DECEPTION POINT

DECEPTION POINT

“[DECEPTION POINT has] enough twists and surprises to keep even the most
seasoned readers guessing.”
—Vince Flynn, New York Times
bestselling author of Separation of Power
“Dan Brown handles the intrigue and action well…his research is impeccable.”
—Daily News (New York)
“A taut, fast-paced, barn-burner of a book. There are no weaknesses in the story
or storytelling.”
—St. Petersburg Times
“Brown is among the most intelligent and dynamic of authors in the thriller
genre. In this dazzling high-tech adventure, he has skillfully blended his own
wit and style with the rip-roaring adventure of Cussler and the modern
technology of Clancy. Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal
“Brown has an impressive grasp of his material. He is a more astute storyteller
than most of his brethren in the thriller vein.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“This is pretty exciting stuff…. Brown certainly does have a knack for spinning
a suspenseful yarn.”
—Booklist
“In the world of page-turning thrillers, Dan Brown holds a special place in the
hearts of many of us…. A writer whose research and talent make his stories
exciting, believable, and just plain unputdownable.”
—Otto Penzler, Amazon.com (A Penzler Pick)
“An exciting techno-thriller that contains cleverly incorporated scientific
know-how…. A powerfully chilling thriller…. A superb masterpiece.”
—Harriet Klausner
“A good political story, a good love story, and a good thriller.”
—Wisconsin State Journal
“This book moves with breakneck speed…the many twists and turns will keep the
reader up late. DECEPTION POINT is interesting, fun, and as suspenseful as an
election full of dimpled chads.”
—dcmilitary.com
“Excellent and enjoyable…. This is a thriller with an outstanding blend of
sophisticated military and scientific details and believable characters…. The
author is at his best.”
—Sullivan County Democrat
ANGELS & DEMONS
“Angels & Demons is one hell of a book—I had a hard time putting it down…. An
intriguing, imaginative, and very suspenseful read.”
—Dale Brown, New York Times
bestselling author of Battle Born
“Brown sets an explosive pace through Rome. Twists and shocks that keep the
reader wired right up to the last revelation.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Life-or-death cliff hangers, thrilling cat-and-mouse maneuvers, romance,
religion, science, murder, mysticism, architecture, and action. GO!”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[A] frantic-paced, pulse-pounding thriller that rivals the best works of Clancy
and Cussler. The action-packed tale takes readers on an exciting adventure that
feels perilously real. Angels & Demons is one reading experience that the
audience will never forget.”
—Midwest Book Review
“It’s brilliant! These characters have depth…. The plot is twisty, turny,
slippery, and surprising. As for the ending…WOW.”
—New Hampshire Sunday News
Books by Dan Brown
Angels & Demons
Digital Fortress
Deception Point
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are
products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
Copyright © 2001 by Dan Brown
Originally published in hardcover in 2001 by Pocket Books
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions
thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230
Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN: 0-7434-7543-7
POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Visit us on the World Wide Web:
http://www.SimonSays.com
Acknowledgments
With warm thanks to Jason Kaufman for his superb guidance and insightful
editorial skills; Blythe Brown for her tireless research and creative input; my
good friend Jake Elwell at Wieser & Wieser; the National Security Archive; the
NASA Public Affairs Office; Stan Planton, who continues to be a source for
information on all things; the National Security Agency; glaciologist Martin O.
Jeffries; and the superb minds of Brett Trotter, Thomas D. Nadeau, and Jim
Barrington. Thanks also to Connie and Dick Brown, the U.S. Intelligence Policy
Documentation Project, Suzanne O’Neill, Margie Wachtel, Morey Stettner, Owen
King, Alison McKinnell, Mary and Stephen Gorman, Dr. Karl Singer, Dr. Michael I.
Latz of Scripps Institute of Oceanography, April at Micron Electronics, Esther
Sung, the National Air and Space Museum, Dr. Gene Allmendinger, the incomparable
Heide Lange at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, and John Pike at the
Federation of American Scientists.
Author’s Note
The Delta Force, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Space Frontier
Foundation are real organizations. All technologies described in this novel
exist.
If this discovery is confirmed, it will surely be one of the most stunning
insights into our universe that science has ever uncovered. Its implications are
as far-reaching and awe-inspiring as can be imagined. Even as it promises
answers to some of our oldest questions, it poses still others even more
fundamental.
—President Bill Clinton, in a press conference following a discovery known as
ALH84001 on August 7, 1997
Prologue
Death, in this forsaken place, could come in countless forms. Geologist Charles
Brophy had endured the savage splendor of this terrain for years, and yet
nothing could prepare him for a fate as barbarous and unnatural as the one about
to befall him.
As Brophy’s four huskies pulled his sled of geologic sensing equipment across
the tundra, the dogs suddenly slowed, looking skyward.
“What is it, girls?” Brophy asked, stepping off the sled.
Beyond the gathering storm clouds, a twin-rotor transport helicopter arched in
low, hugging the glacial peaks with military dexterity.
That’s odd, he thought. He never saw helicopters this far north. The aircraft
landed fifty yards away, kicking up a stinging spray of granulated snow. His
dogs whined, looking wary.
When the chopper doors slid open, two men descended. They were dressed in
full-weather whites, armed with rifles, and moved toward Brophy with urgent
intent.
“Dr. Brophy?” one called.
The geologist was baffled. “How did you know my name? Who are you?”
“Take out your radio, please.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Just do it.”
Bewildered, Brophy pulled his radio from his parka.
“We need you to transmit an emergency communiqué. Decrease your radio frequency
to one hundred kilohertz.”
One hundred kilohertz? Brophy felt utterly lost. Nobody can receive anything
that low. “Has there been an accident?”
The second man raised his rifle and pointed it at Brophy’s head. “There’s no
time to explain. Just do it.”
Trembling, Brophy adjusted his transmission frequency.
The first man now handed him a note card with a few lines typed on it. “Transmit
this message. Now.”
Brophy looked at the card. “I don’t understand. This information is incorrect. I
didn’t—”
The man pressed his rifle hard against the geologist’s temple.
Brophy’s voice was shaking as he transmitted the bizarre message.
“Good,” the first man said. “Now get yourself and your dogs into the chopper.”
At gunpoint, Brophy maneuvered his reluctant dogs and sled up a skid ramp into
the cargo bay. As soon as they were settled, the chopper lifted off, turning
westward.
“Who the hell are you!” Brophy demanded, breaking a sweat inside his parka. And
what was the meaning of that message!
The men said nothing.
As the chopper gained altitude, the wind tore through the open door. Brophy’s
four huskies, still rigged to the loaded sled, were whimpering now.
“At least close the door,” Brophy demanded. “Can’t you see my dogs are
frightened!”
The men did not respond.
As the chopper rose to four thousand feet, it banked steeply out over a series
of ice chasms and crevasses. Suddenly, the men stood. Without a word, they
gripped the heavily laden sled and pushed it out the open door. Brophy watched
in horror as his dogs scrambled in vain against the enormous weight. In an
instant the animals disappeared, dragged howling out of the chopper.
Brophy was already on his feet screaming when the men grabbed him. They hauled
him to the door. Numb with fear, Brophy swung his fists, trying to fend off the
powerful hands pushing him outward.
It was no use. Moments later he was tumbling toward the chasms below.
1
Toulos Restaurant, adjacent to Capitol Hill, boasts a politically incorrect menu
of baby veal and horse carpaccio, making it an ironic hotspot for the
quintessential Washingtonian power breakfast. This morning Toulos was busy—a
cacophony of clanking silverware, espresso machines, and cellphone
conversations.
The maitre d’ was sneaking a sip of his morning Bloody Mary when the woman
entered. He turned with a practiced smile.
“Good morning,” he said. “May I help you?”
The woman was attractive, in her mid-thirties, wearing gray, pleated flannel
pants, conservative flats, and an ivory Laura Ashley blouse. Her posture was
straight—chin raised ever so slightly—not arrogant, just strong. The woman’s
hair was light brown and fashioned in Washington’s most popular style—the
“anchor-woman”—a lush feathering, curled under at the shoulders…long enough to
be sexy, but short enough to remind you she was probably smarter than you.
“I’m a little late,” the woman said, her voice unassuming. “I have a breakfast
meeting with Senator Sexton.”
The maitre d’ felt an unexpected tingle of nerves. Senator Sedgewick Sexton. The
senator was a regular here and currently one of the country’s most famous men.
Last week, having swept all twelve Republican primaries on Super Tuesday, the
senator was virtually guaranteed his party’s nomination for President of the
United States. Many believed the senator had a superb chance of stealing the
White House from the embattled President next fall. Lately Sexton’s face seemed
to be on every national magazine, his campaign slogan plastered all across
America: “Stop spending. Start mending.”
“Senator Sexton is in his booth,” the maitre d’ said. “And you are?”
“Rachel Sexton. His daughter.”
How foolish of me, he thought. The resemblance was quite apparent. The woman had
the senator’s penetrating eyes and refined carriage—that polished air of
resilient nobility. Clearly the senator’s classic good looks had not skipped
generations, although Rachel Sexton seemed to carry her blessings with a grace
and humility her father could learn from.
“A pleasure to have you, Ms. Sexton.”
As the maitre d’ led the senator’s daughter across the dining area, he was
embarrassed by the gauntlet of male eyes following her…some discreet, others
less so. Few women dined at Toulos and even fewer who looked like Rachel Sexton.
“Nice body,” one diner whispered. “Sexton already find himself a new wife?”
“That’s his daughter, you idiot,” another replied.
The man chuckled. “Knowing Sexton, he’d probably screw her anyway.”
When Rachel arrived at her father’s table, the senator was on his cellphone
talking loudly about one of his recent successes. He glanced up at Rachel only
long enough to tap his Cartier and remind her she was late.
I missed you, too, Rachel thought.
Her father’s first name was Thomas, although he’d adopted his middle name long
ago. Rachel suspected it was because he liked the alliteration. Senator
Sedgewick Sexton. The man was a silver-haired, silver-tongued political animal
who had been anointed with the slick look of soap opera doctor, which seemed
appropriate considering his talents of impersonation.
“Rachel!” Her father clicked off his phone and stood to kiss her cheek.
“Hi, Dad.” She did not kiss him back.
“You look exhausted.”
And so it begins, she thought. “I got your message. What’s up?”
“I can’t ask my daughter out for breakfast?”
Rachel had learned long ago her father seldom requested her company unless he
had some ulterior motive.
Sexton took a sip of coffee. “So, how are things with you?”
“Busy. I see your campaign’s going well.”
“Oh, let’s not talk business.” Sexton leaned across the table, lowering his
voice. “How’s that guy at the State Department I set you up with?”
Rachel exhaled, already fighting the urge to check her watch. “Dad, I really
haven’t had time to call him. And I wish you’d stop trying to—”
“You’ve got to make time for the important things, Rachel. Without love,
everything else is meaningless.”
A number of comebacks came to mind, but Rachel chose silence. Being the bigger
person was not difficult when it came to her father. “Dad, you wanted to see me?
You said this was important.”
“It is.” Her father’s eyes studied her closely.
Rachel felt part of her defenses melt away under his gaze, and she cursed the
man’s power. The senator’s eyes were his gift—a gift Rachel suspected would
probably carry him to the White House. On cue, his eyes would well with tears,
and then, an instant later, they would clear, opening a window to an impassioned
soul, extending a bond of trust to all. It’s all about trust, her father always
said. The senator had lost Rachel’s years ago, but he was quickly gaining the
country’s.
“I have a proposition for you,” Senator Sexton said.
“Let me guess,” Rachel replied, attempting to refortify her position. “Some
prominent divorcé looking for a young wife?”
“Don’t kid yourself, honey. You’re not that young anymore.”
Rachel felt the familiar shrinking sensation that so often accompanied meetings
with her father.
“I want to throw you a life raft,” he said.
“I wasn’t aware I was drowning.”
“You’re not. The President is. You should jump ship before it’s too late.”
“Haven’t we had this conversation?”
“Think about your future, Rachel. You can come work for me.”
“I hope that’s not why you asked me to breakfast.”
The senator’s veneer of calm broke ever so slightly. “Rachel, can’t you see that
your working for him reflects badly on me. And on my campaign.”
Rachel sighed. She and her father had been through this. “Dad, I don’t work for
the President. I haven’t even met the President. I work in Fairfax, for God’s
sake!”
“Politics is perception, Rachel. It appears you work for the President.”
Rachel exhaled, trying to keep her cool. “I worked too hard to get this job,
Dad. I’m not quitting.”
The senator’s eyes narrowed. “You know, sometimes your selfish attitude really—”
“Senator Sexton?” A reporter materialized beside the table.
Sexton’s demeanor thawed instantly. Rachel groaned and took a croissant from the
basket on the table.
“Ralph Sneeden,” the reporter said. “Washington Post. May I ask you a few
questions?”
The senator smiled, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. “My pleasure, Ralph. Just
make it quick. I don’t want my coffee getting cold.”
The reporter laughed on cue. “Of course, sir.” He pulled out a minirecorder and
turned it on. “Senator, your television ads call for legislation ensuring equal
salaries for women in the workplace…as well as for tax cuts for new families.
Can you comment on your rationale?”
“Sure. I’m simply a huge fan of strong women and strong families.”
Rachel practically choked on her croissant.
“And on the subject of families,” the reporter followed up, “you talk a lot
about education. You’ve proposed some highly controversial budget cuts in an
effort to allocate more funds to our nation’s schools.”
“I believe the children are our future.”
Rachel could not believe her father had sunk to quoting pop songs.
“Finally, sir,” the reporter said, “you’ve taken an enormous jump in the polls
these past few weeks. The President has got to be worried. Any thoughts on your
recent success?”
“I think it has to do with trust. Americans are starting to see that the
President cannot be trusted to make the tough decisions facing this nation.
Runaway government spending is putting this country deeper in debt every day,
and Americans are starting to realize that it’s time to stop spending and start
mending.”
Like a stay of execution from her father’s rhetoric, the pager in Rachel’s
handbag went off. Normally the harsh electronic beeping was an unwelcome
interruption, but at the moment, it sounded almost melodious.
The senator glared indignantly at having been interrupted.
Rachel fished the pager from her handbag and pressed a preset sequence of five
buttons, confirming that she was indeed the person holding the pager. The
beeping stopped, and the LCD began blinking. In fifteen seconds she would
receive a secure text message.
Sneeden grinned at the senator. “Your daughter is obviously a busy woman. It’s
refreshing to see you two still find time in your schedules to dine together.”
“As I said, family comes first.”
Sneeden nodded, and then his gaze hardened. “Might I ask, sir, how you and your
daughter manage your conflicts of interest?”
“Conflicts?” Senator Sexton cocked his head with an innocent look of confusion.
“What conflicts do you mean?”
Rachel glanced up, grimacing at her father’s act. She knew exactly where this
was headed. Damn reporters, she thought. Half of them were on political
payrolls. The reporter’s question was what journalists called a grapefruit—a
question that was supposed to look like a tough inquiry but was in fact a
scripted favor to the senator—a slow lob pitch that her father could line up and
smash out of the park, clearing the air about a few things.
“Well, sir…” The reporter coughed, feigning uneasiness over the question. “The
conflict is that your daughter works for your opponent.”
Senator Sexton exploded in laughter, defusing the question instantly. “Ralph,
first of all, the President and I are not opponents. We are simply two patriots
who have different ideas about how to run the country we love.”
The reporter beamed. He had his sound bite. “And second?”
“Second, my daughter is not employed by the President; she is employed by the
intelligence community. She compiles intel reports and sends them to the White
House. It’s a fairly low-level position.” He paused and looked at Rachel. “In
fact, dear, I’m not sure you’ve even met the President, have you?”
Rachel stared, her eyes smoldering.
The beeper chirped, drawing Rachel’s gaze to the incoming message on the LCD
screen.
—RPRT DIRNRO STAT—
She deciphered the shorthand instantly and frowned. The message was unexpected,
and most certainly bad news. At least she had her exit cue.
“Gentlemen,” she said. “It breaks my heart, but I have to go. I’m late for
work.”
“Ms. Sexton,” the reporter said quickly, “before you go, I was wondering if you
could comment on the rumors that you called this breakfast meeting to discuss
the possibility of leaving your current post to work for your father’s
campaign?”
Rachel felt like someone had thrown hot coffee in her face. The question took
her totally off guard. She looked at her father and sensed in his smirk that the
question had been prepped. She wanted to climb across the table and stab him
with a fork.
The reporter shoved the recorder into her face. “Miss Sexton?”
Rachel locked eyes with the reporter. “Ralph, or whoever the hell you are, get
this straight: I have no intention of abandoning my job to work for Senator
Sexton, and if you print anything to the contrary, you’ll need a shoehorn to get
that recorder out of your ass.”
The reporter’s eyes widened. He clicked off his recorder, hiding a grin. “Thank
you both.” He disappeared.
Rachel immediately regretted the outburst. She had inherited her father’s
temper, and she hated him for it. Smooth, Rachel. Very smooth.
Her father glared disapprovingly. “You’d do well to learn some poise.”
Rachel began collecting her things. “This meeting is over.”
The senator was apparently done with her anyway. He pulled out his cellphone to
make a call. “’Bye, sweetie. Stop by the office one of these days and say hello.
And get married, for God’s sake. You’re thirty-three years old.”
“Thirty-four,” she snapped. “Your secretary sent a card.”
He clucked ruefully. “Thirty-four. Almost an old maid. You know by the time I
was thirty-four, I’d already—”
“Married Mom and screwed the neighbor?” The words came out louder than Rachel
had intended, her voice hanging naked in an ill-timed lull. Diners nearby
glanced over.
Senator Sexton’s eyes flash-froze, two ice-crystals boring into her. “You watch
yourself, young lady.”
Rachel headed for the door. No, you watch yourself, senator.
2
The three men sat in silence inside their ThermaTech storm tent. Outside, an icy
wind buffeted the shelter, threatening to tear it from its moorings. None of the
men took notice; each had seen situations far more threatening than this one.
Their tent was stark white, pitched in a shallow depression, out of sight. Their
communication devices, transport, and weapons were all state-of-the-art. The
group leader was code-named Delta-One. He was muscular and lithe with eyes as
desolate as the topography on which he was stationed.
The military chronograph on Delta-One’s wrist emitted a sharp beep. The sound
coincided in perfect unison with beeps emitted from the chronographs worn by the
other two men.
Another thirty minutes had passed.
It was time. Again.
Reflexively, Delta-One left his two partners and stepped outside into the
darkness and pounding wind. He scanned the moonlit horizon with infrared
binoculars. As always, he focused on the structure. It was a thousand meters
away—an enormous and unlikely edifice rising from the barren terrain. He and his
team had been watching it for ten days now, since its construction. Delta-One
had no doubt that the information inside would change the world. Lives already
had been lost to protect it.
At the moment, everything looked quiet outside the structure.
The true test, however, was what was happening inside.
Delta-One reentered the tent and addressed his two fellow soldiers. “Time for a
flyby.”
Both men nodded. The taller of them, Delta-Two, opened a laptop computer and
turned it on. Positioning himself in front of the screen, Delta-Two placed his
hand on a mechanical joystick and gave it a short jerk. A thousand meters away,
hidden deep within the building, a surveillance robot the size of a mosquito
received his transmission and sprang to life.
3
Rachel Sexton was still steaming as she drove her white Integra up Leesburg
Highway. The bare maples of the Falls Church foothills rose stark against a
crisp March sky, but the peaceful setting did little to calm her anger. Her
father’s recent surge in the polls should have endowed him with a modicum of
confident grace, and yet it seemed only to fuel his self-importance.
The man’s deceit was doubly painful because he was the only immediate family
Rachel had left. Rachel’s mother had died three years ago, a devastating loss
whose emotional scars still raked at Rachel’s heart. Rachel’s only solace was
knowing that the death, with ironic compassion, had liberated her mother from a
deep despair over a miserable marriage to the senator.
Rachel’s pager beeped again, pulling her thoughts back to the road in front of
her. The incoming message was the same.
—RPRT DIRNRO STAT—
Report to the director of NRO stat. She sighed. I’m coming, for God’s sake!
With rising uncertainty, Rachel drove to her usual exit, turned onto the private
access road, and rolled to a stop at the heavily armed sentry booth. This was
14225 Leesburg Highway, one of the most secretive addresses in the country.
While the guard scanned her car for bugs, Rachel gazed out at the mammoth
structure in the distance. The one-million-square-foot complex sat majestically
on sixty-eight forested acres just outside D.C. in Fairfax, Virginia. The
building’s facade was a bastion of one-way glass that reflected the army of
satellite dishes, antennas, and rayodomes on the surrounding grounds, doubling
their already awe-inspiring numbers.
Two minutes later, Rachel had parked and crossed the manicured grounds to the
main entrance, where a carved granite sign announced
NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE (NRO)
The two armed Marines flanking the bulletproof revolving door stared straight
ahead as Rachel passed between them. She felt the same sensation she always felt
as she pushed through these doors…that she was entering the belly of a sleeping
giant.
Inside the vaulted lobby, Rachel sensed the faint echoes of hushed conversations
all around her, as if the words were sifting down from the offices above. An
enormous tiled mosaic proclaimed the NRO directive:
ENABLING U.S. GLOBAL INFORMATION
SUPERIORITY, DURING PEACE AND THROUGH WAR.
The walls here were lined with massive photographs—rocket launches, submarine
christenings, intercept installations—towering achievements that could be
celebrated only within these walls.
Now, as always, Rachel felt the problems of the outside world fading behind her.
She was entering the shadow world. A world where the problems thundered in like
freight trains, and the solutions were meted out with barely a whisper.
As Rachel approached the final checkpoint, she wondered what kind of problem had
caused her pager to ring twice in the last thirty minutes.
“Good morning, Ms. Sexton.” The guard smiled as she approached the steel
doorway.
Rachel returned the smile as the guard held out a tiny swab for Rachel to take.
“You know the drill,” he said.
Rachel took the hermetically sealed cotton swab and removed the plastic
covering. Then she placed it in her mouth like a thermometer. She held it under
her tongue for two seconds. Then, leaning forward, she allowed the guard to
remove it. The guard inserted the moistened swab into a slit in a machine behind
him. The machine took four seconds to confirm the DNA sequences in Rachel’s
saliva. Then a monitor flickered on, displaying Rachel’s photo and security
clearance.
The guard winked. “Looks like you’re still you.” He pulled the used swab from
the machine and dropped it through an opening, where it was instantly
incinerated. “Have a good one.” He pressed a button and the huge steel doors
swung open.
As Rachel made her way into the maze of bustling corridors beyond, she was
amazed that even after six years here she was still daunted by the colossal
scope of this operation. The agency encompassed six other U.S. installations,
employed over ten thousand agents, and had operating costs of over $10 billion
per year.
In total secrecy, the NRO built and maintained an astonishing arsenal of
cutting-edge spy technologies: worldwide electronic intercepts; spy satellites;
silent, embedded relay chips in telecomm products; even a global naval-recon
network known as Classic Wizard, a secret web of 1,456 hydrophones mounted on
seafloors around the world, capable of monitoring ship movements anywhere on the
globe.
NRO technologies not only helped the United States win military conflicts, but
they provided an endless stream of peacetime data to agencies such as the CIA,
NSA, and Department of Defense, helping them thwart terrorism, locate crimes
against the environment, and give policymakers the data needed to make informed
decisions on an enormous array of topics.
Rachel worked here as a “gister.” Gisting, or data reduction, required analyzing
complex reports and distilling their essence or “gist” into concise, single-page
briefs. Rachel had proven herself a natural. All those years of cutting through
my father’s bullshit, she thought.
Rachel now held the NRO’s premier gisting post—intelligence liaison to the White
House. She was responsible for sifting through the NRO’s daily intelligence
reports, deciding which stories were relevant to the President, distilling those
reports into single-page briefs, and then forwarding the synopsized material to
the President’s National Security Adviser. In NRO-speak, Rachel Sexton
“manufactured finished product and serviced the customer.”
Although the job was difficult and required long hours, the position was a badge
of honor for her, a way to assert her independence from her father. Senator
Sexton had offered many times to support Rachel if she would quit the post, but
Rachel had no intention of becoming financially beholden to a man like Sedgewick
Sexton. Her mother was testimony to what could happen when a man like that held
too many cards.
The sound of Rachel’s pager echoed in the marble hall.
Again? She didn’t even bother to check the message.
Wondering what the hell was going on, she boarded the elevator, skipped her own
floor, and went straight to the top.
4
To call the NRO director a plain man was in itself an overstatement. NRO
Director William Pickering was diminutive, with pale skin, a forgettable face, a
bald head, and hazel eyes, which despite having gazed upon the country’s deepest
secrets, appeared as two shallow pools. Nonetheless, to those who worked under
him, Pickering towered. His subdued personality and unadorned philosophies were
legendary at the NRO. The man’s quiet diligence, combined with his wardrobe of
plain black suits, had earned him the nickname the “Quaker.” A brilliant
strategist and the model of efficiency, the Quaker ran his world with an
unrivaled clarity. His mantra: “Find the truth. Act on it.”
When Rachel arrived in the director’s office, he was on the phone. Rachel was
always surprised by the sight of him: William Pickering looked nothing like a
man who wielded enough power to wake the President at any hour.
Pickering hung up and waved her in. “Agent Sexton, have a seat.” His voice had a
lucid rawness to it.
“Thank you, sir.” Rachel sat.
Despite most people’s discomfort around William Pickering’s blunt demeanor,
Rachel had always liked the man. He was the exact antithesis of her
father…physically unimposing, anything but charismatic, and he did his duty with
a selfless patriotism, shunning the spotlight her father loved so much.
Pickering removed his glasses and gazed at her. “Agent Sexton, the President
called me about a half hour ago. In direct reference to you.”
Rachel shifted in her seat. Pickering was known for getting to the point. One
hell of an opening, she thought. “Not a problem with one of my gists, I hope.”
“On the contrary. He says the White House is impressed with your work.”
Rachel exhaled silently. “So what did he want?”
“A meeting with you. In person. Immediately.”
Rachel’s unease sharpened. “A personal meeting? About what?”
“Damn good question. He wouldn’t tell me.”
Now Rachel was lost. Keeping information from the director of the NRO was like
keeping Vatican secrets from the Pope. The standing joke in the intelligence
community was that if William Pickering didn’t know about it, it hadn’t
happened.
Pickering stood, pacing now in front of his window. “He asked that I contact you
immediately and send you to meet with him.”
“Right now?”
“He sent transportation. It’s waiting outside.”
Rachel frowned. The President’s request was unnerving on its own account, but it
was the look of concern on Pickering’s face that really worried her. “You
obviously have reservations.”
“I sure as hell do!” Pickering showed a rare flash of emotion. “The President’s
timing seems almost callow in its transparency. You are the daughter of the man
who is currently challenging him in the polls, and he demands a private meeting
with you? I find this highly inappropriate. Your father no doubt would agree.”
Rachel knew Pickering was right—not that she gave a damn what her father
thought. “Do you not trust the President’s motives?”
“My oath is to provide intel support to the current White House administration,
not pass judgment on their politics.”
Typical Pickering response, Rachel realized. William Pickering made no bones
about his view of politicians as transitory figureheads who passed fleetingly
across a chessboard whose real players were men like Pickering himself—seasoned
“lifers” who had been around long enough to understand the game with some
perspective. Two full terms in the White House, Pickering often said, was not
nearly enough to comprehend the true complexities of the global political
landscape.
“Maybe it’s an innocent request,” Rachel offered, hoping the President was above
trying some sort of cheap campaign stunt. “Maybe he needs a reduction of some
sensitive data.”
“Not to sound belittling, Agent Sexton, but the White House has access to plenty
of qualified gisting personnel if they need it. If it’s an internal White House
job, the President should know better than to contact you. And if not, then he
sure as hell should know better than to request an NRO asset and then refuse to
tell me what he wants it for.”
Pickering always referred to his employees as assets, a manner of speech many
found disconcertingly cold.
“Your father is gaining political momentum,” Pickering said. “A lot of it. The
White House has got to be getting nervous.” He sighed. “Politics is a desperate
business. When the President calls a secret meeting with his challenger’s
daughter, I’d guess there’s more on his mind than intelligence gists.”
Rachel felt a distant chill. Pickering’s hunches had an uncanny tendency to be
dead on. “And you’re afraid the White House feels desperate enough to introduce
me into the political mix?”
Pickering paused a moment. “You are not exactly silent about your feelings for
your father, and I have little doubt the President’s campaign staff is aware of
the rift. It occurs to me that they may want to use you against him somehow.”
“Where do I sign up?” Rachel said, only half-joking.
Pickering looked unimpressed. He gave her a stern stare. “A word of warning,
Agent Sexton. If you feel that your personal issues with your father are going
to cloud your judgment in dealing with the President, I strongly advise that you
decline the President’s request for a meeting.”
“Decline?” Rachel gave a nervous chuckle. “I obviously can’t refuse the
President.”
“No,” the director said, “but I can.”
His words rumbled a bit, reminding Rachel of the other reason Pickering was
called the “Quaker.” Despite being a small man, William Pickering could cause
political earthquakes if he were crossed.
“My concerns here are simple,” Pickering said. “I have a responsibility to
protect the people who work for me, and I don’t appreciate even the vague
implication that one of them might be used as a pawn in a political game.”
“What do you recommend I do?”
Pickering sighed. “My suggestion is that you meet with him. Commit to nothing.
Once the President tells you what the hell is on his mind, call me. If I think
he’s playing political hardball with you, trust me, I’ll pull you out so fast
the man won’t know what hit him.”
“Thank you, sir.” Rachel sensed a protective aura from the director that she
often longed for in her own father. “And you said the President already sent a
car?”
“Not exactly.” Pickering frowned and pointed out the window.
Uncertain, Rachel went over and gazed out in the direction of Pickering’s
outstretched finger.
A snub-nosed MH-60G PaveHawk helicopter sat idling on the lawn. One of the
fastest choppers ever made, this PaveHawk was emblazoned with the White House
insignia. The pilot stood nearby, checking his watch.
Rachel turned to Pickering in disbelief. “The White House sent a PaveHawk to
take me fifteen miles into D.C.?”
“Apparently the President hopes you are either impressed or intimidated.”
Pickering eyed her. “I suggest you are neither.”
Rachel nodded. She was both.
Four minutes later, Rachel Sexton exited the NRO and climbed into the waiting
helicopter. Before she had even buckled herself in, the craft was airborne,
banking hard across the Virginia woods. Rachel gazed out at the blur of trees
beneath her and felt her pulse rising. It would have risen faster had she known
this chopper would never reach the White House.
5
The frigid wind battered the fabric of the ThermaTech tent, but Delta-One hardly
noticed. He and Delta-Three were focused on their comrade, who was manipulating
the joystick in his hand with surgical dexterity. The screen before them
displayed a live video transmission from a pinpoint camera mounted aboard the
microrobot.
The ultimate surveillance tool, Delta-One thought, still amazed every time they
powered it up. Lately, in the world of micromechanics, fact seemed to be
out-pacing fiction.
Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS)—microbots—were the newest tool in
high-tech surveillance—“fly on the wall technology,” they called it.
Literally.
Although microscopic, remote-controlled robots sounded like science fiction, in
fact they had been around since the 1990s. Discovery magazine had run a cover
story in May 1997 on microbots, featuring both “flying” and “swimming” models.
The swimmers—nanosubs the size of salt grains—could be injected into the human
bloodstream à la the movie Fantastic Voyage. They were now being used by
advanced medical facilities to help doctors navigate arteries by remote control,
observe live intravenous video transmissions, and locate arterial blockages
without ever lifting a scalpel.
Contrary to intuition, building a flying microbot was even simpler business. The
aerodynamics technology for getting a machine to fly had been around since Kitty
Hawk, and all that remained had been the issue of miniaturization. The first
flying microbots, designed by NASA as unmanned exploration tools for future Mars
missions, had been several inches long. Now, however, advances in
nanotechnology, lightweight energy-absorbent materials, and micromechanics had
made the flying microbots a reality.
The true breakthrough had come from the new field biomimics—copying Mother
Nature. Miniature dragonflies, as it turned out, were the ideal prototype for
these agile and efficient flying microbots. The PH2 model Delta-Two was
currently flying was only one centimeter long—the size of a mosquito—and
employed a dual pair of transparent, hinged, silicon-leaf wings, giving it
unparalleled mobility and efficiency in the air.
The microbot’s refueling mechanism had been another breakthrough. The first
microbot prototypes could only recharge their energy cells by hovering directly
beneath a bright light source, not ideal for stealth or use in dark locales. The
newer prototypes, however, could recharge simply by parking within a few inches
of a magnetic field. Conveniently, in modern society, magnetic fields were
ubiquitous and discreetly placed—power outlets, computer monitors, electric
motors, audio speakers, cellphones—it seemed there was never any shortage of
obscure recharging stations. Once a microbot had been introduced successfully
into a locale, it could transmit audio and video almost indefinitely. The Delta
Force’s PH2 had been transmitting for over a week now with no trouble
whatsoever.
Now, like an insect hovering inside a cavernous barn, the airborne microbot hung
silently in the still air of the structure’s massive central room. With a
bird’s-eye view of the space below, the microbot circled silently above
unsuspecting occupants—technicians, scientists, specialists in numerous fields
of study. As the PH2 circled, Delta-One spotted two familiar faces engaged in
conversation. They would be a telling mark. He told Delta-Two to drop down and
have a listen.
Manipulating the controls, Delta-Two switched on the robot’s sound sensors,
oriented the microbot’s parabolic amplifier, and decreased the robot’s elevation
until it was ten feet over the scientists’ heads. The transmission was faint,
but discernible.
“I still can’t believe it,” one scientist was saying. The excitement in his
voice had not diminished since his arrival here forty-eight hours ago.
The man with whom he was talking obviously shared the enthusiasm. “In your
lifetime…did you ever think you would witness anything like this?”
“Never,” the scientist replied, beaming. “It’s all a magnificent dream.”
Delta-One had heard enough. Clearly everything inside was proceeding as
expected. Delta-Two maneuvered the microbot away from the conversation and flew
it back to its hiding place. He parked the tiny device undetected near the
cylinder of an electric generator. The PH2’s power cells immediately began
recharging for the next mission.
6
Rachel Sexton’s thoughts were lost in the morning’s bizarre developments as her
PaveHawk transport tore across the morning sky, and it was not until the
helicopter rocketed out across Chesapeake Bay that she realized they were
heading in entirely the wrong direction. The initial flash of confusion
instantly gave way to trepidation.
“Hey!” she yelled to the pilot. “What are you doing?” Her voice was barely
audible over the rotors. “You’re supposed to be taking me to the White House!”
The pilot shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am. The President is not at the White House
this morning.”
Rachel tried to remember if Pickering had specifically mentioned the White House
or whether she had simply assumed. “So where is the President?”
“Your meeting with him is elsewhere.”
No shit. “Where elsewhere?”
“Not far now.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Sixteen more miles.”
Rachel scowled at him. This guy should be a politician. “Do you dodge bullets as
well as you dodge questions?”
The pilot did not answer.
It took less than seven minutes for the chopper to cross the Chesapeake. When
land was in sight again, the pilot banked north and skirted a narrow peninsula,
where Rachel saw a series of runways and military-looking buildings. The pilot
dropped down toward them, and Rachel then realized what this place was. The six
launchpads and charred rocket towers were a good clue, but if that was not
enough, the roof of one of the buildings had been painted with two enormous
words: WALLOPS ISLAND.
Wallops Island was one of NASA’s oldest launch sites. Still used today for
satellite launches and testing of experimental aircraft, Wallops was NASA’s base
away from the spotlight.
The President is at Wallops Island? It made no sense.
The chopper pilot aligned his trajectory with a series of three runways that ran
the length of the narrow peninsula. They seemed to be heading for the far end of
the center runway.
The pilot began to slow. “You will be meeting the President in his office.”
Rachel turned, wondering if the guy was joking. “The President of the United
States has an office on Wallops Island?”
The pilot looked dead serious. “The President of the United States has an office
wherever he likes, ma’am.”
He pointed toward the end of the runway. Rachel saw the mammoth shape glistening
in the distance, and her heart almost stopped. Even at three hundred yards, she
recognized the light blue hull of the modified 747.
“I’m meeting him aboard the…”
“Yes, ma’am. His home away from home.”
Rachel stared out at the massive aircraft. The military’s cryptic designation
for this prestigious plane was VC-25-A, although the rest of the world knew it
by another name: Air Force One.
“Looks like you’re in the new one this morning,” the pilot said, motioning to
the numbers on the plane’s tail fin.
Rachel nodded blankly. Few Americans knew that there were actually two Air Force
Ones in service—a pair of identical, specially configured 747-200-Bs, one with
the tail number 28000 and the other 29000. Both planes had cruising speeds of
600 mph and had been modified for in-flight refueling, giving them virtually
unlimited range.
As the PaveHawk settled onto the runway beside the President’s plane, Rachel now
understood the references to Air Force One being the commander-in chief’s
“portable home court advantage.” The machine was an intimidating sight.
When the President flew to other countries to meet heads of state, he often
requested—for security purposes—that the meeting take place on the runway aboard
his jet. Although some of the motives were security, certainly another incentive
was to gain a negotiating edge through raw intimidation. A visit to Air Force
One was far more intimidating than any trip to the White House. The
six-foot-high letters along the fuselage trumpeted “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.” A
female English cabinet member had once accused President Nixon of “waving his
manhood in her face” when he asked her to join him aboard Air Force One. Later
the crew jokingly nicknamed the plane “Big Dick.”
“Ms. Sexton?” A blazer-clad Secret Serviceman materialized outside the chopper
and opened the door for her. “The President is waiting for you.”
Rachel got out of the chopper and gazed up the steep gangway at the bulging
hull. Into the flying phallus. She had once heard the flying “Oval Office” had
over four thousand square feet of interior floor space, including four separate
private sleeping quarters, berths for a twenty-six-member flight crew, and two
galleys capable of providing food for fifty people.
Climbing the stairway, Rachel felt the Secret Serviceman on her heels, urging
her upward. High above, the cabin door stood open like a tiny puncture wound on
the side of a gargantuan silver whale. She moved toward the darkened entryway
and felt her confidence starting to ebb.
Easy, Rachel. It’s just a plane.
On the landing, the Secret Serviceman politely took her arm and guided her into
a surprisingly narrow corridor. They turned right, walked a short distance, and
emerged into a luxurious and spacious cabin. Rachel immediately recognized it
from photographs.
“Wait here,” the serviceman said, and he disappeared.
Rachel stood alone in Air Force One’s famous wood-paneled fore cabin. This was
the room used for meetings, entertaining dignitaries, and, apparently, for
scaring the hell out of first-time passengers. The room spanned the entire width
of the plane, as did its thick tan carpeting. The furnishings were
impeccable—cordovan leather armchairs around a bird’s-eye maple meeting table,
burnished brass floor lamps beside a continental sofa, and hand-etched crystal
glassware on a mahogany wet bar.
Supposedly, Boeing designers had carefully laid out this fore cabin to provide
passengers with “a sense of order mixed with tranquility.” Tranquility, however,
was the last thing Rachel Sexton was feeling at the moment. The only thing she
could think of was the number of world leaders who had sat in this very room and
made decisions that shaped the world.
Everything about this room said power, from the faint aroma of fine pipe tobacco
to the ubiquitous presidential seal. The eagle clasping the arrows and olive
branches was embroidered on throw pillows, carved into the ice bucket, and even
printed on the cork coasters on the bar. Rachel picked up a coaster and examined
it.
“Stealing souvenirs already?” a deep voice asked behind her.
Startled, Rachel wheeled, dropping the coaster on the floor. She knelt awkwardly
to retrieve it. As she grasped the coaster, she turned to see the President of
the United States gazing down at her with an amused grin.
“I’m not royalty, Ms. Sexton. There’s really no need to kneel.”
7
Senator Sedgewick Sexton savored the privacy of his Lincoln stretch limousine as
it snaked through Washington’s morning traffic toward his office. Across from
him, Gabrielle Ashe, his twenty-four-year-old personal assistant, read him his
daily schedule. Sexton was barely listening.
I love Washington, he thought, admiring the assistant’s perfect shape beneath
her cashmere sweater. Power is the greatest aphrodisiac of all…and it brings
women like this to D.C. in droves.
Gabrielle was a New York Ivy Leaguer with dreams of being a senator herself one
day. She’ll make it too, Sexton thought. She was incredible-looking and sharp as
a whip. Above all, she understood the rules of the game.
Gabrielle Ashe was black, but her tawny coloring was more of a deep cinnamon or
mahogany, the kind of comfortable in-between that Sexton knew bleeding heart
“whites” could endorse without feeling like they were giving away the farm.
Sexton described Gabrielle to his cronies as Halle Berry’s looks with Hillary
Clinton’s brains and ambition, although sometimes he thought even that was an
understatement.
Gabrielle had been a tremendous asset to his campaign since he’d promoted her to
his personal campaign assistant three months ago. And to top it all off, she was
working for free. Her compensation for a sixteen-hour workday was learning the
ropes in the trenches with a seasoned politician.
Of course, Sexton gloated, I’ve persuaded her to do a bit more than just work.
After promoting Gabrielle, Sexton had invited her to a late night “orientation
session” in his private office. As expected, his young assistant arrived
starstruck and eager to please. With a slow-moving patience mastered over
decades, Sexton worked his magic…building up Gabrielle’s trust, carefully
stripping away her inhibitions, exhibiting tantalizing control, and finally
seducing her right there in his office.
Sexton had little doubt the encounter had been one of the most sexually
gratifying experiences of the young woman’s life, and yet, in the light of the
day, Gabrielle clearly regretted the indiscretion. Embarrassed, she offered to
resign. Sexton refused. Gabrielle stayed on, but she made her intentions very
clear. The relationship had been strictly business ever since.
Gabrielle’s pouty lips were still moving. “…don’t want you to be lackadaisical
going into this CNN debate this afternoon. We still don’t know who the White
House is sending as opposition. You’ll want to peruse these notes I typed.” She
handed him a folder.
Sexton took the folder, savoring the scent of her perfume mixed with the plush
leather seats.
“You aren’t listening,” she said.
“Certainly am.” He grinned. “Forget about this CNN debate. Worst case scenario,
the White House snubs me by sending some low-level campaign intern. Best case
scenario, they send a bigwig, and I eat him for lunch.”
Gabrielle frowned. “Fine. I’ve included a list of the most probable hostile
topics in your notes.”
“The usual suspects no doubt.”
“With one new entry. I think you might face some hostile backlash from the gay
community for your comments last night on Larry King.”
Sexton shrugged, barely listening. “Right. The same-sex marriage thing.”
Gabrielle gave him a disapproving look. “You did come out against it pretty
strongly.”
Same-sex marriages, Sexton thought in disgust. If it were up to me, the faggots
wouldn’t even have the right to vote. “Okay, I’ll turn it down a notch.”
“Good. You’ve been pushing the envelope a bit on some of these hot topics
lately. Don’t get cocky. The public can turn in an instant. You’re gaining now,
and you have momentum. Just ride it out. There’s no need to hit the ball out of
the park today. Just keep it in play.”
“Any news from the White House?”
Gabrielle looked pleasantly baffled. “Continued silence. It’s official; your
opponent has become the ‘Invisible Man.’”
Sexton could barely believe his good fortune lately. For months, the President
had been working hard on the campaign trail. Then suddenly, a week ago, he had
locked himself in the Oval Office, and nobody had seen or heard from him since.
It was as if the President simply could not face Sexton’s groundswell of voter
support.
Gabrielle ran a hand through her straightened black hair. “I hear the White
House campaign staff is as confused as we are. The President is offering no
explanation for his vanishing act, and everyone over there is furious.”
“Any theories?” Sexton asked.
Gabrielle gazed at him over her scholarly glasses. “As it turns out, I got some
interesting data this morning from a contact of mine in the White House.”
Sexton recognized the look in her eyes. Gabrielle Ashe had scored some insider
information again. Sexton wondered if she were giving some presidential aide
backseat blow jobs in exchange for campaign secrets. Sexton didn’t care…so long
as the information kept coming.
“Rumor has it,” his assistant said, lowering her voice, “the President’s strange
behavior all started last week after an emergency private briefing with the
administrator of NASA. Apparently the President emerged from the meeting looking
dazed. He immediately cleared his schedule, and he’s been in close contact with
NASA ever since.”
Sexton certainly liked the sound of that. “You think maybe NASA delivered some
more bad news?”
“Seems a logical explanation,” she said hopefully. “Although it would have to be
pretty critical to make the President drop everything.”
Sexton considered it. Obviously, whatever was going on with NASA had to be bad
news. Otherwise the President would throw it in my face. Sexton had been
pounding the President pretty hard on NASA funding lately. The space agency’s
recent string of failed missions and gargantuan budget overruns had earned NASA
the dubious honor of becoming Sexton’s unofficial poster child against big
government overspending and inefficiency. Admittedly, attacking NASA—one of the
most prominent symbols of American pride—was not the way most politicians would
think of winning votes, but Sexton had a weapon few other politicians
had—Gabrielle Ashe. And her impeccable instincts.
The savvy young woman had come to Sexton’s attention several months ago when she
was working as a coordinator in Sexton’s Washington campaign office. With Sexton
trailing badly in the primary polls and his message of government overspending
falling on deaf ears, Gabrielle Ashe wrote him a note suggesting a radical new
campaign angle. She told the senator he should attack NASA’s huge budget
overruns and continued White House bailouts as the quintessential example of
President Herney’s careless overspending.
“NASA is costing Americans a fortune,” Gabrielle wrote, including a list of
financial figures, failures, and bailouts. “Voters have no idea. They would be
horrified. I think you should make NASA a political issue.”
Sexton groaned at her naïveté. “Yeah, and while I’m at it, I’ll rail against
singing the national anthem at baseball games.”
In the weeks that followed, Gabrielle continued to send information about NASA
across the senator’s desk. The more Sexton read, the more he realized this young
Gabrielle Ashe had a point. Even by government agency standards, NASA was an
astounding money pit—expensive, inefficient, and, in recent years, grossly
incompetent.
One afternoon Sexton was doing an on-air interview about education. The host was
pressing Sexton about where he would find funding for his promised overhaul of
public schools. In response, Sexton decided to test Gabrielle’s NASA theory with
a half-joking response. “Money for education?” he said. “Well, maybe I’ll cut
the space program in half. I figure if NASA can spend fifteen billion a year in
space, I should be able to spend seven and a half billion on the kids here on
earth.”
In the transmission booth, Sexton’s campaign managers gasped in horror at the
careless remark. After all, entire campaigns had been sunk by far less than
taking a potshot at NASA. Instantly, the phone lines at the radio station lit
up. Sexton’s campaign managers cringed; the space patriots were circling for the
kill.
Then something unexpected happened.
“Fifteen billion a year?” the first caller said, sounding shocked. “With a B?
Are you telling me that my son’s math class is overcrowded because schools can’t
afford enough teachers, and NASA is spending fifteen billion dollars a year
taking pictures of space dust?”
“Um…that’s right,” Sexton said warily.
“Absurd! Does the President have the power to do something about that?”
“Absolutely,” Sexton replied, gaining confidence. “A President can veto the
budget request of any agency he or she deems overfunded.”
“Then you have my vote, Senator Sexton. Fifteen billion for space research, and
our kids don’t have teachers. It’s outrageous! Good luck, sir. I hope you go all
the way.”
The next caller came on the line. “Senator, I just read that NASA’s
International Space Station is way overbudget and the President is thinking of
giving NASA emergency funding to keep the project going. Is that true?”
Sexton jumped at this one. “True!” He explained that the space station was
originally proposed as a joint venture, with twelve countries sharing the costs.
But after construction began, the station’s budget spiraled wildly out of
control, and many countries dropped out in disgust. Rather than scrapping the
project, the President decided to cover everyone’s expenses. “Our cost for the
ISS project,” Sexton announced, “has risen from the proposed eight billion to a
staggering one hundred billion dollars!”
The caller sounded furious. “Why the hell doesn’t the President pull the plug!”
Sexton could have kissed the guy. “Damn good question. Unfortunately, one third
of the building supplies are already in orbit, and the President spent your tax
dollars putting them there, so pulling the plug would be admitting he made a
multibillion-dollar blunder with your money.”
The calls kept coming. For the first time, it seemed Americans were waking up to
the idea that NASA was an option—not a national fixture.
When the show was over, with the exception of a few NASA diehards calling in
with poignant overtures about man’s eternal quest for knowledge, the consensus
was in: Sexton’s campaign had stumbled onto the holy grail of campaigning—a new
“hot button”—a yet untapped controversial issue that struck a nerve with voters.
In the weeks that followed, Sexton trounced his opponents in five crucial
primaries. He announced Gabrielle Ashe as his new personal campaign assistant,
praising her for her work in bringing the NASA issue to the voters. With the
wave of a hand, Sexton had made a young African-American woman a rising
political star, and the issue of his racist and sexist voting record disappeared
overnight.
Now, as they sat together in the limousine, Sexton knew Gabrielle had yet again
proven her worth. Her new information about last week’s secret meeting between
the NASA administrator and the President certainly suggested more NASA troubles
were brewing—perhaps another country pulling funding from the space station.
As the limousine passed the Washington Monument, Senator Sexton could not help
but feel he had been anointed by destiny.
8
Despite having ascended to the most powerful political office in the world,
President Zachary Herney was average in height, with a slender build and narrow
shoulders. He had a freckled face, bifocals, and thinning black hair. His
unimposing physique, however, stood in stark contrast to the almost princely
love the man commanded from those who knew him. It was said that if you met Zach
Herney once, you would walk to the ends of the earth for him.
“So glad you could make it,” President Herney said, reaching out to shake
Rachel’s hand. His grasp was warm and sincere.
Rachel fought the frog in her throat. “Of…course, Mr. President. An honor to
meet you.”
The President gave her a comforting grin, and Rachel sensed firsthand the
legendary Herney affability. The man possessed an easygoing countenance
political cartoonists loved because no matter how skewed a rendition they drew,
no one ever mistook the man’s effortless warmth and amiable smile. His eyes
mirrored sincerity and dignity at all times.
“If you follow me,” he said in a cheery voice, “I’ve got a cup of coffee with
your name on it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The President pressed the intercom and called for some coffee in his office.
As Rachel followed the President through the plane, she could not help but
notice that he looked extremely happy and well-rested for a man who was down in
the polls. He was also very casually dressed—blue jeans, a polo shirt, and L.L.
Bean hiking boots.
Rachel tried to make conversation. “Doing…some hiking, Mr. President?”
“Not at all. My campaign advisers have decided this should be my new look. What
do you think?”
Rachel hoped for his sake that he wasn’t serious. “It’s very…um…manly, sir.”
Herney was deadpan. “Good. We’re thinking it will help me win back some of the
women’s vote from your father.” After a beat, the President broke into a broad
smile. “Ms. Sexton, that was a joke. I think we both know I’ll need more than a
polo shirt and blue jeans to win this election.”
The President’s openness and good humor were quickly evaporating any tension
Rachel felt about being there. What this President lacked in physical brawn, he
more than made up for in diplomatic rapport. Diplomacy was about people skills,
and Zach Herney had the gift.
Rachel followed the President toward the back of the plane. The deeper they
went, the less the interior resembled a plane—curved hallways, wallpapered
walls, even an exercise room complete with StairMaster and rowing machine.
Oddly, the plane seemed almost entirely deserted.
“Traveling alone, Mr. President?”
He shook his head. “Just landed, actually.”
Rachel was surprised. Landed from where? Her intel briefs this week had included
nothing about presidential travel plans. Apparently he was using Wallops Island
to travel quietly.
“My staff deplaned right before you arrived,” the President said. “I’m headed
back to the White House shortly to meet them, but I wanted to meet you here
instead of my office.”
“Trying to intimidate me?”
“On the contrary. Trying to respect you, Ms. Sexton. The White House is anything
but private, and news of a meeting between the two of us would put you in an
awkward position with your father.”
“I appreciate that, sir.”
“It seems you’re managing a delicate balancing act quite gracefully, and I see
no reason to disrupt that.”
Rachel flashed on her breakfast meeting with her father and doubted that it
qualified as “graceful.” Nonetheless, Zach Herney was going out of his way to be
decent, and he certainly didn’t have to.
“May I call you Rachel?” Herney asked.
“Of course.” May I call you Zach?
“My office,” the President said, ushering her through a carved maple door.
The office aboard Air Force One certainly was cozier than its White House
counterpart, but its furnishings still carried an air of austerity. The desk was
mounded with papers, and behind it hung an imposing oil painting of a classic,
three-masted schooner under full sail trying to outrun a raging storm. It seemed
a perfect metaphor for Zach Herney’s presidency at the moment.
The President offered Rachel one of the three executive chairs facing his desk.
She sat. Rachel expected him to sit behind his desk, but instead he pulled one
of the chairs up and sat next to her.
Equal footing, she realized. The master of rapport.
“Well, Rachel,” Herney said, sighing tiredly as he settled into his chair. “I
imagine you’ve got to be pretty damned confused to be sitting here right now, am
I right?”
Whatever was left of Rachel’s guard crumbled away with the candor in the man’s
voice. “Actually, sir, I’m baffled.”
Herney laughed out loud. “Terrific. It’s not every day I can baffle someone from
the NRO.”
“It’s not every day someone from the NRO is invited aboard Air Force One by a
President in hiking boots.”
The President laughed again.
A quiet rap on the office door announced the arrival of coffee. One of the
flight crew entered with a steaming pewter pot and two pewter mugs on a tray. At
the President’s bidding, she laid the tray on the desk and disappeared.
“Cream and sugar?” the President asked, standing up to pour.
“Cream, please.” Rachel savored the rich aroma. The President of the United
States is personally serving me coffee?
Zach Herney handed her a heavy pewter mug. “Authentic Paul Revere,” he said.
“One of the little luxuries.”
Rachel sipped the coffee. It was the best she had ever tasted.
“Anyhow,” the President said, pouring himself a cup and sitting back down, “I’ve
got limited time here, so let’s get to business.” The President plopped a sugar
cube in his coffee and gazed up at her. “I imagine Bill Pickering warned you
that the only reason I would want to see you would be to use you to my political
advantage?”
“Actually, sir, that’s exactly what he said.”
The President chuckled. “Always the cynic.”
“So he’s wrong?”
“Are you kidding?” the President laughed. “Bill Pickering is never wrong. He’s
dead-on as usual.”
9
Gabrielle Ashe gazed absently out the window of Senator Sexton’s limousine as it
moved through the morning traffic toward Sexton’s office building. She wondered
how the hell she had arrived at this point in her life. Personal assistant to
Senator Sedgewick Sexton. This was exactly what she had wanted, wasn’t it?
I’m sitting in a limousine with the next President of the United States.
Gabrielle stared across the car’s plush interior at the senator, who seemed to
be far away in his own thoughts. She admired his handsome features and perfect
attire. He looked presidential.
Gabrielle had first seen Sexton speak when she was a poli-sci major at Cornell
University three years ago. She would never forget how his eyes probed the
audience, as if sending a message directly to her—trust me. After Sexton’s
speech, Gabrielle waited in line to meet him.
“Gabrielle Ashe,” the senator said, reading her name tag. “A lovely name for a
lovely young woman.” His eyes were reassuring.
“Thank you, sir,” Gabrielle replied, feeling the man’s strength as she shook his
hand. “I was really impressed by your message.”
“Glad to hear it!” Sexton thrust a business card into her hand. “I’m always
looking for bright young minds who share my vision. When you get out of school,
track me down. My people may have a job for you.”
Gabrielle opened her mouth to thank him, but the senator was already on to the
next person in line. Nonetheless, in the months that followed, Gabrielle found
herself following Sexton’s career on television. She watched with admiration as
he spoke out against big government spending—spearheading budget cuts,
streamlining the IRS to work more effectively, trimming fat at the DEA, and even
abolishing redundant civil service programs. Then, when the senator’s wife died
suddenly in a car crash, Gabrielle watched in awe as Sexton somehow turned the
negative into a positive. Sexton rose above his personal pain and declared to
the world that he would be running for the presidency and dedicating the
remainder of his public service to his wife’s memory. Gabrielle decided right
then and there that she wanted to work closely with Senator Sexton’s
presidential campaign.
Now she had gotten as close as anyone could get.
Gabrielle recalled the night she had spent with Sexton in his plush office, and
she cringed, trying to block out the embarrassing images in her mind. What was I
thinking? She knew she should have resisted, but somehow she’d found herself
unable. Sedgewick Sexton had been an idol of hers for so long…and to think he
wanted her.
The limousine hit a bump, jarring her thoughts back to the present.
“You okay?” Sexton was watching her now.
Gabrielle flashed a hurried smile. “Fine.”
“You aren’t still thinking about that drudge, are you?”
She shrugged. “I’m still a little worried, yeah.”
“Forget it. The drudge was the best thing that ever happened to my campaign.”
A drudge, Gabrielle had learned the hard way, was the political equivalent of
leaking information that your rival used a penis enlarger or subscribed to Stud
Muffin magazine. Drudging wasn’t a glamorous tactic, but when it paid off, it
paid off big.
Of course, when it backfired…
And backfire, it had. For the White House. About a month ago, the President’s
campaign staff, unsettled by the slipping polls, had decided to get aggressive
and leak a story they suspected to be true—that Senator Sexton had engaged in an
affair with his personal assistant, Gabrielle Ashe. Unfortunately for the White
House, there was no hard evidence. Senator Sexton, a firm believer in the best
defense is a strong offense, seized the moment for attack. He called a national
press conference to proclaim his innocence and outrage. I cannot believe, he
said, gazing into the cameras with pain in his eyes, that the President would
dishonor my wife’s memory with these malicious lies.
Senator Sexton’s performance on TV was so convincing that Gabrielle herself
practically believed they had not slept together. Seeing how effortlessly he
lied, Gabrielle realized that Senator Sexton was indeed a dangerous man.
Lately, although Gabrielle was certain she was backing the strongest horse in
this presidential race, she had begun to question whether she was backing the
best horse. Working closely with Sexton had been an eye-opening experience—akin
to a behind-the-scenes tour of Universal Studios, where one’s childlike awe over
the movies is sullied by the realization that Hollywood isn’t magic after all.
Although Gabrielle’s faith in Sexton’s message remained intact, she was
beginning to question the messenger.
10
“What I am about to tell you, Rachel,” the President said, “is classified
‘UMBRA.’ Well beyond your current security clearance.”
Rachel felt the walls of Air Force One closing in around her. The President had
flown her to Wallops Island, invited her onboard his plane, poured her coffee,
told her flat out that he intended to use her to political advantage against her
own father, and now he was announcing he intended to give her classified
information illegally. However affable Zach Herney appeared on the surface,
Rachel Sexton had just learned something important about him. This man took
control in a hurry.
“Two weeks ago,” the President said, locking eyes with her, “NASA made a
discovery.”
The words hung a moment in the air before Rachel could process them. A NASA
discovery? Recent intelligence updates had suggested nothing out of the ordinary
going on with the space agency. Of course, these days a “NASA discovery” usually
meant realizing they’d grossly under budgeted some new project.
“Before we talk further,” the President said, “I’d like to know if you share
your father’s cynicism over space exploration.”
Rachel resented the comment. “I certainly hope you didn’t call me here to ask me
to control my father’s rants against NASA.”
He laughed. “Hell, no. I’ve been around the Senate long enough to know that
nobody controls Sedgewick Sexton.”
“My father is an opportunist, sir. Most successful politicians are. And
unfortunately NASA has made itself an opportunity.” The recent string of NASA
errors had been so unbearable that one either had to laugh or cry—satellites
that disintegrated in orbit, space probes that never called home, the
International Space Station budget rising tenfold and member countries bailing
out like rats from a sinking ship. Billions were being lost, and Senator Sexton
was riding it like a wave—a wave that seemed destined to carry him to the shores
of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
“I will admit,” the President continued, “NASA has been a walking disaster area
lately. Every time I turn around, they give me yet another reason to slash their
funding.”
Rachel saw her opening for a foothold and took it. “And yet, sir, didn’t I just
read that you bailed them out last week with another three million in emergency
funding to keep them solvent?”
The President chuckled. “Your father was pleased with that one, wasn’t he?”
“Nothing like sending ammunition to your executioner.”
“Did you hear him on Nightline? ‘Zach Herney is a space addict, and the
taxpayers are funding his habit.’”
“But you keep proving him right, sir.”
Herney nodded. “I make it no secret that I’m an enormous fan of NASA. I always
have been. I was a child of the space race—Sputnik, John Glenn, Apollo 11— and I
have never hesitated to express my feelings of admiration and national pride for
our space program. In my mind, the men and women of NASA are history’s modern
pioneers. They attempt the impossible, accept failure, and then go back to the
drawing board while the rest of us stand back and criticize.”
Rachel remained silent, sensing that just below the President’s calm exterior
was an indignant rage over her father’s endless anti-NASA rhetoric. Rachel found
herself wondering what the hell NASA had found. The President was certainly
taking his time coming to the point.
“Today,” Herney said, his voice intensifying, “I intend to change your entire
opinion of NASA.”
Rachel eyed him with uncertainty. “You have my vote already, sir. You may want
to concentrate on the rest of the country.”
“I intend to.” He took a sip of coffee and smiled. “And I’m going to ask you to
help me.” Pausing, he leaned toward her. “In a most unusual way.”
Rachel could now feel Zach Herney scrutinizing her every move, like a hunter
trying to gauge if his prey intended to run or fight. Unfortunately, Rachel saw
nowhere to run.
“I assume,” the President said, pouring them both more coffee, “that you’re
aware of a NASA project called EOS?”
Rachel nodded. “Earth Observation System. I believe my father has mentioned EOS
once or twice.”
The weak attempt at sarcasm drew a frown from the President. The truth was that
Rachel’s father mentioned the Earth Observation System every chance he got. It
was one of NASA’s most controversial big-ticket ventures—a constellation of five
satellites designed to look down from space and analyze the planet’s
environment: ozone depletion, polar ice melt, global warming, rainforest
defoliation. The intent was to provide environmentalists with never before seen
macroscopic data so that they could plan better for earth’s future.
Unfortunately, the EOS project had been wrought with failure. Like so many NASA
projects of late, it had been plagued with costly overruns right from the start.
And Zach Herney was the one taking the heat. He had used the support of the
environmental lobby to push the $1.4 billion EOS project through Congress. But
rather than delivering the promised contributions to global earth science, EOS
had spiraled quickly into a costly nightmare of failed launches, computer
malfunctions, and somber NASA press conferences. The only smiling face lately
was that of Senator Sexton, who was smugly reminding voters just how much of
their money the President had spent on EOS and just how lukewarm the returns had
been.
The President dropped a sugar cube into his mug. “As surprising as this may
sound, the NASA discovery I’m referring to was made by EOS.”
Now Rachel felt lost. If EOS had enjoyed a recent success, NASA certainly would
have announced it, wouldn’t they? Her father had been crucifying EOS in the
media, and the space agency could use any good news they could find.
“I’ve heard nothing,” Rachel said, “about any EOS discovery.”
“I know. NASA prefers to keep the good news to themselves for a while.”
Rachel doubted it. “In my experience, sir, when it comes to NASA, no news is
generally bad news.” Restraint was not a forte of the NASA public relations
department. The standing joke at the NRO was that NASA held a press conference
every time one of their scientists so much as farted.
The President frowned. “Ah, yes. I forget I’m talking to one of Pickering’s NRO
security disciples. Is he still moaning and groaning about NASA’s loose lips?”
“Security is his business, sir. He takes it very seriously.”
“He damn well better. I just find it hard to believe that two agencies with so
much in common constantly find something to fight about.”
Rachel had learned early in her tenure under William Pickering that although
both NASA and the NRO were space-related agencies, they had philosophies that
were polar opposites. The NRO was a defense agency and kept all of its space
activities classified, while NASA was academic and excitedly publicized all of
its breakthroughs around the globe—often, William Pickering argued, at the risk
of national security. Some of NASA’s finest technologies—high-resolution lenses
for satellite telescopes, long-range communications systems, and radio imaging
devices—had a nasty habit of appearing in the intelligence arsenal of hostile
countries and being used to spy against us. Bill Pickering often grumbled that
NASA scientists had big brains…and even bigger mouths.
A more pointed issue between the agencies, however, was the fact that because
NASA handled the NRO’s satellite launches, many of NASA’s recent failures
directly affected the NRO. No failure had been more dramatic than that of August
12, 1998, when a NASA/Air Force Titan 4 rocket blew up forty seconds into launch
and obliterated its payload—a $1.2 billion NRO satellite code-named Vortex 2.
Pickering seemed particularly unwilling to forget that one.
“So why hasn’t NASA gone public about this recent success?” Rachel challenged.
“They certainly could use some good news right now.”
“NASA is being silent,” the President declared, “because I ordered them to be.”
Rachel wondered if she had heard him correctly. If so, the President was
committing some kind of political hara-kiri that she did not understand.
“This discovery,” the President said, “is…shall we say…nothing short of
astounding in its ramifications.”
Rachel felt an uneasy chill. In the world of intelligence, “astounding
ramifications” seldom meant good news. She now wondered if all the EOS secrecy
was on account of the satellite system having spotted some impending
environmental disaster. “Is there a problem?”
“No problem at all. What EOS discovered is quite wonderful.”
Rachel fell silent.
“Suppose, Rachel, that I told you NASA has just made a discovery of such
scientific importance…such earth-shattering significance…that it validated every
dollar Americans have ever spent in space?”
Rachel could not imagine.
The President stood up. “Let’s take a walk, shall we?”
11
Rachel followed President Herney out onto the glistening gangway of Air Force
One. As they descended the stairs, Rachel felt the bleak March air clearing her
mind. Unfortunately, clarity only made the President’s claims seem more
outlandish than before.
NASA made a discovery of such scientific importance that it validates every
dollar Americans have ever spent in space?
Rachel could only imagine that a discovery of that magnitude would only center
on one thing—the holy grail of NASA—contact with extraterrestrial life.
Unfortunately, Rachel knew enough about that particular holy grail to know it
was utterly implausible.
As an intelligence analyst, Rachel constantly fielded questions from friends who
wanted to know about the alleged government cover-ups of alien contact. She was
consistently appalled by the theories her “educated” friends bought into—crashed
alien saucers hidden in secret government bunkers, extraterrestrial corpses kept
on ice, even unsuspecting civilians being abducted and surgically probed.
It was all absurd, of course. There were no aliens. No cover-ups.
Everyone in the intelligence community understood that the vast majority of
sightings and alien abductions were simply the product of active imaginations or
moneymaking hoaxes. When authentic photographic UFO evidence did exist, it had a
strange habit of occurring near U.S. military airbases that were testing
advanced classified aircraft. When Lockheed began air-testing aradical new jet
called the Stealth Bomber, UFO sightings around Edwards Air Force Base increased
fifteen-fold.
“You have a skeptical look on your face,” the President said, eyeing her
askance.
The sound of his voice startled Rachel. She glanced over, unsure how to respond.
“Well…” She hesitated. “May I assume, sir, that we are not talking about alien
spacecrafts or little green men?”
The President looked quietly amused. “Rachel, I think you’ll find this discovery
far more intriguing than science fiction.”
Rachel was relieved to hear NASA had not been so desperate as to try selling the
President on an alien story. Nonetheless, his comment served only to deepen the
mystery. “Well,” she said, “whatever NASA found, I must say the timing is
exceptionally convenient.”
Herney paused on the gangway. “Convenient? How so?”
How so? Rachel stopped and stared. “Mr. President, NASA is currently in a life
or death battle to justify its very existence, and you are under attack for
continuing to fund it. A major NASA breakthrough right now would be a panacea
for both NASA and your campaign. Your critics will obviously find the timing
highly suspect.”
“So…are you calling me a liar or a fool?”
Rachel felt a knot rise in her throat. “I meant no disrespect, sir. I simply—”
“Relax.” A faint grin grew on Herney’s lips, and he started to descend again.
“When the NASA administrator first told me about this discovery, I flat out
rejected it as absurd. I accused him of masterminding the most transparent
political sham in history.”
Rachel felt the knot in her throat dissolve somewhat.
At the bottom of the ramp, Herney stopped and looked at her. “One reason I’ve
asked NASA to keep their discovery under wraps is to protect them. The magnitude
of this find is well beyond anything NASA has ever announced. It will make
landing men on the moon seem insignificant. Because everyone, myself included,
has so much to gain—and lose—I thought it prudent for someone to double-check
the NASA data before we step into the world spotlight with a formal
announcement.”
Rachel was startled. “Certainly you can’t mean me, sir?”
The President laughed. “No, this is not your area of expertise. Besides, I’ve
already achieved verification through extragovernmental channels.”
Rachel’s relief gave way to a new mystification. “Extragovernmental, sir? You
mean you used the private sector? On something this classified?”
The President nodded with conviction. “I put together an external confirmation
team—four civilian scientists—non-NASA personnel with big names and serious
reputations to protect. They used their own equipment to make observations and
come to their own conclusions. Over the past forty-eight hours, these civilian
scientists have confirmed the NASA discovery beyond the shadow of a doubt.”
Now Rachel was impressed. The President had protected himself with typical
Herney aplomb. By hiring the ultimate team of skeptics—outsiders who had nothing
to gain by confirming the NASA discovery—Herney had immunized himself against
suspicions that this might be a desperate NASA ploy to justify its budget,
reelect their NASA-friendly President, and ward off Senator Sexton’s attacks.
“Tonight at eight P.M.,” Herney said, “I will be calling a press conference at
the White House to announce this discovery to the world.”
Rachel felt frustrated. Herney had essentially told her nothing. “And this
discovery is what, precisely?”
The President smiled. “You will find patience a virtue today. This discovery is
something you need to see for yourself. I need you to understand this situation
fully before we proceed. The administrator of NASA is waiting to brief you. He
will tell you everything you need to know. Afterward, you and I will further
discuss your role.”
Rachel sensed an impending drama in the President’s eyes and recalled
Pickering’s hunch that the White House had something up its sleeve. Pickering,
it appeared, was right, as usual.
Herney motioned to a nearby airplane hangar. “Follow me,” he said, walking
toward it.
Rachel followed, confused. The building before them had no windows, and its
towering bay doors were sealed. The only access seemed to be a small entryway on
the side. The door was ajar. The President guided Rachel to within a few feet of
the door and stopped.
“End of the line for me,” he said, motioning to the door. “You go through
there.”
Rachel hesitated. “You’re not coming?”
“I need to return to the White House. I’ll speak to you shortly. Do you have a
cellphone?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Give it to me.”
Rachel produced her phone and handed it to him, assuming he intended to program
a private contact number into it. Instead, he slipped her phone into his pocket.
“You’re now off-the-grid,” the President said. “All your responsibilities at
work have been covered. You will not speak to anyone else today without express
permission from myself or the NASA administrator. Do you understand?”
Rachel stared. Did the President just steal my cell-phone?
“After the administrator briefs you on the discovery, he will put you in contact
with me via secure channels. I’ll talk to you soon. Good luck.”
Rachel looked at the hangar door and felt a growing uneasiness.
President Herney put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and nodded toward the
door. “I assure you, Rachel, you will not regret assisting me in this matter.”
Without another word, the President strode toward the PaveHawk that had brought
Rachel in. He climbed aboard, and took off. He never once looked back.
12
Rachel Sexton stood alone on the threshold of the isolated Wallops hangar and
peered into the blackness beyond. She felt like she was on the cusp of another
world. A cool and musty breeze flowed outward from the cavernous interior, as if
the building were breathing.
“Hello?” she called out, her voice wavering slightly.
Silence.
With rising trepidation, she stepped over the threshold. Her vision went blank
for an instant as her eyes became accustomed to the dimness.
“Ms. Sexton, I presume?” a man’s voice said, only yards away.
Rachel jumped, wheeling toward the sound. “Yes, sir.”
The hazy shape of a man approached.
As Rachel’s vision cleared, she found herself standing face to face with a
young, stone-jawed buck in a NASA flight suit. His body was fit and
muscle-bound, his chest bedecked with patches.
“Commander Wayne Loosigian,” the man said. “Sorry if I startled you, ma’am. It’s
pretty dark in here. I haven’t had a chance to open the bay doors yet.” Before
Rachel could respond, the man added, “It will be my honor to be your pilot this
morning.”
“Pilot?” Rachel stared at the man. I just had a pilot. “I’m here to see the
administrator.”
“Yes, ma’am. My orders are to transport you to him immediately.”
It took a moment for the statement to sink in. When it hit her, she felt a stab
of deceit. Apparently, her travels were not over. “Where is the administrator?”
Rachel demanded, wary now.
“I do not have that information,” the pilot replied. “I will receive his
coordinates after we are airborne.”
Rachel sensed that the man was telling the truth. Apparently she and Director
Pickering were not the only two people being kept in the dark this morning. The
President was taking the issue of security very seriously, and Rachel felt
embarrassed by how quickly and effortlessly the President had taken her
“off-the-grid.” Half an hour in the field, and I’m already stripped of all
communication, and my director has no idea where I am.
Standing now before her stiff-backed NASA pilot, Rachel had little doubt her
morning plans were cast in stone. This carnival ride was leaving with Rachel
onboard whether she liked it or not. The only question was where it was headed.
The pilot strode over to the wall and pressed a button. The far side of the
hangar began sliding loudly to one side. Light poured in from the outside,
silhouetting a large object in the center of the hangar.
Rachel’s mouth fell open. God help me.
There in the middle of the hangar stood a ferocious-looking black fighter jet.
It was the most streamlined aircraft Rachel had ever seen.
“You are joking,” she said.
“Common first reaction, ma’am, but the F-14 Tomcat Split-tail is a highly proven
craft.”
It’s a missile with wings.
The pilot led Rachel toward his craft. He motioned to the dual cockpit. “You’ll
be riding in back.”
“Really?” She gave him a tight smile. “And here I thought you wanted me to
drive.”
After donning a thermal flight suit over her clothes, Rachel found herself
climbing into the cockpit. Awkwardly, she wedged her hips into the narrow seat.
“NASA obviously has no fat-assed pilots,” she said.
The pilot gave a grin as he helped Rachel buckle herself in. Then he slid a
helmet over her head.
“We’ll be flying pretty high,” he said. “You’ll want oxygen.” He pulled an
oxygen mask from the side dash and began snapping it onto her helmet.
“I can manage,” Rachel said, reaching up and taking over.
“Of course, ma’am.”
Rachel fumbled with the molded mouthpiece and then finally snapped it onto her
helmet. The mask’s fit was surprisingly awkward and uncomfortable.
The commander stared at her for a long moment, looking vaguely amused.
“Is something wrong?” she demanded.
“Not at all, ma’am.” He seemed to be hiding a smirk. “Hack sacks are under your
seat. Most people get sick their first time in a split-tail.”
“I should be fine,” Rachel assured him, her voice muffled by the smothering fit
of the mask. “I’m not prone to motion sickness.”
The pilot shrugged. “A lot of Navy Seals say the same thing, and I’ve cleaned
plenty of Seal puke out of my cockpit.”
She nodded weakly. Lovely.
“Any questions before we go?”
Rachel hesitated a moment and then tapped on the mouthpiece cutting into her
chin. “It’s cutting off my circulation. How do you wear these things on long
flights?”
The pilot smiled patiently. “Well, ma’am, we don’t usually wear them upside
down.”
Poised at the end of the runway, engines throbbing beneath her, Rachel felt like
a bullet in a gun waiting for someone to pull the trigger. When the pilot pushed
the throttle forward, the Tomcat’s twin Lockheed 345 engines roared to life, and
the entire world shook. The brakes released, and Rachel slammed backward in her
seat. The jet tore down the runway and lifted off within a matter of seconds.
Outside, the earth dropped away at a dizzying rate.
Rachel closed her eyes as the plane rocketed skyward. She wondered where she had
gone wrong this morning. She was supposed to be at a desk writing gists. Now she
was straddling a testosterone-fueled torpedo and breathing through an oxygen
mask.
By the time the Tomcat leveled out at forty-five thousand feet, Rachel was
feeling queasy. She willed herself to focus her thoughts elsewhere. Gazing down
at the ocean nine miles below, Rachel felt suddenly far from home.
Up front, the pilot was talking to someone on the radio. When the conversation
ended, the pilot hung up the radio, and immediately banked the Tomcat sharply
left. The plane tipped almost to the vertical, and Rachel felt her stomach do a
somersault. Finally, the plane leveled out again.
Rachel groaned. “Thanks for the warning, hotshot.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’ve just been given the classified coordinates of your
meeting with the administrator.”
“Let me guess,” Rachel said. “Due north?”
The pilot seemed confused. “How did you know that!”
Rachel sighed. You gotta love these computer-trained pilots. “It’s nine A.M.,
sport, and the sun is on our right. We’re flying north.”
There was a moment of silence from the cockpit. “Yes, ma’am, we’ll be traveling
north this morning.”
“And how far north are we going?”
The pilot checked the coordinates. “Approximately three thousand miles.”
Rachel sat bolt upright. “What!” She tried to picture a map, unable even to
imagine what was that far north. “That’s a four-hour flight!”
“At our current speed, yes,” the pilot said. “Hold on, please.”
Before Rachel could respond, the man retracted the F-14’s wings into low-drag
position. An instant later, Rachel felt herself slammed into her seat yet again
as the plane shot forward as though it had been standing still. Within a minute
they were cruising at almost 1,500 miles per hour.
Rachel was feeling dizzy now. As the sky tore by with blinding speed, she felt
an uncontrollable wave of nausea hit her. The President’s voice echoed faintly.
I assure you, Rachel, you will not regret assisting me in this matter.
Groaning, Rachel reached for her hack sack. Never trust a politician.
13
Although he disliked the menial filth of public taxis, Senator Sedgewick Sexton
had learned to endure the occasional demeaning moment along his road to glory.
The grungy Mayflower cab that had just deposited him in the lower parking garage
of the Purdue Hotel afforded Sexton something his stretch limousine could
not—anonymity.
He was pleased to find this lower level deserted, only a few dusty cars dotting
a forest of cement pillars. As he made his way diagonally across the garage on
foot, Sexton glanced at his watch.
11:15 A.M. Perfect.
The man with whom Sexton was meeting was always touchy about punctuality. Then
again, Sexton reminded himself, considering who the man represented, he could be
touchy about any damned thing he wanted.
Sexton saw the white Ford Windstar minivan parked in exactly the same spot as it
had been for every one of their meetings—in the eastern corner of the garage,
behind a row of trash bins. Sexton would have preferred to meet this man in a
suite upstairs, but he certainly understood the precautions. This man’s friends
had not gotten to where they were by being careless.
As Sexton moved toward the van, he felt the familiar edginess that he always
experienced before these encounters. Forcing himself to relax his shoulders, he
climbed into the passenger’s seat with a cheery wave. The dark-haired gentleman
in the driver’s seat did not smile. The man was almost seventy years old, but
his leathery complexion exuded a toughness appropriate to his post as figurehead
of an army of brazen visionaries and ruthless entrepreneurs.
“Close the door,” the man said, his voice callous.
Sexton obeyed, tolerating the man’s gruffness graciously. After all, this man
represented men who controlled enormous sums of money, much of which had been
pooled recently to poise Sedgewick Sexton on the threshold of the most powerful
office in the world. These meetings, Sexton had come to understand, were less
strategy sessions than they were monthly reminders of just how beholden the
senator had become to his benefactors. These men were expecting a serious return
on their investment. The “return,” Sexton had to admit, was a shockingly bold
demand; and yet, almost more incredibly, it was something that would be within
Sexton’s sphere of influence once he took the Oval Office.
“I assume,” Sexton said, having learned how this man liked to get down to
business, “that another installment has been made?”
“It has. And as usual, you are to use these funds solely for your campaign. We
have been pleased to see the polls shifting consistently in your favor, and it
appears your campaign managers have been spending our money effectively.”
“We’re gaining fast.”
“As I mentioned to you on the phone,” the old man said, “I have persuaded six
more to meet with you tonight.”
“Excellent.” Sexton had blocked off the time already.
The old man handed Sexton a folder. “Here is their information. Study it. They
want to know you understand their concerns specifically. They want to know you
are sympathetic. I suggest you meet them at your residence.”
“My home? But I usually meet—”
“Senator, these six men run companies that possess resources well in excess of
the others you have met. These men are the big fish, and they are wary. They
have more to gain and therefore more to lose. I’ve worked hard to persuade them
to meet with you. They will require special handling. A personal touch.”
Sexton gave a quick nod. “Absolutely. I can arrange a meeting at my home.”
“Of course, they will want total privacy.”
“As will I.”
“Good luck,” the old man said. “If tonight goes well, it could be your last
meeting. These men alone can provide what is needed to push the Sexton campaign
over the top.”
Sexton liked the sound of that. He gave the old man a confident smile. “With
luck, my friend, come election time, we will all claim victory.”
“Victory?” The old man scowled, leaning toward Sexton with ominous eyes.
“Putting you in the White House is only the first step toward victory, senator.
I assume you have not forgotten that.”
14
The White House is one of the smallest presidential mansions in the world,
measuring only 170 feet in length, 85 feet in depth, and sitting on a mere 18
acres of landscaped grounds. Architect James Hoban’s plan for a box-like stone
structure with a hipped roof, balustrade, and columnar entrance, though clearly
unoriginal, was selected from the open design contest by judges who praised it
as “attractive, dignified, and flexible.”
President Zach Herney, even after three and a half years in the White House,
seldom felt at home here among the maze of chandeliers, antiques, and armed
Marines. At the moment, however, as he strode toward the West Wing, he felt
invigorated and oddly at ease, his feet almost weightless on the plush
carpeting.
Several members of the White House staff looked up as the President approached.
Herney waved and greeted each by name. Their responses, though polite, were
subdued and accompanied by forced smiles.
“Good morning, Mr. President.”
“Nice to see you, Mr. President.”
“Good day, sir.”
As the President made his way toward his office, he sensed whisperings in his
wake. There was an insurrection afoot inside the White House. For the past
couple of weeks, the disillusionment at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue had been
growing to a point where Herney was starting to feel like Captain
Bligh—commanding a struggling ship whose crew was preparing for mutiny.
The President didn’t blame them. His staff had worked grueling hours to support
him in the upcoming election, and now, all of a sudden, it seemed the President
was fumbling the ball.
Soon they will understand, Herney told himself. Soon I’ll be the hero again.
He regretted having to keep his staff in the dark for so long, but secrecy was
absolutely critical. And when it came to keeping secrets, the White House was
known as the leakiest ship in Washington.
Herney arrived in the waiting room outside the Oval Office and gave his
secretary a cheery wave. “You look nice this morning, Dolores.”
“You too, sir,” she said, eyeing his casual attire with unveiled disapproval.
Herney lowered his voice. “I’d like you to organize a meeting for me.”
“With whom, sir?”
“The entire White House staff.”
His secretary glanced up. “Your entire staff, sir? All 145 of them?”
“Exactly.”
She looked uneasy. “Okay. Shall I set it up in…the Briefing Room?”
Herney shook his head. “No. Let’s set it up in my office.”
Now she stared. “You want to see your entire staff inside the Oval Office?”
“Exactly.”
“All at once, sir?”
“Why not? Set it up for four P.M.”
The secretary nodded as though humoring a mental patient. “Very well, sir. And
the meeting is regarding…?”
“I have an important announcement to make to the American people tonight. I want
my staff to hear it first.”
A sudden dejected look swept across his secretary’s face, almost as if she had
secretly been dreading this moment. She lowered her voice. “Sir, are you pulling
out of the race?”
Herney burst out laughing. “Hell no, Dolores! I’m gearing up to fight!”
She looked doubtful. The media reports had all been saying President Herney was
throwing the election.
He gave her a reassuring wink. “Dolores, you’ve done a terrific job for me these
past few years, and you’ll do a terrific job for me for another four. We’re
keeping the White House. I swear it.”
His secretary looked like she wanted to believe it. “Very well, sir. I’ll alert
the staff. Four P.M.”
As Zach Herney entered the Oval Office, he couldn’t help but smile at the image
of his entire staff crammed into the deceptively small chamber.
Although this great office had enjoyed many nicknames over the years—the Loo,
Dick’s Den, the Clinton Bedroom—Herney’s favorite was “the Lobster Trap.” It
seemed most fitting. Each time a newcomer entered the Oval Office,
disorientation set in immediately. The symmetry of the room, the gently curving
walls, the discreetly disguised doorways in and out, all gave visitors the
dizzying sense they’d been blindfolded and spun around. Often, after a meeting
in the Oval Office, a visiting dignitary would stand up, shake hands with the
President, and march straight into a storage closet. Depending on how the
meeting had gone, Herney would either stop the guest in time or watch in
amusement as the visitor embarrassed himself.
Herney had always believed the most dominating aspect of the Oval Office was the
colorful American eagle emblazoned on the room’s oval carpet. The eagle’s left
talon clutched an olive branch and his right a bundle of arrows. Few outsiders
knew that during times of peace, the eagle faced left—toward the olive branch.
But in times of war, the eagle mysteriously faced right—toward the arrows. The
mechanism behind this little parlor trick was the source of quiet speculation
among White House staff because it was traditionally known only by the President
and the head of housekeeping. The truth behind the enigmatic eagle, Herney had
found to be disappointingly mundane. A storage room in the basement contained
the second oval carpet, and housekeeping simply swapped the carpets in the dead
of night.
Now, as Herney gazed down at the peaceful, left-gazing eagle, he smiled to think
that perhaps he should swap carpets in honor of the little war he was about to
launch against Senator Sedgewick Sexton.
15
The U.S. Delta Force is the sole fighting squad whose actions are granted
complete presidential immunity from the law.
Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD 25) grants Delta Force soldiers “freedom
from all legal accountability,” including exception from the 1876 Posse
Comitatus Act, a statute imposing criminal penalties for anyone using the
military for personal gain, domestic law enforcement, or unsanctioned covert
operations. Delta Force members are handpicked from the Combat Applications
Group (CAG), a classified organization within the Special Operations Command in
Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Delta Force soldiers are trained killers—experts in
SWAT operations, rescuing hostages, surprise raids, and elimination of covert
enemy forces.
