First Team (54 page)

In his fury he considered changing his target and flying to Moscow rather than striking the American paradise as he planned. But that was vanity, jealousy at being found—it was not what God had directed.

Bin Saqr mastered himself, calmly listening while Jehid, who was in charge of preparing the aircraft for flight, reported what needed to be done to finish placing the casks of high-alpha material along the outer skin, where the explosives would shatter them and produce a radiological cloud. At the same time, more work remained to set the fail-safe charges in the airplane’s freight compartment.

There was too much to be done. The flight preparation alone stretched a half hour, and it could not be done safely in the hangar.

And then Allah whispered the solution to Bin Saqr, as he had many times in the past.

“Get the work teams outside,” Bin Saqr told Jehid. “Do everything at once. As soon as we are sure we can take off, we will.”

“Some of the material may not be in place.”

“That is immaterial now.”

“But it means working in the darkness. It may take longer—”

“We will leave in fifteen minutes,” snapped Samman Bin Saqr.

Jehid turned quickly and sprinted to his work teams.

~ * ~

ound echoed oddly against the concrete of the hangar. There were people and machines somewhere beyond where they were, but Ferguson couldn’t quite figure out exactly where. He walked up the ramp into a long open area, where he saw a set of metal railings blocking off a section below. Light shone up through the space. Ferguson slid on his belly to get a look, pushing along the floor like a swimmer gliding across an Olympic-sized pool.

An airplane sat in the massive space below. He craned his head, trying to get a view of the aircraft, a large 747 that was being worked on. Men were running around it frantically. There were two large lifts near the rear of the plane and a ladder up to the flight deck. A welder was working on something near the wingroot on the right side.

“Fuck,” said Ferg, backing away.

“What’d you see?” asked Conners, back by the ramp. The side of his head was caked with blood. His leg looked worse.

“They have a plane,” said Ferguson. “I bet it’s packed with waste.”

Ferguson took off his backpack and pulled out the rad meter. He registered enough gamma and alpha radiation to sound the alert; the isotope ID flashed: Cesium.

And uranium. They were taking both gamma and alpha radiation, with a bit of beta thrown in for good measure.

“Don’t breathe,” he told Conners. The REM equivalent was pushing over a sievert.

“Very funny.”

“I want to look at that plane,” said Ferguson. “There’s only a bit of uranium— some sort of spill. I bet there’s more on the plane, or in it.”

“Come on—don’t be crazy. There’ll be guards all over,” said Conners.

Ferguson slid back to the front, adjusting the meter’s sensitivity as he tried to work out where the waste was. The workers were moving—there was a loud cranking sound, and a rush of air.

The bastards were going to take off.

Ferguson began moving along the railing, looking for a way down. Conners, meanwhile, had gotten down on his hands and belly—his knees wouldn’t hold him— and pushed himself out to see what was going on. He saw Ferguson reach a stairwell at the end of the room.

“Ferg,” he croaked, trying to stop him.

Ferguson didn’t hear him, and wouldn’t have stopped if he had. He slid over the rail onto the steps, not daring to jump. A ramp ran alongside them. At the foot there were barrels and crates, most empty, which had once contained waste.

The large jet just barely fit in the space; its tail towered over two rows of large crates at the back of the hangar. There were toolboxes and other gear scattered along the floor at the left.

Ferguson dropped behind the crates at the back as two men approached. He pointed his gun in their direction, but the men stopped at a tool case, picking it up by the handles at the side and walking toward the front. He could see as he peered around the side that the door to the hangar was open.

Ferguson thought he might be able to shoot out the tires of the plane, but he’d have to get under it to do so. He took a step out from the crate, then saw feet walking toward him. He took a step and jumped onto the side of a mobile ramp, flattening himself against it. Conners crawled around above, reaching the ramp next to the stairs. He pulled himself up on the railing, hugging it as he slid down.

Ferguson climbed up the scissor apparatus that lifted the mobile ramp, then pulled himself onto the platform, above the Chechen workers who’d come for more tools. He aimed his rifle at them, no more than six feet away, but once more the workers were too absorbed to notice him. When they turned around and walked toward the front, Ferguson went to the machine to climb down and saw Conners at the end of the ramp next to the stairs.

