Game Changer (44 page)

73

Rachel drove away from the cabin
and followed her phone’s directions to the nearest grocery store twenty minutes
away, which had closed more than an hour earlier. After Quinn had rescued her,
he had managed to help her load Regev into the Land Rover and had seatbelted himself
in before finally blacking out.

Kovonov’s stainless steel
container was on the floor of the passenger’s seat and she had confirmed that
the vial of virus was still snugly inside.

When she hit a main artery that
would take her most of the way to her destination she instructed her phone to sync
itself to the car’s speaker system and call Cris Coffey’s emergency number. The
call went directly to voice mail.

“Cris, call me back immediately!”
she said, unable to keep the panic from her voice. “I promise this is the most urgent
call you’ve ever gotten.”

Shit, shit, shit, shit!

Two men she cared deeply about
were dying beside her and San Francisco was about to be vaporized, and no Cris
Coffey. Without him she couldn’t reach the president, and without this there
was no hope.

She made it to the grocery store
in fifteen minutes, just after eleven. Time zero was in less than an hour.

She pulled into the dark, empty
parking lot. Just as she was shutting off the engine the phone rang.

“Rachel, where are you?” blurted
out Coffey when she had accepted the call. “I heard you were taken from the
island. Are you okay?”
 

“I’m at the Healthy Foods
Grocery on Elm Street,” she replied, relieved that he had finally gotten back
to her. “Near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
 
First
things first: Kevin Quinn and Eyal Regev are both with me. Badly injured. Can
you scramble a Black medevac helicopter to get these men medical attention and get
us out of here?”

“Eyal Regev? What is
he
doing there? How badly is Kevin
wounded?”

“No time for questions, Cris.
Can you get us a medevac?”

“Yes. Hold tight. I’ll be back
on the line shortly.”

Three minutes later Coffey
returned. “Your ride will land in the parking lot in about an hour. It’s the
best I could do. It’ll have a doctor on board and will be prepared for incoming
wounded.”

“Thanks, Cris. Now I need Davinroy.
Immediately! San Francisco is about to be destroyed, but I think I can stop it.
Get me through to Davinroy!”

“How do you know about San
Francisco?”

“Long story, and we may be out
of time already. Get me Davinroy!”

“I can’t. He’s on board a
specialized aircraft for use during a nuclear threat. I wasn’t on duty at the
time or I’d be up there, but they’ve battened down the hatches. Full-on
emergency mode. No way I get through to him now. Last I heard, hours ago, was
that he had a call scheduled with the terrorist at 11:30 and was confident he
could buy a reprieve. But Davinroy only sees the distorted view of reality he
wants to see, so I doubt this is true.”

“You’re right. The attack is going
forward no matter what he does. Do you have any contacts who
could
break through to him?”

“I’m sorry, Rachel, but no power
on Earth will get you Davinroy’s ear before midnight.”

“Okay Cris, I’m forced to try
plan B. Gotta go.”

“Good luck,” said Cris Coffey solemnly.

Rachel took a deep breath and
called the emergency number Regev had given her before they had parted ways in
Waltham. It was picked up by a woman on the first ring, answering in Hebrew.

“Do you speak English?” said
Rachel.

“Of course. You’ve reached the Jerusalem
Trading Company. How can I help you?”

“My name is Rachel Howard. I was
told to call this number in an emergency. I need to speak with Avi Wortzman
right away.”

“Please hold,” said the woman.
She came back on the line only a few seconds later. “Yes, we have you on our
list, Dr. Howard. Can you tell me the nature of the emergency? It’s six fifteen
in the morning here.”

“I don’t care what time it is!
Get me Wortzman! Wake him and get him on the line! I was told I rated top treatment.
This is the mother of all emergencies.”

“Please hold for Avi Wortzman,”
said the woman evenly.

Two minutes later Wortzman was
on the line. “Rachel? Are you okay? Where is Eyal? I’ve been up for hours,
waiting to hear from him.”

“He and Quinn are injured, but
they got us away from Kovonov.”

“Thank God.”

