Craig Kreident #2 Fallout (15 page)

“The whole place is rigged!” Jackson said staggering down the hall and coughing loudly.
 
“It’s going to go up.”
 
The lean, dark-skinned agent grabbed Goldfarb’s elbow and dragged him out of the den, then began pounding his back and shoulders.
 
Goldfarb hadn’t even realized he was on fire.
 
Smoke swirled thickly around them.

Goldfarb coughed as they hustled down the hall.
 
The flames followed them like molten dogs lapping at their heels, skirling along the walls, following the lines of chemical accelerants splashed on the walls.
 
Light bulbs exploded overhead, and both agents flinched, covering their heads.

In the kitchen another small explosive device went off, and flames burst from the cupboards.
 
Debris from broken dishes, shattered glass and the smashed window sprayed out onto the floor.

“Here, the front door is closer,” Goldfarb said.
 
“Pronto!”

“No!” Jackson yelled, grabbing him.
 
“Plastic explosives!
 
It’s booby trapped.”

They staggered past a large window at the side of the living room, but Goldfarb also saw crude wires hooked up to the sill and frame.
 
“Connors must have had altogether
too
much time on his hands,” he said, coughing.
 
“Let’s go out the same way we came in.”

“Get moving, then,” Jackson said.

The kitchen was already in flames.
 
Broken shards of glass and stoneware made the floor an obstacle course.
 
Goldfarb coughed, his eyes watering and stinging. His skin felt raw as if from a severe sunburn, and the chemical smoke from the accelerants and burning paint made his lungs rebel each time he took a breath.
 

The ravenous flames finally reached the living room, crawling rapidly along the line of flammable chemicals painted in a deadly spiderweb that looped all the walls in the house.
 
Once the FBI agents and tripwire incendiaries provided the spark, Bryce Connors had made sure no scrap would remain, just a pile of ashes.

The two agents staggered toward the garage door where they had entered.
 
Goldfarb looked over his shoulder to see the fire racing toward the front door, licking the flammable chemicals on the sheet rock — and finally reaching the small blocks of explosive that had been rigged to the door frame.

“Look out!” Goldfarb said.
 

Jackson saw it just in time.
 
The two of them threw themselves around a corner shielded by the bulk of the refrigerator just as the explosives blew.
 
With a ripping sound that blasted out the front of the house, the bombs took out the door and five feet of structural wall on either side.
 
The windows in the room shattered with the sound of hissing glass.

From where they sat huddled, the overpressure shockwave struck them, making both of Goldfarb’s ears pop.
 
His head knocked against the refrigerator, but he got up a moment later, shaking the stars from his vision.
 
He touched his nose, seeing a trickle of blood coming out.

“Let’s not wait for all those drums of fuel oil in the garage to blow,” Goldfarb said, then sprinted toward the still-open door leading out to the garage.
 
His feet crunched on broken glass and shrapnel scattered across the floor.
 
He slipped, his shoes skittering on the debris, but he caught his balance before he could dive face-first into the stalagmite shards of glass.

Jackson bolted after him.
 
The flames had spread from the kitchen into the garage already, working their destructive lines along the stacked bags of fertilizer, the two-by-fours of the workbench.
 
The calendar curled up, brown at the edges; the red circle around October 24 turned black.

“Get your butt in gear, Jackson!” Goldfarb said as they both dashed out the side door, past the low fence, and ran toward the street.
 

Moments later, an explosion rocked the house and the rest of the garage collapsed.
 
The blast knocked both of the FBI agents to the sidewalk.
 
Smoke and splintered debris boiled toward the sky like the mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb.

Shaking his head and listening to his ears ring, Goldfarb turned and saw the inferno that was left of the suspect’s house.
 
One of the side walls groaned and collapsed.

Goldfarb held up the sheaf of random papers he had snatched from the pile inside the den.
 
“I hope we’ve got some clues at least,” he said with a grin, then brushed a hand across his stinging cheeks.
 
“Oh boy, what a way to start the day.
 
I could use another cup of coffee.
 
Strong
coffee.”

Jackson stared across the street at crowds that had come out of the little shops in the strip mall.
 
People stood around the coffee and donut shop, staring wide-eyed.
 
Traffic had stopped on the street as the blaze continued to roar behind them.
 
The fire department would be on its way but far too late.
 

Jackson picked himself up and brushed off the front of his suit.
 
Goldfarb did the same.
 
He shook his head with feigned annoyance, narrowing his eyes at all the spectators pointing at them.
 

“What are they looking at?” he said.
 
“This is Vegas.
 
You’d think by now they’d be used to the light shows.”

CHAPTER 17

Wednesday, October 22

1:15 P.M.

Omega Mountain Nuclear Storage Facility

Groom Lake Air Force Auxiliary Station

Hours after leaving the nuclear test tunnels behind, Mike Waterloo ducked out of the twin-engine plane that had flown him across Nellis restricted air space.
 
Holding his black satchel containing a barcode reader and portable computer, he scanned the runway for his security escort.
 

The aircraft had parked at a remote terminus of the desert airstrip, a mile from five ominous hangars clustered at the end of the dry lakebed bordered by rugged mountains.
 
Three huge C-141 Starlifter transport planes sat next to the hangars.
 
The Groom Lake Auxiliary Station provided temporary storage for decommissioned nuclear weapons . . . as well as whatever else the government had hidden in the isolated, secure facility.

Few people ever got to see this place at all — but Mike Waterloo didn’t feel terribly lucky.
 
In fact, it made his skin crawl.
 
He had his own suspicions about what was going on up here.
 
