Chapter Twenty-Seven
ERIC MANHEIM TOOK a sip from his bourbon sour, striving for a polite expression as David Coulson finally blessed them with his presence. The bloody American had been the last to land on the boat the night before, just as he was the last to arrive for the meeting Giovanni was about to call to order. Rather ironic, considering he’d been the one to insist that the summit be held in his territory for a change. Under normal circumstances the man’s arrogance would have been loathsome and annoying. But Eric’s mood was too good for irritation to set in.
He paused to adjust the Glock in the oversize right pocket of his suit. The garment had been specifically designed to accommodate the weapon. When a man oversaw the bulk of the banking institutions in existence, it was wise to carry personal protection. Leaning back in the big executive chair, he smiled as the leather padding adjusted around him, contouring to the curve of his spine.
“I say, David.” Eric dug into his breast pocket and removed six Gurkha Blacks. “These chairs are quite fine. Who sells them?”
“How the fuck should I know.” Coulson set the large leather satchel he was carrying on the gleaming rectangular table the council had convened around. “They’re fucking chairs. Who cares where they’re available? A chair is a fucking chair.”
Bloody sod.
But not even the repugnant American could sour Eric’s mood. With a benign shrug, he slid a Gurkha to each of the men around the table.
Samuel Proctor, the cigar enthusiast among them, lifted the stogie to his nose and inhaled deeply. A look of pure bliss spread across his fleshy, hound-dog face. “What’s the occasion, Manheim?”
“It must be something important,” Hasso Albrecht added. “We know how fond Esme is of the cigar.”
They all also knew that Eric had flown in alone. Esme had been sickly and tired the past few days. Regardless of whether Esme accompanied him, he generally tried to adhere to her wishes.
“A long-awaited project has finally born fruit.” Eric accepted the platinum cigar guillotine Samuel slid his way and clipped off the head of the Gurkha he’d kept for himself.
Everything had progressed much faster than he’d expected. The tests wouldn’t confirm that Esme was pregnant for a while yet, but he was certain she was carrying his child. Certain that in nine months or so, they’d welcome a little girl—or little boy—with Esme’s beautiful sky-blue eyes into their family. However, he’d wait to announce the next generation of the NRO until the pregnancy test came back affirmative and they were past those uncertain first three months. According to the reproductive specialist, 80 percent of miscarriages occurred in the first trimester.
“How about we stop wasting time with personal celebrations and get down to the business at hand.” Coulson unzipped the bronze satchel and plunged both hands inside. He pulled out a large oval object and carefully placed it on the table. The sphere’s metallic casing glittered in the sunlight pouring through the unfiltered windows. “This, gentlemen, is Eden, and she is going to reboot our planet.”
Eric froze, the Gurkha still caught between his teeth. Slowly he lowered the cigar and leaned in for a closer look. “This is our sonic bomb?”
“No. It’s a fucking dragon’s egg,” Coulson drawled mockingly. “What the hell, Manheim. How about you pull your head out of your ass. You were the one who asked to see the damn thing.”
His lips tightening, Eric folded his arms across his chest and sat back. What he wouldn’t give to shove that metal sphere up the bloody sod’s ass . . . or take out the Glock and put a couple of holes in him. A pity that second option was off the table.
Giovanni, who was sitting next to Coulson, reached across the table to pick up the device. He slowly rotated it in his hands. “How do you turn it on? There’s no switch. No compartments. No means to access its internal wiring.”
“It’s operated by remote.” Coulson reached back into the satchel and pulled out a round plastic object with a single red button. “Put it down.”
Once Giovanni had returned the device to the table, Coulson pressed the red button. With a soft hum, a three-inch illuminated computer screen slid out.
“The weapon is armed, and the timer set from here.” He tapped the plus button at the bottom of the screen, and a bright-red 5:00 appeared on the device. Another tap, and the number shifted to 10:00. “The plus sign adds five minutes at a time to the clock. The minus sign runs the timer down.” He pointed at a red triangle in the upper right quadrant of the screen. “Press this icon, and Eden is armed.” He pressed the minus sign until the screen went dead and then punched the red button on the remote again. They all watched as the computer screen retreated inside. “Once the device is activated, the panel will automatically withdraw. Since there is no way to access the control panel without the remote, there is no way to circumvent the blast.”
