Cyborg 02 - Operation Nuke

by Martin Caidin

  “How, in God’s name, did you manage to kill everyone aboard that ship?”

  Franks smiled. It was an expression Steve hadn’t yet seen on his face. He could do without seeing it again. “Nerve gas,” Sam said after a pause.

  “Nerve—” Steve shook his head. “Where the hell did you get that?”

  “Where? We bought it.”

  “You say it like you went to some market and found it waiting for you.”

  “Just about,” Franks told him. “We bought it from the American army in Germany. There’s a major in a chemical warfare outfit who keeps the records for his division. He likes the good things in life. All he had to do was alter some records. We helped him. We’ve got experts in that line. He got three hundred thousand in a numbered account in Switzerland and we got six tons of Green Ring Four. I see you recognize the brand name.”

  Steve’s knuckles were white on the control yoke. “I recognize it. It’s worse than the Tabun the Germans manufactured in the Second World War.”

  “Right. It’s odorless, it has no taste, no effect on the lungs and skin, and just a whiff kills by paralyzing the body and the brain. Takes about thirty seconds. We figured ten minutes for the stuff the choppers sprayed behind them so it could get into the ventilation systems and be distributed throughout the ship.”

  “Look, Sam, that’s a hell of a—”

  “Austin, keep something in mind, and I’m being patient because this is your first operation with me. Remember we didn’t produce that gas. Our government, that’s who produced it, and shipped it to Europe, and around the rest of the world, keeping it ready to use against people anywhere, everywhere. And it was an American officer who sold it—and his lousy soul—for money. He sold it and he sold out. We were simply the customer. Remember one more thing. If you had to go, Colonel, what would be your choice? Nerve gas that puts you under with a single good whiff of the stuff, or the napalm dropped in Nam?”

  Franks studied the ship through binoculars, leaving Steve a chance to try to control the churning knots in his stomach. The way this man rationalized . . . My God, you just didn’t . . .

  “You know, with Green Ring Four a gas mask is worthless.” Franks spoke as if he had no connection with the silent mass slaughter below them. “We found out the armed guard for the jewels we’re after had masks. They counted on them, too. Didn’t do them much good. You need an impermeable suit and a closed recycling system. But I hardly need tell you about pressure suits. Score one for spinoff from the space program.”

  He pointed ahead of the transport. “See that? We knew we should be running into a front about here. Just what the doctor ordered. Take her down to five hundred, Austin.”

  Steve started the descent. Ahead of them the sky was gray and heavy with clouds. Isolated showers presaged the beginning of a solid front. In another twenty minutes they’d be in it. “Look over to our right,” he heard Franks say. Steve saw a big Russian cargo helicopter chopping low over the water. “Mike Oleg’s at the controls. I told you he was good. He has to be to get that thing down on the ship. He won’t have more than a foot or two to spare with those rotors.”

  The chopper on the deck was already moving with the ship, well off to the side. Franks was right; Oleg was damned good. He slid the big helicopter onto the Dorina as though he were berthing a small ship with knifeblade precision.

  “Okay, Austin, take this thing over to the tanker and put her down. I’ll call in and set it up. She’ll head directly into the wind for us.”

  Steve blanked his mind of everything but the flying. As good as Oleg was with the helicopter, he’d have to be even better with the Nord. Oleg could always back off from a poor approach. Once Steve committed to landing, that was it. But the Nord handled beautifully and he had that bonus of thirty-eight knots of wind force. He surprised himself when he slammed to the deck and came to a full stop with a third of the metal plating still stretched out in front of him. “Back her up,” Franks ordered. “Take it slow and easy. Watch the man to your left for signals.” Steve nodded, kept on brake pressure and eased the props back into the reverse thrust he’d used for landing. The Nord backed up slowly, easing to the very end of the deck. “Okay, hold it there,” Franks said. Moments later the Nord was cable-secured to the deck. “Shut her down and let’s move out.”

