Project Cyclops

Chapter Seventeen

Hugo Voorst was lying propped against a rock, his shoulder bandaged with white strips of gauze from the first-aid kit. Now that the flow of blood had been staunched, Marcel was injecting him with a shot of morphine to quell the looming pain. Happily the hit was clean, just a flesh wound and nothing serious, but he would be of no further use on the mission. Worse still, he actually had become a liability. The only thing to do was to leave him where he was, with an H&K machine pistol for protection, and proceed. You didn't like to abandon anybody, but…

Voorst, for his own part, mainly felt sheepish. Giddy though he was, the result of mild shock, his Dutch stoicism was still holding up. "I'll be all right," he was saying, a slow grin covering his face as the narcotic kicked in. "Sorry to be a party pooper."

"You got lucky," Hans soothed, checking the bandage one last time. "You get to take a little time off. But you may still have a chance to give us some backup if things get hot."

Armont had not said anything, leaving the kidding around to the younger men. They needed it to keep up their macho. The hard truth was, the whole operation was rapidly turning into a disaster of the first magnitude. Everything possible had gone wrong. And now he had no idea where Vance was. The situation had gone red, the odds deteriorating rapidly.

Ramirez had been lured out, but he had been saved by the deus ex machina of an unexpected but short-lived attack from their rear. What had that been all about?

Then he noticed a glint in the sky, through the early dawn, and realized it was a helo, far in the distance, banking as its pilot began turning back. He looked more carefully and counted four. All egressing.

“Take a look." He pointed toward the cluster of tiny dots slowly diminishing in the dim sky. "Looks like somebody showed up just long enough to screw us, then aborted. And now Mike is back in the Belly of the Beast." He turned and peered at the fog-swathed floodlights, now growing pale as dawn began arriving in earnest. Around them the dull outlines of trees and rocks were lightening into greens and granite-grays. "With the damned rocket still sitting up there ready to blast off.

"All right," he continued after a thoughtful pause, "we know where Ramirez is, but after all the shooting around here, the idea of a nice clean insertion will have to go by the boards." He returned his gaze to Launch Control. "No way in hell could we take Launch by surprise now. Ramirez has got to know something is brewing. Which means we're going to have to do things the old-fashioned way. Bad news for the hostages if they don't know how to get out of the way, but we've got to deal with the bomb, no matter what."

There was muttering and grumbling. ARM men did not fancy excessive gunfire. They had all long passed that age of youthful denial when men thought they were invulnerable. They had seen too much.

"By the way," Armont abruptly interrupted everybody's chain of thought, "what happened to the woman who was here, Dr. Andros? Was she hit?"

Nobody had noticed, up until that point, that she was absent. They quickly checked the rocks around the area, but she was nowhere to be found.

"Forget about her," he finally decreed. "If she doesn't want to stay with us, then she's not our problem." He thought a minute. "Maybe we should break radio silence and see if we can raise Vance. He took a unit with him."

"I'm against it," Willem Voorst declared. "As a matter of fact, I'm against doing anything. If the U.S. is planning to come in here and take down this place, then why should we risk our own ass. Let's just get in a secure position and let them do our work for us. We've never had that kind of help before. It might be refreshing. I think Michael can take care of himself. Why—"

"No, we can't wait for them, whoever it was." Armont cut him off. "I don't know what the hell they were really up to. And besides, if that little demonstration we just had was any indication, their mode is going to be to shoot first and ask questions later. So we have to finish our job, just get it over with. And I'll tell you what I think. Since Launch is a muck-up now, our best bet is to keep Ramirez off guard for a while and go ahead and take down Command. Immediately, before they realize what's going on. With any luck, maybe they won't be expecting it." He looked around. "Make a three-point entry, flash-bangs and tear gas. Just blow out the place." He paused to let the words sink. "Well," he continued finally, "does anybody disagree?"

There were nervous frowns, but nobody did. Instead, they began silently collecting their gear.

