Shattered Legacy (35 page)

Merrick walked up to him. Her arms were spread wide, the pistol hanging loosely from her right hand. She took a deep breath and exhaled. Her voice echoed through the cavernous area. “Had enough, Samson?”

She kicked him in the gut. He doubled over. A coppery taste of blood filled his mouth. He put a hand to his lips and focused on the redness that smeared across his fingers. His vision began swimming as he slipped from the railing and fell forward on his hands.

Merrick crouched down, grasped a fistful of hair, and yanked up his head to look at him.

“It didn’t have to be like this,” she told him through clenched teeth. “What do you think you’ve accomplished here, Samson? You think you saved the day? Do you think I’m going to be arrested? Do you really think that the face you see here is my real face? Do you think Evelyn Merrick is even my
real name
?”

Tyler’s eyes rolled upward. He opened his mouth and gasped for breath. Blood dripped from his lips and down his chin. Blood from his head wound soaked his collar. His arm was a red mess. Dizziness from the pain would overcome him at any moment.

His eyes fluttered open and he focused on her. His brow knit into a frown as he worked his mouth, struggling to find the strength to speak. “I don’t care who you are,” he croaked. “But you messed with the wrong guy.”

She stared at him for a heartbeat, and then released him. As he fell on his hands and knees, she stood up, straightened her arm, and lowered the barrel of her pistol to his head.

Rather than cowering from the weapon, he spat blood and looked up at her. “What else did you want to know?”

“What?”

“When you captured me, you said you had two questions. You only asked me one.”

Merrick’s expression softened a bit, though the pistol remained carefully aimed. “I wanted to know how you discovered this identity.”

Tyler considered not telling, simply on principle, but every moment he was talking was another moment he stayed alive. “I lifted your prints,” he said, licking blood from his lips. “When we ran them though the company’s personnel files, there you were. Evelyn Merrick, a former high-security clearance contractor. Never got around to deleting your company records, did you? That’s sloppy.”

“My fingerprints?” Merrick cocked her head to one side, trying to recall where or when he could have picked them up.

“The dance club. From the shot glass at the bar.”

She nodded slowly. “Of course. When you made that toast…”

Tyler’s head and arm still throbbed, pulsing with the rapid beating of his heart. Blood that trickled down his arm had pooled on the floor.

Then, behind Merrick, he noticed movement.

“Before you do this,” he said, focusing his attention back on Merrick’s face. “I think … you should know something.”

Merrick switched her stance to a two-handed grip.

Tyler crouched down, drawing a ragged breath as he kept eye contact with her. “Jacob Jackson… He turned on you. He turned over everything he had on you. He taped phone conversations. Recorded your meeting places. The works. Hell, he even has you on video. Federal investigators have this evidence as we speak. Jacob set you up from the beginning. He used you, Merrick.”

“No.”

“Jacob's been working with the FBI for some time now.”

Merrick’s confident smile faded a bit. She lowered her pistol. “I don’t believe you. Jacob wouldn’t do that.”

“Sure he would.” Tyler pushed himself up to a crouch. He gave her a bloody grin. “Who do you think matched the prints for me, Evelyn? As soon as I started asking questions after my apartment fire, he folded like a cheap wallet. He let me in on everything.”

“No… No, that doesn’t make any sense.”

Tyler grunted and used the railing to put himself to his feet. “Those disguises of yours are pretty good, but do you honestly think that we’d just let you walk into this facility? You’re not that clever, Merrick. Hell, Jacob and I had a bet as to whether you’d even show up at the spaceport. I didn’t think you’d be that stupid. Guess I lost that bet.”

“You're lying.”

This was the moment.

“Yeah,” he said, finally looking up with a harsh glint in his eye. “But like you said, sometimes a little misinformation is all it takes to confuse the situation.”

A shadow crossed Merrick’s face, and in that instant of hesitation, Tyler sprang up from the floor and shoved himself headfirst into Merrick. She staggered back into another pair of arms.

It was Lynn Anholt. The bodyguard immediately put Merrick into a chokehold. Merrick gasped and struggled as Lynn slammed the woman to her knees. The gun clattered away.

