But before that could happen, Williamson had one additional task to do. Nikolayev. The Russian was a mercenary, a professional cosmonaut who’d been paid to carry these two men to the power satellite. He didn’t know what they were doing to the powersat and he didn’t care. He expected to wait for them to finish their work, whatever it was, and then fly them back to a landing in Kazakhstan.
But that wouldn’t do. The plan called for no witnesses. The whole point of this operation was to make it look as if the powersat had malfunctioned. Accidentally. Williamson and Bouchachi were even going to reattach the regular antenna once they got word from the ground that they had accomplished their mission. Then they’d fly off into deeper space, where nobody would think to search for them. And die there.
Nikolayev had no inkling of that part of the plan. He expected to return home.
Time to disabuse him of that, Williamson told himself as he made his weightless way hand over hand along the tether that connected to the waiting transfer craft.
“I’m coming in,” he called to Nikolayev through his suit radio.
“Come ahead,” came the cosmonaut’s bored voice. “Hatch is open.”
Everything took an extra effort in zero gravity. Williamson had thought it would all be easy when everything was weightless, but he found that it was hard work even to stretch out his arms. Maybe it’s the bloody suit, he thought. It’s as stiff as a corpse.
Slowly, sweating with the effort, he hooked his boots on the rim of the open hatch, then wormed his way inside the spacecraft. Nikolayev was strapped into the middle seat, sealed up in his suit and fishbowl helmet.
“Close the hatch,” the cosmonaut said, “and we can fill cabin with air again. Take off helmets, relax a while.”
“Not just yet,” Williamson said. He pulled out the knife he’d carried in the pouch on his trouser leg and slipped it out of its sheath. The blade was clean and slim and sharp.
Nikolayev looked puzzled. “What’s that for?”
“For you.”
With a swift slash, Williamson sliced open the chest of the cosmonaut’s suit. Nikolayev’s eyes went so wide Williamson could see white all around the pupils. The suit material was tough, layer upon layer of fabric and plastic. Williamson hacksawed through it, laboring hard. The Russian tried to parry the knife slash, but in the spacesuit he was hopelessly clumsy. And far too late.
“What have you done?” Nikolayev screamed.
Williamson said nothing. The Russian gasped for air, clawed at his helmet with both gloved hands, then suddenly lunged at Williamson. Gilly pushed him off easily and watched him shudder inside his cumbersome suit as the air ran out of it and the fabric decompressed like a punctured balloon. Nikolayev’s screams and flailings faded away and he slumped in the seat, quite dead. Williamson said to himself, I’ve done nothing that I won’t be doing to myself soon enough.
“Sorry, mate,” Williamson whispered. “No witnesses, you know.”
Marseille
The young Asian flight attendant still wore her tan uniform as she led April up the main stairway of the villa and showed her to a wide, airy bedroom. Feeling confused and scared, April asked her, “Where did Mr. al-Bashir go?”
They had driven together from the airport up to this hilltop villa, but al-Bashir had been on the phone almost every moment of the drive, speaking in French and sometimes in what April assumed was Arabic. The uniformed woman sat up front with the liveried chauffeur. Once the limousine had pulled up on the gravel-topped driveway, al-Bashir had smilingly helped April out of the car, then turned her over to the Asian woman.
Ignoring her question, the woman went to the French windows at the far end of the spacious bedroom and threw them open. April saw a sizeable balcony lined with large clay pots filled with thickly blooming red and pink geraniums and, beyond, the tranquil deep blue of the Mediterranean Sea.
“You will be very comfortable here,” said the Asian woman, smiling.
April looked around the room. Tile flooring. Heavy dark furniture. A four-poster king-sized bed.
“But I don’t have any clothes with me,” she said, almost pleading.
“Mr. al-Bashir has already seen to that,” the woman said. She strode to the closet and slid its doors open. April saw a long row of what looked like evening gowns. Or maybe they were nightgowns.
“Why don’t you take a nice shower and get into some fresh clothes? You’ll find makeup and toiletries in the lavatory.”
With a final smile, the Asian woman walked to the door and left the room, leaving April alone.
April slumped down on the bed and fought back an impulse to cry. Am I a guest here, she wondered, or a prisoner?
It had started to rain in Matagorda. Dan could hear the drops drumming heavily against the roof of the blockhouse. Inside, the launch crew were at their consoles, the quiet tension of the countdown starting to notch upward.
“It’s just a squall,” Dan said, peering at the weather radar display in the control center. “It’ll pass in half an hour or so.”
Lynn Van Buren tapped a red-lacquered fingernail against the screen. “There’s more coming in behind it.”
“So we’ll launch in between ’em,” said Dan.
The door from outside opened, allowing a gust of wet wind to blow through the blockhouse. Dan saw Gerry Adair come in, stooped against the wind, his yellow slicker glistening wet.
“Crew ready?” Dan asked.
Adair’s freckled face looked somber. “Max isn’t going.”
“What?”
“He said you can fire him, but he’s tiot going up today.”
Dan resisted the urged to slam a fist against the nearest console. “Double-damn it, he’s not going to have any family picnic in this weather!”
“I’ve been on the phone with him for the past twenty minutes, boss. He just won’t go. Says his wife’ll divorce him.”
“And rain makes applesauce,” Dan muttered.
“The rest of the crew is ready, pretty much,” said Adair.
“What do you mean, pretty much?”
With a hike of his pale eyebrows, Adair answered, “We don’t know what we’re going up there for, boss.”
“The double-damned power’s off!” Dan shouted. “You’re going up to find out what the hell’s wrong and fix it!”
“Without Max? He’s our structures man.”
“I’ll take his place.”
“You?” Adair and Van Buren said in unison.
“Don’t look so damned stunned,” Dan told them. Jabbing a finger at Adair, “I’ve put more hours in orbit than you have, kid.”
“Yeah, but boss—”
Dan wheeled on Van Buren. “You run the countdown like normal. I’m going to get suited up.”
Van Buren fingered her pearl strand nervously. “Chief, do you think that’s wise?”
“I won’t ask these guys to do anything I won’t do myself,” Dan said. Then he headed for the door. Adair scrambled to catch up with him.
Down in the basement of the hilltop villa, al-Bashir paced nervously along the row of technicians bent over their miscellany of computers. He accidentally kicked a crumpled can of soda; it clattered out of his way. The room looked like a pigpen. Al-Bashir wrinkled his nose in distaste; it smelled like a sty, too.
“How soon can we begin to move the satellite?” he asked the Egyptian.
“Bouchachi reports that they are nearly finished attaching the new antenna.”
“So?”
“Once it is attached they can begin beaming power at high intensity.”
Al-Bashir looked at his wristwatch. He had set it to Eastern Daylight Time, the time zone for Washington, D.C.