Chapter Fourteen
1:45 a.m.
"Isaac, wake up." She shook him, trying to be as quiet as possible. Outside a new storm was building, but the large barracks room in Level Three of the Bates Motel was dark and deserted, with the staff all now mobilized for the upcoming launch. 'Thank God I found you."
His eyelids fluttered, and then he slowly raised up and gazed at her, his look still somewhere between sleep and waking. He seemed to be in a drug-induced, or shock-induced, torpor. "What? . . . Cally, is that you?"
"Isaac, there's been a disaster. I don't know where Bill is, but the gantry's been destroyed. He blew it up. Jesus, when I told him to be careful and—"
"Cally." He finally managed to focus on her presence. Then he looked around. "What's going on? Where—?"
"Everybody's down at Launch," she interjected impatiently. “These hoods have taken over the Cyclops and they've started a countdown. I want to get you out of here, and then try to radio someone. Now."
"What . . . what are you talking about?" He was still staring at her groggily. "Radio who?"
"The people who set up the original security system. They—”
"ARM?"
“They're coming in. To get rid of these hoodlums."
"Well, good luck. But the man who saved me, what was his name? He mentioned something about it. Then he disappeared. I don't—"
“That's who blew up the gantry. His name is Vance." She quickly recounted the story. "I told him not to blow it up, but he didn't listen. All he accomplished was to make things worse." She was so outraged she could barely speak. The idiot! The fuck-up!
Mannheim's mind seemed to be clearing. "A countdown. But why would Georges—?"
"He isn't involved, at least I don't think so. He's been replaced by one of their people. They've taken over Big Benny, somebody who knows how to run SORT."
Mannheim exhaled. "Then, what are we supposed to do?"
"It gets worse. Not only is the gantry gone, but I'm afraid they've taken Mike prisoner."
"Mike?" He was still trying to get his bearings.
"Vance." She was suddenly embarrassed by the implied familiarity. Isaac, she noted, hadn't missed it, and he raised an eyebrow. "Look," she continued, "he may be dead by now, who knows. But I want to get you out of here, and then try to raise ARM on the radio. They were going to delay everything for a day, but now they've got to get in here and stop the launch." She paused, shaking from the strain. "Isaac, I'm not as strong as I thought I was." Her voice quavered. "I'm scared to death. For you, for Bill, for Georges, for Mike. For all of us. Even worse, I'm scared for the world."
"What do you mean?" He was finally coming alive. With a faint groan he rubbed his glassy eyes and brushed back his mane of white hair.
"I've got a sneaking suspicion that those bastards have put a nuclear weapon in the payload bay of VX-1."
"Good God. And now you say the gantry is gone? How will we get it down?"
"Look, let's not worry about that part just yet. We just have to stop them from going through with the countdown. We can disarm the bomb later."
"All right, then." He was on the side of his bed, searching for his shoes. "Get me out of here."
She led him out into the darkened hallway. The separate rooms were all locked, giving no clue who was still around. Where was the SatCom security staff? she suddenly wondered. Were they locked up in their own safe little enclave somewhere? Wherever they were, they wouldn't be any help now. They undoubtedly were unarmed and demoralized.
With a sigh she pushed open the door and they stepped out into the storm. Wind was tearing across the island, bringing with it the taste of the Aegean, pungent and raw. It felt cool, a refreshing purge after the stuffiness of the Bates Motel. The rain lashed their faces, cleansing away some of the feeling of the nightmare, and she knew that the few wild goats that had not been captured and removed would now be huddled in the lee behind a granite ledge they liked, bleating plaintively. There was a wildness, a freeness about Andikythera, as the winds tore across and through the granite outcroppings—and the sea churned against the timeless rocks of the shore—that made it feel like nowhere else on earth.
Get practical, she ordered herself, forget the romance. The storm would probably be over well before morning, but in the meantime it would just make things that much harder for ARM to reach the island. If they made it at all, it would be around dawn, just in time to watch the launch. Damn Vance.
2:05 a.m.
"Somebody's on the frequency," Hans declared abruptly. The ARM team had been settled in for just slightly over an hour, trying to keep plastic sheets over them to ward off the rain as they attempted to alternate taking naps. However, in spite of the weather he had kept open the single-sideband frequency Vance had been using, just in case. Up until now, it had been a continuous hiss of empty static.
"What the hell . . . ?" Armont pulled back the plastic, wiped the rain from his eyes, and lifted a questioning eyebrow. Around them the dark Aegean churned against their granite islet. "Vance's crazy to be on the radio now. He'd better have a blasted good reason."
"It's not him. It sounds like a woman." Hans had a puzzled look on his face as he handed Pierre the headset, shielding it haphazardly from the rain.
"He mentioned something about a woman when we talked yesterday," Spiros said, snapping out of his morose reverie. "Maybe it's the same one. She was with him then."
"Well, whatever's going on, I think we all should hear this." Armont unplugged the headphones from the radio, then turned up the volume, the better to overcome the rain and roar of surf.
"Siren, do you read me?" the voice was saying. "Oh, God, please answer."
"I copy," Spiros said into the microphone. He was as puzzled, and troubled, by this development as by all the rest. "Who the hell is this?"
"Thank God," came back the voice. "You can't wait. You've got to come in now."
"I repeat," Spiros spoke again, "you must identify yourself. Otherwise I will shut down this frequency."
