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  He glances at his GPS unit. The numbers are fuzzy. He blinks, focuses. Seven minutes, thirty-six seconds. He’s behind schedule. He turns back to the MacBook. To the chopper’s left is another lattice grate. Tam pivots the chopper towards it then presses a button on top of the joystick.

  White foam shoots from the canister on the side of the chopper’s fuselage. It looks like shaving cream, except you should never put it on your face. The foam hits the grate and expands fast, doubles then quadruples its size. Tam works the joystick, backs the chopper away from the grate as fast as it will go.

  He hears the muted explosion through the shaft beside him. The six windows on the MacBook’s screen flash white then show a mist of fine particles. The air clears and he edges the chopper back towards the grate, except the grate is no longer there. Used for detonating unexploded mines, the nitromethane foam has done its work. Tam had reconfigured its composition so it would combust after being exposed to oxygen for ten seconds. He grips the joystick hard and eases the chopper through the jagged opening. He glances at his GPS unit. Four minutes, fifty-two seconds. He hasn’t got long.

  **

  Dirk feathers his delta wing, knocks off some speed, looks at his GPS unit. The arrow is green and the clock reads four minutes and forty-nine seconds.

  He glances at Henri, 200 metres to the left. He can’t help but feel a deep loyalty towards his commander. Henri had been the one who turned Dirk’s life around, beginning on that morning two decades ago when he recognised an ‘intriguing potential’ in the German.

  There had been a time when Dirk was recognised every hour of every day, stopped in the street for a photo, an autograph or a proposition, or all three at once. Then it ceased. Abruptly. After he cut down the oak.

  He hasn’t thought about that tree for the longest time. It stood in the centre of the driveway in front of his newly acquired castle, a castle bought with earnings from an outrageously successful piece of Europop ear candy called ‘Tango in Berlin’.

  Dirk told everyone he wanted to cut down the tree because it blocked his view of the Düsseldorf countryside from the master bedroom. In truth, even with the curtains drawn, the tree’s gnarled branches made unsettling shadows on the ceiling above his bed at night that gave him nightmares.

  Dirk decided that the best solution was to cut down the tree. That it was a 470-year-old oak, over 30 metres in height and 100 tonnes in weight, did not deter him. So, late one night, Dirk took to it with an axe. The oak, far from being the healthy, towering megalith it appeared to be, was, in fact, rotted to the core with water mould. After just seventeen spirited swipes the tree keeled over, crashed to the ground and flattened Dirk’s new Bentley. It was no great disaster. It was insured and if the insurance company didn’t pay up he could afford another.

  Next morning the salvage team he employed to remove the tree uncovered two naked bodies in the car’s wreckage. It was clear that the couple had died in flagrante. The bodies belonged to Olga, Dirk’s supermodel girlfriend, and Raffi, Dirk’s best friend and band mate. While Dirk sang and was the face of Big Arena, their pop duo, Raffi was the brains of the outfit, the one who wrote and produced the music. He wasn’t sure what was worse, the fact that his best friend and his girlfriend had an affair or that he was accused of their murder.

  The court case lasted four months. Dirk was cleared but quickly became Germany’s OJ Simpson, proved innocent yet considered guilty, and ostracised because of it. He was also broke, forced to liquidate his assets to pay for his defence and settle the civil cases bought by Raffi’s and Olga’s families. He couldn’t even record music any more as no one wanted to work with the guy who cut down the oak.

  So Dirk changed his name and disappeared. He worked his way around the globe, primarily on freighters, though he wasn’t choosy and would do whatever was on offer as long as he was paid. Whenever he was recognised he would start a fight, his aim being to alter his face so there was no visual connection to the pixie-featured, flaxen-haired lead singer of Big Arena. After six years of drifting and fighting this bargain-basement plastic surgery had worked beautifully. He now resembled Billy Ray rather than Miley Cyrus and was rarely recognised. He was also living hand-to-mouth on the streets of Paris.

