“Hammer flight, are you in position and are you a go?” he asked, closing his eyes.
“This is Hammer flight one actual, we are orbiting and in position—we are a go.”
On one of the large monitors there was an aerial view of four F-22 Raptors as they orbited just above Monterey, California. They were in a position to attempt an intercept of any aircraft or missile that threatened the four flights.
“Ticonderoga, are you mission-capable, over?” Hugh asked.
“This is USS Ticonderoga. We are at station and we are tracking, and we are a go for intercept,” came the reply from the most advanced Aegis missile cruiser in the world.
Hugh nodded his head, never in his life thinking they would need the military in such force for the launching of Americans into space. The world was a different place than it had been only a few weeks before.
“Vandenberg, they’re all yours,” Hugh said as he sat down. “Godspeed, Dark Star.”
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA
The environmental suits had not changed much since the mid-seventies. With the exception of computer readouts, a video screen, a three-backup safety and oxygen system, and the input of a virtual reality display for mapping inside the helmet, Sarah felt like she was Buzz Aldrin.
As the twelve astronauts of the first leg of the Florida end of Dark Star prepared for their transport to pad 1-A, they all had thoughts rolling in their heads. They knew they were backups to the backups, but after what the commander of the mission had said earlier, they had all prepared as though they were the last hope of the nation in getting to the moon. The space shuttle Atlantis was waiting for its crew to board.
As Sarah was helped to her feet in the bulky suit, she looked over at her friends Jason and Will. She smiled as the helmet was placed on her head and she took what would be her last breath of earthbound air for the foreseeable future. She saw Ryan and Mendenhall do the same. As her eyes roamed over the rest of her crew, she settled for watching the always silent men of the 5th Special Forces Group that had been chosen from a larger group of volunteers for the hazardous mission. Unlike Mendenhall, Ryan, and herself, these men had the confident look of people who followed orders and yet were capable of quick thinking and fast reactions in difficult situations. Sarah knew they were just like Jack. She also knew that these men were going into a hostile environment that was just as deadly as any human foe they could ever face.
“Okay, people, give me a thumbs-up when you’re called,” said the ground supervisor and environmental specialist, “STS Atlantis Commander Johnson?”
The commander pointed his thumb in the air.
“STS pilot Walker?”
Sarah watched each man as they went down the line.
She watched the eyes of Will and Ryan as they waited their turn. Their stiffness in their suits made Sarah love them even more as it reminded her of two small boys in oversized suit and ties awaiting their turn at their first day of school.
“Mission specialist Mendenhall?”
Will raised his right thumb into the air almost too fast, but held it steady as he smiled back at Sarah.
“Lunar lander copilot and mission specialist Ryan?” the technician called, shaking his head as Ryan held up not one but both thumbs, and Sarah could have sworn she heard the muffled words, “We’re all going to die.”
“Gentlemen and lady,” the ground specialist said. “The ground crew wishes you luck and prays you have a safe journey.”
As they waited, the circle broke up. Men from the old days of the Apollo program, people who had done the preparation of astronauts in those heady days, swarmed the group of twelve and started shaking their hands and patting them on the back of their oxygen tanks. From the look in their eyes, Sarah could see that each of them would have traded places with anyone of the crew. She felt proud to have been trained by them in their environmental classes and she was happy to have known the men of the old school.
“Crew of Atlantis, crew of Dark Star 3, man the transport, please.”
As the group lined up to leave the prep building, Sarah paused a moment and looked at Will and Ryan.
“Don’t say it,” Will said. “I wish the colonel and the captain were here too. I would feel safer about having our asses lit on fire and shot off to God-knows-what fate if they were. But—”
“They aren’t here,” Sarah finished for her friend.
The three Event Group lieutenants smiled and Ryan gestured for Sarah to take the lead toward the end of the twelve-man group.
“Ladies first.”
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, HOUSTON, TEXAS
Hugh Evans stood as the ten-second countdown for Dark Star 1 commenced. He closed his eyes for five of those seconds, thinking about Stan Nathan, the man who had been ruthlessly murdered in his own driveway just a week earlier. He opened his eyes and saw the giant Ares V. Then he looked at Ares I in the next monitor. Both platforms were brimming with the mechanics who would send Americans back to the Moon. In the distance he could see Discovery and Endeavour as they waited like NFL lineman itching to get into the game. The Dark Star mission was about to commence.
“Six, five, we have main engine start, four, three, two, one, we have solid booster start.”
Evans watched as the tremendous burst of gases erupted from the giant vent port of the launcher. Through all the trial and error of the now reliable system, Evans still cringed every time an Ares erupted into flame. As he watched he saw the tower stabilizers fall free of the 308-foot-tall Ares I, the lighter of the two systems. The main engine thrust sent a solid plume of white hot gases free of the platform as Ares I started to lift away against the forces of Earth’s gravity. Hugh clenched his fist and pounded on his console as the smaller of the two rockets started to accelerate from zero to eight hundred feet a second.
“Dark Star 1 has cleared the tower, Houston. She’s all yours!” came the voice from the controller at Vandenberg.
