Lightfoote smiled and nodded, and practically skipped back to the van. Rideout wanted to scream but turned the attention of the manager quickly away from Lightfoote.
“Mr. Coon?” he began, removing a notepad. “Let's start with your full name, OK?” The two walked toward the office door. Rideout glanced briefly back toward the plane.
Fifteen minutes later, Rideout opened the door to the van. Lightfoote was in the front passenger side. He closed the door and exhaled.
“I don't know how, but we did it. Hopefully, John and Frank will go undiscovered until they land in Mexico. Meanwhile, you and I need to head straight back and sound the alarms. If you think this was a hard act, convincing the FBI and the CIA and who knows who else that we weren't involved with this is going to be a wake-up call.”
Lightfoote smiled and reached over and squeezed his arm. “Oh, I don't worry, J. P. This was easy.”
“Easy?” he said, staring at her incredulously. Sure, he thought. Skipping easy.
At 3:15 a.m., a wide-bodied cargo airliner, owned by TransMexico, lifted off the runway at JFK Airport. Inside, it carried an assortment of perishables, canned goods, liquor, farm equipment, and two stowaway FBI agents headed to confront the terrorist organization Mjolnir.
Several thousand miles away, three hours after the cargo plane had departed Kennedy Airport, a black SUV sped down a highway in eastern Mexico. The driver didn't seem to notice the reading of the speedometer, now pushing past one hundred miles an hour. The large vehicle trembled at that velocity, and the heavy metallic objects on the passenger seat bounced continuously. Jordan glanced over and pushed the weapons toward the seat back, then refocused on the road. The paling sky began to turn a purple-red and then, slowly, a brighter and brighter orange. Finally, a great flaming orb erupted in front of him on the horizon, and he slipped on a pair of sunglasses. His vehicle aimed straight for the orb, and he followed its mark, like some demonic inversion of the shepherds being led to the Christ Child. Only he was not a shepherd, and he carried not gifts but automatic weapons, and what waited under the point of the star was not a Holy Mother and Child but the minions of the damned who sought to bathe the world in fire.
62
Cohen stared out the window. The rising sun turned from a deep red to a yellow-orange as it climbed over the horizon. A strange-looking black aircraft was being fueled under the morning rays. She was no aviation expert, but it was clear the plane was an altered version of a standard design, with several modifications built into the underside of the aircraft. A long tubular extension ran nearly the length of the body underneath, with a set of thin payload doors that seemed ready to open in flight and release their cargo to the world below. The exterior seemed coated in an unusual material, and even the sun was absorbed, its light unable to reflect from the surface. A portal into the night seemed to have opened where the aircraft stood.
A morning mist from the humid lands rose off the vegetation in the distance, and dew covered the surfaces of the aircraft and runway. She observed a platoon of men guiding a long crate up a loading ramp and into the belly of the plane. They walked solemnly, as if marching in a long funeral procession for a beloved statesman. Beside the ramp stood three men at attention. Two were stout and of military bearing, dressed in fatigues, one older than the other. Between them in an expensive suit, with reflective aviation sunglasses strapped to his grayed and angular head, was CEO William Gunn. He watched impassively, and yet every muscle in his body seemed taut with a hidden energy. The three watched the crate being loaded onto the plane and remained unmoving as the soldiers finished, then walked back down the ramp and lined up in formation behind the fuselage.
She pulled herself away from the window. What was that all about? The entire scene felt ominous to her, and she wondered what was held inside the cargo they loaded on the plane.
Cohen sat down, exhausted, legs crossed and eyes bloodshot, staring at the door and window of her prison. She had slept fitfully in the makeshift bed they had rigged for her — not a cot exactly, but not a bed. Even if she possessed a king-sized mattress and springs it would have meant nothing last night. She had tried all the possible escape routes — the windows on either side, the door — but each had been effectively barred and locked. After an hour of blistering her hands, she had given up. A refrigerator held cheap foods and drinks inside. She had not touched it. She had simply grown more subdued, waiting until her captors would call on her again.
The door burst open. Cohen jumped up and pressed her back against the wall. A young man she had never seen entered, and he closed the door quickly. He turned around, and instantly she changed her mind — she had seen him recently. He was the man who had stared so intently at her the other day after she landed.
“Ms. Cohen?” he asked.
“Yes. Who are you?”
He took off his hat. “My name's Michael Inherp, ma'am. I'm sorry for all this, but it's Mr. Gunn's doing, his plan to keep you here and stop the FBI and others from trying to stop the mission.”
Cohen was stunned. Who was this kid, and how did he know so much? What was he doing here?
“You know a lot about this, Mr. Inherp.”
He looked around the room quickly, then back at Cohen. “There's not time to explain it all. I'm the one who wrote to the army to tell them about the missile.”
“What missile?” The cargo?
“You don't know?” He looked bewildered. “There's no time. Please, you need to come with me now. FBI and CIA agents are almost here now, and there is no telling what they are going to do. They could get you killed. Not too much longer from now, the air force is going to be bombing this place. We've got to get you out.”
Cohen felt the nauseating vertigo that combined a lack of understanding with a threat to one's life. “Please!” she said. “What are you talking about!”
The soldier sighed. “Ms. Cohen, this is Mjolnir. They have a nuclear missile they just loaded on a plane. They're going to use that missile. I notified the military just before sunrise. They told me FBI and CIA agents were already on their way, and that I had to warn you and them that the air force is going to bomb this airport to all hell as soon as they can get here. The rest of the airport is evacuating, and it's a miracle they haven't noticed yet. Please, we've got to go, now!”
He reached over, grasped her hand, and began pulling her toward the door. Just at that moment, the door opened again, and the form of another soldier entered, holding a plate of food and staring downward as he balanced the tray, still unaware of Inherp's presence in the room.
“Breakfast, Ms. Cohen,” he began, glancing up and momentarily looking confused at the sight of another soldier in the room.
Inherp kicked the other soldier between the legs. The man hunched over, and inhaled in pain, and Inherp removed his sidearm and brought it down sharply on the man's skull. He crashed to the ground, orange juice and toast spilling over the floor.
Inherp turned and grabbed Cohen's hand again. “Now!” he cried.
Terrified, Cohen exited the building with him. They sprinted down the side of the fence away from the loaded plane. She had no idea where they were going or how this soldier planned to get them out of there without Gunn or his troops stopping them. And FBI coming here? Who? Why would they come if the military was going to strike? My God, can he be right? A nuclear weapon?