The Seraphim Sequence: The Fifth Column 2 (41 page)

‘We have the EMP,’ she whispered into her mic. ‘But we also have Pariahs.’

‘We’re in the queue,’ Damien said. ‘Please tell me you didn’t say Pariahs.’

‘They’re moving into Garage West,’ Sophia said quietly. ‘If you can hear me, Nasira, get the hell out of there.’

‘Is the EMP ready?’ Grace asked.

‘Not yet,’ Denton whispered. ‘I’m looking inside the van and the transmitter’s not here. The driver didn’t have it either.’

‘Shit,’ Sophia said. ‘Abraham must have it.’

‘His men have it!’ Nasira yelled, gunfire chattering in the background.

Sophia exhaled in relief. Nasira was alive and kicking—and she had her radio.

‘What’s their location?’ she asked.

‘South end, near the off ramp,’ Nasira said.

‘Right where the Pariahs are about to pop up,’ Sophia said.

‘I see ’em,’ Nasira said. ‘Ugly fuckers.’

‘I need a minute to prime the EMP,’ Denton said from inside the van.

Sophia climbed out of the overturned car, careful to make sure no additional Pariahs appeared behind her. ‘Nasira, can you get the transmitter?’

‘On it,’ Nasira said.

‘DC, you said there were bombs incoming,’ Sophia said. ‘What’s happening?’

‘The planes are ten miles out,’ DC said, still pretending to talk to the jaguar knights.

Whatever their response, Sophia didn’t hear it because DC had released his pressel. Maybe they’d discovered he was secretly transmitting.

‘Stay in the van, Denton,’ she said, and sprinted down the off ramp, heading back to Jeppesen terminal.

Think, she told herself. DC was a hostage himself now and they likely had 1000-pound bombs en route to level the entire airport. These things tended to happen when you took on the Fifth Column. DC would have to wait; she needed to deal with the bombs. If the aircraft were dropping the good news, they’d be using laser-guided. If she was able to somehow detonate the EMP while the bombs were in mid-fall and in range of the pulse, the EMP would fry their onboard computers along with their impact, target-proximity or GPS guided sensors, depending on which was being used.

Ten miles away.

Altitude of 20,000 feet.

She reached the walkway that led to the south entrance of Jeppesen terminal and slowed from a sprint to a fast walk, not wanting to attract too much attention.

Think. There had to be a way.

Twenty thousand feet. That was four miles high.

‘Denton, your EMP has a range of six miles, right?’ she said.

‘At a stretch,’ he said into her earpiece. ‘Five to be safe.’

With no propulsion of their own, the bombs would be relying on the forward velocity of the delivery aircraft and gravity to reach their target, which meant they would be ripple-dropped not too long before the aircraft passed overhead. The bombs had control fins that could steer it in mid-flight, but this still restricted the angle of drop to zero degrees with a tolerance of twenty degrees. Almost directly overhead.

Sophia imagined a twenty-degree angle overhead. If the bombs were launched from that angle, four miles high, that would still fall into the range of the EMP, but only barely.

‘DC, I need you to tell me when they’re less than four miles away from the control tower,’ she said.

DC didn’t confirm, so she hoped he could hear her.

‘Nasira, we have inside of five minutes until those bombs drop,’ she said. ‘Do whatever it takes.’

Sophia walked back into Jeppesen terminal, her P99 concealed down the back of her waistband. She showed her fake passport and boarding pass to the security personnel at the door. Damien and Jay were almost at the front of the queue when she reached them. Despite the almost hysterical level of airport security in the US, check-ins and security were not integrated; it would cost billions to retro-fit every airport in the country to achieve that. Sophia’s plan involved exploiting this weakness to get her, Damien and Jay through to the concourses with their false boarding passes and passports.

She explained word for word what she wanted them to do. It was essential they followed each step closely so they could get past security with minimal fuss. Not an easy thing to do when they were carrying backpacks full of weapons and radios.

‘Why can’t we just wait … five minutes for the pulse?’ Damien said.

