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us as 'friendly.'"
Pritchard snorted and leaned back into his jump seat. As a scientific
officer, he had never had to live in close quarters with operational military
men.
Felowmate turned around in his seat as the pilot made a sudden motion
in front of them and pointed out the cockpit. Felowmate gave the woman a
thumbs up, then turned back to Pritchard. "Just been cleared to land."
Pritchard nodded and turned to look back at the ground. Desert
stretched out on either side, broken only by the four barbed-wire fences that
encircled Alpha Base. To the west lay the mountain ranges of Nevada; he could
see Wendover AFB to their left, and the long runway where the Agency plane had
landed him only twenty minutes before.
Built a good forty years before as a nuclear weapons storage site,
Alpha Base held the majority of America's remaining warheads. Most had been
dismantled, but a few of the "safest" devices remained here, watched over by
an extensive International Verification Initiative team.
As the helicopter bumped to the ground, Major Felowmate ducked, jumped
from the craft, and motioned for Pritchard to follow. The pilot remained in
her seat, saluting Pritchard as he climbed out.
The hot, dry air hit him like a blast from a oven. He and the major
scuttled away from the Blackhawk helicopter toward a caravan of waiting cars.
The helicopter's rotor blades whipped dust up in the air, making Pritchard's
eyes sting.
As they approached the cars, uniformed guards on either side of the
lead vehicle snapped to attention. Both carried automatic rifles. A woman in a
white dress got out of the car. Her blond hair braided into a bun and her
white stockings made her look like a bizarre hallucination in the bleak
wasteland. She held one hand to her hair and the other shielded her eyes.
Pritchard heard the helicopter roar back into the air toward Wendover
AFB. After a few seconds the thrumming noise had settled enough for him to
hear and think clearly for the first time since he had landed in Utah.
Major Felowmate made the introductions as they walked up to the waiting
group. "General, this is Francine Helschmidt. She's our International
Verification Initiative liaison officer out of Salt Lake City."
"General." Her grip was firm and her eyes hard as volcanic rock. "Glad
to be of help."
"Thank you." Pritchard looked around at the rest of the caravan. Now
that the dust from the helicopter had dissipated, he could see that the
four-wheel-drive vehicles were painted Air Force blue. Each held a military
driver, several civilians, and what appeared to be an armed guard. Pritchard
nodded toward the other people. "These are the IVI observers, I take it?" His
voice rang in his ears, still vibrating from the helicopter ride.
"That's right, General." Francine Helschmidt handed him a list of
names. "They've been cleared through appropriate channels. We have assured
them that once the seals are broken on the storage bunkers, they will watch
your every move. We need to make sure you get only the specific warheads to
which you have been authorized."
Pritchard did not like Helschmidt's cool tone. He cocked an eyebrow at
her. "You mean 'nuclear devices,' don't you? I'm not going to use them as
warheads. We're not going to war. They are a protective measure against an
extraterrestrial threat."
Helschmidt stood with her feet apart and her hands stiff at her side.
"We might as well call a spade a spade, General -- there was no reason to have
produced these things other than for going to war."
"Really?" Pritchard drew his lips tight. He had met people like her
before, and at times he found it amusing to push their all-too-obvious
buttons. In this case, though, he had no time to play games.
"Yes, really, General," Helschmidt said. "But that appears to be a moot
point, doesn't it? You have received your approval. Whether you call them
warheads or not, we've been instructed to ensure that only six 'devices' are
removed from the storage bunkers. I have already studied your security plan
for transporting the weapons, and I believe it might be effective, provided
you run into no unforeseen difficulties."
Pritchard refused to react to her comments. He had run the security
plan through expert sabotage teams, challenging anyone to come up with an
ambush scenario that would successfully divert the devices from their intended
delivery point. Now he understood her -- Helschmidt didn't know what the hell
she was talking about, but wanted everyone to think she was important. He
wondered how she had managed to reach her present position.
"Thanks for reminding me, Ms. Helschmidt. Now, if we could be about our
business?" Pritchard turned to Major Felowmate, who gestured to the lead [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]