Black Wind

Like a passenger on a carnival ride gone amok, Pitt was violently thrown about the submersible as he rammed into the column time and time again. Electronic equipment was jarred from its mounts, crashing and flying about his feet with each impact. The nose section of the submersible soon became battered after repeated collisions with the column wall and small rivulets of salt water began streaming into the interior through the damaged seams. But none of this mattered to Pitt. The risk to himself and the submersible was the last concern on his mind as the seconds to launch ticked down. One more time, he flung the force of the submersible against the support column, poking a hole in its surface like a rampant mosquito, the jab not drawing blood but letting in a flood of water.

After more than a dozen strikes at the starboard column, Pitt spun the leaking Badger around and raced toward the rear port support. Glancing at his Doxa watch, he calculated there was less than two minutes before liftoff. With a towering crash, he slammed into the other support column, driving the probe to its base and further crumbling the nose of the submersible. More water began leaking into the interior but Pitt ignored it. With salt water sloshing around his feet, he calmly reversed thrust and backed away for another stab at the column. As he lined up for another assault, he wondered if his actions were the futile gesture of an underwater Don Quixote charging at an errant windmill.

Unknown to Pitt, his very first blow on the starboard support column had activated one of the ballast pumps. As the number of holes and the amount of inrushing water increased, additional pumps were activated, until all six pumps were engaged. The pumps operated at the base of the columns, which were already submerged some forty feet under the water. While the automated ballast system easily kept each pontoon level with one another side by side, there was only limited means of maintaining balance fore and aft. With the water level rising rapidly in the stern support columns, it didn't take long before Pitt's drilling overwhelmed the rear ballast pumps. The sinking stern of the platform created a programming dilemma for the automated stabilization system. Under normal conditions, the trim-and-heel system would compensate the aft list by flooding the forward compartments and lowering the overall platform depth. But the platform was in launch position and had already been flooded to launching depth. Ballasting the platform lower, the computer knew, risked damaging the low-hanging thrust deflectors. In a handful of nanoseconds, the computer program reviewed its software logic for priority actions. The results came back unambiguous. During a designated launch countdown, the stabilization system was to maintain launch depth as its first priority. The sinking aft columns would be ignored.

Aboard the Koguryo, a red warning light began blinking id the launch control room with less than two minutes to go. A bespectacled engineer studied the platform stabilization warning for moment, then jotted down some notations and briskly stepped over to Ling.

“Mr. Ling, we have a platform stabilization warning,” he reportec “What is the deviation?” Ling asked hurriedly.

“An aft list of three degrees.”

“That is inconsequential,” he replied, brushing off the engineer.

Turning to Tongju, who stood at his side, he said, “A list of five degrees or less is no cause for concern.”

Tongju could almost taste the results of the launch now. There could be no turning back now.

“Do not halt the launch for any reason,” he hissed at Ling in a tense voice. The chief engineer gritted his teeth and nodded, then stared nervously at the waiting rocket that stood shimmering on the video screen.

The interior of the Badger was a jumbled mess of tools, computer parts, and interior pieces that sloshed back and forth across the floor with each jerk of the sub. Pitt remained oblivious to the carnage as he rammed the submersible against the platform column for the umpteenth time. Seawater slapped at his calves as he braced himself for yet another collision, listening for the warning barn of the core probe as it punched into the column side. Thrown harshly forward at impact, he detected the smell of burned wiring as yet another electrical component shorted out from saltwater immersion. Pitt's hammering had turned the submersible into a shattered hulk of its former self. The rounded exterior bow had been pounded nearly flat, its coating of glittery red paint roughly scraped away from the repeated blows. The coring probe was bent and twisted like a piece of- licorice and barely clung to the Badger by a pair of mangled brace supports. Inside, the lights flickered, the water level rose, and the propulsion motors began dying one by one. Pitt could feel the life ebbing from the submersible as he listened to the groans and gurgles of the flailing machine. As he tried to reverse the thrusters and back away from the column, a new sound struck his ears. It was a deep rushing noise emanating far above his head.

To the casual observer, the first sign of an imminent rocket blast off the Sea Launch platform is the roaring rush of fresh water as it is pumped into the deluge system. At T-5 seconds, a veritable flood of dampening water is released into the flame trench positioned beneath the launchpad. The effect of the massive water dousing is to lessen the thrust exhaust effects to the platform, and, more important, minimize potential acoustic damage to the payload from the maelstrom at launch.

At T-3 seconds, the Zenit rocket begins groaning and stirring as its internal mechanisms are activated and the massive rocket comes to life. Inside its metal skin, a high-speed turbine pump begins force-feeding the volatile liquid propellant through an injector into the rocket engine's four combustion chambers. Inside each chamber, an igniter is activated, detonating the propellant in what amounts to a controlled explosion. The exhaust from the fiery detonation, seeking the path of least resistance, comes blasting out of each chamber through a constricted nozzle at the base of the rocket. The power of thrust is generated by the purged exhaust, enabling the Zenit rocket to defy the force of gravity and lift itself off the launchpad.

But the final three seconds of countdown are all critical. In those brief few seconds, onboard computer systems quickly monitor the engine start-up, checking propellant mixture, flow rates, ignition temperature, and a host of other mechanical readings affecting engine burn. If a significant deviation is discovered in any of the engine parameters, the automated control system takes over, shutting down the engine and scrubbing the launch. A reinitialization of the entire launch process is then required, which may take upward of five days before another launch can be attempted.