"They've started a countdown. They plan a launch in less than six hours. And Mike is gone. I don't even know if he's dead or alive."
Spiros glanced around at the others, wondering what to do. The frequency was being compromised, but probably it was worth the risk. His instincts were telling him she was for real.
"Miss, whoever you are, you must identify yourself." He paused a moment, thinking. Then he asked, "Where is Ulysses?"
"I told you, he's disappeared. He screwed up and destroyed the gantry, and then he vanished. But I think they've already loaded a bomb in the payload bay of VX-1."
Spiros clicked off the microphone. "She knows Vance's code name. But half the Aegean probably knows that by now." He clicked the mike back on. "I'm giving you one more opportunity to identify yourself, or this conversation will be terminated."
"I'm Cally Andros, project director for SatCom. I was with Michael Vance when he talked to somebody in Athens named Dimitri yesterday morning. And I was with him a couple of hours ago when he was talking to you. How do you think I knew this frequency? What in hell do I have to do to convince you people that the assault can't wait? They have a countdown in progress. I don't know what they plan to do, but there's a very good chance a bomb is going somewhere."
"I think she's legit," Spiros said, clicking off the microphone again. "It adds up. Sounds like Mike was trying to shut them down and must have managed to muck things up. I thought he was better than that. But this is very bad news."
By now everybody was rousing, intent on the radio conversation. A storm was coming down, and now the whole plan was about to get revised. Again. Worse still, the insert would have to be managed without a point man. Unless . . .
"Dr. Andros," Armont began, "please tell me precisely what happened to Michael Vance. I want to know if he is still alive, and if so, where he is."
She told him what she knew, in a way that was repetitive and rambling. It also was convincing.
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"Do you think they can launch in this kind of weather?"
"The storm will probably let up by daybreak. That's how the weather usually works here. I don't think it's going to be a problem."
"All right," Armont interjected. "Looks like we'd better come in. I would ask you where you are now, but that might compromise your safety. I do have one more request, though. Could you stay by the radio and assist us after insertion, telling us—as best you know—how the hostiles are deployed? It could be very helpful. And possibly save a lot of lives."
"Yes, I'll do anything you want me to. But you can't wait until tomorrow night. If you do, there may not be any point in coming at all."
"Then stay up on this frequency," Armont said, and nodded to the others. "You'll be hearing from us."
It was a gamble, taking the word of some anonymous voice on the radio, but sometimes you had to go with your instincts. As he looked around, they all agreed.
2:09 a.m.
"Did you get it?" Radioman First Class Howard Ansel asked. The radio room at Gournes had been particularly hectic the last few hours, but he was glad he had thought of scanning single-sideband. Ansel was twenty-eight and had eyes that reminded people of the German shepherds he raised back home in Nebraska.
"It's on the tape," Big Al replied, lifting off his headphones and scratching at his crew cut. "But I don't have the goddamdest idea what it means."
"Doesn't matter. It was somewhere off Andikythera. Which means it's automatically classified Top Secret. Whatever the hell's going on, it sounds like some bad shit. What was that about a launch? Going in? Is this some kind of priority exercise?"
"Who the hell knows? But we've got orders."
He picked up the phone and punched in the number for his supervising officer.
2:12 a.m.
Armont felt the cold surf slam against his leg as they slipped the two black Zodiacs back into the swell, taking care to avoid the jagged rocks along the water's edge. The surf was washing over them, and everything felt cold and slippery. Reginald Hall was the first to pull himself aboard, after which he looked back, as though trying to account for everybody and everything. The weather was starting to clamp down now, faster than anybody could have expected.
"Pierre, vite, vite," Hans was already in the second Zodiac, tossing a line across. Their "insertion platforms," both equipped with small outboard motors, were lashed together with a nylon line. "Hurry up." He turned and used an oar to hold the raft clear. "We need to get moving before this thing gets ripped to pieces." Neoprene was tough, but there were limits.
Willem Voorst tossed the last crate of equipment into the second craft, then grasped a line Hugo had thrown and pulled himself aboard. Dimitri Spiros went next, and then Armont. The wind and current were already tugging them toward the south, so the outboards would have some help in battling the choppy sea.
Reggie Hall was muttering to himself as he tried to start the engine. He bloody well didn't fancy anything about the way things were going. Everything about this op was starting to give him the willies. When this much went wrong this soon, you hated to think about what things would be like when the going really got tough.
As they motored into the dark, Willem Voorst kept an eye on the eastern horizon, watching for the first glimmer, and prayed the storm would keep down visibility. He also monitored the compass and hoped they could stay on course. Where had the weather come from? The woman who had said her name was Andros was probably right, though; this one would blow out by dawn, but in the meantime it was a hell of a ruckus. And the reception coming up on the island wasn't going to be brandy and a dry bed, either.
"You know," Reggie was yelling, "this bloody weather might even be a help with the insertion. If it keeps up, it could be the perfect cover."
"What we really have to hope," Armont shouted back, "is that a storm like this might force them to delay the launch. She said it wouldn't, but who knows. Still, we can't count on it. By the way, how're we doing?"
"I think we've already made a kilometer or maybe a klick and a half," Hans yelled. "If we can keep making this kind of headway, we should make landfall just before 0500 hours. In time to join everybody for morning coffee." He looked around. "This has got to be the stupidest thing we've ever tried to do. We're just motoring into a shitstorm." He shook his head, and the raindrops in his hair sprayed into the dark. "I can't fucking believe we're doing it. I really can't fucking believe it."
