Countdown to Midnight

Thirty-Six

The Quartet Directorate’s leased LM-100J Super Hercules was parked just off Orlando Apopka’s single runway. Long shadows cast by the last sliver of sunlight stretched across the thin strip of grass and train tracks separating the runway from a nearby divided road, the Orange Blossom Trail. Lights from some of Orlando’s outlying northern suburbs already glowed brightly along the dark eastern horizon.

Nick Flynn waited at the foot of the large aircraft’s open rear ramp. Ahead of him, the other seven members of his Dragon assault team struggled up into its cavernous cargo compartment. They were hauling themselves along a rope rigged to the ramp. Between their wingsuits, ram parachute packs, oxygen masks and cylinders, weapons, ammunition, and other special gear, they were carrying significantly more than a hundred and twenty pounds of added weight strapped to their backs, chests, and thighs. He fought down a laugh when Cooke looked back at him and uttered a high-pitched bray, mimicking a heavily loaded pack mule squalling in angry protest.

Two more men in coveralls stood waiting at the top to assist each overburdened member of the assault force into one of the mesh seats that lined one side of the compartment. In flight, they would crew a rail-mounted tracking camera and telescope system — the twin of the one aboard Fox’s Gulfstream G650 business jet. If the Gulf Venture drastically altered its course before their civilian Super Hercules turboprop aircraft reached the target area, that long-range, IR-capable camera would be their only hope of finding the ship.

The big aircraft’s four powerful Rolls-Royce engines were slowly spooling up, with their six-bladed propellers starting to spin. Dust and small bits of debris kicked up by the steadily increasing prop blast swirled away into the air.

Flynn saw Gwen Park leave the rented hangar they’d been using as temporary quarters and a base of operations. She hurried over to join him. “What’s the word?” he asked loudly, raising his voice to be heard over the rising engine noise.

“NOAA’s most recent forecast confirms that weather conditions are improving rapidly over your target zone,” Four’s chief of security for Avalon House shouted back. “By the time you reach that area, winds near the surface should be minimal. But the high-altitude winds will still be fairly strong.”

He nodded. “We’ve trained for that,” he assured her. “Any more news from the Gulfstream?”

“Just that they’re headed for Bermuda now,” she said. “That, plus a personal message for you from Ms. Van Horn.” She leaned closer. “She asked me to tell you again that you are not, repeat not, to get yourself killed… or she will be extremely pissed off.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll do my best on that,” Flynn promised solemnly.

Gwen Park nodded. “See that you do.” For a brief instant, the trace of a dry smile appeared on her face. “For what it’s worth, I’ve never yet seen Laura get really angry. But I strongly suspect it’s an experience I would rather avoid. So spare me that if you can.” Then she clapped him gently on the shoulder and stepped back. “Good luck, Nick.”

Flynn grabbed hold of the rope and pulled himself slowly up the raised surface of the ramp and into the rear of the Super Hercules. By the time he reached his seat, the ramp was already whirring upward. It closed and latched into position with a sudden vibration that could be felt even over the pulsing throb created by the aircraft’s engines, each producing more than 4,500 horsepower.

The LM-100J’s pilot, Jack “Ripper” Ingalls, came aft from the cockpit a moment later. He checked to make sure each of his passengers was belted in, making his way steadily down the row of seats toward Flynn.

“No jumpmaster this time?” Flynn asked with a grin.

Ingalls shrugged. “Hell, Nick, I don’t even have a copilot on this jaunt.” He tapped himself on the chest. “I’m the sole member of this bird’s flight crew.”

“Isn’t that totally illegal?”

Ingalls matched his smile. “Oh, yeah. On the other hand, if we get caught, I’m guessing the act of transporting a bunch of heavily armed private soldiers out to board and capture an Iranian-flagged oil tanker will make the fact that I also tore up a whole bunch of FAA regulations doing it the least of my worries.”

Flynn chuckled. “There is that.”

“But since I am risking both my personal liberty and pilot’s license for you guys, I’ve got a question I really need answered,” Ingalls continued.

“Shoot.”

