Once she was lifted, the two combined their power and pushed through a portal to Earth. Then, Lemuel took a firm grip on Maion and took her through the black ellipse.
Behind them, Michael-Lan watched the ellipse close behind them. Well, we are truly into the end-game now. He thought. The humans won’t just send aid although they surely will send that. They will send their armies as well and the first thing they see will be this nightmare. They’ll see the angelic host as the victims here just as the dead suffering in Hell were the victims there. And that will preserve the host for they will forgive us.
Michael-Lan started to move away, to return to the Eternal City where the next stage of the complex scheme would take place. As he did, he saw the hellish conditions in the camp around him and one last thought popped into his mind. I wonder if I’ll ever forgive me.
Chapter Sixty One
Washington DC Air Defense Interception Zone Command Center, Andrews Air Force Base, Washington DC, United States
In another city in the United States, the sudden wailing of an alert siren caused the staff to make a panic- stricken transition from the sleepy ambiance of an over-heated room at 3 am to the urgent activity of an operations center that faced an imminent, city-destroying threat. Nobody had forgotten the sights as the western side of Manhattan had been pounded by rocks falling from a portal in the sky. Nobody wanted to see the same thing happening in Washington.
“The DIMO(N) net is picking up data from the cell phone system now. We’re getting increasing numbers of towers dropping off the network.” Sergeant Manuel Oporto made the report in crystal clear English. At a very basic level, it was a sign of just how uncoordinated the US government was that he had been drafted by the United States Air Force and promoted several times without anybody seemingly being aware that he was actually an illegal immigrant. “The spectrum analyzer is showing a broadband hump peaking in the low gigahertz. The data is partial at this time but it’s filling in fast. I’m going to call it Sir. We have a portal forming over Bethesda, Maryland. Confidence is high, say again, confidence is high for portal opening over Bethesda, Maryland.”
Even through the thick walls of the command center, the sirens wailing outside could be heard. Yet even they were drowned out by the howl of F-22s firing up their engines and moving to take off. Oporto could envisage the scene in Washington itself, with the air raid sirens screaming, the street lights flashing and, something that had been absent from the attack on New York, Marine-One landing at the White House to evacuate the President and his family. The war-room under the White House had been designed to stay functional during a nuclear exchange but nobody was confident of its ability to do so when hit by a rock of effectively unlimited size.
Across the readiness board that dominated the control center, lights were flickering, changing in color as the units they represented came on line. The entire room vibrated as the first of the ready-alert F-22s took off directly over the building, their engines on full afterburner as they clawed for altitude and swung north. Washington was lucky, the stealthy composite structure of the early F-22s made them unsuitable for use in Hell so they had never been fitted with the filters that allowed them to fly in the dust-laden atmosphere of Hell at major cost to their performance. These F-22s went supersonic within seconds of leaving the runway. Around the Beltway, missile batteries and anti-angel guns were coming to full alert as well. Soon, the command center would be swamped with target discrimination work as they tried to distinguish hostile targets from the defensive assets that were pouring into the area.
“Philadelphia and Richmond are on line Sir.” Oporto’s headset was constantly buzzing with updates. A part of his job was to filter out the routine data so that his officer knew what was happening without getting swamped by detail. In Oporto’s private opinion, it didn’t take much to swamp an officer with details. “They confirm a portal forming over Maryland. They’re ready to transfer assets to us if we need them.”
“Very good.” Major Coyote was watching the map display carefully, seeing the red carat defining the area of the newly-developing portal. “Data consistency?”
“The cell-phone system error rates and signal strengths still climbing Sir. We expect ingress any second. Hold that Sir, we have the portal, it’s a little south of Bethesda.” He hesitated slightly as the final data came in. “It’s just a touch west of the I-270/Old Georgetown Road interchange. It’s frozen in place, not moving the way the New York one did.”
“F-22s on scene. They report the portal, no ingress. No rocks.”
“Hold that one Sir, we have radar contact. Single object is transitting the portal. We have an inbound.”
“Well done Sergeant. Send the data to all missiles and gun batteries, prepare to open fire.”
F-22 Lightning “Oscar-One”, Over Bethesda, Maryland.
“We have portal in view.” Captain Joshua Slocombe racked his F-22 around in a tight curve. He guessed that the glaziers would be doing good business tomorrow, replacing all the windows that were being shattered by the passage of the four fighters in Oscar Flight. Out of consideration for the householders below and to try and keep an open firing solution on the portal that hovered a few hundred feet in the air over I-270, he dropped speed to well below transonic. “This is a weird one people, it’s very low down. Rocks won’t pick up that much speed when they come through.”
“Topaz Control here. We have word of an ingress.” The message from ground control was disrupted by the strange electronic effects caused by the close proximity of a portal but they were still clear and decisive.
“Roger that. Selecting AIM-120 now.” If angels came through, Slocombe wanted to be sure he could start getting hits early. That meant missiles, he could shift to the AIR-120 later. “Confirm that Topaz, we have visual on ingress. Ready for missile shot. Fox-… Hold that Topaz, there is something wrong here.”
Slocombe looked carefully at the figure that had just come through the portal. Despite being clearly an angel, and thus a perfectly legitimate target, it was falling through the sky under the portal, frantically beating its wings in an effort to brake its descent. And, it was malformed somehow. It was the wrong shape, it wasn’t the perfect humanoid that had marked the other angels that had afflicted Earth. As he analyzed the shape in front of him, it suddenly snapped into focus. “Topaz, figure is two angels, one appears to be carrying the other and attempting to fly for them both. Am holding fire.”
“Acknowledged Oscar-One.” There was a pause on the radio. “Sensors indicate portal is closing.”
Slocombe took his attention off the falling angels for a second. “Confirm that Topaz. Portal is closed. Say again, portal is closed. Whatever we just got is all that there is.”
The F-22 climbed a little as Slocombe completed another circuit. “Topaz, hostiles just landed on I-270, almost on top of Old Georgetown Road interchange. Confirm, two angels, one laying on road, other standing. Request instructions. Over.”
There was a long, long pause on the radio channels while Slocombe imagined messages running up and down the command chain. Eventually, the radio broke silence. “Oscar flight is to remain circling area. Ground forces closing in to assess situation. For your information, alert is being cancelled.”
Police Cruiser Adam One-Two, I-270, Bethesda.
One of the small advantages of gasoline rationing was that the roads were clear and people who wanted to drive at high speeds could do so. The previous night, Officer Peter Malloy had been in a high-speed pursuit of a Corvette whose owner had obviously decided to blow his month’s fuel ration on a really fast run. The race had topped 170mph before the ‘Vette had gotten clean away. In the secrecy of his soul, Malloy was looking forward to a rematch. In the meantime, this race along I-270 would have to do. “What’s going on?”
Beside him. Jim Reed was listening to the scanner. “Two angels down just ahead of us. They’re not doing anything, just standing on the Interstate. Well, one of them is standing, the other is laying down. Army and Marine ground forces are moving in but we’re way ahead of them. Nobody seems to realize we’re here yet.”
“Good, let’s keep it that way. If we can bring them in alive…” Malloy’s eyes were sparkling with delight at the prospect.
“Or get killed in the attempt?” Of the two, Reed was the more realistic. Or pessimistic depending on how one looked at such things.
“So? We go to Hell. You think they don’t need cops in Hell?” Malloy hit the brakes on the Crown Vic cruiser. “OK, we’re there. Get ready.”
He reached under his seat and pulled out one of his most loved possessions, a Pfeifer-Zeliska. 600 Nitro
