"That's not SOP," Parker argued.
"I know. But if we shut the door we can't get back in without the override. And if Barksdale was nuked then…" His voice trailed off.
Parker shook her head. "We have to secure the vault door and make sure it can't be opened except by override code."
"I'll stay," Lewis said.
Parker frowned. "What about—" she began, then froze as Lewis drew his pistol and pointed it at her face.
"I'm staying, Major."
"What are you—" Parker began but Lewis shoved her off the elevator and the vault door began closing.
Parker threw herself at the opening. Lewis fired and Parker could feel the bullet whiz by. She ducked and the door finished closing. She pounded a fist on the metal. "You son-of-a-bitch!"
Thorpe moved through the woods carefully, pistol at the ready. He crossed a gravel road and then paralleled it as he ran in the direction of the shot. Soon he came to the edge of a clearing. Thorpe paused and looked out. He could see the fenced compound and knew what it was, but couldn't see who had fired a gun. He was about to move forward when he noticed the grass slightly swaying on the far side of the compound. It was difficult because the camouflage was good, but he finally spotted two men in ghillie suits low-crawling toward the compound.
One of the men popped up and attached what looked like a length of hose to the fence, then just as quickly disappeared back into the grass. Then nothing moved for a few seconds until the door to the building inside the compound swung open and a woman in a black Air Force flight suit stepped out.
"Oh, fuck," Thorpe muttered. He raised his pistol and sprinted out of the woods. The concrete next to the woman's head exploded. The cracking sound of the shot being fired followed less than a second later. The woman dove for cover behind a low concrete barrier several feet in front of the door, which had swung shut.
The hose that the two men had placed on the fence flashed and a man-sized hole appeared in the fence. The two men in ghillie suits rushed through, weapons at the ready. Thorpe had covered half the distance to the compound by now. He could clearly hear one of the men calling out to the woman: "Stand. With your hands up!"
Thorpe began firing, his first rounds hitting the lead ghillie-suited figure. As he did so, the woman popped up, firing her own pistol. Between the two of them, they put five rounds into the second ghillie suit and he fell less than ten feet from her location.
The boom of a large sniper rifle sounded and a bullet smashed into the concrete near the woman, spraying her with chips. She flinched as a second round smashed into metal and ricocheted off.
Thorpe halted at the fence. He could see at least a dozen figures breaking out of the far wood line, weapons at the ready. "Come on!" Thorpe called to the woman, as he fired at the new targets.
Thorpe slapped his spare magazine into the pistol and rapidly fired at point blank range at the links in the fence, blowing fourteen of them apart. He grabbed the jagged edges and pulled them wide.
The woman dashed past the two bodies and toward the hole he was making. She slithered through, tearing her suit in the process.
Thorpe could see one of the intruders raising a large sniper rifle. Thorpe froze as he recognized the man. The 50-caliber rifle roared and a round whistled past the woman, spurring her to even greater speed. She tumbled onto the ground and regained her feet. Together they sprinted for the safety of the woods.
The capsule on the end of the Peacekeeper rocket split in two, both shells falling away. Bolted inside, the Omega Missile payload activated itself. Solar panels slowly unfolded, gathering the sun's energy to complete the boot-up of the computer and communications system.
A satellite dish twisted and turned, seeking out the closest MILSTAR satellite. It found one that was in its own geosynchronous orbit two hundred miles away. An inquiry burst was transmitted from Omega Missile to the MILSTAR satellite. A positive link burst was sent back by the MILSTAR computer, indicating that Omega Missile was now online with MILSTAR.
Inside, the REACT master computer checked itself and found all systems to be functioning. Omega Missile was ready.
Chapter Eleven
McKenzie stood next to the door of the Omega Missile LCC and barked out orders. "Bognar, you and Reynolds go after those two." He pointed toward the tree line and the route Thorpe and Parker had taken.
The Humvees were coming out of the tree line with the rest of the men. Machine guns were now mounted in the top center hatches and the vehicles took up defensive positions around the compound.
McKenzie jabbed a finger at Drake. "Set up the satellite dish, then join me below." He turned to the outer door and slapped a charge against it. "Fire in the hole!" he called out as everyone took cover.
There was a brief blast and the door was gone. McKenzie stepped through the debris into the foyer. He halted in surprise at the sight of the closed vault door.
"I thought you said they would leave it open," he demanded.
Kilten ignored McKenzie. He waved at the video camera just above the door and with a hiss, the door swung open.
McKenzie turned to Kilten. "Where's the other crewman?"
"In the LCC," Kilten said.
"He opened the door for you?"
"Yes."
McKenzie looked at Kilten in a new light. "Got any other surprises that you didn't tell me about?"
Kilten walked to the elevator. "Let's go down. We don't have much time."
As the vault door slowly shut on them, Kilten had a question of his own. "Why did you shoot at the other launch officer?" Kilten asked. "That wasn't the plan."
"Not your plan," McKenzie agreed. "But it seems things are changing a bit now."
Kilten looked at the soldier. "I knew you would do this."
"Do what?" McKenzie asked.
"Change things."
"Well, that's real good," McKenzie said. "Cause then you shouldn't be surprised by anything that happens, right?"
"Not likely," Kilten said with a sad expression on his ravaged face. "That's part of my job, remember? Predicting and planning. I expected you to deviate from the plan we agreed on."
McKenzie wasn't really paying attention to what Kilten was saying. "Your job invented this and now we're taking it down. And taking things down is my job. Do you have a problem with that?" The powerfully built man spoke with the firm conviction of someone taking control.
Kilten held his hands up. "I said it would be a short relationship, didn't I?"
Thorpe glanced to his left at the female officer running next to him. "I'm out of ammunition. Do you have any?"
Parker pulled the clip out of her weapon and looked. "One round."
"Shit," Thorpe said. He halted. "Hold on for a second." He looked at her uniform. Her name tag indicated she was Major Teresa Parker, U.S. Air Force. "Do you know what is going on, Major?"
Parker was taking deep breaths. "No." She looked at his uniform. "Who are you?"
Thorpe stuck out his hand. "Captain Thorpe, Army Special Forces."
Parker took his hand, her grip firm. "Major Parker, U.S. Air Force. This was all a setup. Lewis was in on it. I should have stayed there and stopped them!"
Thorpe didn't understand what she was talking about. "If you'd have hung around there another couple of seconds that guy shooting the big bullets would have nailed you." Thorpe cocked his head, listening. Then he led her into a small gully and pointed down it. "You keep going."
Parker hesitated. "What are you going to do?"
"We've got people right behind us. I'm going to take care of them."