Nighthawk

65

Reaching anyone from the bomber proved to be difficult. Every satellite over the Pacific had been rendered inoperative, and though they were over the Caribbean, there was a spillover effect. Communication networks were crashing. And most of the Western world’s active resources were busy trying to ascertain the extent of the damage.

Finally, after making contact with a Russian communications satellite over the Atlantic and being relayed through a commercial phone exchange in Poland, they were linked into the NUMA communications room.

“What altitude are you at?” Rudi Gunn asked immediately.

“Thirty-five thousand,” Kurt replied.

The signal was poor because of the ionization in the atmosphere and the mismatch between the Russian equipment and NUMA’s, but Kurt could hear the silence plainly. “We’re too high,” he said, not waiting for Rudi to tell him that. “We know that. What are our options?”

“There aren’t any,” Rudi said.

Kurt had expected this. He exchanged glances with the other men in the cockpit. “We figured that, too. We’ll turn out to sea,” he said. “Do you have a preferred course for us?”

“We do,” Rudi said. “We’ve picked a spot in the mid-Atlantic as far from any landmass as possible. All aircraft have been ordered out of the area and to land as soon as possible. All ships have been ordered to move away from the location at their best possible speed, though for many of them it won’t matter.”

“We can’t make the mid-Atlantic,” Major Timonovski said. “We don’t have the fuel.”

“This is an intercontinental bomber,” Joe said.

“We had to reduce the weight in order to clear the trees. We dumped ten thousand gallons back there.”

“How far can we fly on what we have?” Kurt asked.

“Five hundred miles,” Timonovski calculated. “Not much more.”

“What about aerial refueling?” Joe asked. “We heard on the cockpit voice recorder from Blackjack 1 that you were going to refuel near Caracas.”

“Yes,” Davidov said, “that was the original plan. But when the intercept failed, the tanker was ordered back to Russia. Our plan was to land in Cuba. We would be starting our descent in twenty minutes.”

“Could we link up with an American tanker?”

“We use a different type of fuel,” Major Timonovski said. “Modified to work with the scramjets.”

Kurt looked at the map. They were halfway between Colombia and Cuba. Five hundred miles in any direction wouldn’t be enough.

“We can’t put sufficient distance between ourselves and civilization to do much good,” he said. “We’ve got to come up with another plan.”

Joe offered a desperate thought. “There’s a windbreak in front of the Nighthawk. If we slowed to the very minimum controllable speed—”

Major Timonovski shook his head. “There is no hatch leading to the top of the fuselage.”

“What if we depressurized the plane and cut a hole in the skin?”

“The skin is titanium,” Davidov replied. “Double-thick. Even if we could, there’s no hope in what you’re considering. No matter how we try to secure you, it’s not possible to keep you from being swept off the upper surfaces once you’re out in the airstream. You’ll never be able to get in the cargo bay.”

“If we can cut our way out of the Blackjack, maybe we can cut our way into the Nighthawk from below,” Joe said. “Tunnel our way through.”

Unknown to the men on the bomber, the communications were being shared with the White House, Vandenberg and the café in Cajamarca. Emma’s voice chiming in alerted them to that fact.

“You won’t be able to cut into the Nighthawk from below,” she said. “The entire structure is designed to resist the heat and shock of reentry. Even if you had a high-intensity acetylene torch, you’d never get through.”

Kurt found himself smiling. Strange, he thought, considering the situation. But he was glad to know at least she and the Trouts were safe. “What if we use the scramjets?” he suggested. “Instead of conserving fuel, we get this thing up to maximum speed and altitude. How high can this bomber go?”

“One hundred and twenty thousand feet,” Timonovski replied.

“The problem is, the gamma ray burst,” Rudi told them. “The higher you go, the farther the devastation spreads. At that height, there will be less physical destruction, but the radiation, the shock front and the electromagnetic pulse will cover sixteen times as much surface area. The simulation we’ve run suggests that you nose-down at maximum velocity. It will concentrate the damage in one area, but it’s still going to be bad.”

“How bad?” Kurt said.

“The other burst was seven hundred miles from Hawaii. It set off seismometers all over the globe. Hawaii’s gone dark. The Aleutians have gone dark. The entire Pacific Rim has gone dark. There are likely to be tsunamis and a hot shock front. If we had any satellites working out there, we’d expect to see fires and damage on most shores, effects the equivalent of a large earthquake, but we were lucky that it was so far away. The majority of the radiation and destructive energy dissipated prior to making landfall.”

Kurt looked at the faces around him. Russian and American alike were calm and resigned. “You know how far we can go,” Kurt said. “Give us a location when you have one. Until then, we’ll conserve as much fuel as possible.”

As Kurt spoke, Major Timonovski adjusted the flight setting to its most efficient mode. The wings came forward and the engines powered back. The Blackjack 2 rose up and slowed down like a ship meeting a large, lazy swell.

It was peaceful, Kurt thought to himself, quiet. Truly, the calm before the storm.