Memoria (42 page)

The boxer rose. His powerful shoulders stooped
. His gorilla-like
arms hung weakly.
Dickens
waited a few more seconds and reached for the gun.

* * *

"There's nothing here, Frank!" Standing
at
the center of the heli
pad
, Maggie looked about.
"Nothing that looks like a transmitter!"

The cold wind
grasped at her words, taking them
into
the night sky that
enveloped
the city's illuminated skyline.

"You hear me? There's nothing here! You must be wrong!" Maggie
shouted. "We should have tried to get out of the building instead
.
We should have gone to the police to tell them about the secret labs.
"

Desperate, she sat down on
the hard mesh
with a large H painted white in the center.

Frank stood on the
pad
's edge, several paces away from the girl
, and grasped the long han
dle of a fire axe he'd taken from
the
fire precautions point
by the elevators.
A
part from several enormous
fan blowers with
their blades
rotating slowly
behind safety grills,
sending the air down the building's aircon system
, there were no other machines on top of the roof
.
Nothing
that
looked like an equipment
booth or a satellite dish that could send or receive signal
s
.
Only a
squat concrete platform in the middle o
f the roof
on top of
which
the heli
pad
was mounted
, flat with slightly raised edges.

How on earth was
Dickens
going to transmit the signal?
Frank gripped
the axe and ran back to the stairs. Now where would the antennas be? Could there be another door they hadn't yet noticed
? There were two
ways of accessing
the roof.
Barney
was now watching the servic
e exit that faced
south on the
floor below.
T
he
entry by
elevator
—
its
cabin still frozen midway to the roof
—
was now blocked as Frank had broken the
little silver
key in
the
exit
lock to make sure no one could use it.

He'd only picked up the axe in case he had to demolish the transmitter or sever the cables. Maggie seemed to be right
,
though
. He could have misunderstood
Claney
's words in the surgery. P
ossibly,
Dickens
had hidden the transmitter
somewhere
deep below, like the underground labs they'd just escaped
from
.
On their way to the elevators, Frank had discovered that the building was cho
c
k full of secret rooms and passages. His head
pulsated
with the thought that, while he was rush
ing
around the roof like a headless chicken,
Claney
and
Dickens
were
happily br
inging
their evil plans to fruition.

"Frank!" he heard overhead. "Frank, where are you?"

"Here!" he stopped and raised his head. "The north side!"

A
few moments
later
, Maggie
peered down over the platform
edge.

"I think I heard something," she waved her hand toward the south side of the building.
"Some noise where we left Dad."

"Stay where you a
re!" Frank swore under his breat
h and ran to the service exit.

He'd stopped caring about his aches and pains a long time ago.
His bruised body stung, the dislocated fingers could barely hold the axe;
he could
hard
ly move. But if he wanted to stop
Claney
from messing up
the
lives
of millions, he had to
keep looking for
whatever had been mentioned in the surgery.
Max
had
died for whatever it was.
Barney
and Maggie were risking their lives for it.
He had to stop
Dickens
from using the transmitter.

When Frank finally got to the service exit door, he found it open.
Could
Barney
be looking for them because of something he'd found?

Frank stepped inside and peered into the stairwell. It was bright and quiet.

Bright? Why?
He grasped the axe and stepped back, looking up. A stifled cry came from the landing
pad
. Without thinking, Frank ran up the steps to the platform and
froze,
stopped
by
Dickens'
cold stare.

Dickens
held Maggie by the neck pressing her against himself. The fingers of one hand deformed and dislocated,
he held a gun in his other hand pointing it at the girl's temple.
Barney
stood nearby, his arms hanging down, his head turned to Frank. His bruised face was covered with some fresh blood.

"Kill him,"
Dickens
ordered.

Barney
trundled to
ward
Frank.

A
gent Archer radioed Jessup when his helicopter passed over the Harlem's
sleeping waters. According to Archer,
Claney
had avoided arrest in the Town Hall by swapping bracelets with his secretary.