Hansen had returned to the basement Situation Room, where maps and operation plans cluttered the teakwood table and littered meal trays, grease encrusting on the white china, were piled up in the corner. No stewards were allowed in the room, and nobody else was going to clean up. He had not slept for a day and a half, and he was now showing a ragged shadow of beard. Ted Brock had heard some of his aides upstairs commenting to each other sotto voce that he had never seemed older.

"All right," he said. "I've called off the assault and given the bastard six hours to clear out. I've also released the money, had it wired to the account he wanted. So maybe now he'll leave quietly. Our deal is that he frees the hostages unharmed, disarms the bombs, and gets the hell out of there. But I'll tell you something else: he's not going to live to spend a dime. The minute he's airborne, his ass is ours. I want him shot out of the sky, and the hell with the consequences."

"He'll probably take some civilians along with him," Briggs said. "Hostages. We could be looking at some dicey press."

"All right, then, so we won't shoot him down; we'll just force him down, the way we handled that Libyan passenger jet with terrorists aboard. There was official flack for a week or so from the usual quarters, but off the record everybody was applauding. When you do the right thing, the world makes allowances for how you manage it."

Briggs remained skeptical, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He wanted to have as little to do with the operation as possible. Sooner or later there would be loss of life, he was sure of it, and the chances were the losses would be massive. He had no interest in making the history books as the author of a civilian massacre, terrorists or no terrorists.

"All right, Mr. President, I'll tell the Deltas to keep their powder dry until we play this one out." He had already heard from General Max Austin, who said Nichols was fit to be tied, eating his cigars instead of smoking them. Who could blame him? To have a Commander-in-Chief micromanaging an anti-terrorist op violated every known canon of military strategy. There might be a more surefire recipe for disaster, but it was hard to conjure one offhand.

Hansen, for his own part, recognized the pitfalls of giving the terrorists more time. However, he hoped it would end up being the rope — make that false confidence — that would hang them.

He had wired the "ransom" money to the numbered account at Banco Ambrosiano, as requested. There, his intelligence on the ground was reporting, the eight hundred million had been split and transferred to several other accounts. Then portions of it had been immediately wired out — to a destination not yet known, though it damned well would be. What, he wondered, was that all about? Were the terrorists in the process of screwing each other? It was a possibility. Everything was a possibility. But it also was smart, because it made recovering the funds that much more difficult. They were, in effect, laundering it even before they had made their getaway. These characters, whoever they were, were taking no chances.

"Load it on now," Ramirez was saying. "We're taking it with us." He flashed a smile from behind his aviator shades. "You never know when you'll need a nuke."

Abdoullah couldn't believe his luck. He had been sure that Number One intended to try and kill him. But now it turned out to be the others, the ones he'd sent over to Command, that he planned to leave in the lurch.

Dawn was breaking, but there still was enough early fog to mask their movements partially. It was definitely time to get the show on the road. One of the bombs had been installed on the VX-1 vehicle and a countdown was under way. When that bomb devastated Souda Bay, nobody was going to be worrying about a lone chopper somewhere over the Med. And with the other weapon still in their hands, the whole operation was going like clockwork. The money was in place — he was now rich — and they were packing to leave.

The bomb they were now loading actually made him think. Maybe, he mused fleetingly, he could just kill Number One and return it. It would be the final revenge for what the bastard did to Rais.

No, that was stupid. Better to just take the money and run. Lose the heroics. In fact, given how things had gone so far, the whole thing was almost too good to be true. In fact, that bothered him a little. More than a little. He had seen too much double-dealing already to believe anything Number One said or did.

He trusted Dore Peretz even less. The Israeli, he was sure, had a private agenda of his own. He always seemed to. Maybe he was planning to divert the bomb and take out Tel Aviv. He was crazy enough.

But who cared? They were getting out. Better still, Number One had indicated he intended to take the old professor, the Jew, with them. With him on board, Number One had declared, there was no danger that the U.S. President would order the chopper shot down. The old guy made a perfect passport.

