Black Sun: A Thriller (39 page)

“The reason is,” he said, “it’s not a single magnetic
field—I mean in the aggregate it is—but it’s being generated by three separate layers interacting with each other.”

“Oh, come on,” Stecker mumbled.

Moore ignored him. “A similar thing happens in the sun. Even though the sun is a million times more massive than the earth, and it creates a magnetic field millions of times more powerful, its magnetic field reverses every eleven years. And it doesn’t go easily. The sun’s equator rotates faster than the sections near the poles. As a result the magnetic lines of force get dragged across the face of the sun, much like spreading a sheet out over your bed and then pulling it only from the middle. The center moves, the edges stay. Instead of nice parallel lines everything gets skewed.

“In the sun, the lines get so tangled that they can snap like a rubber band stretched too tight. This is what causes solar flares and other events like the coronal mass ejections. Both events release incredible amounts of energy in a single instant.”

“How much energy are we talking about?” the president asked.

“Enough to fling a hundred billion tons of material into space at a single moment,” Moore said.

The president looked drawn. “How does this apply to us?”

“We keep acting as if the earth’s core is a single, uniformly rotating thing, and for the most part it is, but the inner layer is solid and the outer layer is liquid. In the simulation I’ve run we can line up the graphs of field strength and reversal timing, allowing that this outer
layer is spinning at a different rate near its equator than it is at the poles. That’s the second field.”

“You said there were three.”

“Yes,” Moore said. “The third is created by the stones. It’s only been present for the last three thousand years. Sent here in an effort to stabilize that second field to stop it from doing what it’s about to do.”

“Which is?”

“Snap exactly like the loops on the sun.”

The president cleared his throat. “And what happens when this, um, rubber band snaps?”

Moore took a breath. “There won’t be any mushroom clouds, if that’s what you mean, but there may be some physical effects, possibly minor earthquakes or tremors, but mostly just a massive electromagnetic burst. I don’t have all the numbers, but you can expect something close to ten thousand times the energy of the burst we felt here.”

“Ten thousand times?” The president’s voice trailed off as if the concept were inconceivable to him.

“A tsunami wave of electromagnetic energy rampaging from the current pole across North America and downward, wiping out every electrical circuit in the Western Hemisphere. It will blind every satellite in near-earth orbit at the same moment, while a weaker shadow wave crosses Asia and central Russia and the northeastern corner of Europe. Unfortunately for us, the wave crossing Russia and China will be lighter, meaning they will be stung hard and blinded, but some of their hardened military equipment will survive, especially missiles in hardened silos. They will likely retain the capability to wage war, both on each other or on us, at a time in
which we will be utterly defenseless against any foreign attack.”

“And the stones’ part in this?”

“Designed to counter it while they were hidden, to hold the wave back so the rubber band never stretches in the first place,” Moore said. “But something went wrong. When the Russian stone exploded that plan began to falter. But I think they have a fail-safe mode, and if we bring them up to a place where their signal is not blocked, they can find each other and they can vent this wave safely into space, channeling it like a lightning rod. But to have any chance we must surface all of them: the ones in Mexico and the one we have here.”

The president was quiet. The room was quiet. Finally, even Moore was quiet.

He did not know whether he had convinced the commander in chief, but he’d exhausted himself in the attempt.

“Clear the room,” the president said finally. “I will speak with the director of the NRI alone.”

Sitting next to Moore, Nathanial Ahiga grabbed his soda bottle. “You put on a good show,” he said somberly, sounding like he was talking to a valiant but defeated warrior.

As Ahiga stepped back into the lab section of the trailer and shut the door behind him, the other scientists picked up their notes and exited into the tunnel. Stecker followed them, a smirk on his face as he stepped out into the darkness.

P
inned down by the circling drones, Hawker had cowered in the crown of boulders as three lumbering helicopters approached. In a flat area between the ridges, two of them touched down, disgorging a small army.