  A helicopter had dropped to the tanker deck. Several men stood by the doorway waiting as Steve and Franks put on impermeable suits and globe helmets. They checked out the pressure and snorkel exhaust valves and climbed aboard the helicopter. “Always chance of gas residue,” Franks explained by suit radio. “Nasty stuff, as you know. We don’t want even a whiff. Could screw up your whole life.”

  They made the trip to the Dorina quickly, the helicopter hovering over a cleared space just behind the bow. They went down by rope ladder. Two men in the sealed suits, automatic rifles at the ready, waited for them.

  Steve felt as if he were moving in a slow-motion nightmare as they went through the ship. Bodies were sprawled grotesquely almost everywhere they looked, collapsed wherever they happened to be when the nerve gas invaded their systems. There was little sign of any violence or suffering. Steve felt as though he were walking through a museum of wax figures.

  They watched as suited men carried heavy metal cases toward the waiting cargo helicopter on the ship’s stern. “That’s what we came for,” Franks said.

  They watched several men carrying large sacks. “The men on these jobs are allowed to take whatever cash they can find. That means from the bodies, the staterooms, especially the ship’s safe,” Franks said. “Nothing else. No personal jewelry or belongings. You can trace those, but not cash. It’s a sort of added bonus for them.”

  Numb, beyond words, Steve followed Franks to the bridge where they ran into four men with automatic weapons. Steve froze when he recognized Marty Schiller through his helmet. Marty somehow waved to him, and Steve managed what he hoped was a friendly gesture.

  The rest was a blur as they worked their way forward, the helicopter coming down to a low hover as they climbed up the rope ladder. Moments later they were on their way back to the tanker. Steve was startled to realize the sky had turned a dark, angry gray and that rain fell heavily about them.

  They stepped from the helicopter to the steel deck. “Walk over there,” Franks said, pointing to a yellow circle on the deck. A boom arm swung in from the side of the ship. “Hang on to that railing,” Franks ordered. They gripped a metal rail as chemicals were sprayed across, over and beneath the suits. “Okay, this way,” Franks said. They went through another shower, this time with sea water, and were helped from their suits. Franks wanted them back on the Nord as quickly as possible, and Steve found the transport fueled and ready.

  He did everything with numbed body and mind, starting the engines, running through the check list as the tanker turned back into the wind and went to full speed. By now the surface winds were almost gale force, and the Nord rushed into the air with room to spare. Following orders from Franks, he circled around both vessels as the helicopters returned to the tanker. With the choppers safely aboard and sent below decks, the tanker moved away from the Dorina under full speed.

  “Chestnut to Tangerine. Come in, please.”

  The voice cut through Steve’s numbness. Japanese accent, unmistakable. He listened as Franks replied.

  “Tangerine here. Go ahead.”

  “You are very clear? Everything has been accomplished. There will be no need for further contact.”

  Franks let nothing interfere with business. “Roger that, Chestnut. Tangerine out.”

  He turned to Steve. “Keep the Dorina in sight. We got about twenty minutes to go.”

  Twenty minutes to what? Steve didn’t want to know. He was grateful for the worsening weather and the need to devote his full attention to fighting the growing turbulence. The Nord rocked and trembled in gusts, and Steve made himself a part of the airplane. By the time the twenty minutes had passed he could barely make out the s
hip below them. He heard a voice on intercom from the cabin behind them. “It’s all set, Colonel.”

  “Right,” Franks replied. “Stand by.”

  Then, to Steve: “Nine zero degrees, Austin. Take her up on climb power.”

  Steve came around in his turn, rolled out to ninety degrees, feeding in power and trimming for the climb. Almost at once the gray mists enveloped the airplane. Steve studied the gauges and went to autopilot. He felt his body shaking as he sat back to monitor the instruments.

  “Tom, give me a reading at twenty miles,” he heard Franks say on the intercom.

  “Eighteen miles now,” the voice came back at once.

  “Roger. Stand by,” Franks said. He studied his watch, then spoke again into his mike. “We got twenty?”

