Unholy Code

Prologue

Jimmy McMasters didn’t mind working the Labor Day weekend, not when it left him at the helm of a fifty-foot carbon-fiber speedboat racing at 170 mph across the Gulf. The scorching pace thrilled him but scarcely strained the twin turbine engines, which rocketed him past oil platforms that loomed ghostly in the Louisiana mist like prehistoric creatures marching toward land on mighty steel legs.

The honey-haired twenty-two-year-old throttled up to 180, but kept his eyes peeled for debris. At that speed a single ding to the hull could mean death. He was giving the factory-fresh showpiece named Sexy Streak a vigorous shakedown for its new owner, who was heading down from Kentucky for the rest of the holiday weekend.

Fully pumped with the raw wonders of speed — and the engines’ sharply tuned performance — Jimmy slowed long enough to notice a coastal cruiser on his starboard side. The small open vessel was steaming toward shore, its single engine straining as if overloaded. A moment later Jimmy saw why: the little boat looked as jam-packed as a clown car at the circus.

He assumed its occupants were tourists who’d chartered the twenty-footer for the weekend without having any notion of water safety. His first impulse was to keep a healthy distance between them and Sexy Streak to avoid having his beauty rammed by drunken revelers. But the U.S. Coast Guard had been calling on sailors everywhere to keep an eye on any behavior that appeared the least bit suspicious. The nation’s defenders needed all the help they could get. ISIS suicide bombers had been penetrating the country’s flooded coastlines since the nuclear bombing of an Antarctic ice shelf by Russian hackers four months ago. The strike had dislodged a massive glacier and raised global sea levels by four feet. ISIS invaders hadn’t wasted any time exploiting America’s newly porous borders and blowing themselves up on arrival. Hundreds of innocents had been slaughtered in malls, baseball stadiums, and on crowded beaches since the terrorist group had announced on the Fourth of July that it was launching a “Summer of Blood.”

Jimmy doubted the little boat was any sort of problem. It appeared to pose a threat primarily to itself. Still, he throttled Sexy Streak down and raised his binoculars for a closer look.

Holy shit.

Seven fully bearded men were staring at him, the one at the wheel using his own pair of binocs.

Jimmy felt an icy tingle shoot down his spine. He pulled out his phone and punched in a new three-digit emergency code set up by the Coast Guard for shoreline alerts. No connection. No signal this far out. It wouldn’t be the first time in recent weeks that a cellular network had been cybersabotaged.

He was preparing to peel away and race for the Port of Oysterton and a land line when he saw more than eyes bearing down on him from the cruiser: two men had raised automatic rifles, and were making no mystery of their target.

Jimmy ducked as bullets ripped into Sexy Streak’s starboard hull. He turned the boat sharply away from the gunfire, fleeing as fast as he could, trying hopelessly to outrun the bullets that whizzed by his head.

In seconds, he’d put a half-mile between himself and his assailants. He risked a glance back and saw that the little boat had adjusted its course. It was heading straight for Oysterton’s waterfront park, which was already packed for the big Labor Day jamboree.

Jimmy groaned and his stomach sank. He was no hero, and knew he should keep his distance. But he couldn’t. The bearded men had the cruiser’s inboard motor fully revved as they rushed toward the celebration, clearly bent on spilling their Summer of Blood across a bright white beach.

Jimmy swore to himself and hit the throttle hard, barreling back toward them. Staying low, he heard gunfire kick back up. He hoped like hell he wouldn’t catch a round ripping through the lightweight hull.

At the last second, racing at 115 mph with his eyes just above the dash, he swerved and sent a sizeable wake into the cruiser, then pulled away.

The heavy wave rolled the smaller craft to starboard, but it didn’t capsize or take on water.

Jimmy throttled up for another pass as the terrorists’ craft eked more speed out of its straining engine. It was on course for a beachside bandstand in the park less than a quarter-mile away. From this distance, Jimmy could see the high school band and members of the audience raising their heads and looking out across the water.

