“Tell him to turn around right now,” McGarvey said. The launch clock on the side of the building read: T-minus 00:17:00.
Lee hesitated a moment but then gave the order, and the driver made a U-turn and headed back the way they had come.
“Is it a laser weapon?” McGarvey asked again.
“We considered that option,” Lee answered. “But you weren’t having much success with your Star Wars program, and we didn’t think it would work for us either.” Everything about Lee’s attitude, posture and bearing just then was supremely confident. “What we needed was a real deterrent. Not only against North Korea, but against India and Pakistan and China, all of them nuclear powers. We’re surrounded.”
“You’re putting nuclear weapons into orbit?” McGarvey asked, incredulously.
“We thought about ground-launched missiles, or perhaps air- or sea-launched rockets, but all those bases and ships and aircraft are subject to attack. A radar-invisible satellite is, for all practical purposes, invulnerable.”
“Once you fire your nuclear weapon on Pyongyang, you’ll be back to square one.”
“Four MIRVed missiles, each with three independently targetable warheads, moving at nearly thirty thousand kilometers per hour. Our enemies will have no defense against us. We’ll be truly safe for the first time in our history.”
“But the satellite won’t be in a geosynchronous orbit. It’ll take ninety minutes to make a complete orbit. Which means at any given moment, targets in North Korea could be an hour or more away.”
Lee nodded sagely. “Thirty-one minutes, actually, when the speed of the missiles’ rockets are taken into account. This is merely the first launch.”
McGarvey glanced out the window. They were on the main road that led from the launch control center to the launchpad. The H2C rocket, liquid oxygen fumes venting from its flanks, stood bathed in lights, poised to fire.
“At any given moment, your missiles would be thirty-one minutes from targets in the United States as well.”
Lee shrugged indifferently. “The U.S. is not our enemy.”
“Yet,” McGarvey said. “Why did you try to eliminate me?”
“Because you are a dangerous man. Everyone knows it.”
“Even the President?”
“He’s not in on this, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Then why did you come after my family?”
Lee’s lips curled at the edges. “It was a mistake,” he said, arrogantly, obviously lying.
“Yes, it was,” McGarvey said. He raised his pistol a fraction of an inch and fired. The bullet caught Lee in the middle of his forehead. “A very big mistake.”
Hirota was watching the retreating limo on one of the monitors when the OIC called from downstairs.
“He turned around. Do you want us to go after him?”
“Send two units,” Hirota ordered. “Everyone else stays put. Nobody gets close to this building. Nobody.”
“Hai.”
Still watching the monitor, Hirota called down to Kunimatsu. “He might be heading to the launchpad.”
“He won’t get anywhere near it if you keep your security people there until the last minute,” the launch director replied. He sounded harried, but in control.
“I can’t hold my people past T-minus three minutes.”
“It won’t matter after that. He won’t be able to do anything to the rocket. And if he’s close when it lights off he’ll be incinerated.”
“So will Mr. Lee, you fool,” Hirota shouted.
Kunimatsu took a moment to reply. When he did his voice was hard. “The launch cannot be delayed. Our next window won’t be until tomorrow night. Mr. Lee’s life is not a consideration,” Kunimatsu said. “Have I made myself clear?”
Hirota stood up and glanced down at Kunimatsu’s position on the top tier. The launch director turned around and looked up. Their eyes met.
“Hai,” Hirota said.
McGarvey held the barrel of his pistol against the back of the chauffeur’s skull. “If you don’t speak English, we’re both going to be in a lot of trouble.”
They had slowed to a crawl, still two miles from the launchpad. The driver, his face a mask of rage, stared at McGarvey’s reflection in the rearview mirror. He nodded slightly.
“I have no reason to kill you, if you cooperate with me. Do you understand?”
Again the driver nodded.
“Drive to the launchpad.”
“The guards won’t let us pass. And the crash barriers will be down.”
“This is a heavy car, we’ll see what it’ll do.”
“It will get us killed,” the driver said tightly. He’d gotten his rage in check.
McGarvey stole a quick glance out of the rear window. Two vehicles with flashing blue lights had pulled away from the launch control building and were coming their way.
“You’d better speed up now, or I’ll pull the trigger.”
The chauffeur had seen the approaching cars, and he’d been stalling for time. He stepped on the gas and they accelerated.
“How many guards are out there?” McGarvey demanded.
“A squad. Thirteen or fourteen men, plus a sergeant and an officer.”
McGarvey didn’t like the odds. They’d be spread out around the perimeter, especially on the main approach road, but there were too many of them. “How soon before the launch do they pull out?”
“I don’t know.”
McGarvey jabbed him with the pistol.
“They lock the gates at the ten-minute warning and drive back to the security post.”
Ten minutes. It was coming up on that time. The rocket was fully fueled and ready to go right now. It was like a time bomb sitting on the pad. Even if the launch went without an accident, the heat radius would stretch a couple hundred yards; anything within that distance when the main engines lit off would be cooked or suffocated in the intense heat. If something went wrong, if the rocket exploded, the radius could extend a mile or more. The base of a launchpad was a very dangerous place to be.
A green sky rocket rose into the night from near the launchpad.
“What was that?” McGarvey asked.
“The ten-minute warning.” The driver glanced again in the rearview mirror. “You’re too late.”
Ahead there were several vehicles at the launchpad’s main gate. Their blue lights were flashing, and McGarvey could pick out several men standing in the middle of the road.
He looked over his shoulder. The blue lights from the launch control center had gotten much closer. They were boxing him in.
“You can’t stop a rocket with a pistol,” the driver said. He’d slowed down again.
McGarvey sat stock still. Ahead on the right was a low poured concrete building, a gravel parking lot in front. Behind it was a thick jungle of sea oats and tall grasses that led down to the beach. He had run out of options, but Japan, or any nation for that matter, in control of nuclear weapons in space was simply unacceptable, no matter what the personal costs were.
“Stop here and roll down your window,” he said.
The chauffeur did as he was told. As soon as the limo came to a halt, McGarvey opened the rear door and jumped out. The driver looked at him.
McGarvey pointed his gun at the man’s face. “Get out of here,” he ordered. “If you come after me I’ll kill you.”
The driver nodded.
McGarvey waited until the limo made a U-turn and headed back the way it had come, then sprinted across the road. He crossed the gravel parking lot in a dead run, raced around to the back of the building and plunged into the dense grass jungle.