Delta Green

Chapter Fifteen

Frank Dimatta and George Williams met with McKenna and Munoz in the ready room. McKenna wasn’t in the best of humor. He hadn’t been for some time. He appeared a little tired, and there was a half-day’s growth of whiskers on his cheeks.

“How’s the bird doing?” he asked.

“It’s all right,” Dimatta said.

“She’s tip-top,” Williams said. “Next time out, we’ll drag race you.”

McKenna studied the two of them for a minute, then told them about the hospital and the anomalies in the infrared photos. “Go over the photos we’ve got, then you’ve got the next recon over Kampuchea. Pearson wants a daylight, low-level pass. Don’t take any chances, though. Go in high, zip down for the shots, and get out.”

Dimatta felt his pulse pick up rate. Finally, there was going to be some action.

“This is a real hospital, Kevin?” Williams asked.

“It’s real. And it’s damned unpleasant.”

“You ought to see those kids,” Munoz said. “Second thought, you don’t wanna see them.”

“Be careful,” McKenna said.

“Roger that,” Dimatta said. “Are you going to be here?”

“Tony and I have to make a quick trip to Washington.”

“Muy pronto,” Munoz said. “They can’t run the place without us.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Dimatta said. “While all of this is going on?”

“I’m tryin’ to get the coordinates on a couple of House and Senate offices,” Munoz said. “We’ll light ’em up with a couple of Wasp IIs.”

“While I think about it, Tony,” McKenna said. “Go out to the hangar and tell the guys to pull the ordnance.”

“Ah, hell, Snake Eyes! Just one?”

Pearson had tried to sleep for a few hours, but not successfully. She was impatient, waiting for the daylight photographs to be shipped to her.

After giving up on sleep, she had taken a sponge bath, then heated a hamburger for a midnight snack. She went back to her office in Spoke One and powered up the console.

Her incoming message board was lit, so she called up the messages.

CIA field agents had located two more of the defected Mako trainee pilots, Averyanov and Yevstigneyev. The former was flying cargo planes out of Buenos Aires under an assumed name, and the latter was being paid by la Sûreté, the French secret service, for all of the knowledge he presumably held. He had been in debriefings for the past four months.

Pearson updated their dossiers, then removed them from the batch in her suspense file. She called up her outline of the phantom organization and deleted the two pilots from the “Rank and File” line. That left Bryntsev, Maslov, and Nikitin unaccounted for.

Her outline was getting thinner, rather than filling out, and that was not what she wanted.

On the “Locale” line, she deleted China, Vietnam, and Korea. With the sightings of Pavel and Shelepin in Phnom Penh, she felt confident in pinpointing that location. She keyed in Phnom Penh as the location in Kampuchea, but felt that there had to be more than one site. They weren’t flying the MakoShark out of the capital city. She added the Khmer Hospital and Clinic with a question mark.

Her next message was a copy of an FBI report, forwarded to her by David Thorpe. Two of the four men found shot at the dry lake had been tentatively identified. One had been a waiter in a San Francisco restaurant for over two years. The other had recently entered the United States on an Israeli passport issued to one Iztak Milstein. Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, had been asked to backtrack him.

The third message provided a manifest of the aides and military people who had disappeared along with Anatoly Shelepin when his aircraft departed the Soviet Union. On her outline, Pearson created a new line entitled “Staffing” and added the names and their specialties. They ranged in rank from corporal to major, and they were proficient in the fields of computers, communications, logistics, administration, and finance.

Now the outline was filling out, and unfortunately, it was padded with the kinds of people who made up military organizations. If Anatoly Shelepin had political aims, he was backing them up with a paramilitary group of some kind.

Not of some kind, she corrected herself. An air force. They had a MakoShark, and that was about all they needed. She wrote a quick cover memo, then sent the updated outline to Thorpe in Cheyenne Mountain.

