He finally stepped in and began walking past the dilapidated tables and booths. They were filled with either gangs of foreign mercenaries or the young soldiers of the Kid King’s army. Everyone seemed drunk, the poison of choice being a sweet red rice wine known locally as pyapon.
Hunter moved past the bar and the booths to a table far removed from everything and everybody.
This is where he found Baldi.
There were several empty pyapon bottles in front of him, and his table was sticky with pools of spilled wine. But Baldi was not drunk. He was beyond intoxication.
Hunter casually sat down, laying his M-16 across the table. The Maltese fighter looked up and gasped slightly. Then tears formed in the corners of his eyes.
“I’m sorry, my old friend,” he told Hunter, sinking into his seat. “I fear I let you down.”
Hunter picked up a bottle that had just a bit of pyapon left in it. He allowed a few drops of the sickly-sweet alcohol to run out onto his finger and then he put it to his tongue. It tasted even worse than it looked.
“They told you where she was?” Baldi asked him, eyes still downcast.
Hunter nodded. “Yes…”
“I could not stop her,” Baldi told him. “I tried, but she…she wanted to go.”
“I know,” Hunter replied.
Baldi sniffed once and then looked up at him.
“And you are going to try to find her?”
Again Hunter nodded. “I have to.”
Baldi’s eyes brightened ever so slightly. “Then why have you come here?” he asked.
Hunter put the sticky pyapon bottle down then handed Baldi his cap.
“I came, my old friend, to ask you to help me,” he said finally.
And so they set out.
First by hired car, up the Taungup highway to Mandalay. From there they crossed over to a ferry which brought them up the Irrawaddy River to Mawu, then Hopin, then Kamiang.
From there, they hired a four-tracked vehicle and headed northwest, towards the highlands of the Kumon Range. Upon reaching the outpost of Kumawang, they traded in the four-track for three llamas and a team of pack hands. They trekked through the hills of Gawai until they reached the Diphu Pass, close to the convergence of the borders of Burma, China and Tibet.
Here was the mountain they called Ch’ayu.
The pack hands left them at this point, leaving one llama and enough food for three days. Hunter and Baldi continued on, walking up the steep, narrow roads, and when they disappeared, the snowy, icy paths which led to the top of the 15,225-foot mountain.
The llama died at about eleven thousand feet.
Night was falling when they reached a way station located at the 14,450-foot mark.
Through the gathering darkness and gloom, Hunter and Baldi could just barely see the spires of a building located on an outcrop of rock near the top of the mountain. The faintest of lights were shining from the top of one tower, one was blandly yellow, the other deep red. Through his knowledge of the local religion, Hunter knew the pair of lights meant visitors could come forth, but only if they promised to descend the mountain after being made faithful.
It was here Baldi decided to stop. He was sore, weary and not predisposed to become “faithful” any time soon. He promised to wait here.
Taking the last of their water, and a cracker tin of food, Hunter continued up the mountain without him.
It was almost midnight when he reached the summit.
The temple was ablaze with lights now, some red, most the bare yellow. Oddly they did not blot out the illumination of the billions of stars stretched overhead. Even in all his travels, Hunter had never seen the stars so bright, so close to the Earth. His eyes were filled with the illusion that he could simply reach out and touch them.
A Be’hei monk was standing by the front door of the temple, solemnly ringing a cast-iron bell every fifteen seconds or so. He looked neither surprised nor concerned when he spotted Hunter approaching. Rather he smiled slightly, displaying a set of crooked, yellowed teeth.
Hunter didn’t have to say a word to him; the monk knew why he was here. He simply made a series of hand gestures which directed Hunter around the north side of the temple, to a smaller building located at the very edge of the three-mile precipice. It looked to be an exact recreation of the larger temple, but at about one-tenth the size.
Sitting at its main door, wrapped in saphron and ringing a smaller, brighter bell was Chloe.
Hunter suddenly felt numb from his head to his feet. The long journey, the hard climb, the thinning air, none of it had adequately prepared him for this moment.
Like the monk, she didn’t appear surprised to see him.
“You look…beautiful,” he gulped—it was a stupid thing to say because she always looked beautiful.
She simply laughed though and rang her bell once.
He took a step closer. He could smell her fragrance on the wind.
“This is a long way from St. Moritz,” he told her.
She laughed again. “It is and it isn’t,” she replied sweetly. “I’ve only been here a short while, and yet it feels like forever.”
Another step closer. “What’s the attraction?”
Another laugh, another ring of the bell. She swept her hand over her head.
“Look at the stars,” she said. “They look as close as when we were up in the airplane.”
Hunter nodded slowly. “I’ll give you that.”
“This is my dream come true,” she said, her eyes still gazing upwards. “I wanted to be as close to the stars as possible. And now here I am…”
Hunter took two more steps towards her. “They tell me that the people up here practice a very—how shall I say it?—‘clean’ kind of lifestyle. Is it all it’s made out to be?”
She laughed again and rang the bell twice. “The word is ‘chaste,’ Hawk,” she said. “And yes, so far, it is…”
She pulled her eyes away from the stars and centered them squarely on his.