Ling ignored the video screen of the Zenit at the launch tower and instead stared at a computer display of critical measurements as the final seconds of the launch countdown ticked toward zero. At T-1 second, a row of green lights burst onto the screen and Ling allowed himself a slight breath of relief.

“We have main engine thrust up!” he shouted aloud as the display told him the computers were ramping up the rocket's RD-171 engine to maximum launch thrust. Every eye in the room turned to the video screen as the propellant floodgates were opened and the fuel burst through the rocket's engine in a torrent. For a long second, the rocket sat still on the pad as the fiery exhaust burst from its nozzles, the flames licking the water deluge and spraying a thick cloud of white smoke beneath the platform. Then, with a burgeoning burst of power, the Zenit surged up off the pad. The launch tower clamps fell away as the white rocket, erupting with 1.8 million pounds of thrust, climbed up past the tower and into the sky with a blinding glare and deafening roar.

A cheer rang through the launch control center as the engineers watched the Zenit rise successfully off the platform. Ling broke into a broad smile as the rocket climbed higher, grinning good-naturedly at Tongju. Kang's henchman simply nodded back in satisfaction.

At the far side of the bay, the bespectacled engineer who monitored the platform continued to stare mesmerized at the video image of the rocket as it climbed into the crisp blue sky. Oblivious to him was the computation on his computer monitor, which showed that the platform stabilization deviation had continued to rise, creeping past fifteen degrees in the last seconds prior to launch.

Fifteen feet beneath the water's surface, Pitt's ears were bleeding from the acoustical barrage. What started with the sound of a distant freight train had rumbled into the bombardment of a thousand erupting volcanoes as the Zenit's engine reached full thrust. The deafening sound, Pitt knew, was only a warning of the real savagery to come. The building force of the rocket's exhaust was deflected into the flame trench, where thousands of gallons of water dampened the inferno. The blasting force of the exhaust was little repressed, however, gathering into a steaming cloud of fury that proceeded past the deflectors to the open sea below the platform, where it pounded the water like a sledgehammer.

Positioned almost directly beneath the launchpad, the Badger was pummeled like a small toy, surging twenty feet down in a blast of bubbles and vapor. Pitt felt as if he were trapped in a washing machine as the submersible was tossed violently about. The seams of the vessel twisted and groaned from the force of the surge and the interior lights flickered from the shaking. A loose battery pack bounced off Pitt's head, gashing his temple as the submersible nearly turned turtle in the bellowing turbulence. Shaking off the blow, he discovered a new worry when he braced a hand against the bulkhead during a side roll. To his surprise, the bulkhead was searing hot. He quickly pulled his hand away, cursing as he shook it in the air to cool. A sickening thought drew over him as he felt a heavy mist of sweat dripping down his forehead and realized the water sloshing at his feet was rapidly warming. The rocket's exhaust was creating a boiling tempest around him, which might poach him alive before the rocket cleared the platform.

A second, more powerful surge stuck the submersible as the rocket's full thrust came to bear. The force of the current pushed the Badger charging through the water in a contorted angle, nearly on its side. Pitt clung to the controls for balance, unable to see ahead through the turbulent water, which offered no visibility. Had he an inkling where the submersible was headed, he might have braced himself for the impact. But the collision came without warning.

Ripping with the surge like a raft down the Colorado River, the submersible tore head-on into the side of the Odyssey's flooded port pontoon. A metallic clap thundered through the water as the submersible smacked against the immovable hull. Pitt was jerked from the pilot's seat and flung against the forward bulkhead amid a rain of loosened electronic debris as the interior lights fell black and a series of hissing sounds erupted throughout the compartment. A grinding noise told Pitt that the Badger was sliding along the pontoon until another clang erupted and the submersible tilted over to one side and jerked to a sudden stop. As Pitt collected his senses, he realized that the submersible was wedged against the platform hull from the force of the rushing water, perhaps entangled in one of the pontoon's drive propellers. Turned on its side against the huge pontoon, there was no way that Pitt could open the entry hatch, dare he try to flood the interior and escape to the surface. With a sickening awe, he realized that if he wasn't soon baked alive he would face a swift death by drowning trapped inside the leaking submersible.

Six thousand miles away, Kang smiled weakly as he watched a satellite feed of the rocket bursting off the deck of the Odyssey.

“We have opened the genie's bottle,” he said quietly to Kwan, sitting across his desk. “Let us hope he follows his master's wishes.”

Tongju watched intently as the Zenit climbed up past the launch tower with a thundering reverberation that could be felt even inside the bowels of the Koguryo's control center. A lingering applause still rang through the control center as the jubilant launch crew cheered the rocket's ascent. Ling afforded himself a wide smile as the computer display told him that the Zenit's engine was operating at full thrust. He peered at Tongju, who returned the glance by nodding tight-lipped in approval.

“The mission is still far from over,” Ling said, visibly relieved that the rocket was finally under way. But the riskiest phase of the mission was behind them now, he knew. Once the rocket was ignited, he had little control, if any, over the outcome of the mission. With a quiet uneasiness, he settled in as a spectator to monitor the balance of the flight.

From the cockpit of the Icarus, Al, Dirk, and Jack watched with dread as the blast of the rocket shook across the open sea. Just seconds before, Giordino had eased the struggling airship down onto a flat clearing atop Santa Barbara Island, where the relieved Sea Launch crew quickly jumped out of the overcrowded gondola. Captain Chris-tiano hesitated at the cockpit doorway, stopping to shake hands.

