possible speed.
The surface waves were breeching at twenty-five feet as the
The last report had the seafloor erupting for five hundred miles from the now plotted epicenter, directly in the middle of the Mediterranean. Satellite photos had the Eurasian and American eastern coastlines sustaining heavy damage after the hour's lull. Detectors had picked up the Wave once more growing in intensity.
The world was coming apart.
Sarah was feeling sick to her stomach and as she looked at the faces of the men in her group, she realized that wasn't the only one. The invisible wave struck them as soon as they gained the floor of the dry lake bed. Several of the marines and Mendenhall had already vomited, and she herself was having a hard time keeping her feet as her inner ear started to give her problems.
From their location, they had pumped everything they had into the protective titanium shielding of the centrifuge. Three grenades had gone off right under the raised module, and they were stunned when the shrapnel had just bounced off. Ryan had emptied a full magazine into the large round chamber, with no effect whatsoever other than causing a spectacular light show with the bounding tracers. Now they were under heavy fire once again from above. The Coalition forces nearest the pyramids had them in their sights.
'Everett must be having trouble getting his team to the cables,' Ryan said as he fell next to Sarah. 'Is there something we've overlooked here?'
Sarah sat back against the stone pedestal of the statue of Poseidon and thought. They couldn't break the connection from there. The lines were too thick to cut through. They couldn't knock out the reinforced centrifuge and they couldn't shut down the power. The diamond was drawing self-sustaining electricity from the earth's magnetic field somehow, and there was nothing they could do to shut that off.
'We have to interfere with the Wave signal somehow, defuse it. Inject something that will break it up and make the tones meaningless,' she thought out loud as a line of machine-gun bullets stitched the pedestal that covered them.
'What?' Ryan asked as Mendenhall edged around to the side of the stone bulwark and emptied the magazine of his MP-5 toward the upper edge of the lake bed.
'Your radio, give it to me,' she ordered Ryan.
Ryan reached for the radio at his belt and pulled it out. Both of their hopes deflated immediately when they saw the bullet hole in the casing. Ryan tried it anyway but nothing happened.
'Well, at least the damn thing saved you from taking a bullet.'
'What else can you use?'
'What have you got in that bag you're carrying?' she asked, eyeing Ryan's satchel.
'Well, nothing but a few of the colonel's old CDs and a Walkman. That's about--'
Mendenhall tumbled at their feet. 'I don't mean to be a pest here, but we have Coalition forces lining up to take pot shots at us and we don't have the best defensive position here.'
Just as Will's words were out of his mouth, the giant stone pedestal cracked and the forward half sank into the earth.
'Give me the Walkman and the headphones,' Sarah shouted.
Ryan was about to hand over the satchel when a round from above caught Sarah in shoulder and spun her around. Mendenhall reacted quickly, reaching out and pulling her back to the cover of the remaining piece of stone.
Above, the Coalition troops had found the range and cut loose with a withering fire. Then, all at once, the wall of the lake bed cracked and the men at the top came tumbling down with a thousand tons of stone. The rocks and debris smashed into the centrifuge and knocked it askew of its mountings, but still the Wave continued to build.
Sarah was clenching her eyes closed with the pain of the bullet wound. She had been hit in the same shoulder the year before, in Brazil, and she couldn't believe that it had happened again.
'You've got to learn to duck, goddammit!' Mendenhall admonished.
'Jason,' Sarah said as she tried to sit up. 'Take the headphones and rip the wires out. Hurry!'
Ryan did as he was told.
'You've got to somehow connect the wires to the casing of the centrifuge and ... and turn on ... the ...'
'What will that do?'
'Anything will break up the Wave, any ... interference at all will destroy the tone.'
Ryan reacted quickly, deciding to place his bet on her knowledge. He looked at Mendenhall as he laid Sarah's head onto the lap of the nearest marine.
'I'll need cover, Will. My ass is going to be hangin' in the wind out there.'
Mendenhall inserted a fresh magazine into his MP-5 and nodded. He gestured for the eight remaining marines to take up firing positions to his left and right.
Ryan swallowed and tried to keep his stomach in check as the Wave effect was getting stronger.
'Damn thing is making me feel like a rough night in Singapore,' he said as he blindly reached into the bag, pulled out a CD, and ripped it from its case.
'When you're ready,' Mendenhall said, looking at Ryan. 'Most of the assholes tumbled down when that ledge broke free, but we'll pick off what we can.'
'Okay,' Ryan said. 'Don't miss, buddy.'
Ryan stood and on wobbly legs broke for the center of the lake bed. Mendenhall and the marines rose as one and placed a withering fire onto the ledge above, the first few rounds catching the first five Coalition men and dropping them.
Ryan had gone only ten feet when another large quake shook the ground. As the floor around him erupted in steam and gas, Ryan vomited and tried to get to his knees, but he fell over onto his back. As he looked up, another rush of cascading stone rolled free of the top, and he had to force himself to roll and keep rolling. As the stones crashed by him, he swallowed and came to his knees. Taking a deep breath, he ran the forty yards to the centrifuge. His head felt like it was going to explode out of his ears as he approached. Blood started trickling down from the eruption of his eardrums as the Wave penetrated his skull. He stumbled forward and fell flat on his face. He shook his head, the pain almost unbearable as he crawled the remaining few feet to the screaming centrifuge. As he rolled over and rested his head on a stanchion, he removed the small Walkman and just stared at it. His mind was fuzzy and he had to think hard on the instructions Sarah had given him. He tried to focus all his concentration on her words as they flooded into his mind:
Ryan looked at his right hand and saw the portable CD player and the dangling wires and he had a quick flashback to the Blue Nile and what he had done there to attract the bad guys. Now he remembered, and he sucked up the pain and leaned toward the red-hot centrifuge. Then he realized that he didn't have anything with which to attach the wires to the titanium casing. He rolled over again as nausea hit him so hard that his stomach cramped and he felt bile rising in his throat.
Medenhall looked over and grimaced as he saw Ryan flat on his back. The ground shook and he heard a large crack from far above his head and he looked up just in time to see a large panel of the Crystal Dome separate from its frame. The eight-foot-thick piece of crystal was followed by a torrent of seawater and sand, mud, and rock, which struck the ruins a thousand feet away. As he looked on, steam shot up as the cold water came in contact with the hot ground of the dead city.
The earth around them shook again and a crack appeared not far from Ryan's supine position. Steam rose as if shot out of a fire hose and magma bubbled to the surface. The very sick Ryan rolled away quickly but not before his pant leg caught fire. He slapped at it until the flames were snuffed and then he looked at Mendenhall's position and shook his head again. Now he remembered what Sarah had told him to do. He reached the centrifuge once more and raised the Walkman to the carriage. He pulled his knife from its scabbard, reached down, and plucked up a knife tip full of magma. The blade started to melt as another convulsion shook the ground. Ryan steadied himself and placed the knife blade against the two wires and then against the titanium shield. He pressed as hard as he
