Race bolted it behind them, locking it, and suddenly he found himself alone in the command centre of the tank.
Alone with the Supernova.
He was beginning to get a terrible sense of deja vu.
He felt the bulge of the cellular phone in his back pocket, grabbed it.
'FBI-man, are you still out there?' he said.
John-Paul Demonaco leapt for his microphone.
'I'm here, Mister Race,' he said quickly.
'What did you say your name was?' Race's voice said.
One of the other agents said, 'Trace is coming through.
What the hell? It says they're somewhere in Peru … and that they're 20,000 feet off the ground.'
'My name is Demonaco,' Demonaco said. 'Special Agent John-Paul Demonaco. Now, listen to me very carefully, Mister Race. Wherever you are, you have to get out of there. The people with you are very dangerous individuals.”
No shit, Sherlock.
'Uh—“ Race's voice said.
'—I'm afraid that getting out of here isn't an option,' Race said into the phone.
As he spoke, however, he saw the Supernova's timer counting down.
00:02:01 00:02:00 00:01:59
'Oh, you gotta be kidding me,' he said. 'This just isn't fair.'
'PROFESSOR RACE, GET OUT OF THE TANK!” a hideously loud voice boomed from a loudspeaker outside the Abrams. It was Copeland's voice.
Race looked out through the gunner's sights of the massive vehicle and saw Copeland standing up on the catwalk at the forward end of the cargo bay holding onto a microphone.
Wind whipped wildly around the hold. The loading ramp behind the tank was still open.
Race looked about the interior of the enormous tank.
The Supernova took up the entire central section of the command centre. Above him, he saw the entry hatch in the turret.
Forward were the firing controls for the tank's 105mm cannon and beyond those—beneath them, half-buried in the floor in the very centre of the forward section of the tank—he saw a padded seat and a steering vane, the tank's drive controls.
There was something very odd about the drive controls, though. The top of the driver's seat practically touched the low section of roof above it.
And then it hit Race.
In a tank like this, the driver drove with his head sticking out from a small hatch above his seat.
Race felt a sliver of ice shoot up his spine.
There was another hatch up front!
He dived forward—sliding into the driver's seat—and looked up instantly to see that it was true. There was another hatch up here. And at the moment it was open.
And standing astride it at that very instant, pointing his Calico pistol directly down at Race's head, was Earl Bittiker.
'Who the hell are you?' Bittiker asked slowly.
'My name is William Race,' Race said, looking up through the hatch at Bittiker. His mind was racing now, searching for an escape route.
Wait a second, there was one possibility…
'I'm a professor of languages at New York University,' he added quickly, trying to keep Bittiker talking.
“A professor?' Bittiker spat. 'Jesus fucking Christ.”
Race figured that from where he was standing, Bittiker couldn't see his hands—concealed as they were beneath the hatch—couldn't see that right now Race was feeling around underneath the steering controls of the tank.
'Tell me, poindexter, what did you think you could achieve by coming here?'
'I thought I could disarm the Supernova. You know, save the world.'
Still feeling.
Damn it, it had to be down here somewhere…
'You seriously thought you could disarm that bomb?'
Found it.
Race looked up at Bittiker with hard eyes. 'While I've still got one second left, I'm going to try to disarm that bomb.'
