Wormhole (The Rho Agenda #3)(115)

“We did it.”

“Yes we did. But we’re not done yet.” Mark squeezed her hand. “This is going to hurt.”

Holding her shoulder back with his left hand, Mark squeezed the steel sliver with his right. He looked into Heather’s beautiful face, saw no fear, and nodded.

Mark pulled. One swift, smooth pull. And although Heather made no sound, to his ears the passage of the metal shard out of her body sounded like a Civil War amputation saw. As the shard popped free, her blood splashed his on face, its metallic odor filling his nostrils.

Ripping off her shirt, Mark tore off the sleeves and used them to bind the balled-up halves of his own shirt into a tight pressure bandage. As he prepared to lift her from her chair, he saw the calf wound.

“Jesus Christ!”

Mark grabbed her ripped pant leg and tore it free. The wound was a jagged tear in the calf muscle, not arterial, but another bloody mess. Using the pant leg to bind the remains of her shirt to her calf, Mark tied it off, stood, and lifted Heather into his arms as rising despair threatened to overwhelm him. He’d already lost his sister today. He couldn’t take losing Heather too.

“Hang on to my neck. I’ll get you out of here.”

When Heather didn’t respond, he glanced down at her face. Her eyes were half closed, gone back to milky white. That was fine. Let her visions carry her away from the pain and sorrow of the present. In the meantime he’d get her the hell out of the death and destruction within the ATLAS cavern.





The Swiss Air Force captain turned to see an American warrant officer approaching his chopper.

Annoyance tingeing his heavily accented English, he leaned sideways in the cockpit, his voice rising above the copter noise.

“I’m sorry, this is an emergency medevac flight. No passengers.”

The American held out a sheaf of papers. The pages, buffeted by the rotor wash, revealed the noise suppressor screwed into the barrel of the Glock nine-millimeter pistol.

“Out of the chopper!”

As the captain hesitated, a small spat, like a sandal slapping the pavement, was the only sound that accompanied the slug through his thigh.

“Shit!”

Jack pointed the gun at the flight medic sitting next to the pilot.

“Last chance.”

The man scrambled out of the cockpit, dragging the pilot out onto the tarmac with him as Jack stepped in and throttled the engine.

Just as at other area hospitals, the emergency staff at Meyrin’s Hospital La Tour was overwhelmed. The panic that had spread at the televised reports from the ATLAS cavern had gotten worse after the loss of the live broadcast feed. So it didn’t surprise him that there was no immediate reaction to his theft of the medevac helicopter.

As the EC635 lifted off from the hospital’s improvised helipad, a security guard ran from the emergency entrance, fumbling with his holster strap. The spray of blood out the back of his head interrupted his attempt to draw his weapon.

Jack maneuvered the stick, waggling the chopper’s enclosed tail rotor at the high window half a block away, and banked toward the LHC’s ATLAS facility. Thumbing the TRANSMIT button on his QT-modified cell phone, he spoke loud enough to be heard above the cockpit noise.

“Nice shooting, babe. Pack it up.”

Janet’s voice came right back at him.

“OK, my lover. Go get our team.”





Heather opened her eyes as Mark climbed the stairs onto the third level of scaffolding that draped the ATLAS cavern’s outer walls. Although the depressurization had pulled several of the scientists and technical crew from these walkways, many more, including a number of the scientists who had manned the ATACC workstations on the cavern floor, had managed to make their way to the exits during the fight that had raged through the cavern and the subsequent gateway malfunctions.

“We can’t leave yet.”

Her voice brought Mark to a stop. “What?”

“Stephenson’s not dead.”

Mark swung his gaze out onto the cavern floor, where Dr. Stephenson had just climbed out from beneath a rubble pile like some kind of giant cockroach.

“Doesn’t matter. No way he can fix that,” Mark said, nodding toward the Cage and its spark-spitting mess of cables.

“We have to make sure.”

Understanding dawned on Mark’s face.

“The nukes.”

“We’ve got to set the timer.”

Mark turned to look up at the high ramp that ran along the cavern ceiling and into the topmost part of the Cage. Back in that jumble of wires and cables was the spot where he’d bypassed the trigger line to the nukes.

“Might be hot.”

“Let’s hope not. The shorts in the power cables are low down in the Cage and each level is electrically isolated from the others.”

Mark nodded. “OK, I’ll do it.”

“I should go with you.”

“Not in your condition.” Before she could object, he continued. “Your body stays here. Your mind can come along for the ride.”

Both of them reached for their alien headsets, slipping them into place at the same time.

Nothing happened.

Heather couldn’t understand it. No gentle tingling. Nothing. Her headset was just dead. She didn’t need to look at Mark to know that his was dead too.