According to his computations, the enemy rocket—Prochaska had dubbed it Bandit—would pass abeam of Drone Able slightly after they entered the moon's gravitational field, about 24,000 miles above the planet's surface. Then what? He pursed his lips vexedly. Bandit was a factor that had to be considered, but just how he didn't know. One thing was certain. The East knew about the load of uranium in Crater Arzachel. That, then, was the destination of the other rocket. Among the many X unknowns he had to solve, a new X had been added; the rocket from behind the Iron Curtain. Something told him this would be the biggest X of all.
CHAPTER 7
If Colonel Michael Gotch were worried, he didn't show it. He puffed complacently on his black briar pipe watching and listening to the leathery-faced man across from him. His visitor was angular, about sixty, with gray-black hair and hard-squinted eyes. A livid scar bit deep into his forehead; his mouth was a cold thin slash in his face. He wore the uniform of a Major General in the United States Air Force. The uniform did not denote the fact that its wearer was M.I.—Military Intelligence. His name was Leonard Telford.
"So that's the way it looks," General Telford was saying. "The enemy is out to get Arzachel at all costs. Failing that, they'll act to keep us from it."
"They wouldn't risk war," Gotch stated calmly.
"No, but neither would we. That's the damnable part of it," the General agreed. "The next war spells total annihilation. But for that very reason they can engage in sabotage and hostile acts with security of knowledge that we won't go to war. Look at them now—the missile attack on the Aztec, the time bomb plant, the way they operate their networks right in our midst. Pure audacity. Hell, they've even got an agent en route to the moon. On our rocket at that."
The Colonel nodded uncomfortably. The presence of a saboteur on the Aztec represented a bungle in his department. The General was telling him so in a not too gentle way.
"I seem to recall I was in Astrakhan myself a few years back," he reminded.
"Oh, sure, we build pretty fair networks ourselves," the General said blandly. He looked at Gotch and a rare smile crossed his face. "How did you like the dancing girls in Gorik's, over by the shore?"