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Expectantly, Steloriv waited. But there was no reply. Only static.
“Alexander?” the captain asked in growing concern. Dead silence. “Major Alexander Karnenski, respond!”
Nothing. Only the hash of an open microphone.
“Alex, stop playing around, sir!”
By now, the lead MiG was starting to nose down toward the ground. Just a few miles ahead of the jet fighters rose the turrets and domes of the Kremlin, gleaming like gold in the bright sunlight.
“Sir, what should we do?” Lieutenant Ily Petrovich asked as the third MiG-29 pulled into sight.
Growling in ill-controlled rage, Lieutenant Steloriv swung his fighter dangerously close to the wallowing lead MiG. This was going to be tricky, and he had to stay sharp. A tiny slip at these speeds could make their wings tap, and Moscow would get a pyrotechnic display that would make the Rocket Brigade think World War III had started.
Maneuvering carefully, the captain got close enough to see Karnenski through the Plexiglas canopy. The major hung limp in his seat, held upright only by the safety harness, his head rolling around loosely. The man was clearly dead, or dead drunk. Either way, this was a disaster.
“Air Command, we have a problem.” Steloriv spoke quickly into his helmet microphone.
“Radar shows clear,” base replied curtly. “And why have you changed course without permission?”
“We haven’t. Major Karnenski seems to be unconscious and will not respond.” The captain swallowed hard. “I…I think he’s drunk, sir.”
“Checking,” the stern voice replied. There was a short pause. “Negative. The on-board sensors show no trace of alcohol in the atmosphere of the plane.”
Glancing at the surrounding array of controls, the captain was astonished. They had hidden sensors for that? Air Defense didn’t miss a trick! But that didn’t change the situation.
“Request instructions,” Steloriv said in a tight voice.
“Under the circumstances we have no choice,” the voice commanded tersely. “Our standing orders are clear. Authorization is given to fire. Shoot him down.”
“My own commander?” Steloriv gasped. “But, sir—”
“We’re over the city!” Petrovich added tersely. “The wreckage could kill hundreds of civilians!”
“We understand. You have twenty seconds to comply before we launch missiles,” base stated harshly. “Nineteen and counting.”
A salvo from the Rocket Defense would probably take out all three MiGs just to be sure of getting the right one, Steloriv realized. No choice then.
“Weapons systems armed,” the captain intoned emotionlessly. He paused for a second, then engaged every missile on board. This was a one-shot deal. “Lasers have a lock.”
“Captain, no!” Petrovich begged. “Surely there must be something we can try. Perhaps we could disable the MiG with our cannons…”
“Fire,” Steloriv whispered with a hollow feeling in his belly. His hand tightened on the joystick as he pressed the trigger button.
The MiG-29 shuddered as all eight wing-mounted missiles dropped. When they were clear of the MiG, the solid-state rocket engines exploded into flames and they streaked away.
Pulling back on the stick, the captain banked his plane hard to get away from the blast. Even with the “iron bathtub” a MiG pilot sat in for protection from small-arms fire, shrapnel often penetrated a canopy to kill a pilot. Come on, baby, come on…he urged.
The third MiG stayed at his flank, and together they climbed for the sky, the turbofans screaming from the effort. On the radar screen, Steloriv saw the nine images move together just as a flight of missiles shot upward from the SAM bunker on the ground. Goddamn Rocket Brigade! he swore. A moment later the lead MiG vanished in a series of thundering explosions that grew in volume and fury as the ground-based missiles arrived a heartbeat later.
Strolling casually through Red Square, people looked up at the terror noise in the sky, then began screaming as flaming wreckage started to rain upon them only a few blocks from the mighty Kremlin.
“Alpha Flight, return to base,” the voice on the radio commanded. “Beta wing has already been launched.”
