airborne, Clark again called Hendley, who’d already begun the complicated and delicate process of informing the U.S. government that the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository had been penetrated by now-deceased URC terrorists, and that while the suitcase nuke they’d left behind had been rendered safe, it might be wise to secure the device as soon as possible.
“How can you be sure this ain’t going to blow back on us?” Clark now asked.
“I can’t, but we don’t have much choice in the matter.”
“True.”
“How’s our patient?”
“Doc cleaned out the holes, stitched ’em shut, and put him on antibiotics. He’s stable but in one hell of a lot of pain. Jack’s given him a permanent limp, probably.”
“Least of his worries now,” Hendley observed. “Is he talking?”
“Not a word. Where’re we going?”
“Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport. You’ll be met.”
“And then where?” Clark pressed. They had in their possession the world’s most wanted terrorist; the sooner they found a bolt-hole where they could regroup and plan their next move, the better.
“Someplace quiet. Someplace Dr. Pasternak can work.”
At this, Clark smiled.
Four short hours after they departed Las Vegas, they touched down on CHO’s single runway and taxied up to the executive terminal. True to his word, Hendley had a pair of Chevy Suburbans waiting; in formation, they approached the Gulfstream’s retractable stairs, did simultaneous three-point turns, and backed up to the bottom step. From the passenger door of the first Suburban, Hendley leaned out and signaled to Clark and Jack, who climbed into the backseat, while Caruso and Chavez, trailed by Pasternak, escorted their charges to the trailing Suburban. Within minutes they were off the airport grounds and heading north on Highway 29.
Hendley brought them up to speed. From what little Gavin Biery was able to glean from the flood of coded electronic traffic, Creech Air Force Base’s 3rd Special Operations Squadron had arrived at Yucca within forty minutes of Hendley’s call. Two hours after that, in a sure sign the Department of Energy, Homeland Security, and the FBI had descended en masse upon Yucca Mountain, the electronic traffic dried up.
“Are they onto the Emir’s house?” Jack asked.
“Not yet.”
“Won’t take them long to find Paragon Air.” This from Clark. “So spill it, Gerry. Where’re we going?”
“I’ve got a few acres of horse land and a country house outside Middleburg.”
“What’s a few?”
“Thirty. Should give us some breathing room.” Hendley checked his watch. “Dr. Pasternak’s equipment should be there by now.”
90
AFTER THE nearly constant adrenaline rush Clark and his team had experienced since touching down in Las Vegas twenty-four hours earlier, what followed immediately upon arriving at Hendley’s country house was anticlimactic. To his obvious disappointment, Pasternak announced that it would be another day, perhaps two, before his patient would be stable enough to undergo interrogation. That left everyone with plenty of time to waste and nothing to do but play cards and watch cable news. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a whiff of what had occurred at Yucca Mountain, but there was wall-to-wall coverage of what the networks had universally dubbed “The Heartland Attacks.” The Claymore mine blast at the Waterloo, Iowa, church had claimed thirty-two dead and fifty wounded; the mortar attack at the Springfield, Missouri, statue unveiling, twenty-two dead, fourteen wounded; the grenade incident at the Brady, Nebraska, swim meet, only six dead and four wounded, thanks to a quick-thinking, off-duty volunteer police officer who shot the perpetrator dead after he’d rolled only three grenades beneath the bleachers. The Waterloo and Brady perpetrators, both of whom had been tracked to their respective homes within hours of the events, had taken their own lives. Added to the other attacks, the casualties were climbing into triple digits.
Under the guiding hand of the FBI and Homeland Security, the near-miss chlorine attack aboard the Losan in Newport News had been attributed to a galley fire.
By four p.m. of their first day at Hendley’s country house, as the plastic-pretty female and lantern-jawed male anchors that dominated afternoon cable news collectively announced that President Edward Kealty would be addressing the American people at eight p.m. eastern, Clark got up and wandered off to find Pasternak. He found the doctor in Hendley’s woodworking shop, a fully appointed pole barn behind the house. The maple-topped bench had been converted into a makeshift medical suite, complete with halogen work lights, a Drager ventilator, and an EKG machine/resuscitator by Marquette, including manual external defibrillator paddles to convert an irregularly beating heart to normal sinus rhythm. Both machines were brand-new, fresh from their manufacturer’s shipping cartons, which now lay stacked a