again, sir,” he said with a genuine smile.
“And you, Colonel,” General Novostk replied, offering the man a hand. “How many T-bombs did we get?”
“Seven,” Colonel Lindquist replied, drawing the Norinco automatic and tossing it away. “More than enough to get the job done.”
“Excellent! I am more than pleased.”
Damn well hope so. But the colonel said nothing out loud.
A sharp whistle came from the Soviet truck and a soldier waved. “They’re dead, sir,” he shouted through cupped hands.
“You sure?” Lindquist demanded, brushing back his hair.
There came the sound of four individual pistol shots.
“Yes, sir,” the private replied. “We’re sure.”
Good enough. “Well done, Private.”
After transferring the seven angular spheres to the van and strapping them down, the soldiers threw the box of spare parts across the tunnel and left.
“To enhance the appearance of an internal explosion,” Colonel Lindquist said to the sergeant. If the general did not agree, he kept the matter to himself.
Satisfied for the moment, Lindquist drove away in the van, the soldiers easily running beside the slow-moving vehicle until it reached the other end of the tunnel. Idling there was a titanic Mi-6 Hook, the largest helicopter in the world.
The van was guided up the rear ramp into the Hook, where the soldiers lashed it securely into position. Then they took seats along the walls and put on their seat belts. This promised to be a bumpy ride. Lindquist and Melori went to the flight deck for their seats, and strapped in tight.
As they did, the pilot revved the power to full strength, and the nearly overloaded Mi-6 Hook lifted off.
As the tunnel dwindled below, Sergeant Melori waited until he was sure the cargo helicopter had reached a safe distance, then activated a small radio detonator and pressed the button.
The range was too great for them to feel the shock wave of the explosion. But from their great height, the two officers saw volcanoes of flame erupt from both ends of the tunnel. The fire raged unchecked until the steel support beams began to soften and the mouth of the tunnel melted shut.
“I wish them luck getting those open soon,” Melori stated, tucking away the detonator.
“What did you use?” Lindquist asked, watching the white-hot flames recede until they were only a pair of bright points in the darkness, then only a single point, and then the natural contour of the landscape took them from sight.
“Rocket fuel,” the sergeant replied.
Saying nothing, Lindquist tilted his head in disbelief.
“No, it’s true, my friend.” General Novostk chuckled. “Those tankers contained liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. We used the same mixture as the Americans do for their space shuttle. Two parts liquid oxygen and one part liquid hydrogen. Add some diesel fuel from the engines, and the mixture burns almost as hot as a thermobaric bomb.”
“Almost. But not quite.”
The general shrugged. “No, not quite. However, it should take them days to figure that out. And by then…” He grinned.
Colonel Lindquist understood. Soon enough, the whole world would have other things to worry about than the deaths of some thieves. Then he frowned.
“Were the tankers stolen?” the colonel demanded. From bitter experience, the man knew that hijacked trucks were easily traced, and this needed to resemble an accidental triggering of the Skyfire device, not a clever way of destroying any trace of forensic evidence.
“No, they were supplied by a dummy company owned by your employer in the Ukraine.” General Novostk laughed. “On paper, they never existed, and thus cannot go missing, eh?” Then he pretended to punch the officer in the arm. “Do not worry, my American friend. Every detail has been considered and taken care of. We are quite safe. Nobody will ever know who we really are.”
Angling away from the spreading umbrella of hard radiation tainting the clouds over the remote valley, the Soviet Union cargo helicopter moved low and fast over the rugged terrain, heading due south, out over the Black Sea.
CHAPTER TWO
Stony Man Farm, Virginia
“Just a few minutes ago, we caught another heat flash,” Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman said, turning his wheelchair away from his computer workstation to pour himself a cup of coffee. “At first we thought it was a second nuke, but this wasn’t hot enough, and the chemical signature more resembled a space shuttle launch.”
“Have the Russians put something into space?” Barbara Price demanded, her stomach tightening.
Without adding milk or sugar, Kurtzman took a long draft of the steaming coffee as if it was tap water. “No, we don’t think so,” the Stony Man computer genius replied carefully, setting the mug into a recess on the armrest of his chair. “If the blast had occurred out in the open, that might have been a possibility. This actually seemed to be two simultaneous explosions exactly where the CIA believes there is a hidden tunnel.”
A tunnel? The Farm’s mission controller frowned. “Okay, something exploded inside, and the blast came out the ends,” Price rationalized, crossing her arms. “Could it have been the Red Army dealing with the thieves?”
“Or vice versa,” Carmen Delahunt announced from her console. Perched on the edge of her chair, the redhead was focused on her computer screen. Dangling from the back of her chair an S&W Bulldog revolver was tucked into an FBI-style shoulder holster.
“Explain that,” Price demanded.
“According to the NATO Watchdog satellite we hijacked, there were isotonic traces of diesel fuel in the chemical signature of the explosion,” Delahunt said. “Along with similar amounts of vulcanized rubber.”
“That sounds like a truck,” Price said slowly, testing the words.
“Three trucks, by my calculations,” Delahunt answered.
“Insulated trucks,” added Akira Tokaido, removing his earbuds. “There was far too much cobalt in the signature to come from anything other than heat-resistant steel.” Tokaido was of mixed Japanese-American ancestry. He seemed born to operate computers, code coming to him as easily as breathing to ordinary people.
“Maybe there was a tank, or an APC caught in the blast,” Price offered hesitantly.
“I wish that was true, but no,” Kurtzman countered, sliding his wheelchair under his console. “Russian military contains natural wood fibers to make the metal more elastic, and thus proof to most armor-piercing rounds.”
Wood fiber in tank armor? “Are you positive?” Price scowled.
Tokaido gave a curt nod. “The spectrum analysis is conclusive. No military vehicles were involved in the blast. So unless whatever was stolen detonated
