A fourth shot rang, a third bullet embedding itself in his torso. This time he fell, his weapon dropped. His legs jerked as he tried vainly to rise. Houston saw the broad form of Lopez race toward the shape.
“Four,” she said, sitting up and scanning around them for hostiles. The place was empty but for the dead and Lopez, who now stood beside the explosive device, waving her over. “Perfectly good glass of whiskey shot to hell.”
58
Houston sprinted across the lot toward the concrete security barrier. Two bodies lay beside the house-sized transformer, unmoving. Lopez had laid out several of their items: firearms, cell phones, and, most crucially, detonators and radio-controllers. He was studying an array of what looked like beige clay blocks taped across the concrete. Detonators and wires ran down from the blocks to a metal box.
"C-4?" Houston said, catching her breath.
"That, or something similar. Twelve blocks."
She examined them closely. “I'm guessing M112—military issue. Uncle Sam needs to keep his shit off the arms markets."
She crouched and examined the wiring. Above her, the huge expanse of two transformer arms cast a long shadow in the early light. The hum of the electricity flowing through the area was almost nauseating. Thick wires like oak limbs sprouted from the arms many tens of feet away.
"Look at this shape," she said, turning back to the molded plastique. "It's going to funnel the blast inward and up. Twelve blocks? Shit, this concrete wall will be turned into a weapon. Those humming arms are coming down, probably the whole thing will take major damage. No way this thing survives. Game over. Power gone."
"No timer, so we don't have to deal with that," said Lopez, eyeing the metallic box.
"Is it trapped?"
He shook his head. "Doesn't seem so. They didn't have time and weren't planning to leave it here long. Set it up, reach safe distance, maybe behind those sheds, radio the signal in to this control box. Boom."
"Should be easy to disarm then.” Houston frowned. "Why does that make me nervous?”
"Because nothing is ever for free."
Houston centered on the far-left block and placed her hand around the blasting cap wires. "Let's make sure and remove the detonators from each."
Lopez mirrored her actions. "Here goes."
They pulled on the wires. Thin metal tubes resembling smoothed hinge bolts came out of the soft material. As the end of the tube was cleared from the explosive, they paused and locked eyes.
“No boom,” she said.
They repeated the process until all the detonators were removed, and tossed the blasting caps onto the ground beside the dead men. Lopez removed a large knife and cut through the thick tape sticking the blocks to the barrier. Soon there was a stack of clay blocks on the ground as well.
“All right,” he said, wiping sweat from his face. “Always exciting. Let’s call this in to Angel. We did our bit to preserve the lights.”
Houston punched her contact number for Lightfoote’s burner cell. She frowned and looked at the phone.
“Zero bars. No signal.”
Lopez looked around. “This place should be blanketed. We had signal when we arrived.”
“Check yours. Maybe this cheap thing’s failing.”
He removed his phone. “Nothing. No signal.”
“Shit.” Houston folded her arms over her chest. “No coincidences. The towers are down. Probably the worm.”
“Or more of these guys,” he said, nodding toward the bodies.
“I doubt it. No way he has an army. This was a strategic target. Too many towers for physical strikes on the cellular system. That’s got to be the worm.”
Lopez nodded. “Maybe it’s just some of the carriers.” He reached down beside the corpses and grabbed two phones.
“Everything’s down. AT&T. Verizon. This guy had T-Mobile.”
Houston scanned the horizon back toward New York City. “Everyone’s cut off now. No voice, no data. I think this will trigger a real panic. After a few hours, it’s going to be mayhem.”
“There’s more here,” said Lopez working on one of the phones. “Messages. All about this raid. Has to be from Fawkes.”
Houston stepped beside him and looked at the screen. “With those kind of details? Fawkes for sure. They were getting sloppy.” She took the other man’s phone and examined it as well.
“Well, tomorrow’s the fifth, right?” said Lopez. “The end of the world as we know it. Security is so pre-apocalypse.”
Houston continued scrolling intensely through the phone’s messages. “Or maybe not. Fuck. Francisco, tell me you don’t recognize this address.”
The former priest stared at the small screen, brow furrowing. “That’s the warehouse in Brooklyn. Where they’re taking Poison. How—”
His eyes widened.
“They know, dammit!” said Houston. “Look at this message. ‘Heading to the site. When finished double back there for backup.’ They’ve known for a while!”
Lopez glanced up toward the car. A line of dark clouds was moving in from the south, promising to bring showers and possibly thunderstorms.
“Savas isn’t setting the trap. Fawkes is.”
“Jesus! No cell phones. We can’t reach them. We have to get over to that warehouse!”
“We took out their strike team. That helps.”
“Judging from the message, he wasn’t counting on them. They’re backup. He’s got others.”
“But what do we do with this mess? Dead men? Bombs?”
Houston stared down at the bodies with disgust. “Leave these assholes to rot.” She began stuffing the plastique inside a bag lying on the ground beside them. “But we take the bomb. Could prove useful.”
59
Lightfoote stared at hundreds of lines of code on her screen. She spoke in a distracted monotone. “All the carriers are down?”
Rideout nodded, tossing his phone on the table next to five others. “I checked them all. He’s nuked the cellular system.”
“Damn,” she said. “Cut off from everyone. Power’s still up so our Dynamic Duo hasn’t let us down. But we need the coast power up or we’ll never get this new worm out there with enough time to spread.”
He grabbed two of the phones and held them up. “You guys want your phones back?”
Across the room three men were arguing animatedly over the scrolling text of a computer screen. They waved him away to continue their heated debate.
Rideout leaned over the computer desk and whispered into Lightfoote’s ear. “I don’t trust those yahoos.”
She smiled, never removing her gaze from the screen. “John does. The older one, anyway. Simon. They have some kind of history. And to be honest, the coders from the NSA are really good. I’d never have gotten this finished in time without them.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” said Rideout. “And are you finished, anyway?”
Her face clouded. “Getting there.” She returned her gaze to the screen and typed furiously.
A stout man, near sixty, ambled over toward them and dropped heavily into a wheeled chair. He looked at Rideout.
“Ah, John-David?”
“Jean-Paul. Just call me JP. And you’re who again?”
“Fred will do,” said Simon, rubbing his eyes. “Angel I do remember. I’m getting too old for this shit.” Lightfoote ignored both of them as Simon continued. “Look, Dietrich at NSA lent us these two programmers. Technically, they’re not under our authority. I’m CIA. You’re FBI. But with our connections, and dangling your project in front of them, they ate it up. But they’re stuck on something now.”