Death Wave

Death Wave

By Ben Bova, excerpt

Assassination

Everything seemed to happen at once. Standing on the stage at the front of the studio, Jordan saw the yuong man aim the pistol at him. An equally young woman got to her feet beside him, screaming, “Kill the alien-loving bastard!” From the side of the studio one of the security people whipped a gun from beneath his jacket.

Jordan stood frozen at the lectern, his mind inanely telling him to duck behind the lectern but his body unable to respond. The gun was pointed right at him, its muzzle looking like a tunnel to eternity.

This is no ruse, Jordan realized. They really want to kill me!

He saw the pistol's muzzle erupt in smoke and heard something whip past his ear like an angry bee. People were diving to the floor, yelling. The lectern shattered into a thousand pieces. One of the news correspondents grabbed at the gunman while the security man off to the side pushed through the crowd, pistol in hand, knocking people over as he rushed for the would-be- assassin.

The studio was filled with shouts, screams, curses. The gunman seemed to collapse while the woman beside him clawed at the correspondent who had wrapped his arms around the man. The security guard reached them as a second security man came in from the opposite direction and pulled the screeching woman off the correspondent's back.

Death Wave. Photo by Elena

And then it was all over. People got up off the floor, dazedly. Overturned chairs were set right again. Several more security people had two young women in their grip. The gunman lay sprawled across several chairs; unconsciouos or dead, Jordan couldn't tell which.

Then someone said, “You're bleeding, Mr. Kell.”

Jordan looked and saw that his shirt was soaked with blood. The lectern was smashed to splinters. People were on their feet, gaping.

From his office, Otero watched the whole incredible episode, thinking. This is all going out on the air, live! A real assassination attempt! And we've got it all on camera!

The security team hurried Jordan, his hand pressed to his bleeding side, to the small infirmary on a lower floor of the Otero Network building.

Walking beside Jordan, Hamilton Cree said, “It doesn't look too bad.”

Jordan thought of Mercutio's line from Romeo and Juliet and quoted, “No, this not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door...”

“If I had reacted faster...”

“You did fine,” Jordan said. “Is he... did you kill him?”

Cree shook his head. “Nerve jangler. Paralyzed him. We're not allowed to carry lethal weapons..

“But they do.”

One of the other security men, older, grimmer, said. “The three of those nitwits carried their gun in separate pieces, mostly plastic. Didn't see off the scanner alarm. Then they put it together once they were seated in the studio.”

“Who are they? Why did they want to kill me?”

“We'll find out, don't worry.”

A registered nurse and a diagnostic robot were waiting for them at the one-room infirmary.

“I don't think it's very bad,” Jordan said to the nurse.

“Let's see,” she said.

They laid him on the examining table and cut away his blood-soaked shirt. The robot ran its metal arm, filled with beeping, chirping sensors, up and down Jordan's body.

“No internal injuries,” its synthesized voice pronounced.

The nurse bent over Jordan's abdomen, a tweezers in one hand.

“This may twinge a bit,” she muttered.

It did twinge, but only for a moment. The nurse held up the tweezers, a bloody sliver of wood in its grip.

Hamilton Cree said, “He had a semi-atomatic pistol. Got of three shots. Two of them hit the lectern and shattered it. You got hit by a splinter.”

“And that's it?” Jordan asked.

“That's it,” said the nurse, beaming happily.