Powersat

Matagora Island, Texas

“Looks like the East Coast, maybe Washington,” said the technician.

Van Buren was tugging nervously on her strand of pearls, leaning over the seated man to study his console screen.

“Washington,” she muttered. And her mind raced. The magnetrons are putting out power. Some sonofabitch has moved the satellite out of its normal position. They’re pointing it at Washington. The beam’s too diffuse to hurt anybody, but…

She straightened up and yelled across the rows of consoles to the communications tech, “Get Dan on the horn. Right away!”

By the time she had rushed to the comm console, she could hear Dan’s voice, “What’ve you got?”

“Dan, this is just preliminary, we don’t have it nailed down all that firmly yet, but I think they’re moved the beam to Washington.”

There was a tiny lag, just long enough to be noticeable. Then Dan exploded, “Jesus Christ on a motorcycle!”

“It’s all right, Dan,” Van Buren said, unconsciously fingering her pearls. “The beam’s too diffuse to do any damage.”

Again the lag. Then Dan’s voice answered tightly, “Maybe not.”

“What do you mean?”

“Somebody’s removed our antenna from the powersat and put up a different one.”

“What?” Van Buren’s necklace broke, pearls clattering all over the control center’s tiled floor.

“It’s an Astro Corporation craft,” said Williamson. “I can see the logo they’ve slapped on her side.”

“Have they seen us?” Bouchachi asked, alarmed.

“Dunno. Maybe.”

The two men were huddled in their own transfer vessel, still in their spacesuits. Williamson had shoved Nikolayev’s body out the hatch so Bouchachi wouldn’t have to share his final hour or so with the corpse. Neither of them had expected Astro to react so quickly to their tampering with the satellite. They’ll try to set it right, Williamson thought. We’ll have to stop them. Or at least delay them.

He wondered how they could accomplish that. From all he knew about this mission, they wouldn’t have to delay the Astro people for long. The job would be completed in a few minutes. Just hold them off for a few minutes, he told himself. We’re going to die anyway, so what difference does a few minutes make?

“Come on, then,” he said, grasping the edges of the open hatch to pull himself outside.

“Where are you going?” Bouchachi asked.

“To the control station.”

“But that’s all the way at the other end of the satellite!”

“Right. We’ll have to hurry.”

In the underground satellite monitoring center, the lieutenant commander walked briskly to where the Homeland Security guy sat impatiently sipping at a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

He looked up at her expectantly, got to his feet. “You’ve got something?”

“Not your dinky li’l beacon,” said the commander.

“Then what?”

“A wicked powerful beam coming from a location just a few klicks outside Marseille. Looks like a communications signal uplinking to a satellite.”

“A satellite? We’re looking for a tracking beacon from an individual—”

“I know that,” said the commander. “But this signal wasn’t there yesterday. Wasn’t even there when I came on shift this morning. We—”

An Air Force tech sergeant came up, saluted smartly, and handed her a photograph. “Just in, ma’am. The location of the signal near Marseille.”

The homeland security deputy director looked over the commander’s shoulder at the picture.

“It’s a villa.”

“Nice place,” said the commander.

“There’s a lot of cars parked out front:”

“No antennas in sight. But that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Do you think that’s where our person is?”

The commander shrugged. “Maybe. But we’ll never pick up her beacon while they’re beaming out that whopping signal.”

Dan heard the anxiety in Van Buren’s voice. “If they’ve concentrated the beam they could do some bad damage.”

“I know,” he said. “Get Senator Thornton on the phone. Her private number’s in my computer. Tell her everything we know. Tell her it’s from me.”

“Okay. I’m on my way.”

Dan clicked his suit radio back to the suit-to-suit frequency. “Gerry, how soon can we dock?”

“Which docking port do you want to use?”

“The one back down by the control shack.”

Adair nodded inside his fishbowl helmet. “Okay. Gimme five minutes.”

“Make it three.”

Adair laughed.

“What’s funny?” Dan snapped.

“I was going to say three, but I figured if I did, you’d say two.”

Jane glanced past the edge of the awning up at the sky as the president droned on. Clouds were building up, looking grayer and more threatening every moment. She suppressed a giggle. Maybe the big bore will get rained out. What a pity.

The president and the VIPs stood beneath the plastic awning, but the crowd gathered out beyond them was in the open. We’ll stay dry enough, Jane thought But they’ll all have to run for shelter. Such a shame—they won’t hear the end of the president’s platitudes.

Denny O‘Brien was out there, sweating in the midst of the crowd. Damned hot for May, he thought. Looking up, he saw that the rain clouds which had been building thicker and grayer for the past hour or more were breaking up. No, he realized. They’re not blowing away. A hole’s opening up in the middle of ’em. Like somebody’s carving a hole right through the thick bank of clouds. And the hole’s getting bigger. He could see blue sky through it.

His cell phone buzzed with the signal it gave when the call was intended for the senator. Her cell phone was turned off, of course. Nobody took incoming calls when they were standing near the president, especially when the man was giving a speech.

While the people around him glared disapprovingly, O’Brien flicked his phone open and squinted at the screen. Matagorda? That’s where Dan Randolph’s outfit is.

He put the phone to his ear. There was so much static on the phone that he could barely understand the caller.

“Slow down!” he hissed. “Talk slower and clearer.”

“Get the president under shelter!” Van Buren’s voice said urgently. “Not in a car or anything metal. They’re beaming a lethal level of microwaves at him!”

“What kind of a stunt do you—”

“It’s no stunt!” Van Buren screeched. “They’re trying to assassinate the president! With microwaves from the powersat!”