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.