The old man shook his head.
“Espanol?”
“Si, señor.”
“Well, I don’t.”
Toad walked over and checked the man, who had no visible weapons on him.
He had a handful of plastic ties in his pocket. These ties were issued to every marine for the sole purpose of securing prisoners’ hands, and feet if necessary. Toad put a tie around the old man’s hands. The man didn’t resist; merely sat at the control console with his face a mask, showing no emotion.
“Cuban?” Toad asked.
“Nyet.”
“Russki?”
The white head bobbed once, then was still.
Toad used the flashlight to inspect the console, to examine the instruments. This stuff was old, he could see that. Everything was mechanical, no digital gauges or readouts, no computer displays … the console reminded Toad of the dashboard of a 1950s automobile, with round gauges and bezels and …
Well, without power, all this was academic.
His job was to get that damned warhead out of the missile, then set demolition charges to destroy all this stuff, missile, control room, and all. He left the Russian at the console and opened the blast-proof door across the room from the stair where he had entered.
Another stairway led downward.
Toad went as quickly as he dared, still holding the flashlight in one hand and his pistol in the other.
He went through one more steel door … and there the missile stood, white and massive and surreal in the weak beam of the flashlight.
The aviation radio frequencies exploded when Rita’s plane was shot down as everyone tried to talk at once.
Battlestar Control finally managed to get a word in over the babble, a call to Stiff Hardwick. “Go down for a look. Possible hostile may have shot down an Osprey.”
Stiff didn’t need any urging. He rolled the Tomcat onto its back, popped the speed brakes, and started down.
“Silo one,” Boots said. “This bogey is flitting around down there like a goddamn bat or something, mixing it up with the SuperCobras and Ospreys. Let’s not shoot down any of the good guys.”
“No shit,” said Stiff, who was sure he could handle any Cuban fighter pilot alive. This guy. was meat on the table: he just didn’t know it yet.
Carlos Corrado pulled out of his strafing run and soared up to three thousand feet. He extended out for eight or nine miles before he laid the fighter over in a hard turn.
He had seen helicopters down there, at least two. It was time to use the radar.
As he stabilized inbound he flipped the radar switch to “transmit.” He pushed the button for moving targets and sure enough, within seconds the pulse-doppler radar in the nose of the MiG-29 had found three. The rest of the drill was simplicity itself — he selected an Aphid missile, locked it on a target, and fired. Working quickly, he selected a second missile, locked on a second target, and fired.
He had to keep the targets illuminated while the Aphids were in flight, so he continued inbound toward the silo.
One of the SuperCobras exploded when an Aphid drilled it dead center. The second missile tore the tail rotor off its target, which spun violently into the ground and caught fire.
Carlos Corrado flew across the barn, holding his heading, extending out before he turned to make another shooting pass.
Toad Tarkington found the circular steel ladder leading upward in the missile silo and began climbing.
When he reached the catwalk he walked around the missile, examining the skin. There was the little access port, six inches by six inches, with the dozen screws! That had to be it.
Toad Tarkington put the flashlight under his left armpit and got out a screwdriver.
He had three screws out when the flashlight slipped out of his armpit and fell. It bounced off the catwalk and went on down beside the missile, breaking when it hit the grate at the bottom.
The darkness in the silo was total.
Toad Tarkington cursed softly, and went back to taking out screws. He worked by feel. Someone would come along in a minute, he thought, bringing another flashlight. If someone didn’t, he would take the time to go find another.
The trick, he knew, would be to hold on to the screwdriver. He only had one, and if he dropped it, it would go down the grate.
He heard muffled noises from above, but he couldn’t tell what they were. It didn’t really matter, he decided. Getting this warhead out of this missile was priority one.
Carefully, working by feel, he removed the screws from the access panel one by one. When he had the last one out, he pried at the panel. It came off easily enough and he laid it on the catwalk near his feet.
So far so good. He carefully stowed the screwdriver in his tool bag and wiped the sweat from his face and hands.
Okay.
Toad reached up to find the latch that the ancient Russian engineer on television had said should be here. God knows where the CIA found that guy!
Yep. He found the latch.
He rotated it. Now the latch on the left. He was having his troubles getting that latch to turn when the lights came on in the silo.
From instant darkness to glaring light from twenty or more bulbs.
Toad Tarkington pulled his arm from the missile, clapped his hands over his eyes and squinted, waiting for his eyes to adjust.
He could hear a hum. Must be a fan or blower moving air.
No. The hum was in the missile, just a foot or two from his head.
Something winding up. The pitch was rising rapidly.
A gyro?
What was going on?
Toad started down the ladder, moving as fast as he could go, intending to go to the control room to see what in hell was happening.
He heard a grinding noise, loud, low-pitched, and looked up. The cap on the silo was opening.
Holy …
He still had his tools. If he could get that access panel off and cut the guidance wires, the wires to control the warhead …
Toad Tarkington scrambled back up the ladder.
The little six-by-six access hole gaped at him. He ran his arm in, trying to reach the other latches that would allow the large panel to come off.
He got one open. The gyro had ceased to accelerate — it was running steadily now, a high-pitched steady whine.
Holy shit!
He was out of time: the fire from the missile’s engines would fry him to a cinder.
He heard the igniters firing, popping like jet engine igniters.
The rocket motors lit with a mighty whoosh.
Toad grabbed for the access hole with both hands, held on desperately as the missile began to rise on a column of fire.
The noise was beyond deafening — it was the loudest thing Toad Tarkington had ever heard, a soul-numbing roar that made his flesh quiver and vibrated his teeth.
Rising … the missile was rising, dragging him off the catwalk.
He clung to the access hole with all his strength,
The missile came out of the silo, past the floor of the barn, accelerating, going up, up, up ….
The tip of the missile burst through the rotten, shattered roof and threw wood in every direction.
As it did Toad curled his feet up against the fuselage of the missile, released his hold on the access hole, and kicked off.
He flew through the darkness, bounced on the collapsing roof, felt the blast of furnace heat as the rocket motors singed him, then he was falling, falling ….
Stiff Hardwick couldn’t believe his eyes. He had his F-14 Tomcat down at 4,000 feet, fifteen miles from silo one, and was impatiently waiting for Boots to sort out the villain from the other airborne targets in the area when he saw the ballistic missile rising into the night sky on a cone of white-hot fire.
“Jesus Christ!” he swore over the radio, “the bastards have launched one.”