“Two minutes,” his fellow cosmonaut unnecessarily announced.
The death zone around Chernobyl was a tear-drop shape over ninety miles long by forty at its widest. Although it might be reasonably assumed that the Shadow had caused all the damage it possibly could be destroying Towers 1, 2 and 3, the leadership in Moscow was not focused on reason.
A single rocket lifted off from a silo just outside of Moscow and quickly accelerated to supersonic speed as it arced up into the sky toward the southeast. When it reached its apex, the engine flamed out and the rocket followed the laws of physics as it headed back toward Earth, directly toward Tower 4 at Chernobyl.
Nestled in the nosecone was a single nuclear warhead, specially adapted to detonate when an eight foot prod that extended from the tip hit the ground and ignited a manual detonator which would then initiate the conventional explosives that were the first step of exploding the bomb.
The lead cosmonaut hushed his companion who had begun counting down from ten. Even though it was cool inside Mir — the heating elements had been operating below par for quite a while — a small bead of sweat made its way down his forehead. It was exactly between his eyes when the number went to zero and his hand slammed down on the release button.
The rocket ignited and exited the launch tube, nose pointing straight down toward Earth. It gathered speed from both the engine and gravity.
The strikes had been coordinated so that the missiles would hit their targets simultaneously. The timing was close, but not perfect. The Chernobyl missile touched down, probe first, into Tower Four, about two seconds before the Mir missile hit Nazca.
The aim of the Chernobyl missile was perfect, though, as it struck the black triangle exactly and disappeared.
The Mir missile had been launched with a time delay detonator set to go off at an altitude of four thousand feet above the Nazca Plain. The scientists in Moscow had determined this to be the best height for maximum effect, although they had reluctantly admitted they weren’t exactly sure what the composition of the target was, other than walls of fire.
The warhead exploded.
And as fast as the blast, radiation, and light expanded from the bomb, the lines of fire on the Nazca Plain leapt up and devoured it all. Within the two seconds all signs of the blast gone from the surface.
Amelia Earhart staggered as the ground hiccupped. She turned to Taki with a questioning look.
The samurai simply shrugged and pointed. Earhart noted the golden glow ahead. While blue seemed to be friendly, she knew that gold was a sign of the Shadow. Because the Valkyries floated above the black sand, following them had been difficult. It had been a process of occasionally spotting them ahead, then waiting as they moved away, then hurrying in the direction they had gone. Taki had cautioned her that they might run into an ambush, but Earhart felt that the Valkyries were more concerned with getting their captives back than worrying about someone following them. Besides, she had a good idea where they were heading.
The wall appeared ahead and the glow was coming from the base of it. Once more, Earhart edged her way up a dune, Taki at her side. Just before the top she halted and peered over. A large open cavern had been cut into the wall. Her mouth went dry as she saw what was inside the cavern. Hundreds of upright metal tables, on which humans were strapped down. She could see that the skin on the ones closest to the outside had been removed and replaced with a clear covering. Muscles, internal organs, all glistened underneath the wrapping. Some of the people were missing limbs. Most had the top of their skulls removed and numerous needles poking up with small glowing bulbs on the top.
She ducked her head as a white figure floated along the lines toward the opening of the cavern. A Valkyrie. Collecting herself, Earhart lifted up once more and looked. The Valkyrie had stopped in front of one of the bodies. It was one of the five that had just been recovered, the skin still intact, clothes piled at the base of the table.
The Valkyrie raised its right arm, claws extended. With precise moves the creature sliced into the man’s chest. Two seconds later it pulled back the arm, a heart dripping blood cradled carefully in the claws. It floated back the way it had come, the gory trophy in hand.
Taki tapped her on the arm, pointing. There were the new abductees in the Valkyrie lab. A half dozen men whose skin and bodies were still intact and wearing khaki uniforms.
“Come,” Earhart said.
Taki was at her side as she headed down the slope, the other warriors spreading out instinctively in a wedge formation. Earhart went straight to the newcomers and with her sword cut one free as the samurai did the same with the others. She grunted as she slipped the unconscious man over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry and headed back the way she’d come.
“Slow down,” Dane said into his SATPhone. “Start over.” He was looking into the clear blue water of the Caribbean. He was on board a launch from the carrier, cutting through the sea. Dane knew that not far below was the top of the pyramid on which Sin Fen had given her life.
Ahana’s voice was still rushed as she repeated herself: “The Russians fired nuclear weapons at both Nazca and Chernobyl. The Nazca one detonated but all effects were absorbed into the walls of fire. The Chernobyl one simply disappeared.”
“So in other words,” Dane said, “all they did was add power to Nazca?”
“Correct. Our readings spiked right after the detonation.”
“And sent a nuke, God knows where, into the space-between via Chernobyl?”
“Apparently.”
Dane wondered what a nuke would do inside a gate, if it went off at all, which he doubted given the effect gates had on electromagnetic devices. Of course, Kolkov and the Russians knew about that effect so they had probably rigged some other means to detonate the device, he realized.
“The drain through Nazca is the same?” he asked.
“Yes,” Ahana replied. “Actually, it might be a little faster. The nuclear explosion might have accelerated things.”
“How long do we have?” Dane asked.
“Seventy hours.”
“Tell Foreman it might be a good idea to get Washington to put a leash on the Russians,” Dane said. He flipped the phone shut and handed it to one of the crewmen standing nearby. Stupidity. He’d seen it in Vietnam, in the places where he and Chelsea had been called to do search and rescue, and in this battle against the Shadow. He knew it was the bane of mankind’s existence.
He reached down and picked up a set of scuba tanks and slipped them on. With practiced ease he prepared the diving gear, making all the necessary checks just as he’d been trained at Key West so many years earlier during his training. He forgot about Nazca, Foreman, the Shadow, Ariana’s death, Frost’s poetry and everything that had been rattling about his brain. His focus was totally on the task at hand, another trait the military had honed into him.
In scuba school, as in airborne training, one tenet that had constantly been stressed was that the trainee was entering a naturally hostile environment. One survived neither a parachute jump or a dive without the proper equipment working perfectly. The slightest mistake in such environment could easily be fatal. Because of that, concentration on the mission at hand had to be one hundred percent.