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Title: Project Cyclops
Author: Thomas Hoover

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THOMAS HOOVER

“A high-tech launch site, a missing nuke, and Arab terrorists with
nothing to lose . . .”

In the sun-dappled waters of the Aegean, ex-agent Michael Vance
pilots the Odyssey II, a handmade replica of the sailcraft of the ancient
hero Ulysses. Out of nowhere, a Russian Hind gunship with Arab
terrorists at the helm fires upon the tiny ship below. The terrorists’
destination is a tiny Aegean island where a U.S. aerospace corporation
carefully guards the Cyclops 20-megawatt laser launch facility. But th
company security force is no match for the firepower of the Arab
invasion and the launch site is quickly overrun. With helpless horror,
the executives can only watch as renegade technicians convert the
launch vehicle into a ballistic missile that can deliver their stolen
thermonuclear warhead to any city in the U.S.

Left for dead amid the smoking ruins of Odyssey II, Michael Vanc
washes up on the occupied island – and becomes America’s only hope.

BOOKS BY THOMAS HOOVER

Nonfiction
Zen Culture
The Zen Experience

Fiction
The Moghul
Caribbee
Wall Street Samurai
(The Samurai Strategy)
Project Daedalus
Project Cyclops
Life Blood
Syndrome

All free as e-books at
www.thomashoover.info

PROJECT CYCLOPS A Bantam Falcon Book/September 1992

All rights reserved. Copyright © 1992 by Thomas Hoover. Cover art
copyright © 1992 by Alan Ayers. ISBN 0-553-29520-9 Published
simultaneously in the United States and Canada
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
OPM 0987654321

Grateful acknowledgment is made to reprint from the following: "On
forelands high in heaven" from More Poems from The Collected Poems of
A.E. Housman. Copyright © 1936 by Barclays Bank Ltd., Copyright © 1964
by Robert E. Symons. Copyright © 1965 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

KEY WORDS:

THOMAS HOOVER (Author)
PROJECT CYCLOPS (Novel: Techno Thriller)
Arab Terrorists, Laser, Aegean, Odyssey, Aerospace,
Ballastic Missile, Thermonuclear Warhead, Ulysses, U.S. Navy,
Israeli Terrorist, Hind, Spacecraft, satellite, Pakistan nuclear bomb,
mercenaries

PROJECT CYCLOPS

PREFACE
7:22 P.M.

"Keep her above three hundred meters on the approach." Ramirez's hard
voice cut through the roar of the 2,200-hp Isotov turboshafts. Down below,
the cold, dusk-shrouded Aegean churned with a late autumn storm. "Any
lower and there'll be surface effect."
"I'm well aware of that," the Iranian pilot muttered, a sullen response
barely audible above the helicopter's noise and vibration. It stopped just short
of open disrespect.
Sabri Ramirez did not mind. The two Iranians had been an unfortunate
necessity, but in three days they would be dead. The others, the professionals,
were the ones who counted. When he hand-picked the European terrorists
now resting on the four litters in the main cabin, he had gone for the best.
Each man had a track record and a purpose. Ramirez, however, was the leader,
fully in control. He had planned, financed, and now commanded the
operation.
In the ghostly light of late evening, his sleek cheeks, iron- shaded temples,
and trim mustache gave no hint of the extensive plastic surgery that had
created this, his latest face. He wore a black jumpsuit, like the others, but
under his was a $2,000 Brioni charcoal double-breasted—perhaps more suited
for a three-star dinner in Paris, at L'Ambroisie or La Tour d'Argent, than the
operation at hand. All the same, he felt comfortably at home in this Hind-D
helicopter gunship, the most lethal assault machine ever. Their operation had
two objectives, and the first had just appeared on the bright green cockpit
radar.

It was the 2,600-ton U.S. frigate Glover, Garcia class, which the National
Security Agency had converted into a Mid-East spy platform. Loaded with
missile-tracking and communications-monitoring antennas, it had to go.
Ramirez expected no difficulties. Like the USS Stark, the frigate disabled
by Iraqi Exocet missiles in the Persian Gulf in 1988, it was a perfect target.
With only one gun, it would be child's play for a fully-armed Hind.
"Activate IFF," he ordered, glancing back at the instrument panels. "They
should acquire us on radar within two minutes now."
"IFF on." Salim Khan, the still-brooding Iranian, nodded and reached for
the interrogator/responsor in the panel on his right. They were using the
NATO Identification System, a low-band interrogator, into which they had
programmed the false Israeli Identification Friend or Foe code. The gray box
would receive the electronic query, "Are you a friend?" and it would
automatically reply, "Yes, this aircraft is friendly."
Ramirez watched with satisfaction as the green numbers flashed.
Deception, he thought. The key to everything.
In the intelligence dossiers of Mossad, and the U.S. CIA, he was known as
the Hyena, killer of hundreds in Europe and the Middle East. But his most
cherished recent fact in those dossiers was the item declaring the disbanding
of his private organization. He thankfully had been written off. Of course, the
self-important analysts reasoned over their pipes and printouts, of course the
chimera named Sabri Ramirez must be dead. His unmistakable touch had not
been on a bombing in years. The playboy terrorist who flaunted silk suits, had
cellars of rare vintage wines in Tripoli, Damascus, Baghdad, and Beirut . . .
that man wouldn't just retire. He had to be gone.
They were half right. He had wearied of the squabbles and disputes of a
far-flung organization; however, he had not lost his taste for money. Or his
hatred of the United States.
Now that NATO was falling apart, America was trying to take over the
Middle East—aided by its European lackeys. But he had put together a plan
that would end America's global military intimidation once and for all. Not

coincidentally, he was going to acquire eight hundred million dollars in the
process.
"We'll be exposed," he continued, "but just for about three minutes. They
only have one gun, a .38 caliber DP Mark 30, mounted on the forward deck. It
is in plain view. Remember I need a clear ten-second window for the Swatter.
After we neutralize their main ordnance, we come about and strafe the
communications gear."
He hoped this dense Iranian understood the approach profile. He had
briefed the man over and over, but still he was not sure it had sunk in. He
examined Salim Khan one last time—the bulky face with sunken, almost
depressed eyes—and stifled a sigh of exasperation. Iranians.
Still, he had better not offend the man's much-vaunted honor. After all,
Salim had single-handedly stolen the Hind gunship they were now flying from
the Iranian Air Force, providing a crucial component in the overall operation.
A rare prize, the Hind had been secretly purchased by the IAF from an Afghan
rebel unit—which had captured it in 1987. Iran had wanted to see one up
close, against the day the Soviets might turn their anti-Islamic paranoia
against them and try to invade. That day had never come. And now this
disaffected air force lieutenant had simply stolen it. At last, Ramirez thought
with satisfaction, their valued prize would be put to use.
Salim Khan had mastered the Hind's controls years before, had flown it
often, and just four days ago he had taken it up, shot his weapons operator,
and used a fake identity to file a new flight plan, setting down to refuel in
Rawalpindi. The theft had caused a tempest. When they discovered it, the
mullahs had blamed America and engineered a demonstration in the streets of
Tehran so they could bray in the press.
But by that time he had already taken it out over the gulf and landed it on
the camouflaged Greek cargo ship they had waiting. After navigating the Suez
Canal, that ship was now anchored safely off Crete's main port of Iraklion.
For Salim Khan, who had twice been passed over for promotion to captain,
the taste of revenge in that theft was sweet indeed.

"The most important part of the approach," Ramirez went on, "is to make
sure we're ID'd by their VIS, their Visual Identification System. It's crucial
they make our Israeli markings."
The Hind-D looked like nothing else in the world, one of a kind. Its visual
profile, dark green against the sunset hues of the sky, should be unmistakable.
Or so he hoped. Almost sixty feet long and over twenty feet high, it had a
main rotor fifty-five feet in diameter and a heavy, retractable landing gear.
The tandem stations in the nose for the weapons operator, and the pilot above
him, had individual canopies, with the rear seat raised to give the pilot an
unobstructed forward view. Any schoolboy should be able to identify one a
mile away, as well as its Israeli markings—the blue Star of David in a white
circle.
"I still think it's unnecessary," Salim Khan mumbled into his beard. "It only
adds to our risk. It would be better—"
"A visual ID is essential." Ramirez cut him off. "When they make it, they'll
go through the Sixth Fleet HQ in Gournes for verification, then—"
'They just acquired us on radar," the Iranian interjected, as a high-pitched
alert sounded from the instrument panel and a line of green warning diodes
turned red.
"Right on schedule." Ramirez nodded. "The U.S. Navy never sleeps." He
turned and motioned to one of the men crouched on a litter in the main cabin,
shouting above the noise. "Peretz, it's time to start earning your share."
Dore Peretz, a veteran of the Weizman Institute, was a specialist in
strategic weapons and their delivery. But that was another life. Now he was
free-lance. Ramirez had picked him for his technical skills, and his greed.
He rose and made his way forward, working carefully through the jumble
of legs and automatic weapons. He was younger than he appeared; his
prematurely salt-and-pepper hair made him look late forties, though he
actually was only thirty-nine. He settled into the weapons station below
Salim, pulling down his black turtleneck, the better to accommodate a flight
helmet, and went to work.
"Are you ready?" he asked Salim, in perfect Farsi.

"I am ready if God is ready," the Iranian replied grimly, his eyes beginning
to gleam from the strain.
Peretz reached down and switched the radio to 121.50 megahertz, the
military emergency channel.
"Mayday. Mayday. Israeli Hawk One requesting permission for emergency
approach." He then repeated the announcement in Hebrew. It was, of course, a
pointless gesture for the illiterate Americans, but for now verisimilitude
counted.
"We copy you, Hawk One. This is USS Glover. We've acquired you on
radar," came back the response, a Southern drawl, young and slightly nervous.
"What seems to be the problem?"
"One of our turboshafts has started losing oil pressure. We could use a
visual check. What's your position?" He glanced down at the green radar
screen and grinned. It showed the frigate's coordinates to within meters.
The radioman complied with his request, then continued. "There could be a
problem, Hawk One. The storm's just pushed the sea over four feet. It's a
helluva—"
"Permission to approach. We have a situation here," he continued in
English.
"Have to check that with the TAO. We've got a perimeter," came back the
uneasy answer.
"Fuck your perimeter, sailor." Peretz’ voice was harder now. "This is
Lieutenant Colonel Leon Daniel, Israeli Air Force. We've got an emergency
and we're coming in. Tell that to your TAO, and get us perimeter clearance.
We're coming by." He switched off his mike.
"Well done." Ramirez nodded his approval. "Just the right combination of
entreaty and bravado. I think the Americans will be stymied. The good-
neighbor policy they like to talk about."
He leaned back and wished he had a cigar. The other men waiting,
crouched in the dark, had understood only some of the English. They were
four Germans, a Frenchman, and a Greek.

"Conditional clearance granted," crackled the radio. "But we have to visual
ID you first. Approach from vector three-two-zero. Emergency rescue op
being readied, just in case."
"Roger, USS Glover," Peretz spoke back sharply, in his best military style.
"Keep the coffee hot."
"It's always hot, sir. This is the U.S. Navy."
"Appreciated."
"Glad to be of help, Hawk One."
Peretz clicked off the radio and turned around. "I think they bought it."
"So far so good," Ramirez nodded.
He descended the three steps down into the lower cockpit, the weapons
station, and stood behind Peretz, looking it over again. The Hind's offensive
capability included a four-barrel Gatling-type 12.7mm machine gun in a turret
under the nose, as well as 32-round packs of 57mm rockets secured on
hardpoints on each stubby auxiliary wing. Finally, the wingtips carried four
Swatter homing antitank missiles, two on each side. Plenty of firepower for
what he intended.
"Remember," he said to Salim as he moved back up, "no hint of hostile
action until after they make the ID." Would the stubborn Iranian hold steady?
Stick to the procedure?
He checked his watch. Four and a half minutes should take them inside the
VIS range. The altimeter showed that they were now at eleven hundred
meters, and so far the Iranian was bringing her in perfectly. Of course, after
the frigate confirmed they were flying a Hind . . . but by then it would be too
late. . . .

"I was doubling Cape Maleas when the swell, the current, and the North Wind
combined to drive me sidelong off my course and send me drifting past
Kythera. The force of the gusts tore my sails to tatters, and for nine days I was
chased by those accursed winds across the fish-infested seas. But on the tenth
I made the country of the Lotus-Eaters."

From The Odyssey: Book Nine

CHAPTER ONE
7:25 P.M.

"Do you read me, Odyssey II? Come in." The radio crackled on channel
sixteen, the ocean mariner's open line. "Goddammit Mike, do you copy?
Over."
Michael Vance was exhilarated, and scared. The salty taste of the Aegean
was in his mouth as he reached for the black mike of his radio, still gripping
the starboard tiller. His waterproof Ross DSC 800 was topside, since there
was no other place for it.
He was lean, with leathery skin and taut tanned cheeks all the more so for
his having spent the last three days fighting the sea. He had dark brown hair
and a high forehead above eyebrows that set off inquiring blue eyes. His face
had mileage, yet was curiously warm, with a slim nose that barely showed
where it had been broken year before last—during an ARM special op in Iran.
"Is that you, Bill? Good to hear your voice, but this is a hell of a time—"
"Who else would it be, you loony gringo? Hey, I'm getting a damned lot of
static. How about switching channels? Over to seventy."
"Seventy, confirmed." He pushed in the code, his fingers slippery and wet.
The wind was already gusting up to thirty
knots, while his boat was crabbing across the growing swell. "Okay, Lotus-
Eater, you're on."
"Listen, old buddy," the voice continued, clearer now that it was digital,
"our weather radar shows a squall building in the north, up in the Sporades,
and it looks like it could be a real bear. It's going to be all over your butt in no
time. Thought I'd better let you know. You ought to try and hole up down on
the south side of Kythera."
Kythera was an island just off the southeast tip of Greece's Peloponnesos.
It was now looming off Vance's starboard bow, barren mountains and sheer
cliffs.

"I've been watching it," he yelled back into the mike, holding it close to
shield it from the howl of wind. The gale was coming in at an angle to the
waves, creating two swells running at ninety degrees, and the sea was getting
short and confused. "But I think I can ride it out. I'm making probably seven
or eight knots." He paused, then decided to add a little bravado. No point in
admitting how worried he was. "Just a little rock and roll."
'That's horseshit, friend. This thing's for real. You'd better head for cover."
It was the profane, oversmoked voice of Bill Bates, CEO of SatCom, who'd
been monitoring his trip using the awesome electronics he'd installed on the
little island of Andikythera, fifteen kilometers south of Kythera. "Even old
Ulysses himself had that much sense, and it's common knowledge that guy
didn't know fuck-all about sailing. Took him ten years to get home.
Remember that inlet on the south side of the island, that little harbor at
Kapsali? We put in once for a drink last year. I respectfully suggest you get
your ass over there and drop anchor as soon as possible."
"And let you win? No way, Jose." He was jamming his weight against the
starboard tiller, and the radio was distracting. As far as he was concerned, the
wager with Bates was ironclad: retrace Ulysses' route in a fortnight and do it
without ever touching land. "I just think you're getting worried. You suddenly
remembered we've got ten large riding on this. Somebody's got to lose, and it's
going to be you, pal."
"You're a headstrong idiot, Michael," Bates sputtered. "Fuck the ten grand.
I don't want it and you don't need it. I'm hereby going on record as taking no
responsibility for this idiotic stunt, from this point on. You're really pushing
your luck."
"We both know this ain't about money. I've got a reputation to live up to."
Like finding out how many ways I can kill myself, he thought. Jesus! How
did I get into this?
He reached to secure the linen sail line to a wooden cleat. The heightening
swell was churning over the gunwales, soaking him as it drove the bow to
leeward.

"Well, for once in your life use some sense. The risk isn't worth it. Our
weather radar here at the facility tells no lies, and you should see it. This is
going to be a granddaddy. I've triangulated your position and you're only
about four klicks off the east side of Kythera. You could still run for that little
harbor down south before it hits."
"I know where I am. I can just make out the island off my starboard bow.
About two o'clock." It's tempting, he told himself. Damned tempting. But not
just yet.
'Then go for it." Bates coughed. "Listen, you crazy nut-cake, I have to get
back out to Control. We've got a major run-up of the Cyclops laser system
scheduled tonight for 2100 hours. So use your head for once, goddammit, and
make for that anchorage."
"Your views are taken under advisement. But a great American philosopher
once said it ain't over till it's over." He pushed the thumb switch on the
microphone, clicking it off. Then he switched it on again. "By the way, amigo,
good luck with the test." The Cyclops was going to power the world's first
laser-driven space vehicle. Who knew if it would work?
'Thanks, we may need it. Catch you again at 2300."
"See you then." If I'm still around, he thought. He clicked off his mike,
then switched back to channel sixteen. The radio was the only electronic
equipment he had permitted himself. He enjoyed monitoring the Greek chatter
coming from the island fishing boats and trawlers, which worked nights. Lots
of bragging.
Now, though, the bursts of talk on the open channel were all about the
building storm. The fishing boats this night had abandoned the Aegean to the
massive inter-island ferries. In fact, those white multi-deck monsters were his
real concern, more than the storm. Odyssey II had no radar, and his tiny mast
lantern would just melt into the rain when the storm hit. Sailing in the dark
and in a squall was a game of pure defense; he had to keep every sense alert—
sight, hearing, even smell. He prayed the ferry lanes would be empty tonight.
A Nomicos Line triple-decker could slice his little homemade toy in half
without ever knowing he was there.

Odyssey II was a thirty-eight-foot wooden bark, planked construction of
cypress on oak, that no sane man would have taken out of a marina. But
Michael Vance was hoping to prove to the world that the fabled voyage of
Ulysses from Troy back to Greece could have happened. Unlike anything seen
afloat for almost three thousand years, his "yacht" was, in fact, an authentic
replica of a single-masted Mycenaean warship. Painted lavender and gold—
the ancient Greeks loved bold colors—she could have been a theme-park ride.
But every time he looked her over, he felt proud.
His browned, cracked fingers gripped the wet wood as the sea churned
ever higher, now blotting out the dim line of the horizon. The storm was
arriving just as daylight faded— the worst moment.
Enough thinking, he ordered himself, audibly above the gale. It's bad for
the reflexes. Just keep the tiller to leeward and don't shorten sail. Go for it.
Just get around Kythera, then heave to and lie in the lee till the worst is over.
Another five, maybe six kilometers should do it.
Vance wasn't Greek; he was American and looked it. As for Greece and
things Greek, he preferred tequila over ouzo, a medium-rare sirloin to chewy
grilled octopus. All the same, years ago he had gotten a Ph.D. in Greek
archaeology from Yale, taught there for two years, then published a celebrated
and radical theory about the Palace of Knossos on Crete. The book had caused
an uproar in the scholarly community, and in the aftermath he had drifted
away from the world of the ancient Greeks for several years. With this project,
he liked to think, he was coming back home. He had just turned forty-four,
and it was about time.
Age. More and more lately he realized he preferred old,
well-crafted things: stick-shift transmissions, tube amplifiers, vinyl
recordings. Anything without numbers that glowed. Odyssey II was as close to
that feeling as he could get.
Coming in now was his first real weather, and he had his numb, pained
fingers crossed. His creation had certain historically precise features yet to be
fully tested in high seas. He had built her in the style of ships in Homer's time,
which meant she was hardly more than a raft with washboard sides. Four

meters across the beam, with a shallow draft of a meter and a half, she was
undecked except for a longitudinal gangway over the cargo and platforms at
the bow and stern, protected with latticework to deflect enemy spears. It did
not help much, however, against the swell. The keel extended forward at the
bow, supposedly for additional lateral plane, and that was a plus when
reaching with the wind abeam or tacking to windward, but now, running
downwind, it increased her tendency to sheer about. All his strength was
needed on the tillers just to keep her aright.
There were other problems. Maybe, he thought, Ulysses had them, too.
He'd reproduced the ancient Aegean practice of tying the ends of the
longitudinal wales together at the stern, then letting them extend on behind the
ship and splay outward like the tail feathers of some magnificent phoenix.
Although he loved the beauty of it, now that "tail" was catching the wind and
making steering even tougher.
Probably should have left the damn thing off, he'd often lectured himself.
But no: Odyssey II had to be exactly authentic . . . or what was the point? No
guts, no glory. The ancient Greeks were the astronauts of their age, the
Aegean their universe, and he wanted to recapture the triumphs and the fears
of Homer's time, if only for a fortnight.

7:28 P.M.

"Sir, we got an RQ from the Glover." Alfred Konwitz, a twenty-year-old
Oklahoman with a thirty-eight-inch waist and known to the evening radio
shift affectionately as Big Al, lifted off his headphones and reached for his
coffee, extra cream and sugar, which he kept in a special Thermos cup.
The United States has two bases on the southern Mediterranean island of
Crete, strategically close to Libya and the Middle East in general. They are
the naval and air base at Souda Bay, which is large enough to accommodate
the entire Mediterranean Sixth Fleet, and the communications base at
Gournes, in the southern outskirts of Iraklion, Crete's capital city.

He and Staff Sergeant Jack Mulhoney were at Gournes, on the fourth floor
of the faceless gray building that housed operations for the massive battery of
antennas. They both knew the Glover was a Garcia-class frigate, technically
part of the Sixth Fleet, on a routine but classified intelligence-gathering
assignment a hundred kilometers northwest of Souda Bay.
"They've got an Israeli chopper Mayday," Konwitz continued. "They need
a verify. See if it's a scheduled op or what."
Jack Mulhoney was busy with paperwork—more damned forms every day
—and did not really want to be bothered. He got off at midnight, and the staff
officer had ordered it completed and on his desk, by God, by 0800 tomorrow.
Or else.
'Then run it by Traffic," he said without looking up. Forms. "Maybe it's
some exercise. You could call down to the Mole and see if it's on his
schedule."
The Mole was Charlie Molinsky, who ran the Traffic Section on the second
floor. If the Israeli chopper was on a regular op, he would have it in the
computer.
"Roger." Konwitz punched in the number and asked Molinsky to check it
out. As he waited, he found himself wishing he were back in Oklahoma,
hunting white-tail deer on his uncle's ranch. They were as thick as jackrabbits.
He only had six months more to go, and he could not wait to get out. He
had joined at age seventeen to get a crack at electronics, and—true to its word
—the Navy came through. When he got out, he was going to open his own
shop and get rich fixing VCRs. Hell, everybody who had one was always
saying how they broke down all the time and how much they cost to fix. Who
said the Japs didn't create jobs in America. . . .
Suddenly he came alive. "He's got a negative, sir. He's asking if we could
get Glover to reconfirm."
"Christ, switch me on." Mulhoney shoved aside the pile of paper and
reached for his headset. "Glover, this is Gournes. Do you copy? Over."
He listened a second, then continued. "Roger. We have no ID on that
bogey. Repeat, negative ID. Can you reconfirm?"

While he was waiting, he punched up a computer screen and studied it. The
Glover had reported a position at latitude 36°20' and longitude 25° 10' at 1800
hours. And their bearing was last reported to be two-five-zero. Nothing else
was in the vicinity.
Damn. He didn't like the feel of this one. His instincts were telling him
something was wrong.
Then his headphones crackled. "Verified IFF. Definitely Israeli code. Do
you copy?"
"I copy but I don't buy it. Proceed with caution. Configure for a bogey
unless you can get a good visual."
"Roger. But can you get through to Israeli Control? There's a hell of a
storm coming down out here right now, and visuals don't really cut it."
"I copy you, Glover. Hang on and we'll try to get something for you." He
flipped off the headset and revolved in his chair, concern seeping into his
ruddy features. "Al, see if the people downstairs can get through on their hot
line to Israeli Air Control. Military. Ask them if they know anything about a
chopper in the vicinity of the Glover. Tell them we need a response now.
Priority. Could be we've got a bogey closing on one of ours, maybe using a
phony IFF. I want them to clear it."
"Aye, aye, sir," he said crisply, then reached for the phone again. He spoke
quickly, then waited, drumming his fingers on the vinyl desk. . . .

7:31 P.M.

As another gust hit, Vance glanced up at the rigging, praying it would hang
together. Instead of canvas, the wide, shallow square sail was made of small
linen cloths sewn together, like those made on the tiny looms of ancient times.
It was a single-masted reefing sail, invented just in time for the Trojan War,
with an upper yard fitted with a system of lines whereby it could be furled up
and then secured aloft. When he got south of the island and hove to, he would
drop the sea anchor and reef her, but for now he wanted every square inch.

He was tired and thirsty, but he had no time for even a sip of water. With
the sea rising, waves were pounding over the primitive sideboards and
soaking him to the skin. Next the squalls would come—though maybe a little
rain would feel good, improve the personal hygiene. . . .
He was used to problems. For the past five years he had operated a three-
yacht charter sail business out of Nassau, the Bahamas, living aboard one of
the vessels, a forty-four-foot Bristol two-master christened The Ulysses. In
fact, this whole enterprise had begun there when, after a day of sailing, he and
Bill Bates were unwinding over drinks one hot and humid afternoon at a club
near the Hurricane Hole Marina. Vance, attired in shorts and a T-shirt, his
standard sailing outfit, was sipping his Sauza Tres Generaciones tequila and
feeling great.
"You know, Bill, I've been thinking," he had said. "I want to try something
that's never been done before."
"What? You mean try paying your bills on time?" Bates had laughed,
knowing Vance seemed to have a perennial cash-flow problem.
"Very funny." He had ignored the crack and swirled the ice in his glass,
then pulled out a piece to chew. "No, this is serious. Ever check out the
paintings of the early ships on Greek vases?"
"Can't say as I have." Bates had reached down and was brushing a fleck of
dirt off his perfectly white leather Sperry Top-Siders. As always, his pale blue
Polo blazer remained crisp, his West Marine "Weatherbeater" cap immaculate.
"Well, hear this out. I think there's enough detail in some of the pictures
I've seen to actually re-create one. And I checked it out: there's also a pretty
good description of one in The
Odyssey."
Bates had looked up from his Bacardi and Perrier. "So you want to try and
build—"
"Not just build one; anybody could do that." He had leaned back, hoping to
add a touch of drama to what was next. "I want to sail one through the
Aegean. Do a rerun of the Odyssey, the classic quest."
"Get serious." Bates laughed.

"Couldn't be more. I want to build one—single mast, square sail—and go
for it. Recreate Ulysses' Odyssey. And no nav gear. Just the stars."
"But what route would you take?" Bill was digging into the pocket of his
blazer for a weathered briar pipe. "Does anybody really know?"
"I've looked into it, and just about everything Homer talked about has been
located, in some place or another. We know exactly where the site of Troy
was, so that'd be the spot to push off. Starting at the Dardanelles Strait,
Ulysses first went north and sacked a city on the coast of Thrace. Then he
took a heading almost due south, passing through the Cyclades islands and by
the north side of Crete, then put in at the north shore of Africa, where—"
"So, you intend to do it by the book," Bates had interjected.
"Only way." He had sipped his tequila, feeling his excitement growing,
then continued. "From there it's up to the western tip of Sicily, Polyphemus
land, then northwest to Sardinia. Then over to Italy and down the west coast,
where Ulysses ran afoul of Circe. Next it's south, past the Galli Islands, where
the Sirens sang, after which I make the Straits of Messina and down to Malta,
the island of Calypso. Finally it's northeast to Corfu, and from there it'd be a
straight shot on down to Ithaca. Home plate."
"You'll never make it." Bill was thoughtfully filling his pipe.
"Bet you ten grand I can do it in a fortnight."
"I'll probably never see the money, but you're on." Bates had grabbed the
bet, with a big, winner's grin. . . .
So far, it had gone virtually without a hitch. Using old paintings, he had
worked up precise engineering drawings for the vessel, then engaged with a
small shipyard in Istanbul to build it. The Turkish workers could scarcely
believe their eyes. The ship was a Greek vase come to life, and already the
world press had given him plenty of coverage. Everybody liked the idea of a
long shot.
He had taken plenty of long shots sailing the Caribbean over the last eight
years, but he had no experience with an early October storm in the Aegean.
Tonight was building into a serious problem. All signs pointed to a typical
autumn blowout. He glanced at the low-lying clouds moving in from the

north, darkening the sky and building rapidly. He knew that in these waters,
light autumn breezes could easily whip into thrashing gales. Yeah, Bill's radar
was right. The weather was real. And it scared him, a lot.
Well, he figured, it was time. He had been lucky so far. The Ross DSC
radio still worked, and the patchwork sail hadn't ripped—yet. . . .
Then it happened. The nightmare. Without warning the winds suddenly
changed around to the north, going from thirty knots to sixty in what seemed
only a second. As the linen sail strained, he threw his weight against the tiller,
hoping to hold his course. Now more than ever, with the storm on him, he
wanted to keep on all his canvas and try to get into the lee of the island as
soon as possible. It was definitely time to cut the bravado and start thinking
about the sea anchor.
"Odyssey II, come in," the radio crackled, and he recognized Bates’ voice
once more. "Do you read?"
He reached down and picked up the small black mike, then yelled against
the howl of wind. "I copy you, but make this quick. No time to chat."
"I had another look-see at the radar, Mike, and I just noticed something
else you should know about. We show you at almost the same position as a
U.S. Navy ship of some kind. Part of the Sixth Fleet probably. Take care you
miss her."
He clicked the mike to transmit. This time he didn't want
to bother switching channels. "Some kind of exercise, probably. What's her
class?"
"Can't tell. But she's still a hell of a lot bigger than you are, pal. They may
pick you up on their radar, but again maybe not. Just take care."
"I'll keep an eye out for lights. Thanks." He clicked off the mike again,
then looked around. But the Aegean, what he could see of it, remained dark
and empty. Somehow, though, the black made it just that much scarier.
He leaned back into the tiller, still trying to hold as much of the wind in the
sail as possible. The waves were lashing him now, cold and relentless. And
Odyssey II was beginning to heel precariously, forcing him to apply helm,
throwing his full hundred and eighty pounds against the heavy wooden

portside tiller. It was one of a pair, port and starboard—the old Greek idea
being that whenever a ship leaned away from the wind, lifting the windward
rudder out of the water, the helmsman still had a lee rudder for control. But
when he took her to starboard and tried to round the island, the wind and tides
would be full abeam. With a shallow-draft, low-ballast vessel like this, that
was going to be dicey. . . .
He reached for the life jacket he had secured to the mast, a new Switlik
Fastnet Crew Vest MKII. Normally he did not bother, but this was not the
time to go macho. It had a 35-pound buoyancy and a 4,000-pound breaking
strength, enough for any seas.
Now the wind was gusting even harder, kicking up yet more swell. The
Aegean sunset was concluding, its red clouds turned purple and darkening
fast, a presage that visibility would shortly be a thing of the past.
The past, a la recherche du temps perdu. This trip, regardless of his bet
with Bill, was also about recent times gone by. His father had died, the
revered Michael Vance, Sr., the undisputed Grand Old Man of archaeology at
Penn. It turned out to be a far greater loss than he had anticipated, like a chunk
of himself torn away. He still missed their late-hours "discussions"—heated
arguments, really. He had been trying to wrench away the future, the old man
trying to hang on to what he knew best: the past. It had been a dynamic
tension filled with mutual love. And now he felt guilty. But why? There was
no reason.
He also had gone through another of life's milestones, a divorce. Eva
Borodin, a dark-haired daughter of Russian aristocracy, a college sweetheart,
had come back into his life after a digression of ten years. The second time
around was supposed to be a charm, right?
The soap operas were wrong on that one, the same way they were about
most other things in real life. Although the divorce, now a year ago, had been
businesslike and amicable, it still had hurt. For the past year he had been
sitting around and brooding—about life, love, middle age, death.
He still found himself wearing his wedding ring. Why? It just made him
think of her even more. No, the truth was, everything reminded him of her and

how much he needed her. What he had not realized—until she was gone—was
that needing somebody was the richest experience of life.
He sighed into the wind. The challenge of his Odyssey enterprise was
supposed to take his mind off all that. Was it working?
Maybe. But so far the jury was still out. . . .
He gripped the tiller harder and glanced up at the sail. Running downwind,
the cutwater on the bow was going to be a real problem. But just another half
hour, probably, and—
Christ! Bill's warning was on the mark. A massive hulk loomed dead
ahead, running with no lights. It was as long as a football field, the bow
towering up like a battering ram. She was moving in off his portside stern—he
guessed she was making at least fifteen knots. High above the bridge,
antennas and communications gear showed faintly against the twilight gloom,
gray and huge. Not recommended for close encounters . . . but he still had
time to tack and give her a wide berth.
He threw his weight against the tiller, veering to leeward. Once clear, he
would bring the bow about and let the cutwater top her wake like a surfboard,
keeping him from taking water. Then he would be on his way, into the storm
and the night.
Maybe he did not even have a problem. They probably had picked him up
on their radar by now. It did not mean they would veer off course, but they
might throttle her down a few notches, just to be neighborly. . . .
He was still leaning on the tiller, watching the monolithic hulk skim
silently past, when he noticed a throaty roar beginning to drown out the slap
of the ship's wake against the side of Odyssey II’s hull. After a few moments,
as it grew in ominous intensity, he realized it was coming in from the south.
What in hell!
He whirled to look, and spotted a chopper, altitude about eight hundred
meters. What was it doing here? Had Bill been that worried, enough to risk
sending his hot new Agusta Mark II out in this weather to . . .
No, it was way too big. When he finally saw it clearly, the stubby wings
and rocket pods, he realized it was a Soviet Mi- 24D, a Hind. Over the

mottled camouflage paint he discerned the blue star and white background of
the Israeli Air Force. Odd.
He knew they had captured one once, an export model from the Syrian Air
Force, but they would never fly it this far into international airspace. It was a
prize. What's more, this bird was fully armed—with dual heat-seeking
missiles secured at the tips of each stubby wing, just beyond the twin rocket
pods. Then it assumed an attack mode. . . .

7:43 P.M.

Sabri Ramirez stepped down to the weapons station again, gazed out
through the huge bubble, and smiled. "Shut down the radar. Their IWB must
not have any reason for alarm. They're probably running our IFF through
Gournes right now."
The Israeli nodded, then reached over to switch off all systems that the
Americans might interpret as weapons guidance. Next he clicked on the low-
light TV. Unlike radar, it was a passive system that would not alert the ship
that she was being ranged.
Ramirez pictured the control room of the USS Glover crowded with
curious young seamen glued to their monitoring screens, probably happy to
have a little excitement. Their IFF would be reporting an Israeli chopper. But
the minute the visual ID came through, all hell would break loose.
So far, he told himself, it had been a textbook approach. Airspeed was
down to ninety-five knots, altitude eight hundred meters. Carefully, carefully.
First rule. Don't spook the quarry. We don't need radar. We'll be passive, heat-
seeking. No ECM they can throw at us will make any difference.
"Under two minutes now," he said. "It's time."
"No pain, no gain." Peretz flipped on the radio. "USS Glover, we're going
to have to ditch. We have a crew of three—pilot, copilot, and navigation
trainee."
"We have emergency crews on starboard side, ready to pick you up. Do
you have Mae Wests?"

"Life jackets on. Standard-issue yellow. With dye markers and saltwater-
activated beacons. We'll—"
"Hawk One, our Traffic guys at Gournes just reported they can't get a
positive verify on you."
'Tell them to check again," Peretz suggested matter-of-factly. "Maybe they
screwed up in—"
"We'll have them run it through one more time. Routine security. But
you've got to keep a three-thousand-meter perimeter till—"
"Dammit, sailor, oil pressure's in the red. We're taking her by your
starboard bow. Ready your crews."
Suddenly another voice came on the radio. It was older.
"Israeli Hawk One, this is Tactical Action Officer Vince Bradley. Who the
hell are you? We VID you as a Mi-24 gunship."
Peretz had switched off his mike and was loosening his helmet strap. "You
got it right, asshole."

7:44 P.M.

Vance watched as the Hind approached on the starboard side of the
destroyer, heading straight for it and dropping altitude. What in hell was going
on?
He lunged for the radio, and switched it to the military emergency
frequency, hoping to pick up some clue that would explain it all. Probably not
much of a chance. If this was a Sixth Fleet operation, they would be
scrambling everything.
Nothing. So he flipped over and started scanning the U.S. Navy tracking
frequencies—216.8 through 217.1 megahertz—in the meantime trying to keep
the tiller in hand.
The radio was alive, agitated voices yelling back and forth. It was an
argument, the helo claiming it was making a flyby for an emergency ditch, the
frigate not exactly buying the story.

No kidding. He'd checked out the chopper in close-up as she came over,
and he'd seen nothing wrong. Everything looked to be in perfect working
order. The only obvious thing out of the ordinary was that she was fully
armed. Whoever was flying her was using some kind of bogus Mayday to get
in close. But by now it was too late to try and give the frigate a warning.

7:45 P.M.

"Perfect timing," Ramirez said, moving down to the weapons station and
taking Peretz’ place. "We're inside forty-five seconds. Now just keep her on
the deck. First we neutralize the forward gun turret."
"Taking airspeed to fifty knots." Salim was praying now. "Allau Akbar!"
"USS Glover." Ramirez had switched on the helmet mike again. "We have
a confirmed ditch. Oil pressure just went entirely. We'll be taking her by the
bow."
"I repeat, who the hell are you?" the TAO's voice came back on the radio.
"We still have no confirm on your IFF. If you make a pass, I'll assume hostile
intent."
"Sorry. No time to play this by the book," he replied. "We're ditching."
He immediately clicked on the radar. In less than ten seconds he'd be in
position to lay a Swatter directly into the forward gun turret. Command on the
Glover knew it, and at that moment the gun was swiveling, coming around.
Suddenly a blaze streaked past them in the sky as the forward gun fired and
a telltale tracer ripped by. It was intended as a warning.
But now the gun glowed on the IR interrogation screen.
Thank you very much, Ramirez thought, and flipped a switch, activating
the starboard Swatter's heat-seeking guidance system.

7:46 P.M.

"Right." Alfred Konwitz snapped to attention. "Yes, sir."
He slammed down the phone and whirled around to Jack Mulhoney. "Full
denial, sir. Israeli Control says they have no military aircraft operating
anywhere in that sector of the Aegean. They double-confirm. That's Class A.
Hard."
"We're in the shit. Some son of a bitch is closing on one of ours, and we
don't even know who he is." He picked up the headphones, then switched on
the scrambler. "Glover, do you read me? I think it's a bogey. I can't tell you
that officially, but you'd better alert your TAO in the next five seconds or it'll
be your ass, sailor."
'This is Bradley," came back a new voice. "We just— Jesus!"
"Glover, what—?"
"Hostile action . . . do you copy? We've got a hostile."
"How many—?"
"It's visual ID'd as a Russian Mi 24-D. With Israeli markings. We're taking
fire forward—"
"What are—?"
Sounds behind the radio voice had erupted in turmoil. Something
catastrophic was going on.
"Al," he turned quickly, "get Command. I think we've got an Israeli-ID'd
Hind taking hostile action on the Glover."
He didn't realize it, but with those words he had played directly into Sabri
Ramirez's hands. The scenario was now a lock.
When Jack Mulhoney turned back to his radio, he only heard static.

7:47 P.M.

Vance watched as the frigate got off a warning tracer, but to no effect. The
Hind ignored it, as a stream of 57mm rockets from under the chopper's stubby
starboard wing flared down, while the radar-slaved machine gun beneath the
nose opened fire. Then the weapons operator on the Hind loosed a starboard-
mounted heat-seeking Swatter, and an instant later flames erupted on the

frigate's bow, an orange and black ball where the forward gun turret had been.
As it spiraled upward into the night, the turret and its magazine exploded like
a giant, slow-motion cherry bomb.
He could see sailors running down the decks, could hear the sound of a
shipboard fire alarm going off, the dull horn used for emergencies. They were
calling all hands to station, but their response had come too late. The false-
flag approach had caught the U.S. Navy off guard, its defenses down.
The radio crackled alive with a Mayday. Were there any other ships in the
area? he wondered. Anybody to take out the bastards in the chopper?
Now it was banking, coming around, bringing the frigate's stern into its
deadly view. Then a blaze of 57mm rockets poured in, engulfing the
communications gear and antennas. Next the weapons operator loosed a
second Swatter directly into the bridge.
Christ!
Seconds later it had transformed the midsection of the frigate into a ball of
fire. He watched aghast as the blast flung the men on the bridge outward
through the glass partition.
He plunged for cover just as the first airborne shock wave ripped Odyssey
II's linen sail loose from its lines. When he rose to try and grab the starboard
tiller, a second shock wave caught him and flung him savagely against the
mast.
The next thing he knew, he was clinging to the portside gunwale, one hand
still tangled in the lines that had been ripped from the sail. The night sky had
turned a blood red, reflecting down off the low-lying clouds.
Then he felt a tremor in the hull as a massive wave caught him and the
pegs that held the stern together—so lovingly installed—sheared. The aft
section of Odyssey II instantaneously began to come apart. The light woods
would float— she was, after all, hardly more than a raft with sides—but she
would be helpless. His handmade marvel had been reduced to a bundle of
planks, barely holding together, sail in shreds, twin rudders demolished.
For a moment he counted himself lucky. His body unscathed, he probably
could weather the storm by just hanging on.

Then it happened. Whether through luck or skill, the chopper's weapons
operator laid another one of the Swatter missiles into the frigate's stern
section, causing a massive secondary explosion, a billowing ball of fire that
punched out near the waterline. This time, he knew, a wall of water would
come bearing down on him, sending a terminal shock wave through what was
left of Odyssey II.
You've got to try and keep her aright, he told himself. Try and lash yourself
down with one of the lines. . . .
The wall of water hit, hurtling him over the side. He grasped for a section
of gunwale, but it was too late. The wave obliterated everything. Now the
swell was churning against his face as he tried to stroke back, his lungs filling
with water. His arms were flailing, hands trying desperately to grasp the
slippery cypress planking. The Switlik vest was holding, so he was in no
danger of drowning. Yet.
Fighting the swell with his left hand, spitting water, he reached out with his
right, trying to catch any piece of wreckage floating by. Finally, he succeeded
in wrapping a line around his wrist. He gasped, choking, and caught his
breath. Then, still grasping the line, he draped his left arm across Odyssey II's
shattered side and used the line to pull himself over, into what was left of the
hold. If he could stay with her, he figured, he might still have a chance.
Just as he tried to rise to his feet, however, he looked up to see the mast
slowly heeling over, coming straight down.
He toppled backward, hoping to dodge it, but it slammed him just across the
chest. The world swirled into blackness, as even the light from the blazing
ship behind him seemed to flicker.
Stay conscious, he told himself. Stay alive.
Holding onto the toppled mast, using it as a brace, he managed to rise. And
now the Hind had completed its gruesome handiwork and was banking. Again
it was going to pass directly overhead.
By God, he thought, this thing isn't over. Those bastards are not going to
get off scot-free.

7:50 P.M.

"You used the Swatters!" Salim was shoving the throttle levers forward as
he banked. His voice was incredulous. "You said we were just going to
disable the TRSSCOMM system and the radars with rockets."
TRSSCOMM was short for Technical Research Ship Special
Communications. The frigate was equipped with batteries of listening
antennas, an elaborate system of sensors and sophisticated computers, and
various hydraulic systems on the stern needed to twist and turn the various
dishes. But it also was manned.
What was the point of mass murder? Ramirez had explained that the
Glover was a spy ship that worked for the U.S. National Security Agency, the
NSA. Normally it operated within a small region, in a special "hearability"
area just off Crete where a fluke in the weather allowed it to eavesdrop on all
the Middle East; the crew could even watch Cairo television.
Salim was stunned. Ramirez, he had suddenly realized, was a madman. It
was one thing to require an occasional killing in an operation this complex—
after all, he had had to shoot his weapons operator in order to steal the Hind—
but an all-out attack on a U.S. frigate was pointless. The stakes had just gone
through the roof.
However, Salim's younger brother, Jamal, had exactly the
opposite reaction. With a surge of pride he exclaimed, "Praise be to God," and
fell to his knees on the rear litter. This was a leader he would follow
anywhere.
The others did not share Jamal's joy. They considered themselves
professionals, and overkill was not businesslike. However, they merely
glanced at each other and kept silent. Squabbling with Ramirez served no
purpose.
"We were only going to take out their tracking capability," Salim said
again, his anger growing.
"It's time you understood something." Ramirez handed his headset to the
Israeli, Dore Peretz, and stepped up from the weapons station, his voice
sounding above the roar of the engines. "I am in charge of this operation. If I

think an action is necessary, I will take it. Does anyone here want to
disagree?"
The question was answered with silence. He had just killed dozens of men.
They all knew one more would hardly matter.

7:52 P.M.

Vance pulled himself across the planking and stretched for a box of gear
stowed beneath the stern platform. In it was a constant traveling companion:
his chrome-handled 9mm Walther. Although the concept of downing a Hind
gunship with small-arms fire had been tested in Afghanistan and found
wanting, he was so angry his better judgment was not fully in play.
The pistol remained in its waterproof case. Quickly he took it out,
unwrapped it, and clicked a round into the chamber. Then he tried to steady
himself against the fallen mast.
The Hind was about a hundred meters away now, coming in low. Were
they going to strafe? No, they probably didn't realize he was there.
They were about to be in for a surprise.
He could see the weapons-system operator inside the lower bulletproof
bubble. Forget it. And the pilot, seated just above him, was similarly
invulnerable. No way. Furthermore, the dual rocket pods beneath each short
wing were probably armored. Again no vulnerability.
Aside from the poorly protected gas tanks there was only one point worth
the trouble. If . . .
It was about to pass directly overhead, and he saw that he was going to be
lucky. One Swatter missile remained, secured on the hardpoint tip of the
stubby starboard wing. It was the only shot he had.
But if he didn't get it, they would get him. One touch of the red firing
button by the weapons operator and Odyssey II would be evaporated.
He took careful aim at the small white tube on the wing, still nestled on its
launcher, and squeezed off a round. But at that instant Odyssey II dipped in

the swell and he saw sparks fly off the fuselage instead. The chopper passed
blissfully overhead, its engine a dull roar above the howl of the sea.

7:54 P.M.

"We're taking fire!" Peretz shouted from the weapons station down below.
"What? That's impossible." Ramirez whirled, then stepped in behind him to
look. Lights from the control panel winked over his shoulders, while below
them the Aegean was dark and gray. "Check the look-down radar."
Peretz flipped a switch on his left and scanned the screen.
'There's something down there. Maybe a fishing—"
"Idiot, nobody's fishing here now. Not with this weather." He looked up
and shouted to the cockpit. "Salim, take her about, one-eighty, and we'll strafe
the son of a bitch."
The 12.7mm nose cannon was slaved to the radar, another of the Hind's
many well-designed, and lethal, features. While Ramirez watched—he would
have moved back into the gunnery seat himself, but there was no time—Dore
Peretz switched on the nose cannon. When the target locked on the radar, he
pushed the fire control under his right hand.

7:55 P.M.

