For tonight's program he was scheduled to take the vehicle to Mach 4, then terminate the JP-7 feeds in the portside outboard trident and let those three engines "unstart," after which he would manually switch them to scramjet geometry, all the while controlling pitch and yaw with the stability augmentation equipment. That would be the easy part. The next step required him to manually switch them back to turboramjet geometry and initiate restart. At sixty-three thousand feet. Forty minutes later he was scheduled to have her back safely in the hangar chocks, skin cooling.
Nothing to it.
He flipped his helmet screens back and looked over the readouts one final time. Fuel pressure was stable, engine nozzle control switches locked in Auto Alpha configuration, flaps and slats set to fifteen degrees for max performance takeoff. He ran through the checklist on the screen: "Fuel panel, check. Radar altimeter index, set. Throttle quadrant, auto lock."
The thrust required to take Daedalus I airborne was less than that needed for a vertically launched space shuttle, since lift was gained from the wings, but still he was always amazed by the G-forces the vehicle developed on takeoff. The awesome power at his fingertips inspired a very deceptive sense of security.
"Chase cars in place, Yuri. You're cleared for taxi. Ne puzha, ne pera!"
He started to respond, thinking it was the computer. But this time there was no computer. He'd deliberately shut it down. If he couldn't get this damned samolyot off a runway manually, he had no hopes for the next step. The voice was merely Sergei, in flight control.
"Power to military thrust." He paused, toes on the brakes, and relished the splendid isolation, the pure energy at his command as Daedalus began to quiver. Multibillions at his fingertips, the most advanced…
Fuck it. This was the fun part.
"Brake release."
In full unstick, he rammed the heavy handles on the throttle quadrant to lock, commanding engines to max afterburner, and grinned ear to ear as the twelve turboramjets screamed instantly to a million pounds of thrust, slamming him against the cockpit supports.
"We are now cruising at twenty-nine thousand feet. However, the captain has requested all passengers to please remain seated, with their seat belts fastened." The female voice faltered as the plane dropped through another air pocket. "We may possibly be experiencing mild turbulence for the next hour."
Michael Vance wanted a drink, for a lot of reasons. However, the service in first class was temporarily suspended, since attendants on the British Airways flight to London were themselves strapped into the flip-down seats adjacent to the 757's galley. The turbulence was more than "mild." What lay ahead, in the skies and on the sea below, was nothing less than a major storm.
Why not, he sighed? Everything else in the last four days had gone wrong. He'd been shot at, he'd killed a mobster, and Eva had been kidnapped.
Furthermore, the drive back to Athens, then down to the port of Piraeus to put Zeno onto the overnight ferry to Crete, had been a rain-swept nightmare. Yet another storm had blown up from the Aegean, engulfing the coast and even the mountains. When they finally reached the docks at Piraeus, the old Greek had just managed to slip onto the boat as it was pulling out, his German rifle wrapped in a soggy bundle of clothing.
"Michael, I must hurry." He kissed Vance on both cheeks. "Be safe."
"You too." He took his hand, then passed him the Llama, half glad to be rid of it and half wondering whether he might need it again. "Here, take this. And lose it."
"It's final resting place will be in the depths of our wine dark sea, my friend." Zeno pocketed it without a glance. "No one will ever know what we had to do, not even Adriana. But we failed. She is still gone."
"Don't worry. I'll find her. And thank you again, for saving my life."
"You would have done the same for me. Now hurry. The airport. Perhaps there's still time to catch her." With a final embrace he disappeared into the milling throng of rain-soaked travelers.
The downpour was letting up, but the trip still took almost an hour. When he finally pulled in at the aging Eastern terminal, he'd left the car in the first space he could find and raced in. It was bedlam now, with flights backed up by the storm, but he saw no sign of Eva. Where was she? Had she even come here?
Planes had just started flying again. According to the huge schedule board over the center of the floor, the first departure was a British Air to Heathrow, leaving in five minutes.
There was no chance of getting through passport control without a ticket, so he'd elbowed his way to the front of the British Airways desk.
"That flight boarding. Three-seventy-one. I want a seat."
"I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to wait—"
"Just sell me a ticket, dammit."
The harried agent barely looked up. "I'm afraid that's out of the question. Now if you'll just take—"
"There's a woman who may be on it," he lifted up the empty leather suitcase, "and she left this at the hotel."
"The equipment is already preparing to leave the gate." He glanced at the screen, then turned to a pile of tickets he was methodically sorting. "So if you'd please—"
"Let me check the manifest." He'd stepped over the baggage scale, nudging the agent aside. "To make double sure she's aboard. Maybe I can try and locate her in London."
"Sir!" The young Englishman paled. "You're not allowed to—"
"Just take a second." Vance ignored his protest and punched up the flight on the computer.
It was a 757, completely full. And there she was, in seat 18A, second cabin.
Thank God she'd made it.
While the outraged British Airways agent was frantically calling for airport security, he scanned more of the file.
Alex Novosty was aboard too. In the very last row. Christ! He'd even used his own name. His mind must be totally blown.
Did she know? Did he know? What now?
With the ticket agent still yelling, he'd quickly disappeared into the crowd, having no choice but to pace a departure lounge for an hour and a half, then take the only remaining London flight of the evening. All right, he'd thought after cooling down, Novosty wants to use you; maybe you can use him.
But now he suspected things weren't going to be that simple.
He remembered the two KGB operatives Alex had shot and killed at Knossos. They'd been there to find Eva, which meant they knew she had something. Now he realized that wasn't all they knew.
Across the aisle in first class sat a tall, willowy woman who radiated all the self-confidence of a seasoned European traveler. She was also elegantly beautiful — with dark eyes, auburn hair, and pursed red lips — and she carried a large brown leather purse, Florentine. She could have been a French fashion model, a high-paid American cosmetics executive, a Spanish diplomat's mistress.
The problem was, Vance knew, she was none of those things. The French passport he'd seen her brandish at the Greek behind the glass windows at emigration control was a forgery. She was neither French, nor American, nor Spanish. She was an executive vice president with Techmashimport, the importing cover for T-Directorate. KGB.
Vera Karanova was always a prominent presence at
Western trade shows. But there was no trade show in London now, no new high-tech toys to be dangled before the wondering eyes of Techmashimport, which routinely arranged to try and obtain restricted computers, surveillance gear, weapons-systems blueprints.