“Thank you for saving my crew,” Christiano said through a grim face pained with disgrace for losing command of the Odyssey.

“Now that we can get airborne again, we'll make sure they don't get away,” Dirk replied with shared anger. He then pointed out the cockpit windshield toward an approaching blue dot on the horizon.

“The Deep Endeavor's on her way. Get your men down to the shoreline and prepare to transfer aboard.”

Christiano nodded then stepped off the gondola, leaving it empty save for Jack.

“All ashore,” he uttered into the cockpit.

“Then let's get this gasbag back into the sky,” Giordino grunted, turning the propeller ducts upward and advancing the throttles. With roughly eight thousand pounds of human cargo suddenly off-loaded, the blimp rose easily into the air. As Giordino aimed the airship back toward the Odyssey, their eyes collectively caught the first billows of smoke that indicated the launch was initiated.

The fuming exhaust of the burning liquid oxygen and kerosene propellant bursting against the platform's water dampener system created a massive white cloud of vapor that quickly enveloped the entire platform and surrounding sea. For what seemed like minutes, the Zenit stood still at the launch tower. To the men in the airship, there was a hopeful moment where it appeared that the rocket was not going to leave the pad, but finally the tall white rocket began to rise, its blinding exhaust glaring like a fireball. Even a half-dozen miles across the water, they could hear the sharp crackling sound of the combusting fuel as the hot explosive thrust met the cool surrounding air, creating the echo of an ax ripping through a pine log.

Though it was a powerful, almost beautiful sight, Dirk felt a sickening knot in his stomach as he watched the rocket ascend. The glistening white missile would host the most savage terrorist attack the world had ever seen, resulting in a horrifying death for millions. And he had failed to stop it. As if that was not punishment enough, he knew that Sarah was somewhere in the target area of Los Angeles and might very well be one of the strike's first victims. And then there was the fate of his father. Glancing forlornly at Giordino, he saw a grimace on the old Italian's face the likes of which he had never seen before. It was not a look of anger with the terrorists but an expression of concern for the loss of a lifelong friend. As much as Dirk did not want to face it, he knew that amid the noxious inferno of the rocket's blastoff his father was somewhere on the platform fighting for his survival, or worse.

Aboard the Deep Endeavor, Summer felt the same pangs of dread swell through her body. Dirk had radioed the ship with news that the Sea Launch crew had been rescued, but also that their father was somewhere aboard the platform. When Delgado was the first to observe the rocket igniting, she thought her legs had turned to rubber.

Grasping the captain's chair for support, she stared stoically toward the platform as tears welled in her eyes. All fell silent on the bridge around her as they watched in disbelief at the rocket as it surged off the launchpad. As one, their thoughts were on the fate of the NUMA leader, lost somewhere in the rocket's white plume of smoke. “It can't be,” Burch muttered in shock. “It just can't be.”

Inside the Badger, the temperature was unbearable. The superheated metal skin created a sauna effect with the water that was rising inside. Pitt could feel himself on the verge of passing out from the heat as he clawed his way back to the tilted pilot's seat. A handful of lights still blinked on the control panel, indicating that the emergency life-support system still had power, but the propulsion systems were long expired. Though his body was numb from the heat, his mind quickly calculated that he had one chance to break free from the grip of the pontoon. Through sweat-laden eyes, he reached forward and mashed a control button market ballast pump. Then, grasping the control yoke, he flung himself backward into the rising water, using his full weight and remaining strength to yank the sub's rudder against the burgeoning current. The rudder blade protested at first, then swung slowly against the rushing water, fighting against Pitt's every movement. With muscles aching and spots appearing before his eyes, Pitt clung desperately to the yoke, fighting not to pass out. For a second, nothing happened. All Pitt could hear was the churning torrent of the water rushing against the sub, while the temperature inside continued to rise. Then, almost imperceptibly, a grinding noise struck his ears. Gradually, the noise grew louder, matching the sound he had heard before. A faint smile crossed Pitt's lips as he fought to maintain consciousness. Hang on, he told himself, gripping the yoke tightly. Just hang on.

An eagle-eyed flight engineer, standing on a rocky hilltop of Santa Barbara Island amid his stunned Sea Launch colleagues, was the first to detect it. A subtle, almost invisible waggle at the base of the rocket as it cleared the launch tower.

“She's oscillating,” he said aloud.

His surrounding crewmates, exhausted and stunned by the entire ordeal, ignored his words and watched in angry disbelief as somebody else launched their rocket from their platform. But as the rocket climbed higher and higher into the sky, more of the experienced launch veterans detected something amiss with the flight trajectory. At first, just a murmur rippled through the assembled crew; then, an excited buzz jolted the men like an electric shock. One man started to yell, cursing at the rocket to burst, and then another followed suit. Before long, the entire crew was jumping up and down while shouting at the soaring rocket, cajoling the mechanical beast like some last-dollar bettors urging a long-shot nag to the wire at Pimlico.

On board the Koguryo, the excitement of the launch had yet to wane when a seated flight engineer turned to Ling and said, “Sir, the Stage One engine indicates an active gimbaling beyond nominal flight plan parameters.”

