“No question, sir,” Sattari said.
“All your evidence could’ve been faked with ease,” Badi said. “Besides, the Supreme Defense Council won’t accept any evidence you give them. They’ll blame it all on internecine rivalry and warfare and send us both on our ways — except the Pasdaran will be after you and all the traitors who joined you as soon as the Council adjourns. You might as well use this temporary advantage to flee the country, Buzhazi, before you are publicly executed for treason — by me.” Sattari and Buzhazi looked at each other — obviously the very same thought had crossed their minds. Iran was no place for them now, and it was too late to turn back. “The Basij have no hope of eliminating the Pasdaran, Hesarak. It was created solely as a means of providing the Pasdaran with cannon fodder so the Iraqis would waste their bullets on them and allow the Pasdaran to attack during the War of Glorification. Your Basij forces will always be nothing but cannon fodder.”
“We took your headquarters with little trouble,” Sattori said.
Badi ignored him. “With you in temporary control of this base, you can hijack an aircraft that will easily take you to Africa, Europe, or Asia. Better get out now, while you can.” He smiled as he watched Sattari silently pleading for Buzhazi to agree, and he saw Buzhazi’s eyes start to dart back and forth as his mind examined his options over and over again…
…milliseconds before Buzhazi said, “No, Mansour. We continue as planned,” then fired three bullets into Badi’s brain.
Sattari spit on the nearly headless corpse and nodded. “Good riddance. That should’ve been done years ago.”
“We’re committed now, my friend,” Buzhazi said, checking the pistol, accepting a full magazine from Sattari, and reloading it. “Let’s avenge the deaths of our brothers in the Internal Defense Forces, and then let’s get this revolution started.”
CHAPTER 2
Boomer always thought that it felt like hitting the water on the Splash Mountain ride at Disneyland, bumpy and noisy amidst the sudden shock of deceleration — except the feeling lasted eight minutes, not two seconds.
With a one-hundred-eighty-degree x-axis turn and a ninety-second burn from the Laser Pulse Detonation Rocket System, the XR-A9 Black Stallion spaceplane slowed down to about five thousand miles per hour and immediately began its descent through the atmosphere. Once slowed down, Hunter Noble used the spaceplane’s maneuvering rockets to turn forward again, then lift the nose slightly to the proper altitude to expose the heat-proof carbon-carbon underside of the Black Stallion to the worst of the friction. He followed an electronic cueing system displayed on his primary multi-function display, similar to a terrestrial Instrument Landing System — as long as he kept the crosshairs perfectly centered in the middle of the display, he was on course and on glidepath for atmospheric reinsertion.
“Boomer, check your flight control computers, they’re not engaged,” the crew mission commander, First Lieutenant Dorothea Benneton, call-sign “Nano,” said from the forward compartment. Benneton was a high-energy, type-A personality, barely contained by an engineering degree and an Air Force commission — she liked to party and she liked being in control of every situation. She had to take a deep breath and force her words from her mouth through the high G loading during re-entry. “Did they pop off-line?”
“No, I just didn’t engage — I thought I’d hand-fly this re-entry,” Boomer replied, his voice shaky and hoarse as well.
“Don’t you screw with my test parameters, Boomer, or I’ll kick your butt,” Benneton warned only half- jokingly. “Stay on glidepath.”
During re-entry the air around the spacecraft got so hot that it ionized and disrupted normal radio communications, so the team normally used a laser radio system that bounced laser beams between satellites to communicate with the spaceplane. But the message they received was actually over the normal encrypted UHF radio channel: “Stud Two, this is Control, how do you hear?” radioed Air Force Colonel Martin Tehama, the commander of the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, from his headquarters at Elliott Air Force Base.
“Three by, Control,” Boomer replied. He turned to Nano and gave her a wink. “Looks like your gadget is working, Dottie.” Enough heat was being sucked away from the skin to keep the air from ionizing, permitting regular radio communications.
“Why aren’t you on auto control, Two?” Tehama asked. “I show the flight control system in ‘STANDBY.’ Is there a problem?”
“Now I’m getting the nagging in stereo,” Boomer said. Reluctantly he switched on the autopilot, keeping his hands on the controls until he was sure the system was responding properly. “Everyone happy now?”
“Why do we bother writing up a test flight plan if you’re not going to follow it, Boomer?” the commander asked. To Benneton he said, “Nice job on the protection system upgrades, Lieutenant. Looks like it’s working pretty well.”
“Thank you, sir,” Nano responded, grunting through the G-forces. “I’ve still got some higher than expected temperatures in the cargo bay, but it looks like the temperature’s holding — Boomer hasn’t fried anything yet.”
As they continued their descent the aerodynamic flight controls took greater and greater effect, and soon they were executing some lazy-eights and steep-banked S-turns across the sky, which helped to slow and cool the spacecraft even more. With the outside thermal protection layer temperatures now below 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit — the safe structural temperature limit for the spacecraft’s titanium-vanadium skeleton — Boomer was clear to maneuver as he pleased, and he headed straight for Elliott Air Force Base’s 23,000-foot long runway on Groom Lake in south-central Nevada.
It was not Hunter’s best landing. He turned toward the runway late and landed about three hundred feet short, on the overrun — fortunately the overrun, while not stressed as highly as the main runway, supported the Black Stallion’s weight adequately. He noticed fire and rescue trucks racing toward him as he zoomed down the runway, then slamming on the brakes and reversing direction as he zipped past the preplanned stopping point. He used almost every foot of the three-mile-long runway to stop, but he safely turned off before reaching the end and headed for the hangars.
“The cargo compartment monitors shut down — probably due to high heat,” Nano said as she monitored the computerized shutdown process. “If my experiment is trashed, Boomer, I’m going to give you a smack in the head.” Noble didn’t respond. As soon as the onboard data was collected, the spacecraft completely shut down, and the inspection stand rolled into place, she hopped out and climbed up onto the platform to look at the cargo bay passenger module.
Hunter had a bad feeling about the outcome when he saw daggers flying out of Nano’s eyes, aimed directly at him. “What?” he asked.
“Black streaks coming out of the seam in the bay doors,” Benneton said frostily.
“The whole spacecraft is black, Nano. How can you…?”
“It’s built-up heat and oxidation, Boomer,” she said. “I’m going to slit your throat, I swear.” A few minutes later, with firefighters and paramedics standing by, they opened up the cargo doors — and an undulating, shimmering gray cloud of smoke and heat rolled out. Nano was shaking her fist in the spaceplane pilot’s direction as she stared into the cargo hold. “Boomer, wait till I get my hands on you…!”
It took several long, agonizing moments to move a crane into position to lift the passenger module out of the cargo bay and onto a cradle in the hangar. Luckily the cradle was covered with heat-resistant materials, because the module was definitely hot, like a fat steak fresh off the barbecue. As expected, the electrical door opening mechanisms didn’t work, so the ground crews started to work on the mechanical locks. By the time the locks had been twisted free, a small crowd had gathered at the hatch, morbidly curious as to what the insides looked like.
