Once Dead

by Richard Phillips

  At the corner of the narrow hallway that connected the change room to the large locker-room to the west, another of Roskov’s men stepped out, his handgun swinging toward Jack and Rachel. As Jack reached for his own weapon, a shot rang out, sending a spray of red mist out the side of the man’s head and sprawling him onto the floor.

  Without bothering to check the downed Russian, Janet Price, clad in black, stepped around the corner, her H&K subcompact hunting its next target. Seeing Jack kneeling over Rachel, she lowered her weapon and rushed to his side.

  “Christ! You’re a bloody mess.”

  “It looks worse than it is. I thought I told you to stay outside.”

  “I’m not real good at following orders.”

  “Help me get Rachel stabilized, then you can work on me.”

  Janet glanced at Rachel and her bandages. “You’ve done that already. Let me have a look at that side. You might want to keep your gun handy while I’m patching you.”

  Moving Rachel into a more comfortable position with her feet elevated and towels draped over her shivering body, Jack leaned back against the wall as Janet ripped off his bloody black undershirt. Working with practiced efficiency, she applied a pressure bandage and tied it off.

  Janet offered him her hand and he took it, using the leverage to ease his climb back to his feet.

  “We can’t stay here,” she said.

  “No. It’s been fifteen minutes since the rocket launch. We need to get up to the Control Room and figure out how to stop it.”

  Jack looked down at Rachel and made a decision.

  “She’ll be safer here than if we try to carry her upstairs.”

  “What about the other hostages?”

  “I haven’t seen any.”

  “They’re in the locker room just around that corner.” Janet pointed at the dead Russian. “He must have been guarding them before he decided to get stupid and come check on what all the shooting was about. I don’t know whether any of them might be of use to us.”

  Jack stepped into the narrow hallway through which Janet had just come.

  “Okay. Let’s find out.”

  CHAPTER 115

  The Washington, D.C., clock on his office wall told Admiral Riles it was 8:15 p.m. Late nights were nothing new to him or to Mary Beth. He’d fallen in love with her while still a midshipman at the Naval Academy and married her immediately after graduation. After all these years of long hours, separation, and hardship, she still loved him enough to put up with it all. And because he had failed to make a strong enough case to the president, there was a significant possibility that Mary Beth, along with untold thousands of others, would be dead in less than an hour. Worse, in his gut, it felt like a certainty.

  It made him want to race home to spend those last few precious moments in her company. But that was the coward’s way out. It would mean he had given up. It was why he had his entire staff working late, just so they would be ready in case that small chance to make a difference actually presented itself.

  When the phone rang, the sense of impending doom seemed to ooze out through the ringer. When he pressed the speakerphone button, his assistant’s soft Virginia drawl did nothing to lighten his mood.

  “Sir,” Barry Whitcom said, “the president and his national security staff are on line one. Conferencing you in now.”

  Hearing the connection switch, he announced himself. “This is Admiral Riles.”

  “This is President Harris with my entire National Security Staff here in the Situation Room. We don’t have much time, so I’ll get right to the point. Shortly after my decision not to engage the rocket from Baikonur, the fourth stage began what would normally be a four-minute firing sequence that would place it in a staging orbit.

  “However, the U.S.S. Lake Erie reported that the fourth-stage burn has lasted longer than expected and has modified the trajectory to such an extent that it cannot achieve a useful orbit. In fact the payload continues to perform a series of maneuvers that has put it on a track that will take it up over the Arctic Circle and across northern Canada on its way down the United States east coast where it will reenter the atmosphere and be destroyed.”

  Jonathan Riles visualized the warped trajectory in his mind. Such an aggressive maneuver would consume all the fuel available to the Breeze-M fourth stage.

  “Mr. President, that doesn’t sound like a navigational malfunction. It would have to be planned.”

  “All of our experts are in agreement with you on that.”