‘We need to be
there
in five minutes,’ Sophia said.

‘Can’t we change into uniforms?’ Jay said.

She knew what he was implying. Police uniforms would allow them access around the security checkpoint. But they didn’t have any uniforms on hand.

‘We don’t have them with us,’ she said. ‘Can’t be done.’

‘OK. Well, you’re going first then,’ Jay said with a smile.

Sophia didn’t return it. She stepped up to the body scanner and requested a pat-down from a nearby TSA officer. The officer raised an eyebrow, then took her aside. Sophia counted eight officers, all unarmed. Two were on her as she was palmed off to a female officer for the pat-down.

‘Are you OK with having your pat-down in front of everyone?’ the woman asked her.

Sophia could have asked to be taken into a private room with an accompanying officer. There were tactical advantages to that: she could remove two officers from the eight who could otherwise call for police assistance. She could detain them without harming them too much and return to aid Damien and Jay. But if she was in the room, she wouldn’t be there to provide support to the boys. And if that happened, the timing would be completely off.

‘Here’s fine,’ she said.

The officer glared at her as though she recognized her face. Sophia hoped her photo hadn’t done the rounds through law enforcement and TSA yet.

From the edge of her vision, she noticed Damien resting his hands on the body scanner. That was Jay’s cue. He placed his hands on the luggage scanner, acting frustrated. One little burst from his fingertips and the luggage scanner would suffer a brutal power surge. She knew when it happened because the conveyor belt immediately stopped moving just as Damien’s bag full of shielded radios slipped inside. Jay’s bag of firearms didn’t make it through, which Sophia was relieved about. At the same time, Damien’s thermogenesis was busy radiating intense levels of heat through the scanner. If his thermic ability had enough kick, it would damage the tubes and melt the anodes. End result: the scanner would no longer scan.

The officer called Damien through the scanner, unaware that he’d fried it with his hands. Sophia braced herself. The officer manning the scanner display started to look confused. She hoped it was because the scanner wasn’t functioning rather than because she’d noticed a pistol shoved down the back of Damien’s jeans. It wasn’t as concealed as Sophia would’ve liked.

Sophia’s pat-down officer snapped on her gloves and explained that she would use the front of her hands everywhere except in sensitive areas. Sophia widened her legs and raised her arms out from her hips. She smiled at the accompanying officer while the pat-down officer checked her arms and then her legs.

Damien walked into her field of vision. The officer stopped him and asked him to walk through again. Sophia hoped the officer wouldn’t redirect Damien to the other scanner in the adjacent queue. He could just as easily blow that one too, but it would complicate their plan.

Damien moved to re-enter the scanner.

‘This is Grace,’ said a voice in Sophia’s earpiece. ‘Airport evacuation should be underway.’

A teeth-jarring alarm sparked up throughout the terminal, strident and constant.

A brisk female voice came over the airport PA speakers. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are requesting all travelers and personnel to please evacuate the terminal. Attention, ladies and gentlemen, we are requesting all travelers and personnel to please evacuate the terminal.’

Damien drew his pistol and aimed it at the scanner officer.

Sophia looked at the pat-down officer. ‘Sorry,’ she said and kneed her in the face, then extended her leg to one side and kicked the other officer’s kneecap. She reached into the back of her jeans and removed her stun gun—fashioned from a disposable camera in the airport toilets—and planted the electrodes firmly into the pat-down officer’s neck, then the other officer’s midsection. The electrodes crackled fiercely. Both slumped to the ground at amusingly awkward angles.

Sophia turned to see Jay vault over the baggage conveyor belt and take the TSA officers' radios from the desk. He made the officer behind the baggage scanner empty his pockets of his cell phone and other items, while Damien, having already dealt with the officer in front of him, moved quickly to the officers at the adjacent scanner.

The queues of travelers began to evacuate the terminal as Damien and Jay tied each of the officers. A few travelers lingered and voiced words of encouragement.

‘I guess you’re not too well liked around here,’ Sophia said to the pat-down officer as Damien tied her up.

