Whiplash (43 page)

Approaching Saudi Arabia

B
REANNA LEANED BACK IN THE COPILOT’S SEAT AND PULLED
off her headset. Then she pressed the Receive button on the satellite phone and held it to her ear.

“Stockard.”

“The President wants to recover the warhead after the bombers hit,” said Jonathon Reid. “She wants Danny to help recover it.”

“How?”

“The bomb material should be intact. The rest of the warhead will be mangled, of course. They’re pulling together a team of Delta people and a few other experts. I know Danny has done this sort of thing before.”

“Jonathon, I don’t know—”

“This is exactly the sort of mission Whiplash was conceived for,” said Reid. “Adjusting on the fly.”

There were adjustments, and then there were adjustments. Physically picking up a warhead wasn’t the problem. The mission would require them not only to stay in Iran after the bombing, but to stay near the site.

She worried about losing them. She worried about them dying. Whatever danger they were in now would be multiplied tenfold.

Her father had told her about the fear he felt over losing people before he left Dreamland. Ordering an op might be the right thing to do, but that didn’t salve his conscience. He was always haunted by the cost.

“The Delta people are about two hours away from Baghdad,” Reid said. “They’ll hook up with some Agency people in Azerbaijan who just finished helping some of the inspection teams in Iran. They want to use your Ospreys to get in and out. Do you want to talk to the commanders?”

T
HE HEAD OF THE TASK FORCE IN
A
ZERBAIJAN WAS A
former Delta Force colonel named Tom Dolan. He was under contract to the U.S. government as a “consultant”—a nifty way of denying direct responsibility for him if things went south on an operation. Dolan told Breanna that his team would be ready to go in roughly two hours.

She sketched a plan to pick up the Delta combat team in Baghdad at the airport, then fly the MC-17 up to Azerbaijan. There, the two Ospreys she was carrying would be off-loaded and used by the task force and Delta to get to the Iraq site. Boston and Sugar would go as well.

Danny was silent as Breanna explained the plan.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“We’re talking forty troops?” he asked.

“I didn’t ask the actual count. Not enough?”

“Depends on what happens.”

“There’s a Marine combat team.”

“Get them.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Danny hesitated. “Yeah, it’ll be enough,” he said finally. “Don’t worry. Once the bombers hit, there won’t be anyone left here. And we’re pretty far from their forces.”

“If you need something, tell me.”

“I’m fine, Bree. I’ve done this before, remember?”

“So have I,” she said.

“Auld acquaintance be forgot…”

Northern Iran

“S
O WE’RE SUPPOSED TO SIT HERE AND WATCH THEM
launch the missile?” asked Hera after Danny told her what was going on. “What if the bombers don’t get here in time?”

Danny ignored her, examining the missile site. There were a dozen men working on the weapon, pumping fuel from underground tanks and making adjustments to the warhead and engine mechanisms. They clearly didn’t think they were in any danger: There were no guards on the runway, and the only sentries the Voice had seen were near the rocket, alternately helping and standing guard.

“So what if the bombers don’t get here?” Hera asked again. “Then what?”

“They’ll get here. The question is where we want to be when they do.”

“And?”

“The other side of this ridge. The hill will absorb or deflect most of the blast.”

“It’s not going to explode?”

“You mean, go nuclear?”

“Hell yeah.”

“No. The warhead may even end up intact. If not, it won’t be a big deal.”

“We won’t get fried?”

“Nah.”

“You’ve done this before, right?” Hera’s voice betrayed more concern than she would have liked.

“Don’t worry,” said Danny. “I’ve done it before.”

In fact he had done it before; once, when he’d disarmed a warhead a few seconds before it went off. The scientists analyzing the bomb later confided they’d guessed about which of the wires he should cut as time ran down.

Then they’d tried reassuring him that the weapon hadn’t been made particularly well, and rather than yielding the twelve megatons it was designed for, would probably only have delivered six or seven.

“Which means it would have only blown up everything within six miles, right?” he had answered. “Rather then twenty.”

They didn’t get the joke.

He’d never been around when a nuke had been bombed. Nor had he pulled one out of a fire. And even if he had—those things were past.

If he had to defuse the bomb now, could he? He remembered getting the instructions over the radio. It had been nerve-wracking.

It would be worse now, ten times worse. A hundred times worse. He’d lost something. He wasn’t a hero—wasn’t
the
hero he’d been.

He was thinking too much. He used to hear people say that about other commanders, about guys who, to him, seemed to have lost a step, gotten older and more cautious. It wasn’t age maybe, not directly—just experience.

Thinking too much
. About what?
The cost
.

“Looks like they’re finished with the fuel,” said Hera.

Danny looked up, surprised. “Already?”

“Look.”

“No, it’s the oxidizer,” he said. “Shit.”

The fuel and oxidizer were loaded separately, but it took roughly the same amount of time to load each one. They must be nearly done, Danny realized. The missile crew was moving quickly, much more quickly than he would have thought possible.

