Once Dead

by Richard Phillips

  Putting one foot in front of the other, Janet noted that Jack didn’t either.

  CHAPTER 101

  Hearing his name called, Dr. Dobrynin spun his thick body in the chair. The bank of monitors back-dropped him, some blank, others showing a listing of the last data they had received before the Russian Mission Control Center had lost communications with the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

  “Yes?” he asked, seeing Dr. Valery Kargin’s spectacled face staring into his, her thick lenses magnifying her blue eyes to startling proportions.

  “Sir, we received a short message from Baikonur, before the line dropped again.”

  “What’s their status?”

  “Due to the extended communications problems, they are scrubbing the launch. They’ll wait for the next window.”

  Dr. Dobrynin nodded and rose to his feet. It was the news he’d been expecting for the last two hours. It looked like the famously impatient Rolf Koenig would have to wait a few more days after all.

  Putting two fingers to his lips, Dr. Dobrynin issued the ear-splitting whistle he knew his night-shift crew loved so well.

  “If I can have everybody’s attention, please? That’s it for tonight, folks. We’re going to minimum staffing. The rest of you, go home and get some sleep.”

  Turning back to his slender communications expert, he smiled. “Thank you, Valery. You should get some sleep, too.”

  “I think I’ll stay. Until I figure out what happened, I won’t be able to sleep anyway.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  As he made his way out of the Mission Control Center toward the parking lot outside, Dr. Dobrynin realized just how tired he was. Nothing drained him like missing a launch window. Oh well. A double-shot of vodka over ice would set things right once more.

  CHAPTER 102

  Jacob Knox watched as the massive Mobile Service Tower slowly rolled away from Launch Pad 24, indicating that the countdown to launch stood at less than T-minus one. A glance at the luminous watch on his left wrist confirmed it: 5:13 a.m. In just under forty-seven minutes the Proton’s main rocket engines would ramp up to full throttle, sending Rolf Koenig’s MagPipes to burrow their way into electromagnetic pulse history.

  In the meantime, he needed Roskov’s men to stay focused on their tasks. Two hours before dawn, somewhere out there in the darkness, The Ripper was coming. He knew it was superstitious nonsense, but Jacob could feel his presence. And if he was coming, he would target the main Control Room in Building 92A-50. But Koenig, paranoid about losing his rocket-child, had insisted that Roskov deploy half his team in a perimeter around the launch pad.

  The captives had been moved out of the hallway outside the Control Room, down the stairs, and into the changing rooms, an area adjacent to the northwest entry. The need to guard those hostages removed an additional two guards from the available force to secure the outside of Building 92A-50.

  Having completed his circuit of the massive building, Jacob was nervous. Since Building 92A-50 occupied the most westerly spot of any of the Cosmodrome’s facilities, when Gregory came, his attack would most likely come from the open terrain to the west. It was with this in mind that Jacob had positioned a dozen of Roskov’s men in a defensive arc around the building’s western side. Even though that left only eight others to secure the remainder of the huge building’s perimeter, it was the best he could do.

  Launch Pad 24 lay over a kilometer to the east, with a number of support buildings and the hotel complex separating it from this spot, so he could count on no support from the two-dozen men protecting the rocket. Worse, the lights from the launch pad and the moving Mobile Service Tower backlit his men when they moved away from the building. The only good thing was that Vladimir Roskov had positioned himself in the Control Room with Rolf Koenig, where he could keep a watch on the bank of closed-circuit TV monitors that showed the launch pad. For the time being, it kept him out of Jacob’s business.

  As Jacob returned to the guard position closest to the northwest corner entrance, he flashed the infrared flashlight three quick blips, followed by two longer ones. Seeing his response echoed in reverse, he moved all the way up to the firing position and knelt down.

  “Any sign of movement?” His question brought the head of the nearest of the three guards around, the night-vision goggles giving him an alien outline in the near darkness.

  “Nothing. Looks like The Ripper’s going to miss the party.”

