Toland heard the screech of metal as Baldrick leaned into the wreckage. A downed aircraft? Toland wondered. Perhaps Baldrick was here for its black box, or maybe classified equipment or something else that had been on board.
Toland turned and worked his way back down the slope considering the possibilities.
“What’s happening?” Faulkener asked.
“There’s a plane or chopper crashed on the other side of the ridge,” Toland said, his mind working.
“Must be pretty damn important to be worth this much,” Faulkener said. Toland looked upslope. Baldrick had appeared, moving quickly toward them. “Let’s get moving,” Baldrick said.
“Change in plans,” Toland said. “Last message I got from The Mission said to call in for air evacuation as soon as you recovered what you were supposed to.” “Well, I got it,” Baldrick said. “So call.”
Toland’s head snapped up like that of a bird dog on the scent. “Something’s coming.” He scanned the sky, then, in a flash of lightning, spotted the bouncer passing by to the south, heading for where they had been.
Toland stuck the muzzle of his Sterling in Baldrick’s stomach. “Maybe you already called someone and we’re getting double-crossed here?”
“I don’t have a radio!” Baldrick said calmly.
“You have that SATCOM thing you used to get this position,” Toland said. “I left it here,” Baldrick pointed out.
“Then who’s on the alien craft?” Toland asked.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s setting down to the south of here,” Faulkener noted. “Where we were stopped last.”
Toland removed the gun from Baldrick’s stomach. “Someone picked up our satellite transmission.”
“How can they do that?” Faulkener asked.
“I don’t know how,” Toland said, “but it’s the only thing that makes sense.” He took a deep breath and cleared his head. “All right. Here’s the plan. We call on the SATCOM. If someone’s intercepting, that means they get a fix on us here, but we start moving right away. In the message we designate a linkup point.” Toland studied his map. “Here. Eight klicks north.” He knew the spot. It was an abandoned dirt strip that had been used occasionally by drug smugglers before the American crackdown on air traffic.
“What if they decode the message?” Faulkener asked.
“I don’t think anyone can break a one-time pad,” Toland said, not even really aware of where he was for the moment as his brain worked. “No, I think we’re just getting the signal picked up. Get the rig set up.”
Toland blinked as Faulkener threw his ruck down and scrambled to pull out the radio. He focused on Baldrick. “What did you get out of that aircraft?” Baldrick was adjusting his pack straps. “What are you talking about?” “What did you just get? What did we come here for?”
“That’s not—”
Toland drew his knife and slashed, the blade cutting across Baldrick’s right cheek, a thin line of blood following the cut.
“Why did you do that?” Baldrick was calm, staring at the other man.
Toland stepped forward and slammed a knee into Baldrick’s chest, pinning him to the ground. He pressed the point into the skin under Baldrick’s right eye. “What crashed over there?”
“I can’t—”
The point of the knife edged forward until it was a scant millimeter from Baldrick’s eye. “I’ll take one eye, then the other. Nothing in Skeleton’s orders about you keeping your eyes,” Toland said. “Just get you and your cargo back. What crashed?”
“It was a satellite,” Baldrick said.
“A satellite?” Toland frowned. “What did you get out of it?”
“Film,” Baldrick said.
“Film of what?”
“The Amazon rain forest,” Baldrick said. “The satellite wasn’t supposed to come down so soon.”
“That’s worth millions?” Toland didn’t wait for an answer. “Bullshit.”
“This type of photo is worth a lot.” Baldrick spoke quickly, eye still focused on the knife so close by. “The camera used special imaging. With thermal and spectral imaging the specialists can determine areas under the rain forest that have a high likelihood of holding diamonds, particularly alluvial flood areas.”
“It’s set,” Faulkener reported.
Toland sheathed his knife and pulled out his onetime pad. He quickly began transcribing. He finished the message and punched it into the SATCOM and burst it out.
“Where did you say for the transportation to meet us?” Baldrick asked. Toland laughed. “I don’t think that’s information you need. You just stick with us. We’ll get you there.”
“Both launches are go so far,” Kopina said.
Duncan checked the red digits on the large clock, then returned her attention to the Endeavor. She thought of the crew, strapped to their seats, essentially sitting on top of a tower of high-explosive fuel.
“T-minus nine minutes. The count has resumed. GLS auto sequence has been initiated.”
Five thousand meters to the south of Toland and his small patrol, Turcotte looked around, weapon at the ready. The bouncer was sitting a short distance away, silently floating.
“What do you think?” Yakov asked, looking about in the dark at the rolling terrain around them.
“They were here,” Turcotte said, pointing at where the grass was pressed down. “Maybe three, four men.”
“So where’d they go?” Yakov asked.
“They could have gone in any direction,” Turcotte said. “We need help. Let’s get back on the bouncer.”
“T-minus one minute.”
The shuttle on the pad directly in front of Duncan, three miles away, was mirrored in the TV screen in the observation room, with a view of Columbia on the pad at Cape Kennedy.
“T-minus fifty seconds. Ground power removal.”
“If they have an abort now, there is an escape mechanism built in,” Kopina said. “You can’t see them, but there are seven twelve-hundred-foot-long wires from the top to the ground. Each has a basket big enough to carry three people.
“The wires come down right next to bunkers,” Kopina said. “The theory is you get out of the orbiter, into the basket, ride the wire down, jump out of the basket and into the bunker.”
“T-minus thirty-one seconds. Go for auto sequence. Start SRB APUs.” Duncan could see gas venting out of the bottom of the shuttle.
“T-minus twenty-one seconds. SRB Gimbal Test. Activate sound suppression water. Perform SRB AFT MDMS lockout. Verify LH2 high-point bleed valve closed. Terminate MPS helium fill.”
More gas venting, lines falling off the shuttle from the tower.
“T-minus ten seconds. Go for main engine start! Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.”
“Engine three on the shuttle has started,” Kopina said as a loud roar rumbled by them.
“Five.”
The roar grew louder as the second main engine kicked in.
“Four.”
The third main engine on the shuttle now ignited. But still gravity held the shuttle in its grip.
“Three.
“Two.
“One. SRB ignition.”
The ground shook as if the hand of God had come down and was waking up all nearby.
“The bolts have been cut,” Kopina said. “It’s free.”
Rising on a plume of fire, Endeavor lifted off the launch pad. On the other side of the country, Columbia was climbing into the sky at the same rate.