The stream of fire, accompanied by the terrible sound of a buzz saw, followed a gentle curve to the reactor buildings. As the rounds stitched across the buildings’ roofs, the 40mm cannon opened up, concentrating on the mini-canyons between the structures. The 105mm howitzer boomed next, firing straight into the mass of troops scurrying away from the devastation. The 25mm gun also shifted to them a few seconds later. After one half-orbit there was no movement visible, and no fire coming from the reactor buildings.
* * *
Ojeda ordered his men to advance as soon as the airborne battery had checked fire. The loyalists that had impeded their advance just minutes before were now fleeing north through the dozens of buildings. Calling for his radioman, he instructed half of the northern group to move south and contain the retreating loyalists, lest they escape. No one, he swore, would get away.
“Helicopters!” the rebel gunner yelled, his body turning as he tracked both aircraft with the SA-14 Gremlin SAM resting on his shoulder.
“No!” Ojeda shouted, running to the soldier and yanking the weapon away. He put it on his own shoulder and tracked the targets with the optical sight, waiting for the high-pitched screech that would signal that the infrared seeker in the missile’s nose had acquired a target. Muzzle flashes from the second helicopter dazzled his vision, then series of sparks fell from the lead craft. What is this? he asked himself as the craft both banked right, one following the other. Following...or hunting?
The lock-on tone screeched from the small annunciator on the Gremlin’s firing unit. Ojeda listened, following the path of the helicopters as they turned sharply east. He had a lock, but he could not fire.
“Colonel?” the gunner said as Ojeda lowered the weapon and switched off the firing unit.
“One of those has to be the Americans,” the colonel explained. “The other...”
“But you could have fired.”
Ojeda handed the weapon back. “If there is one thing I have taught you, it is that you do not fire blindly just for the sake of doing something.” It was a lesson in war, and one in life. He reached to the ground and picked up his Kalashnikov. “Papa Tony.”
Antonio had watched the entire episode, and it had allayed any fears he might have had about his suggestion to Langley. Ojeda was a warrior, for certain, but he was a thinking warrior. He was also a giant of a man. “Yes.”
“Let us go meet your friends.”
* * *
The Pave Hawk took its fourth hit in the starboard outrigger tank, which broke free of its wing mount and burst into flames as it fell away.
“Hey!” Joe screamed for what seemed like the thousandth time as his body was thrown left, then right, as the pilot maneuvered violently to evade whatever was trying to kill them.
But his call went unheard. Lieutenant Duc was in the midst of something that came totally from instinct: survival. Helo jocks, even those in the 160th, were not given much training in aerial combat. That was usually saved for the fighter drivers in the other services. Yet that was precisely what he was having to do.
A fifth volley of fire struck as Duc turned hard left, heeling the Pave Hawk over on its side. These hits set off amber warning lights on the control panel and also robbed him of 20 percent of his power. His bird couldn’t take much more.
He continued the hard left until he was heading west again, almost a mile north of the huge fire still burning furiously. His pursuer would be behind and above him, Duc knew, and he kept the helicopter jinking left and right as he searched for somewhere to go, for some way to escape. He was just about to pull a hard turn to the right when the obstacles he was going to avoid suddenly presented him with a hope. Their only hope.
“Hang on tight!” Duc screamed as loud as he could, then put the Pave Hawk on a straight course, cutting his altitude as he guided the dying bird by dead reckoning, knowing he had to do this just right to keep salvation from becoming suicide.
* * *
“The bastard is ours, Chiuaigel!” Guevarra yelled. His eyes were locked on the easy target ahead and below. The American was not even trying to evade anymore. Possibly he thought there might be an offer to surrender. Ha! That would not be. Guevarra increased power and closed on his prey. “Open him like a tin can, Chiuaigel.”
“With pleas—Major!”
