Dark Star

With his heart pounding, Brognola gave no reply, studying the scene of destruction closely as the camera took almost a minute to get past the smoking blast crater to finally focus on a relatively undamaged section of the launch facility. Spread out in neat rows were dozens of black plastic body bags, armed soldiers standing guard while medics ferried the still forms into waiting ambulances. Far in the distance, several Navy warships could be seen along the coastline, while swarms of Apache and SuperCobra gunships hovered overhead.

The room seemed to grow still as Brognola said nothing for a few seconds; there was only the muted hush of the jet engines.

“How many people did we lose?” the big Fed asked, controlling his seething emotions. Normally the Cape was as clean as an operating room, washed and scrubbed almost daily. Now it looked like the bombed-out sections of Beirut.

“Eighty-six are confirmed dead,” the President reported. “With another hundred missing, including a lot of tourists.”

Inhaling deeply, Brognola turned away from the grisly vista of destruction and sat back in his chair. For a long moment he said nothing, lost in dark contemplation.

“Any idea who did it?” he asked.

“None.”

“Damn. And we’re sure this was not a nuke?”

“Absolutely positive,” the President replied, scowling down at the closed report. “Both NASA and the DOD checked for residual radiation, and NSA Keyhole satellites registered nothing out of the usual on the magnetic spectrum.”

“All right, if they weren’t hit by a nuke, then what happened?”

“We’re not exactly sure,” the President replied, tapping a few buttons on his desk. “But the NSA was able to retrieve this image from the cell phone of a Mr. Thomas Hutchings who was fishing about a mile off Cocoa Beach.”

The monitor flickered, then abruptly changed into a jumpy view of the bow of a fishing boat, and a white line stretching down into the water.

Just then something fiery shot down from the sky like a film of a missile launch played in reverse. Smoke exploded from the Cape, then a series of bright explosions, closely followed by a blinding light flash that extended outward. The corona was dotted with bodies and tumbling cars, and pushed back the choppy waves to create a tidal wave that slammed into the fishing boat and sent it flying. The cell phone was dropped to the deck with a clatter and there were only chaotic images for a few seconds, mixed with the sound of splintering wood before the screen went blank.

“Hell of an explosion,” Brognola said in an ordinary voice.

“A hell of an explosion,” the President agreed.

“How long did the attack take?”

“Three minutes, fourteen seconds.”

“To destroy the whole damn Cape?”

“And escape,” the Man said.

Unbelievable.

“Was radar able to track the trajectory of the…whatever it was, coming or going? That could tell us a lot about it’s origin,” Brognola stated.

“No.”

Frowning, the big Fed started to speak, but the one-word answer spoke volumes. This was just incredible, but horribly true. The entire facility had been destroyed, annihilated was a better word, in only a few minutes by something that moved faster than a missile, dropped straight down from the sky, was radar invisible and killed with fire from the underneath.

“Show it to me again,” Brognola ordered brusquely. “Slower this time, with maximum magnification focused on the flying object.”

The President hit another button on the small console and the monitor came to life once more, the nightmare scene advancing in a series of freeze-frame shots every few seconds.

“Hold it right there,” Brognola said as something moved horizontally across the base.

The picture went motionless, and he stared hard at an object momentarily silhouetted by a rising cloud of white smoke. It looked like a cone of some sort. A cone riding a column of fire…

“So it has finally been done,” the big Fed said with a sigh, rubbing his forehead. “Somebody solved the power problem and built an SSO.”

“Unfortunately that is also the opinion of the Department of Defense,” the President said, turning off the monitor. “As well as myself, which is why I immediately called you.”

A working SSO, a single-stage-to-orbit rocket. Brognola tried not to shudder. Several years ago he had been present at the maiden flight of the Delta Clipper, the first test model of an SSO ever built. If successful, it could have been the first true spaceship in human history, a rocket that launched straight up, standing on its own legs, and landed doing the same thing. Just like in the comic books. A genuine rocket ship. Unfortunately the Delta Clipper failed. The vehicle had gained barely a hundred feet of height when it had a massive short circuit in the controls and developed a fuel leak that almost killed the crew. Also, the engines had been pitifully weak, barely able to lift the tiny, thirty-foot-tall X-ship. The test flight was considered a total failure, and the project canceled. It was the considered opinion of everybody involved that the present state of modern technology was simply insufficient to build such an incredible complex piece of machinery.

