Someone was pounding on the window of Cassie’s car in the garage of the Federal Building. A United States Marine.
He was holding out a cell phone.
‘Ma’am? Miss? I got a call for you! The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.’
Cassie lowered the window and took the phone. She put it on speaker so Trey could hear.
‘Hello?’ she said.
‘Ms Cassowitz,’ a deep voice said from the other end of the line. ‘This is General Hank Stevenson. Cobalt Silver has just been taken out in Utah and now things have got worse.’
‘Worse?’ Cassie said.
He’d killed Silvy. Sweet, gentle Silvy. It was hard to imagine how things could get any worse.
The general said, ‘We were wondering what the Fury’s remaining sons were doing while he was here. Well, now we know what two of the three were doing: the Furies of Leningrad and Stalingrad just took out our entire naval base at Pearl Harbor. Came from the other side. Now they’re heading for Los Angeles.’
As they heard this, Trey Googled the news on his phone.
The cable news websites were all over it: photos and footage of the smoking ruins of Honolulu; half-sunk destroyers and carriers; plus a digital map showing two red dots moving across the Pacific Ocean, heading toward L.A.
Text at the bottom of the screen read: TWO OF FURY’S SONS LEVEL HONOLULU.
The general said, ‘With only three of you left—Cobalt Gold in Las Vegas, Cobalt Black at Groom Lake and you in L.A.—he’s bringing in his boys to finish the job and start their takeover of our country.’
‘Is there anything you can do to help us?’ Cassie asked.
‘We can’t stop this guy when he’s alone. With his sons at his side, he’s unbeatable.’
Cassie said, ‘Did the President say anything? He used to talk with my mother.’
There was an awkward silence over the phone line.
Then the general said, ‘The President has instructed all U.S. forces to stand down.’
‘What?!’
‘The President is hoping when the Fury is done, he might be able to negotiate some kind of settlement with him.’
‘When the Fury’s done? You mean when he’s killed all of us.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You can’t negotiate with this man, you must know that.’
‘My orders come from the President himself.’
‘So you’re leaving us to die,’ Cassie said. ‘We’re inconvenient now.’
‘There’s literally nothing we can do. I really am sorry.’
Cassie bit her lip in thought. ‘How long till his two sons in Hawaii get to L.A.?’
‘At their current speed, three hours.’
‘Do you know the whereabouts of the oldest one, the Fury of Moscow? And the smart one, Sevastopol?’
‘No and no.’
‘All right, then, thanks,’ Cassie said. ‘I have to go and die now.’
She hung up before he could say anything more.
Cassie looked at her husband.
‘Still glad you married me?’ she asked.
In response, Trey gave her the finger: the one with his wedding ring on it.
‘Till death do us part, baby,’ he said.
‘No military, no support.’
‘I’m with you till the end, pathetic regular human male that I am.’
‘You know, that’s what my dad liked most about you,’ Cassie said.
DAD
SPACEX FACILITY, LONG BEACH
FOUR YEARS AGO
Given her dad’s love of knowledge, for his birthday four years ago—shortly after he had met Trey—Cassie and Trey arranged to take him on an after-hours private tour of Trey’s workplace at SpaceX.
Of course, Arnold Cobalt—being pushed around in his wheelchair—adored it.
‘This place is amazing!’ he exclaimed as Cassie wheeled him past a wide round tank filled with goopy white supercooled liquid nitrogen.
Trey said, ‘That’s the nitrogen fuel mix. It’s semiliquid now but it’ll be in a solid state for launch.’
As they stepped into the next lab, Cassie said, ‘This one is my favourite.’
In this next room was a long, straight, waist-high track of some sort.
‘What. Is. That?’ Dad said.
Trey smiled. ‘Our electromagnetic rail gun. For orbital launches. To get Elon to Mars.’
‘A rail gun.’ Dad shook his head. ‘You two are so lucky to work in this era of science—’
He coughed suddenly, explosively. ‘You okay, Dad?’ Cassie asked.
‘It’s nothing. Had it since the last surgery. That punch did more than break my spine. We non-superheroes have to deal with simple human frailty, you know.’
Later that night, their excursion over, Cassie pushed her dad into her modest little house. Trey had gone back to his place.
‘I like him,’ her father said. ‘He’s decent.’
‘They say girls marry men who are like their fathers,’ Cassie said.
‘Then he’s also uncommonly smart and handsome. Think you’ll marry him?’
‘Yes,’ Cassie said firmly.
‘Is he aware of this?’
‘I think he plans to ask soon.’
Her dad nodded. ‘I like plans. Always have a plan. Whether you’re doing a road trip or mapping out the rest of your life, it’s always good to have a plan.’
‘Yes, grasshopper.’ Cassie smiled. She’d heard this before.
She started making tea in the adjoining kitchen.
‘We didn’t have a plan that night, when those two Russian boys came,’ Dad said. ‘Now we do. That’s why your mother bought the ranch house in Montana and all the land around it, so we’ll see anyone coming.’
Cassie frowned at him. ‘Come on, Dad. We couldn’t have anticipated—’
‘It was a mistake.’
‘You couldn’t have known those two boys would do something as crazy as that.’
‘That was exactly my mistake. No-one anticipates “crazy”, yet crazy can win against the odds.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Cassie handed him his tea.
‘Let me tell you a story,’ her dad said. ‘Your mother’s father was a cranky old dude, but smart. He was unbeatable at cards—bridge, 500—because he could count every card. After three hands he could tell you every card still in your hand. Nobody could beat him. Till I came along.’
‘How’d you do it?’ Cassie said.
‘Unpredictable calls. Wild plays. I didn’t play for the cards I had. I played for a few good breaks. I played crazy and I beat him.’
‘He refused to play with me anymore,’ Dad said.
‘Sore loser,’ Cassie said.
Her dad nodded. ‘As only someone used to winning can be. That was also how I beat him: the guy who’s used to winning always thinks he’ll win.’
He looked up sharply, changing the topic completely.
‘Oh, and I liked the way your man handled your mother at the ranch!’
‘I know!’ Cassie said. ‘Me, too!’
Cassie and Trey’s little Jeep pulled out of the underground garage of the Federal Building near Los Angeles International Airport and zoomed up the on-ramp to the 405.
The usually congested freeway opened wide before them, bare and deserted, as most of the city’s population remained in their homes fearfully watching the day’s events on TV.
Cassie and Trey had barely driven onto the freeway when something very strange happened.
Six L.A.P.D. cop cars swept out from the on-ramp behind them, their sirens blaring, lights flashing.
Trey pulled over onto the shoulder, slowing down to allow the black-and-whites to go past and get to whatever emergency they were racing to.
Only the squad cars didn’t go past.
They surrounded the Jeep.
A cop in the lead car waved for Trey to come to a stop while he called over the loudspeaker: ‘Mr Cassowitz! Ms Cassowitz! Please pull over!’
‘What should we do?’ Trey asked.
‘Stop,’ Cassie said.
It was only when they came to a complete stop that Cassie saw the Suburbans.
There were three of them—three big black Chevy Suburbans with blacked-out windows—lurking just behind the cop cars.
One of the black Suburbans drove right past all the police cars and pulled up next to Cassie and Trey’s Jeep. Two men in suits and sunglasses leapt out of it with pistols drawn while a third man opened the Suburban’s rear door.
Out of that door stepped the Vice President of the United States.
‘Ms Cassowitz,’ he said. ‘I’m here to help. If you want to survive this day, I need you and your husband to come with me right now.’