  “Then, Mr. President, I strongly recommend you shoot the damned thing down before it passes over U.S. soil.”

  The president paused and, strangely enough, not one of the people with him in the Situation Room made a sound as they waited for him to speak again.

  “Unfortunately, Admiral Riles, our Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system reports negative on the track. None of their radars see it.”

  “What about NASA or our satellites? What about our allies? Can’t anyone besides the Lake Erie confirm this thing’s trajectory?”

  President Harris cleared his throat. “We’ve had multiple confirmations. Unfortunately, none of those sources is capable of engaging that target. And unless our GMD folks can fix the problem with their radar systems, we just have to sit tight and hope that you’re wrong about this being an attack. That is, unless the NSA has some means of remotely hacking into the rocket’s control systems.”

  “Why haven’t the Russians sent the self-destruct command?”

  “We asked them that. They said the rocket is not sending telemetry on the designated telemetry channels and is not responding to commands sent on command channels.”

  “Jesus Christ! I’m sorry, Mr. President. I’ll have my folks give it a try, but if someone has changed the telemetry and command frequencies, we don’t have time to try to find which new ones the rocket is using. We’ve got forty minutes. I recommend you have NASA, Air Force Space Command, and everyone else trying the same thing.”

  “Okay, everyone. Let’s take our best shot.”

  Riles hung up the phone. Shit. Take our best shot. They’d already missed their best shot. As he pressed the button to connect him to his admin assistant, he shook his head. Never having believed in miracles, right now he found himself badly in need of one.

  CHAPTER 116

  At the base of the stairs, Jack turned to face Janet and, once again, she saw his strange red-eye shine.

  She nodded her head toward the top of those stairs. “You know that Rolf’s two personal bodyguards will be with him in the Control Room.”

  “That’s why I want you to cut through the clean room and out into the payload fueling bay. When you get there, you’ll be able to see them through the Control Room’s observation window.”

  Janet lifted the H&K. “Without the AS50 I left behind when I made the run, there’s no way I can penetrate that blast window.”

  “I don’t need you to penetrate it, just make them think you might.”

  “Those guys are top notch; both were Kommando Spezialkrafte before they signed on with Koenig. They’re not stupid.”

  “Just give them a moment’s doubt.”

  Janet turned and moved to the door that opened into the set of locker rooms that Jack had cleared earlier. When she reached the door that provided access to the huge payload fueling bay, she kicked it open, clearing left and right, high and low, as the bang of the door echoed through the high bay. Finding it empty, she walked to a spot in the center which gave her a clear view up to the observation window.

  Although the angle up to the higher level limited her field of view, she could see Koenig seated in front of a laptop computer. One bodyguard stood between Rolf and the door, while a second stood just beside the door. Both had their weapons leveled directly at that exit.

  Since the room was designed to prevent fire and deadly fumes from entering, the door was sealed and opened outward. That meant Jack would either have to open it toward himself or blow it off its hinges. Assu
ming he did the latter, he’d have to go for a relatively small explosion to avoid damaging the computer that might be their only way of destroying Koenig’s nuclear payload.

  Lifting her H&K, Janet aimed at the back of Rolf’s head and began rapidly pulling the trigger, concentrating on placing each bullet in the center of the bullet hole left by its predecessor, switching magazines so rapidly that there was almost no break in her rhythm. Good as she was with a sniper rifle, she was better with a pistol. And as round after round hammered into the same precise spot, cracks spider-webbed outward from that central point.

  Janet knew that, inside the Control Room, the sound of the bullet impacts and cracking glass would be louder than the muffled echoes of the gunfire. As she had hoped, all three men turned their heads to look at her ongoing handiwork.

  Then, amidst a cloud of smoke, the heavy door crashed into the Control Room.

  CHAPTER 117

  Without hesitation, Jack dove through the smoking hole where the door had been, firing at each of the twin muzzle flashes. He rolled hard to his right and fired again. This time, no answering fire met his. Through the smoke he could see Rolf Koenig seated at a desk, his chair swiveled so that he faced the spot where Jack lay. Both bodyguards lay sprawled on the floor, unmoving.

