State of Emergency
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
About the Author
California Conference Center Schematic
Part One COME TOGETHER Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Part Two ENTER THE DRAGON Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Part Three STATE OF EMERGENCY Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Part Four GOING UNDERGROUND Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Sam Fisher is the pseudonym of thriller writer Michael White, author of the acclaimed international bestsellers Equinox and The Medici Secret. He lives in Sydney. He is currently at work on E-Force's next mission, entitled Aftershock. Visit his website at www.michaelwhite.com.au.
STATE OF
EMERGENCY
SAM FISHER
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
State of Emergency
ePub ISBN 9781864715231
Kindle ISBN 9781864717891
A Bantam book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Level 3, 100 Pacifi c Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060
www.randomhouse.com.au
First published by Bantam in 2009
This edition published by Bantam in 2010
Copyright © Michael White 2009
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia.
Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at www.randomhouse.com.au/offices
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry
Fisher, Sam.
State of Emergency.
ISBN 978 1 86471 121 9 (pbk).
A823.4
Cover photograph by SuperStock
Cover illustration and design by www.blacksheep-uk.com
Internal illustration by Ice Cold Publishing
Part One
COME TOGETHER
1
Crete, Greece
To the tourists waiting at the entrance of Hotel Knossos, the coach seemed to appear out of nowhere. The rain was coming down in torrents, smacking out a heavy rhythm on the roof of the reception area. The huge shape that rounded a fountain in the courtyard looked like a giant beetle coming at them through the rain.
A cheer went up from the group. The coach was late and now they had less than an hour to reach the airport, almost twenty miles away. A few minutes later the passengers were all on board, their luggage stowe
d. The driver shouted something to one of the hotel staff as the doors hissed shut. With a hand-rolled cigarette dangling limp from his lips, the driver swung the big steering wheel and the vehicle nosed onto the mountain road.
The coach smelled bad. A blend of sweat and damp clothes and the fug of the driver's cigarette. There was also an animal smell, the smell of fear. The road from the hotel to the airport wound around treacherous hairpin bends. It was pockmarked with holes and irregular tarmac. All that could be seen through the curtains of driving rain was an empty void. A few feet to the right the cliff fell away to nothing.
But the driver had no fear. He swung the coach around the bends with the confidence of a man who had driven along these roads a thousand times and knew every bump, every ripple in the tarmac.
Outside, it was growing dark. An unnatural dark. Roiling storm clouds blotted out the last of the Greek daylight.
The driver cursed and braked sharply. The coach skidded, the tyres screeched. Great plumes of water leaped up the side of the vehicle. A woman screamed. Swinging the wheel dexterously hand over hand, the driver pulled the coach hard to the right and stopped an inch from a sheer wall of rock. A little white Renault, its headlights ablaze, edged past on the left. It left almost nothing between it and the edge of the cliff. The car accelerated away. The driver leaned on the horn.
The coach had stalled. The driver fired up the engine again, tugged on the heavy gearshift and swung the vehicle back into the centre of the road, around the next bend and on to a straight, narrow stretch. To the left, the passengers could see the lights of a village. White buildings nestled in a ravine. The view was blurred by the torrential rain. Twin shafts of yellow from the headlights danced in the murk. The driver pushed down on the accelerator. The speedometer nudged 60. To the right, the rock face flew by in a wash of grey.
The straight went on for more than a quarter of a mile, but up ahead the road curved sharply to the right. From there, a series of sharp turns led to a short tunnel cut into the rock. Beyond that stretched the long, slow descent to the highway and the airport.
The needle on the speedometer touched 65. Passengers exchanged nervous glances. An elderly man tried to get out of his seat to speak to the driver but his wife pulled him back. 'Don't be a fool,' she snapped. 'It'll only put him off.'
The headlights of a car appeared around the bend a hundred feet ahead.
The coach driver knew immediately there was nothing he could do. He tried easing his foot on the brake pedal, but there was no grip. The coach barely slowed. He pushed harder, knowing that too much pressure would send the coach aquaplaning to disaster.
The front left wheel hit a large bump in the tarmac. The driver tried to compensate, overdid it, and sent them too far right. The nearside wing mirror smashed against the rock wall. Lumps of glass and plastic shot along the narrow gap between the wall and the main body of the coach. A metal bolt ricocheted through a window two-thirds of the way along the coach and slammed into the right eye of the passenger in 23B, a young woman on her honeymoon. The bolt ripped through her brain, exiting close to her right ear and taking a large chunk of cranial bone and hair with it.
The driver panicked and slammed his foot hard on the brake. The rear of the coach almost lifted off the ground. The front suspension roared and the plastic front bumper hit the road and shattered. The back of the coach swung around as the vehicle aquaplaned on the wet tarmac. A wall of water shot up the side of the coach, which smashed into the car coming towards it. The car flew over the side of the coach and almost disintegrated as it landed on the road. The chassis separated from the body of the car and smacked into the rock wall before bouncing over the cliff.
The coach kept sliding along the road. The front of the vehicle collided with a knob of rock protruding from the corner. It spun around and thundered into the rock face side-on. A chunk of rock the size of a bowling ball broke away from the wall and rocketed through the windscreen, decapitating the driver and pulverising his head against the steel support behind his seat. The windows shattered and the passengers were thrown around like clothes in a dryer. The air was filled with the sound of crunching metal and screams.