The pilot pointed to the oddest-looking piece of equipment worn by Flynn and all the others on his Dragon team. Each of them had what appeared to be a three-foot-wide streamlined wing with twin engine nacelles attached to a breastplate. “What in God’s name is that Rube Goldberg contraption?”

“This, Rip,” Flynn said, tapping the aluminum and carbon fiber casing, “is what turns us from being basically falling rocks with a slightly better glide ratio into real live birdmen.” He grinned tightly. “Well, at least for a few minutes, anyway.”

The experimental assistive propulsion devices were the brainchild of an Austrian stuntman and wingsuit enthusiast named Peter Salzmann. Together with a team of innovative BMW engineers, he’d pioneered the creation of these miniature flying machines. Each weighed in at only about twenty-six pounds. Their twin nacelles contained tiny carbon fiber impellers capable of spinning at up to 25,000 revolutions per minute. Powered by 50-volt lithium batteries, each unit’s electric motors could produce around twenty horsepower for up to five minutes — enabling wingsuit wearers to reach speeds of up to 160 knots in horizontal and even climbing flight, and greatly extending the distance they could glide.

Ingalls whistled loudly when Flynn finished his quick run-through on the technology involved. “And this high-tech gizmo really works?”

“Both times we’ve tried it,” Flynn said.

The aircraft pilot stared at him. “You’ve flown these things just twice,” he said in disbelief. “And now you’re going to use them in combat?”

“Yep.”

Ingalls breathed out slowly. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re batshit crazy, Nick?” he asked carefully.

“Well, I prefer the term sanity-challenged,” Flynn replied. “It sounds more official, somehow.”

“That is true,” Tadeusz Kossak nodded gravely. “Though I prefer the Polish version. We are Oddział Wariatów, the Lunatic Squad.”

Alain Ricard grinned. “Ah, but Tadeusz, my friend, it sounds better in French, L’escouade lunatique.”

Ingalls snorted, unsuccessfully attempting to hide his own sudden grin. “The Lunatic Squad, huh? Catchy name.” He bumped fists with Flynn and then went back up the line, doing the same thing with every man in the Dragon team. “All right, I’ll go get this plane off the ground. Far be it from me to interfere with crazy people doing their duty.”

Just a few minutes later, with everything set, the big LM-100J Super Hercules taxied out onto the beginning of the little airport’s short asphalt runway and halted in place. Its engines ran up to full power, thrumming at high volume. When Ingalls released his brakes, the four-engine aircraft shot forward, steadily gathering speed until it lumbered heavily off the ground not far from the end of the short strip. Red, green, and white navigation lights blinking from its wings and tail, the plane climbed steeply into the swiftly darkening sky. It banked sharply to the right and kept climbing, steadily accelerating toward its maximum flying speed of 362 knots as it headed northeast toward the Atlantic Ocean.

Captain Reza Heidari studied the repeater screens showing the measurements recorded by various weather instruments — anemometers, barometers, temperature sensors, and others — sited at different places around the hull and superstructure of his ship. They all confirmed the evidence of his own senses. The weather was improving fast, as so helpfully predicted by the Americans themselves. He picked up the intercom phone and connected to the Launch Control Center one deck below the navigation bridge.

Dr. Hossein Majidi answered him on the first ring. “LCC here, Reza.”

“What is your evaluation of the meteorological data we’re seeing?” Heidari asked.

“I recommend that we proceed with our prelaunch preparations,” the scientist said confidently. “Based on current trends, all the necessary conditions — most critically wave motion, wind strength and direction — should be nominal by the time the Zuljanah rocket is in position and ready to lift off.”

“Very well, stand by,” Heidari acknowledged. He turned to his second-in-command, Touraj Dabir. “Set Launch Preparation Warning Condition One,” he ordered.

“Set Warning Condition One, aye, sir,” Dabir repeated. He stabbed a button on the control panel in front of him.

Immediately, klaxons blared throughout the massive ship. Bright yellow emergency lights positioned around the hull and superstructure turned on and began rotating. Their quick, strobing pulses of light would alert any sailors working out on the windswept deck or in the noisy turbine and generator rooms to what was happening.

