"Everything secure, Johnson?" McKenzie asked.
"Yeah," the guard replied. "We're good to go." He looked around. "Where are the others?"
"They'll be along," McKenzie said.
"Who's the boy?" Johnson asked.
"A bonus," McKenzie said.
As McKenzie unloaded the Humvee, Johnson began dragging a camouflage net over the top of it. McKenzie led Drake down the bank and the two of them pulled a camouflage net off two Zodiac boats tied to a tree. There were half a dozen other boats secured there. Once the two boats were clear, McKenzie gestured at Drake to open the laptop.
"Can you pick up the cruise missile with our money?"
Drake's fingers rattled over the keys. "Yes. It's about two hundred miles out and coming fast. ETA in sixteen minutes."
McKenzie pulled the remote from inside his shirt and flipped open the cover. "Now, to open the silo you said push black, right!"
Drake's face went white. "No! Green. Black sets off the nuke! It says it right there!"
McKenzie smiled. "Just joking. Everyone seems to have lost their sense of humor. We're rich. Enjoy it." He pushed the green button and flipped the cover shut. "Let's go sailing."
"That should do it," Parker handed the Leatherman back to Thorpe.
"Should?" Thorpe asked.
Parker didn't reply. She resumed crawling, leading the way. They reached an intersection. A tunnel came in from the right.
"Where's that go to?" Thorpe asked.
"One of the other silos," Parker replied.
Thorpe paused, sniffing the air. "You smell something?" He wet a finger and held it up in the intersection. "There's air moving down this way from that silo."
Parker paused. "That shouldn't be. That silo is sealed airtight until it opens—" She stopped speaking as they both had the same realization.
Thorpe looked down and noted that there were tracks in the dust going down that tunnel. "Someone's been to that silo recently!"
Parker put it all together. "The access panel is open and the silo doors just opened. That's why we feel air moving. It's going to launch! Move!"
Thorpe pushed her as they scurried straight ahead.
McKenzie was sitting in the back of the boat, next to the motor. He checked his watch, then opened up the remote again. He pressed the blue button.
A rushing noise was the first indication of the launch for Parker and Thorpe. A story crossed Thorpe's mind that he had heard while training in maritime operations about how when drowned bodies from sunken boats were recovered, it was often discovered that some of the corpses had boot marks on their shoulders from their crewmates trying to get up ladders faster than them.
Thorpe pushed Parker harder. "Move!" he yelled.
Inside the missile silo, flames were pouring out of the bottom of the ICBM. The flame filled the entire silo and part of it rushed through the access panel that Drake had left off in his rush to get back to the LCC.
Flames billowed down the tube. Thorpe and Parker could hear it coming, a crackling, thunderous noise.
"Move! Keep moving!" Thorpe yelled, looking past Parker's shoulders, seeing only a long stretch of pipe, his heart pounding, knowing there was no way they would make it to the end.
Parker reached a drain opening. Her fingernails ripped as she pulled up the grate. The opening was two feet by two. It went straight down into darkness. The sides were smooth metal and there were no handholds or ladder.
"Go! I've got you!" Thorpe pushed her in.
Behind them, the fireball hit an intersection and split, going both ways with equal ferocity. As Parker slid in headfirst, terrified, she felt Thorpe's hands on her ankles. She freefell for a second, then came to an abrupt halt as Thorpe's grip held.
Lying on his stomach in the tube, Thorpe looked over his shoulder and saw the flames coming. He pulled his toes up and allowed Parker's weight to pull him into the drainage tube. As he felt his shins painfully go over the edge, he spread his feet, boots slamming up against the sides of the opening, still in the crawlway, holding him in place. Parker screamed at this second drop, thinking Thorpe had lost her, but she came to another sudden halt as his feet held.
Flames roared above them, searing Thorpe's boots and his camouflage pants. Thorpe felt the pain, but didn't loosen his hold on either end. Then the flames were gone.
On the surface, the ICBM was out of the silo, accelerating, heading straight up.
Parker's voice was muffled. "Are you all right?"
Thorpe's voice was strained from pain and exertion. "Yeah. Listen, can you press up against the side of this thing and hold yourself from falling? Like a rock climber in a chimney?"
"Yeah, I think so."
Parker spread her arms against the sides of the drainage tunnel.
"I'm going to let go of your legs now," Thorpe said. "As soon as I do, push them against the wall."
Thorpe let go and Parker locked herself into place. Thorpe pressed his arms against the walls and painfully extricated himself from the drainage tunnel. He rolled onto his back and looked down his body. The green canvas of his jungle boots has been partially melted into his socks. Thorpe took a deep breath and flexed his toes and feet, feeling the agony. The metal in the bottom of the boots had helped keep some of the heat out. Painful, but walkable.
Thorpe reached down and helped Parker back out of the drainage tunnel. When she got into the main tunnel she sniffed the air.
"Whew, that sure burnt things up."
"That's my feet you're smelling," Thorpe said.
Parker looked down. "Oh my God."
Thorpe pointed down the tunnel toward the LCC. "As long as we don't have to tango, I'll be all right. Let's get moving."
Chapter Twenty-one
"Sir, we have another launch. An ICBM with a nuclear warhead." Colonel Hurst delivered the news in a monotone.
Coffee spilled over General Lowcraft's hand as he slammed the mug he'd been holding onto his desk. "Son-of-a-bitch! What's the trajectory?"
Hurst stared at his computer screen a few seconds too long.
"I asked what the goddamn trajectory is!"
"Uh, vertical, sir."
Lowcraft stared at him. "What the hell does that mean?"
Everyone in the War Room had been stressed for too long. "That means it goes straight up, then straight down, sir," Hurst said. "It's targeted for the Omega Missile Launch Control Center."
Hill had been following this. "What's happening?"
Lowcraft ignored the national security adviser. "Time to impact?"
"Thirty minutes."
Hill pressed his hands down on his own desktop.
"Please explain what is going on. Why would they fire a missile at themselves?"
General Lowcraft was staring at the front screen, thinking. "I take it to mean that Kilten and McKenzie are covering their tracks."
Hurst spoke up. "But that doesn't make sense, sir. They have to stay in the launch facility to control Omega Missile."
Lowcraft shook his head. "Kilten's been one step ahead of us the entire way so far. I have no doubt that he's overcome that little problem. What's the warhead in this missile?"
"Forty megaton." Hurst said.
"Jesus!" Lowcraft exclaimed. "We were only going to use a twenty to take out the LCC. Give me an updated readout on what a forty-megaton blast would do."
The screen in the front cleared, then new circles appeared. Hurst summarized it quickly. "Blast and thermal effects would reach those four towns around the epicenter with over fifty percent casualties. Fallout would reach New Orleans within six hours with lethal doses of radiation. Ten percent fatalities of those exposed."