Was it that easy to build a bomb?
He began walking around the shed, wondering to himself how difficult his job might be in five or ten years. If a private company could build a nuke, when would some crazy fundamentalist in the Middle East do so?
There were crates against the wall, vegetable crates.
“Bomb squad took out two five-hundred-pounders,” said Liu, referring to a small squad of demo experts tasked to deal with the weapons. “Said they didn’t have fuses and couldn’t go off, but nobody wanted to take any chances. Leave them for the authorities.”
“They came in these boxes?” said Danny, pointing.
“Don’t know. The boxes were there. I don’t know if they were crating them. Couldn’t figure it out.”
“I saw some boxes like that in Taipei,” said Danny. “In a hangar there.”
“Just vegetable boxes. Bring lettuce and stuff around, like that.”
“A lot of lettuce gets eaten in Taipei.”
“Tons.”
Danny flicked his com control to talk to Dreamland.
With the Taiwanese and American authorities now arriving on the scene of the sinking,
Zen shook his head as Starship and Kick engaged in some good-natured banter over how close the Chinese Communist missile had come to splashing the Osprey before Starship managed to get his Flighthawk in the way. The joking started a bit off-color and then went quite a bit further; about the only word that could be repeated in polite company was “road.”
“All right guys, let’s not forget we’re working,” Zen told them finally.
He felt more than a little proud, as if he were a high school basketball coach whose team had just won the championship. It wasn’t that bad a metaphor, actually — they were clucking away like high school kids, their jokes on a sophomore’s level.
At best.
“Check your fuel,” he added. “I don’t want you walking home.”
Starship’s retort was cut off by Dog on the interphone.
“Zen, I want you in on this. Go to the main Dreamland channel.”
He clicked off without saying anything else to the two Flighthawk pilots, listening as Ray Rubeo detailed an argument for another UAV.
“We’re trying to get a line on that plane,” added Rubeo. “The surveillance equipment that Captain Freah placed shows the other still in the hangar.”
“What plane?” asked Zen.
“Chen Lee’s companies have two 767s. One is in Taipei on the ground but we’re looking for another that they seem to have leased a few months back,” explained Dog. “The UAV has handles that could be used for an air launch. We have someone en route to the airport to take a look at it.”
“Let’s get north,” said Zen.
“My thoughts exactly,” said Dog.
Fann checked the course marker. The UAV had a range just over fifteen hundred miles, but that was without the extra weight of a bomb, and flying at medium to high altitude. Professor Ai had calculated that its fuel would take it roughly a thousand as presently configured. They were just approaching the thousand-mile mark now.
The longer they waited, the less possibility there was of the small plane running out of fuel. But it also increased the chance that they would be found.
He checked the map and his watch again. In less than two hours, Beijing would be destroyed.
No — the communists would be destroyed. The capital,
He would return to Taipei, a hero.
And a criminal, in the eyes of the communists and their collaborators in the present government. Undoubtedly he would be killed. But death merely meant a change; it was no more permanent than life.
Waiting increased the chances of success, but it would also allow him to see the explosion. He would witness the moment of his grandfather’s triumph with his own eyes.
“We are in range,” said Ai.
“We will wait as long as possible. I calculate an optimum launch in twenty minutes,” he told the scientists.
“The communists are reacting to action by the Americans. They are scrambling fighters, alerting their troops. I’ve seen the radar and radio intercepts and—”
“We will wait as long as possible.”
According to the manual, a “stock” B-52H could make 516 knots at altitude. B-52s had long ago ceased to be “stock,” and in practice the typical Stratofortress’s hull was so cluttered with add-ons and extra gear that even 500 knots in level flight could be more fantasy than reality.
Dreamland’s EB-52s — which in most cases had started their lives as B-52Hs — contained no external blisters to slow them down. Thirty-something years of work on jet engine technology allowed their four power plants to do the work of the original eight more efficiently, and the use of more alloy and composites in the wing and tail structures did the same for the airfoil. In short, if an entry for the Megafortress’s top speed were to be made in a reference book, it would be listed at close to 600 knots, along with an asterisk indicating that, depending on the configuration of the power plants and the load the massive plane carried, it might do considerably better.
Dog, with full military power selected, passed the 600-knot mark as he pushed northward through the Taiwan Strait, the two U/MF-3s leading the way.
Mainland China and Taiwan existed side by side in an intricate and highly charged relationship. On the one hand, their governments considered each other bitter enemies. On the other, there was a myriad of commercial relationships between the pair. Among those relationships were regular flights from Taipei to a number of Mainland cities, most especially Shanghai.
Such flights might give cover to a 767 loaded with a UAV and nuclear device, Dog thought.
“
“We’re going over the airport right now,” said Catsman. “We have CIA assets on the ground.”
“Copy that.”
Dog looked over at his fuel panel. They had about three more hours of flying time before nudging into the reserve cushion, depending on what twists and turns Dog took.
He brought up another set of instrument readings on the configurable screen, focusing on his aircraft’s performance.
Come to think of it, it had.
“Danny, what’s your situation?” he asked Captain Freah, bouncing back onto the Dreamland line.
“We’re secure here. Still going over everything, but it looks about as clean as a diner an hour before the health department inspectors arrive. Authorities are at the gate,” Danny added. “We’re holding them off — got about another ten to fifteen minutes of searching to get through.”
“Roger that.”
