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An elderly pickpocket tried working the crowd and, despite the massive security, actually got a couple of wallets from tourists before being apprehended. He willingly turned over the wallets, which were then surreptitiously returned to the owners, and the thief was thrown into a concrete cell for later trial.
Always in pairs, F-16-I jet fighters moved across the sky, while Yas’ur-class helicopter gunships hovered above the crowds, staying carefully out of range of the news cameras. Several of the huge helicopters were equipped for surveillance, while a few were armed to the teeth, their wings bristling with armament.
At strategic locations were brand-new Merkava-4 battle tanks; old Sho’t army tanks stood guard at street corners. A dozen Zelda-class APCs full of troops patrolled both sides of the border. Radar swept the sky and chemical sniffers checked every bag for contraband. Video cameras swept through the crowd, relaying the scene to a massive bank of police computers in Tel Aviv where sophisticated software cross-referenced every face to a list of known terrorists. When one was spotted, he or she was deftly removed from the crowd for questioning. One man tried to escape and make a break for the hole in the wall, but was tackled by the soldiers guarding the entrance. Another pulled a grenade and was torn to pieces by concentrated gunfire from the silenced pistols of security forces.
Walking along the wall, Major Kushner reviewed everything. Flag poles adorned with the blue-and-white Israel flag flanked the platform on the north side of the wall, a precisely equal amount carrying the Palestinian flag on the south. There was a podium with a speech prompter in place, and near the gap on top of the wall was a single brick lying on a white pillow like some ancient virgin sacrifice. Nearby was a battered bucket full of wet cement and a shiny golden trowel. All of which had been checked for bombs, poisons and anything else that could mar the ceremony or kill the PM.
At the base of the scaffolding was a full company of soldiers; six more in formal dress uniforms stood guard on the top of the platform. Only Kushner had no assigned post. She was the roving soldier ordered to walk everywhere, looking for trouble. But so far, so good. The military officer nodded in satisfaction. The area seemed secure. The Israeli Defense Force had done this sort of thing before, and there was nobody better. Everything that could be accomplished to secure the area had been already done in triplicate. This was an important occasion, and nobody was taking a chance of it turning into an international incident for some terrorist group out to grab some fast headlines.
Suddenly the radio receiver in her ear crackled with an announcement and a few seconds later, a civilian band, all in matching uniforms, swelled into the national anthem of the State of Israel. Just then, a motorcade of six armored limousines stopped in front of the scaffolding and the prime minister got out waving to the crowd, which roared in approval. Only a few people jeered the man’s arrival, but their cries were lost in the overwhelming positive response. Cameras flashed continuously. Proceeding to the carpeted steps to the top of the platform, the PM moved to the podium and made the grand gesture of turning off the speech prompters. The people cheered in approval.
“On this historic day,” the prime minister said softly into the microphone, the speakers amplifying his words until they boomed with biblical force across the entire city, “we lay the final brick in this modern day wall of Jericho. But unlike that ancient structure, this wall will be a symbol of peace and…”
The politician stopped as Major Kushner touched her earphone and frowned. On the ground, dozens of soldiers were charging around, the Zelda APCs began to disgorge armed soldiers as police vans started rolling toward the scaffolding, armed troops guiding civilians out of its way.
Removing a handkerchief from his pocket, the prime minister mopped his face and whispered to the officer, “Is there trouble?”
“Unknown, sir,” Kushner replied. “But radar has picked up something odd.”
“A missile?”
Scowling in concern, Kushner shook her head as lightning flashed in the cloudy sky.
Squinting into the clouds, the prime minster saw the flash again, but it seemed to come from the other side of the clouds and go right through to impact somewhere in the city only blocks away. But there was no explosion from a detonating warhead. He frowned at the sight. That didn’t resemble a missile, rocket or a bomb. It didn’t look like anything he knew.
Below the scaffolding, the crowd was growing nervous, its murmurs increasing in volume.
“Status report,” Kushner snapped into her throat mike.
“Situation unknown,” an IDF operative reported crisply. “Radar has something, or rather, they had something on the screens, but don’t know what that was yet.”
