Orbiting Omega

by Don Pendleton

  Now he had developed into Mack Bolan's one secret link with the Farm and the vital and vast storehouse of information in the largest computer data banks and Linkups in the world. As in the past Kurtzman could learn almost anything through the Farm's links with government and private data banks. He was Bolan's mole at the farm.

  Bolan contacted him from time to time, and once in a while Kurtzman had something to pass on to Bolan. It was all highly irregular and unofficial. No one else at the Farm knew of the contact.

  The Executioner admitted that he missed his people, his teams. Able Team and Phoenix Force were still functioning from a rebuilt Stony Man Farm. They were good men, and he wished them well. But that was another life, another time.

  When Kurtzman wanted to contact Bolan he had no way of knowing where the Executioner might be, so he put a simple message in the personal column of four leading American newspapers. If Bolan did not contact him, Kurtzman then put similar ads in selected foreign newspapers and English-language papers around the world. Bolan had seen the ad in the Los Angeles Times. It said: "Mack come home. All is forgiven."

  Bolan had called at 4:00 p.m. from the phone booth in front of the motel where he had been staying under simple disguise in California. He had dialed the number and listened as it rang three times. A connection was made to a dead-drop repeater, another three rings and another dead drop and then the call was forwarded. The phone had rung four times before someone picked it up.

  "Yes?"

  Neither phone was safe, neither one of them had the expensive and bulky scramblers they formerly used. Now it was catch as catch can. They had a simple code.

  "Aaron, this is a friend."

  "I hoped you would call."

  Bolan had waited five beats. "How is everyone at the Farm?"

  "Working. Always working."

  If the ritual varied as much as a word, they both would hang up because someone would be with Kurtzman, or somehow the line had been tapped.

  "It's clear here. Good to hear from you. I'm onto something I wanted you to know. Two years ago a top man at NASA quit in a huff. He wanted more emphasis on defensive, rather than offensive, missiles. Today I've seen a report that he has been pensioned off in Houston, given a new identity and also kept under twenty-four-hour observation, just as a safeguard."

  "I remember something about him. A brilliant old guy, but a bit of a loner."

  "That's him, Dr. Peter Dunning. Three weeks ago our watchers found someone else watching him. They turned out to be a pair of low-echelon KGB agents. Everyone was trying to figure out what could be the connection between them. Yesterday Dr. Dunning left his house, ditched his Uncle Sam tail and the KGB, and vanished. Now the KGB duo is gone, too. Sounded like something you might be concerned about."

  "Might be."

  "There's more. Last night somebody electronically captured an orbiting communications satellite and sent it crashing into the atmosphere over the East Coast just after dark. You probably heard about it."

  "Yes." Bolan's mouth went dry. "If this guy could grab a satellite and dump it, why couldn't he do the same thing to any of our space hardware up there, including all of our spy-in-the-sky satellites?"

  "Exactly, and with the KGB nosing around, I figured this might be one you'd want to know more about."

  "I do. What else can you find out?"

  "I can have a batch of printouts on Dunning in the morning. If you're interested you could catch the Red-Eye Express flight for Dulles and I'll meet you at the . regular place tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. I'm working on a lead. Might have something for you on the site he used to make the snatch."

  "Sounds interesting. I'll be there."

  "See you tomorrow."

  Bolan had said goodbye and grabbed his black aluminum suitcase. There was no Jack Grimaldi to fly him to Dulles, no Air Force jet to commandeer. He'd go tourist class to save money, and all of his dwindling supply of weapons would be in the suitcase.

  He had packed a new Ingram M-10 he had picked up not long before, his .44 AutoMag and a Colt Commander .45 with extra loaded magazines for all three, and his last six fragmentation grenades. Luggage checked through was almost never searched. Not unless the owner gave some cause for alarm.

  Bolan never did. He had fitted his black skinsuit and a few clothes into the bag, checked out of the motel and drove his rented car to Los Angeles from Laguna Beach where he had been staying.

