Dead Zone

  DEDICATION

  For my dad,

  who got me reading about both superpowers and the military

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  Sixty-Five

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Back Ads

  About the Author

  Books by Robison Wells

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  SEATTLE SEEMED COMPLETELY DESERTED. ALEC sat in an overstuffed chair in the Columbia Center, one of a dozen empty skyscrapers in the center of the city. He was on the twenty-fourth floor—it was the highest he felt like climbing; the electricity to run the elevators was out. Between him and the window, there was a PlayStation, its wires trailing behind it like a jellyfish. Alec could just imagine the conversation. Some kid wanted to take it along when his family evacuated, and a parent had said it was too much unnecessary weight to carry.

  Alec smiled and looked off into the bay, wondering how much longer it would be before his people got here.

  ONE

  ZASHA LITVYAK FLEW ACROSS THE northern Pacific, low enough that she could feel the salty spray as the ocean surged. This was the culmination of years of preparation; everything had led to this moment, and the work that would follow.

  The Russian Federation had invaded Alaska.

  It sounded worse than it was. It was a tiny landing force at the northernmost part of the state, just enough to startle the residents and seize the oil reserves. The real invading force was coming now.

  Fyodor Sidorenko groaned as he dangled in a harness underneath her.

  “Shh,” Zasha said. “It’s about to start.”

  “We’ve been waiting long forever,” he replied, pain apparent in his voice. “Let’s get it over with.”

  He’d do his part soon enough. He was the real weapon. She was just the transportation.

  “They’re here,” she said as she spotted the lights of the American task force in the distance. She saw the first carrier, 70 painted on its superstructure. “The USS Carl Vinson. And behind it is the Ronald Reagan.” In addition to the carriers, Zasha could name most of the destroyers and frigates in the group. But there were a dozen support craft that she couldn’t identify. They were auxiliaries that had fled the terrorist attacks at Bremerton: research vessels and hospital ships and cargo carriers. This group was a cluster of unprepared misfits, not a war-bound task force.

  “I wish I could see,” he said.

  “You’ll see the fireworks.”

  He laughed at that—a wet, raspy laugh in which she could hear the damage to his body. Too many drugs.

  No, that wasn’t right. It was the perfect amount of drugs—a formula that had been tested on him time and again until they’d gotten the results they wanted. Fyodor meant gift from God. It was his new name, given by their overseers at the training facility. And if this plan worked, he would be.

  Zasha liked her new name, too. No longer was she Inna Fedorov, a name that meant little. Zasha meant defender of the people, and her surname came from Lydia Litvyak, the world’s top female flying ace. At training school Zasha had put on a dour expression and pretended the title was a solemn honor, but out here—soaring over the ocean—she adored it. Soon she would be an ace, a flyer who aimed her weapon with such precision and grace that the enemy wouldn’t even know how they’d been hit.

  Zasha moved slower now, so she could fly closer to the rolling ocean. Two teenagers wouldn’t show up on the fleet’s radars; even if someone did track them, they’d give off signatures no different from birds. And should anyone catch sight of them from the deck, their black-and-white camouflage would blend in with the dark sea and breaking waves.

  As Zasha neared the fleet she felt her heart leap, knowing that the plan was going better than they had hoped. The flagship was the legendary USS Nimitz. Two carriers was a feat. Three carriers was a miracle. Of course, the carriers were surrounded by a host of defensive ships and air cover, but that was what Zasha and Fyodor were for.

  Zasha checked the GPS on her wrist. Everything hinged on being in just the right place. She glided around a tall, blocky cruiser—the USS Princeton, she noted, the names drilled into her by her trainer—and moved farther back into the group.

  She checked the GPS again. Just about right. She made an adjustment, flying two hundred yards to her right. Fyodor had a range—a diameter—of just under twenty-six kilometers. Zasha hovered in place and pulled a syringe from her hip pouch. It was already filled, and she checked it for air.

  “I’m ready,” Fyodor said through a tense jaw. They both knew the pain he’d feel. Maybe she knew it better than him—her mind was clearer while it was happening.

  “You’re going to be a hero.” She jabbed the needle into Fyodor’s shoulder and depressed the plunger.

  He strained, his whole body going rigid. She gazed up at the stars, waiting for the inevitable, and then she saw it. First one, then two, then four fighter jets fell from the sky, careening uncontrollably. Soon all the aircraft that had been flying above the carrier group were falling, followed by their parachuting pilots.

  One plane was in the distance—outside of Fyodor’s range. It was foolishly moving back toward the group. A moment later it began a sharp descent into the inky black sea. No parachutes emerged from that one.

  Every ship was dark. Every door light, every cabin window, every beacon. Everything. It was just like Zasha had imagined, and it thrilled her.

  She checked her watch—an old wind-up one that didn’t rely on batteries; Fyodor’s abilities shut down anything with an electric current. She was right on schedule, which meant her backup wouldn’t be far behind.

