Day of Wrath

“The Japanese didn’t have much trouble rounding up a few thousand kamikazes,” Farrell pointed out.

“But that was during a global war and from a total ‘death before dishonor’ warrior culture,” Thorn said. “I don’t see that here.

Ibrahim’s a Saudi, but that bastard Wolf was German. And everybody we’ve tangled with outside of Pechenga has been German, or at least European.”

“Maybe they’re planning on setting the autopilot, bundling on a chute, and hopping out before the blast,” Helen suggested.

“Doesn’t seem likely. If that was me, I’d want to bail out a long, long way from the detonation point.” Thorn combed his mind for data.

He wasn’t a pilot, but he’d had friends who were, and his Delta Force training covered a host of different technologies.

“Even on autopilot, you’re gonna get some drift and even a quarter mile would really throw your attack off.”

“Not these days,” Farrell cut in. He looked somber. “Link GPS into your autopilot, and you could put a bomb within a few meters of where you want it.”

“Yeah,” Thorn said slowly, running through the logic. Farrell was right. With signals from the GPS satellites as a navigation aid, none of the planes would wander off course. And GPS receivers were now widely available to the general public. He stiffened as the full implications of the available technology became clear. “Christ, you don’t even need a pilot! Plug a computer into the autopilot, program in the required waypoints and altitude changes, and you’ve got an aircraft that can take off on its own — and then make its way straight to the target.”

Helen’s eyes opened wide. “You’re talking about a poor man’s cruise missile, Peter.”

“I’m afraid so.”

Farrell considered that. “Jury-rigged cruise missiles? Maybe.”

Then he shook his head. “Still a lot of things that could go wrong with that. You get some unexpectedly hairy weather, an engine problem, or maybe an air traffic control call that goes unanswered and you’re going to start losing planes. And neither Ibrahim nor Wolf struck me as careless. If they are setting up to pop off five nukes somewhere in the U.S they’ll want some assurance that all five will detonate — on target.”

“But they can work around that,” Thorn said softly. “Install a communications link and maybe even TV camera in every plane. That way a pilot sitting safe on the ground can run the thing by remote control if need be. Hell, he could even answer air traffic control challenges.”

Farrell chewed that over and then nodded. “That’d be the way to do it all right. Pinpoint accuracy and no human element.” His eyes narrowed as he looked out across the runway toward the Caraco hangars and the three turboprops parked outside.

“Which do you think is the bomb-carrier here, Pete? Aircraft number one, number two, or number three?”

“Would you assign one pilot to every remotecontrolled plane?” Helen asked suddenly, rummaging through Wolf’s bloodstained briefcase.

Thorn thought about that for a moment and then shook his head.

“Nope.

There’s really no need to. With the kind of gear they could assemble, one guy should be able to run two or three aircraft without even breathing hard. Plus, with the right radio and microwave links, you could orchestrate the whole strike from one secure, central location.”

“So, why do they need five pilots?” she persisted.

Farrell shrugged. “Who knows? Redundancy, maybe.”

Thorn stared at Helen more closely. Her fingers were curled around one of the pages they’d found in Wolf’s belongings.

“What’s wrong?”

“Could they fit two more planes in those hangars over there?” she asked tightly, still looking down at the paper.

“Sure. No sweat.” Thorn put his hand gently on her shoulder.

“What’re you thinking?”

She looked up and passed the piece of paper she’d been clutching to him. All the color had drained out of her face. “Caraco doesn’t have just one nuke. They don’t have just five. I think they’ve got twenty.”

Twenty? Thorn took the printed page from her and studied it again.

There were five separate animal code names listed under the heading for Godfrey Field. He’d looked at them before, but he hadn’t made the connection. They’d all been focused on the identifiable place names first.

Christ. Five airfields with multiple codes under each one.

Twenty code words in all. Twenty targets. Twenty bombs.

It made an ugly sort of sense. They knew Colonel General Serov had sold Ibrahim and his subordinates twenty used Su24 engines — engines they’d used as a cover for the real cargo. They also knew that Caraco’s chief executive had gone to a lot of trouble and expense to set up a secure pipeline to smuggle them into the U.S. So why would Ibrahim settle for reducing five American cities to smoking rubble if he could just as easily obtain the weapons needed to smash twenty?

“Pete?”

Setting his jaw against the knowledge that they were facing an almost unimaginable catastrophe, Thorn passed the page to Farrell.

“She’s right, Sam. No other scenario makes sense.”