But with Souda Bay being incinerated as they made their egress, it hardly seemed to matter…

He grasped the lever on the forklift and, aided by Shujat, hoisted the bomb through the cargo hatch, guiding the edges of the crate. It weighed almost as much as they did together, but by now they were used to managing it. Interestingly, it still was wired to its radio-controlled detonator, with the explosive charges intact. He had the momentary thought that it should be disconnected, but now there was no time. That was something that should be done with extreme care. Maybe he would take care of it after takeoff, when they were airborne.

"Be careful," Ramirez went on. "But don't waste time. The vehicle is going up, and then we're going to be out of here. In less than an hour."

“Team Two CQ," came Hans' voice on the walkie-talkie. He and Marcel were in the overhead ventilation duct above Command, which had been depicted in great detail in the blueprints. Hugo Voorst had been left to fend for himself, while Willem had split off with Dimitri Spiros, forming Team Three.

“Team Three CQ," Willem reported next. "Ingress looks like a go." He and Dimitri were at the rear exit, which passed through Bill Bates' office. They had entered through the tunnel that connected Bates' office and the living quarters. The door had been set with C-4 and was ready to blow.

"Copy. Team One CQ," Armont whispered into his own radio. He and Reginald Hall were now in the outer lobby, and just ahead of them stood the doors that led into Command. Together the teams formed a three-pronged attack that would seal off all egress. "Take down anybody with anything in their hands. And watch out for Michael. I don't think he's in there, but you never can tell."

"If he is," Willem Voorst's voice said, "he'll know what to do."

As they waited, Reggie gazed around Reception in disgust. The deserted guard desk looked as though it had been strafed by an automatic, almost as if the terrorists intentionally were wreaking as much destruction as possible.

"Cheeky bastards," he muttered under his breath. "Why do these terrorist blokes always think they've got to trash a place?"

"Reggie," Armont whispered back, "these gentlemen did not attend Eton. You have to learn to make allowances. And right now they appear to be trying to deliver an atomic bomb into somebody's backyard, which would tend to suggest they're not model citizens. One has to expect a disheartening want of tidiness in such an element." He checked his watch. "All right, get ready."

Ahead of them the doors to Command were closed — who knew if they were locked or even booby-trapped? But it didn't matter. The C-4 had already been attached around the frame. Exploding it and the other door opposite would serve as a diversion, drawing the first fire and giving Hans and Marcel the moment they needed to make their own ingress, rappelling in under cover of flash grenades and mopping up.

That was the plan, at any rate. A three-point entry, with flash grenades and tear gas. It usually worked.

Armont clicked on his walkie-talkie again and checked his watch. "All teams alert. Assault begins in three-zero seconds. Starting now."

Peering down into the room through the overhead grating, Hans felt his palms grow sweaty. This was the moment he always hated. Even after all his years with the assault squads, Spezialen-satztrupp, in GSG-9, he had never gotten over this moment of soul-searching panic.

Twenty seconds.

He glanced up from his watch, then tested the rope he and Marcel would use to rappel down into the room. Finally he adjusted the hood of his balaclava one last time in an attempt to quell his nerves. It never worked, of course, and it wasn't working now. Still, he always did it. More helpful was checking the clip on his MP5. He had a spare taped to the one now loaded, making it possible to just flip them over. A third was taped to his wrist. It should be enough. Ten seconds.

That was the moment — it always happened — when he felt his mouth go dry. Bone dry.

Reggie, who normally served as standoff sniper, almost always used an old AK-47 he had had for fifteen years and kept honed to perfection. Nothing fancy, just deadly accuracy. Today, however, he was keeping it in reserve, since this was close quarters. At the moment he was going with his sentimental British favorite, an Enfield L85A1 assault rifle that was the last product of the old Enfield Arsenal. Its special sling meant it could be carried behind his back, and it was short, virtually recoilless, and a marvel to behold on full-automatic.