Jay approached her, SCAR in hand, backpack slung over his shoulder. Damien was a step behind. Taking the escalators, they walked in line formation, shoulder to shoulder, through the center of the skywalk. Petrified travelers cleared a path for them, mouths and eyes widening in shock as they saw Jay casually hand out webbing and magazines to Sophia and Damien.

By the time they reached the train station at Concourse A, the airport was almost entirely evacuated. They boarded the next train and took it through to Concourse B. From there, they manually entered the tracks and ran north through the tunnel until they reached Grace and Chickenhead’s current location: AGTS Control, which had now been evacuated. Down here, the alarm wasn’t nearly as deafening.

Grace and Chickenhead were waiting in the control room. Grace’s emotionless face was lit by transit displays.

‘I’ve just shut down the trains,’ she said.

‘Good,’ Sophia said. ‘Now all we need is the EMP.’

‘We can’t enter the tunnel without it,’ Grace said. ‘There are sensors on the other side of the door. It’d be suicide.’

‘I know,’ Sophia said. ‘And there’s a good chance we’re about to be incinerated by way of bombing raid.’

‘Mate, that’s two good reasons to detonate the EMP,’ Chickenhead said.

‘We’re ready to go in, right?’ Jay said.

Sophia shook her head. ‘We still need Denton.’

Jay didn’t look impressed. ‘Fuck him.’

‘We need him inside the base, whether we like it or not.’

‘Guys, we have company,’ Grace said.

Sophia walked over to her. ‘What sort of company?’

‘I don’t know. They could be ours, they could be hostile.’

Sophia checked the display, then moved her radio pressel from her pocket and clipped it to her T-shirt collar. ‘Anyone in the tunnel between the terminal and Concourse A?’

‘Negative,’ Denton said.

‘No,’ Nasira whispered.

‘Could be resistance,’ Damien said. ‘Good old Colonel Abraham might be making his own moves.’

‘Better them than anyone else.’ Sophia switched channels. ‘This is Sophia. Abraham, do you have any men in the tunnel between the terminal and Concourse A?’

Abraham was quick to reply. ‘Certainly not. And if you aren’t too busy prancing around inside the tunnels perhaps you might consider providing us with some much needed support in Garage West. We have mechanized units pinning us down.’

‘Half my team are already in Garage West.’ Sophia switched channels, not bothering any further with him. ‘Whoever they are, they’re probably hostile,’ she said to Grace and the boys.

‘And they got through quick,’ Grace said. ‘Has DC spoken with a SWAT negotiator yet?’

‘That might be hard,’ Sophia said. ‘He’s now one of the hostages.’

‘Oh,’ Grace said. ‘I missed that part.’

‘We need to deal with the EMP before we can move for the base.’ Sophia turned to Damien and Jay. ‘Where are the shielded radios?’

Damien gestured to his shoulder, then noticed the backpack wasn’t there. ‘Shit,’ he said, his face suddenly red. ‘I left it at the security checkpoint.’

‘We have the weapons,’ Jay said. ‘The important stuff. Don’t you have enough shielded radios?’

‘I only have my own. The rest of us need the radios,’ Sophia said. ‘Stall the hostiles if you can and grab the bag. RV in the corridor to the access tunnel, as we planned.’

Jay nodded. ‘Nothing we can’t handle. What about you?’

Sophia pulled Aviary’s plastic explosives from her bag. ‘I’ll seal the north end of the tunnel.’ Her eyes glinted in the fluorescent light. ‘One way in, one way out.’

***

‘This isn’t going exactly to plan,’ Nasira said as she shoved Aviary behind a row of cars.

The Pariahs were prowling the aisle next to them. They fanned out, peppering rounds into the retreating resistance and police officers. In their wake, a scattering of dead and injured resistance and police.

Abraham’s men had abandoned the EMP transmitter at the south end of Garage West to flee from the Pariahs. Nasira and Aviary were at the north end. Problem was, the remaining resistance, police and the Pariahs were battling it out in the space between.

