He looked back. The Koreans had given up trying to open the door. The window was clear. Bond could imagine them trying to work out a plan. Would they pull the emergency handle? No. Stopping the train was the last thing they would want to do. Should he pull it himself? He dismissed the idea. If the train came to a halt, it would only make him an easier target. But even as he’d been working on the blast caps, he’d forced himself to realise the truth of the situation. It wasn’t enough just to dismantle the bomb. For Manhattan and the Empire State Building to be completely safe he had to get rid of the plastic explosive altogether.
There was one way he could do that. At the same time he could separate himself from the Koreans before they found a way to reach him. And he could give Sin the shock of his life. Bond half smiled as he worked out his strategy. He wasn’t just going to neutralise the C4. He was going to use it.
He used the knife to cut off two pieces, the blade easily slicing through the soft putty. Working as quickly as he could, he used his hands to mould the pieces into balls, each one about the size of a hand grenade. And that, of course, was exactly what they were about to become. He grabbed two of the detonators and pushed them into the putty. Would it work? Why not? All it would take was the pressure of 81,000 pounds of steel pressing down – that and a sniper’s eye.
They were under the river. Bond knew it from the change of pressure in his ears. They had left Brooklyn and were on their way to Manhattan. He cut a makeshift sling out of the tarpaulin, carefully suspended the two missiles inside and slung the whole thing over his shoulder. It was still horribly dangerous but he had no other way to carry them. He made sure they were secure, then hurried to the far end of the carriage and the other door. There was a gunshot – he barely heard it above the sound of the train – and a bullet slammed into the back of the seat closest to where he was standing. Bond twisted round and returned fire but whoever had taken aim at him had already gone. He had just three bullets left. Should he search for the other gun? He decided against it. If this was going to work, it had to be done now.
Bond opened the door. This time there wasn’t a conventional carriage in front of him. Instead, he found himself leaning into the full expanse of the tunnel with the wind tearing past, the wheels and undercarriage clattering, the tunnel walls a continuous, black streak. The maintenance vehicle carrying the rocket, chained into place, was in front of him. Ahead, there was the carriage with Sin and the driver. Well, very soon, if Bond had his way, they would be parting company with their precious load. It almost amused him to think of Sin turning up at the Empire State Building with nothing but the engine and the carriage in which he sat.
Bond had tucked the gun back into his trouser pocket, knowing he might need it. He started forward, inching his way as quickly as possible in the narrow space between the rocket – concealed beneath its tarpaulin – and the edge of the lowboy. He had just reached Sin’s carriage when the train burst into East Broadway, the first station in Manhattan itself. There were just six more stops until 34th Street, where Sin had planned to stage the fake crash of the Vanguard. Bond grabbed hold of the rail that ran across the door. He was tempted to look in through the porthole, just to check that Sin was there. But he didn’t need to put himself at risk. He had seen the train leave. He knew where everyone was. Bond was filthy again. The wind had blasted him with years of accumulated dirt and soot. He could taste it in his mouth. It had penetrated his skin. The very clothes he was wearing had turned black. But he didn’t care. He grinned and his white teeth flared in the darkness. This was the moment of reckoning.
He reached the roof and almost split his head open on a low metal girder that came rushing past. He actually felt it swipe across his hair and cursed himself for the moment of over-confidence that had brought him within an inch of getting himself killed. It was so nearly over. Don’t make mistakes now. He twisted round so that his feet were stretched out towards the front of the engine and his head and shoulders were protruding over the edge of the roof, above the replica Vanguard rocket. He reached round and took one of the makeshift hand grenades out of the sling. It shouldn’t be too difficult. All he had to do was drop it onto the rail. The maintenance truck carrying the rocket would run over the C4 and the huge pressure would set it off. If he had got it right, there would be a small explosion which would shatter the coupling between the rocket and the carriage with Sin and the driver. By the time the train stopped, there would be half a mile between the engine and its payload. And Sin’s remaining men would be out of the picture too.