Because Delta Force missions usually involve high levels of secrecy, the
traditional multitiered chain of command is often circumvented in favor of
“monocaput” management—a single controller who holds authority to control the
unit as he or she sees fit. The controller tends to be a military or government
powerbroker with sufficient rank or influence to run the mission. Regardless of
the identity of their controller, Delta Force missions are classified at the
highest level, and once a mission is completed, Delta Force soldiers never speak
of it again—not to one another, and not to their commanding officers within
Special Ops.
Fly. Fight. Forget.
The Delta team currently stationed above the Eighty-second Parallel was doing no
flying or fighting. They were simply watching.
Delta-One had to admit that this had been a most unusual mission so far, but he
had learned long ago never to be surprised by what he was asked to do. In the
past five years he had been involved in Middle East hostage rescues, tracking
and exterminating terrorist cells working inside the United States, and even the
discreet elimination of several dangerous men and women around the globe.
Just last month his Delta team had used a flying microbot to induce a lethal
heart attack in a particularly malicious South American drug lord. Using a
microbot equipped with a hairline titanium needle containing a potent
vasoconstrictor, Delta-Two had flown the device into the man’s house through an
open second-story window, found the man’s bedroom, and then pricked him on the
shoulder while he was sleeping. The microbot was back out the window and “feet
dry” before the man woke up with chest pain. The Delta team was already flying
home by the time its victim’s wife was calling the paramedics.
No breaking and entering.
Death by natural causes.
It had been a thing of beauty.
More recently, another microbot stationed inside a prominent senator’s office to
monitor his personal meetings had captured images of a lurid sexual encounter.
The Delta team jokingly referred to that mission as “insertion behind enemy
lines.”
Now, after being trapped on surveillance duty inside this tent for the last ten
days, Delta-One was ready for this mission to be over.
Remain in hiding.
Monitor the structure—inside and out.
Report to your controller any unexpected developments.
Delta-One had been trained never to feel any emotion regarding his assignments.
This mission, however, had certainly raised his heart rate when he and his team
were first briefed. The briefing had been “faceless”—every phase explained via
secure electronic channels. Delta-One had never met the controller responsible
for this mission.
Delta-One was preparing a dehydrated protein meal when his watch beeped in
unison with the others. Within seconds the CrypTalk communications device beside
him blinked on alert. He stopped what he was doing and picked up the handheld
communicator. The other two men watched in silence.
“Delta-One,” he said, speaking into the transmitter.
The two words were instantly identified by the voice recognition software inside
the device. Each word was then assigned a reference number, which was encrypted
and sent via satellite to the caller. On the caller’s end, at a similar device,
the numbers were decrypted, translated back into words using a predetermined,
self-randomizing dictionary. Then the words were spoken aloud by a synthetic
voice. Total delay, eighty milliseconds.
“Controller, here,” said the person overseeing the operation. The robotic tone
of the CrypTalk was eerie—inorganic and androgynous. “What is your op status?”
“Everything proceeding as planned,” Delta-One replied.
“Excellent. I have an update on the time frame. The information goes public
tonight at eight P.M. Eastern.”
Delta-One checked his chronograph. Only eight more hours. His job here would be
finished soon. That was encouraging.
“There is another development,” the controller said. “A new player has entered
the arena.”
“What new player?”
Delta-One listened. An interesting gamble. Someone out there was playing for
keeps. “Do you think she can be trusted?”
“She needs to be watched very closely.”
“And if there is trouble?”
There was no hesitation on the line. “Your orders stand.”
16
Rachel Sexton had been flying due north for over an hour. Other than a fleeting
glimpse of Newfoundland, she had seen nothing but water beneath the F-14 for the
entire journey.
Why did it have to be water? she thought, grimacing. Rachel had plunged through
the ice on a frozen pond while ice-skating when she was seven. Trapped beneath
the surface, she was certain she would die. It had been her mother’s powerful
grasp that finally yanked Rachel’s waterlogged body to safety. Ever since that
harrowing ordeal, Rachel had battled a persistent case of hydrophobia—a distinct
wariness of open water, especially cold water. Today, with nothing but the North
Atlantic as far as Rachel could see, her old fears had come creeping back.
Not until the pilot checked his bearings with Thule airbase in northern
Greenland did Rachel realize how far they had traveled. I’m above the Arctic
Circle? The revelation intensified her uneasiness. Where are they taking me?
What has NASA found? Soon the blue-gray expanse below her became speckled with
thousands of stark white dots.
Icebergs.
Rachel had seen icebergs only once before in her life, six years ago when her
mother persuaded Rachel to join her on an Alaskan mother-daughter cruise. Rachel
had suggested a number of alternative land-based vacations, but her mother was
insistent. “Rachel, honey,” her mother had said, “two thirds of this planet is
covered with water, and sooner or later, you’ve got to learn to deal with it.”
Mrs. Sexton was a resilient New Englander intent on raising a strong daughter.
The cruise had been the last trip Rachel and her mother ever took.
Katherine Wentworth Sexton. Rachel felt a distant pang of loneliness. Like the
howling wind outside the plane, the memories came tearing back, pulling at her
the way they always did. Their final conversation had been by phone.
Thanksgiving morning.
“I’m so sorry, Mom,” Rachel said, phoning home from a snowbound O’Hare airport.
“I know our family has never spent Thanksgiving Day apart. It looks like today
will be our first.”
Rachel’s mom sounded crushed. “I was so looking forward to seeing you.”
“Me too, Mom. Think of me eating airport food while you and Dad feast on
turkey.”
There was a pause on the line. “Rachel, I wasn’t going to tell you until you got
here, but your father says he has too much work to make it home this year. He’ll
be staying at his D.C. suite for the long weekend.”
“What!” Rachel’s surprise gave way immediately to anger. “But, it’s
Thanksgiving. The Senate isn’t in session! He’s less than two hours away. He
should be with you!”
“I know. He says he’s exhausted—far too tired to drive. He’s decided he needs to
spend this weekend curled up with his backlog of work.”
Work? Rachel was skeptical. A more likely guess was that Senator Sexton would be
curled up with another woman. His infidelities, though discreet, had been going
on for years. Mrs. Sexton was no fool, but her husband’s affairs were always
accompanied by persuasive alibis and pained indignity at the mere suggestion he
could be unfaithful. Finally, Mrs. Sexton saw no alternative but to bury her
pain by turning a blind eye. Although Rachel had urged her mother to consider
divorce, Katherine Wentworth Sexton was a woman of her word. Till death do us
part, she told Rachel. Your father blessed me with you—a beautiful daughter—and
for that I thank him. He will have to answer for his actions to a higher power
someday.
Now, standing in the airport, Rachel’s anger was simmering. “But, this means
you’ll be alone for Thanksgiving!” She felt sick to her stomach. The senator
deserting his family on Thanksgiving Day was a new low, even for him.
“Well…,” Mrs. Sexton said, her voice disappointed but decisive. “I obviously
can’t let all this food go to waste. I’ll drive it up to Aunt Ann’s. She’s
always invited us up for Thanksgiving. I’ll give her a call right now.”
Rachel felt only marginally less guilty. “Okay. I’ll be home as soon as I can. I
love you, Mom.”
“Safe flight, sweetheart.”
It was 10:30 that night when Rachel’s taxi finally pulled up the winding
driveway of the Sextons’ luxurious estate. Rachel immediately knew something was
wrong. Three police cars sat in the driveway. Several news vans too. All the
house lights were on. Rachel dashed in, her heart racing.
A Virginia State policeman met her at the doorway. His face was grim. He didn’t
have to say a word. Rachel knew. There had been an accident.
“Route Twenty-five was slick with freezing rain,” the officer said. “Your mother
went off the road into a wooded ravine. I’m sorry. She died on impact.”
Rachel’s body went numb. Her father, having returned immediately when he got the
news, was now in the living room holding a small press conference, stoically
announcing to the world that his wife had passed away in a crash on her way back
from Thanksgiving dinner with family.
Rachel stood in the wings, sobbing through the entire event.
“I only wish,” her father told the media, his eyes tearful, “that I had been
home for her this weekend. This never would have happened.”
You should have thought of that years ago, Rachel cried, her loathing for her
father deepening with every passing instant.
From that moment on, Rachel divorced herself from her father in the way Mrs.
Sexton never had. The senator barely seemed to notice. He suddenly had gotten
very busy using his late wife’s fortunes to begin courting his party’s
nomination for president. The sympathy vote didn’t hurt either.
Cruelly now, three years later, even at a distance the senator was making
Rachel’s life lonely. Her father’s run for the White House had put Rachel’s
dreams of meeting a man and starting a family on indefinite hold. For Rachel it
had become far easier to take herself completely out of the social game than to
deal with the endless stream of power-hungry Washingtonian suitors hoping to
snag a grieving, potential “first daughter” while she was still in their league.
Outside the F-14, the daylight had started to fade. It was late winter in the
Arctic—a time of perpetual darkness. Rachel realized she was flying into a land
of permanent night.
As the minutes passed, the sun faded entirely, dropping below the horizon. They
continued north, and a brilliant three-quarter moon appeared, hanging white in
the crystalline glacial air. Far below, the ocean waves shimmered, the icebergs
looking like diamonds sewn into a dark sequin mesh.
Finally, Rachel spotted the hazy outline of land. But it was not what she had
expected. Looming out of the ocean before the plane was an enormous snowcapped
mountain range.
“Mountains?” Rachel asked, confused. “There are mountains north of Greenland?”
“Apparently,” the pilot said, sounding equally surprised.
As the nose of the F-14 tipped downward, Rachel felt an eerie weightlessness.
Through the ringing in her ears she could hear a repeated electronic ping in the
cockpit. The pilot had apparently locked on to some kind of directional beacon
and was following it in.
As they passed below three thousand feet, Rachel stared out at the dramatic
moonlit terrain beneath them. At the base of the mountains, an expansive, snowy
plain swept wide. The plateau spread gracefully seaward about ten miles until it
ended abruptly at a sheer cliff of solid ice that dropped vertically into the
ocean.
It was then that Rachel saw it. A sight like nothing she had ever seen anywhere
on earth. At first she thought the moonlight must be playing tricks on her. She
squinted down at the snowfields, unable to comprehend what she was looking at.
The lower the plane descended, the clearer the image became.
What in the name of God?
The plateau beneath them was striped…as if someone had painted the snow with
three huge striations of silver paint. The glistening strips ran parallel to the
coastal cliff. Not until the plane dropped past five hundred feet did the
optical illusion reveal itself. The three silver stripes were deep troughs, each
one over thirty yards wide. The troughs had filled with water and frozen into
broad, silvery channels that stretched in parallel across the plateau. The white
berms between them were mounded dikes of snow.
As they dropped toward the plateau, the plane started bucking and bouncing in
heavy turbulence. Rachel heard the landing gear engage with a heavy clunk, but
she still saw no landing strip. As the pilot struggled to keep the plane under
control, Rachel peered out and spotted two lines of blinking strobes straddling
the outermost ice trough. She realized to her horror what the pilot was about to
do.
“We’re landing on ice?” she demanded.
The pilot did not respond. He was concentrating on the buffeting wind. Rachel
felt a drag in her gut as the craft decelerated and dropped toward the ice
channel. High snow berms rose on either side of the aircraft, and Rachel held
her breath, knowing the slightest miscalculation in the narrow channel would
mean certain death. The wavering plane dropped lower between the berms, and the
turbulence suddenly disappeared. Sheltered there from the wind, the plane
touched down perfectly on the ice.
The Tomcat’s rear thrusters roared, slowing the plane. Rachel exhaled. The jet
taxied about a hundred yards farther and rolled to a stop at a red line
spray-painted boldly across the ice.
The view to the right was nothing but a wall of snow in the moonlight—the side
of an ice berm. The view on the left was identical. Only through the windshield
ahead of them did Rachel have any visibility…an endless expanse of ice. She felt
like she had landed on a dead planet. Aside from the line on the ice, there were
no signs of life.
Then Rachel heard it. In the distance, another engine was approaching. Higher
pitched. The sound grew louder until a machine came into view. It was a large,
multitreaded snow tractor churning toward them up the ice trough. Tall and
spindly, it looked like a towering futuristic insect grinding toward them on
voracious spinning feet. Mounted high on the chassis was an enclosed Plexiglas
cabin with a rack of floodlights illuminating its way.
The machine shuddered to a halt directly beside the F-14. The door on the
Plexiglas cabin opened, and a figure climbed down a ladder onto the ice. He was
bundled from head to foot in a puffy white jumpsuit that gave the impression he
had been inflated.
Mad Max meets the Pillsbury Dough Boy, Rachel thought, relieved at least to see
this strange planet was inhabited.
The man signaled for the F-14 pilot to pop the hatch.
The pilot obeyed.
When the cockpit opened, the gust of air that tore through Rachel’s body chilled
her instantly to the core.
Close the damn lid!
“Ms. Sexton?” the figure called up to her. His accent was American. “On behalf
of NASA, I welcome you.”
Rachel was shivering. Thanks a million.
“Please unhook your flight harness, leave your helmet in the craft, and deplane
by using the fuselage toe-holds. Do you have any questions?”
“Yes,” Rachel shouted back. “Where the hell am I?”
17
Marjorie Tench—senior adviser to the President—was a loping skeleton of a
creature. Her gaunt six-foot frame resembled an Erector Set construction of
joints and limbs. Overhanging her precarious body was a jaundiced face whose
skin resembled a sheet of parchment paper punctured by two emotionless eyes. At
fifty-one, she looked seventy.
Tench was revered in Washington as a goddess in the political arena. She was
said to possess analytical skills that bordered on the clairvoyant. Her decade
running the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research had helped
hone a lethally sharp, critical mind. Unfortunately, accompanying Tench’s
political savvy came an icy temperament that few could endure for more than a
few minutes. Marjorie Tench had been blessed with all the brains of a
supercomputer—and the warmth of one, too. Nonetheless, President Zach Herney had
little trouble tolerating the woman’s idiosyncrasies; her intellect and hard
work were almost single-handedly responsible for putting Herney in office in the
first place.
“Marjorie,” the President said, standing to welcome her into the Oval Office.
“What can I do for you?” He did not offer her a seat. The typical social graces
did not apply to women like Marjorie Tench. If Tench wanted a seat, she would
damn well take one.
“I see you set the staff briefing for four o’clock this afternoon.” Her voice
was raspy from cigarettes. “Excellent.”
Tench paced a moment, and Herney sensed the intricate cogs of her mind turning
over and over. He was grateful. Marjorie Tench was one of the select few on the
President’s staff who was fully aware of the NASA discovery, and her political
savvy was helping the President plan his strategy.
“This CNN debate today at one o’clock,” Tench said, coughing. “Who are we
sending to spar with Sexton?”
Herney smiled. “A junior campaign spokesperson.” The political tactic of
frustrating the “hunter” by never sending him any big game was as old as debates
themselves.
“I have a better idea,” Tench said, her barren eyes finding his. “Let me take
the spot myself.”
Zach Herney’s head shot up. “You?” What the hell is she thinking? “Marjorie, you
don’t do media spots. Besides, it’s a midday cable show. If I send my senior
adviser, what kind of message does that send? It makes us look like we’re
panicking.”
“Exactly.”
Herney studied her. Whatever convoluted scheme Tench was hatching, there was no
way in hell Herney would permit her to appear on CNN. Anyone who had ever laid
eyes on Marjorie Tench knew there was a reason she worked behind the scenes.
Tench was a frightful-looking woman—not the kind of face a President wanted
delivering the White House message.
“I am taking this CNN debate,” she repeated. This time she was not asking.
“Marjorie,” the President maneuvered, feeling uneasy now, “Sexton’s campaign
will obviously claim your presence on CNN is proof the White House is running
scared. Sending out our big guns early makes us look desperate.”
The woman gave a quiet nod and lit a cigarette. “The more desperate we look, the
better.”
For the next sixty seconds, Marjorie Tench outlined why the President would be
sending her to the CNN debate instead of some lowly campaign staffer. When Tench
was finished, the President could only stare in amazement.
Once again, Marjorie Tench had proven herself a political genius.
18
The Milne Ice Shelf is the largest solid ice floe in the Northern Hemisphere.
Located above the Eighty-second Parallel on the northernmost coast of Ellesmere
Island in the high Arctic, the Milne Ice Shelf is four miles wide and reaches
thicknesses of over three hundred feet.
Now, as Rachel climbed into the Plexiglas enclosure atop the ice tractor, she
was grateful for the extra parka and gloves waiting for her on her seat, as well
as the heat pouring out of the tractor’s vents. Outside, on the ice runway, the
F-14’s engines roared, and the plane began taxiing away.
Rachel looked up in alarm. “He’s leaving?”
Her new host climbed into the tractor, nodding. “Only science personnel and
immediate NASA support team members are allowed on-site.”
As the F-14 tore off into the sunless sky, Rachel felt suddenly marooned.
“We’ll be taking the IceRover from here,” the man said. “The administrator is
waiting.”
Rachel gazed out at the silvery path of ice before them and tried to imagine
what the hell the administrator of NASA was doing up here.
“Hold on,” the NASA man shouted, working some levers. With a grinding growl, the
machine rotated ninety degrees in place like a treaded army tank. It was now
facing the high wall of a snow berm.
Rachel looked at the steep incline and felt a ripple of fear. Surely he doesn’t
intend to—
“Rock and roll!” The driver popped the clutch, and the craft accelerated
directly toward the slope. Rachel let out a muffled cry and held on. As they hit
the incline, the spiked treads tore into the snow, and the contraption began to
climb. Rachel was certain they would tip over backward, but the cabin remained
surprisingly horizontal as the treads clawed up the slope. When the huge machine
heaved up onto the crest of the berm, the driver brought it to a stop and beamed
at his white-knuckled passenger. “Try that in an SUV! We took the shock-system
design from the Mars Pathfinder and popped it on this baby! Worked like a
charm.”
Rachel gave a wan nod. “Neat.”
Sitting now atop the snow berm, Rachel looked out at the inconceivable view. One
more large berm stood before them, and then the undulations stopped abruptly.
Beyond, the ice smoothed into a glistening expanse that was inclined ever so
slightly. The moonlit sheet of ice stretched out into the distance, where it
eventually narrowed and snaked up into the mountains.
“That’s the Milne Glacier,” the driver said, pointing up into the mountains.
“Starts up there and flows down into this wide delta that we’re sitting on now.”
The driver gunned the engine again, and Rachel held on as the craft accelerated
down the steep face. At the bottom, they clawed across another ice river and
rocketed up the next berm. Mounting the crest and quickly skimming down the far
side, they slid out onto a smooth sheet of ice and started crunching across the
glacier.
“How far?” Rachel saw nothing but ice in front of them.
“About two miles ahead.”
Rachel thought it seemed far. The wind outside pounded the IceRover in
relentless gusts, rattling the Plexiglas as if trying to hurl them back toward
the sea.
“That’s the katabatic wind,” the driver yelled. “Get used to it!” He explained
that this area had a permanent offshore gale called the katabatic—Greek for
flowing downhill. The relentless wind was apparently the product of heavy, cold
air “flowing” down the glacial face like a raging river downhill. “This is the
only place on earth,” the driver added, laughing, “where hell actually freezes
over!”
Several minutes later, Rachel began to see a hazy shape in the distance in front
of them—the silhouette of an enormous white dome emerging from the ice. Rachel
rubbed her eyes. What in the world…?
“Big Eskimos up here, eh?” the man joked.
Rachel tried to make sense of the structure. It looked like a scaled-down
Houston Astrodome.
“NASA put it up a week and a half ago,” he said. “Multistage inflatable
plexipolysorbate. Inflate the pieces, affix them to one another, connect the
whole thing to the ice with pitons and wires. Looks like an enclosed big top
tent, but it’s actually the NASA prototype for the portable habitat we hope to
use on Mars someday. We call it a ‘habisphere.’”
“Habisphere?”
“Yeah, get it? Because it’s not a whole sphere, it’s only habi-sphere.”
Rachel smiled and stared out at the bizarre building now looming closer on the
glacial plain. “And because NASA hasn’t gone to Mars yet, you guys decided to
have a big sleepover out here instead?”
The man laughed. “Actually, I would have preferred Tahiti, but fate pretty much
decided the location.”
Rachel gazed uncertainly up at the edifice. The off-white shell was a ghostly
contour against a dark sky. As the IceRover neared the structure, it ground to a
stop at a small door on the side of the dome, which was now opening. Light from
inside spilled out onto the snow. A figure stepped out. He was a bulky giant
wearing a black fleece pullover that amplified his size and made him look like a
bear. He moved toward the IceRover.
Rachel had no doubt who the huge man was: Lawrence Ekstrom, administrator of
NASA.
The driver gave a solacing grin. “Don’t let his size fool you. The guy’s a
pussycat.”
More like a tiger, Rachel thought, well acquainted with Ekstrom’s reputation for
biting the heads off those who stood in the way of his dreams.
When Rachel climbed down from the IceRover, the wind almost blew her over. She
wrapped the coat around herself and moved toward the dome.
The NASA administrator met her halfway, extending a huge gloved paw. “Ms.
Sexton. Thank you for coming.”
Rachel nodded uncertainly and shouted over the howling wind. “Frankly, sir, I’m
not sure I had much choice.”
• • •
A thousand meters farther up the glacier, Delta-One gazed through infrared
binoculars and watched as the administrator of NASA ushered Rachel Sexton into
the dome.
19
NASA administrator Lawrence Ekstrom was a giant of a man, ruddy and gruff, like
an angry Norse god. His prickly blond hair was cropped military short above a
furrowed brow, and his bulbous nose was spidered with veins. At the moment, his
stony eyes drooped with the weight of countless sleepless nights. An influential
aerospace strategist and operations adviser at the Pentagon before his
appointment to NASA, Ekstrom had a reputation for surliness matched only by his
incontestable dedication to whatever mission was at hand.
As Rachel Sexton followed Lawrence Ekstrom into the habisphere, she found
herself walking through an eerie, translucent maze of hallways. The labyrinthine
network appeared to have been fashioned by hanging sheets of opaque plastic
across tautly strung wires. The floor of the maze was nonexistent—a sheet of
solid ice, carpeted with strips of rubber matting for traction. They passed a
rudimentary living area lined with cots and chemical toilets.
Thankfully, the air in the habisphere was warm, albeit heavy with the mingled
potpourri of indistinguishable smells that accompany humans in tight quarters.
Somewhere a generator droned, apparently the source of the electricity that
powered the bare bulbs hanging from draped extension cords in the hallway.
“Ms. Sexton,” Ekstrom grunted, guiding her briskly toward some unknown
destination. “Let me be candid with you right from the start.” His tone conveyed
anything but pleasure to have Rachel as his guest. “You are here because the
President wants you here. Zach Herney is a personal friend of mine and a
faithful NASA supporter. I respect him. I owe him. And I trust him. I do not
question his direct orders, even when I resent them. Just so there is no
confusion, be aware that I do not share the President’s enthusiasm for involving
you in this matter.”
Rachel could only stare. I traveled three thousand miles for this kind of
hospitality? This guy was no Martha Stewart. “With all due respect,” she fired
back, “I am also under presidential orders. I have not been told my purpose
here. I made this trip on good faith.”
“Fine,” Ekstrom said. “Then I will speak bluntly.”
“You’ve made a damn good start.”
Rachel’s tough response seemed to jolt the administrator. His stride slowed a
moment, his eyes clearing as he studied her. Then, like a snake uncoiling, he
heaved a long sigh and picked up the pace.
“Understand,” Ekstrom began, “that you are here on a classified NASA project
against my better judgment. Not only are you a representative of the NRO, whose
director enjoys dishonoring NASA personnel as loose-lipped children, but you are
the daughter of the man who has made it his personal mission to destroy my
agency. This should be NASA’s hour in the sun; my men and women have endured a
lot of criticism lately and deserve this moment of glory. However, due to a
torrent of skepticism spearheaded by your father, NASA finds itself in a
political situation where my hardworking personnel are forced to share the
spotlight with a handful of random civilian scientists and the daughter of the
man who is trying to destroy us.”
I am not my father, Rachel wanted to shout, but this was hardly the moment to
debate politics with the head of NASA. “I did not come here for the spotlight,
sir.”
Ekstrom glared. “You may find you have no alternative.”
The comment took her by surprise. Although President Herney had said nothing
specific about her assisting him in any sort of “public” way, William Pickering
had certainly aired his suspicions that Rachel might become a political pawn.
“I’d like to know what I’m doing here,” Rachel demanded.
“You and me both. I do not have that information.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The President asked me to brief you fully on our discovery the moment you
arrived. Whatever role he wants you to play in this circus is between you and
him.”
“He told me your Earth Observation System had made a discovery.”
Ekstrom glanced sidelong at her. “How familiar are you with the EOS project?”
“EOS is a constellation of five NASA satellites which scrutinize the earth in
different ways—ocean mapping, geologic fault analyses, polar ice-melt
observation, location of fossil fuel reserves—”
“Fine,” Ekstrom said, sounding unimpressed. “So you’re aware of the newest
addition to the EOS constellation? It’s called PODS.”
Rachel nodded. The Polar Orbiting Density Scanner (PODS) was designed to help
measure the effects of global warming. “As I understand it, PODS measures the
thickness and hardness of the polar ice cap?”
“In effect, yes. It uses spectral band technology to take composite density
scans of large regions and find softness anomalies in the ice—slush spots,
internal melting, large fissures—indicators of global warming.”
Rachel was familiar with composite density scanning. It was like a subterranean
ultrasound. NRO satellites had used similar technology to search for subsurface
density variants in Eastern Europe and locate mass burial sites, which confirmed
for the President that ethnic cleansing was indeed going on.
“Two weeks ago,” Ekstrom said, “PODS passed over this ice shelf and spotted a
density anomaly that looked nothing like anything we’d expected to see. Two
hundred feet beneath the surface, perfectly embedded in a matrix of solid ice,
PODS saw what looked like an amorphous globule about ten feet in diameter.”
“A water pocket?” Rachel asked.
“No. Not liquid. Strangely, this anomaly was harder than the ice surrounding
it.”
Rachel paused. “So…it’s a boulder or something?”
Ekstrom nodded. “Essentially.”
Rachel waited for the punch line. It never came. I’m here because NASA found a
big rock in the ice?
“Not until PODS calculated the density of this rock did we get excited. We
immediately flew a team up here to analyze it. As it turns out, the rock in the
ice beneath us is significantly more dense than any type of rock found here on
Ellesmere Island. More dense, in fact, than any type of rock found within a
four-hundred-mile radius.”
Rachel gazed down at the ice beneath her feet, picturing the huge rock down
there somewhere. “You’re saying someone moved it here?”
Ekstrom looked vaguely amused. “The stone weighs more than eight tons. It is
embedded under two hundred feet of solid ice, meaning it has been there
untouched for over three hundred years.”
Rachel felt tired as she followed the administrator into the mouth of a long,
narrow corridor, passing between two armed NASA workers who stood guard. Rachel
glanced at Ekstrom. “I assume there’s a logical explanation for the stone’s
presence here…and for all this secrecy?”
“There most certainly is,” Ekstrom said, deadpan. “The rock PODS found is a
meteorite.”
Rachel stopped dead in the passageway and stared at the administrator. “A
meteorite?” A surge of disappointment washed over her. A meteorite seemed
utterly anti-climactic after the President’s big buildup. This discovery will
single-handedly justify all of NASA’s past expenditures and blunders? What was
Herney thinking? Meteorites were admittedly one of the rarest rocks on earth,
but NASA discovered meteorites all the time.
“This meteorite is one of the largest ever found,” Ekstrom said, standing rigid
before her. “We believe it is a fragment of a larger meteorite documented to
have hit the Arctic Ocean in the seventeen hundreds. Most likely, this rock was
thrown as ejecta from that ocean impact, landed on the Milne Glacier, and was
slowly buried by snow over the past three hundred years.”
Rachel scowled. This discovery changed nothing. She felt a growing suspicion
that she was witnessing an overblown publicity stunt by a desperate NASA and
White House—two struggling entities attempting to elevate a propitious find to
the level of earth-shattering NASA victory.
“You don’t look too impressed,” Ekstrom said.
“I guess I was just expecting something…else.”
Ekstrom’s eyes narrowed. “A meteorite of this size is a very rare find, Ms.
Sexton. There are only a few larger in the world.”
“I realize—”
“But the size of the meteorite is not what excites us.”
Rachel glanced up.
“If you would permit me to finish,” Ekstrom said, “you will learn that this
meteorite displays some rather astonishing characteristics never before seen in
any meteorite. Large or small.” He motioned down the passageway. “Now, if you
would follow me, I’ll introduce you to someone more qualified than I am to
discuss this find.”
Rachel was confused. “Someone more qualified than the administrator of NASA?”
Ekstrom’s Nordic eyes locked in on hers. “More qualified, Ms. Sexton, insofar as
he is a civilian. I had assumed because you are a professional data analyst that
you would prefer to get your data from an unbiased source.”
Touché. Rachel backed off.
She followed the administrator down the narrow corridor, where they dead-ended
at a heavy, black drapery. Beyond the drape, Rachel could hear the reverberant
murmur of a crowd of voices rumbling on the other side, echoing as if in a giant
open space.
Without a word, the administrator reached up and pulled aside the curtain.
Rachel was blinded by a dazzling brightness. Hesitant, she stepped forward,
squinting into the glistening space. As her eyes adjusted, she gazed out at the
massive room before her and drew an awestruck breath.
“My God,” she whispered. What is this place?
20
The CNN production facility outside of Washington, D.C., is one of 212 studios
worldwide that link via satellite to the global headquarters of Turner
Broadcasting System in Atlanta.
It was 1:45 P.M. when Senator Sedgewick Sexton’s limousine pulled into the
parking lot. Sexton was feeling smug as he got out and strode toward the
entrance. He and Gabrielle were greeted inside by a pot-bellied CNN producer who
wore an effusive smile.
“Senator Sexton,” the producer said. “Welcome. Great news. We just found out who
the White House sent as a sparring partner for you.” The producer gave a
foreboding grin. “I hope you brought your game face.” He motioned through the
production glass out into the studio.
Sexton looked through the glass and almost fell over. Staring back at him,
through the smoky haze of her cigarette, was the ugliest face in politics.
“Marjorie Tench?” Gabrielle blurted. “What the hell is she doing here?”
Sexton had no idea, but whatever the reason, her presence here was fantastic
news—a clear sign that the President was in desperation mode. Why else would he
send his senior adviser to the front lines? President Zach Herney was rolling
out the big guns, and Sexton welcomed the opportunity.
The bigger the foe, the harder they fall.
The senator had no doubt that Tench would be a sly opponent, but gazing now at
the woman, Sexton could not help but think that the President had made a serious
error in judgment. Marjorie Tench was hideouslooking. At the moment, she sat
slouched in her chair, smoking a cigarette, her right arm moving in languid
rhythm back and forth to her thin lips like a giant praying mantis feeding.
Jesus, Sexton thought, if there was ever a face that should stick to radio.
The few times Sedgewick Sexton had seen the White House senior adviser’s
jaundiced mug in a magazine, he could not believe he was looking at one of the
most powerful faces in Washington.
“I don’t like this,” Gabrielle whispered.
Sexton barely heard her. The more he considered the opportunity, the more he
liked it. Even more fortuitous than Tench’s media-unfriendly face was Tench’s
reputation on one key issue: Marjorie Tench was extremely vocal that America’s
leadership role in the future could only be secured through technological
superiority. She was an avid supporter of high-tech government R&D programs,
and, most important—NASA. Many believed it was Tench’s behind-the-scenes
pressure that kept the President positioned so staunchly behind the failing
space agency.
Sexton wondered if perhaps the President was now punishing Tench for all the bad
advice about supporting NASA. Is he throwing his senior adviser to the wolves?
Gabrielle Ashe gazed through the glass at Marjorie Tench and felt a growing
uneasiness. This woman was smart as hell and she was an unexpected twist. Those
two facts had her instincts tingling. Considering the woman’s stance on NASA,
the President sending her to face-off against Senator Sexton seemed ill-advised.
But the President was certainly no fool. Something told Gabrielle this interview
was bad news.
Gabrielle already sensed the senator salivating over his odds, which did little
to curb her concern. Sexton had a habit of going overboard when he got cocky.
The NASA issue had been a welcome boost in the polls, but Sexton had been
pushing very hard lately, she thought. Plenty of campaigns had been lost by
candidates who went for the knockout when all they needed was to finish the
round.
The producer looked eager for the impending blood match. “Let’s get you set up,
senator.”
As Sexton headed for the studio, Gabrielle caught his sleeve. “I know what
you’re thinking,” she whispered. “But just be smart. Don’t go overboard.”
“Overboard? Me?” Sexton grinned.
“Remember this woman is very good at what she does.”
Sexton gave her a suggestive smirk. “So am I.”
21
The cavernous main chamber of NASA’s habisphere would have been a strange sight
anywhere on earth, but the fact that it existed on an Arctic ice shelf made it
that much more difficult for Rachel Sexton to assimilate.
Staring upward into a futuristic dome crafted of white interlocking triangular
pads, Rachel felt like she had entered a colossal sanatorium. The walls sloped
downward to a floor of solid ice, where an army of halogen lamps stood like
sentinels around the perimeter, casting stark light skyward and giving the whole
chamber an ephemeral luminosity.
Snaking across the ice floor, black foam carpetrunners wound like boardwalks
through a maze of portable scientific work stations. Amid the electronics,
thirty or forty white-clad NASA personnel were hard at work, conferring happily
and talking in excited tones. Rachel immediately recognized the electricity in
the room.
It was the thrill of new discovery.
As Rachel and the administrator circled the outer edge of the dome, she noted
the surprised looks of displeasure from those who recognized her. Their whispers
carried clearly in the reverberant space.
Isn’t that Senator Sexton’s daughter?
What the hell is SHE doing here?
I can’t believe the administrator is even speaking to her!
Rachel half expected to see voodoo dolls of her father dangling everywhere. The
animosity around her, though, was not the only emotion in the air; Rachel also
sensed a distinct smugness—as if NASA clearly knew who would be having the last
laugh.
The administrator led Rachel toward a series of tables where a lone man sat at a
computer work station. He was dressed in a black turtleneck, wide-wale
corduroys, and heavy boat shoes, rather than the matching NASA weather gear
everyone else seemed to be wearing. He had his back to them.
The administrator asked Rachel to wait as he went over and spoke to the
stranger. After a moment, the man in the turtleneck gave him a congenial nod and
started shutting down his computer. The administrator returned.
“Mr. Tolland will take it from here,” he said. “He’s another one of the
President’s recruits, so you two should get along fine. I’ll join you later.”
“Thank you.”
“I assume you’ve heard of Michael Tolland?”
Rachel shrugged, her brain still taking in the incredible surroundings. “Name
doesn’t ring a bell.”
The man in the turtleneck arrived, grinning. “Doesn’t ring a bell?” His voice
was resonant and friendly. “Best news I’ve heard all day. Seems I never get a
chance to make a first impression anymore.”
When Rachel glanced up at the newcomer, her feet froze in place. She knew the
man’s handsome face in an instant. Everyone in America did.
“Oh,” she said, blushing as the man shook her hand. “You’re that Michael
Tolland.”
When the President had told Rachel he had recruited top-notch civilian
scientists to authenticate NASA’s discovery, Rachel had imagined a group of
wizened nerds with monogrammed calculators. Michael Tolland was the antithesis.
One of the best known “science celebrities” in America today, Tolland hosted a
weekly documentary called Amazing Seas, during which he brought viewers
face-to-face with spellbinding oceanic phenomena—underwater volcanoes, ten-foot
sea worms, killer tidal waves. The media hailed Tolland as a cross between
Jacques Cousteau and Carl Sagan, crediting his knowledge, unpretentious
enthusiasm, and lust for adventure as the formula that had rocketed Amazing Seas
to the top of the ratings. Of course, most critics admitted, Tolland’s rugged
good looks and self-effacing charisma probably didn’t hurt his popularity with
the female audience.
“Mr. Tolland…,” Rachel said, fumbling the words a bit. “I’m Rachel Sexton.”
Tolland smiled a pleasant, crooked smile. “Hi, Rachel. Call me Mike.”
Rachel found herself uncharacteristically tongue-tied. Sensory overload was
setting in…the habisphere, the meteorite, the secrets, finding herself
unexpectedly face-to-face with a television star. “I’m surprised to see you
here,” she said, attempting to recover. “When the President told me he’d
recruited civilian scientists for authentication of a NASA find, I guess I
expected…” She hesitated.
“Real scientists?” Tolland grinned.
Rachel flushed, mortified. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Tolland said. “That’s all I’ve heard since I got here.”
The administrator excused himself, promising to catch up with them later.
Tolland turned now to Rachel with a curious look. “The administrator tells me
your father is Senator Sexton?”
Rachel nodded. Unfortunately.
“A Sexton spy behind enemy lines?”
“Battle lines are not always drawn where you might think.”
An awkward silence.
“So tell me,” Rachel said quickly, “what’s a world-famous oceanographer doing on
a glacier with a bunch of NASA rocket scientists?”
Tolland chuckled. “Actually, some guy who looked a lot like the President asked
me to do him a favor. I opened my mouth to say ‘Go to hell,’ but somehow I
blurted, ‘Yes, sir.’”
Rachel laughed for the first time all morning. “Join the club.”
Although most celebrities seemed smaller in person, Rachel thought Michael
Tolland appeared taller. His brown eyes were just as vigilant and passionate as
they were on television, and his voice carried the same modest warmth and
enthusiasm. Looking to be a weathered and athletic forty-five, Michael Tolland
had coarse black hair that fell in a permanent windswept tuft across his
forehead. He had a strong chin and a carefree mannerism that exuded confidence.
When he’d shaken Rachel’s hand, the callused roughness of his palms reminded her
he was not a typical “soft” television personality but rather an accomplished
seaman and hands-on researcher.
“To be honest,” Tolland admitted, sounding sheepish, “I think I was recruited
more for my PR value than for my scientific knowledge. The president asked me to
come up and make a documentary for him.”
“A documentary? About a meteorite? But you’re an oceanographer.”
“That’s exactly what I told him! But he said he didn’t know of any meteorite
documentarians. He told me my involvement would help bring mainstream
credibility to this find. Apparently he plans to broadcast my documentary as
part of tonight’s big press conference when he announces the discovery.”
A celebrity spokesman. Rachel sensed the savvy political maneuverings of Zach
Herney at work. NASA was often accused of talking over the public’s head. Not
this time. They’d pulled in the master scientific communicator, a face Americans
already knew and trusted when it came to science.
Tolland pointed kitty-corner across the dome to a far wall where a press area
was being set up. There was a blue carpet on the ice, television cameras, media
lights, a long table with several microphones. Someone was hanging a backdrop of
a huge American flag.
“That’s for tonight,” he explained. “The NASA administrator and some of his top
scientists will be connected live via satellite to the White House so they can
participate in the President’s eight o’clock broadcast.”
Appropriate, Rachel thought, pleased to know Zach Herney didn’t plan to cut NASA
out of the announcement entirely.
“So,” Rachel said with a sigh, “is someone finally going to tell me what’s so
special about this meteorite?”
Tolland arched his eyebrows and gave her a mysterious grin. “Actually, what’s so
special about this meteorite is best seen, not explained.” He motioned for
Rachel to follow him toward the neighboring work area. “The guy stationed over
here has plenty of samples he can show you.”
“Samples? You actually have samples of the meteorite?”
“Absolutely. We’ve drilled quite a few. In fact, it was the initial core samples
that alerted NASA to the importance of the find.”
Unsure of what to expect, Rachel followed Tolland into the work area. It
appeared deserted. A cup of coffee sat on a desk scattered with rock samples,
calipers, and other diagnostic gear. The coffee was steaming.
“Marlinson!” Tolland yelled, looking around. No answer. He gave a frustrated
sigh and turned to Rachel. “He probably got lost trying to find cream for his
coffee. I’m telling you, I went to Princeton postgrad with this guy, and he used
to get lost in his own dorm. Now he’s a National Medal of Science recipient in
astrophysics. Go figure.”
Rachel did a double take. “Marlinson? You don’t by any chance mean the famous
Corky Marlinson, do you?”
Tolland laughed. “One and the same.”
Rachel was stunned. “Corky Marlinson is here?” Marlinson’s ideas on
gravitational fields were legendary among NRO satellite engineers. “Marlinson is
one of the President’s civilian recruits?”
“Yeah, one of the real scientists.”
Real is right, Rachel thought. Corky Marlinson was as brilliant and respected as
they came.
“The incredible paradox about Corky,” Tolland said, “is that he can quote you
the distance to Alpha Centauri in millimeters, but he can’t tie his own
necktie.”
“I wear clip-ons!” a nasal, good-natured voice barked nearby. “Efficiency over
style, Mike. You Hollywood types don’t understand that!”
Rachel and Tolland turned to the man now emerging from behind a large stack of
electronic gear. He was squat and rotund, resembling a pug dog with bubble eyes
and a thinning, comb-over haircut. When the man saw Tolland standing with
Rachel, he stopped in his tracks.
“Jesus Christ, Mike! We’re at the friggin’ North Pole and you still manage to
meet gorgeous women. I knew I should have gone into television!”
Michael Tolland was visibly embarrassed. “Ms. Sexton, please excuse Dr.
Marlinson. What he lacks in tact, he more than makes up for in random bits of
totally useless knowledge about our universe.”
Corky approached. “A true pleasure, ma’am. I didn’t catch your name.”
“Rachel,” she said. “Rachel Sexton.”
“Sexton?” Corky let out a playful gasp. “No relation to that shortsighted,
depraved senator, I hope!”
Tolland winced. “Actually, Corky, Senator Sexton is Rachel’s father.”
Corky stopped laughing and slumped. “You know, Mike, it’s really no wonder I’ve
never had any luck with the ladies.”
22
Prize-winning astrophysicist Corky Marlinson ushered Rachel and Tolland into his
work area and began sifting through his tools and rock samples. The man moved
like a tightly wound spring about to explode.
“All right,” he said, quivering excitedly, “Ms. Sexton, you’re about to get the
Corky Marlinson thirty-second meteorite primer.”
Tolland gave Rachel a be-patient wink. “Bear with him. The man really wanted to
be an actor.”
“Yeah, and Mike wanted to be a respected scientist.” Corky rooted around in a
shoebox and produced three small rock samples and aligned them on his desk.
“These are the three main classes of meteorites in the world.”
Rachel looked at the three samples. All appeared as awkward spheroids about the
size of golf balls. Each had been sliced in half to reveal its cross section.
“All meteorites,” Corky said, “consist of varying amounts of nickel-iron alloys,
silicates, and sulfides. We classify them on the basis of their
metal-to-silicate ratios.”
Rachel already had the feeling Corky Marlinson’s meteorite “primer” was going to
be more than thirty seconds.
“This first sample here,” Corky said, pointing to a shiny, jet-black stone, “is
an iron-core meteorite. Very heavy. This little guy landed in Antarctica a few
years back.”
Rachel studied the meteorite. It most certainly looked otherworldly—a blob of
heavy grayish iron whose outer crust was burned and blackened.
“That charred outer layer is called a fusion crust,” Corky said. “It’s the
result of extreme heating as the meteor falls through our atmosphere. All
meteorites exhibit that charring.” Corky moved quickly to the next sample. “This
next one is what we call a stony-iron meteorite.”
Rachel studied the sample, noting that it too was charred on the outside. This
sample, however, had a light-greenish tint, and the cross section looked like a
collage of colorful angular fragments resembling a kaleidoscopic puzzle.
“Pretty,” Rachel said.
“Are you kidding, it’s gorgeous!” Corky talked for a minute about the high
olivine content causing the green luster, and then he reached dramatically for
the third and final sample, handing it to Rachel.
Rachel held the final meteorite in her palm. This one was grayish brown in
color, resembling granite. It felt heavier than a terrestrial stone, but not
substantially. The only indication suggesting it was anything other than a
normal rock was its fusion crust—the scorched outer surface.
“This,” Corky said with finality, “is called a stony meteorite. It’s the most
common class of meteorite. More than ninety percent of meteorites found on earth
are of this category.”
Rachel was surprised. She had always pictured meteorites more like the first
sample—metallic, alien-looking blobs. The meteorite in her hand looked anything
but extraterrestrial. Aside from the charred exterior, it looked like something
she might step over on the beach.
Corky’s eyes were bulging now with excitement. “The meteorite buried in the ice
here at Milne is a stony meteorite—a lot like the one in your hand. Stony
meteorites appear almost identical to our terrestrial igneous rocks, which makes
them tough to spot. Usually a blend of lightweight silicates—feldspar, olivine,
pyroxene. Nothing too exciting.”
I’ll say, Rachel thought, handing the sample back to him. “This one looks like a
rock someone left in a fireplace and burned.”
Corky burst out laughing. “One hell of a fireplace! The meanest blast furnace
ever built doesn’t come close to reproducing the heat a meteoroid feels when it
hits our atmosphere. They get ravaged!”
Tolland gave Rachel an empathetic smile. “This is the good part.”
“Picture this,” Corky said, taking the meteorite sample from Rachel. “Let’s
imagine this little fella is the size of a house.” He held the sample high over
his head. “Okay…it’s in space…floating across our solar system…cold-soaked from
the temperature of space to minus one hundred degrees Celsius.”
Tolland was chuckling to himself, apparently already having seen Corky’s
reenactment of the meteorite’s arrival on Ellesmere Island.
Corky began lowering the sample. “Our meteorite is moving toward earth…and as
it’s getting very close, our gravity locks on…accelerating…accelerating…”
Rachel watched as Corky sped up the sample’s trajectory, mimicking the
acceleration of gravity.
“Now it’s moving fast,” Corky exclaimed. “Over ten miles per second—thirty-six
thousand miles per hour! At 135 kilometers above the earth’s surface, the
meteorite begins to encounter friction with the atmosphere.” Corky shook the
sample violently as he lowered it toward the ice. “Falling below one hundred
kilometers, it’s starting to glow! Now the atmospheric density is increasing,
and the friction is incredible! The air around the meteoroid is becoming
incandescent as the surface material melts from the heat.” Corky started making
burning and sizzling sound effects. “Now it’s falling past the eighty-kilometer
mark, and the exterior becomes heated to over eighteen hundred degrees Celsius!”
Rachel watched in disbelief as the presidential award–winning astrophysicist
shook the meteorite more fiercely, sputtering out juvenile sound effects.
“Sixty kilometers!” Corky was shouting now. “Our meteoroid encounters the
atmospheric wall. The air is too dense! It violently decelerates at more than
three hundred times the force of gravity!” Corky made a screeching braking sound
and slowed his descent dramatically. “Instantly, the meteorite cools and stops
glowing. We’ve hit dark flight! The meteoroid’s surface hardens from its molten
stage to a charred fusion crust.”
Rachel heard Tolland groan as Corky knelt on the ice to perform the coup de
grâce—earth impact.
“Now,” Corky said, “our huge meteorite is skipping across our lower atmosphere…”
On his knees, he arched the meteorite toward the ground on a shallow slant.
“It’s headed toward the Arctic Ocean…on an oblique angle…falling…looking almost
like it will skip off the ocean…falling…and…” He touched the sample to the ice.
“BAM!”
Rachel jumped.
“The impact is cataclysmic! The meteorite explodes. Fragments fly off, skipping
and spinning across the ocean.” Corky went into slow motion now, rolling and
tumbling the sample across the invisible ocean toward Rachel’s feet. “One piece
keeps skimming, tumbling toward Ellesmere Island…” He brought it right up to her
toe. “It skips off the ocean, bouncing up onto land…” He moved it up and over
the tongue of her shoe and rolled it to a stop on top of her foot near her
ankle. “And finally comes to rest high on the Milne Glacier, where snow and ice
quickly cover it, protecting it from atmospheric erosion.” Corky stood up with a
smile.
Rachel’s mouth fell slack. She gave an impressed laugh. “Well, Dr. Marlinson,
that explanation was exceptionally…”
“Lucid?” Corky offered.
Rachel smiled. “In a word.”
Corky handed the sample back to her. “Look at the cross section.”
Rachel studied the rock’s interior a moment, seeing nothing.
“Tilt it into the light,” Tolland prompted, his voice warm and kind. “And look
closely.”
Rachel brought the rock close to her eyes and tilted it against the dazzling
halogens reflecting overhead. Now she saw it—tiny metallic globules glistening
in the stone. Dozens of them were peppered throughout the cross section like
minuscule droplets of mercury, each only about a millimeter across.
“Those little bubbles are called ‘chondrules,’” Corky said. “And they occur only
in meteorites.”
Rachel squinted at the droplets. “Granted, I’ve never seen anything like this in
an earth rock.”
“Nor will you!” Corky declared. “Chondrules are one geologic structure we simply
do not have on earth. Some chondrules are exceptionally old—perhaps madeup of
the earliest materials in the universe. Other chondrules are much younger, like
the ones in your hand. The chondrules in that meteorite date only about 190
million years old.”
“One hundred ninety million years is young?”
“Heck, yes! In cosmological terms, that’s yesterday. The point here, though, is
that this sample contains chondrules—conclusive meteoric evidence.”
“Okay,” Rachel said. “Chondrules are conclusive. Got it.”
“And finally,” Corky said, heaving a sigh, “if the fusion crust and chondrules
don’t convince you, we astronomers have a foolproof method to confirm meteoric
origin.”
“Being?”
Corky gave a casual shrug. “We simply use a petrographic polarizing microscope,
an x-ray fluorescence spectrometer, a neutron activation analyzer, or an
induction-coupled plasma spectrometer to measure ferromagnetic ratios.”
Tolland groaned. “Now he’s showing off. What Corky means is that we can prove a
rock is a meteorite simply by measuring its chemical content.”
“Hey, ocean boy!” Corky chided. “Let’s leave the science to the scientists,
shall we?” He immediately turned back to Rachel. “In earth rocks, the mineral
nickel occurs in either extremely high percentages or extremely low; nothing in
the middle. In meteorites, though, the nickel content falls within a midrange
set of values. Therefore, if we analyze a sample and find the nickel content
reflects a midrange value, we can guarantee beyond the shadow of a doubt that
the sample is a meteorite.”
Rachel felt exasperated. “Okay, gentlemen, fusion crusts, chondrules, midrange
nickel contents, all of which prove it’s from space. I get the picture.” She
laid the sample back on Corky’s table. “But why am I here?”
Corky heaved a portentous sigh. “You want to see a sample of the meteorite NASA
found in the ice underneath us?”
Before I die here, please.
This time Corky reached in his breast pocket and produced a small, disk-shaped
piece of stone. The slice of rock was shaped like an audio CD, about half an
inch thick, and appeared to be similar in composition to the stony meteorite she
had just seen.
“This is a slice of a core sample that we drilled yesterday.” Corky handed the
disk to Rachel.
The appearance certainly was not earth-shattering. It was an orangish-white,
heavy rock. Part of the rim was charred and black, apparently a segment of the
meteorite’s outer skin. “I see the fusion crust,” she said.
Corky nodded. “Yeah, this sample was taken from near the outside of the
meteorite, so it still has some crust on it.”
Rachel tilted the disk in the light and spotted the tiny metallic globules. “And
I see the chondrules.”
“Good,” Corky said, his voice tense with excitement. “And I can tell you from
having run this thing through a petrographic polarizing microscope that its
nickel content is midrange—nothing like a terrestrial rock. Congratulations,
you’ve now successfully confirmed the rock in your hand came from space.”
Rachel looked up, confused. “Dr. Marlinson, it’s a meteorite. It’s supposed to
come from space. Am I missing something here?”
Corky and Tolland exchanged knowing looks. Tolland put a hand on Rachel’s
shoulder and whispered, “Flip it over.”
Rachel turned the disk over so she could see the other side. It took only an
instant for her brain to process what she was looking at.
Then the truth hit her like a truck.
Impossible! she gasped, and yet as she stared at the rock she realized her
definition of “impossible” had just changed forever. Embedded in the stone was a
form that in an earth specimen might be considered commonplace, and yet in a
meteorite was utterly inconceivable.
“It’s…” Rachel stammered, almost unable to speak the word. “It’s…a bug! This
meteorite contains the fossil of a bug!”
Both Tolland and Corky were beaming. “Welcome aboard,” Corky said.
The torrent of emotions that gripped Rachel left her momentarily mute, and yet
even in her bewilderment, she could clearly see that this fossil, beyond
question, had once been a living biological organism. The petrified impression
was about three inches long and looked to be the underside of some kind of huge
beetle or crawling insect. Seven pairs of hinged legs were clustered beneath a
protective outer shell, which seemed to be segmented in plates like that of an
armadillo.
Rachel felt dizzy. “An insect from space…”
“It’s an isopod,” Corky said. “Insects have three pairs of legs, not seven.”
Rachel did not even hear him. Her head was spinning as she studied the fossil
before her.
“You can clearly see,” Corky said, “that the dorsal shell is segmented in plates
like a terrestrial pill bug, and yet the two prominent tail-like appendages
differentiate it as something closer to a louse.”
Rachel’s mind had already tuned Corky out. The classification of the species was
totally irrelevant. The puzzle pieces now came crashing into place—the
President’s secrecy, the NASA excitement…
There is a fossil in this meteorite! Not just a speck of bacteria or microbes,
but an advanced life-form! Proof of life elsewhere in the universe!
23
Ten minutes into the CNN debate, Senator Sexton wondered how he could have been
worried at all. Marjorie Tench was grossly overestimated as an opponent. Despite
the senior adviser’s reputation for ruthless sagacity, she was turning out to be
more of a sacrificial lamb than a worthy opponent.
Granted, early in the conversation Tench had grabbed the upper hand by hammering
the senator’s prolife platform as biased against women, but then, just as it
seemed Tench was tightening her grip, she’d made a careless mistake. While
questioning how the senator expected to fund educational improvements without
raising taxes, Tench made a snide allusion to Sexton’s constant scapegoating of
NASA.
Although NASA was a topic Sexton definitely intended to address toward the end
of the discussion, Marjorie Tench had opened the door early. Idiot!
“Speaking of NASA,” Sexton segued casually. “Can you comment on the rumors I
keep hearing that NASA has suffered another recent failure?”
Marjorie Tench did not flinch. “I’m afraid I have not heard that rumor.” Her
cigarette voice was like sandpaper.
“So, no comment?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Sexton gloated. In the world of media sound bites, “no comment” translated
loosely to “guilty as charged.”
“I see,” Sexton said. “And how about the rumors of a secret, emergency meeting
between the President and the administrator of NASA?”
This time Tench looked surprised. “I’m not sure what meeting you’re referring
to. The President takes many meetings.”
“Of course, he does.” Sexton decided to go straight at her. “Ms. Tench, you are
a great supporter of the space agency, is that right?”
Tench sighed, sounding tired of Sexton’s pet issue. “I believe in the importance
of preserving America’s technological edge—be that military, industry,
intelligence, telecommunications. NASA is certainly part of that vision. Yes.”
In the production booth, Sexton could see Gabrielle’s eyes telling him to back
off, but Sexton could taste blood. “I’m curious, ma’am, is it your influence
behind the President’s continued support of this obviously ailing agency?”
Tench shook her head. “No. The President is also a staunch believer in NASA. He
makes his own decisions.”
Sexton could not believe his ears. He had just given Marjorie Tench a chance to
partially exonerate the President by personally accepting some of the blame for
NASA funding. Instead, Tench had thrown it right back at the President. The
President makes his own decisions. It seemed Tench was already trying to
distance herself from a campaign in trouble. No big surprise. After all, when
the dust settled, Marjorie Tench would be looking for a job.
Over the next few minutes, Sexton and Tench parried. Tench made some weak
attempts to change the subject, while Sexton kept pressing her on the NASA
budget.
“Senator,” Tench argued, “you want to cut NASA’s budget, but do you have any
idea how many high-tech jobs will be lost?”
Sexton almost laughed in the woman’s face. This gal is considered the smartest
mind in Washington? Tench obviously had something to learn about the
demographics of this country. High-tech jobs were inconsequential in comparison
to the huge numbers of hardworking blue-collar Americans.
Sexton pounced. “We’re talking about billions in savings here, Marjorie, and if
the result is that a bunch of NASA scientists have to get in their BMWs and take
their marketable skills elsewhere, then so be it. I’m committed to being tough
on spending.”
Marjorie Tench fell silent, as if reeling from that last punch.
The CNN host prompted, “Ms. Tench? A reaction?”
The woman finally cleared her throat and spoke. “I guess I’m just surprised to
hear that Mr. Sexton is willing to establish himself as so staunchly anti-NASA.”
Sexton’s eyes narrowed. Nice try, lady. “I am not anti-NASA, and I resent the
accusation. I am simply saying that NASA’s budget is indicative of the kind of
runaway spending that your President endorses. NASA said they could build the
shuttle for five billion; it cost twelve billion. They said they could build the
space station for eight billion; now it’s one hundred billion.”
“Americans are leaders,” Tench countered, “because we set lofty goals and stick
to them through the tough times.”
“That national pride speech doesn’t work on me, Marge. NASA has overspent its
allowance three times in the past two years and crawled back to the President
with its tail between its legs and asked for more money to fix its mistakes. Is
that national pride? If you want to talk about national pride, talk about strong
schools. Talk about universal health care. Talk about smart kids growing up in a
country of opportunity. That’s national pride!”
Tench glared. “May I ask you a direct question, senator?”
Sexton did not respond. He simply waited.
The woman’s words came out deliberately, with a sudden infusion of grit.
“Senator, if I told you that we could not explore space for less than NASA is
currently spending, would you act to abolish the space agency altogether?”
The question felt like a boulder landing in Sexton’s lap. Maybe Tench wasn’t so
stupid after all. She had just blindsided Sexton with a “fence-buster”—a
carefully crafted yes/no question designed to force a fence-straddling opponent
to choose clear sides and clarify his position once and for all.
Instinctively Sexton tried sidestepping. “I have no doubt that with proper
management NASA can explore space for a lot less than we are currently—”
“Senator Sexton, answer the question. Exploring space is a dangerous and costly
business. It’s much like building a passenger jet. We should either do it
right—or not at all. The risks are too great. My question remains: If you become
president, and you are faced with the decision to continue NASA funding at its
current level or entirely scrap the U.S. space program, which would you choose?”
Shit. Sexton glanced up at Gabrielle through the glass. Her expression echoed
what Sexton already knew. You’re committed. Be direct. No waffling. Sexton held
his chin high. “Yes. I would transfer NASA’s current budget directly into our
school systems if faced with that decision. I would vote for our children over
space.”
The look on Marjorie Tench’s face was one of absolute shock. “I’m stunned. Did I
hear you correctly? As president, you would act to abolish this nation’s space
program?”
Sexton felt an anger simmering. Now Tench was putting words in his mouth. He
tried to counter, but Tench was already talking.
“So you’re saying, senator, for the record, that you would do away with the
agency that put men on the moon?”
“I am saying that the space race is over! Times have changed. NASA no longer
plays a critical role in the lives of everyday Americans and yet we continue to
fund them as though they do.”
“So you don’t think space is the future?”
“Obviously space is the future, but NASA is a dinosaur! Let the private sector
explore space. American taxpayers shouldn’t have to open their wallets every
time some Washington engineer wants to take a billion-dollar photograph of
Jupiter. Americans are tired of selling out their children’s future to fund an
outdated agency that provides so little in return for its gargantuan costs!”
Tench sighed dramatically. “So little in return? With the exception perhaps of
the SETI program, NASA has had enormous returns.”
Sexton was shocked that the mention of SETI had even escaped Tench’s lips. Major
blunder. Thanks for reminding me. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
was NASA’s most abysmal money pit ever. Although NASA had tried to give the
project a facelift by renaming it “Origins” and shuffling some of its
objectives, it was still the same losing gamble.
“Marjorie,” Sexton said, taking his opening, “I’ll address SETI only because you
mention it.”
Oddly, Tench looked almost eager to hear this.
Sexton cleared his throat. “Most people are not aware that NASA has been looking
for ET for thirty-five years now. And it’s a pricey treasure hunt—satellite dish
arrays, huge transceivers, millions in salaries to scientists who sit in the
dark and listen to blank tape. It’s an embarrassing waste of resources.”
“You’re saying there’s nothing up there?”
“I’m saying that if any other government agency had spent forty-five million
over thirty-five years and had not produced one single result, they would have
been axed a long time ago.” Sexton paused to let the gravity of the statement
settle in. “After thirty-five years, I think it’s pretty obvious we’re not going
to find extraterrestrial life.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
Sexton rolled his eyes. “Oh, for heavens sake, Ms. Tench, if I’m wrong I’ll eat
my hat.”
Marjorie Tench locked her jaundiced eyes on Senator Sexton. “I’ll remember you
said that, senator.” She smiled for the first time. “I think we all will.”
Six miles away, inside the Oval Office, President Zach Herney turned off the
television and poured himself a drink. As Marjorie Tench had promised, Senator
Sexton had taken the bait—hook, line, and sinker.
24
Michael Tolland felt himself beaming empathetically as Rachel Sexton gaped in
silence at the fossilized meteorite in her hand. The refined beauty of the
woman’s face now seemed to dissolve into the expression of innocent wonder—a
young girl who had just seen Santa Claus for the first time.
I know just how you feel, he thought.
Tolland had been struck the same way only forty-eight hours ago. He too had been
stunned into silence. Even now, the scientific and philosophical implications of
the meteorite astounded him, forcing him to rethink everything he had ever
believed about nature.
Tolland’s oceanographic discoveries included several previously unknown
deepwater species, and yet this “space bug” was another level of breakthrough
altogether. Despite Hollywood’s propensity for casting extraterrestrials as
little green men, astrobiologists and science buffs all agreed that given the
sheer numbers and adaptability of earth’s insects, extraterrestrial life would
in all probability be buglike if it were ever discovered.
Insects were members of the phylum arthropoda—creatures having hard outer
skeletons and jointed legs. With over 1.25 million known species and an
estimated five hundred thousand still to be classified, earth’s “bugs”
outnumbered all of the other animals combined. They made up 95 percent of all
the planet’s species and an astounding 40 percent of the planet’s biomass.
It was not so much the bugs’ abundance that impressed as it was their
resilience. From the Antarctic ice beetle to Death Valley’s sun scorpion, bugs
happily inhabited deadly ranges in temperature, dryness, and even pressure. They
also had mastered exposure to the most deadly force known in the
universe—radiation. Following a nuclear test in 1945, air force officers had
donned radiation suits and examined ground zero, only to discover cockroaches
and ants happily carrying on as if nothing had happened. Astronomers realized
that an arthropod’s protective exoskeleton made it a perfectly viable candidate
to inhabit the countless radiation-saturated planets where nothing else could
live.
It appeared the astrobiologists had been right, Tolland thought. ET is a bug.
Rachel’s legs felt weak beneath her. “I can’t…believe it,” she said, turning the
fossil in her hands. “I never thought…”
“Give it some time to sink in,” Tolland said, grinning. “Took me twenty-four
hours to get my feet back under me.”
“I see we have a newcomer,” said an uncharacteristically tall Asian man, walking
over to join them.
Corky and Tolland seemed to deflate instantly with the man’s arrival. Apparently
the moment of magic had been shattered.
“Dr. Wailee Ming,” the man said, introducing himself. “Chairman of paleontology
at UCLA.”
The man carried himself with the pompous rigidity of renaissance aristocracy,
continuously stroking the out-of-place bow tie that he wore beneath his
knee-length camel-hair coat. Wailee Ming was apparently not one to let a remote
setting come in the way of his prim appearance.
“I’m Rachel Sexton.” Her hand was still trembling as she shook Ming’s smooth
palm. Ming was obviously another of the President’s civilian recruits.
“It would be my pleasure, Ms. Sexton,” the paleontologist said, “to tell you
anything you want to know about these fossils.”
“And plenty you don’t want to know,” Corky grumbled.
Ming fingered his bow tie. “My paleontologic specialty is extinct Arthropoda and
Mygalomorphae. Obviously the most impressive characteristic of this organism
is—”
“—is that it’s from another friggin’ planet!” Corky interjected.
Ming scowled and cleared his throat. “The most impressive characteristic of this
organism is that it fits perfectly into our Darwinian system of terrestrial
taxonomy and classification.”
Rachel glanced up. They can classify this thing? “You mean kingdom, phylum,
species, that sort of thing?”
“Exactly,” Ming said. “This species, if found on earth, would be classified as
the order Isopoda and would fall into a class with about two thousand species of
lice.”
“Lice?” she said. “But it’s huge.”
“Taxonomy is not size specific. House cats and tigers are related.
Classification is about physiology. This species is clearly a louse: It has a
flattened body, seven pairs of legs, and a reproductive pouch identical in
structure to wood lice, pill bugs, beach hoppers, sow bugs, and gribbles. The
other fossils clearly reveal more specialized—”
“Other fossils?”
Ming glanced at Corky and Tolland. “She doesn’t know?”
Tolland shook his head.
Ming’s face brightened instantly. “Ms. Sexton, you haven’t heard the good part
yet.”
“There are more fossils,” Corky interjected, clearly trying to steal Ming’s
thunder. “Lots more.” Corky scurried over to a large manila envelope and
retrieved a folded sheet of oversized paper. He spread it out on the desk in
front of Rachel. “After we drilled some cores, we dropped an x-ray camera down.
This is a graphic rendering of the cross section.”
Rachel looked at the x-ray printout on the table, and immediately had to sit
down. The three-dimensional cross section of the meteorite was packed with
dozens of these bugs.
“Paleolithic records,” Ming said, “are usually found in heavy concentrations.
Often times, mud slides trap organisms en masse, covering nests or entire
communities.”
Corky grinned. “We think the collection in the meteorite represents a nest.” He
pointed to one of the bugs on the printout. “And there’s mommy.”
Rachel looked at the specimen in question, and her jaw dropped. The bug looked
to be about two feet long.
“Big-ass louse, eh?” Corky said.
Rachel nodded, dumbstruck, as she pictured lice the size of bread loaves
wandering around on some distant planet.
“On earth,” Ming said, “our bugs stay relatively small because gravity keeps
them in check. They can’t grow larger than their exoskeletons can support.
However, on a planet with diminished gravity, insects could evolve to much
greater dimensions.”
“Imagine swatting mosquitoes the size of condors,” Corky joked, taking the core
sample from Rachel and slipping it into his pocket.
Ming scowled. “You had better not be stealing that!”
“Relax,” Corky said. “We’ve got eight tons more where this came from.”
Rachel’s analytical mind churned through the data before her. “But how can life
from space be so similar to life on earth? I mean, you’re saying this bug fits
in our Darwinian classification?”
“Perfectly,” Corky said. “And believe it or not, a lot of astronomers have
predicted that extraterrestrial life would be very similar to life on earth.”
“But why?” she demanded. “This species came from an entirely different
environment.”
“Panspermia.” Corky smiled broadly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Panspermia is the theory that life was seeded here from another planet.”
Rachel stood up. “You’re losing me.”
Corky turned to Tolland. “Mike, you’re the primordial seas guy.”
Tolland looked happy to take over. “Earth was once a lifeless planet, Rachel.
Then suddenly, as if overnight, life exploded. Many biologists think the
explosion of life was the magical result of an ideal mixture of elements in the
primordial seas. But we’ve never been able to reproduce that in a lab, so
religious scholars have seized that failure as proof of God, meaning life could
not exist unless God touched the primordial seas and infused them with life.”
“But we astronomers,” Corky declared, “came up with another explanation for the
overnight explosion of life on earth.”
“Panspermia,” Rachel said, now understanding what they were talking about. She
had heard the panspermia theory before but didn’t know its name. “The theory
that a meteorite splashed into the primordial soup, bringing the first seeds of
microbial life to earth.”
“Bingo,” Corky said. “Where they percolated and sprang to life.”
“And if that’s true,” Rachel said, “then the underlying ancestry of earth’s
life-forms and extraterrestrial life-forms would be identical.”
“Double bingo.”
Panspermia, Rachel thought, still barely able to grasp the implications. “So,
not only does this fossil confirm that life exists elsewhere in the universe,
but it practically proves panspermia…that life on earth was seeded from
elsewhere in the universe.”
“Triple bingo.” Corky flashed her an enthusiastic nod. “Technically, we may all
be extraterrestrials.” He put his fingers over his head like two antennas,
crossed his eyes, and wagged his tongue like some kind of insect.
Tolland looked at Rachel with a pathetic grin. “And this guy’s the pinnacle of
our evolution.”
25
Rachel Sexton felt a dreamlike mist swirling around her as she walked across the
habisphere, flanked by Michael Tolland. Corky and Ming followed close behind.
“You okay?” Tolland asked, watching her.
Rachel glanced over, giving a weak smile. “Thanks. It’s just…so much.”
Her mind reeled back to the infamous 1996 NASA discovery—ALH84001—a Mars
meteorite that NASA claimed contained fossil traces of bacterial life. Sadly,
only weeks after NASA’s triumphant press conference, several civilian scientists
stepped forward with proof that the rock’s “signs of life” were really nothing
more than kerogen produced by terrestrial contamination. NASA’s credibility had
taken a huge hit over that gaffe. The New York Times took the opportunity to
sarcastically redefine the agency’s acronym: NASA—NOT ALWAYS SCIENTIFICALLY
ACCURATE.
In that same edition, paleobiologist Stephen Jay Gould summed up the problems
with ALH84001 by pointing out that the evidence in it was chemical and
inferential, rather than “solid,” like an unambiguous bone or shell.
Now, however, Rachel realized NASA had found irrefutable proof. No skeptical
scientist could possibly step forward and question these fossils. NASA was no
longer touting blurry, enlarged photos of alleged microscopic bacteria—they were
offering up real meteorite samples where bio-organisms visible to the naked eye
had been embedded in the stone. Foot-long lice!
Rachel had to laugh when she realized she’d been a childhood fan of a song by
David Bowie that referred to “spiders from Mars.” Few would have guessed how
close the androgynous British pop star would come to foreseeing astrobiology’s
greatest moment.
As the distant strains of the song ran through Rachel’s mind, Corky hurried up
behind her. “Has Mike bragged about his documentary yet?”
Rachel replied, “No, but I’d love to hear about it.”
Corky slapped Tolland on the back. “Go for it, big boy. Tell her why the
President decided that the most important moment in science history should be
handed over to a snorkeling TV star.”
Tolland groaned. “Corky, if you don’t mind?”
“Fine, I’ll explain,” Corky said, prying his way in between them. “As you
probably know, Ms. Sexton, the President will be giving a press conference
tonight to tell the world about the meteorite. Because the vast majority of the
world is made up of half-wits, the President asked Mike to come onboard and dumb
everything down for them.”
“Thanks, Corky,” Tolland said. “Very nice.” He looked at Rachel. “What Corky’s
trying to say is that because there’s so much scientific data to convey, the
President thought a short visual documentary about the meteorite might help make
the information more accessible to mainstream America, many of whom, oddly,
don’t have advanced degrees in astrophysics.”
“Did you know,” Corky said to Rachel, “that I’ve just learned our nation’s
President is a closet fan of Amazing Seas?” He shook his head in mock disgust.
“Zach Herney—the ruler of the free world—has his secretary tape Mike’s program
so he can decompress after a long day.”
Tolland shrugged. “The man’s got taste, what can I say?”
Rachel was now starting to realize just how masterful the President’s plan was .
Politics was a media game, and Rachel could already imagine the enthusiasm and
scientific credibility the face of Michael Tolland on-screen would bring to the
press conference. Zach Herney had recruited the ideal man to endorse his little
NASA coup. Skeptics would be hard-pressed to challenge the President’s data if
it came from the nation’s top television science personality as well as several
respected civilian scientists.
Corky said, “Mike’s already taken video depositions from all of us civilians for
his documentary, as well as from most of the top NASA specialists. And I’ll bet
my National Medal that you’re next on his list.”
Rachel turned and eyed him. “Me? What are you talking about? I have no
credentials. I’m an intelligence liaison.”
“Then why did the President send you up here?”
“He hasn’t told me yet.”
An amused grin crossed Corky’s lips. “You’re a White House intelligence liaison
who deals in clarification and authentication of data, right?”
“Yes, but nothing scientific.”
“And you’re the daughter of the man who built a campaign around criticizing the
money NASA has wasted in space?”
Rachel could hear it coming.
“You have to admit, Ms. Sexton,” Ming chimed in, “a deposition from you would
give this documentary a whole new dimension of credibility. If the President
sent you up here, he must want you to participate somehow.”
Rachel again flashed on William Pickering’s concern that she was being used.
Tolland checked his watch. “We should probably head over,” he said, motioning
toward the center of the habisphere. “They should be getting close.”
“Close to what?” Rachel asked.
“Extraction time. NASA is bringing the meteorite to the surface. It should be up
any time now.”
Rachel was stunned. “You guys are actually removing an eight-ton rock from under
two hundred feet of solid ice?”
Corky looked gleeful. “You didn’t think NASA was going to leave a discovery like
this buried in the ice, did you?”
“No, but…,” Rachel had seen no signs of large-scale excavation equipment
anywhere inside the habisphere. “How the heck is NASA planning on getting the
meteorite out?”
Corky puffed up. “No problem. You’re in a room full of rocket scientists!”
“Blather,” Ming scoffed, looking at Rachel. “Dr. Marlinson enjoys flexing other
people’s muscles. The truth is that everyone here was stumped about how to get
the meteorite out. It was Dr. Mangor who proposed a viable solution.”
“I haven’t met Dr. Mangor.”
“Glaciologist from the University of New Hampshire,” Tolland said. “The fourth
and final civilian scientist recruited by the President. And Ming here is
correct, it was Mangor who figured it out.”
“Okay,” Rachel said. “So what did this guy propose?”
“Gal,” Ming corrected, sounding smitten. “Dr. Mangor is a woman.”
“Debatable,” Corky grumbled. He looked over at Rachel. “And by the way, Dr.
Mangor is going to hate you.”
Tolland shot Corky an angry look.
“Well, she will!” Corky defended. “She’ll hate the competition.”
Rachel felt lost. “I’m sorry? Competition?”
“Ignore him,” Tolland said. “Unfortunately, the fact that Corky is a total moron
somehow escaped the National Science Committee. You and Dr. Mangor will get
along fine. She is a professional. She’s considered one of the world’s top
glaciologists. She actually moved to Antarctica for a few years to study glacial
movement.”
“Odd,” Corky said, “I heard UNH took up a donation and sent her there so they
could get some peace and quiet on campus.”
“Are you aware,” Ming snapped, seeming to have taken the comment personally,
“that Dr. Mangor almost died down there! She got lost in a storm and lived on
seal blubber for five weeks before anyone found her.”
Corky whispered to Rachel, “I heard no one was looking.”
26
The limousine ride back from the CNN studio to Sexton’s office felt long for
Gabrielle Ashe. The senator sat across from her, gazing out the window,
obviously gloating over the debate.
“They sent Tench to an afternoon cable show,” he said, turning with a handsome
smile. “The White House is getting frantic.”
Gabrielle nodded, noncommittal. She’d sensed a look of smug satisfaction on
Marjorie Tench’s face as the woman drove off. It made her nervous.
Sexton’s personal cellphone rang, and he fished in his pocket to grab it. The
senator, like most politicians, had a hierarchy of phone numbers at which his
contacts could reach him, depending on how important they were. Whoever was
calling him now was at the top of the list; the call was coming in on Sexton’s
private line, a number even Gabrielle was discouraged to call.
“Senator Sedgewick Sexton,” he chimed, accentuating the musical quality of his
name.
Gabrielle couldn’t hear the caller over the sound of the limo, but Sexton
listened intently, replying with enthusiasm. “Fantastic. I’m so pleased you
called. I’m thinking six o’clock? Super. I have an apartment here in D.C.
Private. Comfortable. You have the address, right? Okay. Looking forward to
meeting you. See you tonight then.”
Sexton hung up, looking pleased with himself.
“New Sexton fan?” Gabrielle asked.
“They’re multiplying,” he said. “This guy’s a heavy hitter.”
“Must be. Meeting him in your apartment?” Sexton usually defended the sanctified
privacy of his apartment like a lion protecting its only remaining hiding place.
Sexton shrugged. “Yeah. Thought I’d give him the personal touch. This guy might
have some pull in the home stretch. Got to keep making those personal
connections, you know. It’s all about trust.”
Gabrielle nodded, pulling out Sexton’s daily planner. “You want me to put him in
your calendar?”
“No need. I’d planned to take a night at home anyway.”
Gabrielle found tonight’s page and noticed it was already shaded out in Sexton’s
handwriting with the bold letters “P.E.”—Sexton shorthand for either personal
event, private evening, or piss-off everyone; nobody was quite sure which. From
time to time, the senator scheduled himself a “P.E.” night so he could hole up
in his apartment, take his phones off the hook, and do what he enjoyed most—sip
brandy with old cronies and pretend he’d forgotten about politics for the
evening.
Gabrielle gave him a surprised look. “So you’re actually letting business
intrude on prescheduled P.E. time? I’m impressed.”
“This guy happened to catch me on a night when I’ve got some time. I’ll talk to
him for a little while. See what he has to say.”
Gabrielle wanted to ask who this mystery caller was, but Sexton clearly was
being intentionally vague. Gabrielle had learned when not to pry.
As they turned off the beltway and headed back toward Sexton’s office building,
Gabrielle glanced down again at the P.E. time blocked out in Sexton’s planner
and had the strange sensation Sexton knew this call was coming.
27
The ice at the center of the NASA habisphere was dominated by an eighteen-foot
tripod structure of composite scaffolding, which looked like a cross between an
oil rig and an awkward model of the Eiffel Tower. Rachel studied the device,
unable to fathom how it could be used to extract the enormous meteorite.
Beneath the tower, several winches had been screwed into steel plates affixed to
the ice with heavy bolts. Threaded through the winches, iron cables banked
upward over a series of pulleys atop the tower. From there, the cables plunged
vertically downward into narrow bore holes drilled in the ice. Several large
NASA men took turns tightening the winches. With each new tightening, the cables
slithered a few inches upward through the bore holes, as if the men were raising
an anchor.
I’m clearly missing something, Rachel thought, as she and the others moved
closer to the extraction site. The men seemed to be hoisting the meteorite
directly through the ice.
“EVEN TENSION! DAMN IT!” a woman’s voice screamed nearby, with all the grace of
a chain saw.
Rachel looked over to see a small woman in a bright yellow snowsuit smeared with
grease. She had her back to Rachel, but even so, Rachel had no trouble guessing
that she was in charge of this operation. Making notations on a clipboard, the
woman stalked back and forth like a disgusted drillmaster.
“Don’t tell me you ladies are tired!”
Corky called out, “Hey, Norah, quit bossing those poor NASA boys and come flirt
with me.”
The woman did not even turn around. “Is that you, Marlinson? I’d know that
weenie little voice anywhere. Come back when you reach puberty.”
Corky turned to Rachel. “Norah keeps us warm with her charm.”
“I heard that, space boy,” Dr. Mangor fired back, still making notes. “And if
you’re checking out my ass, these snow pants add thirty pounds.”
“No worries,” Corky called. “It’s not your woolly-mammoth butt that drives me
wild, it’s your winning personality.”
“Bite me.”
Corky laughed again. “I have great news, Norah. Looks like you’re not the only
woman the President recruited.”
“No shit. He recruited you.”
Tolland took over. “Norah? Have you got a minute to meet someone?”
At the sound of Tolland’s voice, Norah immediately stopped what she was doing
and turned around. Her hardened demeanor dissolved instantly. “Mike!” She rushed
over, beaming. “Haven’t seen you in a few hours.”
“I’ve been editing the documentary.”
“How’s my segment?”
“You look brilliant and lovely.”
“He used special effects,” Corky said.
Norah ignored the remark, glancing now at Rachel with a polite but standoffish
smile. She looked back at Tolland. “I hope you’re not cheating on me, Mike.”
Tolland’s rugged face flushed slightly as he made introductions. “Norah, I’d
like you to meet Rachel Sexton. Ms. Sexton works in the intelligence community
and is here at the request of the President. Her father is Senator Sedgewick
Sexton.”
The introduction brought a confused look to Norah’s face. “I won’t even pretend
to understand that one.” Norah did not remove her gloves as she gave Rachel’s
hand a half-hearted shake. “Welcome to the top of the world.”
Rachel smiled. “Thanks.” She was surprised to see that Norah Mangor, despite the
toughness of her voice, had a pleasant and impish countenance. Her pixie haircut
was brown with streaks of gray, and her eyes were keen and sharp—two ice
crystals. There was a steely confidence about her that Rachel liked.
“Norah,” Tolland said. “Have you got a minute to share what you’re doing with
Rachel?”
Norah arched her eyebrows. “You two on a first-name basis already? My, my.”
Corky groaned. “I told you, Mike.”
Norah Mangor showed Rachel around the base of the tower while Tolland and the
others trailed behind, talking among themselves.
“See those boreholes in the ice under the tripod?” Norah asked, pointing, her
initial put-out tone softening now to one of rapt fervor for her work.
Rachel nodded, gazing down at the holes in the ice. Each was about a foot in
diameter and had a steel cable inserted into it.
“Those holes are left over from when we drilled core samples and took X rays of
the meteorite. Now we’re using them as entry points to lower heavy-duty screw
eyes down the empty shafts and screw them into the meteorite. After that, we
dropped a couple hundred feet of braided cable down each hole, snagged the screw
eyes with industrial hooks, and now we’re simply winching it up. It’s taking
these ladies several hours to get it to the surface, but it’s coming.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” Rachel said. “The meteorite is under thousands of tons
of ice. How are you lifting it?”
Norah pointed to the top of the scaffolding where a narrow beam of pristine red
light shone vertically downward toward the ice beneath the tripod. Rachel had
seen it earlier and assumed it was simply some sort of visual indicator—a
pointer demarking the spot where the object was buried.
“That’s a gallium arsenide semiconductor laser,” Norah said.
Rachel looked more closely at the beam of light and now saw that it had actually
melted a tiny hole in the ice and shone down into the depths.
“Very hot beam,” Norah said. “We’re heating the meteorite as we lift.”
When Rachel grasped the simple brilliance of the woman’s plan, she was
impressed. Norah had simply aimed the laser beam downward, melting through the
ice until the beam hit the meteorite. The stone, being too dense to be melted by
a laser, began absorbing the laser’s heat, eventually getting warm enough to
melt the ice around it. As the NASA men hoisted the hot meteorite, the heated
rock, combined with the upward pressure, melted the surrounding ice, clearing a
pathway to raise it to the surface. The melt water accumulating over the
meteorite simply seeped back down around the edges of the stone to refill the
shaft.
Like a hot knife through a frozen stick of butter.
Norah motioned to the NASA men on the winches. “The generators can’t handle this
kind of strain, so I’m using manpower to lift.”
“That’s crap!” one of the workers interjected. “She’s using manpower because she
likes to see us sweat!”
“Relax,” Norah fired back. “You girls have been bitching for two days that
you’re cold . I cured that. Now keep pulling.”
The workers laughed.
“What are the pylons for?” Rachel asked, pointing to several orange highway
cones positioned around the tower at what appeared to be random locations.
Rachel had seen similar cones dispersed around the dome.
“Critical glaciology tool,” Norah said. “We call them SHABAs. That’s short for
‘step here and break ankle.’” She picked up one of the pylons to reveal a
circular bore hole that plunged like a bottomless well into the depths of the
glacier. “Bad place to step.” She replaced the pylon. “We drilled holes all over
the glacier for a structural continuity check. As in normal archeology, the
number of years an object has been buried is indicated by how deep beneath the
surface it’s found. The farther down one finds it, the longer it’s been there.
So when an object is discovered under the ice, we can date that object’s arrival
by how much ice has accumulated on top of it. To make sure our core dating
measurements are accurate, we check multiple areas of the ice sheet to confirm
that the area is one solid slab and hasn’t been disrupted by earthquake,
fissuring, avalanche, what have you.”
“So how does this glacier look?”
“Flawless,” Norah said. “A perfect, solid slab. No fault lines or glacial
turnover. This meteorite is what we call a ‘static fall.’ It’s been in the ice
untouched and unaffected since it landed in 1716.”
Rachel did a double take. “You know the exact year it fell?”
Norah looked surprised by the question. “Hell, yes. That’s why they called me
in. I read ice.” She motioned to a nearby pile of cylindrical tubes of ice. Each
looked like a translucent telephone pole and was marked with a bright orange
tag. “Those ice cores are a frozen geologic record.” She led Rachel over to the
tubes. “If you look closely you can see individual layers in the ice.”
Rachel crouched down and could indeed see that the tube was made up of what
appeared to be strata of ice with subtle differences in luminosity and clarity.
The layers varied between paper thin to about a quarter of an inch thick.
“Each winter brings a heavy snowfall to the ice shelf,” Norah said, “and each
spring brings a partial thaw. So we see a new compression layer every season. We
simply start at the top—the most recent winter—and count backward.”
“Like counting rings on a tree.”
“It’s not quite that simple, Ms. Sexton. Remember, we’re measuring hundreds of
feet of layerings. We need to read climatological markers to benchmark our
work—precipitation records, airborne pollutants, that sort of thing.”
Tolland and the others joined them now. Tolland smiled at Rachel. “She knows a
lot about ice, doesn’t she?”
Rachel felt oddly happy to see him. “Yeah, she’s amazing.”
“And for the record,” Tolland nodded, “Dr. Mangor’s 1716 date is right on. NASA
came up with the exact same year of impact well before we even got here. Dr.
Mangor drilled her own cores, ran her own tests, and confirmed NASA’s work.”
Rachel was impressed.
“And coincidentally,” Norah said, “1716 is the exact year early explorers
claimed to have seen a bright fire-ball in the sky over northern Canada. The
meteor became known as the Jungersol Fall, after the name of the exploration’s
leader.”
“So,” Corky added, “the fact that the core dates and the historic record match
is virtual proof that we’re looking at a fragment of the same meteorite that
Jungersol recorded seeing in 1716.”
“Dr. Mangor!” one of the NASA workers called out “Leader hasps are starting to
show!”
“Tour’s over, folks,” Norah said. “Moment of truth.” She grabbed a folding
chair, climbed up onto it, and shouted out at the top of her lungs. “Surfacing
in five minutes, everyone!”
All around the dome, like Pavlovian dogs responding to a dinner bell, the
scientists dropped what they were doing and hurried toward the extraction zone.
