Cloudburst (49 page)

The roots were the chutes, each containing the nuclear material—if the information was correct. It was time to verify one part of it. He removed a neutron analyzer from his bag. It, itself, was a short black object, with an LCD display at the bottom. The top held the actual instrument. Radioactive material, because of its constantly unstable nuclear state, was a voracious neutron emitter. That was the quality that made it so powerful. Neutrons racing away from their source struck the nuclei of other atoms and, in simple terms, sliced them open, sending even more neutrons out toward other atoms. In subcritical nuclear assemblies the reaction would never reach the stage where neutrons were continuously bombarding and attaching themselves, only because the mass of nuclear material needed was insufficient. When a precise amount or more was present, the reaction would become self-sustaining—a chain reaction—or, without proper controls, supercritical: the point when physical temperatures overcame subatomic bonds and the critical mass melted.

Joe switched the instrument on and placed it over the bulbous center of the object—the core, if he was correct. There was an increased amount of neutron ‘travel’ as he called it But not exceedingly abnormal. He slowly rotated the instrument on its side, and saw an instant and steady increase in activity.

The neutron analyzer used by NEST was an expensive and miniature model of larger instruments that measured activity in nuclear power plants. Its added feature was that it was directional: It could detect not only the amount of neutrons transiting through two-inch-square gold filaments, but also, by measuring the time between transits through the parallel sensors, it could determine the angle of penetration, and thus the direction.

He kept the analyzer’s body touching the curved top of the device and slid it up to one of the chutes. It was sure, as the readout showed. There was nuclear material in the chute, and not just a small pellet or a depleted slug from a waste site.

“The real thing,” Joe said aloud, though the others were too involved to notice. He moved the instrument to the center between two of the chutes. The readings weakened, then rose again. That meant there was an equal amount of material in each chute. “Damn it, they were right.” It was a thermal reactor, probably with three fourths of a critical mass in each of the chutes.

So if that were the case, how was the thing going to be triggered. Joe examined the reactor—it was that, now—above and below. He crawled around the base of it, and felt with his hands over every exposed portion. Nothing. Just a greasy black exterior. It had to be in the chutes. There appeared to be no obvious work on the cylindrical tubes: They were as smooth as the rest of the thing.
The tops…

And there it was. There had been some work done there, and then patched with something: lead and oakum, maybe, or possibly filled with a molten lead. Joe picked at the surface of it with his nails. It was solid, with no signs that it had ever been intended to be opened once constructed.

Son of a bitch.
He knew what that meant. It confirmed what everybody had told him—what everybody believed.

What would the trigger be, then? A radio signal? Maybe barometric, set to go off when there was a sudden change in pressure.
Like when a bomb goes off at altitude
, Joe thought. No, that had too many variables. Whoever had planned this part knew his stuff, so he had to figure for maximum effect. That would mean letting the material come to reaction in a semi steady environment. The reactors would have to be level, or—he checked the lower shape once more—possibly within five degrees of level. A radio signal seemed the most logical, but not reliable. Even a coded signal could be set off by a fluke, or the transmitter might be screwed up. And what if the chutes didn’t all go off? Of course the reactors needed only two to drop for a critical mass, but the waste didn’t make sense. They were going for effect. It had to be a reliable system to trigger it, one that was reliable and consistent.

A timer.
A timer.
That had to be it! Uniformity in release. Reliability. A system with little chance of interference or false triggers. And…and the time factor. That’s why the guy with the bomb was taking all these chances with the aircraft. It had to be in position on time, or there would be no point in hurrying.

Joe had to smile.
Sadr, you brilliant bastard. But now your toy is on my turf.
Time to think. Time to—

“Ready your weapons!” McAffee shouted. All the men pulled back the slides on their SIGs, chambering the first round, then did the same to their identical backup weapons which were then reholstered. Antonelli and Quimpo readied their special grenade launchers. They were based on the HK-69 pistol-shaped launcher, a weapon designed for firing 40mm grenades of various types. The round they inserted, though, was quite special and had never been tried in the situation they were going to use it in. But then, they had never even anticipated something like this happening.