The space station was in an elliptical orbit at forty-five degrees of inclination from the Earth’s poles. At the lowest point of the orbit, it was 290 miles above the Earth. The apex was at 340 miles. The orbital period was seven hours and twenty-two minutes.

One of the computers in the station kept track of the major satellites in orbits that came close to that of Soyuz Fifty. Of primary interest were a Chinese communications satellite and the American space station which were both in polar orbits. The Chinese satellite held a mean orbit of 270 miles, and the space station Themis was also in a circular orbit with an average altitude of 220 miles.

Because of the orbit characteristic of Themis and Soyuz Fifty, and because of the differing speeds at which they travelled, they were rarely in close proximity. Approximately at forty-day intervals, they closed to within fifty-eight miles of each other, but the pass was fleeting and usually went unnoticed and unremarked.

Maslov was not particularly worried about the United States satellite at this point in the operation. For one thing, the purpose of satellites was to focus on the Earth. Surveillance satellites rarely looked up; their designed intent was to look down. And communications satellites did not care one way or the other.

Even the porthole near which he was tethered was aimed downward, currently eyeing the ice mass of Antarctica. It was nearing summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and he could imagine the migrations about to take place, moving scientists onto the continent for their annual examination of things environmental and geologic.

The monitor next to the porthole displayed a view from the exterior camera. By working the joystick next to the monitor, he could aim the camera as he pleased. Turning the lens to the right and upward, he was rewarded with a view of the magnificent MakoShark. It was parked above the station and was attached to it by one slim nylon line. There was no one in it; Boris Nikitin had made his first journey across the abyss and into the station. He was sleeping now.

Aft of the station, secured by yet another nylon rope to the nuclear module, was the HoneyBee nose cone with its cargo of precious fuel. Maslov and Nikitin had moved it into orbit with the station, then refueled the MakoShark, as their final chore of the morning.

Maslov worked the camera controls and swung the camera to the left, then aimed it downward. He backed off the magnification, and the image of the warhead diminished in size.

It was tethered to the station by its umbilical cord, plugged into the receptacle that had been installed earlier. The second stage propulsion component was now reattached to the warhead with the sensitive explosive bolts. Access hatches all around the nose cone and the second stage were wide open. Bryntsev and Filatov floated near two of the hatches, occasionally poking their helmeted heads inside the hull as they reconnected cable connectors between the nose cone and the second stage.

Corporal Filatov was becoming less clumsy in his space maneuvers as his fear eroded and his reflexes became accustomed to the new environment. His progress was much quicker than Maslov had expected for the man had never been in the Air Force. He was a specialist in the SS-X-25 ground-launched missile system. It was he who would sit at the console in the end module and program the ICBM.

“Soyuz, this is Baikonur Flight Control.”

The radio call startled him.

Maslov used the video control joy stick as a foundation to turn himself toward the communications console. One radio was set to monitor the cosmodrome’s frequency, and other radios were tuned to other frequencies.

“Soyuz, this is Baikonur Cosmodrome. Come in.”

It had to happen sometime, and Maslov chose not to attempt faking a response.

The ground controller tried several more times over the next ten minutes. He then apparently went to another frequency because it was his voice which came up on another radio.

“Carrier, this is Baikonur Cosmodrome”

“Baikonur, Carrier.”

“Carrier, I want to talk to your commanding officer. Immediately.”

Several minutes went by, and Maslov waited. His anticipation built quickly.

“Baikonur Cosmodrome, Carrier. I am Colonel Volontov.”

Volontov. The bloody bastard who failed me in the Mako training course. If Volontov could but see me now…

“We may have an emergency, Colonel Volontov. Soyuz Fifty did not make its routine check-in, and we cannot raise them on the radio now.”

“Perhaps it is simply a communications problem,” Volontov said.

“The commanding general would like to know when your next resupply flight is scheduled.”

“It is planned, just a minute… for tomorrow morning at eight o’clock our time.”

“Is it possible to advance the time?” the ground controller asked.

“Certainly,” Volontov replied with his customary assuredness. “I can launch within the hour.”

