The Vengeance of the Tau (38 page)

“I won’t lie to you, Mr. Rothstein. I’ve lain awake plenty of nights trying to come up with the kind of plan you’re putting into operation. I think of terrorists who kill schoolchildren and madmen who terrorize entire nations. …”

“Yes! Yes!”

“But I always come up short of committing to something like the Tau because of what pursuing this kind of vengeance ultimately boils down to: to destroy your enemy, you must become as he is. The disregard for innocent life, the willingness to accept sacrifices, putting your dogma above everything else—all those things are part and parcel of what you’re suggesting. Your sister was right: the power the White Death brings with it is terrifying. It allows you to define standards of existence. Sure, it all sounds good now, but what happens when you’ve wiped out all those you consider evil? You’ll have to come up with new standards to justify your own existence, and others will have to pay. Others will
always
have to pay.”

Rothstein looked at him for what seemed like a very long time. “You disappoint me, Mr. McCracken. I have heard of your work on behalf of Israel in 1973. I felt that I, that Israel, has always owed you something for that, so I ordered your life to be spared today.”

McCracken looked up from the couch. The Twins tensed slightly and followed his line of vision. He could never hope to overcome both of them, even if he could improvise some sort of weapon without them realizing.

“Can’t you see the world needs what we bring to it?” Arnold Rothstein challenged. “Can’t you see it is begging for it?”

“What I see,” Blaine replied, “is someone who has become what he set out to destroy forty-five years ago. Deciding who’s fit to live or die.”

“We’re merely trying to rid the world of those determined to make that very same decision without any regard for conscience.”

“Listen to yourself, Rothstein. My God, in seeking vengeance the Tau is becoming the Nazis all over again.”

The old man’s eyes flared with anger. “How could you suggest such a thing? How could you say such a thing?”

“To show you what you sound like to me. This isn’t the first time I’ve had a discussion like this, and the thing all of them have in common is that the speaker is always convinced he’s right. That he alone can chart the proper course for human existence. Sorry. You can’t save the world; it has to do that all by itself.”

The door opened suddenly and Billy Griggs strode inside.

“You want me to
what
?”

Johnny’s request made Pop Keller jam down on the brake. They were squeezed into the cab of his truck, still three miles from the former amusement-park grounds where the NAB was setting up for their coming series of performances. Blue Thunder fought to keep up the pace behind them.

Johnny had explained about the Tau and the White Death as best he could in rapid fashion, ending his tale with what he had seen at Livermore Air Force Base prior to finding Pop in town.

“I want you to bomb the base,” Wareagle said again. “I can give you the coordinates.”

“Hold on a sec. You can’t expect me to just open up my guns on a government installation.”

“It belongs to the Tau now. And if they manage to get their White Death distributed in the quantities they must surely possess …”

“Yeah, yeah. I get the picture. Could be worse than the last time,” he finished in a mutter.

“Last time?” Melissa raised.

“Never mind. Suffice it to say I’ve been through this kind of thing before. Just wanted you folks to know that. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a chance in hell I’d even be listening to ya now. But I still can’t up and start blowing the crap out of Livermore Air Force Base.”

“Because you lack equipment capable of doing it?”

Pop seemed to take offense at that. “Listen, fella, I got it all. Eight-inch guns, 155mm howitzers, 105s. But, hey, I ain’t about to start firing on a U.S. military installation just on your say-so. I’ll help you seal it off until we can get real help here. That’s the best I can do.”

The National Artillery Brigade was well along in its process for setting up by the time Pop Keller drove his truck into the parking lot and through the dilapidated fence that would be shored up by week’s end. Johnny’s eyes gaped at the sight of the artillery pieces being slid into place in the field beyond. Keller had not exaggerated at all. There was a towed 155mm howitzer and a self-propelled gun of the same power, in addition to a smaller 105mm and a monstrous eight-inch cannon with a range of over twelve miles. The smaller artillery pieces had not been unloaded yet and neither had the older, more fragile ones which were mostly for show anyway.