He saw twenty men fan out from the lead craft, while the second helicopter released what looked like a group of pack mules, moving in a precise and ominous fashion.

Through his binoculars he could see that these “pack mules” were some kind of mechanical walking machine, like four-legged donkeys with machine-gun turrets where their heads belonged.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mumbled.

The men hung back, allowing the strange walking machines to take the lead. He watched their hydraulic legs propel them forward, their turreted heads swiveling from side to side. He counted six of them, and all he could be certain of was that he didn’t want to see them up close.

Wedging the assault rifle into a gap between the rocks, he sighted the lead machine and opened fire. Shells from the rifle ripped into the lead beast. Sparks flew and it stumbled. But somehow it regained its balance and
continued on its course, climbing the slope toward him. He fired at another with the same result and then let the rifle whale away on full automatic.

One machine crashed to the ground, its front legs damaged, the rear legs still trying to push forward. The others turned toward him and opened fire.

The rock wall in front of Hawker exploded from a convergence of shells. He dove to the ground, crawled fifteen feet, and tried to steal a glance out the other side. But the machines seemed to be waiting for it. The instant he poked his head out, another burst tore into the boulders around him. Whatever type of sensors the machines were using to find him—heat sensors, motion detectors, shape recognition software, whatever it was—they’d locked on to him now.

As the barrage continued, Hawker took cover. He pressed himself into the largest of the boulders, listening to the strange sound of the machines marching closer.

Danielle sat in the gunner’s seat of a massive Russian helicopter as it thundered across the countryside. The craft was a Hind-D, a huge military gunship armed with a 30mm cannon and racks of air-to-ground missiles, and powered by a tremendous turbine engine that pushed the craft through the air at up to two hundred and fifty knots. The sense of speed, the vibration, and the visceral feeling of power that coursed from the airframe was undeniably intoxicating. For once in her career she felt as if she were charging into battle on a stallion of superior power.

As Ivan piloted the craft, Danielle familiarized herself
with the weapons systems. And as they approached the target zone, she was looking forward to wreaking havoc.

“How the hell did you get this thing in country?” she asked over the intercom.

“Officially it is part of a movie production,” Ivan said. “Not a bad cover, don’t you think?”

“Not bad at all,” she replied. “As long as it doesn’t fire blanks.”

Ivan laughed, a genuine belly laugh with a sense of warmth that could be felt even through the intercom. “I promise you, I didn’t come all this way to fire blanks.”

With that they rocketed over the third ridge and the helicopters on the radar scope came into visual.

One of the Skycranes was hanging back. Ivan was already angling toward it.

“Three seconds to range,” Ivan said.

The amber light on her targeting display lit up and an instant later it switched to green. Danielle pressed the fire switch and a heavy buzzing shook the craft as the rotary cannon unleashed the fury of a hundred shells.

The tracers laced into the hovering Skycrane, ten explosive shells in between each glowing marker. The hovering craft lit up with smoke and then exploded and fell toward the ground.

Euphoric, Danielle searched for the next target.

With the burrolike machines blasting at his stronghold, Hawker lay flat on the ground, slithering toward the back edge of the space. He was considering making a
break for it when the sound of a thunderous explosion echoed across the landscape.

From the corner of his eye he saw a fireball in the east. It was one of the Skycranes. How or why, he didn’t know. But when he saw the drones spiraling out of control and crashing into a canyon wall, he didn’t waste time trying to find out.

He took off running. He had ten minutes.

As Stecker and the scientists left the trailer, Moore caught sight of the rocket sled, the vessel of destruction designed to send the stone into the deepest part of the mountain. It was ready and waiting.

The president shouted at him. “What the hell have you gotten us into, Arnold?!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were late to a briefing about Armageddon, looking like you’ve been out drinking somewhere all night, and you offer some cockamamie theory about the earth’s core.”

Moore was acutely aware of his appearance. He was unshaven, looking haggard, in the same clothes he’d worn the day before.

