XXV
Operation Corsair
Captain Richard Grayson was in his element above the dry, dark skies of Kahndaq. Final checks on the suit had been great, and now he was flying solo towards the target. The latest intel had informed him that the nuke was now on the move, towards Bialya.
If they knew he was coming, they certainly hadn't bothered to post much of a guard. Satellite imagery had shown that the missile was being transported by a very small convey. It was possible Muhannad wanted to keep it on the move for fear of air strikes. It was also possible that Bialya was the final destination all along. He'd let army intelligence figure that out after he had retrieved the core.
The suit flew like a dream. Besides being invisible, it also produced very little noise. They had timed the operation at 04:00 so that the darkness would cover the disassembly work he had to do. The darkness would also allow him to walk fifty feet so the enemy wouldn't hear him flying in.
From overhead, he saw the caravan through his night vision. Thirty men camped along the desert sands… if the infrared was correct. Five trucks and only one trailer covered in camo-tarp. Pretty obvious where the missile was hid. The tarp wouldn't be an issue as there was ample room for him to operate beneath it. The closest guards were about twenty feet from the target. So he would have to be quiet.
Even though this was a nuclear weapon, tactics had advised him that a full-on assault may prompt the Kahndaqi soldiers to launch the weapon or (even worse) detonate it. It would be the biggest suicide bombing in history as the entire country would pay the price of nuclear detonation. Don't think about it, Grayson. Grab the core and get out.
Richard landed behind a dune and began his approach towards the conspicuous trailer. He chose his path to place as much distance as he could between himself and the guards. Dick was glad the desert was very dark tonight. He brought up the specs in his view-field for the Tomahawk Block VI with all the steps required to pull the core from this large missile. Each of his index fingers were equipped with laser torches capable of cutting through a metal exterior like melted butter. It would be just like Christmas. Once he had the core, he would have to fly very, very carefully.
Richard ducked under the tarp, angling his acrobatic body to avoid the tension wires. A quick scan didn't reveal any hidden motion sensors or trip alarms. Easy pickings. Dick approached the warhead like a doctor approached a patient on the operating table. His mind went over the steps required for extraction, looping again and again like a reel. Before he began, he cast one last quiet glance backwards to make sure everything was calm. So far, so good. Time for surgery.
Breathe Grayson, breathe.
Weeks into the future, the plans for this bomb would surface. Few minds could conceive of, or enact such a device of such terrible proportion and purpose… surely this was the design of the pre-eminent evil genius of human history. It had never been designed to launch, only to lie in waiting for its intended target, an all-powerful alien from Krypton. It had been designed as a trap, nothing more.
Richard would never know how closely the laser torches in his gloves resembled the heat vision of Big Blue, or that this kryptonite/plutonium core only an arm's length away was never really meant for him. Or how the internal lead shielding lining the hull hid micro-trip-wires to the detonator…
By the week's end, the entire world would know the fate of Richard Grayson. For reasons he could not comprehend, his last thoughts were of Bruce's wife Raven and then darkness...
A mushroom stem of light, fifty times brighter than the sun, punched its way through the night sky. In cities hundreds of miles away, groggy citizens wondered why the sun seemed to rise so early. Above the forming mushroom cap, three massive, circular vortexes expanded like gigantic cloud rings across the desert sky while a mile below them sand turned to molten glass. The thirty men of the convoy evaporated, wiped from existence. Three hundred more Kahndaqi slept in a small village two miles away. They were swept into the desert by flesh-melting winds.
Green phosphorescent light, like the rise of a demon sun, lit the sky until dawn.
Author's Note:
WHY?!
Why does Robin always have to die?! Well, he doesn't always have to die. In the comics, the character of Robin has a habit of coming back from the dead quite often.
But this is Bruce and Raven's story. The events of this chapter drive Bruce Wayne closer to the edge of sanity where he will take the fate of humanity into his own hands and extract a terrible revenge...