“L’électricité cannot be cut to them, oui?” Alain Pinault murmured, taking a healthy puff on his Gurka.
“Exactly.” Satisfaction rang in Coulson’s voice. “The metal alloy we used is indestructible. Once the timer is set and the device armed, we destroy the remote. At that point no one can stop Eden from going off.”
Feeling particularly benevolent, Eric pointed his cigar at Coulson. “I say, David, excellent job with this.”
After so many years of inching their agenda forward, they finally had the means to recreate Earth and pass something on to future generations that was worth inheriting.
Before Coulson had a chance to respond, a voice came over the intercom.
“Mr. Coulson? Sir? We have two helicopters heading toward us, closing in fast.”
Everyone but Coulson sat up straighter.
“Relax,” Coulson drawled. Sprawling back in his chair, he spread his thighs wide. “Nobody knows we’re here. Hell, even if Link did spill the beans about the quarterly meetings, there’s no way he’d know we’re holding it here. That was the whole point of mixing up locations.”
Eric wasn’t reassured. Too many inexplicable coincidences had happened recently. Mackenzie and those damn basket weavers shouldn’t have known the location of the kidnapped scientists either, yet somehow they had.
They were too close to their objective for complacency.
“Did you mention the meeting to Christy? Her parents?”
A faint whop-whop-whop filled the room.
“Don’t be an ass.” Coulson’s eyebrows beetled over his nose. “They know nothing about this. As liberal as that whole family is, they’d be horrified by our agenda. Hell, I even removed their entire crew and substituted a couple of my own men to run the damn boat just to make sure nothing discussed today leaked. The choppers are probably out training. Coronado naval base isn’t that far away.”
Coronado.
Eric froze. Forgot to breathe. “You don’t suppose Mackenzie and his—”
“No fucking way,” Coulson snapped, jackknifing up in his chair.
He punched a button on the armrest of his chair, and a panel opened in the wall behind the head of the table. A television screen appeared, broadcasting The Price Is Right. The five contestants standing in front of the stage were bouncing up and down.
The whop-whop-whop got louder.
Coulson punched another button, and a view of the yacht’s stern, as seen from what looked like the bridge, took over the television set. In the distance two ominous shadows darkened the brilliant-blue sky. They looked like some kind of helicopters, but nothing Eric had seen before. Maybe experimental aircraft? Which brought to mind those damn Shadow Mountain Indians.
“Sir?” The voice came over the intercom again. “They’re—”
There was a burst of static, and the television went dark, as did the lights above the table and the lamps in the corner.
“Just a breaker,” Coulson said after a long, tense silence. But judging by the tendon visibly twitching in his neck, he didn’t believe the excuse any more than Eric did.
Eric dug into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. The screen was dead. Just to be certain, he pressed the power button. Nothing.
The whop-whop-whop was much louder now.
“A breaker wouldn’t affect cell phones,” Eric said, raising his voice.
Other hands plunged into pockets and pulled out cell phones. None of them worked.
“An EMP blast.” Proctor jerked to his feet, shoving tense fingers through his thinning gray hair. A sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. “We need to get to the submersibles.”
“The submersibles will be as dead as the phones,” Coulson said. He lurched up from the table. Urgent strides carried him to the window. He leaned in and looked up.
“The ship’s down. The engine vibration is gone.” Giovanni’s wide, white-rimmed eyes shot to the windows. He grabbed his tumbler of scotch and dumped it down his throat.
He was right. Eric’s pulse started to pound. The Princess was dead in the water.
His face ashen, Giovanni slowly rose to his feet. “Where are the panic rooms?”
“The closest is there.” Coulson flung his hand toward the wet bar tucked in the corner of the room, exposing the damp stains in his armpits. “It’s dead.”
His Adam’s apple bobbing, Giovanni shuffled to the bar and peered at the walls.
“It’s dead, you fucking moron,” Coulson shouted. “We need to fucking move.”
“Where?” Eric asked, rising to his feet. He forced his voice to remain calm even though everything inside him quaked. There was no doubt who was about to board them. Which meant his life was over.
