seriousness. “We’re still piecing this thing together.”
“McCabe? Jesus, I know he’s dirt, but something like this?”
“Money makes for a good motive. I suspect that’s all it takes with him.”
The large German turned and gestured for his men to back away. As they watched, the commando team blended into the darkness and was gone.
“I wasn’t going to charge you for the file and the weapons, Jack, but now I am,” Sebastian said as he stepped closer to Collins. “I want whoever is responsible for the bombing. No matter what the protesters were doing there, and their reasons, they didn’t deserve that. They are still German citizens.”
“You got it. If it’s McCabe, you can have him. As a matter of fact, there may be something you and your government would have an interest in helping us with in Ecuador.”
“Just call us, Jack,” Sebastian said, turning around and walking away. “Mr. Everett, watch that guy,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Just because he was in on training us doesn’t mean he’s worth a damn.”
Everett smiled and looked over at Collins as he inserted a clip into one of the nine-millimeters.
“I like him, Jack,” he said, glancing over at Golding and Ellenshaw. He shook his head when he saw they still had their arms raised. “It’s okay, guys. The scary men are all gone.”
Ellenshaw and Golding slowly lowered their hands and looked at Everett and Jack.
“Do you two know anyone that leads a normal, dull life?” Pete asked Collins.
“Only you, Pete, only you.”
The hangar was leased to Chan Ri International. The company was a lesser known aircraft manufacturer that specialized in avionics packages for advanced fighter aircraft. The packages were made up of fire control systems and other avionics that were used by the Western powers. Most Asian stock market watchers were a little surprised when Chan Ri stocks suddenly sprang to life after a three-year period when most traders thought the company was on the way out following the introduction by the U.S. of the highly advanced F-22 Raptor, the new fighter for the twenty-first century that left Chan Ri technology far behind. But somewhere along the way the company had received a massive influx of capital, and try as they might, agents of the Securities and Exchange Commission could not uncover where the money had come from.
The twenty-five-year-old Grumman F-14 Super Tomcat sat gleaming inside the small hangar as several technicians checked the hard points along the fuselage of the U.S. Navy fighter jet. As the first of the two weapons was raised into position just below the starboard hard point, the pilot walked over to make sure the job was being done right. He placed a gloved hand on the plastic nose cone of the missile and felt a rush of power course through his hand and then his entire arm. He rolled his eyes and knew he was coming home again. The small pilot almost dropped his black-painted helmet onto the floor of the hangar as he felt the euphoria. The South Korean technicians turned and wondered why this pilot, whom they had just met that morning, was acting so strange.
Former naval aviator Thomas Green finally removed his hand from the missile and stepped back. He watched the final loading and was satisfied that the long, heavy weapon was placed properly. He stepped over to the rolling munitions cart and saw the second weapon as it sat gleaming white under the bright fluorescent lights of the hangar.
Green had been free just thirteen weeks from the maximum security penitentiary at Huntsville, Texas, where he had served ten years of a twenty-year sentence for an abortion clinic bombing that had killed three nurses and the doctor who owned the building. Unfortunately for the former Navy pilot, he had also killed two of the protesters, his own people, outside the clinic. All of this had been spawned by a woman he had once called his wife, who had murdered their unborn baby while he had been deployed to the Persian Gulf in 1991 during the First Gulf War. Since then, Green had found God, and God had placed the burning sword of righteousness into his hand and told him to strike. Two powerful swords were being placed on his aircraft at that very moment.
The crated parcels from Raytheon Corporation had been stolen in the month prior to Green being brought onboard the project. He knew that all he had to do was pull the trigger and the illegal weapons from the United States would do the rest. The seeker heads had been changed out in San Diego before their shipment to South Korea-they were now the largest heat seekers the world had ever seen.
The two Vought ASM-135 ASAT missiles had gone through extensive testing at Raytheon in the late eighties, and then when the antisatellite missile treaty was signed between the United States and the Soviet Union they were crated and stored at the testing facility, never to see action.
Tommy Green had been offered $3 million for this one mission, with more money and missions to follow, but after speaking with the financial backer many times in prison, through the thick glass of the visitor center, Green had decided he was doing it because that’s what the Lord wished him to do. The money had been declined on the promise that he would have the opportunity for all of the missions if they became viable.
A man in a dark pair of slacks and a nice pullover shirt stepped up and slapped Green on the back.
“Well, the Chinese launch in twenty minutes, at 0615,” James McCabe said as he looked the pilot over. “You’ll taxi at exactly the same time. I am told to tell you good luck, Captain, and that your martyrdom, if it happens, will be the plague that brings down Pharaoh.”
“Praise the Lord,” Green said as he slid on his black helmet. “I only wish I could call out to the world as the hand of God reaches out for the heathen’s rocketry and say, Thou art great!”
McCabe watched the man climb up the ladder and into the cockpit. He shook his head and stepped back. He now knew why so many millions upon millions of deaths had been brought on by religious wars. It was because the true believer was the most dangerous animal of all. He waved his hand one last time as Green looked his way and saluted.
McCabe stepped away as the twin GE turbofans started turning on the old and venerable F-14 Super Tomcat. As the hangar doors rose and the morning sunlight diffused the bright fluorescents inside, McCabe turned and left for the car that would take him to his private jet, where he would fly out before all international airspace was closed-and before the Chinese started looking in earnest for the murderers of their space crews.
“The fireworks are about to begin,” McCabe said as he settled into the backseat of the limo. The powerful F- 14 Tomcat pulled free of its hangar with two gleaming white claws attached to its sides in the form of the most powerful anti-satellite missiles ever created.
The F-14 received immediate clearance to taxi to runway 3B. The controller watching from the large tower glanced out the window and saw the polished white jet as it sped to the taxi line. The voice on the Tomcat’s radio had an American accent, but as the controller adjusted his binoculars he saw for the first time that the American- built aircraft had South Korean military markings on its fuselage and wings. As he pondered the strangeness of the plane’s identification, his eyes widened. He saw what was strung along the underbelly of the large naval fighter. Because Inchon International was so close to the North Korean border, it was agreed between North and South that no military aircraft could take off armed as this one obviously was. The South Korean air force was not even allowed to place dummy bombs and missiles on their aircraft, as this was not a military airfield and the North might just mistake the flight as a first strike attempt.
The controller lowered the glasses and reached for the large alarm button on his console. He knew he had to alert the airport security staff and the air force of this attempted military flight. Just as the alarm sounded the controller knew he would be too late even as all controllers calmly told their departing flights to hold at their present locations.
The F-14 Tomcat roaring down the runway was the last to lift into the blue sky.
The ASM-135 ASAT space weapons were about to spread their wings for the first time in actual space combat.
The ten active launch pads at Jiuquan were guarded heavily after the debacle in Kazakhstan. The People’s Republic had brought in five hundred specially trained army personnel to oversee the security aspects of the flight center.
Launch pads 1-C and 7-A were active for the historic Chinese flights. This was the first Chinese manned mission intended to reach the lunar surface. Two massive Long March 8s, the second largest rocket system in the
