With the rear door locked from the outside, the C-4 they’d scavenged from one of the barrels had been the only option for escape. The truck-bomb design consisted of detonators inserted into four blocks of C-4 buried in the barrels full of ANFO. The blast from the plastic explosive would set off the barrels of ANFO, causing a chain-reaction that would blow up the whole truck. Cutting the wires had disabled the bomb, but they’d found no timer or receiver to set off the weapon. It had to be somewhere on the truck, but tracing the wire to its source proved impossible.
Although they had dealt with the bomb, they still needed to find a way out of the truck. When the explosive didn’t detonate, Colchev would open the trailer to find out why.
“That should do it,” Grant said. He gave the C-4 putty one last pat and stood. “You sure you can’t think of something better than this?”
Tyler forced a smile. “Would you rather wait in here until the truck comes to a full and complete stop?”
“Not really. But it feels like we’re going about sixty. Gonna be a bumpy landing if we jump.”
“Then we’ll have to stop the truck.”
Grant raised a finger. “One teensy problem with that plan—”
“It’s more of a goal than a plan.”
“The guys operating this thing have guns and we have persuasive verbal skills. Oh, and they have enough ANFO to divide Australia in two.”
They both turned toward the stacks of explosive. Tyler estimated that the truck carried a destructive power equal to the payload of a B-2 bomber. The Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, used seven thousand pounds of ANFO to take out half of the Alfred P. Murrah building. A truck filled with eighty thousand pounds of the same material would level a city block.
To make an exit out of the trailer, Tyler and Grant would have to blow up four small wads of C-4 within five feet of the truck’s deadly load. Grant had taken the C-4 and detonators from the ignition barrels to form the crude breach charges. Because Stevens’ and Beech’s phones could also function as walkie-talkies, Grant rigged one unit to send the detonation signal when it was contacted by the other. He’d attached two arm’s-lengths of wire from the phone’s speaker to the detonator so that the cell wouldn’t be destroyed by the explosion.
“We’ll be okay,” Tyler said as much for himself as for Grant. “As long as we don’t get any fires started in here, the ANFO should be stable.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Look on the bright side. We should be out of the city by now. If it does blow, we’ll only take out a few kangaroos at most.”
“And us.”
“And some terrorists.”
“You are just a positive guy, aren’t you?”
Tyler grinned. “I try. Now let’s do this before I decide it’s moronic.”
He followed Grant behind one of the barrels and crouched down. Even if the load didn’t detonate, the shrapnel from the blast could be deadly.
Grant nodded that his phone was ready to receive. Tyler closed his eyes, covered his ears, and hit TALK.
The explosion sucked Tyler’s breath away and assaulted his nose with the signature smell of burnt tar he always associated with C-4. He held his breath to wait for the smoke to dissipate through the new hole in the truck door.
He opened his eyes to see sunlight blazing into the trailer. He peeked over the barrel to look at Grant’s handiwork. The charge blasted a perfect hole in the bottom of the door, taking the external latch with it.
“Nicely done,” Tyler said.
Grant stood. “Well, we’re still here.” He went to the rear of the trailer and pushed the roll top door up on its tracks until it was wide open. Wind swirled into the truck, but the turbulence did little more than muss Tyler’s hair.
Except for the occasional scrub brush, the rusty outback consisted of nothing but dirt and rocks, with low mountain ranges in the distance. The rapidly receding asphalt pavement disappeared to a point at the horizon. Tyler didn’t like the idea of leaping out onto it. Unless they could clad themselves in bubble wrap, the impact wouldn’t be fun. Without helmets, they’d be lucky not to bash their heads in.
“They’re not slowing down,” Grant said. “They had to have seen the explosion from the chase van.”
“They might be guiding the truck by GPS. I know I wouldn’t want to be this close to a truck full of ANFO.”
“I’ll see if I can find any landmarks.” Grant poked his head around the corner on the passenger side. When he pulled back, his expression was even grimmer than before.
“It’s worse than we thought.”
“Why?”
“Take a look.”
Tyler exchanged places with him and peered around the edge, squinting as the wind lashed his face. At first all he noticed was the white side of the trailer pasted with the name “Western Lines.” Then he blanched when he saw the source of all the bumping and clashing metal they’d heard before heading out on the highway.
They weren’t on just a conventional tractor trailer. They were on a road train. Instead of just a single trailer, there were three more identical ones hitched in front of it. That explained why the detonator’s receiver was nowhere to be found. It must have been in one of the other trailers.
Bedova was wrong about the amount of explosive Colchev had acquired. If the other trailers were as chock full of ANFO as this one, the road train was hauling 320,000 pounds of the stuff, enough to destroy not just a city block, but an entire downtown.
TWENTY
After the car carrying Kessler, Morgan, and Vince was cleared through the front gate of Pine Gap, it was just a short drive to the main part of the facility. Although Morgan had been expecting the dazzling white buildings she’d seen in the photos, the six spherical radomes housing the satellite uplink equipment were far larger than she thought they’d be.
They came to a stop in front of a two-story building that would have looked right at home in an American office park. The semi following them continued around the building.
“Welcome to Pine Gap,” Kessler said as he got out.
Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap, run by both the US and Australian governments, sprawls across a dusty plain eleven miles southwest of Alice Springs. The National Security Agency station, shielded by mountains on all sides, is so secret that it’s the only facility in Australia designated as a “prohibited” flight area, meaning no aircraft flying lower than 18,000 feet are allowed within 2.5 miles of the base.
Speculation about the facility’s true purpose has been rampant. Morgan knew that its widely believed function as an ECHELON listening post was correct. The NSA ECHELON program samples cell phone, email, and text messages from around the world for any specific keywords deemed critical to protecting US interests, and Pine Gap is important for communicating with satellites orbiting over the southern hemisphere. But few knew of the facility’s other role in preparing weapons to be evaluated at the Woomera Test Range.
“When can we start the briefing?” Morgan said.
“Follow me and I’ll show you to an office you can use while you’re here. Then I’ll need to instruct my people where the equipment from the truck should go. It ought to take about ten minutes. When I’m done, we’ll begin the briefing.”
He took them inside the structure and guided them to a small room with two desks and chairs. After giving them the security password to the internal WiFi system, Kessler walked out.
Vince leaned over to Morgan. “What’s your secret?”
“What do you mean?”