[The Fear Saga 01] - Fear the Sky (2014) (62 page)

The seven people around the room nodded their assent. It was the most danger they had been in since the
King’s Transom
had discovered one of their capsules off India, and no one in the room felt the need to have their voice heard in connection with such an unprecedented risk to the mission. Several among them had already begun thinking of how they would make sure any blame for problems arising from the incident were placed firmly at Agent Shahim’s feet, but bar that they were happy for the AI to take the lead here.

The AI recorded their assent and moved on to the job of finding the missing Agent, listing its three options for doing so.

That left one, and the room turned to Agent Preeti Parikh. Her avatar looked a little surprised; this wasn’t the kind of attention you wanted in a time of crisis. But she was ready to attend to her duty, and she started formulating her response to the suggestion that they could all see was coming.

Among the six virtual faces looking at her, John Hunt’s looked as concerned as the rest, and in truth, he
was
concerned, though for very different reasons than his colleagues. As the AI continued with its analysis and Agent Parikh discussed how she could realistically get to Peshawar in the shortest possible time, Agent John Hunt pondered the news the AI had provided. So, there were six long-range nuclear missiles heading for Moscow.

The question was: would they make it?

Major Toranssen sat gathering his thoughts in the officers’ break room at Whiteman Air Force Base. Across from him sat Dr. Martin Sobleski, his chest heaving with exertion, sweat gathered and beaded on his forehead.

“How you doing there, Doc?” asked Jack, smiling at his partner in crime, and quite a few crimes at that.

“Hmm, Jack, let’s review,” said Martin, panting a little. He glanced around and lowered his voice to a measured tone, “We’ve just finished loading sixteen of the most explosive and unpleasant devices I have ever worked on into the belly of the single most expensive plane the air force has ever built. And now we’re sitting and waiting for confirmation that we should go ahead and steal that plane and break pretty much every international treaty the world has ever known.”

He sat back, clearly still reeling from the mental and physical exertion of loading and affixing the huge air bombs into the clamps that lined the huge hold of one of the menacing stealth bombers that sat in hangars across the base. They had done it. Using every available lie and con they had, using the major’s seniority and B-2 experience, along with faked orders from General Pickler, all supplemented by phone calls from Colonel Milton to the base commander.

But they had gotten the sixteen warheads Martin and Madeline had manufactured in North Dakota onto the base and over the last two nights they had loaded them into a series of ASM-158As, an aircraft launchable stealth cruise missile with a payload weight of about one thousand pounds. Martin’s design had filled the missile’s warhead bays as he had planned, and they were going to set off a heck of a bang when they went off. But the bang wasn’t what Martin was actually going for. It was the aftereffect. Using a cluster of thermobaric explosives, he had designed a deployment weapon that would create a huge torus of superheated oxygen, burning hot enough to create an implosive vacuum. If all went well, this would create a vortex of superheated air that would destroy the pathogens right at their point of deployment. It would only work a few times, as no amount of stealth would be enough to hide the great detonations once their attacks began, but if they could get themselves into position over the right areas at the right moment, then maybe they could stem the flow of pathogens to the least protected areas.

According to Neal’s estimates, they might save as many as five or six million people if all went well. But no pressure, or anything.

Jack suddenly froze, looking at Martin, who instinctively held his breath. Jack felt in his pocket and extracted his cell phone. It was vibrating. Jack answered it, keeping his eyes on Martin as he spoke.

“Colonel?”

There was a pause while he listened to the man on the other end, then.

“Yes, Colonel.”

Another pause.

“Yes, Colonel, I understand. We’re ready at this end. The bird is prepped and awaiting your orders. Sir … Barrett, can I ask, does everyone know now?”

Martin waited a moment longer. The major nodded somberly as he listened to the man on the other end of the phone.

“Yes, Colonel. I understand. We’ll be ready.”

“Good luck to you too, Colonel … it’s been a pleasure.”

He hung up and looked at his colleague, took a long, deep breath, and then said, “Well, my friend. We’d better get into position.” He thought for a second and then went on, “Listen, Colonel Milton told me that as of an hour ago, the president and the Security Council know everything. He told me that they know about the missiles and that they are willing to initiate the GBMD protocol once they see the first satellite destroyed. But as we feared, they didn’t approve our part of the mission.”