For his own part, Armont had a Steyr-Mannlicher AUG assault rifle, augmented with a Beta hundred-round C-Mag supposedly only available to government organizations. He didn't like to bother changing clips, which annoyed him as a waste of precious time, and the circular, hundred-round dual magazine gave him — so he claimed — all the firepower he needed. Besides, he liked to say, if a hundred rounds weren't enough to take down an objective, then you hadn't planned it right and deserved to be in the shit.

He gave five clicks into his walkie-talkie, which meant five seconds, then stood back as Reggie got ready to blow the C-4.

"Looks like you got it right," Peretz said with a crooked smile. He was examining a fax whose letterhead read Banco Ambrosiano, Geneva. Ramirez had just passed it over, and the correct account number was there, together with the amount in dollars. His piece of the money, his bigger piece, had been transferred to the separate account he had specified. By now, according to the instruction he had left, it was already on its way out. Home free.

He counted the zeroes again, not quite believing it. The villa he had set his heart on was his. He had just acquired four hundred million dollars. Some countries weren't worth that much, for godsake.

"Your generosity is touching." He folded the paper and slipped it into his shirt pocket. He had left ironclad instructions at the bank. The minute the funds were transferred, they would be wired to a bank in Nassau, Bahamas, a bank known only to him. That way, Ramirez would have no chance to fiddle the money back.

Ramirez said nothing, merely smiled. The fact was, this little Israeli creep was an amateur. Five minutes after he had wired the instructions, he had sent a second fax, countermanding them. That was the last thing to worry about. More important was that Peretz had left his post at Command and come down here to gloat. So it was a good thing he had sent Jean-Paul and Jamal over there to keep an eye on things. They also had taken the last Stasi, Peter Maier, with them. Schindler had disappeared, presumably lost when the U.S. began its aborted attack. They had proved to be useless, a fact he was going to point out to Wolf Helling just before he shot him between the eyes.

This crude attempt at blackmail by Peretz was perfectly in character, had in fact been telegraphed from the start. Which was why all the contingency plans had been necessary.

Given Peretz’ particularly obnoxious demand, he was tempted to move the plan ahead and just shoot the son of a bitch now. Unfortunately, though, he might still be needed. So the best course for the moment was just to let him think he had gotten away with it. Besides, it was a trifle early to finish thinning the ranks. All in due time…

It could have been the sound of a single explosion, even though it had taken place at the two opposite entries to Command. Then, as one, Team One and Team Three were inside, just behind the harmless explosions of flash grenades and charges of CS they had blasted into the room.

Willem Voorst of Team Three was in first position as he virtually pounced through the door just blown away with C-4, which now was a curtain of smoke. While he sprayed the ceiling with rounds, sweeping left to right, Dimitri Spiros was in second position, automatically sweeping right to left.

"Get down," Voorst yelled in English, hoping the civilians would be quick. Staffers dove for the gray linoleum, many yelling in pure terror. In Voorst's experience, a couple of curious morons always wanted to stand up and watch the action, frequently a lethal form of entertainment. This time, however, everybody fortuitously hit the floor.

On the far right, Salim Khan yelled and brought up his Uzi, mesmerized by the balaclava-covered face of Voorst, but the Dutchman was already far ahead of the game, and a single burst from his MP5 dropped him, taking away the left side of his face. The bearded Iranian pilot never realized what had happened, pitching forward without so much as a final prayer.

One away, Voorst thought. But that was an easy one. An amateur.

On the opposite side of the room, Armont was in first position and Hall was in second — both poised to take down anybody who showed hostile intent. Together with Team Three at the back, their two-point entry was like a Wagnerian crescendo that began a piece of music instead of ending it. The melody was still to come.

Armont squinted through the hood of his balaclava into the billowing CS that was enveloping the room. The confusion that obscured the difference between friend and foe dismayed him. ARM had had no photos of the terrorists to work with, no intelligence — other than the ID of Ramirez — concerning their physical appearance.

