plane, its long-bodied 105mm cannon pointing upward at a 30degree angle.
Bittiker stared at the Abrams with cool satisfaction. It was the perfect place to keep the stolen Supernova. It was impregnable.
He handed the idol to one of the Freedom Fighter techs and the little man went scurrying back up into the plane, heading for the tank.
'Gentlemen,' Bittiker said into his radio, addressing the men in the other helicopters. 'Thank you very much for your loyal service. We'll take it from here. See you in the next life.'
Then he discarded his radio and pulled out his cell phone, and dialled Bluey James' number.
The phone rang in Bluey's apartment. The FBI's digital tracing equipment lit up like a Christmas tree.
Demonaco slipped on a pair of headphones, then nodded to Bluey.
Bluey picked up the telephone. 'Yo.'
“Bluey, it's Bittiker. We have the thyrium. Send the message out now.'
'You got it, Earl.'
Bittiker hung up his phone and, with Copeland in tow behind him, headed up the loading ramp and into the back of the Antonov.
It was 11:13 am.
'Jesus! They took off already!' Doogie exclaimed, pointing down at the old Antonov as it thundered along the dirt runway and lifted off into the sky.
'Look at the size of that thing,' Renee said.
'I think we just found out where they're keeping their Supernova,” Race said.
The Antonov soared into the sky, its outstretched wings glinting in the morning sun.
In the womb-like silence of the Abrams main battle tank that sat inside its cavernous cargo bay, two Freedom Fighter technicians were working carefully at a vacuum-sealed work chamber, slowly excising a small cylindrical section from the base of the thyrium idol with a laser cutter.
Behind the two technicians, taking up nearly all the room inside the big tank, sat the Supernova—the Supernova that until two days previously had resided in the vault room at DARPA headquarters.
After they had extracted the cylindrical section of thyrium, with the aid of two IBM supercomputers that lined the walls of the cargo bay outside, they subjected it to alpha- wave augmentation, inert gas purification and proton enrichment, transforming the section of thyrium into a subcritical mass.
'How long till it's ready?' a voice said suddenly from above them.
The two men looked up and saw Earl Bittiker staring down at them through the tank's circular upper hatch.
'Fifteen more minutes,' one of them replied.
Bittiker looked at his watch.
It was 11:28 am.
'Call me as soon as you're done,' he said.
'Doogie,' Race said as he stared up at the enormous cargo plane above them. 'How do you open up the loading ramps on those big cargo planes?'
Doogie frowned. 'Well, there are two ways. Either you press a button on a console inside the cargo ba or you use the exterior console.“
'What's the exterior console?”
'It's just a pair of buttons, hidden inside a compartment on the outside of the plane. Usually, they're located on the left-hand side of the loading ramp and covered by a panel to protect them against the wind.'
'Do you need a code or anything to open the panel?'
“No, not at all,' Doogie said. “I mean, it's not like anyone's going to open the loading ramp from the outside in midair, now is it?'
He turned to Race. And then suddenly his eyes opened wide. 'You can't be serious.'
'We have to get that idol before they put it in their Supernova,'
Race said. 'It's as simple as that.'
“But how?'
'Just bring us up behind that plane. Stay right underneath it so they don't see you. Then bring us in nice and close.'
'What are you going to do?'
Race turned, looked back at the sorry group of people in the plane around him: Doogie—gunshot wounds to the leg and shoulder; Renee—wounded shoulder; Gaby—still slightly in shock from all their recent skirmishes; Uli— out for the count.
Race snuffed a laugh. 'What am I going to do? I'm going to save the world.'
And with that, he stood up and grabbed the only submachine-gun they had, the Navy MP-5.
'All right, now. Take us up.'
