In General Christie’s office, McCorkell and Somerville watched the screen in detached incredulity. General Christie had not yet said it, but it was clear to anyone in view of a screen that Jasper was a part of this, a willing participant rather than a hostage being forced to do the will of others.
It took a while for Monica to start screaming. By the time she did, Paul had entered the code, and suddenly Walker came into view, running across the room.
Jasper saw Walker and brought up the Glock. He started firing—
And then the screen went dead. As did the lights in the room, until the back-up power system took over.
McCorkell looked to General Christie.
“See?” she said. “I win. You lose. You need to wake up. We’re in a cyber cold war. You think this ends now? You’re a fool. People will rally behind me. We’ll get our cyber arm of the military. I’ll be pardoned. I’ll be honored. And then where will you be? We’ll see who comes out on top after—”
Somerville punched General Christie square in the face, and she slumped unconscious in her seat.
“Thank you,” McCorkell said.
“We have to get help into there, for Walker.” Somerville was on the phone and calling in everything that was on hand at Ames.
McCorkell looked at the time. “We might be too late.”
•
Walker felt the bullet tear into his left triceps and his arm exploded in heat and heaviness, as though he could no longer control it.
But it didn’t matter. Two hundred and thirty pounds hit Jasper side on, and it would have made his football coach back at the Air Force Academy Falcons proud. He heard the air crash out of Jasper as he was hit, and then Walker landed on him with all his force and weight, which slid them both across the tiled floor, slippery with blood mixing from both Monica and Walker. Jasper’s head hit the tiles with the satisfying sound of a coconut cracking and he was out cold, and the Glock clattered across the floor. Walker sat up and inspected his wound. Not bad—not much blood compared to what was on the floor.
That was from Monica. Her leg shot was in the thigh and it was arterial blood.
“Pressure!” Walker said. He removed his belt in the three strides it took to reach her and looped it around her upper thigh and pulled it tight as he elevated the limb above her heart, her torso and head now on the ground.
Her shock was abating and she screamed—the kind of scream that ripped through the air and sliced into the walls, the sound destined to forever echo in the concrete bunker.
“Paul?” Walker said as he watched Monica’s bleeding start to slow to a trickle.
“Rebooting . . . now.” He left his chair and crashed down onto the slippery floor, next to Monica, and held her hand.
Monica said, “The power went down?”
“And will stay down, until the local power company manually restarts all their mains switches,” Paul said, helping stabilize Monica, putting his folded shirt under her head and keeping hold of her hand. Blood was everywhere. “But the grid is back up, Mon. And it’s over. Hear me? Jasper is over. This is all over. We won.”
Monica nodded. Her face was white.
Walker stood and went to try one of the phones to call for an EMT—
And stopped.
Jasper was gone.