Ferguson angrily waved at him to stay down, but the sergeant didn’t seem to notice. He started hissing at him. When that didn’t work, Ferguson started to climb over the rail. But he put his hand on the joystick controlling the platform, inadvertently telling it to descend. He jerked his hand back but the machine continued downward, the lever locked. Conners saw him finally, scanned the nearby area, then limped toward him, reaching the platform as it hit its stop.

Both men waited, guns ready. No one appeared—the noise of the platform was just one more background sound of people doing their jobs to get the plane ready.

“Hey,” said Ferg. “You think we can shoot out the tires?”

“Why don’t we toss a couple of grenades inside?” suggested Conners. He bent over the platform.

“Now you’re talking,” said Ferguson, pulling him onto the scaffold and standing up to hit the lever. The machine began to rise.

Conners reached to his vest for his grenade, patting his chest before realizing he wasn’t wearing his combat webbing; he wasn’t in his SF gear, of course. He reached down to his pocket for the grenade he’d had back at the fence, but it was gone. He’d already used it.

“Get the grenades ready,” said Ferguson, as the ramp hit its stop.

“I only have a pair of flash-bangs,” said Conners.

“All right,” said Ferguson. “We’ll get the tires and maybe the engines once the action gets close. In the meantime, let me check out what’s going on inside here.” They were just below the rear cargo door of the plane—a door that had been added as part of the operation to turn the large jet into a flying dirty bomb. Ferguson turned and looked inside the jet. The space was narrow, lined with metal containers—actually carefully packed radioactive materials and explosives arranged in a precise pattern to maximize the spread of the material at detonation. Ferguson climbed inside, scaling a row of boxes that had been bolted to the floor; he felt as if he were inside a kid’s giant Erector set.

Conners heard someone yelling, then saw a strobe light flashing against the walls. The plane started to move.

Not wanting to leave Ferguson behind, Conners screwed up his strength and got to both feet, the pain pounding every muscle and nerve and fat cell in his body. He threw his pistol into the hold and lurched across the open space onto the plane platform.

Ferguson ducked as the gun flew in, then fell with the shifting momentum of the aircraft. He got up, grabbed Conners, and started to push him toward the open door space, ready to jump back, but it was already too late—the platforms were a good ten feet away.

~ * ~

27

OVER CHECHNYA

Fifteen miles from the airfield, Major Greg Jenkins put his hand on the control for his F-117A’s IRADS system, jacking up the contrast on the target. During the Gulf War, the Stealth fighters had had to rely on laser-guided bombs, which robbed the pilot of some flexibility during the attack as the system had to lase its target. But Jenkins and his flightmates were firing GPS-guided munitions. Their targets had been preprogrammed before takeoff, and while the pilot could override them, his gear showed him there was no reason to. He got a steering cue on his HUD, the computer compensating for the wind.

As he swung to the proper position, Jenkins hit the red button on his stick, which gave the computerized bombing system authority to drop the bomb. The bay doors behind him opened with a clunk—air buffeted the plane, and warning lights blinked on the dash, reminding him he was a sitting duck, an easy and very visible radar target as long as the plane’s symmetry was broken.

This was the longest part of the flight. Even though it took the automated systems only a few seconds to eject the bombs, in these few seconds Jenkins was the most mortal of men, obvious to the radars and a slow, barely maneuverable black target in a light sky.

And then the buffeting stopped with a loud clunk, and the warning lights were gone, and though he was too busy to glance over his shoulder—and the view too obstructed to see—Major Jenkins knew he had just nailed his prize and would live to celebrate it.

~ * ~

an Buren listened as the F-117A pilots checked in, announcing that their missiles had been launched. The Hercules with the first drop team was late, about three minutes behind schedule. But they were into it now, no turning back; the gun-ship was just coming on station, its first task the van that Ferguson was supposed to hit.

His hope that Ferg had somehow made it disintegrated a few seconds later as the gunship pilot reported a direct hit on the van, with “shitloads of secondaries.”

As the gunship began mopping up the two ZSU-23s left at the north end of the field, Van Buren said a silent prayer for his friend and Conners, then made himself get up and check on his men.

~ * ~

28

SOUTHERN CHECHNYA

The plane had already gotten outside the hangar when Ferguson heard the first rumble. There were shouts from below and explosions in the distance.

“Let’s get to the cockpit,” he told Conners. “We’ll stop the bastards from taking off.”