"I told you so," Jessup
rearranged his headphones.
"You shouldn't have fallen for tha
t.
Claney
's sensed we're after him. He'll try to leave New York now."

"We control all out
go
ing traffic."

"He knows everyone everywhere.
Bet someone's helping him to get out of town right now."

"Jessup? Where are you
?"

"Approaching
Central Park.
Wi
ll
soon
be in view of Memoria tower.

"How's it going there?"

"
Our
assault group
has taken the ground floor. There are casualties.
Memoria's security force
have put up a fierce resistance. Taking it might take time."

"Anything I can
do to
help?"

"Find
Claney
.
Use all your men available."

"Will do
."

"Over."

Jessup looked straight ahead where Memoria's tower studded the Manhattan skyline with lights.
Somewhere there was the transmitter. Its signal would turn thousands of people into
zombified
soldiers. The Captain raised his face to the stars
and tried to discern amid their pale glow the bright dots of army satellites
on their city-bound geostationary orbits
.
In outer space overhead, their
mirrors were now turning, ready to receive Memoria's signal and
bounce
it
back
to th
e electronic bracelets of all the
"
vaccinated" people.
Vaccinated with a mnemocapsule which contained
the
mind lock. Once activated, the mind lock would block their will and critical thinking
. A program would then decompress
itself
forcing its host to follow the installed procedure and obey external orders.
The bracelet would
start to
receive and transmit information creating a weak electromagnetic field
which in turn would ensure that the host's mind and body remain
ed
an obedient
tool
in
the puppeteer's hands.

All this was on the tape Jessup had got from the dying Floyd.
And not only that.
In the end,
Kathleen Baker addressed the nation.
She accused
Claney
of
his crimes and spoke of her father. She didn't want his and her invention to become
a money-making machine de
trimental to hu
mankind. She insisted that everyone had the right to make use of their own skills and talents.

Agent Archer had seen the tape, too
, and
offered to find and
arrest
Claney
. Jessup had his hands full w
ith Memoria.
He still had to negotiate with the migrants who'd already cut
off
the city
's
energy supplies.
The corporation, though, had to have their own energy reserves.
Manhattan
had submerged into darkness, pierced by the sparkling needle of Memoria's tower.

A new
countdown
started ticking
in Jessup's head.
This time
though
it wasn't about the in
vestigation, nor his dismissal
even.
Now
time itself was the issue, and he knew he might not make it.
Claney
had to have strong supporters in the Pentagon.
He had to have
the
military on his side to use a whole cluster of satellites
for his project
.

Claney
must have started plotting this conspiracy a long time ago.
It
entangled many politicians, generals and scientists
that
Jessup had no desire of getting involve
d with. It was the Feds' job,
let them do it.
As
it was, the national security and secret service couldn't react in time.
By the time they kicked in,
Claney
and his generals would have
done it
.
Their obedient soldiers would raze camps to the ground. Could be thousands of casualties, could be more. That meant war. That meant havoc.
In the mayhem, no one would seek answers
and the puppeteer would keep pulling the strings while he had the chance, making
even
more new fighters.

"Turn the beam on," Jessup told the pilot. A powerful shaft of light
sliced the darkness
in front of
the chopper. "
What's the ETA on our
objective?"

"Three minutes, sir," the headphones answered.

Jessup looked around at four spe
cial-forces men behind his back and
showed three fingers to their
officer. He nodded. The sniper put the
en
cased
rifle onto his
lap to take it out.

* * *

Frank didn't move, hoping that
Barney
would turn around and lunge
at
Dickens
who'd raised his gun to
ward
the stairs. But the boxer kept walking to the edge of the landing
pad
. His one remaining eye glistened. H
e didn't seem to fee
l pain in his
injured
leg.
He didn't seem to notice Maggie
—
a hostage in
Dickens'
grasp.

He kept walking.

"
Barney
, wait!" Frank shouted.

The boxer kept going.
His wide shoulders blocked out
Dickens
and the girl who'd moved to the platform's center.

"Wait!" Frank took a better grip of the axe, its blade facing the boxer.
"It's me, Frank Shelby!
Remember?"