Ignition. Part 17

Nicole leaped into motion, trying to cross the four steps to Trovkin, but time seemed to slow down.

"No!" she shouted. "Wait!"

Yvette slammed the Russian liaison to the floor, knocking one of the rolling chairs away. Digging a knee into the small of his back, she grabbed Trovkin's square chin with her left hand and dragged his head upward. He struggled, but with a flash of speed, Yvette drew her other fist across his throat-the fist bearing the shark-toothed knuckle blade. Nicole couldn't get there in time.

Yvette sliced so quickly that very little blood even stuck to the razor teeth, but a fan of arterial scarlet sprayed out, bright and foamy. Trovkin's thick neck suddenly gave, as if it had grown an extra hinge. He choked, his arms and legs still twitching and writhing, trying to throw the big woman off him even in the last moments of his life.

Mr. Phillips staggered back to his feet, coughing and trying to regain his composure. He looked in disgust at the blood that had splashed onto his jacket as he brushed himself off.

Yvette stood up from her twitching victim, breathing hard. "That will teach you to behave, Monsieur Trovkin," she panted.

The Russian reached out a b.l.o.o.d.y hand, but then his fingers curled together. Trovkin's dark eyes blazed at her from behind his askew black-rimmed gla.s.ses, still glaring even as they dulled in death.

Nicole dropped to her knees beside the dying amba.s.sador. Everything had happened so fast. She had been negotiating, perhaps even getting Mr. Phillips to concede, to call off the sniper fire on the crew-but then Trovkin had acted. Though she doubted she could have done anything, Nicole still cursed herself for her brief hesitation.

She had lost her edge. If this had been an emergency on a shuttle mission, she could never afford such a delay. A reluctant pause could be fatal for her entire crew-as it had just proved fatal to the cosmonaut liaison.

Senator Boorman looked short of breath, letting the phone dangle in his hand. He loosened his tie and opened his collar, swallowing repeatedly. "My G.o.d," he whispered. "He was the Russian liaison!" Boorman sounded as if he had suddenly just realized the fact. "That man was my responsibility."

Mr. Phillips whirled and snapped at him. "Senator Boorman, this isn't a committee action. Shouldn't you be making more phone calls? Get some wheeling and dealing going here, log rolling, calling in favors! Startransacking a few jewelers' warehouses. The government can obtain whatever it needs in the name of national security."

Boorman jerked as if he had been slapped. He looked to Nicole as if she might provide the answer for him. His face grew slack as if suddenly aware this was not a back-room deal that he could dominate. He turned back to the phone and began dialing.

Sniffing, brushing the front of his jacket, Mr. Phillips picked up his PDA from the floor and flipped open the lid to make sure the device still functioned properly. He tapped the LCD screen with one fingernail, then smiled in satisfaction.

Then he rubbed at the dark red wetness soaking into the fine fabric of his jacket. "Now where am I going to get this cleaned?" He looked down at the body of Andrei Trovkin. "Why can't everyone just follow the rules?"

Nicole could see perspiration on Mr. Phillips's forehead. She kept chastising herself for being unable to save the situation. Trovkin had been very much like Iceberg, charging in headfirst without thinking, solving problems by brute force rather than finesse. The Russian had died for pursuing that way of solving problems, as Iceberg had died in the conflagration of the VAB.

But Nicole's calmer, more personal approach had proven just as ineffective. Her negotiations hadn't succeeded either, and now another person had been killed. At least Trovkin and Iceberg had tried.

Mr. Phillips turned to Yvette. "Move our Russian friend over by Mr. Channel Seven." He glanced around, focusing on Nicole, as if all this were somehow her fault. And, as Launch Director, it was her fault-just as the captain of a ship was responsible for the actions of an entire crew.

Yvette dragged the burly cosmonaut liaison's body over against the bloodied corpse of the cameraman.

She moved purposefully, as if gaining some erotic excitement out of it.

Mr. Phillips shook his head in disappointment. "Before long, we're not going to have room to store all the bodies unless you people come to your senses."

37.

ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIER.

ICEBERG DUCKED BEHIND THE shelter of creepers and low Georgia pine, ready to make a limping, agonizing dash the last hundred yards to the Armored Personnel Carrier.

"Oh, great," Iceberg breathed. He felt a pounding in his eardrums as the pressure built within him. He heard the sharp crack of rifle fire, and again, and again-expecting to hear the roar of the shuttle exploding at any moment.

