Thomas Hoover - Project Cyclops

The first to crack, he knew, would be the two remaining Pakistani engineers. But they were amateurs, which meant they posed no real threat. More than that, their usefulness was soon going to be at an end…

No, they weren't the problem now. The problem was going to be egress when this was all over. But the old man who had been the President's professor years ago was a hostage made in heaven. And then, of course, there was the CEO, Bates. Nobody was going to shoot down a chopper with those two luminaries aboard.

Although egress was the long-term consideration, there also was a short-term concern. Salim was reporting from Command that the radio had a lot of scrambled traffic. The airwaves were beginning to have the feeling of an assault in the making…

"Okay, we're ready," Shujat announced, standing back to admire his handiwork: the armed bomb nestled in its case, surrounded with bubble-wrap. The truck that would take it from the clean room to the gantry area was standing alongside the bench. The weapon itself, accompanied by its electronics, weighed over a hundred kilograms, but they used a forklift to lower it down. Very carefully.

Shujat was nervous. Although Octol was an extremely stable compound, which made it an ideal explosive to implode the enriched uranium, still… your instincts said to be careful. One nice thing about a nuke, though: if it went off accidentally, you'd never know. You'd be vaporized before your neurons and synapses had a chance to get their act together. You were gone, baby. Atoms.

"Take it up and get it on the vehicle," Ramirez ordered. "From now on we work straight through."

The two Pakistanis nodded and began slipping a large plastic covering around the crate. The clean-room procedure, which they were following, involved encasing a satellite payload in a sterile plastic wrap to protect it from contamination when it was being transferred to the gantry area. They zipped up the plastic, after which Shujat unsealed the airlock door and returned to help Abdoullah roll the white three-wheeled truck through.

Down the hallway they glided, with all the insouciance of two grocery boys delivering a case of beer. The launch facility was compact and efficient, and the gantry elevator was only some fifty meters from the clean room. The hallway itself was now deserted, as all the SatCom personnel were dutifully in their prescribed work areas. Via computer messages Peretz had advised the SatCom tech crews that the Arlington office had put the launch schedule on a crash basis and everybody had to stay at his post. There had been grumbling, but everybody was determined to get with the program. After all, SatCom was a team.

An electronic eye opened the sealed doors leading into the gantry area. It, too, was spotlessly clean, with technicians busying to ready the elevator. Everything was being prepared for a countdown.

Ramirez looked the scene over, straightening his tie. How ironic, and amusing, to have all these fresh-faced young Americans doing your bidding. The sense of power, and irony, was delicious.

"This is the new payload," he announced, with the authority that had long since become second nature. "Open the elevator and take it up."

J.J. was there and he looked Ramirez over again, still wondering who this guy was. Dr. Andros hadn't been around for a while, and all of a sudden this asshole was calling the shots. Was he Bill Bates' new second-in-command? It didn't make any sense, but then something funny was definitely going on. The communications system with Command was all screwed up; nobody could reach Dr. Andros; everybody was ordered to stay at their posts and not take a break; and there had even been what sounded like gunfire from the sector where the clean room was. None of these things boded well.

But he said nothing, just nodded in acquiescence and opened the door leading to the gantry module. The two new SatCom technicians, who had also shown up with the new AIC (asshole in charge), rolled on the cart-which was carrying some mysterious new payload.

The gantry elevator itself operated inside a mobile tower that rolled on rails, thereby allowing it to be motored next to the vehicle and-at the lower level-opened into the launch facility. From the lower level, technicians could insert the payload module, which then would be hoisted to the top of the gantry and inserted into the vehicle's nose cone. When the vehicle was fully prepped and ready for launch, they would roll the gantry, with its elevator, some fifty meters down the track.

Until thirty minutes earlier, the gantry elevator had been stationed at the midpoint of the vehicle, where technicians were loading the "propellant" and making the final adjustments to the quartz mirrors and nozzles. Now that they had finished that task, they could begin the countdown. Only the payload remained to be installed.

J.J. watched as the technicians secured the trolley, its plastic-wrapped package, and the two new dudes-a couple of camel jockeys some of the guys said they thought they'd seen at Berkeley-into the module and closed the door. In half an hour's time it would be installed and the countdown could begin.

Willem Voorst was at the controls of the Cessna as they powered through the Aegean night, their heading 210 as they closed rapidly on Andikythera. He was holding their altitude at five hundred meters, their airspeed just under a hundred knots, barely above stall. When they were about ten klicks out, he would take the plane down to two hundred meters, then set down about two kilometers northeast of the island. The last stage of the insertion would be via two Zodiac rubber raiding craft and then, finally, scuba.

Everything still looked like a go. Reggie was leading Hans and the rest of the team through a final review of the facility blueprints, while Armont was in the cockpit, on the sideband radio to Vance…

"Roger, Sirene," Vance was saying, "we're in the communications blockhouse, up on the mountain, so we're a little out of touch, but our best guess is that Terror One is still down at Launch. Everybody else is scattered all over the facility. That suggests an obvious option."

"Copy, Ulysses," Armont replied. "That means Plan B. We'll have to take down that point, and then secure the devices. Behead the dragon, then see what's left."

"My hunch," Vance concurred, "is that if you take out Ramirez the rest of them will fold. He's their main man. But I suggest extreme caution. He's a pro."

"Copy that, Ulysses. Hang on while I put you on standby. Don't go away."

"I copy."

Armont paused to search the sea below with his IR goggles while he scanned the military frequencies. Neither pleased him. A new storm was growing, building in intensity, and it would complicate matters. But even worse, the military frequencies on the radio were abuzz.

"Reggie, something's going on around here and I don't like it," he shouted back to the cabin, his voice strong above the roar of the engines as he scanned frequencies. "There's too much radio traffic in the area, all scrambled. What do you think? I'm worried the Americans are-"

Then it came. The radio crackled in crisp military English. "Unidentified aircraft, this is United States Navy warship Yankee Bravo. You are entering a controlled sector. This airspace is currently off limits to civilian aviation. Please identify yourself. Repeat, we must have your ID and destination."

"Shit," Armont blanched. He turned back to the cabin and motioned for Dimitri Spiros to come to the cockpit and take the headset.

"Give them the cover. We're a medical charter. Delivering emergency blood supplies to Apollonion General in Heraklion. Strictly civilian."

Spiros nodded, took the headset, and settled himself in the copilot's seat. 'This is Icarus Aviation's Delta One. We have an approved flight plan from Athens to Iraklion, Crete. What's the problem, Yankee Bravo?"