“That’s what?”
The next wave pitched Donati down into the water pooling at the raft’s bottom. “The wormhole! Dixon’s pattern plugged into an elementary algorithm to determine the location from which it’s going to be opened!”
“Where?” Sam yelled to him.
Donati pointed again, soaked now. “There!”
“Alcatraz,” Alex realized.
TWELVE
ALCATRAZ
We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking
if mankind is to survive.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
101
ZERO-SUM GAME
FOR LANGSTON MARSH, LIFE was a zero-sum game. Somebody won and somebody lost, which must be the case in a time of war.
And in war there were casualties, many innocents inevitably among them. A necessary sacrifice, the level of life lost measured against the rewards that could be gained as a result.
A zero-sum game.
And the stakes here couldn’t be higher. Whoever and whatever Alex Chin really was, he represented the highest threat assessment Marsh had ever faced. Something was building, something was coming; he could feel it with the same cold pangs that had left him certain that his father would never return from his mission that fateful day. He had already cried for hours when the man in uniform rang the doorbell with cap tucked stiffly under his arm. His mother had taken on the crying duties at that point, Marsh unable to comfort her because he was too busy staring at the sky, picturing himself soaring up there in a jet suit to destroy whatever had killed his father.
Sometimes life really is that simple, he thought, as the Zodiacs clung to their position in a fog bank a half-mile off the aft side of the now fully toppled tour boat. The fog bank was thick enough to conceal them but thin enough for Rathman’s high-tech night-vision binoculars to clearly see the world ahead.
Marsh already knew this wasn’t going as planned. There were supposed to be four explosions and only two had gone off, accounting for survivors who should’ve been victims. Had things gone according to plan and Rathman’s divers done their job, the occupants of the Zodiacs would be steaming their way toward the chaos now to find the boy. If that meant killing any number of others in the process, so be it. Victims were far easier to deal with than witnesses.
The zero-sum game again.
As it was, though, the life rafts were filled with survivors fleeing the very chaos Marsh had planned to use in his favor. No sense exposing themselves now, not until they’d reacquired their target and moved to intercept him. Out here, in the bay at night with a suitable Coast Guard response still minutes out, his men still held a distinct advantage once they had the target in their sights.
“I’ve got him,” Rathman said, binoculars still pressed against his eyes.
And moments later the Zodiacs burst out of the fog bank on a direct course for Alcatraz.
102
BEACON
RAIFF MANAGED TO STEER their life raft through the final swells toward the dock used by tour groups to access the island.
“What do you mean, Doctor?” he said, supporting Donati as he tried to grab the ladder despite the lurching craft. “About the wormhole, the pattern leading here!”
“That’s what I said.”
“I know it’s what you said, but what does it mean?”
“The wormhole! Dixon’s pattern plugged into an elementary algorithm to determine the location! Just like Laboratory Z eighteen years ago! It’s going to happen here, the place they’ll be coming through from your world on the other side, hordes and hordes, I’d imagine.”
Donati was breathing hard by the time he reached the dock, his glasses fogging up from the ever-present mist over Alcatraz.
“Can you be more specific?” Raiff asked him, noticing the slightest flicker of lights and motion growing toward them out on the bay. “Because we’re about to have company.”
*
Alex reached the dock next, lowering a hand to help Sam up. She held fast to him when her feet touched down on the moist wood of the dock, felt his knees buckle and clung harder to keep him from spilling over into the water.
“My head,” he managed to say, squeezing his temples as he sank into a crouch.
Donati crouched alongside him. “Is this what the headaches feel like?”
“No, this is worse, different. Deeper, more throbbing.” Alex winced in pain. “Like every time my heart beats, which is a lot right now. Wouldn’t happen to have any aspirin with you, would you, Doc?”
Donati helped Alex back to his feet. “I’m not that kind of doctor, a good thing since I think I’ve got the right prescription,” he said, then turned to Raiff. “I think I know how to find what we’re looking for.”
*