Doc had a meter out. “We’re clean at altitude, but that dirt down there is guaranteed to be hot. I’ll keep track.”
A black smudge was the only result of the shaped charge. Neeley cursed and began digging through her pack, searching for more explosives.
The Keep checked her watch: 03:12.
Moms patched through to Ms. Jones. “The Acmes come up with anything? Any way to countermand the authorization?”
“Negative,” Ms. Jones said. “They’re still working on it.”
“They need to work faster.”
Neeley slapped another charge on the wall next to the steel door. “Might be weaker there. Maybe we can hit a power line or something.”
The three ran back around the corner and Neeley fired once more.
“It’s directly ahead,” Eagle said. “A tower, probably one hundred and fifty feet high.”
“Open the ramp,” Nada ordered. He looped his arms through the straps on the package he’d drawn from the Vault. He tried to get to his feet, but it was too heavy. Mac and Kirk gave him a hand, and he staggered upright, every muscle in his body vibrating to remain that way with one hundred and fifty pounds on his back. The back ramp yawned open, revealing the pitted landscape fifty feet below.
Then Nada was promptly tumbled to the metal grating, hard, as Eagle jerked the Snake to the left.
“SAM!” he called out as a surface-to-air missile raced by the Snake, missing by scant feet. Eagle continued evasive maneuvers as the missile looped around and came back toward them, homing in on the Snake’s hot engines.
Eagle hit a button and a spread of flares were fired from the side of Snake.
Now it was a matter of odds. What heat source would the missile take?
There wasn’t time for Mac to even propose a wager as the missile took the bait and exploded 350 feet to the right of the Snake.
“Range?” Nada called out, getting to his knees.
“We’re a klick out and I’m going in fast,” Eagle said. “Who knows what other shit they’re going to throw at us.”
“Eagle, once you drop me, get the hell out of range with the rest of the team as fast as you can.”
A hole in the wall was some progress. Except the hole exposed more steel plating.
“Ms. Jones?” Moms’s voice had an edge to it as the Keep held up the watch: 01:15.
“Negative. We’ve got nothing.”
“The team?” Moms asked.
“They’re assaulting Pinnacle.”
Neeley was rummaging in her pack, at a loss on what else to do. “Not on my watch,” she was muttering. “Not on my watch.”
“Ladies.” The Keep’s voice was calm. She showed them the time. 00:59. “We’re inside a minute. The way the system works, once it gets inside a minute, there’s no turning it off. Even if we were in there.”
Inside the PEOC, everyone’s eyes were riveted on the digital clock.
Except for General Riggs. He was looking at the blinking red triangles on the map of the world. The nuclear arsenals of all the other powers — soon to be vaporized, leaving the United States the sole world power.
Riggs stood. “Destiny, gentlemen. We are making history.”
One of the officers pulled out his pistol and shot himself in the head.
Another opened a drawer and held up a bottle of champagne. “A toast!”
Eagle opened the compartment in the nose of the Snake and the 30mm chain gun extended. As he had feared, there was the muzzle flash of a radar-aimed antiaircraft gun letting loose on top of the tower.
As the first rounds hit the armor plating on the front of the Snake, Eagle let loose with his own gun. The depleted uranium rounds were right at home here in the Nevada Test Site. As his windshield splintered but held, Eagle kept his finger on the trigger and blew the gun off its platform.
“Ten seconds, Nada,” Eagle said.
“Wish me luck,” Nada told the rest of the team. Mac, Kirk, Roland, and Doc were holding him upright, near the edge of the ramp. Mac and Kirk each had one hand on Nada and the other on the steel static line cable that ran along the top of the cargo bay up into the tail. It was a good thing they did, as Eagle had to flare hard to stop the forward momentum of the Snake.
Roland was an anchor by himself without the benefit of the steel wire. He had both arms wrapped around Nada’s waist.
Without their grip, Nada would have fallen out with the package.
As it was, the steel cable tore into skin, and blood flowed freely from both Mac and Kirk, but they held fast.
The Snake came to a shivering halt, wings half vertical, Eagle doing a magical juggling act with the controls to keep the edge of the back ramp less than a foot from the walkway that surrounded the top of the Icecap test tower.
“Got it!” Nada yelled and the other three let go of him.
Nada landed with a solid thud, grunting in pain as ribs cracked when the package slammed him down on the metal walkway. “Go, go, go,” he yelled into his mike to Eagle.
Like that was going to work.
Roland was first, because in combat Roland was always first.
Mac and Kirk jumped in unison right behind him, Doc only a brief hesitation behind them. Doc did have four PhDs after all, and that did call for a momentary consideration about doing something stupid.
Still on his belly, ribs broken, the package pressing him down, Nada looked up and saw his four teammates at his side as the engine blast from the Snake washed over them as Eagle took the craft up to a tight hover in overwatch.
“Fuck me to tears,” Nada said, and for the first time in his life, he really meant it.
00:10
“We tried,” Moms said.
00:09
“We failed,” Neeley replied.
00:08
The Keep said nothing, her book held close to her chest.
00:07
00:06
“Trying counts,” Moms said.
00:05
Neeley slumped down, back against the wall.
00:04
“I’m tired of this shit,” Neeley said.
00:03
“Ain’t we all,” Moms said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
00:02
00:01
00:00
Kirk and Mac helped Nada to his feet as Roland pulled the package off his back. Nada accepted the help, readying his MP5 for action. He went to the edge of the platform and peered down into the tower. An ICBM preparing to launch rested on top.
Looking out, they could see three diesel locomotives moving flatcars with ICBMs on them away, about four hundred yards out and the wheels slowly grinding away.
“Time?” Nada asked over the net.
“Four minutes, forty seconds,” Eagle said.
Nada turned to the other three. “Here is as good as anywhere.”
They put the package down and Nada ripped aside the protective covering on the control pad. He had the Standing Operating Procedures for the SADM out, even though he still remembered exactly how to arm it two decades after his last practice run with one.
Moms slid her back down the wall and sat next to Neeley. “It’s easier when you have a team.”
Neeley nodded. “Yeah. Hannah is a friend, but she’s also my boss. Not that any of it matters now.”
“It always matters,” the Keep said. She still had the watch out.
“How long until the first nuke hits target?” Neeley asked.
The Keep shrugged. “It depends on what targeting protocol General Riggs used.”
Inside the PEOC, everyone was watching the large screen. The tracks of missiles launched, both land-based and from boomer submarines at sea, were marked in red arcs. Clumps of yellow indicated strategic bombers heading toward targets.