Would that work?
If it didn’t, he’d cut the wires.
Danny hesitated.
Do both at the same time.
“Fifteen.”
One way or the other, everyone in the hangar would die.
Bison reached over, trying to steady Powder’s hands. But he was shaking just as bad.
“Go!” Danny yelled.
“No time!” shouted Liu.
Danny closed his eyes and pulled back on the knife, sliding the blade through the collection of wires. He waited for the long millisecond before death, heard the fizzle of the explosion as it began.
But it wasn’t the explosion at all.
“Jeez, Louise, that was close,” said Powder. He pulled the LED into the water.
The fizzle had come from the clock circuit shorting.
“Captain, did you cut the wires?” asked Liu.
“They’re cut,” said Freah, looking at them.
“Shit,” said Powder.
“Got Ms. Klondike!” yelled Liu.
Danny sat back on the floor. The fluorescent lights in the hangar seemed very yellow. Liu came over on his knees and held the handset to Danny’s ears.
“Where have you been?” Annie asked.
“I cut the wires,” he said. “Powder dumped the timer in water and shorted it. I think that saved us.”
“No,” said the weapons expert. “The mechanism is impervious to moisture. Water wouldn’t have done anything.”
“It fizzled.”
“You cut the wires. It is odd, though—at least one end of the device should have exploded when all current was lost, unless the designer was completely inept. Are you sure you cut all the wires?”
Danny looked over at the harness. Fourteen of the sixteen wires had been cut clean; two remained.
“Shit,” said Danny. Then he told her what he saw.
“Out of curiosity, Captain, what’s your birthday?”
“Why?”
“I was thinking one of us ought to run down to Las Vegas and play those numbers on the roulette wheels.”
Aboard EB-52 M-6
Dreamland
8 March, 0351 local
BOTH MCADEN AND FENNER INSISTED ON STAYING WITH M-6 even after Bastian ordered them to stay on the ground; he finally decided it didn’t make much sense to argue with them. No one would blame them for flying, and besides, Magnus’s order applied to him, not them.
McAden wasn’t all that happy about taking the copilot’s seat, but there Dog had an easier argument—Dog had very little experience using the EB-52’s weapons systems, which were more easily handled from the copilot’s station.
As they got ready to fly, a black SUV hurtled up the ramp toward them, blue light flashing.
Dog watched the Jimmy screech to a halt. Undoubtedly Magnus had gotten to the security people somehow; he was about to be placed under arrest.
He edged his hand toward the throttle bar. As soon as the men were out of the car, he’d hit the gas and lurch away. By the time they got back in the vehicle he’d be on the runway.
But instead of heavily armed security men, a thin figure jumped out of the Jimmy. Dog stared at the shadow, which seemed to have small wings.
Or just very long hair.
Jennifer Gleason. She waved frantically and ran toward the plane. Another person jumped from the SUV—Dr. Geraldo.
“What should I do, Colonel?” asked McAden.
“Let’s find out what they want,” said Bastian.
McAden dropped the ramp. Gleason appeared on the flight deck a few seconds later.
“Colonel, let me aboard,” she said.
“We’re just flying backup,” he told her.
“I can override C3,” she said. “I can send feedback through the command link. It’ll break the connection with ANTARES and disable the Flighthawks.”
“That’ll work?”
“It’s either that or you’ll shoot them down, isn’t it?”
“Colonel!” yelled Geraldo from below.
“And what exactly is your plan?” he asked the psychologist as she came up.
“I want to try talking to him,” said Geraldo.
“It’s not going to work.”
“Better than shooting him down.”
“We almost certainly will have to,” said Dog.
Neither Gleason nor Geraldo said anything else.
“This won’t be a joy ride,” he said finally.
“I fly in Megafortresses every day,” said Jennifer.
“Shut the hatch,” Bastian told McAden. “Jen, show Dr. Geraldo how to strap herself in downstairs.”
Aboard Galatica
Approaching U.S.
8 March, 0805 local (0705 Dreamland)
THE FINGERS OF THE AWACS GROPED THE AIR, reaching for him, desperately trying to grab him. Two F-16’s cruised not five miles to his left, at less than five thousand feet, determined to ferret him out.
The bastards would all miss. He was within sixty minutes of San Francisco, sixty minutes of having revenge.
And then?
Then they could kill him. He wouldn’t even bother to run.
“Losing connection,” warned C3.
“Closer,” he screeched on the interphone.
“But—” Breanna began.
“Closer!”
The Megafortress lurched upward and to the left. C3’s warning flashed off.
“AWACS tracking,” warned the computer.
“Impossible,” Madrone muttered. The threat screen on the Flighthawk showed he was clear.
Breanna had tricked him—the F-16’s had seen the Mega-fortress.
“F-16’s being vectored for mother ship,” said the computer. “Attempting to activate ident.”
Madrone started to slip out of Theta. His view of the U/MF screen went blank.
Kevin took a deep breath, felt himself relaxing. The feeds returned. But he couldn’t feel Galatica across the gateway. He was too drained, and his brain worked in slow motion—he had too much to hold in his mind.
“We’re being targeted by a pair of interceptors,” he told Minerva.
“What?”
“This!” He flashed the computer’s threat screen into the cockpit HUDs.
He’d have to take over Galatica as well as the Flighthawks. He’d have to find the strength somehow.
ZEN SAW THE F-16S ON THE FLIGHTHAWK SCREEN AS they turned to target the Megafortress just under forty miles away. But the slippery black plane danced at the edge of their radar coverage; they would have to ride much closer to lock on. Most likely their rules of engagement demanded visual identification before firing anyway.
Or maybe not. The launcher indicators on the Flighthawk went red. Sparrow radar missiles were in the air.
BREANNA PUSHED DOWN ON THE STICK, AIMING TO USE the confusion to her advantage. But the plane moved in the opposite direction—Kevin had somehow taken control.
The rest was automatic. Tinsel shot from Gal’s backside as its ECM computer zeroed in on the AIM-7Ms and knocked them senseless with a blast of Gangsta Rap fuzz. At the same time, Galatica accelerated toward the F-16’s to keep its connection with the Flighthawks. The Air National Guard F-16 Vipers launched another salvo of missiles at approximately twenty miles; these two were easily confused.
Thirty seconds later, Hawk One began a front-quarter attack on the lead Viper. The fireball trailed across the left windscreen; as it flared out, a second appeared on the left.
“Why are you doing this, Kevin?” Breanna said.
“I’m destroying Livermore,” he said. “They poisoned my daughter there with their radiation. They claimed they were treating her, but it was a lie.”
“You’ll destroy all San Francisco.”
“So be it.”
HE WANTED SAN FRANCISCO TO BE DESTROYED. HE saw it, saw Karen there, shriveling in the flash as the nuke went off. That would serve her right for giving up on him.