But the NAB’s roster of main battle tanks was already lined up in a row across the field’s center. There were five of them, dating back to the Sherman of World War II, the Pershing of Korea, and the M-47 Patton. In a relative sense, these three were dwarfed by their massive offspring, the original M-60 and its cousin the M-60A1. Wareagle was truly impressed.

For his part, Pop was more interested in checking on his people. A number of them were busy erecting wooden targets that the tanks and smaller artillery pieces would shoot at. Still more were towing the steel carcasses of other vehicles and heavy equipment that would make grand fodder for the big guns. Basically this was just target practice on a massive scale, especially when a member of the audience who was holding the lucky ticket got to fire a howitzer.

All of his people who weren’t working, and plenty of those who should have been, were surrounding the Patriot missile battery off in the corner of the field by itself. It was a lot bigger and more menacing than the image of the gentle defender of the Gulf War, the missile battery itself set apart from the enclosed, cubicle-sized control console. The team members manning the console were explaining their wares to the marveling group, while the six-man security team looked on, unsure of what to do. While it was true that none of the weekend crowd would be permitted within a hundred feet of the battery, the participants in the show felt it was their right to examine it closely. Accordingly, there was even a cluster of onlookers gawking at the battery’s quartet of missile launchers, under the watchful eyes of the security team.

“You boys mind getting back to work?” Pop scolded those crowded near the open door of the control console. And when the men turned back to their chores, he caught a glimpse of the most complicated radar screen he had ever laid eyes on, a yellow arrow sweeping across a green grid.

“This thing on?” Pop called up to the two men seated behind the controls, much to the chagrin of the security personnel.

The two men’s eyes gestured toward the truck behind them. “Once it’s out of the box, we got no choice. Kill the batteries and blow the circuit board otherwise.”

“Just watch you don’t lean on the fire button. I ain’t got a spare mill lying around.”

“Will do, sir.”

“You’re quite certain of this, of course, Mr. Griggs.”

Billy Boy looked McCracken’s way. “I know I saw his injun friend you told me to watch for and the owner of some artillery show powwowing in town. Injun gets his way, they could do us some damage.”

“Then I suppose we will have to do them some damage, won’t we? Where are they, Mr. Griggs?”

“Field about six miles from here.”

“You have more specific coordinates?”

“Come up with them in a few seconds for you.”

The old man had already picked up his walkie-talkie. “Wheel out the FROG missile batteries,” he ordered into it. “Prepare to fire on the following coordinates. …”

Jed Long and Teddy Worth had shipped out to Germany with the first-generation Patriot batteries. They’d been transferred to Israel during the Gulf War and spent the rest of their tour there trying to teach their headstrong Israeli replacements how the system really worked, then update them when the new and improved software arrived. Long and Worth had been made to feel like heroes in that country, and they missed not only that but also the constant edge they had lived on during those months. They’d shot down all four Scuds they had locked onto, and if there was a greater rush than the roughly forty seconds between detection and impact, neither of them had ever felt it.

They returned Stateside just in time for the success of the Patriot to be challenged on all quarters. Some asshole from MIT had turned against the system, and the Senate Appropriations Committee was quick to follow suit. Even segments of the military had jumped on the bandwagon. Jed Long and Terry Worth fumed. Why don’t they ask the people who really know? they wondered. They offered to testify in front of anyone who would listen.

No one was interested.

Someday,
Long and North told themselves frequently,
someday we’ll show them. …

But not today. Long was seated in front of the radar screen with legs stretched before him and hands clasped behind his head. Worth was checking the final connections, thinking maybe it would be better if they packed everything back up and brought it out again come next weekend. Truth was, somebody at the Pentagon had told them opening day was yesterday, so they’d scrambled to get here a day late only to find out they were five days early.

A sudden rapid chirping sound had Long lunging forward in his chair, almost toppling it behind him.

“What the fuck …”

Worth had leapt up behind him. “Shit,” he said disbelievingly, “we got incoming.”

“This some kind of joke? …”

“Thirty seconds to impact,” Long said.

