Starfish Prime (Blackfox Chronicles Book 2) (26 page)

Carabobo Launch Complex  

Madat was rapidly considering the believability of certain cover stories to explain their presence at the launch site. He was supposed to see that the jet was properly serviced and be prepared to make a speedy departure. As he walked from the pickup to the small windowless building, he considered and rejected various explanations for the presence of the tall Indian and the young surfer dude. He was admitted to the building by one of the South African guards after again presenting his get out jail free card. 

Two soldiers stood guard outside
Stal’s offices. One escorted Char, Madat, and Johnnie inside. They entered the room to find

Stal collapsed on the floor, and a lanky man Madat recognized as Van Achtenberg lightly slapping his face. Madat turned to look at Char as inspiration struck him. 

“Doctor, see to Colonel Stal, he’s not well.” Char stood oblivious to Madat’s ad hoc subterfuge, as he was initially shocked to see Michael upon entering the room. Aside from being tied to a chair, he appeared to be okay. 

Michael had to muster all his self-control not to belay any outward sign of emotion at the appearance of his father. He flee
tingly felt a little boy’s sense of relief when he realized his dad was here. That feeling faded when Michael recalled that Char’s presence in tense situations, more often than not, resulted in events escalating into utter chaos. He got the meaning of the expression “many a slip between the cup and the lip” and at the appropriate time he would love to hear what had happened to the two feds who had arrested him, but that would have to wait a while. 

Johnnie understood immediately and he grabbed Char by the arm and whispered in his ear, “He means you, dude.”

Char nodded, walked over to the unconscious man, knelt down, and began taking his vital signs. Although it was ages ago, Char had cared for a host of battlefield injuries during two tours in Vietnam.

“He’s diabetic,” said Van Achtenberg.

That was easy, thought Char. That likely meant he either had hypoglycemia— low blood sugar—or he had overdosed on insulin.  “When was the last time he ate?” asked Char. “We just shared some tea and biscuits,” said the fat man dressed in Middle Eastern garb. 

“Did he inject insulin after the meal?” 

The Arab shrugged and Char turned to Van Achtenberg.

“He’s got an insulin injector and wireless glucose meter; he wears the meter on his belt,” said Van Achtenberg, pointing to a small black leather case. Char removed the meter and gave it a cursory review. 

“Yes, it appears he over-injected a particularly heavy dose. He should regain consciousness in an hour or so. Is there a place we can let him rest?” 

Van Achtenberg walked to the door and summoned the guards inside.

“Take him to his bed,” he said. The two soldiers briskly picked up Stal and carried him into the house.

“Doctor, please go with them and see to the colonel.” Char grabbed his wrist as if taking his pulse. 

“This is all most distressing, said the Ayatollah, but we need to get back to the task at hand,” he said as he glanced at the drill and then to Chen.

“Your Excellency, we don’t have time for this, said Madat.

I wanted to notify you that there is a weather front moving in, and also introduce you to these gentlemen from a charitable organization called Doctors without Limits. A government official was going to ground me because I did not have my medical certificate with me, but the doctors gave me an exam right on the spot. They were stranded at the airport as their plane had engine trouble, and I have offered to fly them to Caracas.” 

Jeez
, thought Johnnie,
this guy missed his calling―somewhere in Tehran there is a used car lot without a head salesman. 

“Ah, very well.
I should have you whipped for forgetting your certificate, but I am growing bored with this ridiculous spectacle,” said the Ayatollah. He turned towards the Afrikaner.  “You can launch the missile without Stal, correct?” Van Achtenberg looked toward Chen, who nodded affirmatively. 

“Then do it so I can leave this hellhole. Since we will be stopping in Caracas, there is an errand I have to run.” Van Achtenberg unshackled Chen and then did the same with Michael. He pointed his pistol at Michael’s head.

“I’ll make a deal with you Sunny Jim. You don’t give me any trouble and at the end of this, I’ll let you and your mates walk off, but in the meantime, they stay shackled to the gantry. Any trouble from you and they’ll be charcoal briquettes.”

Michael didn’t believe they would be let go, but he would e
ntertain the lie until he had what he needed, and right now he needed to be by Chen’s side. 

The Ayatollah, his bodyguard, Chen, Michael, and Van Achtenberg walked out of the office and towards the warehouse. Chen had trouble walking on his injured knee, so Michael picked up the small man and threw him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. 

They walked through the heat of the tropical morning sun towards the main control building, and Michael felt like he had reached the proverbial moment when he could return either with his shield or on it. He just hoped that Sergeant Howell was as good a black hat hacker as he had led Michael to believe. 