The major did a final check of his troops, then went aft.

“You better brace, Anderson.” The civilian’s face was black from something, and so were his hands. “Mask and helmet on until we secure the aircraft.”

Joe nodded. “It’s for real, Major.”

McAffee gave the ugly thing a look, with real distaste in his eyes. “Yeah. I thought it would have to be. You can do your thing?”

“I’ll try. It’s on a timer, I figure, but there could be some backup trigger up there. A radio if there is one. So don’t give anybody with a transmitter a second look.”

“Anybody up there with a gun gets only one look.”

Again, Joe nodded, and the major went back forward. He was a civilian, and these were soldiers, Joe realized. But had they killed before?
Had they?
he wondered, knowing that some of them might be getting their first taste of death. He just hoped they were all on the right side of the bullet.

*  *  *

Hadad was nervous, but telling himself not to be. The plane was damaged; hurt like a dying whale. And it was climbing so slowly. They were already ten minutes out of the airport, with the coast fading behind them in the darkness, yet the altitude had risen only modestly. Was there something more wrong with the aircraft? Sadr had said that they would need to be at twenty thousand feet for maximum effect, but would they be able to go that high?

The worry must end, Hadad decided. Allah had seen to it that he had come this far, through the small trials of the mission so far. It would all work. He left his seat and exited the cockpit.

“Jesus. It’s almost rime.” Buzz checked over his shoulder.

Hendrickson knew that, and also that the terrorist hadn’t removed that bomb like the other times after takeoff. “Four-Two-Two to U.S. military aircraft.”

There was added silence, then a reply.
“What is going on, Four-Two-Two? Why are you on the air?”

The cockpit door opened again before the captain could answer. He looked back. The hijacker was there, as he had been for most of the ordeal, and as before, he had removed the bomb. Hendrickson noticed him sucking on the end of his thumb.

“Why are you watching me, American?” Hadad plopped down into the seat.

Hendrickson turned back around, not bothering to answer.

“You are flying low. Why?”

The first act
, Buzz thought.

“With no flaps we have to rely solely on the elevators, and with reduced power we can’t overdo our nose-up attitude. It’s something called a stall condition, if you care.”
Take that
. The captain thought it was convincing.

“How long until we reach twenty thousand feet?”

“An hour.”

So they would reach the desired altitude. Good. Hadad wanted nothing more to hinder him beyond then. “When we reach that altitude, stay there.”

“Whatever you say,” Hendrickson replied with just a hint of sarcasm.

Hadad ignored the pilot’s tone. Instead he kept a finger outside the Uzi’s trigger guard, just in case. The Americans were getting arrogant. He might have to sacrifice another passenger in the air, if the pushing did not stop. He cradled the gun on his lap and hoped that they would behave. Then he said a silent prayer to Allah.

He had no way of knowing that it fell on deaf ears.

Romeo Flight

The MiGs turned left and right, away from the F-106, and headed for the haven of their base.

Cooper didn’t notice. “Repeat, Springer Seven-Eight.”

“Your target has broken protocol. There was a transmission, then no response to our inquiry. I don’t know if it means anything, but mission parameters dictate informing you.”

It wasn’t good. It couldn’t be. Major Cooper bore the burden of his mission, to an extent the controllers on the AWACS couldn’t imagine at this point. The pilot of the hijacked jet had broken the instructions given to him less than an hour ago. With that the major knew that he had an authorization to fire.

He could move in and fire immediately.

The 747 was six miles ahead, its position marked by its bright anti-collision lights. Was something going wrong on board? If the pilot were trying to contact him he couldn’t hear it. Only the AWACS was dialed in on the plane’s frequency: the civil emergency air net. The F-106 was on military. The AWACS was his only direct link to the jet.

