Black Wind

“Mr. Pitt? We've installed the radio set that the Coast Guard sent up, so you'll be able to conduct secure communications with their vessels. The Icarus has been weighed off for a landing equilibrium of plus-one hundred kilograms when your fuel supply runs down to five percent, so just don't run the tanks dry. The airship is also fitted with both a water ballast system and an experimental fuel dump release, should you need emergency lift.”

“How long can we stay aloft?” Giordino asked, eyeing a pair of ducted propellers jutting from either side of the gondola's aft section.

“Eight to ten hours, if you go easy on the throttles. Enjoy your flight, she's a joy to fly,” he said, bowing slightly.

Pitt and Giordino climbed through the gondola door and into a spacious cabin that was comfortably outfitted to seat eight passengers. Squirming through a forward opening into the flight compartment, Pitt took up the pilot's controls while Giordino plopped into the copilot's seat. With a muffled roar, Pitt started the pair of turbocharged Porsche 930 air-cooled engines mounted on the rear flanks of the gondola, which served as propulsion. With the engines idling, Pitt obtained clearance to take off from the airport control tower, then turned to Giordino.

“Ready for takeoff, Wilbur?”

“Ready when you are, Orville.”

Launching the blimp was not a simple action handled solely by the pilots but rather a carefully orchestrated maneuver assisted by a large ground crew. Outside the gondola, the Icaruis support crew, all attired in bright red shirts, took up positions around the airship. A pair of ropes attached to the blimp's nose were pulled taut by three men standing off either side of the bow while four additional men grabbed onto side rails running the length of the gondola. Directly forward of the wide cockpit window that ran nearly to his feet, Pitt stared toward the crew chief, who stood at the base of the mobile mooring mast. At Pitt's command, the crew chief signaled another crewman, standing high atop the mooring mast, to release the nose tether. In unison, the ground crew then tugged at the weightless blimp, walking it away from the mooring mast several dozen yards to a safe launching point clear of obstacles.

Pitt gave a thumbs-up signal to the crew chief, then reached over and pulled down a pair of levers protruding from the center console, increasing the throttle to the twin engines. As the ground crew let free of their clutches and moved clear, he gently pulled back on a center yoke control mounted in front of his seat. The controls manipulated the motor-driven propellers, which were each enclosed in swiveling ducts. As he pulled on the yoke, the ducts tilted upward, providing additional lift from the churning propellers. Immediately, the blimp began to rise, creeping forward as it climbed. Almost without the feeling of movement, the big airship rose off the ground and into the sky with its nose pointed high. Giordino cheerfully waved out an open side window to the ground crew below, who shrank to the size of bugs as the airship rapidly gained altitude.

Despite Giordino's request for a low-flying pass over Malibu, Pitt steered the airship directly offshore from Oxnard after leaving the grounds of the airport and soon leveled the blimp off at a height of twenty-five hundred feet. The Pacific Ocean resonated a deep aqua color under a bright sun, and the men easily counted out the northerly Channel Islands of Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel under the clear skies. As they floated east, Pitt noticed dew dripping off of the blimp, its fabric sides warming under the rays of the morning sun. He glanced at a helium pressure gauge, noting a slight rise in the needle as the helium expanded from the warming temperatures and higher cruising altitude. An automatic venting system would release any excess gas if the pressure rose too high, but Pitt kept the blimp well below its pressure height so as not to needlessly stave off helium.

The controls of the Sentinel 1000 were heavy in his hands and he noted that the sensation of flying the blimp felt closer to sailing a twenty-meter racing yacht than piloting an airplane. Turning the huge rudders and elevators required some muscling of the yoke, which resulted in an anxious pause before the ship's nose would gradually respond. Correcting course, he absentmindedly watched the lines dangling off the blimp's nose sway back and forth. A boat bobbed into view beneath them, which he recognized as a charter fishing boat. The tiny-looking day fishermen on the boat's stern suddenly waved up at them with friendly abandon. There was something about an airship that always seemed to strike a warm chord with people. They captured the romance of the air, Pitt decided, offering a reminder of times past when flying was still a novelty. With his hands on the controls, he could feel the nostalgia himself. Floating at a leisurely pace over the water, he let his mind churn back to the days of the thirties when mammoth dirigibles like the Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg shared the skies with the huge Navy airships Akron and Macon. Like the opulent cruise ships of the same era, they offered a certain relaxed majesty that simply no longer existed in modern travel.

When they reached a distance of thirty miles offshore, Pitt angled the blimp south and began navigating a large, lazy arc off the Los Angeles metropolis. Giordino powered up the LASH optical system, tied into a laptop computer, which enabled him to spot the images of incoming surface vessels up to thirty-five miles away. The freighters and containerships came chugging in toward the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach at a sporadic yet endless pace. The big vessels hailed from a variety of exotic-sounding home ports from Mumbai to Jakarta, though China, Japan, and Taiwan accounted for the largest volume of traffic. More than three thousand vessels a year entered the adjacent ports, creating a constant stream of traffic that crawled across the Pacific toward America's busiest port like ants to a picnic. As Giordino studied the laptop, he reported to Pitt that he could spot two large vessels inbound in the distance that figured to be commercial ships. Squinting out the cockpit window, Pitt could just make out the leading vessel on the horizon.

“Let's go take a look,” Pitt replied, aiming the nose of the airship toward the approaching ship. Flicking a button on the Coast Guard radio set newly installed in the cockpit, he spoke into his headset.

