the image on the screen, he went on. “That’s the latest imagery. Looks like they’re in countdown mode.”
Scheib saw that the missiles were standing on their pads, slight wisps of steam issuing from the rime-coated section where the liquid oxygen tanks were.
Sliding into his own chair, he asked, “How old’s that picture?”
“Ten minutes,” Higgins replied. “We’ve got a low-altitude bird coming over their horizon in another three minutes. Should give us better resolution.”
Scheib tapped at his laptop’s keyboard. According to the tracking satellite in geosynchronous orbit, ABL-1 had just made a turn north to parallel the Korean coastline. He squinted at the radar imagery. A pair of tiny dots was also over the Sea of Japan, behind the 747, heading toward it.
Grabbing up the laptop’s headset, General Scheib said into its lip mike, “I need a real-time voice link with ABL-1.”
A hesitation, then a woman’s voice in his earphone replied, “Sir, we need authorization from—”
Without waiting for her to finish, Scheib called down the table, “Possum, I need authorization for a real-time voice link with ABL-1.”
Anger flashed in General Higgins’ face; he obviously did not like being called Possum.
Without waiting for Higgins to open his mouth, Zuri Coggins leaned over Scheib’s shoulder and said crisply, “Authorization code NAS one-one-three, alpha-alpha-omicron.”
Scheib heard in his earphone, “Checking . . . authorization verified. Establishing voice link.”
Coggins heard Scheib muttering, “Come on, come on.”
Still in his chair at the head of the table, General Higgins suddenly realized why Brad Scheib was in such a sweat to have a voice link with ABL-1. He leaned over toward his aide, sitting at his left, and whispered, “Who’s piloting that plane?”
“ABL-1, sir?”
With a disgusted look, General Higgins replied, “No, the
Looking flustered, the aide tapped at his keyboard, then answered, “Lieutenant Colonel Karen Christopher, sir. I have her complete dossier—”
Higgins waved him to silence, thinking, Christopher. The one who clammed up at the Advocate General’s hearing. The one who was accused of sleeping with a married general.
One glance at the anxious, intense expression on Scheib’s handsome face and Higgins knew whom Christopher had shacked up with.
“Fighters coming up fast,” O’Banion reported, his voice a notch higher than usual.
Colonel Christopher had ordered her comm officer to activate ABL-1‘s search radar. No sense trying to stay quiet now, she reasoned. They know we’re here. Might as well get a good line on them.
“What’s the word from Andrews on the missiles?” she asked into her pin mike.
“Launch is imminent, as of . . . seven minutes ago.”
Kaufman muttered from his copilot’s seat, “Hope the bastards blow up on the pad.”
Christopher nodded. That would solve a lot of problems, she thought.
“Incoming message, Colonel, direct from the Pentagon.”
They got a direct satellite link working, Christopher said to herself. That’s good. They can hear us get shot down in real time.
“Put it through,” she commanded.
“Colonel Christopher, this is Major General Scheib.”
Brad! In the middle of all this he’s calling me!
“Christopher here,” she said, trying to hide the tremor she felt inside.
A heartbeat’s delay. Then Scheib’s voice said, “Two DPRK interceptors are vectoring toward you.”
“I know.”
It took half a second for her words to be relayed off the satellite and his response to get back to her.
“You have the option of turning away and exiting North Korean territorial waters.”
“We’re not over their territorial waters. We’re twenty miles off their coast.”
Again the delay, longer this time than normal. “I repeat, you have the option of turning around. You may abort your mission if you deem it necessary.”
She heard what he was saying. I love you, Karen. I don’t want you to be killed. I don’t care if it starts World War III—I want you safe.
But then she realized that instead of ordering her to turn tail and leave the mission unfulfilled, he had placed the choice in her hands. Come back to me, that’s what he was saying. But the responsibility is yours. The choice between nuclear war or not is yours. I love you, but I don’t have the guts to take the blame for what happens next.
Taki looks cool as a cucumber, Harry thought as he sat beside Nakamura and watched her run through the diagnostics on her console. If she’s the one who stole the optics assembly she sure doesn’t look nervous or scared about it. Harry felt relieved; he hadn’t wanted to believe it was Taki. Wally, yeah, maybe, he thought. That wiseass might be up to it. Probably not Angel; he’s too straight-arrow. Monk? Why would Monk try to screw up the mission? Why would any of them?
The answer came to him: for money. Whoever it was did it for money. When he thought this was just a test flight he tried to ruin it so that we’d look bad to the Air Force and DoD would cancel Anson’s contract and give it to one of our competitors.
Great deduction, Sherlock, Harry said to himself. So which one of them was it? Which one needs money so bad he’d sabotage a flight test? Wally gambles on the football pools. He makes no secret of that. Angel? I don’t see Angel getting himself into a hole that way. The kid’s worked too hard to get where he is to hand his money over to gamblers. Still, you never know.
Monk? Harry tried to remember if Monk ever took plunges with gamblers. Not that he could recall. Monk wasn’t the gambling type. Hell, even when they were all making bets on who would be named leader of the team, Monk threw in only a couple of bucks. Harry remembered Monk’s knowing grin when he put his money down on the pool.
“I’m the favorite,” he’d told Harry. “I can’t get decent odds.”
No, Monk’s too smart to get into debt with gamblers.
“Are you with me, Harry?”
It took an effort to snap his attention back to Taki, back to the mission and the reality of an impending nuclear war.
“I’m sorry,” he said, flustered. “I was thinking . ..”
Nakamura looked slightly disappointed. “I asked you if you’d double-check the board for me. Looks to me like everything’s ready to go, but it’d be better if you double-check.”
“Right,” Harry said. “Sorry.”
The gauges and screens on the consoles showed the status of every segment of the laser’s system. Harry ran his eyes across both the console he was sitting at and Taki’s, beside him. Everything looked okay. The COIL was pressurized and ready to fire. Ranging laser ready. Electrical power in the green. Computer humming.
“Looks okay to me, Taki,” he said. “We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”
She nodded. The only sign of apprehension on her face was the tightness of her lips. Without a word she unlatched the covers on the amber arming and red firing buttons.
“So who was Annie Oakley?” she asked.
“Where are those fighters?” Colonel Christopher asked into her pin mike.
O’Banion quickly answered, “Thirty miles behind us, seven o’clock. Closing fast.”
“Between us and the coast,” Major Kaufman said.
Christopher nodded. “I wonder what their orders are.”
“Shoot to kill.”