* * *
Duc knew he had to hit it just right, if doing such a thing purposely could ever be termed “right,” and that he did. The lowest power line, which stretched a hundred yards from mast to mast, hit the Pave Hawk’s windscreen with a loud slap, breaking the already punctured Lexan into a dozen irregular panels that blew into the cockpit. The wire, though, slid upward along the metal window brace and was fed into the wire-strike blade, which sliced the inch-and-a-half-thick cable in two. A jolt shook the helicopter as its forward momentum was abruptly slowed by the hit, then it nosed down and continued on, Duc adding as much power as the helicopter could muster.
The pursuing Havoc had no such good fortune. There was no protection for wire strikes installed on the Russian-built attack helicopter and it would have made no difference if there had been. Major Guevarra flew his helicopter into the second power line above that which his prey had cut. The cable hit the bubble canopy that encased the pilot, then bounced upward, catching on the main rotor shaft, causing the helicopter to pitch its nose upward. The rotor hub failed a split second later, unable to tolerate the abuse. Spinning uncontrollably, the main rotor, now separated from the shaft, sliced into the forward portion of the Havoc as it went almost vertical from the impact. Then it fell back, toward the ground, a shower of sparks falling with it. It rotated and hit the pavement on its port side. The rockets that had been intended to do damage to the rebel forces instead detonated and destroyed their host in a fountain of fire.
Lieutenant Duc brought the Pave Hawk around for a final turn and looked immediately for a place to set down, as the increasing number of amber lights were quite clearly telling him to do. He also saw, as the turn was completed, the remnants of his attacker for the first time. The sucker had been tenacious but had wanted the kill too much. That was a fatal flaw, Duc knew, wondering why the other guy had not been blessed with similar knowledge.
The ground beyond the burning wreckage was clear and flat. Duc gingerly took the Pave Hawk below the lowest power line and set down on two flat tires a hundred yards beyond the inferno. He shut down his engines and undid his harness, climbing through the cabin to check on his crew. But he had no crew left. Only Anderson was alive, sitting ramrod-straight against the aft bench seat, his equipment case clenched tightly between both legs.
“You okay?”
Joe swallowed and nodded. “Who the hell was that?”
Duc removed the headset and cord from one of the door gunners, ignoring the carnage that had once been a friend. There would be time for those feelings later. “Cubans, I guess.”
“Did we get him?”
“He got himself,” Duc answered. “Hang tight here.” He handed the other gunner’s headset to Anderson and instructed him to put it on before climbing back into the cockpit. He plugged the working set in and prayed that the radio was still among the living. “Raptor, this is Gambler. Do you copy?”
“Gambler, hell yes!” Cadler bellowed. “What’s your situation?”
“We’re down, but so is the bandit. We have multiple KIA on board, but our civie is A-okay.”
“Copy, Gambler.” The colonel’s tone was no longer that of a relieved commander. “Toolbox is moving your way, and we show no enemy forces near your pos. We will keep you under watch.”
“Copy, Raptor.”
“Gambler, what’s burnin’ near you?”
Duc looked over his shoulder, through the cabin and out the port-side door. “That’s the bandit, Raptor. A hundred yards behind.” The smoke from the blaze was drifting east, blown by a light wind.
“No, Gambler. To your front.”
Duc and Joe both looked through the open front of the helicopter. T
he barest glow was visible beyond a lot of machinery. “Don’t know, Raptor. Looks like a little one, whatever it is.”
“Not on the FLIR, Gambler,” Cadler said. “It’s radiating better than your bandit.”
Duc’s head shook. Behind him, Joe Anderson’s eyes went wide. “Can’t be, Raptor. No way.”
“Yes, it can,” Joe Anderson said, just before pulling off his headset and jumping from the helicopter, his gear bag in hand.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
RENDER SAFE
“Marshal Kurchatov believes there is nothing to worry about,” Konovalenko said after hanging up the phone. “And the Americans report that the event our satellite detected was the missile booster exploding. They still do not know why.”
Bogdanov’s head nodded disgustedly. “And you believe them. Of course. That fat fool Kurchatov is under their spell. The Americans can show him whatever they want him to see, and they can then obviously convince you of anything.”