“Coast Guard Cutter Halibut, this is airship Icarus. We are on station and preparing to survey two inbound vessels approximately forty-five miles due east of Long Beach, over.”

“Roger, Icarus” came a deep-voiced reply. “Glad to have you and your eyes in the sky with us. We have three vessels deployed and engaged in current interdiction actions. We'll await your surveillance reports on new inbound vessels as they approach. Out.”

“Eyes in the sky,” Giordino grumbled. “I'd rather be the stomach on the sofa,” he said, suddenly wondering if anyone had packed them a lunch aboard the airship.

Throughout the night, the Odyssey had churned west, inching her way closer to the California coast that she had departed just days before. Tongju returned to the platform after resolving the launch position dispute and stole a few hours of sleep in the captain's cabin before rising an hour before dawn. Under the first trickles of morning light, he watched from the bridge as the platform followed in the Koguryo's wake, noticing the shadow of a sizable island in the distance off the starboard bow. It was San Nicolas Island, a dry and windblown rock farthest from shore of all the Channel Islands and owned by the Navy for use primarily as an amphibious training site. They continued west for another hour before the radio crackled with the voice of Captain Lee.

“We are approaching the location that the Ukrainian engineers have indicated. Prepare to halt engines, and we will take up position to the southeast of you. We will be standing by to initiate launch countdown at your direction.”

“Affirmative,” Tongju replied. “We will set position and ballast the platform. Stand by for positioning.”

Tongju turned and nodded to one of Kang's undercover crewmen who was piloting the Odyssey. With skilled confidence, the helmsman eased off the platform's forward-propulsion throttles, then activated the self-positioning thrusters. Using a GPS coordinate as a fixed target, the computer-controlled system of forward, side, and rear thrusters was activated, locking the Odyssey in a fixed position as if parked on a dime.

“Position control activated,” the helmsman barked in a crisp military voice. “Initiating ballast flooding,” he continued, pushing a series of buttons on an illuminated console.

Two hundred feet below the pilothouse, a series of gate valves were automatically opened inside the twin pontoons and a half-dozen ballast pumps began rapidly pumping salt water into the hollow steel hulls. The flooding was imperceptible to those standing on the platform deck, as the computer-controlled pumps ensured an even rate of flooding. On the bridge, Tongju studied a computerized three-dimensional image of the Odyssey on a monitor, its catamaran hulls and lower columns turning a bright blue as the seawater poured in. Like a lethargic elevator ride, as the men on the bridge watched rather than felt, the platform sank slowly toward the waves. Sixty minutes passed before the platform gently dropped forty-six feet, the bottom of its twin hulls submerged to a stabilizing depth seventy feet below the surface. Tongju noted that the platform had ceased its slow swaying evident earlier. With its submerged pontoons and partially sunken pilings, the Odyssey had become a rock-stable platform from which to launch a million-pound rocket.

A buzzer sounded as the designated launch depth was attained, the rising blue water on the monitor graphic having reached a red horizontal line. The helmsman pressed a few more buttons, then stood back from the console.

“Flooding complete. Platform is stabilized for launch,” he said.

“Secure the bridge,” Tongju replied, nodding toward a Filipino crewman who stood near the radarscope. A guard standing near the door was waved over and quickly escorted the crewman off the bridge without saying a word. Tongju followed out the rear of the bridge, entering a small elevator, which he rode to the floor of the hangar. A dozen or so engineers were hovering around the huge horizontal rocket, examining an array of computer stations that were wired directly into the launch vehicle. Tongju approached a thick-haired man with round glasses named Ling who headed up the launch operations team. Before Tongju could speak, Ling gushed with a nervous testimony.

“We have verified final tests on the payload with positive results. The launch vehicle is secure and all electromechanical systems have tested nominal.”

“Good. The platform is in the designated position and ballasted for launch. Is the rocket ready to be transported to the launch tower?”

Ling nodded enthusiastically. “We have been awaiting word to proceed. We are prepared to initiate launch vehicle transport and erection.”

“There is no reason to dawdle. Proceed at once. Notify me when you are ready to evacuate the platform.”

“Yes, of course,” Ling replied, then hurried over to a group of nearby engineers and spoke at them rapid-fire. Like a band of scared rabbits, the engineers scattered in a fury to their collective posts. Tongju stood back and watched as the massive hangar doors were opened, revealing a railed path across the deck to the standing launch tower at the opposite end of the platform. A series of electrical motors were then started, which reverberated loudly off the hangar's interior walls. Tongju walked behind a console panel and peered over Ling's shoulder as the launch leader's hands danced over the control board. When a row of lights suddenly glowed green, Ling pointed to another engineer, who activated the mobile cradle.

The two-hundred-foot horizontal rocket rocked sluggishly toward the hangar doors, its support cradle creeping forward on a countless mass of wheels that churned like the legs of a centipede. With its base thrusters leading the way, the rocket crept through the doors and into the daylight, its white paint glistening under the morning sun. Tongju strolled alongside the rolling launch vehicle, admiring the potent power of the huge rocket while amazed at its massive girth in the prone position. Several hundred yards away, the Koguryo stood off the platform, a throng of crew and engineers craning from her top deck to catch a glimpse of the big rocket under way.

