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  Hell, yes, Weston was angry that he’d relieved him of his platoon. Weston was poised to lead the platoon himself—that was what he had spent years training for, and what was expected under the chain of command.

  But when the decision was made to take only two TAVs, what else could Krandel do? The RDF had to be split up; someone had to stay behind. Krandel had no other choice. Weston knew that dragging another officer along would have been taking deadweight, but for Weston to take the order to stay, and to take the order from someone without operational experience was the final blow.

  Krandel rolled his head to ease the tension. He jumped as an intercom set into the bulkhead crackled to life. “Attention in the hold. We have received final approval from the White House: The mission is a go. Stand by to rocket in three minutes.”

  A cheer ran through the compartment. Inwardly excited, Krandel kept the smile off his face and nodded to himself. He could hardly believe it. After all these years, he finally had a live one.

  And it wasn’t like the White House was trigger-happy, either. After the Mexican fiasco, no politician was willing to risk American lives for anything. Public support for any type of military action had dwindled to nothing; this could be his only chance at combat.

  The TAV began to shake. Buffeted by the winds, the 747 below them prepared for the nose-down maneuver that would release the TAV into the atmosphere. “Thirty seconds!” Krandel finished strapping himself in and sat back, rigid against the webbing.

  The waiting was the worst. That’s when the thought of every possible thing that could go wrong raced through his head. But once the waiting was over, things happened too fast for him to worry about them. His thoughts drifted to his first parachute jumps with the men. The first three had been night jumps—not because it was dark outside, but because his eyes were tightly shut.…

  He felt a slight bump and he opened his eyes as the TAV was released from the 747. He was almost weightless; the bottom seemed to drop from below him.…then he was squashed into his seat as the TAV jerked up and to the right. The maneuver had been honed to perfection with the early space shuttle.

  The Trans-Atmospheric Vehicle accelerated upward as the scramjets hungrily gulped air. The scramjets strained as they fought the craft’s inertia, trying to build up the TAV’s speed for maximum efficiency; slowly, the acceleration increased.

  Krandel forced his head to one side and tried to wet his lips. The effort wasn’t worth the trouble. His face drew back in a tight mask as the TVA pulled more and more g’s, clawing for the upper reaches of the atmosphere until its ramjet would extinguish in the rarefied air.

  This was a critical period. With a launch over California, the distance the TAV had to travel dictated a maximum velocity trajectory insertion. And with the TAV’s low glide ratio, unless they reached the correct insertion point, they would fall short of their destination, dropping like a rock.

  Krandel was pressed harder into his seat; the air was squeezed from his lungs. He breathed in short, laborious gasps, then suddenly the pressure lifted and he floated up against the straps. His stomach flipped; he gulped, then was all right. The craft was bathed in an eerie silence. Most conspicuous was the absence of the buffeting winds.

  A voice broke the silence: “Twenty minutes.” Krandel jerked his head to the left and stared at the battalion sergeant. Gunnery Sergeant Balcalski looked like the relic from the nineties he was. Krandel flushed involuntarily. Fifteen years older than he, Balcalski made Krandel acutely aware of his fast-burning road to lieutenant colonel. Try as he might, Krandel didn’t have the influence on others that the sergeant had. Balcalski seemed to ooze confidence. It was the way Balcalski carried himself.

  Balcalski’s battle uniform told the story. A row of hash marks barely visible on his desert-brown camouflage—thirty years’ worth—ran up his left sleeve. His field experience overwhelmed Krandel’s. All Krandel could boast about was putting out fires at the Pentagon. But how could Krandel be as influential as someone like Balcalski—especially today, when a staff job was the only way to get ahead in the scaled-down military?

  Krandel raced through his own career: Distinguished grad from Annapolis volunteers for the marines and makes lieutenant colonel while the rest of his classmates are still captains. And with no field experience. But that’s the beauty of getting staff jobs at the Pentagon. Management’s the key—and if you can get sponsored by a fast-rising general, then hold on tight!

