Thomas Hoover - Project Cyclops

He pulled out his sailor's tin of matches and withdrew one. Relieved it was still dry, he scraped the match across the bottom of the can and it flamed in the dark. Next he quickly pressed the wooden end into the soft gelignite, making a target he could see from a distance.

After checking it one last time, he rose and dashed for the safety of the nearest shed, pulling the Uzi from his belt and chambering a round.

He leaned against a darkened wall and took careful aim, on semi-auto. The gantry was only a meter away from the charge when he finally squeezed off a round. It kicked up a spray of gravel next to the rails, the small stones glistening in the floodlights like small shining stars as they erupted slightly to the left of where he had placed the charge.

Damn. He knew the match could be seen, as well as the flare of the Uzi, but maybe nobody was watching. In any case, he adjusted his aim and quickly fired again. But this time he had moved the sight too far to the right. Again the gravel splayed, another sparkle under the lights, but once more nothing happened.

Now the gantry's wheels were about to pass directly over the explosive. If the thing was going to be immobilized, he had one shot left. He took careful aim and squeezed the trigger…

To the sound of a dull click. His last round had misfired.

"Something's going on out there," Ramirez yelled, grabbing Helling's arm. "I saw flashes of light. Somebody's shooting. See it? Over there." He was pointing.

"That's exactly why I wanted to check it out." At last, Helling thought. Maybe now he'll listen to reason. "Look, I'm going to shut this damned thing down right now. Till we know what's going on."

He hit the control and applied the brakes.

He had just squandered his last rounds and his chance to cripple the gantry. He sighed involuntarily. C'est la vie.

At that instant, however, whoever was manning the controls locked the wheels and there was the loud screech of metal on metal. He watched the wheels slide across the patch of gelignite, creating instantaneous frictional heat.

Immediately a blinding white flare erupted from the tracks, followed by the loud crack of an explosion. He watched as the first steel wheel was sheared away and the gantry lurched awkwardly forward. Next the axle ground into the gravel next to the track as the motion of the giant tower tilted it askew. It had not toppled over, but it was leaning dangerously. Whatever might be required to repair it, the gantry was no longer functional. SatCom was shut down for the foreseeable.

He was less than happy with his handiwork. Cally's going to kill me-that was his first thought-after her long diatribe about not doing any big damage.

Then he watched as it got worse. The gantry jerked again as the axle cracked from the stress and began slowly to heel. Like the slow crash of a tumbling redwood-he almost wanted to shout "timberrrr"-it toppled forward, landing with an enormous crash that shook the very ground around him. Angle-iron and lights splintered into the granite-strewn soil that separated the launch pad from the rest of the facility. Now the gantry lay like a fallen giant…

As he watched, he slowly recognized he had achieved nothing but malicious damage. By collapsing, the gantry was now out of the way, below the sight lines between the Cyclops system on the mountain and the vehicle. They still could launch.

VX-1 must already be armed, he realized; the bomb is aboard and set to fly.

"Goddammit I warned you it was a mistake," Helling exploded, still stunned by the view out the window. The gantry had just heeled over and collapsed onto the track.

"At least it fell out of the way," Bamirez declared calmly. "No problem." He cursed himself for not taking Helling's advice. For once the German had been right. "Nothing's changed. We launch on schedule. But right now we have some unfinished business."

"What-?"

"That bastard from up on the mountain. He had to be the one responsible. I know it was him. I can smell it." He drew out his 9mm Beretta and clicked off the safety, then angrily motioned for Helling and headed out the door. "Come on, let's get the son of a bitch. I'm going to kill him personally."

Now what?

Vance rose and started walking toward an opening he saw that led into the underground launch facility. Maybe, he was thinking, he could slip into Launch Control and somehow sabotage the vehicle itself. A dark tunnel branched off on his right-the lights were off-so he probably could go directly

Okay, he thought, assume one of the bombs must already be installed on the first vehicle and ready for launch. But given all the krytron detonators the Pakistani had, there could well be more. Maybe you should try and find them, see what you can learn. Could there be a way to disable the weapon now poised up there without having to reach it? Maybe disarm it electronically?

He tried to guess what the firing mechanism could be. Clearly if you were planning to deliver a nuke, you were going to need some way to control the detonation. So how did it work? Maybe a pressure apparatus that could blow it on the way down, during the reentry phase? Why not? As the vehicle encountered denser and denser atmosphere, pressure could activate a switch that sensed the altitude and instigated detonation at a preprogrammed height.

Or… another possibility was a radio-controlled device connected to the guidance system in the computer. That would be trickier, but it might ultimately be more reliable.

It also might be easier to abort. In fact, the whole thing might be doable from here on the ground…

But what if he got caught? His Uzi was empty; Cally had his Walther; and nothing now stood between him and the terrorists except his own… bad luck.

As he edged into the darkened tunnel, he felt the coolness envelop him. The whole operation now felt as though it were in a shroud…

He was almost at the end when he heard the steel door behind him slam shut. He whirled to look, but nothing betrayed any sign of life. Instead there was only stony silence, punctuated by the mechanical hum of the facility's underground environmental control system. But as he turned back, two figures stood in the doorway ahead.

Oh, shit!

He hit the floor just as it started, a ricochet of bullets slapping around him. Then, as abruptly as the fusillade had begun, it stopped. He was so astonished to still be alive he barely heard the voice from the smoky doorway cut through the sudden silence. Then it registered, accent and all.

"Is that you, my friend?" A pause. "You are like the cat with nine lives, and until a second ago you had used only eight. I assume your ninth got you through my colleagues' burst of impetuosity just now. But I want to see you before I kill you."

"Your counting system needs work," Vance said, still in shock. He gingerly pulled himself up off the floor, fully expecting to be shot then and there. The thought made him giddy, feeling like a Zen master living as though already dead. "I've got eight and a half left."

"So it is you." The accent was unmistakable. "Don't make me sorry I didn't let Wolf here finish you just now. However, this matter is personal. I want the satisfaction of doing it myself."

Vance stepped into the light. "Sabri Ramirez. I can't really say it's a pleasure to meet you." The giddy feeling was growing. "I feel like I'm going to need a shower, just being in the same space."

Ramirez stared at him, startled. "How do you know who I am?"

"I'll bet half the bozos who came with you don't know, do they?" Vance looked him over, feeling his life come back. Stand up and take it like a man. "Back from the dead. It's a miracle."