Gant's flashlight had a powerful beam, and in the middle
of some bodies and debris on the near side of the pit, it illuminated
the bright-orange outline of the AWACS's black
box.
366
Matthew Reilly
Excellent ...
Gant made to leave, when abruptly, a glint of pale-blue
light caught her eye.
She paused. It seemed that not every monitor in the control
room had been shot or lost power.
Hidden underneath a fallen piece of shredded plasterboard,
a lone screen was still glowing.
Gant frowned.
The complex's power was out--which meant this system
must be operating on an independent power source.
Which meant it must be pretty important ...
She lifted the broken piece of wall off the screen. The
screen read:
LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL S.A.(R) 7A
FAILSAFE SYSTEM HISTORY
7-3-468201103
TIME KEY ACTION
SYSTEM RESPONSE
0658 AUTHORIZED LOCKDOWN
INITIATE CODE ENTERED
0801 AUTHORIZED LOCKDOWN
EXTENSION CODE ENTERED
0900 AUTHORIZED LOCKDOWN
EXTENSION CODE ENTERED
1005 NO AUTHORIZED CODE
ENTERED
LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL
ENABLED
LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL
CONTINUED
LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL
CONTINUED
FACILITY SELF-DESTRUCT
MECHANISM ARMED
10 OS ******* WARNING **************
EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.
IF YOU DO NOT ENTER AN AUTHORIZED
LOCKDOWN EXTENSION OR TERMINATION
CODE BY 1105 HOURS, FACILITY SELF
DESTRUCT SEQUENCE WILL BE ACTIVATED.
SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE DURATION: 10:00
MINUTES.
************** IA/ A **************
Area 7 367
Gant's eyes went wide.
Facility self-destruct sequence ...
No wonder this system operated on an independent
power source.
But for whatever reason--presumably the sudden intrusion
of the inmates--Caesar Russell's people had failed to
enter the appropriate lockdown extension code during the
window period after 10:00 a.m.
So now, if no one entered an extension or termination
code before 11:05 a.m., Area 7's self-destruct sequence
would begin--a ten-minute procedure that would culminate
in the hundred-megaton thermonuclear warhead buried in
the earth beneath the complex going off.
"Holy mother of God ..." Gant breathed. She looked at
her watch.
It was 10:15 a.m.
She turned to go--
--at the same moment as a long length of steel piping
crashed down against the back of her suit-hooded head.
Gant dropped to the floor, out cold.
She never saw her attacker.
Never saw him heft her onto his shoulder.
Never saw him carry her out of the control room.
THE X-RAIL TRAIN BOOMED THROUGH THE TUNNEL SYSTEM,
rocketing along on its quartet of tracks at tremendous speed,
heading toward Area 8.
It wouldn't be a long trip. At two hundred miles per
hour, they'd cover the twenty miles in about six minutes.
Although he didn't know exactly where Echo Unit was
this way.
It was better than nothing.
Having set the train's autopilot, he walked back into the
main cabin and sat down with Mother and the President.
Nick Tate was off at the other end of the carriage, still somewhat
out of it, staring with great concentration at the buttons
on his cellular phone.
Schofield sat down. As he did so, he pulled out his newfound
syringe and the antidote to the Sinovirus, and set
about injecting himself with it. Mother and the President did
the same.
As he jabbed the needle into his arm, Schofield looked
up at the President. "Now, sir, if you don't mind, would you please tell me what the hell is going on at this base?"
the president pursed his lips.
"You could start," Schofield prompted, "with why an
Air Force Lieutenant General wants to kill you in front of
the nation. Then you could tell me why he also wants to
keep his hands on a genetically engineered boy who is the
vaccine to an ethnic bullet."
The President bowed his head, and nodded.
area 7 369
Then he said, "Technically, Caesar Russell is no longer
a lieutenant general in the Air Force. Technically, he is dead. On the twentieth of January this year, the day of my inauguration,
Charles Samson Russell was executed by lethal injection
at Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary for the crime of
high treason.
"What he wants," the President said, "is what he wanted
before he was executed. To radically change the face of this
country. Forever. And the two things he needs to do to effect
that are: one, kill me, in a highly visible, highly embarrassing
way. And two, retain control of the Sinovirus vaccine.
"To understand why he's doing this, however, you have
to understand Russell's history, in particular his links with a
clandestine Air Force society known as the Brotherhood."