Which was actually for the best, Brognola noted grimly. A working SSO, or X-ship as it had been nicknamed, would have been a security nightmare of gigantic proportions. Able to launch from a driveway and to land on top of an apartment building halfway around the world, a successful X-ship could have heralded a tidal wave of smuggling that would have engulfed the entire world. It would rise straight up into space, then drop back down again in a steep curve, using the natural rotation of Earth to cover thousands of miles in only a few minutes. Overnight, border guards, harbor patrols, custom inspectors and airport security would have become obsolete. Weapons, drugs—anything—could almost literally be delivered to the front door of the customer. Terrorists would have been able to land right on top of their targets—buildings, bridges, schools—and use the fiery exhaust of the X-ship to do more damage than most conventional explosives. Why carry a bomb when the thundering exhaust of the rocket engines was even more powerful? Unless they got hold of a nuke. A working X-ship armed with a tactical nuclear weapon could destroy any place on Earth, and nobody would be able to stop it. The fantastic speeds involved and the vertical trajectory would make all conventional air defense systems virtually useless.

All that was needed was for some lunatic to also make the things invisible to radar, like a stealth bomber, and you’d have the end of the world, Brognola thought.

Only now it seemed that somebody had solved those technical problems and had just gotten in the first strike.

“Okay, we’re facing an X-ship,” Brognola said, cracking his knuckles thoughtfully as he digested the impossible information. “Any chance the lab boys at the Pentagon were able to get an estimate of the size of the SSO from the cell phone video?”

Reaching for a coffee urn, the President poured himself a cup, took a sip, then placed it aside. “Yes, roughly 120 feet tall.”

About the size of a ten-story building, Brognola mused. No way that monster was going to be hidden in a garage or car port. Okay, one small point in our favor. It’s invisible, but huge. That sounded like a contradiction of terms, but sadly was not.

“Have there been any other attacks?”

“Hal, every other major launch facility in the world has been hit. Edwards Air Force Base, Houston, Compose Island in Brazil, Woomera Base in Australia, French Guyana, Rocket City in Russia, Tanegashima Island in Japan, Sriharikota Island in India…every launch facility capable of putting a shuttle into space has been flattened. Utterly smashed. The death toll for all of the bases combined is monstrous.”

“This is why we’re meeting here,” Brognola said suddenly, tapping the arm of the chair. “A moving target will be harder for them to hit.”

“Exactly.” The President paused, then added, “Plus each of the three planes have another jumbo jet riding above it as a physical shield.”

Damn, that was smart. Once more his admiration for the sheer guts of the U.S. Secret Service was raised. The President would have to stay on the move from now on, never stopping for anything, refueling in midair, until this crisis was resolved.

If it could be resolved. Annoyed at himself, Brognola shook the negative thoughts from his mind. “Mr. President, is there any chance that we know the sequence of the strikes?” he asked hopefully, concentrating on the task at hand.

“Now, I just know where you’re going with that question,” the Man said, giving a half smile. “And the answer is yes. Compose Island, Rocket City and Cape Canaveral were all hit at the exact same moment, so we’re facing at least three X-ships, with possibly more of them being held in reserve.

“Currently, the Army Corps of Engineers is working on emergency repairs of the facilities,” the President continued, “but it will take several weeks before we’re able to put anything into space again. Maybe a month.”

“A month we don’t have.” Brognola leaned back in the chair. Christ, in a week these things could smash civilization apart. “And I’ll assume that I’ve heard nothing of this on the radio, cable TV or the Internet because the nations involved are trying to keep a tight lid on the matter and prevent a panic.”

“Exactly. No police force in the world could control the rioting if the news of the X-ships was released. This matter must be handled covertly, as quietly as possible.”

“Agreed, sir. Secrecy is mandatory. Too bad nobody was able to shoot one down. We could have learned a lot from the wreckage.”

“Hal, everybody shot at them,” the President said surprisingly. “But bullets did nothing and heat-seekers went straight past the X-ships without even slowing.”

