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“They’ve also gone dark on several frequencies,” Morgan went on, watching the street intently. “They figured out that Ruby can scan cellular channels, so they’ve been using some other means of communication we can’t intercept.” He shrugged. “Semaphore, sign language, I dunno what, but they’ve got to be getting desperate by now.”

“Sure sounds like it.” I thought for a moment before the obvious question occurred to me. “If you’re using cellular modem, can’t they trace the signal?”

Payson-Smith sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “Unfortunately,” he said, “they can indeed. Ruby’s jumping channels every few minutes and blocking their remote tracking systems, but all they really need to do is conduct a block-by-block search through RF scanners. Any car passing on the street could be someone trying to lock on to us-”

“Or chopper.”

“Or by helicopter, yes, but that’s not our only concern.” He pointed to the Compaq laptop on the right. Its screen depicted a Mercator projection of the North American hemisphere; thin red lines curved across the map, weaving parabolic traces across the United States.

“That’s the orbital footprint of Sentinel 1,” Richard said. “As you can see, it regularly passes above almost every point in this country. Right now it’s …”

He studied the celestial coordinates in a bar at the bottom of the screen. “Somewhere over the Pacific, not far from the southern California coastline,” he continued. “It’s off screen right now, but in about a minute or so it’ll be over the United States again, and in another fifteen minutes it’ll be over Missouri … and here is why that matters.”

He pointed behind the two computers. For the first time, I noticed a flat gray coaxial cable running from the back of the computer to a window; the window was cracked open slightly, allowing the cable to pass over the narrow sill.

“We’ve got a portable satellite transceiver dish rigged on the ledge,” Richard said. “It’s oriented to precisely the right azimuth that Sentinel will follow when it passes over St. Louis. When this occurs, Ruby will uplink with Sentinel and order it to disengage itself from the Air Force space center in Colorado.”

I stared at the wire. Beside the fact of its technological complexity, there was also the human factor; it must have taken some nerve to hang out a window over a sheer drop to put the portable dish in place. “You can do this?” I asked.

“Certainly.” Payson-Smith was almost smug now. “After all, Ruby’s primary function was to act as the c-cube system for Sentinel. Her node is already in place aboard the satellite … it’ll be no more problem for her to communicate with Sentinel than for one of us to call up a long-lost brother. But the main trick will be establishing a direct uplink with the bird.”

On the Compaq’s screen a tiny red dot had suddenly appeared over the California coast. As I watched, it began to edge closer toward San Diego. “Why can’t you tell Ruby to access Sentinel now?” I asked. “If it-she-can run through the system and crack any source code it wants to, then why can’t it override Colorado?”

Payson-Smith folded his arms together. “Ruby isn’t a simple worm or virus,” he said. “Her architecture is much more complex than that. It takes her a while to infiltrate the nets, since she has to hide herself at the same time she’s installing a memory-resident. To make it short, she hasn’t been able to crack the Colorado computers quite yet.” He shrugged his shoulders. “In another few days, yes, but …”

“So why can’t you just wait?”

“Look here.” He pointed at a line in Sentinel’s footprint that passed over the Pacific northwest. “In about eighteen hours, the satellite will pass directly over the border between Oregon and California … the southern border of Cascadia. When that occurs, it’ll be able to open fire upon Cascadian defense forces. Now, what do you think that means?”

I stared at the screen. I considered all that I learned. I reached a basic conclusion …

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

Now it all clicked together. Sentinel 1 could wipe out the renegade National Guard forces that had been established in southern Oregon, thereby leaving Cascadia open to attack from the U.S. Army units mobilized to northern California.

Yet, even worse than that, it would give the conspirators their window of opportunity. If everything Ruby Fulcrum had discovered was correct, then an outbreak of civil war in the Northwest would allow the fanatics to call for a declaration of martial law throughout the rest of the country, to “protect” against civil insurrections by Cascadian sympathizers.

Martial law enforced by ERA troops and a high-energy laser that passed over the continent once every few hours. In short, it would be the beginning of the end for free society in the United States.

“And if you can’t …?” I began.

Then I heard something and I stopped talking.

Out in the predawn darkness beyond the observation deck windows, from somewhere not far away, there was a faint yet nonetheless familiar mechanical whine … then a dense, atmospheric chopping noise, like cutlasses carving through thick air.

Richard heard it, too. He raised his head, listening intently to the sound as it came closer.

“Not now,” he said softly, almost as if in supplication. “Oh, dear Christ, not now …”

Helicopter rotors, closing in on the water tower.

21

(Saturday, 4:02 A.M.)

“Uh-oh,” Morgan said from the window behind us. “We’ve got-”

The rest was drowned out in the dense roar of helicopter rotors. Standing up to look out through the eastern windows, I caught a glimpse of a dark airborne shape as it hurtled toward the cupola. I instinctively ducked as the helicopter growled over the roof; the entire tower seemed to shudder. When it was gone, I uncovered my ears and raced to the opposite side of the observation deck.

Morgan was crouched next to a western window, peering at the street through his nightscope. As I knelt on the other side of the window, he passed the scope to me and pointed downward. I cautiously raised my head to the windowsill and pressed my right eye against the scope.

Through the green-tinted artificial twilight, I could see two Piranhas coming off the I-44 ramp and rolling down Grand Avenue. Just in front of them was a trio of faster-moving Hummers, their headlights casting foggy-looking halos until they were simultaneously extinguished just before they passed in front of the reservoir. The last Piranha in the column swerved to the left and halted in the center of the street, blocking Grand Avenue; the other armored car trundled to a stop directly in front of the park, while the three Hummers jumped the curb, barreled across the sidewalk, and disappeared under the trees left and right of the tower.

“Oh Jesus, oh Christ,” Morgan was muttering. “We’re really screwed now …”

I got up from the window and ran over to the south side of the deck. Peering through the nightscope, I could see the helicopter that had just passed over the tower: an OH-6A Cayuse, a tiny gunship painted with the ERA logo, an IR scanner fixed to the front of its bubble canopy. It had established a low orbit directly above the reservoir, apparently performing recon for the mission.

Down on the ground, I could make out one of the Hummers coming to a stop behind the German-American memorial. Its doors opened and four ERA soldiers leaped out, hugging their G-11s against their flak vests as they dashed for cover behind the bronze nude, cumbersome night-vision goggles suspended in front of their eyes below their helmets.