Panting, he glanced around the shack. Everything on the monitors looked serene, no movement.

But the main screen showed some smarta.s.s effete twerp. Iceberg caught his name as Phillips. As he listened, it dawned on Iceberg that the s.p.a.ce shuttle was being held for ransom. Atlantis-his crew! That's what all this was about.

Iceberg felt as if a ton of gravel had been poured on him. The smoking ruins of the security ATVs, the downed helicopter, and Salvador's murder confirmed that these people were not jokers. Whoever the slimeb.a.l.l.s were, they held the upper hand.

For now.

The dapper man disappeared from the TV, leaving a shot of Nicole, Amba.s.sador Trovkin, and Senator Boorman. They all looked worried.

Mr. Phillips returned and threw something onto a counter; the camera focused on a crew patch-and on the names FRIESE, GREEN, BURNS embroidered at the top. It was the patch Iceberg had given Salvador that morning.

He felt his face grow red, p.i.s.sed off beyond words. He glared at the monitor. Mr. Phillips looked as if he were speaking directly to Iceberg, taunting him. Iceberg turned up the volume.

"-four hours. Please don't make me destroy this marvel of engineering. . ."

After the little man finished his speech, the radio on the counter sputtered. "We've got NASA on the run. All sites please check in."

He recognized the voice he had heard on TV!

Clipped voices came over the radio. Mr. Phillips's voice acknowledged them, until he repeated something about a guard shack-then it hit Iceberg that the voice was talking to him. He felt a sudden chill.

If he didn't answer, they would know something had happened to the fake guard.

Mr. Phillips's voice came again, this time with an edge to it. "Duncan? Are you still at the guard shack?

Check in."

Iceberg picked up the microphone and clicked it twice. The international signal for "okay." That seemed to satisfy Phillips and the radio fell silent. He slumped back against Salvador's old desk. "Chill, chill, chill," he said. He ran a hand through his short dark hair. "Have I just given this Phillips guy a green light?"

He picked up the telephone in the shack, but the line was dead. The impostor had smashed all of Salvador's radio equipment. Aside from the fixed-frequency walkie-talkie that was tuned to Phillips alone, Iceberg had no communications gear at all.

Which meant no one knew he was out here. Including Mr. Phillips. He felt sick to his stomach. Phillips had NASA over a barrel. Iceberg wasn't sure what he could do, but he had to do something.

He could never let Gator Green and the rest of his crew on Atlantis wait for bureaucrats to negotiate the hostage situation. Knowing this Administration, they'd be more concerned about being politically correct than stopping the terrorists. Iceberg had to take matters into his own hands. It might be the only way to save his crew.

Part of him realized it might be the only way to save Panther, as well.

21.

GUARD SHACK.

ICEBERG YELPED AS HE forgot himself and put his full weight on his left foot. He hopped up and grabbed his heavy cast, drawing a breath through his teeth. "Can't let that happen again." He had more important things to worry about, like a bunch of terrorists.

But what should he do? He gripped the door frame of the guard shack. Phillips had finished his tirade on the television, and now commentators excitedly chattered about what it all meant. Iceberg tried to thinkcalmly, get hold of his senses. He swung into "checklist" mode, that detached state where he put his body into autopilot while his mind raced ahead.

He took a long, full breath. He had to think clearly, plan every move, be calm. Frosty.

He had to get through to NASA Security, let them know that this strategic point was no longer held by the bad guys. A sufficient force could easily pa.s.s through the gate.

But what would that accomplish? The shack was miles from the Launch Control Center as well as the launchpad. If Phillips really did have his people stationed throughout the restricted area, then it would do no good for security to show up here. They'd just provoke Phillips to push the b.u.t.ton. The counterstrike would have to be more subtle than that, quieter-something a single man could accomplish.

NASA should have been able to control the TV relay bunker, cutting off the little twerp's grandstanding. A chill ran through Iceberg. Amos. Was he okay? What if his little brother's bunker had been overrun like Salvador's guard shack?

Then Iceberg remembered that the bunker was protected well enough to withstand a direct explosion: thick walled, reinforced, one of the old blast observation shelters from the Apollo launches. Since the communications lines were still open, Amos must be all right. Maybe Phillips had insisted on making a televised speech. Terrorists loved to hear themselves talk.

