XXXIV.

April 29, 2012.

Red Rock, Nevada.

"What the hell just happened?"

Lightholler made sure that Morgan had copied the coordinates. He'd heard every word of the major's transaction with Webster, but was unable to break back into the communication. Absorbed now in recalibrating the transmitter, he ignored Doc's cry.

"You saw that, didn't you?" Doc was talking to Morgan.

Lightholler suppressed an urge to call for quiet and concentrated on his task.

A bright glow suffused the room...

Everything slipped...

"You saw that, didn't you?" Doc was talking to Morgan.

Lightholler suppressed an urge to call for quiet and concentrated on his task.

A bright glow suffused the room. He swiftly turned towards the source but the carapace had reclaimed its shadows.

Doc was staring, open-mouthed, at the energy reservoir. "You saw that, right?"

Morgan said, "I saw it."

Only Malcolm wasn't looking. She still gazed with mute despair at the now silent radio.

"What happened?" Lightholler demanded.

Doc stammered in his haste. "The carapace reservoir just exceeded one hundred per cent. That's impossible."

"Why is that impossible?"

"Because I haven't re-engaged the generator yet."

Malcolm was tugging at Lightholler's sleeve. "Please," she urged. "Get him back."

"Is it reading right now?"

"Yes."

"Please, find him."

"I'm trying." Lightholler tore his eyes from Malcolm's pleading face. "And what the hell was that light, Doc?"

"I don't know."

The cavern shuddered again. Fresh silt deposited itself on the growing stalagmites of spilt earth.

"Brilliant." The carapace, verging on full power, flexed unknown muscles. "Will it still work?"

"There's a slight problem with the proximity of the first staging point. We're looking at forty-five minutes."

"Brilliant."

Doc went back to his numbers. Lightholler returned to the shortwave. The others hemmed him in, forming a tight circle around the radio.

"Major, are you there? Please respond, over."

The radio yielded white noise.

XXXV.

April 29, 2012.

CSS Patton.

The Eye was a seething mass. Agents and intel techs strove for his attention. He'd stopped giving orders five minutes ago. He stared at the radio's console with mounting frustration. Kennedy's silence was becoming wearisome.

Its balloon array in tatters, the stratolite hung well west of the cavern's entrance. Confined to the lower airs, it limped on, drawing the Japanese planes back over the scattered remains of their anti-aircraft cover.

Webster glanced at one of the screens. Nothing moved within the waste land of Red Rock. Beyond the monitors, the sky was a tapestry of grey tracer-laced pom-poms. Tufts of smoke bloomed, tiny fists catching and crushing the occasional interceptor. There was no need for fire discipline, no need for the Patton's gunners to be circumspect in their targeting. All the scouts were long gone. Only the recon flights remained aloft. They'd called in, one by one, sustaining the litany of approaching enemy planes.

He peered down at the coordinates he'd received. A camera, trained on the site, displayed a swirling black maelstrom.

"I don't think I can help you now, Joseph," he murmured. He turned off the transmitter.

He cleared the Eye of all but his senior agents. The remaining men, covert operatives placed among the stratolite's crew when she'd first been cast to the winds, represented all the Patton's services. He listened to their appraisals.

There were at least eight Japanese squadrons inbound. A flight of rocket scouts had been spotted among their formations. There'd been some external attempts, from Dallas and Houston, to contact the Patton. All had been ignored, as per his orders.

One communique piqued his interest. The flotilla of German stratolites secreted above the Japanese Home Islands had delivered their atomic stockpiles over Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

He reviewed his options. Their scarcity alleviated his task.

More than a hundred Japanese planes were on their way. The Patton wouldn't live out the hour.

He gave orders to make west at full speed. All unnecessaries were to be jettisoned in order to gain the highest altitude. He dismissed the men, telling them that he was not to be disturbed. He shook their hands at the elevator vestibule and sealed the Eye's entrance at their departure.

He had everything he needed right here.

He returned to the transmitter and dialled up the frequency that had earlier cut into Kennedy's conversation.

A voice, unexpectedly soft, unexpectedly sorrowful, answered his transmission.

He ignored Malcolm's wasted supplication. Joseph Kennedy was long gone.

He spoke over her protests, saying, "Please listen to me very carefully. You need to ensure that all your electrical equipment is deactivated for the next thirty minutes. After that, you will be free to do as you will. Good luck, Malcolm."

She started to reply but something in her voice set the pain coursing through the parched void of his socket. He cut the broadcast.

He reached for the remote and primed the atomics, setting the timer for twenty minutes. He removed two bottles from a flap pocket of his jacket and eyed them judiciously. He selected a handful of purps and downed them dry. He wished he'd thought to bring along a cigar.

XXXVI.

April 29, 2012.

Red Rock, Nevada.

"For God's sake." She flew across the cavern floor towards the generator. "Don't touch a damned thing."

Doc fell away from the machine.

"Unplug it and make sure those damned explosives don't have a dead man's switch."

"Where is he?" Lightholler was asking. Fixed on the problem of Doc's first insertion point, compass in hand, he was poring over a series of maps.

"That wasn't Joseph."

Lightholler looked up. Morgan left Shine's side and approached them.

"That was Webster."

The crash of stray blasts, the steady rattle of the cavern's cracked walls, formed an eerie counterpoint to her words. Kennedy and Webster. The shock of their unholy alliance still hadn't had time to sink in.

"What did he want?" It was Doc who spoke. Witness to their dark pact, his voice trembled with rage.

"It was a warning."

"A warning?" They were the first words Shine had uttered since talking to his father.

"Heaven help us." She shook her head, disbelievingly. "He's going to use his atomics."

XXXVII.

April 29, 2012.

CSS Patton.

The timer read three minutes.

Webster stood before the glass enclosure with his hands pressed against the frame.

The stratolite was listing to port. One of the Eye's scaffolding beams had been snagged. It dangled beneath the Patton, twisting slow, presenting Webster with a dazzling view.

The Japanese air force could not be accused of tardiness.

He removed the patch and held it between thumb and forefinger before letting it fall to the floor. The purple bottle, empty, rolled away from his feet to rest against the wall, then back again, making little chiming noises.

The timer read two minutes.

He had a nursery rhyme going round and round in his head and it went, gun mouth trigger.

The pistol was cold to the touch. He placed the barrel against his forehead, enjoying the momentary relief of the chilled metal against his brow. He shifted the pistol with the intention of cooling the arid chasm of his mouth. That was nice. The floor lurched beneath him as another rocket detonated somewhere within the stricken stratolite's bowels, so rather than a clean furrow through his brainstem the bullet shattered his palate to lodge under his frontal bone.

His head hurt.