They returned Stateside just in time for the success of the Patriot to be challenged on all quarters. Some asshole from MIT had turned against the system, and the Senate Appropriations Committee was quick to follow suit. Even segments of the military had jumped on the bandwagon. Jed Long and Terry Worth fumed. Why don’t they ask the people who really know? they wondered. They offered to testify in front of anyone who would listen.
No one was interested.
Someday, Long and North told themselves frequently, someday we’ll show them….
But not today. Long was seated in front of the radar screen with legs stretched before him and hands clasped behind his head. Worth was checking the final connections, thinking maybe it would be better if they packed everything back up and brought it out again come next weekend. Truth was, somebody at the Pentagon had told them opening day was yesterday, so they’d scrambled to get here a day late only to find out they were five days early.
A sudden rapid chirping sound had Long lunging forward in his chair, almost toppling it behind him.
“What the fuck …”
Worth had leapt up behind him. “Shit,” he said disbelievingly, “we got incoming.”
“This some kind of joke? …”
“Thirty seconds to impact,” Long said.
“Four incoming,” Worth followed. “I got four incoming.”
“Positive ID obtained. FROGS!” Long shouted, referring to the computer’s identification of the missiles hurtling their way. “Four fucking FROGS!”
“Jesus Christ …”
Worth knew that even under the best of conditions, the Patriot’s strike rate was.72. With four Patriots to fire at four incomings, that meant the odds of successful intercept were not good at all. Still, this updated version of the Patriot contained a stronger explosive designed to detonate the enemy warhead on impact, instead of just destroying the missile. But it hadn’t been tested in battle yet.
“System is enabled.” Long glanced back at Worth. “What the fuck do we do?”
“Time to impact?”
“Fifteen seconds …”
“Fire!” Worth exclaimed. In that instant he was back in Israel. The feeling was the same, everything was the same, including the devastation four FROG (free rocket over ground) missiles would cause if they impacted.
Long hit the auto button three seconds later when the screen flashed red, signaling that the Patriot computer had locked on. The auto button swung the battery into intercept mode. The launcher had already turned to face the incomings, and the four Patriots shot out at millisecond intervals with deafening roars that split the air over the field. Some of the NAB’s workers figured there’d been an accidental explosion and hit the ground for safety. Others just stood there dumbstruck as the red and white missiles rocketed upward toward nothing.
“Oh fuck,” said Pop, who like the others could not yet see the FROG missiles the Patriots were speeding to intercept.
At the very last, several NAB members briefly glimpsed the streaking Patriots converging on shiny spots in the sky. In the next instant, four explosions sounded over the field, great thunderclaps in the sky that showered sprays of what looked like fireworks down toward the ground.
Instinct had forced Pop Keller into a crouch. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. The bastards at the air force base had goddamn fired on him! The son-of-a-bitch Indian was right! Pop stood up painfully, still half squinting, and pulled the hands from his ears.
“Now I’m mad,” he said. “Now I’m fucking pissed.” He looked toward Wareagle. “Let me have those coordinates, Injun. This is gonna be like the Little Big Horn all over again.”
Chapter 35
Arnold Rothstein smiled at the muffled sound of the distant explosions. He stayed by the window for several moments before turning back toward McCracken.
“It would seem the threat your friend posed to us has been eliminated.”
Blaine gritted his teeth. In that instant he wanted more than anything to lunge at the old man, but he knew he’d never get past the Twins.
“We are the world’s only chance,” Rothstein insisted. “I must ask you to reconsider or join your friend in futility.”
Blaine shook his head. “Sorry.”
“Such a waste …” The old man’s eyes moved from McCracken to the Twins, then back again. “They will be quick in their work. It is the least I can do for you. Of course, it would have been easier still if you had just let them dispatch you quietly in that hotel in Turkey. Losing you after that became a real concern of mine.”
“Until the toymaker’s, of course.”
Arnold Rothstein looked at him with a mixture of confusion and disinterest.
“You don’t know what I’m talking about….”
“Nor do I care. Good-bye, Mr. McCracken.”
“But if it wasn’t you, then who …”
Arnold Rothstein was gazing at the Twins once more. “You understand how I want it done?”
“Yes,” they replied in unison.
“Lock him in one of the basement storage rooms, while you sweep the grounds one last time.” Rothstein’s eyes fell on Blaine. “Make sure he has no more surprises waiting for us before we bring out the remaining transports. Then kill him.”
“You’re making a mistake, Rothstein,” McCracken said, as the Twins hoisted him to his feet and started to lead him to the door. “Listen to me. You’ve missed something here — we both have.”
Rothstein waved Blaine off and turned his back so that he was facing the window. Before McCracken could speak again, the Twins brought him into the corridor and yanked him forward to the stairs. There was no sense in resisting. His mind, in any case, was elsewhere.
Rothstein hadn’t been behind the attack at the toymaker’s in Germany!
Someone else was involved. Another party, another force …
Who? Why?
Four flights of stairs later, they reached the basement. A door to one of the supply rooms was already open. The Twins pushed him through. One of them turned on a light.
The manacles were waiting for him, fastened into the far wall of a room that was utterly empty. The Twins were grinning. One led him forward. The other hung back slightly. The closer one removed his leg chains and handcuffs, then locked his feet and hands into the manacles. He was spread-eagled, face against the wall, with no room for maneuvering.
“We’ll be back for you,” they said together, and McCracken heard the door close behind them.
“Soon as you get there,” Pop Keller had instructed just before Johnny set off for Livermore Air Force Base, “call me up on the radio and I’ll start the barrage.” After the big Indian had nodded, Pop’s gaze drifted over his shoulder. “You really fixin’ on bringing these boys with you?”
Johnny turned to look at the men of No Town who were packed again in Blue Thunder. In the driver’s seat, Toothless Jim Jackson was giving the old engine gas to keep it from stalling out.
“I don’t believe I have a choice,” Wareagle replied.
“Yes, you do, friend. Yes, you do,” Pop Keller had said, the last of his words nearly drowned out by the approach of a tank column led by the Sherman and backed up by the M-60A1 with the three others in between. “Figure you could use some close support.”
Johnny had flashed one of his rare smiles.
He drove Pop’s truck at the head of the procession that had Blue Thunder bringing up the rear. The artillery barrage courtesy of NAB’s two 155mm, 105mm, and eight-inch guns would begin as soon as Johnny and his tanks reached the perimeter of the base. His small column was able to maintain a respectable clip of just over fifteen miles per hour straight over land, cutting across roads only when necessary. The Pershing slipped a tread just past the halfway point, and the Patton’s engine overheated with just a quarter-mile to go, leaving the crusty Sherman and the far feistier M-60 prototypes to aid in the assault.