Fallout (40 page)

“Fine,” Luke said, avoiding her gaze.

She handed him his passport and ticket and took Vlad’s papers. “Good morning,” she said.

“Morning,” he replied, trying his hardest to hide his thick Russian accent. He nodded and smiled as she clicked the computer keys.

“There you go, Mr. Walters,” she said, giving him his documents. “You’re in 27B.”

They walked down the ramp into the Indian 747.

They took their seats and put their heads back, gladly accepting a little rest before they would once again be required to fight for their lives.

Cindy Frohm spoke into her phone as she waited for Morrissey’s encrypted digital cell phone to connect, “Come on, pick up, pick up!”

“Morrissey.”

“Bill!”

“Who’s this?”

“Cindy.”

“I can’t really talk. What do you need?”

“We just got something I think you should see.”

“From whom?”

“Go secure.”

“Okay. Stand by.” He came back on line. “Okay.”

“It’s from the NSA.”

“What is it?”

“Transcript of a telephone conversation in Russian.”

“Whose?’

“Between Russia and Tonopah, Nevada. It was the Russian guy at the school out there. The guy who just set up this whole India thing.”

“And?”

“And somebody in Russia is involved. He was accusing this Vladimir guy of trying to murder him and of sending a Colonel to try to take him out. They’re checking this guy’s voice. They think they can ID him. He’s with the Russian Mafia.”

“What was he saying?”

“It sounds very tense, I’m told. All we have is the transcript. They’re checking all the tapes for phone calls between Russia and Nevada over the last few weeks. It will take some time.”

“They’ve already left for India! What are we supposed to do with this?”

“The NSA seems to think Vladimir is working with the other side. It may be under duress, but he may be against us.”

“So the whole thing is a trap? Shit!” Morrissey said, trying to think of what to do next. “Get whoever knows about these calls to pull it all together and meet me in my office. I’m on my way.”

Luke’s face had now been on CNN hundreds of times as the one who was in charge of the now famous school where the attack had been launched on the San Onofre nuclear power plant. Everyone in the world was aware of what had happened, and where it had happened from, and who owned and ran the school from which the catastrophe had begun. Yet no one seemed to glance their way as they walked off the 747 into the terminal in New Delhi. They didn’t know who was to meet them or what they were to do next. They’d simply been told someone would be waiting.

Luke and Vlad followed the signs to baggage claim. As they were walking down the long hallway, two men began walking next to them. “Follow us, please.”

“What about the bags we checked?”

“We’ve already retrieved them.”

“Where are we going?” Luke asked as they walked down a flight of stairs and out of the terminal into the muggy morning air.

The first man pointed to a waiting Falcon Jet, a two-engine business jet. The engines on the Falcon were screaming with anticipation as Luke and Vlad were ushered inside and the door closed behind them.

“Are you both from the squadron?” Luke asked.

“We’re on the General’s staff.”

“Thanks for meeting us. Where are we going now?”

“To the air base.”

“Straight there?”

“Yes, sir, nonstop.”

Luke was impressed. “Any developments?”

The first Indian officer, who was doing all the talking, sat down across from Luke. A small table was between them. The man said loudly, “Several of their F-16s have been towed inside the hangar. We think they are being loaded.”

“How much time do we have?”

“We don’t know. Do you think they’ll go during the night or day?”

“You think they’ll really do this?”

“We have seen what they did to you.”

“Anything else?”

“We’re trying to move some air defenses to the area without anyone noticing, but it is extremely difficult. We don’t have that many mobile systems, and we don’t want them to be obvious in their movement. Have you thought about how to defend the nuclear plant?”

Luke nodded. “We need a lot more information than we have right now. And we’ll need to know who’s available to go with us, who has experience.”

“There is a meeting set up with the commanding officer of the Archers. He’s prepared to give you whatever you need.”

“If they’re loading them now, they could be launching within an hour.”

“That’s why I asked you whether you thought they would go at night.”

“I don’t really know whether they have much of a night capability. I sure as hell hope not.”

“What if it were you?”

