Powersat

The Oval Office

The president was livid.

“They tried to kill me!” he kept repeating, shouting almost, as he paced furiously back and forth behind his huge ornate desk. “Some motherfucking bastards tried to kill me!”

The director of homeland security had never seen the president so enraged. “It wasn’t just you, Mr. President. More than six hundred people have died—”

“I don’t give a shit! They were after me!”

The secretary of defense—an old friend and a veteran of many private tirades—just sat on the plush little sofa by the empty fireplace and bided his time. Sitting across from him in the Oval Office were the secretary of state and the president’s national security advisor.

“We’re getting information on what happened,” the national security advisor said, trying to calm down his president. “Apparently a terrorist group took control of that power satellite up in space—”

“Blow it out of the sky!” the president snarled, turning to the defense secretary. “We’ve got missiles! Blast that sonofabitch to hell!”

The defense secretary hiked his eyebrows. “It’s owned by an American corporation, Mr. President.”

“I don’t care! That damned thing is dangerous! Blow it up!”

The secretary of state, very aware that she was the only woman in the room, decided she had to say something. “Mr. President, wouldn’t it be better—”

But the president ignored her. Pointing at his chief of staff, he said, “Get the Air Force on the line. I’ll give the order myself.”

The chief of staff glanced nervously at the others, then walked slowly across the carpet that bore the Great Seal of the United States, heading for the president’s desk and his telephone console.

“There’s a team of Americans aboard the satellite,” said the director of homeland defense.

“Americans?” the president snapped.

“They went up there and grabbed the terrorists. They’ve shut down the satellite. It’s not beaming power anywhere now.”

The defense secretary asked, “How’d they get up there so quick?”

The homeland defense director smiled knowingly. “Better than that, we know where the terrorist base is. The ground control base where they directed the satellite.”

The Oval Office went silent for several moments. Then the secretary of state asked, “So soon? It’s been less than an hour.”

Almost smugly, the homeland defense director pulled a photograph from his inside jacket pocket, walked over to the desk and placed it in front of the president.

“It looks like a house,” the president said, settling slowly into his desk chair.

“It’s a villa outside Marseille.”

“That’s where the terrorists are?”

“There were two on the satellite itself. The American team from Astro Corporation got them.” Tapping a finger on the photo, the homeland defense director went on, “But this is where the radio signals that controlled the satellite came from.”

“You’re certain of this?” the president’s chief of staff asked.

“Dead certain.”

The president looked up from the photo. “Are they still in there?”

“We’ve got three different satellites watching. None of the cars parked in that photo have left yet.”

“It hasn’t even been an hour.”

“They’re probably dismantling their equipment and getting set to skeedaddle,” said the homeland defense director.

The president shifted his red-rimmed eyes to the defense secretary. “Can you put a smart bomb on that villa?”

The defense secretary smiled tightly. “Which window would you like it to go through?”

The national security advisor said, “But that’s in France! Sovereign French territory!”

“How quickly can you get it done?” the president asked the defense secretary.

“We have a carrier group in the Med. No more than an hour. Maybe a little less.”

“Do it.”

The secretary of state shot to her feet. “Mr. President! You can’t bomb a building inside a sovereign nation! France, for god’s sake!”

“We have an antiterrorism agreement with them, don’t we?”

“Yes, but—”

“You get the French ambassador on the phone and explain it to him.”

“Lord knows where he is this afternoon,” she said. “It’ll take more than an hour to track him down.”

“Good. Take your time. And when you get him, explain this to him slowly.”

Dan had expected to be angry, to be in a killing rage as he heard from Van Buren what had happened at Arlington National Cemetery. But once he learned that Jane hadn’t been harmed, all the fury leaked out of him. I’m coming down from an adrenaline high, he told himself. But a voice in his head kept repeating, Jane’s all right. You saved her. She’s all right.

He sat in the last row of the spaceplane, his shoulder throbbing painfully, as Adair went through the checklist preparing to break orbit and fly back to Matagorda. In the cushioned seat next to him sat Gilly Williamson, looking exhausted, grimy, totally spent.

Like the six others in the cabin, Dan and Williamson were still in their spacesuits, although they had removed their helmets. Makes a big difference, Dan thought, when you can rub your eyes or scratch your nose.

Williamson scratched his stubbly chin and stared straight ahead, his eyes focused on some inner demons.

“Sorry we couldn’t pick up your buddy,” Dan said, keeping his voice low. “He was too far out for us to risk chasing him with the OTV.”

Williamson turned his head toward Dan slightly. “It’s okay. He wanted to be a holy martyr, anyway.”

“And you?” Dan asked. “You wanted to be a martyr, too?”

“I already am one, mate.”

Dan pondered that for all of a second or two. “You’re not Moslem.”

“Not bloody likely.”

“Then what’s the suicide bit all about?”

“I’m already dead, pal. Cancer. It’s just a matter of time.”

“So you wanted to go out in a blaze of glory? Is that it?” Williamson smirked at him. “I’ve got a wife and kids to support. This was my pension plan.”

Comprehension dawned on Dan. “Pension? Really? Tell me more.”

“Why the fuck should I?”

Dan beamed his brightest grin. “Because I’m a greedy Yank capitalist, and whatever they promised you, I’ll double.”