by Clancy, Tom
“No,” the marine replied. “I told my coworkers to head for the command bunker once we were rescued.”
Hood looked at the young man as the car sped off. “Are you all right?”
“Intact, sir,” the marine said.
Anita turned and regarded the young man. “You are not a scientist,” she declared.
The marine put the gun in its holster. He did not answer. He looked out the window at the retreating launchpad.
“Who are you?” Anita demanded.
Hood responded. “He’s just a man who may have helped save your space complex and your father’s government.” Hood smiled. “Speaking of saving, thanks for pulling us out of there.”
Anita looked at Hood. Gunfire continued to hit the car. Depending on the angle, the shots rang like a bell or sounded like a cat scratching. The sedan left the asphalt and began racing across the field that separated the launchpad from the Technical Center. The rutted ground caused the car to bump and rattle. The high, rigid grasses sounded like steel wool along the chassis. But all of the sounds, all thought and lingering questions, vanished when the booster lit up. It was about three quarters of a mile behind them. Hood heard a deep blast, then felt the car tremble. Everything from the license plates to the seat belts rattled, like teeth. The vehicle was literally bumped forward, skidding slightly as a shock wave hit the car. The invisible fist rolled over the roof and rattled the grasses in front of them. The air itself was distorted as the hot wind blew through.
Hood and the marine turned. The helicopters went into retreat as opaque, lumpy waves of gray-and-white smoke spilled from the bottom of the rocket. The rocket towered above the flat countryside, stark against the distant mountains. It was quickly obscured as thick clouds crawled in all directions. The smoke all but smothered the red orange flames that flashed deep within. A second wave of air rushed toward them, superheated gas from the postignition burn. The air in the car quickly grew very hot. The smell of melting rubber filled the interior as the seams around the windows softened.
“What is the time frame?” Anita asked anxiously.
“You mean, when do we know if we’ve succeeded?” Hood asked.
“We are twenty seconds from what should have been liftoff,” the marine answered. He was looking at the digital numbers on his watch.
Hood was impressed that he was professional enough to do that. Though he realized, of course, that they would know soon enough how things were going. If the clamp blew up, they had failed.
It occurred to Hood that these could be the last moments of his life. Even if the clamp were destroyed, and the bomb with it, the rocket could still fall over. If it did, the size of the explosion would depend upon how much fuel remained in the tanks. Dying was bad enough. Dying, knowing that Tam Li had succeeded, even without the explosion, would be worse. Even if the prime minister moved to have him arrested, there were powerful elements in the government that would back the general, men who wanted a final showdown with Taiwan.
The clamps and most of the rocket were entirely obscured by the thickening exhaust. The rumbling roar was all around as the engines strained to carry their payload aloft.
“The first-stage rockets only have another fifteen seconds of burn in them,” the marine said. “They’re going to shut off at approximately the moment the bomb would probably go off.”
“Probably?” Anita said.
“The bomber does not benefit if it explodes after the rocket has lifted off,” the marine informed her.
Hood was only half-listening to the exchange. Once again, he was impressed with the marine’s clear-headed reasoning and the pertinent facts he had picked up during his tenure. Though it also made Hood sad. Unlike Op-Center’s late Striker force, this man had enjoyed some prep time before going on his mission, as well as time to reconnoiter on the ground. That made a great deal of difference.
“Five seconds,” the marine announced, looking at his wristwatch.
The smoke was now black and gray. More than the fuel was burning. The pipes they had been hiding behind were probably gone. There was a small red-and-yellow flash from the area of the transformer. The intense heat must have destroyed everything behind the blast shield.
The car continued to bounce across the field. It was sweltering and extremely stuffy inside, but they did not dare open the windows. Though the helicopters appeared to have left, the car would still afford them some protection from any shrapnel that might come flying off the rocket.
The marine lowered his wrist. “Zero,” he said.
A moment later the rumbling stopped. The only sounds were the thumping of the car as it raced across the final stretch of the field. The smoke dissipated slowly, and the rocket was visible wherever the sunlight found its white skin.
“Oh, shit,” Hood said.
It was an involuntary remark, uttered as he watched flames claw at the base of the rocket. The bomb had not exploded. They had apparently succeeded in melting the device. But smoke was curling from behind every plate and rivet as fire crawled up the depleted booster. Whatever was under the exterior skin was burning: tubing, electronics, everything flammable.
It was making its way to the second stage.
A stage that was fueled.
FIFTY-NINE
Xichang, China Thursday, 12:02 P.M.
“Purge the second-stage fuel!”
Prime Minister Le Kwan Po was sitting at a communications console in a private room of the Technical Center. He had declined an offer to be evacuated. He wanted to see this through. And his daughter was still out there.
Five crews were quickly mobilized. Through a headset, he was listening to the conversation taking place at the command center. The discussion was between the mission director and the chief of launch operations. Because of the expedited countdown, technicians had not been able to fully drain the fuel from the upper stage before the hoses were burned. The director’s command was unequivocal, but the CLO had reservations. A color monitor in the console showed the burning rocket. A pair of technicians were sitting on either side of the prime minister. One of them was on the telephone with an observation tower near the front gate.
