“Wolfe?”
“Pearce—they’re launched! Use the codes…”
“We’ve tracked them already—they’re heading for an airliner! Seline’s got Homeland Security to ground flights on the runways but the ones in the air are vulnerable. Starling’s blocked the GPS hack—only thing I can do is take over manual, one drone at a time!”
“Pearce—try to block them, dammit! Try to control one, use it to block the others!”
Wolfe went to the cockpit. He could see two drones through the windshield, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles flying off below the plane. They were over Lake Michigan at the moment. Up ahead was a passenger jet.
The pilot on the left was a tall, Nordic looking man wearing a headset. He was muttering to himself. “I didn’t sign up for shooting on the plane…”
Starling was half turned in his seat beside the pilot; he stared at Wolfe, mouth hanging open, as if seeing an apparition.
Wolfe had the .45 in his right hand; in his left the PearcePhone, pressed to his ear. He was leaning in the doorframe to keep from falling over. He’d lost a lot of blood. His knees were weak. The cockpit seemed to slowly sway back and forth in front of him… the black specks were swarming more thickly over his vision…
Then Pearce’s voice in the phone jolted him alert. “Wolfe—I’ve got control of one of the drones… holy shit, that one ahead… there’s a man clinging to it!”
Verrick was alive out there.
“Shoot it down!” Wolfe said.
“No weapons on this thing. It’s all about hacking into passenger jets… which it’s gonna do in about one minute, Wolfe! It’s getting in range of that airliner up there!”
The drone, once in range, would take over the passenger jet’s automatic pilot, and crash it into a pre-picked target in Chicago. Probably the Blume building. The other electronically-hijacked jets would be hitting power plants, City Hall, hospitals, anyplace they could create maximal damage and panic. The special ctOS power backups would come on, and restore ctOS control to most of the time… A state of emergency would be declared, and Verrick would use it to take over the area…
Wolfe could almost taste what was about to happen, if Verrick succeeded—taste it like a poison pill melting bitterly on his tongue.
He saw an explosion, out the windshield, about two hundred feet below and well in front of the cargo jet. A drone had struck another.
And he thought he saw the flaming shape of a human body spinning away…
There goes Verrick, burning his way down into Lake Michigan and Hell.
“I’ve got another drone, Wolfe,” Pearce said. “But I don’t think I can get the others… they’re locking on their targets…”
“Pearce—the one you’ve got control of. Can you head it toward my position? Straight on, right at the cockpit. Fast.”
“What?”
“Just go. Make it happen.”
The black swarm was back, swirling like a cartoon tornado between Wolfe and Starling.
And Starling was staring at the gun. Maybe seeing Wolfe was dazed; maybe thinking about making a grab for it…
“Starling, you go for that gun, I’ll pull the trigger. Now I see that monitor, you’ve got set up there, between you and the pilot. Says Drone Command on the screen there. You just go to that interface, Starling, and you deactivate those drones. All of them. All four of the drones remaining. Now. Or you’re going to die and you won’t live to see Purity’s glorious triumph.”
“You won’t kill us,” Starling said. “If you do, the drones do their job anyway. And you’d crash the plane. And it might hurt a lot of other people…”
“Starling—look out the windshield…”
“What is that up there?” The pilot said. “Starling! That drone! Turn it away from us!”
“Steer away from it!” Starling said.
Wolfe pointed a gun at the pilot’s head. “You change course I’ll blow your brains out. I can pilot this piece of junk.”
The pilot froze in his seat. “But—it’s going to hit us!”
“Yeah. Unless Starling does the right thing it’ll hit us in a little more than than,, forty-five seconds. Look at it, Starling! It’s coming!”
Starling stared out the windshield at the oncoming drone. It was getting bigger. Heading for them as if in a vengeful mechanistic fury. “You won’t let it hit us, Wolfe! You’d die too! The plane will crash and…”
“Yes. I will. We’re still over the Lake. Screw it, let’s all go down together right now. Tell you the truth I think I’m bleeding to death, anyway. Let’s go out with a bang, Starling. We’ve got control of one drone. No time to deal with the others so we’ll just crash that one into this…”
“It’s gonna hit us!” the pilot yelled. “It’s getting close!”
“Verrick is dead,” Wolfe said. Everything was spinning. He was afraid he was going to lose consciousness at any moment. “Who’s your boss now, Starling? It’s me, now! You deactivate those drones right now. And then you land this thing, and I won’t tell them about the thing with Bullock—he was a dirt bag anyway. I’ll tell ’em you’re a valuable man. You won’t do much time… I’m your new commander. And I’m giving you three seconds to make up your mind…”
The drone was headed for the windshield…
“Sir yes sir,” Starling said.
And he turned to the drone command interface, hit the deactivate button.
The oncoming drone wavered, then lost power, and went diving downward, spiraling into Lake Michigan.
“Wolfe!” Pearce said. “The drones—they’re going down!”
The pilot said. “We’ve got two fighter jets on us…”
“Cargo jet 322,” said a voice over the radio. “This is Air Force Interceptor 2441, you are now required to head for runway 3, immediately. That is immediately, proceed on a heading to land at runway 3, or we will open fire…”
The pilot banked toward the runway. Wolfe shoved the Pearcephone deep in his pants. They’d have to really dig for it…
“What now,” Starling said. “What happens now?”
“Now, Starling,” Wolfe said, struggling to remain on his feet. “We’re going down and you’re going to surrender and tell the people what Verrick was up. That’s an order. From me. So…” The black tornado was sucking at him. Drawing him in. His own voice sounded so distant in his ears. “So… just you… turn around in your seat, Starling, and you let the pilot land this thing, and you surrender to the nice people, or I’ll knock you… I’ll knock you…”
He didn’t manage to say that last word out loud.
Unconscious.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
He heard voices, just penetrating the thick pearly gray fog that enveloped the world.
“He came close…” Some strange male voice. Maybe a touch of Asian accent to it. “…but he is a strong, resilient man, and the wounds themselves weren’t so bad. It was all that blood…”
“He still need transfusions?” It was Seline’s voice.
“No. We were basically out of his blood type but a rather odd man came in. He, ah, was, strikingly deformed. Said he’d just had his first bath in a year and could he give blood for Mr. Wolfe and…”
“That would be Blank.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Never mind. Go on.”
“Well, we tested the man’s blood, it was safe to use, it was the right type, and… he didn’t have any identification but… it was an emergency and we took a chance… I really think he saved Mr. Wolfe’s life…”
“Who says I’m not dead,” Wolfe said. His voice came out a rasp. He was looking around but not seeing much. Just blurry silhouettes. One of the silhouettes was definitely shaped like Seline.