Project Cyclops

============================================================== This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, http://creativecommons.org/ ============================================================== THOMAS HOOVER “A high-tech launch site, a missing nuke, and Arab terrorists with nothing to lose . . .” In the sun-dappled waters of the Aegean , ex-agent Michael Vance pilots the Odyssey II , a handmade replica of the sailcraft of the ancient hero Ulysses. Out of nowhere, a Russian Hind gunship with Arab terrorists at the helm fires upon the tiny ship below. The terrorists’ destination is a tiny Aegean island where a U.S. aerospace corporation carefully guards the Cyclops 20-megawatt laser launch facility. But the company security force is no match for the firepower of the Arab invasion and the launch site is quickly overrun. With helpless horror, the executives can only watch as renegade technicians convert the launch vehicle into a ballistic missile that can deliver their stolen thermonuclear warhead to any city in the U.S. Left for dead amid the smoking ruins of Odyssey II , Michael Vance washes up on the occupied island – and becomes America ’s only hope. BOOKS BY THOMAS HOOVER Nonfiction Zen Culture The Zen Experience Fiction The Moghul Caribbee Wall Street Samurai (The Samurai Strategy) Project Daedalus Project Cyclops Life Blood Syndrome All free as e-books at www.thomashoover.info PROJECT CYCLOPS A Bantam Falcon Book/September 1992 All rights reserved. Copyright 1992 by Thomas Hoover. Cover art copyright 1992 by Alan Ayers. ISBN 0-553-29520-9 Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA OPM 0987654321 Grateful acknowledgment is made to reprint from the following: "On forelands high in heaven" from More Poems from The Collected Poems of A.E. Housman. Copyright 1936 by Barclays Bank Ltd., Copyright 1964 by Robert E. Symons. Copyright 1965 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, Inc. KEY WORDS: THOMAS HOOVER (Author) PROJECT CYCLOPS (Novel: Techno Thriller) Arab Terrorists, Laser, Aegean, Odyssey, Aerospace, Ballastic Missile, Thermonuclear Warhead, Ulysses, U.S. Navy, Israeli Terrorist, Hind, Spacecraft, satellite, Pakistan nuclear bomb, mercenaries PROJECT CYCLOPS Preface 7:22 p.m. "Keep her above three hundred meters on the approach." Ramirez's hard voice cut through the roar of the 2,200-hp Isotov turboshafts. Down below, the cold, dusk-shrouded Aegean churned with a late autumn storm. "Any lower and there'll be surface effect." "I'm well aware of that," the Iranian pilot muttered, a sullen…