Meanwhile, Iceberg's crew were trapped as hostages on board Atlantis, sitting ducks on the launchpad.

Knowing NASA bureaucracy, they were probably given no reason and thought they were waiting on an indefinite hold-and all the while they were p.a.w.ns for a ridiculous ransom.

Maybe if Iceberg could get in touch with Gator Green directly, he could convince the crew to exit the shuttle, take cover in the emergency bunkers. That would remove one of Phillips's major bargaining chips.

The thought of getting the crew out of danger-his crew-gave Iceberg a renewed sense of hope, and a motivation that he could somehow strike back. He couldn't ask for more.

Dragging his cast, he limped behind the shack to where the three-wheeled all-terrain buggy had been parked. He set his mouth at the sight of Salvador's body, slumped against the back wall. Iceberg knew the s.p.a.ce program had been the old man's life; every memento in the small shack reflected Salvador's enthusiasm for NASA-the shuttle patches, a picture of Salvador and his wife with the crew of Apollo 10.

Reverently, feeling queasy in his stomach, Iceberg hauled the old guard into the shack and laid him on the floor. Panting, breaking into a sweat from the pain and his own grief, Iceberg straightened Salvador, then reached up to turn off the TV monitor, which continued to replay "news a.n.a.lysis" and sound bites. "No need for you to have to listen to that garbage."

One of the news broadcasts replayed the ransom demand while hastily conscripted "experts" discussed other hostage crises. Like Nicole, everybody wanted to talk the situation to death. But that was typical nowadays-they'd rather flash a Vu-graph showing the possibilities than make a commitment. At least Iceberg intended to do something.

Limping, he grabbed his daypack and thought again about obtaining a weapon, but he didn't dare risk running the gauntlet of buried land mines to reach the tripod-mounted rifles, which were themselves wired to motion sensors. He'd look mighty stupid if he got himself mowed down with n.o.body else around to shoot at him.

No, he wasn't planning to get into a shootout. He was just going to make a call to the shuttle c.o.c.kpit.

Next procedure, just like going through a "Dash-One." One thing at a time on the checklist.

He limped around back to the small three-wheeler. With its fat balloon tires and putt-putt engine, the little ATV was the only way he could get around fast enough to make a difference. He'd have to chuck the E and E'ing, and hope that Mr. Phillips had only enough people to cover critical points around the restricted area. No one expected Iceberg to be here, already inside.

Iceberg climbed on the three-wheeled buggy, gingerly lifting his cast and it's now muddy covering over the seat, and pushed the starter. He revved the flat-sounding engine that sent up blue-white coils of exhaust. He knew of one other place inside the restricted area that had the necessary radio equipment to contact his crew, another place that should have been cleared of personnel for the launch.

Spinning the fat tires, he made off overland for the towering Vehicle a.s.sembly Building, a good three miles away.

The ride was b.u.mpy, but no more so than the off-road biking he'd done at the sand dunes south of here during the early months of astronaut training, him and Nicole on the weekends, blazing their own trails, exploring. Their relationship had crashed and burned, but at least Iceberg knew the terrain of the KSC and its surrounding Merritt Island National Wildlife Sanctuary.

The Vehicle a.s.sembly Building loomed larger as he sped for the ma.s.sive squarish structure. Heading west, he couldn't see the multistory American flag painted on the front; it dwarfed everything around, andbeside it was the red-white-and-blue rounded star of the Bicentennial symbol.

From his perspective, the VAB looked like a huge white monument, jutting up alone in the swamplands.

It towered high above the flat terrain like a giant's building block on the edge of the wide and sluggish Banana Creek, which was used as a turn basin for barges bearing the shuttle's external fuel tanks. Parallel tracks of multilayered gravel formed the crawlerway, the straight path used to haul the ma.s.sive launch-prepped orbiters from the VAB out to the pad.

Coming in overland, Iceberg flew from the soft, weed-covered ground onto the concrete parking lot.

Iceberg headed for the half-open giant hangar doors that could raise up in sections and slide sideways to allow rocket a.s.semblies to emerge on slow-moving crawler vehicles. The sound of his vehicle puttered like shots from a toy machine gun, but he saw no indication of anyone around to hear him.

He shut the buggy's engine down, then swung off the padded seat, grabbing his pack. He hobbled across the concrete ap.r.o.n toward the cool, shadowy interior of the VAB, a mouse entering a hole in the wall.

The inside of the building was as voluminous as five Empire State Buildings. It echoed like a giant man-made cave as he stepped inside. Metal-gray structures meshed with the cement floor. A forklift at the other end of the building looked like a toy in the distance. The ceiling yawned nearly two hundred feet above him, and the opposite wall was a football field away. If he looked up, he would get dizzy from the myriad catwalks incredibly high above. Iceberg had heard engineers say that clouds sometimes formed at the top of the stratospheric high bay.

Two solid rocket motor engines hung in a preparation carriage, mounted to the tall structure of the Mobile Launcher Platform, ready to be mated to the next shuttle due to come into the a.s.sembly bay. The previous...o...b..ter, Endeavour, had recently completed its long, slow journey out to launchpad 39B, scheduled for launch not long after Atlantis. Already the VAB was prepped for the next orbiter, Discovery, currently undergoing reconditioning in the Orbiter Processing Facility.

Business as usual at America's s.p.a.ceport, he thought. But a lot of things would change after today.

With his limping jog, Iceberg quickly reached the downstairs command post at the side of the VAB high bay, an office that served as a checkpoint for all shuttle moving operations.

The gla.s.s door was locked. Great. At least they didn't have alarms rigged to these internal offices.

He spotted a rack of tools fastened to the wall, each item marked with a code-locator number. He unlatched a long wrench, painted sky-blue for easy finding, and returned to the gla.s.s door. Turning his head, he smashed the window out just above the handle, then reached in to open the door from the inside.

Transparent walls around the room gave supervisors an un.o.bstructed view of all shuttle a.s.sembly activities inside the bay. The desk held two phones, a radio, check sheet, clipboards, and a stained coffee cup that looked as if it hadn't been washed since Apollo-Soyuz.

As he entered the office, Iceberg saw a radio. Switching it on, Iceberg tuned to the main shuttle comm frequency. Gator's voice came over the speaker, querying about the extended countdown hold and receiving only a double-talk answer.

With a sigh of relief, Iceberg swung a swivel chair around and slumped down, grateful to take weight off his foot. He could count on Gator Green, his best friend and the best d.a.m.ned pilot he had ever known-next to himself, of course.

When the Atlantis crew had flown from Houston cross-country to KSC, two per aircraft, Gator had piloted while Iceberg rode behind him in the backseat of the T-38. The crew had roared eastward in a dawn flight to arrive in Florida at mid-morning, landing their four jets on the sparkling runway.

During the flight, the two friends had a chance for plenty of conversation, lightweight banter, and cautious questions until Gator finally asked him about Panther, how she had left the astronaut corps to be a desk jockey. Iceberg had been bitter, while Gator had been quite understanding, even defending Nicole-but then Gator never managed to speak ill of anyone. Iceberg had shut down his own emotions, refusing to understand Nicole's point of view, preferring his own explanations.

The jets had touched down, taxiing forward to meet the small group of news representatives, NASA Security with explosives-sniffing dogs snooping around the news vans, and a few cheering family members and supporters. It seemed to Iceberg a pitifully small crowd. He and the Atlantis crew gathered around a microphone for the standard-issue rah-rah speech, then marched off to crew debriefing and, later, isolation in prep for the launch several weeks away.

Iceberg remembered that newly appointed Launch Director Nicole Hunter had been in the crowd that day, standing quietly in the back, making no statements and refusing to meet his eye.

Now, in the VAB, Iceberg thought briefly about trying to get hold of Nicole directly. But she was a hostage in Launch Control, and he couldn't afford to let the terrorists know what was going on. She wouldjust have to trust his instincts.

Picking up the microphone, he punched in one of the private frequencies from memory. No way did he intend to let Phillips know he was out here by using the main comm channel. "Gator, Iceberg. Do you read?" He waited a moment. Nothing. He tried again. "Gator, Iceberg-do you read me? This is urgent."

Still nothing. c.r.a.p. He'd hoped at least someone in the crew would be listening to the science channels used by payload specialists to run their onboard experiments. Typically, NASA didn't trust the science geeks on Earth to communicate directly with the astronauts, but the old ways were changing. So if no one was listening now, that meant either the crew didn't know what was going on outside the shuttle, or the payload specialists had switched off those frequencies.

He punched in the main comm frequency. "Gator, Iceberg-Payload b.u.t.ton two." He immediately switched to a prearranged frequency the crew would know from the checklist, but nothing happened. He tried again. "Come on, dammit!"

Seconds later a cautious voice came over the radio. "Iceberg?"

Iceberg felt his heart yammer. Yes! He leaned forward in his chair, forgetting the ordeal he had undergone the last half hour. "Gator, I don't have much time."

"Iceberg, what the h.e.l.l are you doing on this channel? CAPCOM will have a fit! Where are you?"

"Gator, shut up. I've got something important to tell you."

22.

ATLANTIS.

GATOR SWITCHED OFF THE onboard radio in cold astonishment. Iceberg's voice had been broadcast over the shuttle's main intercom system to the entire crew, breathlessly a.s.serting that Atlantis was being held hostage. It chilled him to realise that the news explained a lot of the strange happenings.

The shuttle's c.o.c.kpit windows stared up and ahead, straight up into the blue Florida sky-effectively blinding them to anything happening on the ground away from the launchpad.

He looked over as Dr. Marc Franklin snorted. "What's the matter, Marc?" Gator asked. "You don't believe him?"

Franklin looked disgusted. "Lieutenant Commander Green, your friend has gone one step too far in his practical jokes. Don't you think we'd have been able to verify this before his call? How many other channels of information do we have coming into the shuttle?"

"And how many times has CAPCOM refused to answer our questions about this indefinite hold?" he said defensively. "If the LCC has been taken over, like Iceberg said-"

"It's a p.i.s.s-poor joke. That cowboy may be amused by his stupid fighter-pilot pranks, but a stunt like this could cost us the mission-and his career." Franklin picked up the checklist, as if it might have an answer for him. "Since he can't fly himself, he wants to ground us, too."

Alexandra Koslovsky's voice came from behind and below in her mission specialist's chair. "This team knows Colonel Iceberg well enough, Dr. Franklin. He understands difference between joking and seriousness."

Franklin twisted in his seat and frowned down at the pretty cosmonaut as if he couldn't believe what she had said.

"Standard procedure, Marc," Gator spoke up. "We've got to check this out. Iceberg has more respect for this shuttle-and for us-than any other person in NASA. Just check it out."

"Great," muttered Franklin, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "What's going to happen next-mutiny?

We abandon ship because he says 'boo'?"

Gator reached up to change the frequency on the main c.o.c.kpit comm, drawing a deep breath to keep from making a retort that he would regret. If it had been Iceberg sitting in the left-hand seat, Gator would have given a snappy, smarta.s.s answer. But Franklin showed all the signs of someone who was in over his head, taking everything personally and listening to no advice.

Gator said, "It won't hurt to ask a few careful questions, just in case. Isn't it strange that CAPCOMhasn't given us any reason for the hold? They always give a reason, even if it's only to cover their own b.u.t.ts."

"Maybe they're too busy trying to get us out of this hold."

Gator gritted his teeth. "That's not the way it's supposed to be done. It's not in the checklist, and it sure as h.e.l.l was never in the simulator. This isn't a green card with a new problem, Marc."

Franklin looked annoyed. "We'll see about this." He reached up and changed the main radio to CAPCOM. He clicked his microphone even as Gator tried to caution him. Franklin brushed him aside.

"CAPCOM, Atlantis. Do you copy?"

When Nicole Hunter's voice came back, she sounded strained. "Atlantis, we need you to sit tight.

We're working on a time-critical problem. We're, uh, having difficulty with the comm and need these channels for the engineers to inspect the system. We'll get back to you as soon as we can.

"Hey!" sputtered Gator. "What the h.e.l.l is Panther doing speaking for Houston CAPCOM? She can't do that!"

Franklin raised his eyebrows at Gator and clicked on the mike. "Copy that, Launch Control. Please be informed that we have received some . . . uh, spurious transmissions on this frequency. Can you verify any unusual problems at LCC? Unauthorized access, for instance-"

Gator flicked off the microphone and grabbed Franklin's elbow. "Careful. You know something's wrong if Launch Control is speaking directly to us-CAPCOM would never allow that to happen! What if Iceberg's right?"

Franklin shook off Gator's hand. "Excuse me, Launch Control-has there been an unscheduled change in CAPCOM procedures?"