“But they ride a column of fire larger than the Statue of Liberty! How is that possible?”

“Unknown, and part of your assignment,” the President said. Just then, a light flashed on his intercom and the man stabbed it with a stiff finger to turn off the distraction. If it was anything of importance, his secretary would come into the office. “At the moment, Homeland Security is working with the Pentagon to try to come up with some sort of defense, a way to beat the radar shield of the X-ships. From the sheer volume of their engine exhaust, these things must be flying fuel tanks, so a single missile should blow them to hell.”

“But a missile can’t destroy what can’t be seen,” Brognola finished. The combination of stealth technology and the vertical flight path of the X-ships made them virtually unstoppable.

“The FBI is checking into the major corporations still interested in trying to build an SSO—Armadillo Aerospace in Texas, Blue Horizons in California, and the like,” the President went on, templing his fingers. “The CIA is doing the same thing overseas, with Army Intelligence investigating our known enemies in Europe, Navy Intelligence doing the Middle East and Africa, with Air Force Intelligence concentrating on South America.” He paused. “Especially Brazil.”

“Understood,” Brognola declared. “Just because they were the first place hit, that doesn’t mean they’re not actually behind everything and just trying to throw off suspicion.”

“Precisely.” The President frowned. “Now, what I want from Stony Man is for your people to hit the underground, the crime cartels, drug lords and arms dealers.”

“Understood, sir. Somebody paid a fortune to build these things, and it will cost even more to maintain them.”

“Precisely,” the President said, sliding over the sealed manila envelope. “Here is all of the data that we have, copies of the cell phone video, security logs and such, along with all of the information on the Delta Clipper experiments.”

Accepting the envelope, Brognola noted the security seals were still in place. If it had been opened, the white band along the top would have turned red in only a few seconds.

Damn, it was slim , he thought.

“Yes, I know.” The President sighed unhappily. “That’s not much to go on, but…”

“It’ll be enough,” the big Fed stated confidently, rising to his feet once more. “And if not, we’ll get the rest from these murdering bastards just before we shovel them into the dirt.”

“Move fast on this, Hal,” the President said earnestly. “The only possible reason that these X-ships ran a sneak attack on every launch facility was that they don’t want us putting anything into space that might challenge them. Because if they manage to hold the high ground…”

“We lose,” Brognola said bluntly, feeling a surge of cold adrenaline in his gut. “Plain and simple. We lose the whole goddamn world.”

Lifting the telephone receiver, the President waited for only a moment before speaking. “Captain, please head for Dulles airport at once. And I want an immediate take-off as soon as our passenger has disembarked…no, we’ll refuel in the air over Pennsylvania…yes, thank you.” He set down the receiver. “Twenty minutes, Hal.”

Brognola grunted and tucked the folder inside his jacket. Unbidden, the earlier scenes on the wall monitor playing over and over in his mind. It seemed that World War III had started, and the good guys had lost the first battle.

Now everything depended on Stony Man.

CHAPTER TWO

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

In a rush of warm air, the Black Hawk helicopter set down on Stony Man Farm’s helipad. The side hatch was thrown aside and Hal Brognola stepped out clutching a slim manila envelope.

Waiving away the driver of the SUV who would have taken him to the farm house, the big Fed decided to walk the short distance.

By the time he reached the building the door was open and Barbara Price, mission controller, stood on the threshold.

“Here, you better see this,” Brognola said, thrusting the envelope forward.

“Already have,” Price said, pushing it back. “Aaron and his people are hard at work doing an analysis, and I’ve recalled both teams from their current assignments.”

“Excellent,” Brognola said, tucking the envelope away once more. He was not really surprised that the woman was already familiar with the report. Before being recruited into Stony Man, Barbara Price had been a top operative for the NSA. The woman led him into the farm house.

“Are those infrared cameras?” Hal asked as they walked across the spacious room.

Price nodded in acknowledgment. “I don’t know if it will give us a warning in enough time to respond, but it’s the best we could come up with in an hour.”

Reaching the elevator bank, Brognola pressed the call button. “Not bad, but just in case…” The doors opened and they stepped inside.