Tyler pushed himself to his feet, fists clenched at his side, breathing raggedly.

Merrick was still struggling against Lynn’s hold when the bodyguard shoved her down, rammed an open palm behind her neck and smashed her face to the floor. Then she reached for her flex-cuffs and bound Merrick’s wrists. Then Lynn dragged her to the railing and bound her to the steel support bar.

When she was finished, Lynn glanced over at Tyler. “So this is the infamous Evelyn Merrick?”

Merrick struggled against her restraints as Tyler took a shaky step forward.

“Don’t get near her,” Lynn ordered. She knelt and started patting Merrick down for weapons.

“Why didn’t you just shoot her from behind?” Tyler asked.

“Bad angle. A ricochet could have hit you. Or she could have shot you out of reflex. If I ordered her to freeze, she might have taken you out. It was better to sneak up on her. Nice distraction job, by the way.”

“Thanks. I thought I’d let you -”

Then, without warning, the loss of blood overwhelmed Tyler. His eyes rolled back into his head and his legs buckled. Lynn rushed over and caught him with one arm just before he hit the ground.

“Easy,” she said, heaving him back up and wrapping his arm over her shoulders to take his weight.

“I’m all right.” He grunted. He took another few steps with her before dizziness made him slip to his knees. With Lynn’s help, he pushed himself to his feet.

As they started to move away, Merrick called out in hoarse voice, “Samson!”

They kept walking.

“Samson Tyler!
Look at me!
”

They paused as Tyler looked back. Merrick’s eyes were wide as she jerked against her restraints. “This isn’t over! You hear me?”

Tyler shrugged Lynn aside. Slowly, he shuffled back, one step at a time. Then he leaned down until their faces were inches from each other. “You destroyed my home,” he said in a low, hoarse voice. “You messed with people I care about. You forced me to sabotage my own career. You’re damn right this isn’t over.”

Merrick’s lips curled into a grin. “Imagine what I would have done if I
didn’t
like you.”

Tyler turned and limped away. He heard Merrick say something else, but her voice faded into the background as his vision grew dark around the edges. He started to feel disconnected from reality. Then something nagged at him. Although he knew what he wanted to say, the words just wouldn’t come out right.

He frowned and started to turn back around. “Wait... We can't leave her,” managed to slip from his lips. “Can’t let her go…”

“She's not going anywhere.” Lynn moved in to support him. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

***

The orbiter screamed through the atmosphere on a twenty-two degree glidescope at a rate of five thousand feet per minute. Schwartz desperately used the flight controls and the speed brake to maintain what little control he had over the spacecraft. The
Naiad
was shuddering so badly, they feared it was going to break apart before touchdown.

“
Naiad
, the autoland system is not available. Over.”

“Copy that,” McManus radioed back through gritted teeth. Autoland would have allowed the capability for Ground Control to electronically acquire and guide the orbiter to a hands-free landing. “We're taking her in manually.” He looked over at his pilot. “Are we prepared for an emergency eject?”

Staring straight ahead, hands clutching the controls, Schwartz nodded. “Standing by.”

It was almost a dead stick, but not quite, and as long as there was still a chance, they were not about to abandon ship. Through the cockpit windows they could see the main landing strip, the Vehicle Assembly Building, and the Control Tower in the distance.

Twenty miles to go.

They were coming down too fast and at a bad angle. The emergency chute was offline, and even if it were operational, it would barely do a thing. They were going to hit the ground hard, and there was no guarantee that the landing gear or the orbiter itself would hold up to the impact.

***

Noah Gettleman stood in grim silence on the upper control deck. Arms crossed over his chest, he stared ahead, watching the descending spacecraft through the observation window. Against the bright sky, the small dark speck slowly grew over the horizon.

Jack Kroft came up behind Gettleman, placed a hand on his shoulder, and watched with him.

The phones were still ringing. People were still talking. Some sat behind their desks, while others stood in the aisles. They all braced for disaster.

