Strike Force

“I will present your proposal to the entire acting Security Council, Colonel,” Mohtaz said, “but you should expect approval in very short order, so you should be prepared to act.”

“Yes, Excellency. All will be ready.”

“Very good.” Mohtaz thought for a moment; then: “One more thing.”

“Yes, Excellency?”

The cleric turned away from Zolqadr, as if distancing himself from his own words, then said, “You are sure that Yassini was in Qom meeting with Buzhazi, without a shadow of doubt…”

“I have many witnesses who will testify to it, Excellency, as well as testify about the intercepted radio transmissions picked up between them just before the library was destroyed.” Zolqadr hoped all that was true — his actual information had come from gossip and rumors about Yassini possibly going to Qom to check out the situation at the Khomeini Library and personally take charge of a rescue mission.

Mohtaz nodded, still turned away from Zolqadr, then said, “Then his guilt is beyond doubt. Deal with it as you see fit…General Zolqadr.”

HIGH TECHNOLOGY AEROSPACE WEAPONS

CENTER, ELLIOTT AFB, NEVADA

A SHORT TIME LATER

“You told them we weren’t in orbit yet when we flew over Russia, sir?” Captain Hunter Noble asked incredulously. He was meeting with Patrick McLanahan, Dave Luger, Ann Page, Hal Briggs, and Chris Wohl in the Battle Staff briefing area at Elliott Air Force Base.

“What did you expect the general to say, Boomer?” Dave asked.

“Lie, of course,” Hunter replied matter-of-factly. “The only guys that could have tracked us were the Russians, and nobody believes what they say any more.”

“You need a little more experience talking with the President of the United States before you go around giving tips on lying to the national security staff, Boomer,” Patrick suggested. “If I recall correctly, you had a tough time saying anything when we visited the Oval Office.”

“Touché. I’ll be quiet now, sir.”

“Thank you.”

“So we’re grounded now?” Ann Page asked. “I just got here! I love those little Studs! Can’t we do something? You’re the special adviser to the President and a three-star general, General — pull some strings, throw some weight around.”

Patrick was silent for a few moments, adopting his infamous “thousand-yard stare” as his mind turned over possibilities. “Look out, everyone — the ‘Rubik’s Cube’ is in motion,” Dave Luger commented.

Patrick winked at Dave. “The spaceplanes are grounded, we can’t launch any more NIRTSats, and the ones we have monitoring Iran will fall out of the sky in less than six days,” he summarized. “What else do we have?”

“Squat,” Boomer said. “We’re shut down.”

“Maybe not,” Patrick said. “We still have one asset we can bring online to help us — we just need someone who can fly the thing over to where we need it.”

Ann Page noticed Patrick and Dave Luger looking…at her. “What?” she asked. “I’m grounded, same as you guys. Get me permission to fly the Stud again and I’ll take her anywhere you want.”

“I’m not thinking about the Stud,” Patrick said. “I’m thinking about bringing Armstrong Space Station online again.”

“Silver Tower!” Ann exclaimed. “You serious?”

“It’s the greatest surveillance platform in existence,” Patrick said. “It can scan every square foot of the entire Middle East or Siberia in one pass, including underwater and underground. If we want to find out what’s happening in Iran — or Kavaznya, if we have to go up against that thing again — that’s what we need.”

“Sounds fine with me, Patrick — I love going up to that thing and turning it on,” Ann said happily, so excited she could hardly keep her seat. “But the only way we have to get up there is with the Shuttle, and it takes at least two months — more like six — to get it ready for a mission.”

“We have access to Ares,” Dave Luger said. “We’ve been involved in testing from the beginning, and we can put together a launch in no time.”

“The new Crew Launch Vehicle?” Ann remarked. Ares was the next generation of low-cost, highly reliable, reusable heavy rocket launchers. Its first stage was a five-segment solid-rocket booster similar to the Shuttle’s Solid Rocket Boosters; its second stage was a liquid-fueled booster uprated and improved from the Saturn-V’s J-2 engine. “Cool. But what about Orion?”

Dave shook his head. “We never got to play with the Crew Exploration Vehicle, only the booster,” he said. Orion was the name of the new series of manned space vehicles destined to replace the Shuttle Transportation System. Resembling the Apollo spacecraft, Orion could carry as many as six astronauts and was designed to be configurable for any space mission from low Earth orbit to a trip to Mars. “But we do have a cargo stage that we used to test the Meteor weapon dispenser.”