  “Stay sharp.”

  The man’s harrumph as he returned to his spotter scope told Jacob what Roskov’s man thought of him. That was okay. He didn’t need to be liked.

  Jacob spared one more glance at his watch: 5:28 a.m. T-minus thirty-two minutes and counting.

  CHAPTER 103

  With an audible click, the power supply cable snapped into the connector at the base of the laser. Hidden behind the largest of the berms that blocked the line of sight between this position and the building that housed the Baikonur Control Room, with Jack holding the infrared flashlight, Janet adjusted the level until the two air bubbles inside the tripod’s level indicators remained centered. Satisfied, she switched the laser to green, removed her night-vision goggles, set them on the ground, and began turning the hand crank to raise the laser above the mound.

  The shape of a stereo receiver, the device would spray laser energy across a sixteen-degree fan, the single beam passing back and forth so rapidly that it would look like a solid plane of green light to anyone who viewed it from above or below the beam plane. And she wanted everyone to see it. Anybody closer than three kilometers who was unlucky enough to look directly at it would see something entirely different, the last sight they would ever see in this lifetime.

  The optics of any night-vision goggles or rifle scopes would suffer severe damage. But the frying of the inside of the viewers’ eyeballs would make it extremely unlikely that they would care. The intense laser light-show would instantly fuse their optic nerves, its unique wavelength designed to produce a sudden rise in temperature and pressure inside the eyeballs, bursting some of them in their sockets. At a distance of twelve hundred meters, even stray reflections from the building windows could be damaging.

  Beside her, Jack slipped off his utility vest, revealing the black T-shirt with its multiple, tight elastic pockets.

  “Ready?” Jack asked, as he checked his knives and ammo, pulling a black baseball cap down low over his eyes.

  “One second.”

  Taking a long, cool sip from her canteen, Janet passed it to Jack and watched as he drank deeply. Then, after returning it to its case on her utility vest, Janet pulled on her own ball cap and knelt beside him.

  Jack moved, staying low, and Janet followed. They skirted the mound, then shifted into a low-crawl as they worked their way east, toward the last covered spot forward of the laser.

  Without a word, Janet wormed her way into some thorny desert brush so that only the barrel and scope of the sniper rifle emerged on the far side. Flipping on the infrared scope, she scanned the thousand meters from her hide position to Building 92A-50.

  “They’re definitely expecting trouble. I’ve got multiple firing positions set up on the west side of the building. Not exactly what you’d expect for normal launch security.”

  “What’s between us and the northwest entrance?”

  “I see three firing positions spread out about fifty meters in front of the building. There are probably others.”

  “Range?”

  “They’ll probably see it.”

  “Don’t care.”

  Janet briefly thumbed the infrared laser rangefinder. “Nine hundred twenty-seven meters to the closest position. Wait. I’ve got movement. They saw the IR flash.”

  “Let’s make sure.”

  Janet heard the words and turned to look into Jack’s face. There it was, that undeniable red-eye shine that she’d seen before. But this time his eyes seemed to reflect an angrier red.

  Jack pulled his pistol and stood up tall, his gun-
hand hanging loosely at his side as he began slowly walking toward the men waiting near that distant building. With her thumb resting on the laser remote control’s central button, Janet watched his dim silhouette glide steadily forward.

  She began counting his steps, sweat soaking her undershirt despite the chill of the predawn air. As he reached a distance that put him within seven hundred and fifty meters from the nearest group of bad guys, she saw the first muzzle flashes. Three seconds later the rolling thunder of gunfire reached her ears. And even though they had little chance of hitting him at that range, Jack had their attention.

  With her thumb resting on the laser remote’s fire button, she spoke a single word into her throat mike.

  “Sunrise.”

  CHAPTER 104

  Rolf Koenig watched the bank of CCTV monitors that showed Launch Platform 24 from a variety of angles and vantage points. Atop that platform, the fully fueled Proton rocket vented fumes that showed up clearly, backlit by the platform lighting. As the countdown clock reached T-minus five minutes, the launch vehicle guidance, navigation, and control sent the T-300-second command signal to the upper stage Breeze M, synchronizing lift-off time and starting the Breeze M transition to internal power.