“Were you aware Kovonov has a puppet
about to blow the Korean nuke you left buried in San Francisco?”

“
What?
” replied Wortzman in dismay. “No,” he mumbled. “I had no idea.
This is worse than I feared. Davinroy boarded an E-4B and is in the air, so I
knew something big was brewing. But this is
unspeakable
.
What could he be thinking?”
 

“It’s set to go off at midnight,
in about forty-five minutes. His plan is for ISIS to get the blame so the US
will wipe them out. I might be able to stop it, but I can’t get through to Davinroy.”

“At this point, even I can’t
help you with that.”

“I know. But I believe you can
do what I needed Davinroy to do. I need you to take over the US cell phone grid.”

“What makes you think we have this
capability?”

“Can you or can’t you? No
bullshit. Millions of lives are at stake. Don’t tell me about political
fallout, or strained relations. You guys all spy on each other and play stupid
games. I’m sure you know how to screw with each others’ electrical and
communications grids, even though you’re allies.”

There was a long pause, during
which Rachel held her breath.

“Yes,” said Wortzman finally. “I
can do that.”
 

Rachel threw her head back over
the car’s headrest in relief, exhaling loudly. “Awesome!” she said to the Land
Rover’s ceiling. “How long will it take?”

“Probably under an hour.”

“That’s not good enough. Get it
done in thirty minutes. I’m sending a short file to you now. Once you have
control of the grid, ramp up the transmission strength to its highest level and
broadcast the signals specified in the file right away. Repeat it over and over
until just past midnight in Washington DC. Understood?”

“Why?”

“Too long to explain. But
there’s a chance it can save San Francisco. Promise me you’ll get it done.”

“I will,” said Wortzman
solemnly. “In thirty minutes or less,” he added as he ended the call.

Rachel remained in the parked
Land Rover and immediately called Karen Black, waking her from a sound sleep.

“Rachel, are you okay?” she
mumbled, the third person in a row who had asked this same question. Her voice strengthened
as adrenaline drove her fully awake. “I heard you and Kevin had disappeared.
What happened?”

“No time to explain. I need you
to get Carmilla and take her to the MRI room. Close it up and stay with her
there until 12:15.”

“What?”

“Please! Just do it! Trust me.
Get her inside, close the door and don’t let her out for any reason until
12:15. I’ll explain later, but this could not be more critical.”

“Okay. I’ll do it.”
 

“Thanks, Karen!” she said. “I’ll
explain soon,” she added as she ended the call.

With this done, Rachel exited
the vehicle and popped the hatch. She opened a recessed compartment and
unscrewed a tire iron attached to a spare tire. She approached the glass entrance
to the grocery store, using her phone’s flashlight app to light the way, and
stood to the side, swinging the tire iron for all she was worth.

The glass was largely shatterproof,
but after five or six blows she managed to forge a hole large enough for her to
get through. She braced herself for the earsplitting sound of alarms, but none
came. Much to her great relief the dark night remained quiet.

Rachel rushed through the store
searching for the kitchenware aisle. Being in a grocery that was as dark as a
cave was unsettling, but no more so than anything else she’d been through that night.

She found the aisle she was
looking for and illuminated the aluminum foil offerings with her phone. She
chose the widest roll available—eighteen inches—and noted that it was
twenty-five feet long. More than enough for her needs.

Clutching her bounty, Rachel
Howard returned to the car, dropped the tire iron to the pavement, and managed
to slide Quinn to the ground beside it. She began to wrap aluminum foil over
every square inch of his head, lifting it gently when necessary, and continued
this process all the way to the bottom of his ribcage, turning his upper half
into a silvery mummy. She repeated this procedure a second time for good
measure, making sure to provide enough ventilation for him to breathe.

With this completed she sat on
the pavement beside a man she was coming to love and stared at the night sky.

How had it come to this? Two men
she cared about deeply were dying nearby and all she could do was wait for Armageddon,
dependent on the head of the Mossad to seize control of America’s cell phone
infrastructure, at her insistence, to have any chance at heading it off.
 

