had obviously been extensively reinforced with steel inside. There was a ladder to the top, with a metal grate as the floor of the top story, and it was an easy climb up. He found some toys, a battery-powered radio, and a nice German telescope up there-obviously the owner’s grandkids liked coming up here.
He used his binoculars to scan the compound and the highway, then scanned the coastline and the nearby waters for any sign of surveillance-nothing. He then took the battery pack out of his pocket, flipped a hidden switch, and hid it as best as he could on the floor. The battery pack was actually a powerful ultrasonic motion detector that could detect any type of motion for several hundred yards in all directions, even through walls. Ignoring the soft beeps in his ear set, indicating his own movements, he went back down the ladder and to the house.
Whack brought his laptop computer and AC adapter to the patio outside the kitchen, booted it up, then selected an application from a hidden and password-secured menu. It showed a satellite image of the compound, along with red dots that indicated motion. He rotated the image until the dots representing the horses’ movements in the stable was aligned with the image of the stable. When he stood up, he saw the dot corresponding to his own movement on the patio, so he knew the image was properly aligned. Now he would receive a warning beep in his ear set when the motion detector saw something, and he could see where the movement was on the laptop. He was able to squelch out the movement of the horses in the stable from alerting him, knowing but accepting the fact that anyone else moving in that same area wouldn’t trigger an alert.
Perimeter security done, he opened his e-mail application. Armstrong Space Station and the Space Defense Force’s network of satellites provided most of the world with free wireless Internet access, and although in this part of the Middle East it was not high-speed access, it was still impressive service. Just in case the Russians were able to tap into satellite e-mail services, he sent an e-mail address to his phony home office’s address, then one to a phony colleague’s address. He knew if the Russians could beam damaging data to American Kingfisher satellites, they could probably pick up wireless data broadcasts for hundreds of miles around, so he had to make this look realistic.
He then opened a Short Messaging System chat window with a phony girlfriend, but writing messages took much longer than normal because he used a mental encoding routine he had learned in Air Force special operations. Every commando learned a system of messaging to be used on unsecure transmissions based on a twenty-five character alphabet, arranged in a five-by-five grid. The date of the message told which of six possible encoding grids was to be used, and the first word in the main message would indicate the sequence to pick letters out of words to use to compose the coded message.
He then mentally used the grid and the sequence to compose a regular-looking message, filled in this case with standard boyfriend-girlfriend chat, remarks on the trip so far, and a few sexually suggestive lines. The recipient would use the same grid and sequence to pick out characters to form the message. All special ops guys had to learn this system by heart and be able to execute it without using pencil or paper to encode or decode, which took time but was a very effective poor man’s secure telephone.
The phony girlfriend’s e-mail address actually went via several secure servers directly to Patrick McLanahan. OK HERE he wrote. Those six letters took an entire 160-character SMS message to write.
McLanahan had a computer that would do the encoding and decoding for him, but he knew to keep the messages short because Whack had to mentally do the decoding. Patrick replied, GUARDS 24. That was a doubling of the known number of Russian guards at the facility, a sign that the mission could be compromised.
Whack sent: GIA.
Patrick replied: NO WORD.
Damn, Whack thought, it’s gotta be tough on the old guy. He wrote: GIA OK.
Patrick: CUSTOMS.
Whack: CURIOUS.
Patrick: GEAR.
Whack: ALL HERE.
Patrick: ASSEMBLED.
Whack: VISITORS.
Patrick: COPS.
Whack: MAIDS.
Patrick: LUCK.
Whack: GIA OK, then LATER.
Check-in done, he prowled around the house and the grounds. He found plenty of Irish whiskey, Scotch, bourbon, and tequila semihidden in the kitchen, got out a bottle, dumped a little in the sink to make the bottle look used, poured himself a half glass of water, and strolled outside-just in case he was being observed, it hopefully would look like he had fixed himself a drink and was settling in for the night. He then went back to his laptop and reviewed the information on the robotic fish-trap thingy he was supposed to demonstrate in a couple days.
About an hour before sunset, the motion sensor alerted him to a vehicle in the driveway, and a few minutes later Salam al-Jufri’s family arrived in a dilapidated Toyota pickup. Whack thought they acted as if he’d given Salam a yacht instead of a twenty-dollar tip-they bowed profusely every time they made eye contact, they brought enough food to feed a family of six, and they lit enough lanterns around the place to land a Boeing 747. The mother handed Whack a message written in broken English saying that they’d be back around seven A.M. for their morning chores, and reminded him to keep the big lantern near the front door lit so they would know not to disturb him in his bedroom as they worked. After they departed, Whack took the time to look around the compound for signs that any of the family had stayed behind. Satisfied he was alone, he got to work.
It took him just minutes to assemble the Tin Man armor exoskeleton from the parts in the big duffel bag, then hide it in the bathroom. He waited another hour until well after sunset, donned the Tin Man armor, then slipped on the exoskeleton and powered it all up using the battery packs in the duffel bag, which had been redesigned to resemble scuba diver’s weights. Everything appeared normal-another big hurdle crossed.
Now using the suit’s built-in secure communications system, he radioed: “Whack here.”
“Good to hear your voice,” Patrick McLanahan responded.
“Same here, General. Anything on Gia?”
“Navy helicopters have been on station for about two hours. They found wreckage but no survivors. No beacons. A destroyer from the Reagan carrier group will be there in a couple hours to assist.”
“She’s okay, General. They’ll find her.”
“Head back in the game, Whack. You copy the message about the guards?”
“I’ll be ready for twice that number.”
“You think customs suspects something?”
“The inspector didn’t look like your run-of-the-mill Jamaican glorified skycap-turned-customs-agent, General,” Whack said.
“He made me as military right away. I’d be surprised if he didn’t drop a dime.”
“Then maybe we’d better wait another night or two,” Patrick suggested.
“They won’t be expecting a Tin Man, General,” Whack said. “I assume the Russians are watching the house, and I assume they’ll be watching to see if I take off in the Range Rover-I’m a good six miles from the airport and to town at least. My tails will stay with the car, and I’ll be out and back in no time while they twiddle their thumbs. I say we press on.”
Patrick hesitated, but only for a moment, before replying, “Okay, Whack. Press on.”
WENCHANG SPACEPORT, HAINAN ISLAND, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
THAT SAME TIME
Riding an immense column of fire, the Chinese Long March-5 booster rocket lifted off from its launchpad on Hainan Island into the chilly, clear early morning sky. The massive rocket, China ’s heaviest-lifting model, had a three-stage, fifteen-foot-diameter core, with four ten-foot-diameter strap-on boosters, for a total of almost a million tons of thrust.
The launch window was very narrow for one reason: The payload for this mission was Shenzhou-10, the next component of the Chinese military space station, which was to link up with Shenzhou-7, already in orbit. Like the earlier spacecraft, Shenzhou-10 comprised three modules: the orbiter section, where most work was done; the command module, which was designed for reentry and had accommodations for the three-man crew; and the
