Aim And Fire

weapon.

The man staggered backward, his chest erupting in bloody spatter as buckshot caved in his ribs and pulped his lungs and heart. He fired the last few bullets of his magazine into the air, then fell on his back and died.

Briggs, his pistol smoking, ran to Tracy. “Jesus, are you all right?”

She stood with her own pistol out and smoke curling from the barrel. “I—I think so. I don’t think I was hit. How is that possible?”

Nate pointed at the wall above her head, where a cluster of bullet holes provided testimony as to what had just happened. “Jumpy on the trigger—brought the gun up and let the burst go too late. The muzzle climb sent the bullets into the wall. Happens to inexperienced shooters all the time.” He motioned them forward, not wanting her to think about it too much. “Let’s clear that console of any more surprises.”

“Yeah.” Tracy shook off the near miss and strode forward, flanked by Nate and Briggs. Nate made a mental note to keep an eye on her as they went. He knew when an agent started overthinking something like that, he or she ceased to be effective in a combat situation.

They paused at the side of the console nearest to them, then all three moved at once, Nate over the top, Tracy to the left and Briggs to the right. The console was empty.

Nate walked over to the large door. “Great, another friggin’ security door. I don’t suppose that guy’s ID or key card survived, did it?”

Briggs knelt by the body, holding up a small shard of plastic. “I think this might have been part of it. Now what?”

“Tracy, get on the horn to your FBI buddy. Surely they can pop this one, too.” While he waited, Nate keyed his radio. “Travis, how’s it going up there?”

“We have secured the roof, and reinforcements are on the way. Four enemies killed, two wounded. We lost one, with one wounded.”

“Good work. We’re sweeping the rest of the building. Will radio when it’s cleared. Send the others in as soon as they’ve swept the rest of the buildings. We don’t want any ambushes.

We’re heading in to shut down the rocket guys. Spencer out.”

“Roger that, and good hunting. Travis out.”

“How’s that door coming, Tracy?” Nate asked.

“Just open all of them—that should eliminate the problem.” Tracy’s tone could have cut through steel by itself, but it wasn’t doing the trick this time. The door stayed closed. “We gotta get to those other guys right now,” she said.

Nate took a closer look at the heavy doors. “These look like they slide into the wall.”

“Yeah, so?” Tracy asked.

“Over, under, around or through.” Nate rapped on the wall next to the door, hearing a hollow echo under his knuckles. “Get behind that console—just in case I’m wrong.” He brought up his shotgun and fired a round to the left of the door, the double-aught pellets punching through the thin metal of the framing mechanism and out the other side. “I think we just found our way in.” He racked the gun again and fired until his magazine was dry, enlarging the hole until it was big enough to climb through.

Nate waved the others in as he reloaded.

Tracy and Briggs scrambled through the ragged hole, with Nate bringing up the rear. Just as they did, the security doors ground open with a whine, almost catching the border agent’s leg. Nate snorted. “That’s government work for you—always a day late and a dollar short.”

“What’s that say about you, buddy?” Briggs said over his shoulder as they went down the hallway, clearing each opened door as they went.

“Hell, I’m a subcontractor—”

“Shh!” The urgent whisper silenced both men instantly.

Nate peered around. “What you got, Tracy?”

“A body.” Tracy knelt by the outstretched form of a man with a round, bloody hole in the back of his head. She rolled him over to reveal a once-handsome man, his eyes glazed and sightless in death.

“This is Joseph Allen, the founder of Spaceworks.”

Tracy looked up at the nearest door, which was closed. She waited until Nate and Briggs had taken covering positions, then pulled the door open, revealing a small, empty room with a hatch in the floor. “A falling-out among terrorists, perhaps?” she said.

“Who knows, but I’ll bet my next month’s pay I know which way al-Kharzi went.” Nate ran to the hatch. “You guys stop the launch. I’m going after him.”

“Not alone you’re not!” Tracy started to walk toward him, but Nate was already lifting the metal hatch. She heard a click before the world exploded around her. Tracy heard a deep thunderous roar from somewhere far away, echoing through the hallway and shaking the floor.

Oh, shit, she thought as she sank into darkness, the rocket’s launching. We’re too late.

“Preliminary data indicates that the SWAT team has taken control of the main control room, but they also reported that the rocket completed its launch cycle and lifted off twenty-three seconds ago. If its intended target is the Washington, D.C.–New York corridor, we have approximately eight minutes before optimal altitude and geographic coordinates are reached. Here’s the projected flight path.”

A radar screen popped up on Kate’s monitor. It showed a red line arcing out from El Paso on a direct route over the Midwest toward the East Coast. A three-year-old could have drawn a line indicating where it was going to end up.

Denny sounded as stressed as Kate had ever heard him—which wasn’t much, as the military-man-turned- businessman had seen too much in his lifetime to really be fazed by anything anymore. “I hope you stocked up on bottled water, because if this thing does go off, it’ll make the ’03 power outage look like a flicker.”

“What about a self-destruct? Doesn’t every rocket have one, in case it goes out of control?” Kate asked.

“Sure, if it’s a government-backed one. Private companies are supposed to, but since we’re dealing with terrorists posing as rocket scientists, who the hell knows? The SWAT guys said the scientists have locked down the computers, and they aren’t giving up the password.”

“Well, where’s our two cowboys? After everything they’ve done, sweating the access out of an engineer geek should be a walk in the park for them,” Kate said.

Denny bent over his own monitor, keeping track of three camera feeds and a half-dozen audio streams at once.

“Radio chatter says they heard a secondary blast right after they secured the room, but before the rocket launched.

They’re investigating right now.”

“Get every hacker on duty targeting that rocket with anything they’ve got to bring it down, preferably in an un- populated area. I’ll take any idea anyone’s got—self-destruct, laser beams, sun spots, anything. I’ve got one last ace up my sleeve, and it better be enough.”

She opened her window to B2S. “What’s your status?”

“Still working on it. I noticed a big spike in data transmission. Don’t tell me—”

“Got it in one, the rocket has launched. Your window of opportunity just shrank to six minutes and counting.”

As she spoke, Kate brought up another window that, un-beknown to her hacker, showed her every keystroke the girl was making.

“Okay, I’m in. Now I have to trace and link back to his control program, and take control of it. Once I have that, I can send this thing anywhere you want.”

“Fine, just do it in the next four minutes.”

Kate watched the seconds tick away, knowing that the rocket with its deadly cargo was racing closer and closer to her home, and that of about twenty million other people, with each passing moment. She pushed away the imagined carnage and destruction that something like this would spread in its wake. Not on my watch, she told herself. But at the moment, she was stuck in an all-too-familiar position—watching as one of her people tried to stave off disaster. Come on, girl, you can do it! Her screen flashed.

“All right, I’m in! I’ve got telemetry control of the rocket. Where do you want it?”