All Due Respect (36 page)

“We can’t just sit here and let the bastards take out D.C.”

They couldn’t. They would lose the White House, Congress, and the Pentagon.

“What about Home Base?” Matthew darted his gaze between Seth and the screen. “We’ve got the prototype.”

“We can’t use it on this. If we return the Rogue to its launch site, we’ll still lose D.C. and most of the federal government.” Seth tracked the trajectory on the screen, a thin red line. The Rogue had turned west, toward Los Angeles.

“What the hell is that thing doing?” Colonel Kane demanded to know.

The radar specialist responded. “It’s erratic as hell, sir. Something’s destabilized it.”

“Dr. Warner, could disabling the stealth do that?”

“No, Colonel. It couldn’t.”

Kane held up his hands. “Then what the hell is happening?”

“The Rogue is performing as advertised, Colonel,” Seth said. “You aren’t supposed to be able to project its trajectory with standard countermeasures. That’s why it’s called a Rogue.”

“But the damn thing’s zigzagging.”

Seth got to a computer, began seeking a pattern. Tense minutes passed, with Kane answering the red-line phone again and again.

“Give me something to tell them, Holt.” Kane slammed down the phone, frustrated. “Anything to tell them.”

“Working on it.” Seth didn’t spare the colonel a glance.

Tension pulsed through the command center. Everyone felt it, and everyone suffered its pressure.

Finally, the information processed and the computer had enough data to draw a hypothetical conclusion. A new screen popped up on Seth’s monitor. “It’s not going to L.A. If it maintains its current pattern, it’ll hit in three hours.”

“Three hours?” Colonel Kane frowned at the screen, and then at Seth.

He nodded.

“Where, for God’s sake?”

“New York City.” Seth grimaced. The most densely populated area in the country. And at eight a.m. Eastern time, it would be damn densely populated.

Seth looked over at Julia. Their gazes met, and the regret he felt he saw mirrored in her eyes. This morning, normal everyday-average people were feeding their kids breakfast, dropping them off at school, and going into work, thinking this was just another typical day. Except today millions of them would die. Men, women, children. Parents, grandparents, and cousins. Lovers. Friends. And Uncle Lous.

And a nation would mourn the worst tragedy ever suffered on its soil.

But which millions of blissfully unaware people would die?

“What are our options, Seth?”

He looked at Colonel Kane. “New York City, or D.C.— and everything within a hundred kilometers of either one. If the warhead falls into the WIND classification, then, of course, the anticipated damage assessments escalate proportionately.”

“Can’t we tell if it’s carrying a WIND warhead?”

“No.” Seth’s bitterness tinged his tone. “The Rogue’s constructed from a new metal alloy that requires a specific sensor to determine warhead type.”

“Then why the hell don’t we have it?”

“The budget didn’t allow for it.”

Julia came over to Seth. “We can’t disarm the Rogue, but we can create interference and scramble its trajectory. We won’t know where it’ll detonate, but odds are in our favor it will be in an area less populated.”

“We can’t do it.” Seth gave her a level look. “Are you willing to dump bio or, God forbid, chemicals? Because you damn well could be doing just that.”

“It’s going to hit somewhere, Seth. If it’s biological, we can’t inoculate the entire country before symptoms occur.”

If it turned out to be chemical or nuclear, there would be no one left to inoculate. “We can’t just intercept it. Not without knowing it it’s live ordnance or a decoy, or its type of warhead.”

“Home Base can tell us if it’s a decoy.”

“Yes, but if we disrupt it, it’ll detonate.”

Matthew lifted his hands. “We built the damn thing. Can’t we disarm it?”

Seth nodded. “We always build in safety features, factoring in that only we’ll have the technology but preparing just in case someone else gets their hands on it. Yet—”

“Morse has that technology, too,” Colonel Kane interjected.

Seth again nodded.

Julia crossed her arms over her chest. “So what can we do?”

He looked her straight in the eye. “We’ve got to reprogram the Rogue and change its target.”

“Can we do that?” Matthew asked.

“Seth. That’s impossible.” Julia guffawed. “Conventional seekers won’t work. The Rogue’s alloy prevents it. Even with Home Base, we can only reverse its existing trajectory. Any attempt to alter it and we alter the magnetic energy field. The Rogue will detonate.”

Seth disputed her. “We have the technology.”