The men swarmed over the erector, getting ready to raise the missile.

“The bombers aren’t going to make it,” said Danny, jumping up.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, they’re going to launch that sucker any minute. Come on.”

Washington, D.C.

T
HE
P
RESIDENT HAD JUST REACHED THE
O
VAL
O
FFICE WHEN
her assistant chief of staff told her Jonathon Reid needed to talk to her immediately. She picked up the phone as she sat down, tapping her finger hard on the button to connect.

“This is the President.”

“Mrs. Todd, we’ve just learned that plotters in Iran are targeting their president. We believe it’s the same group responsible for the missile. They’ve put a bomb on his plane at the Tehran International Airport.”

“We’re certain of this?”

“Reasonably certain. The plane is due to take off for the States inside an hour. It’s on the ground at Imam Khomeini International Airport, near Hangar Five. The bomb was just delivered to the airport.”

“Thank you, Mr. Reid.” The President pushed back her chair. “Do we have new information on the warhead?”

“No ma’am. The Air Force F-15Es should be ready to take off in just a few minutes. The task force in charge of securing and removing the weapon is being gathered. We’ve added a Marine combat team, and will get additional forces if possible.”

Todd put down the phone and bent her head down, resting her forehead on her fingertips.

It made sense now—a faction of the Revolutionary Guard would attempt to assassinate the country’s president, while launching a suicide attack against Israel. There would be chaos in the country. They would take over.

Except there’d be nothing left to take over. Israel would turn the country into a nuclear wasteland, desolate for the next two hundred years.

No. They would stop it all in time. She had the right people in place, thank God.

If she warned the Iranian president, would it inadvertently hamper the mission to stop the missile and retrieve the warhead? If the army and air force in Iran went on alert, how much harder would it be for the Air Force to find its target?

But she had to warn him. Just as she had to warn the Israelis.

Todd picked up the phone. There was a good chance the Iranian president wouldn’t believe her, but she would try anyway.

Over Saudi Arabia

B
REANNA AND THE
C-17
PILOT
, C
APTAIN
F
REDERICK, HAD
just settled on the course into Baghdad when Danny Freah called her from Iran. The MY-PID routed the call from its network to her sat phone; the connection was slightly delayed but so clear she could hear him gulping for air as he ran and talked to her at the same time.

“They’re getting ready to launch,” said Danny. “They have the oxidizer in and they’re almost done with the fuel. They’re putting the nose to the warhead on. They’re going to launch, Bree.”

“Now?”

“Any second. Ten minutes at most. I’m going to stop them.”

“Danny—”

“Hera’s with me. We’ll blow up the missile.”

“But—”

“I’m on it. Don’t worry.”

There was a strain in his voice she’d never heard before. For the first time since the mission began, Breanna felt truly scared.

“Godspeed” was all she could say.

Northern Iran

D
ANNY PUSHED DOWN THE RAVINE, CUTTING TOWARD THE
rear of the complex in a wide arc. He came up a short hill, then plunged into a thicket of prickle bushes. The stickers clawed at him and the brush was so thick that he realized after a dozen yards that he had lost his way. He stopped to get his bearings and gather his breath.

“What are we doing?” said Hera.

“Tell me how to get down to the rear of the missile storage building,” Danny told the Voice. “I want to get down there without being seen. But I want to get down as quickly as possible.”

“Computing,” said the machine. “Go thirty meters to the east, then make a fifty degree turn.”

For the next sixty or seventy yards, the Voice seemed omniscient. First it took them out of brush, guiding them to a copse and an easily climbed set of rocks. But then the computer started them to the north, working through an open field that Danny thought they could easily have cut through.

Did he trust MY-PID or not? It couldn’t explain itself when he asked why it was leading them that way, saying only that it had calculated the route according to his specifications.

“We’re going to end up back at the sea the way we’re going,” groused Hera.

Finally they took a turn to the east. But the going became much tougher—they were walking through thick sticker bushes, which pulled at their clothes and smacked at their faces.

The Voice told Danny they would have to crawl for twenty meters. He got down on his hands and knees. Feeling a little like he was the butt of a joke, he crawled until he came to a barbed-wire fence. He held up the fence and waited for Hera. Once she was through, he slipped under himself.

“Target shed is three hundred meters ahead. Follow the unused roadbed.”

The computer had used old satellite images, as well as its view from the Owl, to find the roadway, which after the turn under the fence was hidden from the launch area by the buildings. Danny slipped his night goggles down around his neck; there was more than enough light to see. He checked his grenade launcher and rifle.

“Be ready to fire,” he told Hera. Then he rose and began running toward the missile building.

B
ANI
A
BERHADJI WATCHED AS THE WORKERS BALANCED ON
the ladder, performing the last checks while the fuel was topped off. The elation he’d felt earlier had dissipated. He was back to being the man he’d been throughout his life—the quiet problem solver, the thinker always several steps ahead.