"Yes ..." Schofield said cautiously.
The President leaned forward. "Over the past thirty
years, various Congressional Armed Services Committees
have heard about the existence of certain undesirable societies
within the branches of our armed forces; informal underground
organizations with less-than-acceptable common
interests. Hate societies."
"For example?"
"In the eighties there was a secret group of men in the
Army known as the Bitch Killers. They opposed the presence
of women in the Army, so they engaged in activities to
drive them out of the service. More than eighteen sexual assaults
in the Army were attributed to members of this group,
even if actual proof was difficult to establish. The extent of
its membership was never fully ascertained, but then, that's
the problem with these sorts of societies: there is never any
physical proof of their existence. They're like ghosts, existing
in non-tangible ways--a knowing look during a salute, a
nod in a hallway, a subtle promotion over a non-member."
Schofield was silent.
While he had never been approached by anyone linked
with such a group in his career, he had heard of them. They
were like hardcore college fraternities, small groups with
their own secret handshakes, their own "codes," their own
370
Matthew Reilly
disgusting initiation ceremonies. For officers, they started at
places like West Point and Annapolis; for enlisted men, at
training camps around the country.
The President said, "They form for various reasons:
some have religious skews--for example, anti-Semitic
groups like the old 'Jewboy League' in the Navy. Or the sexist
ones, like the Bitch Killers. The formation of groups like
this in high-risk occupations i
s well documented--even police
forces like the L.A.P.D. are known to have secret hate
societies within their ranks.
"But in terms of sheer violence, the worst groups were
always the racist societies. There used to be one in every
service. In the Navy, it was the Order of White America. In
the Army, the Black Death. In the Air Force, it was a group
known only as the Brotherhood. All three displayed a particular
hostility toward black Americans in their ranks.
"But the thing is," the President said, "they were all
thought to have been wiped out during a Department of Defense-initiated purge in the late 1980's. Now while we
haven't heard about a resurgence of racist elements in either
the Army or the Navy, it was discovered recently that the
Brotherhood is indeed alive and well, and one of its key figures
was none other than General Charles 'Caesar' Russell."
Schofield said nothing.
The President shifted in his seat. "Charles Russell was
tried and convicted for ordering the murder of two Navy admirals,
advisers to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Turned out, Russell
had approached them shortly after my announcement to
run for President and asked them to join him in some kind of
treasonable endeavour that would change America forever.
The only details he told them were that the plan would involve
the removal of the President, and that it would rid
America of its 'human waste products. The two admirals refused
his offer, so Caesar had them eliminated. What he
didn't know was that one of those admirals had secretly
taped his offer and tipped off the FBI and the Secret Service.
"Russell was arrested and tried for murder and treason.
Since it was a military proceeding, the trial was held
area 7 377
immediately, albeit in closed session. During the case the question
was, to what America's 'human waste products' actually were
was debated at length. Equivocal evidence was brought that
Russell was a member of the Brotherhood--a secret cabal of
high-ranking USAF officers, mainly from the Southern belt,
who intentionally hinder the rise of black Americans
through the ranks of the Air Force. It didn't help that the military
prosecutor was black, but in any case the issue was
never resolved. On the basis of the taped evidence, Russell
was found guilty and sentenced to death. When he decided
not to lodge any appeals whatsoever, his execution was fast
tracked--and he was 'executed' in January of this year. And
that was that. Or so we thought."
Schofield said, "I get the feeling that you knew what
Caesar was planning, even if it didn't come out in the court
case."
The President nodded.
"Over the past ten years, Caesar Russell has been in
charge of every major United States Air Force base between
Florida and Nevada. The 20th at Warren in Wyoming, which
looks after our ICBM stockpile. Space Warfare at Falcon,
Colorado, which controls defense satellites and space missions.
Area 7, of course. Hell, he even spent a year at AFSOC at Hurlbut Field in Florida, supervising the Air Force's
crack special ops teams, including the 7th Squadron. He has
loyal followers at each of those bases, senior officers who
owe their positions to him, a small but powerful clique of
base commanders who we now suspect are also members of
the Brotherhood.
"What Russell also knows, however, is what's inside
every one of our most secret bases. He knew of the Sinovirus
from its earliest development phases, knew of its potential
uses, and he knew of our response to it--a genetically constructed
virus-resistant human being--right from the very
beginning.
