Cyclops One (29 page)

Megan hesitated a moment, her hand resting on the throttle. They’d built roughly thirty minutes of leeway into her schedule, but only thirty minutes, and once they were airborne her options became extremely limited. She’d have no update on the position of most of the American aircraft involved in the operation.

The plan itself was solid. Even if the monitoring aircraft did something unusual or unanticipated, she’d be able to recover.

In, out. Once back, she and the crew would board the cigarette boat and be gone. A long vacation awaited.

General Bonham’s death had shaken her, even though the Web sites were reporting it as an accident. Segrest had sent a BS E-mail to her in response: “Stay with the general’s game plan” was the gist of it. She’d thoght of contacting her cousin to get the real story but decided it was safer not to: There was no way to contact him directly using their encrypted system, which deposited J-PEG files on a server in Austria, and any clear text message would inevitably be read by several people before it got to him. Better at the moment to follow through with the plan, such as it was. Once she arrived in Argentina she could begin untangling what was going on.

Megan held the plane against its brakes one last time as she revved the engines, giving the plane its final check. The chief of the three-man crew that had served as the barebones ground team gave a quick salute and began running from the edge of the runway, crossing down the dusty access ramp. The crew’s boat was waiting in the cove less than a mile away; whatever happened from this moment on, she and her weapons officer were on their own.

“All right,” she said over the plane’s internal radio system. “You’re ready?” she asked the weapons officer.

“Very ready.”

“Rogers?”

“Anytime, beautiful.”

The Amos/X, an enhanced version of the standard long-range Russian air-to-air missile, added over one thousand pounds to her heavily altered Blackjack’s weight. Given the aircraft’s size and design, the additional weight might have seemed relatively insignificant, but the short, rough runway complicated the takeoff. Even without the missile, the plane typically dipped off the edge of the island and came perilously close to the waves in a light headwind; Megan guessed there was perhaps a 30-percent chance now that she would crash into the water.

But then it would be over, wouldn’t it?

She could accept that. She’d have done her duty.

She nodded to herself, then slapped the throttle bar, revving the engines for takeoff. The time for contemplation was long past: Action was what was needed now.

Though the sea was nearly flat, there was no way for the speedboats to keep up with the two Mi-28 attack helicopters, and every so often the man at the helm cursed and gave his throttle a little jab, as if the combination might give him a few more knots of speed. Luksha found the man’s curses somewhat amusing but said nothing. The driver was a paratrooper, not a seaman, and seemed unduly anxious about his job; Luksha feared any distraction might be catastrophic.

The island was now ten miles away; he could see the outline of the abandoned oil derrick with his night glasses.

Four other men were crammed into the small boat; a total of twenty-three had been chosen personally by Luksha to accompany him. He had reviewed the records of the crews in the Mi-28s; both pilots had served in Chechnya, and their reputations were impeccable.

If things went well, a Navy patrol vessel with another two dozen men would join them on the island an hour after they landed. A transport helicopter, as well as two large cargo airplanes, could land there within two hours of receiving his command.

The general leaned forward on the seat, his hand braced against the aluminum strut at the side of the boat. It had been years since he had been personally involved in an action like this—so long that it had a surreal quality, as if it were a pleasure outing.

And yet, the stakes were extremely high. Within an hour he should know if the American superweapon was located here.

He might also have it, or at least parts of it, in his possession. But that was being wildly optimistic.

His analysts had mapped out possible mines near the main landing area and gun emplacements on the north and south portions of the island. They also thought it possible that there were antiship missiles as well. Only by landing would they discover if these were all realities or fantasies of overparanoid minds.

In their favor, the analysts had concluded that there were no more than two dozen people there. His force was big enough to overcome them, assuming that the layout of the facility had not been altered. Luksha and his men would feed disabling gas into the bunker ventilation system and then cut the power, entering through two narrow emergency exitways that could not be sufficiently protected. There had not been time to rehearse the operation, but the men with him had a great deal of experience in such matters, and he had no doubt they would succeed.

In the hours since returning from Moscow, Luksha had come to believe the theory that the CIA was hiding the weapon here for future use. Its precision would allow it to be used for many things—including, Luksha thought, targeting the North Korean army. Why they would do that from here rather than a normal base, he could not say.

“Five minutes,” said the man at the wheel.