Within seconds the roar from the rotors overhead was so loud it was impossible to hear anything beyond the thunderous whop-whopping. A murky shadow spread across the windows. The room darkened. The crystal tumblers scattered on the table and rattled against the wood.
Eric held his breath, his attention turned outward and upward, praying the helicopter would fly past them, leave them in peace. But the rotor thunder continued to deafen as the damn thing hovered there somewhere above them.
His skin tightened to the point of pain.
There was no question now. The helicopters were after the boat. After them. When he turned back to the window to ask Coulson where the safest place to hide was, the American was gone.
The bloody bastard had abandoned them.
Eric hurried to the door on wobbly legs and looked both ways down the hall. In the distance was the sound of an explosion followed by gunfire. He caught a glimpse of Coulson’s back as the man disappeared around a corner. For an instant he considered following him. Fleeing. Maybe jumping from one of the yacht’s rails. But the helicopters still beat the air above. They’d see him abandon the ship and simply haul him out of the water.
He turned from the door. Besides, there was more at stake here than their own lives.
The whole world was at stake. He couldn’t let the soldiers boarding the yacht take anyone on the council alive. If the SEALs or those Indians captured even one council member, Eden would be forfeit. The NRO would be destroyed. For the good of the planet, everyone in this room needed to die. Coulson was already gone. But that didn’t matter. Eden’s sonic blast would make sure the bloody sod didn’t live long enough to pass on any secrets.
Of course, once he accessed Eden’s screen and set the timer, everyone in the room would know his plan. If their survival instincts kicked in, and they mobbed him, they could prevent him from arming the device. He needed to circumvent any resistance to his plan.
Luckily he was armed and a very good shot, thanks to hours of practice at the shooting range. He had the element of surprise too. Proctor and Giovanni were both armed, so he’d take them out first. The other four wouldn’t stand a chance.
His decision made, Eric reached into his pocket and pulled out his Glock 17. Six shots later, he was the last NRO member in the room. The smell of gunfire and blood clogged the air. He closed in on the table and set the pistol down. Eden’s remote felt surprisingly tiny in his hand—rather nondescript, really. He clicked the red button, and smooth as pie, the glass screen slid out.
For the first time ever, he was thankful for Coulson’s paranoia and insistence on EMP shielding in the alloy they’d used for Eden’s shell. Coulson had worried that one EMP blast over a warehouse would take all the devices down. The current situation had never entered anyone’s mind.
He hesitated, his finger brushing the plus sign, his mind going to Esme and their baby.
Thank God she isn’t on board. She’ll continue our cause. She’ll make sure our child is raised on a healthier, renewed planet.
Grief rose, thickened in his chest until each breath was an effort. How he wished he could be there to watch his little boy or girl take their first steps or speak their first words. How he wished he could watch the birth, gaze into Esme’s beautiful blue eyes as she pushed their child into the world. How he wished he could tell Esme one more time how much he loved her.
Still, there was no hesitation as he punched the plus button and armed the device. For his child to enjoy a better world, he had to protect him or her now. If that meant dying . . . then he’d accept that sacrifice.
A bright-red 5:00 appeared on the screen and started counting down. The screen slid back in, and a pulsing red strobe light circled the top of the device.
He dropped the remote on the ground and stomped it with his boot. Then he bent to scoop up the plastic pieces. He walked to the window, cranked it open, and tossed the pieces into the ocean below.
It was done.
Before he could reach the front of the table and his pistol, a horde of black-clothed men wearing military armor burst into the room. Half a dozen rifles locked on his chest.
“On the floor. On the floor,” hard voices shouted.
He caught glimpses of dark eyes and olive complexions as he lowered himself to the carpet. American Indians, from the looks of them. He’d been right. Shadow Mountain had found them.
Lying on his stomach while one soldier bound his wrists and another checked him for weapons, Eric watched his captors shove Coulson into the room. The bloody sod was bound, with a split lip and bruises forming along his cheek and jaw, but he was alive.
No matter.
When the device detonated, it would kill Coulson, along with everyone in a five-hundred-mile radius—including the bastards who’d boarded the yacht. The blast would cripple Shadow Mountain, but the NRO would remain intact. Esme would make sure the devices were distributed and detonated.
She’d survive, along with their child, to rule a vibrant new planet.