  “Twenty-three miles. Strong winds out there.”

  “Okay.” Franks hesitated a moment. “Let her go, Tom.”

  “Confirm detonation signal,” the voice said.

  “Confirmed,” Franks replied.

  Instantly the dark gray sky pulsed, a sudden intense yellow glare that diffused everything around them. “What the hell!” Steve yelled, grabbing for the controls, scanning the gauges for the engine explosion and fire he suspected. Nothing. Everything was perfect. “I don’t get it,” Steve said. He looked through his window. The engines ran fine. He turned to the right. “Sam, the engines. You saw that flash—”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the engines.”

  “But that light. You must have seen it!”

  “I saw it. But it was more than twenty miles behind us, Austin. Back at the Dorina.”

  “The Dorina?”

  “She’s right in the middle of that weather. High winds, waves building. Even a baby nuke gets swallowed up without a trace.”

  He couldn’t help the echo of his own words. Had he really been a part of this? “Baby nuke?”

  “Right,” Franks said, his lips stretched. “Only three kilotons. Leaving evidence around is stupid.”

  “But . . . but the ship!”

  Franks looked at him.

  “What ship?”

  CHAPTER 14

  It was all so incredible, yet every attempt to mask reality as fantasy was another dead end. There was some escape in the silence of thunder, the drone of the engines and roar of the wind. Something familiar to cling to as he tried to untangle his thoughts from a mixture of horror and rage.

  They climbed to thirty thousand feet, where Steve leveled off the Nord, making final adjustments to the autopilot. Franks agreed to his request to take over control, and Steve slid back his seat to its fullest extension, leaning his neck against the headrest and closing his eyes. The gentle motion of the airplane swayed him into a deep stupor. He hoped for sleep, sought to drag it around him. It was no use.

  He had gone in against targets in Vietnam with his savaging loads of cannon shells, rockets, bombs. He was a young pilot then, but had wanted none of it, wished his bombs would fall on empty trucks and was delighted and grateful when he got out with a few broken ribs, transferred to test piloting and got into the Apollo program.

  On the other hand, he had once been a volunteer for the elite FB-111 strike team, trained and presumably ready to knife deep into Russia with thirty megaton bombs. True perspective had waited for that first time he looked back across a quarter million miles of space to stare in wonder at the blue planet Earth, and uniquely sense the fragility of an entire world.

  If that had never taken place, if he had remained in uniform, would he be so very different from what now repelled him in the person of Sam Franks? God, he hoped so. He had to believe so.

  In a way, of course, he was still in uniform—trying to perform a mission. He wondered if he would be able to stomach it, and suddenly wished his employers—McKay and Goldman—were there to share the horror they’d assigned him to, however necessary and right their purposes. He twisted in his seat, taking in with a rush of gratitude the sweep of high altitude. Beneath them, at twenty-four thousand, a solid deck of clouds obscured the earth. The sun was behind them, sliding toward the clouded horizon, spraying the cottony world below with a scalloped pink. He had always found peace in this sight and now he especially needed its help.

  He also needed the chance to get off somewhere with Marty Schiller and go over this madness. After this demonstration he realized in a new way that they didn’t dare even mildly question Sam Franks and the organization—or discuss it where they might be overheard because of bugs in their rooms. He suddenly remembered Sam’s words when he had pointed to the bedroom door in the apartment. “That’s yours, Austin. You’ll find a flight suit in your size in there. Your own boots have been repaired. Your personal things are on the dresser . . .”

  Those boots were more fixed than repaired, he thought, doubtless with a pea-sized FM transmitter inserted into the heel of a flight boot, capable of picking up conversation within fifteen yards and transmitting it at least a hundred yards. The battery would last two weeks if left on twenty-four hours a day. Steve didn’t need to dig into the heel of his boot. He already knew what he’d find there. He dragged up what he’d been taught by McKay and Goldman. The only thing you have the right to expect is the totally unexpected. Like filament radios. They’re put together as flat as a sheet of paper and then they’re literally woven into clothing, along with thin-wire antennas. The same with batteries; silicon wafer designs are about the most reliable. Buttons, zipper handles, the thicker lining in the crotch, armpits and neck bands.

