pulling a fat Cuban cigar from a pocket and applying the flame from a butane lighter to the tip.
“Excellent! Thank you, Samantha,” Greene said, and went to join the others on the busy tarmac. “How is it going, Victor?”
With one boot resting on a crate of air-to-air missiles, Layne looked up from a clipboard. “Perfectly, sir! We now have eight Apache gunships, fully fueled and armed. Plus four Cobras and ten Black Hawks.”
“Are all the Blackhawks transports?” Greene asked as a man handed him an M249 Minimi machine gun.
“No, sir. Five are transport, four are being packed with spare fuel and munitions, and one is a mobile medical bay.”
“Any radar defusers?”
“Yes, sir. Plus radio jammers.”
“Excellent,” Greene said around his cigar. “Most excellent. My compliments, Victor!”
“It was your plan, sir,” the man said with a shrug. “By the way, how did the limpet function?”
“Perfectly!”
Somewhere across the base, a man screamed, an assault rifle chattered, and a burning building started to collapse in ragged stages, thick black clouds of smoke rising high into the morning sky.
“Now what about all of those F-14 jetfighters?” LoMonaco asked, brushing back a loose strand of hair. The action left a streak of blood across her face.
“Nobody in Daylight can fly a jet aside from the two of us. They only know helicopters,” Greene growled. “Besides, a jet would only get in the way of the next mission. Low and slow is the key, not death-from-above as the Americans like to boast.”
“Such a shame.” LoMonaco sighed, looking longingly at the nearby hangar, a sleek F-14 Tomcat sitting in the entranceway fueled and ready to go.
Unexpectedly, a bright flash erupted from the roof of the base library, and a fiery dart lanced across the decimated base to slam directly into the Tomcat. The multimillion-dollar jetfighter thunderously exploded inside the hangar, the spreading fireball set off the next jetfighter and the next. The entire airfield was hammered by a long series of strident detonations that continued for an obscene length of time.
When the last roiling blast finally dissipated, Greene rose from the tarmac to scowl in open hatred at the smoking ruin of the hangar. All of the planes were gone, totally destroyed, the smoldering rubble spread out for as far as he could see.
“What the fuck was that?” Layne loudly demanded, working his jaw to try to clear his ringing ears.
“Sir, does this base have a bomb shelter, or some sort of hidden panic room, whatever the military calls them these days?” LoMonaco growled, brushing debris off her police uniform.
“If so, it didn’t appear in any of the floorplans I stole!” Greene snarled, slowly pulling a long sliver of steel from his bloody arm. “Okay, Layne, your turn. Kill them!”
“On it!” the man yelled, starting forward at a full run. “Thomas, Hannigan, Stone, Ferguson! Follow me, boys! It’s showtime!”
Spreading out so that they wouldn’t offer the hidden Mexican soldiers a group target, the terrorists raced across the base, darting from building to building, bushes to cars, never fully exposing themselves.
“Okay, LoMonaco,” Greene started, then stopped.
Buckling on a flamethrower, the woman ignited the pre-burner, then sent out a hissing lance of flame and started setting fire to anything between the library and the all-important helicopters.
As a wall of fire rose high, the billionaire nodded in approval. LoMonaco was hiding the machines from any further attacks! Smart girl. The Mexicans might still shoot more rockets, but, unable to aim properly, it would be a total gamble on their part.
Suddenly, a great commotion came from the base garage, and the metal doors were battered open as a pair of Bradley Fighting Vehicles surged into view. The squat machines charged at the library, rolling over debris, rubble and corpses. Smashing aside parked cars, the vehicles cut loose with 7.62 mm chain guns, arcs of spent brass flying away, then the 25 mm rapid-fire cannons roared into operation, the streams of high-explosive shells chewing a path of destruction across the marble face of the building. Windows shattered, doors disintegrated and hundreds of burning books were blown out of the library to flutter away like dying birds.
There was a flash on the roof, and a rocket streaked down to explode in the street only feet away from one of the Bradleys, then another from the first floor flashed right past the second one to continue onward and disappear into the distant mountains.
Slamming headfirst into the side of the burning building, the Bradley crashed through the brick wall and men briefly screamed, their cries barely discernable over the blazing chain guns. Then the second Bradley slammed through the opposite wall, and the whole library visibly shook, loose bricks tumbling off the cracking walls.
Revving their big Detroit engines to full power, the pair of Bradleys smashed through the interior walls in irregular patterns, crashing through offices, computers and lavatories, crushing a dozen scurrying soldiers. Smashing out the other side of the sagging building, the armored hulls of the Bradleys were covered with plaster dust, blood, paperbacks.
Stopping only a few yards from each other, the Bradleys unleashed their 25 mm rapid-fires again, tearing holes in the weakened walls and blasting apart support columns.
The roaring conflagration inside the library blocked most of what was happening, but everybody on the base could hear the groan of the structure as it finally succumbed to the brutal attack. A wall broke free to fall across the street, scattering loose bricks for several blocks. The roof bowed, another wall cracked open wide and the entire building collapsed into itself, throwing out a thick gray cloud of concrete dust.
Still firing, the crews of the Bradleys sent in waves of 25 mm shells, pounding the library nonstop, grimly determined to permanently end the threat of the soldiers inside the hidden bomb shelter. Tons of loose masonry tumbled into the basement, along with broken slabs of concrete, and endless piles of hardback books. Soon the basement was an inferno of fiery chaos, the roiling clouds of dense smoke rising high into the sky to form the classic mushroom pattern of any intensely hot ground fire.
Pulling back a safe distance, the Bradleys stopped and the triumphant crews climbed out to start walking back to the airfield with Layne in the lead.
“It looks like we nuked the base,” LoMonaco chuckled, easing off the straps of the flamethrower to set the empty canisters on the sidewalk.
“Pretty damn near,” Greene said in agreement, slinging the Minimi machine gun across his chest. “All right, let’s do a sweep and recover any of our people who died. Bring the bodies along, and we’ll bury them at sea.”
“Razor up, people! Get those birds hot!” LoMonaco added through cupped hands. “We need to be airborne in fifteen minutes!”
As a clean-up squad got busy with body bags, a small man wearing thick glasses stumbled out of a prefab hut. “Mr. Greene, sir! I found the Gladiator!” the technician shouted happily, triumphantly holding up a control box.
“About damn time,” LoMonaco muttered with a disgusted expression. “Is it a newer model?”
“No, sir. But it’s still fully functional.”
“Good work, Langstrom!” Greene shouted, giving a thumbs up. “Take everything! We can use it in the Triangle.”
“Don’t forget spare batteries!” Layne added over a shoulder, already heading for a Black Hawk.
A few minutes later, everybody had a seat in a helicopter, and the stolen armada gracefully lifted off the tarmac in a whirlwind of smoky exhaust and acrid smoke from the countless small fires.
Quickly rising high, the helicopters angled away from the obliterated base and followed a whitewater river to disappear into the nearby