The area was partitioned off as the northern part of the Nellis AFB bombing range, deep inside the most isolated portion of the Nevada desert.
 
The town of Tonopah was the only sign of civilization on any map around, outside the base boundary at the junction of Highways 6 and 95.

In 1993 a group of workers had sued the Air Force, the Defense Secretary, and the White House national security advisor, for toxic exposures they had received during top-secret activities taking place at Groom Lake.
 
The suit had progressed for nearly a year while the Air Force flatly denied the existence of Groom Lake.
 
When the President himself had issued an exemption that kept the secrets under wraps because they were “in the paramount interests of the United States,” the workers had lost their suit, forbidden even to present their evidence in court. . . .

A blue sedan sat near the aircraft, its engine idling.
 
A trim, black Air Force officer stood next to the car, waiting for him.
 
Everything about the young Air Force officer seemed sculpted, crisp and right to the point.
 
“Mr. Waterloo?
 
I’m Lieutenant Colonel Terrell, group operations commander.”
 
Curt and all business, he handed Waterloo a local area badge,
Escort Required
.

Waterloo shook the man’s hand and was not surprised at the rock-hard grip.
 
“What happened to LtCol Felowmate?” Waterloo asked.
 
“He usually escorts me.”

“He was transferred, sir.
 
National security reasons.”

“Of course,” Waterloo said.

“The generals allow Ops Commanders to serve for only two years.
 
Prevents burnout.
 
This tour is classified as a remote assignment — remote from the family, since there’s no support facilities for dependents.
 
It’s tough for the younger troops.”

“I see,” Waterloo said.
 
But at least they still have their wives to go back to,
he thought, pushing away an image of Genny in her last days in the hospital.
 
The times he had spent at the Nevada Test Site in the early years had been considered a “remote” assignment from his home back at Livermore — although the old Atomic Energy Commission had never called it that, never given him credit for the hardships.

The driver opened the back door for him.
 
Waterloo ducked as he climbed in, placing his black satchel beside him.
 
A sign above the driver’s windshield read FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY — USE OF SEAT BELTS IS MANDATORY.
 
The air conditioner hummed on high, and it felt good to relax against the soft seat.
 
LtCol Terrell joined him in the back.

Terrell glanced at his watch.
 
“The transport plane should be here by the time we inventory your devices.
 
We’ll get you back to the DAF by late afternoon.”

“Good — we’ve had an incident with one of the Russian inspectors, and I need to ride herd on it.”
 
Waterloo leaned forward to look at the C-141s by the isolated hangars.
 
“I hope you’re not going to use a Starlifter to transport the devices — we can’t land aircraft that big at the strip out by the DAF.”

Terrell hesitated.
 
“Those 141s are for another purpose, sir.
 
Sorry, but I can’t give you any details.
 
A C-17 is due within the hour.
 
We’ll escort the devices from Omega Mountain and set up the convoy in the meantime.”

The driver headed east, away from the main complex on a wide two-lane road in immaculate condition.
 
Omega Mountain rose up before them, revealing concrete bunkers with steel doors that dotted the brown foothills every few hundred yards.
 
Waterloo had heard the heavy doors had been salvaged from the sides of old battleships, and could withstand a kiloton blast.

Four concentric electrified fences surrounded the complex.
 
Waterloo remembered the last time he had been here, one of the guards had boasted that more electricity ran through these perimeter fences than powered the entire city of Las Vegas.

As the sedan approached a double-wide gate big enough for a tractor trailer, the driver picked up a microphone.
 
“Omega Base, this is Ops CC.
 
We are approximately one kilometer from your entrance.
 
Switching off IFF frequencies now.”

“That’s a rog, Ops CC.
 
We’ll look for your blip.”

The driver reached to the dashboard, keyed in a number, and flicked a switch on the transmitter box.
 
The green glowing light blinked to red.

“We paint you 10 by 10, Ops CC,” the voice said.
 
“Proceed to Omega.”

“Rog.”
  
The driver flicked the switch back.

Terrell explained, “The Identification Friend or Foe is designed to discriminate between friendlies and hostiles in a combat situation.
 
It’s three generations up from what’s in our planes.”

Waterloo nodded, feigning disinterest.
 
“Oh?
 
How does it work?”
 
He knew the information already from Colonel Felowmate on previous trips, but he listened intently, hoping Terrell would let slip additional details.

“When the IFF box in our vehicle is turned on, it sends a message back to the area security radar and tells the computer to ignore us.
 
Without it, every vehicle on the base would show up on the screen.
 
This way, we detect only unauthorized vehicles.”

As they approached the gate, an MP in sand-colored khakis waved for the sedan to stop.
 
The driver rolled down his window as Terrell returned the guard’s salute.
 
After checking their badges, the guard signaled for the double-wide gate to swing open.
 
The driver pulled into the sally port and waited between fences as another guard inspected under their car using a mirror attached to a long pole.
 
Security cameras recorded every move.

Waterloo commented, “Since the DAF wasn’t built for high volume work, I’m glad Groom Lake has the temporary storage responsibilities for the stockpile, not us.”

Terrell frowned sourly.
 
“Yes, aren’t we all.”
 
Over the Air Force’s protests, Congress had selected Groom Lake as a staging point for the nation’s drawdown of nuclear weapons, a place to store the warheads about to be dismantled at the adjoining Nevada Test Site.
 
It remained a sore point for them.

The second gate finally opened.
 
The driver proceeded slowly into the Omega Mountain fortress as Terrell glanced at a typed checklist.
 
“They’re pulling the devices out of bunker 1820 now.”