Stormhaven Rising (Atlas and the Winds Book 1) (47 page)

“GNS was behind it?” she asked, shocked. “How do we know that?"

“There are files on their servers that will implicate them explicitly in the bombing,” he said. “The evidence is there.” Another strange expression played across his face.

Will implicate?
“We’ve seen these files already?” she asked, wondering what he was hiding beneath his words.

“Not yet,” he admitted, “but we know they’re there. It’s also relevant that GNS is a subsidiary of Stormhaven Holdings, LLC. If we move against them decisively, we might be able to get two birds with the same stone.”

“Wait a minute,” she said, trying to put it together. “We’ve not seen the files yet, but you know what’s in them? What the hell are you saying?”

“The evidence is there, Sylvia,” he said, the strange expression readjusting itself on his face. “Trust me, it’s there.” He glanced down at his desk and she recognized what his eyes were telling her. Dick Rogers was lying.

“Ok, back up a bit,” she said, resting her arm on the chair and her chin on her hand. “How do you know what’s on their servers if we haven’t looked at them?” His face changed.

“Fine,” he said. “Norman left his files open so that we’d know what’d happened. He planted the evidence, so that when he died, GNS would go down for it. He’d planned this all so that you’d have the bloody nose you need to keep things secret. If you don’t declare the state of emergency now, his death will have been for nothing."

“What are you saying?” she asked, her mind refused to connect the dots. “Norman did this? To give me an excuse—“

“That’s right Sylvia,” he said softly. “It wasn’t an attack. He did it himself.”

***

Stormhaven:

The sun was well into the sky and the knocking never came. Trouble had looked the other way, standing off on the horizon like a terrible dragon, too distracted by the fires burning in the village to notice the morsel waiting to be taken. Washington was ablaze in the aftermath of Anderson’s death and so Stormhaven had been spared, at least for the moment.

Cole stood watching Daryl and Sophie supervise their crew with the placement of the last of the four gravity projectors. It was being mounted inside a small corridor that had once been an emergency exit. Set up in the early days of the community, when a great deal of its design had been driven by the paranoid edge of Cole’s personality, these exits were concealed in artificial rock outcroppings and hidden behind armored doors. They’d been abandoned for years and most of the residents had no clue they existed, but now they made ideal turret emplacements.

During the night, teams of workers had fitted the gravity lasers on salvaged assembly robot bases so they could be rolled out onto small aprons of polymer concrete. Huge coils of supply cabling sat inside, waiting to be deployed. Mica had calibrated targeting sensors to each of the turrets, and with the same automated interface used in the shop, these weapons could be directly under its control.

Cole leaned against the wall, listening to the two of them doggedly pushing through their fatigue. It had been a long night, and a stressful morning struggling to get the weapons operational, but with this one mounted, they were ready to use them if needed.

Satisfied there was nothing more to be done, Daryl and Sophie officially turned the weapons over to Mica and the first security watch, heading to bed for a few hours sleep. Cole smiled at their weary faces as they staggered down the hall.

Walking past the guard and out on the surface, he sat down on a small ledge where he’d be invisible to the military encampment. Staring across the landscape he shook his head, consumed by the certainty that this was the new way of life in Stormhaven. Guards and guns were never part of his vision.

He listened through his comlink, with half an ear, to the audio feed from GNS. The droning news had lately become no more than a forgotten melody to his existence, although today it was a cacophony of terrified confusion. The President had not yet returned to the White House, and even though he knew why it had happened, he understood the ominous implication of her failure to appear. It was a bad situation, complicated by the forces of political pressure. Everyone was trying to create believable links between the assassination and every other crisis in the world.

The unexplained launches from New Mexico and California, had added fuel to the reports of Chinese missiles being tracked over the Pacific Ocean. Now with the death of Anderson, the flames were being fanned into a blazing rampage of dangerous and unfounded conclusions. Allegations roared unchecked through the range of terrorist groups until even the idea that China was behind the assassination was gaining legs on conservative talk shows.

How all of this would affect Stormhaven was easy enough to read. It was already written in the dynamic energy of the environment. Once they’d decided that the need was great enough, the President would seize all the power she could grab. Not for her own gain, but because she had to solidify her control. When she’d established her new position, the balance would shift and she’d send in troops to put down Stormhaven’s uprising. He knew better than to think they were invulnerable behind their newly deployed weaponry. It was a new game of holding out until some opportunity presented itself, or until something else came apart.

“Cole, are you ok?” Danielle’s voice intruded into his thoughts. Concern edged her tone. “Hello? Are you ok?”

Nodding, he tentatively reemerged into reality and turned his not quite focused eyes toward her. “I’m fine,” he whispered. “What’s up?”

“If you say so. I’ve been standing here for four or five minutes, and you didn’t even look like you were breathing,” she said.

“Sorry. I was just thinking.” He smiled at her, trying to look reassuring. “I do that once in a while.” He twisted on the small rock. His backside was numb.

“I just got a call from Carter,” she said. “With all the confusion in the government this morning, he managed to get a line out.”

“Excellent!” Cole said, giving her arm a little squeeze. “So at least we know he’s not locked up somewhere.”

“Actually in Houston. He’s in charge of planning their mitigation project.” She sat down on the narrow rock perch beside him.

“Well maybe there’s hope after all?” he said.

“He wasn’t too positive sounding. But he said I should tell you something,” she said.

“New stuff on the asteroid?” Cole asked.

