Come on, Margaret, where are you!
I indicated to the screen and asked Daniels, “How long until final descent?”
“Six minutes. Maybe less.”
It won’t take Israel long to identify the speed and trajectory of the missile. They’ll assume Iran fired it. They’ll respond Margaret answered, but I cut her off, “You have to get Israel to hold off a kinetic response. It’s the only way to save Jerusalem. They cannot fire, Margaret, you have to-”
“Patrick-”
“The missile was launched! Are the Beriev A-60s in the air?”
“Yes-”
“No retaliatory response. None! And get Nielson on the line. He has to tell Iran’s Supreme Leader, not the presid-”
The signal went dead. All the computers went offline.
“What?” I shouted. “What happened?”
“The comm link on the first level.” Rusk’s words were flushed with shock. “Someone must have gotten up there, disabled it. You said a missile was fired? We were supposed to take ’em offline!”
We have until the final descent. You need to move.
You can still stop this!
I leapt to my feet, said to Daniels, “Is the elevator on the top level working?”
“I don’t-”
“No!” Rusk interrupted, desperate now. “I disabled it!”
I started for the door. “Rusk, Lien-hua, you’re with me.” Lien-hua passed the rifle to Daniels, and I pointed to Alexei. “Shoot him if he tries to get away. Shoot him if he tries to approach either of the men on the floor. Shoot anyone who goes near that detonator switch.”
As I left the room I heard Alexei accuse Becker, “You killed Tatiana.”
Becker responded, just loud enough for me to hear, “I’m not Valkyrie.”
“Then who-”
But by then I was out of earshot, hurrying with Lien-hua and Rusk toward the stairs.
94
Amber opened her eyes, sputtered, shivered, gasped for breath.
Thank God! Tessa nearly said the words aloud.
Sean lifted Amber, hurried to the bedroom. “Grab some towels,” he called to Tessa, “and we need to find some dry clothes so we can get her to the hospital.”
Tessa gathered the towels, but she didn’t know how long Amber would remain conscious, not after that serious an overdose.
She had her phone with her, but no doctor had come on the line yet. After helping dry Amber and pulling on some dry clothes herself, Tessa went online and typed in the name of the drug, then searched for treatment strategies, and saw that the drive to the hospital would be cutting it dangerously close.
“Sean, we need to empty her stomach!”
Bypassing the clothes, Sean had decided to wrap Amber in thick, warm blankets for the drive. He was yanking them from the closet shelf. “What do you suggest?”
A finger down her throat? That doesn’t always work; it’s hard to do on someone else. Amber’s a pharmacist. Surely she’ll have some Tessa said to Amber, “Do you have any syrup of ipecac?”
“No.” Her voice was weak.
“Hydrogen peroxide?”
A nod. “Medicine cabinet.”
But when Tessa checked, she found the bottle nearly empty.
No!
All right, one last option.
Maybe, maybe, it’s worth a try Tessa left for the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” Sean called.
“My friend Anisette had bulimia. She used dish soap.”
Second level.
I was pushing forward as fast as I could on my injured ankle.
The entry bay stairwell wasn’t far.
Toting sidearms, the ELF crew had secured this floor. However, someone had managed to disrupt that comm line, so it looked like at least one Eco-Tech member was still loose on the level above us.
As we rushed past the rec room, I told Lien-hua, “It’s good to see you, by the way. What about that guy you were fighting down there?”
“He won’t be bothering us.”
I corralled two of the warfare information officers to join us.
“What are we doing, Pat?” Lien-hua asked.
“I need to talk to Margaret. The Iranians have planes, Russian-made Beriev A-60s. They’re in the air and they can shoot down that missile if only we can convince them to do it.”
“But it’s heading for Jerusalem,” she said. “Why would Iran stop a nuclear missile that’s on its way to Israel?”
“I’m working on that.” Then I asked the officers with us, “Is there any other means of communicating with someone outside of this base?”
“No,” one of the men answered. “Both the sat comm and landlines are down. RF has been jammed all night.”
“You’d need to get to the surface,” Rusk stammered, “but I told you, the elevator’s been disabled!”
“I’m not going to use the elevator.”
95
We emerged from the stairwell.
Stepped into the base’s entry bay.
Even from here I could see that the comm line had indeed been yanked down, snapping somewhere in the middle. I hurried to the shaft, flicked out my Maglite, shone it up toward the maintenance building.
The light didn’t reach the top.
No handholds.
No footholds.
I’d have to stem the whole way up, climb it like I would a crack or a chimney. I tossed off my jacket, asked the naval officers, “Is this shaft open on top?”
Lien-hua and the crewmen had their sidearms out and were scanning the area. “No,” one of them said. “There’s a cement cover that slides over the hole.”
Great.
The schematics had said this shaft was twenty-seven meters long.
Just less than ninety feet.
Lien-hua guessed my plan. “Pat, no.”
“It’s all right. I’ll be all right.” She and the others were still watching for Eco-Tech members. I cranked my boot laces as tight as they’d go and told the officer, “You need to get that cover moved by the time I get up there.”
“I’m not sure we can get-”
