CHAPTER 22
At the Grumman plant in Calverton, California, an F-14 Tomcat took six months to make it from the beginning of the assembly line to the end. The micro- and nanorobots on Easter Island reversed that process in two hours. They carried the pieces of the airplane off the wreck of the George Washington and laid them out on the tarmac of the Easter Island airfield.
The guardian integrated information it had gathered over the Department of Defense Interlink and the objects lying on the concrete runway. Two parts of the plane especially interested it right now: the AN/APG-71 radar and the AIM-54 Phoenix missiles that had been attached under the wings.
The guardian examined both objects, then gave orders. A cluster of microrobots swarmed over both, breaking them down into portable pieces, then trekked up the side of Rano Kau to the highest point. Then, just as quickly, they put it all back together with some minor modifications.
The AN/APG-71 radar was placed on a tripod. A line to power the radar was run from the thermal coupling underneath the volcano. An antenna for the radar was constructed in fifteen minutes nearby, mounted on a rotating base.
With five kilowatts of juice surging through it, the radar system came alive, reaching out over seven hundred kilometers. It picked up the lurking fleet, located well over the visual horizon three hundred kilometers offshore.
The AIM-54 Phoenixes were mounted on racks, pointed out to sea. The Phoenix was the navy’s top-of-the-line weapon, costing over a million dollars apiece. Its range was over a hundred kilometers, with an onboard computer that allowed it to obtain and lock on to fast-moving targets. A link was established between the system and the guardian computer and all was set.
Below the shadow of Rano Kau, more people were moving about, the survival rate growing higher as the guardian continually adjusted its microvirus to control their nervous system.
Turcotte pulled himself to a sitting position. “Yakov?” His voice echoed, indicating he was in a large open space. “Yakov?” The ride in the tube had gone on for an extremely long time, then he had suddenly fallen into space, dropped at least ten feet, and landed on a solid floor that had knocked the wind out of him.
“Yes, yes.” The Russian’s rumbling voice came from somewhere to the left.
“Do you have the light?”
“I dropped it when I fell out of that tube,” Yakov said. “It should be somewhere close by.”
Turcotte reached down and felt the ground beneath… pitted concrete that was slightly damp. He stretched his arms out, testing to see if everything worked properly. He felt bruised but not broken. The muzzle of the AKSU had caused the most damage, digging into his left side and leaving a bloody gouge and sore rib in its wake. He edged toward Yakov’s voice, carefully checking the surface in front of him. He had no idea how deep they were, but they had slid for a long time.
“I’ve got it,” Yakov suddenly announced. “Damn bulb is broken. There is another in the handle. Wait.”
When the penlight came on, it speared through the dark. Turcotte followed the light as Yakov slowly swept it in a circle around them. They were on a rough concrete floor… check that, Turcotte realized as the light halted on a massive spring to his right running up into the darkness above, he was on the concrete roof of a bunker. Turcotte knew that such shelters were hung on huge springs and placed on shock absorbers, in the hope that whatever was inside could sustain a nuclear blast this far underground. Looking up, he could just see the opening of the pipe they had fallen from. Probably an air conduit, Turcotte guessed. The walls beyond the edge of the concrete roof were of raw rock. There was about ten feet of separation between the edge of the bunker and the cavern wall.
“There.” Yakov switched the direction of the light.
There was something ten feet in front of them, sticking up a few inches. Turcotte and Yakov crawled over to it… it was a metal hatch with a round latch on top.
Yakov glanced over. “What do you think?”
“I think we’re lucky to be alive,” Turcotte answered.
“Should we see what is inside?”
“Definitely.”
Yakov stuck the end of the penlight in his mouth, clamping down on it with his teeth. With great effort, muscles straining in the dark, they turned the rusted latch. It gave way slowly, emitting great shrieks of protest.
“If there’s anyone in there, they know we’re coming,” Turcotte said.
“I don’t think anyone has been down here in a long time.”
The latch finished turning. With all their might, Yakov and Turcotte pulled up on it. With a clang, the hatch fell open. A faint light shown up out of the hole. Turcotte leaned over and looked down. The floor was over fifteen feet below, a steel ladder leading down to a flat concrete floor. The light came from the right, but even sticking his head down into the opening, he couldn’t see, as the concrete top was more than three feet thick.
Turcotte lowered his legs into the hole, holding himself in place with his hands on either side of the opening. “I’ll let you know if it’s safe.”
“I’ll be right behind you,” Yakov said. “We have nowhere else to go.”
“What is this?” Tolya asked the lieutenant. A narrow tunnel, obviously very old judging from the tool marks on the wall, was at the end of the more modern shaft they had been following. Shining a light down the tunnel, Tolya could see that it descended and was curving slightly to the left. Tolya checked the tracker. His object was very far below and slightly to the left front.
“Uh… sir, that’s not on any chart I have. According to what I have, this is the end.”
“Then I no longer need you?” Tolya turned, the muzzle of his submachine gun pointed at the other officer, his finger resting on the trigger.
The engineer’s face had gone pale. “We have to get out, sir, don’t we? I have the charts. The… ”
Whatever else the man was going to say was stifled in a three-round burst that knocked him against the side of the tunnel. Tolya grabbed the map case and slipped the sling over his shoulder. “Now I have the charts.”
He signaled for the men to continue.
On board the Anzio the ship’s sophisticated radar array picked up the probing finger of the AN/APG-71 radar. Alarms rang and the ship turned hard away from Easter Island. Missile and gun crews went on maximum alert until it was realized that the radar was not approaching and there were no inbound missiles.
“What the hell does it mean?” Captain Breuber, the commander of the Anzio, demanded of his chief weapons officer, Lieutenant Granger.
“From the signal,” Granger said, “it appears to me that the radar is ground based, not moving. It’s definitely located us. But at that range, there’s nothing that was on board the Washington that can reach us.”
Breuber considered that. “But there was plenty that could intercept an incoming missile, wasn’t there?”
Granger nodded. “Sidewinders, Sparrows, and Phoenixes. Besides the ship’s own SAMs and air defense guns.”
Breuber rubbed his chin. “Which means we have a problem for our launch.”