Wired - Douglas E. Richards [100]
Kira was at first skeptical, but as Desh fleshed out his vision and answered many of her concerns, she became intrigued. It was a utopian dream. But as long as the Mr. Hydes they created were contained by multiply redundant security measures, and foolproof screening technology could be perfected, they could turn this dream into reality. Desh was finally able to persuade her that he was right: that she had thrown in the towel too quickly.
Desh knew that the vision he had had while enhanced was truly breathtaking in scope and ambition, but this didn’t change the current stark reality. They were wanted and on the run. Kira had an explosive device in her skull with little time remaining. If they were unable to defeat Moriarty, his utopian vision would be forever unrealized.
They had been driving for close to an hour when Kira’s phone rang. Desh took a deep breath and answered. It was the colonel, as expected, and the news was good! He was in the air. His friend, a Major Ross Metzger, had come through.
The colonel handed the phone to Metzger and he and Desh exchanged greetings. Desh offered his heartfelt thanks and gave him their location near Lancaster. Metzger consulted his onboard computer and after a few minutes suggested a rendezvous point. If they caught route 283 northwest toward Elizabethtown, they would find a high school just outside the city limits. The helicopter would land on the fifty yard-line of the school’s football field.
Desh spotted the school forty minutes later. He parked in the lot, and they walked the short distance to the field. They had been unable to find a flashlight in the stolen car so their vision was severely limited on this dark night. They stationed themselves under the bleachers and awaited their ride. Even by helicopter, it would take Metzger a while to cover the distance from Bragg, probably another hour or so.
This wasn’t the first time he had been under the bleachers with a beautiful girl, Desh reflected, but never as an adult, and never a girl like this. He desperately wanted to hold her. He suppressed this ridiculous impulse, disgusted with himself. Civilization was coming to a fork in the tracks, with one track leading toward heaven and the other toward hell, and his actions could determine who controlled the switching station. What an epitaph that would make: the future of humanity destroyed because the man in a position to stop the threat was in the thrall of infatuation and couldn’t keep his head in the game.
After what seemed like an eternity they heard the sound of a chopper cutting through the night sky, and minutes later an elongated helicopter appeared above the field, its body dimensions roughly those of a dragonfly. It hovered noisily over the fifty-yard line and lowered itself to the ground. Desh and Kira jumped through a wide opening in the middle of the aircraft and were greeted heartily by Griffin and Connelly as the helicopter lifted off once again. Despite the presence of eight steel troop seats facing the front of the craft and two side-facing gunner seats, all the passengers remained standing, holding on to straps to help maintain their balance.
Connelly was wearing a sling on his left arm to prevent movement, but looked surprisingly good. Griffin looked somewhat ridiculous without his facial hair—a clean-cut Wookie—but Desh pretended not to notice any difference in the man.
“Jesus, Colonel,” shouted Desh appreciatively over the din of the helicopter. “You got us a Blackhawk?”
“Only because Bragg was all out of Harriers,” replied Connelly wryly.
39
Jim Connelly handed them both a sophisticated set of padded black headphones, with a speaker arm they could position under their mouths. They slipped them over their heads while Connelly repositioned the set he had been using, which he had removed while greeting them.
Metzger was in the pilot’s seat in the front of the chopper. He looked back over his right shoulder.