Project Cyclops Part 82

What was that sound? His senses quickened and he turned to squint at the southern horizon. Through the light fog he could hear the faint beginnings of a dull, familiar roar, and he realized immediately it was choppers coming in. He quickly pulled out his Tas...o...b..noculars and studied the morning sky--two helos, both looking like ungainly spiders.

Yes, they had to be Apaches. What else.

Great, he thought, once more the U.S. has got its timing dead on. The first time they showed up and managed to keep us from getting Ramirez, and this time they decide to drop in just after his Sikorsky took off, probably taking him and the last of his goons out, undoubtedly with a few hostages for good measure. From all appearances, he had gotten away. Again. It was sickening.

Now the guns.h.i.+ps were dropping alt.i.tude and moving in, boldly, with the authority their firepower commanded. He wondered if the teams on board might actually be unaware that Ramirez had escaped.

"We ought to go out and signal them in," Armont said. "Let them know how useless--"

Warning flares erupted from the Hughes 30mm in the nose of the first Apache, missing the Agusta by no more than fifty meters.

"Christ! They don't know who the friendlies are." He immediately canceled his impromptu plan to head out and wave. The U.S. Army was in no mood to dialogue.

"Do they think Mike's a terrorist?" Reggie asked, incredulous. But even as he said it, he realized that must be exactly what they thought. They were going to try to force down the Agusta. Or shoot it down.

"Reggie, draw their fire!" Armont yelled. Almost by instinct, he raised his Steyr-Mannlicher a.s.sault rifle and opened up on the lead helicopter, going for the well-protected GE turboshaft on the left.

"Don't try to kill anybody, for G.o.dsake. Just distract them."

'This is insane," declared Willem Voorst, who had come out to see what all the excitement was about. "What are you doing? I don't want to go to war with the United States of America."

Then he noticed the blue-and-white Agusta hovering over VX-1, Vance dangling, and put it all together. Without a further word he aimed his MP5 and got off a burst, watching as it glinted harmlessly off the second Apache's left wing.

Miraculously it worked. The Army's favorite helicopters

were huge, with a main rotor almost fifty feet in diameter, but they could turn on a dime and these did. They came about and opened fire with their chain guns on the cinderblock portico where Armont and Hall and Voorst were ensconced.

The 30mm rounds tore around them, sending chunks of concrete flying, but the structure was temporarily solid enough to provide protection.

Armont ducked out and got off another burst, keeping on the heat, then back in again.

Now the Agusta was hovering just above the nose of the VX-1 vehicle, and Vance had disappeared on the other side. What, Armont wondered again, could he possibly be doing with the vehicle . . . ? Then the answer hit him, as transparent as day.

_Merde!_ He's going to try and retrieve the bomb.

Good Christ, he thought, the man has gone mad. He may know how to trace hot money halfway around the globe, but he doesn't know zip about a nuclear device. He'll probably set the thing off by accident and blow the entire island to--

A spray of cannon fire kicked up a line of asphalt next to where he was standing, and he retreated for cover deeper behind the cinderblock portico. They're not going to fool around long with that chain gun, he told himself. We're going to be looking at rockets soon, and then it's game up.

"We've done what we can for Michael," he yelled, getting off one last burst. "We've got to get back inside before they get tired of playing around and just fry this place."

"I hear you," Willem Voorst agreed, already headed deeper inside.

"Mike's on his own."

7:47 A.M.

Vance had never been more scared in his life. This made a day at a stormy helm seem like a Sunday stroll. The down-draft was spinning him violently now, a lesson that rappelling was not for the faint of heart.

Then he remembered some basic physics and held out his arms, helplessly flapping like a wounded bird. But it was enough, as his spin immediately slowed.

He was dizzy now, but when he came around, he got an overview of the launch facility, and the glimpse made him realize that something had gone terribly wrong. What were those? Two Apache helicopters were hovering and they were firing on . . . on the Bates Motel. Just beyond the fallen gantry.

Why! Ramirez and all his goons were gone or dead.

Bill Bates, who also had seen it all, had a better understanding of what was under way. It was a ma.s.sive failure of communications.