The Zenit-3SL, like most modern rockets, was steered in flight by adjusting, or gimbaling, the launch vehicle's engine, redirecting its thrust to govern the rocket's heading. As Ling was aware, the initial launch sequence called for no gimbaling until the rocket was in a stabilized climb, then the navigation system would initiate slight steering adjustments to guide the rocket toward the target. Only an undetected imbalance would create an immediate steering correction from launch.

Ling walked over to the engineer's station and peered at the man's computer monitor. His mouth fell open as he saw that the rocket's engine was gimbaled to its maximum degree. He watched in silence as, a second later, the engine adjusted back to its neutral position, then gimbaled to the full extent in the opposite direction. Almost immediately, the whole cycle started over again. Ling immediately surmised the cause.

“Choi, what was the launchpad horizontal deviation at T-0?” he shouted to the platform engineer.

The engineer looked back sheepishly at Ling and uttered in a barely audible voice, “Sixteen degrees.”

“No!” Ling gasped in a raspy voice as his eyes scrunched closed in a panic of disbelief. The color rushed from Ling's face and he felt himself grasping the computer monitor to steady his suddenly weakening knees. With dire foresight, he slowly opened his eyes and stared at the video screen of the charging rocket, waiting for the inevitable.

Pitt had no way of knowing the impact from his frenetic hole drilling. But the dozens of gouges poked into the side of the support columns had opened up a flood of incoming seawater that quickly overpowered the Odyssey's ballast pumps. With the automated controls set to maintain the prescribed launch depth, the incoming water collected in the rear support columns and tugged the platform down by its aft side. Firing off the platform, the Zenit rocket was over fifteen degrees off vertical center as it left the launchpad and immediately tried to correct the deviation from its prescribed flight plan by shifting the engine thrust. But at the low speed of takeoff, the initial command was diluted so the engine position was tweaked again to its maximum adjustment. As the launch vehicle gained speed, the adjustment quickly became an over correction and the rocket's computers gimbaled the engine in the opposite direction to counterbalance the movement. Under normal conditions, the rocket might have been able to stabilize itself with a few minor adjustments. But on this flight, the Zenit's fuel tanks were only half full. The partially empty fuel tanks allowed the liquid propellant to slosh back and forth during the thrust inclinations, creating a whole new set of balancing dynamics. The overtaxed stabilization control system tried vainly to smooth the flight but, ultimately, exacerbated the situation and the rocket began to waffle.

On video screens and satellite feeds, out an airship cockpit window, and from a barren rocky island in the Pacific Ocean, a thousand eyes stared transfixed at the streaming white rocket as it began a slow and morbid gyration across the sky. What started as a slight wobble at liftoff grew into a continuous waggle during ascent until the entire rocket was shaking uncontrollably toward the clouds like an anorexic belly dancer. Had Sea Launch been managing the flight, an automated safety control would have detonated the rocket as it veered out of parameter. But the abort command had been deleted from the flight software by Kang's crew and the Zenit was left to struggle upward in a tortuous dance of death.

To the unbelieving sight of those who watched, the huge rocket swung wildly in the sky before tearing itself apart from the inside out and literally snapping in two. The lower Stage immediately disintegrated in a massive fireball as the fuel tanks were simultaneously ignited, swallowing everything in its radius with a cauldron of flame. Chunks and pieces of rocket machinery not dissolved by the explosion rained down over a swath of empty sea, while the high-altitude mushroom cloud from the explosion hung in the blue sky as if painted there.

The nose cone and upper stage of the Zenit oddly sailed free of the carnage and continued speeding across the sky like a streaking bullet, fueled only by momentum. In a graceful parabolic arc, the smoke-trailed payload gradually lost energy and nosed down toward the Pacific, smacking the surface with a watery geyser of debris miles downrange from the initial explosion. As the sudden sound of silence drifted over the water, the stunned observers stared miraculously at the white rainbow of smoke that trailed the death flight and arched quietly from horizon to horizon.

ON A rocky beach of Santa Barbara Island, an elephant seal awoke from a leisurely nap and cocked an ear toward the inland. The odd sound of cheering wafted down the hillside from thirty or so men congregated on a small bluff. The seal looked quizzically up at the disheveled group of men, then stretched back out and resumed his nap.

For the first time in their lives, the Sea Launch platform crew of technicians and engineers were happy to witness a launch failure. Men cheered and whistled while others poked their fists in the air in celebratory victory. As the launch vehicle blew up above their heads, even Christiano grinned a sigh of relief as Platform Launch Manager Ohlrogge slapped him on the back.

“Somebody was smiling down on us for once,” Ohlrogge said.

“Thank God. Whatever those bastards were trying to launch could not have been good.”

“One of my flight engineers noted a roll oscillation right from launch. Must have been a nozzle adjustment malfunction, or a stabilization issue with the platform.”

Christiano thought of Pitt and his comment before departing the Odyssey. “Maybe that fellow from NUMA worked some magic.”

“If so, we owe him big.”

“Yes, and somebody owes me, too,” Christiano replied.

Ohlrogge looked at the captain quizzically.

“That was a ninety-million-dollar launch vehicle that just went up in flames. There will be hell to pay when we pass that bill to the insurer,” the captain said, finally letting loose a laugh.

Kang flinched as he watched the satellite feed of the Zenit disintegrate before his eyes. As the camera caught pieces of falling debris, he silently reached for the remote control and turned off the monitor.