It was so easy. The rail was right underneath him. But then, before he could do anything, there was a spark in the darkness and a bullet ricocheted off the stainless steel, inches from his hand. He looked up and saw one of the Koreans on the other side of the rocket, lying sprawled on the roof of the carriage that Bond had just left. There were two more men behind him. They had realised that the only way round the blocked door was to climb over the top. They were crawling towards him even now. The man aimed a second time.
Bond had to choose. Shoot back or use the grenade?
He took careful aim, then threw the first of his two missiles towards the rails.
TWENTY-THREE
Final Countdown
T minus four. Stage one and stage two auto sequence initiated.
It was a perfect night for a launch. To the spectators who had parked their cars and who were lining the shore in expectation of the world’s most spectacular – and expensive – firework display, the sky was an inky black with a glittering panoply of stars reflected in the water below, which was still and sluggish as if in anticipation of the event to come. The scientists and technicians within the Wallops Island launch facility would have described it a little differently. There was an optimum weather outlook, the temperature 39 degrees, the wind speed a comfortable 18 knots with a wind-shear element of 4.5 knots factored in. A small amount of lightning activity had been reported but it was well outside the safety limit of ten nautical miles. There were no clouds.
The Vanguard stood on its launch pad, tiny and defiant against the night sky, pinned into place by powerful spotlights closing in on it from three sides. A tiny red beacon was glowing at the top. At T minus sixty-five the gantry cranes had been slowly retired and now only the so-called umbilical cords connected it – tenuously – to the ground. A mixture of liquid oxygen and kerosene was being fed into the oxidiser tanks and the base of the rocket was wreathed in the dense white smoke that made it appear sacred and deadly at the same time. In just a few minutes the engine would ignite, achieving 27,000 pounds of thrust – enough to send the rocket on its way with a vertical velocity of 3,903 feet per second. If it all went well. Everything had been checked and rechecked but there were still a thousand things that could go wrong.
T minus three. Telemetry and command receivers switched to internal power.
There were thirty men and women inside the central control room, many of them sitting behind desks that had been positioned in front of the long, narrow window that faced the launch site. They were surrounded by dozens of monitors, all of them displaying information from the brand new IBM 709 data synchroniser which in turn was hotwired into the AN/FPS-16 radar system.
Every single piece of data relating to orbit determination would be recorded instantly and at the same time transmitted to Washington. Ultimately, in the event of serious system failure, the launch could be aborted or, in a worst case scenario, the rocket destroyed. This was the responsibility of the Range Safety Officer . . . a man in a suit, in his early thirties, pale and silent, standing in the middle of all the activity and yet somehow removed from it. He had a desk with a bank of machinery and a red toggle switch in a grey box. It was strange that so many years of research, so many millions of dollars, could be wiped out by something as simple as this. For the switch and the box were the Vanguard’s self-destruct mechanism, christened, with graveyard humour, ‘Trigger Mortis’ by some of the VOG technicians.
T minus one tw
enty . . .
The countdown had switched to seconds and the tension in the control room was cranked up accordingly. It was dark inside. The heavy blockhouse doors had been drawn across and the overhead lights dimmed. Most of the illumination now came from the monitors and from the NO SMOKING signs which had flickered on as the final countdown had begun. Captain Eugene T. Lawrence was sitting – in full uniform – as close to the centre as he had been able to get, ignoring the fact that he was the one person in the room who had absolutely nothing to do. He was rolling an unlit cigarette between his fingers, slowly shredding it. The Base Manager, Johnny Calhoun, was standing close by, watching him carefully. Neither of the two men had spoken again about Bond’s visit but they had both been affected by it. And they both knew it. A secret agent does not fly all the way from Europe to deliver a tissue of lies and, whatever Lawrence might have said at the time, a cloud of uncertainty hung over them, all the worse because there was nothing they could do. If something did go wrong, if the launch failed, it would be their fault. But it was too late to stop it. Far too late.
