Ragnarok

ELEVEN

Walt Disney World Resort, FL

2 November, 1330 Hrs

First the crazy sweaty bomber on the monorail. Then the guy had done a swimmer off the rear of the train, splattering himself on the concrete support strut. King didn’t like killing people (or seeing them killed) unnecessarily. He hadn’t intended to kill the sweaty man; he only wanted to question him. Now he had turned and seen the Russian gunship pointing its nose cannon down King’s throat.

For a moment, King hesitated. He wasn’t sure what to do or how to react. Why in hell was there was a massive Russian helicopter hovering over Disney World? The decision was made for him. The massive helicopter turned, so its side faced King, no longer maintaining its hover over the speeding monorail train, instead letting the train pass beneath it and bringing King right up to the vehicle.

King spotted a bright, neon-yellow chess piece hastily spray-painted on the sidewall of the fuselage-a King piece. The picture was nearly three feet tall, and King could see the drips where the paint had bled before drying. The side door was open, and in it was a crouched US Army Ranger, who was waving King to approach the helicopter-as if he had a choice with the train carrying him to it.

The picture came clear immediately for King. He sprinted along the rooftops of the monorail cars to the helicopter and nimbly leapt into the open cargo door, rolling and hitting the closed side door on the other side of the craft. The Ranger passed him a set of headphones, which he donned. The man then started to close the open door as King seated the headset on his ears.

“Talk to me,” King said.

“You’re desperately needed, sir. We were told to paint that symbol outside and pick you up.” The Ranger seemed apologetic as he secured the door. He was dressed in desert-style battle dress uniform, with a distinctive gold and black RANGER tab on one shoulder and a green and blue shield patch with a red lightning bolt on the other. King recognized it as the insignia for the 75 ^th Ranger Regiment. The man’s nametape said ORTIZ.

“I was kind of in the middle of something, Ortiz. There’s a bomb on that train.”

“We know, sir.” Ortiz turned and smiled at King. “Everybody on board has a cell phone. They flooded the local police dispatcher with calls. We overheard. We were given very specific orders almost immediately to drop a small EMP device on the roof of the train. As soon as we’re out of range, we’ll set it off. It’ll stop the bomb and bring the train to a halt as well.”

King eased into a chair and strapped in. The helicopter continued its ascent and laid on some speed. “Nice work. You wanna tell me why I had to nearly crap my pants at the sight of a Russian bird over Disney?”

The Ranger laughed. “We use this thing for training scenarios up at Camp Blanding, but we were in the area doing a meet-and-greet at the Naval Air Warfare Center in Orlando. We were the nearest warm bodies when General Keasling needed someone to high-tail it over to get you.”

King chuckled too, now that his heart wasn’t in his throat any more. “Well let me tell you: it’s no fun being on the business end of that big-ass cannon.”

“No sir, I wouldn’t imagine it would be.”

“And where am I heading?” King asked, closing his eyes and wondering how he would explain this to Sara and Fiona.

“Atlanta.”

King’s mood grew dark, matching the night sky. He was strapped into the second seat of a brand-new Air Force F-16V Fighting Falcon jet, traveling at Mach 2, and thinking over how quickly his vacation had been ruined. It had turned out that the threat in Atlanta ended before King even got there. He’d been in touch with Deep Blue, whom he’d be joining in Chicago. Deep Blue had filled him in on the situation, and also informed him that the FBI had the rest of the sweaty bomber’s compatriots in custody. Sara and Fiona were being transported to Endgame HQ in New Hampshire, and King had been squeezed like a sardine into the newest variant of the Air Force’s most versatile fighter, the F-16.

This version of the jet had a highly modified canopy that could slide back along the fuselage when desired, or come loose entirely when the ejection seats were activated. It was designed for exactly the purpose it was being used for this night-to get a soldier into a specific location as quickly as possible. When ejecting only the passenger, the bulbous canopy would retract and then move back into the closed position. In an emergency, the translucent shell would explode away from the aircraft as in a traditional ejection scenario and both seats could be launched out of the jet. King had commented on the experimental canopy and the pilot had gleefully replied, “Yes, sir. But it comes with a shit ton more head room.” King could see what the man meant. The glass of the canopy was nearly a foot above the top of the pilot’s helmet. In other F-16 variants that King had seen, the pilot chair was reclined so the pilot wouldn’t hit his head on the canopy.

Now past 1:00 a.m. and over Chicago, the latest city besieged by the threat of the energy domes, King mentally readied himself for what would likely be one hell of a fight. The pilot indicated that he had one minute until ejection. King took several slow breaths preparing for the insanity when the jet would swoop low, slow down and retract its canopy, before firing King higher into the air in a rocket-propelled ejection seat. The jet would swoop away, closing its canopy, and King would parachute down into the mayhem on the nocturnal streets of Chicago. And hopefully the G-forces wouldn’t snap his neck. At least that was the plan. It had never been done before. King was going to be the first.

King was no novice to parachute jumps, but he wasn’t too fond of ejection seats. He had trained on them, of course, but he really wasn’t keen on getting flung from one at night above a city full of tall buildings with radio antennas and other communications spires on top of them.

He glanced out the canopy as the F-16 banked and took in the glowing carnage across the river, north of the Loop. The ball of energy was huge. It ate into the small Water Tower Park, where King had had a chocolate Ghirardelli’s shake the last time he had been in the city. It chewed into buildings on all sides and hurled lightning bolts that were spraying glass and concrete shards down on the soldiers trying to keep a perimeter around the sphere. They seemed to be there more for holding back the crowd of onlookers that had gathered at the disturbance than for facing off against the ball of hellish light. That fit with what King had learned so far. Not much seemed to faze the energy balls; it was their cargo you had to watch out for the most, but those could at least be battled, even though they were supposed to be deadly fast.

As King watched, a blast of lightning ripped skyward from the glowing yellow energy dome, crunching hard into the F-16. King felt the jolt as a huge thunderous roar filled his ears. Electricity arced along the wing of the plane. He spoke to the pilot as the plane took a sharp dip sideways and King’s stomach lurched into his chest.

“Are we okay, Simmons?”

No response.

King reached forward and shook the pilot from behind, but the way the man’s neck lolled, King could see he was dead. The plane continued to plummet toward the energy fiasco below, as King reached for the ejection lever, which would pop the canopy as opposed to the computer-controlled retraction Simmons was supposed to perform. Both of them would launch into the sky, instead of just King.

King pulled the lever beside his chair and nothing happened.

“Just not fair.”