Death Wave (53 page)

He would assume the bombs were just a couple of minutes out, and use that time to get off the inside slope of the crater.

The slope was a lot steeper here. He slung his rifle over his shoulder in order to free his hands.

NORTHEAST RIM
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1545 HOURS LOCAL TIME

Akulinin was loading another grenade when the first exploded. It hadn’t struck the helicopter but had fallen short, landing close to the tents.

The explosion came in two parts—an initial burst followed by a much larger, much more powerful detonation that sent a towering plume of smoke and orange flame boiling into the sky. At first he thought he’d hit an ammo dump, then realized that he’d managed to touch off a large supply of fuel, probably avgas for the helicopter.

The blast, visible as the rising plume of smoke, caught the bright green helicopter and tilted it wildly to the side …

HELICOPTER
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1545 HOURS LOCAL TIME

The helicopter lurched savagely to the right, throwing Feng against the side. Outside, a wall of boiling, oily smoke was engulfing the aircraft, which began turning sharply, out of control. They were going to crash, Feng knew it. He had only a few seconds left. Raising the remote unit Azhar had given him, he mashed his thumb down on the firing button.

Nothing happened. The helicopter continued to spin as it fell. Panicking now, Feng hit the button again and again, then flipped the remote over and clawed off the plastic panel over the battery housing.

There were no batteries.

He just had time to realize that Azhar hadn’t trusted him after all before the helicopter struck the floor of the crater in a burgeoning mushroom cloud of flame and black smoke.

FIRESTORM FIVE
12 NMI NORTHEAST OF LA PALMA
MONDAY, 1547 HOURS LOCAL TIME

Lieutenant Colonel Farley stared at the telemetry readout from his number two JDAM.
Shit!

“Firestorm, Firestorm Five,” he said. “One of my weapons just lost target lock. Switching to GPS mode.”

“Five, One. Which target? Over.”

“One, Five. The southern San Martin crater. It’s now tracking on GPS guidance.”

“Copy, Five.”

Farley didn’t know why their orders called for them to drop bombs on one of the Canary Islands. The whole thing was classified and compartmentalized, and no one talked much about it. For all he knew, it was another training exercise, one with live weapons.

He
did
know that the GPS coordinates loaded into those weapons were only approximate, gathered by someone on the ground and adjusted visually for distance. Under these circumstances the weapons would have a CEP—a circular error probability—of thirty yards or more.

He just hoped the people on the ground knew what the hell they were doing. This was a great way of scoring an own goal. …

DRILL SITE
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1548 HOURS LOCAL TIME

Ibrahim Hussain Azhar heard the explosion and saw the green Marrakech Air Transport helicopter suddenly begin to rotate and fall. An instant later, another explosion rocked the crater as the aircraft crashed and burned.

He’d expected as much; the American forces on the crater rim wouldn’t allow a helicopter to escape the trap, not when it might be carrying a nuclear weapon off the island. He had to assume that they knew about the suitcase bombs by now.

That either bombs or U.S. Marines were now on the way was a certainty. Gunfire continued to bark and crackle across the crater floor as high-exposive rounds dropped among his men one after another. As oily black smoke rose from the helicopter crash on the higher part of the crater floor, he knew he might now have only minutes left. There was no time to evacuate the crater, no time to attach the bomb to a cable and lower it into the laboriously excavated borehole.

He’d deliberately given Feng a remote control without batteries, knowing that he would have fired the bombs as soon as he came under enemy fire. Maybe that would have been the best possible alternative, but Azhar still hoped the plan would work as originally designed. Shah and Chatel were up at Taburiente now, and as soon as they realized that the volcanos were under attack, they would trigger the bombs from there.

This one wasn’t connected to a receiver yet, though, and couldn’t be triggered down here, where the rock walls of the crater blocked incoming radio signals. But there was another way.

Scooping up the nearly completed weapon, he rose and dashed toward the lava tube entrance.

CALDERA TABURIENTE
NORTH END OF LA PALMA
MONDAY, 1548 HOURS LOCAL TIME

As Castelano talked with the policeman, CJ took a couple of steps forward, staring at the group of men on the tourist viewing platform. They seemed intent on something on the ridge to the south.

A moment ago, there’d been a wisp of white cloud above one of the craters visible in the blue haze in the distance. Now a black pillar of smoke hung like a storm cloud above one of the peaks. The men were arguing, one gesturing with what looked like a television remote.

Reaching behind her back, CJ pulled out the P226, raised it braced in both hands, and began squeezing the trigger. The guard in front of the police tape twisted and fell.

Advancing step by step, she continued firing. Behind her, the policeman reached for his holstered sidearm, pushing past Castelano, yelling at her in Spanish to stop. Castelano reached out and grabbed the officer, using his foot to lash out and trip the man into a headlong sprawl.

CJ kept firing.

FIRESTORM FORCE PACKAGES
MONDAY, 1548 HOURS LOCAL TIME

Ten bombs whistled softly through the afternoon sky, spreading out slightly as each vectored in on its assigned, illuminated target. They guided on beams of reflected laser energy, each beam set at a different frequency to avoid targeting confusion, their tail control surfaces adjusting moment to moment to keep the falling weapon centered on its target.

The first strikes were at the cluster of three northernmost peaks, at Volcán de San Juan and Birigoyo almost simultaneously, with a bomb striking the third crater seconds later. Gouts of smoke and cinders were hurled into the sky, as drilling derricks toppled and collapsed, as fuel stores erupted, as JeM personnel tried to take cover … and died.

