At the present moment, above the rear, deck of the USS Shiloh, a SH-60 specially modified Blackhawk helicopter was being guided down to a landing by a crewman in a bright orange jumpsuit. As soon as the helicopter's wheels touched down, the side doors were opened and several large bags were thrown out. Crewmen picked them up and carried them forward to the ship's captain, who was standing next to a special operations resupply pod. The pod was six feet long and two feet in diameter, painted dull black.
The pilot handed a computer disk out his door to the ship's weapon's officer before it took off.
"All right, pack them in," the captain ordered.
The crewmen had just begun doing so when one of the canvas bags broke open and stacks of worn hundred dollar bills fell onto the deck. All work paused as they stared at the money.
The captain's voice cut through the pause. "Pack the bags in the pod, gentlemen."
A petty officer looked up at the captain. "We're going to fire this off, sir?"
"If we get ordered to, we will."
The petty officer shook his head. "Someone on the Joint Chiefs retiring or what?"
"I don't know," said the captain honestly, "and I don't think I want to know." He turned to a petty officer. "Chief, is the Tomahawk ready to receive this pod?"
"Yes, sir."
The captain nodded. "All right. As soon as the money is in, load it."
The petty officer snapped to attention. "Aye-aye, sir."
Drake came back in the access panel, leaning it back in place behind him. McKenzie walked over and they talked quietly, so the other guards couldn't hear.
"Are we all set?" McKenzie asked.
Drake handed McKenzie a small device that looked like a TV remote with a cover. It had a thick, bright red nylon strap attached to one end, allowing it to be worn around the neck. Drake flipped open the cover and showed McKenzie a series of buttons. "I've programmed this manually so it's out of the Omega Missile loop." He lightly touched one button. "Green and the silo opens and the missile preps up. Blue and the missile takes off. Red and you arm the warhead and it goes off when the missile lands. Yellow is abort." He pointed to a last black button. "That's the bugaboo. Push black and that warhead goes off no matter where it is, whether it's flying or still sitting in the silo. As you can see, they're all labeled so we don't make a rather big mistake and push the wrong button."
McKenzie took the device and slipped it over his head, hiding it inside his shirt. "And the missile is targeted correctly?"
"Straight up and down isn't that hard to program."
"The flight time?"
"Thirty minutes give or take a few seconds."
McKenzie smiled. "Excellent."
National Security Adviser Hill walked out of the small office to the rear of the War Room. He seemed to have aged years in the hour he'd been in the War Room. "If we cannot stop Kilten by any other means, the president has approved the nuclear strike at five minutes before the deadline is up. That's only if you can assure him the area has been evacuated and there will be no civilian casualties."
General Lowcraft had been looking through various printouts. "I've already given the orders to prepare the aircraft and to get the evacuation started. Our readout on wind and fallout indicate New Orleans won't be affected."
Colonel Hurst called out. "Sir, we've got radio communications with a helicopter that crashed inside the radar zone of the Omega Missile launch facility. They were knocked out of the sky by the explosion that took out Barksdale. The pilot says he had a Special Forces officer on board and the man is checking out some shots fired in the area. They've also made contact with one of the crew from the Omega Missile LCC."
"Can we talk to them?" Lowcraft asked.
"The pilot says the SF officer is supposed to radio him in a couple of minutes and he'll patch him through."
Hill looked at Lowcraft. "What can one man do?"
Lowcraft shrugged. "It's one more than we had."
"Still, what can one man do?"
"Ask Kilten."
Parker pulled to a stop in the tree line next to a fifty-square-meter clearing. The concrete cover for the Omega Missile silo was tilted back inside of a fence.
"How's it guarded?" Thorpe asked.
Parker pointed. "Two thermal cameras, there and there at opposing corners of the compound. Ground sensors along the fence projecting out twenty feet. Slave-driven chain gun, 7.62-mm, activated by the Omega Missile LCC is there. The one at the LCC tracks movement and fires at it. This one tracks movement of thermal signatures and fires at anything with a mass large enough to be a person inside the perimeter. It's the best-guarded silo in the inventory."
"Great," Thorpe muttered. Thorpe looked at the weapons mounted on a twenty-foot tower in the center of the compound. They had a clear field of fire over the fence at the entire clearing.
Thorpe checked his watch. "Hold on a second." He took out Parker's survival radio and pushed the transmit button. "Maysun, this is Thorpe."
"Thorpe, hold on a second. I got ahold of Dublowski and he's monitoring. There's someone else who wants to talk to you right away, though. Let me patch you through."
There was a short pause, then a new voice came over the air. "This is General Lowcraft. Who am I speaking to?"
Thorpe knew who General Lowcraft was. "Captain Thorpe, Fifth Special Forces Group on detached assignment to the Department of Energy Special Operations NEST team, sir. I also have Major Parker from the Air Force here. She's with the Three Hundred Forty-First Missile Wing."
"How the hell did you end up there, Captain?"
"Bad luck, sir," Thorpe replied. "My chopper was flying in to Barksdale for fuel and a spare part and we got caught."
Lowcraft was direct and to the point. "We have a problem."
"Yes, sir, we're aware of that. Major Parker is from the Omega Missile crew and we saw both Kilten and McKenzie go down into the launch facility."
"You certainly are up to speed on this problem. In fact, you seem to be ahead of us on some of it. Who's McKenzie?"
"Ex-Navy SEAL," Thorpe said. "He worked with me on the SO/NEST teams before he retired. They've also got a bunch of Canadian ex-paratroopers for their muscle."
"We have to stop them," Lowcraft said. "You're aware of what they control?"
"Yes, sir," Thorpe said. "We're working on it."
"Work harder, soldier.''
Parker indicated she wanted the radio. "What are they asking for, sir?"
"Twenty-six-million dollars and for the president to review the country's nuclear weapons system safeguards and some classified files."
"Are you giving them the money?" Thorpe asked.
"We don't know yet. You do what you can. You've only got two hours."
"Then what, sir?" Thorpe asked.
"You let me worry about that, son."
Thorpe keyed the radio. "Sir, may I make a suggestion?"
"Fire away," Lowcraft said.
"We think we have a way of getting into the launch facility. We also have the override code for the vault door to the LCC. The air force security people got ambushed and wiped out."
"Goddamn!" Lowcraft exclaimed.
"But we're heavily outnumbered and outgunned," Thorpe continued. "We could use some help. If you could get the rest of my NEST team here, they could go for the LCC itself through the vault door. There's a Master Sergeant Dublowski standing by at Fort Polk, ready to go."
"We've been in contact with your team and we have a C-130 arriving at Polk shortly to pick them up," Lowcraft said. "The problem is that Kilten has threatened to fire off a nuclear weapon if he spots an aircraft on the radar in the launch facility," Lowcraft said.
Thorpe turned to Parker. "What's the range on the radar in the launch facility?"