Nasira moved to the next row of cars, pulling Aviary with her. She had her backpack with her, and inside it her kit, which included a tactical shotgun. But she was going to need more than a shotgun to take down one of those Pariahs. She used the butt of the shotgun to smash through the driver’s side window of the oldest car she could find, a faded blue Mazda GLC sedan. The car alarm sounded, alerting the Pariah. She needed to move fast. She climbed in and leaned across, opening the passenger door for Aviary. As soon as Aviary was inside, Nasira handed her the shotgun, then shoved an auto tryout key into the ignition. The engine started, and she reversed the Mazda out.

Ahead of them was the Pariah firefight.

‘Now what do we do?’ Aviary asked.

‘Something we’ll regret.’

Nasira hit the gas. The car screeched over concrete on a collision course with the resistance, police and the Pariahs.

’Look out!’ Aviary screamed. The shotgun dropped into her lap as she pointed at a Pariah emerging in front of them.

The Pariah pivoted away from them, laying down fire at police officers in the next aisle. Empty shells skittered across the ground. Nasira increased her speed.

‘Don’t turn,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t turn.’

The Pariah fired off another burst, then its legs maneuvered around. It was turning. Its headless front angled back, myriad sensors inspecting Nasira in all sorts of pretty wavelengths.

She slammed the gas to the floor. ‘No.’

The Pariah’s M16 barrel lined up with her head. She was almost there.

‘Get down,’ she said.

Aviary ducked, hugging the shotgun with whitened knuckles.

The Pariah opened fire. Rounds punched through the windscreen, cracking the glass. It became a giant spiderweb, difficult to see through. Nasira used the parked cars on either side for guidance while the Pariah readjusted its aim.

She crashed the Mazda into the Pariah. It landed on the hood with a hollow thunk and tumbled over the windscreen. The windscreen caved in, showering them with hundreds of tiny bits of what Nasira hoped to be safety glass. She didn’t have time to brush it off, swerving to correct her direction and tearing the bumpers off three cars.

The Pariah rolled over the top of the Mazda, more rounds punching through the roof as its barrel pivoted wildly. And then it was gone.

 ‘Are you hurt?’ she asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ Aviary said, re-emerging from her brace position. ‘You’re bleeding.’

‘Where?’

‘Your face.’

Nasira touched her face. Her fingers came away bloody. She’d worry about it later. She was almost there. Almost at the transmitter.

The car that was carrying it was coated in shattered glass and sheathed in smoke. She could see one of Abraham’s men lying facedown on the concrete in a pool of his own blood. In his hand, the transmitter. Just one problem. Two Pariahs blocked her path.

They hadn’t seen her yet and she considered ramming them. But the chances of hitting both at once before they tore the poor little Mazda apart—and her with it—were unlikely. As she watched, rounds smashed into the side of the leftmost Pariah, distracting it. The police were still putting up a fight. Or they were flanked up the shit and trying desperately to push their way through.

Nasira kept on target. With any luck, the Pariahs were distracted and wouldn’t see her coming until it was too late.

The left Pariah swiveled, aimed its rifle at an officer visible to Nasira’s left and opened fire. The officer slumped to the ground. More rounds smacked into both Pariahs. She had to hand it to the police: they were keeping the pressure on. The right-hand Pariah shuddered and sparked, its exoskeleton sagging. It was out of action. The left Pariah retaliated, spraying the aisle of cars on the left flank with more rounds than Nasira thought it could carry. A fresh drum magazine slotted under its rifle and it was good to go again.

Nasira hit the gas harder, aimed for it. It was completely distracted now. But a slight shift in its movement and it saw her coming. The operator whisked the Pariah into an agile jump—right over the hood and over the roof of the Mazda. It scraped the ceiling and landed behind her. This operator was smart, Nasira realized.

She pulled hard on the handbrake, bringing her up broadside with the transmitter. It was on Aviary’s side.

‘Open the door!’ Nasira said.

Aviary stared at her door, immobile. She was freezing up. Not really the best time for that, Nasira thought.