“I’m sure you’re right.”
“That bastard was relentless making sure this happened. He told me he’d pulled strings to have me promoted to colonel—just to ensure my loyalty, I’m guessing. But the thing is, he arranged all of this after the nanites came on the scene. Before Matt figured out exactly what they were up to, true, but at a time everyone was pretty sure we were in deep shit. Can you imagine? The world is coming to an end and all he’s worried about is taking you off the board.”
Jake thought about this for several seconds. “No. Taking me off the board isn’t what he wants. I was just in the way. He’s after Icarus. But he knows I’d have honored my commitment to Matt and David, and let them go—which he has no intention of doing.”
“So he’s willing to destroy you,” said Kolke in disgust, “and break a promise to the man who just stopped doomsday?”
“Yes. And I won’t be given my day in court, either. Believe me, he’ll see to it that a rogue black-ops agent like me is taken care of quietly and discretely.” He paused and stared intently at Kolke. “So what now?”
Kolke pulled a pair of plastic handcuffs from his pocket. “I’ve prepared these. I’ve sawed the teeth off the strips, so it’ll look like you’re bound, but you can free your hands whenever you want. You’ll have the element of surprise, and I’m well aware of your reputation in hand-to-hand. Can I assume you’ll be able to overpower a lone escort, no matter how well armed?”
Jake nodded. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Good. Escaping from me would arouse Dutton’s suspicions. So I’ll call the lieutenant in here to take you to your plane. If you can overpower him quickly enough that he doesn’t even realize you escaped your cuffs, so much the better. But whatever you do, be sure to take the cuffs with you. If anyone gets a look at them, they’ll know I was behind the escape.”
Jake nodded grimly.
“Once you’ve escaped, I’m afraid you’re on your own in South Africa for awhile. But just until I can find a way to clear your name. I’ll pretend to be loyal to Dutton and get to the bottom of this as fast as I can.”
He removed Jake’s cuffs and replaced them with the ones he had doctored. When he finished, he put his hand warmly on Jake’s shoulder. “Good luck, Colonel. I’ll get you out of this. I promise.”
“You’re a good man, John,” came the heartfelt reply. “I will never forget this.”
Jake’s mind raced as Kolke called for the lieutenant. Escaping should be doable, although the next five or ten hours were not going to be fun. But then what?
What did this all mean?
For one thing, it called into question everything he thought he knew about Kira Miller. If he could be framed so skillfully, then perhaps she had been also, just as she claimed.
And Desh had warned him there was an insider in his camp. It could be that Dutton was just power hungry, or even thought he was being patriotic by hanging on to Desh and Griffin. But given that Dutton had no qualms at all about framing Jake, and probably having him killed, it was far more likely that Dutton was the inside man, taking orders from a deceased USAMRIID scientist named Eric Frey.
Maybe Kira Miller was just who she claimed to be.
What if he and Icarus were on the same side, after all?
59
The story broke around the globe within an hour of the disaster being averted. First, the nanites had disintegrated while literally millions of people were examining them under scopes. And then the full story came out. Rumors and whispered suspicions had already been leaking like water through a cracked concrete dam, but when this dam burst the force behind it was unthinkable.
The aliens had designed the nanites to migrate preferentially to uranium and plutonium. Their goal had been to set off a nuclear Armageddon and reshape the planet’s atmosphere to their needs. And they had been minutes away from success. Only the efforts of a supremely gifted man on the Copernicus, an American known simply as Matt, had thwarted this terrible plan.
The news of the failed attack was met with stunned shock and horror. It was met with curses and prayers and words of outrage; uttered in Chinese, Hindu, Bengali, Spanish, Punjabi, Vietnamese, and Hebrew. In Russian, Javanese, Turkish, Pashto, German, Korean, and Telugu. Within twelve hours almost eight billion people, speaking thousands of languages, knew that the Earth had been under attack; that Homo Sapiens had been targeted for extinction; not out of hatred or malice or misunderstanding—but as an afterthought. As part of an ice cold calculation made by beings uncountable trillions of miles distant.
Shock, horror, and relief were quickly followed by fear. These aliens were far ahead of humanity technologically. And they were on their way. The Earth wasn’t a mighty planet hanging majestically in space—it was the mother of all sitting ducks.
And while fear remained the prevailing emotion in many; in many others fear had quickly turned to anger—and to resolve.
Who did these aliens think they were? They didn’t know us. They sent their little bugs as impersonally as could be to pave the way for their arrival. And they knew the Earth was filled with sentient beings, because they fully expected nuclear warheads to be available to infiltrate. They just didn’t care.
Yes, Earth had been lucky to survive the initial surprise attack, but now it was personal.
Humanity might go down, but it would not go down easily. So much of the planet’s resources were squandered by governments with only their own interests at heart, by countries jockeying for position on the world stage like so many chess pieces, and by war and preparations for war.
This would have to stop.
Humanity had been in a boat rowing in thousands of different directions, pausing only long enough to shoot holes in the boat on a continuous basis—and yet had still moved the boat forward a remarkable distance. But things would be different now. When the aliens arrived in thirty-four years they would find out what eight billion humans could do when they were all rowing in the same direction. And when they were fighting for their lives. Humanity could be weak and pigheaded and barbaric; a tribal species quick to take offense, war on neighbors, and succumb to violence and self-destructive behavior.
But it was a species you did not want to piss off.
Thirty-four years wasn’t long to prepare, and the aliens had a clear head start. But much could be done in thirty-four years. In the thirty years preceding the turn of the century, technology had advanced in ways that were nothing short of stunning. From bulky black and white televisions to huge, sleek monitors with vibrant colors, so thin they could be hung on walls like paintings. From card catalogs in libraries using the Dewy Decimal System to a repository of billions and billions of pages of text, audio, and video, extensively cross-referenced and instantly searchable. From primitive telephones that had to be tethered to walls to cell phones bouncing signals off satellites and across towers to seamlessly connect callers thousands of miles apart; phones possessing far more processing power than computers that had filled entire buildings thirty years before.
No one knew just how much further humanity could propel itself in the next thirty years, but with everyone working in cooperation, it would be even more unimaginable than had been the progress of the previous thirty.
Human beings could be lazy and petty and shortsighted. But they were nothing if not goal oriented. And now the entire species shared a goal. And a purpose.