Are you too dense to understand it, Senator? What the hell am I doing here?
McKenna glanced at the clock on the wall. It was already twelve-thirty, and this looked like an all-nighter.
As they approached within four hundred lateral kilometers of the space station, Pyotr Volontov attempted once again to establish radio contact.
“Soyuz, this is Carrier Two. Come in, please.”
There was only the ether for response.
On the intercom, Major Arkady Mishkov said, “Perhaps it is only their antennas that have been damaged, Colonel.”
“Perhaps,” Volontov said, but thought that Mishkov was indulging in wishful thinking.
There were many dangers in space travel, so many complicated systems that could fail. A seal or hatch could have failed, and the station might have lost its environmental integrity.
He grimaced at what they might find when they achieved a rendezvous.
“That is Themis that has appeared on the scan, Colonel.” Volontov glanced at the screen. The radar was set at the 350 kilometer scan, and a new major target had appeared.
“It is well below us, and its track will fall behind us,” Mishkov said.
Volontov looked at the screen and remembered the woman pilot, Lynn Marie Haggar, whom he had met during his first meeting with Kevin McKenna in Chad. He had often hoped that he would meet her again.
“What are our approach parameters, Arkady?”
“We are now closing at thirty meters per second. Our track is perfect.”
“Go to the video scan, Arkady. And keep your eyes open.”
“What is it that we are looking for, Colonel?”
“A MakoShark.”
Pyotr Volontov had not forgotten that the Americans had lost a spacecraft and that three of his very own former pilots were unaccounted for and were capable in the Mako.
He advanced the rocket start checklist and kept his hand hear the throttles.
The unreliability of mechanics and hydraulics and electronics could have caused a malfunction aboard Soyuz Fifty.
Then again, so could a disenchanted human being.
The Mako was tracking toward the station in an inverted attitude, and the huge, bluish globe of the Earth was above their heads. With the controller, Volontov slowly rotated a full 360 degrees, scanning the emptiness around him.
“There!” Mishkov yelped.
“Where?”
“It is not on the radar. Above us. At two o’clock.”
Volontov found the triangular speck, its shape barely defined by the sun’s rays reflecting off it.
He slammed the throttles forward.
Aleksander Maslov saw the Mako’s rockets ignite. They went immediately to one hundred percent thrust, judging by the white trail spewing from the nozzles.
Simultaneously, he heard the call on the frequency used by the Baikonur Cosmodrome: “Baikonury Carrier Two. We are under attack by a MakoShark.”
“Fire the missile,” Maslov ordered.
“Missile launched,” Nikitin replied.
The Wasp II missile whisked away from its pylon, its infrared seeker head curving it into a long arc as it pursued the accelerating Mako.
The radar screen showed the Mako forty miles away when the Wasp II slammed into it. He glanced up from the screen in time to see the detonation.
It was a small nova, a bright white flash with orange overtones. In all of space, it did not seem to be a large or significant event.
Brackman could tell that the forced civility and protocol was getting to McKenna. His shoulders had slowly straightened, and his back was becoming more rigid.
The backseater, Tony Munoz, seemed to be getting a kick out of it. He kept a straight face, but his eyes carried the light of amusement. In the future, Brackman would not invite backseaters to these soirees.
The Senate committee chairman had finally steered them away from Cartwright’s complaints, which Brackman thought would now die an unremarkable death, and into the immediate crisis of Delta Green’s disappearance.
McKenna had done fairly well with the Cartwright bitches, trying not to attack a retired Air Force officer, and letting the man’s allegations wash off him. Anderson and Worth weren’t happy, of course. They had thought they had insider information that would expose a major scandal in the command. They hadn’t done their homework well, but their lack of preparation wouldn’t dawn on them for some time. Now, they were just mad.
“What would you have done, Colonel McKenna,” Anderson asked, “to prevent the theft of the spacecraft?”
It was nearly two o’clock in the morning, and Brackman figured they were getting close to the end of McKenna’s patience. He wished Cross would put an end to this, but knew that he could not.
“Congresswoman, what I would, or would not, have done, is immaterial at this point. What’s important is that some group, possibly the one suggested by Colonel Pearson, and on which you have been briefed, has a MakoShark. That is the danger, and we should be addressing the danger.”
“Tell me how, Colonel.”
“You have also been briefed on our activities to date,” McKenna said. The heat of his temper was beginning to show in his voice.
“As far as I can tell,” Worth said, “you’re not doing much more than we could be doing with aircraft from the Eisenhower. There’s no reason in the world why the 1st Aerospace Squadron shouldn’t be grounded until we can determine what’s wrong with the command.”
Brackman couldn’t resist responding to that one. “Excuse me, Senator, but you’re begging the question there.”
Harvey Mays got into it, too. “I agree. Please don’t assume a problem in the squadron, or in the command, until it’s been proven, Senator.”
“My apologies,” Worth said, “for giving credence to what appears obvious.”
No wonder the Congress was in such trouble with the electorate, Brackman thought. These cretins had their own sense of logic.
“If I might continue,” McKenna said, “the capability of the MakoShark has just been proven for us. We have never had to imagine what it would be like if the opposition — whatever opposition — had a weapons system like the MakoShark. Now we know. We can’t see her and finding her is difficult, though I don’t think it will be insurmountable. Ironically, this episode only serves to show us how valuable the MakoShark is. If an F-14 or F-18 off the Eisenhower happened to spot Delta Green, there is no way in hell they could do anything about it. Grounding our only counterweapon to the MakoShark, the MakoShark, is not the answer.”
Admiral Cross, who had painstakingly maintained a neutrality, entered the fray, perhaps to give McKenna time to back off a little. “I have to agree with Colonel McKenna, ladies and gentlemen…”
An Army colonel in the comer of the room beckoned Brackman with quick circles of his hand. Brackman slid away from the table and approached him.
The colonel opened the door behind him, and Brackman followed him into an anteroom.
“General, there’s a Russian general on the telephone for you. He says it’s extremely urgent.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
Brackman crossed to the phone and picked it up. “Brackman.”
“Marvin, this is Vitaly.”
“Yes, Vitaly. Is something wrong?”
“Until an hour ago, I did not know that our Rocket Forces had lost contact with Soyuz Fifty.”
“Damn. You don’t suppose…?”
“And at that time, I learned that a MakoShark had just destroyed one of our Mako craft.”