Why? Harry demanded silently. Why would any one of them want to scrub this mission? Is he a spy, for Chrissakes? With a disgusted shake of his head, Harry reasoned, No, that couldn’t be it. None of us knew we were flying into a shooting war when we took off. We all thought it was going to be just another milk run.
Not a spy, then. Not an enemy agent. No James Bond stuff. But then why the hell did he do it?
And did he cause the explosion out on the Mohave? Did he kill Pete?
Harry sat there mulling his thoughts over and over again. Slowly he began to think that he really didn’t want to know. One of my people is a saboteur, at least. Maybe a murderer. I don’t want to know who it is.
But he realized even so that he had to know. He had to find out. I can’t let him try again. He might kill us all, for god’s sake. Or her. Maybe it’s Taki. Is there something in her background that I don’t know about? Something that makes her willing to commit suicide to stop this mission? She’s third - or fourth - generation American, but is there some of the kamikaze spirit inside her?
He gulped at his tepid coffee, got to his feet, and went to the tiny stainless steel sink to rinse out the mug. You’re going nutso, he said to himself. Absolutely dingbat. Taki’s no Japanese spy, for Chrissake.
But somebody removed the lens assembly. One of my people. Somebody who figured that would be the simplest and least dangerous way to abort the mission. Knock out the ranging laser and we’re out of business.
Who? Who?
Harry leaned against the sink, his mind spinning. Then he stood up straight and went to the galley’s hatch. Instead of standing around asking yourself questions, he reasoned, go out and
It wasn’t much, but it was all that Harry could think of doing.
Zuri Coggins looked up from her mini’s screen and announced, “The President’s landed at San Francisco International.”
Michael Jamil turned in his chair to face the wall screen that showed CNN, Fox News, and three other news channels. None of them was showing the President’s arrival in Air Force One. There must be a crowd at the airport to greet him, Jamil thought, his brows furrowing. That’s why he landed at the commercial airport instead of a military base. Why aren’t the news nets covering his arrival?
And then it hit him. The satellites are out. No instant news coverage from the West Coast. I’ll bet they don’t even have coaxial cables anymore to carry TV across the continent.
General Scheib was also bent over his laptop screen. “The tanker’s taken off from Misawa,” he said. “Should make rendezvous with ABL-1 in about one hour.”
General Higgins came down the table and bent over Scheib’s shoulder. “Will your plane have enough fuel to make the rendezvous?”
Without looking up at Higgins, Scheib muttered, “That’s a decision the pilot has to make.”
“The tanker’s on its way! Took off ten minutes ago!” O’Banion called so loudly that Karen Christopher could hear him through the open cockpit hatch even with her helmet on.
“ETA?” Christopher said into her lip mike.
It took several moments before O’Banion replied, more softly, “Sixty-eight minutes.”
Major Kaufman leaned toward Christopher. “That’s way past our bingo point.”
The colonel nodded slowly, her mind racing. “We have enough fuel to wait for the tanker. Once we make rendezvous we can refill our tanks.”
Kaufman’s face showed what he thought of that. “And what if the goddamned tanker breaks down again? What if it misses the rendezvous? There’s a big storm blowing down there. We can’t sit here and wait till our tanks run dry!”
“The tanker’s on its way,” Colonel Christopher said firmly.
“And we’re supposed to orbit around here and hope the damned tanker finds us?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s crazy!”
“The tanker will be here before we run dry, Obie. This is no time to panic.”
“So when is the time to panic? When we’re in the drink, in the middle of a goddamned typhoon?”
A fragment of memory flashed through Colonel Christopher’s mind, a legend she had heard while in the academy about a B-17 mission over Germany during World War II. With Nazi fighter planes swarming in on them, the copilot of the Flying Fortress screamed that they had to turn back, get away. The pilot unlimbered his service revolver and threatened to blow the copilot’s head off if he didn’t shut up and do his job. Karen regretted that she hadn’t packed her service pistol on this flight.
“I’ll tell you when it’s time to panic, Obie,” she said coolly. “Now keep your voice down, you’re frightening the kids.”
Kaufman stared at her, his baggy-eyed face a mixture of anger, fear, and disbelief.
“You’re gonna stooge around here until we run out of fuel?” he asked, his voice lower.
“Until the tanker shows up,” Christopher corrected. “And then we’re going to shoot down any goddamned missile those goddamned gooks launch.”
And there it was, tucked in behind the spare packs of toilet paper.
Harry had searched the galley and the compartment where he and his team sat during takeoffs and landings, knowing that whoever took the lens assembly wouldn’t stash it in such an obvious place but looking in the obvious places first. He worked his way back along the COIL’s long, bulky length, sticking his nose into every corner and cranny he saw. Nothing. Rosenberg and Angel Reyes watched him with some bemusement on their faces as Harry sniffed and peeked and ducked under the tanks that held the big laser’s fuel.
He started back, intending to check out Taki’s station. Somebody could stick the lens assembly inside one of the consoles there, or even between consoles; the assembly wasn’t much bigger than the palm of his hand.
The plane seemed to be turning again; Harry felt the sway as the lumbering jet slowly banked right. Again he wondered if he should ask Colonel Christopher what was going down, but again he decided that she probably had her hands full and didn’t need anybody pestering her. She had made it painfully clear that she regarded Harry and his team as a bunch of tech geeks. Well, he mused, that’s what we are, really. Besides, I’ve got my own job to do.
He had to urinate. The lavatory was next to the galley and Harry pushed through the accordion door. On an impulse he bent down and opened the sliding door to the compartment that held the extra toilet paper and paper towels. The boxes looked jumbled, not in a neat stack. Harry pulled a couple of them out and there was the lens assembly.
Harry squatted down and stared at it, his need to urinate forgotten. In his mind he tried to re-create the scene. Whoever yanked the assembly out of the ranging laser must have done it last night, while we were going through the preflight inspection. He knew the rest of us were in the plane and he only had a couple of minutes to hide it. He could carry it down from the flight deck and right through the battle management station, even if Taki was sitting there. She’d be focused on her console with her back to whoever was passing through the area. Besides, the assembly was small enough to hold in your hand, and even if she turned around or glanced over her shoulder she probably wouldn’t have noticed it.
Or maybe not, Harry thought. Maybe it was Taki herself.
He carefully restacked the paper goods cartons and started to leave the lavatory. Then his bladder reminded him of why he’d come into the lav in the first place.
The President stood at the forward hatch of Air Force One at the top of the stairs while the band played “Hail to the Chief” and the crowd that had gathered on the tarmac roared its greeting.