“Did you come up here to ask me to return with you?”
Hunter just shrugged. “I’m not sure…” he said. “Do you want to leave?”
She shrugged right back. “I don’t know—yet.”
She returned her gaze to the stars. Hunter took two more steps towards her—and the next thing he knew, she was in his arms and he was kissing her, a first.
His heart was pounding, his breath became short. What was happening to him? He had more things to do in other parts of the globe than ever. Yet he didn’t want to leave her, ever again.
“Maybe I should stay,” he surprised himself by saying.
She looked deeply into his eyes and then slowly shook her head.
“No…” she said. “This isn’t the place for you. Not now. You wouldn’t be happy. And then neither would I.”
He kissed her again—and then backed away.
“Will you ever want to leave?” he asked, again with an audible gulp.
She looked at him again.
“Maybe…” she said, tears forming in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. “If you came back. In a year. Maybe I will.”
Hunter’s next few words had a hard time getting out. Never had anyone affected him this way. He felt a knot tighten in his chest; a lump suddenly grew in his throat.
“I’ll come back,” he heard himself say. “In a year. Maybe less.”
She, too, was beyond words now. She simply looked at him, tears flowing, her face revealing all the time they’d spent together, everything they’d done. Suddenly she looked very much like she did the first time he saw her, swimming in the cold deep lake back in Switzerland. She had changed so much in that short time—and yet she had remained exactly the same.
“I love you, Hawk…” she finally managed to say.
Hunter felt like a giant hand had grabbed him around the throat and was squeezing him unmercifully.
“Me, too,” he finally coughed out.
They stood and looked at each other fo
r the longest time. Then Hunter pulled up the collar of his flight jacket and adjusted his cap on his head. He pointed up at the stars and smiled.
“I’m going to be a little closer to them very soon,” he told her. “Keep an eye out for me, will you?”
She instantly knew what he meant. She wiped away the tears and managed a smile. They’d only known each other a short time, but it seemed like forever.
“I’ll wave as you go over,” she said.
And with that, Hunter turned around and quickly walked away.
Thirty-one
Cape Canaveral
One month later
THE DAWN BROKE HOT and hazy over the everglade marshes surrounding Launch Pad 37.
Glistening in the early morning sun, being laughed at by squadrons of seagulls, a huge spacecraft stood poised on the rusted platform. It looked very strange at first glance. A huge orange tank, filled with liquid hydrogen, was at its center, flanked by two thinner rockets filled with solid fuel. Attached to these multistoried firecrackers was the refurbished Zon space shuttle.
Clouds of steam were now pouring out of vents in both the Zon and its enormous main fuel tank. A scattering of launch workers—they were not yet experienced enough to be called technicians—were attending to last-minute affairs. Two miles away, inside the main control building, a small but harried group of men were checking a long laundry list of items, making sure that everything was flowing smoothly.
The resurrection of Cape Canaveral and its space facilities had been accomplished in what could only be described as “miraculous time.” Actually it had taken ninety-six hours of straight work by a small core of experts, men who’d been space workers before the Big War, just to get the essential computers up and running again.
From there the launch pad had to be cleaned up and made workable, the fuel tanks and solid boosters filled and tested and a billion other details attended to. The Zon itself had spent most of this time inside the massive VAB, the vehicle assembly building, getting flight-worthy again.
Like everything else pertaining to the anticipated launch, it was a question of omission rather than addition. Anything nonessential—from extra safety chutes to redundant toilet flush lines—had been eliminated from the shuttle. This philosophy, that less was more, had transformed the creaky Russian spacecraft into a lean, mean machine, one that would run almost entirely by computer once it left the pad.
If it left the pad, that is.
Though security around the space center was extremely tight—no less than a division of UA troops had cordoned off the area, with a squadron of UA fighters patrolling the skies all around—word of the impending launch had spread far and wide. Just like the old days when NASA used to do this on a monthly basis, crowds of civilians had encamped on the beaches and along the roadsides nearest the cape. While they’d all come to see if the United Americans were really going to attempt to put a shuttle into space, most just didn’t believe it was possible. Not five years before, America was in ruins, the government nonexistent and daily life in shambles. To be reaching for the stars again, so soon, seemed almost too good to be true.
All through the long hot day, the preparations continued for the launch. At 3 P.M., a small bus-like vehicle left the main control center and began a long, slow journey out to the pad. A small contingent of workers was waiting for it. Gingerly, they helped six spacesuit-clad men out of the transporter and into the elevator and then rode with them to the top of the launch platform.
Moving very slowly, very carefully, the six crew members were loaded inside the Zon, each person taking as long as fifteen minutes to get into place and hooked up for launch.
Then, the preliminary countdown began.
Dusk came as quickly as the dawn had, and soon the long shadows around the cape faded and were replaced by a slight breeze and some bare mists. Activity around the launch pad was oddly muted now. All workers were gone, only the rockets, the shuttle and the crew within remained. On the beaches surrounding the platform and on the roads leading to the space center, vigilant troops and anxious citizens stood together, jackets and hats up against the chill, counting down the minutes to the early evening launch.
