Christian Teare didn’t feel that sensation or any other. His eyes darted feverishly from Kate T.’s console to the main board which now projected the thirty-six white lights beginning their outward path.
“Trigger emergency override system,” he ordered Kate Tullman.
She looked at him awkwardly, afraid she had made a horrible mistake and wondering how it could be her fault. This was totally against procedure. The commander didn’t belong in here, no one did. But the same feeling that had prevented the on-duty armed guards from shooting the apparent intruder now made Kate Tullman respond to him.
“Missiles already out of range for override, Commander.”
“Tie in primary fail-safe system.”
Kate T. hit a flashing button. The white lights on the main terminal board kept rising.
“Negative response, Commander. Primary failsafe system inoperative.” Then she looked up at him. “The signal’s been jammed.”
Major Teare leaned over Kate’s right shoulder. “Then we’ll just have to blast those fuckers outta the sky.” He turned briefly toward Heath. “What’s a safe destruct distance, Cap?”
“Six thousand feet, Major.”
Teare jammed his square key into a hidden slot underneath the center console table and turned it until a black button popped up beside the red one the Disco queen had pressed to launch the missiles.
“Fuck you, COBRA,” he whispered. “NORAD don’t tell you all its secrets.” He cocked his head to the rear. “Give me a distance update on those missiles and keep ’em coming, son.”
“Three thousand five hundred,” came a voice from behind him. “Course steady. Four thousand feet….”
Teare moved his massive index finger to the black destruct button, his eyes fixed on the board displaying the missiles’ track. “I think I’m gonna pay me a personal visit to those bastards in San Diego….”
“Four thousand five hundred … five thousand.”
Teare got ready to push.
“Five thousand five hundred feet …”
Teare’s finger started to move, eyes locked on the display board.
“Six thou—”
“What the blue blazin’ fuck? …”
The white lights on the main terminal board, all thirty-six of them, went out before Teare could press the destruct button. The major did a double take, blinked rapidly, checked around the Disco to make sure he wasn’t losing his mind and found a host of faces as dumbstruck as his own watching the impossible in silence.
Thirty-six MX missiles had simply disappeared.
The triggering of the emergency alarm had brought the NORAD commander down to the main operations room in the Cheyenne Mountains of Colorado with his uniform jacket only half buttoned.
“We’ve detected a launch, sir,” the shift chief yelled to him as he descended the stairs, eyes searching about the eight screens on the massive blackened wall before him.
“The Russians? Oh Christ, what grid?”
The shift chief hesitated. “Not the Russians, sir, it was … us. Our launch, that is.”
“What?”
“Our MX installation in Montana.”
“Bunker 17? That’s impossible. The drill was canceled. I’m sure that—” The NORAD commander’s eyes finally found the screen monitoring the flight of the thirty-six missiles. “My God … Did we get confirmation on this?”
“Negative. All communications with the installation have shut down. But confidence of the launch is high. In fact—”
The shift chief’s words were broken off by a collective lost breath spreading through the operations room. On the center board, the computer-enhanced lines following the missiles’ path weren’t there anymore, which meant the missiles weren’t either.
But the commander’s eyes stayed on the board as if they were. “Better get me the President on the blower, Chief.”
The receiver felt extremely heavy in Secretary of Defense Brandenberg’s hand. The President’s call on the red line had awakened him from a sound sleep. He could only hope he was still dreaming.
“Disappeared?” he wondered.
“That’s the word from NORAD,” the President told him.
“Computer foul-up perhaps.”
“The only foul-up was on our part for not realizing Chilgers had something up his sleeve with Project Placebo. Those missiles launched all right.”
“What does Bunker 17 say?”
“Nothing. We’ve been unable to raise the base. Total communications blackout.”
“But I spoke with them this afternoon…. Good God, they must have been infiltrated!”
“Not infiltrated, George, fooled by Chilgers just as we were.” The President paused, collected his thoughts, “Wentworth’s report said this whole thing started with a disappearing 727.”
“Which later came back.”
“And so will those missiles when they reach their detonation points … over Russia.”
“Have the Soviets contacted us?”
The President nodded. “They wanted to check on the nature of a suspected launch their satellites picked up and then lost. We told them we had a blowout in some of our silos. I think they bought it. They’ll know the truth in twenty minutes anyway. We all will.”
“World War III,” muttered Brandenberg. “Or worse.”
The sudden return to normal lighting stung King Cong’s eyes. He finished setting the tenth timing device and moved on to place the final five charges. For the past fifteen minutes, he’d moved about the lower and upper levels of COBRA as if he belonged and in all the confusion no one had challenged him. Strangely, his biggest problem hadn’t been subduing the guards after cutting his way through the fence into the compound, but finding one large enough. As it was, the guard whose uniform he appropriated was still four inches shorter in the legs. The dogs hadn’t been a problem either; they’d just made a lot of noise he had quickly silenced with ease.
He set the small, but extremely potent, explosives at the weakest structural points of the building. The King had done lots of demolition work behind North Korean lines years before, and although the technical particulars eluded him, he had gained an instinctive awareness of the best places to blow if you wanted to bring a structure down. Not that he possessed any illusions that fifteen charges could do that to COBRA. If properly placed, though, they could virtually shut the complex down, wreaking havoc everywhere and creating a diversion for Josh’s escape.
The return of the lights would bring a return to relative normalcy. Take away their hundred-watt bulbs and the bastards were basically helpless. The King loved the dark and working in it once again had been a pleasure. Now he would have to work faster and keep on the move. Five more to go and then he’d be on his way out of the building to watch the fireworks from the nearby hill. And, hell, if Josh didn’t come out, then he’d go in after him.
The King snaked down the corridors as if they were the streets of Harlem. People were passing him from both directions now and he just acted as if he were doing what he was supposed to. Of course, if any of them ventured too close he was ready for that too, even hoped for it — but not until the final charges were set.
He felt more alive than he had in years. Death and destruction were in his blood. Take them away for too long and a kind of anemia resulted. The King knew his veins were pumped full again.
He placed the twelfth charge and set the timer for five seconds after the last. All the explosives had been placed, the first timed to go off at midnight sharp, twenty minutes away.
Long time, the King figured.
Chapter Thirty-nine
“I should kill you right now.”
Chilgers looked up at Bane from behind his desk, clutching his still numb wrist.