"Guess we just made the Fortune Five Hundred." He laughed. "If we live long enough to cash them in. Should be lots of buyers around the Middle East."
"Do you realize—?"
'The nightmare's finally come true? Looks that way." He sighed. "Terrorists are building a bomb. Or, more likely, they've managed to steal one somewhere."
"One?" She shivered from the cold and pulled at her sweater. 'There must be more than one, if they've got all these detonators."
"But a bomb is just another chunk of enriched uranium without these, right?"
"Well, if they're planning to do more than threaten . . . Oh, my God." She froze. "That explains why they've got Georges changing trajectories. They—"
"What! Are they tinkering with your rockets?"
"So far just the computer-guidance part. But if they put a bomb on VX-1, who knows what they could end up doing?"
"How does nuclear blackmail sound? But nobody goes to this much trouble just to shake down a corporation. There're lots of easier ways." He paused to ponder. Ten to one it's not SatCom they're holding for ransom. They're aiming for a lot higher stakes. They're probably planning to shake down a country somewhere. No prizes for guessing which one."
"The U.S.," she guessed anyway. “Think they can get away with it?"