Legacy (48 page)

Sarah heard Ryan mumbling to himself.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Huh? Oh, I was just thinking about the Altair Lander.”

“What, you mean
Yorktown
?” she asked. “What about it?”

Jason tried his best to turn his head toward Sarah.

“She’s one heavy piece of equipment and she doesn’t have any wings.”

“Do you know what a long shot it is that you’ll have to pilot her?” Sarah said, trying to calm Ryan down.

“It seems lately that betting on long shots is starting to pay off.”

“Quit worrying,” Will chimed in as he tried in vain to get the sweat off the tip of his nose. “We’ll probably be blown to bits long before reaching the Moon.”

Both Sarah and Ryan leaned as far forward as their straps would allow and tried to see Mendenhall. It was Sarah who finally said it.

“Your optimism is so inspiring, Will.”

*   *   *

All eyes were on the ancient Saturn V as it sat waiting for the electronic signal that would send it one more time into the heavens. The liquid hydrogen collected on its aluminum outer skin and fell free when too much gathered in one spot. The ground crew had been told stories of the rocket’s power, but none there had witnessed the event before. Only Hugh Evans in Houston and a few of the old-timers were aware of what was about to happen.

The viewing stands were full of military personnel who wanted nothing more than to join the mission themselves. As their eyes scanned the skies they heard but could not see the four squadrons of naval and Air Force jet fighters in the skies above the Cape. Two miles out to sea were two carrier battle groups ordered in by the president. The carriers
Eisenhower
and
Roosevelt
had their fighter wings on close alert. They had orders to shoot anything out of the sky within a hundred miles of Kennedy. The Navy had the duty of striking any vessel that produced a radar signal within attack range of the space center. All shipping and private boats were ordered to anchor at least five miles from shore. Anything moving after the ten-minute mark of the countdown would be attacked without warning. The president was doing everything possible to protect this last-chance launch.

*   *   *

The four-man team had been trained by the Mechanic himself. They had been certified as expert divers and had the Stinger system down to a science. There would be no waiting for either the Saturn V or the shuttle
Atlantis
to reach orbit. They would each be attacked at the Cape. The Saturn would be attacked just after the first stage separation and the shuttle just as the solid booster rockets ignited. The strike would be carried out simultaneously from four different launchers.

The four men, all former members of al Qaeda, had trained in South America and had actually been the standby team for the mission against the European Space Agency launch. As soon as that mission had been completed, the Mechanic had them transported to a Panamanian freighter ten miles off the coast of Florida. Once the freighter came within five miles of the coast, the men and their equipment had been eased into the warm waters and they swam the rest of the way in. They had almost been discovered by a circling Apache helicopter gunship, but they evaded the infrared fix by diving deep. They had been onshore for the past ten minutes. Each man knew what had happened to the previous team in South America, but all were willing to give their lives for a success against the Americans.

They had set up in the reeds just beyond the waves at Cocoa Beach. They could see and hear the many American citizens as they watched on their beach towels and their lawn chairs. The men couldn’t wait to see and hear their terror at what they were about to witness.

They could all hear the ten-second countdown from five miles away as the announcement blasted through the warm Florida air. The anticipation on the beach was growing. As the countdown proceeded, people began to stand and cheer.

Suddenly, the voice of the Kennedy Space Center announcer went silent. The entire world was blotted out as the Saturn V erupted into a ball of flame that caught even the terrorists off guard. The sight was magnificent. The red and orange fireball splashed free of the confines of the direction chamber just beneath the engines of the great rocket. The ground shook and it was as if everything was frozen in time—a time that went all the way back to the heady days of the Apollo program.

As men and women on the beach yelled in support, some held field glasses to the night sky. They all wondered if the giant rocket was going to lift off at all. Then they got cold chills as the tower stabilizers fell free and the great Atlas V started to rise from the Earth. The platform began climbing faster and faster. The exhaust plume lit up the night sky like a false sunrise. Those Americans who had only days before been against the race to the Moon now believed in the cause, believed once more in the power of Atlas.

The ship carrying the Altair lander and the largest crew module ever carried into space finally cleared the tower. It rose majestically into the night sky. Many people on the beach jumped up and down as the first stage put out the most power of any rocket in the history of the American space program. All thought of keeping America away from the Moon vanished in the split second it took for Atlas to come to life and make believers of the entire country.

“… three, we have main engine start of
Atlantis
. Two, one, we have booster ignition and
Atlantis
is a go!” The announcement rang out through loudspeakers and the crowded beach erupted just as the main boosters did.
Atlantis
quickly cleared the tower. The four-man attack element was watching in awe as the American spacecraft rose into the nighttime sky on twin fireballs.

SPACE SHUTTLE
ATLANTIS
(ORBITER VEHICLE DESIGNATION: OV-104)

Sarah, Will, and Ryan had thought they would be prepared for the liftoff of the shuttle, but they had all been sorely mistaken. At first it was only
Atlantis
’s three main engines that shook the airframe of the giant shuttle. But then the solid booster rockets ignited and they all had the same thought—they were exploding right there on the pad before they could get an inch off the ground.

Will had stopped worrying about how hot he was and was now squeezing his eyes as tightly shut as he could get them. He couldn’t understand why Ryan was whooping it up in the middle seat of the three. Sarah was silent as she stared wide-eyed at the far bulkhead of their temporary container. They were shaking, jumping, and then they all felt it. Their stomachs told them they were indeed leaving the ground.

The shuttle shook even more as the true power of the solid boosters started pushing
Atlantis
into the sky. They heard the commands of the shuttle pilot as he calmly called out their status for mission control.

