Extinction Machine

Chapter One Hundred Twenty-four

VanMeer Castle

Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Monday, October 21, 8:36 a.m.

Yeah, there’s nothing like a slow elevator ride in the middle of a wild and crazy firefight. Very relaxing. The frigging thing lumbered upward. Should have been playing some silly damn piece of music. “The Girl from Ipanema.”

I reloaded and took up a defensive position to one side of the door in case they ambushed me.

The doors opened.

They ambushed me.

Two shooters opened up with automatic weapons from ten feet.

Didn’t do them much good though, because as soon as there was a crack in the door I lobbed out a fragmentation grenade. Maybe they were too sure they had me. Maybe they didn’t see the grenade fly out as I dove to the corner. Didn’t matter. They capped off about a third of a magazine each before the grenade blew them apart.

I ran over the pieces.

I expected the helipad to be on the roof, but it wasn’t. We were on a flat pad to the east side of the castle. All the fighting seemed to be on the other side of the building.

Damn.

I opened up with the machine gun, dodging out and left in the smoke. I caught a third guard across the thighs and he fell, his weapon punching rounds into the asphalt on the helicopter deck.

I saw six men trying to squeeze into a business helicopter built for five. I helped with the problem by firing into the crowd. Shelton shoved one man straight into the path of the bullets and the man danced backed and knocked his boss into the chopper.

“Kill him,” shrieked Shelton. There was blood on his face and he held one arm tight across his belly. I realized the man next to him was Sullivan, the guard from the front gate.

They were trying to fight while trying to climb into the helicopter. All I wanted to do was kill them.

In combat, sometimes it’s about the choices you make.

I emptied the magazine into them. Dropped the rifle, pulled a block, fired and fired.

From over the edge of the roof I heard a lot of gunfire. More of it over the mike, inside the house. Lot of people were dying. In all the confusion I thought—just for a moment—that I heard a dog barking. Was it the Dobermans or was it Ghost? Was my dog even alive? Was any of my team still alive?

My slide locked back and I reached for a fresh magazine.

Which I did not have. All I had left was one grenade, but Sullivan and the remaining guards opened up on me. I threw myself into a dive roll and came up behind the housing of a huge air-conditioning unit. Bullets whanged and pinged off its skin, but the internal workings blocked any penetrating shots. I pulled the pin on the grenade, said a prayer to Saint Jude and tossed it.

He’s the saint of lost causes. I figured, what the hell?

The grenade exploded in the air. Someone screamed.

I peered around the corner and saw the last guard down with no face, and Sullivan sitting on his ass trying to hold the outside of his head on. He looked at me with an expression of profound confusion, as if there was no way on earth that something like this could possibly happen to him.

And then he fell over.

I came out from behind the air conditioner. I had no bullets and no grenades, but nobody seemed to be moving. Only the helo’s rotors were moving, spinning with desultory slowness. Whup, whup, whup.

I ran low and fast to the machine, bending on the way to scoop up Sullivan’s fallen pistol. I peered inside the bird. The pilot was slumped over, his face full of shrapnel.

Howard Shelton was curled into a ball. With one bloody hand he clutched the Majestic Black Book to his chest. There were red bullet holes above and below the book.

I took it away from him.

He stared at me with eyes that were filled with such pure hatred that I felt my skin grow hot. I tapped my earbud. “Cowboy to Deacon, Cowboy to Deacon.”

“Go for Deacon.”

“I have the package. Repeat, I have the package. Transmit the message, we have the Majestic Black Book.”

“Thank you, Captain.” He disconnected to make perhaps the most important radio message in history.

Would they be listening?

Was it too late for that to even matter?

I had few illusions about it. The T-craft was going to be in China soon. We were almost out of time.

“Damn you,” whispered Shelton. I turned to him.

He had a little .25 belly gun in the same hand that had held the book just a moment before. It wobbled in his grip. Tears of sweat ran down his face. His skin was gray.

“Shelton, listen to me,” I said. “There’s still time to climb down off this ledge. Tell me what I need to know to recall that ship.”

He gave a single slow shake of his head. When he tried to speak he blew a big pink bubble that burst and dottled his face with tiny red dots.

“We can work something out,” I said. “We can step back from the brink. You don’t have to do this. This isn’t how you save America.”

His face contorted. I thought he was trying to smile, but his mangled lips curled into a sneer of total contempt.

“F*ck America,” he said.

And the son of a bitch shot me.