The driver hesitated for a fraction of a second, and McGarvey pressed the gun harder into the man’s head. “Ima,” now.
The guards were dragging out their pistols when the chauffeur finally stomped on the gas and the limo shot across the parking lot.
McGarvey switched aim to Lee, who was just beginning to realize what was happening. “We’re dropping Captain Attwood at the media grandstands, and afterward we’re going to have a little chat.”
“You’re insane—”
“Tell your driver now, or I’ll kill you and worry about how to escape later.”
Lee was weighing his options. McGarvey could see it in his eyes. He glanced disdainfully at Maggie, then said something to the driver in Japanese.
“Hai,” the chauffeur responded, and he drove left out of the parking lot in the direction of the media center.
Lee had calmed down and it seemed that he had come to some decision. “What are you planning on doing?” he asked conversationally. “It was really quite clever of you to get this far, but you’re running out of time, you know.” He smiled pleasantly. “You can’t stop a rocket with a handgun, and I’m certainly not going to order such a thing, no matter what silly threats you make against me.”
McGarvey let his face sag a little. “If my government wanted to stop the launch they would have done it politically. I was sent to get information.”
“To spy on us,” Lee retorted sharply.
“We’re helping with your North Korean problem. But nobody in Washington knows what the hell is going on. Do you honestly want war?”
“Actually we want to prevent a war.”
“By sabotaging Kimch’aek?”
Lee laughed. “I understand that you have become an unpopular fellow in the White House. You don’t even have a job, so you’re here without your government’s sanction.”
“But it’s me with the gun pointed at you.”
Lee shrugged.
They had come to the media center, and the driver asked Lee something in Japanese.
Lee again seemed to weigh his options as he stared at McGarvey. But then he nodded. “Hai.”
The chauffeur drove around back and across to the media grandstands, which were filled to capacity. He pulled up at the gate where a guard turned and looked at them.
McGarvey gave Maggie his media pass and opened the door. “Lose yourself in the crowd and don’t let them get you alone until after the launch.”
Maggie gave him a significant look, then scrambled past him and got out of the limo. She flashed her pass at the gate guard, who waved her through, and she was gone.
The countdown clock in front of the grandstands read T-minus 00:28:00.
“Where do we go now?” Lee asked, indifferently.
“The launch control center.”
Hirota picked up the call from the guard at the visitors’ housing building.
“It was Captain Attwood and a man. They got into Mr. Lee’s car and drove off,” the guard said.
“Was it one of the other Americans?” Hirota demanded.
“I don’t know, sir. But he had a gun.”
Hirota crashed down the phone. At one of the consoles he brought up the video of the visitors’ building parking lot. The limousine was gone.
“Mr. Lee is on his way back here,” one of the security technicians said. “But his driver has keyed the emergency beacon.”
It was McGarvey. Somehow Hirota knew there was no other explanation, and he could see everything he had worked for, his entire career, this launch, all of it going up in smoke.
He telephoned his OIC of security downstairs. “McGarvey is on his way here in Mr. Lee’s car. I want you to stop him.”
“Is Mr. Lee with him?” the man asked uncertainly.
“That is not a consideration,” Hirota screamed. “McGarvey must not get within one hundred meters of this building, no matter what it takes! Do I make myself clear, Major!”
“Hai.”
“By now the guards at the visitors’ barracks will have notified security that I’m in trouble,” Lee said. “I should think that we’ll be picking up an escort at any minute.”
McGarvey had run through a short list of possible scenarios in his head: Somehow sabotaging the space center’s power plant, storming the launchpad and parking the car beneath the rocket or forcing his way into the launch center, with Lee at gunpoint, demanding that the launch be postponed, then holing up with Lee while he telephoned Murphy so that pressure could be brought to bear from Washington. But none of those plans were very satisfactory, and they depended upon how important Lee was to the launch. They also depended upon some kind of proof of what the Japanese were up to. Murphy would not move without it.
“They won’t do anything to this car, of course, but they won’t let us get near the launch control center,” Lee continued. “They’ll force us to stop, or to drive around in circles until the launch is over, and then it won’t really matter what you do. In fact, if you don’t shoot me, you’ll probably be allowed to return home.”
“You switched satellites,” McGarvey said. “The one that you’re launching is covered with anechoic tile. We know at least that much. Why?”
“You’re hardly in a position to demand anything from me,” Lee said. “You’re a very long way from home.”
“I came here to get some information. Either I get it from you or I’ll be forced to shoot you and get it from someone else. I think you know that I have the motivation.”
Lee shrugged. “What will you do with this information?”
“Send it back to the CIA, who will in turn inform the White House. It’s the way our system works.”
“All that will take time.”
McGarvey sat with his back against the door, his legs crossed and his gun pointed in Lee’s general direction. He took a moment to light a cigarette, even though time was what he didn’t have. But he had to be certain of what he suspected, and Lee had to believe that he cared more about information than about the launch. “Your satellite will not rendezvous with Freedom. I think I have that much figured out. Either that or it will approach Freedom, but since it’s covered in radar-absorbing tiles, they won’t see it coming. In fact it’ll be undetectable from our ground stations.” McGarvey smiled disparagingly. “Is that it? Are you going to attack the space station?”
“You’re correct about the satellite’s radar invisibility. But it won’t come anywhere near Freedom. Eight minutes after launch, the satellite will develop a problem and it will be destroyed.”
“But it’ll still be up there, in low Earth orbit.”
“Five hundred kilometers.”
“Okay, so you spent what, six years bribing some U.S. senators and congressmen, not to mention the President, into allowing Japan to put up a satellite in such a way that no one would ever question what you were doing. That was a pretty expensive operation, not to mention the actual cost of building a real Freedom module, plus the satellite you guys are putting into orbit tonight. Where’s the profit?”
“The survival of Japan.”
“The North Koreans have nuclear weapons and the Taepo Dong missiles to deliver them to the Japanese mainland. You’ve convinced the world, so now let us deal with it.”
“Like you dealt with India and Pakistan?” Lee shot back. He shook his head. “We can’t depend on the U.S. to defend us any longer. It’s up to us now if we’re going to continue to exist.”
“Is it a laser weapon? Something to shoot down incoming missiles?”
They came around the corner, and the chauffeur suddenly braked. One block away the launch control center building was ringed with the flashing blue lights of a lot of vehicles. The driver said something to Lee.