Wild Fire (48 page)

Carl said to Kate, “Go ahead. I’m not closing the door.”

The moment had arrived. Carl was watching Kate with his back to me, and Madox was dividing his attention between his countdown clock, which now read
3:26,
his security monitors, which still showed no problems, and his flat screen TVs, where news shows were still wrapping up their hours.

Luther was fixated on the open bathroom door.

I turned my head and looked behind me. Carl was standing at the door with his shotgun at his hip, pointed at Kate, whom I could see standing in front of the toilet bowl, unbuttoning her jeans, then unzipping her fly.

I don’t know what Carl thought he was going to see, but he was about to see something else.

Madox said, “John, you don’t need to watch your wife peeing. Turn this way.”

I turned away from what was going to be a very bright light, held my breath, and shut my eyes. I was prepared for it, but when it happened, I almost peed my pants myself.

There was a deafening explosion that filled the room as if the noise were solid. Simultaneously, the room was lit with a blinding light, which I could actually see through my closed eyelids, and I heard Carl screaming in pain.

I was flat on the floor now, with my BearBanger in my hand, but the room was full of smoke, so I couldn’t see Madox or Luther, and I hoped they couldn’t see me. I’d already decided that Luther presented the biggest threat with his M16, so I pointed the BearBanger at where I could see movement near the door and fired.

Another huge explosion filled the room as the flare shot out of the BearBanger like a red laser beam and exploded on the wall—or on Luther.

It didn’t matter if I hit him or not because by now everyone was half blind, deaf, and definitely fucked up.

I spun around and lunged across the floor where I saw Carl lying on his back. I reached around for his shotgun but couldn’t find it.

Then Kate shouted something, but I couldn’t hear her.

I looked at her and saw she already had the shotgun.

There were small fires on the carpet from the BearBanger flares, and I also noticed a couch blazing.

I caught a glimpse of Carl’s face—or what used to be his face—then I got into a crouch and charged at Madox, whom I could now see on the floor near his swivel chair, moving around, obviously disoriented, but nowhere near out of action. I took too long a stride for the shackle chain, and I fell forward, then scrambled on my hands and knees toward him.

Before I could get to Madox, Luther stood and brought his rifle up to his shoulder and was about to fill me with holes when a shotgun blast filled the room, and Luther seemed to defy gravity as he lifted off his feet and slammed into the wall.

Before he dropped, Kate fired a second time, and Luther’s lower jaw disappeared.

I again lunged at Madox, who was now on one knee, facing me with his Colt .45 in his hand.

He started to raise his gun, and Kate shouted, “Freeze! Freeze! Drop it! Drop it or you’re dead!”

There was this long moment while Bain Madox considered his options. Kate helped him decide by blowing a hole in the ceiling above his head. Before the plaster even hit him, he dropped his gun.

Time sort of hung there for a while, with Madox and I both on our knees facing each other from about five feet away. Kate was standing about ten feet away, the shotgun pointing at Madox’s head.

The room smelled of burned explosives, and a blue smoke hung in the air. My eyesight was returning, but black specks danced around wherever I looked. As for my hearing, I’d heard the shotgun blasts, but they’d sounded far away, and if there was any other noise in the room, I couldn’t detect it.

I stood slowly and got my footing, then grabbed Madox’s .45 off the carpet and went over to Luther, who was sitting against the wall near the door. He was not dead but would wish he was if he survived without a lower jaw. Kate’s first shot had shredded his arm, but his rifle was still hanging by its sling across his chest, so I pulled it away from him and set the selector switch from full automatic to safety, then I slung the rifle over my shoulder.

Kate had motioned Madox onto the rug, where he was lying with his face buried in the thick, blue plush carpet, which I could tell him firsthand was not comfortable.

I glanced at the countdown clock and saw we had two full minutes before
00:00.

I needed to do this by the book, to be sure there was no one left who presented a danger to Kate or me. So I went over to Carl, who was still alive, and who also had some parts of his face where they didn’t belong.

I started to frisk him, but amazingly, he sat up, like Frankenstein on the laboratory table, and I backed off.

I watched him get to his feet. Clearly he was blind—not temporarily blinded, but, judging from the burns around his eyes, permanently blind. Nevertheless, he put his hand inside his jacket and brought out a Colt .45 automatic.

I was going to say, “Drop it!” but then he’d know where to fire, so with time running out, I made a difficult decision and put a .45 bullet through his forehead.

He was too big to be lifted off his feet, and he fell backward, like a huge tree toppling.

Kate said, “Fifty-eight seconds.”

I walked over to Madox, who was staring at Carl’s body, and asked him, “How do I stop this?”

He turned his head toward me and replied, “Fuck you.”

“Do you have anything intelligent to say? Come on, Bain. Help me. How do I stop this?”

“You can’t. And why do you want to? John,
think
about this.”

