Taking the chair across the aisle and swiveling it toward her, al-Bashir said smoothly, “We drove to my plane after the party ended. We’re going to Marseille, don’t you remember?”
“But I don’t have any clothes,” April blurted. “I left my luggage in my apartment.”
Smiling, al-Bashir said, “Not to worry. We’ll buy everything you need once we land at Marseille.”
April tried hard to remember going to the plane with him, but her mind was a foggy blank.
Al-Bashir reached across the aisle and patted her knee. “You’re going to have a wonderful time in Marseille. You’ll see.”
The phone in Dan’s apartment didn’t just ring. Lynn Van Buren’s voice called sharply, “We’ve got trouble, chief.”
Dan sat up in bed, instantly wide awake. If Lynn’s using the voice override circuit—
“Phone answer,” he called out. The digital clock said 5:58 A.M.
Vicki Lee stirred beside him. Dan had been reluctant to allow her up to his one-room apartment, but as the party down on the hangar floor broke up, there didn’t seem much else to do. Champagne clouds the mind, Dan told himself.
“Dan,” said Van Buren, the image of her face dark and grave on the desktop screen. She seemed to be wearing a striped pajama top. “White Sands reports power’s out.”
Dan’s guts clenched. “What happened?” In the back of his mind he realized Van Buren could see him and the woman in bed with him but that didn’t matter.
“Don’t know. Diagnostics show the solar cells are generating electricity, but they’re not getting anything down at the rectennas.”
“Jesus Christ!”
Dan jumped out of bed, naked, ran to his desk and sat his bare rump on the fuzzy-covered little typist’s chair.
“Show me the diagnostics.”
“What’s going on?” He heard Vicki’s sleepy voice from over his shoulder.
“Go take a shower,” Dan snapped as he peered at the numbers and curves flowing across his screen.
“The magnetrons shut down,” Van Buren was saying. “They’re not functioning.”
Dan saw a series of red lights blinking balefully at him against a schematic of the satellite’s power antenna.
“That can’t be!” he snapped. “You can’t have a couple dozen magnetrons just suddenly shut down.”
“Everything else is working,” Van Buren countered.
Dan pressed his lips together, thinking furiously. “Round up the maintenance team. Get them ready for an emergency launch.”
“Dan, today’s a holiday. Memorial Day. They’re scattered all over the place. And probably hung over from last night—”
“Get them!” Dan shouted.
“Right, chief.”
Vicki Lee peeked out from the bathroom door. “Trouble?” she asked.
Dan nodded as he pushed past her into the lavatory. “You stay here. Don’t leave this room until I come back for you.”
“What’s going on?”
“You’ll get an exclusive, but not until I come back. Understand? Don’t leave this room.”
He pushed her firmly out of the lavatory and quickly showered. She bombarded him with questions as he dressed. He ignored her, except to take her cell phone from her purse while she watched, flabbergasted.
Dan rushed down the catwalk to his office. April wasn’t there this early in the morning, so he hurriedly called O’Connell’s office. A sleepy-eyed young man in a security uniform appeared on the screen.
Dan gave him three orders. Get O’Connell to the base right away. Shut down all outgoing phone calls unless authorized by Lynn Van Buren. And don’t let Vicki Lee out of Hangar A until Dan himself gave permission.
Then he sprinted toward the control center.
In addition to being an excellent engineer, Malfoud Bouchachi was a religious man. He prayed silently as he worked on the powersat’s huge antenna, a mile-long assembly of copper alloy attached to the immense structure that floated in the emptiness of space. One by one, with the patience of a truly dedicated man, he was unbolting the connectors that held the huge antenna to the massive power satellite, using a cordless contrarotating power tool He had gone through two batteries already and was not even halfway through his task.
Williamson should be here assisting me, he thought angrily. But he knew that Williamson had other tasks to perform, tasks that Bouchachi himself shrank from.
Below him was the Earth, looming huge and blue with gleaming white clouds scattered across its curved face. He thought of it as below him, although in the zero gravity of space up and down were meaningless concepts. Yet Bouchachi felt that if that enormous ponderous planet were above him, hanging over him like the giant fist of Allah, it would crush him, squash him like an insect, eliminate him utterly from existence.
So, as he bent over his work and waited for Williamson to join him, he forced his mind to accept the idea that the Earth was below him, down, and he was floating high above it all. He had lost track of time and did not know when he should stop for prayer. Allah would forgive him for that, he felt. This work must be completed. There will be plenty of time for prayer afterward, once the work is completed and we have nothing to do but wait until our oxygen runs out.
That must be South America, he thought, gazing past the straight metal edge of the giant antenna. The Pacific Ocean glittered bright and deeply blue, although there were lighter hues around the islands that were almost directly beneath them. South America darkened the edge of the curving globe, smeared with clouds, creased with mountains that looked like puny wrinkles from this height. Mecca is on the other side of the world, Bouchachi knew. The Holy City can never be seen from this satellite.
He looked up from his work and blinked sweat from his eyes. He felt hot inside his spacesuit, soaked with perspiration, despite the fact that just outside the fabric of the suit the temperature must be close to absolute zero. No air. No life.
I cannot see Mecca from here, he repeated to himself. This giant machine is the work of devils, put into space as far away from the Holy City as the godless Americans could place it. It took an effort to straighten up from his bent posture. Turning his entire weightless body, he looked out at the vast expanse of the power satellite. It stretched for miles, huge, glittering darkly, a mammoth construction of evil. Its very size frightened him; that, and the knowledge that evil men could construct such an infernal machine.
Straining his eyes, he thought he could see the brown bulk of Mexico and the barren gray desert of the southwestern United States. Yes, and farther north, beneath a swirl of clouds, lay Florida. And beyond that, Washington. The capital of the Great Satan. Where their president will make his last speech later this day.
Washington, D.C.
Senator Thornton rode with Senator Quill to Arlington National Cemetery. The Memorial Day service at the Tomb of the Unknowns was an annual observance, a chance for the president to use the emotions of patriotism and sacrifice to further his own political agenda. The president was fighting for his political life, Jane knew; the latest polls showed that Morgan Scanwell was within twelve percentage points of the president, and the national conventions hadn’t even convened yet.
Quill wore a lightweight gray suit with a carefully knotted lavender tie and a jeweled American flag pin in his lapel. Sitting beside him in the rear seat of the limousine, Jane was in a conservative coral pink knee-length sheath. Both senators would accept red poppies from an amputee veteran in a wheelchair when they got out of the limousine. The photo opportunity had been set up by Quill’s publicity aides.
“Where’s Morgan this fine morning?” Quill asked cheerfully.