The president walked to the front of his desk and took General Suslov’s pistol from his foreign minister. “Do you see this, Georgiy Ivanovich? Do you? Well, let me make this clear to you. If you are right, and our ABM radars detect warheads descending on Moscow—which they should be able to do in the next few minutes, I understand, if there are any to detect—then I will put this gun in my mouth and pull the trigger. Right in front of you as I kneel and beg forgiveness from the Motherland! Is that enough for you?”
Bogdanov disregarded the president’s theatrics and looked at the clock, watching as the seconds ticked away. A minute was gone, then ninety seconds, then, as the hand moved around to end its sweep, the phone rang.
“Yes.” Konovalenko listened intently for a full minute. “You have no doubts?... Good. Thank you.”
“What did Voyska PVO have to say?” Yakovlev asked cautiously.
“It was not Voyska PVO,” Konovalenko replied, looking at Bogdanov. “It was State Security. Your comrades, Georgiy Ivanovich.”
The barest glimmer of salvation dangled before the interior minister. State Security, though not party to what he and the military elements had attempted, were without a doubt of the same mind. Possibly now they were exercising the influence they still held to rescue him from the president’s treasonous activities. That hope survived only until his nemesis spoke.
“An intelligence-gathering vessel operating off the east coast of America has recovered debris from the USS Pennsylvania. That is a raket submarine, Georgiy Ivanovich. The one that was missing.”
Bogdanov felt the last of his strength drain away. He could accept that he might have been wrong about some aspects of the previous days’ events, but not about the trustworthiness of the Americans. Yet the leaders of the Motherland were too blind to see that. The wonder as to why left him without hope. His world had simply come to an end.
“I will face my firing squad, Gennadiy Timofeyevich. That will be my punishment for attacking your authority.” Bogdanov stood, ready to present himself to the guards outside the door. “But your punishment will be much worse. The Motherland has little mercy for those who forsake her.”
Konovalenko smiled and nodded. “I agree. It would seem, then, that a firing squad will be but the beginning of your punishment.”
* * *
“Ground, this is Raptor. Toolbox is approaching from the west. He’s acquired some transport.”
Six Jeeps pulled up to the bunker a few minutes later. Sean and Lewis kept their weapons trained on the convoy until it stopped.
“Major Graber.” The voice was decidedly American.
Sean stepped into the open, his weapon coming down until the suppressor pointed at the ground. The NVGs were flipped up on his helmet. “Here. Toolbox?”
Antonio climbed out of the back of the lead Jeep, followed by the front-seat passenger, a tall man with huge white eyes set in hollow black valleys.
“Antonio Parades. This is Colonel Hector Ojeda.”
Sean gave the Cuban a quick salute and shook the CIA officer’s hand. “How many men do you have?”
Ojeda looked down upon the American officer, who had directed the question to Papa Tony. “I have three hundred men.”
Sean realized his breach of etiquette. This was a Cuban matter, after all. Not another Bay of Pigs. “Very good, Colonel.”
“You have nine men?” Antonio inquired.
“Five left,” Sean answered tersely. “One of those is wounded.”
Half of his force gone? Antonio noticed where the fire was for the first time. He had seen the flash and the fireball from a distance, but not where it had come from. “It blew up?”
“Yeah.” Sean’s earpiece crackled. “Go ahead, Raptor.” He listened for a few seconds, his expression changing from melancholic to very serious. “Copy.”
Antonio’s radio was in the Jeep. “What is it?”
“We’ve got to get somewhere fast,” Sean said. “A mile and a half that way.” He pointed northeast, beyond the burning remnants of Tower One.
Ojeda turned and ordered three of the Jeeps brought up. “We can go in these. Do we need more men?”
“No, Raptor says the area is clear.” Sean called into the bunker. Goldfarb and Quimpo helped Antonelli into the second Jeep, and Lewis climbed into the third vehicle with Ojeda’s radioman and another soldier. Sean, Antonio, and Ojeda got into the lead Jeep, which moved off at speed for the new objective.