On the distant gantry, Iceberg saw the astronauts scrambling into the emergency escape baskets, the first two away like hang-glider projectiles along the long cables. Even from this distance he could hear a bullet's thin ricochet against the Fixed Service Structure.

Luckily, the noise of the gunfire covered Iceberg's own movements, and he plunged forward at a half-run, hopping on his good foot and lightly touching the ground with his softening cast. Shards of pain ran up his leg. "Hold on just a little longer," he muttered to himself. "And I promise not to walk for a month."

He swung his commandeered rifle free with his raw right hand, still too far away to get a good shot at the sniper. Any botched attempt to shoot from here would only result in the sniper's turning his weapon on Iceberg.

He had to get in closer before his entire crew was ma.s.sacred. He gritted his teeth at the agony as he lunged forward. It felt as if his leg might give way any second, and he had no way of numbing the pain.

The sniper leaning out of the hatch of the mottled yellow APC seemed immensely pleased with himself as he took aim at Atlantis. He was big and muscular, larger than Iceberg. His tanned skin seemed a stark contrast to his blond-white hair. The man took his time, squinting through the rifle's telescopic sight. He squeezed off two more rounds in succession. A coward shooting helpless people from a distance.

Hustling in his agonizing crippled run, Iceberg saw that two of the escape baskets had slammed into the catch-nets and four crewmembers had already scrambled toward the emergency bunker. Maybe theywould make it! "Go, you guys-go!"

But his elation was short-lived. The sniper aimed at the high gantry again, squinted for an endless moment through his telescopic sight, and squeezed off another round. The crack of the rifle sounded like a baseball bat hitting a home run.

One of the three remaining astronauts on the access arm spun around, thrown backward. From this distance Iceberg could make out only that the orange-suited astronaut was small, wiry, with dark skin.

Gator!

The sniper fired again. The wounded pilot staggered and fell to the metal grating as the others scrambled for cover.

Iceberg saw red, wanting to howl in rage, but somehow he prevented himself from crying out. Like a battering ram, he plowed over the last small rise, across the low wet gra.s.s. Streaks of pain raced up his leg like broken gla.s.s on fire, but he canceled it. Not now. Sweat rolled off his forehead in the thick mid-morning humidity.

A walkie-talkie at the sniper's waist spoke a series of clear words in a cultured voice Iceberg recognized from Mr. Phillips's announcement on the TV monitor. "Jacques, report please. How is our problem progressing?"

The sharpshooter reached down to depress the "talk" b.u.t.ton. "One down, Monsieur Phillips. I will take out the elevator power box so they have no other way to get up or down from the gantry. But please excuse me for now. Jacques out."

On the APC, the sniper, Jacques, leaned forward for another shot.

Reacting more in anger than as cool, detached machinery, Iceberg swept up his automatic rifle as he staggered to a halt. He leveled his weapon and took aim. "Take this, a.s.shole," Iceberg whispered through clenched teeth. He jammed his swollen finger on the trigger. It clicked- Nothing happened. The battered rifle wouldn't fire.

Iceberg yanked the trigger twice, then another time in anger, but the weapon had failed him.

38.

ATLANTIS GANTRY.

BULLETS WHIZZED THROUGH THE air over Dr. Marc Franklin's head. One projectile ricocheted off a thin metal crossbar and bounced against steel girders, pa.s.sing so close he swore he felt the hot wind of its pa.s.sage. Another bullet struck and penetrated the elevator power box with a spang. Sparks flew from the severed electrical wiring.

Cosmonaut Koslovsky remained trapped in the gantry walkway, twisted in an awkward position from where she had fallen. Her face rippled with pain from her caught foot. She was out in the open, without cover, another helpless target for the terrorist sniper.

Lieutenant Commander Green lay bleeding, motionless. Leaving Koslovsky and Green, Franklin crawled over to the remaining two emergency baskets, hoping against hope that some technician might have strapped a first-aid kit somewhere. Above him, the remaining two baskets rattled as the long cables thrummed from when the first four crewmembers had successfully slid down. At least the others had made it to the ground and out of harm's way.

Franklin found no first-aid kit, spotting nothing but a small fire extinguisher. Fire extinguisher? Probably placed there to fulfill the requirements of some obscure OSHA rule. The bureaucrats could always plead innocent by following the book, nothing more and nothing less. Just as Franklin himself had always done.