They entered the control room filled with Chinese technicians busily checking the calculations taken from Chen’s computer. 

“How soon will you be ready to launch?” Van Achtenberg asked one of the white-coated technicians.

“We are not as familiar with the program as is Doctor Chen―it will take significantly more time if we are forced to do it.” 

“Have Chen finish the configuration,” said Van Achtenberg. The technician got up from in front of the telemetry computer and Michael set Chen down gently onto his chair. He softly shook the man’s shoulder until Chen gradually regained situational awareness.

“Have his knee seen to,” said Michael.
“Look who’s giving orders now, said Van Achtenberg.

Listen to me, Sonny Boy, you’re lucky you don’t have a bullet in your skull.”

Michael looked around the room and spied a first aid kit a
ttached to the wall. He walked over, secured it and returned to Chen’s side. He pulled up Chen’s pant leg and started dressing the wounds. There were two small holes in the kneecap, both oozing blood. Michael cleaned and dressed the wounds. He had felt the glucose meter buzz on the walk over to secure the first aid kit indicating a wireless connection had been established with the meter. Now he just needed to convey the information to Chen. He bent down with his back to Van Achtenberg and began to clean the wound on Chen’s face where the Afrikaner had struck him.

He drew close to Chen’s right ear, “Pull the file from the d
evice,” he said as he slowly wiped away the dried blood on the man’s forehead. 

Chen looked at his network connections and saw an unident
ified device was connected to the laptop. He browsed to it, examined the three files, and uploaded the largest one. A black pop-up window appeared, and a list of files scrolled down the screen—indicating files were being written to the laptop’s hard drive; overwriting the existing configuration information that would guide the missile to its target. 

Van Achtenberg’s experience with computers began and ended with a short-term stint he had as a security guard after he was furloughed from the army and amounted to checking ident
ification numbers against a green screen database at a Johannesburg automobile factory. He had no idea what Chen was doing, but he felt torturing the man had been the right move―it showed him who was boss. 

“Start the launch sequence,” said Peter Van Achtenberg. He regarded the Ayatollah. 

“No sense in keeping you around here and the colonel wants to get paid for his work.”

“Wait a minute, my men are out there. You launch that mi
ssile, they’ll be burned alive,” said Michael. 

“That is exactly the idea,” replied Van Achtenberg as he drew his sidearm and pointed it at Michael’s head. 

“Bring this fucker back to the pad and chain him next to his friend!” ordered Van Achtenberg.   

Three security guards surrounded Michael and the short fat one he had nicknamed Stubby executed a butt stroke with the stock of his weapon, striking Michael in the center of his back. It was unexpected and he grimaced in pain. 

“Get moving, yank, or I’ll shoot you right here.” 

“No sense trying to win you over, fat-ass,” said Michael as he elbowed the short man across the face. He turned and followed with a right cross that took the man off his feet, but the others swarmed him in a rush. 

“Hold him,” said Stubby as he got back to his feet. The two guards restrained Michael’s arms as Stubby approached.

“Good one, Yank.” 

“I think I caught you twice,” said Michael.  Stubby’s mouth was bleeding and his eye was already beginning to swell. 

“Well, then, I suppose I owe you at least that in return.” 

The short man removed a steel baton from his side pocket, extended it with the flick of his wrist, and then expertly struck Michael across his face with a backhand strike. The blow impacted with unexpected force and momentarily stunned Michael so much that he barely felt the next one. He was briefly unconscious and awoke as he was being pulled onto the bed of a pickup truck. 

Van Achtenberg watched with smug satisfaction as Michael was carried from the room. He looked down at Chen. The small man cautiously eyed the bastard who had recently tortured him.

“Wait until he has been handcuffed to the gantry, Doctor Chen, and then fire off the missile.” He then turned his attention to the Iranian Mullah. 

“Your Excellency, not only will you be able to see the mi
ssile lift off to its target, but you will have the added pleasure of watching three American infidels burn up as it does so.”  The Iranian smiled cautiously, as if aware that Van Achtenberg was patronizing him. 

“Now, there is the matter of payment for the work?” 

“After the missile launches, Colonel Stal will get his payment,” said the Mullah as he glanced subconsciously to where his bodyguard stood holding a simple leather briefcase.

“Of course, but since he is ill, you can leave it with me.”

The Mullah looked at the South African and determined it wasn’t a request. 

“As long as the missile impacts the target, I care little which one of you receives payment.” 

“Very good, Excellency. Can I get you a drink―some tea, perhaps?” 

“Jack Daniel’s neat,” replied the Iranian. “I need to toast the end of infidel America and can’t think of a better way to do so than with a typical American whiskey.” 