She shook her head. “I’m not sure what he meant.” She glanced up as the Lightning patrol swung overhead. “He said that we need to know that there are problems developing in the supply chain.”

“The supply chain?” He frowned. “Wonder what that means?”

“It was apparently all he could say,” she said, “but it doesn’t sound promising.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” he said, shrugging.

***

New York City:

Maximilian’s was like so many other diners growing in the cracks between the crowded high rises. Power players came and went at a furious pace, doing as much business in the booths here, as in the ivory tower offices that stretched into the stratospheric heights above them.

Nichole Thompson sat at the counter, watching the reflections of people in the mirror that hung in front of the kitchen. The favored hangout for News Bureaus, Maximilian’s decor had long since been replaced with video screens carrying news services from all over the world.

The monitor above the cash register showed SNN’s scrolling headline across the bottom, and an image of some perky new anchor from HLN in the main screen. She watched it with half an eye, while they covered the beginning of another press conference from the Capital. She’d lost track of how many conferences had been aired since the explosion last night. Dozens. Hundreds. None of them carried anything new. Until the President decided to crawl out of her cave, there was no point to any of them.

GNS had been blackballed even before Anderson had issued those bogus warrants for Hanford and Stone. None of the High-and-Mighty would deign to talk to their reporters. They’d all been denied Washington press-passes and now that Homeland Security had whacked the head of their organization, there was little hope of GNS ever being a real news service again.

In her narrow view of the world, she didn’t see the need to worry over the political situation. Being an employee of GNS with its second-class status, gave her the opportunity to return to the science coverage she’d always loved.

A hush fell over the otherwise noisy diner as William Worthington, the Undersecretary of Homeland Security stepped up to the podium on a dozen screens around her. The sound came up so he could be heard. “Good afternoon. I will get right to the point of this conference.”

Nichole sat back grimacing, but noticed even through the tinny speakers, that his voice sounded like he was hiding something much bigger than what he was about to say.

“Agents of the Department of Homeland Security have uncovered a direct link between the assassination of Secretary Anderson and activities of key members of the Global News Service.” Several GNS staff members were here for lunch, she watched a few of them jump up and head for the door. The GNS offices were only a block up the street.

“At this time,” Worthington went on, “we have reason to believe that the conspiracy to assassinate Secretary Anderson was far wider spread within the GNS organization than initially believed.”

“Bullshit!” Across the room a sound-tech she recognized jumped up and stormed out the door. He shot her a look that suggested she might be smart to follow him. It all seemed too unreal, like a dream playing out in broken fragments. Slipping out of the chair, she cast one last glance at the counter. Several customers were watching her.

“The DHS has issued additional arrest-warrants for all staff reporters of Global News Service’s New York and Washington offices."

Bursting out onto the crowded sidewalk, his voice echoed in her ears.
“All staff reporters,”
he’d said.

In the distance she saw the tech pushing frantically through the bodies toward their office. Lacking any other strategy, she decided to follow him, struggling to remember his name while she ran to catch up.
Dexter, maybe?
Something like that. The crowd shuffled blindly along, giving ground when he slammed through a knot of bodies, creating a momentarily stunned vacuum that she could slip into.

Rounding the corner, she came up to a wall of human flesh, grid-locked and polarized into an impenetrable barrier. A thousand New Yorkers, usually unflappable in their relentless pursuit of mental isolation, stood staring at something she could not see.

Dread settled over her. This was not something she should be close to. Turning, the sound of Dexter’s voice tore through the other sounds around her, “They’re arresting everybody.” He’d managed to force his way through the crowd and she knew that in shouting the warning, he drew attention to her.

A woman standing on the sidewalk looked in her direction. “Aren’t you Nichole Thompson?”

She shook her head, wanting to be anyone but who she was at that moment. She spun away from the woman, dashing headlong toward the street.

“That’s Nichole Thompson!” The woman pointed at her, bellowing to be heard through the crowd.

An explosion of activity scattered the people behind her. “Freeze!” She doubled her speed and darted through the pedestrians, hitting the street at a dead run.

An absolute-black SUV screeched to a stop in her path. She smashed into its side, crushing the air out of her lungs. Rebounding, she tumbled backward toward the pavement, but even before she hit the ground, strong hands grabbed her and hauled her into the back of the vehicle.

***

Washington:

They’d put her in the back seat of a Trainer. The President of the United States, scrunched into the tiny cockpit of a fighter jet. It was a far cry from the luxury of Air Force One, but supposedly it was safe. The flight had been bone-jarring and almost nauseating, but she was back on the ground in record time. It took her almost as long to commute from Andrews to the White House by Marine chopper, as it had to get all the way from Colorado to Washington.

After the General had pointed out that if anyone were aiming at her, it would be better if she weren’t on the big jet with the target painted on it, the Secretary of State had agreed. Even though she could tell he was more than a little concerned, he’d volunteered to ride home in Air Force One.

He said it wasn’t that he was worried about the risk as much as he’d be out of the loop for most of the day. He knew things were unraveling, and he wanted to be there to help hold it together. She’d left him at the runway, telling him not to get too used to the ride since it was still hers for another couple years.

He’d climbed the stairs looking almost like a man on his last walk to the gallows. It was an image that bothered her a lot longer than it took to get home.

Now, back in her usual suit and heels, she felt a lot more in her element. It was strange to realize she’d been so rattled by the events of the last day that she’d felt exposed in the outside world. Buried deep under the White House, in the Situation Room, she could finally let her guard down.