airfield.
A regulation early morning sweep with an electromagnetic reader had revealed a weak magnetic signal emanating from the suspect hangar.
The hangar had been completely deserted, except for the warhead standing in the exact center of the cavernous interior space.
From a distance, it looked like a large silver cone about five feet tall mounted on a cargo pallet. Up close, one would recognize it more easily as a conical warhead designed to be inserted into a cruise missile.
Wires sprang out from its sides, connecting the warhead to a small upwardly pointed satellite dish. Through a clear rectangular window set into the warhead's side, there could be seen a luminous purple liquid.
Plasma.
Type-240 blast plasma.
An extremely volatile quasi nuclear liquid explosive.
Enough to level a city.
Further investigations revealed that the magnetic signal that had been detected inside the hangar was part of a complex proximity sensor array surrounding the warhead. If anyone stepped within fifty feet of the bomb, a red warning light began to flash, indicating that the device had been armed.
Lease records revealed that the empty hangar belonged to the United States Air Force.
Then it was discovered that according to the airfield's log books, no Air Force personnel had set foot inside that hangar for at least six weeks.
A call was made to USAF Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base.
The Air Force was vague, noncommittal. It knew nothing about any plasma-based warheads at its civilian hangars. It would check with its people and get back to O'Hare ASAP.
It was then that reports came flooding in from around the country. Identical warheads — all of them surrounded by magnetic proximity sensors; all with fold-out satellite dishes pointing up into the sky — had been found inside empty Air Force hangars at all three of New York's major airports: JFK, La Guardia and Newark.
And then Dulles in Washington called.
Then LAX.
San Francisco. San Diego.
Boston. Philadelphia.
St. Louis. Denver.
Seattle. Detroit.
Fourteen devices in all, at fourteen airports across the country.
All armed. All set. All ready to go off.
All they were waiting for now was the signal.
FIRST CONFRONTATION
The three helicopters thundered over the arid desert plain, booming through the early morning silence.
They flew in tight formation — like they always did… shooting low over the tumbleweeds, kicking up a tornado of sand behind them, their freshly waxed sides glinting in the dawn light.
The giant Sikorsky VH-60N flew out in front — again, like it always did — flanked on either side by two menacing CH-53E Super Stallions.
With its pristine white roof and hand-polished dark-green flanks, the VH-60N is unique among American military helicopters. It is built for the United States government in a high security 'caged' section at the Sikorsky Aircraft plant in Connecticut. It is non-deployable — meaning that it is never used in any operational capacity by the United States Marine Corps, the branch of the military charged with its upkeep.
It is used for one thing, and one thing only. And it has no replicas on active duty — and for good reason, for no one but a few highly cleared Marine engineers and executives at Sikorsky can know all of its special features.
Paradoxically, for all this secrecy, the VH-60N is without a doubt the most recognized helicopter in the Western world.
On air traffic control displays, it is designated 'HMX-1', Marine Helicopter Squadron One, and its official radio call sign is 'Nighthawk.' But over the years, the helicopter that ferries the President of the United States over short- tomedium distances has come to be known by a simpler name — Marine One. Known as 'Ml' to those who fly in it, it is rarely observed in flight, and when it is, it is usually in the most demure of circumstances — taking off from the manicured South Lawn of the White House or arriving at Camp David.
But not today.
Today it roared over the desert, transporting its famous passenger between two remote Air Force bases located in the barren Utah landscape.
Captain Shane M. Schofield, USMC, dressed in his full blue dress 'A' uniform — white peaked hat; navy-blue coat with gold buttons; medium-blue trousers with red stripe; spit-polished boots; white patent leather belt with matching white holster, inside of which resided an ornamental nickel plated M9 pistol — stood in the cockpit of the Presidential helicopter, behind its two pilots, peering out through the chopper's reinforced forward windshield.
At five-ten, Schofield was lean and muscular, with a handsome narrow face and spiky black hair. And although they were not standard attire for Marines in full dress uniform, he also wore sunglasses — a pair of wraparound anti flash glasses with reflective silver lenses.
The glasses covered a pair of prominent vertical scars that cut down across both of Schofield's eyes. They were wounds from a previous mission and the reason for his operational call-sign, 'Scarecrow.'
The flat desert plain stretched out before him, dull yellow against the morning sky. The dusty desert floor rushed by beneath the bow of the speeding helicopter.
In the near distance, Schofield saw a low mountain — their destination.
A cluster of buildings lay nestled at the base of the rocky hill, at the end of a long concrete runway, their tiny lights just visible in the early light. The main building of the complex appeared to be a large airplane hangar, half- buried in the side of the mountain.
It was United States Air Force Special Area (Restricted) 7, the second Air Force base they were to visit that day.
'Advance Team Two, this is Nighthawk One, we are on final approach to Area 7. Please confirm venue status,' the pilot of Ml, Marine Colonel Michael 'Gunman' Grier said into his helmet mike.
There was no reply.
'I say again, Advance Team Two. Report.' Still no reply.
'It's the jamming system,' Grier's copilot, Lieutenant Colonel Michelle Dallas, said. 'The radio guys at 8 said to expect it. These bases are all Level-7 classified, so they're covered at all times by a satellite-generated radio sphere. Short-range transmissions only, to stop anybody transmitting information out.'
Earlier that morning, the President had visited Area 8, a similarly isolated Air Force base about twenty miles to the east of Area 7. There, accompanied by his nine-man Secret Service Detail, he had been taken on a brief tour of the facility, to inspect some new aircraft stationed in its hangars.
While he had done so, Schofield and the other thirteen Marines stationed aboard Marine One and its two escort choppers had waited outside, twiddling their thumbs underneath Air Force One, the President's massive Boeing 747.
Arguing over why they hadn't been allowed inside the main hangar of Area 8. The general consensus — based solely on wild unsubstantiated gossip — had been that it was because the facility housed some of the Air Force's top-secret new airplanes.
One soldier, a big-smiling, loud-talking African American sergeant named Wendall 'Elvis' Haynes, said that he'd heard they had the Aurora in there, the legendary low orbit spy plane capable of speeds over Mach 9. The current fastest plane in the world, the SR-71 Blackbird, could only reach Mach 3.
Others had proffered that a whole squadron of F-44's — ultra-nimble, wedge-shaped fighters based on the
