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  Oh, shit! Too soon! I hope the missile can compensate.

  He’s coasting now up through eighty-five thousand feet, gravity slowing him rapidly. He feels the F-106 jump slightly and hears the whoosh of the missile’s rocket motor as it releases itself and starts its climb, its silicon brain aware that the launch speed is slower than it should be, the altitude more than five thousand feet shy of the mark.

  He’s got worries now beyond the missile’s fate, and he tunnels in on the task of getting down safely. Bailout is always an option, but one he doesn’t want to use.

  Owen pushes the stick forward and lets the F-106’s nose fall through the horizon and steeply downward as the speed builds again. He flicks open the speed brakes as he tries to restart the engine, but one glance at the fuel indicators confirms that there won’t be a restart. The engine has sucked down the last drop of fuel in the full afterburner climb, and he’s now flying a delta-wing glider with one solitary chance at a safe landing.

  Only a few thin cumulus clouds dot the landscape below as the Delta Dart plunges earthward, the speed stabilizing at just under Mach 1, a small Ram Air Turbine providing the only hydraulic pressure to the flight controls. He punches up Carlsbad Muni as his destination and does a quick calculation.

  Okay, the runway is twenty-eight miles east, so plan to enter a high key down the runway at eight thousand feet.

  He swings the fighter’s nose to the appropriate heading, watching carefully as the altitude unwinds through forty thousand.

  A bit high and fast, he decides, banking the jet into one back and forth S turn, and then resuming the course. He dials in the VHF frequency for Cavern City Unicom, the common radio channel for the airport in the absence of a control tower, and rechecks his energy profile as he triggers his transmitter.

  “Pan, pan, pan, Cavern City Unicom, Carlsbad Airport traffic, this is Bluebird Two-Three, I’m a flamed-out Air Force F-106 making an emergency approach to Runway Zero-Three, Carlsbad. All traffic please stay clear. Pan, pan, pan.”

  A puzzled voice with a heavy West Texas accent comes back almost instantly.

  “Air Force F-106, this is Cavern City Unicom. Sir, your winds are two two zero at eighteen knots, gusting twenty-two, so I suggest you use Runway Two-One.”

  “Roger, Cavern City. Thanks. Bluebird Two-Three changing to a high-key left traffic downwind for Runway Two-One, Carlsbad.”

  A flurry of quick mental recalculations leads to the sudden realization that he’s no longer too high and too fast.

  Okay, enter a high downwind and meter the turn to final at two miles, ah, northeast at four thousand. Gotta turn at four.

  He’s dropping under ten thousand now, worrying about pulling the nose up and stretching his flight path as the Delta Dart slows below four hundred knots on the way to three hundred, which he’ll use as his maneuvering speed. But that speed is coming off too fast, and he can’t figure it out. The airport is just ahead by four miles and he turns to parallel Runway Zero-Three on his left, letting the jet slow to two ninety before continuing the descent, dropping through eight thousand as the field passes his left shoulder. At this rate, he thinks, he’ll have to turn inside one mile and delay the landing gear.

  What the hell? Why am I slowing this fast?

  The answer comes in a flash of embarrassment.

  Oh, jeez, the boards!

  He flicks the speed brake closed and feels the jet’s aerodynamics improve instantly from those of a boulder to something more resembling a flying machine.

  The field is a mile back to his left now, the altitude at five thousand, and he calculates the wind and decides to make an early turn, sliding the F-106 around to the left with his eyes on the end of the runway and lining up, checking his speed before committing the landing gear, which will slow him even more.

  The speed is just above target, the end of the runway moving beneath his nose less than a mile out as he aligns with the concrete ribbon and drops the gear. The runway numbers stop moving forward in his windscreen, and he meters the jet over the threshold fifty feet high at a hundred and seventy, using the speed brake to help him settle onto the concrete, which is disappearing fast.

  He’s on the wheel brakes, metering the pressure, wondering if he should have used aerobraking, the craft slowing through a hundred with less than two thousand feet of runway left. He presses harder on the pedals, worried about blowing the tires but slowing as the far end of the runway hurtles toward him.

  And just as quickly he’s at the end, rolling the jet off on a taxiway at twenty knots and bringing her safely to a complete stop clear of the runway.

  Owen powers open the canopy, runs the shutdown checklist, and starts removing his helmet—aware of a flurry of vehicles approaching from the southeast part of the field. He pulls the helmet free just as several Air Force cars pull into view and turns quick attention to scratching the place on the right side of his face that’s been bugging him since takeoff.

  A crew chief is placing a ladder now to his left.

  “Did we make it?”

  “Sir?”

  “The shot. Was it successful?”

  CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN, NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE

  COMMAND, COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO,

  9:36 A.M. PACIFIC/10:36 A.M. MOUNTAIN

  Chris Risen doesn’t feel like a four-star general at the moment. More like a green lieutenant watching something momentous but completely out of his control as lines and vectors merge on the small screen. Outwardly his image is as secure and professional as ever. Inside he’s on edge, his heart in his throat.

