Ramirez watched with satisfaction as Abdoullah and Shujat began loading
the first device into the payload capsule. Shujat had carefully
attached the wiring of the krytrons to a "black box" of computer chips,
which was itself connected to a radio receiver, part of the telemetry
for VX-1. With the bomb primed, the unsuspecting SatCom crew could now
move the weapon--its fifteen kilograms of weapons- grade U235 waiting to
be imploded upon itself--up the gantry and into the satellite bay of VX-
1. That completed, work would begin on preparing the second device,
which was going to serve as a backup.
When Peretz finished, only the computer would know the location of the
first target. Total security, which meant nobody would be able to
activate any antimissile defense systems. All of Europe would be at
risk, though the real target would in fact be among the most obvious.
With the U.S.'s entire Mediterranean Sixth Fleet now anchored at Souda
Bay, a nuclear explosion there would change the equation of power
throughout Europe and the Middle East.
It was high time. The so-called Eastern Bloc had turned its back on its
Muslim friends in the region, leaving them to fend for themselves. The
East had betrayed the Arab cause, just as it had betrayed him.
In the old days, Eastern European governments hired him in desperation,
then half the time tried to kill him after he had carried out their
objectives. Even a long-term purchaser of his services, Romania's
Nicolae Ceausescu, had eventually turned against him. But he had seen
it coming, even back when he had been the personal gun-for-hire of that
late strongman, enjoying the hospitality of his plush seaside resort.
That time, his Beretta 9mm had saved the day. And now, here, now that
the launch time for the first vehicle was drawing near, he was feeling
more and more comfortable about the 9mm under his jacket. This ad hoc
collection of operatives he had brought along was going to start
getting edgy, more so as the hours ticked by.
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.