Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [178]
‘What?’ Renshaw said, but Schofield wasn’t listening. He was busy looking down at the diary as Kirsty wrote in it.
After two minutes, she had five rows of numbers written out. Schofield wondered how long this was going to take. He looked at the numbers as she wrote them:
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765, 10,946, 17,711, 28,657, 46,368, 75,025, 121,393, 196,418, 317,811, 514,229, 832,040, 1,346,269, 3,524,578, 5,702,887, 9,227,465, 14,930,352, 24,157,817
‘And see that,’ Kirsty said. ‘There’s your number. 24157817.’
‘Holy shit,’ Schofield said. ‘Okay, then. What are the next two numbers in the sequence.’
Kirsty scribbled some more.
39,088,169, 63,245,986
‘That’s them,’ Kirsty said, showing the diary to Schofield.
Schofield took it and looked at it. Sixteen digits. Sixteen blank spaces to fill. Amazing. Schofield punched the keys on the keypad.
The screen beeped.
24157817 3 9 0 8 8 1 6 9 6 3 2 4 5 9 8 6
ENTRY CODE ACCEPTED. OPENING SILHOUETTE
There came an ominous droning sound from within the big black ship and then suddenly Schofield saw a narrow flight of steps fold down slowly from the ship’s black underbelly.
He gave Kirsty a kiss on the forehead. ‘I never thought math would save my life. Come on.’
And with that, Schofield and the others entered the big black ship.
They came into a missile bay of some sort. Schofield saw six missiles locked into place on two triangular racks, three missiles per rack.
Schofield carried Gant across the missile bay and lay her on the floor just as Renshaw and Kirsty stepped up into the belly of the plane. Wendy hopped clumsily up the steps behind them. Once the little seal was safely inside, Renshaw pulled the stairs up behind her.
Schofield headed forward, into the cockpit. ‘Talk to me, Gant!’
Gant called forward, the pain evident in her voice: ‘They called it “The Silhouette”. It’s got some kind of stealth feature that we couldn’t figure out. Something to do with the plutonium.’
Schofield stepped into the cockpit.
‘Whoa.’
The cockpit looked amazing – futuristic – especially for a plane that was built in 1979. There were two seats: one forward and to the right, the other – the radar operator/gunner’s chair – behind it and to the left. The steepness of the cockpit – it pointed sharply downwards – meant that the pilot in the front seat sat well below the gunner in the back seat.
Schofield jumped into the pilot’s seat just as – bang! – a large chunk of ice exploded against the outside of the canopy.
Schofield stared at the console in front of him: four computer screens, standard control stick, buttons and dials and indicators everywhere. It looked like an amazing, hi-tech jigsaw puzzle. Schofield felt a sudden panic sweep over him. He would never be able to figure out how to fly this plane. Not in eighteen minutes.
But then, as he looked at the console more closely, Schofield began to see that it wasn’t actually that much different from the consoles on the Harriers he had flown in Bosnia. This was a man-made aircraft, after all – why should it be different?
Schofield found the ignition switch, keyed it.
Nothing happened.
Fuel feed, he thought. Got to pump the fuel feed.
Schofield searched for the fuel feed button. Found it, pumped it. Then he hit the ignition switch again.
Nothing hap –
VRRRROOOOM!
The twin turbines of the Silhouette’s jet engines roared to life and Schofield felt his blood rush. The sound of the engines blasting to life was like nothing he had ever heard.
He revved the engines. He had to warm her up fast.
Time, Schofield thought.
10:45 p.m.
Fifteen minutes to go.
He kept revving the engines. Usually such a warm-up routine would take upwards of twenty minutes. Schofield gave himself ten.
God, this was going to be close.
As Schofield revved the engines whole sections of