“I’d go at night. Without a doubt. Especially against your fighters. Sorry . . .”

“That’s why you’re here. Someone else must agree with you. You think they’ll come in low?”

“I had assumed so.”

“There are many airline routes that fly over Pakistan and India. They might disguise themselves as an airliner, then drop down. It would allow them much greater range and less likelihood of detection.”

“That’s possible, but I doubt it. My guess is he will come right at us.”

The man looked troubled.

Luke looked out the window as the Falcon lifted off quickly from the New Delhi airport, then back at his host. “If we’re in time.”

The business jet shut down its engines just outside the hangar and was towed in. Luke and Vlad started to get up but were told to wait until the jet was completely inside the hangar and the doors were closed behind. Someone was being very cautious.

Luke hurried down the ladder behind the two Indian officers. There were ten people waiting for them. One was clearly the leader of the group. The commanding officer of the MiG-29 squadron, no doubt, Luke thought, spotting the yellow Archers patch on his flight suit. He walked directly toward the distinguished-looking man. He was perhaps forty years old, with dark skin and thinning, carefully combed hair.

They shook hands. “Welcome. My name is Prekash. We have been expecting you.”

“Luke Henry. This is Vladimir Petkov.”

“Yes, I know,” the Colonel said as he smiled at Vlad. “How have you been, Vladimir?”

“Well, Colonel. You?”

“Very well. Thank you.”

“How are the MiGs holding up?”

The Colonel showed some ambivalence. “Not too bad. We have some maintenance problems, but nothing too horrible. Come this way,” Prekash said, pointing toward the back of the hangar.

“Why the closed hangar doors?” Luke asked.

The Colonel glanced at him. “This man who is intent on attacking us, we are told he is very resourceful. He has many friends, even where one wouldn’t expect. We are taking all precautions to ensure he doesn’t know you are coming or that we are expecting him. We want to show nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Towing a Falcon into the hangar and closing the doors isn’t out of the ordinary?”

“Fair enough,” he replied. “But given the circumstances, we didn’t want two foreigners walking off the plane. Better to wonder what’s wrong with our jet.”

“Have you done any planning? Do you have any charts? Any signs they’re getting ready to launch?”

The Colonel indicated a room in the corner of the cavernous hangar. They entered it and closed the door. The room was full of pilots in their flight suits who were obviously waiting for Luke and Vlad. It was a mission-planning room, with charts and flight information on the walls and planning materials on a large table in the middle of the room. “We have everything you need,” the Colonel said. “You have your flight gear?” he asked.

“In the bags.”

“Excellent.” He looked at one of the pilots, who immediately left the room to take care of the flight gear.

Luke and Vlad wanted to examine the charts, to study the defensive situation, and to try to determine how much time they had. The commanding officer of the Indian MiG-29 squadron wanted everyone in the squadron to meet the two pilots. They came forward in what soon became a receiving line to introduce themselves to Luke and Vlad. They all had bright eyes, but Luke detected some resentment. He knew he would be resentful if some foreign pilots were brought in to do his job and defend the United States from attack, implying that those who were supposed to do it were somehow incompetent or, at least, less capable.

Prekash brought the pilots together. “Those who have been asked to be part of the final planning stage are welcome to stay. For the rest of you, please return to your duties.”

Those who were being asked to leave headed for the door, while three other officers stayed behind and made their way to the planning table.

Luke glanced around. “We’re right here,” Prekash said, pointing to the airfield on the chart. “It is my understanding that you believe he’ll be attacking here, the nuclear power plant.”

“We’re just guessing,” Luke said, looking at Vlad. “But it’s what he did to us, with no warning whatsoever. It’s kind of the poor man’s nuclear war—if you can’t use nuclear warheads to spread radiation, if you don’t have your own radiation to drop on someone, use theirs. Hit the nuclear power plants or, as he did to us, their high-level nuclear waste. And if he is truly intent on starting a war between India and Pakistan, wouldn’t that be the sure way of doing it?”

“The most sure way I can imagine,” Prekash said with an undertone of fury.

