Temple (56 page)

it so they don't see you. Then bring us in nice and close.'
'What are you going to do?'
Race turned, looked back at the sorry group of people in the plane
around him: Doogie—gunshot wounds to the leg and shoulder;
Ren6e—wounded shoulder; Gaby—still slightly in shock from all their
recent skirmishes; Uli—-out for the count.
Race snuffed a laugh. 'What am I going to do? I'm going to save the
world.'
And with that, he stood up and grabbed the only submachine-gun they
had, the Navy MP-5.
'All right, now. Take us up.'
The two planes soared through the bright morning sky.
The Antonov was cruising at about 11,000 feet—three kilometres
above the Earth-coasting along at an easy cruis ing speed of 200
knots as it rose steadily into the sky.
Although the Antonov didn't know it, rising through the air behind
it, closing in quickly on its tail section, was a much smaller
plane—the Goose.
The little seaplane's panels shuddered violently as it hit its
maximum speed of 220 knots. Doogie gripped his steering vane as
hard as he could, trying to keep her steady.
This was bad. The Goose's operational ceiling was 21,300 feet. If
the Antonov kept rising, it would soon be physically out of the
Goose's reach.
The little seaplane gradually closed in on the massive cargoqifter,
the two aircraft acting out a bizarre kind of aerial ballet—the
sparrow chasing the albatross. Slowly—very slowly—the Goose moved
up behind the Antonov and edged its nose right in behind the bigger
plane's hindquarters.
Then suddenly, without any warning, the hatch on the n6se of the
Goose popped open and the tiny figure of a man appeared out of it
from the waist up.
The blast of wind that assaulted Race's face as he stuck his head
out through the Goose's forward hatch was absolutely
colossal.
It slammed into his body, pounded against him. If he hadn't been
wearing his kevlar breastplate it almost cer tainly would have
knocked the wind out of him.
He saw the Antonov's sloping hindquarters looming large in front of
him, about fifteen feet away.
Christ, it was enormous…
It was like looking at the rear-end of the biggest bird in
the world.
And then Race caught sight of the earth below him.
Ooooh…luck!
The world was a long way down—a long way down.
Immediately beneath him, he saw a rolling patchwork quilt of hills
and fields and, away to the east—ahead of the two planes—the
neverending sea of rainforest.
Don't think about the fall! a voice inside him screamed.
Keep your mind on the job!
Right.
Okay. He had to do this quickly, before he ran out air,
and before the two planes rose to a height where the com bination
of thin air and wind-chill would freeze him to death.
He waved at Doogie through the Goose's windshield, instructing him
to bring the little seaplane closer to the Antonov.
The Goose edged further forward.
Eight feet away.
Earl Bittiker and Troy Copeland sat in the cockpit of the Antonov,
oblivious to what was going on in the air behind their plane.
Abruptly, the wall-mounted phone next to Bittiker buzzed.
'Yes,' Bittiker said.
'Sir,' it was the tech in charge of arming the Supernova.
'We've placed the thyrium in the device. It's ready.'
'All right, I'm coming down,' Bittiker said.
The Goose was three feet away from the Antonov—and 15,000 feet
above the world and still rising.
Race was standing with his entire upper body protrud ing from the
Goose's nose hatch. He saw the Antonov's loading ramp in front of
him. The ramp was still firmly
shut, its existence betrayed only by a set of thin grooved lines
that ran in a square around the rear of the massive plane.
Then Race saw a small panel to the left of the ramp lying flush
against the exterior wall of the plane.
He waved for Doogie to bring the Goose closer still.
Bittiker emerged from the upper deck of the Antonov and looked down
upon the cargo bay from a thin metal catwalk.
He saw the gargantuan tank beneath him, saw the barrel of
its mighty cannon pointing directly up at him.
He looked at his watch.
It was 11:48. The V-CD would have gone out a good half-
hour ago. The world would be in a panic. Judgement Day
had arrived.
Bittiker slid down a rung-ladder and then stepped up
onto the turret of the tank, climbed down into it.
He arrived in the belly of the Abrams and saw the Super- nova—saw
the two thermonuclear warheads suspended in their hourglass
formation, saw the cylindrical section of thyrium lying
horizontally in the vacuum-sealed chamber in between them.
He nodded, satisfied.
:Start the detonation sequence,' he said.
'Yes, sir,' one of the techs said, leaping for the laptop computer
on the front of the device.
'Set it for twelve minutes,' Bittiker said. 'Twelve noon.'