  But Krandel’s experience commanding a chair couldn’t stand-up to someone like Balcalski. While Krandel was at the Pentagon, sitting on his fanny, Balcalski had led the Fightin’ Fourth up Azcapotzalco, right before the massacre that brought the boys home. There was just no comparison.

  Balcalski released his straps. Floating upward, he grabbed the webbing to steady himself. He caught Krandel’s attention. “Twenty minutes until landing, sir. Is there anything you want me to pass on to the men?”

  “No, Sergeant. Just have your squad leaders check for anyone with the willies or who’s spacesick. I’ve done my bit. Anything more I try to do will only make them nervous.”

  “Very well, sir.” He twisted to leave. “Colonel, these are the best men we’ve got. We’ll get you to hell and back.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant.” Krandel hesitated for a moment; he felt he needed to say something appropriate. “When we land I want those men out of here fast. I want them so close behind me I expect to have a rifle jammed up my rear on the way out. Now get with your squad leaders—their men should be primed and ready to go.”

  “Yes, sir.” Balcalski nodded and turned, pushing off for the rear of the craft. As he left, Krandel watched him float down the narrow line of men. Unlike Krandel’s stiff interchange with the men before the launch, Balcalski joked with the troops. Holding on to the webbing, he tightened a helmet strap, slapped an ammo clip to see if it was secure. Balcalski belonged, while Krandel felt he was forcing it.

  No matter. In sixteen minutes the TAV would swoop down, decelerating from Mach 25 to subsonic speeds, and—he hoped—surprise any air defenses that might be in place.

  Krandel studied the hastily scribbled plastic checklist floating up from his belt. Each event was preceded by a time; times were given in plus-and-minus touchdown times.

  He glanced at his watch. At touchdown minus fifteen minutes the second pre-attack canister launched from Vandenberg should pop above the airfield, releasing the biological agents. The “little buggies,” as the troops called them, had a genetic defect that, once exposed to air, gave them a half-life of two minutes. By the time the TAV landed, over ninety-nine point nine percent of the little buggies should be dead. Good thing, too, as the little buggies had a voracious appetite for rubber. Things like wheels, plugs, gaskets, and seals would all be “eaten,” or at least damaged beyond use, by the time they landed.

  And according to plan, their own silicon-coated rubber wouldn’t be affected.

  According to plan.

  Ojo-1: Cockpit

  Gould’s contact with Base Ops through AEHF and BIGEYE was disrupted as the TAV nosed back down into the atmosphere. The parabolic path took the vehicle back into the depths of the atmosphere where, because of the TAV’s speed, electrons were stripped from air molecules. The resulting plasma covered the TAV, preventing any radio signals from leaving or entering the craft. It was an eerie feeling for Gould, even though he’d experienced the radio blackout on every other TAV training flight he’d flown.

  He was operating alone now. He was totally in charge of the craft, not dependent on any calls from Base Ops or the White House to tell him what to do. The marines in the back didn’t count. He was the aircraft commander, having the same authority on board his craft as any naval commander would have while at sea. It didn’t matter that there was a marine lieutenant colonel who outranked him in the back of the TAV. As long as they were in the air, it was his ball game.

  He didn’t usually think about the responsibility, the authority, because every other fli
ght had been for practice—just a rigidly controlled test. But now it was for real. If he screwed up, he could kill twenty-five people: Twenty-four marines’ lives, and his own life, were riding on his judgment.

  And what if he was waved off the landing field, told to scrub the mission at the last moment by that nervous Nellie in the White House? Would he do it? Could he scrub the mission if so ordered?

  Gould felt uneasy in his seat and tried to shift his weight to make things more bearable. He didn’t like the answers he kept coming up with. He didn’t care for the responsibility. The macho image he flaunted, the image that Delores had so easily cut through, wouldn’t hold up under the pressure.

  It was common knowledge that fighter jocks, and now TAV pilots, were tolerated only because their egos had to be stroked. If they weren’t incessantly told they were the greatest humans on earth and that their crap didn’t stink, would they really strap themselves into screaming hunks of metal and meet almost impossible odds head-on?

