People were clustered inside the open doors of the large, concrete-roofed hangar housing the Samson. As Keene and the others drew closer, they saw that a group of maybe two dozen was confronting several Air Force officers backed by a knot of APs carrying rifles unslung. The smaller hangar beyond, where the Cessna and the Rustler were parked, was still closed and seemed to have escaped attention. A big man, wearing a leather jacket, red hair hanging to his shoulders, was berating the officers loudly.
“Who was in the shuttle they launched? How many more shuttles are they getting ready in there?”
“There aren’t any more. That was it,” the officer at the fore told him.
“Then what about this plane you’ve been saving here? It’s big enough for everybody. There are people hurt back there.”
“It’s reserved for the launch personnel and their dependants. All the space has been allocated.”
“Well, nobody asked us about any allocating. What right does anyone have? We say the allocation needs to be gone through again, with fair chances for everybody.”
“You should have availed yourselves of the road evacuation. Why weren’t you there when you were supposed to be? We’re trying to find more vehicles now. That’s the best I can tell you.”
“What good’s that? There’s people coming back in off the highway. They were murdered out there. . . .”
The rest was lost as Keene’s party moved to the farther hangar. They let themselves in through a small door that gave access to the main area inside via offices. The floor was covered with glass from shattered windows above, and wind blowing through had left a coating of fine dust over everything. The roof had been breached at the end where the Cessna was parked, and the plane had been hit and punctured in several places. A check over the Rustler showed it to be unmarked. Sergeant Erse would have to stay on and assess the degree of damage to the Cessna. Dan, the Rustler pilot, said he’d give him a hand. Mitch assigned two of his troopers to stay behind with them.
As they came back out onto the tarmac, the radio on Keene’s belt squawked. He fished it from its pouch and acknowledged. It was Charlie Hu, calling from the control room inside the launch complex, where they had found a NASA cable route to the tracking station on Hawaii, which had opened up again, giving another connection to the Osiris. “Hello, Lan. The Boxcar is about five hundred miles out and starting to close,” Charlie said. “We thought you’d want to follow it.”
“We’re on our way,” Keene acknowledged. “The Boxcar’s going in to dock with the Osiris now,” he told Cavan.
Cavan nodded but seemed more concerned about what was going on at the larger hangar. “Leave your other four men here as well to secure those two planes,” he said to Mitch. “When we get back, draw up a roster with the others to relieve them. I want a permanent guard mounted here until we’re ready to leave.”
As Keene, Cavan, and the two commanders passed the large hangar, a jeep carrying Colonel Lacey and an AP escort drew up in front of the doors and became the focus of attention. Leaving him to it, they continued tramping back in the direction of the gate to the launch complex. When they were about halfway, the gloom around them brightened, making them look up. The light was from above, too high to be the setting sun. Through a brief thinning of the blanket of dust and cloud, they glimpsed Athena, looming ever more huge, glowering redly behind the folds and twisting pillars of its tail. Far above, a hollow boom rolled down from something exploding high in the atmosphere. The air had a smell of crude-oil vapors, like the areas around the refineries on the Texas coast.
38
The bay doors had been freed when Keene and the others got back to the OLC complex. Boarding of the second Boxcar was about to commence. Mitch and Penalski disappeared to organize the guarding and resupply of the two planes, while Cliff, the Rustler’s second officer, left with an airframe mechanic to help the two pilots working on the Cessna. Cavan went with Keene up to the control room.