And she had thought calling her new
lab the Anus was surreal.

She broke out laughing from the
ridiculousness of it all. She considered checking on Avi Wortzman’s progress,
but forced herself to leave him alone, since another call would only cause a
further delay. All she could do was sit in a dark parking lot and watch over an
aluminum mummy.

A bright light appeared from out
of nowhere and blinded her.

“Freeze!” said a male voice.

Rachel almost starting laughing again
when she saw it was a young police offer, scared out of his mind, pointing his
gun at her. After facing scores of mercenaries with automatic weapons, a baby-faced
rural cop who looked to be fresh out of the academy wasn’t all that
frightening. She realized that just because she hadn’t heard an alarm when she had
broken into the store didn’t mean a silent alarm hadn’t sounded.
 

She held up her hands.

The cop gestured at the tire
iron beside her. “You’re under arrest for breaking and entering,” he said. “You
have the right—”
 

He stopped in mid-sentence when
he noticed the wrapped body next to her for the first time.

Alarmed, he swept his flashlight
in a broad arc, gasping when he spotted yet another lifeless body in the
vehicle. He shined his flashlight through the window, illuminating the blood-covered
Israeli in the backseat.

The cop’s naturally pale face whitened
further. “Did you
kill
them?” he
asked in dismay.

Rachel sighed. “No. They’re badly
injured, but I’m trying to save them.”
 

“Sure you are. I guess someone
else broke into the store and left these bodies and a tire iron next to you,
right? This is just an elaborate frame up.”

“No, I admit to breaking into
the store. But if you’ll check, the cash register wasn’t touched. I’ll pay for
the door and the aluminum foil.”

“Who are you?” he said as if he
had come across a unicorn.

“Would you believe a world-renowned
neuroscientist?”

The cop shook his head. “You are
one sick puppy.”

He gestured to Quinn. “Uncover him.
I want to verify that he’s still alive.”

Rachel’s face became panic stricken.
“I can’t do that,” she said. “You got me. I destroyed a door and stole some
aluminum foil. And I’ll accept the consequences. But just let me leave this
foil in place for another few minutes and I’ll do anything you ask. I’m begging
you.”

The cop crouched down while
still holding a gun on her. “If you won’t do it,” he said, reaching for Quinn’s
head, “I’ll do it myself.”
 

Rachel snatched the tire iron
from the pavement and lunged. The young cop’s eyes went wide, but he didn’t get
off a shot as the tire iron came crashing down on his right arm, sending his
gun flying.

He grunted in pain and reached
for his gun, but Rachel kicked it ten yards farther away into the darkness as
though the parking lot were a hockey rink. The cop rushed off, frantically
searching for the weapon with his flashlight.

Rachel didn’t hesitate. She fell
back beside Quinn and removed the gun he had been using from his pants, being
careful not to disturb the foil.

She rose from the pavement with
her arm extended. “Freeze!” she screamed, unable to believe she was actually
doing this. “Take another step and you’re dead! Try to shine that light in my
eyes and I’ll shoot!” she added.

The cop stopped in his tracks
and slowly turned to face her, careful to train his light at her knees, which
provided enough illumination to verify that she had a gun pointed at him, one more
lethal than his own, which was still five feet away.

“Do what I tell you and you’re
in no danger,” said Rachel. “This will be over soon. In about twenty minutes or
so a helicopter is going to land in this parking lot. The people inside are
going to take me and these two men with them, and you’ll be free to go. You’re
perfectly safe. I’m sorry that I hurt you, but I didn’t have a choice.”

The cop’s eyes remained wild,
certain he was about to be killed by someone who had escaped from the psychiatric
ward at a hospital. “So we’re just waiting for your helicopter?” he said in an
obvious attempt to humor her. She could almost hear the word
imaginary
inserted before the word
helicopter
.

“You think I’m totally out of my
mind, don’t you?”

“Not at all.”
 

Rachel laughed wildly, which
didn’t help her cause.
Of course
he
thought she was crazy. She was holding him at gunpoint in a dark parking lot
waiting to see if the world would end.