Crossing the open deck, the mechanical caterpillar ground to a halt as it reached the base of the launch tower. The upper section of the rocket had not completely cleared the hangar and a sliding panel in the hangar roof suddenly crept open to provide clearance. The transporter was locked securely in place to the deck and then the erector mechanicals were engaged, activating hydraulic pumps that pushed gently against the rocket's cradle. With delicate patience, the launch vehicle was slowly tilted upright, its nose sliding through the hangar roof opening, until it stood vertically against the launch tower. A series of support braces clamped the rocket to the platform, while a jumble of fuel, cooling, and venting lines were affixed and checked. Several workmen on the tower plugged in a series of data cables that allowed the engineers on the Koguryo to monitor the dozens of electronic sensors embedded under the rocket's skin. Once the Zenit was affixed upright, the erector transporter support cradle was gently eased away, leaving the rocket braced only by the launch tower. With a hydraulic murmur, the cradle was slowly lowered to its original horizontal position and returned to the hangar, where it would be sheltered out of harm's way during launch.

Ling spoke anxiously by radio to the Launch Control Center on the Koguryo before dashing over to Tongju.

“Some minor anomalies, but, overall, the launch vehicle meets all major prelaunch parameters.”

Tongju looked up at the towering rocket with its payload of deadly virus, aimed to rain death on millions of innocent people. The suffering and deaths meant nothing to him, a man purged of emotional empathy decades ago. The power he felt before him was all that mattered, a power greater than he had ever known before, and he relished the moment. Gradually, his eyes played down from the tip of the rocket to its base, then swept slowly across the breadth of the plat form, before settling on Ling. The engineer stood waiting anxiously for a reply. Tongju let Ling wallow in discomfort a moment longer before breaking the silence in a deep, firm tone. “Very well,” he said. “Begin the countdown.”

The crew OF the Deep Endeavor had quickly found interdiction support duty to be a monotonous assignment. After two days on station, they had only been requested to board and search one ship, a small freighter from the Philippines carrying a shipment of hardwood timber. The commercial shipping traffic that approached Los Angeles from the southwest had been light and ably handled by the nearby Coast Guard cutter Narwhal. The NUMA crew preferred to be put to work rather than circle aimlessly waiting for action and quietly hoped traffic would pick up in their quadrant.

In the ship's galley, Dirk sat sipping a cup of coffee with Summer while she studied a report on coral mortality in the Great Barrier Reef when a crewman approached and told them that they were wanted on the bridge.

“We've received a call from the Narwhal,” Delgado reported. “They're halfway through a container vessel search and asked us to confirm identification on a vessel approaching west of Catalina and then stand by for possible interdiction.”

“No advance identification from our eye-in-the-sky?” Dirk asked.

“Your father and Al took off in the Icarus this morning. They're working their way down from the north and will probably make a pass through our quadrant within the next couple of hours.”

Summer peered out the bridge window to the north, spotting the Narwhal bobbing alongside a large containership that rode low in the water from its heavy cargo. Farther west, she spotted a red speck approaching on the horizon. The Deep Endeavor's pilot was already steering an intercept course toward it.

“Is that her?” Summer asked, pointing a finger toward the object.

“Yes,” Delgado replied. “The Narwhal has already radioed her to halt, so we'll intercept her after she's had a chance to slow. She's reported herself as the Maru Santo out of Osaka.”

An hour later, the Deep Endeavor hove to alongside the Maru Santo, a rusty, multipurpose cargo freighter of small size by inter-Pacific standards. Aimes's Sea Marshal team, along with Summer, Dahlgren, and three other NUMA crewmen, climbed into a small launch and motored over to the freighter, tying up to a rust-stained stairwell that was lowered over the side. Having made fast friends with the bomb-sniffing dogs, Summer quickly volunteered to take the leash of one of the retrievers. As Aimes and Dahlgren met with the freighter's captain to review the manifest, the remaining contingent began a bow-to-stern search of the ship. With the dogs leading the way, the search crew wedged through the ship's holds, checking the container seals and examining several loose crated shipments of running shoes and apparel manufactured in Taiwan. A gritty Malaysian crew looked on with bored amusement as the yellow Labs sniffed their way through the dimly lit crew's quarters.

Dirk stood on the bridge of the Deep Endeavor, studying the Japanese cargo ship. A pair of the freighter's crew stood on the deck looking back at the NUMA vessel. Dirk tossed a friendly wave as the two men leaned against a railing in disheveled clothes, smoking cigarettes and cracking jokes in an obviously relaxed manner.

“There is no threat from this ship,” he turned and said with certainty to Captain Burch.

“How can you be so sure?”

“The crew is too lax. The men on Kang's ship were no-nonsense professionals, not the ragtag jovial sort on this tub. There would be a slew of paranoid undercover security types running around as well,” he added, recalling the image of Tongju and his men.

“Be worth noting to Aimes when he gets back. If nothing else, it's still a good practice exercise for the boys. And, heck, I got Dahlgren off the bridge for a few minutes at least,” the captain smiled.

“We've still got to find them first. There's just too many places to hide at sea,” Dirk muttered.

As the search team appeared above decks for a moment, Captain Burch picked up a pair of binoculars and scanned the horizon. He noted a pair of dots far to the southwest, then scanned to the north, taking in the Narwhal as she started to pull away from the container-ship. Burch started to drop the binoculars when a sudden glint caught his eye. Raising the glasses and adjusting the focus, he smiled broadly, then spoke to Dirk.

“I guess there will be a few less places to hide on the sea now that our illustrious leaders of the deep are checking things out from the balcony.”