  “Status, Chief?” he asks quietly of the chief master sergeant.

  “Missile at one hundred seventy-five miles and climbing, sir. It’s…a little off profile, but closing.”

  “Show me the intercept solution, please.”

  New lines appear on the display, one red, one blue.

  “General, the blue line is the missile, the red, as you know, the proton shroud.”

  “Am I seeing that right? Are they going to miss?” He hates to believe it, but the computer is projecting the missile to pass behind the oncoming shroud.

  “That dot is the current projection…I mean, without the missile speeding up. That’s where the missile will be along the shroud’s orbital path as it crosses. But the missile should speed up.”

  “God, I hope so.”

  “The corrections are real time.”

  As they speak the display shifts, the intersect point moving closer to the shroud, overtaking it slowly from behind, the digital readout of the missile’s speed indicating a steady acceleration.

  “The second stage has a thirty percent reserve boost capacity, sir.”

  Another jump in the missile’s speed registers as the altitude continues upward.

  Come on, come on! Chris thinks. Less than five hundred miles separate the two objects, the missile racing to close at a forty-eight-degree angle.

  Once more the computer updates, moving the intercept dot within a mile of the shroud, still to the rear. The speed of the missile is over seventeen thousand nine hundred miles per hour, and as he watches, the display upgrades it to eighteen thousand.

  “Almost, sir.”

  “Time to impact?”

  “Thirty seconds.”

  “Jesus, I’m too old for this.”

  “Yes, sir. I am, too.”

  “Like waiting to find out if your girlfriend’s pregnant.”

  The chief turns with a smile and a puzzled look, unsure how to take this. Just as quickly he returns his gaze to the closing race.

  “Twenty seconds.”

  The red intersecting projection dot is less than a quarter mile behind the shroud as the two objects close within seventy miles of each other.

  “Fifteen.”

  The predictor dot moves to a tenth of mile behind the target, the missile’s speed still increasing.

  “Ten seconds.”

  Goddammit, FLY, you bastard! Come ON!

  T
he gap between dot and shroud closes a bit more, but still not colocated. The speed readout on the missile is now eighteen thousand five hundred.

  There’s no margin for failure here! God, please help us make this happen, Chris thinks, his teeth clenched as the two icons converge in real time on the screen.

  “Five, four, three…” the chief intones.

  The predictor red dot is almost on top of the shroud’s icon now.

  “Two, one…”

  The dots merge and the computer-generated picture freezes.

  “Now.”

  “Now what? What happened?” Chris demands.

  “Stand by, sir. Switching to real-time radar.”

  The screen flashes black and then to a two-dimensional display of NORAD’s radar, which is tracking an exploding spray of objects that seem to be at an angle to the original track of the proton shroud.

  “We got it, sir! Direct hit! Damn, that’s a beauty!”

  “Direct hit?”

  “All the debris is flying off at a twenty-degree angle.”

  “Everything?”

  “I’m looking, General. Yes, sir! We freakin’ did it! Everything!”

  “Holy Moly.”

  “Yes, sir! Woo-hoo!”

  “I’ll second that, Chief. That was too close without a defibrillator standing by. And if you’re sure, tell the Sit Room while I call ASA.”

  “They’ll make it, sir. No impact. Not even a bolt.”

  Chapter 22

  KALGOORLIE BOULDER, WESTERN AUSTRALIA,

  9:40 A.M. PACIFIC, MAY 18/12:40 A.M. WST, MAY 19

  The sudden resumption of noises he doesn’t want to know about from his parents’ bedroom startles him for a second. But Alastair’s attention quickly returns to the screen and the alert he’s about to send to thirty-three of his e-mail friends, what were once called pen pals around Australia and the world. Especially Becky Nigel, the only girl he really likes, who keeps in touch despite her British father’s moving his family all the way back to the U.K.

  Hey, mates! I’ve stumbled on a really cool, hardworking scam artist trying to wind me up. He sez he’s stranded in a private spaceship. LOL! The bloke’s creative, I’ll give him that. And other than the mushy stuff about his first love and all, thought you might want to have a look. It’s coming across as a continuous scroll so you have to record it yourself. I’m sending the first stuff I captured.

  He includes the Web address and triggers the screen back over to the evolving message from Kip.

  Sorry to break the narrative, but something really strange just happened up here. Of course, here I am apologizing to a hard drive. But hey, a human will read this someday, won’t you?

  Yesterday I got all excited when something glimmered on the horizon and I started thinking about rescue craft. I won’t make that mistake again, but I swear I saw an explosion in the same direction a few minutes back…some sort of a burst of sparkles, of what looked like sparkles, as if metal was reflecting in the sun, which is behind me at the moment. Then it seemed to move to the left and disappear. Poor Bill would probably have known what it was…some space phenomenon all astronauts consider routine but gets an amateur like me all excited.

  Anyway, where was I?

