Visions of Chernobyl came to Sean. “No, I guess we can do without the fallout.”
Joe chuckled at the dual meaning of the major’s observation. “A comedian and a killer. Man, you’re talented.”
“Maj, time to boogie,” Lieutenant Duc said as he walked through the slightly parted hangar doors.
“Need a hand with that?” Sean asked.
Joe gladly put the handle of the forty-pound case into the major’s outstretched hand. “You young ‘uns is so polite.”
“Gotta be nice to our elders,” Sean said with a smile.
Joe returned the expression and walked to the Pave Hawk with Delta’s XO. Ten minutes later, after loading and securing their gear, the nine Delta troopers and their civilian specialist joined the four crewmen aboard the MH-60K. With no reason for delay the black-and-green bird, which bore no external markings, lifted into the warm afternoon air and headed out over the rippling blue surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Ten miles out the Pave Hawk turned southeast. The first leg of its journey would take it north of the Bahamas before it turned due south to meet up with its tanker east of Cuba.
Once again, the real thing had begun.
“We are ready, General,” the Cuban lieutenant reported smartly, his hand jerking up and down in an overdone salute.
“How long now?” Asunción asked. Looking at the grotesque tangle of newly welded pipes, he would not have been surprised to hear a year as an estimate.
“Six hours,” the lieutenant answered. “Possibly slightly more, but I do not think so.”
The crack of several explosions reverberated from between the buildings. These did not come from across the bay, however. They were emanating from the north.
“Go ahead. And quickly. I want no more delays.”
The lieutenant waited for the general to walk away before summoning the crew of the pump-equipped tank truck. “You will see to the pumping of all the NTO. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” the crewmen responded willingly, though why they had to be responsible for every driver’s load was beyond them.
“Come on,” the second crewman said as soon as their commander was out of earshot. “The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll be done.”
“You’re too much of an optimist.” He pulled the fueling hose over to the newly installed inflow valve and twisted to the locked position. After he did so, his eyes followed the length of pipe that left the tree and dived underground a few yards away. “Are we pumping that way?”
“No. That way. There must be a tank near those towers.” It was a big game of shuffling fuel supplies to safer storage areas until the yanqui-inspired coup was crushed. The damned Americans! Thinking they could control anyone who did not fall in line with their imperialist ways!
“Well, how far does this line go the other way? There’s no cutoff valve on this side,” the first crewman complained.
The second crewman walked off the distance to the underground tank, noting where the outlet valve was before returning to his partner. “I estimate forty-five meters.”
“You mean we’re going to backfill forty-five meters of empty pipe? And what do we do with the remainder? Huh? This tree is above flow level, and it is going to act like a trap.” The crewman’s knowledge of chemicals might not be to the level that those who made the devilish substances was, but he knew that you never left a line full of cryogenically cooled nitrogen tetroxide. That liquid had to go into a similarly refrigerated tank. “Is there enough room to drain the leftover back into that other tank?”
“No, the lieutenant said it’s full, remember,” the second crewman said. “That’s why we’re not pumping to it.”
“Well, how are we supposed to do this?” He surveyed the tree. The work was adequate, but no one had thought to install a backflow valve to prevent what he was trying to figure a way around. Forty-five meters of empty line! Empty? “Aha!”
“What?”
“Is there a fill pump on the outlet of the full tank?”
“Yes,” the second crewman answered without knowing what his partner was thinking.
“There! We have it. Just prime the line with some of what is in that tank. It’s the same chemical. Then, when we fill the empty, we drain the line back into the full tank.”
“I may be the optimist, but you are the genius.”
The crewman nodded acceptingly. “Of course I am. Now start that pump and prime this line so we can get out of here.” Another explosion thundered through the complex from a distance. Someone must want something around here, he thought, with no knowledge that his “genius” had just altered the value of that desired by an appreciable degree.
Gennadiy Timofeyevich Konovalenko set the handset easily and slowly into its cradle. It was a forced calm, one with rage behind its tranquil facade, as the foreign minister could readily see.
“The line from Air Defense to Marshal Kurchatov has been severed,” the president said, relaying that which his American counterpart had just informed him of. The rest of the conversation took just seconds to relate.
Yakovlev shared his leader’s stone-like expression and let out a breath, one equal in both relief and dread. “So, it is happening.”
“Georgiy Ivanovich and his cohorts could not let such an opportunity pass,” the president observed. “We knew this would happen eventually.”
The interior minister looked to the clock behind the president. A gift from the American ambassador, it blended perfectly with the Spartan decor that the president preferred. Once owned by the great American Benjamin Franklin, the timepiece, an intricate set of springs and gears inside a polished maple case, now held a place of honor in the office of the president of the Russian Federation. It was a reminder of what was possible when a people were sailing the uncharted waters of history, as the Russian people now were. And of the perils. The making of America had not been without its challenges. Neither would be the making of the new Russia. Anticipation of those challenges was the first step in overcoming them. The rest required only determination…and some luck.
“It will not be long, then, until there is some movement,” Yakovlev said, mentally noting the time. “Either a missile at dawn or rifles before.”
The president picked up the phone. Enough time had passed for the Americans to complete the switching that was required, and which they had offered. “The Americans will handle the missile, Georgiy Ivanovich.” He pressed a single button, making the connection immediately. “And we have a few rifles ourselves… Yes, Mr. President. We are ready.”
Art left room 106 and walked into the parking lot. Already there were three dozen agents, and half as many officers of the LAPD, milling about the area. The streets were shut down for two blocks in all directions, and the nearest crowd of ghouls was a full football field away up Vermont.
And then there were the bodies. They lay where they had fallen, no attempt yet made to cover them. Those formalities would come after the Bureau photographers arrived to memorialize the crime scene on hundreds of rolls of film. Art walked past the pair of bodies, the foretold “visitors” from wherever, probably Florida, and to where his partner stood a dozen feet away. The two agents who had stayed with her politely drifted away.
“How are you?”
Frankie looked up from her focus point on the cracked black asphalt, but not at her partner. Not at anyone. “I could have killed him, Art.”
“I know.” Something in him wanted to reach out and put a hand on her shoulder, or even to pull her close and hug her, telling her that it was okay, that he understood. But he didn’t understand. And he couldn’t do the other. It wasn’t what she needed at the moment.