Norah Mangor put her hands on her hips and surveyed her domain. “Okay, let’s
raise the Titanic.”
28
“Step aside!” Norah hollered, moving through the growing crowd. The workers
scattered. Norah took control, making a show of checking the cable tensions and
alignments.
“Heave!” one of the NASA men yelled. The men tightened their winches, and the
cables ascended another six inches out of the hole.
As the cables continued to move upward, Rachel felt the crowd inching forward in
anticipation. Corky and Tolland were nearby, looking like kids at Christmas. On
the far side of the hole, the hulking frame of NASA administrator Lawrence
Ekstrom arrived, taking a position to watch the extraction.
“Hasps!” one of the NASA men yelled. “Leaders are showing!”
The steel cables rising through the boreholes changed from silver braid to
yellow leader chains.
“Six more feet! Keep it steady!”
The group around the scaffolding fell into a rapt silence, like onlookers at a
séance awaiting the appearance of some divine specter—everyone straining for the
first glimpse.
Then Rachel saw it.
Emerging from the thinning layer of ice, the hazy form of the meteorite began to
show itself. The shadow was oblong and dark, blurry at first, but getting
clearer every moment as it melted its way upward.
“Tighter!” a technician yelled. The men tightened the winches, and the
scaffolding creaked.
“Five more feet! Keep the tension even!”
Rachel could now see the ice above the stone beginning to bulge upward like a
pregnant beast about to give birth. Atop the hump, surrounding the laser’s point
of entry, a small circle of surface ice began to give way, melting, dissolving
into a widening hole.
“Cervix is dilated!” someone shouted. “Nine hundred centimeters!”
A tense laughter broke the silence.
“Okay, kill the laser!”
Someone threw a switch, and the beam disappeared.
And then it happened.
Like the fiery arrival of some paleolithic god, the huge rock broke the surface
with a hiss of steam. Through the swirling fog, the hulking shape rose out of
the ice. The men manning the winches strained harder until finally the entire
stone broke free of the frozen restraints and swung, hot and dripping, over an
open shaft of simmering water.
Rachel felt mesmerized.
Dangling there on its cables, dripping wet, the meteorite’s rugged surface
glistened in the fluorescent lights, charred and rippled with the appearance of
an enormous petrified prune. The rock was smooth and rounded on one end, this
section apparently blasted away by friction as it streaked through the
atmosphere.
Looking at the charred fusion crust, Rachel could almost see the meteor
rocketing earthward in a furious ball of flames. Incredibly, that was centuries
ago. Now, the captured beast hung there on its cables, water dripping from its
body.
The hunt was over.
Not until this moment had the drama of this event truly struck Rachel. The
object hanging before her was from another world, millions of miles away. And
trapped within it was evidence—no, proof—that man was not alone in the universe.
The euphoria of the moment seemed to grip everyone at the same instant, and the
crowd broke into spontaneous hoots and applause. Even the administrator seemed
caught up in it. He clapped his men and women on the back, congratulating them.
Looking on, Rachel felt a sudden joy for NASA. They’d had some tough luck in the
past. Finally things were changing. They deserved this moment.
The gaping hole in the ice now looked like a small swimming pool in the middle
of the habisphere. The surface of the two-hundred-foot-deep pool of melted water
sloshed for a while against the icy walls of the shaft and then finally grew
calm. The waterline in the shaft was a good four feet beneath the glacier’s
surface, the discrepancy caused by both the removal of the meteorite’s mass and
ice’s property of shrinking as it melts.
Norah Mangor immediately set up SHABA pylons all around the hole. Although the
hole was clearly visible, any curious soul who ventured too close and
accidentally slipped in would be in dire jeopardy. The walls of the shaft were
solid ice, with no footholds, and climbing out unassisted would be impossible.
Lawrence Ekstrom came padding across the ice toward them. He moved directly to
Norah Mangor and shook her hand firmly. “Well done, Dr. Mangor.”
“I’ll expect lots of praise in print,” Norah replied.
“You’ll get it.” The administrator turned now to Rachel. He looked happier,
relieved. “So, Ms. Sexton, is the professional skeptic convinced?”
Rachel couldn’t help but smile. “Stunned is more like it.”
“Good. Then follow me.”
Rachel followed the administrator across the habisphere to a large metal box
that resembled an industrial shipping container. The box was painted with
military camouflage patterns and stenciled letters: P-S-C.
“You’ll call the President from in here,” Ekstrom said.
Portable Secure Comm, Rachel thought. These mobile communications booths were
standard battlefield installations, although Rachel had never expected to see
one used as part of a peacetime NASA mission. Then again, Administrator
Ekstrom’s background was the Pentagon, so he certainly had access to toys like
this. From the stern faces on the two armed guards watching over the PSC, Rachel
got the distinct impression that contact with the outside world was made only
with express consent from Administrator Ekstrom.
Looks like I’m not the only one who is off-the-grid.
Ekstrom spoke briefly with one of the guards outside the trailer and then
returned to Rachel. “Good luck,” he said. Then he left.
A guard rapped on the trailer door, and it opened from within. A technician
emerged and motioned for Rachel to enter. She followed him in.
The inside of the PSC was dark and stuffy. In the bluish glow of the lone
computer monitor, Rachel could make out racks of telephone gear, radios, and
satellite telecommunications devices. She already felt claustrophobic. The air
inside was bitter, like a basement in winter.
“Sit here, please, Ms. Sexton.” The technician produced a rolling stool and
positioned Rachel in front of a flat-screen monitor. He arranged a microphone in
front of her and placed a bulky pair of AKG headphones on her head. Checking a
logbook of encryption passwords, the technician typed a long series of keys on a
nearby device. A timer materialized on the screen in front of Rachel.
00:60 SECONDS
The technician gave a satisfied nod as the timer began to count down. “One
minute until connection.” He turned and left, slamming the door behind him.
Rachel could hear the bolt lock outside.
Great.
As she waited in the dark, watching the sixty-second clock slowly count down,
she realized that this was the first moment of privacy she’d had since early
that morning. She’d woken up today without the slightest inkling of what lay
ahead. Extraterrestrial life. As of today, the most popular modern myth of all
time was no longer a myth.
Rachel was just now starting to sense how truly devastating this meteorite would
be to her father’s campaign. Although NASA funding had no business being on a
political par with abortion rights, welfare, and health care, her father had
made it an issue. Now it was going to blow up in his face.
Within hours, Americans would feel the thrill of a NASA triumph all over again.
There would be teary-eyed dreamers. Slack-jawed scientists. Children’s
imaginations running free. Issues of dollars and cents would fade away as petty,
overshadowed by this monumental moment. The President would emerge like a
phoenix, transforming himself into a hero, while in the midst of the
celebration, the businesslike senator would suddenly appear small-minded, a
penny-pinching Scrooge with no American sense of adventure.
The computer beeped, and Rachel glanced up.
00:05 SECONDS
The screen in front of her flickered suddenly, and a blurry image of the White
House seal materialized on-screen. After a moment, the image dissolved into the
face of President Herney.
“Hello, Rachel,” he said, a mischievous glint in his eye. “I trust you’ve had an
interesting afternoon?”
29
The office of Senator Sedgewick Sexton was located in the Philip A. Hart Senate
Office Building on C Street to the northeast of the Capitol. The building was a
neo-modern grid of white rectangles that critics claimed looked more like a
prison than an office building. Many who worked there felt the same.
On the third floor, Gabrielle Ashe’s long legs paced briskly back and forth in
front of her computer terminal. On the screen was a new e-mail message. She was
not sure what to make of it.
The first two lines read:
SEDGEWICK WAS IMPRESSIVE ON CNN.
I HAVE MORE INFORMATION FOR YOU.
Gabrielle had been receiving messages like this for the last couple of weeks.
The return address was bogus, although she’d been able to track it to a
“whitehouse.gov” domain. It seemed her mysterious informant was a White House
insider, and whoever it was had become Gabrielle’s source for all kinds of
valuable political information recently, including the news of a covert meeting
between the NASA administrator and the President.
Gabrielle had been leery of the e-mails at first, but when she checked out the
tips, she was amazed to find the information consistently accurate and
helpful—classified information on NASA overexpenditures, costly upcoming
missions, data showing that NASA’s search for extraterrestrial life was grossly
overfunded and pathetically unproductive, even internal opinion polls warning
that NASA was the issue turning voters away from the President.
To enhance her perceived value to the senator, Gabrielle had not informed him
she was receiving unsolicited e-mail help from inside the White House. Instead,
she simply passed the information to him as coming from “one of her sources.”
Sexton was always appreciative and seemed to know better than to ask who her
source was. She could tell he suspected Gabrielle was doing sexual favors.
Troublingly, it didn’t seem to bother him in the least.
Gabrielle stopped pacing and looked again at the newly arrived message. The
connotations of all the e-mails were clear: Someone inside the White House
wanted Senator Sexton to win this election and was helping him do it by aiding
his attack against NASA.
But who? And why?
A rat from a sinking ship, Gabrielle decided. In Washington it was not at all
uncommon for a White House employee, fearing his President was about to be
ousted from office, to offer quiet favors to the apparent successor in hopes of
securing power or another position after the changeover. It seemed someone
smelled Sexton victory and was buying stock early.
The message currently on Gabrielle’s screen made her nervous. It was like none
other she had ever received. The first two lines didn’t bother her so much. It
was the last two:
EAST APPOINTMENT GATE, 4:30 P.M.
COME ALONE.
Her informant had never before asked to meet in person. Even so, Gabrielle would
have expected a more subtle location for a face-to-face meeting. East
Appointment Gate? Only one East Appointment Gate existed in Washington, as far
as she knew. Outside the White House? Is this some kind of joke?
Gabrielle knew she could not respond via e-mail; her messages were always
bounced back as undeliverable. Her correspondent’s account was anonymous. Not
surprising.
Should I consult Sexton? She quickly decided against it. He was in a meeting.
Besides, if she told him about this e-mail, she’d have to tell him about the
others. She decided her informant’s offer to meet in public in broad daylight
must be to make Gabrielle feel safe. After all, this person had done nothing but
help her for the last two weeks. He or she was obviously a friend.
Reading the e-mail one last time, Gabrielle checked the clock. She had an hour.
30
The NASA administrator was feeling less edgy now that the meteorite was
successfully out of the ice. Everything is falling into place, he told himself
as he headed across the dome to the work area of Michael Tolland. Nothing can
stop us now.
“How’s it coming?” Ekstrom asked, striding up behind the television scientist.
Tolland glanced up from his computer, looking tired but enthusiastic. “Editing
is almost done. I’m just overlaying some of the extraction footage your people
shot. Should be done momentarily.”
“Good.” The President had asked Ekstrom to upload Tolland’s documentary to the
White House as soon as possible.
Although Ekstrom had been cynical about the President’s desire to use Michael
Tolland on this project, seeing the rough cuts of Tolland’s documentary had
changed Ekstrom’s mind. The television star’s spirited narrative, combined with
his interviews of the civilian scientists, had been brilliantly fused into a
thrilling and comprehensible fifteen minutes of scientific programming. Tolland
had achieved effortlessly what NASA so often failed to do—describe a scientific
discovery at the level of the average American intellect without being
patronizing.
“When you’re done editing,” Ekstrom said, “bring the finished product over to
the press area. I’ll have someone upload a digital copy to the White House.”
“Yes, sir.” Tolland went back to work.
Ekstrom moved on. When he arrived at the north wall, he was encouraged to find
the habisphere’s “press area” had come together nicely. A large blue carpet had
been rolled out on the ice. Centered on the rug sat a long symposium table with
several microphones, a NASA drape, and an enormous American flag as a backdrop.
To complete the visual drama, the meteorite had been transported on a palette
sled to its position of honor, directly in front of the symposium table.
Ekstrom was pleased to see the mood in the press area was one of celebration.
Much of his staff was now crowded around the meteorite, holding their hands out
over its still-warm mass like campers around a campfire.
Ekstrom decided that this was the moment. He walked over to several cardboard
boxes sitting on the ice behind the press area. He’d had the boxes flown in from
Greenland this morning.
“Drinks are on me!” he yelled, handing out cans of beer to his cavorting staff.
“Hey, boss!” someone yelled. “Thanks! It’s even cold!”
Ekstrom gave a rare smile. “I’ve been keeping it on ice.”
Everyone laughed.
“Wait a minute!” someone else yelled, scowling good-naturedly at his can. “This
stuff’s Canadian! Where’s your patriotism?”
“We’re on a budget, here, folks. Cheapest stuff I could find.”
More laughter.
“Attention shoppers,” one of the NASA television crew yelled into a megaphone.
“We’re about to switch to media lighting. You may experience temporary
blindness.”
“And no kissing in the dark,” someone yelled. “This is a family program!”
Ekstrom chuckled, enjoying the raillery as his crew made final adjustments to
the spotlights and accent lighting.
“Switching to media lighting in five, four, three, two…”
The dome’s interior dimmed rapidly as the halogen lamps shut down. Within
seconds, all the lights were off. An impenetrable darkness engulfed the dome.
Someone let out a mock scream.
“Who pinched my ass?” someone yelled, laughing.
The blackness lasted only a moment before it was pierced by the intense glare of
media spotlights. Everyone squinted. The transformation was now complete; the
north quadrant of the NASA habisphere had become a television studio. The
remainder of the dome now looked like a gaping barn at night. The only light in
the other sections was the muted reflection of the media lights reflecting off
the arched ceiling and throwing long shadows across the now deserted work
stations.
Ekstrom stepped back into the shadows, gratified to see his team carousing
around the illuminated meteorite. He felt like a father at Christmas, watching
his kids enjoy themselves around the tree.
God knows they deserve it, Ekstrom thought, never suspecting what calamity lay
ahead.
31
The weather was changing.
Like a mournful harbinger of impending conflict, the katabatic wind let out a
plaintive howl and gusted hard against the Delta Force’s shelter. Delta-One
finished battening down the storm coverings and went back inside to his two
partners. They’d been through this before. It would soon pass.
Delta-Two was staring at the live video feed from the microbot. “You better look
at this,” he said.
Delta-One came over. The inside of the habisphere was in total darkness except
for the bright lighting on the north side of the dome near the stage. The
remainder of the habisphere appeared only as a dim outline. “It’s nothing,” he
said. “They’re just testing their television lighting for tonight.”
“The lighting’s not the problem.” Delta-Two pointed to the dark blob in the
middle of the ice—the water-filled hole from which the meteorite had been
extracted. “That’s the problem.”
Delta-One looked at the hole. It was still surrounded by pylons, and the surface
of the water appeared calm. “I don’t see anything.”
“Look again.” He maneuvered the joystick, spiraling the microbot down toward the
surface of the hole.
As Delta-One studied the darkened pool of melted water more closely, he saw
something that caused him to recoil in shock. “What the…?”
Delta-Three came over and looked. He too looked stunned. “My God. Is that the
extraction pit? Is the water supposed to be doing that?”
“No,” Delta-One said. “It sure as hell isn’t.”
32
Although Rachel Sexton was currently sitting inside a large metal box situated
three thousand miles from Washington, D.C., she felt the same pressure as if
she’d been summoned to the White House. The videophone monitor before her
displayed a crystal clear image of President Zach Herney seated in the White
House communications room before the presidential seal. The digital audio
connection was flawless, and with the exception of an almost imperceptible
delay, the man could have been in the next room.
Their conversation was upbeat and direct. The President seemed pleased, though
not at all surprised, by Rachel’s favorable assessment of NASA’s find and of his
choice to use Michael Tolland’s captivating persona as a spokesman. The
President’s mood was good-natured and jocular.
“As I’m sure you will agree,” Herney said, his voice growing more serious now,
“in a perfect world, the ramifications of this discovery would be purely
scientific in nature.” He paused, leaning forward, his face filling the screen.
“Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world, and this NASA triumph is going
to be a political football the moment I announce it.”
“Considering the conclusive proof and who you’ve recruited for endorsements, I
can’t imagine how the public or any of your opposition will be able to do
anything other than accept this discovery as confirmed fact.”
Herney gave an almost sad chuckle. “My political opponents will believe what
they see, Rachel. My concerns are that they won’t like what they see.”
Rachel noted how careful the President was being not to mention her father. He
spoke only in terms of “the opposition” or “political opponents.” “And you think
your opposition will cry conspiracy simply for political reasons?” she asked.
“That is the nature of the game. All anyone needs to do is cast a faint doubt,
saying that this discovery is some kind of political fraud concocted by NASA and
the White House, and all of a sudden, I’m facing an inquiry. The newspapers
forget NASA has found proof of extraterrestrial life, and the media starts
focusing on uncovering evidence of a conspiracy. Sadly, any innuendo of
conspiracy with respect to this discovery will be bad for science, bad for the
White House, bad for NASA, and, quite frankly, bad for the country.”
“Which is why you postponed announcing until you had full confirmation and some
reputable civilian endorsements.”
“My goal is to present this data in so incontrovertible a way that any cynicism
is nipped in the bud. I want this discovery celebrated with the untainted
dignity it deserves. NASA merits no less.”
Rachel’s intuition was tingling now. What does he want from me?
“Obviously,” he continued, “you’re in a unique position to help me. Your
experience as an analyst as well as your obvious ties to my opponent give you
enormous credibility with respect to this discovery.”
Rachel felt a growing disillusionment. He wants to use me…just like Pickering
said he would!
“That said,” Herney continued, “I would like to ask that you endorse this
discovery personally, for the record, as my White House intelligence liaison…and
as the daughter of my opponent.”
There it was. On the table.
Herney wants me to endorse.
Rachel really had thought Zach Herney was above this kind of spiteful politics.
A public endorsement from Rachel would immediately make the meteorite a personal
issue for her father, leaving the senator unable to attack the discovery’s
credibility without attacking the credibility of his own daughter—a death
sentence for a “families first” candidate.
“Frankly, sir,” Rachel said, looking into the monitor, “I’m stunned you would
ask me to do that.”
The President looked taken aback. “I thought you would be excited to help out.”
“Excited? Sir, my differences with my father aside, this request puts me in an
impossible position. I have enough problems with my father without going
head-to-head with him in some kind of public death match. Despite my admitted
dislike of the man, he is my father, and pitting me against him in a public
forum frankly seems beneath you.”
“Hold on!” Herney waved his hands in surrender.
“Who said anything about a public forum?”
Rachel paused. “I assume you’d like me to join the administrator of NASA on the
podium for the eight o’clock press conference.”
Herney’s guffaw boomed in the audio speakers. “Rachel, what kind of man do you
think I am? Do you really imagine I’d ask someone to stab her father in the back
on national television?”
“But, you said—”
“And do you think I would make the NASA administrator share the limelight with
the daughter of his arch enemy? Not to burst your bubble, Rachel, but this press
conference is a scientific presentation. I’m not sure your knowledge of
meteorites, fossils, or ice structures would lend the event much credibility.”
Rachel felt herself flush. “But then…what endorsement did you have in mind?”
“One more appropriate to your position.”
“Sir?”
“You are my White House intelligence liaison. You brief my staff on issues of
national importance.”
“You want me to endorse this for your staff?”
Herney still looked amused by the misunderstanding. “Yes, I do. The skepticism
I’ll face outside the White House is nothing compared to what I’m facing from my
staff right now. We’re in the midst of a full-scale mutiny here. My credibility
in-house is shot. My staff has begged me to cut back NASA funding. I’ve ignored
them, and it’s been political suicide.”
“Until now.”
“Exactly. As we discussed this morning, this discovery’s timing will seem
suspect to political cynics, and nobody’s as cynical as my staff is at the
moment. Therefore, when they hear this information for the first time, I want it
to come from—”
“You haven’t told your staff about the meteorite?”
“Only a few top advisers. Keeping this discovery a secret has been a top
priority.”
Rachel was stunned. No wonder he’s facing a mutiny. “But this is not my usual
area. A meteorite could hardly be considered an intelligence-related gist.”
“Not in the traditional sense, but it certainly has all the elements of your
usual work—complex data that needs to be distilled, substantial political
ramifications—”
“I am not a meteorite specialist, sir. Shouldn’t your staff be briefed by the
administrator of NASA?”
“Are you kidding? Everyone here hates him. As far as my staff is concerned,
Ekstrom is the snake-oil salesman who has lured me into bad deal after bad
deal.”
Rachel could see the point. “How about Corky Marlinson? The National Medal in
Astrophysics? He’s got far more credibility than I do.”
“My staff is made up of politicians, Rachel, not scientists. You’ve met Dr.
Marlinson. I think he’s terrific, but if I let an astrophysicist loose on my
team of left-brain, think-inside-the-box intellectuals, I’ll end up with a herd
of deer in the headlights. I need someone accessible. You’re the one, Rachel. My
staff knows your work, and considering your family name, you’re about as
unbiased a spokesperson as my staff could hope to hear from.”
Rachel felt herself being pulled in by the President’s affable style. “At least
you admit my being the daughter of your opponent has something to do with your
request.”
The President gave a sheepish chuckle. “Of course it does. But, as you can
imagine, my staff will be briefed one way or another, no matter what you decide.
You are not the cake, Rachel, you are simply the icing. You are the individual
most qualified to do this briefing, and you also happen to be a close relative
of the man who wants to kick my staff out of the White House next term. You’ve
got credibility on two accounts.”
“You should be in sales.”
“As a matter of fact, I am. As is your father. And to be honest, I’d like to
close a deal for a change.” The President removed his glasses and looked into
Rachel’s eyes. She felt a touch of her father’s power in him. “I am asking you
as a favor, Rachel, and also because I believe it is part of your job. So which
is it? Yes or no? Will you brief my staff on this matter?”
Rachel felt trapped inside the tiny PSC trailer. Nothing like the hard sell.
Even from three thousand miles away, Rachel could feel the strength of his will
pressing through the video screen. She also knew this was a perfectly reasonable
request, whether she liked it or not.
“I’d have conditions,” Rachel said.
Herney arched his eyebrows. “Being?”
“I meet your staff in private. No reporters. This is a private briefing, not a
public endorsement.”
“You have my word. Your meeting is already slated for a very private location.”
Rachel sighed. “All right then.”
The President beamed. “Excellent.”
Rachel checked her watch, surprised to see it was already a little past four
o’clock. “Hold on,” she said, puzzled, “if you’re going live at eight P.M., we
don’t have time. Even in that vile contraption you sent me up here in, I
couldn’t get back to the White House for another couple of hours at the very
fastest. I’d have to prepare my remarks and—”
The President shook his head. “I’m afraid I didn’t make myself clear. You’ll be
doing the briefing from where you are via video conference.”
“Oh.” Rachel hesitated. “What time did you have in mind?”
“Actually,” Herney said, grinning. “How about right now? Everyone is already
assembled, and they’re staring at a big blank television set. They’re waiting
for you.”
Rachel’s body tensed. “Sir, I’m totally unprepared. I can’t possibly—”
“Just tell them the truth. How hard is that?”
“But—”
“Rachel,” the President said, leaning toward the screen. “Remember, you compile
and relay data for a living. It’s what you do. Just talk about what’s going on
up there.” He reached up to flick a switch on his video transmission gear, but
paused. “And I think you’ll be pleased to find I’ve set you up in a position of
power.”
Rachel didn’t understand what he meant, but it was too late to ask. The
President threw the switch.
The screen in front of Rachel went blank for a moment. When it refreshed, Rachel
was staring at one of the most unnerving images she had ever seen. Directly in
front of her was the White House Oval Office. It was packed. Standing room only.
The entire White House staff appeared to be there. And every one of them was
staring at her. Rachel now realized her view was from atop the President’s desk.
Speaking from a position of power. Rachel was sweating already.
From the looks on the faces of the White House staffers, they were as surprised
to see Rachel as she was to see them.
“Ms. Sexton?” a raspy voice called out.
Rachel searched the sea of faces and found who had spoken. It was a lanky woman
just now taking a seat in the front row. Marjorie Tench. The woman’s distinctive
appearance was unmistakable, even in a crowd.
“Thank you for joining us, Ms. Sexton,” Marjorie Tench said, sounding smug. “The
President tells us you have some news?”
33
Enjoying the darkness, paleontologist Wailee Ming sat alone in quiet reflection
at his private work area. His senses were alive with anticipation for tonight’s
event. Soon I will be the most famous paleontologist in the world. He hoped
Michael Tolland had been generous and featured Ming’s comments in the
documentary.
As Ming savored his impending fame, a faint vibration shuddered through the ice
beneath his feet, causing him to jump up. His earthquake instinct from living in
Los Angeles made him hypersensitive to even the faintest palpitations of the
ground. At the moment, though, Ming felt foolish to realize the vibration was
perfectly normal. It’s just ice calving, he reminded himself, exhaling. He still
hadn’t gotten used to it. Every few hours, a distant explosion rumbled through
the night as somewhere along the glacial frontier a huge block of ice cracked
off and fell into the sea. Norah Mangor had a nice way of putting it. New
icebergs being born…
On his feet now, Ming stretched his arms. He looked across the habisphere, and
off in the distance beneath the blaze of television spotlights, he could see a
celebration was getting underway. Ming was not much for parties and headed in
the opposite direction across the habisphere.
The labyrinth of deserted work areas now felt like a ghost town, the entire dome
taking on an almost sepulchral feel. A chill seemed to have settled inside, and
Ming buttoned up his long, camel-hair coat.
Up ahead he saw the extraction shaft—the point from which the most magnificent
fossils in all of human history had been taken. The giant metal tripod had now
been stowed and the pool sat alone, surrounded by pylons like some kind of
shunned pothole on a vast parking lot of ice. Ming wandered over to the pit,
standing a safe distance back, peering into the two-hundred-foot-deep pool of
frigid water. Soon it would refreeze, erasing all traces that anyone had ever
been here.
The pool of water was a beautiful sight, Ming thought. Even in the dark.
Especially in the dark.
Ming hesitated at the thought. Then it registered.
There’s something wrong.
As Ming focused more closely on the water, he felt his previous contentedness
give way to a sudden whirlwind of confusion. He blinked his eyes, stared again,
and then quickly turned his gaze across the dome…fifty yards away toward the
mass of people celebrating in the press area. He knew they could not see him way
over here in the dark.
I should tell someone about this, shouldn’t I?
Ming looked again at the water, wondering what he would tell them. Was he seeing
an optical illusion? Some kind of strange reflection?
Uncertain, Ming stepped beyond the pylons and squatted down at the edge of the
pit. The water level was four feet below the ice level, and he leaned down to
get a better look. Yes, something was definitely strange. It was impossible to
miss, and yet it had not become visible until the lights in the dome had gone
out.
Ming stood up. Somebody definitely needed to hear about this. He started off at
a hurried pace toward the press area. Completing only a few steps, Ming slammed
on the brakes. Good God! He spun back toward the hole, his eyes going wide with
realization. It had just dawned on him.
“Impossible!” he blurted aloud.
And yet Ming knew that was the only explanation. Think, carefully, he cautioned.
There must be a more reasonable rationale. But the harder Ming thought, the more
convinced he was of what he was seeing. There is no other explanation! He could
not believe that NASA and Corky Marlinson had somehow missed something this
incredible, but Ming wasn’t complaining.
This is Wailee Ming’s discovery now!
Trembling with excitement, Ming ran to a nearby work area and found a beaker.
All he needed was a little water sample. Nobody was going to believe this!
34
“As intelligence liaison to the White House,” Rachel Sexton was saying, trying
to keep her voice from shaking as she addressed the crowd on the screen before
her, “my duties include traveling to political hot spots around the globe,
analyzing volatile situations, and reporting to the President and White House
staff.”
A bead of sweat formed just below her hairline and Rachel dabbed it away,
silently cursing the President for dropping this briefing into her lap with zero
warning.
“Never before have my travels taken me to quite this exotic a spot.” Rachel
motioned stiffly to the cramped trailer around her. “Believe it or not, I am
addressing you right now from above the Arctic Circle on a sheet of ice that is
over three hundred feet thick.”
Rachel sensed a bewildered anticipation in the faces on the screen before her.
They obviously knew they had been packed into the Oval Office for a reason, but
certainly none of them imagined it would have anything to do with a development
above the Arctic Circle.
The sweat was beading again. Get it together, Rachel. This is what you do. “I
sit before you tonight with great honor, pride, and…above all, excitement.”
Blank looks.
Screw it, she thought, angrily wiping the sweat away. I didn’t sign up for this.
Rachel knew what her mother would say if she were here now: When in doubt, just
spit it out! The old Yankee proverb embodied one of her mom’s basic beliefs—that
all challenges can be overcome by speaking the truth, no matter how it comes
out.
Taking a deep breath, Rachel sat up tall and looked straight into the camera.
“Sorry, folks, if you’re wondering how I could be sweating my butt off above the
Arctic Circle…I’m a little nervous.”
The faces before her seemed to jolt back a moment. Some uneasy laughter.
“In addition,” Rachel said, “your boss gave me about ten seconds’ warning before
telling me I would be facing his entire staff. This baptism by fire is not
exactly what I had in mind for my first visit to the Oval Office.”
More laughter this time.
“And,” she said, glancing down at the bottom of the screen, “I had certainly not
imagined I would be sitting at the President’s desk…much less on it!”
This brought a hearty laugh and some broad smiles. Rachel felt her muscles
starting to relax. Just give it to them straight.
“Here’s the situation.” Rachel’s voice now sounded like her own. Easy and clear.
“President Herney has been absent from the media spotlight this past week not
because of his lack of interest in his campaign, but rather because he has been
engrossed in another matter. One he felt was far more important.”
Rachel paused, her eyes making contact now with her audience.
“There has been a scientific discovery made in a location called the Milne Ice
Shelf in the high Arctic. The President will be informing the world about it in
a press conference tonight at eight o’clock. The find was made by a group of
hardworking Americans who have endured a string of tough luck lately and deserve
a break. I’m talking about NASA. You can be proud to know that your President,
with apparent clairvoyant confidence, has made a point of standing beside NASA
lately through thick and thin. Now, it appears his loyalty is going to be
rewarded.”
It was not until that very instant that Rachel realized how historically
momentous this was. A tightness rose in her throat, and she fought it off,
plowing onward.
“As an intelligence officer who specializes in the analysis and verification of
data, I am one of several people the President has called upon to examine the
NASA data. I have examined it personally as well as conferring with several
specialists—both government and civilian—men and women whose credentials are
beyond reproach and whose stature is beyond political influence. It is my
professional opinion that the data I am about to present to you is factual in
its origins and unbiased in its presentation. Moreover, it is my personal
opinion that the President, in good faith to his office and the American people,
has shown admirable care and restraint in delaying an announcement I know he
would have loved to have made last week.”
Rachel watched the crowd before her exchanging puzzled looks. They all returned
their gaze to her, and she knew she had their undivided attention.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to hear what I’m sure you will agree is one
of the most exciting pieces of information ever revealed in this office.”
35
The aerial view currently being transmitted to the Delta Force by the microbot
circling inside the habisphere looked like something that would win an
avant-garde film contest—the dim lighting, the glistening extraction hole, and
the well-dressed Asian lying on the ice, his camel-hair coat splayed around him
like enormous wings. He was obviously trying to extract a water sample.
“We’ve got to stop him,” said Delta-Three.
Delta-One agreed. The Milne Ice Shelf held secrets his team was authorized to
protect with force.
“How do we stop him?” Delta-Two challenged, still gripping the joystick. “These
microbots are not equipped.”
Delta-One scowled. The microbot currently hovering inside the habisphere was a
recon model, stripped down for longer flight. It was about as lethal as a
housefly.
“We should call the controller,” Delta-Three stated.
Delta-One stared intently at the image of the solitary Wailee Ming, perched
precariously on the rim of the extraction pit. Nobody was anywhere near him—and
ice cold water had a way of muffling one’s ability to scream. “Give me the
controls.”
“What are you doing?” the soldier on the joystick demanded.
“What we were trained to do,” Delta-One snapped, taking over. “Improvise.”
36
Wailee Ming lay on his stomach beside the extraction hole, his right arm
extended over the rim trying to extract a water sample. His eyes were definitely
not playing tricks on him; his face, now only a yard or so from the water, could
see everything perfectly.
This is incredible!
Straining harder, Ming maneuvered the beaker in his fingers, trying to reach
down to the surface of the water. All he needed was another few inches.
Unable to extend his arm any farther, Ming repositioned himself closer to the
hole. He pressed the toes of his boots against the ice and firmly replanted his
left hand on the rim. Again, he extended his right arm as far as he could.
Almost. He shifted a little closer. Yes! The edge of the beaker broke the
surface of the water. As the liquid flowed into the container, Ming stared in
disbelief.
Then, without warning, something utterly inexplicable occurred. Out of the
darkness, like a bullet from a gun, flew a tiny speck of metal. Ming only saw it
for a fraction of a second before it smashed into his right eye.
The human instinct to protect one’s eyes was so innately ingrained, that despite
Ming’s brain telling him that any sudden movements risked his balance, he
recoiled. It was a jolting reaction more out of surprise than pain. Ming’s left
hand, closest to his face, shot up reflexively to protect the assaulted eyeball.
Even as his hand was in motion, Ming knew he had made a mistake. With all of his
weight leaning forward, and his only means of support suddenly gone, Wailee Ming
teetered. He recovered too late. Dropping the beaker and trying to grab on to
the slick ice to stop his fall, he slipped—plummeting forward into the darkened
hole.
The fall was only four feet, and yet as Ming hit the icy water head first he
felt like his face had hit pavement at fifty miles an hour. The liquid that
engulfed his face was so cold it felt like burning acid. It brought an
instantaneous spike of panic.
Upside down and in the darkness, Ming was momentarily disoriented, not knowing
which way to turn toward the surface. His heavy camel-hair coat kept the icy
blast from his body—but only for a second or two. Finally righting himself, Ming
came sputtering up for air, just as the water found its way to his back and
chest, engulfing his body in a lung-crushing vise of cold.
“Hee…lp,” he gasped, but Ming could barely pull in enough air to let out a
whimper. He felt like the wind had been knocked out of him.
“Heee…lp!” His cries were inaudible even to himself. Ming clambered toward the
side of the extraction pit and tried to pull himself out. The wall before him
was vertical ice. Nothing to grab. Underwater, his boots kicked the side of the
wall, searching for a foothold. Nothing. He strained upward, reaching for the
rim. It was only a foot out of reach.
Ming’s muscles were already having trouble responding. He kicked his legs
harder, trying to propel himself high enough up the wall to grab the rim. His
body felt like lead, and his lungs seemed to have shrunk to nothing, as if they
were being crushed by a python. His water-laden coat was getting heavier by the
second, pulling him downward. Ming tried to pull it off his body, but the heavy
fabric stuck.
“Help…me!”
The fear came on in torrents now.
Drowning, Ming had once read, was the most horrific death imaginable. He had
never dreamed he would find himself on the verge of experiencing it. His muscles
refused to cooperate with his mind, and already he was fighting just to keep his
head above water. His soggy clothing pulled him downward as his numb fingers
scratched the sides of the pit.
His screams were only in his mind now.
And then it happened.
Ming went under. The sheer terror of being conscious of his own impending death
was something he never imagined he would experience. And yet here he was…sinking
slowly down the sheer ice wall of a two-hundred-foot-deep hole in the ice.
Multitudes of thoughts flashed before his eyes. Moments from his childhood. His
career. He wondered if anyone would find him down here. Or would he simply sink
to the bottom and freeze there…entombed in the glacier for all time.
Ming’s lungs were screaming for oxygen. He held his breath, still trying to kick
toward the surface. Breathe! He fought the reflex, clamping his insensate lips
together. Breathe! He tried in vain to swim upward. Breathe! At that instant, in
a deadly battle of human reflex against reason, Ming’s breathing instinct
overcame his ability to keep his mouth closed.
Wailee Ming inhaled.
The water crashing into his lungs felt like scalding oil on his sensitive
pulmonary tissue. He felt like he was burning from the inside out. Cruelly,
water does not kill immediately. Ming spent seven horrifying seconds inhaling in
the icy water, each breath more painful than the last, each inhalation offering
none of what his body so desperately craved.
Finally, as Ming slid downward into the icy darkness, he felt himself going
unconscious. He welcomed the escape. All around him in the water Ming saw tiny
glowing specks of light. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
37
The East Appointment Gate of the White House is located on East Executive Avenue
between the Treasury Department and the East Lawn. The reinforced perimeter
fence and cement bollards installed after the attack on the Marine barracks in
Beirut give this entry an air that is anything but welcoming.
Outside the gate, Gabrielle Ashe checked her watch, feeling a growing
nervousness. It was 4:45 P.M., and still nobody had made contact.
EAST APPOINTMENT GATE, 4:30 P.M. COME ALONE.
Here I am, she thought. Where are you?
Gabrielle scanned the faces of the tourists milling about, waiting for someone
to catch her eye. A few men looked her over and moved on. Gabrielle was
beginning to wonder if this had been such a good idea. She sensed the Secret
Serviceman in the sentry shack had his eye on her now. Gabrielle decided her
informant had gotten cold feet. Gazing one last time through the heavy fence
toward the White House, Gabrielle sighed and turned to go.
“Gabrielle Ashe?” the Secret Serviceman called out behind her.
Gabrielle wheeled, her heart catching in her throat. Yes?
The man in the guard shack waved her over. He was lean with a humorless face.
“Your party is ready to see you now.” He unlocked the main gate and motioned for
her to enter.
Gabrielle’s feet refused to move. “I’m coming inside?”
The guard nodded. “I was asked to apologize for keeping you waiting.”
Gabrielle looked at the open doorway and still could not move. What’s going on!
This was not at all what she had expected.
“You are Gabrielle Ashe, are you not?” the guard demanded, looking impatient
now.
“Yes, sir, but—”
“Then I strongly suggest you follow me.”
Gabrielle’s feet jolted into motion. As she stepped tentatively over the
threshold, the gate slammed shut behind her.
38
Two days without sunlight had rearranged Michael Tolland’s biological clock.
Although his watch said it was late afternoon, Tolland’s body insisted it was
the middle of the night. Now, having put the finishing touches on his
documentary, Michael Tolland had downloaded the entire video file onto a digital
video disk and was making his way across the darkened dome. Arriving at the
illuminated press area, he delivered the disk to the NASA media technician in
charge of overseeing the presentation.
“Thanks, Mike,” the technician said, winking as he held up the video disk. “Kind
of redefines ‘must-see TV,’ eh?”
Tolland gave a tired chuckle. “I hope the President likes it.”
“No doubt. Anyhow, your work is done. Sit back and enjoy the show.”
“Thanks.” Tolland stood in the brightly lit press area and surveyed the
convivial NASA personnel toasting the meteorite with cans of Canadian beer. Even
though Tolland wanted to celebrate, he felt exhausted, emotionally drained. He
glanced around for Rachel Sexton, but apparently she was still talking to the
President.
He wants to put her on-air, Tolland thought. Not that he blamed him; Rachel
would be a perfect addition to the cast of meteorite spokespeople. In addition
to her good looks, Rachel exuded an accessible poise and self-confidence that
Tolland seldom saw in the women he met. Then again, most of the women Tolland
met were in television—either ruthless power women or gorgeous on-air
“personalities” who lacked exactly that.
Now, slipping quietly away from the crowd of bustling NASA employees, Tolland
navigated the web of pathways across the dome, wondering where the other
civilian scientists had disappeared to. If they felt half as drained as he did,
they should be in the bunking area grabbing a catnap before the big moment.
Ahead of him in the distance, Tolland could see the circle of SHABA pylons
around the deserted extraction pit. The empty dome overhead seemed to echo with
the hollow voices of distant memories. Tolland tried to block them out.
Forget the ghosts, he willed himself. They often haunted him at times like
these, when he was tired or alone—times of personal triumph or celebration. She
should be with you right now, the voice whispered. Alone in the darkness, he
felt himself reeling backward into oblivion.
Celia Birch had been his sweetheart in graduate school. One Valentine’s Day,
Tolland took her to her favorite restaurant. When the waiter brought Celia’s
dessert, it was a single rose and a diamond ring. Celia understood immediately.
With tears in her eyes, she spoke a single word that made Michael Tolland as
happy as he’d ever been.
“Yes.”
Filled with anticipation, they bought a small house near Pasadena, where Celia
got a job as a science teacher. Although the pay was modest, it was a start, and
it was also close to Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego, where
Tolland had landed his dream job aboard a geologic research ship. Tolland’s work
meant he was away for three or four days at a time, but his reunions with Celia
were always passionate and exciting.
While at sea, Tolland began videotaping some of his adventures for Celia, making
minidocumentaries of his work onboard the ship. After one trip, he returned with
a grainy home video that he’d shot out of the window of a deepwater
submersible—the first footage ever shot of a bizarre chemotropic cuttlefish that
nobody even knew existed. On camera, as he narrated the video, Tolland was
practically bursting out of the submarine with enthusiasm.
Literally thousands of undiscovered species, he gushed, live in these depths!
We’ve barely scratched the surface! There are mysteries down here that none of
us can imagine!
Celia was enthralled with her husband’s ebullience and concise scientific
explanation. On a whim, she showed the tape to her science class, and it became
an instant hit. Other teachers wanted to borrow it. Parents wanted to make
copies. It seemed everyone was eagerly awaiting Michael’s next installment.
Celia suddenly had an idea. She called a college friend of hers who worked for
NBC and sent her a videotape.
Two months later, Michael Tolland came to Celia and asked her to take a walk
with him on Kingman Beach. It was their special place, where they always went to
share their hopes and dreams.
“I have something I want to tell you,” Tolland said.
Celia stopped, taking her husband’s hands as the water lapped around their feet.
“What is it?”
Tolland was bursting. “Last week, I got a call from NBC television. They think I
should host an oceanic documentary series. It’s perfect. They want to make a
pilot next year! Can you believe it?”
Celia kissed him, beaming. “I believe it. You’ll be great.”
Six months later, Celia and Tolland were sailing near Catalina when Celia began
complaining of pain in her side. They ignored it for a few weeks, but finally it
got too much. Celia went in to have it checked out.
In an instant, Tolland’s dream life shattered into a hellish nightmare. Celia
was ill. Very ill.
“Advanced stages of lymphoma,” the doctors explained. “Rare in people her age,
but certainly not unheard of.”
Celia and Tolland visited countless clinics and hospitals, consulting with
specialists. The answer was always the same. Incurable.
I will not accept that! Tolland immediately quit his job at Scripps Institute,
forgot all about the NBC documentary, and focused all of his energy and love on
helping Celia get well. She fought hard too, bearing the pain with a grace that
only made him love her more. He took her for long walks on Kingman Beach, made
her healthy meals, and told her stories of the things they would do when she got
better.
But it was not to be.
Only seven months had passed when Michael Tolland found himself sitting beside
his dying wife in a stark hospital ward. He no longer recognized her face. The
savageness of the cancer was rivaled only by the brutality of the chemotherapy.
She was left a ravaged skeleton. The final hours were the hardest.
“Michael,” she said, her voice raspy. “It’s time to let go.”
“I can’t.” Tolland’s eyes welled.
“You’re a survivor,” Celia said. “You have to be. Promise me you’ll find another
love.”
“I’ll never want another.” Tolland meant it.
“You’ll have to learn.”
Celia died on a crystal clear Sunday morning in June. Michael Tolland felt like
a ship torn from its moorings and thrown adrift in a raging sea, his compass
smashed. For weeks he spun out of control. Friends tried to help, but his pride
could not bear their pity.
You have a choice to make, he finally realized. Work or die.
Hardening his resolve, Tolland threw himself back into Amazing Seas. The program
quite literally saved his life. In the four years that followed, Tolland’s show
took off. Despite the matchmaking efforts of his friends, Tolland endured only a
handful of dates. All were fiascos or mutual disappointments, so Tolland finally
gave up and blamed his busy travel schedule for his lack of social life. His
best friends knew better, though; Michael Tolland simply was not ready.
The meteorite extraction pit loomed before Tolland now, pulling him from his
painful reverie. He shook off the chill of his memories and approached the
opening. In the darkened dome, the melt water in the hole had taken on an almost
surreal and magical beauty. The surface of the pool was shimmering like a
moonlit pond. Tolland’s eyes were drawn to specks of light on the top layer of
the water, as if someone had sprinkled blue-green sparkles onto the surface. He
stared a long moment at the shimmering.
Something about it seemed peculiar.
At first glance, he thought the gleaming water was simply reflecting the glow of
the spotlights from across the dome. Now he saw this was not the case at all.
The shimmers possessed a greenish tint and seemed to pulse in a rhythm, as if
the surface of the water were alive, illuminating itself from within.
Unsettled, Tolland stepped beyond the pylons for a closer look.
Across the habisphere, Rachel Sexton exited the PSC trailer into darkness. She
paused a moment, disoriented by the shadowy vault around her. The habisphere was
now a gaping cavern, lit only by incidental effulgence radiating out from the
stark media lights against the north wall. Unnerved by the darkness around her,
she headed instinctively for the illuminated press area.
Rachel felt pleased with the outcome of her briefing of the White House staff.
Once she’d recovered from the President’s little stunt, she’d smoothly conveyed
everything she knew about the meteorite. As she spoke, she watched the
expressions on the faces of the President’s staff go from incredulous shock, to
hopeful belief, and finally to awestruck acceptance.
“Extraterrestrial life?” she had heard one of them exclaim. “Do you know what
that means?”
“Yes,” another replied. “It means we’re going to win this election.”
As Rachel approached the dramatic press area, she imagined the impending
announcement and couldn’t help but wonder if her father really deserved the
presidential steamroller that was about to blindside him, crushing his campaign
in a single blow.
The answer, of course, was yes.
Whenever Rachel Sexton felt any soft spot for her father, all she had to do was
remember her mother. Katherine Sexton. The pain and shame Sedgewick Sexton had
brought on her was reprehensible…coming home late every night, looking smug and
smelling of perfume. The feigned religious zeal her father hid behind—all the
while lying and cheating, knowing Katherine would never leave him.
Yes, she decided, Senator Sexton was about to get exactly what he deserved.
The crowd in the press area was jovial. Everyone held beers. Rachel moved
through the crowd feeling like a coed at a frat party. She wondered where
Michael Tolland had gone.
Corky Marlinson materialized beside her. “Looking for Mike?”
Rachel startled. “Well…no…sort of.”
Corky shook his head in disgust. “I knew it. Mike just left. I think he was
headed back to go grab a few winks.” Corky squinted across the dusky dome.
“Although it looks like you can still catch him.” He gave her a puggish smile
and pointed. “Mike becomes mesmerized every time he sees water.”
Rachel followed Corky’s outstretched finger toward the center of the dome, where
the silhouette of Michael Tolland stood, gazing down into the water in the
extraction pit.
“What’s he doing?” she asked. “That’s kind of dangerous over there.”
Corky grinned. “Probably taking a leak. Let’s go push him.”
Rachel and Corky crossed the darkened dome toward the extraction pit. As they
drew close to Michael Tolland, Corky called out.
“Hey, aqua man! Forget your swimsuit?”
Tolland turned. Even in the dimness, Rachel could see his expression was
uncharacteristically grave. His face looked oddly illuminated, as if he were
being lit from below.
“Everything okay, Mike?” she asked.
“Not exactly.” Tolland pointed into the water.
Corky stepped over the pylons and joined Tolland at the edge of the shaft.
Corky’s mood seemed to cool instantly when he looked in the water. Rachel joined
them, stepping past the pylons to the edge of the pit. When she peered into the
hole, she was surprised to see specks of blue-green light shimmering on the
surface. Like neon dust particles floating in the water. They seemed to be
pulsating green. The effect was beautiful.
Tolland picked up a shard of ice off the glacial floor and tossed it into the
water. The water phosphoresced at the point of impact, glowing with a sudden
green splash.
“Mike,” Corky said, looking uneasy, “please tell me you know what that is.”
Tolland frowned. “I know exactly what this is. My question is, what the hell is
it doing here?”
39
“We’ve got flagellates,” Tolland said, staring into the luminescent water.
“Flatulence?” Corky scowled. “Speak for yourself.”
Rachel sensed Michael Tolland was in no joking mood.
“I don’t know how it could have happened,” Tolland said, “but somehow this water
contains bioluminescent dinoflagellates.”
“Bioluminescent what?” Rachel said . Speak English.
“Monocelled plankton capable of oxidizing a luminescent catalyst called
luceferin.”
That was English?
Tolland exhaled and turned to his friend. “Corky, there any chance the meteorite
we pulled out of that hole had living organisms on it?”
Corky burst out laughing. “Mike, be serious!”
“I am serious.”
“No chance, Mike! Believe me, if NASA had any inkling whatsoever that there were
extraterrestrial organisms living on that rock, you can be damn sure they never
would have extracted it into the open air.”
Tolland looked only partially comforted, his relief apparently clouded by a
deeper mystery. “I can’t be for sure without a microscope,” Tolland said, “but
it looks to me like this is a bioluminescent plankton from the phylum Pyrrophyta
. Its name means fire plant. The Arctic Ocean is filled with it.”
Corky shrugged. “So why’d you ask if they were from space?”
“Because,” Tolland said, “the meteorite was buried in glacial ice—fresh water
from snowfalls. The water in that hole is glacial melt and has been frozen for
three centuries. How could ocean creatures get in there?”
Tolland’s point brought a long silence.
Rachel stood at the edge of the pool and tried to get her mind around what she
was looking at. Bioluminescent plankton in the extraction shaft. What does it
mean?
“There’s got to be a crack somewhere down there,” Tolland said. “It’s the only
explanation. The plankton must have entered the shaft through a fissure in the
ice that allowed ocean water to seep in.”
Rachel didn’t understand. “Seep in? From where?” She recalled her long IceRover
ride in from the ocean. “The coast is a good two miles from here.”
Both Corky and Tolland gave Rachel an odd look. “Actually,” Corky said, “the
ocean is directly underneath us. This slab of ice is floating.”
Rachel stared at the two men, feeling utterly perplexed. “Floating? But…we’re on
a glacier.”
“Yes, we’re on a glacier,” Tolland said, “but we’re not over land. Glaciers
sometimes flow off a landmass and fan out over water. Because ice is lighter
than water, the glacier simply continues to flow, floating out over the ocean
like an enormous ice raft. That’s the definition of an ice shelf…the floating
section of a glacier.” He paused. “We’re actually almost a mile out to sea at
the moment.”
Shocked, Rachel instantly became wary. As she adjusted her mental picture of her
surroundings, the thought of standing over the Arctic Ocean brought with it a
sense of fear.
Tolland seemed to sense her uneasiness. He stamped his foot reassuringly on the
ice. “Don’t worry. This ice is three hundred feet thick, with two hundred of
those feet floating below the water like an ice cube in a glass. Makes the shelf
very stable. You could build a skyscraper on this thing.”
Rachel gave a wan nod, not entirely convinced. The misgivings aside, she now
understood Tolland’s theory about the origins of the plankton. He thinks there’s
a crack that goes all the way down to the ocean, allowing plankton to come up
through it into the hole. It was feasible, Rachel decided, and yet it involved a
paradox that bothered her. Norah Mangor had been very clear about the integrity
of the glacier, having drilled dozens of test cores to confirm its solidity.
Rachel looked at Tolland. “I thought the glacier’s perfection was the
cornerstone of all the strata-dating records. Didn’t Dr. Mangor say the glacier
had no cracks or fissures?”
Corky frowned. “Looks like the ice queen muffed it.”
Don’t say that too loudly, Rachel thought, or you’ll get an ice pick in the
back.
Tolland stroked his chin as he watched the phosphorescing creatures. “There’s
literally no other explanation. There must be a crack. The weight of the ice
shelf on top of the ocean must be pushing plankton-rich sea-water up into the
hole.”
One hell of a crack, Rachel thought. If the ice here was three hundred feet
thick and the hole was two hundred feet deep, then this hypothetical crack had
to pass through a hundred feet of solid ice. Norah Mangor’s test cores showed no
cracks.
“Do me a favor,” Tolland said to Corky. “Go find Norah. Let’s hope to God she
knows something about this glacier that she’s not telling us. And find Ming,
too, maybe he can tell us what these little glow-beasties are.”
Corky headed off.
“Better hurry,” Tolland called after him, glancing back into the hole. “I could
swear this bioluminescence is fading.”
Rachel looked at the hole. Sure enough, the green was not so brilliant now.
Tolland removed his parka and lay down on the ice next to the hole.
Rachel watched, confused. “Mike?”
“I want to find out if there’s any saltwater flowing in.”
“By lying on the ice without a coat?”
“Yup.” Tolland crawled on his belly to the edge of the hole. Holding one sleeve
of the coat over the edge, he let the other sleeve dangle down the shaft until
the cuff skimmed the water. “This is a highly accurate salinity test used by
world-class oceanographers. It’s called ‘licking a wet jacket.’”
Out on the ice shelf, Delta-One struggled with the controls, trying to keep the
damaged microbot in flight over the group now assembled around the excavation
pit. From the sounds of the conversation beneath, he knew things were unraveling
fast.
“Call the controller,” he said. “We’ve got a serious problem.”
40
Gabrielle Ashe had taken the White House public tour many times in her youth,
secretly dreaming of someday working inside the presidential mansion and
becoming part of the elite team that charted the country’s future. At the
moment, however, she would have preferred to be anywhere else in the world.
As the Secret Serviceman from the East Gate led Gabrielle into an ornate foyer,
she wondered what in the world her anonymous informant was trying to prove.
Inviting Gabrielle into the White House was insane. What if I’m seen? Gabrielle
had become quite visible lately in the media as Senator Sexton’s right-hand
aide. Certainly someone would recognize her.
“Ms. Ashe?”
Gabrielle looked up. A kind-faced sentry in the foyer gave her a welcoming
smile. “Look over there, please.” He pointed.
Gabrielle looked where he was pointing and was blinded by a flashbulb.
“Thank you, ma’am.” The sentry led her to a desk and handed her a pen. “Please
sign the entry log.” He pushed a heavy leather binder in front of her.
Gabrielle looked at the log. The page before her was blank. She recalled hearing
once that all White House visitors sign on their own blank page to preserve the
privacy of their visit. She signed her name.
So much for a secret meeting.
Gabrielle walked through a metal detector, and was then given a cursory pat
down.
The sentry smiled. “Enjoy your visit, Ms. Ashe.”
Gabrielle followed the Secret Serviceman fifty feet down a tiled hallway to a
second security desk. Here, another sentry was assembling a guest pass that was
just rolling out of a lamination machine. He punched a hole in it, affixed a
neck cord, and slipped it over Gabrielle’s head. The plastic was still warm. The
photo on the ID was the snapshot they had taken fifteen seconds earlier down the
hall.
Gabrielle was impressed. Who says government is inefficient?
They continued, the Secret Serviceman leading her deeper into the White House
complex. Gabrielle was feeling more uneasy with every step. Whoever had extended
the mysterious invitation certainly was not concerned about keeping the meeting
private. Gabrielle had been issued an official pass, signed the guest log, and
was now being marched in plain view through the first floor of the White House
where public tours were gathered.
“And this is the China Room,” a tour guide was saying to a group of tourists,
“home of Nancy Reagan’s $952 per setting red-rimmed china that sparked a debate
over conspicuous consumption back in 1981.”
The Secret Serviceman led Gabrielle past the tour toward a huge marble
staircase, where another tour was ascending. “You are about to enter the
thirty-two-hundred-square-foot East Room,” the guide was narrating, “where
Abigail Adams once hung John Adams’s laundry. Then we will pass to the Red Room,
where Dolley Madison liquored up visiting heads of state before James Madison
negotiated with them.”
The tourists laughed.
Gabrielle followed past the stairway through a series of ropes and barricades
into a more private section of the building. Here they entered a room Gabrielle
had only seen in books and on television. Her breath grew short.
My God, this is the Map Room!
No tour ever came in here. The room’s paneled walls could swing outward to
reveal layer upon layer of world maps. This was the place where Roosevelt had
charted the course of World War II. Unsettlingly, it was also the room from
which Clinton had admitted his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Gabrielle pushed
that particular thought from her mind. Most important, the Map Room was a
passageway into the West Wing—the area inside the White House where the true
powerbrokers worked. This was the last place Gabrielle Ashe had expected to be
going. She had imagined her e-mail was coming from some enterprising young
intern or secretary working in one of the complex’s more mundane offices.
Apparently not.
I’m going into the West Wing…
The Secret Serviceman marched her to the very end of a carpeted hallway and
stopped at an unmarked door. He knocked. Gabrielle’s heart was pounding.
“It’s open,” someone called from inside.
The man opened the door and motioned for Gabrielle to enter.
Gabrielle stepped in. The shades were down, and the room was dim. She could see
the faint outline of a person sitting at a desk in the darkness.
“Ms. Ashe?” The voice came from behind a cloud of cigarette smoke. “Welcome.”
As Gabrielle’s eyes accustomed to the dark, she began to make out an
unsettlingly familiar face, and her muscles went taut with surprise. THIS is who
has been sending me e-mail?
“Thank you for coming,” Marjorie Tench said, her voice cold.
“Ms…. Tench?” Gabrielle stammered, suddenly unable to breathe.
“Call me Marjorie.” The hideous woman stood up, blowing smoke out of her nose
like a dragon. “You and I are about to become best friends.”
41
Norah Mangor stood at the extraction shaft beside Tolland, Rachel, and Corky and
stared into the pitch-black meteorite hole. “Mike,” she said, “you’re cute, but
you’re insane. There’s no bioluminescence here.”
Tolland now wished he’d thought to take some video; while Corky had gone to find
Norah and Ming, the bioluminescence had begun fading rapidly. Within a couple of
minutes, all the twinkling had simply stopped.
Tolland threw another piece of ice into the water, but nothing happened. No
green splash.
“Where did they go?” Corky asked.
Tolland had a fairly good idea. Bioluminescence—one of nature’s most ingenious
defense mechanisms—was a natural response for plankton in distress. A plankton
sensing it was about to be consumed by larger organisms would begin flashing in
hopes of attracting much larger predators that would scare off the original
attackers. In this case, the plankton, having entered the shaft through a crack,
suddenly found themselves in a primarily freshwater environment and
bioluminesced in panic as the freshwater slowly killed them. “I think they
died.”
“They were murdered,” Norah scoffed. “The Easter Bunny swam in and ate them.”
Corky glared at her. “I saw the luminescence too, Norah.”
“Was it before or after you took LSD?”
“Why would we lie about this?” Corky demanded.
“Men lie.”
“Yeah, about sleeping with other women, but never about bioluminescent
plankton.”
Tolland sighed. “Norah, certainly you’re aware that plankton do live in the
oceans beneath the ice.”
“Mike,” she replied with a glare, “please don’t tell me my business. For the
record, there are over two hundred species of diatoms that thrive under Arctic
ice shelves. Fourteen species of autotrophic nannoflagellates, twenty
heterotrophic flagellates, forty heterotrophic dinoflagellates, and several
metazoans, including polychaetes, amphipods, copepods, euphausids, and fish. Any
questions?”
Tolland frowned. “Clearly you know more about Arctic fauna than I do, and you
agree there’s plenty of life underneath us. So why are you so skeptical that we
saw bioluminescent plankton?”
“Because, Mike, this shaft is sealed. It’s a closed, freshwater environment. No
ocean plankton could possibly get in here!”
“I tasted salt in the water,” Tolland insisted. “Very faint, but present.
Saltwater is getting in here somehow.”
“Right,” Norah said skeptically. “You tasted salt. You licked the sleeve of an
old sweaty parka, and now you’ve decided that the PODS density scans and fifteen
separate core samples are inaccurate.”
Tolland held out the wet sleeve of his parka as proof.
“Mike, I’m not licking your damn jacket.” She looked into the hole. “Might I ask
why droves of alleged plankton decided to swim into this alleged crack?”
“Heat?” Tolland ventured. “A lot of sea creatures are attracted by heat. When we
extracted the meteorite, we heated it. The plankton may have been drawn
instinctively toward the temporarily warmer environment in the shaft.”
Corky nodded. “Sounds logical.”
“Logical?” Norah rolled her eyes. “You know, for a prize-winning physicist and a
world-famous oceanographer, you’re a couple of pretty dense specimens. Has it
occurred to you that even if there is a crack—which I can assure you there is
not—it is physically impossible for any sea-water to be flowing into this
shaft.” She stared at both of them with pathetic disdain.
“But, Norah…,” Corky began.
“Gentlemen! We’re standing above sea level here.” She stamped her foot on the
ice. “Hello? This ice sheet rises a hundred feet above the sea. You might recall
the big cliff at the end of this shelf? We’re higher than the ocean. If there
were a fissure into this shaft, the water would be flowing out of this shaft,
not into it. It’s called gravity.”
Tolland and Corky looked at each other.
“Shit,” Corky said. “I didn’t think of that.”
Norah pointed into the water-filled shaft. “You may also have noticed that the
water level isn’t changing?”
Tolland felt like an idiot. Norah was absolutely right. If there had been a
crack, the water would be flowing out, not in. Tolland stood in silence a long
moment, wondering what to do next.
“Okay.” Tolland sighed. “Apparently, the fissure theory makes no sense. But we
saw bioluminescence in the water. The only conclusion is that this is not a
closed environment after all. I realize much of your icedating data is built on
the premise that the glacier is a solid block, but—”
“Premise?” Norah was obviously getting agitated. “Remember, this was not just my
data, Mike. NASA made the same findings. We all confirmed this glacier is solid.
No cracks.”
Tolland glanced across the dome toward the crowd gathered around the press
conference area. “Whatever is going on, I think, in good faith, we need to
inform the administrator and—”
“This is bullshit!” Norah hissed. “I’m telling you this glacial matrix is
pristine. I’m not about to have my core data questioned by a salt lick and some
absurd hallucinations.” She stormed over to a nearby supply area and began
collecting some tools. “I’ll take a proper water sample, and show you this water
contains no saltwater plankton—living or dead!”
Rachel and the others looked on as Norah used a sterile pipette on a string to
harvest a water sample from the melt pool. Norah placed several drops in a tiny
device that resembled a miniature telescope. Then she peered through the oculus,
pointing the device toward the light emanating from the other side of the dome.
Within seconds she was cursing.
“Jesus Christ!” Norah shook the device and looked again. “Damn it! Something’s
got to be wrong with this refractometer!”
“Saltwater?” Corky gloated.
Norah frowned. “Partial. It’s registering three percent brine—which is totally
impossible. This glacier is a snow pack. Pure freshwater. There should be no
salt.” Norah carried the sample to a nearby microscope and examined it. She
groaned.
“Plankton?” Tolland asked.
“G. polyhedra,” she replied, her voice now sedate. “It’s one of the planktons we
glaciologists commonly see in the oceans under ice shelves.” She glanced over at
Tolland. “They’re dead now. Obviously they didn’t survive long in a three
percent saltwater environment.”
The four of them stood in silence a moment beside the deep shaft.
Rachel wondered what the ramifications of this paradox were for the overall
discovery. The dilemma appeared minor when compared to the overall scope of the
meteorite, and yet, as an intel analyst, Rachel had witnessed the collapse of
entire theories based on smaller snags than this.
“What’s going on over here?” The voice was a low rumble.
Everyone looked up. The bearish frame of the NASA administrator emerged from the
dark.
“Minor quandary with the water in the shaft,” Tolland said. “We’re trying to
sort it out.”
Corky sounded almost gleeful. “Norah’s ice data is screwed.”
“Bite me twice,” Norah whispered.
The administrator approached, his furry eyebrows lowering. “What’s wrong with
the ice data.”
Tolland heaved an uncertain sigh. “We’re showing a three percent saltwater mix
in the meteorite shaft, which contradicts the glaciology report that the
meteorite was encased in a pristine freshwater glacier.” He paused. “There’s
also plankton present.”
Ekstrom looked almost angry. “Obviously that’s impossible. There are no fissures
in this glacier. The PODS scans confirmed that. This meteorite was sealed in a
solid matrix of ice.”
Rachel knew Ekstrom was correct. According to NASA’s density scans, the ice
sheet was rock solid. Hundreds of feet of frozen glacier on all sides of the
meteorite. No cracks. And yet as Rachel imagined how density scans were taken, a
strange thought occurred to her…
“In addition,” Ekstrom was saying, “Dr. Mangor’s core samples confirmed the
solidity of the glacier.”
“Exactly!” Norah said, tossing the refractometer on a desk. “Double
corroboration. No fault lines in the ice. Which leaves us no explanation
whatsoever for the salt and plankton.”
“Actually,” Rachel said, the boldness of her voice surprising even herself.
“There is another possibility.” The brainstorm had hit her from the most
unlikely of memories.
Everyone was looking at her now, their skepticism obvious.
Rachel smiled. “There’s a perfectly sound rationale for the presence of salt and
plankton.” She gave Tolland a wry look. “And frankly, Mike, I’m surprised it
didn’t occur to you.”
42
“Plankton frozen in the glacier?” Corky Marlinson sounded not at all sold on
Rachel’s explanation. “Not to rain on your parade, but usually when things
freeze they die. These little buggers were flashing us, remember?”
“Actually,” Tolland said, giving Rachel an impressed look, “she may have a
point. There are a number of species that enter suspended animation when their
environment requires it. I did an episode on that phenomenon once.”
Rachel nodded. “You showed northern pike that got frozen in lakes and had to
wait until the thaw to swim away. You also talked about micro-organisms called
‘waterbears’ that became totally dehydrated in the desert, remained that way for
decades, and then reinflated when rains returned.”
Tolland chuckled. “So you really do watch my show?”
Rachel gave a slightly embarrassed shrug.
“What’s your point, Ms. Sexton?” Norah demanded.
“Her point,” Tolland said, “which should have dawned on me earlier, is that one
of the species I mentioned on that program was a kind of plankton that gets
frozen in the polar ice cap every winter, hibernates inside the ice, and then
swims away every summer when the ice cap thins.” Tolland paused. “Granted the
species I featured on the show was not the bioluminescent species we saw here,
but maybe the same thing happened.”
“Frozen plankton,” Rachel continued, excited to have Michael Tolland so
enthusiastic about her idea, “could explain everything we’re seeing here. At
some point in the past, fissures could have opened in this glacier, filled with
plankton-rich saltwater, and then refroze. What if there were frozen pockets of
saltwater in this glacier? Frozen saltwater containing frozen plankton? Imagine
if while you were raising the heated meteorite through the ice, it passed
through a frozen saltwater pocket. The saltwater ice would have melted,
releasing the plankton from hibernation, and giving us a small percentage of
salt mixed in the freshwater.”
“Oh, for the love of God!” Norah exclaimed with a hostile groan. “Suddenly
everyone’s a glaciologist!”
Corky also looked skeptical. “But wouldn’t PODS have spotted any brine ice
pockets when it did its density scans? After all, brine ice and freshwater ice
have different densities.”
“Barely different,” Rachel said.
“Four percent is a substantial difference,” Norah challenged.
“Yes, in a lab,” Rachel replied. “But PODS takes its measurements from 120 miles
up in space. Its computers were designed to differentiate between the
obvious—ice and slush, granite and limestone.” She turned to the administrator.
“Am I right to assume that when PODS measures densities from space, it probably
lacks the resolution to distinguish brine ice from fresh ice?”
The administrator nodded. “Correct. A four percent differential is below PODS’s
tolerance threshold. The satellite would see brine ice and fresh ice as
identical.”
Tolland now looked intrigued. “This would also explain the static water level in
the shaft.” He looked at Norah. “You said the plankton species you saw in the
extraction shaft was called—”
“G. polyhedra, Norah declared. “And now you’re wondering if G. polyhedra is
capable of hibernating inside the ice? You’ll be pleased to know the answer is
yes. Absolutely. G. polyhedra is found in droves around ice shelves, it
bioluminesces, and it can hibernate inside the ice. Any other questions?”
Everyone exchanged looks. From Norah’s tone, there was obviously some sort of
“but”—and yet it seemed she had just confirmed Rachel’s theory.
“So,” Tolland ventured, “you’re saying it’s possible, right? This theory makes
sense?”
“Sure,” Norah said, “if you’re totally retarded.”
Rachel glared. “I beg your pardon?”
Norah Mangor locked stares with Rachel. “I imagine in your business, a little
bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing? Well, trust me when I tell you that the
same holds true for glaciology.” Norah’s eyes shifted now, looking at each of
the four people around her. “Let me clarify this for everyone once and for all.
The frozen brine pockets that Ms. Sexton has proposed do occur. They are what
glaciologists call interstices. Interstices, however, form not as pockets of
saltwater but rather as highly branched networks of brine ice whose tendrils are
as wide as a human hair. That meteorite would have had to pass through one hell
of a dense series of interstices to release enough saltwater to create a three
percent mixture in a pool that deep.”
Ekstrom scowled. “So is it possible or not?”
“Not on your life,” Norah said flatly. “Totally impossible. I would have hit
pockets of brine ice in my core samples.”
“Core samples are drilled essentially in random spots, right?” Rachel asked. “Is
there any chance the cores’ placements, simply by bad luck, could have missed a
pocket of sea ice?”
“I drilled directly down over the meteorite. Then I drilled multiple cores only
a few yards on either side. You can’t get any closer.”
“Just asking.”
“The point is moot,” Norah said. “Brine interstices occur only in seasonal
ice—ice that forms and melts every season. The Milne Ice Shelf is fast ice—ice
that forms in the mountains and holds fast until it migrates to the calving zone
and falls into the sea. As convenient as frozen plankton would be for explaining
this mysterious little phenomenon, I can guarantee there are no hidden networks
of frozen plankton in this glacier.”
The group fell silent again.
Despite the stark rebuttal of the frozen plankton theory, Rachel’s systematic
analysis of the data refused to accept the rejection. Instinctively, Rachel knew
that the presence of frozen plankton in the glacier beneath them was the
simplest solution to the riddle. The Law of Parsimony, she thought. Her NRO
instructors had driven it into her subconscious. When multiple explanations
exist, the simplest is usually correct.
Norah Mangor obviously had a lot to lose if her ice-core data was wrong, and
Rachel wondered if maybe Norah had seen the plankton, realized she’d made a
mistake in claiming the glacier was solid, and was now simply trying to cover
her tracks.
“All I know,” Rachel said, “is that I just briefed the entire White House staff
and told them this meteorite was discovered in a pristine matrix of ice and had
been sealed there, untouched by outside influence since 1716, when it broke off
of a famous meteorite called the Jungersol. This fact now appears to be in some
question.”
The NASA administrator was silent, his expression grave.
Tolland cleared his throat. “I have to agree with Rachel. There was saltwater
and plankton in the pool. No matter what the explanation is, that shaft is
obviously not a closed environment. We can’t say it is.”
Corky was looking uncomfortable. “Um, folks, not to sound like the
astrophysicist here, but in my field when we make mistakes, we’re usually off by
billions of years. Is this little plankton/saltwater mix-up really all that
important? I mean, the perfection of the ice surrounding the meteorite in no way
affects the meteorite itself, right? We still have the fossils. Nobody is
questioning their authenticity. If it turns out we’ve made a mistake with the
ice-core data, nobody will really care. All they’ll care about is that we found
proof of life on another planet.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Marlinson,” Rachel said, “as someone who analyzes data for a
living, I have to disagree. Any tiny flaw in the data NASA presents tonight has
the potential to cast doubt over the credibility of the entire discovery.
Including the authenticity of the fossils.”
Corky’s jaw fell open. “What are you talking about? Those fossils are
irrefutable!”
“I know that. You know that. But if the public catches wind that NASA knowingly
presented ice-core data that was in question, trust me, they will immediately
start wondering what else NASA lied about.”
Norah stepped forward, eyes flashing. “My ice-core data is not in question.” She
turned to the administrator. “I can prove to you, categorically, that there is
no brine ice trapped anywhere in this ice shelf!”
The administrator eyed her a long moment. “How?”
Norah outlined her plan. When she was done, Rachel had to admit, the idea
sounded like a reasonable one.
The administrator did not look so sure. “And the results will be definitive?”
“One hundred percent confirmation,” Norah assured him. “If there’s one goddamn
ounce of frozen saltwater anywhere near that meteorite shaft, you will see it.
Even a few droplets will light up on my gear like Times Square.”
The administrator’s brow furrowed beneath his military buzz cut. “There’s not
much time. The press conference is in a couple of hours.”
“I can be back in twenty minutes.”
“How far out on the glacier did you say you have to go?”
“Not far. Two hundred yards should do it.”
Ekstrom nodded. “Are you certain it’s safe?”
“I’ll take flares,” Norah replied. “And Mike will go with me.”
Tolland’s head shot up. “I will?”
“You sure as hell will, Mike! We’ll be tethered. I’d appreciate a strong set of
arms out there if the wind whips up.”
“But—”
“She’s right,” the administrator said, turning to Tolland. “If she goes, she
can’t go alone. I’d send some of my men with her, but frankly, I’d rather keep
this plankton issue to ourselves until we figure out if it’s a problem or not.”
Tolland gave a reluctant nod.
“I’d like to go too,” Rachel said.
Norah spun like a cobra. “The hell you will.”
“Actually,” the administrator said, as if an idea had just occurred to him, “I
think I’d feel safer if we used the standard quad tether configuration. If you
go dual, and Mike slips, you’ll never hold him. Four people are a lot safer than
two.” He paused glancing at Corky. “That would mean either you or Dr. Ming.”
Ekstrom glanced around the habisphere. “Where is Dr. Ming, anyway?”
“I haven’t seen him in a while,” Tolland said. “He might be catching a nap.”
Ekstrom turned to Corky. “Dr. Marlinson, I cannot require that you go out with
them, and yet—”
“What the hell?” Corky said. “Seeing as everyone is getting along so well.”
“No!” Norah exclaimed. “Four people will slow us down. Mike and I are going
alone.”
“You are not going alone.” The administrator’s tone was final. “There’s a reason
tethers are built as quads, and we’re going to do this as safely as possible.
The last thing I need is an accident a couple hours before the biggest press
conference in NASA’s history.”
43
Gabrielle Ashe felt a precarious uncertainty as she sat in the heavy air of
Marjorie Tench’s office. What could this woman possibly want with me? Behind the
room’s sole desk, Tench leaned back in her chair, her hard features seeming to
radiate pleasure with Gabrielle’s discomfort.
“Does the smoke bother you?” Tench asked, tapping a fresh cigarette from her
pack.
“No,” Gabrielle lied.
Tench was already lighting up anyway. “You and your candidate have taken quite
an interest in NASA during this campaign.”
“True,” Gabrielle snapped, making no effort to hide her anger, “thanks to some
creative encouragement. I’d like an explanation.”
Tench gave an innocent pout. “You want to know why I’ve been sending you e-mail
fodder for your attack on NASA?”
“The information you sent me hurt your President.”
“In the short run, yes.”
The ominous tone in Tench’s voice made Gabrielle uneasy. “What’s that supposed
to mean?”
“Relax, Gabrielle. My e-mails didn’t change things much. Senator Sexton was
NASA-bashing long before I stepped in. I simply helped him clarify his message.
Solidify his position.”
“Solidify his position?”
“Exactly.” Tench smiled, revealing stained teeth. “Which, I must say, he did
quite effectively this afternoon on CNN.”
Gabrielle recalled the senator’s reaction to Tench’s fence-buster question. Yes,
I would act to abolish NASA. Sexton had gotten himself cornered, but he’d played
out of the rough with a strong drive. It was the right move. Wasn’t it? From
Tench’s contented look, Gabrielle sensed there was information missing.
Tench stood suddenly, her lanky frame dominating the cramped space. With the
cigarette dangling from her lips, she walked over to a wall safe, removed a
thick manila envelope, returned to the desk, and sat back down.
Gabrielle eyed the burgeoning envelope.
Tench smiled, cradling the envelope in her lap like a poker player holding a
royal flush. Her yellowed fingertips flicked at the corner, making an annoying
repetitive scratch, as if savoring the anticipation.
Gabrielle knew it was just her own guilty conscience, but her first fears were
that the envelope contained some kind of proof of her sexual indiscretion with
the senator. Ridiculous, she thought. The encounter had occurred after hours in
Sexton’s locked senatorial office. Not to mention, if the White House actually
had any evidence, they would have gone public with it already.
They may be suspicious, Gabrielle thought, but they don’t have proof.
Tench crushed out her cigarette. “Ms. Ashe, whether or not you are aware, you
are caught in the middle of a battle that has been raging behind the scenes in
Washington since 1996.”
This opening gambit was not at all what Gabrielle expected. “I beg your pardon?”
Tench lit another cigarette. Her spindly lips curled around it, and the tip
glowed red. “What do you know about a bill called the Space Commercialization
Promotions Act?”
Gabrielle had never heard of it. She shrugged, lost.
“Really?” Tench said. “That surprises me. Considering your candidate’s platform.
The Space Commercialization Promotions Act was proposed back in 1996 by Senator
Walker. The bill, in essence, cites the failure of NASA to do anything
worthwhile since putting a man on the moon. It calls for the privatization of
NASA by immediately selling off NASA assets to private aerospace companies and
allowing the free-market system to explore space more efficiently, thus
relieving the burden NASA now places on taxpayers.”
Gabrielle had heard NASA critics suggest privatization as a solution to NASA’s
woes, but she was not aware the idea had actually taken the form of an official
bill.
“This commercialization bill,” Tench said, “has been presented to Congress four
times now. It is similar to bills that have successfully privatized government
industries like uranium production. Congress has passed the space
commercialization bill all four times it has seen it. Thankfully, the White
House vetoed it on all occasions. Zachary Herney has had to veto it twice.”
“Your point?”
“My point is that this bill is one Senator Sexton will certainly support if he
becomes President. I have reason to believe Sexton will have no qualms about
selling off NASA assets to commercial bidders the first chance he gets. In
short, your candidate would support privatization over having American tax
dollars fund space exploration.”
“To my knowledge, the senator has never commented publicly about his stance on
any Space Commercialization Promotions Act.”
“True. And yet knowing his politics, I assume you would not be surprised if he
supported it.”
“Free-market systems tend to breed efficiency.”
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’” Tench stared. “Sadly, privatizing NASA is an
abominable idea, and there are countless reasons why every White House
administration since the bill’s inception has shot it down.”
“I’ve heard the arguments against privatizing space,” Gabrielle said, “and I
understand your concerns.”
“Do you?” Tench leaned toward her. “Which arguments have you heard?”
Gabrielle shifted uneasily. “Well, the standard academic fears mostly—the most
common being that if we privatize NASA, our current pursuit of scientific space
knowledge would be quickly abandoned in favor of profitable ventures.”
“True. Space science would die in a heartbeat. Instead of spending money to
study our universe, private space companies would strip-mine asteroids, build
tourist hotels in space, offer commercial satellite launch services. Why would
private companies bother studying the origins of our universe when it would cost
them billions and show no financial return?”
“They wouldn’t,” Gabrielle countered. “But certainly a National Endowment for
Space Science could be founded to fund academic missions.”
“We already have that system in place. It’s called NASA.”
Gabrielle fell silent.
“The abandonment of science in favor of profits is a side issue,” Tench said.
“Hardly relevant compared to the utter chaos that would result by permitting the
private sector to run free in space. We would have the wild west all over again.
We would see pioneers staking claims on the moon and on asteroids and protecting
those claims with force. I’ve heard petitions from companies who want to build
neon billboards that blink advertisements in the nighttime sky. I’ve seen
petitions from space hotels and tourist attractions whose proposed operations
include ejecting their trash into the void of space and creating orbiting trash
heaps. In fact, I just read a proposal yesterday from a company that wants to
turn space into a mausoleum by launching the deceased into orbit. Can you
imagine our telecommunications satellites colliding with dead bodies? Last week,
I had a billionaire CEO in my office who was petitioning to launch a mission to
a near-field asteroid, drag it closer to earth, and mine it for precious
minerals. I actually had to remind this guy that dragging asteroids into near
earth orbit posed potential risks of global catastrophe! Ms. Ashe, I can assure
you, if this bill passes, the throngs of entrepreneurs rushing into space will
not be rocket scientists. They will be entrepreneurs with deep pockets and
shallow minds.”
“Persuasive arguments,” Gabrielle said, “and I’m sure the senator would weigh
those issues carefully if he ever found himself in a position to vote on the
bill. Might I ask what any of this has to do with me?”
Tench’s gaze narrowed over her cigarette. “A lot of people stand to make a lot
of money in space, and the political lobby is mounting to remove all
restrictions and open the floodgates. The veto power of the office of the
President is the only remaining barrier against privatization…against complete
anarchy in space.”
“Then I commend Zach Herney for vetoing the bill.”
“My fear is that your candidate would not be so prudent if elected.”
“Again, I assume the senator would carefully weigh all the issues if he were
ever in a position to pass judgment on the bill.”
Tench did not look entirely convinced. “Do you know how much Senator Sexton
spends on media advertising?”
The question came out of left field. “Those figures are public domain.”
“More than three million a month.”
Gabrielle shrugged. “If you say so.” The figure was close.
“That’s a lot of money to spend.”
“He’s got a lot of money to spend.”
“Yes, he planned well. Or rather, married well.” Tench paused to blow smoke.
“It’s sad about his wife, Katherine. Her death hit him hard.” A tragic sigh
followed, clearly feigned. “Her death was not all that long ago, was it?”
“Come to your point, or I’m leaving.”
Tench let out a lung-shaking cough and reached for the burgeoning manila folder.
She pulled out a small stack of stapled papers and handed them to Gabrielle.
“Sexton’s financial records.”
Gabrielle studied the documents in astonishment. The records went back several
years. Although Gabrielle was not privy to the internal workings of Sexton’s
finances, she sensed this data was authentic—banking accounts, credit card
accounts, loans, stock assets, real estate assets, debts, capital gains and
losses. “This is private data. Where did you get this?”
“My source is not your concern. But if you spend some time studying these
figures, you will clearly see that Senator Sexton does not have the kind of
money he is currently spending. After Katherine died, he squandered the vast
majority of her legacy on bad investments, personal comforts, and buying himself
what appears to be certain victory in the primaries. As of six months ago, your
candidate was broke.”
Gabrielle sensed this had to be a bluff. If Sexton were broke, he sure wasn’t
acting it. He was buying advertising time in bigger and bigger blocks every
week.
“Your candidate,” Tench continued, “is currently outspending the President four
to one. And he has no personal money.”
“We get a lot of donations.”
“Yes, some of them legal.”
Gabrielle’s head shot up. “I beg your pardon?”
Tench leaned across the desk, and Gabrielle could smell her nicotine breath.
“Gabrielle Ashe, I am going to ask you a question, and I suggest you think very
carefully before you answer. It could affect whether you spend the next few
years in jail or not. Are you aware that Senator Sexton is accepting enormous
illegal campaign bribes from aerospace companies who have billions to gain from
the privatization of NASA?”
Gabrielle stared. “That’s an absurd allegation!”
“Are you saying you are unaware of this activity?”
“I think I would know if the senator were accepting bribes of the magnitude you
are suggesting.”
Tench smiled coldly. “Gabrielle, I understand that Senator Sexton has shared a
lot of himself with you, but I assure you there is plenty you do not know about
the man.”
Gabrielle stood up. “This meeting is over.”
“On the contrary,” Tench said, removing the remaining contents of the folder and
spreading it on the desk. “This meeting is just beginning.”
44
Inside the habisphere’s “staging room,” Rachel Sexton felt like an astronaut as
she slid into one of NASA’s Mark IX microclimate survival suits. The black,
one-piece, hooded jumpsuit resembled an inflatable scuba suit. Its two-ply,
memory-foam fabric was fitted with hollow channels through which a dense gel was
pumped to help the wearer regulate body temperature in both hot and cold
environments.
Now, as Rachel pulled the tight-fitting hood over her head, her eyes fell on the
NASA administrator. He appeared as a silent sentinel at the door, clearly
displeased with the necessity for this little mission.
Norah Mangor was muttering obscenities as she got everyone outfitted. “Here’s an
extra pudgy,” she said, tossing Corky his suit.
Tolland was already half into his.
Once Rachel was fully zipped up, Norah found the stopcock on Rachel’s side and
connected her to an infusion tube that coiled out of a silver canister
resembling a large scuba tank.
“Inhale,” Norah said, opening the valve.
Rachel heard a hiss and felt gel being injected into the suit. The memory foam
expanded, and the suit compressed around her, pressing down on her inner layer
of clothing. The sensation reminded her of sticking her hand underwater while
wearing a rubber glove. As the hood inflated around her head, it pressed in on
her ears, making everything sound muffled. I’m in a cocoon.
“Best thing about the Mark IX,” Norah said, “is the padding. You can fall on
your ass and not feel a thing.”
Rachel believed it. She felt like she was trapped inside a mattress.
Norah handed Rachel a series of tools—an ice ax, tether snaps, and carabiners,
which she affixed to the belt harnessed on Rachel’s waist.
“All this?” Rachel asked, eyeing the gear. “To go two hundred yards?”
Norah’s eyes narrowed. “You want to come or not?”
Tolland gave Rachel a reassuring nod. “Norah’s just being careful.”
Corky connected to the infusion tank and inflated his suit, looking amused. “I
feel like I’m wearing a giant condom.”
Norah gave a disgusted groan. “Like you’d know, virgin boy.”
Tolland sat down next to Rachel. He gave her a weak smile as she donned her
heavy boots and crampons. “You sure you want to come?” His eyes had a protective
concern that drew her in.
Rachel hoped her confident nod belied her growing trepidation. Two hundred
yards…not far at all. “And you thought you could find excitement only on the
high seas.”
Tolland chuckled, talking as he attached his own crampons. “I’ve decided I like
liquid water much better than this frozen stuff.”
“I’ve never been a big fan of either,” Rachel said. “I fell through the ice as a
kid. Water’s made me nervous ever since.”
Tolland glanced over, his eyes sympathetic. “Sorry to hear that. When this is
over, you’ll have to come out and visit me on the Goya. I’ll change your mind
about water. Promise.”
The invitation surprised her. The Goya was Tolland’s research ship—well-known
both from its role in Amazing Seas as well as its reputation as one of the
strangest-looking ships on the ocean. Although a visit to the Goya would be
unnerving for Rachel, she knew it would be hard to pass up.
“She’s anchored twelve miles off the coast of New Jersey at the moment,” Tolland
said, struggling with his crampon latches.
“Sounds like an unlikely spot.”
“Not at all. The Atlantic seaboard is an incredible place. We were gearing up to
shoot a new documentary when I was so rudely interrupted by the President.”