A flare of machine-gun fire, hopping across the churning sea, caught the
side of Odyssey II and sprayed flecks of wood around him. But the swell was
making him an elusive target. The line of fire had not really done any damage,
not this time.
They knew he was there, though. Now the chopper was banking and
returning for another pass.
Maybe, he thought, they're going to stick with the nose cannon. They won't
bother wasting rockets or a multi- thousand-dollar Swatter missile on the
wreckage of a raft. The bastards are just having some target practice, a little
fun and games.

He saw the flames from the nose cannon begin as the massive Hind started
its second pass. This was it. Odyssey II was about to be history.
But not before he gave her one last blaze of glory.
Holding to the gunwale and readying himself, he took careful aim at the
starboard Swatter, still perched like a thin white bird on the stubby wingtip.
He steadied the Walther, on semiautomatic, and began firing—oblivious to the
line of strafing coming his way.
He saw the rounds glancing off the armored wing, and the sparks guided
his aim. The clip was going fast, but then . . .
Bingo.
A flare erupted, then an orange fireball, neatly severing the starboard
wingtip. The missile had detonated, but just as it did, the Hind's strafing
caught Odyssey II right down the middle, shearing her in half.

7:56 P.M.

"Stabilize her!" Peretz felt himself flung against the bulletproof bubble that
shielded the weapons station. A blinding explosion jolted the Hind, and the
accompanying shock wave from the detonating Swatter spun it around thirty
degrees. Several gauges in the instrument panel had veered off scale.
Salim reached up and cut the power to the main rotor, then eased the
column and grabbed the collective pitch lever with his left hand. In less than a
second the Hind had righted herself. Slowly the instruments began coming
back as the electrical system recovered from the impact.
"Tail rotor's okay," he reported, checking the panel. "Altimeter reads five
hundred meters." He looked up. "What in the name of God happened?"
"Our last Swatter detonated. The question is, why?" Ramirez answered. He
was staring angrily out the high-impact plastic of his bubble at the wreckage
of the starboard wing.
Dore Peretz, now in the weapons station in the nose, was talking to
himself. "I got the bastard."

7:57 P.M.

He shoved the Walther into his belt and dove into the swell, the cold waters
crashing against his face. The Odyssey II was reduced to debris. His labor of
love, half a year's work, all evaporated in an instant. The Zen masters were
right: never get attached to physical things.
He avoided the deadly shards of wood, then seized onto a section of the
mast that had blown in his direction. The Hind was banking and turning now,
assuming a heading due south. That, he realized, was the direction of
Andikythera, site of SatCom's new complex. Was it their next target?
That didn't make any sense. Bill's project was commercial; it had no
military value. Or at least none he could imagine.
But now he had only one thing on his mind. He secured his life vest tighter
and held on to the mast, the salty Aegean in his face. The current was taking
him due south, the same direction the chopper had headed.

CHAPTER TWO
7:58 P.M.

"Damn it!" Ramirez looked down at the weapons' readouts. "Did you have
the Swatter armed? The system should have been off. If it was on, he could
have detonated it by impact."
Peretz stared a second longer at the wreckage of the vessel below, then
glanced back at his instruments and paled. "I thought it was . . . it must have
malfunctioned. No fucking way—"
"Carelessness. Stupid carelessness." Ramirez bent his head and examined
the wing, then checked the status readouts on the weapons system. "We lost
the starboard rocket pod, too."
Peretz took one look and realized it was true. The rocket pod had been
shorn away, leaving the tangled metal of the wing completely bare. But the
Hind did not need its wings for stability; they were merely for armaments.
"Well, so what? I wasted the fucker, whoever he was." He tried a smile,
sending a web of lines through his tan as the lights of the weapons panel
played across his face. It was the way he always disguised nervousness.
Damn you, Ramirez was thinking. An Israeli cowboy. I would kill you on
the spot except that I need you. It was an arrogant mistake, and I can't let it
happen again. It won't happen again.
He turned and moved back up to the cockpit. "What's our status?"

"Sideslip is nominal," Salim reported grimly, his dark eyes glancing down
at the churning sea only a couple of hundred meters below them. "I think
we're going to be all right."
"We have just had an example of how an oversight can destroy an
operation," Ramirez declared, turning back to the main cabin. "We will not
succeed if we get careless, lose discipline. I have planned this operation down
to the last small detail. You have all been briefed, over and over." He paused
and examined the men. Sometimes he felt as if he were lecturing children, but
these were no children. "Each of you knows what his job is. I expect you to do
it with exactness and precision. The next oversight anyone here makes will be
his last. Am I understood?"
There was silence, then finally a voice came from the litters in the
darkened cabin aft, barely audible above the roar of the twin engines. It was
Jean-Paul Moreau, the Frenchman. He hated flying, and he particularly hated
flying with an Iranian at the controls.
"What the hell happened?"
"Someone on . . . presumably a raft of some kind. We took a couple of
rounds of small-arms fire." He glanced back, making sure his voice reached
Peretz in the weapons station. "The last Swatter was left turned on, armed,
and it must have been hit. Probably the detonator. A stupid oversight."
"Looks like the mistake was mine," came the voice of Peretz, trying,
unsuccessfully, to sound contrite. "Can't win them all, baby."
Back to his smart-ass self, Ramirez thought, still gritting his teeth in anger.
But he pushed it aside. "Forget it. In this business you only look back if you
can profit from your mistakes. We just learned what happens when we forget
our mission. The matter is closed."
"Now"—he returned his attention to the main cabin— "when we set down
at the facility, I expect total discipline. Nothing less will be tolerated. Is that
understood?" He motioned Peretz out of the weapons station and took his
place there.
Would these men hold together the way he required? As he looked them
over, he felt confident. He had had enough experience to smell success.

Sabri Ramirez had definitely been around the track. Born in Venezuela
almost half a century earlier, the son of a prominent Marxist lawyer, he had
become an ardent revolutionary by age twenty. At twenty-five he went off to
Cuba, but it was only later, while attending Patrice Lumumba University in
the Soviet Union, that he discovered his true ideological core —it turned out
he actually despised "the oppressed of the earth," along with curfews, books,
and lectures. No, what he really wanted to join was not the Party, but the party
—good living, women, fame. And he wanted the last most of all. After nine
months his lack of ideological fervor got him summarily expelled. He actually
felt relief.
With an eye to where the action was, he immigrated to Beirut . . . and
prudently became a Muslim by conversion. Then he started making contacts
—Beirut had always been a good place to make contacts. The payoff was
quick. He was young, obviously brilliant, and he would do anything. In the
early 1970s he was recruited by the terrorist group known as the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine and assigned leadership of its European
unit. Off he went to Paris, the posting of his dreams.
He had long fantasized about making himself a legend as one of the
world's leading terrorists, and he was soon succeeding beyond his fondest
imaginings. In 1974 he graduated from the PFLP and formed his own group.
A Middle Eastern gun-for-hire, it was known as the Organization of the
Armed Arab Struggle. The designation, he thought, had a nice revolutionary
ring, which he had long since learned mattered. His new enterprise—
terrorism-to-go—soon attracted such major clients as Libya and Iraq. Among
his more celebrated achievements were the bombing of a French Cultural
Center in West Berlin, exploding a suitcase bomb at a Marseilles railroad
station, and placing an incendiary device aboard the French "bullet train."
Although he never had cared about ideology, he appreciated the importance
of a correct political stance in the Islamic world, and therefore he frequently
posed as the leader of an "armed struggle" against the "Zionist Enemy." But
always, however, at a profit. He had, in fact, perfected the fine art of
extortion, pressing the "reactionary" regimes of Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi

Arabia, and the Gulf sheikdoms into paying protection money disguised as
"revolutionary donations." After he engineered the 1975 OPEC incident in
Vienna in which eleven oil ministers were taken hostage, and then blew up a
seaside resort, killing a Kuwaiti official, he began receiving regular payoffs
from all the Gulf states.
Finally, in 1984, he closed out operations under the OAAS name, moved to
Damascus, and began training Syrian intelligence agents. By that time, he had
become a chimera, a legend whose nickname, the Hyena, was linked to every
car bomb in Europe. And by that time also, the Hyena (a name he despised)
had become the stuff of popular fiction, as well as of dossiers on three
continents.
Having reduced terrorism to a science—a boring science —he then
temporarily retired. But now, after the American invasion of the Middle East,
he had decided to come back for one last score, to do what he had been
dreaming about for years. The Americans had unwittingly provided the
perfect opportunity. Why not seize it? This time, however, he wanted to do it
himself, not with an army of half-crazed radical Muslims. . . .
He stepped up to the cockpit and examined the rows of gauges. "Hold the
airspeed under a hundred knots. And make sure you keep her on the deck."
Then he checked down below. "Peretz, this time make sure all the weapons
stations are switched off. That's off."
The Israeli nodded, this time without his usual grin.
Now the Hind had begun its final approach. The low-light
TV showed a small landing pad approximately thirty meters on each side with
a private helicopter parked in the middle of a black and white bull's-eye in the
center. He knew that ARM—a group he had long hated—had ringed the island
with a first-class industrial security system. Five years ago, he recalled, they
had killed three of his operatives in Beirut, in a futile attempt to kill him.
What's more, it never made the papers. Typical. The security system they had
developed for the island was good, but it made no provision for this kind of
penetration. It pleased him to at last make fools of them.
"We're coming in," Salim announced. He touched the rudder pedal with his
left foot to hold their heading and grasped the collective pitch lever as he

eased the engines toward idle. “There's already a helo on the pad. Looks like a
new Agusta."
"I know about it. Just set down next to it, inside the landing perimeter. I
want this to be simple."
Tonight, he knew, they had scheduled the first full power-up of the
Cyclops. Everything depended on how that test went, but he couldn't postpone
the takeover any longer. This was it. . . .
Abruptly he wondered if the damaged wing would affect stability on
touchdown? They would soon find out.

8:10 P.M.

The current swept him inexorably southward, while behind him the bundle
of planks that remained of Odyssey II was dispersing rapidly. He cursed
himself for having lost the Ross DSC radio. On the other hand, he considered
himself lucky just to be in one piece. Luckier than the crewmen of the USS
Glover. It was heartrending. Seeing a tragedy coming and not being able to
stop it: that was the worst possible nightmare. He wanted to go back to try and
help, but the sea made it impossible.
He pulled himself over the bobbing, drifting mast, feeling it slam against
his face as the sea tossed it like a matchstick. All around him lethal splinters
of Odyssey II sliced through the water, jagged spears driven by the swell. The
dark engulfed him, lightened only by the billowing remains of the Navy
frigate now some thousand yards away.
Somewhere, dear God, it's got to be somewhere. Let it still be strapped to
the mast. The idea seemed stupid at the time, but now . . .
He felt his way down until his fingers touched a slippery nylon cord. Was it
. . . yes.
Maybe there is a God.
The straps were tangled, which was not supposed to happen, and fragments
of cypress planking from the sides of the ship had punctured the nylon cover,
but his Switlik search-and-rescue raft was still dangling from the remains of

the mast. Now for one more minor miracle: Could he manage to pull it free
before everything disappeared into the dark and the swell?
He flailed with one hand to keep his head afloat, while his fingers grappled
with the bowline knot. Finally the knot loosened, and he wrenched it loose.
Jesus, is there going to be anything left? Would it still inflate?
He grappled with the fiberglass canister that contained the raft, then
popped it open. With his last remaining strength he pulled on the tether,
discharging the bottled carbon dioxide that caused the Switlik to hiss to life.
Part of it. He realized the lower buoyancy tube had been ripped to shreds by
the 12.7mm machine gun of the Hind that had destroyed the mast, but the
upper one had somehow escaped intact. So he was half-lucky.
It was yellow, hexagonal, and it looked like heaven. He had never used one
before, and he had never realized how it felt. Like an oversized inner tube.
With a surge of relief, he pulled himself aboard, inching in as he felt the
swell pound over him, and then he drew out the folding oars and extended
them. With his new course he knew he would miss the harbor at Kythera
recommended by Bates—no way could he battle the current and make it. The
vagaries of wind and sea were driving him almost due south. It was the
direction the chopper had taken—straight for the little island of Andikythera.
Could they breach SatCom's security and get in? Probably. The setup
installed by ARM was industrial-level only. He had cautioned Bill about that.
He grimaced and plied his strength to the two small aluminum oars. The
way the wind and seas were taking him, he would find out soon enough.
Again he lamented the loss of the radio—with it he could get out a Mayday
alerting any ships around that might mount a rescue of the frigate's survivors.
He also could try warning the SatCom facility that trouble was headed their
way. The problem was, the Hind had a top speed of over a hundred and fifty
knots. If Andikythera was its destination, it probably was already there.
The cold sea stung his face and the tossing waves were making him
slightly seasick, but he felt alive again. Almost by instinct he looked up to try
to find the stars, loving how crisp and striking they could be over the Aegean.

Nothing yet, but there were glimmers in the north. A good sign. The storm
was blowing over now, the clouds starting to open up again.
If Bill tries the radio, he'll probably figure I've just vanished from the earth.
He half felt like it. As the cold autumn waters of the Aegean surged around
him, its six-foot waves washing over his partially inflated Switlik, he thought
about Bill Bates. He was a friend, a very good friend. Was he about to be in
trouble?
Although Bates was a world-class executive, he also was a dedicated
family man. He had a model wife back in Arlington and two model sons, both
deposited in model private academies. His wife, a blond WASP old-fashioned
enough to have the same family name as a prominent Philadelphia bank,
never seemed to tire of her charity obligations, so it was his sons he took with
him sailing in the summers. That was how Vance had met him, sailing with
the boys in the Bahamas.
Bill was highly regarded in industry circles as the CEO's CEO, and not
without reason. For one thing, less inconsequential than most would think, he
looked the part. His steel-gray hair was always trimmed to the precise
millimeter, his tanned cheeks were forever sleek from a workout at his club,
or whatever club was handy on his perpetual travels. He had once claimed he
knew the location of more health clubs than any man in America.
Best of all, though, he knew how to raise money. When he described a
pending enterprise, he did it with the gleaming eye of the true believer. Even
in a dicey investment environment, he always generated the enthusiasm
sufficient to ensure that a new stock issue sold out and closed higher than the
offering price on the day it was floated. The man could sell sunlamps in the
Sahara.
He competed hard in everything he did. When he decided, some years after
he and Vance had become acquainted, that he wanted to spend summers
racing, he did not bother buying his own yacht; instead he flew to Nassau and
leased the fastest boat he knew. At that moment, the vessel filling that
description was the Argonaut, owned by Windstalker, Ltd. It was a forty-four-
foot sloop, highly regarded throughout the racing fraternity. Its owner,

however, never let any of his three yachts out of the harbor without first
undertaking a personal checkout of the new skipper—even if it was an old
friend.
Vance remembered it well. Bill manned the helm, a mahogany wheel
always kept well polished, and they were making a solid eight knots on the
Speedo. It was one of those mornings in the islands when everything seemed
as clear as a desert sky. No cruise ships were scheduled into the harbor, and
the stinkpot powerboats were mercifully in limited supply. The wind was
perfect and the water as smooth as a glittering mirror. Best of all, Bates was
handling the helm as though he had been there all his life.
"Think we can get her up to ten knots?" he'd asked, shielding his eyes as he
studied the genoa, a gleaming triangle of white above the bow.
Vance had leaned back and tested the wind. "Give her a little touch on the
helm, to starboard, and I think she might come through for you." He was
proud of his recent refurbishing of the boat—the latest Northstar digital satnav
gear, brand-new sails that cost a fortune, a complete renovation of the
instrument station down below.
Bates tapped the wheel and the genoa bellied even more. "I like this
fucking boat a lot, Mike," he declared. "So here's the deal. I want to lease her
for three months, take her to Norfolk, get a crew together, and get everybody
comfortable with her."
"I think we can talk." Vance had to smile. The yacht would be in good
hands, and a three-month charter was a dream come true for a guy in his
business.
"Matter of fact, I wanted to ask you to help me out with something else,
too. Some security work."
"Hey, I'm just a simple charter-boat operator. Not my line."
"Don't bullshit me, pal." He laughed. "You know SatCom is building a new
industrial facility in the Aegean."
"A private space facility."
"I think American technology is getting a bum rap, Michael," he said with
sudden seriousness. "I plan to change that."

"The Journal says you want to try and give the Europeans a run for the
roses."
He looked over, the wind whipping his glistening hair. "You keep in touch
pretty damned good for a simple sailor. But I tell you, if we succeed, we'll
literally change the way space is used. I'll be able to put a satellite into orbit
for a song. Just between us, I'm building the biggest private spaceport
anywhere. The French operation in Guiana won't hold a candle to it. I've
already got ten geostationary orbital slots locked up with the World
Administrative Radio Conference. Even NASA better keep a grip on their
jockstrap."
"Where's the money coming from? The usual suspects?"
"Who else." He laughed, then tapped the helm slightly more to starboard.
"The stock was over-the-counter and it was hell and gone in three fucking
hours. Bang. Out the door. Matter of fact, it's now trading almost fifteen
percent above the original offering price." He shrugged. "I should have issued
more. But like a stupid son of a bitch, I had a failure of nerve. Didn't go with
my instincts."
"Next time, how about letting me in on the action?"
"You're a goddamn piece of work, Michael. And so's this boat. Tell you
what. I'll make you a deal. I figure you're expecting about four thou a week
for this baby, correct?"
"Anything for a friend."
"Right." He laughed. "I want her for twelve weeks. So . . . what if I paid
you with some of my personal SatCom stock? Fifty thou worth at the current
price? How's that sound?"
"Deal," Vance said, without hesitation. He'd heard a lot of big-time bull in
the charter business, but Bates was a straight shooter. The temporary gap in
cash flow was going to make meeting the three mortgages—one for each boat
—tough, but he liked the sound of the project."
"This isn't going to leave you strapped, is it?" Bates looked a trifle worried.
"I'll manage. As I always say, two in the bush is worth one in the hand."

"Michael, half the time you don't have a pot to piss in. I know that. You're
the lousiest personal-finance manager I know." He laughed out loud and
tapped the helm, bringing her to port a notch. "Which is one of the world's
great ironies, considering what you do for ARM."
"You hear things, too." He had never really discussed his ARM work with
Bates.
"You're good. I know that. Word gets around." He paused. "Matter of fact, I
wanted to ask you a favor. I was hoping you could work up a contract for me
with your people. As I said, I need some security for that facility in Greece."
"What kind?"
"That's for your guys to say. It just has to be good. We're going to be
installing some proprietary technology that's light-years beyond anything
that's ever been seen before. And we're going to rock a lot of boats in the
business. There're a hell of a lot of Europeans who'd love to know what we're
up to. There's a real chance of industrial espionage."
"So what's the program? Perimeter surveillance? Security guards? We
could probably arrange the subcontracting."
"I'd appreciate it. Your guys know Europe, the local scene. I've got a
feeling that's going to be important."
"No problem." The truth was, this was exactly the kind of no-risk work the
boys at ARM liked. Nobody shooting at you. "I'll put in a call to Paris if you
like. Something probably can be arranged."
"Good." Bates nodded, as though a handshake were already involved. One
more thing off his checklist. "Mainly I want some physical-security stuff. You
know—fences, alarms, that kind of crap."
"We've got a guy in Athens who specializes in that. He won't give
estimates over the phone, but if you'll let him look over the site, he'll price the
job for you right down to the drachma. With various options. But you'd be
smart to go with his top-of-the-line recommendation. Try to nickel and dime
him and he'll walk. I've seen him do it."
"So what's this so-called 'top of the line' likely to run me?" Bates had
asked.

"Well, there are the systems you can see and the ones you can't." He'd
laughed. "The ones you can't see cost more."
"I already told you I need the best."
"Then you probably want to go MAD," Vance said, his eyes hiding a
twinkle.
"What the hell are you talking about?" He looked over, annoyed and
puzzled.
"Magnetic anomaly detectors. You bury special transmitting cables beneath
the ground, outside the perimeter, so that they build an invisible
electromagnetic field around and above their location. Anything—doesn't
even have to be metal—that enters the field will distort it. If you go with the
Sentrax system, made by an outfit in Switzerland called Cerberus, you can
have the whole thing linked to a central console that displays the layout of the
perimeter on computer screens."
"Sounds good. We're practically going to have computers in the
bathrooms."
"Won't come cheap."
Bates shrugged into the wind. "As long as you guys don't
ask for the store, I see no problem. I've budgeted for security, and there's
always contingency money."
"I'll see what I can do." He had glanced up and ascertained that the sun had
passed the yardarm. But even if it had not, what the hell. He saw the prospects
for a fat commission looming. "How about a Heineken?" He was reaching
into the cooler in the well.
"You read my mind."
"By the way, want to tell me the location of the site? You've managed to
keep that out of the papers so far. I'd guess it's probably an uninhabited island,
right?"
"Good guess. It's north of Crete, about twenty square kilometers. It's
privately owned, but I've just signed a long- term lease."
Vance tried to envision the place. Most of the Greek islands tended to be
granite, with nothing growing on them but scrub cedar. "What's the terrain

like?"
"That's actually what makes it so attractive. Cliffs all around the shoreline
—you couldn't put in with so much as a dinghy—and then one really
marvelous deepwater inlet. But the best part is, the interior is mostly level and
perfect for what we need. And there's a granite mountain at one end that's
ideal for our telemetry."
"A protected docking location and a natural telemetry base."
"Right. All the electronics will be set up high above the launch facility, and
we can use the inlet for bringing in materials. We should only have to dredge
it a bit and sink some pilings. It's well along. I've already signed off on a lot of
the prime contracts." He stared at the blue horizon and adjusted the wheel
again. "And I'll let you in on another secret, Michael. I've bet the ranch on this
one. The stock offering wasn't nearly enough to capitalize the enterprise. I've
had to raise money from everybody in town—junk bonds, the fucking banks,
you name it. Just the hardware ran close to three hundred million. I've even
put up my stock in all my other companies. If this project doesn't fly"—he
laughed—"literally, I'm going to be joining America's homeless. I even put up
my house in Arlington. Worth two million, and I owned the goddamn thing
free and clear. I'll just have to hand over the keys. Dorothy'll kill me."
"Then we'll make sure nobody snoops." He popped open an ice-cold beer
for Bates, then one for himself. "From land or sea."
"Land or sea." Bates hoisted his icy green bottle.
"Which actually raises an interesting question." He took a sip, cold and
bracing. "How about security from the air? Flyovers, that kind of action?"
"Let them come. There'll be nothing to see. Except for the launch pad and
telemetry, everything's going to be underground. There're a lot of caves on the
island—like that famous one on Antiparos. We're going to use those for the
computers and assembly areas. And what we can't find in place, we'll just
excavate."
It's beginning to sound a little too pat, Vance found himself thinking. But
that's what security experts were for. They were the guys who got paid to find
holes in a project like this. . . .

The thing that kept gnawing at his mind, however, was the phrase "by land
or sea." All along he'd worried about penetration from the air. Had he been
right after all?

CHAPTER THREE
7:48 P.M.

Sitting at Main Control, the central desk facing the large display screen,
Cally Andros had just reached a conclusion. She was getting old. Two more
weeks to her thirty-fifth birthday, then a measly five years till the big four-oh.

After that she could only look forward to a holding action, fighting sags and
crow's-feet. Building dikes to hold back the deluge of time.
It was depressing.
She sipped at a cup of black coffee emblazoned with the SatCom logo, the
laser eye of the Cyclops, and impatiently drummed her fingers on the
workstation keyboard, trying not to be distracted by meditations on mortality.
Tonight for the first time they would nin up the superconducting coil all the
way, in their most important test yet. The tech crews at the other end of the
island predicted it would reach peak power in—she glanced at the huge digital
clock on the blue wall next to the screen—twenty-seven minutes. . . .
What was wrong with her? She had thought that one over
a lot and decided the answer was nothing. She had dark Greek eyes, olive
skin, and a figure that would stop a clock— a perfect size eight. But it got
better. She had the best legs in the world. The absolute very best. If they
wouldn't necessarily stop a timepiece, they'd sure as heck slowed a lot of
traffic over the years.
No, her problem was opportunity. Whereas on paper this island was every
single girl's dream—males trapped here by the carload—all the
attractive/interesting men were either too young or too old or too dumb or too
married. Moreover, those in the control room—mostly Ph.D.'s in their late
twenties—saw her only as Dr. C. A. Andros, Director-in-Charge. There
seemed to be an unspoken rule around Control that you didn't make a move
on the boss lady. Anybody who could run this project had to be treated with
the distance befitting authority. Especially since they believed all she really
cared about was work.
Thanks a lot, whoever dreamed that one up.
The sickest part of all, though, was they were half right. She did not wish
herself anywhere else in the world right now, men or no men. She occupied
the center of the universe, was poised for the winner-take-all shot she could
only have dreamed about five years ago, back when she was still fighting the
mindless bureaucrats at NASA. With Project Cyclops she was running a half-
billion-dollar gamble for the last big prize of the twentieth century. If she

lived to be a hundred, she would never be handed anything this terrific ever
again.
Born Calypso Andropolous thirty-four years ago, daughter of strong-
minded Greek farmers, she had learned to believe in herself with a fierce,
unshakable conviction. Until now, though, she had never really had the
opportunity to test that faith. Until now.
It had not been an easy journey. After getting her doctorate in aerospace
engineering from Cal Tech, she had struggled up through NASA's Kennedy
Center bureaucracy to the position of chief analyst. But she had never
achieved more than a desk job. She had wanted more, a lot more. Now, thanks
to SatCom, in three days she would have it. Using a fifteen-gigawatt
microwave laser nicknamed Cyclops, she was about to put SatCom in the
forefront of the private race for space.
Ironically, the company had built its spaceport barely three hundred
kilometers from her birthplace on the island of Naxos. She often thought
about life's ironies: sometimes you had to return home to change the future.
She barely remembered that rugged little island now; the images were faint
and overly romantic. Those times dated back to when the junta of right-wing
colonels had seized power in Greece. Soon thereafter her parents had
emigrated; they and their nine-year-old daughter joining a large exodus of
freedom-minded Greeks to New York. They had been there only three months
when her father died—the hospital said it was pneumonia; she knew it was
mourning for Greece and all he had lost. He had loved it more than life. She
was afraid, down inside in a place where she didn't visit much anymore, that
he loved it more than he had loved her. So along the way she tried to forget all
of it, to bury her memories of Greece. And now here she was back again. In
New York, Cally Andropolous had, in spite of herself, thought incessantly of
Greece; back here now, all she could think about was New York.
The strongest recollection was the third floor of a walk-up tenement on
Tenth Avenue and Forty-ninth Street, a section of town widely known as
Hell's Kitchen—and for good reason. The schools were designed to make
sociopaths of all those trapped inside; only New York's famous Bronx High

School of Science, one of the finest and most competitive public institutions
in the nation, offered an escape from their horror.
Accepted when she was thirteen, Calypso Andropolous graduated third in
her class. For her senior science project, she created a solid-fuel rocket, using,
as the phrase goes, ordinary household chemicals. And she did it all by
herself, with a little help from a skinny French Canadian boy named Georges
LeFarge, who lived with his mother in Soho.
By that time, she knew exactly what she wanted. Her ambition was to be
the first woman in space.
Nobody said it would be easy. But after the rocket—she
and Georges had launched it from the Morton Street Pier in Greenwich
Village—she felt she was on her way. She had blossomed—in every way,
much to her frustration—a lot quicker than Georges did. At age seventeen his
idea of sex was still to swap chemical formulas. So she finally gave up on him
as a lover and decided to wait till college.
She chose Cal Tech, selected after turning down acceptances from half a
dozen prestigious universities in the East. By then, Calypso Andropolous had
decided she wanted to get as far away from West Forty-ninth Street as
possible. And she never wanted to see another eggplant moussaka as long as
she lived.
She also wanted a shorter name, and thus it was that her long Greek
surname became merely Andros. That simple change had a liberating effect on
her far beyond what she had expected. At last she felt truly American . . . and
able to admit to loving nothing better than living off Whoppers and fries. Junk
food was, in fact, the thing she missed most here. No, what she missed most
was Alan. Still.
Georges had picked MIT, and she did not see him again until he came to
Cal Tech for grad school. By that time she was deeply in love with Alan
Harris, who was twenty years her senior. She was discovering things about
herself she didn't want to know. Harris was a biochemistry professor, tall and
darkly handsome, and she wanted desperately to live with him. She knew he

was a notorious womanizer, but that didn't matter. She was looking for a
missing father and she didn't care. It was what she wanted.
When he broke it off, she thought she wanted to die. The only one she had
left to turn to was Georges. And they restarted a friendship as platonic as it
had been back at Bronx Science, though it was deeper this time. Georges told
her to forget about Harris and just concentrate on a first-rate dissertation.
It was not easy, but she did. Her project involved compressing a big
computer program that calculated spacecraft trajectories into a small one that
could be operated on a Hewlett-Packard hand calculator. She then devised a
way to create voice commands that could free up an astronaut's hands
while he—soon, she told herself, it would be she—handled other controls.
After reading every NASA report that NTIS had released on microfiche,
she knew no one there had created anything like it. She also figured out that
NASA was a hotbed of careerists, all protecting their own turf. The only
obstacle to their accepting her new computer program would be the NIH
syndrome—Not Invented Here. It turned out she was right, and wrong.
By happy chance, her dissertation came to the attention of Dr. Edward
Olberg, a deputy director of trajectory control at the Kennedy Space Center,
who hired her a week later, with a GS rating a full two grades higher than
customary. He knew a good thing when he saw it. And now Dr. Cally Andros'
computer work was the creation of a NASA employee. End of problem. She
still wanted to be in the astronaut program, but she figured she had made a
good start.
She was wrong. It turned out that she was far too valuable in the guidance
section to let go. She published a lot of papers, grew very disillusioned, and
was on the verge of telling them to stuff it, when . . .
An executive unknown to her, named William Bates, called one May
morning three years ago, said he had read all her papers, and then offered her
a job that caused her to postpone her dreams of space flight. He wanted her to
head up a private space program. She was, he told her, too good to work for
the government. She should be out in the real world, where things happened.

When she recovered from the shock, she felt an emotion she had not
known since her first day at Bronx Science—she was scared. In the business
world, the responsibilities were clear-cut and fatal. You were not blowing
some anonymous taxpayer's money: it was real cash. Furthermore, your
responsibilities doubled. Not only did you have to make it work, you had to
make a profit. She loved the challenge, but she quaked at the enormous risk.
Finally she made a deal. Yes, she would give up a sure career for a risky
long shot, but on two conditions. First, she
got to pick her staff, and second, someday she would get to go into space
herself.
Although he clearly thought the second demand rather farfetched for
SatCom, he assented to both. . . .
"How's it looking, Cally?" Bates was striding into Command, having just
emerged from his office at the far end of the cavernous room. Fifties, gray-
templed but trim, he wore a trademark open-necked white shirt and blue
trousers—a touch of the yachtsman, even ashore. A former Vietnam fighter
pilot, he had flown over from the company's head office in Arlington, Virginia
two days ago—setting down the company's Gulfstream IV at Athens—to be
on hand when the first vehicle, VX-1, went up. As he stalked up, he was his
usual crabby self, seemingly never satisfied with anything that was going on.
She looked him over and stifled the horrible impulse she had sometimes to
call him Alan. He was short-tempered, the way Alan Harris was, and he had
the same curt voice. Otherwise, though, they were nothing alike. The mind
works in strange ways.
"Cyclops countdown is right on the money, Bill. to the second. Big Benny
is humming, and coil temps are nominal. Georges says it's a go for sure this
time. We're going to achieve the power levels needed to lase." (They had tried
two preliminary power-ups previously, but the supercomputer had shut them
down in the last hour of the countdown both times.) "Looks like tonight is the
night we get lucky."
Georges LeFarge had served as her personal assistant throughout the
project, even though he formally headed up the computer section. These days

he was still slim, almost emaciated, with a scraggly beard he seemed to leave
deliberately unkempt, just as he had at Cal Tech. Bates had bestowed on him
the title of Director of Computer Systems, which did not sit well with his
leftist politics. His conscience wanted him to be a slave to the exploiting
capitalists, not one of them. However, he always managed to cash his bonus
checks. He had carried on a flirtation with Cally, sending messages back and
forth on the Fujitsu's workstations, for the last two years. She had finally
taken him up on it; and it was a bust all around. C'est la vie.
At this moment he was blended into a sea of shirt-sleeved technicians
glued to the computer screens in Command Central, the nerve center of the
entire operation. The young Americans all worked in a room slightly smaller
than three tennis courts, with rows of light-beige workstations for the staff and
three giant master screens that faced out from the far wall. The soft
fluorescents, cheerful pale-blue walls spotted with posters and the large
SatCom laser-eye logo, muted strains of Pink Floyd emanating from speakers
somewhere in the corner, and circulated air carrying a hint of the sea—all
made the perfect environment for the nineteen young workers spaced
comfortably apart at the lines of desks this evening shift.
As they watched, the superconducting coil ratcheted increasingly larger
bursts of energy into the accelerator, pumping it up. At twelve gigawatts the
Cyclops should—if all went well—begin to lase.
The coil, a revolutionary new concept for storing electrical energy, was
situated deep in the island's core. It was a near-perfect storage system,
permitting a huge current of electricity to circulate indefinitely without
resistance, ready to produce the massive, microsecond pulses of power. The
heart of the system was an electromagnetic induction coil 350 feet in diameter
and 50 feet high embedded in a natural cave in the island's bedrock. The coil
itself was a new niobium-titanium alloy that became superconducting, storing
electricity without resistance losses, at the temperature of liquid nitrogen. A
vacuum vessel almost like a giant Thermos bottle surrounded the coil and its
cryogenic bath.
The coil fed power into a particle accelerator that drove the complex's
centerpiece, the Cyclops—a free-electron laser designed to convert the energy
stored in the coil into powerful pulses of coherent microwaves. The

supercomputer would then focus these with the phased-array antennas into the
propulsion unit of the space vehicle. That unit contained simple dry ice—the
only thing simple about the entire system—which would be converted to
plasma by the energy and expand, providing thrust for the vehicle.
"Cally, we have ten point three gigs," LeFarge announced confidently. He
was absently stroking his wisp of beard. "Power is still stable."
"Good." She watched the readout on the computer screen in front of her as
the numbers continued to scroll. If the Cyclops performed the way the
engineers were all predicting, the world's most powerful laser was about to go
critical. A thrill coursed through her.
The idea was brilliant. By directing the energy to a space vehicle, you kept
the power plant for its rockets on the ground. Unlike conventional rockets, the
vehicle's weight would be virtually all payload, instead of almost all fuel. It
would cut the cost of launching anything by a factor of at least a hundred. . . .
Now a green oscilloscope next to the computer screens was reading out the
buildup, a sine curve slowly increasing in frequency.
"Eleven point one," Georges announced, barely containing a boyish grin.
"We're still nominal."
Cally glanced at the screen. "Let's keep our fingers crossed. Almost there."
"By the way," Bates interjected, "assuming everything goes well here
tonight and the storm lets up, I've scheduled myself on the Agusta over to
Kythera in the morning. A friend of mine was sailing near there, and I'm a
little worried. I just tried to reach him on the radio and got no answer. Maybe
his radio got swamped, but I want to find out." He was turning to head back to
his office. "Now, though, I've got some calls in to Tokyo. So keep me
informed on the countdown, and your feelings on the weather."
More investors, she caught herself thinking. Begging. Which must mean
the money's getting tight again. But hang in there just a couple more days,
Bill, and we're gonna show the world a thing or two. They'll be begging you to
let them invest.
"I just came in to give you some moral support," Bates continued, pausing,
"and to tell you I think you're doing a terrific job."

"Bullshitting the help again?" She laughed, not quite sure she believed his
tone.
"Why not? It's free." A scowl. "But just keep up the good work." He had
extracted a leather tobacco pouch from his blue blazer and begun to fiddle
with his heavy briar pipe. She started to ask him to please not smoke here
with all the sensitive Fujitsu workstations, but then decided they were his
workstations. "If this thing flies, literally, I'm going to give you a vulgar stock
option. Another one. For putting up with me."
"How about a bottle of aspirin?" She made a mock face. "I don't have any
time to spend the money."
"I'm going to take care of that, too. After this is over, I'm going to have you
kidnapped by a Greek beachboy and taken to some deserted island where
there's only one way to pass the time." He frowned back, a wry crinkle
passing through the tan at the corner of his eyes. "Twenty years ago I might
have tried to do it myself."
"Still hoping to get me laid?" She gave him her best look of shock, and
they both had to laugh. The sexual electricity was there, whether either of
them wanted to admit it or not.
"There's a time and place for everything," he went on, showing he could
hint and not hint at the same time. "You're definitely working too hard."
"I can't take all the credit." She knew when to be self-effacing and when to
change the subject, fast. "We owe all this to the Bed Sox's oldest living fan."
By which she meant Isaac Mannheim, the retired MIT professor whose
revolutionary propulsion idea had made the whole project possible. In 1969
he had demonstrated his ground-based laser concept to NASA, but they had
backed away, claiming they had too much invested in conventional chemical
rockets. But he knew it would work, knew it would change the way space was
used, so he had taken the idea to entrepreneur William Bates and offered to
sign over the patents for a piece of the profits. Bates was impressed. He took
him up on the offer, raised the money, and then hired the best aerospace
engineer he could find to head up the project. Together they were a perfect
team.

Mannheim, with flowing white hair and tweedy suits, was now in his
seventies and lived in retirement in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was due in
tomorrow, just in time to watch the first lift-off of a full-scale vehicle. When
he arrived in Athens, Cally always dispatched the company Agusta to pick
him up. A first-class corporation, she figured, ought to behave like one.
"If the Cyclops power-up goes off without a hitch tonight, then we should
have plenty of good news for him this trip," Bates said. "I'll let you be the one
to brief him."
"Oh, he'll know it all before he gets here. He calls me every day at 1700
hours, our time, to check things out. I could use him to set my watch."
"Isaac's like the voice of our conscience, always telling us to work harder
and better. Well, good for him." He smiled and flicked a gold lighter. The
young technicians around the room gave him a disapproving glance, but kept
their silence. The boss was the boss.
Besides, everybody in Command, poised in front of their screens, had other
things to worry about.

8:22 P.M.

Eric Hamblin, formerly of Sweetwater, Texas, had worked as a guard for
SatCom for the past two and a half years and he loved the job. He was twenty-
four, a college-dropout casualty of the go-go eighties who got to spend his
afternoons hanging out on one of Greece's most beautiful islands. He was tall,
thin, and bronzed to perfection. During his weekends on Crete he could
almost pass for French as he cruised the German Frauleins who lined the
sands in their string bikinis.
Tonight he had come on duty at seven o'clock—actually a couple of
minutes later than that, since he'd been on the phone to a girl from Dresden to
whom he had made some pretty overreaching promises. She wanted to come

back to Crete this weekend and do it all over again. He grinned with
satisfaction, kiddingly asking himself if he had the stamina.
He sighed, then strolled on down the east perimeter. The security here at
this end of the island was good, as it was everywhere: the tall hurricane fence
was topped with razor wire and rigged with electronic alarms. Of course you
couldn't see all the security, which meant the place did not feel confining or
scary. Which suited him fine. He was wearing a .38, but it was mainly for
show. He wasn't sure he could hit anything if—God forbid—he should ever
have to draw it.
Besides, the island was surrounded by miles and miles of water, the deep
blue Aegean. The whole scene was a fucking hoot, and he gloried in it. Sea,
sand, and—on weekends—hot-and-cold running German snatch. Who could
ask for more?
Andikythera was, indeed, a travel poster come to life. Though it still was
owned by the Greek shipbuilder Telemachus Viannos, as part of his major
investment in the company, Bates had negotiated a long-term lease for
SatCom, and by the time the technical staff started arriving, the few Greek
shepherds on the island had been comfortably relocated to Paros. Construction
began almost immediately after Bates took over, and soon it was almost like
one giant Cal Tech laboratory. Everything from Big Benny, SatCom's Fujitsu
supercomputer, to the phased-array microwave installation was state of the
art. Here SatCom had created a launch facility that was within ten degrees
latitude of Cape Canaveral, totally secure from industrial espionage, and
perfectly situated to send up a major network of communication satellites.
Even now, though, the island remained unbelievably picturesque—its sharp
white cliffs abutting the deep blue sea, then rising up in craggy granite to a
single peak at one end, where the phased-array transmission antennas were
now. Its flawless air sparkled in the mornings, then ripened to a rosy hue at
sunset. For security and safety, as much as for aesthetics, the major high-
technology installations had been secured deep in the island's core. Command
was at one end, situated behind sealed security doors, and a tunnel from there

led down to the power plant, installed a hundred and fifty meters below sea
level. Guarding this small piece of paradise had been a snap. . . .
Hamblin scratched at his neck and moved on through the sand. He
despised the shoes they made him wear and wished he could be barefoot,
untie his ponytail and let his sandy hair flow free around . . .
What was that? The east perimeter was totally dark, but he caught a sound
that almost could be . . . what? A chopper approaching? But there were no
lights anywhere on the eastern horizon, and the pad was dark. Nobody flew
Mr. Bates’ fancy new Agusta 109 Mark II at night. Especially with no lights.
No mistaking it now, though. A whirlybird was coming in. He could clearly
make out the heavy drumbeat of the main rotor.

8:24 P.M.

Salim altered the throttles when they were about ten meters above the pad,
and they started drifting sideways. For a second it looked as though they
might ram the Agusta, but then he applied the clutch, stopcocked the engines,
and hit the rotor brake. The Hind safely touched down, tires skidding. They
were in.
Best of all, there'd been no radar warning alert from the instrument panel.
Around them the facility was dark and, as he shut down the engines, deathly
quiet. The wheels of the retractable landing gear had barely settled onto the
asphalt before the main hatch was open and the men were piling out, black
Uzis ready, the first rounds already chambered.

8:25 P.M.

Hamblin thought briefly about raising Guard Command at the front desk
on his walkie-talkie and inquiring what in hell was going on. But then he

knew how they hated false alarms. Particularly when the top brass was busy,
like tonight.
He turned and studied the blinding white glow surrounding the two launch
vehicles, VX-1 and VX-2, down by the superstructure on the western end of
the island. They were basking in glory, as though anticipating tonight's power-
up of the Cyclops. He automatically glanced at his watch: the big test was
scheduled for about twenty minutes from now.
No, instead of running the risk of looking like a jerk by reporting the
expected arrival of SatCom execs he should have known about, he'd check
this out himself. Jesus, why didn't anybody tell him anything?
He mused that security precautions here had been intended to guard against
infiltration through the fences, not to prevent a chopper from coming in.
Guess they figured nobody would be crazy enough to try and sneak in using a
helicopter.
As he moved toward the landing pad, just over a hundred yards farther on
down the fence line, he searched his memory for something he might have
forgotten. No, he'd glanced over the schedule for the pad this afternoon and
nothing was listed. Dr. Andros—what a fox she was, made those plump
German broads look like leftover hamburger—always had been good about
keeping the schedule up to date. He liked that and counted on it. But then
maybe this was some kind of unscheduled situation, connected with the test.
Who the hell knew?
He was about to find out. Fifty yards to go. He could see the chopper now
and it was huge, much bigger than anything he'd ever known the company to
use. Maybe it was a last-minute delivery. An emergency.
They had touched down, but still no landing lights. That didn't make any
sense. Suddenly nothing made any sense. Another ten seconds, though, and
he'd zap them with his big flashlight.
He flipped the securing strap on his .38 and tested the feel of the grip. Just
to be ready.
He was thirty yards away and he could hear them talking now, though he
still did not recognize all the languages. He realized right away, however, that

these clowns weren't connected with SatCom. He'd had an uneasy feeling all
along, and now he was sure.
Were they industrial spies trying to pull a fast one? Maybe sneak in and
take some photos?
He had no time now to radio for help. He was on his own.
He drew out the .38 and cocked it. Suddenly it felt very heavy. Then in his
left hand he rotated the long flashlight till his thumb felt the switch.
Now.
He flicked on the light, beaming it through the wire security fence and
catching the side of the chopper—God, it was huge—just in time to see
several men stepping down. They were wearing black commando outfits and
they most definitely were not anybody from the company.
"You!" he yelled, his courage growing. "Stop right where you are and identi
—"
One of the intruders whirled in his direction, and before he could finish, he
felt a deep burning sensation in his chest that slammed him backward. Next a
piercing pain erupted in his neck and his head dropped sideways. The asphalt
of the pavement came up, crashing against his nose. He heard the dull thunk
of silencers just as the world went forever black.

8:26 P.M.

"Pad perimeter secure," Jamal Khan, Salim's intense younger brother said
in Farsi, his voice matter-of-fact. He'd just wasted some stranger; no big deal.
Then he slipped the Uzi's strap over his shoulder and turned back. Come to
think of it, this was the thirteenth man he d killed with an Uzi. Maybe the
number would be lucky. . . .
Ramirez looked out over the facility, confident. Posing as an electronics
supplier, he had fully reconnoitered the site two months earlier, meticulously
memorizing the location of everything they needed. Once again he reflected
on how fortuitous its geometry was. The facility was made to be penetrated
from the air.