  Rolf shifted his attention back to his computer display, the readouts confirming all systems reporting nominal. Excellent. In less than three minutes the Breeze M would send the GO signal. Shortly thereafter, at T-minus two seconds, the six Stage One engines would start at forty percent full throttle, with full throttle commanded a sixth of a second before liftoff.

  The sound of distant gunfire caused Vladimir Roskov to jump, momentarily pulling Rolf’s attention from the display. There were no windows to the outside from the Control Room, but the shots sounded like they came from the west side of the building. Roskov turned in that direction.

  “That’s my men firing out there.”

  “Go check it out.”

  Without another word, the big Russian pulled his pistol and strode from the room. As the door closed behind him, Rolf returned to his work. Roskov and Knox could handle The Ripper. Regardless, the man was too late to interfere with the launch now. To be certain, Rolf entered a sequence of instructions that would force the system to automatically issue the correct sequence of launch commands on the predetermined schedule.

  Standing, he stretched his aching back, and stared up at the monitors. It was time to settle in and watch his rocket light up the predawn Kazakh sky.

  CHAPTER 105

  “What the hell?”

  Jacob looked to his left at the man looking through the infrared spotter scope. “Tell me.”

  “He’s out there, just walking straight toward us.”

  His friend with the night-vision goggles and an AK47 laughed. “The idiot thinks he’s a cowboy. Want me to take some boys and go kill him?”

  “No,” Jacob said. “He’s trying to pull us out into sniper range. Let’s see how long he keeps coming.”

  Jacob spoke into the microphone that connected his radio to the rest of the team deployed around the building. “Gregory is coming. Target him but don’t shoot until I give the order.”

  A hundred meters to his left, someone began firing, and as Jacob turned his head to see who the hell was shooting, other weapons opened up all along the line.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Then God painted the sky a brilliant green.

  As Jacob ducked down, squeezing his hands over his dazzled eyes, the wail of screaming men replaced the gunfire. Jacob knew that if he hadn’t been looking south to see who was shooting, his own screams would be mixed in with those of these other poor bastards. Even that brief indirect glance at the green sheet had hurt his eyes. Now, with his eyelids squeezed firmly closed, the afterimage filled his vision.

  The Russian nearest him stood up, his wail of pain and despair rising above the others.

  “Shit! My eyes. My goddamn eyes are gone!”

  With the sound of a baseball bat striking a side of beef, something lifted the man and hurled him over Jacob. Only after his body hit the ground did the thunder of the gunshot reach Jacob’s ears, bringing him a new realization.

  Janet Price had broken Jack Gregory’s CIA thousand-meter shooting record. And from the sound of the weapon, she was somewhere out there with a fifty-caliber sniper rifle.

  Another shot tore the night air. The bitch had turned off the laser and was busy picking off Roskov’s screaming fools. Then as a smattering of return gunfire sounded, another burst from the laser painted him so bright that Jacob could see the bones in the hands pressed against his tightly shut eyes.

  CHAPTER 106

  Jack walked directly toward the northwest corner of the distant building, knowing that it was only a matter of time until Roskov’s men started shooting at him. But the men Roskov had with him weren’t known for their sniper skills. And even if there were a couple of excellent shooters in that group, he doubted they could hit a man at distances greater than seven-hundred meters.

  When they did start shooting, they’d be looking directly back into the waiting laser.

  The first gunshots got nowhere close to him, but he heard some of the second burst whiz nearby.

  “Sunrise.”

  Janet’s voice in his ear-piece caused him to tilt his head down so that he could only see the patch of ground near his feet, the brim of his ball cap blocking any stray reflections that might bounce back from the building’s windows.