“Then why the hell aren’t we using it?” Colonel Kane stepped into the fray.

Seth’s chest went tight. If he was right, great. If not, well, he’d be glad to be dead with everyone else. “We’ve got the technology, I said.” He looked at Kane. “But it won’t be operational or incorporated into our defense capabilities for at least five years.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Budget.” Seth let his bitterness show. “Talk to Congress and our Commander in Chief. They get righteous about our lack of preparedness, but they hold the damn purse strings. Without the funding, we’re stymied.”

“Stymied, hell. We’re screwed,” Matthew said.

Seth stared at the screen, at the blip. “We’ve got a shot.”

“What shot?” Julia stared at him, perplexed, then caught the twinkle in his eye. “Your sensor?”

He nodded. “It’s ready—and it should override the metal alloy in the Rogue.”

“What are you talking about, Holt?” Colonel Kane folded his arms across his chest.

“A technology project I’ve been working on for years— on the side. Congress refused to fund it, so I’ve been limping along on my own. I altered the design so it can piggyback on the Home Base system.”

“And your sensor is operational?”

Seth hedged on that. “Theoretically, with it, we can determine the type of warhead the Rogue’s carrying. We can also reprogram its trajectory without detonating it—at least, we can in theory and in very limited simulated studies.

But—and it’s a big one, Colonel Kane—the studies haven’t been extensive and the sensor hasn’t been field-tested. At best, deploying it will be a close call timewise, and it might not work.”

“Trial by fire,” Matthew said.

“It has to work.” Julia looked from him to Seth. “We don’t have anything else.”

“Well, Colonel?” Seth said. “Your call.”

Kane stared at the screen, the red-lined path, then turned a steely gaze back to Seth. “Do it.”

“Don’t you want to check with the honchos?”

“What are they gonna do?” Matthew growled. “Say no when there’s no other option.”

Ignoring Matthew, Colonel Kane addressed Seth. “I’ll tell them. They’ll just have to sweat it out with the rest of us.”

“Yeah, well, notify Congress, too, sir,” Matthew said. “They’re the ones who wouldn’t give us the money.”

Seth turned to Julia. “Get the team in here. We’re definitely going to need Cracker. And make sure Lieutenant Swede”—Seth motioned to the GPS monitor—“keeps a satellite glued to the Rogue. I need as close to zero time delay on transmissions and receptions as he can squeak out—and tell him to find me a ship-free sector in the Atlantic where we can detonate the Rogue, if it’s not WIND and we can reprogram its trajectory.” Seth headed toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Julia called out to him.

“To install the senior on the Home Base prototype.” He glanced at Matthew. “The sensor only activates on an air to air launch. We need a F-16. Voluntary mission. High risk.”

Julia’s heart shot up to her throat. A pilot to volunteer for what could well be a suicide mission.

“I’m on it.” Matthew stepped to the nearest phone.

Her emotions threatened to riot. She ordered them back to that secret place, and then headed for Lieutenant Swede. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t.

Dear God, it couldn’t, but it was. And for a moment, she resented knowing and understanding the potential impact when others remained blissfully ignorant. She imagined Jeff and Seth and the life they could have, all of the people who could be hurt by this. And in her mind, she saw them, face by face, each of the victims who one minute would be here and the next minute would be gone. Standing, hands linked, in a line that stretched back and forth across the country, they reached from coast to coast. And then she saw the people whose lives had been touched by those victims. Those who loved them, and those who had been loved by them. And then she saw those who would never be because the victims were no longer here to parent them.

The mass of people linking hands grew larger and larger and, inside, she wept.

SETH returned to the command center, winded and worn.

Julia met him at the door. “We’ve got forty minutes— and a projected flight time of thirty-four minutes.”

“Where’s Cracker?” Seth headed into the pulse of the center.

“He’s here. They’re all here.” Julia grasped his arm. “Seth, Linda’s husband is piloting the F-16.”

“Mac?” Seth felt his energy deflate. “I thought he was in the desert.”

“He was. It wasn’t a regular remote tour. He was filling in for a critical staff member. He got back two days ago.”

“He volunteered for this mission?” Seth wanted to spit nails. Guilt swarmed his stomach. “If this fails, Linda will never forgive me.”

“Seth.” Julia cupped his face. “Honey, they’re all somebody’s husband or wife.”

