The Burning Skies

the Montana, into databases that Lynx has already hacked, and from there back to the war-sat. It’s the same with Linehan’s questions. He’s less polite than Lynx is, but just as responsive. Two more minutes, and the sergeant salutes.

“Where’s the shuttle?” says Lynx.

“We’ll take you there,” replies the sergeant.

They leave the airlock room behind, proceed through the corridors of the war-sat. The atmosphere definitely seems pretty tense. Everyone looks like they’re going somewhere quick. Everyone’s averting their eyes.

“Feeding me those answers in real time,” says Linehan. “Jesus Christ, you were cutting it close.”

“How about you cutting me some fucking slack? I only just figured them out myself.”

They reseal their helmets, pass through another airlock, reach another docking bay. This one’s even larger. The marines hustle Lynx and Linehan into a shuttle—which starts its motors, floats from the bay and out into the heart of the L2 fleet. One shape in particular looms ever closer.

“That’s the Montana all right,” says Linehan.

“And I can’t fucking wait.”

“So what the fuck’s up here? How the hell did you snag a meeting with the acting head of SpaceCom intelligence?”

“By being Com intelligence ourselves. Obviously.”

“Yeah? When did you switch our IDs?”

“About ten minutes ago.”

“And the guys who really had a meeting with Jansen?”

“Got carved up in a Congreve alley behind a seriously nasty bar. This was one of several ways in, Linehan. I was playing a couple of other angles, but when we got to the war-sat this was pretty much the only way to keep moving.”

“So you keyed the SpaceCom comps to recognize the faces we’re wearing.”

“Yeah.”

“And if Jansen took a look at the camera feeds?”

“He’ll see just what he expects to.”

“And when we’re standing in front of him? Won’t our faces be an issue then?”

“Not if we skip that meeting.”

On the loose beneath the Himalayas, the train streaks unmonitored through the hollows. Spencer’s watching rocky walls whip past. Data flashes by far faster. Something’s taking shape within his head.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he says.

“It’s just a logic bomb,” says Sarmax.

“No,” says Spencer, “it’s not. It’s a logic nuke. It’ll open up a link to the U.S. zone and bring this whole place down around our ears.”

Sarmax shrugs. “Shit happens.”

“What the hell’s going on here, Leo? This is an act of war.”

“And sabotaging a superweapon isn’t?”

“This might collapse the whole Eurasian net.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“That’s a crazy thing. For all we know, the Eurasian weapons will fire if their zone gets disrupted.”

“Not if that little fucker does its job.”

Spencer keeps staring at the data that’s flitting through his head. He’s breaking down all its layers, all the way to binary. Those 1’s and 0’s look so innocuous on the screens within his mind. But put enough of them together in enough sequences and they’re capable of anything. Spencer’s starting to think that so is he.

“We’re not here to stop a war,” he says slowly.

“We’re here to make sure it’s as one-sided as possible.” Sarmax’s face breaks into a half-smile. “Now how about you figure out where we’re gonna set this thing off?”

A tricky question. Especially because Spencer is still unsure whether he’s found everything in these catacombs. He certainly has access to more than he did. The maps roll through his brain, which takes them apart in all their detail: floor space, transport, logistics, wiring. The scale of the place beggars description. It’s even larger than he thought. Several hundred ground-to-space directed-energy batteries and about fifty heavy launching pads; yet so far it’s just standard stuff. There’s no sign of any one thing that’s particularly special. The scientists got shipped to the complex’s control center. But according to the readouts they’re just being held there. It’s unclear what for. A voice sounds in Spencer’s head.

“How’s it looking, sir?” It’s the captain.

“Not good,” replies Spencer. “Can you get me some files from Moscow?”

“I can try, sir.” The captain sounds nervous. “What do you need?”

“The comprehensive dossiers on the chief of this place. General Loshenko. And his five subordinates. And quickly.”

“And his Chinese counterpart?”

“This is an investigation, captain. Not an instigation of civil war. Now move your ass.”

“Sir.”

The captain disconnects. Spencer imagines he’s guessing that Spencer’s got his own sources to scope out the Chinese. But the truth of the matter is that Spencer’s just trying to keep the captain busy. He doesn’t need any official requests to Moscow to figure out what they’ve got on the men they’ve sent to run this place. He’s already tapped into Moscow’s files to get to where he is now, reached out across the long-gone steppes to that city he’ll never see, slipped through its streets and basements while he pulled together everything he could find. He’s back beneath those streets now, looking for the key to the place he’s in.

And not finding it. Maybe his clearance just isn’t high enough. Or maybe everything’s just that compartmentalized.

“What’s the story?” says Sarmax.

“The story is I can’t find a goddamn thing.”

“What about the handler’s mystery file?”

“The book’s divided into three sections.”

“And?”

“And that’s it.”

“That’s what you call progress?”

“It’s what I call a start.”

“You’re not funny.”

“Easy Leo. The first part deals with this base. The second part deals with the weapon that’s in here.”

“And the third?”

“I haven’t a fucking clue. And I’m not even that sure about the first two. It’s just pattern-recognition algorithms I’ve been running. The first part contains at least a few disguised maps. The second part seems to be technical descriptions. The third’s Christ knows what.”

“So you’re stonewalled.”

“So I am.”

“So let’s do this.”

Spencer shrugs, closes a circuit in his head, connects the logic bomb’s software to the Eurasian