скачать книгу бесплатно
The members of Able Team looked at her disapprovingly.
“Agreed.” Price sighed. “It’s a long shot, but then, gambles have paid off before.”
“So what is our assignment, another diversion?” Lyons asked, but then he saw her expression. “You found something.” He stated the observation as a fact.
“Hopefully. Aaron found something odd a few minutes ago, just before you arrived.” Price typed briefly on a small keyboard built into the wooden top of the conference table. The main wall screen changed from a view of the world to a satellite photo of southwestern America, then it jumped to a tight shot of Texas. Then again to a small town.
“The city of Sonora,” Price declared just before the name appeared to scroll along the bottom of the screen. “Aaron and his cyber team were surfing the Internet, looking for anything odd around the time of the launch, when they discovered this.” She tapped a button and a side monitor came alive with a newspaper headline from the Sonora Gazette. There was a picture of a smoking hole in the ground and several sheet-draped bodies. “Apparently an empty warehouse outside of town was blown up by a runaway gasoline truck at almost the exact same moment the missiles were launched.”
“How far away from the launch site did this happen?” Lyons asked, studying the article for details. From the struts among the charred wreckage, he would guess the structure had been some sort of a Quonset hut.
“Roughly eighty miles.”
“Interesting. Could the launch have been seen by anybody at the warehouse?” Schwarz asked, tapping a pencil on the table.
Price leaned back in her chair. “Bet your ass. An ICBM launch lights up the night brighter than a NASA space shuttle taking off. And there were three of them this time. Would have looked like the Fourth of July at Christmas.”
“How sure are we that the warehouse was empty?” Blancanales asked pointedly. “Could the records have been faked?”
“At the moment, we don’t know anything about the warehouse,” Price replied honestly. “Aaron ran an inventory search, checked the deed, traced the utilities bills, everything we could think of, and his team has hit a stone wall. Nobody seems to have built the Quonset hut, nobody owns it and there were no customers. Yet the warehouse had an armed man out front in a brick kiosk.”
That sounded like a guard station. “Dead?”
“Absolutely. Same as the truck driver. The preliminary autopsy indicates he was drunk, and that the guard was killed by flying glass.”
“Which could be true,” Blancanales said hesitantly. “However…”
“However, the driver was a Mormon, and they don’t drink,” she stated, sliding a sheet of paper into a slot on the desk. A wall monitor displayed the membership records from Salt Lake City, Utah. “That was a bad slip on the part of our saboteurs. And the guard…well, he seems to have died twice.”
“Twice?” Schwarz asked with a frown. He knew what that meant, and it wasn’t good.
“A spook,” Lyons stated, rubbing his unshaven jaw to the sound of sandpaper on rock. “Interesting.”
“We ran his footprints through the DOD.” Price didn’t have to tell the other people why. They all knew that fingers often got blown off in combat, or too badly mangled to read. However, footprints were just as reliable and inside an Army boot, they had a much higher rate of survival. “Apparently the guard was killed by a sniper near the Khyber Pass in Afghanistan four years ago, and then again yesterday.”
“The corpse have a name?” Lyons inquired.
She snorted. “Aaron found fifteen and they have all proved to be fakes. This guy was so deep undercover that he could have been one of us.”
There was a chilling observation. “That sounds like a CIA black bag operative,” Blancanales mused. Able Team had encountered such men before. The Agency would have an operative pretend to be a civilian and get recruited into the military. Then they would arrange for them to be sent into the heart of the fiercest fighting happening at the time. When the operative arrived, there would be a switch and a corpse would take his place on the battlefield, followed closely by a nice mangling explosion, and the CIA op would faded away, his identify safely removed.
“Anything is possible,” Price agreed, turning away from the screen. “Homeland Security, DOD, he’s obviously a government agent.”
“Yeah,” Schwarz muttered, stroking his mustache. “The question is, which government?” The defunct KGB had been particularly fond of this trick, along with MI-5 in the United Kingdom and the Mossad.
“The guard could have been working for anybody,” Lyons said, typing at another miniature keyboard set in the table and accessing a duplicate of the reports. He quickly flipped through the electronic documents. Nothing, nothing and even more nothing.
Just then, the intercom buzzed softly.
“Price,” the mission controller answered brusquely, touching a switch.
“Bear, here,” a gruff voice replied over the speaker. “My team just pulled in something hot.”
“Excellent,” Price said. “Send it over.”