  When the twenty-second laser burst began, Jack started running, angling his path sharply to the left to remove himself from the previous line of fire should any brave souls try to get back in the fight. And as he ran, he maintained a mental count. When the count reached twenty, the laser light died.

  Despite the precautions he’d taken to preserve his night vision, he tripped over a rock, barely avoiding a fall that would have sent him sprawling headlong in the dirt. He shifted his course back toward the northwest entrance that would take him to the stairs and up to Baikonur’s Main Control Room.

  Jack heard Janet’s AS50 answer a new smattering of gunfire. Two shots. He knew very well what those shots meant. Two more dead guys.

  “Sunrise.”

  Once again, Jack lowered his head as he ran, this time closing one eye in an attempt to maintain some of his night vision. Then, once again, the laser’s horizontal green guillotine sliced the night.

  CHAPTER 107

  Once more the spray of laser energy died out. The cries of the blinded overwhelmed the curses of the lucky few who were just scared shitless. Jacob was neither, but he had been surprised and stunned by The Ripper’s acquisition and use of the banned weaponry.

  With Janet Price out there filling in the gaps between laser pulses, picking off anyone that stuck his head out, Jacob knew he needed to take immediate action to change his circumstances. The only way he could think of to do that was to get back inside the building, away from the long reach of the sniper and her laser.

  But the fifty meters from this position to the northwest entrance would expose himself to a world-class marksman. He didn’t like those odds. A new idea hit him. She couldn’t shoot while the laser was active for fear of a stray reflection blinding her. Assuming the pulses were about same length, that would give him a twenty-second window to make the run for the door.

  When the light sliced the night for a third time, Jacob ducked his head, shielded his eyes, and ran. Keeping his eyes directed at the ground, Jacob missed the door and crashed into the wall. Sliding left, his fingers closed on the handle, and he twisted and pulled. Inside, a waiting guard squeezed the trigger on his handgun, sending a bullet whizzing by Jacob’s left ear. Then the laser light blazed into the gangster’s eyes, sending him to the floor, hands pressed tightly to his face.

  Reaching back, Jacob pulled the door closed behind him, stepped over the writhing man, and burst through the door on his left into the now-empty security checkpoint. Continuing his momentum, Jacob ducked through another door into the c
hange area entry. Behind him, he heard the outside door bang open and shut, followed by two rapid gunshots. The blinded security guard quit screaming.

  Shit. The Ripper was right on his ass.

  CHAPTER 108

  The sound of gunfire from below echoed into the Control Room, but Rolf barely noticed it. As the countdown clocks ticked off the last twenty seconds before launch, his eyes were riveted to the closed-circuit TV monitors showing the Proton rocket sitting on its launch pad. At T-minus two seconds, the six RD-276 first stage rocket engines ignited and then ramped to full throttle, the rumble of their mighty thunder shaking the building.

  With his hands clenched so tightly that his nails threatened to cut the skin of both palms, Rolf felt tears well up in his eyes as the mighty rocket lifted off, belching a huge cloud of smoke and flame, the brilliant display turning night into day. It seemed that time slowed to a near standstill, the rocket lifting from the launch pad at a snail’s pace. But as it continued to rise, its speed increased and its size in the tracking camera dwindled to a bright pinpoint in the night sky.

  As the sound of more gunfire made its way up the stairwell, Rolf collapsed back into his chair. He’d done it. No matter what happened from this point forward, he was the only man capable of stopping the automated sequence he’d initiated and nobody could force him to do that in the hour that remained until his payload deployed and detonated over the east coast of the United States.

  The thought that The Ripper had made it inside the building finally wormed its way into his head. That’s what the gunfire from downstairs meant. Roskov and Knox were having problems holding up their end of the mission. He knew he should be concerned about that, but he wasn’t. There was no way fate could deny him his destiny. His planning had been far too close to perfection to allow it.

  As the rocket passed through an altitude of thirty kilometers, its speed just over a thousand meters per second, Rolf took a deep, calming breath and focused his thoughts back to its flight path.