Randi checked to be sure they were coming, saw they were, and nodded acknowledgment. She stepped back, ready to shoot her grappling hook over the wall. But at the base of the castle, Marty stumbled over her gear, knocking her against the wall. The grappling hook clanged in the night. They all froze.
Above them sounded the unmistakable noise of running boots.
Peter whispered, 'Everyone flatten to the wall!' He drew his SAS high-power Browning 9mm pistol. He screwed on the silencer.
Above them, a face appeared, trying to see who or what had disturbed the quiet night. But they were close to the wall, in a blind, shadowed area. The sentry leaned farther and farther over until he was half beyond the parapet. He saw them at the same instant Peter, taking careful aim with both hands, fired.
There was a soft pop from the silenced weapon, and then a faint, sharp grunt. The guard spilled noiselessly over the wall and landed with a thud almost at their feet. His pistol drawn, Jon bent over the fallen man.
He looked up. 'Dead. French insignia on his ring.'
'I'm going up,' Randi told them, not looking at the dead soldier.
With careful aim, she shot the mini-grappling hook up. It made a small clang as its titanium points caught in the stone and held. She swarmed up on her automatic ratchet, and seconds later she leaned over and waved the all-clear.
The harness flew down. Peter and Jon quickly buckled it around a silent Marty, who had stopped protesting, his round face pale and serious as he stared at the body.
His voice shook a little, but he tried to smile as he said, 'I'd really prefer an elevator. Perhaps a cable car?'
Seconds later, the first shots shattered the night at the entryway.
'Now!' Jon said. 'Up you go!'
Chapter Thirty-eight
The president's secretary, Mrs. Estelle Pike, poked her head into the airborne conference room, her frizzy hair wilder than usual. She arched an eyebrow and said, 'Blue.'
She lingered a second or two as the president swung around in his chair, away from the startled eyes of Charles Ouray, Emily Powell-Hill, the Joint Chiefs, and the DCI, who were sitting around the long conference table, to pick up the receiver of a blue radio phone that stood beside the ever-menacing red one.
'Yes?' He listened. 'He's sure? Where is he? What!' Tension filled his voice. 'The whole country? All right. Keep me posted.'
President Castilla rotated back to face the eyes focused on him. They were the front line now, all of them aboard the flying White House. The Secret Service had insisted that going mobile in Air Force One was the prudent course, considering the volatile situation. The public was still in the dark. Everything possible was being done, but unless there was some kind of concrete way to warn and evacuate, the president had made the tough decision that the continuing communications problems be passed off to the media as a dangerous virus that was being corrected, and that the perpetrators would be found and the full force of the law brought down upon them.
Fully briefed and in constant touch by radio, the vice president and backups for everyone here were safely deep in bunkers in North Carolina, so that if the worst happened, the national government would go on. Spouses and children had also been evacuated to various secret underground sites. Although the president knew that there were no such provisions for the rest of the country, that it would be simply impossible, he agonized anyway. They must find a way to prevent what he feared.
He spoke calmly to his assembled advisers. 'I'm informed the attack could be today or tonight. We have nothing more definite than that.' He frowned and shook his head, sorrowful, frustrated. 'And we don't know what or where.'
The president saw a question behind all those eyes staring at him: What was his source of information? To whom had he been talking? And if they did not know, how reliable could this source or sources be? He had no intention of satisfying them: Covert-One and Fred Klein would remain utterly clandestine until he passed them on to his successor with the strong recommendation to maintain both the organization and the secrecy.
Finally, Emily Powell-Hill, his NSA, asked, 'Is that a confirmed fact, Mr. President?'
'It's the most informed conclusion we have or are likely to have.' Castilla studied their bleak faces, knowing they were going to hold up. Knowing he was. 'But we're generally now aware where the DNA computer is, and that means there's a good chance we can still destroy it in time.'
'Where, sir?' Admiral Stevens Brose asked.
'Somewhere in France. All communications in or out of the country have just been shut down there.'
'Damnation!' White House chief of staff Ouray's voice shook. 'All communication? All of France? Incredible!'
'If they've shut communications down,' Powell-Hill said, 'then they must be very close to doing it. It sure sounds to me as if it's got to be today, too.'
The president's gaze swept the group. 'We've had several days to prepare our best defenses. Even with all the cyber attacks, we should be ready. Are we?'
Admiral Stevens Brose cleared his throat, trying to keep an uncharacteristic note of dread from his voice. The admiral was as brave and resolute under fire as any other professional soldier, and a soldier could handle the uncertainty of when and where. Still, this blind dealing with an unstoppable computer against an unknown target was wearing on him, as it was on everyone else.
He said, 'We're as ready as we can be, considering all our satellites and other communications are down, and our command codes compromised. We've been working around the clock, and ten hours more than that, to bring everything back online and change our codes.' He hesitated. 'But I'm not sure it'll really help. With what the DNA machine can do, even our latest encryptions will likely be broken, and we'll be out of commission again in minutes, perhaps seconds.' He glanced at his fellow commanders. 'Our one advantage is our new covert, experimental antimissile defense system. Since they don't know we have it, that may be enough.' The admiral glanced at his fellow flag officers. 'If the attack is going to be by missile.'
The president nodded. 'Based on what the DNA computer can do, and what little we know of the terrorists, it's most likely.'
Air Force chief of staff Bruce Kelly's voice was decisive as he agreed, 'No single ICBM from anywhere is going to get through the new antimissile system. I guarantee it.'
'You're sure they don't know we have it?'
Around the packed room, the Joint Chiefs and the DCI nodded affirmative.
Admiral Brose answered for them all: 'We're certain, Mr. President.'
'Then we have nothing to worry about, do we?' the president said. He smiled around the silent room, but no one looked him in the eyes.
In the windowless armory at the top of the castle, where chain mail coats hung next to empty suits of armor, Dr. Emile Chambord raised his head and listened. There was gunfire outside. What was happening? Was someone shooting at the castle? The noise was muffled by the thick walls, but still, it was unmistakable.
Abruptly, the computer screen in front of him went blank.
Hurriedly he made adjustments and regained control. The prototype had never been easy to keep steady, and it had been drifting under his fingers. Twice he'd had a lock on the command codes of the old Soviet missile that General La Porte had selected, still in its silo thousands of miles away, and twice he had lost the codes as the temperamental apparatus of optical cables and gel packs destabilized. He needed every ounce of concentration and dexterity to do the job, and the nerve-racking gunfire did not help.
Was it growing louder? Coming closer? Who could it be? Maybe it was that Colonel Smith with American and English soldiers.
Worried, he glanced up at his favorite print, which he had hung above his desk. There was the beaten Napoleon and the remnants of the pride of France, marching back from Moscow only to be beaten again, this time