  Gould started to doubt it—but he also started to see that he couldn’t put up with being two-faced about it. There had to be more to it than putting on a facade to boost his ego.

  The TAV’s computer screen started to flicker, then flash the red-blue-red-blue on-and-off sequence, indicating that contact with BIGEYE was reestablished. With their speed sufficiently slowed they popped out of radio blackout, and communications were up and working. The speed indicator finally made sense—Mach 20—and by the timetable, the landing wasn’t more than eleven minutes away.

  The screen confirmed that his mother ship was on its way to Dulles International, near Washington, D.C. He only hoped he would be able to meet it back there in the two hours allotted the mission. If the mission continued going the way it was, he shouldn’t have any trouble meeting the deadline.

  The cockpit canopy reconfigured to IR mode. In the far distance he could make out a scattering of dwellings, lighting up in the infrared as wavering, ghostly objects. They’d be going in on a steep glide angle, and there’d be only one chance at landing.

  The mission was still a go and the no-return point was coming up fast. The best the White House could do now was to have him ditch in the desert if they decided to scrub.

  Things were going to start happening fast, and he sure didn’t need some chair-ridden politician breathing down his neck while he worked. He jabbed at the screen, allowing a message from BIGEYE to come through, then shut the communications gear down. He’d pass on to the marines the news he had just received, but as far as he was concerned now, nothing short of a crash on landing would prevent him from carrying out the rescue.

  He only wished he could talk to Delores and make sure she would do the same thing he planned to do. But then again, he realized, she had probably already made the decision herself.

  Ojo-1: Crew Compartment

  Balcalski swam back to his seat and strapped in. Krandel leaned over and started to speak when the intercom came back on.

  “Five minutes to touchdown. Marines, prepare for deceleration. As soon as things slow down up here I’ve got some news for you from BIGEYE.”

  Krandel barely had time to lock his body back against the webbing before the TAV gave a gut-lurching jolt. He grabbed the checklist and scanned it. The third canister, the runway clearer, should have popped over the runway. If it survived the landing, the runway clearer—a miniature tank-like robot—would be waiting to shoot the stuffing out of everything within a thousand meters by now.

  The runway clearer’s main arsenal had railguns, excimer lasers, fuel-air vapor explosives—all kinds of nasty devices designed to clear the landing strip of any living or moving objects for a kilometer around. But first the runway clearer would deploy a high power microwave burst that would destroy all electronics around the airport. The runway clearer was controlled through the command sensor dropped in the first canister and would be activated only if the President had been moved—so if the President was anywhere nearby, the tank would be dormant, and they’d be landing on a live field.

  The intercom crackled, abruptly pulling him from his concentration. “Three minutes till landing. The door will swing open as soon as we’ve slowed to fifty knots. When we’ve reached ten knots I want you marines to move. I’m turning this baby around as soon as you’re off.

  “Once refueled, we’ll be ready to rotate. Those of you on the left side are to come back to this TAV. Those on the right go to the other TAV, dividing the President’s party between the two TAVs.”

  Sergeant Balcalski yelled over the buffeting. “He means those on the starboard side go to the other plane. Those on the port side get your butts back here.” He shook his head and caught Krandel’s eye. Grinning, Balcalski gave Krandel a thumbs-up.

  Krandel returned it; the sergeant was on top of everything. Now if only he could do as well.

  Slowly the shaking stopped, and the noise seemed to abate. “This is Major Gould again. Sixty seconds to touchdown. Word just relayed from the command post verified that the President has been triangulated to the airfield. They think he’s been moved to a 787, not Air Force One. It’s the only plane there, so you won’t have any trouble finding it. Canister two, the bio-degrader, was not—repeat, not—successful”—a groan went up among the men—“but the good news is that we think they don’t know we’re coming. They’ve been hit with the sleepy gas, and we haven’t detected any activity around the plane. But the runway clearer has not been activated.”

  Silence, then: “We’re coming up on five seconds.…four …

  “Three …

  “Two …

  “One … and bingo.” The craft greased down on the runway.

