Black Wind (43 page)

55

T
ONGJU CLIMBED ABOARD
the
Koguryo
and immediately raced to the bridge, where Captain Lee and Kim stood surveying the
Odyssey
.

“You cut your departure a little thin,” Lee said soberly. “They have already commenced fueling the rocket.”

“A minor delay, due to an unexpected interruption,” Tongju replied. Scanning the horizon, he noted the airship drifting slowly back toward the platform. “Have you detected any more approaching vessels?”

The captain shook his head. “No, none yet. Besides the airship, there has just been the lone research ship that was following behind the Coast Guard vessel,” he said, pointing to a radar blip on the opposite side of the platform. “She's remained in her present position, two miles to the northeast of the platform.”

“And no doubt has radioed for assistance. Those damn Ukrainians,” he spat. “They have brought us too close to shore and placed the mission in peril. Captain, we must get under way immediately after liftoff. Adjust course due south at full power to Mexican waters before laying in for our rendezvous point.”

“What about the airship?” Kim asked. “It must be destroyed as well, for it can track our escape.”

Tongju studied the silver blimp, which sat hovering on the
Odyssey
's helicopter pad.

“We cannot fire upon them while they are positioned near the platform. They can do no harm at this late time. Perhaps they will stupidly burn in the launch themselves. Come, let us enjoy the liftoff. We will dispense with them later.”

With Kim in tow, Tongju left the bridge and quickly made his way aft to the launch control center. The brightly lit bay was packed with white-coated engineers sitting at workstations arranged in a horseshoe shape around the room. On the front center wall was a large flat-panel video screen that showed a full image of the Zenit rocket at the launch tower, wisps of vapor emanating from its sides. Tongju spotted Ling hunched over a monitor conversing with a technician and approached the launch operations engineer.

“Ling, what is the launch status?” Tongju asked.

The round-faced engineer squinted at Tongju through his glasses.

“The fueling will be complete in another two minutes. One of the backup flight control computers is not responding, there's a low-pressure reading in one of the cooling lines, and the number two auxiliary turbopump indicator shows a fluid leakage.”

“What does that mean for the launch?” Tongju asked, a sudden flush rising over his normally placid face.

“None of the items, either individually or collectively, are mission critical. All other systems are showing nominal. The launch will proceed as scheduled,” he said, eyeing a digital launch clock beneath the video panel, “in exactly twenty-three minutes and forty-seven seconds.”

*  *  *

A
T TWENTY-THREE
minutes and forty-six seconds, Jack Dahlgren looked up from the
Odyssey
's ticking launch clock to the
Icarus
, which seemed to be fixed hovering above the pilothouse. He knew there was no chance that they could have been spotted by the high-flying gondola, but he still wondered if Pitt or Giordino might somehow find a way to stop the launch. He strained to turn toward Dirk beside him, expecting his friend to be looking at the blimp with hopeful optimism. Instead, Dirk was oblivious to the airship, his full attention focused on defiantly trying to break the bounds of his ropes. Jack started to offer some words of encouragement but his lips froze when he saw a movement inside the hangar. He blinked and took another hard look. Sure enough, he could see it was a man sprinting through the hangar directly toward them.

“Dirk, there's somebody coming our way. Is that who I think it is?”

Dirk glanced toward the hangar while continuing to strain at his bound hands and feet. He squinted at the lone figure bursting out of the hangar and tearing across the platform carrying what looked like a long stick in his hand. The figure was tall and lean with dark hair and Dirk suddenly stopped struggling at the ropes when he recognized the gait.

“I don't ever recall seeing my father move that fast before,” he said to Dahlgren, a broad grin spreading across his face.

As the head of NUMA drew closer, they could see that it was a fire ax, not a stick, that he toted in his right hand as he ran. Sprinting up to the tower, the elder Pitt smiled in relief at seeing that the two men were uninjured.

“I thought I told you boys never to accept a ride with strangers,” he gasped, patting his son on the shoulder as he examined the rope restraints.

“Sorry, Dad, but they offered us the moon and the stars,” Dirk grinned, then added, “Thanks for dropping by to get us.”

“I've got a taxi waiting. Let's just get out of here before they ignite this thing.”

Eyeing the center of the rope, he took a full swing and laid the blade through the rope that secured Dirk's elbows. With another swing, he cut the wrist binds, the blade of the ax tinging loudly as it cut through to the tower beam. As Dirk worked to untie his ankles, Pitt repeated his Paul Bunyan routine on Dahlgren's ropes. The two men quickly scrambled to their feet as Pitt tossed the ax aside.

“Dad, the Sea Launch platform team is locked up inside the hangar. We need to get them out.”

Pitt nodded. “I thought I heard some banging around in there. Lead on.”

