“No — but I think I will,” Goff said as he headed for the door to the Oval Office. He stopped before he opened the door, turned to the President, and asked, “I wonder if that wristband you’re wearing right now would help my meditation exercises?”
The President smiled contentedly as he absently fingered the strange new electronic wristband on his right wrist, and suddenly he became acutely aware of the spot on his right shoulder recently irritated by the subcutaneous miniature transceiver and what it meant to him now. But he just replied, “Talk to you later, Mr. Secretary,” he said.
“Yes, Mr. President,” Robert Goff replied. I’m sure I won’t be the only one you’ll be talking with, my friend, Goff said to himself as he departed the Oval Office.
Codlea, Romania
When the Metyor-179 aircraft did not report in before its scheduled landing time, Pavel Kazakov’s security forces were put on immediate alert and reviewed their preplanned escape procedures. When the aircraft became overdue, one hour past its maximum possible fuel endurance time, Pavel Kazakov’s security forces went immediately to work. They worked quickly and with grim efficiency. Explosives were set in a pile in the main hangar, classified records and documents having anything to do with the Metyor-179 were set atop them …
… and then the bodies of the Metyor Aerospace engineers, technicians, and workers at Codlea were stacked atop those.
Pavel Kazakov was notified a few hours later when the grim work was done, and he went out to inspect their work. The whole gory pile had been covered with tarps and then weighed down with tires to contain the blast. More explosives had been set up on the hangar’s roof, designed to blow downward to simulate a gravity bomb dropped through the roof. “Good work,” Kazakov said. “We wait until we are clear of the area, and then—”
“Aircraft inbound!” one of the security men shouted. “Unidentified aircraft inbound!” Security men with machine guns and assault rifles ready rushed outside. Other security men pushed Kazakov’s helicopter back inside the main hangar to keep it out of sight.
“It’s a tilt-rotor aircraft!” someone shouted. “Still in full airplane mode! I do not see any markings or insignia. Probably American or NATO Marines or special forces commandos. We’ve been discovered.”
Kazakov looked through a set of binoculars and saw the big aircraft bearing down on them. “Don’t worry,” Kazakov said. “It will still need to slow down to drop off its soldiers. When it does, blast it with everything you have.” But the aircraft did not slow down. It was traveling well over three hundred nautical miles per hour when it passed directly overhead. “It may try to drop paratroopers, or land and off-load its commandos away from the compound,” Kazakov said. “That’ll give us time to escape and time for you to hunt them down. Pull my helicopter out and get it—”
“Look!” someone shouted. Kazakov looked. They saw three soldiers leap off the tilt-rotor’s open rear cargo ramp. Each soldier was carrying a very large rifle and appeared to be jumping directly into the center of the compound between the hangar door parking apron and the runway … but none of the three was wearing a parachute! “What in hell are they doing? Are they insane?” As a stunned Pavel Kazakov and his security men watched, the three crazy soldiers hurtled earthward, still in a standing position, still with the rifles at port arms. They were sure they were going to see three broken bodies bounce off the concrete aircraft parking apron in just half a second.
But at the very last moment, a loud WHOOOSH! of high-pressure air erupted from each of the strangers’ boots — and all three soldiers touched down gently on the concrete apron with about as much force as if they had jumped off a chair after changing a lightbulb, still standing upright, still with their large rifles at port arms, as if they had just materialized there. Each soldier was wearing a dark gray combat bodysuit, a thick utility belt, thick boots, some sort of harness or device on his shoulders, a full-face helmet, and a thin backpack. The rifles were of completely unknown origin, resembling fifty-caliber sniper rifles but with a complex firing mechanism unlike any other firearm they’d ever seen.
“I don’t know who they are,” Kazakov said, “but if they are not all dead in the next sixty seconds, we will be.” Kazakov bolted and ran for cover around the back of the main hangar, followed by three of his bodyguards, while the other security officers spread out and opened fire on the strangers. Kazakov saw at least three lines of bullets fired on full automatic walk across the ramp and intersect right on the strangers — but they did not go down.
He then remembered the stories from frantic crewmen aboard his oil tanker Ustinov about invincible commandos who shot lightning from their eyes, and he ran faster than he ever ran in his life. They were real, and they were here.
The security officers got only one burst off at the strangers before all three of them disappeared — only to reappear moments later several dozen yards away, leaping into the air by using jets of compressed air from their boot s. One by one, the commandos shot a round from their weird rifles into any available target — the helicopters, vehicles, communications rooms, power-generating facilities, any valuable target. They appeared only slightly staggered if hit by a bullet, then resumed their methodical attack on the compound. If they got close enough to a security officer, he was immediately put down either by a short blast of electrical energy, like a massive Taser blast from as far as twenty feet away, or by a fist or knife-edge hand that landed as hard as a chunk of steel.
In moments all of the security officers had been dispatched, and the entire area was a smoking ruin. “All clear,” Hal Briggs reported, after carefully scanning the area with his helmet’s sensors for any signs of survivors or escapees.
“Clear,” Chris Wohl responded.
“Clear,” the electronically synthesized voice of Paul McLanahan replied. Paul, Patrick’s younger brother, was a California attorney and former police officer, who’d been horribly wounded on his first night on duty. He’d survived the attack but remained dead inside — until an incredible new technology had given him a renewed will to live. The electronic battle armor had enabled Paul to play an active role in defending peace even with his debilitating injuries; and as one of the first to wear the armor and its associated weapon systems, Paul had become an instructor in how to use the system, as well as a fighter himself. “Patrick? How copy?”
“Loud and clear.”
Hal Briggs took another fix on Kazakov and his bodyguards, then on Patrick, using his electronic locating device. “He’s headed your way, Muck.”
“I’m ready for him.”
“Security Three? Security Four?” Kazakov shouted into his walkie-talkie. “Answer, dammit! Someone answer!”
“No response from any of the security or transportation units,” one of the bodyguards confirmed. “They knocked out our entire force.”
“They’ll be looking for us next,” Kazakov said. “We split up. You two, separate directions. You, with me. Their armor may make them bulletproof, but try anything you can think of to slow them down — trip them, dunk them in water, decoy them, make them fall off a cliff, anything. Now move!” As his men bolted in opposite directions, Kazakov and his one remaining bodyguard turned …
… right into the path of another armored commando.
Gunfire erupted on both sides. Kazakov hit the ground, closed his eyes, and covered his ears as heavy-caliber bullets and even a forty-millimeter grenade shell burst around him. He lay as flat on the ground as he could, screaming and crying as the bullets and bombs flew and wave after wave of gunshots, explosion concussions, and earsplitting noise roiled over him. But it did not last long. When he opened his eyes and ears again, everything was still. When he got to his feet …