‘The plane crashed this morning.’
‘This morning?’
‘You’ve been here fourteen hours, give or take.’
‘Feels like a lifetime.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, it does.’
‘What happened to your leg?’ croaked Pinback, gesturing to the splint clamped to her calf.
‘Took a knock when I punched out.’
‘Broken?’
‘No idea. Hurts like a son of a bitch.’
‘Cry me a fucking river. Give anything to feel my legs right now.’
‘Yeah. Well. Looks like we’ll both be eating hospital food a while.’
He nodded. Eyes struggling to focus, like he was fighting sleep.
He raised his hand and fumbled the zip-pull of his sleeve pocket. Frost leaned forward, gently pushed his hand aside and took out his two remaining morphine injectors.
‘What’s up? Need another shot?’
He shook his head.
‘For you.’
‘You’re messed up, sir. You’ll need them.’
‘No,’ he said. Sad smile. ‘No, I won’t.’
Frost unscrewed her canteen. She lifted his head, held capfuls of water to his lips and let him sip.
He lay back, nodding gratitude.
‘What about the others?’ he asked.
‘Guthrie’s dead. Infected. Must have been hiding it the whole time.’
‘Infected. Jesus. When?’
‘Vegas, at a guess. Someone in the camp wasn’t quite what he seemed.’
‘Anyone else make it?’
She shook her head.
‘Far as I can tell, just you and me.’
She gently wiped his face with towelettes.
‘So what happened up there?’ she asked. ‘Why did the engines fail?’
‘Wild guess: tainted fuel. Simple as that. Sediment in the tanks.’
‘Yeah?’
‘You saw the situation back at Vegas. Place was falling apart. Barely enough guys to man the wire. Some poor, half-trained bastard filled the tanks with sour JP8. Fuel must have been sitting in that truck a long while.’
‘And that was the flame-out?’
‘Sure. Pod two choked and blew, peppered the wing with debris. Took out the firewall isolator valves. Ruptured the lines. We were fucked from that point on. Losing fuel, losing oil pressure. Pod one starts to burn, and suddenly we had electrical fires all over. Pods two and three die in a matter of minutes. Pointless to apportion blame. We caught a dose of bad luck. Leave it at that.’
‘Yeah,’ said Frost, thinking it over. ‘I buy it.’
‘Cascading system failures. It’s like you said. This bird belongs in a museum. She shouldn’t have been in the air.’
He winced.
‘Sure you don’t want a shot?’
He shook his head.
‘You should have punched out,’ said Frost.
‘Thought I could bring her level. Thought I could bring her home.’
Frost gave him more water.
‘So what was the objective? Why were we out here, in the middle of nowhere, prepped to bomb dirt?’
‘Classified.’
‘Come on, Cap.’
‘Classified. Seriously. They gave me coordinates. A map with a cross. That’s all. It was Hancock’s deal. He was running the show. S2 intelligence. That’s why they put him aboard the flight.’
‘Where’s the target data?’
Pinback gestured to a soft vinyl document wallet propped beside the co-pilot position.
‘There are the particulars. Be my guest.’
Frost retrieved the wallet.
Cover stamp: RESTRICTED ACCESS. CO-PILOT ONLY.
Zipper.
She thumbed pages.
Latitude/longitude.
A grease-pencil flight path plotted on a map.
A sheaf of National Recon Office aerial photographs: dunes and a limestone escarpment.
‘Doesn’t make sense. A ten kiloton strike on absolutely nothing. Sand. Rocks.’
‘Think of the effort that went into this operation. Trying to marshal the resources for a nuclear drop while the word falls apart. Didn’t happen on a whim. The continuity government, bunch of generals and politicians, wanted to hit this site real bad. Sealed in their bunker, shouting orders down the phone. Expended their remaining assets to see the mission carried out. Must have been a big deal.’
‘Crazy.’
‘Rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight. Same as it ever was. Above our pay grade, Frost. Don’t sweat it.’
Pinback suddenly gripped the side-poles of the litter and screamed through clenched teeth. Frost punched another morphine shot into his neck. He slowly relaxed.
They sat a while and watched sunset turn the cabin interior gold.
Pinback started to shiver.
‘Damn,’ he murmured. ‘Freezing in here.’
She checked him out. His face was white. His lips were blue. She put a hand on his forehead. Running hot.
‘Guess it’s the evening chill,’ she lied. ‘Night falls fast in the desert.’
He exhaled, like he was trying to see his breath steam in cold air.
‘Got a blanket or something?’
‘Think I saw a coat down below.’
‘I’d be obliged.’
Frost gestured to her injured leg.
‘Got me running all over the damn place, you sadistic fuck.’
He smiled.
She climbed down the ladder to the lower cabin. An NB3 parka wadded and lashed to the wall.
Easiest way to carry the heavy coat up the ladder was to wear it.
When she got back to the flight deck Pinback was dead.
She took off the coat and laid it over his body so she wouldn’t have to look at his face.
10
A backpack stashed in the EWO footwell.
Frost sat in the pilot seat, held the bag in her lap and unzipped the main compartment. Noble’s stuff:
A handful of snack bars.
A video camera.
A copy of The Little Prince.
She examined the book. She flipped pages.
To Malcolm, Have a very happy birthday, All my love, Dad.
She’d met a bunch of military personnel in the past few months. Most ditched keepsakes. Eschewed reminders of all they had lost. Kids, partners, parents. Out of contact, almost certainly dead. Hard to think of them without succumbing to suicidal despair. Better to be surrounded by impersonal PX-issue clothes and accoutrements. Olive-drab, mil-spec gear that held no evocative power.
She turned the camera in her hands.
Noble had been ordered to film the blast.
How it should have played out:
The target run.
Frost, strapped in her seat at the radar navigation console. She and Guthrie plot course; make sure the aircraft reaches the precise drop point.
Hancock maintains heading.
Pinback rides the throttles, monitors airspeed.
Couple of minutes from target Pinback radios Vegas for permission to deploy. He gets the Go. Hancock and Frost formally concur. They hand their authentication codes to Noble. He keys the digit sequence into the weapons console and arms the device.
Cue for Frost to unzip her breast pocket, take out a stopwatch and call the sixty second count.
Twenty seconds to target: low rumble/thud as the bomb bay doors fold open and lock.
Pinback issues the final command: proceed with launch sequence.
Countdown from ten.
Noble reaches for the overhead Special Weapons panel, lifts switch covers and hits WPN REL.
Clamps retract and the ALCM drops from the payload compartment. Solid fuel boosters fire, fins unfold, and the missile begins its journey to the target site. Warhead: a Mod 4 CS-67 tactical nuke dialled for a ten kiloton yield.
The plane banks and enters a holding pattern. Standoff until detonation.
They drop blast screens and wait. Minutes pass.