Whiplash

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 sticker bushes, which pulled at their clothes and smacked at their faces.

The Voice told Danny they would have to crawl for twenty meters. He got down on his hands and knees. Feeling a little like he was the butt of a joke, he crawled until he came to a barbed-wire fence. He held up the fence and waited for Hera. Once she was through, he slipped under himself.

“Target shed is three hundred meters ahead. Follow the unused roadbed.”

The computer had used old satellite images, as well as its view from the Owl, to find the roadway, which after the turn under the fence was hidden from the launch area by the buildings. Danny slipped his night goggles down around his neck; there was more than enough light to see. He checked his grenade launcher and rifle.

“Be ready to fire,” he told Hera. Then he rose and began running toward the missile building.

Bani Aberhadji watched as the workers balanced on the ladder, performing the last checks while the fuel was topped off. The elation he’d felt earlier had dissipated. He was back to being the man he’d been throughout his life — the quiet problem solver, the thinker always several steps ahead.

After the missile was launched, he would go north to a safe house in the hills overlooking the Caspian Sea. There, he would begin reaching out to his Guard contacts, getting things in line to take control of the council.

If he had to, he could evacuate temporarily to Baku. It was not his preferred course, but it might be necessary, depending on the West’s reaction.

“Imam, we are ready to begin the countdown,” said Abas. “You need to unlock the code on the primary pump.”

It was an extra safeguard the brothers had worked out, making it impossible for anyone but him to fire the weapon.

Aberhadji nodded, and began walking toward the base of the erector.

The buzz of the machinery was so loud that Danny had trouble hearing the Voice.

“Repeat.”

“Battery in Owl UAV is drained to within five minutes.”

“Copy,” he said. There was nothing he could do about it.

As he neared the back of the missile building, he angled toward the launching area, trotting, trying to conserve his energy for the final charge, trying to keep his adrenaline and emotions under control.

Just then two men came out of the front of the building, turning the corner toward him.

The fear that he had struggled alternately to contain and to ignore broke its bounds, exploding inside him. It was a dragon inside his chest, its hot breath immolating every inch of his flesh, every bone, every organ.

Kill, or be killed.

Danny fired a burst into their midsections. They crumpled, almost disintegrating in front of him.

Everything blurred. He bent forward, running faster, his head pounding. His chest felt as if it would explode. The blood vessels in his neck bulged, the blood threatening to spurt through their walls.

The missile was forty yards away. He dropped to a knee and fired a grenade. The projectile rose in a high arc toward the body of the missile, sailing directly toward the thick midsection. At the last moment it veered to the left, skimming against the side and falling beyond.

Danny pumped in another round. Someone began firing at him. The grenade exploded in the distance.

“Get down!” yelled Hera, throwing herself on top of him as he fired his second round.

He fell forward under her weight. His grenade sailed across the pressed dirt apron area, bouncing off the small hand truck of equipment and rebounding directly against the base of the rocket.

Where it exploded, igniting the fuel in the long hose nearby.

Bani Aberhadji heard the sound of an eagle passing nearby, its spread wings pushing the air away in a rush. He hadn’t heard that sound since he was a boy, hunting in the mountains with his father. Those had been glorious days, days he hadn’t treasured until his father died, stolen from him by the Shah in one of his sweeps against dissidents.

There were no eagles here. The sound was the noise a weapon made, a shell or a grenade or a rocket, passing nearby.

Bani Aberhadji looked up. As he did, everything around him turned red and hot.

It was an eagle, he thought. And then he thought no more.

Hera emptied her rifle, firing blindly into the fireball and the billowing black smoke. Flames surrounded the missile, leaping up its sides.

“The tank underground,” she said.

Danny realized the danger at nearly the same moment. He pushed himself up, grabbed her shirt and began pulling her back the way they’d come.

“No, across the field,” she said. “The tank will be under the shed.”

They started to run. Thick smoke choked Danny’s lungs. His eyes began to burn.

“Run!” yelled Hera.

The ground rumbled, then ripped apart, throwing them forward. Danny smashed against the hard ground with a groan, barely getting his hand out to help break his fall.

He lay on the ground for an eternity. His lungs no longer worked. His diaphragm, his stomach muscles — everything felt paralyzed. Even his heart seemed to have stopped beating.

But they weren’t going to launch that missile. He’d done it.

Five minutes passed. Another eternity.

Hera lay on her side. Her knee had banged so hard against the ground it felt numb.

“Danny?” she said.

“I’m here.”

“I screwed up my knee, I think.”

Slowly, Danny got his feet. He went over and helped her up. As she put weight on her foot, pain flashed through her eyes.

“You all right?” he asked, recognizing her fear.

“Yeah, I’m okay. It just got whacked.”

“Let me see.”

“No, I’m okay,” she insisted. She took a few steps. Hobbling, then gradually willing the pain away. “Just twisted it.”

Danny picked up his rifle. He slipped his finger gently against the trigger and started back toward the missile.

The shock wave from the last explosion had blown most of the fire out. The missile had toppled, breaking into three different parts. The warhead was black and bent, but still intact.

Eight bodies lay scattered around it, all burned so badly it was difficult to tell that they were human. Two other men were lying at the edge of the runway about thirty yards away. One was severely burned, dying even as Danny reached him. The other was unconscious, knocked out by the explosion but otherwise not wounded.

Hera cut his shirt off and used it to tie his hands and feet. Danny, meanwhile, went back to the warhead section. It was still hot from the fire.

They could move it. It wasn’t very big, two hundred pounds at most.

Less, maybe. Easy to move.

Too easy, Danny thought.

He and Hera were almost out of ammunition. If the Iranians got here before Delta and the task force did, the nuke would be theirs practically for the taking.