Rachel laughed. “Shooting a documentary on what?”
“Sphyrna mokarran and megaplumes.”
Rachel frowned. “Glad I asked.”
Tolland finished attaching his crampons and looked up. “Seriously, I’ll be
filming out there for a couple weeks. Washington’s not that far from the Jersey
coast. Come out when you get back home. No reason to spend your life afraid of
the water. My crew would roll out the red carpet for you.”
Norah Mangor’s voice blared. “Are we going outside, or should I get you two some
candles and champagne?”
45
Gabrielle Ashe had no idea what to make of the documents now spread out before
her on Marjorie Tench’s desk. The pile included photocopied letters, faxes,
transcripts of phone conversations, and they all seemed to support the
allegation that Senator Sexton was in covert dialogue with private space
companies.
Tench pushed a couple of grainy black-and-white photographs toward Gabrielle. “I
assume this is news to you?”
Gabrielle looked at the photos. The first candid shot showed Senator Sexton
getting out of a taxi in some kind of underground garage. Sexton never takes
taxis. Gabrielle looked at the second shot—a telephoto of Sexton climbing into a
parked white minivan. An old man appeared to be in the van waiting for him.
“Who is that?” Gabrielle said, suspicious the photos might be faked.
“A big shot from the SFF.”
Gabrielle was doubtful. “The Space Frontier Foundation?”
The SFF was like a “union” for private space companies. It represented aerospace
contractors, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists—any private entity that wanted
to go into space. They tended to be critical of NASA, arguing that the U.S.
space program employed unfair business practices to prevent private companies
from launching missions into space.
“The SFF,” Tench said, “now represents over a hundred major corporations, some
very wealthy enterprises who are waiting eagerly for the Space Commercialization
Promotions Act to be ratified.”
Gabrielle considered it. For obvious reasons the SFF was a vocal supporter of
Sexton’s campaign, although the senator had been careful not to get too close to
them because of their controversial lobbying tactics. Recently the SFF had
published an explosive rant charging that NASA was in fact an “illegal monopoly”
whose ability to operate at a loss and still stay in business represented unfair
competition to private firms. According to the SFF, whenever AT&T needed a
telecomm satellite launched, several private space companies offered to do the
job at a reasonable $50 million. Unfortunately, NASA always stepped in and
offered to launch AT&T’s satellites for a mere twenty-five million, even though
it cost NASA five times that to do the job! Operating at a loss is one way NASA
keeps its grip on space, the SFF lawyers accused. And taxpayers pick up the tab.
“This photo reveals,” Tench said, “that your candidate is holding secret
meetings with an organization that represents private space enterprises.” Tench
motioned to several other documents on the table. “We also have internal SFF
memos calling for huge sums of money to be collected from SFF member
companies—in amounts commensurate with their net worth—and transferred to
accounts controlled by Senator Sexton. In effect, these private space agencies
are anteing up to put Sexton in office. I can only assume he has agreed to pass
the commercialization bill and privatize NASA if elected.”
Gabrielle looked at the pile of papers, unconvinced. “Do you expect me to
believe that the White House has evidence that its opponent is engaged in
profoundly illegal campaign finance—and yet, for some reason, you are keeping it
secret?”
“What would you believe?”
Gabrielle glared. “Frankly, considering your skills for manipulation, a more
logical solution seems that you are plying me somehow with phony documents and
photos produced by some enterprising White House staffer and his desktop
publishing computer.”
“Possible, I admit. But not true.”
“No? Then how did you get all these internal documents from corporations? The
resources required to steal all of this evidence from so many companies
certainly exceeds the grasp of the White House.”
“You’re right. This information arrived here as an unsolicited gift.”
Gabrielle was now lost.
“Oh yes,” Tench said, “we get a lot of it. The President has many powerful
political allies who would like to see him stay in office. Remember, your
candidate is suggesting cuts all over the place—a lot of them right here in
Washington. Senator Sexton certainly has no qualms about citing the FBI’s
bloated budget as an example of government overspending. He’s taken some
potshots at the IRS, too. Maybe someone at the bureau or at the service got a
little annoyed.”
Gabrielle got the implication. People at the FBI and IRS would have ways of
getting this kind of information. They might then send it to the White House as
an unsolicited favor to help the President’s election. But what Gabrielle could
not make herself believe was that Senator Sexton would ever be engaged in
illegal campaign funding. “If this data is accurate,” Gabrielle challenged,
“which I strongly doubt it is, why haven’t you gone public?”
“Why do you think?”
“Because it was gathered illegally.”
“How we got it makes no difference.”
“Of course it makes a difference. It’s inadmissible in a hearing.”
“What hearing? We’d simply leak this to a newspaper, and they’d run it as a
‘credible-source’ story with photos and documentation. Sexton would be guilty
until proven innocent. His vocal anti-NASA stance would be virtual proof that he
is taking bribes.”
Gabrielle knew it was true. “Fine,” she challenged, “then why haven’t you leaked
the information?”
“Because it’s a negative. The President promised not to go negative in the
campaign and he wants to stick to that promise as long as he can.”
Yeah, right! “You’re telling me the President is so upstanding that he refuses
to go public with this because people might consider it a negative?”
“It’s a negative for the country. It implicates dozens of private companies,
many of which are made up of honest people. It besmirches the office of the U.S.
Senate and is bad for the country’s morale. Dishonest politicians hurt all
politicians. Americans need to trust their leaders. This would be an ugly
investigation and would most likely send a U.S. senator and numerous prominent
aerospace executives to jail.”
Although Tench’s logic did make sense, Gabrielle still doubted the allegations.
“What does any of this have to do with me?”
“Simply put, Ms. Ashe, if we release these documents, your candidate will be
indicted for illegal campaign financing, lose his Senate seat, and most likely
do prison time.” Tench paused. “Unless…”
Gabrielle saw a snakelike glint in the senior adviser’s eyes. “Unless what?”
Tench took a long drag on her cigarette. “Unless you decide to help us avoid all
that.”
A murky silence settled over the room.
Tench coughed roughly. “Gabrielle, listen, I decided to share this unfortunate
information with you for three reasons. First, to show you Zach Herney is a
decent man who considers the government’s well-being before his personal gain.
Second, to inform you that your candidate is not as trustworthy as you might
think. And third, to persuade you to accept the offer I am about to make.”
“That offer being?”
“I’d like to offer you a chance to do the right thing. The patriotic thing.
Whether you know it or not, you’re in a unique position to spare Washington all
kinds of unpleasant scandal. If you can do what I am about to ask, perhaps you
could even earn yourself a place on the President’s team.”
A place on the President’s team? Gabrielle couldn’t believe what she was
hearing. “Ms. Tench, whatever you have in mind, I do not appreciate being
black-mailed, coerced, or talked down to. I work for the senator’s campaign
because I believe in his politics. And if this is any indication of the way Zach
Herney exerts political influence, I have no interest in being associated with
him! If you’ve got something on Senator Sexton, then I suggest you leak it to
the press. Frankly, I think this whole thing’s a sham.”
Tench gave a dreary sigh. “Gabrielle, your candidate’s illegal funding is a
fact. I’m sorry. I know you trust him.” She lowered her voice. “Look, here’s the
point. The President and I will go public with the funding issue if we must, but
it will get ugly on a grand scale. This scandal involves several major U.S.
corporations breaking the law. A lot of innocent people will pay the price.” She
took a long drag and exhaled. “What the President and I are hoping for here…is
some other way to discredit the senator’s ethics. A way that is more
contained…one in which no innocent parties get hurt.” Tench set down her
cigarette and folded her hands. “Simply put, we would like you to publicly admit
that you had an affair with the senator.”
Gabrielle’s entire body went rigid. Tench sounded utterly certain of herself.
Impossible, Gabrielle knew. There was no proof. The sex had happened only once,
behind locked doors in Sexton’s senatorial office. Tench has nothing. She’s
fishing. Gabrielle fought to retain her steady tone. “You assume a lot, Ms.
Tench.”
“Which? That you had an affair? Or that you would abandon your candidate?”
“Both.”
Tench gave a curt smile and stood up. “Well, let’s put one of those facts to
rest right now, shall we?” She walked to her wall safe again and returned with a
red manila folder. It was stamped with the White House seal. She unhooked the
clasp, tipped the envelope over, and dumped the contents out on the desk in
front of Gabrielle.
As dozens of color photographs spilled out onto the desk, Gabrielle saw her
entire career come crashing down before her.
46
Outside the habisphere, the katabatic wind roaring down off the glacier was
nothing like the ocean winds Tolland was accustomed to. On the ocean, wind was a
function of tides and pressure fronts and came in gusting ebbs and flows. The
katabatic, however, was a slave to simple physics—heavy cold air rushing down a
glacial incline like a tidal wave. It was the most resolute gale force Tolland
had ever experienced. Had it been coming at twenty knots, the katabatic would
have been a sailor’s dream, but at its current eighty knots it could quickly
become a nightmare even for those on solid ground. Tolland found that if he
paused and leaned backward, the stalwart squall could easily prop him up.
Making the raging river of air even more unnerving to Tolland was the slight
downwind grade of the ice shelf. The ice was sloped ever so slightly toward the
ocean, two miles away. Despite the sharp spikes on the Pitbull Rapido crampons
attached to his boots, Tolland had the uneasy feeling that any misstep might
leave him caught up in a gale and sliding down the endless icy slope. Norah
Mangor’s two-minute course in glacier safety now seemed dangerously inadequate.
Piranha Ice ax, Norah had said, fastening a lightweight T-shaped tool to each of
their belts as they suited up in the habisphere. Standard blade, banana blade,
semitubular blade, hammer, and adze. All you need to remember is, if anyone
slips or gets caught up in a gust, grab your ax with one hand on the head and
one on the shaft, ram the banana blade into the ice, and fall on it, planting
your crampons.
With those words of assurance, Norah Mangor had affixed YAK belay harnesses to
each of them. They all donned goggles, and headed out into the afternoon
darkness.
Now, the four figures made their way down the glacier in a straight line with
ten yards of belay rope separating each of them. Norah was in the lead position,
followed by Corky, then Rachel, and Tolland as anchor.
As they moved farther away from the habisphere, Tolland felt a growing
uneasiness. In his inflated suit, although warm, he felt like some kind of
uncoordinated space traveler trekking across a distant planet. The moon had
disappeared behind thick, billowing storm clouds, plunging the ice sheet into an
impenetrable blackness. The katabatic wind seemed to be getting stronger by the
minute, applying a constant pressure to Tolland’s back. As his eyes strained
through his goggles to make out the expansive emptiness around them, he began to
perceive a true danger in this place. Redundant NASA safety precautions or not,
Tolland was surprised the administrator had been willing to risk four lives out
here instead of two. Especially when the additional two lives were that of a
senator’s daughter and a famous astrophysicist. Tolland was not surprised to
feel a protective concern for Rachel and Corky. As someone who had captained a
ship, he was used to feeling responsible for those around him.
“Stay behind me,” Norah shouted, her voice swallowed by the wind. “Let the sled
lead the way.”
The aluminum sled on which Norah was transporting her testing gear resembled an
oversized Flexible Flyer. The craft was prepacked with diagnostic gear and
safety accessories she’d been using on the glacier over the past few days. All
of her gear—including a battery pack, safety flares, and a powerful
front-mounted spotlight—was bound under a secured, plastic tarp. Despite the
heavy load, the sled glided effortlessly on long, straight runners. Even on the
almost imperceptible incline, the sled moved downhill on its own accord, and
Norah applied a gentle restraint, almost as if allowing the sled to lead the
way.
Sensing the distance growing between the group and the habisphere, Tolland
looked over his shoulder. Only fifty yards away, the pale curvature of the dome
had all but disappeared in the blustery blackness.
“You at all worried about finding our way back?” Tolland yelled. “The habisphere
is almost invisi—” His words were cut short by the loud hiss of a flare igniting
in Norah’s hand. The sudden red-white glow illuminated the ice shelf in a
ten-yard radius all around them. Norah used her heel to dig a small impression
in the surface snow, piling up a protective ridge on the upwind side of the
hole. Then she rammed the flare into the indentation.
“High-tech bread crumbs,” Norah shouted.
“Bread crumbs?” Rachel asked, shielding her eyes from the sudden light.
“Hansel and Gretel,” Norah shouted. “These flares will last an hour—plenty of
time to find our way back.”
With that, Norah headed out again, leading them down the glacier—into the
darkness once again.
47
Gabrielle Ashe stormed out of Marjorie Tench’s office and practically knocked
over a secretary in doing so. Mortified, all Gabrielle could see were the
photographs—images—arms and legs intertwined. Faces filled with ecstasy.
Gabrielle had no idea how the photos had been taken, but she knew damn well they
were real. They had been taken in Senator Sexton’s office and seemed to have
been shot from above as if by hidden camera. God help me. One of the photos
showed Gabrielle and Sexton having sex directly on top of the senator’s desk,
their bodies sprawled across a scatter of official-looking documents.
Marjorie Tench caught up with Gabrielle outside the Map Room. Tench was carrying
the red envelope of photos. “I assume from your reaction that you believe these
photos are authentic?” The President’s senior adviser actually looked like she
was having a good time. “I’m hoping they persuade you that our other data is
accurate as well. They came from the same source.”
Gabrielle felt her entire body flushing as she marched down the hall. Where the
hell is the exit?
Tench’s gangly legs had no trouble keeping up. “Senator Sexton swore to the
world that you two are platonic associates. His televised statement was actually
quite convincing.” Tench motioned smugly over her shoulder. “In fact, I have a
tape in my office if you’d like to refresh your memory?”
Gabrielle needed no refresher. She remembered the press conference all too well.
Sexton’s denial was as adamant as it was heartfelt.
“It’s unfortunate,” Tench said, sounding not at all disappointed, “but Senator
Sexton looked the American people in the eye and told a bald-faced lie. The
public has a right to know. And they will know. I’ll see to it personally. The
only question now is how the public finds out. We believe it’s best coming from
you.”
Gabrielle was stunned. “You really think I’m going to help lynch my own
candidate?”
Tench’s face hardened. “I am trying to take the high ground here, Gabrielle. I’m
giving you a chance to save everyone a lot of embarrassment by holding your head
high and telling the truth. All I need is a signed statement admitting your
affair.”
Gabrielle stopped short. “What!”
“Of course. A signed statement gives us the leverage we need to deal with the
senator quietly, sparing the country this ugly mess. My offer is simple: Sign a
statement for me, and these photos never need to see the light of day.”
“You want a statement?”
“Technically, I would need an affidavit, but we have a notary here in the
building who could—”
“You’re crazy.” Gabrielle was walking again.
Tench stayed at her side, sounding more angry now. “Senator Sexton is going down
one way or another, Gabrielle, and I’m offering you a chance to get out of this
without seeing your own naked ass in the morning paper! The President is a
decent man and doesn’t want these photos publicized. If you just give me an
affidavit and confess to the affair on your own terms, then all of us can retain
a little dignity.”
“I’m not for sale.”
“Well, your candidate certainly is. He’s a dangerous man, and he’s breaking the
law.”
“He’s breaking the law? You’re the ones breaking into offices and taking illegal
surveillance pictures! Ever heard of Watergate?”
“We had nothing to do with gathering this dirt. These photos came from the same
source as the SFF campaign-funding information. Someone’s been watching you two
very closely.”
Gabrielle tore past the security desk where she had gotten her security badge.
She ripped off the badge and tossed it to the wide-eyed guard. Tench was still
on her tail.
“You’ll need to decide fast, Ms. Ashe,” Tench said as they neared the exit.
“Either bring me an affidavit admitting you slept with the senator, or at eight
o’clock tonight, the president will be forced to go public with
everything—Sexton’s financial dealings, the photos of you, the works. And
believe me, when the public sees that you stood idly by and let Sexton lie about
your relationship, you’ll go down in flames right beside him.”
Gabrielle saw the door and headed for it.
“On my desk by eight o’clock tonight, Gabrielle. Be smart.” Tench tossed her the
folder of photographs on her way out. “Keep them, sweetie. We’ve got plenty
more.”
48
Rachel Sexton felt a growing chill inside as she moved down the ice sheet into a
deepening night. Disquieting images swirled in her mind—the meteorite, the
phosphorescent plankton, the implications if Norah Mangor had made a mistake
with the ice cores.
A solid matrix of freshwater ice, Norah had argued, reminding them all that she
had drilled cores all around the area as well as directly over the meteorite. If
the glacier contained saltwater interstices filled with plankton, she would have
seen them. Wouldn’t she? Nonetheless, Rachel’s intuition kept returning to the
simplest solution.
There are plankton frozen in this glacier.
Ten minutes and four flares later, Rachel and the others were approximately 250
yards from the habisphere. Without warning, Norah stopped short. “This is the
spot,” she said, sounding like a water-witch diviner who had mystically sensed
the perfect spot to drill a well.
Rachel turned and glanced up the slope behind them. The habisphere had long
since disappeared into the dim, moonlit night, but the line of flares was
clearly visible, the farthest one twinkling reassuringly like a faint star. The
flares were in a perfectly straight line, like a carefully calculated runway.
Rachel was impressed with Norah’s skills.
“Another reason we let the sled go first,” Norah called out when she saw Rachel
admiring the line of flares. “The runners are straight. If we let gravity lead
the sled and we don’t interfere, we’re guaranteed to travel in a straight line.”
“Neat trick,” Tolland yelled. “Wish there were something like that for the open
sea.”
This IS the open sea, Rachel thought, picturing the ocean beneath them. For a
split second, the most distant flame caught her attention. It had disappeared,
as if the light had been blotted out by a passing form. A moment later, though,
the light reappeared. Rachel felt a sudden uneasiness. “Norah,” she yelled over
the wind, “did you say there were polar bears up here?”
The glaciologist was preparing a final flare and either did not hear or was
ignoring her.
“Polar bears,” Tolland yelled, “eat seals. They only attack humans when we
invade their space.”
“But this is polar bear country, right?” Rachel could never remember which pole
had bears and which had penguins.
“Yeah,” Tolland shouted back. “Polar bears actually give the Arctic its name.
Arktos is Greek for bear.”
Terrific. Rachel gazed nervously into the dark.
“Antarctica has no polar bears,” Tolland said. “So they call it Anti-arktos.”
“Thanks, Mike,” Rachel yelled. “Enough talk of polar bears.”
He laughed. “Right. Sorry.”
Norah pressed a final flare into the snow. As before, the four of them were
engulfed in a reddish glow, looking bloated in their black weather suits. Beyond
the circle of light emanating from the flare, the rest of the world became
totally invisible, a circular shroud of blackness engulfing them.
As Rachel and the others looked on, Norah planted her feet and used careful
overhand motions to reel the sled several yards back up the slope to where they
were standing. Then, keeping the rope taut, she crouched and manually activated
the sled’s talon brakes—four angled spikes that dug into the ice to keep the
sled stationary. That done, she stood up and brushed herself off, the rope
around her waist falling slack.
“All right,” Norah shouted. “Time to go to work.”
The glaciologist circled to the downwind end of the sled and began unfastening
the butterfly eyelets holding the protective canvas over the gear. Rachel,
feeling like she had been a little hard on Norah, moved to help by unfastening
the rear of the flap.
“Jesus, NO!” Norah yelled, her head snapping up. “Don’t ever do that!”
Rachel recoiled, confused.
“Never unfasten the upwind side!” Norah said. “You’ll create a wind sock! This
sled would have taken off like an umbrella in a wind tunnel!”
Rachel backed off. “I’m sorry. I…”
She glared. “You and space boy shouldn’t be out here.”
None of us should, Rachel thought.
Amateurs, Norah seethed, cursing the administrator’s insistence on sending Corky
and Sexton along. These clowns are going to get someone killed out here. The
last thing Norah wanted right now was to play baby-sitter.
“Mike,” she said, “I need help lifting the GPR off the sled.”
Tolland helped her unpack the Ground Penetrating Radar and position it on the
ice. The instrument looked like three miniature snowplow blades that had been
affixed in parallel to an aluminum frame. The entire device was no more than a
yard long and was connected by cables to a current attenuator and a marine
battery on the sled.
“That’s radar?” Corky asked, yelling over the wind.
Norah nodded in silence. Ground Penetrating Radar was far more equipped to see
brine ice than PODS was. The GPR transmitter sent pulses of electromagnetic
energy through the ice, and the pulses bounced differently off substances of
differing crystal structure. Pure freshwater froze in a flat, shingled lattice.
However, seawater froze in more of a meshed or forked lattice on account of its
sodium content, causing the GPR pulses to bounce back erratically, greatly
diminishing the number of reflections.
Norah powered up the machine. “I’ll be taking a kind of echo-location
cross-sectional image of the ice sheet around the extraction pit,” she yelled.
“The machine’s internal software will render a cross section of the glacier and
then print it out. Any sea ice will register as a shadow.”
“Printout?” Tolland looked surprised. “You can print out here?”
Norah pointed to a cable from the GPR leading to a device still protected under
the canopy. “No choice but to print. Computer screens use too much valuable
battery power, so field glaciologists print data to heat-transfer printers.
Colors aren’t brilliant, but laser toner clumps below neg twenty. Learned that
the hard way in Alaska.”
Norah asked everyone to stand on the downhill side of the GPR as she prepared to
align the transmitter such that it would scan the area of the meteorite hole,
almost three football fields away. But as Norah looked back through the night in
the general direction from which they had come, she couldn’t see a damn thing.
“Mike, I need to align the GPR transmitter with the meteorite site, but this
flare has me blinded. I’m going back up the slope just enough to get out of the
light. I’ll hold my arms in line with the flares, and you adjust the alignment
on the GPR.”
Tolland nodded, kneeling down beside the radar device.
Norah stamped her crampons into the ice and leaned forward against the wind as
she moved up the incline toward the habisphere. The katabatic today was much
stronger than she’d imagined, and she sensed a storm coming in. It didn’t
matter. They would be done here in a matter of minutes. They’ll see I’m right.
Norah clomped twenty yards back toward the habisphere. She reached the edge of
the darkness just as the belay rope went taut.
Norah looked back up the glacier. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, the line of
flares slowly came into view several degrees to her left. She shifted her
position until she was perfectly lined up with them. Then she held her arms out
like a compass, turning her body, indicating the exact vector. “I’m in line with
them now!” she yelled.
Tolland adjusted the GPR device and waved. “All set!”
Norah took a final look up the incline, grateful for the illuminated pathway
home. As she looked out, though, something odd occurred. For an instant, one of
the nearest flares entirely disappeared from view. Before Norah could worry that
it was dying out, the flare reappeared. If Norah didn’t know better, she would
assume something had passed between the flare and her location. Certainly nobody
else was out here…unless of course the administrator had started to feel guilty
and sent a NASA team out after them. Somehow Norah doubted it. Probably nothing,
she decided. A gust of wind had momentarily killed the flame.
Norah returned to the GPR. “All lined up?”
Tolland shrugged. “I think so.”
Norah went over to the control device on the sled and pressed a button. A sharp
buzz emanated from the GPR and then stopped. “Okay,” she said. “Done.”
“That’s it?” Corky said.
“All the work is in setup. The actual shot takes only a second.”
Onboard the sled, the heat-transfer printer had already begun to hum and click.
The printer was enclosed in a clear plastic covering and was slowly ejecting a
heavy, curled paper. Norah waited until the device had completed printing, and
then she reached up under the plastic and removed the printout. They’ll see, she
thought, carrying the printout over to the flare so that everyone could see it.
There won’t be any saltwater.
Everyone gathered around as Norah stood over the flare, clutching the printout
tightly in her gloves. She took a deep breath and uncurled the paper to examine
the data. The image on the paper made her recoil in horror.
“Oh, God!” Norah stared, unable to believe what she was looking at. As expected,
the printout revealed a clear cross section of the water-filled meteorite shaft.
But what Norah had never expected to see was the hazy grayish outline of a
humanoid form floating halfway down the shaft. Her blood turned to ice. “Oh
God…there’s a body in the extraction pit.”
Everyone stared in stunned silence.
The ghostlike body was floating head down in the narrow shaft. Billowing around
the corpse like some sort of cape was an eerie shroudlike aura. Norah now
realized what the aura was. The GPR had captured a faint trace of the victim’s
heavy coat, what could only be a familiar, long, dense camel hair.
“It’s…Ming,” she said in a whisper. “He must have slipped….”
Norah Mangor never imagined that seeing Ming’s body in the extraction pit would
be the lesser of the two shocks the printout would reveal, but as her eyes
traced downward in the shaft, she saw something else.
The ice beneath the extraction shaft…
Norah stared. Her first thought was that something had gone wrong with the scan.
Then, as she studied the image more closely, an unsettling realization began to
grow, like the storm gathering around them. The paper’s edges flapped wildly in
the wind as she turned and looked more intently at the printout.
But…that’s impossible!
Suddenly, the truth came crashing down. The realization felt like it was going
to bury her. She forgot all about Ming.
Norah now understood. The saltwater in the shaft! She fell to her knees in the
snow beside the flare. She could barely breathe. Still clutching the paper in
her hands, she began trembling.
My God…it didn’t even occur to me.
Then, with a sudden eruption of rage, she spun her head in the direction of the
NASA habisphere. “You bastards!” she screamed, her voice trailing off in the
wind. “You goddamned bastards!”
In the darkness, only fifty yards away, Delta-One held his CrypTalk device to
his mouth and spoke only two words to his controller. “They know.”
49
Norah Mangor was still kneeling on the ice when the bewildered Michael Tolland
pulled the Ground Penetrating Radar’s printout from her trembling hands. Shaken
from seeing the floating body of Ming, Tolland tried to gather his thoughts and
decipher the image before him.
He saw the cross section of the meteorite shaft descending from the surface down
to two hundred feet into the ice. He saw Ming’s body floating in the shaft.
Tolland’s eyes drifted lower now, and he sensed something was amiss. Directly
beneath the extraction shaft, a dark column of sea ice extended downward to the
open ocean below. The vertical pillar of saltwater ice was massive—the same
diameter as the shaft.
“My God!” Rachel yelled, looking over Tolland’s shoulder. “It looks like the
meteorite shaft continues all the way through the ice shelf into the ocean!”
Tolland stood transfixed, his brain unable to accept what he knew to be the only
logical explanation. Corky looked equally alarmed.
Norah shouted, “Someone drilled up under the shelf!” Her eyes were wild with
rage. “Someone intentionally inserted that rock from underneath the ice!”
Although the idealist in Tolland wanted to reject Norah’s words, the scientist
in him knew she could easily be right. The Milne Ice Shelf was floating over the
ocean with plenty of clearance for a submersible. Because everything weighed
significantly less underwater, even a small submersible not much bigger than
Tolland’s one-man research Triton easily could have transported the meteorite in
its payload arms. The sub could have approached from the ocean, submerged
beneath the ice shelf, and drilled upward into the ice. Then, it could have used
an extending payload arm or inflatable balloons to push the meteorite up into
the shaft. Once the meteorite was in place, the ocean water that had risen into
the shaft behind the meteorite would begin to freeze. As soon as the shaft
closed enough to hold the meteorite in place, the sub could retract its arm and
disappear, leaving Mother Nature to seal the remainder of the tunnel and erase
all traces of the deception.
“But why?” Rachel demanded, taking the printout from Tolland and studying it.
“Why would someone do that? Are you sure your GPR is working?”
“Of course, I’m sure! And the printout perfectly explains the presence of
phosphorescent bacteria in the water!”
Tolland had to admit, Norah’s logic was chillingly sound. Phosphorescent
dinoflagellates would have followed instinct and swum upward into the meteorite
shaft, becoming trapped just beneath the meteorite and freezing into the ice.
Later, when Norah heated the meteorite, the ice directly beneath would have
melted, releasing the plankton. Again, they would swim upward, this time
reaching the surface inside the habisphere, where they would eventually die for
lack of saltwater.
“This is crazy!” Corky yelled. “NASA has a meteorite with extraterrestrial
fossils in it. Why would they care where it’s found? Why would they go to the
trouble to bury it under an ice shelf?”
“Who the hell knows,” Norah fired back, “but GPR printouts don’t lie. We were
tricked. That meteorite isn’t part of the Jungersol Fall. It was inserted in the
ice recently. Within the last year, or the plankton would be dead!” She was
already packing up her GPR gear on the sled and fastening it down. “We’ve to get
back and tell someone! The President is about to go public with all the wrong
data! NASA tricked him!”
“Wait a minute!” Rachel yelled. “We should at least run another scan to make
sure. None of this makes sense. Who will believe it?”
“Everyone,” Norah said, preparing her sled. “When I march into the habisphere
and drill another core sample out of the bottom of the meteorite shaft and it
comes up as saltwater ice, I guarantee you everyone will believe this!”
Norah disengaged the brakes on the equipment sled, redirected it toward the
habisphere, and started back up the slope, digging her crampons into the ice and
pulling the sled behind her with surprising ease. She was a woman on a mission.
“Let’s go!” Norah shouted, pulling the tethered group along as she headed toward
the perimeter of the illuminated circle. “I don’t know what NASA’s up to here,
but I sure as hell don’t appreciate being used as a pawn for their—”
Norah Mangor’s neck snapped back as if she’d been rammed in the forehead by some
invisible force. She let out a guttural gasp of pain, wavered, and collapsed
backward onto the ice. Almost instantly, Corky let out a cry and spun around as
if his shoulder had been propelled backward. He fell to the ice, writhing in
pain.
Rachel immediately forgot all about the printout in her hand, Ming, the
meteorite, and the bizarre tunnel beneath the ice. She had just felt a small
projectile graze her ear, barely missing her temple. Instinctively, she dropped
to her knees, yanking Tolland down with her.
“What’s going on!” Tolland screamed.
A hailstorm was all Rachel could imagine—balls of ice blowing down off the
glacier—and yet from the force with which Corky and Norah had just been hit,
Rachel knew the hailstones would have to be moving at hundreds of miles an hour.
Eerily, the sudden barrage of marble-sized objects seemed now to focus on Rachel
and Tolland, pelting all around them, sending up plumes of exploding ice. Rachel
rolled onto her stomach, dug her crampon’s toe spikes into the ice, and launched
toward the only cover available. The sled. Tolland arrived a moment later,
scrambling and hunkering down beside her.
Tolland looked out at Norah and Corky unprotected on the ice. “Pull them in with
the tether!” he yelled, grabbing the rope and trying to pull.
But the tether was wrapped around the sled.
Rachel stuffed the printout in the Velcro pocket of her Mark IX suit, and
scrambled on all fours toward the sled, trying to untangle the rope from the
sled runners. Tolland was right behind her.
The hailstones suddenly rained down in a barrage against the sled, as if Mother
Nature had abandoned Corky and Norah and was taking direct aim at Rachel and
Tolland. One of the projectiles slammed into the top of the sled tarp, partially
embedding itself, and then bounced over, landing on the sleeve of Rachel’s coat.
When Rachel saw it, she froze. In an instant, the bewilderment she had been
feeling turned to terror. These “hailstones” were man-made. The ball of ice on
her sleeve was a flawlessly shaped spheroid the size of a large cherry. The
surface was polished and smooth, marred only by a linear seam around the
circumference, like an old-fashioned lead musket ball, machined in a press. The
globular pellets were, without a doubt, man-made.
Ice bullets…
As someone with military clearance, Rachel was well acquainted with the new
experimental “IM” weaponry—Improvised Munitions—snow rifles that compacted snow
into ice pellets, desert rifles that melted sand into glass projectiles,
water-based firearms that shot pulses of liquid water with such force that they
could break bones. Improvised Munitions weaponry had an enormous advantage over
conventional weapons because IM weapons used available resources and literally
manufactured munitions on the spot, providing soldiers unlimited rounds without
their having to carry heavy conventional bullets. The ice balls being fired at
them now, Rachel knew, were being compressed “on demand” from snow fed into the
butt of the rifle.
As was often the case in the intelligence world, the more one knew, the more
frightening a scenario became. This moment was no exception. Rachel would have
preferred blissful ignorance, but her knowledge of IM weaponry instantly led her
to a sole chilling conclusion: They were being attacked by some kind of U.S.
Special Ops force, the only forces in the country currently cleared to use these
experimental IM weapons in the field.
The presence of a military covert operations unit brought with it a second, even
more terrifying realization: The probability of surviving this attack was close
to zero.
The morbid thought was terminated as one of the ice pellets found an opening and
came screaming through the wall of gear on the sled, colliding with her stomach.
Even in her padded Mark IX suit, Rachel felt like an invisible prizefighter had
just gut-punched her. Stars began to dance around the periphery of her vision,
and she teetered backward, grabbing gear on the sled for balance. Michael
Tolland dropped Norah’s tether and lunged to support Rachel, but he arrived too
late. Rachel fell backward, pulling a pile of equipment with her. She and
Tolland tumbled to the ice in a pile of electronic apparatus.
“They’re…bullets…,” she gasped, the air momentarily crushed from her lungs.
“Run!”
50
The Washington MetroRail subway now leaving Federal Triangle station could not
speed away from the White House fast enough for Gabrielle Ashe. She sat rigid in
a deserted corner of the train as darkened shapes tore past outside in a blur.
Marjorie Tench’s big red envelope lay in Gabrielle’s lap, pressing down like a
ten-ton weight.
I’ve got to talk to Sexton! she thought, the train accelerating now in the
direction of Sexton’s office building. Immediately!
Now, in the dim, shifting light of the train, Gabrielle felt like she was
enduring some kind of hallucinogenic drug trip. Muted lights whipped by overhead
like slow-motion discotheque strobes. The ponderous tunnel rose on all sides
like a deepening canyon.
Tell me this is not happening.
She gazed down at the envelope on her lap. Unclasping the flap, she reached
inside and pulled out one of the photos. The internal lights of the train
flickered for a moment, the harsh glare illuminating a shocking image—Sedgewick
Sexton lying naked in his office, his gratified face turned perfectly toward the
camera while Gabrielle’s dark form lay nude beside him.
She shivered, rammed the photo back inside, and fumbled to reclasp the envelope.
It’s over.
As soon as the train exited the tunnel and climbed onto the aboveground tracks
near L’Enfant Plaza, Gabrielle dug out her cellphone and called the senator’s
private cellular number. His voice mail answered. Puzzled, she phoned the
senator’s office. The secretary answered.
“It’s Gabrielle. Is he in?”
The secretary sounded peeved. “Where have you been? He was looking for you.”
“I had a meeting that ran long. I need to talk to him right away.”
“You’ll have to wait till morning. He’s at Westbrooke.”
Westbrooke Place Luxury Apartments was the building where Sexton kept his D.C.
residence. “He’s not picking up his private line,” Gabrielle said.
“He blocked off tonight as a P.E.,” the secretary reminded. “He left early.”
Gabrielle scowled. Personal Event. In all the excitement, she’d forgotten Sexton
had scheduled himself a night alone at home. He was very particular about not
being disturbed during his P.E. blocks. Bang on my door only if the building is
on fire, he would say. Other than that, it can wait until morning. Gabrielle
decided Sexton’s building was definitely on fire. “I need you to reach him for
me.”
“Impossible.”
“This is serious, I really—”
“No, I mean literally impossible. He left his pager on my desk on his way out
and told me he was not to be disturbed all night. He was adamant.” She paused.
“More so than usual.”
Shit. “Okay, thanks.” Gabrielle hung up.
“L’Enfant Plaza,” a recording announced in the subway car. “Connection all
stations.”
Closing her eyes, Gabrielle tried to clear her mind, but devastating images
rushed in…the lurid photos of herself and the senator…the pile of documents
alleging Sexton was taking bribes. Gabrielle could still hear Tench’s raspy
demands. Do the right thing. Sign the affidavit. Admit the affair.
As the train screeched into the station, Gabrielle forced herself to imagine
what the senator would do if the photos hit the presses. The first thing to pop
in her mind both shocked and shamed her.
Sexton would lie.
Was this truly her first instinct regarding her candidate?
Yes. He would lie…brilliantly.
If these photos hit the media without Gabrielle’s having admitted the affair,
the senator would simply claim the photos were a cruel forgery. This was the age
of digital photo editing; anyone who had ever been on-line had seen the
flawlessly retouched spoof photographs of celebrities’ heads digitally melded
onto other people’s bodies, often those of porn stars engaged in lewd acts.
Gabrielle had already witnessed the senator’s ability to look into a television
camera and lie convincingly about their affair; she had no doubt he could
persuade the world these photos were a lame attempt to derail his career. Sexton
would lash out with indignant outrage, perhaps even insinuate that the President
himself had ordered the forgery.
No wonder the White House hasn’t gone public. The photos, Gabrielle realized,
could backfire just like the initial drudge. As vivid as the pictures seemed,
they were totally inconclusive.
Gabrielle felt a sudden surge of hope.
The White House can’t prove any of this is real!
Tench’s powerplay on Gabrielle had been ruthless in its simplicity: Admit your
affair or watch Sexton go to jail. Suddenly it made perfect sense. The White
House needed Gabrielle to admit the affair, or the photos were worthless. A
sudden glimmer of confidence brightened her mood.
As the train sat idling and the doors slid open, another distant door seemed to
open in Gabrielle’s mind, revealing an abrupt and heartening possibility.
Maybe everything Tench told me about the bribery was a lie.
After all, what had Gabrielle really seen? Yet again, nothing conclusive—some
Xeroxed bank documents, a grainy photo of Sexton in a garage. All of it
potentially counterfeit. Tench cunningly could have showed Gabrielle bogus
financial records in the same sitting as the genuine sex photos, hoping
Gabrielle would accept the entire package as true. It was called “authentication
by association,” and politicians used it all the time to sell dubious concepts.
Sexton is innocent, Gabrielle told herself. The White House was desperate, and
they had decided to take a wild gamble on scaring Gabrielle into going public
about the affair. They needed Gabrielle to desert Sexton publicly—scandalously.
Get out while you can, Tench had told her. You have until eight o’clock tonight.
The ultimate pressure sales job. All of it fits, she thought.
Except one thing…
The only confusing piece of the puzzle was that Tench had been sending Gabrielle
anti-NASA e-mails. This certainly suggested NASA really did want Sexton to
solidify his anti-NASA stance so they could use it against him. Or did it?
Gabrielle realized that even the e-mails had a perfectly logical explanation.
What if the e-mails were not really from Tench?
It was possible Tench caught a traitor on staff sending Gabrielle data, fired
that person, and then stepped in and e-mailed the final message herself, calling
Gabrielle in for a meeting. Tench could have pretended she leaked all the NASA
data on purpose—to set Gabrielle up.
The subway hydraulics hissed now in L’Enfant Plaza, the doors preparing to
close.
Gabrielle stared out at the platform, her mind racing. She had no idea if her
suspicions were making any sense or if they were just wishful thinking, but
whatever the hell was going on, she knew she had to talk to the senator right
away—P.E. night or not.
Clutching the envelope of photographs, Gabrielle hurried off the train just as
the doors hissed shut. She had a new destination.
Westbrooke Place Apartments.
51
Fight or flight.
As a biologist, Tolland knew that vast physiological changes occurred when an
organism sensed danger. Adrenaline flooded the cerebral cortex, jolting the
heart rate and commanding the brain to make the oldest and most intuitive of all
biological decisions—whether to do battle or flee.
Tolland’s instinct told him to flee, and yet reason reminded him he was still
tethered to Norah Mangor. There was nowhere to flee anyway. The only cover for
miles was the habisphere, and the attackers, whoever the hell they were, had
positioned themselves high on the glacier and cut off that option. Behind him,
the wide open sheet of ice fanned out into a two-mile-long plain that terminated
in a sheer drop to a frigid sea. Flight in that direction meant death by
exposure. The practical barriers to fleeing notwithstanding, Tolland knew he
could not possibly leave the others. Norah and Corky were still out in the open,
tethered to Rachel and Tolland.
Tolland stayed down near Rachel as the ice pellets continued to slam into the
side of the toppled equipment sled. He pillaged the strewn contents, searching
for a weapon, a flare gun, a radio…anything.
“Run!” Rachel yelled, her breathing still strained.
Then, oddly, the hailstorm of ice bullets abruptly stopped. Even in the pounding
wind, the night felt suddenly calm…as if a storm had let up unexpectedly.
It was then, peering cautiously around the sled, that Tolland witnessed one of
the most chilling sights he had ever seen.
Gliding effortlessly out of the darkened perimeter into the light, three ghostly
figures emerged, coasting silently in on skis. The figures wore full white
weather suits. They carried no ski poles but rather large rifles that looked
like no guns Tolland had ever seen. Their skis were bizarre as well, futuristic
and short, more like elongated Rollerblades than skis.
Calmly, as if knowing they had already won this battle, the figures coasted to a
stop beside their closest victim—the unconscious Norah Mangor. Tolland rose
shakily to his knees and peered over the sled at the attackers. The visitors
stared back at him through eerie electronic goggles. They were apparently
uninterested.
At least for the moment.
Delta-One felt no remorse as he stared down at the woman lying unconscious on
the ice before him. He had been trained to carry out orders, not to question
motives.
The woman was wearing a thick, black, thermal suit and had a welt on the side of
her face. Her breathing was short and labored. One of the IM ice rifles had
found its mark and knocked her unconscious.
Now it was time to finish the job.
As Delta-One knelt down beside the oblivious woman, his teammates trained their
rifles on the other targets—one on the small, unconscious man lying on the ice
nearby, and one on the overturned sled where the two other victims were hiding.
Although his men easily could have moved in to finish the job, the remaining
three victims were unarmed and had nowhere to run. Rushing to finish them all
off at once was careless. Never disperse your focus unless absolutely necessary.
Face one adversary at a time. Exactly as they had been trained, the Delta Force
would kill these people one at a time. The magic, however, was that they would
leave no trace to suggest how they had died.
Crouched beside the unconscious woman, Delta-One removed his thermal gloves and
scooped up a handful of snow. Packing the snow, he opened the woman’s mouth and
began stuffing it down her throat. He filled her entire mouth, ramming the snow
as deep as he could down her windpipe. She would be dead within three minutes.
This technique, invented by the Russian mafia, was called the byelaya
smert—white death. This victim would suffocate long before the snow in her
throat melted. Once dead, however, her body would stay warm long enough to
dissolve the blockage. Even if foul play were suspected, no murder weapon or
evidence of violence would be apparent immediately. Eventually someone might
figure it out, but it would buy them time. The ice bullets would fade into the
environment, buried in the snow, and the welt on this woman’s head would look
like she’d taken a nasty spill on the ice—not surprising in these gale force
winds.
The other three people would be incapacitated and killed in much the same way.
Then Delta-One would load all of them on the sled, drag them several hundred
yards off course, reattached their belay lines and arrange the bodies. Hours
from now, the four of them would be found frozen in the snow, apparent victims
of overexposure and hypothermia. Those who discovered them would be puzzled what
they were doing off course, but nobody would be surprised that they were dead.
After all, their flares had burned out, the weather was perilous, and getting
lost on the Milne Ice Shelf could bring death in a hurry.
Delta-One had now finished packing snow down the woman’s throat. Before turning
his attention to the others, Delta-One unhooked the woman’s belay harness. He
could reconnect it later, but at the moment, he did not want the two people
behind the sled getting ideas about pulling his victim to safety.
Michael Tolland had just witnessed a murderous act more bizarre than his darkest
mind could imagine. Having cut Norah Mangor free, the three attackers were
turning their attention to Corky.
I’ve got to do something!
Corky had come to and was moaning, trying to sit up, but one of the soldiers
pushed him back down on his back, straddled him, and pinned Corky’s arms to the
ice by kneeling on them. Corky let out a cry of pain that was instantly
swallowed up by the raging wind.
In a kind of demented terror, Tolland tore through the scattered contents of the
overturned sled. There must be something here! A weapon! Something! All he saw
was diagnostic ice gear, most of it smashed beyond recognition by the ice
pellets. Beside him, Rachel groggily tried to sit up, using her ice ax to prop
herself up. “Run…Mike…”
Tolland eyed the ax that was strapped to Rachel’s wrist. It could be a weapon.
Sort of. Tolland wondered what his chances were attacking three armed men with a
tiny ax.
Suicide.
As Rachel rolled and sat up, Tolland spied something behind her. A bulky vinyl
bag. Praying against fate that it contained a flare gun or radio, he clambered
past her and grabbed the bag. Inside he found a large, neatly folded sheet of
Mylar fabric. Worthless. Tolland had something similar on his research ship. It
was a small weather balloon, designed to carry payloads of observational weather
gear not much heavier than a personal computer. Norah’s balloon would be no help
here, particularly without a helium tank.
With the growing sounds of Corky’s struggle, Tolland felt a helpless sensation
he had not felt in years. Total despair. Total loss. Like the cliché of one’s
life passing before one’s eyes before death, Tolland’s mind flashed unexpectedly
through long forgotten childhood images. For an instant he was sailing in San
Pedro, learning the age-old sailor’s pastime of spinnaker-flying—hanging on a
knotted rope, suspended over the ocean, plunging laughing into the water, rising
and falling like a kid hanging on a belfry rope, his fate determined by a
billowing spinnaker sail and the whim of the ocean breeze.
Tolland’s eyes instantly snapped back to the Mylar balloon in his hand,
realizing that his mind had not been surrendering, but rather it had been trying
to remind him of a solution! Spinnaker flying.
Corky was still struggling against his captor as Tolland yanked open the
protective bag around the balloon. Tolland had no illusions that this plan was
anything other than a long shot, but he knew remaining here was certain death
for all of them. He clutched the folded mass of Mylar. The payload clip warned:
CAUTION: NOT FOR USE IN WINDS OVER 10 KNOTS.
The hell with that! Gripping it hard to keep it from unfurling, Tolland
clambered over to Rachel, who was propped on her side. He could see the
confusion in her eyes as he nestled close, yelling, “Hold this!”
Tolland handed Rachel the folded pad of fabric and then used his free hands to
slip the balloon’s payload clasp through one of the carabiners on his harness.
Then, rolling on his side, he slipped the clasp through one of Rachel’s
carabiners as well.
Tolland and Rachel were now one.
Joined at the hip.
From between them, the loose tether trailed off across the snow to the
struggling Corky…and ten yards farther to the empty clip beside Norah Mangor.
Norah is already gone, Tolland told himself. Nothing you can do.
The attackers were crouched over Corky’s writhing body now, packing a handful of
snow, and preparing to stuff it down Corky’s throat. Tolland knew they were
almost out of time.
Tolland grabbed the folded balloon from Rachel. The fabric was as light as
tissue paper—and virtually indestructible. Here goes nothing. “Hold on!”
“Mike?” Rachel said. “What—”
Tolland hurled the pad of wadded Mylar into the air over their heads. The
howling wind snatched it up and spread it out like a parachute in a hurricane.
The sheath filled instantly, billowing open with a loud snap.
Tolland felt a wrenching yank on his harness, and he knew in an instant he had
grossly underestimated the power of the katabatic wind. Within a fraction of a
second, he and Rachel were half airborne, being dragged down the glacier. A
moment later, Tolland felt a jerk as his tether drew taut on Corky Marlinson.
Twenty yards back, his terrified friend was yanked out from under his stunned
attackers, sending one of them tumbling backward. Corky let out a blood-curdling
scream as he too accelerated across the ice, barely missing the overturned sled,
then fishtailing inward. A second rope trailed limp beside Corky…the rope that
had been connected to Norah Mangor.
Nothing you can do, Tolland told himself.
Like a tangled mass of human marionettes, the three bodies skimmed down the
glacier. Ice pellets went sailing by, but Tolland knew the attackers had missed
their chance. Behind him, the white-clad soldiers faded away, shrinking to
illuminated specks in the glow of the flares.
Tolland now felt the ice ripping beneath his padded suit with relentless
acceleration, and the relief at having escaped faded fast. Less than two miles
directly ahead of them, the Milne Ice Shelf came to an abrupt end at a
precipitous cliff—and beyond it…a hundred-foot drop to the lethal pounding surf
of the Arctic Ocean.
52
Marjorie Tench was smiling as she made her way downstairs toward the White House
Communications Office, the computerized broadcast facility that disseminated
press releases formulated upstairs in the Communications Bullpen. The meeting
with Gabrielle Ashe had gone well. Whether or not Gabrielle was scared enough to
turn over an affidavit admitting the affair was uncertain, but it sure as hell
was worth a try.
Gabrielle would be smart to bail out on him, Tench thought. The poor girl had no
idea just how hard Sexton was about to fall.
In a few hours, the President’s meteoric press conference was going to cut
Sexton down at the knees. That was in the bank. Gabrielle Ashe, if she
cooperated, would be the death blow that sent Sexton crawling off in shame. In
the morning, Tench could release Gabrielle’s affidavit to the press along with
footage of Sexton denying it.
One-two punch.
After all, politics was not just about winning the election, it was about
winning decisively—having the momentum to carry out one’s vision. Historically,
any president who squeaked into office on a narrow margin accomplished much
less; he was weakened right out of the gate, and Congress never seemed to let
him forget it.
Ideally, the destruction of Senator Sexton’s campaign would be comprehensive—a
two-pronged attack sacking both his politics and his ethics. This strategy,
known in Washington as the “high-low,” was stolen from the art of military
warfare. Force the enemy to battle on two fronts. When a candidate possessed a
piece of negative information about his opponent, he often waited until he had a
second piece and went public with both simultaneously. A double-edged attack was
always more effective than a single shot, particularly when the dual attack
incorporated separate aspects of his campaign—the first against his politics,
the second against his character. Rebuttal of a political attack took logic,
while rebuttal of a character attack took passion; disputing both simultaneously
was an almost impossible balancing act.
Tonight, Senator Sexton would find himself scrambling to extract himself from
the political nightmare of an astounding NASA triumph, and yet his plight would
deepen considerably if he were forced to defend his NASA position while being
called a liar by a prominent female member of his staff.
Arriving now at the doorway of the Communications Office, Tench felt alive with
the thrill of the fight. Politics was war. She took a deep breath and checked
her watch. 6:15 P.M. The first shot was about to be fired.
She entered.
The Communications Office was small not for lack of room, but for lack of
necessity. It was one of the most efficient mass communications stations in the
world and employed a staff of only five people. At the moment, all five
employees stood over their banks of electronic gear looking like swimmers poised
for the starting gun.
They are ready, Tench saw in their eager gazes.
It always amazed her that this tiny office, given only two hours head start,
could contact more than one third of the world’s civilized population. With
electronic connections to literally tens of thousands of global news
sources—from the largest television conglomerates to the smallest hometown
newspapers—the White House Communications Office could, at the touch of a few
buttons, reach out and touch the world.
Fax-broadcast computers churned press releases into the in-boxes of radio,
television, print, and Internet media outlets from Maine to Moscow. Bulk e-mail
programs blanketed on-line news wires. Telephone autodialers phoned thousands of
media content managers and played recorded voice announcements. A breaking news
Web page provided constant updates and preformatted content. The
“live-feed-capable” news sources—CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, foreign syndicates—would be
assaulted from all angles and promised free, live television feeds. Whatever
else these networks were airing would come to a screeching halt for an emergency
presidential address.
Full penetration.
Like a general inspecting her troops, Tench strode in silence over to the copy
desk and picked up the printout of the “flash release” that now sat loaded in
all the transmission machines like cartridges in a shotgun.
When Tench read it, she had to laugh quietly to herself. By usual standards, the
release loaded for broadcast was heavy-handed—more of an advertisement than an
announcement—but the President had ordered the Communications Office to pull out
all the stops. And that they had. This text was perfect—keyword-rich and content
light. A deadly combination. Even the news wires that used automated
“keyword-sniffer” programs to sort their incoming mail would see multiple flags
on this one:
From: White House Communications Office
Subject: Urgent Presidential Address
The President of the United States will be holding an urgent press conference
tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time from the White House briefing room.
The topic of his announcement is currently classified. Live A/V feeds will be
available via customary outlets.
Laying the paper back down on the desk, Marjorie Tench looked around the
Communications Office and gave the staff an impressed nod. They looked eager.
Lighting a cigarette, she puffed a moment, letting the anticipation build.
Finally, she grinned. “Ladies and gentlemen. Start your engines.”
53
All logical reasoning had evaporated from Rachel Sexton’s mind. She held no
thoughts for the meteorite, the mysterious GPR printout in her pocket, Ming, the
horrific attack on the ice sheet. There was one matter at hand.
Survival.
The ice skimmed by in a blur beneath her like an endless, sleek highway. Whether
her body was numb with fear or simply cocooned by her protective suit, Rachel
did not know, but she felt no pain. She felt nothing.
Yet.
Lying on her side, attached to Tolland at the waist, Rachel lay face-to-face
with him in an awkward embrace. Somewhere ahead of them, the balloon billowed,
fat with wind, like a parachute on the back of a dragster. Corky trailed behind,
swerving wildly like a tractor trailer out of control. The flare marking the
spot where they had been attacked had all but disappeared in the distance.
The hissing of their nylon Mark IX suits on the ice grew higher and higher in
pitch as they continued to accelerate. She had no idea how fast they were going
now, but the wind was at least sixty miles an hour, and the frictionless runway
beneath them seemed to be racing by faster and faster with every passing second.
The impervious Mylar balloon apparently had no intentions of tearing or
relinquishing its hold.
We need to release, she thought. They were racing away from one deadly
force—directly toward another. The ocean is probably less than a mile ahead now!
The thought of icy water brought back terrifying memories.
The wind gusted harder, and their speed increased. Somewhere behind them Corky
let out a scream of terror. At this speed, Rachel knew they had only a few
minutes before they were dragged out over the cliff into the frigid ocean.
Tolland was apparently having similar thoughts because he was now fighting with
the payload clasp attached to their bodies.
“I can’t unhook us!” he yelled. “There’s too much tension!”
Rachel hoped a momentary lull in the wind might give Tolland some slack, but the
katabatic pulled on with relentless uniformity. Trying to help, Rachel twisted
her body and rammed the toe cleat of one of her crampons into the ice, sending a
rooster tail of ice shards into the air. Their velocity slowed ever so slightly.
“Now!” she yelled, lifting her foot.
For an instant the payload line on the balloon slackened slightly. Tolland
yanked down, trying to take advantage of the loose line to maneuver the payload
clip out of their carabiners. Not even close.
“Again!” he yelled.
This time they both twisted against one another and rammed their toe prongs into
the ice, sending a double plume of ice into the air. This slowed the contraption
more perceptibly.
“Now!”
On Tolland’s cue, they both let up. As the balloon surged forward again, Tolland
rammed his thumb into the carabiner latch and twisted the hook, trying to
release the clasp. Although closer this time, he still needed more slack. The
carabiners, Norah had bragged, were first-rate, Joker safety clips, specifically
crafted with an extra loop in the metal so they would never release if there
were any tension on them at all.
Killed by safety clips, Rachel thought, not finding the irony the least bit
amusing.
“One more time!” Tolland yelled.
Mustering all her energy and hope, Rachel twisted as far as she could and rammed
both of her toes into the ice. Arching her back, she tried to lift all her
weight onto her toes. Tolland followed her lead until they were both angled
roughly on their stomachs, the connection at their belt straining their
harnesses. Tolland rammed his toes down and Rachel arched farther. The
vibrations sent shock waves up her legs. She felt like her ankles were going to
break.
“Hold it…hold it…” Tolland contorted himself to release the Joker clip as their
speed decreased. “Almost…”
Rachel’s crampons snapped. The metal cleats tore off of her boots and went
tumbling backward into the night, bouncing over Corky. The balloon immediately
lurched forward, sending Rachel and Tolland fishtailing to one side. Tolland
lost his grasp on the clip.
“Shit!”
The Mylar balloon, as if angered at having been momentarily restrained, lurched
forward now, pulling even harder, dragging them down the glacier toward the sea.
Rachel knew they were closing fast on the cliff, although they faced danger even
before the hundred-foot drop into the Arctic Ocean. Three huge snow berms stood
in their path. Even protected by the padding in the Mark IX suits, the
experience of launching at high speed up and over the snow mounds filled her
with terror.
Fighting in desperation with their harnesses, Rachel tried to find a way to
release the balloon. It was then that she heard the rhythmic ticking on the
ice—the rapid-fire staccato of lightweight metal on the sheet of bare ice.
The ax.
In her fear, she had entirely forgotten the ice ax attached to the rip cord on
her belt. The lightweight aluminum tool was bouncing along beside her leg. She
looked up at the payload cable on the balloon. Thick, heavy-duty braided nylon.
Reaching down, she fumbled for the bouncing ax. She grasped the handle and
pulled it toward her, stretching the elastic rip cord. Still on her side, Rachel
struggled to raise her arms over her head, placing the ax’s serrated edge
against the thick cord. Awkwardly, she began sawing the taut cable.
“Yes!” Tolland yelled, fumbling now for his own ax.
Sliding on her side, Rachel was stretched out, her arms above her, sawing at the
taut cable. The line was strong, and the individual nylon strands were fraying
slowly. Tolland gripped his own ax, twisted, raised his arms over his head, and
tried to saw from underneath in the same spot. Their banana blades clicked
together as they worked in tandem like lumberjacks. The rope began fraying on
both sides now.
We’re going to do it, Rachel thought. This thing is going to break!
Suddenly, the silver bubble of Mylar before them swooped upward as if it had hit
an updraft. Rachel realized to her horror that it was simply following the
contour of the land.
They had arrived.
The berms.
The wall of white loomed only an instant before they were on it. The blow to
Rachel’s side as they hit the incline drove the wind from her lungs and wrenched
the ax from her hand. Like a tangled water-skier being dragged up over a jump,
Rachel felt her body dragged up the face of the berm and launched. She and
Tolland were suddenly catapulted in a dizzying upward snarl. The trough between
the berms spread out far beneath them, but the frayed payload cable held fast,
lifting their accelerated bodies upward, carrying them clear out over the first
trough. For an instant, she glimpsed what lay ahead. Two more berms—a short
plateau—and then the drop-off to the sea.
As if to give a voice to Rachel’s own dumbstruck terror, the high-pitched scream
of Corky Marlinson cut through the air. Somewhere behind them, he sailed up over
the first berm. All three of them went airborne, the balloon clawing upward like
a wild animal trying to break its captor’s chains.
Suddenly, like a gunshot in the night, a sudden snap echoed overhead. The frayed
rope gave way, and the tattered end recoiled in Rachel’s face. Instantly, they
were falling. Somewhere overhead the Mylar balloon billowed out of
control…spiraling out to sea.
Tangled in carabiners and harnesses, Rachel and Tolland tumbled back toward
earth. As the white mound of the second berm rose up toward them, Rachel braced
for impact. Barely clearing the top of the second berm, they crashed down the
far side, the blow partially cushioned by their suits and the descending contour
of the berm. As the world around her turned into a blur of arms and legs and
ice, Rachel felt herself rocketing down the incline out onto the central ice
trough. Instinctively she spread her arms and legs, trying to slow down before
they hit the next berm. She felt them slowing, but only slightly, and it seemed
only seconds before she and Tolland were sliding back up an incline. At the top,
there was another instant of weightlessness as they cleared the crest. Then,
filled with terror, Rachel felt them begin their dead slide down the other side
and out onto the final plateau…the last eighty feet of the Milne Glacier.
As they skidded toward the cliff, Rachel could feel the drag of Corky on the
tether, and she knew they were all slowing down. She knew it was too little too
late. The end of the glacier raced toward them, and Rachel let out a helpless
scream.
Then it happened.
The edge of the ice slid out from underneath them. The last thing Rachel
remembered was falling.
54
The Westbrooke Place Apartments are located at 2201 N Street NW and promote
themselves as one of the few unquestionably correct addresses in Washington.
Gabrielle hurried through the gilded revolving door into the marble lobby, where
a deafening waterfall reverberated.
The doorman at the front desk looked surprised to see her. “Ms. Ashe? I didn’t
know you were stopping by tonight.”
“I’m running late.” Gabrielle quickly signed in. The clock overhead read 6:22
P.M.
The doorman scratched his head. “The senator gave me a list, but you weren’t—”
“They always forget the people who help them most.” She gave a harried smile and
strode past him toward the elevator.
Now the doorman looked uneasy. “I better call up.”
“Thanks,” Gabrielle said, as she boarded the elevator and headed up. The
senator’s phone is off the hook.
Riding the elevator to the ninth floor, Gabrielle exited and made her way down
the elegant hallway. At the end, outside Sexton’s doorway, she could see one of
his bulky personal safety escorts—glorified bodyguards—sitting in the hall. He
looked bored. Gabrielle was surprised to see security on duty, although
apparently not as surprised as the guard was to see her. He jumped to his feet
as she approached.
“I know,” Gabrielle called out, still halfway down the hall. “It’s a P.E. night.
He doesn’t want to be disturbed.”
The guard nodded emphatically. “He gave me very strict orders that no visitors—”
“It’s an emergency.”
The guard physically blocked the doorway. “He’s in a private meeting.”
“Really?” Gabrielle pulled the red envelope from under her arm. She flashed the
White House seal in the man’s face. “I was just in the Oval Office. I need to
give the senator this information. Whatever old pals he’s schmoozing tonight are
going to have to do without him for a few minutes. Now, let me in.”
The guard withered slightly at the sight of the White House seal on the
envelope.
Don’t make me open this, Gabrielle thought.
“Leave the folder,” he said. “I’ll take it into him.”
“The hell you will. I have direct orders from the White House to hand-deliver
this. If I don’t talk to him immediately, we can all start looking for jobs
tomorrow morning. Do you understand?”
The guard looked deeply conflicted, and Gabrielle sensed the senator had indeed
been unusually adamant tonight about having no visitors. She moved in for the
kill. Holding the White House envelope directly in his face, Gabrielle lowered
her voice to a whisper and uttered the six words all Washington security
personnel feared most.
“You do not understand the situation.”
Security personnel for politicians never understood the situation, and they
hated that fact. They were hired guns, kept in the dark, never sure whether to
stand firm in their orders or risk losing their jobs by mule-headedly ignoring
some obvious crisis.
The guard swallowed hard, eyeing the White House envelope again. “Okay, but I’m
telling the senator you demanded to be let in.”
He unlocked the door, and Gabrielle pushed past him before he changed his mind.
She entered the apartment and quietly closed the door behind her, relocking it.
Now inside the foyer, Gabrielle could hear muffled voices in Sexton’s den down
the hall—men’s voices. Tonight’s P.E. was obviously not the private meeting
implied by Sexton’s earlier call.
As Gabrielle moved down the hall toward the den, she passed an open closet where
a half dozen expensive men’s coats hung inside—distinctive wool and tweed.
Several briefcases sat on the floor. Apparently work stayed in the hall tonight.
Gabrielle would have walked right past the cases except that one of the
briefcases caught her eye. The nameplate bore a distinctive company logo. A
bright red rocket.
She paused, kneeling down to read it:
SPACE AMERICA, INC.
Puzzled, she examined the other briefcases.
BEAL AEROSPACE. MICROCOSM, INC. ROTARY ROCKET COMPANY. KISTLER
AEROSPACE.
Marjorie Tench’s raspy voice echoed in her mind. Are you aware that Sexton is
accepting bribes from private aerospace companies?
Gabrielle’s pulse began racing as she gazed down the darkened hallway toward the
archway that led into the senator’s den. She knew she should speak up, announce
her presence, and yet she felt herself inching quietly forward. She moved to
within a few feet of the archway and stood soundlessly in the shadows…listening
to the conversation beyond.
55
While Delta-Three stayed behind to collect Norah Mangor’s body and the sled, the
other two soldiers accelerated down the glacier after their quarry.
On their feet they wore ElektroTread–powered skis. Modeled after the consumer
Fast Trax motorized skis, the classified ElektroTreads were essentially snow
skis with miniaturized tank treads affixed—like snowmobiles worn on the feet.
Speed was controlled by pushing the tips of the index finger and thumb together,
compressing two pressure plates inside the right-hand glove. A powerful gel
battery was molded around the foot, doubling as insulation and allowing the skis
to run silently. Ingeniously, the kinetic energy generated by gravity and the
spinning treads as the wearer glided down a hill was automatically harvested to
recharge the batteries for the next incline.
Keeping the wind at his back, Delta-One crouched low, skimming seaward as he
surveyed the glacier before him. His night vision system was a far cry from the
Patriot model used by the Marines. Delta-One was looking through a hands-free
face mount with a 40 x 90 mm six-element lens, three-element Magnification
Doubler, and Super Long Range IR. The world outside appeared in a translucent
tint of cool blue, rather than the usual green—the color scheme especially
designed for highly reflective terrains like the Arctic.
As he approached the first berm, Delta-One’s goggles revealed several bright
stripes of freshly disturbed snow, rising up and over the berm like a neon arrow
in the night. Apparently the three escapees had either not thought to unhook
their makeshift sail or had been unable to. Either way, if they had not released
by the final berm, they were now somewhere out in the ocean. Delta-One knew his
quarry’s protective clothing would lengthen the usual life expectancy in the
water, but the relentless offshore currents would drag them out to sea. Drowning
would be inevitable.
Despite his confidence, Delta-One had been trained never to assume. He needed to
see bodies. Crouching low, he pressed his fingers together and accelerated up
the first incline.
• • •
Michael Tolland lay motionless, taking stock of his bruises. He was battered,
but he sensed no broken bones. He had little doubt the gel-filled Mark IX had
saved him any substantial trauma. As he opened his eyes, his thoughts were slow
to focus. Everything seemed softer here…quieter. The wind still howled, but with
less ferocity.
We went over the edge—didn’t we?
Focusing, Tolland found he was lying on ice, draped across Rachel Sexton, almost
at right angles, their locked carabiners twisted. He could feel her breathing
beneath him, but he could not see her face. He rolled off her, his muscles
barely responding.
“Rachel…?” Tolland wasn’t sure if his lips were making sound or not.
Tolland recalled the final seconds of their harrowing ride—the upward drag of
the balloon, the payload cable snapping, their bodies plummeting down the far
side of the berm, sliding up and over the final mound, skimming toward the
edge—the ice running out. Tolland and Rachel had fallen, but the fall had been
oddly short. Rather than the expected plunge to the sea, they had fallen only
ten feet or so before hitting another slab of ice and sliding to a stop with the
dead weight of Corky in tow.
Now, raising his head, Tolland looked toward the sea. Not far away, the ice
ended in a sheer cliff, beyond which he could hear the sounds of the ocean.
Looking back up the glacier, Tolland strained to see into the night. Twenty
yards back, his eyes met a high wall of ice, which seemed to hang above them. It
was then that he realized what had happened. Somehow they had slid off the main
glacier onto a lower terrace of ice. This section was flat, as large as a hockey
rink, and had partially collapsed—preparing to cleave off into the ocean at any
moment.
Ice calving, Tolland thought, eyeing the precarious platform of ice on which he
was now lying. It was a broad square slab that hung off the glacier like a
colossal balcony, surrounded on three sides by precipices to the ocean. The
sheet of ice was attached to the glacier only at its back, and Tolland could see
the connection was anything but permanent. The boundary where the lower terrace
clung to the Milne Ice Shelf was marked by a gaping pressure fissure almost four
feet across. Gravity was well on its way to winning this battle.
Almost more frightening than seeing the fissure was Tolland’s seeing the
motionless body of Corky Marlinson crumpled on the ice. Corky lay ten yards away
at the end of a taut tether attached to them.
Tolland tried to stand up, but he was still attached to Rachel. Repositioning
himself, he began detaching their interlocking carabiners.
Rachel looked weak as she tried to sit up. “We didn’t…go over?” Her voice was
bewildered.
“We fell onto a lower block of ice,” Tolland said, finally unfastening himself
from her. “I’ve got to help Corky.”
Painfully, Tolland attempted to stand, but his legs felt feeble. He grabbed the
tether and heaved. Corky began sliding toward them across the ice. After a dozen
or so pulls, Corky was lying on the ice a few feet away.
Corky Marlinson looked beaten. He’d lost his goggles, suffered a bad cut on his
cheek, and his nose was bleeding. Tolland’s worries that Corky might be dead
were quickly allayed when Corky rolled over and looked at Tolland with an angry
glare.
“Jesus,” he stammered. “What the hell was that little trick!”
Tolland felt a wave of relief.
Rachel sat up now, wincing. She looked around. “We need to…get off of here. This
block of ice looks like it’s about to fall.”
Tolland couldn’t have agreed more. The only question was how.
They had no time to consider a solution. A familiar high-pitched whir became
audible above them on the glacier. Tolland’s gaze shot up to see two white-clad
figures ski effortlessly up onto the edge and stop in unison. The two men stood
there a moment, peering down at their battered prey like chess masters savoring
checkmate before the final kill.
Delta-One was surprised to see the three escapees alive. He knew, however, this
was a temporary condition. They had fallen onto a section of the glacier that
had already begun its inevitable plunge to the sea. This quarry could be
disabled and killed in the same manner as the other woman, but a far cleaner
solution had just presented itself. A way in which no bodies would ever be
found.
Gazing downward over the lip, Delta-One focused on the gaping crevasse that had
begun to spread like a wedge between the ice shelf and the clinging block of
ice. The section of ice on which the three fugitives sat was dangerously
perched…ready to break away and fall into the ocean any day now.
Why not today…
Here on the ice shelf, the night was rocked every few hours by deafening
booms—the sound of ice cracking off parts of the glacier and plummeting into the
ocean. Who would take notice?
Feeling the familiar warm rush of adrenaline that accompanied the preparation
for a kill, Delta-One reached in his supply pack and pulled out a heavy,
lemon-shaped object. Standard issue for military assault teams, the object was
called a flash-bang—a “nonlethal” concussion grenade that temporarily
disoriented an enemy by generating a blinding flash and deafening concussion
wave. Tonight, however, Delta-One knew this flash-bang would most certainly be
lethal.
He positioned himself near the edge and wondered how far the crevasse descended
before tapering to a close. Twenty feet? Fifty feet? He knew it didn’t matter.
His plan would be effective regardless.
With calm bred from the performance of countless executions, Delta-One dialed a
ten-second delay into the grenade’s screw-dial, slid out the pin, and threw the
grenade down into the chasm. The bomb plummeted into the darkness and
disappeared.
Then Delta-One and his partner cleared back up onto the top of the berm and
waited. This would be a sight to behold.
Even in her delirious state of mind, Rachel Sexton had a very good idea what the
attackers had just dropped into the crevasse. Whether Michael Tolland also knew
or whether he was reading the fear in her eyes was unclear, but she saw him go
pale, shooting a horrified glance down at the mammoth slab of ice on which they
were stranded, clearly realizing the inevitable.
Like a storm cloud lit by an internal flash of lightning, the ice beneath Rachel
illuminated from within. The eerie white translucence shot out in all
directions. For a hundred yards around them, the glacier flashed white. The
concussion came next. Not a rumble like an earthquake, but a deafening shock
wave of gut-churning force. Rachel felt the impact tearing up through the ice
into her body.
Instantly, as if a wedge had been driven between the ice shelf and the block of
ice supporting them, the cliff began to shear off with a sickening crack.
Rachel’s eyes locked with Tolland’s in a freeze-frame of terror. Corky let out a
scream nearby.
The bottom dropped out.
Rachel felt weightless for an instant, hovering over the multimillion-pound
block of ice. Then they were riding the iceberg down—plummeting into the frigid
sea.
56
The deafening grating of ice against ice assaulted Rachel’s ears as the massive
slab slid down the face of the Milne Ice Shelf, sending towering plumes of spray
into the air. As the slab splashed downward, it slowed, and Rachel’s previously
weightless body crashed down onto the top of the ice. Tolland and Corky landed
hard nearby.
As the block’s downward momentum plunged it deeper into the sea, Rachel could
see the foaming surface of the ocean racing upward with a kind of taunting
deceleration, like the ground beneath a bungee-jumper whose cord was a few feet
too long. Rising…rising…and then it was there. Her childhood nightmare was back.
The ice…the water…the darkness. The dread was almost primal.
The top of the slab slipped below the waterline, and the frigid Arctic Ocean
poured over the edges in a torrent. As the ocean rushed in all around her,
Rachel felt herself sucked under. The bare skin on her face tightened and burned
as the saltwater hit. The flooring of ice disappeared beneath her, and Rachel
fought her way back to the surface, buoyed by the gel in her suit. She took in a
mouthful of saltwater, sputtering to the surface. She could see the others
floundering nearby, all of them tangled in tethers. Just as Rachel righted
herself, Tolland yelled out.
“It’s coming back up!”
As his words echoed above the tumult, Rachel felt an eerie upwelling in the
water beneath her. Like a massive locomotive straining to reverse direction, the
slab of ice had groaned to a stop underwater and was now beginning its ascent
directly beneath them. Fathoms below, a sickening low frequency rumble resonated
upward through the water as the gigantic submerged sheet began scraping its way
back up the face of the glacier.
The slab rose fast, accelerating as it came, swooping up from the darkness.
Rachel felt herself rising. The ocean roiled all around as the ice met her body.
She scrambled in vain, trying to find her balance as the ice propelled her
skyward along with millions of gallons of seawater. Buoying upward, the giant
sheet bobbed above the surface, heaving and teetering, looking for its center of
gravity. Rachel found herself scrambling in waist-deep water across the
enormous, flat expanse. As the water began pouring off the surface, the current
swallowed Rachel and dragged her toward the edge. Sliding, splayed flat on her
stomach, Rachel could see the edge looming fast.
Hold on! Rachel’s mother’s voice was calling the same way it had when Rachel was
just a child floundering beneath the icy pond. Hold on! Don’t go under!
The wrenching yank on her harness expelled what little air Rachel had left in
her lungs. She jerked to a dead stop only yards from the edge. The motion spun
her in place. Ten yards away, she could see Corky’s limp body, still tethered to
her, also jolting to a stop. They had been flowing off the sheet in opposite
directions and his momentum had stopped her. As the water ran off and grew more
shallow, another dark form appeared over near Corky. He was on his hands and
knees, grasping Corky’s tether and vomiting saltwater.
Michael Tolland.
As the last of the wake drained past her and flowed off the iceberg, Rachel lay
in terrified silence, listening to the sounds of the ocean. Then, feeling the
onset of deadly cold, she dragged herself onto her hands and knees. The ’berg
was still bobbing back and forth, like a giant ice cube. Delirious and in pain,
she crawled back toward the others.
High above on the glacier, Delta-One peered through his night-vision goggles at
the water churning around the Arctic Ocean’s newest tabular iceberg. Although he
saw no bodies in the water, he was not surprised. The ocean was dark, and his
quarry’s weather suits and skullcaps were black.
As he passed his gaze across the surface of the enormous floating sheet of ice,
he had a hard time keeping it in focus. It was receding quickly, already heading
out to sea in the strong offshore currents. He was about to turn his gaze back
to the sea when he saw something unexpected. Three specks of black on the ice.
Are those bodies? Delta-One tried to bring them into focus.
“See something?” Delta-Two asked.
Delta-One said nothing, focusing in with his magnifier. In the pale tint of the
iceberg, he was stunned to see three human forms huddled motionless on the
island of ice. Whether they were alive or dead, Delta-One had no idea. It hardly
mattered. If they were alive, even in weather suits, they’d be dead within the
hour; they were wet, a storm was coming in, and they were drifting seaward into
one of the most deadly oceans on the planet. Their bodies would never be found.
“Just shadows,” Delta-One said, turning from the cliff. “Let’s get back to
base.”
57
Senator Sedgewick Sexton set his snifter of Courvoisier on the mantelpiece of
his Westbrook apartment and stoked the fire for several moments, gathering his
thoughts. The six men in the den with him sat in silence now…waiting. The small
talk was over. It was time for Senator Sexton to make his pitch. They knew it.
He knew it.
Politics was sales.
Establish trust. Let them know you understand their problems.
“As you may know,” Sexton said, turning toward them, “over the past months, I
have met with many men in your same position.” He smiled and sat down, joining
them on their level. “You are the only ones I have ever brought into my home.
You are extraordinary men, and I am honored to meet you.”
Sexton folded his hands and let his eyes circle the room, making personal
contact with each of his guests. Then he focused in on his first mark—the
heavyset man in the cowboy hat.
“Space Industries of Houston,” Sexton said. “I’m glad you came.”
The Texan grunted. “I hate this town.”
“I don’t blame you. Washington has been unfair to you.”
The Texan stared out from beneath the rim of his hat but said nothing.
“Twelve years back,” Sexton began, “you made an offer to the U.S. government.
You proposed to build them a U.S. space station for a mere five billion
dollars.”
“Yeah, I did. I still have the blueprints.”
“And yet NASA convinced the government that a U.S. space station should be a
NASA project.”
“Right. NASA started building almost a decade ago.”
“A decade. And not only is the NASA space station not yet fully operational, but
the project so far has cost twenty times your bid. As an American taxpayer, I am
sickened.”
A grumble of agreement circled the room. Sexton let his eyes move, reconnecting
with the group.
“I am well aware,” the senator said, addressing everyone now, “that several of
your companies have offered to launch private space shuttles for as little as
fifty million dollars per flight.”
More nods.
“And yet NASA undercuts you by charging only thirty-eight million dollars per
flight…even though their actual per flight cost is over one hundred and fifty
million dollars!”
“It’s how they keep us out of space,” one of the men said. “The private sector
cannot possibly compete with a company that can afford to run shuttle flights at
a four hundred percent loss and still stay in business.”
“Nor should you have to,” Sexton said.
Nods all around.
Sexton turned now to the austere entrepreneur beside him, a man whose file
Sexton had read with interest. Like many of the entrepreneurs funding Sexton’s
campaign, this man was a former military engineer who had become disillusioned
with low wages and government bureaucracy and had abandoned his military post to
seek his fortune in aerospace.
“Kistler Aerospace,” Sexton said, shaking his head in despair. “Your company has
designed and manufactured a rocket that can launch payloads for as little as two
thousand dollars per pound compared to NASA’s costs of ten thousand dollars per
pound.” Sexton paused for effect. “And yet you have no clients.”
“Why would I have any clients?” the man replied. “Last week NASA undercut us by
charging Motorola only eight hundred and twelve dollars per pound to launch a
telecomm satellite. The government launched that satellite at a nine hundred
percent loss!”
Sexton nodded. Taxpayers were unwittingly subsidizing an agency that was ten
times less efficient than its competition. “It has become painfully clear,” he
said, his voice darkening, “that NASA is working very hard to stifle competition
in space. They crowd out private aerospace businesses by pricing services below
market value.”
“It’s the Wal-Marting of space,” the Texan said.
Damn good analogy, Sexton thought. I’ll have to remember that. Wal-Mart was
notorious for moving into a new territory, selling products below market value,
and driving all local competition out of business.
“I’m goddamned sick and tired,” the Texan said, “of having to pay millions in
business taxes so Uncle Sam can use that money to steal my clients!”
“I hear you,” Sexton said. “I understand.”
“It’s the lack of corporate sponsorships that’s killing Rotary Rocket,” a
sharply dressed man said. “The laws against sponsorship are criminal!”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Sexton had been shocked to learn that another way NASA
entrenched its monopoly of space was by passing federal mandates banning
advertisements on space vehicles. Instead of allowing private companies to
secure funding through corporate sponsorships and advertising logos—the way, for
example, professional race car drivers did—space vehicles could only display the
words USA and the company name. In a country that spent $185 billion a year on
advertising, not one advertising dollar ever found its way into the coffers of
private space companies.
“It’s robbery,” one of the men snapped. “My company hopes to stay in business
long enough to launch the country’s first tourist-shuttle prototype next May. We
expect enormous press coverage. The Nike Corporation just offered us seven
million in sponsorship dollars to paint the Nike swoosh and ‘Just do it!’ on the
side of the shuttle. Pepsi offered us twice that for ‘Pepsi: The choice of a new
generation.’ But according to federal law, if our shuttle displays advertising,
we are prohibited from launching it!”
“That’s right,” Senator Sexton said. “And if elected, I will work to abolish
that antisponsorship legislation. That is a promise. Space should be open for
advertising the way every square inch of earth is open to advertising.”
Sexton gazed out now at his audience, his eyes locking in, his voice growing
solemn. “We all need to be aware, however, that the biggest obstacle to
privatization of NASA is not laws, but rather, it is public perception. Most
Americans still hold a romanticized view of the American space program. They
still believe NASA is a necessary government agency.”
“It’s those goddamned Hollywood movies!” one man said. “How many
NASA-saves-the-world-from-a-killer-asteroid movies can Hollywood make, for
Christ’s sake? It’s propaganda!”
The plethora of NASA movies coming out of Hollywood, Sexton knew, was simply a
matter of economics. Following the wildly popular movie Top Gun—a Tom Cruise jet
pilot blockbuster that played like a two-hour advertisement for the U.S.
Navy—NASA realized the true potential of Hollywood as a public relations
powerhouse. NASA quietly began offering film companies free filming access to
all of NASA’s dramatic facilities—launchpads, mission control, training
facilities. Producers, who were accustomed to paying enormous on-site licensing
fees when they filmed anywhere else, jumped at the opportunity to save millions
in budget costs by making NASA thrillers on “free” sets. Of course, Hollywood
only got access if NASA approved the script.
“Public brainwashing,” a Hispanic grunted. “The movies aren’t half as bad as the
publicity stunts. Sending a senior citizen into space? And now NASA is planning
an all-female shuttle crew? All for publicity!”
Sexton sighed, his tone turning tragic. “True, and I know I don’t have to remind
you what happened back in the eighties when the Department of Education was
bankrupt and cited NASA as wasting millions that could be spent on education.
NASA devised a PR stunt to prove NASA was education-friendly. They sent a public
school teacher into space.” Sexton paused. “You all remember Christa McAuliffe.”
The room fell silent.
“Gentlemen,” Sexton said, stopping dramatically in front of the fire. “I believe
it is time Americans understood the truth, for the good of all of our futures.
It’s time Americans understand that NASA is not leading us skyward, but rather
is stifling space exploration. Space is no different than any other industry,
and keeping the private sector grounded verges on a criminal act. Consider the
computer industry, in which we see such an explosion of progress that we can
barely keep up from week to week! Why? Because the computer industry is a
free-market system: It rewards efficiency and vision with profits. Imagine if
the computer industry were government-run? We would still be in the dark ages.
We’re stagnating in space. We should put space exploration into the hands of the
private sector where it belongs. Americans would be stunned by the growth, jobs,
and realized dreams. I believe we should let the free-market system spur us to
new heights in space. If elected, I will make it my personal mission to unlock
the doors to the final frontier and let them swing wide open.”
Sexton lifted his snifter of cognac.
“My friends, you came here tonight to decide if I am someone worthy of your
trust. I hope I am on the way to earning it. In the same way it takes investors
to build a company, it takes investors to build a presidency. In the same way
corporate stockholders expect returns, you as political investors expect
returns. My message to you tonight is simple: Invest in me, and I will never
forget you. Ever. Our missions are one and the same.”
Sexton extended his glass toward them in a toast.
“With your help, my friends, soon I will be in the White House…and you will all
be launching your dreams.”
Only fifteen feet away, Gabrielle Ashe stood in the shadows, rigid. From the den
came the harmonious clink of crystal snifters and the crackle of the fire.
58
In a panic, the young NASA technician dashed through the habisphere. Something
terrible has happened! He found Administrator Ekstrom alone near the press area.
“Sir,” the technician gasped, running up. “There’s been an accident!”
Ekstrom turned, looking distant, as if his thoughts were already deeply troubled
with other matters. “What did you say? An accident? Where?”
“In the extraction pit. A body just floated up. Dr. Wailee Ming.”
Ekstrom’s face was blank. “Dr. Ming? But…”
“We pulled him out, but it was too late. He’s dead.”
“For Christ’s sake. How long has he been in there?”
“We think about an hour. It looks like he fell in, sank to the bottom, but when
his body bloated, he floated up again.”
Ekstrom’s reddish skin turned crimson. “Goddamn it! Who else knows about this?”
“Nobody, sir. Only two of us. We fished him out, but we thought we better tell
you before—”
“You did the right thing.” Ekstrom exhaled a weighty sigh. “Stow Dr. Ming’s body
immediately. Say nothing.”
The technician felt perplexed. “But, sir, I—”
Ekstrom put a large hand on the man’s shoulder. “Listen to me carefully. This is
a tragic accident, one I deeply regret. Of course I will deal with it
appropriately when the time comes. Now, however, is not the time.”
“You want me to hide his body?”
Ekstrom’s cold Nordic eyes bore down. “Think about it. We could tell everyone,
but what would that accomplish? We’re about an hour off from this press
conference. Announcing that we’ve had a fatal accident would overshadow the
discovery and have a devastating effect on morale. Dr. Ming made a careless
mistake; I have no intention of making NASA pay for it. These civilian
scientists have taken enough of the spotlight without my letting one of their
slipshod errors cast a shadow over our public moment of glory. Dr. Ming’s
accident remains a secret until after the press conference. Do you understand?”
The man nodded, pale. “I’ll stow his body.”
59
Michael Tolland had been at sea enough times to know the ocean took victims
without remorse or hesitation. As he lay in exhaustion on the expansive sheet of
ice, he could just make out the ghostly outline of the towering Milne Ice Shelf
receding in the distance. He knew the powerful Arctic current flowing off the
Elizabethan Islands spiraled in an enormous loop around the polar ice cap and
would eventually skirt land in northern Russia. Not that it mattered. That would
be months from now.
We’ve got maybe thirty minutes…forty-five at the most.
Without the protective insulation of their gel-filled suits, Tolland knew they
would be dead already. Thankfully, the Mark IXs had kept them dry—the most
critical aspect of surviving cold weather. The thermal gel around their bodies
had not only cushioned their fall, but it was now helping their bodies retain
what little heat they had left.
Soon hypothermia would set in. It would start with a vague numbness in limbs as
the blood retreated to the body’s core to protect the critical internal organs.
Delirious hallucinations would come next, as the pulse and respiration slowed,
cheating the brain of oxygen. Then, the body would make a final effort to
conserve its remaining heat by shutting down all operations except the heart and
respiration. Unconsciousness would follow. In the end, heart and respiration
centers in the brain would stop functioning altogether.
Tolland turned his gaze toward Rachel, wishing he could do something to save
her.
The numbness spreading through Rachel Sexton’s body was less painful than she
would have imagined. Almost a welcome anesthetic. Nature’s morphine. She had
lost her goggles in the collapse, and she could barely open her eyes against the
cold.
She could see Tolland and Corky on the ice nearby. Tolland was looking at her,
eyes filled with regret. Corky was moving but obviously in pain. His right
cheekbone was smashed and bloody.