2:15 a.m.
"Damn," Major General Nichols said, covering the mouthpiece of the phone. He was on the Kennedy, in Mission Planning, talking on secured satellite phone to JSOC Control in the Pentagon. "Gournes picked up some radio traffic on sideband. Some assholes are talking about trying to go in. Whoever the hell they're working for, they could screw things up royally." He spoke again into the receiver. "Do you have a lead on where they are?" He nodded. "Right, my thinking exactly. Which means they probably blew up that plane as a diversion. And our F-14 jockey suckered for it." He paused again. "No, we're not scheduled to go in for another twenty-four hours. But that may have to be pushed up. I'd say we have two choices. Either we interdict these dingbats, or we just go ahead and get it over with, take out the launch vehicle and—" He paused again.
"What do you mean, we can't?"
His eyes narrowed.
"Don't give me that 'classified' bullshit. I've got Top Secret clearance and I damned well have a 'need to know.' "
A long pause ensued. "Jesus! Now you tell me. 'Nuclear material'? What the hell does that mean? You're planning to send in my boys to take down a nuke! This is the first I've heard . . . Thanks a lot for telling me. Good Christ!" He paused once more. "Okay, let me think. I'll get back to you."
He settled the phone back in its cradle and looked around Mission Planning, the gray walls covered with maps. "Shit, this whole thing is coming apart."
"What is it?" General Max Austin asked. He was two-star, with steel-gray hair. As the base commander for Souda, he had been placed in charge of Operation Lightfoot, code name for the action to retake Andikythera. Even though they had known each other for fifteen years, Nichols was not necessarily pleased to have this REMF, rear-echelon motherfucker, running the show. Austin had been given the undemanding post on Crete for a year mainly as an excuse to bump up his rank in preparation for retirement.
"The whole op is rapidly going to hell in a handbag," Nichols said. "The Pentagon conveniently left one small fact out of my briefing papers. I'd kill somebody, if only I knew who." He looked up. "Max, we may have to send the Deltas in tonight. Just get this damned thing over with."
“That's not possible," Austin declared without hesitation. "This operation can't go off half-cocked. You of all people ought to know that."
"Well, sometimes circumstances don't wait around for the textbooks. The Gournes SIGINT team just intercepted some radio traffic. Somebody's out there talking, and they know more than we do. They're probably free-lance clowns, most likely mercenaries, but they're claiming the bad guys may be about to launch one of the vehicles, within the next few hours. So they're planning to hit the place tonight."
"Well, they won't stand a chance," Austin said.
"I agree, but what they can do is royally fuck up our insertion. They'll disrupt the hell out of everything and probably get a lot of the hostages killed."
"Okay," Austin mused, sipping at his coffee, "we've got two problems here. Maybe they should be handled separately. First we interdict these guys going in, and then we decide what to do next."
'The best way to solve them both at once, two birds with one stone, is with a preemptory strike on the island," Nichols insisted again. "Right now. Tonight. We just go in and take the place down."
"No way, Eric," Austin interjected. “That's going to skew the risk parameters in our ops analysis. We'd have to scrap our computer simulation and virtually start over. Hell, that alone could take us three hours."
All those fancy analyses are best empl
oyed wiping your bum, Nichols heard himself thinking, almost but not quite out loud. We've got nobody on the ground, so we're working with satellite intel, and SIGINT—which ain't giving us shit 'cause those bastards aren't talking on their radios.
"Let me make sure I heard it right a minute ago," Nichols went on. "We can't just take out the launch vehicles, a surgical strike, because there's a chance there could be nuclear material on board?"
"You've got it right. I'd hoped not to have to tell you. So consider this Classified. The whole op has been jacked up to a Vega One. We've never had anything that serious before."
That's nuclear, Nichols told himself. Well, he figured, why not. If the terrorists did have a bomb.
“This damned thing is hot," Austin continued. "They don't get any hotter. So there's no way in hell I'm going to go around procedures. If you and your boys don't do this clean, it's going to mean our next command, yours and mine, will be somewhere within sight of Tierra del Fuego. If there's a nuclear incident here, the Greek government would probably tear up our mutual-defense treaty and convert the base at Souda into a souvlaki stand. Am I making myself clear?"
"If I hear you right, what you're saying is, no way can we afford to fuck this one up."
"I've always admired your quick grasp of the salient points in a briefing. So, we're going to do this by the goddamn book; we're going to dot every goddamn 'i' and cross every goddamn 't' and get every goddamn detail of this op, right down to the color of our goddamn shoelaces, approved, signed off, and ass-kissed in triplicate. That Iranian hostage disaster did not exactly make a lot of careers. Again I ask you, Eric, am I getting the fuck through?"
"In skywriting. The only small problem I see, sir, is that while everybody is carefully protecting their pension, those assholes on the island may start slaughtering hostages, or put this 'nuclear material'—which I have just learned about in such a timely fashion—into goddamn orbit. And then my Deltas are going to be in the middle of a shitstorm they easily could have prevented if they'd been given the chance. They're my boys, and I don't really take kindly to that happening. Sir." He reached in his breast pocket for a cigar, the chewing of which was his usual response to stress.
"So what exactly do you propose we do?" Austin asked.