"The thing is, Charles Russell is smart, very smart. He
thought of other possibilities for the one person in the world
in possession of the ultimate ethnic bullet and its vaccine.
372
Matthew Reilly
Judging by this transmitter attached to my heart, it looks like
he's been planning a revolution for some time now, but it's
only the advent of the Sinovirus that makes it totally perfect
for him."
"How so?"
"Because Caesar Russell wants to take America back to
its pre-Civil War state," the President said simply.
There was a silence.
"Did you hear the names of the cities he's put his
plasma bombs in? Fourteen devices, in fourteen airports, all
around the country. Not true. They're not placed all around
the country. They're only placed in northern cities. New
York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Seattle.
The furthest south those bombs get is St. Louis. No
Atlanta, no Houston, no Miami even. Nothing below the
Tennessee-Kentucky state line."
"Why those cities, then?" Schofield asked slowly.
The President said, "Because they represent the North,
the liberals, the dandies of America who talk a lot, produce
nothing, and yet consume everything. And Caesar wants an
America without the North.
"For with the Sinovirus and its cure in his possession,
he will have what's left of the nation at his mercy. Every
man, woman and child--black and white--will owe their
life to him and his precious vaccine."
The President winced.
"I imagine the black population would be eliminated
first, with the vaccine being administered only to white
Americans. Considering Caesar's racist tendencies, I assume
it was the black population he was talking about when
he mentioned 'human waste products.'
"But remember what I said before: he has to do two
things to get what he wants: he has to have Kevin in his possession, and he also has to kill me. For no revolution--no
true revolution--can take place without the visible and humiliating
destruction of the previous regime. The execution
of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in France; the imprisonment
area 7 373
of the Czar in Russia in 1918; Hitler's complete "Nazification' of Germany in the thirties.
"Anybody can kill a President, if they are determined
enough. A revolutionary, however, has to do it in front of the
people he desires to rule--showing them that the previous
ruling system no longer deserves their respect.
"And don't be mistaken, Caesar Russell isn't doing this
in front of America. He's doing it in front of the most extreme
elements of America--the Timothy McVeighs of the
country; the poor, the angry, the disenfranchised, the white
supremacists, the white trash, the antifederal militias--those
parts of the nation, located mainly in the Southern states,
that wouldn't give two shits if the cappuccino-drinking liberals
in New York, Chicago and San Francisco were blasted
off the face of the earth."
"But the country would be decimated ..." Schofield
said. "Why would he want to rule a destroyed country?"
"Yes, but you see, Caesar doesn't see it that way," the
President said. "To his mind, the country wou
ldn't be destroyed.
It would merely be purified, renewed, cleansed. It
would be a new beginning. The southern city centers would
be intact. The Midwest would still be largely intact, able to
provide sustenance."
Schofield asked, "What about the other armed forces?
What would he do about them?"
"Captain, as you would well know, the U.S. Air Force
receives more funding than all the other armed services
combined ... Sure, it may have only 385,000 personnel, but it
has more missiles and strike capability than all the other
services combined. If, by virtue of the Brotherhood and his
previous commands, Caesar has even a fiftieth of the Air
Force behind him, he could scramble his bombers and take
out every key Army and Navy installation in this country--
plus every Air Force base that was not allied with him--before
they could even raise a small counteroffensive effort.
"Foreign defense would be the same. With its Stealth
bombers, strike fighters and a stockpile of nuclear missiles
374
Matthew Reilly
greater than that of any other country in the world, Caesar's
new Air Force, acting alone, would be more than capable of
handling any hostile foreign incursion.
"Captain, make no mistake, to Caesar's warped mind,
this scenario would be perfect: America would be isolationist
once again, completely self-sufficient, and governed by
an absolutely lily-white regime. Back to its pre-Civil War
state."
"Mother Mcfeer..." Mother breathed.
Schofield frowned.
"Okay, then," he said, "so what if Russell can't pull this
off? What if he fails? Surely he isn't just going to accept defeat
and walk away. I can't see him simply disarming his
bombs if he loses and saying, 'Oh well, I was wrong, you
win.'"
"No," the President said seriously. "That worries me,
too. Because if by some miracle we do survive all this, the
question becomes: what has Caesar got in store for us then?"
after prising apart the personnel elevator's exterior
doors, Book II and Juliet Janson came to the "top door" exit.
Juliet entered the code Harper had revealed earlier: