Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Follett, James, 1939-

Daminator.

I. Title

PR6056.044D66 1986 823'-914

ISBN 0-385-l9778-0

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 85-15988

Copyright 1984 by James Follett

Ail RIGHTS RESERVED

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FIRST EDITION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

DOMINATOR

1

June

Wings tucked into its shark-like fuselage, the strike aircraft moved at a colossal speed which was causing its titanium skin to begin to glow.

The MiG-35 was the world's fastest combat aircraft. It hurtled in from the west—boring through the Mediterranean haze at six times the speed of sound, at a radar-evading height of fifty feet, with the roar from its two Tumansky engines trailing one hundred miles behind.

There was little for the pilot to do. Armon Habet sat in a silent cocoon of electronics and digital displays. On-board computers controlled every aspect of the flight—translating the signals from the terrain-hugging radar into impulses that maintained the aircraft's course and height with a deadly precision.

Armon kept an anxious eye on the hazard monitors that would warn him when they had detected an approaching missile. He had a healthy respect for the Israeli coastal defences. A surface-to-air Mishmar missile had chased him for two minutes on the last raid. Luckily the MiG-35 had the speed to outstrip the Mishmar, but it had been a close thing and there was always the chance that a Mishmar well placed for an intercept would score.

The target proximity warning tone chimed. Armon thumbed the attack status touch key and the MiG chmbed automatically to five hundred feet.

Suddenly the hotel was on the horizon. And then it was streaking towards Armon at one mile per second.

A jolt. A changed digital reading. And his AS-20 missile was away.

Armon never saw the attack he had launched; his MiG had penetrated ten miles into Israeli airspace and was climbing to clear the Golan Heights by the time the missile had identified and locked onto its target.

The AS-20 was one hundred yards from the hotel when its on-board radar detonated the warhead so that it spewed forth a cluster of three hundred anti-personnel bombs.

The hotel's guests had no time to comprehend the hellish weapon that had been unleashed on them. And no time to panic. The baseball-sized bombs smashed through the hotel's facade at the same moment as the shock wave from the MiG's passage rocked the hotel and the surrounding apartment buildings.

The bombs exploded in bedrooms and bathrooms. They exploded in elevators. They exploded in the restaurant and bar, and in the sauna. They exploded in the hairdressing salon, in the lobby, and in the gift shops. Some even exploded in the crowded swimming-pool. Nine out of ten of the detonating bombs sprayed their surroundings with hundreds of tiny plastic barbs that embedded deeply in flesh. For those victims who survived, the barbs would be virtually impossible to find on X-ray plates. And the toxin released as they dissolved into the bloodstream ensured that the victims would eventually die anyway after first draining the enemy's medical resources. Every tenth bomb was an incendiary that splattered globules of sticky, white-hot magnesium in all directions.

Armon and his MiG—emblazoned with Palestinian Air Force markings—were over Nazareth, streaking towards Syria, by the time the first panic-stricken screams of the victims were heard in the Mediterranean holiday resort.

Hendrik Rymann, Israel's twelfth Prime Minister, was taking his customary one-hour afternoon nap in the bedroom on the top floor of his official residence in Jerusalem's Smolenskin Street when the green bedside phone rang softly.

His thoughts were organized by the time his groping hand found the handset. Only one man could call him on the green encryptophone—his close friend and lifelong confidant: Dr. Michael Greer, the donnish civilian head of the Institute. Better known as Mossad—the Israeli Secret Service.

It had to be bad news. Serious bad news. There was no such thing as good news any more.

"Good afternoon, Michael," said Rymann with contrived crispness while rubbing his eyes.

Greer didn't bother with an apology for disturbing Rymann because he knew that it would be cut short. "Hendrik—there's been another MiG-35 rhubarb," he stated without preamble.

Rymann was suddenly wide awake. "Where?"

"Netanya. The Dan Hotel."

"Casualties?" asked Rymann, voicing his primary concern.

There was a pause at the other end of the line. "In excess of two hundred killed. Another forty plus injured."

Anyone who did not know the Israeli Prime Minister well would have assumed from his good-humoured expression that he was unaffected by the news. The truth was that Hendrik Rymann suddenly felt sick in his stomach. Running his fingers through his close-cropped hair, he mentally composed the letter he would be sending to all the victims' families. He made a point of setting aside an hour of every working day to send personal letters to all the close relatives of those men and women who had died in the conflict. It was to his credit that one year of sustained and bloody war with the PLO had not desensitized him against casualty figures. "Thank you for calling me, Michael," he said at length. "We'll discuss it at this evening's meeting."

Rymann replaced the receiver without waiting for a reply. He lay back on his bed staring up at the ceiling.

2

His predecessor would have called the Chel Ha'Avir High Command and ordered an immediate retaliatory air strike. But that was why the emotional Hari Ritz was no longer Prime Minister of Israel and Hendrik Rymann was. Twelve months previously, a section of the Wailing Wall had been destroyed by a PLO suicide pilot. Incensed at this attack on the holiest of Jewish shrines, Ritz had ordered an air strike against the Kaaba at Mecca. He had issued the order without consulting his advisors or the Cabinet. Nearly five thousand Muslim pilgrims gathered around the sacred black stone had been killed in the raid on the Grand Mosque.

It had been a lunatic move that had cost Israel dearly and had triggered the Second War of Attrition. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia had abandoned its moderate policy towards Israel and come down firmly on the side of the PLO. Egypt had scrapped its peace treaties with Israel and followed suit, and the rest of the Arab world had followed Egypt. The Soviet Union, sensing which way the wind was blowing, had immediately offered the PLO an interim homeland at Bakal on the Black Sea which the PLO's charismatic leader, Joseph Maken, had accepted.

Hari Ritz had resigned his office and his Knesset seat, forcing the political parties of the ruling DMC Alliance to find another leader—and quickly.

Hendrik Rymann, the good-humoured, plain-speaking Minister of Defence, with his unashamed taste for a steady procession of beautiful women, had not been the obvious choice. The feeling was that Rymann's candour and easy-going humour would count against him. Journalists who did not know Rymann well had argued that it was impossible to take seriously a man who had once told a CBS reporter that the only thing wrong with Israel was its scarcity of blondes.

When the fierce party lobbying had started, many had been astonished at Rymann's popularity. Over 40 Haver Knessets out of 130 members had expressed their support for Rymann's nomination. Even more surprising was that the influential Rabbi Val Nassim of the ultra-orthodox Agudat Yisrael party, and one of Rymann's main enemies, should have come down on Rymann's side, saying that it was better to have an honest man as Prime Minister than a hypocrite. And as for Rymann's sense of humour—well—he was going to need that in the months to come.

And so it was, at the age of forty-nine, Hendrik Rymann had become Prime Minister of Israel during the first year of the eighteenth Knesset.

Rymann's mind turned to the phone call he had just received. It was not hard to see why Joseph Maken had picked the Dan Hotel for yet another of his hghtning raids. The beachfront hotel was considered one of the finest in Israel and had often been used for the signing of peace treaties with neighbouring hostile countries in the days of Israeli military supremacy. As a young army officer, Rymann had attended the initialling of a treaty in the Dan Hotel between Israel and Lebanon. Over the intervening years the hotel had become identified in Arab eyes as the scene of repeated humiliations. It was inevitable that the PLO would seek to destroy it once they had the ability to do so.

Rymann glanced at his watch. He had twenty-five precious minutes of solitude before his secretary called him. He considered sending for Semona to share the twenty-five minutes but decided against it. Rav-Turai (Sergeant) Semona Lucca was the most stunningly beautiful chauffeur in the Israeh army. Her greatest asset, after her magnificent body, was that she didn't have to be smuggled in and out of his residence; she was already on the staff. The trouble was that he was getting much too fond of her.

As Rymann dozed off to sleep, he had a strange premonition that another shock far worse than the Dan Hotel attack was awaiting him.

There was nothing to suggest that a sudden and horrible death lay thirty minutes in the future for one member of the crew of the space shuttle Orbital Vehicle OV-141— Dominator.

After thirty-one shuttle missions, Neil O'Hara was still in awe of the spectacle of Earth viewed from space. The astronaut reckoned that even when he had flown a hundred missions, he would still grab every quiet moment during a flight to feast his eyes on the tranquil, aquamarine planet that was home.

As for many of his colleagues who flew the shuttles, working in space had had a profound effect on the fair-haired young astronaut. Seeing Earth as a finite entity in the cosmos had instilled in him a cynical disregard of national boundaries and differences. From a height of two hundred miles, the petty squabbles of mankind seemed futile and destructive. Even the question of his deteriorating marriage rarely intruded on his thoughts when he was in orbit. Helen was a being on, literally, another planet—someone he visited on his trips to Earth. Space was his rightful environment—nothing else made sense. For Neil, space travel had become a drug, and the splendour of the remote earth was the hallucination.

3

Antarctica was slipping past two hundred miles below his port window and the east coast of the African continent had appeared straight ahead as a steadily darkening smear on the massive crescent of the horizon.

Poised above the coasting orbiter was the huge bulk of KARMA II—one of the three television-relay Direct Broadcasting Satellites (DBSs) owned by the United Arabic Broadcasting Commission (UABC). With its two mighty wings— solar panels spread to trap energy from the sun—KARMA II resembled a giant bird of prey about to devour the fly-like Dominator.

Two weeks before, the five-hundred-million-dollar satellite had suffered a total failure which was why Neil and his close friend, Al Benyon, were flying their tenth orbiter mission together. As Al had cynically observed before lift-off, "Who would've thought that a mission would be paid for by a bunch of Bedouin tribesmen who've been deprived of their daily dose of camel operas and quiz shows?"

It was one of Al's typical over-simplifications. The truth was more complicated; KARMA II, together with its two sister satellites, carried over two hundred simultaneous TV and radio programmes m all Arabic dialects, covering subjects ranging from farming to computer programming. During their five years' service, the three DBSs had become the most powerful unifying force in the Arab world after Islam. The ten most popular channels among the hundred-million-person audience were those beamed up by the PLO from their new temporary homeland on the Black Sea.

Neil lolled in the shuttle commander's seat while listening absent-mindedly to the exchanges between Al and payload specialist Kellinah Assad—the third member of Dommator's crew.

Assad was standing with his back to Neil at the flight-deck's aft crew station where the observation windows looked out on Dommator's yawning chasm of a cargo bay. He was a senior engineer employed by the United Arabic Broadcasting Commission and had received enough training to allow him to fly on shuttle missions as a payload specialist. A reserved, soft-spoken Jordanian in his mid-thirties, he was particularly skilled at operating the fifty-foot-long crane-like manipulator arm of the remote-controlled Canada robot—used to recover satellites for servicing or to place new satellites in orbit.

Assad was prevented from drifting weightlessly around the flight-deck by Velcro overshoes that gripped the platform. He craned his head up and peered through the overhead observation windows at the spacesuited figure of Al Benyon who was working on KARMA II. The astronaut was wearing one of the new low-bulk spacesuits—extra-vehicular mobility units in NASA jargon—that enabled him to reach into awkward corners when servicing an in-orbit satellite that was too large to haul into the cargo bay.

Neil had not been happy about Al's extra-vehicular activity. It had not been scheduled but Kennedy Space Center ground control had decided that a close eyeball examination of the giant satellite was the quickest and therefore the cheapest way of finding out what was wrong with it.

"Guess I've found the trouble, Kell.' said Al's voice over the speaker. "Gel the Canada to eyeball the God-dam PDUs. A meteoroid's taken them out."

"Sure looks that way."

Assad operated the pistol-grip control that worked the manipulator. The Canada was provided with closed-circut TV cameras on its elbow and wrist that turned the arm into a useful inspection instrument. Assad positioned the articulated arm well clear of Al and zoomed the wrist-mounted camera in on KARMA's power distribution units. He muttered an expletive in Arabic when the close-up picture on his monitor revealed the extent of the damage. A chance-in-a-million meteoroid had hit the plug-in modules at an angle, wrecking all three of the twelve-inch-square instruments.

Al chuckled throatily over the speaker. "Reckon your bosses might put it down to Allah's will, Kell?"

"Only if he's sent another meteor to wreck the spare units in the cargo bay," Assad countered good-humouredly. He glanced over his shoulder at Neil. "Commander." He always addressed Neil by rank because he was not at ease with the easy-going first-name familiarity of the NASA astronauts.

Neil dragged his attention away from the thousand-mile-long stretch of silver that marked Africa's Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika. He twisted around in his seat. "What's the problem, Kell?"

"I'm sorry. Commander, but we have to replace all three of the satellite's power distribution modules. And then they'll have to be calibrated. That's before we can proceed to the routine servicing schedule."

Neil nodded and pulled on his headset. "How much extra time will you need?"

Assad considered: fifteen minutes to replace the modules; an hour for the servicing; and another two hours to boost the satellite back to its operational orbit. "At least an extra two hours. Commander."

Neil nodded. "Okay, Kell. But that'll have to be another two orbits on the mission profile. It's going to cost your outfit an extra million dollars. Plus the cost of Al's EVA."

"I believe UABC can afford it," Assad replied stiffly.

Neil grinned to himself and set the control unit on his belt to external communication. "Control, this is Dominator."

"Go ahead, Dominator, " answered Earl Hackett's voice from the Kennedy Space Center.

"Clients require an additional two orbits to effect repairs."

4

Jason Pelham, NASA's humourless director of the Kennedy Space Center, smiled coldly to himself in his office when he heard the news that Dominator had requested an extension to the mission.

He rose from his desk and stared out across Merritt Island's alligator-infested lagoons towards the giant Vehicle Assembly Building that had been built for the assembly of Apollo/Saturn Vs spacecraft during an earlier age when there had been a money-no-object race to land men on the moon. Since the halcyon days of Apollo, Americans had not returned to the moon. Pelham intended to change that.

For the moment he was well pleased. He did not need to refer to files to know that the extra two orbits requested by OV-141 added up to another one-million-dollar brick in the solid wall of profit for the Shuttle Applications Program that he had promised a congressional committee at the beginning of that fiscal year.

Despite his job, Jason Pelham had no burning interest in the spiritual adventure of aeronautics and space research, just as he had had little interest in trains when he had been chief executive of Amtrak. With Amtrak he had pulled off the impossible and had trebled its profits within seven years. He was committed to doing the same for the shuttle. There had been an academic furor within NASA following his appointment five years previously but the combination of brilliant administrative ability and a thick political hide had enabled him to weather the storm and deal with the subsequent plotting of his downfall.

Upon taking office he had recruited a team of top-management scientists and tasked them with the streamlining of the entire shuttle programme.

"We've got a fleet of fifty operational orbiters," he told his team. "That's more vehicles than Pan Am's and TWA's supersonic transport fleets put together. I want the launching of a shuttle to be as straightforward as sending a Pan Am SST from New York to London. Everything about a launch should be routine because routine is the mother of expenditure reduction."

Nothing escaped his cost-cutting eye. Research programmes into larger shuttles were slashed, expansion of the shuttle-handling facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California was suspended, and the five million visitors a year that the Kennedy Space Center attracted had to pay for admission.

There were screams of anguish—especially over the research cut-backs into larger shuttles—but in many ways Pelham was right: the shuttle was a reliable and proven design; several congressional committee members had endorsed his view that there was little point in spending vast sums on larger shuttles to achieve with one flight what the existing shuttles could manage with two flights.

Pelham turned away from the window and toyed with the model space station on his desk. The elegant, wheel-like structure was his current obsession: a two-hundred-billion-dollar space station and orbital hotel that would provide NASA with a staging post for routine, low-cost trips to the moon. To make such a project as near self-financing as possible, Pelham had held a series of top secret meetings with an international consortium made up of hotel, leisure, and travel interests.

It was a bold and imaginative scheme that had fired the enthusiasm of the hard-nosed men and women on the consortium—especially as their market research had shown that there were plenty of rich people and scientific institutions throughout the world who would clamour for reservations in the orbital hotel. But the consortium was worried about the safety and practicality of using modified shuttles for running a scheduled passenger service.

Pelham had given the consortium another six months to come to a decision. That was the maximum period of time that Rockwell and Rocketdyne were prepared to wait for the go-ahead to build another fifty orbiters. After that they would have to start running down their work-forces.

Pelham was determined that nothing would happen during that six months that might shake the confidence of the consortium in the shuttle.

Jason Pelham's ability as an administrator was matched only by his ruthlessness.

Al Benyon hinged the first and second power distribution modules from their housings in the KARMA satellite without difficulty. He held them up so that Assad could catch hold of them with the manipulator arm and stow them in the shuttle's cargo bay for examination on return to Earth. Al gripped the bow handle on the third unit with a gaundetted hand and twisted.

Nothing happened.

He planted his spaceboots firmly on the side of the satellite and heaved. The plug-in module refused to swivel outwards.

"Christ, Kell," Al muttered into his helmet microphones. "The impact must've buckled the hinges. I need a prybar. The small one."

Assad swung the Canada arm and dipped its head into the shuttle's gaping cargo hold. Like a heron's bill seeking fish, the robot arm's head located the tool-box and deftly removed a prybar. Satisfied that the tool was gripped firmly in the arm's mechanical fingers, Assad swung the arm towards Al. Assad was careful—the movements he permitted the arm were unhurried. Sharp tools and spacesuits did not mix.

"Hurry it up!" pleaded Al.

Neil smiled to himself. After nearly an hour's work in a muggy, sweat-soaked extra-vehicular mobihty unit, Neil knew exactly how Al was feeling.

"Maybe I could use the Canada to swing the module out?" Assad suggested.

"It'll tear the handle off," Al answered brusquely. "It's gotta be levered out—a degree at a time. I'll try it from a different position. Hey! We're diverging—you'd better close up a tickle."

"Commander," Assad called out. "Aft pitch up five."

Neil reached for the centrail Digital Autopilot (DAP) console with his right hand and switched the orbiter's reaction control system jets to manual control. A few pulses from the tiny thrusters that controlled the shuttle's orientation were enough to nudge the shuttle's tail nearer the satellite. The other DAP controls were for altering the shuttle's yaw—for swinging the spacecraft to the left or right.

"Okay—that's fine," said Al's voice.

"I could work the DAP controls from this station," Assad volunteered over his shoulder.

Neil shook his head. "Sorry, Kell, Not while an astronaut's on an EVA."

Assad accepted Neil's decision. He peered up at Al who was using both hands to gradually ease KARMA's stubborn module from its housing. Occasionally Al would request Assad to pass him up various tools from the shuttle's cargo bay.

Neil settled back in his seat to watch the Earth rolling past. Immediately below were the Suid marshlands of the upper Nile. Further north was the barren crown of the African continent's Sahara Desert, and beyond that, clearly visible on the curving horizon, was the azure sweep of the Mediterranean. War-torn Israel, most of Italy and Greece, and Spain as far as the Pyrenees, were cloud-free. Neil could even see the molten thread of the river Jordan that linked the Sea of Galilee with the Dead Sea. During his thirty-one shuttle missions, he had never known such breath-takingly perfect visibility.

Neil was so captivated by the spectacle that he hardly heard Al say, "Okay—she's coming free."

A tiny point of brilliant white light suddenly flared in the Negev desert about fifty miles due south of the Dead Sea. Neil blinked and wondered if the phenomenon might have been due to a slight optical fault in the window.

"You know these gizmos, Kell," said Al, relaxing for a moment and returning the prybar to the manipulator arm's metal fingers. "Reckon she's come free about ten degrees?"

Assad moved the manipulator arm closer to Al and operated the TV camera's zoom control.

Neil knew that there could be nothing wrong with the orbiter's windows. Something had happened in the Negev desert.

Something stupendous to be visible from a height of two hundred miles.

"You're right," said Assad, agreeing with Al while studying his TV monitor. "Ten degrees."

To Neil's distracted ears, Assad had said, "Yaw right—ten degrees." He immediately reached for the yaw trim toggle and flicked it to the right. The orientation thrusters fired, slewing the shuttle to the right.

"Cancel!" screamed Assad.

His warning was too late.

The manipulator arm swung.

The long prybar slashed deep into Al just above the hip and across his stomach. The tool ripped through his spacesuit as though the layers of Terylene, polyurethane, and Spandex mesh were tissue paper. Air erupted through the gash from the spacesuit's pressure bladder, taking with it a cloud of cooling fluid and blood droplets that splattered the aft crew station windows. The force of the air venting from the spacesuit sent Ai's body tumbling at right angles away from the shuttle.

Neil was at Assad's side, staring wide-eyed at Al's receding form. There was a single, strangled cry from Al over the speaker and then a series of croaking gasps.

"For mercy's sake!" Assad almost shouted. "Why in the name of—"

"Al!" said Neil urgently, cutting Assad short with an angry gesture. "Al—do you copy?"

The answer was the soft hiss of white noise from the speaker punctuated by another shuddering croak as the dying astronaut's lungs sucked at the last remnants of air that were geysering from his spacesuit. Al's gauntletted hands, stained red with blood, were pressed over his stomach as if in a desperate attempt to minimize the effect of the terrible wound. There was a final choking gasp and then Al's hands fell lifelessly away.

"Al!" Neil repeated, staring fixedly at the disappearing form. "Do you copy? Do you copy?"

"We've got to go after him," said Assad huskily, breaking the stunned silence that followed after Neil had tried calling Al several more times.

It was two seconds before Neil replied. He forced himself not to allow a despairing note to creep into his voice. "We don't have the fuel for that sort of translation bum."

"We use the manned manoeuvring unit backpack!" Assad snapped.

Neil shook his head while continuing to stare out of the window at Al. He estimated that his buddy was now over two miles from the shuttle. "It would take me thirty minutes to suit up and go after him. And even if I caught up with him and didn't get the bends, the MMU doesn't carry enough propellant to even bring me back, let alone Al's body as well."

"So we do nothing?"

Without looking at Assad, Neil said in a flat, unemotional voice, "Take a close look at him. Al's dead."

Assad stared hard for a moment and then realized that the loops of pallid substance spilling from the ripped spacesuit and slowly wreathing themselves around the astronaut's twisting body were not cooling-fluid tubes as he had first thought.

Suddenly Assad felt violently sick.

5

Anne Saxon was sixty-two. Of all the survivors of the Dan Hotel attack, her bums were the worst. Despite the artificial plastic skin that encased virtually her entire body, including her hands, she was able to grip Rymann's sleeve with a fierce strength, almost pulling him onto the hospital bed. He could just discern the slight movement of her blistered lips beneath the translucent plastic film when she whispered to him. "Mr. Rymann. Both my sons. The 7th Brigade at Al-Arish, and now . . ." Her words faltered. Rymann gendy covered her hands with his. The gesture seemed to give her strength. "And now my husband. How much longer, Mr. Rymann? This is something you must tell me."

Rymann searched vainly for sentences that would not sound like political platitudes but Anne Saxon spoke first. Her words were a measure of her indomitable spirit. "A single blow, Mr. Rymann. It must be a single blow. Israel is too small to bleed from a thousand cuts without dying . . . Too small ..."

Her fingers relaxed their grip and she gazed at the ward ceiling, her breathing shallow and uneven.

A hovering doctor touched Rymann's shoulder. "You've now seen everyone, sir."

Rymann nodded and stood. He had spent an average of three minutes with each of the seventy-two survivors and he did not begrudge a second of the upset to his schedule. That was something for his secretaries to worry about.

Greer was waiting for him m the hospital corridor. Rymann knew from his craggy, expressionless features that he had more bad news.

"There's been an explosion at the Negev desert, Hendrik."

Rymann suddenly felt numb. There was only one place in the Negev desert that was of any consequence.

"When?"

"Eight o'clock this morning."

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"I knew you wouldn't want to rush this visit."

It was a fundamental truth for which Rymann had no counter-argument. "One day, Michael," he said without rancour. "One day—one great, glorious day, you're going to bring me good news."

The only sign of life visible from one thousand feet were a few soldiers milling around a large marquee the size of a circus big top. They were too busy to even look up at the approaching helicopter. Parked by the marquee's entrance were two armoured personnel carriers and a communications truck.

Nearby was a large black cross that the army had marked out on the desert floor as a helicopter landing pad.

Rymann and Greer stared down from the Solomon helicopter at the appalling devastation below.

There was hardly anything left of the Negev Guided Weapons Research Establishment. The concrete blockhouses, laboratory buildings, test chambers, administrative offices, and accommodation village had been blasted out of existence by a single, cataclysmic explosion. By a quirk of fate, only the school was still standing.

Only six weeks ago Rymann had visited the top secret rocket station deep in the barren hills of the Negev desert. Then there had been congratulatory speeches from Rymann following the successful test firing of the first pre-production Masada booster from an Israeli merchant ship in the Southern Ocean. Afterwords he had toured the establishment. All the facilities been cleverly disguised as the buildings of a desert agricultural research station. There were even a few fields terraced into the surrounding hills for genuine experiments into new crop strains.

Rymann had chatted to each of the two hundred and fifty engineers, scientists, and designers involved with the Masada booster development. He had shaken hands with every man and kissed every woman.

After visiting the school and spending an enjoyable fifteen minutes with the children, Rymann had stood beside the giant twenty-wheel launcher/transporter and watched the second pre-production Masada booster, with its Masada missile in position, being craned into place.

The ten-metre-long Masada booster was the result of two years' intensive development on a crash programme that had absorbed sixty per cent of Israel's defence budget—a programme that Rymann had pushed through when he had been Minister of Defence. Nearly all of the tiny state's top scientists and technicians who had designed the successful Masada missile had been attached to the booster program. The result of their efforts was the world's first mobile-launched intercontinental missile. The Masada missile, together with its new booster, was a brilliant concept. It did not require large and vulnerable fixed bases, and its range of ten thousand miles, together with its precision celestial/inertial navigation computer, meant that it could hit any target in the Arab and African world. One would be capable of wiping out the PLO base at Bakal on the Black Sea.

A celebratory luncheon held in the air-conditioned booster assembly block had marked the end of Rymann's visit. He had delivered a short speech during which he had stressed what his uncritical audience was already profoundly aware of: that the survival of the State of Israel now depended wholly on the Masada booster. Without it, Israel's enemies could wage and were waging a merciless war with impunity from behind their screens of deadly surface-to-air SAM-50A missile batteries. The Soviet-built missiles could pick Israeli fighters out of the sky with such infallible accuracy that the Chel Ha 'Avir had lost half its operational aircraft in the first six months of the war. With the Masada and its booster, Israel would have the means of delivering a nuclear warhead to any point on the globe where her enemies were hiding.

That speech had been delivered six weeks ago.

The men and women who had listened to it were now dead.

All that was left intact of the Negev Rocket Establishment was the school building and some fields of experimental crops.

The helicopter settled on the black cross. As soon as the dust thrown up by the slowing rotors had settled, a heavy man in army uniform left the marquee.

He was Lieutenant General Daniel Kazaar, the GOC of the Zahal Southern Command, a tough, thickset man aged about forty-five. He was wearing a green paratrooper's beret. Above the right pocket of his battledress blouse were the ribbons of the Ot Haoz —Israel's second highest military award. During his thirty years as a professional soldier he had witnessed the bloodiest fighting imaginable, and yet that had not prepared him for the ordeal of the clear-up in the aftermath of the explosion. He stood to attention under the blazing desert sun, his face haggard and drawn.

The heat hit Rymann and Greer like a wall as they stepped down from the helicopter. General Kazaar saluted and shook hands with his visitors.

"I'm sorry there's no proper welcoming committee, sir," said the general as he led the way to the marquee. "But I'm the only senior officer present."

Rymann dismissed the apology. He entered the giant tent and surveyed the interior with a single glance. A number of reservists were working at field desks. A roped-off area in the centre of the marquee was piled high with twisted and blackened pieces of unrecognizable ironmongery that two civilians were picking over. On the far side of the tent was the fat, cylindrical bulk of an air-conditioned cargo pod resting on a wooden cradle.

"It contains the bodies, sir," said General Kazaar in answer to Rymann's question.

"All of them?"

"Yes, sir."

"How many?"

"Two hundred and ninety-one, sir." The general shot a glance at Rymann and noted that for once the politician's usual good-humoured expression was absent. He continued, "There's a reserve Chinook on its way to airlift the pod to Tel Aviv."

"How many survivors?" asked Greer, speaking for the first time.

General Kazaar turned to face the head of Mossad. "Thirty-one," he replied. "They were all children. For some reason or other, the schoolhouse escaped the worst of the blast. They've been flown direct to the military hospital at Hazor."

Rymann made a mental note to visit the children as soon as possible. "Do you have any idea as to the cause of the explosion?" he asked.

The senior officer shook his head and indicated the civilians who were examining bits of wreckage. "That's what those two hope to find out. So far they're certain that it wasn't sabotage."

"Do you have a list of the victims, General?" Greer inquired.

"Yes, sir," General Kazaar answered stiffly. He didn't care for Greer and had been one of those who had opposed the appointment of a civilian as the Memuneh —father—of Mossad. Even so, the officer had been the first to admit in private that the scholarly Greer was probably the best chief that Mossad had known. In common with all the members of Rymann's Cabinet, what General Kazaar really disliked about Greer was his closeness to and influence over the Prime Minister.

"We'll need a copy now, please," Greer requested. "And a desk."

There were some names on the list that Rymann remembered from his last visit—Alan Delmante, one of Israel's top rocket designers, appeared on the first page—but most of the names were meaningless to him. He could not bring himself to read the list to the end. "Why no rank or positions?" he asked Greer.

"No personnel records were kept here."

"Does the Institute have records?"

"No. The only set in existence is in Ab Yaranski's office. My orders."

Rymann picked up the encryptophone that General Kazaar had provided on the desk in the marquee. "Get me Ab Yaranski at the Rafael Armament Development Authority," he ordered the girl corporal in the communications truck. He looked up at Greer while waiting for the connection to be made. "We're going straight from here to see those kids."

"There are other, more pressing matters, Hendrik."

Rymann scowled. "So let's deal with them now. How long will it take to assemble a new Masada team?"

Greer looked uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, Hendrik. I can't give an exact answer until we have a clearer idea of the talent that's been lost and whether such talent is duplicated elsewhere. Yaranski could give you an answer off the top of his head. I can't."

Rymann's expression hardened. "For once, Michael. Just for once, stick that scrawny neck of yours out and risk a guess. I guarantee that you'll find the operation painless."

The phone rang. "I'm sorry, sir," said the communications girl. "But General Kazaar says that Ab Yaranski is on the casualty list."

"What!" Rymann exploded. "What was he doing here?"

General Kazaar came on the line just as Greer located Yaranski's name on the last sheet of the list. "We don't know, sir," said the army officer. "But we found a reservist ID bracelet with his name on it." The general decided against adding that the ID bracelet had been found on what was left of an arm.

"Thank you, General," said Rymann. "Contact Yaranski's deputy and find out what he was doing here."

Greer looked up from the list. His gaunt face was suddenly even more haggard than usual. Rymann saw his expression, made a hasty apology to General Kazaar, and replaced the handset. "What's the matter, Michael?"

For a moment Greer seemed lost for words. "These names," he muttered, indicating the list. "At first I thought they were coincidental. But they're not. Harriman, George Kingsley. That can only be the George Harriman."

Rymann stared at his friend in horror. George Harriman was Israel's brilliant aircraft designer and the technical director of Israel Aircraft Industries, the state-owned aerospace giant. His brilliant mind had conceived the Sharav—Desert Wind—multiple-role combat aircraft that could out-perform the MiG-25 Foxbat. Five hundred operational Sharav IVs now formed the backbone of the Chel Ha 'Avir.

During the next five minutes a stunned Greer picked out from the list several more names of Israel's top scientists.

The phone rang again. It was General Kazaar. "I've been in touch with Yaranski's office, sir," the army officer told Rymann. "He was here because a top-level meeting had been called to resolve a number of pre-production problems."

Rymann listened to General Kazaar for a few more minutes and thanked him. "My God!" he muttered to Greer. "They were all here. Every top rocket engineer in the country."

There was a silence before Greer spoke. His lined face was grey. "In that case this explosion may have cost us the war," he said at length. "Without the booster for the Masada—"

"Let us not be defeatist, Michael," said Rymann mildly.

"And let us not be blind," Greer countered. He pointed to the mounting piles of debris that the civilian experts were sorting out into marked squares. "Look at that lot, Hendrik. Jigs, press tools, dies. A thousand and one specialized tools that were needed to put the booster into production. Two years' work and now there's nothing left."

"So we start again," said Rymann quietly. "We've done it once. We can do it again."

Greer leaned forwards on the desk and confronted his friend. "Hendrik—listen. Two years ago when we set up the Masada booster project we had a ready-made team of our best brains that had already produced the main missile. Today we have nothing." He waved the list under Rymann's nose. "Designers, scientists, technicians, fuel chemists, production engineers. They're all dead, Hendrik. Every last one of them."

One of the civilians approached the desk where the two men were sitting. He was balding and overweight. He nervously cleared his throat.

"Sirs—General Kazaar told me to report directly to you as soon as we knew something," he began. "We can't be one hundred per cent certain just yet, but we think we now know what caused the explosion."

"You'd better sit down," said Rymann, nodding to an empty chair.

The civilian sat and placed on the table a shapeless mass of grey plastic that had some wires hanging from it. "This was a remote-controlled gate valve," the civilian explained. "It metered the flow of liquid rocket fuel oxidizer from the main underground storage tank to the fuel solidifying facility." He mopped his forehead with a handkerchief and glanced at the two men in turn. "We now know for certain that the explosion took place near the storage tanks."

"So?" Greer prompted.

"We've found the remains of another valve identical to this one. American. The two valves worked in tandem as a fail-safe device so that the fuel couldn't reach the oxidizer when the tanks were closed down." The civilian pointed to the valve. "It has a serious design fault that can cause it to jam open when it has been switched off. This one is open now although it should be in the closed position when there's no current flowing through it. If both valves remained jammed open at the same time ..." The civilian left the sentence unfinished. The silence from the two men made him uncomfortable. "Of course —we can't be certain just yet."

"So it wasn't sabotage?" Rymann demanded.

The civilian shook his head. "We don't think so, sir."

Rymann picked up the faulty valve and regarded it thoughtfully.

"How much do these things cost?"

The civilian looked uncertain. "I'd say no more than five hundred dollars each, sir."

Rymann caught Greer's eye. The two men knew each other well enough to know what the other was thinking: nearly three hundred men and women had died, and the State of Israel was in grave peril, because of two faulty pieces of hardware that had cost less than five hundred dollars apiece.

Normally Neil enjoyed driving. The sensation of being luxuriously isolated from his fellow humans in a high-tech womb of vinyl, steel, and glass was the nearest he could get to the strange feeling of detachment from worldly problems that he relished when in space.

But this time the twenty-five-mile drive from the Kennedy Space Center to Melbourne was a nightmare.

It was Al's car. The two astronauts had always shared a car when they were flying on a mission together. Everything about the vehicle screamed Al: the selection of tapes, the sun-glasses, the hunting magazines on the back seat.

Neil turned off Highway AlA—Florida's Atlantic coast road —and slowed as he approached the two high gates that guarded the entrance to the Indialantic Gardens Estate. He punched out his pass number on the dashboard keypad and the gates opened automatically. He drove slowly along the sabal-palm-lined roads of the elegant estate. Bud Allison's two teen-age sons broke off their chatter with two girls to stare at him as he went past. The open hostihty in their gaze forced upon him the realization that the combination of Al's death and living on the lush Melbourne estate was going to raise a whole set of problems that he hadn't even thought about. Indialantic Gardens was referred to locally as "Astronaut Alley" because several orbiter crews had moved there from Houston when NASA had decided to concentrate most of its shuttle activities at Kennedy. It was a small, close-knit community of Philishaved lawns, high-security fences, and low-security marriages, whose houses fetched a third of a million dollars apiece for alimony lawyers to fight over.

Neil and Helen had been among the first to move to the new development three years previously when he landed the job with NASA after he quit flying for Pan Am. They picked a house that fronted on the ocean. After living in Texas all their lives, they found magic in lying in bed in the morning and watching the panorama of the Atlantic emerge as the wall-to-ceiling windows depolarized. Also there had been magic in their ten-year marriage, but that was yesterday.

Neil parked the car in the drive beside his Winnebago camper and cut the engine. He was exhausted and miserable. Landing Dommator without Al had not been too bad. It was what had followed: the intensive debriefing; the searching questions over what had gone wrong. Even Jason Pelham had showed up—smooth-talking the press—no statements until there had been the fullest inquiry into the accident. Scared shitless that adverse publicity might damage the reputation of his precious dollar-spinning orbiter fleet.

There was no movement from the house. Helen had taken the kids to visit her mother at Houston as she always did when he was flying a mission. There was no Pippa rushing out with a raucous "Hi, Pa!" and flinging herself at him as he stepped from the car. No Andrew standing shyly in the background. Helen never came out any more anyway.

He was breaking the seal on a can of self-chilling beer when he noticed a light flashing on the kitchen television, indicating that a teletext message was in the set's huffier store. He thumbed the fingerprint recognition pad. Helen's girlish handwriting appeared on the screen. She had heard the news about the mission and had decided to stay a few more days with her mother.

"I need to sort out my thoughts," she had written in her closing paragraph. "I think this will be best for both of us and the children."

The teletext letter ended with her stylish H. No love. No kisses. Nothing. According to the identication line at the top of the screen, the message had been filed two hours earlier— when Helen knew that he would not be home.

Neil checked the telephone answering machine in case she had had second thoughts. As expected, the tape was blank.

He drained the first can of beer and opened another.

6

The Suntree Golf Club was one of the best and most exclusive on Brevard County's Space Coast and was the one place where Jason Pelham could usually be found when he wasn't behind his desk.

He lifted a hand to his lined forehead and shaded his eyes against the setting sun. He studied the fairway for some seconds and placed his ball on the tee.

Earl Hackett, director of the Shuttle Exploitation Program, looked on while Pelham stared first at the ball and then down the fairway. Hackett loved golf, but not partnering with Pelham. Not so much because Pelham took the whole business too seriously—as if there were a million-dollar bet riding on every game—but because one couldn't relax with Pelham. When senses of humour had been handed out, Pelham had been overlooked.

"Most unfortunate about Al Benyon," Pelham observed, question-marking his lanky frame over his bag to select a club.

Hackett was relieved that the embargo on discussion of the subject had finally been lifted. It had taken six holes. He agreed with Pelham, adding, "We're going to ban the use of the word 'yaw.' "

"Oh?" said Pelham mildly, scratching a speck of almost invisible mud off the face of the club with a finger-nail. "Won't that reflect on us?"

Hackett was puzzled. "How do you mean?"

"This accident must be seen for what it was—human error. Not an operational error."

"You're saying that the accident was Neil O'Hara's fault?"

Pelham squatted and squinted down the fairway. "I'm not saying that. But you will be saying that to the review board."

"It wasn't O'Hara's fault," said Hackett quietly. "The word 'yaw' should've been banned twenty years ago. Okay—so maybe he should've verified what was said. But—"

"Precisely. He should have done something and he failed to do so."

"The cause of the accident goes back to the early days of manned space flights—"

"There's only one thing about the past that interests me," said Pelham icily, fixing Hackett with a bleak gaze.

"What's that?"

There was no humour in Pelham's eyes when he smiled. He was a sound judge of character. Hackett was a coward who would do exactly as he said. "Do you know how much business we have lost to Arianespace in the last decade?"

Hackett knew that the West European space agency had grabbed a sizeable chunk of the world's small payload market but he did not have the exact figures. Pelham would have them and they would be very exact. He played safe and shook his head.

"Twelve billion dollars," Pelham stated.

"In terms of percentage of our turnover—that's nothing," said Hackett uncomfortably.

"It's still twelve billion dollars that Europe got their hands on and we didn't," Pelham remarked curtly. "And they'll try to grab even more when the Euroshuttle enters service. Then, in a few years, the Soviets will have their shuttle operating. We can only stay ahead by maintaining the reputation of our shuttles as the safest and cheapest carrier fleet in the world." He paused. "And then there's the orbital hotel . . ."

Now we're really getting down to it, thought Hackett.

"Any weakening of public confidence in the shuttle at this stage and the consortium might pull out before the contract's signed. That would be three years' work wasted and the wrecking of our chances of getting back to the moon on a self-financing basis." Pelham swung his club experimentally. "Do you support me on that?"

"On that point I do," said Hackett. "But shifting the blame onto O'Hara—"

"Who is to blame anyway?"

"The accident was nothing like one hundred per cent his fault."

"That's for the review board to decide." Pelham deftly flicked a dead leaf from in front of the tee. "You were acting capcom at the time of the accident; therefore you will be a principal witness. Whether you give your evidence as a former NASA administrator or as someone on my pay-roll is entirely up to you. Do I make myself clear?"

Hackett wanted to throw his job in Pelham's face there and then. But there was his new house at Indialantic, the kids at college, three cars. A life-style. Instead he nodded and said, "I guess so."

Pelham settled his grip on the club and shuffled his feet until he was correctly balanced. "Excellent. That means I shall be happy to renew your contract next month for another three years. With a raise in salary, of course."

"You realize that it will destroy O'Hara?"

"With his experience, he won't have trouble finding a job as a pay load consultant," Pelham remarked casually. He took a deep breath and drove. The club connected neatly but he sliced the shot. He watched the ball swinging towards the palm trees that lined the fairway. "Damn," he muttered. "Damn."

7

July

A crack of a sniper's rifle. A neat hole torn in the grille over the driver's visor, and Rav-Turai Dessouter was dead.

Lieutenant David Heinlein threw his powerful bulk across the cab and tried to grab the wheel as his corporal slumped forwards but he was too late. The Datsun armoured personnel carrier careered across the Nazareth street, overturned, and crashed into an Arab-owned TV shop just as Heinlein broke the seal on the tiny radio beacon that was sewn into his drill shirt. The continuous side-band signal from the miniature transmitter would summons immediate reinforcements. He pushed Dessouter's body clear of the emergency door and scrambled out of the vehicle.

The crash had taken place near the Church of the Annunciation on the Haifa-Afula road. There were more Arab youths than usual hanging about. The overturning army vehicle acted as a signal for the riot to begin.

The other six paratroopers in Heinlein's patrol piled out of the back of the carrier and took up defensive positions behind its metallic bulk as the stones from the yelling mob rained down. The shop-owner was screaming hysterically at them in a mixture of Arabic and Hebrew. A petrol bomb shattered with a loud WHUMMPH! against the side of the overturned carrier and engulfed it in a ball of fire.

"Get clear!" Heinlein yelled at his men.

The six men stumbled across the debris from the wrecked shop. Heinlein ignored the Arab mob and the searing heat from the blazing vehicle. He scanned the tops of the buildings where he was certain the sniper had fired from.

It was imperative to catch the sniper. The sniper would be one of Joseph Maken's agents infiltrated back into the township from the PLO base on the Black Sea. He would be the organizer behind this trouble: a man, or woman, trained in sabotage techniques—whose opening shots were the signal to the Arab populace for the riot to start. It didn't matter about the mob—they weren't important; there would always be Arab mobs—but the sniper was important. Get the sniper and you smashed the cell. And if you caught him alive, you might get some useful intelligence. That's what the staff-training colleges had always preached.

"Okay! Follow me!" Heinlein yelled, straightening up. He was tall and powerfully built, yet the force of the grenade that exploded fifty yards away was enough to lift him off his feet and hurl him backwards, winding him for precious seconds. He staggered groggily to his feet, made sure his assault rifle was undamaged, and raced down the side-street towards the apartment block. Blinds were being hoisted and faces were appearing at the building's windows with the exception of one window on the top floor where the blind was already up despite the fact that the room would be receiving direct sunlight. It made him suspicious. But he had to get nearer. He signalled to his men to flatten themselves against the wall and suddenly realized that he was alone. There was the sound of small arms fire but it was too late to go back. He had to get the sniper.

Heinlein moved swiftly along the narrow street. Some young Arabs heading towards the sound of the riot gave him puzzled glances as he pounded by. He ignored them. At the end of the street he swerved into a passage. He now had a clear view of the block's fagade. He yanked his field-glasses from their case and focussed them on the suspect window. The sunlight reflected from the half-open sash made it difficult to pick out any details but he was certain he could see the head and shoulders of a man, and what could have been sunlight glinting on a rifle barrel.

He counted the levels. The seventh floor. It was all he needed. A minute later he was running down the litter-strewn street towards the apartment building's main entrance.

An army staff car, its turbine howling, shot out of the crossroads in front of him and disappeared. There was the sound of screeching brakes, the harsh whine of a gearbox in reverse, and the car reappeared. Heinlein dodged around it. He was within fifty yards of the block's main entrance when he heard a familiar voice from behind.

"Lieutenant Heinlein!"

Heinlein kept running.

"Lieutenant Heinlein!" The voice barked.

Heinlein's army boots kicked sparks as he skidded and turned.

Segan-Aluf Sharon was sitting in the back seat of the car. He was regarding Heinlein with an expression that was even more unfriendly than usual.

"The disturbance is in the other direction. Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir," Heinlein acknowledged. He jerked his thumb at the apartment block. "I think the sniper that started it is holed up in there. With your permission, I—"

"Sniper?" said Lieutenant-Colonel Sharon mildly. "I've received no reports of a sniper operating in this area."

"Well, you're receiving one now, sir."

Sharon's eyes narrowed. "Where are your men, Lieutenant?"

"I was separated from them, sir. I thought they'd heard my order to follow me."

"You thought?"

"Yes, sir," Heinlein replied. He gave up all hope of catching the sniper. Segan-AlufShsiron was in one of his all too frequent bloody-minded moods.

The senior officer held the rear car door open. "I think. Lieutenant Heinlein," he said slowly and deliberately, "that it might be a good idea if you accompanied me."

8

Helen had been gone ten days. Neil was becoming accustomed to living alone but each time he encountered Pippa's and Andrew's toys heightened his awareness of the dull ache that was now his constant companion.

A teletext letter arrived as he was loading ingredients into the autochef. It was from Earl Hackett informing him of his suspension from operational duties pending the findings of the review board set up to investigate the cause of Al Benyon's death. The letter concluded with:

You will continue to draw full pay until the review board has published its findings. In the meantime, you are not required to report to the KSC for duty until you are called upon to give evidence to the board.

Neil pressed the hard-copy button on the set's keypad and watched a printed copy of the letter emerge from the print-out slot. He tore the letter off and read it in the irrational hope that the wording would vary from the wording on the screen.

The telephone rang. A familiar Houston number had appeared on the telephone's base unit display. It was Helen. No opening pleasantries. Not even a "How are you doing?" Just "Have you seen the NASA news channel this morning?"

"No—but I can guess what it says. Listen, Helen, I'd like—"

"Mother wants me to stay a few more days," she interrupted.

For once he wanted to fight her. He wanted to yell and curse. Instead he said, "Okay, Helen. But I'd like to drive up to see Pippa and Andrew. Seems I've now got some time on my hands."

"I don't think that's a good idea, Neil."

"Why not?"

A pause. "I need time to think."

"But you've had nearly two weeks. When are you coming home?"

"How the hell do you think I can come back now after what's happened? What about Pippa and Andrew having to live with the whispering and the pointing?"

Neil began to get angry. As usual Helen was using the children as a defence against her own fears. "There hasn't been any whispering and pointing, for Chrissake."

"I don't want to talk about it just now."

"Yeah. Well, I do."

"Okay. I'll get a lawyer to call you," Helen snapped. "You can talk it through with him." The line went dead. He hardly had time to collect his thoughts when the telephone rang again. This time the telephone's display was indicating a local number. It turned out to be a Melbourne newspaper seeking his comments on the suspension.

9

Thirty tonnes of laser-guided bombs rained down on Ben-Gurion International Airport with pin-point accuracy from a height of one hundred and sixty thousand feet.

The concrete-piercing bombs damaged the airport's runways, underground fuel tanks, the El Al hangars, and the control tower. Both Sharav assembly lines at the adjoining Israel Aircraft Industries factory were wiped out together with the main drawing office. Thirty-one draughtsmen were killed.

Six Sharav IV fighters from the Chel Ha 'Avirs 101 Squadron had climbed to their maximum ceiling of eighty thousand feet to intercept the raider. The pilots launched their air-to-air Wolverines at the solitary Tupolev V-G long-range bomber and had to watch in angry impotence as the American-built missiles burned out at one hundred and fifty thousand feet. The missiles self-destructed, and their debris spiralled back to earth.

The Tupolev flew on its way, serene and unconcerned.

A voice broke through on the UHF channel that the Sharav fighters used to communicate with each other.

"Tupolev bomber to Sharav Leader. Do you read?" inquired the voice. It was an educated voice speaking good Hebrew.

The Chel Ha 'Avir squadron leader refused to respond.

"I think perhaps you do read me," continued the voice. "This is Joseph Maken speaking from the Tupolev bomber."

All six Israeli pilots switched on their flight voice recorders but none of them answered Maken.

"The raid on Ben-Gurion Airport is regretted," said Maken smoothly. "But it is also the home of Israel Aircraft Industries and is therefore a legitimate military target as far as the PLO is concerned."

The dull crump of the exploding bombs could be heard thirty miles away in Jerusalem.

A report on the raid reached Rymann fifteen minutes later as he was about to open the morning meeting of the Emergency Defence Council. The council's full strength was six, although it was rare for more than five to attend. This morning there were three: Ben Irving, Commander-in-Chief of the Chel Ha'Amr; Samuel Kuttner, the Foreign Minister; and Michael Greer. Rymann preferred his executive groups, like his Cabinet, to be of a minimum size coupled to maximum power.

The report was short and sharp—one side of a sheet of paper—the way Rymann liked them. He read it out to the three men who were seated around the oval olive-wood table in his private conference room on the fourth floor of the Prime Minister's building. The western side of the rectangular parliamentary building was festooned with scaffolding following a bombing raid the previous month.

"So," said Rymann when he had finished reading out the report. "We now have Joseph Maken overflying Israel to justify his selection of targets."

"An act of bravura," Ben Irving commented sourly. He was a large, powerfully built man, accustomed to saying exactly what he thought. His bluntness earned him plenty of enemies, but it was a characteristic that Rymann liked. He knew exactly where he stood with Ben Irving.

"Possibly," Rymann agreed cautiously while running an appreciative eye over the girl taking minutes. "But an act that will certainly look good in the Arab newspapers. You can be certain that a photographer went along with him."

One of Rymann's strengths was his ability to place himself in the enemies' shoes and see things from their point of view.

"All tyrants are power-mad publicity seekers," Irving grunted. "He's revealed an Achilles' heel."

Rymann caught Greer's eye for a moment and switched his gaze out of the window across the President Park and the gardens of the Hakyria government centre. "Well, he's certainly found one of ours if we can't shoot him down from one hundred and sixty thousand feet," he gently reminded Irving.

"You get me the B9s, and it won't happen again," said Irving bluntly. "Two squadrons of those and Maken won't know what hit him."

Rymann turned to the Foreign Minister. "Sam—in a nutshell, please—how are the arms supply talks going in Washington?"

Samuel Kuttner cleared his throat and shuffled a large number of papers that Rymann looked at in alarm. He was a small, florid man, always very correct in manner and speech. Rymann found him a useful bore.

"President Marshall will renew the agreement as it stands. Renegotiation of the present level of matériel quantities and sophistication is out of the question."

Irving muttered a one-word expletive under his breath. "More of their surplus junk from the last decade. That agreement was based on our peace-time supply needs."

Rymann shrugged. "I can see Marshall's point of view. He's facing an election this year. He can't afford to make the supply of arms to Israel an election issue—which is exactly what would happen if the agreement is renegotiated. This isn't the mid-twentieth century. The Jewish vote is a declining factor in U.S. politics. We can thank Ritz for that."

"What are Marshall's chances of being re-elected?" asked Irving, who rarely followed American politics.

"Slim," said Greer, speaking for the first time. "Most of the opinion polls are predicting a ten per cent win for Hadley. And Senator Hadley, as we know, is not over-friendly towards Israel."

Ben Irving leaned forwards, his hands clasped together and his eyes hard. "Rymann, as I see it, we've now got nothing to lose by launching a Masada attack against Maken's base as soon as a booster can be made ready. I don't give a shit if such an attack is interpreted as a violation of Soviet sovereignty."

Rymann shook his head. Army security was especially good if news of the Negev explosion hadn't filtered through to Irving. "That won't be possible."

Irving stuck his granite jaw out. "Why not? Development on that damn booster's finished, isn't it?"

Originally Irving had been opposed to the Masada booster program because it had siphoned funds from the Chel Ha 'Avir's budget. It was the appalling aircraft losses to Soviet SAM-50A missile batteries during the early stages of the war that had forced him to accept the need for the booster.

Provided the God-dam thing worked.

Rymann outlined the details of the Negev explosion. Irving's weathered face seemed to pale as the truth sank in. When Rymann had finished speaking, he burst out, "You mean that there's nothing left?"

Rymann nodded unhappily.

Kuttner gazed at Rymann with a stunned expression and said nothing.

For a moment it looked as if the mercurial Irving was going to lose his temper. He calmed down, but it took an effort. "Not even a pre-production model?"

Rymann shook his head. "All we've got are the drawings and test specifications. We've lost all the jigs, the specialist machine tools—and worse—the brains that created them."

"Holy shit."

Kuttner broke the brief silence that followed. "We've still got Masadas themselves," he pointed out.

Irving rounded on him. "What bloody use are they? What's the use of an accurate short-range missile if we can't get close enough to the enemy to launch the bloody thing? The whole point of the Masada booster is that it gives the Masada the kick it needs for an intercontinental capability."

Rymann wondered if the girl was minuting Irving's expletives as accurately as the previous secretary used to. He hoped so.

"How long will it take us to produce the boosters now?" Irving growled.

"Michael?" asked Rymann.

"Three years," Greer replied promptly, without consulting his notes.

"What!"

"We lost all our top rocket scientists and technicians in the explosion," said Greer. "Thev can't be replaced overnight."

"Three years!" Irvmg exploded. "Do you know what will happen to our country within one year at the current attrition rate? Do you?"

"I think we all know the answer to that," said Rymann unemotionally.

The Chel Ha 'Avirs chief glowered at his Prime Minister. "Does the President know?"

"I saw him this morning."

"May I ask what he said?"

Rymann stared levelly at Irving. "He said that I was to buy time. I was to buy three years—no matter what the cost."

The meeting ended twenty minutes later. The only decision taken was that the Cabinet would have to approve the establishment and funding of a new Masada booster development team as a matter of top priority.

Greer remained behind with Rymann after Irving and Kuttner had left. Rymann stood for some moments—staring to his right at the Hebrew University sprawling across Mount Scopus. Within the magnificent white buildings were the future technicians and scientists upon whom the future of Israel depended. "Any ideas?" he asked Greer.

"Not offhand."

Rymann grinned impishly. "But you'll think of something, Michael."

"I'll think of something," Greer promised. Greer was a man who kept his promises.

10

Even at a distance of ten miles the sustained thunder of the Dominator lifting off from Launch Pad A at Complex 39 was enough to shake the plate-glass windows of the Titusville coastal-strip diner.

A shuttle launch was a familiar enough sight at Titusville. The regulars in the diner didn't even turn around on their stools but a New York family rushed to the door to gaze excitedly across the Indian River and Merritt Island lagoons at the spectacle of the shuttle climbing into the clear Florida sky astride a column of roaring flame and smoke.

"Which one's she, Neil?" asked Harry, the diner's owner, placing a beer in front of the astronaut.

"One-four-one."

"Isn't that your bird?"

Neil took his gaze away from the windows and nodded.

"You know," said Harry affably, "I've been watching those birds fly for close on twenty years now and it still gets me."

Neil closed his eyes and heard the calm, matter-of-fact voice of the capcom in his ears. The yearning to be back in space, to be away from banal, everyday problems had become a cancer eating away at his reason.

The family returned noisily to their table.

"Hey, mister," their small son called out to Harry. "What's the name of that shuttle?"

Harry nodded to Neil. "He's the guy to ask, sonny."

The boy looked questioningly at Neil.

"She's Oscar Victor 141," Neil obliged. The lad looked about eleven years old. Seeing the boy's puzzled expression, he added, "Orbital Vehicle 141. Dommator."

The boy was impressed. "Do you work, at the space centre, sir?"

"You could say that."

Harry chuckled. "He's an astronaut."

The boy's eye lit up. "Hey, that's great. Could I have your autograph, sir?"

"Sure." Neil obliged by signing across a blank page in the autograph book that the boy pulled from his pocket.

"Neil O'Hara?" the boy questioned.

"That's me."

"Weren't you on TV a while back?"

Harry grasped the boy by the shoulders and gave him a playful push towards his family. "You've seen a shuttle go up and you've met an astronaut. Guess you've done pretty well for today, huh, young feller?"

The boy sat down with his parents. Neil watched as the father glanced at the autograph and opened a copy of the New York Times.

"Another beer, Harry."

"That'll be seven."

Neil groaned.

"Better me on your back than the police," Harry commented, sliding Neil a full glass. "If you want me to call Mary to run you home—"

"I'm okay, for God's sake!"

The boy's father glanced up from his newspaper and read from it in low tones to his wife and son.

Harry sat opposite Neil and looked at him in concern as he downed most of the glass in one swallow. "Just want you to know that Mary and me will be thinking of you when you face this inquiry thing "

"Thanks, Harry."

"How long does it go on for?"

"About two days, I guess. I don't know."

The family paid their bill and left. Harry cleaned their table and fished a ball of coloured paper out of the ashtray. He smoothed it out.

"My autograph?" Neil queried.

Harry nodded. "Kids," he commented in disgust.

Neil ordered another drink.

11

Heinlein was inwardly seething with rage. He knew what the verdict of the court martial was as soon as he was ushered back into the court-room. Gideon Tal, his useless defending officer, avoided his eye. Segan-Aluf Sharon did nothing to disguise his smirk of triumph.

President of the court martial tribunal was Aluf-Mishne Leonaida of the 10th Armoured Brigade, a distinguished-looking man who had gone to considerable lengths to ensure that Heinlein had received a fair hearing. He sat at a high-backed chair, flanked by two junior officers who had not spoken a word during the three-day hearing. The Star of David flag was pinned to the wall behind him.

"We have considered all the evidence most carefully, Lieutenant Heinlein," said Leonaida, glancing down at his notebook. "In particular, we have re-examined the findings of Dr. Karolski who examined the remains of your driver and could find no evidence of death by a sniper's bullet."

Of course not! His body had been burnt to a frazzle!

"Then there is the evidence of the men in your company. All of them have said under oath that they did not hear you shout at them to follow you."

Leonaida paused and studied the dark-haired young man standing before him. In his heart he did not believe that Heinlein was a coward. For three days the young officer had stood rigidly to attention, saying nothing; his craggy features a mask; his eyes two unblinking black pools burning into the wall. The only time he had nearly opened his mouth to speak was when Sharon had given evidence. There had been moments when Leonaida would have given his commission to know what Heinlein had been thinking.

Leonaida continued, "We have also heard the evidence of your commanding officer. Segan-AlufShsiTon stated that he has never received reports of a PLO agent or sniper operating in Nazareth. In view of these facts we have no choice but to find you guilty of the charges laid against you. Will you please place your firearm on the table before you."

Heinlein dragged his eyes away from the wall and stared at Leonaida with dark, unseeing eyes. The request was repeated. Heinlein stirred himself. Like a man in a trance, he unbuckled his Luger. For a moment it looked as though he was about to slam the weapon down but he seemed to think better of it and laid it carefully on the table.

"Lieutenant David Heinlein," said Leonaida. "In view of your excellent service record in the Special Parachute Brigade, we have decided to deal leniently with you. On the charge of desertion under fire, you will serve a sentence often years. On the charge of showing cowardice in the face of the enemy, you will serve a sentence often years. Both sentences to run concurrently."

Not a flicker betrayed Heinlein's innermost fury.

"You may retain your rank of segan. Do you have anything to say?"

There was only the slightest hesitation before Heinlein replied. "No, sir."

Gideon Tal rose to request an appeal to the President of the Military Court. The request was granted. Leonaida stood. The court martial was over. The NCO guarding Heinlein touched his elbow.

Tal was standing by the military police car that was waiting outside. He stopped talking to the driver when Heinlein appeared with his escort. Heinlein pointedly ignored him.

"Don't worry, Lieutenant," said Tal, unperturbed by Heinlein's slight. "I'm sure we can get the sentence reduced on appeal."

"Or increased?" countered Heinlein sarcastically.

"There is always that risk," the officer admitted.

A thought occurred to Heinlein as he was about to get into the car. He said to the officer, "Do you know how old I'll be when I'm released?"

Tal looked nonplussed. "Er . . . well . . . Thirty-three? Thirty-four?"

Heinlein regarded him with unconcealed contempt. "Bastard!" he snarled. "You didn't even bother to read my file properly. I'll be forty." He climbed into the back seat beside the NCO. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

The car swept out of the Central Command barracks and merged with the stream of traffic heading into Tel Aviv.

12

Six thousand miles away in Florida, Neil O'Hara was facing a similar ordeal to that suffered by Heinlein.

Opposite him at a long table were the seven members of Congressman Edward Williams's review board. Sharing the row of tables with Neil were Kellinah Assad—the payload specialist on the shuttle mission—and Earl Hackett. Jason Pelham was sitting at the side tables occupied by senior NASA officials. Jane Benyon—Al's widow—had entered the room when Neil had first started answering Williams's questions an hour earlier.

"Okay, Mr. O'Hara," said Wilhams, addressing the conference room's ceiling. "If you find our phraseology hard to follow, let us put that question to you in another way. Would or would you not consider it reasonable for a shuttle commander to verify any potentially ambiguous statement made by a member of his crew?"

The WESH cameraman kept his TV camera aimed steadily at Neil.

"Yes—if he knew it to be ambiguous at the time," Neil replied.

Congressman Williams had the unnerving habit of staring boredly at the ceiling when putting questions to Neil—as if he expected the answers to be fabrications—and then allowing his gaze to wander around the conference room during Neil's replies as though those expectations were being confirmed. He was a former NASA administrator, which tended to give his questions a certain authority, although most of the time he was reading from a list of questions set by the expert members of his review board.

It was the first day of the board's sitting. Its first witness had been Assad, the mission's payload specialist. He had answered Williams's questions with the same degree of politeness with which they had been put. He had stuck to the plain facts and had refused to be coerced into making comments or enlarging unnecessarily on his answers.

"Okay," said Williams after a whispered conference with his colleagues. He gave Neil a contemptuous glance. "It looks like we're getting somewhere at last, so we'll stick with this line of questioning. If a shuttle commander fails to verify an ambiguous statement, would you say that that commander was being negligent?"

"That's a hypothetical question," Neil retorted.

"There was nothing hypothetical about Al Benyon's death," Williams observed.

"If you ask me hypothetical questions, Mr. Chairman, you must expect hypothetical answers."

"It seemed a reasonable question to us, Mr. O'Hara."

"Are you implying that I was negligent?"

Congressman Williams's eyes opened wide in an expression of injured innocence. "This board is not competent to offer implications, Mr. O'Hara. All we have to do is establish the cause of Al Benyon's death—not apportion blame. At least— not yet. However, our questions concerning possible negligence appear to be touching a raw spot, so we'll move onto something else."

Neil made no reply. He glanced across at Jane Benyon who quickly looked away. Jason Pelham returned Neil's gaze without blinking.

Williams conferred briefly with the other four members of the review board before turning his attention back to Neil.

"Mr. O'Hara. We have here your statement. Correction— your report on what took place on OV-141 last week. You have a copy in front of you?"

"Yes, Mr. Chairman."

"Are there any amendments that you wish to make to that report? Additions? Deletions?"

"No, Mr. Chairman."

Williams nodded and looked at his watch. "Thank you, Mr. O'Hara. We have no more questions for you for the time being. You may sit. Mr. Earl Hackett."

Earl Hackett stood. "Mr. Chairman?"

"We understand that you are chief of shuttle operations and that you were capcom during OV-Hl's mission?"

"That is correct, Mr. Chairman."

"Okay," said Wilhams. "We'll break for sixty minutes now and reconvene at a quarter after one when we will be questioning you."

During the lunch-break, Neil spotted Earl Hackett and Jason Pelham in the coffee lounge deep in earnest conversation and guessed that they were going over Earl Hackett's evidence.

The video recorder rolled, forcing Neil to relive the moments before Al's death. The cameras and microphones aboard the shuttle had missed nothing. The shots showed Al's space-suited figure struggling to release the damaged satellite power units.

"You know these gizmos, Kell," said Al's voice. "Reckon she's come free about ten degrees?"

A long pause, then Assad's fatal words of reply: "You're right. Ten degrees."

The closing shot was taken from the camera mounted on the manipulator. In horrific detail, it showed the prybar slashing into Al's spacesuit.

"Cancel!" screamed Assad's voice from the speaker. "For mercy's sake!"

Neil tried desperately to mentally shut out the rest of the torture but he could hear his voice calling out to Al and the hideous croaks of the dying astronaut.

"Okay. That's enough," said Williams.

The recording stopped.

Williams nodded to a security guard. "Tell Mrs. Benyon that she may return now if she wishes." He looked up at Earl Hackett who had been answering his questions for fifteen minutes. "How many times have you played those tapes, Mr. Hackett?"

"I've lost count, Mr. Chairman."

Williams grunted. "In the seconds leading up to the accident, did any of the three men say anything that was out of the ordinary when compared with other orbiter flights?"

"No. Nothing."

"You are also familiar with Mr. O'Hara's report in which he claims the accident was due to ambiguity over the two words 'yaw' spelt Y-A-W, and 'you're' spell Y-O-U apostrophe R-E."

"Yes, Mr. Chairman."

"In your expert opinion, would you agree with Mr. O'Hara? The pronunciation of the two words is identical."

Without hesitation, Hackett said, "There was no ambiguity, Mr. Chairman. I have played the tapes many times." He picked up a sheaf of documents. "And I've studied the mission transcript. It is perfectly clear from the dialogue continuity that Assad's phrase 'You're right. Ten degrees' was in answer to a query by Al Benyon."

Jane Benyon entered the room and sat in a chair at the side. She was careful not to look at Neil.

"But the pronunciation of the two words is identical," Williams persisted. "Is there a case for reviewing your terminology to ensure that such a misunderstanding does not arise again?"

"No," Hackett replied emphatically. "It's not NASA's task to rewrite the English language to compensate for unforeseeable instances arising out of negligence."

Williams raised his eyebrows. "Are you saying that Mr. O'Hara was negligent on the Dominator mission?"

"I was talking generally," said Hackett blandly.

"Okay. So let's talk specifically. Is it your opinion—your expert opinion, I must add, because you are an experienced astronaut—that Neil O'Hara was negligent on the Dommator mission?"

Hackett considered his reply for a moment. "Yes," he said at length. "Having exammed all the data, I can see no doubt whatsoever that Astronaut O'Hara's negligence was the direct cause of Al Benyon's death."

13

August

Heinlein had been two weeks in Tel Aviv's military prison when his father visited him.

"Five minutes," said the corporal, withdrawing from the austere room that Heinlein had been assigned.

The two men regarded each other in mutual suspicion. It was their first meeting since Yom Kippur the previous year. The autocratic Avram Heinlein was a millionaire diamond merchant, a licensed bullion dealer, and a leading member of the ultra-Jewish Orthodox Satmar sect of the Hasidic movement. He wore an immaculate black suit and untrimmed Hasidic side-locks.

"Your case was reported in all the papers," he said to his son. "This is the first time I'm glad that your mother isn't alive." He spoke in English. Hebrew was a sacred language to be used only for prayer.

Heinlein looked cynical. "You said that at my bar mitzvah, and you said something similar when I took my army commission when I told you that I wasn't interested in religion."

"I didn't come here to open old wounds," said Avram stiffly.

"No. And you didn't come here to heal them. So why did you come?"

Avram took a deep breath. "You misjudge me, David. Whatever I may have said, I've always loved you." It was the nearest Avram could get to an apology.

Heinlein looked faintly incredulous. "You cursed me the day I took my commission."

"The founding of the State of Israel is a blasphemy," said Avram with sudden vehemence. "Only the Messiah can perform that sacred duty."

"The way I feel now, I agree with you," said Heinlein bitterly. "Personally I wouldn't give a toss if the Palestinians wiped the place out tomorrow."

"You included?"

Heinlein shrugged indifferently.

There was an awkward silence. Avram glanced around the plainly furnished room. There was a small television set screwed to the wall, and a shower and toilet facilities in one comer. There was even a plain writing-desk and an empty bookcase.

"This place isn't as bad as I thought it would be."

Heinlein looked indifferent. "It was a British army HQ in the last century. They jailed members of the Haganah here. As an officer, I'm entitled to a room on the northern side of the building. I suppose you really came here to gloat?"

Avram stiffened. He decided to ignore the insult by changing the subject. "Moshe and Uri send their regards."

Heinlein looked bored at the mention of his brothers.

"The business is doing well," Avram continued. "We've opened new offices here in Tel Aviv—near the Diamond Exchange. Moshe has taken over in Amsterdam, and Uri is running the London office."

Heinlein looked uninterested. "You can hardly say that my case has brought ruin and disgrace upon the family."

"I've had to put up with the whispers and innuendoes!" Avram snapped angrily.

"That's your problem," Heinlein replied. "I've got to put up with ten years in this hole."

"I never did understand why you signed on for so long," said Avram.

"Simple," said Heinlein. "I found army life more exciting than peddling diamonds around the world for you."

"You were good at your job."

"I was an even better soldier."

Avram glanced around the sparsely furnished room. "You think so? David . . . if your appeal is successful, I want you to come back into the business. I need you."

Heinlein raised his eyebrows. "I thought Uri and Moshe were doing so well?"

Avram gave an impatient gesture. "They're both too soft. They let people trample them. You were tough."

"Thanks for the offer, Father," said Heinlein. "But if I ever get out of here, the last thing I'll want to do is work for you."

For once Avram was unsure of himself. He was sorely tempted to condemn his son but realized that he had no stomach for such a task. "I'm not far from here, David. I can call in any time. If there is ever anything you need . . ."

If Heinlein was touched by his father's offer of friendship, he did not show it. "Thank you, no. Father. For the next ten years I'm the guest of the blasphemous State of Israel. The bastards will be seeing to most of my needs."

"You will contact me if there's anything you need."

Heinlein stared his father straight in the eye. "The only thing I need right now is justice. I never did expect it from you when I was a kid, so I certainly don't expect or want it from you now. And as for getting it from this lousy country of ours—I might as well go and piss into the wind."

14

Two miles from where Heinlein was imprisoned, Michael Greer was working late in his top-floor office on Rothschild Boulevard.

There was a stack of intelligence reports and memos on his desk for him to speed-read, digest, and initial. Most of them were routine reports from Mossad agents throughout the world. All would eventually end up in the appropriate agent's "volume" computer record on the building's third floor.

As Greer ploughed through the paperwork, he wished that there were reports from Joseph Maken's base at Bakal on the Black Sea. The last agent to be successfully infiltrated into the PLO base had had his cover blown within ten days. The agent didn't even have the chance to use his satellite-link radio transmitter. What information Mossad had on the base had been collated by the cell in Istanbul—and that was little enough. The most recent report was that Leon Dranski, the Soviet Premier, was planning a visit to Bakal within the next few weeks.

Greer read a report on an army lieutenant who had been court-martialled for desertion and cowardice. The officer's defence had been that he had left his unit to chase a suspected PLO agent in Narazeth—a sniper. The prosecution had maintained that no agents were operating in Nazareth.

Greer wondered why the report had been channelled through to him. Then he read that the officer in question was a member of the Special Parachute Brigade and had once served on the army security staff of a "government establishment in the Negev." That explained why the report was on Greer's desk; as soon as he had heard about the explosion, he issued a standing order that any mention of government establishments in the Negev desert should be referred to him.

The court-martial report was of no interest. He initialled it, tossed it in his out-tray, and turned his mind back to the promise he had made Rymann: that somehow he would find a way of buying Israel a three-year breathing space to enable the new development team to produce the Masada booster.

A bizarre plan was already taking shape in his mind. Bizarre was hardly an appropriate word. It was a lunatic idea and one that Rymann would be certain to turn down out of hand unless he was handled carefully.

Greer skimmed through the next three reports with only half his customary attention until he came to a low-grade report from a Mossad agent who had infiltrated the dissident Arab community in Nazareth. The agent was commenting on a rumour rather than supplying hard intelligence. The rumour was that a trained PLO operative had been sent into Nazareth. The agent concluded by stressing the soft nature of the information and that he would try to obtain more reliable data as quickly as possible.

Nazareth?

Greer frowned and riffled through the papers he had just initialled. He pulled out the report on the court martial and read it through twice. The prosecution did not have access to this latest intelligence on the possibility of an agent operating in Nazareth; therefore there was a possibility, a faint possibility, that this Lieutenant David Heinlein had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Greer considered the matter for a few moments. He could hardly present the army authorities with flimsy, unsubstantiated evidence from an unnamed undercover agent for airing before a court martial appeal hearing.

Anyway, the case was nothing to do with him. Best forget it.

15

The ten-man inflatable boat, propelled by muffled paddles, crept towards the beach under the cover of darkness.

The eight Palestinians crouched low in the boat to prevent it from capsizing. They had deliberately picked a night when the sea was rough so that the waves were high enough to reduce the risk of detection by Israeli coastal radar. The eight men were lightly armed and they wore buff-coloured combat dress that would provide effective camouflage against the sand.

The spot they had selected to go ashore was a wind-swept stretch of beach half-way between Tel Aviv and Netanya where the sand-duned coastline ran virtually dead straight for twenty miles. It was also free of the many reefs that guarded this particular part of the coast.

As soon as the boat grounded, they scrambled out, quickly hauled it clear of the surf, and hid it in the shadows cast by piles of stacked beach beds.

They froze when a heavy transport aircraft from the nearby Chel Ha 'Avtr base at Herzliyay took off and flew over them—its landing lights blazing. The aircraft faded into the darkness. On a signal from their leader, the men set to work.

They worked swiftly and methodically without getting in each other's way—each man concentrating on his allotted task. The three weeks of hard training were paying off.

It would have been easy enough for them to plant landmines under the sand that would wreak havoc when holiday-makers flocked onto the beach. Instead they scooped sand and shingle samples into marked plastic containers and took a number of measurements with a night-sight gunnery range-finder. They even used a clinometer to check the angle of the beach while two of their number carried out a brief survey of the low dunes. One man armed with a miniature 3-D video camcorder with an image intensifier moved across the dunes towards the nearby main highway and spent some time making a series of recordings of the surrounding terrain.

Ten minutes later the men were paddling silently out to sea with their precious samples and recordings stowed in waterproof bags. After three hours' sweating labour in the humid night, they shipped their paddles and started the fifty-horsepower Mercury outboard.

It took them another hour to reach the nondescript motor yacht that was waiting for them. They climbed aboard—their faces wreathed in broad grins—and trooped down to the stateroom. The tall, dark-haired man who had been waiting anxiously for their return clapped them warmly on the back and shook their hands.

Joseph Maken was delighted with the results of the night's work.

16

"Piss off," said Heinlein shortly.

The little man looked shocked. He blinked in alarm. "But I'm from the Hava 'ad Lema 'an Hahayal welfare committee. I'm the military prison visitor. I've got a selection of books, magazines, video discs—"

"I don't care if you're a reincarnation of Moses with a second Ark of the Covenant. I told you to piss off."

The little man backed off towards Heinlein's door. "You don't even have a copy of the Torah in—"

"I don't want a copy of the bloody Torah!" Heinlein shouted. "Now get out and leave me alone!"

The little man hurriedly left Heinlein's room.

"Told you," said the corporal who was waiting outside in the corridor, propped up against the wall, chewing gum.

"He appears to have a chip on his shoulder," the little man commented.

"Chip? It's the whole bloody tree."

"Is he always like that?"

The corporal shook his head. "No. He's in a good mood today."

17

Greer was worried. For reasons he could not immediately identify, the case of Lieutenant David Heinlein was preying on his mind.

He had spent the morning in his office, grappling with the problem of his promise to Rymann to buy three years for the new Masada booster development team, but whenever he concentrated on the problem, the name Heinlein would intrude on his thoughts. Perhaps it was the thought that his country would be losing the services of a good officer. There was no doubt that Heinlein was a good officer—his record showed that. If there had been a sniper in Nazareth on that fateful day, then Heinlein had been right to forget everything and go after him.

Greer pursed his lips and decided to do something positive about Lieutenant David Heinlein. He picked up his telephone and made three calls. It was during the third call that he suddenly realized why the question of Lieutenant David Heinlein had been dominating his thoughts.

18

Like an oversize croquet ball rolling through a hoop, Leon Dranski eased his bulky frame out of the helicopter's doorway.

He waved his plump arms at the batteries of TV cameras, at the members of the Supreme Council of the PLO, and at the cheering Palestinians crowded six deep behind the crash barriers lining the air base. His aides assisted him down the aluminum steps onto the red carpet where he embraced Joseph Maken like a long-lost brother.

"Comrade Chairman," said Maken warmly. "On behalf of all the peoples of Palestine, welcome to Bakal."

The second person to leave the helicopter was Marshal Ustinov, chief of the Red Army General Staff: a hatchet-faced, unsmiling man who shook hands with Maken without saying a word.

Dranski's jovial smile never left his cherubic face for an instant as he mounted the rostrum. The platform was decked out with the flags of the Soviet Union and the PLO. The hammer-and-sickle banners were larger and higher than the Palestinian flags because this was Soviet territory.

The speeches that blared out of the speakers were brief but enthusiastic. Dranski responded to Maken's welcome by saying that the struggle of the Palestinian people was the struggle of the Soviet people. Shoulder to shoulder, they were fighting the same glorious revolution. Shoulder to shoulder, they would be victorious. Together they were walking down the socialist path that would lead ultimately to world peace and prosperity.

The wily Chairman ended his party piece by holding his arms aloft and declaring in well-rehearsed Arabic that the Soviet Union would not rest until the Palestinians had their rightful heritage restored to them.

The crowd went wild. The cheering and yelling lasted for several minutes and subsided only when Dranski laid a wreath on the recently erected memorial to the PLO's fallen heroes.

Five minutes later an armoured Mercedes cavalcade swept out of the air base, whisking Leon Dranski and his retinue away on the first stage of their one-day tour of the PLO base at Bakal.

"Incredible, Joseph," said Dranski over a roast chicken lunch. "We lease you three hundred square kilometres of wilderness and you turn it into a miniature state—complete with an air force, an army, and a navy. Schools. Farms. Villages. Television and radio studios. An amazing achievement in such a short time."

Maken gave a wry smile. "We have no navy apart from a few inflatable boats and my yacht, Comrade Chairman," he corrected politely.

"Ah. You're complaining?"

"Not at all. Comrade Chairman. You have been more than generous. Without you we could have achieved nothing."

Dranski grinned amiably at Maken. "True, Joseph. True. But we're used to pouring aid into countries that fail to seize the opportunities that such aid offers. I took many political risks persuading my colleagues to let you have Bakal. It is good to see that I was right and they were wrong."

Maken smiled and remarked drily, "I should imagine that the only political risks involved were those taken by your colleagues who opposed you."

Dranski looked surprised. Then he threw back his head and laughed. "Their argument was that by allowing the PLO onto our soil, we'd be nursing a viper at our breast."

"We've learned many lessons over the years, Comrade Chairman," said Maken gravely, "the most important being how to distinguish one's friends from one's enemies."

Dranski nodded emphatically. "Precisely."

Maken was silent for a moment. The chains of SAM-50A missile batteries that the Soviets had built around the Crimea peninsula to defend Bakal against air attack could be turned against the PLO at any time if ever the guests seemed in danger of becoming vipers. Also Bakal had only a limited supply of fresh water—most of the homeland's water needs were met by a Soviet-controlled pipeline.

"More chicken, Comrade Chairman?"

"Thank you—no."

The two men were sitting in the dining-room of Maken's bungalow. Maken had requested that they eat alone. Dranski had readily agreed and had overruled Marshal Ustinov who had been opposed to the idea.

The two leaders made a strange pair. The florid Leon Dranski was fifty-nine years old. What he lacked in formal education he made up in peasant cunning—enough to have taken him to the top of the Kremlin heap. That and his renowned streak of arrogant ruthlessness were sufficient to ensure that he would remain king of that heap for many years to come.

By contrast, Joseph Maken was tall and sophisticated, forty, the son of a successful Paris lawyer. His mother was a Palestinian whom his father had first met when handling a case for the PLO's Paris office where she worked as a secretary.

Joseph was their only child. His father died while Joseph was still at the Sorbonne. His mother, finding herself with a substantial fortune on her hands for which she had no real need, gave a third of it to the PLO and spent the rest sending Joseph around the world to develop his gift for languages.

Joseph emerged from ten years' study in Moscow, Beirut, and New York with a remarkable fluency in Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, and English. He was working in New York as a United Nations integrator—from Russian to his native French—when his mother fell ill with cancer.

After her death he decided to carry on her work for the PLO. George Kahn, the PLO leader who rebuilt the organization after its near destruction in the mid-1980s, immediately recognized the value of the personable young Joseph Maken and sent him to Moscow as the PLO's special emissary to the Kremlin. Maken spent three years building a close working relationship between the PLO and the Soviets.

For their part, the Russians never learned to completely trust Maken, but at least they knew him. Dranski was shrewd enough to realize that the charismatic Maken was a potential leader of the PLO movement—a pro-Soviet leader at that. Maybe not a puppet, but one couldn't have everything.

When George Kahn was assassinated in New York—supposedly by Mossad agents—the Soviets dropped hints in influential PLO ears suggesting that if Maken were made the new leader of the PLO, then the Soviet Union would consider substantial increases in military and economic aid to the movement.

After a protracted power struggle within the PLO and its twenty-nine rival factions, Maken emerged as the movement's new leader. Suddenly he was a public figure: an immaculately dressed, soft-spoken, educated man who didn't fit the popular image of PLO leaders who looked like guerrilla fighters. His skillfully worded speeches to the United Nations, his lecture tours of the United States, audiences with the Pope, quickly won him and the PLO new friends and established him as a new and unexpected force in the turbulent waters of Arabic politics. A crowded daily schedule left him little time for women.

Whether or not he was a force for good, no one was sure at first—especially the Israelis. But one thing was certain: Joseph Maken was very different.

Just how different emerged soon after the fateful Israeli air attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Leon Dranski announced that the Soviet Union had agreed to Joseph Maken's request to provide the Palestinians with a temporary home-land on Soviet soil. That homeland would be at Bakal on the Cnmean Peninsula on the Black Sea. Even more astonishing to the outside world was that the Soviet Union should provide the PLO with a squadron of ten MiG-35s.

It took four days for an advance party of Palestinians to clear an airstrip. Within six days the first MiG-35 "rhubarb" sortie was flown against Israel—an attack that destroyed the fusion reactor complex at Yavne.

The war had begun and had now dragged on for a year.

Leon Dranski finished his cup of black coffee and beamed expectantly at Maken. "Shall we continue with our tour, Joseph?"

As a former infantryman, the Soviet leader was more than impressed bv the brilliant tank-handling tactics of the PLO's 3rd Armoured Brigade. He spent thirty minutes with his retinue, watching the T-lOOs exercising in the difficult terrain of northern Bakal. Not only had the smartly uniformed PLO soldiers learned well from their Red Army instructors, but there was a lot about unorthodox battle tactics that the Red Army could learn from the PLO.

It was impossible to tell if the impassive Marshal Ustinov was impressed. On one occasion Maken noticed him whispering something in Dranski's ear and the Soviet leader nodding in agreement.

After that two hours were spent touring the administrative centre. All the buildings were prefabricated—supplied courtesy of the Soviet Army Support Directorate.

Maken's guests saw the rooms where immigrant Palestinians were screened against computer files to weed out potential Israeli infiltrators. They visited the PLO Army Staff College and even tned out the Arafat three-millimetre sub-machine-gun—a tiny but highly effective firearm that was being developed by the Palestine Weapons Research Authority.

"I'm very sorry, gentlemen," Maken apologized to his guests towards the end of the afternoon. "But there's a change in the last item on the itinerary. It's a surprise."

Dranski chuckled. "Another surprise, Joseph? I think we're immune to them by now."

The party followed Maken into a large room whose walls were covered in large-scale maps of Israel. The centre of the room was dominated by a giant table-top model of a stretch of beach. The top of the beach was fringed with sand-dunes and beyond them was a four-lane highway that ran parallel to the coast. The scrub-land adjoining the beach was flat and uninteresting.

"This is a two-kilometre-wide stretch of coastline between Tel Aviv and Haifa," said Maken as the party gathered round the table. He used a long pointer to indicate salient features of the model. "The beach consists of fine shingle and sand in equal proportions—and it's firm. Very firm. And so are these dunes. Beach gradient at its steepest point—near the dunes— is no more than five degrees. Also the beach is a designated recreation area and is therefore unmined."

Maken swung the pointer seawards. "The approaches are good—a shelving sea-floor—the same angle as the beach out to the two-hundred-metre line—and the seabed is free of the rocky outcrops and reefs that are common along this part of the coast."

Maken paused and smiled benignly at his guests. "Any questions, gentlemen?"

"Just one, Joseph," said Dranski, not smiling for once. "A question I believe I know the answer to." He waved a pudgy hand at the model. "What is the purpose of all this?"

"Simple, Comrade Chairman," Maken replied smoothly. "This is the landing spot and beach-head for our invasion of Israel."

19

Maken's bombshell stirred Marshal Ustinov into words.

"A lunatic scheme," he observed cryptically.

"Why, Comrade Marshal?" Maken inquired.

"What men and materiels are you proposing to land?"

"The force of the first wave will consist of twenty thousand assault troops. One hundred T-lOO tanks. Twenty RGD self-propelled guns—and ten SAM-30 anti-aircraft missile batteries."

Ustinov snorted. "We don't have a sea-borne version of SAM-30 yet, therefore the Israelis will blast your landing-craft out of the water before they're within a hundred kilometres of the coast."

"We're not proposing to use landing-craft," said Maken evenly.

For once Marshal Ustinov managed to look interested. "Then what are you proposing to use?"

The moment had come for Maken to tread very carefully. He glanced at Dranski and Ustinov in the hope of gauging their moods. Their expressions were not encouraging. A lesser man would have taken a deep breath. Maken plunged right in.

"I have a confession to make, comrades. Within the past three months a PLO sympathizer who works in the Pentagon has sent us an outline of an intelligence report that he thought might be useful to us. The report had been prepared by the U.S. naval attache in Istanbul. It suggested that three Soviet Kosygin-class cruisers based at Sevastopol had been converted to carry a novel type of very large submarine in their holds. The report said that the submarine represented an entirely new concept in marine warfare. It was a one-trip disposable assault submarine that could run into shallow water, beach itself, and disembark up to twenty thousand troops and over one hundred tanks and supporting equipment."

Maken paused. Not a muscle moved on his guests' faces.

"Such a mother ship and submarine would be able to pass through the Bosporus without arousing undue comment," Maken continued. "And the submarine itself is certain to be equipped with silent running gear and the latest DWF foxers that could fool the Israeli sonar buoy chain."

Maken decided that he had said enough for the time being. He had dropped a very large and very dangerous ball in the Soviet court and he wondered what they would do with it.

Dranski gave one of his deep chuckles. Maken knew that it meant nothing. The Soviet leader was probably chuckling at the method he had decided on to have him "deactivated."

"Interesting, Joseph," said Dranski thoughtfully. "Very interesting. Assuming that such a submarine exists, and assuming that you had the use of one, surely you don't think that you could overrun Israel with only twenty thousand troops and one hundred tanks?"

Maken sensed that the worst was over. "Of course not, Comrade Chairman. Once the SAM-30 batteries are in place, we would cut off the highway and use it as a landing-strip to operate a continuous airlift of heavy transports to bring in more men and artillery. Timing is vital, of course. In fact the first transports would be landing within thirty minutes after our beach landing. As you know, the Israelis have never taken the idea of a sea-borne invasion seriously—all their armour is concentrated in positions where they can easily reach their western, northern, and southern borders. It will take them three hours to deploy units to engage us. By that time we will have landed one hundred thousand men and it will be too late."

"How do you know that the highway can take heavy transports?" Ustinov demanded.

"Simple. We've measured it."

Dranski's eyes opened wide in surprise. "Really? How?"

"Twice we have landed survey parties on the beach who have recorded every aspect of the coastline," Maken replied smoothly.

Dranski looked at Maken with renewed respect. "Have you?" he said thoughtfully. "Have you indeed?"

Maken nodded. "We believe in detailed planning, Comrade Chairman. If I may quote Winston Churchill: 'Give us the tools, and we'll finish the job.' "

The Soviet leader was lost in thought for a moment. He suddenly gave Maken a beaming smile. "Joseph—there is much that I have to discuss with our defence ministers and the chiefs of staff. We may have to summons you to Moscow within the next few days to answer a number of questions. Can you hold yourself in readiness?"

Maken felt that a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He shook Dranski warmly by the hand. "I shall consider it a great honour, Comrade Chairman."

20

Rymann was busy, or rather his chauffeur was, when his bedside phone rang.

"Damn," he muttered to Semona, rolling her off him and reaching for the handset. "That'll be Michael."

Sergeant Semona Lucca pursed her generous lips into a sulky pout and pulled the sheet across her breasts.

"Hendrik?" There was an urgent note in Greer's voice. "I'm sorry to disturb you."

"Not as sorry as I am," said Rymann wearily.

"We must talk."

Semona smiled mischievously at Rymann and walked her talented fingers sensually down his stomach and set them to work.

"When?"

"Now," said Greer.

Rymann grabbed hold of Semona's hand and held it still so that he could concentrate. "You realize that this time in the afternoon is sacred to me?"

Greer knew all about Rymann's afternoon naps with Semona. "Time is what I want to talk to you about," he remarked drily.

Rymann was at a loss. "Time?"

"Three years."

Rymann was suddenly alert. Semona forgotten.

"I've cancelled this evening's meeting so that we can go for a drive," said Greer.

"Where to?"

When Greer told him, Rymann sat up and nearly tipped Semona onto the floor. "Why there, for God's sake?"

"I'll be ready in fifteen minutes," said Greer.

The line went dead. Rymann replaced the handset and stared at the far wall.

Semona waved a hand before his eyes as if to jokingly catch his attention. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

Rymann smiled and cradled her lovely face in his hands. "Sergeant Lucca. It's time you earned your keep by doing what the state pays you to do."

Semona laughed, jumped off" the bed, and started wriggling her glorious olive-coloured body into her uniform. "And where does my lord and master wish me to drive him?"

"Masada," said Rymann.

21

Masada.

The Judean desert. One of the lowest points on the earth's surface. Blistering heat. A sun-bleached, moonscape mountain plateau where Herod had built his lair—a fortress summer palace overlooking the haze-layered toe of the Dead Sea. A five-minute cable-car ride up the precipitous barren slopes that had taken a Roman army three years to conquer.

Masada.

The last stronghold of the Jewish Revolt of a.d. 73 where nine hundred and sixty men, women, and children, under the leadership of Ben-Yair, had held out against the tyranny of Roman rule.

Rymann and Greer strolled across the remains of the marbled terraces of the Northern Palace while soldiers kept a watchful eye on them. Semona followed the two men at a discreet distance, her black hair blowing in the pleasant breeze, her eyes alert, her hand resting on an Uzi sub-machine-gun slung casually from her left shoulder.

The few visitors the soldiers had cleared from the historic mountain had been Jewish pilgrims. Israel was no longer popular with tourists.

Rymann and Greer reached the balustrade and stood in silence, each wrapped in his own thoughts—Rymann turning over in his mind the incredible plan that Greer had outlined to him during the one-hour drive from Jerusalem.

Together they gazed down at the threatening lines of the Roman siege dikes—huge stone walls surrounding the mountain that had been designed to prevent the Jews of Masada from escaping the terrible end that the Romans had in store for them. To the left of the two men, clawing its way up the northern slopes, was the mighty earthen ramp that the Romans had painstakingly built in their grim determination to breach the ramparts of the mountain fortress.

As Rymann stared down at the ramp, he could well imagine the feelings of Ben-Yair as he watched it being built. Month by month—inching inexorably towards him. Each day a little higher. Each day bringing him and his people a day nearer the inevitable end.

The same was happening to Israel today. Each day brought fresh jabs at the wound that was slowly bleeding his beloved country to death. Aircraft destroyed faster than they could be replaced; tanks and mobile guns wiped out; factories bombed. And always the deaths, the funerals, the weeping relatives. A horrific bloodshed that seemed unending. And yet from the grim daily reports Rymann knew that it could not be unending —-just as Ben-Yair knew that one day the ramp would be completed.

Unless Israel could buy time. Three years.

Ben-Yair had bought time for his people.

He had bought them eternity.

The Romans had dragged their mighty siege engines up the huge ramp and were ready to batter down the walls of Masada the following day.

Ben-Yair summoned all the heads of the families into the main square where they decided what to do. At midnight the dreadful decision was taken. The nightmare that followed was chronicled thus:

They then chose ten men by lot from their number to slay the rest, every one of whom laid himself down on the ground by his wife and children and threw his arms about them. They then offered their necks to the stroke of the sword from the ten who courageously carried out their melancholy office.

And when the ten were done, they drew lots again, leaving one man to kill the other nine. And when this was done, the last man killed himself.

The Romans entered the fortress and came upon the slain that numbered nine hundred and sixty. They took no pleasure from what they beheld even though the fallen were their enemies. They could only wonder at the courage and resolution and contempt for death that so great a multitude had shown.

A sound disturbed Rymann's thoughts. He and Greer looked down at the lower terrace where a party of army conscripts were lining up to take their oath. Originally only paratroopers took the Masada Oath. Now all conscripts journeyed to the desert fortress to swear that "Masada shall never fall again."

"Can you remember the day you took your oath, Hendrik?" asked Greer, speaking very quietly.

Rymann turned to face his friend. Greer was staring fixedly at him. He nodded. "It was a torchlight ceremony. The sort of thing one never forgets."

"We are still bound by that oath, Hendrik. More so than any soldier because God has given us more power than any soldier."

"Has he, Michael? I sometimes wonder."

Greer looked sharply at his friend and saw a tiredness that he had never seen before. "Masada must never fall again," he stated with uncharactenstic vehemence. "It would be better to destroy Israel and the whole world rather than allow the enemy to ever set foot on this mountain again."

"The whole world?"

"The whole world." Greer affirmed without hesitation. "If the whole world is prepared to stand by and see Israel destroyed, then we shall have the right to exact an ultimate eye for an ultimate tooth." He mopped his lined face with a handkerchief.

"It's an incredible plan."

"It'll give us the three years we need."

Rymann stared, gazing across the Dead Sea at the mountains of Moab. "The whole world?" he repeated softly to himself.

"My plan is our only hope. But it needs your approval."

"Do you have someone in mind to carry out this . . . this escapade? "

"I believe so."

"Who?"

"An officer. I haven't approached him yet."

Rvmann remained lost in thought for several seconds. Eventually he came to a decision. "Very well then, Michael. But we'll keep it to ourselves—in case it doesn't work."

"It will work," Greer promised, a note of triumph in his voice.

"I hope so, Michael. I pray to God that it will. But we'll keep it to ourselves for the time being. Just the two of us."

"The three of us. " Greer corrected.

22

"I've been what!" Heinlein almost shouted.

"Pardoned," Gideon Tal repeated, grinning from ear to ear.

"I don't believe you."

"Take a look at your release papers."

Heinlein's powerful fingers reached out and snatched the documents from Tal. He scanned through them. "New evidence? What new evidence?"

Tal looked uncertain. "I don't know."

"Then you didn't pull this off?"

"Er—well, not exactly. I received a phone call two hours ago summonsing me to Central Command HQ to collect some papers. One set for the prison commandant—which I've delivered. And one set for you."

"And no explanation?"

Tal produced an unmarked envelope from his brief-case and handed it to Heinlein. "Maybe this is it. It's for your eyes only. I'm to witness that you destroy it after you've read it."

Heinlein ripped the envelope open. There was another envelope inside. The seal surprised him. The contents of the inner envelope's letter surprised him even more. He read it through twice more as if committing it to memory and suddenly laughed out loud.

"May I ask what it's about?" Tal inquired curiously. He had noticed that Heinlein's name on the inner envelope had been inexpertly typed.

"Compensation," Heinlein replied after a slight hesitation. "No wonder the miserable bastards want this letter destroyed. They're offering me an extra month's pay as compensation. A month's pay for what I've been through!"

"You could get much more," said Tal. "I could fight that for you."

Heinlein fixed his dark eyes on Tal. "You? You couldn't fight a dead sparrow."

"Thanks."

"Anyway—I don't want their bloody compensation."

Heinlein read through the letter again. The address was a Tel Aviv telephone number—nothing else. He memorized the number and the code-name of the sender before burning both envelopes and the letter in an ashtray, taking great care to grind the blackened flakes to powder.

"Now what?" asked Heinlein.

"You can get your things and walk out of here—a free man to return to your unit without a blemish on your record. You will receive full back pay and there will be no loss of seniority or promotion."

"Let's gel my things," said Heinlein indifferently.

***

"Glad everything turned out okay, sir," said the corporal, checking Heinlein's personal effects against a clipboard and putting them in a suitcase.

"I'll miss your cheerful winning ways, corporal," said Heinlein sourly. "Like you bellowing in my ear at oh-six hundred every morning."

The corporal grinned and closed the brief-case. "If you'd just sign here, sir . . . Thank you, sir. You know—I always said there was something not right about your case. Read about it in Ma'arakhot I did."

"Oh yes," said Tal to Heinlein. "I've been told to remind you that as an officer, you're still under army regulations. You must not discuss your case with the press or anyone. An official press release will be issued by the Ministry of Defence tomorrow."

"I'll talk about it to whoever I please," said Hemlein curtly.

"But you can't. Army regulations—"

"Fuck the army regulations. They won't apply to me if I'm not in the army."

Tal stared aghast at Heinlein. He had a feeling that everything was beginning to go horribly wrong. His instructions had been to accompany Heinlein back to Central Command Headquarters. "But you're returning to your unit, aren't you?"

"Yes—to resign my commission and collect my back pay."

"But you can't!"

"Try and stop me," said Heinlein, snatching up his suitcase and moving towards the door.

"Oh God," muttered Tal, distraught. "Listen, Lieutenant. Even if you quit, you can't go shooting your mouth off to the press. You're still subject to the laws of this country."

Heinlein turned slowly round to face Tal. "Who said I wanted to stay in this bloody awful country?"

Tal went pale.

Heinlein yanked the door open and strode out into the sunlight and freedom.

"Hell," Tal muttered.

"Funny one him," the corporal remarked. "Never did show any gratitude."

Tal had a suspicion that precious little gratitude was going to be shown him when he returned to Central Command Headquarters.

"You'll keep quiet about this," he warned the corporal.

"Oh—of course, sir," assured the corporal who couldn't wait to relate the scene to his comrades.

Heinlein suddenly reappeared.

"Someone lend me five hundred shekels for a cab."

23

A Barbie doll secretary showed Neil into Earl Hackett's office in the administration block at the Kennedy Space Center.

"Good to see you, Neil," said Hackett genially, shaking his visitor's hand and waving him to a chair. "You'll be pleased to know that Bud Wilson and Lewis Markstein have just fixed the KARMA II comsat."

"That's good news. Earl."

Hackett looked rueful. "Trouble is that we can't charge Bud's and Lewis's mission against the satellite owner's account."

"That must've kept Pelham awake at night," Neil observed acidly.

Hackett chuckled. His face became serious. He glanced at his watch. "The review board's report will be published in two hours. I thought it fair that you saw a copy before the press embargo is lifted." He opened a drawer and handed Neil a plastic binder containing a document that ran into several hundred pages.

Neil weighed the report in his hand without speaking. It was much larger than he had anticipated.

"Part One is an outline of the mission profile," Hackett explained. "Part Two is a transcript from Hi's voice recorder." He hesitated. "The section that affects you is in the review board's conclusions. Part Six—pages 14 through 16."

Neil turned to Part Six and read through the numbered paragraphs. There was a verbose closing passage that jumped off the page:

In the final analysis we conclude that the commander of OV-141 was not paying full attention to the voice exchanges between the payload specialist and Al Benyon during the latter's EVA. A study of the appropriate section of the voice recorder transcript (see Part Two, pages 8 through 20) clearly demonstrates that the payload specialist's exchanges had been directed at Al Benyon and not the orbiter's commander. This, taken in conjunction with the commander's statement in his written report on the mission (see Appendix B) that he was distracted by an optical phenomenon in the Negev desert, means that we have no hesitation in attributing the tragic death of Al Benyon to this failure of concentration by the commander of OV-141.

No blame can be attached to any of NASA's shuttle hardware or operational procedures which we have examined in detail and found to be satisfactory (see Part Five).

Neil turned to an appendix that listed all the individuals who had given evidence to the review board. He was shaken by what he found.

"They were tough on you," said Hackett apologetically, avoiding Neil's eye. "I'm sorry."

Neil angrily tossed the report on Hackett's desk. "Why didn't the review board call the other astronauts to give evidence?"

Hackett looked puzzled. "What other astronauts?"

"I submitted a list to your office of four astronauts who've told me that they are worried about the use of the word 'yaw.' What happened to it?"

"It wasn't part of your report—" Hackett began.

"But it was part of my evidence!" Neil protested.

"Congressman Williams said that he was only prepared to call evidence from those who were directly involved in your mission. The review board's terms of reference are spelt out—"

"I'm not talking about terms of reference. I'm talking about four astronauts who I thought were going to be interviewed."

"I'm sorry, Neil. But it wasn't possible to call them."

"Did you submit the list to Williams?"

"What would've been the point? He would've refused to consider—"

Neil came close to bringing his fist down on the desk. "Did you submit it to him?"

"I wanted to. But—"

"So who stopped you?"

"It was a senior administrative decision."

"Meaning a Jason Pelham decision?"

"Your list was considered irrelevant."

"So that my scalp could be nailed to the post?"

Hackett began to get angry. "You nailed your own scalp to the post when you admitted in your report that you were momentarily distracted by a light in the Negev desert. Another thing—I advised you to be legally represented at the hearing and to attend on the other two days. You decided to ignore that advice."

Neil wanted to argue but deep down he knew that Hackett was right. He realized that sooner or later he was going to have to accept a measure of blame for Al's death. Suddenly he no longer wanted to squabble. He was gripped by the familiar lethargy that was for ever trying to separate him from the trivial, day-to-day problems of living on Earth. "Okay," he said disinterestedly. "What happens now?"

"Your suspension remains in force until you've been transferred. There can be no question of your being allowed to return to shuttle operational duties."

It was a blow that Neil knew was inevitable and yet he was wholly unprepared for the fateful words. He stared at Hackett who was gazing out of his window at the Vehicle Assembly Building. "You can't. I gave up everything to work with NASA."

"I'm sorry, Neil."

"Do you know what this will do to me?"

Hackett met Neil's eyes without flinching. "I think perhaps I do. That's why I believe it would be in your interest if you were taken off shuttle operations."

"My medical reports—"

"I never mentioned your medical reports," said Hackett harshly. "Maybe there's something I should know, yes?" His tone became conciliatory. "Listen, Neil. We need you to continue working for us. We can't afford to lose people with your experience and qualifications. There's a vacancy coming up next month for a manager to look after the ground support facilities for the Gulfstream STA fleet. You'd be ideal for the job."

Neil could hardly credit what he was hearing. The Gulf-streams were four ageing twin-engine jet trainers that had been rebuilt to give them the handling characteristics of an orbiter. What Hackett was offering him wasn't even a flying post. He heard himself say, "I joined NASA to work in space. I want nothing more, and nothing less."

"I'm sorry, Neil," said Hackett with genuine sympathy. "But you have to settle for less."

"And if I'm not prepared to accept that?"

"Then you'll have to accept nothing. We're prepared to release you from your contract. It has two years to run. If you leave your resignation with my secretary, she'll arrange for you to be paid the balance of your salary and grounding insurance in a lump sum and you can drive off the KSC right now and never come back." Hackett met Neil's hard stare. "Is that what you want?"

"Yes," said Neil unemotionally. "That's exactly what I want."

Neil sat in his Winnebago camper outside the administration block and forced himself to face the problems of reorganizing his shattered life. Helen had told him that she would not be returning, and the house was in the hands of realtors at the insistence of her lawyers. He needed a job but doubted if the hundreds of companies along the Space Coast would be interested in employing an ex-astronaut who had been branded as responsible for the death of a colleague.

The temperature crept up in the camper. He started the turbine and turned up the air-conditioning. It was while he was listing his assets that he noticed a periodic vibration from the turbine. The main rotor was out of balance. Fixing it would take his mind off Helen and the kids for a day but it would have to wait.

First he had to find a job.

24

The Aeroflot Ilyushin touched down at Moscow at 10:30 a.m.

Maken and his party were met on the tarmac by a first deputy minister from the Military Council.

Although it was summer, rain was gusting horizontally across the airport—driven by a chill north wind. There were no welcoming speeches and no crowds.

"We don't even rate a full minister," Maken observed cynically in Arabic to one of his aides as the cavalcade of cars hissed through the bleak streets, ferrying the PLO leader and his party to their hotel.

Three hours later Maken went alone to the Kremlin, as requested, and was shown into Dranski's palatial office.

The Soviet leader was his usual exuberant self: a beaming smile of welcome; outstretched arms followed by a crushing bear-hug that Maken considered highly appropriate.

"My dear Joseph. How good of you to come so promptly. Please. Please. Sit down. You had a good flight?"

The inane small talk continued for five minutes and ended when Dranski suddenly said, "Ah, Marshal—please come and sit down."

Maken stood to shake hands with Marshal Ustinov and was surprised to see five men in sober charcoal-grey suits filing silently into the room. The five strangers looked so alike that they could have been clones. Neither Dranski nor Ustinov made a move to introduce them to Maken. They dotted themselves around the office like predatory penguins and said nothing.

"To business," said Dranski briskly, rubbing his fat little hands together. "Joseph—you wouldn't believe the long meeting we've held in here discussing your request. Sometimes I've not got to bed before four in the morning."

"I do hope you haven't tired yourself on our account, Comrade Chairman," said Maken. He was a good diplomat and knew how to inject what sounded hke genuine concern into his voice.

Dranski grinned wolfishly. "Thank you, Joseph." He unwrapped a sweet and popped it in his mouth. He sucked on it while regarding his visitor. "You're right about the Kosygin cruisers. Except that only two have been converted to carry assault submarines—not three."

It was a surprising admission. It gave Maken hope—if the cunning little Russian was going to turn down the PLO request, he had only to deny that the submarines existed.

"We're interested in the sources of your intelligence on the cruisers—the name of your Pentagon informant," Dranski continued. "You will recall that the terms of our little treaty specified a free and frank exchange of intelligence on matters of mutual interest."

"Full details will be on their way to you tomorrow, Comrade Chairman," Maken assured.

Dranski sucked contentedly on his sweet. "Marshal?"

Ustinov cleared his throat. "Comrade Maken—our combined operations staff have looked at your plans for the invasion of Israel and they are of the opinion that you are not ready to undertake such an operation."

"They are quite right . . ." Maken agreed smoothly.

Ustinov looked surprised.

"... the operation will require at least a year's planning and training."

"We estimate two years," said Ustinov evenly.

In that moment Maken knew what he had suspected all along: he was going to be turned down. A little humour was called for to cloak his disappointment. "In two years I believe we will be ready to invade the United States, Comrade Marshal."

Dranski laughed and nearly swallowed his sweet. Even one of the clones managed a chuckle.

"But we don't wish to invade the United States," Maken continued, pleased at Ustinov's frosty expression. "Only Israel."

Dranksi crunched down on his sweet. "The marshal hates coming to the point. I'm sorry, Joseph—but we don't want an escalation of the War of Attrition." He nodded to the clones. "Our experts say that you're winning it anyway. In a year you will force Israel to negotiate. In two years you will have licked them."

Maken knew better than to argue with the Soviet leader. "If that is your verdict, then I accept it. Comrade Chairman."

"Spoken like a diplomat," said Dranski genially. "But we're friends, so let's hear your views."

"Israel will never negotiate with us," said Maken emphatically, noticing Dranski give one of the clones an almost imperceptible nod.

"Rymann won't but his successor is certain to," said the clone. "We do not believe he will survive in office when the Israeli public realizes that their days are numbered. Also the Israels' great military weakness is that they do not have a phlegmatic attitude towards human life. Minor losses cause them excessive grief. Even if their present casualty rate is not likely to bring about a population imbalance—that is, by reducing their numbers of young people—the time is not far off when the Israel public will believe that it is. When enough mothers have lost enough sons and daughters—then they wiU sue for peace."

"On our terms?" queried Maken, impressed by the clinical cold-bloodedness of the clone's analysis.

The clone nodded. "The other point in your favour is that Senator Hadley is likely to win this year's presidential election, which means that there won't be a change in U.S. policy towards Israel. If anything, the American attitude towards Israel will harden."

The fightless discussion dragged on for another thirty minutes and involved the other four clones. It ended with Dranski standing and shaking Maken's hand. "You see, Joseph—you're doing such a fine job that there's no need for the terrible casualties that you'd suffer if you invade Israel. We will, of course, maintain our present level of support. In fact, as you're making such excellent use of the MiG-35s, we're flying you in another six—and some more trainers." Dranski clapped Maken on the back. "So that your political enemies can't accuse you of returning empty-handed."

Maken bowed. At least the Soviets wanted him to remain the PLO leader, which was something. "That is most generous of you. Comrade Chairman." He paused. "There is one more matter. Regarding the exchange of intelligence—we would be most grateful if you would pass anything to us relating to a new Israeli weapon code-named Masada."

Dranski frowned and glanced inquiringly at his arms advisor clone. The clone considered and shook his head.

"Sorry, Joseph," Dranski apologized. "We've never heard of it. What have you heard?"

"Only that it's an intercontinental-range missile that the Israelis have developed. Obtaining hard information has proved impossible."

"Highly unlikely," said the clone confidently. "The Israelis have developed a number of intermediate-range weapons, of course. But they have neither the resources nor the firing range facilities to test the necessary booster rocket that an intercontinental missile would require."

"If we hear anything, we'll let you know," said Dranski cheerfully. "I understand you're flying on to New York?"

"I have a number of matters to attend to at our office there," Maken replied.

Dranski gave a sly smile. "I believe Senator Hadley will be in New York. Give him our best wishes if you happen to meet him."

Once he was alone in the back of the limousine returning him to his hotel, Maken allowed himself the luxury of a heart-fell expletive in his native French.

To hell with any concealed radio transmitters.

25

After a second change of taxis Heinlein was certain that he was being followed.

White Fords were common enough in Tel Aviv but this one had been following, a few cars back, for several streets and he was sure he had seen the driver's lips move—as though he were talking into a hidden, voice-activated microphone.

The Ford nosed into a parking space. A battered van swung out of a side-street and tucked in behind the taxi as it cruised down Allenby Street. It stopped alongside the taxi at the David Square traffic-lights so that Heinlein could hear its motor— finely tuned—running as sweetly as a sewing-machine. He glanced down at the tyres. New Michelins. Gleaming, well-maintained suspension. The van only looked a wreck.

He was definitely being followed.

He could guess why—he had once been posted to their Masada development plant and had worked at the station in the Negev where the Masada booster had been developed. He knew a lot about their plans. A helluva lot. Also he was keeping them guessing because he had made no attempt to call the mysterious Tel Aviv phone number. It was understandable that they wanted to keep tabs on him.

Heinlein sat back in the seat and relaxed. What could they do to him? He was out of the army. For the first time in eight years he was free to do as he pleased, go where he pleased. He would not miss the comradeship because he had always been a loner. Whether or not he worked for the bastards was entirely up to him.

The taxi dropped him outside the Bank Leumi's imposing tower. The fingerprint recognition pad on the bank's customer service terminal accepted him as David Heinlein and provided him with a print-out of his balance. With his back pay and severance gratuity, he had just enough money to last six months provided he was careful.

After a few moments' thought, he entered a pay phone booth and called the Tel Aviv number. A man's voice answered immediately: a cultured, mature voice.

"Yes?"

Feeling slightly foolish, Heinlein said, "I've only got a code-name to go on. 'Ben Yair.' I want to speak to him."

"Would you give me your full name, please," the mature voice requested.

"I think I've said enough for voice-print analysis," said Heinlein boredly.

"More than enough, David. I was wondering when you would call. Are you interested in our project?"

"That depends on the pay. And don't start on about patriotism and all that crap. Patriotism won't pay air fares."

"How much money do you have at the moment?"

Heinlein told him.

"That's enough to be going on with."

"You mean I've got to finance your lunatic scheme myself?"

"Our friends have an excellent intelligence network," the mature voice pointed out. "They're certain to find a way of looking at your bank account. They'd get very suspicious very quickly if you appear to have other resources." He paused. "Are you interested?"

"I'll let you know," Heinlein replied. "In the meantime you can fire the clowns you've got following me. Find some professionals." With that he hung up and strolled along the street deep in thought. He considered going back to work for his father and immediately rejected the idea. Diamond trading was not to his taste. No—a job could wait. He was going to buy himself some new clothes, find himself a smart hotel, and relax for two weeks.

A girl would come in handy. ,

It was nearly midnight. The floodlit Namir Square was crowded with young people enjoying the open-air bars, the blaring televisions, and the cool Mediterranean breeze. The square was a large, split-level traffic-free concourse sandwiched between the coast road and the beach. It was overlooked by the towering five-star edifice of Tel Aviv's Plaza Hotel.

Heinlein was sitting at an outside table drinking a beer when a smartly dressed girl in a miniskirt scurried by and tripped over his outstretched legs. She gave a cry of alarm and went sprawling across a vacant table—drenching herself with the contents of half-empty glasses that she sent bouncing over the flag-stones.

"I'm very sorry," said Heinlein, helping the girl to her feet. "Are you okay?"

She seemed dazed. "Oh—yes. I think so."

She looked about twenty-five. Very dark. Very pretty. And trembling.

"You'd better sit down a minute."

"I'm all right," the girl protested.

"No you are not all right—you're shaking. It was careless of me. I should look where I put my big feet."

A waiter armed with tissues and a doth came hurrying to the table.

"I'll think the lady will be okay," said Heinlein, using the tissues to mop up the drink that had splattered the girl's skirt and arms and legs. "What do you drink?"

"I must be going."

"You'll have a drink," Heinlein ordered. "You're still shaking."

She met his hard, dark eyes and hesitated. The man was unusually tall for an Israeli. Nearly two metres, she guessed. She was also uncomfortably aware of his powerful fingers digging into her forearm. "A small screwdriver, please."

"A large screwdriver," Heinlein instructed the waiter. "With plenty of vodka. What's your name?"

"Esther."

"Mine's David. You'd better sit down."

The incident was observed by a young man in faded jeans and a grubby T-shirt. He was idly swinging his legs over the balustrade on the square's upper level. Occasionally he took a swig from a can of Coke. He looked indifferent to the bustle around him but his eyes were alert—missing nothing. He had admired the way Echo Oscar had "siamesed" with her target. A copy-book operation. Brilliant, in fact. Her instructor at Mossad's central training school would have been proud of her. For several minutes he watched Heinlein and Echo Oscar drinking and lifted the Coke can to his lips.

"Four-Double-One—on."

"Go ahead. Four-Double-One," answered a voice in his ear.

"Echo Oscar is siamesed."

"Nicely?"

"Very nicely."

"Acknowledged, Four-Double-One. QSY to her channel. Out."

The young man touched a control in the Coke can's base and listened to the conversation from the table below where they were on their third round of drinks.

"So," Heinlein concluded. "Having just left the army, I'm going to do nothing but laze about for two weeks."

Esther smiled and crossed her long, slender legs. Her white miniskirt set off her tanned thighs. A bit on the thin side, thought Heinlein, but she would do. He had told her just enough about himself to keep the conversational ball rolling. In return he had learned that she worked in a travel bureau, and that she lived with her parents in a run-down apartment on Ben Gurion Street.

"I've got the next few days off too," said Esther.

"Maybe I'll see you on the beach?"

"Oh—yes. I love swimming. Isn't the Plaza very expensive?"

Heinlein glanced up at the hotel and shook his head. "They can't fill them since the Netanya attack. And I'm on the tenth floor. It's cheaper."

"Why?"

"Further from the air raid shelters."

Esther giggled, hiccupped, and tried to focus her eyes on her watch. "Oh—stupid thing."

"It's just after midnight," said Heinlein.

She looked dismayed. "Damn. I'm locked out. My parents always assume I'm staying with friends if I'm not back by midnight."

"Surely they'd answer the door?"

"I hate disturbing them." She gathered up her purse. "Well —if that hotel is as cheap and as empty as you say, I could—"

"Save your money. There's a spare bed in my room."

Esther stared sombrely at Heinlein and giggled. "I couldn't."

"You won't have to," said Heinlein drily. "But after staring at those fantastic legs of yours for the past fifteen minutes, I know damn well that I could."

Esther giggled again and stood. She swayed and steadied herself on the back of her chair. "Okay, David. Let's take you up on your generous offer."

Heinlein was woken in the morning by Esther shaking his shoulder.

"Wassermatter?"

She was kneeling on the bed, wrapped in a sheet, her eyes large and serious.

"I must've been drunk last night. I don't normally do this with strange—"

"You were and you did," said Heinlein unsympathetically. "And what's more—you screwed like it was about to be made illegal."

She pouted. "You're crude."

"Just honest. Can I go back to sleep now?"

Esther threw the sheet aside and hopped astride Heinlein before he had a chance to roll onto his side. He groaned as her weight crushed his balls.

"What the hell are you playing at?"

"Let's pretend."

"Pretend what?" On arrival in the room, they had tumbled onto the bed and made love in the dark. Heinlein was now able to appreciate her lithe, olive-skinned body and pert little breasts. Below her left nipple was a curious, half-moon-shaped birthmark.

Esther looked at her watch. "Let's pretend that it's about to be made illegal in thirty minutes."

Heinlein traced the outline of her birthmark with his finger and his hand brushed against the pendant that was hanging between her breasts. A hundred yards away in a nondescript van, a Mossad agent hurriedly turned down the volume on his headphones.

"I'm incapable of doing anything at the moment," Heinlein confessed.

Esther wriggled seductively, grinding herself against him and grinning impishly. "Oh, but I've got this feeling that you're becoming very capable."

Later they breakfasted by the hotel swimming-pool. Esther used her information-gathering skills so that her gentle probing of Heinlein's background sounded like idle curiosity. He added little about himself that she didn't already know from her field officer. He talked about his father, his army career, the Nazareth riot, and his subsequent court martial. It was not enough for Esther: she wanted to see through his infuriating inscrutability. To maintain the conversational balance, she told him truthfully about her ambition to travel and see the world.

"I spend my day selling vacations in exotic places that I'd like to see for myself." She stretched luxuriously on her sun bed. "God—this is the life."

Heinlein gazed up at the cloudless sky. "When I've made it —this is what I'm going to do—live in the best hotels."

Esther turned to face Heinlein, resting on one elbow so that her pendant dangled near his face. "No house? Wife? Family?" she inquired.

"No. Just me and a lot of money. Independent."

She sensed that she had to be careful. "So you want to make money?" She tried to make the inquiry casual, so that it sounded more like a statement than a question.

Heinlein nodded. "A lot of money."

"To prove to your father that you can make it in the world without his help? Right?"

"Wrong."

Esther sipped a glass of lager. "I don't think so, David."

He turned and looked at her. "I just want to make money. I've had eight years in the army earning next to nothing. I've got a lot of catching up to do."

"How much do you know about your father's business?"

Heinlein's eyes were expressionless. "A little. He taught me to classify and value diamonds. And I know something about the international diamond market." He laughed as a thought occurred. "It's funny, but I'm a diamond merchant according to my passport card. I put it down on my first passport because that's what I thought I was going to do—and it's stuck ever since."

"Well, there you are," said Esther. "Become a diamond merchant."

"Too late. I've wasted eight years."

"Are you bitter about it?"

Heinlein laughed again. "That is the understatement of the year."

"Why? If there was a mistake—"

"Because the miserable bastards wouldn't even give me the benefit of the doubt in the first place. Eight years in the army counted for nothing. If the new evidence hadn't come up, I'd be rotting in a military prison, and would be for the next ten years. If the system can do that, then it's corrupt—right through."

"At least they admitted that there'd been a mistake," Esther pointed out. ".A. lot of countries wouldn't have done that."

Heinlein scowled. "A lot of countries wouldn't brand a man a coward and then offer him a month's pay as compensation. If that's what being an Israeli means, then I want out. As soon as possible."

The following morning Heinlein was sitting on the bedroom balcony reading the Jerusalem Post when he came across a piece about Joseph Maken's visit to New York.

He debated with himself what to do and eventually made up his mind. His passport card was in order so he might as well act now. He quickly packed his few possessions. Esther was stretched naked across the bed like a drugged kitten, sound asleep. Hardly surprising—the way she made love. He scribbled a brief note to her on the hotel's stationary, and left it beside her. She didn't stir when he left the room, closing the door silently behind him.

He settled his bill, paid for Esther to use the room for another two days, and walked the half mile to the United States Embassy on Havarkon Street. He was certain that he wasn't followed.

After three hours of queuing, form-filling, answering questions, and producing documents, followed by an hour's wait, he walked out of the embassy with the data against his passport card updated to include a new visa.

A large notice outside Pan Am's office stated that, owing to the deteriorating war situation, the airline was suspending its Israeli operations the following week,

"There's a cancelled seat available on the seven o'clock flight this evening to New York, sir," said the girl, looking up from her computer terminal.

"Nothing earlier?"

The girl shook her head. "Sorry, sir. The afternoon flight is fully booked. You'll find it much the same with the other airlines. What with the airport being closed for a week, and the number of people quitting the country—"

"Okay. I'll take it."

The girl checked his visa by passing his passport card through her computer terminal.

"It's only just been updated," Heinlein explained.

"All perfectly in order, sir," said the girl, smiling and returning his card.

Shortly before take-off", Heinlein called the Tel Aviv number from a pay phone at Ben-Gurion Airport. He knew that he hadn't been followed.

"Okay," he told the mature voice. "I'm going to New York."

"Excellent, David. I'm sure—"

"I haven't agreed to anything yet," Heinlein interrupted. "I don't owe Israel anything. I might go back into the diamond business. I might even work for the opposition. At least they'll pay me."

There was a long pause before the mature voice replied. "That would be most inadvisable, David," he said icily.

"I'll do as I fucking well please."

"As soon as you've made up your mind—you have only to call this number. All incoming calls are two-way scrambled and you will always get through to me—no matter where I am."

"Okay," said Heinlein indifferently. "One last thing."

"Yes?"

"Thanks for the girl,"

At 7:15, Heinlein and five hundred and thirty other passengers were airborne in an SST Boeing, climbing over the Mediterranean and turning westwards towards the blood-red sun that was setting on Israel.

26

Although the conversations between Esther and Heinlein and the sound effects they had created had been recorded by the Mossad communications vehicle parked near the Plaza Hotel, Esther still was required to give a full report to her section leader. The transcripts were before him but they were no substitute for the personal contact that Esther had maintained for thirty hours. She was one of Mossad's best shallow-cover agents. On a number of occasions she had proved her remarkable ability to turn the pages of a man's mind and read his innermost thoughts.

"Do you think he's going to defect?" the section leader inquired.

Esther considered her reply carefully. "I don't honestly know. He wants to make money and he hates Israel like poison at the moment. In his present state of mind he could do anything. But if I were going over to the Palestinians, I wouldn't go to the expense of flying to New York. He was short of money and I'm sure he wouldn't turn to his father for help."

"Joseph Maken has arrived m New York," said the section leader. "It was in the morning papers."

Esther met his eyes. "In that case, I'd say he's defecting."

The section leader nodded.

"What will happen now?" asked Esther.

"I don't know."

The section leader did know but it was not Esther's concern. The New York station chief had been instructed to keep Heinlein under observation and report directly to Greer on his movements.

27

September

New York was sweltering in the grip of a humid Indian summer.

Eight years had passed since Heinlein's last visit during his globe-trotting days representing his father. Apart from the cars, which were smaller and even quieter, he was surprised to discover how little the city had changed. The twin, monolithic towers of the World Trade Center had acquired another thirty floors, restoring its title as the world's tallest building, and there was a new bridge across the Hudson River carrying the Washington-New York monorail. Everything else seemed much the same, and as the cab lurched along Avenue of the Americas, Heinlein couldn't help wondering if the pot-holes had been subjected to conservation orders.

He glanced out the rear window and told the taxi-driver to double back a couple of times.

"Anything for a customer," said the taxi-driver, obliging.

Once back on the avenue, Heinlein's suspicions were confirmed. "We're being followed," he announced.

"Yeah," agreed the taxi-driver. "I noticed. Buick."

"Can you lose it?"

"Cost yah an extra fifty."

"Done."

Hardly was the word out of Heinlein's mouth when he was nearly pitched onto the floor as the cab made an unexpected, tyre-squealing right turn.

"Great doing this," the taxi-driver observed laconically, hooking his car down Fiftieth Street and accelerating. "Always wanted to drive stunts for the movies."

There was a sudden succession of violent turns that had Heinlein hanging grimly on to the passenger handles. Blaring horns. Shrieking brakes. The smell of burning rubber. And then the cab slowed to a more moderate speed.

"Yeah—we shook him off okay," said the taxi-driver cheerfully, sliding onto the Hilton's covered forecourt. "Could've done it quicker but too many cops about."

The first thing that confronted Heinlein when he entered the hotel's lobby was a large video screen that proclaimed:

THE NEW YORK HILTON EXTENDS A WARM

WELCOME TO THE

DELEGATION FROM THE PALESTINE LIBERATION

ORGANIZATION.

The hotel lobby was riddled with security men in various guises. The registration clerk did his best to conceal his discomfort when he saw Heinlein's passport card. "Ah—you're an Israeli citizen, Mr. Heinlein?"

"You can read?" said Heinlein admiringly.

A man in a brown suit and horn-rimmed glasses appeared at Heinlein's side. "Any problems?"

"This gentleman is an Israeli citizen," said the clerk.

"Don't worry," said Heinlein. "It's not catching."

The sarcasm was lost on Horn-Rimmed Glasses. He flipped through Heinlein's passport. "How long are you staying for, sir?" He was very polite.

"I don't know yet."

Horn-Rimmed Glasses nodded to the video screen. "It's just that you may be more comfortable at another hotel, sir."

"I'm not interested in politics," assured Heinlein. "Only diamonds."

Horn-Rimmed Glasses came to a decision. "Okay—a room on the tenth floor," he told the clerk. He returned Heinlein's card. "I hope you enjoy your stay in New York, sir."

As Heinlein accompanied the bellboy to the elevators, he noticed that one of the sliding doors had a man posted on each side. He guessed that the PLO had taken over an entire floor of the hotel which could be reached only by that particular elevator. After unpacking and taking a shower, he sat on his bed and wrote a brief letter on the hotel's headed notepaper.

Room 1013

Dear Mr. Maken,

I know about Masada. Also, I am looking forward to meeting you. Yours sincerely, David Heinlein.

He wondered if the note was too bald but decided that it said everything he wanted to say. He sealed it in an airmail envelope so that there was no danger of its being treated as a potential letter-bomb and took it down to the registration desk.

"Can that be sent to Mr. Joseph Maken's suite now, please?"

The clerk examined the envelope and signalled to one of the hovering security men. "I don't see why not, sir."

As Heinlein returned to the elevator, he noticed that the man in the horn-rimmed glasses was examining the envelope.

His bedside telephone rang fifteen minutes later.

"Mr. Heinlein?" A woman's voice.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Heinlein—we'd be most grateful if you would come down to the assistant manager's desk in the lobby."

"Sure. What's it about?"

"There's a hotel guest who wishes to meet you."

28

The macabre list of precedents that had established assassination as a Mossad tool against Palestinian terrorism was long but not particularly distinguished.

It had all started with Ghassan Kanafani, a member of the PFLP Central Command who had planned the Lod International Airport massacre of May 1972. Two days after the atrocity, his car was blown up, killing him and a teen-age girl passenger. Next there had been the systematic assassination of those Palestinians who had planned the Munich Olympic Games massacre in which eleven members of the Israeli squad died. Occasionally things went wrong—such as the time when a Mossad deep-cover team operating in Norway had murdered an mnocent man. Most of the Israeli team had been subsequent arrested by the Norwegian authorities.

The carefully planned assassinations went on through the 1970s. The targets were invariably Palestinian intellectuals— the staff planners—the men and women with no taste for military combat who had nevertheless been trying to shape international terrorism into a deadly political weapon. Suddenly they found themselves victims of the tactics they had devised: Mossad had killed them with letter-bombs in their post and with bombs planted in their cars. Sometimes they had died from a single bullet in a deserted street. Sometimes it was from a hail of bullets in a full-blown commando-style raid.

Whatever method the planners had used against Israel, so Israel had replied in kind.

During the late 1970s, the forces of evolutionary change within the PLO had led to a decline in the influence of the Marxist intellectuals who believed that society had to be destroyed before it could be changed. The PLO had eventually discarded international terrorism in favour of methods aimed at achieving long-term political objectives.

By the early 1980s, assassination had virtually ceased to be used by Mossad, and it was never employed again. Nevertheless, Israel's killing machine was kept in a permanent state of readiness: Mossad still employed a number of operatives who kept themselves well versed in the theones and practise of clandestine murder, which was why Rymann and Greer were discussing the use of such staff when they were alone after the evening meeting of the Emergency Defence Council.

"There's no doubt that Heinlein has contacted the PLO?" asked Rvmann.

Greer nodded to the decoded signal he had just received from the Mossad station chief in New York. "No doubt whatsoever. He's checked in at Maken's hotel. What further proof do you need?"

"But you don't think he's defected?"

"I'm convinced that he hasn't. He's playing games with us.

So we teach him—and Maken—-just how dangerous this particular game is."

"Michael—it's far too risky."

"It'll make Heinlein get in touch," Greer interrupted. "That's all we need."

Rymann looked curiously at his friend. "Do you have a man in mind?"

"A woman, actually. One of our best marksmen. And she's met Heinlein so there's no need to involve our New York legals. Also, she will have no trouble recognizing him."

"He's elusive. He was in the Special Parachute Brigade. He's trained. Look at the times he's given your agents the slip."

"She'll find him," Greer murmured confidently.

"She's got to be a damn good shot."

"She is."

Rymann gave a dry, humourless laugh. "I doubt if anyone has ever been given such a strange order before. The question is, will she do it?"

"Without question," Greer replied impassively.

"It's a hell of a price to pay."

"One that's worth the prize."

Rymann walked to the window of his private office and stared out across the Hakirya, his hands thrust into his pockets. He remained deep in thought for a while and then spun round to face Greer. "All right, then, Michael—go ahead."

29

Two armed secret service men accompanied Heinlein in the elevator from the lobby to the top floor of the Hilton. The doors slid open and he was handed over to two cheerful Palestinians in business suits who showed him along a heavily guarded corridor to a bedroom where he was carefully searched. He was then taken by an aide to a penthouse suite that the Hilton management reserved for their VIP guests: double-thickness, bullet-proof windows; twice-daily sweeps for bugging devices; and antenna dishes on the roof that provided conference-secure microwave links via communication satellites with any country in the world.

Joseph Maken was dictating to a secretary when Heinlein was shown into the room.

"Mr. Heinlein," said the aide, and withdrew.

"Ah, Heinlein," said Maken, waving to a chair. "I hope you don't mind if my secretary takes notes?"

"No," said Heinlein indifferently. He sat down and studied Maken with interest. This sleek, well-groomed man had succeeded where other PLO leaders had failed: he had united all the warring factions of the PLO; had won for them a secure if temporary homeland where the Chel Ha'Avir couldn't get at them, and was striking at Israel with impunity with the world's smallest air force—albeit an air force equipped with MiG-35s.

"You're the author of this strange letter?" asked Maken.

"That's right."

"How is it that you know about Masada?"

Heinlein briefly outlined the circumstances of his court martial.

"All right," said Maken coldly. "So you're a disillusioned Israeli soldier who wants to make some money. I know nothing about Masada other than it is a new weapon; therefore I have no way of verifying the accuracy of whatever information you try to sell me."

"I never said that I was here to sell you information," said Heinlein calmly, suspecting that Maken was deliberately trying to annoy him. "I'm here lo give you information. And I've got a plan that will enable you to smash Israel next year."

"Really?" said Maken uninterestedly.

"I have two ambitions. I want to hit back at Israel and I want to make money. A lot of money. My plan will enable me to do both."

Maken was puzzled. When Heinlein had first walked into his suite, he had been convinced that this was another Israeli agent. Now he had serious doubts. Mossad didn't operate in such a clumsy manner. The methods they were using in their attempts to penetrate Bakal, although futile, were clever; they did not send agents into the field armed with flimsy covers that could be blown by a few simple checks. He decided to change tactics.

"Do you support the PLO cause, Heinlein?"

Heinlein looked contemptuous. "Personally I don't give a monkey's fuck about your cause. I just want to hit Israel where it hurts and make some money at the same time."

"You want to use us?"

"If you wish to put it like that—yes."

Maken was still suspicious although he found Heinlein's straightforwardness a refreshing change. He was not the first Israeli to offer his services to the PLO. There had been those who had sensed which way the wind was blowing and had been anxious to ensure that their comfortable life-style would continue should the Palestinian cause succeed. Other offers of help had come from a small number of Israelis who were genuinely sympathetic towards the PLO. Then there were the Marxist and Trotskyist idealists who wanted to overthrow Israel by any means going.

Maken was a cynical realist: he used such people when it suited him, although he didn't trust the Israeli volunteers and he had little confidence in the idealists. Some bitter lessons had taught him that it was relatively easy to stimulate such people into a fervent support of revolutionary principles, but they didn't have the stomach for playing an active part in a bloody guerrilla war.

Heinlein was different. Just how different the dark, unsmiling young man sitting opposite him was would be interesting to find out.

"Tell me about Masada," invited Maken.

"How do I know I can trust you?" Heinlein inquired.

"You don't. You tell me about Masada and then we'll see how much mutual trust we can scrape together between us."

Heinlein smiled. He was beginning to see why Maken was such a successful leader. "Masada is a new missile."

"That much I had guessed."

"The basic Masada is a single-stage solid-fuel rocket that can be armed with a nuclear warhead. It's equipped with a new type of combined inertial and celestial guidance system that gives it pin-point accuracy. A Masada lifted into space by a booster can separate from the booster and use its motor as a sustainer to bring it down on any target within a range of five thousand miles at a speed of Mach 15—eleven thousand miles per hour." Heinlein stopped and regarded Maken's dead-pan expression. "They'd be on their target before a SAM missile was clear of its launcher. Two Masadas with nuclear warheads would be enough to take out Bakal. In fact Bakal is the number one target."

Heinlein spent the next five minutes answering Maken's searching questions as accurately as he could. He even marked on a map the exact location of the Negev Guided Weapons Research Establishment where the Masada booster was being developed, and he explained how the base had been disguised as an agricultural research station.

"How near completion is this booster?" asked Maken, glancing up at the girl taking shorthand to make sure she was getting everything down.

"The prototype was nearing completion when I was there six months ago," Heinlein replied. "After the firing of the prototype, the plan was to build two pre-production models and test-fire them from a cargo ship in a remote area."

"When will the production boosters be ready?"

"Within a year. I don't know the exact time."

There was nothing in Maken's expression to indicate the alarm he was experiencing. "Turning to your motives for telling me this, I will not find it difficult to check your story about your court martial."

Heinlein shrugged indifferently.

Maken continued, "As for your other motive—greed. How do you expect to make money out of my organization?"

"By supplying it with weapons."

Maken raised an eyebrow. "Most arms dealers are well aware that we have existing sources."

Heinlein snorted. "I'm not talking about the toy soldier gear the Soviets give you. I'm talking about real weaponry—the sort of armament that you're going to need if you want to smash the Israelis."

"Our suppliers meet all our requirements," Maken observed.

"Really? Okay—so they've given you some MiG-35 hit-and-run aircraft. But where're your heavy transports? Where're your anti-aircraft missile batteries? Where's your navy? Your submarines? Your assault craft? Because that's what you're going to need at the end of the day to beat the Israelis. And don't kid me that the Soviets are prepared to supply you with that sort of material, because they won't—Just as they won't supply their own Warsaw Pact countries with weapons that could be used against them."

Maken did not allow his face to betray the fact that Heinlein had touched a nerve. Instead he said pleasantly, "And you can supply us with a navy and an air force?"

"No. But with something much better."

"Such as?"

"Four of the Masadas fitted with nuclear warheads."

Maken would have dismissed anyone else as a crackpot but not someone as deadly serious as Heinlein. "At what sort of price?"

"The plan I have in mind means that the missiles won't cost you a penny."

"A fascinating plan, no doubt," said Maken drily. "But the Masada needs a booster. Surely you are not claiming to be able to supply us with Masada boosters as well? Difficult, I would've thought, especially if the Israelis haven't completed them yet."

Heinlein smiled coldly. "I have a much better delivery system for the Masadas in mind,"

The former Israeli officer then spent five minutes outlining a plan aimed at restoring Palestine. The operation was so daring, so audacious, so carefully thought out that Maken's initial instinctive reaction was that it stood a crazy, impossible chance of succeeding. It was the sort of plan that could have come only from an Israeli.

As Heinlein talked, Maken's mind raced ahead—weighing up the plan's chances. The more he thought about it, the more he realized what a stupendous concept it was. Its most attractive feature, apart from the certain capitulation of Israel, was that it did not require any assistance from the Soviet Union.

Despite the careful facade that Joseph Maken adopted for the benefit of his Soviet allies, he was not a committed Communist, nor were his closest followers. To Maken, there were aspects of communism that were as distasteful as violence but he was prepared to embrace both doctrines to achieve his ambition of overthrowing Israel. Communism and guns were tools to be discarded once they had served their purpose. The same applied to mercenaries like Heinlein. But before using Heinlein, he had to be certain that the tool was genuine.

He brought the meeting to a close by promising that he would discuss the matter with his advisors. Heinlein agreed to Maken's request to stay at the Hilton Hotel until further notice.

30

Esther spent her first forty-eight hours in New York City familiarizing herself with its geography—particularly midtown Manhattan where the Hilton Hotel was located. At first she found the city overbearing and confusing. After the first day she began to feel more comfortable despite the awesome nature of the assignment that was hanging over her.

According to her passport card she was Esther Oliveria—a courier for a Tel Aviv travel agency. She had excellent references, several thousand dollars in traveller's cheques, and managed to find herself a medium-priced apartment off Columbus Avenue near the Jewish Center.

On her third day in New York—a Monday—she purchased a copy of Guns & Ammo and spent two hours combing through the mail-order advertisements. She decided on a Remington recoilless "Spotlight" .22 caliber rifle with Leupold gas laser sights because it was the closest weapon to the small-bore lightweight rifles she had trained with.

"Automatic, ultrasonic range-finding and fully automated sighting," boasted the mail-order company's blurb. "You pull the trigger, and the computer built into the stock does the rest. One hundred rounds free with all orders received by the end of the month."

Esther wired the company her order and a credit card number.

She spent the next day keeping the Hilton under observation and was rewarded in the afternoon when Heinlein emerged from the hotel's main entrance.

Following him was easy. He headed north towards Central Park and spent an hour wandering around the zoo. He entered a bar for twenty minutes before returning to the hotel.

His movements were much the same on Wednesday and Thursday and included a visit to a theatre. It was as if he was killing time. She wondered what he was waiting for.

On Friday she purchased a clipboard and a pocket computer and entered the Museum of American Folk Art—rehoused in a new building opposite the Hilton. No one challenged her when she took an elevator to the top floor. The corridor was empty. A short flight of stairs took her to what had to be the roof, judging by the daylight visible under the bottom of the locked door.

She tried out the various acid-resistant plastic keys from a large bunch and found one that fitted neatly into the lock although it would not turn. She removed the key, took an acid ampoule from her purse, and pushed it carefully into the lock without breaking it. She reinserted the key in the lock and pushed hard. The ampoule broke. Vapour curled from the lock as the powerful acid went to work on the lock's moving parts. After a few seconds she found that she could turn the key a few degrees. She waited patiently. Timing was critical. Allowing the acid to attack the lock for too long would result in its being welded into one immovable mass of metal. A minute went by and she tried the key again. This time it turned. It was stiff, but at least she could feel the lock's tongue sliding out of the Striker-plate. She pushed the door open, removed the key, and halted the action of the add with an ampoule of neutralizing fluid.

With her clipboard tucked under her arm, she marched boldly onto the roof as if she had every right to be there and pretended to examine the window-cleaners' cradle rails. To anyone watching from an office window in one of the neighbouring buildings that overlooked the roof, she was a safety inspector checking the window-cleaning equipment. "Clipboards and pocket computers are invaluable," a Mossad instructor had once told her. "They can get you into unauthorized areas and make you look as though you belong there."

The roof was ideal. It had a commanding view of the Hilton's covered main entrance and there was a low parapet that she could rest the rifle on.

A parcel was awaiting her when she returned to the apartment.

Her rifle had arrived.

31

Heinlein was no stranger to boredom. The long hours spent as duty officer at the Negev Guided Weapons Research Establishment had seen to that. But after four days waiting for Maken to call him, he was getting impatient. He never left the hotel for more than three hours at a time and he always checked upon his return to see if there were any messages for him.

After returning from yet another interminable walk along Broadway and a visit to a bar, he left a curt note for Maken telling the PLO leader that he was considering returning to Israel.

32

Esther lay on her stomach in the clearing and aimed the rifle at the Coke can that she had wedged in the branch of a tree. The can was three hundred yards away and yet it loomed bright red in the rifle's sights as though it were only two yards away.

She steadied her aim until the dancing spot of light from the laser beam shining out of the optical sights was centered on the letter 0 in the word "Coca." There was an almost inaudible whirr from the rifle's computer-controlled servo-motors as they made the necessary sighting corrections based on information received from the rifle's ultrasonic range-finder. A green light winked in the sights, indicating that all was ready. She squeezed the trigger.

The report was louder than she expected but—as the makers had claimed—there was hardly any recoil. She peered through the sights. The letter 0 had a neat round hole punched through its centre. She squeezed off^ four more rounds that stitched a row of perfectly placed holes around the outside of the letter.

Esther was delighted with the rifle. Apart from allowances for wind deflexion that still called upon the traditional skills of a marksman, the rifle was about as foolproof as one could get. She dismantled it and thrust it into a voluminous shoulder-bag before trudging back through the trees to her hire car.

33

It was a hot afternoon. The air-conditioning in Maken's suite was working hard.

"We've checked your story, Heinlein," said Maken. "And I'm pleased to say that it stands up."

"There's no reason why it shouldn't. It happens to be the truth."

Maken toyed with a detailed report that was lying in front of him. The PLO agents had been thorough—the document even included a summary of Heinlein's court martial transcript and a print-out of his Tel Aviv bank statement.

"I've discussed your plan with a few of my very close colleagues," said Maken, watching Heinlein carefully. "Naturally, they are astounded."

"Naturally," agreed Heinlein indifferently.

"And very worried by your proposals."

"Why?"

Maken looked sharply at Heinlein. "That should be obvious. What you're proposing to do has never been done before."

Heinlein gave a lazy smile. "Which is a good reason for doing it."

"Precisely. You and I think alike."

"Good. When do I start?"

"You don't. At least not yet."

"Now look," said Heinlein in some irritation. "I've had a week—"

"The four thousand dollars' expenses you require will be paid," said Maken smoothly. "You're to return to Israel and wait until one of my men contacts you. He'll give you our final decision."

"Meaning that you still don't trust me?"

Maken gave Heinlein a disarming smile. "Meaning that a little mutual mistrust might be in both our interests for the time being."

34

Patrolman Sean Lewis of the New York City police was destined to go a long way in his chosen career because he had an unusual gift of observation. There was very little going on in the streets of midtown Manhattan that escaped his attention. He had seen the beautiful, dark-haired girl before. Four times to be exact.

Either she had been sitting in a coffee shop near the Hilton or she had been wandering up and down the Avenue of the Americas. She didn't behave like a hooker; she never picked up a client and yet a girl with her looks would have to fight them off. So what in the world was she up to?

Patrolman Lewis watched her walk jauntily across the street, a bag slung over her shoulder, and enter the Museum of American Folk Art. Maybe she wanted an air-conditioned bolt-hole to escape the suffocating heat; maybe she was a genuine student of American culture just as Patrolman Lewis was a student of human behaviour—especially criminal behaviour. He decided that it would do no harm to keep an eye on the building to see how long she remained inside.

Esther knelt down near the parapet and glanced across at the Hilton's main entrance. If Heinlein stuck to his pattern, he would be leaving the hotel for his afternoon walk in ten minutes. She hoped he would not be late because someone at an overlooking window was certain to notice her presence. She then realized that the blazing sun provided just the cover she needed. She stripped down to the two-piece bathing-suit she had put on under her clothes and stretched out on her skirt. She was just another office-girl taking advantage of the fine weather.

She rolled onto her stomach and rested her chin on her hands so that she could see over the edge of the parapet.

Once settled, she drew her bag nearer and opened the flap so that she could quickly grab the Remington when Heinlein appeared.

Heinlein's phone rang. It was the travel desk confirming that he had a reservation on an El Al evening flight to Tel Aviv. He thanked the girl and glanced at his watch. He had been stuck in the hotel all day. There was plenty of time to go out for a drink.

The museum security guard looked doubtful. "Bag slung over her shoulder? Yeah—there was a girl—dark hair. Took an elevator a few minutes back. Could be in any of the offices."

Patrolman Lewis thanked him. Another characteristic that was going to take him a long way as a police-officer was his sixth sense. That sixth sense told him to check the roof.

Esther saw Heinlein emerge from the hotel. Her movements were methodical, unhurried. But her hands were shaking. You're crazy, a comer of her mind told her. The videos depicted assassins as cool and calculating, yet here she was— hands trembling and heart pounding.

She slipped the Remington from her bag, rested it on the parapet, and squinted through the sights. It took her a few seconds to pick out Heinlein. He was walking away from her, his back completely filling her field of view. She flipped the switch that activated the laser beam and watched the spot of light dancing all over Heinlein's back. Gradually her trembling eased and the point of light steadied. He was walking slowly as though deep in thought. The wind caught at her hair and blew it across her face.

You must allow for the wind!

The point of light became still as Esther forced herself to gain total control of her body. Sometimes pedestrians passed between her and her target. And then Heinlein was strolling along a stretch of sidewalk outside Burlington House where the passers-by had thinned out. She made a final aim correction. The tiny computer-controlled servo-motors whirred briefly as they compensated for the increasing distance as Heinlein moved further away from Esther. And then the green light was winking. Esther pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times.

The first bullet struck the sidewalk within six inches of Heinlein's foot and ricocheted through a Burlington House window. He recognized the sharp crack of a high-velocity round and dived for cover behind a raised flower-bed. The second round unleashed a cloud of dust as it chewed a chunk out of the flower-bed's brick surround.

A woman screamed as the third round whined past her ear and embedded itself in a wall.

Patrolman Lewis kicked open the door just as Esther was about to fire a fourth shot.

"Drop it!" he snarled.

Esther turned her head and stared blankly at him. The policeman was facing her, both arms outstretched, clutching a .38 that was pointing straight at her head.

"I said, 'Drop it!' "

Esther released her grip on the Remington. It clattered to the parapet and would have gone over the edge had she not made a sudden grab at it.

Two things happened in that instant. The first was the posing of a question in the mind of Patrolman Lewis that was to haunt him for the rest of his life: had the girl grabbed instinctively at the rifle to stop it from falling or had she intended to use it against him?

The second thing that happened was that he shot her in the left eye, killing her instantly.

35

The man in the horn-rimmed glasses drew the sheet away from Esther's face and looked questioningly at Heinlein. "The eye patch covers where she was hit," he explained.

Heinlein looked down at Esther. Genuine shock flickered momentarily across his normally impassive face. His mind raced.

"Well?" The man in the horn-rimmed glasses queried.

Heinlein nodded. "Yes. I knew her. I ran out on her in Israel. She used to drive me crazy. If I as much as looked at another woman, she'd threaten to scratch my eyes out. To have tracked me here from Tel Aviv. Can you imagine that?" He shook his head in disbelief.

The man in the horn-rimmed glasses was an FBI agent—the man who had interviewed Heinlein in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel. He seemed unimpressed by Heinlein's story. "Tell me about her body," he invited. "Any marks? Scars?"

Heinlein thought for a moment. "A birthmark on her left breast."

"Shape?"

"Sort of half oval. Moon-shaped."

"Above or below the nipple?"

"Below."

The FBI man was relieved. On the face of it, one Israeli shooting at another Israeli outside the hotel where Joseph Maken was staying didn't look too good. And yet the farewell note in Heinlein's handwriting that had been found in the dead girl's apartment plus Heinlein's story all added up to one of those curious coincidences that the FBI man was all too familiar with. If the girl was a professional, it was unlikely that Heinlein would be familiar with her birthmark. Also the rest of Heinlein's story checked out: the former Israeli army officer was the son of one of Israel's leading diamond merchants, and he had visited the United States before on business.

The two men left the mortuary on Tenth Avenue.

"Do you want me for any more questioning?" Heinlein asked.

"Just one. Why did you see Joseph Maken?"

"Altruistic motives. He's a Marxist. I merely wanted to know if Tel Aviv would continue as a major bullion and diamond centre should he ever take over. Like I told you before—I'm interested in business—not politics."

"When do you plan on returning to Israel?"

"This afternoon. I missed yesterday's flight because of this business."

"The girl knew how to handle a rifle."

Heinlein shrugged. "We still have the draft for girls. They all learn how to handle rifles."

The FBI man gazed disinterestedly at the passing traffic.

"No more questions, Mr. Heinlein. But if you do run out on any more jealous chicks, don't let them chase you to New York. Okay?"

"I'll try not to," Heinlein promised.

"Something else," said the agent.

"Yes?"

The agent regarded Heinlein steadily. "We might just take a fatherly interest in your well-being once you're back in Israel."

"Just how safe is this place?" Heinlein demanded from a Times Square bar.

"All incoming calls to this number are reverse-scrambled," Greer assured. "No one can eavesdrop. Please continue."

"Listen, 'Ben Yair,' or whatever your name is. Just what the hell are you playing at?"

"I might ask you the same question, David."

"If you wanted me eliminated, why send that poor kid? She couldn't even shoot straight with a laser-sighted rifle."

"She was told to miss."

"What!"

"On the first occasion, that is," said Greer. "Getting herself killed wasn't part of the plan. Her job was to warn you if you were thinking of defecting, and to establish your credentials with our friends if you weren't. You haven't been very forthcoming so you've only got yourself to blame."

"Listen," said Heinlein. "I'm going to do this my way— without any interference from you. My guess is you've got some influence with Mossad. Right?"

"Some," Greer admitted.

"Tell them I don't want a lot of their nerds lousing things up so keep them out of the way. Okay?"

"Okay," Greer agreed, much relieved at the turn the conversation was taking. "But if you ever need help—you have only to call this number."

"See that our embassy here arranges a decent funeral for the kid," said Heinlein and hung up.

"She was definitely a Mossad agent, " Maken declared.

Heinlein gave a languid smile. "You think so?"

"I know so."

"Oh? How?"

"Let's just say that we know."

Earlier that morning Maken and his aides had sifted through the photographs of employees of known Mossad front organizations in Israel. The photograph of Esther matched the photograph of an emplovee of a travel agency cum souvenir shop near Namir Square in Tel Aviv.

Heinlein grinned. "I thought Mossad trained their operatives to shoot straight?"

"With that lay-off angle? She was lucky to have got a shot within six inches of you. The attempt on vour life answers one question about you but poses another. Just how useful can you be to us if Mossad are sifter you?"

"If she was a Mossad agent, my guess is that they'll now leave me alone."

Maken was intrigued. "Why?"

"Because the matter is closed as far as the FBI is concerned —a case of a jealous woman who tried to bump off her lover. If anything happens to me. the Israelis can't afford an international row blowing up if the Americans decide to delve too deep into who the girl was. Accusations of attempted political assassinations in New York won't do much for Israeli/L'.S. relations in the present climate. "

Maken toyed with his gold pen. "You could be nght. Which brings me to another question. We're prepared to accept that you're genuine, therefore we've decided to provide you with an operational unit. They'll work closely with you, Heinlein. So close in fact, that if anything goes seriously wrong, you’ll be their last target. I hope I make myself clear?"

36

A bombing raid on Ben-Gurion Airport forced Heinlein's Boeing to divert to the Chel Ha 'Avir's Etzion Air Base in the Sinai Desert. Internal passenger flights had been suspended in Israel; therefore the passengers had to await the arrival of buses to ferry them to Tel Aviv for customs and immigration clearance.

As expected, Heinlein encountered no problems with the immigration girl who fed his passport card through her computer terminal. He was hot, tired, and hungry by the time he checked in at the Plaza Hotel.

He spent the following morning sleeping off his jet lag and emerged in the late afternoon. He hired a car and drove into the centre of Tel Aviv, where he spent an hour touring various hardware stores, purchasing a number of small tools, a money-belt, some electrical items, and even an aerosol can of shaving-cream. After that he went to Bemers on Rothschild Boulevard and bought a Polaroid document camera equipped with an electonic flash-gun. His last visit was to a men's outfitters where he purchased pants, a lightweight sweat-shirt, gloves, socks, and a pair of soft shoes. All the garments were black.

At midnight he drove ten miles north along the coast to where his father had a house on the select Jaffa Gardens Estate. He concealed the car in some undergrowth half a mile from the house and changed into the black clothes. The tools went into the pouches in the money-belt and he slung the Polaroid camera from his shoulder.

He left the car door ajar and placed the ignition key on the floor where he could find it easily in a hurry. His Special Parachute Brigade training had laid as much emphasis on escape from the scene of a clandestine operation as on going in the first place. "It's no good messing about with half a dozen keys on a bunch or trying to drag keys from your pocket when you're sitting behind a wheel," an instructor had once drilled into him. "And don't leave the key in the ignition because that's asking to have your get-away vehicle stolen."

That same training enabled him to move cat-like through the dense undergrowth surrounding the estate. He scaled several walls and crossed a number of gardens belonging to his father's neighbours. Before darting across lawns or open ground where he might be seen, he spent several minutes crouching in the shadows of shrubs, listening for the slightest sound indicating that his presence was known. His greatest worry was detection by the infra-red surveillance monitors and closed-circuit TV cameras, although from his knowledge of the estate he knew that such devices were mostly arranged to cover drives and front gates.

Heinlein climbed the familiar wall surrounding his father's mansion and circled cautiously around the building. There were no lights on in any of the rooms and the hum of wall-mounted air-conditioning units from his father's and brother's bedrooms told their own story: Avram Heinlein was cost-conscious and permitted the air-conditioners to be run only in those rooms that were occupied.

He climbed nimbly onto the roof of the double garage, located the burglar alarm, and injected the entire contents of a shaving-cream aerosol under the alarm's cover. The mass of white foam effectively jammed the alarm's relays, preventing them from triggering their circuits when they were activated.

The next obstacle was the sliding door leading to his father's study. He bored a tiny hole in the aluminium surround, released the catch with a screwdriver, and slipped inside. A quick examination with a pen-light showed that the lay-out of the book-lined room was unchanged.

The safe was still behind the same Tom Keating water-colour. Praying that his father had not changed the combination, he set the knurled wheels and pulled. The safe opened. Inside he found a bag of uncut diamonds and a leather-bound notebook. It was the book he was interested in: a diamond merchant's "traffic" register containing coded details of forthcoming diamond and bullion transactions and shipments. He propped the book open on the desk and used the Polaroid document camera to photograph the last twenty pages. The operation took less than five minutes. He returned the book and bag to the safe, locked it, and made his way back to the car.

He spent two minutes relaxing in the driver's seat while his heartbeat gradually returned to normal.

In the privacy of his hotel room, Heinlein laid out the Polaroid prints on the desk. The automatic sonic focussing device on the camera had done its job well—the images on the photographs were pin sharp. Luckily his father had not changed his coding system for diamond and bullion movements. Out of all the entries, there was one date for two weeks hence that occurred against four hundred and forty-five consignments of uncut diamonds. All the entries added up to a staggering quarter of a million carats. Certain that he had made a mistake, Heinlein checked the figures again. There was no mistake.

Fifty kilograms of uncut diamonds! All being moved on the same day to the same destination—Elat Airport on the Red Sea.

Heinlein debated with himself as to why his father was moving such a fortune out of the country. Israel's economy as a result of the War of Attrition meant that clandestine funds were probably leaving the country every day. There was no doubt that the massive shipment was illegal, but Avram Heinlein was no great lover of the State of Israel; therefore he would have no qualms about undertaking such a risky operation on behalf of his clients.

The following morning Heinlein made a number of phone calls and established that on the date of the consignment a party of fifty Jerusalem Hassidim had chartered a flight from Elat to Warsaw—the spiritual home of their sect—with a stopover at Amsterdam.

Elat made sense; it was one of the few airports not subject to PLO air attacks, and Amsterdam was certain to be the destination for the diamonds.

The more Heinlein thought about the fifty kilograms of diamonds, the more attractive the operation appeared. Only one raid would be required instead of the series he had envisaged, nor would he require much assistance from Maken's agents. All he had to do now was discover how the party of Hassidim and their baggage would be travelling to Elat.

A telephone call to the mysterious "Ben Yair" might answer that question.

37

A blow in the small of the back caused Heinlein to choke on his beer.

"David!" boomed a fog-horn English-accented voice. "David Heinlein, well, I do declare! If is isn't the old rogue himself."

Before Heinlein could react, a rotund, florid little man aged about forty and with several chins plunked himself down at Heinlein's table in Namir Square and beamed at him. The midday sun had pricked out beads of sweat on the stranger's forehead which he mopped with a well-used handkerchief.

"Who the hell are you?" growled Heinlein.

The little man looked crest-fallen. "David—surely you remember that party in London? When your father let you off the leash for a couple of days before you became a regular? By God, that was some party, eh? How many girls did we get through?"

Heinlein gaped at the little man in astonishment. Maken's aide in New York had told him that the name of the agent who would be contacting him in Tel Aviv was Sarcha and that he would introduce himself by talking about a party in London.

"I'm sorry. I don't remember you."

"Oh, David—really." The portly little stranger beamed and patted his belly. "Well—maybe I have put on a bit. But nothing to stop me earning a dishonest crust. Sarcha—Peter Sarcha." He gave Heinlein a knowing wink. "There—I expect that name's aroused a lot of guilty memories, eh?"

Heinlein glanced around the square. As usual, it was crowded with youngsters. "I think," he said carefully, "that we ought to go somewhere where we can talk."

"Good idea," Sarcha agreed. "Fancy a spot of fishing?"

The two men hired an outboard boat from the marina together with some fishing gear. They cut the engine a mile from the beach and allowed the boat to drift.

"Much better," said Sarcha, grinning broadly. "I like boats a long way offshore. Our Mossad friends employ some of the best lip-readers in the world. And they've got some beefy binoculars which are pretty useless against two blokes bobbing about in a boat."

Heinlein looked at Sarcha with grudging respect. Obviously the little fat man was a lot shrewder than he looked. "Okay, Sarcha. Who exactly are you?"

Sarcha beamed and outlined his background. He was a former Special Air Service sergeant in the British army. Upon leaving the army he had set himself up as a private bodyguard.

"Didn't do too badly," he confided to Heinlein. "But I did even better when a customer pointed me in the right direction and I started a little sideline with the PLO."

"What sort of sideline?"

Sarcha waved his hand airily. "Oh—the odd little bumping off here and there. Right up my street what with my SAS training and that. Funny thing, though—those bumped weren't Israelis. In those days one half of the PLO seemed intent on rubbing out the other half. Then Maken took over and all that ended. I still work for the guy because I admire what he's doing. This time I was told to make contact with you to help you out. I've also looked up a few old Palestinian friends while I'm here."

Heinlein looked curiously at Sarcha and wondered what use the improbable little fat man could possibly be to him. His weight would be against him for one thing. What Heinlein needed was agile young men.

"You're a mercenary?"

"Got it in one."

"I see. So if you're offered more money, you'd change sides?"

Sarcha looked faintly alarmed. "And upset Joseph Maken and all his works? Good grief, no. I'm also a shocking coward."

"Is Sarcha your real name?"

Sarcha grinned. "Oh yes. Peter Sarcha."

"Do you have any idea of what I might be planning?"

Sarcha's grin remained fixed. "Let me guess. Something to do with diamonds? Lots of diamonds?"

The remark triggered about a thousand of Heinlein's built-in alarm systems. He looked sharply at the Englishman. "Why should you think that?"

"That was a neat little job you pulled on your father's house the other day."

Heinlein's pulse hammered. "Job?" he questioned, his mind racing ahead.

Sarcha nodded complacently. "I followed you. All those bloody walls you made me climb over. And, David, me lad— you weren't that professional. We always reckoned in the SAS that the Special Parachute Brigade relied more on luck than judgement. If it had been me, I would've drawn the study curtains properly so that no one could've peeped through the windows and seen me at the safe. And the flashes from your camera bloody near lit up the whole garden." Sarcha broke off and laughed at Heinlein's stunned expression. "So it is a diamond job. Right, David?"

Dumbfounded, Heinlein could only nod.

"A big one?"

Heinlein hesitated and then realized that it was pointless hiding anything from the cunning little Englishman. "A very big one," he confirmed.

"How many men will we need?"

"I will need at least six men including myself," said Heinlein pointedly.

Sarcha started the outboard motor. "Okay, David, me boy," he said breezily. "Our friends said that you would be planning something, but they didn't know what. They also said I could include myself in for one per cent."

Heinlein regarded the Englishman steadily. "Is that so?" Sarcha chuckled. "But that you were to take your ten per cent first. So what say you and me buckle down to a bit of the jolly old planning?"

38

October

Heinlein spotted the distant anomaly from his observation point overlooking the Arava Highway—one of the loneliest roads in the world—which crossed the Wilderness of Zin from Be'er Sheva to Elat.

He steadied his binoculars against a rock and focussed them on the distorted image that was twisting and dancing like a demon in the blood heat haze that layered the burning hills. The gyrating image gradually hardened into the vague outline of a touring bus towing a cloud of dust. He undipped the children's two-way radio from his army belt and barked in the microphone: "They're coming."

"Roger," Sarcha acknowledged.

The fifty-milliwatt children's radios, with their piano wire antennae, were ideal for the operation because their range was less than half a mile and therefore there was little chance of their signals being picked up by the army's desert monitoring stations.

Heinlein scrambled down the barren hillside and helped Sarcha and Alef and the three other Palestinian recruits drag the military road-block signs into position. All six men were wearing suitably scruffy Zahal combat fatigues with soft-visored desert caps and Mk.20 Galil assault rifles. Every item of their uniforms was genuine right down to the identification bracelets that each man wore on his right wrist. Heinlein was wearing his own uniform which bore the two stripes of a segan—lieutenant—on his shoulder straps.

On a word from Heinlein the five men took up their positions and waited for the approaching bus to round the bend.

"Jesus," Sarcha muttered, wiping away the sweat that was coursing into his eyes. "Another hour in this bloody heat and a new slimmer me will emerge."

"Give me a chance to get used to the old one first," Heinlein retorted.

The whine of the bus's engine swelled. The vehicle hurtled around the bend and braked to a standstill when the driver spotted the road-block. As expected, the vehicle was an Egged Tours charter bus. Heinlein went aboard as soon as the door hissed open.

"Everything okay?" queried the driver.

"Your licence and SC permit, please," Heinlein requested. He glanced at the passengers. Two rows of dark suits, sombre beards and side-locks, and uninterested expressions from the fifty Hassidim stared right through him.

The driver handed Heinlein a document wallet.

"There's no stamp on your SC permit," said Heinlein, glancing through the papers and noting the driver's name. "Didn't you check through the Be'er Sheva control point?"

The driver looked puzzled. "Well—no, sir. There wasn't one."

Heinlein nodded. "You must've passed through before it was set up. Follow the jeep to the marquee, please."

One of the passengers in a front seat stood up. "I'm Rabbi Sharrat. I'm the leader of this group. We're on a pilgrimage to Warsaw—"

"I'm sorry. Rabbi," Heinlein interrupted. "But we have to search this bus. We've had reports that arms are being smuggled to Elat. The sooner we—"

"Surely you don't think we would smuggle arms!" the rabbi protested.

Heinlein smiled and noticed the flicker of alarm that appeared on a number of faces. "Of course not. Rabbi. But there is the possibility that arms have been planted on the bus without your knowledge." He turned to the driver. "Are you a reservist?"

"Yes, sir. A corporal."

"Right now, Corporal Mishan, you're under my command. Follow the first jeep and maintain radio silence."

Heinlein jumped down from the bus and hopped on the tailgate of the first jeep, driven by Alef, as it moved off. The tour bus obediently followed. The second jeep, with Sarcha driving, took up the rear position.

The convoy turned off the main road and bumped along a rough track for about half a mile to where a marquee had been pitched on a patch of level ground. Heinlein's two privates dragged the tent's flaps aside and waved the bus into the hot interior.

"This is disgraceful!" Rabbi Sharrat shouted as he stepped down from the coach and spotted the long row of trestle tables. "You have no right to delay us like this!"

"We're acting on the authority of the GOC Southern Command, Rabbi," said Heinlein calmly. "I want everyone in your party to remove his baggage from the bus's stowage bays and place his cases on the table. Any locked bags must be unlocked. Anyone making a suspicious move is liable to be shot. The sooner we get this over, the sooner you'll be on your way."

The rabbi decided against further argument. He muttered in Yiddish to his companions. One by one the sullen Hassidim dumped their suitcases on the table and unlocked them. They looked on impassively as two of the privates rummaged through the bags while Sarcha searched the bus's interior. Alef crawled under the bus armed with a mirror and a powerful flashlight.

After thirty minutes nothing had been found.

"Body searches," ordered Heinlein.

There was a renewed wave of protests from all the passengers when they were ordered to turn out all their pockets and undress. One brought down a particularly vitriolic curse on Sarcha but the nature of any intervention from above that the fat little Englishman was worried about was more likely to be mechanical rather than divine.

"Another hour and an army chopper's certain to spot this tent," he muttered to Heinlein. "What the hell's gone wrong?"

"Corporal Mishan!" Heinlein called out.

"Sir?"

"Did you pick this party up in Jerusalem?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where?"

"Outside their library in Mea Shearim, sir."

"Did they place their baggage in the stowage bays or did you load it for them?"

The young bus driver looked puzzled. "Well—I suppose they loaded it."

"What do you mean 'you suppose'? Don't you know?"

"No, sir. They've had possession of the bus from last night for cleaning by their wives." Mishan lowered his voice. "You know how nutty these guys can be. Non-kosher Utter—that sort of thing. They were all seated and ready to go when I arrived at the library."

Sarcha muttered a curse.

"Do you always drive the same bus?" Heinlein fired at the driver.

"Nearly always—yes."

"So you know it inside out?"

"Pretty well—yes."

"Right," said Heinlein with finality. "You and I are going over every inch of it—inside out and from front to back."

After thirty minutes' meticulous examination, Mishan poked his head around the door of the bus's toilet compartment and said to Heinlein, "There's something wrong here, sir. It's not flushing as fast as it should."

"Where's the tank?" Heinlein demanded when he had flushed the toilet and witnessed the meagre trickle of water for himself.

"In the roof, sir."

"Did you fill it?"

"No, sir. They must've done it."

The faces of the Hassidim remained inscrutable as Alef and his brother scrambled onto the bus's roof and removed the water-tank's access panel. Alef shouted down for some wrenches which were passed up to him. The Palestinians worked for five minutes while Sarcha and Heinlein listened anxiously for the approach of an army helicopter. Rabbi Sharrat opened his mouth to say something but changed his mind. He and his fellow Hissidim watched in sullen silence as the bus's bulky one-hundred-gallon water-tank was lowered on ropes to the ground. Sarcha squatted down and examined the tank's saucer-sized inspection and cleaning cover.

"It's been taken off recently," he announced, removing the thumbscrews that enabled him to slide the cover to one side. He thrust his arm into the hole and groped around. A broad triumphant grin lit up his face. He withdrew his arm. Clutched in his fingers was a plastic bag that bore a numbered tag. "Feels like hundreds more bags in there too," he said to Heinlein, handing him the bag.

Heinlein opened the bag and tipped its contents into the palm of his hand. The sixty or so uncut diamonds surprised him with their variety. They were mostly cleavages, macles, and flats ranging in size from one carat to about eight carats. The eight-carat stone had already been bruted—the first stage in the polishing of a diamond. That alone was a clear indication of the panic within the Tel Aviv Diamond Exchange that had precipitated this particular clandestine flight of stones from the country.

"How much are they worth?" asked Sarcha.

"This little handful? About thirty thousand dollars. Okay— get the rest of the bags out." Heinlein held the diamonds under Rabbi Sharrat's nose. "I'm sure you and the members of your little flock must know about Emergency Defence Regulation 131, Rabbi?"

The rabbi returned Heinlein's stony gaze and said nothing.

One thirty-one covers the illicit export of bullion and precious and semi-precious stones," said Heinlein casually. "It stipulates an automatic sentence of twenty years' imprisonment for any person convicted under 131, and there's no right of appeal. Also the state has the right to impound the stones." He jerked a thumb at the bags Sarcha was lifting out of the water-tank and smiled. "If you can't produce export licences for that little lot, perhaps you'd like a receipt before we allow you to continue your journey?"

Suddenly Sarcha forgot the seasickness brought on by the five-hour journey in the inflatable boat.

"Over there," he said, pointing and breathing a great sigh of relief. "A close thing, eh, David, me lad?"

Heinlein saw the light winking across the oil-black sea and swung the outboard's tiller. He steered the inflatable boat cautiously in the direction of the light. The five hours punching into the teeth of a brisk sou'westerly had left them dangerously low on fuel. He kept the outboard idling and opened the throttle only when he had satisfied himself that the cycle of flashing lights was correct.

Between the two men, securely lashed down, were three rope-handled ammunition boxes that contained the most priceless cargo that had ever put to sea.

A black shape eclipsed the stars low down on the horizon and a few minutes later the two men heard the surge of the Mediterranean's swell slapping against a ship's hull. Heinlein removed the children's two-way radio from a waterproof bag and pressed the talk key.

"This is Delta Hotel standing by."

"Roger, Delta Hotel. We copy you," squawked the radio's tinny speaker. "Welcome aboard."

At that moment the rubber boat bumped against the hard chine flank of Joseph Maken's motor yacht.

Maken and his aides gathered around the open ammunition boxes and gazed in awe at their contents. The PLO leader knelt on the plush state-room carpet, scooped up a handful of the uncut, lustreless diamonds, and allowed them to trickle through his manicured fingers.

"I've taken my ten per cent," said Heinlein curtly.

"And I've taken my one per cent," Sarcha chimed in.

Maken smiled and nodded. "You've helped yourselves to some good stones, no doubt?"

"Pretty good," said Heinlein evenly.

Maken stood. "A well-earned percentage if I may say so." He gestured to the boxes. "How much is all this worth?"

Heinlein shrugged. "It's impossible to say. I did a rough valuation on a handful as a typical sample. The whole lot, released over a period of a year, will realize in the region of three hundred million dollars."

The only sound in the state-room for some seconds was the muffled thud of the motor yacht's diesels. Maken's customary sang-froid seemed to desert him momentarily. He allowed his gaze to return to the fabulous prize at his feet. "Three hundred million dollars?" he repeated numbly.

"I could be out by a factor of fifty million either way," Heinlein replied casually as though he were a builder submitting an estimate to rebuild a chimney. "But it would be about that. They'll need careful handling—especially some of the larger stones. De Beers make a hologram recording and catalogue every diamond they release that's over twenty carats. But I estimate that ninety per cent of these are under ten carats —the best international currency in the world."

"And there'll be no come-back?" asked an aide.

Heinlein gave a cold smile. "Not immediately. But the truth's bound to leak out eventually. When it does, the scream will be heard around the world. Not that that need worry you. You won't have any trouble laundering them. There're plenty of buyers in Amsterdam, London, and New York who treat the holder of uncuts as the owner in return for a ten per cent mark-down on their trade value."

Maken was unable to resist touching the gems again. He trickled another handful through his fingers. "Three hundred million dollars," he breathed in wonder.

"More than the GNP of some countries," Sarcha commented.

"And enough to finance a nuclear war," Maken added jokingly. "Correct, Mr. Heinlein?"

"Correct, Mr. Maken."

39

Neil's week-long trip to Houston to see Helen and the children had gone badly. The two-day camping trip in the Winnebago with Pippa and Andrew had been great fun and had taken his mind off his failure to find a job, but Helen had soured everything on their return by producing a new lawyer who had insisted that Neil pay for the children's education in advance— a fifty-thousand-dollar lump sum—instead of the quarterly payments Helen had originally agreed to.

"It will be in your own interests in the long run, Mr. O'Hara," the lawyer had said. "You have the money from your share of the sale of the house. But you no longer have a job; therefore you may have a struggle in the future finding the payments. This route releases you from the worry of becoming entangled in lawsuits."

The bitter argument had dragged on all day. Neil had eventually been worn down by the lawyer with the result that he was returning to Melbourne fifty thousand dollars poorer. He didn't begrudge the children one cent of the money. What annoyed him was that Helen, having grabbed most of the money from the sale of the house, had then set out to extract the last of his capital.

Once back in Florida, he stopped at a rest area on Highway 1 near St. Augustine and checked his bank balance on the Winnebago's built-in computer. A column of glowing figures appeared on the screen once the bank's satellite had matched his personal number against the Winnebago's transmitter "fingerprint." Neil's black depression deepened as he studied the screen. The lawyer had wasted no time clearing the check. His account was now less than ten thousand dollars in credit. It meant the end of his plan to sell the Winnebago and buy a small house or a new condominium at Edgewater.

He continued his journey and was five miles south of Daytona Beach when the camper's troublesome turbine decided that it had had enough. There was a loud scream from the motor followed by the sound of impeller blades breaking up. There was also a medley of other noises suggesting that the camper had dumped a high percentage of its entrails on the highway. The combustion chamber pressure indicator dropped to zero.

"Major turbine failure," announced the synthesized voice of the camper's computer.

Neil's self-control nearly snapped. "I know that!" he snarled back at the computer. He uttered several heartfelt expletives and swung the Winnebago onto the shoulder. He touched the keypad to switch in the fuel cells and the emergency electric motors. The computer informed him that the camper had a range of twenty miles—enough to get him off Highway 1. He cautiously applied power, eased the camper back onto the highway, and accelerated to the maximum speed possible on emergency power.

The next intersection took him onto a lonely, little-used road between De Land and Edgewater. With the air-conditioning closed down, the afternoon sun began cooking its way into the camper's interior. He nursed the vehicle towards De Land. There was nothing but swamp land either side of the road. He was beginning to despair of finding human habitation when he spotted a derelict-looking filling station adjoining an ancient frame-house. The man on the porch looked up and watched Neil turn the big camper onto his forecourt.

"Can't help you, mister," the man said when Neil approached him.

"Why's that?"

The man lowered his paper. "You come creeping in like a ghost so I figure you're running on your electrics. Turbine gone?"

"You've got it."

The old man scratched his crinkled grey hair. "Never did understand 'em." He grinned. "Never did understand piston jobs much neither. All Lena and me do is sell gas. An' not much of that since the new bee-line opened."

"You've got a workshop," Neil pointed out.

The old man rose stiffly to his feet and shuffled unsteadily down the porch steps. He was wearing shabby dungarees. His stoop was so pronounced that he almost walked bent double.

"Sure I've got a workshop. But I ain't got no mechanic since my boy quit. You'll need Smithers to come out from Daytona with a wrecker." He nodded to the filling station's pay phone.

"Can I rent your workshop for a coupla days so I can fix the turbine myself?"

"Hundred a day," the old man answered promptly.

"Ninety."

"All yours, mister. You gonna sleep in that thing?"

"Yes."

"That's ten a night for camping up."

"For Chrissake—!" Neil began.

"Includes hooking up to my power," said the old man quickly. "I can't sleep if you got a generator running all night. Hundred in advance."

Neil decided that it would be pointless to argue. He counted out five twenty-dollar bills into the grimy, outstretched hand.

"Name's Jackson—-Jacko."

"Neil O'Hara."

The two men shook hands.

"Okay, Neil. You go right ahead and help yourself. There's a tit left of the workshop doors that opens them." With that Jacko shuffled back to his porch.

Neil had a pleasant surprise when the ramshackle double doors slid open. Not only was the workshop big enough to house the camper, but it was clean and well equipped. There was even a modem lathe standing in one comer beside an industrial air-conditioning plant. The ninety-dollar-per-day rental was good value. It was the sort of workshop he had always dreamed of owning for himself.

An hour later, with the Winnebago parked in the center of the workshop, his problems were forgotten as he set about jacking the camper onto axle stands and removing its front grille.

By 7 P.M. he had completed all the stripping down required to gain access to the turbine. He was a methodical worker: as he removed a part, so he would clean it and lay it on the workbench. His careless handling of a heavy wrench that he dropped on his foot made him realize how tired he was. He decided it was a sensible time to stop work. A shower, a light meal, and maybe watching a video before turning in for an early night seemed a good idea. He was pulling on a dressing gown when there was a tap on the door.

"Who's there?"

A bright voice answered, "Hi there. I'm Lena. I thought maybe you could use some coffee."

Neil opened the door and goggled at the stunning black girl who was holding a coffee-pot. She gave him a friendly smile.

"Can I come in, Mr. O'Hara?"

"Er—yes."

Lena entered the camper and set the coffee-pot down on the table. Neil decided that she had to be the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She was aged about twenty-five. She was wearing jeans that could have been two coats of blue lacquer on her legs, and a T-shirt that looked like one coat. Looking at her was like having cocaine shot straight into an artery near the brain.

"I didn't trouble you before because you were so busy," she said, wiping clean two cups that were lying in the sink. "I peeked round just now and saw you'd finished so I figured you could use some coffee." She smiled mischievously. "Was I right?"

"You've never been more right in your life," Neil asserted, returning her dazzling smile. "It smells good. One thing—who are you?"

"Lena—Jacko's daughter—God help me. Aren't you going to ask me to sit down?"

There was an infectious quality about Lena's easy-going nature that stimulated the good-humoured side of Neil's character. "Sure—help yourself. Hey, before you do—how do I know that a jealous husband isn't going to bust in? This thing's in no state for a quick get-away."

Lena laughed throatily. A lovely laugh, Neil decided. And sexy enough to be illegal in Salt Lake City.

"I promise you, there's no husband—or even a boy-friend. Let's have some coffee before it gets cold and I'll bore you with my past."

Lena told Neil that she was twenty-six, single, and that she had a degree in business administration from the Florida Institute of Technology. "Ma died ten years back," she said. "And George—that's my brother who used to run the workshop— he's now got a Borg-Warner repair franchise in Miami."

"Have you got a job?" Neil asked.

"Not a go-to-an-office job. I've got an IBM terminal in the house and a satellite link. I look after the accounts and stock control for about twenty stores in Edgewater. I'm saving up to rent an office in one of the malls on the coast. Okay—that's enough about me. How about you?"

"There's nothing much to tell," said Neil. "You carry on talking. I could listen to your voice all night."

"Well, I sure as hell couldn't look at your knees all night. You've got a Kennedy pass on the windshield so you work for NASA. Yes?"

"Used to."

"What happened?"

Neil told her the whole sorry story from Al's death to the breakup of his marriage. Lena was silent for a few moments after he finished talking. "You really have been through it," she said softly.

"Honey, the last thing I want is sympathy."

Lena grinned. "I wasn't going to give you any." She stood up and, to Neil's alarm, kicked off her shoes. "I can offer you something much more practical," she went on, removing her watch and placing it on the table. "I can get Pa to cut the rent he's charging you on the workshop. Okay if I use your shower? Only ours isn't working." She wriggled out of her jeans, revealing a pair of running shorts followed by a pair of fantastic running legs.

Neil decided that the vision before him could not possibly be real. "Go right ahead," he said weakly. "There's an electric soap pencil—"

But the shower door slammed shut before he could finish the sentence.

40

The members of the Supreme Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization had flown to Bakal from all over the world for the meeting. Joseph Maken shook hands and chatted briefly with them as they filed into the conference room: sixteen men and women, not necessarily loyal to Maken, who had nevertheless been picked by him to run the PLO centers throughout the world because of their administrative and political skills.

Sarcha leaned across to Heinlein and whispered, "Jesus—if our friends were to raid this place now."

"They'd never get past the SAM-50As" was Heinlein's curt reply.

Sarcha lapsed into silence. A week had passed since they had arrived in Bakal on Maken's yacht. Sarcha's pleasure when he had discovered what his Palestinian friends had achieved in their temporary homeland had been largely negated by his later discovery that the place was dry.

Maken cleared his throat and addressed the gathering. "Good morning, comrades. I know you are all very busy so I'll come straight to the point. I've called you here to discuss the planning of the most daring military operation in our history. A plan that is even more daring than our ill-fated plan to invade Israel. A plan whose successful outcome will give us an overwhelming victory against Israel next year."

The PLO leader had a reputation for not making sweeping statements unless he could substantiate them; therefore his words commanded immediate attention. "As you are aware," he continued, "the War of Attrition has become a stalemate owing to the refusal of Chairman Dranski to support our invasion proposals. Although we can strike at will at Israel with the MiG-35s and the Tupolevs, we lack the armament to strike a decisive blow. By the same token, the Israelis are unable to strike a decisive blow against us because they do not possess a long-range missile. They have a nuclear missile—the Masada —but it does not have the range to endanger us here at Bakal."

Maken looked at each face in turn. "The Israelis may not be able to use their Masadas against us, but we shall be using them against Israel. We shall be stealing four Masada missiles armed with nuclear warheads and fitted with celestial/inertial guidance systems. The missiles will be loaded into the cargo bay of a NASA space shuttle that will be launched from the United States' Kennedy Space Center. A shuttle in an inclined, equatorial orbit at a height of two hundred miles is an ideal launch platform for an intermediate-range missile such as the Masada."

There was a buzz of comment from the delegates.

Sarcha gave a low groan. "What the hell have you let me in for?" he muttered under his breath to Heinlein. "Have you no regard for my renowned streak of abject cowardice?"

"Furthermore," Maken added emphatically, "there will be nothing the Israelis can do about it. A nuclear strike against Tel Aviv on a Sunday morning . . . Haifa at lunch-time . . . Jerusalem at tea-time . . ." Maken paused. "I doubt if there would be an Israeli Government by supper-time."

"You're mad!" Sarcha declared when the meeting was over and he was alone with Heinlein.

"Why?"

"Because it's the craziest, most crackpot idea I've ever heard. You're mad. Absolutely and totally ravingly out of your tiny mind. How the hell are you going to lay your hands on four Masadas?"

Heinlein shrugged. "An operational detail."

Sarcha looked incredulous. "An operational detail!" he exploded. "You really have flipped. You know that?"

"Do you want to be in on this operation or not?"

"Will you be running it?"

"Yes."

"After that cock-up you made of busting into your dad's house?"

Heinlein began to become angry. "That wasn't a cock-up. I got the information, didn't I?"

"It was a cock-up. I followed you. And for all you know, an entire Mossad field team could have been following me."

"Okay—if you want out—"

"Of course I want out. An important quality in any leader of a dodgy operation is the ability to recognize internal weaknesses. Your particular blind spot is your failure to appreciate just how startlingly brilliant I am and how much you need me."

"Oh yes?" Heinlein queried cynically. "And what about your renowned streak of cowardice? Do I need that as well?"

"Of course you do. If anything smells a bit dodgy—I'd be the first one to scream."

Heinlein studied the plump little Englishman with unconcealed distaste. "Against my better judgement, I'd like to have you along, Sarcha. That body of yours might come in handy for absorbing lead when it starts flying about."

"You see? You need me but you're not having me."

"In that case you will have to stay here until the operation's over. That could be as long as six months."

Sarcha blinked in alarm. "But this place is dry!"

"Precisely."

Sarcha groaned. "Life is so bloody, heart-rendingly cruel to me at times."

That afternoon Heinlein and Sarcha were summoned to Maken's office.

"The voting was eight for the operation going ahead and eight against," the PLO leader stated. "Those who voted against felt that we should not initiate a major operation until after next month's U.S. presidential election which Senator Hadley is certain to win. He is no lover of Israel, therefore some of my colleagues believe that he may take prompt action to end the war. Personally, I have no such hope. I've met the senator from Wyoming on a number of occasions. He's a careful man who does nothing in a hurry, and even then only after the fullest consultations. When he does decide to raise his hand against Israel, it may be too late. I used my casting vote; therefore the operation goes ahead."

Heinlein looked relieved. "In that case there's no reason why we shouldn't start right away."

"There's one thing all the members of the council insisted on," said Maken. "You can't use any of our overseas offices or their services."

Sarcha's eyes popped in surprise. "But we can't carry out the operation alone!"

"You'll have to. It could go wrong. I'm not saying it will, but it could. We can't afford to have the operation linked to the PLO before those missiles are in orbit."

Sarcha opened his mouth to protest but Heinlein cut him short. "Okay, Maken. We'll manage by ourselves."

The PLO leader looked pleased. He unlocked a desk drawer. "Excellent. That leaves only one small matter to deal with. One that must be kept a closely guarded secret among the three of us."

Heinlein raised questioning eyebrows. Maken placed a bottle of whisky and three glasses on his desk and said, "I think we ought to drink a toast to the success of our little plan."

Sarcha beamed and decided that maybe life wasn't so bad after all.

41

Lena entered the workshop clutching a handful of twenty-dollar bills. The sight of a pair of unsuspecting legs sticking out from under the Winnebago implanted evil thoughts in her mind. With a mischievous light in her eye, she crept quietly forwards and deftly plucked a hair from one of the shins. The owner of the violated shin emitted a loud yell and foolishly straightened up while he was lying under the camper. His yell became even more pronounced when he cracked his head on something metallic and unyielding. Neil wriggled out from under the camper and glared up at Lena who was looking down at him with laughing eyes. The sight of her melted his indignation.

"So where did this money come from?" Lena asked, holding the dollars under Neil's nose.

"An election motorcade came through on their way to De Land. About twenty cars. You and Jacko were shopping. They wanted gas so I sold them gas."

"That was very good of you, Neil. Democrats, I hope?"

"Oh, definitely."

"I hope Hadley wins."

"So do I," said Neil, grinning. "But I didn't give them a discount."

Jacko shuffled into the workshop while they were laughing. "How's it goin', Neil?"

Neil started cleaning grease off the tools and returning them to their hooks. "Oh—another coupla days will see me through, Jacko."

Jacko chuckled. "Takin' longer than you reckoned. Them jobs always do."

It was a considerable understatement: Neil had become part of the scenery at the filling station and had even taken on some repair work for Jacko's regular customers.

"Neil sold some gas while we were out. Pa."

"Guessed that's what happened," said Jacko. "Just seemed like a lot o' cash seeing we were only gone three hours or so."

"And I fixed a flat for a lady."

"Pretty?" asked Lena.

"Oh, very. Only charged her three dollars."

"Okay. And how much did you charge for fixing her flat?" Lena inquired, keeping her expression dead pan.

All three burst out laughing. As Neil wiped the tears from his eyes, he realized just how happy he was when in Jacko's and Lena's company. Especially Lena's company.

42

Heinlein and Sarcha changed flights at Moscow and arrived at London's Heathrow Airport eighteen hours after setting out from Bakal.

They checked into a suite at the Savoy Hotel and spent the rest of the morning sleeping off the exhausting journey before embarking on their hectic schedule.

"We'll spend tomorrow buying ourselves decent clothes," said Heinlein over a magnificent lunch that was served in their room. "Then we buy or lease a large country house within a couple of hours' drive from London."

"As a safe house?" asked Sarcha, talking with a mouth full of smoked salmon.

"Yes. One with a large barn. At least fifty feet long."

"Presumably it will be too risky for me to visit my flat? Just to see who's threatening to sue me for unpaid bills?"

"You'd better stay away," Heinlein agreed.

Sarcha tucked into some more smoked salmon and downed a gulp of champagne. "I suppose I shall just have to rough it like this, then. A country mansion is going to cost a small fortune."

"Don't worry about it. We've got a large one to get through."

The plump little Englishman grinned. "It's going to be hell."

"It's going to be God-dam hard work," said Heinlein curtly.

The following day the two men went to Harrods and spent over one thousand pounds each on clothes and half as much again on two sets of the finest hide luggage. Their purchases were delivered by chauffeur-driven car to the Savoy.

Upon their return to the hotel, Heinlein combed through a document provided by the PLO Foreign Intelligence Service that listed the names and addresses of prominent British scientists and the projects they were involved with.

"Sarcha. Go out and buy me a copy of Who's Who and any reference books you can find on British scientists."

As soon as he was alone, Heinlein called Greer in Tel Aviv. He spoke for five minutes and hurriedly finished the conversation when Sarcha returned from his trip to Foyles and dumped several massive tomes beside Heinlein.

"How about some feminine company tonight?" inquired Sarcha.

"Sleep's more important," Heinlein grunted as he concentrated on checking the PLO's list of scientists against entries in Who's Who.

"Okay, then—so we sleep without feminine company." Sarcha waited and then sighed. Life was tough. "Found anyone?"

"I think so," said Heinlein, glancing up from the Who's Who. "Sir Max Flinders, Fellow of the Royal Society and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Surrey. He's a leading authority on satellite communications and space technology." Heinlein delved into another reference book. "This is interesting— Sir Max Flinders headed a team that designed a giant satellite called Cyclops that was intended to search for blue shift pulsars and other astronomical oddities. Cyclops was due to be launched by the shuttle but was zixed by the British Government because of the spiralling launch cost. It was so large, it would have required its own shuttle mission."

Sarcha whistled. "Sounds like exactly what we're looking for."

"That's what I thought," said Heinlein. "But we've got to double-check this first. Another job for you, Sarcha. I want you to find out everything you can about the University of Surrey and its vice-chancellor and Cyclops."

Anyone opening a bank account with a draft from the Bank of Liechtenstein for ten million dollars is worthy of respect. Heinlein was treated with great respect by the director of the London branch of the Florida-based Brevard County Bank. "I'm delighted Mr. Stavolos named us in his will, Mr. Heinlein," said the director, pouring his visitor a sherry. "We're a young bank but our policy of providing specialized banking facilities for space projects has proved a great success. We will, of course, be pleased to attend to all the legal formalities in setting up the trust. I will need a copy of Mr. Stavolos's will and the Liechtenstein abatement certificate from his bank, plus—"

"You will find all the documents you need in there," said Heinlein, handing the director a folder.

The director skimmed through the photocopied will with a practised eye. "He names you as chief executive of the trust. Why not chairman?"

It was a question Heinlein was ready for. "Mr. Stavolos said that it would be a good way of his continuing to employ me after his death."

"A most generous employer, if I may say so," the director commented when he spotted the emoluments table. "Isn't the sponsorship of space research projects a curious trust for a shipping magnate to set up?"

Another question Heinlein was prepared for. "Mr. Stavolos was always fascinated by space research. Also, he was a keen amateur astronomer. As his personal secretary, I can vouch for the many space research projects he helped finance through his various companies. He was a man of great vision."

"I see that you have power of attorney—and that all grants have to be authorized by you. Under British law that means that you will also have to be a trustee. There are other complications—"

"I'm not interested in the details just yet," Heinlein interrupted. "You set the trust up and deduct your charges from the account."

"Ten million dollars is an awesome responsibility, Mr. Heinlein."

Heinlein met the banker's level gaze. "Mr. Stavolos's total bequest to the trust is nearer three hundred million dollars," he replied acidly. "Funds will be transferred from Liechtenstein as they are required."

The director thought that it would be interesting to find out more about Julius Stavolos but he knew that any attempt to extract information from Liechtenstein would run smack into a stone wall. Anyway, one did not argue with clients placing ten million dollars on central deposit.

"Very well, Mr. Heinlein, I will instruct our legal department to set up the European Space Research Trust just as soon as you furnish me with the names and addresses of the trustees."

"I have an appointment for tomorrow with Sir Max Flinders. I will be asking him to serve as chairman of the board," said Heinlein.

The director nodded his approval. This Heinlein appeared to know exactly what he was doing. "We know Sir Max very well. An excellent choice if he'll agree. Would you like a letter of introduction?"

"Thank you," said Heinlein graciously. "That will be most helpful."

He left the bank a few minutes later. All was going exceptionally smoothly. A taxi drew up alongside the kerb. Sarcha's moon-like face appeared at the open rear window.

"How did it go, David, me lad?"

"So-so," said Heinlein noncommittally as he sat beside Sarcha and ordered the driver to take them to the Savoy.

"We're in luck with the University of Surrey," Sarcha commented, closing the driver's glass partition. "The PLO information checks out. Surrey University has been up to its neck in space research since the late seventies. It's built umpteen satellites which have been launched by Arianespace and the U.S. shuttle."

"And Cyclops?"

"The row over its cancellation was monumental. Flinders nearly resigned. The satellite definitely still exists. I found an article about it in a recent back number of the New Scientist."

Heinlein looked impressed. "You've done very well, Sarcha. We'll hire a car and go down to Surrey tomorrow. I'll see Sir Max while you hunt for a suitable property near the university."

Sarcha frowned. "But you don't know if Flinders will accept."

"He will," said Heinlein confidently. "In fact you can start house-hunting today."

"But I've arranged for two delightful young ladies to entertain us in our suite this afternoon," Sarcha protested.

"Well, you'll have to unarrange them" was Heinlein's unsympathetic reply.

Sir Max Flinders was a large, overpowering man with a rich booming voice. He listened carefully to Heinlein's proposition, threw back his head, and roared with laughter.

"I like you, Heinlein. You're different. It's not everyone who walks in here with such offers. Four meetings a year for a retainer of fifteen grand per annum? How can I refuse?"

The two men were sitting in Flinders's office on the top floor of Senate House overlooking the laboratories and landscaped campus of the University of Surrey on the outskirts of Guildford.

"I'm very pleased. Sir Max," said Heinlein.

"Why did you decide on me?"

"Mr. Stavolos had read your British Association papers on satellites and admired your work. Also our bankers considered you an excellent choice." Heinlein noticed Flinders's smile broaden and guessed that the scientist loved having his ego massaged. "Also, of course, your name does carry a great deal of weight."

Flinders's laughter rumbled around the office. "It's not my name that carries weight around here—it's my voice."

Heinlein smiled politely. "We need a board of trustees of ten."

"Seems reasonable. How much do they get each?"

"Five thousand pounds per annum. I shall be happy to leave the selection of trustees to you . . ."

"Jobs for the boys, eh?"

"... for my approval, but I need their names and addresses by Friday. They should all be prominent in the field of space research—that was Mr. Stavolos's great interest. As the trust's chief executive, I have an automatic seat on the board."

"You'll have the names by tomorrow," Flinders promised. He stood. "Now—how about that tour of our space research facilities? Used to call them labs but we've gone all-American now."

"Yes—I'd be most interested to see them," said Heinlein politely.

For the next thirty minutes he was genuinely absorbed by his tour of the various laboratories where a wide variety of prototype satellites were being tested.

"This is the last port of call," said Flinders. He ushered Heinlein into an observation room. The room on the far side of a plate-glass screen resembled an operating theatre.

"This is our 'clean' room," Flinders explained. "Where satellites are finally assembled, sterilized, and checked out."

The two men watched a team of gowned and masked technicians working on a satellite that looked absurdly small in comparison with the attention it was receiving.

"And that's it," said Flinders when he finished outlining the satellite's purpose. "Well? What do you think of our little setup?"

"Very impressive. Sir Max. But why are all the satellites so small?"

"Have to be. We can't afford to hog an entire Ariane payload. And she's not like the shuttle. That thing can put a fifty-six-seater tour bus into orbit."

"But what about your Cyclops satellite?"

Flinders stiffened. He gave Heinlein a searching look. "What about it?"

"I used to prepare the weekly press cuttings for Mr. Stavolos on subjects that I thought would interest him. I remember reading that Cyclops was an extremely large satellite."

Flinders hesitated for a moment and then came to a decision. "Come with me," he said abruptly. The scientist turned on his heel and strode towards a windowless building that resembled an aircraft hanger. Heinlein nearly had to break into a trot to keep up with him.

Flinders unlocked a side door and pushed it open. They entered a tiny cubicle.

"An airlock," said Flinders savagely. "Not that there's much point in it now because we couldn't afford to keep the bloody air-conditioning going." He threw open an inner door. Heinlein followed him into the vast interior.

''That, " said Flinders, pointing, "is Cyclops. The finest multi-spectrum orbital observatory ever built. X-ray, infra-red, and optical. If it weren't for an ignorant bunch of bloody-minded cretins, it would be in orbit right now—sending back a priceless mother-lode of data on the universe instead of rotting here."

Heinlein gaped in astonishment at the spectacle that confronted him. Supported on massive trestles in the centre of the floor was a monstrous, bug-eyed creation as big as a bus, with huge outstretched black wings that spanned the entire width of the building. The entire mind-numbing contraption looked like something out of a billion-dollar science fiction movie. "Hell," he breathed, and could not help adding, "Jesus bloody Christ."

43

Heinlein walked slowly around the giant satellite. "I can see why it required its own special shuttle mission," he observed. Flinders pointed to a huge cylindrical container that was bigger than the carriage of an underground train. "That thing is a full-size dummy of a NASA shuttle cargo pallet—the largest size in the range because it's near enough a dead fit into a shuttle's cargo bay. We used that to ensure that the satellite would fit." He indicated the outstretched wings. "They're the solar panels that collect the sun's energy to power the thing. They fold up and the entire satellite fits inside the pallet. The plan was for us to stow the satellite here and ship it to Kennedy with our own payload specialist. Once the shuttle was in orbit.

"The pallet would have been lifted out of the shuttle's cargo bay and opened to release the satellite." Flinders's anger gave way to bitterness. "I put six years of my life into the Cyclops project. It destroyed my marriage. Now look at it . . ." His voice trailed into silence.

For a few moments the two men regarded the colossal satellite without speaking.

"Why not make the launching of Cyclops the first project of our Stavolos European Space Research Foundation?" Heinlein suggested.

Flinders had been about to say something. Instead he turned to stare at Heinlein. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Heinlein repeated his suggestion and added, "It's just the sort of project that would have appealed to Mr. Stavolos."

Flinders seemed unable to credit his senses. "Have you any idea of the cost of financing a shuttle mission?"

"One hundred and fifty million dollars," Heinlein replied without hesitation. "That's well within our first year's budget."

It was some moments before the scientist shook himself from his daze. "But there'd be another fifty million needed to restore Cyclops to launch readiness. She'd have to be stripped right down and—"

"How long will that take?"

"Now look—you can't be serious—"

"How long will it take? A crash programme."

"About nine months. It's a huge operation—almost as big as building her in the first place."

"Do it in six months and we'll launch her."

Flinders recovered his composure. "Are you kidding me or what, Heinlein? I don't know you from Adam. You walk into my office. And now—"

"Sir Max—this project is exactly what would've fired Mr. Stavolos's imagination. He liked to think big and so do I. Okay —so it'll cost upwards of two-fifty million. So let's get down to some hard talking."

"It's all fixed up," said Heinlein, sinking back into the Rolls-Royce's cushions. "He's over the moon at the prospect of getting his Cyclops into orbit."

"Any problems?" inquired Sarcha as he swung the car onto the A3 route and headed south.

"He was a bit worried about the sniping he might get from his contemporaries—chairman of a trust that votes his own pet project a two-fifty-million-dollar budget. I told him, what was the point of power if one didn't use it now and again? And it's a cost-effective project because the God-dam satellite is already built."

"Stroke of luck."

"One hell of a stroke of luck," Heinlein agreed. He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket. "He was so excited, he rang up some colleagues immediately. The board of trustees of the Stavolos European Space Research Foundation now boasts two Nobel prize winners, three Fellows of the Royal Society, a former Astronomer Royal, and the Chairman of the British Association for the Advancement of Science."

Sarcha whistled. "Not bad."

"Not bad at all," Heinlein agreed. "Their names will look slightly impressive on our stationery. I think we can now say that we're ultra-respectable. How did your day go?"

"I've found a mansion. I'm taking you there now. Thursley Hall. About ten miles south of here. Secluded. A long lease."

"And a large bam?"

"Bloody enormous," Sarcha confirmed.

"Excellent."

"So what's next?"

"Florida."

"Bit early, isn't it?"

"We've got to set up a project co-ordination office at or near the Kennedy Space Center. Flinders said that there's a lot of paperwork involved, and that we'll need an experienced payload specialist—preferably an astronaut. Flinders reckons that NASA will provide us with someone at a price. He said that opening a full-sized pallet needs an experienced astronaut as the payload specialist in case he has to go EVA."

"EVA?"

"Extra-vehicular activity. Space-walking."

Sarcha accelerated to pass a dawdling Ford. "I don't like the sound of that. I mean—a NASA guy's not going to arm and deploy four missiles for us."

"Precisely."

The florid little Englishman suddenly looked very worried. "And don't you dare ask me to go space-walking. I suffer from agoraphobia, and there's my renowned streak of abject cowardice, remember."

Heinlein looked thoughtful. "There's too much at stake to entrust anything too difficult to you anyway ..."

"Nice to be appreciated."

". . . so it looks as if we've got to find our own astronaut. Someone who's retired or who has set up his own space consultancy business. Just so long as he's on our pay-roll and not NASA's."

"That's not going to be easy."

"Everything's been a piece of cake so far."

"I know," Sarcha remarked. "That's what's worrying me. We've still got to get hold of those missiles and ship them to this country."

"We deal with one problem at a time, Sarcha—that's going to be the secret of this operation's success. One problem at a time—one solution at a time."

44

November

In Jerusalem the first item on the agenda of Rymann's morning Cabinet meeting was not the first night bombing raid made by the PLO when they had attacked and destroyed the oil-pumping stations at Herzliyya and Haifa, but the previous day's victory of Senator Hadley during the U.S. presidential election.

The disappointing but expected result was reviewed by a group that was hardened to dealing with gloomy news; Senator Hadley's success had effectively dashed Israel's already slim hope of obtaining a desperately needed massive increase in U.S. military aid.

"Okay," said Rymann, winding up the item. "Hadley named his administration before the election. His Secretary of State is going to be Walter Swift—New Jersey." He turned to Foreign Minister Samuel Kuttner. "Sum him up in a few words, Sam," he ordered, mindful of Kuttner's abiUty to ramble.

"Devious and dangerous," Kuttner obhged.

"Friendly, hostile, or neutral?"

"I don't know."

Rymann resisted saying, "Well, you damn well should know." As a student of history, he knew that such attacks invariably led to leaders being fed inaccurate or optimistic information by their ministers. Rymann knew the value of hearing honest answers rather than what his ministers and advisors thought he wanted to hear. He thought for a moment. "Right now everyone will be beating a path to Swift's door. Nevertheless, get our embassy to make the necessary approaches immediately to fix up a meeting as soon as possible between you and Swift, and myself and Hadley."

The meeting moved on to a discussion on the worsening situation, in particular the ugly turn of events suggested by the PLO's sudden switch to night bombing.

"It worries me," said Rymann, "that the raid was a success. It must not happen again."

"It will happen again unless we can get hold of the B9s" was Ben Irving's candid reply. "That aircraft is equipped with latest micromillimeter radar. Without it we haven't a cat in hell's chance of countering the Soviet broad-band electronic countermeasures equipment."

"Soviet ECM equipment is a problem," Rymann agreed. "But we need a deterrent now, Ben. Any suggestions?"

Irving clasped his powerful hands together on the table and leaned forwards. "Yes. We arm a Masada with a low-yield warhead and use it as an airburst weapon against those bastards next time they come in from the Med."

There was a hush in the room. Greer removed his glasses and polished them.

"You know my views on using nuclear weapons, Ben," said Rymann, breaking the silence.

"Which are the same as mine, Prime Minister. Someone once said that a wise man changes his mind and a fool never. Well I've changed my mind about using the Masadas. I'm talking about clean, one-kilotonne airbursts at a height of thirty miles—that's the altitude those Tupolevs come in at, and that's a height the Masada can reach easily. No one will even hear them detonating. And I am only talking about the attacks from the Med. Deploying the Masada has a number of advantages. First, we hit those God-dam bombers. Second, there's no danger to civilians. Okay—what if there is a world outcry—"

"That's an understatement," Greer cut in.

Ben Irving turned his granite features on the head of Mossad. "So what? We can point out with more than enough justification that our options are being eroded. That'll frighten a few governments who are supposed to be our so-called bloody friends."

Rymann glanced across at Greer and wondered if he was behind Ben Irving's sudden about-face on the use of nuclear weapons—even on a limited tactical scale such as he was now proposing. Greer caught Rymann's look. As if guessing exactly what his Prime Minister was thinking, he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

Kuttner started droning about the use of nuclear weapons making the position of his diplomatic staffs around the world untenable.

"Right now the PLO are making our position untenable," Rymann observed drily. "I believe we should give serious consideration to the commander-in-chief's proposals."

"I'm not advocating a large-scale mobilization of the Masadas," said Irving. "Hit those bastards once and they'll think twice before risking it again. They've only got a few of those damned Tupolevs."

The meeting dispersed at a few minutes before midday, leaving Rymann and Greer alone in the Cabinet office. Rymann let out a long sigh.

"I had no part in it, Hendrik," said Greer. "I was as surprised as you."

Rymann chuckled. "To think I thought we'd have a major battle on our hands convincing him. Great minds think alike."

"But not always for the same reasons," Greer pointed out.

"True, Michael. Very true. What's the latest news from Heinlein?"

45

December

Ten days later Heinlein and Sarcha flew into the Miami airport at noon. After passing through U.S. immigration and customs controls, they identified themselves at the information desk where a NASA driver was waiting for them.

"We've booked you into a suite at the Oceanfront Holiday Inn at Cocoa Beach," the driver explained as he loaded Heinlein's and Sarcha's baggage into the boot of a Cadillac. "It's on the ocean, just south of the space center. Mr. Pelham will be pleased to meet you tomorrow morning."

"That'll be fine," said Heinlein.

A few minutes later they were speeding northwards out of Miami on the five-lane U.S. 1. Sarcha opened a window and immediately closed it again as the hot air hit him like a blast of dragon's breath.

"Hell," he muttered accusingly to Heinlein. "You didn't say it could be like this in December."

"I didn't know myself," said Heinlein curtly. He opened his brief-case and starting reading various booklets and papers on NASA's shuttle operations. They were the same documents that he had studied during the flight from London.

After a monotonous three-hour drive, the car turned into the palm-fringed forecourt of the Oceanfront Holiday Inn. NASA had seen to it that Heinlein and Sarcha received VIP treatment: they were shown into a magnificent third-floor double suite with adjoining doors that had a panoramic view of the Atlantic.

"Nice," Sarcha commented, eyeing naked female flesh strewn temptingly about the beach. "What must it be like in the summer, I ask myself? So what's the schedule for the rest of the day?"

Heinlein picked up the telephone and dialled room service. "We eat. A drink at the bar. And then we sleep."

"No night-spots?"

"No night-spots."

"But it's early."

"It's late. Your body clock is five hours ahead of local time. We've a busy day tomorrow, so get plenty of sleep."

"But my body clock can cope with anything if it's well oiled," Sarcha protested.

"I say we rest. Understand?"

"Yes, chief," said Sarcha sadly.

His gloom was interrupted by a deep, reverberating roar that sounded like distant thunder. Both men stared at each other and raced for the balcony. Heinlein yanked the sliding door open and the sound hit them like a solid wall. To the north a huge tongue of brilliant crimson and golden fire of an intensity that almost hurt the eyes was lancing into the sky.

"A shuttle!" Sarcha shouted, his eyes popping in wonder. "Dear God—are there men on top of that?"

The apex of the monstrous expanding pyramid of smoke and flame arrowed into the cloud-base and disappeared. The skull-oscillating thunder continued and the clouds themselves glowed with a strange light from the fragment of mobile hell they were hosting. Gradually the fire and thunder faded. A flock of pelicans drifted past the balcony as if nothing had happened. The girls on the beach returned to their posturing for the benefit of the men, and the men returned to their surfing and ball games for the benefit of the girls.

"Will you be going up?" asked Sarcha.

Heinlein continued staring for some moments at the point in the sky where the shuttle had vanished. "It's more than likely," he said.

The next day NASA laid on the red carpet treatment for Heinlein. The car called for him at 10 a.m. and whisked him north through Port Canaveral and across the causeways that traversed the flat, reclaimed swamp lands of the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island. Rising above the wilderness of lagoons and citrus groves were numerous launch pad gantries. Some were in use but most of them were ancient structures— relics of a bygone, high-spending era—and were being allowed to rust in the humid Florida atmosphere. Dominating the skyline was the box-like shape of Complex 39's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). The literature that Heinlein had read about NASA on the flight the day before said that the VAB was one of the largest buildings in the world: a statement that was hard to believe until, in answer to a query, the driver pointed out that it was still five miles away.

A small deputation led by Jason Pelham was waiting for Heinlein outside the administration block in the industrial complex. He shook hands all round and was introduced to Earl Hackett.

"Earl is director of the Shuttle Exploitation Program," Pelham explained once they were seated in a conference room. "He'll be dealing with the processing of this remarkable application of yours." Pelham smiled broadly. For the benefit of major paying customers, he had the ability to conjure up a charm that was otherwise non-existent. "We've fixed up an itinerary for you. A two-hour tour of the centre followed by lunch when we can get down to some detailed discussions."

Despite his impatience to get started, Heinlein could hardly fail to enjoy his tour of the Kennedy Space Center. He was particularly impressed by the vast Vehicle Assembly Building where two shuttles were being assembled on gigantic land crawlers that would transport them to their respective launch pads. The building was mind-bendingly huge. It was so large that, during its early days, before the air-conditioning was operational, clouds forming inside had led to miniature rainstorms. Heinlein paused on one level within the building to watch NASA technicians loading small cargo pallets into the open cargo bay of an orbiter.

"Supplies for the orbital hospital," Hackett explained in answer to Heinlein's question.

"Who packs the commercial pallets? You or the satellite owners?"

"Either us or our specialist contractors," Hackett replied. "We've had a number of instances when lift-off acceleration has caused a pallet's contents to jam up. One occasion an astronaut going EVA was unable to free several instrument packages from inside a pallet. He couldn't close the pallet which meant that it had to be abandoned in orbit."

The three men left the VAB in an electric car. Lying on its side outside, like a felled colossus, was a complete Apollo-Saturn V space vehicle.

"That's one exhibit we wouldn't have if the last moon missions in the Apollo programme hadn't been axed," Hackett observed as the party paused to study the corroding behemoth.

The tour ended and the three men adjourned to Alma's Italian restaurant in Cocoa Beach for lunch.

"I take it you took advantage of our authorization to Brevard County Bank to disclose our financial status to you?" inquired Heinlein, spiralling spaghetti onto his fork.

"Of course," Pelham replied.

"So how much is a dedicated mission going to cost our trust?"

Pelham stirred his soup and considered. "We did some preliminary estimating when we received Sir Max's letter. It will be in the region of one hundred and sixty million dollars. The exact figure will be agreed between us when we draw up the contract, but we will require a one per cent returnable deposit from you—say. one decimal five million dollars—so that we can proceed with the preliminary work."

"The amount being credited against the final bill?" Heinlein queried.

"Of course."

The waiter cleared the table of the first-course dishes.

"I've studied all your general terms in some detail," said Heinlein. "They seem reasonable. But there's one thing the trust insists on. We shall require to load Cyclops into the pallet ourselves—at the University of Surrey. That means the sections of your largest cargo pallet will have to be flown to England."

"I'm sorry," said Hackett, shaking his head. "But that won't be possible. We have to load the pallet."

"Why can't we do it?"

"For the reasons we gave you in the VAB," said Pelham frostily.

"We don't mean any disrespect," said Hackett hastily. "But those full-sized cargo pallets distort easily if they're incorrectly packed. If it jammed in the orbiter's hold during the mission, we'd be placing the crew at risk. The orbiter won't be able to re-enter and land with a payload of Cyclops's weight. The payload has to be left in orbit."

"In that case," said Heinlein with finality, "there can be no deal. Sir Max is insisting that the University of Surrey undertakes the stowing of Cyclops into its pallet."

"Mr. Heinlein—we've put thousands of payloads into orbit—"

"Not many the size of Cyclops. "

"Maybe not. But we've had no problems with the various spacelabs. And the orbital space hospital consisted of twenty sections that required twenty missions. And there was the first space station in the last century."

"Hold on. Hold on," Pelham intervened. "Maybe we can work out a compromise here . . . David—supposing we fly a team of our technicians to the U.K. with the pallet sections to palletize Cyclops under your supervision? How does that grab you?"

Heinlein allowed a decent interval to elapse during which he pretended to consider Pelham's suggestion. He was secretly delighted because it was exactly what he had been about to suggest himself.

"I think that's an excellent idea, Jason," said Heinlein, adopting the American custom of using first names from the beginning of an acquaintanceship.

"At your expense, of course," Pelham added.

"Of course," Heinlein agreed.

Pelham nodded complacently. One hundred and sixty million dollars was safely in the bag. He raised his glass of wine. "It looks like we have ourselves a deal, David."

46

Heinlein returned to the Holiday Inn before Sarcha. He spent some minutes catching up on the news on the television. The major story was the resignation of President Marshall following a heart attack and the bringing forwards of President-Elect Hadley's inauguration. His reflection on how the news would be received in Israel reminded him to call Tel Aviv with a progress report which he hurriedly cut short when he heard someone at the door.

Sarcha entered the suite and flopped sweating into a chair. Heinlein opened two cans of beer from the refrigerator and gave one to the Englishman. "Well?"

"What an absolutely bloody climate this is. Give me Israel any day."

"I'll give you something extremely painful in a minute if you don't stop whining," Heinlein warned.

Sarcha pulled a sheaf of papers from his pocket and tossed it on the table. "The names and addresses of thirty payload specialist companies. I used a Cocoa Beach private detective. Matt Connors. It's not complete. He's promised to stop by with the full list tomorrow morning."

Heinlein skimmed through the list and turned to a tenancy agreement on an office suite in Titusville.

"I've looked at about twenty places," said Sarcha, toeing his shoes off^ while sipping his beer. "The Titusville one is the best. Ground floor. Parking. A bar next door. We've taken out a one-year lease. I've purchased a load of office equipment that arrives tomorrow. Found a sign-writer. Called the phone company and bought some model space hardware to pretty up the window display."

"Excellent, Sarcha. So we now have a Florida base."

"We need someone to run it. I've not had time to get round to advertising for staff^. What sort of day have you had?"

Heinlein outlined his meeting with Jason Pelham and Earl Hackett, concluding with, "All we need now is a payload specialist."

"What? Right away?"

"Apparently so. He or she will have to liaise with NASA on day-to-day technical matters right from the word go. NASA insisted that with a payload the size and complexity of Cyclops we use an experienced astronaut. They've given me a list of specialists on their books. I'd sooner find someone for ourselves. We don't want a company and we don't want someone who's on NASA's pay-roll." Heinlein paused and looked at his watch. "Is your investigator working now?"

"He said he'd work through the night for the expenses we're paying him."

"Okay. Call him up now and tell him we want a retired astronaut. Someone who could use some extra money. Someone whose first loyalty will be to us."

Heinlein spent the next few days locked in contractual negotiations with NASA while Sarcha concentrated on getting the liaison office at Titusville organized. Once the office equipment was installed, he interviewed several girls for the post of secretary. None was suitable although he did hire a word-processor operator to handle the correspondence that Heinlein was generating.

He was struggling to access copies of letters from a laser disc when Matt Connors, the private investigator, called in with his latest list of astronauts.

"Three possibles for you there, Sarcha," said Connors, dropping the list on a desk and his lanky frame into a chair. "WiUiam Zabranski—forty-five. Runs a small plant in Cocoa that turns out experimental clothing for NASA. Not doing too well because his wife's drinking her way through the profits. Alaric Silkin—thirty-five. Threw in his job when NASA axed the work he was doing on the runway take-off and powered-landing shuttle. Runs a door-to-door hologram service in Orlando. Works thirty hours a day paying off a loan to cover a fine for handling holograms you wouldn't want your kids to see."

"They all look as useless as ever," Sarcha observed caustically.

Connors shrugged. "Down-and-out ex-astronauts aren't that thick on the ground."

"I didn't say we wanted a down-and-out ex-astronaut. Just one who could do with some extra income."

"So what's the difference?"

Sarcha studied a press cutting clipped to the list beside the last name. "Neil O'Hara," he read out. "Blamed by a review board for the death of another astronaut. For Chrissake, Matt —you do find them."

The private investigator grinned. "Had more trouble finding him than any of the others. He might be what you're looking for. His house at Melbourne has been sold because his marriage broke up. His wife and kids went back to Houston. She left an address with a former neighbour. I contacted her in Houston—she told me that her husband was staying at a filling station somewhere between Daylona and Orlando. That's all she knew because he hadn't given her a number when he called her. Took me all yesterday to track him down. He fixed a window motor on my car. Made a good job of it too. He's smart. Good with his hands. Thirty-two shuttle missions. Ten space walks. He's the youngest ex-astronaut I've found but he's one of the most experienced—and he's only been out of NASA a few weeks."

"Yes—but NASA is going to howl if we propose a payload specialist who was crucified by a review board," Sarcha pointed out.

Connors looked indifferent. "Maybe. Maybe not. But I did come across a rumour that O'Hara wasn't entirely to blame for the accident. There was talk of a cover-up but I didn't delve too deep."

"Why not?"

"You paid me to find names and addresses—not go chasing rumours."

"We're paying you now," said Sarcha, making an uncharacteristic snap decision. "Find out all you can about Neil O'Hara."

47

Deep underground in the audio monitoring room at the Chel Ha 'Avir air base at Herzliyya, Sergeant Alana Bader heard a new sound in her headphones. The noise print was depicted as a glowing pattern on her visual display unit. She reached for two control knobs and made some minor adjustments. At Gaza and Acre, batteries of highly sensitive directional microphones shifted their positions in response to her commands so that their converging area of interest intersected even more precisely on the PLO's base eight hundred miles to the north at Bakal. All Alana's telemetry data was transmitted by fibre-optic land-line or microwave links; there were no spurious radio frequency emissions from Israeh military signals traffic to be picked up by eavesdropping satellites.

A computer had analysed the industrial uproar from both microphone arrays—trains—ships—traffic—and had filtered them all out with the exception of one sound within a specified pattern that was being received simultaneously by both microphone arrays. That sound was the shrill whine of jet engines warming up.

Alana's fingers danced over her key-board, instructing the computer to match the sound with the "fingerprint" recordings in its memory. She identified the sound a split second before the computer. It was exactly the same sound that she had heard at the same time on previous nights. An "option" appeared at the bottom right-hand comer of her screen:

ORIGIN: BAKAL.

SOURCE: SOVIET KUZNETSOV NK-201 JET ENGINES

AT 25% POWER.

QUANTITY: 6.

AIRCRAFT: PROBABILITY 90% THAT SOURCE IS 3

TUPOLEV V-G LONG-RANGE BOMBERS.

As Alana watched the screen, the curiously compressed whining noise rose in frequency and the figure that showed the engines' power output changed to thirty per cent. She pressed her red talk key—the priority key that alerted the operations room.

"AMR Monitor Bader," she reported. "I have three Tupolevs warming up their engines at Bakal."

Rymann rolled Semona's left nipple between his teeth and made her squeal in delight. His lips proceeded to track determinedly across her olive skin when the telephone rang. He groaned and pretended not to hear it.

"Phone," Semona giggled.

"Did I ever tell you that just touching you makes bells ring?"

Semona laughed and reached for the handset. Rymann panicked and snatched it up before she touched it. He listened for a moment and became very tense. "Right. I'll be down in two minutes."

He slammed down the handset, gave Semona a squeeze and a perfunctory kiss, and battled his way into his tangled pajamas.

"Don't be long," said Semona as he headed for the door, still thrusting his arms into a dressing-gown.

Rymann paused at the door and looked back at the impossibly beautiful girl decorating his bed. His eyes were alive and gleaming with the light of battle. "I won't be," he promised. "Tonight we're going to nail the bastards. And then we'll celebrate."

As soon as the lift reached ground level, the driver gunned his engine and sent the Masada transporter roaring out of the bunker. He drove through the gap in the anti-blast embankment and onto the tarmac, parking near the air base's perimeter fence, facing the sea. Four men waited. Two minutes later Hendrik Rymann's voice said in their headphones:

"You are cleared to arm weapon."

"Prime Minister's voice confirmed," stated the synthesized voice of a computer in the men's headphones once Rymann's voice had been voice-print identified.

One of the Masada technicians set to work. Arming the nuclear warhead was a straightforward operation— it merely involved opening a panel and setting a four-digit combination. The Masada had been designed for the utmost simplicity of operation. Improvements in communications, especially voice-print analysis technology which enabled the missile crews to be certain that their instructions were being issued by the Prime Minister, made obsolete many of the complex and sometimes counter-productive fail-safe arming procedures of earlier decades. The technician closed the panel. He and his colleagues returned to the missile transporter's cab and pressed the button that elevated the heat shield that would protect them from the Masada's blast when it was fired. They waited, listening to the messages flowing back and forth between the operations blockhouse and the Combat Control Centre at Tel Aviv.

"They're following their usual pattern," Irving told Rymann as the two men watched the three blips on the giant liquid-crystal wall screen map that displayed all aircraft movements in the Eastern Mediterranean. "They'll head south-west across the Black Sea, skirt Turkish airspace, and then swing eastwards towards us. Once they've reached their operational altitude east of Crete, they switch on their ECM equipment and we'll lose them. That's what usually happens."

"Masada armed and standing by," a staff officer reported.

The two men watched intently as the menacing blips traversed the Aegean Sea. Behind them, in the softly lit communications room, men and women were sitting at consoles, monitoring the signals traffic between all the command centres at the Combat Control Centre. A digital display at the foot of the liquid-crystal screen indicated that the targets had reached a hundred and fifty thousand feet. The order went out to 101 Squadron to scramble six Sharav fighters.

"Our response pattern is the same as the previous attacks," Irving explained. "We don't want our friends to think that tonight might be different from any other night."

The blips cleared the Aegean Sea and turned eastwards towards Israel. They remained visible for a couple of minutes, edging purposefully towards their target, and then disappeared.

"Contact lost. They've activated their ECM systems," a voice reported from the back of the room. "At last fix targets were bearing two-seven-five, flight level one-six-four-zero. Range six-two-nine kilometres."

"CCC state they have enough data for way point loading," another voice reported.

"Go for way point loading and detonation altitude setting," Irving ordered.

The setting commands for the Masada's guidance system were signalled to the technicians in the missile's transporter cab. "Missile loaded and ready," one of the technicians reported.

From now on, it was up to the computers. Working on data that were subject to "decay"—that is, the last known height, course, and speed of the raiders—they took over the Masada's launch count-down.

"What are the chances of the Tupolevs altering course?" Rymann asked.

"Low, " Irving growled. "The cocky bastards have always come in dead straight when we've optically tracked them on daylight raids."

"LT minus fifty seconds," advised a computer voice.

The seconds ticked by.

"LT minus forty seconds."

Rymann switched his microphone to active. The fire control computers would now respond to his voice and no other. He had only to utter the single word "abort" and the Masada launch would be cancelled. He remained silent, his eyes riveted on the digital display that was winking through the passing seconds.

"LT minus twenty seconds."

Rymann realized that the palms of his hands were sweating. He wiped them on his dressing-gown. It was too late to reexamine the philosophy of the attack they were about to launch. The endless Cabinet and Emergency Defence Committee debates had worn everyone down. If the attack was successful, the international political storm that was certain to break as a result of Israel's use of nuclear weapons might outweigh the military advantage of three enemy bombers destroyed. But as Rymann glanced around at the silent, expectant faces, he realized that after a long catalogue of defeats, Israel's ever-willing armed-services badly needed this one small victory.

If there was to be one.

"LT minus ten seconds."

Irving shot a quick look at Rymann to see if there was any weakening of his Prime Minister's resolution. What he saw was reassuring—Rymann's features were an expressionless mask.

"LT minus five seconds. Four . . . three . . ."

The missile crew in the transporter pulled on their ear defenders and braced themselves. One of them misquoted a line in Hebrew from Isaiah. "For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace. "

"Two . . . one . . ."

The Masada's rocket motor suddenly vented its pent-up energies against the shield. It sprang into life with a suddenness that caused the entire transporter to shudder. Despite the ear defenders the missile crew were wearing, the mighty thunder pummelled their senses.

"Missile away!"

The crew piled out of the cab. For a moment there was nothing to see in the midst of the dense, swirling clouds of acrid fumes from the missile's solid-fuel rocket motor. And then they saw it: a brilliant comet blazing a trail of fiery, rapidly diminishing light and thunder into the night sky.

Rymann and Irving and everyone else in the room watched the infra-red trail from the Masada's exhaust gases track across the liquid-crystal screen. A voice intoned the weapon's rapidly changing height and range but no one was listening—all were watching for the sudden burst of heat and light that signified the warhead's detonation.

The sun that flared briefly that night thirty miles above the Mediterranean was seen by fishermen. It was also witnessed in Cyprus and as far south as Alexandria. Satellites also saw it. But those instruments saw far more than the visible light spectrum; they saw the radiation of a nuclear air-burst and they obediently radioed their findings back to their masters.

"We've got them!" a jubilant voice yelled. "Their ECM's gone dead!"

It was true. The giant liquid-crystal screen was suddenly showing a scattering of curious radar echoes.

"Debris," breathed Irving. "By the prophets! We've done it!"

Rymann's hand was suddenly seized and shaken vigorously by a triumphant Ben Irving. Normally phlegmatic operations personnel were on their feet, cheering and clapping each other on the back.

Meanwhile, a silent rain of wreckage—wings, engines, bits of fuselage—and people was drifting down towards an unmarked grave beneath the moonlit sheen of the Mediterranean thirty miles below.

48

"Could we see Mr. O'Hara, please?" Heinlein asked Lena.

The girl glanced at the dark-haired man and his chubby companion silting in the Cadillac and decided that they looked reasonably respectable. "Sure," she said. "Won't be a minute."

"Wow," said Sarcha appreciatively, watching Lena's thigh muscles rippling provocatively as she disappeared into the filling station's workshop. "Bloody hell—it must take her an hour to get into those shorts. If O'Hara's in the habit of sitting on that nest, a million dollars won't drag him off."

"I suspect it will," said Heinlein acidly. "She must be Lena Jackson. According to Connors, she's got business ability. We could always buy her as well. After all, we need someone to run the office here."

"A brilliant piece of thinking, David, me boy," Sarcha congratulated.

"I'm incapable of anything else."

Neil emerged from the workshop. "Good morning," he said suspiciously, eyeing the Cadillac and wondering if the strangers were more of Helen's lawyers after the sorry remnants of his bank account.

"Mr. O'Hara?"

"That's me."

"Can we talk in private?"

Once settled in the Winnebago, Heinlein came straight to the point. "Mr. O'Hara," he said, sliding a business card across the table to Neil. "I'm the chief executive of the Stavolos European Space Research Foundation, and this is my general manager. We're planning a shuttle launch next year of an astronomical research satellite and we need a payload specialist."

Heinlein talked for five minutes, outlining the nature of the trust and the purpose of the satellite. Neil sat in silence, the colour draining from his face as the full import of Heinlein's offer sank in.

"Well, Mr. O'Hara? Are you interested?"

Neil looked bewildered. "Well—yes. But I don't know anything about you or your organization."

Heinlein snapped open his brief-case and handed Neil a pamphlet on the Stavolos Trust. Neil was reading it when Lena's voice suddenly broke through the squelch on the camper's CB radio.

"Do you folks require coffee?"

Neil stopped reading and pulled down the microphone. "Yes please, Lena."

"We're prepared to offer you a one-year contract," Heinlein continued. "Twenty-five thousand dollars per month plus expenses. The job will involve a good deal of travelling between Kennedy and Surrey University in the U.K. Are you interested?"

Neil was about to say something and dried up.

"Well?" Heinlein prompted.

"A month ago I would've jumped at the chance. But now . . . Well—right now I'm going through an expensive divorce and Mr. Jackson—the owner of this place—wants me to take over the repair workshop."

"We'll put a first-class mechanic in here to keep the business ticking over," Heinlein offered. "And we'll pay you three months' salary in advance."

Neil was again at a loss for words. It was an unbelievably tempting offer. He shook his head sadly. "There's something you should know. I left NASA under a cloud. I don't think they'd let me near an orbiter again, even as a payload—"

"We know all about it," said Heinlein smoothly. "We also know that some astronauts are saying that the accident wasn't entirely your fault—that there was a cover-up."

"Yes—but if NASA—"

There was a rap on the Winnebago's door. Lena entered with the coffee.

"You must be Lena Jackson," said Heinlein pleasantly, unable to avoid the temptation of allowing his gaze to take in the girl's long, bare legs.

"That's right," said Lena, assuming that Neil had mentioned her. "Do you all want cream?"

"Miss Jackson," said Heinlein after Lena had served the coffee. "We represent the Stavolos European Space Research Foundation." He pushed the pamphlet across the table to Lena. "I'd like you to read that, please."

Neil returned Lena's questioning glance with a shrug. She sat down, read quickly through the leaflet, and looked up at Heinlein. "What's this got to do with me?"

"We're here to offer Neil a job, but we've heard about the accounts you look after for various stores, and we're wondering if you would like to take on the management of our NASA bureau."

"How did you find out about us? About me?"

"We used an investigator."

Lena's eyes burned. "You used a private eye on me! Well, of all the God-dam nerve!" She jumped to her feet. "Christ—I could sue you for invasion of privacy—"

"Please, Lena," said Neil, catching hold of her wrist. "Hear them out. Please."

"Why in hell should I? I don't like people—"

"Please, Lena."

Lena hesitated and then relented. She sat down and glared at Heinlein.

"First," said Heinlein smoothly, "we'll be spending several hundred million dollars over the next few years, therefore we have to vet our staff carefully. Second, all the investigator did was phone you when he saw your accountancy ad and you told him the sort of work you did and who your main clients were. And that's all. We want you to work for us and we want Neil to work for us. Now—do we have a sensible business discussion or don't we?"

"Smooth," Sarcha commented on the drive back to Titusville. "Two birds with one stone."

"Do you think there's anything between them?" queried Heinlein, driving at a steady fifty-five in the centre lane.

"I don't know. But if there isn't, I wouldn't mind jumping in."

"It would suit us if there was. Or if something develops."

"Oh? Why?"

Heinlein sighed. "You may have a renowned streak of abject cowardice, Sarcha, but you have no imagination. Consider the advantages of a situation in which he's up there with me, and you're down here with her."

Sarcha considered and then chuckled. "Good planning, David, me lad."

"I'm incapable of anything else."

49

Walter Swift's first task upon taking office as U.S. Secretary of State in the Hadley administration was to summons the Israeli ambassador to the State Department. Yaarcov Efrat knew the reason for the call to C Street and was well prepared for the encounter.

"Excellency," said Swift with deceptive mildness after the formal introductions. "We have positive evidence that Israel has detonated a thermonuclear device in the ionosphere within the past forty-eight hours."

"That is perfectly correct, Mr. Secretary."

"Why?"

"I'm sure what I have to say will merely confirm your own intelligence reports but we took action to destroy enemy bombers that were about to attack our homeland. Israel is no longer prepared to be a sitting duck for Soviet and PLO aggression. We took the decision to use a low-yield tactical nuclear warhead against the raiders only after a painstaking investigation by our physicists. Their conclusion that levels of radioactivity produced would be harmless have been borne out by measurements we have made since the detonation. We are confident that the United States has made similar measurements and has reached the same conclusions."

The Israeli's statement was true but Swift was not prepared to confirm it. "Israel has always maintained that it would not be the first country to use nuclear weapons in the Middle East," he pointed out.

"That was before we were subjected to almost daily raids by PLO bombers," Efrat replied. "Mr. Secretary, we did not want to use such weapons—we have been pushed into it. We have no other means of countering these savage assaults on our people. The United States has refused to supply us with the B9 high-altitude interceptor fighter; therefore we have been forced to use what resources we have."

Swift looked displeased. "Mr. Efrat—if what you're saying is an attempt to strong-arm us into reviewing our arms supply agreements, it won't work."

The insinuation failed to rattle the experienced Israeli diplomat. He met Swift's bleak gaze and said simply, "It was never intended as such. The move has been forced upon us. Over two thousand civilians have been killed in the raids. No government can stand by and witness the slaughter of innocent men, women, and children if it has the means to prevent such atrocities from happening. We do have the means. We have used them. And we will use them again."

And then Efrat followed with a statement that chilled Swift's blood. "Mr. Secretary, we are being driven into a dark, friendless comer. If our actions lead to a global holocaust, then so be it. The Children of Israel have nothing to lose."

For the moment Swift had no answer ready.

"I believe," said Efrat slowly, "that a meeting between President Hadley and my Prime Minister would be useful."

It was starting to snow as Efrat left the State Department in the company of his three bodyguards. They were U.S. marines in plain clothes—their eyes everywhere except on their charge. "Merry Christmas, sir," said one of them, holding open the rear door of Efrat's car.

Efrat stared blankly at him.

"It's Christmas Eve," the marine explained.

50

"I'm opposed to Heinlein's choice of O'Hara," Jason Pelham declared emphatically to Earl Hackett. "There's a clause in the contract that gives us the right to veto the client's choice of payload specialist. I want that clause exercised."

As usual, Hackett was about to agree when he suddenly decided to stand his ground. This time he was not going to give in to Pelham. "There is no valid reason why we should turn O'Hara down," he answered.

Pelham's features tightened at this challenge to his authority from an unexpected quarter but his voice remained calm and matter-of-fact. "If being found to be the cause of an astronaut's death isn't a valid reason, then I should like to know what is."

Hackett did not flinch from the hard stare. "There're a number of things I admire in you, Jason, and a lot of things I dislike. But I never thought that you would ever start believing your own distortions. We both know the truth about O'Hara. God knows, I've lost enough sleep as it is over his crucifixion. Well, now that he's got himself a decent job, I'm not going to be a party to kicking him down again."

Not a muscle moved in Pelham's face. "If you're not prepared to veto him, then I shall find a shuttle exploitation director who is."

The threat left Hackett unmoved. He had a new three-year contract under his belt. "You do that, Jason, and not only will you have a grand-daddy of a lawsuit on your hands, but I'll be telling every pressman in the centre the full story about O'Hara. And I wouldn't like to be standing too close to the fan when Congressman Williams discovers that evidence was deliberately withheld from his review board."

Pelham's tone became even more icy but his reply amounted to a climb-down. "Before we both lose our tempers, I think it best if we reviewed the situation in the new year."

As Earl Hackett returned to his office, it occurred to him that he had, at last, won a round against Pelham. If he could win one round, there was no reason why he couldn't win any battle. His step became noticeably jaunty.

51

January

A new year and a new job. Lena faced the former with confidence and tackled the latter with cheerful efficiency and enthusiasm.

She organized the office laser disc storage system, hired a competent stenographer, obtained Heinlein's authority to sign checks up to a thousand dollars, and settled the rapidly accumulating bills. She worked her way systematically through the mountain of unanswered teletext messages and letters from the University of Surrey, and she even held Heinlein to his promise to hire a mechanic to look after the automobile repair workshop. He agreed and she started advertising for candidates and interviewing applicants.

Neil's return to the Kennedy Space Center after spending an uneasy Christmas truce with Helen and the children was marked by a warm handshake and a hearty back-slap from Earl Hackett.

"Good to have you back, Neil. I expect you've got all the details on the payload. We'll be sending a team over to the U.K. to advise on the satellite's palletization. Paul Quincy's eye-balled some hologram tapes of it, but if you're going over there soon, maybe you could brief him in advance on any likely bugs?"

Neil spent the rest of the day going around the various facilities and renewing old friendships. Everyone he met— astronauts, ground crews, technicians—was pleased to see him again. No one mentioned Al's death and there was certainly no trace of rancor over the affair from anyone. He sensed that the undercurrent of contempt for Jason Pelham was still there, perhaps stronger than before, but tongues were guarded because Pelham was rumoured to be working on an orbital hotel project that would guarantee many jobs for some years to come.

Neil returned to Titusville late that afternoon and parked the repaired Winnebago just as Lena was locking up the office. Gone were the tight jeans and T-shirt. Since taking over the office she had splashed out on a new wardrobe. Today it was a cashmere skirt and a white silk blouse.

"Did you know," he observed as she turned around and nearly cannoned into him, "that I have a weakness for secretaries in silk? Did Tweedledum and Tweedledee get their flight?"

Lena giggled at Neil's nicknames for Heinlein and Sarcha. "They'll be in London by now. And I've booked for you to go next week. How did the black sheep's return to the fold go?"

"All it needs is for you to let me take you out tonight and I'll be able to say that it's been a perfect day."

"Okay. But I'd like to go home and freshen up first."

Neil could hardly believe his luck. His previous overtures had met with refusals. Joking, light-hearted refusals, but still refusals. Her excuses had always been her pressing work-load. He jerked his thumb at the camper.

"Why drive all the way home? You could use that."

"If you're planning on courting favours from me with your cooking, forget it."

"I was thinking of an expensive restaurant" was Neil's lofty response. "Anywhere you like. Tonight you're the boss."

Lena gave an impish smile. "Okay. Vero's."

He goggled at her in mock alarm. "Vero's! What are you trying to do to me?"

"I'm the boss tonight," Lena reminded him.

"Vero's it is," said Neil resignedly, opening the camper's door for Lena. He risked giving her a playful pat as she sat in the passenger's seat—the first time he had ever touched her in that manner. "I figure you're worth the investment of one course—but no side salad, mind."

To Neil's elation, Lena gave no indication that she objected to the pat. She laughed throatily as he started the turbine. "That's fine. I only want a double plate of lobster claws."

"You're out to ruin me."

"Why not, sugar?" Lena queried, lapsing into a phoney Southern accent. "Ain't you out to ruin me too?"

Neil caught her mood and leered at her. "Patience, boss. Patience."

The dinner was a great success although later Neil was unable to remember what he ate. All his attention was focussed on Lena, the sparkling conversation, and the generous warmth in her laughter whenever he made what he hoped was a witty comment. At one point she even covered his hand with hers: a brief, thrilling touch that he prayed was not due to an excess of wine.

On the drive home, their conversation drifted round to Heinlein and Sarcha.

"An odd couple," Neil agreed. "Hey, you don't suppose the pair of them are gay?"

Lena laughed. "Not the way Sarcha ogles me when he thinks I'm not looking. But he's strange. Really strange."

"Tweedledee? How's that?"

"How much would you say he weighs?"

Neil thought. "He's fat. About two hundred. Two-twenty."

"That's right. And yet that fat little man can move like a ghost."

Neil gave Lena a sidelong glance. "He can what?"

"He can come into the office without making a sound. And the stairs up to the store-room creak. Anyone goes up them and you know it. But not with Sarcha. He goes up and they don't make a sound. Don't you think that's weird?"

"Weird," Neil agreed.

Lena noticed Neil's gaze linger on a large, illuminated sign for the Kennedy Space Center. "You miss it, don't you?"

Neil nodded. "More than I can ever say. Going back on a temporary basis has made it worse—reminded me of what I'm missing. Once the mission's over—that's it."

"What do you miss most? The comradeship? Space? The money?"

Neil gave the question careful thought. "Space more than anything. It's something I understand. Just being there makes the problems of Earth seem futile and unimportant. Going regularly into space makes some astronauts unable to cope with everyday problems. And the more they can't cope, the more they need to go into space. It's like a drug."

"Is that why your marriage broke up?"

"One of the reasons. Yes—I suppose it was the main reason. I couldn't even be bothered to fight Helen when maybe the occasional row would've cleared the air. Later I let her lawyers walk all over me."

They drove on in silence until Lena suddenly said, "I'm still the boss. Let's go to the beach. It's a lovely night for a walk."

Neil made no objection. It was an opportunity to prolong the magic evening. He turned off the highway and parked the camper at the edge of the coast road overlooking a lonely stretch of Satellite Beach. Together they walked along the beach, occasionally stumbling over ruts carved in the sand by beach buggies. The wind had dropped. The night was warm and still and the only sound was the rollers booming themselves to a foam-white destruction.

Lena stopped in her tracks and started unbuttoning her blouse. "Come on," she ordered. "We're going for a swim."

"What?"

"Swimming. I'm the boss."

The white blouse dropped to the sand. Neil had a tantalizing glimpse of her breasts as she turned away from him and unfastened her skirt. And then her body was a dark, almost invisible shape disappearing towards the ocean. "Come on, chicken!" her voice yelled from the darkness.

Neil was out of his clothes in seconds and streaking after her. "Hey, Lena!" he yelled, splashing into the surf and nearly losing his balance when a wave crashed around him. "Lena! Where in hell are you?"

A giggle behind him, clearly audible above the rollers. He spun round. A pair of arms snaked around his neck, a pair of breasts flattened against his chest, and Lena's lips fastened themselves to his. He overbalanced and dragged her down with him. They clung to each other in the warm, surging tide; Lena moaning softly and arching her body against his caressing hand.

There is an old wives' tale about seventh waves. Neil didn't know or care whether it was a seventh wave, a seventieth wave, or even a seven hundredth wave that had decided to pick on him. All he knew was that, at the precise moment he eased himself over Lena's willing body, this particular wave hit him in the small of the back like an express train and catapulted him, arms and legs flailing, over Lena and four yards further up the beach. Not content with depositing him on his head, the malevolent wall of water's encore at the end of its six-thousand-mile journey was to fill his mouth with a mixture of sand and sea-water. The same wave rolled Lena over several times but spared her much of the indignities it had heaped on Neil. She rose to her knees and promptly doubled up in laughter at the sight of him choking, spluttering, and cursing.

"This never happened to Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr," he moaned, wiping his mouth on his forearm as Lena hauled him to his feet.

"And what did they do?"

"Made love in the sea. An old movie I saw last week." He grimaced and spat out more grains of sand.

Lena pulled him close. "I'm the boss—so show me."

Neil's answer was to pick her up and carry her towards the camper where there was a large, comfortable bed, and where the rollers couldn't get at them.

52

Sarcha wasn't sure if he preferred the bleak, icy wind that whipped down the dark south London street to the warmer climate of Florida, but one thing he did know: he did not like having a gun jabbed into his ribs or, rather, jabbed into the fat that covered his ribs. Nor did he like the Irish accents of the two heavies who were doing the jabbing. And he took an instant dislike to the beaten-up old Ford that the Irish accents were suggesting he and Heinlein enter.

"For Chrissake, Sarcha," Heinlein muttered, tightening his grip on his brief-case. "Just get in and stop making a fuss."

Sarcha sighed and stooped to enter the car. And then he achieved the incredible for a man of his bulk: his movements became a blur as he twisted his body sideways and lashed out with a foot. The man immediately behind him collapsed to the ground in gasping agony as if a cannon-ball had been fired into his groin, and the man behind Heinlein groaned and went reeling backwards from a sledge-hammer blow to the jaw that he never saw coming. Sarcha darted forwards and seized the automatic that had fallen from the first man's fingers. His foot stamped down hard on the second man's wrist. The man yelped and let go of his gun.

Heinlein gave a groan of despair. "Sarcha—for Chris-sake—"

"They were supposed to meet us in the pub and they didn't show up," Sarcha countered, levelling the automatic at the two men and giving Heinlein the second gun. "So how do we know these two are the right guys?"

"We've hardly had a chance to find out, and they've not had a chance to show us."

"So now we give them a chance. But on our terms," said Sarcha. He jerked the automatic towards the car. "Okay, you two in the front."

With a respectful glance at Sarcha and the gun that was trained unwaveringly on him, the second man helped his stricken companion into the car's front passenger seat before sliding behind the steering-wheel.

"Seat-belts," Sarcha reminded.

The man snapped the buckles shut. Heinlein and Sarcha climbed into the rear seats. Sarcha pressed the automatic against the back of the man's neck and looked inquiringly at Heinlein.

"How does the saying go?" he queried. " 'Take me to your leader,' isn't it?"

"Something like that," Heinlein muttered.

Jack Farley carefully counted the bundles of used fifty-pound notes into neat heaps on his desk while Heinlein and Sarcha looked on. The heavies that Sarcha had dealt with were sitting in chairs, nursing their wounds and glowering at Sarcha. Their expressions suggested that they were not grateful for the lesson in martial arts that the rotund little Englishman had given them.

The five men were in Farley's pin-up-festooned office inside his warehouse in London's dockland. The only respectable document on the walls amid the display of female flesh was a calendar from a firm of shipping and forwarding agents.

"Two hundred grand," Farley announced, feeling the texture of the notes. "Nice." He grinned. "Of course, I could always insist on an increased down payment in view of the injuries to my assistants."

"In the future you should make certain they turn up at the right place, at the right time," Heinlein replied. "A third in advance is the agreed rate. And I think you know who that money belongs to."

Farley chuckled. He had no intention of souring his profitable relations with the PLO. "Okay, squire. So what's the cargo?"

"That's our business."

Farley nodded. "Fair enough. But give me an idea of its size and weight, so I can tell you what sort of shipping container you'll need."

Heinlein glanced at the two heavies. Farley jerked his head and they left the office, the second one treating Sarcha to a particularly unfriendly scowl before closing the door behind him.

"We're talking about four cylindrical items," said Heinlein. "About thirty feet long by three feet maximum diameter each. All up weight about eighty thousand pounds."

Farley doodled absently on a pad. "Are these cylindrical items cradled in any way?" he asked casually.

"Yes. But does it matter?"

"I want to know what we can get away with crating them in, squire. Can they be dismantled?"

"No."

The two men could have been discussing the salient features of a new car. Farley jotted down some figures with the aid of a calculator.

"Port of lading?"

"Israel. So I suppose it'll have to be Haifa."

"That's right. When?"

"February. March."

Farley nodded and opened a loose-leaf reference book issued by the Association of Fruit Importers. He looked up several tables and made some more notes. "Be easier if you could make it early March. That way, we'd be working the tail-end of the orange season. Type 32 citrus fruit containers. Aluminum. Big bastards. Hermetically sealed and filled with nitrogen. Keeps the fruit fresh. All customs men do is bleed some gas off and they're happy. Also, being sealed, they can go as deck cargo. That way you can be certain of getting a sailing. Thirty-twos are greedy on hold space."

"Okay," said Heinlein. "Early March it is."

After another five minutes finalizing a number of details, Heinlein and Sarcha shook hands with Farley. The least injured of the two heavies drove the two visitors back to the Park Lane car-park where Sarcha had left the Rolls-Royce.

"No real problems there," Sarcha commented when he and Heinlein were heading south away from London down the A3 towards Guildford. They were returning to Thursley Hall— their secluded U.K. base. "Money can buy anything."

"It won't buy four Masada missiles," said Heinlein curtly. "Getting hold of them is going to be a real bastard of an operation."

Sarcha chuckled. "David, me lad. You're a lousy operator— letting those hoods get the upper hand—but I do have implicit faith in your planning."

For once Heinlein wished he had Sarcha's confidence in his own abilities. That night, back at Thursley Hall, worrying about the forthcoming operation prevented him from dropping off to sleep. When all was quiet in the mansion, he called the Tel Aviv number. The phone had to ring for a minute before the voice he knew as belonging to "Ben Yair" answered.

"So far everything's going according to plan," said Heinlein after his voice had been identified. "NASA are now pressing me to fix a launch date. Preferably during the first two weeks of May."

"You'll have to call me tomorrow on that one," Greer replied.

Heinlein glanced uneasily at the door. Sarcha was a light sleeper and he was mindful of the fat Englishman's ability to move like a cat. "I might not get the chance. I need at least a provisional date now."

There was a long pause before Greer replied. "Okay. Get them to agree to May ten for the moment and we'll confirm it next time we speak."

53

Neil checked that the appropriate lights on panel R-13 were at green, indicating that all the catches on the orbiter's cargo bay doors were secured, and reported to Jim Bayliss who was sitting in the commander's seat.

"Okay, that's fine, Neil," said the instructor. He deleted the last items from his electronic notepad and hitched himself out of the pilot's seat. "Can't see the point of further payload deployment simulations until Surrey University tell us how they want the payload deployed."

Neil stepped down off^ the aft crew station platform and savoured the evocative smell of hydraulic oil that pervaded even the shuttle simulators. The two hours had taxed his powers of concentration to the point of exhaustion, but he didn't care—he was back at NASA, working with his old colleagues.

Bayliss clapped Neil on the back as they left the flight-deck.

"Nice going, Neil. I'll ask Earl if I can fly your payload. Be great to be together again, eh?"

Neil laughingly agreed and followed Bayliss out of the shuttle simulator. A technician called out to Neil that he was wanted on the telephone. It was Hackett.

"How'd the flight go, Neil?"

"No problems, Earl. We can't finalize the simulation program until we know exactly what we're handling. I'm going to the U.K. next week, so I'll be chasing Surrey for mass configurations on Cyclops for the simulator."

"That's fine," said Hackett. "Heinlein's come up with May ten for the launch, which is fine by me. Anyway, we can firm up on the date next week. Drop by my office so we can finalize the scheduling."

"Okay, Earl."

"Your boss—Heinlein—he wants to go on the mission. No reason why he shouldn't, but he'll have to go through the medical hoop and the emergency drill training session. You know the procedure. So get some dates out of him and confirm them with Frank."

Neil was intrigued. "Heinlein wants to go on the mission?"

"Sure."

"What as?"

Hackett laughed. "Just for the ride, I guess. No reason why he shouldn't fly as an observer. Can't say I blame the guy. He's paying and you'll be flying a basic crew so there'll be plenty of room. Just tell him we need those medical checks and that training session. Okay?"

"I'll tell him," Neil promised, and replaced the receiver.

54

"We've weathered the storm over the use of a tactical nuclear warhead," Michael Greer argued at the morning meeting of the Emergency Defence Committee. "I agree that the method of deploying the Masada was crude, but—"

"The only reason we've weathered the storm is because Maken has refused to acknowledge that we destroyed three of his aircraft," Ben Irving interrupted. "Downing them was a tremendous morale booster for us, but that's as far as it goes. It was a fluke that won't happen again. Therefore I say that bringing in the Masada as an operational weapon before its booster is ready is a mistake."

"How do you know it won't happen again?" Rymann asked.

The Chel Ha 'Avir commander-in-chief clasped his stubby fingers together on the rosewood table and leaned forwards—his characteristic battle pose. "We know Maken's got an operational research unit and we know they're good. They won't have to bum out too many computers working out that we used World War II flight predictor and proximity fuse airburst tactics to down those aircraft. On the next raid, they'll change altitude and course after they've activated their ECM equipment and we'll be right back to square one. Bringing in the Masada as a front-line system is a waste of our manpower and resources. There's a hell of a difference between sending a few Masada transporters to one or two selected bases and bringing them in as an operational weapon with full back-up facilities."

The argument dragged on for another thirty minutes and ended with Rymann stating that he wanted the Masada to go into service. He ruled that that would be the recommendation of the Emergency Defence Committee to the Cabinet.

Rymann turned to his Foreign Minister. "What's the situation on my visit to Washington?"

Samuel Kuttner shuffled his papers. "The U.S. State Department agrees in principle to a two-day visit within the next few weeks."

Rymann looked questioningly at Greer. "Any comments, Michael?"

"Yes. It's too early for the State Department to be filling President Hadley's diary for May, so I suggest we go back to it for a May finalization. Try to pin it down to May ten and eleven."

Rymann looked pleased. "That means we'll be back in time for the Independence Day celebrations on the fourteenth." He grinned across the table at Greer. "We might have something extra to celebrate, eh, Michael?"

"That's why I suggested those dates," said Greer wryly.

55

Sarcha was certain that he and Heinlein would have problems with immigration at Ben-Gurion Airport because their last departure from Israel at night by inflatable boat was, naturally enough, not recorded against their passport cards. Luckily the girl manning the control desk merely checked that their cards were valid, asked a few casual questions about their visit, and allowed them through. They took a taxi to Tel Aviv, checked in at the Plaza Hotel, and hired a car.

"We'll be in one fine mess if one of those diamond merchants happens to recognize us," Sarcha commented when he and Heinlein were reclining by the hotel's swimming-pool.

Heinlein chuckled and waved his drink at a gaggle of bikini-clad girls enjoying the warm January sunshine. "There's no chance of that while they're around—which is twelve months of the year here."

"Lest an eyeful of boob arouses their lustful passions?"

"That's right. They won't come within a mile of this place. Anyway, there's not been a whisper about the diamonds in the press."

"True," Sarcha admitted. "So when and how do we plan our shipment of 'oranges,' David, me lad?"

"The 'when' is within the next five weeks," said Heinlein. "The 'how' is a major problem that I'm still brooding on."

"Brood on, O Ship of State," said Sarcha contentedly, sipping his drink and having no scruples about allowing the nearest bikini-clad figure to arouse his lustful passions.

"All we have to go on is the telephone number of Jack Farley's contact in Haifa—Harry Laffin."

Sarcha snorted. "He won't be able to tell us where to find oranges."

"I was pointing out the problems. But don't forget I used to be in the uniformed side of the orange business."

Sarcha heaved his bulk onto his side and regarded Heinlein. "David, me lad. Let me tell you something. There's a world of a difference between dealing with a load of respectable diamond merchants on a tour bus and making a killing on the fruit market. For one thing, we'll be up against a whole shebang of professional operators behind wire fences and armed to the teeth with God knows what. Any killing made is likely to be in the sense that my renowned streak of abject cowardice makes me reluctant to think about."

Heinlein stood up. "Come on, Sarcha. We might as well start work now. Let's go for a drive."

Sarcha gave the girls a sorrowful last look and heaved his bulk off the sunbed.

"Have you ever heard of Ta'as?" Heinlein asked as he and Sarcha drove south along the Herbert Samuel Esplanade.

"I've come across the name. Armament manufacturers?"

"Correct," said Heinlein. "Ta'as is a group of government-owned factories throughout Israel—Israel Military Industries. They make everything under the sun that goes bang—from tanks to percussion caps."

"And they also make Masadas?"

"That's right." Once past the Tel Aviv Dolphinarium, Heinlein turned left and headed through the suburbs towards the southern railway station. "But they're not made in one place. The electronics are made by Tadiran. Nose-cones are made by a milk-chum plant in Elat. Fuel tanks are made in that plant coming up on the right. Don't make it obvious that you're looking at it."

Sarcha's eyes swivelled right and took in a scruffy little plant crouching behind a rusty chain-link fence. "Doesn't look very prosperous," he commented.

Heinlein slowed at some crossroads. "None of them do around here. They're not meant to look like key plants in a missile production programme." He accelerated. "On the left is another Ta'as plant. But they don't make anything."

Sarcha glanced briefly at the windowless concrete bunkerlike building. According to the sign outside, it was a paint warehouse.

"So what do they do?"

"They store Masada warheads until they're ready to be moved to that plant straight ahead. Take a good look at it when I stop."

Heinlein halted at the junction. The road was busy. He had to wait about two minutes for a gap in the traffic, which gave Sarcha an opportunity for a close study of the Israel Precious Metals Company. To the inexperienced eye there was nothing unusual about the appearance of the modem, single-storey industrial building except that it was set well back from the road in its own undulating, landscaped grounds. Sarcha's eye was not inexperienced and he immediately picked out a number of curious features.

"Notice anything?" queried Heinlein when the car was moving again.

"It's surrounded by nice lawns. The approach road snakes about. That, and the pretty decorative rocks lining the road, would make a fast get-away from the place impossible—especially as those rustic oak gates look as if they could stop a tank. Also the angle of the landscaped slopes around the place would deflect bomb blasts upwards. And the tennis-court dome on the roof probably hides radar gear and anti-aircraft guns rather than a tennis-court. Oh yes—the top section of the chain-link is electrified. I spotted the cables. Other than that, it's just another grotty little plant."

Heinlein laughed. "You're on the nose, Sarcha."

"It would also be a pig of place to take on. If you're thinking along those lines, I'd much rather watch."

"We won't have to take it on," said Heinlein, driving on until they came to an area where office-blocks dominated. He pulled up outside an imposing but deserted tower block.

"So what do Israel Precious Metals make officially?" Sarcha asked.

"Ring blanks for the jewellery industry. Gold chains. That sort of thing."

"A neat cover for lots of tight security," Sarcha observed.

"That's right. They employ about two hundred people on normal production work but there're another fifty who work in the special products department. Their job is assembling Masadas."

"Complete with warheads?"

"Complete with nuclear warheads," Heinlein confirmed.

Sarcha whistled.

"They've got to be built somewhere," said Heinlein. "The main nuclear ordnance plant is too well known so Ta'as set up that place. The Masadas are collected by an army flat-top truck. Four missiles at a time already mounted on their own launch platform."

"How many men?"

"Just the driver and co-driver," Heinlein replied. "Anything more than that might attract attention. The legitimate employees might start talking."

Sarcha was puzzled. "How do you know all this?"

"I was involved in the security set-up of the entire operation."

With that, Heinlein got out of the car and studied the unoccupied twenty-storey office-block. "What do you think?" he asked.

Sarcha glanced at the empty building. "What am I supposed to think?"

"Why not think about the view from the top floor?"

Sarcha thought. He walked into the middle of the road and looked back in the direction they had just driven from. A grin spread across his face. "Should have a nice view of Israel Precious Metals' front entrance."

"A brilliant view, Sarcha."

The two men strolled around the back of the block. They surveyed the spacious enclosed car-park and truck-unloading bays.

"Ideal," Heinlein murmured, noting down the name of the real estate agents that managed the property.

"You're not thinking of buying this place, are you?" Sarcha queried.

Heinlein looked surprised. "Hell no. Let's try for a lease."

A letter typed on Stavolos Trust notepaper by a hotel secretary and sent by messenger to the Anglo-Saxon Real Estate Agency produced a phone call from the agency within two hours. Heinlein fixed an appointment for that afternoon and returned at 3 P.M., twirling a bunch of keys which he tossed on the table beside Sarcha.

"A six-month lease," Heinlein announced. "No problems." He looked at his watch. "You've got just enough time to go out and buy the biggest telescope in Tel Aviv."

Heinlein applied his eye to the eyepiece of the biggest telescope in Tel Aviv and scowled.

"Everything's upside-down."

"That's because it's an astronomical telescope," said Sarcha diffidently. "But fantastic magnification, don't you think? I mean—just looking through that eyepiece makes you think you're standing right outside the gates of that factory."

"As I've never stood on my head outside a plant main entrance, I wouldn't know." Heinlein pushed his chair away from the telescope and glanced around the empty acreage of office space. Sarcha had set up the telescope on its tripod well away from the windows so that there was no likelihood of their being seen from outside. "Those Palestinians you recruited for the diamond job. They were good. "

Sarcha grinned. "Alef and his brother and friends? Of course they're good. I trained them myself They're old buddies."

"Could you find them again?"

"Same pay?"

"Double."

"No problems. Give me a day."

"You've got it," said Heinlein. "Bring them here. And there's a wrecker plus a few bits of artillery we're going to need. I'd rather not write out a shopping list. You can start now."

Sarcha looked dismayed. "Now?"

Heinlein's brow furrowed. "Doesn't the word 'now' mean 'right this minute'? Yes, I'm sure it does—unless my old English teacher was lying."

"But I've arranged some entertainment for this evening."

"Would this 'entertainment' mean having members of the fair sex in our rooms?"

"There was nothing fair about the fees they were charging," said Sarcha glumly. "And I had to pay them twenty-five per cent up front."

"Life can be devastatingly cruel," Heinlein observed.

The next morning Heinlein purchased a black, one-year-old Mercedes saloon from a Tel Aviv car dealer. He selected black because that was the current color the army was using for senior Zahal officers' staff cars.

A fast two-hour test drive to Jerusalem and back along the M1 motorway proved the car to be sound. On his return to Tel Aviv, he visited a large yacht chandlers and examined the store's display of ship-to-shore radio transceivers. A large and expensive Yaesu caught his eye—not because of its price but because it covered the one-metre band.

"Three thousand dollars," said the assistant respectfully, having examined Heinlein's business card. "But the set doesn't cover all the bands. The one-metre VHP band converter has been removed. Defence Regulations."

Heinlein frowned. "That's a nuisance. I may need the one-metre band when my yacht is in American waters."

"I'm very sorry, sir. But we're not allowed to sell transceivers that can operate on the military's VHP frequencies." The assistant gave a conspiratorial grin. "But there's nothing in the regulations that says we can't sell you the converter that we've removed. It's just that we can't sell sets capable of operating on one-metre. The converter's easy enough to plug in. Take the back off the set and you'll see the empty socket."

Heinlein grinned. "Sometimes I think our rules and regulations are drawn up by cretins."

"Precisely, sir."

Heinlein made a few more purchases and drove back to the office-block where he spent three hours behind closed doors of the loading bay, wiring the Yaesu to the car's electrical system. Returning the missing converter to its socket was simple enough; the trickiest task was teasing the Mercedes' headlining back into place after he had taped a wire loop antenna to the inside of the car's roof.

With the Yaesu hidden under a blanket and tuned to maximum output power, and with the microphone tucked between the seats, he drove into the centre of Tel Aviv and surreptitiously keyed the microphone as he was passing a television shop. The carrier wave from the transmitter effectively splatted out all the television pictures—turning them into crazy dancing patterns of zigzagging colours for as long as he kept the microphone keyed. He tried the same again a few minutes later while waiting at some traffic-lights. The Yaesu's carrier wave annihilated the heavy beat crashing out of the twin speakers of a car waiting beside him.

Heinlein was satisfied with the day's work. The Yaesu coupled to a mismatched antenna behaved as an effective radio jammer. It was time to call the Tel Aviv number.

"I'm sorry, David," said Greer when he had listened to Heinlein's request. "But not even I can help you. They've got a new system for the timing of missile movements. The transport officer decides on the day and time and keeps it to himself until the last minute."

The voice's use of the phrase "not even I can help you" aroused Heinlein's curiosity. "Ben Yair" was obviously very high up. "So what do you suggest I do? Keep a twenty-four-hour watch on the place?"

"You'll have to, David. There's no alternative."

Sarcha returned at 9 p.m., just as Heinlein was beginning to wonder if peering at the telescope's inverted image would permanently scramble his brain.

He shook hands with the four grinning Palestinians.

"And we've purchased all the necessary hardware," said Sarcha, beaming broadly. "Plus these things." He handed a package to Heinlein that contained several neural gas grenades. Provided it was thrown accurately at the chest, one of the tiny, egg-like weapons was capable of rendering a man unconscious for several days.

"Excellent, Sarcha. Well done."

Sarcha grinned. "Come and see what we've got in the carpark."

The party trooped down to the loading bays where Heinlein examined the breakdown recovery vehicle that Sarcha had obtained. It was a General Motors wrecker of the same type used by the Israeli army except that it was emblazoned with the name of a Nablus garage and it bore Arab licence plates. Sarcha demonstrated that its thirty-tonne hydraulic hoist was in working order.

"Alef is a dab hand with masking tape and a spray-gun," Sarcha claimed.

"Is that right, Alef?" Heinlein questioned.

The Palestinian nodded. "It was my trade," he replied. "About two days' work and you won't know it from an army wrecker."

Heinlein showed Alef the Mercedes. "Also I want this dressed up with army plates and general headquarters pennants."

The Palestinian grinned broadly. "I know exactly where to steal them."

Tunny's yard outside Tel Aviv consisted of six acres of commercial vehicles ranging from small delivery vans to thirty-tonne refrigerated trucks. At least one acre was occupied by an assortment of fruit containers and prime movers—ranging from pristine, bankrupt stock vehicles, to trucks and rigs that looked as if they had spent their working lives being used as blast shields by dynamite-happy quarry workers.

"A Type 32 container?" Tunny kept muttering to himself as he picked his way past a welding gang who were cutting up an old truck. "Aluminium they are made of. Pressurized. Aluminium prices at the moment you would not believe. Strategic war materiel regulations."

Sarcha squeezed his bulk between two slab-sided containers. "Okay," he said. "If you don't want to sell one of yours, maybe you know someone who does?"

Tunny slapped the side of a giant container that was hitched to a Volvo rig.

"There we are, sir. One Type 32. By craftsman they are made. Top loading. End loading. For citrus there is nothing better. Her pressure she will hold for a century. A year old. Forty-thousand kilometres on her clock is all the rig has."

Sarcha checked the vehicle and the gigantic container while ignoring Tunny's running commentary on their virtues. For once in his career the trader was being truthful—the entire rig was in excellent condition.

"How much?"

Tunny looked uninterested. "Shekels or dollars?"

"Dollars. Cash."

"She's yours for thirty-five if a VAT receipt you don't want. Without a receipt, she will still run like a sewing-machine."

"I want a receipt," said Sarcha firmly. "Everything's got to be legal and above-board."

Tunny shrugged and reflected that the standard of his customers was going down. Above-board indeed. Where was it all going to end? "Then thirty-nine I have to ask," he declared.

"Thirty-seven."

"Thirty-eight and she's yours."

"Done."

56

February

After ten days of keeping watch on Israel Precious Metals, Heinlein was worrying about the effect that the long vigil was having on the group's nerves. Even the normally placid Sarcha was beginning to snap at the slightest irritation, and on one occasion an argument between the four Palestinians suddenly turned unpleasant. A flick-knife was produced. Adroit fool-work by Sarcha, who kicked the weapon from the belligerent's hand, prevented the dispute from developing.

On the eleventh afternoon, Alef was taking a turn at the telescope when he gave a warning whistle. Heinlein skidded to his side. One glance at the army low-loader with its tarpaulin-shrouded cargo leaving Israel Precious Metals' premises was enough.

"That's it!" he yelled.

The rehearsals paid off. The six men raced out of the office building and piled into their respective vehicles.

Heinlein, dressed in the uniform of a segan aluf—a lieutenant-colonel in the 7th Israeli Armoured Brigade—Jumped into the back of the Mercedes while Sarcha, uniformed as his driver, dived behind the wheel and fired the turbine. Alef and his three fellow Palestinians were wearing Engineer Corps fatigues. They jumped into the wrecker and followed the Mercedes as it drove at a normal speed out of the car-park.

Once clear of the industrial estate, Sarcha accelerated hard to catch up with the army truck. The vehicle was out of sight but they knew the route it would be taking. Heinlein reached down and switched on the Yaesu. He pushed the microphone onto the passenger seat beside Sarcha where Sarcha could key it when he gave the word. Heinlein transferred three of the neural gas grenades to his breast-pocket.

From then everything started to go disastrously wrong. Sarcha weaved through the back streets, using short cuts that would be too narrow for the truck. Heinlein hung on to the passenger straps. Sarcha swung onto Route 44—the main highway that punched south-east across the plain towards the old crusader city of Ramla—but there was no sign of the truck ahead.

"For Chrissake!" Sarcha shouted. "They can't have got that far in front!"

"They've got to head this way for the Ramla depot," said Heinlein. "Put your foot down."

"We'll get done for speeding!"

"Not in this car."

Sarcha accelerated and passed several cars obeying the speed limit. After two miles the road widened into a divided highway.

"Alef won't come this far," Sarcha argued. "He'll think we've aborted and he'll turn back."

"He'll go on to the Rishon turn-off," said Heinlein, cursing the operating conditions that made it too dangerous for them to risk using two-way radios. At that moment he and Sarcha saw the truck about a mile ahead.

"Christ—he's shifting!"

"Just get after it!" Heinlein snarled, yanking his automatic from its holster and screwing the silencer in place.

The sound of the Mercedes' turbine rose to a muted howl. After five minutes Sarcha closed up behind the truck. It was charging along in the outside lane—the tarpaulin covering its load flapping wildly—threatening to tear free from its lashings.

"Get beside it! And get ready to key the mike!"

"For Chrissake," Sarcha shouted over his shoulder. "You take out a tyre at this speed and you'll have the whole bloody caboose overturned!"

"Don't argue! Get beside it!"

Sarcha blasted the horn several times. The vehicle stuck doggedly in the fast lane. Obviously the army driver was delighted at the opportunity to obstruct what he thought was a staff car.

Cursing roundly, Sarcha hooked into the centre lane and passed the vehicle on the inside. Heinlein lowered his offside window. The slip stream howled into the car. Gradually the Mercedes drew level with the truck's rear axles.

Sarcha hung grimly on to the steering-wheel, fighting to counter the buffeting from the turbulence created by the big vehicle's proximity and speed.

"Key the mike on the count of three!" Heinlein yelled. "One . . . !"

Sarcha grabbed the microphone.

"Come on! Faster! Two . . . !"

The Mercedes edged forwards. The truck's bulbous tyres were screaming banshees pounding the highway within a few feet of Heinlein. The hurricane blasting into the car made it virtually impossible for him to control his aim. In desperation, he jammed the gun against the side of the door pillar. It no longer mattered if the truck's co-driver spotted the barrel.

"Three!"

Sarcha keyed the Yaesu's microphone at the same moment that Heinlein pumped six rounds into the truck's near-side rear tyres. At first nothing happened apart from Sarcha's braking to allow the army vehicle to surge ahead.

"Fucking self-sealing sodding tyres!" Sarcha snarled, keeping the microphone keyed.

Heinlein slammed another clip into his automatic.

Suddenly the truck slewed drunkenly across to the near-side lane and lost speed, forcing Sarcha to brake even harder. And then the heavy vehicle was snaking to the left and right—its rear brake lights flashing on and off—a witness to the driver's self-control and skill in his fight to bring his crippled charge under control. With his speed dropping rapidly, he won the battle and succeeded in steering the truck onto the grass verge and bringing it to a standstill.

Several cars and trucks hurtled past towards Ramla, their drivers unaware that anything was amiss. Sarcha stopped the Mercedes some yards beyond the truck. He had the presence of mind to remember to open the passenger door for Heinlein.

Heinlein and Sarcha walked towards the sergeant and the corporal. Heinlein transferred two of the neural gas grenades to his hand. The two soldiers had jumped down from their cab and were examining the shredded rear tyres. The sergeant was holding his assault rifle. The truck's bulk obscured the scene from oncoming vehicles. Both soldiers straightened up and watched Heinlein's and Sarcha's approach. Heinlein's uniform had no effect on them; they made no attempt to come to attention and salute.

"Trouble," Sarcha muttered under his breath. Heinlein did not notice him slide his hand casually into the side-pocket of his uniform jacket.

"Hey—what the hell do you guys mean—shooting our tyres out?" demanded the sergeant, levelling his rifle at the two men.

"I think you're mistaken, Sergeant," said Heinlein pleasantly, moving closer to the sergeant. "We saw your blow-out so I ordered my driver—"

"Crap. I saw the shots in the mirror."

Sarcha saw the sergeant's finger tighten on the trigger. He thrust Heinlein to one side and dived at the ground, whipping out his automatic and loosing off two shots at the same time. The range was less than three yards but it was a remarkable piece of shooting; even before their bodies started to crumple, the corporal and sergeant were dead—both shot between the eyes.

"For Chrissake, Sarcha! That wasn't nee—"

"You would've been dead before you had a chance to lob those stupid gizmos!" Sarcha snarled. "Help me get rid of 'em! Come on!"

The two men rolled the bodies into the undergrowth lining the road. Heinlein climbed into the truck's cab and listened to the signals traffic on the transceiver. A flick through all the channels revealed nothing out of the ordinary. It was an immense relief. Either the Yaesu had done its job or the two soldiers had not used their transmitter. He reckoned that the men had been speeding to give themselves time for an unscheduled long stop-off. They would have been allowed an hour to gel to Ramla. After they had been overdue an hour, a military police patrol would be sent out to check the roadside pull-ins and snack-bars along the route. That would take another hour. After two hours, the alarm would be raised.

"They're coming!" Sarcha called out.

Heinlein scrambled down from the cab and waved to the approaching wrecker. Both Sarcha and Heinlein agreed that Alef's grinning face looking down at them as he pulled onto the shoulder was the most welcome sight they had ever witnessed.

Hitching the army truck to the wrecker's hoist took a nerve-racking fifteen minutes.

"Bloody hell," Sarcha remarked a few minutes later at the wheel of the Mercedes as he followed the wrecker and truck off the highway and onto the little-used Rishon road. "We only just stopped the bastard in time. Another mile and he would've been past the turn-off."

"I miscalculated the speed he would drive at," Heinlein confessed.

Sarcha chuckled and glanced in his mirror to make certain they weren't being followed. "Army drivers—same all over the world."

"It wasn't necessary to kill them," said Heinlein. "The neural grenades work in a hundredth of a second."

"And a slug would've killed you in a thousandth of a second," Sarcha countered. He glanced suspiciously at Heinlein. "What's up, David, me lad. Getting soft in our old age, are we?"

"Just watch where you're driving," Heinlein ordered curtly.

The wrecker swung onto a dirt road that passed some Arab-owned settlements. The road narrowed and skirted low hills whose terraces were planted with olive trees. After another three miles it degenerated into a hard, rutted track and then ended abruptly in a dreary, chicken-infested farmyard overlooked by squalid concrete bungalows with corrugated iron roofs. At the far end of the farmyard was a rusting Nissen hut that looked as if it dated from the days of the British Mandate. Outside the huge hut were a number of ancient agricultural machines. About six Arab women clattered out of the bungalows and exchanged noisy greetings with Alef and the other Palestinians in the wrecker.

"They're smashing people," said Sarcha with genuine affection, cutting the Mercedes' power. "Salt of the earth. Those women spent two days clearing out that Nissen hut."

Two of the women dragged open a pair of creaking barndoors that were set into the end of the hemispherical hut. Parked inside, close to one side of the curving roof, was a Volvo articulated truck coupled to the largest fruit container Heinlein had ever seen. Alef gunned the wrecker's engine and eased it forwards into the hut to an accompaniment of arm waving and shouted instructions from his colleagues. There was just enough room to accommodate the wrecker and the army truck alongside the Volvo.

Heinlein got out of the car. As he straightened, he suddenly realized just how much the strain of the last three hours had exhausted him. He yawned and stretched.

"Well," said Sarcha, standing beside Heinlein. "We've got the fruit container. And now we've got the oranges, I'm dying to take a look at them."

They entered the hut. One of the Palestinians closed the rickety doors. Alef jumped nimbly onto the truck and unknotted the tarpaulin's lashing. All four Palestinians grabbed hold of the heavy canvas and hauled it aside. Their laughter and chatter was abruptly silenced by the sight that confronted them.

Resting side by side on shaped timber cradles were four ten-metre lengths of gleaming needle-nosed ugliness. For a few moments the men contemplated the missiles. Sarcha reached out a hand and touched a stabilizer fin. "Christ," he breathed. "Did you ever see anything so obviously designed to cause lots of grief and misery?"

Even the phlegmatic Heinlein was momentarily lost for words.

"Do they have nuclear or conventional warheads?" asked Sarcha, not taking his eyes off the missiles.

Heinlein climbed aboard the truck and knelt to examine the warheads. Etched beneath the access panel on each weapon was a serial number that was prefixed with the letter D.

"Ten-kilotonne nuclear," said Heinlein simply.

Sarcha swore softly to himself.

Heinlein untied a small crate that was packed between the weapons. "And this," he said, holding the crate aloft, "is the fire control panel."

He jumped down and Alef handed him a bulky envelope. "Found this under the driver's seat," the Palestinian remarked.

Heinlein opened the envelope. Inside was a Ta'as servicing manual. Taped to an inside cover was a smaller envelope. It contained a single sheet of paper that bore a column of typed numbers. He studied it for a moment and gave a mirthless smile.

"What is it?" asked Sarcha.

"The combinations for arming the warheads."

Sarcha blinked and could think of nothing constructive to say.

57

Ben Irving had heard enough. He stood abruptly, overturning his chair, and strode to the door. "Stupefying, incompetent army bungling!" he barked at Rymann and Greer across the Cabinet room. "Non-existent security and four of our top-secret missiles disappear into thin air!"

He stormed out of the room and was prevented from slamming the door by Samuel Kuttner who had been waiting nervously outside for the row to end.

"Come in, Sam," said Rymann tiredly. "What have you got for me?"

"We've just heard from Washington. The State Department has agreed to our proposed dates for talks. May ten and eleven. Walter Swift will see me—and you if you wish—for three hours on May ten. And the following day you will meet President Hadley for an informal two-hour talk at the White House."

Rymann gave a sigh of relief. "Well done, Sam. At least that's one crumb of good news for the Cabinet and the President."

58

March

For an extra four thousand dollars Alef willingly undertook the hazardous task of driving the fruit container containing the four Masada missiles to Haifa. As a bonus, Heinlein had assigned him ownership of the Volvo. As Alef threaded his way through the outskirts of the ancient city, he was already making mental plans for the day when he would own a whole fleet of trucks operating the length and breadth of Palestine.

His timing was perfect; the heavy truck rumbled over the Giborim Bridge at 12:50 p.m. He drove through the Zevulun industrial zone and, at I p.m. precisely, parked the Volvo in a marshalling lane outside the freight office of the All-Israel Fruit Shipping Corporation at Kishon Harbour. The company belied its prestigious name; it was the smallest concern operating out of the port of Haifa. Its owner, chief shipping clerk, switchboard operator, and receptionist was Harry Laffin, a former London fruit merchant who had fled from England some years before because of his beliefs—his principal belief being that Israel was an ideal place to hide to avoid paying a very large income tax debt. He had maintained his London contacts, particularly with Jack Farley who had put a useful amount of business his way. This latest deal looked like the most lucrative of all.

Harry darted to the window as soon as he heard the Volvo draw up outside. It was the right truck with the right licence plate. In fiction, there is a regrettable tendency for some characters to give little dances of joy when confronted with good news. They have even been known to hug themselves with glee. Harry came perilously close to fulfilling both those cliché’s when he saw the truck. And why not? Another delicious ten thousand dollars was as good as his. He had a welcoming smile fixed firmly in place by the time Alef entered his office.

"Ah. You must be Mr. Heinlein's driver?"

Alef agreed that he was.

"Yes—Mr. Heinlein and me fertilized the details last night," said Harry, barely managing to suppress his excitement. "Charming man. All the paperwork's ready. The Calder Castle's sailing in an hour, but I've managed to fix up some late lading-deck cargo space. Shouldn't be any problems. She'll be docking at Southampton in six days. Last of the season's Jaffas. Mr. Farley and Mr. Heinlein should make a fortune. You've no idea what British housewives are paying for Jaffas this year." Harry kept up a constant stream of chatter while hunting through a sheaf of documents. He found one and handed it to Alef. "Lane eight. Give that to the clerk's office and the mobile crane will unload you. I'll see to the rest."

Alef thanked Harry and turned to leave. "One thing," Harry called out. "You will inform Mr. Heinlein that everything went off okay, won't you?''"

"When I see that the container has sailed," Alef rephed.

Harry gave a casual laugh. "It's just that half my commission's still owing. Wouldn't like to lose out on it."

"You'll be paid when the oranges have sailed," Alef reiterated.

Once the mobile crane had straddled the Volvo and hoisted the container onto a loading pallet, Alef drove through Haifa's city centre and took the steep road that wound its way up Mount Carmel to the pleasant tree-lined suburb of Neve-Shaanan. He pulled up in a truckers' rest area which had a magnificent view across the Bay of Haifa. Laid out below him on the azure sheen of the Mediterranean was the entire harbour complex with its rows of silos, lofty cranes, and dozens of toy-like ships lying within the protective embrace of the outer harbour wall. He unwrapped his lunch and settled down to eat. At 2:15 P.M. a scruffy merchant ship being nudged by tugs into the centre of the harbour basin caught his eye. It was the Calder Castle. Alef's binoculars traversed the length of the ship and came to rest on a number of assorted containers lashed down to the aft deck. One of them—the largest—was a Type 32. Alef steadied the binoculars so that he could read the serial number stencilled on the side of the container. It was the right one.

He drove on until he found a pay phone and called Heinlein at Haifa's Dan Carmel Hotel.

Sarcha turned down the television's volume when the telephone rang.

Heinlein answered it. "Heinlein." He listened for a few moments and said, "Thank you, Alef Excellent news. I'll see that he's paid." He returned the handset to its cradle and stared thoughtfully at the carpet.

"Well?" Sarcha inquired, wishing that for once, just for once, he could read Heinlein's mind.

"The oranges are on their way."

Sarcha stared at Heinlein, his cherubic expression a mixture of wonder and disbelief. "So we've done it," he breathed. "Jesus bloody Christ—we've actually done it!"

59

Lena answered the telephone.

The caller cut short her polite identification. "Lena—this is Heinlein. I'm calling from the project office at Surrey University. Is Neil there?"

"Mr. Heinlein. I've been trying to gel in touch with you for several days—"

"Is Neil there?" Heinlein repeated impatiently.

"No, Mr. Heinlein. He's at a meeting at the Kennedy Space Center. They've confirmed launch date as May ten—as you requested—and they've selected the crew. NASA are now pressing for a date from you for them to fly over the pallet sections and the palletization team."

"Okay, Lena, we've got your messages here. Tell Hacketl that we require another two weeks' work on Cyclops. I'll be at Kennedy three days before the launch. I want Neil over here on the next flight. How's he fixed for the next few days?"

Lena glanced through Neil's schedule. "He's completed all the payload deployment simulations. .\11 the contract details are finalized, and there re no more co-ordination conferences until Cyclops is freighted over. He looks clear."

"Okay. Book him on an SST to Heathrow and a seat for yourself on the same flight."

Thinking she had misheard Heinlein, Lena asked him to repeat his last sentence.

"You can come with Neil too."

Lena could scarcely believe what she was hearing. "But—"

"Don't you want to visit the U.K.?"

"Well, yes." Her mind raced. "But there's the office and—"

"The Florida bureau can look after itself for a few days. Tell NASA to liaise directly with this office. After all the work you've put in, you've earned yourself a trip. Get yourself and Neil over here on the five o'clock Miami flight. First-class. Tell him to bring the complete mission schedule and all the information he has on the orbiter's emergency landing procedures and sites. Have you got that?"

Hardly able to contain her excitement at the prospect of a trip to Europe, Lena stumbled over her instructions. Heinlein made her repeat them—especially his request for data on the shuttle's emergency landing procedures and sites. He gave a grunt of satisfaction when she got them right and added, "Okay—fine. Sarcha will meet you both at Heathrow."

"I don't know how to thank vou, Mr. Heinlein," said Lena delightedly. "This is a real—"

The fine went dead before she could complete the sentence. After a few moments pondering the conversation, she booked two first-class SST seats to London on the evening flight. She was debating what clothes to pack when Neil walked in.

"Hi, boss. What are you looking so pleased about?"

"Heinlein's just called," she said, returning his kiss.

"About time he surfaced. We're virtually finished at this end."

Lena repeated her conversation with Heinlein. Neil was frowning by the time she finished. "Hey!" she said indignantly, ruffling his hair. "Why the long face? Don't you want my company?"

"It's not that, hon," he said absently. "But why in the world does he want the emergency landing procedures?"

Lena laughed. "Maybe he's nervous about his first space flight and wants to know all the drills?"

Neil kissed her. "Heinlein nervous? Are you kidding?"

60

It was 3 A.M. local time when Lena and Neil cleared Heathrow customs. Lena was dressed in white, eye-catching silk pants and a matching blouse that had endeared her to a number of bleary-eyed customs officials when she had passed through their domain.

Sarcha was waiting for them outside the terminal. His moonlike face was a huge, welcoming smile. He threw his arms around Lena, gave her a passionate kiss, and held her at arm's length to admire her. "Lena, my angel! You look more beautiful than ever! And that outfit! Wow!"

The chubby little Englishman shook hands warmly with Neil and maintained a continuous flow of gossip while he carried their baggage to the Rolls-Royce. His patter never flagged as he drove along the deserted motorway and picked up the southbound A3.

"So neither of you have been to England before?" he quizzed over his shoulder. "Well, there's nothing much to see at this time of night. And this route out to Guildford is the London to Portsmouth road—it misses all the sights. Never mind—there'll be plenty of time for that."

Lena and Neil were intrigued by traffic driving on the wrong side of the road, and by Guildford's cobbled High Street which Sarcha detoured through for their benefit. He kept the driving mirror tipped down slightly during the journey. The sight of Lena's and Neil's hands tightly entwined was gratifying.

Thursley Hall was wreathed in shadows and silence when they arrived. Lena and Neil said that they needed sleep more than food; therefore Sarcha showed them to separate but adjoining bedrooms and explained that Heinlein was asleep and would welcome them in the morning. "The housekeeper will be serving breakfast at 11 a.m." he said, bidding them goodnight. "Just so that you can sleep in if you wish."

Heinlein listened intently on the earphone while Sarcha held the amplifier microphone pressed against the wall. He listened for no longer than was necessary to establish that the sounds coming from the next bedroom were those of Lena and Neil making love.

"Excellent," Heinlein murmured in satisfaction. He returned the earphone to Sarcha. "Exactly what I was hoping for. I doubt if Mr. O'Hara will give us any trouble."

61

Sir Max Flinders was in fine form. His rich voice boomed his congratulations through his face-mask at the university technicians who had succeeded in closing the four sections of the cylindrical dummy pallet around Cyclops so that the giant satellite was completely enclosed.

"Okay—that's fine," Neil reported, when he finished checking that all the pallet's electric latches were secure.

"How do you get it out of the shuttle's cargo bay?" asked Lena, staring up at the dummy pallet. "It's huge."

"It's not difficult, hon," Neil answered. "Just before payload deployment, we orientate the orbiter to a nose-down attitude in relation to the Earth. Then a few squirts with the orbiter's thrusters to speed it up slightly, and the entire pallet slides out of the hold."

"You make it sound simple," Heinlein commented as he joined them.

"Works every time."

Later the five discussed details of the mission, including accommodation for the NASA palletizing team, and the chartering from Military Airlift Command of a Lockheed Super Galaxy to fly the loaded pallet to the Kennedy Space Center from the British Aerospace air base at nearby Dunsfold.

"There's the question of road transport," said Flinders. "Pickfords are the obvious choice—"

"That's no problem," Heinlein interrupted. "I happen to know of a specialist freight company that will transport the pallet from here to Dunsfold."

Flinders looked surprised. He was about to make a comment, but Lena spoke first.

"Give me their number and I'll fix it up," she volunteered.

"That won't be necessary, Lena," said Heinlein. "The managing director is an old friend. I owe him a call." He looked at his watch. "I think that's all for the time being. Neil—as you and I are going into space together, there're a few things I'd hke to talk over with you." He looked pointedly at the others. "It won't take long."

Flinders, Lena, and Sarcha took the hint and stood. "Come, Lena," said Flinders, draping an affectionate arm around the girl's shoulders. "If you're interested, I'll show you the rest of the complex."

As soon as they were alone, Heinlein said to Neil, "You brought the emergency landing procedures?"

"Yes. Sure." Neil opened a brief-case and handed Heinlein a slim electronic manual. "Ten thousand pages cover the orbiter and there're about five hundred pages on emergency landing procedures. Not that you need worry. The chances of anything going wrong are pretty well nil."

Heinlein switched on the manual, checked the index, and scrolled the flat screen through a section that consisted of a bewildering mass of approach diagrams and lists of tables for various air bases throughout the world. "Really, Neil," he queried. "What about the shuttle that made a forced landing at Nairobi last year?"

"And there was the Cairo landing," Neil reminded. "So what? If something happens that prevents a Kennedy landing, then our second option will be Vandenberg. And if not Vandenberg, then there's Andrews, Edwards—a whole string of alternative landing facilities."

"Which you could find? With no power?"

Neil sighed. "The landing site is selected before the de-orbit bum—that is, before atmospheric entry."

Heinlein still looked unconvinced, therefore Neil went into greater detail. "If you look through that manual you'll see that there are four classifications of landing facihty. Class A are the primary sites, such as Kennedy and Vandenberg, which have facilities specifically designed for the orbiter. Then there's Class B—major abort-landing facilities such as Dryden, Rota in Spain, Okinawa, and so on. They're usually AFBs with four to five thousand yards of concrete runway. The class also includes a few civilian airports. Okay?"

"What about Class-D facilities?"

Neil laughed. "You've gotta be in real trouble to go for a Class-D option. There're full details on about fifteen sites in the manual's memory. Salt flats. Lake-beds. Stretches of bush. No one's ever had to use one and no one wants to. Landing without ground navigation aids? Jesus—no. Just because a site is listed doesn't mean it's safe. There could be holes, animals, anthills. It doesn't take much to bust an orbiter touching down at a hundred and eighty knots. The nearest I ever got to Class-D landing facility was on the simulator when I set down on Bonneville Salt Flats."

Heinlein mustered a smile to match Neil's amusement. "How did you make out?"

"Pretty good. A quarter-of-a-mile bounce but I stopped her. And the God-dammed simulator threw pot-holes at me."

"Okay, Neil. Thanks for setting my mind at rest. Can I keep this manual?" "Be my guest."

Heinlein produced an envelope and handed it to Neil. "For you and Lena. As you've not had a chance to visit London yet, I thought that maybe you'd both like the rest of the day off."

Neil opened the envelope. Inside were two tickets for the show at the London Palladium—vahd for that evening.

At 8 P.M. only one light was burning in Thursley Hall in the small ground-floor study that Heinlein used as an office. Even the housekeeper's flat was in darkness because Heinlein had provided her too with a complimentary theatre ticket.

"I've decided on a landing site for the orbiter," said Heinlein, switching on the electronic manual. He called up a large-scale map of southern Africa and indicated the border that ran from north to south between Mozambique and South Africa. "The Kruger National Park."

Sarcha stared aghast, first at the map on the manual's flat screen and then at Heinlein. "South Africa! You're crazy! Absolutely stark raving!"

"We're not talking about an ordinary game reserve," said Heinlein, unperturbed by Sarcha's outburst. "The Kruger National Park is bigger than Israel. Ten thousand square miles of flat bush-land and scrub policed by a handful of rangers. The border with Mozambique is guarded by a two-hundred-mile-long veterinary fence—designed to keep the game in and the Mozambique poachers and terrorists out." He selected another page that displayed a map of the park and pointed out an area in the north between the Letaba River and the Shingwidzi River that bore an east-west dotted fine. "That's one of NASA's dire-emergency landing sites for the orbiter. It's a stretch of flat bush-land."

Sarcha bent over the map. He tried to work out the meaning of the complex tables of navigational computer way-loading co-ordinates printed down the side of the screen and gave up.

"Check the scale," Heinlein suggested.

Sarcha commented on the fact that the dotted-line landing site was within thirty miles of the Mozambique border.

"Precisely," said Heinlein. "Seven minutes' flying time for a Wesdand Werewolf helicopter such as those operated by the Mozambique Air Force."

Suddenly Heinlein's choice of landing site began to make sense to Sarcha. "Does Maken have contacts with Mozambique?" he queried.

Heinlein nodded. "A fifteen-minute round trip to pull us out of the Kruger National Park will repay about one per cent of the favours that Mozambique owes Maken."

"Us?"

"You'll be there waiting for us . . . with Lena. And with all the necessary communication equipment to talk to the shuttle. Just in case O'Hara gives us problems."

The front doorbell rang. Heinlein glanced at his watch. It was eight-fifteen. "Dead on time," he observed.

Jack Farley was standing on the porch. He grinned amiably at Sarcha who had opened the door. "Evening, squire. I hope you gentlemen like oranges."

Farley shook hands with Sarcha and Heinlein, and jerked his thumb at the giant Type 32 container and its transporter that was parked in the wide drive. "Thought I'd best collect it myself from Southampton. Being as how you're such valued cash customers."

"Any troubles?" asked Heinlein as the three men walked across to the container.

"Nothing that a few readies couldn't buy us out of, squire. Got somewhere to unhitch it?"

Sarcha directed Farley to the rear of the mansion. Farley was a skilled driver and managed to reverse the articulated vehicle into the barn without undue difficulty so that the container was positioned to one side but with plenty of working space all around. Sarcha lowered the jacks and helped Farley unhitch the transporter. Once it was driven clear, Heinlein closed the barn-doors and locked them.

"I take it you've got the balance?" Farley asked, jumping down from the driver's cab.

"It's in the house," said Heinlein. "And if you're interested, I've got some more work in mind for you and a few of your lads. Same terms—cash."

Farley gave a knowing grin. "Always interested in those sort of terms, squire."

62

In Jerusalem preparations for Rymann's visit to the United States forged ahead.

The only occasion when Rymann interfered was his vetoing of a proposal to fly him and his retinue to Washington by a USAF B9 bomber.

"Prime Minister—you must take advantage of the U.S. offer," Kuttner protested.

"When I leave Israel, it will be by an El Al civil aircraft," Rymann told his Foreign Minister firmly.

"Which the PLO will shoot down over the Mediterranean," Kuttner retorted. "We're planning a joint announcement of your visit for next week, therefore it won't be secret. But Maken won't and can't touch a USAF B9."

"Israeli heads of state always use the state airline," Rymann declared, eyeing a new secretary and assessing his chances with her. "For me to do otherwise would be a break with tradition."

"So would having you shot down be a break with tradition," Kuttner replied, being uncharacteristically blunt. "And besides, do you really think it fair to place the other members of the party at risk?"

Rymann considered and eventually nodded. He knew when to yield. "You're right, Sam. Okay—we'll fly by B9." He chuckled, and added, "Will the United States bill us for its use?"

"I doubt it. The offer came personally from President Hadley."

"Well—if it's free, that's a better reason for accepting his offer than the guarding of your neck, I reckon." Kuttner did not appreciate the joke.

63

April

Neil and Lena drove to Gatwick Airport on April 15 to welcome the arrival of the three-man NASA palletizing team. Jack Farley drove a flat-top truck to the cargo-handling area to collect the dismantled sections of the pallet when they were unloaded from the Boeing's freight hold.

The NASA technicians were required at Vandenberg Air Force Base to prepare a mihtary payload for a shuttle launch; therefore they were anxious not to waste time. They spent two hours unwinding at their hotel in Guildford and called their chauffeur-driven car to take them to the University of Surrey.

Leader of the team was Paul Quincy—a wiry New Yorker who, as a teenager, had witnessed the first shuttle flight in 1981. He and Neil knew each other well.

"Beautiful. Beautiful," he said briskly to Flinders and Neil during his initial examination oi Cyclops resting on its cradles in the clean room. "As smart a payload as I've seen. Sir Max."

Flinders beamed his pleasure. "She's the result of many years' hard work, Mr. Quincy."

Quincy looked questioningly at Neil. "Any problems during the dummy palletizing?"

"None at all," Neil replied. "The sections closed up round her as neat as you could wish."

The team spent two hours laying out the pallet sections on the clean room floor and checking that everything was in order.

"Okay," said Quincy when they had finished. "Now's the last chance you'll have for your final check-outs. Sir Max, because at eight tomorrow morning we start assembling the pallet around her."

The NASA team returned to their hotel. For the rest of that night, scientists and technicians in the university's Cyclops Control Centre put the giant orbital observatory through its paces, testing all its facilities. Power for the trials was provided by a battery of xenon lights—their rays trained on the outstretched solar panels to simulate the energy that the observatory would be receiving from the sun when it was in orbit. A few faults were found during the night but they had been rectified by the time Paul Quincy and his two assistants were ready to start work the following morning.

"Sarcha and I would like to watch," said Heinlein.

"No reason why not, fellers," said Quincy affably, walking around the two men to ensure that they were correctly sealed into their sterile coveralls. "Okay—be our guests."

With Cyclops suspended from an overhead gantry, the NASA men first folded the solar panels against the sides of the satellite and then fitted the lower curved panels of the pallet into place. Heinlein and Sarcha followed their every move, not speaking unless they were spoken to.

By lunch-time Cyclops resembled a monster crouching in a square-ended open boat.

From time to time throughout the rest of the day, Flinders, Neil, and Lena would visit the project office overlooking the clean room to watch the progress below.

Two customs and excise officers arrived at 3 p.m. They climbed into sterile coveralls, gave the satellite a careful check-over, and sat beside Heinlein and Sarcha to watch, fascinated, as the NASA technicians fitted the Payload Assist Modules into position on Cyclops. The PAMs, as they were called, were solid-fuel rocket motors designed to boost satellites up to orbital heights that the orbiter could not attain. By 5 p.m. the remaining pallet sections had been fitted into place so that the orbital observatory was completely enclosed in a huge aluminium cylinder.

"A neat operation, Mr. Quincy," Heinlein congratulated.

"Thanks—but there's nothing particularly difficult about it," Quincy acknowledged, pulling off his surgical gloves and removing his coveralls. "It's just that we have to be one hundred per cent certain that everything's okay." He turned to the customs officers. "Okay, fellers. She's all yours."

The two officials wound short lengths of toughened steel wire around all the pallet latches and crimped their official lead seals to the ends of the wires.

"Don't break the seals until after the pallet has cleared U.S. customs," the official warned before he and his partner left.

"Don't worry," said the NASA technician, sinking into a chair. "Everyone knows the procedures."

Flinders sailed into the clean room with a science undergraduate in tow who was bearing a tray laden with magnums of champagne and several glasses. Neil and Lena brought up the rear. "We're going to celebrate," Flinders announced, his booming voice echoing around the clean room's interior. "Mr. Quincy, is that pallet strong enough to withstand a bottle of champagne?"

"More than strong enough," said Quincy. "But I'm not so sure about us."

It was the end of a long, arduous day. Cyclops —the product of thousands of man-hours of the best brains in Europe and the expenditure of millions of dollars—was ready to begin a voyage into space that would take it to a geostationary orbit where it would be poised 22,500 miles above the equator.

A voyage it was destined not to make.

64

Heinlein and Lena saw the NASA team off from Gatwick Airport on April 17. Heinlein had made certain that Neil would be busy because he wanted to talk to Lena alone.

"Well, Lena—that's another important phase behind us," he commented as he drove back to Guildford.

"But not the most important phase," said Lena.

"The most important from the trust's point of view," said Heinlein. "There's not a great deal more we can do on this end now. We have to plan our next project."

Lena was curious. "And what's that?"

"A major TV documentary series about the effect of satellite information on Third World countries. The monitoring of crops to provide early warning of the onset of diseases. Wildlife movement for conservation. That sort of thing."

"Sounds interesting."

Heinlein slowed down to drive through the little Surrey town of Horley. He gave Lena a sidelong glance. "I want you and Sarcha to get the initial planning under way. Visit possible video locations and so on."

Lena looked worried. "I'd love to, Mr. Heinlein. But I know nothing about making videos."

"You didn't know anything about space satellites, but you managed very well. It's administrative ability that counts."

"It's nice of you to say so," said Lena, flattered. "But—"

"I want you to start as soon as possible. You and Sarcha can fly to South Africa and take a look around some locations."

Lena looked doubtful. "Will I be back in time to see the launch?"

"I doubt it. You'll have at least a month's work in southern Africa. Why?"

"I did want to see this launch. After all—you and Neil will be on board."

"Lena—you've done all you can on the project. It's time to move on—time to think ahead. Don't you agree?"

"Well—yes—I suppose so," Lena agreed in an unconvinced tone.

Neil looked dismayed when Lena broke the news to him that evening. "A month?" he echoed. "A whole month without you? I might die."

Lena punched him playfully. "Maybe it'll do us both good. Anyway, we'll both be much too busy to think of each other— you in your shuttle and me tangling with African big game."

Neil took her in his arms and kissed her on the tip of her nose. "When you get back to Florida, we'll start looking for a house."

"So long as it's not a condo," Lena declared. "I'd go insane."

"Condos are out," Neil agreed. "We'll have enough money for Delray or Boca Raton. My contract with the trust ends on landing. I could set up as a payload consultant."

"Could you get the work?"

"I'll have a word with Earl when I'm back at Kennedy. There was a rumour doing the rounds at Kennedy that another fifty shuttles are going into production for an orbital hotel project. That means a helluva lot of work."

They sat without speaking for some moments, both wrapped up in their own thoughts.

"There's only one thing that worries me," said Neil, breaking the silence. "I don't like the idea of you jaunting off to Africa with Tweedledee."

Lena smiled. "I can look after myself."

"Where are those two?"

"They seem to spend most of their time with their heads together in the project office—scheming."

"Fiddling their expense accounts?"

"Funnily enough," said Lena, "I don't think they do. But somehow I can't help this feeling that they're up to something. The way they stop talking when I enter a room. And all that interest they took in Cyclops being palletized. That was odd."

Neil chuckled. "Everyone stops talking when you enter a room."

Lena suddenly pulled him close. "Oh God, Neil—I'm going to miss you." She was nearer to tears than at any time since her childhood.

"And I'm going to miss you, hon." He chucked her gently under the chin. "I'll look out for you when I'm passing over Africa."

65

Lena spent April 18 in London preparing for her trip to South Africa. That evening she drove Neil to Heathrow Airport for his return flight to Miami. She hated goodbyes. She clung to him in a long, wordless embrace outside the terminsil building and walked back to the short-term car-park without a backward glance.

Almost twenty-four hours later, she was back at the airport, waiting in the departure lounge for her flight to Johannesburg. The original arrangement had been that Sarcha would accompany her. "Heinlein wants me to stay in the U.K. another day to straighten out one or two things," he had explained to Lena. "Still—there's no point in wasting a ticket. You check in at the Jan Smuts Holiday Inn—it's right opposite the airport— and I'll join you as soon as I can."

Although mystified by Sarcha's vagueness over exactly what it was that he had to "straighten out," she had made no objections because she had not been looking forward to spending the long flight in Sarcha's company anyway. She disliked the jovial little Englishman and she had never rid herself of the suspicion that he had spied on her and Neil making love.

A PA announcement broke in on her thoughts. Passengers were rising and moving en masse to one of the exits. Her flight was being called. She gathered up her belongings and joined the exodus. Two white South African army officers broke off^ their conversation in what she assumed to be Afrikaans to admire her. Their approving glances did nothing to ease the knot in her stomach. Despite her calm, self-assured demeanour, Lena was uneasy at the reception that white South Africa would accord her black skin.

66

April 21. Watching the agonizinglv slow process of winching the giant cylindncal pallet onto Jack Farlev's truck was such a nerve-racking business that in the end Flinders gave a despairing gesture and retired to his office with a request that he be summoned when his beloved satellite was safely loaded.

"Best out the bleedin' way anyway." muttered the biggest of the men in Farley's five-man team as they cranked the pallet a few more inches up the ramp.

Heinlein looked anxiously at his watch. "How much longer. Jack?'"

" 'Bout another hour, squire. Okay, lads—take a breather."

The fifty or so students who were helping guide the pallet relaxed while Farley and his gang lashed temporary restraints into place so that there was no danger of the huge cylinder sliding backwards down the loading ramp.

Two police cars rolled up. The sergeant in charge of the escort apprehensively eyed the half-loaded pallet.

"Aren't you ready yet then?"

Farley rolled his eves to heaven. "Jesus Christ—aren't our policemen marvellous? Does it look like we're ready?"

The sergeant was unmoved by the snide comment. "Be dark in three hours." he observed. "No way will we let you shift this lot onto the A3 after 3 p.m."

"Bloody hell, mate—Dunsfold's only about ten miles away."

"I don't care if it's ten bloody yards—it's going to take an hour to get there—which means we can't escort you after 3 P.M. Savvy?"

"For Chrissake get a move on and stop arguing." Heinlein growled.

The pallet was loaded and secured to the satisfaction of the police sergeant twenty minutes inside his deadline. Farley climbed behind the truck's wheel and started the engine. His five heavies piled into the rear of the cab. There was no time for Flinders's speech and no one would have heard it anyway above the uproar as the entire universitv population turned out to cheer the truck as it rumbled slowly through the campus grounds. The sergeant's car led the way while the second police car followed the truck. Heinlein brought up the rear with the Rolls-Royce. Flinders sat beside him, and Sarcha spread his bulk across the back seat.

"It's on its way," Flinders kept repeating to himself. "I don't believe it! I simply don't believe it!"

The convoy filtered onto the southbound carriageway of the A3. The police cars switched on their flashing blue lights and the convoy began the one-mile haul up Stag Hill. The route plan the police had agreed on called for the truck to travel six miles south along the A3 and turn off^ towards Dunsfold at the Milford intersection. All went uneventfully until the convoy ground to a standstill just before the Milford intersection. Traffic began building up. No horns sounded because most of the drivers in the snarl-up were inhibited by the sight of the flashing blue lights. Flinders began to fret.

"I'll go and see what's happened," said Heinlein, getting out of the Rolls. He was back ten minutes later. "Farley says he's got a leaking air-brake reservoir."

Flinders gave a loud groan. "I knew something like this would happen," he complained. "How long will it take to repair?"

"He's called up his depot on the radio-telephone. They're bringing out a new reservoir now. He's suggested that he continues on along the A3 and lays up at the overnight truck park just before the Thursley turn-off."

"But that's another four miles. Is it safe?"

"Yes," said Heinlein, starting the car as the convoy began moving again. "It's fairly level all the way to the truck park, but it's not safe to take the pallet along those narrow roads to Dunsfold. It'll have to wait until morning."

Flinders looked aghast. "But that's impossible! Why can't the truck be repaired now and moved now?"

Heinlein concentrated on negotiating the intersection. "Because it's going to take another three to four hours to fit a new reservoir and the police won't allow the truck to be moved at night."

"But—'

"Listen, Sir Max," said Heinlein patiently. "That load can't be moved without a police escort. Farley's right—the best thing to do now is for him and his men to lay up for the night in the Thursley truck park where they can replace the reservoir. The sergeant has been very reasonable and has agreed to send the escort out again at 9 a.m. tomorrow. The Galaxy isn't due to take off until noon so that still leaves us plenty of time to get the pallet over to Dunsfold. Okay?"

"But will the satellite be safe overnight? You never know what can happen these—"

"I don't think anyone will try to put anything over on Farley and his lads," Sarcha remarked wryly.

"You should've allowed for this in your planning," the scientist grumbled.

"I did allow for some sort of unforeseen eventuality," Heinlein said calmly. "Why do you think I arranged for the pallet to be moved on the day before its flight?"

Just before midnight that night there was a long-awaited lull in traffic on the A3. From his vantage point on the Gibbet overlooking the route—one of the highest points in the South of England—Sarcha could see no sign in either direction of approaching vehicle lights. He flashed his torch five times and ran down the footpath to his car. Heinlein saw the signal and flashed his headlights across the entrance to the truck park. The truck's engine burst into life. A minute later the vehicle and its monstrous load emerged from the truck park, swung onto the lonely stretch of the A3, and headed south.

Everything went smoothly. The two vehicles left the A3 at the Thursley turn-off^. Farley had to drive at a crawl along the crown of the unlit country lane—following Heinlein's lights while keeping a wary eye on overhanging branches that he might have missed during his reconnoitres of the route. The only difficult moment was the tight turn into Thursley Hall's drive. Heinlein parked his car clear of the low-loader and opened the barn-doors. The container had gone. Stacked up against one wall of the barn were several hundred bales of straw. In front of the straw was a tarpaulin shroud. Farley was carefully reversing the pallet under the beam hoist he had rigged when Sarcha arrived.

"What about these?" queried Heinlein, examining the pallet's customs and excise lead seals.

Farley chmbed down from his cab. "No problem, squire," he said, grinning impishly and pulling a crimping tool from his pocket. "Got me own do-it-yourself kit."

"Okay," said Heinlein, dragging back the tarpaulin and exposing the four Masada missiles. "We've only got six hours before dawn—so let's get started."

67

Lena was pleasantly surprised by her reception in Johannesburg. She was treated with courtesy when she checked in at the Jan Smuts Holiday Inn. She showered, slept for three hours, and took the hotel's bus into the centre of Johannesburg. It was an hour before she overcame the feeling of vulnerability at being alone in a strange town, far from home. After that she started to enjoy herself. She spent the rest of the afternoon exploring shops and buying clothes suitable for the forthcoming expedition into the bush. Her last purchase was a comprehensive manual on the art of television documentary production. In her usual practical way, Lena was determined to learn the rudiments of her new task.

Before going to sleep that night, she suddenly realized how much she missed Neil.

68

April 22. Two police cars drove into the truck park. Jack Farley's vehicle, with the giant pallet in place, was parked in exactly the same position as the previous evening when the police had left it.

"Ready, lads?" the sergeant called out. Several bleary-eyed, unshaven faces appeared at the cab's windows. He laughed. "What's up? Couldn't you sleep?"

"Bloody owls kept us awake all night, didn't they?" Farley growled.

"Brakes all fixed up, are they?"

"We're ready.'

"Okay. Let's get this lot moving."

Fifty minutes later, the slow-moving convoy arrived at Duns-fold Aerodrome buried deep in the Surrey hills. "Aerodrome" was an old-fashioned word but the name had stuck; there was nothing old-fashioned about the sleek, third-generation Harrier jump jets that were undergoing various tests and preflight checks on the airfield. Dunsfold Aerodrome was the birthplace of over four hundred of the vertical take-off fighters. The Super Galaxies—such as the one waiting near the penmeter fence—were frequent visitors to the airfield to collect Harriers ordered by the United States Air Force and the U.S. Manne Corps.

After the security checks, the convoy followed a fire tender around the perimeter track to the waiting Galaxy. They were joined by Heinlem, Sarcha, and Flinders in the Rolls-Royce.

"Incredible," Flinders muttered, gazing up at the Super Galaxy's vast cavern of a hold that was coming into view as the giant freight aircraft's nose section swung upwards like the visor on a medieval knight's helmet. "It's impossible to believe that such a monster can even move, let alone fly."

After a brief conference with the Galaxy's loadmaster and a truck-load of helpers, Farley reversed his truck towards the freighter. Ramps were extended, winch cables were shackled to the pallet, and hydraulic motors were started. The pallet began inching into the Super Galaxy's hold. It was a tight fit; there was just enough clearance for the loadmaster to worm his way between the pallet and inside of the fuselage on his frequent inspections. The tricky operation took an hour to complete. The vehicles moved clear when the pallet was secured to the floor to the loadmaster's satisfaction.

At noon precisely, the mighty aircraft warmed up its four turbo-fan engines and taxied to the end of the runway, its drooping wings flexing as its wheels encountered seams in the concrete. The pilot received take-off clearance at 12:10 p.m. The engines opened up to a shuddering roar that had the knot of watchers holding their hands over their ears. The Super Galaxy started rolling. Its pace seemed unhurried at first— almost leisurely. And then it was accelerating rapidly as the thundering turbo-fans asserted their authority. There was a quarter of the runway left and very little of the watchers' nerves when the silvery leviathian finally lumbered into the air and heaved its bulk over the tree-tops.

Sarcha glanced at Flinders. The scientist's eyes were fixed on the dwindling Super Galaxy. The Englishman experienced a fleeting feeling of remorse at the thought of Flinders's beloved Cyclops resting on wooden trestles in the bam a few miles away at Thursley Hall instead of winging its way to the Kennedy Space Center.

Heinlein took Jack Farley to one side and slipped him an envelope. "It's all there, Jack. Plus an extra five hundred each for your lads. They were bloody good."

Farley palmed the offering into an inside pocket. "Nice to do business with you, Mr. Heinlein. I suppose we'll be learning all about this little adventure of yours on the telly in the next few days?"

"Maybe," Heinlein admitted. "But I hope not. Not if everything goes according to plan."

The sound of the Super Galaxy's engines faded away and the party dispersed.

Heinlein and Sarcha spent the next two days tidying up their affairs at the University of Surrey.

"We'll be back for the first meeting of the board of trustees," Heinlein told Flinders when he called at the vice-chancellor's office to say goodbye.

Flinders shook Heinlein's hand. "Thank you for everything, Heinlein," he boomed heartily. "Enjoy your trip into space. Maybe we'll get a chance to speak when the Cyclops Control Centre is patched through to the shuttle?"

"Maybe," Heinlein muttered. "Maybe."

The following morning, April 25, Heinlein and Sarcha sat in the study at Thursley Hall going carefully over the details of their plans, making doubly certain that nothing had been omitted.

"The only thing that worries me is the helicopter," said Sarcha. "If it doesn't turn up, or if the South Africans get to us first, then we're right up Shit Creek."

"It'll be there," Heinlein assured him.

"I don't know anything about the Mozambicans. What I don't know about, I don't trust."

"You trust Maken?"

"With my life."

"He's given me his personal guarantee that Mozambique won't let us down."

"Let's hope so, David, me lad."

Heinlein looked at his watch. "Time we made a move."

They purchased two tickets at Heathrow Airport: one for Sarcha's trip to Johannesburg and the other for Heinlein's return to Florida.

"See you in South Africa" was Heinlein's final remark when the two men shook hands and parted company.

"Or in hell if it all goes wrong."

Heinlein waited until Sarcha had disappeared before crossing to a pay phone and calling Tel Aviv.

"It's all fixed as I promised, David," said Greer reassuringly when Heinlein had finished his report. "The frigate has already left Elat and will be on station off Beira. It will dispatch the pick-up helicopter as soon as its radar shows that the shuttle has started its de-orbit bum. The helicopter will arrive at the landing site one minute after the shuttle has touched down."

"Have you calculated the response time of the South African Air Force?"

"At the worst, you have a five-minute safety margin."

"Christ—as tight as that?"

"Don't worry, David. We'll pull you out. Timing on all our operations has always been perfect."

The statement amounted to a confirmation of what Heinlein had suspected all along. "Ben Yair" was Michael Greer—the head of Mossad. Suddenly Heinlein was no longer so worried about being dependent on others for the success of the final stage of the operation.

69

Neil was at the Kennedy Space Center with Earl Hackett to watch the Super Galaxy's touchdown on the giant runway that was normally used for orbiters returning from space missions.

"We'll be monitoring this particular mission with great interest," Earl Hackett commented as the pallet was unloaded, winched out of the air freighter, and loaded onto a trailer.

"Why's that, Earl?"

"We haven't lifted that many full-size pallets into orbit. You've heard about the orbital hotel?"

"I've heard rumours."

"Pelham will be making an announcement next month. Once the orbital hotel project gets under way, we'll be launching large payloads every day. Be interesting to see how you make out if you're serious about setting up as a payload specialist."

The next day Neil spent an hour in one of the giant hangars in the Orbiter Processing Facility watching a team of engineers lowering the giant cylinder into the cargo bay of Orbiter Vehicle OV-141— Dominator —coincidentally, the same orbiter that was used for his last, ill-fated mission.

"Freighting up" Dominator took a little over five hours. When it was complete, the orbiter was towed into the Vehicle Assembly Building where giant cranes lifted the entire spacecraft into a vertical position and lowered it onto a mobile launch platform. Once the orbiter was secured to the service structure tower and the access gantries were swung into place, work started on assembling the solid-fuel boosters and external fuel tank.

The digits on a large illuminated board at the side of the service bay indicated the hours, minutes, and seconds of the count-down.

It was April 25. Another fifteen days to lift-off.

70

That same day the PLO launched its most ambitious air attack yet on Israel. The three Tupolev bombers refuelled over the Mediterranean which gave them the necessary range to rain down bombs on the Chel Ha 'Avir air bases at Hazerim, Hazor, and Herzliyya from one hundred and sixty thousand feet before flying on to Flat. Ten Sharav fighters at Herzliyya were destroyed in their underground bunkers by the concrete-piercing gravimeter-guided bombs, and there was a serious loss of life at Hazor when a bomb exploded in an underground communications room.

"Maken gambled right," Rymann commented bitterly to Greer when news of the raid reached them. "He knew damn well that we wouldn't dare using another nuclear air-burst Masada against his aircraft within two weeks of my U.S. visit. It would give Hadley just the excuse he needs to call it off."

"Have all the details been finalized?" asked Greer.

"A B9 is flying into Ben-Gurion to collect us on May ten and will fly us direct to Andrews Air Force Base. We're to be flown back on the eleventh—right after my meeting with Hadley. That's why he offered the B9—we'll be in and out of the country before we have a chance to draw breath. Okay—what's the news you have on the Masada booster?"

Greer handed Rymann a report that was, as usual, typed on a single sheet of paper. "My original estimate of three years to bring the booster into production was correct," he explained. "A new development team is being assembled now under Professor Racine. She's confident that at the end of three years we will have the means of obliterating Bakal."

"Or even Moscow," Rymann added as an afterthought.

Greer's gaunt features were harder than usual. "If Heinlein has to go ahead—then he will do so. You still agree with that, Hendrik?"

Rymann replied without hesitation, "The decision I took that day when we went to Mount Masada hasn't changed. Nor will it change during the next two weeks. You have my solemn word on that, Michael."

Greer nodded. "What Israel needs now is time rather than promises." He looked hard at Rymann. "We need the three years that only one hundred B9s can give us, Hendrik. Otherwise Heinlein goes ahead."

71

"It doesn't make sense, Neil," said Lena, lying back on the hotel bed and cradling the phone to her ear. "You don't set about making videos by first rushing off to look at locations."

"How do you know, hon?"

"I've been reading about it."

"Tweedledum and Tweedledee have their own weird operating methods," Neil reminded her. "And they seem to work."

"That's because they throw money behind their methods to make sure they work. Neil—their whole approach is crazy. It's inefficient. Wasteful. Unprofessional. You name it. I've been costing out video production and—"

"Hon, don't worry about it. So long as they're paying us enough to buy that house."

Lena sighed. Neil's willingness to accept everything without question could be irritating. "I suppose so," she muttered, far from reassured. "Christ—I'm bored waiting for Sarcha to show up."

They made small-talk for a few more minutes.

"I miss you, hon," said Neil as they ended the call.

Lena laughed. "You're much too busy to miss me," she teased. "I'll call you tomorrow. Same time."

The phone buzzed softly a few minutes later. It was Sarcha in the hotel lobby. He had just arrived in South Africa.

"Why the hell have you taken so long!" she stormed at him when she let him into her room. "I've been stuck in this Goddam hotel—not knowing what the hell to do and being bored senseless!"

Sarcha's moon-like face mirrored his alarm. He blinked sheepishly and backed nervously towards the door. "Lena— I'm sorry, sweetheart. We start work tomorrow. You'll find it fascinating—I promise."

Sarcha was as good as his word. The following morning he met Lena for a hurried breakfast. They spent several hours in the company of a garrulous Zulu taxi-driver who took them on a tour of every motor camper dealer in and around Johannesburg. It was late afternoon when Sarcha found a robust Chieftain fitted with heavy-duty suspension and tyres. It was a year old and had been well looked after. He paid cash the following day and drove it with Lena to a specialist communications company who agreed to fit it out with radio equipment and television equipment in accordance with the specification he outlined.

"The work will take several days, Mr. Sarcha," the chief engineer stated once the details had been agreed. "Retractable tracking dishes require a lot of installation. Their tracking gear alone—"

"How long?"

"At least ten days."

"Can you work through the week-end?"

"We could. But fitting the navigation equipment—"

"Time is more important than money," said Sarcha cryptically. "Work through the week-end."

The chief engineer promised to make an immediate start.

"Why do we need such an expensive vehicle and such complex communications gear?" Lena asked in the taxi on their way back to the hotel.

"The camper will have to serve as a base station for all the units once filming gets under way," Sarcha replied.

"And when will that be?"

Sarcha did not appear to notice the hint of suspicion in Lena's tone. He merely shrugged. "Let's see how our first recce goes, eh, sweetheart?"

72

May 1

The Holocaust Count-down

As soon as the launch pad abort alarm shrieked, Heinlein scrambled through the dummy orbiter's hatch and ran along the access arm's narrow corridor and into the white room. On the far side of the room was a row of two-man wire baskets attached to overhead slide-wires. The nearest basket swayed and bounced frighteningly as he hopped into it. He experienced a fleeting sensation of vertigo when he glanced down and released the brake lever. With a howl from the pulleys above his head, the basket screamed down the slide-wire. Heinlein closed his eyes for a moment and preferred not to think about the ground that was hurtling up to meet him. In the army he had often used slide-wires, but never from a height of two hundred and fifty feet in a basket that resembled a hypermarket trolley. There was a sudden deceleration as the basket hit the arresting net. Heinlein vaulted out the basket before it bit into the sand. He staggered, recovered his balance, and dived into the nearest blast bunker like a hunted rabbit going down a burrow.

"Weird, huh?" inquired the instructor, thumbing his stopwatch.

"Weird," Heinlein agreed.

"Fifty-five seconds. Not bad—but wait for the basket to stop. There's no point in breaking a leg and not being able to get into the bunker in time before the big bang."

Heinlein followed the instructor out of the bunker. He craned his neck up at the dummy service structure tower and the nose section of the orbiter he had just abandoned. "Not again, surely?"

"Not unless you want to do it for the hell of it?"

"Thanks—no. So what's next?"

The instructor checked his fist. "You've had your medical and you've completed the emergency transfer drill. That's it. You have now been rendered sufficiently insane to be fit for a shuttle ride."

During the afternoon, Neil and Heinlein drove to the Vehicle Assembly Building to watch the shuttle roll out.

The mighty door sections lifted open and a giant land crawler emerged—a vast platform moving at one mile per hour. Perched on top of the platform—almost entirely hidden by the service structure and solid-fuel booster motors and dwarfed by the external fuel tank—was Dommator.

It was May 1. Labour Day.

T minus ten days and counting.

73

May 9

The Drakensberg Mountains rose out of the red soil of the high veld like gnarled, rotting teeth in lacerated gums. The spectacle aroused Lena from her torpor, but soon they were through the mountains and the camper was once again speeding along the unending monotony of Route 4.

The communications company had transformed the Chieftain's rear saloon. Gone was the berth across the width of the vehicle. In its place was a swivel chair in front of a small but complex radio console. To the right of the console was a television screen set into a mixer panel for two portable TV cameras that were clipped to the bulkhead. Even the roof had been altered to accommodate a retractable ultra-high-frequency dish antenna. There was even an expensive inertial navigation unit mounted beside the steering-wheel.

One consolation for Lena was that at least the central partition was unaltered so that she could be assured of some privacy at night. Sarcha had agreed to sleep on a camp-bed at the rear while she had the single berth behind the driver's seat. Another consolation was that although Sarcha never bothered to conceal his admiring looks, at least he never tried to touch her. She wondered if her tight-fitting safari suit was a mistake.

A change in the camper's motion broke in on her thoughts.

"You can take a turn at the wheel," said Sarcha, pulling into a picnic area.

Lena was glad of something to occupy her mind. By 3 p.m. she was threading the Chieftain through the market town of Nelspruit. The flamboyant tropical trees lining the streets and the smells from the citrus warehouses reminded her of Florida. She was miserable with homesickness but she was careful not to show her emotions to Sarcha. She missed her father and the run-down little filling station, she missed the lagoons and waterways of Florida, the humped bridges, the palmettos, and even the humidity. Most of all she missed Neil.

Sarcha took over driving when they reached Komatipoort— an uninteresting tin-roofed village near the Mozambique border. They turned north onto a narrow tarred road and drove onto the Crocodile River Bridge which marked the southernmost border of the Kruger National Park. Sarcha stopped in the middle of the bridge and used the map references to set the inertial navigation unit. From now on, the instrument would maintain a running fix of the vehicle's position with an accuracy of less than a yard.

"The Kruger National Park," Sarcha announced as he drove the camper off the bridge. "Doesn't look like much, does it? Know what Heinlein once told me? This place is bigger than Israel."

A ranger waved them down outside his house. He addressed them in nasal AfHkaans and switched to English when Sarcha apologized for not understanding him.

"Have you people got CB or a radio-telephone?" the ranger asked, eyeing Lena. She stared coldly back at him.

"No—but we can drop in to any frequency," Sarcha replied. "Why?"

"Had some reports of infiltrators crossing the fence from 'Bique. Maybe poachers. Maybe not. If you see anything suspicious—give us a shout. We monitor two-six point nine-six-five."

Sarcha noted down the frequency. "Okay. We'll call you if we see anything."

The ranger nodded. His eyes strayed back to Lena for a moment. "Nothing like the Kruger for peace and quiet when breaking the law."

"What law?" Lena inquired.

"The morality law, miss. Enjoy your trip."

"Bastard," Lena spat after they had moved off.

They drove on into the depths of the bush.

"When the hell are you planning to stop for the night?" Lena complained some miles later.

Sarcha held the map across the steering-wheel and consulted it and the navigation unit while driving. There was little danger—the road was nothing more than an untarred grassless strip across a flat plain. "Just north of Lower Sabie," he said.

In Lena's estimation, just north of Lower Sabie turned out to be the loneliest place on earth. An unending vista of thorn-bushes and stunted grass stretching away into the dusk. The grass was obviously suffering the effect of the particularly hot summer it had just endured. There was no sign of the Kruger National Park's much-vaunted wildlife apart from the occasional languid shadow of an eagle keeping an eye on the camper for possible scraps.

"According to the guidebook, the big game's further north," said Sarcha while Lena cooked a meal. "Let's see if we can find something worth watching on the world's television." The chubby little Englishman sat in the swivel chair and operated the touch controls that deployed the dish antenna. "Ah," he said a moment later. "Something that looks a cut above SABC's offerings."

Lena glanced up from the steaks she was grilling. A boxing-match supported by a French commentary was in progress. The status strip above the screen identified the program's source satellite and the originating Earth station. Sarcha touched out "44"—the international request code for English —and the commentary switched to English.

Lena groaned and dumped a plate of steak and mushrooms beside Sarcha. "I'm not going to have to watch sports all night, am I?"

Sarcha grinned and flicked through the controls. From the hundreds of channels available, he picked out a brain operation that was being broadcast in 3-D. "How about that?" he inquired mischievously.

"Not when we're about to eat."

"It's a specialist narrowcast. Coming from NASA's space hospital."

Lena looked interested. "Can that equipment pick up any satellite?" she asked.

Sarcha started wolfing down his meal. "That's right, sweetheart."

"What about a shuttle?"

"If we've got a window on one, we'll be able to hear it—and see it if it's transmitting TV pictures. Why?"

"Neil and Heinlein lift off tomorrow," Lena observed, making a conscious effort not to sound excited. "Will we be able to tune in to them?"

"Sure. But sometimes their transmissions are enciphered."

"Oh—I wouldn't want to talk to Neil—but it would be wonderful to hear him."

Sarcha seemed anxious to change the subject. "We'll have to see what we can do, sweetheart."

Lena gazed at the communications console. "Are you going to tell me now why we've got such sophisticated electronic equipment?" she inquired.

The Englishman looked sharply at her. "I've already told you," he replied, showing uncharacteristic annoyance. "This wagon's going to be a base station controlling several film units."

Lena gestured to the console. "Okay—maybe we need the video cameras. But how much did all that cost? A million? You don't need a million dollars' worth of communications gear in a country that's got a cellular radio-telephone network."

Sarcha beamed expansively. "I just do as I'm told, sweetheart. If you want to argue with Heinlein when he gets back, you go right ahead, but right now you too are being paid to do as you're told. Okay?"

That evening Lena was drawing the curtains at her end of the camper when she saw a movement outside. "Sarcha," she said quietly. "There's an animal or something outside."

A Luger appeared in Sarcha's hand. He yanked the camper's door open and plunged into the darkness. Lena darted to the door and locked it. She glanced around at the windows to make sure that they were fastened and listened intently.

Voices outside. Sarcha's laughter. Footsteps approaching the door.

"It's all right, sweetheart. Open up."

Lena picked up a carving knife. She concealed it in her sleeve and slipped the latch on the door. Sarcha's cherubic face appeared.

"A friend," he said cheerily, entering the camper. "And he's very sorry if he frightened you. Say 'sorry' to the lady. Joss."

A tall, powerfully built Zulu, aged about twenty-five, followed Sarcha into the camper. He wore faded denim pants and a scarlet check T-shirt. A canvas backpack dangled from one shoulder. He smiled at Lena and held out his hand.

"Sorry, miss. I didn't mean to frighten you."

"Lena, this is Joss—our guide."

Lena stared at Joss and then at Sarcha. "Guide? You didn't say anything about a guide." She dropped the knife on her bed.

Sarcha chuckled. "He wasn't supposed to show up until tomorrow. Joss is a licensed tracker. He can lead us to the real game—not the game that the tourists see round the rest camp water-holes. He'll save us a lot of time. Right, Joss?"

Joss nodded and smiled appreciatively at Lena.

"When did you arrange for him to meet us?" Lena demanded.

"Oh—a few phone calls around my contacts in Jo'burg," said Sarcha dismissively.

"Where's he going to sleep? There's no room for him in here."

"Don't worry your pretty little head about Joss, sweetheart," said Sarcha in a condescending tone that increased Lena's dislike of him. "He'll sleep outside." He jerked his thumb at the door. "Okay, Joss—outside."

That night Lena nearly cut herself on the carving knife when making up her bed. She was about to return it to the galley but changed her mind and concealed it down the side of the mattress. She chided herself for being irrational but there was a certain comfort in knowing that she had a weapon to hand.

74

May 10

It was the day that Hendrik Rymann and his delegation landed at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington and the day that Jim Bayliss, Mike Pepper, Neil O'Hara, and David Heinlein entered the white room in the service structure at Kennedy's Launch Complex 39A.

All four men were wearing light-weight in-flight coveralls. The personal-effects pocket on Heinlein's left thigh contained a number of extra items that only he knew about: an automatic plus two clips of "varmit" rounds—soft-nosed slugs that spread on impact. The one thing he did not want was bullets passing right through a man's body and endangering the orbiter. He hoped that shooting would not be necessary. To that end, also stowed in his pocket were several of the neural gas grenades.

"Have yourselves an uneventful flight, gentlemen," said the head of the hand-over/ingress team when she had completed the hand-over checks with Bayliss. The ground crewmen had spent several hours in the shuttle, taking the vehicle through its count-down to within forty minutes of lift-off. Improvements in computer monitoring and control systems since the first shuttle flights meant that flight crews no longer had to board the shuttle two hours before launch.

A ground crewman pulled aside the sliding door at the end of the gantry that exposed Dommators hatch.

Neil's heart had started beating faster from the moment he entered the white room. It was really happening! He was going back into space again! And then the familiar smells as he climbed into the orbiter's mid-deck area cleared his mind and he concentrated on the awkward task of crawling "up" from the mid-deck onto the flight-deck along a ladder that was on its side. The perpendicular attitude of the shuttle on the launch pad turned bulkheads into floors and floors into bulkheads. Bayliss and Pepper were already seated above him when he hauled himself into his own seat and turned to help Heinlein.

"You guys okay?" said Bayliss, glancing over his right shoulder.

"Fine, Jim," said Neil, making sure that Heinlein had fastened his harness correctly. He pulled on his head-set, wormed himself comfortably against his head-rest, and gazed up through the forward windows at the strip of clear blue sky.

Pepper—sitting in the pilot's seat on the right—reached up to operate his communications panel. "Launch Control. This is Dominator. Radio check, over."

Launch Control acknowledged and, after a few checks, confirmed that all the channels were working satisfactorily. Similar checks were carried out with Earl Hackett—the capcom in the mission control room.

The event timer indicated thirty minutes to lift-off.

''Dominator, this is Launch Control. Side hatch is secured."

"Roger, we copy," Pepper acknowledged.

The pre-launch checks continued at an unhurried pace.

Pepper keyed the controls on a central panel and the shuttle's planned flight trajectory appeared as a line on a computer screen. "Launch Control, this is Dominator. Flight plan is loaded, over."

At seven minutes before lift-off, the crew access arm was retracted. Neil glanced sideways at Heinlein and, like so many before him, wondered what was going through the inscrutable Israeli's mind.

A crucial stage was reached two minutes before lift-off with the closing of the vents on the giant external liquid-hydrogen tank followed by the shuttle's switch-over to internal power.

"Dominator, this is Launch Control. APU start is go. You are on your on-board computers, over."

"Roger, out," Bayliss replied.

The seconds to lift-off winked away on the event timer: thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight . . .

"Break a leg, you guys," said Launch Control.

A row of green lights appeared.

"First, second, and third SSME ignition," said Bayliss as the shuttle's three main engines started to burn.

Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .

There was a dull sigh that seemed too distant to be anything to do with Dominator. The sigh became a roar and suddenly the orbiter did its "twang"—a heart-stopping, drunken sway in the direction of the external tank. Then the entire flight-deck began to vibrate as the shuttle rocked back to its vertical position.

Flame and smoke roared from the shuttle's main engines.

"Five . . . four . . ." reported the casual voice of Launch Control. "We have main engine start. Two . . . one . . . zero."

The solid-fuel rocket boosters attached to the side of the external fuel tank suddenly spewed forth two columns of hell —adding their energies to the one and a half million pounds of thrust being developed by the main engines. A total thrust of nearly seven million pounds was needed to ram the shuttle into space.

"SRB Ignition—lift off."

The launch controller's phlegmatic voice was nearly lost in the great tide of sound that filled the flight-deck. At first there was little sensation of movement, and there was nothing to see out of the windows to suggest that anything was happening.

"Dommator —you've cleared the tower. All engines okay. You're looking as sweet as a month's vacation."

Heinlein fell the mounting pressure on his back as the acceleration lightly pushed his body into the seat cushions. He also experienced some vision distortion due to his eyeballs being pressed gently into their sockets. He had been warned about the sensation and it did not cause him any discomfort.

"Dommator. this is Control. Instituting roll manoeuvre." advised Earl Hackett's voice as he took over from Launch Control.

At that moment the bodies of all four men began shifting sideways in their seats, caused bv the shuttle beginning to twist. By the time the manoeuvre had been completed, the four men were nearly hanging from their harnesses. Heinlein was completely disorientated—no longer sure which wav was "up."

"Roll manoeuvre completed, Dommator. You're looking good."

"Roger, Control."

The passing seconds drowned themselves in the sustained roar from the engines and boosters. Heinlein was watching the computer displays when Neil touched him on the arm and pointed at the two small windows above their heads. The visual effects created in the shuttle simulator in no way prepared Heinlein for the shock of seeing the Atlantic Ocean thirty miles "above" him.

"Control," said Pepper. "This is Dominator. We have SRB bum-out. Separation is on auto."

"Roger, out," Hackett replied.

Dominator was two minutes into her flight when a series of jolts from the exploding bolts heralded the separation of the solid-fuel boosters. These would parachute back into the Atlantic for recovery by two NASA ships waiting on station.

The spacecraft continued its spectacular climb, powered now by the orbiter's three main engines. The inverted spacecraft was clinging to the giant external tank like a winged parasite—greedily draining its dwindling supply of liquid hydrogen and oxygen. The acceleration rate was sustained so that at seven minutes into the flight, Dominator had reached a height of eighty miles and was travelling at Mach 16. By now its flight path had virtually flattened out so that the Atlantic was visible through the forward windows. The flight computers automatically throttled back the main engines. Bayliss and Pepper adjusted the volume of Earl Hackett's voice to a more comfortable level.

"Control," said Bayliss. "This is Dominator. We have main engine throttle down, over."

"Roger, out," Hackett answered.

Deprived of forty per cent of its power, the shuttle began a long, shallow dive that would take it from a height of ninety miles down to eighty miles. The spacecraft's velocity mounted. Heinlein thought he saw a ship through the lacework of clouds above. Or was it below? He experienced a sensation of nausea and closed his eyes.

"Dominator. This is Control. You are go for main engine cutoff."

Suddenly the roar of the main engines stopped. The silence was almost shattering in its intensity. Heinlein opened his eyes. He felt curiously comfortable in his seat. Neil grinned at him.

"I know how you feel," Neil remarked quietly. "That's the worst bit over. We're now going to jettison the external tank.

We're nearly into orbit. Watch." Neil held up a cue card and released it. Instead of falling "up" to the floor or "down" towards the roof—the card hung in mid-air.

"Hell," Heinlein muttered, half to himself. He closed his eyes again when a renewed wave of nausea hit him. Another jolt forced them open again and he saw the huge external tank moving ahead of the shuttle like a departing airship.

"Control, this is Dominator. We have ET separation. Initiating minus Zee translation, over."

"Dominator, this is Control. You are go for your OMS ascent bum."

"Roger, Control, out."

Bayliss entered the necessary commands on the digital autopilot panel. The small orbital manoeuvring-system engines fired. The noise they made was barely audible on the flight-deck and their thrust was gentle. The OMS engines burned steadily for twenty minutes—pushing Dominator up to her orbital height of two hundred miles. Heinlein's nausea passed and he began to enjoy the curious sensation of his weightless body sinking into his cushions and slowly bouncing back against the restraint harness.

There was a brief cut-off^ of the OMS engines during which Bayliss and Pepper performed several functions to prepare Dominator for orbit.

"Dominator, this is Control. You are go for your OMS insertion burn," Hackett advised when the two astronauts had reported that all was well.

The small engines fired again and were closed down after ten minutes.

"Control, this is Dominator. OMS insertion burn cut-off," Bayliss advised. "We have achieved orbit." He turned around in his chair. "Welcome to space, Mr. Heinlein. We are in orbit."

In Bakal, Joseph Maken entered his office and unlocked his desk. He removed his facsimile pad from a drawer and picked up the pad's electronic pen. He sat in deep thought. After months of anticipation, the wording of the notes eluded him. He toyed with the pen and eventually wrote in Hebrew "To Prime Minister Hendrik Rymann" at the top of the display. The pad's tiny computer faithfully conveyed the characteristics of his handwriting into its memory, recording every sweep and flourish and even the slight variations in the pen's pressure. When these were received on a similar pad, there would be no doubt that the text was in his handwriting. He stared at what he had written and, without further deliberation, wrote three separate notes to Rymann and signed them.

Maken read through what he had written. The sentences lacked his customary elegance but they were short and to the point. He made a few corrections and touched the appropriate keys to set the pad's memory so that the notes would be transmitted automatically at the pre-set times. The final operation was to key in Rymann's personal facsimile number in the address field. It did not matter that Rymann was in Washington— the ultimatums would arrive at carefully predetermined intervals on his personal pad no matter where he was in the world.

76

Rymann sat in gloomy silence in the conference room at the Israeli Embassy in Washington and listened to Sam Kuttner's bleak account of his meeting with Walter Swift. Michael Greer was writing some notes and made no contribution to the discussion.

"We would have been better off in Swift's office," Kuttner concluded. "The Benjamin Franklin State Dining Room is hardly the place for an informal talk. Not with him on one side of that damn great table and me on the other."

"Okay, Sam. Well, let's hope I have more luck with Hadley tomorrow."

"Somehow I don't think you will," said Kuttner as he left the room. "They haven't the will or the interest to help us."

When they were alone, Greer rose from his chair and handed Rymann the notes—as was usual with every document prepared for Rymann, it was a single sheet of paper. "I don't think there's any point in writing any more drafts," said Greer. "It now says everything you have to say to Hadley and as concisely as possible."

Rymann read through the paper and agreed with his friend's view. Of all the statements that had ever been read out to an American president, this one was certain to be the most electrifying in history.

Assuming it was ever chronicled in the history books.

"Bloody hell!" Sarcha yelled and crammed on the brakes. The wheels locked. The camper slewed to a standstill and was enveloped in a cloud of dust kicked up by the skid.

A towering old bull with a broken tusk was confronting the Chieftain, head lowered menacingly—ears flared—as if challenging the vehicle to make the slightest move while his wives and offspring were crossing the track. Eventually the old bull swung his great bulk around and trudged silently in the wake of the last cow. Sarcha watched the jostling herd until it was a safe distance away. He gave a sigh of relief

"What happened?" Lena demanded.

Sarcha looked sheepish. "I cannot tell a lie. I dozed off." He chuckled and waved a hand at the departing elephants. "Christ knows where they popped up from. You'd think it would be safe enough in this God-forsaken place to set the cruise control and watch a movie, eh?"

Lena gazed across the veld. It was exactly the same scene that they had looked upon at dawn when they had set off: mile after mile of flat nothingness with the occasional anthill and thorn-bush to ease the monotony. She found it hard to believe that it was possible to drive for five hours with so little change in the terrain. "Maybe I'd better drive for a while," she suggested.

Sarcha checked navigation unit readings against the figures written down the side of the map. "No. It's only another five miles now." He released the hand-brake and the Chieftain began moving again.

''What is only another five miles?" Lena inquired.

"The first recce spot."

Lena turned and stared at Joss. The silent Zulu was whittling a piece of wood with a jack-knife. He looked up at Lena but was unable to return her gaze for more than a few seconds before returning his attention to his carving.

"Sarcha—why do we need him when we've got that navigation system?"

"Local knowledge, sweetheart."

"Bullshit. He's hardly spoken since he joined us, so why is he here?"

Sarcha made no reply. Lena noticed that the numbers on the navigation unit were beginning to match the numbers scribbled on the map. After five minutes' driving, all the numbers matched except the final digit. Sarcha slowed down and drove in a circle. He stopped when the match was perfect. "This is the first spot," he announced.

Lena stared around them. If anything the place was even flatter and there was less grass. "What spot?"

Sarcha opened the driver's door. The midday heat stormed into the camper like a ravening beast. From underneath the vehicle he produced a six-foot pole that was topped with a white marker board. "Knock this in here. Joss," he instructed.

"Sure, Mr. Sarcha."

The Zulu removed a club hammer from the camper's tool compartment and proceeded to drive the pole into the baked red soil. His exertions produced a glistening sheen on his torso.

"Okay, Joss—that's fine."

"Will you please tell me what the hell's going on!" Lena demanded.

"You'll see, sweetheart." Sarcha jerked his thumb at the camper. "All aboard." He checked his bearings against the navigation unit and drove in a straight line across the veld. There was something hypnotic about the way the long grass rushed towards them and disappeared beneath the fender. Sarcha weaved to avoid thorn-bushes, and occasionally the vehicle lurched as its wheels encountered an anthill. He kept a careful eye on the navigation unit and slopped when he had driven about three miles from the marker.

The process with a marker pole was repeated. Lena watched Joss driving it into the ground and turned to Sarcha. "Now do you mind telling me what all this is all about?"

"Simple, sweetheart," said Sarcha, mopping the sweat from his forehead. "Once filming is under way, we're going to need an airstrip to ferry in supplies." He paused and levelled his binoculars at the first marker. "This will be our airstrip."

"Three miles long? What sort of transports will we be flying in here for Chrissake? SSTs?"

Sarcha laughed. "We've got the space so we might as well make use of it and be on the safe side."

Lena placed her hands on her hips, her expression hard and determined. "Just what the hell is going on here, Sarcha?"

Joss looked on with interest. Sarcha's smile remained unnaturally steady. "I just told you, sweetheart."

"You just told me a load of bullshit. If we're going to make videos, right now we'd be planning shooting scripts—not God-dam landing-strips in the back of beyond!"

Sarcha's replv was to take a spade from the camper's tool compartment and place it in Lena's hands. "I'll tell you what I'm planning, sweetheart," he said mildly. "I'm planning for you and me to level the anthills between the markers and for Joss to clear the thorn-bushes. If you won't help, then I don't mind clearing the anthills myself. But I'll leave the biggest one"—he paused and grinned broadly at Lena—"with your delectable body tied to it."

It took four hours; four hours of back-breaking work under a merciless sun before Sarcha, after a final high-speed drive between the two markers, declared that he was satisfied.

As soon as Sarcha parked, Lena shut herself in the shower cubicle and spent ten minutes soaping the dust and sweat from her body. She emerged wearing a clean safari suit. Her comment to Sarcha and Joss left them in no doubt about the mood she was in. "If you two creeps want an evening meal, you can God-dam well fix it yourselves. I've had a gutful of the pair of you."

Joss remained studiously intent on his whittling. Sarcha looked reproachfully at Lena from where he was sitting hunched over the communications console. "Lena—sweetheart. And after I've gone to such trouble to prepare a little surprise for you."

"What surprise?" Lena queried suspiciously.

Sarcha touched a control. A faint voice crackled out of the speaker.

"Control. This is Dominator payload specialist requesting voice-check. Over."

Lena's heart leapt. Neil's voice!

"Roger, Dominator, " the loudspeaker crackled faintly. "We read you fine."

"Sorry I can't do better, sweetheart," Sarcha apologized. "We can just hear Kennedy coming through on the TDRS-East repeater satellite. And we're only hearing Dominator because I'm pulling in her signal with the pre-amps."

"That's Earl Hackett's voice," said Lena.

"Time you guys grabbed your scheduled four hours' horizontal," Hackett continued. "We're about to do the same down here. Over."

"Roger, Control. Sleep tight. Out."

"Sounds like everything's going okay for them," Sarcha commented. He grinned at Lena. "Like me to cook supper?"

Lena decided to forget her anger for the time being. "No," she said reluctantly. "I'll fix something."

78

Heinlein's leg cracked painfully against the side of the hatch when he hauled himself up the ladder from Dominators mid-deck to the flight-deck.

Moving about in a weightless condition was not as easy as he had supposed. Without the damping effect of gravity, there was a tendency for limbs, especially legs, to flail about.

Heinlein anchored his Velcro overshoes to the platform where Neil was working at the aft crew station and peered through a window at the cargo bay. The gaping doors had been opened shortly after orbit stabilization to prevent the buildup of the sun's heat within the cargo pallet. Since then Neil had secured the Canada manipulator arm to the pallet's central grapple point and had succeeded in teasing the giant cylinder clear of the cargo bay.

"Looks neat," Heinlein commented. "Well done."

"I was asked to try using the arm instead of an OMS burn. It just needs patience."

Heinlein pressed his head against the window to look down at the earth and could not find it.

"It's that way," said Neil, jabbing a finger at the roof.

Heinlein gazed up at the glorious crescent of blue and white that was suspended above them. "Do we have to fly upside-down all the time?"

Neil shrugged. "There's no such thing as 'up' or 'down.' "

"That's what my stomach is complaining about."

"There're some space sickness pills below in the galley," said Neil, smiling.

Heinlein went head first through the hatch and banged his leg again as he entered the mid-deck. Bayhss slid aside his berth's privacy panel when he heard Heinlein's curse.

"How are you making out, Dave?" Bayliss spoke quietly to avoid waking Pepper who was sleeping in the lower bunk with his privacy panel closed. Both men were not lying down in the physical sense but were harnessed to their berths by sleep restraint bags.

Heinlein turned his back on the astronaut and pretended to massage a bruise on his leg while opening the pocket on his coveralls and palming two neural gas grenades. "So-so, Jim— but I still keep colliding with everything. And don't talk about my stomach."

Bayliss chuckled. "By the time you get used to it, we'll be starting our de-orbit bum."

Heinlein turned around to face Bayliss and took a step towards him as though he were going to use the top bunk. "How many missions have you been on, Jim?"

The astronaut did not have a chance to reply because Heinlein, having first taken a deep breath, had broken the grenade against Bayliss's chest and whipped the privacy panel shut before the gas could escape. There was a single choking gasp from Bayliss. Pepper yanked his bunk panel open. "What in hell—" A second grenade shattering against Pepper's chest prevented him from finishing the sentence. His eyes glazed over and his body went limp. Heinlein slammed the panel shut on the unconscious astronaut and thrust himself clear. Only when he had pushed himself through the flight-deck hatch did he risk releasing his breath.

"Neil!"

Neil was still at the aft station. He turned and gaped in astonishment at the automatic in Heinlein's hand. "What—?"

"Don't speak unless I say to!" Heinlein snapped. He waved the automatic at the commander's seat. "Get over there! Move!"

Neil had been about to speak but shut his mouth abruptly.

"I said move!"

Without taking his eyes off Heinlein and the automatic that was trained steadily on him, Neil guided himself across the flight-deck and into the commander's seat. "Just what in hell is all this, Heinlein?"

"You'll find out. As from now this shuttle is under my command."

Neil looked into the Israeli's expressionless eyes. "What's happened to Jim and Mike?"

"They're unconscious and will be for a long time. You try anything and you'll end up more than unconscious. Okay— you've got a microwave ground-link antenna for secure, narrow-beam and audio communications with Earth stations. Don't deny it because I know as much about this orbiter's communications systems as you do. I want you to lock the beam onto the Kruger National Park in South Africa. The radio window on South Africa has just come up, so don't say you can't do it."

"For Chrissake, Heinlein. You—"

"Do as I say!" Heinlein snarled, tightening his grip on the automatic and moving nearer Neil.

The former astronaut's hand shook slightly as he reached up to the commander's communications panel and operated the controls. "Okay. We're locked on."

"Fine," said Heinlein, plugging his head-set into the nearest audio terminal unit and setting the control on his belt to external communication. "Now select channel twenty-two on your UHF'S band."

"That's a wide-band TV channel."

"So? It can carry sound, can't it? Select it."

Neil did as he was told. Heinlein heard the soft hiss of white noise in his head-set. He adjusted the volume control and pressed the PTT button. "Delta Hotel to Papa Sierra. Do you copy?"

Sarcha's voice answered immediately. "Roger, Delta Hotel —we've got you loud and clear."

"Phase one accomplished," said Heinlein. "We're standing by for phase two from you in ten minutes."

"Roger, Delta Hotel. We'll be back in ten minutes. Over and out."

79

Lena started fighting like a lynx the moment the men grabbed her and forced her onto the bed. She sank her teeth with all her strength into the forearm that tried to get her into a neck-lock and at the same time lashed out with her feet. Joss gave a loud cry of agony and yanked his mauled arm clear, leaving Sarcha to cope with her flailing legs.

"For Chrissake hold her down!" Sarcha snarled.

The Zulu tried to pin Lena's wrists to the mattress and came perilously close to losing an eye when she tore her hand free and slashed his face with her nails. Her furiously writhing body was proving impossible to hold down. Sarcha grunted in pain when she brought both her knees up sharply under his chin. All the time Lena maintained a steady stream of blood-curdling expletives. Blood was splattering everywhere from Joss's torn arm. Despite his combat experience, Sarcha had never tried overpowering a healthy, sturdily built young woman before. She broke free of Joss's grasp, seized a handful of his hair with one hand, and started banging his head against the bulkhead while still managing to swear and curse. Sarcha decided that he had seriously underestimated her strength. It was time to use methods that he understood. For some reason, Lena twisted her head sideways and scrabbled frantically at the edge of the mattress with her free hand. Sarcha saw his opportunity.

"Sorry, sweetheart," he panted. Carefully judging the force of the blow, he swung the edge of his palm hard into the side of Lena's neck.

A stillness, almost shocking in its suddenness, descended on the camper. The two men climbed unsteadily to their feet. Their chests heaved as they stared down at Lena's still form. Her jacket had been ripped open and Joss's blood was streaked across her face and breasts.

"Jesus," Joss muttered, nursing his wounded arm. "She fight. She really fight."

"Bloody useless you turned out to be," Sarcha muttered, unhooking one of the video cameras and connecting it to the communications console.

"Sorry, Mr. Sarcha. But she fight."

Sarcha trained the camera on Lena. "You can start earning your keep when I say."

Joss glanced fearfully at the girl as if he expected her to suddenly regain consciousness and fly at him. "Ain't you lying her up?"

"Don't worry. I will before she wakes up."

Heinlein checked his watch. "Okay. Switch on," he ordered.

Mystified, Neil flipped the transceiver on. Without any preliminary flicker, a steady colour picture appeared on the central screen between the commander's seat and the pilot's seat. The picture showed Lena's blood-splattered head and shoulders.

"Lena . . ." Neil whispered disbelievingly. "Lena!"

"She fought," said Sarcha's voice. "Had to quieten her down."

Neil stared in wild-eyed horror, first at the screen and then at Heinlein. "What's happened to her! What have you done to her!" He half rose from the seat but pulled himself down again when Heinlein made a menacing move towards him.

"One word from me and she's finished," Heinlein warned. "And she's finished anyway unless you do exactly what I tell you. She's in the Kruger National Park with Sarcha. Any trouble from you and he'll tie her down on a termite hill and leave her in the sun. Do you understand?"

Neil made no reply.

''Do you understand!"

Neil continued to stare at Heinlein—his eyes burning with a murderous hatred.

"Look at the screen," Heinlein ordered. "Look at it! All right, then. If that's what you want for her. Sarcha!"

Joss's hand appeared on the screen. He was holding a jack-knife. He held the tip of the blade against Lena's breast and lightly traced a circle around her nipple.

"All right! All right!" Neil suddenly shouted. "Leave her alone, God-dam you! Tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it, only leave her alone!"

Heinlein relaxed and gave a nod of satisfaction. "Okay, Sarcha. That's enough. We're going to the next phase." He smiled at Neil. "Okay. Let's get started."

The manipulator arm released the last latch on the pallet and the section came free.

"Get rid of it," said Heinlein.

"They have to be stowed for reuse."

"Just get rid of it!"

Neil flexed the arm and released its grip on the pallet section. It drifted away from the spacecraft in a slow tumble. He gaped in astonishment at the bales of straw that were packed inside the pallet.

"What are they?"

"Bales of straw. What do they look like? Get rid of them too."

Neil spent the next twenty minutes plucking the bales of straw out of the pallet, using the Canada arm and discarding them—a tricky operation because the removal of each bale caused a shift in the pallet's centre of mass. He had to stop work at frequent intervals and use the Canada arm to prevent the pallet from developing a dangerous tumble. His skilled use of his left hand to work the arm's pistol-grip controller and of his right hand to operate the T-shaped handle that controlled the orbiter gradually exposed the four Masada missiles. They were secured side by side to their launch platform.

"Pull them clear," Heinlein instructed.

"What are they?"

"What do they look like?"

"Missiles," said Neil angrily. "What sort of missiles?"

"Dominator, " said a voice. "This is Control. Over."

"Answer them but think about what can happen to Lena," Heinlein advised softly.

Neil hesitated. He looked through the window at the Masadas and then at Heinlein before keying his microphone. "Roger, Control. This is Dominator. We copy. Over."

"Hourly check, Dominator. Over."

"Roger, Control. Nothing to report. Over and out."

"Good," murmured Heinlein. "Now pull the missiles clear."

Neil locked the manipulator arm onto the Masadas' launch platform and eased the cluster of missiles clear of the pallet. He noticed a control box of an unusual type attached to the side of the missile platform. He followed Heinlein's instructions and latched the entire launch platform to the edge of one of the cargo bay doors, using adjustable hooks that were fitted to the platform. When he had finished, the four pencil-like shapes of the Masadas were trained at the earth.

"Okay—that's fine," said Heinlein, inspecting the missiles with the aid of the television camera on the end of the Canada arm. "Now you can get ready for an EVA."

"Not until I know what all this is about."

"You'll find out in good time." Heinlein jerked his automatic at the mid-deck hatch. "Now move."

Neil spent the next two hours wearing a portable oxygen system and breathing pure oxygen instead of the orbiter's cabin atmosphere. During the purging period he had to acknowledge two radio checks from mission control.

Heinlein looked at his watch. "Okay—into your EMU," he ordered.

Neil entered the airlock that was set into the mid-deck bulkhead between the bunks and the galley. He slid the door closed and operated the controls that purged the nitrogen from the tiny compartment. When the control panel indicated that the airlock's atmosphere was pure oxygen, he removed his breathing set and unhooked his spacesuit from its stowage frame.

Heinlein watched him through the window in the airlock's cabin door. Donning the spacesuit took Neil ten minutes. He adjusted the microphones on his "snoopy" hat and fastened the space helmet into place.

"Okay. I'm depressurizing the airlock now," said Neil into his intercom when he had checked that his spacesuit was functioning correctly.

As soon as the atmospheric pressure reached zero, Neil opened the hatch in the side of the airlock and eased himself into space.

Heinlein returned to the aft crew station. There was a worrying two-minute interval during which Neil was out of sight. And then Neil's ungainly figure appeared, groping its way towards the Masadas' launch platform.

"Listen carefully," said Heinlein. "There's a small T-shaped key clipped to the top of the control box. Can you see it?"

Neil positioned his body above the control box. "I see it."

"That's the key you'll need to open the access panels on the missile warheads."

"I can see them."

"Okay—open the panels. But keep yourself clear of the camera. I want to see everything that's going on."

Neil moved cautiously towards the panels and used the key to unlock them in turn while Heinlein swung the Canada arm to bring the television camera into position. The Israeli zoomed the camera in on the first panel and checked the monitor screen to make sure the close-up of the six-digit combination display behind the panel was in sharp focus.

"Okay—that's fine," said Heinlein. "You see the wheel that alters the combination's last digit? The thumb-wheel on the right of the display?"

"I see it."

"Reset it to read a 9."

"Okay."

"Get your mitt out of the way."

Neil moved his hand out of camera shot.

Heinlein studied the combination. "Okay. That's fine. Close the panel and set the combination on the second panel so that the last digit reads a J."

Neil set all the combinations to Heinlein's satisfaction. "Excellent, Neil. Well done. Now unclip that control box and bring it into the orbiter."

"Roger," Neil acknowledged.

For once Heinlein's normally impassive face betrayed his feeling of elation as he watched Neil haul his weightless body along the orbiter's hull. The astronaut moved out of sight from the windows. Heinlein had cause to be pleased: everything was going according to plan.

All four missiles were now armed and ready for firing.

80

There was an air of hushed expectancy in the conference room at Bakal when Maken rose to address the members of the PLO Supreme Council. There were no agenda and no pressing matters to deal with other than what was on his mind; therefore he came straight to the point.

"You will recall the meeting a few months ago when I outlined a bold plan to bring about a quick end to the War of Attrition," he began. "That end is now in sight. A space shuttle —the Dominator —is now in orbit and is under the command of the PLO." Maken glanced at his watch. "Dominator has programmed and deployed her four Masadas. The missiles are armed with nuclear warheads and are poised to strike against selected targets in our country."

He paused. No one moved or spoke. Sixteen pairs of eyes were locked unblinkingly on Maken. The only sound in the room was the faint hum of air-conditioning.

"At noon today," Maken continued, "my first ultimatum will be delivered to the Israelis requiring their immediate unconditional surrender. The ultimatum spells out what we have done and the consequences of failure to comply with our demands. The Israelis will, of course, reject the ultimatum out of hand. At 2 P.M. we will launch the first Masada. I cannot tell you what the target will be other than that it will be an Israeli township with a population of approximately two hundred thousand. The second ultimatum will also be rejected. The second target will be a city. I bitterly regret that so many of our brother Palestinians will be sacrificing their lives in our glorious cause, but it is the one cause that any true Palestinian would willingly give his or her life for."

The sweeping generalization passed unchallenged. Maken pressed on with his statement.

"With the obliteration of the second target and the annihilation of one million Israelis, we believe that the Jerusalem regime, which has occupied our beloved country for nearly three quarters of a century, will collapse. If it doesn't, then our third target, following my third and final ultimatum, will be Tel Aviv, followed by Jerusalem itself. If we have to use all four Masadas, then we will not shirk from doing so. Nor will we shirk from the awesome task of having to rebuild our country in the aftermath of the holocaust. For it will be our country once again. Just as it was the land of our fathers, so it shall become the land of our children and their children. And its name shall be Palestine."

The stillness that followed the end of Maken's statement was broken by one of the council members clapping his hands. It was an unprecedented response to a speech and for some seconds he applauded alone. A second member joined in. One by one, all of those at the table rose to their feet, clapping vigorously. They gathered around Maken and laughingly shook hands with him and one another.

81

The first thing Lena became aware of as she regained consciousness was that the side of her neck felt as if a planet had been dropped on it. The intense pain lancing below her ear delayed her recollection of what had happened. Then the memories flooded back and with them her anger. Reason prevailed, warning her not to renew the struggle. No point in crying out. Keep still, she told herself Keep still, keep your eyes shut, keep quiet, and find out what was going on. She experimented cautiously with her senses and discovered that she couldn't move her limbs. Her wrists and ankles were bound tightly with what felt like cord. There was little she could do for the moment except listen to Sarcha and Joss talking in low tones and try to puzzle out what was happening and why.

Then she remembered the carving knife that she had hidden down the side of the mattress.

82

The air was heavy with the aroma of coffee and every horizontal surface in the communications room was hidden under a speckled sea of white plastic cups. The members of the PLO Supreme Council were holding an animated discussion with Maken on the future administrative structure of Palestine. A radio engineer tuned a receiver in to 1.429 megahertz, the frequency of Israel's overseas service transmitter at Refidim. It was the frequency Maken had specified in his ultimatum for the Israeh Government to broadcast its capitulation. The sound of a concert from Tel Aviv filled the room until the engineer hurriedly turned down the volume. His last task was to pre-set a UHF transceiver so that Maken could talk directly to Heinlein in Dominator. But the most important piece of equipment in the room was a blue telephone that could enable Hendrik Rymann to speak personally to Maken.

Maken looked at the wall clock that was displaying Eastern Standard Time. "Comrades. Brothers," he announced. "In ninety minutes the State of Israel will have ceased to exist."

83

Washington. The photo-call for the benefit of the newsmen ended at 11:05 a.m. local time. Five minutes later President Hadley and Hendrik Rymann were alone in the Oval Office. Rymann sat with his back to the bank of 3-D confervision screens that kept the President in close touch with his senior aides and advisors. Both men made the maximum use of the preliminary polite exchanges to size each other up. Both were impressed. Hadley was a tall, soft-spoken greying man, with aristocratic good looks and an air of relaxed authority. After two minutes in his presence, Rymann sensed that here was a man who commanded respect because of his ability to see right to the heart of a problem with minimal briefing. Hadley's other talents included the rare mixture of being a good listener and an attention-commanding speaker.

Hadley, in turn, was impressed by Rymann's candour and directness, as was evidenced by the Israeli leader's opening remarks.

"Mr. President. Thank you very much for seeing me. I have only an hour of your time; therefore I intend making full use of it. You know why I have come and I know that you are fully aware of the grave peril facing my country at the moment. I feel that any reiteration of our circumstances would be a waste of time."

Hadley regarded his visitor steadily. "Your approach makes for a refreshingly welcome change, Mr. Prime Minister. You are correct—I understand the situation in your country perfectly."

"We have submitted to your administration two lists detailing materiels increases in the supply of military aid to Israel. The first list is one that we are prepared to make public and which you clearly cannot agree to. The requirements in the second list are much more modest but they represent the minimum level of military support that we need in order to guarantee our survival for at least another three years."

"I studied the two lists with great interest," said Hadley, making a note on his memory pad. "The principal request on the first list is for the supply of two hundred B9 fighter-interceptor-bombers. The second list requests a hundred B9s."

"I'll be frank with you, Mr. President," said Rymann. "The B9 is essential to us. The absolute minimum we require is seventy-five—plus a three-year spares-and-ground-support facility."

"Why three years?"

"Because by then we will have developed a weapon that will make us independent of external aid."

"Can you give me more details?"

"Can you say whether or not you are prepared to supply us with a hundred B9s?" Rymann countered. "Forgive me, Mr. President, I mean no disrespect, but I would appreciate a straightforward yes or no answer."

"You deserve one. The answer has to be no."

Rymann was silent for a moment—seemingly at a loss for words. When he finally spoke, his voice was strangely calm. "I don't mean to sound melodramatic, but your words have sounded the death-knell of my country."

"I doubt it," Hadley observed cryptically. "For many years I have admired the courage and resourcefulness of the Israeli people. I have every confidence in your ability to come up with something."

Rymann touched the fingerprint recognition pad on his brief-case. The lid clicked open. "Would it surprise you if I told you that we already have 'come up with something,' Mr. President?"

The icy note in Rymann's voice put Hadley on his guard although he was careful not to show it. "I'm not sure I follow you, Mr. Prime Minister."

"Your refusal to supply us with B9s means that we have no choice but to put into operation a plan that will give us the three-year breathing-space we require."

"Is this meeting the place to discuss your strategic planning?"

Rymann gave the impression of choosing his words with great care when, in fact, he was reciting the note that Greer had drafted. "Mr. President. Yesterday one of NASA's shuttles —the Dominator —lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center. Stowed in its cargo bay were several of our intermediate-range Masada missiles armed with nuclear warheads. The shuttle is now under the command of an officer in the Israeli army who has instructions to launch the missiles against selected targets in the Soviet Union unless he hears to the contrary from me. You see, Mr. President, we have decided that if the world wants Israel destroyed—and I'm sorry if I'm sounding melodramatic again—then Israel will trigger a global holocaust. We will exact an ultimate eye for an ultimate tooth."

Not a muscle moved on Hadley's face, although he stopped making notes on his memory pad.

Rymann produced an electronic book which he placed before Hadley. "That is the complete specifications of the Masada missile. Drawings—everything—a quarter of a million documents right down to the celestial/inertial navigation systems. Your experts are free to study it. When they have done so, they will confirm that we do indeed have the ability to carry out our threat. Historically, my country has a track record of not uttering threats unless we have every intention of carrying them out. Whether or not we carry out this particular threat is entirely up to you."

84

''Dominator, this is Control. Over."

It was Earl Hackett's voice, sounding uncharacteristically strained. His check call was fifteen minutes early.

Heinlein was still sitting in the commander's seal with the Masada control box Velcro'd to his knee. He looked at his watch. "You'd better acknowledge him."

"Roger, Control," Neil answered. "This is Dominator. We copy. Over."

"Roger, Dominator. Go to conference secure channel thirteen."

"Is that an encoded channel?" Heinlein queried.

"Yes."

"Okay. Go ahead."

Neil reached up to the communications panel and spun the thumb-wheels to a new setting. "Control, this is Dommator. Over."

"We copy, Dominator. What in hell's going on up there?"

Heinlein keyed his microphone. "Control. This is Lieutenant David Heinlein of the IDF. Do you hear me?"

There was a flat, unemotional tone in Hackett's voice when he replied, as if the substance of a bad dream had been confirmed. "Roger, Heinlein. We copy you."

"How secure is this channel?"

"One hundred per cent, Dominator. You're on microwave line-of-sight link to various ground stations along your track. Switching is automatic. Stand by."

For an instant before Hackett unkeyed his microphone, Heinlein heard someone talking in the background to the ground controller. He waited while keeping a wary eye on Neil. Hackett's voice came back a few seconds later.

"Dominator —we understand you have deployed an unauthorized cargo. Can you confirm?"

"Roger, Control," Neil replied. "We confirm."

Another long pause, then, "What has happened to Jim Bayliss and Mike Pepper?"

Heinlein nodded to Neil to reply. "Control, this is Dominator, " Neil answered. "Jim and Mike are unconscious. Knocked out by neural gas grenades."

"Roger, Dommator, "Hackett intoned woodenly. "We understand your problems. We would like a picture of your cargo."

Heinlein keyed his microphone. "Hackett—this is Heinlein. The Canada camera is already trained on the cargo. We'll give you a fifteen-second slow-scan picture on this band starting from now." He unkeyed and said to Neil, "Okay—go ahead. Give them a fifteen-second eyeball of the Masadas."

Neil touched out the controls necessary to activate the manipulator arm's television camera. A picture of the four missiles appeared on the flight-deck's monitor screen. He thumbed the external transmit key for fifteen seconds and released it.

"Roger, Dominator. We copied that." Hackett's voice was misleadingly calm.

Heinlein keyed his microphone. "Hackett, do you hear me?" "We copy you, Dominator. Go ahead, Heinlein." Heinlein checked the lapsed time indicator on the Masada firing control box. "I shall be launching the first cargo unit in one hour—that's at 2:30 p.m. EST. But if our meteoroid proximity radar warns us of the approach of any missiles, or if you use any form of ECM radar jamming against us, then I shall launch my cargo immediately. Is that clearly understood?" "Roger, Heinlein. Understood."

85

At that moment President Hadley, with Walter Swift at his side, was locked in confervision with Professor Anton Horovitz, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon. At thirty-five years old, the clear-thinking professor was President Hadley's most trusted and respected advisor on military affairs. The matter was so urgent that there was not even enough time for him to go to the White House.

"I'm looking at the specifications now," said Horovitz, speaking from one of the bank of monitor screens in the Oval Office. The professor was studying a screen that was out of the fixed camera's field of view. "Some typical Litton celestial-fixing logic circuitry . . . I'm not sure what that does . . . Ah yes—that would be the reorientation buffer store. The circuit diagrams clearly show—"

"Professor," Hadley broke in. "I know you've had only a few minutes to study the information. But from what you've seen, do you think the Masadas are capable of striking at principal targets on Earth?"

Horovitz looked up at the camera so that he appeared to be looking directly at the two men. "Yes, Mr. President. The design concepts are excellent."

"What targets can the missiles threaten?"

Horovitz did some hurried calculations. "In one hour the Dominator's orbital position will provide it with a favourable window on Soviet targets lying between fifty and sixty degrees north."

"What cities does that include?"

"Leningrad, Kazan, Gorki, Moscow—"

"Thank you. Professor," Hadley interrupted. "Remain on stand-by." He thumbed the desk key to isolate his voice for a second. "Holy shit."

"General Hastings is standing by," said Swift who was listening on an earphone to another conversation.

"I'm going back to Pelham first." Hadley pressed another key on the panel that was set into his desk top. Jason Pelham's gaunt features appeared on one of the confervision monitors. The NASA executive's face registered nothing of the shock he had experienced when he had learned an hour earlier that his Dommator had been seized by Heinlein.

"Pelham—go ahead," Hadley ordered.

"The earliest we can launch a shuttle is thirty hours, Mr. President. We cannot begin a roll-out until—"

There was no time for explanations. Hadley cut Pelham off in mid-sentence, telling him to press on with the crash program to launch a shuttle. "General Hastings—go ahead."

General Theodore Hastings of the Space Defense Command at Vandenberg had been about to sink a putt at the eighth hole when his wrist-watch alarm had sounded off— summonsing him to the confervision terminal in his mobile command centre. He was wearing his golfing cap and sweating slightly as he faced the camera. It was the first time he had ever spoken to President Hadley. "Mr. President—all my staff officers are assessing the situation now. We require four hours to reorientate the PHOTON 6 gas laser killer satellites. As you know, the PHOTON satellite chain was designed to destroy terrestrially launched missiles. Thev cannot—"

"What other means do we have of destroying the Dominatorf'

"There's a thousand and one ways. But no way of doing it quickly enough. We can launch an AMS20 anti-satellite missile but the Dominator will have it in sight for three minutes during its approach—"

"That's useless," Hadley broke in. "Isn't there any way of knocking out that God-dam shuttle without its knowing about it?"

"No, Mr. President. It's impossible to approach an orbital vehicle by stealth."

"Okay. Stand by. Horovitz—go ahead."

"A private word, Mr. President."

Hadley isolated the channels so that none of the others present at the conference could hear or see himself and the professor. "Okay, Professor. Go ahead."

"We've got fifty minutes. Number one priority is to persuade Rymann to give us more time."

"We've tried," said Swift. "He says that Heinlein will accept only one order from him and that's to abort the attack."

"No politician would narrow his manoeuvring room to that extent," Horovitz reasoned. "We've got to press Rymann for more time."

Hadley gave a bitter laugh. "It's not his manoeuvring room that he's narrowed—it's ours. His view is that the time he has given us is long enough for us to come to a decision. He said that asking us to agree to military aid on the scale that he wants does not require a reversal of our arms supply policy, but merely a reinstatement of our previous policy. The question right now is, do we warn Dranski?"

"No."

"Why not? If the Soviet beam weapons could zap that shuttle—"

"There're several reasons why we shouldn't tip off the Soviets just yet," said Horovitz. "One reason is that they won't believe us. They're going to think it's a neat little scheme we dreamed up to test the effectiveness of their particle beam systems."

"For Chrissake!" Hadley expostulated. "Surely they're not going to think that we would sacrifice the lives of our astronauts so that we could learn about their defence systems?"

"How do they know we've got astronauts on that shuttle?" Horovitz pointed out. "NASA experimented last year by launching an unmanned supply shuttle up to the space hospital. For all the Soviets know, we could have faked the voices of the Dominators crew."

"Let's look at the possibility of telling Dranski the truth," Hadley suggested.

Horovitz frowned. "I've thought about that. Okay—so we tell him his country is being threatened by missiles launched from a U.S. spacecraft? Walter Swift knows him well enough to know how he would react."

Hadley looked inquiringly at Swift. It was a question that was already uppermost in the Secretary of State's mind. He nodded. "Dranski would smell monumental treachery and would threaten us with retaliatory strikes. And they wouldn't be empty threats. Once Soviet radar picked up the Masadas leaving the shuttle and on course for entry into their airspace, they would launch counterstrikes against us."

The Georgian mantel-clock in the elegant office ticked through several seconds of silence before anyone spoke.

"I've got a suggestion," Horovitz ventured. "Leave Rymann to sweat for another twenty minutes. Then call him in and begin negotiations. Within fifteen minutes of his deadline, let the negotiations start swinging in his favour. Ten minutes before the deadline, give him some ground—not too much but just enough for him to realize that he needs more time. If you get an hour out of him, you can get two hours—and then maybe six hours. With six hours to play with. General Hastings might be able to come up with something."

"Dangerous, " Hadley commented, seeing Swift nod in agreement.

"Sure it's dangerous," Horovitz agreed. "But without time on our side, we don't have a choice. The son of a bitch has gotten us over a barrel with our hands and feet tied to the floor. We've got fifteen minutes before you call Rymann in. Let's use it to make some checks."

86

After a five-minute flight from the University of Surrey to collect Sir Max Flinders, the British Army Cougar helicopter created a maddened swirl of movement among the trees surrounding the broad lawns of Thursley Hall as it settled on its skids. On a command from the NCO, the door opened and soldiers tumbled onto the grass. With rifles at the ready, they fanned out and converged on the house. Flinders and the Aldershot garrison commander. Brigadier Allan Scott, followed them. The housekeeper appeared and gaped in astonishment. She promptly thrust her hands into the air when ordered to do so by a soldier.

The next few minutes passed in a bewildering whirl for Flinders as shouting soldiers ushered him from room to room. "What the hell am I supposed to be looking for?" he wailed plaintively to Brigadier Scott when the dining-room doors were kicked open for his benefit.

"Saar!" the NCO bawled out. "Large locked barn outside. We're going to use ring charges on the doors!"

A minute later Flinders witnessed circles of small explosive charges obliterate the locks and hinges on the doors of Thursley Hall's oversized barn. The great doors toppled outwards and fell with a mighty crash like the walls of Jericho. The NCO dived into the barn and threw himself flat as though he were expecting a horde of guerrillas to open fire. For a few moments he lay prone on the floor just inside the entrance. He stood and turned to the watchers. He spoke quietly, in his natural voice.

"I think we've found something interesting, sir."

Flinders followed Brigadier Scott into the barn. He saw nothing at first because the light was behind him and his eyes had yet to adjust to the gloomy interior. There was a click and the barn filled with light. A soldier swore and sucked in his breath at the sight of the colossal apparition with its single staring eye that was sitting squat and ugly in the centre of the barn's floor.

A paralysis seemed to have seized Flinders. He stared for endless seconds at the mighty satellite.

Brigadier Scott fingered the touch key on his miniature radio. "We've found it," he said.

As Flinders gazed upon his beloved satellite, he found himself wishing that he were a weaker man so that he might weep.

87

Neil realized that he would have to abandon his idea. He had managed to get Heinlein talking but the Israeli was careful to keep his distance. The Masada fire control box remained on his lap all the time and he never took his eyes off the former astronaut for more than a second at a time. There seemed little likelihood of an opportunity arising for Neil to attempt making a grab for the automatic.

Heinlein had been surprisingly talkative. With little prompting he had told Neil about the events leading up to his court martial and subsequent release from military prison.

"Why involve the PLO?" asked Neil. "You could have carried out the operation without them."

Heinlein toyed with the butt of his automatic which was protruding from his coveralls. "I've made sure there are enough leads pointing to them for them to take the rap if anything went wrong. Sarcha's involvement for instance."

"Sarcha's a PLO mercenary?"

Heinlein nodded.

"And you're going to use those missiles against the PLO base at Bakal?"

Heinlein stared Neil straight in the eye. "One Masada is set for Bakal."

"And the other targets?"

"The Soviet Union. Two on Moscow and one on Leningrad. The real irony is that right at this minute, the PLO believe that the Masadas are set for targets in Israel."

Neil focussed his eyes on the instrument panel before him. The familiarity of the controls helped him maintain a grip on reality. "What can you hope to gain?"

"Seventy-five B9s. And an increase in arms aid. But the B9s most of all. Israel has always depended for its survival on air superiority. The B9 is the only aircraft that can restore that superiority. We need it if we're to survive."

"And you really believe that my government will allow itself to be blackmailed?"

Heinlein shook his head. "This isn't blackmail, Neil. This is a demonstration to your government of the consequences of allowing a determined people to be driven into a comer."

"And you're allowing yourself to be used by your government," Neil pointed out. "What do you owe your country? You said yourself that they'd branded you a coward."

Heinlein was silent for a while, as if marshalling his thoughts. When he finally spoke, there was a curiously intense quality about his voice. He was no longer the inscrutable Israeli whose innermost thoughts one could only guess at. "Have you ever heard of Masada?" he asked.

Neil searched his memory. The name meant something. "Wasn't there an old movie about it? About some Jews who committed suicide?"

Heinlein nodded. "Mount Masada is in the judean desert. It's where close to a thousand of my people committed mass suicide rather than be captured by the Romans. Years ago, when I first joined the army, I was taken to Masada at night with about twenty other newly commissioned officers. Do you know what the judean desert is like at night? You can almost feel the ghosts of Abraham, David, Solomon, reaching out and touching you—guiding you up the Snake Path to the summit. It's a strange feeling. At no other time have I ever felt the Strength of the bond between me and my country. Does that sound silly to you?"

Neil could think of nothing constructive to say.

"It must. You have no idea what it's like to have five thousand years of history prodding you in the back. Anyway, we climbed Masada in the darkness—stumbling about, terrified of falling. We arrived at the top with bleeding fingers and aching feet. Then there was a torchlight procession that ended at the terrace where the Romans found the bodies of my people. We stood in a circle and took our oath: that Masada would never fall again; that never again would the enemy set foot on Israel. Every detail of that scene, and its meaning, will remain with me for the rest of my life. We also swore that if the opportunity ever arose for us to destroy the enemies of Israel, even if it meant destroying ourselves and our land, then we would seize that opportunity." Heinlein's dark eyes settled on Neil. "Either that or we would create the opportunity—which is why we're here now. I'm an Israeli first and foremost. If mv country goes down, then it has the right to demand an ultimate eye and take the rest of the world with it in a nuclear holocaust."

Both men were silent. Earl Hackett's voice suddenly broke in on their thoughts. "Dominalor. this is Control. Copy?"

Heinlein nodded in response to Neil's questioning look and dropped a warning hand on the automatic's butt.

"Roger, Control," said Neil. "This is Dominalor. We copy you."

"How're you doing up there, Neil?"

"Nothing to report," Neil replied noncommittally.

"We've fixed up a patch-through to a Washington office. We need a voice-check from you. Over."

"Roger, Control. Go ahead."

"Go ahead, Washington, " Hackett invited.

"Dominator —this is Washington. Can you hear me?" The voice was vaguely familiar to Neil. Heinlein appeared to recognize the voice; he became tense and looked expectantly at the nearest speaker.

"Roger, Washington," Neil acknowledged, trying to remember who the voice belonged to. "This is Dommator. We copy you."

Earl Hackett's voice broke in. "Okay, Neil. That's fine. Remain on stand-by."

Heinlein chuckled. "Know who that was?"

"It's a voice I've heard before."

The Israeli gave a mirthless laugh and ran his fingers through his dark hair. "Of course you've heard it before. That was President Hadley. It looks like we've got a direct line to the White House."

88

The atmosphere in the communications room at Bakal was electric. The chatter had died away and all those present were staring at the UHF transceiver—waiting for it to burst into life as Maken had assured them it would. For the third time in an hour, Maken asked the engineer to check the equipment.

89

In the Indian Ocean, one hundred miles off the coast of Mozambique, the Israeli frigate Golda was also waiting. Lieutenant Gus Yaricon spent most of his time resting while his Solomon helicopter was kept in a permanent state of readiness on its platform. In the frigate's darkened combat control room, the alert men and women sitting before their radar displays were also waiting, and watching, and listening.

90

The digital clock on President Hadley's desk was indicating 2:05 P.M.—twenty-five minutes before Rymann's deadline— when the Israeli Prime Minister was shown back into the Oval Office to face President Hadley alone. The first thing that Rymann noticed was that Hadley was wearing a tiny earphone radio in his right ear. He wondered how many people on the President's staff would be listening in to every word spoken in the elegant room.

"Before we go any further," said Hadley coldly, "I have to know what targets the Masadas are programmed for." He turned the digital clock around slightly so that Rymann could see it. "Remember—you have twenty-four minutes, Mr. Prime Minister."

Rymann's expression was one of surprised innocence. "Surely your experts have calculated the likely targets that the Masadas will be able to reach, Mr. President?"

"Bakal is one of them?"

"Of course."

"And the other targets?"

Rymann's smile was that of a man who knows he has the upper hand. "Moscow and Leningrad. I'm sure I don't have to tell how the Soviets will react to missiles launched agamst them from a U.S. spacecraft."

Hadley stared at the Israeli leader. "We need time to discuss this." He pushed a blue telephone on his desk towards Rymann. "That phone is a direct link to the Dominator. Call Heinlein and tell him to delay by an hour any action that he may be planning."

Rymann shook his head and absent-mindedly massaged his chest to alleviate a dull ache. "As I have already explained, Lieutenant Heinlein's orders are to proceed at 2:30 p.m. The only instruction he will accept from me is an order to abort the operation. And that can only come if you agree to supply the B9s and step up your military aid. As leader of a country that has lost so many of its young on foreign battlegrounds, you of all people must applaud the fact that we, unlike many other countries, are not asking for your blood—only your bludgeons."

"I appreciate that," said Hadley curtly. "What I don't appreciate is why a responsible statesman should give himself so little room for manoeuvre. We need more time to talk this through."

Rymann gestured to the digital clock. The pain in his chest increased slightly as he raised his hand. "It need not take you twenty-two minutes to say yes to our request, Mr. President."

Hadley's expression hardened. "We do not continue with this meeting until you've told Heinlein to hold off for another hour."

Rymann stood and gave a slight bow. "Very well then, Mr. President. Thank you for seeing me. I shall wait outside in case you wish to resume the meeting."

To Hadley's amazement, the Israeli politician turned on his heel and walked out of the office.

"Walter!" Hadley snapped, appearing to talk to an empty room. "No one is to go near him! Leave him outside to sweat!"

A voice replied in Hadley's ear. "He's taken a seat and is just sitting there. The guy's nuts!"

Hadley glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes. Christ. "If he wants a trial of nerves, I'll give him one. Clear the ante-room. If he wants to talk to me, he can come back in here of his own accord."

Hadley slouched in his high-backed swivel chair and removed the earphone radio. He thought deeply for a minute and then thumbed the control that gave him a wide-angle television picture of the ante-room. It was deserted except for Hendrik Rymann. The Israeli statesman was sitting perfectly relaxed in one of the chairs and reading a copy of the Washington Post as though waiting for a flight to be called.

Two more minutes ticked by. Eighteen to go.

Hadley worked the zoom control. Rymann's unconcerned face filled the picture. The politician appeared to be concentrating on the paper and yet his eyes were not following the lines of newsprint. A rapidly pulsing vein on Rymann's neck caught Hadley's eye. The U.S. President spent one minute of the precious eighteen minutes counting the pulses. One hundred and sixty.

The Georgian clock whirred quietly to itself and chimed a quarter after two.

Fifteen minutes.

There was a rustling from the ante-room. Unbelievably, Rymann had turned to another newspaper and was chuckling to himself at the comic section. Nevertheless, the Israeli's heartbeat had risen to one hundred and eighty per minute. Hadley found himself admiring the man's brilliant act and the country that could produce such men. His thoughts turned to the days when Israel and the United States had shared a close relationship.

Twelve minutes.

The earphone radio made frantic squawking noises. Hadley thrust it back into his ear and listened. "It's okay, Walter. I know exactly what I'm doing." He pulled out the earphone and tossed it on his desk. He looked up at the television screen and resumed his study of Hendrik Rymann. The Israeli's face was gray and drawn.

What the U.S. President did not know was that Rymann was struggling to retain his composure while fighting an agonizing chest pain that was spreading into his left shoulder.

Ten minutes.

Rymann raised the newspaper so that his face was hidden from the concealed camera.

Eight minutes.

91

The lonely Chieftain camper was aiming a lengthening shadow away from the sun across the African bush. Sarcha tuned to the frequency he had been using to talk to Heinlein in the shuttle. He was unaware that Lena was watching him through hooded eyes. Her fingers had found the carving knife which she was easing into position to cut through her bonds.

"Papa Sierra to Delta Hotel," said Sarcha. "Do you copy?"

There was no answer.

Sarcha frowned and double-checked the frequency his transceiver was tuned to. "Papa Sierra to Delta Hotel. Copy?"

Again no answer.

"Base to Papa Sierra," squawked the speaker. "Do you read me?"

"I read you, sir," Sarcha acknowledged, recognizing Joseph Maken's voice. "This is Papa Sierra."

"Sarcha? What's happening?"

"I'm sorry, sir. I don't know."

"He should have called fifteen minutes ago." There was an accusing note in Maken's voice.

"There must be a communications problem, sir. Atmospheric conditions. It would be better if we kept the frequency clear in case he's trying to get through."

"We're listening out," Maken grunted.

Joss looked up from his whittling. "What's the matter, Mr. Sarcha?"

Sarcha removed the headphones and shook his head, perplexed. "I don't know. Joss," he said slowly, deep in thought.

The Zulu gestured to Lena. "She sleep a long time."

But Sarcha wasn't interested in Lena.

92

In the Dominator, Heinlein steadied the control box on his knee and flipped up the guards that covered the four press buttons. A warning light winked frantically. He turned the arming key and another second warning fight joined in. The Masadas were ready for launching. All that was required now was four jabs with his finger. He wanted to close his eyes and offer up a silent prayer, but Neil was watching his every move with cat-like intentness.

For the hundredth time, Neil sized up the risks involved in getting the control box from Heinlein. After all, what was his life against the lives of the millions below? And then there was Lena. It was the thought of what might happen to her that forced him to think rationally and calmly. There was nothing he could do except bide his time and wait.

There was precious little time left but he was determined to do something.

93

It was six minutes before Rymann's deadline when Hadley opened the door that led to the ante-room.

Rymann was still hiding his face behind the newspaper. He heard the door open and forced his features to relax before lowering the paper and looking questioningly at the U.S. President.

"Mr. Rymann," said Hadley quietly. "I think we should resume our discussion."

Hadley noticed that there was a robot-like quality about Rymann's movements—as though the act of walking required a conscious effort. He returned to his desk and indicated a seat. With a superhuman effort, Rymann prevented himself from flopping into the chair.

The digital clock was indicating 2:25 p.m.

"The few minutes we have left are ample for what I have to say," said Hadley. "I have been thinking hard about the predicament facing your country. I have put myself in your position and asked myself what I would do if I were you." Hadley gave a wry smile. "You know something? I'm convinced that I would've done the same thing, Mr. Prime Minister. That is, assuming I had the men and women to put such a brilliant scheme into operation." He paused and noticed how ashen the Israeli leader looked. "You shall have your military aid. There's no reason why an airlift of supplies should not start next week."

Suddenly the strain of maintaining his composure was too much for Rymann. The searing pain was winning. His face crumpled. He opened his mouth to speak and found that the words would not come.

Hadley looked at the Israeli in concern. "Mr. Prime Minister —are you feeling all right?"

Rymann took a deep breath and tried not make it sound like a gasp. "Yes, Mr. President—I'm fine."

The digital clock was registering 2:27 p.m.

Hadley rested his hand on the blue telephone. "There are two conditions, Mr. Prime Minister. First—we will supply forty B9s—not seventy-five."

For once Rymann allowed his expression to betray his feelings. "No!" he said hoarsely. "That's—"

"Hear me out! Second—you require extensive military aid for three years. You shall have it. But I will still be in office in three years and I reserve the right to cut off all military aid to Israel at the end of the three-year period."

Rymann focussed his eyes on Hadley with difficulty. The pain was now so intense that it was almost impossible for him to force his words out. "This is unacceptable, Mr. President. We need seventy-five B9s as a minimum to maintain two squadrons—"

"That's my offer," Hadley rasped. "Either you accept it or I'll see you in hell."

2:28 P.M. on the digital clock.

Two minutes. Two minutes! Sweat broke out on Rymann's forehead. When he spoke, he had no idea if he sounded coherent. "I cannot accept it, Mr. President. The B9 is the most complex aircraft ever built. It requires . . ." The room swam. Hadley's face was a blur. "It requires major routine maintenance. We need seventy-five B9s to give us fifty operational airplanes at any one time. With only forty . . ." The simple calculation defeated him.

"You will have to accept it."

One minute, fifty seconds.

"I can't."

Hadley said nothing but continued staring at Rymann with hard, hostile eyes.

One minute, thirty seconds, screamed the clock.

The pain was blinding in its intensity.

One minute, fifteen seconds.

"If the Masadas are launched, the last order I shall give will be for the destruction of Israel." Hadley's words were clipped out like splinters flying from beneath the blows of an ice-pick.

"Israel is finished anyway!" Rymann choked out.

"And you—one man—will be responsible for millions of deaths." Hadley's voice was deadly calm. "Is that the sort of equation you want to spend an eternity in hell trying to work out? You have only to pick up the blue phone, Mr. Prime Minister. It's your turn to yield."

Rymann found himself being hypnotized by the digital clock. One minute! One minute! One minute! "I cannot betray my country!" It was someone else speaking, someone using his voice.

Fifty-five seconds . . . fifty-four . . . fifty-three . . .

A cold, steel hand was closing around Rymann's heart. The blue telephone was moving towards him. It was swelling. Beyond it was Hadley's face—a grotesque mask that was mocking him with a savage, taunting smile. And all the time the digital clock was hammering out the seconds with an anvil ferocity that made the electrons coursing through its circuits audible.

Forty . . . thirty-nine . . . thirty-eight . . .

The face. The telephone. The clock. All three were spinning around.

Seventy-five B9s! In the name of God, is that so much to ask? But the words Rymann wanted to utter went unsaid.

Twenty-five . . . twenty-four . . . twenty-three . . .

It '5 your turn to yield, Mr. Prime Minister. Yield! Yield! Yield!

Twenty . . . nineteen . . . eighteen . . .

Almighty god! In the name of Zion! Make time stand still!

Fifteen . . . fourteen . . .

Hadley sitting back. Not moving. Not speaking.

Rymann saw a pair of hands in front of him.

Thirteen . . . twelve . . . eleven . . .

Hands groped blindly. Colliding with objects as they reached for the hideous blue telephone. They were his hands —searching frantically. Discovering cold plastic. Struggling to lift a handset that was weighed down with five thousand years of history.

A voice: Christ! He's having a coronary!

Nine . . . eight . . . seven . . .

Hadley on his feet. Leaning across the desk. Guiding his hand to the telephone. The smooth handset tried to escape from his sweat-soaked palms. He clung to it like a drowning man grasping at a lifebelt.

Six . . . five . . . four . . .

A red mist before his eyes. Hadley on his feet—shouting. People running into the office. Unseen hands holding the telephone to his face.

Speak to Heinlein! For Chrissake speak to him!

His voice a croak, "Heinlein . . . Heinlein . . . This is Rymann. Do you read me?"

Dear God, not yet. Give me a few more seconds. Please, God!

A clock chiming.

"I read you, Mr. Prime Minister."

Three . . . two . . .

"Heinlein . . . Abort . . . abort . . ."

94

Heinlein's finger was actually touching the first key on the control box when Hendrik Rymann's distraught voice burst out of the shuttle's speakers. The Israeli froze. Was it Rymann's voice? He had spent several hours listening to recordings of the Israeli leader. It sounded like Rymann's voice, and yet . . .

"Lieutenant Heinlein . . . Can you hear me?"

"I can hear you, sir."

The pause before Rymann replied served to further arouse Heinlein's suspicions. He heard anxious voices in the background. Questions crowded into his mind and nurtured his suspicions. Why were there so many people in the room? What was going on? What had they done to Rymann?

"The operation has been a success, Heinlein." Rymann's voice was a barely readable whisper. Another long pause. Too long. "A tremendous success."

"What's happened to you, sir? Are you free to speak?"

"You can jettison the Masadas and return to Earth."

"What's happened to you, sir?" Heinlein repeated, tightening his grip on the control box. "What's going on?" Neil was forgotten. He turned up the speaker volume just as someone in the room with Rymann underestimated the sensitivity of telephone microphones by saying, "I can't give him another shot—it'll kill him."

A cold rage welled up in Heinlein at thought of what they had done to Rymann. "I'm going ahead with the launching," he announced calmly.

"No, Heinlein!" Rymann's voice was a pleading gasp. "We've won . . . We've won!"

For once in his career Heinlein was at a complete loss. He stared at the nearest speaker as though it was likely to solve his dilemma. At that moment the control box was knocked from his grasp as Neil's weight crashed into him. The former astronaut yanked the automatic out of the front of Heinlein's coveralls and slipped the safety-catch. Heinlein's body cannoned into the forward observation windows. He lashed out with his feet and the thrust sent him careering towards Neil. A shot crashed out. The tumbling control box suddenly lashed sideways like a hooked marlin and vomited a jet of shattered innards across the flight-deck.

"Bastard!" screamed Heinlein, his face white with unbridled fury.

Before Neil could react, Heinlein's hand closed like a vice around his wrist that was holding the automatic and the other went for his throat. Neil was fit and strong but he was no match for the battle-hardened Israeli. The automatic was knocked from his fingers. The two struggling men tumbled and turned in the microgravity—their flailing bodies colliding first with the floor and then the roof. Heinlein managed to thrust Neil away. By a lucky chance, the automatic drifted in front of the Israeli, enabling him to grab it. He pointed it at Neil. "One move," he panted. "One move, O'Hara. That's all I need."

"You kill me, Heinlein—and you're a dead man anyway. You couldn't land this bird by yourself." Neil was clinging to the back of the commander's seat, his chest heaving, blood trickling into his eyes from a cut forehead.

Heinlein was in much the same state; a hank of bloody hair was hanging off his scalp and his face was badly bruised. His eyes were still blazing their fury and his knuckles were white where they were gripping the automatic, but Neil could see that his words had sunk in.

Heinlein hauled himself to one side and jerked the gun at the aft crew station. "You can dump the Masadas and close the cargo bay doors. Then we're going to land."

95

Ceilings rushing past as Rymann stared up. Through several doorways and then bright blue sky. Two nurses and a doctor running alongside his stretcher—their footsteps clattering noisily. The roof of an ambulance appearing above him. Doors slamming. A series of sharp movements that jarred his body and then the blast of a siren.

"I thought heart attacks only happened to others," he mumbled to no one in particular.

"Don't try to talk," advised a friendly voice.

For some reason he found himself chuckling. Maybe it was the effect of the drugs they had squirted into him. "Heart attacks and elections," he said. "Most leaders have to fight

them. Will I win this one?"

"Sure you'll win," the voice assured. "Just don't try to talk." Rymann obeyed the order by drifting off to sleep.

96

Darkness was falling by the time Lena had surreptitiously cut the last cord binding her wrists. She was wondering how she was going to free her ankles when Sarcha declared abruptly, "Something's wrong." He reached for one of the television cameras. "Joss! We're going to send them a picture just in case they can receive us." He jerked a thumb at Lena. "Okay. You know what to do."

The Zulu dropped the piece of wood he had been whittling and approached Lena. She met his stare without blinking. Despite her fear, she had the presence of mind to maintain the pretence that her wrists were still bound.

"What do you want me to do, Mr. Sarcha?"

"For Chrissake!" Sarcha muttered while focussing the camera on the berth where Lena was lying. "Do something photogenic for the benefit of lover boy in case he's playing silly buggers." Sarcha turned up the lighting in the camper to maximum brilliance for the benefit of the camera.

It took all Lena's self-control not to struggle when Joss tugged ineffectually at the belt of her safari pants.

"I can't get these off her, Mr. Sarcha."

Sarcha looked as if his patience was about to snap. "Then cut her ankles free, God-dam you! She can't do much with her wrists tied."

Joss bent over Lena and cut the cords binding her ankles with his jack-knife. He eased her pants and panties down her legs and tugged them off over her shoes. He seemed even more uncertain what to do now that Lena was naked apart from her jacket. He turned and looked questioningly at Sarcha.

"Oh, for Chrissake," said Sarcha in exasperation. "What the hell are we paying you for? Okay—you hold the camera and I'll do the necessary."

At that moment the impossible happened: Lena suddenly twisted her body into a kneeling position on the mattress. Before Joss could react, she launched herself at him and drove the carving knife unerringly into his neck, severing his jugular vein. The Zulu's eyes went round with terror. He gave a gurgling gasp and staggered backwards clutching his neck as if he was trying to stop the flow of blood that was gouting between his fingers.

Sarcha dropped the camera and jumped to his feet just as Lena yanked the door open and leapt into the darkness. Sarcha threw himself across the camper and became entangled with Joss. The Zulu clutched at him, gasping and choking, giving Lena valuable seconds. Sarcha thrust the dying Zulu to one side. Once outside he cursed the camper's bright lights which had ruined his night vision.

Within seconds Lena's long, powerful legs had taken her fifty yards from the camper. A shot rang out. In her terror, she imagined that she felt the turbulence of the slug as it whined past. The second shot smacked into the ground within a yard of her running feet, peppering her naked legs with particles of soil. In despair she realized that her light-colored safari jacket would be providing Sarcha with a beacon-like target.

Sarcha stopped running and took careful aim into the darkness. He fired two more shots. This time he had the satisfaction of seeing the jacket drop to the ground.

97

"You're crazy," Neil protested. "We've got to land at Kennedy. I can't bring this bird down in the African bush!"

Heinlein was unmoved. "We're talking about one of NASA's designated emergency landing areas. Sarcha has checked and cleared the site of obstructions. Now—either you land there or we fail to send a report to Sarcha. We've already missed one report. If we miss another, Lena's as good as dead. So what is it to be?"

Neil was about to try reasoning with the Israeli but realized it would be futile. "I'll need Mission Control's assistance," he said, reaching up to the communications panel.

"No! We won't be making contact with them again. The orbiter's on-board computers can provide you with all the assistance you need. And don't tell me they can't because I know God-dam well they can."

Neil made no reply. He punched out the codes for a computer-assisted landing on the Kruger emergency landing site and studied the data that appeared on the screen. "It's a few-minutes to midnight in southern Africa. I can't land in the dark. Our first landing option is in another four orbits. First light tomorrow morning."

"Okay," said Heinlein. "We'd better tell Sarcha."

98

May 12

There was something odd about the way Lena's body was lying in the grass.

The position of her arms was wrong. Remembering that she still had the carving knife, Sarcha cautiously approached the still form while wishing that he had returned to the camper for a flashlight. She had to be dead. His night vision had improved by the time he had stopped running and fired the third and fourth shots. He had been one of the best shots in the British army's Special Air Service. He glanced back at the camper. Fifty yards. At that range there was no way that his last two shots had not hit the girl in the back. She was dead. She had to be dead.

Sarcha reached Lena. He kept his gun trained on her and touched her body with his foot. At first he could hardly credit his senses.

There was no body for his foot to touch!

He gave a grunt of surprise, snatched up the safari jacket, and breathed a curse to himself when his fingers found two bullet holes. There was no trace of blood inside the garment. The cunning bitch must have peeled her jacket off and held it at arm's length as she ran. Despite his anger, Sarcha could not help admiring the girl's resourcefulness. He stared about him, peering into the dark, wondering where the hell she was. Several points occurred to him that made him exercise extreme caution when returning to the camper: there was no moon, Lena was black, naked, and she had shown that she could use a knife.

99

Heinlein pressed his PTT button. "Papa Sierra. This is Delta Hotel. Do you copy?"

"Roger, Delta Hotel," replied Sarcha's voice after a few seconds' delay. "We copy you."

"We've run into problems. The control box to deploy the cargo doesn't work."

"Oh, for Chrissake!" Sarcha exploded. "I don't believe it!"

"Nor did I at first—but it happens to be true. I can't deploy the cargo."

Maken's voice broke in. "Dominator! Do you copy me?"

"Roger," Heinlein replied. "We copy."

"What's happened?" The FLO leader's voice was unnaturally calm.

"I'm sorry, sir. But there's a serious problem with the control box."

"Can't you repair it?"

"No, sir. Whatever the fault is, I can't trace it."

"But you've got to deploy your cargo! You've got to! Everything depends on it!"

Heinlein wished that he had a vision channel to Bakal so that he could see the PLO leader's face. For the time being just hearing the note of hysteria that was creeping into Maken's voice would have to suffice.

"There is no way that I can go ahead without a functioning control box," said Heinlein calmly, keeping a wary eye on Neil.

"But this is impossible," Maken expostulated. "We've sunk everything in this operation—"

"With respect, sir. You've done nothing."

"The future of our movement depends on your success."

"Don't you mean your future, sir?" Heinlein suggested. "We went into this with our eyes open. We all knew that the chances of failure were high. Well—we've failed. And nothing you say can alter that. Sarcha—we'll be landing at zero-eight-thirty. How's our insurance?"

"She's fine."

"You'd better have her standing by from about zero-seven-hundred in case of trouble. Get some sleep in the meantime."

100

Lena stifled an involuntary shiver as she lay naked in the grass while keeping the camper under observation from a safe distance. The night was bitterly cold and her nakedness heightened her feeling of vulnerability. She watched Sarcha moving about inside the camper—probably cleaning up the Zulu's mess. A moment later the door opened, spilling light across the scrub-land. Sarcha's rotund shape appeared with Joss's body slung over his shoulder. He staggered into the night and reappeared a few minutes later minus the Zulu. As he stared around him, Lena had an uncomfortable feeling that he was looking straight at her. She lowered her head and tightened her grip on the carving knife. She heard Sarcha enter the camper and lock the doors.

She waited until the camper's interior lights had been out for an hour before thankfully rising to her feet and brushing off her body a host of insects that had discovered that she was good to eat.

It took Lena fifteen minutes to find the Zulu's body. She was helped by an animal—probably a hyena—that gave a warning yelp at her approach and scurried off into the night. The darkness helped her overcome the revulsion she felt as she removed the Zulu's clothes. The T-shirt was still damp with his blood but at least the pants were a reasonable fit. What did it matter if they were a dead man's clothes, she told herself. At least they restored her confidence and would help keep her warm.

She returned to the vicinity of the camper. Mindful of Sarcha's ability to move like a cat, she crept nearer and was rewarded by the sound of his snores. She crawled under the vehicle and made herself as comfortable as possible, certain that she had chosen the last place that Sarcha would think of looking for her. She had no definite plan of action in mind but she was confident that she would think of something.

101

The Atlantic Ocean was edging up over the horizon of South America when Neil announced that everything was stowed to his satisfaction. His last task had been to ensure that the unconscious forms of Jim Bayliss and Mike Pepper were properly secured in their sleep restraint bags. "They'll be coming round in about twelve hours," Heinlein had said in answer to Neil's query.

Dominator was over the mid-Atlantic when Heinlein and Neil pulled themselves into their respective seats and fastened their seat harnesses.

"Delta Hotel to Papa Sierra," Heinlein called. "Do you read?"

"Roger, Delta Hotel," Sarcha answered, his voice barely readable over such a distance. "Go ahead."

"Be with you in an hour, Papa Sierra. Stand by."

"Standing by," Sarcha acknowledged.

Heinlein wondered how Sarcha would react when he learned that for several months he had been working for the Israeli Government and not his favourite customers—the PLO. He guessed that Sarcha would be mad. Extremely mad and therefore extremely dangerous. For that reason Heinlein had decided that he had little choice but to kill Sarcha at the earliest opportunity after landing. But for the time being he needed the fat little Englishman's help.

The outline of Africa's west coast appeared on the radar screen.

"First phase in ten minutes," said Neil.

"Good luck," Heinlein murmured, giving Neil a rare smile.

Neil's thoughts returned automatically to Lena while he waited for the computers to initiate the first phase of the landing procedure. He offered a silent prayer for her safety.

Five minutes passed without the two men speaking to each other. Neil watched the computer screen intently. The waiting merely tightened the knot in his stomach at the thought of landing the orbiter without any ground landing aids whatsoever. When instructed to do so by the computers, he operated the DAP controls to rotate Dominalor through one hundred and eighty degrees so that it finished up travelling tail-first along its flight path. Five minutes later the OMS engines fired for three minutes in a braking burn that slowed the orbiter by two hundred miles per hour and caused it to begin its five-thousand-mile spiralling fall towards the earth.

After fifteen minutes Neil rotated the spacecraft again so it was pointing in the right direction. The nose lifted automatically so that the spacecraft was presenting its heat shield to the earth's atmosphere. The orbiter began to shake.

"What's happening?" Heinlein demanded.

"Entry interface," said Neil calmly, watching the central screen. "Atmospheric buffeting. We're re-entering at seventeen thousand miles per hour. It'll get worse. And the radio black-out starts now."

The buffeting rose to a thunderous roar. Heinlein tried not to think about the pummelling the orbiter's airframe was receiving. His body swung from side to side as Dominator performed a series of automatic 5 turns. Unlike the lift-off, the vehicle was the right way up in relation to the earth; therefore there was nothing to see out of the forward windows except the blackness of space. And then the buffeting got steadily worse. The first moanings of the tenuous atmosphere rose steadily in volume to become the sound of a thousand demented banshees—howling and clawing at the windows. There was nothing to see outside except a cherry-red glow. None of the literature Heinlein had read about orbiter reentries had prepared him for the awesome spectacle of an atmosphere that appeared to be on fire. Despite his iron nerve, he couldn't help glancing sideways at Neil. The astronaut's calm expression assured him that everything was normal. For seemingly endless minutes the uproar continued. Gradually the nerve-racking buffeting died away. The incandescent colours that had burnt around the windows faded and were replaced by sky—sky seen from below. Sky that had a definite tinge of blue about it.

"Okay—we're through," said Neil, resting his hands on the control column for the first time.

"Is the radio black-out over?"

"Sure." He checked the computer displays. All was well. "We're in the auto-land phase. Touchdown in ten minutes."

Heinlein looked out of the side window and saw the great yellow-red stain of the African continent. He pressed his PI 1 button. "Sarcha! You'll have us in sight in about eight minutes!"

Dominator's re-entry was observed by the Golda's radar. The alarms sounded throughout the Israeli frigate. Gus Yaricon tumbled from his berth and scrambled into his flying suit. Two minutes later he was airborne in his Solomon helicopter, flying low, fast, and alone towards the Mozambique coast.

Without power, Dominator had the flying characteristics of an airborne brickyard. As it dropped earthwards, its automatic landing computers behaved beautifully; they locked onto their landing site and steered the orbiter down towards the Kruger National Park landing site with a precision that required only the occasional correction from Neil. The "head-up" display figures projected onto the forward windows kept him continuously informed on the flight's progress.

The terrain below resolved itself into grassland. After pre-flare, Neil risked tilting the nose down for a few seconds so that he could see whatever it was he was supposed to be landing on. At two minutes to touchdown, the scattered trees and thorn-bushes were not an encouraging sight.

* * *

The shadow of Gus Yaricon's helicopter flitted across the veterinary fence that marked the border between Mozambique and South Africa as the machine hurtled towards the early morning sun. He was two minutes ahead of the calculated time for his flight plan schedule. Better two minutes early than two minutes late, he reflected.

The terrain was flat, incredibly flat. With frequent glances at the inertial navigation computer to ensure he was dead on course, Gus Yaricon risked losing even more height until his flailing rotors were creating a wake of flattened grass across the dreary' expanse of the Kruger National Park.

Suddenly, ten kilometres ahead, was a camper. It had to be the camper because it was in the right position, but there was no sign of the shuttle.

* * *

"There's the camper!" Heinlein called out, pointing. "And there're the markers!"

Neil checked the digits of the head-up display on the window before him. The markers were in exactly the right place—one marking the beginning of the landing-strip and one marking the end, with the camper parked just beyond the last marker. At that moment a helicopter swung into his field of vision.

The sound of the helicopter made Sarcha swing his binoculars away from the rapidly swelling outline of Dominator. The shock nearly made him drop the binoculars, not so much at where the machine was landing, which was bad enough, but at what was painted on its side: a pale blue star superimposed on a white circle.

Jesus bloody Christ! Chel Ha'Avir markings!

He grabbed his gun and ran towards the helicopter as it settled on the grass. He knew that he had little hope of reaching it before Dominator.

* * *

"I can't do anything about it!" Neil yelled, frantically switching the auto-landing computers off-line and taking over control. "Helicopter or no helicopter, we're committed to a landing!"

Heinlein swore to himself when he saw the helicopter's markings. Stupid, bungling idiots! They hadn't bothered to disguise it! He realized that wondering how Sarcha would react was academic; there was no way that Dominator was going to avoid crashing into the helicopter.

Neil nursed the control column like a mother holding a child and thumbed the button that lowered the main-gear wheels. He stared down through the side windows at the grass that was racing up to meet him. Without the usual friendly voices calling out his rapidly diminishing height, every second waiting for wheel contact with the ground was a single, isolated nightmare of its own.

Ten feet, advised the ground proximity radar on the head-up display.

The helicopter was four miles away. Dead ahead. Its spinning rotors an iridescent disc of light.

Eight feet, said the ground proximity radar.

"There's Sarcha!" Heinlein yelled, pointing to a portly figure that was running towards the helicopter.

Neil took no notice. His attention was switching between the head-up display and the blur of scrub-grass.

Four feet. Nose too high. Down a fraction. Not too much.

Three feet.

Steady . . . steady . . . hold her right there!

Ground contact when it finally came was a massive deceleration and a series of hammer-blows that seemed certain to tear Dominator apart. Both men were thrown violently forwards against their seat harnesses. The nose dropped, and the nose-wheel added a third furrow to the two that the charging orbiter was already gouging across the African landscape. The helicopter was now a mere half mile away—dead in front of the hurtling Dominator.

Gus Yaricon was staring at the short, round figure that was running towards him when his hazard radar started bleeping. He twisted in his seat. Five hundred yards away a wall of dust was avalanching towards him.

Neil crammed on the brakes when the ground speed indicator was reading a lethal ninety knots. He had no choice—the helicopter was only five hundred yards away. He was not sure what happened next because he had never experienced a landing spin. Miraculously Dominator s undercarriage stood up to the punishment. The entire spacecraft was slewing sideways, throwing up a huge cloud of dust, but still bearing down on the helicopter.

Two hundred yards. Impact was inevitable. Neil no longer had control over the orbiter. Even if he had, the shocks caused by the landing-wheels smashing into obstructions were of such force and frequency that it was impossible to make his hands do what he wanted them to do. Above the noise he heard the distinctive roar of a turbine. A flash of rotors, a plexiglass canopy that seemed to leap into the sky, and the helicopter was gone.

The orbiter shuddered to a standstill. It teetered drunkenly on its tortured suspension for a moment. And then all was still.

It was a double miracle: Dommator had performed a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spin on landing and yet had come to a standstill in one piece and without colliding with the helicopter.

Sarcha threw himself to one side. Dominator's nose-wheels missed him by inches. Half-blinded by the swirling dust, he fired twice at the climbing Solomon helicopter when it was still below thirty feet. The second slug creased Gus Yaricon's scalp. The Israeli pilot wrestled with the cyclic pitch control on his machine while struggling to wipe the torrent of blood from his eyes. The helicopter spun sideways and then landed with enough force to buckle its undercarriage. Sarcha ignored the clouds of dust kicked up by the rotors. He hauled his bulk up the toe- and handholds and yanked the pilot's door open. Gus Yaricon was desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood that was coursing down his face. Sarcha ripped open the pilot's flying suit. The Chel Ha 'Avir uniform was confirmation of his suspicions. He was about to kill the pilot when he realized that he would need all the rounds in his gun to deal with Heinlein and O'Hara.

The electronic clanging of the Dominators flight-deck smoke alarms sounding off provided all the impetus that Neil needed. He unfastened his harness and hurled himself at Heinlein, driving a fist straight into the Israeli's face.

Without stopping to see if he had knocked Heinlein unconscious or making any attempt to recover the automatic, Neil jumped through the floor hatch to the mid-deck. He released the emergency catches on the ingress/egress hatch so that it swung downwards to the horizontal position. Choking clouds of dust thrown up by the nearby Solomon filled the mid-deck. He swung the drop bar out and was about to drop the ten feet to the ground when Heinlein grabbed him from behind.

"Neil! Keep away from Sarcha! He'll kill you! He'll kill both of us!"

"I've got to get to Lena!" Neil panted.

"For Chrissake listen to me!"

Sarcha appeared below. The swirling dust upset his aim; his shot passed through Neil's shoulder muscle and imbedded itself in Dominator's hull. Heinlein pushed Neil aside and launched himself out of the hatch. The fat little Englishman dived to one side. As Heinlein landed in the dust, Sarcha saw that the Israeli was unarmed. A grin of triumph spread across his pudgy features. He levelled his gun. This time he wouldn't miss.

"Sarcha!" a voice screamed behind him. He spun round and gaped in horrified disbelief at the spectacle of Joss—the dead Zulu—bearing down on him. For the first and last time in his long career of armed combat, the Englishman hesitated. Only when Lena had plunged her knife unerringly into his heart did he respond.

And that was by firing two shots impotently into the ground as his lifeless body crumpled.

102

Gus Yaricon stood impatiently in the camper's doorway, holding a pad to his head, while Heinlein finished binding Neil's wound. The former astronaut was lying on his side while Lena cradled his head.

"Hurry it up," the Israeli pleaded. "We're three minutes behind schedule."

"If you hadn't been ahead of schedule, maybe this wouldn't have happened," Heinlein reminded him curtly. He stood and quickly repacked the Solomon's first-aid kit. "Okay," he said. "You'll live. Don't let him move about, Lena." He gave the American girl one of his rare smiles. "And don't over-excite him."

"We've got to move now," Gus Yaricon insisted.

"David." It was the first time that Neil had ever addressed the Israeli by his first name. He stretched out his good arm.

Heinlein looked questioningly at Neil. He hesitated, and then took the offered hand and shook it.

"Good luck," said Neil. "Maybe we'll meet up if we ever visit Israel?"

"Maybe," said Heinlein non-committally. "Maybe." He turned to Gus Yaricon. "Lieutenant—you mind telling me what the hell we're waiting for?"

Fifteen minutes after the departure of the Solomon, another helicopter arrived on the scene. The new arrival bore the markings of the South African Air Force.

103

May 13

Earl Hackett breezed into the private ward at Pretoria's military hospital. "Hey, Neil! How're you doing? And you, Lena? I've been hearing all about your adventures."

Neil was genuinely pleased to see Hackett and enlisted Lena's help to ease himself into a sitting position. The three chatted animatedly for some minutes.

''Dommators in remarkably good shape," Hackett enthused, helping himself to a cluster of Neil's grapes. "Amazing really. You did a fine job there, Neil. We're flying out the mate/demate facility so we can ship her to the nearest SAAF base and then fly her piggyback on a Boeing back to Kennedy. Shouldn't be any problem." Hackett was about to hijack an orange when he caught Lena's warning eye.

"Any news about Mike and Jim?" asked Neil. It was a question that was uppermost in his mind.

"They're fine. They're dropping by here this afternoon."

"Whose idea was it to transfer me here? I'm a civilian. And when do we get to go home?"

Hackett held up his hand. "One question at a time. In here you're out of reach of the press. And the doctors say you'll be okay to travel tomorrow."

The conversation turned to Heinlein.

"Looks like he got clean away." Hackett admitted ruefully. He looked sharply at Neil and Lena in turn. "Does that annoy you?"

Lena changed the subject. "What exactly did Israel hope to gain by the operation?" she asked.

"Three years," Neil replied, recalling his conversations with Heinlein. "I saw about the new arms supply agreement on the news. Looks like they got what they wanted."

"But what use is three years to them?" Lena persisted.

"It's long enough to win a war."

"Or lose one," Hackett observed only. "Incidentally. just as soon as your arm's okay, we've got an orbiter mission for you."

Neil looked surprised. " 'We' meaning who? Pelham?"

"Pelham's quit." said Hackett shortly. 'He resigned yesterday. I'm acting director for the time being."

"Congratulations, Earl. Maybe it'll be made permanent? "

"Maybe," Hackett answered non-committally.

"So what do you want me as? A payload specialist?"

Hackett bit into a grape. "For this mission, you'd better go as commander."

"What?"

"You heard."

"Won't that mean having to put me back on the pay-roll?"

"Well, damn me—I suppose it does," said Hackett. trying hard not to smile. "Don't worry. There'll be plenty of work to keep vou busy once we start building the orbital hotel."

Neil encircled his good arm around Lena's waist. Her hand closed over his. "So what's the profile of this mission? " he asked at length. "Anything interesting?"

104

May 20

Neil opened the access cover on the last Masada and reset the thumb-wheels. "Okay, Mike," he said, pushing his weightless, spacesuited figure clear of the Canada arm. "She's disarmed."

Mike Pepper was working at the Condor ?, aft crew station. Using the joystick controllers, and with a guiding hand from Neil, he eased the missile into the orbiter's hold and positioned it alongside the three other Masadas. Neil spent the next thirty minutes ensuring that the four weapons were securely lashed into position.

"They look just fine," said Hackett's voice when television pictures of the cargo were received by the Kennedy Space Center.

Neil acknowledged and gave the order to close the cargo bay doors.

Jim Bayliss had a cup of coffee ready for Neil when he emerged from the airlock. "Earl wants to speak to you."

"Thanks, Jim." Neil pushed himself into the commander's seat. "Control. This is Condor. Go ahead."

"Dial up UHF channel twelve," Hackett instructed. "We've got a news item for you. Picked it up from the Israeli news satellite service about an hour back."

Mystified, Neil did as he was told. "Okay, Earl. Go ahead."

A picture appeared on the screen in front of Neil. There were a couple of establishing shots of Jerusalem. The picture cut to a crowded assembly room where Hendrik Rymann was delivering a speech in Hebrew. Neil gaped in surprise when Heinlein's face appeared in sharp close-up. The picture changed to a medium shot showing Rymann pinning a medal to Heinlein's immaculate uniform jacket and shaking him warmly by the hand. "Lieutenant David Heinlein receives the Ot Haoz from Prime Minister Hendrik Rymann" read the scroll caption at the foot of the screen.

"What's the Ot Haoz?" Neil asked.

"I think it's the Israeh equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor," Hackett replied.

105

June

Wings lucked into its shark-like fuselage, the strike aircraft's titanium hull was beginning to glow as a result of its colossal speed.

There was little for the pilot of the MiG-35 to do. Armon Habet sat in a silent cocoon of electronics and digital displays. On-board computers controlled even, aspect of the flight— translating the signals from the terrain-hugging radar into impulses that maintained the aircraft's course and height above the sea with a deadly precision.

Armon was two minutes from his target—the oil terminal at Haifa—when his proximity radar sounded a warning. "B9 aircraft configuration," announced the computer voice. The ugly X shape of a B9 viewed nose-on was centred in Armon's mirror. His heartbeat climbed... B9! Operations had said that they wouldn't use their precious B9s against a single-aircraft low-level attack!

The MiG's evasion systems took over control. But no matter how much the PLO aircraft twisted and rolled in its attempts to shake off its pursuer, the X-shaped aircraft duplicated its quarry's movements and remained in the exact centre of Armon's mirror. He saw two bright flashes. An explosion. And then nothing.

The B9 peeled away and climbed to a safe height. The Israeli pilot informed his base of the kill and looked over the edge of his canopy in time to see the remains of Armon's MiG-35 ricochet across the surface of the bay.

By a curious coincidence it was exactly one year since the same MiG-35, flown by the same pilot, had launched a rocket attack against the Dan Hotel at Netanya.

Table of Contents

Pages

Back Cover