  “Freeze or I’ll put a bullet right through your head.”

  Rolf froze.

  Rolling to his feet, Jack shot each of the bodyguards in the head before turning his attention back to Rolf. A movement from the doorway drew his attention as Janet raced into the room.

  Jack nodded at Koenig. “Cuff him.”

  Moving up behind the German industrialist, Janet grabbed his arm and threw him face down on the floor. A handful of seconds later, with his hands plastic-cuffed behind his back, she frisked him. Removing a cell phone from his pocket, she placed it by the laptop before dragging Rolf onto a chair and binding his legs to its rolling feet.

  “You’re too late,” said Rolf, a thin smile on his lips. “I’ve disabled the self-destruct circuitry. Nobody can stop it now.”

  Jack watched as Janet picked up Rolf’s cell phone and turned to look into his face.

  “The hostages said all communications are down, but like your laptop, I’m betting your phone still works.”

  Seeing his eyes narrow, Jack knew she was right. Dialing an overseas number, she switched to speakerphone.

  “Hello, Levi. This is Elena Kozlov. I’m standing inside the Control Room at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. I need to speak with Riles immediately.”

  “Thank God. Hold on.”

  After several seconds of silence, Jack heard a new voice come from the speaker.

  “Riles here. What’s your situation?”

  “I’m with Sergei Kozlov and we’ve taken the Baikonur Control Center back from the group that hijacked it. As you are probably aware, the rocket is already downrange. It’s been reprogrammed by Rolf Koenig and unless we can regain control, I fear that a nuclear attack on the United States is imminent.”

  “How did he override the command channel?”

  “His laptop is connected via his own satellite uplink. That seems to be what has been talking to the bird. Right now the laptop screen is locked and password protected.”

  “Is Rolf willing to cooperate?”

  Jack saw Janet glance at him as he stepped close to the chair where Rolf Koenig was bound, her eyes settling on the left side of his scarred torso where blood leaked through the bandages.

  “Not yet. I think Sergei would like to discuss that with him.”

  “Levi and I are in the computer center with Dr. Kurtz, the NSA’s top computer scientist. If you can reason with Koenig, the time is now.”

  Janet directed her unsympathetic gaze at Rolf.

  “What’s the password?” The words left her lips as a command rather than a request.

  “I forget.”

  Janet caught Jack’s eye and nodded. From a belt sheath, he drew one of his two remaining knives and cut off Rolf’s left ear.

  “Wrong answer.”

  Rolf’s scream came to a sudden stop when Jack grabbed his hair and brought the tip of the knife blade up to Rolf’s left eye.

  “You’re going to give us the password,” Janet continued. “Might as well be now before this gets ugly.”

  “Sheizekopf!”

  Jack’s hand moved so quickly that Rolf didn’t manage to flinch, his stroke sending Rolf’s other ear flopping to the floor amidst renewed screams and a fresh blood-fountain.

  “Wrong again.”

  Jack moved the knife down, so that its tip probed the man’s groin. Rolf gagged, but managed to spit out his answer.

  “pi3141592653E@&!*@*!*@*”

  Janet seated herself at the laptop, entered the sequence at the password prompt, and hit the ENTER key. Immediately the login screen was replaced by a set of telemetry displays showing the Breeze-M’s altitude, velocity, heading, latitude, and longitude.

  “I’m in. We’re receiving a steady stream of downlink telemetry.”

  “Elena, I need you to enable remote access for that laptop and hand off the display to Dr. Kurtz. You will also need to disable the firewall and tell us which of Rolf’s satellites he’s connecting through.”

  Jack leaned in close to Rolf’s face, his voice loud enough to ensure the earless man understood him.

  “You heard the man. Which satellite are you linked to?”