“I already have several auxiliary video cameras in the barn set to only see in the ultraviolet spectrum,” Price told him as the doors silently closed. “Once again, I have no idea if it will help, but…” She shrugged, leaving the sentence unfinished.

“Well, if it works, we can relay the information to all of our military installations, as well as every friendly nation,” Brognola replied as the car began to descend. “Unfortunately, any civilian targets these bastards hit won’t have that sort of equipment.”

“Yes, I know,” Price stated. “But Aaron has his people working on a few ideas about that.”

“Good to know. The one thing we don’t have is a lot of time.”

The elevator reached the bottom of the shaft and the doors opened with a musical chime. As they exited into a long corridor, Brognola noted the extra blacksuits standing guard. “Expecting trouble?” he asked pointedly.

“Always,” she replied grimly.

As the pair passed a staff room, Brognola could see that it was empty, the break table covered with half-filled cups of steaming coffee, along with partially eaten doughnuts and sandwiches. Mounted in the corner of the ceiling was a flat-screen monitor showing a local news anchor talking excitedly into a microphone and standing in front of a smoky view of Cape Canaveral.

“Damn, the news media has the story,” Brognola muttered irritably. “But I guess we couldn’t kept it from them for very long.”

“I did my best,” Price said, not glancing that way. “At least I have most of the news channels convinced it was merely a fuel leak explosion and not a terrorist attack.”

“How did you manage that?”

“Had the NASA spokesperson deny it vigorously…before they could ask.”

In spite of the situation, the big Fed almost grinned. “Yep, that would do it, all right.”

She shrugged again. “It usually does.”

Reaching the far end of the corridor, they hurried to one of the electric cars that would take them along the underground passageway that led to the Annex building. Moments later, after passing through security, Price and Brognola headed to the Computer Room.

A hushed excitement filled the large room with palpable force. A soft breeze murmured from the wall vents, the pungent smell of strong coffee came from a small kitchenette, and the soft sound of muted rock music floated on the air. Hunched over elaborate workstations, four people were typing madly on keyboards.

“Damn it, there are too many of them!” Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman growled, callused hands pushing his wheelchair a little closer to the wall monitor.

“And this isn’t even half of them,” Carmen Delahunt said, her face hidden behind a VR helmet as her gloved hands fondled the empty air opening computer files on the other side of the world.

“Explain,” Kurtzman demanded, turning the heavy chair in her direction.

“A lot of these companies don’t have computerized files for me to hack,” Delahunt replied. “Some are actually using handwritten ledgers, for God’s sake! There is no way that I can ever track down all of the shipments.”

“Shipments of what?” Price demanded as she advanced closer.

“Air,” Kurtzman said, briefly glancing at her, then turning to wheel back to his workstation. His desk was a mess, covered with papers, CDs, hastily scribbled notes and several books on military history with handwritten corrections in the margins. A steaming mug of coffee stood next to his keyboard.

“Air?” Brognola demanded, crossing his arms.

“Liquid air, actually,” Kurtzman explained, locking the wheels into place. “We did a spectral analysis of the MPEG from the cell phone and found out the X-ship was using conventional rocket fuel.”

“LOX-LOH?” Price demanded skeptically. “But that’s impossible! The combination doesn’t give enough energy to power an SSO!”

“Which means they have some way to boost the reaction, but there’s no denying the facts,” Kurtzman retorted gruffly, tapping a few buttons. “See for yourself.”

With a flicker the main wall screen revealed a wind rainbow with a few interspersed black bars.

“See those color absorption lines?” the cyber wizard said pointing a thick finger at the black bars. “That’s oxygen and hydrogen, no doubt about it.”

“Can they be tricking the sensors somehow?” Brognola asked hesitantly.

Reaching for the mug of coffee, Kurtzman paused to arch an eyebrow. “Trick the visible spectrum?” he asked, sounding incredulous. “No, Hal, the things are using LOX-LOH as fuel. That’s a fact. How they get those reaction pressures is beyond me, though. Hunt is working on a few ideas, but has nothing yet.”