But following the book just might get him killed in this instance, him and his crew. Since he was the only one mobile at the moment, it was Franklin's responsibility to rescue the remaining two members of his crew.

He was, after all, the Mission Commander.

Franklin turned back toward Lieutenant Commander Green when he heard the ping of a bullet strike the nearest emergency basket. He kept low, crawling on his belly back to where the wounded pilot lay.

Another bullet spanged off a girder. Below him, through the metal grid of the walkway, he saw wisps of white vapor from the venting cryogenic fuels. He scuttled forward, mashing his elbows into the rough grating to speed his way.

If just one of those bullets. .h.i.t the liquid hydrogen tank, all three of them would be crispy critters in milliseconds.

39.

ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIER.

ICEBERG TRIED TO SHOOT again, but the automatic rifle still refused to fire. He wanted to throw the useless weapon across the swamp. The rifle had dropped from the high bay to the VAB floor, then fallen in the water as Iceberg had dived out of the way of the explosion. Given time, he could have taken the rifle apart, cleaned it, and put it back together; he'd done that enough times in basic cadet training at the Academy.

Well, given time he could have called in an air strike to take out the son of a b.i.t.c.h, too. But he had no such luxury.

Jacques kept firing. Now that one of the crewmen was down, the sniper slowed his pace, methodically taking aim to keep from wasting bullets.

Grimly furious, Iceberg plodded the last distance to the APC. He had difficulty seeing straight through the blur of pain. He tried to control his breathing. The heartbeat pounding in his ears grew louder. Twenty yards away. Cool. . . frosty . . . chill. . .

The sniper had only to turn around, see him, fire a round into his chest- Ten yards. Iceberg grasped the useless rifle by the barrel, like a caveman with a club. He could creep up to the side and surprise the son of a b.i.t.c.h, whop him on the side of the head- Five yards. Jacques clicked off another round toward Atlantis, then reached down to pick up a new magazine casing. He hesitated, as if he had heard something, then jerked his head up and looked around.

Iceberg leaped forward. No time like the present.

Jacques cursed in a string of deep French gutturals as he spotted Iceberg. He stood and fanned his weapon, shooting bullets over the damp gra.s.s. Still dashing forward, Iceberg slammed up against the hard, hot body of the APC, where the sniper standing inside the vehicle's hatch could not aim. Projectiles. .h.i.t the ground with m.u.f.fled thuds, and then nothing.

Iceberg breathed hard, trying to catch his breath. Cool, cool, he told himself. He heard Jacques curse as he struggled with what sounded like a jammed magazine case.

No time to think-just move. Holding the rifle barrel with his right hand, Iceberg boosted himself on the APC's wide tracks and popped over the top of the armored vehicle, yelling like a banshee.

Jacques frantically tried to reload from a kneeling position, but seeing Iceberg appear like a madman, Jacques struggled out of the hatch. A magazine cartridge of bullets clanked and pattered on the vehicle's armor plates.

"Freeze!" Iceberg yelled, bringing up his automatic rifle as if it still worked. He jabbed the weapon toward the sniper, finger encircling the trigger, bluffing with 100 percent enthusiasm. His heart thundered with adrenaline.

Jacques flicked a glance down at his own unloaded weapon.

"Do it if you want," Iceberg shouted. "This is one of those 'make my day' situations."

Jacques clenched his huge fists and stepped back, obviously calculating the chances of being able to overpower Iceberg. The sniper flicked his gaze toward the sodden, muddy cast on Iceberg's left leg.

"Drop your weapon. Now!" Iceberg stepped forward gingerly on the uneven metal surface. "Or we'll see what a few rounds will do to your skull from a range of two feet." He made his voice cold, vicious. "A teaspoon of your brains might even make it all the way to the launchpad if I get the splatter pattern right."

Jacques spoke with a thick French accent, his tanned face melting into a confident smile. "If you couldn't shoot me from back there, you will not shoot me now, stupid man." Taking a slow step backward, the sniper suddenly lurched for the APC's access hatch as if to reach for another weapon. Iceberg smashed the b.u.t.t of his useless rifle into the small of the thug's back. Jacques yelped in pain.