“I’ve been working on this all night with no sleep—”

The president cut him off. “That’s one of the problems, from what I hear: You haven’t been getting much sleep.”

Moore was stunned.

“When you didn’t show on time, I asked your staff about your behavior,” Henderson said. “They answered
honestly. The way you should have months ago. Instead of endangering the country like you have.”

“I would never purposefully—”

“You brought this damned thing here, you sent your people after the other stones, you even mounted an illegal operation to rescue Danielle, despite the fact that I told you not to. And I covered your ass for it. Yet you couldn’t be honest with me?”

“I tried—”

“Stop lying to yourself, Arnold! You’ve put us at risk, and maybe the whole world along with us! I want to know why.”

“Mr. President—”

“Why?!” he shouted. “What are you holding back? Some hidden part of this prophecy you haven’t shared, something else you found down there in Brazil, or some bit of data you don’t want to give up? What is it that makes you believe in this thing beyond all reason?”

Moore looked away. His old friend knew him, knew he wasn’t being completely truthful. He caught sight of the blue countdown clock: seven minutes to zero.

“Now, Arnold!” the president shouted.

“I touched it,” Moore said finally, the admission feeling like a fool’s last act and a weight off his shoulders all at the same time.

“I held the damned thing when Danielle brought it back from the Amazon. And since that moment, since that very moment, I’ve had an unshakable sense that this thing, this stone, was sent here to help us. Not to harm us or hurt us, but to save us from something. Maybe from ourselves. The stone affects everyone who touches it that way.”

For a moment Moore wished he’d let the president touch it. They wouldn’t even be having this conversation. But at the time it had seemed unwise.

“There are patterns in the signal that mirror brainwave activity,” Moore added. “We think it was done that way on purpose, to give us a message, to condition us and teach us.”

As Moore spoke, the anger on the president’s face resolved into despair and a look of utter disgust. It became so obvious, so deep-seated and evident, that Moore could not stand to gaze at his old friend. The president offered no challenge, no angry rebuke. He was just done with Moore.

“You’re relieved,” he said. “Get Stecker in here.”

D
anielle watched as the cannon fire she’d triggered tore into the second of Kang’s Skycranes, shredding the thin aluminum fuselage and blasting off the tail rotor. The flaming craft came apart and careened into the ground, where it exploded.

“The third one is running,” Ivan said, turning toward it.

“Let it go,” Danielle said. “There are men on the ground.”

“Can you see your friend?” Ivan asked.

The Hind-D had a camera system with a telescopic lens, designed to sight targets visually and help prevent friendly-fire incidents. She scanned the terrain and saw only Kang’s people and the strange mechanical mules.

“No!” she shouted.

“You’re sure he’s not with them?”

Kang’s people were still pursuing something, still making their way toward the top of the mesa. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Why?”

“Because once we pass, there will be nothing left down there.”

“So be it,” she said. “For your brother.”

And with that, Ivan banked the helicopter fifty degrees,
finishing the turn and lining up the figures on the ground. He bore down on them relentlessly and Danielle flipped the toggle to arm the cannon.

As they thundered in, the men started turning and firing. Danielle pressed the trigger for the cannon and fired a batch of air-to-ground missiles at the same time. The rotary gun blazed away, loosing three hundred shells in five seconds, missiles streaking out from the left and the right. Explosions rocked the terrain, and parallel balls of fire merged into a rising inferno where the men had once been.

The Hind raced past, pulling up to clear the smoke and flame. Only then did Danielle notice a second group of men.

“On the left,” she said. “Ten o’clock. Look out!”

The second group opened fire as they passed. But the Hind was built for low-level combat. Its armor shook off the rifle bullets as if they were BBs. Not so with the rocket-propelled grenade that exploded above their heads.

The windshield was instantly streaked with oil and fire. Smoke poured in and the helicopter shook like a speeding car that had lost a couple of wheels.