Wilson, Gar - Phoenix Force 05 - The Fury Bombs

by Anonymous Author

  The flight path carried the C-130 into the clouds for a moment and Collins switched on the wipers. The rubber blades beat a harsh tempo. He stole a glance at the Irishman, his eyes drawn by the face of the devil.

  The sea-ruddied face under a cap of black curls seemed almost boyish, but there were lines of age around the cold, piercing blue eyes. And then, aware of Collins's study, he smiled, revealing a crooked incisor.

  Collins looked away from the bastard.

  His thoughts drifted back to the terrorists'invasion of his home. The scum had shoved his wife downstairs by slamming a foot into the small of her back. His son, Bobby, had let out one terrible roar and had gone for the terrorist before his father could intervene. The boy had dived into a smashing pistol butt that sent him to the floor, his cheek laid open.

  Collins had gone crazy. It had taken three terrorists to drag him down, one on each arm and another sitting on his legs.

  "Don't kill him," ordered the leader. "We need the Major alive. Just teach him a small lesson."

  That was when Collins had got the marks. His body ached. He had a hundred pains but the worst was the look on the faces of his kids as they watched their father being ruthlessly stomped.

  "Enough?" the Irishman had asked.

  Collins sucked in air, gasped, "Enough!"

  "That was a foolish thing to do, Major." The smile had vanished. "You have two attractive daughters. The men I'm leaving with them have rape on their charge sheets, although they'll hang for more serious crimes if they're ever taken by the Brits. Think of your daughters, Major."

  Collins had seen the gleam of anticipation in the eyes of one of the hoodlums left to guard his family. The memory sickened him. Animals!

  Collins would do what the terrorists said,everything they said, to hold onto the slim hope that his family might be spared.

  The radio crackled: this time the message was for the C-130. Collins and Jessup tensed at their call letters.

  "Acknowledge, Major," ordered the Irish-man.

  Collins obeyed and was given landing instructions. He took the plane from its holding pattern into the approach, and five minutes later they were on the ground.

  The C-130 rolled onto an empty hardstand, two yellow foam-pumper fire trucks and an ambulance moving parallel to their track. The plane stopped. The fire trucks and ambulance veered off and returned to station. A gasoline tanker, and a blue tractor used to tow airplanes away from the loading gates, waited at the hard-stand.

  Collins killed the engines and the vibration stopped. He removed his headphones and got up, moving stiffly after hours in the pilot's seat. He walked back through the belly of the plane, followed by the two Irishmen. Another terrorist moved to the cockpit, to stand over Jessup. He took "Eckstrom's" AK-47.

  The giant cargo doors at the rear of the plane opened, and the ramp moved down to touch the ground. The tanker moved into position to begin refueling.

  As the tractor jockeyed around and began to back up the ramp into the belly of the plane,a motor-pool Ford arrived. An airman second class jumped out of the driver's seat, a second lieutenant out of the passenger's side. The enlisted man ran around the car and held the rear door for a light colonel. Followed by the lieutenant, the colonel marched up the ramp, holding a clipboard, the twin of the one under Collins's arm.

  "Easy now, Major," said the Irishman. "Take a deep breath and swallow. Don't let the butterflies in your stomach carry you away. Think of your family. I'd hate to see them harmed."

  The colonel's face was red with the exertion of climbing. Collins was conscious of his own .45, sagging against its belt. It was lighter than those carried by the men behind him. Seven cartridges were missing from its clip.

  "Major Collins?" The colonel accepted salutes. "You're late, Major."

  Collins swallowed again, working up saliva to speak. "Head winds, Colonel. And the tower had us in a holding pattern for twenty minutes."

  The colonel nodded. The lieutenant stood in a military brace. The bogus crew chief supervised as the tractor was hooked to the first line of trailers and moved out. On the ground, it stopped and was unhooked, then maneuvered back up the ramp after another load.

