Chapter Ten
Launchpad 39A
Jacques didn’t blink when the klaxon on the pad gave a startling blast, announcing the planned hold at T minus twenty minutes. Spooked by the sudden sound, a group of snowy egrets beat their wings in unison and flew gracefully away from the mangroves next to the launch complex. Activity heightened around the pad as the last teams of technicians prepared to leave.
A voice echoed over the intercom. “Technicians, clear the area. We’re ready to continue the countdown. I say again, all technicians clear the area. Once clear, the countdown will resume at T minus twenty minutes.”
The army of white-suited techs moved away from the shuttle in an orderly fashion; some waited for the elevators in the Fixed Service Structure; those already on the ground hustled over to waiting buses.
Whistling with satisfaction, Jacques picked up his toolkit and moved along, just as a NASA tech was expected to do. His toolkit weighed ten kilograms lighter without the explosive device and detonators.
Standing in the elevator as it began the long descent, Jacques took one last glance at the gaseous oxygen vent access arm. The plastique was out of sight from the main gantry, blending into the insulating foam encasing the massive external tank. As the countdown continued, the access arm would retract, leaving the bomb behind, and unreachable.
The elevator bumped to a stop at level 250. A pair of technicians walked in and ignored Jacques. One carried a clipboard and spoke with the other, obviously a trainee from the symbol on the person’s badge. They were in deep discussion about the final checklist procedure.
Jacques turned so they couldn’t see his face. He acted as calm as when he and Yvette had been hustling johns on the streets of Cahors, aloof as they sold their bodies, disconnected from the reality around them. It was the only way to survive, the same now as it was then—disconnect flesh and mind. Do what was necessary.
When he was younger it had been difficult to take the strangers’ money, to do whatever the men wanted. He did not try to understand what pleasure they drew from their acts, because he knew he would always return to Yvette’s arms where she would hold him, rock him gently, then make love in her attempt to cleanse him and herself of what they had gone through. It was the only way for them to survive on the streets.
As the elevator rattled down the gantry, Jacques felt disconnected from his body again as he ran through Mr. Phillips’s plan. The technician he had already killed was just a small sacrifice for what they had to accomplish. An “investment,” Mr. Phillips would have called it. Jacques held the man’s electronic badge tightly in his fist; the badges would be read by computer scanners at the exits to ensure that everyone had left the pad. NASA would not resume the countdown until the area was cleared.
He spotted the Armored Personnel Carrier at the edge of the launchpad complex. A technician walked out to the vehicle to give a new water bottle to the guards stationed there. Good. No one would suspect anything.
The last banks of spotlights on the gantry spilled bright patches of light on the ground, brighter than the morning sunshine. Jacques watched the stream of technicians exit the area. It was difficult to see all of them as they walked in and out of the glare. Security guards stood around the gates, but they all looked outward. Jacques felt warm with satisfaction, knowing that no one suspected the threat coming from within.
The elevator bumped to a stop at ground level, and the other two technicians walked off. Jacques passed a computerized checkpoint, sliding his badge through a magnetic-strip reader. Intentionally fumbling as if he hadn’t succeeded at first, he swapped his own badge with that of the dead tech’s, then slid it through the reader. All personnel accounted for.
One group of people filtered off to the right, toward the first bus. Jacques joined the end of the crowd, and as they stopped to file into the vehicle, he slowly backed up to the massive flame trench, in the deep well of shadow out of the spotlights. In the dark shelter Jacques immediately began to unzip his white bunny suit. He looked from side to side as he stripped off the uniform, exposing a sand-camouflaged jumpsuit. No one approached.
Balling it up, he stuffed the suit in his nearly empty toolkit; it was too risky to leave the suit lying around. Grasping the kit, Jacques crouched low and slipped toward the Armored Personnel Carrier. Since the security cameras were broadcasting only a continuous loop of landscape visuals, thanks to the work of Yvette, he would be safe from electronic surveillance.
The APC sat in a strategic position nearly a mile from the shuttle, close enough to the escape slidewires that it could roar in to rescue the astronauts in case of an emergency.
But Jacques had an entirely different purpose in mind for it.