Stelios Tritsis, their Greek, was busy scanning the walkie-
talkie channels, but he heard no alerts from any of the guards—which meant
no more surprises in this remote corner. For reasons of safety, SatCom
deliberately had located the helicopter pad as far as possible from the Cyclops
and the launch installation. All staff were engaged down at the other end. This
guard had been a loner, and he had paid for his stupidity.
"Phase two complete," Ramirez announced quietly as he looked back at the
Hind. "Now, remember. No heroics. Everybody on semiauto."
The only obvious security out here was at the entry gate to the chopper
pad. After Peretz quickly aborted its alarm by short-circuiting the copper
contacts, they moved through single-file. Ramirez stood at the opening,
studying each man one last time and hoping he could keep them together as a
team.
So far almost everything had gone according to plan. He had hand-picked,
assembled, and trained them four months in Libya, rehearsing them for all the
standard antiterrorist techniques that might be used against them—from stun
grenades to "Thunder Strips"—then afterward had rendezvoused with them in
Yemen to pick up the Hind, the other helicopter, and the two packages. He had
made cash arrangements with enough officials in both countries to ensure that
no questions would be asked.
The most unreliable team member was Salim Khan, tonight's pilot.
Ramirez watched him pat a twenty-two-round clip into his Uzi and draw back
the gnarled walnut cocking knob on the top as he stepped through the gate. He
looked trustworthy, but he really wasn't. Ramirez suspected Salim was too
bitter, was too strongly of the opinion life had given him a screwing—which
meant he was now devoted to settling the score. He liked to live on the edge,
push the rules. On the other hand, this mission was all about that, and thus far
Ramirez had exploited the Iranian to the hilt. It also meant, however, that he
had to be watched: he was a cynical realist who held nothing but contempt for
the militant cadres of young firebrands who marched through the streets of
Tehran with photos of some ayatollah attached defiantly to their chest,
chanting slogans against the Great Satan . . . while wearing jeans whose back

pockets read "Made in U.S.A." Because Salim didn't believe in anything
anymore, he was difficult to control. Always dicey.
Following close behind him, also carrying a black Uzi, was Jamal, his
younger brother. Jamal, with crazy eyes and a coal-black beard, was the exact
opposite—he only fought for a cause.
Jamal had come to Lebanon years ago to join Hizballah, a radical
organization headquartered in West Beirut and the Bekaa Valley. Since he
joined, as many as five hundred Hizballah had been directly involved in
terrorist acts in the Middle East and Europe. He believed God wanted him to
carry out a jihad, a holy crusade, against the Americans and Zionists who had
surrounded and were choking the Muslim peoples. To prove his faith, he had
been part of the team that commandeered a Libyan Arab Airlines 727 in flight
between Zurich and Tripoli, leading to the longest hijacking in history. The
plane had traveled six thousand miles, bouncing from Beirut to Athens, then
Rome, again Beirut, and even Tehran before ending on its third stop in
Lebanon three days later.
Miraculously Jamal had walked free. He was a hothead, but he also was a
survivor. Jamal prayed five times a day, neither drank nor smoked, and had
been one of the explosives experts on the U.S. Embassy job in Beirut that
killed 218 Marines. He was truly a living contradiction.
That was fine with Ramirez. He could care less about Hizballah's radical
politics. On the other hand, he'd always made good use of them. After Jamal's
famous hijacking, Ramirez had gone to the Bekaa Valley and found him, and
through him Salim—who, by stealing the Hind, had turned out to be much
more valuable than his rabid younger brother. All the same, he had problems
with them. Iranians sometimes had difficulty discerning the difference
between fact and fantasy: as with most Muslims, they thought that saying
something was so made it happen.
The tall man striding through after Jamal, nursing a slight limp, was Stelios
Tritsis, their only Greek. In 1975, as a young firebrand, he had been a
founding member of the famous terrorist organization Epanastaiki Organosi
17 Noemvri. In his heart he was still a radical, dedicated to forcing Greece out

of NATO and ending the U.S. military domination of his country. The new
American imperialism in the Persian Gulf had only proved he was right all
along.
Because of an incident long ago in his youth—a torture episode at the
hands of the infamous Colonels—Stelios's eyes never seemed entirely
focused. He had become addicted to the morphine given to relieve the pain
and never kicked it. Even so, he was their most lethal marksman, and he
considered this operation his final revenge against America and her lackeys.
The man didn't care, honestly didn't care, about his share of the money. Even
Ramirez had to admire that.
Following him was Jean-Paul Moreau, head of the famous Action Directe,
whose international wing was headquartered in Paris. Jean-Paul was tall, had
long flowing blond hair and determined eyes. He also had a famous bullet
scar across his cheek from an attempt in the early eighties to assassinate
former Justice Minister Alain Peyrefitte with a bomb attached to his car. He
merely killed the chauffeur and was wounded by the security guards. But in
November 1986 he got his revenge, masterminding the murder of Georges
Besse, the chairman of Renault. He wanted nothing more than for Europe to
rid herself of Americans and Zionists—toward which end Action Directe had
cooperated with the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction on several
attacks carried out in France, which was how Ramirez had first met him. In
the past Action Directe had financed its operations primarily through bank
robberies. After this, Moreau was told, their money problems would be over.
The next man was Wolf Helling, the lanky, balding leader of Germany's
Revolutionare Zellen. Ramirez suspected his real goal in life was to look as
Aryan as possible. Politically he was an anarchist—who had, in 1984,
bombed a NATO fuel pipeline near Lorch in Baden-Wurttemberg. RZ's
official aim was to pressure the U.S. out of Germany through terrorist attacks
and to destroy the West German "system" by conducting guerrilla terrorism
against Zionists and militarists. RZ had long-standing ties to Palestinian
terrorist organizations, which was again how Ramirez had met him. How
ironic for Helling, just when he had lived to see the Zionist American military

begin to depart Europe, it had become the de facto ruler of the Middle East.
He wanted to teach America one final lesson: the propertied classes of the
world could never be secure.
Following behind him were three beefy former members of East
Germany's Stasi—now being sought by authorities in the new unified
Germany for torture and other crimes of the past. With few friends left, they
had thrown in their lot with RZ. They had always reminded Ramirez of the
three monkeys of folklore: Rudolph Schindler, with his dark sunglasses, could
see no evil; Peter Maier remained such a rabid ideologue he still could hear no
evil (of Communism); and Henes Sommer spoke nothing but evil, against
everyone. They were sullen and bitter, but they were perfect goons for
auxiliary firepower, or should be. They were men without a country, guns for
hire who already had lost everything.
Dore Peretz, their renegade Israeli, walked through last, closing the wire
gate behind him. He had fixed his steady dark eyes on only one outcome: he
had come for the money, the money only. No politics or mock-heroics for
him. He already had selected a seaside villa in Hadera. Despite his annoying
tendency to shoot off his mouth, to make jokes at the wrong time, his
contribution would be crucial. Ramirez did not wholly trust him, but he
needed his computer and weapons expertise. He asked himself what Peretz
would do if the chips were really down. With luck, however, that question
would never have to be answered. Ramirez almost liked him—he was not sure
why—and would hate to have to kill the smart-ass fucker. . . .
They were in. Command lay at one end of SatCom's setup, the two
vehicles at the other, and in between was the living quarters—known as the
"Bates Motel"—as well as rows of small warehouses that contained supplies
for personnel and equipment maintenance, used for storage but now darkened
and locked. As they moved along the walkway, carefully staying out of the
circles of light that illuminated the doorways of the warehouses, their black
slipovers blended into the Aegean night. The minimal lighting in this area
caused him no hesitation: he had thoroughly memorized the site. He knew

they would find the control center with the computers just below their present
location.
Now they were approaching the entry-point to Command, the high-security
"lobby." Just inside the glass-doored space a uniformed Greek guard occupied
a teakwood desk, attentively studying the sports section of an Athens
newspaper.
They paused in the last shadows before the open space fronting the
entryway, giving Stelios Tritsis time to shuck his black pullover. Underneath
he was wearing the brown uniform of a SatCom guard, complete with
epaulets and the regulation .38. He also had what, upon casual inspection,
looked like a SatCom photo ID.
While the others waited, holding their breath, he stepped through the glass
entry doors, feigning a jaunty pace and flipping the pass impatiently against
the leg of his uniform.
When the SatCom guard looked up, puzzled, and started to challenge him,
Tritsis was only five feet away. He sang out a hello in Greek, then reached to
scratch an itch in the small of his back. When his hand came away, it was
holding a small Glock-17 automatic. The shot was directly in the forehead, a
dull thunk, and the guard tumbled backward in his chair, his eyes disbelieving,
his .38 still holstered. It took only seconds.
Without a word the rest of them moved in.
"What's next?" Ramirez said quietly to Peretz.
“The code for the doors has to be punched in there—" he pointed. Behind
the desk was a computer terminal that reported the security status of all the
sectors. Its green screen remained blank, flashing no alerts.
"Disable them," Ramirez ordered, the first test of the Israeli's technical
skills. In the hours to come, he would prove indispensable. Or so he claimed.
"Then deactivate the access code and we ought to be able to just walk in."
While Jamal was rearranging the guard's body, leaving him slumped over
the desk as though asleep, Ramirez locked the entry doors behind them, then
stepped behind the desk and dimmed the lobby lights. Finally he slipped off
his flight suit and tossed it behind the desk.

Right on schedule.
They headed toward Command. He knew that if you control the brain, you
are master of the body, and now they had to seize that brain. So far their
smooth progress surpassed his hopes. But the next phase was crucial, allowed
for no foul-ups. He still feared his ad hoc troops might get trigger-happy and
destroy some of the critical equipment; he had even considered making them
use blanks, but that was taking too big a risk.
"The gates of Paradise are about to be opened," Jamal declared through his
black beard, his crazed eyes reflecting back the lights on the security door as
they changed from red to green and a muted buzzer sounded. "Allah has given
this to us."
Ramirez said nothing, merely straightened the hand-tailored cuffs of his
charcoal Brioni. Then he stepped back to watch as the door to Command
Central slowly began sliding to the left.

8:39 P.M.

Cally was thinking about how much she would love a pizza, heavy on the
cheese and Italian sausage. No, just heavy on the cholesterol. Why was it that
the only things that tasted good were all supposed to be bad for you? She had
long ago determined never to let it bother her. Like Scarlett, she'd think about
it tomorrow. The heck with it. Everybody needed a secret sin. And that was
the worst part of being here on Andikythera. You couldn't just pick up a
phone. . . .
She stared across the cavernous room, her stomach grumbling, and looked
at the large overhead screen intended to track the space vehicle after lift-off.
Then she glanced around at the rows of desks with computer workstations that
lined the floor. It was almost as though she had a small army under her
command. All this power, and she still couldn't order up a pizza. What was
wrong with this picture? She was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she
completely failed to notice the new arrivals.

8:40 P.M.

As Ramirez took position, he quickly noticed everything. At the far end,
beneath the huge master screens, a wide desk commanded the room. And
behind it sat a dark-haired woman whose history he had committed to
memory. She was the one that counted.
Odd that a woman should be in charge . . . but then a woman had even
been elected president of a major Muslim country. Once. All things were
possible, now and then.
It did not matter to him, not the way he knew it mattered to these two
Iranians. He lived in the real world; they lived in a world that did not exist.
They, he knew, would say it did not exist yet. Well, that was their problem, not
his. . . .
Gradually, as one technician after another became aware of them standing
in the doorway, all activity ceased. Ten men, dressed in black, all armed with
Uzis. Their image triggered a reflexive response of fear throughout the room,
nurtured by decades of terrorism in the news.

Ramirez surveyed the room. None of the American technicians had any
weapons. As anticipated, he had caught the prey unprepared. Indeed, he had
hoped to avoid gunfire. Keep the staff calm. They would be needed.
"You will continue, please, as you were." His voice sounded over the
room, English with only a trace of accent. But that trace of accent was
bloodless. The authority with which he spoke let everybody know that the
command chain had just changed.
Cally turned to stare at the intruders, puzzled. They were strangers . . .
now the sight of their automatic weapons registered . . . and they were
armed. They sure didn't work for SatCom. How the hell did they get
through facility security?
Their leader—she noted that he was wearing a sharp Italian suit, not
commando mufti, and he was doing the talking— was scanning the room as
though he already owned it. And, in truth, he did. Like the American
embassy in Tehran, SatCom had been caught sleeping. But there was no
gesturing of weapons. He seemed to want to maintain normality.
They're terrorists, her intuition was screaming. But no, her rational mind
answered back. It couldn't be true. Terrorism operated a universe away from
Andikythera; it wasn't supposed to touch the lives of anybody outside the
hot spots.
Now their spokesman was strolling down the aisle between the computer
terminals, headed her way. She figured him for late forties, educated,
subject to reason. He seemed rational, or at least businesslike. He could
have been a SatCom VP from Arlington dropping by for a surprise
inspection. The rest, except for a couple of Arabs with beards, looked like
Eurotrash hoods.
"Miss Andros, I presume," the man said, then laughed. "It is a pleasure to
meet you. At last."
"What are you doing here?" Her disorientation was being rapidly
replaced by anger. "This is a restricted area."
The man smiled . . . almost politely . . . and seemed to ignore the
question. "You are absolutely correct. Very reasonable, and proper. But

please, you and your staff must just continue on and pay no attention to us.
Your head-office check-in is scheduled for 2200 hours. You will, of course,
report nothing amiss. Which will be true." He bowed lightly. "I'm sure they
will want to know how the Cyclops power-up went. In fact, we are all
anxious for the answer to that."
His words echoed off the hard, neon-lit surfaces. Command Central, its
pale blue walls notwithstanding, had never seemed more stark.
"I'd appreciate it very much if you would leave," she said, holding her
voice quiet. "This is private property. You are trespassing."
The man just smiled again and walked over to examine the big screens.
"These things have always intrigued me. Like something in the movies.
Buck Rogers." He turned back. "Please, don't let my layman's curiosity
interfere with your work."
Bill, Bill. She thought of SatCom's CEO in his office, just beyond the
doors at the far end of the room. You've got a radio. And you can see this
room on a security monitor. Can't you—
The door at the far end opened, and there stood William Bates.
"Who the hell are you?" his voice boomed over the room.
"My name need not concern you," the terrorist in the suit answered. "Just
call me Number One. But I will favor you by returning your question."
"And I'll give you the same answer, Number One, or whoever the hell
you are," Bates replied, not moving. "Whatever you're thinking, there's
nothing here to steal. You're wasting your time. What's more, you're
trespassing on American property. So take those goons with you and get the
hell out the same way you came in."
"American property? Americans seem to think the whole world is their
property." He smiled once more. "But let me put your mind at ease. We are
not here to steal. And if you cooperate, no one in this room will be harmed."
Cally looked him over, asking herself whether she believed him. Not for
a minute. She suddenly realized this man would kill anyone who got in his
way; it was etched into his eyes.

"Now, Miss Andros . . . you should order your people to proceed with
the countdown. My understanding is that the first vehicle is scheduled to be
launched in less than sixty-five hours. We certainly want nothing to disrupt
your timetable."
She stared at him more closely, puzzled. If he and these creeps weren't
here for blackmail, threatening to destroy the facility, against a payoff, then
what could they possibly want?
"You don't give the orders here." Bates moved toward the man. "I do."
He dropped his voice as he passed Cally. "Don't do a goddamn thing." Then
he looked up. "You will leave right now, or I'll call my security staff."
“That would be most unwise. At least two of them would be unable to
respond." He nodded toward the door. "You are welcome to check outside.
But come, we're all wasting precious time."
"You son of a bitch. I won't—"
"Well, well," the man interrupted, "could it be I am luckier than I
dreamed possible? Could it be that I have the honor to be speaking to none
other than William Bates? Have we snared the CEO? No, that would be too
much good luck."
We're screwed, Cally thought. He knows. Now they'll hold Bill for
ransom. He's pure gold. Rich and famous.
"You will kindly take a seat, Mr. Bates," the man went on.
"The hell I—"
One of the bearded men carrying an automatic weapon stepped forward
and slammed the metal butt into Bates' stomach, sending him staggering
backward. He tried to catch his balance, but failed and collapsed
ignominiously onto the gray linoleum.
"Again, we're squandering time," the spokesman, the one in charge,
continued calmly. "Where were we? Oh yes, the power-up." He turned
around. "Now, Miss Andros, none of us wants that report to be late, do we?
It would look bad for everybody."

CHAPTER FOUR
7:02 A.M.

When Vance caught his first clear sight of Andikythera's sheltered inlet,
the storm had passed over in the night and Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn"
was displaying all her splendored glory. With only a slight effort he had
altered his course and reached the island. Now, as he rowed in through the
still, turquoise waters, only light surface ripples lapped against his Switlik.
As quickly as it had come, the turmoil in the seas had vanished. He hoped it
was a good omen.
He looked down and realized the water was so crystalline he could see
the bottom, now at least ten meters below. Although he had visited many
islands, he had never seen anything more perfect than Andikythera. Despite
being bone-tired and soaked to the skin, conditions that exacerbated his
anger, the sight of the island momentarily buoyed his spirits. It reminded
him of a thousand Caribbean mornings, the feeling of rebirth and renewal.
Andikythera had always been private, and never more so than now. It
was an industrial site these days, pure and simple. No ferries deposited
tourists here, no fishing boats docked in the mornings. Nothing but granite
cliffs surrounded the secrets held inside.
The heavy construction equipment, the prefabricated buildings, the
facility's high-tech components, all had come through this harbor. Now,
however, the dock was deserted; the off-loading cranes and giant
mechanical arms highlighted against the morning sky stood idle. Everything
had been delivered, was in place, and was humming. The only vessel now
tied up was a sailing yacht, Bill's twenty-eight-foot Morgan, leased
specially so he could keep his hand in while here. Great boat. . . .
Abruptly he stopped rowing.

Think a minute, he told himself. You can't risk using the inlet. No way.
On the right and left sides of the harbor, steep crags of white granite
speckled with scrub cypress guarded the shore, while the towering cliffs of
the north mirrored the coastline of a thousand Greek islands. Unlike the
postcard photos for sale everywhere on the tourist islands—featuring
topless Swedish blondes and trim Italian playboys, gold chains glinting—
this was the real Greece, harsh and severe. Only a few seabirds swirling
over the near shore, adding their plaintive calls to the silence-breaking
churn of surf pounding over the rocks, broke the silence.
He studied the island, trying to get his bearings. Just as Bill had said, it
appeared to be about three miles long, maybe a couple of miles wide. As
though balancing the radar-controlled mountain at one end, at the opposite
terminus stood the launch vehicles, now just visible as the tip of two giant
spires, gleaming in the early sunshine like huge silver bullets. And
somewhere beneath this granite island, he knew, was the heart of the
Cyclops, SatCom's computer-guided twenty- gigawatt laser. . . .
There was no sign of anybody monitoring his approach. The early light
showed only pristine cliffs, cold and empty.
Careful now. First things first.
He rowed under a near cliff, then slipped off the yellow raft and into the
knee-deep waters of the near shore, still dazzlingly clear. It reminded him
again of the Caribbean. Maybe Bill unconsciously had an island there in
mind when he decided to move everything here.
The water was cold, refreshing as he moved in. He collected what he
needed from the raft and stood a minute wondering what to do with it. Then
inspiration struck. It only weighed sixty-five pounds, so why not use it?
It was a standard Switlik, which meant inflation had been automatic. The
deflation would take a while, so he started it going as he hefted the heavy
yellow hulk and headed up the hill. He wanted it empty, but not entirely.
The security Dimitri Spiros had installed was high-tech and good. He
had not gone to the trouble of burying cables all around the place with
magnetic anomaly detectors. That would have required blasting through a

lot of granite and did not really seem worth the tab. Instead he had
surrounded the place with a chain-link fence and topped that with free-
spinning wheels of razor wire known as Rota-Barb, which prevented an
intruder from smothering the cutting edges with cloth. Then, just to make
sure, across the top and at several levels below, he had added lines of
Sabretape with an enclosed fiber-optic strand. A pulse of light was
transmitted through the length of the tape, and if it was disturbed, detectors
at a central guard location would know immediately when and where.
Now Vance had to try to penetrate a system he had actually been
involved, indirectly, in setting up. The ultimate irony.
The jagged granite tore at his hands as he struggled up, picking his way
through the clusters of scrub cedar that clung to the steep ascent and
dragging the Switlik by its nylon straps. The cliff rose a good two hundred
feet and was almost sheer, but he located enough niches to haul himself
forward. Finally, exhausted and hands bleeding, he pulled himself over the
top. Then he dragged up the remains of the raft.
Ahead, just in front of the towering communications mountain, he
discerned ARM's industrial security installation, a ten-foot-high chain-link
fence interwoven with fiber optics. Beyond it on a helicopter pad sat Bill's
new Agusta, a hot 109 Mark II with all the latest modifications, including
two 450-hp Allison engines. It sat there, its blue trim like ice, a ghostly
apparition against the lightening sky.
Poised alongside was a brooding hulk that dwarfed the Agusta—a Soviet
Mi-24D, one of its stubby wings a tangled mass of metal.
So the bastards were here. He'd guessed right.
He saw no guards around it, but who knew.
He would find out soon enough, but one thing was sure: it must have a
radio on board. The U.S. Navy would be very interested in identifying the
location of its hostile. Maybe he should just switch on the Hind's cockpit
IFF, let it start broadcasting. If the ship that was attacked had been
interrogating the Hind, there'd probably be knowledge somewhere of the
codes it was transmitting.

Easy. Just take it easy. Go in behind the chopper, handle the fence, and
then rush the thing from the back. If anybody's guarding it, you'll be taking
them from their blind side.
Grasping the Switlik, with the Walther tucked firmly into the waist of his
soaked trousers, he dashed for the corner of the fence behind the Hind. He
was barefoot, the way he always sailed, and the granite felt sharp and
cutting under his feet. But being barefoot was going to help him take the
fence.
Okay, he thought, the fiber-optic alarm system is going to blow, no
matter what. Just get in and get on the radio quick, then worry about what
comes next.
He knew the only way to defeat a Rota-Barb system was at the corners,
where the spinning rolls of wire intersected at a right angle. As he
approached the corner, he looked up and checked out his chances. Yep, with
the Switlik to smother the barbs it might just be possible.
He looped one of the nylon straps, then leaned back and heaved the raft
up onto the top of the fence. It caught and was hanging there but—just as he
had hoped—the strap passed over and down the other side. Next he reached
through, seized it, and tied it securely to the heavy chain links of the fence.
Now it would hold the raft in place as he climbed from the outside.
Holding the hand straps of the raft, he clambered up and
made it to the top. Then he rolled himself into the rubber and pushed over.
A second later he dropped shoulder-first onto the asphalt of the landing pad.
Home.
The razor wire had shredded the raft, and the fiber-optic security system
would have detected the entry, but he was in. If any guards were left alive,
they probably had other things to worry about.
Or so he hoped.
At that instant he thought he heard a sound, and whirled back. No, he
had only caught the chirp of a morning bird, somewhere in the cluster of
trees down toward the shore. The island again seemed as serene as a
paradise.

He crouched a moment, grasping the Walther, then shoved a round into
the chamber. The early morning light showed the Hind in all its glory. It
was dark green, with a heavy, retractable landing gear—a magnificent
machine. And a lethal one. Originally intended as an antitank weapon, the
Mi-24 had quickly become a high-speed tool for air-to- ground combat. To
reduce vulnerability to ground fire, its makers substituted steel and titanium
for aluminum in critical components and replaced the original blade-pocket
design with glassfiber-skinned rotors. . . .
The only defect of this particular example was the absence of the
starboard auxiliary wing, including the rocket pod. Its arrival and accurate
landing here spoke volumes for the flying skills of whoever had been at the
controls. If the weapons operator had possessed comparable talent, Vance
reflected, he might not be standing here now.
But, he noted again, it had Israeli markings. Had the Israelis really
attacked a U.S. frigate? That made no sense. For one thing, they couldn't
have flown a Hind this far without refueling. Its combat radius was only
about a hundred miles.
Then he looked more closely and realized that the Israeli Star of David
in a circle of white had merely been papered on. So it was a false-flag job.
Which more than ever left open the question—who the hell were they?
Gripping the Walther, he slid open the door to the cargo bay and
examined the darkened interior. It was empty save for a few remnants of
packing crates. He climbed in and checked them over. They had been for
weapons. He saw some U.S. markings on one: a crate of M79 grenade
launchers. Another had contained Czech ZB-26 light machine guns, with
spare boxes for C-Mag modifications, giving them 100-round capability.
Jesus! If these were just the discarded crates, what else did these guys
have?
He turned and moved up the gray metal steps to the cockpit, a raised
bubble above the weapons station. Nice. He settled himself, looking out the
bulletproof windscreen at the first tinge of dawn breaking over the island.
His first impulse was to crank her up and fly her out. He resisted it.

Switching on the IFF would be a chore; he was not even sure he knew
how. He could, however, get on the airwaves.
The pilot's flight helmet was stashed on the right-hand panel where it
had been tossed. He picked it up and slipped it on, then clicked on the
electronics. The helicopter's main panel and screens glowed to life, a
patchwork of green and red lights and LEDs. He flicked more switches
overhead and the infrared and radar systems came on-line, their displays
like Christmas-tree lights briskly illuminating one by one in rows.
Now for the radio.
It was Soviet-made, of course, with heavy metal knobs and a case that
looked as though it could withstand World War III. He clicked it on and
began scanning through the aviation channels, checking to see if anybody
was out there. Maybe . . .
Nothing, except a few routine exchanges of civilian pilots. Well, he
thought, could be it takes a while for the news of major world events to get
down to the trenches. Word would circulate soon enough. The military
channels, however, would be another matter.
The Hind had them all. He clicked over to the frequencies and began
scanning. There were a lot of scrambled communications; the radio traffic
was sizzling. He figured the Sixth Fleet was on full alert.
Except they didn't know where to look for their hostile.
He remembered that the military emergency channel was
121.50 megahertz. He punched it in, then unhooked the black mike and
switched to transmit. The green diodes blinked to red.

7:09 A.M.

Jean-Paul Moreau, who had perfect command of English, was catching
the BBC on a small Sony ICF-PR080 in Command Central, keeping abreast
of the news. The World Service was just winding up its morning broadcast,
circumspect as always.

". . . A reminder of the main story: there are unconfirmed rumors
emanating from the southern Aegean that an American naval vessel, the
USS Glover, was attacked by a helicopter gunship late last evening, with
considerable damage and loss of life. It is said the gunship was Israeli. No
confirmation or denial of this report has yet been issued by the government
in Tel Aviv. And that's the end of the news from London. . . ."
"Guess we had a hit." He laughed, then switched frequencies and started
monitoring the military channels.
Ramirez had also heard the broadcast, with satisfaction. The attack
would soon blossom into a world event, with accusations flying. After that
had played its course, he would drop his bombshell.
Now it was daylight. Time to begin phase three of the operation.
It had been a productive night. The first order of business had been to
off-load their hardware. In addition to the Uzis they had carried in, they had
broken out a compliment of AK- 47s. The Germans had also brought out
and limbered up a crate of MK760 submachine guns, fully automatic with
folding stocks, as well as some Czech mortars and grenade launchers.
That was finished by 0300 hours, after which the men caught catnaps,
rotating to keep at least three on guard at all times. Now that the test had
gone off successfully, most of the facility staff was lounging at the blank
terminals, dazed.
Ramirez, however, had no intention of letting the SatCom staff become
rested. He looked over the room at the young engineers, all of whom were
showing the first signs of hostage behavior. They were frightened, stressed,
tired—already in the early stages of "hostile dependency." Soon they would
melt, become totally pliable. But to achieve that, they could not be allowed
to get enough sleep. Food also had to be kept to a minimum.
Most importantly, all telephone and computer linkages with the outside
world had been cut—with the exception of one. The single telephone
remaining was on the main desk down at the other end of Command.
Otherwise, Peretz had methodically shut down everything, including the

telemetry equipment located up on the mountain. While they would need to
reactivate it later on, for the moment they could keep it on standby.
Peretz had proved reliable so far, Ramirez told himself. The man was
seasoned and competent, unlike the young Muslims who acted first and
thought later. An operation like this required precision, not unbridled
impetuosity, which was why he valued the Israeli so highly. . . .
As he surveyed Command, he decided it was time for champagne. He
had brought a small bottle, a split of Dom. . . . But what was champagne
without the company of a beautiful woman. He turned toward Miss Andros
—
"Merde!"
His meditations were interrupted by the startled voice of Moreau.
"There's a Mayday on one-twenty-one point five megahertz. It's so close,
I think someone is transmitting from here on the island."
Ramirez cursed, while the buzz in Command subsided. Then Moreau
continued.
"In English. He's talking about the Glover, and he's giving our location."
"Probably one of the guards." Ramirez paused, thinking. "But how could
he know about the Glover?"
"Maybe he's in the Hind, monitoring the radio," Helling said, rubbing at
his balding skull. "We—"
"You brought backup. Time to use it." Ramirez turned and beckoned for
the three ex-Stasi: Schindler, Maier, and Sommer. It was time for the three
monkeys to start earning their keep. "Go out to the chopper," he barked to
them in German, "and handle it. You know what to do."
They nodded seriously and checked their Uzis. They knew exactly.

7:23 A.M.

The transmit seemed to be working, and he was getting out everything
he knew—the location of the Hind, the fake nationality, the attack on the
frigate. But was anybody picking it up? The heavy Soviet radio was rapidly

drawing down its batteries, but he figured it was now or never. Get it out
quick and hope, he thought. Pray some Navy ship in this part of the Aegean
will scan it and raise the alarm.
He was still trying to piece it all together when he spied the figures,
approaching from far down the central walkway. Three men dressed in
black, looking just like a hit squad. He had not expected so fast a response,
and for a second he was caught off guard. They must have been monitoring
the radio.
If you had any sense, he told himself, you'd have expected that. You're
about to have some really lousy odds.
The Hind was armored like a tank, he knew, and even the bubbles over
the cockpit and the weapons station were supposedly bulletproof. How
bulletproof, he guessed, he was about to learn.
With the three men still a distance away, he realized he had only one
choice. Although he had never actually flown a Hind, this seemed an ideal
time to try and find out how difficult it was.
Probably harder than he knew. He reached up and flicked on the fuel
feeds, then pushed the starter. To his surprise, there came the sound of a
long, dull whine that began increasing rapidly in intensity and frequency.
The main rotor had kicked on—he could tell from the vibration—and the
tail stabilizer, too, if the rpm dials were reporting accurately.
All right, he told himself, the dial on the right side of the panel is rotor
speed. Keep it in the green. And over to the left is engine speed. Come on,
baby. Go for the green. Red line means you crash and burn. Pedals, okay.
But this isn't like a regular airplane; the stick is cyclic, controls the angle of
your blades.
The instruments were now on-line—temperature, fuel gauges, pressure,
power output. The two Isotov turboshafts were rapidly bringing up rpm
now, already past three thousand. He grabbed hold of the collective, eased
back on the clutch, and felt the massive machine shudder, then begin to lift
off.

As the three men breached the gate leading into the asphalt-paved
landing area, a fusillade of automatic-weapons fire began spattering off the
bubble windscreen, leaving deep dents in the clear, globelike plastic.
So far, so good, he thought. It's holding up to manufacturer's specs.
Now for the power. It's controlled by the collective, but when you
increase power you increase torque, so give her some left pedal to
compensate.
The Hind had started to hover, and now he moved the columns to
starboard, bringing it around. He could not reach the weapons station, but
the 12.7mm machine gun in the nose had an auxiliary fire control under the
command of the pilot.
With his hand on the stick, he activated the fire button. He might not be
able to hit anything, but he'd definitely get somebody's attention. . . .
The machine gun just below him erupted, a deadly spray that knocked
sparks off the hurricane fence surrounding the pad as the chopper slowly
revolved around. Somewhere now off to his left came a new burst of
automatic fire. He found himself in a full-scale firefight, trapped like a
tormented bull in a pen.
But the Hind was up and hovering . . . and also beginning to slip
sideways because of the damaged wing. He grappled with the collective
pitch lever in his left hand, trying to regain control, but he didn't have the
experience. The chopper was now poised about ten feet above the ground,
its engines bellowing, nosing around and drifting dangerously.
He'd lost control. As it tilted sideways, the fence began coming up at
him, aiming directly for the nose bubble. Even more unnerving, though,
was the heavyset terrorist in a black pullover who was standing directly in
front of the bubble and firing his Uzi point-blank. Worse still, he was
handling it like second nature.
The plastic splintered with a high-pitched shriek as the rounds caught it
head-on. The curvature had helped before, but now the gunman was able to
fire straight into it. The game was about to be up.

He ducked for the floor of the cockpit just as the bubble windscreen
detonated, spewing shards of plastic both outward and inward. Now the
helicopter was coming about and lifting off again, pulling up strands of the
wire fence that had gotten tangled in the landing gear.
No time to worry about it. He rose up, grasped the collective, and urged
more power, trying to compensate for the torque. But the mottled gray
behemoth was increasingly unstable, shunting sideways, drifting over the
security fence and spiraling upward toward the mountain that bristled with
SatCom's communications gear. The gunner holding the Uzi slipped in
another clip and raised up to finish him off, but at that instant Vance
squeezed the fire button one last time and the man danced a pirouette,
disappearing from view.
As he started to spiral in earnest, more automatic fire ricocheted off the
fuselage. Then came a sickening whine.
The stabilizer, he thought. They must have hit the damned stabilizer.
This is going to be a very short trip.
Panic caught him as the Hind started into autorotation, round and round
like a bumper-car ride at an amusement park.
He cut the power—hoping he could bring her down using the energy
stored in the blades—then quickly put the right pedal to the floor, held the
collective down, and tried to keep rotor speed in the green. He was drifting
to the east now, headed for a copse of trees halfway up the mountain.
Not a bad place to set down, he thought, and started to
flare the blades with the stick, hoping he could bring her in with the
collective. The Hind was still spinning in autorotation, but not yet
dangerously. Slowly, slowly . . .
He was about thirty feet above the trees when a splatter of automatic fire
erupted from the open doorway. He whirled around to see the terrorist he'd
bulldozed into the fence now hanging onto the metal step and trying to pull
himself in.
What now . . . !

The man—Vance guessed he was pushing forty, with a face of timeless
brutality—was covered with blood and his aim was hampered by trying to
hold the Uzi as he fired one-handed, the other hand grasping the step. He
was cursing in German. . . .
At that instant the Hind took a sickening dip, and the Uzi clattered onto
the doorway pallet as the terrorist relinquished it to try to hold on with both
hands.
But he was losing it, his hands slippery with his own blood, and all that
held him now was the torn section of his own shirt that had somehow
sleeved over the step. Then his grasp gave way entirely, and he dangled for
a moment by the shirt before it ripped through and he fell, a trailing scream.
He landed somewhere in the trees twenty feet below, leaving only the shirt.
In the meantime the Hind continued spiraling and drifting down, and
Vance looked out to see the gray granite of the side of the mountain moving
toward him, with only a bramble of trees in between. But at least the
chopper's autorotation was bringing him in for a soft crash.
He braced himself as a clump of trees slapped against the side of the
fuselage. Then the twelve-ton helicopter plunged into them, its landing gear
collapsing as it crunched to a stop. He felt himself flung forward,
accompanied by the metallic splatter of the rotor collapsing against the
granite, shearing and knocking the fuselage sideways in a series of jolts. As
the two turboshaft engines automatically shut down, he held onto the seat
straps and reflected that this was his first and probably last turn at the stick
of a Hind. And all he'd managed to do was total it.
Heck of a way to start a morning.
The Uzi was still lying on the floor of the cabin, while the shirt of the
man he had shot was wrapped around the metal step and lodged beneath the
crushed landing gear.
When he reached back and checked to see that the Walther 9mm was still
secured in his belt, he noticed that his arm had been lacerated by the jagged
plastic of the shattered canopy. He noticed it, but he didn't feel it. He was

feeling nothing, only a surge of adrenaline and the certain knowledge he
had to get out fast, with the Uzi.
He scooped it up and stumbled through the doorway, to the sound of
muted gunfire down the hill, as the other two hoods continued to advance.
He had the German's automatic now, but the last thing he wanted was a
shootout. Nonetheless, rounds of fire sang around him as he ripped the
black shirt loose from the chopper's step and felt the pockets. One contained
what seemed like a small leather packet.
He yanked it out, then plunged in a direction that would bring the Hind
between him and the other two assailants. But when he tried to catch his
footing in the green bramble of brush, he fell on his shoulder and rolled,
feeling a spasm of pain. Christ, this was no longer any fun!
About twenty feet away was an even denser copse of cypress scrub than
the one he had crashed in. If he could make that, he told himself, he'd have
some cover. He just had to get there in one piece.
Half scrambling, half rolling, he headed for the thicket of trees,
occasionally loosing a round of covering fire down the hill. Then he felt the
scratchy hardness of the low brush and threw himself into the bramble. Dirt
spattered as rounds of fire—or was it flecks of granite?—ricocheted around
him, and then he felt a nick across one shoulder—he was not sure from
what. A couple more rounds cut past, but now they were going wide.
He collapsed into the dense bramble and tried to catch his breath. What
next? The Uzi still had a half-full clip. Maybe he could hold them off.
He stilled his breathing and listened, but heard nothing. The
mountainside was deathly quiet, so much so he could almost hear the crash
of waves on the shore below. It was probably only wishful imagination, but
the quiet gave hope he might temporarily be out of danger.
He turned and looked up the mountain, finally able to see it clearly. The
near hillside was covered with brush, the only objects visible above the
green being the tip of a high-tech jungle. SatCom had a hell of a
communications installation. Outlined against the blue sky were huge
parabolic antennas used for microwave uplinks, a phased-array transmission

system for powering the space vehicles, a myriad of dishes for satellite
uplinks and downlinks, and various other antennas used for conventional
radio. It was all set inside a high-security hurricane fence with a gray
cinderblock control hut at the near corner.
Well, he thought, with that battery of antennas, there's surely a way to do
what has to be done next. . . .
This time he wouldn't waste radio access with Maydays.

9:35 A.M.

As the landing announcement sounded through British Air flight 1101
from London to Athens, Isaac Mannheim took off his thick spectacles,
wiped them futilely with a greasy handkerchief, settled them back, and
stared down. The plane was now on final approach, and he had already
taken down his flight bag and stuffed it under the seat in preparation, ready
to march off.
Mannheim was professor emeritus at MIT, Department of Engineering,
and he retained the intellectual curiosity of a mischievous schoolboy. He
had the flowing white hair of a nineteenth-century European philosopher,
the burning eyes of a Jules Verne visionary, the single-minded enthusiasm
of a born inventor, the discursive knowledge of a Renaissance man, and the
self-assurance of a true genius—which he was.
Wearing a tweedy checked suit, a frayed brown overcoat, smudgy horn-
rims, and a Boston Red Sox baseball cap, he also looked every bit as
eccentric as his reputation said. The baseball cap was tribute to another of
his eclectic concerns—the statistics of that particular team. Those he kept
on a computer file and subjected to daily updates.
As Issac Mannheim saw it, he was the undisputed father of Project
Cyclops; Bill Bates was merely in charge of its delivery room down on
Andikythera. It was a half-truth, perhaps, but not entirely untrue either. He
had dreamed up the idea and proved in his MIT lab that it could work. The

rest, he figured, was merely scaling it up—which any dimwit with half a
billion dollars could do with ease. He had already seen to the hard part.
Mannheim liked to check in on his baby every other week, just to make
sure that Bates—who was going to make a fortune off his idea—was doing
it right. Although the long flight to Athens and then the helicopter ride
down to Andikythera were starting to make him feel his seventy-five years,
he did not really mind. When you're my age, he'd claim, you don't have
time to sit around on your butt all day.
He always flew British Air from London rather than taking a direct
Olympic flight from Boston, mainly because he was an Anglophile but also
because he wasn't quite sure he trusted Greek maintenance. Isaac
Mannheim was old school in all things.
As the tires screeched onto the asphalt, he glanced out the window again,
marveling how small the Athens airport was. But then his mind quickly
traveled on to other pressing matters: namely, the day's agenda. He was
anxious to go over the power-up data number by number with Georges
LeFarge. The young French Canadian had been his best student in
Cambridge, ten years ago, and Isaac Mannheim was secretly pleased, very
pleased, that Georges had been given a leading role in the project. Together,
years ago, they had ironed out many of the technical problems in the
system. The work back then had been done on a lab bench, and a
shoestring, but LeFarge knew everything that could go wrong. With
Georges as Director of Computer Systems here, Mannheim knew the
project was in good hands, at least the crucial computer part of it.
When the doors opened, he was one of the first to step out of the BA 757
and down the steel stairway onto the runway. He reflected that he'd had a
good flight this time, with only an hour layover in Heathrow's infamously
crowded Terminal Four. Now, as the airport bus arrived to carry the bleary-
eyed London passengers into the Athens terminal, he anticipated getting an
early start on the day.
He glanced down toward the far end of the airport, the civilian aviation
terminal, expecting to catch sight of Bates’ blue-and-white-striped Agusta

helicopter. Funny, he couldn't see it today; usually you could.
It was odd; they were always here, waiting. Customary promptness was
just one more example of how well that young Dr. Andros was handling the
project. He chafed to admit it, but she was pretty damned good. Although
he had long scoffed at the idea that women could compete successfully with
male engineers, he had to admit she was as professional as any male project
manager he'd ever worked with.
Carrying his overstuffed black briefcase in his left hand and his tattered
nylon flight bag in his right, he waited till the airport bus was almost full
before stepping on. Airport buses, he noted as an engineer, operated on the
old-time LIFO computer storage principle: last in, first out. No random
access.
And he was indeed first out as they pulled into the sheltered awning of
the terminal. The Athens morning sun was already burning through the
growing layer of brown haze. He thought ruefully how it would look from
the south, down around Piraeus, as they flew out. From there Athens
seemed to be encased in an ugly brown tomb.
World air quality was yet another of the topics weighing on his mind
these days. It was, in fact, a frequent subject of the long letters he addressed
to another former student, an average-IQ Danish boy majoring in physics
whom he had seen fit to flunk in junior-year thermodynamics. Afterward
Mannheim had taken the lad aside and bluntly suggested he might wish to
consider a less intellectually demanding career path.
The advice had been heeded, and these days he was doing reasonably
well at his cushy new job, down in Washington. Still, Isaac Mannheim felt
it necessary to post the boy long typewritten letters from time to time
concerning various avenues for self-improvement.
Yes, he had turned out reasonably well after all, considering, but he still
needed to work harder. Don't be a slacker, John; nobody ever got ahead that
way. The forty-second President of the United States, Johan Hansen, read
his old professor's missives, usually written on the back of semi-log graph

paper or whatever was handy, and dutifully answered every one of them.
Maybe he was afraid he'd get another "F" and a humiliating lecture.
Isaac Mannheim stared around the half-filled terminal, wondering. The
SatCom pilot usually met him right at the gate, but today nobody was there.
Incompetent Greeks. This one, in fact, was particularly feckless: just out of
the Greek Air Force with no real grasp of the value of time.
Or had Dr. Andros forgotten he was arriving? That was hard to imagine,
since he had talked with her just before he left Cambridge. One thing you
had to say for her, she never forgot appointments. Strange.
No helicopter. No pilot. Damned peculiar. He had no alternative but to
phone Dr. Andros on her private line.
He walked over to the booth near the entrance to the terminal lobby and
got some drachmas. Then he located a pay phone and placed the call.
She answered on the first ring. Good.
"Cally, what in blazes is going on down there?" He tried to open the
conversation as diplomatically as he knew how. "I'm here, sitting on my
butt in the Athens airport, as though I had nothing else to do. I don't see
Alex anywhere. Or the Agusta. You're going to have to get rid of that boy if
this happens again. Where in hell are they?"
A long uncomfortable pause ensued, and it sounded as though she was
listening to someone else. Finally she answered in a shaky voice.
"Dr. Mannheim, it's been a very long night here. Maybe you—"
"Well, how did the power-up go? I need to go over the data with Georges
right away."
"Dr. Mannheim, maybe—" The phone seemed to go dead. Then she
came back on. "The Mark II is temporarily out of service. Can you take the
ferry?"
"What! You know perfectly well that damned thing only runs once a
week. And that was yesterday. Now what about the Agusta?"
"It's . . . it's just not possible. So—"
'Tell you what, then, I'll just rent one here. It'll cost a few dollars, but I
can't wait around all day."

"Isaac, I—" She never used his first name, at least not to him, but he
took no notice.
"Don't worry about it. It'll just go into project overhead. Be a tax write-
off for Bates." He laughed, without noticeable humor. "He understands all
about such things."
'That's awfully expensive," she said, her voice still sounding strange.
"Maybe it'd be better to wait—"
"Damn it. I'll be there in a couple of hours."
"Dr. Mannheim . . ." Her voice would have sounded an alarm to most
people. But then most people listened. Isaac Mannheim rarely bothered.
Especially where women were concerned. You simply did what had to be
done. It was that simple, but most women seemed unable to fathom matters
of such obvious transparency.
He slammed down the phone and strode out into the morning sunshine.
The private aviation terminal was about a half mile down an ill-paved road,
but he decided the walk would do him good. The breeze would feel
refreshing after the smoky, stuffy terminal. The problem was, Athens was
already getting hot. That's why he liked the islands. They were always
cooler this time of year.

CHAPTER FIVE

7:48 A.M.

Vance stared up the mountain, puzzled. The silence baffled him, and then
he realized why. He was not hearing the usual high-tension hum of
transformers; nothing was operating. They had shut down the power.
He heaved a sigh, then dropped down beside a tree trunk and clicked out
the magazine of the black Uzi. It had about fifteen rounds left, so the time
had come to start making them count. Here, amid the brush, he had a
chance to lie low for a while and figure out what to do next. Besides feeling
thirst and fatigue, he had a throbbing sprain in his shoulder, incurred
somehow during the crash of the chopper. But the pain was helping to clear
his mind.
Maybe, he thought, he could find some provisions stowed in the Hind,
left or overlooked. A stray canteen or some MREs. But did he want to risk

going back down?
The answer was yes because—even more important—the radio might
still be operating. It was definitely time to activate the warranty on this job.
But first things first. Who are these creeps?
Hoping to find out something, he pulled out the leather packet he had
retrieved from the terrorist's torn shirt and cracked it open. Crumpled inside
was a wad of Yemeni dinars, and a crinkled ID card in German. On the back
was a phrase scrawled in English ... it looked like The Resistance Front for
a Free—it was smudged, but yes—Europe.
Back when he and Bates had first talked about the security question, Bill
had insisted ARM focus on industrial security. Truthfully, there hadn't been
any real thought given to antiterrorist measures. It had just seemed
unimaginable. Looked at another way, though, Bates had been trying to be
cost-effective, had gambled on an assumption. Now it was beginning to
look as though that had been a bad bet.
Although for a ground-based setup Dimitri's handiwork— contracted out
of Athens—was top-notch, it had made no provisions against aerial
penetration. From land or sea. That haunting phrase kept coming back. But
Bill had laughed it off, and the client was always supposed to be right.
Besides, the SatCom facility already had a nest of radars up on the hill,
there as part of the Cyclops and also to monitor the local weather. Why
clutter up the place any more? The fact was, these guys had probably come
in under the facility's electronic eyes anyway, using the Hind's ability to
detect an interrogation and keep low enough to avoid a significant radar
signature. The background noise from the choppy sea must have been
enough to mask their approach.
Maybe Spiros should have considered that, but at this point such
meditations amounted to Monday-morning quarterbacking. So now the
parameters of the job had changed, from industrial security to
counterterrorism. SatCom was fortunate in its choice of security services,
because an ARM job always came with a guarantee: if a problem came up,
the boys would be there immediately to solve it. Which meant that alerting

Paris was now his first priority. Until reinforcements arrived, though, he
was ARM's on-site rep.
Lots of problems came to mind. First off, he was operating on the
perimeter: he had no map of the facility, no idea where to find the hostages.
However, the communications station up the hill represented a redoubt he
probably could defend reasonably well, unless they brought up some really
heavy artillery. Maybe there would be some way to disrupt the proceedings,
provide a diversion.
Sooner or later, he figured, there's bound to be some action out of the
U.S. air and naval base down at Souda Bay, on Crete. Hopefully somebody
down at Gournes had picked up his Mayday.
But even if they had, could they send in a team? This was Greek soil,
and Greeks tended to be fussy about their sovereignty. Now that NATO had
no idea what its new mission was, America's heavy presence in Europe
more and more looked like Yankee imperialism. They might convince the
Greeks to let them bring in the Navy SEALs or even the antiterrorist Delta
Force from Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, but that would
require a lot of negotiation, might take days. Time could run out by then.
And the Greeks had no capability themselves to do anything but make
matters worse.
He looked down the hill, toward the half-visible wreckage of the Hind.
Okay, he thought, time to see about that radio. Slowly he rose, chambered a
round in the Uzi with a hard click, and started through the brush. The Greek
scrub tore through his thin shirt and rasped at his skin, while the morning
sun, glimmering off the proud silver spires of the vehicles at the other end
of the island, beat down. The island remained eerily calm, the sleep of the
dead. The takeover was complete, no question about that.
Through the brush the wreckage of the Hind showed its mottled
coloring, a mix of grays and tans among the green of the branches. As he
approached, he could discern no sign of his attackers, which either meant
they were pros and lying in wait for him or they were amateurs and had
fled.