The flash came once more and something brighter than the sun smashed into the Palestinian side of the wall only a few yards from the platform. The concrete and bricks exploded in a geyser of destruction, the rubble flying for hundreds of yards into the air before raining upon the horrified crowds. A split second later a rolling thunder of a sonic boom arrived from the sky.
Turning to demand an answer this time, the prime minister was tackled by Kushner and she drove him to the floor, covering the politician with her body.
“Stay down!” she commanded, drawing a 9mm Jericho pistol. “Control, I want air cover now! Do you read me, right now!”
“What’s happening?” the prime minister gasped, his heart pounding in his chest.
The military officer didn’t reply, but tilted her head as if listening to voices through her earphone. Clustered around the fallen politician, the honor guards had their assault rifles in hand, two of the soldiers thumbing 40 mm rounds into the grenade launcher attached beneath the barrels.
Everybody on the ground was screaming by now and running in panic on both sides of the barrier. Another flash of light and a second section of the wall exploded directly above the gate. The archway collapsed and dozens of civilians were crushed under the tons of falling masonry.
“Alert! We have civilians down at the Abu Dis gate!” Kushner reported, adjusting the transponder on her belt. “Convoy, I want a Merkava at the platform immediately! Get the PM out of here!”
“Confirm, battle tanks are on the way.”
“What about the medics?”
“ETA, five minutes.”
“Good. Where’s our air cover?”
At that, a flight of F-16-I fighters streaked by and there came the dull heavy throb of a Yas’ur gunship. The tan-and-beige helicopter rose above the wall, then seemed to burst apart as another flash filled the air. The blades of the demolished craft spun free, skimming through the air in a blur, flying directly into a CNN camera crew. Bloody limbs sprayed everywhere.
Chaos reigned as sirens began to howl and more flashes rent the sky. A section of the wall exploded in a fast series of explosions. Rubble blew out like shrapnel and concrete dust clouded the atmosphere. Here and there machine guns chattered and another wing of jets streaked along the wall searching for the location of the enemy rockets or artillery emplacement. There was a burst of light and one of the jet fighters became a fireball above the city.
“Rockets, my ass, it’s a goddamn meteor shower!” Kushner shouted into the throat mike, her ears ringing from the strident detonations. There was a tickling sensation on a cheek and she instinctively knew it was blood. “Repeat, this is not a terrorist attack! Not an attack! Meteors!”
“A what?” the voice in her ear demanded, confused.
Kushner started to reply when the clouds parted and a hail of brilliant flashes slammed into the wall. The noise was deafening. Debris shot out, smashing windows and peppering nearby buildings for blocks. Peals of thunder boomed, shrieks rent the air, weapons fired, a car exploded, a weakened building tilted and collapsed, sending up huge clouds of acrid dust. Now the major felt the ground shake with every triphammer blow. It felt like heavy bombing, but there was no report from distant cannons, only the sonic booms from the sky, then the savage hammering of the wall and helpless city. Dozens had to be dead, maybe hundreds. Where was the air cover?
Fiery darts rose suddenly from the horizon as the antiaircraft batteries and antimissiles answered the attack in a protective barrage. But it had no effect. The bright light bursts continued, the concussions growing to deafening proportions. Then they abruptly stopped. For a moment a thick silence covered the city. A cool breeze blew from the Palestinian side of the barrier, pushing the smoke and dust away to reveal a path of flattened destruction. Then the sirens, cries and gunfire returned with a vengeance.
“Move!” Kushner shouted, dragging the prime minster to his feet and shoving him toward the stairs.
As they hurried down the torn carpeting, avoiding the broken steps, Kushner could see that the entire section of the wall that went through the center of town was gone, reduced to smoking rubble.
“Incredible,” a guard whispered.
Reaching the ground, Kushner shoved the prime minster toward the tank, and a Mossad agent helped the man inside. There were a dozen more of the agents nearby, their weapons drawn and hammers back. Kushner started to leave, but one of the men waved her inside and she obediently followed.
“Go!” a Mossad agent called down the hatch.
At the front of the armored vehicle, a driver started the massive diesels and the tank rumbled into motion.
“Are you all right, sir?” a Mossad agent asked, helping the politician to sit on a hard plastic seat. Her hands moved across the man, searching for wounds, but thankfully found nothing important.