A moment later there came a soft hum from the table and a document extruded from the printer under the table. When it dropped free, she picked it up and briefly scanned the message. Then she paused and read it again, slowly and more thoroughly.
“It seems that the real owner of the warehouse is the DOD,” she announced, sailing the sheet across the table. “And according to these top-secret inventory records, the Quonset hut was packed to the rafters with defunct electronics from the cold war. Mostly obsolete inertial guidance systems for ICBMs.”
“Son of a bitch,” Blancanales said, snatching up the sheet to read the report. “That’s what used to steer our long-range missiles before we switched to GPS navigation, right?”
“Before we switched to using GPS,” Schwarz said in a monotone, “an intercontinental ballistic missile was a hideously complex and staggeringly sophisticated piece of military ordnance. But not the warheads, of course. Atomic bombs were relatively easy to make. Slap two semicritical pieces of enriched uranium together and they exploded.”
No, the difficult part was delivering the warhead on target, and on time, through the enemy defenses, halfway around the world, without having it veer off and explode in friendly territory. The trick was guidance.
The Pentagon had tried a lot of solutions to the problem, some of them quite bizarre, but in the end, the inertial guidance system proved to be the only viable solution to steering an ICBM at the time. Anchored by gyroscopes, and with fantastically detailed relays, an INS device could precisely deliver a two-story-tall ICBM anywhere with deadly accuracy. However, an inertial guidance system was hideously expensive to manufacture, almost a million dollars a piece, and each unit took nearly six months to construct. Even with computer automation. It was simply that complex a piece of equipment.
During the Reagan administration, the Pentagon had decided to scrap the INS and use the much cheaper GPS. A collection of telecommunication satellites had been launched around the world and placed in stable orbits in specific points above the spinning Earth. The satellites transmitted a complex code and could be read on a receiver to give your precise location on the ground. A civilian model of a receiver would give your location within ten yards, a commercial model within two yards. A military model was dead-on, bull’s-eye accurate. Twenty years ago, the very existence of the GPS network had been beyond top secret. Nowadays, a person could buy a GPS device from the local electronics store to take on the family camping trip, and most of the better luxury cars came with the devices installed at the factory. It was commonplace. Ordinary. Mundane. There wasn’t a plane, train, ship, submarine, missile or long-range weapon system in the world that didn’t use the Global Positioning System as an aid to navigation.
“I thought the GPS network was untouchable,” Price said suspiciously, “the access codes mathematically impossible to break.”
“So did I.” Schwarz sighed deeply. “But I guess these folks found a way. Some new approach, or technique, that we never thought of.”
“Barb, you’d better call Hal and have him inform the President,” Lyons stated brusquely. “The military is down to laser-guided weapons, dead-head rockets and heat-seekers for defense until further notice.”
“All of them short-range weapons and pretty damn useless at stopping an incoming ICBM.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Without further comment, Price went to a phone on the wall and started punching buttons.
“Okay, if the saboteurs—or rather, the hackers—hit the warehouse before they stole the missiles,” Blancanales said slowly, narrowing his gaze, “that means they’re afraid we might fix this before a real war starts.”
“Which certainly seems to be their goal,” Lyons noted.
“Agreed. This seems to say that time is critical to them.”
“Then we just have to move faster,” Schwarz added somberly.
Deep in thought, Blancanales pulled in a long breath and let it out slowly. “Gadgets, any idea how long it might take for Jet Propulsion Laboratory to make replacement units?”
“I’m sure the templates are still in storage somewhere,” the man said hesitantly. “Unless they were also in the warehouse. But even if they have to work from scratch, I’d estimate three months, maybe only two.”
“No better than that?” Price demanded unhappily, hanging up the receiver.
Schwarz shrugged. “Hey, it used to take six months to build the things, and the very first model took years to perfect.”
“All right, inertial guidance systems are expensive, rare and delicate,” Lyons said, looking upward to stare at the featureless ceiling. “So let’s use that to our advantage.”
“What do you mean?” Price asked, reclaiming her chair.
“If we had more inertial guidance units, our ICBMs would be safe and the terrorists would be out of business.”
Slowly, her face lit up. “So we make more of them. Hundreds more. On paper.”
“Exactly. Then when the terrorists attack the fake warehouse,” Lyons said, “we grab a few alive and twist the location of their base out of them.”
“And how they’re doing it,” Schwarz added, gesturing with a finger. “That’s paramount.”
“Agreed.”
