The screen counted down and Jack positioned his hand over the autopilot switch. He already knew the course he wanted after the launch: a one-hundred-sixty-five-degree hard turn to starboard. Heavy banking turns always made the plane more visible to radar, but they were already going to be announcing their position to the world and he intended to get his turn completed at the same time, rather than giving those that would soon be trying to kill them a second radar blip to aim at.

The whole feeling of the plane changed as the huge doors in its undercarriage opened. The smooth lines of the delta wing were suddenly interrupted and the two men could instantly feel a ripple in their world.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

A camera in the bomb bay showed Martin the missile as its clamps released and it dropped away. Two seconds later its ramjet engine ignited and it rocketed ahead. Jack was watching the same image from his console and the moment the missile’s engine ignited, he flipped off the autopilot and wrenched the plane off its heading. The G-force pressed Martin into his seat and he grunted, “Jesus, Jack, is this thing supposed to turn this hard?”

He strained at his belts as his view changed dramatically. He had a brief glimpse of the missile powering off into the distance out of the cockpit window before the horizon angled to more than forty-five degrees and their hard bank obscured his view of their first launch. Oh well, Martin thought, remembering the long nights he and Madeline had spent building the warhead, I hope the damn thing actually works.

With the big hold doors straining shut behind them, Jack leveled the huge plane out again and Martin took a breath.

“We should call that first one Sylvester.” Martin said to Jack after a moment’s silence.

Jack looked at him, confused, and Martin smiled, feeling a strange peace now that they had sealed their fate and it was out of their hands. He chuckled as he looked back at his screen, saying in an aside, “Because the cat’s out of the fucking bag now.”

Chapter 57: Red Sky at Night

Alone now, unleashed, the missile surged forward with singular purpose. Fully one-third of its mass was given over to the ramjet engine that drove it forward. Its body was white and completely encased in fiberglass. Halfway along its length, two stubby wings swept back from its midriff, matched by an equally short tail fin. An air intake emerged from the top of the missile just behind the wings like a mouth gasping for air. That mouth fed the missile’s ramjet with supersonic oxygen, which was then superheated and fired out of the rear of the missile at blistering speed. A long, blue-white jet trail streamed from the nozzle at the rear of the missile like God’s Bunsen burner, propelling it forward at over a thousand miles per hour.