“Four incoming,” Worth followed. “I got four incoming.”

“Positive ID obtained. FROGS!” Long shouted, referring to the computer’s identification of the missiles hurtling their way. “
Four
fucking FROGS!”

“Jesus Christ …”

Worth knew that even under the best of conditions, the Patriot’s strike rate was .72. With four Patriots to fire at four incomings, that meant the odds of successful intercept were not good at all. Still, this updated version of the Patriot contained a stronger explosive designed to detonate the enemy warhead on impact, instead of just destroying the missile. But it hadn’t been tested in battle yet.

“System is enabled.” Long glanced back at Worth. “What the fuck do we do?”

“Time to impact?”

“Fifteen seconds …”

“Fire!” Worth exclaimed. In that instant he was back in Israel. The feeling was the same, everything was the same, including the devastation four FROG (free rocket over ground) missiles would cause if they impacted.

Long hit the auto button three seconds later when the screen flashed red, signaling that the Patriot computer had locked on. The auto button swung the battery into intercept mode. The launcher had already turned to face the incomings, and the four Patriots shot out at millisecond intervals with deafening roars that split the air over the field. Some of the NAB’s workers figured there’d been an accidental explosion and hit the ground for safety. Others just stood there dumbstruck as the red and white missiles rocketed upward toward nothing.

“Oh fuck,” said Pop, who like the others could not yet see the FROG missiles the Patriots were speeding to intercept.

At the very last, several NAB members briefly glimpsed the streaking Patriots converging on shiny spots in the sky. In the next instant, four explosions sounded over the field, great thunderclaps in the sky that showered sprays of what looked like fireworks down toward the ground.

Instinct had forced Pop Keller into a crouch. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. The bastards at the air force base had goddamn
fired
on him! The son-of-a-bitch Indian was right! Pop stood up painfully, still half squinting, and pulled the hands from his ears.

“Now I’m mad,” he said. “Now I’m fucking pissed.” He looked toward Wareagle. “Let me have those coordinates, Injun. This is gonna be like the Little Big Horn all over again.”

Chapter 35

ARNOLD ROTHSTEIN SMILED
at the muffled sound of the distant explosions. He stayed by the window for several moments before turning back toward McCracken.

“It would seem the threat your friend posed to us has been eliminated.”

Blaine gritted his teeth. In that instant he wanted more than anything to lunge at the old man, but he knew he’d never get past the Twins.

“We are the world’s only chance,” Rothstein insisted. “I must ask you to reconsider or join your friend in futility.”

Blaine shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Such a waste …” The old man’s eyes moved from McCracken to the Twins, then back again. “They will be quick in their work. It is the least I can do for you. Of course, it would have been easier still if you had just let them dispatch you quietly in that hotel in Turkey. Losing you after that became a real concern of mine.”

“Until the toymaker’s, of course.”

Arnold Rothstein looked at him with a mixture of confusion and disinterest.

“You don’t know what I’m talking about. …”

“Nor do I care. Good-bye, Mr. McCracken.”

“But if it wasn’t you, then who …”

Arnold Rothstein was gazing at the Twins once more. “You understand how I want it done?”

“Yes,” they replied in unison.

“Lock him in one of the basement storage rooms, while you sweep the grounds one last time.” Rothstein’s eyes fell on Blaine. “Make sure he has no more surprises waiting for us before we bring out the remaining transports. Then kill him.”

“You’re making a mistake, Rothstein,” McCracken said, as the Twins hoisted him to his feet and started to lead him to the door. “Listen to me. You’ve missed something here—we both have.”

Rothstein waved Blaine off and turned his back so that he was facing the window. Before McCracken could speak again, the Twins brought him into the corridor and yanked him forward to the stairs. There was no sense in resisting. His mind, in any case, was elsewhere.

Rothstein hadn’t been behind the attack at the toymaker’s in Germany!

Someone else was involved. Another party, another force …

Who? Why?

Four flights of stairs later, they reached the basement. A door to one of the supply rooms was already open. The Twins pushed him through. One of them turned on a light.