Munoz tested the area with radar, infrared, night vision, then true video.
He ran the magnification up to full zoom.
McKenna saw the image at the same time Munoz said, “Holy shit!”
The elongated space station took up most of the screen. Behind it, he saw the remains of the HoneyBee rocket.
And floating just below the tube of the station was a fairly good-sized rocket body.
“I don’t like the looks of that, Tiger.”
“Nor me. I don’t think Delta Green’s around.”
“Your intuition better be good,” McKenna told him.
The MakoShark continued to close slowly on the station, and at fifteen miles distance, the magnified image on the screen revealed that the rocket was attached to the space station by a thick cable.
“That’s an umbilical, don’t you think?” McKenna asked. “Damned sure looks that way, Snake Eyes. They’d be able to program it from inside the station.”
“You recognize the rocket?”
“No, but I’ve got the recorder goin’ for Amy-baby.”
“You think it’s nuclear?”
“This ain’t Vegas, buddy, and I ain’t placin’ bets.”
“Two bits they don’t know we’re out here,” McKenna said. “Not even for two bits.”
“If we had a Wasp II, we could take out the station.”
“We don’t have a Wasp II. And what if it’s programmed to go if interior power is lost?”
“Can they do that?” McKenna asked.
“I don’t know. Benny Shalbot could do it.”
“Benny’s on our side.”
“Thank God.”
They were still closing on Soyuz Fifty, now at about seven hundred feet per minute.
McKenna weighed the situation.
“Tony, it’s nuclear.”
“Yeah, I think so. Blackmail.”
“The instructions for ignition and targeting are controlled inside the station.”
“Agreed, jefe.”
“Whether somebody pushes a button, or whether a failsafe booby trap goes off, the signal originates from inside.”
“I’ll buy that.”
“So nothing will happen if they lose the umbilical.”
“I don’t want to buy into that concept, but I guess I have to.”
“I should call Brackman.”
“Damn betcha, Snake Eyes. You should do that.”
“If he’s still with that bunch of Hill people, we’ll get an answer on January first.”
“If by then.”
“I’m going to need a very precise line of flight, Tiger. Knife-edge flight.”
“Rely on me, Snake Eyes. Hell, I’m the brains behind this duo, right?”
“Have I ever said otherwise?”
“I’m still a major.”
“That’s it? You want a promotion?”
“Not a posthumous one, amigo. Silence, please. I’m calculatin’.”
After four minutes, Munor said, “We want to increase our closure rate by fifty per second. That’ll take a six second main motor boost. If they’ve got visual in this direction, they’ll see it.”
“But too late.”
“Maybe. Probably. Slow reaction time. They’re in the wrong part of the station. They’re asleep. Lot of reasons. Give it ten-to-one.”
“What else?” McKenna asked.
“Soon as the rockets ignite, roll left ninety degrees, then bring the nose up three degrees. That should do it.”
“We don’t want the computer to do it,” McKenna said.
“No, you’re the man. You may have to make some adjustments along the way.”
“I’m bringing up the rockets.”
“Go.”
McKenna abandoned the screen and focused on the small, sunlit tube of the approaching space station, now less than eight miles away. It was angled slightly away from them, but was on the same plane as the MakoShark. The tethered rocket was slightly below the station and to its left by twenty yards.
Sixty feet apart.
He shoved the throttles in and started counting.
Felt the push of the rockets.
Rolled left, so that his wing was perpendicular to the line of the umbilical cable.
Pulled the nose back a bit to align his path between the station and the rocket.
Munoz was counting, also.
“Now!”
McKenna pulled the throttles back to their stops.
The station accelerated toward them, growing larger in the windscreen.
He nudged the nose down a little.
Then up a little.
The station grew.
The rocket became visible to the naked eye.
Then the umbilical.
Nudged the nose sideways, down in relation to the station.
Speeding at them now.
The MakoShark felt stationary; Soyuz Fifty was accelerating rapidly.
They sliced between the station and the rocket, the left wing snagging the umbilical.
McKenna barely felt the contact.
The MakoShark may have altered her track a tad, but it was imperceptible.
“Nice cut, amigo. We got it. Damage to the left wing, too.”
McKenna looked out of the canopy. There was a dent, but not a large one, in the leading edge of the wing, about eight feet from the tip.
“Mitchell and Tang are gonna cuss you for two weeks, Snake Eyes. And Shalbot. Geez, I don’t wanna be around when Shalbot sees that.”
“In the meantime, Tiger, they can’t fire that thing. You suppose they’ve got another cable around?”
“If they’ve got another cable, it’ll take them two hours to replace it. If not, if they have to splice the one we just severed, I’d call it four hours.”
“Let’s go home and load ordnance”
“I’d appreciate that,” Munoz said.
The MakoShark crossed the coast of Vietnam at fifty thousand feet and Mach 1.5.
“We must wait four minutes, then accelerate on rockets for three minutes,” Nikitin said.
“I am keying it in,” Maslov said, tapping his keyboard. “After that, we wait eleven minutes, then utilize the rockets for seven-point-three minutes. That will give us an orbital track for the space station.”
“Very good, Boris. I think you are now a veteran.”
“Thank you, Aleks.”
Two minutes later, Maslov heard the voice on the altered radio. “Captain, Commander.”
“Yes, Commander, proceed.”
Bryntsev’s voice was extremely excited. “We have just been attacked!”
“Bloody hell! How?”
“It must have been a MakoShark. They destroyed the umbilical cable.”
“But the station? The rocket?”
“Secure as yet.”
“Where is the MakoShark?”
“We do not know. We cannot see it. There is nothing on radar, nothing on the video camera.”
“Hold on, Commander. Do not panic. We are coming.” But Maslov was worried.
Damn Shelepin for waiting.
General Anatoly Shelepin had recorded the message on video tape months before. Twice, he had redone it, after considering new directions, new demands, and new inflections of his voice that might make it more convincing.
There were four copies of the tape to be delivered. He had decided upon three extra copies, just in case one country or another attempted to suppress it.
One copy, the primary one, was to go to the General Secretary of the United Nations. The other copies would be delivered to the American State Department, the British Foreign Office, and the French Foreign Ministry.
Nothing would go to the Commonwealth of Independent States. He did not consider them worthy of the information. They would do whatever they were told to do.
He looked across his living room at Sergei Pavel, who nodded at him.
Shelepin picked up the telephone and asked for the telephone number in New York City.