“Hell, no. The Arabs are somehow going to blame us for this meteor strike,” the prime minister proclaimed, brushing off his tattered clothing. “I don’t know how, but they will.”
“I always thought meteors burned up in the atmosphere,” Kushner said with a frown, hanging on to a ceiling strap.
“Most disintegrate plummeting through the atmosphere, but not all,” the tank commander stated. “The Gulf of Mexico was made by a meteor strike. As were all of the holes that make up the man on the moon.”
Cradling a sore arm, the prime minister frowned. The officer was correct, yet this the strike had occurred just as the dedication ceremony began. No way that was a coincidence, which left one unnerving conclusion.
“I want a geologist,” the prime minister announced, wiping dirt off his face.
“Sir?” Kushner asked, puzzled. Then she nodded. “Of course. Yes, sir.” She touched her throat mike. “Control, we need a geologist with maximum security clearance at the grandstand immediately.”
“A geologist?” a voice replied. “Did I hear that correctly?”
Kushner gave the prime minister a questioning look and he nodded.
“Confirm, control. A geologist. ASAP.”
“Roger, we’ll contact the university. Over.”
Leaning to peer out a gunport, the prime minister scowled at the path of destruction cutting a swath through the borders of the two rival nations. Precisely, and exactly along the border, hammering the wall down to the ground for several city blocks. Buildings were riddled with shrapnel, streets smashed, cars burning, wounded people everywhere. A lot more laying motionless in the wrecked streets. The wreckage of a F-16-I jet fighter lay smoldering on the ground on the Israeli side of the crevice and a tank sat dead on the Palestinian side, an orange-hot hole in the roof armor clearly showing a direct hit from…whatever had done this.
“When the scientist arrives, have him check the residue at the bottom of each crater,” the prime minister ordered brusquely. “Each and every single one.”
“Why?” the Mossad agent asked bluntly.
“I don’t think those were meteors,” the politician stated.
CHAPTER TWO
Los Angeles, California
“Look, gentlemen, we can do this all night,” the President of the United States said, lifting a carafe and pouring himself a cup of lukewarm coffee, “but I really don’t think that—”
He stopped talking abruptly as the vice-president walked into the boardroom flanked by a cadre of grim-faced Secret Service agents.
“Sir, there is an important call for you from NORAD, sir,” the VP said.
The President went still at the coded phrase. Any sentence that started and ended with the same word meant all hell had just broken loose somewhere.
“Sorry, gentlemen,” the President said, wearily standing. “This is a matter of national security.”
The gruff men in expensive suits murmured their understanding as the President left the room.
Moving along the corridor, a dozen Secret Service agents closed around the President and more joined him from every doorway they passed. Soon, he was surrounded, and could no longer see where they were going. The leader of the United States had to simply follow wherever his bodyguards were leading.
Upon reaching the driveway, the Secret Service agents parted to reveal a line of identical black limousines, all of them with the exact same license plates. There were five of the vehicles, and the President was directed to the fourth in line. As he approached, the rear door opened and his personal assistant, Kevin Molendy, stepped out.
“This way, sir,” he said, moving out of the way.
The man was wearing a bulletproof vest under his suit jacket, which was odd, but the President said nothing as he stepped into the limo and took a seat. Several people were waiting for him, four of them Secret Service agents. The rest were members of his Executive Council: Oswaldo “Oz” Fontecchio, his national policy adviser, as well as Hillary Hertzoff, his national security adviser, and Matthew Mingle, the current head of the CIA.
Thank goodness, Hal Brognola wasn’t here, the President observed with a sigh. That would have meant real trouble.
As Molendy climbed inside, a Secret Service agent closed the door and the limo started to roll. The President knew that the vehicles wouldn’t maintain formation, but rotate positions randomly, making it impossible for a sniper to know in which vehicle he was riding. An assassin would have to strike all of the limousines to even have a chance of success, and the plain black limos were all million-dollar cars, containing more armor than most light tanks, including the tires. Even if hit with a grenade, the rubber would blow off, but the limo would continue moving smoothly on the wide steel plates hidden inside.
