Ridley tripped and fell into Marko, who sat jammed into the radio operator’s station behind the cockpit. “Is it going to fly?” the young climber asked, his face pale with fear.
Ridley grinned. “Like a homesick angel.” He winked and patted Marko on the shoulder. “You just hang on.”
Paulson struggled to keep control of the bomber as it bounced off the ice and crashed down on the landing gear once, then twice. “Just a couple more seconds,” he whispered, jaw clenched tight. Suddenly he jerked back on the yoke with both hands. “We’re out of here!”
The Las Tortugas leapt off the ice and Paulson held it aloft less than fifty feet over the tops of the sastrugi. When the billionaire-pilot nodded, Garrett flipped up a lever, raising the landing gear.
Ridley crawled back into the cockpit and struggled to hold on between the two pilots. “Angus says the cylinder head temperature gauges are pegged. You got to pull back on them throttles.”
Paulson nodded, but his eyes didn’t leave the horizon as he fought to keep the bomber airborne.
“I think you got it,” the old mechanic said. “Pull her nose up a bit more.”
“You want to fly, Mac?” Paulson snapped while struggling to cross-control the heavy bomber in the erratic drafts created by the jagged mountains.
“No — you’re doing just fine.”
Jack turned around and fought his way back to the radio operator’s station to check on Marko and the two warheads.
The interior was incredibly cramped for a large aircraft. As Paulson had said, “It was designed to be a flying gas tank and bomb platform — nothing more, nothing less.”
He patted Marko on the shoulder and studied the two metallic canisters now securely jammed behind the cockpit. The irony of the situation seemed overwhelming. Here he was, flying in the same type of aircraft that ended World War II by dropping two nuclear bombs on Japan. By doing so, he’d probably started a new and deadlier world war — one in which these two weapons of mass destruction would play a pivotal role.
Jack worked his way back toward the cockpit. “How far behind is Thor’s Hammer?”
“Maybe four or five miles.” Paulson glanced over at him. “We’re out of range of the Russian soldiers if that’s what you mean.”
“That should be far enough,” Jack said. “Those bombs are something else. Not nukes, according to Beckam, but enough to turn anyone in range to shoe-goo with a massive dose of gamma radiation.”
Ridley’s eyes opened wide, and real anger replaced the normally gruff but yielding personality. “Then what the hell are you doing bringing those aboard?”
“Bring what aboard?” Paulson asked.
“Christ! Jack brought two of those bombs along, and he says they’ll make old-school nukes seem like Fourth-of-July fireworks!”
“They’re safe as long as you don’t set the code sequence,” Jack said.
“Have you lost your mind?” cried Paulson. He looked every bit as enraged as his chief mechanic. “If we crash, and chances are we will, we sure as hell don’t need any help making the explosion bigger!”
“Maybe.” Jack fought to control his temper, his anger fed by stress and fatigue. “All I know is that unless we have a bargaining chip, Leah’s going to be held captive for life. Or worse.”
The two men gave him doubtful looks. Now Jack felt real rage building in his chest — and it felt good. “What the fuck do you think we’re gonna do, Al? Waltz back into the States and take up where we left off?” He wanted that to sink in for a moment before using his closer. “We’re all dead men and you know it.”
Suddenly the sky flashed brilliant white.
“I’ve got to have a look.” Paulson turned the yoke hard left, and the B-29 banked sharply over.
“Don’t get any closer, Al,” Jack warned. “Beckam said this thing not only would make a hell of a fireball, but it’s going to release a dose of radiation that will wipe out every living thing in the valley.”
Although the old bomber made the turn with agonizing slowness, within seconds a small mushroom cloud could be seen rising in the distance. The base of the deadly cloud sparkled with colors: yellows, reds and hues of blue and even purple. A massive rainbow wrapped the cloud like ribbons on a gift; a million tons of ice instantly flashed into white hot steam.
“My God,” said Jack softly. “It’s gone.”
The magnificent vertical wall and the granite vein that had identified it for millions of years lay in ruins; portions of jagged granite peaks cut up through the mist and vapor-looking more like a worn set of molars than the massive granite cathedral that once guarded the valley. What couldn’t be seen was the mass of gamma radiation that had cooked everything within a mile of the explosion.
“You think the SEALs survived?” Paulson asked.
Jack shook his head. “Not the way Beckam described what was going to happen at ground zero…. Rest in peace, fellas.”
Paulson nodded and swung the bomber back on to a northwesterly course, guiding the Super Fortress over the Antarctica Peninsula and toward Punta Arenas. “God bless ‘em,” he whispered
Jack murmured a prayer for the SEAL and his men. He saw Ridley was doing the same.
“Now, Jack, I gotta know what your plan is for those warheads,” Paulson said. “If I don’t like it, I dump them into the ocean.”
Jack leaned over Paulson’s right shoulder. “We’re going to play a game of high-stakes poker. Think you’ve got the stomach for it?”
Paulson kept his eyes focused on the B-29’s instrument panel. “What do you have in mind?”
CHAPTER 108
Leah wiped the sweat from her forehead, even though the interior of the C-130 had felt cold just minutes before. She had the palm of her hand pressed firmly down against the panel as the girl in the tube convulsed repeatedly.
She didn’t hear Fischer and the scientists shouting at each other or feel the aircraft lurch as the pilots pushed the throttles forward to speed their descent into the White Sands Missile Test Range.
Leah’s sole focus was the Native American child, who was flailing her arms and legs as if in severe pain.
Leah turned her head but didn’t remove her palm. Her gaze darted about the rear of the aircraft until she saw Fischer’s pencil neck and pale skin. She indicated the tube with her free hand and shouted, “She’s dying! Get something and break open this damn tube!”
Fischer nodded and, seconds later, a soldier stood over the tube with an ice axe that he’d yanked off the side of the fuselage.
When he raised the axe over his head, Leah instinctively shielded her eyes from what she was sure would be a shower of shards when the axe hit the clear, glass-like material.
Instead the axe head simply bounced off the surface like it had struck solid granite, not glass.
“Again!” she shouted.
The soldier raised the axe over his head and swung it down, this time bending his knees as he brought his muscle and body-weight into the swing.
This time the axe bounced off the clear material and flew from the soldier’s hands causing the others who’d gathered around to cover their heads and duck for cover. Leah beat on the tube with both palms, praying that whatever had given her the ability to open the door on the alien station in Antarctica would be enough to free these people before they died.
Suddenly, blue liquid ran through one of the clear tubes that ran into the thigh of the girl. Within seconds, her mouth opened and chest swelled as the interior surface of the tube fogged.