Project Cyclops Part 83

"Let them wait. Let's stop the d.a.m.ned chopper from egressing." He was pointing through the windscreen of the Apache. "Orders are to keep everybody on the ground."

Manny Jackson hit the pedals. Nothing to it. There, almost in his sights, was the striped Agusta chopper, with a terrorist hanging beneath it. Probably fell out. He was hanging on to something, though what it was you really couldn't tell through the thin mist.

It didn't matter. The guy was open and in the clear. This was the beginning of what was going to be a marvelous operation, taking these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds down. With a feeling of immense satisfaction, he reached for the weapons station.

And then his world went blue.

7:49 A.M.

Cally stared out the open door of the Agusta and felt her heart skip a beat. A beam of energy, so strong it ionized the air and turned it deep mauve, seemed to be engulfing Michael. Staring down, she was almost blinded by its intensity. He was there, she was sure, but where she could not tell.

Then it shut off for a second, and she realized it had been directed toward the base of VX-1. Next came an enormous clap of thunder as the splintered air collapsed on itself, sending out shock waves. Just like lightning, she thought. The Cyclops is sending energy as though it were lightning. . . .

Then the blue flashed again, and this time it began microsecond pulses, like a ma.s.sive strobe light. All the action was now highlighted in jerky snippets of vision, as unreal as a disco dance floor. The air around the beam was being turned to plasma, ionized pure atoms . . .

but the next burst of energy came from the propulsion unit of VX-1, which slowly began discharging a concentrated plume out of its nozzles, a primal green instead of the usual reds and oranges of a conventional rocket.

The Cyclops had just gone critical, right on the money, ionizing the dry-ice propellant in VX-1. Would the impulse be enough to lift it off?

she wondered. Was Isaac's grand scheme going to work? Years had been spent planning for this moment. She felt her heart stop as she waited for the answer, totally forgetting the man who was dangling just below the chopper, bathed in the hard, pulsing strobes.

7:50 A.M.

As Manny Jackson grappled for the collective, blinded by the intense monochromatic light engulfing him, a clap of thunder sounded about his ears, deafening him to the roar of the Apache's turboshafts.

What in h.e.l.l! Had one of the nuclear devices been detonated? No, his instincts lectured, he was still alive. If it had been a nuke, he would be atoms by now, sprayed into s.p.a.ce. This had to be something else.

Now his vision was returning, the blue receding into quick flashes, and the chopper seemed to be stabilizing. Maybe, he thought, I'm not going to be permanently blind. But I've got to get this bird on the ground.

We'll just have to take our chances. Then the realization of what had happened finally sank in. The d.a.m.ned Cyclops laser had switched on.

They had arrived too late. . . .

He was thrown against the windscreen as the Apache slammed into the asphalt and collapsed the starboard leg of the retractable gear.

"Jesus!" He turned back to the cabin, forehead bleeding, and yelled, "Everybody okay?"

The a.s.sault team was still strapped in, and n.o.body seemed the worse for the b.u.mpy landing. The Apache was a tough bird, hero of tank battles in Iraq.

"No problem," came back a chorus of yells. They were already unfastening their straps and readying their weapons.

"All right," he bellowed, killing the power. "Everybody out. Let's take cover and kick a.s.s."

7:50 A.M.

Vance heard the thunder and felt the shock wave almost simultaneously.

He gripped the wire, trying to hold on, and felt it cut deep into his palms. The pain seemed to work in opposition to the numbing effects of the shock wave that had buffeted him, a.s.saulting his eardrums and his consciousness. For a moment he forgot where he was, shut out all thought, and just hung onto the wire with his last remaining energy.

In the Agusta up above, Bates was struggling with the controls, trying to keep stabilized as the pressure pulse from the Cyclops swept down the island. The dangling bomb, and Vance, were serving as a counterweight, holding the small commercial helo aright. It was all that kept it from flipping as the sudden turbulence a.s.saulted the main rotor.

The energy that filled the air now had yet another release.

As his eardrums recovered, Vance heard a new roar, deeper and throatier than the sound of the Agusta, welling up around him. Down below, wave after wave of pressure pulses were drumming the air, and he watched spellbound as VX-1 shuddered, then began to inch upward into the morning sky. It was a gorgeous sight, the lift-off of the world's first laser-driven s.p.a.ce vehicle.

Was Cally watching this moment of triumph? he wondered. She should be ecstatic, even in spite of all the rest.

But would the vehicle make it to orbit? he suddenly asked himself. With the payload gone, wouldn't the weight parameters be all out of whack.

But then maybe it didn't matter. The mere fact that it was going up should be enough to cover Bates' contractual obligations with his investors.

That was down the road. He was so mesmerized by the sight of the lift- off that he had totally forgotten he was wrapped around a nuke, hanging on for all he had as the asphalt loomed fifty feet below, like Slim Pickens riding the bomb down in that famous closing scene from Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove.

Then the pain in his hands refocused his attention. The bomb down below, he figured, was now permanently inoperable. But Ramirez still had Mannheim as a hostage, and he had made good his escape. Which meant he was still in the terrorists' catbird seat. Using innocents for a shield rather than slugging it out fair and square.

As the Cyclops continued to pulse, and VX-1 edged upward into the morning mist, Bates steered the Agusta toward the old landing pad where it had originally been parked. In moments he had eased down the bomb, just as though settling in a crate of eggs, no more than twenty feet from where they had taken off five minutes earlier. It was a marvel of professionalism.

As the weapon b.u.mped onto the asphalt, Vance had a sudden thought. The d.a.m.ned thing was useless now, and harmless. But what about the other one, the one Ramirez had taken with him in the Sikorsky?

"Michael, are you all right?" Cally had leapt from the open door of the Agusta, looking as disoriented as he had ever seen her. "You were only a few feet away when the Cyclops turned on. For a minute there, I couldn't even see you. What was it like?"

"Try the end of the world. Like a thousand bolts of lightning, all aimed at one place."

"A perfect description." She smiled and reached to help him stand up.

"I'd never realized there'd be a thunderclap when it switched on at full power. G.o.d, what a sight." She was beaming at the thought, exhilarated that all SatCom's work had been vindicated.

"You know," he said, "speaking of the end of the world, we came pretty close. I hate to think what would happen if a bomb actually went off on Crete."

"I've got a sinking feeling the end of the road wasn't going to be Crete at all," Bates declared, stepping down from the Agusta. "I've been thinking. Something that little Israeli p.r.i.c.k let drop as we were coming out to start up the Sikorsky finally sank in. He was rambling on about retargeting the vehicle. You know, I think it was going to come back here. He had the trajectory set to begin and end right here on Andikythera. After he bugged out, of course."

"Nice," Vance said. "I actually kind of admire his b.a.l.l.s. He was going to nuke Ramirez."

"And us."

"That part's a little harder to like, I grant you." He turned and gazed down toward the two Apaches that had landed. "By the way, what were those all about? The Delta Force saving us?"

"Who knows?" He seemed to have a sudden thought. "Let me get on the radio and try to call them off. Before they actually end up killing somebody."