“Though the strike has failed, the specter of the attack will still represent a serious provocation to the American public,” Kwan assured his boss. “Anger will be high and the fallout against Japan significant.”

“Yes, our staged media security leaks should ensure that,” Kang said, suppressing his anger at the failure. “But the disappearance of the Koguryo and launch team remains at hand. Their capture would corrupt much of our hard work to date.”

“Tongju will fulfill his duties. He always has,” Kwan replied.

Kang stared at the darkened television monitor for a moment, then slowly nodded.

The mood in the Koguryo\ launch control center quickly turned from joy to shock to sullen disappointment. In an instant, the mission requirements of the launch team fell away and the assembled technicians and engineers sat silently at their computer stations, staring at the displays that no longer provided any launch data. No one seemed to know what to do next and whispered quietly with one another.

Tongju threw a long, frigid glare toward Ling, then left the control center without saying a word. As he made his way toward the bridge, he called Kim on a portable radio and spoke briefly in a low voice. On the bridge, he found Captain Lee staring out the starboard bridge window at the smoke-trailed rain of debris that scarred the blue sky with white strips of vapor.

“She shook herself apart,” he said with wonder, then looked into the blank eyes of Tongju.

“A problem with the platform,” Tongju replied. “We must evacuate the area immediately. Can we get moving at once?”

“We are standing by for departure. We just need to hoist in the tender, then we can be under way.”

“There is no time,” he hissed suddenly. “The American Coast Guard and Navy may already be looking for us. Proceed under full power at once, and I will personally cut the tender loose.”

Lee looked at Tongju warily, then nodded.

“As you wish. Our course is already laid in. We shall make for Mexican waters, then divert under cover of darkness for the rendezvous position.”

Tongju took a step to exit the bridge, then stopped suddenly. Out of the forward window, he gazed at the smoke-enshrouded Sea Launch platform. Approaching the platform from the northwest was the silver blimp, now cruising several hundred feet above the water. Tongju waved an arm in the direction of the Icarus.

“Alert your surface-to-air missile team. Take out that airship immediately,” he spat, then vanished out the door.

As the Roguryo's twin four-bladed propellers began churning the water beneath the ship's hull, Tongju hustled his way back to the portable stairwell that ran down the vessel's port flank. At the base of the stairwell bobbed the white tender, a mooring line tied across to the railing. He noted bubbles of smoke rising from the boat's stern, alerting him that the engine was running at idle. Quickly untying the line, he coiled it in his hand and waited until the next passing wave pushed the tender up against the side of the ship. With barely a step, he hopped aboard the bow of the boat and shuffled toward the cabin, tossing the coiled line into an empty bucket on deck. Inside the cabin, he found Kim and two of his commandos standing beside the wheel. “Everything aboard?” Tongju asked.

Kim nodded. “During the excitement of the launch, we moved our arms and provisions on board, and even hoisted extra fuel aboard, without any interference.” Kim tilted his head toward the rear open deck where four fifty-five-gallon drums of gasoline were tied off against the gunwale.

“Let us drift off the stern for a moment, then we shall make our run to Ensenada. When will the charges detonate?” Kim glanced at his watch. “In twenty-five minutes.” “Plenty of time for the missile crew to destroy the airship.” The Koguryo quickly churned away from the small boat as the tender continued to idle in the low swells. When the former cable ship had cleared a quarter mile of open water, Kim moved the throttles to slow and crept forward with the bow pointed southeast. In no time, he figured, they would look like another ordinary fishing charter heading home to San Diego.

Long after the Zenit had climbed into the sky and detonated, a thick cloud of white smoke still hung over the Odyssey like a fog bank Ever so gently, the light sea breeze began poking holes through the exhaust, revealing sporadic patches of the launch platform through the haze.

“Looks like a bowl of clam chowder down there,” Giordino said as he banked the Icarus over the platform. While Giordino and Dahlgren visually surveyed the platform for any signs of Pitt, Dirk activated the LASH system and scanned for optical anomalies that might signify a human being.

“Don't quote me but I think that baby is sinking,” Dahlgren said as they glided around the aft end of the platform and could make out an exposed section down to the water. The men in the gondola could clearly see that the aft support columns appeared shorter than the bow columns.

a “She's definitely taking on water in the stern,” Dirk replied... “Wonder if that's the handiwork of your old man? He may have just cost somebody a new rocket,” Giordino said. “And maybe a new launchpad,” Dahlgren added.

“But where is he?” Dirk asked aloud. They could all detect that there was no apparent sign of life on the platform.

“The smoke is starting to clear. Once the helipad opens up, I'll take us in for a closer look,” Giordino replied.

As they drifted back toward the bow of the platform, Dahlgren looked down and grimaced.

“Damn. The Badger's gone, too. Must have sank during the launch.”

The threesome fell quiet, reflecting that the disappearance of the submersible was the least of their losses.

Three miles to the south, a gunnery crewman on the Koguryo was transferring the radar-derived coordinates of the blimp into a Chinese CSA-4 surface-to-air missile guidance system. The slow-moving airship was as easy an objective as the gunnery crew could ever hope to target. With such a large object at close range, the odds of failing to strike the blimp were nearly zero.

In an enclosed room adjacent to the dual missile canister, a weapons control expert stood at a console transferring the firing guidance through a missile command link. A row of green lights flashed at him as the engagement radar embedded in the missile acknowledged a tar-get lock. The man immediately picked up a telephone receiver that ran directly to the bridge.

