by Bob Mayer
Tied together, the two men and the money cleared the trees at the end of the pond and flew off to the south, dangling at the end of the rope tether leading to the C-130.
*****
The pilot of the C-130 went into a steep climb, the rope caught in the sky anchor, now pulling back along the belly of the plane by both the plane's speed and attitude. In the rear of the C-130, the Colombian mercenary who McKenzie had hired for this job was watching the procedures from the back ramp. "Shit, man, we've got two people and the money! I thought there was only supposed to be one. We also got a helicopter trailing us!"
"Just grab the rope!" the pilot yelled.
The mercenary extended the arm of the crane and lowered a hook on a steel cable toward the rope.
*****
"Fuck!" McKenzie yelled, seeing Thorpe ten feet below him. Wind whistled by at a hundred and thirty knots, twisting and turning the rope.
Thorpe reached into the green pouch and pulled out the small black box inside, slapping the metallic rear against the money pod and pushing a button. Then he wrapped both hands around the rope, getting both feet fixed on the top of the money pod. He began climbing.
*****
Parker looked up. The clock turned to two minutes and then below. The radio crackled to life again.
"Anytime now, Major, would be most helpful," General Lowcraft's voice was quite calm.
Parker watched the screen. She knew it was almost there, but not close enough. "I'll get it, General," she replied, her fingers poised above the keyboard for lack of anything else to do.
*****
McKenzie looked down at the snap link on the waistband of his harness. His hand wavered over it. He knew if he released it, the pod and Thorpe would drop away and he would be free. Thorpe climbed closer, over halfway up the rope.
McKenzie kicked at Thorpe's face, narrowly missing. Thorpe grabbed hold of the foot and used it to get even closer, wrapping his arms around McKenzie's legs.
*****
Inside the C-130, the mercenary had hooked the rope. He threw a lever and the steel cable pulled up the rope until it locked in place in the crane itself. Then he threw another lever and the winch slowly began to wind the rope in.
*****
Dublowski had both arms around Tommy and was watching from the Blackhawk, mesmerized as the two men dangled at the end of the rope. The helicopter was following the C-130, a half mile back. The brown line of beach and the sparkling blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico and international water beckoned just ahead.
*****
"Fuck you!" McKenzie screamed, removing his hand from the snap link and reaching down with his artificial arm and striking at Thorpe.
"Give me the control for the nuke," Thorpe yelled back. "You're finished."
"Bullshit!" McKenzie replied. "You're finished."
They were less than fifty feet from the back ramp of the C-130 now and both could see a man standing there with a submachine gun in his hands.
"You don't have to blow the nuke," Thorpe pleaded.
McKenzie grinned and reached around his neck with his good hand and held up the remote on its red strap. "You're so fucking naive. You lose!" He pulled it off and tossed the remote away into the air.
Thorpe didn't hesitate, swiftly pulling the release on his chest strap and falling away from the rope.
*****
In the Blackhawk, everyone gasped as the figure fell away from the line. The other figure and the pod moved more quickly now, gaining on the ramp.
*****
Thorpe could see the red strap streaming behind the remote as it plummeted to earth. He arched his back and freefell headfirst in that direction. Below lay beach and surf. Thorpe prayed that the remote would hit the beach and not the water.
The wind whistled in his ears but he knew that he was falling as quickly as the remote and that their trajectory would be basically the same. He kept his eyes on the red streamer, less than four hundred feet above the ground. He held on until the last possible second, then pulled the ripcord, the chute billowing out, two hundred feet above ground all the while watching the red streamer go down and land on the sand.
Thorpe grabbed the risers, dumping air, going down faster than safety dictated toward the landing spot. He landed, feeling something in his lower left leg crack as he hit the ground too hard.
Thorpe cut loose the chute and pulled himself through the sand toward the remote.
*****
The clock in the LCC was now down to 1:00. It changed to :59.
Parker had watched the computer boot up every day for the past couple of weeks during their daily checks. She knew the computer still had more than a minute before it was booted. Her hands were still poised, but her lips had stopped mumbling the programming and were now praying.
*****
Six miles above the surface, the ICBM was coming straight down. The nose cone was glowing bright red from the speed. Directly below was the tiny square of the LCC compound with smoke drifting out of the shattered concrete.
*****
McKenzie was now level with the back ramp, the rope pulling him in. His feet touched metal and he stood up inside the plane, unhooking himself from the rope. He joined the mercenary as the money pod bumped against the back ramp, then slid over and into the cargo bay.
"I did it!" McKenzie exulted. Then he saw the black box attached to the money pod. He knelt down and looked at it, then his eyes shifted out the ramp to the Blackhawk helicopter following a half mile back.
*****
Inside the Blackhawk, Master Sergeant Dublowski could almost see McKenzie's eyes looking back at them as he pressed the firing handle on the radio transmitter.
McKenzie had his hands around the box, trying to rip it off, when it exploded, blowing him to shreds. The explosion roared up the cargo bay and reached the fuel bladders.
The C-130 became one huge fireball, pieces of wreckage littering the clear sky.
*****
Inside the LCC the clock now read :20 above Parker's bowed head ... : 19 ... : 18 ...
*****
Thorpe's fingers closed on the remote. He flipped the lid open. There were five different colored buttons, but their functions were neatly spelled out below each one.
*****
Parker looked up. The clock turned to :05 .. . :04 . . .
*****
Thorpe moved his finger to the yellow button and pressed down.
