“And Mr. Church has talked the president into putting a plane in the air heading for Fort Lauderdale, with an e-bomb in it. Mind you, it’ll fry cell phones, cars, and computers and do about five billion dollars’ worth of damage to the city infrastructure, and it won’t do anyone any good if they’re in surgery or wearing a pacemaker … but it will keep those K-110 fighting machines from turning a hundred thousand people into hot dust.”

“So, when you say good news, you’re being facetious?”

“Just a little.”

“Swell. Maybe go look up what good means and…”

My voice trailed off as I looked up at a digital sign above the huge dais set up. It was a welcome message for the governors.

The fifty governors of the United States.

And the governors of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

It stopped me dead in my tracks.

There weren’t fifty American governors. Not when you added the five territories.

There were fifty-five.

And they were all here.

“Jesus Christ,” I said.

“What?” asked Church.

“G-55. It’s right here.”

CHAPTER 162

THE PAVILION

BLUE DIAMOND ELITE TRAINING CENTER

STEVENS COUNTY, WASHINGTON

Bunny kept firing as he moved laterally along the ridge. He was firing explosive rounds, and the whole area around the truck was pocked with smoking craters. Half a dozen bodies lay in the path of his barrage, and more lay where Mia or Belle had dropped them.

But now the Fixers were rallying. Those who were unarmed had crawled under the semi while two brave—and foolish—techs climbed onto the truck, opened a crate, and were handing guns and ammunition belts down. Mia shot one of them, but the other was at an angle that afforded no clear hit. Until, that is, he moved to his right to hand a belt of grenades down to another Fixer, and as he leaned out, it gave Belle three inches of his forehead to aim at. Even at 180 yards, that was enough.

The Fixers under the truck loaded their weapons and opened up, and the fusillade drove Bunny down behind the ridge. Two of them shimmied to the end of the semi and began trying to pick Mia off, and she, too, had to find better cover.

Belle was providing as much plunging fire as she could, but the Fixers were making maximum use of the semi.

There was a roar, and an armored personnel carrier came rocketing along the road from the front gate, with a Fixer in full armor standing behind a Browning .50-caliber machine gun, and he filled the trees with a deadly swarm of bullets. Belle’s sniper fire stopped, and Bunny’s heart sank.