Project Cyclops Part 11

8:25 P.M.

Hamblin thought briefly about raising Guard Command at the front desk on his walkie-talkie and inquiring what in h.e.l.l was going on. But then he knew how they hated false alarms. Particularly when the top bra.s.s was busy, like tonight.

He turned and studied the blinding white glow surrounding the two launch vehicles, VX-1 and VX-2, down by the superstructure on the western end of the island. They were basking in glory, as though antic.i.p.ating tonight's power-up of the Cyclops. He automatically glanced at his watch: the big test was scheduled for about twenty minutes from now.

No, instead of running the risk of looking like a jerk by reporting the expected arrival of SatCom execs he should have known about, he'd check this out himself. Jesus, why didn't anybody tell him anything?

He mused that security precautions here had been intended to guard against infiltration through the fences, not to prevent a chopper from coming in. Guess they figured n.o.body would be crazy enough to try and sneak in using a helicopter.

As he moved toward the landing pad, just over a hundred yards farther on down the fence line, he searched his memory for something he might have forgotten. No, he'd glanced over the schedule for the pad this afternoon and nothing was listed. Dr. Andros--what a fox she was, made those plump German broads look like leftover hamburger--always had been good about keeping the schedule up to date. He liked that and counted on it. But then maybe this was some kind of unscheduled situation, connected with the test. Who the h.e.l.l knew?

He was about to find out. Fifty yards to go. He could see the chopper now and it was huge, much bigger than anything he'd ever known the company to use. Maybe it was a last-minute delivery. An emergency.

They had touched down, but still no landing lights. That didn't make any sense. Suddenly nothing made any sense. Another ten seconds, though, and he'd zap them with his big flashlight.

He flipped the securing strap on his .38 and tested the feel of the grip. Just to be ready.

He was thirty yards away and he could hear them talking now, though he still did not recognize all the languages. He realized right away, however, that these clowns weren't connected with SatCom. He'd had an uneasy feeling all along, and now he was sure.

Were they industrial spies trying to pull a fast one? Maybe sneak in and take some photos?

He had no time now to radio for help. He was on his own.

He drew out the .38 and c.o.c.ked it. Suddenly it felt very heavy. Then in his left hand he rotated the long flashlight till his thumb felt the switch.

Now.

He flicked on the light, beaming it through the wire security fence and catching the side of the chopper--G.o.d, it was huge--just in time to see several men stepping down. They were wearing black commando outfits and they most definitely were not anybody from the company.

"_You_!" he yelled, his courage growing. "Stop right where you are and identi--"

One of the intruders whirled in his direction, and before he could finish, he felt a deep burning sensation in his chest that slammed him backward. Next a piercing pain erupted in his neck and his head dropped sideways. The asphalt of the pavement came up, cras.h.i.+ng against his nose. He heard the dull thunk of silencers just as the world went forever black.

8:26 P.M.

"Pad perimeter secure," Jamal Khan, Salim's intense younger brother said in Farsi, his voice matter-of-fact. He'd just wasted some stranger; no big deal. Then he slipped the Uzi's strap over his shoulder and turned back. Come to think of it, this was the thirteenth man he d killed with an Uzi. Maybe the number would be lucky. . . .

Ramirez looked out over the facility, confident. Posing as an electronics supplier, he had fully reconnoitered the site two months earlier, meticulously memorizing the location of everything they needed. Once again he reflected on how fortuitous its geometry was. The facility was made to be penetrated from the air.

Stelios Tritsis, their Greek, was busy scanning the walkie-

talkie channels, but he heard no alerts from any of the guards--which meant no more surprises in this remote corner. For reasons of safety, SatCom deliberately had located the helicopter pad as far as possible from the Cyclops and the launch installation. All staff were engaged down at the other end. This guard had been a loner, and he had paid for his stupidity.

"Phase two complete," Ramirez announced quietly as he looked back at the Hind. "Now, remember. No heroics. Everybody on semiauto."

The only obvious security out here was at the entry gate to the chopper pad. After Peretz quickly aborted its alarm by short-circuiting the copper contacts, they moved through single-file. Ramirez stood at the opening, studying each man one last time and hoping he could keep them together as a team.