As Luksha fine-tuned his focus on the island, a small pinpoint of light flared on the right. It burst brighter and larger, streaking from right to left, then climbing.

“Hold!” he said. “Hold all the boats!”

Luksha nearly lost his balance as the helmsman threw down the power. In the distance, the aircraft that was taking off continued to climb, its exhaust circles shaping into long ovals.

It was turning.

Luksha put his glasses down and waited. They could all hear the aircraft now.

The men knew of the weapon’s capabilities and knew that its heat could burn a hole in the boat, even though it was on the surface of the ocean.

Or it could explode the gas tank or melt the metal rivets. Death had many possibilities.

They waited, listening to the roar of the jet as it overwhelmed the sound of the water knocking against the gun-wales of the slightly overloaded vessels.

“Low-power surface radar,” said one of his men, monitoring the warning receiver. “Northeast side of the island, probably mounted on or near the derrick.”

Luksha nodded. The aircraft was still nearby, though the sound of its engines was receding. They weren’t to be targeted after all.

The most critical part of his mission had just been accomplished; he was sure now that their guesses were correct.

He would go ahead, take care of the small contingent on the island, wait for the plane to return. It would be easier once it landed; it would be out of fuel, vulnerable. He could hide his forces on the island, have the helicopters rush in.

Luksha would take the weapon. He would be honored beyond his imagination.

Unless it was now headed on a mission over Russia. In that case, he would be considered a bungler who arrived ten minutes too late.

“Signal that we are going ahead,” Luksha told his communications man. “Tell the helicopters to remain as reserves. We may not need them until the plane returns. The less attention we draw now, the better chance we will have for surprise afterwards.”

He pointed his finger toward the island for the helmsman and leaned toward the spray as they picked up speed.

Howe and Timmy launched at precisely 0400 local time, the two F/22Es rocketing into the blue twilight with the studied precision of a pair of synchronized swimmers. They climbed out to twenty thousand feet as they arced westward, drawing a sweeping semicircle over the Bering Sea. The Aleutian islands spread out to their left as they flew; the Fox Islands, a small group about midway in the chain, marked the launch point for the test.

The test area was already being patrolled. Howe exchanged pleasantries with a pair of Navy jocks as they pushed south, riding a wide curve that had them roughly parallel to the northern Kuril Islands, a thousand miles off their right wings. The Velociraptors hit the southernmost point of their patrol area, then swept back toward the rendezvous with a tanker. They’d just topped off when the RC-135 with the monitoring gear came on station. There were still two hours left before the first test launch; Jolice’s turn was scheduled for two hours after that.

Howe believed there were two possibilities for detecting a plane. The most likely was with the RC-135 equipment, which presumably would catch the laser shot during the test. But he also thought they might find the aircraft prior to the test as it moved into position. Since they knew Cyclops’s range and capabilities, they also knew where the plane would have to position itself to fire. The “box”—more like a long rhomboid with rounded edges—ranged nearly a thousand miles, depending on the altitude the laser plane flew and the altitude it engaged its target at. But they thought the position of the Navy ships cordoning off the test area probably narrowed it a great deal—they couldn’t be sure, since they didn’t know the details of the radar profile—and so the long box was only a hundred miles wide.

Still a lot of area to cover, but not an impossible haystack.

The Navy had two Hawker E-2C radar aircraft covering the southwestern portion of the test zone; an Aegis-equipped cruiser with its powerful SPY-1B phased-array radar and associated systems complemented the airborne radar planes and their carrier group, tracking through an arc of roughly 250 miles. An array of smaller ships, aircraft, and drones formed a thick picket around the area.

Howe answered a query from one of the Hawkeye controllers. Timmy exchanged a few good-natured insults with the Navy jocks. Otherwise their flight south and then back north was almost eerily quiet.

Driving the entire circuit in supercruise took just over an hour, the finely tuned P&Ws humming. A Russian monitoring ship had taken up station at the southwest corner of the test area under the shadow of an American destroyer. Two monitoring aircraft, also Russian, were flying out from Siberia. These were tentatively ID’d by the AWACS as Myasishchev M-55 Geofizia twin-boom spy planes. Known as Mystic Bs in the West, the planes were advertised as high-altitude “environmental research” aircraft and could fly somewhere over 65,000 feet for four or five hours. Odd-looking creatures with swept-back wings and tails vaguely reminiscent of North American Broncos, their capabilities were somewhat comparable to early-model U-2s.