“Sir, there is very little fuel in there. If we release it, we will feed the fire, and we risk a complete vehicular meltdown,” the CLO said.
“The plutonium core will likely survive the heat,” the director said. “It may not survive an explosion if the flames get that high.”
“With respect, I do not see much difference between ‘likely’ and ‘may,’ ” the CLO pointed out. “And with the fuel on the ground, we will have a terrible fire to try to contain.”
“We can contain a fire easier than fallout,” the director said. “Dump the fuel now before the fire climbs any higher.”
“Yes, sir,” the CLO said.
Le Kwan Po removed his headset but continued to watch the screen. “Where is my daughter’s car?” he asked the technician.
“Safe,” he replied. “It is just leaving the field.”
“Thank you,” the prime minister said.
Anita and the others were safe for now, at least. The prime minister watched as what looked like steaming water poured from four spouts in the midsection of the rocket. One of the technicians explained that the mixture was composed of liquid oxygen and kerosene. The downpour hit the rising flames with a flourish, drawing sheets of flame from the smoke below. They rose on all sides like an orchestral crescendo, wrapping the rocket in a blanket of fire. The camera operator zoomed in on the payload, a gumdrop-shaped container perched atop the second stage. The flames did not yet reach that high, though ugly black smoke from the spilling fuel curled around it, driven by small air currents.
“We’re losing her!” one of the technicians barked.
Le Kwan Po watched as the top of the rocket began to list. The camera pulled back as the sixty-meter-high rocket pivoted unsteadily on its base, moving away from the gantry like a baby taking a first step. Apparently, both of the restraining clamps had
been destroyed. Then the rocket began to fall toward the left, away from the support tower and into the unbroken wall of flame. Though the fuel tanks were nearly empty, spillage picked up on the lower side as the rocket tilted. The fires sizzled and flashed higher. In moments, the nuclear payload would fall into the inferno.
Le Kwan Po could feel the tension of the other men as they watched the cataclysmic ballet.
As the rocket vanished in the mound of coal-black smoke, a bright, white explosion flashed from somewhere inside.
“What was that?” one of the technicians asked. “The payload should not have exploded that way.”
“Could it have been the bomb?” the other man asked.
Le Kwan Po said nothing. There was nothing to say. The men watched as the mountain of black smoke took on a pale, ashen color at the base. Long gray tendrils crawled through the gantry and up from the fallen rocket. The smoke thinned quickly, and the fires subsided considerably. The camera moved in. The rocket itself was still obscured by smoke and fire. Except for the skeletal gantry and a charred blast wall, the surrounding structures were devastated.
“The coolant tank is gone,” one of the technicians said. There was joy in his voice. “That was what caused the flare. A blast of steam.”
“Are we all right?” Le Kwan Po asked.
“I think so, sir,” the technician replied tentatively. He peered closely at the monitor. “The coolant has a thirty-seven percent water content. It is designed to evaporate so the rocket does not have to carry it aloft. It appears the water has doused whatever fires it touched.”
“There is no oil in the fuel mixture?”
“No, sir,” the technician replied. “Only hydrogen and oxygen.”
The gentle winds in the launch area caused the smoke to thin. The wreckage of the rocket was visible now, lying in puddles of fire and debris. The first stage was lying across the launchpad. The second stage and payload were separated from the first and from each other. They were spread across the asphalt. The payload section appeared to be intact.
The Americans had done a formidable job.
Le Kwan Po thanked the technicians for their hospitality, then left the bunker. He went up the concrete stairs to the main room. The guard had been watching the event with binoculars through the open doorway. She turned.
“I am happy to say that your daughter has returned safely,” she said. “May I ask if the operation was a success?”
“It is strange to call the destruction of our rocket a success, but I believe you can say that,” the prime minister said.
The guard smiled for the first time, then returned to her desk. Le Kwan Po walked into the once-bright noon, which was now clouding over with smoke. Sirens screamed in the distance as the space center fire department rushed to the blaze. He saw all that in just a moment. Everything vanished as he saw his daughter step from the car. Anita ran forward and embraced her father.
“I think you were five or six,” her father said.
“Five or six?”
“The last time you ran to me,” Le told her. There was a catch in his voice and tears on his cheek.
Anita smiled warmly. “You should be pleased you raised such a self-sufficient daughter.”
“I am more than pleased,” he said. “I am proud. Very, very proud.”
Le broke the embrace as Paul Hood and another man walked by. They had walked well out of the way to give the prime minister and his daughter privacy. There would be time enough for that later. Right now he wanted to talk to the men.
“Mr. Hood,” he said, speaking directly to the American in broken English.
“Sir?” Hood said. He stopped.
Le Kwan Po motioned for his daughter to interpret. “I want to thank you and your associates for everything you did out there.”
“Sir, we got very lucky out there,” Hood said.
“Men make their own luck,” the prime minister replied.