  Krandel silently praised the air force pilot. He had more finesse than the navy pilots who routinely bounced down bone-jarring landings on carriers.

  The pilot continued. “We’re at two hundred knots. Doors will open at fifty knots. Good luck, gentlemen.”

  The intercom squawked off. Krandel flipped down his IR goggles, ripped at the release locks, reached under the webbing for his rifle, and shuffled to the hatch. He stretched his legs to get out the cramps. Twenty-three men stood and made their way behind him, holding the strapping for support. After what seemed to be an endless time, a klaxon blared, causing Krandel to jump. Up to now he’d reacted; he hadn’t had time to be nervous. As he crouched first in line at the hatch, now he felt like throwing up.

  A red light popped on above the hatch, and the door rotated open. In the darkness the ground rushed by, and Krandel froze.

  Balcalski swatted him on the butt and barked, “Ready, sir!”

  Krandel swallowed; no time to tie up now! “Ready.” He grabbed the edges of the door. The IR goggles gave a ghostly tint to the runway.

  Hot air tumbled into the TAV, bringing with it a potpourri of smells: urine, JP-4, and a dusty dry-hotness of the night. He knew the sleepy gas was there—at least the remnants of it—but he couldn’t detect it. It was safe for them now, but had it worked?

  A muffled voice came over the onrushing air, “Twenty-five knots.…get ready, the plane will be right in front of you!” Sweat on Krandel’s hands evaporated directly from the pores. “Twenty … fifteen … go!”

  Krandel leapt from the craft, deciding at the last moment against falling to the ground in a PLF, and instead tried to keep his balance. Landing on his feet he raced toward the lone plane, keeping low but swinging out toward the side.

  He caught a glimpse from the corner of his eye of the remainder of the men scurrying to his left, surrounding the craft. To his right burned the lights of the terminal. Cars were parked near the flight line; a low hum of activity filled the background as trucks creaked in the distance. The rest of the airfield was unaffected by the gas.

  The TAV swung silently around to the left, keeping its distance from the plane. In the darkness his men stood out like burning ghosts; flipping up his IR goggles, Krandel assured himself that the men were undetectable.

  No sound. There was no resistance f
rom either outside or inside the plane.

  The lone crack of a gun caused him to sprawl to the ground. A solitary figure on the top of the distant terminal was yelling. The voice was barely audible over the roar of the airport.

  The marines kept their cool, remembering their orders not to fire. Several other shots followed, discernible only by the pinging of bullets off the concrete runway. They hadn’t been detected until moments before, or the place would have been inundated with bullets.

  Krandel waved a fist toward the man and pointed at Corporal Morales. Morales lifted his rifle, then shot the man down. No sound came from Morales’ sonically shielded rifle.

  They waited as Krandel listened for other noises. Satisfied they hadn’t been detected, Krandel nodded to Balcalski, who waved the men forward. Without a word they continued to the plane.

  Guards were sprawled near the base of the stairway. Krandel flattened himself against a wheel.

  Balcalski huffed up and spoke in a whisper, catching his breath. “I don’t think anyone else saw us.”

  Krandel nodded. Clutching his rifle, Balcalski acknowledged the hand signals from the squad leaders as they positioned their men. Krandel tried to keep the excitement from his voice as he whispered, “Ready?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “On the count of three, have Morales and his squad follow me up. You stay here with Henderson’s squad and keep it clear for us.”

  “But, sir, we can’t risk you—”

  “That’s an order, Sergeant. We’re counting on you as a backup if I don’t make it. Your first priority is to make sure the President gets back alive. Understand?” At Balcalski’s nod Krandel jerked his head toward Morales. The corporal scurried over; when he motioned with his hands the rest of the squad followed.

  Krandel drew in a breath; this was it. He whispered, half to himself, “One, two, three.”

  He was up the ladder, three steps at a time, and through the hatch. Scanning the compartment, he raced down the aisle, not taking care to avoid fallen guards. As he approached the rear the fear he kept in the back of his mind reared its head: “He’s not aboard!”