Georges LeFarge had been studying Peretz, trying to figure out what was going on. One thing was sure: the countdown was about to switch into auto mode—which meant the priming of the superconducting coil would begin. When that happened, the Cyclops would be entering a very delicate, and dangerous, phase. Shutting it down after auto mode commenced required the kind of familiarity with the system he was sure Peretz did not have. Mess up then and you could literally burn out the huge power storage ring buried deep in the island's core—which was why the Fujitsu was deliberately programmed to thwart any straightforward command to abort. Ironically, the fail-safe mechanism was designed not to shut down the Cyclops, but rather to carry through. At this stage, the only way to abort the launch sequence safely was to bleed off the power using the Cyclops's main radar, the way they had done early last night. To simply flip a switch and turn everything off would be to risk melting the multimillion-dollar cryogenic storage coil down under. The whole thing was as bizarre as it was real. By continuing the countdown until everything went into auto mode, Peretz was creating a monster of inevitability.
He was currently trying to explain this to the Israeli, hoping the guy could conceive the gravity of what he was about to do. "You don't understand," he was pleading, his voice plaintive above the clicks of switches and buzz of communications gear in Command, "you're going to risk—"
"Hey, kid, chill out." Peretz did not bother to look up from his terminal. A strip-chart recorder next to him was humming away as voltage and amperage checks proceeded.
"But look." Georges pointed to the screen of an adjacent workstation. "You've got less than three minutes left to abort the power-up. After the auto-test sequence it's doing now is finished, the superconducting coil starts final power-up. That's when everything switches to auto mode. It's all automatic from then on. For a very good reason."
"Hey, that's why we're here, kid." Peretz was grinning his crazy grin. 'This is not some fucking dry run. This is the big one. I've got no intention of shutting it down. We're gonna launch, dude."
Dore Peretz knew exactly what the critical go/no-go points in the countdown were; he had researched the Cyclops system extensively. He also knew that after auto mode, there would be no altering the orbital abort and the timing of the detonation. Once auto mode began, he was home free. He could split.
The trajectory he had programmed with SORT was not for Souda Bay but for low orbit. One orbit. The abort had been preset. The bomb was going to be delivered right back here on Andikythera. It was brilliant. Get the money in place, get out, and then wipe out the island, all evidence of the operation.
Including Sabri Ramirez.
The world would then think that all the terrorists were dead. And they would be—all, that is, except Dr. Dore Peretz.