The next two in line were Hoyo Negro and Duraznero. The explosions seemed to walk south along the crest of the Cumbre Viaja, explosion following explosion in thundering promenade as drilling rigs were torn apart, boreholes sealed, and radio receivers and electrical cables flung about and shredded by the blasts.

One bomb, the second released by Firestorm Five, lost its lock on its illuminated target when clouds of smoke blocked the laser light from the Marine position nearby. Operating now on GPS data as backup, it howled in low above the northeastern rim of the crater, missed the drilling rig by scant yards, and slammed into the upper portion of the crater floor.

The blast was akin to the crack of Armageddon.

NORTHEAST RIM
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1548 HOURS LOCAL TIME

Akulinin saw the detonations of the other bombs off to the north. “Get down!” he screamed. Lunging forward, he knocked Lia to the ground, throwing himself over her.

An instant later, they heard the bomb shriek over the crater and strike among the tents close by the burning wreckage of the helicopter.

The explosion felt like a volcano going off, a heavy, massive
whoom
that literally shook the earth and slammed Akulinin’s chest and belly with what felt like a hard kick. They were plunged into shadow as a vast column of black smoke and debris lofted itself above the crater rim; then, slowly and with a measure of grace, it began to collapse back into the pit.

It began to rain rock fragments and cinders, and all the two could do was cover their heads and necks with their arms and ride it out.

The ridge top was suddenly, inexplicably, and oddly silent. Akulinin could see Lia shouting something … but he couldn’t hear her words.

INNER SLOPE
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1548 HOURS LOCAL TIME

Dean had just made it to the top of the crater rim when the blast caught him from behind, lifting him up, flinging him forward, slamming him down. Lying flat, he covered his head with his arms as rock pelted him. As the cascade subsided, he rolled over and looked back at the crater.

The drilling derrick still stood. He couldn’t see any signs of life, but the crater floor was filled with smoke and swirling dust from the explosion. The tent farm, the wrecked helicopter, the landing pad—all had vanished, replaced by a steaming crater fifteen yards across.

CALDERA TABURIENTE
NORTH END OF LA PALMA
MONDAY, 1548 HOURS LOCAL TIME

CJ’s SIG SAUER clicked empty, the slide snapping back on an open chamber. She’d reached the yellow tape, now, stepping past the body of the Tango in the
guardia
uniform.

On the observation platform, Shah lay on his back, dead, the remote control device just beyond his outstretched hand. The other two were wounded, one clutching his belly in grimacing anguish, the other, Chatel, clutching his leg. With one hand, the Frenchman reached for the remote. CJ stepped up to him, the P226 still gripped two-handed, and aimed it at his face, point blank. “Don’t,” she said.

Chatel rolled back, his hands held up, palms out. His expression was one of glassy-eyed shock, and he didn’t seem to notice that CJ’s pistol was empty.

Castelano reached her a moment later, followed closely by an angry and confused Spanish police officer.

“These are the ones,” Castelano told the officer in Spanish. “You’ll need to take them into custody, keep them under heavy guard.”

To the south, pillars of black smoke were rising above the line of volcanic craters.

WESTERN SLOPE
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1550 HOURS LOCAL TIME

His ears were ringing loudly, but Dean could still hear. “Art Room!” he called. His own voice sounded distant, almost muffled, and it cracked as he spoke. His mouth was parched and felt like it was coated with dust.

“We copy, Charlie,” Jeff Rockman said.

“The strike went down. I don’t know about the other targets, but this one missed. The derrick is still standing. I can’t see it, but I think the borehole must still be open.”

“That’s okay, Charlie.” Rockman’s voice, too, sounded distant. Dean had to work to pick the words out from behind the auditory ringing. “Marines from the
Iwo Jima
are on their way in. You may be able to see them now.”

Dean was standing on the northwestern slope of the crater, a good 280 yards from the top of the gully where Ilya and Lia were sheltering. He couldn’t see them, and hoped they’d found cover on the outside slope of the cone. They were close over there to the spot where the bomb had struck.

Turning, he looked northwest and saw the helicopters coming in.

The helo in the lead was an MH-60S Knighthawk, painted pale gray and sporting Navy markings.

“The Recon Marines will be in soon to secure the area,” Rockman was telling him. “That lead helicopter is there to pick up you and the Green Amber Marines.”

“Roger that.”

He could see Ilya and Lia now across the crater, standing side by side, waving. He saw Rodriguez and Dulaney as well, farther south, their forms barely glimpsed, shimmering, through the haze of smoke filling the caldera. The helicopter flew past Ilya and Lia, vectoring in on the Marines.

Dean was feeling a bit exposed on the crest of the ridge, so he moved over the top and started down the western flank. A bike path was there, winding its way from crater to crater along the top of the ridge.

The rifle shot ricocheted off a boulder two feet to his left, and Dean hit the ground. Lia’s report had mentioned Tangos manning roadblocks along those bike paths; some of the bad guys must still be out there.

Crawling around behind the boulder, he tried to see where the enemy fire was coming from.

Another shot struck the rock close by his face, close enough that fragments stung his cheek.

LAVA TUBE
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1550 HOURS LOCAL TIME

The massive explosion had thrown Azhar to the floor of the lava tube and showered him with rock breaking loose from the ceiling, but he was still alive. He’d dropped his flashlight, saw it yet gleaming in the dusty air nearby.