Now they were approaching the entry-point to Command, the high-security "lobby." Just inside the glass-doored space a uniformed Greek guard occupied a teakwood desk, attentively studying the sports section of an Athens newspaper.
They paused in the last shadows before the open space fronting the entryway, giving Stelios Tritsis time to shuck his black pullover. Underneath he was wearing the brown uniform of a SatCom guard, complete with epaulets and the regulation .38. He also had what, upon casual inspection, looked like a SatCom photo ID.
While the others waited, holding their breath, he stepped through the glass entry doors, feigning a jaunty pace and flipping the pass impatiently against the leg of his uniform.
When the SatCom guard looked up, puzzled, and started to challenge him, Tritsis was only five feet away. He sang out a hello in Greek, then reached to scratch an itch in the small of his back. When his hand came away, it was holding a small Glock-17 automatic. The shot was directly in the forehead, a dull thunk, and the guard tumbled backward in his chair, his eyes disbelieving, his .38 still holstered. It took only seconds.
Without a word the rest of them moved in.
"What's next?" Ramirez said quietly to Peretz.
“The code for the doors has to be punched in there—" he pointed. Behind the desk was a computer terminal that reported the security status of all the sectors. Its green screen remained blank, flashing no alerts.
"Disable them," Ramirez ordered, the first test of the Israeli's technical skills. In the hours to come, he would prove indispensable. Or so he claimed. "Then deactivate the access code and we ought to be able to just walk in."
While Jamal was rearranging the guard's body, leaving him slumped over the desk as though asleep, Ramirez locked the entry doors behind them, then stepped behind the desk and dimmed the lobby lights. Finally he slipped off his flight suit and tossed it behind the desk.
Right on schedule.