Cyborg 02 - Operation Nuke

by Martin Caidin

  Kiss the back of your hand later, Austin. For God’s sake . . .

  He went to the living room, and dragged the aluminum foil back with him. It was a backbreaking job getting underneath the bomb but that wrench again gave him leverage. He wrapped every part of the bomb with the aluminum foil, leaving a flap open until the red light and the tone signal activated.

  The re-sequencing at worst had to go through at least two more cycles before the radio signal to detonate the bomb would be sent. From that point on—if he were still alive—he would have to keep re-sequencing with the hope that as long as he did the radio signal might not work. Oleg had told him when the detonation signal would be sent. Maybe Sam’s blackmail would work and he wouldn’t send it. In any case, he had to take advantage of every second he had to try to insulate the bomb from the signal.

  Timing.

  He returned with several long electric wires. He busied himself with splicing new alligator clips to one wire. The other end he stripped down to the copper, braiding the copper into a single section about two inches in length.

  The light and tone signal again. He punched buttons.

  Only one more time . . . ?

  He closed off the tub drain and turned the faucet on full. Water poured into the tub, filling it rapidly.

  He cursed himself for sloppy thinking and rushed to the kitchen. He returned to the bathroom with a large box of table salt. He tore open the top and dumped the contents into the tub, sloshing it around. The salt greatly improved the characteristics of the water as a conductor. The water was electrically connected to the plumbing system the moment he activated his makeshift shield.

  Everything else was ready. He had the alligator clips of the wire clamped to two sides of the aluminum foil wrapping that covered the bomb.

  The signal.

  He pushed the buttons, crushed the open flap of tinfoil over the sequencing panel. He almost literally threw himself across the room, stabbed the open end of the wire into the third pin of the socket in the wall.

  Ordinary socket. Three pins; three openings. Only top two normally used. The bottom opening, circular, used by power company for grounding household circuits. He jammed the open wire into that opening.

  He went back to the tub. The faucets on again, full blast. Moments later the bomb was completely immersed in salt water.

  If he remembered correctly, the antenna in the bomb casing was now blanked off from any outside signal, especially from a distance. In effect, that antenna was now “beneath the ground.”

  If everything had worked out in his makeshift system, the antenna would no longer be able to function as a proper receiver for an outside signal.

  If he was wrong, he likely would never know it. Nor would anyone else in the city of Atlanta.

  He kept on working. You don’t rest on shaky laurels.

  He needed a try at double insurance. He looked at his watch. Two minutes down, thirteen to go. If he was still there reading his watch when the sweep hand went past thirteen minutes, he’d have good reason to believe the thing was working.

  To the living room. The television set that had never been turned on. He found a long extension cord, plugged it into a socket, connected the TV cord to that, then dragged the set into the bathroom. He heaved it to the toilet seat, as close as he could get the set to the bomb in the tub.

  What he now needed was to generate a strong interfering radio signal in the room—a signal much like the broad spectrum of lightning. Between destroying the effectiveness of the antenna with his jury-rigged bathtub system, and generating a strong interference signal, he might save an entire city that for all he knew had not submitted to Sam Franks’ blackmail threat, had not perhaps believed the reality of the threat, despite Sam’s elaborate attempts to make it convincing. Or a city that was doomed in any case, according to Oleg, unless he was successful.

  He studied the protective covering along the back of the TV set. When the covering was removed normally it cut off all current to the set. The average householder who messed with a set was playing with nearly 20,000 volts. Steve needed to get that covering off without stopping the household current into the set.

  He reached out, stabbed with a stiff forefinger of his bionics hand. It pierced the thin covering. When he was through he had an opening large enough for what he needed to do. He turned on the set. It was hot, still receiving current.

  He turned off the set. On the side of the picture tube was a high voltage lead; a heavy cable similar to the type found in automobile ignition systems. He picked up a roll of electrical tape. He took a moment out to study the set, then pulled the high voltage lead from the set.

  Now the tape to secure this lead to a position about an inch away from the anode connection of the tube.

  He went back to the tool chest, found a heavy marking pencil. With the pencil he traced a graphite line from the lead’s end to the anode connector.

  He turned on the set.

  A thin, crackling spark, a writhing filament of blue flame leaped from the lead to the anode. What had been graphite was now instantly carbon. The thin blue flame was a thing of joy for him to see . . . a tiny flickering tongue of lightning that was constantly generating a broad spectrum radio signal.

  Which had to interfere with any other signal being sent to the bomb.

  He fell back against the bathroom wall and stared at his watch. Twenty seconds.

  CHAPTER 23

  The sweep second-hand moved along the face of his watch.

  He began to count down the final seconds.

  It didn’t work.

  He was numb. Drained. The watch’s face blurred.

  He waited passively to focus again. He knew he should make a special effort. No use. He was done.

  His watch came into focus.

  Forty-five seconds past the thirteen minutes.

  It still wasn’t over. He didn’t know how long the detonation signal would be broadcast. If the system had been set for blind automatic as Oleg indicated, then they would use a backup. Wherever they had the transmitter it was likely plugged into an electrical outlet for power. But they’d know something could go wrong in such an arrangement, so they’d probably set up for local power with a nickel-cadmium backup. You got enough juice that way to transmit the signal for hours. Or for days, if you stacked enough batteries with the transmitter. He just didn’t know, but he did believe he had no choice except to assume the signal might be transmitted for some unspecified period of time.

  By now Sam, or whoever was sending that signal, would know something had gone wrong. He wondered about Sam. Oleg appearing on the scene could mean that the others had decided Sam’s intention to keep a bargain was not to their liking. Whatever his twisted thinking, Sam probably meant to stick by the terms of his offered deal—however monstrous and terrifying they might be.