“Open your eyes, Will. You don’t want to miss this,” Ryan called out.

“Okay, guys, quiet in the main bay. We have work to do up here,” said the calm voice of the shuttle commander. “Hang in there. Control, we are a go for roll maneuver.”

Sarah managed a quick look over at Ryan and shook her head. Even as far back as they were in the cargo bay, they felt as though they were being shaken to death. They all felt the heat building as the exhaust from the rocket boosters and the three main engines started to penetrate the cargo hold. Sarah remembered the words “experimental crew cabin” as they climbed into the sky.

“Shit,” she mumbled, as the g-forces started to hit them.

Atlantis
was nearing the point of no safe return when the missiles were launched.

“Houston,
Atlantis
, we are throttle up!”

*   *   *

The first stage of Atlas exploded outward from the second stage and the engines ignited, sending a rainbow shower of flame and gases into the darkness of the night sky. The separation was seen as far away as Georgia and the Carolinas. The spectacular night show also gave the terrorist element on the beach their cue to act. With no radio communication from the Mechanic directing them, the four-man team stood among the reeds at the edge of Cocoa Beach and turned on the seeker heads in the advanced stingers that had been chosen specially for this operation. The five-pound warhead was propelled by a two-stage experimental system designed by Raytheon for a low-cost strike against an orbiting vehicle. The weight was a total of twenty pounds over the standard Stinger system. The warhead would reach the target at twice the speed of sound once the IR detector locked on to the exhaust plume of both the Atlas second stage and
Atlantis
.

The first team, consisting of two men and their launchers, brought their targeting systems up. The IR lock-on had no trouble detecting the large gas plume of the second stage of the Atlas V, which carried the crew capsule and the Altair lander. The two men never hesitated as they pulled the trigger on the two weapons. A burst of air sent both missiles out of the tubes; after traveling twenty feet the solid propellant boosters fired and the missiles soared skyward. The heat of the launch and brightness of the flash caught everyone’s attention along the beach. Before they could react, the second two-man team launched their own missiles, targeted on
Atlantis
. At the same moment, a bright flare filled the sky as the solid rocket boosters separated from the mainframe of the shuttle. The men immediately dropped their launchers and turned to make their way off the beach to try to blend in with the stunned onlookers who had witnessed the launching of the four missiles. As some watched the streaking missiles climb toward the heavens, others had turned their attention to the men who were even now making their way into the crowd.

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, HOUSTON, TEXAS

Hugh Evans watched as the first two missiles climbed toward their target, the second stage of Atlas. The three blips on the radar screen were merging at an incredible rate. The U.S. Air Force had put a plan in place in the hectic hours after the
Discovery
and
Endeavour
disasters and now that plan was starting to take shape. Four venerable F-15 Eagles had been flying high-air cover for the double launch. Two were delegated to Atlas, two to
Atlantis
. As Evans stood and watched, he looked over at CAPCOM and shook his head, indicating that he didn’t want
Atlantis
to know they were being hunted by two supersonic murderers.
What was the sense in telling them?
he thought.
There would be nothing they could do about it.

On the high-altitude camera system deployed at the Cape, they saw the momentary bright flash as the Stinger warheads separated from their first stages. Evans knew they were up against superior technology when he saw the second-stage boosters ignite. He lowered his vision and saw the Eagles as they streaked upward at an intercept angle—he saw that the old fighters were climbing almost straight up into the air.

“Go, go, go!” he said loudly, as the rest of the telemetry technicians watched, most in silent prayer as the four missiles rose to assault their targets.

*   *   *

The four F-15Cs climbed at Mach 2.2, far behind Atlas and
Atlantis
. The custom-designed planes had been flown down from their training station in North Carolina and were fitted with a large load of compressed oxygen for their specially tailored mission. There had been four of these aircraft on standby in California. As they climbed to sixty thousand feet, the air became so thin the fighters were in danger of flaming out. Any man in aerospace knew that if the fighters didn’t launch their weapons soon, it would be too late.

The four Eagles were equipped with the AIM-120 advanced medium-range, air-to-air missile, better known in naval and Air Force circles as the AMRAAM. The AIM 120-Dm, a solid propellant weapon, is twelve feet long and carries a fragmentation high-explosive warhead. However, the attribute that made it appropriate for this mission was the fact that it didn’t need air to breathe. Also, its speed had been clocked at four times the speed of sound. Its seeker head was what is known in the military as a genius weapon. It didn’t need the launching aircraft to send the instructions for it to seek out its target. It thought on its own.

As the world watched, the F-15s started to slow as they reached their maximum altitude. Then an amazing thing happened. The four external air-delivery systems attached to the inside of the wings started pumping life-giving air into the General Electric engines on the four fighters. The air expanded and gave the Eagles much needed thrust at high altitude where there was no oxygen. The two lead elements locked their AMRAAMs on to the two streaking Stingers as they neared the ten-mile mark. The two fighters launched simultaneously. Four AMRAAMs were targeted on the two smaller missiles.

An amazing thing happened as the Raytheon AMRAAMs locked on to their sister missiles. Their computer brains knew immediately that they could not hit the targets directly. So they calculated time and distance in a microsecond and then streaked above the faster-moving Stingers. They climbed to a mile above them and three miles behind the high-flying Atlas, simultaneously detonating above the Stingers. Shrapnel from the two AMRAAMs peppered the warheads, sending small pieces of metal in all directions. They struck the warheads, igniting one and severely damaging the other as it fought through the cloud of debris to be incinerated by the rocket engines of the Atlas second stage.