"Hallelujah." He felt his spirits momentarily rise, though not his energy. "Maybe this means all that stock you paid me for the boat will end up being worth the paper it's printed on. Truthfully, I was beginning to worry."
“Told you it'd all work out," he grinned. "No faith. Come on, amigo, I've got to break the news to the troops." He strode to the door, or the opening that was left after the C-4 had removed the door, and surveyed the remains of Command. The technicians and systems analysts were filing back in, but mostly it was a scene of purposeful lethargy. The horror of the last day and a half had taken a terrible toll. Eyes were vacant, hair unkempt, motions slow and aimless. Several of those who had previously quit smoking were bumming cigarettes.
He whistled with two fingers, and the desultory turmoil froze in place. "Okay, everybody," he said, his voice not quite a shout. "It's official. We're back in business. You've all still got a job."
The glassy-eyed stares he received back suggested nobody's thoughts had extended that far yet. Nobody was in a particular mood to let themselves think about the future.
“That's the good part," Bates went on, oblivious. “The other news is there won't be bonuses or stock dividends this year. We'll be lucky just to service our debt. But anybody who hangs in there for twelve months gets half a year's pay extra, as a bonus. I'll do it out of my own pocket if I have to. And if you play your cards right, we could be talking stock options, too."
There were a few smiles and thumbs-up signs, more to hearten Bates, whom they revered, than to celebrate. Nobody had the capacity left to feel particularly festive. At the same time, nobody was about to abandon ship. Not now, now that they were needed more than ever.
Vance was leaning on the wall behind him, watching it all and thinking. Okay, so Bill was about to be rich, and SatCom had gotten enough free publicity to last into the next century. But the real notoriety should be going to the question that had haunted the world for four decades: what would happen if terrorists got their hands on a nuclear device? This time the consequences—although intended to be devastating—had in fact been peripheral, an inconsequential detonation somewhere halfway into space. But the question that still hung over the world was, what would happen the next time? It was a question Bill Bates had too much on his mind today to think about. Maybe he never would.
J.J. shook his head in disgust as he looked over the shambles that was the gantry. Dr. Andros had just phoned from Command, asked him to undertake a preliminary assessment of the condition of the facility, just to ballpark the extent of damage. The assignment was already depressing him. Still, from what he could see so far, things could have been worse. There was no obvious physical injury to VX-2 or to the transmission antennas up on the hill, though the testing and corrections could take weeks. The gantry was a total loss, no doubt about that, but otherwise the major physical structures on the island appeared unscathed. The main reason, naturally, was that almost everything important—including the superconducting coil and the Fujitsu—was well underground.