“Okay, what happened?” the President asked as the limo took a corner.
“Sir, there has been an attack on the wall in Israel,” Hertzoff said in clipped tones. It was as if every word was precious and she didn’t want to waste any. “Hundreds are dead, perhaps more, with collateral damage in the millions.”
“Missiles or car bombs?” the President queried.
Leaving his seat, Molendy opened a small wall panel and started making fresh coffee.
“Neither, sir. It was a meteor shower,” Hertzoff replied.
“A what?” the President demanded as the smell of Jamaican Blue Mountain filled the air of the limousine. “A meteor shower?”
“Yes, sir. About a mile of the wall has been completely flattened in the border town of Abu Dis.”
“A meteor shower,” the President repeated slowly, leaning back in the seat. “How sure are you about that?”
“No confirmation as of yet, sir.”
“And what does this have to do with the CIA?” he asked, accepting a steaming cup from the aide.
“We got a tip about the attack from an agent in Paris about ten minutes before it happened,” Mingle answered with a frown. “The report said something about an attack on Abacus, or so we thought. It seemed like garbled data. Until Israel.”
“And?” the President prompted. Then he frowned. “Wait a minute, wasn’t the dedication ceremony supposed to be held today?”
“Yes, sir. Exactly.”
No way in hell that was a coincidence. “Get the agent on the phone,” the President commanded. “I want to talk to him direct.”
Mingle shook his head. “Impossible, sir. He appears to have been terminated in what might have been enemy action.”
“Appears? Might have been?” Fontecchio said, leaning forward in his seat. “Sir, the café was hit with flamethrowers and grenades! Twenty civilians are dead and the French government is furious!”
“We’re checking further into the matter,” Mingle replied smoothly.
“Did this meteor shower hit during the brick-laying ceremony, by any chance?” the President ventured as a guess.
Hertzoff nodded. “Yes, sir. Just as it began.”
“Is the prime minister dead?”
“No, sir,” Fontecchio answered. “Not a scratch. But the town is in shambles. The people are rioting and running back and forth across the border.”
“The Israelis will stop that nonsense soon enough with some concertina wire,” Fontecchio stated resolutely. “Not a problem.”
“Good. I want a full report on the matter within the hour,” the President snapped. “And contact the Joint Chiefs, I want our status raised to DefCon Three.”
Fontecchio balked at that, but said nothing. DefCon One was peacetime, DefCon Five was war. After 9/11, the United States hadn’t dropped below DefCon Two. Peace seemed to be a thing of the past, merely a notation on the war board, but nothing to do with the real world.
“Yes, sir,” Fontecchio replied uncomfortably.
The passengers in the limo swayed slightly as the vehicle took a corner, the rear limo moving ahead of them as they dropped to a new position in the convoy.
Turning to his aide, the president asked, “Isn’t there a ship christening tomorrow?”
“Yes, sir,” Molendy answered without glancing at the personal computer sticking out of his pocket. “A new aircraft carrier will be launched from the San Diego naval shipyard.”
“Don’t cancel the ceremony,” the President ordered. “Have the Secretary of Defense christen the ship.”
“Yes, sir. And what should I tell the secretary?”
“Nothing.”
“Yes, sir. And the press?”
“Same thing.”
“No problem, sir.”
“Then contact Space Defense, I want to know what’s happening up there.”
“NASA reports no unusual activity in space,” Hertzoff reported. “If there was a meteor shower, it’s over by now.”
There came a soft buzzing and Molendy pulled out a cell phone. The device was huge, almost the size of a paperback book; it cost more than most small airplanes and contained some of the most sophisticated electronics in existence.
“White House,” the aide said. Then he hit the mute button. “Sir, you have a call from a General Stone.”
“Who?” Mingle muttered, his annoyance clearly discernable.
Placing down his empty coffee mug, the President took the phone. “Hello, General…yes, I…well, no…damn.” Then the President was silent for a long time. “Okay, see you on the plane.” As the line went dead, the President closed the lid on the cell phone, automatically scrambling the memory and sending a false signal to the White House library. There was no redial function on this cell phone. Especially not to Hal Brognola, head of the Sensitive Operations Group based at Stony Man Farm.
