“Lost it. Bomb would have gone off by now,” said McAden. “Galatica, two miles dead ahead. Low, erratic.”
“See if they’ll answer a hail.”
Chapter 106
Lanzas seemed dazed next to her. Breanna decided it was time to get her weapon. She slipped the restraints, then jerked the stick forward, sending the plane nose down.
Pushing away her com headset, Rap dove for Minerva, wrestling for the big knife Minerva had tucked in the other side of her belt. But the Brazilian she-wolf didn’t try to fight her off. Breanna pulled the blade free, then pointed it at Lanzas.
“It’s no use,” said the Brazilian. “You can kill me if you want. The bomb will get us when we land.”
“Kevin’s bomb?”
“That’s on the Flighthawk.”
“We’re booby-trapped,” said Breanna. “Where is it? Where’s the bomb. Is it on a timer? Or an altimeter? When does it go off?”
Lanzas said nothing more.
“Jeff, are you down there? Jeff, are you all right?”
He didn’t answer. She tried the interphone circuit again, but got nothing.
“Kevin?” she said tentatively.
Madrone didn’t answer.
The Megafortress accepted her commands without interference. Something had happened below — it might well be that both Jeff and Kevin were dead.
Breanna reauthorized the computer pilot, reasoning that Madrone had been able to take over the plane even when the computer pilot was off. The computer snapped in, almost eager; it blew through its self-diagnostics, reporting itself fit and trim. Rap glanced at Lanzas as she told the computer to hold the present course, then locked the controls with her voice command.
The Brazilian made no effort to stop her. She seemed to be in a trance.
Breanna stood, twisting her headphones off. But as she started to get up to go below, she heard a voice over the headset.
Still staring at Lanzas, Bree put the headset on.
“Bree.”
“Jeff? Are you okay?”
“We landing?”
“I think we’re rigged to explode. I’m not sure how, though — whether it’s a timer or some sort of altimeter bomb.”
“You sure?”
“I don’t know if Lanzas is lying or not. But she was awfully worried about going over ten thousand feet.”
“We did that already.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“I want you to eject.”
“What about you?”
“Just do it.”
“Don’t be stupid, Jeff. Besides, she probably sabotaged the seats. The ones below were monkeyed with.”
He didn’t answer. She could hear him groaning and shoving his body around; he sounded like he did in the morning when he pulled himself from bed and went to the bathroom by crawling across the floor.
“How much fuel do we have?” he said finally.
“About twenty minutes worth. Maybe a little less. We’re on three engines,” she added. “A Scorpion took one off.”
“That ought to stretch things a bit, no?” he asked.
His voice was so deadpan, she wasn’t entirely sure he was trying to make a joke.
Chapter 107
“Galatica, this is Dreamland M-6. Do you read me? Galatica, can you hear me? Please acknowledge.”
Dog listened as both McAden and Geraldo took turns trying to hail the plane. They were about ten minutes out of Dreamland.
His fatigue was starting to set in. Fatigue and worry, mostly about his daughter.
“Dreamland M-6, this is Galatica,” said Breanna. “I’m in control here. Repeat, I am in control.”
“Bree,” said Dog.
“Hey, Daddy. What the hell are you doing in a Megafortress?”
“I’m flying it,” he said. “Bree — the nuke.”
“On the Flighthawk.”
“Mack Smith splashed it,” said Bastian.
“Mack?”
“Insubordinate snot disobeyed orders, thank God,” said Dog. “Now listen, little girl, you stayed out past your bedtime and I’ve come to bring you home. Set up for Runway One.”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that. We have a bit of a situation here.”
Chapter 108
In jeff’s opinion, Minerva was bluffing.
On the other hand, nothing she’d done until now had been a bluff.
“Altimeter or timer?” Bree asked.
“Timer,” said Jeff.
“Then we should land right now.”
“Unless it’s an altimeter. What’s the lowest we’ve been?”
“Hold.”
Jeff listened as Rap paged back through the logs.
“Three hundred feet. But if it wasn’t armed until ten thousand, it could be anywhere below 4,500, I think. Minerva’s still catatonic. What about Kevin?”
“I knocked him out. He wouldn’t know anyway. She used him.”
“So what’s your call?” Bree asked, her voice as breezy as if she were asking about a basketball bet. “Altimeter or timer?”
“Have to be a radar altimeter.”
“Why?”
“Because otherwise you could defeat it by landing someplace high. Lanzas would have thought about that, and suggested it as a way out. Do you know where it is?”
“If I knew where it was, don’t you think I’d run back and find it?”
“I didn’t realize you had a blowtorch handy,” said Zen sarcastically. “Must be in the tail, where they repaired the plane. Maybe we can spoof the beacon.”
“Jeff, even if you were right and you could find a way to do that, it wouldn’t eliminate a timer.”
“Well, let’s take a shot at finding it. Check the course that Kevin programmed in. See how low he was going to go before making the attack.”
“That was the three hundred feet.”
“Probably below that triggers it.”
“Well, great, that’s an easy jump.”
If it did have a radar altimeter, there probably would be a way to spoof it, Jeff decided. He could use a Flighthawk to detect it, or maybe examine the hull for a hot spot.
Except that he didn’t have a Flighthawk. But Jennifer Gleason did.
“It’s in native mode, orbiting above Dreamland,” Jennifer told him. “I can unlock it. Can you fly it?”
“Not a problem.”
As he waited, Jeff glanced over at Kevin, slumped in his seat. Zen had grabbed and punched him hard as he leaned over him; blood curled from his nose and ear. But for some reason Jeff thought it was more than the blow that had knocked his friend senseless. The fatigue of these past days, the drugs, fear, and maybe the realization of what he’d done — they must be at least as responsible for knocking him out as Jeff’s fist.
Zen’s wrist had swollen, either from the punch or the fall. He winced, but still managed a smooth handoff of the Flight-hawk. He took the U/MF from its orbit and swung up toward the EB-52.
Odd to fly the plane from the panels without his flight helmet, almost as if he were working by remote control. Which, of course, he was. All the time.
“Blew that engine clean off,” said Zen.
“B-52’s don’t go down,” said Bree. “I can tell you stories. Major Cheshire has a whole gallery of damaged BUFFs that landed in Vietnam with half the plane shot away.”
Jeff tried infrared as he closed in, focusing on the tail section. Maybe there was a little part of the right stabilizer that wasn’t as hot as the rest, maybe not. The repair threw everything off anyway.
“Going to put the fuzz detector on full,” said Zen. “Jeff, it’s not going to make any difference.”
“Knowledge is power. Just hold us level until the tanker gets here.”