The tech typed quickly and within seconds a countdown
screen appeared:
YOU NOW HAVE
00:12:00
MINUTES TO ENTER DISARM CODE.
ENTER DISARM CODE HERE
The tech hit 'ENTER' and the timer began to race downwards.
As it did so, Bittiker pulled out his cellular phone
and dialled Bluey James' number again.
The digital tracing equipment in Bluey's apartment lit up like a
Christmas tree again.
Bluey picked up the phone. 'Yo.'
'Has the message gone out?'
'It's out there, Earl,' Bluey lied as he stared into the eyes of
John-Paul Demonaco.
“Is there panic in the streets?'
'Like you wouldn't believe,' Bluey said.
The Goose edged closer to the Antonov's hindquarters, two feet
separating the two speeding, rising planes.
In the face of the battering, pounding wind, Race held onto the
Goose's hatch with one hand while he reached out with the other for
the panel on the cargo plane, stretching out as far as he
could.
It was still too far away. Doogie brought the Goose in closer
still, as close as he dared…
.. and Race grabbed the panel, flipped it open.
He saw two buttons inside it—-one red, one green—and without so
much as a second thought, he slammed his fist down on the green
button.
With an ominous rambling whir, the rear loading ramp of the Antonov
began to lower, right on top of the Goose's nose!
With the reflexes of a cat, Doogie quickly manoeuvred the little
seaplane out of the path of the lowering ramp—in doing so, almost
flinging Race out of the nose hatch! But Race's grip and balance
held firm and he remained standing half-in-half-out of the Goose's
hatch while Doogie deftly swung the little seaplane in behind the
Antonov as the giant cargo plane's ramp yawned open before
them.
The two planes continued to fly in tandem through the Peruvian
sky—the massive Antonov and the tiny Goose flying barely two feet
apart, hitting 18,000 feet-only now the Antonov's rear loading ramp
was open, right in front of the little seaplane's nose!
Then, at the precise moment that the ramp came fully open and
despite the fact that he was 18,000 feet above the earth, the tiny
figure of William Race climbed up out of the hatch— into the
roaring wind—and leapt across from the nose of the Goose onto the
open loading ramp of the Antonov!
Race landed flat on his face on the loading ramp of the giant cargo
plane.
He clawed for a handhold to stop himself getting sucked out the
back of the plane, grappled his way along the length of the
ramp—flat on his belly, hand over hand, the wind roar ing all
around him—crawling on his stomach with nothing
but the Goose and 18,000 feet of clear open sky behind him.
It's funny where life takes you ..o
The enormous cargo bay opened up before him.
He saw the massive Abrams tank sitting proudly in the middle of
it—saw the whipping wind scooping up anything that wasn't nailed
down—saw the flashing red warning lights and heard the hysterical
wail of the alarm klaxons that were no doubt alerting whoever was
on board the plane that its loading ramp was now illegally
open.
Earl Bittiker already knew.
No sooner had the loading ramp opened a foot than he had heard the
whoosh of the wind rushing into the cargo bay. It was followed a
split second later by the high-pitched wailing of the klaxons.
,
Bittiker spun where he stood in the belly of the Abrams tank, his
cellular phone still pressed against his ear.
'What the luck is this?' he said as he stormed up the lad der of
the tank, heading outside.
On his feet now, Race unshouldered his MP-5 and side stepped his
way down the narrow passageway between the enormous tank and the
wall of the cargo hold.
Abruptly, a man's head popped out from the hatch on top of the tank
to his left.
Race whirled around, levelled his gun at the man.
“Freeze!' he yelled.
The man froze.
Race's eyes went wide as he realised who it was.
It was the man who had taken the idol from Frank Nash
back at Vilcafor, it was the leader of the terrorists.
Holy shit.
Strangely, the man was holding a telephone in his hand, a cellular
phone.
'Get down from there!' Race yelled.
At first, Bittiker didn't move, he just stared at Race in a kind of
slack-jawed wonder—stared at this bespectacled man dressed in blue
jeans and a filthy T-shirt, a battered New York Yankees cap and a
black kevlar breastplate, ordering him around with an MP-5.
Bittiker glanced at the open loading ramp behind Race, saw the
little Goose seaplane hovering in the air about twenty yards behind
the Antonov, trying vainly—but unsuccessfully—to keep up with the
giant cargo plane as it rose higher into the sky.
Slowly, Bittiker stepped down from the turret of the tank, until he
stood in front of Race.
