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.