The Religion War Read Free

with the M-16 pointed toward the ceiling, scanning for the man in the blanket.
    "He's gone," the captain said.
    "Get my car. I'm evacuating immediately. Keep the NATO chiefs in the war room. Don't sound a general alarm. I'll be in the garage in two minutes."
    "Sir?" the captain asked.
    Cruz filled in the blanks while continuing to survey the lobby in all directions. "Someone on my staff—someone in that room—is leaking war plans. We're going to put some distance between that old man and me, because this smells wrong. Once command and control is secured, I'll deal with the leak and the old man. Get the car."
    The captain left in a sprint. Waters, having pieced together only part of the story, said, "I'll get the portable."
    The portable was their name for a handheld command and control device that followed Cruz wherever he went. It was unjammable, nearly indestructible. When the user entered an access code and a GPS location, and specified a payload, a missile would arrive on that spot soon after, launched from a site in South Dakota that fewer than a dozen people on Earth knew about.
    Waters and Cruz bundled into the open door of the bulletproof limousine. The driver stomped the gas pedal, forcing the concrete floor into a scream as the limo's door closed from the acceleration.The newly arrived occupants felt themselves pressed against the backseat.
    The driver, Rick Ames, had trained eighteen years for this moment. He was an expert at escape and evasion. Until now, it had always been on the practice courses. Adrenaline surged into his bloodstream until he could hear his own heartbeat The huge steel bomb door at the top of the ramp opened as the tanklike limo accelerated toward the gaping hole. At the top of the ramp stood a man, his features obliterated by the shock of daylight that enveloped him and poured into the garage, down the ramp, and into three pairs of eyes. Ames slowed the car for half a beat, trying to get a read on the situation, to size up the threat, to reprogram his exit strategy if needed.
    "Hit him!" Cruz ordered.
    That was all the information Ames needed; he punched the gas pedal and closed the distance between four tons of solid mass and the smallish figure ahead. In the next few seconds, the minds of Cruz and Waters and Ames were flooded with images of light and color and sound, mixed with their own brain chemistries. None of them perceived the same thing. Cruz saw the man lean his head back and raise his arms over his head; then as the car reached striking distance, the man fell backwards, disappearing under the view of the hood—crushed, he figured. There was a distinct thud sound, but Cruz wondered if it was just the tires bouncing back to the pavement after being launched at the top of the ramp.
    Waters noticed that the old man was wearing some sort of deliveryman's shirt, threadbare, with a name tag on the breast. Behind him was a red plaid blanket spread on the ground as if to host a picnic. He was the man from the lobby. Waters' flashback of the earlier conversation in the lobby merged with the image he saw in front of him until memory and perception lost their boundaries.
    Ames fixated on the man's eyes, seeing almost nothing else. They were ancient eyes. He felt as if he could drive his car directly into those orbs and emerge at some other part of the universe. Ames didn't feel pity, and he wondered why. Was it the training or the certainty of what he had to do? Or was there something in those eyes that forgave him in advance? The eyes had no fear, no hate, and no surprise. Suddenly the eyelids closed, blocking Ames' escape route. He felt a surge of panic as though he were the first person to find out about the end of the world. He screamed and squeezed the steering wheel to steady against the impact and the horror that would follow. But he felt nothing. Nor should he have, because four tons of soundproofed steel will make short work of 150 pounds of man. He didn't look in his mirror for