Chapter 48
This probably wasn't a good idea.
There was an intense flash.
The directed energy beam vaporized the area around the bunker, turning it into the surface of the sun for an instant. At thousands of degrees, it created a plasma plume that expanded with a high-pressure shockwave. The thermal pulse blasted a flood of superheated gas into the bunker.
JD and I had closed the steel doors to our respective rooms and hunkered down. And that was a good thing.
The shockwave blasted the goons near the entrance across the room. Seared by the 1,800° heat, they burst into flames.
So did everything else in the bunker.
Even in our rooms, the heat was intense. But the steel doors kept the majority of the heat and toxic fumes out. I sure as hell wouldn't touch the door handle until the damn thing cooled down.
"Do you have respirators?” I asked Adam.
He nodded. "I’ve got everything. NBC suits, medicine, iodine pills, you name it."
The main area of the bunker crackled with flames, and the place filled with noxious smoke. The concrete walls kept the fire from spreading, but smoke inhalation was a concern.
We weren’t out of this yet.
Adam moved to a storage locker and grabbed four full-face respirators.
I took one for myself and JD. "Were you able to disable the network after you sent the targeting data?"
He shook his head. "I think I figured out a way, but the satellite uplink is gone. Everything is gone.”
The despair in his eyes at the loss of his compound was evident.
We put on the respirators. I grabbed a cloth, doubled it over, and used it to twist the door handle. Thick smoke covered the ceiling, and the fire blazed in the main area.
I opened Jack's door and handed him a respirator.
He put it on.
I advanced toward the entrance, stepping over the mangled, charred bodies of the goons. Glowing flames burned anything flammable, but a clear path led to the door. I hurried through, and the others followed.
All of Adam's electronics crackled with flames. So did his TV and his couch.
I climbed the steps to the surface and couldn't believe what I saw.
The area around the bunker was scorched and charred in a perfect circle. It looked like the surface of an alien planet. Smoke lingered in the air, and a plume rose high into the sky.
The helicopters had been incinerated, and Scott along with them. Patterns on the ground indicated where they had been, but there wasn't so much as a fragment left. It was unlike anything I had ever seen.
The others followed me out of the bunker, and we hurried back toward the road.
I peeled off the respirator when I reached clear air.
The directed energy strike was surgical. One minute, we were in the circle of death. The next minute, we were back on normal terrain. A sharp line divided the two worlds.
The beam had only lasted for a fraction of a second. Blink and you’d miss it.
We hustled back to the road. The beige truck was still there. I clicked the key fob and unlocked the doors. I climbed behind the wheel, and the others piled in. After firing up the engine, I banked a U-turn and headed back toward Yucca Flats.
"If you can get me somewhere with Wi-Fi, there’s one more thing I can try. It might disable the system for good," Adam said.
His fingers blazed across the keys as we barreled down the highway.
I wanted to get as far away from the bunker as possible.
You couldn't just vaporize a section of the Mojave Desert without someone knowing about it.
A directed energy beam would give off a thermal signature.
Satellite monitoring stations would see the bright pulse.
There was no doubt in my mind that US, Russian, and Chinese agencies would all know a directed energy weapon was fired.
The site would be swarming with feds in no time.
I waited for the other shoe to drop. For the black SUVs to pull up, and agents to converge on us with weapons drawn. This would be an international event.
“How much do you want to bet that Horseshoe and his buddy killed Michelle Morgan and buried her body?” I said to Jack.
He knew exactly what I was thinking.
Jack fiddled with the infotainment system and launched the navigation app.
He tabbed through the history. Sure enough, the truck had been in Stillwater.
The vehicle’s navigation automatically logged every trip.
Jack kept scrolling through the history in reverse chronological order.
He found the drive from Stillwater to Los Angeles.
He found several trips around Stillwater, including the one where they shot at us.
He kept sifting through all the trips until he found something unusual.
The only one of its kind.
