Then they’d tried reassuring him that the weapon hadn’t been made particularly well, and rather than yielding the twelve megatons it was designed for, would probably only have delivered six or seven.
“Which means it would have only blown up everything within six miles, right?” he had answered. “Rather then twenty.”
They didn’t get the joke.
He’d never been around when a nuke had been bombed. Nor had he pulled one out of a fire. And even if he had — those things were past.
If he had to defuse the bomb now, could he? He remembered getting the instructions over the radio. It had been nerve-wracking.
It would be worse now, ten times worse. A hundred times worse. He’d lost something. He wasn’t a hero — wasn’t
He was thinking too much. He used to hear people say that about other commanders, about guys who, to him, seemed to have lost a step, gotten older and more cautious. It wasn’t age maybe, not directly — just experience.
“Looks like they’re finished with the fuel,” said Hera.
Danny looked up, surprised. “Already?”
“Look.”
“No, it’s the oxidizer,” he said. “Shit.”
The fuel and oxidizer were loaded separately, but it took roughly the same amount of time to load each one. They must be nearly done, Danny realized. The missile crew was moving quickly, much more quickly than he would have thought possible.
The men swarmed over the erector, getting ready to raise the missile.
“The bombers aren’t going to make it,” said Danny, jumping up.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, they’re going to launch that sucker any minute. Come on.”
76
The President had just reached the Oval Office when her assistant chief of staff told her Jonathon Reid needed to talk to her immediately. She picked up the phone as she sat down, tapping her finger hard on the button to connect.
“This is the President.”
“Mrs. Todd, we’ve just learned that plotters in Iran are targeting their president. We believe it’s the same group responsible for the missile. They’ve put a bomb on his plane at the Tehran International Airport.”
“We’re certain of this?”
“Reasonably certain. The plane is due to take off for the States inside an hour. It’s on the ground at Imam Khomeini International Airport, near Hangar Five. The bomb was just delivered to the airport.”
“Thank you, Mr. Reid.” The President pushed back her chair. “Do we have new information on the warhead?”
“No ma’am. The Air Force F-15Es should be ready to take off in just a few minutes. The task force in charge of securing and removing the weapon is being gathered. We’ve added a Marine combat team, and will get additional forces if possible.”
Todd put down the phone and bent her head down, resting her forehead on her fingertips.
It made sense now — a faction of the Revolutionary Guard would attempt to assassinate the country’s president, while launching a suicide attack against Israel. There would be chaos in the country. They would take over.
Except there’d be nothing left to take over. Israel would turn the country into a nuclear wasteland, desolate for the next two hundred years.
No. They would stop it all in time. She had the right people in place, thank God.
If she warned the Iranian president, would it inadvertently hamper the mission to stop the missile and retrieve the warhead? If the army and air force in Iran went on alert, how much harder would it be for the Air Force to find its target?
But she had to warn him. Just as she had to warn the Israelis.
Todd picked up the phone. There was a good chance the Iranian president wouldn’t believe her, but she would try anyway.
77
Breanna and the C-17 pilot, captain Frederick, had just settled on the course into Baghdad when Danny Freah called her from Iran. The MY-PID routed the call from its network to her sat phone; the connection was slightly delayed but so clear she could hear him gulping for air as he ran and talked to her at the same time.
“They’re getting ready to launch,” said Danny. “They have the oxidizer in and they’re almost done with the fuel. They’re putting the nose to the warhead on. They’re going to launch, Bree.”
“Now?”
“Any second. Ten minutes at most. I’m going to stop them.”
“Danny—”
“Hera’s with me. We’ll blow up the missile.”
“But—”
“I’m on it. Don’t worry.”
There was a strain in his voice she’d never heard before. For the first time since the mission began, Breanna felt truly scared.
“Godspeed” was all she could say.
78
Danny pushed down the ravine, cutting toward the rear of the complex in a wide arc. He came up a short hill, then plunged into a thicket of prickle bushes. The stickers clawed at him and the brush was so thick that he realized after a dozen yards that he had lost his way. He stopped to get his bearings and gather his breath.
“What are we doing?” said Hera.
“Tell me how to get down to the rear of the missile storage building,” Danny told the Voice. “I want to get down there without being seen. But I want to get down as quickly as possible.”
“Computing,” said the machine. “Go thirty meters to the east, then make a fifty degree turn.”
For the next sixty or seventy yards, the Voice seemed omniscient. First it took them out of brush, guiding them to a copse and an easily climbed set of rocks. But then the computer started them to the north, working through an open field that Danny thought they could easily have cut through.
Did he trust MY-PID or not? It couldn’t explain itself when he asked why it was leading them that way, saying only that it had calculated the route according to his specifications.
“We’re going to end up back at the sea the way we’re going,” groused Hera.
Finally they took a turn to the east. But the going became much tougher — they were walking through thick
