"Confirmed."
"Copy. We'll slip in here for five. Kick hell out of anything that's not nailed down."
"Roger, Alpha Leader. If they show their heads, they're gonna know we're in town."
6:26 a.m.
"All right," Armont declared, "we make the insert here." He tapped his finger on the blueprint. "We hit the nerve center of Launch with flash-bangs and tear gas, and take it down. If we're lucky, Ramirez will still be there, and that should be the end of it. He always controls an operation totally. Nobody else will have any authority. That's his style. If we handle it surgically, there shouldn't be any major casualties among the friendlies."
The area around Launch Control was still foggy, illuminated mainly by the lingering spotlights on two vehicles. No technicians were in evidence, since the final stages of the countdown were underway and nothing remained to be done to the exterior of VX-1. The dry ice "propellant" had been installed and now the action was underground, where the subterranean energy-storage system, the superconducting coil, was being primed. At this point, most of the staffers were monitoring the last-minute computer checks of the in-flight systems.
"Sounds good," Reggie said, pointing to a spot on the blueprint. "I'll position myself right there, where I'll have a clear shot at the main points of ingress and egress. Now let's move it before somebody checks in with the security system and picks up our penetration."
Everybody else agreed, signifying it by a last-minute review of weapons and gear. Everybody, that is, except Michael Vance, who had been thinking, and worrying, about the irreversible step that a frontal assault would represent. What if Ramirez had left Launch and gone back to Command? The man had a habit of keeping on the move. It was an innate part of his inner nature.
"You know . . ." He rubbed at his swollen face and winced at the pain. "I'd like to suggest a different tack. A sort of 'look before you leap' approach."