A twang sounded through the water. Joe felt himself tumbling backward.

The cable had snapped in two.

At first he was dragged by the current toward the topside breach, but then the lines and hoses connecting him to the dive boat pulled him the other way.

As the boat raced into the shallows and beached on the rocks, Joe was dragged into the boulder field down below. Each blow felt like being in a car crash and Joe was suddenly thankful for the hard stainless steel helmet.

When the ride stopped, Joe was thirty feet under, the suit was filling with water and the air hose was either severed or kinked because no air was coming through. Joe knew he couldn’t swim, but he could climb. Up he went, crawling across the concrete pylons and boulders like a raccoon in a garbage dump.

He shed the weight belt and the task got easier. As he went higher, the light from the bottom of the boat grew brighter. With his air running out, Joe pulled himself to the surface, emerging like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

He collapsed between two of the boulders, unable to hold up the helmet and shoulder harness without the buoyancy of the water. He struggled to lift it off, but it wouldn’t budge until two sets of helping hands pulled it off for him.

“Did we do it?” Joe asked.

“You did it,” the major said, hugging Joe and lifting him up. “You did it.”

CHAPTER 59

HIGH UP ON THE HELIPAD, THE EERIE, OMNIPRESENT SOUND of the microbots continued to grow louder. It came everywhere at the same time like demented electromagnetic cicadas, chirping by the billions and moving closer with every passing moment.

The noise was grating to Kurt Austin, but it seemed to be affecting Zarrina and Jinn more than him.

Zarrina looked over the edge and ran her gaze upward along the sides of the buildings between which the helipad rested. The stain of the approaching horde was now three-quarters of the way up the pyramids, the white structures becoming covered in dark gray and black.

“Give him the code,” she said.

“Never,” Jinn replied.

“You should listen to her, Jinn,” Kurt said. “She’s not a good woman, but she’s not an idiot either.”

“We have people, money, lawyers,” she reminded him. “We don’t have to die.”

“Do not speak!” Jinn demanded.

She grabbed him. “Please, Jinn,” she begged.

Jinn slapped her hand away and grabbed her by the collar of her shirt. He glared at her in fury. “You weaken me, woman!”

Before she could reply he shoved her backward, sending her over the edge.

Zarrina fell, screaming as she dropped. She hit what was now a six-inch layer of microbots ten stories below, blasting them in all directions like a cloud of dust. She lay there uncovered for all of a few seconds and then the swarm converged on her, covered her up and began to feed.

Jinn stared for a moment, anger, not pity, etched on his face. But Kurt thought he detected a little bit of fear. The speed with which the microbots devoured things was unsettling. Jinn knew that better than anyone else.

“Take a good hard look, Jinn. That’s how you’re going to die,” Kurt said. “Ready to go out like that?”

It continued to grow darker around them. The bots were only one story below, cutting off all light that shone upward. Only the few halogen lamps on the side of the hangar and the red post lights at the edges of the helipad illuminated them now.

Jinn looked slightly less sure of himself. “You’re going to die with me,” he reminded Kurt.

“For my friends. For my country. For people around the world who would suffer if you win. I don’t have a problem with that. What are you dying for?”

Jinn stared, his face flush with anger, his lip curling into a snarl as his eyes narrowed. He knew his bluff had been called. Dying got him nothing. No wealth, no power, no legacy. His whole world was his own being, his own arrogance, his own greatness. When his existence ended, even the doomsday actions of the microbots would bring him no satisfaction.

At that moment he hated Kurt with every fiber of his being. Hated him enough to lose all sense of balance.

He charged toward Kurt like a wrestler going in for the kill.

Instead of shooting Jinn, Kurt turned the rifle sideways, using it as a bar. He took Jinn’s momentum and used it against him. Falling backward, Kurt kicked a boot into Jinn’s solar plexus and flipped him. The move sent Jinn flying through the air and tumbling hard.

Kurt popped back up to his feet in time to see Jinn crash squarely on his back. Jinn got up a little slowly, more stunned than injured.

“Not used to fighting much, are you?” Kurt baited Jinn.

Jinn grabbed some type of pipe that had been tossed out of one of the airships. He came at Kurt, swinging it like a sword.

Still holding the rifle in both hands, Kurt blocked the pipe and jabbed the butt of the rifle into Jinn’s face. The blow opened a gash that bled profusely.

Jinn stumbled back, dropping the pole, putting his hands to his bloody face. Kurt stepped forward and kicked the pole off the platform.

It fell into the dark, trailing a strange whistling sound from its hollow ends.

By now the rising stain of the horde had reached the edge of the helipad, its first probing fingers curling up and onto the flat surface, converging toward the middle from all sides.

Kurt was running out of time.

Through a mask of blood Jinn shouted, “If you didn’t have that rifle, I would kill you with my bare hands!”

Kurt pointed the rifle at him and then flung it off the deck. “You can’t beat me, Jinn!” he yelled. “I’m better than you. I’m fighting for something that matters, all you’re doing is playing out the string. You don’t want to die. You’re afraid to die. I can see it in your eyes.”

Jinn charged again, the rage distorting his face. This time Kurt set his feet and dropped his shoulder, slamming it into Jinn’s gut. He wrapped his arms around Jinn’s torso, picked him up and body-slammed him to the deck.

From out of nowhere Jinn produced a knife. It sliced Kurt’s arm before he could grab Jinn’s wrist. Blood flowed, pain surged through him, but Kurt’s strength and determination prevailed. He slammed Jinn’s hand down on the deck, smashing it three times before Jinn released the knife.

Kurt swatted it away and it skipped into the approaching tide of microbots.

It was now or never. Jinn tried to get up, but Kurt elbowed him in the face and then slammed his head to the deck. Gripping Jinn’s hair, he twisted the man’s face to the side, forcing Jinn to look at the horde that was approaching.

“Look at them!” Kurt shouted, holding Jinn’s cheek to the deck. “Look at them!”

Jinn had given up fighting now. He stared at the advancing horde. The line was getting closer, the circle around them getting smaller.

They reached a trail of blood and swarmed into it like ants crawling all over one another. They glistened beneath the overhead lights, and the sound of their movement was overwhelming, like a monstrous swarm of bees and fingernails on chalkboard mixed together.

“Give me the code!” Kurt demanded.

The laptop sat a few feet away, the horde had already encircled it. It was literally floating on the sea of microbots.

“What good will it do you now?”

“Just give it to me!”

Kurt held him down, Jinn pushed back into him, trying to keep his face out of the approaching line of bots. His lips trembled as they crawled onto him, moving into the cut on his cheek. He spat them from his mouth, but some got into his eyes, they stung like acid.

“Now, Jinn! Before it’s too late!”

“221-798-615,” Jinn shouted.

Kurt yanked Jinn to his feet. “Did you hear that, Marchetti?”

A tinny voice came from Kurt’s pocket. “Transmitting now!”