“Target acquired and missile armed,” he said in monotone to Captain Lee. “Awaiting orders to fire.”

Lee looked out a bridge side window toward the blimp hovering over the platform in the distance. The high-powered missile exploding into the airship would make for a spectacular display, he thought childishly. Perhaps they should also destroy the distant turquoise vessel that lingered on the edge of their radar screen and then make a clean escape. But, first things first. He moved the receiver to his mouth to issue the command to fire when suddenly his lips froze. His eyes had detected a small pair of dark objects emerging from behind the airship. He stood frozen and watched as the objects quickly materialized into a pair of low-flying aircraft.

The F-16D Falcon fighter jets had been scrambled from an Air National Guard base in Fresno minutes after a NORAD satellite had detected the launch of the Zenit rocket. While flying toward the launch site, the pilots were directed to the Koguryo with the help of the Coast Guard distress call that had originated from the Deep Endeavor. The sleek gray jets flew low above the water and burst over the Koguryo just a few hundred feet above her fore bridge The crackling roar of the jets' engines struck a second after their shadows had whisked by overhead, rattling the windows of the bridge where Lee stood with a sickened look on his face.

“Stand down! Stand down and secure the battery!” he barked over the phone. As the SAM was stowed away, Lee watched as the two fighter jets gained altitude and began crisply circling the fast-moving ship.

“You!” he cursed at a crewman standing nearby. “Find Tongju and bring him to the bridge ... at once.”

The men in the blimp beamed in relief at the sight of the Air National Guard jets circling above the Koguryo, having no idea how close they were to being blasted out of the sky by the ship's SAM battery. They knew that a horde of Navy ships was on the way and that there was little chance the ship would escape apprehension now. They again turned their attention to the smoke-covered platform below.

“The haze is lifting off the helipad,” Giordino observed. “I'll set her down if you boys want to jump off and take a look around.”

“Absolutely,” Dirk replied. “Jack, we can start with the bridge, then move down to the hangar if the air is breathable.”

“I'd start with the ship's lounge,” Giordino said, trying to cut the somber mood. “If he's okay, my money says he's mixing a martini and eating up the ship's store of pretzels.”

Giordino swung the blimp wide of the platform, bringing the airship around with its nose into the wind. As he lined upon the helipad and began dropping altitude, Dahlgren stuck his head back into the cockpit and pointed out the side window.

“Take a look over there,” he said.

Several hundred feet off the side of the platform, a sudden surge of bubbles erupted from beneath the surface. A few seconds later, a mottled gray metallic object broke the surface.

“Launch debris?” Dahlgren asked.

“No, it's the Badger^” Giordino exclaimed.

Guiding the airship toward the object, the three men could see that it was in fact the NUMA submersible bobbing low in the water. The underwater vehicle's bright metallic paintwork had been cooked off in the launch blast, leaving its skin a dappled mix of primer and bare metal. The bow section was bent and mangled, as if it had been involved in a head-on traffic accident. How the thing still managed to float was anybody's guess, but there was no denying it was the experimental submersible Dirk and Dahlgren had sailed to the platform.

As Giordino brought the blimp down for a closer look, the three men were stunned to see the top hatch suddenly twist and pop open. A cloud of steaming vapor streamed from the open hatch as they looked on incredulously. For several agonizing seconds, their eyes hung glued to the hatch, hoping against hope. Finally, they saw the odd apparition of a pair of stockinged feet rise up and out of the hatch. A patch of dark hair then appeared and they realized that the feet they observed were actually hands covered in a pair of socks. The stocking-wrapped hands, protected from the hot metal, quickly hoisted up the lean, racked body of their owner from the enclosed oven.

“It's Dad! He's okay!” Dirk exclaimed with glaring relief.

Pitt climbed to his feet and swayed on the rocking sub, sucking in lungfuls of the cool ocean air. He was a haggard mass of blood and sweat, and his clothes stuck to him as if they were glued to his skin. But his eyes shined as he looked skyward and threw a jaunty wave to the men in the gondola.

“Going down,” Giordino announced as he proceeded to guide the blimp down toward the sea until the gondola was skimming just inches above the waves. With a deft touch, Giordino gently eased the blimp alongside the submersible. Pitt leaned down and secured the Badger's top hatch, then took a few steps and staggered into the open door of the gondola, where Dirk and Dahlgren grabbed his arms and yanked him safely aboard.

“I believe,” he said to Giordino in a dry parched voice, “I'll take that drink now.”

Pitt slipped into the blimp's copilot seat and gulped down a bottled water as Al, Dirk, and Jack described the fiery disintegration of the Zenit rocket minutes before. While studying the vapor trails in the sky and eyeing the Koguryo fleeing in the distance, Pitt countered with a description of his drilling attack on the Odyssey's support columns and the tumultuous assault from the wake of the blastoff.

“And here I had good money down that you were lolling about in the Odyssey's lounge nursing a martini,” Giordino grumbled.

“I was the one shaken and stirred,” Pitt laughed. “Would have been baked alive when the Badger got jammed against the side pontoon, but I was able to manually force the rudder against the surge and broke free into cooler water. Even with the ballast tanks purged, it took me a while to surface until I got the bilge pump working. There's still a lot of water sloshing around inside, but she should stay afloat a while longer.”

“I'll radio Deep Endeavor and have her fish the Badger out once they've picked up the platform crew on Santa Barbara Island,” Giordino replied.

