Meanwhile, Wohl dashed to the body of the SS-12 rocket, grabbed a cable running down the side, and pulled. The SS-12 missile was encased in a plastic transport sheath that protected it during transit but popped off easily during launch; it was simple to peel it off now. It was a real SS-12 rocket—no decoys here. He dashed forward, unzipping the sheath as he ran, then climbed up onto the cab until he reached the warhead. It looked real enough too, although he had never seen a live nuclear warhead before. “Castor, I just cracked open the warhead. Take a look and tell me what it is.”

Patrick commanded his electronic helmet visor to lock in on Chris Wohl’s visor image, transmitted from his suit’s electronics suite via satellite. He recognized it instantly: “It’s the real thing, folks—a Russian NMT-17 Mod One warhead, one-megaton-plus yield.”

Wohl turned at a sudden sound behind him and saw soldiers rushing to the edge of the garbage pit, gesturing inside. The best proof he had a live warhead here wasn’t McLanahan’s assessment—it was the fact that none of the Libyans surrounding him dared raise a rifle muzzle in his direction or even come any closer to him. They were afraid of creating a nuclear yield if they hit the missile with a bullet. Wohl knew it took a lot more than one bullet to set one of these things off—but then again, maybe they knew something he didn’t. “How do I disable it, Castor?”

“You can’t, unless you brought a whole truckload of Snap-On Tools,” Patrick replied. “Your best option is to create a heat source and let the FlightHawks finish the job.”

“I can do that,” Wohl said. He jumped down from the front of the TEL and searched until he found the diesel fuel refilling port, between the third and fourth set of wheels on the right side. The fuel tank itself was underneath the chassis and protected very well by slabs of steel, but he didn’t need it. He opened the filler port, stepped back a few paces, and activated his self-protection weapon, sending a bolt of electrical energy from electrodes on his shoulders directly into the fuel port. A few moments later, Patrick saw a flash, and a second later heard an explosion, then another just a few moments later. So much for their little sneak-and-peek operation.

“All right, Nike, you dropped your drawers—we might as well have some fun too,” Hal Briggs chimed in.

“I’m in.”

“Go for the fuel filler port on the right side between the rear wheels,” Wohl said as he moved to the third SS-12. “The TELs aren’t grounded, and there aren’t any flame suppressors in the filler tube.”

“Hey, Castor,” Briggs asked, “what’s the chance of one of those babies popping off with a yield in a fire?”

“Very slim,” Patrick replied. “If they have no safeties in them or if the ones the Russians installed haven’t been maintained by the Libyans, the worst that will happen is that the high-explosive jacket surrounding the core will cook off and scatter radioactive debris around.”