  Sparing a quick glance at Jack’s knife, Rolf hissed the answer. “Orion-23.”

  With Dr. Kurtz talking her through it, Janet completed the required administrative configuration and then spoke into the cell phone.

  “All done on this end. Let me know when you’re ready.”

  “Any time,” Dr. Kurtz replied.

  As Janet reached for the ENTER key, Jack glanced at the countdown clock. T-plus thirty-three minutes.

  “Handing over laptop control . . . now.”

  CHAPTER 118

  “Okay, David. Tell me you’ve got something.”

  Levi rarely heard any sign of stress in Admiral Riles’s voice but, at this moment, the sound of tight vocal cords was readily apparent.

  For several seconds, as Levi watched the man’s fingers dance across the keyboard, he wasn’t sure the NSA’s wild-haired, chief computer scientist had heard Admiral Riles. When the query finally pulled part of his attention away from his work, he paused and rubbed his hands together, as if debating his next move.

  “I have a fully operational remote desktop with administrative permissions on Koenig’s laptop. I’ve verified that the telemetry and command channels are fully functional. Pushing the telemetry display onto the wall monitor now.”

  The ninety-inch monitor on the wall opposite Kurtz’s workstation lit up with a display showing a full earth map with an overlay showing the trajectory and current location of Koenig’s space capsule.

  Kurtz pointed a red laser pointer at the map, tracing out the rocket’s flight path as he continued.

  “The first three stages launched it on a standard fifty-one-degree trajectory that should have taken it over northern Japan, and then down across the tip of South America and back up over the Atlantic, Africa, and Russia. But shortly after third-stage separation, the Breeze-M fourth stage performed a sequence of hard burns that drastically altered the space capsule’s trajectory. It’s now headed over the Arctic Circle on a path that’ll take it across Canada toward the United States’ northeast coast.”

  Levi watched as Kurtz pushed additional telemetry output onto the matrix of smaller monitors that surrounded the big central display.

  “I see the telemetry,” Admiral Riles said. “But can you send it commands?”

  “Yes, not that it’s doing much good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That last Breeze-M burn completed its sequence. It doesn’t have fuel to fire again, other than the retro motors that kick in on separation from the payload. That means I can’t alter its course. And the self-destruct comman
ds to the Breeze-M and payload are being accepted, but ignored. Koenig must have physically disabled that circuitry prior to launch.”

  “There’s got to be some goddamned thing we can do besides watch it fly to its target which, by the way, means us, our families, and our friends and neighbors. I won’t accept that.”

  Levi rubbed his throbbing temples as if that act would force better blood supply to his brain. “Can we command an early Breeze-M separation from the payload?”

  David Kurtz rapidly entered a series of commands on the keyboard, looked up at the telemetry display, and shook his head.

  “It looks like that only happens when it reaches the preprogrammed location.”

  Levi felt his eyes drawn to the clock display. T-plus forty-six minutes. The map showed the space capsule now at the edge of the Arctic Circle, just beginning its pass over northeastern Canada. In another dozen minutes, the lives of millions might be over.

  A new thought occurred to him.

  “So we can’t cause an early separation. Can you spoof the location?”

  Dr. Kurtz’s eyes widened. “Of course. Make it think it’s already over the target. I should have thought of that.”

  Admiral Riles took two steps closer to the master display.

  “Do it.”

  If Levi had thought David Kurtz’s fingers were moving fast before, he had been mistaken. Holding his breath, Levi watched as Kurtz hacked the navigation system while the seconds ticked away.

  “Got it!”

  Kurtz’s exclamation caused Levi to look up at the big screen, the sight momentarily sending his heart into his throat as the rocket suddenly jumped from northern Canada to a spot over central New York. Then he remembered that they were looking at the rocket telemetry showing where it believed it was rather than a display of the spacecraft’s actual location.

  “The payload’s short range maneuvering rockets have engaged. We’ve got separation!”