Two thousand feet above the calmly rolling swells of the Pacific, the silver Icarus floated gracefully across the sky at thirty-five miles per hour. While the elder Pitt handled the blimp's flight controls, Giordino adjusted a row of dials at the base of a flat-panel color monitor. A WE SCAM long-distance camera mounted to the side of the gondola, a supplement to the LASH imaging system, fed into the monitor, providing a zoom image of objects located hundreds of yards away. Pitt glanced from the flight controls to the monitor, which displayed a close-up picture of the stern of a small boat where two bikini-clad women were stretched out sunbathing.

“I hope your girlfriend doesn't catch wind of your voyeuristic tendencies,” Pitt laughed.

“Just testing the resolution,” Giordino replied in a serious tone while prankishly zooming the image in and out on one of the women's behinds.

“Ansel Adams you're not. Let's see what that setup will read with a real target,” Pitt said, turning the airship west toward an outbound vessel a few miles away. Dropping down a few hundred feet, Pitt nosed the Icarus to starboard and increased the throttle, gradually gaining ground on the departing ship. While still nearly a half mile away, Giordino zoomed the camera lens onto the stern of the black-hulled freighter, easily reading the name: “Jasmine Star... Madras.” He raised the camera along the ship's deck, noting a stacked array of containers, before settling on the bridge mast, where the monitor revealed a flag of India snapping crisply in the breeze. “Works like a champ,” Al said proudly.

Pitt looked at the LASH screen on the laptop, which showed an empty swath of sea in advance of the Indian freighter. “Nothing coming up on the main shipping channel for the time being. Let's keep going south, where it looks like there's a little more activity,” he said, noting several images on the left edge of the screen.

Maneuvering the blimp south, they soon passed over the Narwhal and the containership she just searched, then they cruised over a portion of Catalina Island. Passing back over the water, Giordino pointed out the windshield toward a turquoise ship in the distance.

“There's the Deep Endeavor. Looks like she has gotten into the act as well,” he said, noting the red freighter idling nearby.

Pitt guided the blimp toward the NUMA ship, calling it up on the radio as they approached.

“Icarus to Deep Endeavor. How's the fishing down there?”

“Nary a nibble,” Burch's voice replied. “How are you gentlemen enjoying your sightseeing flight?”

“Delightful, except for Al's incessant crunching at the caviar table, which is interrupting my enjoyment of the in-flight movie. We'll see if we can't rustle you up some more business.”

“Roger, we'd be much obliged.”

Giordino adjusted the blimp's LASH system, examining it for targets.

“Looks like we've got an inbound vessel in the main shipping channel about twenty-two miles to the northwest and what looks like a couple of stationary targets eighteen miles to the west of us,” he said, pointing to some gray-and-white patches on the monitor that contrasted with the blue ocean background.

Pitt looked at the laptop, then glanced at his watch. “We ought to be able to catch the northwest ship on the fly. Let's go see what's parked out here first,” he replied, aiming the blimp to the west and toward the two large smudges on the screen that were oddly sitting still.

Firing A rocket off the Sea Launch platform is traditionally preceded by a seventy-two-hour launch countdown. During the three-day preparation, dozens of tests are performed to ensure that all support systems are operational and all mechanical and computer systems aboard the rocket are ready to withstand the violent rigors of launch. At T-15 hours before launch, the engineers and all but a handful of crewmen are evacuated from the platform as the final stages of the countdown progresses. The assembly and command ship is then moved to a safe operating area four miles up range of the platform.

At T-5 hours, the last of the crewmen are evacuated from the platform aboard a helicopter and the remaining countdown procedures are handled remotely from the support ship. With less than three hours to go, the hazardous operation of fueling the launch vehicle is performed automatically, the kerosene and oxygen combustibles remotely pumped into the rocket from the large storage tanks housed on the platform. Once fueled, the decision is then left to the launch engineers aboard the support ship to proceed with the launch and fire the rocket when ready.

Absent the luxury of time, Ling's team of launch engineers consolidated the Sea Launch firing procedures into a bare-minimum schedule. Redundant and nonessential tests were scrapped, built-in launch holds were eliminated, and the fueling time reduced on account of the shortened flight plan. By their accord, they could launch the Zenit in just eight hours from the time the Odyssey was ballasted and stabilized.

Tongju stood on the platform near the base of the launch tower and gazed at a large digital clock mounted on the roofline of the hangar. The red illuminated numbers read 03:32:17, with the digits clicking backward a second at a time. Three hours and thirty-two minutes until liftoff. Barring a major technical difficulty, there would be no halting the launch now. In Tongju's eyes, it would soon come down to the simple task of fueling the rocket and lighting it off.

But before the button could be pushed, the Koguryo had to obtain total control of the launch process. Ling and his engineers first established a radio link to the automated launch control system, which was tested and verified through the Koguryo's launch control center. Then there was the transfer of the Odyssey's own command system. A wireless marine positioning system allowed the launch platform to be remotely controlled after all personnel were evacuated for launch. like a radio-controlled toy, the platform could be raised, lowered, or moved by the touch of a keypad aboard the Koguryo. Once the controls had been passed to the support ship, Ling approached Tongju on the deck.

“My work here is complete. Full system control now lies on the Koguryo. My team and I must return to the support ship to resume launch countdown activities.”

Tongju glanced again at the countdown clock. "My compliments.

You are ahead of schedule. I will call for the Koguryo's tender and you may take your men off the platform at once."

“You will not be joining us now?” Ling asked.

