Jack Chalker - The Messiah Choice

“ Au revoir, Pip.”

There was no easy way to break off, and that did it.

They huddled together up top and checked their watches. “We have two and a half hours to attack time,” MacDonald told them. “Maria, I want to get up as close to the Institute on this side as possible without exposing ourselves. Remember—don’t let them take you. You’ve all got poison capsules. Use them if you have to. Get ready to move out!”

The Bishop’s pack was particularly heavy, containing the eight small bombs, but he managed it pretty well for a man his age. Clearly he was in top shape. The rest clipped preloaded magazines of ammunition on their belts as well as both gunpowder and concussion grenades. Maria, barefoot by her own choice, wore one of those tight children’s dance outfits in black and a small belt around her waist. She took two grenades and clipped them on the belt, and a small pistol. It wouldn’t do much damage in a fight, but it offered her some means of defense against the conventional opposition expected. The Dark Man and those with his powers, it was hoped, would be far too occupied in the meadow.

The sweep Ross had ordered was almost completed by the time they got up close enough to see. They had been slow, methodical, and thorough, but also talkative and using bright flashlights. Clearly they were not expecting any trouble and were pretty confident of their own security.

The place was brightly floodlit, and there were people and little electric carts going to and fro, but there didn’t seem to be any sentries. The common area was covered by cameras, though, which were linked to security although not directly to SAINT. There were, however, among the people going about, men in uniforms, some with rifles. Their presence was welcomed rather than feared by those watching from the bush.

“You said something about audacity, Bishop,” MacDon-ald recalled. “Well, there’s how we do it. Just walk in the front door from both sides like you own the place. SAINT has some ground to air and ground to ground missiles for staving off an air attack or sea landing, but they depend on people and their own gadgets up here. Once inside, act like you own the place until you get as far as you can. Then shoot anything that moves, SAINT does control the lights and air conditioning in there, so expect things to go dark fast.”

They slipped down the infra-red goggles and the scene took on an eerie glow. The lighted areas became difficult to look at, while the dark ones now stood out in bizarre if recognizable relief.

They moved carefully around the Institute until they were almost at the cliffs edge themselves. Here they would be exposed and up against a tall wire fence with barbs on the top. There were not, however, motion sensors on the fence, nor was it electrified. It was merely simply a way of discouraging anyone from getting too close and preventing them from falling off the cliff. MacDonald had recommended both motion sensing and electrification, but they’d had too much trouble with birds on the former and the latter was still on the drawing boards.

They took up guard positions, depending mostly on the darkness to conceal them, as there really wasn’t any cover to speak of back here. There was a road in back leading to a rear entrance where the garbage would be left for cart pickup, but they couldn’t make much use of it. It was covered both by a camera and by an automatic locking push-bar mechanism which sounded an alarm when opened. Also, entry there would put them at the farthest point from access to the lower floors.

They went to the fence, and MacDonald quickly cut a hole in it with wire cutters. He risked a slight noise by hammering a stake into the ground, around which a rope was tied. They removed one of the Bishop’s small square bomb boxes and lowered it over the side, MacDonald hanging out and seeing that it went down next to the big pipe but not touching the ladder or the pipe itself. He could see all the way down, and it appeared that there was a small gunboat docked at the oil storage pier as he’d expected. All the lights down there were on.

“Cart coming!” somebody hissed, and he took the risk, letting go the bomb, and got back in. There really wasn’t much he could do to hide the fence hole or stake, but they’d kept it in the dark and as small as possible. The cart actually rounded the corner before he was completely clear, but the small headlight wasn’t aimed straight ahead but downwards in front and the spotlight was being casually trained back and forth. He made it to the base of the building and lay flat and quiet. The Lebanese woman and the Nigerian had removed forty-five caliber automatics with silencers and waited tensely further up.

The cart went by so close that they could almost smell the breath of the two men riding there, one driving, the other handling the spotlight. Both had weapons, but not in their hands.

They passed right by the fence hole and for a heart-stopping second the beam actually swept the damaged area, but the cart went on. When it’s routine and no trouble is expected, MacDonald knew, people, even trained people, often see what they expect to see. Had their presence been suspected, that same sweep would have resulted in immediate exposure.

He moved back towards the Bishop and Maria.

“A close one,” breathed the clergyman.

“Not so bad. I’d fire them for incompetence. O.K.—here’s where we split. You, my Lord, and Maria get to the bushes on the near side here, where you can see the antennas and wait for our first boom. Good luck.”

The Bishop shook his hand, and Maria kissed him, and he was off. He followed the cart down the road, linking up with the Sikh and making their way to the edge of the Lodge and then across to the next building. Taking up decent hiding places, they removed and clipped on their infra-red goggles. They expected a power outage, but as they’d have to be seen to get in, they didn’t want anything obvious distinguishing themselves from the rest before they struck. The other pair did the same on the other side. Now the waiting game began anew.

The security patrols continued their random but perfunctory activities. Clearly they were ready for trouble, but they hardly expected anything to happen up here. The action was in the meadow and apparently also in other areas of the island. The helicopters no longer came and went now, and the traffic in and around the common had virtually ceased except for a couple of armed sentries at each entrance looking pretty bored. A fog had rolled in, partly shrouding the Institute and giving the whole thing a ghostly air appropriate to the moment.

From down the mountain somewhere, they could hear the voices of a great many people, and there was the sound of not very uniform chanting and other such activities. The words couldn’t be made out, but clearly the preliminaries before the main event had begun.

The bomb blew slightly early, at 10:27, shocking and scaring them almost as much as it did the people in the area of the Institute. For a moment, everything and everybody seemed to freeze, then the sentries and security personnel started running towards the back of the Lodge, weapons at the ready, and they could hear the rear alarm as the kitchen access doors were opened.

For a moment it looked as if they had achieved only a big bang, but suddenly there was a secondary explosion far more powerful than the first, and a tremendous roar lit up the northern skies. This was followed a few seconds later by an earthquake-like rumbling beneath their feet, and then a section of cliff blew out in back as the Lodge storage tanks caught and burst, blowing not up but outwards. The floodlights on the common blinked and went out, as did all the lights in the Institute buildings. They heard the anguished screams of people dying and people on fire, and probably people going right off that cliff and straight down.