normal flip now hung down, stringy and matted, from sweat and distress. Her blue eyes were veined in red, bags hanging beneath them. And yet the sight of Beatrice Chandler, the computer wizard whose guidance systems were the other vital ingredient in the Mach 10 missile prototype, still stirred Baxter’s feelings. As worn out, as out of sorts as she was, she was a beautiful, wonderful sight. His heart tripped, skipping a beat, and he reached out a hand to hers. She wrapped her delicate fingers around his. “Bea!”
Baxter turned to the soldier who’d guided him into the helicopter, then nodded toward the seat next to the woman.
“Go ahead!” the soldier shouted over the din of the chopper.
Baxter switched seats and snuggled against her. He lifted a part of his blanket, like a mother bird extending her wing, and enclosed Chandler’s shoulders, pulling her closer to him. Her hair was stiff and salty with sweat, but he still kissed the dome of her head, still pressed his cheek against her greasy locks. She slid one arm around his waist, laid one hand on his chest.
For a man who didn’t have much in terms of people skills, the contact between his body and hers was a godsend. Beatrice was a fellow scientist. She, too, lived a life of order, of logic and reason, and for that very reason, he could never feel alienated by her, never be betrayed by a sudden shift of whimsy.
“What happened?” Beatrice asked into his ear, the caress of her lips so close and intimate it distracted him from the situation at hand. Chandler had asked him a question, though, and as a scientist it was Baxter’s duty, his drive in life, to provide an answer to any question to which he could respond.
“The base was attacked. Something moving at a similar velocity to our prototype design, perhaps several, penetrated the testing center’s antiballistic defenses,” Baxter replied. “I was in Radar Twelve, calculating the velocity and course of our test motor when one of the first struck.”
Chandler looked up at him, her blue eyes wet and welling with tears. “You’re hurt.”
Baxter looked down at his chest, noting the crisscrosses of crimson lines, as if some inept, maddened artist had tried to add detail to him with a red marker. “Fortunately when the roof came down, I was placed such that I would not be crushed. Unfortunately conditions conspired so that any passage I made necessitated the shedding of clothing.”
Chandler managed a weak smile and then rested her head against the crook of his neck.
It was so comfortable with her this way, Baxter almost didn’t notice the soldier’s movements across from him. The man pulled a hypodermic needle from a small box in his lap.
Now, inside the chopper, with the interior lights of the aircraft providing clearer illumination, he was able to ascertain the appearance of the man. The attention to detail that grew from his intellect and aspirations to being a rocket scientist showed him that the camouflage pattern worn by this infantryman was all wrong for the Naval Weapons Testing Institute’s uniforms. If this was someone from outside the Navy, perhaps an Air Force pararescue team, then why were the patches on the man’s sleeves so studiously identical to the normal naval infantry assigned to the base?
Also, he noted, the features of the man were Chinese, not Caucasian. Baxter thought back, trying to recall inflections of the soldier’s English, seeking out further incongruities.
“Who are you?” Baxter asked, stiffening. He was now on full alert. Though he sat straighter, he knew it was nothing more than the bluff of an animal making itself seem larger to deter predators from attacking. Strength ebbed from his limbs, what musculature there had been already strained to the limits by crawling through the cracks in the rubble of the collapsed Radar Twelve center.
“We’re taking you somewhere safe,” the soldier with the hypo stated. “Now, I’ll be putting this in you just to keep you calm. There’s no point in allowing you to be distressed for the upcoming journey.”
“To where? China?” Baxter asked.
The soldier smirked. “What gave it away?”
“The digital camouflage,” Baxter said.
Chandler stirred at his side, looking back and forth between Baxter and the soldier.
Another pair of men stepped through the side doors of the helicopter, effectively bracketing them in.
“Rob, what are you talking about?” she asked.
“We’re being kidnapped,” Baxter told her.
Chandler’s eyes went to the faces of all three of their rescuers.
Ethnic diversity in the United States’ military was one thing, but with each of these men being Asian and wearing the wrong digital camouflage patterns, Baxter’s mind was now clearly focused. He tried to assemble plans of escape, but none of them would work without a sudden infusion of at least fifty pounds of muscle mass; even then, most of them would also entail gunfire chasing him and likely striking Chandler.
Baxter extended his arm, lowering his gaze. Chandler straightened in her seat. “Can’t we do anything?”
“They’re trained and they’re armed,” Baxter told her. “We’re both defenseless, thanks to military protocol regarding civilian contractors on government premises. Even if I had enough energy in me left to disarm one of these men, the others would stop me. And harm would likely come to you, as well.”
“So what do we do?” Chandler asked.
“Submit. And hope someone comes to search for us,” Baxter said.
He felt the bite of the hypodermic needle press into his arm. Waves of numbness emanated from that epicenter, spreading up to his shoulder then splaying out. His heartbeat calmed, slowed, and his head grew fuzzy, the world around him more and more indistinct.
They’ll try to get the engine designs out of you. That was his first thought as his consciousness slithered along the slope of oblivion that engulfed him, tugging him back down into the darkness he’d only escaped minutes ago.
Why would they need our designs? Baxter’s mind, even in the last stages, the final throes of consciousness, was sharp and keen as ever. The attackers on the base would not need to utilize his engine designs because the missiles that had struck the base were approximately two-thirds the velocity of the ones he’d worked on. It was under Mach 7, still slower than a thirty-four-foot mammoth such as the Indian Shaurya missile, which could blow past 5700 miles an hour. There would be no doubt that such a weapon, with a payload of more than one ton of explosives, would easily devastate anything on the sea or land using a conventional warhead. There was also the ability to carry small nuclear tips.
The only problem with the Shaurya-size missile was the launch. It required either a transporter erector launcher such as the Soviet MAZ 7917—a truck whose civilian nickname was “Volat” or “Giant” in Belorusian—or an underground silo.
The one the U.S. Navy was working on was to be, at most, two-thirds the length and weight, and transportable on the decks of fast-attack boats as small as 200 tons.
Baxter’s thoughts turned toward the Chinese and their proposed super ship killer, and that these soldiers were Chinese.
Questions about the Asian kidnappers wisped away like smoke. There was nothing left to come to mind as he blanked into unconsciousness, hefted into the