So far almost everything had gone according to plan. He had hand- picked, a.s.sembled, and trained them four months in Libya, rehearsing them for all the standard ant.i.terrorist techniques that might be used against them--from stun grenades to "Thunder Strips"--then afterward had rendezvoused with them in Yemen to pick up the Hind, the other helicopter, and the two packages. He had made cash arrangements with enough officials in both countries to ensure that no questions would be asked.

The most unreliable team member was Salim Khan, tonight's pilot.

Ramirez watched him pat a twenty-two-round clip into his Uzi and draw back the gnarled walnut c.o.c.king k.n.o.b on the top as he stepped through the gate. He looked trustworthy, but he really wasn't. Ramirez suspected Salim was too bitter, was too strongly of the opinion life had given him a s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g--which meant he was now devoted to settling the score. He liked to live on the edge, push the rules. On the other hand, this mission was all about that, and thus far Ramirez had exploited the Iranian to the hilt. It also meant, however, that he had to be watched: he was a cynical realist who held nothing but contempt for the militant cadres of young firebrands who marched through the streets of Tehran with photos of some ayatollah attached defiantly to their chest, chanting slogans against the Great Satan . . . while wearing jeans whose back pockets read "Made in U.S.A." Because Salim didn't believe in anything anymore, he was difficult to control. Always dicey.

Following close behind him, also carrying a black Uzi, was Jamal, his younger brother. Jamal, with crazy eyes and a coal-black beard, was the exact opposite--he only fought for a cause.

Jamal had come to Lebanon years ago to join Hizballah, a radical organization headquartered in West Beirut and the Bekaa Valley. Since he joined, as many as five hundred Hizballah had been directly involved in terrorist acts in the Middle East and Europe. He believed G.o.d wanted him to carry out a jihad, a holy crusade, against the Americans and Zionists who had surrounded and were choking the Muslim peoples. To prove his faith, he had been part of the team that commandeered a Libyan Arab Airlines 727 in flight between Zurich and Tripoli, leading to the longest hijacking in history. The plane had traveled six thousand miles, bouncing from Beirut to Athens, then Rome, again Beirut, and even Tehran before ending on its third stop in Lebanon three days later.

Miraculously Jamal had walked free. He was a hothead, but he also was a survivor. Jamal prayed five times a day, neither drank nor smoked, and had been one of the explosives experts on the U.S. Emba.s.sy job in Beirut that killed 218 Marines. He was truly a living contradiction.

That was fine with Ramirez. He could care less about Hizballah's radical politics. On the other hand, he'd always made good use of them.

After Jamal's famous hijacking, Ramirez had gone to the Bekaa Valley and found him, and through him Salim--who, by stealing the Hind, had turned out to be much more valuable than his rabid younger brother. All the same, he had problems with them. Iranians sometimes had difficulty discerning the difference between fact and fantasy: as with most Muslims, they thought that saying something was so made it happen.

The tall man striding through after Jamal, nursing a slight limp, was Stelios Tritsis, their only Greek. In 1975, as a young firebrand, he had been a founding member of the famous terrorist organization Epanastaiki Organosi 17 Noemvri. In his heart he was still a radical, dedicated to forcing Greece out of NATO and ending the U.S. military domination of his country. The new American imperialism in the Persian Gulf had only proved he was right all along.

Because of an incident long ago in his youth--a torture episode at the hands of the infamous Colonels--Stelios's eyes never seemed entirely focused. He had become addicted to the morphine given to relieve the pain and never kicked it. Even so, he was their most lethal marksman, and he considered this operation his final revenge against America and her lackeys. The man didn't care, honestly didn't care, about his share of the money. Even Ramirez had to admire that.