“I will have a furious sister on my hands if you first don't let her know you are safe,” Dirk chided.

Summer nearly fell over when her father's voice crackled through the Deep Endeavor's radio, jokingly ordering a beer and a peanut butter sandwich.

“We feared the worst,” she gushed. “What on earth happened to you?”

“It's a long story. Suffice it to say that the Scripps Institute isn't going to be too happy with my submarine-driving skills,” he said, leaving all on the bridge of the Deep Endeavor scratching their heads.

As Giordino lifted the airship up off the water, Pitt noticed the F-16s circling the fleeing Koguryo.

“Cavalry finally arrive?” he asked.

“Just moments ago. The Navy has an armada headed this way as well. She's not going to get away.”

“Her tender is sure making haste,” Pitt said, nodding toward a white speck to the south.

Lost in the spectacle and confusion was the Koguryo's tender, which had slipped quietly away from her mother ship and was now motoring south toward the horizon at high speed.

“How do you know that's her tender?” Giordino asked, squinting downrange.

“Over here,” Pitt replied, tapping the WE SCAM monitor. Pitt had been fooling around with the zoom lens while talking and happened to catch the speeding boat flashing by. The focused image clearly showed it was the Koguryo's tender, which they had observed earlier.

“The jets definitely aren't tracking her,” Dirk said from the rear, noting the F-16s circling tightly around the Koguryo as she sailed farther to the west.

“Let's stay on her,” Pitt stated.

“She has nary a chance against our fleet wings aflutter,” Giordino snarled, pushing the throttles to full and watching as the airspeed indicator crept slowly toward 50 knots.

Why haven't they fired on the aircraft, or that infernal airship?" Tongju swore as he stared at the Koguryo through a pair of binoculars. The bouncing movement of the tender as it ran at full speed through the waves made it impossible for him to steady his gaze and he finally threw the glasses down harshly onto a cowling.

“The aircraft have intimidated Lee,” Kim said over his shoulder as he clutched the steering wheel tightly. “He will pay with his life in about two more minutes.”

The Koguryo was growing smaller on the horizon as the tender accelerated south. But when the planted explosives detonated, they could clearly see puffs of water spray into the air along the ship's hull line.

Standing on the bridge, Captain Lee at first thought that the F-16s had fired on him. But the warbirds still circled lazily above, and there was no sign that they had fired any missiles. As the damage assessments came in reporting that the lower hull was compromised in several locations, Lee suddenly realized the culprit. Minutes before, a crewman had reported observing Kim and Tongju board the tender and the small boat was now seen running south at high speed. With a sick sensation of betrayal, Lee knew that he and his ship had been deemed expendable.

But a miscalculation would save them. Kim's demolition team had planted ample explosives to rip the bowels out of a normal ship Koguryo's size. But a critical piece of information about the cable ship had not been considered: she had a double hull. The detonated charges easily ruptured the vessel's inner hull but only buckled the plates of the outer hull. Seawater gushed into the lower holds, but not with the massive force that would submerge the running ship as Tongju had envisioned. Lee immediately stopped the ship, deployed portable pumps to the damaged holds, and then sealed off the high-risk areas behind watertight doors. The ship would list and be unable to run at speed but she would not founder.

Once the flooding was halted, the captain peered through a set of field glasses at the speeding tender escaping in the distance. Lee knew that he had little to live for now. As the captain of the vessel that launched the aborted missile attack against the United States, he would be the prime scapegoat if captured. If he somehow escaped, or was released, there would be no telling what sort of reception he'd receive from Kang. Satisfied that the ship was stabilized, Lee excused himself from the bridge and retired to his cabin. Retrieving a Chinese-made Makarov 9mm pistol from beneath a dresser drawer filled with pressed shirts, Lee lay down neatly on his bed, held the barrel to his ear, and pulled the trigger.

While pursuing the speeding tender, the men in the Icarus caught sight of the series of explosions that ripped along the hull of the Koguryo. “Are those lunatics trying to scuttle her with all hands?” Dahlgren wondered.

For several minutes, they watched the ship as she slowed but held steady. Pitt noticed that there was no apparent rush for the lifeboats, and he could see several members of the crew standing idly at the rail watching the jets overhead. He studied the waterline for a significant change but could only detect a slight list.

“She's not going to disappear on us anytime soon,” he said. “Let's keep after the tender.”

Giordino glanced at the LASH system output on the laptop computer, spotting several gray shapes to the southeast approximately thirty miles away.

“Our Navy pals are on the way,” he said, tapping the screen. “They won't be alone for long.”

With a nearly 20-knot advantage in speed, the airship began easily gaining ground on the fleeing white boat. The Icarus had only ascended to a five-hundred-foot altitude when Giordino gave chase and he didn't waste power on any further climbing. The blimp glided smoothly toward the boat's wake, driving fast and low over the water. As the airship moved closer, Pitt focused the surveillance camera on the boat's open rear deck and cabin. Through the covered portico, he could only make out indiscriminate shapes at the helm.

“I count four men above decks,” he said.

“Apparently, they're not ones for a crowded escape,” Giordino replied.

Pitt scanned the camera about the deck, relieved to find no heavy armament but noting the extra drums of fuel near the stern.

“Plenty of gas for a run to Mexico,” he said.

“I think our Coast Guard friends in San Diego might have something to say about that,” Giordino replied, tightening his bearing on the boat.

