Ramirez walked into Command, wondering. Peretz was at the main workstation, the one normally controlled by Georges LeFarge, and he was wearing a big grin, the stupid one he sported so often. So what was the problem? He had sent a computer message to Launch, saying they needed to talk. What was this about? He suspected he already knew.
The room was busy, resounding with the clatter of key boards, the whir of tape drives, the buzz of fans, the hum of communication lines, the snapping of switches. Above them a digital clock showed the countdown, clicking off the hours, minutes, and seconds, while next to it were the three master video screens: the first giving the numerical status of the Cyclops power-up sequence, the second depicting the Fujitsu's latest orbital projection, being lines across a flat projection of the globe, and the third showing a live feed from the base of VX-1, where the antlike images of SatCom Launch Control staffers could be seen methodically readying the vehicle, not having any idea what was about to go up.
"Got a little item to go over with you," Peretz said, in Arabic, not looking up from his screen. "A minor business matter."
"What's on your mind?" Ramirez asked in English. "We're all busy."
Peretz glanced in the direction of Salim, who was standing by the door, keeping a watchful eye on the staffers. Salim, he knew, spoke Farsi as a first language and English as a second. Like many Iranians, he had not deigned to learn Arabic. Peretz, on the other hand, spoke it fluently. Furthermore, he had brushed up on it in his recent experiences with the Palestinians. Ramirez, of course, had spoken it for almost twenty years, finding it indispensable for his business dealings in the Islamic world.
"The time is overdue for us to have a business chat," Peretz continued in Arabic, revolving around in his chair. "I've been thinking over the money. It strikes me that the split ought to be 'to each according to his ability,' if you know what I mean. You're a card-carrying Marxist, right?"
"If you insist," Ramirez replied, immediately realizing he had been right about the direction the conversation was going to take. He also understood the reason for the Arabic. "You may have the quotation in reverse, but I assume you did not call me down here to discuss the finer points of collectivist ideology."
"Nobody ever called you dumb, friend," Peretz went on, now settling comfortably into the mellifluous music of the Arabic. He actually liked the language better than Hebrew, understood why it was the perfect vehicle for poetry. "So I expect you won't have any trouble understanding this.'' He was handing Ramirez a plain white business envelope, unsealed.
Sabri Ramirez suppressed an impulse to pull out his Beretta and just shoot the fucker between the eyes. The only thing that surprised him was why this extortion-for that surely was what it was-had been so long in coming. Peretz had been planning this move all along.
After a moment's pause, he took the envelope and held it in his hand, not bothering even to look down at it. Instead he let his gaze wander around the room, taking in the rows of video terminals, some with data, some with shots of the working areas, together with the lines of shell-shocked staffers. Then his gaze came back to Peretz, a novice at the trade.
This inevitable development, in fact, almost saddened him. He had, over the past couple of months, acquired almost a fondness for the Israeli. He even had come to tolerate his irreverent humor, if that's what it could be called. Thus he had begun to wonder, in a calculated way, if they might have a partnership that could continue beyond the current episode. A good tech man was hard to find…
"Do I need to bother opening this?" he said finally. "Why don't I just guess. At this point you feel your services have become indispensable, so you want to restructure the distribution of the money. You want to cut out the others, and I suppose there's even a chance you want to cut me out as well."
"Cut you out?" Peretz grinned again. "Never crossed my mind. The way I see it, we're business partners, baby, colleagues. I'd never, ever try and screw a partner, surely you know that. What do you take me for? No, man, I just think there's no point in giving monetary encouragement to all these other assholes."
"And what if I don't choose to see it your way?" Ramirez kept his voice calm.
"Well, there could be a lot of problems with the countdown, if you know what I mean. There's only one guy around here who could fix it. So I think teamwork is essential. You do your part and I do mine. The old 'extra mile.'"
"Your 'extra mile,' I take it, is to finish the job you were hired for in the first place." Ramirez found keeping his voice even to be more and more difficult. But he had to bide his time. A quick glance at Salim told him that the Iranian did not have an inkling of what was going on.
"You might say that." Again the inane grin.
"And mine is to restructure the dispersals of the money afterwards." Ramirez's eyes had just gone opaque behind his gray shades. "Something like that."
"Not 'afterwards.' Now. It's all in the envelope."
'Tell you what," Ramirez said finally, his anger about to boil over. "I'm going back to Launch, and I'll take this with me. What's the point in opening it here, raising questions."
"You'd better take this problem seriously, believe me," Peretz interjected, vaguely unnerved by Ramirez's icy noncommittal. "I'm not kidding around."
"Oh, I take you quite seriously, Dr. Peretz." He was extracting a thin cigar from a gold case. "I always have. You will definitely get everything you deserve."
"I intend to."