  That was when he came to the attention of one Henri Leon. Early one morning twenty years ago the Frenchman identified an ‘intriguing potential’ in the man who cleaned his windscreen at a set of traffic lights not far from the Arc de Triomphe and Dirk’s life was changed forever.

  Everyone in the crew had a similar story of Henri’s positive intervention in their lives, that’s why they were so dedicated to him, and willing to go above and beyond for the man.

  Dirk glances at his GPS unit once again. Four minutes, twenty seconds. Not long now.

  **

  The cement room is lit by a dull yellow safety light positioned above the only door, a solid-steel item locked from the opposite side. Beyond the door lies a five-kilometre passageway with a locked and guarded entry point. The now destroyed air vent was the sole means of ventilation for the room, the only way to let heat out while making sure none of those alligators or vipers found their way in.

  The heat is generated by a large grey junction box that sits in the centre of the room and hums with a deep vibrato. Out of the left wall run three cables that terminate at the grey box. From the right wall three similar cables enter the room and terminate at the box too. From the middle of the box emerges a set of three large conduits. They disappear into the far wall.

  Tam flies the chopper to a position above the large conduits then releases the joystick’s trigger. The chopper’s blades stop and it drops onto the central conduit. The suction-cap feet at the end of its metal legs grab the PVC casing and hold fast. With a shaking forefinger Tam types on the MacBook’s keyboard.

  C U T

  The underside of the chopper’s fuselage slides open and a tiny circular saw flips out and spins to life. It slices into the cable’s PVC casing and cuts an incision. The saw then pivots and cuts another incision at a right angle to the first. A camera buried within the chopper’s fuselage shows Tam what the saw is doing.

  He reaches into the box that housed the joystick and pulls out a right-hand glove. Five thin computer circuit ribbons sprout from a matchbox-sized terminal at its wrist and connect to its fingers at the first knuckle. A USB cable emerges from the rear of the terminal. Tam pulls the glove onto his swollen right hand. It’s tight but he ignores it, plugs the cable into the MacBook’s second USB port. He glances at his GPS unit. Two minutes and fifteen seconds remain.

  The saw pivots again, starts its third cut, parallel to the first, then pivots again, cuts to the point where it started, a small square now sliced into the conduit’s PVC cover. Tam then, with his unbitten hand, pecks on the keyboard.

  H A N D

  The saw slides into the belly of the chopper and out flips ‘Thing’, named as such because Tam couldn’t think of anything better. It resembles the skeleton of a small hand, except instead of bone the fingers are titanium alloy, the muscles are microactuators and the knuckles are bidirectional hinges. Each finger has a hook at its end and its wrist pivots on a motorised ball joint.

  Tam wiggles his fingers in the shaking glove. On the screen, Thing’s fingers move in unison. He extends its index finger towards the cut section of PVC and flips it away to expose a myriad of wires. He studies them. There are dozens of different colours and sizes. He needs to find the wire with yellow and red stripes. He works the glove and Thing delves into the mass of spaghetti, pulls away wire after wire. It’s all been for naught if Tam can’t find it.

  ‘There!’ Thing grabs it, pulls it towards the camera. It’s not yellow and red! It’s orange and purple. Tam releases the wire, glances at the GPS unit. Forty-one seconds to go.

  He continues the search. ‘Where the hell is it?’ There. He’s sure this time. He works the trembling glove and Thing snags the wire. It slides off. He grabs at it again
, hooks it, lifts the wire towards the camera. Yellow and red stripes. ‘Yes.’ He glances at the GPS unit. Twenty-three seconds. His free hand pecks at the MacBook’s keyboard.

  C U T

  The saw flips out of the chopper’s belly and spins to life. Tam moves the glove and Thing jams the wire against the saw, slices it in two. Tam’s fingers work the glove and Thing pushes one end of the wire towards one of four numbered slots on the underside of the chopper. It’s difficult, his hand shakes so much. He’s practised it a thousand times before but never after he’d been cottonmouthed. He glances at the GPS unit. Ten seconds.