Evans didn’t have to say anything to his people as the engineers started calling out their status and it began appearing across their screens. Hugh Evans calmed himself with some difficulty and then found he was scanning the blue skies around the Ares as it lifted into the sky.
“Stay away, you sons of bitches,” he mumbled, expecting at any minute a radar blip that would tell him that the launch was under attack.
Ares I kept climbing, as if daring anyone or anything to interfere with her. She rose majestically, as though propelled by the sheer faith of every man, woman, and child watching. The chase cameras watched the roll of the large Ares as she pointed her nose cone in the right direction for orbit. Then they all cringed as the first stage separated from the second.
Down below, the engineer and representative of Alliant Techsystems, the first stage manufacturer, jumped from his station and threw his fist in the air.
“Yeah!” he yelled. “Was that a perfect performance or what?”
Hugh Evans, instead of telling the man to take his seat, had to smile. How can you reprimand someone whose company had done exactly what you wanted it to do?
As the second stage engines ignited, there was a calm but solid release of tension. Hugh knew that Dark Star 1 was on the way with lander and orbiter to meet its crew at the International Space Station.
All eyes that were not involved with the telemetry of Dark Star 1 turned toward launch pad 6-A as the larger, two-booster systems of the Ares V commenced its ten-second countdown. Hugh winced as the main engines of the giant Ares burst to life, straining at the arms that held her at bay. Then the solid boosters ignited. Evans again closed his eyes as the Ares V started its climb.
“Houston, the clock is running.” Then, a moment later, “Dark Star 2 has cleared the tower. Okay, Texas, she’s all yours!”
Again, technicians stood and urged the much larger Dark Star 2 into the sky. She rolled and then started hitting her stride. The plume of exhaust gases could be seen as far away as Los Angeles as she reached altitude, and the million set
s of eyes on her watching from the city of San Francisco were glued to the amazing sight as more than a dozen of the old and young pumped their fists in an attempt to get the Ares V into its element.
Hugh and his two teams were watching the first stage fall free of the Ares V when he realized that both remote systems were free of earth’s gravity. Hugh sat and calmly informed everyone that they had work to do to get the platforms where they needed to be for rendezvous with the space station. He smiled when he realized how crowded the sky was going to be in just a few more minutes.
QUITO, ECUADOR
While Jack, Sebastian, and Pete Golding worked on the plan to get Captain Everett out of jail, Charlie Ellenshaw, the two Air Force pilots, and the nine German commandos watched the live launches from California. Charlie stepped into the 727’s communications station and nodded his head at Jack, indicating that the two Ares rockets and their payloads had achieved orbit. Collins nodded his head only slightly.
They had been on the ground for three hours. They had a close call when Ecuadorian customs officials came to check out the United States Air Force jet and its personnel, but Europa’s forged flight plan and emergency layover due to a faulty relay held up nicely, which was not to say that the empty electronics cabinet didn’t get a little cramped down in the avionics compartment for Collins, Golding, and Ellenshaw as they hid from the officials.
“Europa has successfully infiltrated the seventh precinct headquarters, home of not only the Ecuadorian chief of all security forces but also the chief prosecutor’s offices. Their computer systems are all tied together. Ecuador is lagging behind somewhat in their prison system and they still do everything by written order. Only the jail in the basement of the building has a closed-loop computer system and it’s only linked to the prosecutor’s offices above, not to the chief of their security forces. So we can order Captain Everett out of his cell and no one will be the wiser.”
“What does that give us?” Sebastian asked.
“Sir, our baby can do many things, but to physically break someone out of jail is not one of them. At some point you and the colonel are going to have to get your hands dirty. I can order the captain to be moved from the cell area to the prosecutor’s office five floors above. At some point, probably in the basement or the fifth-floor office of the prosecutor, you two will have to lie in wait and … what do you spooky guys say? Oh, yes—bag him. All of this without alerting the large security force inside the building while you’re doing so. I would suggest you do it at this point.”
Jack leaned over and saw where Pete was pointing. He turned from Europa’s blueprint of the headquarters building to face Pete Golding.
“You’ve lost it, Pete. In case you don’t know where your finger is resting, that’s the police officers’ shower and locker room. You know there would more than likely be people called cops inside?”
“I’m banking on it. Europa can order the systems controlling the plumbing in the building to shut down, leaving the officers’ locker room the only viable place for a prisoner to shower before being brought into the prosecutor’s office.” Golding saw the look Collins and Sebastian were giving him. “Look, it’s the only loophole Europa could come up with. Oh, hell, I’ll let her explain it.” Pete reached out and hit the switch that controlled the supercomputer’s voice synthesizer. “Explain your plan to the colonel and major, Europa.”
“Yes, Dr. Golding,” came the Marilyn Monroe–ish voice from the speaker. Sebastian looked at Jack and Collins rolled his eyes in return. “Two Quito police department uniforms have been secured for you at Authority Clothing, located two blocks west of the station, and may be picked up using your standard police IDs supplied by Dr. Golding. You will then proceed directly to the fifth floor of police headquarters. At that time a command will be sent from the prosecutor’s office using the auspices of the Europa system. In that order will be a request from the prosecutor to see prisoner 1962900. The order will include a physical examination for any weapons said prisoner may have secured during his brief stay in his cell. That order will include that the prisoner shower before being brought to the head prosecutor’s office. Once the prisoner is inside the shower and locker room, clandestine elements of the mission will secure the prisoner and abscond with his person through emergency exit 29-b, shown on the monitor. Probability is seventy to thirty against success.”