“Confirm,” Steloriv said woodenly, leveling his trim and starting a sweep to the east. A million jumbled thoughts filled his whirling mind. Everything happened so fast. One moment they were joking about women and the next…
Casting a glance at the radar screen, Steloriv frowned. Could the major actually have died of a heart attack? It seemed highly unlikely. Their medical examinations were most through. Nobody with any weaknesses flew air patrol above a major city, especially Moscow! Even a slight heart murmur could get a fighter pilot grounded these days. But what else might have happened? What could possibly harm a perfectly healthy man inside an armored jet at a thousand feet above the ground? It was impossible, absurd, ridiculous, and had just happened before his very eyes. The idea of a heart attack, or perhaps a stroke, seemed to make sense as there was no other logical explanation.
Not unless somebody detonated a neutron bomb above Moscow, the pilot noted sourly, and we all forgot to notice.
Stony Man Farm, Virginia
PROCEEDING DOWN THE CORRIDOR, Price and Brognola passed several blacksuits, one of them working on an air-conditioner vent, another pushing a cart stacked with cases of shiny new shells, each about the size of a tube of toothpaste.
“When did we acquire a Vulcan minigun?” Brognola asked curiously as they got into the electric cart that would take them to the Annex.
“That’s not for the Vulcan. Those are 25 mm rounds for the new Barrett rifle.”
“Rifle?” Brognola repeated. “Barrett has invented a 25 mm rifle? How new is that?”
“Couple of months.” Price almost smiled. “Cowboy is bench-testing one at a rock quarry a couple of miles from here. Our gun range was too small for this monster. If it passes his approval, then it will be added to the arsenal of both teams.”
“A 25 mm rifle?”
“Cowboy says it shouldn’t be harder to control than a Barrett .50-caliber.” She paused. “Or getting kicked in the groin by a Mississippi mule. But you know Cowboy.”
“Yeah,” Brognola agreed. “He should know.”
“Or so he says.”
Reaching the entrance to the Annex, Price and Brognola exited the cart and proceeded on foot to the Computer Room.
Inside, the atmosphere of the room was cool and quiet. A coffeepot burbled at a coffee station and muffled rock music could be heard coming from somewhere.
Several workstations faced an array of monitors on the wall. One of the screens showed a vector graphic map of the world, blinking lights indicating the state of military alert for every major nation. Another monitor swirled with ever-changing weather patterns of the planet as seen from space. The remaining screens were dark.
Four people occupied workstations: a powerfully built man in a wheelchair, a young Japanese American wearing earbuds, a middle-age redheaded woman and a distinguished-looking black man with wings of silver at his temples.
“Aaron, where are the teams?” Price asked, heading for the Farm’s senior cyberexpert.
“In the ready room checking over their equipment and weapons,” Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman said, turning to face the mission controller. “When Hal arrives without advance notice, I figure we’re in deep shit.”
“You figured correctly,” Brognola grumbled, placing the laptop on Kurtzman’s desk.
“Is Striker in trouble?”
“Everybody is in trouble,” Price answered brusquely.
“Meaning?” Kurtzman demanded with a frown.
“Do you know about the crash of VC-25?”
He frowned. “No.” The 747 had crashed? Obviously the President was okay because Hal hadn’t called the plane Air Force One. “Was it shot down? Rammed in midair?”
“There’s no mention that anything happening to the jumbo jet on the news services,” Huntington “Hunt” Wethers announced. A pipe jutted from his mouth, but no smoke rose from the briarwood bowl.
“Nobody knows about the incident other than a select handful of people in the American and Canadian governments,” Brognola stated, extracting a disk from the laptop. “And it’s part of this mission to make sure that nobody ever learns the truth.”
“Why not?” Carmen Delahunt asked.
“We’d never be able to handle the riots,” the big Fed said, passing the disk to Kurtzman.
At the fourth console, Akira Tokaido vaguely heard the conversation. He was slumped in his chair, apparently sound asleep. Both Brognola and Price knew that the young man was hard at work. Tokaido would rather be running the massive Cray Supercomputers located on the refrigerated floor below than doing anything else in the world. Even breathing and eating. The Japanese American was a modern-day Mozart with computers, a natural hacker. There was very little Akira couldn’t get done online, and he pushed the envelope further every day.
