“To the right, over there. We go to the bay at the far end.”
“I know,” the driver said.
The south side of the plant was composed of twenty-two loading docks. There were two semitrailers backed into two of them, but no more. Business was slow.
The driver made a wide, sweeping turn as he approached the last dock, braked to a stop, and slapped the gearshift into reverse.
Milstein slid out of the cab and raced toward the building, pulled himself up onto the dock, and crossed quickly to the small door between the large roll-up doors.
It was locked, as expected, and he used the Browning to fire two shots into the lock. Though silenced, they pounded as loud as fireworks to him. He glanced in both directions, but saw no one. The lock appeared sufficiently shattered, and he shoved the door open.
The truck stopped short of the dock, and the driver got out to lower the truck’s rear ramp to the dock edge.
It was dark inside the storage room. With his hand, he searched for the light switches, found them, and shoved them upward.
On the high ceiling, a dozen floodlights sprang to life, revealing stacks of wooden crates and, thank the Lord, a forklift tractor.
He stepped inside, closed the small door, then pressed the button to raise the large door. He stopped it when it was high enough to clear the forklift.
The driver had the ramp down and the double doors on the end of the van body swung wide. The two helpers emerged and the four of them went to work.
It would have gone faster with two forklifts, but in twenty minutes, they had transferred sixty of the crates to the van. Milstein shut off the lights and closed up the warehouse while the driver shut the van doors. He climbed back into the cab for the short trip to the gate, where he opened and closed the gate for the moving van, then scrambled through the side door into the van.
Under the glow of battery-powered lights, the two helpers were already at work with crowbars, prying open the elongated crates. It took him a few minutes to become accustomed to the sway and movement of the floor under his feet as the van traveled the street, seeking the on-ramp to the highway.
At the front end of the cargo body were two large wooden boxes, attached to heavy-duty, rubber-tired casters, and built to the specifications provided to him. Their lids were removed. A large stack of six-inch-thick foam rubber pads resting on the floor was available for cushioning.
One by one, the three of them opened crates, lifted out the single slim missiles, and lowered them into padded positions in the two large boxes.
It was difficult for Milstein, not being able to see outside the van, and he hoped the driver was by now on Interstate 80, headed east out of Sacramento.
The total flight distance was sixty-five hundred miles, and at an average of Mach 5.5, it took them almost two hours.
The local time on the west coast of the United States was 10:09 P.M.
Maslov had selected an Arctic route, over the top of the Earth, as his quickest transit line, and he approached his destination from the north.
The velocity read Mach 2.7, and the altimeter displayed sixty-seven thousand feet. He was certain that none of the radars of the American defense network had detected their intrusion. They had not been challenged on any of the radio frequencies.
“Do you have our position, Boris?”
“I do, Aleks. We are over the Washington state, in the eastern part, and the border to Nevada is just ahead.”
Maslov knew that there was software available for the MakoShark which provided map overlays on the cathode ray tubes, but they had not had a chance yet to experiment with it and learn to use it. He did not think he would need it.
He glanced at the chronometer readout, calculated his distance roughly, and eased the nose upward a little to flatten his glide and lose speed more rapidly.
A few minutes later, Maslov recognized the tiny dots of automobile headlights in a long and ragged string across the horizon.
“That will be the Interstate highway,” Nikitin said. “The larger grouping of lights is Winnemucca.”
Oriented now, Maslov said, “We must go about one hundred and twenty miles to the west.”
“That is correct, Aleks. You may turn now, and we can follow the highway.”
At forty thousand feet, Maslov started the turbojets and reduced his speed to five hundred knots. He continued to lose altitude steadily.
At 10:40 P.M., he saw a strong glow to the southwest.
“I suspect that is Reno, Boris.”
“Yes.”
Nikitin activated the night vision video camera and magnified the image. After a few seconds of dancing around while Nikitin aimed the camera, the screen displayed a variegated pattern of lights. The highway traffic was heavy, gamblers pouring into Sparks and Reno for a night of exuberance and excess.
Maslov eased into a right turn and the camera picked up the sheen of starlight reflecting off water.
“That will be Pyramid Lake, Boris.”
“Yes. The dry lake is east of it, closer to us, Aleks.”
Maslov retarded the throttles to idle, lowered the nose, and went into a shallow, diving right turn.
The lake disappeared from his view and was replaced by the flat, green-tinted surface of the dry Winnemucca Lake, which ran parallel to Pyramid Lake. It was about twenty-five miles north of the Interstate highway.
He made one low-level pass over it toward the north, watching the screen intently for any obstructions on the lake bed.
“I believe it is going to serve our purpose, Aleks.”
“We will make one more pass.”
He added power, made a wide circle, and headed south, reducing his altitude to five hundred feet above the earth.
“They should be on the south end,” Nikitin said.
As he crossed the center of the lake, Maslov flashed his landing lights.
Immediately, he saw headlights flash back at him.
Twice.
Maslov rolled left into another turn and went north to make another approach.
Nikitin read off the checklist, and as he passed over the northern end of the lake this time, his full concentration on the green image on the screen, rather than through the windscreen, he had his flaps and gear down.
“Two-five-five knots,” Nikitin intoned.
Throttles back.
The main gear touched down, followed shortly by the nose gear.
Maslov was prepared to slam the throttles forward if he detected any extreme resistance, if the heavy weight of the MakoShark began to dig into the hard sandy surface.
But it did not.
The craft slowed a great deal faster than normal.
He estimated that they were at least two kilometers short of the end of the lake by the time the ground speed was under twenty miles per hour.
Rather than risk going farther south and running into soft spots, Maslov decided to trust the surface he had already traversed, braked, then turned 180 degrees. He would let them come to him.
Leaving the turbojets idling, he locked the brakes, opened the canopy and the cargo bay doors, then unstrapped himself. Disconnecting the umbilicals and removing his helmet, he crawled out of his seat and sat on the edge of the coaming. Reaching into the leg pocket of his environmental suit, he felt for the butt of the nine millimeter Walther PPK. He did not know these men.
Nikitin raised his own canopy and lifted the visor of his helmet, seeking fresh air.
The van appeared three minutes later, traveling by the light of its parking lights.
It pulled up alongside the MakoShark and doors began to open. A ramp was lowered. The four men he had been told to expect scrambled about.
One of them brought an aluminium ladder and laid it against the side of the fuselage.
“Stay here, Boris. Watch the readouts.”
“Of course, Aleks.”
Maslov slid down the curve of the chine, found the ladder with his feet, and worked his way to the sandy surface of the lake. He would have to remember to wipe the sand from his boots before reentering the cockpit.