Why hadn’t the planners chosen that option? He zoomed the image of the chase. The passage was tight, with two elbow turns and a final V before the closet.

They must not have trusted him to guide them through the tight space. Not that he blamed them: the middle turn was ninety degrees. He’d never make it unless he was going very, very slow. And that wouldn’t leave enough flight energy to guarantee time to scout the final chamber.

But he only had to make it once. Or rather, he only had to make each stage once, then use the onboard follow function.

Turk aimed UAV 7 directly at the spot where the metal chase touched the wall of the tank. The explosion sent a shock wave bouncing through the chamber. The other aircraft fluttered but adjusted well, remaining in their pattern.

Turk next slowed UAV 8 and tucked into the chase. The speed dropped under thirty knots—slow for the craft but too fast to make the turn perfectly. He clipped the top right wing but managed to keep it intact and moving into the next elbow turn. By the time he was halfway through the elbow, his speed had dropped below stall speed, and the nano-UAV headed toward the bottom wall of the chase. Turk used his small microburst engine to propel it upward, past a twisted artery of wires and to the final V turn. He used his last bit of power to start the maneuver, then leveled off quickly to get into position to drop into the closet. But the wing had been damaged by the earlier bump, and the UAV started to spin. He managed to push the nose forward, sending the aircraft sideways toward the top of the closet wall. He pressed the self-destruct button as the right wing slapped against one of the steel members framing the door.

He wasn’t sure he had a hole. Worse, he couldn’t use the autofollow, since that would risk having the computer follow the crooked maneuver at the end. He’d have to try the maneuver again.

UAV 8 had optical sensors rather than IR. The chase was too dark for it. He selected UAV 9, circled several times to cut his speed to ten knots, then started through.

This wasn’t like flying an airplane, or even like commanding a normal UAV. This was flicking your wrist back and forth, reacting to little bits of light and dark that flashed before your eyes. This was remembering what you had seen. This was motor skill and intuition, putting everything out of your mind but the little dot of UAV that flicked behind the screen.

The image blurred from gray to gray to gray and then light, vigorous light—he was out in the corridor—and the door ahead was open.

Go. Go!

“Swarm, follow,” Turk commanded.

The swarm descended at high speed. In the meantime, he pushed UAV 9 up through the corridor with the last of its fuel, moving through the still-open door. The frightened face of a technician appeared, then disappeared as the aircraft sped to a door on the far side.

Closed.

The UAV exploded. But the rest of the swarm was now in the long hall outside the targeted chamber.

“Safe orbit,” he commanded.

Turk caught his breath. He had four UAVs left. He’d need one to blow out the door; the rest to get his target.

UAV 16 had a radiation detector. He selected the sensor panel. The radiation was at the high end of the gauge.

He was in the right place, at least.

He got a warning from the control unit—UAV 10 was overheating.

Turk took control of the tiny plane and smashed it through the door to the targeted chamber. The unit that followed flashed video from the room: massive gridwork filled the screen, silver and red.

They were cages, with tigers in each, snarling and turning to dragons.

It was an optical illusion, caused by the lingering effects of the explosion and the rush of light. But it was an illusion built on reality—there were two large sets of metal struts and scaffolds at the far end of the room, beyond three sets of low walls made of sandbags.

Two bombs, each in its own holster.

“Calculate explosion point.”

Seconds ticked by. They passed quicker than Turk expected—the solution, said the computer, was easy. It posted a crosshair between two pieces of metal on the assembly at the left, a tiny little spot big enough for one UAV only.

And that’s all that was needed, it declared.

Turk took UAV 16 and directed it into the assembly. “Target spot, ignite,” he said, directing the aircraft to ignite the explosive and detonate itself. He felt his body begin to relax as the aircraft zeroed in. The screen blanked with a flash of light.

Then the feed from UAV 9 replaced the image. That was impossible—the bomb explosion should have obliterated everything.

Except it hadn’t. The computer had miscalculated, or there was some sort of flaw in the Iranian design, or the UAV hadn’t struck it right, or any of a dozen different explanations that made absolutely no difference now.

The explosion had done something: part of the cradle holding the unfinished weapon up had fallen away. The bomb tipped over but remained intact, at least to the naked eye.

UAV 9 and UAV 15 were left, still orbiting at the top of the chamber though now at low speed, nearing their stall points. Lights flashed in the chamber—an alert.

Do something, Turk told himself. Do it.

But what?

Rubeo’s people had identified a bank of small acetylene gas tanks at the north side of the room that could be detonated if no bomb was found. This would cause a partial collapse of the chamber roof, which should set up a chain reaction from above. The result would bury the chamber.

But not destroy it.

Better than nothing. And he was running out of time, as the UAVs were running out of energy. Turk took UAV 9 over directly, locating the tanks, which looked like a set of lockers at the end of the room. He was about to put UAV 15 into follow mode when he got a better idea. He told the computer to hit the acetylene with UAV 9, then steered UAV 15 toward the bomb he hadn’t struck, aiming for the wired mechanism similar to the one he remembered from the other day. There was no time to calculate any more; he had to aim it himself.

UAV 9 struck the gas tanks. Fire flashed through the room, catching in the oxygen-enhanced atmosphere in a flash. UAV 15 wavered. He pushed hard on the flight stick, picking its nose up and plowing into the bomb assembly as his control unit’s visual screen went blank.

A second later he felt the ground shaking beneath him, a gentle roll that quickly blossomed into a harsh jerk up and down.

He had ignited the nuke, and its shock had exploded the other one as well.

ORPHAN

1

CIA campus, Virginia

NO ONE SPOKE. BREANNA STARED AT THE MAP SCREEN at the front of the control room. Turk’s position flashed on and off, on and off, a lonely green dot in a mass of gray and black.

“Seismographic data, confirmed,” said Teddy Armaz finally. “We have a nuclear explosion—odd pattern—two maybe? One partial? Looks like, uh, four and a half total megatons. Uh—”

“Judging from the wave patterns, there were two weapons,” said Rubeo. “These are only partial explosions. Whether because of our attacks or their design will require further analysis. Interesting.”

Another brief moment of silence followed, no one speaking or even breathing. And then the room exploded with a cheer.

Breanna turned to Reid. He was smiling. “We did it.”

“Yes,” she told him. “Yes.”

Reid picked up one of the handsets to call the White House. Breanna noticed Rubeo behind him. He was staring at one of his laptop screens, his face cemented into a frown.

Someone in the front yelled, “Yeah!” The cheering crescendoed, culminating in a round of applause that would have shaken a football stadium.