“Riots?” Kurtzman asked, taking the disk and sliding it into a slot on his console. The center screen came it life and Top Secret seals flashed by in a blur like a diesel-powered rotoscope.
“See for yourself,” Price stated, looking at the wall monitors. According to the computerized maps, the world was at peace. There were a few scattered battles here and there, but nothing major. She wondered how long that would last if the news of the neutron satellite got out. That underwater arcology Japan was building would be overrun with people fighting and killing to get inside.
Kurtzman leaned closer to the monitor. The encryption on the disk was fantastic, the only data file he had ever encountered that had more was the dossier on the Farm. As the files grudgingly opened and slowly loaded, he grabbed a ceramic mug and took a fast swig of hot coffee. A neutron cannon in space? Sweet Jesus…
Running his slim fingers across the keyboard like a concert pianist, Akira Tokaido continued his Internet search. There were a lot of heavily encrypted transmissions going out these days, t-bursts they were called, and every one of them had a fake ID and source code. A t-burst was the newest scourge of the Internet, a computerized version of a blip transmission over a radio, a massive amount of information condensed into a small tone that lasted for only a second, sometimes even less. So far, the young hacker couldn’t trace where they were coming from, or worse, where they were going. Obviously something big was going down in the cyberworld, and that was always trouble. Twice he had caught the garbled word “tiger” inside a picture code and logged it for further investigation.
“Everybody stop whatever you’re doing and access these files,” Kurtzman commanded. “And do it fast, people.”
The members of the cybernetic team did as requested, their curious expressions quickly turning grim.
“Help yourselves to coffee,” Kurtzman told them, reading the incredible material scrolling on the monitor.
“Ah…did Carmen make the coffee, or you?” Price asked warily.
“Me, of course.”
“Pass,” the woman snorted, crossing her arms. Strong wasn’t the word normally used for Kurtzman’s hellish coffee.
As they started reading the files, Wethers and Delahunt began to scowl deeply. Typing while he read, the former professor pulled up the passenger list of the crashed plane, while Delahunt fondled the air with the cybernetic gloves she wore, opening files. At the front of the room, one of the wall screens began to display reports on boronated armor, while another blossomed into a vector graphic of satellites orbiting Earth.
There were thousands of them, Price noted dispassionately. Needle in a haystack? she thought. Try a drop of water hiding in the ocean!
Skimming the pages, Kurtzman had trouble believing what he was reading. It would take a major world power to muster the resources to build a neutron cannon. The question was which one, and did it have control of the cannon now? If some terrorist group like al Quaeda, or Hamas, had control of the weapon, Washington would already be a death zone.
“A focused beam of neutrons,” Wethers muttered, taking the pipe from his mouth and tapping his chin with the stem. “Amazing, simply amazing.”
“And we have no idea who might be behind this?” Delahunt asked.
“Aside from the usual suspects, none at all,” Brognola admitted honestly.
“I’ll start a search for any other incidents of people dying without signs of violence,” Delahunt said. “Now that they know the weapon works, the thieves will start using it.”
Just then, a picture of Dr. Himar appeared on a wall monitor. A middle-aged man, short gray hair, black suit and a bolo string tie. The newspaper shot was of Himar receiving the Nobel Prize in Physics.
“Hunt, check the records of the public dossier,” Kurtzman commanded, slaving his console to the others. “Find out who might have accessed any data about Himar under the Public Information Act.”
“Over how long a period?” the professor asked.
“Ever.”
“No problem,” Wethers replied, his hands moving across the keyboard.
“Akira, get me his DNA and run a match on the remains in the morgue,” Price directed. “Himar might not really be dead.”
“On it,” Tokaido replied, both hands busy.
“A duplicate?” Brognola asked in concern, coming closer. “You think that a Nobel Prize-wining physicist could be a traitor?”
“Let’s see if we can find him and ask,” Price stated roughly.
“Bear, how long will it take you to breech the firewall at the Department of Defense?”
