“Rostov traffic, Cessna Four Three Alpha is taxiing to one five.”
He tested the brakes, did another scan of the shadowy area around him, and guided the plane along the yellow taxiway line.
“Tori, the way you answered that reporter’s question…”
“I told you this afternoon. For the first time, I feel as if I under- stand you. Maybe I should have asked to go along with you in your police car so I could get an idea of what you go through each day. The terrible things people do to one another.”
“I didn’t talk about them because I didn’t want you to feel what I do.”
“Thank you for trying to shield me.” She fell silent for a moment, then spoke again. “Whatever the cancer doctors say after my operation on Tuesday, whether my life is going to be short or long, I can’t imagine not sharing it with you. And I don’t want you to stop being a policeman. You’re too good at it. Now quit talking and get this crate in the air.”
Page taxied past the indistinct shapes of airplanes in the tie-down area and reached the entrance to the runway. The final checklist helped him to calm his emotions and concentrate on the task ahead.
He radioed his intentions, then increased speed along the runway. At fifty-five knots, he pulled back the yoke. The plane rose through the darkness.
Looking down, he noticed a steady stream of headlights moving toward the blocked-off observation area. The vehicles were parking along the road in a line much longer than the one the evening before. The viewing area had floodlights pointed toward the concrete barriers, presumably to emphasize that the place was off-limits. The lights from three helicopters showed where they hovered, keeping a safe distance from one another. Listening to their radio communications, Page learned that they were television news choppers.
“A wonderful clear sky,” Tori said. “Look at the glow from the streets and houses in Rostov. And there-headlights from cars driving in from Mexico. I can actually count six pairs.”
Page banked the Cessna in a slow, gentle circle, using the flood- lights at the observation area as a reference.
“How high do you plan to go?” Tori asked.
“Enough to get above everything,” he answered.
“Sounds like the way to run a life.”
66
The concrete barriers were wide enough for Medrano to stand on. Raising his left hand to shield his eyes from the glaring floodlights, he watched in dismay as the crowd got larger.
“This area’s closed!” he shouted through a bullhorn. “Turn around! Drive back to town!”
Amid the clamor of the crowd, someone yelled back at him, “This road’s public property! My taxes paid for it! I’ve got a right to stay here as long as I want!”
“It isn’t safe!” Medrano responded. “I’m telling you, go back to town!”
“You know where you can go?” somebody shouted. “To hell!”
People stretched to grip the top of the barriers and climb over.
“What is it you don’t want us to see?” a woman demanded. “What are you hiding?”
“Turn off those damned floodlights!” a man complained. “They hurt my eyes!”
“Yeah, those aren’t the kind of lights we came for!”
No sooner did police officers pull one group of people off the barricades than another group tried to climb them.
Three helicopters roared above the viewing area, keeping a distance from one another, aiming their landing lights and exterior television cameras toward the commotion.
I don’t have anywhere near enough officers, Medrano thought, surveying the chaos.
Somebody yelled, “If you won’t let us over those barricades, we’ll go around them! My wife’s got Alzheimer’s! We’re here for the miracle!”
Medrano watched helplessly as hundreds of people headed down the road and veered toward a field on the right. But some went in the opposite direction, toward the abandoned military airfield, and that was one place Medrano definitely couldn’t let anyone go.
“Stop them from getting onto that airbase!” he shouted to his officers. “They’ll blow themselves up!”
Jumping from the barricade, Medrano bent his knees as he landed on the road’s gravel shoulder. Breathless, he straightened and ran to- ward the base. There, a man and a furiously barking German shepherd warned people not to climb the barbed-wire fence.
Suddenly the floodlights failed. People shouted in alarm. As darkness enveloped him, all Medrano saw were the residual images of the glaring lights imprinted on his eyes.
Somebody must have sabotaged the generator! he thought.
But it wasn’t only the generator. Automobile engines and head- lights suddenly failed. In place of the helicopters’ hectic thumping, the only sound from the air was the whistle of slowing rotors.
Medrano flinched from the sound of a massive crash. It took him a stunned moment to realize that one of the helicopters had plum- meted to the ground. The impact echoed from the field on the opposite side of the road, accompanied by a soaring fireball.
A second crash reverberated from the same direction. Medrano crouched sightlessly, worried about where the third crash would occur.
On the road. There wasn’t one impact but several as the final helicopter dropped onto cars, crumpling and shredding metal as rotors tore into asphalt. An explosion knocked him backward.
67
Raleigh watched the chaos on the monitors. The night-vision capability of the outside cameras made the panicked crowd have a surreal greenish glow.
Did that cop really believe all he needed to do was put up concrete barriers and everyone would stay away?
Floodlights had gone dark. Cars and their headlights had become inoperative. Helicopters had fallen from the sky. Just one explanation could account for all that-a massive electromagnetic pulse, similar to one from a nuclear blast, had sent a power surge through all the electronic equipment in the viewing area, destroying it.
Exactly as predicted, Raleigh thought. He’d reinforced the outside cameras and the entire underground facility with multiple layers of electromagnetic shielding. The office behind him had three times the amount that the rest of the building had.
“Sir, the readings are becoming more intense,” a member of his team said, watching a computer screen.
Despite his earplugs, Raleigh thought he felt a slight vibration. Or was he imagining it?
He glanced toward the shielded door to the command center.
“You’re channeling the signal through the dish above us?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. The signal’s being relayed to the observatory and then up to a satellite. The satellite is beaming the signal to the White Sands Missile Range. But I don’t know if the circuits can handle this much power. We’ve never tested them at this level before.”
68
July 23, 1942.
“Anybody here know what nuclear fission is?” the general in charge of the emergency intelligence meeting asked.
Like the other officers at the long metal table, Capt. Edward Raleigh did not.
“I’m not sure I do, either,” the general admitted. “Apparently if you smash two sections of uranium together, and you do it with enough force, you can create a bomb with more power than anybody’s ever imagined. Some scientists argue that the explosion could set off a chain reaction that would destroy the world, but most conclude that it could be controlled to the extent of vaporizing a city.”
“General, with all due respect,” a colonel asked, “you’re serious about this?”
“Three years ago, Einstein wrote a letter to the president alerting him that tests had validated the theory. Apparently Einstein’s contacts in the European scientific community warned him that the Germans were stockpiling uranium, and moving aggressively forward with nuclear-fission research. At that time, of course, we weren’t in the war, but now we are, and the president’s about to order a top- secret program to create a nuclear weapon as soon as possible.