He looked around the copse of scrub cypress, then gingerly stepped
through the open doorway. By some miracle the electronics were still lined
up in rows of readiness, lights and LEDs glowing. A tough bird. And the
radio was still operating, and on. Dawn had long since ripened the clear
blue of the sky, and he could feel the beat of warm sunshine on the
shattered bubble of the canopy. Now, he knew, the terrorists would be
scanning the military frequencies, so it was time to be circumspect and use
some caution for a change.
He checked it over. Good, it had sideband. That was perfect, because he
figured they probably wouldn't monitor those offbeat marine frequencies. If
he could raise Spiros in Athens, he could then contact Paris. They could put
together a team overnight and fly it down.
He fiddled with the sideband channels, hoping. He heard some amateur
action and a ship-to-shore—funny, he thought, that the minute yachtsmen
put to sea they're anxious to get in contact with someone on dry land. What
would Ulysses have done with a shortwave radio? Talked back to the
Sirens? . . .
The broadcasts, however, were mainly about the weather. Sailors did not
waste their time on world events. When that news finally trickled down,
however, these sideband channels would probably no longer be safe to use
—maybe they weren't now, but he had to take the risk. . . .
He tried a few frequencies and then he got lucky. It was a Greek ham
operator, probably having a second cup of strong native coffee and waiting
for the traffic in Athens to subside. As are all amateurs, he was delighted to
talk. He sounded youthful and enthusiastic, eager to help.
"I read you, Ulysses. You're coming in loud and clear on SSB 432.124
megahertz. This is SV5VMS, Athens. What is your callsign?"
"Don't have a handle," Vance replied into the mike, in Greek. "This is a
Mayday."
"I copy." The voice suddenly grew serious. "What is your location?"
He paused a second, wondering what to say. No, he couldn't take a
chance. Who knew who else was listening in?

"Don't have that either. What I need is a phone patch to a number in
Athens. Can you set it up?"
"No problem," came the confident response, using the international
English phrase. Vance tried to imagine what he looked like. Probably mid-
twenties, with the swagger acquired by all young Greek men along with
their first motor scooter. They wanted to impress you with how wonderful
their country was, and they also wanted you to know that they were the
biggest stud in all the land. "But whoever you want may be gone to work by
now."
"This guy probably won't even be out of bed yet. He's a night owl,"
Vance replied into the mike. He didn't add that the best thing Dimitri did at
night was handle an infrared-mounted H&K MP5. "It's Athens city code
and the number is 21776." He knew that Spiros kept a lovely whitewashed
house on the western side of town, just out of the major smog centers.
Moments later the patch was through and he had Spiros on the radio. The
patch was scratchy and hill of static, but not so much he couldn't hear.
"Michael, you woke me up. I hope the world just ended." It was Spiros's
gruff voice. A thirty-year veteran of an antiterrorist unit in Brussels, he was
as tough as he sounded. "By the way, everybody's heard about that Odyssey
stunt of yours. Are you in trouble already? We've got a pool going on you. I
have ten thousand drachmas saying you'll never make it."
"I appreciate the confidence. Anyway, you can start spending the money.
You'll be relieved to know I blew it. She sank on me."
'Too bad." He laughed. "So what was the problem?"
"Mostly it was some twelve-mil machine-gun fire. Took the wind right
out of her sails. I took a swim and then I think a 57mm Euclid finished her
off.”
'That's Russian." The voice quickly grew serious. "Sounds like vou made
the wrong people mad. Who in hell did it?"
"Don't know, but they're very meticulous about their work. They used a
false-flag approach and shelled an American frigate down here north of
Crete. Should be making the news any time now."

"Sounds like somebody's getting hot about inviting the Sixth Fleet out of
the Med." Then Spiros's pensive tone turned businesslike. "Are you okay?
Where are you now?"
"I'm fine, I think. But you've got to get some of the boys down here."
"What do you mean?"
"Remember that job you did for Bill Bates?" Maybe, he thought, we can
talk around the problem. "Looks like the security didn't stick."
"That was a good job," Spiros said with a growl. "Need some updating?"
"It's going to be a little more than that. I think maybe a dozen hostiles,
give or take, came in by chopper. A Hind-D. Had all the factory extras."
"Had?"
"It just met with an accident."
"And I'll bet you had nothing to do with it." He laughed. "So what kind
of hardware do they have?"
"Uzis for sure. Probably also some grenade launchers. Also light
machine guns, ZB-26. The odds are good they're going to be here for a
while. They've dug in and it's a long swim to anywhere."
"Should we be having this conversation on the phone?" Caution was
entering his voice. "Can we secure up these communications?"
"Bight now we've got no choice," Vance answered. "Nothing where I am
is secure." Including my skin, he thought.
"All right, then, give it to me fast." He was all business. "What do you
have on nationality?"
"It has a Beirut feel about it. But I managed to get some material off one
of them, and I think he was a former East German Stasi type. Whoever they
are, they're operating under some phony front name."
"I read you. Usual terrorist MO?"
"Best I can tell."
'Then we have to worry about civilians. That's going to make it tougher."
"Bill may be among them. And all his staff."
"Bad news."
"He's a prize."

"What do you think their game is?" Spiros asked after a pause.
"Ransom?"
"That'd he my first guess. Though it doesn't synch with the attack on the
U.S. ship—unless it was intended as a deliberate diversion. Maybe they're
planning something else. But my hunch is money's involved. Anyway, we'll
find out soon enough."
"You're damned right we will." The line was silent for a moment as static
intervened. "Well, this will teach us to guarantee our work. It's going to be
an expensive insurance policy."
"Nothing in life is supposed to be easy."
"So we keep finding out." He seemed to be thinking. "You know, I sent
the layout to Paris when the job was finished. For the files." He didn't want
to mention Pierre Armont, the head of ARM, on an unsecured line. "I'll see
what the office there can get together for us."
"Do we have any people left on site?" Vance asked.
"Just contract," Spiros responded. "Locals and probably not worth
much."
"Well, whoever they are, chances are good they've been neutralized by
now. As a matter of fact, I fear the worst."
"That's our motto. Assume everything will go to hell and then work
around it."
"Time to get off the air. I'll try to raise you at 1700 hours. On 2150
megahertz. By that time you'd better have the team lined up and ready to
move in. I owe Bates this one. A nice clean job."
"Right. Who do you think we ought to use?"
"Anybody who worked on the security here would be good."
'That's got to be me," Spiros said ruefully.
"Okay. Beyond that, we'll need a first-class SWAT team. This one is
going to be rough. We need somebody who can handle explosives like a
brain surgeon, maybe Marcel, out of Antwerp. Get him if you can find him
sober. Also, we probably could use a negotiator. Somebody who can keep

them busy while we get the real insertion in place. And a good sniper will
be essential. Lots of friendlies."
"Okay. That sounds like Reggie. I'll run some names past Paris. But what
are you going to do in the meantime?"
"Well, they know I'm here, but they don't know who I am. I'll
concentrate on staying alive, and try to find out whatever I can about the
MO. Catch you at 1700."
"Talk to you then," Dimitri said, and hung up.
Right, Vance thought. I'd definitely rather be in Philadelphia.

8:39 A.M.

"It's a go in five," Caroline Shaeffer announced in a stage whisper,
leaning over his shoulder. A blond Ohio debutante, she was press secretary
—a job she had fought for and loved —and she structured the President's
media appearances with the bloodless efficiency of a Nazi drill sergeant.
This hastily arranged breakfast speech at New York's Plaza was no
different. She had put it together in less than ten days, and anybody who
mattered in New York politics was in attendance, smiling their way dirough
stale prosciutto con melone and soggy eggs Benedict, for an awe-inspiring
hour of "quality time" with President Johan Hansen.
The head table had the usual crowd: Mayor Jarvis, senators,
representatives, state senators, state officials of every stripe, even the
borough presidents. Hansen was almost as popular as Ronald Reagan had
been in his heyday. The election was coming up in less than six weeks, and
Johan Hansen held a commanding lead—twenty-eight points if you
believed the latest Newsweek/Gallup poll. A "nonpolitical" event in the
middle of the campaign allowed everybody to show up for a photo,
regardless of party. President Hansen's speech was scheduled to begin at
8:44 A.M. sharp, perfectly timed to let Today and Good Morning America
carry the opening remarks live eastern and central and not have to look like

the networks were trailing CNN, indeed wiping its ass, yet again. In any
case, it would definitely make the evening news on all three. Precisely as
Hansen intended.
Johan Hansen, whose perfect white hair and granite chin
made him look every inch a chief of state, had mixed feelings about his
trips to the Big Apple. He relished the automatic media attention they
received (Caroline claimed that whereas $2-million-a-year network anchors
usually considered themselves above travel, in New York one or two might
deign to show up), but chafed at the mechanics—the helicopters, traffic
jams, awesome security. He also despised political food, which was why
Caroline had packed his own private breakfast of shredded wheat and
skimmed milk, to be downed discreetly while everybody else was busy
clogging their arteries.
He was speaking on worldwide nuclear disarmament, and he intended
his address to be a warm-up for one at the United Nations General
Assembly three weeks hence (which meant another damned trip to New
York). Alter opening with his standard stump remarks, all partisan digs
excised, he would then go on to assure his audience that the New World
truly was here—which always got everybody in a receptive mood. He
would then remind them that three years earlier (i.e., "When I assumed this
office"), America was still spending $7 billion a year on new nuclear
warheads. He had put an end to that, but now it was time to take the next
step. Total nuclear disarmament worldwide. It was a stance that normally
received polite applause at best, and stony silence at worst. But it never
failed to make the news.
This morning the broadcast networks and CNN had combined their
resources—after all, the space was limited—to provide pool coverage.
Although the usual ganglia of lights and wires were reduced to an absolute
minimum, the back of the room still looked like a makeshift convention
bureau. The broadcast correspondents all had their own "instant analysis"
cameras set up, and the print people were all next to their own newly
installed, dedicated phones.

Johan Hansen's acquisition of the Oval Office had come at the end of a
hard-fought election battle that saw several firsts in American politics. For
one thing, it proved, finally, that America truly was the land of opportunity.
He was a first-generation Danish American, and he was Jewish—the latter
being a part of his heritage that seldom, if ever, got press play.
He scarcely noticed either. In truth, it was only on his father's side—
which in Judaism did not really count. Hansen's father, Joost, had been a
young Copenhagen college student in 1943 when the people of Denmark
one night heroically evacuated all the country's Jews to Sweden, out of the
looming grasp of the Nazis. Shortly thereafter he had married Hansen's
mother, a Swede named Erica who had helped in the evacuation, and then,
after the war, they had immigrated to America. Joost Hansen had finished
his doctorate in physics at Princeton—being a promising physicist was one
of the reasons he could so readily get into the United States—and then had
gone to work at Los Alamos.
On the liner that brought them, the birth of Johan Hansen was due any
minute, and one hour after it docked on the pier on the west side of New
York, he came bawling into the world—a brand-new citizen and native-
born, thereby eligible by a matter of minutes to be President someday. Who
could have known?
Young Johan remembered little of Princeton, New Jersey, but in Los
Alamos he had gloried in the clear air of the mountains, had loved the old
White Sands rocket test area where they vacationed, had loved everything
about America. He'd gone on to try engineering at M IT, but he had soon
realized he didn't have the makings to follow in his father's technical
footsteps. He cared too much about human affairs to stay in the bloodless
world of formulas and machines.
As a result, he shifted to political science, and after graduating he
became an aide to one of Massachusetts's liberal congressmen. Eventually
he ran for the House on his own. The Democratic primary was a model of
rough-and-tumble Boston politics, but he won a squeaker and became a
full-fledged member at thirty-one.

Thus began a career that continued through the Senate and, after two
terms, to the Presidency. He had achieved his ambitions, and his soaring
popularity was all the more amazing for accruing to a man who had
restructured the military during the painful transition of the United States to
a post-Cold-War economy. Turning swords into plowshares was never as
easy as it sounded, but America's excess armaments capacity had gone back
to reinvigorate her high-tech sectors. If you could make an F-15, he had
declared, you could by-God make anything. Now retool and get on with it.
America had.
In his most important contribution to history, however, John Hansen had
presided over the dismantling of more than half the world's nuclear arsenal.
It's easy, he'd declared to the Russians, we just do nothing. And in so doing,
the tritium in all those warheads will simply decay. End of bombs. You
monitor our plants at Oak Ridge and Savannah River; we monitor you; and
together we watch the nuclear threat to humanity simply tick away.
It was working, he often noted with pride. Maybe we're not going to melt
the planet after all. Not only would future generations thank him; there
would be future generations. But would they know enough history to
appreciate what he'd done? he wondered ruefully. Only if the dismal state of
American education could be improved. . . .
It was now 8:40 A.M. and the television lights had been switched on,
turning the fake gold leaf on the ceiling into an intense white. The
TelePrompTer had been readied, and the Secret Service detail was making
last-minute checks around the room as unobtrusively as conditions would
permit. Correspondents, for their own part, were poring over an advance
copy of the text that Caroline's aide had just passed out, making notes for
the brief question period scheduled to follow.
The time was 8:41 when she walked up behind him and laid down a
large gray envelope marked Top Secret. It was, she whispered, a couple of
pages fresh off the secure fax that had been installed in the room just down
the hall.

What was it? he wondered. Some eleventh-hour revisions by Jordan
McCormick, a young new speechwriter from Harvard who liked to tinker
till the very last minute? Puzzled, he ripped open the envelope. The first
page was a covering memo from his personal secretary, Alicia Winston.
Miss Winston, as she insisted on being called, was a spinster, fifty- eight,
who guarded access to Johan Hansen with the ferocity of a pit bull. Get past
her, junior members of Congress often declared, and you're home free. It
was, however, more often a dream than a realization. Seduction was
frequently discussed.
Alicia's note was brief and pointed. The second page, it said, was a copy
of a fax that had just arrived on her desk from Ed Briggs, head of the Joint
Chiefs. Hansen's chief of staff, Morton Davies, had asked her to fax it on to
New York immediately. They both knew Morton was not a man to squander
time.
Hansen glanced over to see a white phone, complete with scrambler,
being nestled next to the official text of his speech. When he scanned the
second sheet, he knew why.
"He's on the line," Caroline said.
He nodded and checked his watch. Eight forty-three. Shit. "Caroline, tell
them there's been a five-minute hold. And see if you can have them kill
those damned lights."
"You've got it." She signaled to the pool producer, pointed to the lights,
and made a slashing motion across her throat. With a puzzled nod, he
immediately complied, barking an order to his lighting director.
Hansen picked up the phone. "Ed, what the hell is this about? I'm
looking at the fax. You say this happened over six hours ago?"
"Mr. President, that came in about ten minutes ago from naval intel.
They've been trying to get the story straight. The BBC was carrying a
rumor, but it was soft. We wanted to get all the facts before—"
"It was in the Med?" Hansen impatiently cut him off. "Why so long—?"
"They claim they took all this time trying to nail down who's
responsible, and they still don't know for sure. All they've got that's hard is

what I sent you. A frigate under contract to NSA got hit. About fifty known
casualties. It could be our friends the Israelis, up to their old tricks, or it
could be somebody who wants us to think it's them."
"Ed, I'm staring down half the press in the country right now, as we
speak. I can't do anything till I get back. But check with Alicia. I think I'm
scheduled in around noon, and I'd like to try and have a statement out by
three today."
"All right, Mr. President, we'll do what we can. Let me secure-fax
Morton everything I've got so far, and he can forward anything he thinks
might help. But we've got to talk. This could be a tough call."
"What are the Israelis saying?"
'Their military intel told Morton they don't know a damned thing about
it. But their embassy here's already on red alert, getting ready to start
pushing out smoke."
'Typical." Hansen had no love for Israel. In his view, their intransigence
had caused the lion's share of America's problems in the Middle East. They
never told the truth about anything until three days later, when it was too
late to matter. In the meantime, they just did whatever they wanted.
"Well, this time I almost think they may be straight," Briggs said. "It
doesn't have any of their trademarks. For one thing, it had their name all
over it—not their style."
Hansen scanned the fax again, noting the large-print Top Secret across
the top, and tried to make it sink in. Concentration was difficult,
considering the expectant stirrings in the room, the clank of silverware. But
this was nothing short of a major episode. What did it mean?
"Okay, Ed, I want to see you first thing. And bring Bob with you"—
Robert Barnes was his assistant, Navy—"in case we need to scramble out of
Crete."
"Roger, sir. I'll have Alicia get everything we need set up in the Sit
Room."
"Good." Hansen hung up the phone and looked around the room. Damn.
Who was trying to screw up the Med? Already he had a bad feeling it might

involve terrorists, but where did they get the Soviet helicopter?
Okay, he told himself, time to call in all the heavy guns, all the advisers
who get paid so much to do your thinking.
He would face his first problem when the press got hold of the story. He
could already see the cartoons, that bastard in the Moonie-owned
Washington Times who was always accusing him of being a pansy on
defense. They'd want blood, an eye for an eye, while he was trying his best
to change that way of thinking.
This latest stupidity damned sure wasn't going to make it any easier.
With that grim thought, he smiled his widest smile and signaled Caroline
to alert the pool producer to switch on the television lights.

8:14 A.M.

"What happened?" Ramirez asked. Helling had alerted him by walkie-
talkie and summoned him to the lobby. There the Germans were returning,
Henes Sommer covered with blood and being carried by Rudolph Schindler
and Peter Maier.
"Henes got caught in a firefight. Then he tried to take the chopper . . .
and fell." Schindler was struggling to find the words, thinking that he would
have to be the one to tell Henes' wife, in what used to be East Berlin. Henes
Sommer, forty-five, had joined Ramirez's operation out of idealism, as a
step toward driving the Zionist scourge from Europe. Ramirez had made the
operation sound so easy.
"It's even worse," Helling said slowly, addressing his words to Ramirez.
"He must have been a guard who escaped our notice, but he managed to
start the Hind. Then he crashed it against the hillside."
"Why didn't you go after him and kill him?" Ramirez asked quietly, his
anger smoldering.
"There was no need. He's trapped up there. For now he can rot." An
uncomfortable pause ensued before he continued. "Besides, he's armed. We
probably should wait till nightfall. What can he do?"

He can do a lot, Ramirez was thinking. This could be trouble.
The three Germans had been brought along as a favor to Wolf Helling,
and now they had demonstrated just how worthless they actually were.
Under ordinary circumstances, he would have shot them all on the spot, as
an example to the rest of the team.
"You say the Hind has been crashed?" he went on, his eyes hidden
behind his shades.
"We don't need it any more. What does that matter?" Helling shrugged,
not sure he believed his own words. "In any case, this is what comes of
having amateurs involved."
Schindler's eyes darkened in resentment. It had never really occurred to
him until this moment that his and his friends' lives were at risk.
Ramirez was trying hard to mask his own chagrin, telling himself he
should never have sent these untried goons out to do a man's work. A good
attorney never asked a question in court that he didn't already know the
answer to; and you never turned your back on an operation if you weren't
already fully certain how it would turn out. That was one mistake he didn't
plan to make again.
"Life is never simple," he said, turning back to the German threesome.
The wounded man was wheezing from a hole in his chest. "There's only one
thing to do with him."
He withdrew a Walther from inside his coat and, with great precision,
shot Henes Sommer directly between the eyes, as calmly as though
dispatching a racehorse with a broken leg. The body slumped into the arms
of Rudolph Schindler, who looked on in horror.
"It was merely a minor miscalculation, but now it's been handled." He
turned to Helling. "Now go back and watch the hill. And try to act like a
professional."
The German nodded. He dared not tell Ramirez the true extent of their
trouble. Not only had the mysterious stranger escaped with Henes' Uzi, he
also still might have a radio, if the Hind had not been totally wrecked.

Helling, their boss, didn't seem yet aware of this problem. If it was still
working, what would he do?
"Now," Ramirez continued, "rather than waste our time on fruitless
recriminations, we must proceed."
He turned and walked back through the doors leading into Command.
Across the room, past the rows of computer
terminals, Bates sat at the Main Command desk, talking to Dr. Andros.
"Problem?" Bates asked, looking up. Although he had not slept all night,
his blue blazer remained immaculate. "Having some trouble, you son of a
bitch?"
"You will be relieved to know nothing is amiss," Ramirez replied as
smoothly as he could manage. "One of your guards, it would seem, decided
to make a nuisance of himself. But he has been neutralized."
Bates did not believe it. He had overheard the broadcast on the BBC, and
now he was starting to put it all together. These thugs had come in by
chopper, after attacking a U.S. ship. They must have left the attack
helicopter out on the pad. But somebody got to it . . .
"Now, Miss Andros . . ." Ramirez lifted a clipboard from her desk and
examined it. "My, my, today we all have a busy schedule. Review the test
data from the power-up, final calibrations of the Cyclops, flight prep of the
vehicle. . . ." He put it down. "Yes, it does look like a busy day. For us all.
All you have to do is cooperate, and no one here will be harmed."
The second chopper is on its way now, he was thinking, if everything
was on schedule. The next item was the launch vehicle.
He estimated they would need a day and a half to make the retrofit. The
scheduled first test launch had been programmed for three days away—now
it was two—so there was ample time . . . exactly as he had planned.

9:27 A.M.

Vance leaned back against the scrub cypress and listened to the whistle
of the light wind through the granite outcroppings. He had perched himself

on one of the rugged cliffs, from which he could see virtually everything
that went on aboveground. Around him ants crawled, oblivious to the heat
of the sun, which now seared the bone-colored rocks on all sides, while
down below the languorous surf beckoned. How ironic, and tragic: all the
violence and killing, right here in the middle of paradise.
He had managed to remove the battery-powered radio from the Hind; it
would serve as his lifeline to the rest of the world. The military channels
were all scrambled now, which told him that plenty was going on out there
over the blue horizon. Trouble was, all communications had been secured.
He had no idea what was happening.
What the hell to do next? He was barefoot—with nothing but an Uzi, a
9mm, and a radio.
He felt waves of grogginess ripple over him as the sun continued to
climb. He was dead tired, and in spite of himself he sensed his mind drifting
in the heat, his body losing its edge. Pulling himself together, he snapped
alert. This was no time to ease up. He noticed that some of the men had left
the command section and gone down to Launch Control, the flight-prep
sector. They were carrying AK-47s now. Much better for sniper work.
They know I've only got an Uzi, he reminded himself, which is why they
realize they're in no danger. From up here it'd be next to useless. But with a
scope, those Kalashnikovs are bad news. . . .
At that moment he heard a dull roar, coming in from the south. Was it
somebody who'd picked up his radio Mayday? He squinted against the sun
and tried to see. As he watched, a dark, mottled shape appeared over the
blue horizon. It was another helicopter—not a Hind this time.
As it came in for a landing at the pad down by Launch Control, Vance
checked it over. It was a Sikorsky S-61R, military, with a main rotor almost
sixty feet across, a retractable tricycle landing gear, and a rear cargo ramp.
It went back to the sixties—the U.S. had used them to lift astronauts from
the sea—but it was a warhorse and reliable as hell. It had an amphibious
hull, twin General Electric turboshaft engines located up close to the drive
gearbox, and an advanced flight-control system. Whether or not this one

had the latest bells and whistles, he did know its speed was over a hundred
and sixty miles per hour and its range was over six hundred miles.
What's that all about? he wondered. Is this the getaway car?
Whatever it was, they were not landing on the regular pad; they were
putting her down as close as they could to the vehicles.
No, he decided, what they're doing is setting up something, getting ready
for the big show.
He already had a feeling he knew what it was going to be. The modus
was standard operating procedure. But this was going to be a waiting game,
at least for a while, and he thought about trying to catch a couple of winks.
There was nothing to be done now. He'd have to wait till dark.
To pass the time, he clicked on the radio again, to see if they were using
walkie-talkies. After scanning the civilian channels he finally got a burst of
traffic. They were chatting, all right—a lot of coded talk in a mixture of
German, English, and French.
He paused a minute, even picked up the mike, attached by a coiled black
cord to the radio, and pushed the red button. But then he thought better of it
and clicked it off. The time would come soon enough to get in on the fun,
but not yet.

9:32 A.M.

Jamal Khan, the younger brother of Salim, watched as the Sikorsky set
down, then pushed the starter button on the white electric cart, urging it to
life. This was the moment he had been waiting for. Nothing he had ever
done in years past matched up to this, not even the airline hijackings. The
only drawback was his comrades. Like, for example, this wise-ass Israeli,
Peretz.
Dore Peretz, for his own part, waited until the cart—a three-wheel, on-
site mover—had started, and then he swung onto the back. Neither spoke as
they silently motored through the sunshine, the breeze in their hair, headed
for the just-landed helo.

The sparkling morning did not improve the atmosphere between the two
men: only the sunshine contributed warmth to the moment. Peretz had
contempt for the Iranian's arrogance and intensity; the bearded Iranian
resented the Israeli's technical skills, his attitude, and the fact that he was
Israeli. None of it could easily be forgiven. Jamal further could not forgive
the Israeli for having no commitment to driving the Americans from the
Middle East, for being here only for the money.
When they reached the Sikorsky, now settled on the tarmac, Jamal pulled
the cart to a halt, then switched off the motor and stepped down. It would
take all hands to manage the off-loading.
Helling and the two other Germans were already waiting in the sunshine,
and as Jamal looked them over, he found himself liking them even less than
he did Peretz. The truth was, they were little more than bureaucrats,
regardless of whatever they called themselves. They ranted about America
being the prisoner of the Zionists, but it was just rhetoric. . . .
The door of the Sikorsky was opening now and "Abdoullah," the first of
the three Pakistani engineers, was emerging, followed by "Rais" and
"Shujat." All three had their dark hair swathed in a traditional Palestinian
black and white kaffiyeh, part of their "disguise."
Jamal tried not to smile as he watched them—grim-faced college boys—
awkwardly slam clips into their Uzis and look around, as though they were
about to lead an assault. It was a wonderful joke.
"Abdoullah" actually had a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Berkeley.
While in America he had developed a taste for the good life—cars, designer
clothes, and gold jewelry—and then when he came back and went to work
at Kahuta, Pakistan's top-secret uranium enrichment plant, he had
discovered sex.
The instrument of this discovery was a hard-eyed Palestinian girl,
Ramala, whose fiery politics were matched only by her skills in bed. He
became a convert to her and then to her cause—which played directly into
the hands of Ramirez. Ramirez had, Jamal knew, been working on this

setup for five years. Money here, information there, it all had finally paid
off.
Of all Ramirez's recruits, "Abdoullah's" contribution had been the most
crucial, since he had been the one who had arranged the theft of the two
items now crated and ready in the cargo bay of the Sikorsky. He and his two
engineer-colleagues spoke English by choice, and to Jamal they looked
almost identical, all with new coal-black beards and designer "commando"
sweatbands under their kaffiyeh. They were trying to get with the look of
revolutionary chic, he thought with disdain. They'd just made the big time,
but they still thought they were in a Chuck Norris movie. Fortunately,
they'd already served their main purpose. In two more days, they would be
totally expendable.
The Sikorsky had landed approximately fifty yards from the entrance to
the blockhouse of the launch facility, placing them a mere two hundred
yards away from the SatCom space vehicles, VX-1 and VX-2. Those spires
seemed to preside over everything, casting long shadows, and the three
Pakistani engineers paused, still gripping their Uzis, to gaze up and admire
them.
"Don't stand there gawking." Peretz curtly brought them to attention.
"We've got to get moving. If anybody has started any satellite recon of this
place, we could be on TV by now. A U.S. KH-12 can read the address on a
fucking postcard." He signaled for the pilot to release the rear entry ramp.
"Let's get going. We're taking them in immediately."
The Pakistanis saluted in paramilitary style, secured their Uzis into their
black leg-holsters, and moved expectantly to the rear of the helo. As the
ramp slowly came down, there strapped and waiting in the aft bay were two
wooden crates cushioned in a bed of clear plastic bubble-wrap, each
approximately a meter square and weighing just under a hundred kilos.
Phase four had begun.

CHAPTER SIX
12:03 P.M.

Cally Andros felt disgusted, physically nauseated. And partly it was with
herself. Blame the victim. She wondered if all hostages felt this way:
powerless, angry, and scared. What would she feel next? She had heard that
strange things happened to your mind when you lost all control. You started
forgetting recent events and remembering oddities from long ago, childhood
memories you'd totally repressed, stashed away somewhere down in the
lower cortex. It had already started, dwelling on her father's death and
blaming herself, when the real reason was his overwork and grief.
And other memories were creeping in, little things that only the child
inside would regard as anything but trivial. That first bumbling sexual
disaster, in the Cal Tech dorm that weekend, when she got drunk, then
threw up on his pillow. She'd repressed that one completely, never told
anybody about that, hoping the memory would just go away. God! It was
horrible. And now it was back, right at the top of the remembrance file.
More memories, the first year at Bronx Science, when her very first real
date stood her up, and she ended up sitting home all night crying and
praying everybody was going to believe her when she told them she'd had
the cramps and couldn't go out after all. (They didn't. Everybody found out
exactly what had happened.)
Humiliations? Stupid things that meant so much at the time that they
stuck. You felt your life had been a string of mistakes and you wanted to go

back and get it right before you checked out. And try as you might, you
didn't care at all about the triumphs—degrees, ceremonies, honors. No, all
you could remember were the little, trivial things, joys and sadnesses that
were yours alone. Remembrances of trivialities past. That's what being a
hostage was all about.
On the other hand—and she hated herself for this feeling—there was
something almost erotic about men with so much sudden, ill-gotten power.
Evil had its own allure, just as surely as good. Were they just two opposite
sides of the same emotion? Wasn't Satan the real hero of Paradise Lost ?
Was Ramirez that same figure? The sexiness of power. Bill Bates had the
same aura. . . .
Georges and his young staff engineers were sitting listlessly and staring
at their computer screens, looking exhausted and defeated. Bill had been
confined to his office, where he could do nothing but fume since his radio
had been shut down and there was now only one phone remaining
connected to the outside world—the one on her desk, which they
monitored.
It got worse. Isaac was coming in, which meant they'd have a real prize
for a hostage. As if Bill weren't enough, to have a famous American Jewish
professor in hand would be the topping on their whole grab.
She tried to catch Georges's eye, across the room. He seemed to be
drowsing at his terminal, almost as though nothing had happened. Since he
had always held a political stance slightly to the left of Che Guevara, maybe
he secretly enjoyed being taken hostage by these self-appointed enemies of
American Capitalism.
No . . . she saw an eyelid flutter ... he was just faking his calm. He was
scared to death. And he was thinking. About what?
She had done some thinking of her own, about the guy who called
himself Number One, the terrorist now sitting at the other end of Command,
calmly smoking a thin cigar. As she examined him, the gray temples and
perfect tan, the beige sunglasses, she began to find his appearance a little
incongruous. What was it?

Well, for one thing, he looked too perfect. Something about him . . . He
had to be at least in his late forties, but nobody's face looked like that at his
age. It was too smooth, too tight.
Plastic surgery. The bastard had changed his appearance. So who was he,
really? He hadn't given his name, but his face must have mattered once.
Who?
Try and put it together, she told herself. He's not Middle Eastern. Maybe
he's trying to pass as an Arab, but he's not fooling me. No, he's Latin. It's in
the way he moves, the way he brushes at his sleeve, the way he holds his
cigar. He's just like Domingo, the guy in junior year, who thought he was
God's gift to the feminine gender.
Yes, Domingo was a Latin caricature, but this guy has all the same
moves. They can't escape it. They're just so proud of being male. The ironic
part was, half the time Domingo couldn't get it up unless some act of
violence was involved. He liked to dominate, or be dominated. Power was
what he was all about. Power.
Think. Can you use that some way to get to this guy?
No, she told herself, this killer has all the power he needs. He's about
image. And money.
She moved through the rows of workstations, now merely flashing
updates of the status of the various components of the Cyclops system. The
power plant was idling now, the superconducting coil in standby mode. The
crew of technicians, armed with a punch list of post-power-up items, was
checking out the Cyclops itself. The test had been a total success.
"Miss Andros, you are a beautiful woman." Ramirez glanced up as she
approached. He had seemed to be meditating on his cigar, inspecting the ash
as he slowly allowed it to accumulate. "I was wondering why a creature of
such beauty would want to submit herself to this kind of manly trade?"
"Not as 'manly' a trade as yours. Killing for profit." She felt her anger
coming back, and her courage. "As far as I'm concerned, there's no
difference between a so-called 'terrorist' and a common murderer. You
disgust me."

His face flushed for a millisecond as he impassively drew on his cigar.
"It would be better if you would consider me, and the rest of these men, as
economic freedom fighters. Perhaps I'm a modern-day Robin Hood."
"Right." She felt like spitting on him, a definitely unladylike response.
"You steal from the rich and give to yourself. But you've made a big
mistake this time. All you're going to do is ruin SatCom."
"Ruin you?" He seemed amused at the notion, taking another puff on his
cigar. "I have no desire to ruin your precious American corporation. As a
matter of fact, I'm going to make you the beneficiary of a billion dollars'
worth of free publicity. Truly, no money in the world could purchase what I
am about to do for you. And all I want in return is to borrow your Cyclops
laser for a few days. If anything, you should pay me . . . though there will
be others to do that."
"I don't know who you expect to come up with any money. It sure as hell
isn't going to be SatCom. We're totally tapped out. If this launch doesn't
meet our schedule, day after tomorrow, a bunch of banks in Geneva and
Tokyo are going to take us over. And I doubt very much they're going to
pay off you and your goons. They'll tell you to go screw yourself."
“They can do whatever they wish. They're not the ones who're going to
pay." There was no trace of sarcasm in his voice. "We are going to make the
Americans pay. For their crimes against the Muslim peoples of the world."
'That's a lot of crap." She hated the man, really hated him. "You don't
care a damn about the 'Muslim peoples,' do you, senor?"
He pulled up sharply and stared at her, startled. For the first time since
he had barged in, he seemed momentarily at a loss for words. But he
covered it quickly by reaching out to tap his cigar ash into a half-filled trash
can.
"What are you suggesting?"
"You're a fake, through and through." Keep him on the defensive, she
thought. "As phony as they come. Who are you, really?"
His composure was returning, an instinct for chivalry that could operate
on autopilot if need be. "I'm flattered by your interest in me, but who I am

need not concern you. All you need to worry about is following my
instructions. Then you and I will get along nicely."
"Listen, you creep, there's no way we are going to get along, nicely or
otherwise." She felt her resolve growing. "You don't know me. I'm going to
fight you with everything I have. You're going to have to kill me to stop
me."
"Do yourself a favor, Miss Andros." He pulled again on his cigar,
inhaling the harsh smoke. "Don't make that necessary."

1:17 P.M.

Isaac Mannheim gazed down through the glass partition of the old Bell
Jetranger and wondered again what he was seeing. The pilot couldn't raise
Command on the radio, and now he was grumbling that the pad looked
unsafe.
The boy had a point. The surrounding hurricane fence had been half
ripped away, and there was oil everywhere on the asphalt. The place looked
as though a raging bull elephant had powered its way through, knocking
aside everything in its wake. What in blazes had happened? A tornado?
He surveyed the area, and something even more ominous caught his eye.
What was it, that thing half-buried in the trees, about two-thirds the way up
the mountain? Now he strained to see through the smudgy windows, just
making out the wreckage of some sort of military helicopter.
Next he turned and looked in the other direction, down toward the
launch vehicles. That's odd. Another helicopter was parked down there. It
was big, a military gray, but no one was around it.
"It looks like there was a crash on the pad or something," the young
Greek pilot shouted over the roar of the engines, his dark, serious eyes fixed
gravely on the scene. His name, sewn in Greek on his tan shirt, was Mikis;
his father owned the 1981 Jetranger, and the business. Flying this far from
Athens meant he would have to refuel to make it back, and nobody was
around to take care of that. Moreover, the situation definitely looked unsafe.

"I can see that," Mannheim responded dryly, his voice faint above the
noise. "Which is why you need to be careful. We don't want to add another
casualty."
"Something funny is definitely going on," Mikis continued, to no one in
particular. He had already discovered the eccentric American professor with
a baseball cap didn't care all that much for small talk. And he had no
patience whatsoever for small talk that pointed out the obvious. "I don't like
this, but I'll have to put her down. I'm already on my auxiliary tank."
For once Mannheim allowed his thoughts to stray to the concerns of
someone else. "There's an airfield at Kythera. You could make it there, if
you just touched down here and dropped me off."
"Are you sure you want to do that?" Mikis was gripping the stick,
frowning behind his aviator shades. "We can't raise anybody here on the
radio, and now there's this mess. Let me take you to Kythera with me. The
whole deal looks weird."
"No," Mannheim shouted back. "I have to find out what's happened."
This project is like Sarah, he thought, his estranged daughter coming to
mind. I had to do everything I knew how to try to keep her from making the
wrong decisions. Then he remembered ruefully that she had gone ahead and
made them anyway. But he had been there always, ready to give her advice.
Mikis shrugged, clearly worried, and gave the Jetranger some pedal,
circling to search for signs of life. There was nothing. The bleak granite
cliffs were barren, and the cool blue of the light surf washed against an
empty shoreline. He had not seen this space facility before, but everybody
had heard about it. The most impressive sight was, of course, those silver
spires down at the other end of the island. Those had to be their vehicles,
but nobody was around them now. Puzzled, he examined the huge
dormitory-type residence in the middle of the island and the supply
buildings, lined along a paved segment connecting the landing pad with the
main building, and still saw no one.
"Look, I'm going to just drop you off and then get the hell out of here,"
he yelled over. He was easing up on the collective, taking her in. "I'll buy

petrol on Kythera. I don't see anybody around, and this place gives me the
creeps."
"You've done all you need to," Mannheim shouted back. "Something . .
."
His voice trailed off as he finally saw some movement. A figure was
coming down the mountain, carrying what looked like an automatic
weapon.
"We'd better make this quick."

1:21 P.M.

Vance was moving as fast as he could and watching as the helicopter—
now about a thousand yards from the pad—began its final approach.
Friend or foe? With the second arrival in as many hours, the place
resembled an airport. He assumed by now they surely had seen the
wreckage of the Hind, but they seemed determined to come in anyway.
He watched as the old Bell gingerly began to hover above the landing
pad, the pilot dispensing with preliminaries. While it was settling in, he
chambered a round in the Uzi, pulled back the gnarled cocking lever on the
top, and continued on down the hill at a brisk pace. With any luck he would
beat the guys in black. Or maybe they were deliberately keeping a low
profile, hoping to lure in the prey. They were also luring him out, he knew,
but he had to take the chance.
He was moving quickly, the sharp rocks cutting into his feet, and now
only a hundred yards or so remained between him and the approaching
helo.
Only then did he first notice he had bumped Bill's new Agusta when he
tried to fly the Hind, leaving a bad dent. Now he owed Bates for repairs.
Great. He wondered fleetingly if SatCom had terrorist insurance.
There was now an opening in the pad's protective fence, where the Hind
had ripped it away, and as the din of the approaching helicopter rang in his

ears, he raced across the last clearing, headed for it. But his instincts caused
him to look around, and just in time . . .
Approaching on the run down the asphalt road leading from the launch
facility were three of the terrorists. He recognized two of them as his earlier
assailants, together with a third who looked like he might actually know
what he was doing. They must have seen the arriving Jetranger, and now
they were coming out to give it a welcome.
The way they were moving, and the AK-47s they were carrying, told him
a lot. The chopper's occupants were the good guys.
As the Bell settled in and its door opened, he dropped onto the granite
and nestled the metal stock of the Uzi against his cheek. It felt warm from
the morning sun, like the touch of a comfortable friend. He flipped the fire
control to semiautomatic and caught the approaching goons in the metal
sight. Then he gently squeezed the trigger.
The Uzi kicked back, sending a round upward into the morning air. He
realized he was out of practice. Next time he would handle it better, but for
now he had blown the operation.
The three in black who had been running toward the landing pad
dropped onto the asphalt and opened fire, spattering flecks of granite
around him as he took cover. Then he looked up to see an elderly man fairly
tumble out of the chopper and make a dash for the safety of the SatCom
Agusta. He need not have hurried; no one was shooting at him.
As the Jetranger started to lift off, however, the gunmen's focus switched
away from Vance, and he realized they had no intention of letting it escape.
As it left the pad and banked to gain altitude, the lead terrorist dropped to a
prone position on the asphalt and took aim directly at the cockpit, where the
pilot was just visible behind the glare of the windscreen. With a range of
only fifty yards, Vance realized, taking him out would be easy.
It was. The AK-47 was on full auto, and one burst splintered away the
windscreen, exploding it and leaving what remained spattered with blood.
The pilot was thrown against the shattered glass, then left hanging halfway
through. He never knew what hit him.

The fuselage began to pirouette into a sickening spiral, but the firing
continued, as though to kill what was already dead. The gunman's obsessed,
Vance thought. He's also emptying his magazine.
Now's the time. Make a move while he's still distracted. These thugs
want the old man alive, whoever he is. So why not try and ruin their day,
get him before they do.
The Bell continued to autorotate in a series of circles. Then it abruptly
nosed straight downward, and a second later it veered toward the side of the
cliff abutting the sea. A splintering crash replaced the sound of the engine as
the rotors slammed against the granite, shearing away—whereupon the
fuselage bounced down the steep wall of the cliff and into the water. In
moments the seabed swallowed it up.
In the meantime Vance had reached the landing pad, a few meters away
from the old man, who was stumbling distractedly across the asphalt,
staring in the direction the chopper had disappeared and so shocked by the
sight he seemed not to realize he was walking directly into the hands of the
men who had killed the pilot.
Vance wanted to shout, but then he thought better of it. What was the
point? The old man clearly was unable to think. He had to be pulled out
quickly and with a minimum of risk. No, the best thing to do was lay down
a line of covering fire and go for him.
He opened up the Uzi on semiauto and dashed for the Agusta.

1:25 P.M.

Wolf Helling hit the ground rolling, bringing up his Kalashnikov, set on
automatic. The renegade guard was back to shoot it out, firing from
somewhere in the area of the pad.
Good. He was going to trap the fucker. This time he would handle the
situation personally; he would not have to depend on a bunch of
incompetent East German Stasi burnouts.

He glanced back and saw the two trailing behind him. When the guard
had opened fire, they'd dived and stumbled pell-mell for the cover of the
storage sheds. They wouldn't be any help, but he'd known that already.
It didn't matter. This was going to be one-on-one. And easy.
The chopper had been lost, which was a shame. Although Ramirez's
orders were to seize it when it arrived, that had not been possible. You win
some, you lose some.
Amid the gunfire the old man had reached the SatCom helicopter, while
the guard was now making a dash for its protection, too, even as he covered
himself with another spray from the automatic that the damn fools had let
him get.
Fortunately his aim was wild again, probably because he was running,
and the rounds sailed by harmlessly. And he was in the open.
Now.
Helling trained his AK-47, long barrel and heavy clip, on him and pulled
the trigger. . . .
His clip was empty.
Scheisse! He cursed himself for having used the gun on automatic. At ten
pops a second, you could wipe out a 35- round clip before you could
sneeze.
Still cursing, he pushed the button releasing the clip and slammed in
another. But he was too late; by that time the guard had disappeared behind
the SatCom helicopter. The two East Germans were firing randomly and
ineffectually from the safety of the storage sheds, holding their weapons
around the corners and spraying blindly. Idiots. They were providing cover,
but since they had no idea where they were aiming, they were endangering
him at least as much as their target.
And now the bastard had reached the cover of the helicopter. He was
safe for the moment. But only for the moment.

1:27 P.M.

"Don't shoot," Isaac Mannheim shouted as he saw the unshaven, barefoot
man roll next to him, an Uzi giving off bursts of rounds.
"Get down," Vance yelled back, then shoved him onto the asphalt beside
the blue-and-white Agusta. "You picked a hell of a time to come visiting.
There're some new natives, and they're not overly friendly."
"Who are you?" The old man's ancient eyes were brimming with alarm
and confusion. "What are you doing here?"
"At the moment I'm trying to keep you alive." Vance checked the clip of
the Uzi. There were about seven rounds left. With three hoods out there, all
with Kalashnikovs, seven rounds would not go very far.
Was anything usable in the Agusta? he asked himself. He peered through
the glass of the cockpit, searching. It looked empty. Except for—
A blast of fire careened by the canopy, and he again yanked Mannheim
down onto the asphalt. Then he cautiously raised up enough to recon the
situation.
The hoods were all advancing now, scurrying forward from building to
building as they gave covering blasts from their automatics. However, the
two farthest back did not seem to be overly enthusiastic.
"They're going to kill us, too," Mannheim stammered. "Can you—?"
"Just stay down," Vance interrupted him. "I'm probably the one they
want to get rid of. If they'd wanted you dead, believe me, you would be by
now."
He opened the door and hurriedly surveyed the cockpit more closely.
Yes, he had seen it right . . .
Attached to the back firewall, ready for emergency use, was a rack of
smoke grenades, factory fresh, the kind used for signaling in case the helo
went down.
He remembered that grenade smoke was designed to cling to the ground
rather than rise, and with a burn time between one and two minutes, a good
grenade could produce a quarter million cubic feet of HC smoke.
Maybe, he thought, I just got lucky.