Almost as one, the three men dashed back across the open platform at full speed, knowing that every second counted. As they ran, Dirk looked at the launch clock above his head. Just twenty-one minutes and thirty-six seconds remained before the platform would be engulfed in a blasting inferno. As if that wasn't enough motivation to move faster, a sudden whirring noise erupted from inside the hangar. An electronic command had been issued from the
Koguryo
's launch control software and the hangar's large barn doors began sliding closed in preparation for the blastoff.

“The doors are closing,” Dahlgren huffed. “We've got to hurry.”

Like a trio of Olympic sprinters heading to the tape, the men bolted side by side toward the shrinking gap of the closing doors. Though he still had plenty of fire in his step, Pitt eased back as they approached the opening and let Dirk and Dahlgren jump through first. Following single file, he turned and slid sideways through the gap just before the doors sealed shut.

Midway down the hangar, they could hear the sound of muffled voices and a metallic banging as the men inside the metal shed fought to extricate themselves. Dirk, Dahlgren, and Pitt scurried to the shed and examined the chained and padlocked door as they caught their breath.

“That chain isn't going to give, but maybe we can pry the door off its hinges . . . if we can find a crowbar around here,” Dahlgren said, scanning the area for a potential tool.

Pitt glanced at the motorized work platform Jack had ridden across the hangar and reached up and grabbed the control box, which dangled from the railing.

“I think we've got our crowbar right here,” he said, lowering the platform a few feet, then rolling the device up to the front of the shed. As Dirk and Dahlgren looked on, Pitt grabbed a loose end of the padlock chain and wrapped it tightly around the platform's railing, then yelled at the men inside the shed: “Stand back from the door.”

Waiting a second, he then hit the
RAISE
button and watched as the platform rose slowly, drawing the chain tight. The lifting mechanism groaned and strained for a moment as the wheels of the platform rocked across the floor. Then, with a loud crack, the shed's door ripped off its hinges and popped into the air, slamming against the platform with a shudder before dropping and dangling from the chain midair. Pitt quickly backed the platform out of the way as the Sea Launch crew surged out of the claustrophobic shed.

The crewmen had been given little to eat since the
Odyssey
was commandeered and they appeared weak and haggard from the stress of their captivity. Yet an underlying anger purveyed over the men, a group of seasoned professionals who didn't take kindly to having given up their rocket and platform.

“Is the captain and launch manager here?” Pitt shouted over the cries of thanks from the released crew.

A battered Captain Christiano elbowed his way through the throng, followed by a thin, distinguished-looking man with a goatee.

“I'm Christiano, captain of the
Odyssey
. This is Larry Ohlrogge, platform launch manager,” he added, nodding to the man beside him. “Has the platform been secured from those scum?” he spat with contempt.

Pitt shook his head. “They've evacuated the platform in preparation for launching the rocket. We don't have much time.”

Ohlrogge noted the erector/transporter had been returned to the hangar and that the hangar doors had been closed.

“We're talking minutes,” he said with alarm in his voice.

“About eighteen, to be precise. Captain, get your crew to the helipad now,” Pitt directed. “There's an airship waiting that can evacuate everyone from the platform if we move quick.”

Turning to Ohlrogge, Pitt added, “Is there any way we can stop the launch?”

“The launch sequence is completely automated and controlled by the assembly and command ship. Presumably, these terrorists have duplicated that functionality on their own vessel.”

“We can mechanically halt the fueling of the rocket,” Christiano noted.

“It is too late,” Ohlrogge said, shaking his head. “There is an override control in the bridge that would be our only hope at this late time,” he added grimly.

“The elevator at the rear of the hangar leads to the bridge deck. The helipad is just above,” Christiano said.

“Then let's get moving,” Pitt replied.

Quickly, the group shuffled en masse to the rear of the hangar and crowded around a medium-sized elevator.

“There's not enough room for all,” Christiano stated, regaining his captain's form. “We'll need three trips. You eight men first, then this group, then you ten men over there,” he ordered, dividing the crowd into three groups.

“Jack, you go with the first group and help them onto the
Icarus
. Let Al know there's more on the way,” Pitt said. “Dirk, you bring up the last group, make sure everyone makes it out of here. Captain, we need to visit the bridge now,” he said, turning to Christiano.

Christiano, Ohlrogge, Dahlgren, and Pitt crowded into the elevator with eight other men and waited impatiently as the elevator zipped up to the bridge level above the hangar. Dahlgren quickly located a stairwell off to one side that led to the helipad and herded the crewmen up to the exposed deck.

As promised, the silver airship hung hovering several feet above the pad, Giordino at the controls smoking a fat cigar. He quickly rotated the swiveling propulsion ducts and brought the gondola down to the deck as Jack ran up.

“Hi, sailor. Give a few girls a ride?” Dahlgren asked, poking his head into the gondola doorway.

“Coitainly,” Giordino replied. “How many do you have?”