Rachel’s body trembled wildly as her mind searched for answers. Who? Why? Her
thoughts were muddled by a growing heaviness inside her. Nothing was making
sense. She felt like her body was slowly shutting down, lulled by an invisible
force pulling her to sleep. She fought it. A fiery anger ignited within her now,
and she tried to fan the flames.
They tried to kill us! She peered out at the threatening sea and sensed their
attackers had succeeded. We’re already dead. Even now, knowing she would
probably not live to learn the whole truth about the deadly game being played
out on the Milne Ice Shelf, Rachel suspected she already knew who to blame.
Administrator Ekstrom had the most to gain. He was the one who sent them out on
the ice. He had ties to the Pentagon and Special Ops. But what did Ekstrom have
to gain by inserting the meteorite beneath the ice? What did anyone have to
gain?
Rachel flashed on Zach Herney, wondering if the President was a coconspirator or
an unknowing pawn? Herney knows nothing. He’s innocent. The President obviously
had been duped by NASA. Now Herney was only about an hour away from making
NASA’s announcement. And he would do so armed with a video documentary
containing endorsements from four civilian scientists.
Four dead civilian scientists.
Rachel could do nothing to stop the press conference now, but she vowed that
whoever was responsible for this attack would not get away with it.
Summoning her strength, Rachel tried to sit up. Her limbs felt like granite, all
her joints screaming in pain as she bent her legs and arms. Slowly, she pulled
herself to her knees, steadying herself on the flat ice. Her head spun. All
around her the ocean churned. Tolland lay nearby, gazing up at her with
inquisitive eyes. Rachel sensed he probably thought she was kneeling in prayer.
She was not, of course, although prayer probably had as good a chance of saving
them as what she was about to attempt.
Rachel’s right hand fumbled across her waist and found the ice ax still bungeed
to her belt. Her stiff fingers gripped the handle. She inverted the ax,
positioning it like an upside down T. Then, with all her energy, she drove the
butt downward into the ice. Thud. Again. Thud. The blood felt like cold molasses
in her veins. Thud. Tolland looked on in obvious confusion. Rachel drove the ax
down again. Thud.
Tolland tried to lift himself onto his elbow. “Ra…chel?”
She did not answer. She needed all her energy. Thud. Thud.
“I don’t think…,” Tolland said, “this far north…that the SAA…could hear…”
Rachel turned, surprised. She had forgotten Tolland was an oceanographer and
might have some idea what she was up to. Right idea…but I’m not calling the SAA.
She kept pounding.
The SAA stood for a Suboceanic Acoustic Array, a relic of the Cold War now used
by oceanographers worldwide to listen for whales. Because underwater sounds
carried for hundreds of miles, the SAA network of fifty-nine underwater
microphones around the world could listen to a surprisingly large percentage of
the planet’s oceans. Unfortunately, this remote section of the Arctic was not
part of that percentage, but Rachel knew there were others out there listening
to the ocean floor—others that few on earth knew existed. She kept pounding. Her
message was simple and clear.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
THUD…THUD…THUD…
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Rachel had no delusions that her actions would save their lives; she could
already feel a frosty tightness gripping her body. She doubted she had a half
hour of life left in her. Rescue was beyond the realm of possibility now. But
this was not about rescue.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
THUD…THUD…THUD…
THUD. THUD. THUD.
“There’s…no time…” Tolland said.
It’s not…about us, she thought. It’s about the information in my pocket. Rachel
pictured the incriminating GPR printout inside the Velcro pocket of her Mark IX
suit. I need to get the GPR printout into the hands of the NRO…and soon.
Even in her delirious state, Rachel was certain her message would be received.
In the mid-eighties, the NRO had replaced the SAA with an array thirty times as
powerful. Total global coverage: Classic Wizard, the NRO’s $12 million ear to
the ocean floor. In the next few hours the Cray supercomputers at the NRO/NSA
listening post in Menwith Hill, England, would flag an anomalous sequence in one
of the Arctic’s hydrophones, decipher the pounding as an SOS, triangulate the
coordinates, and dispatch a rescue plane from Thule Air Force Base in Greenland.
The plane would find three bodies on an iceberg. Frozen. Dead. One would be an
NRO employee…and she would be carrying a strange piece of thermal paper in her
pocket.
A GPR printout.
Norah Mangor’s final legacy.
When the rescuers studied the printout, the mysterious insertion tunnel beneath
the meteorite would be revealed. From there, Rachel had no idea what would
happen, but at least the secret would not die with them here on the ice.
60
Every president’s transition into the White House involves a private tour of
three heavily guarded warehouses containing priceless collections of past White
House furniture: desks, silverware, bureaus, beds, and other items used by past
presidents as far back as George Washington. During the tour, the transitioning
president is invited to select any heirlooms he likes and use them as
furnishings inside the White House during his term. Only the bed in the Lincoln
Bedroom is a permanent White House fixture. Ironically, Lincoln never slept in
it.
The desk at which Zach Herney was currently sitting inside the Oval Office had
once belonged to his idol, Harry Truman. The desk, though small by modern
standards, served as a daily reminder to Zach Herney that the “buck” did indeed
stop here, and that Herney was ultimately responsible for any shortcomings of
his administration. Herney accepted the responsibility as an honor and did his
best to instill in his staff the motivations to do whatever it took to get the
job done.
“Mr. President?” his secretary called out, peering into the office. “Your call
just went through.”
Herney waved. “Thank you.”
He reached for his phone. He would have preferred some privacy for this call,
but he sure as hell was not going to get any of that right now. Two makeup
specialists hovered like gnats, poking and primping at his face and hair.
Directly in front of his desk, a television crew was setting up, and an endless
swarm of advisers and PR people scurried around the office, excitedly discussing
strategy.
T minus one hour…
Herney pressed the illuminated button on his private phone. “Lawrence? You
there?”
“I’m here.” The NASA administrator’s voice sounded consumed, distant.
“Everything okay up there?”
“Storm’s still moving in, but my people tell me the satellite link will not be
affected. We’re good to go. One hour and counting.”
“Excellent. Spirits high, I hope.”
“Very high. My staff’s excited. In fact, we just shared some beers.”
Herney laughed. “Glad to hear it. Look, I wanted to call and thank you before we
do this thing. Tonight’s going to be one hell of a night.”
The administrator paused, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain. “That it
will, sir. We’ve been waiting a long time for this.”
Herney hesitated. “You sound exhausted.”
“I need some sunlight and a real bed.”
“One more hour. Smile for the cameras, enjoy the moment, and then we’ll get a
plane up there to bring you back to D.C.”
“Looking forward to it.” The man fell silent again.
As a skilled negotiator, Herney was trained to listen, to hear what was being
said between the lines. Something in the administrator’s voice sounded off
somehow. “You sure everything’s okay up there?”
“Absolutely. All systems go.” The administrator seemed eager to change the
subject. “Did you see the final cut of Michael Tolland’s documentary?”
“Just watched it,” Herney said. “He did a fantastic job.”
“Yes. You made a good call bringing him in.”
“Still mad at me for involving civilians?”
“Hell, yes.” The administrator growled good-naturedly, his voice with the usual
strength to it.
It made Herney feel better. Ekstrom’s fine, Herney thought. Just a little tired.
“Okay, I’ll see you in an hour via satellite. We’ll give ’em something to talk
about.”
“Right.”
“Hey, Lawrence?” Herney’s voice grew low and solemn now. “You’ve done a hell of
a thing up there. I won’t ever forget it.”
Outside the habisphere, buffeted by wind, Delta-Three struggled to right and
repack Norah Mangor’s toppled equipment sled. Once all the equipment was back
onboard, he battened down the vinyl top and draped Mangor’s dead body across the
top, tying her down. As he was preparing to drag the sled off course, his two
partners came skimming up the glacier toward him.
“Change of plans,” Delta-One called out above the wind. “The other three went
over the edge.”
Delta-Three was not surprised. He also knew what it meant. The Delta Force’s
plan to stage an accident by arranging four dead bodies on the ice shelf was no
longer a viable option. Leaving a lone body would pose more questions than
answers. “Sweep?” he asked.
Delta-One nodded. “I’ll recover the flares and you two get rid of the sled.”
While Delta-One carefully retraced the scientists’ path, collecting every last
clue that anyone had been there at all, Delta-Three and his partner moved down
the glacier with the laden equipment sled. After struggling over the berms, they
finally reached the precipice at the end of the Milne Ice Shelf. They gave a
push, and Norah Mangor and her sled slipped silently over the edge, plummeting
into the Arctic Ocean.
Clean sweep, Delta-Three thought.
As they headed back to base, he was pleased to see the wind obliterating the
tracks made by their skis.
61
The nuclear submarine Charlotte had been stationed in the Arctic Ocean for five
days now. Its presence here was highly classified.
A Los Angeles–class sub, the Charlotte was designed to “listen and not be
heard.” Its forty-two tons of turbine engines were suspended on springs to
dampen any vibration they might cause. Despite its requirement for stealth, the
LA-class sub had one of the largest footprints of any reconnaissance sub in the
water. Stretching more than 360 feet from nose to stern, the hull, if placed on
an NFL football field, would crush both goalposts and then some. Seven times the
length of the U.S. Navy’s first Holland-class submarine, the Charlotte displaced
6,927 tons of water when fully submerged and could cruise at an astounding
thirty-five knots.
The vessel’s normal cruising depth was just below the thermocline, a natural
temperature gradient that distorted sonar reflections from above and made the
sub invisible to surface radar. With a crew of 148 and max dive depth of over
fifteen hundred feet, the vessel represented the state-of-the-art submersible
and was the oceanic workhorse of the United States Navy. Its evaporative
electrolysis oxygenation system, two nuclear reactors, and engineered provisions
gave it the ability to circumnavigate the globe twenty-one times without
surfacing. Human waste from the crew, as on most cruise ships, was compressed
into sixty-pound blocks and ejected into the ocean—the huge bricks of feces
jokingly referred to as “whale turds.”
The technician sitting at the oscillator screen in the sonar room was one of the
best in the world. His mind was a dictionary of sounds and waveforms. He could
distinguish between the sounds of several dozen Russian submarine propellers,
hundreds of marine animals, and even pinpoint underwater volcanoes as far away
as Japan.
At the moment, however, he was listening to a dull, repetitive echo. The sound,
although easily distinguishable, was most unexpected.
“You aren’t going to believe what’s coming through my listening cans,” he said
to his catalog assistant, handing over the headphones.
His assistant donned the headphones, an incredulous look crossing his face. “My
God. It’s clear as day. What do we do?”
The sonar man was already on the phone to the captain.
When the submarine’s captain arrived in the sonar room, the technician piped a
live sonar feed over a small set of speakers.
The captain listened, expressionless.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
THUD…THUD…THUD…
Slower. Slower. The pattern was becoming looser. More and more faint.
“What are the coordinates?” the captain demanded.
The technician cleared his throat. “Actually, sir, it’s coming from the surface,
about three miles to our starboard.”
62
In the darkened hallway outside Senator Sexton’s den, Gabrielle Ashe’s legs were
trembling. Not so much out of exhaustion from standing motionless, but from
disillusionment over what she was listening to. The meeting in the next room was
still going, but Gabrielle didn’t have to hear another word. The truth seemed
painfully obvious.
Senator Sexton is taking bribes from private space agencies. Marjorie Tench had
been telling the truth.
The revulsion Gabrielle felt spreading through her now was one of betrayal. She
had believed in Sexton. She’d fought for him. How can he do this? Gabrielle had
seen the senator lie publicly from time to time to protect his private life, but
that was politics. This was breaking the law.
He’s not even elected yet, and he’s already selling out the White House!
Gabrielle knew she could no longer support the senator. Promising to deliver the
NASA privatization bill could be done only with a contemptuous disregard for
both the law and the democratic system. Even if the senator believed it would be
in everyone’s best interest, to sell that decision flat out, in advance, slammed
the door on the checks and balances of government, ignoring potentially
persuasive arguments from Congress, advisers, voters, and lobbyists. Most
important, guaranteeing the privatization of NASA, Sexton had paved the way for
endless abuses of that advanced knowledge—insider trading the most
common—blatantly favoring the wealthy, inside cadre at the expense of honest
public investors.
Feeling sick to her stomach, Gabrielle wondered what she should do.
A telephone rang sharply behind her, shattering the silence of the hallway.
Startled, Gabrielle turned. The sound was coming from the closet in the foyer—a
cellphone in the pocket of one of the visitors’ coats.
“’Scuse me, friends,” a Texas drawl said in the den. “That’s me.”
Gabrielle could hear the man get up. He’s coming this way! Wheeling, she dashed
back up the carpet the way she’d come. Halfway up the hall, she cut left,
ducking into the darkened kitchen just as the Texan exited the den and turned up
the hall. Gabrielle froze, motionless in the shadows.
The Texan strode by without noticing.
Over the sound of her pounding heart, Gabrielle could hear him rustling in the
closet. Finally, he answered the ringing phone.
“Yeah?…When?…Really? We’ll switch it on. Thanks.” The man hung up and headed
back toward the den, calling out as he went. “Hey! Turn on the television.
Sounds like Zach Herney’s giving an urgent press conference tonight. Eight
o’clock. All channels. Either we’re declaring war on China, or the International
Space Station just fell into the ocean.”
“Now wouldn’t that be something to toast!” someone called out.
Everyone laughed.
Gabrielle felt the kitchen spinning around her now. An eight P.M. press
conference? Tench, it seemed, had not been bluffing after all. She had given
Gabrielle until 8:00 P.M. to give her an affidavit admitting the affair.
Distance yourself from the senator before it’s too late, Tench had told her.
Gabrielle had assumed the deadline was so the White House could leak the
information to tomorrow’s papers, but now it seemed the White House intended to
go public with the allegations themselves.
An urgent press conference? The more Gabrielle considered it, though, the
stranger it seemed. Herney is going live with this mess? Personally?
The television came on in the den. Blaring. The news announcer’s voice was
bursting with excitement. “The White House has offered no clues as to the topic
of tonight’s surprise presidential address, and speculation abounds. Some
political analysts now think that following the President’s recent absence on
the campaign trail, Zach Herney may be preparing to announce he will not be
running for a second term.”
A hopeful cheer arose in the den.
Absurd, Gabrielle thought. With all the dirt the White House had on Sexton right
now, there was no way in hell the President was throwing in the towel tonight.
This press conference is about something else. Gabrielle had a sinking feeling
she’d already been warned what it was.
With rising urgency, she checked her watch. Less than an hour. She had a
decision to make, and she knew exactly to whom she needed to talk. Clutching the
envelope of photos under her arm, she quietly exited the apartment.
In the hallway, the bodyguard looked relieved. “I heard some cheering inside.
Sounds like you were a hit.”
She smiled curtly and headed for the elevator.
Outside in the street, the settling night felt unusually bitter. Flagging a cab,
she climbed in and tried to reassure herself she knew exactly what she was
doing.
“ABC television studios,” she told the driver. “And hurry.”
63
As Michael Tolland lay on his side on the ice, he rested his head on an
outstretched arm, which he could no longer feel. Although his eyelids felt
heavy, he fought to keep them open. From this odd vantage point, Tolland took in
the final images of his world—now just sea and ice—in a strange sideways tilt.
It seemed a fitting end to a day in which nothing had been what it seemed.
An eerie calm had begun to settle over the floating raft of ice. Rachel and
Corky had both fallen silent, and the pounding had stopped. The farther from the
glacier they floated, the calmer the wind became. Tolland heard his own body
getting quieter too. With the tight skullcap over his ears, he could hear his
own breathing amplified in his head. It was getting slower…shallower. His body
was no longer able to fight off the compressing sensation that accompanied his
own blood racing from his extremities like a crew abandoning ship, flowing
instinctively to his vital organs in a last-ditch effort to keep him conscious.
A losing battle, he knew.
Strangely, there was no pain anymore. He had passed through that stage. The
sensation now was that of having been inflated. Numbness. Floating. As the first
of his reflexive operations—blinking—began to shut down, Tolland’s vision
blurred. The aqueous humor that circulated between his cornea and lens was
freezing repeatedly. Tolland gazed back toward the blur of the Milne Ice Shelf,
now only a faint white form in the hazy moonlight.
He felt his soul admitting defeat. Teetering on the brink between presence and
absence, he stared out at the ocean waves in the distance. The wind howled all
around him.
It was then that Tolland began hallucinating. Strangely, in the final seconds
before unconsciousness, he did not hallucinate rescue. He did not hallucinate
warm and comforting thoughts. His final delusion was a terrifying one.
A leviathan was rising from the water beside the iceberg, breaching the surface
with an ominous hiss. Like some mythical sea monster, it came—sleek, black, and
lethal, with water foaming around it. Tolland forced himself to blink his eyes.
His vision cleared slightly. The beast was close, bumping up against the ice
like a huge shark butting a small boat. Massive, it towered before him, its skin
shimmering and wet.
As the hazy image went black, all that was left were the sounds. Metal on metal.
Teeth gnashing at the ice. Coming closer. Dragging bodies away.
Rachel…
Tolland felt himself being grabbed roughly.
And then everything went blank.
64
Gabrielle Ashe was at a full jog when she entered the third-floor production
room of ABC News. Even so, she was moving slower than everyone else in the room.
The intensity in production was at a fever pitch twenty-four hours a day, but at
the moment the cubicle grid in front of her looked like the stock exchange on
speed. Wild-eyed editors screamed to one another over the tops of their
compartments, fax-waving reporters darted from cubicle to cubicle comparing
notes, and frantic interns inhaled Snickers and Mountain Dew between errands.
Gabrielle had come to ABC to see Yolanda Cole.
Usually Yolanda could be found in production’s high-rent district—the
glass-walled private offices reserved for the decision makers who actually
required some quiet to think. Tonight, however, Yolanda was out on the floor, in
the thick of it. When she saw Gabrielle, she let out her usual shriek of
exuberance.
“Gabs!” Yolanda was wearing a batik body-wrap and tortoiseshell glasses. As
always, several pounds of garish costume jewelry were draped off her like
tinsel. Yolanda waddled over, waving. “Hug!”
Yolanda Cole had been a content editor with ABC News in Washington for sixteen
years. A freckle-faced Pole, Yolanda was a squat, balding woman whom everyone
affectionately called “Mother.” Her matronly presence and good humor disguised a
street-savvy ruthlessness for getting the story. Gabrielle had met Yolanda at a
Women in Politics mentoring seminar she’d attended shortly after her arrival in
Washington. They’d chatted about Gabrielle’s background, the challenges of being
a woman in D.C., and finally about Elvis Presley—a passion they were surprised
to discover they shared. Yolanda had taken Gabrielle under her wing and helped
her make connections. Gabrielle still stopped by every month or so to say hello.
Gabrielle gave her a big hug, Yolanda’s enthusiasm already lifting her spirits.
Yolanda stepped back and looked Gabrielle over. “You look like you aged a
hundred years, girl! What happened to you?”
Gabrielle lowered her voice. “I’m in trouble, Yolanda.”
“That’s not the word on the street. Sounds like your man is on the rise.”
“Is there some place we can talk in private?”
“Bad timing, honey. The President is holding a press conference in about half an
hour, and we still haven’t a clue what it’s all about. I’ve got to line up
expert commentary, and I’m flying blind.”
“I know what the press conference is about.”
Yolanda lowered her glasses, looking skeptical. “Gabrielle, our correspondent
inside the White House is in the dark on this one. You say Sexton’s campaign has
advance knowledge?”
“No, I’m saying I have advance knowledge. Give me five minutes. I’ll tell you
everything.”
Yolanda glanced down at the red White House envelope in Gabrielle’s hand.
“That’s a White House internal. Where’d you get that?”
“In a private meeting with Marjorie Tench this afternoon.”
Yolanda stared a long moment. “Follow me.”
Inside the privacy of Yolanda’s glass-walled cubicle, Gabrielle confided in her
trusted friend, confessing to a one-night affair with Sexton and the fact that
Tench had photographic evidence.
Yolanda smiled broadly and shook her head laughing. Apparently she had been in
Washington journalism so long that nothing shocked her. “Oh, Gabs, I had a hunch
you and Sexton had probably hooked up. Not surprising. He’s got a reputation,
and you’re a pretty girl. Too bad about the photos. I wouldn’t worry about it,
though.”
Don’t worry about it?
Gabrielle explained that Tench had accused Sexton of taking illegal bribes from
space companies and that Gabrielle had just overheard a secret SFF meeting
confirming that fact! Again Yolanda’s expression conveyed little surprise or
concern—until Gabrielle told her what she was thinking of doing about it.
Yolanda now looked troubled. “Gabrielle, if you want to hand over a legal
document saying you slept with a U.S. senator and stood by while he lied about
it, that’s your business. But I’m telling you, it’s a very bad move for you. You
need to think long and hard about what it could mean for you.”
“You’re not listening. I don’t have that kind of time!”
“I am listening, and sweetheart, whether or not the clock is ticking, there are
certain things you just do not do. You do not sell out a U.S. senator in a sex
scandal. It’s suicide. I’m telling you, girl, if you take down a presidential
candidate, you better get in your car and drive as far from D.C. as possible.
You’ll be a marked woman. A lot of people spend a lot of money to put candidates
at the top. There’s big finances and power at stake here—the kind of power
people kill for.”
Gabrielle fell silent now.
“Personally,” Yolanda said, “I think Tench was leaning on you in hopes you’d
panic and do something dumb—like bail out and confess to the affair.” Yolanda
pointed to the red envelope in Gabrielle’s hands. “Those shots of you and Sexton
don’t mean squat unless you or Sexton admit they’re accurate. The White House
knows if they leak those photos, Sexton will just claim they’re phony and throw
them back in the president’s face.”
“I thought of that, but still the campaign finance bribery issue is—”
“Honey, think about it. If the White House hasn’t gone public yet with bribery
allegations, they probably don’t intend to. The President is pretty serious
about no negative campaigning. My guess is he decided to save an aerospace
industry scandal and sent Tench after you with a bluff in hopes he might scare
you out of hiding on the sex thing. Make you stab your candidate in the back.”
Gabrielle considered it. Yolanda was making sense, and yet something still felt
odd. Gabrielle pointed through the glass at the bustling news room. “Yolanda,
you guys are gearing up for a big presidential press conference. If the
President is not going public about bribery or sex, what’s it all about?”
Yolanda looked stunned. “Hold on. You think this press conference is about you
and Sexton?”
“Or the bribery. Or both. Tench told me I had until eight tonight to sign a
confession or else the President was going to announce—”
Yolanda’s laughter shook the entire glass cubicle. “Oh please! Wait! You’re
killing me!”
Gabrielle was in no mood for joking. “What!”
“Gabs, listen,” Yolanda managed, between laughs, “trust me on this. I’ve been
dealing with the White House for sixteen years, and there’s no way Zach Herney
has called together the global media to tell them he suspects Senator Sexton is
accepting shady campaign financing or sleeping with you. That’s the kind of
information you leak. Presidents don’t gain popularity by interrupting regularly
scheduled programming to bitch and moan about sex or alleged infractions of
cloudy campaign finance laws.”
“Cloudy?” Gabrielle snapped. “Flat out selling your decision on a space bill for
millions in ad money is hardly a cloudy issue!”
“Are you sure that’s what he is doing?” Yolanda’s tone hardened now. “Are you
sure enough to drop your skirt on national TV? Think about it. It takes a lot of
alliances to get anything done these days, and campaign finance is complex
stuff. Maybe Sexton’s meeting was perfectly legal.”
“He’s breaking the law,” Gabrielle said. Isn’t he?
“Or so Marjorie Tench would have you believe. Candidates accept
behind-the-scenes donations all the time from big corporations. It may not be
pretty, but it’s not necessarily illegal. In fact, most legal issues deal not
with where the money comes from but how the candidate chooses to spend it.”
Gabrielle hesitated, feeling uncertain now.
“Gabs, the White House played you this afternoon. They tried to turn you against
your candidate, and so far you’ve called their bluff. If I were looking for
someone to trust, I think I’d stick with Sexton before jumping ship to someone
like Marjorie Tench.”
Yolanda’s phone rang. She answered, nodding, uh-huh-ing, taking notes.
“Interesting,” she finally said. “I’ll be right there. Thanks.”
Yolanda hung up and turned with an arched brow. “Gabs, sounds like you’re off
the hook. Just as I predicted.”
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t have a specific yet, but I can tell you this much—the president’s press
conference has nothing to do with sex scandals or campaign finance.”
Gabrielle felt a flash of hope and wanted badly to believe her. “How do you know
that?”
“Someone on the inside just leaked that the press conference is NASA-related.”
Gabrielle sat up suddenly. “NASA?”
Yolanda winked. “This could be your lucky night. My bet is President Herney is
feeling so much pressure from Senator Sexton that he’s decided the White House
has no choice but to pull the plug on the International Space Station. That
explains all the global media coverage.”
A press conference killing the space station? Gabrielle could not imagine.
Yolanda stood up. “That Tench attack this afternoon? It was probably just a
last-ditch effort to get a foothold over Sexton before the President had to go
public with the bad news. Nothing like a sex scandal to take the attention away
from another presidential flop. Anyhow, Gabs, I’ve got work to do. My advice to
you—get yourself a cup of coffee, sit right here, turn on my television, and
ride this out like the rest of us. We’ve got twenty minutes until show time, and
I’m telling you, there is no way the President is going Dumpster-diving tonight.
He’s got the whole world watching. Whatever he has to say carries some serious
weight.” She gave a reassuring wink. “Now give me the envelope.”
“What?”
Yolanda held out a demanding hand. “These pictures are getting locked in my desk
until this is over. I want to be sure you don’t do something idiotic.”
Reluctantly, Gabrielle handed over the envelope.
Yolanda locked the photos carefully in a desk drawer and pocketed the keys.
“You’ll thank me, Gabs. I swear it.” She playfully ruffled Gabrielle’s hair on
her way out. “Sit tight. I think good news is on the way.”
Gabrielle sat alone in the glass cubicle and tried to let Yolanda’s upbeat
attitude lift her mood. All Gabrielle could think of, though, was the
self-satisfied smirk on the face of Marjorie Tench this afternoon. Gabrielle
could not imagine what the President was about to tell the world, but it was
definitely not going to be good news for Senator Sexton.
65
Rachel Sexton felt like she was being burned alive.
It’s raining fire!
She tried to open her eyes, but all she could make out were foggy shapes and
blinding lights. It was raining all around her. Scalding hot rain. Pounding down
on her bare skin. She was lying on her side and could feel hot tiles beneath her
body. She curled more tightly into the fetal position, trying to protect herself
from the scalding liquid falling from above. She smelled chemicals. Chlorine,
maybe. She tried to crawl away, but she could not. Powerful hands pressed down
on her shoulders, holding her down.
Let me go! I’m burning!
Instinctively, she again fought to escape, and again she was rebuffed, the
strong hands clamping down. “Stay where you are,” a man’s voice said. The accent
was American. Professional. “It will be over soon.”
What will be over? Rachel wondered. The pain? My life? She tried to focus her
vision. The lights in this place were harsh. She sensed the room was small.
Cramped. Low ceilings.
“I’m burning!” Rachel’s scream was a whisper.
“You’re fine,” the voice said. “This water is lukewarm. Trust me.”
Rachel realized she was mostly undressed, wearing only her soaked underwear. No
embarrassment registered; her mind was filled with too many other questions.
The memories were coming back now in a torrent. The ice shelf. The GPR. The
attack. Who? Where am I? She tried to put the pieces together, but her mind felt
torpid, like a set of clogged gears. From out of the muddled confusion came a
single thought: Michael and Corky…where are they?
Rachel tried to focus her bleary vision but saw only the men standing over her.
They were all dressed in the same blue jumpsuits. She wanted to speak, but her
mouth refused to formulate a single word. The burning sensation in her skin was
now giving way to sudden deep waves of aching that rolled through the muscles
like seismic tremors.
“Let it happen,” the man over her said. “The blood needs to flow back into your
musculature.” He spoke like a doctor. “Try to move your limbs as much as you
can.”
The pain racking Rachel’s body felt as if every muscle was being beaten with a
hammer. She lay there on the tile, her chest contracting, and she could barely
breathe.
“Move your legs and arms,” the man insisted. “No matter what it feels like.”
Rachel tried. Each movement felt like a knife being thrust into her joints. The
jets of water grew hotter again. The scalding was back. The crushing pain went
on. At the precise instant she thought she could not withstand another moment,
Rachel felt someone giving her an injection. The pain seemed to subside quickly,
less and less violent, releasing. The tremors slowed. She felt herself breathing
again.
A new sensation was spreading through her body now, the eerie bite of pins and
needles. Everywhere—stabbing—sharper and sharper. Millions of tiny needle-point
jabs, intensifying whenever she moved. She tried to hold motionless, but the
water jets continued to buffet her. The man above her was holding her arms,
moving them.
God that hurts! Rachel was too weak to fight. Tears of exhaustion and pain
poured down her face. She shut her eyes hard, blocking out the world.
Finally, the pins and needles began to dissipate. The rain from above stopped.
When Rachel opened her eyes, her vision was clearer.
It was then that she saw them.
Corky and Tolland lay nearby, quivering, half-naked and soaked. From the looks
of anguish on their faces, Rachel sensed that they had just endured similar
experiences. Michael Tolland’s brown eyes were bloodshot and glassy. When he saw
Rachel, he managed a weak smile, his blue lips trembling.
Rachel tried to sit up, to take in their bizarre surroundings. The three of them
were lying in a trembling twist of half-naked limbs on the floor of a tiny
shower room.
66
Strong arms lifted her.
Rachel felt the powerful strangers drying her body and wrapping her in blankets.
She was being placed on a medical bed of some sort and vigorously massaged on
her arms, legs, and feet. Another injection in her arm.
“Adrenaline,” someone said.
Rachel felt the drug coursing through her veins like a life force, invigorating
her muscles. Although she still felt an icy hollowness tight like a drum in her
gut, Rachel sensed the blood slowly returning to her limbs.
Back from the dead.
She tried to focus her vision. Tolland and Corky were lying nearby, shivering in
blankets as the men massaged their bodies and gave them injections as well.
Rachel had no doubt that this mysterious assemblage of men had just saved their
lives. Many of them were soaking wet, apparently having jumped into the showers
fully clothed to help. Who they were or how they had gotten to Rachel and the
others in time was beyond her. It made no difference at the moment. We’re alive.
“Where…are we?” Rachel managed, the simple act of trying to speak bringing on a
crashing headache.
The man massaging her replied, “You’re on the medical deck of a Los Angeles
class—”
“On deck!” someone called out.
Rachel sensed a sudden commotion all around her, and she tried to sit up. One of
the men in blue helped, propping her up, and pulling the blankets up around her.
Rachel rubbed her eyes and saw someone striding into the room.
The newcomer was a powerful African-American man. Handsome and authoritative.
His uniform was khaki. “At ease,” he declared, moving toward Rachel, stopping
over her and gazing down at her with strong black eyes. “Harold Brown,” he said,
his voice deep and commanding. “Captain of the U.S.S. Charlotte. And you are?”
U.S.S. Charlotte, Rachel thought. The name seemed vaguely familiar. “Sexton…,”
she replied. “I’m Rachel Sexton.”
The man looked puzzled. He stepped closer, studying her more carefully. “I’ll be
damned. So you are.”
Rachel felt lost. He knows me? Rachel was certain she did not recognize the man,
although as her eyes dropped from his face to the patch on his chest, she saw
the familiar emblem of an eagle clutching an anchor surrounded by the words U.S.
NAVY.
It now registered why she knew the name Charlotte.
“Welcome aboard, Ms. Sexton,” the captain said. “You’ve gisted a number of this
ship’s recon reports. I know who you are.”
“But what are you doing in these waters?” she stammered.
His face hardened somewhat. “Frankly, Ms. Sexton, I was about to ask you the
same question.”
Tolland sat up slowly now, opening his mouth to speak. Rachel silenced him with
a firm shake of her head. Not here. Not now. She had no doubt the first thing
Tolland and Corky would want to talk about was the meteorite and the attack, but
this was certainly not a topic to discuss in front of a Navy submarine crew. In
the world of intelligence, regardless of crisis, CLEARANCE remained king; the
meteorite situation remained highly classified.
“I need to speak to NRO director William Pickering,” she told the captain. “In
private, and immediately.”
The captain arched his eyebrows, apparently unaccustomed to taking orders on his
own ship.
“I have classified information I need to share.”
The captain studied her a long moment. “Let’s get your body temperature back,
and then I’ll put you in contact with the NRO director.”
“It’s urgent, sir. I—” Rachel stopped short. Her eyes had just seen a clock on
the wall over the pharmaceutical closet.
19:51 HOURS.
Rachel blinked, staring. “Is…is that clock right?”
“You’re on a navy vessel, ma’am. Our clocks are accurate.”
“And is that…Eastern time?”
“7:51 P.M. Eastern Standard. We’re out of Norfolk.”
My God! she thought, stunned. It’s only 7:51P.M.? Rachel had the impression
hours had passed since she passed out. It was not even past eight o’clock? The
President has not yet gone public about the meteorite! I still have time to stop
him! She immediately slid down off the bed, wrapping the blanket around her. Her
legs felt shaky. “I need to speak to the President right away.”
The captain looked confused. “The president of what?”
“Of the United States!”
“I thought you wanted William Pickering.”
“I don’t have time. I need the President.”
The captain did not move, his huge frame blocking her way. “My understanding is
that the President is about to give a very important live press conference. I
doubt he’s taking personal phone calls.”
Rachel stood as straight as she could on her wobbly legs and fixed her eyes on
the captain. “Sir, you do not have the clearance for me to explain the
situation, but the President is about to make a terrible mistake. I have
information he desperately needs to hear. Now. You need to trust me.”
The captain stared at her a long moment. Frowning, he checked the clock again.
“Nine minutes? I can’t get you a secure connection to the White House in that
short a time. All I could offer is a radiophone. Unsecured. And we’d have to go
to antenna depth, which will take a few—”
“Do it! Now!”
67
The White House telephone switchboard was located on the lower level of the East
Wing. Three switchboard operators were always on duty. At the moment, only two
were seated at the controls. The third operator was at a full sprint toward the
Briefing Room. In her hand, she carried a cordless phone. She’d tried to patch
the call through to the Oval Office, but the President was already en route to
the press conference. She’d tried to call his aides on their cellulars, but
before televised briefings, all cellular phones in and around the Briefing Room
were turned off so as not to interrupt the proceedings.
Running a cordless phone directly to the President at a time like this seemed
questionable at best, and yet when the White House’s NRO liaison called claiming
she had emergency information that the President must get before going live, the
operator had little doubt she needed to jump. The question now was whether she
would get there in time.
In a small medical office onboard the U.S.S. Charlotte, Rachel Sexton clutched a
phone receiver to her ear and waited to talk to the President. Tolland and Corky
sat nearby, still looking shaken. Corky had five stitches and a deep bruise on
his cheekbone. All three of them had been helped into Thinsulate thermal
underwear, heavy navy flight suits, oversized wool socks, and deck boots. With a
hot cup of stale coffee in her hand, Rachel was starting to feel almost human
again.
“What’s the holdup?” Tolland pressed. “It’s seven fifty-six!”
Rachel could not imagine. She had successfully reached one of the White House
operators, explained who she was and that this was an emergency. The operator
seemed sympathetic, had placed Rachel on hold, and was now, supposedly, making
it her top priority to patch Rachel through to the President.
Four minutes, Rachel thought. Hurry up!
Closing her eyes, Rachel tried to gather her thoughts. It had been one hell of a
day. I’m on a nuclear submarine, she said to herself, knowing she was damned
lucky to be anywhere at all. According to the submarine captain, the Charlotte
had been on a routine patrol in the Bering Sea two days ago and had picked up
anomalous underwater sounds coming from the Milne Ice Shelf—drilling, jet noise,
lots of encrypted radio traffic. They had been redirected and told to lie
quietly and listen. An hour or so ago, they’d heard an explosion in the ice
shelf and moved in to check it out. That was when they heard Rachel’s SOS call.
“Three minutes left!” Tolland sounded anxious now as he monitored the clock.
Rachel was definitely getting nervous now. What was taking so long? Why hadn’t
the President taken her call? If Zach Herney went public with the data as it
stood—
Rachel forced the thought from her mind and shook the receiver. Pick up!
As the White House operator dashed toward the stage entrance of the Briefing
Room, she was met with a gathering throng of staff members. Everyone here was
talking excitedly, making final preparations. She could see the President twenty
yards away waiting at the entrance. The makeup people were still primping.
“Coming through!” the operator said, trying to get through the crowd. “Call for
the President. Excuse me. Coming through!”
“Live in two minutes!” a media coordinator called out.
Clutching the phone, the operator shoved her way toward the President. “Call for
the President!” she panted. “Coming through!”
A towering roadblock stepped into her path. Marjorie Tench. The senior adviser’s
long face grimaced down in disapproval. “What’s going on?”
“I have an emergency!” The operator was breathless. “…phone call for the
President.”
Tench looked incredulous. “Not now, you don’t!”
“It’s from Rachel Sexton. She says it’s urgent.”
The scowl that darkened Tench’s face appeared to be more one of puzzlement than
anger. Tench eyed the cordless phone. “That’s a house line. That’s not secure.”
“No, ma’am. But the incoming call is open anyway.
She’s on a radiophone. She needs to speak to the President right away.”
“Live in ninety seconds!”
Tench’s cold eyes stared, and she held out a spider-like hand. “Give me the
phone.”
The operator’s heart was pounding now. “Ms. Sexton wants to speak to President
Herney directly. She told me to postpone the press conference until she’d talked
to him. I assured—”
Tench stepped toward the operator now, her voice a seething whisper. “Let me
tell you how this works. You do not take orders from the daughter of the
President’s opponent, you take them from me. I can assure you, this is as close
as you are getting to the President until I find out what the hell is going on.”
The operator looked toward the President, who was now surrounded by microphone
technicians, stylists, and several staff members talking him through final
revisions of his speech.
“Sixty seconds!” the television supervisor yelled.
Onboard the Charlotte, Rachel Sexton was pacing wildly in the tight space when
she finally heard a click on the telephone line.
A raspy voice came on. “Hello?”
“President Herney?” Rachel blurted.
“Marjorie Tench,” the voice corrected. “I am the President’s senior adviser.
Whoever this is, I must warn you that prank calls against the White House are in
violation of—”
For Christ’s sake! “This is not a prank! This is Rachel Sexton. I’m your NRO
liaison and—”
“I am aware of who Rachel Sexton is, ma’am. And I am doubtful that you are she.
You’ve called the White House on an unsecured line telling me to interrupt a
major presidential broadcast. That is hardly proper MO for someone with—”
“Listen,” Rachel fumed, “I briefed your whole staff a couple of hours ago on a
meteorite. You sat in the front row. You watched my briefing on a television
sitting on the President’s desk! Any questions?”
Tench fell silent a moment. “Ms. Sexton, what is the meaning of this?”
“The meaning is that you have to stop the President! His meteorite data is all
wrong! We’ve just learned the meteorite was inserted from beneath the ice shelf.
I don’t know by whom, and I don’t know why! But things are not what they seem up
here! The President is about to endorse some seriously errant data, and I
strongly advise—”
“Wait one goddamned minute!” Tench lowered her voice. “Do you realize what you
are saying?”
“Yes! I suspect the NASA administrator has orchestrated some kind of large-scale
fraud, and President Herney is about to get caught in the middle. You’ve at
least got to postpone ten minutes so I can explain to him what’s been going on
up here. Someone tried to kill me, for God’s sake!”
Tench’s voice turned to ice. “Ms. Sexton, let me give you a word of warning. If
you are having second thoughts about your role in helping the White House in
this campaign, you should have thought of that long before you personally
endorsed that meteorite data for the President.”
“What!” Is she even listening?
“I’m revolted by your display. Using an unsecured line is a cheap stunt.
Implying the meteorite data has been faked? What kind of intelligence official
uses a radiophone to call the White House and talk about classified information?
Obviously you are hoping someone intercepts this message.”
“Norah Mangor was killed over this! Dr. Ming is also dead. You’ve got to warn—”
“Stop right there! I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I will remind
you—and anyone else who happens to be intercepting this phone call—that the
White House possesses videotaped depositions from NASA’s top scientists, several
renowned civilian scientists, and yourself, Ms. Sexton, all endorsing the
meteorite data as accurate. Why you are suddenly changing your story, I can only
imagine. Whatever the reason, consider yourself relieved of your White House
post as of this instant, and if you try to taint this discovery with any more
absurd allegations of foul play, I assure you the White House and NASA will sue
you for defamation so fast you won’t have a chance to pack a suitcase before you
go to jail.”
Rachel opened her mouth to speak, but no words came.
“Zach Herney has been generous to you,” Tench snapped, “and frankly this smacks
of a cheap Sexton publicity stunt. Drop it right now, or we’ll press charges. I
swear it.”
The line went dead.
Rachel’s mouth was still hanging open when the captain knocked on the door.
“Ms. Sexton?” the captain said, peering in. “We’re picking up a faint signal
from Canadian National Radio. President Zach Herney has just begun his press
conference.”
68
Standing at the podium in the White House Briefing Room, Zach Herney felt the
heat of the media lights and knew the world was watching. The targeted blitz
performed by the White House Press Office had created a contagion of media buzz.
Those who did not hear about the address via television, radio, or on-line news
invariably heard about it from neighbors, coworkers, and family. By 8:00 P.M.,
anyone not living in a cave was speculating about the topic of the President’s
address. In bars and living rooms over the globe, millions leaned toward their
televisions in apprehensive wonder.
It was during moments like these—facing the world—that Zach Herney truly felt
the weight of his office. Anyone who said power was not addictive had never
really experienced it. As he began his address, however, Herney sensed something
was amiss. He was not a man prone to stage fright, and so the tingle of
apprehension now tightening in his core startled him.
It’s the magnitude of the audience, he told himself. And yet he knew something
else. Instinct. Something he had seen.
It had been such a little thing, and yet…
He told himself to forget it. It was nothing. And yet it stuck.
Tench.
Moments ago, as Herney was preparing to take the stage, he had seen Marjorie
Tench in the yellow hallway, talking on a cordless phone. This was strange in
itself, but it was made more so by the White House operator standing beside her,
her face white with apprehension. Herney could not hear Tench’s phone
conversation, but he could see it was contentious. Tench was arguing with a
vehemence and anger the President had seldom seen—even from Tench. He paused a
moment and caught her eye, inquisitive.
Tench gave him the thumbs-up. Herney had never seen Tench give anyone the
thumbs-up. It was the last image in Herney’s mind as he was cued onto the stage.
On the blue rug in the press area inside the NASA habisphere on Ellesmere
Island, Administrator Lawrence Ekstrom was seated at the center of the long
symposium table, flanked by top NASA officials and scientists. On a large
monitor facing them the President’s opening statement was being piped in live.
The remainder of the NASA crew was huddled around other monitors, teeming with
excitement as their commander-in-chief launched into his press conference.
“Good evening,” Herney was saying, sounding uncharacteristically stiff. “To my
fellow countrymen, and to our friends around the world…”
Ekstrom gazed at the huge charred mass of rock displayed prominently in front of
him. His eyes moved to a standby monitor, where he watched himself, flanked by
his most austere personnel, against a backdrop of a huge American flag and NASA
logo. The dramatic lighting made the setting look like some kind of neomodern
painting—the twelve apostles at the last supper. Zach Herney had turned this
whole thing into a political sideshow. Herney had no choice. Ekstrom still felt
like a televangelist, packaging God for the masses.
In about five minutes the President would introduce Ekstrom and his NASA staff.
Then, in a dramatic satellite linkup from the top of the world, NASA would join
the President in sharing this news with the world. After a brief account of how
the discovery was made, what it meant for space science, and some mutual
backpatting, NASA and the President would hand duty off to celebrity scientist
Michael Tolland, whose documentary would roll for just under fifteen minutes.
Afterward, with credibility and enthusiasm at its peak, Ekstrom and the
President would say their good-nights, promising more information to come in the
days ahead via endless NASA press conferences.
As Ekstrom sat and waited for his cue, he felt a cavernous shame settling inside
him. He’d known he would feel it. He’d been expecting it.
He’d told lies…endorsed untruths.
Somehow, though, the lies seemed inconsequential now. Ekstrom had a bigger
weight on his mind.
In the chaos of the ABC production room, Gabrielle Ashe stood shoulder to
shoulder with dozens of strangers, all necks craned toward the bank of
television monitors suspended from the ceiling. A hush fell as the moment
arrived. Gabrielle closed her eyes, praying that when she opened them she would
not be looking at images of her own naked body.
The air inside Senator Sexton’s den was alive with excitement. All of his
visitors were standing now, their eyes glued to the large-screen television.
Zach Herney stood before the world, and incredibly, his greeting had been
awkward. He seemed momentarily uncertain.
He looks shaky, Sexton thought. He never looks shaky.
“Look at him,” somebody whispered. “It has to be bad news.”
The space station? Sexton wondered.
Herney looked directly into the camera and took a deep breath. “My friends, I
have puzzled for many days now over how best to make this announcement…”
Three easy words, Senator Sexton willed him. We blew it.
Herney spoke for a moment about how unfortunate it was that NASA had become such
an issue in this election and how, that being the case, he felt he needed to
preface the timing of his impending statement with an apology.
“I would have preferred any other moment in history to make this announcement,”
he said. “The political charge in the air tends to make doubters out of
dreamers, and yet as your President, I have no choice but to share with you what
I have recently learned.” He smiled. “It seems the magic of the cosmos is
something which does not work on any human schedule…not even that of a
president.”
Everyone in Sexton’s den seemed to recoil in unison. What?
“Two weeks ago,” Herney said, “NASA’s new Polar Orbiting Density Scanner passed
over the Milne Ice Shelf on Ellesmere Island, a remote landmass located above
the Eightieth Parallel in the high Arctic Ocean.”
Sexton and the others exchanged confused looks.
“This NASA satellite,” Herney continued, “detected a large, high-density rock
buried two hundred feet under the ice.” Herney smiled now for the first time,
finding his stride. “On receiving the data, NASA immediately suspected PODS had
found a meteorite.”
“A meteorite?” Sexton sputtered, standing. “This is news?”
“NASA sent a team up to the ice shelf to take core samples. It was then that
NASA made…” He paused.
“Frankly, they made the scientific discovery of the century.”
Sexton took an incredulous step toward the television. No…. His guests shifted
uneasily.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Herney announced, “several hours ago, NASA pulled from
the Arctic ice an eight-ton meteorite, which contains…” The President paused
again, giving the whole world time to lean forward. “A meteorite which contains
fossils of a life-form. Dozens of them. Unequivocal proof of extraterrestrial
life.”
On cue, a brilliant image illuminated on the screen behind the President—a
perfectly delineated fossil of an enormous buglike creature embedded in a
charred rock.
In Sexton’s den, six entrepreneurs jumped up in wide-eyed horror. Sexton stood
frozen in place.
“My friends,” the President said, “the fossil behind me is 190 million years
old. It was discovered in a fragment of a meteorite called the Jungersol Fall
which hit the Arctic Ocean almost three centuries ago. NASA’s exciting new PODS
satellite discovered this meteorite fragment buried in an ice shelf. NASA and
this administration have taken enormous care over the past two weeks to confirm
every aspect of this momentous discovery before making it public. In the next
half hour you will be hearing from numerous NASA and civilian scientists, as
well as viewing a short documentary prepared by a familiar face whom I’m sure
you all will recognize. Before I go any further, though, I absolutely must
welcome, live via satellite from above the Arctic Circle, the man whose
leadership, vision, and hard work is solely responsible for this historic
moment. It is with great honor that I present NASA administrator Lawrence
Ekstrom.”
Herney turned to the screen on perfect cue.
The image of the meteorite dramatically dissolved into a regal-looking panel of
NASA scientists seated at a long table, flanked by the dominant frame of
Lawrence Ekstrom.
“Thank you, Mr. President.” Ekstrom’s air was stern and proud as he stood up and
looked directly into the camera. “It gives me great pride to share with all of
you, this—NASA’s finest hour.”
Ekstrom spoke passionately about NASA and the discovery. With a fanfare of
patriotism and triumph, he segued flawlessly to a documentary hosted by civilian
science–celebrity Michael Tolland.
As he watched, Senator Sexton fell to his knees in front of the television, his
fingers clutching at his silver mane. No! God, no!
69
Marjorie Tench was livid as she broke away from the jovial chaos outside the
Briefing Room and marched back to her private corner in the West Wing. She was
in no mood for celebration. The phone call from Rachel Sexton had been most
unexpected.
Most disappointing.
Tench slammed her office door, stalked to her desk, and dialed the White House
operator. “William Pickering. NRO.”
Tench lit a cigarette and paced the room as she waited for the operator to track
down Pickering. Normally, he might have gone home for the night, but with the
White House’s big windup into tonight’s press conference, Tench guessed
Pickering had been in his office all evening, glued to his television screen,
wondering what could possibly be going on in the world about which the NRO
director did not have prior knowledge.
Tench cursed herself for not trusting her instincts when the President said he
wanted to send Rachel Sexton to Milne. Tench had been wary, feeling it was an
unnecessary risk. But the President had been convincing, persuading Tench that
the White House staff had grown cynical over the past weeks and would be suspect
of the NASA discovery if the news came from in-house. As Herney had promised,
Rachel Sexton’s endorsement had squelched suspicions, prevented any skeptical
in-house debate, and forced the White House staff to move forward with a unified
front. Invaluable, Tench had to admit. And yet now Rachel Sexton had changed her
tune.
The bitch called me on an unsecured line.
Rachel Sexton was obviously intent on destroying the credibility of this
discovery, and Tench’s only solace was knowing the President had captured
Rachel’s earlier briefing on videotape. Thank God. At least Herney had thought
to obtain that small insurance. Tench was starting to fear they were going to
need it.
At the moment, however, Tench was trying to stem the bleeding in other ways.
Rachel Sexton was a smart woman, and if she truly intended to go head-to-head
with the White House and NASA, she would need to recruit some powerful allies.
Her first logical choice would be William Pickering. Tench already knew how
Pickering felt about NASA. She needed to get to Pickering before Rachel did.
“Ms. Tench?” the transparent voice on the line said. “William Pickering, here.
To what do I owe this honor?”
Tench could hear the television in the background—NASA commentary. She could
already sense in his tone that he was still reeling from the press conference.
“Do you have a minute, director?”
“I expected you’d be busy celebrating. Quite a night for you. Looks like NASA
and the President are back in the fight.”
Tench heard stark amazement in his voice, combined with a tinge of acrimony—the
latter no doubt on account of the man’s legendary distaste for hearing breaking
news at the same time as the rest of the world.
“I apologize,” Tench said, trying to build an immediate bridge, “that the White
House and NASA were forced to keep you unapprised.”
“You are aware,” Pickering said, “that the NRO detected NASA activity up there a
couple weeks ago and ran an inquiry.”
Tench frowned. He’s pissed. “Yes, I know. And yet—”
“NASA told us it was nothing. They said they were running some kind of extreme
environment training exercises. Testing equipment, that sort of thing.”
Pickering paused. “We bought the lie.”
“Let’s not call it a lie,” Tench said. “More of a necessary misdirection.
Considering the magnitude of the discovery, I trust you understand NASA’s need
to keep this quiet.”
“From the public, perhaps.”
Pouting was not in the repertoire of men like William Pickering, and Tench
sensed this was as close as he would get. “I only have a minute,” Tench said,
working to retain her dominant position, “but I thought I should call and warn
you.”
“Warn me?” Pickering waxed wry momentarily. “Has Zach Herney decided to appoint
a new, NASA-friendly NRO director?”
“Of course not. The President understands your criticisms of NASA are simply
issues of security, and he is working to plug those holes. I’m actually calling
about one of your employees.” She paused. “Rachel Sexton. Have you heard from
her this evening?”
“No. I sent her to the White House this morning at the President’s request.
You’ve obviously kept her busy. She has yet to check in.”
Tench was relieved to have gotten to Pickering first. She took a drag on her
cigarette and spoke as calmly as possible. “I suspect you may be getting a call
from Ms. Sexton sometime soon.”
“Good. I’ve been expecting one. I’ve got to tell you, when the President’s press
conference began, I was concerned Zach Herney might have convinced Ms. Sexton to
participate publicly. I’m pleased to see he resisted.”
“Zach Herney is a decent person,” Tench said, “which is more than I can say for
Rachel Sexton.”
There was a long pause on the line. “I hope I misunderstood that.”
Tench sighed heavily. “No, sir, I’m afraid you did not. I’d prefer not to talk
specifics on the phone, but Rachel Sexton, it seems, has decided she wants to
undermine the credibility of this NASA announcement. I have no idea why, but
after she reviewed and endorsed NASA’s data earlier this afternoon, she has
suddenly pulled an about-face and is spouting some of the most improbable
allegations imaginable of NASA treachery and fraud.”
Pickering sounded intense now. “Excuse me?”
“Troubling, yes. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Ms. Sexton contacted
me two minutes before the press conference and warned me to cancel the whole
thing.”
“On what grounds?”
“Absurd ones, frankly. She said she’d found serious flaws in the data.”
Pickering’s long silence was more wary than Tench would have liked. “Flaws?” he
finally said.
“Ridiculous, really, after two full weeks of NASA experimentation and—”
“I find it very hard to believe someone like Rachel Sexton would have told you
to postpone the President’s press conference unless she had a damn good reason.”
Pickering sounded troubled. “Maybe you should have listened to her.”
“Oh, please!” Tench blurted, coughing. “You saw the press conference. The
meteorite data was confirmed and reconfirmed by countless specialists. Including
civilians. Doesn’t it seem suspicious to you that Rachel Sexton—the daughter of
the only man whom this announcement hurts—is suddenly changing her tune?”
“It seems suspicious, Ms. Tench, only because I happen to know that Ms. Sexton
and her father are barely civil to one another. I cannot imagine why Rachel
Sexton would, after years of service to the President, suddenly decide to switch
camps and tell lies to support her father.”
“Ambition, perhaps? I really don’t know. Maybe the opportunity to be first
daughter…” Tench let it hang.
Pickering’s tone hardened instantly. “Thin ice, Ms. Tench. Very thin.”
Tench scowled. What the hell did she expect? She was accusing a prominent member
of Pickering’s staff of treason against the President. The man was going to be
defensive.
“Put her on,” Pickering demanded. “I’d like to speak to Ms. Sexton myself.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Tench replied. “She’s not at the White House.”
“Where is she?”
“The President sent her to Milne this morning to examine the data firsthand. She
has yet to return.”
Pickering sounded livid now. “I was never informed—”
“I do not have time for hurt pride, director. I have simply called as a
courtesy. I wanted to warn you that Rachel Sexton has decided to pursue her own
agenda with respect to tonight’s announcement. She will be looking for allies.
If she contacts you, you would be wise to know that the White House is in
possession of a video taken earlier today in which she endorsed this meteorite
data in its entirety in front of the President, his cabinet, and his entire
staff. If now, for whatever motives she might have, Rachel Sexton attempts to
besmirch the good name of Zach Herney or of NASA, then I swear to you the White
House will see to it she falls hard and far.” Tench waited a moment, to be sure
her meaning had settled in. “I expect you to repay the courtesy of this call by
informing me immediately if Rachel Sexton contacts you. She is attacking the
President directly, and the White House intends to detain her for questioning
before she does any serious damage. I will be waiting for your call, director.
That’s all. Good night.”
Marjorie Tench hung up, certain that William Pickering had never been talked to
like that in his life. At least now he knew she was serious.
• • •
On the top floor of the NRO, William Pickering stood at his window and stared
into the Virginia night. The call from Marjorie Tench had been deeply troubling.
He chewed at his lip as he tried to assemble the pieces in his mind.
“Director?” his secretary said, knocking quietly. “You have another phone call.”
“Not now,” Pickering said absently.
“It’s Rachel Sexton.”
Pickering wheeled. Tench was apparently a fortune-teller. “Okay. Patch her
through, right away.”
“Actually, sir, it’s an encrypted AV stream. Do you want to take it in the
conference room?”
An AV stream? “Where is she calling from?”
The secretary told him.
Pickering stared. Bewildered, he hurried down the hall toward the conference
room. This was something he had to see.
70
The Charlotte’s “dead room”—designed after a similar structure at Bell
Laboratories—was what was formally known as an anechoic chamber. An acoustical
clean room containing no parallel or reflective surfaces, it absorbed sound with
99.4 percent efficiency. Because of the acoustically conductive nature of metal
and water, conversations onboard submarines were always vulnerable to
interception by nearby eavesdroppers or parasitic suction mics attached to the
outer hull. The dead room was, in effect, a tiny chamber inside the submarine
from which absolutely no sound could escape. All conversations inside this
insulated box were entirely secure.
The chamber looked like a walk-in closet whose ceiling, walls, and floor had
been completely covered with foam spires jutting inward from all directions. It
reminded Rachel of a cramped underwater cave where stalagmites had run wild,
growing off every surface. Most unsettling, however, was the apparent lack of a
floor.
The floor was a taut, meshed chicken-wire grid strung horizontally across the
room like a fishing net, giving the inhabitants the feeling that they were
suspended midway up the wall. The mesh was rubberized and stiff beneath the
feet. As Rachel gazed down through the webbed flooring, she felt like she was
crossing a string bridge suspended over a surrealistic fractalized landscape.
Three feet below, a forest of foam needles pointed ominously upward.
Instantly upon entering Rachel had sensed the disorientating lifelessness to the
air, as if every bit of energy had been sucked out. Her ears felt as if they’d
been stuffed with cotton. Only her breath was audible inside her head. She
called out, and the effect was that of speaking into a pillow. The walls
absorbed every reverberation, making the only perceivable vibrations those
inside her head.
Now the captain had departed, closing the padded door behind him. Rachel, Corky,
and Tolland were seated in the center of the room at a small U-shaped table that
stood on long metal stilts that descended through the mesh. On the table were
affixed several gooseneck microphones, headphones, and a video console with a
fish-eye camera on top. It looked like a mini–United Nations symposium.
As someone who worked in the U.S. intelligence community—the world’s foremost
manufacturers of hard laser microphones, underwater parabolic eavesdroppers, and
other hypersensitive listening devices—Rachel was well aware there were few
places on earth where one could have a truly secure conversation. The dead room
was apparently one of those places. The mics and headphones on the table enabled
a face-to-face “conference call” in which people could speak freely, knowing the
vibrations of their words could not escape the room. Their voices, upon entering
the microphones, would be heavily encrypted for their long journey through the
atmosphere.
“Level check.” The voice materialized suddenly inside their headphones, causing
Rachel, Tolland, and Corky to jump. “Do you read me, Ms. Sexton?”
Rachel leaned into the microphone. “Yes. Thank you.” Whoever you are.
“I have Director Pickering on the line for you. He’s accepting AV. I am signing
off now. You will have your data stream momentarily.”
Rachel heard the line go dead. There was a distant whirr of static and then a
rapid series of beeps and clicks in the headphones. With startling clarity, the
video screen in front of them sprang to life, and Rachel saw Director Pickering
in the NRO conference room. He was alone. His head snapped up and he looked into
Rachel’s eyes.
She felt oddly relieved to see him.
“Ms. Sexton,” he said, his expression perplexed and troubled. “What in the world
is going on?”
“The meteorite, sir,” Rachel said. “I think we may have a serious problem.”
71
Inside the Charlotte’s dead room, Rachel Sexton introduced Michael Tolland and
Corky Marlinson to Pickering. Then she took charge and launched into a quick
account of the day’s incredible chain of events.
The NRO director sat motionless as he listened.
Rachel told him about the bioluminescent plankton in the extraction pit, their
journey onto the ice shelf and discovery of an insertion shaft beneath the
meteorite, and finally of their sudden attack by a military team she suspected
was Special Ops.
William Pickering was known for his ability to listen to disturbing information
without so much as flinching an eye, and yet his gaze grew more and more
troubled with each progression in Rachel’s story. She sensed disbelief and then
rage when she talked about Norah Mangor’s murder and their own near-death
escape. Although Rachel wanted to voice her suspicions of the NASA
administrator’s involvement, she knew Pickering well enough not to point fingers
without evidence. She gave Pickering the story as cold hard facts. When she was
finished, Pickering did not respond for several seconds.
“Ms. Sexton,” he finally said, “all of you…” He moved his gaze to each of them.
“If what you’re saying is true, and I cannot imagine why three of you would lie
about this, you are all very lucky to be alive.”
They all nodded in silence. The President had called in four civilian
scientists…and two of them were now dead.
Pickering heaved a disconsolate sigh, as if he had no idea what to say next. The
events clearly made little sense. “Is there any way,” Pickering asked, “that
this insertion shaft you’re seeing in that GPR printout is a natural
phenomenon?”
Rachel shook her head. “It’s too perfect.” She unfolded the soggy GPR printout
and held it up in front of the camera. “Flawless.”
Pickering studied the image, scowling in agreement. “Don’t let that out of your
hands.”
“I called Marjorie Tench to warn her to stop the President,” Rachel said. “But
she shut me down.”
“I know. She told me.”
Rachel looked up, stunned. “Marjorie Tench called you?” That was fast.
“Just now. She’s very concerned. She feels you are attempting some kind of stunt
to discredit the President and NASA. Perhaps to help your father.”
Rachel stood up. She waved the GPR printout and motioned to her two companions.
“We were almost killed! Does this look like some kind of stunt? And why would
I—”
Pickering held up his hands. “Easy. What Ms. Tench failed to tell me was that
there were three of you.”
Rachel could not recall if Tench had even given her time to mention Corky and
Tolland.
“Nor did she tell me you had physical evidence,” Pickering said. “I was
skeptical of her claims before I spoke to you, and now I am convinced she is
mistaken. I do not doubt your claims. The question at this point is what it all
means.”
There was a long silence.
William Pickering rarely looked confused, but he shook his head, seeming lost.
“Let’s assume for the moment that someone did insert this meteorite beneath the
ice. That begs the obvious issue of why. If NASA has a meteorite with fossils in
it, why would they, or anyone else for that matter, care where it is found?”
“It appears,” Rachel said, “that the insertion was performed such that PODS
would make the discovery, and the meteorite would appear to be a fragment from a
known impact.”
“The Jungersol Fall,” Corky prompted.
“But of what value is the meteorite’s association with a known impact?”
Pickering demanded, sounding almost mad. “Aren’t these fossils an astounding
discovery anywhere and anytime? No matter what meteoritic event they are
associated with?”
All three nodded.
Pickering hesitated, looking displeased. “Unless…of course…”
Rachel saw the wheels turning behind the director’s eyes. He had found the
simplest explanation for placing the meteorite concurrent with the Jungersol
strata, but the simplest explanation was also the most troubling.
“Unless,” Pickering continued, “the careful placement was intended to lend
credibility to totally false data.” He sighed, turning to Corky. “Dr. Marlinson,
what is the possibility that this meteorite is a counterfeit.”
“Counterfeit, sir?”
“Yes. A fake. Manufactured.”
“A fake meteorite?” Corky gave an awkward laugh. “Utterly impossible! That
meteorite was examined by professionals. Myself included. Chemical scans,
spectrograph, rubidium-strontium dating. It is unlike any kind of rock ever seen
on earth. The meteorite is authentic. Any astrogeologist would agree.”
Pickering seemed to consider this a long time, gently stroking his tie. “And yet
taking into account the amount NASA has to gain from this discovery right now,
the apparent signs of tampering with evidence, and your being attacked…the first
and only logical conclusion I can draw is that this meteorite is a well-executed
fraud.”
“Impossible!” Corky sounded angry now. “With all respect, sir, meteorites are
not some Hollywood special effect that can be conjured up in a lab to fool a
bunch of unsuspecting astrophysicists. They are chemically complex objects with
unique crystalline structures and element ratios!”
“I am not challenging you, Dr. Marlinson. I am simply following a logical chain
of analysis. Considering someone wanted to kill you to keep you from revealing
it was inserted under the ice, I’m inclined to entertain all kinds of wild
scenarios here. What specifically makes you certain this rock is indeed a
meteorite?”
“Specifically?” Corky’s voice cracked in the headphones. “A flawless fusion
crust, the presence of chondrules, a nickel ratio unlike anything ever found on
earth. If you’re suggesting that someone tricked us by manufacturing this rock
in a lab, then all I can say is that the lab was about 190 million years old.”
Corky dug in his pocket and pulled out a stone shaped like a CD. He held it in
front of the camera. “We chemically dated samples like this with numerous
methods. Rubidium-strontium dating is not something you can fake!”
Pickering looked surprised. “You have a sample?”
Corky shrugged. “NASA had dozens of them floating around.”
“You mean to tell me,” Pickering said, looking at Rachel now, “that NASA
discovered a meteorite they think contains life, and they’re letting people walk
off with samples?”
“The point,” Corky said, “is that the sample in my hands is genuine.” He held
the rock close to the camera. “You could give this to any petrologist or
geologist or astronomer on earth, they would run tests, and they would tell you
two things: one, it is 190 million years old; and two, it is chemically
dissimilar from the kind of rock we have here on earth.”
Pickering leaned forward, studying the fossil embedded in the rock. He seemed
momentarily transfixed. Finally, he sighed. “I am not a scientist. All I can say
is that if that meteorite is genuine, which it appears it is, I would like to
know why NASA didn’t present it to the world at face value? Why has someone
carefully placed it under the ice as if to persuade us of its authenticity?”
At that moment, inside the White House, a security officer was dialing Marjorie
Tench.
The senior adviser answered on the first ring. “Yeah?”
“Ms. Tench,” the officer said, “I have the information you requested earlier.
The radiophone call that Rachel Sexton placed to you earlier this evening. We
have the trace.”
“Tell me.”
“Secret Service ops says the signal originated aboard the naval submarine U.S.S.
Charlotte.”
“What!”
“They don’t have coordinates, ma’am, but they are certain of the vessel code.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Tench slammed down the receiver without another word.
72
The muted acoustics of the Charlotte’s dead room were starting to make Rachel
feel mildly nauseated. On-screen, William Pickering’s troubled gaze moved now to
Michael Tolland. “You’re quiet, Mr. Tolland.”
Tolland glanced up like a student who had been called on unexpectedly. “Sir?”
“You just gave quite a convincing documentary on television,” Pickering said.
“What’s your take on the meteorite now?”
“Well, sir,” Tolland said, his discomfort obvious, “I have to agree with Dr.
Marlinson. I believe the fossils and meteorite are authentic. I’m fairly well
versed in dating techniques, and the age of that stone was confirmed by multiple
tests. The nickel content as well. These data cannot be forged. There exists no
doubt the rock, formed 190 million years ago, exhibits nonterrestrial nickel
ratios and contains dozens of confirmed fossils whose formation is also dated at
190 million years. I can think of no other possible explanation than that NASA
has found an authentic meteorite.”
Pickering fell silent now. His expression was one of quandary, a look Rachel had
never before seen on William Pickering.
“What should we do, sir?” Rachel asked. “Obviously we need to alert the
President there are problems with the data.”
Pickering frowned. “Let’s hope the President doesn’t already know.”
Rachel felt a knot rise in her throat. Pickering’s implication was clear.
President Herney could be involved. Rachel strongly doubted it, and yet both the
President and NASA had plenty to gain here.
“Unfortunately,” Pickering said, “with the exception of this GPR printout
revealing an insertion shaft, all of the scientific data points to a credible
NASA discovery.” He paused, dire. “And this issue of your being attacked…” He
looked up at Rachel. “You mentioned special ops.”
“Yes, sir.” She told him again about the Improvised Munitions and tactics.
Pickering looked more and more unhappy by the moment. Rachel sensed her boss was
contemplating the number of people who might have access to a small military
kill force. Certainly the President had access. Probably Marjorie Tench too, as
senior adviser. Quite possibly NASA administrator Lawrence Ekstrom with his ties
to the Pentagon. Unfortunately, as Rachel considered the myriad of
possibilities, she realized the controlling force behind the attack could have
been almost anyone with high-level political clout and the right connections.
“I could phone the President right now,” Pickering said, “but I don’t think
that’s wise, at least until we know who’s involved. My ability to protect you
becomes limited once we involve the White House. In addition, I’m not sure what
I would tell him. If the meteorite is real, which you all feel it is, then your
allegation of an insertion shaft and attack doesn’t make sense; the President
would have every right to question the validity of my claim.” He paused as if
calculating the options. “Regardless…whatever the truth is or who the players
are, some very powerful people will take hits if this information goes public. I
suggest we get you to safety right away, before we start rocking any boats.”
Get us to safety? The comment surprised Rachel. “I think we’re fairly safe on a
nuclear submarine, sir.”
Pickering looked skeptical. “Your presence on that submarine won’t stay secret
long. I’m pulling you out immediately. Frankly, I’ll feel better when the three
of you are sitting in my office.”
73
Senator Sexton huddled alone on his couch feeling like a refugee. His Westbrooke
Place apartment that had only an hour ago been filled with new friends and
supporters now looked forsaken, scattered with the rubble of snifters and
business cards, abandoned by men who had quite literally dashed out the door.
Now Sexton crouched in solitude before his television, wanting more than
anything to turn it off and yet being unable to pull himself from the endless
media analyses. This was Washington, and it didn’t take long for the analysts to
rush through their pseudoscientific and philosophical hyperbole and lock in on
the ugly stuff—the politics. Like torture masters rubbing acid in Sexton’s
wounds, the newscasters were stating and restating the obvious.
“Hours ago, Sexton’s campaign was soaring,” one analyst said. “Now, with NASA’s
discovery, the senator’s campaign has crashed back to earth.”
Sexton winced, reaching for the Courvoisier and taking a hit right out of the
bottle. Tonight, he knew, would be the longest and loneliest night of his life.
He despised Marjorie Tench for setting him up. He despised Gabrielle Ashe for
ever mentioning NASA in the first place. He despised the President for being so
goddamned lucky. And he despised the world for laughing at him.
“Obviously, this is devastating for the senator,” the analyst was saying. “The
President and NASA have claimed an incalculable triumph with this discovery.
News like this would revitalize the President’s campaign regardless of Sexton’s
position on NASA, but with Sexton’s admission today that he would go so far as
to abolish NASA funding outright if need be…well, this presidential announcement
is a one-two punch from which the senator will not recover.”
I was tricked, Sexton said. The White House fucking set me up.
The analyst was smiling now. “All of the credibility NASA has lost with
Americans recently has just been restored in spades. There’s a real feeling of
national pride out there on the streets right now.”
“As there should be. They love Zach Herney, and they were losing faith. You’ve
got to admit, the President was lying down and took some pretty big hits
recently, but he’s come out of it smelling like a rose.”
Sexton thought of the CNN debate that afternoon and hung his head, thinking he
might be sick to his stomach. All of the NASA inertia he had so carefully built
up over the last months had not only come to a screeching halt, but it had
become an anchor around his neck. He looked like a fool. He’d been brazenly
played by the White House. He was already dreading all the cartoons in
tomorrow’s paper. His name would be the punch line to every joke in the country.
Obviously, there would be no more quiet SFF campaign funding. Everything had
changed. All of the men who had been in his apartment had just seen their dreams
go down the toilet. The privatization of space had just struck a brick wall.
Taking another hit of cognac, the senator stood up and walked unevenly to his
desk. He gazed down at the unhooked phone receiver. Knowing it was an act of
masochistic self-flagellation, he slowly replaced the phone receiver in its
cradle and began counting the seconds.
One…two… The phone rang. He let the machine pick up.
“Senator Sexton, Judy Oliver from CNN. I’d like to give you an opportunity to
react to the NASA discovery this evening. Please call me.” She hung up.
Sexton started counting again. One… The phone started ringing. He ignored it,
letting the machine get it. Another reporter.
Holding his bottle of Courvoisier, Sexton wandered toward the sliding door of
his balcony. He pulled it aside and stepped out into the cool air. Leaning
against the railing, he gazed out across town to the illuminated facade of the
White House in the distance. The lights seemed to twinkle gleefully in the wind.
Bastards, he thought. For centuries we’ve been looking for proof of life in the
heavens. Now we find it in the same fucking year as my election? This wasn’t
propitious, this was goddamned clairvoyant. Every apartment window for as far as
Sexton could see had a television on. Sexton wondered where Gabrielle Ashe was
tonight. This was all her fault. She’d fed him NASA failure after NASA failure.
He raised the bottle to take another swig.
Goddamned Gabrielle…she’s the reason I’m in this so deep.
Across town, standing amid the chaos of the ABC production room, Gabrielle Ashe
felt numb. The President’s announcement had come out of left field, leaving her
suspended in a semicatatonic haze. She stood, lock-kneed in the center of the
production room floor, staring up at one of the television monitors while
pandemonium raged around her.
The initial seconds of the announcement had brought dead silence to the newsroom
floor. It had lasted only moments before the place erupted into a deafening
carnival of scrambling reporters. These people were professionals. They had no
time for personal reflection. There would be time for that after the work was
done. At the moment, the world wanted to know more, and ABC had to provide it.
This story had everything—science, history, political drama—an emotional mother
lode. Nobody in the media was sleeping tonight.
“Gabs?” Yolanda’s voice was sympathetic. “Let’s get you back into my office
before someone realizes who you are and starts grilling you on what this means
for Sexton’s campaign.”
Gabrielle felt herself guided through a haze into Yolanda’s glass-walled office.
Yolanda sat her down and handed her a glass of water. She tried to force a
smile. “Look on the bright side, Gabs. Your candidate’s campaign is fucked, but
at least you’re not.”
“Thanks. Terrific.”
Yolanda’s tone turned serious. “Gabrielle, I know you feel like shit. Your
candidate just got hit by a Mack truck, and if you ask me, he’s not getting up.
At least not in time to turn this thing around. But at least nobody’s splashing
your picture all over the television. Seriously. This is good news. Herney won’t
need a sex scandal now. He’s looking far too presidential right now to talk
sex.”
It seemed a small consolation to Gabrielle.
“As for Tench’s allegations of Sexton’s illegal campaign finance…” Yolanda shook
her head. “I have my doubts. Granted, Herney is serious about no negative
campaigning. And granted, a bribery investigation would be bad for the country.
But is Herney really so patriotic that he would forgo a chance to crush his
opposition, simply to protect national morale? My guess is Tench stretched the
truth about Sexton’s finances in an effort to scare. She gambled, hoping you’d
jump ship and give the President a free sex scandal. And you’ve got to admit,
Gabs, tonight would have been a hell of a night for Sexton’s morals to come into
question!”
Gabrielle nodded vaguely. A sex scandal would have been a one-two punch from
which Sexton’s career never would have recovered…ever.
“You outlasted her, Gabs. Marjorie Tench went fishing, but you didn’t bite.
You’re home free. There’ll be other elections.”
Gabrielle nodded vaguely, unsure what to believe anymore.
“You’ve got to admit,” Yolanda said, “the White House played Sexton
brilliantly—luring him down the NASA path, getting him to commit, coaxing him to
put all his eggs in the NASA basket.”
Totally my fault, Gabrielle thought.
“And this announcement we just watched, my God, it was genius! The importance of
the discovery entirely aside, the production values were brilliant. Live feeds
from the Arctic? A Michael Tolland documentary? Good God, how can you compete?
Zach Herney nailed it tonight. There’s a reason the guy is President.”
And will be for another four years…
“I’ve got to get back to work, Gabs,” Yolanda said. “You sit right there as long
as you want. Get your feet under you.” Yolanda headed out the door. “Hon, I’ll
check back in a few minutes.”
Alone now, Gabrielle sipped her water, but it tasted foul. Everything did. It’s
all my fault, she thought, trying to ease her conscience by reminding herself of
all the glum NASA press conferences of the past year—the space station setbacks,
the postponement of the X-33, all the failed Mars probes, continuous budget
bailouts. Gabrielle wondered what she could have done differently.
Nothing, she told herself. You did everything right.
It had simply backfired.
74
The thundering navy SeaHawk chopper had been scrambled under a covert operation
status out of Thule Air Force Base in northern Greenland. It stayed low, out of
radar range, as it shot through the gale winds across seventy miles of open sea.
Then, executing the bizarre orders they had been given, the pilots fought the
wind and brought the craft to a hover above a pre-ordained set of coordinates on
the empty ocean.
“Where’s the rendezvous?” the copilot yelled, confused. They had been told to
bring a chopper with a rescue winch, so he anticipated a search-and-retrieve
operation. “You sure these are the right coordinates?” He scanned the choppy
seas with a searchlight, but there was nothing below them except—
“Holy shit!” The pilot pulled back on the stick, jolting upward.
The black mountain of steel rose before them out of the waves without warning. A
gargantuan unmarked submarine blew its ballast and rose on a cloud of bubbles.
The pilots exchanged uneasy laughs. “Guess that’s them.”
As ordered, the transaction proceeded under complete radio silence. The
doublewide portal on the peak of the sail opened and a seaman flashed them
signals with a strobe light. The chopper then moved over the sub and dropped a
three-man rescue harness, essentially three rubberized loops on a retractable
cable. Within sixty seconds, the three unknown “danglers” were swinging beneath
the chopper, ascending slowly against the downdraft of the rotors.
When the copilot hauled them aboard—two men and a woman—the pilot flashed the
sub the “all clear.” Within seconds, the enormous vessel disappeared beneath the
windswept sea, leaving no trace it had ever been there.
With the passengers safely aboard, the chopper pilot faced front, dipped the
nose of the chopper, and accelerated south to complete his mission. The storm
was closing fast, and these three strangers were to be brought safely back to
Thule AFB for further jet transport. Where they were headed, the pilot had no
idea. All he knew was that his orders had been from high up, and he was
transporting very precious cargo.
75
When the Milne storm finally exploded, unleashing its full force on the NASA
habisphere, the dome shuddered as if ready to lift off the ice and launch out to
sea. The steel stabilizing cables pulled taut against their stakes, vibrating
like huge guitar strings and letting out a doleful drone. The generators outside
stuttered, causing the lights to flicker, threatening to plunge the huge room
into total blackness.
NASA administrator Lawrence Ekstrom strode across the interior of the dome. He
wished he were getting the hell out of here tonight, but that was not to be. He
would remain another day, giving additional on-site press conferences in the
morning and overseeing preparations to transport the meteorite back to
Washington. He wanted nothing more at the moment than to get some sleep; the
day’s unexpected problems had taken a lot out of him.
Ekstrom’s thoughts turned yet again to Wailee Ming, Rachel Sexton, Norah Mangor,
Michael Tolland, and Corky Marlinson. Some of the NASA staff had begun noticing
the civilians were missing.
Relax, Ekstrom told himself. Everything is under control.
He breathed deeply, reminding himself that everyone on the planet was excited
about NASA and space right now. Extraterrestrial life hadn’t been this exciting
a topic since the famous “Roswell incident” back in 1947—the alleged crash of an
alien spaceship in Roswell, New Mexico, which was now the shrine to millions of
UFO-conspiracy theorists even today.
During Ekstrom’s years working at the Pentagon, he had learned that the Roswell
incident had been nothing more than a military accident during a classified
operation called Project Mogul—the flight test of a spy balloon being designed
to listen in on Russian atomic tests. A prototype, while being tested, had
drifted off course and crashed in the New Mexico desert. Unfortunately, a
civilian found the wreckage before the military did.
Unsuspecting rancher William Brazel had stumbled across a debris field of
radical synthesized neoprene and lightweight metals unlike anything he’d ever
seen, and he immediately called in the sheriff. Newspapers carried the story of
the bizarre wreckage, and public interest grew fast. Fueled by the military’s
denial that the wreckage was theirs, reporters launched investigations, and the
covert status of Project Mogul came into serious jeopardy. Just as it seemed the
sensitive issue of a spy balloon was about to be revealed, something wonderful
happened.
The media drew an unexpected conclusion. They decided the scraps of futuristic
substance could only have come from an extraterrestrial source—creatures more
scientifically advanced than humans. The military’s denial of the incident
obviously had to be one thing only—a cover-up of contact with aliens! Although
baffled by this new hypothesis, the air force was not about to look a gift horse
in the mouth. They grabbed the alien story and ran with it; the world’s
suspicion that aliens were visiting New Mexico was far less a threat to national
security than that of the Russians catching wind of Project Mogul.
To fuel the alien cover story, the intelligence community shrouded the Roswell
incident in secrecy and began orchestrating “security leaks”—quiet murmurings of
alien contacts, recovered spaceships, and even a mysterious “Hangar 18” at
Dayton’s Wright-Patterson Air Force Base where the government was keeping alien
bodies on ice. The world bought the story, and Roswell fever swept the globe.
From that moment on, whenever a civilian mistakenly spotted an advanced U.S.
military aircraft, the intelligence community simply dusted off the old
conspiracy.
That’s not an aircraft, that’s an alien spaceship!
Ekstrom was amazed to think this simple deception was still working today. Every
time the media reported a sudden flurry of UFO sightings, Ekstrom had to laugh.
Chances were some lucky civilian had caught a glimpse of one of the NRO’s
fifty-seven fast-moving, unmanned reconnaissance aircraft known as Global
Hawks—oblong, remote-controlled aircraft that looked like nothing else in the
sky.
Ekstrom found it pathetic that countless tourists still made pilgrimages to the
New Mexico desert to scan the night skies with their video cameras. Occasionally
one got lucky and captured “hard evidence” of a UFO—bright lights flitting
around the sky with more maneuverability and speed than any aircraft humans had
ever built. What these people failed to realize, of course, was that there
existed a twelve-year lag between what the government could build and what the
public knew about. These UFO-gazers were simply catching a glimpse of the next
generation of U.S. aircraft being developed out at Area 51—many of which were
the brainstorms of NASA engineers. Of course, intelligence officials never
corrected the misconception; it was obviously preferable that the world read
about another UFO sighting than to have people learn the U.S. military’s true
flight capabilities.
But everything has changed now, Ekstrom thought. In a few hours, the
extraterrestrial myth would become a confirmed reality, forever.
“Administrator?” A NASA technician hurried across the ice behind him. “You have
an emergency secure call in the PSC.”
Ekstrom sighed, turning. What the hell could it be now? He headed for the
communications trailer.
The technician hurried along beside him. “The guys manning the radar in the PSC
were curious, sir…”
“Yeah?” Ekstrom’s thoughts were still far away.
“The fat-body sub stationed off the coast here? We were wondering why you didn’t
mention it to us.”
Ekstrom glanced up. “I’m sorry?”
“The submarine, sir? You could have at least told the guys on radar. Additional
seaboard security is understandable, but it took our radar team off guard.”
Ekstrom stopped short. “What submarine?”
The technician stopped now too, clearly not expecting the administrator’s
surprise. “She’s not part of our operation?”
“No! Where is it?”
The technician swallowed hard. “About three miles out. We caught her on radar by
chance. Only surfaced for a couple minutes. Pretty big blip. Had to be a
fat-body. We figured you’d asked the navy to stand watch over this op without
telling any of us.”
Ekstrom stared. “I most certainly did not!”
Now the technician’s voice wavered. “Well, sir, then I guess I should inform you
that a sub just rendezvoused with an aircraft right off the coast here. Looked
like a personnel change. Actually, we were all pretty impressed anyone would
attempt a wet-dry vertical in this kind of wind.”
Ekstrom felt his muscles stiffen. What the hell is a submarine doing directly
off the coast of Ellesmere Island without my knowledge? “Did you see what
direction the aircraft flew after rendezvous?”
“Back toward Thule air base. For connecting transport to the mainland, I
assume.”
Ekstrom said nothing the rest of the way to the PSC. When he entered the cramped
darkness, the hoarse voice on the line had a familiar rasp.
“We’ve got a problem,” Tench said, coughing as she spoke. “It’s about Rachel
Sexton.”
76
Senator Sexton was not sure how long he had been staring into space when he
heard the pounding. When he realized the throbbing in his ears was not from the
alcohol but rather from someone at his apartment door, he got up from the couch,
stowed the bottle of Courvoisier, and made his way to the foyer.
“Who is it?” Sexton yelled, in no mood for visitors.
His bodyguard’s voice called in with the identity of Sexton’s unexpected guest.
Sexton sobered instantly. That was fast. Sexton had hoped not to have to have
this conversation until morning.
Taking a deep breath and straightening his hair, Sexton opened the door. The
face before him was all too familiar—tough and leathery despite the man’s
seventy-something years. Sexton had met with him only this morning in the white
Ford Windstar minivan in a hotel parking garage. Was it only this morning?
Sexton wondered. God, how things had changed since then.
“May I come in?” the dark-haired man asked.
Sexton stepped aside, allowing the head of the Space Frontier Foundation to
pass.
“Did the meeting go well?” the man asked, as Sexton closed the door.
Did it go well? Sexton wondered if the man lived in a cocoon. “Things were
terrific until the President came on television.”
The old man nodded, looking displeased. “Yes. An incredible victory. It will
hurt our cause greatly.”
Hurt our cause? Here was an optimist. With NASA’s triumph tonight, this guy
would be dead and buried before the Space Frontier Foundation attained their
goals of privatization.
“For years I have suspected proof was forthcoming,” the old man said. “I did not
know how or when, but sooner or later we had to know for sure.”
Sexton was stunned. “You’re not surprised?”
“The mathematics of the cosmos virtually requires other life-forms,” the man
said, moving toward Sexton’s den. “I am not surprised that this discovery has
been made. Intellectually, I am thrilled. Spiritually, I am in awe. Politically,
I am deeply disturbed. The timing could not be worse.”
Sexton wondered why the man had come. It sure as hell wasn’t to cheer him up.
“As you know,” the man said, “SFF member companies have spent millions trying to
open the frontier of space to private citizens. Recently, much of that money has
gone to your campaign.”
Sexton felt suddenly defensive. “I had no control over tonight’s fiasco. The
White House baited me to attack NASA!”
“Yes. The President played the game well. And yet, all may not be lost.” There
was an odd glint of hope in the old man’s eyes.
He’s senile, Sexton decided. All was definitely lost. Every station on
television right now was talking about the destruction of the Sexton campaign.
The old man showed himself into the den, sat on the couch, and fixed his tired
eyes on the senator. “Do you recall,” the man said, “the problems NASA initially
had with the anomaly software onboard the PODS satellite?”
Sexton could not imagine where this was headed. What the hell difference does
that make now? PODS found a goddamned meteorite with fossils!
