“They’re doing what they do,” Clark said. “Terror. The Losan, the Paulinia fire, these attacks. The URC is sending a message: Nobody’s safe anywhere.”
“Well, there’re gonna be a lot of believers after this.”
“It’s worse than that,” Bell said. “Remember the dive the economy took after Nine-Eleven. Multiply that by a thousand, and that’s what we’re looking at. The Emir and the URC’s trying to finish the job: to get our economy to devour the country from the inside out. They hit our new oil import source, they tried to hit a major port, they killed God knows how many in the heartland, and now they’re trying to go nuke. People are the economy. Paralyze one, you paralyze the other. Add to that Kealty, who was already screwing the pooch, and we’ve got a big goddamned problem.”
“It makes sense,” Clark replied. “Nothing this guy does is one-dimensional.”
Hendley asked, “What’s your ETA?”
Clark asked Marty, “How long?”
“Twenty-two minutes.”
88
FIFTEEN MILES from the 373 junction, Highway 95 appeared below the EC-130, a straight gray line cutting through the brown desert. “How close is the Nellis Range?” Clark asked Marty.
“Reach out your window and you’re almost touching it. That’s what I’m telling you: As soon as we cut northwest, we’re gonna light up radar screens. These folks don’t fuck around.”
“We need to get to Yucca.”
“Shit. Please tell me you’re not terrorists.”
“We’re the good guys.”
“What kind of good guys?”
“Hard to explain. Can you get us there before they chase us down?”
“Which entrance, north or south?”
“South.”
“If I’m balls to the wall I can get a hundred ninety miles an hour out of her, and if I put it on the deck ... Figure four minutes after we turn off the highway. Do me a favor, huh?”
“What’s that?”
“Threaten me again. When they slap the cuffs on me, I want some kind of defense.”
Five minutes later, they saw through the windshield another gray line intersect 95 from the south. “Three seventy-three,” Marty announced. As they swept over the junction, he banked to the northwest and began descending until they were thirty feet off the desert.
A ridge up before them. “Busted Butte,” Marty announced, pulling up, then leveling out. “Three miles. Sixty seconds.” He banked again, first left, then right, and dropped into a shallow valley.
A two-acre-square gravel lot appeared through the windshield. On the lot’s far left side a keyhole shape had been cut into the hillside; at its center, an enormous tunnel entrance.
“Company,” Jack called.
On the north side of the lot, a road extended into the desert. A flatbed truck carrying what looked like a giant stainless-steel dumbbell was pulling into the lot.
“What the hell is that?” Dominic shouted.
“GA-4 cask,” Jack replied. “For transporting spent fuel rods.”
“Thought this place wasn’t open.”
“It isn’t.” Jack scanned the binoculars north up the road to the white phone booth-sized guard shack. He could see two figures lying on the pavement. “Men down at the checkpoint,” he called.
Clark asked Marty, “Can you put down in—”
“Not with that truck in there. I’ll clip a rotor. Down the road about fifty yards I can.”
“Do it.”
“Coming around.”
Marty banked sharply, spiraling back the way they’d come before stopping in a hover over the road. In the lot, the truck had stopped. Men were piling out of the cab.
“I count five,” Dominic called.
As they watched, two of them sprinted down the length of the flatbed toward the EC-130. Still running, the men raised AK-47s and started firing.
“Shit!” Marty shouted. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Those are the bad guys,” Clark told him.
Marty slid the helo to the right, away from the road and behind the hill.
“This’ll do,” Clark said.
Marty brought the EC-130 down in a one-bump landing. Clark and the others climbed out. Clark leaned back through the door and shouted, “Find cover and set down. Stay off the radio, and be here when we get back.”
“Ah, come on—”
Clark pointed his gun in Marty’s general direction. “That help?”
“Yeah!”
Clark slammed the door, then sprinted to where the others had clustered thirty feet away. Sand peppered them as Marty lifted off, then banked left and headed down the road, where he turned again behind a low hill. After twenty seconds, the chop of the rotors faded.