“The commanding general requests that you prepare for the flight. He is now calling General Sheremetevo to confirm the request.”

“Very well, Baikonur. We will initiate preparations. I will pilot the craft personally.”

Maslov smiled to himself. Events could not have progressed better if I had planned them myself.

“Andrews, Delta Blue.”

“Delta Blue? Uh, this is Andrews. Go ahead.”

“Delta Blue now squawking IFF. Requesting permission to land.”

“Ah, Blue, we see you. You got awfully close before we did.”

“That’s the idea, Andrews. I need a runway.”

“Well, ah, Blue, we don’t have a flight plan on you. I don’t think you’re authorized to land here.”

“We have been summoned, Andrews. What you do is divert traffic for fifteen minutes and shut down the lights on one of your runways. We’ll land in the dark and park in one of your hangars. We’ll want security on the craft.”

“Hold on, Blue.”

On the ICS, McKenna said, “Tiger, let me have the night vision.”

“Comin’ up, Snake Eyes.”

The navigational map disappeared from the CRT and was replaced by the green-tinged view from the night vision lens. The traffic on the Capital Beltway was clearly defined. Ahead were the lights and runways of Andrews Air Force Base, twenty miles away. On his right, through the canopy, McKenna saw the lights of Washington, D.C., with the Washington Monument impressively illuminated. At nine o’clock at night, with an October snow on the ground, the scene was clear and clean and pure. It wouldn’t be that way when they got into it.

“Delta Blue, Andrews Air Control.”

“Andrews, Delta Blue.”

“Blue, we’re going to give you two-seven-right. We’ll be cutting the lights in four minutes.”

“Roger, Andrews. Two-seven-right.”

“Somebody told him we’re welcome, jefe.”

The air controller gave him the visibility, wind, and barometric pressure.

“Delta Blue requesting right-hand approach, Andrews.”

“Blue, right-hand approach approved.”

“No sense in wasting all that fuel by going clear around, hey, Snake Eyes?”

“We may be wasting the precious time of important congressmen, Tiger.”

“Congresspersons,” Munoz said. “You gotta come of age, Snake Eyes.”

“Keep me straight,” McKenna told him.

“Doin’ my best.”

McKenna eased into a left turn to give himself some distance from the eastern boundary of the air base, and after covering ten miles, turned back to the right. He moved the throttles back and dropped the speed to 350 knots.

“Altitude one-two-hundred, amigo. There’s a plane goin’ over us by five hundred. He’s the one got kicked out of his landin’ approach, I’ll bet.”

“He’ll be cussing us,” McKenna agreed.

Through the windscreen, he saw the runway lights align themselves with the MakoShark as he sideslipped to the left, then abruptly, the lights went out. He refocused his eyes on the video image.

At Peterson Air Base in Colorado Springs, the runway had infrared lights, and they normally landed there using the infrared imaging. Here, it was enhanced night vision, but it was about the same as landing at early dawn. The runway was clearly visible, coming up fast.

“Flaps,” Munoz called.

“Twenty percent,” McKenna replied as he deployed the flaps.

“Gear.”

He hit the switch. Three greens.

“Down and locked.”

“Two-sixty… two-fifty. Put her down nicely now,” Munoz intoned.

The MakoShark settled onto the darkened runway easily and the rollout took them to the western end of the base. A pickup met them and led them back to a cluster of hangars, all of which had had their lighting doused. The operations officer wasn’t taking any chances on having the MakoShark seen on his turf. He didn’t want to respond to a disciplinary hearing if a picture of Delta Blue showed up in the morning papers.

With the engines shut down inside a hangar, and the massive doors rolling closed, McKenna and Munoz opened their canopies and unhooked. They left their helmets and environmental suits in the cockpits and descended to the floor on ladders designed for some other aircraft.

The welcoming committee consisted of one lieutenant and one grizzled master sergeant.