The back of his mind, however, was telling him that they all were dressed in black, just as the members of the ARM team were. So everybody with a gun looked alike; the difference boiled down to who was shooting at whom.

Reggie, in number-two position, had the best eyes of any of them, and he had moved in behind Armont, those eyes sweeping the room. Try not to waste the bloody place, he was lecturing himself. Show some class.

With the surprise still fresh, it now was time for Team Two to appear, completing the three-point assault. Through the smoke two black figures appeared out of nowhere, rappelling down into the very middle of the chaos. First came Hans, followed by Marcel, both holding the rope in one hand, an MP5 in the other.

While Willem Voorst and Dimitri Spiros were still firing, hoping to draw the attention of the hostiles away from Team Two, Hans rotated on his rope, and took measure of the room. He had less than a second to get his bearings and to analyze the immediate threat from hostiles, the peril to friendlies, and the one-time opportunities a quick window of surprise offered. The main thing was to try to cut down the most senior, experienced hostile in the room.

In the millisecond before his feet touched the floor, he saw what he had hoped for: a man dressed in black, with long blond hair tied back in a pony tail, carrying an Uzi. Better yet, he recognized him. Jesus! It was Jean-Paul Moreau.

Interpol wants that bastard, he told himself, but they want him alive. And there's a private bank-consortium bounty on his head of five hundred thousand francs. He's found money. Alive.

"What the hell!" Ramirez glanced at the TV monitor that was next to the array of instruments and video screens looking out onto the launch pad.

Peretz whirled to look, as did Bill Bates. The scene was Command and the image had grown fuzzy, as though the room were filled with smoke. But there was no mistaking the chaos. SatCom staffers were on the floor, while flashes of light darted across the screen as the camera automatically panned back and forth.

Jesus! Bates thought. It looks like Nam. It's an assault. Who could it be? Had the U.S. decided to get off its butt and start protecting its citizens? They damned well had taken their time about it…

Now he could see who was doing the shooting, and most of it seemed to be coming from pairs of men dressed in black. There were—

Abruptly the screen went blank, switching to video noise. The panning camera had been drilled by somebody's stray round.

Through the chaos of the flash grenades and the tear gas Moreau had missed seeing Hans and Marcel rappelling down. Instead he paused for half a second, then hit the floor and rolled, ponytail flying, intending to get as many of the hostages as possible between him and the two members of the assault team at the front. He figured the firepower would come from there. The rear entry, with the two guys firing at the ceiling, was the diversion, intended to throw everybody off.

He knew better. You never looked where the other side wanted you to. That was playing into their hands. He got off a burst from his Uzi, leaving a line of craters in the cinderblock walls next to the front door. Wide and high. Bad placement. But the game wasn't over; it was just beginning.

Now he had repositioned himself so that a terrified cluster of SatCom staffers were between him and the front, and a line of terminals protected him from the rear. Good. In the momentary pause, he slammed a new clip into the Uzi.

These assholes aren't going to shoot up the hostages, he told himself. That wasn't how professionals worked. And these guys, wearing balaclavas, were professionals. They were fast, moving quickly, and not providing a real target. Merde. But now you've got the advantage. Just concentrate and take them out, one by one. You've been in tougher spots before.

Dimitri Spiros, approaching from the rear, also had seen him, the blond-haired terrorist who rolled behind a line of workstations. But Spiros had not recognized him; to the Greek he was merely another hostile to be taken down. He switched his MP5 to semi-auto and carefully took aim between the terminals, waiting for the creep to show himself.

Hans was not planning to wait. As his boots touched the floor, he took aim and got off a single round, carefully wounding Moreau in the right bicep. The French terrorist spun around, startled, but he sensed no pain. Instead he felt satisfaction at knowing, now, where the third entry-point had been. Life had just been simplified. A three-point entry: standard, no problem. All you had to do was keep your wits.