“I must secure the prisoners first, then my assault team will follow along. It is my desire to be the last man off the platform before launch,” Tongju said. “That is, except for the men who will not be coming off at all,” he added with a sinister smile.

“There's not supposed to be an oil platform located here.”

Giordino's eyes shifted from the large square object on the water ahead of them to an oversized navigational chart he'd folded on his lap. “No man-made hazards are indicated in this region at all. I don't think the Sierra Club is going to take kindly to some stealth drilling this close to the coast.”

“They might be even more perturbed when you tell them the oil platform has a rocket aboard,” Pitt replied.

Giordino squinted out the airship's windshield toward the approaching platform. “I'll be. Give that man with the eagle eye a cookie.”

Pitt turned the blimp as they approached, making a wide loop around the platform and adjacent support ship, careful to avoid its airspace.

“Sea Launch?” Giordino asked.

“Must be. I didn't think they'd move it around with the rocket standing upright, though.”

“I think they're parked,” Giordino replied, noting there was no wake from the nearby support ship. “You don't suppose they would be launching from here?”

“No way. They are supposed to fire those things off from the equator. They would at least be up north off the Vandenberg range if they were going to try a live launch around here. Probably some sort of test, but let's find out.”

Pitt punched a switch on a marine band radio and hailed the platform through his headset.

“Airship Icarus to Sea Launch platform. Over.”

An empty pause ensued and then Pitt repeated the call. After another lengthy lull, an accented voice finally replied.

“This is Sea Launch platform Odyssey. Over.”

“Odyssey, what is the nature of your position? Do you require assistance? Over.”

Another long pause. “Negative.”

“I repeat, what is the nature of your position?”

A pause again. “Who is requesting inquiry?”

“Friendly sorts, aren't they?” Giordino said to Pitt.

Pitt shook his head slightly and spoke again into the radio. “This is airship Icarus, supporting Coast Guard border security. Please identify current state. Over.”

“This is Odyssey. We are conducting system tests. Please stay clear. Over and out.”

“The guy's a regular Gabby Hayes,” Giordino said. “Do you want to stick around? We need to roll back north if we want to intercept that incoming vessel,” he said, pointing to the radar screen.

“I guess there's not much we can do from up here. Okay, we'll do our job and play tag with the next inbound vessel. But let's have one of the boys downstairs check this out,” Pitt said, turning the airship around to the north.

Giordino took to the radio as Pitt laid in an intercept course toward the inbound commercial ship. “The Deep Endeavor and the Narwhal are working this region. Deep Endeavor is still searching a Japanese freighter, but the Narwhal is freed up at the moment. She says the platform is outside their twelve-mile operating limit, however.”

“We're not asking for an interdiction boarding. Just request a remote visual survey and verification with Sea Launch authorities.”

Giordino spoke into the radio again, then turned to Pitt. “Narwhal agrees and is on her way.”

“Good,” Pitt replied, watching the platform fade away in the distance behind them. But he didn't feel good. A nagging sensation told him they had missed something on their flyover. Something important.

Kim stood with Tongju on the bridge of the Odyssey watching the blimp circle away to the north.

“They did not loiter for very long. Do you think they suspect anything?” Kim asked.

“I do not know,” Tongju replied, his eyes moving from the blimp to a chronometer mounted on the bulwark. “The launch will take place in just over two hours. There is no room for interference now. Return to the Koguryo, Ki-Ri, and stand by with Captain Lee. If there is any attempted outside hindrance, deal with it decisively. Do you understand?”

Kim looked his commander squarely in the eye and nodded. “I understand completely.”

Dirk and Captain Burch listened in on the Deep Endeavor's Coast Guard radio as Giordino asked the Narwhal to survey the Sea Launch platform and support ship. Minutes later, the Narwhal called up the NUMA vessel.

“Deep Endeavor, we have completed inspection of the containership Andaman Star and are proceeding to the offshore platform for a visual inspection. No incoming traffic in our quadrant is presently in range, so you may accompany us at your convenience if desired. Over.”

“Shall we take a look?” Captain Burch asked of Dirk.

“Why not? Business is slow. We can follow along once we're finished here.”

Burch glanced at the Japanese freighter, noting that Aimes and the search crew were beginning to assemble at the rail, their inspection nearly complete.

“Affirmative, Narwhal” Burch radioed to the Coast Guard vessel.

“We'll shadow you upon completion of our current inspection, in another five or ten minutes. Out.”

“Wonder what piqued the old man's interest,” Dirk asked rhetorically as he and Burch peered across the horizon trying to make out the image of the floating platform.

Three miles away, the Narwhalhzd stoked up its twin diesel motors and was skimming across the waves at its top speed of 25 knots. The eighty-seven-foot cutter was one of the newer Barracuda-class patrol boats employed by the Coast Guard, designed to work out of smaller ports and harbors. With their mission focused primarily on inspection and sea rescue, the boat's crew of ten was only lightly armed with a pair of 12.7mm machine guns mounted on the bow deck.

Lieutenant Bruce Carr Smith braced himself against a bulkhead in the cramped bridge as the white-and-orange-trimmed boat lurched over a swell, her bow slapping the sea with a spray of foam.

“Lieutenant, I've radioed command headquarters. Dispatch is going to contact the Sea Launch port office to determine what's up with their platform,” the Narwhal's red-haired communications officer stated from the corner.

Smith nodded in reply, then spoke to a boyish-looking helmsman manning the wheel. “Steady as she goes,” he said firmly.

