Free Nano by Sam Fisher Page A

equipment the team used in most rescue missions.
    The six of them knew exactly what to do. Mark had created the entire set-up and was familiar with every nut and bolt of each piece of equipment. He had written the book on every procedure and tactic. Steph, Pete and Mai had been operational with E-Force for over a year, Dimitri had been working at the organisation’s Polar Base, flying Silverbacks since E-Force started and in the six months since she had replaced Josh Thompson, Chloe, a woman of enormous flying experience, had been on eight missions.
    Steph, Pete, Mai and Chloe jumped off the cart and headed for the four Silverbacks lined up along the right-hand side of the vast hangar. Mark and Dimitri stayed on the cart as it sped off across the concrete floor towards the opening leading into Hangar B and the nearest of the two Big Macs.
    Technicians and engineers in pastel-coloured boiler suits clustered around the Silverbacks. Like all the aircraft at the base, they were fuelled, checked and continuously overhauled, prepared to go just as soon as the pilots were ready to fly. Steph headed for Ringo , the auburn-coloured Silverback closest to the entrance of the hangar. Beyond that stood the black shape of John , Pete Sherringham’s regular ride. Next to John was Paul , its sleek grey camouflaged against the grey floor and walls of the building. Mai ran over to it. Last of the four, Chloe reached George , the deep-blue Silverback. An engineer handed her a flight helmet and she immediately ran up the steps recessed into the side of the plane, pulling on the helmet as she went.
    Above each of the planes, a panel slid open revealing a starry black sky. Aboard the Big Mac, Mark and Dimitri set the flight parameters and coordinates into the navigational computers and the Silverback pilots went through a litany of checks. Everything else was overseen by Sybil. All the voice comms from the five aircraft fed to a control centre positioned on the far side of Hangar A. There, a team of specially trained techs and air-traffic controllers worked around a horseshoe of smooth control panels and holographic displays similar to the ones in Cyber Control.
    ‘All systems green,’ Pete said. This was echoed by each of the other Silverback pilots. The techs on the hangar floor withdrew to bunkers close to the control centre and the engines of the powerful jets fired up. In unison, the four Silverbacks lifted from the floor, incredibly slowly at first, but then picking up speed. Each passed through the appropriate opening in the roof and continued upwards to a point 100 metres above the hangars. There they stopped and hovered.
    From their cockpits, Steph, Pete, Mai and Chloe could see a vast canopy of stars puncturing the night like pin pricks in a blackout curtain. Below lay the roofs of Tintara’s buildings. From here, the place looked deceptively small, a scattering of flat metal roofs painted with Camoflin, a special material that had the ability to confuse any form of scanner or camera that took an interest in Base One from a plane or a satellite. Beneath these buildings, the bulk of the base was spread over 17 floors, descending almost 100 metres underground. Each level covered more than two acres and housed administration, control, comms, accommodation, storage and maintenance facilities, with a workforce of 1816 men and women.
    ‘Okay, guys,’ Mark said from the flight deck of the Big Mac. ‘As you all realise, Dubai is one of the furthest points from here, a shade under 14,000 kilometres as a Silverback flies. Your flight time is 1 hour 27 minutes, so your ETA is 10.58 am local time. At Mach 6, Dimitri and I will be 32 minutes behind you in the Big Mac, ETA 11.30 am. I don’t need to tell you, a lot can happen to the people in that tower before we get there, so speed is of the essence, but so is our safety. We can’t save people if we’re in trouble ourselves. So care and speed, yeah?’
    The Silverbacks hovered for another