the corporal could see the alarm. But a heavy feeling was filling his body, and breathing was impossible, his chest aching from the need to pull in one more sip of air. Releasing the hand from his throat, the soldier saw crimson blood arch into the kiosk and instantly knew that a major artery had been cut with the first expert slash. Death was close. He had only a few seconds remaining. Summoning his last vestiges of strength, the corporal staggered toward the alarm button…but something pulled on his collar, hauling him back into the deadly night.
Tumbling to the hard ground, the dying soldier vaguely saw the grinning truck driver standing over him for a single moment, then the glass knife came down, stabbing into him again and again. Searing agony filled his universe, to be replaced with a soothing blackness that engulfed the Marine forever.
Standing erect, the frowning driver cast aside the glass knife and it shattered on the concrete steps to the small kiosk. “Sorry, brother,” the big man muttered in guttural Spanish.
“Was he alone?” Lieutenant Henrietta Caramico demanded, leaning out of the cab of the truck, a silenced 9 mm Bersa pistol held expertly in her hand. The woman’s shirt was still undone, her breasts swaying to the subtle vibrations of the big diesel engine.
“Yes, Lieutenant. There’s nobody else listed on the duty roster,” Sergeant Roberto Mendoza replied, squinting at the papers tacked to the corkboard above the desk.
“Good,” Caramico muttered, her weapon sweeping the darkness for any video cameras. But the area was clean. Once again, she thought, Snake Eater had been right. Security here had been a joke. But then, the Americans didn’t consider this isolated warehouse a chink in their national defense. Major mistake.
“Okay, let’s finish this,” the lieutenant snapped, swinging back into the cab. Holstering the gun, she began to hurriedly button her shirt closed.
Climbing behind the wheel, the sergeant revved the engine to build power and then shifted gears and charged for the wire gate. Sparks flew as the hinges were ripped away from the supporting steel posts and the gate crashed loudly to the pavement. Buckling the metal framework under its massive rubber tires, the heavy tanker rolled over the ruined gate and across the empty parking lot, steadily building speed.
“Zigzag a little,” Caramico ordered, tucking the shirt into her pants. “Remember, we’re supposed to be a runaway truck.”
Nodding, the big sergeant did as requested and began to move erratically. He sideswiped a battered old VW Beetle, probably the car of the dead guard, then stomped the gas pedal to the floor and shifted gears. The speedometer just managed to reach forty miles per hour when the truck violently slammed into the Quonset hut. A headlight shattered and the tanker severely dented the corrugated steel siding. Braced for the collision, the man and woman were still almost thrown from their seats.
Allowing the engine to sputter and stall, the sergeant clamored out of the cab and went around to the rear of the tanker. The lieutenant was already there, smiling widely. Gasoline was rushing out of a break in the main feeder pipe, exactly where they had weakened the metal with acid only a few minutes earlier.
“Take care of our guest,” Caramico said, walking briskly into the darkness.
Hunching his shoulder, Mendoza grunted. “Yes, ma’am.” Climbing into the sleeper compartment situated behind the cab, the sergeant dragged out a corpse and stuffed the owner of the tanker carefully behind the steering wheel. When the position looked natural, Mendoza liberally poured whiskey over the body and tossed the empty bottle to the floor mat. It had been easy enough for the pretty lieutenant to strike up a conversation with the driver at the truck stop on the main road, then convince him to have a couple of sips of whiskey to put a trace of alcohol into his bloodstream. Caramico was a cast-iron bitch, but even Mendoza had to admit that his lieutenant was a real looker. The two had had sex in the sleeper compartment, and when the man was snoring afterward, she’d used a hypodermic needle to inject a bubble of air into his bloodstream. Death was almost instantaneous, but would be totally untraceable to modern-day forensics.
“All clear,” Caramico reported, walking out of the gloom. “I dropped a few clues for the FBI to find tomorrow. Help them discover the identity of the terrorists, eh?”
“I dislike that word.” Mendoza stepped away from the expanding puddle of fuel on the cracked ground. The rising fumes were starting to blur the air, and the reek was becoming intolerable. “We’re soldiers, not criminals.”
“And this is war,” Caramico replied, retreating a few yards herself. “So shut the fuck up, and just do your job.”
Biting back a response, the big sergeant opened and closed his scarred hands, but said nothing.
Lighting a cigarette, the lieutenant drew in the smoke with obvious satisfaction. Then she slowly exhaled and tossed the cigarette onto a crack in the dry pavement. The glowing tip resembled the eye of a demon in the shadow of the crashed truck. Splashing from the broken pip, the dark pool of gasoline was rapidly spreading across the parking lot, following the sandy cracks to head directly for the burning cigarette.
“How long do we have?” Mendoza asked nervously, licking dry lips. The man preferred timing pencils and fuses. Solid, reliable military hardware, not this makeshift nonsense. But subterfuge was what the general wanted. And orders were orders.
“Less than a minute,” Caramico said slowly, estimating the expansion of the gasoline pool. The fuel seemed to be pouring out of the tanker faster than ever. Perhaps the minor crash had burst some of the internal seals.
In unison, the two soldiers broke into a run and were moving at a full sprint when they passed through the smashed gate and raced past the bloody corpse near the kiosk. A flickering light appeared from behind. Redoubling their speed, the man and woman frantically pelted into the desert and managed to dodge behind a large sand dune a split second before the ruptured gasoline tanker violently detonated.
Fiery light filled the night, and the very ground shook from the staggering force of the blast, the strident explosion rumbling across the flat Texas desert for countless miles. A heartbeat later, flaming debris sprayed across the desert, the sand dune shaking from the brutal impact on the other side.
Long moments passed before the force of the detonation dissipated. Brushing loose sand from their hair and clothing, the man and woman went around another sand dune and reclaimed the motorcycles they had parked there earlier that day.
Kicking their sleek bikes alive, Caramico and Mendoza paused for a moment to look to the north. Precisely on schedule, three bright pinpoints appeared above the mountains on the horizon.
“And so it begins,” Mendoza remarked, his face a blank mask of control.
“No, this is how it all ends,” Caramico corrected harshly, her eyes alive with pleasure.
Already moving at Mach Two, twice the speed of sound, a trio of experimental missiles streaked high in the evening sky, steadily moving away from one another as the war machines headed for scattered targets halfway around the world. Then, incredibly, they seemed to pause and rotate slightly to proceed in radical new directions.
CHAPTER ONE
Washington, D.C.
Dawn was just breaking over the capital city, and the White House, normally a beehive of activity at that early hour, was strangely quiet. Government aides rushed about without talking, telephone conversations were hushed and the Secret Service agents stationed at every door were grimly silent, their hard eyes