He peeled one off the rack and checked it over. Yep, American M-18,
which everybody knew was the best. The can was about the size of a Diet
Coke, and it was military gray. It even gave the flavor on the side—this one
was red, but they also came in yellow and white. Nice to have around if you
went down in wooded terrain.
He looked toward the gunmen approaching and made the decision on the
spot. With a quick motion he clenched the handle with his right hand and
yanked the steel pin with his left. When he looked up again, they had closed
the distance, now only about thirty yards. Time for a touchdown.
He drew back and lobbed the can directly at the lead terrorist.
The time delay was one and a half seconds. It landed just in front of the
first man, bounced once, and blew—an eruption of red that engulfed him.
Beautiful.
With a quick twist he yanked the rack from the side of the cockpit and
began hurling the cans as fast as he could. Finally, he grabbed the startled
old professor by the arm, then dropped the last grenade at their feet.
"Time to move the party. There's cover in the rocks up there."
Mannheim stumbled backward as the smoke bomb exploded, and Vance
realized he would never make it. He would have to be dragged, or carried.
And since dragging was out of the question, there really was only one
option.
He bent down and grabbed the old man around the waist, then lifted him
over his shoulder. It turned out he was hardly more than skin and bones,
maybe a hundred and fifty pounds, tops. After spending the last four days
heaving the tillers of the late, lamented Odyssey II, the load seemed like a
feather.
Some more random gunfire exploded behind them as he struggled and
stumbled up the rocky slope, but now a dense cloud of red completely
obliterated the scene below. The M-18 grenades were still billowing, totally
obscuring the landing pad and the roadway.
When they reached the first clump of brush leading up the mountain, he
settled Mannheim onto the ground. The old professor was choking from the

smoke, totally disoriented, and babbling. Vance clapped a hand over his
mouth, then urged him onward.
"No talking. If they find us, we're going to have some really lousy odds."
He removed his hand, and immediately Mannheim started again.
"Whoever you are, I guess I have to thank you for saving my life." He
puffed over the stones. "Who are you?"
"I'm a friend of Bill Bates, the man supposedly in charge around here."
"I'm Isaac Mannheim. This project—"
"The godfather." Vance looked him over. "Bill's talked about you. MIT,
right?"
“The Cyclops is my—"
"Nice to meet you. Now who in the hell are these thugs?"
"I have no idea."
"Well, we can assume they're not part of Bill's technical support team."
He glanced down the hill, toward the drifting cloud of red smoke, then back
at the old man. "But if you've been involved in this project, then you must
know the layout here."
"I know it very well. But—"
"Good. We're going to have to keep moving, at least till it gets dark, but
while we're doing that, I want you to get me up to speed on where things
are. Give me the setup. And tell me how many personnel are here and
where they are."
Mannheim pointed down the hill, at a point just past the storage sheds.
"The people are housed in the Bates Motel, which is over there, beyond that
row of buildings."
Vance looked it over. At the moment it seemed deserted.
"Where's the entrance?"
"You can go in directly from the connecting corridor underground, or
you can use the front entrance, there."
"What if the entrance topside were locked? Then it would he secure,
right?"

"I suppose so." He still seemed disoriented, though he was recovering.
"Of course there are fire exits at various places in the underground network,
as well as the security lobby over there. And then, the storage sheds can be
accessed from below."
"But all of those entry-points can be sealed, right?"
"Yes. In fact, they can be sealed electronically, from Command. The staff
controls everything from there."
Vance looked down at the white surf rippled across the blue. "So if
somebody wanted to take over this place, that's where they would start,
right? Hit that and you're in like a bandit. It's the head office."
“That's correct." Mannheim nodded.
"Good. We know where to focus. Now you're going to tell me how I can
get there."

CHAPTER SEVEN
2:18 P.M.

Pierre Armont was forty-six, with gray temples and a body appropriate to
an Olympic wrestler. He had full cheeks, a heavy mustache, and suspicious
dark eyes that constantly searched his surroundings. It was an innate
survival instinct.
He never went out without a tie and a perfect shoeshine, not to mention a
crisp military bearing that sat as comfortably on him as a birthright. He
prided himself on his ability to instill discipline while at the same time
leading his men. Although he liked to command, he wanted to do it from
the front, where the action was.
Here in Paris he ran a worldwide business from a gray stone townhouse
situated on the Left Bank in an obscure cul-de-sac at the intersection of
Saint-Andre des Arts and rue de l'Ancienne Comedie. Fifty meters away
from his ivy-covered doorway, the rue de Seine wound down to the river,
playing host to one of Paris's finer open-air produce markets, while farther
down, rows of small galleries displayed the latest in Neo-Deconstructionist
painting and sculpture. An avid amateur chef and art collector, he found the
location ideal. From his house, where the French aviator Saint-Exupery
once wrote, he could march a few paces, along cobblestones as old as
Chartres, and acquire a freshly plucked pheasant, a plump grouse, aromatic
black truffles just hours away from the countryside, or an abstract landscape
whose paint was scarcely dry. It was the best of all worlds: everything he
loved was just meters away, and yet his secretive courtyard provided perfect
urban privacy and security, with only the occasional blue-jeaned student
from the Academie de Beaux-Arts wandering into his courtyard to sketch.
He was rich and he knew how to live well; he also risked his life on a
regular basis.
He claimed it made his foie gras taste even better.

He worked behind a wide oak desk flanked by a line of state-of-the-art
communications equipment, and along one walnut-paneled wall stood rows
of files secured inside teak-wood-camouflaged safes. His wide oak desk
could have belonged in the office of a travel agent with a very select
clientele. However, it served another purpose entirely: it was where he
planned operations for ARM.
Pierre Armont headed up the Association of Retired Mercenaries, and he
had been busy all day. But he was used to emergencies. What other people
called problems, ARM thought of as business.
The Association of Retired Mercenaries was a secretive but loose group
of former members of various antiterrorist organizations. The name was an
inside joke, because they were far from retired. Although they were not
listed in the Paris phone book, governments who needed their services
somehow always knew how to find Pierre. ARM took on nasty
counterterrorism actions that could not occur officially. They rescued
hostages unreported in newspapers, and they had terminated more than a
few unpleasant individuals in covert actions that never made the evening
news.
At the moment, as he was thinking over the insertion strategy for
Andikythera, he was gazing down on his private courtyard and noticing that
the honking from the boulevard Saint-Germain indicated that Paris's mid-
afternoon traffic had ground to a halt. Again. He had just hung up the
scrambled phone, after a thirty-minute conversation with Reggie Hall, the
second today. London was on board, so everything was a go. He was
looking forward to this one. Some batards had mucked with an ARM job.
They had to be taken down.
Armont was retired from France's antiterrorist Groupement
d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale, known as GIGN, ideal
experience for his present occupation. Over the years "Gigene" had carried
out, among other things, VIP protection in high-threat situations and general
antiterrorist ops. Mostly commandos in their twenties and early thirties,
Gigene operatives had to pass a grueling series of tests, including firing an

H&K MP5 one-handed while swinging through a window in a quick entry
called the pendulum technique. Known for their skills in inserting by
helicopter, either by rappelling or by parachuting, they could also swim half
a mile under water and come out blasting, using their specially loaded
Norma ammo.
Armont's particular claim to fame was the invention of a sophisticated
slingshot that fired deadly steel balls for a silent kill. He had trained
antiterrorist units in a number of France's former colonies, and had secretly
provided tactical guidance for the Saudi National Guard when they ejected
radical Muslims from the Great Mosque at Mecca.
These days, however, he was a private citizen and ran a simple business.
And as with all well-run businesses, the customer was king. If problems
arose, they had to be resolved; if a job did not stick, you sent in a repair
team. An American member of ARM named Michael Vance, who normally
did not participate in the operations end of the business, had turned up at the
wrong place at the right time. A Reuters confirmation of the loss of the U.S.
communications ship definitely meant some bad action had gone down in
the eastern Med. Vance's analysis that it was a preliminary to seizure of the
SatCom facility on Andikythera probably was correct. Armont's secretary
had spent the day on the phone trying to reach the island, but all
commercial communications with the site were down. There was no way
that should have happened, even with last night's rough storm.
He had liked Michael Vance the minute he met him, three years earlier.
He considered Mike reliable in completing his assignments—be they quick
access to a "secure" bank computer file or a paper trail of wire transfers
stretching from Miami to Nassau to Geneva to Bogota. Vance's regular
missions for ARM, however, were those kinds of transactions, not the street
action, and Armont could only hope he could also manage the rougher end
of the business.
The organization had checked out the man extensively, as they did all
new members, and ARM's computer probably knew as much about him as
he did himself. It was an oddball story: son of a famous Penn archaeologist,

he had been by turns an archaeologist himself, a yachtsman, and a low-level
spook. After he finished his doctorate at Yale and had taught there for two
semesters, he had published his dissertation—claiming the famous Palace
of Minos in Crete was actually a hallowed necropolis—as a book. It had
caused a lot of flap, and to get away for a while, he had taken a vacation in
Nassau to do some big-game fishing. Before the trip ended, he had bought
an old forty-four-foot Bristol sailboat in need of massive restoration. It was
a classic wooden vessel, which meant that no sooner had he finished
varnishing the thing from one end to the other than he had to start over
again.
But he apparently liked the life. Or maybe he just enjoyed giving the
academic snakepit a rest. The computer could not get into his mind.
Whatever the reason, however, the sailboat, which had begun as a diversion,
soon became something else. By the time he had finished refurbishing her,
she was the most beautiful yacht in the Caribbean, and everybody around
Nassau wanted a shot at the helm. He had a charter business on his hands.
Then his saga took yet another turn. The Nassau Yacht Club, and the new
Hurricane Hole Marina across the bridge on Paradise Island, comprised a
yachting fraternity that included a lot of bankers. Nassau, after all, had over
three hundred foreign commercial banks, and its "see no evil" approach to
regulation and reporting made it a natural haven for drug receipts. With a
lot of bankers as clients, before long Vance knew more than any man should
about offshore money laundering. He did not like that part of the scene, but
the bankers loved his yacht, and they paid cash.
As he once told it, he eventually found out why. At least for one of them.
One sunny afternoon the vice president of the European Consolidated
Commercial Bank, an attractive blond-haired young Swiss mover known to
Vance only as "Werner," was docking The Ulysses at Hurricane Hole,
bringing her back from a three-day sail, when the DEA swooped down,
flanked by the local Bahamian police. Armed with warrants, they searched
the boat and soon uncovered fifty kilos of Colombian export produce.
Seems "Werner" had sailed The Ulysses to some prearranged point and

taken it on, planning to have divers stash the packages in the rudder-trunk
air pocket of one of the giant cruise ships that tied up at Nassau's four-berth
dock. Vance heard about it when he got a call from the harbormaster
advising him that his prized Bristol had just been seized as evidence in a
coke bust. He was out of business.
That afternoon Bill Bates had coincidentally flown in on Merv Griffin's
Paradise Island commuter airline and come over to Hurricane Hole, wanting
to charter The Ulysses for a week of sailing and fishing. Vance had to
inform him his favorite Bahamian yacht had just acquired a new owner.
Bates could not believe he had flown into such a screw-up. Vance was
having his own problems with disbelief, too, but paying the mortgage was
his more immediate concern. The DEA had the boat, but before long he
wouldn't have to worry about that any more. That problem, and the boat,
would soon belong to the mortgage-holding bank over on Bay Street.
He immediately slapped the DEA with a two-million-dollar lawsuit, just
to put on some heat. His lawyer claimed he didn't have a hope in hell.
But two weeks later a Bahamian judge, after lunch with the mortgage-
holding banker, summarily ordered the DEA to release the yacht. To Vance's
surprise, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration cheerfully complied
and turned it over the same afternoon. He immediately dropped the lawsuit,
writing off the whole affair as a triumph for truth, justice, and the Bahamian
way of banking. Or so it seemed.
Only later did he unearth the Byzantine complexities of what really had
happened. The affair had somehow come to the attention of The Company,
and there had been a flurry of phone calls to the DEA in New Orleans from
Langley, Virginia. A month later, while he was in the States attending a Yale
alumni function, he'd found himself talking to two earnest Washington
bureaucrats, who congratulated him on beating the system. Huh?
They then described their need for a "financial consultant" in Nassau,
somebody who knew the right people. Maybe he would consider taking the
job; it could merely be a favor for—they hinted broadly—a favor.

Here was the problem: the CIA desperately needed help in trying to keep
track of the cocaine millions being laundered through Nassau's go-go banks.
The Company wanted some local assistance getting certain off-the-record
audits, from clean bankers who were tired of Nassau being a haven for dirty
cash.
He hated drugs and drug money, so he had seen nothing wrong with the
idea. He even ended up training some greenhorns out of Langley in the
subtle art of tracing wire transfers. Two years later he got his payoff. They
formed their own in-house desk to do what he had been doing and retired
him. He was, it turned out, too successful.
But the word on such skills got around, and two months later Pierre
Armont had approached him about joining ARM. They needed somebody
good at tracing hot money, frequently the most reliable trail of a terrorist
operation, and everybody close to the business had identified him as the
best around.
By that time he had formally incorporated a charter operation in Nassau
as Windstalker, Ltd., with three boats, three mortgages, and a big monthly
nut. So he had signed on, only later discovering that along with ARM's
extra cash came a lot of travel, many responsibilities, and occasional death
threats. He took them seriously enough to start carrying his own protection,
a chrome-plated 9mm Walther. Armont approved.
Vance had always been well paid. It was expected. Anybody who hired
ARM—usually because there was nowhere else left to turn—knew the best
did not come cheap. A good two-week op could pull down fifty thousand
pounds sterling for every man on the team, which was why the boys drove
BMWs and drank twelve-year-old Scotch. But no client ever complained
about the price. Or if they did, they didn't complain to Pierre. Payment was
always cash, half up front and the rest on delivery. Any client who welshed
on the follow-through would be making a very ill-considered career
decision.
He pulled the blinds and turned to his desk. Faxes sent via ARM's
secure, encrypted system covered the surface. The team was coming

together. His secretary Emile, a young Frenchman who came in mornings
and worked in the next room, had already booked the necessary flights. By
1800 hours tomorrow everybody would be assembled in Athens and ready
to insert.
Armont intended to lead the operation himself . . . unless Vance, as the
man on the ground, proved the logical choice. Since he was already in
place, always the best location, he would in any case have to be point man.
He had talked the job over with "Hans" in Frankfurt at 1030 hours, just
after he had gotten the call from Athens, and together they had picked six
operatives. Vance would make seven. He calculated that would be plenty.
"Hans" was the nom de guerre of a former GSG-9, Germany's green-
beret-sporting Grenzschutzgruppen 9. GSG-9, headquartered at St.
Augustin just outside Bonn, had a nine- million-dollar underground training
range that included a communications and intel unit, aircraft mockups, an
engineer unit, a weapons unit, an equipment unit, a training unit, and a
strike unit. In his fifteen years with GSG-9, Hans had been known to
achieve 95 percent accuracy with an H&K MP9 when firing from a moving
vehicle or even rappelling down a rope from a hovering chopper. Now
retired, he brought to ARM many talents: as well as participating in the on-
site op, he usually acted as liaison officer because of his flawless English.
He also knew which old-timers from GSG-9—that was anybody over
thirty-five—were looking for an op, and if the
job required some younger talent he used his connections to get current
members temporarily released from their units. When needed, he could
arrange for special-purpose weapons otherwise "unavailable" or restricted.
Once, when a sniper-assault situation called for a hot new IR scope, he
borrowed one from the St. Augustin armory overnight, made a drawing,
then had it copied in Brussels by noon the next day. He knew where to find
ARM field operatives and what shape they were in—which ones had been
shot up, broken legs in parachute drops, or gone over the edge with a case
of nerves and too much booze.

Best of all, though, he could usually locate a wanted terrorist. GSG-9
was hooked directly into a massive computer in Wiesbaden informally
known as the Kommissar. Hans could still tap into the Kommissar, which
tracked various world terrorist groups, constantly updating everything
known about their methods, their membership, and—most importantly—
their movements.
These days he operated a rundown biergarten in Frankfurt, at least as his
cover, and there were suspicions he managed to drink up a lot of its profits.
In any case, he was in ARM for the money, and he never pretended
otherwise. So when Armont rang him, he was immediately all ears. Never
failed.
"Pierre, alio! Comment allez vous?" Even at ten-thirty in the morning
Hans could be cheerful. Armont, definitely a night person, never understood
how he did it.
"Bien, considering." Armont knew Hans was more comfortable in
English than in French, and he hated speaking German. "What're you doing
for the next couple of days?"
"Got something?" The German's interest immediately perked up.
"There's a little cleanup . . ."
After he gave him a quick briefing on the situation via their secure
phone, Hans was extremely unhappy.
"Dimitri screwed up. It's not our problem."
"I say it's our problem," Pierre replied. "We guarantee our work and
you're either in, or you're out. Permanently. Those are the rules."
"All right." Hans sighed. "Can't blame me for not liking it, though."
"So who do you think we need?" Armont asked. Hans knew the people
better than he did.
"Well, we definitely should have Reggie," he replied straightaway. "He's
the best negotiator we've got, and also he can get us some of the hardware
we'll be needing."
The man in question was Reginald Hall. Just under fifty, he was a stocky
ex-small-arms instructor, regimental sergeant major, retired, of the SAS,

Britain's Special Air Service. In the old days he headed up a unit known in
the press as the CRW, Counter Revolutionary Warfare section, called "the
special projects blokes" by those on the inside.
He finally quit after successfully leading an assault on the Iranian
embassy in London on 5 May 1980—which, to his astonished dismay, was
televised live. He'd gotten famous overnight, and after thinking it over for a
weekend, he decided the time had come to cash it in. These days he ran a
small company that purportedly bought and sold used sports firearms. That
was a polite way of saying he dabbled in the international arms trade,
though not in a big way. But whenever ABM needed a special piece of
equipment, as often as not Reggie found a way to take care of it.
He did not do it for love. Even though he was happily retired down in
Dorset, Thomas Hardy country, with a plump Welsh common-law wife, he
occasionally slipped away—much to her chagrin—to take on special ops
for ARM. Maybe his neighbors thought he had bought their matching
Jaguars with his army pension or the sale of used Mausers.
"I'll call him as soon as we hang up. He spent some time in the Emirates
or some damn place and claims to speak a little Arabic." He was thinking.
"Okay, who else could we use?"
"How about the Flying Dutchmen?" Hans said.
He was referring to the Voorst brothers, Willem and Hugo, both former
members of the Royal Dutch Marines' "Whiskey Company." That was the
nickname of a special group officially known as the Marine Close Combat
Unit. Both bachelors, though never short of women, they lived in
Amsterdam and took on any security job that looked like it would pay. They
also ran a part-time aircraft charter operation.
"We might need a chopper for the insert. Think they can handle it on
such short notice?"
The Voorst brothers would occasionally arrange, through their old
connections, for a Dutch military helicopter to get lost in paperwork for a
weekend. Whiskey Company was a club, and everybody was going to retire

someday. What went around came around. Besides, there was plenty of
spare change in it for those who made the arrangements.
"With nobody paying? It'll take some fast talking."
"So far, this thing's being done on spec. We're just making good on a
job."
"Don't remind me," Hans groaned. "Don't want to hear it. I think we'd
better just rent something in Athens." He paused. "But I also think we ought
to take along the Hunter. He'd be the man to handle grenades. He loves
those damned things better than his wife."
They were both thinking of Marcel, formerly of the Belgian ESI,
Escadron Special d'lntervention. While with ESI, he had fathered their
famous four-man units, pairs of two-man teams, and had come up with the
idea of carrying a spare magazine on the strong-side wrist to facilitate rapid
mag change. ESI was known informally as Diana Unit, and since Diana was
the huntress of mythology, Marcel had become known as the Hunter. But
not till after he had earned the sobriquet. A former Belgian paratrooper, ex-
Angola, he got the nickname after a special op there, when he had saved an
entire ARM team by taking out a room of terrorists with three stun
grenades, tear gas, and an Uzi—while wearing an antiflash hood called a
balaclava plus a gas mask, a little like working under water. Marcel liked
the nickname.
"I'll see if I can reach him. The Antwerp number."
"Well, we'll probably need him." Hans paused. "And Vance is already on
site. That'll make all the difference."
"He's good. If you can get all the others, I think we'll have what we
need."
'Then, let's get started. I'll try to reach everybody and have them in
Athens by late tomorrow. Fax me an equipment list and I'll talk that over
with Spiros. See what he can get together for us down there and save having
to ship it."
"You know, mon cher," Hans had said, "this is no way to start a day."

1:29 P.M.

"It was there for the National Security Agency, the NSA," admitted
Theodore Brock, his special assistant for national security affairs. The
atmosphere in the Oval Office was heating up.
"I'm now well aware of that," the President snapped, not bothering to
hide his annoyance. "What I'm not well aware of is who the hell authorized
it?"
The Oval Office, in the southeast corner of the White House West Wing,
was, in the eyes of many, a small, unimposing prize for all the effort
required to take up residence. John Hansen, however, seemed not to notice.
He commandeered whatever space he happened to occupy and made it
seem an extension of his own spirit. In fact, he rather liked the minimalist
quarters, heritage of a time when U.S. presidents had much less weight on
their shoulders. From here the wide world opened out. For one thing, the
communications here and in the Situation Boom in the basement put the
planet at his fingertips. Next to a gigantic push-button multiline telephone
was another, highly secure and modernistic, digital voice transmission
system that could take him anywhere.
As the old-fashioned Danish grandfather clock—his only personal item
in the office—began to chime the half hour, he glanced once more over the
crisis summary that Alicia Winston had hastily assembled and had waiting
on his desk when he returned from New York. Her office was conveniently
just behind one of the three doors that led into the Oval Office. Another led
to his personal study, passing through a small kitchen, from which now
came the aroma of fresh-brewed Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. The third
opened onto a corridor, with the standard six Secret Service people, through
which he expected to see his national security adviser appear at 1:45 P.M.
Then, according to his schedule, he had to try to put all this out of his mind
at 2:30, when he was due to host a delegation of troglodytes from the Hill.
Nuclear disarmament did not have a lot of friends in Tennessee and

Washington State. He was going to have to make some concessions, he
knew, but politics was about compromise, always had been.
"Apparently the ship was put into place without authorization," Brock
went on. "There was some back-channel request from NSA. They wanted to
keep tabs on a space project on an island in the Aegean."
"SatCom. Now we're spying on Americans, is that it?" Hansen leaned
back in his high, Kevlar-protected chair and tossed a telling glance toward
Morton Davies, his chief of staff, who monitored most of his incoming
calls. They both had received an earful on the Cyclops project from his old
professor, Isaac Mannheim—who claimed it would demonstrate to the
world that America's private sector still had plenty of life left, could stand
up to the Europeans and the Japanese when it came to innovation. SatCom's
independence from government, at least to Mannheim's way of thinking,
was precisely its greatest virtue.
"Well, damn NSA," he continued. "This is an outrage."
He recalled that he'd sent the new director, Al Giramonti, a pointedly
worded memo on that very subject. When John Hansen took office, the
National Security Agency was still liberally exercising its capacity to
monitor every phone call in America from its vast array of listening
antennas at Fort Meade. He had resolved to terminate the practice. He
thought he had.
"It was just routine surveillance," Brock insisted, squirming. He was in
his late fifties, bright, with horn-rimmed glasses and a high forehead. He
also was black, and he felt he had more than the usual obligation to make
his President look good. "There was a satellite test launching in the works.
The whole project has been kept under wraps, and NASA wanted to know
what was going on. The National Security Agency had a platform in the
area, so it all more or less meshed. There was nothing—"
"And what do the Israelis have to say for themselves?" the President
pushed on. "The Hind had their markings."
"They deny they had anything to do with it." He squinted toward
Hansen, trying to seem knowledgeable yet uncommitted. Which way was

the wind going to blow next? "Even though the helo was plainly ID'd by—"
"That's what they claimed in '67," Hansen fumed, cutting him off, "when
they strafed, torpedoed, and napalmed NSA's Liberty, which was clearly in
international waters. They were hoping to prolong the Six-Day War long
enough to roll into Syria, and they didn't want us to monitor their plans. So
they took careful pains to knock out all our SIGINT capability in the region,
just happening to kill a dozen seamen in the process. Afterwards the lying
fuckers told our embassy in Tel Aviv it was all a mistake and sent flowers.
If anybody else in the world had done that, we'd have nuked them."
"Well, at the time the Glover was hit, it wasn't monitoring Israeli
SIGINT," Brock noted, adjusting his glasses. "We think they're clean on this
one. At least what we have from Fort Meade so far seems to bear that out.
They're still running a computer analysis, though, pulling out all the voice
and code used by the Israeli Air Force during that time. We didn't have that
capability back in 1967. In a few more hours we'll be able to put that
question to rest, one way or another."
"Okay, maybe we should go slow till then. So in the meantime, let's take
them at their word for a moment and examine the other possibilities."
Hansen revolved in his chair and stared out the bulletproof window behind
him. The Washington sky was growing overcast. And the clock was
running. This whole screw-up would be in tomorrow's Washington Post,
garbled, just as sure as the sun was going to come up. CNN had already
picked up the BBC's "rumor" and was running it on their "Headline"
service, hinting the U.S. intelligence community had been caught with its
pants around its ankles, again.
"There's more," Brock said, interrupting his thoughts. "The Iranians have
been screaming about a stolen Hind for four days, blaming us, of course.
But they've quietly let Mossad know they think it may have strayed into
Pakistan, maybe as a diversion, and then ended up heading out for one of
the Gulf states, probably Yemen. The Israelis have reason to believe it was
delivered to a Yemeni-flagged freighter in the Persian Gulf, then taken

through the Suez Canal and into the eastern Med. After that, all contact was
lost."
Iran, the President thought. Pakistan. None of it sorted into a picture.
Unless . . .
"Incidentally," Morton Davies, Chief of Staff, interjected, "the Israelis
also have one other bit of intel that seems to have somehow gotten lost in
all of NSA's Cray supercomputers. An Israeli 'fishing trawler' picked up a
Mayday they triangulated as coming from somewhere north of Crete. It
supposedly claimed—the transmission was a bit garbled—to emanate from
the very Hind that had attacked the ship. The broadcast said that terrorists
had taken over the SatCom facility on the island of Andikythera. If that's
true, it would be the one that the Glover was monitoring."
Hansen stared at him. "Are we supposed to believe any of this? That
unknown terrorists are behind this whole thing? That's exactly the kind of
disinformation the Israelis have used on us in the past. Besides, it doesn't
click. If terrorists did do it, they'd damned sure want the credit. Nobody
throws a rock this size through your window unless there's a note attached.
So where is it?"
That's when the import of what Davies had said hit him. SatCom. It was
going to be the pride of America, a symbol . . . My God, it was a rocket
launch facility.
He reached down and touched the blue button on the desk intercom on
the right side of his desk.
"Alicia."
"Sir," came back the crisp reply.
"Have NSA send over any recent PHOTOINT they have on the Greek
island of Andikythera. By hand. I want it yesterday."
"Yes, sir."
"Ted," he said, turning back to Brock, "somehow this time
I've got an uncomfortable feeling the medium may be the message."

1:49 P.M.

"To understand the operation of this facility," Isaac Mannheim was
saying, "you need to appreciate the technology we've installed here." He
was resting against the trunk of a tree, gazing wearily down the mountain at
the sun-baked asphalt of the facility stretching below.
"I've already got a rough idea how it works," Vance replied. He was
pondering the quiet down below. "It's the people I want to know more
about."
"Well, of course, that's my primary concern as well." The old man
shrugged. "But we are on the verge of an experiment that will change the
world for all time. That's just as important."
"Not in my book."
"Perhaps. But all the same, I think I should tell you a few technical
details about the facility. Since you say you're familiar with its general
workings, you probably know that its heart is a twenty-gigawatt laser we
call the Cyclops. Using it, we can send a high-energy beam hundreds of
miles into space without losing appreciable energy. Our plan is to use that
beam of energy, which we can direct very accurately, to power a satellite
launch vehicle."
"I understand that."
"Excellent," he said, as though encouraging a student. Then he pushed
on. "In any case, the Cyclops itself is a repetitive-pulsed, free-electron laser,
which means the computer can tune it continuously to the most energy-
efficient wavelength, a crucial feature. It starts with an intense beam of
electrons which it accelerates to high velocity, then passes through an array
of magnets we call the 'wiggler.' Those magnets are arranged in a line but
they alternate in polarity, which causes the electrons passing through to
experience rapid variations in magnetic-field strength and direction. What
happens is, the alternating magnetic field 'wiggles' the beam of electrons
into a wave, causing them to emit a microwave pulse—which is itself then
passed back and forth, gaining strength at every pass. Eventually it saturates
at a level nearly equal to the power of Grand Coulee Dam, and then—"

"Maybe you ought to get to the point," Vance said, feeling he was
receiving a college lecture. He used to give college lectures, for chrissake,
in archaeology. Were they just as tedious? he suddenly wondered.
"Of course." He pushed on, oblivious. 'The whole operation is controlled
by our Fujitsu supercomputer. The hardest part is getting the microwave
pulses and the electron pulses to overlap perfectly in the wiggler. That part
of the Cyclops, called the coaxial phase shifter, requires delicate fine-
tuning. The alignment has to be critically adjusted, the focusing perfect, the
cavity length—"
"Get back to the vehicle. I think I've heard all I need to know about the
wonders of the Cyclops."
"Very well. The energy is focused, in bursts, from up there." He turned
and pointed up the mountain. "That installation is a phased-array
microwave transmission system, which delivers it to the spacecraft. To a
port located on the sides of the vehicles down there. The port is a special
heat-resistant crystal of synthetic diamond. Once inside, the beam is
directed downward into the nozzle, where it strikes dry ice and creates
plasma, producing thrust. The vehicle is single-stage-to-orbit."
"Nothing is burned." Vance had to admit it was a nifty idea. If you could
do it.
“That's correct. The laser beam creates a shock wave, a burst of
superheated gas moving at supersonic velocity out of the nozzle. By pulsing
the beam, we form a detonation wave that hits the nozzle chamber and—"
"So it's really Star Wars in reverse," Vance interjected. "Bates is using all
that fancy research in high-powered lasers to put up a satellite instead of
shooting one down."
“The power is comparable. The superconducting coil we use to store
power can pulse as high as twenty-five billion watts. The dry ice that is the
'propellant' is only about three hundred kilograms, a tiny percentage of the
vehicle's weight, and since the vehicle is virtually all payload, we should be
able to put it into a hundred-nautical-mile orbit in a matter of minutes. The
beam energy will be roughly five hundred gigawatts per second and—"

"I get the picture," Vance interjected, tired of numbers. "But what you're
really saying is that this transmission system up here on the mountain is the
key to everything. If it goes down, end of show."
He was thinking. The terrorists had not destroyed anything, at least not
up here. Which probably meant they intended to use it. The prospect chilled
him.
"Okay, let's work backward to where the people are," he continued.
"What's down below us here? The power has to get up here somehow.
"We're at one end of the island, down a bit from Command, which is
underground. That's where the computer is, which handles the output
frequencies of the Cyclops and also the trajectory analysis. It gets data from
a radar up here on the mountain and uses that to provide guidance for the
laser beam as the vehicle gains altitude. There are giant servo-mechanisms
that keep the parabolic antennas trained on the vehicle as it lifts off the pad
and heads into orbit. They also retrieve all the telemetry from the
spacecraft, and—"
"What's belowground down there?" He was pointing toward the vehicles.
"That area has an excavated space below it for the multi- cavity
amplifier bay. It's—"
"The what?"
"That's where the free-electron laser, the Cyclops, begins pumping up.
Then the energy is sent up here"—he pointed back up the mountain—"to
the phased-array transmission system."
"Right. So underground it's shaped something like a dumbbell, with the
technical management staff at this end and then the operating people down
there. What's in between? Just a big connecting tunnel?'
"Correct. And, of course, the communications conduits. For all the
wiring."
Okay, Vance thought. Now we're getting somewhere. The terrorists will
be split up. That's going to make things easier, and harder. They could be
taken out one group at a time, but there also could be hostages at peril all

over the place. These situations are always a lot cleaner when all the
hostages are in one location.
"Any other connections?"
"Well, there's really only one." He shrugged, and ran his hand through
his mane of white hair. Vance thought it made him look like an aging lion.
"As you can imagine, these levels of power mean there are enormous
quantities of waste heat. So Bates tunneled water conduits between a
submerged pumping station on the other side of the island and a number of
locations."

Vance's pulse quickened. "What do they lead to?"
“They run from the computer in Command, and the power plant down at
the other end of the island, right beneath where we are now and . . . actually,
one leads up to those heat exchangers there—" He was pointing up the
mountain, past a large cinderblock building at the edge of the phased-array
radar installation.
A tunnel filled with water, Vance thought. There's been enough
swimming for a while. But if the system is off, then . . .
"Then there must be an entry-point up there somewhere."
He smiled and nodded wistfully. "I assume there must be. But I don't
know where it is."
"Think it's big enough for somebody to get into?"
"It should be. Everything was over-engineered, since we weren't sure
how much waste heat there would be."
"So all I have to do is get into the heat exchanger, then hope there's some
air left in Bill's granite water pipe."
The old man looked worried. "Do you realize the kind of energy that
goes through that conduit? If they should turn on the pumps, you'd be
drowned in an instant and then dumped out to sea."
"I've already been drowned once on this trip. Another time won't matter."
He shrugged. "But I've got to get inside and find out how many terrorists
there are and where they're keeping the people.'' Once I figure out their
deployment, he was thinking, we can plan the assault.
"It's dangerous," Mannheim mumbled. "That conduit was never intended
to have anybody—"
"I'm forewarned." He was apprehensively rising to his feet and wincing
at his aches. "All you have to do is get me inside."

2:36 P.M.

Georges LeFarge felt like he was getting a fever. Or maybe the room was
just growing hot. All he knew was, he was miserable. He swabbed at his

face with a moist paper towel and tried to breathe normally, telling himself
he had to keep going, had to stick by Cally. This was no time to give in to
these creeps and get sick.
Ardent and intense, Georges looked every inch the computer hacker he
was; but he also was one of the finest aerospace engineers ever to come out
of Cal Tech. Although his long hair and so-so beard were intended to
deliver a fierce political statement, his benign blue eyes negated the
message. He was an idealist, but one filled with love, not hate. His politics
were as simplistic as his technical skills were state-of-the-art: he never
managed to understand why everyone in the world did not act rationally.
He had grown up in New York's Soho district, living in a mammoth,
sparsely furnished loft with his mother, a widely praised painter of massive,
abstract oils—usually in black and ocher. Her depressing paintings were
huge, but her income only occasionally was, and Georges's memory of his
childhood was years of alternating caviar and spaghetti. His French
Canadian father had long since returned to a log-and-clay cabin in northern
Quebec, never to be heard from again.
He also remembered his mother's string of lovers, an emotional intrusion
he never quite came to accept. The day he went off to MIT, on a National
Merit Scholarship, was the happiest of his life. Or at least he had thought so
until he got a call from Cally Andros asking him to come to work for
SatCom.
He was now thirty-four, single, and he loved girls, or the idea of girls.
No, the truth was that he loved one girl, and had forever. She was now his
boss. After years of separation, they had finally dabbled at an affair here on
Andikythera, but he had to admit it hadn't worked. At first it had seemed a
good idea, his boyhood dream come true, but now he had realized maybe
they were better off just being friends. She became a different person in
bed, and one he found slightly terrifying.
But given what had just happened, all that seemed part of another,
forgotten place and time.

In addition to having a fever, he was bone-tired and his neck ached. But
he wanted desperately to stay alert. He stroked the wispy beard he had been
trying to grow for the last four months, gazed at the terminal, and warned
himself to stop thinking like an engineer and try to think like a terrorist.
These European criminals had shown up just in time for the first space shot,
which meant they had something planned that needed a vehicle. They
weren't going to hold the facility for ransom: there was nothing here they
could steal. Also, they had been very careful not to damage any of the
systems.
Which meant their real program, whatever it was, needed the Cyclops to
work and a vehicle to lift off. If that didn't happen, they were screwed. So,
he thought, you sabotage Thursday's shot and you nix their plot, whatever it
is.
But Cally would have a fit. Mr. Bates needed a success, and soon, or the
whole SatCom gamble would go down the tubes. It was a lose-lose
scenario. What to do?
Simple. Just keep working for now and hope. What else was there?
On the screen in front of him now was the output of a program in
progress, this one called HI-VOLT, which was a daily low-power warm-up
of the coils of the phased-array radar system on the mountain. The
computer methodically checked all the power systems for any hint of
malfunction, and the program had to be run, rain or shine. It was now time
to kick on the pumps and heat exchangers and get going. Something to do. .
..
The cursor was flashing, ready for the "power on" command. He hit the
Enter key, activating the pumps for the heat exchangers, then turned to see
Cally approaching, winding her way through the workstations, led by the
head terrorist, the fucker who called himself Number One. LeFarge could
not get over the fact the bastard looked like an executive from the Arlington
office, only better dressed.
"Georges, you've got to kill HI-VOLT," Cally said. Although she looked
normal, there was extreme anxiety in her voice. The strain was coming

through. "We have to do a different run." She was passing her fingers
nervously through her hair. He loved her dark, Mediterranean tresses. "A
trajectory analysis using SORT."
The Fujitsu supercomputer they were using was programmed with a
special NASA program developed by McDonnell-Douglas Astronautics Co.
Called SORT, an abbreviation for Simulation and Optimization of Rocket
Trajectories, it minimized the laser energy required for an insertion
trajectory into low earth orbit. It also calculated the on-board nozzle vectors
to adjust altitude while the vehicle was in flight. Midcourse corrections. All
you had to do was program everything in.
"Now? But I just started—"
"Here's a list of what he wants." She glanced at Number One again, then
handed over a sheet of blue paper.
He took it and looked down. Maybe they were about to tip their hand.
But what could they know about computers?
He finally focused on the sheet. What? These weren't satellite
trajectories, these were longitude and latitude coordinates. Then he studied
it more carefully. They were abort targets.

CHAPTER EIGHT
2:37 P.M.

The conduit was roughly a meter and a half in diameter and pitch dark.
He had expected that and had extracted a waterproof flashlight from an
emergency kit in the wreckage of the Hind. It was helping, but not all that
much. With the heat exchangers off, no water was flowing. The stone walls
were merely moist, the curved sides covered with slime.

The tunnel sloped downward from the installation on the mountain as a
gentle incline, and although the gray algae that swathed its sides now
covered him, he had found niches in the granite to hang onto as he worked
his way down.
Then it had leveled out, matching the terrain, and that was when he
encountered the first water, now up around his waist. The radars up the hill,
he realized, were only one of the producers of waste heat. Ahead, the tunnel
he was in seemed to join a larger one from another site, as part of a general
confluence.
Thank God all the systems are in standby, he thought. If those massive
pumps down by the shore start up, they'll produce a raging torrent that'll
leave no place to hide. . . .
As he splashed through the dark, he found himself pondering if this was
what he had been placed on the planet to do. Maybe he should never have
left Yale. The pay was decent, the hours leisurely, the company congenial.
Poking around in the hidden secrets of the past always gave solace to the
spirit. What did humanity think about three thousand years ago? Five
thousand? Five hundred? What were their loves, their hates, their fears,
their dreams? Were they the same as ours? And why did humanity always
need to worship something? Where did the drive come from to create—
poetry, music, painting? These were all marvelous mysteries that we might
never unravel, but they were among the most noble questions anyone could
ask. What makes us human? It was the immortal quandary.
But when you asked that, you also had to ask the flip-side question. How
could humanity create so much that was bad at the same time? So much
tyranny, greed, hurt? How did all that beauty and ugliness get mixed up
together down in our genes? Maybe he was about to find out more about the
evil in the heart of man, coming up. . . .
He splashed and paddled his way onward, his flashlight sending a puny
beam ahead, and tried to relate his location to the rest of the facility. Before
entering through the heat exchanger atop the mountain, he had grilled
Mannheim on the specifics of site layout. The old man, however, hadn't

really known much about the nuts and bolts of the facility; his head was out
in space somewhere. All the same, Vance found himself liking him, in spite
of his encroaching senility. Even Homer was said to nod. Just hope you live
long enough to get senile yourself.
Back to business. Ahead, settled into the top of the conduit, was a metal
door just large enough for a man to work through. What was that for? he
wondered. Maintenance access? If so, it must lead into the main facility
somewhere.
He felt his way around the curved sides of the conduit, searching for
flaws in the granite where he could get a handhold. Then he reached up and
tested the door.
The metal was beginning to rust from the seawater, but it still looked
workable. A large black wheel in the center, inset with gears, operated
sliding bolts that fit into the frame.
This has to be fast, he told himself. Do a quick reconnoiter of the place
and make mental notes. Look for entry-points and escape routes. Then get
back in time for the radio chat with Pierre. About three hours, two to be on
the safe side.
He braced himself against the stone sides of the conduit and—holding
the flashlight with one hand—tried to budge the metal wheel.
Nothing. The contact with seawater had frozen it with rust. He tried
again, shoving the flashlight into his belt and, grappling in the dark,
twisting the wheel with both hands. Was it moving?
He felt a faint vibration make its way down the stone walls of the
conduit, then there was a hum of huge electric motors starting somewhere.
Somebody was turning on the systems.
He listened as the vibration continued to grow, and now the water level
was beginning to rise, as the pumps down by the shore began priming. Were
they about to turn them on full blast? The involuntary rush of his pulse and
his breathing made him abruptly aware of how close the confining tunnel
felt, the tight hermetic sense of claustrophobia. For the first time since

landing on Andikythera he felt real fear. He hated the dark, the enclosed
space, and now he was trapped.
Idiot, how did you get yourself into this? You're going to be drowned in
about thirty seconds.
Now the roar of water began to overwhelm the hum of the pumps. The
conduit was filling rapidly, and flow had begun. He realized that only about
a foot of airspace remained at the top. Praying for a miracle, he heaved
against the metal wheel one last time, and finally felt it break loose, begin
to turn.

2:38 P.M.

"Abdoullah" had finished unpacking the second crate, and now he
examined what he had: two fifteen-kiloton nuclear devices, made using
enriched uranium-235 from the Kahuta Nuclear Research Center. He smiled
again to think they had been smuggled out right from under the noses of the
officials at Kahuta, directly up the security elevators leading down to the
U235 centrifuge at Level Five.
The research center was situated more or less in between the sister cities
of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, in northeast Pakistan, where it was
surrounded by barren, scrub-brush rolling hills that looked toward the
looming border of Afghanistan. Kahuta was the heart of Pakistan's nuclear-
weapons program, and its many levels of high-security infrastructure were
buried deep belowground. The only structure visible to a satellite was the
telltale concrete cupola and an adjacent environmental-control plant for air
filtration. Security was tight, with high fences, watchtowers, and an army
barracks near at hand.
The security was for a reason. In 1975 Pakistan began acquiring
hardware and technology for a plant capable of producing weapons-grade
uranium. Bombs require 90 percent enrichment, and when the U.S.
discovered the project, it had threatened to cut off aid if any uranium was
enriched beyond 5 percent. Pakistan agreed, then went right ahead. Between

1977 and 1980, using dummy corporations and transshipments through
third countries, the government smuggled from West Germany an entire
plant for converting uranium powder into uranium hexafluoride, a
compound easily gasified and then enriched. Two years later the Nuclear
Research Center purchased a ton of specially hardened "maraging" steel,
from West Germany, which was delivered already fabricated into round bars
whose diameter exactly matched that of the (also) German gas centrifuges
under construction at Kahuta. Shortly thereafter, the plant at Dera Ghazi
Khan was on-line, producing uranium hexafluoride feedstock for the
Kahuta enrichment facility, and the Kahuta facility was using it to turn out
U235 enriched uranium in abundance.
At the same time, Pakistani operatives were hastening to acquire high-
speed American electronic switches called krytrons, the triggering devices
for a bomb. Their efforts to obtain nuclear detonators required several tries,
but eventually they got what they needed. They dispensed with above-
ground testing of the nuclear devices they had assembled, having procured
the necessary data from China, and instead just went ahead and made their
bombs. They then secured them on Level Five of the Kahuta reprocessing
facility—against the day they would be needed.
Until now. Liberating two of those well-guarded A-bombs had required a
lot of unofficial cooperation from the plant's security forces. Batteries of
surface-to-air missiles protected Kahuta from air penetration, and elite
paratroopers and army tanks reinforced the many checkpoints, making sure
that no vehicle, official or private, could enter or leave the complex without
a stamped authorization by the security chief. Only a lot of money in the
right hands could make two of the devices disappear. Sabri Ramirez had
seen to that small technicality. . . .
Abdoullah patted one of the nuclear weapons casually and admired it.
The bomb itself was a half meter in diameter, its outer casing of Octol
carefully packed inside a polished steel sheath embedded with wires.
Expensive but available commercially, Octol was a 70-30 mixture of
cyclote-tramethvlenetetranitramine and trinitrotoluene, known colloquially

as HMX and TNT. It was stable, powerful, and the triggering agent of
choice for nuclear devices. Inside the Octol encasing each device were
twenty-five kilograms of 93 percent enriched U235. When the external Octol
sphere was evenly detonated, it would compress the uranium core
sufficiently to create a "critical mass,-' causing the naturally occurring
radioactive decay of the uranium to focus in upon itself. Once the radiation
intensified, it started an avalanche, an instantaneous chain reaction of atom-
splitting that converted the uranium's mass into enormous quantities of
energy.
The trick to making it work was an even, synchronous implosion of the
outer sphere, which was the job of the high-tech krytron detonator switches.
...
Which, Abdoullah realized, were still in the Sikorsky. The krytrons were
packed separately and handled as though they were finest crystal.
"Rais," he said, looking up and addressing his Berkeley classmate now
standing by the door, "I need the detonators."
"Well, they're in the cockpit, where we stowed them." He was tightening
his commando sweatband, itching to try out his Uzi, still unfamiliar. Would
the others notice? In any case, he wasn't here to run errands.
"Then go get them, for chrissake." He had considered Rais to be an
asshole from the day they first met in the Advanced Quantum Mechanics
class at college. Nothing that had happened since had in any way
undermined that conviction. The guy thought he was hot stuff, God's gift to
the world. It was not a view that anybody who knew him shared.
"Why don't you go get them?" Rais said, not moving.
"Because I want to check these babies over and make sure everything is
a go." What a jerk. "Come on, man, don't start giving me a lot of shit, okay?
This is serious. Everybody's got to pull his weight around here."
Rais hesitated, his manhood on the line, and then decided to capitulate.
At least for now. Abdoullah was starting to throw his weight around, get on
the nerves. The guy was real close to stepping out of line.

"All right, fuck it." He clicked the safety on his Uzi on and off and on,
then holstered it.
"As long as you're at it, why don't you just take them directly down to
the clean room. We'll be assembling everything there anyway, since that's
where the elevator is they use to go up and prep the vehicles."
"That's cool. See you down there." Rais closed the door and walked out
into the Greek sunshine. He was starting to like this fucking place.

2:39 P.M.

