Thomas Hoover - Project Daedalus

"You would make a good officer, I think." Andrei Androv stood back and looked him over with a smile. "But you have to act like one too. Remember to be insulting."

After the hours in solitary, freezing confinement, he wasn't sure he looked like anything except a bum. But he'd have no difficulty leading Doktor Andrei Androv along in the middle of the night and bombarding him with a steady stream of slurred Russian: Shto eto? Ve chom sostoet vasha rabota?

How did the Soviets find out he was here? he wondered. Must have been Eva. She'd got through to them somehow. Which meant she probably was still all right. That, at least, was a relief.

After Andrei Androv clanged the steel door closed and bolted it, they headed together toward the old man's personal office, where he had smuggled drawings of the vehicle's cockpit. The hallways were lit with glaring fluorescents, bustling with technicians, and full of Soviets in uniform. Vance returned a few of the crisp salutes and strutted drunkenly along ahead.

They wanted him to help blow up the plane! He was a little rusty with good old C-4, but he'd be happy to brush up fast. After that, it'd be a whole new ballgame. Friday 1:47 A.M.

"Will he help?" Yuri Androv surveyed the eleven men in the darkened control room. The wall along the left side consisted entirely of heavy plate glass looking out on Number One. That wind tunnel, the video screens, the instrument panels, everything was dormant now. Aside from a few panel lights, the space was illuminated only by the massive eight-foot-by-twenty-foot liquid crystal screen at the far end now scrolling the launch countdown, green numbers blinking off the seconds. Except for Nikolai Vasilevich Grishkov, the Soviet chief mechanic, all those gathered were young engineers from Andrei Androv's propulsion design team. Grishkov, however, because of his familiarity with the layout of the hangar, was the man in charge.

"I just spoke with Doktor Androv, and he believes the American will cooperate," Grishkov nodded. "He will bring him here as soon as he has been briefed."

"I still wonder if I shouldn't just handle it myself."

"It would be too dangerous for you, Yuri Andreevich. He knows about explosives. Besides, you have to be ready to fly the other plane, Daedalus II, right after the explosion. Nobody else can take it up."

He laughed. "Steal it, you mean."

"Yuri Andreevich, we have made sure it's fueled and we will get you into the cockpit. After that, we will know nothing about-"

"One other thing," he interjected, "I want it fueled with liquid hydrogen."

"Impossible." Grishkov's expression darkened, his bushy eyebrows lifting. "I categorically refuse."

"I don't care. I want it."

"Absolutely out of the question. The engines on Daedalus II haven't been certified in the scramjet mode. You can't attempt to take it hypersonic. It would be too risky." He stopped, then smiled. "Don't worry. You can still outrun any chase plane on earth with those twelve engines in ramjet mode."

"I tell you I want to go to scramjet geometry," Yuri Andreevich insisted, his eyes determined.

If I can't do what I planned, he told himself, nobody's going to believe me. I've got to take one of those vehicles hypersonic tomorrow morning, ready or not.

"Impossible. There's no way we can fuel Daedalus II with liquid hydrogen. The Mino Industries ground crews would suspect something immediately. It's out of the question. I forged some orders and had it fueled with JP-7 late last night, at 2300 hours. That's the best I can do."

Chort, Yuri thought. Well, maybe I can fake it. Push it out to Mach 5 with JP-7 and still…

"And the two 'pilots' from Mino Industries," he turned back, "what about them?"

"If the American plays his part, they will never suspect." Grishkov flashed a grin.

"Unless somebody here screws up," he said, gazing around the room again, studying the white technician's uniforms, the innocent faces.

"There'll be a lot of confusion. When we start pumping liquid hydrogen into Daedalus /, the site will be pandemonium," Grishkov continued. "All you have to do is get into the cockpit of the other plane."

It would be a horrible accident, but accidents happened. They'd all heard whispered stories about the tragedy at Baikonur in October 1960, when almost a hundred men were killed because Nikita Khrushchev wanted a spectacular space shot while he was visiting the United Nations. When a giant rocket, a Mars probe, failed to achieve ignition, instead of taking the delay required to remove the fuel before checking the malfunction, the technicians were ordered to troubleshoot it immediately. Tech crews were swarming over it when it detonated.

"Then I guess we're ready." Yuri Andreevich sighed.

"We are." Grishkov nodded and reached for the phone beside the main console, quickly punching in four numbers. He spoke quietly for a few moments, then replaced the receiver.

"They'll be here in five minutes. Doktor Androv has just completed his briefing on the cockpit configuration."

"All right. I'm going now. Just get the hangar doors open, the runway cleared, and the truck-mounted starters ready. This is going to be tricky, so make sure everybody thinks we're merely taking Daedalus II onto the runway as a safety precaution after the explosion." Yuri gazed over the group of engineers one last time. Would they do it? Whatever happened, he had to get out of there and start checking the cockpit of Daedalus II before the morning's preflight crews arrived. "Good luck. By 0900 hours I want everything set."

He gave the room a final salute, out of habit, and headed for the security doors. In moments he'd disappeared into the corridor and was gone.

"Let me do the talking," Grishkov said, turning back to the others. "And let Doktor Androv translate. Also remember, he has no idea Yuri Andreevich is going to steal the other plane."

The men stirred, and nodded their assent. From here on, they all were thinking, the less they had to do with this plot the better.

Then the door opened. Standing next to Dr. Andrei Petrovich Androv was a tall man dressed as a Soviet air force major. As Grishkov looked him over, he had the fleeting impression that Yuri Andreevich had unexpectedly returned, so similar was the American poseur to Andrei Androv's own son. In height and build, the resemblance was nothing short of miraculous. This was going to be easier than he'd dared to hope. Put the American in a pressure suit, complete with flight helmet, and he could easily pass.

"He has agreed to set the explosives," Andrei said in Russian as he gestured toward the man standing beside him in a tight-fitting uniform. "Meet ‘Major Yuri Andreevich Androv.'"

Friday 7:58 A.M.

The room appeared to be the quarters of a high-ranking member of the Soviet staff, now returned to the USSR. It was comfortably if sparely appointed and even had a computer terminal, a small NEC. She'd switched it on, tried to call up some files, but everything required a password. She could use it, however, as a clock. As she watched the time flashing on the corner of the screen, she tried to remember what the Soviet major had said about the schedule… the first hypersonic test of the Daedalus was scheduled for 0930. That was only an hour and a half away.

She was wearing her London clothes again, but where the hell was her bag? She walked over and sat down on the side of the single bed, thinking. If she could get her hands on the suitcase, the Uzi might still be there.

That's when she heard the sound of muted but crisp Japanese outside-the changing of the guard. The Mino-gumi kobun were keeping a strict schedule, a precision that seemed perfectly in keeping with everything else about the facility. Life here was measured out not in coffee spoons but in scrolling numbers on computers.