  "Bet you're glad to get rid of this cargo,Major," said the colonel. Collins nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  Each trailer held a baby aircraft, the lineal descendants of World War II's buzz bombs. Griffiss Air Force Base was home to the 416th Bombardment Wing, the first in the United States Air Force to go operational with ALCM's —air-launched cruise missiles.

  The wings of the missiles were retracted and would remain so until the moment of launching. The cruise missile could amble along at subsonic speeds, its in-flight computer following a terrain-hugging flight plan that permitted the weapon to stay below any effective radar screen. The missile was driven by a small, 150-pound turbofan jet.

  In flight, the jet developed 600 pounds of thrust and drove a nuclear warhead with the explosive force of 200,000 tons of TNT—fourteen times the power of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Further, the ALCM in-flight computer carried five target programs, any of which could be selected at the moment of launching. Mach missile had a range of 1500 miles and weighed 3,000 pounds. By 1990, 320 of them would be stockpiled at Griffiss.

  The colonel, making notes on the board, watched as the second row of trailers was towed out of the plane. Collins handed over his own clipboard on request, and the colonel scribbled his signature as the tractor returned for the third load. The late-afternoon sun barely penetrated the cargo bay, but as the colonel returned Collins's clipboard he took in the marks on Collins's face.

  "Get the name of the truck, Major?"

  "Pardon, Colonel?" Collins's stomach jumped.

  "The one that hit you," the colonel said.

  The Irishman laughed. "Joe took a ride on his boy's dirt bike, Colonel. I tried to tell him he's not a kid any longer, but he wouldn't listen."

  The colonel nodded, and Collins forced what he hoped would pass as a shamefaced grin.

  "None of us are. Well, they're my babies now, we'll take good care of them," the colonel said, motioning to the deadly cargo. "Once I get them tucked away for the night, I'll buy you fellas a drink."

  The Irishman stepped in. "We thank you kindly, Colonel, but I'm afraid we'll have to take a rain check. It's Joe's anniversary tomorrow. His wife swore she'd skin me alive if I didn't have him back in time."

  "Well, next time, then," said the colonel. "Congratulations, Major. Happy anniversary."

  "Thank you," said Collins. "Next time for sure."

  He saluted again and the colonel retreated down the ramp. The lieutenant followed. The tractor was maneuvering to join the trailer strings together. The airman held the door forthe colonel, then jumped back into the car, which shot toward the distant bunkers, passing the trailers.

  Collins sagged, stepping back into the plane, his knees weak with the release of tension.

  "That was good, Major," the Irishman said, smiling again. "We're halfway home. Now get us out of here."

  Collins started the engines and moved the C-130 through a maze of taxiways, then joined a line of traffic waiting for clearance to take off. There was a delay of fifteen minutes before a runway was available.

  The C-130 lumbered down the runway and took off into the gray sky. Collins cleared course with the tower and headed west, until the plane was over Lake Erie, then changed course to the southwest.

  Back in the cargo bay, one of the terrorists yelled in triumph. One earphone pulled back, Collins heard them loudly congratulating each other. Their leader seemed annoyed. He sent "Eckstrom" back to quiet them.

  Collins strained to hear him over the noise of the engines and the in-flight vibrations of the aircraft.

  "We're only halfway home," said the false sergeant. "Save you're celebratin' until we hear how the other men have done."

  Others. Collins blinked, wondering what others were involved, wondering what these bastards were going to do with the f
our nuclear warheads they had stolen.

  He glanced at the terrorist leader. "You promised to let them go. My family."

  "So I did. Faith, rest your mind, Joe. Seamus Riley's word is his bond."

  Despair rocked Collins. He had heard of Seamus Riley. Riley was a bloodthirsty terrorist bastard.

  He feared that Jill and the kids were dead.

  He thought of the scum terrorizing his family. He thought of rape. He thought of death.

  Collins wondered how much longer he had to live.

  3

  THE BLACK VAN rolled along Peachtree Street, tires hissing against the wet pavement. A storm had passed through thirty minutes earlier.

  As night gave way to the early hours of morning, downtown Atlanta was deserted. Streetlights stretched ahead like towering sentinels, while the headlights of an oncoming car peered into the darkness.

