Flood Rising (Jenna Flood #1)

“No!” Jarrod’s shout was punctuated by a dull thud.

Jenna tore her eyes away from the bloody stain on the immaculate white rail and looked up to see Jarrod on the upper landing. His face, so like her own, was twisted with grief and rage, but when he met Jenna’s eyes, the emotions hardened into deadly resolve. With agonizing deliberateness, he reached under his jacket and drew a gun.

The sight of the pistol broke Jenna out of her paralysis, and she lurched into motion. Passing the red streaks that marked the spot where her sister had fallen, she headed down the stairs. A bullet struck the rail in front of her, throwing up a shower of yellow sparks. Jenna kept going, one hand resting on the rail, the other clutching the computer. Her feet tapped out a quick staccato rhythm, but she took the steps cautiously, one at a time, resisting the urge to bound as Sophia had done. A fall now would be disastrous. Jarrod held his fire, and Jenna knew without looking that he was giving chase. Even if he didn’t need the laptop, he would want revenge.

Before she could reach the lower landing, she felt the vibrations of Jarrod’s feet on the flight above her.

“Jenna! Stop! I will shoot you!”

She ignored the threat, reached the landing and pivoted onto the final staircase. Sophia lay at the base of the stairs, unmoving, like so much roadkill. Jenna felt a pang of self-loathing as she leapt from the penultimate step, vaulting over the body. The welcome solidity of the desert floor beneath her feet gave her the impetus to push on.

The Jeep was just twenty yards away, but as she turned toward it, Jarrod’s pistol barked again. Bullets peppered the dirt in her path, too close for comfort, and she peeled off, seeking refuge beneath the dish.

Jarrod wasn’t going to let her reach the Jeep. But the track maintenance truck was a lot closer.

Jarrod fired again as soon as she broke from cover, but he had not yet divined her intention. The shot sent up a spray of dust that would have been directly in her path if she had run for the Jeep. Before he could correct his aim, she reached the truck and slid inside.

The keys were in the ignition. That was the good news. The bad news was that the truck was facing the base of the antenna and there was no way to turn it around. Jenna started the engine, threw the transmission into ‘reverse’ and glanced out the window toward Jarrod.

He strode toward her, eyes calculating, weapon aimed, ready to kill. Behind him, the dish loomed massive, blotting out the solid blue sky—but not all of it. What Jenna saw above the dish froze her in place and kept her from hitting the gas. Her eyes widened, tracking the object in the sky. “Ten minutes,” she said, realizing that Cort’s countdown had finished.

A single drone peeled away from a trail of smoke leading straight toward her and Jarrod, who must have seen the surprise in her eyes, and their direction.

Without missing a step, Jarrod looked back over his shoulder. The small missile streaked toward them. There was no engine roar as the projectile outpaced its own sound waves. It would arrive silently, leaving nothing alive to hear its power.

Jarrod raised his free hand toward the missile. His fingers twitched, and then he yanked his arm down, pulling the missile down with it as though he had reached out and plucked it from the sky.

The missile’s new trajectory brought it down into the far side of the massive dish. She felt the impact shake the ground beneath her. The telescope’s dish shattered and burst, metal panels spiraling away from a fiery explosion. And then the sound, a rattling roar, pulsed through her body. She responded to the concussion by going rigid and slamming her foot down on the gas pedal.

As the vehicle moved out into the open, Jenna watched the gigantic radio telescope crumble as a column of black smoke rose up from its core.

Rounds peppered the truck’s frame as Jarrod’s focus shifted back to Jenna. The passenger window shattered, showering Jenna with tiny particles, but Jarrod didn’t have a clear shot at her. In a few seconds, the truck was rolling backward. Jenna felt the steering wheel turn beneath her light grip, and she had to resist the urge to seize control. The truck was designed to follow the rails. If she tried to steer, it could jump the track.