Project Cyclops Part 87

"Not good enough, it would seem." He laughed, a mirthless grunt.

"You're a crafty bunch of f.u.c.kers. I'll grant you one thing, though. At least you knew enough not to put up with micromanaging from the other side of the globe. You ended up doing exactly what we would have if anybody had let us. Vietnam all over again." He was reaching into his pocket for a Montecristo. He pulled out two. "Care to join me? Castro may not be able to run a country for s.h.i.+t, but he can still make a half-decent cigar."

"Thank you," Armont said, taking it. He hated cigars.

"By the way, I'm Eric Nichols."

"I know," Armont said. "JSOC." He had followed Nichols's career for years, always with an idea in the back of his mind. "I also know you've got one more year till retirement, but you don't seem like the retiring type."

Nichols stared over the lighted match he was holding out and smiled.

"Tell me about it." Then he looked around at the men of ARM, the pile of balaclavas and MP5s, vests of grenades. And

discipline, plenty of discipline. It was a sight that did his heart good. "Your boys look like they've been around."

"In a manner of speaking." Whereupon Pierre Armont proceeded to give Major General Eric Nichols an overview of the private club known as the a.s.sociation of Retired Mercenaries. Including the financial dimension.

Nichols nodded slowly, taking deep, thoughtful puffs on his Montecristo. He was already way ahead of the conversation. "I think we might need to have a talk when all this is over. A look into the future."

"It would be my pleasure," Armont said. "Dinner in Paris, perhaps. I know the perfect restaurant." He did. Les Amba.s.sadeurs, in the Hotel Crillon. French, though not too French. Rough-hewn Americans like Nichols always got slightly uneasy when there was more than one fork on the table and the salad came last.

"Sounds good to me," Nichols said. "Just as long as I won't be getting any a.s.shole phone calls from the Pentagon while we talk."

"I can virtually guarantee it," Armont replied. "But in the meantime, we do need a favor or two from you. For starters, we would much prefer to just be numbered among the civilians here." He smiled. "That is, after all, what we are. Civilians with toys."

"And some pretty state-of-the-art ones at that," Nichols said, looking around again. "But I sometimes have problems with my vision, can't always be sure what I'm seeing. Like right now, for instance. I can't seem to see a d.a.m.ned thing."

"Oh, and one other favor," Armont continued, nodding in silent appreciation. "We took one of the terrorists alive, a certain Jean-Paul Moreau, who is wanted in a string of bank robberies all over France.

It's Action Directe's idea of fund-raising. We'd like to remove him back to Paris. There're some . . . parties there who will pony up enough bounty to cover the costs of this operation and make us whole.

How about it? For purposes of your mission debriefing, can you just say the precise number of hostiles remains to be fully established? When we get back to Paris, he's going to fall out of a bus on the rue de Rivoli and be captured." He paused, hoping. The Americans might not go for this one. "We would be particularly grateful. And so would several financial inst.i.tutions I could name."

Nichols drew again on his Cuban cigar, starting to like this Frog a lot. "Why the h.e.l.l not? If you're not here, then I can't very well know _who _you take out, can I? Never heard of the guy."

"Thank you very much," Armont said, and he meant it. This was indeed a man he could work with. "I'm glad we see the situation eye to eye."

"Somebody at least ought to come out of this cl.u.s.ter-f.u.c.k whole,"

Nichols reflected wistfully. "Jesus, what a disaster."

Armont had turned to watch as the Deltas began easing Dimitri onto a metal stretcher. He seemed alert, and he even tried to lift a hand and wave. Armont waved back and shouted for him to take it easy. "By the way, that Greek civilian over there is named Spiros. He runs a security business out of Athens and never leaves town, which is why he wasn't here."

"Got it." Nichols nodded. "Guess a lot of things didn't happen today."

He looked around. "But I've still got one question. We've already counted about half a dozen dead hostiles. So if n.o.body was here, then who exactly took down all these terrorist motherf.u.c.kers?"

"Well," Armont explained, "we both know Delta Force doesn't exist either. So maybe this Greek suns.h.i.+ne gave them terminal heatstroke and they all just shot themselves."

"Yeah," Nichols concurred with a smile, "d.a.m.nedest thing."

9:31 A.M.

