Ignition. Part 14

Iceberg urged the puttering buggy faster. He ducked low as he tore across the concrete parking lot toward the sluggish water, the turning basin used for floating in empty external tanks for the shuttle.

The huge bay doors wouldn't allow him to move far enough out of Cueball's line of sight.

Turning, he saw the bald man swing the launcher up.

Cueball looked through the missile launcher's sight. From this position, he had all the time in the world.

Sunlight glared off the metal of the Mobile Launcher Platform. He s.h.i.+fted his aim, saw the tiny man racing away like something from a comedy routine, and overcompensated for the distance.

He fired the missile.

The Stinger shot forward as its propellant ignited. Startled, Cueball jerked the launcher. The missile's heat-seeking sensor spotted the bright reflection of the sun gleaming from the polished hull of the platform.

Like a spitting cobra the Stinger spun wild, streaking sideways, curving in a crazy arc until it slammed into the biggest structure in the middle of the High Bay 3.

One of the stacked solid rocket boosters.

The Stinger detonated-and ignited 1.1 million pounds of propellant, ammonium perchlorate oxidizer, powdered aluminum fuel, and iron oxide catalyst, designed to burn . . . and burn hot.

The resulting explosion was like the Challenger accident inside an enclosed building.

27.

LAUNCH CONTROL CENTER.

THE BRIGHT FIREBALL OF the VAB explosion spread a garish smear across the TV screens in the viewing area. Though the speakers picked up no sound, Nicole winced as if the boom of the incredible detonation had slammed into her.

Within seconds, though, the narrow launch windows shattered, spraying through the open metal louvers.

People screamed. Mr. Phillips held up an arm to s.h.i.+eld his face and jerked his head aside. The sound of the explosion seemed to go on and on. Then the shock wave pa.s.sed, rumbling into the distance.

No one spoke. Suddenly weak-kneed, Nicole slumped into her chair breathing heavily, sharply. The stale, air-conditioned atmosphere inside the observation deck felt cold on her teeth, suddenly mixing with the humid outside air that drifted in through the broken windows. A rush of sweat made her silk blouse clammy, sticking to her skin.

Iceberg had been in there at the VAB, going out in a blaze of glory. Idiot! She hated him for his impetuousness, for thinking he could handle any problem head-on and alone.

Now the Vehicle a.s.sembly Building was in flames, gutted in the explosion.

And worse, Iceberg was dead.

Mr. Phillips let his eyelids fall closed in a shudder of amazement. He dropped his arm away from his eyes and stared at the smoke boiling from the VAB. "Exhilarating!" he said, "but also disappointing." He turned to view Atlantis. Three miles away from the blast, the shuttle looked unharmed. His mouth formed a deep scowl, etching lines around his lips. "This is really turning into a mess . . . and it could have been so simple if you all had just followed a few elementary instructions. If you can put a man on the moon, you should be able to meet a simple ransom demand."

He shook his head while staring at the flames roaring out of the mouth of the VAB as the solid rocket fuel burned and burned. "Just look at that. I never meant to cause such grievous damage to this wonderful facility. Think of how much this alone will set back the s.p.a.ce program." Mr. Phillips slapped his forehead.

"Sometimes it makes me just want to cry."

Andrei Trovkin turned slowly from the narrow viewing window, squaring his broad shoulders and moving like a pot coming to a boil. His fists clenched like battering rams, and his florid face turned crimson with anger. "I could kill you, Mr. Phillips," he said.

Feigning boredom, Mr. Phillips replied, "Yes, and I could have you killed. But let's try to avoid that, shall we?" He looked to Yvette, who stood lithe as a switchblade ready to spring open. She grinned, showing perfect teeth on her tanned face.

Standing at his station, ignoring the roiling flames from the VAB and the broken gla.s.s scattered on the floor around him, Senator Boorman returned to his telephone conversation. His ponderous voice grew more strident. He wiped the back of his hand across his tall forehead, smearing droplets of perspiration. "If you can't help me, then let me talk to someone who can. I'm Senator Charles Boorman!" He punctuated each word with a pounding of his fist on the countertop.