Tightening his jaw, the senior flight director turned his attention back to the window. The orbiter was almost there, skimming the runway so close that it looked as if it could land at any moment. In the corner of the main monitor, the big red numbers ticked away.

The
Naiad
was three meters from the ground.

Two.

One.

Touchdown.

***

In the stairwell leading to the connecting tunnel, Tyler almost collapsed again, but Lynn forced him to his feet.

“This way,” she ordered as they began making their way down the flight of stairs.

Tyler cocked his head to one side. “Do you hear something?”

Suddenly, a deafening roar overcame them. The ground shuddered violently, pitching them both down onto the concrete landing.

Then the lights flickered out, and the two huddled in darkness as the world around them exploded.

***

The
Naiad
had struck the reinforced runway surface at a speed of nearly two hundred miles per hour. The mere fact that they had even made it to the ground was a testament to Elliot Schwartz's piloting skills. But everything fell apart in those last few seconds. The flight angle, combined with the additional speed of the craft, caused the initial impact to fall entirely on the front landing strut, which instantly splintered under the weight of the two-hundred ton orbiter. The nose of the craft dug into the runway as momentum carried it forward and sideways.

Less than a second later, both sets of rear landing wheels slammed into the runway and collapsed. Then the
Naiad
briefly bounced into the air before slamming back down. A deafening roar thundered as the orbiter, flat on its belly, skidded out of control, twisting back and forth, throwing up sheets of sparks, despite the thick layer of foam that coated the runway.

The craft careened from the runway as the engines exploded in a massive fireball. Still racing out of control, the
Naiad
skidded and bounced over the mile-wide buffer zone, gouging a path through the sand before plowing into the Vehicle Assembly Building. Steel and aluminum struts sprayed into the air as the orbiter sideswiped the massive building, picking through two security stations and demolishing a smaller maintenance shed along the way.

The orbiter twisted one last time, straightening itself as metal and concrete debris rained down, kicking up plumes in the earth. A massive yellow-and-crimson inferno enveloped the downed spacecraft as the orbiter came to a final rest inside the VAB.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

For the second time that morning, the Control Tower fell silent. For an instant, every person in the room remained in stunned disbelief, staring at the echoing carnage. And then, suddenly and collectively, they were back to work. Shouts were ordered. People were running. Disaster protocols were implemented.

Flames consumed the better part of the Vehicle Assembly Building as emergency vehicles converged and sprayed pitifully small streams of foam and water into the massive blaze. Dark smoke billowed in great clouds, shadowing the wreckage. Twisted steel girders fingered out from smaller fires that erupted through the building’s superstructure. Fortunately, the main fuel tanks on the opposite end of the building had not ruptured. That was about the only thing that could have made the disaster worse.

As echoes of secondary explosions sounded through the Control Tower, Agency Director Jack Kroft stumbled back a step and collapsed into a nearby chair. His hands went to his face.

Absolute shock still gripped Dr. Noah Gettleman. He heard nothing and felt a detached emptiness as he stared through the observation windows at the rising smoke. He had just lost his crew, his friends, his ship.

One moment they were about to land. Now they were gone.

From somewhere came the sound of someone calling his name. Gettleman’s lips moved in reply, but no words came from his mouth. His eyes were still fixed on the horrible scene. He slowly shook his head. He had experienced this moment countless times over the years. And as bad as those nightmares were, the reality of the moment was infinitely worse.

He was numb.

“Sir, you have a phone call.”

Gettleman turned his head and stared blankly at the station tech. “We’re in lockdown,” he replied.

The tech added quietly, “It's Sinclair Dorian.”

Gettleman glanced up as he heard voices coming over the public address system. He looked over at his desk. On his telephone - which was finally working - the red light of his private line was blinking. He walked over and stared at the phone, feeling a sharp burning in his stomach and the base of his throat. He felt like he was about to vomit but managed somehow to keep down his bile. Then he took a deep breath and picked up the receiver.

“Hello, Mr. Dorian.”

“Who is this?” the voice on the line demanded.

“This is Senior Flight Director Noah Gettleman.”