In Stillwater, a few blocks from Michelle Morgan’s house, the vehicle made a trip out to the desert near the mountains. The car stayed there for a couple of hours, then returned. Enough time to dig a grave and bury a body. Jack made note of the exact GPS coordinates.
I didn’t want to get stopped by the highway patrol in this vehicle, so I kept it at the speed limit. We were out in the sticks, driving a car that belonged to a couple of dead guys.
Adam tapped the keys, his eyes fixed on the screen with laser focus.
We needed to ditch the vehicle. The navigation system contained evidence in the Michelle Morgan case, but all the perpetrators were dead.
There was no reason to leave anything behind that tied us to the vehicle.
An eyelash, skin cells, a stray hair—all could send you away for life if found in the wrong place.
We made it back to where Brooke had left her car. I told Jack I’d meet them at the coffee shop in Yucca Flats, where this leg of the adventure began. They climbed out of the truck and transferred to Brooke’s car.
They followed me back to town. Brooke turned for the coffee shop, and I drove toward the gas station where we had filled up when we first got to town.
I parked around the corner to avoid the security cameras at the pumps.
I grabbed a hat from the seat and sunglasses from the center console.
It wasn’t the best disguise in the world, but it would create plausible deniability.
I hustled to the gas station, bought a crappy plastic gas container, and paid cash for a gallon.
Then I hustled back to the truck, threw the gas can in the bed, and hauled ass out to the desert.
I didn’t have to drive far to get away from prying eyes.
Once I found a suitable spot, I doused the cab with gasoline, lit a match, and set the vehicle ablaze. By the time I got 20 yards away, the beige truck was engulfed in flames, crackling and popping. Paint peeled and turned black.
I jogged back to town as the sun angled toward the horizon. Black smoke billowed high into the sky. You could see it from miles away.
I made it to the highway and jogged along the shoulder.
It wasn’t long before an old timer pulled beside me in a beat-up, rusted-out pickup truck. “Where you goin’, son?”
“Yucca Flats,” I said with a hopeful smile.
He had white hair, a long bushy beard with tobacco stains around the mouth, and a weathered face. Wearing bib overalls and a flannel shirt, he looked like he’d been around since the dinosaurs.
“Hop in.”
I did, and he drove off.
"You're not from around here, are you?" he said.
I shook my head.
"What brings you to town?"
I flashed my badge. "Investigating a case."
The old-timer had sharp eyes. "Long way from home, ain't ya?”
I smiled, "Yes, sir, I am.”
"What kind of case are you investigating?"
"It's complicated. Kidnapping and murder."
"Wouldn't have nothing to do with that flash of light I saw a little bit ago, would it?"
I just played it cool and shook my head. "Nope."
"I'm telling you, it's aliens. They're about to invade. That was a test strike. That or the government cooked up some new weapon. I'm not sure which. But tell you what, son. Start preparing now. Get yourself a bunker. Doomsday is coming.”
"You can just drop me off up here," I said, pointing to the strip center where the coffee shop was located.
He pulled to the shoulder. I hopped out and thanked him for the ride.
"You heed my warning, son. The end times is near."
I hoped he was wrong.
I closed the door, smiled, and waved as he drove off, heading east.
Cars zipped by on the highway.
I trotted across the parking lot and joined the others in the coffee shop.
They had free Wi-Fi and pretty good coffee.
I took a seat, and with a look let Jack know I’d taken care of the truck.
Adam banged away on his laptop. He reconnected to the network once again, entered his credentials, then plugged in the HSMs simultaneously. With a few taps of the keys, he was ready to try again.
"What are you going to do?" Brooke asked.
"Push a firmware update. It’s the one area the AI can’t overwrite. I’ve designed the update to look like the previous version.”
"What's that going to do?”
"With this firmware installed, it will see any changes to the original code as malicious. All of the new code written by the AI to patch vulnerabilities will be seen as hostile. With any luck, it will deem itself a threat and start dismantling the system."
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Adam frowned. “I’m not sure of anything at this point.”
He tapped the keys and uploaded the firmware. The progress bar displayed on the screen again. It finished in a few seconds.