I have to be honest and admit that I had been thinking about it. I mean, God help me, but I did think about letting it happen.

Kate called out, “Forty seconds.”

I got my head back on straight and remembered what Madox had said about the ELF signal, and I seemed to recall something about a continuous signal, and a lock-in period, so I thought that if I stopped the ELF wave, right here at the transmitter, the receivers wouldn’t or couldn’t lock in and send a signal to the nuclear detonators. Electronics is not one of my strong points, but destruction is, and there was nothing to lose, except two cities, so I stepped back and told Kate to do the same.

The countdown clock read
:15
seconds, but I recalled from Bain that the ELF wave and the decoding could be a minute or two faster or slower in reaching the receivers, and for all I knew, the two-minute lock-in time was already running—or finished.

I glanced at the three flat screen TVs, but there was nothing unusual happening in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Washington.

Kate said, “John.”

I looked where she was staring and saw that the countdown clock read
00:00
, and the black LED box was now flashing “GOD—GOD—GOD.”

I raised the Colt .45 and pointed it at the ELF transmitter.

Madox had gotten up and was on his knees now, in front of the transmitter, as though he were protecting it. He held his hands up and shouted, “John! Don’t do it! Let it happen. I beg you. Save the world. Save America—”

I fired three rounds over Madox’s head into the transmitter, and three more into the rest of the electronic console, just to be sure. Then Kate blasted the last two shotgun rounds into the smoking electronics.

The lights, dials, and instruments blinked off, and the big metal console smoked and sparked. The word “GOD” blinked out.

Madox had turned his head and was looking at the dying ELF transmitter, then he turned to me, then Kate, then back to me, and said in almost a whisper, “You ruined everything. You could have let it happen. Why are you so stupid?”

I had a few good replies for him about duty, honor, and country, and also about “If I’m so stupid, why do I have your gun?” but I got right to the point and said, “This is for Harry Muller,” and fired my last bullet into his brain.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

W
e found the key in Carl’s pocket and removed our shackles. We also found his Colt .45 on the floor, and Kate stuck it in her waistband.

Kate and I stood side by side in the smoky room, as mute as the three televisions that we were watching. My heart, and I'm sure hers, was thumping.

After a few minutes of commercials—with no urgent bulletins or screens going black in LA or San Francisco—I said to Kate, “I guess everything is okay.”

She nodded.

I asked her, “Are
you
okay?”

“I’m fine . . . I’m just . . . stunned.”

I let a few minutes go by, then said to her, “You did a good job.”

“
Good?
I did a fucking excellent job.”

“Excellent job.” I asked, “Hey, where did you hide the BearBanger?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Right.”

After another minute of silence, she asked me, “Do you believe this? Do you
believe
what Madox was going to do?”

I looked at the electronic console and said, “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

She didn’t respond for a second, then said, “John . . . for a minute there . . . I thought you were . . . wavering a little.”

I thought about that. “Honestly?”

“Don’t answer.”

But I had to say something, so I said, “It’s going to happen anyway.”

“Don’t say that.”

I tried a joke. “Why don’t we stay down here for a few years?”

She didn’t reply.

I glanced at Bain Madox, who was still in a kneeling position, but now with his head thrown back, resting on the edge of his electronic console table. Those gray hawk eyes were wide open, as unblinking and emotionless as ever. And, except for the red hole in the middle of his forehead, I could hardly tell he was dead, which was creepy.

Kate saw me staring at him. “You did what you had to do.”

Which we both knew was not true. I did what I
wanted
to do.

I looked away from Madox and watched the six security monitors, but I didn’t see anyone, except for a shadow moving around in the gatehouse, and I guessed that was Derek. Then I saw a Jeep pass in front of the generator house.

I said to Kate, “They’re still out there, and no one has arrived from state police headquarters.”

She nodded. “So, we’ll stay here awhile.”

I really didn’t feel like hanging around this room much longer with two stiffs on the floor, and a smoldering carpet and couch, plus the smell of burnt electronics.

Also, Luther was gurgling, and I recognized that sound. There wasn’t much I could do for him, but I thought maybe I should try, so I looked around for a landline phone to call state police headquarters to get an ambulance, not to mention some state troopers to arrest Derek, and whoever else needed to be arrested, and get us the hell out of there.

Kate kept staring at the three television sets, and glancing at a clock on the wall. “I really think it’s okay.”

“Yeah.” I couldn’t find a phone, and I thought about trying another room, and that reminded me of the room with the closed door where I’d heard a television.

I mean, I was still a little punchy from the BearBangers, but I should have been more alert.

Also, my hearing had not fully returned, and neither had Kate’s, so we never heard anyone coming down the corridor, and the first I knew that we weren’t alone was when I heard a voice say, “Well, I didn’t expect
this
.”

I spun around, and standing by the door was the ghost of Ted Nash. I was speechless.

