If I can't do what I planned, he told himself, nobody's going to believe me. I've got to take one of those vehicles hypersonic tomorrow morning, ready or not.
"Impossible. There's no way we can fuel Daedalus II with liquid hydrogen. The Mino Industries ground crews would suspect something immediately. It's out of the question. I forged some orders and had it fueled with JP-7 late last night, at 2300 hours. That's the best I can do."
Chort, Yuri thought. Well, maybe I can fake it. Push it out to Mach 5 with JP-7 and still . . .
"And the two 'pilots' from Mino Industries," he turned back, "what about them?"
"If the American plays his part, they will never suspect." Grishkov flashed a grin.
"Unless somebody here screws up," he said, gazing around the room again, studying the white technician's uniforms, the innocent faces.
"There'll be a lot of confusion. When we start pumping liquid hydrogen into Daedalus /, the site will be pandemonium," Grishkov continued. "All you have to do is get into the cockpit of the other plane."
It would be a horrible accident, but accidents happened. They'd all heard whispered stories about the tragedy at Baikonur in October 1960, when almost a hundred men were killed because Nikita Khrushchev wanted a spectacular space shot while he was visiting the United Nations. When a giant rocket, a Mars probe, failed to achieve ignition, instead of taking the delay required to remove the fuel before checking the malfunction, the technicians were ordered to troubleshoot it immediately. Tech crews were swarming over it when it detonated.
"Then I guess we're ready." Yuri Andreevich sighed.
"We are." Grishkov nodded and reached for the phone beside the main console, quickly punching in four numbers. He spoke quietly for a few moments, then replaced the receiver.