  "Where in hell are the people?" the driver asked. "A city is supposed to have bloody people livin' in it. It's like comin' in at the end of the world."

  "Be happy there are no witnesses," said the man in the passenger seat. "There'll be enough people when we reach the target, Peter."

  Peter, the driver, fell silent.

  The body of the van was windowless, the sides painted in a seascape mural. The mural's colors were washed out and looked ghostly under the streetlighting. The cab of the van was in darkness, the dashboard lights dimmed.

  A traffic light turned red and the driver eased to a stop. The oncoming car approached on thefar side of the intersection. It was a police cruiser.

  "Sweet Jesus, Liam," Peter said nervously. "Relax."

  The light turned green. Van and cruiser passed each other. Peter's neck ached with the strain of not turning his head. A moment later, one eye on his side mirror, he said, "He turned the corner. He's turnin' to come back."

  "Don't panic, Peter," Liam said.

  "But we're almost there."

  "Just drive on. Drive by. We've time enough. Seamus made allowance for things like this."

  On the van's left were twin office towers, standing tall. The towers were dark except for the lobbies and a half dozen office suites.

  "The cleaning crews," said Liam, noting the lights.

  Red warning beacons blinked on the rooftops. As Peter craned his head skyward, one of the suites went dark.

  "The penthouse is dark, Liam. Where is the guard?"

  "Right where he belongs, in the reception area. Stop fretting, Peter. We've got the plans. Seamus knows what he's doing."

  The van passed through the next intersection and barely beat the stoplight. Peter checked the mirror again. The cruiser, two blocks back, drove through a red light without stopping.

  "He's comin' on. He ran the light."

  "Make the next right," Liam said, showing acalm he did not feel. "Go two blocks and make another. We'll lose him."

  Peter obeyed, and by the time he came back onto Peachtree Street there was no sign of the cruiser. Liam glanced back into the van.

  "We're almost there," he said to the two terroists.

  The younger one in the back nodded. He couched against the wall, facing the other man; neither had spoken since entering the van.

  Peter turned left onto the street where the office towers were situated.

  The glass-walled lobby in each building gave a clear view of anyone inside.

  Only one security guard was on duty in the first office building. He was seated at a steel desk beneath a floor-indicator panel, his interest consumed by a 9-inch black-and-white television. The elevators were in a series of short side corridors.

  Peter eased the van to the curb near the second office tower and killed the headlights. He shifted into Park but left the engine running.

  The driver and the two terrorists in the back were dressed entirely in black: trousers, turtle-necks, sneakers. Black knitted caps covered their hair, and their faces had been darkened with burned cork. Liam, their leader, wore a short brown jacket, with a Western Union patch, over starched gray twill pants and shirt. A .32 Beretta automatic pistol sagged the pocket of the jacket.

  Liam climbed out of the van carrying a clipboard, which held a yellow telegram. He then walked boldly to the door.

  In the lobby a man ran a polisher over the marble floor, while a guard sat at a desk similar to the one in the other building. The guard held a magazine ten inches from his face. The cleaning man faced away from the approaching terrorist.

  Liam found the night bell. The guard jumped but ignored the sound. The cleaning man, deafened by the plug of a pocket radio in his ear and the noise of the polisher, did not hear the ringing of the bell.

  The guard did not move. Thirty seconds passed before Liam pressed the bell again. This time he held it down. The guard stood, dropped his magazine, and half-hobbled, half-shuffled to answer the second summons.

  He was an old man. His shirt carried a patch for Arden Security Services. He peered through the door, his plastic name tag drooping on its safety pin so that it was unreadable.

  Whistling soundlessly and acting bored, Liam held up the clipboard to show him the telegram.

  "Open the door."

  The guard shook his head but tugged at a ring of keys that was held to his belt by a spring-wound takeup cord. The cleaning man glanced idly over his shoulder but was not interested enough in what was happening to stopwhat he was doing. He came to the first bank of elevators, turned the corner and disappeared.

