Black Sun

CHAPTER 64

Pinned down by the circling drones, Hawker had cowered in the crown of boulders as three lumbering helicopters approached. In a flat area between the ridges, two of them touched down, disgorging a small army.

He saw twenty men fan out from the lead craft, while the second helicopter released what looked like a group of pack mules, moving in a precise and ominous fashion.

Through his binoculars he could see that these “pack mules” were some kind of mechanical walking machine, like four-legged donkeys with machine-gun turrets where their heads belonged.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mumbled.

The men hung back, allowing the strange walking machines to take the lead. He watched their hydraulic legs propel them forward, their turreted heads swiveling from side to side. He counted six of them, and all he could be certain of was that he didn’t want to see them up close.

Wedging the assault rifle into a gap between the rocks, he sighted the lead machine and opened fire. Shells from the rifle ripped into the lead beast. Sparks flew and it stumbled. But somehow it regained its balance and continued on its course, climbing the slope toward him. He fired at another with the same result and then let the rifle whale away on full automatic.

One machine crashed to the ground, its front legs damaged, the rear legs still trying to push forward. The others turned toward him and opened fire.

The rock wall in front of Hawker exploded from a convergence of shells. He dove to the ground, crawled fifteen feet, and tried to steal a glance out the other side. But the machines seemed to be waiting for it. The instant he poked his head out, another burst tore into the boulders around him. Whatever type of sensors the machines were using to find him — heat sensors, motion detectors, shape recognition software, whatever it was — they’d locked on to him now.

As the barrage continued, Hawker took cover. He pressed himself into the largest of the boulders, listening to the strange sound of the machines marching closer.

Danielle sat in the gunner’s seat of a massive Russian helicopter as it thundered across the countryside. The craft was a Hind-D, a huge military gunship armed with a 30mm cannon and racks of air-to-ground missiles, and powered by a tremendous turbine engine that pushed the craft through the air at up to two hundred and fifty knots. The sense of speed, the vibration, and the visceral feeling of power that coursed from the airframe was undeniably intoxicating. For once in her career she felt as if she were charging into battle on a stallion of superior power.

As Ivan piloted the craft, Danielle familiarized herself with the weapons systems. And as they approached the target zone, she was looking forward to wreaking havoc.

“How the hell did you get this thing in country?” she asked over the intercom.

“Officially it is part of a movie production,” Ivan said. “Not a bad cover, don’t you think?”

“Not bad at all,” she replied. “As long as it doesn’t fire blanks.”

Ivan laughed, a genuine belly laugh with a sense of warmth that could be felt even through the intercom. “I promise you, I didn’t come all this way to fire blanks.”

With that they rocketed over the third ridge and the helicopters on the radar scope came into visual.

One of the Skycranes was hanging back. Ivan was already angling toward it.

“Three seconds to range,” Ivan said.

The amber light on her targeting display lit up and an instant later it switched to green. Danielle pressed the fire switch and a heavy buzzing shook the craft as the rotary cannon unleashed the fury of a hundred shells.

The tracers laced into the hovering Skycrane, ten explosive shells in between each glowing marker. The hovering craft lit up with smoke and then exploded and fell toward the ground.

Euphoric, Danielle searched for the next target.

With the burrolike machines blasting at his stronghold, Hawker lay flat on the ground, slithering toward the back edge of the space. He was considering making a break for it when the sound of a thunderous explosion echoed across the landscape.

From the corner of his eye he saw a fireball in the east. It was one of the Skycranes. How or why, he didn’t know. But when he saw the drones spiraling out of control and crashing into a canyon wall, he didn’t waste time trying to find out.

He took off running. He had ten minutes.

As Stecker and the scientists left the trailer, Moore caught sight of the rocket sled, the vessel of destruction designed to send the stone into the deepest part of the mountain. It was ready and waiting.

The president shouted at him. “What the hell have you gotten us into, Arnold?!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were late to a briefing about Armageddon, looking like you’ve been out drinking somewhere all night, and you offer some cockamamie theory about the earth’s core.”

Moore was acutely aware of his appearance. He was unshaven, looking haggard, in the same clothes he’d worn the day before.

“I’ve been working on this all night with no sleep—”

The president cut him off. “That’s one of the problems, from what I hear: You haven’t been getting much sleep.”

Moore was stunned.

“When you didn’t show on time, I asked your staff about your behavior,” Henderson said. “They answered honestly. The way you should have months ago. Instead of endangering the country like you have.”

“I would never purposefully—”

“You brought this damned thing here, you sent your people after the other stones, you even mounted an illegal operation to rescue Danielle, despite the fact that I told you not to. And I covered your ass for it. Yet you couldn’t be honest with me?”

“I tried—”

“Stop lying to yourself, Arnold! You’ve put us at risk, and maybe the whole world along with us! I want to know why.”

“Mr. President—”

“Why?!” he shouted. “What are you holding back? Some hidden part of this prophecy you haven’t shared, something else you found down there in Brazil, or some bit of data you don’t want to give up? What is it that makes you believe in this thing beyond all reason?”

Moore looked away. His old friend knew him, knew he wasn’t being completely truthful. He caught sight of the blue countdown clock: seven minutes to zero.

“Now, Arnold!” the president shouted.

“I touched it,” Moore said finally, the admission feeling like a fool’s last act and a weight off his shoulders all at the same time.

“I held the damned thing when Danielle brought it back from the Amazon. And since that moment, since that very moment, I’ve had an unshakable sense that this thing, this stone, was sent here to help us. Not to harm us or hurt us, but to save us from something. Maybe from ourselves. The stone affects everyone who touches it that way.”

For a moment Moore wished he’d let the president touch it. They wouldn’t even be having this conversation. But at the time it had seemed unwise.

“There are patterns in the signal that mirror brainwave activity,” Moore added. “We think it was done that way on purpose, to give us a message, to condition us and teach us.”

As Moore spoke, the anger on the president’s face resolved into despair and a look of utter disgust. It became so obvious, so deep-seated and evident, that Moore could not stand to gaze at his old friend. The president offered no challenge, no angry rebuke. He was just done with Moore.

“You’re relieved,” he said. “Get Stecker in here.”