After the missile was launched, he would go north to a safe house in the hills overlooking the Caspian Sea. There, he would begin reaching out to his Guard contacts, getting things in line to take control of the council.

If he had to, he could evacuate temporarily to Baku. It was not his preferred course, but it might be necessary, depending on the West’s reaction.

“Imam, we are ready to begin the countdown,” said Abas. “You need to unlock the code on the primary pump.”

It was an extra safeguard the brothers had worked out, making it impossible for anyone but him to fire the weapon.

Aberhadji nodded, and began walking toward the base of the erector.

T
HE BUZZ OF THE MACHINERY WAS SO LOUD THAT
D
ANNY
had trouble hearing the Voice.

“Repeat.”

“Battery in Owl UAV is drained to within five minutes.”

“Copy,” he said. There was nothing he could do about it.

As he neared the back of the missile building, he angled toward the launching area, trotting, trying to conserve his energy for the final charge, trying to keep his adrenaline and emotions under control.

Just then two men came out of the front of the building, turning the corner toward him.

The fear that he had struggled alternately to contain and to ignore broke its bounds, exploding inside him. It was a dragon inside his chest, its hot breath immolating every inch of his flesh, every bone, every organ.

Kill, or be killed
.

Danny fired a burst into their midsections. They crumpled, almost disintegrating in front of him.

Everything blurred. He bent forward, running faster, his head pounding. His chest felt as if it would explode. The blood vessels in his neck bulged, the blood threatening to spurt through their walls.

The missile was forty yards away. He dropped to a knee and fired a grenade. The projectile rose in a high arc toward the body of the missile, sailing directly toward the thick midsection. At the last moment it veered to the left, skimming against the side and falling beyond.

Danny pumped in another round. Someone began firing at him. The grenade exploded in the distance.

“Get down!” yelled Hera, throwing herself on top of him as he fired his second round.

He fell forward under her weight. His grenade sailed across the pressed dirt apron area, bouncing off the small
hand truck of equipment and rebounding directly against the base of the rocket.

Where it exploded, igniting the fuel in the long hose nearby.

B
ANI
A
BERHADJI HEARD THE SOUND OF AN EAGLE PASSING
nearby, its spread wings pushing the air away in a rush. He hadn’t heard that sound since he was a boy, hunting in the mountains with his father. Those had been glorious days, days he hadn’t treasured until his father died, stolen from him by the Shah in one of his sweeps against dissidents.

There were no eagles here. The sound was the noise a weapon made, a shell or a grenade or a rocket, passing nearby.

Bani Aberhadji looked up. As he did, everything around him turned red and hot.

It was an eagle, he thought. And then he thought no more.

H
ERA EMPTIED HER RIFLE, FIRING BLINDLY INTO THE FIREBALL
and the billowing black smoke. Flames surrounded the missile, leaping up its sides.

“The tank underground,” she said.

Danny realized the danger at nearly the same moment. He pushed himself up, grabbed her shirt and began pulling her back the way they’d come.

“No, across the field,” she said. “The tank will be under the shed.”

They started to run. Thick smoke choked Danny’s lungs. His eyes began to burn.

“Run!” yelled Hera.

The ground rumbled, then ripped apart, throwing them forward. Danny smashed against the hard ground with a groan, barely getting his hand out to help break his fall.

He lay on the ground for an eternity. His lungs no longer worked. His diaphragm, his stomach muscles—everything felt paralyzed. Even his heart seemed to have stopped beating.

But they weren’t going to launch that missile. He’d done it.

Five minutes passed. Another eternity.

Hera lay on her side. Her knee had banged so hard against the ground it felt numb.

“Danny?” she said.

“I’m here.”

“I screwed up my knee, I think.”

Slowly, Danny got his feet. He went over and helped her up. As she put weight on her foot, pain flashed through her eyes.

“You all right?” he asked, recognizing her fear.

“Yeah, I’m okay. It just got whacked.”

“Let me see.”

“No, I’m okay,” she insisted. She took a few steps. Hobbling, then gradually willing the pain away. “Just twisted it.”

Danny picked up his rifle. He slipped his finger gently against the trigger and started back toward the missile.

The shock wave from the last explosion had blown most of the fire out. The missile had toppled, breaking into three different parts. The warhead was black and bent, but still intact.

Eight bodies lay scattered around it, all burned so badly it was difficult to tell that they were human. Two other men were lying at the edge of the runway about thirty yards away. One was severely burned, dying even as Danny reached him. The other was unconscious, knocked out by the explosion but otherwise not wounded.

Hera cut his shirt off and used it to tie his hands and feet. Danny, meanwhile, went back to the warhead section. It was still hot from the fire.

They could move it. It wasn’t very big, two hundred pounds at most.

Less, maybe. Easy to move.

Too easy, Danny thought.

He and Hera were almost out of ammunition. If the Iranians got here before Delta and the task force did, the nuke would be theirs practically for the taking.