Thomas Hoover - Project Cyclops

"Keep him talking," Briggs whispered across. "Keep a line open. Dialogue the fucker till-"

Hansen cleared his throat and nodded. "Look, if you'll just hold off a few more hours, maybe something can be done about the problems with the money. You have to try and understand it's not that easy…" His voice trailed into silence and he looked up. "The bastard cut the line, Ed. He's gone." He cradled the hand piece. "Shit."

Will the son of a bitch be ruthless enough to use one of those nukes? he was wondering. You can't really know, he answered himself. With a lunatic, you damned well never know.

Bill Bates was still in his office, trying to do some heavy thinking and put his problems into sequential order. The first problem was that the bastards were killing his people, mostly just to make an example and instill terror. The next one he wasn't so sure about, but from what he had seen in his occasional glimpses of Control, Cally was missing. Apparently she had gone off with the fucker who called himself Number One and hadn't come back. Was she down at Launch? Doing what?

Well, Calypso Andros was a tough cookie. They might pressure her and threaten her, but she would stand up to them. These terrorists were just cowards with automatics; he could smell that much a mile away.

The next problem was SatCom itself. He hated to find himself thinking about it at a time like this, but the company was built on a pyramid of short-term debt-construction loans that could be rolled over and converted to long-term obligations only if the test launch proceeded as scheduled. It already had been postponed once, and the banks were getting nervous. If these thugs derailed the Cyclops for any length of time, the banks were going to move in and try to foreclose on all the computers and equipment. The litigation would stretch into the next century.

SatCom. On the brink. High-risk all the way, but what a dream. Almost there, and now this.

He found himself thinking about his wife, Dorothy. She had been supportive-she always was-from the very first. Maybe after eighteen years of struggle she had had misgivings about gambling everything on this one big turn of the roulette wheel, but she had kept her thoughts to herself. Which was only one more reason why he loved her so. She had been all their married life, always there with a real smile and a hug when the going got the roughest. It made all the difference.

But now, now that the whole enterprise was in danger of going down the tubes, he felt he had let her down. For the first time ever. Even his briar pipe tasted burned out, like ashes. He had taken every cent he could beg or borrow and had gambled it all on space. Only to have a group of monsters barge in and wreck everything. Now what? He honestly didn't know.

He had flown an A-6 Intruder in Vietnam, but hand-to-hand with terrorists was something else entirely. The bastards had shut down all the communications gear when they moved in. The phones were out, the radio, and even his personal computer terminals had been shunted out of the system. He could count and he knew what automatic weapons could do. No, this one was out of his control.

He glanced around his office, paneled in light woods and hung with photographs of Dorothy and the two boys-his favorite was during a regatta in Chesapeake Bay. There also were photos of the Cyclops system and the VX-1 vehicle, the latter caught in the austere light of sunrise, the blue Aegean in the background.

He shook his head sadly, rose, and made his way out into the cavernous room that was Command. The fluorescent lights glared down on a depressing sight-the staff disheveled and living in stark fear-one armed hood at the computer, another lounging by the doorway…

Georges LeFarge looked up to see Bates coming out of his office and into the wide, vinyl-floored expanse that was Command. He assumed the CEO had been sitting moodily in his office, dwelling on the imminent foreclosure of SatCom's creditors. He must have been puffing up a storm on his pipe because a cloud of smoke poured out after him. And he looked weary-his eyes told it.

Nobody down at Launch Control knew they had been taken over by terrorists. Peretz had carefully made sure that all communications from Command were monitored and controlled. Number One had gone down there, but he apparently had managed to fool everybody into thinking he and all his hoods were SatCom consultants. One thing you had to say for them, they were masters of deceit. Number One could pass for a high-powered European executive, and he was playing the authority thing to the hilt.

"Are you bastards having fun?" Bates walked over and addressed Dore Peretz.

The Israeli looked up and grinned. "More than that, we're making history. Fasten your seat belt, 'cause your first test launch is going to be a real show-stopper. A one-of-a-kind."

“This facility doesn't need any more 'show-stoppers,' as you put it, pal." Bates looked him over with contempt. "We were doing just fine before you barged in."

"Live a little, baby." Peretz beamed back. "Lie back and enjoy it."

"Let me break some news to you, chum. This organization isn't going to just roll over and give you the store. Now I want to talk to that greaseball who calls himself Number One. It's time we got some consideration for my people here. They need food and they need to be rotated so they can get some rest. There's going to be hell to pay, and in short order. I can guarantee it."

"Hey, man, ease up." Peretz leaned back, then rotated away from the console. "Everybody's okay. Don't start getting heavy. We're just about ready to party."

"Right." Bates walked past, headed for the door. "I want to see what you fuckers have done to my people down at Launch. I'm going over there."

"You're not going anywhere, asshole," Peretz declared, "so just sit down and make yourself comfortable." He turned and signaled the Iranian lounging at the door, barking something to him in Farsi.

The man was carrying his Uzi by the strap, almost as though it were a toy, but in a second he clicked to attention, brought it up, and chambered a round. Bates glared at him, then turned away, knowing when he was licked. He might try and take the bastard, but it probably wasn't worth the risk. Not yet. The time would come.

"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-

“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!