  He had decided to postpone his mission of finding a KGB mole working at the San Onofre Nuclear Power Generating Station. The word Bolan had was that the KGB planned on trying for three meltdowns at U.S. nuclear generating plants this year. But that would have to wait.

  Bolan had made the Red-Eye with ten minutes to spare, checked his bag casually and slid into his aisle seat. He was asleep ten minutes after takeoff and woke only once before they landed at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., the next morning.

  Bolan had picked up his suitcase and had gone into the men's room. He shaved, applied a thick black mustache and a set of large, reflective sunglasses. He took out a brown wool cap that matched his sports coat and checked his suitcase in a locker. He had spent too much time in Washington, knew too many people there and knew many of them were searching for him. He needed some minimum disguise.

  He had taken three taxis and half an hour later went to the Town and Country shopping center in Falls Church, Virginia. Once there, he had proceeded to the loading area behind the Safeway store. The blue van with the power tailgate sat parked away from the other cars as Kurtzman said it would. The license plate number was right. Bolan went to the driver's side and looked through the window. It rolled down, activated by a power switch. Bolan saw Kurtzman's grin.

  "Get in — we'll go for a ride. I want to show you how well I can drive my new toy. They fixed it up for me with special hand brake, hand accelerator, the works. I've only had one fender bender since I got it."

  On the seat beside Bolan lay a fat brown envelope. Kurtzman explained its contents to Bolan. It was filled with computer printouts and photographs.

  "You're looking good, Mack. It's great to see you again."

  "Same here, Aaron. You look as mean as ever." They shook hands and Kurtzman blinked rapidly and turned his head. Then he wiped a hand across his face and drove away.

  "I got it confirmed this morning. NASA has a definite triangulation on the spot where the signals originated that knocked down the communications satellite. They're organizing a strike for first thing in the morning. Dawn. If you want to get there first, you'll have to leave here today. It's a small mesa about fifty miles southwest of Casa Grande, which is just below Phoenix, Arizona."

  "Summarize all this, Aaron," Bolan said, holding up the packet.

  "The man is brilliant, totally patriotic and dedicated. Quit because he didn't think he was doing enough for defense. No sign at all of any disloyalty. Speculation is that the KGB wants to grab him for his general knowledge of our missile systems and operations. Probably unrelated to current mischief.

  "Problem: if he can capture a satellite and kill it, how much bigger U.S. hardware can he knock down?

  "Problem: if the KGB does grab him, how much damage could he do to the U.S. space program, thinking that he might be helping his dedication to antimissile defenses?"

  "I hope you can find your way back to Dulles, Aaron. I'm going to have to hustle and see what kind of connections I can get into Phoenix." Bolan shook his head. "In the old days that would have been no problem — just call Jack Grimaldi and I'd be there in three hours."

  "True, but here's something from the good old days. A test weapon. It's a Childers battle shotgun, a real banger. Don't even worry where it came from. I've still got friends at the Farm. It's wrapped up in a package back there, but it's only eighteen inches long. Take it with you for luck. Oh, there's also some double-ought buck rounds, couple of dozen. Now that's like the old days."

  "I miss you guys, everybody," Bolan said.

  "Dammit yes, we m
iss you, too. I used to complain that I had to walk so much between computers. Right now I'd give ten years' pay to walk that much."

  "I know, Aaron."

  "Like hell you do!" Kurtzman said with a flash of anger. "Nobody knows who hasn't been there." He looked over. "Sorry."

  Mack punched Kurtzman's shoulder lightly. "Yeah, I'm sorry, too, and I swore that I'd waste every one of them who got away. I'm still working on it. I think I'll up the ante a little. Hey, are you sure you know the way to Dulles?"

  Mack Bolan had flown out of Dulles at 1:00 p.m. on American, stopped in Salt Lake City for a connecting flight and arrived in Phoenix at 6:12. Plenty of time. He took out Kurtzman's penciled map, memorized it, then headed for the Hertz car rental counter.