The two dots they chased on the horizon gradually grew larger until the distinct shapes of an oil platform and a utility ship drew into focus. The support ship was no longer aside the platform and Smith could see that it was in fact moving away from the stationary platform. Smith took a quick glance over his shoulder and saw that the Deep Endeavor had completed her freighter inspection. The turquoise vessel was moving away from the freighter and appeared to be following his path in the distance.

“Sir, would you like to approach the platform or the ship?” the helmsman asked as they drew nearer.

“Bring us alongside the platform for starters, then we'll go take a look at the ship,” Smith replied.

The small patrol boat slowed as it eased near the platform, which now rode fourteen meters lower in the water under its ballasted state. Smith looked in awe at the huge Zenit rocket standing at its launch tower near the stern edge of the platform. Peering through binoculars, he studied the platform deck but saw no signs of life. Surveying the forward section of the platform, he caught sight of the launch countdown clock, which now read 01:32:00, one hour and thirty-two minutes.

“What the hell?” Smith muttered as he watched the digital numbers tick lower. Grabbing the marine radio transmitter, he called to Odyssey.

“Sea Launch platform, this is Coast Guard cutter Narwhal. Over.” After a pause, he tried again. But he was met only with silence.

“Sea Launch director of information, how may I help you?” a soft, feminine voice answered over the phone line.

“This is the Eleventh District U.S. Coast Guard, Marine Safety Group, Los Angeles, central dispatch. We're requesting mission and location status of Sea Launch vessels Odyssey and Sea Launch Commander, please.”

“One moment,” the information director hesitated, shuffling through some papers on her desk.

“Here we are,” she continued. “The launch platform Odyssey is en route to her designated launch site in the western Pacific, near the equator. Her last reported position, as of eight a.m. this morning, was at approximately 18 degrees North Latitude, 132 degrees West Longitude, or roughly seventeen hundred miles east-southeast of Honolulu Hawaii. The assembly and command ship Sea Launch Commander is presently at port in Long Beach undergoing minor repairs. She is expected to depart port tomorrow morning to rendezvous with the Odyssey at the equator, where the Koreasat 2 launch is scheduled in eight days.”

“Neither vessel is currently located at sea off the coast of Southern California?”

“Why no, of course not.”

“Thank you for the information, ma'am.”

“You're welcome,” the director replied before hanging up, wondering why the Coast Guard would think the platform was anywhere near the coast of California.

Smith was too anxious to dally for a response from the Los Angeles Coast Guard Group and brought his vessel closer to the platform. The Coast Guard lieutenant was annoyed at the lack of response from the Odyssey, which had ignored his repetitive radio calls. He finally turned his attention toward the support ship, which had now crept a quarter mile away from the platform. Repeated radio calls to the ship went unanswered as well.

“Sir, she's flying a Japanese flag,” the helmsman noted as the Narwhal moved toward the vessel.

“No excuse for ignoring a marine radio call. Let's move alongside the vessel and I'll try to talk to them over the PA system,” Smith ordered.

As Narwhal moved out of the shadow of the platform, pandemonium struck at once. Coast Guard dispatch broke over the Narwhal's radio with word that the Odyssey was reported a thousand miles away from California and that her support ship was sitting docked in Long Beach. Aboard the Koguryo, a handful of crewmen pushed aside a lower deck siding, revealing a row of large cylindrical tubes pointing seaward. Though in disbelief, Smith's instincts took over, correctly assessing the situation and barking orders before he even realized the words were flowing from his lips.

“Hard to port! Apply full power! Prepare for evasive maneuvers!” But it was too late. The helmsman was just able to swing the Narwhal broadside to the Koguryo when a plume of white smoke suddenly billowed from the larger ship's lower deck. The smoke seemed to build at its source before a bright flash burst forth. Then, out of the smoke, a Chinese CSS-N-4 Sardine surface-to-surface missile erupted from its launch tube, bursting horizontally away from the ship. Watching mesmerized from the bridge, Smith had the distinct sensation of being shot between the eyes with an arrow as he observed the missile charge directly toward him across the water. The nose tip of the missile seemed to smile at him in the fractional second before it smashed into the bridge just a few feet away.

Carrying 365 pounds of high explosives, the Chinese missile had enough demolition power to sink a cruiser. Striking at short range, the cutter had no chance. The nineteen-foot missile ripped-into the Narwhal and exploded in a massive fireball, blasting the Coast Guard ship and its crew into fiery bits that scattered across the water. A small black mushroom cloud rose like a macabre tombstone above the devastation as the flames died quietly on the water's surface. The incinerated white hull, the only material remains of the ship left intact, clung to the sea's surface in a futile battle to stay afloat. Around her, flaming chunks of debris blazed in the water before slowly sinking to the seabed. The smoldering hull clung to the surface for nearly fifteen minutes before the fight left her and the last remains of the Narwhal slipped under the surface with a gasping sizzle and a wisp of steam.

My God, they've fired a missile at the Narwhall" Captain Burch cried out as he watched the Coast Guard ship disappear in a cloud of smoke and fire two miles ahead of the Deep Endeavor. Del-gado immediately attempted to raise the Narwhalon the marine radio as the others peered out the bridge window. Summer grabbed a pair of high-power binoculars but there was little to be seen of the Narwhal, its shattered remains obscured by a thick veil of smoke. Looking past the smoke, she scanned the platform and the adjacent support ship, which she studied for a long while.

“There's no response,” Delgado said quietly after repeated attempts to contact the Coast Guard vessel were met with silence.