There were no lights on in the hangar. The sergeant carried a six-cell flashlight aimed at the floor, and in its reflected glare, the two of them saluted.

McKenna and Munoz returned the salutes and accepted the scrutiny. They were both in wrinkled flight suits and scuffed flight boots. They donned overseas caps during their examination.

Both of them sported a day’s growth of beard, which, judging by the distaste displayed on his face, didn’t seem to strike the lieutenant as appropriate for the center of the government and the military. McKenna suspected they smelled about as grubby as they looked.

The lieutenant said, “Colonel, General Madden has informed me that we are to keep this aircraft secure. I have guards posted, and we will keep the lights off.”

“Good, Lieutenant. We need a car right away.”

“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant unclipped a portable radio and spoke into it.

McKenna turned to the sergeant. “Sarge, we need to top off the JP7 tanks, but that’s all the service she’ll need.”

“I’ll take care of it personally, Colonel.”

“If you’ll go with Major Munoz, he’ll show you the access panels.”

The two of them walked under the MakoShark as Munoz led the man to the rear.

“We’ll have a car outside for you in about ten minutes, Colonel,” the lieutenant said. “Will you be needing anything else, sir?”

“If the car has a phone, no.”

“It is equipped with a telephone,” the young officer assured him.

McKenna patted the underside of the nose. “Take care of her, Lieutenant.”

“Uh, sir?”

“Yes?”

“Am I allowed to look?”

McKenna grinned, “As long as you don’t tell anyone what you’ve seen.”

“Yes, sir.”

He and Munoz were waiting outside the hangar when the Air Force blue Chevy sedan pulled up. McKenna waved the driver back into his seat, and they crawled in the back. The sergeant at the wheel asked, “Where to, sir?”

“I don’t know, yet. Head into the district and hand me the phone.”

McKenna took the telephone and dialed the general number for the Pentagon. He asked for the duty officer and told him he wanted to speak to anyone in the office of the Air Force Chief of Staff.

That happened to be a major who was flustered by their arrival. He gave them a number in Arlington Heights. McKenna dialed it.

After two rings, a voice said, “Mays.”

“General Mays, this is Colonel Kevin McKenna.”

“McKenna? Where in the hell are you?”

“Just leaving the main gate of Andrews, sir. Where do you want us?”

“Well, goddamn it, McKenna! It’s 9:30 P.M.”

“Yes, sir. We’ve got about two hours before we have to get back.”

“Get back? Listen, McKenna, these committee members who want to talk to you—”

“It may not seem like it here, General, but we’re in a combat situation in Southeast Asia. I’ve left my command to come here, and I’m not leaving it for long.”

After a long pause, Mays said, “Let’s make it the Joint Chiefs conference room on E-ring. I’ll have my people start making calls, and McKenna, you’d better call Brackman. He’s at the Mayflower.”

He had to call information for the number, and then he had to have Brackman paged in the dining room.

“This is General Brackman.”

“McKenna, sir. We’re on our way to a conference at the Pentagon.”

“No shit? In the middle of the night?”

“You said it wouldn’t wait, so here we are.”

Brackman laughed. “See you there.”

Their driver took them across the Potomac on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, then cut north on the Jefferson Davis Highway. Traffic was only half of what was required for gridlock, and it wasn’t long before they crawled out at the River Front Entrance to the Pentagon.

Their ID cards got them past the Marines and up to the Air Force Chiefs office. McKenna thought that the Marines didn’t think much of their appearance, either.

It turned out to be nearly midnight before most of the committee members belonging to the Senate and House armed services committees finally arrived at the Pentagon.

McKenna wanted to appear before them as he was, to demonstrate how a bunch of no-nothing politicos had pulled him out of a hostile theater, but Brackman nixed that.

“Bullshit, McKenna. We’re not trying to make unnecessary points. This is still the headquarters of our service, and you will appear before these committees as the officer and gentleman that we all know you are. You, too, Munoz.”

The two of them sat in their shorts in General Mays’s office while their flight suits were pressed and their boots were shined. They used the general’s private bathroom to shower and shave.