“What the hell?” Sebastian asked, looking from the monitor to Jack, who shrugged.
“I guess that’s the best she can do,” Jack said as he slapped Pete on the back. “You want to get us some IDs, Doc?”
“Already printed and scanned for the security system inside the building.” Pete turned and looked at Collins and then Sebastian. “It really is all she could come up with, Colonel. If not for this plan, you would have to storm the building, and with the elements of Interpol inside with over seventy on-duty officers that would be disastrous.”
“I didn’t say a word,” Jack said as he looked over at the German. “Look, why don’t you sit this one out. I can go it alone.”
Sebastian looked hurt.
“Are you kidding, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Besides, if we pull this off I want you to introduce me to this Europa woman. Deal?”
Jack had a very hard time keeping a straight face, but he managed, as did Golding.
“Deal,” was all he said.
“Colonel,” Charlie said, as he poked his head into the communications shack. “Discovery and Endeavour are off. They will achieve orbit in just two minutes.”
Everyone could see the relief in Jack’s face as the realization that the arrest warrants for McCabe and Rawlins probably staved off another attack.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, HOUSTON TEXAS
Mission Control had just been handed off Discovery and Endeavour from Vandenberg. They watched and cheered on the Endeavour, the last of the two launches, just as the solid rocket boosters separated from the large centerline external fuel tank. Endeavour climbed, going to full throttle to reach the unforgiving void of space.
Hugh Evans couldn’t remember a more glitch-free launch in his career, much less of four vehicles at almost the same time. The maniacs that put this plan into motion had his respect. The quirky little man who had come up with the outrageous scheme should be the first in line for congratulations. Even the silent boys over at DARPA, who had provided input on splicing all the experimental systems into one mission, had done a job for which they would always be remembered.
“Endeavour, this is Houston, you have a clean RSB sep, and are clear for low orbit insertion,” CAPCOM said as the blurry, out-of-range image showed the solid rocket boosters falling free of the Endeavour and the twelve astronauts she carried. Some were in her command deck, the others in a small pod that had been loaded into her cargo hold. Evans knew that as soon as Discovery and Endeavour made their low altitude orbit, both shuttles would open their cargo doors to cool off not only the bay itself but the pod carrying the four astronauts that couldn’t fit into the current design of the flight module. For the first time men had been sent aloft in the cargo hold of a space shuttle and the environment capsule had performed magnificently. This design idea had come straight from the drafting boards of DARPA and had worked to perfection.
Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena was reporting that the remote systems onboard Dark Star 1 and Dark Star 2 were functioning at nominal levels. They were now prepared for the command modules to separate from the holds containing the two Altair landers for eventual hookups to both capsules. Then they would remotely rendezvous with the International Space Station for crew pickup. That was when the Moon mission would truly begin.
MASHHAD, IRAN, 10 MILES FROM THE BORDER OF KAZAKHSTAN
The small airfield had been constructed in three days with the aid of Iranian engineers. With all evidence of the landing strip designed to disappear in a matter of hours, the plan was to launch the aircraft and then vanish into the mountainous terrain surrounding the small village.
The
pilot, an old-time Iranian who had received his training decades before under the regime of the Shah, was ready for a mission that would finally prove his worthiness to the Ayatollah Rahabi and the fanatical president of that country. This would make him a martyr of the state and allow his family the privileges they had for so long been denied since the pilot had fallen from grace when the Shah abdicated so many years before. As he watched the American on the small monitor, he felt shame at what he had to do for the sake of his family. As the ground crew was given the go order, he lowered his head and said a prayer for forgiveness for the evil deed he was about to perpetrate in the name of God and country—even for the sake of his family, the deed may still prove to be too much for his soul.
He nodded his head and the cockpit of the Tomcat—an aircraft left over from the days of the Shah, started to close.
As the F-14 began its rollout from the makeshift cloth hangar, the full Moon struck him as a brilliant reminder of the old days of flying patrol under the Shah. The pilot could feel the weight of the two weapons as they hung from the innermost hard-line points just off the hydraulically controlled wings. The rest of the F-14 had been stripped of anything that would hinder his flight into Kazakhstan. Even the oxygen system had been cut down by 90 percent, and there was no defensive weaponry in the venerable old naval aircraft—even the twenty-millimeter cannon had been removed. In fact, the weight of the two ASATs was double the normal flight load of the Tomcat and there was still some doubt as to whether the aircraft could even gain the altitude needed for launch. The new seeker heads installed by the Iranian military would detect the low-orbiting targets, but it still remained to be seen if the Tomcat could get to the launch point at 65,000 feet. The Tomcat was not designed for the ASM-135 ASAT. It was always launched from the F-15 Eagle and the change had been designed by the best Iranian aerospace people they had.
Legacy: An Event Group Thriller Page 33
