Sky Hammer - James Axler

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      “Your call, Hermann,” Lyons said, aiming the .357 Colt Python at the red-and-green-striped shell.

      “Make me a hole,” Schwarz ordered, sorting through the tools.

      Blancanales fired a burst from the M-16 at the beach, chewing a depression into the sand. Schwarz gently placed the shell into the hole and packed the loose sand around it.

      Sitting on the damp ground, the electronics wizard wrapped his legs around the bomb to hold it tight and started working in the recessed side bolts.

      “Thought you were supposed to go in through the top,” Lyons said, watching his friend work on the nuclear charge. An explosion on the beach would boil the ocean for a hundred feet, the radioactive steam contaminating a hundred miles of New Jersey, killing thousands of people. There couldn’t be a worse place to set off a nuke than the sea! His hand tightened on the checkered grip of his revolver. Three die, or three thousand. Hell, that was an easy choice. Another ounce of pressure on the trigger was all it would take to get the job done.

      “The top? Not this model,” Schwarz said, both hands busy. A sharp snap of breaking metal and Lyons and Blancanales both jumped slightly. The men held their breath as their teammate slid the casing off the nose of the bomb, exposing the complex internal mechanism.

      “All the wires are the same color,” Blancanales said with a scowl. “How the hell will you know which one to cut?”

      Jamming his knife deep into the device, Schwarz stopped a tiny flywheel from spinning, then ripped out a handful of wires.

      “Just got to know what you’re doing,” he said, casting away the circuits. “Whew, that was close!”

      “Too close, brother.” Blancanales sighed, raising the assault rifle. “You sure it’s dead?”

      “Oh, yeah. Deader than disco.”

      “Good.”

      “I happen to like disco.” Lyons chuckled in relief. Touching his throat, the big man activated the radio link. “Stony Bird to Nest, all clear. We found a hot egg, but it will not hatch. Repeat, the egg is dead. What was that?” He frowned. “Roger, on the way.”

      “Take the bomb, we’ll store it in our lead safe on the van,” Lyons directed, startling briskly for the parking lot.

      “We’ve been recalled to the Farm,” Schwarz stated, lifting the core of the bomb out of the shell. It wasn’t a question.

      “Yep.” Softly in the background, police sirens could be heard coming this way. The covert team paid no attention. Then the noise abruptly stopped.

      “Sounds like they were also recalled,” Blancanales said, glancing at the exposed workings on the mechanism swinging in his friend’s bare hand. But Blancanales wasn’t worried. If Hermann thought it was okay for them to travel with the nuke this way, that was good enough. He trusted the electronics expert with his life in battle, so why not now?

      “Just a little diversion by Bear.” Lyons grinned, hoisting the Atchisson to a more comfortable position. “As soon as we’re gone, they’ll be directed right back here, along with the FBI and Homeland.”

      “More Red Star?” Schwarz asked.

      “Not this time,” Lyons said, avoiding the civilian bodies. “We’ll be briefed on the way to Bethlehem.”

      Schwarz balked. “We’re going to Israel?”

      “No, Phoenix Force is. We’re going to see some Nazis in Pennsylvania.”

      Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Steel Town U.S.A. Check. “Who’s in trouble?” Blancanales asked, going around one of his own blast craters, misty smoke still moving along the ground.

      Pausing at the entrance to the historic site, Lyons glanced at the clear blue sky. “Who’s in trouble?” he repeated with a growl. “Hell, everybody is, this time.”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      Edwards Air Force Base

      The red Corvette hummed along the empty highway of the California desert. Dark clouds blanketed the early morning sky and heat lightning sizzled now and then. But no rain. Not yet, anyway.

      Yawning behind the wheel, Mike Toddel was alternating sips of hot chocolate from a travel mug and bites of a cheese sandwich.

      Taking a turnoff, he continued for a couple more miles until reaching the outer perimeter of Edwards. Glowing like a pearl against the rosy dawn, the air base was brightly illuminated by halogen lamps just inside the electrified fence.

      Add a couple of Falcons and this would make a great postcard, Toddel thought with a chuckle.

      Shifting gears, he slowed at the front gate and drove up to the guard kiosk. This separate section of the AFB was under maximum security, with armed men on station, guard towers, dogs patrolling the fence, gunship helicopters moving in the dim air and more SAM batteries hidden under concrete bunkers than even Toddel knew about. And he repaired their radar!

      Stopping at the wooden bar blocking the entrance, he flashed the guard his access badge. “Hey, Harold.” He smiled. “Looks like a hell of a storm coming, eh?”

      “Sir, would you please show me you pass again,” Sergeant Harold Adler demanded crisply, one hand resting on the holstered 9 mm pistol at his side.

      He called me “sir”? That was when Toddel noticed another guard inside the kiosk wearing body armor and holding a massive M-60 machine gun, pointed his way. As the corporal in the kiosk worked the arming bolt, the linked brass dangling from the deadly weapon tinkled like distant wind chimes.

      “Ah, sure thing, Sarge,” Toddel muttered, doing as requested. “Something wrong? President here or something?”

      Checking the pass against a list on a clipboard, the sergeant returned it and gave a salute. “Thank you, sir. Proceed to Hangar 19. They’re waiting for you, sir.”

      Without comment, Toddel worked the clutch to shift gears and drove away, wary of the speed bump just inside the fence. What was going on here?

      The base was full of airman, technicians and officers rushing around. A light burned in every window and there was a circle of black cars parked around the flight tower on the airfield.

      Turning past a dark PX, Toddel headed toward Hangar 19 when lightning flashed, very bright and without thunder.

      Suddenly a violent explosion obscured the hangar. Stunned, Toddel watched as a column of black smoke rose to form a spreading mushroom cloud. He panicked for a moment, then remembered that any large explosion would create that formation.

      What the hell had happened? It looked as though lightning had struck the fuel storage tanks or maybe the munitions depot. He hoped everybody in the hangar was all right. The windows were bulletproof glass and the thick walls were solid concrete with brick on both sides. A bazooka couldn’t dent that hangar.

      Braking to a halt so hard it stalled the engine, Toddel could only stare agape as the desert wind moved the smoke to show the fiery hole in the ground. The hangar was gone. Completely gone! Along with all of the experimental F-22 Raptor antisatellite fighters stored there.

      Yellow Sea, North Korea

      GREASY WATER SLAPPED listlessly against the hull of the Sargasso Queen. Anchored five miles offshore, the vessel was large, a monster of its kind. Old, but still serviceable. She rested low in the ocean, clearly loaded down with goods to be delivered. However, the vessel was anchored into position with four chains, any one of which would have been sufficient for an oil tanker twice its size. The registry listed the Sargasso Queen as a cargo ship, but it was going nowhere. Ever.

      Watching from the shore, David McCarter nodded with satisfaction that while the vessel was covered with rust spots, there wasn’t a barnacle on the hull. Why remove one, but not the other? Maybe so that the ship was in good shape,

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