Iceberg grabbed the collar of the sniper's camouflage shirt, hauling him back out onto the roof. He swung the rifle as hard as he could and cracked the sniper on the side of the skull. Jacques staggered and Iceberg swung out again.

Jacques went down like a single-engine fighter with a flameout.

"More than one way to use a weapon," Iceberg said.

He prodded the terrorist with his right toe, to make sure the man was out cold; then he slumped down himself, feeling his body shake with the sudden release of tension. "No time for a siesta yet," he told himself, then heaved up to his feet again. At least he had stopped the shooting.

Moving gingerly, hoping that his aches and pains would somehow cancel themselves out, he climbed down inside the APC to scrounge around in the vehicle's emergency equipment.

He smelled blood and the acrid bitterness of gunpowder, then saw the two blood-soaked bodies of the original rescue crew, unceremoniously dumped in the rear compartment. Their glazed dead eyes glinted at Iceberg in the slanted light, as if asking why he had taken so long to get there.

Iceberg stared for a helpless second, then snapped himself back into motion. He had to take care of Jacques before he returned to consciousness. Cold . . . chill. . . frosty . . . He took the emergency kit and climbed back up, hopping from rung to rung on the ladder.

Squatting out in the hot morning sunlight, Iceberg pulled a fireproof line and a utility knife from the emergency kit. It took a few minutes to tie up the sniper, and then a potent whiff from a packet of smelling salts from the kit revived him. Jacques shook his head groggily as he came to. Iceberg needed a h.e.l.l of a lot more information before he went charging out to the launchpad, and he didn't have time to play games.

Gator had been shot, Nicole was a hostage at the LCC, and Atlantis could blow up at any moment. He took out the utility knife, holding it close to the sniper's cheek. The blond man's eyes rolled to the side, trying to see what his captor intended. It would be easy to slash the man's face, to force him into talking. But Iceberg couldn't do that. That's why we're the Good Guys, he thought grimly. He just hoped the threat would be strong enough.

Iceberg breathed hard with exertion. "Okay, a.s.shole-what's going on?" Jacques didn't answer.

"Listen to me-you just shot my best friend up there, and I'm not feeling very charitable right now." He p.r.i.c.ked the tanned cheek with the tip of the utility knife, drawing blood before he pulled back.

"Last time I tried to interrogate one of your friends-Mory, I think his name was-he ended up with two bullets in the chest and a long fall to the floor of the VAB. I also watched big, bald Cueball go up in flames. And before that I took care of your ponytailed friend at the guard gate. Now I've got you."

Jacques still just glared at him.

Iceberg set his mouth and tightened the ropes around Jacques's wrists. The man grunted with new pain but said nothing. Iceberg twisted his head to glance at the sky. It was still a cloudless day, and the sun was rising higher.

"Just wait until it really gets hot up here," Iceberg said, "and you start to cook on top of this metal frying pan."

Iceberg yanked the walkie-talkie from the sniper's waist. It was time to poke a stick in the hornet's nest. He angrily depressed the "talk" b.u.t.ton. "h.e.l.lo, is anybody out there? I've got your boy Jacques." Static filled the speaker.

He scowled at the sniper lying bound on top of the APC and spoke into the walkie-talkie. "I'm looking for that sc.u.mbag Phillips. Hey, you looked like Geraldo on TV, only with less cla.s.s." He hoped his taunting would get some sort of reaction. "I've taken out your blond-haired coward here, just like I got rid of your goons at the VAB. The Atlantis crew is safe in the emergency bunker-and now I'm coming to get you.

You're next, Phillips." The part about the astronauts was not entirely true, but he hoped it would infuriate the little man-and buy Iceberg some time.

The speaker on the walkie-talkie clicked. "Who is this, please? I wasn't aware we had a party line."

"Yeah, it's a party all right." Iceberg smiled at Jacques, who glared back at him. "You can just call me Iceberg."

Phillips came back after only the slightest hesitation. "Ah, this must be the famous Colonel Adam Friese. You seem most enduring. We had thought you were no longer with us."

The cultured voice sounded rattled. Iceberg clicked the radio once more while keeping a steady eye on Jacques, showing no surprise that Phillips knew his name. Maybe he had tortured it out of Nicole. "Hey, I'm laughing at your tough guys, Phillips. What a bunch of amateurs. Cheerio-and hold on tight. I'll be coming for you before the day is done."