“Warning One set,” Dabir reported. He watched a row of lights turn green across his panel. “All departments acknowledge and report they are ready to proceed.”

Heidari nodded, pleased by the rapid, efficient response to his orders. During the nearly month-long voyage from Iran to this point deep in the Atlantic, he’d run his crew through repeated drills to simulate the steps required to carry out a successful missile launch. Now all that hard work and practice was paying off. “Begin jettisoning our ballast oil,” he instructed.

The younger naval officer pushed a new set of buttons, sending electronic orders to the technicians manning the Pump Control Room, which lay deep inside the hull below the tanker’s above-deck superstructure. More lights turned green. “Pump Room acknowledges, Captain.”

One after another, the special high-speed pumps installed aboard the Gulf Venture during her secret retrofit went into action. A rhythmic vibration, accompanied by a low rumble, steadily built up, until it could be felt in every compartment from the ship’s bow to its stern. The cargo pump outlets were located on both the port and starboard sides, roughly halfway down the more than eight-hundred-foot-long hull. Abruptly, black gouts of thick crude oil spewed out — jetting toward the ocean below. The pumps were emptying the tens of thousands of barrels of oil stored in compartments above the concealed Zuljanah ballistic missile.

Heidari watched this operation proceed. He was utterly unmoved by the damage it would do to the ocean and its abundant marine life. He supposed the world’s naive environmentalists would have been horrified by this intentional oil spill, but it was necessary. Ridding the ship of the crude oil they’d used as camouflage was the only way to clear the way for their rocket launch. And, as an added bonus, deliberately creating a massive slick would also further dampen any wave motion around the tanker as it steamed in circles through layers of oil slowly spreading across the sea.

He looked at Dabir. “How much longer until all the camouflage compartments are empty?”

The younger man studied his readouts for a moment. “Judging by the observed flow rate, another thirty minutes or so.”

Heidari checked the monitors which showed the Gulf Venture’s current range of motion. It was already greatly reduced, but there were additional measures available to him. “Deploy all stabilizers,” he said quietly.

Dabir obeyed. His hands darted across the control panel, flipping switches. Additional instrumentation lights changed color from red to yellow and then, finally, to green. Large stabilizer fins rigged to the tanker’s bow and stern slowly unfolded and locked into position. Like those used by cruise liners, they significantly reduced the ship’s roll rate.

Satisfied that matters were well in hand, Heidari settled back to wait for the high-speed pumps to finish their work. Just short of the predicted thirty minutes, the gouts of oil jetting over the side sputtered, slowed, and then stopped. The rumbling vibration rippling through the ship’s hull faded away. He glanced at Dabir.

The younger man had his eyes fixed on his control panel. He leaned forward to check a bank of monitors displaying infrared and low-light imagery from inside the ship’s upper tier of oil-storage compartments. “All camouflage oil jettisoned,” he confirmed.

“Are there signs of excessive sedimentation?” Heidari asked. Over long periods of time, some of the various components of crude oil in storage could settle out, forming a thick, toxic sludge. Given the relatively short duration of this voyage, that should not be a serious problem for them, but there was no point in taking any chances now.

“No, sir,” Dabir answered.

“Very well, but purge the tanks anyway,” Heidari ordered.

His second-in-command sent more instructions to the technicians manning the pump controls deep inside the hull. Obeying, they opened a series of new valves and then restarted the pumps — flooding the compartments with successive sprays of pure water and then high-pressure steam to wash away any oil residues still clinging to the bulkheads, vertical and horizontal framing, and fittings. Several minutes later, the cleaning process was finished.

Heidari spoke again to Hossein Majidi in the Launch Control Center. “We’re ready to proceed with the next phase.”

“Understood, Reza,” the missile scientist said. “The rocket remains stable. All systems are go for launch pad roof retraction.”

Heidari swung toward Dabir. He could feel his pulse beginning to speed up with growing excitement. The months-long process of rebuilding this massive ship to carry out its role in MIDNIGHT and training its specialist crew was now coming very close to fruition. “Set Launch Preparation Warning Condition Two.”

