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“Call them,” ordered the president.
Chang made the call and when the pilot answered, POTUS snatched the phone from her hand. “Major Arlin, this is the president.”
“Thank the lord, sir, I am so relieved to know that you’re safe and—”
The president interrupted him. “What is the status of Air Force One?”
“All secure inside,” said the pilot. “Systems are green for take-off. We fueled up, Mr. President, but we were ordered to keep everything flight ready. We’ve burned through some of it.”
“Do we have enough to reach Hawaii?”
“No, sir, and the fuel truck and crew have been compromised.”
?
?The whole damn field has been compromised, Major, where the hell can we go?”
Major Arlin rattled off a list of secure destinations in California, Nevada, and New Mexico.
“Groom Lake,” said POTUS quickly. “It’s remote.”
“Very well, sir. What is your ETA?”
I took the phone and explained where we were. “There’s a gate between us and it looks too solid for us to crash. We’re going to have to open it. That’s going to let all these infected in.”
“Who cares?” demanded the president.
I had to fight back the urge to slap him. Not because he was becoming hysterical or anything, but he was irritating the pure shit out of me.
I pointed. “See that big shiny jet? See those engines? Once they spin up for take-off, they’re going to be sucking in a lot of air. You got a few hundred dead people wandering around and one or more of them are going to get sucked in and then you have no engines.”
“Well, shoot them for Christ’s sake. Come on, Ledger, you’re supposed to be the number one gunslinger. Surely you’re not going to let this stop you. Not with what’s at stake. I need to get onto that plane and it’s your job to make it happen right goddamn now.”
“First things first, sir,” I said tersely. “We need to open and then secure the gate after the truck’s inside.”
“Can’t you use one of your grenades to open it?”
“No,” said Top. “Not what they’re designed for. We need to use a blaster plaster.”
He explained. It was a technology developed for use by the Department of Military Sciences, which is the group I was in before Rogue Team International was formed. Proprietary technology. Looks like a sheet of bubble wrap, but much tougher. The little blisters are filled with chemicals and the flat parts have wires in them. You peel back a clear film to expose a strong industrial adhesive, place the thing on any surface you want to destroy, and either pull a small wire that activates a ten-second timer or use a remote. The timer triggers tiny electrical charges that rupture the walls of the blisters. The instant the chemicals mix they detonate with about six hundred times the explosive force of detonation cord. A ten by ten sheet of blaster plaster would send a standard mailbox fifty feet into the air or blow the front end off a Ford F250.
The trick for a barrier like this is that we wanted to blow the lock without destroying the function of the gate.
“Half of one’ll do her, boss,” suggested Bunny, and he immediately began cutting one to fit. “But that’s only half the problem. We got to close the gate and hold it long enough for the plane to take off. Once we blow the lock that means physically closing and holding the gate.”
“Once the Mystery Bus is inside we can close the gate and back the truck up to hold it,” Top suggested.
“That’s good,” said Bunny, “but someone’s still going to have to place the charge, open the gate, and close it after the truck’s inside.”
“That’s a suicide mission,” said Chang, appalled.
“It’s your goddamn duty,” snarled the president.
“Mr. President,” said Chang, her face draining of blood, “maybe there’s another way.”
“I got it,” said Bunny and we all looked at him. “I’m the biggest, the strongest, and I have Honey Boom-Boom. We all know I have the best chance.”
Top’s hands tightened so hard on the steering wheel that the leather creaked. He wanted to tell him not to volunteer, to find some other way, but he knew—as we all knew—that Bunny was right.