Boorman caught Mr. Phillips watching him. The senator calmed himself and tried to sound more reasonable as he spoke again into the phone. "Look, the whole world is watching. I'm only concerned for the safety of those poor crew members inside Atlantis. Think of how this tragedy is affecting their families.

Someone else might get hurt."

Nicole tore her attention away from the VAB fire, bristling at the senator's crocodile tears.

Mr. Phillips folded his arms. "Having problems, Senator? You people have only two and a half hours remaining."

Boorman turned away. His voice thinned out, becoming more of a hiss as he spoke into the phone. "Just yank it out of next year's s.p.a.ce program budget, for G.o.d's sake! So what if we fly one less mission. Do you really think we'll be able to afford another VAB anyway?" He leaned forward as if trying to climb inside the phone.

Nicole turned back to the conflagration on the screens, thinking of the damage. Through the smoke and flames she could see twisted steel girders and gaping holes where the siding had blown away. The Vehicle a.s.sembly Building had been built with so many steel reinforcements and pilings driven down to bedrock that the building frame had withstood the explosion. Little short of a direct nuclear attack would destroy the entire VAB, but it would take a great deal of time and money to refit. She drew in a breath.

Nothing could bring back Iceberg, though.

28.

VEHICLE a.s.sEMBLY BUILDING.

JUST AS THE HEAT-SEEKING missile struck the solid rocket boosters, Iceberg drove the ATV headlong to the edge of the turn basin, not slowing. He flung himself off the vehicle and dove into the questionable shelter of the sluggish water as the shock wave belched out of the VAB. He had no place else to run, or hide. He just hoped he could get low enough, duck the worst of the blast.

The fireball roared through the high bay of the VAB like Armageddon. Flames erupted, boiling out the huge open door. The shock wave slammed Iceberg deeper into the warm water-and he stayed under, not knowing how far the flame front would sweep.

The three-wheeled vehicle toppled into the deep mud at the edge of the basin, as if a grizzly bear had slapped it aside.

Iceberg stayed low in the warm water that led to the curling waterways that connected with the Banana River. So much for keeping his cast dry. His ears rang from the shock pressure. Desperately needing a breath, he felt the impact of the delayed heat wave roll over him, singeing the short hairs on the back of his neck.

After holding his breath for nearly a minute, he lifted his head and gasped for breath. Hauling himself dripping to his hands and knees on the muddy sh.o.r.e, he looked dully back at the destroyed building.

Even such an explosion was not able to flatten the ma.s.sively reinforced VAB-but with more than a million pounds of propellant inside each solid rocket booster, plus flammables stored in the high bays, the building's interior raged in an inferno. More than a kiloton of high explosives-and thank G.o.d he was far enough away and underwater. Flames shot out every opening and crack, and what was left of the side walls reverberated with the shock. Hot burning debris fluttered down from the sky.

"And I thought my life would get boring once I was pulled from this mission," Iceberg muttered. He waited a few moments before he hauled himself out of the turn basin, dripping. The three-wheeler lay on its side in the mud, and with his injured foot he would never be able to retrieve it.

His confiscated rifle had been submerged, and he doubted it would still function. His cast was soaked through, and would probably begin to fall apart within an hour or so. This whole situation wasn't turning out as well as he had hoped.

Iceberg had just crawled back onto dry land when he heard the sound of yet another blast, from farther away. He jerked his head up, searching for the source of the sharp boom.

A plume of gray-black smoke rose over the swamps not more than a mile away. Iceberg's heart froze as he wondered what else could go wrong. The entire Kennedy s.p.a.ce Center had turned into a war zone!

29.

NASA TELEVISION RELAY BLOCKHOUSE.