“Listen,” Jack said.
Over the hill, the flatbed truck was moving.
With Chavez in the lead, they charged up the slope. They were ten feet from the ridgeline when they heard the chatter of automatic weapons. Controlled three-round bursts. Voices shouted, echoing off the canyon walls. Chavez dropped to his belly and crawled forward. After a moment, he signaled the others forward. Below, the flatbed was pulling into the notch in the hillside. As they watched, a man in a yellow hard hat sprinted across the lot, heading for the road. There were three overlapping pops, and the man pitched forward and went still.
“I count four others,” Dominic said. “Don’t see any of them moving. You guys?”
No one answered.
They sprinted down the slope to the concrete lip at the edge of the lot, then followed it up the opposite slope toward the edge of the entrance notch. They crept up to the edge, peeked over, and were met by the sounds of wrenching steel. The cab of the truck was disappearing into the mouth of the tunnel. The cask slipped into the entrance, scraping along the upper rim. The truck ground to a stop, lurched forward a few feet, then stopped again. The engine died.
A man appeared around the rear of the flatbed, his AK at his shoulder. Bullets thunked into the dirt at their feet. They backpedaled and dropped down. Chavez wiggled forward, peeked up, then rose to one knee, snapped off three shots, and dropped down again. “One down,” he said.
“Do we know how big this thing is?” Jack asked.
“No bigger than a footlocker, I’d imagine,” Clark replied. “Two men could carry it. Come on, let’s move.” They picked their way back along the concrete rim, then rolled over the edge one by one and dropped to the ground. Ahead, along the concrete wall, were stacks of crates, coils of wire, rolling tool chests, acetylene cutting rigs, and arc welding units. Beyond them, the corner leading to the notch.
They moved toward it in pairs, leapfrogging one another until Clark could see around the corner. He turned back, pointed to Jack, gestured him forward, then Dominic, then Chavez. At the entrance, nothing was moving. The flatbed was wedged tightly, both sides pressing against the walls and the cask against the roof.
From the tunnel came the humming of an engine. It faded.
“Sounds like a golf cart,” Dominic said.
“Cushman utility vehicle. Sorta the same thing, but faster.”
“What do you know about the layout?” Clark asked.
“Seen a few sketches on the Internet, but since it’s not even done yet, I don’t know—”
“Best guess.”
“This main tunnel probably runs all the way to the north entrance. At intervals down the tunnel, there’ll be ramps that angle downward.”
“Straight shot or curved?”
“Straight.”
“How deep?”
“Almost a thousand feet. At the bottom, the ramp will level out into a landing—how big I don’t know. Branching off the landing will be storage tunnels for the casks. The good news is they’re gonna want to plant that thing as deep as possible, which means a ramp. From the main tunnel to the bottom, it’ll probably take them ten minutes.”
At Clark’s signal, Jack and Chavez sprinted to the rear of the flatbed, climbed up, and began movi
ng forward past the cask. When they were almost to the cab, he and Dominic came around the corner, split around the truck, and sprinted to the walls on either side of the entrance. Clark slid along the wall, knelt down, and peeked under the truck chassis. He straightened up and signaled to Jack: Two men inside. Jack nodded and relayed it to Ding, who passed it on to Dominic on the other side.
Slowly, carefully, Jack slid open the cab’s rear window, then accepted a boost from Chavez and squirmed through into the sleeper compartment. He slid down on the floorboard, crawled ahead to the dashboard. Out the side windows, the rock walls came to within a foot of the cab.
He poked his head up over the dash until he could see through the windshield. The tunnel was more massive than he’d originally imagined. Like the skeleton of a submarine, the walls and ceiling were braced by massive hoop girders. Halogen lights affixed to the ceiling stretched into the distance.
Over the hood, Jack saw the top of a man’s head move from right to left and disappear from view. Twenty feet down the tunnel, he saw another man crouching beside a yellow Cushman. Careful to keep his head out of sight, Jack wriggled into the driver’s seat. From the sleeper compartment, he heard a single tap. One ... Another tap. Two ...