Vance shoved the metal door open just as the roar of the onrushing water
reached the confluence at the intersection of the tunnel, a mere hundred
yards ahead. The tunnel was almost full now, the water flow increasing.
They're about to turn on the Cyclops, he thought. You've got about
fifteen seconds left.
He pulled himself through the metal door, soaked but alive, and rolled
onto a cement floor. With his last remaining strength he reached over and
tipped the metal door shut, then grabbed the wheel and gave it a twist.
Down below he could feel the wall of water surge by.
He thought he was going to faint, but instead he took a deep breath and
pulled out the flashlight. . . .
. . . And found himself in a communications conduit, consisting of a
concrete floor with Styrofoam insulation overhead. All around him
stretched what seemed miles of coaxial cables, wrapped in huge circular
strands. The conduit also contained fiber-optics bundles for carrying
computer data to guide the parabolic antennas up on the mountain as they
tracked the space vehicle.
The major contents of the conduit, however, were massive copper
power-transmission cables. What had Mannheim warned? How many
gigawatts per second? The numbers were too mind-boggling to
comprehend, or bother remembering. All they meant was that if the Cyclops

were suddenly turned on, the Gaussian fields of electromagnetic flux would
probably rearrange his brain cells permanently.
He rose and moved down the conduit, feeling along its curved sides, his
back braced against the large bundle of power wires in the center while
ahead of him the darkness gaped. A few yards farther, though, and the
probing beam of his flashlight revealed a terminus where some of the
shielded fiber optics had been shunted off into the wall, passing through a
heavy metal sleeve.
Although it was welded into a steel plate bolted to the side of the wall,
large handles allowed the bolts to be turned without the aid of special
wrenches. Whoever designed the fiber optics for this tunnel, he thought,
didn't want a lot of Greek workmen down here waving tools around after a
long lunch of guzzling retsina. The fibers were too vulnerable to stand up to
any banging.
He grasped the handles and began to twist one, finding the bolts well
lubricated. After four turns, it opened. The second yielded just as easily.
Then the third and the fourth.
He took a deep breath, thinking this might be his first encounter with the
hostages, and the terrorists. Then he slid the metal plate back away from the
wall and tried to peer through. The opening was approximately a meter
wide, with the bundle of fiber-optics cables directly through the middle.
Still, he found just enough clearance to slip past and into the freezing cold
of the room used to prep the payloads for the vehicles.

2:40 P.M.

"What's this all about?" LeFarge looked again at the sheet, then up at
Number One. "SORT is intended to calculate orbital parameters. Optimize
them."
"And if there is an abort? It has to go down somewhere."
"You're talking about a pre-specified abort?" LeFarge was trying to
sound dumb. "The Cyclops can't power an ICBM." It probably could, but he

didn't want to mention that.
The terrorist who called himself Number One was not impressed. "That's
a question we will let the computer decide. I happen to believe it can. You
just send it up, then you abort. When you fail to achieve orbital velocity, it
comes down. The nose has a reentry shield, since you are planning to reuse
the vehicle. It should work very nicely."
Georges looked at Cally. He did not want to admit it, but this guy was
right. He had thought about that a lot. Any private spaceport could be seized
by terrorists and turned into a missile launch site. Was that their plan?
"I won't do it," he heard himself saying. "I refuse."
"That is a mistake," Number One replied calmly. "I will simply shoot
one of your technicians here every five minutes until you begin." He
smiled. "Would you like to pick the first? Preferably someone you can
manage without."
"You're bluffing." He felt a chill. Something told him what he had just
said wasn't true. This man, with his expensive suit
and haircut, meant every word. He was a killer. Georges knew he had never
met anyone remotely like him.
"Young man, you are an amateur." His eyes had grown narrow, almost
disappearing behind his gray aviator shades. "Amateurs do not know the
first thing about bluffing. Now don't try my patience."
He turned and gestured one of the technicians toward them. He was a
young man in his mid-twenties. He came forward and Number One asked
his name.
"I'm Chris Schneider," he said. His blond hair and blue eyes attested to
the fact. His father was a German farmer in Ohio, his mother a primary-
school teacher. He had taken a degree in Engineering from Ohio State, then
stumbled upon the dream job of his life. He was now thinking about
moving to Greece.
"I'm sorry to have to make an example of you, Chris," Number One said,
drawing out his Walther. . . .

2:41 P.M.

Vance realized he was in a satellite "clean room," painted a septic white
with bright fluorescents overhead. Along one wall were steel tables, several
of which held giant "glove boxes" that enabled a worker to handle satellite
components without human contamination. Alongside those were
instruments to measure ambient ionization and dust. Other systems in the
room included banks of electronic equipment about whose function he
could only speculate.
And what was that? . . . there, just above the door . . . it looked like a
closed-circuit TV monitor, black-and-white. It seemed to be displaying the
vague movements of a large control room, one with banks of computer
screens in long rows and marshaled lines of technicians monitoring them.
He studied the picture for a second, wondering why it seemed so familiar,
and then he realized it looked just like TV shots of the Kennedy Space
Center.
Shivering from the cold, he moved closer to the screen, which was just
clear enough to allow him to make out some of the figures in what had to be
the command center. However, he saw only staffers; no sign of Bill Bates.
One individual stood out, his suit and tie a marked contrast to the general
open-shirt atmosphere, and he looked like he was giving the orders. He was
now chatting with a woman and another, younger man, seated at a
keyboard.
Then the well-dressed guy turned and beckoned one of the staffers
forward. He said something to him and then—Jesus!—he pulled a pistol. . .
.

2:42 P.M.

"No!" Cally screamed, but it was already too late. Before Chris
Schneider even saw it coming, Ramirez shot him precisely between the
eyes, neatly and without fanfare. The precision was almost clinical, and he

was dead by the time he collapsed onto the gray linoleum tiles of the floor.
His body lay motionless, his head nestled in a growing pool of dark blood.
Georges LeFarge looked on unbelieving. Had he really seen it? No, it
was too grotesque. Chris, murdered in cold blood right before his eyes.
They had been talking only yesterday about going to Crete for the weekend,
maybe renting a car. . . . Death had always been an abstraction, never
anything to view up close. He had never seen a body. He had never even
imagined such things could really happen; it was only in the movies, right?
Until this moment he had never confronted actual murder ever in his life.
Calypso Andros felt a shock, then a surge of emotional Novocain as her
adrenaline pumped. Right then and there she decided that she was going to
kill this bastard herself, personally, with her own hands. Number One,
whoever he was, was a monster. No revenge . . .
Then the superego intervened. He's still got the gun. Wait, and get the
son of a bitch when he's not expecting it.
"Georges," she said quietly, finally collecting herself, "you'd better do
what he says."
LeFarge was still too astonished to think, let alone talk.
This horror was outside every realm of reason. He had no way to file it
within any known category contained in his mind.
"She is giving you excellent advice," Number One was saying. "You
would be wise to listen. In any case, I merely want you to demonstrate the
technical capabilities of this system." He smiled as though nothing had
happened. "An intellectual exercise."
Georges looked at Cally and watched her nod. Her eyes seemed almost
empty. Was it shock? How could she manage to carry on?
Well, he thought, if she can do it, then so can I.
Slowly he revolved and examined the computer terminal in front of him.
The cool green of the screen was all that remained recognizable, the only
thing to which he could still relate.
"All right." He barely heard his own words as he glanced down at the
sheet. "I'll see if I can put in a run."

The room around them was paralyzed in time, the single thunk of the
pistol having reverberated louder than a cannon shot. Like Georges, none of
the other young technicians had ever witnessed an overt act of violence. It
produced a new reality, a jolt that made the senses suddenly grow sharper,
the hearing more acute, the periphery of vision wider.
Still in shock, he typed an instruction into his Fujitsu workstation, telling
it to start back-calculating the trajectory of an abort splashdown for various
locations. Then he began typing in the numbers on the sheet. The first
coordinates, he realized at once, were somewhere close. But where?

2:43 P.M.

Vance watched the control room freeze as the body slumped to the floor,
and he felt his fingers involuntarily bunch into a fist. The bastards were
killing hostages already. They definitely were terrorists, right out of the
textbook. Kill one, and frighten a thousand. Except they might not stop with
one. He foresaw a long day. And night.
The victim had been hardly more than a college kid. Murdered at
random, and for no other apparent reason than to frighten the rest into
submission. A technique that was as old as brutality. But that terrorist trick,
management by intimidation, worked both ways. Take away their Uzis and
these smug bastards could just as easily be turned into quivering Jell-O. All
human beings had psychological pressure points that could be accessed.
What separated the wheat from the chaff was what happened when
somebody got to those points. He often wondered what he would do. He
prayed he would never have to find out. . . .
Then he watched as the young man at the terminal began typing in
something off a sheet of paper. Whatever the terrorist had intended to
accomplish by his wanton murder, apparently it had worked. The other
technicians were all staring down at their screens, scared to move.

Whatever had gone on, everybody was back to business. But what did these
thugs want?
Sadly he turned away from the screen to reexamine his surroundings . . .
and noticed a workstation, situated off to the left side of the door. What had
Bill once said? They practically had computer terminals in the bathrooms.
This one obviously was intended for quick communications with the
command crews from here in this freezing white room.
Keeping an eye on the TV monitor, he moved over to take a look.
Instructions began appearing on the bright green screen, indicating it was
tied into a computer network at the facility. Yes, somebody—probably the
young analyst out there—was typing in a complex series of commands.
Above that, on the screen, another sequence had been aborted. It had been
some sort of run called HI-VOLT. That must have been what had jolted him
when he was out in the conduit.
He studied the screen, trying to figure out what was going on. Only the
hum of air conditioning broke the silence, and the quiet helped him to think.
...
Of course! These bastards were planning to use the Cyclops—or worse,
its spacecraft—to . . . what?
He recalled seeing the second chopper arrive and the boys unload two
crates. Its cargo wasn't going to be a Christmas present to the world.
Whatever it was, they were poised to deliver it just about anywhere on the
globe.
So what was their target? He studied the computer screen, hoping to get
an inkling. But he saw only numbers. In pairs. They looked like . . . latitude
and longitude. Coordinates. What did that mean? The first ones were
nearby, maybe somewhere near Crete. So what were they doing?
Reprogramming the vehicle into a missile? Terrific.
That was the first half of the bad news. The second half was that
whatever they were up to, there also seemed a good chance they might try
to blow up the SatCom facility after they were finished, just to cover their
tracks. Dead men make no IDs in some faraway courtroom years from now.

He could probably terminate that plan by just sabotaging some of the
fiber optics in the conduit, thereby putting the whole facility out of
commission. But that would screw Bill too, and probably end up costing
SatCom millions. Bates was close enough to being suicidal already. This
was probably going to put him over the edge in any case.
Keep that as a last-ditch option, he told himself. And besides, everything
at the moment was only guesswork. The thing to do first was to get a better
handle on the situation without the terrorists knowing. The question was
how.
He looked around the room again, wondering. And then his eye fell on
the terminal and a thought dawned. Why not see if you can interrupt the
computer run in progress and have a chat with the analyst at the keyboard,
the one with the beard now typing in the numbers appearing on the green
screen?
He reached down and tested one of the keys, but nothing happened. The
data being typed in just kept on coming. What now? How to cut into the
system and send him a little personal E-mail? Get his attention. Something.
Then he realized the keyboard had an on/off switch, which was currently
shunting it out of the system.
Guess that's to keep somebody from screwing up a run by leaning
against it, he thought. How much time is there? Any minute now somebody
could come wandering in. Probably this window of opportunity only had a
few minutes to go.
He switched on the keyboard and again gave a letter a tap. This time it
instantly appeared on the screen, highlighted. A glance at the TV monitor
told him that the startled analyst at the keyboard had frozen his fingers in
mid-tap, bringing everything to a halt.
Quickly he started typing, hoping that none of the terrorists had the
brains to be monitoring the computers.
DON'T STOP. JUST ANSWER.
The young analyst, he could tell from the monitor, had a funny look on
his face, obvious even through his scraggly beard. But he was cool.

WHO ARE YOU? came back the answer.
A FRIEND. NEED INFORMATION. FAST. HOW MANY
TERRORISTS?
TEN. The reply appeared. BUT I THINK ONE WAS KILLED.
Plus those who came in on the Sikorsky this morning, Vance thought.
Looked like another three. Then he typed in another question.
WHAT DO THEY WANT?
DON'T KNOW. MAYBE USE VEHICLES. The typing was quick and
experienced. THEY SAY FACILITY TO KEEP OPERATING
NORMALLY.
WHERE IS BATES? Vance typed back. IS HE OKAY?
IN HIS OFFICE. THINK HE'S OKAY.
That's a relief, he thought. Guess Bill's still got some hostage value to
them.
TELL HIM ULYSSES HAS LANDED. BE OF GOOD CHEER.
The answer came back. WHO ARE YOU? I'M SCARED. THEY
KILLED CHRIS.
I SAW IT. BUT THAT'S PROBABLY ALL FOR A WHILE.
STANDARD TERROR TACTICS. NOW ERASE THIS
CONVERSATION.
Something was typed on the screen and their words immediately all
disappeared. And just in time. . . .

2:48 P.M.

Rais had finished retrieving the box of krytrons from the cockpit of the
Huey and was headed down the elevator for the area directly below and
south of the launch facility, the clean room where SatCom's expensive
communications satellites were going to be prepped for launch. Abdoullah
was a jerk, but he had been right about that: it was the obvious location to
install the detonators and set the timing mechanisms.

As the elevator door opened, his Uzi was still holstered just below his
right hip and in his hands was the box of detonators, all carefully secured in
their beds of bubble-wrap. He stepped into the hallway, then headed down
for the closed door of the clean room.

2:58 P.M.

"William Bates, I must say, made a wise choice when he hired you to run
this project, Miss Andros," Ramirez was saying. He had just lit a new cigar.
"I have to commend his judgment."
"Well, if you think I'm doing such a great job, you'd better let me go on
doing it," Cally managed to answer, trying to get a grip on herself. She had
her arms crossed, mainly to try to keep her hands from shaking. When Chris
was shot, she was so stunned she'd repressed the horror. Now the numbness
was wearing off and she wanted to scream. Just one long wail to purge
everything. She was biting her lip to try to repress the impulse. "I need to
go down to the launch facility and check with the tech crews."
Toughen up and think, she told herself. These terrorists are up to
something, and the sooner you figure out what it is, the better for
everybody.
"As a matter of fact"—he nodded—"I need to go down myself and see
how things are proceeding. So why don't we both go, Miss Andros."
"Around here I'm called Dr. Andros." She was feeling her control
coming back. Two could play the power game.
"But of course." He nodded. "In a professional environment we all like
to be treated accordingly. I respect that, and expect no less myself." He
surveyed the room, its SatCom technicians still stunned. Then his eye
caught the tall, bearded Iranian, Salim, now lounging by the door with his
Uzi, and motioned him over.
"Get this body out of here."
The Iranian nodded and strolled over. Cally studied him, wondering. She
had been trying to size up the team for some time, and she still had not

figured them all out. But this one, heavy-set and defiantly bearded, seemed
somewhat at odds with the others. He clearly had no taste to clean up
Number One's murder; you could see it in his eyes.
"Where—?"
"In the lobby. It's disrupting the professional environment."
He nodded again and without a word grabbed Chris Schneider by the
shoulders and began dragging him past.
"Dr. Andros"—Number One turned back to her—"already I feel closer to
you than I do to half of my men. I think you and I will make a good team."
"You have got to be fucking kidding."
He merely laughed, then spoke to another of the terrorists, a young Arab.
After apparently ordering him to stay behind in Command to keep an eye
on things, he motioned Cally to lead the way through the security doors.
They edged around Salim, still moving the body, and out into the lobby.
The first thing she noticed was that the guard was missing from the front
security station. Instead a wide dark stain covered the desk. Blood.
She whirled on Number One. "What happened to Milos, you bastard?"
"Regrettably he is no longer with us." He shrugged, not pausing as he
took her arm and shoved her on.
"You mean you murdered him, too?" She felt herself about to explode.
She had loved that Greek, who spent more time worrying about soccer
scores than he did about security. Thinking about his death, she felt a wave
of nausea sweep over her. "You bloodthirsty—"
"Please, we're going to try to be professionals, remember," he interrupted
her calmly. "We will be working together in the days ahead, and animosity
will serve no purpose."
She thought of several responses, but squelched them all. Talking wasn't
going to make things any better. In that respect, he was right. Talk would
have no effect.
They were facing the tunnel leading to the mechanical- systems sector at
the other end of the island. The large metal doors, operated from the
security system at the desk, had been opened, slid back, and permanently

secured. The short- circuiting of the security system had disabled all the
electronic locks in the facility.
Scrutinizing them, she felt sadness. All the months of fine-tuning and
technical calibration throughout the facility, had all that effort been wasted?
Probably not, she suspected. These goons, true to their word, had taken
great pains not to disturb anything in Command. So far everything had
apparently conformed to their plan, except for something to do with a
helicopter. Whatever that was, it had taken them by surprise. What was it?
Ramirez said nothing as they started down the asphalt pavement of the
underground passageway. Over a thousand meters long and illuminated by
fluorescent lighting, its cinderblock walls were wide and high enough to
accommodate a standard Greek truck or two small lorries. Cally noted the
deserted guard desk at the far end. Had he been killed as well? she
wondered.
"Let me put your mind at ease," Number One announced, as though
reading her thoughts. "The other guards have merely been disarmed and
locked in their quarters. As I said, we have no desire for any unnecessary
bloodshed."
"More lies?" She tossed her hair.
"You should try to believe me. Again, trust will make things easier for us
both."
She pushed past the doors at the end of the passageway and together they
entered the first sector, Launch Control. Beyond, another set of doors led to
the giant underground installation for the superconducting coil, which fed
into a massive glass tube holding the wiggler, heart of the Cyclops. Above
that, now unseen, stood the launch vehicles, "rockets" that carried no fuel.
Neither was yet primed; they planned to ready the vehicle designated
VX-1 just before launch. In fact, nothing had happened since the test the
night before. Tech crews were checking the instruments, knowing only that
a communications breakdown with Command had occurred and some
strange visitors had shown up in a helicopter. Something was going on, but
nobody knew what.

"A very impressive installation," Number One said, watching as the
technicians all nodded their greetings. "Incidentally, there is no point in
alarming any of them now. For the moment, you should just proceed
normally."
"That's why you're here, right?" she shot back. "To make sure there's all
this normality. Things were pretty normal before you and your band of
thugs barged in."
"We are colleagues now, Dr. Andros. I'm here to observe the lift-off we
all are so anxious for. Please, for starters I would like to tag along and have
you show me around. You're a congenial guide."
You bet, she thought. You'll discover how "congenial" I am soon enough.
Of course, she had not yet formulated a strategy. One bright spot was the
voice on the radio this morning? Was somebody on the island still free? She
had peeked out into the lobby long enough to learn that the mysterious
"guard" had shot one of the Germans and then escaped. So who was it?
That was what she wanted to find out next. . . .
But first, business. She approached Jordan Jaegar, a young Cal Tech
graduate and friend of Georges who had been with the project from the
start.
"J.J., how long did the coil temperature stay nominal?"
Although he had a master's in mechanical engineering, Jordan sported
shoulder-length hair and had just gotten a tattoo on his right bicep—an
elaborate rendering of his initials, J.J., which he much preferred to be
called. He liked the fact Dr. Andros remembered that.
"For just over twenty-one minutes," he announced with pride, his eyes
discreetly taking in her hourglass figure. "Long enough. Then it started
creeping up, but we'd have almost inserted into orbit by that time. And after
twenty-nine minutes it was only five degrees Celsius higher. No sweat, Dr.
Andros."
Who, J.J. was wondering, was this hotshot standing next to Dr. Andros?
He had seen a lot of SatCom brass come and go, but this dude was
definitely new. What was his scene? No question, though, the boss lady was

really pissed about something. She also did not seem interested in
introducing this new creep to anyone. Fine. There was enough to worry
about without more head-office brass.
Cally nodded. "The on-line readout in Command showed that the
Cyclops reached saturation at twelve point three-five gigawatts."
"Right," J.J. agreed. "The wiggler went critical and we used the phased
array to dissipate the energy." He beamed. "Hell, we could have sent her up
last night. The whole thing was textbook."
He knew she already knew all that. But he figured there was no harm in
impressing this front-office creep that all the money they'd spent hadn't
been wasted. SatCom was definitely on-budget from his section.
Management had to be happy. Payoff time was just around the corner. This
time next week, SatCom's stock was going to be pure gold. After VX-1
went up, there wouldn't be any more shit from Arlington. They'd be passing
out stock bonuses like fucking peppermints. He figured a hot new Nissan
was definitely in his future.
"Good," Dr. Andros said, but she seemed distracted, having trouble
staying focused. Something was definitely wrong, but she was hiding it.
"How about sending a data summary to my terminal in Command."
Cally walked on past J.J., thinking as fast as she could. None of the
technicians here knew what had happened. When they found out, were they
going to fall apart, endangering everybody and everything? Maybe, she
thought; it would be better now to just continue normally as long as
possible.
Number One, whoever he was, wasn't carrying an Uzi now; instead he
had a 9mm skillfully concealed beneath his double-breasted. It was all very
stylish. He was keeping the takeover on low profile, at least down here
where the vehicles were. Maybe, she told herself, he doesn't feel as sure of
himself here, or maybe he needs to keep their plans a secret. So they're
definitely up to something.
As they walked past the massive steel housings enclosing the wiggler's
controls, Ramirez suddenly paused and cleared his throat.

"Dr. Andros, what is the payload for the test launching? You certainly
wouldn't put a multimillion-dollar communications satellite at peril during
your maiden run."
He isn't stupid, she thought. He understands the economics of the
satellite business.
"It's just a test. With a dummy payload."
"Good. We will have a real payload for you. It won't be low-cost, but it
will definitely get you some attention. We—"
At that moment his walkie-talkie crackled.

3:00 P.M.

Abdoullah had completed his inspection and, together with Shujat, was
loading the crates back onto the small trucks intended to move them down
to the clean room.
"We'll have to adjust the timers very carefully," he was saying to Shujat,
now bent over with him, "make sure they're synched critically with the
trajectory."
The second Pakistani engineer nodded. "Right. So we'll do it when the
trajectory computer runs are completed. That's scheduled for 2200 hours
tonight."
"Sounds good." Abdoullah clicked on his black walkie-talkie, a small
Kenwood, and tried to sound professional. "Firebird Two to Firebird One.
Do you read?"
There was a burst of static, and then Ramirez's voice sounded. "I copy
you, Firebird Two. Any problems?"
"Negative. The items look in perfect condition. We are taking them down
to the clean room now to install the detonators."
"Fine," Ramirez replied. "I'll meet you there." The radio voice paused.
"Incidentally, be aware there is somebody loose on the island who seems a
trifle out of synch with the situation."

"Where is he?" He was signaling for Shujat to come over and listen.
Having a problem or two always made things more fun.
"Probably up at the communications complex on the mountain. So far
he's only been a nuisance, but the matter will have to be resolved. In the
meantime, don't let anything slow down your work. We need to be prepared
for the next phase, including whatever time flexibility we might need."
Abdoullah did not exactly like the sound of that. He had a troubling
feeling that Number One wasn't exactly telling everybody the whole plan.
He was not a man you instinctively trusted. Who the hell was he. really. Of
course, in this business you didn't necessarily trust anybody, but still, when
you were working together it was nice to think that everybody was on the
same wavelength.
In his view, a lot of questions still needed answering. Like where had the
money come from to mount this operation? The preparations, the bribes, the
equipment and the second chopper, the Sikorsky—the Hind, he knew, had
been stolen —the payments to all the third parties involved. Everything had
required money, tons of it, but the man known as Number One clearly had
all he needed. So how had this character come up with all those millions of
bucks?
His intuition told him that not everybody was going to make it to the safe
house in Malta when the time came. At the moment he had confidence only
in Rais and Shujat. And Rais was a jerk. In fact, he hadn't seen him since he
went out to get the krytrons from the cockpit of the Sikorsky, but he should
be down in the clean room by now. . . .

3:01 P.M.

Vance heard a sound outside the clean room, footsteps. Somebody was
approaching, but not with a walk that suggested familiarity with the place.
This might turn out to be his hoped-for break. Maybe he was about to
have a nice face-to-face with one of the terrorists. At last, an opportunity for
some answers.

He slipped back against the wall next to the door, his wet clothes chilling
him in the low temperature. But he sensed that things were about to warm
up. The person behind the door paused for a second, then shoved it open. A
box appeared, then a face. It was young and cocky.
"Don't even think about making a sound, asshole." He slapped his
Walther against the guy's cheek, then yanked the Uzi from his leg holster
and pulled him into the room. Next he kicked the door shut and shoved his
new guest to the floor. The box he was carrying thumped down beside him.
In the glare of the fluorescents the "terrorist" looked like an aging
graduate student, except he was wearing a Palestinian kaffiyeh. Vance
ripped it away, rolled him over, and inserted the Uzi into his mouth. A metal
barrel loosening the teeth, he knew, did marvels for a wiseguy's powers of
concentration. That was one of the first lessons he'd picked up from the
boys at ARM. And this one was no exception. He stared up, genuine terror
in his eyes, and moaned.
"Speak English? Just nod."
He dipped his forehead forward, eyes still in shock.
"Good. Now we're going to play Twenty Questions. That's about the
number of teeth you've got, so each time I get an answer I don't buy, one of
them goes. And when we run out of teeth, you won't be able to talk any
more, so I'll just blow your head off. Okay, how're we doing? We
understand each other so far?"
He nodded again and gave an airless grunt.
"Great. Looks like we're on a roll. Now, how many more of your team is
in there? Hold up fingers. Very slowly. I was never good at fast arithmetic."
His eyes were cloudy, but he managed to lift five fingers.
This guy is one of the new arrivals, Vance thought. I counted three of
them. So that means two others are down here as well. Those first guys
were the pros, but this kid barely knows which end of an Uzi to hold.
"Do they know you came back here?" He rattled the barrel of the Uzi
around in his mouth, just to keep him focused.
Again he nodded, even more terrified.

Okay, he thought, we're going to have to make this a short chat.
"Are there hostages down here?"
Again the man nodded.
"How many?"
He just shrugged, clearly having no idea.
Well, Vance thought, maybe it's time to get this show on the road.
He slowly removed the barrel, then ripped off a portion of the kaffiyeh
lying on the floor, balled it, and stuffed it into his mouth. Next he tore off a
longer strip and tied it around his head, securing the gag. The eyes were still
terrified.
"By the way," he said, "what's in the box?"
A new look of even-greater horror entered the eyes. He's really scared
now, Vance thought. Interesting.
"Well, well, maybe we ought to take a look."
He reached over and opened the lid. There, nestled inside several layers
of bubble-wrap, were what looked like large, oversized blue transistors.
Bingo, he thought, what have we here? Could it be these are the tickets
to the upcoming show. This ain't chopped liver.
"Okay, pal, on your feet. We're going to get moving. Just you and me.
And we're going to take along your little box of toys. You can tell me what
they are later."
The young terrorist started to rise, gingerly.
"See that opening over there"—he pointed—"where the wires enter into
the conduit? We're going through there, you first. You're about to have some
experience in mountain climbing. The workout might do you good."
That was when the door opened.

CHAPTER NINE
3:18 P.M.

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."
She glanced down at the surly Pakistani. "What about him?"
"We could take him with us, as a bargaining chip, but I don't think he's
worth the bother." Vance reached over and turned his face up. "How about
it? Do your buddies out there care whether you live or die?"
His eyes betrayed his fear they did not.
"Didn't really think so," Vance revolved back. "I say we leave him.
They'll probably execute him anyway, for being a screw-up and losing
these." He tucked the box under his arm, then turned back one last time.
'Tell your chief we're going to take good care of them. They're the world's
insurance policy." He pointed toward the opening into the wiring shaft.
"Want to go first?"
'The conduit?" She frowned.
"You get used to it. It's just—"
"I really can't believe any of this is happening." She turned, walked over,
and—with only minor hesitation—began climbing through.
At that moment, the Pakistani suddenly rolled to his feet and lunged for
the sealed door. Vance whirled to try and catch him, but it was too late. He
had already thrown his body against the release button. The seal clicked off,
and in an instant their security evaporated.
"Go!" he turned back and yelled, but she was already through.
What now? he wondered fleetingly. Stay and shoot it out, or disappear.
The second option had more appeal.
He dived for the open grate of the conduit, but the door was already
opening. The Paki couldn't yell, but when the door slid back, he pushed

through . . . and was cut down by a fusillade of automatic-weapons fire. The
impact blew him back into the room, sending his riddled body full length
across the floor.
Vance swung around the Uzi and laid down a blast of covering fire
through the doorway, which had the effect of clearing the opening for a
second. He got off a couple of last rounds, just for good measure, then
turned and hurled himself into the communications shaft.
No sooner had he pulled himself inside than rounds of fire began
ricocheting through behind him. The aim, however, was wide, and he
managed to flatten himself and stay out of the way.
Then the firing abruptly stopped.
They must have seen what's in here, he realized, all the wiring.
"Are you all right?" It was Cally's voice, somewhere in the dark ahead.
"I'm doing fine." He paused, hating the next part. "Only one small
problem."
"What—?"
"I managed to drop our insurance policy on the floor in there. They're
back in business."

3:20 P.M.

Isaac Mannheim checked his watch and then gazed down the hill,
marking the time with growing impatience. Coping with inactivity, he felt,
was the most extraordinarily difficult task in life. In fact, he never
understood how anybody could retire, when three lifetimes would not be
adequate for all one's dreams. The tall man who had saved his life earlier in
the day had departed almost an hour and a half ago. Where was he? This
waiting around was not accomplishing a damned thing.
He rose off the rock where he'd been sitting, and stretched. Enough of
this lollygagging about; he had to get down there and find out what was
happening. Already he assumed that something had interfered with the
schedule. This afternoon's agenda included a communications power-up of

the servomechanisms that guided the phased-array transmitter through the
trajectory. He had even warned the tall stranger about it before he
descended into the conduit. Well, he seemed to carry luck around with him,
because the power-up had begun, then suddenly halted. But that meant
somebody was mucking with the timetable. It was necessary to stop these
people, whoever they were, from causing any more interference.
In times like these, he figured, it paid to be pragmatic. So give them a
piece of whatever it was they wanted and they'd go away. It always worked.
Even the student sit-ins of the sixties could have been tamed with a few
gestures, a handful of concessions. If he'd been in charge, the problem
would have disappeared.
So this time he would take the initiative. These people had no reason to
want to stop the project—which meant, logically, that they had to be after
something else. So why not just let them have it and then get on with
matters?
After squinting at his watch one last time, he shrugged and started down
the hill, working his way through the rocks and scrub brush. The sun beat
down fiercely, making him thirsty and weak, while the sharp rocks pierced
the lightweight shoes he had worn for the plane. But the other, sturdier pair
he had packed was lost with the helicopter. . . .
Well, so be it. The first rule of life was to make do with what you had,
manage around problems, and he intended to do exactly that. Shrugging
again, he gingerly continued his climb. On his left he was passing the
landing pad, with the slightly beat up Agusta, the sight of which
momentarily discomfited him. But surely Bates had it insured. Still, the
whole business was damned irritating, start to finish.
As he walked onto the asphalt of the connecting roadway and headed for
the entrance to Command, he puzzled over how these thugs could have
penetrated the facility in the first place and why Security had not handled
the problem. That was bloody well what SatCom was paying its layabout
Greek guards to do. Thev should have nipped the whole mess in the bud.

He turned and scanned the mountain one last time, but still spied nobody.
The chap who saved his life must have gotten lost. Or killed.
With a shrug he walked directly up to the SatCom entry lobby and
shoved open the glass door. To his surprise nobody was manning the
security station. And an ominous dark stain covered the desk. Why hadn't
anybody cleaned that up?
Readying his lecture, he dug out his security card and headed across
toward the door to Command.

3:21 P.M.

"Let them go," Ramirez said. "We have what we need." He bent down
and picked up the box.
"What about the woman?" Wolf Helling asked. "Can we work without
her?"
"She'll be back." Ramirez seemed to be thinking aloud. "I'll see to it."
"But—"
"There are ways." He cut him off. "It's not a problem."
"What do you want us to do here?" Helling inquired finally, skepticism
in his voice. He stepped over to look at the body of Rais, staring down
dispassionately. One less amateur to deal with. He had shot the Pakistani by
accident, but the kid was unreliable. And this job had no room for
unreliability.
"Just get on with arming the devices," he said, checking his Rolex. "I'm
going back to Command." It's time, he was thinking, for an important phone
call.

3:39 P.M.

"I figure it like this," Vance said, trying to sound confident. "We take out
the guy in charge, behead the dragon, and we've solved a large part of the
problem. He seems to like shooting people, even his own men." He paused,

then looked at her. "By the way, do you know who he is? Could be a real
help."
"I have no idea," Cally said, shaking her head. "Just that he's a killer."
She was straightening her clothes after climbing out of the conduit and
through the heat exchanger. "He murdered Chris for no reason. Why would
he do that?" Her voice began to choke, and she stopped.
Vance reached over and patted her hand. She had been through a lot. "He
needs to scare you and everybody working for you. But try and hang on.
You'll be getting some professional reinforcements soon. A few friends of
mine known as ARM."
"ARM? Isn't that the security bunch that wired this facility in the first
place?" She stared at him, then made a face. "Some job."
"What can I say?" He winced. "They don't usually have these problems."
"And now these same guys are going to come back and save us? That's
really comforting."
“Try thinking positive." It was the best he could do.
She clearly viewed that response as inadequate, but she was too
exhausted to argue. "Well, at this point I don't have any better ideas. But I'm
worried about what may happen if there's a lot of shooting."
"Part of our job is to try and make sure nobody gets hurt. Keep the
friendlies out of harm's way."
"Great." Her spunk was coming back. "We're probably going to have to
keep them out of the way of your incompetent rescuers as well."
"Have faith. These guys've had plenty of experience. It won't be the first
time."
"And what about you?" She looked him over again. "How much
experience have you had?"
"You want an honest answer?"
"I take it that means none."
"Pretty close. So till they get here we just ad-lib." He settled under a tree
and leaned back against the trunk. "Now, how about describing their leading
man. I didn't get a very good look at him."

She was quiet for a moment, as though to collect her memories, and then
she produced a description so thorough it would have impressed a Mossad
intelligence officer. By the time she finished, Vance was grinning.
"Well, what do you know. He's alive after all. Looks like ARM is in for
some unfinished business."
"What do you mean?"
"I think you just described somebody who slipped past Pierre in Beirut
about five years ago. He's been in the terrorist game a long, long time, but
he hasn't been heard from since. Everybody started believing he was dead.
Or hoping."
"You know who he is?"
"It could only be one guy. Sabri Ramirez." He felt mixed emotions. This
would be a real prize for Pierre and the others, if they could get him. The
problem was getting him. Nobody had ever managed to come close.
"Who's that?"
Vance wondered if he really ought to tell her. Or shade the truth down a
bit.
"Let me put it like this. He's no ordinary criminal. He's probably
murdered a hundred people if you added up all the bombings. Mossad has
been trying to assassinate the bastard for fifteen years." Vance leaned back,
his mind churning, and touched his fingertips together. "This puts things in
a whole new perspective. I knew he was a pro, had to be, but we're about to
go up against the world's number-one terrorist. The king." His blue eyes
grew thoughtful. "I've got to warn Pierre ASAP. The tactics may have to be
changed."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"If Ramirez thinks he's trapped, he'll just lash out. Always happens. He
goes crazy and gets irrational when he's cornered, which means negotiations
are useless."
"Jesus." She shuddered, her eyes seeming to go momentarily blank. "I
didn't sign on for this."

"Makes two of us." He settled back in the grass, then yanked up a
handful, fresh and fragrant, and sniffed it. "I came for sun and sea. Not to
help re-kill a dead man."
"What's that supposed to mean?" She plopped down beside him under
the tree.
"Seems reasonable to guess he's been quote dead unquote for five years
because he wants to be. It's not a bad condition to be in. For one thing,
people stop looking for you. You can start reusing your old hideaways. And
then you can put together a really big score. The Hyena returns."
"The Hyena?"
"That's what Mossad calls him. The story is he hates it, but it sort of
sums up his line of work. The Hyena. The world's number-one killer-for-
hire."
"God. I knew there was something about him, although in a way he
seemed so . . . the man in the Brooks Brothers suit. But when he gunned
down Chris in cold blood . . . still, this goes way beyond anything I could
ever have dreamed."
"Looks like SatCom just made the big time. Right up there with the
OPEC ministers he kidnapped in 1975, then auctioned off all over the
Middle East. This is even bigger. It's going to be the crown jewel of his
career." He stopped to muse. "What's it like to be famous and officially
dead at the same time?"
"Maybe the best thing would be if he were really dead."
"You read my mind."

2:18 P.M.

"Mr. President." It was the voice of Alicia on the intercom. 'There's a call
holding on line three. It's Dr. Mannheim."
He glanced up, distracted. In the interest of more space, the operation
had moved from the Oval Office to the Cabinet Room, where Stuart's
wooden-jawed portrait of George Washington gazed down on the papers

strewn around the eight-sided table. Seated there with him were his chief of
staff, Morton Davies; the special assistant for national security affairs,
Theodore Brock; head of the Joint Chiefs, Ed Briggs; as well as the head of
the CIA and the secretary of defense. The Vice President was giving a
speech at a California fund-raiser, but his contribution was not particularly
desired, or missed. Let him make speeches and wave the flag.
He reached over and picked up the handset. "Tell him I'll get back to
him. Is he at home?"
"He's calling from somewhere in Greece. The SatCom—"
"Damn. Can't I call him back? I really don't have time—"
"I think you might want to take this, sir." Her voice was crisp and neutral
as always, but he knew what the edge in her intonation meant. This is
priority.
"SatCom?" Suddenly it clicked. He had been too distracted for the name
to register at first.
"He's almost babbling. Something about a helicopter. He's—"
"Put him on. And have the damned thing traced." He hit the speaker
button.
"Isaac. What's—"
"Johan, he's got a gun at my head." The voice was unmistakable. It had
made students quake for forty years. It had made him quake. Now it was
quivering. He had never heard his old professor in such a state. Very, very
unlike Isaac.
"Dr. Mannheim?"
"They made me call this number. I know I'm not supposed—"
"Who's they?" The connection was intermittent, but he still could make it
out.
"The . . ." He paused, then seemed to be reading. "The Resistance Front
for a Free Europe. They've taken over the SatCom facility here, everybody.
They shot down my helicopter. They killed—"
"What did you say? Helicopter?" Hansen's pulse quickened. Was Isaac
talking about the Israeli Hind that had attacked the Glover? And what was

this Resistance Front—for something or other . . . "Free Europe?" Europe
was already free. Maybe too damned free, given all the ethnic turmoil.
The connection chattered, then another voice sounded. Hansen noted a
trace of an accent, but he couldn't identify it. "Johan Hansen, this is to
inform you that all the American engineers here are safe at the moment. We
have no desire to harm anyone. We merely want our demand addressed."
Hansen glanced at Brock, who nodded, then pushed a button next to the
phone that allowed him to record both sides of the conversation.
"This had better not be a prank."
"It's no prank. The staff of SatCom is now hostage."
"Listen, whoever you are, the United States of America doesn't negotiate
with hostage takers. We never have before and we're not about to start
now."
"I'm afraid the rules of the past no longer apply. In fact, I have no desire
to negotiate either. There is nothing to negotiate. We have a very simple
demand. And you have no alternative."
"You've got that backwards, whoever you are. You have no alternatives.
You can release whatever hostages you have and get the hell out of there.
That's your one option."
"We would be delighted to comply. As I said to you, we merely have a
small nonnegotiable demand. I assume we are being recorded, but you may
wish to take notes nonetheless. In case you have any questions."
"If you're talking about ransom, I can tell you now it's absolutely
unthinkable."
"That kind of intransigence will get us nowhere." He sighed, a faint hiss
over the line, and then continued. "You may consider our demand as merely
a small repayment to the Muslim peoples, large portions of whose
homeland America has seen fit to devastate. That payment will be eight
hundred million dollars, to be delivered according to conditions that will be
specified by fax. I assume you will wish some time to make the
arrangements. You have twenty-four hours."

"You're out of your mind," Hansen said firmly. "You've got a hell of a
nerve even—"
"Don't make me repeat myself. I will fax you the bank information. As I
said, you have twenty-four hours. If you have not wire-transferred the funds
by that time, an American military installation in Europe will be
incinerated. And without your frigate Glover, sent to spy on the Islamic
peoples of the region, you will have no inkling where that installation will
be."
"Just what do you think you're going to do?"
"The same thing America once did to Japan. Only this time with a little
help from one of your so-called 'non-nuclear' allies."
Hansen pulled up short. Was this the nightmare every U.S. President had
feared—a nuclear device in the hands of terrorists. No, this took it one step
further; the terrorists had just seized the means to deliver the device. It was
that nightmare compounded.
He glanced at Ed Briggs, whose face had just turned ashen. They both
were thinking the same thing: What kind of military action was possible?
The answer was not going to be simple. Then he turned back to the phone.
"Listen, I want . . ." He paused, because the line had gone dead.

9:04 P.M.

"How does an ETA of 0200 hours sound to you?" Dimitri Spiros was
using an unsecured radio, but he had no choice. "That'll give us about
twenty-nine hours. Enough time to get everything together."
"I'll have the welcome mat out." Vance's radio voice was interrupted
periodically with static. The man sounded stressed out, but Spiros had
already interrogated him about the overall situation.
"Our plan right now is to come in by seaplane, set down two klicks to
the north, and stage the actual insertion using Zodiacs. Pierre wants to get
everything together here in Athens by 1600 hours tomorrow. That's firm.
We'll have a briefing and then—you know the rest."

"Try not to overfly this place. It's pretty small and there are lots of
islands down in this part of the world."
"Michael, I'm Greek, for godsake." He bristled. "We'll make it, seas
permitting. And the weather looks like a go for now."
"All right, here's the drill. Right now there are friendlies in Command
and down at Launch. You have the plans for that, right?"
"Right. And how about the Bates Motel?"
"The living quarters? At the moment I think they've got some friendlies
in there, too, but it's currently cut off from the rest of the facility, no
communications of any kind, and it's not heavily guarded. We can worry
about it last. The heavy hitters and the hardware will be at the two other
places."
"What else do you know?" Spiros pressed.
"It gets even better. These guys have got at least one nuclear device. All
signs are they have plans—probably to use the Cyclops system for
delivery."
"I don't like the sound of that," Spiros said. "Who's leading it?"
"This is the very best part. I think it might be Ramirez."
"Sabri? The Hyena?"
"Could be."
He snorted in disbelief. "No way. The Kommissar has had him dead for
three years."
"The Hyena has many lives. I actually got a look at him. Plastic surgery,
maybe, but I've got a feeling it's none other than." There was a pause as
Vance seemed to be checking something. "You know, we probably should
cut this short. These guys have long ears. But just a word of warning: don't
underestimate what he's capable of. I saw him shoot a staffer here in cold
blood, just to get everybody's attention. When the time comes, things are
going to get rough."
"That's how we're used to playing. Until somebody shows us a better
way."

"Well, there's a good chance they're planning to arm at least one of the
vehicles. After that it's anybody's guess."
"Nuclear blackmail?"
"Could be. Anyway, the fun part is, I got hold of the triggering
mechanisms. For about five minutes."
"And then you politely gave them back?"
"It's a long story."
"Aren't they all," Spiros said. Then, "Well, do us all a favor, stay alive till
we can make the insertion."
"That's an idea I could get with."
"By the way, do you have anything on their schedule? When does the
balloon go up?"
"I don't know. You might hear something at your end. Ramirez has got to
be talking to somebody by now. Demands, the usual. We need to find out
what he wants. Maybe it'll all be over by the time you get here."
"Don't count on it. These things take a while. In the meantime, I'll get
Pierre to have Hans chat up the Kommissar. If Germany's intel computer
files have anything, he can probably pull it out quick enough."
"I do have another information source." Vance paused. "A new partner.
And she's tough."
"She? What the hell are you talking about? Michael, this is not really the
time for such things."
"I should get to fraternize with the hostages. One of the perks. Otherwise
what do I get out of this job? She also happens to be the one who runs this
place. She gave Ramirez the slip." A laugh sounded over the line, mixed
with the static. "Incidentally, she doesn't think too much of your security
job."
"Very funny." Spiros's gruff voice suggested he didn't mean it. "But
maybe you should send her back inside. Might actually be safer there."
"Highly doubtful."
"All right. What about Bates?"

"The word is he's still okay. But they know who he is and I expect they'll
put on the pressure when the time comes. There's an old professor here, too,
the guy who dreamed this whole thing up, and they've got him. Name's
Mannheim. First name Isaac. Why don't you find out anything you can
about him. I had him here with me, but when I went down to reconnoiter, he
disappeared. My guess is he wandered off and got himself taken."
"Sounds like you're on the case. Let's synchronize and talk again
tomorrow at 0800 hours, local."
"Okay. We're counting on you. Don't mind telling you I'm scared. We're
outgunned and Ramirez has started killing people."
"Michael, we're working as fast as we can. Just be by a radio tomorrow."
Dimitri Spiros switched off the microphone and lapsed into troubled
thought.

3:29 P.M.

Events were getting serious enough that the operation had been moved
down to the Situation Room, in the White House basement. Scarcely twenty
feet on a side, it was dominated by a teak conference table, with leather-
bound chairs lining the walls. Although it appeared cramped by corporate
standards, especially when the full National Security Council met, its close
quarters intensified the focus needed for international crisis management.
Besides, in the new age of electronic decisions, it was state-of-the-art,
making up in technology what it lacked in spaciousness. Installed behind
the dark walnut panels that covered three of the walls was the latest in high-
tech electronic equipment, including a variety of telecommunications
terminals, video monitors, and apparatus for projecting and manipulating
images on the large screen on the fourth wall—normally concealed by a
drawn curtain but now open and ready.

