“Go,” she said, her eyes deflecting his concern. “Before they spot you.”
Jonathan hesitated for a split second, then took off. Behind him, Emma stood and began firing at the house.
87
The power.
Von Daniken lay in the snow, beyond cold, beyond feeling. During the briefing two days earlier, he’d learned that the control apparatus for a drone consumed an enormous amount of electricity. If he cut the power to the house, the drone would be incapacitated. It might fly, but it would be rudderless. Sooner or later, it would run out of gas. Odds were that it would fall to earth and explode harmlessly in the countryside. Regardless of where it fell, it would not take six hundred lives.
Rolling onto his belly, he raised his head and searched the hillside. Bullets struck the ground in front of him, spraying ice and dirt into his eyes. He ducked, eating a mouthful of snow, but not before seeing the rectangular metal casing that governed electricity to the neighborhood.
The junction box sat a few meters away on a flat plot carved into the slope. A section of the ancient citadel wall occupied the ground above it. The large stone blocks would provide a measure of protection.
He pulled himself up the hill, burrowing through the deep snow. He was shivering uncontrollably. He rested after a few meters and lifted his head, ready to throw himself back down at any moment. Gunfire was more or less constant, but the shots were no longer aimed at him. They were coming from the other side of the hill. A different caliber, too. It was Ransom and his wife.
The sound of a jet engine came to life. He thought it impossible that a small aircraft could generate such a deafening noise. The noise changed pitch, growing higher, straining. The drone was taking off. He turned onto his side and looked into sky. For a moment, he caught sight of a silver blade whisking over the treetops.
Pushing himself to a crouch, von Daniken scuttled up the hillside. He didn’t give a damn about seeking any kind of protection. He knew that he made an easy target, but the absence of gunfire spurred an irrational confidence within him. The house loomed ahead, looking like a concrete bunker. And then, suddenly, he was there.
He fell against the side of the box, panting. A padlock held it closed. He distanced himself from it, took aim with his pistol, and fired. The lock was obliterated. The junction box opened like a clamshell. He looked inside. A sticker warned him not to touch anything for fear of electrocution. A skull-and-bones decal drove the point home. He was confronted with a maze of wires, some woven together in dense, multicolored braids, others bound by protective rubber housing. It all looked terribly complex. He had expected there to be some kind of master switch he might throw. He craned his neck to get a better view.
The bullet caught him in the shoulder and spun him around. Before he knew what had hit him, he was lying facedown in the snow. He turned over, stunned, breathless, robbed of purpose. He lay there for a few seconds, while the circuitry in his own mind got itself sorted out.
Forcing himself to a knee, he aimed his pistol at the house and got off a few wild shots. The pistol’s kick made him feel powerful and optimistic. He aimed at the junction box and emptied the clip into it. Nothing happened.
He tottered, and in his fuzzy mind, decided that the situation was absurd. The first time he’d fired his weapon in thirty years, and it was at a giant metal box. He eased himself to the ground. The snow at his feet was red. He tried to move his left arm, but it was frozen and had no feeling whatsoever. Suddenly, he found himself fixated by the snow.
Water, he thought.
He didn’t need a gun to do the job.
Reaching into the box with both hands, he grabbed a bundle of wires and yanked them free. A flurry of sparks drizzled to the ground. One wire in particular fired a steady blue pulse. He picked up a handful of snow with his good hand and lobbed it into the junction box. The wire sizzled, then continued to spark. He didn’t know what to expect, but surely that wasn’t it.
He felt around inside the box until his hand came to a larger bundle, a tube the size of a police baton. He pulled at it repeatedly. Finally, it tore loose, exposing a fountain of frayed copper wiring.
As he stared at the wires, he thought of the drone and the plane from Israel. He knew that the plane had no chance of escaping the drone, just as a man, however frightened, could not outswim a shark. Then he thought of Philip Palumbo, lying there in the dark, riddled with holes.
Von Daniken scooped up more snow. This time, however, he pushed it onto the exposed wires and packed it down. There was a smart, crackling noise, then silence.
For a moment, he was sure that he’d failed, but then a surge ran up his arms and into his chest. His back arched in spasm. He opened his mouth to scream, but his throat was paralyzed by the voltage coursing through his body. With a last effort, he yanked his hands clear of the snow. Something exploded in his chest and he was flung violently backward through the air.
Jonathan ran in a line perpendicular to the car, dodging through the trees. The snow was deep and uneven, making the going difficult. Twice he tumbled to his knees and had to struggle to pull himself clear. After fifty meters, he veered to his right along a track parallel to the road. He quickly found the remains of the Roman-era wall that had once protected the city. He hopped over it and, crouching, followed it to the rear of the house.
The home was cantilevered over the slope. Twin steel pylons anchored in the mountainside rose at a forty-five-degree angle to support the structure. Reaching the pylons, he stopped and cocked his head. The gunfire had ceased. The silence that took its place was just as ominous. From the crest of the hill, he heard several motors turning over, and at least one car leave some rubber behind.
The pylons were slick and wet and deadly cold. They were hard enough to hold on to, let alone climb. Wrapping his arms around one, he shimmied up the incline. By the time he reached the top, his hands burned with cold and his clothing was soaking wet. Wedging his knee into the gap between the foundation and the pylon, he stood and extended his hand onto the balcony. With a breath and a prayer, he swung clear and reached up with his other hand and pulled himself onto the terrace.
The sliding door was locked.
He stepped back and fired into the glass door. The window shattered and a shard landed on his ankle, embedding itself. Wincing, he pulled it clean. Blood welled up, filling his shoe.
The house was silent. No lights burned anywhere. If there had been any guards, they’d abandoned ship. He was aware only of a low-frequency thrum given off by an electrical current of some kind. He crossed the room and entered a corridor. A door at the far end barred his passage. A numeric keypad governed entrance. He fired at the lock. It did no good. The lock and door were both made of steel.
Putting his ear to the door, he made out a low hum and could feel a vibration against his cheek. Suddenly, the humming died. The vibration calmed. The entire structure went as still as if it had been unplugged.
Jonathan’s eyes shot to the keypad. The pinlight was blinking green where before it had burned red.
The power had gone out.
He threw his hand to the door and turned the knob.
It opened.
Leading with the pistol, he walked into what could only be called an operations center. To his left, a picture window looked out over the Zurich Airport. Directly ahead, an array of instruments and monitors rose from the ground to the ceiling. A man sat in a chair, his back to him, his hand on a joystick. It would be John Austen.
A few feet away, another man was working feverishly at a bank of controls.
“Auxiliary power on,” said the second man, who, Emma had told him, would be the flight engineer. “Satellite connection reestablished. We have picture.” He looked up and saw Jonathan and aimed a pistol at him. Jonathan shot him twice. The man fell back against the wall.