  He guides the quivering wire into slot number one. One more to go. His eyelids sag. He forces them open, works the glove. Thing picks up the second piece of wire, pushes it towards slot number two. It misses.

  ‘Come on!’ He tries again. It slides home. He types three letters on the MacBook’s keyboard:

  O F F

  **

  Every light on Launch Complex 39B blinks out and Atlantis disappears into darkness. A thousand feet above and a thousand feet to the east, Henri and his three bat-men approach. Henri checks the GPS unit on his chest and grins. Tam and Gerald completed their assigned task with exactly one second to spare.

  A smattering of emergency lights blink on and outline the Launch Complex with a muted yellow glow. It’s enough light for the job ahead but not enough for the Frenchman’s team to be seen. He tips the delta wing into a steep dive and plunges towards the complex. The other bat-men follow suit.

  A thousand feet instantly becomes 700 then 400. Henri unlatches the delta wing, pulls the ripcord and a black ram-air parachute explodes open behind him. It stays that way for exactly five seconds, just long enough to break his fall.

  He lands hard beside the hammerhead crane atop the Launch Complex and rolls to a stop. In quick time he yanks off his helmet, flips off the oxygen mask, unstraps the wing’s frame, pulls in his chute and picks up the delta wing. Ten seconds later Nico lightly touches down beside him. Five seconds after that Dirk lands next to the Italian. They quickly perform the same routine as Henri.

  Cobbin is last down. He comes in too hot, almost horizontal, and slams into the middle of the lightning mast. The sound reverberates. He falls, then his chute snags, jolts him to a stop. He’s hung up, 15 metres from the ground.

  The Frenchman exhales, the expletive ‘merde’ buried within the expelled air.

  Cobbin lurches, drops four metres. Henri, Dirk and Nico move to the base of the mast. As he goes the Frenchman reaches to his waist, unclips his Glock’s holster. If Cobbin is incapacitated, be it a ruptured cruciate or a heavy concussion or a broken foot, then Henri will use the weapon swiftly and without remorse. They will not carry an injured man and endanger the mission or the rest of the crew.

  Cobbin drops again, five metres from the base now. Then again. Faster this time, he plummets towards the deck then jolts to a stop, half a metre from the surface.

  He’s physically fine, has cut the chute’s cords and let his weight pull him down. He slices the last cord and drops to the deck. Embarrassed, he doesn’t make eye contact with the others. ‘Sorry.’

  He removes the helmet and oxygen mask then notices Henri’s unclipped holster. ‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, right, Commander?’

  Henri clips the holster shut. ‘You will do the same for me if necessary.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Henri has a comprehensive disdain for American culture, rails against an imperialism that makes rap the preferred music of youth in his beloved Paris, yet he venerates one quintessentially American icon. Star Trek. What he admires about it is the code under which the characters live and work.

  The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few is that code crystallised, a line of dialogue he heard in a movie many years ago, on a first date with the woman who would become his wife. It’s an ideal he has painstakingly instilled in his men. He’s always wondered if it would have the same resonance if they knew he’d borrowed it from Mr Spock.

  Henri looks up at Cobbin’s parachute, still snagged on the mast. ‘Let’s get it down.’ They each grasp a severed line and pull. The chute rips away, drops to their feet, leaves only a small patch of material halfway up the mast, not enough to draw attention.

  Henri turns to the others. ‘Be ready to move in ninety seconds.’

  They nod, kneel and open their delta wings.

  **

  10

  The White Room’s emergency lights cast a dull yellow pall that makes everyone look like they’ve spent too long in the solarium. Judd had been halfway through checking the seals on pilot Rick Calvin’s flight suit when the lights, and everything that runs off mains power, went bye-bye.