Hearing his name, Professor Hunting Wethers looked up from his workstation for a moment, then returned to the complex mathematical equations scrolling across his monitor. The side monitors were full of three-dimensional images of rocket engines and charts of shock-diamond explosion pulses inside the exhaust flames.

“It doesn’t matter how the terrorists are boosting the engine power of the X-ships,” Price said. “What is important is that if they’re using regular fuels, then they just refuel after every attack.” She paused. “Which means they must have refueling stations hidden all over the world, mountaintops, in the middle of a forest or a desert, anywhere at all. Distance means nothing to these ships.”

“That’s why you’re checking into industrial air plants,” Brognola added, his interest piqued. “To try to track down any recent shipments of liquid oxygen.”

“Close enough,” Kurtzman said. “Only it’s—”

“Hydrogen,” Delahunt interrupted, her gloved hands brushing aside firewalls and massaging access codes. “There’s too many medical uses for liquid oxygen, so hydrogen is much easier to track.”

“Anything usable yet?” Brognola prompted.

“No,” the woman replied curtly, her frustration obvious. “There are simply too many air plants in the world.”

“Roughly a double deuce of them worldwide,” Kurtzman added.

Mentally, Price translated the figure. “Twenty-two thousand plants?”

“At least. Lots of uses for compressed air, you know. Hell, we pack munitions in pure argon, and use liquid halogen in our fire extinguishers! And who’s to say the terrorists haven’t built one for themselves in Borneo or Outer Mongolia.”

“Liquid hydrogen…what an interesting possibility,” a voice murmured. “Yes, that might just work.”

“What do you have, Akira?” Kurtzman demanded, twisting in his chair while setting down his empty mug.

Over at the third workstation, a handsome youth of Japanese ancestry thoughtfully blew a bubble of chewing gum before answering. “I’ve been considering the inability of the heat-seekers to attack to the X-ships,” Tokaido said, unwrapping a fresh piece of bubble gum. Briefly he inspected the sugary piece before sliding it into his mouth. “The only possible answer is liquid nitrogen.”

Frowning, Kurtzman was about to ask a question, then his face brightened. “You mean, a defusement pattern, like Looking Glass?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Damn, that’s clever,” Kurtzman muttered. “Yes, I’ll bet that would work as a heat shield. Not for very long, but obviously for long enough. These things travel so fast.”

“Speed is the key,” Tokaido confirmed, tapping a button before a series of charts flashed into existence on the wall screen.

Price and Brognola looked hard at the diagram. They both knew that Looking Glass was the code name for the 747 jumbo jet used as the mobile headquarters for SAC, the Strategic Air Command, the people who controlled all of the nuclear weapons in the nation’s arsenal. The 747 was heavily armed, and the Air Force had boasted for decades that it could not be shot down. Studying the screen, they now knew why. The moment radar registered an incoming missile, Looking Glass would automatically release a stream of liquid nitrogen that chilled the air around the jet engines, momentarily masking their heat signature. With nothing to lock on to, the enemy missile would simply sail right past the mobile headquarters.

“Doesn’t Air Force One use something similar?” Price asked.

“Sure, the Secret Service invented the idea.”

“How much liquid nitrogen would an X-ship need for this tactic?” Brognola demanded. “Those big engines must be hotter than a hellfire barbecue.”

“At least,” Tokaido replied, snapping his gum. “I don’t know how large a crew they carry, but I’d guess—and it’s purely a guess, mind you—that an X-ship is probably only good for two maybe three ventings. After that, they’d be as vulnerable as any ship. Unfortunately…”

“Unfortunately, after the first missile salvo, they take off faster than lightning,” Kurtzman said, working a calculator program on his console. “Damn it, we’d need a concentrated strike of ten Sidewinders launching in unison, overlapping two other salvos, to get a definite kill on the first attack.”

“Can you set the SAM batteries of the Farm to do that?” Price asked.

After a moment Kurtzman nodded. “Yes,” he said hesitantly. “But we’d have to replace the blacksuits with a master computer, and that would take at least a week.”

“Useless then.” Brognola sighed, grinding a fist into his palm. “But we better send out the word about the overlapping salvos in case somebody else can do it. Maybe the U.K. They have a lot of automation in their defense systems.”