“An agreement with Lucifer?” Hunter asked.
“Yes. There is something, ‘the valuable,’ hidden in the pyramid,” the man continued. Beatrice had begun her hand movements once again.
“What is it?” Hunter pressed.
“We do not know,” the man answered quickly, closing his eyes again. “They don’t tell us submariners. Why would they? We are small pawns in big game.”
“You must have some idea,” Hunter said. “What was the scuttlebutt on your ship? Gold? Jewels?”
“Nyet, not money valuable,” the man said, the passionate strain showing on his face. “Very valuable as a weapon of some kind. But we would never know. And neither do the soldiers on ground.”
“Why not?” Hunter asked. “They’re right next to it. Don’t they see it?”
“No, no, no!” the man said, gasping for breath. “You cannot get near it. It is in a tomb. Stone tomb. It is blocked off by doors, stones, and metal. We ship special doors in for them.”
Beatrice’s hand movements were now reaching a climax. Hunter needed one more question answered.
“What kind of special doors?” he asked quickly.
The man looked like he was about to explode. He grimaced and said with great effort: “They … were … made … of … lead.”
At that moment, Nature took its course. The man bit his lip, his eyes were pressed shut. He shook once, then slumped down onto his pillow. Beatrice quickly reached for a towel.
“Lead?” Hunter asked, more to himself. Then it hit him. An agreement with Lucifer. A valuable weapon. You can’t get near it. Lead doors.
It all added up to one thing: there was something nuclear in the Great Pyramid of Cheops.
Chapter 33
The F-16 roared in at wave-top level, its whole airframe almost drooping from the weight of ten specially fitted Sidewinders on its wings and the weapons dispenser that was attached to its belly. Hunter checked the time. It was an hour before sun up. He checked his coordinates. The land he saw on his radar scope some fifteen miles ahead was probably the tip of land near the old Egyptian city of El Alamein. He did a radar sweep of the area. No hostile weapons were indicated. So far, so good.
He switched on his cockpit’s specially adapted SLQ-32 radar detector. This would warn him with a low tone if anyone on the ground happened to get a radar lock on the airplane. If the device detected that a radar was switched to a fire-control mode, a higher tone would be emitted. This meant a missile was about to be launched at him. At that point, he would have to take evasive action.
But for the time being, everything seemed to be quiet on the ground. He made landfall and streaked over El Alamein. Site of a famous World War II tank battle, the place was now deserted. In seconds he was on the other side of the city and heading into the barren area of Egypt known as the Qattara Depression.
He had left the Saratoga dead in the water about 150 miles northwest of Alexandria. The tugboat fleet was now history. Those vessels that hadn’t burned out their engines had been sunk by the subs. Now the Norwegians formed a protective ring around the carrier, as did the Freedom Navy boats. The frigate choppers were continuously circling the area looking for subs, while four of the carrier jets were in the air at any given time, watching out for any flying threats.
Despite all the protection, Hunter knew that the carrier would be discovered and eventually sunk — by the Soviets, by Lucifer’s other allies — if it stayed still for very long. Yet, with the loss of O’Brien’s tugs, moving the carrier was impossible. All of the other ships in the Saratoga flotilla combined could not generate enough sustained push-pull power to move the carrier very far.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered to himself for the hundredth time. “So goddamn close to the Canal and we run out of gas.”
It got worse. Just before he took off, the Italian communications team intercepted a message right from Lucifer’s Arabian Kingdom headquarters. His Legion troopships had set sail. They were making their way up the Red Sea and would be in the Gulf of Suez — and at the very threshold of the Canal itself — in a matter of days, if not hours.
He pressed on. He had to find out just what was in the Great Pyramid. For two reasons. One, there was a possibility that “the valuable” was nuclear and therefore could be fissionable plutonium. This meant that, with very little effort, Lucifer would have a nuclear bomb — or bombs—courtesy of the Kremlin. If that were the case, “the valuable” would have to be destroyed at all costs, and that included blowing up the whole goddamn pyramid if he had to.
But there was a second reason he had to find out exactly what “the valuable” was. It was a grand-daddy of longshots to be sure, but there was a possibility that the nuclear material might be UB-40 grade uranium.
If that was the case, then it would be a whole new ballgame …
He swung around to the east and headed for the Nile. He had visited the Great Pyramid once before while touring with The Thunderbirds. He knew there was a long strip of highway — newly constructed at the time — which ran fairly close to the ancient site. He knew the Soviets were using a stretch of highway for their helicopter base. Although the choppers didn’t need any length of runway to take off or land, their supply airplanes did. And, just as with the RAF base near Casablanca where he first met Heath, highway bases were the only way to go in the desert. They saved the time and effort of building new bases out in the middle of nowhere. Plus, should something go wrong — like a sneak air attack — the survivors could always drive — or walk — out.
Hunter knew there were no Soviet fighters or fighter-bombers in the area. How? Because he knew they would have attacked the Saratoga by now. The Soviets knew the carrier was in their area — their subs had confirmed that. But they would never mount an all-out attack on the fleet with just choppers. Thus sub attacks would be the only way to go.
He also knew that he couldn’t just set the 16 down on an isolated piece of asphalt and walk to the pyramid. If the thirst and sun didn’t get him, the Soviet soldiers guarding the place would.
So the situation would seem to call for an air strike. But again, there were problems. He was certain the Soviet troops around the pyramid and flying the choppers would be equipped with SAMs. No matter how many airplanes he could send against the chopper base and the troop site near the pyramid, he would have to expect the loss of at least three aircraft. And that was too many.
So he had decided to do the job himself. Before leaving he had discussed the whole scenario with Sir Neil, who pronounced him “daft” while at the same time crushing his hand with an almost tearful good-luck handshake. Hunter left one instruction behind. Should he not return by a specified time, the Tornados would bomb up and destroy the pyramid. Simple as that.
His plan was to catch as many of the Soviet choppers on the ground as possible. That’s why he chose sunrise for the one-man attack. He doubted the Soviets were into doing dawn patrols these days. In fact, knowing the Soviet military mind as he did, he would have bet the chopper pilots and the pyramid guard force would be just about fed up with desert duty right about now. They had obviously been guarding the pyramid for some time — waiting for Lucifer to make his grand entrance through the Canal, no doubt picking up his “valuable” along the way. The sand does crazy things to soldiers — gets in their eyes, their hair, their chow. They come to hate it very quickly. Sand also does crazy things to machines — especially helicopters. It gets into the oil, the fuel, the gears, the grease. It’s a bitch to clean out, and as soon as you do, some more will blow in anyway.