SCRAMBLED NIGHTMARES, DARK IMAGES, and weird impressions interrupted by sudden thunder . . . The explosion was loud enough to wake the dead-or at least someone in an abyss of drugged sleep. The noise was so tremendous, the shock wave so sharp, and the burned chemical smell so pungent that it slashed through tranquilized stupor and nudged Amos Friese back into semiconsciousness.

His head felt as if it were wrapped in bandages. Each breath seemed like a slow sucking of air through a tiny straw used to stir coffee. His arms and legs felt leaden, tingling, as if some Pygmy had shot him with a curare-tipped blow dart. . .

Blow dart!

Amos suddenly remembered: a scarlet dart striking him, its sharp point stinging. As he stumbled backward, the dart poked through his bulky sweater, just p.r.i.c.king his skin. He had slapped it off, but not before receiving a sufficient dose to trip him over the cliff into a deep, unconscious paralysis.

Amos groaned, and his voice sounded like another explosion in his head. It took him several tries before he managed to pry his eyelids open. Gray light seeped in. He smelled acidic smoke, chemicals burning, as if an explosive had gone off nearby.

His clothes were clammy with perspiration, the thick sweater wrapped around him like sodden blankets, cold from the blockhouse's excessive air-conditioning. Everything remained fuzzy, out of focus.

He realized that he couldn't see because his gla.s.ses had fallen off. No, not fallen off-someone had removed them. He found them folded and neatly-lovingly?-laid on his chest. With numb, clumsy fingers Amos unfolded the eyegla.s.ses and settled them on his face again, blinking until images came into focus at last.

Lying p.r.o.ne, he scanned the video relay station. He spotted cracks in the cement floor that had been painted over and sealed when the old blockhouse had been refurbished. A black beetle toiled awkwardly across the floor.

"Oh man, oh man," Amos said, and propped himself on one elbow. Big mistake. The motion set off bongo drums of pain inside his skull, reminding him of a hangover he'd once had when he went out drinking with his brother. Amos had foolishly tried to keep up with the other fighter pilots, shot for shot-not something he wanted to do more than once. With the care he usually reserved for bringing up a new computer system, Amos drew himself into a sitting position.

"h.e.l.lo?" he croaked. "Anybody here?" He heard nothing but the hum of the air conditioner and feedback from the many video monitors on the racks behind him. "Cecelia?" he said.

Holding the edge of the desk, he hauled himself up, swaying dizzily. Straightening his legs, he heard a tiny clink on the floor. He saw a red-feathered dart attached to a mostly full hypodermic vial of amber liquid. He had been lucky, he realized. With his thick sweater and his own quick dodge, he had received only a partial dose.

But why had the strangers left him here unattended? Cecelia had mentioned something about the CIA .

. . but he doubted that story.

Or were they still around?

On his desk Amos saw his windup orange s.p.a.ce shuttle, his jar of jawbreakers, and the cans of now warm Jolt Cola, just the way he had left them.

Then he spotted Cecelia's shoes and her outstretched legs poking from behind her desk.

His heart leaped, and adrenaline slammed him fully awake. They must have tranquilized her, too.

Weaving like a drunkard, he worked his way over to her. He held the edge of his own desk, then grabbed a battered swivel chair that threatened to throw him off balance again.

"Cecelia," he gasped, "hey, wake up." He reached her desk; then he thought again of the two "CIA"

strangers in their NASA jumpsuits . . . how nervous Cecelia had been.

Now she lay sprawled on the floor in her bright flower-print blouse and black slacks. Her once dusky skin looked waxen. Another scarlet dart protruded from the flesh of her plump neck just above the collarbone.

This time, though, the hypodermic vial was completely empty.

Amos felt his heart sink like a mainframe dropped in water. "Cecelia," he said again, but his voice came out in a hoa.r.s.e croak. With the remnants of dizziness from his drugged state, and the shock of seeing her like this, his legs turned wobbly. He knelt by Cecelia's side, propped up her head, and brushed her dark hair away from her face. He had always wanted to run his fingers through her hair. . .