“If you remember,” the man said. “The onboard software did not function properly
at first. You made a big deal of it in the press.”
“As I should have!” Sexton said, sitting down opposite the man. “It was another
NASA failure!”
The man nodded. “I agree. But shortly after that, NASA held a press conference
announcing they had come up with a work-around—some sort of patch for the
software.”
Sexton hadn’t actually seen the press conference, but he’d heard it was short,
flat, and hardly newsworthy—the PODS project leader giving a dull technical
description of how NASA had overcome a minor glitch in PODS’s anomaly-detection
software and gotten everything up and running.
“I have been watching PODS with interest ever since it failed,” the man said. He
produced a videocassette and walked to Sexton’s television, putting the video in
the VCR. “This should interest you.”
The video began to play. It showed the NASA press room at headquarters in
Washington. A well-dressed man was taking the podium and greeting the audience.
The subtitle beneath the podium read:
CHRIS HARPER, Section Manager
Polar Orbiting Density Scanner Satellite (PODS)
Chris Harper was tall, refined, and spoke with the quiet dignity of a European
American who still clung proudly to his roots. His accent was erudite and
polished. He was addressing the press with confidence, giving them some bad news
about PODS.
“Although the PODS satellite is in orbit and functioning well, we have a minor
setback with the onboard computers. A minor programming error for which I take
full responsibility. Specifically, the FIR filter has a faulty voxel index,
which means the PODS’s anomaly-detection software is not functioning properly.
We’re working on a fix.”
The crowd sighed, apparently accustomed to NASA letdowns. “What does that mean
for the current effectiveness of the satellite?” someone asked.
Harper took it like a pro. Confident and matter-of-fact. “Imagine a perfect set
of eyes without a functioning brain. Essentially the PODS satellite is seeing
twenty-twenty, but it has no idea what it’s looking at. The purpose of the PODS
mission is to look for melt pockets in the polar ice cap, but without the
computer to analyze the density data PODS receives from its scanners, PODS
cannot discern where the points of interest are. We should have the situation
remedied after the next shuttle mission can make an adjustment to the onboard
computer.”
A groan of disappointment rose in the room.
The old man glanced over at Sexton. “He presents bad news pretty well, doesn’t
he?”
“He’s from NASA,” Sexton grumbled. “That’s what they do.”
The VCR tape went blank for an instant and then switched to another NASA press
conference.
“This second press conference,” the old man said to Sexton, “was given only a
few weeks ago. Quite late at night. Few people saw it. This time Dr. Harper is
announcing good news.”
The footage launched. This time Chris Harper looked disheveled and uneasy. “I am
pleased to announce,” Harper said, sounding anything but pleased, “that NASA has
found a work-around for the PODS satellite’s software problem.” He fumbled
through an explanation of the work-around—something about redirecting the raw
data from PODS and sending it through computers here on earth rather than
relying on the onboard PODS computer. Everyone seemed impressed. It all sounded
quite feasible and exciting. When Harper was done, the room gave him an
enthusiastic round of applause.
“So we can expect data soon?” someone in the audience asked.
Harper nodded, sweating. “A couple of weeks.”
More applause. Hands shot up around the room.
“That’s all I have for you now,” Harper said, looking ill as he packed up his
papers. “PODS is up and running. We’ll have data soon.” He practically ran off
the stage.
Sexton scowled. He had to admit, this was odd. Why did Chris Harper look so
comfortable giving bad news and so uncomfortable giving good news? It should
have been in reverse. Sexton hadn’t actually seen this press conference when it
aired, although he’d read about the software fix. The fix, at the time, seemed
an inconsequential NASA salvage; the public perception remained unimpressed—PODS
was just another NASA project that had malfunctioned and was being awkwardly
patched together with a less than ideal solution.
The old man turned off the television. “NASA claimed Dr. Harper was not feeling
well that night.” He paused. “I happen to think Harper was lying.”
Lying? Sexton stared, his fuzzy thoughts unable to piece together any logical
rationale for why Harper would have lied about the software. Still, Sexton had
told enough lies in his life to recognize a poor liar when he saw one. He had to
admit, Dr. Harper sure looked suspicious.
“Perhaps you don’t realize?” the old man said. “This little announcement you
just heard Chris Harper give is the single most important press conference in
NASA history.” He paused. “That convenient software fix he just described is
what allowed PODS to find the meteorite.”
Sexton puzzled. And you think he was lying about it? “But, if Harper was lying,
and the PODS software isn’t really working, then how the hell did NASA find the
meteorite?”
The old man smiled. “Exactly.”
77
The U.S. military’s fleet of “repo” aircraft repossessed during drug-trade
arrests consisted of over a dozen private jets, including three reconditioned
G4s used for transporting military VIPs. A half hour ago, one of those G4s had
lifted off the Thule runway, fought its way above the storm, and was now
pounding southward into the Canadian night en route to Washington. Onboard,
Rachel Sexton, Michael Tolland, and Corky Marlinson had the eight-seat cabin to
themselves, looking like some kind of disheveled sports team in their matching
blue U.S.S. Charlotte jumpsuits and caps.
Despite the roar of the Grumman engines, Corky Marlinson was asleep in the rear.
Tolland sat near the front, looking exhausted as he gazed out the window at the
sea. Rachel was beside him, knowing she could not sleep even if she’d been
sedated. Her mind churned through the mystery of the meteorite, and, most
recently, the dead room conversation with Pickering. Before signing off,
Pickering had given Rachel two additional pieces of disturbing information.
First, Marjorie Tench claimed to possess a video recording of Rachel’s private
deposition to the White House staff. Tench was now threatening to use the video
as evidence if Rachel tried to go back on her confirmation of the meteorite
data. The news was particularly unsettling because Rachel had specifically told
Zach Herney that her remarks to the staff were for in-house use only. Apparently
Zach Herney had ignored that request.
The second bit of troubling news dealt with a CNN debate her father had attended
earlier in the afternoon. Apparently, Marjorie Tench had made a rare appearance
and deftly baited Rachel’s father into crystallizing his position against NASA.
More specifically, Tench had cajoled him into crudely proclaiming his skepticism
that extraterrestrial life would ever be found.
Eat his hat? That’s what Pickering said her father had offered to do if NASA
ever found extraterrestrial life. Rachel wondered how Tench had managed to coax
out that propitious little sound bite. Clearly, the White House had been setting
the stage carefully—ruthlessly lining up all the dominoes, preparing for the big
Sexton collapse. The President and Marjorie Tench, like some sort of political
tag team wrestling duo, had maneuvered for the kill. While the President
remained dignified outside the ring, Tench had moved in, circling, cunningly
lining up the senator for the presidential body slam.
The President had told Rachel he’d asked NASA to delay announcing the discovery
in order to provide time to confirm the accuracy of the data. Rachel now
realized there were other advantages to waiting. The extra time had given the
White House time to dole out the rope with which the senator would hang himself.
Rachel felt no sympathy for her father, and yet she now realized that beneath
the warm and fuzzy exterior of President Zach Herney, a shrewd shark lurked. You
did not become the most powerful man in the world without a killer instinct. The
question now was whether this shark was an innocent bystander—or a player.
Rachel stood, stretching her legs. As she paced the aisle of the plane, she felt
frustrated that the pieces to this puzzle seemed so contradictory. Pickering,
with his trademark chaste logic, had concluded the meteorite must be fake. Corky
and Tolland, with scientific assurance, insisted the meteorite was authentic.
Rachel only knew what she had seen—a charred, fossilized rock being pulled from
the ice.
Now, as she passed beside Corky, she gazed down at the astrophysicist, battered
from his ordeal on the ice. The swelling on his cheek was going down now, and
the stitches looked good. He was asleep, snoring, his pudgy hands clutching the
disk-shaped meteorite sample like some kind of security blanket.
Rachel reached down and gently slipped the meteorite sample away from him. She
held it up, studying the fossils again. Remove all assumptions, she told
herself, forcing herself to reorganize her thoughts. Reestablish the chain of
substantiation. It was an old NRO trick. Rebuilding a proof from scratch was a
process known as a “null start”—something all data analysts practiced when the
pieces didn’t quite fit.
Reassemble the proof.
She began pacing again.
Does this stone represent proof of extraterrestrial life?
Proof, she knew, was a conclusion built on a pyramid of facts, a broad base of
accepted information on which more specific assertions were made.
Remove all the base assumptions. Start again.
What do we have?
A rock.
She pondered that for a moment. A rock. A rock with fossilized creatures.
Walking back toward the front of the plane, she took her seat beside Michael
Tolland.
“Mike, let’s play a game.”
Tolland turned from the window, looking distant, apparently deep in his own
thoughts. “A game?”
She handed him the meteorite sample. “Let’s pretend you’re seeing this
fossilized rock for the first time. I’ve told you nothing about where it came
from or how it was found. What would you tell me it is?”
Tolland heaved a disconsolate sigh. “Funny you should ask. I just had the
strangest thought…”
Hundreds of miles behind Rachel and Tolland, a strange-looking aircraft stayed
low as it tore south above a deserted ocean. Onboard, the Delta Force was
silent. They had been pulled out of locations in a hurry, but never like this.
Their controller was furious.
Earlier, Delta-One had informed the controller that unexpected events on the ice
shelf had left his team with no option but to exercise force—force that had
included killing four civilians, including Rachel Sexton and Michael Tolland.
The controller reacted with shock. Killing, although an authorized last resort,
obviously never had been part of the controller’s plan.
Later, the controller’s displeasure over the killings turned to outright rage
when he learned the assassinations had not gone as planned.
“Your team failed!” the controller seethed, the androgynous tone hardly masking
the person’s rage. “Three of your four targets are still alive!”
Impossible! Delta-One had thought. “But we witnessed—”
“They made contact with a submarine and are now en route to Washington.”
“What!”
The controller’s tone turned lethal. “Listen carefully. I am about to give you
new orders. And this time you will not fail.”
78
Senator Sexton was actually feeling a flicker of hope as he walked his
unexpected visitor back out to the elevator. The head of the SFF, as it turned
out, had not come to chastise Sexton, but rather to give him a pep talk and tell
him the battle was not yet over.
A possible chink in NASA’s armor.
The videotape of the bizarre NASA press conference had convinced Sexton that the
old man was right—PODS mission director Chris Harper was lying. But why? And if
NASA never fixed the PODS software, how did NASA find the meteorite?
As they walked to the elevator, the old man said, “Sometimes all it takes to
unravel something is a single strand. Perhaps we can find a way to eat away at
NASA’s victory from within. Cast a shadow of distrust. Who knows where it will
lead?” The old man locked his tired eyes on Sexton. “I am not ready to lay down
and die, senator. And I trust nor are you.”
“Of course not,” Sexton said, mustering resolve in his voice. “We’ve come too
far.”
“Chris Harper lied about fixing PODS,” the man said as he boarded the elevator.
“And we need to know why.”
“I will get that information as fast as I can,” Sexton replied. I have just the
person.
“Good. Your future depends on it.”
As Sexton headed back toward his apartment, his step was a little lighter, his
head a little clearer. NASA lied about PODS. The only question was how Sexton
could prove it.
His thoughts had already turned to Gabrielle Ashe. Wherever she was at the
moment, she had to be feeling like shit. Gabrielle had no doubt seen the press
conference and was now standing on a ledge somewhere getting ready to jump. Her
proposition of making NASA a major issue in Sexton’s campaign had turned out to
be the biggest mistake of Sexton’s career.
She owes me, Sexton thought. And she knows it.
Gabrielle already had proven she had a knack for obtaining NASA secrets. She has
a contact, Sexton thought. She’d been scoring insider information for weeks now.
Gabrielle had connections she was not sharing. Connections she could pump for
information on PODS. Moreover, tonight Gabrielle would be motivated. She had a
debt to repay, and Sexton suspected she would do anything to regain his favor.
As Sexton arrived back at his apartment door, his bodyguard nodded. “Evening,
senator. I trust I did the right thing by letting Gabrielle in earlier? She said
it was critical she talk to you.”
Sexton paused. “I’m sorry?”
“Ms. Ashe? She had important information for you earlier tonight. That’s why I
let her in.”
Sexton felt his body stiffen. He looked at his apartment door. What the hell is
this guy talking about?
The guard’s expression changed to one of confusion and concern. “Senator, are
you okay? You remember, right? Gabrielle arrived during your meeting. She talked
to you, right? She must have. She was in there quite a while.”
Sexton stared a long moment, feeling his pulse skyrocket. This moron let
Gabrielle into my apartment during a private SFF meeting? She stuck around
inside and then departed without a word? Sexton could only imagine what
Gabrielle might have overheard. Swallowing his anger, he forced a smile to his
guard. “Oh, yes! I’m sorry. I’m exhausted. Had a couple of drinks, too. Ms. Ashe
and I did indeed speak. You did the right thing.”
The guard looked relieved.
“Did she say where she went when she left?”
The guard shook his head. “She was in a big hurry.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Sexton entered his apartment fuming. How complicated were my goddamn directions?
No visitors! He had to assume if Gabrielle had been inside for any length of
time and then snuck out without a word, she must have heard things she was not
meant to hear. Tonight of all nights.
Senator Sexton knew above all he could not afford to lose Gabrielle Ashe’s
trust; women could become vengeful and stupid when they felt deceived. Sexton
needed to bring her back. Tonight more than ever, he needed her in his camp.
79
On the fourth floor of the ABC television studios, Gabrielle Ashe sat alone in
Yolanda’s glass-walled office and stared at the fraying carpet. She had always
prided herself on good instincts and knowing whom she could trust. Now, for the
first time in years, Gabrielle felt alone, uncertain which way to turn.
The sound of her cellphone lifted her gaze from the carpet. Reluctant, she
picked up. “Gabrielle Ashe.”
“Gabrielle, it’s me.”
She recognized the timbre of Senator Sexton’s voice immediately, although he
sounded surprisingly calm considering what had just transpired.
“It’s been one hell of a night over here,” he said, “so just let me talk. I’m
sure you saw the President’s conference. Christ, did we play the wrong cards.
I’m sick over it. You’re probably blaming yourself. Don’t. Who the hell would
have guessed? Not your fault. Anyhow, listen up. I think there may be a way to
get our feet back under us.”
Gabrielle stood up, unable to imagine what Sexton could be talking about. This
was hardly the reaction she had expected.
“I had a meeting tonight,” Sexton said, “with representatives from private space
industries, and—”
“You did?” Gabrielle blurted, stunned to hear him admit it. “I mean…I had no
idea.”
“Yeah, nothing major. I would have asked you to sit in, but these guys are
touchy about privacy. Some of them are donating money to my campaign. It’s not
something they like to advertise.”
Gabrielle felt totally disarmed. “But…isn’t that illegal?”
“Illegal? Hell no! All the donations are under the two-thousand-dollar cap.
Small potatoes. These guys barely make a dent, but I listen to their gripes
anyway. Call it an investment in the future. I’m quiet about it because,
frankly, the appearances aren’t so great. If the White House caught wind, they’d
spin the hell out of it. Anyhow, look, that’s not the point. I called to tell
you that after tonight’s meeting, I was talking to the head of the SFF…”
For several seconds, although Sexton was still talking, all Gabrielle could hear
was the blood rushing in shame to her face. Without the slightest challenge from
her, the senator had calmly admitted tonight’s meeting with private space
companies. Perfectly legal. And to think what Gabrielle had almost considered
doing! Thank God Yolanda had stopped her. I almost jumped ship to Marjorie
Tench!
“…and so I told the head of the SFF,” the senator was saying, “that you might be
able to get that information for us.”
Gabrielle tuned back in. “Okay.”
“The contact from whom you’ve been getting all your inside NASA information
these past few months? I assume you still have access?”
Marjorie Tench. Gabrielle cringed knowing she could never tell the senator that
the informant had been manipulating her all along. “Um…I think so,” Gabrielle
lied.
“Good. There’s some information I need from you. Right away.”
As she listened, Gabrielle realized just how badly she had been underestimating
Senator Sedgewick Sexton lately. Some of the man’s luster had worn off since
she’d first begun following his career. But tonight, it was back. In the face of
what appeared to be the ultimate death blow to his campaign, Sexton was plotting
a counterattack. And although it had been Gabrielle who led him down this
inauspicious path, he was not punishing her. Instead, he was giving her a chance
to redeem herself.
And redeem herself she would.
Whatever it took.
80
William Pickering gazed out his office window at the distant line of headlights
on Leesburg Highway. He often thought about her when he stood up here alone at
the top of the world.
All this power…and I couldn’t save her.
Pickering’s daughter, Diana, had died in the Red Sea while stationed aboard a
small navy escort ship, training to become a navigator. Her ship had been
anchored in safe harbor on a sunny afternoon when a handmade dory loaded with
explosives and powered by two suicide terrorists motored slowly across the
harbor and exploded on contact with the hull. Diana Pickering and thirteen other
young American soldiers had been killed that day.
William Pickering had been devastated. The anguish overwhelmed him for weeks.
When the terrorist attack was traced to a known cell whom the CIA had been
tracking unsuccessfully for years, Pickering’s sadness turned into rage. He had
marched into CIA headquarters and demanded answers.
The answers he got were hard to swallow.
Apparently the CIA had been prepared to move on this cell months before and was
simply waiting for the high-res satellite photos so that they could plan a
pinpoint attack on the terrorists’ mountain hideout in Afghanistan. Those photos
were scheduled to be taken by the $1.2 billion NRO satellite code-named Vortex
2, the same satellite that had been blown up on the launchpad by its NASA launch
vehicle. Because of the NASA accident, the CIA strike had been postponed, and
now Diana Pickering had died.
Pickering’s mind told him that NASA had not been directly responsible, but his
heart found it hard to forgive. The investigation of the rocket explosion
revealed that the NASA engineers responsible for the fuel injections system had
been forced to use second-rate materials in an effort to stay on budget.
“For nonmanned flights,” Lawrence Ekstrom explained in a press conference, “NASA
strives for cost-effectiveness above all. In this case, the results were
admittedly not optimal. We will be looking into it.”
Not optimal. Diana Pickering was dead.
Furthermore, because the spy satellite was classified, the public never learned
that NASA had disintegrated a $1.2 billion NRO project, and along with it,
indirectly, numerous American lives.
“Sir?” Pickering’s secretary’s voice came over his intercom, startling him.
“Line one. It’s Marjorie Tench.”
Pickering shook himself out of his daze and looked at his telephone. Again? The
blinking light on line one seemed to pulse with an irate urgency. Pickering
frowned and took the call.
“Pickering here.”
Tench’s voice was seething mad. “What did she tell you?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Rachel Sexton contacted you. What did she tell you? She was on a submarine, for
God’s sake! Explain that!”
Pickering could tell immediately that denying the fact was not an option; Tench
had been doing her homework. Pickering was surprised she’d found out about the
Charlotte, but she’d apparently thrown her weight around until she got some
answers. “Ms. Sexton contacted me, yes.”
“You arranged a pickup. And you didn’t contact me?”
“I arranged transport. That is correct.” Two hours remained until Rachel Sexton,
Michael Tolland, and Corky Marlinson were scheduled to arrive at the nearby
Bollings Air Force Base.
“And yet you chose not to inform me?”
“Rachel Sexton has made some very disturbing accusations.”
“Regarding the authenticity of the meteorite…and some kind of attack on her
life?”
“Among other things.”
“Obviously, she is lying.”
“You are aware she is with two others who corroborate her story?”
Tench paused. “Yes. Most disturbing. The White House is very concerned by their
claims.”
“The White House? Or you personally?”
Her tone turned razor sharp. “As far as you are concerned, director, there is no
difference tonight.”
Pickering was unimpressed. He was no stranger to blustering politicians and
support staff trying to establish footholds over the intel community. Few put up
as strong a front as Marjorie Tench. “Does the President know you’re calling
me?”
“Frankly, director, I’m shocked that you would even entertain these lunatic
ravings.”
You didn’t answer my question. “I see no logical reason for these people to lie.
I have to assume they are either telling the truth, or they have made an honest
mistake.”
“Mistake? Claims of attacks? Flaws in the meteorite data that NASA never saw?
Please! This is an obvious political ploy.”
“If so, the motives escape me.”
Tench sighed heavily and lowered her voice. “Director, there are forces at work
here of which you might not be aware. We can speak about that at length later,
but at the moment I need to know where Ms. Sexton and the others are. I need to
get to the bottom of this before they do any lasting damage. Where are they?”
“That is not information I am comfortable sharing. I will contact you after they
arrive.”
“Wrong. I will be there to greet them when they arrive.”
You and how many Secret Service agents? Pickering wondered. “If I inform you of
their arrival time and location, will we all have a chance to chat like friends,
or do you intend to have a private army take them into custody?”
“These people pose a direct threat to the President. The White House has every
right to detain and question them.”
Pickering knew she was right. Under Title 18, Section 3056 of the United States
Code, agents of the U.S. Secret Service can carry firearms, use deadly force,
and make “un-warranted” arrests simply on suspicion that a person has committed
or is intending to commit a felony or any act of aggression against the
president. The service possessed carte blanche. Regular detainees included
unsavory loiterers outside the White House and school kids who sent threatening
e-mail pranks.
Pickering had no doubt the service could justify dragging Rachel Sexton and the
others into the basement of the White House and keeping them there indefinitely.
It would be a dangerous play, but Tench clearly realized the stakes were huge.
The question was what would happen next if Pickering allowed Tench to take
control. He had no intention of finding out.
“I will do whatever is necessary,” Tench declared, “to protect the President
from false accusations. The mere implication of foul play will cast a heavy
shadow on the White House and NASA. Rachel Sexton has abused the trust the
President gave her, and I have no intention of seeing the President pay the
price.”
“And if I request that Ms. Sexton be permitted to present her case to an
official panel of inquiry?”
“Then you would be disregarding a direct presidential order and giving her a
platform from which to make a goddamn political mess! I will ask you one more
time, director. Where are you flying them?”
Pickering exhaled a long breath. Whether or not he told Marjorie Tench that the
plane was coming into Bollings Air Force Base, he knew she had the means to find
out. The question was whether or not she would do it. He sensed from the
determination in her voice that she would not rest. Marjorie Tench was scared.
“Marjorie,” Pickering said, with unmistakable clarity of tone. “Someone is lying
to me. Of this I am certain. Either it is Rachel Sexton and two civilian
scientists—or it is you. I believe it is you.”
Tench exploded. “How dare—”
“Your indignity has no resonance with me, so save it. You would be wise to know
that I have absolute proof NASA and the White House broadcast untruths tonight.”
Tench fell suddenly silent.
Pickering let her reel a moment. “I’m not looking for a political meltdown any
more than you are. But there have been lies. Lies that cannot stand. If you want
me to help you, you’ve got to start by being honest with me.”
Tench sounded tempted but wary. “If you’re so certain there were lies, why
haven’t you stepped forward?”
“I don’t interfere in political matters.”
Tench muttered something that sounded a lot like “bullshit.”
“Are you trying to tell me, Marjorie, that the President’s announcement tonight
was entirely accurate?”
There was a long silence on the line.
Pickering knew he had her. “Listen, we both know this is a time bomb waiting to
explode. But it’s not too late. There are compromises we can make.”
Tench said nothing for several seconds. Finally she sighed. “We should meet.”
Touchdown, Pickering thought.
“I have something to show you,” Tench said. “And I believe it will shed some
light on this matter.”
“I’ll come to your office.”
“No,” she said hurriedly. “It’s late. Your presence here would raise concerns.
I’d prefer to keep this matter between us.”
Pickering read between the lines. The President knows nothing about this.
“You’re welcome to come here,” he said.
Tench sounded distrusting. “Let’s meet somewhere discreet.”
Pickering had expected as much.
“The FDR Memorial is convenient to the White House,” Tench said. “It will be
empty at this time of night.”
Pickering considered it. The FDR Memorial sat midway between the Jefferson and
Lincoln memorials, in an extremely safe part of town. After a long beat,
Pickering agreed.
“One hour,” Tench said, signing off. “And come alone.”
Immediately upon hanging up, Marjorie Tench phoned NASA administrator Ekstrom.
Her voice was tight as she relayed the bad news.
“Pickering could be a problem.”
81
Gabrielle Ashe was brimming with new hope as she stood at Yolanda Cole’s desk in
the ABC production room and dialed directory assistance.
The allegations Sexton had just conveyed to her, if confirmed, had shocking
potential. NASA lied about PODS? Gabrielle had seen the press conference in
question and recalled thinking it was odd, and yet she’d forgotten all about it;
PODS was not a critical issue a few weeks ago. Tonight, however, PODS had become
the issue.
Now Sexton needed inside information, and he needed it fast. He was relying on
Gabrielle’s “informant” to get the information. Gabrielle had assured the
senator she would do her best. The problem, of course, was that her informant
was Marjorie Tench, who would be no help at all. So Gabrielle would have to get
the information another way.
“Directory assistance,” the voice on the phone said.
Gabrielle told them what she needed. The operator came back with three listings
for a Chris Harper in Washington. Gabrielle tried them all.
The first number was a law firm. The second had no answer. The third was now
ringing.
A woman answered on the first ring. “Harper residence.”
“Mrs. Harper?” Gabrielle said as politely as possible. “I hope I haven’t woken
you?”
“Heavens no! I don’t think anyone’s asleep tonight.” She sounded excited.
Gabrielle could hear the television in the background. Meteorite coverage.
“You’re calling for Chris, I assume?”
Gabrielle’s pulse quickened. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m afraid Chris isn’t here. He raced off to work as soon as the President’s
address was over.” The woman chuckled to herself. “Of course, I doubt there’s
any work going on. Most likely a party. The announcement came as quite a
surprise to him, you know. To everyone. Our phone’s been ringing all night. I
bet the whole NASA crew’s over there by now.”
“E Street complex?” Gabrielle asked, assuming the woman meant NASA headquarters.
“Righto. Take a party hat.”
“Thanks. I’ll track him down over there.”
Gabrielle hung up. She hurried out onto the production room floor and found
Yolanda, who was just finishing prepping a group of space experts who were about
to give enthusiastic commentary on the meteorite.
Yolanda smiled when she saw Gabrielle coming. “You look better,” she said.
“Starting to see the silver lining here?”
“I just talked to the senator. His meeting tonight wasn’t what I thought.”
“I told you Tench was playing you. How’s the senator taking the meteorite news?”
“Better than expected.”
Yolanda looked surprised. “I figured he’d jumped in front of a bus by now.”
“He thinks there may be a snag in the NASA data.”
Yolanda let out a dubious snort. “Did he see the same press conference I just
saw? How much more confirmation and reconfirmation can anyone need?”
“I’m going over to NASA to check on something.”
Yolanda’s penciled eyebrows raised in cautionary arches. “Senator Sexton’s
right-hand aide is going to march into NASA headquarters? Tonight? Can you say
‘public stoning’?”
Gabrielle told Yolanda about Sexton’s suspicion that the PODS section manager
Chris Harper had lied about fixing the anomaly software.
Yolanda clearly wasn’t buying it. “We covered that press conference, Gabs, and
I’ll admit, Harper was not himself that night, but NASA said he was sick as a
dog.”
“Senator Sexton is convinced he lied. Others are convinced too. Powerful
people.”
“If the PODS anomaly-detection software wasn’t fixed, how did PODS spot the
meteorite?”
Sexton’s point exactly, Gabrielle thought. “I don’t know. But the senator wants
me to get him some answers.”
Yolanda shook her head. “Sexton is sending you into a hornet’s nest on a
desperate pipe dream. Don’t go. You don’t owe him a thing.”
“I totally screwed up his campaign.”
“Rotten luck screwed up his campaign.”
“But if the senator is right and the PODS section manager actually lied—”
“Honey, if the PODS section manager lied to the world, what makes you think
he’ll tell you the truth.”
Gabrielle had considered that and was already formulating her plan. “If I find a
story over there, I’ll call you.”
Yolanda gave a skeptical laugh. “If you find a story over there, I’ll eat my
hat.”
82
Erase everything you know about this rock sample.
Michael Tolland had been struggling with his own disquieting ruminations about
the meteorite, but now, with Rachel’s probing questions, he was feeling an added
unease over the issue. He looked down at the rock slice in his hand.
Pretend someone handed it to you with no explanation of where it was found or
what it is. What would your analysis be?
Rachel’s question, Tolland knew, was loaded, and yet as an analytical exercise,
it proved powerful. By discarding all the data he had been given on his arrival
at the habisphere, Tolland had to admit that his analysis of the fossils was
profoundly biased by a singular premise—that the rock in which the fossils were
found was a meteorite.
What if I had NOT been told about the meteorite? he asked himself. Although
still unable to fathom any other explanation, Tolland allowed himself the leeway
of hypothetically removing “the meteorite” as a pre-supposition, and when he
did, the results were somewhat unsettling. Now Tolland and Rachel, joined by a
groggy Corky Marlinson, were discussing the ideas.
“So,” Rachel repeated, her voice intense, “Mike, you’re saying that if someone
handed you this fossilized rock with no explanation whatsoever, you would have
to conclude it was from earth.”
“Of course,” Tolland replied. “What else could I conclude? It’s a far greater
leap to assert you’ve found extraterrestrial life than it is to assert you’ve
found a fossil of some previously undiscovered terrestrial species. Scientists
discover dozens of new species every year.”
“Two-foot-long lice?” Corky demanded, sounding incredulous. “You would assume a
bug that big is from earth?”
“Not now, maybe,” Tolland replied, “but the species doesn’t necessarily have to
be currently living. It’s a fossil. It’s 170 million years old. About the same
age as our Jurassic. A lot of prehistoric fossils are oversized creatures that
look shocking when we discover their fossilized remains—enormous winged
reptiles, dinosaurs, birds.”
“Not to be the physicist here, Mike,” Corky said, “but there’s a serious flaw in
your argument. The prehistoric creatures you just named—dinosaurs, reptiles,
birds—they all have internal skeletons, which gives them the capability to grow
to large sizes despite the earth’s gravity. But this fossil…” He took the sample
and held it up. “These guys have exo skeletons. They’re arthropods. Bugs. You
yourself said that any bug this big could only have evolved in a low-gravity
environment. Otherwise its outer skeleton would have collapsed under its own
weight.”
“Correct,” Tolland said. “This species would have collapsed under its own weight
if it walked around on earth.”
Corky’s brow furrowed with annoyance. “Well, Mike, unless some caveman was
running an antigravity louse farm, I don’t see how you could possibly conclude a
two-foot-long bug is earthly in origin.”
Tolland smiled inwardly to think Corky was missing such a simple point.
“Actually, there is another possibility.” He focused closely on his friend.
“Corky, you’re used to looking up. Look down. There’s an abundant antigravity
environment right here on earth. And it’s been here since prehistoric times.”
Corky stared. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Rachel also looked surprised.
Tolland pointed out the window at the moonlit sea glistening beneath the plane.
“The ocean.”
Rachel let out a low whistle. “Of course.”
“Water is a low-gravity environment,” Tolland explained. “Everything weighs less
underwater. The ocean supports enormous fragile structures that could never
exist on land—jellyfish, giant squid, ribbon eels.”
Corky acquiesced, but only slightly. “Fine, but the prehistoric ocean never had
giant bugs.”
“Sure, it did. And it still does, in fact. People eat them everyday. They’re a
delicacy in most countries.”
“Mike, who the hell eats giant sea bugs!”
“Anyone who eats lobsters, crabs, and shrimp.”
Corky stared.
“Crustaceans are essentially giant sea bugs,” Tolland explained. “They’re a
suborder of the phylum Arthropoda—lice, crabs, spiders, insects, grasshoppers,
scorpions, lobsters—they’re all related. They’re all species with jointed
appendages and external skeletons.”
Corky suddenly looked ill.
“From a classification standpoint, they look a lot like bugs,” Tolland
explained. “Horseshoe crabs resemble giant trilobites. And the claws of a
lobster resemble those of a large scorpion.”
Corky turned green. “Okay, I’ve eaten my last lobster roll.”
Rachel looked fascinated. “So arthropods on land stay small because the gravity
selects naturally for smallness. But in the water, their bodies are buoyed up,
so they can grow very large.”
“Exactly,” Tolland said. “An Alaskan king crab could be wrongly classified as a
giant spider if we had limited fossil evidence.”
Rachel’s excitement seemed to fade now to concern. “Mike, again barring the
issue of the meteorite’s apparent authenticity, tell me this: Do you think the
fossils we saw at Milne could possibly have come from the ocean? Earth’s ocean?”
Tolland felt the directness of her gaze and sensed the true weight of her
question. “Hypothetically, I would have to say yes. The ocean floor has sections
that are 190 million years old. The same age as the fossils. And theoretically
the oceans could have sustained life-forms that looked like this.”
“Oh please!” Corky scoffed. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing here. Barring the
issue of the meteorite’s authenticity? The meteorite is irrefutable. Even if
earth has ocean floor the same age as that meteorite, we sure as hell don’t have
ocean floor that has fusion crust, anomalous nickel content, and chondrules.
You’re grasping at straws.”
Tolland knew Corky was right, and yet imagining the fossils as sea creatures had
robbed Tolland of some of his awe over them. They seemed somehow more familiar
now.
“Mike,” Rachel said, “why didn’t any of the NASA scientists consider that these
fossils might be ocean creatures? Even from an ocean on another planet?”
“Two reasons, really. Pelagic fossil samples—those from the ocean floor—tend to
exhibit a plethora of intermingled species. Anything living in the millions of
cubic feet of life above the ocean floor will eventually die and sink to the
bottom. This means the ocean floor becomes a graveyard for species from every
depth, pressure, and temperature environment. But the sample at Milne was
clean—a single species. It looked more like something we might find in the
desert. A brood of similar animals getting buried in a sandstorm, for example.”
Rachel nodded. “And the second reason you guessed land rather than sea?”
Tolland shrugged. “Gut instinct. Scientists have always believed space, if it
were populated, would be populated by insects. And from what we’ve observed of
space, there’s a lot more dirt and rock out there than water.”
Rachel fell silent.
“Although…,” Tolland added. Rachel had him thinking now. “I’ll admit there are
very deep parts of the ocean floor that oceanographers call dead zones. We don’t
really understand them, but they are areas in which the currents and food
sources are such that almost nothing lives there. Just a few species of
bottom-dwelling scavengers. So from that standpoint, I suppose a single-species
fossil is not entirely out of the question.”
“Hello?” Corky grumbled. “Remember the fusion crust? The mid-level nickel
content? The chondrules? Why are we even talking about this?”
Tolland did not reply.
“This issue of the nickel content,” Rachel said to Corky. “Explain this to me
again. The nickel content in earth rocks is either very high or very low, but in
meteorites the nickel content is within a specific midrange window?”
Corky bobbed his head. “Precisely.”
“And so the nickel content in this sample falls precisely within the expected
range of values.”
“Very close, yes.”
Rachel looked surprised. “Hold on. Close? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Corky looked exasperated. “As I explained earlier, all meteorite mineralogies
are different. As scientists find new meteorites, we constantly need to update
our calculations as to what we consider an acceptable nickel content for
meteorites.”
Rachel looked stunned as she held up the sample. “So, this meteorite forced you
to reevaluate what you consider acceptable nickel content in a meteorite? It
fell outside the established midrange nickel window?”
“Only slightly,” Corky fired back.
“Why didn’t anyone mention this?”
“It’s a nonissue. Astrophysics is a dynamic science which is constantly being
updated.”
“During an incredibly important analysis?”
“Look,” Corky said with a huff, “I can assure you the nickel content in that
sample is a helluva lot closer to other meteorites than it is to any earth
rock.”
Rachel turned to Tolland. “Did you know about this?”
Tolland gave a reluctant nod. It hadn’t seemed a major issue at the time. “I was
told this meteorite exhibited slightly higher nickel content than seen in other
meteorites, but the NASA specialists seemed unconcerned.”
“For good reason!” Corky interjected. “The mineralogical proof here is not that
the nickel content is conclusively meteoritelike, but rather that it is
conclusively non–earth-like.”
Rachel shook her head. “Sorry, but in my business that’s the kind of faulty
logic that gets people killed. Saying a rock is non–earth-like doesn’t prove
it’s a meteorite. It simply proves that it’s not like anything we’ve ever seen
on earth.”
“What the hell’s the difference!”
“Nothing,” Rachel said. “If you’ve seen every rock on earth.”
Corky fell silent a moment. “Okay,” he finally said, “ignore the nickel content
if it makes you nervous. We still have a flawless fusion crust and chondrules.”
“Sure,” Rachel said, sounding unimpressed. “Two out of three ain’t bad.”
83
The structure housing the NASA central headquarters was a mammoth glass
rectangle located at 300 E Street in Washington, D.C. The building was spidered
with over two hundred miles of data cabling and thousands of tons of computer
processors. It was home to 1,134 civil servants who oversee NASA’s $15 billion
annual budget and the daily operations of the twelve NASA bases nationwide.
Despite the late hour, Gabrielle was not at all surprised to see the building’s
foyer filling with people, an apparent convergence of excited media crews and
even more excited NASA personnel. Gabrielle hurried inside. The entryway
resembled a museum, dominated dramatically by full-size replicas of famous
mission capsules and satellites suspended overhead. Television crews were
staking claims on the expansive marble floor, seizing wide-eyed NASA employees
who came through the door.
Gabrielle scanned the crowd, but did not see anyone who looked like PODS mission
director Chris Harper. Half the people in the lobby had press passes and half
had NASA photo IDs around their necks. Gabrielle had neither. She spotted a
young woman with a NASA ID and hurried over to her.
“Hi. I’m looking for Chris Harper?”
The woman eyed Gabrielle strangely, as if she recognized her from somewhere and
couldn’t quite place it. “I saw Dr. Harper go through a while ago. I think he
headed upstairs. Do I know you?”
“I don’t think so,” Gabrielle said, turning away. “How do I get upstairs?”
“Do you work for NASA?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then you can’t get upstairs.”
“Oh. Is there a phone I might use to—”
“Hey,” the woman said, looking suddenly angry. “I know who you are. I’ve seen
you on television with Senator Sexton. I can’t believe you would have the
nerve—”
Gabrielle was already gone, disappearing into the crowd. Behind her, she could
hear the woman angrily telling others Gabrielle was here.
Terrific. Two seconds through the door, and I’m already on the Most Wanted List.
Gabrielle kept her head down as she hurried to the far side of the lobby. A
building directory was mounted on the wall. She scanned the listings, looking
for Chris Harper. Nothing. The directory showed no names at all. It was arranged
by department.
PODS? she wondered, scanning the list for anything that had to do with the Polar
Orbiting Density Scanner. She saw nothing. She was afraid to glance over her
shoulder, half expecting to see a crew of angry NASA employees coming to stone
her. All she saw on the list that looked even remotely promising was on the
fourth floor:
EARTH SCIENCE ENTERPRISE, PHASE II
Earth Observing System (EOS)
Keeping her head turned away from the crowd, Gabrielle made her way toward an
alcove that housed a bank of elevators and a water fountain. She searched for
the elevator call buttons, but saw only slits. Damn. The elevators were security
controlled—key card ID access for employees only.
A group of young men came hurrying toward the elevators, talking exuberantly.
They wore NASA photo IDs around their necks. Gabrielle quickly bent over the
fountain, watching behind her. A pimple-faced man inserted his ID into the slot
and opened the elevator. He was laughing, shaking his head in amazement.
“The guys in SETI must be going nuts!” he said as everyone boarded the elevator.
“Their horn carts traced drift fields under two hundred milliJanskys for twenty
years, and the physical proof was buried in the ice here on earth the whole
time!”
The elevator doors closed, and the men disappeared.
Gabrielle stood up, wiping her mouth, wondering what to do. She looked around
for an interoffice phone. Nothing. She wondered if she could somehow steal a key
card, but something told her that was probably unwise. Whatever she did, she
knew she had to do it fast. She could now see the woman she’d first spoken to
out in the lobby, moving through the crowd with a NASA security officer.
A trim, bald man came around the corner, hustling toward the elevators.
Gabrielle again bent over the fountain. The man did not seem to notice her.
Gabrielle watched in silence as the man leaned forward and inserted his ID card
into the slit. Another set of elevator doors slid open, and the man stepped on.
Screw it, Gabrielle thought, making up her mind. Now or never.
As the elevator slid closed, Gabrielle spun from the fountain and ran over,
sticking her hand out and catching the door. The doors bounced back open, and
she stepped in, her face bright with excitement. “You ever seen it like this?”
she gushed to the startled bald man. “My God. It’s crazy!”
The man gave her an odd look.
“The guys at SETI must be going nuts!” Gabrielle said. “Their horn carts traced
drift fields under two hundred milliJanskys for twenty years, and the physical
proof was buried in the ice here on earth the whole time!”
The man looked surprised. “Well…yes, it’s quite…” He glanced at her neck,
apparently troubled not to see an ID. “I’m sorry, do you—”
“Fourth floor please. Came in such a hurry I barely remembered to put on my
underwear!” She laughed, stealing a quick look at the guy’s ID: JAMES THEISEN,
Finance Administration.
“Do you work here?” The man looked uncomfortable. “Miss…?”
Gabrielle let her mouth fall slack. “Jim! I’m hurt! Nothing like making a woman
feel unmemorable!”
The man went pale for a moment, looking uneasy, and running an embarrassed hand
across his head. “I’m sorry. All this excitement, you know. I admit, you do look
very familiar. What program are you working on?”
Shit. Gabrielle flashed a confident smile. “EOS.”
The man pointed to the illuminated fourth floor button. “Obviously. I mean
specifically, which project?”
Gabrielle felt her pulse quicken. She could only think of one. “PODS.”
The man looked surprised. “Really? I thought I’d met everyone on Dr. Harper’s
team.”
She gave an embarrassed nod. “Chris keeps me hidden away. I’m the idiot
programmer who screwed up voxel index on the anomaly software.”
Now it was the bald man whose jaw dropped. “That was you?”
Gabrielle frowned. “I haven’t slept in weeks.”
“But Dr. Harper took all the heat for that!”
“I know. Chris is that kind of guy. At least he got it straightened out. What an
announcement tonight, though, isn’t it? This meteorite. I’m just in shock!”
The elevator stopped on the fourth floor. Gabrielle jumped out. “Great seeing
you, Jim. Give my best to the boys in budgeting!”
“Sure,” the man stammered as the doors slid shut. “Nice seeing you again.”
84
Zach Herney, like most presidents before him, survived on four or five hours of
sleep a night. Over the last few weeks, however, he had survived on far less. As
the excitement of the evening’s events slowly began to ebb, Herney felt the late
hour settling in his limbs.
He and some of his upper level staff were in the Roosevelt Room enjoying
celebratory champagne and watching the endless loop of press conference replays,
Tolland documentary excerpts, and pundit recaps on network television. On-screen
at the moment, an exuberant network correspondent stood in front of the White
House gripping her microphone.
“Beyond the mind-numbing repercussions for mankind as a species,” she announced,
“this NASA discovery has some harsh political repercussions here in Washington.
The unearthing of these meteoric fossils could not have come at a better time
for the embattled President.” Her voice grew somber. “Nor at a worse time for
Senator Sexton.” The broadcast cut to a replay of the now infamous CNN debate
from earlier in the day.
“After thirty-five years,” Sexton declared, “I think it’s pretty obvious we’re
not going to find extraterrestrial life!”
“And if you’re wrong?” Marjorie Tench replied.
Sexton rolled his eyes. “Oh, for heavens sake, Ms. Tench, if I’m wrong I’ll eat
my hat.”
Everyone in the Roosevelt Room laughed. Tench’s cornering of the senator could
have played as cruel and heavy-handed in retrospect, and yet viewers didn’t seem
to notice; the haughty tone of the senator’s response was so smug that Sexton
appeared to be getting exactly what he deserved.
The President looked around the room for Tench. He had not seen her since before
his press conference, and she was not here now. Odd, he thought. This is her
celebration as much as it is mine.
The news report on television was wrapping up, outlining yet again the White
House’s quantum political leap forward and Senator Sexton’s disastrous slide.
What a difference a day makes, the President thought. In politics, your world
can change in an instant.
By dawn he would realize just how true those words could be.
85
Pickering could be a problem, Tench had said.
Administrator Ekstrom was too preoccupied with this new information to notice
that the storm outside the habisphere was raging harder now. The howling cables
had increased in pitch, and the NASA staff was nervously milling and chatting
rather than going to sleep. Ekstrom’s thoughts were lost in a different storm—an
explosive tempest brewing back in Washington. The last few hours had brought
many problems, all of which Ekstrom was trying to deal with. And yet one problem
now loomed larger than all the others combined.
Pickering could be a problem.
Ekstrom could think of no one on earth against whom he’d less rather match wits
than William Pickering. Pickering had ridden Ekstrom and NASA for years now,
trying to control privacy policy, lobbying for different mission priorities, and
railing against NASA’s escalating failure ratio.
Pickering’s disgust with NASA, Ekstrom knew, went far deeper than the recent
loss of his billion-dollar NRO SIGINT satellite in a NASA launchpad explosion,
or the NASA security leaks, or the battle over recruiting key aerospace
personnel. Pickering’s grievances against NASA were an ongoing drama of
disillusionment and resentment.
NASA’s X-33 space plane, which was supposed to be the shuttle replacement, had
run five years overdue, meaning dozens of NRO satellite maintenance and launch
programs were scrapped or put on hold. Recently, Pickering’s rage over the X-33
reached a fever pitch when he discovered NASA had canceled the project entirely,
swallowing an estimated $900 million loss.
Ekstrom arrived at his office, pulled the curtain aside, and entered. Sitting
down at his desk he put his head in his hands. He had some decisions to make.
What had started as a wonderful day was becoming a nightmare unraveling around
him. He tried to put himself in the mindset of William Pickering. What would the
man do next? Someone as intelligent as Pickering had to see the importance of
this NASA discovery. He had to forgive certain choices made in desperation. He
had to see the irreversible damage that would be done by polluting this moment
of triumph.
What would Pickering do with the information he had? Would he let it ride, or
would he make NASA pay for their shortcomings?
Ekstrom scowled, having little doubt which it would be.
After all, William Pickering had deeper issues with NASA…an ancient personal
bitterness that went far deeper than politics.
86
Rachel was quiet now, staring blankly at the cabin of the G4 as the plane headed
south along the Canadian coastline of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Tolland sat
nearby, talking to Corky. Despite the majority of evidence suggesting the
meteorite was authentic, Corky’s admission that the nickel content was “outside
the preestablished midrange values” had served to rekindle Rachel’s initial
suspicion. Secretly planting a meteorite beneath the ice only made sense as part
of a brilliantly conceived fraud.
Nonetheless, the remaining scientific evidence pointed toward the meteorite’s
validity.
Rachel turned from the window, glancing down at the disk-shaped meteorite sample
in her hand. The tiny chondrules shimmered. Tolland and Corky had been
discussing these metallic chondrules for some time now, talking in scientific
terms well over Rachel’s head—equilibrated olivine levels, metastable glass
matrices, and metamorphic rehomogenation. Nonetheless, the upshot was clear:
Corky and Tolland were in agreement that the chondrules were decidedly meteoric.
No fudging of that data.
Rachel rotated the disk-shaped specimen in her hand, running a finger over the
rim where part of the fusion crust was visible. The charring looked relatively
fresh—certainly not three hundred years old—although Corky had explained that
the meteorite had been hermetically sealed in ice and avoided atmospheric
erosion. This seemed logical. Rachel had seen programs on television where human
remains were dug from the ice after four thousand years and the person’s skin
looked almost perfect.
As she studied the fusion crust, an odd thought occurred to her—an obvious piece
of data had been omitted. Rachel wondered if it had simply been an oversight in
all the data that was thrown at her or did someone simply forget to mention it.
She turned suddenly to Corky. “Did anyone date the fusion crust?”
Corky glanced over, looking confused. “What?”
“Did anyone date the burn. That is, do we know for a fact that the burn on the
rock occurred at exactly the time of the Jungersol Fall?”
“Sorry,” Corky said, “that’s impossible to date. Oxidation resets all the
necessary isotopic markers. Besides, radioisotope decay rates are too slow to
measure anything under five hundred years.”
Rachel considered that a moment, understanding now why the burn date was not
part of the data. “So, as far as we know, this rock could have been burned in
the Middle Ages or last weekend, right?”
Tolland chuckled. “Nobody said science had all the answers.”
Rachel let her mind wander aloud. “A fusion crust is essentially just a severe
burn. Technically speaking, the burn on this rock could have happened at any
time in the past half century, in any number of different ways.”
“Wrong,” Corky said. “Burned in any number of different ways? No. Burned in one
way. Falling through the atmosphere.”
“There’s no other possibility? How about in a furnace?”
“A furnace?” Corky said. “These samples were examined under an electron
microscope. Even the cleanest furnace on earth would have left fuel residue all
over the stone—nuclear, chemical, fossil fuel. Forget it. And how about the
striations from streaking through the atmosphere? You wouldn’t get those in a
furnace.”
Rachel had forgotten about the orientation striations on the meteorite. It did
indeed appear to have fallen through the air. “How about a volcano?” she
ventured. “Ejecta thrown violently from an eruption?”
Corky shook his head. “The burn is far too clean.”
Rachel glanced at Tolland.
The oceanographer nodded. “Sorry, I’ve had some experience with volcanoes, both
above and below water. Corky’s right. Volcanic ejecta is penetrated by dozens of
toxins—carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, hydrochloric acid—all
of which would have been detected in our electronic scans. That fusion crust,
whether we like it or not, is the result of a clean atmospheric friction burn.”
Rachel sighed, looking back out the window. A clean burn. The phrase stuck with
her. She turned back to Tolland. “What do you mean by a clean burn?”
He shrugged. “Simply that under an electron microscope, we see no remnants of
fuel elements, so we know heating was caused by kinetic energy and friction,
rather than chemical or nuclear ingredients.”
“If you didn’t find any foreign fuel elements, what did you find? Specifically,
what was the composition of the fusion crust?”
“We found,” Corky said, “exactly what we expected to find. Pure atmospheric
elements. Nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen. No petroleums. No sulfurs. No volcanic
acids. Nothing peculiar. All the stuff we see when meteorites fall through the
atmosphere.”
Rachel leaned back in her seat, her thoughts focusing now.
Corky leaned forward to look at her. “Please don’t tell me your new theory is
that NASA took a fossilized rock up in the space shuttle and sent it hurtling
toward earth hoping nobody would notice the fireball, the massive crater, or the
explosion?”
Rachel had not thought of that, although it was an interesting premise. Not
feasible, but interesting all the same. Her thoughts were actually closer to
home. All natural atmospheric elements. Clean burn. Striations from racing
through the air. A faint light had gone off in a distant corner of her mind.
“The ratios of the atmospheric elements you saw,” she said. “Were they exactly
the same ratios you see on every other meteorite with a fusion crust?”
Corky seemed to hedge slightly at the question. “Why do you ask?”
Rachel saw him hesitate and felt her pulse quicken. “The ratios were off,
weren’t they?”
“There is a scientific explanation.”
Rachel’s heart was suddenly pounding. “Did you by any chance see an unusually
high content of one element in particular?”
Tolland and Corky exchanged startled looks. “Yes,” Corky said, “but—”
“Was it ionized hydrogen?”
The astrophysicist’s eyes turned to saucers. “How could you possibly know that!”
Tolland also looked utterly amazed.
Rachel stared at them both. “Why didn’t anyone mention this to me?”
“Because there’s a perfectly sound scientific explanation!” Corky declared.
“I’m all ears,” Rachel said.
“There was surplus ionized hydrogen,” Corky said, “because the meteorite passed
through the atmosphere near the North Pole, where the earth’s magnetic field
causes an abnormally high concentration of hydrogen ions.”
Rachel frowned. “Unfortunately, I have another explanation.”
87
The fourth floor of NASA headquarters was less impressive than the lobby—long
sterile corridors with office doors equally spaced along the walls. The corridor
was deserted. Laminated signs pointed in all directions.
LANDSAT 7
TERRA
ACRIMSAT
JASON 1
AQUA
PODS
Gabrielle followed the signs for PODS. Winding her way down a series of long
corridors and intersections, she came to a set of heavy steel doors. The stencil
read:
POLAR ORBITING DENSITY SCANNER (PODS)
Section Manager, Chris Harper
The doors were locked, secured both by key card and a PIN pad access. Gabrielle
put her ear to the cold metal door. For a moment, she thought she heard talking.
Arguing. Maybe not. She wondered if she should just bang on the door until
someone inside let her in. Unfortunately, her plan for dealing with Chris Harper
required a bit more subtlety than banging on doors. She looked around for
another entrance but saw none. A custodial alcove stood adjacent to the door,
and Gabrielle stepped in, searching the dimly lit niche for a janitor’s key ring
or key card. Nothing. Just brooms and mops.
Returning to the door, she put her ear to the metal again. This time she
definitely heard voices. Getting louder. And footsteps. The latch engaged from
inside.
Gabrielle had no time to hide as the metal door burst open. She jumped to the
side, plastering herself against the wall behind the door as a group of people
hurried through, talking loudly. They sounded angry.
“What the hell is Harper’s problem? I thought he’d be on cloud nine!”
“On a night like tonight,” another said as the group passed by, “he wants to be
alone? He should be celebrating!”
As the group moved away from Gabrielle, the heavy door started swinging closed
on pneumatic hinges, revealing her location. She remained rigid as the men
continued down the hall. Waiting as long as she possibly could, until the door
was only inches from closing, Gabrielle lunged forward and caught the door
handle with just inches to spare. She stood motionless as the men turned the
corner down the hall, too engaged in their conversation to look back.
Heart pounding, Gabrielle pulled open the door and stepped into the dimly lit
area beyond. She quietly closed the door.
The space was a wide open work area that reminded her of a college physics
laboratory: computers, work islands, electronic gear. As her eyes became
accustomed to the darkness, Gabrielle could see blueprints and sheets of
calculations scattered around. The entire area was dark except for an office on
the far side of the lab, where a light shone under the door. Gabrielle walked
over quietly. The door was closed, but through the window she could see a man
sitting at a computer. She recognized the man from the NASA press conference.
The nameplate on the door read:
Chris Harper
Section Manager, PODS
Having come this far, Gabrielle suddenly felt apprehensive, wondering if she
could actually pull this off. She reminded herself how certain Sexton was that
Chris Harper had lied. I would bet my campaign on it, Sexton had said.
Apparently there were others who felt the same, others who were waiting for
Gabrielle to uncover the truth so they could close in on NASA, attempting to
gain even a tiny foothold after tonight’s devastating developments. After the
way Tench and the Herney administration had played Gabrielle this afternoon, she
was eager to help.
Gabrielle raised her hand to knock on the door but paused, Yolanda’s voice
running through her mind. If Chris Harper lied to the world about PODS, what
makes you think he’ll tell YOU the truth?
Fear, Gabrielle told herself, having almost fallen victim to it herself today.
She had a plan. It involved a tactic she’d seen the senator use on occasion to
scare information out of political opponents. Gabrielle had absorbed a lot under
Sexton’s tutelage, and not all of it attractive or ethical. But tonight she
needed every advantage. If she could persuade Chris Harper to admit he had
lied—for whatever reason—Gabrielle would open a small door of opportunity for
the senator’s campaign. Beyond that, Sexton was a man who, if given an inch to
maneuver, could wriggle his way out of almost any jam.
Gabrielle’s plan for dealing with Harper was something Sexton called
“overshooting”—an interrogation technique invented by the early Roman
authorities to coax confessions from criminals they suspected were lying. The
method was deceptively simple:
Assert the information you want confessed.
Then allege something far worse.
The object was to give the opponent a chance to choose the lesser of two
evils—in this case, the truth.
The trick was exuding confidence, something Gabrielle was not feeling at the
moment. Taking a deep breath, Gabrielle ran through the script in her mind, and
then knocked firmly on the office door.
“I told you I’m busy!” Harper called out, his English accent familiar.
She knocked again. Louder.
“I told you I’m not interested in coming down!”
This time she banged on the door with her fist.
Chris Harper came over and yanked open the door. “Bloody hell, do you—” He
stopped short, clearly surprised to see Gabrielle.
“Dr. Harper,” she said, infusing her voice with intensity.
“How did you get up here?”
Gabrielle’s face was stern. “Do you know who I am?”
“Of course. Your boss has been slamming my project for months. How did you get
in?”
“Senator Sexton sent me.”
Harper’s eyes scanned the lab behind Gabrielle. “Where is your staff escort?”
“That’s not your concern. The senator has influential connections.”
“In this building?” Harper looked dubious.
“You’ve been dishonest, Dr. Harper. And I’m afraid the senator has called a
special senatorial justice board to look into your lies.”
A pall crossed Harper’s face. “What are you talking about?”
“Smart people like yourself don’t have the luxury of playing stupid, Dr. Harper.
You’re in trouble, and the senator sent me up here to offer you a deal. The
senator’s campaign took a huge hit tonight. He’s got nothing left to lose, and
he’s ready to take you down with him if he needs to.”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
Gabrielle took a deep breath and made her play. “You lied in your press
conference about the PODS anomaly-detection software. We know that. A lot of
people know that. That’s not the issue.” Before Harper could open his mouth to
argue, Gabrielle steamed onward. “The senator could blow the whistle on your
lies right now, but he’s not interested. He’s interested in the bigger story. I
think you know what I’m talking about.”
“No, I—”
“Here’s the senator’s offer. He’ll keep his mouth shut about your software lies
if you give him the name of the top NASA executive with whom you’re embezzling
funds.”
Chris Harper’s eyes seemed to cross for a moment. “What? I’m not embezzling!”
“I suggest you watch what you say, sir. The senatorial committee has been
collecting documentation for months now. Did you really think you two would slip
by undetected? Doctoring PODS paperwork and redirecting allocated NASA funds to
private accounts? Lying and embezzling can put you in jail, Dr. Harper.”
“I did no such thing!”
“You’re saying you didn’t lie about PODS?”
“No, I’m saying I bloody well didn’t embezzle money!”
“So, you’re saying you did lie about PODS.”
Harper stared, clearly at a loss for words.
“Forget about the lying,” Gabrielle said, waving it off. “Senator Sexton is not
interested in the issue of your lying in a press conference. We’re used to that.
You guys found a meteorite, nobody cares how you did it. The issue for him is
the embezzlement. He needs to take down someone high in NASA. Just tell him who
you’re working with, and he’ll steer the investigation clear of you entirely.
You can make it easy and tell us who the other person is, or the senator will
make it ugly and start talking about anomaly-detection software and phony
work-arounds.”
“You’re bluffing. There are no embezzled funds.”
“You’re an awful liar, Dr. Harper. I’ve seen the documentation. Your name is on
all the incriminating paperwork. Over and over.”
“I swear I know nothing about any embezzlement!”
Gabrielle let out a disappointed sigh. “Put yourself in my position, Dr. Harper.
I can only draw two conclusions here. Either you’re lying to me, the same way
you lied in that press conference. Or you’re telling the truth, and someone
powerful in the agency is setting you up as a fall guy for his own misdealings.”
The proposition seemed to give Harper pause.
Gabrielle checked her watch. “The senator’s deal is on the table for an hour.
You can save yourself by giving him the name of the NASA exec with whom you’re
embezzling taxpayers’ money. He doesn’t care about you. He wants the big fish.
Obviously the individual in question has some power here at NASA; he or she has
managed to keep his or her identity off the paper trail, allowing you to be the
fall guy.”
Harper shook his head. “You’re lying.”
“Would you like to tell that to a court?”
“Sure. I’ll deny the whole thing.”
“Under oath?” Gabrielle grunted in disgust. “Suppose you’ll also deny you lied
about fixing the PODS software?” Gabrielle’s heart was pounding as she stared
straight into the man’s eyes. “Think carefully about your options here, Dr.
Harper. American prisons can be most unpleasant.”
Harper glared back, and Gabrielle willed him to fold. For a moment she thought
she saw a glimmer of surrender, but when Harper spoke, his voice was like steel.
“Ms. Ashe,” he declared, anger simmering in his eyes, “you are clutching at thin
air. You and I both know there is no embezzlement going on at NASA. The only
liar in this room is you.”
Gabrielle felt her muscles go rigid. The man’s gaze was angry and sharp. She
wanted to turn and run. You tried to bluff a rocket scientist. What the hell did
you expect? She forced herself to hold her head high. “All I know,” she said,
feigning utter confidence and indifference to his position, “is the
incriminating documents I’ve seen—conclusive evidence that you and another are
embezzling NASA funds. The senator simply asked me to come here tonight and
offer you the option of giving up your partner instead of facing the inquiry
alone. I will tell the senator you prefer to take your chances with a judge. You
can tell the court what you told me—you’re not embezzling funds and you didn’t
lie about the PODS software.” She gave a grim smile. “But after that lame press
conference you gave two weeks ago, somehow I doubt it.” Gabrielle spun on her
heel and strode across the darkened PODS laboratory. She wondered if maybe she’d
be seeing the inside of a prison instead of Harper.
Gabrielle held her head high as she walked off, waiting for Harper to call her
back. Silence. She pushed her way through the metal doors and strode out into
the hallway, hoping the elevators up here were not key-card operated like the
lobby. She’d lost. Despite her best efforts, Harper wasn’t biting. Maybe he was
telling the truth in his PODS press conference, Gabrielle thought.
A crash resounded down the hall as the metal doors behind her burst open. “Ms.
Ashe,” Harper’s voice called out. “I swear I know nothing about any
embezzlement. I’m an honest man!”
Gabrielle felt her heart skip a beat. She forced herself to keep walking. She
gave a casual shrug and called out over her shoulder. “And yet you lied in your
press conference.”
Silence. Gabrielle kept moving down the hallway.
“Hold on!” Harper yelled. He came jogging up beside her, his face pale. “This
embezzlement thing,” he said, lowering his voice. “I think I know who set me
up.”
Gabrielle stopped dead in her tracks, wondering if she had heard him correctly.
She turned as slowly and casually as she could. “You expect me to believe
someone is setting you up?”
Harper sighed. “I swear I know nothing about embezzlement. But if there’s
evidence against me…”
“Mounds of it.”
Harper sighed. “Then it’s all been planted. To discredit me if need be. And
there’s only one person who would have done that.”
“Who?”
Harper looked her in the eye. “Lawrence Ekstrom hates me.”
Gabrielle was stunned. “The administrator of NASA?”
Harper gave a grim nod. “He’s the one who forced me to lie in that press
conference.”
88
Even with the Aurora aircraft’s misted-methane propulsion system at half power,
the Delta Force was hurtling through the night at three times the speed of
sound—over two thousand miles an hour. The repetitive throb of the Pulse
Detonation Wave Engines behind them gave the ride a hypnotic rhythm. A hundred
feet below, the ocean churned wildly, whipped up by the Aurora’s vacuum wake,
which sucked fifty-foot rooster tails skyward in long parallel sheets behind the
plane.
This is the reason the SR-71 Blackbird was retired, Delta-One thought.
The Aurora was one of those secret aircraft that nobody was supposed to know
existed, but everyone did. Even the Discovery channel had covered Aurora and its
testing out at Groom Lake in Nevada. Whether the security leaks had come from
the repeated “skyquakes” heard as far away as Los Angeles, or the unfortunate
eyewitness sighting by a North Sea oil-rig driller, or the administrative gaffe
that left a description of Aurora in a public copy of the Pentagon budget,
nobody would ever know. It hardly mattered. The word was out: The U.S. military
had a plane capable of Mach 6 flight, and it was no longer on the drawing board.
It was in the skies overhead.
Built by Lockheed, the Aurora looked like a flattened American football. It was
110 feet long, sixty feet wide, smoothly contoured with a crystalline patina of
thermal tiles much like the space shuttle. The speed was primarily the result of
an exotic new propulsion system known as a Pulse Detonation Wave Engine, which
burned a clean, misted, liquid hydrogen and left a telltale pulse contrail in
the sky. For this reason, it only flew at night.
Tonight, with the luxury of enormous speed, the Delta Force was taking the long
way home, out across the open ocean. Even so, they were overtaking their quarry.
At this rate, the Delta Force would be arriving on the eastern seaboard in under
an hour, a good two hours before its prey. There had been discussion of tracking
and shooting down the plane in question, but the controller rightly feared a
radar capture of the incident or the burned wreckage might bring on a massive
investigation. It was best to let the plane land as scheduled, the controller
had decided. Once it became clear where their quarry intended to land, the Delta
Force would move in.
Now, as Aurora streaked over the desolate Labrador Sea, Delta-One’s CrypTalk
indicated an incoming call. He answered.
“The situation has changed,” the electronic voice informed them. “You have
another mark before Rachel Sexton and the scientists land.”
Another mark. Delta-One could feel it. Things were unraveling. The controller’s
ship had sprung another leak, and the controller needed them to patch it as fast
as possible. The ship would not be leaking, Delta-One reminded himself, if we
had hit our marks successfully on the Milne Ice Shelf. Delta-One knew damn well
he was cleaning up his own mess.
“A fourth party has become involved,” the controller said.
“Who?”
The controller paused a moment—and then gave them a name.
The three men exchanged startled looks. It was a name they knew well.
No wonder the controller sounded reluctant! Delta-One thought. For an operation
conceived as a “zero-casualty” venture, the body count and target profile was
climbing fast. He felt his sinews tighten as the controller prepared to inform
them exactly how and where they would eliminate this new individual.
“The stakes have increased considerably,” the controller said. “Listen closely.
I will give you these instructions only once.”
89
High above northern Maine, a G4 jet continued speeding toward Washington.
Onboard, Michael Tolland and Corky Marlinson looked on as Rachel Sexton began to
explain her theory for why there might be increased hydrogen ions in the fusion
crust of the meteorite.
“NASA has a private test facility called Plum Brook Station,” Rachel explained,
hardly able to believe she was going to talk about this. Sharing classified
information out of protocol was not something she had ever done, but considering
the circumstances, Tolland and Corky had a right to know this. “Plum Brook is
essentially a test chamber for NASA’s most radical new engine systems. Two years
ago I wrote a gist about a new design NASA was testing there—something called an
expander cycle engine.”
Corky eyed her suspiciously. “Expander cycle engines are still in the
theoretical stage. On paper. Nobody’s actually testing. That’s decades away.”
Rachel shook her head. “Sorry, Corky. NASA has prototypes. They’re testing.”
“What?” Corky looked skeptical. “ECE’s run on liquid oxygen-hydrogen, which
freezes in space, making the engine worthless to NASA. They said they were not
even going to try to build an ECE until they overcame the freezing fuel
problem.”
“They overcame it. They got rid of the oxygen and turned the fuel into a
‘slush-hydrogen’ mixture, which is some kind of cryogenic fuel consisting of
pure hydrogen in a semifrozen state. It’s very powerful and very clean burning.
It’s also a contender for the propulsion system if NASA runs missions to Mars.”
Corky looked amazed. “This can’t be true.”
“It better be true,” Rachel said. “I wrote a brief about it for the President.
My boss was up in arms because NASA wanted to publicly announce slush-hydrogen
as a big success, and Pickering wanted the White House to force NASA to keep
slush-hydrogen classified.”
“Why?”
“Not important,” Rachel said, having no intention of sharing more secrets than
she had to. The truth was that Pickering’s desire to classify slush-hydrogen’s
success was to fight a growing national security concern few knew existed—the
alarming expansion of China’s space technology. The Chinese were currently
developing a deadly “for-hire” launch platform, which they intended to rent out
to high bidders, most of whom would be U.S. enemies. The implications for U.S.
security were devastating. Fortunately, the NRO knew China was pursuing a doomed
propulsion-fuel model for their launch platform, and Pickering saw no reason to
tip them off about NASA’s more promising slush-hydrogen propellant.
“So,” Tolland said, looking uneasy, “you’re saying NASA has a clean-burning
propulsion system that runs on pure hydrogen?”
Rachel nodded. “I don’t have figures, but the exhaust temperatures of these
engines are apparently several times hotter than anything ever before developed.
They’re requiring NASA to develop all kinds of new nozzle materials.” She
paused. “A large rock, placed behind one of these slush-hydrogen engines, would
be scalded by a hydrogen-rich blast of exhaust fire coming out at an
unprecedented temperature. You’d get quite a fusion crust.”
“Come on now!” Corky said. “Are we back to the fake meteorite scenario?”
Tolland seemed suddenly intrigued. “Actually, that’s quite an idea. The setup
would be more or less like leaving a boulder on the launchpad under the space
shuttle during liftoff.”
“God save me,” Corky muttered. “I’m airborne with idiots.”
“Corky,” Tolland said. “Hypothetically speaking, a rock placed in an exhaust
field would exhibit similar burn features to one that fell through the
atmosphere, wouldn’t it? You’d have the same directional striations and backflow
of the melting material.”
Corky grunted. “I suppose.”
“And Rachel’s clean-burning hydrogen fuel would leave no chemical residue. Only
hydrogen. Increased levels of hydrogen ions in the fusion pocking.”
Corky rolled his eyes. “Look, if one of these ECE engines actually exists, and
runs on slush-hydrogen, I suppose what you’re talking about is possible. But
it’s extremely far-fetched.”
“Why?” Tolland asked. “The process seems fairly simple.”
Rachel nodded. “All you need is a 190-million-year-old fossilized rock. Blast it
in a slush-hydrogen-engine exhaust fire, and bury it in the ice. Instant
meteorite.”
“To a tourist, maybe,” Corky said, “but not to a NASA scientist! You still
haven’t explained the chondrules!”
Rachel tried to recall Corky’s explanation of how chondrules formed. “You said
chondrules are caused by rapid heating and cooling events in space, right?”
Corky sighed. “Chondrules form when a rock, chilled in space, suddenly becomes
superheated to a partial-melt stage—somewhere near 1550 Celsius. Then the rock
must cool again, extremely rapidly, hardening the liquid pockets into
chondrules.”
Tolland studied his friend. “And this process can’t happen on earth?”
“Impossible,” Corky said. “This planet does not have the temperature variance to
cause that kind of rapid shift. You’re talking here about nuclear heat and the
absolute zero of space. Those extremes simply don’t exist on earth.”
Rachel considered it. “At least not naturally.”
Corky turned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Why couldn’t the heating and cooling event have occurred here on earth
artificially?” Rachel asked. “The rock could have been blasted by a
slush-hydrogen engine and then rapidly cooled in a cryogenic freezer.”
Corky stared. “Manufactured chondrules?”
“It’s an idea.”
“A ridiculous one,” Corky replied, flashing his meteorite sample. “Perhaps you
forget? These chondrules were irrefutably dated at 190 million years.” His tone
grew patronizing. “To the best of my knowledge, Ms. Sexton, 190 million years
ago, nobody was running slush-hydrogen engines and cryogenic coolers.”
Chondrules or not, Tolland thought, the evidence is piling up. He had been
silent now for several minutes, deeply troubled by Rachel’s newest revelation
about the fusion crust. Her hypothesis, though staggeringly bold, had opened all
kinds of new doors and gotten Tolland thinking in new directions. If the fusion
crust is explainable…what other possibilities does that present?
“You’re quiet,” Rachel said, beside him.
Tolland glanced over. For an instant, in the muted lighting of the plane, he saw
a softness in Rachel’s eyes that reminded him of Celia. Shaking off the
memories, he gave her a tired sigh. “Oh, I was just thinking…”
She smiled. “About meteorites?”
“What else?”
“Running through all the evidence, trying to figure out what’s left?”
“Something like that.”
“Any thoughts?”
“Not really. I’m troubled by how much of the data has collapsed in light of
discovering that insertion shaft beneath the ice.”
“Hierarchical evidence is a house of cards,” Rachel said. “Pull out your primary
assumption, and everything gets shaky. The location of the meteorite find was a
primary assumption.”
I’ll say. “When I arrived at Milne, the administrator told me the meteorite had
been found inside a pristine matrix of three-hundred-year-old ice and was more
dense than any rock found anywhere in the area, which I took as logical proof
that the rock had to fall from space.”
“You and the rest of us.”
“The midrange nickel content, though persuasive, is apparently not conclusive.”
“It’s close,” Corky said nearby, apparently listening in.
“But not exact.”
Corky acquiesced with a reluctant nod.
“And,” Tolland said, “this never before seen species of space bug, though
shockingly bizarre, in reality could be nothing more than a very old, deepwater
crustacean.”
Rachel nodded. “And now the fusion crust…”
“I hate to say it,” Tolland said, glancing at Corky, “but it’s starting to feel
like there’s more negative evidence than positive.”
“Science is not about hunches,” Corky said. “It’s about evidence. The chondrules
in this rock are decidedly meteoric. I agree with you both that everything we’ve
seen is deeply disturbing, but we cannot ignore these chondrules. The evidence
in favor is conclusive, while the evidence against is circumstantial.”
Rachel frowned. “So where does that leave us?”
“Nowhere,” Corky said. “The chondrules prove we are dealing with a meteorite.
The only question is why someone stuck it under the ice.”
Tolland wanted to believe his friend’s sound logic, but something just felt
wrong.
“You don’t look convinced, Mike,” Corky said.
Tolland gave his friend a bewildered sigh. “I don’t know. Two out of three
wasn’t bad, Corky. But we’re down to one out of three. I just feel like we’re
missing something.”
90
I got caught, Chris Harper thought, feeling a chill as he pictured an American
prison cell. Senator Sexton knows I lied about the PODS software.
As the PODS section manager escorted Gabrielle Ashe back into his office and
closed the door, he felt his hatred of the NASA administrator grow deeper by the
instant. Tonight Harper had learned just how deep the administrator’s lies truly
ran. In addition to forcing Harper to lie about having fixed PODS’s software,
the administrator had apparently set up some insurance just in case Harper got
cold feet and decided not to be a team player.
Evidence of embezzlement, Harper thought. Blackmail. Very sly. After all, who
would believe an embezzler trying to discredit the single greatest moment in
American space history? Harper had already witnessed to what lengths the NASA
administrator would go to save America’s space agency, and now with the
announcement of a meteorite with fossils, the stakes had skyrocketed.
Harper paced for several seconds around the widetable on which sat a scale model
of the PODS satellite—a cylindrical prism with multiple antennae and lenses
behind reflective shields. Gabrielle sat down, her dark eyes watching, waiting.
The nausea in Harper’s gut reminded him of how he had felt during the infamous
press conference. He’d put on a lousy show that night, and everyone had
questioned him about it. He’d had to lie again and say he was feeling ill that
night and was not himself. His colleagues and the press shrugged off his
lackluster performance and quickly forgot about it.
Now the lie had come back to haunt him.
Gabrielle Ashe’s expression softened. “Mr. Harper, with the administrator as an
enemy, you will need a powerful ally. Senator Sexton could well be your only
friend at this point. Let’s start with the PODS software lie. Tell me what
happened.”
Harper sighed. He knew it was time to tell the truth. I bloody well should have
told the truth in the first place! “The PODS launch went smoothly,” he began.
“The satellite settled into a perfect polar orbit just as planned.”
Gabrielle Ashe looked bored. She apparently knew all this. “Go on.”
“Then came the trouble. When we geared up to start searching the ice for density
anomalies, the onboard anomaly-detection software failed.”
“Uh…huh.”
Harper’s words came faster now. “The software was supposed to be able to rapidly
examine thousands of acres of data and find parts of the ice that fell outside
the range of normal ice density. Primarily the software was looking for soft
spots in the ice—global warming indicators—but if it stumbled across other
density incongruities, it was programmed to flag those as well. The plan was for
PODS to scan the Arctic Circle over several weeks and identify any anomalies
that we could use to measure global warming.”
“But without functioning software,” Gabrielle said, “PODS was no good. NASA
would have had to examine images of every square inch of the Arctic by hand,
looking for trouble spots.”
Harper nodded, reliving the nightmare of his programming gaffe. “It would take
decades. The situation was terrible. Because of a flaw in my programming, PODS
was essentially worthless. With the election coming up and Senator Sexton being
so critical of NASA…” He sighed.
“Your mistake was devastating to NASA and the President.”
“It couldn’t have come at a worse time. The administrator was livid. I promised
him I could fix the problem during the next shuttle mission—a simple matter of
swapping out the chip that held the PODS software system. But it was too little
too late. He sent me home on leave—but essentially I was fired. That was a month
ago.”
“And yet you were back on television two weeks ago announcing you’d found a
work-around.”
Harper slumped. “A terrible mistake. That was the day I got a desperate call
from the administrator. He told me something had come up, a possible way to
redeem myself. I came into the office immediately and met with him. He asked me
to hold a press conference and tell everyone I’d found a work-around for the
PODS software and that we would have data in a few weeks. He said he’d explain
it to me later.”
“And you agreed.”
“No, I refused! But an hour later, the administrator was back in my office—with
the White House senior adviser!”
“What!” Gabrielle looked astounded by this. “Marjorie Tench?”
An awful creature, Harper thought, nodding. “She and the administrator sat me
down and told me my mistake had quite literally put NASA and the President on
the brink of total collapse. Ms. Tench told me about the senator’s plans to
privatize NASA. She told me I owed it to the President and space agency to make
it all right. Then she told me how.”
Gabrielle leaned forward. “Go on.”
“Marjorie Tench informed me that the White House, by sheer good fortune, had
intercepted strong geologic evidence that an enormous meteorite was buried in
the Milne Ice Shelf. One of the biggest ever. A meteorite of that size would be
a major find for NASA.”
Gabrielle looked stunned. “Hold on, so you’re saying someone already knew the
meteorite was there before PODS discovered it?”
“Yes. PODS had nothing to do with the discovery. The administrator knew the
meteorite existed. He simply gave me the coordinates and told me to reposition
PODS over the ice shelf and pretend PODS made the discovery.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“That was my reaction when they asked me to participate in the sham. They
refused to tell me how they’d found out the meteorite was there, but Ms. Tench
insisted it didn’t matter and that this was the ideal opportunity to salvage my
PODS fiasco. If I could pretend the PODS satellite located the meteorite, then
NASA could praise PODS as a much needed success and boost the President before
the election.”
Gabrielle was awestruck. “And of course you couldn’t claim PODS had detected a
meteorite until you’d announced that the PODS anomaly-detection software was up
and running.”
Harper nodded. “Hence the press conference lie. I was forced into it. Tench and
the administrator were ruthless. They reminded me I’d let everyone down—the
President had funded my PODS project, NASA had spent years on it, and now I’d
ruined the whole thing with a programming blunder.”
“So you agreed to help.”
“I didn’t have a choice. My career was essentially over if I didn’t. And the
reality was that if I hadn’t muffed the software, PODS would have found that
meteorite on its own. So, it seemed a small lie at the time. I rationalized it
by telling myself that the software would be fixed in a few months when the
space shuttle went up, so I would simply be announcing the fix a little early.”
Gabrielle let out a whistle. “A tiny lie to take advantage of a meteoric
opportunity.”
Harper was feeling ill just talking about it. “So…I did it. Following the
administrator’s orders, I held a press conference announcing that I’d found a
work-around for my anomaly-detection software, I waited a few days, and then I
repositioned PODS over the administrator’s meteorite coordinates. Then,
following the proper chain of command, I phoned the EOS director and reported
that PODS had located a hard density anomaly in the Milne Ice Shelf. I gave him
the coordinates and told him the anomaly appeared to be dense enough to be a
meteorite. Excitedly, NASA sent a small team up to Milne to take some drill
cores. That’s when the operation got very hush-hush.”
“So, you had no idea the meteorite had fossils until tonight?”
“Nobody here did. We’re all in shock. Now everyone is calling me a hero for
finding proof of extraterrestrial bioforms, and I don’t know what to say.”
Gabrielle was silent a long moment, studying Harper with firm black eyes. “But
if PODS didn’t locate the meteorite in the ice, how did the administrator know
the meteorite was there?”
“Someone else found it first.”
“Someone else? Who?”
Harper sighed. “A Canadian geologist named Charles Brophy—a researcher on
Ellesmere Island. Apparently he was doing geologic ice soundings on the Milne
Ice Shelf when he by chance discovered the presence of what appeared to be a
huge meteorite in the ice. He radioed it in, and NASA happened to intercept the
transmission.”
Gabrielle stared. “But isn’t this Canadian furious that NASA is taking all the
credit for the find?”
“No,” Harper said, feeling a chill. “Conveniently, he’s dead.”
91
Michael Tolland closed his eyes and listened to the drone of the G4 jet engine.
He had given up trying to think anymore about the meteorite until they got back
to Washington. The chondrules, according to Corky, were conclusive; the rock in
the Milne Ice Shelf could only be a meteorite. Rachel had hoped to have a
conclusive answer for William Pickering by the time they landed, but her thought
experiments had run into a dead end with the chondrules. As suspicious as the
meteorite evidence was, the meteorite appeared to be authentic.
So be it.
Rachel had obviously been shaken by the trauma in the ocean. Tolland was amazed,
though, by her resilience. She was focused now on the issue at hand—trying to
find a way to debunk or authenticate the meteorite, and trying to assess who had
tried to kill them.
For most of the trip, Rachel had been in the seat beside Tolland. He’d enjoyed
talking to her, despite the trying circumstances. Several minutes ago, she’d
headed back to the restroom, and now Tolland was surprised to find himself
missing her beside him. He wondered how long it had been since he’d missed a
woman’s presence—a woman other than Celia.
“Mr. Tolland?”
Tolland glanced up.
The pilot was sticking his head into the cabin. “You asked me to tell you when
we were in telephone range of your ship? I can get you that connection if you
want.”
“Thanks.” Tolland made his way up the aisle.
Inside the cockpit, Tolland placed a call to his crew. He wanted to let them
know he would not be back for another day or two. Of course, he had no intention
of telling them what trouble he’d run into.
The phone rang several times, and Tolland was surprised to hear the ship’s
SHINCOM 2100 communications system pick up. The outgoing message was not the
usual professional-sounding greeting but rather the rowdy voice of one of
Tolland’s crew, the onboard joker.
“Hiya, hiya, this is the Goya,” the voice announced. “We’re sorry nobody’s here
right now, but we’ve all been abducted by very large lice! Actually, we’ve taken
temporary shore leave to celebrate Mike’s huge night. Gosh, are we proud! You
can leave your name and number, and maybe we’ll be back tomorrow when we’re
sober. Ciao! Go, ET!”
Tolland laughed, missing his crew already. Obviously they’d seen the press
conference. He was glad they’d gone ashore; he’d abandoned them rather abruptly
when the President called, and their sitting idle at sea was crazy. Although the
message said everyone had gone ashore, Tolland had to assume they would not have
left his ship unattended, particularly in the strong currents where it was now
anchored.
Tolland pressed the numeric code to play any internal voice mail messages they’d
left for him. The line beeped once. One message. The voice was the same rowdy
crewmember.
“Hi Mike, hell of a show! If you’re hearing this, you’re probably checking your
messages from some swanky White House party and wondering where the hell we are.
Sorry we abandoned ship, buddy, but this was not a dry-celebration kind of
night. Don’t worry, we anchored her really good and left the porch light on.
We’re secretly hoping she gets pirated so you’ll let NBC buy you that new boat!
Just kidding, man. Don’t worry, Xavia agreed to stay onboard and mind the fort.
She said she preferred time alone to partying with a bunch of drunken
fishmongers? Can you believe that?”
Tolland chuckled, relieved to hear someone was aboard watching the ship. Xavia
was responsible, definitely not the partying type. A respected marine geologist,
Xavia had the reputation for speaking her mind with a caustic honesty.
“Anyhow, Mike,” the message went on, “tonight was incredible. Kind of makes you
proud to be a scientist, doesn’t it? Everyone’s talking about how good this
looks for NASA. Screw NASA, I say! This looks even better for us! Amazing Seas
ratings must have gone up a few million points tonight. You’re a star, man. A
real one. Congrats. Excellent job.”
There was hushed talking on the line, and the voice came back. “Oh, yeah, and
speaking of Xavia, just so you don’t get too big a head, she wants to razz you
about something. Here she is.”
Xavia’s razor voice came on the machine. “Mike, Xavia, you’re a God, yada yada.
And because I love you so much, I’ve agreed to baby-sit this antediluvian wreck
of yours. Frankly, it will be nice to be away from these hoodlums you call
scientists. Anyhow, in addition to baby-sitting the ship, the crew has asked me,
in my role as onboard bitch, to do everything in my power to keep you from
turning into a conceited bastard, which after tonight I realize is going to be
difficult, but I had to be the first to tell you that you made a boo-boo in your
documentary. Yes, you heard me. A rare Michael Tolland brain fart. Don’t worry,
there are only about three people on earth who will notice, and they’re all
anal-retentive marine geologists with no sense of humor. A lot like me. But you
know what they say about us geologists—always looking for faults!” She laughed.
“Anyhow, it’s nothing, a minuscule point about meteorite petrology. I only
mention it to ruin your night. You might get a call or two about it, so I
thought I’d give you the heads-up so you don’t end up sounding like the moron we
all know you really are.” She laughed again. “Anyhow, I’m not much of a party
animal, so I’m staying onboard. Don’t bother calling me; I had to turn on the
machine because the goddamned press have been calling all night. You’re a real
star tonight, despite your screwup. Anyhow, I’ll fill you in on it when you get
back. Ciao.”
The line went dead.
Michael Tolland frowned. A mistake in my documentary?
Rachel Sexton stood in the restroom of the G4 and looked at herself in the
mirror. She looked pale, she thought, and more frail than she’d imagined.
Tonight’s scare had taken a lot out of her. She wondered how long it would be
before she would stop shivering, or before she would go near an ocean. Removing
her U.S.S. Charlotte cap, she let her hair down. Better, she thought, feeling
more like herself.
Looking into her eyes, Rachel sensed a deep weariness. Beneath it, though, she
saw the resolve. She knew that was her mother’s gift. Nobody tells you what you
can and can’t do. Rachel wondered if her mother had seen what happened tonight.
Someone tried to kill me, Mom. Someone tried to kill all of us…
Rachel’s mind, as it had for several hours now, scrolled through the list of
names.
Lawrence Ekstrom…Marjorie Tench…President Zach Herney. All had motives. And,
more chillingly, all had means. The President is not involved, Rachel told
herself, clinging to her hope that the President she respected so much more than
her own father was an innocent bystander in this mysterious incident.
We still know nothing.
Not who…not if…not why.
Rachel had wanted to have answers for William Pickering but, so far, all she’d
managed to do was raise more questions.