"The most obvious first thing would be to interdict this bunch of mercenary jerkoffs and keep them from going in there and getting a lot of people killed. I say we should find them and stop them, using whatever force it takes. There are enough civilians in harm's way as it is." He leaned forward. "Look, if we have to dick around waiting on the Pentagon before we can go in, at least we can stop these mercenary assholes. It has to be done. And we don't need some computer study before we get off our ass. I want to take them down, and nobody has to even know about it. If it comes out in some debriefing someday, we'll worry about it then."
"All right, maybe I agree with you," Austin sighed. "They should be interdicted. What do you want? A Pave-Low?"
"Just give me an SH-60. To pick them up. I'm going to put the love of the Lord into these amateurs, then bring them in. Hell, they're probably well-intentioned, just doing what somebody paid them to do." And who could blame that somebody, he found himself thinking, if it takes the U.S. of A. this long to cut through its damned bureaucracy and mount an operation.
"All right, I'll give you a Seahawk," Austin said. "It can be prepped and ready to go by"—he glanced at his watch—"0300 hours. Will that be enough?"
"Guess it'll have to be.” By that time, he was thinking ruefully, we could be taking the island. And with that thought he decided to hell with protocol and fired up his well-chewed cigar.
"Look, Eric, I know what you're thinking," Austin said after a pause. "That an old fart like me is cramping your guys' style. And, dammit, maybe there's a grain of truth in that— hell, more than a grain. But here's the downside. If your Deltas go in half-cocked and get cut up, we're going to get blamed. On the other hand, if they don't go in till Washington says so, then, yes, maybe it'll be too late, but it's going to be on somebody else's service record, not ours. I'm protecting your boys, whether you see it or not. If we only go in on orders, then the Deltas are not going to be the ones taking the heat if this thing falls apart."
"Just get me the damned chopper," Nichols said quietly.
3:15 a.m.
Mannheim looked at her. "Cally, we need to try and find him. This Vance fellow. If his friends are going to try and come in, then they'll need him to help them. He'll know what they require a lot better than you will."
She found herself nodding grimly, agreeing. Isaac Mannheim was no dummy.
"They must either have captured him or shot him," she said. "Or both. He would have come back by now unless there was a problem. But if he's still alive, then they probably have him down at Launch. And it's going to be very dangerous for us to go down there, Isaac."
"I'm an old man. Maybe I've outlived my usefulness." It was strange talk for Isaac Mannheim, but he was turning wistful, perhaps even defeated. "I do know one thing. He risked his life for me. I owe it to him to at least find out what happened. So let me go by myself."
She did not like the sound of that. "Look, maybe I—"
"No, not you. They've got to be looking for you. But they probably just think I'm an old fool"—he laughed—"and maybe they're right. At any rate, at least I can go down there and wander around a bit. Everybody knows I'm harmless. As long as it doesn't look like I'm going anywhere, I don't think they'll bother with me. At least not right now. If they're busy with the countdown, they're not going to trouble with a deranged old man. I'm small potatoes."
"Isaac, you're a very big potato." She wanted to hug him. "But you're also just about the most wonderful man I know. I love you to death. Just be careful, please?"
Now it was his turn to smile, the old face showing its wrinkles more than ever. "I'm not dead yet. And with any luck I won't be for a while." He looked at his watch. "By the way, when do you think those friends of his are likely to show up?"
'They didn't say, but I expect they might get here in a couple of hours."
"Well, Dr. Andros, we're not licked yet. With any luck there won't even be a launch. Maybe the weather. In the meantime, why don't I check the empty storage bays in Launch. Just a hunch." He rose and kissed her, then began to shuffle down the hill.
3:20 a.m.
"I'd guess he's at about a thousand meters now," Pierre was saying. Above them the SH-60F Seahawk was sweeping past, clearly on a recon. "Maybe he won't pick us up, not with the swell this high."
Armont didn't really believe his own words. The Seahawk carrier-based helo, the U.S. Navy's preeminent ASW platform, had come in hard from the south and it was searching. The question was, what for?
Whatever it was, the guy was all business. And given his APS-124 radar—not to mention his forward-looking IR capabilities—eluding detection was going to be tough.
“They must have figured out we scammed them," Reggie declared. "I was afraid it was going to catch up with us. What with the electronic assets the U.S. has got deployed in this region, you'd almost have to expect it. Probably the fucking radio. Which means we've got to keep silence from here on in. Damn."
Armont squinted through the dark. "Let's wait and see what happens. As far as I know, those things don't carry any cannon, just a couple of ASW torpedoes. We're a pretty small fish. Let's hold firm for now."
They hunkered down and motored on, watching as the Navy chopper growled on toward the north. Maybe, everybody was thinking, the crew had missed them. Maybe they were after somebody else. Maybe . . .
No, it was coming back again, sweeping, on a determined mission to locate something.
"They're going to pick us up sooner or later," Willem Voorst predicted. "It's just a matter of time."
The wind and sea were growing ever more unruly. But that was not going to save them. They all knew it.
"I've got a terrible idea," Reggie said, almost yelling to be heard
. "It's going to mean we go in with a bare-bones complement of equipment, but I'm beginning to think we don't have any choice."
"What are you suggesting?" Armont asked, his voice almost swept away by the storm.
"We cut loose one of the rafts, leave a radio transmitting a Mayday. By the time they realize they've been had, we'll be at the island."
"What about their IR assets?" Armont wondered back.
"Okay, good point. So we set a flare, and maybe attach a couple of life jackets with a saltwater beacon. That'll engage their IR."