“I know.” Seth walked on. “I just—”

“I understand.” Julia and Seth stopped beside Matthew and Colonel Kane, who held their gazes fixed on the screen, on that damn red line that had come to represent hell.

Sparing Seth a glance, Colonel Kane asked, “What do we do now?”

“We wait.”

And we worry. Julia looked up at Seth. “I want to call Jeff.”

He nodded.

“Dr. Warner.” Colonel Kane lifted a staying finger and dropped his voice to a whisper. “You do that, and everyone in this room is going to shut down. They’re looking to you two to see how much to worry about this. Make that call, and they’re going to interpret it to mean we’re already mourning our dead.”

Julia stared at him, torn between doing the right thing and what her heart wanted her to do. The battle ran its course, and finally, she nodded. “Of course.”

“Agent 12,” Lieutenant Swede called out. “Line two, sir.”

Matthew grabbed a phone, talked quickly and intensely, then cradled the receiver and returned to the group. “Karl Hyde is in custody. He’s looking at life in prison for this.”

Julia corrected Matthew. “He’s looking at the death penalty. I witnessed him shoot and kill Camden.”

“You actually saw him do it?” Seth asked, stunned that she hadn’t told him.

She nodded. “But even if he gets life, I think his days of threatening me are over.”

“You can bet on that,” Seth said.

Matthew agreed. “Even if he skips the chair or the needle, any contact with you will be prohibited, Julia.”

Finally Karl was the prisoner and she was free. “What about Dempsey Morse?” Her anger at him ran as deeply as her anger at Benedetto. No, deeper. With Benedetto, you got what you saw. He didn’t hide his treasonous, murderous acts beneath the respectable facade of a civil servant.

“Our operatives plucked him out of the Chesapeake before the tug went down. He’s not talking yet, but he will.” Matthew glanced back at the screen. “Last report, they were closing in on Benedetto. The loyalists are in an uproar.

Things at Two West are pretty chaotic right now.”

Seth stepped away, went over to Linda. “I understand Mac volunteered for the mission.”

“He did.” Worry etched her face, and she was breathing hard.

“I’m sorry he’s at risk, Linda.”

“I am, too. But it goes with the turf.” She mustered a hint of a smile. “I married Mac because I admired his courage.” Her gaze turned wistful. “Sometimes it gets in the way of our lives, and sometimes it makes my damn hair gray, but this is who Mac is, and I love him for it.”

Seth clasped her shoulder, gave it a gentle squeeze. “He’s lucky to have you.” The woman had every bit as much courage as Mac. If this went badly, she was the one who would be left behind to pick up the pieces for the family.

“Damn right, he’s lucky,” she said. “And, I assure you, I remind him of it—frequently.”

“I’m sure you do.”

The bluster went out of her voice. “Seth, is this going to work?”

A shiver ran through his body. God, but he wished he could be certain. “I can’t say for fact, Linda. Studies have been too limited. But I think it will.”

“Then it will,” she said emphatically.

Feeling the weight of her faith bear down on him, Seth looked past her shoulder and saw Cracker pounding away at the computer keyboard. “What’s he doing?”

“Familiarizing himself with the system.”

Seth nodded, then walked over. “Anything strange?”

“No, just getting oriented.” Cracker didn’t look up and his fingers never slowed down, rapping consistently against the keys.

Seth stared around the command center. Work went on, but every eye with a second to spare watched that red blip on the screen.

He looked at Julia. Like everyone else, she was clearly tense and wary, weary of watching and waiting and silently praying the projected flight time was longer than the actual. Six minutes wasn’t much operational time. But it was enough, provided his sensor worked against the metal alloy and adjusted for the magnetic alterations of Mac’s physical proximity and it didn’t detonate the Rogue.

Kane was on the red-line phone again. He motioned to Seth. “Holt, come here.”

Seth went over. Kane held the phone out to him. “The chief.”

Not the Chief of Staff, the Commander in Chief. The President. Seth positioned the receiver at his ear. “Mr. President.”

“Dr. Holt. I just wanted to thank you for your efforts. Regardless of how this turns out, you went to a lot of trouble on your own, developing that system.”

“Yes, sir, I did.” Seth frowned, and his irritation with the President got the better of him. “Sir, with all due respect, why aren’t you on Air Force One?”