“I think I’ll join you,” said Van Achtenberg with a broad smile.                

Carabobo Launch Complex  

They had exited Stal’s quarters from the front after Bobby had arrived and examined him, diagnosing Stal as having suffered nothing more serious than a slight overdoes of insulin.

“What the fuck is going on over there?” said Johnnie. Char looked towards the control building and recognized the body of his son being roughly bundled into the back of an old pickup. 

“Shit, that’s Michael,” said Char. 

“Is he alive?” 

“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out. You drive,” he said, tossing Johnnie the keys to their Raptor.

Char ran to the pickup, withdrew the M-4 carbine from b
ehind the seat, and jumped into the back of the truck. Johnnie slid behind the wheel, started the engine, and heard over 400 horses roar to life. 

Char pounded the roof of the cab. “Let’s go, kid,” he shouted. Johnnie engaged the transmission and spewed twin rooster tails of flying gravel as he sped after the pick-up. The 6.2-liter V8 generated a throaty rumble through twin exhaust pipes as Johnnie pegged the accelerator to the floor, rapidly closing the distance between the Raptor and the other truck. 

The guard in the bed of the pickup stared curiously in the direction of the approaching Raptor as Char brought the center post of the front sight aperture into center mass alignment with the rear sight and squeezed the trigger. The round impacted the guard’s chest at almost exactly center. He cried out and fell from the speeding truck bed onto the gravel road. Johnnie tried to swerve around the body but felt the truck’s right side elevate and he heard a sickly wet thud as the heavy off-road wheel crushed the guard’s body. 

“He was probably dead, already,” said Johnnie out loud, i
mmediately coming to the conclusion that working for Char was making him mentally unhinged. Char sighted the weapon on the passenger’s head and fired again, the round impacting directly into the back of the man’s skull. 

Johnnie saw a red spray of blood and brain matter mist into the cab. The driver swerved wickedly, but managed to stay on the road. He gunned the engine, but the old six-cylinder engine was no match for the Raptor’s powerful V8. Johnnie closed the di
stance just as he felt Char’s heavy body slide across the roof of the cab. Johnnie cussed under his breath because he knew what the crazy bastard was up to, and he instinctively closed the distance between the two speeding vehicles as Char took one step and propelled himself into the bed of the old pickup. He landed on top of Michael and fell over him, generating a heavy groan. Thus reassured Michael was alive, Char got to his feet, removed the nine-millimeter pistol, and tapped the glass to the right of the man’s head. 

“Stop the truck!” said Char.  The man ignored him. 

“Stop the truck!” Char repeated.

The man again ignored him. Char tapped the glass again. “Last chance,” he said and waited a moment. The driver accele
rated as Char fired a round into the back window, shattering the glass and impacting the center of the dashboard. He used his heavy work boot to kick out the shattered glass, reached through the hole, and grabbed the guard in a headlock. 

“Stop the truck,
motherfucker.”

This time the man did as instructed, and the vehicle skidded to a stop in such short order that Johnnie had to lock the brakes to keep from colliding with its rear end. 

“Put it in park,” said Char. The man did so. Char released his grip, brought up the pistol, and fired a round into the side of his head. The man’s lifeless body slumped against the door. Char bent down over Michael and gently shook him. His eyes fluttered for a moment and opened. 

“Dad?”

“Yeah, Michael, I’m here.”

“What took you so long?” Char laughed and helped Michael to his feet. 

Johnnie jumped out of the cab and approached the two men with a tense look on his face. “No one said anything about killing people.”

“Oh, you draw the line at just drugging them?” asked Char. “Trust me, they were bad guys. They needed killing,” said Michael. 

Johnnie shook his head slowly. “You can have the truck after we’re done,” said Char.

“Dude, fuck the truck! I don’t want to be a party to offing anyone.”

“It’s a little late for that now. You ran over one guy who might have been still breathing and helped me kill the others,” said Char.

“Man, you fuckers are crazy. I’m just a dude who likes crewing boats and smoking some weed.” 

“Trust me, Johnnie, you did just fine. I’ll give you the truck and a bonus—if we live through this.”

Michael adopted a slightly annoyed look. 

“I hate to break up this blossoming
bromance, but we better move. Van Achtenberg is going to launch the missile,” said Michael. 

***

“You gonna wait any longer?” said Sergeant Langston. 

“Nope, just making some final adjustments―the wind is kicking up.”