Positioning himself was a simple matter. He throttled up and brought the F-106 level with and three miles behind 422. The old visual sight for the Genie swung down into position at his touch. It was an old one, but then none had been used in twenty years, just as the Genie itself had been relegated to curious relic status. He took his first look through the sight, the eyepiece and first-stage magnifier of which resembled a modem starlight sniper scope. It was nothing so fancy, and had no light-amplification property at all.

Fortunately the target—
the target?
—was lit. Cooper adjusted the Delta Dart’s heading and pitch slightly to bring the 747 into the aiming reticle. In the sixties he had been one of the first pilots to fly operational missions with a ‘hot’ Genie in the racks, and had even fired three training rounds. That was a luxury given to few pilots of the era. It had made him the prime candidate for this mission. He felt comfortable in the old bird, and the layout, at first foreign, was completely familiar again. Everything was where it was so long ago. He
was
the right man for this, and it made him angry to believe that.

Should he fire? Now? It wasn’t time. Whatever was going to happen onboard shouldn’t have gone down by now. But the radio call?

“What is going on?” Cooper added a silent curse in the name of compartmentalization. Need to know.
Shit!
His orders were brief. Four minutes past 0900 Zulu—0400 local—he was supposed to open his bay doors and fire the Genie at flight 422 and the couple hundred people who just happened to be on her. Only the proper code phrase broadcast from the hijacked aircraft would belay the shoot-down order.

That was cut-and-dry enough, Cooper figured. He wasn’t going to kill hundreds of people just because some pilot forgot his instructions. If the time came, he would do his duty as ordered. He was a soldier, and he was a doctor. It was an uncomfortable and wholly incompatible combination of ideologies, one that he had to live with.

His left hand moved to the side console and moved the Genie’s arm switch from safe to fire. The bay doors opened behind and below him. Only a touch on the stick-mounted fire button was required now.

Flight 422

Antonelli and Quimpo were closest to the charges, and they would be the first through. Not much of the blast should hit them. There was, however, always some shock factor when shaped charges were used, even in the low power they were employing.

McAffee and Graber were behind the big Italian, just five feet from where the left-side entry hole would be. The major checked the time.

“Weapons ready.” Everybody had their SIGs in hand, pointed upward with their fingers off the trigger. The two point men held the HK-69s two-handed.

Graber had his free hand on the frame charge detonator taped to the cargo hold floor.

“This is a go, troops,” McAffee yelled. “Everybody on your toes. Let’s smoke some bad guys.”

“Right on,” Buxton said back.

A last look at the watch. McAffee’s free left hand reached back. Three. Two. “Cover!” One.

His hand slapped Graber’s knee at the count of zero.

Twenty Two

EXECUTION

Flight 422

The Egyptians had tried something similar during their attempt to rescue hostages from an EgyptAir flight on the ground in Malta, though the type and amount of explosives used were totally inappropriate. The charges were so overpowered that when one of the Unit 777 commandos detonated them, in much the same way Delta was going to, an entire row of seats above was blown into the roof and six passengers were instantly killed. It was a lesson of the past. One well learned.

Over six hundred tiny-shaped charges on each of the frames detonated simultaneously upon receipt of the electrical firing command. Each one sent a tiny jet of white-hot explosive gas upward into the aluminum. The result was quite similar to an instantaneous rupture of the cabin floor in perfect squared sections, as if a blowtorch had cut symmetrically identical openings to the hold below. A millisecond after the first detonation a second row of charges, aligned inward of the cutting charges, fired. These were pure blast, and they worked perfectly. Each panel of ruptured aluminum, along with the insulation and carpeting, was blown upward. A slight increase on the blast charges at the center of the frames tilted the panels as they were blown clear, sending them to one side in addition to upward.

The door was now open.

Hendrickson’s hand was already moving upward to the overhead panel when the shudder hit the cockpit. There was an accompanying pop, like distant firecrackers, and the lights on the flight deck dimmed for just a second. His finger found the safety latch and the switch in one quick flick.