Not enough for material. In fact, it was so low it could have been a trace residual—the lingering radioactivity of workers who’d been near a small amount of material.
The green-door chamber was a rectangle that sank about a hundred feet farther into the earth. The floor area was approximately two hundred by five hundred feet wide. At the center Turk saw a cluster of workbenches; a spiderweb of shelving lined the west wall. Catty-corner to these shelves were a set of laboratory hoods and what in the infrared looked like stacks of small ovens and television sets.
“Analyze,” he told the Whiplash computer, which was receiving a visual feed from his unit.
“Chemical mixing facilities, baking and shaping frames noted,” declared the computer a few seconds later. “Explosive manufacturing.”
The construction area for the explosive lens needed to construct a bomb?
“Calculate optimum explosion to destroy lab area Subbase 5-D,” he told the computer. “Execute.”
The swarm, which had been moving up and down in the room, suddenly retreated, flying back up into the main lab.
“What the hell?” yelled Turk, as if the control unit were human.
In the next second, he saw the lead nano-UAV darting toward a large round cylinder. Then the screen flashed white.
The feed from the NASA plane showed him what had happened—the UAVs had caused a massive explosion on a supply of bottled gas in the main lab area, which in turn caused secondary explosions throughout the rest of the facility. The pressure from the chamber where the explosives were manufactured ruptured one of the support girders above the lab, then the entire facility collapsed.
A perfect hit, except that they hadn’t found the nuclear material they were looking for.
27
CIA campus, Virginia
BREANNA WATCHED THE FEED FROM THE WB-57, which was focused on the area above the Iranian weapons lab known as Site Two. What looked like a puff of white smoke rose from the area where the UAVs had entered; it turned into a steady stream, something approximating a faucet. Two clouds appeared, at what had been the doorways to the facility. Then the ground between them cratered.
“Seismograph?” she asked.
“Not a nuke,” reported Teddy Armaz. “Site Two is completely destroyed. Attack on Site One is under way.”
“It was only an explosives lab,” said Rubeo, standing next to Breanna. “They’ll rebuild it in a month.”
The surveillance aircraft shifted its flight pattern, extending its figure-eight orbit farther west. Breanna looked at the screen at her workstation, where the remaining UAVs were cataloged. All but the Hydra lost early on the mission were accounted for and in good shape.
Turk had done an excellent job improvising on Site Two; she felt confident he would do well with Site One. Some of the bands of tension that she’d felt tighten around her chest began to loosen. They were going to do this; he was going to get out.
“NASA asset has trouble,” said Armaz up front.
“What’s going on?” Breanna asked.
“RWR—stand by.”
RWR stood for “radar warning receiver”—the aircraft was being tracked by Iranian radars. That in itself didn’t mean anything, but it presaged Armaz’s next warning.
“System 300 tracking them—there’s a flight at long range. Two MiG-29s coming from the west.”
“They’re not in Iranian airspace.”
“They’re being challenged.”
The unarmed reconnaissance aircraft was out of the range of the System 300, a sophisticated Russian antiaircraft missile system that had been acquired with Croatia’s help. But the MiG-29s were another story. Though flying very high, the WB-57 was vulnerable to their radar missiles once they neared the border. The ground radar would direct the interceptors to its vicinity; once close, they would be able to fire.
“He’s going to have to get out of there,” added Armaz. “The MiGs are already looking for them—their attack radars are active and they are closing fast.”
Breanna glanced at Rubeo. Turk had relied on the feed from the WB-57 to improvise the attack on Site Two. The next attack was even more complicated—and that was if everything went right.
“Those MiGs are attempting to lock on,” said Armaz. “They’re only a few seconds away.”
“Get him out of there,” Breanna said. “Give me Turk.”
28
Iran
TURK GLANCED UP, MADE SURE GREASE WAS STILL AT the edge of the ledge, then turned his full attention back to the attack on Site One. Two UAVs had already blown through the preliminary barriers; he had fifteen left.
The plan required fourteen. One for good luck, he thought.
Something was wrong with the WB-57; a message declared the feed off-line.
“Turk, Ms. Stockard wants to speak to you,” said Paul Smith, who was handling communications back in Virginia.
“Go ahead.”
“Turk, we’re taking the radar plane off-line temporarily,” said Breanna. “He’s being attacked.”
“OK. All right.”
“We’re working on it.”
“OK. I need to go.” He switched off the coms and took stock of the UAV swarm. In addition to the fifteen now hurtling toward the facility, there was one more at the far edge of the screen, designated as UAV 18, not yet under his control. He wasn’t sure why it was so far behind, but he made a mental note and went back to the attack swarm.
The lead UAV descended through the air exhaust vent, plunging toward a chamber that had been identified as a cafeteria space earlier. Designated UAV 3, it hit the grill protecting the space, but did not explode; Rubeo’s people had calculated it could get by the grill without needing to do so. It zipped across the room at high speed, banking so it could enter a corridor that led to another passage downward. Here, it struck a machine that worked an air-conditioning zoning mechanism. As it exploded, the vents connected to the unit sprung open, clearing the way for the rest of the swarm to enter through a different passage just above the cafeteria space.
The UAVs shot downward, entering a utility space populated by wires and pipes. The fit was excruciatingly tight, with bare millimeters of clearance at two points, plus a pair of tricky turns that looked like V’s with an extra leg curving down at the end. Turk knew he could not have flown this himself, but the tiny aircraft navigated the passage with ease, emerging in a large, empty chamber apparently designed for ventilation and heating equipment, but not used.
The lead nano-UAV curled upward as it reached the end of the long space, exploding just before touching the top. The force pushed down a second UAV, which had followed, adding momentum to its attack on the thick metal access panel that formed the floor. The explosion blew a hole in the panel, but unfortunately, the hole was not quite large enough to allow the next UAV to pass. The aircraft tangled its wings against a shard at the edge. Before Turk could react, it had blown itself up, enlarging the passage.
That had been one of the trouble spots Rubeo had warned of, a place where he feared they might lose one of the designated aircraft and have to rely on the backups. Two more lay ahead.
UAV 5 was now in the lead, projecting its infrared image to Turk as it passed through an open doorway and started down a ramp area, passing someone walking up the ramp. The Hydra twisted on its axis, completing a hard turn to its right to enter a work area roughly the size of a football field.
The screen blinked. A new set of words appeared at the bottom of the image: UPDATE: PROCESSING AREA.
A small forest of silver cylinders that looked like stacked coffeemakers sat on the south side of the large room. They were centrifuges, used to refine weapons-grade uranium.
That was a significant find, but Turk had not been briefed on it.