She stepped forward toward the darkness. It was unlike anything she had ever seen, as if the light were being absorbed by the air. Her ears popped from a decrease in pressure as she continued forward, moving by feel, totally blinded. Her stomach spasmed as she almost fell to her knees, but she forced herself to continue moving. The experiences reminded her of the feeling she’d had when Majestic had operated the gravity drive of the mothership in Hangar Two.
She blinked as she was abruptly blinded by light.
“That is the Hall of Records,” Kaji said, but Duncan barely heard him as she stared down at the Black Sphinx on the floor of the cavern.
Yakov shoved the grate at the top of the stairs away and climbed up, Turcotte following. They were in a room illuminated by a few bulbs. Turcotte blinked, adjusting to what was to him a brightly lit area. There were several large objects in the room, and he had to look at them for several minutes before he recognized what they were: elegant horse-drawn coaches.
“Where the hell are we?” Turcotte asked.
“Remember when I said luck could always get worse?” Yakov asked in turn. “If I am correct, we are in the basement of the Kremlin Armory.”
“And that’s bad?” Turcotte walked around one of the carriages to the lone door in the room, a thick heavy wooden one with metal bands across it.
“The Armory is where the greatest treasures of Russia are housed,” Yakov said. “These carriages were probably used by the czars… there is always an exhibition of one or two on the main floor. The Faberge eggs are housed above us; the crowns of the later czars; the Icon of the Virgin of Smolensk.”
“And?” Turcotte tried the handle on the door. It turned freely. As far as he was concerned, it seemed things were getting better.
“Do not open that door. I would wager you a large amount of money,” Yakov said, “that you will trip an alarm if you open it. And there is always a heavily armed platoon of guards on standby in the Armory itself and over a battalion of men stationed on the grounds of the Kremlin.”
Turcotte stopped turning the handle. Yakov came over and examined it, then pointed. “A laser along the inside. Open it more than a quarter inch, and you will trigger the alarm. There are many more such alarms once we get through the door. It is, as you Americans say, out of the frying pan, into the fire,” Yakov summed up his take on the situation.
Turcotte checked the AKSU. He had four rounds in the magazine and no spares. “How are you doing?” he asked Yakov.
The Russian held up the pistol. “Two bullets left. And I would prefer to kill as few of my countrymen who are just doing their job as possible.”
Turcotte reached into his shirt and pulled out the SATPhone. “Let me see if I can get us a fire extinguisher.”
The talon passed over the west coast of the United States, Warfighter and Stratzyda in its nearby wake. Four hundred miles below, millions of unsuspecting people went about their business in San Francisco.
Underneath Soda Lake in the center of Ngorongoro Crater, Lexina had tried calling Duncan once more but received no response. She went to the second number she had… direct access to the Cube at Area 51.
The SATPhone was answered on the first ring. “Major Quinn.”
“There is not much more time.” Lexina didn’t waste time on an introduction. “I want the key.”
“We’ll get you your key,” Quinn said. “It’s taking us a little while.”
“How can it take you so much time when you already have it? I will do as I promised. To show you I mean what I say, watch Stratzyda.” Lexina cut the connection. She turned to the black sphere and forwarded commands to the talon’s computer, which in turn controlled Stratzyda.
Directly over Oakland, two long doors that even the makers of Stratzyda had hoped would never be opened, slowly slid apart, revealing the blunt nosecones of the cobalt bomb reentry vehicles.
“Goddamn Russians” was Kincaid’s comment as the front screen relayed the view from a ground telescope of Stratzyda. “All the crap that went wrong with Mir, you’d think this wouldn’t work after all these years.”
“They’ve always been better at making weapons than anything else,” Major Quinn said.
“The President has this, doesn’t he?” Kincaid asked.
“It’s being relayed to the War Room,” Quinn confirmed. “But with Interdictor destroyed, there’s not much anyone can do.”
“Where the hell is Turcotte?” Kincaid muttered.
“Oh God!” Quinn exclaimed, looking up at the screen. “She isn’t waiting!”
With a puff of a small rocket firing, one of the reentry vehicles separated from Stratzyda. It moved away, gravity pulling it down, the small engine orienting its path on an angled trajectory.
“Where’s it heading for?” Quinn demanded of the people monitoring the equipment in front of him. The Stratzyda was over Stockton, California.
“We don’t have a solid lock yet,” one of the technicians responded. “It’s in a glide path rather than a direct downward shot. Warhead passing through three hundred and fifty miles altitude, descending rapidly.”
The view on the screen switched to the tracking imagery from Space Command.
Quinn breathed a momentary sigh of relief as the black line indicating the warhead edged eastward, away from Oakland and San Francisco. “Give me a targeting and impact point and time!” he yelled.
Kincaid had shoved one of the technicians out of the way and was rapidly typing into a computer. He stiffened as numbers appeared on the screen. He swiveled around on the seat. “Time to impact is four minutes. Target and impact point is right on top of us.”
CHAPTER 25
The reentry capsule angled into the atmosphere over the Sierra Nevadas, the heat shield leading the way. Thirty seconds later it crossed the California/Nevada border at two hundred miles of altitude. Drogue plates, less than ten inches long and six inches wide, popped out perpendicular on the side of the capsule, slowing it enough so that it would not burn up.
“Seal the Cube!” Major Quinn ordered.
“Two minutes to impact,” Kincaid announced.
A heavy steel door, over two feet thick, slowly swung shut over the only exit out of the underground complex, sealing off the elevator to the surface.
“Do you think that will make a difference?” Kincaid asked Quinn.
“We’re going to find out, aren’t we?” Quinn snapped in reply. He nodded at the door. “That’s not the important thing. What’s critical is that our air filtration system works. The bomb should go off in the air to maximize the spread of the cobalt.”
“What about all the people still on the surface?” Kincaid asked. Quinn’s silence was answer enough to that question.
Over target, the reentry capsule split in two, the pieces ripping away into the air at 5,000 feet altitude. A drogue chute popped open on top of the bomb itself as it drifted down. A built-in sensor on the bottom of the casing ranged a radar beam to the ground below and received immediate bounce-back, giving the arming system relative altitude. The detonator had been preset many years before the launch to go off at 3,000 feet relative altitude above target.