“I’ll call Brackman.”
Brackman made Overton poll the crew and civilian clients over the intercom. The vote was unanimous. Even the civilians bought in.
By 1734 hours, all station personnel were aboard the lifeboats, but the boats had not been released from the spokes. The station was in darkness except for the Command Center where Pearson and Overton waited. Donna Amber had had to be ordered to leave the Radio Shack. The radar operator had been the first to volunteer to remain at his post, which was located in the hub and probably most vulnerable if the warhead impacted.
“Seventeen-thirty-five hours, Colonel,” the radar operator reported. “Antenna’s directed at the target.”
Six minutes away.
“Take it to the max,” she ordered.
The Command Center’s lights and video screens dimmed as the operator poured fifteen million watts of energy into the antenna. Though the antenna was directed away from the station, Pearson felt the power. Any person in line with that radiation would have been incinerated. She felt the static electricity charging along her arms and legs, sparkling in her hair.
She grabbed Jim Overton’s arm and hung on tightly.
Neither of them had anything to say.
“Damn, amigo, that sucker’s coming up fast!”
“You’re the one with the steady hand,” McKenna reminded him.
“I didn’t expect to meet it at forty-fuckin’-thousand miles an hour.”
The direct vision screen displayed Themis at full magnitude. A dot that had grown quickly into a blob.
Below her, the sun glinted off a pinhead. German warhead.
McKenna had already armed all eight of his space-configured Wasps. They were only going to have one chance, and they were going to fire them off at one-tenth-second intervals. The computer had accepted the fire command, but with no linkage in the guidance systems, Munoz had to determine when, and in which direction, he was going to fire the first one.
Orange targeting circle on the screen, slithering around.
Themis became an orange.
“Guessing six hundred miles,” Munoz said, dropping the magnification.
Themis contracted, then became an orange, again.
Then a cantaloupe.
The screen flashed to radar output.
“Two-one-six miles, jefe.”
A watermelon.
“Hot damn!” Munoz yelled. “Amy-baby blew it off course. Screwed up its innards.”
The powerful radar emissions had interfered in the warhead’s electronic brain, setting off thruster bursts.
A half second.
The station accelerated at them.
“It’s still gonna hit!” Munoz yelled.
“But later, later!” Pearson called. “Off-course by one-point-two minutes.”
Themis went past them so fast, nearly a half mile away, that her image barely registered on McKenna’s brain.
And time was gone.
The tiny warhead sailed into the orange circle.
Munoz squeezed his trigger.
The Wasps launched.
The warhead blew up in a white spark that appeared tiny against the blackness of the universe.
And then the spark was gone, far behind them.
“Hell of a lot of effort, for all of the fireworks we got,” Munoz complained.
Twenty-one
The western sky was tinted orange and red and violet, and the air had chilled nicely.
Above the southwestern horizon, not blotted out by the yellow lights around the swimming pool, a bright white star flickered.
“That’s Themis, lookin’ good,” Munoz said.
McKenna didn’t answer, but he thought so, too. He took another sip of his Dos Equis.
He turned his head to look at the dark bulk of Buttermilk Mountain. That looked good to him, also.
“You see the six o’clock news, Kev?”
“Didn’t bother.”
“They got six of the wells concreted in.”
“Good.”
“They found Weismann’s body in the launch control bunker. Lynn did it up right.”
“That she did.”
“The Germans are callin’ for new elections. Want the military overhauled.”
“That’s good, too, Tony.”
“Jesus, jefe. Wish you wouldn’t talk so damned much.”
“My mind’s elsewhere,” McKenna said, which was true.
“That case, and seein’ it’s dark, amigo, it’s time for me to be gettin’ on.”
“See you later, Tony.”
Munoz put his bottle on the table, pushed out of the chaise longue, and walked around the pool. He stopped to talk to the blonde, fidgeted around for a bit, then sat down beside her. When the waiter appeared, he placed an order for something or other.
“You didn’t get your hair cut today, McKenna,” Pearson said. Her voice floated in the semidarkness, coming from the chaise on the other side of him.
“You didn’t, either. But I don’t mind.”
They sat silently for ten minutes, McKenna very aware of her presence.
Finally, McKenna said, “Well, I think I’m going to take another hot shower.”
“Me, too,” she said, getting up to take his hand.