  The guard inserted a key in a chromed lock at the top of the door and pushed the door open no more than three inches.

  "Ain't nobody here, feller. Not this time of night."

  "Can' I help it. Got a priority telegram here, somebody's got to sign for it. I don't care who."

  "Telegram?" He shook his head again. "Who for?"

  "Jason something-or-other." Liam held the envelope up to the light, turning away from the door. "Yeah, Jason Leinster at Britamco."

  "Mr. Leinster sure as hell ain't here at this time of night, mister."

  Muttering, the guard pushed farther through the door as Liam held out clipboard and pen. Before the old man could take either, Liam opened his fingers and clipboard and pen fell, clattering.

  The guard cursed. "Clumsy idiot!" He bent automatically to retrieve them. Liam's hand chopped against his neck.

  The old man sagged into Liam's hands. He would have fallen to the floor, but he was held up by the cord that was still attached to the key. He was dead, his neck broken by the blow.

  Peter's fingers drummed the steering wheeluntil he saw Liam strike. He then glanced into the back.

  "Now!"

  The two men came out the rear doors of the van, the older burdened with an electrician's tool kit. They ran to Liam, who was trying to release the guard's hanging body. The younger terrorist produced a commando knife from a leg sheath. He sliced the cord, which snapped back into its holder, and caught the door before it swung shut on the guard's legs. The three men moved into the lobby, Liam dragging the dead body.

  "The man with the polisher, down there," Liam said, pointing.

  The young man nodded and ran toward the elevators just as the cleaning man came back into view, still trundling the polisher. He glanced up and stopped in shock as he saw the youth rushing toward him with a knife.

  "Who the hell. ..."

  The knife sliced into his belly. The cleaning man made a single strangled noise and let go of the polisher, which whipped around until it banged the wall. He tried to grab the handle of the commando knife, but the terrorist pushed down on the butt, raised the point and yanked the knife upward through muscle tissue and guts. It ripped intestines, spilling blood and gore.

  "You...."

  It was a question, a curse, a cry of outrage.

  The cleaning man was dead even as the word escaped with his last expelled breath. The blade was pulled free and the corpse fell.

  'The terrorist stooped to wipe his blade on the man's trousers, then glanced around as Liam dragged the dead
guard toward the bank of elevators near the desk.

  The phony electrician paused at the door to retrieve the clipboard and the pen.

  A door at the end of the short corridor opened to reveal a supply closet, where the two bodies were unceremoniously dumped. The "electrician" set his tool kit and the clipboard on the desk then went after the floor polisher, which continued to bump along the wall, banging into and scratching marble panels. He turned off the machine and pushed it into the closet.

  Liam checked his watch and shrugged out of the Western Union jacket. He transferred the Beretta to his trousers pocket and threw the jacket into the closet.

  His gray shirt bore the Arden Security patch and a plastic name tag that said he was D. Smith.

  "Five minutes until the other guard comes back from his rounds."

  The trio moved back into the lobby and studied the panels above the elevators. The top eight floors of the building, and the penthouse, housed the offices of Britamco, the corporate name on the phony telegram. A multinational,it was also known as the British-American Corporation.

  Little of Britamco's business was transacted within the United Kingdom, but it was still seventy percent British-owned and totally British-controlled.

  "Five minutes," repeated the "electrician." He retrieved his tool kit, and the younger man followed him to the fire stairs. Liam sat down at the desk, picking up the abandoned magazine. His eyes flashed each minute to the floor-indicator panel, keeping track of guards and cleaning crew as the elevators moved from floor to floor.

  The driver waited at the curb until the three men were safely inside then shifted into gear. He took the offshoot and backed the van down an entrance ramp. From the street, the van was invisible. Only someone walking down the slope would know it was there. The engine idled quietly. Peter shifted into Park again. And there he waited nervously. And as Peter fidgeted, the "electrician" and his partner entered the sub-basement.

  LIAM GLANCED AT THE MAGAZINE, idly turning the pages. His ears were intent on the sounds of the building.