Climbing over the concrete barrier, Craig wildly began to scramble up the rocks, painfully aware of how little time remained. His tie and jacket flapped as he bent over, clambering up the incline.
“Hey!” Goldfarb shouted, hanging onto the car door. “We’ve got to get out of here.” Then he too noticed the claylike blocks of plastic explosive.
Craig reached the base of the first support tower, and then his foot slipped from the granite outcropping. He reached out with his left hand and grabbed the metal support of the high-powered transmission tower — hoping too late that the metal itself wasn’t electrified. He held on, swinging himself up, scrambling with his feet for purchase.
He saw the plastic explosive. Words had been scrawled on its side with a black magic marker. FOR VICTORY AND FREEDOM ON OCTOBER 24!
Craig had less than a minute remaining, perhaps only a few seconds. If the EOD people didn’t prevent the detonator signal, this explosive and the others linked to it would blow up.
He didn’t have time to call the other EOD man. He didn’t have time even to get out of the way. Craig gritted his teeth, swallowed hard. Simple plastic explosives didn’t have complex machinery. He just needed to remove the initiator. If he disconnected the detonator, it would not trigger the bomb. Probably not.
Sure, it would be simple.
He reached out to grab the wires. The first lead came out with a pop, severing the electrical connections thrust into the soft explosive. He tugged on the other wire, pulling the connections from the next block at the second power-transmission tower. The others were just part of a series circuit.
Craig stood looking at the detonator in his fist, his heart pounding. Then he tossed it away from him as if it had turned into a snake — even the detonator cap would take off his hand if he was holding it when it went off.
Finally, slumping, he saw Jackson and Goldfarb hurrying up to the cliff wall, calling to see if he was all right.
The EOD men emerged from the generator room removing their helmets, beaming. “A minute to spare,” the first one called. “We could have done it twice.”
“These are the other explosives,” Craig said, slumping down, suddenly weak. Now he finally had a chance to reconsider the words written on the soft substance.
FOR VICTORY AND FREEDOM ON OCTOBER 24!
It had been standard practice for military men to paint names or messages on their bombs before dropping them on an enemy, whether it be Saddam Hussein or Adolph Hitler. In Dr. Strangelove the two atomic bombs had been named “Hi There!” and “Dear John.”
But for all the planning the violent members of the Eagle’s Claw had intended, Craig couldn’t believe they had made such a stupid mistake as to get the date wrong. He glanced at the calendar function on his watch, checking just to be sure, then he shook his head.
October 24th was still four days away.
CHAPTER 4
Paige spotted Mike Waterloo waiting for her outside the barbed-wire gates of the Device Assembly Facility. Dirt berms rose on either side of the thick concrete walls. Two security observation towers, like turrets on a castle, stood out at prime vantage points.
Uncle Mike looked grim-faced as she pulled up in her white Ford pickup, identical to most other government vehicles at the DAF, except for the pine-tree air freshener dangling from her rear-view mirror. Three green NTS security cars had parked beside the barricaded entrance; a Nye County ambulance from the post hospital in nearby Indian Springs AFB had backed up to the glass front door, leaving its red emergency flashers shut off.
Mike Waterloo unfolded his arms and left the shade of the cargo doors. Wearing a threadbare short-sleeve yellow shirt and worn blue pants, the lanky man looked tired… and old. His thin arms stuck out from his body like two sticks. “Thanks for coming so fast, Paige.”
She gave him a quick hug. During the glory days of the Cold War, Uncle Mike had regularly flown out to Nevada with Paige’s own father, where they worked together on nuclear test explosions. Mike’s wife Genny had died four years ago, not long before Gordon Mitchell had succumbed to cancer. Since then, Mike had drifted away, but Paige felt delighted to work with him and the Russian inspectors, getting in touch with him again. It had seemed a wonderful assignment. Until now.
As she reached across the seat to grab her day planner, Uncle Mike set his jaw. “I don’t know what we’re going to do when the news media gets hold of this. There’s so much riding on this international inspection.”
“Has the word gotten out?” Paige remembered when she had been blindsided back at Livermore after a controversial virtual reality scientist had been found dead in his laboratory — and half the free world had found out before anyone could exercise media damage control.
He shook his head, then led her toward the guard gate. “I thought it should come from you. I’ve got our security folks watching the scene to keep it secure and untouched.”
“Good work.” She tucked the day planner under her arm, took a deep breath to calm herself, then set about getting the facts. “I last saw Ambassador Nevsky just before the rest of us left to go back to Las Vegas, but you and he went to the cafeteria instead. Explain to me again why he needed to come back to the DAF after working hours.”
Uncle Mike held open the glass door to the security portal. Paige unclipped her laminated NTS badge and temporary DAF Access badge, handing both to the guard through an opening in the thick window. She walked through the metal detector, then waited for him on the other side.
Mike’s shoulders were drawn forward in a stoop. “Nevsky had taken extensive notes earlier in the day, and he said something didn’t seem quite right to him. But I think it may have been a ploy to snoop around in the DAF, judging from where he was found.”
“Snooping around?” She arched her eyebrows. “Spying, you mean?”
Uncle Mike shrugged. “You tell me.”
A mirror set in the wall revealed a security camera; radiation and particulate detectors hung from the ceiling. Paige and Uncle Mike walked past the guards and headed through the vast high-bay facility. The cavernous interior of the DAF gaped three stories high. Stacked concrete blocks formed a maze of temporary barricades.
“Nevsky and I got back here around eight o’clock,” Uncle Mike said. “PK Dirks was working the late shift, and he agreed to watch the ambassador in the Pit Assembly Area — but I guess he wasn’t watching very closely.” He clamped his jaws together in annoyance.
Paige nodded, remembering Dirks, a good-natured, laid-back technician manager who coasted along in his position, not terribly devoted to his job.
“Nevsky was verifying serial numbers on pits from decommissioned devices. That’s when our friendly Russian apparently stepped out to go to the bathroom — but instead of going to the head, Nevsky decided to go exploring in the DAF. PK didn’t even see him, wasn’t watching.”
“Dirks left the ambassador alone in the area?” Paige frowned. “That’s totally out of line.”
“Technically yes, but the DAF has guards, and that hallway is completely sealed. You said yourself, why worry about the Russians seeing anything? We’re showing it all to them in the first place. We got careless.”
“The media’s going to have a field day,” Paige said with a groan, running a hand through her long hair, adjusting her barrette.