“About thirty, give or take,” Dahlgren replied, looking suspiciously at the gondola's passenger compartment.

“Shove 'em in, we'll make them fit. But we better toss any unnecessary weight if we want to get off the ground. Just make it quick, as I have an aversion to getting baked alive.”

“You and me both, pardner,” Dahlgren replied, herding the first of the crewmen aboard.

In addition to the two-seat cockpit, the gondola's passenger compartment was configured to seat eight passengers in oversized leather airplane-type seats. Dahlgren studied the arrangement and grimaced at the prospect of squeezing all the men in and possibly grounding the blimp. As the crew climbed aboard, he checked the mountings of the seats and found that they had a quick-release mechanism for temporary removal. He quickly unlatched five of the seats and, with the help of a Russian engineer, tossed them out the door of the gondola.

“Everybody to the back of the bus,” he barked. “It's going to be standing room only.”

As the last man in his group wedged into the passenger compartment, Dahlgren turned to Al.

“How much time do we have?”

“About fifteen minutes, by my count.”

The next group of crewmen began spilling off the stairs and sprinting across the deck of the helipad. Dahlgren let out a slight sigh. There would be time, if not room, to get every man to the blimp before blastoff. But would it be enough time to stop the launch, he wondered, catching sight of the Zenit rocket standing fueled and ready across the platform.

56

I
NSIDE THE
O
DYSSEY'S
BRIDGE
, Captain Christiano turned pale and shook his head silently as he surveyed the bullet-ridden computer stations and shattered glass that littered the floor. Walking to the navigation station, he curiously noticed a lonely computer mouse dangling by its cord, its companion keyboard nowhere to be seen. Ohlrogge observed that the computer drive itself was undamaged.

“I've got scores of laptop computers downstairs. We can plug one in and activate the platform controls,” he offered.

“They have no doubt secured the automated controls,” Christiano said with disgust, thrusting a thumb over his shoulder toward the window. Pitt followed his motion, observing the
Koguryo
sitting defiantly in the distance. Returning his gaze to the captain, Pitt caught sight of the
Badger
, still tied up in the water off the starboard support column far below.

“There is no time. It might take hours to work around,” Christiano continued, moving to the bridge's center console with a look of despair on his face.

“You said there was a manual override on the bridge?” Pitt asked.

Christiano anticipated the results before his eyes reached the console. They had simply known too much. How to navigate and ballast the platform, how to fuel the Zenit, how to control and launch the rocket from their own support ship. There was simply too much inside knowledge for the terrorists not to have sabotaged the manual override. With disappointing confidence in his beliefs, he looked down at a jumbled mass of cut wires and smashed controls that offered the last hope of halting the launch.

“Here's your manual override control,” he swore, flinging a segregated clump of wires and switches across the bridge. The three men stood in silence as the mass of electronics bounced across the deck before coming to a halt against the bulkhead. Then the bridge door opened and Dirk thrust his head into the bay. From the looks on the other men's faces, he knew that their attempt to prevent the launch had failed.

“The crew is all aboard the airship. I respectfully suggest we abandon the platform, and now.”

*  *  *

A
S THE
last four men aboard the platform began to scramble up the helipad stairwell to the waiting airship, Pitt stopped and grabbed his son by the shoulder.

“Get the captain aboard the blimp and tell Al to take off without me. Make sure he gets the airship uprange of the platform before the rocket fires.”

“But they said there was no getting around the automated launch controls,” the younger Pitt protested.

“I may not be able to stop the rocket from launching, but I just might be able to change its destination.”

“Dad, you can't stay aboard the platform, it's too dangerous.”

“Don't worry about me, I don't intend to stick around,” Pitt replied, giving his son a gentle shove. “Now get going.”

Dirk looked his father in the eye. He had heard numerous tales of his father placing the safety of others above himself and now he was seeing it firsthand. But there was something else in his eyes. It was a calm look of assurance. Dirk took a step toward the stairwell, then turned back to wish his father luck but he had already vanished down the elevator.

Sprinting up the stairwell two steps at a time, the younger Pitt leaped onto the deck of the helipad and looked on in amazement at the waiting blimp. The gondola looked like a windowed can of sardines, with the fish replaced by humans. The entire Sea Launch crew had managed to squeeze aboard the passenger compartment, cramming into every available square inch. The weakest of the crew were given the three passenger seats that Dahlgren did not remove while the rest of the men stood shoulder to shoulder in the remaining space. Scores of men hung their heads out the side windows while one or two were even jammed into the small bathroom at the rear of the gondola. The sight made a New York City subway at rush hour look spacious by comparison.

Dirk ran over and wedged himself through the door, hearing Dahlgren's voice somewhere in the mass telling him that the copilot's seat was vacant. Half-crawling, he squirmed his way into the cockpit, taking the empty seat alongside Giordino, who had moved to the left-hand pilot's seat.