"And what do we do? This motor will still have an IR signature."
Hall thought a moment. "We could cover everything with some of the plastic camouflage. That should cut down the heat signature enough."
"Reggie, I don't think that's such a hot idea," Spiros yelled, the rain in his face. "We're not going to be able to shake them that easily."
"Don't be so sure. There's a good chance a decoy would keep them off our scent for a while. Might just give us enough time, mates."
The Seahawk had swept past again, banked, and now was coming back. Clearly working a grid, maybe getting her electronics up to speed. Nothing about it boded particularly well—for some reason it was lit, a long white streak in the dark. Long and lean and ideal to drop ASW drogues, the carrier-based Sikorsky SH-60F incorporated 2,000 pounds of avionics and was even designed to carry nuclear depth bombs, though the choppers were never "wired" for the weapon. Its maximum cruising speed was 145 mph, with a one-hour loitering capability. Given time, it would find them.
"Willem, how much farther do you reckon we've got to go to make the island?" Armont shouted over the growing gale and the roar of the two outboards.
"My guess is we're looking at another eight or ten kilometers. But I vote with Reggie. We've got no choice but to try a decoy setup. Let's keep this raft—the engine is running better—and start moving over whatever gear we absolutely have to have."
He knew there might well be some dispute over that, with each man having a pet piece of equipment he deemed himself unable to live without. But the men of ARM were pragmatists above all, and they would bend over backward to reach a consensus.
They began sorting the gear, hastily, and the selections being made cut down their assault options. Balaclavas would be kept, along with rappelling harnesses and rope. The heavier ordnance had to be left, the grenade launchers and shotguns. They quickly pulled over a case of tear-gas grenades, but the others they left. Radios, of course, had to be saved, and the Heckler & Koch MP5s and the Mac-10s. No Uzis: those were for cowboys. Each man had his own handgun of choice, but the rounds of ammo were cut down to a bare minimum.
As they sorted the gear, they were making an unspoken strategic decision concerning how the insertion would be structured. Without the heavy firepower, they would be fighting a guerrilla war, focusing on taking out Ramirez, and hoping the firefight would be over in seconds. If it lasted more than fifteen minutes, they were finished.
The result might well be an assault more risky than it otherwise would have been. But, as Reggie was fond of saying, you can't have everything. Sometimes you can't even come bloody close.
3:33 a.m.
"Seahawk One, this is Bravo Command. Come up with anything yet?" It was the radio beside Delta Captain Philip Sexton, who was flying copilot in the Seahawk. Lieutenant Manny Jackson was pilot, while the airborne tactical officer was Lieutenant James Palmer II and the sensor operator was Lieutenant Andrew McLeod. "Any hint of unintelligent life down there?"
"Andy says the damned radar's picking up too much chop, Yankee Bravo. Don't think we're going to find these bastards. It's the proverbial needle in the you-know-what. This baby finds subs, not dinghies. Looks like all we're getting so far is fish scatter. Just noise."
"Then you might want to see if the IR will give you anything," came Nichols's voice. "The fuckers have clamped down, total radio silence, but they've got to be there somewhere."
"Roger, we copy. Don't know if we've got the sensitivity to pick up a thermal, though. Not with this weather and sea."
"Copy that. So try everything you've got, even sonar. Or the mag anomaly detector. Hell, try all your toys. These bastards are close to slipping through, and no way can that be allowed to happen."
"You've got a rog, sir," Sexton replied. "I'll have Andy give the IR a shot and see what we get."
3:39 a.m.
"They're staying right on us," Hugo Voorst observed, looking up. “They don't have us yet, but they've probably figured out we'd make a beeline for Andikythera, so all they have to do is just work the corridor for all it's worth."
"Then let's get on with it." Armont nodded through the rain. "Do we have everything you think we might need?"
"We've got everything we can bloody well keep afloat," Reggie yelled back. "We're leaving half of what we need." He knew that seven men in the single Zodiac, together with their gear, was going to be pushing it to the limit. The sea was still rising, which meant they would be bailing for their lives as soon as they cut loose.
"All right, then, Willem, set the timer on the flares." Armont shook his head sadly.
"If we keep having to abandon equipment," Hall could be heard grumbling, "this is going to be a damned expensive operation. Where in bloody hell is it going to end? When we're down to a bow and arrow each?"
"It's beginning to feel that way now," Willem Voorst groused. He had finished and was clambering into the single raft. With his weight aboard, it listed precariously, taking water as the waves washed over. He settled in, grabbed a plastic bucket, and started bailing.
Now the Seahawk was coming down the line again, making an even slower pass. Time had run out.
"All right, cut her loose," Armont ordered.
The radio they left had been set to broadcast a Mayday; the engine was locked at full throttle; and a couple of life jackets with saltwater-activated beacons had been tied to a line and tossed overboard. The flares had been set to a timer, giving them three minutes to put some blue water between them and the decoy.
With a sigh, Dimitri Spiros leaned out and severed the last connecting line.
3:47 a.m.
"I've just picked up a Mayday," Jackson yelled. "From somewhere in this quadrant. I think we've located our bogey, and he's in trouble." He banked the Seahawk, trying to get a fix. "Not surprising with these seas." He gave the instruments a quick check. "They can't be far away. Andy, anything happening on IR?"
