Chapter 13 - Collision Course
The rain had turned into a blinding sheet of ice as I wrenched the steering wheel of the utility van hard to the left, sliding across three lanes of deserted asphalt on the Capital Beltway before pointing the nose down the off-ramp toward the secondary access gates of Fort Meade.
I didn't have clearance. I didn't have a valid military ID—my own credentials had been automatically flagged and revoked the moment I walked out of the Bethesda ICU. But I had something better: a high-gain directional microwave transmitter salvaged from the hospital's communications relay, wired directly into the van's alternator to generate enough electromagnetic punch to fry every unshielded circuit within a half-mile radius.
"Halt! Vehicle, cut your engine and exit the van with your hands visible!"
The automated loudspeaker at the Fort Meade gate cracked with static as two military police Humvees swung out from the guard booths, their high-beam headlights blinding me through the frosted windshield, while four heavily armed sentries raised their M4 carbines, their laser sights painting a constellation of red dots across the front of my jacket.
I didn't stop. I jammed my foot hard against the accelerator, steering the van straight between the two Humvees.
*Bang! Bang-bang!*
Bullets chewed through the front grille, shattering the radiator and sending a thick plume of white steam billowing into the cold night air. The windshield spiderwebbed into a lattice of white fractures, but I kept my eyes locked on the reinforced security gate fifty yards ahead.
"Brace!" I muttered to myself.
The van smashed through the steel-cable barrier with a deafening screech of tortured metal, vaulting onto the base perimeter road before the heavy tires shredded against the spikes, sending the vehicle spinning into a snow-covered drainage ditch.
Before the steam had even cleared, I kicked the driver's side door open, hoisted the Panasonic Toughbook and the microwave transmitter rig under my arm, and bolted across the frozen grass toward the low-slung, windowless concrete bunker of the National Security Agency’s primary regional relay station.
Sirens wailed behind me, a cacophony of flashing red and blue lights painting the falling snow in violent hues.
"Stop right there! Last warning!" a voice bellowed from the darkness behind the snowdrifts.
I ignored them, reaching the heavy blast door of the relay station. I slammed the emergency override panel with the butt of my Sig Sauer, shattering the mechanical lock, and yanked the steel door open just as a volley of warning shots chipped the concrete masonry inches from my head.
I dove inside, slamming the heavy door shut and dropping the interior security bar into place, locking myself inside the belly of the beast.
The interior was a cathedral of cold, humming servers, their blue and amber status lights blinking in endless, hypnotic rows. The air smelled of ozone and chilled Freon. At the center of the grand chamber sat the master terminal—an air-gapped mainframe connected directly to the military’s global communications backbone.
I slammed the Toughbook onto the steel console, connecting a high-speed fiber-optic patch cable from my makeshift rig straight into the NSA master port.
"Access granted: Guest User," the terminal flashed in green text.
"Not for long," I whispered.
I pulled up the active flight plan for C-17 Tail 504. The countdown timer on the screen glared back at me with terrifying intimacy: *00:04:12... 00:00:11...*
Four minutes until impact.
On the audio monitor, patched directly into the secure tactical frequency of the doomed transport aircraft, I heard the calm, professional voice of the pilot—Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Vance, a woman I had flown alongside over the Hindu Kush—speaking to her co-pilot.
"Altitude is thirty-two thousand. Autopilot engaged. Weather looks clear off the Irish coast, Dave. Looks like a smooth ride home."
"Copy that, Falcon Lead," the co-pilot replied. "Let's set the autopilot for cruise and grab some coffee."
My fingers flew across the keyboard. I bypassed the NSA firewall, triggered a global override sequence using my old Tier-One command codes, and targeted the navigation bus of Tail 504.
Suddenly, the console screen turned blood red. A dialogue box popped up, blocking every command I entered:
*ACCESS DENIED. SYSTEM LOCKED BY VOSS AERONAUTICS GLOBAL ADMIN: CONSTANCE VOSS.*
And right below it, a chat window opened automatically, flashing with a single line of incoming text:
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*“It’s a magnificent machine, Wesley. Watch it fall.”*
***