"Georges, what do you think?" Cally asked. "Can it be saved?"

"Well, first the good news. The Fujitsu is okay." He wheeled around from the workstation. Command was a shambles, but he had managed to find one auxiliary terminal that would still function. That workstation, and the lights, were on, but not much else. "It was buried deep enough in the bedrock that it escaped the EMP, the electromagnetic pulse, from the blast. If we'd lost our sweetheart, we'd be dead in the water."

"Any telemetry?"

"Yep." He smiled. "The tapes were on. We had Doppler, almost from liftoff. The Cyclops computed our acceleration from it, and the results look to be right on the money. The not-so-good news is that the last telemetry we recorded, just before the bomb went off and the Cyclops crashed, showed that VX-1 was about three minutes away from capturing orbit. I think we probably made it, but I still can't say. However, since Big Benny was already reducing power, getting ready to shut it off anyway, maybe, just maybe we got lucky."

She sighed. "When will you know for sure?"

"Right now I'm trying to get Arlington on-line and tied into here. I'm hoping we can patch into their satellite receiving station. Anyway, I should know in a few minutes, a.s.suming the vehicle is still sending back telemetry."

"Care to venture a guess?" She collapsed into a chair next to him. This was the first time she had been in Command for several hours and it seemed almost strange. Whereas the staff over at Launch Control had opened the champagne immediately after lift-off, still not fully aware of all the behind-the-scenes drama, the Command technicians were too sh.e.l.l-shocked to think, and they were only now slowly drifting back in.

Not the people in Launch, though. All they knew for sure was that they had done their job, even if the gantry had collapsed for some mysterious reason. VX-1 left the pad without a hitch. They had a success.

"Well, if I had to lay odds," Georges went on, "I'd guess we captured orbit, but it's going to be erratic. However, if we can get the Cyclops up and running again, maybe we can do a midcourse correction." He tapped something on the keyboard. "Yet another first for the never-say- die SatCom team."

She had to laugh. "You look pretty cool, Soho, for somebody who just lived through World War Three."

He tried unsuccessfully to smile. "Hey, don't go by appearances. I tried to open a Pepsi just now and my hands were shaking so badly I finally just gave up and went to the water fountain. Cally, I'm a wreck. I'm still quivering. G.o.d." He pulled at his beard, then absently added, "I'm going to shave this off. What do you think? It isn't me."

"It never was." She had refrained from telling him that earlier, but now he seemed to want to talk about trivia, maybe just to take his mind off all the heaviness around. And there were two new things she did not want to tell him. The first was that millions of dollars were riding on his every keystroke. The second was that she was thinking a lot right now about somebody else.

9:43 A.M.

"Mike, I can't believe it," Bates said, hanging up the phone. The one in his office was among the few still working, and it had been ringing off the wall. "Know who that was?"

Vance had not been paying heavy-duty attention. He had been thinking about the woman out there now talking to the computer hacker with the scraggly beard.

"What? Sorry, Bill, I wasn't listening."

"Hey," he laughed. "Your mental condition isn't what it might be. Tell you the truth, you look like a guy who just mixed it with a twenty- horsepower fan, and lost. You really ought to go over to medical and get your face looked after."

"The Deltas are probably still over there. If I showed up, I might just get arrested. Don't think I could handle an interrogation right now.

Better to hide out for a while longer." The fact was, he still felt too disoriented to think about how he must look. He hurt all over, and he almost didn't care.

"Whatever you say." Bates shrugged. "Anyway, that guy on the phone just now was a j.a.p by the name of Matsugami. He just happens to run NASDA."

"What's that?" Vance asked, trying to clear his mind enough to remember the initials. The information was back there somewhere, but he just couldn't reach it.

"You really are out of it, buddy. You of all people ought to know perfectly well it's their National s.p.a.ce Development Agency. He says they're disgusted with all the failures they've been having with the American and European commercial rockets. He wants to talk about a contract for SatCom to put up their next three broadcast satellites.

That means we get to haggle for six months while they try to trim my foreskin, but I think we'll get the job. Laser propulsion is suddenly the hottest thing since Day-Glo condoms. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d who took us over just gave us a billion dollars of publicity." He laughed. "I'd almost like to kiss what's left of his a.s.s, except it's probably somewhere in the ozone about now."