  Well, the immediate need was to get another kind of attention. He dragged himself to his feet, felt his energy slowly returning. No sense of triumph, just relief. He stood, rocky, controlling his breathing before moving.

  His first step sent him crashing against the wall. His leg. The circuits were going? For the first time he noticed the spasms rippling the plastiskin. He could feel again. It wasn’t pleasant. He worried that the whole bionics system might soon go out. He could end up unconscious on the floor.

  He kept the right leg as stiff as possible, walking clumsily through the apartment. He went to the shattered body of Michèle Oleg. The gun. He tucked it in his belt.

  Then to the guards. One submachine gun against a wall where he could reach it easily. He picked up the second gun and turned off the lights in the apartment. He walked slowly, dragging the stiff leg behind him, to the window. Kneeling on his good leg, keeping to the side of the window, he eased apart the heavy drapes and looked outside.

  Night. He didn’t even know.

  A street lamp a hundred feet to his left. Near the lamp an appliance store. He used the muzzle of the gun to break the window. He fired a long
burst, sweeping from left to right. The bullets tore into the plate glass of the store, sending glass crashing to the sidewalk. Almost at the same instant a burglar alarm clanged. Good. A cab without passengers moved into his line of sight. Steve squeezed off two short bursts. The slugs ripped the back of the cab, which took off in a rush.

  He was back in the apartment, sitting on the floor with his back to the wall, the second submachine gun cradled in his arms, when the police broke down the front door. He held the gun extended from him as they came up the stairway, their own weapons at the ready. They disarmed him before they spoke a word, then stared at the three bodies sprawled about the room.

  “Whatever you do,” Steve told them, “don’t touch anything in the bathroom.” One policeman was staring at the bathtub and the TV set with its crackling blue flame.

  He turned to Steve. “Is that thing in there what I think it is?”

  “Are you on search alert?” Steve asked.

  “Mister, just who the hell are you?” the officer demanded.

  “Austin. Colonel Steve Austin.”

  “My God, it is you. I recognize you. We’ve been turning the city upside down looking for—”

  “Officer, there’s thirty-two million tons of real hell in that bathtub. I repeat, don’t let anyone touch anything. Now, I got some numbers for you to call. Fast.”

  The military had been standing by at key bases throughout the country, waiting, barely daring to hope. The Pentagon knew a bomb had been placed in the country. They didn’t know where. They had to suspect there were several bombs.

  The prime sites included cities such as Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, Miami, St. Louis, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, New Orleans, Houston, Portland—major population centers. They’d been told a ship in the San Francisco Bay area held a backup device ready to go if they failed to cooperate.

  Atlanta was only one of the prime suspects. And Atlanta, like the other possible targets, was covered by special bomb teams, all of which were on immediate standby.

  Dobbins Air Force Base, at Marietta, had helicopter teams ready. Sixteen minutes after a white-faced policeman rushed to his car and reported by radio, Steve heard the pounding of rotor blades. Jolly Green Giants; he recognized them by their sound.

  “They’re landing two blocks away,” he was told.

  A special team. They’d worked for years with nukes. Disarming atomic and hydrogen bombs was their specialty. They talked with Steve for ten minutes before they went near the bomb. Then they brought in a mass of special gear. Minutes later the entire building was surrounded by an intense electromagnetic shield. Nothing was getting through that.

  Steve didn’t care any more. It was out of his hands. Finally.

  He hardly knew what was happening when a medical team came from a second chopper. Morphine in his arm. Other attentions. He didn’t know, didn’t care.

  He was unconscious before they took him to the Jolly Green and set off for the hospital at the airbase.

  They let him sleep only six hours. Enough, they decided, to get back his strength. While he was out, the special team from the bionics laboratory in Colorado arrived.

  Dr. Rudy Wells and Art Fanier at once went to work on him. Fanier was the man who’d created the bionics systems and trained Steve in their use. He couldn’t repair anything in the hospital. He didn’t need to yet. He disconnected the terminal endings to the leg. The rest would be done back at the secret facilities on The Rock.

  “They’ve got to talk with you,” Rudy Wells told Steve.

  “I know. And one will get you ten Goldman’s pacing the corridor outside. Better let him in before he has a stroke.”

  He quickly told Oscar Goldman everything he could remember at the moment. Enough to give a broad picture, to supply names and places. Goldman was recording it all while Steve laid it out. More than recording, really. It was being sent by telephone and radio to key military and government stations throughout the country, as well as to overseas bases.

  Steve had been talking for nearly an hour when Dr. Wells rebelled and forced a halt. A needle. This time he slept for seventeen hours.

  “I’m flattered,” Steve said. “Not often the buddha comes out of his temple.”

  Which was true. Jackson McKay had flown to the laboratory in Colorado to speak personally with Steve Austin.

  “Never mind,” McKay said, “I won’t be here long. Better things to do than babysit a hero with tin legs.”

  Steve grinned. “Still bubbling over with affection.”

  “We got Sperry,” McKay told him.

  “Go on.”

  “Kuto’s on a tanker. Boxed in. Three B-52s overhead. We’ll board the ship in a few hours.”

  Steve waited.

  “Other governments are working with us. We’ve occupied Oristano and seven other major centers. We think there’s more.”

  “Sam Franks?”

  “Good or bad news, depending on your point of view. He’s dead.”

  Steve didn’t answer, didn’t believe it. The man had outsmarted NATO, the top military and intelligence people in the world. God knew he’d gone sour, committed horrible atrocities—including killing his friend Marty Schiller. Still, it was hard to believe. Steve wondered if his information helped track Sam down; if he was responsible for his death. In a way he hoped so, and yet . . .

  They must have given him something else, because the memory of Franks drifted out of his mind. Which was a relief.

  But even as he went under, he knew it would be back. You just didn’t dismiss Sam Franks that easy . . .