four men were sore and exhausted.
“Well, here we are,” Everett said, slamming the car’s gearshift into park. “Ryan, do you think you can fly with that swollen nose of yours?”
“Very funny. I want you guys to know that this thing hurts like hell-and the face Mendenhall makes every time he looks at me doesn’t help.”
Will turned away and opened the rear door without saying a word, but he was smiling where Ryan couldn’t see him.
Jack stood and stretched as he tried to examine as much of his surroundings as he could.
“What do we do about the excavation, Colonel?” Will asked.
“There’s nothing we can do about it at the moment. We don’t have a clue how deep this thing goes. We may be dealing with the Ecuadorian government and their military.” He turned and faced the others as he closed the car’s door.
“What about the weapons inside?” Ryan asked. He gently touched his nose.
“They won’t be there even if we do come back. We need to bring Niles up to date as fast as possible. This thing has to be figured out at management level.”
As the men turned and headed for the private section of the new airport, James McCabe lowered the field glasses that he had been using to examine the parking structure across the way.
“We can shoot them before they board their aircraft,” his assistant said.
McCabe raised the glasses once more and watched as Collins and his men moved into the terminal.
“Why in the world would I want to do that?” he asked, smiling. “When mistakes are made in field operations, you try not to compound them by making another equally disastrous move.” He lowered the glasses and tossed them to the plainclothes security man. “You minimize the mistake by at least getting intelligence for the next round of battle. When they leave here, we’ll know exactly where they will land.”
“Yes, but instead of a tracking device, we should have planted a bomb onboard their aircraft,” the large German said, turning to follow McCabe.
“That is why you are you and I am me. I need to know who Jack and his pals are working for, and I couldn’t do that if he’s dead, could I?”
McCabe opened the door of his limousine.
“I want those two fools who got shot up on the roadway eliminated for trying to kill them after they managed to escape. You should have passed on my orders far sooner than you did,” McCabe said, looking closely at the large German before stepping into the limousine. “And that’s exactly why I will kill you if my instructions are not followed to the smallest detail. You see, there must be discipline in the ranks or else there will be chaos. And then we could not do what we are paid to do.” The small man climbed into the car and the German felt the heat of the man’s glare.
“Now, I need to go to our private hangar. I feel like blowing something up.”
Director Appleby watched the face of Niles Compton. Although tired from his many flying hours in the past day, Compton seemed bright and eager. He was astonished to see what DARPA in its dark guise had to show him.
They stood in a small nondescript room and watched the large screen before them. Sarah, always one to show wonderment when faced with the unbelievable, walked to the screen and placed her hand on the image. She turned and looked at Appleby.
On the large monitor the director had instructed the NASA/DARPA computer system to bring up a split image of two different warehouses. One of the warehouses was active. Niles, Virginia, and Sarah saw men and women walking around in their white coveralls as they worked. In the foreground was the giant solid booster rocket that made up the heavy power stage.
“Mr. Compton, I give you the Ares I. The new platform is an in-line, two-stage rocket configuration. The vehicle’s primary mission is carrying crews of four to six astronauts into Earth’s orbit. However, Ares I may also use its twenty-five-ton payload capacity to deliver resources and supplies to the International Space Station or to park payloads in orbit for retrieval by other spacecraft bound for the Moon or other destinations. Normally this would have been in the cut portion of the president’s budget restraint, but with the retirement of the space shuttle program nearing, the president pointed out a small loophole in the budget, some sort of secret black project that kept the Ares program operational.”
“How many do we have?” Niles asked, looking at the giant booster and Ares’s different stages as they lay prone in the massive complex housing the project. The director of DARPA saw that Compton had expertly sidestepped the issue of the president secretly saving the Ares system even though his budget cut had called for it. On the monitor everything gleamed in pure whiteness and the sight was so impressive that Niles had a hard time not looking at its beauty.
“One platform is available now, complete with the Orion crew capsule and the Altair lunar lander. All are highly advanced systems designed for Moon debarkation and extended habitation. The other Ares can be put together in a matter of a week and transported to either one of two launch facilities, complete with a three- quarters-finished lunar landing and transport system.”
“We have two Ares and no other backup?” Niles turned and faced Appleby. “Those are all untried systems.” Niles held up a hand when Appleby looked to protest. “That’s not a rebuke, just an observation. What if the president gives a go to a Moon mission and the system fails?”
“That’s exactly why I brought you here, Mr. Compton. I need to show you the only reliable backup we have.”
Sarah stepped back from the large screen as Appleby punched some buttons on the computer keyboard. “My science offices axed this program many, many years ago, but NASA, in its nostalgia, hung on to it.”
As they watched, the scene went from Ares to a view that was live but had none of the activity that the Ares I mission warehouse had. The giant hangarlike structure was dark and all they could see was four men standing near a giant object.
“This is a warehouse on seldom used grounds at the Cape-hidden away, if you will.” Appleby looked at Sarah and Virginia. “That’s Cape Canaveral.”
As they tried to figure out what it was they were looking at, Appleby brought a phone to his ear.
“Okay, Dan, hit the lights and pull off the tarp. Let’s show our guests what it is they’re looking at.”
Niles, Virginia, and Sarah watched as the bright lighting of the warehouse came up. The four men reached for the bottom of a giant red plastic tarp. They started pulling. Soon they were joined by several security men in white shirts in an effort to get the tarpaulin off without the massive hundred-yard material killing someone. As it finally gave, Niles recognized it immediately and fell in love all over again. He recognized the most amazing sight he had ever seen as a boy, an object that dwarfed the men who were uncovering it.
“I give you the Atlas V rocket, designed by Wernher von Braun, at one time the most powerful launch system in the world.”
Niles examined the copper-colored features of the unpainted Atlas V. It was glorious in all its terrible beauty. The vehicle that had taken mankind to the Moon over four decades before was still a sight that sent chills down his spine.
“Are you telling me we have a complete system?”
Appleby smiled and stepped up to the screen. “We have this one and one other, but the second is hanging like an old out-of-date picture in the Smithsonian. NASA never had the willpower to dismantle this one. We have everything for the old girl. We have the Apollo capsule, which of course we couldn’t use today for safety purposes, and we also have the lunar lander, or LEM, complete with upgrades for her systems on the design boards. But I’m afraid that would take too long to rebuild. We would probably have to go with a third Altair lander, if we can match the designs together.”
“My God,” Sarah and Virginia said simultaneously.
