24. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 2 A.M. AND 3 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
Jack’s senses had become as attuned to darkness as they could be. But the going was agonizingly slow. At last, somewhere below him, a door opened. As it creaked shut, Jack caught the faintest hint of light— Marks had a flashlight of his own.
Jack risked his own light, and with the flashlight he made better time. He reached P6 and threw the door open, again hesitating in case of gunfire. Then he ran out into the parking area just in time to hear an engine rev and headlights go on. Jack angled toward the headlights. He shut off his own flashlight just in time. A car roared by and muzzle flashes accompanied the sound of shots, but Jack had moved off line and Marks’s shots were wild. His car peeled away.
Jack flicked his flashlight on again and ran toward the white van. Near it, he saw that the Chevy Camaro was gone. On a hunch, he ran to the Nova. It was unlocked. He jumped inside. He placed the flashlight on the floor, angled upward, and reached underneath to hotwire the car. The wiring was basic, but the wires themselves were new, and Jack guessed what Marks had planned. The Camaro and the Nova were old cars, with very little wiring that was susceptible to the EMP device. Marks and Newhouse had planned their escape well.
The Nova’s engine roared to life and Jack peeled out, headlights illuminating his way through the darkness.
His tires squealed all the way up the circular ramps that led out of the foundation of the building. He scraped the corners several times but ignored it. He needed to catch up to Marks.
At the top of the parking structure he caught him. Marks barreled through the wooden gate and out onto the street, making a hard right turn. Jack followed a hundred yards behind him, but now he flicked off his headlights, hiding himself from Marks.
The streets were black. Not a streetlight or a traffic signal was working. All the buildings were dark. The only artificial light Jack could see was the glow of Marks’s headlights ahead of him. There wouldn’t have been much traffic at that hour anyway, of course, but now there was none. There were only a few obstacles in the road — cars that had shut down in mid-transit when the EMP went off. Any car that relied on electronics for its functions — onboard computers for ignition, braking, suspension — had shut down. Fortunately for Jack, the streetlights had been, to some degree, replaced by starlight. On any given night in Los Angeles, ambient light wiped out almost all the stars. But tonight the ambient light itself had been wiped out. Jack saw the silhouettes of stalled cars, and sometimes of confounded drivers, as he followed his prey.
Marks turned left onto Little Santa Monica Boulevard and sped west. Jack followed him to the 405 freeway and up the on ramp. The freeway was no different from the surface streets — a few cars stalled here and there. Jack passed one car that seemed to be operational — the driver’s headlights were on and he’d stopped to see if someone else needed assistance — but Jack had no time to explain anything to them as he hurtled past at a hundred miles per hour. Marks had somewhere to get to fast.
If Marks knew he was following, the man gave no sign. The militia leader’s car sped north on the 405 with no twists or turns and no change of speed. Marks practically flew over the interchange to the eastbound 101, and Jack cruised after him.
Jack’s shoulder had begun to throb. It hung lower than his right, and he couldn’t lift the arm, which had begun to swell. He also felt a stinging pain in his side. He moved his left hand, painfully, to touch his side where he thought a bullet had passed through his shirt. He felt blood — apparently, the bullet had passed through his flesh as well.
Kelly Sharpton, Nina Myers, Tony Almeida, and a strike team arrived at the Century City Plaza in a Nissan Sentra and a 1972 Chevy station wagon. Every SUV at CTU had been knocked out of commission, but Kelly had managed to commandeer these cars on the street.
They rushed into the darkened lobby, their flashlights probing the ground and finally falling across the face of Darryl the security guard.
“I tried to call,” Darryl said. “Was that your guy that was here before? The blond guy?”
“Probably,” Kelly said. “Where’d he go?”
Darryl raised his hands. “Where’d anybody go? I heard gunshots up on the roof. I heard gunshots down in the parking structure. But I’m blind as a bat here.”
Kelly turned to Nina. “Take half the team and go to the roof. Tony, take the other half and check the parking levels.”
“Will do,” Nina said. “But it sounds like we missed the action.”
“I know,” Kelly said. “Whatever he’s doing, Jack’s on his own.”
Avery Taylor replaced the handset of the secure telephone and rubbed a hand across his close-shaved head. According to his advance team, the Los Angeles blackout extended in a circle of about thirty miles in diameter, from the Ventura County border south to San Pedro and Long Beach. East, it had reached past the San Fernando Valley and west the blackout had blanked some of the oil platforms off the coast. There was, essentially, a big black patch where a city was supposed to be. But there was no indication of additional danger.
“Tell the pilot to give us altitude,” he decided, “but to maintain his current course.”
Still driving dark, Jack had followed Marks’s headlights across the San Fernando Valley on the 101, then down the 110 Freeway to Griffith Park. Near the park Jack had to move in closer, risking exposure because of the twisting and turning streets. But he thought he knew where Marks was headed.
Griffith Observatory was closed for repairs. The entire facility was going through a massive renovation, and although the surrounding park, with its hiking trails and horseback riding, was open to the public, the observatory at the top of the hill was shut down.
Jack found Marks’s car abandoned at the bottom of the drive, where the entrance had been blocked by construction vehicles. Jack parked and got out, then began the long, slow climb up the drive. Here, with the starlight, his vision was much better than it had been in the guts of the Century City tower. But he was afraid of an ambush, so he moved slowly, cautiously, searching for Marks as he ascended. It took him nearly fifteen minutes to reach the top of the hill.
Jack trotted up the last stretch of road to the observatory itself — a grand half-globe perched atop a hill that overlooked the entire city. A lawn-dotted walkway led up to the observatory, although most of the walkway was torn up for renovation at the moment.
In the starlight, Jack saw a shadow move across the broken landscape: Marks. The militia leader reached a mound of something and dragged a tarp away. He hefted something — it looked like a thick, unwieldy bazooka — and trotted toward the domed building.
Jack hurried after him. Nina had said the second weapon taken from Cal Tech was some kind of EMP rifle. He wondered what kind of range it had. He was betting that Marks already knew.
He moved as fast as he could — his shoulder was throbbing now, and every step was agony — among piles of debris along the promenade. He reached the building and rounded it to the far balcony, which gave the best exterior view of the city. He saw Marks’ silhouette, but he couldn’t help pausing for a half second to notice what he had not noticed atop the Century City tower.
The city had disappeared below him. There should have been endless fields of light stretching off into the distance, gems laid out under a dark blanket of sky. But below there was only darkness, while above — above the Los Angeles basin, for the first time in fifty years, stars shone down in their hundreds of thousands. It was as though the horizon had been flipped — darkness below and lights above. It was, even for a hardened man like Jack, a breathtaking sight.
Marks hefted the electronic rifle. Jack saw a screen light up. As Jack crept up, he saw what looked like a radar screen with a single blip coming into range.
Jack put his gun to the back of Marks’s head. “Put the weapon down.”
Brett Marks’s shoulders stiffened and Jack had that pleasure, so rare in dealing with Marks, of seeing the man totally surprised. But Marks didn’t put the HERF gun down.