“There may be survivors in the water,” Aimes stuttered, stunned at the sudden demise of a boat and crew he knew well.

“I can't dare move any closer,” Captain Burch replied with angst. “We're completely unarmed, and they may well be aiming their next missile at us as we speak.” Burch then turned and ordered his helmsman to stop engines and hold their present position.

Delgado spoke to Aimes. “The captain is right. We'll call for help but we can't endanger our crew. We don't even know who or what we are up against.”

“It's Kang's men,” Summer said, handing the binoculars to her brother.

“You're sure?” Aimes asked.

She nodded silently with a shiver as Dirk surveyed the vessels. : “She's right,” he said slowly. “The support ship. It's the same vessel that sank the Sea Rover. She's even flying a Japanese flag. They've painted and reconfigured her, but I'll bet my next paycheck it's the same ship.”

“But why are they standing off here with the platform?” Aimes added, a mask of confusion crossing his face.

“There can only be one reason. They are preparing to launch a strike with the Sea Launch rocket.”

A subdued silence fell across the bridge as the gravity of the situation sunk in. A disbelieving Aimes finally broke the hushed confines.

“But the Narwhal. We've got to see if anyone's alive.”

“Aimes, you need to get some help out here, and now,” Dirk replied brusquely. “I'll go see if there are any survivors.”

Delgado looked at Dirk with a furrowed brow. “But we don't dare bring the Deep Endeavor any closer,” he cautioned.

“I don't intend to,” Dirk replied without explanation as he quickly exited the bridge.

Tongju gazed down from the Odyssey's bridge at the smoldering debris of the Narwhal and stared quietly. There was no choice but for the Koguryo to act against the Coast Guard vessel. It was what he had ordered Kim to do. But they were positioned far enough off shore that they should never have been detected in the first place. He knew now that it was the encounter with the blimp that had raised suspicions. Silently, he cursed the Ukrainian engineers for moving the launch site closer to shore, neglecting to consider that the final decision had been his.

Pacing the Odyssey's bridge anxiously, he noted the launch countdown clock read 01:10:00, one hour and ten minutes to go. A radio call from the Koguryo crackled through the air, breaking his thoughts.

“This is Lee. We destroyed the enemy vessel, as you directed. There is another vessel standing off two thousand meters. Do you wish us to destroy her also?”

“Is she another military vessel? Over,” Tongju asked, peering out the bridge toward the distant ship.

“Negative. Believed to be a research vessel.”

“No. Save your armament, we may need it later.”

“As you wish. Ling reports that his launch team is securely aboard the Koguryo. Are you ready to evacuate the platform?”

“Yes. Send the tender back to the platform, my remaining team will be ready to evacuate shortly. Out.”

Tongju hung up the radio transmitter, then turned to a commando standing at the rear of the bridge.

“Transfer the Sea Launch prisoners in small groups to the launch vehicle hangar and lock them in the storage bay located inside. Then assemble the assault team for transport back to the Koguryo!”

“You do not fear that the platform crew may survive the launch inside the hangar?” the commando asked.

"The exhaust gases will likely kill them. I do not care whether they live or die just as long as they are unable to interfere with the launch.

The commando nodded, then slipped out the rear of the bridge. Tongju slowly walked across the pilothouse, carefully examining the array of marine electronics built into the lower forward bulkhead. Finding a panel that contained the manual override switches to the automated controls, he pulled out a combat knife and jammed the blade into a side seam and pried open the cover. Grasping the mass of wires inside, he yanked the serrated edge of his knife across and through the bundle, rendering the switches useless. Continuing his trek through the bridge, he gathered up a half-dozen keyboards attached to various navigational and positioning computers and tossed them through an open window, watching patiently as they splashed into the ocean below. A trio of laptop computers quickly followed the long plunge to a watery demise. For good measure, he pulled out his Glock and fired several rounds into an assortment of computer and navigation monitors positioned about the bridge. As Ling had been ordered to do with the launch control computers in the hangar, Tongju disabled the navigation computers in the pilothouse, destroying any possibility of last-minute intervention. With less than an hour till liftoff, all control of the platform and the rocket was in the hands of the Koguryo, and there it would remain.

“Let me go with you,” Summer said. “You know that I can pilot anything under the sea.”

“It's just a two-seater, and Jack is the only one with experience in this thing. It's better that he and I go,” Dirk replied, nodding toward Dahlgren as he prepared the deep-probe submersible for launching. Grabbing his sister's hand, he looked deeply into her pearl gray eyes.

“Get ahold of Dad and tell him what happened. Tell him we need help right away.”

Giving his sister a quick embrace, he added quietly, “Make sure Burch keeps the Endeavor in a safe position even if something happens to us.”

“Be careful,” she said as he quickly climbed up and into the submersible, sealing the hatch behind him. Squirming into the pilot's seat beside Dahlgren, he saw that the submersible was fully powered up and ready to go.

“Thirty knots?” Dirk asked with skepticism.

“That's what the owner's manual states,” Jack Dahlgren replied, then turned and gave a thumbs-up signal through the view port window. On the stern of the Deep Endeavor, a crane operator nodded in reply and lifted the bright red submersible off the ship's deck and over the side, dropping it hurriedly into the ocean. The two men caught a quick glimpse of Summer waving to them on the deck before they were engulfed in the green water. With the NUMA ship's bow pointed toward the platform, the submersible was effectively blocked from view by the Deep Endeavor's superstructure and they were deployed without being seen. A diver in the water released the cable hook, then gave a rap on the side to signal they were free.

