Vance cocked the Pakistani's Uzi and trained it on the door, not sure
what to do. The fear was that he might inadvertently kill a friendly.
Hostage situations always presented that harrowing possibility. Quick
identifications and quick decisions were what made good antiterrorist
teams. He was afraid he had neither skill. He wasn't even that great a
shot.
But events were to break his way for a change. As the door swung in, he
saw a woman framed there. He needed only to lock eyes with her to know
she was a friendly. Okay, one ID out of the way. Then a man behind her,
dressed in a tailored charcoal suit, reached out to seize her and pull
her in front of him.
No good. As Vance watched, mesmerized, she elbowed him in the chin,
sending him reeling backward and out into the hallway. Then, before he
could recover, she slammed the door, using her other elbow to hit the
blue Airlock button next to the frame. With electronic efficiency, the
red "Sealed" light above the door blinked on and bolts around the edges
clicked into place.
She turned, still shaking, and looked at him. "Please tell me you're
not one of them, too."
"No way. I'm just a tourist." Vance examined her and liked her on the
spot. She was a stunner, with dark hair and an eye-catching sweater
emblazoned with the SatCom logo-- one of those take-charge women made
for the modern age. Exhibit A: she'd just iced the thug in the hallway.
"And who are you?"
Instead of answering, she glanced over at the Pakistani, his mouth
gagged. "I see you've already met one of our new guests."
"We got acquainted informally. Not exactly a meaningful relationship."
He stared at the door, wondering how long it would hold. "By the way,
is that guy outside who I think he is? Didn't he just shoot somebody in
your control room?"
"He did. And you were probably about to be next." She took time to
examine him more closely. He couldn't tell if she liked what she saw,
but her look quickly turned to puzzlement. "You're soaking wet."
"I had an afternoon dip."
"What? You swam here?" She looked about the room, then back. "How--"
"In a manner of speaking."
"Who are you?"
"Mike Vance." He extended his hand. "Friend of Bill's. It's a long
story. In real life I run a sailboat charter operation back in the
Bahamas. And you?"
"Cally Andros. I run this place, or at least I did until last night."
She shook his hand, tentatively. "So what are you doing here?"
"As I said, just an island tourist. But I've got to tell you, Greek
hospitality isn't what it used to be." He reached down and picked up
the box with the krytrons. "Now what do you say we get out of here
before that guy outside comes blasting in?"
"Through that door?" She laughed. 'That's an inch and a
half of steel. Even better, it's fail-safe, which means that if the
electronics fail, it stays in the locked mode anyway."
He liked her snappy answers. "Nothing lasts forever. I strongly
recommend we do ourselves a favor and move along." He turned and
indicated the open panel where the wiring entered. "How does the back
way sound to you?"
"You came in through there?" She clearly was startled. "You're either
very smart, or very stupid. That's where--"
"I'll tell you what's really stupid. Standing around while those goons
figure out how to take out that door. Because there's something in here
I've got a feeling they're going to want back very badly."
"You mean him?" She pointed at the Pakistani, still gagged, hunching
down on the floor.
'This one? Doubt that. He's just a water carrier. No, I'm talking about
the gadgets inside this box."
"What . . . ?"
"Check them out." He passed it over. "What do you think?"
She lifted out one of the glass-covered units, three wires extending
from one end, and her dark eyes widened. "My God, do you know what this
is?"
'Tell me."
"It's a krytron." She rotated it in her hand, gently, as though it were
crystal. "I've never actually seen one before, only pictures. You can
trigger a nuclear device with one of these. They're worth millions on
the black market."
"Guess we just made the Fortune Five Hundred." He laughed. "If we live
long enough to cash them in. Should be lots of buyers around the Middle
East."
"Do you realize--?"
'The nightmare's finally come true? Looks that way." He sighed.
"Terrorists are building a bomb. Or, more likely, they've managed to
steal one somewhere."
"One?" She shivered from the cold and pulled at her sweater. 'There
must be more than one, if they've got all these detonators."
"But a bomb is just another chunk of enriched uranium without these,
right?"
"Well, if they're planning to do more than threaten . . . Oh, my God."
She froze. "That explains why they've got Georges changing
trajectories. They--"
"What! Are they tinkering with your rockets?"
"So far just the computer-guidance part. But if they put a bomb on VX-
1, who knows what they could end up doing?"
"How does nuclear blackmail sound? But nobody goes to this much trouble
just to shake down a corporation. There're lots of easier ways." He
paused to ponder. Ten to one it's not SatCom they're holding for
ransom. They're aiming for a lot higher stakes. They're probably
planning to shake down a country somewhere. No prizes for guessing
which one."
"The U.S.," she guessed anyway. "Think they can get away with it?"
"Probably not without these." He closed the box. "Maybe we've just
pulled the plug. So let's take these and get out of here."