  3

  Dr. Peter Dunning sat naked on the motel bed, totally relaxed. He had just taken a leisurely shower and was reveling in the air-conditioned coolness of his overnight accommodations. Even as he sat on the bed, he thought about his project. He had a secretary's spiral notebook in one hand and a pencil in the other as he made one last calculation.

  Yes, it would work perfectly. There was no doubt in his mind now that he had the one last vital sensor. If Yamaguchi put in all of the groundwork they'd talked about, everything should be ready by tonight to start the serious instrument calibrations. Without those it would be hopeless.

  He dropped the pad and dressed. Dr. Dunning hated the idea that scientists had to be long-haired and unkempt. He was more of a fashion plate himself, always dressed well and made sure everything fit perfectly. That was vital.

  Just as important as making sure that the program he fed into his computers would mesh precisely with the type of orders that some far-off orbiting black box had been programmed to receive.

  No matter how clever he could be in his codebreaking, it would not mean a thing if the black box was not sent the exact instruction it needed to function. But he knew in detail everything that was needed, what he must produce to capture the orbiters.

  Dr. Dunning finished dressing, packed his one small suitcase and checked the area critically. Nothing of value had been left behind, no identification of any kind. He had even wiped his fingerprints from the faucets, door handles and shower stall.

  Now he was homing in on the last phase of that planning, his crowning achievement. He would go down in history. He would make sure of that in the next two days. Everything had to work properly. His dress rehearsal had played without a missed beat. He had no doubts that the actual performance would go as well.

  The scientist smiled now, wondering how the Army, Air Force and NASA had made out storming his little hilltop "fortress." It had been an afterthought. He had flown in his electronic units by chopper to the small mesa and used two non-English speaking men for three days to set up the defenses. The men had not known what they were building, and he spoke to them through an interpreter, which suited him perfectly. The look on the faces of those troops storming the mesa would have been marvelous to see.

  But now he did not have time to dwell on that. He had used the copter and flown his twin units off the mesa three days earlier, paid the pilot and loaded the gear on a truck trailer. Then he had deliberately hidden for a day, changed truck and trailer just in case the chopper pilot was contacted by police or NASA, and then he had driven on up to northern Arizona, where he was now, to his selected mission site.

  Dr. Dunning checked the room once more, looked under the bed, in the bath and then in the closet. He had left nothing. Outside he put his suitcase into his Ford Bronco and slid into the driver's seat. The four-wheel-drive vehicle could go almost anywhere and had no trouble making it into his off-road location.

  As he drove he reflected on how it all had happened. Ever since the first satellites had gone up, NASA, and probably the Russians as well, had devised methods to pirate the other's orbiters. At first there were rather simple methods to capture anything that was controlled by radio signals. The Russian satellites were out of contact with their Soviet controllers for two-thirds of their orbits.

  During those periods in each orbit, the radio sensors on board would respond to anyone who sent the correct signal, the code. It was all a matter of unique wording and then regular changes. If an orbiter was captured, the one who stole it could change the access code so the former owner could not even "talk" with the machine in orbit.

  In the beginning it was all one big international chess game, but then the stakes rose too high and NASA said no more capture games. We will leave your satellites alone if you keep your hands off ours. The unofficial truce had endured to the present day. But Dr. Dunning knew how to capture the Russian orbiters, and he was no longer bound by NASA agreements.

  For months, then years, he had worried about the growing number of hydrogen offensive weapons available to each side. He was well aware that the silent, secret arms race was much more deadly and threatening than the public knew, or could even imagine.

  The silent race was reaching fantastically deadly overkill proportions. And overkill was a word that defensive minds never used, did not even want to think about. They never utilized the principle in planning. More was better. Deadlier was better. Quicker was better. First strike was sacred. Overkill to the point of nonretaliation was nirvana.