“Let's see what she'll deliver,” Dirk said, activating the six thrusters and pushing the throttles to their stops.

The cigar-shaped submarine surged rather than leaped forward, amid a whine of electric motors and rushing water. Dirk adjusted a pair of diving planes slightly until they were at a submerged depth of twenty feet, then followed a compass-directed path toward the wreck of the Narwhal.

Through his hands, the ride felt like driving a vacuum cleaner. The submersible bobbed and weaved through the current and maneuvered like they were in a bowl of molasses. But with the buzzing of the thrusters in his ears, there was no denying she was a speed demon. Even without a relative speed gauge inside the submersible, Dirk could tell from the water rushing past the view port that they were moving at a rapid clip.

“I told you she was a thoroughbred,” Dahlgren grinned as he monitored an elapsed time clock on the console. Turning serious, he added, “We should be approaching Narwhal's position in about sixty seconds.” Dirk gradually eased off the throttles a minute later, throwing the motors into idle as the Badger's forward momentum waned. Floating to the surface, Dahlgren adjusted the ballast tanks to keep them low in the water in order to remain as covert as possible. With his expert touch, the submersible just barely broke the surface, showing less than a foot of its topside surfaces above the water.

A few yards in front of them, they could see the demolished hull of the smoldering Narwhal, her stern raised high in the air at an awkward angle. Dirk and Dahlgren barely had a chance to gaze at the hulk before her stern tipped upward even higher, then the entire remnant slipped quietly under the waves. Scattered about was a handful of floating debris, some smoldering but none larger than a doormat. Dirk guided the Badger in a small circle around the wreckage, but there was no sign of life in the water. Dahlgren solemnly radioed Aimes on the Deep Endeavor and reported that all appeared lost in the explosion.

“Captain Burch asks that we return to the Deep Endeavor at once,” Dahlgren added.

Dirk acted as if he didn't hear the comment and guided the submersible closer to the platform. From their vantage point low in the water, there was little on the platform deck they could see beyond the top half of the Zenit and the upper portion of the hangar. But suddenly he halted the Badger and pointed a finger past the rocket.

“Look, up there.”

Dahlgren peered past the rocket but just saw the roof of the hangar and an empty helipad. Squinting harder, he gazed down slightly. Then it struck him. The large digital launch clock that read 00:52:00, fifty-two minutes.

“That thing is going to fire off in less than an hour!” he exclaimed, watching the seconds tick down lower.

“We've got to stop it,” Dirk said, a tinge of anger in his voice.

“We'll have to get aboard and quick. Though I don't know about you, pardner, but I don't know a thing about missiles or platform launches.”

“Can't be anything more than a little rocket science,” Dirk replied with a grimace, then jammed the submersible's throttles forward, surging the Badger toward the platform.

The metallic red submersible surfaced again near the stern of the platform almost directly beneath the launch tower and Zenit rocket. Dirk and Dahlgren peered up at a large set of panels that protruded from the underside of the platform just below the base of the rocket. The flame deflector was designed to divert and dampen the rocket's fiery thrust, directing the launch tempest through the platform to the ocean below. Thousands of gallons of fresh water were released seconds before launch into the trench to help cool the exposed portions of the platform during the blazing inferno during the rocket's slow rise off the pad.

“Remind me not to park here when that torch goes off,” Dahlgren said, trying to visualize the conflagration that would surround them if the rocket was ignited.

“You don't have to ask twice,” Dirk replied.

Their attention turned to the platform's thick support columns,

searching for a way up to the main deck. Dahlgren was the first to spot the Koguryo's tender, tied up at the opposite side of the platform.

“I think I see a stairwell on that forward column where the boat's tied up,” he said.

Dirk took a quick bearing, then submerged the Badger and quickly ran her between the Odyssey's sunken pontoons to the bow end of the platform. Bobbing to the surface, they rose just astern of the white tender, where they floated cautiously eyeing the other craft.

“I don't think anyone is home,” Dirk said, satisfied the boat was empty. “Care to tie us off?”

Before he could get an answer, Dahlgren had already opened the submersible's top hatch and climbed out. Dirk purged the Badger's tanks of all seawater to attain maximum buoyancy, then nudged the submersible forward till he tapped the stern of the tender. Dahlgren immediately hopped from the sub to the boat, then from the boat to the platform, tightly clutching a mooring line while he moved. Dirk quickly shut down the submersible's power systems and climbed onto the platform as Dahlgren tied off the mooring line.

“This way to the penthouse,” Dahlgren said in a gentlemanly tone as he motioned an arm toward the adjacent stairwell. Climbing onto the metal stairs, the two men moved rapidly, racing up the steps in a measured pace, while careful to minimize the clamor of their movements. Reaching the top flight of steps, they stopped for a moment and caught their breath, then stepped onto the exterior deck of the platform.

Standing on the forward corner of the platform, they came eye to eye with two enormous cigar-shaped fuel tanks that were encompassed by a maze of pipes and tubing. The massive white tanks stored the Zenit's flammable diet of kerosene and liquid oxygen. Beyond the tanks, at the rear of the platform, they saw the Zenit itself standing like a lonely monolith surrounded by open deck. They stood for a moment, mesmerized by the size and sheer power of the rocket with out even considering the lethality of its payload. Dirk then looked up at the hangar towering beside them, capped by a helipad at its forward edge.