When Rachel left the restroom, she was surprised to see Michael Tolland was not
in his seat. Corky was dozing nearby. As Rachel looked around, Mike stepped out
of the cockpit as the pilot hung up a radiophone. His eyes were wide with
concern.
“What is it?” Rachel asked.
Tolland’s voice was heavy as he told her about the phone message.
A mistake in his presentation? Rachel thought Tolland was overreacting. “It’s
probably nothing. She didn’t tell you specifically what the error was?”
“Something to do with meteorite petrology.”
“Rock structure?”
“Yeah. She said the only people who would notice the mistake were a few other
geologists. It sounds like whatever error I made was related to the composition
of the meteorite itself.”
Rachel drew a quick breath, understanding now. “Chondrules?”
“I don’t know, but it seems pretty coincidental.”
Rachel agreed. The chondrules were the one remaining shred of evidence that
categorically supported NASA’s claim that this was indeed a meteorite.
Corky came over, rubbing his eyes. “What’s going on?”
Tolland filled him in.
Corky scowled, shaking his head. “It’s not a problem with the chondrules, Mike.
No way. All of your data came from NASA. And from me. It was flawless.”
“What other petrologic error could I have made?”
“Who the hell knows? Besides, what do marine geologists know about chondrules?”
“I have no idea, but she’s damned sharp.”
“Considering the circumstances,” Rachel said, “I think we should talk to this
woman before we talk to Director Pickering.”
Tolland shrugged. “I called her four times and got the machine. She’s probably
in the hydrolab and can’t hear a damn thing anyway. She won’t get my messages
until morning at the earliest.” Tolland paused, checking his watch. “Although…”
“Although what?”
Tolland eyed her intensely. “How important do you think it is that we talk to
Xavia before we talk to your boss?”
“If she has something to say about chondrules? I’d say it’s critical. Mike,”
Rachel said, “at the moment, we’ve got all kinds of contradictory data. William
Pickering is a man accustomed to having clear answers. When we meet him, I’d
love to have something substantial for him to act on.”
“Then we should make a stop.”
Rachel did a double take. “On your ship?”
“It’s off the coast of New Jersey. Almost directly on our way to Washington. We
can talk to Xavia, find out what she knows. Corky still has the meteorite
sample, and if Xavia wants to run some geologic tests on it, the ship has a
fairly well-equipped lab. I can’t imagine it would take us more than an hour to
get some conclusive answers.”
Rachel felt a pulse of anxiety. The thought of having to face the ocean again so
soon was unnerving. Conclusive answers, she told herself, tempted by the
possibility. Pickering will definitely want answers.
92
Delta-One was glad to be back on solid ground.
The Aurora aircraft, despite running at only one-half power and taking a
circuitous ocean route, had completed its journey in under two hours and
afforded the Delta Force a healthy head start to take up position and prepare
themselves for the additional kill the controller had requested.
Now, on a private military runway outside D.C., the Delta Force left the Aurora
behind and boarded their new transport—a waiting OH-58D Kiowa Warrior
helicopter.
Yet again, the controller has arranged for the best, Delta-One thought.
The Kiowa Warrior, originally designed as a light observation helicopter, had
been “expanded and improved” to create the military’s newest breed of attack
helicopter. The Kiowa boasted infrared thermal imaging capability enabling its
designator/laser range finder to provide autonomous designation for laser-guided
precision weapons like Air-to-Air Stinger missiles and the AGM-1148 Hellfire
Missile System. A high-speed digital signal processor provided simultaneous
multitarget tracking of up to six targets. Few enemies had ever seen a Kiowa up
close and survived to tell the tale.
Delta-One felt a familiar rush of power as he climbed into the Kiowa pilot’s
seat and strapped himself in. He had trained on this craft and flown it in
covert ops three times. Of course, never before had he been gunning for a
prominent American official. The Kiowa, he had to admit, was the perfect
aircraft for the job. Its Rolls-Royce Allison engine and twin semirigid blades
were “silent running,” which essentially meant targets on the ground could not
hear the chopper until it was directly over them. And because the aircraft was
capable of flying blind without lights and was painted flat black with no
reflective tail numbers, it was essentially invisible unless the target had
radar.
Silent black helicopters.
The conspiracy theorists were going nuts over these. Some claimed the invasion
of silent black helicopters was proof of “New World Order storm troopers” under
the authority of the United Nations. Others claimed the choppers were silent
alien probes. Still others who saw the Kiowas in tight formation at night were
deceived into thinking they were looking at fixed running lights on a much
larger craft—a single flying saucer that was apparently capable of vertical
flight.
Wrong again. But the military loved the diversion.
During a recent covert mission, Delta-One had flown a Kiowa armed with the most
secretive new U.S. military technology—an ingenious holographic weapon nicknamed
S&M. Despite conjuring associations with sadomasochism, S&M stood for “smoke and
mirrors”—holographic images “projected” into the sky over enemy territory. The
Kiowa had used S&M technology to project holograms of U.S. aircraft over an
enemy anti-aircraft installation. The panicked anti-aircraft gunners fired
maniacally at the circling ghosts. When all of their ammunition was gone, the
United States sent in the real thing.
As Delta-One and his men lifted off the runway, Delta-One could still hear the
words of his controller. You have another mark. It seemed an egregious
under-statement considering their new target’s identity. Delta-One reminded
himself, however, that it was not his place to question. His team had been given
an order, and they would carry it out in the exact method instructed—as shocking
as that method was.
I hope to hell the controller is certain this is the right move.
As the Kiowa lifted off the runway, Delta-One headed southwest. He had seen the
FDR Memorial twice, but tonight would be his first time from the air.
93
“This meteorite was originally discovered by a Canadian geologist?” Gabrielle
Ashe stared in astonishment at the young programmer, Chris Harper. “And this
Canadian is now dead?”
Harper gave a grim nod.
“How long have you known this?” she demanded.
“A couple of weeks. After the administrator and Marjorie Tench forced me to
perjure myself in the press conference, they knew I couldn’t go back on my word.
They told me the truth about how the meteorite was really discovered.”
PODS is not responsible for finding the meteorite! Gabrielle had no idea where
all of this information would lead, but clearly it was scandalous. Bad news for
Tench. Great news for the senator.
“As I mentioned,” Harper said, looking somber now, “the true way the meteorite
was discovered was through an intercepted radio transmission. Are you familiar
with a program called INSPIRE? The Interactive NASA Space Physics Ionosphere
Radio Experiment.”
Gabrielle had heard of it only vaguely.
“Essentially,” Harper said, “it’s a series of very low frequency radio receivers
near the North Pole that listen to the sounds of the earth—plasma wave emissions
from the northern lights, broadband pulses from lightning storms, that sort of
thing.”
“Okay.”
“A few weeks ago, one of INSPIRE’s radio receivers picked up a stray
transmission from Ellesmere Island. A Canadian geologist was calling for help at
an exceptionally low frequency.” Harper paused. “In fact, the frequency was so
low that nobody other than NASA’s VLF receivers could possibly have heard it. We
assumed the Canadian was long-waving.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Broadcasting at the lowest possible frequency to get maximum distance on his
transmission. He was in the middle of nowhere, remember; a standard frequency
transmission probably would not have made it far enough to be heard.”
“What did his message say?”
“The transmission was short. The Canadian said he had been out doing ice
soundings on the Milne Ice Shelf, had detected an ultradense anomaly buried in
the ice, suspected it was a giant meteorite, and while taking measurements had
become trapped in a storm. He gave his coordinates, asked for rescue from the
storm, and signed off. The NASA listening post sent a plane from Thule to rescue
him. They searched for hours and finally discovered him, miles off course, dead
at the bottom of a crevasse with his sled and dogs. Apparently he tried to
outrun the storm, got blinded, went off course, and fell into a crevasse.”
Gabrielle considered the information, intrigued. “So suddenly NASA knew about a
meteorite that nobody else knew about?”
“Exactly. And ironically, if my software had been working properly, the PODS
satellite would have spotted that same meteorite—a week before the Canadian
did.”
The coincidence gave Gabrielle pause. “A meteorite buried for three hundred
years was almost discovered twice in the same week?”
“I know. A little bizarre, but science can be like that. Feast or famine. The
point is that the administrator felt like the meteorite should have been our
discovery anyway—if I had done my job correctly. He told me that because the
Canadian was dead, nobody would be the wiser if I simply redirected PODS to the
coordinates the Canadian had transmitted in his SOS. Then I could pretend to
discover the meteorite from scratch, and we could salvage some respect from an
embarrassing failure.”
“And that’s what you did.”
“As I said, I had no choice. I had let down the mission.” He paused. “Tonight,
though, when I heard the President’s press conference and found out the
meteorite I’d pretended to discover contained fossils…”
“You were stunned.”
“Bloody well floored, I’d say!”
“Do you think the administrator knew the meteorite contained fossils before he
asked you to pretend PODS found it?”
“I can’t imagine how. That meteorite was buried and untouched until the first
NASA team got there. My best guess is that NASA had no idea what they’d really
found until they got a team up there to drill cores and x-ray. They asked me to
lie about PODS, thinking they’d have a moderate victory with a big meteorite.
Then when they got there, they realized just how big a find it really was.”
Gabrielle’s breath was shallow with excitement. “Dr. Harper, will you testify
that NASA and the White House forced you to lie about the PODS software?”
“I don’t know.” Harper looked frightened. “I can’t imagine what kind of damage
that would do to the agency…to this discovery.”
“Dr. Harper, you and I both know this meteorite remains a wonderful discovery,
regardless of how it came about. The point here is that you lied to the American
people. They have a right to know that PODS is not everything NASA says it is.”
“I don’t know. I despise the administrator, but my coworkers…they are good
people.”
“And they deserve to know they are being deceived.”
“And this evidence against me of embezzlement?”
“You can erase that from your mind,” Gabrielle said, having almost forgotten her
con. “I will tell the senator you know nothing of the embezzlement. It is simply
a frame job—insurance set up by the administrator to keep you quiet about PODS.”
“Can the senator protect me?”
“Fully. You’ve done nothing wrong. You were simply following orders. Besides,
with the information you’ve just given me about this Canadian geologist, I can’t
imagine the senator will even need to raise the issue of embezzlement at all. We
can focus entirely on NASA’s misinformation regarding PODS and the meteorite.
Once the senator breaks the information about the Canadian, the administrator
won’t be able to risk trying to discredit you with lies.”
Harper still looked worried. He fell silent, somber as he pondered his options.
Gabrielle gave him a moment. She’d realized earlier that there was another
troubling coincidence to this story. She wasn’t going to mention it, but she
could see Dr. Harper needed a final push.
“Do you have dogs, Dr. Harper?”
He glanced up. “I’m sorry?”
“I just thought it was odd. You told me that shortly after this Canadian
geologist radioed in the meteorite coordinates, his sled dogs ran blindly into a
crevasse?”
“There was a storm. They were off course.”
Gabrielle shrugged, letting her skepticism show. “Yeah…okay.”
Harper clearly sensed her hesitation. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t know. There’s just a lot of coincidence surrounding this discovery. A
Canadian geologist transmits meteorite coordinates on a frequency that only NASA
can hear? And then his sled dogs run blindly off a cliff?” She paused. “You
obviously understand that this geologist’s death paved the way for this entire
NASA triumph.”
The color drained from Harper’s face. “You think the administrator would kill
over this meteorite.”
Big politics. Big money, Gabrielle thought. “Let me talk to the senator and
we’ll be in touch. Is there a back way out of here?”
Gabrielle Ashe left a pale Chris Harper and descended a fire stairwell into a
deserted alley behind NASA. She flagged down a taxi that had just dropped off
more NASA celebrators.
“Westbrooke Place Luxury Apartments,” she told the driver. She was about to make
Senator Sexton a much happier man.
94
Wondering what she had agreed to, Rachel stood near the entrance of the G4
cockpit, stretching a radio transceiver cable into the cabin so she could place
her call out of earshot of the pilot. Corky and Tolland looked on. Although
Rachel and NRO director William Pickering had planned to maintain radio silence
until her arrival at Bollings Air Force Base outside of D.C., Rachel now had
information she was certain Pickering would want to hear immediately. She had
phoned his secure cellular, which he carried at all times.
When William Pickering came on the line, he was all business. “Speak with care,
please. I cannot guarantee this connection.”
Rachel understood. Pickering’s cellular, like most NRO field phones, had an
indicator that detected unsecured incoming calls. Because Rachel was on a
radiophone, one of the least secure communication modes available, Pickering’s
phone had warned him. This conversation would need to be vague. No names. No
locations.
“My voice is my identity,” Rachel said, using the standard field greeting in
this situation. She had expected the director’s response would be displeasure
that she had risked contacting him, but Pickering’s reaction sounded positive.
“Yes, I was about to make contact with you myself. We need to redirect. I’m
concerned you may have a welcoming party.”
Rachel felt a sudden trepidation. Someone is watching us. She could hear the
danger in Pickering’s tone. Redirect. He would be pleased to know she had called
to make that exact request, albeit for entirely different reasons.
“The issue of authenticity,” Rachel said. “We’ve been discussing it. We may have
a way to confirm or deny categorically.”
“Excellent. There have been developments, and at least then I would have solid
ground on which to proceed.”
“The proof involves our making a quick stop. One of us has access to a
laboratory facility—”
“No exact locations, please. For your own safety.”
Rachel had no intention of broadcasting her plans over this line. “Can you get
us clearance to land at GAS-AC?”
Pickering was silent a moment. Rachel sensed he was trying to process the word.
GAS-AC was an obscure NRO gisting shorthand for the Coast Guard’s Group Air
Station Atlantic City. Rachel hoped the director would know it.
“Yes,” he finally said. “I can arrange that. Is that your final destination?”
“No. We will require further helicopter transport.”
“An aircraft will be waiting.”
“Thank you.”
“I recommend you exercise extreme caution until we know more. Speak to no one.
Your suspicions have drawn deep concern among powerful parties.”
Tench, Rachel thought, wishing she had managed to make contact with the
President directly.
“I am currently in my car, en route to meet the woman in question. She has
requested a private meeting in a neutral location. It should reveal much.”
Pickering is driving somewhere to meet Tench? Whatever Tench was going to tell
him must be important if she refused to tell him on the phone.
Pickering said, “Do not discuss your final coordinates with anyone. And no more
radio contact. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir. We’ll be at GAS-AC in an hour.”
“Transport will be arranged. When you reach your ultimate destination, you can
call me via more secure channels.” He paused. “I cannot overstate the importance
of secrecy to your safety. You have made powerful enemies tonight. Take
appropriate caution.” Pickering was gone.
Rachel felt tense as she closed the connection and turned to Tolland and Corky.
“Change of destination?” Tolland said, looking eager for answers.
Rachel nodded, feeling reluctant. “The Goya.”
Corky sighed, glancing down at the meteorite sample in his hand. “I still can’t
imagine NASA could possibly have…” He faded off, looking more worried with every
passing minute.
We’ll know soon enough, Rachel thought.
She went into the cockpit and returned the radio transceiver. Glancing out the
windscreen at the rolling plateau of moonlit clouds racing beneath them, she had
the unsettling feeling they were not going to like what they found onboard
Tolland’s ship.
95
William Pickering felt an unusual solitude as he drove his sedan down the
Leesburg Highway. It was almost 2:00 A.M., and the road was empty. It had been
years since he’d been driving this late.
Marjorie Tench’s raspy voice still grated on his mind. Meet me at the FDR
Memorial.
Pickering tried to recall the last time he had seen Marjorie Tench
face-to-face—never a pleasant experience. It had been two months ago. At the
White House. Tench was seated opposite Pickering at a long oak table surrounded
by members of the National Security Council, Joint Chiefs, CIA, President
Herney, and the administrator of NASA.
“Gentlemen,” the head of the CIA had said, looking directly at Marjorie Tench.
“Yet again, I am before you to urge this administration to confront the ongoing
security crisis of NASA.”
The declaration took no one in the room by surprise. NASA’s security woes had
become a tired issue in the intelligence community. Two days previously, more
than three hundred high-resolution satellite photos from one of NASA’s
earth-observing satellites had been stolen by hackers out of a NASA database.
The photos—inadvertently revealing a classified U.S. military training facility
in North Africa—had turned up on the black market, where they had been purchased
by hostile intelligence agencies in the Middle East.
“Despite the best of intentions,” the CIA director said with a weary voice,
“NASA continues to be a threat to national security. Simply put, our space
agency is not equipped to protect the data and technologies they develop.”
“I realize,” the President replied, “that there have been indiscretions.
Damaging leaks. And it troubles me deeply.” He motioned across the table to the
stern face of NASA administrator Lawrence Ekstrom. “We are yet again looking
into ways to tighten NASA’s security.”
“With due respect,” the CIA director said, “whatever security changes NASA
implements will be ineffective as long as NASA operations remain outside the
umbrella of the United States intelligence community.”
The statement brought an uneasy rustle from those assembled. Everyone knew where
this was headed.
“As you know,” the CIA director went on, his tone sharpening, “all U.S.
government entities who deal with sensitive intelligence information are
governed by strict rules of secrecy—military, CIA, NSA, NRO—all of them must
abide by stringent laws regarding the concealment of the data they glean and the
technologies they develop. I ask you all, yet again, why NASA—the agency
currently producing the largest portion of cutting-edge aerospace, imaging,
flight, software, reconnaissance, and telecom technologies used by the military
and intelligence community—exists outside this umbrella of secrecy.”
The President heaved a weighty sigh. The proposal was clear. Restructure NASA to
become part of the U.S. military intelligence community. Although similar
restructurings had happened with other agencies in the past, Herney refused to
entertain the idea of placing NASA under the auspices of the Pentagon, the CIA,
the NRO, or any other military directive. The National Security Council was
starting to splinter on the issue, many siding with the intelligence community.
Lawrence Ekstrom never looked pleased at these meetings, and this was no
exception. He shot an acrimonious glare toward the CIA director. “At the risk of
repeating myself, sir, the technologies NASA develops are for nonmilitary,
academic applications. If your intelligence community wants to turn one of our
space telescopes around and look at China, that’s your choice.”
The CIA director looked like he was about to boil over.
Pickering caught his eye and stepped in. “Larry,” he said, careful to keep an
even tone, “every year NASA kneels before Congress and begs for money. You’re
running operations with too little funding, and you’re paying the price in
failed missions. If we incorporate NASA into the intelligence community, NASA
will no longer need to ask Congress for help. You would be funded by the black
budget at significantly higher levels. It’s a win-win. NASA will have the money
it needs to run itself properly, and the intelligence community will have peace
of mind that NASA technologies are protected.”
Ekstrom shook his head. “On principle, I cannot endorse painting NASA with that
brush. NASA is about space science; we have nothing to do with national
security.”
The CIA director stood up, something never done when the President was seated.
Nobody stopped him. He glared down at the administrator of NASA. “Are you
telling me you think science has nothing to do with national security? Larry,
they are synonymous, for God’s sake! It is only this country’s scientific and
technological edge that keeps us secure, and whether we like it or not, NASA is
playing a bigger and bigger part in developing those technologies.
Unfortunately, your agency leaks like a sieve and has proven time and again that
its security is a liability!”
The room fell silent.
Now the administrator of NASA stood up and locked eyes with his attacker. “So
you suggest locking twenty thousand NASA scientists in airtight military labs
and making them work for you? Do you really think NASA’s newest space telescopes
would have been conceived had it not been for our scientists’ personal desire to
see deeper into space? NASA makes astonishing breakthroughs for one reason
only—our employees want to understand the cosmos more deeply. They are a
community of dreamers who grew up staring at starry skies and asking themselves
what was up there. Passion and curiosity are what drive NASA’s innovation, not
the promise of military superiority.”
Pickering cleared his throat, speaking softly, trying to lower the temperatures
around the table. “Larry, I’m certain the director is not talking about
recruiting NASA scientists to build military satellites. Your NASA mission
statement would not change. NASA would carry on business as usual, except you
would have increased funding and increased security.” Pickering turned now to
the President. “Security is expensive. Everyone in this room certainly realizes
that NASA’s security leaks are a result of underfunding. NASA has to toot its
own horn, cut corners on security measures, run joint projects with other
countries so they can share the price tag. I am proposing that NASA remain the
superb, scientific, nonmilitary entity it currently is, but with a bigger
budget, and some discretion.”
Several members of the security council nodded in quiet agreement.
President Herney stood slowly, staring directly at William Pickering, clearly
not at all amused with the way Pickering had just taken over. “Bill, let me ask
you this: NASA is hoping to go to Mars in the next decade. How will the
intelligence community feel about spending a hefty portion of the black budget
running a mission to Mars—a mission that has no immediate national security
benefits?”
“NASA will be able to do as they please.”
“Bullshit,” Herney replied flatly.
Everyone’s eyes shot up. President Herney seldom used profanity.
“If there is one thing I’ve learned as president,” Herney declared, “it’s that
those who control the dollars control the direction. I refuse to put NASA’s
purse strings in the hands of those who do not share the objectives for which
the agency was founded. I can only imagine how much pure science would get done
with the military deciding which NASA missions are viable.”
Herney’s eyes scanned the room. Slowly, purposefully, he returned his rigid gaze
to William Pickering.
“Bill,” Herney sighed, “your displeasure that NASA is engaged in joint projects
with foreign space agencies is painfully shortsighted. At least someone is
working constructively with the Chinese and Russians. Peace on this planet will
not be forged by military strength. It will be forged by those who come together
despite their governments’ differences. If you ask me, NASA’s joint missions do
more to promote national security than any billion-dollar spy satellite, and
with a hell of a lot better hope for the future.”
Pickering felt an anger welling deep within him. How dare a politician talk down
to me this way! Herney’s idealism played fine in a boardroom, but in the real
world, it got people killed.
“Bill,” Marjorie Tench interrupted, as if sensing Pickering was about to
explode, “we know you lost a child. We know this is a personal issue for you.”
Pickering heard nothing but condescension in her tone.
“But please remember,” Tench said, “that the White House is currently holding
back a floodgate of investors who want us to open space to the private sector.
If you ask me, for all its mistakes, NASA has been one hell of a friend to the
intel community. You all might just want to count your blessings.”
A rumble strip on the shoulder of the highway jolted Pickering’s mind back to
the present. His exit was coming up. As he approached the exit for D.C., he
passed a bloody deer lying dead by the side of the road. He felt an odd
hesitation…but he kept driving.
He had a rendezvous to keep.
96
The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial is one of the largest memorials in the
nation. With a park, waterfalls, statuary, alcoves, and basin, the memorial is
divided into four outdoor galleries, one for each of FDR’s terms in office.
A mile from the memorial, a lone Kiowa Warrior coasted in, high over the city,
its running lights dimmed. In a town boasting as many VIPs and media crews as
D.C., helicopters in the skies were as common as birds flying south. Delta-One
knew that as long as he stayed well outside what was known as “the dome”—a
bubble of protected airspace around the White House—he should draw little
attention. They would not be here long.
The Kiowa was at twenty-one hundred feet when it slowed adjacent to, but not
directly over, the darkened FDR Memorial. Delta-One hovered, checking his
position. He looked to his left, where Delta-Two was manning the night vision
telescopic viewing system. The video feed showed a greenish image of the entry
drive of the memorial. The area was deserted.
Now they would wait.
This would not be a quiet kill. There were some people you simply did not kill
quietly. Regardless of the method, there would be repercussions. Investigations.
Inquiries. In these cases, the best cover was to make a lot of noise.
Explosions, fire, and smoke made it appear you were making a statement, and the
first thought would be foreign terrorism. Especially when the target was a
high-profile official.
Delta-One scanned the night-vision transmission of the tree-shrouded memorial
below. The parking lot and entry road were empty. Soon, he thought. The location
of this private meeting, though in an urban area, was fortuitously desolate at
this hour. Delta-One turned his eyes from the screen to his own weapons
controls.
The Hellfire system would be the weapon of choice tonight. A laser-guided,
anti-armor missile, the Hellfire provided fire-and-forget capability. The
projectile could home in on a laser spot that was projected from ground
observers, other aircraft, or the launching aircraft itself. Tonight, the
missile would be guided autonomously through the laser designator in a
mast-mounted sight. Once the Kiowa’s designator had“painted” the target with a
laser beam, the Hellfire missile would be self-directing. Because the Hellfire
could be fired either from the air or ground, its employment here tonight would
not necessarily imply an aircraft’s involvement. In addition, the Hellfire was a
popular munition among black-market arms dealers, so terrorist activity could
certainly be blamed.
“Sedan,” Delta-Two said.
Delta-One glanced at the transmission screen. A nondescript, black luxury sedan
was approaching on the access road exactly on schedule. This was the typical
motor pool car of large government agencies. The driver dimmed the car’s
headlights on entering the memorial. The car circled several times and then
parked near a grove of trees. Delta-One watched the screen as his partner
trained the telescopic night vision on the driver’s side window. After a moment,
the person’s face came into view.
Delta-One drew a quick breath.
“Target confirmed,” his partner said.
Delta-One looked at the night-vision screen—with its deadly crucifix of
cross-hairs—and he felt like a sniper aiming at royalty. Target confirmed.
Delta-Two turned to the left side avionics compartment and activated the laser
designator. He aimed, and two thousand feet below, a pinpoint of light appeared
on the roof of the sedan, invisible to the occupant. “Target painted,” he said.
Delta-One took a deep breath. He fired.
A sharp hissing sound sizzled beneath the fuselage, followed by a remarkably dim
trail of light streaking toward the earth. One second later, the car in the
parking lot blew apart in a blinding eruption of flames. Twisted metal flew
everywhere. Burning tires rolled into the woods.
“Kill complete,” Delta-One said, already accelerating the helicopter away from
the area. “Call the controller.”
Less than two miles away, President Zach Herney was preparing for bed. The Lexan
bullet-proof windows of “the residence” were an inch thick. Herney never heard
the blast.
97
The Coast Guard Group Air Station Atlantic City is located in a secure section
of William J. Hughes Federal Aviation Administration Technical Center at the
Atlantic City International Airport. The group’s area of responsibility includes
the Atlantic seaboard from Asbury Park to Cape May.
Rachel Sexton jolted awake as the plane’s tires screeched down on the tarmac of
the lone runway nestled between two enormous cargo buildings. Surprised to find
she had fallen asleep, Rachel groggily checked her watch.
2:13A.M. She felt like she’d been asleep for days.
A warm onboard blanket was tucked carefully around her, and Michael Tolland was
also just waking up beside her. He gave her a weary smile.
Corky staggered up the aisle and frowned when he saw them. “Shit, you guys are
still here? I woke up hoping tonight had been a bad dream.”
Rachel knew exactly how he felt. I’m headed back out to sea.
The plane taxied to a stop, and Rachel and the others climbed out onto a barren
runway. The night was over-cast, but the coastal air felt heavy and warm. In
comparison to Ellesmere, New Jersey felt like the tropics.
“Over here!” a voice called out.
Rachel and the others turned to see one of the Coast Guard’s classic,
crimson-colored HH-65 Dolphin helicopters waiting nearby. Framed by the
brilliant white stripe on the chopper’s tail, a fully suited pilot waved them
over.
Tolland gave Rachel an impressed nod. “Your boss certainly gets things done.”
You have no idea, she thought.
Corky slumped. “Already? No dinner stop?”
The pilot welcomed them over and helped them aboard. Never asking their names,
he spoke exclusively in pleasantries and safety precautions. Pickering had
apparently made it clear to the Coast Guard that this flight was not an
advertised mission. Nonetheless, despite Pickering’s discretion, Rachel could
see that their identities had remained a secret for only a matter of seconds;
the pilot failed to hide his wide-eyed double take upon seeing television
celebrity Michael Tolland.
Rachel was already feeling tense as she buckled herself in beside Tolland. The
Aerospatiale engine overhead shrieked to life, and the Dolphin’s sagging
thirty-nine-foot rotors began to flatten out into a silver blur. The whine
turned to a roar, and it lifted off the runway, climbing into the night.
The pilot turned in the cockpit and called out, “I was informed you would tell
me your destination once we were airborne.”
Tolland gave the pilot the coordinates of an offshore location about thirty
miles southeast of their current position.
His ship is twelve miles off the coast, Rachel thought, feeling a shiver.
The pilot typed the coordinates into his navigation system. Then he settled in
and gunned the engines. The chopper tipped forward and banked southeast.
As the dark dunes of the New Jersey coast slipped away beneath the aircraft,
Rachel turned her eyes away from the blackness of the ocean spreading out
beneath her. Despite the wariness of being back over the water again, she tried
to take comfort in knowing she was accompanied by a man who had made the ocean a
lifetime friend. Tolland was pressed close beside her in the narrow fuselage,
his hips and shoulders touching hers. Neither made any attempt to shift
positions.
“I know I shouldn’t say this,” the pilot sputtered suddenly, as if ready to
burst with excitement, “but you’re obviously Michael Tolland, and I’ve got to
say, well, we’ve been watching you on TV all night! The meteorite! It’s
absolutely incredible! You must be in awe!”
Tolland nodded patiently. “Speechless.”
“The documentary was fantastic! You know, the networks keep playing it over and
over. None of tonight’s duty pilots wanted this gig because everyone wanted to
keep watching television, but I drew short straw. Can you believe it! Short
straw! And here I am! If the boys had any idea I’d be flying the actual—”
“We appreciate the ride,” Rachel interrupted, “and we need you to keep our
presence here to yourself. Nobody’s supposed to know we’re here.”
“Absolutely, ma’am. My orders were very clear.” The pilot hesitated, and then
his expression brightened. “Hey, we aren’t by any chance heading for the Goya,
are we?”
Tolland gave a reluctant nod. “We are.”
“Holy shit!” the pilot exclaimed. “Excuse me. Sorry, but I’ve seen her on your
show. The twin-hull, right? Strange-looking beast! I’ve never actually been on a
SWATH design. I never dreamed yours would be the first!”
Rachel tuned the man out, feeling a rising uneasiness to be heading out to sea.
Tolland turned to her. “You okay? You could have stayed onshore. I told you
that.”
I should have stayed onshore, Rachel thought, knowing pride would never have let
her. “No thanks, I’m fine.”
Tolland smiled. “I’ll keep an eye on you.”
“Thanks.” Rachel was surprised how the warmth in his voice made her feel more
secure.
“You’ve seen the Goya on television, right?”
She nodded. “It’s a…um…an interesting-looking ship.”
Tolland laughed. “Yeah. She was an extremely progressive prototype in her day,
but the design never quite caught on.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Rachel joked, picturing the ship’s bizarre profile.
“Now NBC is pressuring me to use a newer ship. Something…I don’t know, flashier,
sexier. Another season or two, and they’ll make me part with her.” Tolland
sounded melancholy at the thought.
“You wouldn’t love a brand-new ship?”
“I don’t know…a lot of memories onboard the Goya.”
Rachel smiled softly. “Well, as my mom used to say, sooner or later we’ve all
got to let go of our past.”
Tolland’s eyes held hers for a long moment. “Yeah, I know.”
98
“Shit,” the taxi driver said, looking over his shoulder at Gabrielle. “Looks
like an accident up ahead. We ain’t going nowhere. Not for a while.”
Gabrielle glanced out the window and saw the spinning lights of emergency
vehicles piercing the night. Several policemen stood in the road ahead, halting
traffic around the Mall.
“Must be a hell of an accident,” the driver said, motioning toward some flames
near the FDR Memorial.
Gabrielle frowned at the flickering glow. Now, of all times. She needed to get
to Senator Sexton with this new information about PODS and the Canadian
geologist. She wondered if NASA’s lies about how they found the meteorite would
be a big enough scandal to breathe life back into Sexton’s campaign. Maybe not
for most politicians, she thought, but this was Sedgewick Sexton, a man who had
built his campaign on amplifying the failures of others.
Gabrielle was not always proud of the senator’s ability to put negative ethical
spin on opponents’ political misfortunes, but it was effective. Sexton’s mastery
of innuendo and indignity could probably turn this one compartmentalized NASA
fib into a sweeping question of character that infected the entire space
agency—and by association, the President.
Outside the window, the flames at the FDR Memorial seemed to climb higher. Some
nearby trees had caught fire, and the fire trucks were now hosing them down. The
taxi driver turned on the car radio and began channel-surfing.
Sighing, Gabrielle closed her eyes and felt the exhaustion roll over her in
waves. When she’d first come to Washington, she’d dreamed of working in politics
forever, maybe someday in the White House. At the moment, however, she felt like
she’d had enough politics for a lifetime—the duel with Marjorie Tench, the lewd
photographs of herself and the senator, all of NASA’s lies…
A newscaster on the radio was saying something about a car bomb and possible
terrorism.
I’ve got to get out of this town, Gabrielle thought for the first time since
coming to the nation’s capital.
99
The controller seldom felt weary, but today had taken its toll. Nothing had gone
as anticipated—the tragic discovery of the insertion shaft in the ice, the
difficulties of keeping the information a secret, and now the growing list of
victims.
Nobody was supposed to die…except the Canadian.
It seemed ironic that the most technically difficult part of the plan had turned
out to be the least problematic. The insertion, completed months ago, had come
off without a hitch. Once the anomaly was in place, all that remained was to
wait for the Polar Orbiting Density Scanner (PODS) satellite to launch. PODS was
slated to scan enormous sections of the Arctic Circle, and sooner or later the
anomaly software onboard would detect the meteorite and give NASA a major find.
But the damned software didn’t work.
When the controller learned that the anomaly software had failed and had no
chance of being fixed until after the election, the entire plan was in jeopardy.
Without PODS, the meteorite would go undetected. The controller had to come up
with some way to surreptitiously alert someone in NASA to the meteorite’s
existence. The solution involved orchestrating an emergency radio transmission
from a Canadian geologist in the general vicinity of the insertion. The
geologist, for obvious reasons, had to be killed immediately and his death made
to look accidental. Throwing an innocent geologist from a helicopter had been
the beginning. Now things were unraveling fast.
Wailee Ming. Norah Mangor. Both dead.
The bold kill that had just taken place at the FDR Memorial.
Soon to be added to the list were Rachel Sexton, Michael Tolland, and Dr.
Marlinson.
There is no other way, the controller thought, fighting the growing remorse. Far
too much is at stake.
100
The Coast Guard Dolphin was still two miles from the Goya’s coordinates and
flying at three thousand feet when Tolland yelled up to the pilot.
“Do you have NightSight onboard this thing?”
The pilot nodded. “I’m a rescue unit.”
Tolland had expected as much. NightSight was Raytheon’s marine thermal imaging
system, capable of locating wreck survivors in the dark. The heat given off by a
swimmer’s head would appear as a red speck on an ocean of black.
“Switch it on,” Tolland said.
The pilot looked confused. “Why? You missing someone?”
“No. I want everyone to see something.”
“We won’t see a thing on thermal from this high up unless there’s a burning oil
slick.”
“Just switch it on,” Tolland said.
The pilot gave Tolland an odd look and then adjusted some dials, commanding the
thermal lens beneath the chopper to survey a three-mile swatch of ocean in front
of them. An LCD screen on his dashboard lit up. The image came into focus.
“Holy shit!” The helicopter lurched momentarily as the pilot recoiled in
surprise and then recovered, staring at the screen.
Rachel and Corky leaned forward, looking at the image with equal surprise. The
black background of the ocean was illuminated by an enormous swirling spiral of
pulsating red.
Rachel turned to Tolland with trepidation. “It looks like a cyclone.”
“It is,” Tolland said. “A cyclone of warm currents. About a half mile across.”
The Coast Guard pilot chuckled in amazement. “That’s a big one. We see these now
and then, but I hadn’t heard about this one yet.”
“Just surfaced last week,” Tolland said. “Probably won’t last more than another
few days.”
“What causes it?” Rachel asked, understandably perplexed by the huge vortex of
swirling water in the middle of the ocean.
“Magma dome,” the pilot said.
Rachel turned to Tolland, looking wary. “A volcano?”
“No,” Tolland said. “The East Coast typically doesn’t have active volcanoes, but
occasionally we get rogue pockets of magma that well up under the seafloor and
cause hot spots. The hot spot causes a reverse temperature gradient—hot water on
the bottom and cooler water on top. It results in these giant spiral currents.
They’re called megaplumes. They spin for a couple of weeks and then dissipate.”
The pilot looked at the pulsating spiral on his LCD screen. “Looks like this
one’s still going strong.” He paused, checking the coordinates of Tolland’s
ship, and then looked over his shoulder in surprise. “Mr. Tolland, it looks like
you’re parked fairly near the middle of it.”
Tolland nodded. “Currents are a little slower near the eye. Eighteen knots. Like
anchoring in a fast-moving river. Our chain’s been getting a real workout this
week.”
“Jesus,” the pilot said. “Eighteen-knot current? Don’t fall overboard!” He
laughed.
Rachel did not laugh. “Mike, you didn’t mention this megaplume, magma dome,
hot-current situation.”
He put a reassuring hand on her knee. “It’s perfectly safe, trust me.”
Rachel frowned. “So this documentary you were making out here was about this
magma dome phenomenon?”
“Megaplumes and Sphyrna mokarran.”
“That’s right. You mentioned that earlier.”
Tolland gave a coy smile. “Sphyrna mokarran love warm water, and right now,
every last one for a hundred miles is congregating in this mile-wide circle of
heated ocean.”
“Neat.” Rachel gave an uneasy nod. “And what, pray tell, are Sphyrna mokarran?”
“Ugliest fish in the sea.”
“Flounder?”
Tolland laughed. “Great hammerhead shark.”
Rachel stiffened beside him. “You’ve got hammerhead sharks around your boat?”
Tolland winked. “Relax, they’re not dangerous.”
“You wouldn’t say that unless they were dangerous.”
Tolland chuckled. “I guess you’re right.” He called playfully up to the pilot.
“Hey, how long has it been since you guys saved anyone from an attack by a
hammerhead?”
The pilot shrugged. “Gosh. We haven’t saved anyone from a hammerhead in
decades.”
Tolland turned to Rachel. “See. Decades. No worries.”
“Just last month,” the pilot added, “we had an attack where some idiot skin
diver was chumming—”
“Hold on!” Rachel said. “You said you hadn’t saved anyone in decades!”
“Yeah,” the pilot replied. “Saved anyone. Usually, we’re too late. Those
bastards kill in a hurry.”
101
From the air, the flickering outline of the Goya loomed on the horizon. At half
a mile, Tolland could make out the brilliant deck lights that his crewmember
Xavia had wisely left glowing. When he saw the lights, he felt like a weary
traveler pulling into his driveway.
“I thought you said only one person was onboard,” Rachel said, looking surprised
to see all the lights.
“Don’t you leave a light on when you’re home alone?”
“One light. Not the entire house.”
Tolland smiled. Despite Rachel’s attempts to be lighthearted, he could tell she
was extremely apprehensive about being out here. He wanted to put an arm around
her and reassure her, but he knew there was nothing he could say. “The lights
are on for security. Makes the ship look active.”
Corky chuckled. “Afraid of pirates, Mike?”
“Nope. Biggest danger out here is the idiots who don’t know how to read radar.
Best defense against getting rammed is to make sure everyone can see you.”
Corky squinted down at the glowing vessel. “See you? It looks like a Carnival
Cruise line on New Year’s Eve. Obviously, NBC pays your electric.”
The Coast Guard chopper slowed and banked around the huge illuminated ship, and
the pilot began maneuvering toward the helipad on the stern deck. Even from the
air, Tolland could make out the raging current pulling at the ship’s hull
struts. Anchored from its bow, the Goya was aimed into the current, straining at
its massive anchor line like a chained beast.
“She really is a beauty,” the pilot said, laughing.
Tolland knew the comment was sarcastic. The Goya was ugly. “Butt-ugly” according
to one television reviewer. One of only seventeen SWATH ships ever built, the
Goya’s Small-Waterplane-Area Twin-Hull was anything but attractive.
The vessel was essentially a massive horizontal platform floating thirty feet
above the ocean on four huge struts affixed to pontoons. From a distance, the
ship looked like a low-slung drilling platform. Up close, it resembled a deck
barge on stilts. The crew quarters, research labs, and navigation bridge were
housed in a series of tiered structures on top, giving one the rough impression
of a giant floating coffee table supporting a hodgepodge of multistaged
buildings.
Despite its less than streamlined appearance, the Goya’s design enjoyed
significantly less water-plane area, resulting in increased stability. The
suspended platform enabled better filming, easier lab work, and fewer seasick
scientists. Although NBC was pressuring Tolland to let them buy him something
newer, Tolland had refused. Granted, there were better ships out there now, even
more stable ones, but the Goya had been his home for almost a decade now—the
ship on which he had fought his way back after Celia’s death. Some nights he
still heard her voice in the wind out on deck. If and when the ghosts ever
disappeared, Tolland would consider another ship.
Not yet.
When the chopper finally set down on the Goya’s stern deck, Rachel Sexton felt
only half-relieved. The good news was that she was no longer flying over the
ocean. The bad news was that she was now standing on it. She fought off the
shaky sensation in her legs as she climbed onto the deck and looked around. The
deck was surprisingly cramped, particularly with the helicopter on its pad.
Moving her eyes toward the bow, Rachel gazed at the ungainly, stacked edifice
that made up the bulk of the ship.
Tolland stood close beside her. “I know,” he said, talking loudly over the sound
of the raging current. “It looks bigger on television.”
Rachel nodded. “And more stable.”
“This is one of the safest ships on the sea. I promise.” Tolland put a hand on
her shoulder and guided her across the deck.
The warmth of his hand did more to calm Rachel’s nerves than anything he could
have said. Nonetheless, as she looked toward the rear of the ship, she saw the
roiling current streaming out behind them as though the ship was at full
throttle. We’re sitting on a megaplume, she thought.
Centered on the foremost section of rear deck, Rachel spied a familiar, one-man
Triton submersible hanging on a giant winch. The Triton—named for the Greek god
of the sea—looked nothing like its predecessor, the steel-encased Alvin. The
Triton had a hemispherical acrylic dome in front, making it look more like a
giant fishbowl than a sub. Rachel could think of few things more terrifying than
submerging hundreds of feet into the ocean with nothing between her face and the
ocean but a sheet of clear acrylic. Of course, according to Tolland, the only
unpleasant part of riding in the Triton was the initial deployment—being slowly
winched down through the trap door in the Goya’s deck, hanging like a pendulum
thirty feet above the sea.
“Xavia is probably in the hydrolab,” Tolland said, moving across the deck. “This
way.”
Rachel and Corky followed Tolland across the stern deck. The Coast Guard pilot
remained in his chopper with strict instructions not to use the radio.
“Have a look at this,” Tolland said, pausing at the stern railing of the ship.
Hesitantly, Rachel neared the railing. They were very high up. The water was a
good thirty feet below them, and yet Rachel could still feel the heat rising off
the water.
“It’s about the temperature of a warm bath,” Tolland said over the sound of the
current. He reached toward a switch-box on the railing. “Watch this.” He flipped
a switch.
A wide arc of light spread through the water behind the ship, illuminating it
from within like a lit swimming pool. Rachel and Corky gasped in unison.
The water around the ship was filled with dozens of ghostly shadows. Hovering
only feet below the illuminated surface, armies of sleek, dark forms swam in
parallel against the current, their unmistakable hammer-shaped skulls wagging
back and forth as if to the beat of some prehistoric rhythm.
“Christ, Mike,” Corky stammered. “So glad you shared this with us.”
Rachel’s body went rigid. She wanted to step back from the railing, but she
could not move. She was transfixed by the petrifying vista.
“Incredible, aren’t they?” Tolland said. His hand was on her shoulder again,
comforting. “They’ll tread water in the warm spots for weeks. These guys have
the best noses in the sea—enhanced telencephalon olfactory lobes. They can smell
blood up to a mile away.”
Corky looked skeptical. “Enhanced telencephalon olfactory lobes?”
“Don’t believe me?” Tolland began rooting around in an aluminum cabinet adjacent
to where they were standing. After a moment, he pulled out a small, dead fish.
“Perfect.” He took a knife from the cooler and cut the limp fish in several
places. It started to drip blood.
“Mike, for God’s sake,” Corky said. “That’s disgusting.”
Tolland tossed the bloody fish overboard and it fell thirty feet. The instant it
hit the water, six or seven sharks darted in a tumbling ferocious brawl, their
rows of silvery teeth gnashing wildly at the bloody fish. In an instant, the
fish was gone.
Aghast, Rachel turned and stared at Tolland, who was already holding another
fish. Same kind. Same size.
“This time, no blood,” Tolland said. Without cutting the fish, he threw it in
the water. The fish splashed down, but nothing happened. The hammerheads seemed
not to notice. The bait carried away on the current, having drawn no interest
whatsoever.
“They attack only on sense of smell,” Tolland said, leading them away from the
railing. “In fact, you could swim out here in total safety—provided you didn’t
have any open wounds.”
Corky pointed to the stitches on his cheek.
Tolland frowned. “Right. No swimming for you.”
102
Gabrielle Ashe’s taxi was not moving.
Sitting at a roadblock near the FDR Memorial, Gabrielle looked out at the
emergency vehicles in the distance and felt as if a surrealistic fog bank had
settled over the city. Radio reports were coming in now that the exploded car
might have contained a high-level government official.
Pulling out her cellphone, she dialed the senator. He was no doubt starting to
wonder what was taking Gabrielle so long.
The line was busy.
Gabrielle looked at the taxi’s clicking meter and frowned. Some of the other
cars stuck here were pulling up onto the curbs and turning around to find
alternative routes.
The driver looked over his shoulder. “You wanna wait? Your dime.”
Gabrielle saw more official vehicles arriving now. “No. Let’s go around.”
The driver grunted in the affirmative and began maneuvering the awkward
multipoint turn. As they bounced over the curbs, Gabrielle tried Sexton again.
Still busy.
Several minutes later, having made a wide loop, the taxi was traveling up C
Street. Gabrielle saw the Philip A. Hart Office Building looming. She had
intended to go straight to the senator’s apartment, but with her office this
close…
“Pull over,” she blurted to the driver. “Right there. Thanks.” She pointed.
The cab stopped.
Gabrielle paid the amount on the meter and added ten dollars. “Can you wait ten
minutes?”
The cabbie looked at the money and then at his watch. “Not a minute longer.”
Gabrielle hurried off. I’ll be out in five.
The deserted marble corridors of the Senate office building felt almost
sepulchral at this hour. Gabrielle’s muscles were tense as she hurried through
the gauntlet of austere statues lining the third-floor entryway. Their stony
eyes seemed to follow her like silent sentinels.
Arriving at the main door of Senator Sexton’s five-room office suite, Gabrielle
used her key card to enter. The secretarial lobby was dimly lit. Crossing
through the foyer, she went down a hallway to her office. She entered, flicked
on the fluorescent lights, and strode directly to her file cabinets.
She had an entire file on the budgeting of NASA’s Earth Observing System,
including plenty of information on PODS. Sexton would certainly want all the
data he could possibly get on PODS as soon as she told him about Harper.
NASA lied about PODS.
As Gabrielle fingered her way through her files, her cellphone rang.
“Senator?” she answered.
“No, Gabs. It’s Yolanda.” Her friend’s voice had an unusual edge to it. “You
still at NASA?”
“No. At the office.”
“Find anything at NASA?”
You have no idea. Gabrielle knew she couldn’t tell Yolanda anything until she’d
talked to Sexton; the senator would have very specific ideas about how best to
handle the information. “I’ll tell you all about it after I talk to Sexton.
Heading over to his place now.”
Yolanda paused. “Gabs, you know this thing you were saying about Sexton’s
campaign finance and the SFF?”
“I told you I was wrong and—”
“I just found out two of our reporters who cover the aerospace industry have
been working on a similar story.”
Gabrielle was surprised. “Meaning?”
“I don’t know. But these guys are good, and they seem pretty convinced that
Sexton is taking kickbacks from the Space Frontier Foundation. I just figured I
should call you. I know I told you earlier that the idea was insane. Marjorie
Tench as a source seemed spotty, but these guys of ours…I don’t know, you might
want to talk to them before you see the senator.”
“If they’re so convinced, why haven’t they gone to press?” Gabrielle sounded
more defensive than she wanted to.
“They have no solid evidence. The senator apparently is good at covering his
tracks.”
Most politicians are. “There’s nothing there, Yolanda. I told you the senator
admitted taking SFF donations, but the gifts are all under the cap.”
“I know that’s what he told you, Gabs, and I’m not claiming to know what’s true
or false here. I just felt obliged to call because I told you not to trust
Marjorie Tench, and now I find out people other than Tench think the senator may
be on the dole. That’s all.”
“Who were these reporters?” Gabrielle felt an unexpected anger simmering now.
“No names. I can set up a meeting. They’re smart. They understand campaign
finance law…” Yolanda hesitated. “You know, these guy actually believe Sexton is
hurting for cash—bankrupt even.”
In the silence of her office, Gabrielle could hear Tench’s raspy accusations
echoing. After Katherine died, the senator squandered the vast majority of her
legacy on bad investments, personal comforts, and buying himself what appears to
be certain victory in the primaries. As of six months ago, your candidate was
broke.
“Our men would love to talk to you,” Yolanda said.
I bet they would, Gabrielle thought. “I’ll call you back.”
“You sound pissed.”
“Never at you, Yolanda. Never at you. Thanks.”
Gabrielle hung up.
Dozing on a chair in the hallway outside Senator Sexton’s Westbrooke apartment,
a security guard awoke with a start at the sound of his cellular phone. Bolting
up in his chair, he rubbed his eyes and pulled his phone from his blazer pocket.
“Yeah?”
“Owen, this is Gabrielle.”
Sexton’s guard recognized her voice. “Oh, hi.”
“I need to talk to the senator. Would you knock on his door for me? His line is
busy.”
“It’s kind of late.”
“He’s awake. I’m sure of it.” Gabrielle sounded anxious. “It’s an emergency.”
“Another one?”
“Same one. Just get him on the phone, Owen. There’s something I really need to
ask him.”
The guard sighed, standing up. “Okay, okay. I’ll knock.” He stretched and made
his way toward Sexton’s door. “But I’m only doing it because he was glad I let
you in earlier.” Reluctantly, he raised his fist to knock.
“What did you just say?” Gabrielle demanded.
The guard’s fist stopped in midair. “I said the senator was glad I let you in
earlier. You were right. It was no problem at all.”
“You and the senator talked about that?” Gabrielle sounded surprised.
“Yeah. So what?”
“No, I just didn’t think…”
“Actually, it was kind of weird. The senator needed a couple of seconds to even
remember you’d been in there. I think the boys were tossing back a few.”
“When did you two talk, Owen?”
“Right after you left. Is something wrong?”
A momentary silence. “No…no. Nothing. Look, now that I think of it, let’s not
bother the senator this instant. I’ll keep trying his house line, and if I don’t
have any luck, I’ll call you back and you can knock.”
The guard rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say, Ms. Ashe.”
“Thanks, Owen. Sorry to bother you.”
“No problem.” The guard hung up, flopped back in his chair, and went to sleep.
Alone in her office, Gabrielle stood motionless for several seconds before
hanging up the phone. Sexton knows I was inside his apartment…and he never
mentioned it to me?
Tonight’s ethereal strangeness was getting murkier. Gabrielle flashed on the
senator’s phone call to her while she was at ABC. The senator had stunned her
with his unprovoked admission that he was meeting with space companies and
accepting money. His honesty had brought her back to him. Shamed her even. His
confession now seemed one hell of a lot less noble.
Soft money, Sexton had said. Perfectly legal.
Suddenly, all the vague misgivings Gabrielle had ever felt about Senator Sexton
seemed to resurface all at once.
Outside, the taxi was honking.
103
The bridge of the Goya was a Plexiglas cube situated two levels above the main
deck. From here Rachel had a 360-degree view of the surrounding darkened sea, an
unnerving vista she looked at only once before blocking it out and turning her
attention to the matter at hand.
Having sent Tolland and Corky to find Xavia, Rachel prepared to contact
Pickering. She’d promised the director she would call him when they arrived, and
she was eager to know what he had learned in his meeting with Marjorie Tench.
The Goya’s SHINCOM 2100 digital communications system was a platform with which
Rachel was familiar enough. She knew if she kept her call short, her
communication should be secure.
Dialing Pickering’s private number, she waited, clutching the SHINCOM 2100
receiver to her ear and waiting. She expected Pickering to pick up on the first
ring. But the line just kept ringing.
Six rings. Seven. Eight…
Rachel gazed out at the darkened ocean, her inability to reach the director
doing nothing to quell her uneasiness about being at sea.
Nine rings. Ten rings. Pick up!
She paced, waiting. What was going on? Pickering carried his phone with him at
all times, and he had expressly told Rachel to call him.
After fifteen rings, she hung up.
With growing apprehension, she picked up the SHINCOM receiver and dialed again.
Four rings. Five rings.
Where is he?
Finally, the connection clicked open. Rachel felt a surge of relief, but it was
short-lived. There was no one on the line. Only silence.
“Hello,” she prompted. “Director?”
Three quick clicks.
“Hello?” Rachel said.
A burst of electronic static shattered the line, blasting in Rachel’s ear. She
yanked the receiver away from her head in pain. The static abruptly stopped. Now
she could hear a series of rapidly oscillating tones that pulsed in half-second
intervals. Rachel’s confusion quickly gave way to realization. And then fear.
“Shit!”
Wheeling back to the controls on the bridge, she slammed the receiver down in
its cradle, severing the connection. For several moments she stood terrified,
wondering if she’d hung up in time.
Amidships, two decks below, the Goya’s hydrolab was an expansive work space
segmented by long counters and islands packed to the gills with electronic
gear—bottom profilers, current analyzers, wet sinks, fume hoods, a walk-in
specimen cooler, PCs, and a stack of organizer crates for research data and the
spare electronics to keep everything running.
When Tolland and Corky entered, the Goya’s onboard geologist, Xavia, was
reclining in front of a blaring television. She didn’t even turn around.
“Did you guys run out of beer money?” she called over her shoulder, apparently
thinking some of her crew had returned.
“Xavia,” Tolland said. “It’s Mike.”
The geologist spun, swallowing part of a prepackaged sandwich she was eating.
“Mike?” she stammered, clearly stunned to see him. She stood up, turned down the
television, and came over, still chewing. “I thought some of the guys had come
back from bar-hopping. What are you doing here?” Xavia was heavyset and
dark-skinned, with a sharp voice and a surly air about her. She motioned to the
television, which was broadcasting replays of Tolland’s on-site meteorite
documentary. “You sure didn’t hang around on the ice shelf very long, did you?”
Something came up, Tolland thought. “Xavia, I’m sure you recognize Corky
Marlinson.”
Xavia nodded. “An honor, sir.”
Corky was eyeing the sandwich in her hand. “That looks good.”
Xavia gave him an odd look.
“I got your message,” Tolland said to Xavia. “You said I made a mistake in my
presentation? I want to talk to you about it.”
The geologist stared at him and let out a shrill laugh. “That’s why you’re back?
Oh, Mike, for God’s sake, I told you, it was nothing. I was just pulling your
chain. NASA obviously gave you some old data. Inconsequential. Seriously, only
three or four marine geologists in the world might have noticed the oversight!”
Tolland held his breath. “This oversight. Does it by any chance have anything to
do with chondrules?”
Xavia’s face went blank with shock. “My God. One of those geologists called you
already?”
Tolland slumped. The chondrules. He looked at Corky and then back to the marine
geologist. “Xavia, I need to know everything you can tell me about these
chondrules. What was the mistake I made?”
Xavia stared at him, apparently now sensing he was dead serious. “Mike, it’s
really nothing. I read a small article in a trade journal a while back. But I
don’t understand why you’re so worried about this.”
Tolland sighed. “Xavia, as strange as this may sound, the less you know tonight,
the better. All I’m asking is for you to tell us what you know about chondrules,
and then we’ll need you to examine a rock sample for us.”
Xavia looked mystified and vaguely perturbed to be out of the loop. “Fine, let
me get you that article. It’s in my office.” She set her sandwich down and
headed for the door.
Corky called after her. “Can I finish that?”
Xavia paused, sounding incredulous. “You want to finish my sandwich?”
“Well, I just thought if you—”
“Get your own damn sandwich.” Xavia left.
Tolland chuckled, motioning across the lab toward a specimen cooler. “Bottom
shelf, Corky. Between the sambuca and squid sacs.”
Outside on deck, Rachel descended the steep stairway from the bridge and strode
toward the chopper pad. The Coast Guard pilot was dozing but sat up when Rachel
rapped on the cockpit.
“Done already?” he asked. “That was fast.”
Rachel shook her head, on edge. “Can you run both surface and air radar?”
“Sure. Ten-mile radius.”
“Turn it on, please.”
Looking puzzled, the pilot threw a couple of switches and the radar screen lit
up. The sweep arm spun lazy circles.
“Anything?” Rachel asked.
The pilot let the arm make several complete rotations. He adjusted some controls
and watched. It was all clear. “Couple of small ships way out on the periphery,
but they’re heading away from us. We’re clear. Miles and miles of open sea in
all directions.”
Rachel Sexton sighed, although she did not feel particularly relieved. “Do me a
favor, if you see anything approaching—boats, aircraft, anything—will you let me
know immediately?”
“Sure thing. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. I’d just like to know if we’re having company.”
The pilot shrugged. “I’ll watch the radar, ma’am. If anything blips, you’ll be
the first to know.”
Rachel’s senses were tingling as she headed for the hydrolab. When she entered,
Corky and Tolland were standing alone in front of a computer monitor and chewing
sandwiches.
Corky called out to her with his mouth full. “What’ll it be? Fishy chicken,
fishy bologna, or fishy egg salad?”
Rachel barely heard the question. “Mike, how fast can we get this information
and get off this ship?”
104
Tolland paced the hydrolab, waiting with Rachel and Corky for Xavia’s return.
The news about the chondrules was almost as discomforting as Rachel’s news about
her attempted contact with Pickering.
The director didn’t answer.
And someone tried to pulse-snitch the Goya’s location.
“Relax,” Tolland told everyone. “We’re safe. The Coast Guard pilot is watching
the radar. He can give us plenty of warning if anyone is headed our way.”
Rachel nodded in agreement, although she still looked on edge.
“Mike, what the hell is this?” Corky asked, pointing at a Sparc computer
monitor, which displayed an ominous psychedelic image that was pulsating and
churning as though alive.
“Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler,” Tolland said. “It’s a cross section of the
currents and temperature gradients of the ocean underneath the ship.”
Rachel stared. “That’s what we’re anchored on top of?”
Tolland had to admit, the image looked frightening. At the surface, the water
appeared as a swirling bluish green, but tracing downward, the colors slowly
shifted to a menacing red-orange as the temperatures heated up. Near the bottom,
over a mile down, hovering above the ocean floor, a blood-red, cyclone vortex
raged.
“That’s the megaplume,” Tolland said.
Corky grunted. “Looks like an underwater tornado.”
“Same principle. Oceans are usually colder and more dense near the bottom, but
here the dynamics are reversed. The deepwater is heated and lighter, so it rises
toward the surface. Meanwhile, the surface water is heavier, so it races
downward in a huge spiral to fill the void. You get these drainlike currents in
the ocean. Enormous whirlpools.”
“What’s that big bump on the seafloor?” Corky pointed at the flat expanse of
ocean floor, where a large dome-shaped mound rose up like a bubble. Directly
above it swirled the vortex.
“That mound is a magma dome,” Tolland said. “It’s where lava is pushing up
beneath the ocean floor.”
Corky nodded. “Like a huge zit.”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“And if it pops?”
Tolland frowned, recalling the famous 1986 megaplume event off the Juan de Fuca
Ridge, where thousands of tons of twelve hundred degrees Celsius magma spewed up
into the ocean all at once, magnifying the plume’s intensity almost instantly.
Surface currents amplified as the vortex expanded rapidly upward. What happened
next was something Tolland had no intention of sharing with Corky and Rachel
this evening.
“Atlantic magma domes don’t pop,” Tolland said. “The cold water circulating over
the mound continually cools and hardens the earth’s crust, keeping the magma
safely under a thick layer of rock. Eventually the lava underneath cools, and
the spiral disappears. Megaplumes are generally not dangerous.”
Corky pointed toward a tattered magazine sitting near the computer. “So you’re
saying Scientific American publishes fiction?”
Tolland saw the cover, and winced. Someone had apparently pulled it from the
Goya’s archive of old science magazines: Scientific American, February 1999. The
cover showed an artist’s rendering of a supertanker swirling out of control in
an enormous funnel of ocean. The heading read: MEGAPLUMES—GIANT KILLERS
FROM THE
DEEP?
Tolland laughed it off. “Totally irrelevant. That article is talking about
megaplumes in earthquake zones. It was a popular Bermuda Triangle hypothesis a
few years back, explaining ship disappearances. Technically speaking, if there’s
some sort of cataclysmic geologic event on the ocean floor, which is unheard of
around here, the dome could rupture, and the vortex could get big enough
to…well, you know…”
“No, we don’t know,” Corky said.
Tolland shrugged. “Rise to the surface.”
“Terrific. So glad you had us aboard.”
Xavia entered carrying some papers. “Admiring the megaplume?”
“Oh, yes,” Corky said sarcastically. “Mike was just telling us how if that
little mound ruptures, we all go spiraling around in a big drain.”
“Drain?” Xavia gave a cold laugh. “More like getting flushed down the world’s
largest toilet.”
Outside on the deck of the Goya, the Coast Guard helicopter pilot vigilantly
watched the EMS radar screen. As a rescue pilot he had seen his share of fear in
people’s eyes; Rachel Sexton had definitely been afraid when she asked him to
keep an eye out for unexpected visitors to the Goya.
What kind of visitors is she expecting? he wondered.
From all the pilot could see, the sea and air for ten miles in all directions
contained nothing that looked out of the ordinary. A fishing boat eight miles
off. An occasional aircraft slicing across an edge of their radar field and then
disappearing again toward some unknown destination.
The pilot sighed, gazing out now at the ocean rushing all around the ship. The
sensation was a ghostly one—that of sailing full speed despite being anchored.
He returned his eyes to the radar screen and watched. Vigilant.
105
Onboard the Goya, Tolland had now introduced Xavia and Rachel. The ship’s
geologist was looking increasingly baffled by the distinguished entourage
standing before her in the hydrolab. In addition, Rachel’s eagerness to run the
tests and get off the ship as fast as possible was clearly making Xavia uneasy.
Take your time, Xavia, Tolland willed her. We need to know everything.
Xavia was talking now, her voice stiff. “In your documentary, Mike, you said
those little metallic inclusions in the rock could form only in space.”
Tolland already felt a tremor of apprehension. Chondrules form only in space.
That’s what NASA told me.
“But according to these notes,” Xavia said, holding up the pages, “that’s not
entirely true.”
Corky glared. “Of course it’s true!”
Xavia scowled at Corky and waved the notes. “Last year a young geologist named
Lee Pollock out of Drew University was using a new breed of marine robot to do
Pacific deepwater crust sampling in the Mariana Trench and pulled up a loose
rock that contained a geologic feature he had never seen before. The feature was
quite similar in appearance to chondrules. He called them ‘plagioclase stress
inclusions’—tiny bubbles of metal that apparently had been rehomogenized during
deep ocean pressurization events. Dr. Pollock was amazed to find metallic
bubbles in an ocean rock, and he formulated a unique theory to explain their
presence.”
Corky grumbled. “I suppose he would have to.”
Xavia ignored him. “Dr. Pollock asserted that the rock formed in an ultradeep
oceanic environment where extreme pressure metamorphosed a pre-existing rock,
permitting some of the disparate metals to fuse.”
Tolland considered it. The Mariana Trench was seven miles down, one of the last
truly unexplored regions on the planet. Only a handful of robotic probes had
ever ventured that deep, and most had collapsed well before they reached the
bottom. The water pressure in the trench was enormous—an astounding eighteen
thousand pounds per square inch, as opposed to a mere twenty-four pounds on the
ocean’s surface. Oceanographers still had very little understanding of the
geologic forces at the deepest ocean floor. “So, this guy Pollock thinks the
Mariana Trench can make rocks with chondrulelike features?”
“It’s an extremely obscure theory,” Xavia said. “In fact, it’s never even been
formally published. I only happened to stumble across Pollock’s personal notes
on the Web by chance last month when I was doing research on fluid-rock
interactions for our upcoming megaplume show. Otherwise, I never would have
heard of it.”
“The theory has never been published,” Corky said, “because it’s ridiculous. You
need heat to form chondrules. There’s no way water pressure could rearrange the
crystalline structure of a rock.”
“Pressure,” Xavia fired back, “happens to be the single biggest contributor to
geologic change on our planet. A little something called a metamorphic rock?
Geology 101?”
Corky scowled.
Tolland realized Xavia had a point. Although heat did play a role in some of
earth’s metamorphic geology, most metamorphic rocks were formed by extreme
pressure. Incredibly, rocks deep in the earth’s crust were under so much
pressure that they acted more like thick molasses than solid rock, becoming
elastic and undergoing chemical changes as they did. Nonetheless, Dr. Pollock’s
theory still seemed like a stretch.
“Xavia,” Tolland said. “I’ve never heard of water pressure alone chemically
altering a rock. You’re the geologist, what’s your take?”
“Well,” she said, flipping through her notes, “it sounds like water pressure
isn’t the only factor.” Xavia found a passage and read Pollock’s notes verbatim.
“‘Oceanic crust in the Mariana Trench, already under enormous hydrostatic
pressurization, can find itself further compressed by tectonic forces from the
region’s subduction zones.’”
Of course, Tolland thought. The Mariana Trench, in addition to being crushed
under seven miles of water, was a subduction zone—the compression line where the
Pacific and Indian plates moved toward one another and collided. Combined
pressures in the trench could be enormous, and because the area was so remote
and dangerous to study, if there were chondrules down there, chances of anyone
knowing about it were very slim.
Xavia kept reading. “‘Combined hydrostatic and tectonic pressures could
potentially force crust into an elastic or semiliquid state, allowing lighter
elements to fuse into chondrulelike structures thought to occur only in space.’”
Corky rolled his eyes. “Impossible.”
Tolland glanced at Corky. “Is there any alternative explanation for the
chondrules in the rock Dr. Pollock found?”
“Easy,” Corky said. “Pollock found an actual meteorite. Meteorites fall into the
ocean all the time. Pollock would not have suspected it was a meteorite because
the fusion crust would have eroded away from years under the water, making it
look like a normal rock.” Corky turned to Xavia. “I don’t suppose Pollock had
the brains to measure the nickel content, did he?”
“Actually, yes,” Xavia fired back, flipping through the notes again. “Pollock
writes: ‘I was surprised to find the nickel content of the specimen falling
within a midrange value not usually associated with terrestrial rocks.’”
Tolland and Rachel exchanged startled looks.
Xavia continued reading. “‘Although the quantity of nickel does not fall within
the normally acceptable midrange window for meteoritic origin, it is
surprisingly close.’”
Rachel looked troubled. “How close? Is there any way this ocean rock could be
mistaken for a meteorite?”
Xavia shook her head. “I’m not a chemical petrologist, but as I understand it,
there are numerous chemical differences between the rock Pollock found and
actual meteorites.”
“What are those differences?” Tolland pressed.
Xavia turned her attention to a graph in her notes. “According to this, one
difference is in the chemical structure of the chondrules themselves. It looks
like the titanium/zirconium ratios differ. The titanium/ zirconium ratio in the
chondrules of the ocean sample showed ultradepleted zirconium.” She looked up.
“Only two parts per million.”
“Two ppm?” Corky blurted. “Meteorites have thousands of times that!”
“Exactly,” Xavia replied. “Which is why Pollock thinks his sample’s chondrules
are not from space.”
Tolland leaned over and whispered to Corky, “Did NASA happen to measure the
titanium/zirconium ratio in the Milne rock?”
“Of course not,” Corky sputtered. “Nobody would ever measure that. It’s like
looking at a car and measuring the tires’ rubber content to confirm you’re
looking at a car!”
Tolland heaved a sigh and looked back at Xavia. “If we give you a rock sample
with chondrules in it, can you run a test to determine whether these inclusions
are meteoric chondrules or…one of Pollock’s deep ocean compression things?”
Xavia shrugged. “I suppose. The electron microprobe’s accuracy should be close
enough. What’s this all about, anyway?”
Tolland turned to Corky. “Give it to her.”
Corky reluctantly pulled the meteorite sample from his pocket and held it out
for Xavia.
Xavia’s brow furrowed as she took the stone disk. She eyed the fusion crust and
then the fossil embedded in the rock. “My God!” she said, her head rocketing
upward. “This isn’t part of…?”
“Yeah,” Tolland said. “Unfortunately it is.”
106
Alone in her office, Gabrielle Ashe stood at the window, wondering what to do
next. Less than an hour ago, she had left NASA feeling full of excitement to
share Chris Harper’s PODS fraud with the senator.
Now, she wasn’t so sure.
According to Yolanda, two independent ABC reporters suspected Sexton of taking
SFF bribes. Furthermore, Gabrielle had just learned that Sexton actually knew
she had snuck into his apartment during the SFF meeting, and yet he had said
nothing to her about it?
Gabrielle sighed. Her taxi had long since departed, and although she would call
another in a few minutes, she knew there was something she had to do first.
Am I really going to try this?
Gabrielle frowned, knowing she didn’t have a choice. She no longer knew whom to
trust.
Stepping out of her office, she made her way back into the secretarial lobby and
into a wide hallway on the opposite side. At the far end she could see the
massive oak doors of Sexton’s office flanked by two flags—Old Glory on the right
and the Delaware flag on the left. His doors, like those of most senate offices
in the building, were steel reinforced and secured by conventional keys, an
electronic key pad entry, and an alarm system.
She knew if she could get inside, even if for only a few minutes, all the
answers would be revealed. Moving now toward the heavily secured doors,
Gabrielle had no illusions of getting through them. She had other plans.
Ten feet from Sexton’s office, Gabrielle turned sharply to the right and entered
the ladies’ room. The fluorescents came on automatically, reflecting harshly off
the white tile. As her eyes adjusted, Gabrielle paused, seeing herself in the
mirror. As usual, her features looked softer than she’d hoped. Delicate almost.
She always felt stronger than she looked.
Are you sure you are ready to do this?
Gabrielle knew Sexton was eagerly awaiting her arrival for a complete rundown on
the PODS situation. Unfortunately, she also now realized that Sexton had deftly
manipulated her tonight. Gabrielle Ashe did not like being managed. The senator
had kept things from her tonight. The question was how much. The answers, she
knew, lay inside his office—just on the other side of this restroom wall.
“Five minutes,” Gabrielle said aloud, mustering her resolve.
Moving toward the bathroom’s supply closet, she reached up and ran a hand over
the door frame. A key clattered to the floor. The cleaning crews at Philip A.
Hart were federal employees and seemed to evaporate every time there was a
strike of any sort, leaving this bathroom without toilet paper and tampons for
weeks at a time. The women of Sexton’s office, tired of being caught with their
pants down, had taken matters into their own hands and secured a supply room key
for “emergencies.”
Tonight qualifies, she thought.
She opened the closet.
The interior was cramped, packed with cleansers, mops, and shelves of paper
supplies. A month ago, Gabrielle had been searching for paper towels when she’d
made an unusual discovery. Unable to reach the paper off the top shelf, she’d
used the end of a broom to coax a roll to fall. In the process, she’d knocked
out a ceiling tile. When she climbed up to replace the tile, she was surprised
to hear Senator Sexton’s voice.
Crystal clear.
From the echo, she realized the senator was talking to himself while in his
office’s private bathroom, which apparently was separated from this supply
closet by nothing more than removable, fiberboard ceiling tiles.
Now, back in the closet tonight for far more than toilet paper, Gabrielle kicked
off her shoes, climbed up the shelves, popped out the fiberboard ceiling tile,
and pulled herself up. So much for national security, she thought, wondering how
many state and federal laws she was about to break.
Lowering herself through the ceiling of Sexton’s private restroom, Gabrielle
placed her stockinged feet on his cold, porcelain sink and then dropped to the
floor. Holding her breath, she exited into Sexton’s private office.
His oriental carpets felt soft and warm.
107
Thirty miles away, a black Kiowa gunship chopper tore over the scrub pine
treetops of northern Delaware. Delta-One checked the coordinates locked in the
auto navigation system.
Although Rachel’s shipboard transmission device and Pickering’s cellphone were
encrypted to protect the contents of their communication, intercepting content
had not been the goal when the Delta Force pulse-snitched Rachel’s call from
sea. Intercepting the caller’s position had been the goal. Global Positioning
Systems and computerized triangulation made pinpointing transmission coordinates
a significantly easier task than decrypting the actual content of the call.
Delta-One was always amused to think that most cellphone users had no idea that
every time they made a call, a government listening post, if so inclined, could
detect their position to within ten feet anywhere on earth—a small hitch the
cellphone companies failed to advertise. Tonight, once the Delta Force had
gained access to the reception frequencies of William Pickering’s cellular
phone, they could easily trace the coordinates of his incoming calls.
Flying now on a direct course toward their target, Delta-One closed to within
twenty miles. “Umbrella primed?” he asked, turning to Delta-Two, who was manning
the radar and weapons system.
“Affirmative. Awaiting five-mile range.”
Five miles, Delta-One thought. He had to fly this bird well within his target’s
radar scopes to get within range to use the Kiowa’s weapons systems. He had
little doubt that someone onboard the Goya was nervously watching the skies, and
because the Delta Force’s current task was to eliminate the target without
giving them a chance to radio for help, Delta-One now had to advance on his prey
without alarming them.
At fifteen miles out, still safely out of radar range, Delta-One abruptly turned
the Kiowa thirty-five degrees off course to the west. He climbed to three
thousand feet—small airplane range—and adjusted his speed to 110 knots.
On the deck of the Goya, the Coast Guard helicopter’s radar scope beeped once as
a new contact entered the ten-mile perimeter. The pilot sat up, studying the
screen. The contact appeared to be a small cargo plane headed west up the coast.
Probably for Newark.
Although this plane’s current trajectory would bring it within four miles of the
Goya, the flight path obviously was a matter of chance. Nonetheless, being
vigilant, the Coast Guard pilot watched the blinking dot trace a slow-moving
110-knot line across the right side of his scope. At its closest point, the
plane was about four miles west. As expected, the plane kept moving—heading away
from them now.
4.1 miles. 4.2 miles.
The pilot exhaled, relaxing.
And then the strangest thing happened.
“Umbrella now engaged,” Delta-Two called out, giving the thumbs-up from his
weapons control seat on the port side of the Kiowa gunship. “Barrage, modulated
noise, and cover pulse are all activated and locked.”
Delta-One took his cue and banked hard to the right, putting the craft on a
direct course with the Goya. This maneuver would be invisible to the ship’s
radar.
“Sure beats bales of tinfoil!” Delta-Two called out.
Delta-One agreed. Radar jamming had been invented in WWII when a savvy British
airman began throwing bales of hay wrapped in tinfoil out of his plane while on
bombing runs. The Germans’ radar spotted so many reflective contacts they had no
idea what to shoot. The techniques had been improved on substantially since
then.
The Kiowa’s onboard “umbrella” radar-jamming system was one of the military’s
most deadly electronic combat weapons. By broadcasting an umbrella of background
noise into the atmosphere above a given set of surface coordinates, the Kiowa
could erase the eyes, ears, and voice of their target. Moments ago, all radar
screens aboard the Goya had most certainly gone blank. By the time the crew
realized they needed to call for help, they would be unable to transmit. On a
ship, all communications were radio-or microwave-based—no solid phone lines. If
the Kiowa got close enough, all of the Goya’s communications systems would stop
functioning, their carrier signals blotted out by the invisible cloud of thermal
noise broadcast in front of the Kiowa like a blinding headlight.
Perfect isolation, Delta-One thought. They have no defenses.
Their targets had made a fortunate and cunning escape from the Milne Ice Shelf,
but it would not be repeated. In choosing to leave shore, Rachel Sexton and
Michael Tolland had chosen poorly. It would be the last bad decision they ever
made.
Inside the White House, Zach Herney felt dazed as he sat up in bed holding the
telephone receiver. “Now? Ekstrom wants to speak to me now?” Herney squinted
again at the bedside clock. 3:17A.M.
“Yes, Mr. President,” the communications officer said. “He says it’s an
emergency.”
108
While Corky and Xavia huddled over the electron microprobe measuring the
zirconium content in the chondrules, Rachel followed Tolland across the lab into
an adjoining room. Here Tolland turned on another computer. Apparently the
oceanographer had one more thing he wanted to check.
As the computer powered up, Tolland turned to Rachel, his mouth poised as if he
wanted to say something. He paused.
“What is it?” Rachel asked, surprised how physically drawn to him she felt, even
in the midst of all this chaos. She wished she could block it all out and be
with him—just for a minute.
“I owe you an apology,” Tolland said, looking remorseful.
“For what?”
“On the deck? The hammerheads? I was excited. Sometimes I forget how frightening
the ocean can be to a lot of people.”
Face-to-face with him, Rachel felt like a teenager standing on the doorstep with
a new boyfriend. “Thanks. No problem at all. Really.” Something inside her
sensed Tolland wanted to kiss her.
After a beat, he turned shyly away. “I know. You want to get to shore. We should
get to work.”
“For now.” Rachel smiled softly.
“For now,” Tolland repeated, taking a seat at the computer.
Rachel exhaled, standing close behind now, savoring the privacy of the small
lab. She watched Tolland navigate a series of files. “What are we doing?”
“Checking the database for big ocean lice. I want to see if we can find any
prehistoric marine fossils that resemble what we saw in the NASA meteorite.” He
pulled up a search page with bold letters across the top: PROJECT DIVERSITAS.
Scrolling through the menus, Tolland explained, “Diversitas is essentially a
continuously updated index of oceanic biodata. When a marine biologist discovers
a new ocean species or fossil, he can toot his horn and share his find by
uploading data and photos to a central databank. Because there’s so much new
data discovered on a weekly basis, this is really the only way to keep research
up-to-date.”
Rachel watched Tolland navigating the menus. “So you’re accessing the Web now?”
“No. Internet access is tricky at sea. We store all this data onboard on an
enormous array of optical drives in the other room. Every time we’re in port, we
tie into Project Diversitas and update our databank with the newest finds. This
way, we can access data at sea without a Web connection, and the data is never
more than a month or two out of date.” Tolland chuckled as he began typing
search keywords into the computer. “You’ve probably heard of the controversial
music file-sharing program called Napster?”
Rachel nodded.
“Diversitas is considered the marine biologist’s version of Napster. We call it
LOBSTER—Lonely Oceanic Biologists Sharing Totally Eccentric Research.”
Rachel laughed. Even in this tense situation, Michael Tolland exuded a wry humor
that eased her fears. She was beginning to realize she’d had entirely too little
laughter in her life lately.
“Our database is enormous,” Tolland said, completing the entry of his
descriptive keywords. “Over ten tera-bytes of descriptions and photos. There’s
information in here nobody has ever seen—and nobody ever will. Ocean species are
simply too numerous.” He clicked the “search” button. “Okay, let’s see if anyone
has ever seen an oceanic fossil similar to our little space bug.”
After a few seconds, the screen refreshed, revealing four listings of fossilized
animals. Tolland clicked on each listing one by one and examined the photos.
None looked remotely like the fossils in the Milne meteorite.
Tolland frowned. “Let’s try something else.” He removed the word “fossil” from
his search string and hit “search.” “We’ll search all living species. Maybe we
can find a living descendant that has some of the physiological characteristics
of the Milne fossil.”
The screen refreshed.
Again Tolland frowned. The computer had returned hundreds of entries. He sat a
moment, stroking his now stubble-darkened chin. “Okay, this is too much. Let’s
refine the search.”
Rachel watched as he accessed a drop-down menu marked “habitat.” The list of
options looked endless: tide pool, marsh, lagoon, reef, mid-oceanic ridge,
sulfur vents. Tolland scrolled down the list and chose an option that read:
DESTRUCTIVE MARGINS/OCEANIC TRENCHES.
Smart, Rachel realized. Tolland was limiting his search only to species that
lived near the environment where these chondrulelike features were hypothesized
to form.
The page refreshed. This time Tolland smiled. “Great. Only three entries.”
Rachel squinted at the first name on the list. Limulus poly…something.
Tolland clicked the entry. A photo appeared; the creature looked like an
oversized horseshoe crab without a tail.
“Nope,” Tolland said, returning to the previous page.
Rachel eyed the second item on the list. Shrimpus Uglius From Hellus. She was
confused. “Is that name for real?”
Tolland chuckled. “No. It’s a new species not yet classified. The guy who
discovered it has a sense of humor. He’s suggesting Shrimpus Uglius as the
official taxonomical classification.” Tolland clicked open the photo, revealing
an exceptionally ugly shrimplike creature with whiskers and fluorescent pink
antennae.
“Aptly named,” Tolland said. “But not our space bug.” He returned to the index.
“The final offering is…” He clicked on the third entry, and the page came up.
“Bathynomous giganteus…” Tolland read aloud as the text appeared. The photograph
loaded. A full-color close-up.
Rachel jumped. “My God!” The creature staring back at her gave her chills.
Tolland drew a low breath. “Oh boy. This guy looks kind of familiar.”
Rachel nodded, speechless. Bathynomous giganteus. The creature resembled a giant
swimming louse. It looked very similar to the fossil species in the NASA rock.
“There are some subtle differences,” Tolland said, scrolling down to some
anatomical diagrams and sketches. “But it’s damn close. Especially considering
it has had 190 million years to evolve.”
Close is right, Rachel thought. Too close.
Tolland read the description on the screen: “‘Thought to be one of the oldest
species in the ocean, the rare and recently classified species Bathynomous
giganteus is a deepwater scavenging isopod resembling a large pill bug. Up to
two feet in length, this species exhibits a chitinous exoskeleton segmented into
head, thorax, abdomen. It possesses paired appendages, antennae, and compound
eyes like those of land-dwelling insects. This bottom-dwelling forager has no
known predators and lives in barren pelagic environments previously thought to
be uninhabitable.” Tolland glanced up. “Which could explain the lack of other
fossils in the sample!”
Rachel stared at the creature on-screen, excited and yet uncertain she
completely understood what all of this meant.
“Imagine,” Tolland said excitedly, “that 190 million years ago, a brood of these
Bathynomous creatures got buried in a deep ocean mud slide. As the mud turns
into rock, the bugs get fossilized in stone. Simultaneously, the ocean floor,
which is continuously moving like a slow conveyer belt toward the oceanic
trenches, carries the fossils into a high-pressure zone where the rock forms
chondrules!” Tolland was talking faster now. “And if part of the fossilized,
chondrulized crust broke off and ended up on the trench’s accretionary wedge,
which is not at all uncommon, it would be in a perfect position to be
discovered!”
“But if NASA…,” Rachel stammered. “I mean, if this is all a lie, NASA must have
known that sooner or later someone would find out this fossil resembles a sea
creature, right? I mean we just found out!”
Tolland began printing the Bathynomous photos on a laser printer. “I don’t know.
Even if someone stepped forward and pointed out the similarities between the
fossils and a living sea louse, their physiologies are not identical. It almost
proves NASA’s case more strongly.”
Rachel suddenly understood. “Panspermia.” Life on earth was seeded from space.
“Exactly. Similarities between space organisms and earth organisms make
excellent scientific sense. This sea louse actually strengthens NASA’s case.”
“Except if the meteorite’s authenticity is in question.”
Tolland nodded. “Once the meteorite comes into question, then everything
collapses. Our sea louse turns from NASA friend to NASA linchpin.”
Rachel stood in silence as the Bathynomous pages rolled out of the printer. She
tried to tell herself this was all an honest NASA mistake, but she knew it was
not. People who made honest mistakes didn’t try to kill people.
The nasal voice of Corky echoed suddenly across the lab. “Impossible!”
Both Tolland and Rachel turned.
“Measure the damn ratio again! It makes no sense!”
Xavia came hurrying in with a computer printout clutched in her hand. Her face
was ashen. “Mike, I don’t know how to say this…” Her voice cracked. “The
titanium/zirconium ratios we’re seeing in this sample?” She cleared her throat.
“It’s pretty obvious that NASA made a huge mistake. Their meteorite is an ocean
rock.”
Tolland and Rachel looked at each other but neither spoke a word. They knew.
Just like that, all the suspicions and doubts had swelled up like the crest of a
wave, reaching the breaking point.
Tolland nodded, a sadness in his eyes. “Yeah. Thanks, Xavia.”
“But I don’t understand,” Xavia said. “The fusion crust…the location in the
ice—”
“We’ll explain on the way to shore,” Tolland said. “We’re leaving.”
Quickly, Rachel collected all the papers and evidence they now had. The evidence
was shockingly conclusive: the GPR printout showing the insertion shaft in the
Milne Ice Shelf; photos of a living sea louse resembling NASA’s fossil; Dr.
Pollock’s article on ocean chondrules; and microprobe data showing ultradepleted
zirconium in the meteorite.
The conclusion was undeniable. Fraud.
Tolland looked at the stack of papers in Rachel’s hands and heaved a melancholy
sigh. “Well, I’d say William Pickering has his proof.”
Rachel nodded, again wondering why Pickering had not answered his phone.
Tolland lifted the receiver of a nearby phone, holding it out for her. “You want
to try him again from here?”
“No, let’s get moving. I’ll try to contact him from the chopper.” Rachel had
already decided if she could not make contact with Pickering, she’d have the
Coast Guard fly them directly to the NRO, only about 180 miles.
Tolland began to hang up the phone, but he paused. Looking confused, he listened
to the receiver, frowning. “Bizarre. No dial tone.”
“What do you mean?” Rachel said, wary now.
“Weird,” Tolland said. “Direct COMSAT lines never lose carrier—”
“Mr. Tolland?” The Coast Guard pilot came rushing into the lab, his face white.
“What is it?” Rachel demanded. “Is someone coming?”
“That’s the problem,” the pilot said. “I don’t know. All onboard radar and
communications have just gone dead.”
Rachel stuffed the papers deep inside her shirt. “Get in the helicopter. We’re
leaving. NOW!”
109
Gabrielle’s heart was racing as she crossed the darkened office of Senator
Sexton. The room was as expansive as it was elegant—ornate wood-paneled walls,
oil paintings, Persian carpets, leather rivet chairs, and a gargantuan mahogany
desk. The room was lit only by the eerie neon glow of Sexton’s computer screen.
