It was 9:38 a.m.
This is going to be close, Schofield thought.
The plane was a Tiger Moth — an old World War II biplane often used for crop dusting in the dry southwest. It had two parallel wings, one above the fuselage and one below, that were joined by vertical struts and criss- crossing wires. Two spindly landing wheels stretched down from the forward end of its body, like the elongated legs of a mosquito, and an insecticide sprayer was attached to its tail.
Like most biplanes, it was a two-seater — the pilot sitting in the backseat, the co-pilot up front.
And it was a good plane, too, well looked after. Mr. Hoeg, it seemed, in addition to being a goddamned spy, was obviously an airplane enthusiast.
'What do you think?' Book said into his flight helmet's microphone. 'Do we go for the X rail?'
'Not now,' Schofield replied. 'There's not enough time. We head straight for Area 7. For the Emergency Exit Vent.'
Dave Fairfax's heart was racing.
This had turned into quite an eventful day.
After he'd heard Dave's assessment of the situation at Area 7 and the presence of a rogue unit there, the DIA assistant director in charge of surveilling the Chinese space shuttle had ordered a blanket tap of a one- hundred-mile circle surrounding Areas 7 and 8. Now, any signal coming out of that zone would be picked up by the DIA's surveillance satellites.
Impressed by Fairfax's work on the matter thus far, the assistant director also gave the young cryptanalyst free rein to further pursue the case. 'Do whatever you have to, young man,' he'd said. 'You report directly to me now.'
Fairfax, however, was still puzzled.
Perhaps he was just excited, but something still nagged at him. The pieces still didn't quite add up.
The Chinese had a shuttle up in space, communicating with a rogue unit at a U.S. Air Force base.
Okay.
So there was something at this base that the Chinese wanted. Fairfax guessed it was the virus vaccine that kept getting mentioned in all the decoded messages.
Okay…
And the shuttle was the best way to communicate directly with the men on the ground.
No.
That wasn't right. The Chinese could use any of a dozen different satellites to communicate with men on the ground. You didn't need a whole shuttle to do that.
But what if the shuttle had another purpose…
Fairfax turned to one of the Air Force liaison people the DIA had called in. 'What sort of hardware does the Air Force keep at Area 7?'
The Air Force guy shrugged. 'Couple of Stealths, an SR-71 Blackbird, a few AWACS birds. Apart from that, it's mainly used as a biological facility.'
'What about the other complex then? Area 8?'
The Air Force man's eyes narrowed. 'That's another story altogether.'
'Hey. This is need-to-know. Believe me, I really need to know.'
The Air Force man hesitated for a moment.
Then he said, 'Area 8 contains two working prototypes of the X-38 space shuttle. It's a satellite killer — a smaller, sleeker version of the standard shuttle that gets launched off the back of a high-flying 747.'
'A satellite killer?'
'Carries special zero-gravity AMRAAM missiles on its wings. It's designed for a quick launch and short target oriented missions: flying up into a low-earth orbit, knocking out enemy spy satellites or space stations, then coming home.'
'How many people can it hold?' Fairfax asked.
The Air Force man frowned. 'Three command crew. Maybe ten or twelve in the weapons hold, at the very most. Why?'
Now Fairfax was thinking fast.
'Oh, no way…' he breathed. 'No way!'
He lunged for a nearby printout.
It was the printout of the last message he had decoded, the same one he had used to reveal the men of Echo Unit as traitors. It read:
3-JUL 04:04:42
SATELLITE INTERCEPT (ENGLISH)
VOICE 1:
WU and LI have arrived back at Area 7 with the virus. Your men are with them. All the money has been accounted for. Names of my men who will need to be extracted: BENNETT, CALVERT, COLEMAN, DAYTON, FROMMER, GRAYSON, LITTLETON, MESSICK, OLIVER and myself.
Fairfax read the line: 'Names of my men who will need to be extracted.'
'Extracted…' he said aloud.
'What are you thinking?' the Air Force liaison man asked.
Fairfax was in a world of his own now. He saw it clearly.
'If you wanted to get a top-secret vaccine out of a top secret Air Force base in the middle of the U.S. desert, how would you do it? You couldn't fly it out, because the distance is too far. You'd be shot down before you even made it to California. Same for an overland extraction. You'd never make it to the border before we caught you. By sea? Same problem. But these Chinese bastards have figured it out.'
'What do you mean?' 'You don't get something out of America by going north, south, east or west,' Fairfax said.
'You get it out by going up. Into space.'
Schofield looked at his watch.
9:47 a.m.
Thirteen minutes to get the Football to the President.
He and Book II had been flying for several minutes now, soaring over the desert landscape in their gaudy lime green biplane at a swift 190 miles an hour.
In the distance ahead of them — rising up out of the flat desert plain — they could just make out the low mountain, the runway, and the small cluster of buildings that was Area 7.
Immediately after they had taken off, Schofield had taken the opportunity to open the silver Samsonite container that he had found on the lake floor.
Inside it, he saw twelve shiny glass ampules, sitting in foam-lined pockets. Each tiny glass bulb was filled with a strange blue liquid. A white stick-on label on each ampule read:
I.V. VACCINATION AMPULE
Measured dose: 55 ml
Tested against SV strain V.9.1
Certified: 3/7 05:24:33
Schofield's eyes widened.
It was a field vaccination kit — measured doses of the vaccine that Kevin's genetically constructed blood had provided, doses that could be administered by syringe. And created only this morning.
It was Gunther Botha's masterwork.
The antidote to the latest strain of the Sinovirus.
Schofield stuffed six of the little glass ampules into the thigh pocket of his 7th Squadron fatigues. They might
