At Whiteman, the F-l 17A Stealth fighter led the way down the runway, accelerating rapidly and then darting up into the sky. The B-2 followed, its sleek form slowly separating from the ground. It linked up with the Stealth at five thousand feet and both aircraft then banked and headed south toward Louisiana.
Parker and Thorpe were kneeling next to a panel. Thorpe was using a Leatherman multipurpose tool from his vest to unscrew it. Over half of the bolts were off, and the amount of sweat pouring down his back showed how hard it was to use the pliers on the nuts.
"Do you think Lowcraft will order your team in?" Parker asked.
"He'll send the team."
"Even knowing this place is targeted for a nuclear strike? That's pretty coldhearted."
Thorpe was working as he spoke. "That's his job. Yes, it's coldhearted, but so is your job and, as you pointed out, so is mine. If we don't like it, we shouldn't be wearing the uniforms we're wearing."
He got the last bolt off. The panel slid off and he looked in. A steel tube extended as far as he could see. It was three feet in diameter and dimly lit.
"Shall we?"
A C-130 with its engines running had its back ramp opening even as it turned around and faced back up the runway. Six men wearing free-fall parachutes with weapons and rucksacks strapped to their bodies waddled out toward the plane. In the lead was Master Sergeant Dublowski, a barrel-chested man in his mid-forties.
He hopped up on the ramp, the crew chief lending a hand. As soon as the last man was on, the ramp began closing and the plane began accelerating.
Midway over Georgia, the Tomahawk cruise missile with the money on board was flying comfortably at an altitude of two hundred feet. Designed to be able to hug the ground at less than twenty feet, this flight was no challenge to the on-board computer. The route that had been programmed into it was a winding one that followed the front range of the Appalachian Mountains. The indirect route put it thirty-five minutes out from the vicinity of the Omega Missile LCC.
Drake had unhooked Kilten's laptop and connected one of the leads to a small satellite transmitter. It was a rough-looking setup, but it worked. Drake had a special backpack, which fit the pieces in securely. He walked over to McKenzie, who had just finished battering the Omega Missile emergency destruct mechanism into a nonfunctioning mass of metal with his artificial arm.
He turned to face the guards he had brought down. "We're going to do a security check on the surface. Let no one but me back in. Clear?"
"Clear, sir," the senior Canadian ex-paratrooper said.
McKenzie and Drake moved to the elevator. The door shut and they headed toward the surface.
"You're not going back for them, are you?" Drake said.
"If they can get out, then they get out," McKenzie said. "It's a question of how long it's going to take them to realize that I'm not coming back."
"They have the same planned escape route we do. If they don't make it, then there's a bigger cut for you and me. The bottom line is that right up to the last minute, we have to make the Pentagon believe we're inside the launch facility. Otherwise, we'll never get away."
"Why do the men believe you?" Drake asked.
The doors opened and the vault door slowly swung wide. McKenzie turned to Drake as they waited. "Why does anyone believe anything? Hell, they got paid fifty thousand apiece up front. They think that makes me trustworthy. And they want the five hundred thousand payoff we promised each one."
They stepped into the foyer. McKenzie called in several of the surface guards and ordered them to go down and augment the two men already down in the LCC. The vault door swung closed. There were three Humvees left parked there. Two were manned by two men each. The third was empty and McKenzie led Drake toward it.
"Let's roll."
Chapter Twenty
Thorpe was leading the way down the tunnel when Parker grabbed his leg. "Hold on a second."
She climbed by him, sliding her body over his in the tight confines of the crawlway. She paused on top of him and gave Thorpe a strange look. "Excuse me!"
Thorpe wriggled slightly and his hand came up holding the device he had used on the bolts. "It was the Leatherman."
"Oh." Parker moved ahead of him. "There's a motion sensor right up ahead."
"I thought you said we could get in this way."
"We can get in this way. I didn't say we could do it without getting spotted. The security people wouldn't leave this totally unguarded." She inched forward, then stopped. "It's right here. Give me that tool of yours. I think I can disable it."
On the surface, McKenzie and Drake got in the Humvee and drove off to the southeast. They left behind the two Humvees with M-60s manned, standing guard on the surface. In the tree line, Everson watched the vehicle drive away. One less machine gun to deal with.
Moving quickly toward the southeast, four turboprop engines straining to the max, the C-130 cargo plane was gaining altitude as fast as possible. Inside, the special forces team led by Dublowski sat around an oxygen console.
A crew chief walked up to Dublowski. "We're passing through thirty thousand feet. We're going to depressurize in one minute."
Dublowski turned to the team. "Hook in to the console."
The men connected the hoses from their high-altitude rigs into portals on the console.
The crew chief was hooked into the aircraft. "Depressurizing," he called out, then settled his mask on.
The back ramp slowly cracked open, the gap widening until there was a level platform at the rear, open to the sky.
The crew chief was now speaking to the team over their FM radios. They each had an earplug in and small boom mikes in front of their mouths. "Five minutes to drop!"
The Humvee left a plume of dirt behind as it sped down the road. McKenzie was looking around when he spotted the shattered tops of several trees in the woods to the left. He spun the wheel, catching Drake by surprise as they raced in that direction.
They bounced along the forest floor until they came upon the crashed Blackhawk. McKenzie bounded out of the Humvee, weapon at the ready.
He saw the wounded pilot, pistol in hand, and the boy behind him.
"We're the good guys," McKenzie called out, dropping the submachine gun to hang on its sling and holding up empty hands. "We're here to help."
"Thank God someone got here," Maysun said, lowering his pistol. "We need some help. There's—" the next word froze in his throat as McKenzie fired one of his nerve darts and it hit the pilot in the neck. Maysun slumped over, unconscious.
"And who might you be?" McKenzie asked as he walked up to the young boy who had his hands on Maysun's shoulders. Tommy shook the pilot, trying to wake him up.
Tommy's hands left Maysun's shoulders and grabbed the pistol. He swung it up and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.
"Whoa!" McKenzie yelled, snatching it easily from the boy's hands. "You have to take the safety off first." McKenzie's face split into a wide smile as he read the name tag on the boy's shirt. "Tommy Thorpe. I know your daddy. I'll take you to him."
Tommy tried to pull free. "My dad said not to leave here for any reason."
McKenzie had neither the time nor the inclination to be persuasive. He reached down, grabbed Tommy's arm and hauled him back to the Humvee. He had Drake tie the struggling boy's hands together and put him in the backseat.
He continued south of the LCC, paralleling the Anaconda River. McKenzie slammed on the brakes as a guard suddenly came out of the trees, weapon at the ready. The guard waved them onto an overgrown trail that led to the riverbank.