On three, Jack pressed his palm against the horn.
Gunfire erupted on either side of the cab. The man beside the Cushman stood up and fired a burst from his AK. There was a single pop, then another. The man stumbled backward, bounced off the Cushman, and slid to the ground.
“Come on out, Jack,” Clark called.
In pairs, they wriggled beneath the truck and into the tunnel. The first man Jack had seen lay still a few feet away. Dominic trotted down to the Cushman and checked the other man. He turned back, drew his thumb across his throat.
They collected the two AKs and then, with Chavez at the wheel, climbed into the Cushman and started down the tunnel. “How stable is this thing they’ve got?” Jack asked Clark.
“Pretty stable. The slug has to be rammed into the pit with a lot of force. Takes a good-sized charge, and it has to be set. Why?”
“Working on an idea.”
Fifty feet ahead, the string of halogen ceiling lights converged into a circle. “First ramp,” Jack said.
“Easy, Dom,” Clark ordered.
They pulled to within twenty feet, then stopped, got up, and walked up to the ramp’s entrance. Lit from above by yet more halogen lights, the ramp angled down at twenty-five degrees.
“Should be able to hear their Cushman,” Jack whispered.
They went silent and listened. Nothing.
They climbed back into the Cushman and kept going. The tunnel curved to the right. Dominic stopped short, and Jack got out and peeked around the bend. He came back. “Clear.”
They kept going. They reached the second ramp and stopped to listen but heard nothing. Same with the third and fourth. As they approached the fifth, they heard a voice echo up the ramp. They got up and walked forward and looked down.
In the distance they could see the yellow speck of a Cushman appear under a halogen light, then move into shadow, then into light again.
“Three-quarters of the way down,” Jack said.
“If you’ve got an idea, now’s the time,” Clark said.
“Depends on how sure you are about that thing’s stability.”
“Ninety percent.”
Jack nodded. “Ding, need your help.”
They climbed into the Cushman, did a Y-turn, and headed back down the tunnel. They returned thirty seconds later. From the rear of the Cushman, Jack and Ding each lifted out an acetylene cylinder. “Torpedo,” Jack said.
“Are they full?”
“Mostly empty.”
“Timing’s going to be a bitch.”
“I’ll leave that up to you. You’re the boss.”
“Go ahead.”
Jack and Chavez carried the cylinders to the ramp’s entrance, laid them flat, then gave them a shove. At once they began to spin, gonging off the walls on their way down. Jack and Chavez ran back to the Cushman and got in. Dominic pulled up to the ramp and stopped.
Clark waited for a ten-count, then said, “Go.”
Almost immediately it became apparent that the Cushman’s breaks were inadequate. After fifty yards, the speedometer needle quivered past thirty mph. The overhead lights zipped by. Dominic braked, slowing them slightly, but smoke began gushing from the drums. Two hundred yards below them, the cylinders were spinning and tumbling like a pair of footballs. The Emir’s Cushman was almost at the bottom.
“Gonna be close,” Chavez said.
Clark said, “Slow us down, Dom.”
Dominic tapped the brakes with no result. He stomped on the pedal. Nothing happened. “Keep your hands inside,” he yelled, then veered right. The Cushman’s front quarter panel scraped the tunnel wall, sending up a shower of sparks. They slowed slightly. He eased away from the wall, then back again.
A hundred yards down the ramp, the cylinders caught up with the Emir’s Cushman. One cylinder took a bad bounce and tumbled past, but the second one crashed into the rear bumper. The Cushman skidded, turning broadside, then tipped onto its side and skidded onto the landing.
“Get us stopped,” Clark ordered.
Dominic spun the wheel hard over, putting the whole left side into the wall. The Cushman slowly ground to a stop. They got out and started down the ramp. On the landing, the Emir’s Cushman lay upside down. A few feet away, a body lay sprawled on the concrete. They paused at the entrance to the landing. To their left, the tunnel continued on another fifty feet before turning sharply left. There was no one in the tunnel. Chavez walked over to the body and knelt down. “Not him,” he said.
