Craig looked around and felt an involuntary shudder, remembering his experience inside the high-tech virtual reality lab at Livermore, when he had witnessed such an explosion hands-on.
He knew exactly how one of those test objects would feel.
Finally emerging from the tunnels, taking deep breaths of clean air to flush the stinging diesel exhaust vapors from his throat, Craig turned his gaze upward. He placed his hands on his hips and stared into the fathomless sky, hearing the soaring sound of nearby aircraft.
Startlingly close, a batlike B-2 Stealth bomber cruised over the mesa line. Its black body looked alien as it swept and dove over the mountaintops like a daredevil. Craig’s mouth dropped open as he stared in amazement.
“You’re lucky,” said Waterloo, standing just beside him. “Most of the time they don’t fly this far south, into the Test Site. Impressive, isn’t it?”
“Where did it come from?” Craig shaded his eyes to get a better look. The Stealth bomber skimmed low and quiet, sleek and creepy. “Nellis?”
“Groom Lake, more likely. The whole base is called the Nellis Air Force Range, but Groom Lake Auxiliary Station is inside, a highly restricted area for the temporary storage of obsolete warheads. I’m heading up there now for a new shipment. Paige will show you our down-hole testing this afternoon.”
The Russians had seen the black aircraft, too, talking amongst themselves excitedly. Paige stood next to them looking agitated.
Waterloo’s voice carried a conspiratorial hush as he spoke to Craig. “Beyond these mesas is the guard gate into Nellis, and from there, deeper inside, you get to where the Stealth program goes through its paces.” He watched as the black craft suddenly accelerated then circled back around the ridgeline, disappearing into Nellis’s restricted airspace.
“I don’t usually get to see stuff like that,” Craig said, watching the B-2 dwindle to a speck against the horizon haze.
“I worry about what you can’t see.” Waterloo lowered his voice. “Think of what else they might be working on way out in the middle of nowhere.”
Craig looked at the older man, surprised. “Such as?”
“There’s a secret facility, heavily guarded, known as ‘Dreamland.’ Area 51, the tabloids call it, part of Groom Lake. Plenty of wild speculations about it — alien cadavers, underground survival chambers, biological weapons research … Hoffa’s body.” He laughed. Craig didn’t.
“Ever been up there, sir?” Craig asked. “On your way to retrieve nukes?”
Waterloo shook his head, narrowing his eyes. “I can get into Omega Mountain and the stored nuclear warheads without much trouble — but I can’t get near Dreamland. Gives me the creeps.”
Waterloo opened the van doors to let the Russian team climb inside. He leaned closer to Craig. “Think about it, Agent Kreident. They trust me to carry around live nukes… what could be so secret, or so dangerous, that even I can’t take a peek?”
CHAPTER 16
Lines of bright orange flame gushed along the den wall like water streaming from a fire hose. With a yell, Goldfarb backed off, covering his eyes as the wash of heat swept over him.
He hadn’t triggered an actual bomb, no huge explosion — but the tripwire had set off some kind of incendiary device. Within seconds the enclosed room became blanketed with crepe streamers of blazing fire that raced out into the hall spilling along weirdly defined pathways.
And now Goldfarb knew that the house’s chemical smell, the biting volatile tang in the air, came not from Connors’s bomb-making activities in the garage — it was the residue of accelerants, flammable chemicals the militia man had painted on the walls and the floorboards, laying down the ingredients for an instant inferno. He had intended for his house to go up in flames, taking the FBI agents with it.
“Ben!” Jackson yelled. “Get out of there!”
Stacks of papers sitting on the card table curled and singed. With an idiotic numbness that just might have been bravery, he knew he had to retrieve the evidence, some of it at least. It had to be a weapon that would strike the Eagle’s Claw where it hurt.
Ducking his head, knowing that untold lives could depend on his snatching information that would prevent this Friday’s impending disaster, Goldfarb dashed inside the den and grabbed a handful of the top papers. The flames rushed in, swirling all around him.
“Ben!” Jackson bellowed, sounding close, running down the hall even faster than the flames could spread.
As he lurched back toward the door, toward blessed escape, Goldfarb’s hair curled back, crisping; his suit jacket smoldered hot. As he looked at the papers, the boxes, the flammables, he realized that all the records in this room also served as fuel for the fire.
“The whole place is rigged!” Jackson said staggering down the hall and coughing loudly. “It’s going to go up.” The lean, dark-skinned agent grabbed Goldfarb’s elbow and dragged him out of the den, then began pounding his back and shoulders. Goldfarb hadn’t even realized he was on fire. Smoke swirled thickly around them.
Goldfarb coughed as they hustled down the hall. The flames followed them like molten dogs lapping at their heels, skirling along the walls, following the lines of chemical accelerants splashed on the walls. Light bulbs exploded overhead, and both agents flinched, covering their heads.
In the kitchen another small explosive device went off, and flames burst from the cupboards. Debris from broken dishes, shattered glass and the smashed window sprayed out onto the floor.
“Here, the front door is closer,” Goldfarb said. “Pronto!”
“No!” Jackson yelled, grabbing him. “Plastic explosives! It’s booby trapped.”
They staggered past a large window at the side of the living room, but Goldfarb also saw crude wires hooked up to the sill and frame. “Connors must have had altogether too much time on his hands,” he said, coughing. “Let’s go out the same way we came in.”
“Get moving, then,” Jackson said.
The kitchen was already in flames. Broken shards of glass and stoneware made the floor an obstacle course. Goldfarb coughed, his eyes watering and stinging. His skin felt raw as if from a severe sunburn, and the chemical smoke from the accelerants and burning paint made his lungs rebel each time he took a breath.
The ravenous flames finally reached the living room, crawling rapidly along the line of flammable chemicals painted in a deadly spiderweb that looped all the walls in the house. Once the FBI agents and tripwire incendiaries provided the spark, Bryce Connors had made sure no scrap would remain, just a pile of ashes.
The two agents staggered toward the garage door where they had entered. Goldfarb looked over his shoulder to see the fire racing toward the front door, licking the flammable chemicals on the sheet rock — and finally reaching the small blocks of explosive that had been rigged to the door frame.
“Look out!” Goldfarb said.
Jackson saw it just in time. The two of them threw themselves around a corner shielded by the bulk of the refrigerator just as the explosives blew. With a ripping sound that blasted out the front of the house, the bombs took out the door and five feet of structural wall on either side. The windows in the room shattered with the sound of hissing glass.