"Which means I want the VKS to stay out of my way inside and outside the Cosmodrome, and allow Sword personnel unrestricted access to all buildings we deem under threat," Ricci interrupted. "With all due respect, Mr. Petrov, I advise you to make that happen, or the sky just might wind up falling down around your head."

As had been the case with the warehouse penetration in Brazil, the invaders gained access to the cargo-processing facility through a rear loading-bay door. What was different as Kuhl and his men went in now was that every alarm, door lock, piece of audio/visual surveillance equipment, computer--everything, everything that contained wires and circuits and fed off electrical current, including the light fixtures and air conditioners--had been neutralized. And because the precise calibration of Ilkanovitch's device had disrupted rather than destroyed the power and computer grids, most if not all of the systems would reactivate within several minutes to half an hour, leaving the intrusion undiscovered. Convinced someone was determined to halt the space station program by the Orion explosion and subsequent attack on the Brazilian ISS facility, the Russian and American defenders of the Cosmodrome would repel the decoy strike force at the east gate and congratulate themselves on having saved the launch vehicle.

Never would they guess that its successful launch always had been Harlan DeVane's intention. That the attacks and sabotage had been both cover for his actual plan to send Havoc into orbit aboard the ISS, and a means by which Roger Gordian's resources could be needlessly squandered, his political ties in Russia and Brazil frayed, his spreading operations in Latin America weakened and destabilized.

Their FAMAS guns shouldered, optical display helmets and visors covering their faces, Kuhl's team made their way through the ruler-straight corridor leading to the room in which the space station module was housed, following an interior plan they had long ago committed to memory. The Havoc device and antenna in Kuhl's backpack weighed only twenty pounds, and was the approximate size of a portable stereo. Planted discreetly aboard the boxcar-sized space-station module, it would not be detected by the engineers who transported the module to its launch vehicle, or the cosmonauts responsible for its linkup to the orbital space station. Once having accomplished the connection, the Russians were scheduled to return to Earth, and there would be several weeks before the first permanent crew was sent aboard, by which time DeVane would have accomplished his blackmail of Russia and the United States. Only the checkout engineers might have noticed it prelaunch--and their final inspection had been conducted the day before.

There was, Kuhl thought, an exquisite symmetry to it all.