The younger man followed his orders. More klaxons blared. And now the rotating emergency lights scattered around the ship glowed red. Again, acknowledgements rippled in from the various departments.

Satisfied that his crew was ready, Heidari issued the final necessary orders. “Retract the launch pad cover.” From here on out, Majidi and his technicians would be in charge.

Near the Gulf Venture’s midsection, powerful motors activated. In sequence, sections of the deck and inner hull slid apart and folded up — opening bulkheads and frames to reveal the missile storage unit hidden deep inside the ship’s hull. Once that was done, the twin doors built into the roof of this secret compartment unlocked and lifted, exposing the Zuljanah rocket for the first time since it had been loaded aboard at Bandar Abbas. Topped by its black nose cone, the twenty-five-meter-tall missile lay on its side, still safely secured to its surrounding framework.

From the sealed control center below Heidari’s feet, Majidi reported, “We are beginning the transition to the rocket’s vertical launch position.”

Slowly, the rocket and its attached gantry elevated, swinging through a 90-degree arc until they pointed skyward through the opening in the oil tanker’s deck. Only the upper third of the finned launch vehicle was visible above the hull.

“The gantry is locked in position,” Majidi said calmly over the intercom phone. “And the launch pad’s own internal motion compensators and stabilizers are fully engaged. All internal systems remain nominal. We are beginning our final checks of the Zuljanah’s first two solid-fueled stages. Once those are complete, we will begin the process of loading the upper stage with its more volatile hypergolic fuel mixture. The clock is now at T minus forty-five minutes and counting.”

Russia’s main defense command center occupied a vast complex of Stalinist-era white concrete buildings sprawling across the Moskva River’s north bank. Most of its aboveground offices and auditoriums handled the day-to-day routine of managing the military’s peacetime functions. The real work of coordinating serious military action around the world was handled by smaller command centers and other facilities safely buried far underground.

Inside one of those secure subterranean conference chambers, President Piotr Zhdanov and Pavel Voronin were seated next to each other at a semicircular table. They had been brought here by the sudden and unexpected flow of flash message traffic from the converted SSBN BS-64 Podmoskovye out in the middle of the Atlantic.

Nakhimov’s first signals reporting the Gulf Venture’s abrupt alteration of course had been worrying enough. The submarine captain’s new messages were even more troubling. With the storm diminishing and the coming of night, Podmoskovye had been able to creep close enough to the Iranian tanker to use its night vision periscope. The pictures it was taking were being relayed in real-time via communication satellite to Moscow.

Zhdanov glared at the green-tinted images displayed on the large screen in front of them. They showed the Zuljanah rocket now locked into its launch orientation. And none of Voronin’s Raven Syndicate security personnel were visible anywhere aboard the huge ship. Instead, several armed Iranian sentries were clearly posted at various points on the tanker’s tall aft superstructure. “The fucking bastards in Tehran lied to us,” he snarled. “They’re launching a day early.”

Unconcerned and even a bit amused by this evidence of Iranian duplicity, Voronin shrugged his elegantly tailored shoulders. “Nothing in our own plans is actually affected by this unexpectedly early missile strike, Mr. President,” he pointed out. “Our own ICBMs are already on standby, ready to strike as soon as we receive confirmation of a successful EMP attack on the United States. All the Iranians will accomplish by this minor act of treachery is to advance the time of their own destruction by a few hours.”

Zhdanov breathed out. “I suppose that is true,” he said grudgingly. “But what about the team you had aboard the Gulf Venture? Aren’t you concerned about them?”

Voronin smiled thinly, a smile that never reached his pale eyes. “If Skoblin and his men are now prisoners aboard the tanker, what of it?” He gestured toward the screen. “They weren’t expected to take any action until after that rocket is launched. And with the Podmoskovye already lurking below the surface with Colonel Danilevsky’s additional commandos, nothing really changes.” His smile widened minutely. “Except possibly the personal fate of Skoblin and the others on the Gulf Venture. And if they die,” he said callously, “they die. Some men are always expendable.”