Now it’s just a race. But what if I win? Indeed, what would he do if he caught up to the airship?
The chase continued, wending past the Quantico Marine Corp base and the historic battlefields of Fredericksburg, and then the airship turned east as the Potomac rounded Maryland Point. From here, the river grew increasingly brackish as it mingled with tidewater from the bay and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. A Brooklyn native, Dodge didn’t know the geography of area that well, but he did know one basic fact: rivers always lead to the sea.
Are they meeting a ship?
Even the fastest ship would not be able to elude pursuit for long; US Naval warships, using spotter aircraft would eventually hunt them down, and even if the military stayed their hand for fear of harming the President, there would be no place to hide, no port where the ship would be safe. A U-boat maybe?
The river turned south again, allowing Dodge a chance to gain a few hundred yards by cutting the corner above the Dahlgren US Naval Proving Grounds. He could make out rows of sailors lining the docks and the decks of ships moored in the river, but it was plainly obvious that none of the vessels were being marshaled to join in the chase. He turned his attention back to airship and hastened toward open water.
More than ten miles of river separated Virginia from Maryland. There were a few commercial freighters sitting at anchor along the watercourse and a handful of pleasure craft enjoying a sunny Sunday afternoon, but Dodge’s gaze was drawn to a pair of oblong vessels out in the middle of the current, directly in the path of the strange aircraft.
One vessel was easily identifiable by its rectangular configuration and flat, low riding hull — a barge — but the other looked like no boat he had ever seen; its long cigar-shaped hull was crossed with a pair of extensions that looked exactly like…
“Wings? It’s a plane!”
Dodge could make out a lone figure standing motionless on the cargo vessel, near the makeshift ramp that connected it to the enormous amphibious plane. The man’s face was obscured by a heavy black cowl, like the cassock of a monk, and in his right hand he held a long rod. The airship and its lone escort came to an abrupt halt in mid-air directly above the barge and settled feather-light onto its open deck. As soon as the flying disc was down, a pie-shaped section opened in its smooth skin and the occupants were disgorged. The President, still held bodily by two men wearing the exoskeleton rigs, was hastened onto the waiting airplane. In the time it took them to make the transfer, Dodge reached the barge.
His approach had not gone unnoticed by the hooded figure. Before he could land, an arc of violet energy burst from the tip of the man’s staff. At point blank range, he couldn’t miss.
Dodge’s force field bore the brunt of the discharge, shrieking angrily as his form was enveloped in a blinding blaze of energies in conflict. Without the shield, the bolt would have vaporized him. Instead, it felt merely like a slap from the hand of mighty Zeus. He almost blacked out as pain wracked every extremity, but the sweet release of unconsciousness was denied. The force of the blast knocked him back into the sky, spinning crazily in response to the involuntary spasms of his electrified musculature. Through the haze of pain, he remembered what had saved him earlier, and struggled to curl into a protective ball lest his uncontrolled flight plunge him into the river.
After a few moments, the agony subsided enough for him to first take a breath, and then to orient himself on the vessels floating two hundred feet below. The hooded figure paid him no heed, but rather had his attention fixed on the flying disc. He gestured with the long rod, like a bishop offering a benediction, and then the unimaginable happened.
The things he had seen and experienced, beginning with the assault on the White House Rose Garden, had left Dodge believing that nothing could surprise him. He was mistaken. His mind had no frame of reference for what he now saw.
The flying disc started shrinking. Every second that passed saw it reduced by halves; from a diameter of about thirty feet, it contracted steadily down to almost nothing. When it was only about as large as pizza pie plate it began to drift toward its cloaked master’s outstretched left hand, and by the time it arrived, it was too small for Dodge to see from his aerial vantage. The disc that settled into the gloved palm was no larger than a silver dollar. The man closed his fist over the metal shape, then wheeled and stalked across the ramp, into the waiting airplane.
Dodge shook his head to banish the paralysis of incredulity and was about to make another run at the barge when he realized he was not alone in the sky. One of the three raiders that had pursued him almost from the start appeared below him; close enough that Dodge could see the man’s rough countenance split by a grin of triumph, while his comrades pulled up on either side. They had him surrounded; worse, he couldn’t use the lightning weapon because he would almost certainly strike the water. The grinning man raised his gauntlets and took aim.
Dodge whipped his hands from the exoskeleton and held them up in a placating gesture. “I give up!” he shouted.
The unexpected surrender confounded the other man for a moment, but his features hardened just as quickly. “I don’t care,” he replied in strangely accented English.
“I don’t suppose you do.” Dodge managed a grin of his own, and then before the other man could deliver the coup de grace, he released the grips, reached to his waist, unclasped the belt and dropped like a stone. The man’s expression barely had time to register his surprise before Dodge’s feet struck his force field.
While the unexpected maneuver spared him a jolt from the lightning weapon, Dodge’s plan to penetrate the man’s shield and switch off his exoskeleton was quickly thwarted when contact not only brought about a stunning shock but also deflected his attack and sent him ricocheting off into space. Successful or not, he had anticipated a fall into the river. He didn’t try to re-engage his own flying rig, but twisted in mid — air so that his body was as straight as a pike, toes leading the plunge.
It was a long drop, at least a hundred and fifty feet to the river’s surface. The water would probably feel as hard as concrete when he struck, and he might break his legs, if not his neck, but in the two-second-long vertical journey, his greatest concern was the exoskeleton. He was betting his life that the unclasping the belt would suffice to keep him from getting fried when he hit the water. If he was wrong… well, he’d probably never know.
The brown water rushed up impossibly fast. He kept his body tense and rigid, arms tight against his torso, but nothing could adequately prepare him for the impact; a stabbing pain completely unlike the electrical jolts shot through his legs, followed by a hammer blow to his gut. Immediately after entering the river, he tried to throw his limbs out to keep from plunging too deep, but it was impossible to tell if the message reached his extremities. A moment later, a crushing vise of pressure closed over his head.
At least I didn’t get electrocuted.
Grimacing against the pain, he started kicking and stroking toward a blurry light spot overhead. When what seemed like several minutes had passed, and when he felt his lungs convulsing with the urge to draw a fresh breath, he started to get a little worried. His powerful, disciplined swimming techniques became a frantic thrash, as if through sheer panic he might claw his way to the surface. Despite an overwhelming urge to simply give up and take that final liquid breath, he knew he was making progress. His view of the surface cleared, giving him a final burst of motivation, and then he was there, splashing through the choppy, windswept surface.