Price said nothing. She could image what would be involved in the process. Able Team wouldn’t torture a prisoner for information, no matter how badly it was needed, but there were a lot of ways a man could be forced to talk. Including letting him escape and following him back to his base of operations. However, that was used only when the situation was truly desperate. Sometimes, the “rabbit” would simply run, staying far away from his comrades. But then, nothing was certain in life except death.
Tapping on the intercom, Price said, “Bear?”
“Yeah?” the man replied.
“We need you to create a virtual warehouse full of INS devices,” Price told him.
“What for?” Kurtzman growled over the speaker. “Oh, I get it. A trap. Sure. Where do you want it located? I know of a DOD warehouse in Columbus, Ohio, where we store nonsensitive documents. Easy enough to switch the inventory to guidance systems…no, that would be much too close. The warehouse has to be as far away as possible, but still on American soil.”
“Good point. How about Puerto Rico?” Blancanales suggested, leaning forward in his chair. “I know for a fact that the U.S. government already has several long-term storage facilities on the island.”
“Sounds fine,” Kurtzman replied.
“As soon as you have the fake warehouse filed, I’ll pull Phoenix Force off their inspection and have them order the technicians at the silo to prepare the other missiles for an emergency retrofit,” Price said. “Then they’ll take a standard military transport to Puerto Rico, requisition a cargo truck and drive off into the jungle, with a return flight scheduled for an hour.”
“Why not helicopters?”
“The winds are too strong in some of the more remote valleys,” she answered. “Besides, trucks are slower. Which gives the terrorists time to stage an ambush. So choose someplace appropriate, Aaron. Far from civilians.”
“With plenty of combat room. I understand. No problem,” the man replied, and the intercom clicked silent.
“How can we be sure the terrorists find out in time?” Blancanales asked, furrowing his brow.
“How did they learn about the first warehouse?” Price countered, typing on the keyboard. “Now, I want you three in Sonora, ASAP. These people would be fools not to have somebody watching the ruined warehouse to see who we send to investigate.” She smiled coldly. “That’s why I didn’t send Phoenix Force there first. Make them sweat a little. Nervous people make mistakes.”
“If I was any more nervous I’d need a change of underwear,” Schwarz quipped.
“Again?” Blancanales retorted.
Ignoring the banter, Lyons pulled a .357 Magnum Colt Python from behind his back and swung out the cylinder to check the load. He closed the gun with a firm click. “How soon can Jack be ready to fly us down to Texas?”
“He’s warming up a C-130 Hercules at Dulles right now,” Price replied, looking up from the keyboard. “Your equipment van is already being loaded. And a blacksuit has a helicopter on the front lawn waiting for you. Find me somebody, and burn the rope.”
Stoically, the three members of Able Team rose from the table, gathered their personal belongings and headed for the door.
“Move fast on this,” Price ordered in dismissal. “The numbers are already falling. You have no idea how close we came to the end of everything last night.”
But the men were already gone, the armored door swinging closed behind them.
“Good luck,” the mission controller added softly, returning to her typing. For a long while, the only sounds in the War Room were the soft patting of her strong fingers and the steady ticking of the mechanical clock mounted on the concrete wall.
CHAPTER THREE
Panama Canal, Panama
As the thick steel gates of the lock began to swing aside, the colossal Pennsylvania loomed in the opening, dominating everything with its sheer size.
“Back off!” the harbor master screamed into a radio microphone. The man was bent over a twinkling console in the control room of Lock Command. “Veer starboard! I said starboard, not port, you fool!”
But the American oil tanker continued irrevocably onward, the ship’s computer totally confused by the conflicting information it was receiving from the channel markers and the GPS network. On the bridge of the Pennsylvania, the frantic captain was attempting to seize manual control of the huge vessel, but before he could, it was too late.
In a horrible groan of crushing steel, the prow of the ship crumpled against the open lock of the canal. The seams split, internal pipes burst and a tidal wave of thick, black crude oil gushed from the ship to spread across the surface of the water. The captain finally achieved control of his misguided vessel and applied full reverse, but driven by inertia, the million-ton tanker kept moving, sparks flying from metal grinding against metal. The bright spray touched the black torrent and the oil whoofed into flames. Rapidly, the fire spread across the water to lap against the walls of the open lock and spill into the next compartment of the waterway.