He whirled and got off a burst toward Hans and Marcel, sending them diving to the floor, then returned his attention to the pair at the front. But now those two batards had taken cover. Where was Jamal? Salim was dead, the stupid Iranian. Good riddance. But where was his brother? Why wasn't he helping?

As it happened, during the first few seconds of the assault,

Jamal Khan had been making his own calculations. He had been figuring an assault was overdue, and he had been prepared for it for several hours now. He had long since donned a bulletproof vest, and he had made sure he had two Uzis at hand, both loaded, together with five spare clips.

The moment the first flash grenades went off, he rolled beneath a row of workstations and shoved a handkerchief over his face, ready for the tear gas he was sure would come next. Now he was surrounded by a frightened cluster of SatCom staffers. The perfect shield.

Marcel had also surveyed the room as he rappelled in, and — by previous arrangement — he had focused on the right half, whereas Hans took the left. He had seen Jamal's roll and started to cut him down with a blast, but then he thought better of it: there were too many friendlies to take a chance on ricocheting lead. Just get into position and do it right.

Pierre Armont also had seen Jamal duck out of sight, and he felt his heart sink. The element of surprise had been used with all the effect it could, and the result had been one terrorist killed and one wounded. Now they were entrenching. Bad, very bad…

Then a man on the other side of the room shouted something in German, choking from the CS, stood up, and brought around an Uzi. That one was stupid; he had identified himself and he was wide open.

Armont dropped him with a single burst, before he could even get off a round. Clearly an amateur terrorist, he was standing in the clear, and Armont's well-placed rounds sent him into a macabre dance of death.

Hans watched with satisfaction. Okay, he thought, that's two. Now what about Moreau. It would be nice to take him alive, help salvage something from this damned expensive disaster.

Moreau, however, had no intention of being taken alive; in fact, he had no intention of being taken at all. He had rolled into the shelter of a computer workstation and begun to spray the entrance indiscriminately. Fortunately the shots were wild, posing no threat to the ARM team or anybody else unless by ricochet.

By now Hans had taken cover behind the terminals situated in the center of the room. This wasn't the movies, with the assault team standing tall and shooting from the hip, particularly with all the friendlies milling in the haze of tear gas. Besides, there were plenty of hostiles, including the young Arab who had provided himself a secure redoubt behind a row of workstations, surrounded by hostages. He knew that stray bullets could not be tolerated. What to do? If Moreau kept this up, he would have to be taken down, lethally, and damn the money. A shame, really. The scene was rapidly turning into a standoff. The worst thing that could happen.

But first things first. Determined to bag Moreau alive, he lobbed another canister of CS across the room and into the clump of people and hostages where the Frenchman was. A half-second later it exploded, spraying its noxious powder across a full quarter of the room, and as that was happening, he threw another flash grenade. The friendlies would be blinded and overcome, he knew, but the effects would only last for a few minutes and by that time everybody could be dragged into the open air. It was better than being mowed down in a hail of fire.

The two grenades had the desired effect insofar as they momentarily disoriented Moreau. And they gave Hans the opening he needed to get in behind the row of terminals against the wall where the French terrorist crouched. It was the last, best chance he would have to take the bastard alive.

Moreau was on the floor now, gasping from the CS as he tried to get an angle on what was happening. He knew he was going to be rushed, but he wasn't sure from which direction. And as Hans moved in, that hesitation proved to be a profound, primal mistake. Before he could plan his next move, the German was on him, an MPS against his neck. He tried to bring up his own Uzi, but by the time he had it halfway around, Hans had kicked it aside and intercepted the move.

With a yelp of pain Moreau twisted away, trying to recover, and managed to slam his left leg against Hans, knocking him off balance. Both were now cursing loudly, mingling their epithets with threats. The battle would have been even, had it not been for the fact that Hans was wearing an encumbering balaclava.