It hadn’t worked.
The ball of C4 with its detonator had hit the rail but it had harmlessly bounced off before the wheels could crush it. As if realising what had happened, the Korean on the roof of the other carriage fired off a second shot. Bond scrabbled for his own gun and fired twice. The man screamed and rolled sideways, disappearing into the darkness. But behind him, his companion had raised himself up to get a better aim. His gun was pointing directly at Bond and Bond had nowhere to hide. Time seemed to have been cut into a series of snapshots. It was a sensation that he knew well from moments of extreme danger when the adrenalin was pumping through him. Somehow everything slowed down and he was able to separate it into distinct moments.
The Korean aimed.
Something hit Bond on the shoulder. Not the bullet. Whatever it was had come from behind.
The Korean smiled. He knew he couldn’t miss.
Bond didn’t move. He was going to be all right after all. He knew that the bullet wouldn’t be fired.
A wire dangling from the roof of the tunnel caught the Korean around the throat and jerked him backwards, horribly, breaking his neck, sweeping him into oblivion. This was what Bond had felt just a second before. He had been lucky it hadn’t done the same to him.
There were three more men on the roof behind him. But they wouldn’t move forward. Not now. Not yet.
Bond took out the second grenade. Another station rushed past so abruptly that he didn’t have time to see the name. Broadway? West 4th Street? The train was showing no sign of slowing down but they had to be getting close to the target area.
Lying flat on the edge of the roof with the stale subway air rushing over his shoulders, Bond held the ball of explosive as low as he could before releasing it, the top half of his body folded over the edge. He wondered how long he had before the other Koreans fired at him. He had to concentrate on what he was doing. He didn’t dare look up. But he could imagine them crawling forward, climbing down onto the platform with the rocket. From there, they would have an easy shot. He had to be careful. He’d only manufactured two of the makeshift bombs. If he missed this time, that would be it.
He opened his hand, whipping back up as the missile fell, using the horizontal surface of the roof as a shield. Had it worked? Bond didn’t see the train ride over the C4, crushing it completely. He didn’t see the steel edge of the wheel biting down, triggering the blast cap. But he heard and felt the explosion. There was a burst of bright, crimson light and for a moment the tunnel glowed as if the train were travelling through a circle of fire. The shockwave travelled up, bouncing off the walls and ceiling of the tunnel and Bond had to flatten himself, clinging onto the metal ridges, to prevent himself being thrown off. He felt the entire carriage shudder and then there was a terrible screaming sound and he knew that his plan hadn’t worked out quite as he had hoped – that, in fact, he had done more than he had intended. The explosion had cut the train in half. There was the maintenance truck disappearing into the distance (he just caught sight of it in the corner of his eye) and the rest of Sin’s men were going with it. Well, good riddance to them. But the front section of the train was in trouble. Bond felt the roof jolt and then tilt to one side. A million sparks blazed all around him. There was a terrible shuddering, like an earthquake.
The train had derailed. He only understood when the entire thing buckled and split apart. Bond was wrenched free. His shoulder slammed into a steel bracket. Not part of the train. Part of the tunnel roof. He was flying through the darkness and the carriage was no longer beneath him. His whole body was limp. He heard the shattering of glass, metal being ripped in half, the engine howling, out of control. Something smashed into his head. He felt his neck breaking and there was a huge electric shock behind his eyes. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.
All across Wallops Island, the sirens were blasting out their final warnings, the sound starting low then climbing into the night sky. The crowds standing far outside the compound knew that the moment had come and this was the real reason for the alarm. Anyone who might be in any danger had long withdrawn.
T minus thirty. Ground disengage . . .
The umbilical cords fell away. Now the rocket really was on its own and the night sky seemed darker than ever, fearful of the assault that was about to take place. A sudden spark, brilliant, elemental. With just six seconds to lift-off, the pyrotechnic igniter had been activated. This was the moment of truth. Inside the central control room, nobody moved. The loudspeakers had fallen silent. Even the television screens seemed to have frozen.