Vlad was staring at the chart. “But we should consider other targets. If we were so smart, we would have stopped him before he attacked us,” he admitted.

Prekash ran his hand across the chart to flatten it, then looked up at Luke. “You trained this Khan?”

“Mostly in air-to-air,” Luke replied defensively. “We did some air-to-ground, but not much. We helped him plan a mission to attack a target from low level about three hundred miles away.”

“And here we are,” Prekash said. “How do you think he’ll come?”

“As low as he can get.”

“It does not give us much time to react. If we detect him coming at all.”

“Show me where we are in relationship to the target,” Vlad said.

One of the other officers pointed to the nuclear power plant. “It is right here. The Air Force base is”—he looked—“here.” He took a ruler and showed them the most direct line of flight. “It is a pretty straight shot.”

“It looks flat,” Luke said.

“For the most part,” Prekash said. “There is no real good place to hide, which makes an intercept easier. And that is assuming they don’t stage out of one of their forward air bases. A real possibility.”

Luke studied the chart. “Where are those?”

“Here, and here, and here,” Prekash showed.

“A lot of angles to worry about.”

“Precisely.”

“How’s your radar? Any chance of an early-warning hit on them coming across the border?”

Prekash thought for a moment and stared at the identified air bases and how close they were to the Indian border. “I’d say a one-in-two or one-in-three chance of picking them up. Depending on where they cross the border and how high.”

“We told them to attack a target from several directions at once to ensure that some go through.” He looked at the chart where Prekash was staring. “I’m sure they know where the radar coverage is the weakest.”

“There are some valleys.”

“Could you do it without detection?”

“Not with a large flight.”

Vlad shook his head. “It won’t be a large flight. I’d expect four airplanes at the most. A surgical strike with laser-guided bombs. It’s what we recommended.”

Prekash and the other Indian pilots studied Vlad and Luke. They still weren’t sure what to make of them. They had been ordered to cooperate but didn’t feel comfortable yielding. “You make it sound like we will never stop him. What do you suggest?”

“We need to have a complete understanding of your radar system, your early-warning system, and any airborne radar platforms you have available. We also need to devise a plan to get them airborne covering the right places without alerting anyone to increased activity.”

“We have some old early-warning airplanes, but they are not very reliable.”

Luke stood up straight. “You need to get everything that can detect a low-flying airplane airborne. Even if it looks like provocation, you can argue that it can’t be provocation to turn on your own radars. We’ll have to have fighters airborne from now until we think the threat is over. And since Vlad and I are to be the first to engage, we need to be in a five-minute alert at the airfield along the most likely threat vector.”

“I think you’ll see that we have no airfield on the threat vectors. We are as close as there is, and we’re a hundred miles away from their most likely route.”

Luke and Vlad frowned. Luke spoke first. “That won’t do it. With the 29’s limited range, we won’t be able to get them from here.”

“What do you suggest?” Prekash asked, slightly peeved.

“I don’t know,” Luke said.

A Major spoke. “We might be able to pre-position you at one of our unimproved wartime locations.”

“Would it put us on the threat vector?” Vlad asked.

He looked at the chart again. “Yes, it would.”

Prekash began to say something, then stopped. He had seen somebody come into the room from behind Luke and Vlad. Luke felt the gaze of the intruder on the back of his head and turned to look. The man was impeccably dressed. He wore expensive casual clothes. He nodded at Prekash, who quickly gave a very subtle and slight bow and left the room with his other officers. Luke and Vlad were suddenly alone with him.

The man came over to Luke and extended his hand. “I am Sunil.”

Luke was puzzled. “Luke Henry, and this is—”

“Yes, I know. Hello, Vlad.”

“Sunil,” Vlad said, surprised.

“Who exactly are you?” Luke asked, perplexed by Prekash’s leaving in the middle of their conversation.

“As I said, my name is Sunil.”

“Sunil who?”

“Just Sunil.”

“So what can we do for you?”

“I wanted to talk to you about what you’ll be doing and against whom you will be doing it,” he said. His accent was slightly less obvious than the others’. It had a more British, clipped sound to it, as if he’d been educated at Oxford.