He paused. Eleven silent faces watched him from the two rows of benches. Alex could feel the clock already ticking. He wanted to be out and away.
“So what do we have on our side?” Scooter asked.
“Well, first there’s the element of surprise. Major Yu thinks he killed Alex, so he’ll have no idea we’re on our way. And also, there’s the question of timing.” He looked at his watch. “Yu can’t detonate the bomb whenever he likes. He’s tied into the one hour starting at midnight.
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That’s when the earth, sun, and moon are going to be in the right position. It’s nine o’clock now, and we’re only two hours from drop-off. That means we’ll have one hour plus to find Royal Blue before he can throw the switch.
And there’s something else we know, thanks to Alex. The bomb can only remain at depth for twenty minutes. So it’s not there yet. And if all goes well, it never will be.” He looked around.
“Any questions?”
There were none.
“We’ve got to move quickly and quietly,” he con -
cluded. “Take out as many of Yu’s people as we can before they know we’re there. Leave the guns and grenades for as long as possible. Use your knives. And find the control room! That’s what this is all about.” He set down the pointer.
“Let’s go.”
Everyone stood up. Ben had Alex’s parachute—black silk, for a night drop. He’d packed it himself before the briefing, and now he helped Alex put it on, pulling the straps tight across his chest and around his thighs.
“It’s probably a bit too late to ask you this,” he muttered. “But have you ever parachuted before?”
“Only once,” Alex admitted. That had been eight months ago. Alex had landed on the roof of the Science Museum in London. But he decided not to go into all that right now.
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“Well, don’t worry if you miss the target,” Ben said.
“The sea’s warm. Conditions are perfect. And with a bit of luck, there won’t be too many sharks.” The Australian SAS men were already moving. Ben strapped on his own parachute, and the two of them followed the others out of the hangar. There was a helicopter waiting for them on the tarmac—the same one that had picked Alex up in the jungle. The Chinook CH-47 was the ideal machine for this night’s work. Often used to ferry troops or supplies, its wide rear exit was also perfect for parachute drops. It would fly them to the target at 190 miles per hour and at an altitude no higher than 8,500 feet. That wouldn’t leave long to deploy the chute.
Ben must have been reading his thoughts. “We’re using static line,” he said. The static-line deployment system meant that they wouldn’t have to pull a rip cord. The parachutes would open automatically.
Alex nodded. His mouth was suddenly too dry to speak.
They climbed in the back. In the jungle, Alex had used a door just behind the cockpit, but this time the whole rear section of the Chinook had been opened, forming a ramp big enough to take a jeep. Alex looked in. The pilot and the co-pilot were already in their seats. There was a third man, a flight engineer, cradling a 7.62-millimeter M60 general-purpose machine gun, which must have
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been bolted on at some time during the day. Alex hoped it wouldn’t be needed.
The twelve of them took their places. There was a long row of seats facing each other on either side of the fuselage. Although they were made of canvas stretched over metal, they reminded Alex a little of dining room chairs.
Normally, the Chinook carries thirty-three men, so at least there was plenty of room. Alex sat next to Ben. It was clear that everyone expected them to stick together—
although how they would manage that, parachuting out into the night, was something they hadn’t discussed.
Scooter leaned over and clipped Alex’s rip cord to a silver rail running all the way to the cockpit. The pilot pressed a switch and slowly the rear door closed. A red light flashed on, the helicopter lurched off the ground, and moments later, they were on their way.
It was already dark, and there was nothing to see out of the windows, which were too small anyway to provide much of a view. Alex could only tell their height from the feeling in his stomach and the pressure in his ears. The SAS men were sitting silently, some of them checking their weapons—machine guns, pistols with silencers attached, and a wide variety of vicious-looking combat knives. Next to him, Ben Daniels had nodded off to sleep.
Alex guessed he’d be well practiced at taking a catnap whenever he needed it, conserving his strength.
But Alex couldn’t sleep. He was in a Chinook heli-356
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copter with the Australian SAS, on his way to attack an oil rig and defuse a bomb before it caused a tsunami. And as usual, he was the only one who hadn’t been given a gun.
How had he managed to get himself into this? For a moment, he remembered walking with Jack Starbright on the Rocks in Sydney. It seemed a long, long time ago.