“Nice place, but I don’t think I wanna be a chief of staff,” Munoz said.

“You’re a man after my own heart, Tony.”

When they were called, they did it right, entering the conference room in lock step, coming to a stop, and saluting the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in unison.

Admiral Cross returned the salutes. “At ease, gentlemen. Thank you for coming. Please sit down.”

Cross, Mays, and Brackman were seated at the head of the table, and McKenna and Munoz took chairs opposite them. Cross introduced the senators and representatives who were randomly seated along both sides of the table. McKenna had met a couple of them over the years, but the two he fixed in his memory were Marian Anderson and Alvin Worth. Senator Worth was actually on the intelligence committee, but had wormed his way into this meeting somehow.

“This is not,” Cross said, “a formal hearing of either committee. It is a briefing for the members. Does anyone have a problem with that?”

Apparently not.

Two stewards moved around the table, offering a choice of decaffeinated coffee, the regular stuff, or soft drinks. Munoz took coffee, and McKenna declined.

“Colonel McKenna,” the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said, “there have been concerns raised about the operations and the cost of the 1st Aerospace Squadron.”

“Yes,” McKenna said.

“Do you want to elaborate on that?”

“I don’t know what the concerns are, Congressman. I just got here.”

“Your squadron,” Marian Anderson intervened, “has lost spacecraft worth one-and-a-half billion dollars in the past several years. And that’s only two spacecraft.”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s correct.”

“How do you do that?”

“In one case, Congresswoman, you put your life on the line, and you get shot down,” which was how he had lost the first Delta Blue. “That will happen when there are a lot of antiaircraft missiles in the air with you. In the other case, you change the accepted security procedures.”

“Why?”

“Excuse me, ma’am, why what?”

“Why change the procedures?”

“For the sake of change, perhaps. I don’t know. I wasn’t there, and I didn’t make the call.”

McKenna could sense Brackman’s extrasensory warnings: Don’t antagonize anyone. Don’t offer more than you’re asked. Respond to the question as simply as possible.

“What gives you, Colonel,” Anderson said, “the right to overrule a superior? A general?”

These confabs never did follow logical trails.

“I may question my superiors from time to time, Congresswoman, but I never overrule them.”

“What! General Cartwright says…”

“I am not privy to what General Cartwright may have said,” McKenna told her, “but General Cartwright has never been my superior. Currently, I report to General Brackman. General Cartwright was caretaker of an operating base, and not a very good caretaker.”

Oops. Munoz nudged him in the ribs with his elbow at the same time Brackman fired eye-daggers at him. Mays and Cross didn’t appear very happy with him, either.

Marian Anderson started some retort, but Worth interrupted her.

“If I may,” Senator Worth asked the armed services committee chairman, “I’d like to ask Colonel McKenna just why we should be spending eleven billion dollars a year on Space Command operating costs alone, when those dollars might better benefit the American people.”

Are you campaigning Senator?

The chairman nodded.

McKenna said, “As commander of one small part of the Space Command, Senator, I am not qualified to comment on activities of the entire command.”

Brackman smiled.

“But I could offer a couple of observations.”

Brackman frowned.

Worth said, “If you would, Colonel.”

“In my opinion, the Space Command provides an excellent return on investment, sir. Your intelligence committee should be aware of the enormous increase in the American intelligence database since Themis and the 1st Aerospace Squadron came on-line. I don’t know how you attach a dollar value to that.

“Beyond intelligence gathering, the command’s support of private enterprise developments in medicine, pharmaceuticals, electronic technology, and biological and psychological studies has uncalculated value. If we look beyond the shortterm, the results of those activities are going to have tremendous benefit, not only for the American people, but for all mankind. Those advances would not take place without Themis and her supporting Space Command.

“And then, relative to the 1st Aerospace Squadron, our job is to support all of that. We provide the transportation, intelligence-gathering, and protection elements for Themis and the command.”

