“Help me get these into the cab,” Jack said.
Marko hopped up on the snowcat and hoisted each warhead into place as Jack pushed up from beneath. Jack climbed into the driver’s seat and pushed the starter button as Marko piled in beside him.
They had twenty minutes to get to the bomber and off the ice before detonation.
CHAPTER 106
Paulson waited impatiently in the command seat while Ridley connected the Russian tractor to the nose wheel. All four radial engines roared at idle speed, with just a note of whine as the superchargers came up to speed.
Angus Lyon sat at the flight engineer’s station, adjusting the engine throttles, cowling positions, and fuel mixtures for a high-altitude, low-density takeoff.
The Scotsman noted, with more than casual interest, the hot cylinder-head temperatures in the Number Three engine. He looked through the clear Plexiglas view port and studied the radial engine for telltale signs of smoke. From the flight engineer’s station, the engines appeared to be running normally and Lyon breathed a sigh of relief. At this density and altitude, even without a bomb load, there was no way they could lift off with only three engines.
Ridley ran out in front of the cockpit windows and waved wildly at Paulson. He pointed with his hands in a left-hand direction, meaning he wanted Paulson to turn the nose wheel to the left.
Paulson nodded that he understood as Ridley climbed into the tractor alongside Garrett. The tractor and Las Tortugas combo rolled smoothly over the ice, pulling the bomber 180 degrees, almost within its own radius.
Garrett lowered the blade on the tractor to cut a path through the sastrugi for the fragile nose gear. The main gear would have to roll over the unplowed ice.
When they neared the worst of the icy dunes, Ridley stood up on the tractor and wound his hand in the air several times.
Paulson nodded and lightly touched the four throttles. Ridley had told him that when they reached the larger sastrugi, he should give the engines more than idle throttle to help drive the bomber thought the ice. The roar of the engines increased, as did the clouds of snow and ice blowing up behind the Super Fortress as the Soviet Army tractor plowed through the ice and snow.
“Yaaahooo!” Paulson shouted as the Las Tortugas cleared the sastrugi field and all three wheels rolled onto smooth ice.
Ridley crossed his fists; a signal to Paulson to pull the throttles down to idle. He disconnected the tow bar, and Garrett steered the tractor out of the path of the Las Tortugas.
Ridley opened the hatch at the bottom of the fuselage and climbed into the belly, past Lyon and Perez, and into the cockpit.
“We’re all set,” he shouted to Paulson over the roar of the engines. “I’m going back out and look for Jack and the SEALs.”
The billionaire nodded and Ridley dropped down out of the bomber. He ran toward Garrett, who stood on the ice with a pair of binoculars glued to his eyes. Garrett worked the high-powered glassed between the ice valley that separated them from Thor’s Hammer and the intense firefight three kilometers distant.
“See anything?” Ridley shouted.
Garrett pulled his eyes away from the glasses. “Negative.” He pointed toward the plumes of snow and ice where mortar shells rained down on both sides. “How long are we waiting?”
Ridley shook his head.
Garrett lifted the binoculars and swung them out onto the ice. “There!” He pointed with one hand while holding the binoculars with the other. “It’s the snowcat.”
Sure enough, a snowcat glistened in the distance as its tracks threw up dual rooster tails of snow and ice.
Ridley tapped Garrett on the shoulder and spoke into his ear. “Tell Paulson to hold his horses for about two minutes.”
CHAPTER 107
The snowcat flew twice while crossing the steeper sastrugi, but Jack never let up on the throttle. He and Marko bounced around inside the cab, banging their heads against the roof and seat backs. The Las Tortugas lay directly in front of him, its four engines spewing blackened exhaust and the huge propellers spinning in a blur of high energy.
Jack maneuvered the snowcat to within fifty feet of the bomber’s nose and jammed on the brakes. “Roll one of these to the airplane.”
Marko nodded and jumped out his door. Jack climbed out into the track and pulled the first of the two warheads out from behind the seat.
Marko stood at the bottom as Jack slid it down to him and he half-dragged it toward the Las Tortugas while Jack fished the second canister out from behind the seat.
When he rounded the snowcat with the heavy cargo in tow, he nearly ran into Ridley, who pointed toward the raging firefight.
“If those SEALs are coming, they’d better get a move on.”
“They’re not coming,” Jack shouted over the combined roar of the four thundering engines.
Even the normally gruff Ridley looked stunned. “What?”
“I said they’re not coming.” Jack nodded toward the bomber. “If we don’t get out of here within the next few minutes, we won’t be leaving, either.”
Ridley’s eyes dropped to the bomb in Jack’s hands. “What in the fuck are you doing with that?”
“I can’t explain right now.” Jack looked away from the mechanic toward the fuselage of the bomber. Marko stood at the bottom of the hatch with the barrel-warhead. He was attempting to wedge the device up into the bomber, with no success.
“You get inside and I’ll heave them up to you,” he shouted. Marko nodded, climbed into the aircraft’s belly and pulled up on warhead number one while Jack pushed from the bottom. When they had the first canister aboard, Jack pushed the second inside with the climber’s help.
Jack waved toward Ridley to climb aboard the Las Tortugas, even as plumes of ice exploded less than three hundred meters away.
The Russians were advancing their position against Beckam’s outnumbered and outgunned smaller SEAL team.
Jack climbed into the belly of the roaring bomber and walked in a crouch into the cockpit. Paulson sat in the left command pilot’s seat and Garrett in the right, methodically reading off pre-take-off commands over the roar of the engines to Paulson from the B-29’s flight manual.
He shouted, “Wing flaps 25 degrees — switch auto pilot to off position — propellers at high RPM, turbos set for takeoff.”
Paulson’s hands stopped sweeping across the instrument panel long enough for him to flash a grin and shout, “Damn, Garrett, I’m going to make a four-engine bomber pilot out of you yet.”
Jack tapped Paulson on the shoulder and gave a karate-chop move with his hand indicating they should go.
“What about the SEALs?” Paulson shouted over the roar of the engines.
Jack shook his head vigorously. “They’re not coming.”
“Are you sure?” Paulson caught Jack’s expression and immediately understood. He nodded once.
A fountain of snow and ice erupted into a geyser not more than two hundred meters away.
“It’s now or never, Al.”
Paulson let Garrett lead him through the final few items on the pre-takeoff checklist. Then he glanced left and right out of habit to make sure they were clear of any obstacles and smoothly fed throttle to the 18-cylinder radial engines until they were roaring away with a combined 8,800 horsepower.
The Las Tortugas, rolling on its tires a and under its own power for the first time in more than fifty years, rattled and vibrated as it picked up speed over the ice runway.
The billionaire went against his instinct to pull the yoke back and get the Super Fortress off the ice. The only chance was gaining as much ground speed as possible and then physically yanking the heavy bomber off the runway. Then he’d have to fly less than fifty feet above the ice in ground effect to stay airborne in the thin air until he built up enough airspeed to climb out of the valley.