Delta Green - [53]

Delta Green, though over ten miles away and stretching for the six thousand-foot peaks of the mountain range, was clearly shown. He could tell now that her turbojets were operating.

The target rose centered over her.

Both Wasp IIs screamed away.

“Two missiles launched,” Munoz reported on the Tac Two channel.

The second missile was slaved to the guidance system of the first, and Munoz used his helmet targeting system to guide the first directly at the MakoShark.

Delta Green curved to the right.

The Wasp IIs curved to the right, chasing the fugitive.

Delta Green disappeared.

Behind a mountain peak.

Both missiles impacted the peak, making tiny orange explosions in the distance.

“Shit!” Munoz yelled.

“What does that tell me?” Haggar asked.

“Missed, goddamn it!”

“He’s hiding in the mountains,” McKenna said.

“Red’s with you.”

“Yellow’s coming on hard,” Conover said. “Give me an approximate location, Tiger.”

Munoz read off the coordinates as Delta Blue, now at eight thousand feet, made the turn around the peak.

Nothing.

McKenna scanned left to right.

Still nothing.

Looked up.

Delta Green was in the vertical, twenty thousand feet above them, on full rocket thrust.

“Son of a bitch!” he yelled and started into the rocket checklist.

But he knew he was already too late.

Space was a big place.

And it was mostly dark.

Chapter Ten

JACK ANDREWS AIR BASE

Dimatta and Williams were shooting pool in the recreation center. Dimatta had a cold bottle of Michelob and a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich at hand, and Williams was sipping occasionally from a stemmed glass of Chablis.

They had been combining weapons trials on Delta Orange with the shakedown schedule for preoperations certified craft, and they still had two more three-hour flights to complete. But they had come up against the Space Command’s imposed maximum flying time of fifty hours per week, and they were grounded for the next twenty-four hours.

Dimatta didn’t think of himself as particularly tired, but General Brackman had a thing about fatigued pilots making errors with expensive, tax-supported vehicles.

He leaned over the table and lined up his shot. “Four ball in the cross-side pocket.”

“On your grandmother’s wedding day, maybe.”

“No sweat”

“You realize how much grease and fat are in that bacon?” Williams asked.

“I got a lab analysis before I ordered it,” Dimatta said. “It wasn’t quite up to my standards, but I figured I could live with it.”

Dimatta stroked the cue stick tenderly, the cue ball snapped forward, ticked the four ball, which caromed off the side rail, crossed the table, inched toward the side pocket, slowed… slowed… slowed… then dropped in.

“Shit! Unbelievable luck,” Williams said.

Dimatta loved a good shot, whether it was on a pool table, or from the cockpit of his MakoShark, aiming twenty millimeter tracers at something elusive.

“They missed Green,” Williams said.

Both of them had listened to the radio net during the pursuit, but neither had spoken about it until now.

“Yeah, they did.”

“It’s too bad,” Williams said, “especially if they’ve got all those Wasp IIs now.”

“Oh, I don’t know, George. We may yet get a chance to get her back in one piece. That’s what Brackman and McKenna really want.”

“You’re into reading minds, now?”

“When they’re that easy to read, yeah, I am.”

Dimatta took plenty of time to line up his next shot, a short, straight giveaway. He put lots of reverse left spin on the cue ball, and tapped it.

“Bingo,” he said, picking up the chalk and caressing the cue tip with it.

“You listened to them, Frank. The guy’s good. We won’t get her back easy.”

“Maybe.”

“If she has to go down, I hope to hell we’re the ones who do it.”

“You went and named the computer,” Dimatta accused.

“Marla. It’s a good name, Frank. Fits her.”

PHNOM PENH

In the house in the compound, Shelepin and Pavel had dinner together. Shelepin had urged Yelena to go out to dinner so that they could be alone.

He was nervous, and he could tell that Pavel was nervous also.

They were drinking iced vodka, and the levels in the glasses were dropping faster than the dinner courses could be served by the Khmer servants.

A telephone on a long cord had been placed on the table near his elbow, and though Shelepin kept an eye on it, it refused to ring.

Earlier, Sergeant Kasartskin, who was monitoring radio and television in the United States, had reported no news stories about stolen missiles. They were keeping it quiet. The Americans did not like to stir up media hornets’ nests.

Maslov had not been seen since morning. He was almost four hours past the time of his expected return. The pilot seemed to make up his own schedules once he was in the air.

“It could all fall apart, Sergei.”

Pavel smiled, but weakly, “Anatoly. You worry too much. There will be a simple explanation.”

“Oleg Druzhinin believes in these space craft. He thinks they are infallible. What if he is wrong?”

“You have taken a close look at it, as I have,” Pavel replied. “I, for one, was truly impressed. It is all we need to accomplish our ends.”

“What if Maslov had a heart attack? The craft may be invincible, but humans are not.”