"That there are two ways to play this. Somebody could use these vehicles to deliver a bomb someplace. Or they could be used to put a bomb into orbit, to be delivered later." He leaned back. "Am I right or not?"
Her eyes darkened, and she suddenly found herself sorry she had ever come back to Greece. For this. Then she caught herself and answered him. "I suppose either one is possible. The reentry trajectory is precisely controlled. In fact, we power it down, more or less like the space shuttle."
"And the whole thing can be done within an hour or so, right? That is, once it's in orbit."
"A low-earth insertion means a full orbit of about ninety minutes for a satellite." She was thinking. "If the vehicle itself stays in orbit, then—"
"Everything would still be controlled from down here, correct?"
"We beam power up to the vehicle using the Cyclops.
That's the whole idea." She was thinking. "What you're saying is, once they get a vehicle, and a bomb, into orbit, they've got a loaded gun pointed at any place they choose."
"Doesn't that sound like the worst-case scenario?"
"They'll never pull it off." It was more a hope than a statement of fact.
"How are you going to stop them? If Ramirez thinks you're not cooperating, then all he has to do is start killing more of your staff until you do." He looked down the hill, where the facility was now dark except for the yellow sodium lights around the storage sheds and the blaze of floods that illuminated the two vehicles. "But I definitely think they're going to try some kind of launch. You said they're being very careful not to disturb anything. So what are the possibilities?"