Hans's flash grenade had illuminated the entire room with its blinding explosion, and now Dimitri Spiros was making an end run along the far wall, just below the huge projection TV screens, trying to encircle Jamal before he had a chance to recover completely from the glare. Across the room, Reggie saw what was happening and opened fire into the ceiling, hoping to keep the Iranian pinned down, or at the very least draw his fire. Confusion reigned.

Willem Voorst, who was in the center, analyzed the situation with a clearer eye. The damned little Arab was not going to be taken down easily. Spiros was heading into danger. Not thinking.

"Dimitri, no!"

'The little fucker," Spiros yelled. He was already moving, impossible to stop. His Greek passion had superseded his better judgment, for he was not wearing his bulletproof vest — a container of those had been left inadvertently when the seaplane went down — and he was in no position to put himself in harm's way.

Jamal was coughing and choking from the CS, but he had not yet been totally immobilized. He saw Dimitri, a hooded figure in the smoke, and responded by instinct, bringing around his Uzi and getting off a burst. Although Spiros had seen it coming and tried to duck and roll, he was not quick enough. Two rounds caught him in the chest, but not before he had gotten off a well-practiced three-round burst from his MP5. One of the slugs entered the center of Jamal's neck, above his bulletproof vest, and literally ripped his throat open.

The Muslim radical who had helped kill two hundred and eighteen defenseless Marines in Beirut collapsed in a pool of blood, having exacted one last price. Dimitri Spiros was down, gravely wounded.

Willem Voorst was at his side in an instant. He took one look, then rose and sent another blast of automatic fire into the Iranian Jamal, whose life blood was already ebbing rapidly. It was an impulsive act of anger definitely out of character for ARM, but the vengeance of the moment seemed to call for something.

Jesus, Hans thought as he watched the tragedy unfold, still grappling with Moreau, this is turning into a disaster. How did we manage such a screw-up. And how many more of the bastards are there? They're like vermin who keep showing up, just when you think you've got them all.

The area around him had become a cacophony of gasping, coughing SatCom staffers, many moaning in fear, all near shock. But it works both ways, Hans thought. If there are any more terrorists hiding among the terminals, they're probably in the same condition.

Now, though, there was no motion anywhere in the room. It looked to be over.

"Clear," Marcel said, the first, his voice garbled by the balaclava.

Hans crunched a knee against Jean-Paul Moreau's face and heard him moan. "You little fucker," he yelled in French, and slugged him as hard as he could. It had the desired effect. Moreau's body went limp, but Hans, wanting to take no chances, immediately yanked his arms around behind his back and handcuffed him.

"Clear," he yelled, still breathless.

"Clear," called Reggie, but not before looking around one last time, squinting through the smoke. He thought, hoped, it was true. A bloody great mess, that's what the assault had been, and Ramirez was still on the loose.

"Objective CQ," Armont announced finally, even as he surveyed the scene with bitterness and horror. Dimitri had screwed up twice, unforgivable, and now he was on the critical list, hemorrhaging from the two holes in his chest, barely conscious, with blood seeping out of the corner of his mouth.

While Willem Voorst was already bent over him, trying to begin stabilizing the crisis, Armont moved quickly to his side. "Hang on, cheri. Can you hear me?"

Spiros nodded, though whether it was in answer to the question no one could tell.

"Don't move. The blueprints show there's an emergency medical facility here. They probably have a supply of plasma. We'll pull you through."

This time Spiros tried to smile and raised his hand slightly, but Armont gently took it and laid it back on the floor.

"Save your strength. We may need you again before this is over."

Then he rose up and looked around the room. "Start clearing everybody out of here. And make sure there aren't any more of these fuckers hiding among the friendlies."

Was it a clean job? he wondered. Did we hit any civilians? There was enough gunfire to create a real possibility that somebody got nicked, or worse.

He watched as Hans began shouting orders for the evacuation. The air in the room was starting to be slightly breathable again, and everybody seemed able to move. Three terrorists lay dead, and a fourth wounded and handcuffed. All wore black pullovers. Maybe, he thought, just maybe we had a little bit of luck on our side after all. It was about time.