"We'll have to work through Joint Special Operations Command," the
President was saying as he looked around the room. The five people there
were intensely at work—their coat jackets crumpled across the chairs, shirt
sleeves pushed back, ties loosened or off. They included Chief of Staff
Morton Davies, Special Assistant for National Security Affairs Ted Brock,
and Head of the Joint Chiefs Ed Briggs. "So we're about to find out if this
country has any counterterrorist assault capability."
Special Operations Command had been created in the eighties after the
string of embarrassing communication snafus during the Grenada invasion.
Headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, it had overall control
and supervision of America's major commando units.
"I guess the first decision they'll have to make," he continued, "is who
we should send in."
There were two options. The Navy had a 175-frogman unit, Sea-Air-
Land Team Six, operating out of the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base
near Norfolk, Virginia. SEAL Team Six specialized in underwater
demolitions, clandestine coastal infiltrations, hand-to-hand operations. The
other unit trained to carry out hostage-rescue missions was Delta Force,
headquartered in a classified installation at Fort Bragg. The SEALs were
high profile, whereas everybody denied the very existence of Delta's assault
team—called "shooters" in military parlance. Delta Force was probably the
worst-kept secret in America.
"Shouldn't we hold up a minute and talk first about the hostages?"
Morton Davies wondered aloud. "How much risk is there?"
"There's always risk," Hansen declared. "With anything you do in this
office, there's always a downside. What was it Harry Truman said about the
place where the buck stops? Well, I've got an uncomfortable feeling I'm
about to find out what he was talking about." He turned and hit the
intercom. "Alicia, get hold of Admiral Cutter and tell him to get over here.
We've got to get Special Operations in on this ASAP."
"Yes, sir," came the quick reply. Despite the migraine now increasing her
tension, she continued to offer Johan Hansen total support. In fact, she

rejoiced at the opportunity. His wife, off somewhere dedicating flower
parks in America's inner cities, certainly provided none.
That, at least, was what Alicia Winston preferred to think.
"Another worry I've got," the President continued after he had clicked
off the intercom, "is how to keep this out of the press as long as possible. If
there's any truth to their bomb hints, we'll need to try and minimize the
panic factor. From here on, every aspect, even the smallest insignificant
detail, is classified. Top Secret."
'The Israelis will most certainly get with that," Ted Brock observed
wryly, nervously cleaning his horn-rims for what seemed the tenth time that
hour. The strain was all over his face.
"Now," the President continued, "SatCom is on Andikythera. Do we
have any KH-12 PHOTOINT of the island here yet?"
"It's in, Mr. President," Briggs said, then pushed two green buttons on an
electronic console on the conference table. A photo came up on the screen
behind them, a dull black-and-white rectangle.
'That's it?" Hansen said, annoyed. He scanned the photo, then looked
around. "Ed, there's not enough detail here to use. How long before we can
get some computer enhancement of this? A blowup."
"I thought you would want that," Briggs answered, "so I've already made
the arrangements. We're on-line to NSA. We should be able to get it in
about ten minutes."
"Then we'll wait." He switched off the screen and turned back. "Okay,
we have to start planning our first move. For the moment let's talk about
logistics. If we have to make an insert, what do we need?"
"Well, to begin with, ISA would have to have twenty-four hours,
minimum, to get somebody in there on the ground to gather enough intel to
support a move," Briggs announced, almost apologetically.
The President sighed. ISA was the Army's Intelligence Support Activity,
which provided intelligence for Delta Force and SEAL Team Six. As an
intelligence organization, ISA was required to secure Central Intelligence
Agency approval before entering foreign countries—which meant

institutional gridlock and bureaucratic tie-ups before they could even get
started.
"Then forget it. We'll just have to use satellite PHOTOINT and pray. The
next problem is, who can we get there and how long would it take?" He
knew that the Air Force's Special Operations Wing and the Army Task
Force supported long-range missions by Delta Force and the SEALs. Were
they ready?
"Well, let's back up a second,'' Briggs interjected. "We can't just send in a
task force cold. They'd need to practice an assault on something resembling
the same kind of terrain."
No country in Europe, the President knew, had ever given permission for
American commando bases on their territory. So why would they suddenly
permit an assault rehearsal?
"That's going to be a tough sell. We're talking about Greek soil. But if
these terrorists really have a nuclear device, then the government of Greece
might well take an interest in what happens to it. Still, we don't know for
sure. It'd be—"
"They'd damned well better take an interest," Briggs declared. "If these
terrorists plan a demonstration bombing, they could just be thinking about
the air and naval facility at Souda Bay. Which would mean taking out the
western end of Crete. Every anti-American in the world would doubtless
cheer. They'd claim that our presence in a country makes it a military target.
There'd be a groundswell of sentiment worldwide to send us packing.
Everywhere."
The chief of staff was thinking. "Do you suppose these fuckers have
really got a bomb? What did he mean about checking with our closest
allies?"
The President had already been pondering that. "Well, the Israelis have a
nuclear arsenal, of course, but they also have enough safeguards to take
care of anything. They even shot down one of their own planes once when
it accidentally strayed over the Dimona plutonium-reprocessing facility.
Nobody is going to steal one of theirs. The same goes for South Africa."

"So who does that leave?" Stubbs asked. He had a feeling he already
knew.
"Let's save the obvious for last," Hansen answered. "And let me give you
a quick briefing on who's in the bomb business on this planet. It just
happens to be a particular interest of mine."
He leaned back. "In the Middle East proper, only one country presently
has full capability. That is, obviously, Israel. They have, in fact, a lot more
bombs than anybody realizes. Their plutonium-reprocessing plant at
Dimona extracts plutonium from the spent fuel in their research reactor
there, and CIA claims they've got at least two hundred strategic nuclear
weapons. Normal plutonium bombs need eight kilograms of the stuff, but
we think they've come up with a sophisticated way to make one with five.
Then there're the tactical nukes. They've got nuclear artillery shells, nuclear
landmines in the Golan Heights, and hundreds of low-yield neutron bombs.
That's more or less common knowledge, but what's less well known is that
they've also got fusion capability— H-bombs. Which, God help us, I
assume is not our problem here today. Then there's Libya, though they're
still trying to get enough enriched uranium together to become a credible
threat. Having only one or two bombs means that if you start anything,
somebody else is going to finish it, so you need a lot before you get going.
Iraq, thankfully, has been put out of business. Of course, there's still India,
which has plenty of unrestricted plutonium and they've even claimed they
could make a bomb in a month. We happen to think they've already done it.
Because . . ." He paused. "Because we know damned well Pakistan has."
“There's your non-Caucasian in the fuel supply," Davies noted. “The
fuckers."
The special assistant for national security affairs, Theodore Brock, who
happened to be black, did not find Davies' Alabama good-old-boy remark
especially amusing.
"Exactly," Hansen continued, wondering when he would have a good
public excuse to send Davies to greener pastures. 'That's got to be the 'ally'

the bastard was talking about. It's a Muslim country, and their controls are a
joke. It's the obvious choice."
Brock agreed solemnly. "We can start with an inquiry through their
embassy. But it's going to be sticky."
The President nodded, wishing he had a hot line to the desk of every
head of state in the world. It would make this kind of crisis so much more
manageable.
Part of the problem, he thought, was how do you ask somebody if
they've lost something that they've never admitted having in the first place?
A marvel of diplomacy was in order. Still, he would have to do it. At worst,
a denial wouldn't prove the terrorists did not have a bomb, but if the answer
was affirmative, then knowing the size of the device could be crucial.
"We're receiving the enhanced satellite photos now." Briggs was pulling
the first sheet off the machine. "Looks like ten-meter grids." He scanned
over it. "But I don't see much. There're two big rockets here, but they seem
to be all right."
"Which is in line with their threat to use them," Hansen observed dryly.
"I don't suppose a surgical air strike is possible?" Briggs wondered
aloud. If the Gulf War had shown anything, it was the power of air
superiority.
Hansen tried unsuccessfully to smile. "You're asking me to go to the
Greek government and ask them if they would mind terribly if we bombed
one of the islands in their Aegean tourist paradise, their cash cow. And, by
the way, we'd probably kill a few hundred Greek civilians in the process.
But we'd explain that we need to do this because I got an unsettling phone
call. With no proof of anything." He sighed. "Keep thinking. This has to be
a commando insertion. And, frankly, I'd just as soon Athens got a phone call
after it happened, not before. For a lot of reasons."
"You know, there's something funny right here." Briggs was bent over,
squinting. "Here, next to what appears to be a radar complex." He looked
up. "Gentlemen, I think I've located our Hind. Or what's left of it. Looks

like it was smashed into the side of the mountain, just below where the
radars are."
"Let me have a look." The President stepped over. "You mean there?" He
picked up a magnifying glass. "I'm no expert, but whatever it is, it's big. It
could be a Soviet assault helicopter, you're right."
"There appear to be two other choppers on the site as well." Briggs
continued to study the photo. "One down here on the helipad looks to be a
light commercial model. But there's another one over here, down by the
launch vehicles. It's bigger."
The President looked. "You're right. I see them. That big one down by
the vehicles is probably how they brought in the damned bomb, if they
actually have one. Most likely the Hind wasn't up to the job, maybe took
some fire from the Glover. So they used a second one to deliver the
package. Nice logistics."
“Too damned nice. I'm beginning to believe this is in no way a hoax."

"Roger." Ted Brock had been on the phone and now was hanging up.
“That was Special Operations Command, sir. Cutter's people want to use a
Delta task force, but they'll need at least forty-eight hours to get them in
place for an operation."
"Forty-eight hours!" Hansen exploded. "Our crack counterterrorist
assault force needs two days just to get into position to do what they're
trained for?"
"Well, we'll be using an Air Force C-130 to deploy the Deltas to Souda
Bay. And then they'd need at least two Combat Talons for the final
insertion. Those are all kept down at the Air Force's First Special
Operations Wing, you know, Hurlburt Field in Florida."
"I know that, Ted," Hansen said.
Brock nodded sheepishly, then continued. "Well, after the insertion,
they'd need support from our long-range HH-53 Pave-Low choppers, but
only three are flying at the moment. And—"

"I get the picture." The President cut him off. "Transportation is lousy
and half the equipment we need is somewhere else or in maintenance. Any
other bad news?"
"One thing, an assault would have to be at night. It's the only way that
makes any sense. Which means more special equipment. If they go in
during daylight, it's going to be a slaughter of the hostages, particularly if
these bastards are armed the way we have to assume. And from the looks of
everything so far, I'd say they know how the game is played. Which means
that even if we do our best, it's going to be tricky. They're going to assume
we're coming. The way I figure it, even with no rehearsals, forty-eight hours
would be tight."
"We invest millions training the finest counterterrorist units in the world
and then they can't be deployed in less than half a week?" He exhaled
angrily, remembering a classified internal Pentagon study that claimed the
best time to launch a successful assault with the least number of casualties
among hostages was within twenty-four hours of their capture. "It's a
goddamn outrage."
"Forty-eight hours, minimum, Mr. President. And even so, that's pushing
it." He squirmed. "There's a lot of paperwork that'll have to be processed,
and—"
"Well, tell Cutter to get the Special Forces mobilized and moving,"
Hansen interjected. "In the meantime, our job is going to be to try and find
out what happened. Do they really have a nuke, and if they do, how in hell
did they get it and what are they planning to do with it?"

CHAPTER TEN
9:22 P.M.

"It's very simple," Ramirez said to Jean-Paul Moreau. After the phone
call, he had sent Mannheim to the Bates Motel and returned to Launch. Let
Washington stew awhile. They were probably now trying to figure out how
to get their antiterrorist units into Greece. Their nightmare logistics would
be fun to watch. "We have to find them. And get him. Alive if possible, but
we can't be fussy. The time to do it will be just after midnight, when we're
finished here."
Moreau disagreed. "I'd say the sooner the better. The longer they're free,
the more problems they can cause." Crossing Ramirez was not something to
be done lightly, but he felt strongly that the operation was not going as
smoothly as it should have. It was time for a little damage control.
"Well, he's probably back on the mountain," Ramirez said calmly. "If
you want to, then go on up and get him. Take the RPG-7; it's light. But be
careful you don't damage anything."
He was right about the weight. At slightly over ten kilos, the RPG-7 was
one of the best bangs-for-the-ounce around. It
was a guerrilla special, a Soviet-designed 40mm launcher that loosed a
rocket with an oversize hollow-charge rocket-warhead 85mm in diameter.
Fired from the shoulder, it was deadly against lightly armored vehicles and
structures. Used on personnel, it was lethal. They had brought along a
Pakistani clone of the latest Soviet model, a two-piece version that was easy
to move about, yet assembled quickly.
"But remember," Ramirez went on, "so far all we have to show for trying
to take out this nuisance is a wrecked helo. Don't botch it again."
"That was because you left the work to German amateurs," Moreau
remarked dryly. "This time I'll take care of it myself. Personally."
"I'm counting on that," Ramirez said, his eyes expressionless behind his
gray shades.

9:43 P.M.

"We'll be working together, kid," Dore Peretz was saying. "We're a
team." He swept back his mane of salt-and-pepper hair, then moved next to
Georges LeFarge. The young engineer didn't like anything about the Israeli,
right down to the cheap aftershave he was wearing, but he had to admit the
guy seemed unfazed by all the hardware that controlled Big Benny, the
Fujitsu supercomputer.
It was a correct assessment. Dore Peretz was definitely in his element.
He had taken his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1984, then
returned to Israel to accept a high-paying research job at the Weizman
Institute, Israel's top- secret nuclear facility near Tel Aviv. During the next
seven years he had advanced to the level of senior institute scientist,
becoming an expert in every technology connected with nuclear weapons.
From the specialty of mass destruction he graduated to another hot topic
—the emerging preeminence of smart weapons. Conventional delivery
technologies, the war in the Gulf had shown, were no match for the new
"smart" antimissile systems. It was back to the drawing board. What Israel
needed in her arsenal was the next generation of weaponry.
He had gone on to head up a research team that played computerized war
games, studying the "what ifs" of whole new generations of technologies
matched against each other. The end result of this fascination was that he
became a computer and missile-guidance expert—which, when added to his
knowledge of nuclear weapons, made him a double-threat man.
It also made him perfect for what Sabri Ramirez wanted to do.
When Ramirez found him, he already had departed the institute, and also
for reasons that suited Ramirez perfectly. Whereas Dore Peretz had an IQ
off the scale, his social development was considered—even by those who
tried to like him—as scarcely progressed beyond the infantile. His was an
independent . . . make that irreverent . . . temperament that was bound to
clash with the bureaucracy of a straitlaced place like the institute. He had
particular trouble fitting in with the deadly-serious, high-security

environment that surrounded military contract research. The problem had
been obvious from the first day he arrived, but his genius was such that it
had been overlooked and worked around by both sides. His final rupture
with the Israeli defense establishment resulted from what—to his mind—
was a totally compelling event.
He had personally developed a computer-assist program that provided
special procedures for the quick arming of a nuclear device in case Israel
found itself facing an imminent attack. It was important, and it worked.
He had expected, reasonably enough, a rousing financial tribute for this
effort, or at the very least a citation. What he got instead was screwed.
When the yearly Summary of Technical Research arrived on his desk
January last, he discovered the computer program had been "created" by the
vice president in charge of his section, with the "assistance" of someone
named Dr. D. Peretz.
A reaming by an incompetent bureaucrat whom he had hated from the
beginning was the last straw. He resigned in traditional style, papering the
institute with a fusillade of memos that reviewed in detail the failings of its
top management and then for good measure scrambling the electronic
combination on his personal safe as he was readying to walk out the door.
At that point he did not know what he wanted to do next, but he was
damned sure it would not involve further interaction with a bureaucracy.
Being no dummy, he also fully anticipated the response to his outrage.
And sure enough, he found he had transformed himself into a high-profile
security risk that Mossad suddenly found very interesting. Israel's
intelligence service remembered all too well the case of Mordecai Vanunu,
the thirty-one-year-old technician who had worked at the plutonium
separation facility at the Dimona complex for nine years, then left in a huff
and sold pictures and a detailed description of the facility to the London
Sunday Times. Mossad had no intention of letting it happen again.
Dore Peretz was interrogated for weeks, threatened repeatedly, then
placed under close surveillance. They had no grounds to arrest him, but they
were going to intimidate the hell out of him.

Their harassment, however, achieved precisely the opposite effect. They
galvanized his anger. In a degree of soul searching quite foreign to his
normal mental activity, he found himself wondering why he owed Israel
such allegiance in the first place. This was their thanks for all his service.
So why not give it back to the bastards, in spades? He became a
"scientific adviser" to the PLO.
That only confirmed Mossad's fears and intensified their harassment: his
phone was tapped, his mail opened, his stylish Tel Aviv apartment
repeatedly and blatantly searched in his absence. The overall effect was
cumulative, rendering him an ever-more-vociferous critic of Israel's
conservative coalition government.
It was at this time, when his name was being linked to the PLO, that
Sabri Ramirez got wind of him and knew he had found a gold mine—a
disaffected, activist Israeli nuclear and rocket expert looking for a cause. He
sounded perfect, and he was. Ramirez approached him at a demonstration
supporting a Palestinian homeland, and made him an offer he could not
refuse. How would he like to get rich? He would not need to betray his
country, merely lend his skills to help teach the Americans a lesson.
Fuck Israel, he had declared. Then in a lower voice he had added—come
to that, fuck the Palestinians, who were basically a pain in the ass.
Acquiring personal wealth was a much more inspiring cause. He could not
get work in Israel, any kind of work, and he was fast running through his
savings.
Ramirez advanced him thirty thousand American dollars on the spot, in
crisp hundreds. He immediately dropped his PLO affiliation and began
lowering his profile—much to Mossad's relief. Their surveillance eased up
as they gratefully turned to more pressing matters, and four months later he
took advantage of his new freedom to slip into Jordan one night and from
there make his way, a week later, to Beirut. It was in that ravaged city that
he and Sabri Ramirez worked out the technical details of the plan.
. . . Which thus far had gone perfectly.

"We'll be modifying the payload," he announced, turning to the
keyboard. “Therefore the weight will be different, so we'll have to factor
that into the SORT program on the Fujitsu and run it again."
Shit, LeFarge thought, he knows about SORT. Which probably means he
knows everything he needs to make VX-1
fly.

9:45 P.M.

"I have a question," Michael Vance was saying. They were still resting
on the hill, and he felt himself fighting back waves of exhaustion. "Could
they get that vehicle down there off the ground without you being in
Command?"
"I hate to admit it"—Calypso Andros exhaled ruefully and leaned back
against the tree—"but they probably could. We've already had a final test of
the power-up, everything. The Fujitsu has all the controls set. There's
nothing left to do except initiate the launch routine and then let the
computer take over."
"So Bill was about to be rich." He grinned, then picked up a small white
stone and flung it down the hill. "He might even have been able to pay off
our bet. If I'd won."
"What bet was that?"
"Long ago and in another country." He shrugged, hardly caring anymore.
"It was a damned stupid stunt. We had a sailor's bet, and I lost. As it
happens, your new guests here pitched in to help. But those are the breaks."
"Well, let's talk about the real world." She seemed scarcely to hear what
he had said. Or maybe she wasn't interested. Vance sensed she was trying to
feign normality, adopting a facade that denied the horror of watching her
young technician being shot dead. "Do you think they're going to kill
anybody else?"
What should I say? he wondered. Feed her a comforting lie, or tell her
the truth? He looked her over and decided on the latter.

"Hate to say it, but if it's really Ramirez, he'll kill anybody he vaguely
feels like. I saw him hit a U.S. frigate with a Swatter. You've got to call that
mass murder. A ton of casualties, and for no good reason. He caught himself
before he said more, the memory still chilling. "Then again, I'd guess he's
not going to take out anybody important or technically crucial, at least for
now. Which should include Bates and Mannheim. He's got to be figuring he
can use the big names for headlines and leverage, if he needs it."
"I can't believe that the U.S. isn't going to send in the Marines, especially
when they find out he's got a bomb."
"Don't get your hopes up. There are a couple of problems with that. The
first is that they may not be allowed on Greek soil, and even if they are, it
could take several days for them to mount an operation."
"That's one." She looked at him. "What's the other?"
"The other is that if the U.S. should decide to mount an assault, it could
well turn into a bloodbath. I'm almost wishing they don't. Delta Force and
the SEALs are well trained, but as far as anybody knows, they've never
been used to carry out a straight hostage-rescue. They'd probably come in
here like John Wayne and tear this place apart. I don't even want to think
about the carnage." His voice trailed off. “Take it from me. The people
ARM is sending in are better suited for the job at hand. They also can
deploy a lot quicker than the U.S. government."
"Well, somebody better come. And soon." She had caught a strand of her
tangled hair and was twisting it, distractedly making the tangle worse.
"What do you think these thugs really want?"
"I'd guess money's part of the package. But since Ramirez doesn't seem
to be trying to extort SatCom, at least not yet, he probably has something
bigger in mind." He slowly turned to her. “Tell me something. These
vehicles are intended to go into orbit, right? But what if one didn't make it."
He had a sudden thought. "Or what if one of them did make it, and then the
orbital trajectory got altered somehow? Retrofire and reentry. You could set
it down pretty much where you wanted, couldn't you?"
She stared at him uncertainly. "What are you suggesting?"

"That there are two ways to play this. Somebody could use these
vehicles to deliver a bomb someplace. Or they could be used to put a bomb
into orbit, to be delivered later." He leaned back. "Am I right or not?"
Her eyes darkened, and she suddenly found herself sorry she had ever
come back to Greece. For this. Then she caught herself and answered him.
"I suppose either one is possible. The reentry trajectory is precisely
controlled. In fact, we power it down, more or less like the space shuttle."
"And the whole thing can be done within an hour or so, right? That is,
once it's in orbit."
"A low-earth insertion means a full orbit of about ninety minutes for a
satellite." She was thinking. "If the vehicle itself stays in orbit, then—"
"Everything would still be controlled from down here, correct?"
"We beam power up to the vehicle using the Cyclops.
That's the whole idea." She was thinking. "What you're saying is, once they
get a vehicle, and a bomb, into orbit, they've got a loaded gun pointed at
any place they choose."
"Doesn't that sound like the worst-case scenario?"
"They'll never pull it off." It was more a hope than a statement of fact.
"How are you going to stop them? If Ramirez thinks you're not
cooperating, then all he has to do is start killing more of your staff until you
do." He looked down the hill, where the facility was now dark except for
the yellow sodium lights around the storage sheds and the blaze of floods
that illuminated the two vehicles. "But I definitely think they're going to try
some kind of launch. You said they're being very careful not to disturb
anything. So what are the possibilities?"
"The easiest thing would be not to bother putting it into orbit at all," she
answered after a moment. "In fact, Number One or Sabri Ramirez or
whoever he is had Georges running some trajectory aborts. It all fits."
"Also, you've got two vehicles, and that box had enough detonators for
several bombs. So, say they had two nuclear devices? They use the first one
as a small demo, to prove they're serious. Sort of like we did on Hiroshima.
And hold the second one in reserve. For more blackmail." He reached up

and touched the bark of the tree above. "But any way you look at it, they
seem to be dead serious about delivering a nuke somewhere. Where?"
"You know, there's a U.S. base not far from here."
"Souda Bay?"
"It's on Crete."
"So close they probably couldn't miss." He thought about it. "Taking out
that base could decimate the U.S. Sixth Fleet. It would be a very attention-
getting demonstration. Think they could really do it?"
"Crete would just be a short hop for VX-1."
"It's easy and it's a nightmare. Sounds pretty good for . . . uh-oh." He
pointed down. Moving through the shadows at the far edge of the facility,
past the bright circles cast by the sodium lights, was a group of black
figures. "Guess it had to happen."

9:46 P.M.

"But I'm still finishing the trajectory-default analysis I was supposed to
do," LeFarge said to Dore Peretz, hoping he could stall. "I'm only half—"
"I'm telling you to abort those runs." The truth, Peretz reflected, was that
Ramirez had jumped the gun on the trajectory analysis. Maybe he just
wanted to keep this computer jockey busy, or maybe he didn't understand
the technical side of things well enough. In any case, it had to be redone
since the crucial payload parameters were going to be new, a substantial
weight differential that would impact the power input controls. "Kill what
you're doing and let me see what you've got so far. If you're on the right
track, then we'll do a quick rerun with revised numbers."
LeFarge grimaced, then turned back to the keyboard and gave the order
to abort, directing the output to the battery of printers. The quiet hum of
zipping lasers began, barely audible above the ambient noise of the room.
When the first printer finished, Peretz ripped out the stack of paper and
began looking it over.

"All right." He nodded with satisfaction. "This is enough. The power
inputs"—he pointed—"right here, will need to be reentered to conform to
the altered weight coefficients of the new payload. I'll have to get them."
He turned away and clicked on his black Kenwood walkie-talkie.
Moments later he was asking somebody some technical questions. He then
waited, humming to himself, while the answers were procured. Finally he
nodded and jotted them down on the bottom of the printout.
"Got it. You double-verified, right? Okay. Ten-four." He clicked off the
handset and looked up. "All fixed." He walked back and laid down the
paper on LeFarge's desk. "Okay, start over and run it with these."
Georges looked at the numbers. The new payload was 98.3 kilograms.
There it was. What now?
He knew the answer. He had no choice but to give Peretz what he
wanted. He had planned to make some changes in SORT that would screw
up the whole launch routine, but now, with the Israeli looking over his
shoulder, that was going to be impossible. This creep knew exactly how the
program worked. He probably could spot any changes a mile away.
Cally, Cally, where are you? Are you okay? Are you getting help? Let me
know where you are, at least. I can't stop these guys all by myself.
He sighed, tugged at his wisp of beard, and called up the data input file
for SORT. Then he began inserting the new parameters. Around Command
the other staffers were perfunctorily carrying out housekeeping chores at
their workstations, the routine checks and runs they did every day. LeFarge
suspected the stakes had just been raised, but he had no idea what they
were.

9:48 P.M.

She looked down. "Where? I don't see anything."
"Over there. By the side of the sheds. There's a saying: in the darkness,
only the shadows move. See them?" He rose and looked around. "Guess
we'd better start thinking up a plan here."

Although trees shielded the base of the mountain, the top had been
cleared and flattened to accommodate the battery of antennas. The only
possible protection was a low cinderblock structure on the side nearest the
facility.
"You're right," she said finally, squinting. "I do think I see something.
Yes. They look like they're headed our way. Toward the trees and then right
up the hill. Oh, shit."
The sight made something click in her head, and her fear turned again to
anger. Terrorists, she knew, always planned to wear down their captives,
make them pliable. She wasn't going to let it happen.
"Looks like three or maybe four." Who needed this? he sighed to
himself. "Uh-oh, I think I see something else. They're carrying something
with them and I don't like the looks of what I think it is."
As he stared down, he was wondering: How would they choose to try
and take the mountain? A direct assault? A two- pronged pincer? Or would
they use some other technique? And what were they carrying? Some of the
hardware they'd brought in the Hind?
"At least we've got the high ground," he continued finally, trying to think
through the odds. "Let's hope that counts for something. It's mostly open, so
we can see them." Then he reflected on the downside. "But they can see us
if we make a run for the top of the hill. It's too far. So there's not much we
can do except just wait. The one little Uzi isn't going to do much good."
"Let's think a minute," she said, turning and looking up the hill. 'They're
about to pass through the trees down there, which should give us enough
time to get to the blockhouse. . . ." She pointed. There at the dark crest was
the cinderblock emplacement that housed the on-site operation controls for
the radars. "Let's go up there. I've just had an idea."
"I'm game." He nodded, feeling his adrenaline starting to build again.
"Standing here is not going to do anything for us."
It was a quick climb, through the slivers of granite outcropping that cut
their way out of the shallow soil. When they reached the cinderblock
structure, she punched in a security code on the keypad beside its black

steel door and shoved it open. "If they haven't shut down the terminal in
here yet, maybe I can get Georges on the computer net. He can shunt over
control of those servomechanisms up there and then . . ."
He followed her inside. As he did, fluorescent lights clicked on to reveal
an array of radar screens and a main computer terminal. "Hey, can we kill
the beacon?" He frowned. "Whatever you're planning better be doable in
the dark."
"No problem." She activated the terminal, then pointed toward the door.
"The light switch is right there. Think you can handle it?"
He clicked it off and let the wisecrack pass. Then he turned back. "Now
what?"
"God, I've never had anybody coming to kill me. The stories are right. It
really does concentrate the mind." She began typing on the keyboard. "I had
a thought. We're networked into the Fujitsu from all over the facility with
LAN, so—"
"And that's computer lingo for a local-area network, or something."
"Right." She nodded. "At one point we had to hook all the workstations
together, for a special test. Part of this area was connected into the network,
so we could do some of the work from up here, but we always kept the
larger servomechanisms on the main system, for safety reasons. Georges set
it all up so everything has to be operated from down there, where the power
drain can be monitored. Right now I need to get hold of him and have him
do some things."
She was still typing. And then she got what she wanted.

9:51 P.M.

. . . HELLO, SOHO. BLUEBIRD NEEDS A FAVOR. CAN YOU
SWITCH ON THE SERVOS?
LeFarge stared at the screen, not believing his eyes. Cally was on the
LAN. A window had appeared at the lower right- hand of his screen, and
her terminal ID was . . . terrific, it was the blockhouse up the hill.

He slipped a glance at Peretz, standing over by the water cooler, then
quickly typed in an acknowledgment.
SOHO NEVER LETS BLUEBIRD DOWN
Then came the specific directions. She was asking him to switch control
of the servos for Radar One over to her terminal. What was she doing? The
radars were always controlled by Big Benny, the Fujitsu here in Command.
He grimaced. Switching the big radar over to her workstation was a tall
order. And the Israeli bastard was waiting for his SORT run. So now the
trick was to try to do both things at once.
He split the screen and went to work.

9:52 P.M.

"Georges is a genius," she said, turning back, "but this may not actually
be possible. Nobody's ever done it before."
"Whatever you're planning had better be possible or we've got to begin
thinking up a Plan B, and quick." He was staring out the open door.
"Because our new friends are definitely on their way and ready for a close
encounter."
"Georges has got to hook this terminal directly to the Fujitsu—which
isn't how we normally use it—and then give me control of the routine that
runs the servos. In effect he has to put them on manual."
"Don't think you're going to manage it in time," he said. He was thinking
this was no time to get experimental, but he decided to keep the thought to
himself. Instead he nervously checked the Uzi. Three rounds were left in the
last remaining clip. He regretted all the random firing he had done over the
last few hours. Now every round had to be hoarded as though it were the
last. On the other hand, maybe he was lucky just to have the damned Uzi at
all, along with the few puny rounds left. The trick now was to try not to
have to use them.
Down below them the four black figures had already moved past the
helicopter landing pad and were about to be swallowed up in the copse of

trees that began at the base of the hill. But now a sliver of moon had
appeared from behind a bank of clouds in the east, casting an eerie pale
glow onto the scene. He found himself deeply wishing for an IR scope,
which would be a great help, bring them right up.
"I just lost them in the trees," he said, turning back. "Which means we've
got about five minutes left for whatever you've got in mind."
"Trust me." She was still typing. 'This workstation just logged onto the
big system, so the main servo program is now accessible from here.
Georges, I love you. Now all I have to do is try and override the internal
checks that go through the Fujitsu down in Command."
Vance was staring, not quite sure what he was expected to say. "Then
what?"
"Hopefully it's a surprise," she laughed, a trifle grimly.
Just be quiet and let me work." Then her voice swelled with nger. "The
bastards. This is going to be a pleasure. After what they did to Chris, maybe
I'll get to return the favor."
Vance started to say something, but stopped when he noticed the first
signs of motion at the edge of the copse of brush. The killers were
emerging, and the sight gave him a chill. They're the hunters and we're the
quarry, he thought, it's going to be like a giant turkey-shoot, played with
automatics.
"You know . . ." He turned back. '”here's still time for you to give
yourself up. They'd probably rather have you live anyway. You could do the
white-flag thing and I could use the confusion to try and make it into the
brush down here, toward the shore. Those guys are carrying something that
looks suspiciously like heavy weaponry. But that's a riddle we don't want to
solve empirically."
"Look, trust me," she shot back. "I know what I'm doing . . . I think.
Don't you have any faith?"
"We may not know each other well enough to be having his
conversation."

"As a matter of fact, you're exactly right." She hurriedly finished typing.
"Okay, Georges has the control set up now and we're on line. Hang on."
She reached down to flip a large red switch on the side of he console.
Immediately one of the large green cathode-ray tubes began to glow. What
it showed, however, was not the usual sweeping line going round and
round. Instead it dismayed the crisp outline of the VX-1 space vehicle at the
other end of the island. Next she flipped another switch, then reached for a
mouse that was connected to the keyboard. She zipped it across, and the
focus of the radar picture changed, almost as though it were a zoom lens.
The image of the vehicle became larger and smaller. He realized the radar
could be focused.
Then she called in another routine.
"I'm going to cut the power for a second, take it down cross the facility
and onto the base of the mountain, and then I'll power up again."
He watched as the outline of the island, in exquisite detail, swept over
the screen.
"I thought this thing was only for transmission. How can it be sending
back images?"
“There's the phased-array section for powering the vehicle with
microwaves—that's part of the Cyclops—but we also have to have a
guidance section, for keeping the beam on track. The Cyclops is the gun,
but the guidance radar here is what we use to aim it." She was concentrating
on the screen "Now, where do you think our friends are down there?"
'They're probably halfway up the hill by now."
"Let's take a look." She brought down the focus, then began scanning.
"Hold on." He stayed her hand, bringing the mouse to halt, and then
pointing to the lower left corner of the large screen. "Didn't something
move just then, right there?"
"Where?"
There." He took the mouse and guided the image to center screen.
"Where is that in the real world? It's got to be close."

She zipped the mouse again, bringing up the detail. A number scrolled at
the bottom of the screen. "Four hundred meters, to be exact."

9:59 P.M.

As Moreau emerged from the last copse of cypress, he scanned the
mountain, towering upward in the moonlit night, and wondered where the
bastard would be holed up. There was one obvious place—in the
cinderblock control house.
Yeah, ten to one that's where he had to be. The guy was stupid, riding a
lucky streak. It was over.
On the other hand, he thought, there's no reason not to take this slow.
Just in case. The fucker wasn't that stupid.
He looked down as a limb of thorny bramble caught his black trousers,
tearing a hole near the knee. "Je m'en fiche!”
Although he lived by terrorism, Jean-Paul was a confirmed denizen of
Paris's rive gauche and he had little use for roughing it here on this
godforsaken island in the bowels of the Aegean. Who needed it? On the
other hand, tonight's expedition promised some diversion. It was always a
pleasure to take out some jerk who was specializing in making a bloody
nuisance of himself. If he could assassinate the chairman of Renault, he
figured, he could handle this asshole guard.
Moreau had brought along Stelios Tritsis, reasoning that a native Greek
could best guide them up this rugged mountain, but he also had Helling's
two Stasi fuck-ups. Merde! What a lousy idea it had been to include them in
the first place. Ramirez had lost sight of his better judgment.
He looked back to check them over. They were carrying he RPG-7, as
ordered, but he doubted they had the slightest idea how it was fired. Though
possibly they were teachable retardates.
He revolved and stared up the mountain, wondering whether the
blockhouse contained any technical apparatus that he had to be wary of.
Maybe, he thought, I'd better just use a stun grenade. . . . What was that? He

checked through the IR scope of his Kalashnikov just to be sure: one of the
giant radar dishes was turning.
What in hell did that mean?
Then he caught a flicker of light from the blockhouse. So he bastard was
in there. But was he trying to pull something?
Okay, time to get serious. The place is well away from the radars and
antennas. So just send a stun grenade through the door and take out the
fucker's eardrums. No frags: no muss, no fuss. Then clean up the place at
leisure.
He motioned for Schindler and Maier to bring up the launcher.

10:01 P.M.

"What are you doing?" Peretz asked. He sensed the lad at he terminal
was up to something because he'd split the screen and was typing in a
second batch of commands on the lower half.
CC to Ian NET.RAD
"Just some systems cleanup." LeFarge tried to lie as convincingly as he
knew how.
EXPN to JRAD
"Better not try to bullshit me, pal. It could be very unhealthy."
LeFarge was already aware of that. But he kept on typing trying to look
as casual as he could. Almost, almost there.

10:02 P.M.

"The bastard is in the blockhouse. There." Moreau motioned for the first
German Stasi, Schindler. "But get a move on. He may be up to something."
With Moreau directing them, they quickly slipped the two sections of the
launcher together to form a single tube approximately a meter and a half in
length. The rocket grenade on the forward end looked like a round
arrowhead while the back was flared to dissipate the exhaust gases. The

sight and rangefinder occupied the center, and just in front of that was the
handgrip and trigger.
When they had finished, he checked it over, then surveyed the mountain,
where the heavy servomechanisms controlling the radars continued to
rotate.
Wait a minute, he told himself with a sudden chill in his groin.
Something's wrong. He's tilting the radar dishes down.
Mon Dieu!
"Get ready."

10:03 P.M.

"We just ran out of time," Vance said, slamming the door shut. "Looks
like they've got a grenade launcher. If they can manage to blast through this
door, it's going to ruin our day once and for all."
"Georges is still on-line, and I'm turning the servos as fast as I can." Her
voice betrayed the strain.
"Well, get on with it. They're setting up to fire. I'd guess you've got about
thirty seconds to pull off this miracle of yours."
"I think a hundred and sixty degrees will do it," she said, her voice now
deceptively mechanical, all business. Suddenly he could envision her
running this facility and barking orders right and left. "We're at one-twenty
now. I just don't know if I can focus it in time. Georges always handled
this."
She was tapping on the keyboard, some message to LeFarge. A cryptic
reply appeared on the screen, next to what appeared to Vance to be
computer garbage. Then the motion of the giant servomechanisms seemed
to pick up speed. The radar antennas were swiveling around, and down.
"We're almost ready. Let me get Georges to transfer the power controls
to full manual."
"Christ!" He cocked his Uzi.

"Look," she exploded. "I'm doing my part. How about you doing yours?
Slow them down."
"I don't want to waste any rounds until it's absolutely necessary."
But it looked like that time had come. He opened the door again and
stepped through. Down below, the moon glistened on the rocks, and one of
the gunmen was aiming a grenade launcher. "How long—?"
"Just a couple more seconds now. . . ."
"It's now or never." He took careful aim on the man holding the launcher.
"I'm going to count to five."
That was when he heard her say, "Got it."

10:04 P.M.

"All right," Moreau barked, "fire on three."
Schindler had just finished fine-adjusting the crosshairs, the rangefinder
portion of the complex optical sight. With inflight stability for the rocket
provided by tail fins that folded out after launch, the RPG-7 had a 500-
meter range against static targets. Though a crosswind could affect the
accuracy, tonight, thankfully, there was none. This one couldn't miss, if
there wasn't a sudden gust.
He tested the trigger confidently, sights on the open doorway, and hoped
Moreau was right when he claimed the concussion grenade would render
anybody inside totally incapacitated.
His eyes on the target, he failed to notice a flashing green light that had
just clicked on next to the main antenna up above, atop the mountain. . . .
. . . When jet fighters are launched from carriers, it is standard practice to
turn off an aircraft's radars until the planes are airborne, the reason being
that the energy in the intense electromagnetic radiation can literally knock a
man flat with an invisible wave. Memorable things happened to the eyes
and ears. In this case, however, the radar could have no such total effect,
since the random clumps of trees down the hill scattered and diffused the
energy. It was, however, one of the most powerful radars on earth. . . .

10:05 P.M.

Vance watched as something hit the men below, something that seemed
like a giant, invisible mallet. They stumbled backward, while a grenade
rocketed harmlessly into the night sky.
"Congratulations." He lowered his Uzi. "I'm impressed. I think our new
friends down there are, too. Yep, you made a very definite impression. Now,
how about leaving that thing on long enough for us to get out of here and
back up the hill? Maybe just fry the bastards for a while."
"How does eight minutes sound to you?"
"Should be time enough for us to scurry back down the rabbit hole.
Maybe take a moonlight swim in a tunnel." He was liking her more and
more all the time. Not a bad piece of work.
"I'll tell Georges to cut the power in eight," she said.
Then she added, "Look, why don't we head for the hotel. You look bushed."
"You mean go down to the Bates Motel?" I'm being invited to a motel by
this woman? He smiled. I must be dreaming.
"We can cut around by the shore. That's probably the last place anybody
is going to look for us now."
"Sounds good." It did. He was dead tired and hungry. Tomorrow was
going to be a long, long day.
"The other reason I want to go down is to try and find Isaac," she added.
"The half-cracked professor?"
"Well, he only seems that way. Behind all those eccentricities is a mind
you wouldn't believe. But whatever we find, I think we both need to knock
off for a while and get recharged."
"Let's give it a try. I think everybody's brain, and nerves, could use a
breather. I know mine could."
"We're out of here." She was already typing instructions into the
keyboard.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
9:15 P.M.

Fayette-Nam—as they called Fayetteville, North Carolina, in the 1960s
—hosts the largest army base in the world: Fort Bragg, home of the XVIII
Airborne Corps. Breaking the monotony of the harsh red Carolina clay
around it, the town sports a variety of go-go bars, honkytonks, and tattoo
parlors to refresh and spiritually solace the base's hundred thousand
personnel. Known far and wide as a "macho post," Fort Bragg houses front-
line units ready to mobilize on a moment's notice. During the Persian Gulf
crisis, they were among the first to ship.
The post deserves its macho reputation for a number of reasons, not the
least being a highly classified square-mile compound, referred to locally as
the Ranch, that nestles in a remote and secure corner of its sprawling
135,000 acres. There, protected by a twelve-foot-high fence, with armed
guards and video cameras along the perimeter, is the nerve center for Delta
Force, America's primary answer to terrorism. Now part of the Joint Special
Operations Command—informally known as "jay-soc"—Delta Force is the
pick of the U.S. Special Forces, a unit of some seventy men specifically
organized, equipped, and trained to take down terrorist situations. Of
course, Delta Force formally does not exist—"The only Delta we know
about is the airline," goes the official quip.
Although they rarely have an opportunity to display their capability,
Delta personnel practice free-fall parachute jumps from thirty thousand feet,
assault tactics on aircraft using live ammo and "hostages," high-tech
demolitions, scuba insertions, free-climbing techniques on buildings and
rock faces— all the skills needed to take terrorists by surprise, neutralize
them, and rescue hostages. The leadership of this nonexistent organization

occupies a large windowless concrete building topped by a fifty-foot
communications bubble—which recently replaced Delta's former shabby
quarters in the old Fort Bragg stockade.
Since the late 1980s, Delta Force has been led by Major General Eric
Nichols, a fifty-three-year-old Special Forces veteran of Vietnam who holds
an advanced degree in nuclear engineering. He is short—barely five feet ten
—with darting gray eyes and an old scar down his left cheek. He also
moves with the deftness of a large cat. Like his hand-picked men, he is
highly intelligent, physically honed to perfection, and possessed of a
powerful survival instinct. His only weakness is a taste for Cuban cigars,
which he satisfies with Montecristos smuggled to him by resistance forces
on the island—acquaintances whose identity no conceivable amount of
torture could extract.
When Nichols breached the open doorway of the new officers' lounge,
those in attendance were deep in a cosmic game of five-card stud, with two
—Lieutenant Manny Jackson and Captain Philip Sexton—particularly
engrossed, hoping desperately that the hand they now had in play would
somehow miraculously recoup their staggering losses for the evening. He
paused a moment, involuntarily, and surveyed the men, feeling a surge of
pride, as always, in the way they carried themselves. A bearing that in
others might have seemed arrogance on them only affirmed their competent
self-assurance.
And why not? Usually fewer than half a dozen volunteers finished out of
a class of fifty: a lightweight like Chuck Norris wouldn't stand a chance.
Mostly in their early thirties, with the powerful shoulders of bodybuilders,
the "shooters" of Delta Force did not resemble run-of-the-mill service types.
For one thing, since they had to be ready for a clandestine op at a moment's
notice, they deliberately looked as unmilitary as possible, right down to
their shaggy civilian haircuts. Although they wore olive-drab one-piece
jumpsuits during daily training, here—informally "off the Ranch"—it was
sports shirts, tattered jeans, and sneakers.

Naturally he noticed the poker game—bending the regs was, after all,
Delta Force's modus operandi—and he just as routinely suppressed a smile.
He simply wouldn't "see" it.
But with the monetary stakes he counted on the table, he realized that his
news could not have come at a worse time. On the other hand, legitimate
ops were few and far between, and they were always eager for action. Some
real excitement, at last. He knew every man in the vinyl-trimmed gray room
would feel a rush of adrenaline.
He took a deep breath and broke up the party.
"Heads up, you screw-offs." It was his everyday formal greeting. "Bad
news and good news. Report to the briefing room at 2130 hours, with all
personal gear. Be ready to ship."
There was a scramble to salute, followed by a frenzied bustle to collect
the money still lying on the table. In seconds everybody was reaching for
his jacket. They had only fifteen minutes, but they were always packed.
The briefing room was a windowless space next to the Ranch's new
headquarters building. It contained a long metal table in the center,
blackboards and maps around the walls, and the far end was chockablock
with video screens and electronic gear. As the unit members filed in, they
noticed that maps of the eastern Mediterranean now plastered the left-hand
wall. Next to these they saw blowups of KH-12 photos of a small island,
identified only by latitude and longitude coordinates.
"All right, listen up," Nichols began, almost the instant they had settled.
He had just fired up a brand-new Cuban Montecristo and was still trying to
get it stoked to his satisfaction. "I've picked twenty-three men. I'll read off
the list, and if you don't hear your name, you're dismissed."
He read the list, watched much of the room clear, and then continued.
"Okay, you're God's chosen. I picked the guys I happen to think are best
suited to the way I see the op shaping up. To begin with, we're going to be
airborne by 2300 hours, which a check of your watches will inform you is
less than an hour away. Which means no bullshit between now and when
we ship out. We'll be flying Bess—everybody's favorite C-130— with two

in-flight refuelings. Destination officially classified, but if you guessed
Souda Bay I'd have to say 'no comment.' Wherever it is we're going, we're
scheduled in at 1630 hours local tomorrow. For now I want to go over the
general outlines of the op. There'll be a detailed briefing after we land. In
the meantime, I've put together a packet of maps and materials for
everybody to study on the plane. I suggest you hone your reading skills.
Now, here's what I'm authorized to tell you."
They listened intently and without interruption as he proceeded to give a
rundown. They would be making a scuba insertion onto a Greek island—
operational maps with the general geography were in the packet—where an
unknown number of hostiles had seized an American industrial facility and
were holding hostages. He then provided a rough description of the SatCom
facility using satellite maps. They would rehearse the insertion at an
appropriate location in the vicinity and then chopper to a carrier some
twenty klicks south of the island, where they would undergo their final
prep.
It was a thorough, if circumspect, briefing—which was what they
expected. Since its inception, Delta had always operated on a top-security
basis. Information always came as late into an operation as possible, on the
theory that it was a two-edged sword and lives were at stake. Frequently the
command did not divulge the real background and strategic purpose of an
op until after its conclusion, thereby avoiding sending in men with
extractable information.
Questions? Right away they all had plenty. What was the layout of the
facility on the island? How many hostiles were there? How were they
equipped? What was the disposition of the hostages? How many? Was their
objective merely to extract the friendlies, or were they also ordered to
"neutralize" all the hostiles?
Answer: You'll get a further briefing at the appropriate time.
The biggest question of all, however, was why the urgency? Why was
Delta being called in to take down a situation that had no military

dimensions. Where were the civilian SWAT teams? If this was merely an
industrial matter, why wasn't somebody negotiating?
They knew "Bess" was already being loaded with the gear the brass
would think they would need. In addition, however, each man had certain
nonissue items, something to take along as a talisman for luck—a backup
handgun strapped onto the ankle, an extra knife. Carrying such
paraphernalia was against the regs, of course, but Major General Nichols
always took such niceties in stride. If the job got done, he had selective
blind spots as far as such things were concerned.
Nichols actually knew a lot more than he had told his men. He had
already planned the op in his head. For the insertion, backup would be
provided by two Apaches that would be armed and ready to carry out a
rocket attack on the facility radars and the two launch vehicles. Once they
had secured the hostages, they were going to treat the terrorists to a
goddamn big surprise. There would be no place to hide. If he had to, he was
prepared to blow the place to hell. Let the insurance companies worry about
it.

11:43 P.M.