This time he didn’t think about it. He had no choice, not if he wanted to save those kids. He raced Sexy Streak toward the cruiser’s bow, leaving his upper body wide open so he could see better. Gunfire sounded and bullets punctured fiberglass and pinged off metal. But Jimmy kept on course, intent on sending an even larger wake at the overloaded boat.

This time he’d cut it too close. The speeding race boat clipped the cruiser’s bow, sending Sexy Streak careening toward the beach and bandstand, which was festooned with red, white, and blue bunting.

No longer in control, Jimmy killed the engine in a desperate attempt to slow his momentum. But it was too late. He was already plowing up the sand at a frightening speed. He glanced back and saw the cruiser following his course, coming in for the kill.

Bombs, he assumed. Hundreds dead, with me first.

Screaming band members in purple and white uniforms jumped to the sand and tumbled to the side to avoid the boats, tripping over fallen instruments in their rush to get out of the way. Audience members panicked too, stumbling over lawn chairs and one another in their hasty retreat.

Jimmy struck the bandstand a second before the cruiser followed suit. The impact shattered Sexy Streak’s windshield and showered the craft with old boards and rusty nails, patriotic bunting, drums and cymbals, and a dark-haired piccolo player in a short white skirt with purple boots adorned with pom-poms.

Nobody fell into the cruiser, but its occupants looked every bit as battered as Jimmy felt. Most of the men were cut and bleeding. Then Jimmy realized that he was, too.

Jimmy hoisted up the piccolo player and rolled over the port rail with her onto the sand.

“Stay low,” he warned, still fearing the gunmen.

For the first time, Jimmy heard sirens. The local police department appeared to have just arrived. Several officers ran through the rubble, guns drawn.

Still expecting a blast, Jimmy instinctively covered the young woman with his body. A moment later, though, he was shocked to hear one of the bearded men shout, “We surrender.” He peeked over the gunwale and saw all but one of them had their hands up. The exception was gripping an arm with a bone sticking out of his skin just below the elbow, red as a gutted gator.

Jimmy’s eyes darted back and forth between the terrorists, looking in vain for a suicide bomber or a backpack with a bomb, anything that could hide deadly explosives like the ones that had killed seventy-three men, women, and children in Liberty Square in Philly last weekend, and destroyed the cracked bell that had once rung out for liberty.

He saw nothing suspicious, yet everything was… even the way the bearded men offered their bloody hands to be cuffed as they shouted their allegiance to ISIS.

Hundreds of celebrants watched the arrested men in mute shock; others were rushing to attend to their children on the beach. A few used their cellphones to shoot video of the aftermath. Jimmy figured he was already on YouTube, or destined to debut in minutes.

In short order the EMTs had patched up the piccolo player and escorted her and other injured band members to an ambulance. Two police officers shook Jimmy’s hand. “We got damn lucky ’cause of you,” the huskier one said as they led him to their patrol car. “Could have been a massacre. They had enough ammo for a war. Crashing them onto the beach bought us some time. Way to go, Jimmy.”

“I got lucky, too,” he replied, still feeling a little numb as he climbed into the cruiser’s backseat.

The cops whisked Jimmy over to Oysterton General Hospital, where the nurses and doctors made a big fuss over him. At this point he was catching on: he’d become a local hero.

At no great cost, it seemed. He wasn’t too beat up. A few contusions, cuts, but that was it. Bandaged, he headed down to the Shady Lady Lounge that very afternoon, pursued by journalists and camera crews, of course.

He danced with half the house over the next few hours, changing partners so fast their faces blurred as much as the derricks in the mist had earlier, while the drinks — courtesy of friends and strangers alike — provided their own special haze.

Jimmy found the attention of a young gal in a sleeveless LSU tee and short red skirt particularly alluring. By closing time they were hee-hawing in the back of the bar.

Stepping out of the men’s a few minutes later, he got an “open invitation”—that was how she put it — from an old girlfriend. He figured the invites would last all summer, if his luck held out.

It didn’t. Neither did the nation’s.