Only short-sighted people would fail to see the value, Senator.

When he saw Brackman relax, McKenna was glad he had not voiced the last statement.

“That has all been argued before, Colonel. You’re not telling us anything new.”

Are you too dense to understand it, Senator? What the hell am I doing here?

McKenna glanced at the clock on the wall. It was already twelve-thirty, and this looked like an all-nighter.

As they approached within four hundred lateral kilometers of the space station, Pyotr Volontov attempted once again to establish radio contact.

“Soyuz, this is Carrier Two. Come in, please.”

There was only the ether for response.

On the intercom, Major Arkady Mishkov said, “Perhaps it is only their antennas that have been damaged, Colonel.”

“Perhaps,” Volontov said, but thought that Mishkov was indulging in wishful thinking.

There were many dangers in space travel, so many complicated systems that could fail. A seal or hatch could have failed, and the station might have lost its environmental integrity.

He grimaced at what they might find when they achieved a rendezvous.

“That is Themis that has appeared on the scan, Colonel.” Volontov glanced at the screen. The radar was set at the 350 kilometer scan, and a new major target had appeared.

“It is well below us, and its track will fall behind us,” Mishkov said.

Volontov looked at the screen and remembered the woman pilot, Lynn Marie Haggar, whom he had met during his first meeting with Kevin McKenna in Chad. He had often hoped that he would meet her again.

“What are our approach parameters, Arkady?”

“We are now closing at thirty meters per second. Our track is perfect.”

“Go to the video scan, Arkady. And keep your eyes open.”

“What is it that we are looking for, Colonel?”

“A MakoShark.”

Pyotr Volontov had not forgotten that the Americans had lost a spacecraft and that three of his very own former pilots were unaccounted for and were capable in the Mako.

He advanced the rocket start checklist and kept his hand hear the throttles.

The unreliability of mechanics and hydraulics and electronics could have caused a malfunction aboard Soyuz Fifty.

Then again, so could a disenchanted human being.

The Mako was tracking toward the station in an inverted attitude, and the huge, bluish globe of the Earth was above their heads. With the controller, Volontov slowly rotated a full 360 degrees, scanning the emptiness around him.

“There!” Mishkov yelped.

“Where?”

“It is not on the radar. Above us. At two o’clock.”

Volontov found the triangular speck, its shape barely defined by the sun’s rays reflecting off it.

He slammed the throttles forward.

Aleksander Maslov saw the Mako’s rockets ignite. They went immediately to one hundred percent thrust, judging by the white trail spewing from the nozzles.

Simultaneously, he heard the call on the frequency used by the Baikonur Cosmodrome: “Baikonury Carrier Two. We are under attack by a MakoShark.”

“Fire the missile,” Maslov ordered.

“Missile launched,” Nikitin replied.

The Wasp II missile whisked away from its pylon, its infrared seeker head curving it into a long arc as it pursued the accelerating Mako.

The radar screen showed the Mako forty miles away when the Wasp II slammed into it. He glanced up from the screen in time to see the detonation.

It was a small nova, a bright white flash with orange overtones. In all of space, it did not seem to be a large or significant event.

Brackman could tell that the forced civility and protocol was getting to McKenna. His shoulders had slowly straightened, and his back was becoming more rigid.

The backseater, Tony Munoz, seemed to be getting a kick out of it. He kept a straight face, but his eyes carried the light of amusement. In the future, Brackman would not invite backseaters to these soirees.

The Senate committee chairman had finally steered them away from Cartwright’s complaints, which Brackman thought would now die an unremarkable death, and into the immediate crisis of Delta Green’s disappearance.

McKenna had done fairly well with the Cartwright bitches, trying not to attack a retired Air Force officer, and letting the man’s allegations wash off him. Anderson and Worth weren’t happy, of course. They had thought they had insider information that would expose a major scandal in the command. They hadn’t done their homework well, but their lack of preparation wouldn’t dawn on them for some time. Now, they were just mad.