  Thirty-two Backfire bombers were coming at the carrier group, flying low over the ocean, using strategies not seen since the Second World War.

  It was an old admiral who had come up with the plan, or so the story around training camp went. In World War II, torpedo planes would fly low to the water—hoping to dodge the incoming anti-aircraft fire—and then drop their torpedoes.

  The problem now was Fyodor’s
dead zone. The Backfires needed to get their projectiles through the bubble without entering the dead zone themselves; Fyodor’s abilities did not distinguish between friend and foe. The Backfires had been equipped with special torpedoes, created just for this mission. Long range, accurate, and with an impact detonator. Each plane would drop two torpedoes without having to watch out for anti-aircraft fire. The only challenge was to aim.

  Zasha wondered what was happening on the American submarines caught inside the bubble. They’d be nothing more than steel pipes in the water, completely dark and powerless, drifting aimlessly. Their crews would have no idea what was happening on the surface—no sonar, nothing.

  And then Zasha saw the first of the Russian Backfires, screaming up and away, its torpedoes dropped.

  She checked her watch. The torpedoes had a range of eleven kilometers.

  “Four minutes,” she said to Fyodor, even though she knew he couldn’t understand. Or maybe he could understand—maybe he just wouldn’t remember any of this.

  The sky was filled with Backfires now, pulling back and turning away from the dead zone. One didn’t make it—it pushed too far and came to a stop in midair, then began to spin down into the ocean. The first Russian casualty of the American War.

  Fyodor was writhing in his harness, the powerful drugs amplifying his abilities and wreaking havoc on his mind. Zasha had sympathy for him, but his name was accurate: he was a gift from God, and a gift to be used.

  Two minutes to go. She hoped the torpedoes would get past the ring of ships at the outside of the carrier group. For that matter, she hoped that the torpedoes would be on target at all. She knew the Backfire pilots had been practicing for months, but it was a tricky maneuver, and trickier still under pressure.

  Somewhere in the distance, the Backfires were reforming, opening their bomb-bay doors and getting ready to drop heavy missiles.

  For just a moment—an instant—Zasha had a flicker of remorse. Or was it pity? More than thirty American ships, including three Nimitz-class carriers—three of the largest ships ever to sail the oceans—were about to be destroyed. It was easy for a Backfire pilot to fire an anonymous torpedo and watch it sail away into the dark. It was harder to be among the ships—to hear their crews’ calls as the sailors scrambled for some kind of defense.

  The first torpedo hit, a geyser of flame bursting upward from the side of a frigate. Zasha was thrown backward a dozen yards by the impact blast. Before she could get her bearings there was another impact, and then another. The sky was blazing with orange-white fire.

  Three ships were engulfed; soon it was four, then six, then eight. Finally, the first carrier was destroyed—the Ronald Reagan. Then it seemed as though the entire Carl Vinson rolled, hit by half a dozen torpedoes in a single moment. Zasha could see sailors falling overboard as the massive steel beast shuddered and swung back to right itself.

  “Look at it, Fyodor,” she said in awe. “Look at the fires.”

  Smoke was pouring from a dozen ships now, billowing in the Pacific winds and obscuring her view. Zasha watched the raging inferno, pride swelling in her chest. The American fleet was in ruins.

  She checked her watch and marked the time, then flew east, away from the burning ships. Now she would set the trap.

  It had to be done by sight. She couldn’t administer the drugs to Fyodor to calm him down; she wasn’t done with him yet. So she couldn’t use her GPS to track the thirteen kilometers she would need to fly to move the bubble off the carrier group—she’d have to do it by sight. But she’d trained for this, long and hard. She could judge thirteen kilometers on land, or on sea, in the light or the dark.

  At thirteen kilometers out she stopped, hovering over the waves. She watched the undamaged ships’ lights come back on.

  She checked her watch again. It had been two minutes. By now any carriers that were still operational would have launched their first wave of waiting aircraft. Zasha knew the fighter jets wouldn’t pursue the Backfires, not yet. Not until they had a substantial force in the air, and not until their radars saw the Russian planes returning.

  Fyodor groaned and mumbled something that she couldn’t hear over the rush of the ocean. She wished he could see this. He was her partner. She was the gun and he was the bullet.

  “It’s okay, Fyodor,” she told him. “Everything is okay.”

  The burning ships were oddly beautiful, like a distant row of campfires billowing in the night sky. She wondered what the sailors on board were doing—what procedures they had in place to deal with this kind of unexpected attack. Firefighters would be out in force, and the captains and admirals would be scrambling to save their vessels. They’d be waiting for another attack, watching their radar, anticipating a return of the Backfires.

