Breaking point - By Tom Clancy & Steve Perry & Steve Pieczenik Page 0,61

crashed. People screamed in voices full of incoherent fury. This beautiful park, what the locals like to call God’s country, had gone mad.

It was the Devil’s land, now.

Howard reached for his virgil. Who to call? The local cops were down there shooting people. They needed help, and they needed it bad.

Sunday, June 12th

Quantico, Virginia

Toni had come with him this time, and he was glad to have her here. Along with Toni was Jay Gridley. It was seven P.M. on a Sunday, but they wouldn’t be going home tonight.

“All right, here is what we have so far,” Michaels said. “It’s still kind of sketchy. Late this afternoon, people inside what appears to be a rough circle ten miles across and centered in the Westmoreland area of Portland, Oregon, went nuts. So far, there are sixty-seven confirmed deaths—murders, self-defense, traffic and freak accidents. There have been hundreds of people hurt bad enough to require hospitalization, and thousands more lesser injuries. Whatever caused it seems to have stopped, but the city is in chaos. The numbers of dead and injured keep climbing.”

“Lord, Lord. How is General Howard?” Jay asked.

Howard had been the one who’d called it in. He’d gotten hold of the National Guard, then Michaels.

“He and his family are fine. They were apparently right at the outmost edge of the phenomenon’s effect. A couple hundred meters closer in, and they’d have been in a lot more trouble. What have you got for me?”

Jay said, “If we assume this is coming from some very powerful broadcast station, then it’s a matter of figuring out which one, and who is running it. I played a hunch and put in a call to HAARP, talked to a guard there. They are supposedly on hiatus, except for some calibration tests.”

“That’s what Morrison told me,” Michaels said.

“Well, Morrison is up there right now running one of these tests. And guess what—according to the guard’s logs, he was running other ’calibrations’ on the same days those two villages in China went bonkers.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. Awful coincidental, ain’t it?”

“Toni? What do you think?”

“I think maybe you ought pick up this Dr. Morrison for a serious chat.”

Michaels nodded. “I’ll get a federal warrant and some marshals on the way.”

“You don’t want to toss this one over the fence to the mainline feebs?” Jay said.

“Not yet,” Michaels said. “This looks like our mess. We should clean it up on our own if we can.”

Maybe Morrison wasn’t involved with this, but given the situation in Portland, they couldn’t afford to take the chance. The next incident might happen anywhere—New York, Chicago, even Washington, D.C. While the thought of senators and congressmen beating each other to bloody pulps sounded fine as a joke punch line, the reality of it was different.

Getting a warrant would be easy enough, and there were probably federal marshals somewhere in Alaska who could serve it. And while he was at it, he would give General Howard a call. After his personal experience, John might like to go along to have a few words with Morrison himself. In his position, Michaels knew he would.

22

Sunday, June 12th

Gakona, Alaska

Ventura looked at his watch. It had been six hours since the real test had ended, but Morrison felt he had to play out the fiction of conducting his calibrations. In the end, Ventura knew that wouldn’t matter, but Morrison felt the need. It was late, and Ventura, while not tired, was feeling somewhat edgy. There had been no contact from the Chinese, and he didn’t much like sitting in one place for so long, not this far into the game. The trailer had a stale smell to it, and the night had cooled some, because an electric heater kept kicking on and off.

As the HAARP system did its automatic thing, Morrison himself was lying on the ugly brown fake-leather couch at the end of the room, fast asleep.

Ventura’s com vibrated soundlessly against his hip. He touched the mouthpiece of the small wireless headset he wore hooked over his left ear. “Yes?”

“We have company. Two cars, four men. They just passed Rim One.”

“Talk to me.”

“Tan Fords, unmarked, new, blackwall tires, what looks like government fleet plates. Three men, one woman, couldn’t get much more than that. Cunningham will get a better view with his digital scope when they go under the rail overpass.”

“Got it.”

Ventura felt chill bumps rise on his neck, the gooseflesh warning him of danger. Who would come here in the middle of the night? He looked at his watch again. If they