*****
The missile exploded in midair, barely a hundred feet above the LCC compound, scattering pieces of itself everywhere. The nuclear warhead slammed into the ground without detonating.
*****
Parker watched the number turn to :00. Nothing happened.
She looked back down at the computer screen as it ran through its final checks.
*****
"Negative nuke strike, Louisiana!" Colonel Hurst called out.
General Lowcraft stood up from his seat and stared at the master board and the two red lights. "Come on, Major Parker, come on," he whispered.
"One minute, thirty seconds until impact Tel Aviv," Hurst announced. "Five minutes, thirty seconds, impact Washington."
*****
The screen cleared and a prompt appeared in the upper left-hand corner. Parker's fingers flew as she reprogrammed.
*****
Thorpe felt the warm sand against his back. He could hear the sound of a helicopter coming closer. He looked at his watch.
Ten seconds to touch down Tel Aviv.
The computer announced.
Parker stopped typing. "That's it. I think." She bit her lip, then struck the enter key with a long forefinger.
*****
The Trident was over the suburbs of Tel Aviv when side thrusters kicked in, leveling the missile out, at three thousand feet of altitude. Afterburners kicked in and the missile headed back out toward the Mediterranean.
*****
"It's an abort! It's an abort!" The duty officer was jumping up and d
own.
There was pandemonium in the War Room, people slapping each other on the back.
"What's happening?" Hill was standing also now.
General Lowcraft pointed at the board. "Parker's aborted the missiles."
Hill was still dazed. "Where do the missiles go? Do they just crash down?"
"No. The abort on a missile in flight has its afterburners kick in and the missile turns and heads straight toward open water. That way we can recover it."
"You mean we're safe?" Hill asked. General Lowcraft's jaw was tight. "For now." He turned to the MP. "Get him out of here."
*****
Parker pushed her chair back from the console. Lifting her head she scanned the room, taking in the bodies, bullet holes, and wrecked equipment. She looked up at the gray-painted ceiling, imagining the tons of smashed concrete and earth.
Slowly she began twisting the big ring on her finger back and forth.
*****
Thorpe felt the pain from his broken leg throbbing. He could see the smoke from the explosion in the sky and the Blackhawk helicopter heading his way.
The Blackhawk settled down in the sand nearby and the first person off was Tommy, running toward his dad with open arms.
Epilogue
thorpe was lying in bed, his feet swathed in bandages, his leg in a cast. Chief Warrant Officer Maysun was next to the bed in his wheelchair, his own broken leg extended straight forward.
"Unbelievable," Maysun was saying. "They must have been packing a lot of JP-4 in that C-130. The largest piece the Coast Guard has picked up from the ocean floor so far was only about five feet long." Maysun shook his head. "All that money, too. Just gone. Poof. They've found some bills but most of it must have been shredded by the bomb."
"McKenzie could have cut the pod loose and saved himself," Thorpe said. "He was too greedy."
Maysun changed the subject. "Hey, you think we'll get Purple Hearts? I mean, we were—" He paused as Major Parker walked in, wearing her blue uniform.
Maysun turned for the door. "I think it’s time for—" He scratched his head. "Well, something."
Thorpe held up a hand. "Hey, Maysun. I am sorry about Kelly."
Maysun's playful look disappeared. "Yeah. I talked to General Lowcraft. He says no matter what, she gets the Purple Heart. Guess they'll pin it on her casket."
"She saved our lives, and by doing that she saved a lot of lives," Thorpe said.
"Yeah, I know that. Too bad she never got to know it. Later." He rolled out the door, nodding at Parker as he went.
Parker walked to the edge of the bed and looked down at Thorpe. He raised his arm and she took his hand and shook it.
"You look better."
"I feel better," Thorpe said.
"How long did it take for them to dig you out?" Thorpe asked.
"A day and a half," Parker said. "I'd have been here sooner but they kept me in Washington, testifying."
Thorpe nodded. "The shit's hit the fan."
"That's understating it." She sat down on a hard, wooden chair. "Kilten was right. If it hadn't been for McKenzie, maybe he could have made his point without anyone getting hurt. At the very least Kilten nailed Hill and his aide. They're going to jail for a very long time."
"I don't suppose anyone will ever know all that Kilten had planned now that he's dead," Thorpe said.
Parker nodded her head in agreement.
"What happened wasn't all bad," Thorpe said.
"No, it wasn't. It's changed a lot of things for me. The point is, from the way people are talking in Washington, it sounds like we're going to put the people back into the system. Thinking people. Feeling people. People who will be willing to take apart what Kilten spent decades putting together."
"People like you?" Thorpe asked.
"Like I am now," Parker corrected. "I'm staying. I can do more good from the inside."
But Thorpe was looking past her at the woman in the wheelchair and the child standing in his doorway.
"Dad!"
"Hey, Tommy!"
The young boy ran over and jumped up on the other side of the bed. Thorpe looked from the boy to the woman. "Hey, Lisa."
Major Parker looked from Thorpe to his wife and back. "I think you can do good somewhere else."
Thorpe nodded, his arm around Tommy and his focus still on his wife. "I think so, too."
THE END
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NY Times bestselling author Bob Mayer has had over 50 books published. He has sold over four million books, and is in demand as a team-building, life-changing, and leadership speaker and consultant for his Who Dares Wins: The Green Beret Way concept, which he translated into Write It Forward: a holistic program teaching writers how to be authors. He is also the Co-Creator of Who Dares Wins Publishing, which does both eBooks and Print On Demand, so he has experience in both traditional and non-traditional publishing.