  A beam of light plays across the White Room’s ceiling. The torch is held by Sam ‘the Walrus’ Schulman, leader of the Closeout Crew, the guy who runs the White Room. Sam does look like a walrus, though it’s not his weight that draws the comparison so much as the jowls and grey, drooping mustache.

  Sam speaks into his headset’s microphone but can’t raise anyone in the Launch Control Center. Not surprising. The communications relay is powered off the pad and the pad has no power. Sam pulls his headset to his neck and pushes a walkie-talkie to his ear. The subsequent conversation with Launch Control is short and sweet because they don’t know what the problem is either.

  Judd realises they could be in for a long night. All power and communications run from the Launch Complex to the Launch Control Center five and a half kilometres away along a series of conduits buried deep underground. If the problem is in one of those conduits they could be waiting here for hours doing sweet FA, then be back tomorrow. On the other hand, if the glitch is localised in the new Firing Room they might be able to locate the problem quickly and get on with it.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Rhonda’s frustrated voice echoes out of the shuttle’s flight deck, swirls through the open hatch and thumps into the White Room. Inside Atlantis, she’s already strapped in, as are Martie and Dean Steinhower, the second mission specialist. ‘I haven’t even got comms. Sam?’

  ‘Travelling.’ Sam starts towards the shuttle’s open hatch to update her. He kneels, crawls through the hatch’s narrow circular aperture, head ducked, arse high. Not a dignified look. That’s why the media were never allowed to photograph astronauts doing it. On the pad the White Room covered it and on the runway the Egress Vehicle did the same.

  ‘It’s getting stuffy in here.’ Rick says it to no one in particular. ‘I’m going to step outside, take a breath.’

  Poor old Rick, a world without air-conditioning is a world he can’t tolerate. Judd rolls his eyes. God forbid an emergency forced him to land a shuttle somewhere unseasonable.

  Judd pulls down a folding seat attached to the wall and takes a load off. He sits with a sigh that says he has better things to do than wait around. The frustration is, in fact, all studied. Truth is, he likes being here because it means he’s close to the action.

  **

  Severson sits on the riser at the front of Firing Room Four in the heart of the Launch Control Center, stares at the monitor in front of him and tries his best to look cool. It’s not working.

  He should know how to fix this problem, he’s in charge, after all, but he doesn’t have a clue. The screen in the console gives him nothing, no information about the state of the shuttle or its myriad systems. All power, video and communication with the spacecraft have been cut off, bar Sam’s walkie-talkie.

  Severson stands and looks out the two-storey-high windows to the right, tries to appear thoughtful, like he’s working on a solution. Out the towering window he should see the shuttle lit up like Broadway. Instead it appears like an apparition, a ghostly outline courtesy of the pad’s emergency lights.

  ‘Shit a brick.’ He says it then instinctively checks that the switch on the comms box at his hip, which is attached to his headset and its microphone, is off. It
is. ‘Hurry up, you fools.’ The ‘fools’ in question are Jake Asprey and his band of techno-dorks one floor down in the Shuttle Data Center. They’re responsible for transferring information from the shuttle to this Firing Room and are currently searching for a solution. Severson’s sure they’re to blame for this foul-up.

  ‘Come on, pricks!’ He doesn’t check his comms box this time. He knows it’s off.

  Every operator on the floor turns and looks at him. He realises he’s been flicking the comms box switch on and off, a nervous habit, and spoke while his headset’s microphone was momentarily live. He ignores the staring operators, doesn’t let on that he said anything, or that he’s anything but cool.

  Severson knows he isn’t as smart as people think he is but he also knows how to work the system and, crucially, he’s blessed with an abundance of charisma. So he has used those abilities to rise through the ranks to become a shuttle pilot and then a launch director. Who knew where it’d end? This was America and he’d been an astronaut. America loved astronauts. Loved them. He could run NASA someday and then what, public office? The world was his oyster. He just has to make sure he’s perfect every step of the way, or, more accurately, he has to make sure he’s seen to be perfect every step of the way. He has to look cool, and make sure his secret never goes public.