Kate, too, stood across the room, staring, and her mouth actually dropped open.

Finally, I said, “You’re dead.”

He replied, “Actually, I’m feeling fine. Sorry to upset you.”

“I’m not upset. I’m disappointed.”

“Be nice, John.” He looked at Kate and asked her, “So, how are you?”

She didn’t answer.

I
knew
I saw the hand of the CIA in this, but in my worst nightmare, I never thought I’d see Ted Nash again. Or, maybe I did.

Nash scanned the room, but didn’t comment on the destruction, the blood splattered all over, Luther dying a few feet from him, or Carl lying dead in the middle of the floor. Ted was a cool guy. He did, however, look at Bain Madox and said, “That’s a real shame.”

Apparently, we had different opinions of the deceased.

Nash said, not to us but to himself, “Well, there are going to be a lot of disappointed people in Washington.”

Neither Kate nor I responded, but I thought about getting the M16 unslung from my shoulder and into the firing position.

I wasn’t being totally paranoid because Ted Nash is probably a killer, and for sure not a big fan of John Corey. Plus, he was wearing a sport jacket, and he had his right hand stuck inside, like the pretty-boy fashion models in the catalogs. This was the nonchalant, gun-in-my-pocket look.

Kate finally spoke. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m working.”

“You . . . you were in the North Tower . . .”

“Actually, like you, John, and other people, I was late.” He said philosophically, “Isn’t it funny how fate works?”

I replied, “Yeah. Fate is a barrel of laughs. What’s the deal, Ted? Are you going to tell me you’re here to stop Madox, but once again you were a few minutes late?”

He smiled and replied, “I’m not here to stop Madox.” He glanced again at the late Mr. Madox. “But apparently you were.”

“I was just here for dinner.”

Then, before we could engage in any more witty repartee, he pulled his pistol, which was a Glock similar to my own, and said, “You guys
really
fucked things up.”

“No, Ted. We just saved San Francisco and Los Angeles.” I said, to be sure he understood, “We’re heroes. The bad guys are dead.”

He was getting a little pissed, the way he always does with me, and now that he had his gun out, and we all knew where he stood on this issue, he said, “You have
no
idea how you’ve fucked things up.” He stared at me, and glanced at Kate. “The world as we know it was about to be forever changed. Do you understand that?
Do
you?”

He was getting himself all worked up, so I didn’t answer his stupid question.

He went on, “This was the best, most ingenious, most daring and courageous plan we have ever come up with. In one fucking day—one day, John—one fucking day, we could have wiped out a major threat to America. And
you
—you and this
bitch
, here, fucked it up.”

“Hey, I’m
really
sorry.”

Kate took a deep breath and said sharply, “First of all, Ted, I’m
not
a bitch. Second, if this government wants to destroy Islam with atomic weapons, or threaten to destroy them, then they should have the
balls
to do that without faking a fucking terrorist attack on two American cities, and killing millions of Americans—”

“Shut the
fuck
up! Who gives a shit about Los Angeles and San Francisco? Not
me
. Not you, either. Don’t take the moral high ground with me, Kate. We had a chance here to bring this Muslim shit to a happy conclusion, but you and this fucking clown you’re married to—” He glanced at me, and for the first time noticed the sling on my shoulder, and the black muzzle of the M16 peeking up from behind my back. He pointed the Glock at me. “Get that fucking rifle off your shoulder. Don’t touch it. Don’t touch anything. Let it slide to the floor.
Now
!”

I leaned left so that the sling started to slide off my shoulder and down my arm, while trying to figure out how to get a grip on the rifle, click off the safety, aim from the hip, and get off one good shot.

Apparently, Mr. Nash was tired of my slow response and said, “Don’t bother. Just stand there and die.” He aimed his Glock at my chest. “Just so you know, I pulled some strings to get you sent here, and hopefully killed, instead of poor Harry Muller, who you will be joining in about three seconds. Also”—he nodded toward Kate—“I
did
screw her—”

I heard a loud blast but didn’t see his muzzle flash. He did, however, toss his gun into the air. Or so it seemed. His body went straight back, as though he’d been kicked in the chest, and he slammed into the wall next to Luther. As he was sliding to the floor, Kate emptied Carl’s Colt .45 into Ted Nash’s body, which jerked violently each time another bullet hit him.

I watched her get off the last three shots, and there was nothing hysterical or frenzied about the way she was shooting. She was holding the big automatic with both hands in the correct grip, knees bent, arms straight, aim centered, squeeze, fire, breathe, hold it, squeeze, and so forth. Until the slide locked in the empty position.

I went over to her to take the pistol, but she threw it aside.

I said, “Thanks.”

She kept staring at Nash’s body, covered now with blood and gore from a head wound.

She said, “
Not
a bitch, Ted.”

I’d have to remember not to use that word when we argued.