"Nothing to write home about. There's—Jesus! It looks like . . ." He glanced out the cockpit window. "The hell with the IR. We've got a visual on this baby. He's right down there." He pointed. "See it? Let's take her in and see what we can see."
"You've got it." Jackson hit the collective and banked, heading down. Yep, he thought, no doubt about it. There was an emergency flare. Maybe the fuckers had capsized. Maybe there was a God.
3:51 a.m.
"I think they went for it," Armont declared, his voice almost lost in the storm. It's going to take them a while to figure out the raft is empty, and then some more time to make sure there's nobody in those life jackets. I think we've milked maybe half an hour out of this."
"Then we're home free," Dimitri said, staring toward the dark horizon. "We should make landfall just before first light"
"One thing, though," Reginald Hall reflected. "We can't risk any more radio contact. We're clearly being monitored. So whatever happened to Michael, he's on his own."
Armont said nothing in reply, merely scanned the turbulent skies. Maybe, he thought, the weather had worked to their advantage, had saved them from interdiction by the U.S. Navy. But would it be enough to delay the launch? He was beginning to think the storm might clear in time—given the way Aegean downpours tended to come and go—and not even put a dent in the schedule.
3:54 a.m.
Ramirez walked into Command, wondering. Peretz was at the main workstation, the one normally controlled by Georges LeFarge, and he
was wearing a big grin, the stupid one he sported so often. So what was the problem? He had sent a computer message to Launch, saying they needed to talk. What was this about? He suspected he already knew.
The room was busy, resounding with the clatter of keyboards, the whir of tape drives, the buzz of fans, the hum of communication lines, the snapping of switches. Above them a digital clock showed the countdown, clicking off the hours, minutes, and seconds, while next to it were the three master video screens: the first giving the numerical status of the Cyclops power-up sequence, the second depicting the Fujitsu's latest orbital projection, being lines across a flat projection of the globe, and the third showing a live feed from the base of VX-1, where the antlike images of SatCom Launch Control staffers could be seen methodically readying the vehicle, not having any idea what was about to go up.
"Got a little item to go over with you," Peretz said, in Arabic, not looking up from his screen. "A minor business matter."
"What's on your mind?" Ramirez asked in English. "We're all busy."
Peretz glanced in the direction of Salim, who was standing by the door, keeping a watchful eye on the staffers. Salim, he knew, spoke Farsi as a first language and English as a second. Like many Iranians, he had not deigned to learn Arabic. Peretz, on the other hand, spoke it fluently. Furthermore, he had brushed up on it in his recent experiences with the Palestinians. Ramirez, of course, had spoken it for almost twenty years, finding it indispensable for his business dealings in the Islamic world.
"The time is overdue for us to have a business chat," Peretz continued in Arabic, revolving around in his chair. "I've been thinking over the money. It strikes me that the split ought to be 'to each according to his ability,' if you know what I mean. You're a card-carrying Marxist, right?"
"If you insist," Ramirez replied, immediately realizing he had been right about the direction the conversation was going to take. He also understood the reason for the Arabic. "You may have the quotation in reverse, but I assume you did not call me down here to discuss the finer points of collectivist ideology."
"Nobody ever called you dumb, friend," Peretz went on, now settling comfortably into the mellifluous music of the Arabic. He actually liked the language better than Hebrew, understood why it was the perfect vehicle for poetry. "So I expect you won't have any trouble understanding this.'' He was handing Ramirez a plain white business envelope, unsealed.
Sabri Ramirez suppressed an impulse to pull out his Beretta and just shoot the fucker between the eyes. The only thing that surprised him was why this extortion—for that surely was what it was—had been so long in coming. Peretz had been planning this move all along.
After a moment's pause, he took the envelope and held it in his hand, not bothering even to look down at it. Instead he let his gaze wander around the room, taking in the rows of video terminals, some with data, some with shots of the working areas, together with the lines of shell-shocked staffers. Then his gaze came back to Peretz, a novice at the trade.
This inevitable development, in fact, almost saddened him. He had, over the past couple of months, acquired almost a fondness for the Israeli. He even had come to tolerate his irreverent humor, if that's what it could be called. Thus he had begun to wonder, in a calculated way, if they might have a partnership that could continue beyond the current episode. A good tech man was hard to find. . . .
"Do I need to bother opening this?" he said finally. "Why don't I just guess. At this point you feel your services have become indispensable, so you want to restructure the distribution of the money. You want to cut out the others, and I suppose there's even a chance you want to cut me out as well."
"Cut you out?" Peretz grinned again. "Never crossed my mind. The way I see it, we're business partners, baby, colleagues. I'd never, ever try and screw a partner, surely you know that. What do you take me for? No, man, I just think there's no point in giving monetary encouragement to all these other assholes."
"And what if I don't choose to see it your way?" Ramirez kept his voice calm.
"Well, there could be a lot of problems with the countdown, if you know what I mean. There's only one guy around here who could fix it. So I think teamwork is essential. You do your part and I do mine. The old 'extra mile.'"
"Your 'extra mile,' I take it, is to finish the job you were hired for in the first place." Ramirez found keeping his voice even to be more and more difficult. But he had to bide his time. A quick glance at Salim told him that the Iranian did not have an inkling of what was going on.
"You might say that." Again the inane grin.
"And mine is to restructure the dispersals of the money afterwards." Ramirez's eyes had just gone opaque behind his gray shades. "Something like that."
"Not 'afterwards.' Now. It's all in the envelope."