Molendy accepted the phone and tucked it away opposite his bulky journal.
“Is there a problem, sir?” Hertzoff asked in concern.
Trying to be casual, the President dismissed that with a wave. “Nothing of importance.”
The others took that as a notice that the conference was over for the moment, and got on their own cell phones to check for any missed messages over the past ten minutes.
Outside the limo, police motorcycles rode along with the executive convoy, keeping people away from the line of limousines. Wherever the President went, traffic snarled and a major city ground to a halt for the duration of his visit. But his mind wasn’t on maintaining good public relations right now. If Hal Brognola wanted a private meeting, then all hell had broken loose somewhere. Could be Paris or Israel. Maybe both.
Deep in thought, the President studied the city passing by outside, trying to recall the details of a scientific report he had read as a junior senator very long ago. Israel may have been hit by vaporware, something that was not supposed to exist. But very obviously did. Project Sky Hammer. If so, then nobody was safe, absolutely nobody, and there were going to be a lot more deaths real soon.
Pressing a button on the armrest, the President said, “Driver, maximum speed to the airport, please.”
Instantly a siren started blaring from under the hood, and the convoy of limos surged with speed.
Computer Room, Stony Man Farm, Virginia
THE LARGE ROOM was very quiet, the air vents steadily exhaled a cool breeze and the silent keyboards made tiny patting noises from the hurried impact of fingers. A coffeemaker burbled at the kitchenette and muffled rock music could be heard coming from somewhere.
“What’s this about a Thor?” Carmen Delahunt asked, lowering her glasses. “Okay, Aaron. Tell me we aren’t looking at a Thor here. I remember reading about the project in a journal.”
A virtual reality visor plugged into her console, ready to access the Internet anytime. But the million-dollar VR helmet was deactivated at the moment. After the Paris attack, the team had been looking for a possible traitor in the NSA or CIA. But then the attack on Israel occurred, and it had top priority.
Privately, Delahunt hoped the two incidences weren’t directly linked.
Slim and well-built, the red-haired woman was a classic Irish beauty, but she was also one of the elite, the four Cyberwizards who composed the cybernetic division of Stony Man Farm. Her desk console was directly attached to the bank of Cray supercomputers under Stony Man’s direct control.
“The display is coming up now,” Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman called from the small kitchenette along the wall, where he was filling his coffee mug.
Sipping and wheeling at the same time, he rolled back to his console, the chair fitting snugly underneath.
The console had several monitors. A few of them were dark, but the rest were busy scrolling with news reports from every agency in the world.
Impatient, Kurtzman tapped one monitor with a screen saver. Why was the file taking so long? Instantly the wooden glen disappeared to show the status of the top-secret download. Ah, here we go, almost downloaded from archives now.
“Okay, heads up,” Kurtzman announced, tapping his keyboard.
Everybody else stopped whatever he or she was doing and paid attention.
“I’m afraid you’re right, Carmen. The name of the thing is Project Sky Hammer,” Kurtzman said as the big monitor at the front of the room came to life.
The plasma screen pulsed with light a few times, then cleared into a view of starry space, the blue-white globe of Earth low in the corner. The technical data flowed past the screen, showing power curves, field strengths and striking power. That end of the data nearly went off the chart. The Stony Man cyber team read the flowing data carefully.
Back in 1977, a research scientist named Dr. Gerald Mahone started thinking about weapons and what part of a bomb actually caused death and destruction. It wasn’t the metal casing or even the shrapnel inside. As an example, he suggested taking a bullet and throwing it at somebody. A steel-jacketed, hollow point, .357 Magnum round would simply bounce off his or her chest and fall to the floor. The bullet, the casing, the metal, wasn’t deadly, per se. It was the amount of force behind the projectile that made it deadly.
Anything was lethal if it moved fast enough. There were hundreds of recorded cases where a tornado had driven a piece of straw into a telephone pole, or done the same thing with a bottle cap and a brick wall. Speed, raw velocity, made objects dangerous.
The space race was still strong back in the seventies, and America had been locked in a deadly struggle for supremacy with the Soviet Union. New weapons were needed all the time. So Mahone did some basic calculations and invented the Thor.