  Well, people like Sam Franks didn’t survive because they were stupid, or neglected to protect themselves against enemies—real, potential and imagined. His own government did the same . . . The more he saw of Sam Franks, the more he realized the complexity and danger in his sense of righteous morality. Sam had his twisted convictions and he acted them out—never mind the consequences. Not for an instant did Steve doubt now that Sam Franks was directly involved with what had destroyed the Congo city of Butukama. Or that he could do something equally shocking again. In almost any city in the world. If the price was right, he would do it again.

  Obviously, Sam Franks was only one cog in the wheel beneath which the Congo city had been annihilated. There were more people in the top hierarchy of his organization. They assigned the paramilitary operations to Sam. Others clearly were better equipped to work out payment, disburse funds, and do it all without revealing who and what they really were.

  The Portuguese had been blamed for the destruction of Butukama—a red herring from the start? The Portuguese might have had their reasons, but somehow the evidence of Portuguese equipment and a body or two was a bit too convenient. More likely, Steve suspected, was a government uniquely paranoid about black power, black government, black control in Africa—the government of South Africa? Well, it might come out in the wash one day. And if it was South Africa, they’d so far kept their hands clean. All they risked was money. Whoever it was had bought Sam—Steve reminded himself that Franks no doubt had enough money to keep him in a lifetime of luxury. But was it only what had happened in SAC? Power? Satisfaction from manipulating people and governments, coloring history itself? A Dr. Strangelove complex? More than one man who possessed enormous power had gone through life convinced he was only a lonely actor on a stage, that life was simply a monstrous joke and death no more than ringing down a curtain.

  His head was splitting when he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Want to take her down?” Franks asked.

  Steve turned to the controls, closing off from his mind everything except the descent on instruments and the approach to the field located east of Oristano on Sardinia. He was able to lose himself for another hour on the ground. He made certain the airplane was parked properly and exacting service and maintenance started (another unbreakable rule Franks had brought with him from the Strategic Air Command). In the main, thick-walled command structure of Oristano they went through a meticulous medical checkup, where the doctors ordered atropine shots as a required safety proce
dure against any possible exposure to the nerve gas.

  Finally, details out of the way, they went to the apartment now assigned permanently to Steve and Marty Schiller. Steve found the suite empty and was not surprised, since it would take some time for the special squads and other teams to be returned from the tanker. When Steve got back from his room in fresh clothes he found Sam Franks waiting for him.

  “How does it feel, Austin? Fighter pilot to test pilot to astronaut, back to fighter pilot and now this. At least life hasn’t been dull for you. Today you got to the other side of the fence, Austin. Two hundred people . . .”

  Watch it, Steve warned himself. Sam was needling him, probably still testing him, seeing if he could push him into some self-serving defense that would betray his special status—if he had one. He had to be careful to play it very straight. Which, considering the disgust and anger he felt, wouldn’t be hard.

  “You make it sound as if I pushed the button. It was your order, not mine.”

  “So what? What’s the difference? When they dumped those nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, didn’t the navigator have as much a hand in the deal as the pilot or the bombardier? He got them there. Same in this operation. And it’s all the same package—don’t try to separate things out by telling yourself the gas got ’em first. You don’t know that everybody was laid out. You just don’t know. Law is a funny thing, Austin. You can knock off one person—even if he’s the kind that rapes kids—outside of their rules and you’re a murderer. If you got a tin badge on your shirt you’re a hero.”

  Steve shifted uneasily in his chair. Sam was almost exuberant, and Steve felt his earlier thoughts were very much on the right track. Sam Franks was a man convinced of the rightness of his way, the immorality of the rest of the world. A very dangerous man. A man never to be off guard with.