The troops still laughed to each other, but it was a sad kind of laughter now.
“So, let’s make this thing a roaring success and disappoint the hell out of Kurz!” Mao proclaimed.
“Yeah,” someone cheered. “Let’s disappoint Kurz!”
“Disappoint Kurz!”
“Don’t give that bastard what he wants!” the soldiers all echoed.
“I’m done, Ben,” Mao said.
“Good work,” he told her. “Now, let’s get ready to move out!”
The whole team went back to work. But now they were overflowing with vim and vigor. Their footsteps became steadier, their tones more forceful, and they seemed to be ready for the task before them.
“Disappoint Kurz” is a good rallying cry, Mao thought. They all knew he wouldn’t have really wished for them to fail, but grown adults would feel embarrassed saying, “let’s do it for Kurz.” And it probably wasn’t only Kurz they were thinking of; he was just the most recent of the dead, a stand-in for all those who had come before.
“Disappoint Kurz, huh?” she whispered again, and then laughed quietly to herself. Kurz, she thought. You were an amazing sniper, but you were useful now and then in other areas, too... I should thank you. I hope you watch us from the afterlife, beer in hand, with all the other guys, getting more annoyed by the minute...
“Oh, by the way, Wraith,” Mao said to the nearby woman as she snapped out of her reverie. “You said there was something else you had to tell us. What was it?”
Wraith didn’t answer. She just stood there awkwardly, sweat beading on her forehead, as if struggling with something difficult to say. She’d been listening calmly the entire time otherwise, but for some reason towards the end, she’d begun looking nervous.
“Wraith?” Mao asked again.
“Huh? Ah... right. What is it?”
“You said you had something else to tell us. What was it?”
“Um, t-tell you?” Wraith hedged. “Er...”
“What is it? You’re not looking well...”
“I’m not? It’s... it’s probably the weather. The air’s so thin here...”
“Yeah, true,” Mao agreed. “So, what’s the thing? Ben’s probably busy, but you can tell me.”
“Ah... er. It’s... It’s not important. Forget about it.”
“What? Why?”
“I mean it,” Wraith said in a rush. “You’re all so fired up; I don’t want to do anything to ruin that.”
“How would you ruin it?”
“Just forget it; I was wrong! It’s not important,” Wraith said dismissively. “I hope the GRU’s information is useful. Goodbye.”
“Um, wait a—”
Ignoring Mao’s attempts to stop her, Wraith swiftly walked away.
Once all the equipment and troops were on board, the transport took off from the small Tibetan airport. Because it was such a short-distance liftoff, it had to use a strapped-on disposable rocket booster, which added to the roar of takeoff.
Lemon watched the plane carrying Mao and the others go, then went to help the resupply team with clean-up. While they worked, he spotted Wraith, who had also stayed behind. She was standing at the edge of the airfield, talking to someone on a satellite phone.
He didn’t know who she was talking to, but she seemed to be desperately trying to pacify them.
“... and that’s what happened… No, I didn’t tell them. Why? I didn’t have a choice! No, it’s not that... The team was just so hyped up, it would have ruined everything! Ah, so... it’s okay, just don’t do anything. Actually, put a bullet through your own head and die,” she suggested. “That might be the best possible outcome. I’ll talk to Colonel Kiryenko about it. ...What? Like I care. ...Anyway, you understand? ...Oh, shut up. I’m hanging up!” she said, then did so. “Heaven’s sake... These people are nothing but trouble,” Wraith muttered while pocketing the phone.
The curious Lemon spoke up from behind her. “Hey.”
“Nn?!” Wraith cringed, apparently not having noticed him behind her until now. “Oh... Lemon. What is it?”
“You were acting weird in front of Mao-san and the others,” he observed. “Who were you talking to just now?”
“Ah...” Wraith hesitated. “Well, you won’t be able to talk to them until the operation’s over, so I suppose I can tell you.”
“Uh-huh...”
“The truth is... there was another bit of information I was supposed to pass on,” said Wraith, explaining the situation.
Lemon listened, nodding along as she went on. “Yeah,” he agreed, “that really would’ve ruined everything...”
“I couldn’t tell them. It’s just too damned awkward,” she muttered, and manipulated her satellite phone to procure a line to someone else.
“Who’re you calling?” Lemon wanted to know.
“Hunter,” she told him shortly. Wraith had a short exchange with Hunter, during which her expression gradually began to darken.
“Some kind of problem?” Lemon asked after she finished the call.
“He’s got an ETA for when the nuclear launch codes will be deciphered,” she said. “Three hours.”
“Sooner than expected.”
They’d have to input a highly secure launch code in order to fire the nuclear missiles, but the system had a safety mechanism designed to resist outside electronic input, and infinite combinations weren’t allowed either. An attempt to activate the firing mechanism independently would cause the missile launch circuit to fry itself, and if that happened, another launch couldn’t be attempted without getting a replacement from a highly regulated facility two thousand kilometers away.
The information the GRU provided had probably clarified the number of digits used in the firing code and the makeup of the safety device. Hunter’s team would have used that to speculate how long it would take for Amalgam to acquire the launch code, given the code-cracking skills they’d displayed in the past. It was just an estimate, of course, but...
Three hours, Lemon thought. Then he asked, “Is that an optimistic scenario?”
“I’m afraid so,” Wraith admitted. “It could also happen sooner.”
It would take a little under two hours for the force that just left to arrive at their destination. If the estimated time was exactly accurate, Mao and the others would still have little time to act. An hour or less to storm that mountain fortress...
“I hope they can do it,” he said.
Wraith didn’t say anything. She wasn’t one for platitudes, and this was no time for them.
“I wonder if being this far out in the country will let us escape nuclear war, too,” Lemon mumbled.
“Hey,” she objected.
“Just kidding,” said Lemon. “Let’s go.”
The preparations to withdraw were proceeding smoothly around them. The machinery had all been loaded onto the transport helicopter, whose engine was now roaring as the resupply crew carried out their checklists and began to board.
“We’d better get things ready in case they pull it off,” he concluded.
●
They were down to the finishing touches. Kaname had been holed up in the TARTAROS’s external control room since yesterday, immersed in the final rewrites of the control code. The work of constructing the TARTAROS was almost completely finished, and the only people still on-site were those needed for the final checks. It would take the geothermal generator a few hours yet to finish building up the power they needed, but these last touches to the control code should be finished by then.