“Perhaps,” Hood said. “But it looked to me like the coolant did a lot of the heavy lifting.”
“The pipes were weakened because Mr. Hood and his friend hid there, and Tam Li’s men were shooting at them,” Anita said.
“You see?” Le told her. “Nothing is entirely the work of chance.”
Anita translated for Hood while Le regarded his Asian companion. He was a young man, dirty and slick with perspiration, but with eyes full of purpose. He was looking at his cell phone.
“I would like to meet this other hero,” the prime minister said to Hood.
“He is one of Mike Rodgers’s associates,” Hood said.
The young man looked up as the prime minister offered his hand. “Thank you for the work you did today.”
“I am glad I could help, sir,” the marine replied in Chinese.
“May I ask your name?”
“It is Kim.” The young man smiled.
“You are not Chinese,” the prime minister said. “Korean?”
“No, sir,” the marine replied. “American.” He held up his phone. “Sir, I’ve just received word that some of my associates were slightly injured by gunfire from the helicopters. I would like to see them.”
“My driver will take you,” Le Kwan Po said. “And thank you again.”
“It was an honor to meet you, sir,” the young man answered.
While Anita finished translating for Hood, Le turned. The dignitaries who had come to watch a launch were beginning to file from the basement observation area. They asked questions in several different languages, and Anita went to see what she could do to calm the group. Several of them pointed at her father. At his expression in particular. They seemed mystified by the fact that the prime minister had the hint of a smile on his face.
Le walked toward the bunker quickly but without urgency. He excused himself from answering questions with a polite wave. He had to telephone the president and the minister of defense. He had to let the former know what had happened. He wanted the latter to make sure that any other aspects of Tam Li’s plans were stopped, and the general was brought to swift justice. Both men would already have been briefed through channels, but he wanted to give them his perspective. That report would be his political trophy for seeing this through.
He entered the communications room and asked the two technicians to excuse him. They left without question, shutting the door behind them. The prime minister sat and placed the first call.
The failure of their communications satellite was a setback. But compared to what the nation had gained, it was worth the price. They had stopped a general from a scheme they had yet to ascertain. More importantly, they had done so by forging an international union among longtime adversaries. In so doing, they had moved a step closer to peace.
That was important to a prime minister. But it was enough to make any father smile.
SIXTY
Zhuhai, China Thursday, 12:18 P.M.
With regret but also with resolve, General Tam Li sent the stand down code to his forces. All it took was a password entered into his computer and a typed command sent to both air and sea command at the base. The officers in charge relayed the message to their assets in the field and to the other bases from which planes and ships had departed.
Tam Li had learned of the failure of the bomb from his airborne group commander. The general had not anticipated much of a risk if the security team were captured when they left the space center. He thought it would be too late to get to the bomb. He was mistaken. Before leaving the complex, the airborne team leader said that the rocket boosters had been ignited prematurely and apparently melted through to the bomb, preventing it from exploding.
It was a very clever maneuver, desperate but effective.
The general shut down his computer and rose. He looked out the window at the sea. This was supposed to have been his moment of ascension. Instead of rising to the sun like the planes he had recalled, he had fallen to earth. It was not in the best interest of the nation to proceed with the attack on the Taiwanese military. Not no
w. Without the sabotage of the rocket, he would not convince Beijing that Taiwan had been seeking to take advantage of Chou Shin’s treasonous act.
If any of his security team confessed, he would not convince Beijing that Chou Shin had been responsible for this attack. That was the reason for using Chou’s bomb-maker instead of their own. Tam Li did not just want to defeat his foe—he wanted to blame him. Everything had depended upon the events happening one after the other, until Beijing was in so deep militarily that there was just one way out: to crush Taiwan. With that little financial engine out of the way, and Tam Li in a new position of authority, he would have been able to turn China into the strongest, most fertile financial power in the region. Even Japan, with its deepening debt, would not have been able to compete. Some of those profits would have gone to modernizing and expanding the military. Some would have gone to Tam Li and his associates. With its vast workforce and resources, China would have become the world’s greatest superpower in Tam Li’s lifetime. Unlike the plans of other conquerors, there would have been a minimal amount of strife and bloodshed.
The vision had been so clear, the end so clearly attainable. The plan itself had been clean and perfect.
Now it was dead.
Tam Li found that fact difficult to process. It had been in the works for over a year. It had occupied his thoughts constantly as he maneuvered the strife with Chou Shin, planted his personnel at the space center, felt success come nearer and nearer. His peripheral vision caught sight of the firearms in a display case. These were the guns he had carried throughout his career. He thought of using one now to avoid the inquiries and eventual trial. He decided against it, not from cowardice but for principle. He still believed that China was destined to dominate the globe. His people had been using explosives when the rest of the world was still fighting each other with spears and boiling oil. China would seize that advantage again.
But not today. And not with General Tam Li leading the assault.
He did not turn from the window but continued to look outward. Toward the future. He stood there even when there was a harsh knock at the door. The door was unlocked. After a minute the men entered. They stepped behind the general and asked him to come with them.
