Before he dropped, Kate fired a second time, and Luther’s lower jaw disappeared.
I again lunged at Madox, who was now on one knee, facing me with his Colt.45 in his hand.
He started to raise his gun, and Kate shouted, “Freeze! Freeze! Drop it! Drop it or you’re dead!”
There was this long moment while Bain Madox considered his options. Kate helped him decide by blowing a hole in the ceiling above his head. Before the plaster even hit him, he dropped his gun.
Time sort of hung there for a while, with Madox and I both on our knees facing each other from about five feet away. Kate was standing about ten feet away, the shotgun pointing at Madox’s head.
The room smelled of burned explosives, and a blue smoke hung in the air. My eyesight was returning, but black specks danced around wherever I looked. As for my hearing, I’d heard the shotgun blasts, but they’d sounded far away, and if there was any other noise in the room, I couldn’t detect it.
I stood slowly and got my footing, then grabbed Madox’s.45 off the carpet and went over to Luther, who was sitting against the wall near the door. He was not dead but would wish he was if he survived without a lower jaw. Kate’s first shot had shredded his arm, but his rifle was still hanging by its sling across his chest, so I pulled it away from him and set the selector switch from full automatic to safety, then I slung the rifle over my shoulder.
Kate had motioned Madox onto the rug, where he was lying with his face buried in the thick, blue plush carpet, which I could tell him firsthand was not comfortable.
I glanced at the countdown clock and saw we had two full minutes before 00:00.
I needed to do this by the book, to be sure there was no one left who presented a danger to Kate or me. So I went over to Carl, who was still alive, and who also had some parts of his face where they didn’t belong.
I started to frisk him, but amazingly, he sat up, like Frankenstein on the laboratory table, and I backed off.
I watched him get to his feet. Clearly he was blind-not temporarily blinded, but, judging from the burns around his eyes, permanently blind. Nevertheless, he put his hand inside his jacket and brought out a Colt.45 automatic.
I was going to say, “Drop it!” but then he’d know where to fire, so with time running out, I made a difficult decision and put a.45 bullet through his forehead.
He was too big to be lifted off his feet, and he fell backward, like a huge tree toppling.
Kate said, “Fifty-eight seconds.”
I walked over to Madox, who was staring at Carl’s body, and asked him, “How do I stop this?”
He turned his head toward me and replied, “Fuck you.”
“Do you have anything intelligent to say? Come on, Bain. Help me. How do I stop this?”
“You can’t. And why do you want to? John, think about this.”
I have to be honest and admit that I had been thinking about it. I mean, God help me, but I did think about letting it happen.
Kate called out, “Forty seconds.”
I got my head back on straight and remembered what Madox had said about the ELF signal, and I seemed to recall something about a continuous signal, and a lock-in period, so I thought that if I stopped the ELF wave, right here at the transmitter, the receivers wouldn’t or couldn’t lock in and send a signal to the nuclear detonators. Electronics is not one of my strong points, but destruction is, and there was nothing to lose, except two cities, so I stepped back and told Kate to do the same.
The countdown clock read :15 seconds, but I recalled from Bain that the ELF wave and the decoding could be a minute or two faster or slower in reaching the receivers, and for all I knew, the two-minute lock-in time was already running-or finished.
I glanced at the three flat screen TVs, but there was nothing unusual happening in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Washington.
Kate said, “John.”
I looked where she was staring and saw that the countdown clock read 00:00, and the black LED box was now flashing “GOD-GOD-GOD.”
I raised the Colt.45 and pointed it at the ELF transmitter.
Madox had gotten up and was on his knees now, in front of the transmitter, as though he were protecting it. He held his hands up and shouted, “John! Don’t do it! Let it happen. I beg you. Save the world. Save America-”
I fired three rounds over Madox’s head into the transmitter, and three more into the rest of the electronic console, just to be sure. Then Kate blasted the last two shotgun rounds into the smoking electronics.
The lights, dials, and instruments blinked off, and the big metal console smoked and sparked. The word “GOD” blinked out.
Madox had turned his head and was looking at the dying ELF transmitter, then he turned to me, then Kate, then back to me, and said in almost a whisper, “You ruined everything. You could have let it happen. Why are you so stupid?”
I had a few good replies for him about duty, honor, and country, and also about “If I’m so stupid, why do I have your gun?” but I got right to the point and said, “This is for Harry Muller,” and fired my last bullet into his brain.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
We found the key in Carl’s pocket and removed our shackles. We also found his Colt.45 on the floor, and Kate stuck it in her waistband.
Kate and I stood side by side in the smoky room, as mute as the three televisions that we were watching. My heart, and I'm sure hers, was thumping.
After a few minutes of commercials-with no urgent bulletins or screens going black in LA or San Francisco-I said to Kate, “I guess everything is okay.”
She nodded.
I asked her, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine… I’m just… stunned.”
I let a few minutes go by, then said to her, “You did a good job.”
“Good? I did a fucking excellent job.”
“Excellent job.” I asked, “Hey, where did you hide the BearBanger?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Right.”
After another minute of silence, she asked me, “Do you believe this? Do you believe what Madox was going to do?”
I looked at the electronic console and said, “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
She didn’t respond for a second, then said, “John… for a minute there… I thought you were… wavering a little.”
I thought about that. “Honestly?”
“Don’t answer.”
But I had to say something, so I said, “It’s going to happen anyway.”
“Don’t say that.”
I tried a joke. “Why don’t we stay down here for a few years?”
She didn’t reply.
I glanced at Bain Madox, who was still in a kneeling position, but now with his head thrown back, resting on the edge of his electronic console table. Those gray hawk eyes were wide open, as unblinking and emotionless as ever. And, except for the red hole in the middle of his forehead, I could hardly tell he was dead, which was creepy.
Kate saw me staring at him. “You did what you had to do.”
Which we both knew was not true. I did what I wanted to do.
I looked away from Madox and watched the six security monitors, but I didn’t see anyone, except for a shadow moving around in the gatehouse, and I guessed that was Derek. Then I saw a Jeep pass in front of the generator house.
I said to Kate, “They’re still out there, and no one has arrived from state police headquarters.”
She nodded. “So, we’ll stay here awhile.”
I really didn’t feel like hanging around this room much longer with two stiffs on the floor, and a smoldering carpet and couch, plus the smell of burnt electronics.
Also, Luther was gurgling, and I recognized that sound. There wasn’t much I could do for him, but I thought maybe I should try, so I looked around for a landline phone to call state police headquarters to get an ambulance, not to mention some state troopers to arrest Derek, and whoever else needed to be arrested, and get us the hell out of there.