"How are you feeling?" Peretz asked.
"How do you think?" Bates growled, looking around at all the assembled terrorists now readying their weapons. The place was turning into an armed camp.
"Just a friendly inquiry," Peretz went on, flashing his empty grin. "We're about to start the fireworks up at Launch, and I didn't want you to miss out on any of it." He paused to check the countdown scrolling on the terminal in front of him. "So . . ." he continued, turning back, "I think it's time we three—you, me, and Georges here—took a small stroll and checked out how things are going."
"Mind telling me what in blazes you're up to?" Bates demanded. His voice was still strong even though he had lost much of the spring in his step. "If you fuckers have killed any more of my people, I'm going to see to it personally that—"
"Take it easy, man," Peretz interjected. "As long as nobody causes any trouble, then nobody gets hurt." He turned and motioned for Jean-Paul Moreau. "Keep an eye on this place. He swept his arm over the sea of technicians and systems analysts. "Everything's right on target with the countdown." It was an impromptu private joke, a spur-of-the-moment thing, that he found delightful.
Jean-Paul Moreau, his reflexes now slowing slightly from lack of sleep, did not get the joke, and he did not like the feeling he was getting. Dore Peretz was a canny little fucker, and he suddenly seemed in a great hurry to get out of Command. Was the batard up to something? It was puzzling, and troubling.
He adjusted his blond ponytail and gazed around the room, now a cacophony of preflight activity. Keeping everybody in line was the least of his problems. These white-shirted engineers were so scared that if you said jump, they'd all stand up and ask how high. No, what bothered him was not knowing what the damned Israeli had up his sleeve. Peretz was planning something, probably intending to leave somebody to hold the bag.
And it wasn't hard to figure out who that somebody was. . . .
"You know," he said to Peretz, "everybody has orders to stay at their posts and keep security, in case there's an assault. You pulling out of here is not part of the plan."
"Hey, I've been handling this thing so far, and the launch is set. Now I need to check on the telemetry and data hookups at Launch—if that's okay with you. I've taken care of my end, so now all you've got to do is keep any of these assholes from getting on the computer and trying to screw things up. Nobody so much as touches a keyboard, got it?"