Still moving in the wrong direction, the wounded hull of the shuddering American tanker continued to yawn, the rush of oil dramatically increasing. Caught in the black deluge, a tugboat was capsized and several other ships became engulfed by the pool of fire—a Mexican fishing trawler, an Australian yacht and a gunboat of the Brazilian navy. The sails of the yacht instantly burst into flames, as did the nets of the trawler. With nowhere else to run, the crews took refuge from the conflagration belowdecks, but only minutes later their wooden hulls caught fire and men began to shriek.
Lurching into action, the Brazilian gunboat rushed to offer assistance. Sailors helped sailors; that was the rule of the sea. But, blinded by the dense smoke, the warcraft rammed directly into the trawler. The weakened hull splintered apart, exposing the vulnerable fuel tanks. As the oil fire reached inside, the gasoline lines caught like fuses, drawing the deadly blaze to the main fuel tanks.
Trapped between two of the locks, the Pennsylvania completely blocked the passageway as the crude oil continued to pour out, the internal safeties overwhelmed by the sheer amount of damage done to the crippled hull.
Standing along the side of the canal, behind an iron pipe safety railing, was a huge crowd of horrified civilians. The majestic passing of the international ships through the locks was always a big tourist attraction. Cameras flashed and cell phones took endless pictures of the mounting disaster.
In a thundering blast, the trawler exploded, the flying engine parts hammering holes in the gunboat, the oil flames seeping inside, spreading along the metal decks toward the ammunition lockers. Retardant foam gushed from the ceiling, and men dived forward to shut water-tight hatches, but it wasn’t enough and the writhing flames reached the stores of munitions, washing across the missiles, shells and depth charges. For a single heartbeat it seemed that nothing would happen, then the Brazilian gunboat vanished inside a massive fireball, the deadly halo of shrapnel tearing the yacht into splinters, and riddling the hull of the Pennsylvania to actually increase the flow of crude oil into the beleaguered lock.
Behind the railing, a hundred tourists fell as bloody lumps, their shattered bodies torn to pieces, the arms and legs gone. The few wounded survivors began to scream for their lives. But the flashing of their cameras and cell phones never seemed to stop.
Bitter smoke was everywhere, Klaxons rang like gongs, sirens howled and the primary pumps for all of the other locks automatically shut down, closing the vital canal to all traffic until further notice.
Lujan, Argentina
W ITH HEAVY TIRES HUMMING on the smooth roadway beneath the APC, a group of armed soldiers sat along the metal walls in cushioned jump seats, smoking and laughing. Suddenly there was a soft chime and a soldier opened a laptop to read the incoming e-mail. It took a few moments for the software to decode the garbled message.
“Good news, sir,” the soldier announced in grim satisfaction. “We just took out the Panama Canal.”
“Excellent,” General Rolf Calvano replied without any warmth or feeling about the matter.
Staring out a viewport, the grizzled veteran watched the seemingly endless mob of fat civilians pass by the armored personnel carrier. The sheet of bulletproof Lexan plastic didn’t distort the view in any way. More’s the pity, he thought. It wasn’t even market day and the noisy crowd completely choked the wide thoroughfare, spilling off the sidewalks and filling the streets.
As the APC stopped at a crosswalk, a dozen eager hands tried the handles, attempting to get inside to the passengers. But the driver of the military vehicle simply moved onward, the feeble attempts yielding nothing but frustration and the occasional bruised foot. In spite of its tremendous bulk, the APC was sporting slippers, rubber cushions, on the treads to prevent damage to the paved city streets, and also to any idiotic civilians.
Shouting loudly, everybody in the stores and along the sidewalks was offering items for sale. Scowling darkly, General Calvano felt distaste rise within him like the rank, sour bile that heralded vomiting.
“Too many people,” he muttered. Food prices were becoming ridiculous, gasoline outrageous. There were housing shortages, and away from Buenos Aires, at least once a week the electricity went down. Not enough generators, not enough power lines, not enough cars, trucks, farms….
Like rats trapped in a cage, humanity was breeding itself to death. The truth was in every newspaper, every broadcast, on the Web, floating in the air. Overpopulation threatened the stability of the entire world, and when the end came it wouldn’t be pretty. Natural resources were running short. The Americans were already embroiled in a war for oil. Soon, it would be for cropland. Worldwide rationing would follow, then food riots, civilians fighting one another like ants over scraps, and finally would come the ultimate horror of cannibalism.
The general grimaced at the very word. Cannibalism, the single, filthiest sin that it was possible to commit. To eat the flesh of your own kind was blasphemy beyond any salvation.
