He scoffs. “They were narrow-minded idiots and dictators. We’re visionaries!”
“Wow… General, seriously — that’s a thin fucking line you’re walking there, buddy.”
“This has to be done!”
“Says who?” I ask. “Who gave you the right to be judge, jury, and executioner for the entire world? You’re nothing but a glorified office boy.”
“I have the president’s ear and enough experience fighting for this world to feel justified making this decision on behalf of it.”
“So why hide? Why not say everything you just said to me?”
“Because I’ve had enough years in politics to know how the public mind works. The masses are shortsighted and will only see the initial change, not the long-term benefits. There’ll be an outcry, and it’s much easier to give people someone to blame — someone to hate.”
In a weird way, I’m actually impressed at how they managed to pull this off, even if I don’t agree with it. But I still need to find a way to stop it. I’m hardly an advocate of diplomacy, but even I know that starting a third World War in the interest of peace on Earth is all kinds of fucked up.
And therein lies my problem… A CIA unit and a dozen armed terrorists surround me. I have no weapon, and I’m nowhere near the computer that can stop this. And let’s be honest, even if I was standing next to the damn thing, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.
For the first time in my life, I feel a genuine spark of fear inside me. Not because I’m almost certainly going to die here, but because I physically cannot make things right. I can’t stop the people responsible, and I can’t prevent the loss of any innocent life.
I’m helpless, and it feels like drowning and I don’t like it. I think Matthews can see it in my eyes, because that sick, twisted sonofabitch is smiling at me like he’s already won.
“So what now?” I ask, clenching my jaw muscles to suppress the anger bubbling away inside me.
“Now?” he replies. “Now, we change the world.”
He turns and walks over to the console, speaking to one of the men sitting in front of it. El-Zurak moves to his side, and Hussein joins them from across the room, where he’s been watching the scene unfold in silence.
“Execute Cerberus protocol Alpha-Zero-Niner,” he says. “Authentication code Foxtrot, Zulu, Eight, Seven, Delta.”
After a few moments tapping away, the man announces he’s done as the general ordered. The large screen flickers, and trajectories start appearing all over a topographical map of the world.
There are a lot of trajectories.
“Holy shit…” I murmur.
Raynor leans over to me again. “I hope Josh was able to do something clever down there,” he says.
I shake my head. “Honestly, John — I can’t imagine he’d have been able to stop this. I mean, look at it… it’s a fucking NASA control system. How can you hack that with a laptop in the backseat of a car?”
Wallis and Clark look over, silently imploring me to do something, anything, to stop this. But I don’t know what. They’ll gun me down in seconds if I make a move.
I need to stall him.
“There’s still something I don’t understand,” I say to Matthews, who turns to look at me. “What was with all that Ares crap? Surely you could’ve used any number of methods to move weapons around for these crazy bastards… Why illegally fund the only cartel left? Did you not think it’d raise too many questions?”
He glances at El-Zurak, nodding discreetly, and then walks over to me with a look of regret on his face. Behind him, El-Zurak moves over to the console and leans forward, talking in a hushed voice to the operators.
“That was a bit of bad luck, I’ll admit,” Matthews says to me. “When we found out the extent of your involvement, we had to act quickly to get you out of the picture. We re-routed you to Colombia because I had a unit close by who could be ready on short notice to take you out. When you convinced one of my team to start questioning my orders, I was forced to take drastic measures, which, unfortunately, led to you being on the run. It was pure fluke that you stumbled across Vega’s operation. Everyone knows the cartels don’t exist anymore, which was why it was perfect to use one — no one would think to look for them. Vega moved guns and technology all over the world — wherever El-Zurak and Hussein needed it.”
“Jesus…”
Clark takes a step forward, which surprises all of us. “What I don’t understand,” he says to Matthews, “is that you went to all this trouble to hide America’s involvement in this, only to have us blow the shit out of half the world, essentially admitting blame all along.”
Matthews smiles and shakes his head. “Why, the United States isn’t launching an attack on anyone, Mr. Clark… As you can see from the screen, it’s China, and North Korea, and Russia, and Pakistan… they’re the ones launching an attack. We’re just the victims of a heinous act of terrorism.”
Clark looks at me wide-eyed, and I see the realization of defeat hit him as it did me moments earlier.
This is what Cerberus does — it protects our nuclear weapons while having the ability to steal everyone else’s.
Matthews turns away and looks at the screen. “Fire when ready, gentlemen,” he says.
Before any one of us can react, Clark lunges forward toward to the console.
“No! You can’t!” he screams.
Matthews and El-Zurak turn and watch impassively at Clark’s feeble attempt to prevent this catastrophic inevitability. I see a flicker in El-Zurak’s eye as he glances at Hussein. In a heartbeat, Hussein produces a gun, raises it, and pulls the trigger. The bullet hits Clark in the side of the head, pushing him down to the left and sending him skidding lifelessly across the floor, stopping in a pool of blood close to Mathews’ feet.
I look away and curse to myself. That fucking idiot! What was he thinking? I look back over at Clark’s dead body, lying contorted on the floor with blood still pumping out of the hole in the side of his head.
Matthews smiles and turns back, watching the screen like he’s at the movies. Then he leans forward and presses a button on the console, and the screen starts flashing red. The white trajectory lines turn yellow, and small symbols of rockets begin moving slowly across the screen in all directions.
I feel my shoulders slump forward, and I drop to my knees.
I’ve failed.
I’ve just witnessed the end of the world.
39
“Don’t feel bad, Adrian,” says Matthews. “You’ve just witnessed a turning point in the history of mankind. Your grandchildren’s grandchildren will thank us for this moment, when they live in a world united by peace.”
I can’t find the words to either argue my point or say something derogatory. My heart feels heavy. Next to me, I sense Raynor move. I look up to see him standing to his full height, looking over at the trio of Matthews, El-Zurak, and Hussein.
“So what happens now?” he asks them. “Are you gonna shoot us?”
Matthews takes a deep breath and glances over to the ten-man unit he brought with him. I see him nod at one of them before stepping off to the right side, almost behind me.
I frown.
Something’s not right…
The wheels kick in and start to turn again, forgetting for a moment the nuclear holocaust that’s befallen half the planet outside.
What was it Matthews said? The public needs someone to blame… someone to hate… He went to all this trouble, paying the Armageddon Initiative to work for a full year toward this very moment — to take control of the Cerberus satellite — only to make it look like everyone else is to blame.