Tongju and his men had been focused on the Koguryo, but one of the commandos finally noticed the approaching blimp. While Kim manned the helm, the other three men instinctively stepped to the rear open deck to better observe the airship. Pitt focused the zoom lens of the camera on the men until their faces could clearly be distinguished.

“Recognize any of these characters?” Pitt asked over his shoulder to Dirk and Dahlgren.

The younger Pitt studied the screen for just a moment before gritting his teeth hard. The flash of anger subsided quickly, though, as a contented smile returned to his face.

“The Fu Manchu character standing in the center. His name is Tongju. He's Kang's master of ceremonies for torture and assassination. Appeared to be calling the shots aboard the Odyssey earlier.”

“For such a nice guy, it would be kind of a shame to ruin his Mexican vacation,” Giordino replied.

As he spoke, he dipped the prow of the blimp down and held steady as the airship slowly dove toward the water. When it looked like he was going to drive the nose into the sea, Giordino gently pulled up on the controls, leveling the gondola just fifty feet above the water. The Icarus had closed the gap between the two vessels during the dive, and Giordino guided the airship along the port side of the tender until the gondola was suspended side by side.

“You want to step off and have a beer with these guys?” Pitt asked as he eyed the men on the boat just a few dozen feet away.

“No, just want to let them know that they ain't going to outrun Mad Al and his Magic Bag of Gas,” he grinned.

Giordino eased back on the throttles until he matched speeds with the bouncing tender, the large envelope of the blimp casting a shadow over the topsides of the boat. Above the din of the tender's twin inboard engines and the airship's Porsche motor-driven propellers, the men in the Icarus suddenly detected an unwelcome staccato. Glancing back at the tender, Pitt saw that Tongju and the two commandos had retrieved automatic weapons and were standing on the stern deck blasting away at the blimp.

“I hate to be the one to tell you but they're shooting holes in your gasbag, Mad Al,” Pitt said.

“The jealous lowlifes,” Giordino replied, goosing the throttles.

Before departing Oxnard, they had been told that the airship could withstand a profusion of holes and gashes to the air bags and still retain its lift. Tongju and his men would have to exhaust a crate of ammunition to threaten the airworthiness of the helium-filled blimp. But the safety of the gondola was less assured. After a momentary pause in the firing, the floor of the main cabin suddenly erupted in a spray of splinters as the gunmen redirected their weapons at the gondola.

“Everybody down!” Pitt yelled as a burst of fire smashed the side cockpit window, the bullets grazing just over his head. The sound of shattering glass resonated through the cabin as a rain of bullets poured into the gondola. Dirk and Dahlgren lay flat on the floor as several bursts stitched past them and into the ceiling above. Giordino jammed the throttles all the way forward, and, while waiting anxiously for the blimp to speed ahead, turned the yoke full to port to turn away from the tender.

“No,” Pitt yelled at him, “turn and fly over him.”

Giordino knew not to question Pitt's judgment and, without hesitation, threw the rudder over in the opposite direction, pushing the Icarus back toward the tender. Glancing at Pitt, he could see him studying the tender below with an arched brow. The blistering fire continued to tear into the gondola for a second, then abruptly stopped as Giordino steered the gondola above and slightly ahead of the tender's cabin roof, temporarily obscuring the field of fire.

“Everyone all right?” Pitt asked.

“We're okay back here,” Dirk replied, “but one of the engines isn't faring too well.”

As the sound of gunfire fell away, the men could hear sputtering and coughing emanating from the starboard gondola motor. Giordino glanced at the console gauges and shook his head.

“Oil pressure falling, temperature rising. Going to be tough to run away from these guys on one leg.”

Pitt peered down at the deck of the tender, spotting Tongju and the two gunmen moving toward the stern of the boat reloading their weapons.

“Al, hold your position,” he said. “And lend me your cigar.”

“It's one of Sandecker's finest,” he replied, hesitating before handing Pitt the saliva-soaked green stub.

“I'll buy you a box of 'em. Hold steady for ten seconds, then turn hard to port and get us the hell away from the boat.”

“You're not going to do what I think you are?” Giordino asked.

Pitt just flashed a sly look, then reached up for an overhead ripcord with one hand while he turned a dial marked fuel ballast to the open position. Pulling on the cord, he silently counted to eight, then released the line and closed the lever. At the stern of the gondola, an emergency dump valve opened on the fuel tank, releasing a flood of gasoline that surged out the bottom of the tank.

Pitt's quick discharge released more than seventy-five gallons of gasoline out of the gondola tank, which sprayed down directly onto the stern deck of the tender. Pitt looked down and could see that the rear deck was awash in fuel that sloshed along the rear gunwale as the boat charged through the waves. Tongju and the two gunmen covered their faces and sprinted under the portico as the rain of liquid splattered down on them but quickly returned after the deluge ended and raised their weapons again to finish off the blimp. Pitt watched curiously as the pool of gasoline washed around their feet and splashed over some deck chairs, a bench, and the four fifty-five-gallon drums tied to the side. He stoked a few puffs on the cigar to brighten its ember, then stuck his head out the shattered side cockpit window. Just a few yards away, Pitt eyed Tongju and smiled as the assassin looked up and swung his assault rifle toward him. Through his legs, Dirk could feel the blimp begin pulling to one side as Giordino threw the controls over. With a calm nonchalance, he took a last puff on the cigar and casually tossed it toward the stern of the tender.