She was still having trouble thinking clearly. Michael was in the hangar, was actually in one of the planes. What was he doing here?
She barely noticed when a kobun walked in and settled her suitcase on the metal desk. He glanced at it, said something in Japanese, and disappeared out the door.
The case was heavy leather, acquired from a little side-street shop by Victoria Station. It looked just as it had when she and Michael stashed the Uzi back in London. They'd deliberately bought a case heavy enough to conceal a weapon inside. Had Mino's people gone through it? Discovered the automatic?
"Is this it?" Vera was asking.
"That's the one." She reached down.
"No," Vera said, staying her hand, "I will open it myself." With a quick motion she pulled around the zipper, then flipped back the heavy leather top. There lay a battered map of Crete, under it Michael's book on the palace, piles of rumpled clothes…
This isn't how it's supposed to happen, she was thinking. The automatic's down in the bottom, in a separate section, but if Vera probes a little she'll find it. I've got to make her—
"There's no printout here." Comrade Karanova finished digging through the clothes and looked up. "But then there never really was, was there, Dr. Borodin? Perhaps what you'd hoped to find was this…"
She pulled open the top drawer of the metal desk and lifted out a shiny black automatic. It was an Uzi.
"You didn't really think you could do something as amateurish as smuggle a weapon into this facility." She shoved it back into the drawer.
"Congratulations. You've done your homework." So much for surprising Vera Karanova. Apparently that wasn't something easily managed.
"Now we will print a new copy of the protocol," she said, shoving the suitcase over to one corner of her desk. "I don't want to waste any more time."
"Right. Time is money."
So now it was up to Michael. Maybe if she could stall Vera long enough, whatever he was involved in would start to happen.
Glancing out again at the vapor-shrouded floor of the hangar, she fleetingly wondered if maybe she'd been seeing things. No, she was certain. That walk, that funny walk he always had when he didn't feel in control. She knew it all too well; she knew him all too well. He'd arrived on the hangar floor riding on that little motorized cart, together with the Soviet pilot, and they'd both entered the hydraulic personnel carrier and been raised up to the cockpit. Then the carrier had come back down and disgorged the Soviet pilot, who'd immediately disappeared into the haze. Which meant Michael still had to be up there.
What was he doing? Had he somehow thrown in his lot with the Soviets? He certainly wouldn't work for Tanzan Mino, so that meant there had to be a revolt brewing. The thing now was to link up, join forces. It was hard to figure.
Oh, shit.
Coming through the wide hangar doors, headed for the same personnel transporter Vance had taken, was Tanzan Mino and a host of his kobun bodyguards, followed by two more men in pressure suits. He looked as though he had every intention of — yes, now he was saying something to the operators of the personnel carrier. They all were going up.
Whatever Michael was doing, Mino-san wasn't going to be pleased. The whole scene was about to get crazy. Did Mike have a weapon? Even if he did, he wouldn't stand a chance.
"Take it up."
Tanzan Mino was marching up the steps of the Personnel Module, accompanied by six kobun in black leather jackets and the M-I pilots.
The operators glanced at each other, then moved to comply. One Japanese pilot had just come down and disappeared into the haze. Now two more had arrived, along with the CEO. Were there three Japanese pilots? Things were starting to get peculiar. But then this was no ordinary flight; it was the big one.
The door clicked shut with a quiet, pneumatic whoosh, and the module began its ascent. As they rode, Tanzan Mino reflected that in less than an hour this vehicle would be setting new records for manned flight. The world would hear about it from a press conference he would hold in Tokyo, carried live around the globe. That press briefing would also announce a new alliance between Japan and the Soviet Union. It would be a double coup. The planet's geopolitics would never again be the same.
The module glided to a halt and its door opened.
He'd been right. The cockpit hatch was sealed, which meant somebody was inside. The Soviet pilot must be up to something. But what?
Then, unbidden, the pressure hatch started opening, slowly swinging back and around, and standing there, just inside, was a man in a pressure suit. There was no reflecting visor on his helmet now to hide his face.
Vance stared at the small army facing him, including Tanzan Mino and his two pilots. This definitely was not the drill. Something had gone very, very wrong. Had some of the Soviet ground crews lost their nerve and talked? Whatever had happened, things were headed off the track.
The C-4 explosive was set. But this was hardly the moment to activate the detonators and blow the place.
"How did you get here?" The CEO's eyes narrowed to slits.
"I decided to take you up on that tour."
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Planning a vacation. Checking out the transportation."
"Very amusing, Dr. Vance," he said, staring at a length of C-4, a glass and metal detonator shoved into its side, wedged next to the sidestick. "But who else is part of your scheme? You didn't arrange this unassisted."
"Why would anybody else be involved? I just thought it'd be fun to kick off today's celebration with a bang."
"I'm afraid you will have to be disappointed." He turned to the kobun. "Clear the cockpit. Sweep it. And then," he glanced up, "after Dr. Vance replaces the visor on his flight helmet, we will escort him to my office for a very brief and undoubtedly very illuminating interview."
"What's happening?" Vera had turned to watch through the white haze as the last kobun dismounted from the personnel module, following Tanzan Mino and the three pilots.
"Maybe there's been a glitch in the countdown after all." Eva was trying to sound casual. Vera couldn't know the tall pilot in the middle, the one being helped along by Tanzan Mino's musclemen, was Michael. "Looks like Major Androv has got himself into some trouble."
She could tell Vance was mad as hell. They'd probably roughed him up a little there in the cockpit, just to get started, and now they were intending to really go to work on him. But he must be part of a group, so where was everybody else?
"Androv has to fly the plane today. We have everything scheduled. Why are they taking him away?" Vera turned and stalked for the door. "This cannot be permitted. Whatever the problem is, it has to be solved right here. Now. The flight must go forward. Too much is riding on it."
Eva watched her stride out into the white haze of the hangar. She wanted to follow, but then she thought of something better.
He was wondering when to try and make a break. But how far could he get, encumbered with the pressure suit?
Where's the backup? Are they going to let me just twist in the wind?
The original scenario had fallen apart, but that didn't mean the game was over. The Soviet engineers he'd seen clearly wouldn't be any help in a crisis, but the test pilot Androv was another story. He'd surely try to pull something back together. Where was he? Probably still up in the other cockpit, getting Daedalus II ready. So now…