Her big brown eyes remained closed. Amos gently touched her eyelids but received no response. Her skin felt unnatural, like vinyl.

He put his ear next to her nose, sensed no warm exhalation coming from her. After swallowing hard and hesitating more from fear than embarra.s.sment, he laid his head on her breast, listening for a heartbeat.

He found none.

Amos sat with Cecelia's head cradled in his lap. He kept stroking her hair, but it brought him no pleasure. He wanted to say things to Cecelia, to ask her questions and tell her his thoughts, things he hadn't had the nerve to do before. But no words came.

Amos knew the two CIA impostors must have been up to some fiendish job. He felt anger burning through him, enough to drive back his grief. He pictured the c.o.c.ky freckle-faced redhead, and the blond Amazon woman who had shot him with a blow dart; only through his own blind luck had Amos averted a fatal dose of the drug himself.

But they had taken care of Cecelia. Oh, yes, he could see that. Suddenly coming to himself, Amos noted again the acrid smoke in the air, like gunpowder-something burning, a sharp chemical flame. He struggled to his feet and saw daylight s.h.i.+ning around the blast corridor, where the bunker's heavy s.h.i.+eld door had been closed.

He carefully straightened Cecelia's hair, folded her arms across her ample chest, then staggered toward the blockhouse entryway. He pa.s.sed through a mazelike series of sharp corners built of thick cinderblock designed in the Apollo days to prevent explosive damage from penetrating into the interior.

The bunker's heavy steel door had been twisted outward, as if some great hand had punched it from its hinges. The cement-block walls were also chipped and cracked, smudged with a flash of smoke.

Two burned and b.l.o.o.d.y NASA security officers had been thrown outside, their uniforms crisped, their entire bodies looking as if stepped on by the force of an explosion.

Someone had b.o.o.by-trapped the door. The security officers had tried to get into the video relay bunker to rescue Amos and Cecelia-and they had triggered the bomb.

Amos's mind whirled. "Oh, man!" he said. The pieces began to fall into place. Those two impostors had forced Cecelia to bring them here for . . . for what? The blond Amazon had shot both of them with a blowgun, leaving Amos for dead . . . then the two had done something and departed, rigging explosives to take care of anyone who came to investigate.

But the blast had finally been enough to wake him up. "I would have preferred an alarm clock," he saidto himself.

He worked his way back to the racks of video monitors. The heavy tranquilizer drugs still made his mind fuzzy, but he had to get with the program-and right now.

Action! Doing anything was better than sitting around and doing nothing. That's what his brother would say. He knew Iceberg could have handled this problem in a cinch, but Iceberg was out watching the launch somewhere. He probably didn't even know anything suspicious had happened.

When Amos reached the bank of TV screens on their metal racks, he studied the images in shock. The chronometer showed that Atlantis should have already launched, but the countdown had frozen in an indefinite hold. "Oh, man."

On another screen he stared at the smoldering exterior of the Vehicle a.s.sembly Building. Black flames curled out from a portion of the outer wall.

"Oh, man!" he said again, with more energy this time.

On screens displaying the interior of the Launch Control Center, all the firing-floor technicians stood helpless beside their stations, upset, confused-and finally on the image of the VIP observation deck Amos saw Nicole Hunter, indignant and frustrated beside a short but suave-looking man. With them stood the blond Amazon and the c.o.c.ky redhead, both of whom carried ominous weapons, holding the LCC hostage.

Definitely not CIA.

Amos turned cold. Fumbling, he picked up the phone and punched 9 for an outside line, intending to call 911. But he heard no dial tone. The line was dead. He tried it again. Still nothing. Running his hands over his panel that controlled the relay lines, he flicked a switch. An LED display blinked: all outside transmissions had been cut off.

Amos slumped back in his groaning old chair. Cecelia dead, himself attacked, the video blockhouse b.o.o.by-trapped, the VAB in flames, and terrorists with guns strutting through the Launch Control Center.