Fallout

CHAPTER 45

The Dreamland facility changed, moved… opened.

With a loud shuddering noise in the eerie desert stillness, the great metal doors along the near side of Delta Hangar groaned apart. Generators hummed, and heavy machinery activated with a clamor like an assembly line — but no human figures showed themselves.

But even with its doors yawning wide, Dreamland gave up none of its secrets. The cavernous interior of the building remained dark, like a dragon’s lair. The desert seemed to hold its breath, waiting.

Suddenly, banks of interior lights gleamed on, stabbing through the shadows like yellow eyes hidden in the shadows. External spotlights blasted down from automated guard portals around the razor-wire fence, glaring on the sand; the outstretched runway glistened against the white lakebed, blurred by the falling rain.

“Check,” LtCol Terrell said into his headset microphone.

In the rear passenger seat of the military helicopter, General Ursov stared with amazement but without comprehension.

Beside him, Craig couldn’t grasp the dizzying size of the secret facility either. At the moment, though, his curiosity took a back seat to his concern for Paige Mitchell, who might or might not be held hostage down there behind the massive buildings — and for the stolen nuclear warhead he knew must be in one of the two land rovers below. He wished they would communicate with him, break their silence, negotiate a surrender.

As the helicopter hovered over the two camouflaged vehicles, Terrell handed the microphone to Craig. “Somebody’s on the radio for you, Agent Kreident. Hasn’t identified herself, but I think it’s our friendly terrorist down there — and it’s not Mr. Waterloo. She warns that if any aircraft come out of that facility, she’ll shoot her hostage. A woman named Paige Mitchell, a DOE protocol officer, if I understand her correctly.”

Craig’s heart lurched — Paige was a hostage after all, as he had feared. But then the rest of the comment sank in. “She? The militia creep is a woman? What happened to Mike Waterloo?”

“Listen for yourself, sir.”

Ursov lowered his voice, muttering, as if commiserating with Craig. “We have been giving Miss Mitchell too many difficulties this week.”

Craig swallowed hard, squeezing his hand into a fist, wanting to punch someone. He took the microphone and clicked it. “This is Agent Kreident of the FBI, and we demand that you release your hostage immediately. We have full security coverage of the entire area, and you can’t get away. Why not just surrender and put an end to this?”

Instead of answering him, one of the two land rovers lurched into gear, spraying sand and gravel as it picked up speed across the desert. It accelerated down the widening gully into the alluvial fan, away from the second vehicle, which remained parked and motionless.

“Where the hell does she think she’s going?” Terrell said. “We’ve got backup zeroing in from all directions!”

Ursov gave a short, loud laugh. “You expect a terrorist just to give up and apologize?”

Then a woman’s voice came over the helicopter’s radio, iron-hard and suggesting absolutely no compromise. “You need to keep your priorities straight, Agent Kreident.” A familiar voice. “You’ve got some choices to make, here and now.”

He sat bolt upright in the passenger seat. Sally? Sally Montry? Craig breathed deeply. Mike Waterloo’s secretary — a member of the militia? Events clicked in place — PK Dirks’s convenient excuse of being absent at Nevsky’s death, hadn’t been his setup, but hers. The administrative paperwork for clearing out nuclear weapons, all the dead-end leads… Sally would have been in the perfect position to coordinate everything, and to cover their tracks.

And now she had Paige. But where was the warhead?

“My priorities are clear enough, Sally,” he said. “To stop the Eagle’s Claw, to prevent you from further bloodshed.”

Sally’s short laugh sounded more like a cough. “You listen to me, Agent Kreident. Inside the other land rover you’ll find two things. One is Mike Waterloo, a martyr to the cause — make sure he’s remembered as a hero, if you all survive yourselves.”

Craig gripped the microphone to retort, but Sally continued. “There’s also a nuclear device in the back compartment, already armed and counting down. You’ve got fifteen minutes before the secret United Nations command center is obliterated. Make your choice — waste time chasing me and pretty little Paige,” she gave a sarcastic snort, “or try to save the world.”

Sally clicked off her transmission. The land rover accelerated across the wasteland.

Taking Paige with her.

Craig and Terrell and Ursov looked at each other in confusion. The military police in the helicopter wore greenish expressions, as if they wanted the pilot to spin about and head straight away from the warhead with all possible speed, as if they had any chance of outrunning a megaton explosion.

Agonized, Craig knew they would have to make the decision Sally wanted. He watched the land rover bounce away with no pretense at caution. Sally Montry knew she had won this round. “How far out is the NEST team?” he asked, desperately hoping. “And your own disarmament teams?”

“Another twenty minutes, minimum.” Terrell’s face went slack. “We’re the only ones available even to try.”

“Well, then I’m going down there,” Craig shouted over to the pilot. “Come on, let’s go — drop this bird!”

As the helicopter descended toward the ground, its rotors roaring, Craig unbuckled and knelt at the edge of the open doorway, holding the support ropes. Before he could convince himself otherwise, he dropped the remaining few feet to the desert, splashing in the rain-wet sand and running toward the motionless land rover.

Every second might count. Fifteen minutes! They’d be caught in the blast of a nuclear explosion, if he couldn’t somehow disarm the weapon. And he had no idea where to begin.

The military pilot left the rotors turning, just in case they had to flee… though it was an open question whether even the high-speed helicopter could actually get far enough away in time.

“I am coming, Agent Kreident,” Ursov bellowed climbing out the back of the helicopter. “Wait for me — I can assist.” The MPs shouted after him, but didn’t seem too eager to run closer to the ticking warhead.

Craig didn’t pause for a minute. Ursov had vowed not to let Craig out of his sight, but neither of them had time for political games. He couldn’t waste a second to get rid of Ursov, so he just ignored the squat, muscular man.

Reaching the rover, Craig spotted the scarlet stains splashed on the driver’s side door. Before he could blink, he noticed the crumpled, bloody form inside. He stopped short as he recognized the face of Mike Waterloo, his expression slack with death.

Everything Sally had said was true. She had shot Waterloo, and she would not hesitate in carrying out her threat against her hostage. Paige was doomed — and so were they all. He longed to go rescue her, but first, he had to somehow stop the nuclear weapon from going off. He glanced at his watch. Piece of cake. Right.

“How do you expect to disarm the warhead, Agent Kreident?” Ursov said, panting, his face flushed. “Are you an expert in such matters?”

“Maybe it’s got an OFF switch,” he muttered, shaking his head. He’d had trouble enough with the plastique at the Hoover Dam — and now this. “I knew I should have learned how to do this stuff.”

His priorities had been clear, as Sally had known, but the procedure was not. Craig had no idea what to do… but if he did nothing, the warhead would go off. And if he did the wrong thing, the warhead would go off. He just had to hope that somehow, by accident, he would be able to guess the correct method.

The wind picked up, hurling cold raindrops, and the thunder rumbled overhead. Craig peered into the back of the land rover and spotted the nuclear device. He had seen similar warheads in the DAF, and he knew this was not a mockup, not a prop — but a functional nuclear weapon. He understood where it had come from, and he knew that the militia intended to use it.

The LED lights on the warhead’s access panel glowed. Numbers on the timer continued to click down steadily one at a time. The bomb was armed, ready to detonate.

Thirteen minutes.

Ursov moved up beside him, puffing, his face flushed with determination. Perhaps he intended to chew up the warhead to dismantle it. He stared through the land rover’s window, scowling. “Come, Agent Kreident — we must begin.”

Craig grabbed the door handle, ready to jump into the back compartment and get to work… whatever it was.

But he found the door locked. He couldn’t even get inside.