'Tell you what," Ramirez said finally, his anger about to boil over. "I'm going back to Launch, and I'll take this with me. What's the point in opening it here, raising questions."
"You'd better take this problem seriously, believe me," Peretz interjected, vaguely unnerved by Ramirez's icy noncommittal. "I'm not kidding around."
"Oh, I take you quite seriously, Dr. Peretz." He was extracting a thin cigar from a gold case. "I always have. You will definitely get everything you deserve."
"I intend to."
3:55 a.m.
Isaac Mannheim stumbled through the torrential rain, wondering if the terrorists were stupid enough to try a launch in this kind of weather. Actually, he found himself thinking, it might just be possible. The guidance system would be tested to the limit, but if the weather eased up a little . . .
The aboveground structures for Launch were just ahead, including the two pads with the vehicles sprouting into the sky. From the looks of things, they were both unharmed, with VX-1 clearly prepped and ready for launch. Then he paused to examine the collapsed gantry and shook his head in dismay, heartsick at the sight. That was going to cost a fortune to repair.
He shrugged sadly and moved on.
He knew it was going to be a beehive of activity inside the tech areas now. The entire SatCom Staff was on duty, which was standard for a "go" power-up situation. Which meant that they had to be holding Vance somewhere out of the way. The question was where. Where? He tried to think.
There were some spare-parts bays, locations where items that constantly needed replacing could be held ready to hand. But everything was clicking now, with those areas pretty much out of the loop. So . . . maybe that would be the place to start checking.
The main entry-points for the bays were, naturally enough, from the inside. But there also was a large loading dock on the south that allowed gear to be delivered directly from the warehouse. Maybe that would be the logical place to try and slip in. He was feeling better now, energized. Why not go in, have a look.
4:22 a.m.
Jean-Paul Moreau punched him again, then waited for a response. There wasn't one, but only because Michael Vance was near to passing out. They had taken him not to the Bates Motel but to an unused room at the periphery of Launch. Its original purpose wasn't clear, but whatever it was, it no longer appeared to be used for anything—the ideal location to beat somebody's brains half out.
"You have a remarkably low tolerance for this, you sleazy batard."
Vance merely moaned. He had been trying mystical techniques for blocking out the pain. God, he hated pain. So he attempted to focus his mind on something else, on little things like working on his boat, on making love, on Caribbean sunsets. Instead what he got was the vision of a nuclear bomb going off somewhere, and the anger he had felt when Ramirez and his thugs blew up the U.S. frigate. Still, any emotion, any feeling he could muster, seemed to drive back the pain, make it more endurable. Now he was focusing as best he could on the long-haired, blond French goon who was pummeling him. Whack. Love. Whack. Hate. Whack. Anger. Boiling, seething anger. It was almost working. Almost.
He moaned again. Then for one last time he tried
to smile. "Jesus, what sewer did Ramirez dredge to come up with you guys?"
"Good. Good. Keep talking," Moreau said. "Sounds mean you are still alive. It means you still can feel." And he hit him again, hard in the stomach, taking his breath away once more. The moans had become airless grunts.
Jean-Paul Moreau had readily accepted the job of softening up the fucker who had caused them so much trouble. It was intended to be a partial compensation for his having endured the radar treatment, and also it felt good to be able to work over the very son of a bitch who had done it. There was, indeed, justice in the world. Justice that you made for yourself. He was now making his own justice, and it felt terrific.
Vance knew he couldn't take much more of a pounding without passing out. Moreau was a professional who didn't specialize in breaking bones; instead he confined himself to internal trauma. That seemed to be his particular area of expertise. He also was careful to make sure his victim remained conscious.
Which meant, Vance knew, that this part of the program was drawing to a close. He couldn't handle much more pain, the fact of which he knew this French thug with the streaming blond hair was well aware. What, he wondered, was the point anyway? Sadism? Ramirez was still waiting in line to dish out his own particular brand of revenge. And Ramirez had forgotten more about dispensing pain than this creep would ever know. . . .
Thunk. Another blow to the stomach took his breath away once more. He felt his consciousness swim back and forth, scarcely there any more. When was this going to end? He would have signed away anything just to stop the punishment for a few seconds, and he was on the verge of throwing up. Surely it had to be over soon. He felt like a boxer who had just gone fifteen rounds with no referee. Time for the bell.
His battered mind tried to put together a guess about what was next. Maybe after this Eurotrash had had his fun, Ramirez would show up for the coup de grace. It would almost be welcome. Or maybe nothing was going to happen. Maybe Ramirez would just leave him to be blown up with the rest of the facility.
Where was Pierre? If ARM wasn't coming in for another whole day, who knew where this disaster was headed. What was Cally doing? And Bill? Were they safe?
He cursed himself again for screwing up the golden opportunity to deactivate the gantry and bring the proceedings to a halt. Instead of doing what he had planned, he tried to take a shortcut. Now he realized that had been a major mistake. And now, with ARM not coming in for another whole day, the only chance left was to try and stall.
4:37 a.m.
The wind was howling and rain spattered on the loading dock—it should have been protected, but you can't do everything—as Mannheim briskly made his way up the metal steps. The large sliding door was locked, but he still had the magnetized card that clicked it open. A button on the wall started it moving along the rollers . . . just enough to slide through . . . there, he was in.
Inside was a long hallway cluttered with various crates— either just delivered or ready to be removed, he was not sure —and he had to feel his way along, not wanting to risk turning on the lights.