They had relocated based on Gunny Grime’s simple orders: if they try to launch the missile, fire it up with the twenty-five millimeter round that was developed from the Apache’s slightly larger M789 high-explosive dual-purpose round. It could penetrate at least fifty millimeters of armor plating, making it capable of destroying light armored vehicles as well as blowing the shit out of any human targets unfortunate enough to be within its sights. 

Originally, Gunny had ordered the sniper team into position to target the missile as there was no way to know whether M
ichael had successfully uploaded the virus. 

The snipers were morbidly curious to know what would ha
ppen if they fired the large explosive rounds into the light skin of the solid fuel rocket. Whatever happened would be spectacularly bad―an explosion for sure, followed by a catastrophic leak of deadly radiation. 

Victor Seven Two were surprised when they watched the Marines being chained to the gantry. They radioed Gunny for instructions and discussed the implications. Although it was o
bvious that they had a duty to rescue the men, he knew that errant timing might thwart the effort to upload the virus.

“Let me know if the missile starts to launch and I’ll make the call,” said Gunny Grimes. 

“How the hell we supposed to know if it starts to launch?” asked Langston. 

“You’ll see heat waves as the engines start to ignite.” “Won’t that be too late?” asked Langston. 

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen a ballistic missile being launched, but if you get them out of there too early, they’ll know something is up and stop it,” replied the Gunny

“Okay, we’ll watch it closely.” 

“You better; otherwise you’ll have a couple of extra crispy Marines on your conscience.” 

“Thanks, Gunny, that’s nice.” 

“Just don’t fuck up; I want to get all my Marines home.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Gunny,” said Langston as he ended the transmission. 

“That’s congregation,” interjected Staff Sergeant Perry.  “What?” said Langston. 

“It’s actually ‘preaching to the congregation, I believe.” r
epeated Perry. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I mean, why would you preach to the choir?” “I don’t know, maybe their singing sucks,” said Langston.

Five short minutes later,
the loud, high pitch screech of an alarm broke the silence, half a dozen blue rotating lights strategically placed on the launch gantry illuminated and began rapidly rotating. The gantry’s support arms fell back from the missile’s body and the engine shook as a blue flame generated by the missile’s propellant issued forth from the rocket’s exhaust nozzle. Black exhaust from the igniters was channeled out the back of the engine and billowed out onto the launch pad, momentarily obscuring the prisoners.

“Gunny, Elvis is leaving the building!” shouted Langston i
nto his microphone.

“What do you want us to do?”

“I told you I’m taking all the rest of my Marines home, didn’t I?” replied Gunny. 

“Yeah, Gunny, you did,” replied Langston. 

“I guess I failed to mention I wanted them to be alive—so get them the Hell outta of there!”

Grimes handed the microphone back to the Radio Operator and nodded his head as if in confirmation of a tough call,

“Blackfox got us this far, we’ll just have to trust that he uploaded the virus, otherwise we won’t have much of a country to go back to.”

***

Thomas and Dixon reacted in alarm as the missile’s large rocket engine sputtered to life. A throaty roar began to build as the waves of heat and smoke it generated filled the atmosphere around the gantry. 

The chain above Dixon’s head exploded, causing him to reflexively crouch as metal shrapnel showered the surrounding launch pad. A short second later, another explosion erupted over

Thomas’s head, destroying several links of the steel chain.
 

Not a second was wasted as both suddenly free men ran away from the igniting missile. Dixon rapidly outpaced Thomas ru
nning down the gravel approach road. They covered almost a half mile without stopping.  He skidded to a halt as the Raptor appeared in the distance. Thomas stopped beside him 

“What’s wrong?” asked Thomas. 

“Truck approaching.”

“Who is it?”

“I’m not sure, but there is a high probability that it’s more enemy.” 

“Let’s seek some cover,” said Thomas.

“Too late, they’ve seen us,” replied Dixon. “Besides we need a truck.”

“How you going to take it from them?
You’re unarmed.” Dixon didn’t answer as he recognized Michael standing in the bed of the Raptor and smiled. The vehicle ground to a halt in front of the two men and they jumped over the fender and into the bed.

“Thought we were going to find a couple of crispy critters,” said Michael as he embraced both men. 

“Almost,” said Thomas. 

The ground shook as if a company of Main
Battle Tanks was passing nearby. A loud throaty roar of the missile’s engine erupted from the direction of the launch pad. They all stared in disbelief as the seventy-five foot missile thundered into the sky. 

“There it goes,” said Dixon. 

“Yeah, but it’s taking a long loop around the Caribbean and then coming back here.”  “No shit?” asked Dixon. 

“No shit,” replied Michael.

“How much time do we have?”

“I don’t know; an hour, maybe longer. 

“Time to get the fuck out of Dodge,” said Thomas.