Extinction Machine

Chapter Fifty-five

The Warehouse

Baltimore, Maryland

Sunday, October 20, 10:37 a.m.

Mr. Church sat in Joe Ledger’s leather chair and stared at the blank square of screen that moments before had held the image of Joe Ledger and Junie Flynn. Now all it showed was static.

“Bug?” he snapped.

“Working on it.”

“Work faster.”

Rudy Sanchez sat on the other side of Joe Ledger’s desk, fists balled in his lap.

Dr. Hu smiled down from the wall-mounted plasma screen. “Ledger probably spilled his coffee on the keyboard,” he suggested.

“Stop being a child,” said Rudy, and it shut Hu up as surely as a slap across the face.

In the lower corner of the big screen was the digital clock that Church had started after receiving the second video.

4316:12

4316:11

4316:10

“Bug,” he said again.

“This is weird, boss. We got a total communications dead zone that extends in a perfect circle around the lighthouse.”

Hu looked suddenly interested. “A jammer?”

“A mother of a jammer. It’s even killing the satellite uplink.”

Rudy frowned. “I thought Joe once told me that a jammer couldn’t do that.”

“It can’t,” said Hu. “C’mon, Bug, you’re reading it wrong.”

Bug flashed information onto the screens from half a dozen sources, including a Defense Department satellite and two general communications satellites. “Yeah? Then you show me how to read it right.”

Hu stared at the data. So did Church and Rudy.

Church snatched up his cell phone and hit a speed dial. “Gus. I want Echo Team wheels up for Turkey Point Lighthouse right now. Make it happen. Captain Ledger is in trouble.”

4315:55

4315:54