For an instant, as he stumbled among the sharp corners, he really felt his age. This was not something for a retired engineering professor to be muddling with. He should be back in Cambridge growing orchids in his greenhouse. What in blazes was he doing . . . ?
Then he noticed the light emerging from under one of the doors, and as he stepped closer, he heard two voices. One of them belonged to the man who had saved him, Michael Vance. The other . . . the other had to be one of the terrorists. Now what?
4:51 a.m.
"You know, I hate to spoil all the fun you're having." Vance tried to look at Moreau, but he could barely see through the swelling of his puffy eyelids. "But I've got some unsettling news. You and the rest of Ramirez's hoods are about to be in a deep situation here. The minute you try to send that bomb up, you can tip your hat and kiss your ass good-bye. Better enjoy this while you can."
"What do you mean?"
“That nuke you've got primed. It pains me to tell you, pardon the joke, but your gang isn't exactly the crew of rocket scientists you think you are. The second the Cyclops laser hits the first vehicle, there's going to be a lift-off, all right. Only it's likely to be this island that's headed for orbit. And you with it. Why in hell do you think I was trying to stop it?" Was it true? he wondered. Think. Try to make it sound convincing.
"What are you talking about?" Moreau's blue eyes bristled.
"Just thought you ought to know the bottom line. If you're planning to liberate the oppressed masses or whatever, this is a hell of a way to start. By nuking yourself. That should really impress everybody with your dedication."
"You are going to die anyway, so what do you care?"
"Got a point there. Guess I'm just wasting my time. But there are a few people here on the island that I like—you, incidentally, are not among them—and I would kind of hate to see them get blown away because of your fucking incompetence." He paused, trying to breathe. "As it happens, I had a chat with the project director. She told me how that system works. The nuts and bolts are a little complicated, but it boils down to what happens inside the rocket when the Cyclops laser starts up. Surely you know the energy in the Cyclops creates plasma in the vehicle—that's loose atoms—which becomes the propellant." Vance looked at him. "You do know that, don't you?"
Moreau nodded, almost but not quite understanding what he was talking about.
"Good, because the interesting part comes next. You don't create this atomic soup called plasma without generating a lot of electromagnetic noise—in other words, radio garbage." You know, he thought to himself, it's getting to sound better and better all the time.
"These technical things do not concern me," Moreau declared with a shrug.
"They may not concern you, pal, but they might concern the bomb. What if one of the radio signals produced just happens to be the one that triggers its detonator? And believe me, with the smorgasbord of radio noise that plasma produces, the chances are easily fifty-fifty. I hope you feel lucky, asshole."
"I don't believe you." He sat down, in a spare chair, beginning to appear a little uncertain.
"You hotshots are a little over your head here. Maybe you ought to pass that information to the chief." Anything to get him out of here, Vance was thinking. Anything to give me a little time to recover. "I suggest you think about it." He struggled to rise, but then realized he was tied into the chair. “Congratulations. I think you just about beat me to a pulp."
"It was my pleasure." Moreau looked him over, his expression now definitely troubled. "Now I should beat you again for lying."
"If it's all the same, I think you might be smart to keep me conscious for a while longer. Maybe I can tell you how to solve your problem."
"If you are so wise, then tell me now." Moreau said.
"With all due respect, I don't talk to messenger boys." He tried to shift his weight, but his body hurt no matter what he did. "You wouldn't understand anyway. It's too technical. Why don't you let me have a chat with that genius you've got running the computer? He's the only one around here who could possibly understand what I'm talking about."
And he's the one, Vance told himself, who now holds the key to everything. Remove him and their whole house of cards crumbles.
"You mean the Israeli." He fairly spat out the words. “He's—"
"So, this operation is multinational."
"Peretz is handling the computer."
"Peretz. Is that his name?" Now we're getting somewhere, Vance thought. If I can get in the same room with the bastard, maybe I can rearrange his brain cells.
"He is supposed to be a computer specialist." Moreau's voice betrayed his contempt. "Maybe he is. But he thinks he knows everything. Whenever anybody tries to tell him anything, he just laughs and makes bad jokes. He won't listen to you."
"Well, why don't we give it a shot anyway?"
Moreau examined him closely, still s
keptical but beginning to have second thoughts. "Why would you want to do this, anyway? Help us?"
"Like I told you, I figure you're going to end up detonating that bomb somewhere. Frankly I'd just as soon it wasn't fifty feet from where I'm standing, make that sitting. I do have a small sense of self-preservation left. So why don't you do everybody a favor and let me talk to this Peretz? He has to change the radio frequency that detonates the bomb to digital mode. If that thing is controlled with plain old UHF the Cyclops may just set it off before it ever leaves the pad.”
Vance knew he was talking over this thug's head. He was talking over his own head. But who knew? His fabrication might even be true. The story, though, probably could use some work. "Look," he said finally, "why don't you raise him on that walkie-talkie and let me talk to him?"
Moreau frowned at the idea. "We've gone to radio silence except for emergencies."
"I'd say this qualifies."
“That remains to be seen." He paused. "I'll go and tell him what you said. Then he can decide for himself what he wants to do."
"I don't want to belabor the obvious here, but time is running a little short."
"I'll be back. If he says you are lying, I may just kill you myself."
Whereupon he opened the door and walked straight into a befuddled Isaac Mannheim.