“What would you have done, Colonel McKenna,” Anderson asked, “to prevent the theft of the spacecraft?”

It was nearly two o’clock in the morning, and Brackman figured they were getting close to the end of McKenna’s patience. He wished Cross would put an end to this, but knew that he could not.

“Congresswoman, what I would, or would not, have done, is immaterial at this point. What’s important is that some group, possibly the one suggested by Colonel Pearson, and on which you have been briefed, has a MakoShark. That is the danger, and we should be addressing the danger.”

“Tell me how, Colonel.”

“You have also been briefed on our activities to date,” McKenna said. The heat of his temper was beginning to show in his voice.

“As far as I can tell,” Worth said, “you’re not doing much more than we could be doing with aircraft from the Eisenhower. There’s no reason in the world why the 1st Aerospace Squadron shouldn’t be grounded until we can determine what’s wrong with the command.”

Brackman couldn’t resist responding to that one. “Excuse me, Senator, but you’re begging the question there.”

Harvey Mays got into it, too. “I agree. Please don’t assume a problem in the squadron, or in the command, until it’s been proven, Senator.”

“My apologies,” Worth said, “for giving credence to what appears obvious.”

No wonder the Congress was in such trouble with the electorate, Brackman thought. These cretins had their own sense of logic.

“If I might continue,” McKenna said, “the capability of the MakoShark has just been proven for us. We have never had to imagine what it would be like if the opposition — whatever opposition — had a weapons system like the MakoShark. Now we know. We can’t see her and finding her is difficult, though I don’t think it will be insurmountable. Ironically, this episode only serves to show us how valuable the MakoShark is. If an F-14 or F-18 off the Eisenhower happened to spot Delta Green, there is no way in hell they could do anything about it. Grounding our only counterweapon to the MakoShark, the MakoShark, is not the answer.”

Admiral Cross, who had painstakingly maintained a neutrality, entered the fray, perhaps to give McKenna time to back off a little. “I have to agree with Colonel McKenna, ladies and gentlemen…”

An Army colonel in the comer of the room beckoned Brackman with quick circles of his hand. Brackman slid away from the table and approached him.

The colonel opened the door behind him, and Brackman followed him into an anteroom.

“General, there’s a Russian general on the telephone for you. He says it’s extremely urgent.”

“Thank you, Colonel.”

Brackman crossed to the phone and picked it up. “Brackman.”

“Marvin, this is Vitaly.”

“Yes, Vitaly. Is something wrong?”

“Until an hour ago, I did not know that our Rocket Forces had lost contact with Soyuz Fifty.”

“Damn. You don’t suppose…?”

“And at that time, I learned that a MakoShark had just destroyed one of our Mako craft.”

“Oh, shit!”

“Colonel Volontov was piloting it, and he was on approach to the space station. Our surveillance satellites show the station in orbit, but there is no response to radio queries. The Mako appears as a cloud of debris.”

“I’m sorry as hell, Vitaly.”

“Yes, I am, too. He was a good man, Marvin. And I am afraid the station may be in the hands of those who stole your spacecraft.”

“Vitaly, let me take this to a group I’m meeting with now. I’ll call you back in an hour or so.”

Brackman went back to the conference room and interrupted a mini-speech by a junior congressman.

He stood at the head of the table until all of the eyes had turned to him, and then he related what he had learned from Sheremetevo.

McKenna stood up, followed immediately by Munoz.

“Sir, request permission to leave.”

“Hold on, McKenna,” Worth said. “We’re not done here.”

“Senator, a friend of mine has just been killed. My immediate evaluation of the incident suggests that the Commonwealth space station is under hostile control and that Themis is therefore endangered. My sworn duty is to protect the station, not sit in some goddamned room and listen to people bitch all night.”

Munoz spoke up for the first time. “Roger that.”

Worth spluttered, “Now, just a goddamned minute.”

“You are dismissed, gentlemen,” Admiral Cross said.