Martin stared at him, deflated, and Jack bit his lower lip for a moment while the other man came to terms with it. “They simply weren’t ready to accept sending a heavily armed bomber into hostile airspace when the world is already on tender-hooks after the incident in Pakistan.

“We always knew that this was a possibility, just as we knew that the army chiefs could also have refused to fire the GBMD system. We had a plan for how to handle that, and we have a plan to handle this, but we both know what this means. The colonel said to me that in the end we have to make the go/no-go decision for ourselves. And you have a right to make this decision for yourself, just as I am going t—”

“Stop, Jack.” Martin interrupted him and Jack went silent, “Like you said, we always knew that this was a possibility, but we’re talking about millions of lives here. We both know that neither of us could walk away from this.” Martin took a deep breath and looked resignedly at the major, “You know what my answer is, just as I know yours.”

They nodded at each other, paused a moment as if something else might need to be said, but then thought better of it. The B-2 bomber was among the stealthiest machines ever made, but they were about to fly it over some of the most war-torn countries on earth, and once they were there, they were going to launch firebombs into the atmosphere. To top it off, they were going to have to steal said bomber in order to do it. Admittedly, the way they were going to steal it would mean that the US government would not know about it until long after they had done what they had to do, but eventually they would realize what had happened. And after that they were on their own.

They were under no illusions as to how this night might end. But they also knew why they were doing it, and neither of them could think of any way that they could not try, at least try, to slow the coming plague. In the end, the only thing less appealing than the task at hand was the thought of living with themselves if they didn’t accept it.

They stood and left the room, silent and resolute.

* * *

Captains Billy Kellar and Jennifer Falster jogged across the hangar floor, staying between the yellow lines that ran in front of the vast bombers which the massive hangar sheltered. The B-2 faced outward, as large as a football field. It was designed to be flown by two people, a pilot and a mission commander, who sat in a cockpit mounted at the apex of the vast Delta wing that gave the B-2 its unique profile. There was no door on the B-2. Under the nose was one of the three large hatches on the bottom of the plane that housed the landing gear. Two much larger bay doors allowed the plane to deploy its huge payloads. At rest, the nose gear hung down from the very tip of the plane’s nose, exposing the space where the big wheels tucked away during flight. With the gear deployed, a small secondary hatch on the inside of the wheel housing was the main access hatch to the cockpit, and it was through here that the pilots climbed in and out of the plane.

Billy and Jennifer came to a halt in front of their plane, B-2 21070, codename Ice Maiden, and started to go through their preflight checklist. Billy and Jennifer had received the scramble order along with ten other flight crews and were two minutes into the ten-minute countdown to takeoff. They would be briefed en route, but their order package had said that they were being set to DEFCON 2, and dispatched on standard defensive vectors in the Atlantic and Pacific arenas.

Jennifer Falster, the pilot for this mission, began her customary inspection of the outside of the plane while Mission Commander Billy Kellar climbed into the cockpit and began his preflight weapons check. As Jennifer walked around the huge plane, she chatted with various ground crew members doing final preflight on the plane. They had six minutes to takeoff, but even in critical times like these the flight crew was trained to take these last few minutes slowly, making sure everything was set. In the end, when all was said and done, they were responsible for the safety of the plane and they needed to be confident that everything was as it should be.

Finishing her wing inspection, Jennifer bowed her head and walked under the plane to the payload doors. At this point in the preflight protocol, they were already closed and sealed, the technicians actually painting over the door seals with a waxy, absorbent grey paint that would help further minimize their radar signature. She nodded to the tech who said, “Two minutes, ma’am.” from behind his facemask, prompting the captain to get on board.

The captain nodded. That paint smelled awful anyway, she thought, and went to join Billy in the cockpit. As she mounted the ladder under the hatch, she heard the thrumming of the four leviathan engines starting up, echoed by the engines of her colleagues’ planes powering up to either side.

Go time, she thought and ducked through the hatch. Once at the top of the ladder, she turned to climb the two steps to the cockpit and was greeted by the sight of a gun in the hands of … wait, “Major Toranssen, what the hell are you doing?” she exclaimed, stunned at the incongruous sight.

“I’m sorry, Jennifer, now, don’t make a sound. Just turn around and open the door to the head.” said Jack Toranssen, indicating the small on-board toilet directly behind where Jennifer Falster was standing. Jennifer’s mind raced as she tried to think of what to do. One thing she knew, there was absolutely no way she was giving this plane away. Not on her watch. No fucking way.