“My people tracked the downlink,” McFairn continued, “but we didn’t catch the uplink.”
“Do you have a lock on the satellite?” Boreas asked.
“Space command is tracking it. I’ve got an F-15 out of Eglin Air Force Base scrambling. It’s armed with ALMV.”
“A what?”
“ALMV stands for air-launched miniature vehicle. It’s an ASAT-antisatellite-missile.”
“We need the uplink,” Boreas said.
“First things first,” McFairn said. “We take out the satellite before someone else gets killed.”
Boreas leaned back in his seat. Souris was one step ahead of them again. What the hell were she and the Ring doing? He spoke into his headset, directly to Kirtley. “Order the helicopters in.”
“Where’s the transmitter?” Kirtley demanded.
“In space. Order the helicopters in and clean up the mess at the villa.”
Farruco kicked one of the American bodies with the tip of his boot. The amount of blood surprised him. How had Cesar done this? And who were the strange beings who had just appeared on the roof, then disappeared?
He cocked his head at the sound of helicopters approaching. Barking orders, he ran upstairs. Reaching the main level, he flipped open the cell phone as the first American helicopter came racing in over the treetops.
“Can you do another burst?” Cesar asked Souris.
“I’m checking on the status of the satellite’s power right now,” she replied. Reading the screen, she nodded. “I think we can get one more.”
“Stand by,” Cesar told her. He spoke into the phone, ordering Farruco to pull his men back.
Afterburners kicked in as the F-15 roared into the sky, nose pointed almost vertical. Slung beneath the left wing was a long rocket. The F-15 passed through the sound barrier less than two minutes after wheels-up and continued to accelerate.
“Pull Kirtley back using Sybyl,” Dalton ordered Hammond.
“What about the rest of the team?”
“You’ve got no contact with them?”
“No.”
“Then there’s nothing you can do. Leave them alone. I want to know what’s going on. These inbound choppers are probably Kirtley’s people.”
The first load of commandos off-loaded on the roof, blowing holes in the ceiling, working their way down.
Farruco and his men were beating a hasty retreat across the back lawn, firing as they went. An Apache gun-ship raced by, thirty-millimeter cannon spitting bullets, killing half of Farruco’s gunslingers before they reached the relative safety of the jungle.
Two more lifts of commandos off-loaded on the roof. Thirty men were in or on the villa.
From his vantage point, Kirtley could see the action, but he made no move. The plan had been for him to redirect the commandos to capture the Aura transmitter, which Boreas had expected to be located nearby. Given that it was in space, he was at a loss what to do.
He started in surprise as he sensed a shift in his link to Sybyl. Against his will, he was being drawn back. The villa disappeared and he was in total blackness.
The first Blackhawk carefully gained altitude, lifting the cargo net full of isolation tubes off the grate. Jackson and Barnes had managed to put six in that net. The second bird dropped its net and they quickly spread it out. The unknown helicopters were three minutes out.
Valika turned on the Aura generator. Despite her warning, the men inside the helicopter bay were startled when Raisor’s image appeared, floating half in and half out of the left side door, just in front of Valika.
“We’re three minutes out,” Valika informed him.
“I know.”
The F-15 was shuddering as it passed through fifty thousand feet altitude. The pilot was linked to Space Command in Colorado Springs, which had a lock on the target satellite and was relaying the data to his targeting computer. In turn, the computer was automatically downloading updates to the ALMV every second.
The second sling load was attached to the bottom of the Blackhawk, then Roby carefully maneuvered the chopper away from the platform and down, until his cargo door was level with the metal grate. The crew chief waved for Jackson and Barnes to get on board.
“What about the sergeant major?” Roby asked as soon as Jackson put on a headset.
“He said to come back for him after we deliver this load,” Jackson said.
Roby shook his head, but he added power, moving up and away from the mountainside. He cursed as something flashed by, coming around the side of the mountain, narrowly missing. Another helicopter. The equally surprised crew of that chopper swerved away, then continued down the platform, disgorging a swarm of armed men.
“What the hell?” Roby muttered, but he didn’t have time to contemplate the scene below any longer as a second Huey came around the mountain and someone leaned out the side and fired an MP-5 on full automatic at his Blackhawk.
Roby banked hard, trying to keep from losing the slingload, and headed to the south. One of the Hueys tried to follow but it was no match for the speed of the more modern Blackhawk, even one carrying a sling load.
After five minutes of chase, the Huey gave up and turned back.
“Are you clear yet?” Cesar demanded of Farruco over the SATPhone.
“Yes. We’re in the jungle.”
Cesar turned to Souris. “Do it.”
The F-15 peaked out at seventy thousand feet, the air no longer thick enough to keep the engine firing. Just before stalling, the pilot hit the release for the ALMV. The eight-foot-long rocket separated; the first stage ignited and it roared toward the darkness of space as the F-15 rolled over and headed back toward Earth, the pilot nursing his engine to keep it from flaming out.
“It’s going to take several minutes for his body to warm up enough to bring him back in completely,” Hammond said. They both turned as a thunderous explosion echoed down the entrance tunnel into the control room. Alarms began stridently ringing. Dalton pulled his pistol out of its holster and chambered a round.
Souris hit the Enter key and the signal left the antenna.
The heat seeker on the nose of the ALMV had picked up the energy in the Aura IV satellite. It closed at over five thousand miles an hour.
The uplink hit the satellite and the battery surged, adding power to the downlink just as the ALMV slammed into the satellite. The kinetic energy of mass times the extreme velocity resulted in complete disintegration of the satellite.
Space Command recorded the hit.
“You’ve got to go back for Dalton,” Barnes insisted.
Roby was concentrating on flying. “Hauling a sling load reduces options greatly. We’d be sitting ducks. Even a pig Huey could fly circles around me right now. I can only outrun them going straight.”
“We’ve got to get the isolation tubes hooked back up,” Jackson said. “The sergeant major told me to do this.”
“Hell, you’re the officer,” Barnes said.
Jackson looked at Barnes. “You Green Berets are always the one saying the most experienced person should be in charge.”
“Where are we going?” Barnes changed the subject.
“ Cheyenne Mountain,” Roby said. He could see the first helicopter ahead of them, the red cargo netting holding the iso-tubes and other equipment hanging below. It was hard to believe there were living people inside of the dark tubes.
“Space Command?” Jackson was surprised Dalton would have picked that as the place to bring the iso-tubes.
“Not Space Command,” Roby answered. “The west side of the mountain. We’ll drop the load and go back for the sergeant major.”
“Who the hell were those people?” Barnes wanted to know, but no one could answer that.
Jackson wanted to know what was on the west side of Cheyenne Mountain, but she figured she would see soon enough for herself.
Dalton checked the security monitor. A half dozen men dressed in black were slipping through the hole ripped in the vault door. He had no clue who they were, but their method of entry left no doubt that they would not be friendly when they reached the control center.