  Oh yes. Growing up in my ideal family. At least I thought they were ideal, and I loved my folks, both of whom are gone now. Dad was an executive with a big mining company and an upright, reliable, serious, and dedicated father, who defined life as a series of challenges a man met with responsibility for those who depended on him. But I guess when he was programmed as a child, someone forgot to include the concept of fun and self.

  The symbol for new e-mail pops up in the right-hand corner of his screen and Alastair opens a window to read it while still watching the evolving narrative.

  To: Alastair

  From: Becky

  Message: Hey, blockhead! Guess what? There is a private spacecraft in trouble right now on orbit, and there are two men aboard, an astronaut named Bill and a passenger named Kip Dawson. Don’t you ever watch the telly? You’re too cynical, you know that? Ever consider this might be real?

  Alastair triggers the reply button.

  You’re kidding, right? This could be real?

  He sends it back through cyberspace to Becky wondering what she’s doing on her computer at two in the afternoon in London, but before she can reply a host of other e-mails start snapping in from his friends, all apparently tuning in and reacting to the strange narrative.

  If this is real, he thinks, the guy says no one can hear him on the radios. Do the space officials know about this?

  He sits back, suddenly uncertain, as if he’s just witnessed a momentous adult event like a serious crime or terrible accident and he should be the one to alert the authorities.

  He wonders how upset his dad would be if he tapped on their bedroom door now and asked for help.

  No, not a good idea.

  Maybe he can handle it himself, but he’s getting a really creepy feeling.

  ASA HEADQUARTERS, MOJAVE, CALIFORNIA, 10:20 A.M. PACIFIC

  Dammit!

  Diana is already coming through the door when Richard spots the bottle of tawny port he’s left on his desk. He’s not a teetotaler, but he abhors the idea of anyone thinking he needs to drink to get through even a day like this.

  But she’s already spotted it and gone straight to the bottle, lifting it to examine the label.

  “Good brand. Can I mooch some?”

  “Be my guest. I was just, ah…”

  Her hand is out, accompanying her shaking head.

  “No explanation needed, Richard. Frankly, I’d worry about you if you weren’t drinking.” She pours an inch into a tumbler as she hands him his glass, then raises hers in a quick toast. “To NORAD and NASA and God knows who took care of that object.”

  “I know.”

  “So…who did?”

  He’s shaking his head. “They won’t tell me, other than to say that the threat has been terminated and we would be best advised to never mention it.”

  “Hookay. I’ll drink to that.”

  “Still doesn’t get them back down.”

  “No, but it sure solves the immediate problem.”

  Richard looks at her, calculating whether to remind her that a few hours ago she’d found a positive side to a quick ending. No point, he concludes. It would sound like a slap, and she was only doing her best. Putting the best face on anything up to and including disaster is what she does.

  His cell rings and Richard keys it on, a strange look crossing his face as he asks the caller to hold and raises his eyes to Diana.

  “I hate to ask you…”

  “But you need some privacy. No problem. I’ll be down the hall.”

  She picks up the bottle of port and shoots him a questioning look.

  “May I?”

  “Please.”

  “Good stuff,” she says on the way out.

  Richard pulls the phone back to his ear. “Go ahead, Vasily.”

  “Well, my friend, it has been a busy last few hours, no?”

  A cascade of caution stops his response. Do the Russians know what the Air Force just did?

  “Which, ah, nightmare of mine are you referring to?”

  There is a chuckle on the other end. “That NASA has decided to get the shuttle ready to go up and do what you’ve retained us to do, Richard. I had a long talk with John Kent. I believe this would be STS193.”

  “They’ll never make it in time. At least, I don’t think they will.”

  “We don’t think so either, but you know what happens when NASA has a blowtorch to their ass. They usually move. In fact, in my humble experience, that’s the only way to get NASA to move fast.”

  “But…you’re still going to try, right?”

  “Of course. But things have changed. Now it has become a political matter and a matter of Russian honor.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Our president, Andrei Kosachyov, has become inv
olved, and when he discovered that NASA was going to try and probably fail, and that we were getting ready to do this for you for a price, he directed us to cancel the charge and be the ones to pluck your people back as a humanitarian gesture.”

  “Really?” Richard replies, thinking of his two million dollars now in a Moscow bank. “Without charge?”

  There is a pause and then brief unrestrained laughter. “Yes, Richard, without charge, and your deposit is already being wired back to you. Good for you, no? Bad for me. No commission.”

  “Hey, I can take care of that.”

  “No charge means no charge, but we are on schedule now. I thought you needed to know.”

  “Thank you, Vasily!”

  “Oh, one other thing. The Japanese Space Agency’s Hiragawa just called me. He said the Chinese are about to make a similar decision to help.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “No. It may get crowded up there.”

  “Well, aren’t you guys going to coordinate?”

  “If coordinate means defer to them, the answer is no. We have our orders. We will get your people. This is no time for the Chinese to be messing around.”