“I don’t bite, Bunny,” purred the computer.
Top shook his head. He hated gadgets.
“Calpurnia,” I said, “Lincoln Navigator on our six. Deploy a drone. I want details.”
“Done.”
There was a soft click as the pigeon drone rolled out of a concealed compartment near the front fender. It waited until the Lincoln passed and then shot into the air. Half a mile rolled past.
“Plates are federal,” said Calpurnia. “Registered to the Department of Homeland Security motor pool. However, there is a sixty-three percent possibility that the registration was the result of a hack into the motor pool server.”
“Then they’re not friendlies,” said Bunny as he opened the glovebox to reveal a thumbprint scanner, pressed it, and was rewarded when a second door hissed up out of sight. “Nice.”
“What’ve we got, Farm Boy?” asked Top.
“Two choices. Heckler & Koch .45s with sound suppressors or a couple good ol’ Glock 19s.”
“No Sigs?”
“No Sigs. You want 9mm or a .45?”
“Nine,” said Top. Bunny selected one, checked the magazine, and handed it to Top, who nodded and rested it on his lap, tucked in between thigh and belt. Bunny also handed him three magazines, which Top pocketed. He handed me the H&K and took the remaining Glock for himself. Our own handguns were in locked travel boxes in their suitcases, with additional trigger locks in place. We hadn’t come to Baltimore on business and were scheduled to take a commercial flight back home. But Mike Harnick would never leave us high and dry. According to the brief tour of the Betty Boop, there were enough handguns, long guns, and other weapons to start a war with a moderate-sized country. And likely win it. There were also some of what we call our “exotics.” Weapons based on tech we’d taken from the bad guys over the years. Hey, not everything went to FreeTech.
“If we’re going to do something,” mused Top, “I don’t want to get into a fuss in Beltway traffic, feel me? How ’bout we take this to neutral ground? Cash Creek Lake? Sound good?”
“Yup,” I said.
A few minutes later we were on a smaller road, cutting between Pheasant Run Community Park and South Laurel Neighborhood Park. Top didn’t slow down because those were residential areas. He headed south and east, leading the follow car and shedding incidental traffic like leaves.
Soon it was just the two SUVs rolling along a country road. Then Top made a hard right down Powder Mill Road, which cut through dense forestland. The follow car began to speed up because, hey, nobody was fooling anybody by then. Top cut left onto the narrow Scarlet Tanager Loop and looked for the first major bend in the road.
“Get ready,” he told Bunny, who already had a panel open on the center console. As soon as Top rounded the bend and the other car vanished momentarily from sight, Bunny punched the button. There was a metallic thump and rattle. Top made another hard turn, but this time he hit the brakes and steered through a hissing, screeching turn and then jammed the brakes to stop us facing the way we’d come.
The driver of the other car was moving at about sixty when his tires hit the spike net Bunny had deployed. All four tires blew and the SUV went into a nasty, crunchy, turning, glass-shattering and metal-rending series of rolls until it dropped back onto wheels wrapped in rubber shreds. Smoke curled from under the buckled hood and was punched back down to the steaming asphalt by the rain.
By then we were moving. Bunny ran along the right-hand side of the road; I was on the left. Top was still in the driver’s seat, but he’d hit the controls to drop the headlights down and allow an ugly pair of M230 chain guns to roll out.
I yelled, “Federal agents! Step out of the vehicle with your hands on your heads. Do it right now.”
Bunny roared, “Hands only, motherfuckers. If I see a gun I will kill you.”
The two front doors opened as we approached. One fell off into the road; the other had to be kicked open. The driver stepped out and stood looking at us. His clothes were torn and he had bruises on his face, but he was smiling. The passenger got out and actually wiped window glass from his lapels like this was some kind of movie. He was smiling, too, and this was not a smiling moment.
“Captain Ledger,” said the driver, “you are making a mistake here.”
I pointed my gun at his face. “Then I’ll cry a little later. Hands on your head. Do it right now.”
“We are not your enemy.”
There was something weird about the way he spoke. His lips didn’t really move even though his words were clearly enunciated. It was like watching a ventriloquist. Neither of them looked anything at all like they’d just been bounced around a Maryland highway in a metal box. Ghost began to growl very softly.
“Hands on your head,” I said, feeling my heart begin to hammer harder than I wanted it to. “I won’t tell you again.”
“We are not your enemy,” said the passenger. In exactly the same way. Identical words, identical voice. It was like listening to a recording. And it sounded vaguely familiar, but I could not place from where.
Then they both said it. Exactly at the same time.
“We are not your enemy.”
“Cowboy,” warned Top, using my combat call sign. Ghost gave a single savage bark. A warning of his own.
Faster than the eye could see, the two agents crouched, spun, and came up with guns.
Bunny and I fired at the same time, hitting each agent with round after round. The agents straightened, still smiling, and returned fire, filling the air with a sound louder than our shots. Both of their guns made loud, hollow tok sounds.
And suddenly the world turned a bright green and caught fire. I felt myself rising into the air, punched off my feet by a fist of pure heat. Then I was falling as the green fires burned the world into a black cinder.
INTERLUDE FOURTEEN
Valen walked through the camp like a drunken man.
His pajama bottoms were torn to rags and blood ran in lines down his body. He was missing two teeth on the upper left side, and one eye was puffed shut. There were corpses everywhere. Dr. Svoboda sat with his back to a portable generator, eyes wide, mouth agape, hands clutched around a split stomach from which everything of importance had slid out into the dirt. He called for his mother in a high, plaintive voice.
Dr. Chu was missing her head and left arm. The senior staff officer was impaled on a tent pole. Several of the miners had been caught in the jaws of the hungry earth as the quake sent the land into a feeding frenzy.
Valen had no idea what time it was. Dawn, or a little after, perhaps; though the pale light could have just as easily been midday viewed through a curtain of dust. There were helicopters in the air, but closer to the towns. Not here.
All that he saw here was death and destruction.
The machine.
The machine.
The fucking machine.
It sat there. Without a scratch. Silent now, though. Even as the whole island seemed to tear itself apart, the machine sat there. Unmoving except for a slight vibration. The ground rumbled and churned beneath it, but the machine simply stayed there, as if it was governed by a different set of physical laws than the rest of reality.
Ten minutes ago, Valen staggered through waves of green pulsing energy to tear one of the plates away, and that seemed to stop it. The green glow vanished as surely as if a light switch had been thrown. There was a faint whoomph sound, something that Valen felt more than he heard, and the machine died.
The earthquake stopped at that precise moment.