Following him was Jean-Paul Moreau, head of the famous Action Directe, whose international wing was headquartered in Paris. Jean-Paul was tall, had long flowing blond hair and determined eyes. He also had a famous bullet scar across his cheek from an attempt in the early eighties to a.s.sa.s.sinate former Justice Minister Alain Peyrefitte with a bomb attached to his car. He merely killed the chauffeur and was wounded by the security guards. But in November 1986 he got his revenge, masterminding the murder of Georges Besse, the chairman of Renault. He wanted nothing more than for Europe to rid herself of Americans and Zionists--toward which end Action Directe had cooperated with the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction on several attacks carried out in France, which was how Ramirez had first met him. In the past Action Directe had financed its operations primarily through bank robberies. After this, Moreau was told, their money problems would be over.

The next man was Wolf h.e.l.ling, the lanky, balding leader of Germany's Revolutionare Zellen. Ramirez suspected his real goal in life was to look as Aryan as possible. Politically he was an anarchist--who had, in 1984, bombed a NATO fuel pipeline near Lorch in Baden-Wurttemberg. RZ's official aim was to pressure the U.S. out of Germany through terrorist attacks and to destroy the West German "system" by conducting guerrilla terrorism against Zionists and militarists. RZ had long-standing ties to Palestinian terrorist organizations, which was again how Ramirez had met him. How ironic for h.e.l.ling, just when he had lived to see the Zionist American military begin to depart Europe, it had become the de facto ruler of the Middle East. He wanted to teach America one final lesson: the propertied cla.s.ses of the world could never be secure.

Following behind him were three beefy former members of East Germany's Stasi--now being sought by authorities in the new unified Germany for torture and other crimes of the past. With few friends left, they had thrown in their lot with RZ. They had always reminded Ramirez of the three monkeys of folklore: Rudolph Schindler, with his dark sungla.s.ses, could see no evil; Peter Maier remained such a rabid ideologue he still could hear no evil (of Communism); and Henes Sommer spoke nothing but evil, against everyone. They were sullen and bitter, but they were perfect goons for auxiliary firepower, or should be. They were men without a country, guns for hire who already had lost everything.

Dore Peretz, their renegade Israeli, walked through last, closing the wire gate behind him. He had fixed his steady dark eyes on only one outcome: he had come for the money, the money only. No politics or mock-heroics for him. He already had selected a seaside villa in Hadera. Despite his annoying tendency to shoot off his mouth, to make jokes at the wrong time, his contribution would be crucial. Ramirez did not wholly trust him, but he needed his computer and weapons expertise.

He asked himself what Peretz would do if the chips were really down.

With luck, however, that question would never have to be answered.

Ramirez almost liked him--he was not sure why--and would hate to have to kill the smart-a.s.s f.u.c.ker. . . .

They were in. Command lay at one end of SatCom's setup, the two vehicles at the other, and in between was the living quarters--known as the "Bates Motel"--as well as rows of small warehouses that contained supplies for personnel and equipment maintenance, used for storage but now darkened and locked. As they moved along the walkway, carefully staying out of the circles of light that illuminated the doorways of the warehouses, their black slipovers blended into the Aegean night.

The minimal lighting in this area caused him no hesitation: he had thoroughly memorized the site. He knew they would find the control center with the computers just below their present location.

Now they were approaching the entry-point to Command, the high-security "lobby." Just inside the gla.s.s-doored s.p.a.ce a uniformed Greek guard occupied a teakwood desk, attentively studying the sports section of an Athens newspaper.

They paused in the last shadows before the open s.p.a.ce fronting the entryway, giving Stelios Tritsis time to shuck his black pullover.

Underneath he was wearing the brown uniform of a SatCom guard, complete with epaulets and the regulation .38. He also had what, upon casual inspection, looked like a SatCom photo ID.

While the others waited, holding their breath, he stepped through the gla.s.s entry doors, feigning a jaunty pace and flipping the pa.s.s impatiently against the leg of his uniform.

When the SatCom guard looked up, puzzled, and started to challenge him, Tritsis was only five feet away. He sang out a h.e.l.lo in Greek, then reached to scratch an itch in the small of his back. When his hand came away, it was holding a small Glock-17 automatic. The shot was directly in the forehead, a dull thunk, and the guard tumbled backward in his chair, his eyes disbelieving, his .38 still holstered. It took only seconds.

Without a word the rest of them moved in.