help down here!”
A shadow moved out from behind the lights, an unrecognizable silhouette. The hands went up. A voice called out, “Flynn? Flynn Carroll?”
“Diana!”
She came closer, breaking into a run; then she was there before him. She threw her arms around him. He swayed against the weight of her, then inhaled the scent of her, and her sweetness made him dizzy with relief and desire.
“What the hell happened down there? I thought you were being examined by Dr. Miller.”
“Morris got into the facility. Miller was— Oh, Christ, Diana, do you know what was down there?”
“Some advanced machines is what I heard.”
“It’s clean now. You could eat off the floor.”
Diana and a number of the security personnel helped the two of them into the back of two of the carts, and they went together back up to the main building.
“Mac got the disk,” Flynn said on the way.
“The wire is gone. Geri is gone. She left the way she came, from Area Fifty-One.”
“I wonder if she made it.”
Diana didn’t reply, and Flynn didn’t pursue it. There was no reason to speak more about Aeon. The planet had sealed its own fate, and would disappear into the history of the universe.
“Did you get Morris?”
“He wouldn’t have been on the disk, but his assets are gone.”
“Then that’s the best we can hope for. A good result.”
Diana wasn’t happy, and Flynn knew it—and why would she be? Morris was their mission.
As he thought about that, he tried to put himself in Morris’s position, to see matters from his enemy’s viewpoint. He would know exactly why they were here, and how dangerous Mac would be to him if the bioedit was allowed to complete. Thus the logic of sending some of his last few entities into the facility where they would meet certain destruction. They might be destroyed, but so would the bioeditor, hopefully Mac, and ideally Flynn.
Finally, there was the surprise attack with the disk. So Morris wouldn’t be in it. Far too dangerous.
So where would he be?
They arrived at the main building, and Mac was loaded off and carried toward the infirmary. Flynn’s leg injury had flared up and he was hobbling, too, but at least he could walk.
He looked out across the water, a blackness touched here and there by the light of a fishing boat.
He stopped. He thought back. “Diana, where’s the helicopter?”
“Now?”
“Right now.”
“It took off after it dropped me. I guess the traffic director would know.”
“Never mind—is there a boat? A fast one?”
“There are two boats that I know of.”
He ran after Mac. In the infirmary, a sleepy-eyed nurse in a bathrobe was cleaning Mac’s leg wound.
“Can you walk?”
“Can you?”
“Not really.”
“Me neither.”
“We have a chance to get Morris. It’s our last chance, maybe for years, maybe forever.”
“I can walk. In fact, I can run.”
“Same here.”
Mac got up off the table.
“Sir?” the nurse said.
Mac gave her a rictus grin, tight and hard. “I like pain, ma’am. In fact, I enjoy it so much, I’m going out for more. I’ll likely come back later. In a bag.”
Back in the corridor, they were met by a captain who looked like he’d pulled on his uniform over his pajamas.
“This is Captain Gilbertson, island chief of security,” Diana said.
“I want both boats to converge on the south of the island. Make a wide loop, no lights. And I want that chopper called back. What I want it to do is start patrolling the Connecticut shore with its searchlight on.”
“Excuse me, Miss Glass, is this the man you were telling me about?”
Flynn said, “There’s a fishing boat out there with three individuals on it. It’s going to be heading for the Connecticut shore, but slowly. It won’t want to be drawing any attention. That boat is to be taken, and the individuals on it not just shot, but destroyed. Do you understand this? I want their bodies detonated, ripped to pieces.”
The captain’s face had turned to stone. Horror rimmed his eyes. “Shot? Destroyed? What are you saying, here? This sounds highly illegal.”
“Diana, is there anybody on the island who’s on our side of the line?”
“No, there is not.”
“What about Evans and his crew?”
“They’re not cleared for bio.”
Flynn returned to the captain. “Captain, this is a national security matter, and you’re not cleared to know even what you already do. You and your unit are ordered to stand down.”
“On whose authority?”
“Do it, Captain, or you will be in a world of trouble. Trust me.”
“He’s right, Captain,” Diana said. “Just get us the boats.”
“A boat,” Flynn said. “One boat. Your fastest.”
Captain Gilbertson started a call to his superior officer. Flynn took his cell phone from him. “Prepare the boat at once, or you’ll be charged with insubordination, dereliction of duty, and aiding a terrorist in the commission of acts that lead to loss of life. The last charge carries the death penalty, and it will be imposed, I can assure you. Now, get your ass in gear and get that boat prepped, and I want three high-powered rifles, scoped, on it, some flash bombs, and some hand grenades.”
“We don’t have grenades—”
Flynn grabbed Captain Gilbertson by the lapels and went close in. “Don’t lie to me.” He thrust him away so hard, the soldier flew across the corridor and hit the wall with a thud that shook the place. “Do it now!”
Ashen, his hands trembling, Gilbertson pulled himself together and rushed off.
“Let’s move,” Flynn said.
They headed for the island’s small boathouse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
AS FLYNN guided the boat around the island, Mac lay on its long prow, watching the water. The boat was a Donzi, lean and low, powered by a 300hp MerCruiser engine. It was in excellent condition, kept ready for patrol and intercept duty.
Diana was beside Flynn, watching the boat’s radar under a hood made of her coat. No light could be allowed to show, none at all.
As he ran the boat, Flynn kept a careful lookout to the sides and back. His chief worry was that Morris had anticipated this maneuver and was planning to ambush them. Given that he was almost certainly down to his last two entities, he would be desperate. As far as Flynn was concerned, Morris could appear anywhere, anytime—just not with the disk, and thank God for that.
Mac came down. “There’s one fisherman out there with three guys in
it, heading for the Connecticut shore.” He pointed to a faint light. “Two miles out. Moving slow, like they were trolling.”
Diana said, “I see him.”
“We need that chopper,” Flynn commented. He wanted it doing a grid search along the shore, making it appear that the focus of their interest was not on the water itself. Hopefully, this would cause Morris to turn around and head for Long Island. The farther they were from witnesses when what was about to happen went down, the better it would be.
“I’ve got a point-to-point measure on him,” Diana said. “He’s moving at about five knots.”
“Mac, what’s your maximum confident range?”
“Give me a thousand yards.”
“At night? Are you sure?”
“I can count the number of threads in a shoelace.”
Flynn did a quick mental calculation and increased speed to 7.8 knots.
“Keep watching. I’d like a positive ID before we can do this.”
Mac, who had returned to the front of the boat, slid back down again. “You aren’t gonna get positive. Positive is impossible, even for me.”
“What will I get?”
“The best I can offer. But it’s never going to be absolute, not at three thousand feet.”
“Then if we make a mistake, that’s what happens.”
“I’m not a murderer, Flynn.”
“With certain exceptions.”
“Which don’t include innocent civilians.”
“We can’t risk not taking the shot.”
Saying it made him feel kind of sick.
Diana, he noticed, had not protested. She remained huddled under the coat, peering at the radar.
“Diana?”
She came up. “Yes?”
“Did you hear?”
“I heard. They could be innocent bystanders.”
“Let’s hope it’s them,” Flynn said.
“Let’s hope.” She went back under her coat. The faint glow of the radar reappeared around her feet. “They’ve increased speed. By an additional five knots.”
Morris had detected this boat and was testing it. If it increased speed when he did, he would know its intentions. Flynn held steady.
“We’ll be in range shortly,” Diana said.
Flynn’s hand hovered over the throttle. The boat would do thirty knots, easy. All he had to do was push it to the firewall, and they’d leap up on plane. If Morris’s boat was just the little fisherman that it appeared, he wouldn’t be able to get away.