Thomas Hoover - Project Cyclops

"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.

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.

"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."