Lift-off . . .
One second later, the spark reached the oxygen and kerosene fumes and exploded, swallowing up the darkness, expanding into a blinding ball of light as bright as the sun. Behind the rocket, the sea danced white. The gantry, the other buildings . . . the entire island was consumed and the Vanguard itself was barely visible as torrents of dust and smoke swirled around. At the same time there came the sound of the loudest explosion in the world, not sudden but sustained, pulsating through the air, through brickwork, deafening everyone for a mile around. The ground was shaking. The vibrations were tearing the fabric of the night apart.
The Vanguard rose, painfully slowly, hesitantly, hovering above the ground as if reluctant to begin its journey. Inside the control room, the Fire Control Technician stood at attention, his hand close to the water deluge lever that would release thousands of gallons if the rocket fell back to earth. For what seemed like an eternity it hung there, then began to move, a silver dagger cutting into the sky. The gantry was trembling, bending in and out of shape as it soared past.
All systems stable. Flight proceeding normally.
Captain Lawrence smiled, a thin crease spreading across the wide expanse of his face, the intense glare reflecting in his eyes. This was the moment when he was vindicated, when the English spy was proven wrong. The Vanguard was picking up speed, moving effortlessly now, leaving behind a billowing carpet of smoke and light. The howl of its engine was louder than ever. In fifty seconds it would be supersonic. At the same time it would ease itself into a pre-calculated arc, taking advantage of the earth’s curve. The first stage would burn out and fall away, allowing the second stage to take over. The rocket had a journey of just seventy-six miles. After that it would have broken through the earth’s atmosphere. It would be in space. Already it was tiny, little more than a blazing star, climbing through the sky, beautiful and silent.
System malfunction. Stand by. Repeat. System malfunction.
A gasp of disbelief. The Range Safety Officer looked round as if he had been slapped. In a chamber to one side the Electronics Telemetering crew were whispering urgently, examining the data as it appeared on the screen. Something had gone wrong. There was some sort of blockage in the nitrogen supply lines feeding the fuel tank and insufficient propellant was being pumped into the combustion chamber. The readings showed that the thrust had
only reached twenty-one thousand pounds. Not enough to complete the journey. The rocket wasn’t going to make it – and suddenly it was a threat. Seventeen thousand pounds of hardware with thousands of gallons of kerosene and liquid oxygen. It was no longer a rocket. It was a bomb, one mile above the earth’s surface. If it fell back. If the second stage ignited. If it lost control . . .
Abort mission.
They were the two words the Range Safety Officer most dreaded. But his training told him not to question them, not to hesitate. His hand hit the toggle switch of the self-destruct system that they knew as Trigger Mortis. He fumbled it. There was no feeling in his arm. But then his fingers closed round it and he pressed upwards, sending out the radio signal that meant instant death. There was a brief pause, a last half-second in which everything might be all right after all, and then a vast explosion as the Vanguard blew itself apart, the star stretching itself in every direction, doubling, tripling in size before disappearing altogether. Then darkness; total, absolute. Inside the control room the scientists were staring in shock and disbelief. A few of them were in tears. Calhoun caught Lawrence’s eye but the Navy Liaison and Project Officer looked away. He was feeling sick.
Launch team, launch team. Be advised. Stay at your consoles . . .
Along the shorelines the spectators cried out, witnessing what had happened. Many of them had captured it on their cameras. All of them would be talking about it the next day and for the rest of their lives. In the darkness, none of them saw the broken pieces of the Vanguard as they fell back to earth, splashing harmlessly into the Atlantic.
They could, of course, have fallen anywhere. Among the crowd, Sin’s agents piled into their cars and drove away, taking their cameras with them. The photographs would be developed overnight. Every newspaper in the country would have them following the catastrophe that had been supposed to take place in the next two minutes in a city three hundred and thirty miles to the north.
Trigger Mortis Page 24