Thinking as quickly as he could, he started negotiating the Agusta around, situating VX-1 between him and the Apaches. The f.u.c.king Delta Force had come in like gangbusters and was shooting at the wrong target. There was no time to try to raise them on the radio, and besides, he only had two hands.

Down below, Vance slammed against the hard metal of the nose, and then rotated, one-handed, to try to take measure of what to do next. It wasn't going to be easy, that much was sure. The payload bay was sealed with a Teflon ring, which was itself secured with a series of streamlined clamps that were bolted from inside, designed for automated control. But . . . there also was lettering next to a thumb-operated hatch that read EMERGENCY RELEASE.

He flipped it open and, bracing himself against the side of the silver cone to try to overcome the destabilizing down- draft, looked in. A red b.u.t.ton, held down for safety by another thumb latch, stared back.

What the heck, he thought, you've got nothing to lose. He flipped the thumb safety, and then--bracing himself to try to slow his erratic spin-- slammed a heel into the b.u.t.ton. Nothing happened for a second, but then the Teflon clamps on the cargo bay began to click open one by one.

Up above him, Cally was yelling something, but he couldn't make out her voice above the roar of the engines. Anyway, whatever it was, it would have to wait. There was only one thing left to do, and he had to press on. The clamps were now released, but the cargo bay was still closed. .

At that moment, he began experiencing yet another failure of nerve.

There could only be a minute left, two at most, and he didn't have the slightest idea what to do next.

Then he noticed the heavy release levers, positioned beneath the Teflon clamps and circling the three sides of the streamlined door. Once more bracing himself against the slippery side of the nose, he began clicking them open, starting on the left and working his way around.

Time is surely running out, he told himself. This could end up being the stupidest stunt ever attempted. The roar of the Agusta above was so deafening he could barely think. He felt all of his forty-nine years, a weight crus.h.i.+ng down on him with the finality of eternity. . . .

Then the last clamp snapped free, and he watched as the door opened by itself, slowly swinging upward. It was heavy, shaped like the pressure door on an airplane fuselage, and designed to withstand the frictional heat of s.p.a.ce flight. But the spring mountings on the recessed hinges were intended to open and close automatically.

And there sat a metallic sphere outfitted with a jumble of connectors and switches. So that's what a bomb looks like, he marveled. It was somehow nothing like he had imagined, if he had had time to imagine.

Now Bates had lowered the helo just enough to allow him to slide inside and take the weight off the line. Finally he could breathe, but again the matter of pa.s.sing seconds had all his attention. If the vehicle really was going up at 7:48, then there probably was less than a minute left now to get the device unhooked and out.

He looked it over, puzzling, and decided on one giant gamble, one all- or-nothing turn of the wheel. It was a terrifying feeling.

Quickly he untied the wire from around his waist, and began looping it around the metal sphere: once, twice, three times. There was no time, and no way, to disconnect the telemetry, so the device would simply have to be ripped out. One thing was sure: if it blew, he would never be the wiser.

When he had the wire secure, or as secure as he could make it, he looked out the door and gave Cally a thumbs-up sign, hoping she would understand. She did. She turned and yelled something to Bates, and a moment later the Agusta began to power out as the pitch of the blades slowly changed. The line grew taut, then strained against the sides of the bomb, tightening his knots.

Will the wire hold? he wondered, and does this little toy helo have enough lift to yank this thing out of here? It's like pulling a giant tooth.

Then there was a ripping sound as the connectors attached to the sphere began tearing loose. So far so good, he thought. At least the telemetry is now history. If the vehicle goes up now, it'll be orbiting a dud.

Mission partly accomplished.

Then the bomb pulled away from its last moorings and slammed against the side of the door, leaving him pinned against the frame, unable to breathe. But he instinctively grabbed the line and wrapped his legs around the sphere, just as it rotated and broke free. As it b.u.mped against the doorframe of the payload bay, he barely missed hitting the closing door, but he ducked and swung free, into the open air, riding the device as though it were a giant wrecking ball.

7:48 A.M.

"Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds firing on us have gone inside," Philip s.e.xton yelled.