Within moments they were speeding south into the pass.

McKelvey Valley

“Chinstrap Two . . . wvv . . . lzzzzt . . . tktyr . . . brother . . . gnnn,” came Justin Smith’s voice over the radio. “Wnud . . . confizzzz . . . tkmk . . .”

Pulling pitch at the sticks of his Sikorsky, the MacTown pilot frowned as his UpLink counterpart’s transmission was munched by static, incidentally noting the Carribean island accent. He thought it sounded like Jamaica.

“I’m not getting you,” he answered into his headset. “Repeat.”

“Saygggn—”

“Still can’t read you,” said the MacTown pilot, his consternation deepening. He paused, tried to guess what the radio call was about, and went for the obvious—UpLink’s lead bird would want a basic status report.

“External load successfully dropped and received,” he said, hoping his message would be intelligible at the receiving end.

Bull Pass

On Burkhart’s orders, the Light Strike Vehicle had waited just around the eastward bend of Bull Pass, hidden in shadow behind a toppled granite colonnade opposite Mount Cerberus’s massif face, guarding its territory like the solitary feline hunter with which Shevaun Bradley had once associated it. A camouflaged leopard perhaps. Or a panther.

Now Ron Waylon’s incursion team came shooting past, paired up in their three all-terrain vehicles, rusty sand reeling off from the spin of their tires as they hooked into the narrow stretch that led toward the notch and Wright Valley.

The LSV’s crew continued to wait a short while longer, tending to their patience, allowing the little UpLink vehicles to gain some distance, get deeper into the trench. Liquid jewels of color rained down from the narrow band of sky overhead, sliding over Cerberus’s plated black flank in vivid, oily droplets.

Unglaublich, the man named Reymann told himself in his driver’s seat, thinking he would never see anything like it again if he lived until the last day of the world.

Then he fisted the vehicle’s clutch and pounced from behind the weather-chewed slope to spring his ambush.

Bull Pass

After overseeing the movement of the 150-ton haul trucks to their places in front of the mine entrance, Burkhart gathered the drivers and excavation crew together inside the shaft and detailed what he expected of them.

“No, it’s impossible. We won’t. You can’t ask that of us!” one of the nervous foremen said. A Canadian who had gained his experience in the uranium mines in Saskatchewan, he unnecessarily restated his objection in German. “Das kommt nicht in Frage!”

“What else would you wish to do?” Burkhart said, speaking perfect English.

“Get out of here!” The foreman’s insistent shouting echoed in the gloom around them. “We have to get the hell out!”

Burkhart suddenly felt very tired.

“Out to where?” he asked quietly.

Over Bull Pass