But who could talk about luck with Dimitri lying there on the floor, gravely critical. God damn the whole operation. It was Spiros's fault, but this was no time to recriminate. He looked like his lung was punctured. In fact, that was an optimistic prognosis. It could be much worse…

Well, Armont thought with relief, the SatCom people seem okay. Chalk up one for marksmanship. Guess that's why we get paid so well.

He looked up at the large computer screen being projected on the wall at the end of the room, which showed a countdown in progress. Ramirez's scheme was still on track, though there was still almost half an hour's time left. What now?

"All right," he declared, "let's make up a stretcher and get Dimitri down to their medical room."

Hans pulled a syringe from the medical kit he always had with him and gave the Greek a heavy shot of morphine in his inner thigh. In moments it had surged through his system, causing his eyes to glaze and the moaning to stop. Willem checked the wound again, then took some more gauze pads and continued working. He figured if Spiros could be gotten on intravenous plasma within the next fifteen minutes he might survive.

Willem Voorst was finishing the construction of a makeshift stretcher from chairs and cushions, while Hans was checking over the civilians as he ushered them out into the hallway, making sure none were injured… and too deeply in shock to realize it.

He also was running an interrogation. "Who here knows how to stop the countdown? Just shut the damned thing off?"

Nobody offered up his or her services, possibly because nobody wanted to be held responsible for causing a meltdown in the multimillion-dollar storage coil. There also was a more practical reason.

"Georges LeFarge was in charge of the countdown," a coughing, nervously shaking young man finally volunteered. "He's not here now. The Israeli guy took him over to Launch." He paused. "But the Fujitsu is in auto mode now. We can't just flip a switch, at least not without doing horrific damage to the coil. It has to be discharged through the Cyclops."

"Then can you do that?" Hans asked.

"Not without Cally or Georges here," he replied decisively. "You screw it up and you're talking millions of dollars." He shrugged. "No way would I attempt it without somebody's say-so." His voice trailed off.

Hans pondered this, then shrugged. "Okay, you're saying everybody here is scared to tinker with the Cyclops. So we'll still have to take down Launch and get to the vehicle." He glanced back toward the smoky room, thinking aloud. "But we were going to have to anyway, to get Ramirez. Once we're there, maybe we can find a way to disable the vehicle some other way."

The staffer looked dubious. "I don't know how. There's only one real way to do it, by bleeding off the Cyclops. Anything else would be too dangerous. Maybe—"

"Hans," Armont was shouting, interrupting them. "Come and help Willem carry Dimitri through the tunnel. Do you remember where the medical room was from the blueprints?"

"I memorized everything," he shouted back. "What do you think I get paid for?"

'Then get on with it. Maybe there'll be somebody there who can help out. Otherwise, you two just became doctors."

"I'll save him," Willem declared, trying to sound as confident as he could. He knew, as they all did, that it would be a long shot. "But what are you going to do now? We still have to get Ramirez."

"I'm aware of that," Armont snapped back. "But first we've got to get these people out of here and somewhere safe." Then he had a thought. "Maybe you should take them with you. Over to the Bates Motel. We could make that our collection point for friendlies."

"All right," Hans agreed, partially, "but this is no time to split up. You'd better come with us. If we run across any more of these assholes, we'll need backup."

Armont nodded, realizing it made some sense. "Okay, then get the people."

Hans looked down and checked over Jean-Paul Moreau. The Frenchman was bleeding, too, but nothing about his wound appeared to be serious. A tourniquet should hold him. "Some of them can carry out our friend here." For a moment he considered telling Armont who their captive was, but then he decided to do it later. Moreau might be more useful if he didn't realize he had been recognized.

Then, with Armont on point and leading the way, they headed through the tunnel that connected Bill Bates’ office to the living quarters. Minutes later Command sat as empty as a tomb, impotent and useless as the countdown continued to scroll, the Fujitsu working the will of Dore Peretz.