The electric sign MEETING IN PROGRESS over the door to the
Situation Room had been illuminated for hours. Inside, Hansen sat in a tall
swivel chair at one end of a long table staring at a detailed map of the
eastern Mediterranean now being projected on the giant screen at the end of
the room. In the subdued, recessed lighting, half-drunk cups of cold coffee
stood around the central teakwood table. A fourth pot was already brewing
in the kitchenette, while the rotund Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Edward
Briggs, had resorted to doing knee bends to stay alert.

"All right," Hansen was saying, "we've got the Special Forces in the
game. That gives us a military option. But I'm wondering . . . maybe we
should just go ahead and evacuate Souda. At the minimum get the Sixth
Fleet out of there. As a safety precaution. We could manufacture some
exercise that would at least get most of our assets clear."
If the bastards had a nuke, he was thinking, a well-placed hit could make
Pearl Harbor look like a minor skirmish. Right now the entire complement
of carriers in the Mediterranean was there, not to mention destroyers,
frigates, and a classified number of aircraft. The destruction would run in
the untold billions; the loss of life would be incalculable.
"Where would we deploy them?" Briggs rose, bent over one last time to
stretch his muscles, then straightened. "Assuming we could get them clear
within twenty-four hours, which would be pushing our luck, we'd have to
figure out what to do next."
"Well, assuming there's available draft, we could deploy some of them
around the island. We'd give those bastards who hijacked the place a little
something to occupy their minds. Might make them think long and hard
about getting back to Beirut or wherever the hell they came from."
"You're talking about a tall order. I don't think we could really mobilize
and evacuate the base in that kind of time frame. And even if we could, our
operations in the Med would be disrupted to the point it would take us
months to recover."
"Well, Ed," the President snapped, "those are the kinds of problems
you're supposedly being paid to solve. If we're not mobile, then what the
hell are we doing in the Med in the first place?" The question was
rhetorical, but it stung—as intended.
"I'll see if I can get a scenario ready for you by 0800 hours tomorrow."
He tried not to squirm. They both knew he had already cut the orders
deploying Fort Bragg's Special Forces to Souda, to be ready in case an
assault was needed. The last resort. "In the meantime, I certainly could
arrange for the base to go on a practice alert—cancel all leave and get
everybody on a ship-out basis."

"I think you should do that, at the very least." Should I inform the Greek
government? Hansen wondered again. No, let's see if this can be handled
without opening a can of worms about whose sovereign rights are
uppermost here. The relationship with Greece had, for all its ups and
downs, been generally cordial. With any luck they would never have to be
involved or, with supreme good fortune, even know. . . .
"Then have Alicia get Johnson over at the Pentagon on the line," Briggs
said, "and he can cut the orders. We've never moved this fast before, so
we're about to find out where our glitches are. Don't be surprised if there
aren't plenty."
"Just be happy if the American taxpayer never finds out what he's getting
for his money," the President responded. "And speaking of money, we've
been faxed a string of account numbers for a bank in Geneva. This is going
to have to come out of a budget somewhere, so who do I stiff to pay off
these bastards? Or make them temporarily think I'm paying them off. It's
got to be some discretionary fund that has minimal accountability. And I
don't want the CIA within a mile of this: that place is like a sieve."
Briggs pondered. "I can probably come up with the money by juggling
some of the active accounts in Procurement. Cash flow is a marvelous thing
if it's handled right. You can rob Peter to pay Paul, and then make Peter
whole by robbing somebody else. Then the end of the fiscal year comes
around and you withhold payment from some contractor while you hold an
'investigation.'" He smiled. "Believe me, there are ways."
The President wasn't smiling. "Don't tell me. I don't think I want to hear
this. But if you're going to play bingo with the books, then you'd damned
well better do it quick, and on the QT."
"That'll be the easiest part. I've already got some ideas."
"Just make sure I don't end up with another Iran-Contra brouhaha on my
neck. I won't be able to plead senility and let a few fall guys take the rap."
Briggs had foreseen as well the glare of television lights in the Senate
hearing room. Worse still, it did not take too challenging a flight of
imagination to figure out who would end up being the patsy. He would have

to fall on his sword to protect the Presidency. Washington had a grand
tradition of that. He could kiss good-bye to a comfortable retirement in
Arizona next to a golf link.
"You can be sure I will take the utmost care, Mr. President." And he was
smiling even though Hansen was not.
"All right, now about the Special Forces. Once we get them to Souda
Bay, I want a quick rehearsal and then I want them deployed just offshore,
on the Kennedy, ready to move. Which means that whatever support they'll
need has to be ready by the time they arrive. What have you got on that?"
"A task force shipped out for Souda tonight, Mr. President. Their C-130
is already in the air. The problems are at the other end. Once they're in-
theater, we're still looking at a prep time of twelve hours, minimum. There's
just no way they can mount an assault any sooner than that."
The President winced, already thinking about his other problem. If they
did have a nuclear device, or devices, whose was it? The signs all pointed in
one direction. The Israelis claimed the stolen Iranian Hind had stopped over
in Pakistan. There probably was no need to look any further. But now he
needed somehow to get a confirmation. Or was the threat of a bomb just a
hoax?
He had a meeting at ten o'clock in the morning with the Pakistani
ambassador. It would have to be handled delicately, with a lot of
circumlocutions and diplomatic niceties, but he damn well intended to get
some plain answers.

10:41 P.M.

"So this is the Bates Motel I've heard so much about," Vance said,
casting a glance down the dull, cinderblock walls. "Hitchcock's version had
a lot more character."
"You're right," Cally agreed. "But wait till you see what it's like upstairs.
It sort of gives new meaning to the phrase no frills.' A hell of a place to cut
corners, given all the money Bill poured into this facility, but he said he

wasn't building a resort." She gestured around the utilities room, where a
maze of insulated steam and hot-water pipes crisscrossed above their heads
like a huge white forest. "Anyway, welcome back to the slightly unreal real
world."
"Maybe what we need is less reality, not more. But if you can find us a
beer, I think I could start getting the hang of the place. Let's just try not to
bump into anybody."
"Okay, my feeling is that if we stay out of Level Three, upstairs, we'll be
all right. That's got to be where they're holding everybody who's not on
duty. Locked away for safekeeping."
They had entered Level One via a trapdoor in the stone water conduit
that picked up waste heat from the environmental control unit in the
residential quarters. Around them now was silence, save for the clicks and
hums of motors and pumps.
"All right, who do we see about something to eat?" He had just finished
drinking deeply from a spigot on one of the incoming cold-water pipes.
Even though he was still soaking wet from the trip through the conduit, he
was feeling severely dehydrated and the water tasted delicious, as though it
had come from a well deep in the island's core. It had.
"You see me," she replied. "We're going to head straight for the kitchen.
There's got to be something edible there. So let's take the elevator up and
see what's on the menu. I think today was supposed to be calamari."
"I'd settle for a simple American T-bone if you've got one in the freezer.
The more American the better. I'm sort of down on Greece at the moment."
"You can have pretty much what you want here. As long as it's not a
pizza or a decent hamburger." She was pushing the button to summon the
elevator. The lights above the door told the story of the facility: three levels,
with the top being the living quarters; Level Two being services such as
food preparation and laundry; Level One, utilities.
"Hit two," she said as the bell chimed, and she stepped on, taking one
last glance about the basement. The elevator whisked them up quickly, then
opened onto another empty hallway.

"You know," she said, her voice virtually a whisper, "this corridor is
almost always full of people. I guess they really do have everybody
confined to quarters. Lucky us."
"They're thorough, and they know what they're doing. They—"
That's when he noticed the line of explosives that had been placed along
the wall next to the elevator, neat yellow bars of Semtex, wrapped in
cellophane. The first was wired to a detonator, which was in turn connected
to a digital timer.
"Hello, take a look." He nodded down. "Guess my wild hunch was right.
They're not planning to leave any witnesses when this is over. When they're
finished, they'll just pack everybody in here and blow up the place. Nice
and tidy. Won't even interfere with the computers, just in case they need to
keep them running for a while after they leave."
He bent down and examined the timer, now scrolling the minutes in red
numbers. It was set to blow in just over twenty-nine hours.
"Guess we just got the inside track on their timetable."
"My God," she said, looking at the device as though it were a cobra.
"Can't we just turn it off?"
"Sooner or later we'd better, but it's still got plenty of time left on it." His
voice turned slightly wistful. “Tell you the truth, I'd rather some of the guys
from ARM did it. I'm slightly chicken when it comes to bomb-squad
operations. Cut the wrong wire and . . . eternity takes on a whole new
perspective." He shrugged. "Also, there's a chance it's booby-trapped
somehow. The thing's a little too obvious, sitting out here in plain view.
When something looks too easy, I always get suspicious. Maybe for no
reason, but . . ." He motioned her away. "I suggest we forget about that for
now and focus on finding a steak. I also wouldn't fling a hot shower back in
your face."
“That's only on Level Three. It may have to wait." She took his arm.
"Come on. I don't like being around bombs, even if they have timers."
She led the way down the abandoned corridor, its lighting fluorescent
and its floor covered with gray industrial carpet. There was a total, almost

palpable silence about the place that made it feel all the more eerie and
abandoned. It seemed utterly strange and alien.
“The kitchen is in here," she said, pushing open a large steel door. Vance
stepped in and surveyed it: all the fixtures needed for a mess that served
several hundred people three meals daily. In fact, it looked as though the
evening's cleanup operation had been halted in mid-wash. Dirty pots sat
cold on the big industrial stoves, and piles of half-peeled vegetables were
on the wide aluminum tables. The storage lockers, refrigerators, and
freezers were located across the room, opposite.
"By the way." He had a sudden thought. 'This place must have TV
monitors somewhere, am I right? Every other place here does."
"Well, you're right and you're wrong. It does, but they're on the blink. It
always seemed like a stupid idea anyway, almost like spying, and then one
day somebody just cut the wires. Probably one of the cooks. I never
bothered getting them fixed. I just couldn't think of any good reason to
bother."
"Well, for once laziness paid off. Maybe we're safe here for a while." He
had opened the freezer. "Hello, Lady Luck has decided to get with the
program." He was pulling out two thick steaks. "Care to join me?"
"Those are there for Bill," she noted, then laughed. "I'd still rather have a
pizza, but I don't guess he'll mind if we dip into his private stock."
"So I repeat the question." He was already unwrapping two, both thick.
"Yes, of course. I'm famished." She shivered. "And I also wouldn't mind
a set of dry clothes."
"Maybe one of these will warm you up." He was popping the steaks into
a gleaming white microwave for a quick thaw.
"Right."
"And while dinner is coming along, how about drawing me a diagram of
what's up there. Maybe we can go up later, take a look around."
"Let's eat first. I'm too wired to think." She switched on one of the large,
black electric grills. "My vote is that we just sit tight for now."

And why not? This man with the sexy eyes and healthy laugh attracted
her. Mercurial in his spirits, he appeared willing to take chances. Just the
way she remembered her father. And Alan. But she wondered why he was
here risking his life for a bunch of total strangers. Even Alan wouldn't have
done that.
"You know, Mike Vance, I have to tell you, you don't look much like a
commando."
"Guess what? I'm not."
"You know what I mean. For that matter, you don't look like the guys
who came and installed our wonderful security system. I'd like to know
your real story."
"How are retired archaeologists supposed to look? But I wasn't good
enough at it, or maybe I was too good at it—I'm not sure which—and as a
result I ended up doing what I really wanted to for a living. Running a
sailboat business." He looked her over. "You seem to like what you're
doing, too. And from what I've seen, I'd say Bill's getting a bargain, no
matter what he's paying you."
She laughed. "I'd say you're an even better bargain. He's getting you for
free."
"Freebies are only a deal if they pan out." He lifted their steaks out of the
microwave and flipped them onto the grill. They immediately sizzled
deliciously, a sound he had loved since he was a child growing up in
Pennsylvania. It all mingled together with the scent of trees and summer.
"God, those smell great." She came over to take a look. "I think the
aroma is giving me some backbone. There's nothing like the smell of
grease."
"I figured you'd come around." He patted her chastely on the back, half
imagining it was farther down, then lifted one of the steaks to see how they
were going. Well. Just like his spirits.
But now she was moving off again into a space of her own. She
scrutinized his weathered face, feeling a little hopeful that maybe, finally,

she had run across somebody like Alan. Though she still hardly knew a
damned thing about him.
"With people I meet for the first time, I like to play a little game," she
said finally. "It's always interesting to try and guess. What are they really
like? Does character show?"
"What happens if you guess right?" He nudged a steak. "Do you own
their soul? Like some primitive tribes think a photograph captures their
spirit?"
"Guess you'll have to find out, won't you?" She checked him over again.
"Okay." He smiled and gave her the same look back. "But it's only fair if
we both get to play. So, if one of us hits the truth, what happens then. Do
we get to go for Double Jeopardy?"
"Be warned. The prince who learns the princess's secrets can end up
getting more than he bargained for." She came back, full of feeling. Then
she paused for a second, thinking, and began. "All right, I get to go first.
Woman's prerogative. And I want to start with the sailboat—what did you
call it? Odyssey II?—and what it says about you. I think it means you're a
doer, not a talker. I like that."
"Maybe." He felt uncomfortable, not sure what to say, so he decided to
let it pass. "Now it's my turn." He leaned back and examined her, hoping to
get it right. Make a good first impression. Ignore the fact she's a knockout,
he lectured himself, at least for now. Look for the inner woman.
"You like it here," he started. "But the isolation means everybody knows
everybody. No privacy. And you're a very private person. So—to use that
famous cliche—you bury yourself in your work. You could be happier."
"That goes for you, too," she quickly began, a little startled that his first
insight had been so close to the mark. "And you're a loner. The good news
is . . . I think you're pretty loyal. To friends. To women. The downside is
you keep your friends to a close circle."
"Hey, I'd almost think you've been reading my mail." He seemed vaguely
discomfited. "But I'll bet you suffer from the same malady. You made some
tight friends early on, but not much in that department since. They're all

engineers, and mostly you talk shop. Oh, and no women. You want them
but you don't respect them enough. They're not as committed as you are. In
fact, your last good friend was in college. Sometimes you have trouble
getting next to anybody."
"Well, for the record I'll admit that my best friend was from before
college, and it's a he. Georges." She decided to skip over the matter of Alan
Harris. He had been a friend as well as a lover. A good friend, or so she
thought. Once. "But I think the buzzer just went off. Game over."
"Whoa, don't bail out now, just when it's getting good. This was your
idea, remember? And I'm not through." He leaned back. "Okay, let's really
get tough. Go personal. You figure falling for some guy might just end up
breaking your heart. Maybe it already happened to you once or twice. So
these days you don't let things go too far." He rubbed at his chin as he
studied her. "How'm I doing?"
"The rules of the game don't include having to answer questions." She
took a deep breath. Mike Vance was definitely better at this than she'd
reckoned. "But if you want to keep going, we'll have round two. Back to
you. I'd guess you're always in control, or you want to be. So what happens
is, you co-opt the things and people around you, make them work for you.
And from the way things have gone so far, I'd say luck seems to be on your
side; some people are like that and you're one of them."
"Don't be too sure." He checked the steaks again, then flipped them over.
They were coming along nicely, the fat around the edge beginning to char
the way he liked. "Luck always has a way of running out eventually."
"Tell me about it . . ." she said, letting her voice trail off.
"But I'd also guess you're a homebody in your soul. You like a roaring
fire and a glass of wine and a good book over going out to paint the town."
"And you're probably just the opposite. You want to be out in the sun and
wind and rain. Sitting around bores you."
"Guilty." He nodded. "Now for round three. That glass of wine you have
with the book is probably something tame. Say, Chablis."

"You drink . . . mmmm, let me see. Scotch is too mundane. I'll bet it's
tequila. Straight."
"You're psychic. But you missed the lime."
"Oh, I almost forgot the most important thing." She grew somber. "You
like a good battle. So taking on these thugs is going to be the most fun
you've had all week."
"That's where you just went off the track." His eyes narrowed, the
corners crinkling. "We're definitely on the wrong end of the odds here.
These bastards are dug in, they've probably got A-bombs, and we know for
sure they've got a lot of helpless people in their grasp. That's not a recipe for
heroics. It's more like one for pending tragedy." He paused, deciding it was
definitely time to change the subject. "Speaking of tragedies, it would be a
major one if we didn't have a Greek salad to go with those steaks."
He walked over and checked the fridge. Sure enough, there was a
massive bowl of ripe, red tomatoes sitting next to a pile of crisp cucumbers.
Most important of all, there was a huge chunk of white feta cheese. Yep, the
chef had to be Greek. And up there, on a high kitchen shelf, were rows and
rows of olives, curing in brine. Throw them all together with a little
oregano, lemon juice, and olive oil, and the traditional side dish of Greece
was theirs.
"Just the stuff." He pulled down a jar of olive oil and one of dark Greek
olives. Then he selected some tomatoes and a cucumber and went to work.
"You know, you're not a half-bad Greek chef. My mother would have
loved you. You're making that salad exactly the way she used to." She made
a face. "Every day. God, did I get sick of them. All I wanted to eat was
french fries. So when I finally got away, off at college, I practically lived on
cheeseburgers and pizza for years after that."
"Shame on you. This is very wholesome. Very good for your state of
mind." He finished slicing the tomatoes, then opened the fridge and fished
out a couple of brown bottles of the local beer. "Retsina would be the thing,
but this will have to do." He looked over. "By the way, how're the steaks
coming?"

"Looks like our feast is ready." She pulled them off the grill and onto
plates. "How long has it been since you ate?"
"Think it's about two days now." He finished tossing the salad and
served them each a hearty helping. "Didn't realize how famished I was till I
smelled those T-bones broiling." He popped the caps on the beers and
handed her one. "Bon appetit. Better eat hearty, because this may be the last
food we're going to see for a while."
She took a bite, then looked up, chewing. "It's delicious. And I want to
say one more thing about our game a while ago." She stopped to swallow.
"And I mean this. It's always a little sad when I see a person who can do a
lot of things but doesn't really find total satisfaction in any of them. Nothing
they ever do really makes them happy. And I think that's you, really. I'll bet
that whenever you're doing one thing, you're always thinking about some
other things you could be doing. Which means you're never really content.
You always want more."
"That's pretty deep stuff." He had launched hungrily into his steak.
"Maybe you're right, but I'm not going to come out and admit it. It's too
damning. So let me put it like this. Maybe I happen to think it's possible to
care about a lot of things at once. That's—"
"Such as?"
"Well, okay, I'll give you a 'for instance.' I like sailing around these
islands, but all the time I'm doing it, I'm thinking about what it must have
been like two, three thousand years ago. The archaeology. It's intrigued me
as long as I can remember. My dad was the same; he spent his life digging
around in Crete. I thought that was the most marvelous thing in the world,
so I did it, too. For years. Even wrote a book about that island once. I loved
the place. Still do."
"That's funny. I was born practically in the shadow of
Crete, and yet I've only been there a couple of times." She sighed. "Well,
what happened? I mean to your love affair with Crete. Sounds like that's
what it was."

"Maybe I loved the place too much. I don't know." He paused to take a
drink of the beer, cold and refreshing. "Well, when you love somebody, or
something, you want to find out everything there is to know about them.
But when I did that, and told what I'd concluded was the real story, or what
I passionately believed was the real story, nobody wanted to hear it. I had
some ideas about the island's ancient age of glory that didn't jibe with the
standard theories. Made me very unpopular in the world of academia.
Scholars don't like their boats to be rocked."
"And you let that get you down?" She snorted. Being a woman, she'd
had an uphill battle all her life. Men could be such babies sometimes. "See,
when the world's against you, that's when you're supposed to fight hardest.
That's always been my rule. I'm not a quitter. Ever."
He winced and stopped eating. "Hey, I'm back, aren't I? In Greece." He
looked at her, impulsively wanting to touch her again. "But it's nice to have
somebody like you to pitch in and help. Maybe we'll manage something
together."
"Maybe you should have had somebody around the first time." God, he
was really reminding her of Alan. The same buttons. "Maybe you're not as
tough as you think."
"Adversity depresses me. Like bad weather. I prefer life without too
many psychodramas." And this Greek fireball, he told himself, had
psychodrama written large all over her. Still . . .
"Then the question now is what I should do." She looked at him, taking a
last bite. "Go back, or stay with you."
"We need to learn from Ulysses’ experience with the Cyclops," Vance
said, clicking back into the real world. "The one-eyed giant had trapped him
and his crew and was devouring them one by one. So how did they
overcome him? They got him plastered on some good Greek wine, then put
out his eye with a burning post. That done, they proceeded to exploit his
disability."
"What are you saying?" She frowned.

"This guy is killing off your people, right? Pierre is coming in with his
crew to try and take this place down, but in the meantime it would be good
if we took a shot at putting out their eyes."
"Put out their eyes?" She was still puzzled.
"It's a metaphor. It would be extremely helpful if we could blind them
enough that they didn't know ARM was coming in. Couldn't 'see' the team.
Maybe shut down the radars, something."
"Michael"—it was the first time she had used his name, and she liked it
—"that's why we're in this mess in the first place. There are no radars that
could spot an insertion. That's how these bastards got in here in the first
place. Bill gets the Saddam Hussein Military Preparedness Award. There is
no radar to monitor the shore."
He laughed. "Okay, but now that oversight has turned into a plus. What's
good for the goose is good for the you- know-what. If there are no
peripheral radars, then they're not going to know where Pierre and the boys
make their insertion."
"Right. The bad guys are already blind. It's got to make a difference."
'Then what we need to do"—he was thinking aloud—"is to get them all
together in one place."
'They're not going to let it happen." She was questing, too. "Unless . . .
unless we can make it happen. Something . . ."
"Keep thinking," he said. "I don't have any ideas either, but somebody
better come up with one."
"Well, let's go back up on the mountain before they find us here," she
said finally, clearly itching to get going and do something. "We're going to
screw these guys, wait and see."
Vance nodded, wishing he could believe it as confidently as she did.

10:49 P.M.

Sabri Ramirez stood watching as the last of the krytron detonators was
secured in the ganglia of wiring that surrounded the explosive Octol sphere.

Now one of the bombs was armed. He liked the looks of it. The next—
"They haven't come back yet," Wolf Helling said, interrupting his
thoughts. "Do you think there was a problem?" He was warily watching the
bomb and its timer being assembled, trying to calm his nerves. This was not
like playing with a yellow lump of Sematach. One false move and you
would be vaporized. Any man who pretended it didn't scare him was a liar,
or worse, a fool. Maybe both.
The bomb did not frighten Ramirez; his mind did not dwell on risk. He
assumed the Pakis knew their job—they damned well better. No, his current
concern also was what had happened to Moreau. He had expected his unit
to return before now. So far they had taken over an hour on what should
have been a simple operation. With hostages dispersed in three locations,
Ramirez feared that things were getting spread thin. Gamal had been
keeping watch over the guards and the off-duty shifts on Level Three of the
accommodations facility, while Peretz was holding things together in
Command, but still it would be better if four of the team were not out
chasing over the island trying to find some rogue guard. He had tried to
reach them on his walkie-talkie, but so far he had not been able to raise
anybody. That was particularly troubling. Why should all the radios
suddenly go dead?
"If there was some difficulty up the hill, surely they're handling it."
Ramirez tried to push aside his misgivings. He actually felt it was true, or
should be true. He had checked out Moreau's credentials carefully,
investigating beyond the popular myth, and what he had found did nothing
to diminish the legend of the blond demon, Jean-Paul. . . .
"Now, we're ready to secure this baby into the payload container,"
Abdoullah was saying. "I measured it already, and it should fit with no
problem. But we'll need to hook up the detonators with the telemetry
interface, and for that we need
Peretz’ input. He'll use the Fujitsu in Command to blow this thing, but it all
has to be synchronized with the trajectory control."

"He's there now," Ramirez said, "updating the trajectory runs. That's
scheduled to be completed in"—he checked his watch—"about twenty
minutes. When he gets through, we can go ahead with the detonators.
Everything is on schedule."
For some reason Abdoullah did not like the precise tone of Ramirez's
voice. Right, he thought, everything is on schedule. So when Shujat and I
have finished our part, what then? Will we be "accidentally" gunned down,
the way Rais was? You claimed that was a screw-up, but you're not the kind
of guy who makes that kind of mistake. Okay, so maybe Rais got careless.
Was that your way of making an example of him?
He motioned Shujat to help lift the first shiny sphere into the heat-
resistant Teflon payload container. On a conventional launch, the container
was designed to be deployed by radio command when the VX-1 vehicle had
captured low earth orbit. The nose of the vehicle would open and eject it,
after which the satellite payload would release. This launch, however, was
—
"Hey, they're back," Helling announced, watching the door of the clean
room open.
Ramirez looked up, and realized immediately that something was wrong.
Jean-Paul Moreau's eyes seemed slightly unfocused, and his sense of
balance was obviously impaired —a man stumbling out of a centrifuge. He
also was rubbing at his ears, as though his head were buzzing.
"What in hell happened?" He had never seen anyone with quite this set
of symptoms before. They looked like men who had been too close when a
homemade bomb went off.
"The bastard was up on the hill, and he managed to get control of one of
the radars. Let me tell you, there's nothing like it in the world. You feel your
head is going to explode. I can barely hear." He then lapsed into French
curses.
Stelios Tritsis still had said nothing. He merely watched as Rudolph
Schindler and Peter Maier set down the RPG-7 and collapsed onto the floor.

"Then let him go for now." Ramirez wanted to kill them all, then and
there. "But get that damned thing out of here." He indicated the grenade
launcher. "And the rest of you with it. Take turns getting some sleep and
report back to me at 0600 hours. We'll soon have our hands full. The natives
here are going to start getting restless. When that happens, the next man
who fucks up will have to answer to me."
They all knew what that meant.

11:16 P.M.

Dore Peretz had just finished checking over the trajectory analyses and
he was satisfied that guidance would not pose a problem. With SORT
controlling the trajectory at lift-off, a vehicle could be set down with
pinpoint accuracy. Midcourse correction, abort—the whole setup was going
to be a cakewalk.
The kid LeFarge was good, good enough to make him think he could do
without the Andros bitch. Right now nothing indicated that it could not all
be handled from right here in Command, with the staff at hand.
Okay, he thought, one more chore out of the way. Now it's time to start
setting up the telemetry hookup with the radio-controlled detonators. . . .

CHAPTER TWELVE
10:05 P.M.

"Is there anything we need to go over again?" Pierre Armont inquired,
looking around the dusty, aging Athens hangar with a feeling of wary
confidence. The weather-beaten benches and tables were cluttered with
maps of Andikythera and blueprints of the SatCom facility, scattered among
half-empty bottles of ouzo and Metaxa. He had just completed his final
briefing, which meant the time had come to board the Cessna seaplane that
would be their insertion platform. The team seemed ready. Hans had come
through with the troops they needed; Reggie sat bleary-eyed but prepared,
nursing a final brandy; the brothers Voorst of the Royal Dutch Marines were
austerely sipping coffee; Dimitri Spiros was quietly meditating on the
condition of the equipment; and Marcel of the Belgian ESI was sketching
one last paper run-through of the insertion.
When nobody spoke, Armont glanced at his watch and frowned. This
final briefing had gone longer than expected, but he had to cover more than
the usual number of complexities.
For one thing, the hostages apparently were scattered all over the place,
always a problem. Unless the team could strike several locations
simultaneously, the element of surprise would be forfeited. That meant the
insertion had to be totally secure, giving the team time to split up, get
positioned, and stage the final assault with split-second coordination.
Carrying out one op was dicey enough: he was looking at three, all at once.
The alternate strategy would be to focus exclusively on Ramirez. Take him
out first, blow their command structure, and hope the others would fold.
The decision on that option would have to be made in about two hours,
just before they set down the plane two kilometers west of the island and

boarded the Zodiacs for insertion. That was when Vance was scheduled to
radio his intel on the disposition of the hostiles and the friendlies. What a
stroke of luck to have him there, a point man already in place to guide the
team in.
"All right, then," Spiros said, finally coming alive, "let's do a final check
of the equipment. We need to double-inventory the lists and make sure
everything got delivered. I don't want to hear a lot of crap from you guys if
somebody can't find something later on."
The others nodded. Dimitri had had to scramble to get all the hardware
together, and Reginald Hall had had to make some expensive last-minute
arrangements to obtain a set of balaclava antiflash hoods for everybody.
When there were hostages everywhere, the safest way to storm the terrorists
was with nonlethal flash grenades, which produced a blinding explosion
and smoke but did not spew out iron fragments. But their use required the
assault to function in the momentarily disruptive environment they created.
The hoods, which protected the wearer's face and eyes from the smoke and
flash, were crucial. And since your local hardware store did not stock them,
he had borrowed a set from the Greek Dimoria Eidikon Apostolon, a SWAT
unit of the Athens city police trained to provide hostage rescue, securing six
on a "no questions asked" basis, even though everybody there knew they
had only one use.
Word of the hostage-taking down on Andikythera had not yet leaked out
to the world, so DEA had not been consulted. But their record of security at
the Athens Hellinikon Airport was so miserable he doubted they ever would
be considered for a job like this. Though the DEA had trained with the
German GSG-9, the British SAS, and the Royal Dutch Marines, they still
were basically just cops. A real antiterrorist operation would be out of their
league.
DEA had no illusions about that, and they also knew that Spiros was
with ARM, arguably the best private antiterrorist organization in the world.
So if they granted Dimitri a favor, they knew they could someday call on

ARM to repay in kind. In the antiterrorist community, everybody was on
the same team. Everybody understood the meaning of quid pro quo.
Most of the rest of the equipment had been retrieved from the ARM
stocks the organization kept stored in Athens. Governments frowned on the
transportation of heavy weaponry around Europe, so the association found
it convenient to have its own private stocks at terminals in London, Paris,
and Athens. It made life simpler all around.
Reggie Hall had dictated the equipment list as he drove in to London in
his black Jaguar, cursing the glut of traffic on the A21. Once he reached the
ARM office there, a small inconspicuous townhouse in South Kensington,
he faxed the list to Athens, then caught a plane. Dimitri had checked out the
list against the ARM inventory in the warehouse and quickly procured
whatever was lacking. It had been packaged into crates, then taken by lorry
to this small side terminal of the Hellinikon Airport, ready to be loaded on
the unobtrusive Cessna seaplane he had leased for the operation.
By that time the rest of the team had already started arriving. Then, two
and a half hours ago, Pierre had begun the briefing.
A counterterrorist operation always had several objectives: protecting the
lives of hostages and procuring their safe release, isolating and containing
the incident, recovering seized property, and preventing the escape of the
offenders. But this time there was a twist to the usual rules. In a special-
threat situation like this, possibly involving nuclear weapons, the recovery
of those devices was the paramount priority.
The way Armont had planned the assault, ARM could manage with a
seven-man team instead of the nine most special-reaction outfits normally
used. He would be team leader, which meant his responsibilities included
supervision as well as being in charge of planning and execution,
controlling cover and entry elements, and determining special needs.
Since Vance was already on the ground, he would be point man,
providing reconnaissance and recommending primary and alternate routes
of approach. The point man in an assault also led the entry element during

approach and assisted the defense men in the security. Finally, he was
expected to pitch in and help with the pyrotechnics as needed.
The defense man would be Marcel, the Belgian, who would cover for the
Voorst brothers during the assault and provide security for Vance during the
approach. He would also double as point man when required and protect the
entry team from ambush during approach. Another duty was to cover the
entry element during withdrawal and handle the heavy equipment.
Hans would serve as the rear security man, following the entry element
during movement and providing close cover during withdrawal. He would
be second in command, and also would bring in whatever equipment was
needed.
Since Reggie was a crack shot, the best, he would be the standoff sniper,
maintaining surveillance on the subject area from a fixed position,
monitoring radio frequencies, and providing intelligence on hostile
movements. He also would neutralize by selective fire anybody who posed
an imminent threat to the entry team.
Spiros would be the observer, keeping a record of everything for an
after-action summary, providing security for Reggie, and assisting in
locating hostile personnel. He would relieve Hall as necessary, and handle
the CS or smoke if Pierre signaled for it.
That was it for assignments. Everybody would be doing more or less
what they always did. So far so good.
The next item was intelligence. Normally you tried to gather as much as
you could on-scene, and presumably Vance was taking care of that. For the
rest of it, Armont had dug up blueprints for all the buildings from the files,
and on the plane from Paris he had meticulously numbered the levels,
sectorized the windows, and labeled all the openings, ventilation shafts, et
cetera. At the briefing just completed, he had used the blueprints to
designate primary and secondary entry-points. He would fine-tune his
strategy with Vance by radio once they had made the insertion; and then,
after he had located all the terrorists and confirmed the situation of the
hostages, they would use the blueprints to plan the assault.

Next came the equipment. Since the assault would be at night, they
would need vision capabilities. That included M17A1 7x50 binoculars,
starlight scopes, and infrared scopes. Then the radios, which had to be
multi-channeled, with one channel reserved strictly for the team, and have
cryptographic (secure voice) capability. The surveillance radio package—
compact in size, with a short antenna—included a lapel mike, push-to-talk
button, and earpiece. All members of the team would have a radio, worn in
a comfortable position and out of the way. As usual they would employ
strict communication discipline, using their established call signs and codes
as much as possible.
Other personal equipment included chemical light wands, luminous tape,
gloves, protective glasses, disposable inserts for hearing protection, black
combat boots, lightweight body armor, balaclavas, flashlights, knives, first-
aid pouches. Insertion gear included grapple hooks, several hundred feet of
half-inch fibrous nylon rope, locking snaplinks, and rappelling harnesses.
Finally there was the weaponry. Everybody would carry a .45 caliber
automatic pistol and a .38 caliber revolver with a special four-inch barrel.
The assault team would use H&K MP5s except for Armont and Hall: Pierre
preferred a Steyr-Mannlicher AUG and Reggie had brought along an
Enfield L85A1, in addition to his usual AK-47. Then, just in case, they had
the heavy stuff: M203 40mm launcher systems, M520-30 and M620A
shotguns, modified 1200 pump shotguns, and 9mm PSDs. God help us,
Armont thought, if we need all this.
Naturally there also were grenades. They had plenty of the standard M26
fragmentation type, but since these frequently were next to useless in a
hostage situation, they planned to rely more on stun grenades and smoke
grenades. The same was true of the AN-M14 incendiary hand grenade, a
two-pound container of thermite that burned at over four thousand degrees
Fahrenheit for half a minute. It was fine for burning up a truck, but not
recommended for a room full of hostages. Better for that was the M15
smoke grenade, which spewed white phosphorus over an area of about

fifteen yards. Smoke, of course, could work both ways, also slowing up the
deploying team.
Last but not least were the tear-gas grenades. To temporarily neutralize
an entire room, ARM had long used the M7 tear-gas grenade, which
dispersed CN, chloraceteophenone. It was not a gas but a white crystalline
powder similar to sugar that attacked the eyes, causing watering and partial
closing, and simulated a burning sensation on the skin. If conditions seemed
to require, they sometimes used a stronger chemical agent called CS—
military shorthand for orthochlorobenzalmalononitrile. It, too, was a white
crystalline powder similar to talc that produced immediate irritating effects
that lasted from five to ten minutes. The agent (in a cloud form) caused a
severe burning sensation of the chest. The eyes closed involuntarily, the
nose ran, moist skin burned and stung—thereby rendering anybody in the
immediate area incapable of effective action. He would choose which one
to use when the time came. . . .
After Hans had helped Dimitri double-inventory the equipment list,
Armont looked over the dark-brown crates one last time, then gave the go-
ahead for loading. One good thing, he thought: since Andikythera is Greek,
we won't be crossing any international borders; nothing will have to be
smuggled through customs.
Reggie, impatient as always, was eyeing the clock at the far end of the
hangar. "We've already filed the fight plan. I think it's time we made this a
go op. What time is the next radio check with Vance?"
"That's scheduled for 2340 hours," Armont answered.
"After we're airborne. We'll go over the blueprints and compare them
against the disposition of the friendlies and hostiles using his intel. Then we
can decide the best way to take the place down."
The boys are getting itchy, he told himself. They want to get this over
with and get back to their lives. Who can blame them? This screw-up never
should have happened in the first place. Spiros let the client set the
parameters for a job—which violates the first rule. He is going to have a lot
to answer for when this is over. But settling that will have to wait till later.

"All right," he said, starting up the Cessna's metal stairs and heading for
the cockpit. "Let's get tower clearance and roll."

11:32 P.M.

The technicians in Command were all sprawled across their desks,
demoralized and still in shock. Georges LeFarge shared their mood. Cally
had disappeared hours ago, and he was beginning to think he was on his
own.
The trajectories that Peretz wanted computed were finished. Now the
Israeli wanted to work on the telemetry. And he wanted to do it himself. He
had taken his place at the console and started programming a new set of
instructions into Big Benny, the Fujitsu supercomputer. It looked as if he
was coordinating some of the trajectory telemetry with the electronic
signaling to the vehicle, and he was setting some sort of timer.
LeFarge pondered the significance of these actions. He wants something
to happen when the VX-1 aborts and begins descent, he told himself. And it
has to be done with split-second timing. What can he be planning?
He felt helpless as he sat watching, the control room around him now
silent and listless. Locked out of his own computer, he felt rudderless and
lost. He was realizing computers were a friend that could easily be turned
against you. It was a moment of recognition that brought with it pure
anguish.

10:01 A.M.

Dr. Abdoul Kirwani, ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to
the United States of America, sat rigidly facing the small desk in the Oval
Office. When the call requesting a meeting had come from Johan Hansen's
chief of staff the previous evening, he had hastily sent a secure telex to
Islamabad to inquire if he needed any updating.
He did. And it was a disaster.

"It's past due time we met personally, Mr. Ambassador," President Johan
Hansen was saying. "I regret that the press of affairs over the last month
forced me to postpone receiving you sooner. State tells me your credentials
are impeccable and you're doing a first-class job of getting up to speed."
Abdoul Kirwani nodded his thanks, modestly but with ill- concealed
pride. He was a tall, elegant man with a trim mustache and deep, inquisitive
eyes. Some said he could have been a double for Omar Sharif. A deeply
guarded secret was that he cared more about the ragas of Indian classical
music than he did about diplomacy. He had made no secret, however, of his
admiration for Johan Hansen. The American President's refocus of the
superpower's priorities was a refreshing breath of rationality and sanity in
an irrational, insane world.
All of which made this particular meeting even more distressing.
“Thank you, Mr. President. My government wishes me to express its
appreciation for the excellent cooperation we have received and the
traditional American hospitality my family and I have enjoyed since we
arrived. Shireen, I must say, loves this country as much as I do. She studied
at Smith many years ago, and is especially fond of New England." He
smiled. "We Pakistanis always yearn for places with a cool climate."
“Then perhaps someday you'll accord me the honor of letting Christin
and me show you my new presidential hideaway in the Berkshires." Hansen
smiled back, chafing to cut the diplomatic bullshit. "Perhaps sometime this
autumn. We think it's one of the most beautiful spots on earth."
"We would be most honored." He nodded again, reading the President's
mind-state perfectly.
"Now." Hansen could contain himself no longer. "I want you to
understand, Mr. Ambassador, that what I am about to say is not directed
toward you personally. My staff tells me you have been a private advocate,
for some years now, of reducing and even eliminating nuclear weapons
worldwide. That, as you know, is my desire as well. So you and I see eye to
eye. Unfortunately, however, we live in a world where realities still assume
precedence over noble ambitions."

"I agree with you, Mr. President, sadly but wholeheartedly." The
Pakistani ambassador nodded lightly, dreading what he knew was about to
come. So the U.S. already knows, he realized. This disaster is going to turn
out even worse than I'd feared.
"The topic of nuclear proliferation brings us, I am afraid, to the subject at
hand. You will forgive me if we set aside our views on the scenic American
countryside for another day. Time, unfortunately, is short. I think you will
understand why when you hear what I have to say." Hansen leaned back in
his heavy chair, hoping he had given the right signals. He had been entirely
sincere when he said he liked Kirwani and did not relish the task
immediately at hand. "Mr. Ambassador, you will not be surprised to learn
that this country is well aware of the gross violations of the nuclear
nonproliferation treaty that have taken place since Pakistan refused to sign
in 1968. The entire world knows about your uranium hexafluoride plant at
Dera Ghazi Khan, and the Kahuta facility where it is enriched using
German centrifuges. We also know what that enriched uranium"—he
glanced down at his notes—"in the ninety-five percent range, is being used
for. However, we have not been able to dissuade your government from the
course it has taken." He paused. "Quite frankly, there's not a hell of a lot we
could do about it without having to make some very undiplomatic
accusations against our staunchest ally on the Asian subcontinent."
Kirwani turned slightly pale. Although he worried about India's growing
nuclear capacities as much as the next Pakistani, he still did not particularly
like the idea of his country having its own secret nuclear program,
developed in part to counter India's. The world needed more dialogue, he
believed, not more destruction.
However, he wasn't being paid to defend his personal views. "Mr.
President, I'm not authorized to discuss the strategic security arrangements
of my country, as I am sure you can appreciate."
"Yes," Hansen said, "I can appreciate a hell of a lot, Mr. Ambassador.
For instance, I can appreciate the multi-billions in military and economic
assistance we've lavished on Pakistan over the years. There are those in this

administration who think that gives us the right to a hearing. You know,
back when Ronald Reagan was President, his administration argued that we
could slow down Pakistan's nuclear program by giving you every other
possible kind of military aid. So we poured in everything you asked.
However, all that aid seems not to have slowed your government's nuclear
efforts for so much as a minute.
"In fact," Hansen went on, the memory still making him seethe, "what
you did was turn to China for the data you needed to manufacture nuclear
weapons without testing. That was the thanks we got. Then—"
"An unproven accusation, Mr. President," Kirwani interjected lamely.
"Yes, China denied it, too, but the Reagan administration took it
seriously enough that they halted formal approval of a trade pact with China
for almost a year in retaliation. We had hard evidence, believe me. And then
—"
"Mr. President, we are not, I'm sure, here to give each other history
lectures. Certainly neither of us has forgotten that during those years there
were 120,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan, just over our border. We had
legitimate security concerns that could not always—I am speaking
hypothetically, of course—be addressed with a strictly conventional
deterrent." Kirwani tried to smile. "You do understand, of course, that this
conversation is entirely hypothetical."
"Of course, so let's travel a little farther into never-never land. What we
do know is that the Soviet threat in Afghanistan is now a thing of the past;
world conditions have changed dramatically; and there are those in
Congress who may choose to wonder why Pakistan still has any
justification to stockpile—hypothetically, of course—these 'unconventional'
weapons. American aid is not written in stone. Now, is that diplomatic
enough for you, Mr. Ambassador?"
"We are allies, Mr. President," Kirwani replied calmly, "and allies work
in concert toward mutual goals, each bringing to their alliance whatever
contribution can further the ends of both. I do hope your government
believes it has received as much as it has contributed over the years."

Hansen tried not to smile. We never "receive" as much as we
"contribute," he was thinking. But then that's how the damned game is
played.
"In the interest of diplomacy, Mr. Ambassador, I suggest we move this
'theoretical' discussion along. We have reason to believe that a certain
number of 'unconventional' weapons may now be in hands neither of us
would wish. The question is, how many weapons are involved and what is
their yield?"
Ambassador Kirwani had been expecting the inquiry. It was like waiting
for the other shoe to drop. The government in Islamabad was beside itself,
appalled that controls had been so lax and that now the world was going to
know exactly the extent of Pakistan's nuclear program. Before this ghastly
situation was resolved, years of secrecy were going to be blown away. Yet
in truth part of him was half-relieved that the cat was out of the bag, finally.
For either India or Pakistan to loose nuclear weapons on the Asian
subcontinent would be to unleash the wrath of Allah upon billions of
innocents. It was truly unthinkable.
"You do understand, Mr. President, that before this conversation
continues we must both agree that it never took place. Furthermore, even if
it should take place, it would be purely hypothetical."
After Hansen nodded grimly, Kirwani continued. "We both know the
Israelis have had uranium bombs, not to mention hydrogen bombs, for
many years and yet they have never
admitted it publicly. By maintaining a diplomatic fiction they have kept
their Arab neighbors quiet on the subject. They are never called to account.
The government of Pakistan merely asks to be accorded the same latitude to
conduct our security arrangements as we best see fit. The Israelis know it is
not in their interest to rattle nuclear sabers, and we know that as well." He
edged forward in his chair. "That is, assuming we possessed such sabers,
which I in no way acknowledge."
"I think we're beginning to understand each other." Hansen nodded. "So
perhaps that counts as progress. Of course this conversation never took

place, and lest you're wondering, I don't have the Oval Office bugged, the
way that idiot Nixon did. I believe terms like 'confidentiality' and 'off the
record' still have meaning."
Kirwani found himself yearning for a cigarette, though he knew smoking
was forbidden here in this presidential sanctuary.
"Very well, then, speaking hypothetically and confidentially, I am
authorized to inform your government that we have reason to believe that
there may be two uranium bombs, in the fifteen-kiloton-yield range, that
may be . . . in the wrong hands somewhere in the world. Needless to say,
my government is extremely concerned about this and is currently taking
steps to establish a full . . . accounting of the situation." Kirwani realized it
sounded lame. But his government had authorized him to deliver those
words only.
"God help us," Hansen sighed. It's true. Or maybe just a coincidence.
"When were these hypothetical weapons found to be missing?"
"If such a thing were to be true," Kirwani continued, ever cautious; "it
might well have been just over a week ago." A final pause. "And we have
no idea where they are."

12:15 A.M.

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.

11:24 P.M.
Willem Voorst was at the controls of the Cessna as they powered through
the Aegean night, their heading 210 as they closed rapidly on Andikythera.
He was holding their altitude at five hundred meters, their airspeed just
under a hundred knots, barely above stall. When they were about ten klicks
out, he would take the plane down to two hundred meters, then set down
about two kilometers northeast of the island. The last stage of the insertion
would be via two Zodiac rubber raiding craft and then, finally, scuba.
Everything still looked like a go. Reggie was leading Hans and the rest
of the team through a final review of the facility blueprints, while Armont
was in the cockpit, on the sideband radio to Vance. . . .
"Roger, Sirene," Vance was saying, "we're in the communications
blockhouse, up on the mountain, so we're a little out of touch, but our best
guess is that Terror One is still down at Launch. Everybody else is scattered
all over the facility. That suggests an obvious option."
"Copy, Ulysses," Armont replied. "That means Plan B. We'll have to take
down that point, and then secure the devices. Behead the dragon, then see
what's left."
"My hunch," Vance concurred, "is that if you take out Ramirez the rest
of them will fold. He's their main man. But I suggest extreme caution. He's
a pro."
"Copy that, Ulysses. Hang on while I put you on standby. Don't go
away."
"I copy."
Armont paused to search the sea below with his IR goggles while he
scanned the military frequencies. Neither pleased him. A new storm was
growing, building in intensity, and it would complicate matters. But even
worse, the military frequencies on the radio were abuzz.