By 6 P.M., the secondary countdown was completed—all systems were go. The main computer program was working perfectly, all backup systems were, too. Only about forty-percent of the activity that would have been performed in a typical NASA launch had been initiated this day. If there was one thing the UA had proved, it was that launching the shuttle could be as complicated as its controllers wanted it to be—or as simple.
The sun finally went down for good at 7:01. Two minutes later the final countdown began in earnest.
It was cramped inside the flight compartment of the Zon.
One of the most radical modifications to the spacecraft was the placement of all the blast-off seats up in the flight compartment itself, rather than scattered around the interior of the ship as originally designed.
Two seats were positioned in front of the controls. Two more were located directly behind these, with the third pair facing each other, just inches away. Sitting in these two rear jump seats were Ben Wa and JT Toomey. Like the rest of the crew, both men were stuffed into Russian-style spacesuits that had been thoroughly deloused since being used by the members of the Zon’s last flight in space.
Strapped into the middle two seats were the spacecraft’s “flight engineers,” Colonel Frank Geraci of the NJ104 and Captain Jim Cook of the JAWS team. Both men had had a crash course in Zon operations during the past thirty days.
Sitting in the right-hand front seat, serving as the shuttle’s copilot was none other than Elvis Q, fully rehabilitated and anxious now to get back up into space, despite his previous vow never to return.
Sitting in the left-hand seat, and serving as pilot and overall flight commander, was Hawk Hunter himself.
At 7:05, the sixty-second countdown began. Hunter found the strangest thoughts running through his head. Their mission to gain orbit, rendezvous with the Mir and take Viktor by force was oddly removed from his mind at the moment. Rather, he was thinking about his father, ten years gone now, and what he would have thought of him at this moment, poised to either leap into space or the trying. He was sure his old man would have wanted him to at least try, as dangerous as this whole enterprise was.
In the shrinking countdown, Hunter’s thoughts also drifted to friends once close to him who had passed on. Mike Fitzgerald, “Bull” Dozer, General Seth Jones. Hundreds of others who had died to regain America’s freedom from the clutches of scum like Viktor. This was their day, too.
Thirty seconds to go. Though he tried to avoid it, Hunter then felt his thoughts coming around to Dominique, his long-lost girlfriend, who, as far as he knew, was still living at his farm, Skyfire, on Cape Cod. He had not tried to contact her since returning from Southeast Asia, simply because he didn’t know what he could say to her. She was used to him being gone for long periods of time—too used to it, that was the problem. He knew that even a trip into space would not make confronting her any easier; rather, it would simply delay it.
Down to fifteen seconds now and his mind was vibrating slightly at the irony of it all. If someone had told him a year before that he’d be in this position, ready to go into space, he would have replied that they were crazy. And if they had told him that someone other than Dominique would be on his mind as the seconds ticked down to lift-off, he would have probably suggested mental therapy for them.
But here he was, just moments away from the massive rockets being lit, and the one face that was flooding his consciousness was Chloe’s.
Life was very strange.
Ten seconds, he heard Crunch’s unmistakable drawl tell him through his headphones. Repaired and rejuvenated, the Crunch-man was serving now as launch director.
Eight…seven…six…
Hunter readjusted himself in his seat and took a deep breath. What was Chloe doing right now? Right at that very moment? he wondered. Did
she know he was thinking about her? Was she thinking about him? Did she even remember him?
Five…four…three…
His heart began racing. He felt Elvis reach over and tap his arm twice for good luck.
Dreams do come true, Hunter thought as the entire world began shuddering with unbelievable violence. They just don’t come true in the way you think they will.
Two…one…zero!
There was a strange pause, just a heartbeat or two, and then the rumbling increased, and the noise exploded, and the flight compartment began shaking, and the glow of flames filled the windscreens and the cockpit and the controls. And then it felt like a giant lined him up and gave him the swiftest kick in the pants imaginable.
The Zon began to rise, lighting up the landscape for hundreds of miles around, reflecting on the faces of the security troops and the launch workers and the civilians who’d come to watch, and scaring the gulls who’d been mocking it with their cries all day long.
The Zon cleared the tower with a roar that sounded like a million people cheering at once. Up it went into the darkening sky, the flame from its engines and solid-rocket boosters looking as bright as a comet, making the night turn into day. Up it went, past its own exhaust and smoke, past the thin cloud layer, past the heat of the day.
It quickly turned over just as it should have and began building momentum and velocity. The solid boosters commenced bucking and then separated perfectly. The message was flashed from below that the Zon was go for throttle up—the computer responded and pushed the engines to one hundred ten-percent. Very quickly the miles began passing by like they were feet. Soon the Zon was moving down range at Mach 3, then Mach 4, then Mach 5. Mach 10. Mach 20. Five sonic booms, right in a row, exploded across the empty sky and echoed all the way back to the cape. The crowds roared again; the shuttle streaked up and nearly out of sight until it was a bare light, racing to meet the stars.
Within minutes it would achieve escape velocity of eighteen thousand, five hundred miles per hour—seven miles a second—and break free of the Earth’s atmosphere and into that eternal region beyond.
Target: Point Zero Page 33
