“What are you doing?” Reizer asked.
“Getting us out of here.”
“I think there is a way to walk out,” Reizer said. She pointed. “If we go around the tail of the monkey and then go south—” her voice trailed off.
“I’ve seen the images from the sky,” Dane said. “There’s no way out of here except that way—”he pointed up.
“How—” Reizer began, but Dane shushed her, the small earpiece crackled.
“Dane, this is Talon Six. Status?”
“Inflating,” Dane said.
“Don’t forget to turn the beacon on,” the pilot reminded him.
Dane cursed to himself as he went over to the balloon and switched on a small electronic beacon. He’d almost forgotten. He went back to the helium canister and twisted a knob. “Inflating,” he repeated.
The balloon began to inflate, growing in size.
“Where’s the basket?” Reizer asked.
“There isn’t.”
Her eyes followed the thin steel cable at the base of the balloon into the canister and then the trail end to Dane’s vest. “You’re joking.”
“Afraid not.” The balloon was half full and lifting off the ground. Dane pulled another harness out of the bundle and held it up. “Turn around and put your arms out.”
“Oh my, this is not good for an old woman,” Reizer complained, even as she did as he asked.
Dane slipped the harness over her shoulders, then squatted. He ran one of the legs straps through. “Hold this in your left hand.” He grabbed the other strap. “This in your right.”
The balloon was full and lifting, uncoiling the cable. Dane went around to Reizer’s front and quickly connected the leg straps, pulling them tight, hearing Reizer grunt as he did so. There was no time for niceties.
The earpiece came alive. “We have the beacon. Are you ready? Over.”
Dane grabbed a small piece of nylon webbing that had double snap links at both ends. He hooked one set into his chest connection point. “Ready,” he said as he attached the other end to the connection point on Reizer’s harness.
“Are you sure this will work?” Reizer asked. They both could hear the airplane in-bound.
Dane had been pulled out ex-filtration points during his time in Vietnam this way, usually by helicopter, instead of the Fulton, but one time he had actually done the Fulton. “Yes.”
“Will it hurt?”
“It’ll be a fun ride.”
The pilot’s voice intruded. “Ten seconds out. Are you green? Over.”
“We’re green,” Dane said. He reached forward and gathered the tiny old lady in his arms. The sound of the plane was growing louder.
Two hundred feet above them, the pilot of the Talon had the beacon centered and fifty feet above the plane on the low light vision television screen he was using to fly. “Five seconds,” he announced. “Four. Three. Two. One.”
On the ground, Dane felt nothing for about two seconds as the slack was pulled out of the cable. Then he was jerked straight up into the sky, almost losing his grip on Reizer.
The force vector on the cable was vertical for about three seconds, lifting them over a hundred feet up, then they were pulled horizontally, behind and below the Talon.
“We have a lock on the cable,” the pilot announced. “Cutting balloon free.”
A set of metal shears closed on the cable, just above where clamps held tight between the whiskers. They snapped shut and the balloon was released. The cable below the plane slowly went from vertical to horizontal until Dane and Reizer were bouncing about in the air almost a hundred and fifty feet directly behind the plane.
The loadmaster in the rear of the Talon had locked down a small crane and winch onto the open rear platform as soon as Dane had jumped and he was ready. He lowered the crane, then reeled out a small length of cable with a hook on the end. As the plane with its two human attachments roared through the sky at a hundred and fifty miles an hour, he fished for the Fulton cable.
“Are you all right?” Dane had to scream to be heard above the air whistling by and the roar of the plane just ahead of them.
There was no verbal reply, just Reizer’s head nodding into his chest. Dane tried to look at the open back ramp, but the wind was too strong, causing his eyes to tear up.
The loadmaster snagged the cable on the fourth try. He slowly lifted until the Fulton cable slipped into the crane’s mouth. Then he clamped down on the cable with the teeth of the winch. For insurance, just in case something went wrong, he also secured the Fulton cable with a loop of cable fixed to the plane.
“I’ve got it,” he announced. “Disengage the nose lock.”
The pilot flipped a switch.
Dane felt his stomach lurch as they both free fell for a second, then were jerked forward once more.
The loadmaster hit the control for the winch and the cable was slowly reeled in. As the two got closer to the ramp, he had the crane lift up so that they would clear the edge.
Dane saw the tail of the plane above his head as he and Reizer were slowly drawn into the cargo bay. The wind decreased as the plane enveloped them. He bumped against the floor and tried to gain his feet, but was unable to. Hands were on him, holding him steady, pulling Reizer out of his arms.
“We’ve got them,” the loadmaster announced. The back ramp slowly went up sealing them off from the outside world.
Dane allowed the men inside to unhook him and strip the harness off. He turned to Reizer to see what kind of shape the old woman was in, hoping the trip hadn’t killed her.
She was smiling, thanking the Air Force crewmembers. She saw Dane looking at her. “I’ll have to do that again sometime. Most fun I’ve had in decades.”
Dane slumped back on the cargo web seating, exhausted. The Talon banked and headed for the nearest landing strip at Ica. Behind and below it, the Nazca plain burned fiercely in the night. Then, in an instant, the flames roared up into the sky over a thousand feet high, still narrowly caught in their channels.
Chernobyl was a ghost town for the second time. A light breeze blew down the empty streets and over cooling tower number four, pushing death with it. Nothing lived within twenty miles in an elongated teardrop that was spreading to the northwest.
Thus there was no one to see when the black triangle reappeared in the center of the ruined tower. Two Valkyries floated up out of the top of the triangle, their white forms slowly appearing. Between them they held a black cylinder about five feet long and two feet in diameter. The front end tapered to a point, while the rear ended in a flat surface.
When they were completely clear of the triangle, they hovered in place, slowly turning until the point of the cylinder was pointing at tower number 3, a quarter mile away. The cylinder began to change at the rear, the black shifting to gold. When it reached the point, a golden ball began to form, growing to five feet in diameter. The golden ball remained still at that size for several seconds, then it suddenly shot forward.
The ball hit tower number 3 and seemed to be slowly absorbed into the cement at the same rate the cylinder had changed. Then the tower imploded, releasing a cloud or radioactive gas into the air.
The two Valkyries didn’t notice; they were already pointing the weapon at tower number 2.
Alarms were ringing as Foreman ran into the control center. “What’s happening?”
“Activity at Chernobyl,” Ahana reported.
“What kind?”
“The Russians don’t know but their monitoring equipment has picked up a large spike in radioactivity.”
“I thought tower 4 was almost depleted,” Foreman slid into a chair at the conference table.