They flew on over the tourist areas around Tusayan. He could make out the tiny, scattered towns and lodges, the dusty trails along the South Rim, the fine black lines of the metalled roads. And then he followed the Colorado to the north, skirting the Navajo Reservation, soaring over Marble Canyon, until he reached Lake Powell itself.

Lake Powell was flat, like some kind of engine oil spilled into the valley, its Mediterranean blue a striking contrast with the sunlit red and ochre of the high desert. He could see at a glance the lake wasn’t natural. Its shoreline was sharply ragged, like a fractal pattern: no time for erosion to smooth away the edges here.

Maybe some day — if the kooks, like Alfred Synge, that his mother used to bring home had been right — Mars would look like this. Terraformed, by American hands and energy and ingenuity, blue against the red dust. He grinned. Even if all we do with the world we build is put up plastic pyramids.

Anyhow, today the Moonseed was soon going to find out just what Americans were capable of. For better or worse, for them all.

He turned away from the sun, with Jake on his tail. He scooted low over Lake Powell.

And there, at last, was Glen Canyon Dam. The target.

Garry was going in first. “Target in sight. Ten seconds to the drop.”

Copy, Garry. Your pickle is hot.

“Master Arm on…”

The LANTIRN targeting pod, fixed to the forward fuselage of the airplane, fired a short laser burst at the dam, to establish the range to target. A grainy image on his head-up display, generated by the pod, told him what was going on.

The time-to-drop clock counted down to zero.

The two bombs fell away from his wing pylons. They lit up and accelerated away quickly.

When the bombs were fifteen seconds from impact, Garry fired his guidance laser at the base of the dam, as close as he could get to the water line. A clock in the multi-function display counted down to zero.

He could see the missiles slam into the face of the dam: small puffs of masonry dust, in utter silence.

After that, nothing.

He peeled around, and stood off as Jake completed his own run.

The bombs were “Deep Throat” penetrator bombs, officially designated GBU-28/B, complete with Paveway laser guidance kits. The first of these babies — improvised from old, rusting Howitzer gun barrels — had been put together by Lockheed in haste in the build-up to Desert Storm, to dig out Iraqi command and control bunkers.

When all four bombs were emplaced, their tail-mounted fuses caused them to detonate, simultaneously.

It happened in an instant.

Concrete erupted from the face of the dam, hailing over the water of the Lake, which turned white. Garry imagined a shear wave slamming into the structure of the dam, weakening it fatally.

The first cracks appeared, even as he watched.