While their Dassault was manhandled back into the cover of the jungle, Druzhinin led the two leaders back to the command center. Once inside, he observed the mild relief on their faces as they encountered the air-conditioning.
Deputy Chairman Pavel pointed to the cold air vent and said, “You have indeed made changes since my last visit. Welcome changes.”
“We try to bring a little civilization to our hideaway, Sergei.”
Two technicians manned the radar and the communications consoles in the center, and Druzhinin had arranged three chairs behind them. Additionally, a small table held tea glasses and pastries.
Sergeant Nikita Kasartskin stood in the corridor leading to the back. He said, “Comrade Chairman, it is good to see you again.”
Kasartskin had served on Shelepin’s support staff for twelve years.
Anatoly Shelepin smiled warmly at him, “And you, also, Sergeant.”
The computer specialist grinned happily and turned back to his cubicle.
Druzhinin knew that Shelepin did not recall Kasartskin’s name. The Chairman did not see soldiers; he saw manpower.
The three of them took seats, and Druzhinin poured the iced tea.
He asked the corporal at the communication console, “What is the latest report from Colonel Maslov, Corporal Fedorchuk?”
The corporal turned to face him, “Comrade General, he reports that he is seven hundred kilometers away and closing rapidly.”
When McKenna reached the Command Center, he deflected himself off a bulkhead to miss Val Arguento, who was suspended outside the radio shack. Arguento was an Army Master Sergeant who served as both a communications specialist and the security NCO, deputy to Pearson.
Overton, Pearson, and Sergeant Joe Macklin, the radar expert, were gathered around the main console. No one was paying attention to the serene view of South America scrolling upward in the porthole.
McKenna almost reached for Amy Pearson to stop his flight, decided quickly that that might be a mistake, and bypassed her for a grab bar on the side of the console.
The master screen, the largest in the console, displayed the radar mode. Themis’s powerful main radar antenna was housed in a fiberglass radome on the end of Spoke Fifteen. The ninety-foot-wide antenna radiated up to fifteen million watts of energy, enough to fry humans in its path. The range was four hundred miles, though it was normally set to 215 miles, about five miles above the Earth.
The radar was chiefly used for tracking incoming and outgoing HoneyBee rockets and Mako spacecraft, using I-Band for lateral tracking and G-Band for altitude determination. With its ability to scan and track up to 120 targets simultaneously, the Department of Defense utilized the system during combat war games or missile launches from Vandenberg and Kennedy. Additionally, the radar was incorporated into the Space Defense Initiative program.
Reading over Macklin’s shoulder and across the line of data at the top of the screen, McKenna noted the four hundred-mile range setting and the direction of the antenna — to the space station’s west, the normal inbound track for HoneyBees. The oscillating sweep left six blips behind as it flip-flopped back and forth. Each of the blips was identified in small white letters and numerals. He read them quickly.
“I see five satellites in lower orbit and one HoneyBee,” he said. “What’s the status, Joe?”
“She’s three hundred and sixty miles out, Colonel, altitude one-eighty, and closing on us at ten miles a minute. In sixteen minutes, she’s scheduled to reduce speed to a five-mile-a-minute closure rate.”
McKenna scanned the screen once again. “So where’s the bogie?”
“It’s not showing now, sir. I picked it up when it was radiating radar emissions.”
“So it’s got to be Delta Green.” The stealth aerospace fighters were only visible to other radars when they were utilizing their own radars.
“The pilot will be an ex-Soviet,” Pearson said.
McKenna glanced at her.
“Pyotr Volontov’s report said that six of the men he washed out of his Mako training program defected. It’ll be one of them,” she said.
“Good work, Amy.”
She blushed. She was beginning to take his compliments as compliments, rather than as cute ways to put her down.
“And,” McKenna went on, “we’re fresh out of MakoSharks. Damn it!”
“There!” Macklin said.
McKenna saw the radiation pattern appear on the screen, a pulsating “V” erupting out of nowhere, but capturing the resupply rocket in its path.
“Lock it in, Joe.”
Tapping the computer keyboard, Macklin said, “Position locked. The emissions are low, Colonel. About a ninety-mile scan. I put him eighty miles from intercept.”
“Where’s Autry?” McKenna asked.
“He was chasing down a Rhyolite satellite for service,” Overton said.
Macklin worked the controller that changed the direction of the radar antenna, raising it a fraction. Two more blips appeared. He tapped in a command, and the blips grew tags — the satellite was identified, as well as Mako Three.
“Altitude two-four-seven,” Macklin said. “Two hundred and seventy miles out.”
McKenna picked up the microphone stuck to the console top with Velcro.
“Give me a frequency, Val,” he ordered.
Arguento pulled himself into the radio shack, and a few seconds later, his voice came through the bulkhead speakers. “He’s on Utility Two, sir.”
Along the top of the console were keypads for selecting primary-use communications channels. McKenna poked his finger at Utility Two. “Mako Three, Alpha.”
“Alpha, Three.”
“Ken, this is McKenna. Kick your radar to one-twenty and see if you can pick up an in-coming HoneyBee.”
“Roger that, Alpha,” Dennis Bogard, Kenneth Autry’s backseater, replied.
McKenna waited.
“Alpha, the rocket’s about seventy miles below us. Total track from us is one-five-five miles.”
“Divert from your mission and close on the HoneyBee,” McKenna ordered. “Stay about forty miles away.”
“Roger, diverting,” Autry said. “What’s the problem, Alpha?”
“She may be under attack. Watch yourself, Ken. The unidentified hostile is probably armed.”
“And stealthy?” Bogard asked.
“And stealthy. Don’t take any chances, but see if you can get a visual”
“Roger, Alpha.”
McKenna punched Tac Two.
“Deltas, Alpha.”
“Delta Yellow,” Conover came back.
“Red,” Haggar said.
“Fuel status?”
“Yellow’s got one-six minutes on rockets, twenty minutes on turbojets,” Abrams reported.
“Red,” Ben Olsen said, “one-three on rockets, one-eight on the jets.”
He briefed them on the situation. “We don’t know what’s coming down, but I want you ready to take intercept positions if we can track Green on an Earth-bound course.”
“Yellow here. Any idea, Snake Eyes, of a destination?”
“None, Con Man. Take a general aim toward the Andaman Sea.”
“Roger, Delta Yellow out.”
“Red.”
McKenna had been watching the screen, and the radar emission had again ceased to display.
“Is that wise, Colonel McKenna?” Pearson asked. “To put Mako Three in jeopardy?”
McKenna felt good about Autry’s sense of judgment. He said, “Don’t second-guess me, Amy.”
Her pale green eyes darkened with fire.
“Please,” he added.
Aleksander Illiyich Maslov had been destined for stars. His grandfather had been a general during the Great Patriotic war, and his father surely would have attained the same status had he not been killed in an artillery accident when he was only a major.