They jogged down the tunnel. Around the corner, they found themselves in a thirty-foot-wide alley. Overhead, vaulted girders spanned the ceiling. They could see the circular entrances to the storage drifts, spaced at twenty-foot intervals along each side of the alley.
“I count twelve per side,” Dominic said.
“Split up,” Clark ordered. “Me and Jack will take the right, you two the left.”
Clark and Jack sprinted across the alley to the opposite wall. Jack mouthed, I’ll take the last six. Clark nodded. Jack took off in a sprint, glancing into each drift as he went. On the other side of the alley, Dominic was doing the same.
Jack dashed past the fifth drift, saw nothing, then continued past the seventh and eighth. He skidded to a stop, backed up, and looked again. He saw a flicker of light two hundred yards down the drift. He could just make out two figures crouched beside what looked like an industrial bait box. Jack looked around. Clark was working his way forward but too far away. Same with Dominic and Chavez.
“Hell with it.”
He sprinted into the drift.
He’d covered half the distance to the figures when one of their heads snapped up. A muzzle flashed orange. Jack kept running. Raised his gun, snapped off two shots. From the alley, Clark yelled, “Over here!”
The man stepped forward, firing from the hip. Jack hunched over and pressed against the wall, trying to make himself small. He adjusted his aim, laid the sites on the man’s center mass, squeezed off two rounds. The man spun and went down. The other figure ignored his fallen comrade and kept working, his hands moving in the box. He looked up, saw Jack, kept working. Thirty feet away. Jack raised his gun and kept firing until the slide locked open, the magazine now empty. Twenty feet. A head peeked around the box, disappeared again. Jack covered the last ten feet in two strides, then dropped his shoulder and slammed into the box. He heard something pop in his shoulder, felt the pain rush up his neck. The box skidded backward. Jack’s feet went out from under him, and he slammed face-first into the concrete. Blood gushing from his shattered nose, he pushed himself to his knees. His eyesight sparkled. He looked around. The first man’s body lay sprawled against the curved wall, his AK a few feet away. Jack crawled over to it, snagged the sling with his right hand, and dragged it toward him.
He got to his feet and stumbled around the box.
Already on his feet, the Emir was stepping toward the box. He saw Jack and stopped. His eyes flicked to the box, then back to Jack’s face.
“Don’t!” Jack barked. “You’re done. It’s over.”
Down the tunnel behind Jack came the pounding of footsteps.
“No, it’s not,” the Emir said, and knelt down before the box.
Jack fired.
89
LATER, when asked BY Hendley and Granger, Jack Ryan Jr. would remain cagey about whether he’d intended to simply wound the Emir or, in the heat of battle, he’d missed his center-mass target. The truth was, Jack wasn’t sure himself. At the critical moment, the flood of adrenaline in his veins and the pounding of his heart had combined to seemingly both stretch and compress time in his brain. Contradictory thoughts fought for control of his fine motor skills: shoot to kill, stop the Emir; shoot to wound, gain an intel gold mine but risk the man getting a chance to push the button.
On seeing Jack standing before him in the darkened drift tunnel, the Emir had hesitated only seconds before returning his attention to the bomb—his eyes wide and feverish, fingers working inside the device’s open panel. It took only a split second more for Jack to realize he wasn’t facing a man who cared whether he lived or died—by gunfire or by nuclear detonation, the Emir had come here to finish his holy task.
Jack’s weapon had bucked in his hand, and the tunnel had flashed with orange, and when the sound faded and the darkness returned, he saw the Emir lying on his back, arms splayed, the flashlight illuminating his face. Jack could see the AK’s 7.62-millimeter bullet had entered the Emir’s right thigh on an angle, traveled upward, and punched out his buttock. Jack took two quick steps forward, weapon raised, ready to fire again, when he heard footsteps pounding up behind him. Then Clark and Chavez and Dominic were there, pulling him away. ...