Now! The feeling of air enveloping a plane was unmistakable. It was like suddenly being suspended in smoothness, with the vibrations of the earth lying far behind.
“Shit.” Buzz kept his hands ready to back up on the stick and the throttles. “She’s up! We’re up!”
They were at one hundred, then two, then three, and slowly gaining altitude and speed as the captain brought the nose down a bit. He looked across the console to his first officer.
“You’re sweatin’, Bart.” Buzz smiled like a kid in a go-cart.
“Slow climb. Real gentle.” Hendrickson would keep the Maiden right where the powers that be wanted her. The rest was up to them. Almost.
Twenty One
IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
“Hold tight ‘til he levels it out,” McAffee said. Once off the ground the noise abated. The team had placed and activated several small magnetic lights, each one spreading a wide beam of high-intensity light. Some of the men were squeezed in the spaces between the four big boxes, their arms pressing to the sides to steady them.
Joe, however, was already prying at one of the wood coverings. It was all cosmetic, he was sure. Whatever was in there was heavy, and, with the amount of shielding necessary to make the crude reactors feasible, the wood wouldn’t support any of it.
“Shouldn’t you wait, Anderson?”
Joe ignored the major and kept working at the box. By the time the aircraft leveled somewhat he had one side almost off.
Delta had its own job to do.
“Lewis.” Graber led the sergeant forward. He shone his flashlight on the curved right side as they walked. Red numbers stenciled on white backgrounds proceeded in ascending order as they moved. Each one was a location number, identifying the support section at that point. The 747, like other large aircraft, was made up of many parallel circular frames which were held together by long metallic stringers that ran the length of the fuselage. Around the skeletal cylinder a thin skin of aluminum was stretched, giving the aircraft structure and most of its load-bearing capability. Graber was looking for a specific section — or ring — that would put them below their desired entry point.
But first things first. Before going in they had to see what was there. Debriefing of released hostages had told them that the passengers were all forward now. That would lead one to believe that the terrorists were also. But they had to know for sure. If they went in aft, and there was a bad guy standing over them, it would be beneficial to know that first so he could be taken out.
Sixteen C. Sixteen C. “Where are — here.” Graber stopped and cocked his head to the right to get a look at the ceiling. They were all walking hunched over in the five-foot-five- inch cargo hold. He ran his hand from right to left on the smooth aluminum panel. Above that would be a flame- resistant plastic floor liner that acted as a sound and climate insulator, and above that an eighth of an inch of padding, and then the carpeting. The center floor stringer was his guidepost. Six inches to the right was the spot. He looked forward at the solid metal bulkhead three feet away, then behind three feet at the forward most crate. The rest of the team was readying the charges near the door.
“Do it, Lewis.”
The sergeant was the team’s tech specialist, which meant that he handled the high-tech — expensive — gear. In this case an ultra-high-speed lithium-powered drill and the fiber-optic viewing device that would be inserted through a hole into the cabin above.
Lewis scratched the spot with an etching pen, just to give the carborundum bit a starting point. There was only one speed on the specially built instrument: fast, or fucking fast as its users said. The sergeant held the pen-like tip and tucked the flexible drive cable under his arm. It led to the actual motor unit, hooked to his belt.
It whirred first, then went almost silent. He touched it to the aluminum. Only a slight hum was heard. That was the beauty of the instrument. Unless you were drilling through granite or marble, the high rotational speed of the bit simply pulverized its target, allowing no room for resistance. The high heat tolerance of the carborundum bit aided in the silencing of the work. Friction caused great deals of heat, which expanded traditional bits of steel or light alloys. As it expanded it would contact the sides of the hole it was boring, causing sound. A foot away the captain could barely hear it.
Lewis sensed the breakthrough and continued with little pressure on the instrument, cutting right through the plastic and padding. Dyed guide marks on the bit told him the penetration and when to stop. “Through.” He switched it off and let it dangle to the floor. Next he undid the instrument and set it down.
“Let’s take a look.” The captain checked the time. Six minutes.
Lewis retrieved another instrument. It looked like a camera lens, or a sniper scope, with an eyepiece at one end and a thin black tube at the other. Barely visible extending from the tube was a thin monofilament wire, much like fishing line. At the end was a micro-manufactured lens.
Graber slid the fiber-optic lens through the hole after spraying it with an aerosol coolant. His left hand maneuvered the filament housing while his right held the viewer to his eye.
The picture was bluish at first as the lens penetrated the carpet’s fibrous clumps, then absolutely clear except for the slight fish-eye distortion of the wide-angle lens. Graber had practiced this often, and he found that the stress of a real takedown wasn’t affecting his performance. He moved the lens to the left and right with simple twists of the housing, his head instinctively twisting to mimic the motion.
“Clear,” he announced after twenty seconds.
“Nothing at all?” Lewis inquired. McAffee approached.
“Both sides.” Sean pointed to the bulkhead. “There’s a wall right above that.”
“Aft most galley,” the major said, remembering the layout. He touched the ceiling just aft of the hole. “Row forty-five, troops.”
Lewis nodded. “Right on.”
McAffee and Graber started marking the precise points for the entry holes. Each would be just forward of seats 45D and 45G, the inner aisle seats at the front of the rearmost cabin section. They measured out the twenty-four by twenty-inch space needed. It was close. The longer dimension was laid out parallel to the bulkhead.
“Charges. C’mon.” Jones and Buxton brought the frame charges to the spot and test-positioned them first.
“It’s tight, but a good fit.” Jones did some crude hand measuring. “Move them back an inch, okay? There’s plenty of room back to the seat.” He pointed to the metal plates eight inches behind that marked the tie-down point where the seats were bolted to movable runners.
“They could be a little forward, remember.” Graber remembered the pilots of the practice aircraft showing them how the rows of recliners could be slid up and back to a desired position, then wrenched down and locked.
“Not here,” Jones contradicted. “It’s the forward row, so, like that pilot said, they’ve got to have thirty-six inches.”
“You’re right.” It came back to Sean. “So if we move back a bit we’ll have more pull-up room.” It would make it easier for the troopers to get out of the hold, not having the galley wall in their faces.
Jones did a quick position check, then peeled off the strong adhesive covers on the business side of the frame charge and placed it on the aluminum overhead. Lieutenant Buxton did the same.
Joe had no interest in the military side of things. He was at work. A form of obsessive tunnel vision focused him on the task at hand.
Once the covering was off he could see the first device. The sketches didn’t do it justice, either in description of ugliness or bulk. It was squat, and massive, resembling a newly picked garden vegetable, upside down, with four short roots poking out at equal angles toward the sky. And it was as black as coal.