  But they wouldn’t be anticipating a return of Zasha. She flew back toward the fleet, watching as lights began to disappear on the nearest boats, and made her way to the center of the fleet. She arrived just in time to see one of the Nimitzes’ catapults—running on steam power, not electronics—launch a powerless fighter jet over the edge and into the water. She knew that the rest of the air patrol would be falling now, and she strained to see them, but there was no sign of the planes against the darkened sky.

  And again she would wait, her bubble directly over the carrier group once more, disabling all their sensors and radar. The Backfires would return, their bays open and their missiles ready for a killing blow. They’d be followed by Mainstays with radar arrays to guide them in, and Fullbacks to provide fighter support. Not that they needed it. Fyodor was stopping every American aircraft that was trying to move.

  It was a longer wait this time, but Zasha didn’t care. How many years had they planned this? Decades? It was ever since they learned of Fyodor’s abilities, and then they’d sought out a flyer with Zasha’s strength and intelligence. Not many could make the distance, or hold so steady over the water. Not many could follow the exactness of the plan.

  The thought struck her: How many men would be killed in this glorious battle? Carriers had nearly five thousand each. A frigate had about two hundred, and a destroyer had as many as two fifty. And who knew how many all these extra ships had.

  More than fifteen thousand. Maybe twenty?

  She checked her watch one last time. The missiles would be nearing her bubble now, and it was time to get out of there. She only needed to stay long enough to keep the missiles off the radar. Zasha turned and headed east again. As she flew she withdrew another syringe from her pouch, flicked away the air pockets, and stabbed it into Fyodor’s arm. He’d drift to sleep, and the electronic interference would melt away. She could return to the Varyag to debrief and celebrate. And then the preparations for landing the ships in Seattle would begin.

  TWO

  AUBREY DISAPPEARED, TURNING INVISIBLE AS she climbed out of the swampy wetland and onto the bank. She was breathing heavily, carrying full gear and her M16A4 over her mud-soaked ACU—her Army Combat Uniform. This wasn’t regular boot camp, and she couldn’t imagine what that was really like. Was it harder than lambda training, or was it easier? Granted, most lambdas here were younger than the average recruit—though, at seventeen, Aubrey wasn’t—but she didn’t think the trainers were cutting them any slack.

  Which was why she was walking on the solid shoreline instead of the muddy ditch. Aubrey didn’t technically turn invisible; her brain talked to someone else’s brain—anyone nearby—and convinced them that she wasn’t there. As long as she was close enough for her brain to interact—they’d measured her range at a little less than a hundred and forty yards—she was effectively invisible.

  And it was more than just being invisible. People simply didn’t notice her. So she could sneak out of the line of lambdas trudging through the muddy swamp. No one would notice a gap, or an Aubrey-shaped hole in the water. Their brains filled in the cracks.

  She wasn’t supposed to sneak out of the line, of course. She was supposed to be in the water with Tabitha and Matt and all the res
t of them. But she could, so she did.

  “Jack, are you listening?” she asked, trying to catch her breath.

  She didn’t know where Jack was on the small makeshift army base, but he was training somewhere. She always talked to him. He could hear her most of the time, if he was paying attention. He could hear anything.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready for this to be over,” she said. “We already did our duty. We fought the bad guys and won. Shouldn’t that be enough?”

  Aubrey plodded alongside the river, dripping on the dry leaves. The sergeant was fifty feet ahead of her, watching the line of soldiers plow through the final days of basic training. She took a drink from her canteen and wished, not for the first time, that Jack could talk back to her.

  “No,” she said. “I am ready to be done. You and I saw what the battlefield was like, and there weren’t any ditches we had to wade through. Well, there was that flooded basement in Salt Lake City. But that was still technically part of training.”

  The sergeant started walking toward her, and she replaced her canteen and then lowered herself back down into the ditch. She reappeared when he was fifteen feet away.

  “Keep that gun up, Parsons,” the trainer barked, and she held her M16 higher above the water. It made her shoulders sting and her triceps ache. She couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t felt tired, or the last time her feet were dry for more than half a day. She felt like her time would be better spent working on her ability, not re-creating Vietnam. The Russians had invaded Alaska, not the Louisiana bayou.

  Granted, she still had plenty of lambda training. When she wasn’t doing field exercises or physical training or weapons training or first-aid training or any other number of trainings, they had her practicing her invisibility. Most of it was simply trying to build endurance. Disappearing made Aubrey tired, so they practiced all of these same physical exercises while she was invisible, making her run farther, stay hidden longer. It was brutal.

  She had glasses now, too. Every ability had negative side effects—Aubrey’s friend Nicole had kidney failure; Jack got migraines. Aubrey was going blind. Doctors had examined her to see if surgery could help, but they weren’t hopeful. So she wore glasses. She loved the individuality of them in a sea of identical soldiers. She loved unpinning her long brown hair at night and putting on her glasses and feeling like she was a different person than who she’d been back home. But right now the lenses were spotted with drops of muddy water, and she had to keep pushing them up on her nose.