“Where's your dad? We need to get off this barbecue grill, pronto.”

“He's staying put. Has one last trick up his sleeve, I guess. He said to get the blimp uprange of the platform, and that he'll meet you for a tequila on the rocks after the show.”

“I hope he's buying,” Giordino replied, then tilted the propeller ducts to a forty-degree angle and boosted the throttles. The gondola chugged forward, pulling the helium-filled envelope with it. But instead of rising gracefully into the air as before, the gondola clung to the deck, dragging across the helipad with a dull scraping sound.

“We've got too much weight,” Dirk stated.

“Get up, baby, get up,” Giordino urged the mammoth airship.

The gondola continued to skid across the pad, heading to the forward edge, which dropped straight down two hundred feet to the sea. As they approached the lip of the helipad, Giordino adjusted the propellers to a higher degree of inclination and jammed the throttles to their stops but the gondola continued to scrape along the deck. An eerie silence filled the cabin, as every man held his breath while the gondola slipped over the edge of the helipad.

A falling surge suddenly hit the pit of everyone's stomach as the gondola lurched down ten feet, then halted. The occupants were roughly thrown forward as the blimp's fabric-covered tail bounced off the helipad, pushing the nose of the blimp at a steep decline as the airship's balance of weight cleared the edge. Continuing to jar forward, the tail finally scraped past the platform edge and the entire blimp rushed nose first toward the sea.

Giordino had a split-second decision to make in order to save the airship. He could either pull the thrusters all the way back to a ninety-degree vector and hope the engine propulsion would overcome the excess weight and hold the blimp at altitude. Or he could do the complete reverse: by pushing down the thrusters, he could try to increase the blimp's forward velocity, which would generate lift if he gained sufficient speed. Staring at the looming ocean, he let the momentum of the blimp guide his decision and calmly pushed the yoke forward, accelerating their downward dive.

Cries of alarm wafted from the rear passengers as it appeared Giordino was deliberately trying to crash into the sea. Ignoring the pleas, he turned to Dirk in the copilot's seat.

“Above your head there is a water ballast release control. At my command, hit the release.”

While Dirk located the button on the overhead console, Giordino focused his eyes on the altimeter. The dial was rolling backward quickly from two hundred feet as their descent speed increased. Giordino hesitated until the dial read sixty feet, then barked: “Now!”

In unison, Giordino yanked back on the yoke while Dirk activated the water ballast system, which instantly dumped a thousand pounds of water stored in a compartment beneath the gondola. Despite the sudden actions, there was no immediate response from the blimp. The massive airship moved at its own deliberate pace, and, for an instant, Giordino thought he had acted too late. As the approaching ocean filled the view out the cockpit windshield in a rush of speed, the nose gently began to pull up in a sweeping arc. Giordino eased off the yoke to level the airship as the gondola surged closer toward the sea, its nose rising with agonizing slowness. With a sudden jolt, the base of the gondola slapped the water's surface as the airship flattened from of its dive but bounded quickly up and off the surface. As every man aboard held his breath, the blimp staggered forward a short distance before slowly climbing a few feet above the water and holding steady. As the seconds ticked by and the airship held in the air, it became apparent that Giordino had pulled it off. Though risking a high-speed impact, the accelerated dive and last-second ballast release had been just enough to keep them airborne.

The relieved men in the passenger compartment let out a cheer as Giordino gingerly coaxed the blimp up to an altitude of one hundred feet, the big airship slowly stabilizing under his steady hand.

“I guess you showed us who's master of the airship,” Dirk lauded.

“Yeah, and almost commander of a submarine,” Giordino replied as he eased the nose of the blimp to the east and away from the platform.

“Uprange and away from shore isn't exactly the direction I'd like to be going at this altitude,” he added, eyeing the
Koguryo
warily out the window to port. “I radioed
Deep Endeavor
to get out of the way of the rocket's flight path, so they should be cutting a wide swath around to the north. We ought to keep them in sight in case we have to ditch.”

Dirk scanned the horizon, keeping one eye locked on the launch platform. Far to the southwest, he spotted the distant mass of San Nicolas Island. Peering to the northeast, he saw a tiny blue dot, which he knew to be the
Deep Endeavor
. Then, just to the north of the NUMA ship, he noticed a small brown mass rising from the sea.

“That landmass up ahead. I recall from the navigation charts that it's a small channel island called ‘Santa Barbara.' Why don't we head that way? We can drop the crew there and have
Deep Endeavor
pick them up before we get into any more trouble.”

“And get back to find your dad,” Giordino said, finishing Dirk's thought. Dirk looked back at the platform with hesitation.

“Can't be much time left,” he muttered.

“About ten minutes,” Giordino replied, wondering like Dirk what Pitt could possibly pull off in such little time.