* * *
Joe stopped fifty feet short of the warhead, which lay in the open on the far side of the equipment park. Duc ran up behind him.
“What is it?”
“It’s burning.”
Duc instinctively stepped backward. “The warhead?”
Joe stepped a few yards closer, leaving the pilot behind. The steel casing was fractured, he saw, and a good chunk of concrete had been dented where the warhead had impacted, then bounced to where it lay. Just like that Titan warhead back in the States, except that one had landed in a lot softer ground, leaving the casing intact. This one was split right open, and the innards were burning, and burning hot. There were only two fuel sources in the thing that would generate that kind of heat.
“Stay back there.” Joe dropped to his knees and opened the case, removing only the pry bar and hammer.
“Wait. Isn’t that shit radioactive?”
“Yep, and it’s gonna get a lot hotter if I don’t stop it.” Joe ignored the few safety items in the case. Goggles. A flash hood. They were useless for this.
“But you...”
Joe turned his head. “Listen. There’s a city of a hundred thousand people across the bay, and none of those people asked for any of this. I can’t educate you in physics here and now, but what’s burning now isn’t the worst that’s going to happen. If the plutonium burns, you’ll see a lot more smoke, and that will mean fallout over the city.”
Duc saw that the little smoke coming from the thing was drifting skyward and east in the breeze, a bright whitish glow lighting it from where it emanated. From behind, the sound of racing engines drew his attention, three American-made Jeeps emerging from the darkness and stopping just short of his position. Graber was the first out.
“Anderson!” Sean yelled, running toward him. Duc grabbed him before he could pass.
“He says to stay back, Major.” Duc turned as the glow intensified.
“You heard him, Major!” Joe shouted back. “Keep your ass away from this!”
Lewis ran up. “Maj, he can’t stand that.”
Sean said nothing but nodded just enough for Lewis to notice.
Joe had no time to think about the consequences. It was a one-way ticket. He circled around the mangled warhead, approaching it from the crumpled nose. Staying upwind, he inched closer, rising to his tiptoes every few steps until he reached a point, ten feet from the thing, that he could peer inside the opened case.
Damn... It was good and bad news concurrently. The cylinder of lithium deuteride encasing the uranium initiator rod for the warhead’s se
cond stage was burning. Pyrophoric like the sphere of plutonium a few feet forward, the compound combusted spontaneously when the inner case broke open on impact, allowing air to enter the sealed chamber. Joe estimated by sight that a fifth of the lithium deuteride had already burned. As more ignited, the fire was growing, and soon it would be hot enough to burn the explosive lenses surrounding the plutonium. Then the nickel plating that sealed the PU 238 would be breached. After that...
“Get me dirt!” Joe yelled back to the group watching him. “A lot of it! And hurry!”
All but Graber went off to collect whatever dirt they could find among the endless stretches of concrete. Joe would need that to try to snuff out the fire. But before he could do that, he had to make sure that the plutonium would not ignite, and there was only one way to accomplish that.
“Anderson! No!”
Joe ignored the screams from the Delta major and went straight for the warhead. Specifically to the forwardmost section. The heat from the burning second stage was intense, but he twisted his body so his face was shielded and started tearing away the shards of metal and bracing structures that blocked access to the circular first stage. He was close enough that the smoke wafted around his body, passing over his face and filling his nostrils with an acrid smell that also became a taste. He tried to spit it from his mouth but gave up the futile attempts and concentrated on what had to be done. On what he had to do.
Antonelli hobbled on his own from the Jeep to stand by his commander. “Jesus, Maj, that stuff is going to kill him.”
Sean propped his lieutenant up with a helping arm and watched with him. “I know.” So does he.
The metal bands gave way as Joe leveraged them with the short pry bar. Their ends snapped, and the buckled center sections that wrapped around the lens assembly broke much too easily. This wasn’t all from the impact, no matter how violent. This was lousy material.
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