“To get files on Himar, and—Prometheus? Is that what the President said?” the burly man asked. His monitor gave a beep. “They’re just downloading now.” The man scanned the scrolling images. “Okay, Himar has a home in Braintree, Massachusetts, but his DOD lab is on Wake Island. His research, code-named Prometheus, is based there.”
The other side of the world. Price nodded. It was a smart move to keep his private and professional life as separated as possible.
“Wake Island,” Brognola mused. “Isn’t that an old missile testing range in the South Pacific?”
“North Pacific. Guess Himar wanted the laboratory isolated and far away from civilization in case something went wrong.”
“Or else he wanted privacy,” Price retorted. “All right, send Able Team to his house for any private files or papers. Phoenix Force will recon the lab. Send the details to Jack Grimaldi, and have Homeland Security tell the ground crew at Dulles to start warming up a Hercules and a Learjet.”
Braintree was close enough for Able Team to use the Hercules so that they could arrive with their equipment van. But Phoenix Force had a long way to travel to reach Wake Island. The tiny landmass was so far away that it was only technically part of the United States.
“And remind our guys to be doubly careful,” Brognola told her. “The only way to survive a neutron beam is to not get hit.” With any luck, NORAD would locate the enemy satellite and the USAF would blow it out of the sky before a major city was destroyed. However, the top cop had a bad feeling in his gut that time was short, and that this was going to get real bloody, real fast.
CHAPTER FOUR
Calais, France
An unseen dawn arrived above the small coastal town. The overcast sky was dark with storm clouds and a torrential rain mercilessly pounded the sprawling array of homes, shops and hotels.
In spite of the early hour, the night’s festivities were still going strong in Calais, the numerous hotels filled with drunken, happy tourists. Lining the old town’s refurbished waterfront, hundreds of expensive yachts were moored at their slips against the inclement weather, and several cruise liners dominated the brightly illuminated public docks. Nearby restaurants were alive with colored lights and pulsating music. Old men and young women were laughing and singing, and the smiling waiters served a nonstop flow of steaming dishes from the kitchens to the tourists.
But on the outskirts of the city, the drab fishing docks were filled with a different kind of excitement. There was no singing or dancing, but hearts were light as calloused hands moved ropes and nets, preparing for the day’s hard work. The deep water report had just arrived and the sea bass were running.
Shouting orders, big men in yellow slickers moved around the sodden dock and trawlers, hauling ropes and nets. Powerful engines sputtered into life among the ranks of squat vessels, the dull exhaust pipes throwing out great clouds of rank diesel smoke. A bell clanged from the church tower in town, announcing the time. A man cursed; thunder rumbled. Somewhere a dog barked and oddly went silent. But nobody paid the incident any attention. Fishing was more than their business, it was their calling, the blood in their veins, and Frenchmen knew that the sea bass didn’t care if it was raining or if there were tourists in town spending money as if it was the end of the world. The fish followed the deep water currents and the fisherman followed the fish. Nothing else mattered. Unless there was a hurricane blowing, the fleet went out.
Chains rattled as heavy anchors were hoisted. Radar swept the storm from a hundred ships trying to map the roiling clouds above the choppy waves. Trucks arrived from town delivering ice to the poorer vessels, while the others started refrigerators in their holds, making everything ready for the day’s catch.
As the ice trucks pulled away from the docks, five large men appeared like ghosts from out of the torrential rain. Their boots thudded heavily on the damp planks, and the men appeared to be slightly hunchbacked in their black overcoats. The wide brims of their slouch hats drooped slightly from the unrelenting downpour, efficiently keeping the rain from their hard eyes, and also masking their features from the busy crowd of hardworking fishermen.
Marching in an almost military-like manner, the group of strangers moved past the trawlers until they reached the end of the dock. Moored at her usual place, a brand-new catamaran, the Souris, was rocking slightly from the force of the storm, her crew shouting through cupped hands at one another as they tried to be heard above the motors and thunder.