'Give me that damn phone,' Race said, snatching the cel lular phone
from the terrorist. 'Who the hell are you talking to anyway?'
Race held the phone to his ear as he kept his eyes and gun trained
on Bittiker. 'Who is this?' he said into the phone.
'Who am I?' a nasty little voice snapped back at him. 'Who the fuck
are you is the more appropriate question.'
'My name is WJ.lliam Race. I'm an American citizen who was brought
to Peru to help an Army team get a sample of thyrium to put inside
a Supernova.'
There came a loud shuffling from the other end of the line.
'Mister Race,' a new voice said suddenly. “My name is Special Agent
Demonaco of the FBI. I am investigating the theft of a Supernova
from the offices of the Defense—'
'You can't stop it,' Bittiker said to Race, his voice laced
with a slow Texan drawl—'you cain't stop it.'
'Why not?' Race said.
'Because not even I know how to disarm it,” Bittiker said.
'I made sure that my people only knew how to arm it. That
wa once it was set to go off, no-one could stop it.'
“No-one knows the disarm code?'
'No-one,' Bittiker said. 'Except, I imagine, some Princeton-
luck scientist up at DARPA, but that ain't gonna help us now,
is it?'
Race bit his lip in frustration.
The alarm klaxons were still ringing. Any second now,
more Texans would come out to see what was going on—
Gunfire.
Loud and sudden.
It slammed into the deck all around him, kicking up
sparks. Race dived out of the way, rolled across the deck, jammed
the cellular phone into his back pocket and looked up—and saw Troy
Copeland standing on the catwalk overlooking the cargo bay with two
other Texans beside him, all three of them firing their Calico
pistols down at Race.
Bittiker saw the chance and ducked behind the forward
corner of the tank, out of Race's sight.
Race pressed his back against the massive tracked wheels
of the tank, out of the line of fire, at least for the
moment.
He was breathing hard, his heart pounding loudly inside
his head.
What the hell are you going to do now, Will?
And then suddenly, he heard someone shouting his name.
'Is that you, Professor Race?' It was Copeland. 'God,
you're a persistent little son of a bitch.'
'It's better than being a complete asshole,' Race muttered
under his breath as he popped up from behind the tank and fired a
short burst at Copeland and the other two terrorists, missing them
by miles.
Damn it, he thought. What did he do now? He hadn't really thought
that far ahead.
The Supernova, a voice said inside his head.
Disarm it! That's what you have to do.
After all, he thought, he'd already managed to disarm one Supernova
on this trip.
And with that, Race leapt to his feet, and jammed down on the
trigger of his MP-5, firing wildly up at the catwalk as he
clambered onto the skirt of the Abrams tank. Then he climbed up
onto the tank's turret and jumped down through the hatch and into
the belly of the massive steel beast.
He was met by the stunned faces of the two Freedom Fighter
technicians in charge of the Supernova.
'Out! Now!' he yelled, pointing his MP-5 at their noses.
The two techs hurried up the ladder and out through the hatch in
the turret, banging it shut behind them. Race bolted it behind
them, locking it, and suddenly he found himself
alone in the command centre of the tank.
Alone with the Supernova.
He was beginning to get a terrible sense of ddj vu.
He felt the bulge of the cellular phone in his back pocket, grabbed
it.
'FBI-man, are you still out there?' he said.
John-Paul Demonaco leapt for his microphone.
'I'm here, Mister Race,' he said quickly.
'What did you say your name was?' Race's voice said.
One of the other agents said, 'Trace is coming through.
What the hellb? It says they're somewhere in Peru … and that
they're 20,O00feet off the ground.'
'My name is Demonaco,' Demonaco said. 'Special Agent John-Paul
Demonaco. Now, listen to me very carefully, Mis ter Race. Wherever
you are, you have to get out of there. The
people with you are very dangerous individuals.”
No shit, Sherlock.
'Uh—“ Race's voice said.
'—I'm afraid that getting out of here isn't an option,' Race said
into the phone.
As he spoke, however, he saw the Supernova's timer
counting down.
00:02:01 00:02:00 00:01:59
'Oh, you gotta be kidding me,' he said. 'This just isn't
fair.'
'PROFESSOR RACE, GET OUT OF THE TANK!” a hideously loud voice
boomed from a loudspeaker outside the Abrams. It was Copeland's
voice.
Race looked out through the gunner's sights of the mas sive vehicle
and saw Copeland standing up on the catwalk at the forward end of
the cargo bay holding onto a microphone.