Rebounding from the wall, the shuddering coach spun around. The back hit a rocky outcrop, sending the vehicle onto its side – and over the cliff edge.
2
The four choppers had blacked-out windows and one passenger each. They flew low over the ocean, ten minutes apart. Each of the passengers was given the full VIP treatment – champagne and canapés. But before boarding they had been told the trip would only be possible on the condition they signed a contract binding them under international law neither to speak nor write of anything they would see that day. Curiosity had won them over.
As each chopper landed, a black car docked with its door and its passenger was escorted into a waiting car. Like the choppers, the cars had windows made from polarised glass.
Still ten minutes apart, the cars arrived at a reception area and drove into a windowless hangar. There each guest was met by an official and an armed guard. They passed through a metal detector, and then were taken to a comfortable but windowless room. There was a coffee machine, sandwiches and cake. Soft sofas hugged three walls and a low table stood in the middle of the room. On top of this was spread a collection of glossy magazines.
Thirty minutes after the first guest had arrived, he was joined by three others. Two men in slacks and open-necked shirts appeared. They shook hands with the four guests and led the way to another, smaller room that looked like a college seminar room. The escorts left without a word.
3
Base One, Tintara
For 24 hours the world was gripped by images of a tour coach dangling on the edge of a promontory in Crete. They watched as rescue teams did everything they could to save the passengers. Mark Harrison was no different. Like millions of others around the world, he was glued to his TV screen. Unlike those millions, he could do something about it . . . almost.
The coach had lodged on a rocky outcrop 30 feet below the road. Beneath it loomed hundreds of feet of air.
The passengers had moved to the back of the coach to take the weight off the front end. The dead had been dragged along the central aisle, while the injured lay stretched out on the rear seats. A handful of survivors had managed to scramble through the shattered windows and onto the cliff, where they had been picked up by helicopters.
Emergency rescue teams had tried everything, but it was impossible to get into the coach without disturbing its precarious balance. Military choppers lowered massive metal jaws to clamp around the stricken vehicle, but the operation almost ended in disaster as the coach rocked wildly. After that, the rescuers backed off to work up a new plan.
Now the wind was getting up and, after a spell of clear skies, a storm was approaching. The choppers were grounded. In a last-ditch effort, a team of climbers abseiled down the cliff face, planning to secure cables around each end of the coach. These were connected to a massive haulage vehicle on the road high above.
The world watched as the sky turned an unhealthy black. The rain thundered down, drenching everything. A lightning bolt ripped across the sky, casting a horrid lemon light over the scene. The coach rocked in the high winds. Thunder smothered the sound of metal scraping on rock.
Harrison saw the first two rescuers reach the coach. One shuffled along a narrow ledge of rock with a two-inch-wide cable in one hand. A second lightning bolt hit the cable, sending over a million volts through the rescuer's body. He flew 20 feet into the air, his severed hand still gripping the cable.
Around the world, hundreds of millions of viewers gasped in unison. Nothing like this had been seen since two airliners had ploughed into the Twin Towers in New York City.
Harrison was alone in a white-walled room. He was sitting on the edge of a desk. He could feel his heart pounding. Without realising it, he was picking the skin around his right thumb.
A phone rang and he turned to answer it. 'They
're all here, sir,' a voice said. 'Room 17.'
Harrison replaced the receiver and turned back to the screen, just as the coach lurched and slid away down the cliff.
4
Mark Harrison walked into Room 17. He was escorted by two men in black boilersuits. At a nod from Harrison, the men retreated from the room and closed the door behind them.
Harrison was wearing a dark blue suit and a white shirt without a tie. A few years back, one of his superiors had dubbed him 'Denzel' because of his striking resemblance to the Hollywood star. And indeed he did have something of the actor's commanding presence and air of authority. Aged 42, Harrison was six-foot-three and just shy of 200 pounds, without an ounce of fat on his broad frame. His hair was cropped short, and his face was taut and muscular, with narrow eyebrows and eyes the colour of burnt ash.
There were four people in the room – two men and two women. Harrison knew two of them personally, and the other two only by reputation. They were seated in a semicircle, and in front of the group was a vacant chair and a small table. On this stood a jug of water, a glass and a remote control. On one wall of the room was a large flat-screen TV.
'Good morning.' Harrison placed a green folder on the table and looked at the four faces. His voice was deep, with just a hint of a Southern drawl to it.
One of the men leaned back in his chair. 'Mark bloody Harrison. I might have guessed.' He stood and the two men shook hands.
'It's good to see you, Josh,' Harrison replied.
One of the others, a Japanese woman in her early thirties with jet-black eyes and black hair cut into a bob, was shaking her head and getting up. 'Mark. You're well, I hope?'
'All the better for seeing you, Maiko.'
The other two in the room looked on, a little bemused.
Harrison sat down and folded his arms. 'I guess you all deserve an explanation.'
'That would be nice,' Josh Thompson said.
'First, I'd like to thank you all for agreeing to come here at short notice. The fact is you've all been brought here under false pretences. But –' and he raised a palm when he saw their frowns – 'let me assure you, it's for a very good reason.'