Jane Thornton took her place beside Senator Quill as the president glad-handed his way along the line of VIPs waiting beneath the long plastic awning. Everyone put on their best smiles for the cameras.
Every time Jane saw the president she was struck by how small he was. Strange, she thought American presidents tend to be either six-footers or little bantam cocks. Washington, Lincoln, even Reagan were all tall men. Teddy Roosevelt wasn’t all that tall, but he was dynamic, energetic.
This president was at least two inches shorter than Jane, even in the elevator shoes that everyone in Washington knew he wore. She smiled down at him as he took her hand. He smiled back warmly while the cameras clicked away.
“I ought to thank you, Jane.”
“Me, Mr. President?”
“Sure. You’re pushing Scanwell into a first-ballot nomination.”
“I’m certainly trying.”
“Great. You think he can beat an incumbent president? I’ll whup his ass in November. I’m looking forward to it.”
Without letting her smile slip one millimeter, Jane said, “Good luck, then. You’ll need it.”
“I hear you might be his vice presidential choice,” the president added.
Jane murmured, “You have long ears.”
“Take the slot if he offers it to you. Then I’ll whup your sweet little ass, too. That’ll be even more fun.”
The orbital transfer vehicle looked like a barbell-shaped ocean buoy encrusted with barnacles. Designed to operate in space and never come back to Earth, it did not need to have a sleek aerodynamic shape like the spaceplane. Its exterior was studded with antennas, tool kits, grappling arms, and life-support packs.
Inside, it resembled a sardine can. Built to hold ten spacesuited people, it seemed jammed to bursting with only the seven of them standing in it. No seats; they weren’t necessary in zero gravity. Dan’s team stood with their boots slipped into fabric foot loops fastened to the metal decking.
Adair stood up at the front of the circular cabin, his attention on the beeping, flickering readout screens surrounding him, rather than the curving window of thick quartz glass in front of him. Dan stood just behind him, peering out that window. It was black out there, as deep and dark as infinity. Only a few very bright stars could be seen through the quartz’s heavy tinting.
“Rendezvous with the beast in eight minutes,” Adair called out.
Like the spaceplane, the cabin of the OTV was pressurized. The crew could lift the visors of their helmets and breathe the air the vehicle stowed in its internal tanks. It was a small luxury, but Dan felt glad of it. Eight minutes, he thought. Then the work begins. For now, the seven men and women simply stood there, with nothing to do but wait. There was no sensation of motion; they didn’t even sway in their foot anchors.
“Getting a flash from Matagorda,” Adair said. “On two.”
Dan touched the stud on his wrist band that activated radio frequency two.
“This is Dan,” he said.
A crackle of electronic hash in his helmet earphones, then, “Van Buren here. Our monitors show the magnetrons have come back on, but White Sands still isn’t getting any power.”
Dan felt his brows knit. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
A fraction of a second’s delay, just enough to make him realize he was nearly twenty-two thousand miles away.
“And the satellite’s being moved,” she added, her voice edging up a notch.
“Moved?”
“Somebody’s repositioning it. And it isn’t us.”
“Away from White Sands?”
“Right.”
“To where?”
“We’re trying to figure that out.”
“Get on it! Right away!”
“We’re on it, chief.”
“Call me the instant you figure out where it’s being pointed.”
“Right.” Van Buren clicked off.
“Hey!” Adair hollered. “I can see the beast!”
Dan followed the astronaut’s pointing arm and there it was, a thin flat square hanging against the black of space, its edges glowing in sunlight. They were coming up from below the powersat; Dan saw the rows of boxlike structures and domes that housed the inverters and magnetrons and other equipment. Down at the end, as far from the output antenna as possible, was the dome for the satellite’s control systems.. There was a docking port next to it. That was where Adair was aiming the OTV.
A glint of light caught his attention. Leaning forward, one hand on Adair’s back to steady himself, Dan peered out the window and saw a long, slim metallic object floating off a few hundred yards from the powersat, rotating slowly, catching the sunlight as it spun.
“That’s the output antenna!” he shouted.
“Jeez, boss, I think you’re right,” said Adair.
“How’d it get loose?”
“Beats me.”
“Swing us up toward that end of the satellite,” Dan commanded. “I want to see what’s happened up there.”
Matagora Island, Texas
“Looks like the East Coast, maybe Washington,” said the technician.
Van Buren was tugging nervously on her strand of pearls, leaning over the seated man to study his console screen.
“Washington,” she muttered. And her mind raced. The magnetrons are putting out power. Some sonofabitch has moved the satellite out of its normal position. They’re pointing it at Washington. The beam’s too diffuse to hurt anybody, but…
She straightened up and yelled across the rows of consoles to the communications tech, “Get Dan on the horn. Right away!”
By the time she had rushed to the comm console, she could hear Dan’s voice, “What’ve you got?”
“Dan, this is just preliminary, we don’t have it nailed down all that firmly yet, but I think they’re moved the beam to Washington.”
There was a tiny lag, just long enough to be noticeable. Then Dan exploded, “Jesus Christ on a motorcycle!”
“It’s all right, Dan,” Van Buren said, unconsciously fingering her pearls. “The beam’s too diffuse to do any damage.”
Again the lag. Then Dan’s voice answered tightly, “Maybe not.”
“What do you mean?”
“Somebody’s removed our antenna from the powersat and put up a different one.”
“What?” Van Buren’s necklace broke, pearls clattering all over the control center’s tiled floor.
“It’s an Astro Corporation craft,” said Williamson. “I can see the logo they’ve slapped on her side.”
“Have they seen us?” Bouchachi asked, alarmed.
“Dunno. Maybe.”
The two men were huddled in their own transfer vessel, still in their spacesuits. Williamson had shoved Nikolayev’s body out the hatch so Bouchachi wouldn’t have to share his final hour or so with the corpse. Neither of them had expected Astro to react so quickly to their tampering with the satellite. They’ll try to set it right, Williamson thought. We’ll have to stop them. Or at least delay them.
He wondered how they could accomplish that. From all he knew about this mission, they wouldn’t have to delay the Astro people for long. The job would be completed in a few minutes. Just hold them off for a few minutes, he told himself. We’re going to die anyway, so what difference does a few minutes make?
“Come on, then,” he said, grasping the edges of the open hatch to pull himself outside.
“Where are you going?” Bouchachi asked.
“To the control station.”
“But that’s all the way at the other end of the satellite!”
“Right. We’ll have to hurry.”
In the underground satellite monitoring center, the lieutenant commander walked briskly to where the Homeland Security guy sat impatiently sipping at a Styrofoam cup of coffee.