Two F-15s were tasked to shadow the Mystics—
shadow
being the operative word, since the Russian aircraft, though slow and not particularly maneuverable, could operate comfortably several thousand feet higher than the Eagles. Howe didn’t envy the F-15 pilots—or the F/A-18 pilot tasked with checking out a small boat spotted at the southern end of the test range by one of the drones a few minutes later.

“Just about an hour to go,” said Timmy as they spun back to the south.

“How’s the hangover?”

“How do you know I have a hangover?”

“Maybe the fact that you’ve said three words the whole flight.”

Fisher unfolded the large chart on his lap, studying the red
X
’s that were supposed to designate the approximate locations of the surface ships around the test range. He had another small map of the test area that showed the approximate positions for the intercepts, as well as a folder of satellite photos.

None of it was worth very much, though it seemed to impress the Air Force people flying the C-17. Fisher had been granted a seat on the flight deck, which, he gathered, was considered an honor. It was not only padded but swiveled, and if you didn’t get too anal about restraints and watched what you were doing, you could stretch your feet against the back of the copilot’s seat and a panel on the far right, making for a position nearly as comfortable as the back of a Honda Civic flattened in a rear-end collision.

His headset was not only plugged into the plane’s intercom, or “interphone,” system but had what looked like an old-fashioned transistor radio wired in that could select any of the myriad frequencies, though it wasn’t clear to Fisher what combination of buttons he had to push to actually communicate with anyone.

Fisher looked at his watch. There was now just over a half hour before the test.

He didn’t know what was going to happen, but whatever it was, he figured it should have happened by now.

So he was wrong again. Bitch of a losing streak.

Howe listened as a controller in one of the Hawkeyes exchanged a few choice words with a crewman aboard the cruiser about a contact flying out of the south toward the aircraft carrier and test area. The airplane—it appeared to be a civilian airliner, but its Ident gear wasn’t working properly—didn’t answer hails but finally took a sharp turn southward away from the test area. Howe broke in to request the Hawkeye to detail an aircraft to visually inspect the airliner: It was, after all, at least theoretically large enough to house the Cyclops weapon. The Navy controller replied somewhat sharply that he already had a plane en route.

The seaman at the display of the Aegis air defense system aboard the cruiser started throwing a series of numbers and acronyms out over the air. It sounded almost as if he were speaking in tongues.

“Five minutes to test,” said the mission controller, who was aboard a Navy ship just off the Aleutians. Though presented as a simple statement, the words were actually a command:
Shut up and let’s get to work.

Howe felt himself starting to relax. Maybe Fisher was wrong about everything—maybe the wreckage had contained the laser after all.

“Religion?” Megan laughed at him.

“Yeah. Are you religious?”

“Are you?”

“You sound religious.”

“I believe in things.”

“I don’t see how you can be a pacifist and be involved in a military program.”

“How am I a pacifist?”

“You want to end war, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“That’s not pacifism?”

“See, the word is all fucked up.”

Howe laughed.

“It is.”

“That word seems strange coming out of your mouth.”

“Kiss me, then, and make the strangeness go away.”

“I love you.”

Had he said that?

He couldn’t remember now. He must have said it; he must have told her. But he couldn’t remember.

She was starting to fade away.

“Asset Mike-Charlie is off the air.”

The words seemed to break through a fog, rays of sun separating the clouds.

“Repeat, Asset Mike-Charlie is off the air.”

Howe fought against the adrenaline that jerked through his veins. “Monitor, do we have a fire?” he asked the RC-135, which was looking for the laser burst.

“Negative, Bird One. No shot, Colonel.”

Voices filled every circuit. Mike-Charlie was a UAV patrolling the southeast quadrant of the test area. Two Navy fighters selected afterburners, hustling in that direction; two others swept around to back them up. The Hawkeye closest to the area reported no contacts. One of the surface ships had a possible visual sighting but then lost it.

The mission boss stopped the ABM launch at T-minus 2:31 as the patrol vessels and aircraft scoured the area where the UAV had been. After a few minutes with no fresh contacts and the covering aircraft now mustered around the area, he let it proceed.

“Still clean,” Monitor told Howe as the countdown returned.

“Bird One,” acknowledged Howe, starting a bank as he reached the southernmost point of his patrol area.