'The entire plant and the transmission stations are operated by computers two floors beneath us,' explained Stuckey. 'The project is ninety-nine percent automated. What you see here, Mr. Sarveux, is the fourth-level manual monitoring system that can override the computers in the event of a malfunction.'
'So humans still have a degree of control.' Sarveux smiled.
'We're not obsolete quite yet.' Stuckey smiled back. 'There are a few areas left where electronic science can't be fully trusted.'
'Where does this wealth of power terminate?'
'In a few days, when the project is fully operational, we'll service the whole of Ontario, Quebec and the northwestern United States.'
A thought began to germinate in Sarveux's mind. 'And if the impossible occurred?' Stuckey looked at him. 'Sir?'
'A breakdown, an act of God, sabotage.'
'Nothing short of a major earthquake could put the power facilities entirely out of commission. Isolated damage or breakdown can be bypassed by two safety backup systems. If those fail, we still have manual control here in the booth.'
'What about an attack by terrorists?'
'We've planned for exactly such a threat,' said Stuckey confidently. 'Our electronic security system is a marvel of advanced technology, and we have a five-hundred-man guard force to back it up. An elite division of assault troops couldn't reach this room in two months.'
'Then someone here could cut the power.'
'Not someone, singular.' Stuckey shook his head resolutely. 'It takes every man in this room, including myself, to close off the energy flow. Two, even three cannot do it. We each have a separate procedure unknown to the others that is built into the systems. Nothing has been overlooked.' Sarveux wasn't so sure.
He held out his hand. 'A most impressive tour. Thank you.'
Foss Gly had been meticulous in selecting the means and place for killing Charles Sarveux. Every drawback, however remote, had been taken into account and met with a counteraction. The angle of the plane's ascent was carefully measured, as was its speed. Many long hours were spent in practice sessions until Gly was satisfied that the gears of the plot meshed with exacting precision.
The site chosen was a golf course, one mile beyond the southwest end of the James Bay Airport's main runway. At that point, according to Gly's careful reckoning, the Prime Minister's government plane would have reached an altitude of 1500 feet at a speed of 180 knots per hour. Two British-manufactured hand-held Argo ground-to-air missile launchers, stolen from the army arsenal at Val Jalbert, were to be used for the attack. They were compact, weighing thirty pounds each when loaded, and easily concealed in a hiker's backpack when dismantled.
The entire plan, as calculated from start to finish, was a classic in efficiency. No more than five men were required, including three waiting on the golf course disguised as cross-country skiers, and one lookout on the observation balcony of the terminal building, with a concealed radio transmitter. After the heat-seeking missiles were launched at the target, the attack group was to ski casually toward the deserted clubhouse and leave in a four-wheel-drive station wagon, guarded by the fifth man who would be waiting in the parking lot.
Gly searched the sky with a pair of binoculars while his fellow conspirators assembled the launchers. A medium snow was falling, cutting his sight to a third of a mile.
It proved a mixed blessing.
The white curtain would shield their actions but leave them precious few seconds to aim and fire at a fast- moving object during the brief interval when it was visible. A British Airways jet passed over and Gly timed its passage before it was swallowed up by the weather. Barely six seconds. Not good, he thought grimly. Their chances of two direct hits were razor thin.
He brushed the snow from a great mass of light sandy hair and lowered the binoculars, revealing a square, ruddy face. On first glance it was attractive in a boyish way. There were congenial brown eyes and a firm-cut chin, but on closer inspection it was the nose that upstaged the other features. Large and misshapen from numerous breaks suffered during brutal back-alley fights, it squatted between his cheeks with a strange beauty to its ugliness. For some inexplicable reason women thought it attractive, even sexy.
The tiny radio in the pocket of his down jacket beeped to life. 'This is Dispatch to Field Foreman.'
He pressed the transmit button. 'Go ahead, Dispatch.'
Claude Moran, a reed-thin, pockmarked Marxist who worked as a secretary for the governor-general, adjusted his earpiece receiver and began talking softly into,a lapel microphone while gazing through the observation balcony viindow at the flight line below.
'I have that load of pipe, Field Foreman. Are you ready to receive it?'
'Say when,' replied Gly.
'The truck will be along shortly, as soon as the dock crew unloads a shipment from the States.'
The innocent-sounding conversation was contrived to throw off anyone who happened to be tuned to the same frequency. Gly interpreted Moran's double-talk as meaning the Prime Minister's plane was second in tine for takeoff behind an American Airlines passenger jet.
'Okay, Dispatch. Let me know when the truck leaves the dock.'
Personally, Gly felt no hatred toward Charles Sarveux. To him the Prime Minister was only a name in the newspapers. Gly was not even Canadian.
He was born in Flagstaff, Arizona, the result of a drunken coupling between a professional wrestler and a county sheriffs teenage daughter. His childhood was a nightmare of suffering and whippings dealt by his grandfather. In order to survive, Gly became very strong and hard. The day came when he beat the sheriff to death and fled the state. After that it had always been a fight to stay alive. He began by rolling drunks in Denver, led a ring of auto thieves in Los Angeles, hijacked gasoline tank trucks in Texas.
Gly did not look upon himself as a mere assassin. He preferred to be called a coordinator. He was the man who was called in when all others failed, a leader of specialists; he had a reputation for cold-blooded efficiency.
On the observation platform, Moran inched his face as close as he dared to the window before his breath fogged the glass. Sarveux's aircraft appeared to be dissolving into the falling snow on the taxi lane leading to the start of the runway. 'Field Foreman.'
'Yes, Dispatcher.'
'Sorry, but I cannot see my way clear of paperwork to give you an exact time for the pipe arrival.'
'Understood,' Gly answered. 'Check with me after lunch.'
Moran did not acknowledge. He took the escalator down to the main lobby and walked outside, where he hailed a cab. In the back seat he allowed himself the luxury of a cigarette and wondered what high appointment in the new Quebec government he should demand for his services.
On the golf course, Gly turned to the men aiming the missile launchers. Their eyes were pressed against the sighting lenses as each kneeled on one knee in the snow.
'One more takeoff to target,' he cautioned them.
Nearly five minutes dragged by before Gly heard a set of jet engines roaring in the distance as they strained to lift their burden off the snowy asphalt. His eyes tried to penetrate the white wall in anticipation of seeing the red-and-blue insignia of the American airliner flash into view.
Too late, it dawned on him that aircraft belonging to heads of state took preference over commercial flights. Too late, the sight of the familiar red-and-white Canadian maple leaf burst through the blanket of snow.
'It's Sarveux!' he shouted. 'Fire, for God's sake, fire!'
The two men pressed their firing buttons no more than a second apart. The first jerked his sights in the general direction of the plane, but his missile soared up and arched too far behind the tail structure for its heat- seeking mechanism to lock on target. The second man fired with more deliberation. He led the cockpit windows by a hundred yards before he let loose.
The explosive head, locking on to the exhaust of the outer starboard engine, homed in and struck aft of the turbine. To the men on the ground it seemed the muted explosion. came long after the plane had vanished from sight. They waited for the sounds of a crash, but the fading whine of the engines remained unbroken. Quickly, they dismantled the launchers and skied to the parking lot. They were soon mingling with the southbound traffic on the
