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The CIA helicopter set down in the center of the pad. Rapp pushed the door open immediately, and grabbed the handle of the cooler. He dragged it to the edge, and the four men dressed in blue battle dress uni
forms from the Federal Protective Services came to his aid. Like attendants from a mortuary hauling a casket, they took hold of the cooler and loaded it into the bed of the idling pickup truck. Three of the men then jumped in the back with the cooler, and the officer in charge of the group slid in behind the wheel. Rapp got in the passenger seat and they took off.
The sunny afternoon disappeared behind them as they entered the long tunnel. The man driving the truck glanced over and said, "You must be the man Secretary McClellan and A. G. Stokes have been bitching about for the last twenty minutes."
"That would sound about right."
The tunnel narrowed a bit and they passed some type of decontamination station. The driver honked the horn and kept his foot on the gas. "We have to start closing the doors now."
Rapp looked at his watch and nodded. They were cutting it close.
"McClellan says you're a real pain in the ass." The man said this with great amusement.
Rapp smiled and shook his head. "Yeah well, actually, McClellan doesn't even know his head from his ass, so I'm not sure he's the best judge."
"You ain't going to get any argument out of me." The driver nudged his way around an abandoned golf cart and hit the gas. "So what's in the cooler?"
Rapp kept his eyes focused on the tunnel. He still couldn't see an end to it. "They didn't tell you?"
"Nope."
"Here's the deal, Lieutenant, when we get to the elevator I'll tell you what it is."
"Well, whatever it is, it can't be good. Here comes the elevator right up here."
The truck began to slow and then skidded to a quick stop on the concrete floor. Everyone piled out. The head of the security detail opened the freight elevator and Rapp helped the other three men carry the cooler. They placed it in the middle of the large elevator, closed the gate, and hit the button for the bottom floor. Rapp watched it disappear and then jumped back in the truck just as it had finished turning around.
As they peeled out he looked at his watch. They had a little over eight minutes to go.
"So what's in the cooler?" asked the driver.
Rapp laughed. He supposed the young man was going to find out sooner than later. "A bomb."
"What kind of bomb?"
"A nuclear bomb."
"You're kidding me?"
"Nope. You'd better step on it, because it's going to go off in about eight minutes, and if those blast doors don't hold we're screwed."
The young man punched the gas and they accelerated down the tunnel. Less than a minute later they skidded to a stop in front of the first blast door, which was already half closed. They abandoned the vehicle, and everyone hit the ground running. They ran one by one past the second blast door and up the road out into the bright afternoon sun. The head of the FPS detail told his men what was in the cooler. The news was received with shocked looks. All Rapp could do was laugh in the face of such insanity.
They reached the helipad with just under three minutes to spare and everyone piled in. The helicopter lifted off and raced eastward. Rapp called Reimer and told him the device was safely tucked away. Reimer advised Rapp that if they were more than a mile away by the time the device blew they wouldn't have to worry about the electromagnetic pulse of the weapon, which could potentially down the helicopter. Rapp told the pilots to keep flying and stay low.
Rapp looked at his watch, counted the seconds, thought of his wife, and willed the helicopter to fly faster. With ten seconds left before detonation he yelled to everyone in the helicopter, "Cover your eyes-don't open them until I tell you."
Rapp counted the seconds in his head. He got to ten and still hadn't heard anything, so he kept going. After twenty seconds he grabbed his phone and dialed Reimer. "What happened? Did it blow?"
"It sure did. We felt the tremor all the way over here across the state line."
"Did the mountain contain the blast?"
"I don't know. You're in a better position than I am."
Rapp asked the pilot to turn around so he could have a look. Rapp gazed out across the beautiful tree covered range in search of any sign that the bunker had failed to contain the blast. There wasn't a plume in sight-not even a puff of smoke.
Rapp smiled and said, "Tell the president we did it. It worked."