  Dr. Dunning wheeled the Bronco off the highway just outside Winslow and headed south on State 87 into the higher country where the trail would lead him through part of the Coconino National Forest and on into the Prescott National Forest. At Clints Well he turned north, taking a secondary road back toward Flagstaff. From there he would find his way on the slopes of Horse Knoll, a minor peak that stood almost seven thousand feet high.

  Dr. Dunning drove fast and with confidence. He knew what his machine could do, he knew exactly where he was going. And he had made his decision to go on with his project. He had to stop the arms race. He would use his special talents to prove to the world just how horrendously dangerous these games were that the great powers were playing, and that they must cease now!

  From time to time he had utilized the services of a solid, intelligent Japanese man. Sam Yamaguchi had been gardener, helper, man Friday, and even a kind of assistant for five years. Now he was driver, technician, assistant and gofer. For the past year Yamaguchi had been working full-time with Dr. Dunning on his current project.

  The actual capture of the communications satellite had proved to be so simple that Dr. Dunning was disappointed. His biggest amusement had come in figuring exactly where to kick the satellite out of orbit so it would blaze like a comet across the eastern seaboard night sky. It had turned into a remarkable show.

  A month earlier Dr. Dunning had picked out the perfect spot for the next phase of his project. He had found this bare knob on the side of Horse Knoll peak that would work beautifully. Enough trees remained at one side for cover, yet it contained an open area for the transmissions. For two days Yamaguchi and his two workers had been putting the trailer in the proper spot, raising the antenna and positioning it correctly and getting everything ready. Soon the wiring would be complete, and they would be set to begin the instrument calibration.

  A short distance north of Clints Well, Dr. Dunning drove off the secondary highway onto a forestry road. For five miles he continued in four-wheel mode up the side of the mountain, through one locked gate, for which he had a key, and then on up a trail to a fallen tree that blocked his passage.

  As if by magic two men ran out and pushed the top of the giant ponderosa pine to one side, opening a roadway through the tree. After he went through, Dr. Dunning saw the men replace the sections of the tree and vanish into the brush. Half a mile farther, through a heavily wooded section, he came to a stop near a big Kenworth highway diesel tractor. Just behind it was a thirty-foot utility trailer with fifth wheel. The trailer had been converted into Dr. Dunning's mobile launch/recovery/capture field headquarters.

  The scientist swung down from the Bronco and greeted a slight, short Oriental who emerged from the trailer. His h
air was cut in a World War II flattop style. He nodded, gave a hint of a bow, but when he spoke it was without smiling.

  "Sir, our power supply has now reached a satisfactory level and the required cycle has stabilized. You can start testing instruments at your convenience."

  "Thanks, Sam. I appreciate your good work." He paused and something that had bothered him before surfaced. "Sam, you know I'm not a rich man, right? I've got a few dollars but nothing big. I told you I'd pay you as well as I could afford. Is that arrangement still agreeable?"

  "Yes, sir. My men and I are well pleased."

  Dr. Dunning heard the words, but somehow he tensed at the tone, at the way the words were said. Or was it just his imagination? His own nerves were acting up again. He nodded at Sam.

  There was a lot of work he should be doing himself right now to get the instruments recalibrated, to get the electric output frozen at precisely the correct level and exactly on the right cycle. It was so critical that there be absolutely no margin for error. Yes, he must get started. Work now would put his final triumph that much closer.

  He looked at Sam. Damn, he could not tell for sure just how the little Oriental man felt. He would never know. But so far it had worked out very well. Dr. Dunning turned from the Bronco and walked quickly toward the trailer. It was parked half under the pine trees and half out.

  The side extending free of the pines had been painted with the usual black, green, brown and tan used in military camouflage. Some live treetops had been cut and positioned around, screening the rig further and making it virtually invisible from any side at more than a hundred yards.

  On top of the closed end of the trailer sat the twelve-foot-diameter dish antenna. It had been transported inside the big trailer and had taken a full day to assemble and mount. After that, Dunning had checked it and tested it to be sure it was functioning properly for receiving. Now he would investigate the whole gamut of his telecommunications on the sending side.