Delta Green - [48]

“That will be the Interstate highway,” Nikitin said. “The larger grouping of lights is Winnemucca.”

Oriented now, Maslov said, “We must go about one hundred and twenty miles to the west.”

“That is correct, Aleks. You may turn now, and we can follow the highway.”

At forty thousand feet, Maslov started the turbojets and reduced his speed to five hundred knots. He continued to lose altitude steadily.

At 10:40 P.M., he saw a strong glow to the southwest.

“I suspect that is Reno, Boris.”

“Yes.”

Nikitin activated the night vision video camera and magnified the image. After a few seconds of dancing around while Nikitin aimed the camera, the screen displayed a variegated pattern of lights. The highway traffic was heavy, gamblers pouring into Sparks and Reno for a night of exuberance and excess.

Maslov eased into a right turn and the camera picked up the sheen of starlight reflecting off water.

“That will be Pyramid Lake, Boris.”

“Yes. The dry lake is east of it, closer to us, Aleks.”

Maslov retarded the throttles to idle, lowered the nose, and went into a shallow, diving right turn.

The lake disappeared from his view and was replaced by the flat, green-tinted surface of the dry Winnemucca Lake, which ran parallel to Pyramid Lake. It was about twenty-five miles north of the Interstate highway.

He made one low-level pass over it toward the north, watching the screen intently for any obstructions on the lake bed.

“I believe it is going to serve our purpose, Aleks.”

“We will make one more pass.”

He added power, made a wide circle, and headed south, reducing his altitude to five hundred feet above the earth.

“They should be on the south end,” Nikitin said.

As he crossed the center of the lake, Maslov flashed his landing lights.

Immediately, he saw headlights flash back at him.

Twice.

Maslov rolled left into another turn and went north to make another approach.

Nikitin read off the checklist, and as he passed over the northern end of the lake this time, his full concentration on the green image on the screen, rather than through the windscreen, he had his flaps and gear down.

“Two-five-five knots,” Nikitin intoned.

Throttles back.

The main gear touched down, followed shortly by the nose gear.

Maslov was prepared to slam the throttles forward if he detected any extreme resistance, if the heavy weight of the MakoShark began to dig into the hard sandy surface.

But it did not.

The craft slowed a great deal faster than normal.

He estimated that they were at least two kilometers short of the end of the lake by the time the ground speed was under twenty miles per hour.

Rather than risk going farther south and running into soft spots, Maslov decided to trust the surface he had already traversed, braked, then turned 180 degrees. He would let them come to him.

Leaving the turbojets idling, he locked the brakes, opened the canopy and the cargo bay doors, then unstrapped himself. Disconnecting the umbilicals and removing his helmet, he crawled out of his seat and sat on the edge of the coaming. Reaching into the leg pocket of his environmental suit, he felt for the butt of the nine millimeter Walther PPK. He did not know these men.

Nikitin raised his own canopy and lifted the visor of his helmet, seeking fresh air.

The van appeared three minutes later, traveling by the light of its parking lights.

It pulled up alongside the MakoShark and doors began to open. A ramp was lowered. The four men he had been told to expect scrambled about.

One of them brought an aluminium ladder and laid it against the side of the fuselage.

“Stay here, Boris. Watch the readouts.”

“Of course, Aleks.”

Maslov slid down the curve of the chine, found the ladder with his feet, and worked his way to the sandy surface of the lake. He would have to remember to wipe the sand from his boots before reentering the cockpit.

All four of the men were staring in awe at the blackskinned aerospace craft.

“Come, come! We must move quickly!” he said.

“Yes,” one of them said, then issued orders.

It took the strength of all five of them to push each of the cargo boxes on their wide-tired casters across the hard surface and position them below the cargo bays. Using a controller inside the bay, Maslov lowered the cables that were attached to cast-iron hooks on the sides of the boxes, then raised the boxes into the bays. They snugged up tightly against the top braces in the fuselage.

With a flashlight, he carefully examined the fit. It was not as good as with the cargo pods designed for the job, but it would do.

He stepped out from under the fuselage and aimed his flashlight at the faces of the four men watching him. They blinked their eyes against the bright light.

“It is good?” the apparent leader asked him.

“It is good,” he responded while fishing the Walther out of his leg pocket.

He shot the leader first, then the other three.

They plopped into the sand even as the echoes of the shots rolled across the dry lake bed.

He played the light over their forms, and when he saw a throat twitching, shot each of them once again.

Then he replaced the automatic in his pocket, climbed the ladder, and kicked it away from the chine.