Gabrielle moved toward his desk.
Senator Sexton had embraced the “digital office” to maniacal proportions,
eschewing the overflow of file cabinets for the compact, searchable simplicity
of his personal computer, into which he fed enormous amounts of
information—digitized meeting notes, scanned articles, speeches, brainstorms.
Sexton’s computer was his sacred ground, and he kept his office locked at all
times to protect it. He even refused to connect to the Internet for fear of
hackers infiltrating his sacred digital vault.
A year ago Gabrielle would never have believed any politician would be stupid
enough to store copies of self-incriminating documents, but Washington had
taught her a lot. Information is power. Gabrielle had been amazed to learn that
a common practice among politicians who accepted questionable campaign
contributions was to keep actual proof of those donations—letters, bank records,
receipts, logs—all hidden away in a safe place. This counterblackmail tactic,
euphemistically known in Washington as “Siamese insurance,” protected candidates
from donors who felt their generosity somehow authorized them to assert undue
political pressure on a candidate. If a contributor got too demanding, the
candidate could simply produce evidence of the illegal donation and remind the
donor that both parties had broken the law. The evidence ensured that candidates
and donors were joined at the hip forever—like Siamese twins.
Gabrielle slipped behind the senator’s desk and sat down. She took a deep
breath, looking at his computer. If the senator is accepting SFF bribes, any
evidence would be in here.
Sexton’s computer screensaver was an ongoing slideshow of the White House and
its grounds created for him by one of his gung-ho staffers who was big into
visualization and positive thinking. Around the images crawled a ticker-tape
banner that read: President of the United States Sedgewick Sexton…President of
the United States Sedgewick Sexton…President of the…
Gabrielle jostled the mouse, and a security dialogue box came up.
ENTER PASSWORD:
She expected this. It would not be a problem. Last week, Gabrielle had entered
Sexton’s office just as the senator was sitting down and logging onto his
computer. She saw him type three short keystrokes in rapid succession.
“That’s a password?” she challenged from the doorway as she walked in.
Sexton glanced up. “What?”
“And here I thought you were concerned about security,” Gabrielle scolded
good-naturedly. “Your password’s only three keys? I thought the tech guys told
us all to use at least six.”
“The tech guys are teenagers. They should try remembering six random letters
when they’re over forty. Besides, the door has an alarm. Nobody can get in.”
Gabrielle walked toward him, smiling. “What if someone slipped in while you’re
in the loo?”
“And tried every combination of passwords?” He gave a skeptical laugh. “I’m slow
in the bathroom, but not that slow.”
“Dinner at Davide says I can guess your password in ten seconds.”
Sexton looked intrigued and amused. “You can’t afford Davide, Gabrielle.”
“So you’re saying you’re chicken?”
Sexton appeared almost sorry for her as he accepted the challenge. “Ten
seconds?” He logged off and motioned for Gabrielle to sit down and give it a
try. “You know I only order the saltimbocca at Davide. And that ain’t cheap.”
She shrugged as she sat down. “It’s your money.”
ENTER PASSWORD:
“Ten seconds,” Sexton reminded.
Gabrielle had to laugh. She would need only two. Even from the doorway she could
see that Sexton had entered his three-key password in very rapid succession
using only his index finger. Obviously all the same key. Not wise. She could
also see that his hand had been positioned over the far left side of his
keyboard—cutting the possible alphabet down to only about nine letters. Choosing
the letter was simple; Sexton had always loved the triple alliteration of his
title. Senator Sedgewick Sexton.
Never underestimate the ego of a politician.
She typed SSS, and the screensaver evaporated.
Sexton’s jaw hit the floor.
That had been last week. Now, as Gabrielle faced his computer again, she was
certain Sexton would not have taken time yet to figure out how to set up a
different password. Why would he? He trusts me implicitly.
She typed in SSS.
INVALID PASSWORD—ACCESS DENIED
Gabrielle stared in shock.
Apparently she had overestimated her senator’s level of trust.
110
The attack came without warning. Low out of the southwest sky above the Goya,
the lethal silhouette of a gunship helicopter bore down like a giant wasp.
Rachel had no doubt what it was, or why it was here.
Through the darkness, a staccato burst from the nose of the chopper sent a
torrent of bullets chewing across the Goya’s fiberglass deck, slashing a line
across the stern. Rachel dove for cover too late and felt the searing slash of a
bullet graze her arm. She hit the ground hard, then rolled, scrambling to get
behind the bulbous transparent dome of the Triton submersible.
A thundering of rotors exploded overhead as the chopper swooped past the ship.
The noise evaporated with an eerie hiss as the chopper rocketed out over the
ocean and began a wide bank for a second pass.
Lying trembling on the deck, Rachel held her arm and looked back at Tolland and
Corky. Apparently having lunged to cover behind a storage structure, the two men
were now staggering to their feet, their eyes scanning the skies in terror.
Rachel pulled herself to her knees. The entire world suddenly seemed to be
moving in slow motion.
Crouched behind the transparent curvature of the Triton sub, Rachel looked in
panic toward their only means of escape—the Coast Guard helicopter. Xavia was
already climbing into the chopper’s cabin, frantically waving for everyone to
get aboard. Rachel could see the pilot lunging into the cockpit, wildly throwing
switches and levers. The blades began to turn…ever so slowly.
Too slowly.
Hurry!
Rachel felt herself standing now, preparing to run, wondering if she could make
it across the deck before the attackers made another pass. Behind her, she heard
Corky and Tolland dashing toward her and the waiting helicopter. Yes! Hurry!
Then she saw it.
A hundred yards out, up in the sky, materializing out of empty darkness, a
pencil-thin beam of red light slanted across the night, searching the Goya’s
deck. Then, finding its mark, the beam came to a stop on the side of the waiting
Coast Guard chopper.
The image took only an instant to register. In that horrific moment, Rachel felt
all the action on the deck of the Goya blur into a collage of shapes and sounds.
Tolland and Corky dashing toward her—Xavia motioning wildly in the
helicopter—the stark red laser slicing across the night sky.
It was too late.
Rachel spun back toward Corky and Tolland, who were running full speed now
toward the helicopter. She lunged outward into their path, arms outstretched
trying to stop them. The collision felt like a train wreck as the three of them
crashed to the deck in a tangle of arms and legs.
In the distance, a flash of white light appeared. Rachel watched in disbelief
and horror as a perfectly straight line of exhaust fire followed the path of the
laser beam directly toward the helicopter.
When the Hellfire missile slammed into the fuselage, the helicopter exploded
apart like a toy. The concussion wave of heat and noise thundered across the
deck as flaming shrapnel rained down. The helicopter’s flaming skeleton lurched
backward on its shattered tail, teetered a moment, and then fell off the back of
the ship, crashing into the ocean in a hissing cloud of steam.
Rachel closed her eyes, unable to breathe. She could hear the flaming wreckage
gurgling and sputtering as it sank, being dragged away from the Goya by the
heavy currents. In the chaos, Michael Tolland’s voice was yelling. Rachel felt
his powerful hands trying to pull her to her feet. But she could not move.
The Coast Guard pilot and Xavia are dead.
We’re next.
111
The weather on the Milne Ice Shelf had settled, and the habisphere was quiet.
Even so, NASA administrator Lawrence Ekstrom had not even tried to sleep. He had
spent the hours alone, pacing the dome, staring into the extraction pit, running
his hands over the grooves in the giant charred rock.
Finally, he’d made up his mind.
Now he sat at the videophone in the habisphere’s PSC tank and looked into the
weary eyes of the President of the United States. Zach Herney was wearing a
bathrobe and did not look at all amused. Ekstrom knew he would be significantly
less amused when he learned what Ekstrom had to tell him.
When Ekstrom finished talking, Herney had an uncomfortable look on his face—as
if he thought he must still be too asleep to have understood correctly.
“Hold on,” Herney said. “We must have a bad connection. Did you just tell me
that NASA intercepted this meteorite’s coordinates from an emergency radio
transmission—and then pretended that PODS found the meteorite?”
Ekstrom was silent, alone in the dark, willing his body to awake from this
nightmare.
The silence clearly did not sit well with the President. “For Christ’s sake,
Larry, tell me this isn’t true!”
Ekstrom’s mouth went dry. “The meteorite was found, Mr. President. That is all
that’s relevant here.”
“I said tell me this is not true!”
The hush swelled to a dull roar in Ekstrom’s ears. I had to tell him, Ekstrom
told himself. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. “Mr. President, the
PODS failure was killing you in the polls, sir. When we intercepted a radio
transmission that mentioned a large meteorite lodged in the ice, we saw a chance
to get back in the fight.”
Herney sounded stunned. “By faking a PODS discovery?”
“PODS was going to be up and running soon, but not soon enough for the election.
The polls were slipping, and Sexton was slamming NASA, so…”
“Are you insane! You lied to me, Larry!”
“The opportunity was staring us in the face, sir. I decided to take it. We
intercepted the radio transmission of the Canadian who made the meteorite
discovery. He died in a storm. Nobody else knew the meteorite was there. PODS
was orbiting in the area. NASA needed a victory. We had the coordinates.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“I thought you should know.”
“Do you know what Sexton would do with this information if he found out?”
Ekstrom preferred not to think about it.
“He’d tell the world that NASA and the White House lied to the American people!
And you know what, he’d be right!”
“You did not lie, sir, I did. And I will step down if—”
“Larry, you’re missing the point. I’ve tried to run this presidency on truth and
decency! Goddamn it! Tonight was clean. Dignified. Now I find out I lied to the
world?”
“Only a small lie, sir.”
“There’s no such thing, Larry,” Herney said, steaming.
Ekstrom felt the tiny room closing in around him. There was so much more to tell
the President, but Ekstrom could see it should wait until morning. “I’m sorry to
have woken you, sir. I just thought you should know.”
Across town, Sedgewick Sexton took another hit of cognac and paced his apartment
with rising irritation.
Where the hell is Gabrielle?
112
Gabrielle Ashe sat in the darkness at Senator Sexton’s desk and gave his
computer a despondent scowl.
INVALID PASSWORD—ACCESS DENIED
She had tried several other passwords that seemed likely possibilities, but none
had worked. After searching the office for any unlocked drawers or stray clues,
Gabrielle had all but given up. She was about to leave when she spotted
something odd, shimmering on Sexton’s desk calendar. Someone had outlined the
date of the election in a red, white, and blue glitter pen. Certainly not the
senator. Gabrielle pulled the calendar closer. Emblazoned across the date was a
frilly, glittering exclamation: POTUS!
Sexton’s ebullient secretary had apparently glitterpainted some more positive
thinking for him for election day. The acronym POTUS was the U.S. Secret
Service’s code name for President of the United States. On election day, if all
went well, Sexton would become the new POTUS.
Preparing to leave, Gabrielle realigned the calendar on his desk and stood up.
She paused suddenly, glancing back at the computer screen.
ENTER PASSWORD:
She looked again at the calendar.
POTUS.
She felt a sudden surge of hope. Something about POTUS struck Gabrielle as being
a perfect Sexton password. Simple, positive, self-referential.
She quickly typed in the letters.
POTUS
Holding her breath, she hit “return.” The computer beeped.
INVALID PASSWORD—ACCESS DENIED
Slumping, Gabrielle gave up. She headed back toward the bathroom door to exit
the way she had come. She was halfway across the room, when her cellphone rang.
She was already on edge, and the sound startled her. Stopping short, she pulled
out her phone and glanced up to check the time on Sexton’s prized Jourdain
grandfather clock. Almost 4:00A.M. At this hour, Gabrielle knew the caller could
only be Sexton. He was obviously wondering where the hell she was. Do I pick up
or let it ring? If she answered, Gabrielle would have to lie. But if she didn’t,
Sexton would get suspicious.
She took the call. “Hello?”
“Gabrielle?” Sexton sounded impatient. “What’s keeping you?”
“The FDR Memorial,” Gabrielle said. “The taxi got hemmed in, and now we’re—”
“You don’t sound like you’re in a taxi.”
“No,” she said, her blood pumping now. “I’m not. I decided to stop by my office
and pick up some NASA documents that might be relevant to PODS. I’m having some
trouble finding them.”
“Well, hurry up. I want to schedule a press conference for the morning, and we
need to talk specifics.”
“I’m coming soon,” she said.
There was a pause on the line. “You’re in your office?” He sounded suddenly
confused.
“Yeah. Another ten minutes and I’ll be on my way over.”
Another pause. “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”
Gabrielle hung up, too preoccupied to notice the loud and distinctive
triple-tick of Sexton’s prized Jourdain grandfather clock only a few feet away.
113
Michael Tolland did not realize Rachel was hurt until he saw the blood on her
arm as he pulled her to cover behind the Triton. He sensed from the catatonic
look on her face that she was not aware of any pain. Steadying her, Tolland
wheeled to find Corky. The astrophysicist scrambled across the deck to join
them, his eyes blank with terror.
We’ve got to find cover, Tolland thought, the horror of what had just happened
not yet fully registering. Instinctively, his eyes raced up the tiers of decks
above them. The stairs leading up to the bridge were all in the open, and the
bridge itself was a glass box—a transparent bull’s-eye from the air. Going up
was suicide, which left only one other direction to go.
For a fleeting instant, Tolland turned a hopeful gaze to the Triton submersible,
wondering perhaps if he could get everyone underwater, away from the bullets.
Absurd. The Triton had room for one person, and the deployment winch took a good
ten minutes to lower the sub through the trap door in the deck to the ocean
thirty feet below. Besides, without properly charged batteries and compressors,
the Triton would be dead in the water.
“Here they come!” Corky shouted, his voice shrill with fear as he pointed into
the sky.
Tolland didn’t even look up. He pointed to a nearby bulkhead, where an aluminum
ramp descended belowdecks. Corky apparently needed no encouragement. Keeping his
head low, Corky scurried toward the opening and disappeared down the incline.
Tolland put a firm arm around Rachel’s waist and followed. The two of them
disappeared belowdecks just as the helicopter returned, spraying bullets
overhead.
Tolland helped Rachel down the grated ramp to the suspended platform at the
bottom. As they arrived, Tolland could feel Rachel’s body go suddenly rigid. He
wheeled, fearing maybe she’d been hit by a ricocheting bullet.
When he saw her face, he knew it was something else. Tolland followed her
petrified gaze downward and immediately understood.
Rachel stood motionless, her legs refusing to move. She was staring down at the
bizarre world beneath her.
Because of its SWATH design, the Goya had no hull but rather struts like a giant
catamaran. They had just descended through the deck onto a grated catwalk that
hung above an open chasm, thirty feet straight down to the raging sea. The noise
was deafening here, reverberating off the underside of the deck. Adding to
Rachel’s terror was the fact that the ship’s underwater spotlights were still
illuminated, casting a greenish effulgence deep into the ocean directly beneath
her. She found herself gazing down at six or seven ghostly silhouettes in the
water. Enormous hammerhead sharks, their long shadows swimming in place against
the current—rubbery bodies flexing back and forth.
Tolland’s voice was in her ear. “Rachel, you’re okay. Eyes straight ahead. I’m
right behind you.” His hands were reaching around from behind, gently trying to
coax her clenched fists off the banister. It was then that Rachel saw the
crimson droplet of blood roll off her arm and fall through the grating. Her eyes
followed the drip as it plummeted toward the sea. Although she never saw it hit
the water, she knew the instant it happened because all at once the hammerheads
spun in unison, thrusting with their powerful tails, crashing together in a
roiling frenzy of teeth and fins.
Enhanced telencephalon olfactory lobes…
They smell blood a mile away.
“Eyes straight ahead,” Tolland repeated, his voice strong and reassuring. “I’m
right behind you.”
Rachel felt his hands on her hips now, urging her forward. Blocking out the void
beneath her, Rachel started down the catwalk. Somewhere above she could hear the
rotors of the chopper again. Corky was already well out in front of them,
reeling across the catwalk in a kind of drunken panic.
Tolland called out to him. “All the way to the far strut, Corky! Down the
stairs!”
Rachel could now see where they were headed. Up ahead, a series of switchback
ramps descended. At water level, a narrow, shelflike deck extended the length of
the Goya. Jutting off this deck were several small, suspended docks, creating a
kind of miniature marina stationed beneath the ship. A large sign read:
DIVE AREA
Swimmers May Surface without Warning
—Boats Proceed with Caution—
Rachel could only assume Michael did not intend for them to do any swimming. Her
trepidation intensified when Tolland stopped at a bank of wire-mesh storage
lockers flanking the catwalk. He pulled open the doors to reveal hanging
wetsuits, snorkels, flippers, life jackets, and spearguns. Before she could
protest, he reached in and grabbed a flare gun. “Let’s go.”
They were moving again.
Up ahead, Corky had reached the switchback ramps and was already halfway down.
“I see it!” he shouted, his voice sounding almost joyous over the raging water.
See what? Rachel wondered as Corky ran along the narrow walkway. All she could
see was a shark-infested ocean lapping dangerously close. Tolland urged her
forward, and suddenly Rachel could see what Corky was so excited about. At the
far end of the decking below, a small powerboat was moored. Corky ran toward it.
Rachel stared. Outrun a helicopter in a motorboat?
“It has a radio,” Tolland said. “And if we can get far enough away from the
helicopter’s jamming…”
Rachel did not hear another word he said. She had just spied something that made
her blood run cold. “Too late,” she croaked, extending a trembling finger. We’re
finished…
When Tolland turned, he knew in an instant it was over.
At the far end of the ship, like a dragon peering into the opening of a cave,
the black helicopter had dropped down low and was facing them. For an instant,
Tolland thought it was going to fly directly at them through the center of the
boat. But the helicopter began to turn at an angle, taking aim.
Tolland followed the direction of the gun barrels. No!
Crouched beside the powerboat untying the moorings, Corky glanced up just as the
machine guns beneath the chopper erupted in a blaze of thunder. Corky lurched as
if hit. Wildly, he scrambled over the gunwale and dove into the boat, sprawled
himself on the floor for cover. The guns stopped. Tolland could see Corky
crawling deeper into the powerboat. The lower part of his right leg was covered
with blood. Crouched below the dash, Corky reached up and fumbled across the
controls until his fingers found the key. The boat’s 250 hp Mercury engine
roared to life.
An instant later, a red laser beam appeared, emanating from the nose of the
hovering chopper, targeting the powerboat with a missile.
Tolland reacted on instinct, aiming the only weapon he had.
The flare gun in his hand hissed when he pulled the trigger, and a blinding
streak tore away on a horizontal trajectory beneath the ship, heading directly
toward the chopper. Even so, Tolland sensed he had acted too late. As the
streaking flare bore down on the helicopter’s windshield, the rocket launcher
beneath the chopper emitted its own flash of light. At the same exact instant
that the missile launched, the aircraft veered sharply and pulled up out of
sight to avoid the incoming flare.
“Look out!” Tolland yelled, yanking Rachel down onto the catwalk.
The missile sailed off course, just missing Corky, coming the length of the Goya
and slamming into the base of the strut thirty feet beneath Rachel and Tolland.
The sound was apocalyptic. Water and flames erupted beneath them. Bits of
twisted metal flew in the air and scattered the catwalk beneath them. Metal on
metal ground together as the ship shifted, finding a new balance, slightly
askew.
As the smoke cleared, Tolland could see that one of the Goya’s four main struts
had been severely damaged. Powerful currents tore past the pontoon, threatening
to break it off. The spiral stairway descending to the lower deck looked to be
hanging by a thread.
“Come on!” Tolland yelled, urging Rachel toward it. We’ve got to get down!
But they were too late. With a surrendering crack, the stairs peeled away from
the damaged strut and crashed into the sea.
Over the ship, Delta-One grappled with the controls of the Kiowa helicopter and
got it back under control. Momentarily blinded by the incoming flare, he had
reflexively pulled up, causing the Hellfire missile to miss its mark. Cursing,
he hovered now over the bow of the ship and prepared to drop back down and
finish the job.
Eliminate all passengers. The controller’s demands had been clear.
“Shit! Look!” Delta-Two yelled from the rear seat, pointing out the window.
“Speedboat!”
Delta-One spun and saw a bullet-riddled Crestliner speedboat skimming away from
the Goya into the darkness.
He had a decision to make.
114
Corky’s bloody hands gripped the wheel of the Crestliner Phantom 2100 as it
pounded out across the sea. He rammed the throttle all the way forward, trying
to eke out maximum speed. It was not until this moment that he felt the searing
pain. He looked down and saw his right leg spurting blood. He instantly felt
dizzy.
Propping himself against the wheel, he turned and looked back at the Goya,
willing the helicopter to follow him. With Tolland and Rachel trapped up on the
catwalk, Corky had not been able to reach them. He’d been forced to make a snap
decision.
Divide and conquer.
Corky knew if he could lure the chopper far enough away from the Goya, maybe
Tolland and Rachel could radio for help. Unfortunately, as he looked over his
shoulder at the illuminated ship, Corky could see the chopper still hovering
there, as if undecided.
Come on, you bastards! Follow me!
But the helicopter did not follow. Instead it banked over the stern of the Goya,
aligned itself, and dropped down, landing on the deck. No! Corky watched in
horror, now realizing he’d left Tolland and Rachel behind to be killed.
Knowing it was now up to him to radio for help, Corky groped the dashboard and
found the radio. He flicked the power switch. Nothing happened. No lights. No
static. He turned the volume knob all the way up. Nothing. Come on! Letting go
of the wheel, he knelt down for a look. His leg screamed in pain as he bent
down. His eyes focused on the radio. He could not believe what he was looking
at. The dashboard had been strafed by bullets, and the radio dial was shattered.
Loose wires hung out the front. He stared, incredulous.
Of all the goddamned luck…
Weak-kneed, Corky stood back up, wondering how things could get any worse. As he
looked back at the Goya, he got his answer. Two armed soldiers jumped out of the
chopper onto the deck. Then the chopper lifted off again, turning in Corky’s
direction and coming after him at full speed.
Corky slumped. Divide and conquer. Apparently he was not the only one with that
bright idea tonight.
As Delta-Three made his way across the deck and approached the grated ramp
leading belowdecks, he heard a woman shouting somewhere beneath him. He turned
and motioned to Delta-Two that he was going belowdecks to check it out. His
partner nodded, remaining behind to cover the upper level. The two men could
stay in contact via CrypTalk; the Kiowa’s jamming system ingeniously left an
obscure bandwidth open for their own communications.
Clutching his snub-nose machine gun, Delta-Three moved quietly toward the ramp
that led belowdecks. With the vigilance of a trained killer, he began inching
downward, gun leveled.
The incline provided limited visibility, and Delta-Three crouched low for a
better view. He could hear the shouting more clearly now. He kept descending.
Halfway down the stairs he could now make out the twisted maze of walkways
attached to the underside of the Goya. The shouting grew louder.
Then he saw her. Midway across the traversing catwalk, Rachel Sexton was peering
over a railing and calling desperately toward the water for Michael Tolland.
Did Tolland fall in? Perhaps in the blast?
If so, Delta-Three’s job would be even easier than expected. He only needed to
descend another couple of feet to have an open shot. Shooting fish in a barrel.
His only vague concern was Rachel standing near an open equipment locker, which
meant she might have a weapon—a speargun or a shark rifle—although neither would
be any match for his machine gun. Confident he was in control of the situation,
Delta-Three leveled his weapon and took another step down. Rachel Sexton was
almost in perfect view now. He raised the gun.
One more step.
The flurry of movement came from beneath him, under the stairs. Delta-Three was
more confused than frightened as he looked down and saw Michael Tolland
thrusting an aluminum pole out toward his feet. Although Delta-Three had been
tricked, he almost laughed at this lame attempt to trip him up.
Then he felt the tip of the stick connect with his heel.
A blast of white-hot pain shot through his body as his right foot exploded out
from under him from a blistering impact. His balance gone, Delta-Three flailed,
tumbling down the stairs. His machine gun clattered down the ramp and went
overboard as he collapsed on the catwalk. In anguish, he curled up to grip his
right foot, but it was no longer there.
Tolland was standing over his attacker immediately with his hands still
clenching the smoking bang-stick—a five-foot Powerhead Shark-Control Device. The
aluminum pole had been tipped with a pressure-sensitive, twelve-gauge shotgun
shell and was intended for self-defense in the event of shark attack. Tolland
had reloaded the bang-stick with another shell, and now held the jagged,
smoldering point to his attacker’s Adam’s apple. The man lay on his back as if
paralyzed, staring up at Tolland with an expression of astonished rage and
agony.
Rachel came running up the catwalk. The plan was for her to take the man’s
machine gun, but unfortunately the weapon had gone over the edge of the catwalk
into the ocean.
The communications device on the man’s belt crackled. The voice coming out was
robotic. “Delta-Three? Come in. I heard a shot.”
The man made no move to answer.
The device crackled again. “Delta-Three? Confirm. Do you need backup?”
Almost immediately, a new voice crackled over the line. It was also robotic but
distinguishable by the sound of a helicopter noise in the background. “This is
Delta-One,” the pilot said. “I’m in pursuit of the departing vessel.
Delta-Three, confirm. Are you down? Do you need backup?”
Tolland pressed the bang-stick into the man’s throat. “Tell the helicopter to
back off that speedboat. If they kill my friend, you die.”
The soldier winced in pain as he lifted his communication device to his lips. He
looked directly at Tolland as he pressed the button and spoke. “Delta-Three,
here. I’m fine. Destroy the departing vessel.”
115
Gabrielle Ashe returned to Sexton’s private bathroom, preparing to climb back
out of his office. Sexton’sphone call had left her feeling anxious. He had
definitely hesitated when she told him she was in her office—as if he knew
somehow she was lying. Either way, she’d failed to get into Sexton’s computer
and now was unsure of her next move.
Sexton is waiting.
As she climbed up onto the sink, getting ready to pull herself up, she heard
something clatter to the tile floor. She looked down, irritated to see that
she’d knocked off a pair of Sexton’s cuff links that had apparently been sitting
on the edge of the sink.
Leave things exactly as you found them.
Climbing back down Gabrielle picked up the cuff links and put them back on the
sink. As she began to climb back up, she paused, glancing again at the cuff
links. On any other night, Gabrielle would have ignored them, but tonight their
monogram caught her attention. Like most of Sexton’s monogrammed items, they had
two intertwining letters. SS. Gabrielle flashed on Sexton’s initial computer
password—SSS. She pictured his calendar…POTUS…and the White House screensaver
with its optimistic ticker tape crawling around the screen ad infinitum.
President of the United States Sedgewick Sexton…President of the United States
Sedgewick Sexton…President of the…
Gabrielle stood a moment and wondered. Could he be that confident?
Knowing it would take only an instant to find out, she hurried back into
Sexton’s office, went to his computer, and typed in a seven-letter password.
POTUSSS
The screensaver evaporated instantly.
She stared, incredulous.
Never underestimate the ego of a politician.
116
Corky Marlinson was no longer at the helm of the Crestliner Phantom as it raced
into the night. He knew the boat would travel in a straight line with or without
him at the wheel. The path of least resistance…
Corky was in the back of the bouncing boat, trying to assess the damage to his
leg. A bullet had entered the front part of his calf, just missing his shinbone.
There was no exit wound on the back of his calf, so he knew the bullet must
still be lodged in his leg. Foraging around for something to stem the bleeding,
he found nothing—some fins, a snorkel, and a couple of life jackets. No
first-aid kit. Frantically, Corky opened a small utility chest and found some
tools, rags, duct tape, oil, and other maintenance items. He looked at his
bloody leg and wondered how far he had to go to be out of shark territory.
A hell of a lot farther than this.
Delta-One kept the Kiowa chopper low over the ocean as he scanned the darkness
for the departing Crestliner. Assuming the fleeing boat would head for shore and
attempt to put as much distance as possible between itself and the Goya,
Delta-One had followed the Crestliner’s original trajectory away from the Goya.
I should have overtaken him by now.
Normally, tracking the fleeing boat would be a simple matter of using radar, but
with the Kiowa’s jamming systems transmitting an umbrella of thermal noise for
several miles, his radar was worthless. Turning off the jamming system was not
an option until he got word that everyone onboard the Goya was dead. No
emergency phone calls would be leaving the Goya this evening.
This meteorite secret dies. Right here. Right now.
Fortunately, Delta-One had other means of tracking. Even against this bizarre
backdrop of heated ocean, pinpointing a powerboat’s thermal imprint was simple.
He turned on his thermal scanner. The ocean around him registered a warm
ninety-five degrees. Fortunately, the emissions of a racing 250 hp outboard
engine were hundreds of degrees hotter.
Corky Marlinson’s leg and foot felt numb.
Not knowing what else to do, he had wiped down his injured calf with the rag and
wrapped the wound in layer after layer of duct tape. By the time the tape was
gone, his entire calf, from ankle to knee, was enveloped in a tight silver
sheath. The bleeding had stopped, although his clothing and hands were still
covered with blood.
Sitting on the floor of the runaway Crestliner, Corky felt confused about why
the chopper hadn’t found him yet. He looked out now, scanning the horizon behind
him, expecting to see the distant Goya and incoming helicopter. Oddly, he saw
neither. The lights of the Goya had disappeared. Certainly he hadn’t come that
far, had he?
Corky suddenly felt hopeful he might escape. Maybe they had lost him in the
dark. Maybe he could get to shore!
It was then he noticed that the wake behind his boat was not straight. It seemed
to curve gradually away from the back of his boat, as if he were traveling in an
arc rather than a straight line. Confused by this, he turned his head to follow
the wake’s arc, extrapolating a giant curve across the ocean. An instant later,
he saw it.
The Goya was directly off his port side, less than a half mile away. In horror,
Corky realized his mistake too late. With no one at the wheel, the Crestliner’s
bow had continuously realigned itself with the direction of the powerful
current—the megaplume’s circular water flow. I’m driving in a big friggin’
circle!
He had doubled back on himself.
Knowing he was still inside the shark-filled megaplume, Corky recalled Tolland’s
grim words. Enhanced telencephalon olfactory lobes…hammerheads can smell a
droplet of blood a mile away. Corky looked at his bloody duct-taped leg and
hands.
The chopper would be on him soon.
Ripping off his bloody clothing, Corky scrambled naked toward the stern. Knowing
no sharks could possibly keep pace with the boat, he rinsed himself as best as
he could in the powerful blast of the wake.
A single droplet of blood…
As Corky stood up, fully exposed to the night, he knew there was only one thing
left to do. He had learned once that animals marked their territory with urine
because uric acid was the most potent-smelling fluid the human body made.
More potent than blood, he hoped. Wishing he’d had a few more beers tonight,
Corky heaved his injured leg up onto the gunwale and tried to urinate on the
duct tape. Come on! He waited. Nothing like the pressure of having to piss all
over yourself with a helicopter chasing you.
Finally it came. Corky urinated all over the duct tape, soaking it fully. He
used what little was left in his bladder to soak a rag, which he then swathed
across his entire body. Very pleasant.
In the dark sky overhead, a red laser beam appeared, slanting toward him like
the shimmering blade of an enormous guillotine. The chopper appeared from an
oblique angle, the pilot apparently confused that Corky had looped back toward
the Goya.
Quickly donning a high-float life vest, Corky moved to the rear of the speeding
craft. On the boat’s bloodstained floor, only five feet from where Corky was
standing, a glowing red dot appeared.
It was time.
Onboard the Goya, Michael Tolland did not see his Crestliner Phantom 2100 erupt
in flames and tumble through the air in a cartwheel of fire and smoke.
But he heard the explosion.
117
The West Wing was usually quiet at this hour, but the President’s unexpected
emergence in his bathrobe and slippers had rustled the aides and on-site staff
out of their “day-timer beds” and on-site sleeping quarters.
“I can’t find her, Mr. President,” a young aide said, hurrying after him into
the Oval Office. He had looked everywhere. “Ms. Tench is not answering her pager
or cellphone.”
The President looked exasperated. “Have you looked in the—”
“She left the building, sir,” another aide announced, hurrying in. “She signed
out about an hour ago. We think she may have gone to the NRO. One of the
operators says she and Pickering were talking tonight.”
“William Pickering?” The President sounded baffled. Tench and Pickering were
anything but social. “Have you called him?”
“He’s not answering either, sir. NRO switchboard can’t reach him. They say
Pickering’s cellphone isn’t even ringing. It’s like he’s dropped off the face of
the earth.”
Herney stared at his aides for a moment and then walked to the bar and poured
himself a bourbon. As he raised the glass to his lips, a Secret Serviceman
hurried in.
“Mr. President? I wasn’t going to wake you, but you should be aware that there
was a car bombing at the FDR Memorial tonight.”
“What!” Herney almost dropped his drink. “When?”
“An hour ago.” His face was grim. “And the FBI just identified the victim…”
118
Delta-Three’s foot screamed in pain. He felt himself floating through a muddled
consciousness. Is this death? He tried to move but felt paralyzed, barely able
to breathe. He saw only blurred shapes. His mind reeled back, recalling the
explosion of the Crestliner out at sea, seeing the rage in Michael Tolland’s
eyes as the oceanographer stood over him, holding the explosive pole to his
throat.
Certainly Tolland killed me…
And yet the searing pain in Delta-Three’s right foot told him he was very much
alive. Slowly it came back. On hearing the explosion of the Crestliner, Tolland
had let out a cry of anguished rage for his lost friend. Then, turning his
ravaged eyes to Delta-Three, Tolland had arched as if preparing to ram the rod
through Delta-Three’s throat. But as he did, he seemed to hesitate, as if his
own morality were holding him back. With brutal frustration and fury, Tolland
yanked the rod away and drove his boot down on Delta-Three’s tattered foot.
The last thing Delta-Three remembered was vomiting in agony as his whole world
drifted into a black delirium. Now he was coming to, with no idea how long he
had been unconscious. He could feel his arms tied behind his back in a knot so
tight it could only have been tied by a sailor. His legs were also bound, bent
behind him and tied to his wrists, leaving him in an immobilized backward arch.
He tried to call out, but no sound came. His mouth was stuffed with something.
Delta-Three could not imagine what was going on. It was then he felt the cool
breeze and saw the bright lights. He realized he was up on the Goya’s main deck.
He twisted to look for help and was met by a frightful sight, his own
reflection—bulbous and misshapen in the reflective Plexiglas bubble of the
Goya’s deepwater submersible. The sub hung right in front of him, and
Delta-Three realized he was lying on a giant trapdoor in the deck. This was not
nearly as unsettling as the most obvious question.
If I’m on deck…then where is Delta-Two?
Delta-Two had grown uneasy.
Despite his partner’s CrypTalk transmission claiming he was fine, the single
gunshot had not been that of a machine gun. Obviously, Tolland or Rachel Sexton
had fired a weapon. Delta-Two moved over to peer down the ramp where his partner
had descended, and he saw blood.
Weapon raised, he had descended belowdecks, where he followed the trail of blood
along a catwalk to the bow of the ship. Here, the trail of blood had led him
back up another ramp to the main deck. It was deserted. With growing wariness,
Delta-Two had followed the long crimson smear along the sideboard deck back
toward the rear of the ship, where it passed the opening to the original ramp he
had descended.
What the hell is going on? The smear seemed to travel in a giant circle.
Moving cautiously, his gun trained ahead of him, Delta-Two passed the entrance
to the laboratory section of the ship. The smear continued toward the stern
deck. Carefully he swung wide, rounding the corner. His eye traced the trail.
Then he saw it.
Jesus Christ!
Delta-Three was lying there—bound and gagged—dumped unceremoniously directly in
front of the Goya’s small submersible. Even from a distance, Delta-Two could see
that his partner was missing a good portion of his right foot.
Wary of a trap, Delta-Two raised his gun and moved forward. Delta-Three was
writhing now, trying to speak. Ironically, the way the man had been bound—with
his knees sharply bent behind him—was probably saving his life; the bleeding in
his foot appeared to have slowed.
As Delta-Two approached the submersible, he appreciated the rare luxury of being
able to watch his own back; the entire deck of the ship was reflected in the
sub’s rounded cockpit dome. Delta-Two arrived at his struggling partner. He saw
the warning in his eyes too late.
The flash of silver came out of nowhere.
One of the Triton’s manipulator claws suddenly leaped forward and clamped down
on Delta-Two’s left thigh with crushing force. He tried to pull away, but the
claw bore down. He screamed in pain, feeling a bone break. His eyes shot to the
sub’s cockpit. Peering through the reflection of the deck, Delta-Two could now
see him, ensconced in the shadows of the Triton’s interior.
Michael Tolland was inside the sub, at the controls.
Bad idea, Delta-Two seethed, blocking out his pain and shouldering his machine
gun. He aimed up and to the left at Tolland’s chest, only three feet away on the
other side of the sub’s Plexiglas dome. He pulled the trigger, and the gun
roared. Wild with rage at having been tricked, Delta-Two held the trigger back
until the last of his shells clattered to the deck and his gun clicked empty.
Breathless, he dropped the weapon and glared at the shredded dome in front of
him.
“Dead!” the soldier hissed, straining to pull his leg from the clamp. As he
twisted, the metal clamp severed his skin, opening a large gash. “Fuck!” He
reached now for the CrypTalk on his belt. But as he raised it to his lips, a
second robotic arm snapped open in front of him and lunged forward, clamping
around his right arm. The CrypTalk fell to the deck.
It was then that Delta-Two saw the ghost in the window before him. A pale visage
leaning sideways and peering out through an unscathed edge of glass. Stunned,
Delta-Two looked at the center of the dome and realized the bullets had not even
come close to penetrating the thick shell. The dome was cratered with pockmarks.
An instant later, the topside portal on the sub opened, and Michael Tolland
emerged. He looked shaky but unscathed. Climbing down the aluminum gangway,
Tolland stepped onto the deck and eyed his sub’s destroyed dome window.
“Ten thousand pounds per square inch,” Tolland said. “Looks like you need a
bigger gun.”
Inside the hydrolab, Rachel knew time was running out. She had heard the
gunshots out on the deck and was praying that everything had happened exactly as
Tolland had planned. She no longer cared who was behind the meteorite
deception—the NASA administrator, Marjorie Tench, or the President himself—none
of it mattered anymore.
They will not get away with this. Whoever it is, the truth will be told.
The wound on Rachel’s arm had stopped bleeding, and the adrenaline coursing
through her body had muted the pain and sharpened her focus. Finding a pen and
paper, she scrawled a two-line message. The words were blunt and awkward, but
eloquence was not a luxury she had time for at the moment. She added the note to
the incriminating stack of papers in her hand—the GPR printout, images of
Bathynomous giganteus, photos and articles regarding oceanic chondrules, an
electron microscan printout. The meteorite was a fake, and this was the proof.
Rachel inserted the entire stack into the hydrolab’s fax machine. Knowing only a
few fax numbers by heart, she had limited choices, but she had already made up
her mind who would be receiving these pages and her note. Holding her breath,
she carefully typed in the person’s fax number.
She pressed “send,” praying she had chosen the recipient wisely.
The fax machine beeped.
ERROR: NO DIAL TONE
Rachel had expected this. The Goya’s communications were still being jammed. She
stood waiting and watching the machine, hoping it functioned like hers at home.
Come on!
After five seconds, the machine beeped again.
REDIALING…
Yes! Rachel watched the machine lock into an endless loop.
ERROR: NO DIAL TONE
REDIALING…
ERROR: NO DIAL TONE
REDIALING…
Leaving the fax machine in search of a dial tone, Rachel dashed out of the
hydrolab just as helicopter blades thundered overhead.
119
One hundred and sixty miles away from the Goya, Gabrielle Ashe was staring at
Senator Sexton’s computer screen in mute astonishment. Her suspicions had been
right.
But she had never imagined how right.
She was looking at digital scans of dozens of bank checks written to Sexton from
private space companies and deposited in numbered accounts in the Cayman
Islands. The smallest check Gabrielle saw was for fifteen thousand dollars.
Several were upward of half a million dollars.
Small potatoes, Sexton had told her. All the donations are under the
two-thousand-dollar cap.
Obviously Sexton had been lying all along. Gabrielle was looking at illegal
campaign financing on an enormous scale. The pangs of betrayal and
disillusionment settled hard now in her heart. He lied.
She felt stupid. She felt dirty. But most of all she felt mad.
Gabrielle sat alone in the darkness, realizing she had no idea what to do next.
120
Above the Goya, as the Kiowa banked over the stern deck, Delta-One gazed down,
his eyes fixating on an utterly unexpected vision.
Michael Tolland was standing on deck beside a small submersible. Dangling in the
sub’s robotic arms, as if in the clutches of a giant insect, hung Delta-Two,
struggling in vain to free himself from two enormous claws.
What in the name of God!?
Equally as shocking an image, Rachel Sexton had just arrived on deck, taking up
a position over a bound and bleeding man at the foot of the submersible. The man
could only be Delta-Three. Rachel held one of the Delta Force’s machine guns on
him and stared up at the chopper as if daring them to attack.
Delta-One felt momentarily disoriented, unable to fathom how this possibly could
have happened. The Delta Force’s errors on the ice shelf earlier had been a rare
but explainable occurrence. This, however, was unimaginable.
Delta-One’s humiliation would have been excruciating enough under normal
circumstances. But tonight his shame was magnified by the presence of another
individual riding with him inside the chopper, a person whose presence here was
highly unconventional.
The controller.
Following the Delta’s kill at the FDR Memorial, the controller had ordered
Delta-One to fly to a deserted public park not far from the White House. On the
controller’s command, Delta-One had set down on a grassy knoll among some trees
just as the controller, having parked nearby, strode out of the darkness and
boarded the Kiowa. They were all en route again in a matter of seconds.
Although a controller’s direct involvement in mission operations was rare,
Delta-One could hardly complain. The controller, distressed by the way the Delta
Force had handled the kills on the Milne Ice Shelf and fearing increasing
suspicions and scrutiny from a number of parties, had informed Delta-One that
the final phase of the operation would be overseen in person.
Now the controller was riding shotgun, witnessing in person a failure the likes
of which Delta-One had never endured.
This must end. Now.
The controller gazed down from the Kiowa at the deck of the Goya and wondered
how this could possibly have happened. Nothing had gone properly—the suspicions
about the meteorite, the failed Delta kills on the ice shelf, the necessity of
the high-profile kill at the FDR.
“Controller,” Delta-One stammered, his tone one of stunned disgrace as he looked
at the situation on the deck of the Goya. “I cannot imagine…”
Nor can I, the controller thought. Their quarry had obviously been grossly
underestimated.
The controller looked down at Rachel Sexton, who stared up blankly at the
chopper’s reflective windshield and raised a CrypTalk device to her mouth. When
her synthesized voice crackled inside the Kiowa, the controller expected her to
demand that the chopper back off or extinguish the jamming system so Tolland
could call for help. But the words Rachel Sexton spoke were far more chilling.
“You’re too late,” she said. “We’re not the only ones who know.”
The words echoed for a moment inside the chopper. Although the claim seemed
far-fetched, the faintest possibility of truth gave the controller pause. The
success of the entire project required the elimination of all those who knew the
truth, and as bloody as the containment had turned out to be, the controller had
to be certain this was the conclusion.
Someone else knows…
Considering Rachel Sexton’s reputation for following strict protocol of
classified data, the controller found it very hard to believe that she would
have decided to share this with an outside source.
Rachel was on the CrypTalk again. “Back off and we’ll spare your men. Come any
closer and they die. Either way, the truth comes out. Cut your losses. Back
off.”
“You’re bluffing,” the controller said, knowing the voice Rachel Sexton was
hearing was an androgynous robotic tone. “You have told no one.”
“Are you ready to take that chance?” Rachel fired back. “I couldn’t get through
to William Pickering earlier, so I got spooked and took out some insurance.”
The controller frowned. It was plausible.
“They’re not buying it,” Rachel said, glancing at Tolland.
The soldier in the claws gave a pained smirk. “Your gun is empty, and the
chopper’s going to blow you to hell. You’re both going to die. Your only hope is
to let us go.”
Like hell, Rachel thought, trying to assess their next move. She looked at the
bound and gagged man who lay at her feet directly in front of the sub. He looked
delirious from loss of blood. She crouched beside him, looking into the man’s
hard eyes. “I’m going to take off your gag and hold the CrypTalk; you’re going
to convince the helicopter to back off. Is that clear?”
The man nodded earnestly.
Rachel pulled out the man’s gag. The soldier spat a wad of bloody saliva up into
Rachel’s face.
“Bitch,” he hissed, coughing. “I’m going to watch you die. They’re going to kill
you like a pig, and I’m going to enjoy every minute.”
Rachel wiped the hot saliva from her face as she felt Tolland’s hands lifting
her away, pulling her back, steadying her as he took her machine gun. She could
feel in his trembling touch that something inside him had just snapped. Tolland
walked to a control panel a few yards away, put his hand on a lever, and locked
eyes with the man lying on the deck.
“Strike two,” Tolland said. “And on my ship, that’s all you get.”
With a resolute rage, Tolland yanked down on the lever. A huge trapdoor in the
deck beneath the Triton fell open like the floor of a gallows. The bound soldier
gave a short howl of fear and then disappeared, plummeting through the hole. He
fell thirty feet to the ocean below. The splash was crimson. The sharks were on
him instantly.
The controller shook with rage, looking down from the Kiowa at what was left of
Delta-Three’s body drifting out from under the boat on the strong current. The
illuminated water was pink. Several fish fought over something that looked like
an arm.
Jesus Christ.
The controller looked back at the deck. Delta-Two still hung in the Triton’s
claws, but now the sub was suspended over a gaping hole in the deck. His feet
dangled over the void. All Tolland had to do was release the claws, and
Delta-Two would be next.
“Okay,” the controller barked into the CrypTalk. “Hold on. Just hold on!”
Rachel stood below on the deck and stared up at the Kiowa. Even from this height
the controller sensed the resolve in her eyes. Rachel raised the CrypTalk to her
mouth. “You still think we’re bluffing?” she said. “Call the main switchboard at
the NRO. Ask for Jim Samiljan. He’s in P&A on the nightshift. I told him
everything about the meteorite. He will confirm.”
She’s giving me a specific name? This did not bode well. Rachel Sexton was no
fool, and this was a bluff the controller could check in a matter of seconds.
Although the controller knew of no one at the NRO named Jim Samiljan, the
organization was enormous. Rachel could quite possibly be telling the truth.
Before ordering the final kill, the controller had to confirm if this was a
bluff—or not.
Delta-One looked over his shoulder. “You want me to deactivate the jammer so you
can call and check it out?”
The controller peered down at Rachel and Tolland, both in plain view. If either
of them made a move for a cellphone or radio, the controller knew Delta-One
could always reactivate and cut them off. The risk was minimal.
“Kill the jammer,” the controller said, pulling out a cellphone. “I’ll confirm
Rachel’s lying. Then we’ll find a way to get Delta-Two and end this.”
In Fairfax, the operator at the NRO’s central switchboard was getting impatient.
“As I just told you, I see no Jim Samiljan in the Plans and Analysis Division.”
The caller was insistent. “Have you tried multiple spellings? Have you tried
other departments?”
The operator had already checked, but she checked again. After several seconds,
she said, “Nowhere on staff do we have a Jim Samiljan. Under any spelling.”
The caller sounded oddly pleased by this. “So you are certain the NRO employs no
Jim Samil—”
A sudden flurry of activity erupted on the line. Someone yelled. The caller
cursed aloud and promptly hung up.
Onboard the Kiowa, Delta-One was screaming with rage as he scrambled to
reactivate the jamming system. He had made the realization too late. In the huge
array of lighted controls in the cockpit, a tiny LED meter indicated that a
SATCOM data signal was being transmitted from the Goya. But how? Nobody left the
deck! Before Delta-One could engage the jammer, the connection from the Goya
terminated on its own accord.
Inside the hydrolab, the fax machine beeped contentedly.
CARRIER FOUND…FAX SENT
121
Kill or be killed. Rachel had discovered a part of herself she never knew
existed. Survival mode—a savage fortitude fueled by fear.
“What was in that outbound fax?” the voice on the CrypTalk demanded.
Rachel was relieved to hear confirmation that the fax had gone out as planned.
“Leave the area,” she demanded, speaking into the CrypTalk and glaring up at the
hovering chopper. “It’s over. Your secret is out.” Rachel informed their
attackers of all the information she had just sent. A half dozen pages of images
and text. Incontrovertible evidence that the meteorite was a fake. “Harming us
will only make your situation worse.”
There was a heavy pause. “Who did you send the fax to?”
Rachel had no intention of answering that question. She and Tolland needed to
buy as much time as possible. They had positioned themselves near the opening in
the deck, on a direct line with the Triton, making it impossible for the chopper
to shoot without hitting the soldier dangling in the sub’s claws.
“William Pickering,” the voice guessed, sounding oddly hopeful. “You faxed
Pickering.”
Wrong, Rachel thought. Pickering would have been her first choice, but she had
been forced to choose someone else for fear her attackers had already eliminated
Pickering—a move whose boldness would be a chilling testimony to her enemy’s
resolve. In a moment of desperate decision, Rachel had faxed the data to the
only other fax number she knew by heart.
Her father’s office.
Senator Sexton’s office fax number had been painfully engraved into Rachel’s
memory after her mother’s death when her father chose to work out many of the
particulars of the estate without having to deal with Rachel in person. Rachel
never imagined she would turn to her father in a time of need, but tonight the
man possessed two critical qualities—all the correct political motivations to
release the meteorite data without hesitation, and enough clout to call the
White House and blackmail them into calling off this kill squad.
Although her father was most certainly not in the office at this hour, Rachel
knew he kept his office locked like a vault. Rachel had, in effect, faxed the
data into a time-lock safe. Even if the attackers knew where she had sent it,
chances were slim they could get through the tight federal security at the
Philip A. Hart Senate Office Building and break into a senator’s office without
anyone noticing.
“Wherever you sent the fax,” the voice from above said. “You’ve put that person
in danger.”
Rachel knew she had to speak from a position of power regardless of the fear she
was feeling. She motioned to the soldier trapped in the Triton’s claws. His legs
dangled over the abyss, dripping blood thirty feet to the ocean. “The only
person in danger here is your agent,” she said into the CrypTalk. “It’s over.
Back off. The data is gone. You’ve lost. Leave the area, or this man dies.”
The voice on the CrypTalk fired back, “Ms. Sexton, you do not understand the
importance—”
“Understand?” Rachel exploded. “I understand that you killed innocent people! I
understand that you lied about the meteorite! And I understand that you won’t
get away with this! Even if you kill us all, it’s over!”
There was a long pause. Finally the voice said, “I’m coming down.”
Rachel felt her muscles tighten. Coming down?
“I am unarmed,” the voice said. “Do not do anything rash. You and I need to talk
face-to-face.”
Before Rachel could react, the chopper dropped onto the Goya’s deck. The
passenger door on the fuselage opened and a figure stepped out. He was a
plain-looking man in a black coat and tie. For an instant, Rachel’s thoughts
went totally blank.
She was staring at William Pickering.
William Pickering stood on the deck of the Goya and gazed with regret at Rachel
Sexton. He had never imagined today would come to this. As he moved toward her,
he could see the dangerous combination of emotions in his employee’s eyes.
Shock, betrayal, confusion, rage.
All understandable, he thought. There is so much she does not understand.
For a moment, Pickering flashed on his daughter, Diana, wondering what emotions
she had felt before she died. Both Diana and Rachel were casualties of the same
war, a war Pickering had vowed to fight forever. Sometimes the casualties could
be so cruel.
“Rachel,” Pickering said. “We can still work this out. There’s a lot I need to
explain.”
Rachel Sexton looked aghast, nauseated almost. Tolland had the machine gun now
and was aiming at Pickering’s chest. He too looked bewildered.
“Stay back!” Tolland yelled.
Pickering stopped five yards away, focusing on Rachel. “Your father is taking
bribes, Rachel. Payoffs from private space companies. He plans to dismantle NASA
and open space to the private sector. He had to be stopped, as a matter of
national security.”
Rachel’s expression was blank.
Pickering sighed. “NASA, for all its flaws, must remain a government entity.”
Certainly she can understand the dangers. Privatization would send NASA’s best
minds and ideas flooding into the private sector. The brain trust would
dissolve. The military would lose access. Private space companies looking to
raise capital would start selling NASA patents and ideas to the highest bidders
worldwide!
Rachel’s voice was tremulous. “You faked the meteorite and killed innocent
people…in the name of national security?”
“It was never supposed to happen like this,” Pickering said. “The plan was to
save an important government agency. Killing was not part of it.”
The meteorite deception, Pickering knew, like most intelligence proposals, had
been the product of fear. Three years ago, in an effort to extend the NRO
hydrophones into deeper water where they could not be touched by enemy
saboteurs, Pickering spearheaded a program that utilized a newly developed NASA
building material to secretly design an astonishingly durable submarine capable
of carrying humans to the deepest regions of the ocean—including the bottom of
the Mariana Trench.
Forged from a revolutionary ceramic, this two-man submarine was designed from
blueprints hacked from the computer of a California engineer named Graham
Hawkes, a genius sub designer whose life dream was to build an ultra-deepwater
submersible he called Deep Flight II. Hawkes was having trouble finding funding
to build a prototype. Pickering, on the other hand, had an unlimited budget.
Using the classified ceramic submersible, Pickering sent a covert team
underwater to affix new hydrophones to the walls of the Mariana Trench, deeper
than any enemy could possibly look. In the process of drilling, however, they
uncovered geologic structures unlike any that scientists had ever seen. The
discoveries included chondrules and fossils of several unknown species. Of
course, because the NRO’s ability to dive this deep was classified, none of the
information could ever be shared.
It was not until recently, driven yet again by fear, that Pickering and his
quiet team of NRO science advisers had decided to put their knowledge of the
Mariana’s unique geology to work to help save NASA. Turning a Mariana rock into
a meteorite had proven to be a deceptively simple task. Using an ECE
slush-hydrogen engine, the NRO team charred the rock with a convincing fusion
crust. Then, using a small payload sub, they had descended beneath the Milne Ice
Shelf and inserted the charred rock up into the ice from beneath. Once the
insertion shaft refroze, the rock looked like it had been there for over three
hundred years.
Unfortunately, as was often the case in the world of covert operations, the
grandest of plans could be undone by the smallest of snags. Yesterday, the
entire illusion had been shattered by a few bioluminescent plankton…
From the cockpit of the idling Kiowa, Delta-One watched the drama unfold before
him. Rachel and Tolland appeared to be in clear control, although Delta-One
almost had to laugh at the hollowness of the illusion. The machine gun in
Tolland’s hands was worthless; even from here Delta-One could see the cocking
bar assembly had kicked back, indicating the clip was empty.
As Delta-One gazed out at his partner struggling in the Triton’s claws, he knew
he had to hurry. The focus on deck had turned completely to Pickering, and now
Delta-One could make his move. Leaving the rotors idling, he slipped out of the
rear of the fuselage and, using the chopper for cover, made his way unseen onto
the starboard gangway. With his own machine gun in hand, he headed for the bow.
Pickering had given him specific orders before they landed on deck, and
Delta-One had no intention of failing at this simple task.
In a matter of minutes, he knew, this will all be over.
122
Still wearing his bathrobe, Zach Herney sat at his desk in the Oval Office, his
head throbbing. The newest piece of the puzzle had just been revealed.
Marjorie Tench is dead.
Herney’s aides said they had information suggesting Tench had driven to the FDR
Memorial for a private meeting with William Pickering. Now that Pickering was
missing, the staff feared Pickering too might be dead.
The President and Pickering had endured their battles lately. Months ago Herney
learned that Pickering had engaged in illegal activity on Herney’s behalf in an
attempt to save Herney’s floundering campaign.
Employing NRO assets, Pickering had discreetly obtained enough dirt on Senator
Sexton to sink his campaign—scandalous sexual photos of the senator with his
aide Gabrielle Ashe, incriminating financial records proving Sexton was taking
bribes from private space companies. Pickering anonymously sent all the evidence
to Marjorie Tench, assuming the White House would use it wisely. But Herney,
upon seeing the data, had forbidden Tench to use it. Sex scandals and bribery
were cancers in Washington, and waving another one in front of the public only
added to their distrust of government.
Cynicism is killing this country.
Although Herney knew he could destroy Sexton with scandal, the cost would be
besmirching the dignity of the U.S. Senate, something Herney refused to do.
No more negatives. Herney would beat Senator Sexton on the issues.
Pickering, angered by the White House’s refusal to use the evidence he had
provided, tried to jump-start the scandal by leaking a rumor that Sexton had
slept with Gabrielle Ashe. Unfortunately, Sexton declared his innocence with
such convincing indignation that the President ended up having to apologize for
the leak personally. In the end William Pickering had done more damage than
good. Herney told Pickering that if he ever interfered in the campaign again, he
would be indicted. The grand irony, of course, was that Pickering did not even
like President Herney. The NRO director’s attempts to help Herney’s campaign
were simply fears over the fate of NASA. Zach Herney was the lesser of two
evils.
Now has someone killed Pickering?
Herney could not imagine.
“Mr. President?” an aide said. “As you requested, I called Lawrence Ekstrom and
told him about Marjorie Tench.”
“Thank you.”
“He would like to speak to you, sir.”
Herney was still furious with Ekstrom for lying about PODS. “Tell him I’ll talk
to him in the morning.”
“Mr. Ekstrom wants to talk to you right away, sir.” The aide looked uneasy.
“He’s very upset.”
HE’S upset? Herney could feel his temper fraying around the edges. As he stalked
off to take Ekstrom’s call, the President wondered what the hell else could
possibly go wrong tonight.
123
Onboard the Goya, Rachel felt lightheaded. The mystification that had settled
around her like a heavy fog was lifting now. The stark reality that came into
focus left her feeling naked and disgusted. She looked at the stranger before
her and could barely hear his voice.
“We needed to rebuild NASA’s image,” Pickering was saying. “Their declining
popularity and funding had become dangerous on so many levels.” Pickering
paused, his gray eyes locking on hers. “Rachel, NASA was desperate for a
triumph. Someone had to make it happen.”
• • •
Something had to be done, Pickering thought.
The meteorite had been a final act of desperation. Pickering and others had
tried to save NASA by lobby-ing to incorporate the space agency into the
intelligence community where it would enjoy increased funding and better
security, but the White House continuously rebuffed the idea as an assault on
pure science. Shortsighted idealism. With the rising popularity of Sexton’s
anti-NASA rhetoric, Pickering and his band of military powerbrokers knew time
was running short. They decided that capturing the imagination of taxpayers and
Congress was the only remaining way to salvage NASA’s image and save it from the
auction block. If the space agency was to survive, it would need an infusion of
grandeur—something to remind the taxpayers of NASA’s Apollo glory days. And if
Zach Herney was going to defeat Senator Sexton, he was going to need help.
I tried to help him, Pickering told himself, recalling all the damaging evidence
he had sent Marjorie Tench. Unfortunately, Herney had forbidden its use, leaving
Pickering no choice but to take drastic measures.
“Rachel,” Pickering said, “the information you just faxed off this ship is
dangerous. You must understand that. If it gets out, the White House and NASA
will look complicit. The backlash against the President and NASA will be
enormous. The President and NASA know nothing, Rachel. They are innocent. They
believe the meteorite is authentic.”
Pickering had not even tried to bring Herney or Ekstrom into the fold because
both were far too idealistic to have agreed to any deceit, regardless of its
potential to save the presidency or space agency. Administrator Ekstrom’s only
crime had been persuading the PODS mission supervisor to lie about the anomaly
software, a move Ekstrom no doubt regretted the moment he realized how
scrutinized this particular meteorite would become.
Marjorie Tench, frustrated by Herney’s insistence on fighting a clean campaign,
conspired with Ekstrom on the PODS lie, hoping a small PODS success might help
the President fend off the rising Sexton tide.
If Tench had used the photos and bribery data I gave her, none of this would
have happened!
Tench’s murder, though deeply regrettable, had been destined as soon as Rachel
called Tench and made accusations of fraud. Pickering knew Tench would
investigate ruthlessly until she got to the bottom of Rachel’s motives for the
outrageous claims, and this was one investigation Pickering obviously could
never let happen. Ironically, Tench would serve her president best in death, her
violent end helping cement a sympathy vote for the White House as well as cast
vague suspicions of foul play on a desperate Sexton campaign which had been so
publicly humiliated by Marjorie Tench on CNN.
Rachel stood her ground, glaring at her boss.
“Understand,” Pickering said, “if news of this meteorite fraud gets out, you
will destroy an innocent president and an innocent space agency. You will also
put a very dangerous man in the Oval Office. I need to know where you faxed the
data.”
As he spoke those words, a strange look came across Rachel’s face. It was the
pained expression of horror of someone who had just realized they may have made
a grave mistake.
Having circled the bow and come back down the port side, Delta-One now stood in
the hydrolab from which he had seen Rachel emerge as the chopper had flown in. A
computer in the lab displayed an unsettling image—a polychromatic rendering of
the pulsating, deepwater vortex that was apparently hovering over the ocean
floor somewhere beneath the Goya.
Another reason to get the hell out of here, he thought, moving now toward his
target.
The fax machine was on a counter on the far side of the wall. The tray was
filled with a stack of papers, exactly as Pickering had guessed it would be.
Delta-One picked up the stack. A note from Rachel was on top. Only two lines. He
read it.
To the point, he thought.
As he flipped through the pages, he was both amazed and dismayed by the extent
to which Tolland and Rachel had uncovered the meteorite deception. Whoever saw
these printouts would have no doubt what they meant. Fortunately, Delta-One
would not even need to hit “redial” to find out where the printouts had gone.
The last fax number was still displayed in the LCD window.
A Washington, D.C., prefix.
He carefully copied the fax number down, grabbed all the papers, and exited the
lab.
Tolland’s hands felt sweaty on the machine gun as he gripped it, aiming the
muzzle at William Pickering’s chest. The NRO director was still pressuring
Rachel to tell him where the data had been sent, and Tolland was starting to get
the uneasy feeling that Pickering was simply trying to buy time. For what?
“The White House and NASA are innocent,” Pickering repeated. “Work with me.
Don’t let my mistakes destroy what little credibility NASA has left. NASA will
look guilty if this gets out. You and I can come to an arrangement. The country
needs this meteorite. Tell me where you faxed the data before it’s too late.”
“So you can kill someone else?” Rachel said. “You make me sick.”
Tolland was amazed with Rachel’s fortitude. She despised her father, but she
clearly had no intention of putting the senator in any danger whatsoever.
Unfortunately, Rachel’s plan to fax her father for help had backfired. Even if
the senator came into his office, saw the fax, and called the President with
news of the meteorite fraud and told him to call off the attack, nobody at the
White House would have any idea what Sexton was talking about, or even where
they were.
“I will only say this one more time,” Pickering said, fixing Rachel with a
menacing glare. “This situation is too complex for you to fully understand.
You’ve made an enormous mistake by sending that data off this ship. You’ve put
your country at risk.”
William Pickering was indeed buying time, Tolland now realized. And the reason
was striding calmly toward them up the starboard side of the boat. Tolland felt
a flash of fear when he saw the soldier sauntering toward them carrying a stack
of papers and a machine gun.
Tolland reacted with a decisiveness that shocked even himself. Gripping the
machine gun, he wheeled, aimed at the soldier, and pulled the trigger.
The gun made an innocuous click.
“I found the fax number,” the soldier said, handing Pickering a slip of paper.
“And Mr. Tolland is out of ammunition.”
124
Sedgewick Sexton stormed up the hallway of the PhilipA. Hart Senate Office
Building. He had no idea how Gabrielle had done it, but she had obviously gotten
into his office. While they were speaking on the phone, Sexton had clearly heard
the distinctive triple-click of his Jourdain clock in the background. All he
could imagine was that Gabrielle’s eavesdropping on the SFF meeting had
undermined her trust in him and she had gone digging for evidence.
How the hell did she get into my office!
Sexton was glad he’d changed his computer password.
When he arrived at his private office, Sexton typed in his code to deactivate
the alarm. Then he fumbled for his keys, unlocked the heavy doors, threw them
open, and burst in, intent on catching Gabrielle in the act.
But the office was empty and dark, lit only by the glow of his computer
screensaver. He turned on the lights, his eyes scanning. Everything looked in
place. Dead silence except for the triple-tick of his clock.
Where the hell is she?
He heard something rustle in his private bathroom and raced over, turning on the
light. The bathroom was empty. He looked behind the door. Nothing.
Puzzled, Sexton eyed himself in the mirror, wondering if he’d had too much to
drink tonight. I heard something. Feeling disoriented and confused, he walked
back into his office.
“Gabrielle?” he called out. He went down the hall to her office. She wasn’t
there. Her office was dark.
A toilet flushed in the ladies’ room, and Sexton spun, striding now back in the
direction of the restrooms. He arrived just as Gabrielle was exiting, drying her
hands. She jumped when she saw him.
“My God! You scared me!” she said, looking genuinely frightened. “What are you
doing here?”
“You said you were getting NASA documents from your office,” he declared, eyeing
her empty hands. “Where are they?”
“I couldn’t find them. I looked everywhere. That’s what took so long.”
He stared directly into her eyes. “Were you in my office?”
I owe my life to his fax machine, Gabrielle thought.
Only minutes ago she’d been sitting at Sexton’s computer, trying to make
printouts of the images of illegal checks on his computer. The files were
protected somehow, and she was going to need more time to figure out how to
print them. She would probably still be trying right now if Sexton’s fax machine
had not rung, startling her and snapping her back to reality. Gabrielle took it
as her cue to get out. Without taking time to see what the incoming fax was, she
logged off Sexton’s computer, tidied up, and headed out the way she had come.
She was just climbing out of Sexton’s bathroom when she heard him coming in.
Now, with Sexton standing before her, staring down, she sensed him searching her
eyes for a lie. Sedgewick Sexton could smell untruths like nobody Gabrielle had
ever met. If she lied to him, Sexton would know.
“You’ve been drinking,” Gabrielle said, turning away. How does he know I was in
his office?
Sexton put his hands on her shoulders and spun her back around. “Were you in my
office?”
Gabrielle felt a rising fear. Sexton had indeed been drinking. His touch was
rough. “In your office?” she demanded, forcing a confused laugh. “How? Why?”
“I heard my Jourdain in the background when I called you.”
Gabrielle cringed inwardly. His clock? It had not even occurred to her. “Do you
know how ridiculous that sounds?”
“I spend all day in that office. I know what my clock sounds like.”
Gabrielle sensed she had to end this immediately. The best defense is a good
offense. At least that’s what Yolanda Cole always said. Placing her hands on her
hips, Gabrielle went for him with all she had. She stepped toward him, getting
in his face, glaring. “Let me get this straight, senator. It’s four o’clock in
the morning, you’ve been drinking, you heard a ticking on your phone, and that’s
why you’re here?” She pointed her finger indignantly down the hall at his door.
“Just for the record, are you accusing me of disarming a federal alarm system,
picking two sets of locks, breaking into your office, being stupid enough to
answer my cellphone while in the process of committing a felony, rearming the
alarm system on my way out, and then calmly using the ladies’ room before I run
off with nothing to show for it? Is that the story here?”
Sexton blinked, wide-eyed.
“There’s a reason people shouldn’t drink alone,” Gabrielle said. “Now do you
want to talk about NASA, or not?”
Sexton felt befuddled as he walked back into his office. He went straight to his
wet bar and poured himself a Pepsi. He sure as hell didn’t feel drunk. Could he
really have been wrong about this? Across the room, his Jourdain ticked
mockingly. Sexton drained his Pepsi and poured himself another, and one for
Gabrielle.
“Drink, Gabrielle?” he asked, turning back into the room. Gabrielle had not
followed him in. She was still standing in the doorway, rubbing his nose in it.
“Oh, for God’s sake! Come in. Tell me what you found out at NASA.”
“I think I’ve had enough for tonight,” she said, sounding distant. “Let’s talk
tomorrow.”
Sexton was in no mood for games. He needed this information now, and he had no
intention of begging for it. He heaved a tired sigh. Extend the bond of trust.
It’s all about trust. “I screwed up,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s been a hell of a
day. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Gabrielle remained in the doorway.
Sexton walked to his desk and set Gabrielle’s Pepsi down on his blotter. He
motioned to his leather chair—the position of power. “Have a seat. Enjoy a soda.
I’m going to go stick my head in the sink.” He headed for the bathroom.
Gabrielle still wasn’t moving.
“I think I saw a fax in the machine,” Sexton called over his shoulder as he
entered the bathroom. S how her you trust her. “Have a look at it for me, will
you?”
Sexton closed the door and filled the sink with cold water. He splashed it on
his face and felt no clearer. This had never happened to him before—being so
sure, and being so wrong. Sexton was a man who trusted his instincts, and his
instincts told him Gabrielle Ashe had been in his office.
But how? It was impossible.
Sexton told himself to forget about it and focus on the matter at hand. NASA. He
needed Gabrielle right now. This was no time to alienate her. He needed to know
what she knew. Forget your instincts. You were wrong.
As Sexton dried his face, he threw his head back and took a deep breath. Relax,
he told himself. Don’t get punchy. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply again,
feeling better.
When Sexton exited the bathroom, he was relieved to see Gabrielle had acquiesced
and come back into his office. Good, he thought. Now we can get to business.
Gabrielle was standing at his fax machine flipping through whatever pages had
come in. Sexton was confused, however, when he saw her face. It was a mask of
disorientation and fear.
“What is it?” Sexton said, moving toward her.
Gabrielle teetered, as if she were about to pass out.
“What?”
“The meteorite…” she choked, her voice frail as her trembling hand held the
stack of fax papers out to him. “And your daughter…she’s in danger.”
Bewildered, Sexton walked over, and took the fax pages from Gabrielle. The top
sheet was a handwritten note. Sexton immediately recognized the writing. The
communiqué was awkward and shocking in its simplicity.
Meteorite is fake. Here’s proof. NASA/
White House trying to kill me. Help!—RS
The senator seldom felt totally at a loss of understanding, but as he reread
Rachel’s words, he had no idea what to make of them.
The meteorite is a fake? NASA and the White House are trying to kill her?
In a deepening haze, Sexton began sifting through the half dozen sheets. The
first page was a computerized image whose heading read “Ground Penetrating Radar
(GPR).” The picture appeared to be an ice-sounding of some sort. Sexton saw the
extraction pit they had talked about on television. His eye was drawn to what
looked like the faint outline of a body floating in the shaft. Then he saw
something even more shocking—the clear outline of a second shaft directly
beneath where the meteorite had been—as if the stone had been inserted from
underneath the ice.
What in the world?
Flipping to the next page, Sexton came face-to-face with a photograph of some
sort of living ocean species called a Bathynomous giganteus. He stared in utter
amazement. That’s the animal from the meteorite fossils!
Flipping faster now, he saw a graphic display depicting the ionized hydrogen
content in the meteorite’s crust. This page had a handwritten scrawl on it:
Slush-hydrogen burn? NASA Expander Cycle Engine?
Sexton could not believe his eyes. With the room starting to spin around him, he
flipped to the final page—a photo of a rock containing metallic bubbles that
looked exactly like those in the meteorite. Shockingly, the accompanying
description said the rock was the product of oceanic volcanism. A rock from the
ocean? Sexton wondered. But NASA said chondrules form only in space!
Sexton set the sheets down on his desk and collapsed in his chair. It had taken
him only fifteen seconds to piece together everything he was looking at. The
implications of the images on the papers were crystal clear. Anyone with half a
brain could see what these photos proved.
The NASA meteorite is a fake!
No day in Sexton’s career had been filled with such extreme highs and lows.
Today had been a roller-coaster ride of hope and despair. Sexton’s bafflement
over how this enormous scam could possibly have been pulled off evaporated into
irrelevance when he realized what the scam meant for him politically.
When I go public with this information, the presidency is mine!
In his upwelling of celebration, Senator Sedgewick Sexton had momentarily
forgotten his daughter’s claim that she was in trouble.
“Rachel is in danger,” Gabrielle said. “Her note says NASA and the White House
are trying to—”
Sexton’s fax machine suddenly began ringing again. Gabrielle wheeled and stared
at the machine. Sexton found himself staring too. He could not imagine what else
Rachel could be sending him. More proof? How much more could there be? This is
plenty!
When the fax machine answered the call, however, no pages came through. The
machine, detecting no data signal, had switched to its answering machine
feature.
“Hello,” Sexton’s outbound message crackled. “This is the office of Senator
Sedgewick Sexton. If you are trying to send a fax, you may transmit at any time.
If not, you may leave a message at the tone.”
Before Sexton could pick up, the machine beeped.
“Senator Sexton?” The man’s voice had a lucid rawness to it. “This is William
Pickering, director of the National Reconnaissance Office. You’re probably not
in the office at this hour, but I need to speak immediately.” He paused as if
waiting for someone to pick up.
Gabrielle reached to pick up the receiver.
Sexton grabbed her hand and violently yanked it away.
Gabrielle looked stunned. “But that’s the director of—”
“Senator,” Pickering continued, sounding almost relieved that no one had picked
up. “I’m afraid I am calling with some very troubling news. I’ve just received
word that your daughter Rachel is in extreme danger. I have a team trying to
help her as we speak. I cannot talk in detail about the situation on the phone,
but I was just informed she may have faxed you some data relating to the NASA
meteorite. I have not seen the data, nor do I know what it is, but the people
threatening your daughter have just warned me that if you or anyone goes public
with the information, your daughter will die. I’m sorry to be so blunt, sir; I
do it for clarity’s sake. Your daughter’s life is being threatened. If she has
indeed faxed you something, do not share it with anyone. Not yet. Your
daughter’s life depends on it. Stay where you are. I will be there shortly.” He
paused. “With luck, senator, all of this will be resolved by the time you wake
up. If, by chance, you get this message before I arrive at your office, stay
where you are and call no one. I am doing everything in my power to get your
daughter back safely.”
Pickering hung up.
Gabrielle was trembling. “Rachel is a hostage?”
Sexton sensed that even in her disillusionment with him, Gabrielle felt a pained
empathy to think of a bright young woman in danger. Oddly, Sexton was having
trouble mustering the same emotions. Most of him felt like a child who had just
been given his most wanted Christmas present, and he refused to let anyone yank
it out of his hands.
Pickering wants me to be quiet about this?
He stood a moment, trying to decide what all of this meant. In a cold,
calculating side of his mind, Sexton felt the machinery beginning to turn—a
political computer, playing out every scenario and evaluating each outcome. He
glanced at the stack of faxes in his hands and began to sense the raw power of
the images. This NASA meteorite had shattered his dream of the presidency. But
it was all a lie. A construct. Now, those who did this would pay. The meteorite
that his enemies had created to destroy him would now make him powerful beyond
anyone’s wildest imagination. His daughter had seen to that.
There is only one acceptable outcome, he knew. Only one course of action for a
true leader to take.
Feeling hypnotized by the shining images of his own resurrection, Sexton was
drifting through a fog as he crossed the room. He went to his copy machine and
turned it on, preparing to copy the papers Rachel had faxed him.
“What are you doing?” Gabrielle demanded, sounding bewildered.
“They won’t kill Rachel,” Sexton declared. Even if something went wrong, Sexton
knew losing his daughter to the enemy would only make him more powerful still.
Either way he would win. Acceptable risk.
“Who are those copies for?” Gabrielle demanded. “William Pickering said not to
tell anyone!”
Sexton turned from the machine and looked at Gabrielle, amazed by how
unattractive he suddenly found her. In that instant, Senator Sexton was an
island. Untouchable. Everything he needed to accomplish his dreams was now in
his hands. Nothing could stop him now. Not claims of bribery. Not rumors of sex.
Nothing.
“Go home, Gabrielle. I have no more use for you.”
125
It’s over, Rachel thought.
She and Tolland sat side by side on the deck staring up into the barrel of the
Delta soldier’s machine gun. Unfortunately, Pickering now knew where Rachel had
sent the fax. The office of Senator Sedgewick Sexton.
Rachel doubted her father would ever receive the phone message Pickering had
just left him. Pickering could probably get to Sexton’s office well before
anyone else this morning. If Pickering could get in, quietly remove the fax, and
delete the phone message before Sexton arrived, there would be no need to harm
the senator. William Pickering was probably one of the few people in Washington
who could finagle entry to a U.S. senator’s office with no fanfare. Rachel was
always amazed at what could be accomplished “in the name of national security.”
Of course if that fails, Rachel thought, Pickering could just fly by and send a
Hellfire missile through the window and blow up the fax machine. Something told
her this would not be necessary.
Sitting close to Tolland now, Rachel was surprised to feel his hand gently slip
into hers. His touch had a tender strength, and their fingers intertwined so
naturally that Rachel felt like they’d done this for a lifetime. All she wanted
right now was to lie in his arms, sheltered from the oppressive roar of the
night sea spiraling around them.
Never, she realized. It was not to be.
Michael Tolland felt like a man who had found hope on the way to the gallows.
Life is mocking me.
For years since Celia’s death, Tolland had endured nights when he’d wanted to
die, hours of pain and loneliness that seemed only escapable by ending it all.
And yet he had chosen life, telling himself he could make it alone. Today, for
the first time, Tolland had begun to understand what his friends had been
telling him all along.
Mike, you don’t have to make it alone. You’ll find another love.
Rachel’s hand in his made this irony that much harder to swallow. Fate had cruel
timing. He felt as if layers of armor were crumbling away from his heart. For an
instant, on the tired decks of the Goya, Tolland sensed Celia’s ghost looking
over him as she often did. Her voice was in the rushing water…speaking the last
words she’d spoken to him in life.
“You’re a survivor,” her voice whispered. “Promise me you’ll find another love.”
“I’ll never want another,” Tolland had told her.
Celia’s smile was filled with wisdom. “You’ll have to learn.”
Now, on the deck of the Goya, Tolland realized, he was learning. A deep emotion
welled suddenly in his soul. He realized it was happiness.
And with it came an overpowering will to live.
Pickering felt oddly detached as he moved toward the two prisoners. He stopped
in front of Rachel, vaguely surprised that this was not harder for him.
“Sometimes,” he said, “circumstances raise impossible decisions.”
Rachel’s eyes were unyielding. “You created these circumstances.”
“War involves casualties,” Pickering said, his voice firmer now. Ask Diana
Pickering, or any of those who die every year defending this nation. “You of all
people should understand that, Rachel.” His eyes focused in on her. “Iactura
paucourm serva multos.”
He could see she recognized the words—almost a cliché in national security
circles. Sacrifice the few to save the many.
Rachel eyed him with obvious disgust. “And now Michael and I have become part of
your few?”
Pickering considered it. There was no other way. He turned to Delta-One.
“Release your partner and end this.”
Delta-One nodded.
Pickering took a long last look at Rachel and then strode to the ship’s nearby
portside railing, staring out at the sea racing by. This was something he
preferred not to watch.
Delta-One felt empowered as he gripped his weapon and glanced over at his
partner dangling in the clamps. All that remained was to close the trapdoors
beneath Delta-Two’s feet, free him from the clamps, and eliminate Rachel Sexton
and Michael Tolland.
Unfortunately, Delta-One had seen the complexity of the control panel near the
trapdoor—a series of unmarked levers and dials that apparently controlled the
trapdoor, the winch motor, and numerous other commands. He had no intention of
hitting the wrong lever and risking his partner’s life by mistakenly dropping
the sub into the sea.
Eliminate all risk. Never rush.
He would force Tolland to perform the actual release. And to ensure he did not
try anything tricky, Delta-One would take out insurance known in his business as
“biological collateral.”
Use your adversaries against one another.
Delta-One swung the gun barrel directly into Rachel’s face, stopping only inches
from her forehead. Rachel closed her eyes, and Delta-One could see Tolland’s
fists clench in a protective anger.
“Ms. Sexton, stand up,” Delta-One said.
She did.
With the gun firmly on her back, Delta-One marched her over to an aluminum set
of portable stairs that led up to the top of the Triton sub from behind. “Climb
up and stand on top of the sub.”
Rachel looked frightened and confused.
“Just do it,” Delta-One said.
Rachel felt like she was moving through a nightmare as she climbed up the
aluminum gangway behind the Triton. She stopped at the top, having no desire to
step out over the chasm onto the suspended Triton.
“Get on top of the sub,” the soldier said, returning to Tolland and pushing the
gun against his head.
In front of Rachel the soldier who was in the clamps watched her, shifting in
pain, obviously eager to get out. Rachel looked at Tolland, who now had a gun
barrel to his head. Get on top of the sub. She had no choice.
Feeling like she was edging out onto a precipice overhanging a canyon, Rachel
stepped onto the Triton’s engine casing, a small flat section behind the rounded
dome window. The entire sub hung like a massive plumb bob over the open
trapdoor. Even suspended on its winch cable, the nine-ton sub barely registered
her arrival, swinging only a few millimeters as she steadied herself.
“Okay, let’s move,” the soldier said to Tolland. “Go to the controls and close
the trapdoor.”
At gunpoint, Tolland began moving toward the control panel with the soldier
behind him. As Tolland came toward her, he was moving slowly, and Rachel could
feel his eyes fixing hard on her as if trying to send her a message. He looked
directly at her and then down at the open hatch on top of the Triton.
Rachel glanced down. The hatch at her feet was open, the heavy circular covering
propped open. She could see down into the one-seater cockpit. He wants me to get
in? Sensing she must be mistaken, Rachel looked at Tolland again. He was almost
to the control panel. Tolland’s eyes locked on her. This time he was less
subtle.
His lips mouthed, “Jump in! Now!”
Delta-One saw Rachel’s motion out of the corner of his eye and wheeled on
instinct, opening fire as Rachel fell through the sub’s hatch just below the
barrage of bullets. The open hatch covering rang out as the bullets ricocheted
off the circular portal, sending up a shower of sparks, and slamming the lid
closed on top of her.
Tolland, the instant he’d felt the gun leave his back, made his move. He dove to
his left, away from the trapdoor, hitting the deck and rolling just as the
soldier spun back toward him, gun blazing. Bullets exploded behind Tolland as he
scrambled for cover behind the ship’s stern anchor spool—an enormous motorized
cylinder around which was wound several thousand feet of steel cable connected
to the ship’s anchor.
Tolland had a plan and would have to act fast. As the soldier dashed toward him,
Tolland reached up and grabbed the anchor lock with both hands, yanking down.
Instantly the anchor spool began feeding out lengths of cable, and the Goya
lurched in the strong current. The sudden movement sent everything and everyone
on the deck staggering sidelong. As the boat accelerated in reverse on the
current, the anchor spool doled out cable faster and faster.
Come on, baby, Tolland urged.
The soldier regained his balance and came for Tolland. Waiting until the last
possible moment, Tolland braced himself and rammed the lever back up, locking
the anchor spool. The chain snapped taut, stopping the ship short and sending a
tremulous shudder throughout the Goya. Everything on deck went flying. The
soldier staggered to his knees near Tolland. Pickering fell back from the
railing onto the deck. The Triton swung wildly on its cable.
A grating howl of failing metal tore up from beneath the ship like an earthquake
as the damaged strut finally gave way. The right stern corner of the Goya began
collapsing under its own weight. The ship faltered, tilting on a diagonal like a
massive table losing one of its four legs. The noise from beneath was
deafening—a wail of twisting, grating metal and pounding surf.
White-knuckled inside the Triton cockpit, Rachel held on as the nine-ton machine
swayed over the trapdoor in the now steeply inclined deck. Through the base of
the glass dome she could see the ocean raging below. As she looked up, her eyes
scanning the deck for Tolland, she watched a bizarre drama on the deck unfold in
a matter of seconds.
Only a yard away, trapped in the Triton’s claws, the clamped Delta soldier was
howling in pain as he bobbed like a puppet on a stick. William Pickering
scrambled across Rachel’s field of vision and grabbed on to a cleat on the deck.
Near the anchor lever, Tolland was also hanging on, trying not to slide over the
edge into the water. When Rachel saw the soldier with the machine gun
stabilizing himself nearby, she called out inside the sub. “Mike, look out!”
But Delta-One ignored Tolland entirely. The soldier was looking back toward the
idling helicopter with his mouth open in horror. Rachel turned, following his
gaze. The Kiowa gunship, with its huge rotors still turning, had started to
slowly slide forward down the tipping deck. Its long metal skids were acting
like skis on a slope. It was then that Rachel realized the huge machine was
skidding directly toward the Triton.
Scrambling up the inclined deck toward the sliding aircraft, Delta-One clambered
into the cockpit. He had no intention of letting their only means of escape
slide off the deck. Delta-One seized the Kiowa’s controls and heaved back on the
stick. Lift off! With a deafening roar, the blades accelerated overhead,
straining to lift the heavily armed gunship off the deck. Up, goddamn it! The
chopper was sliding directly toward the Triton and Delta-Two suspended in its
grasp.
With its nose tipped forward, the Kiowa’s blades were also tipped, and when the
chopper lurched off the deck, it sailed more forward than up, accelerating
toward the Triton like a giant buzz saw. Up! Delta-One pulled the stick, wishing
he could drop the half ton of Hellfire warheads weighing him down. The blades
just missed the top of Delta-Two’s head and the top of the Triton sub, but the
chopper was moving too fast. It would never clear the Triton’s winch cable.
As the Kiowa’s 300-rpm steel blades collided with the sub’s fifteen-ton capacity
braided steel winch cable, the night erupted with the shriek of metal on metal.
The sounds conjured images of epic battle. From the chopper’s armored cockpit,
Delta-One watched his rotors tear into the sub’s cable like a giant lawn mower
running over a steel chain. A blinding spray of sparks erupted overhead, and the
Kiowa’s blades exploded. Delta-One felt the chopper bottom out, its struts
hitting the deck hard. He tried to control the aircraft, but he had no lift. The
chopper bounded twice down the inclined deck, then slid, crashing into the
ship’s guardrail.
For a moment, he thought the rail would hold.
Then Delta-One heard the crack. The heavily laden chopper listed over the brink,
plummeting into the sea.
Inside the Triton, Rachel Sexton sat paralyzed, her body pressed back into the
sub’s seat. The minisub had been tossed violently as the chopper’s rotor wrapped
around the cable, but she had managed to hang on. Somehow the blades had missed
the main body of the sub, but she knew there had to be major damage to the
cable. All Rachel could think of at that point was escaping from the sub as fast
as she could. The soldier trapped in the clamps stared in at her, delirious,
bleeding, and burned from the shrapnel. Beyond him, Rachel saw William Pickering
still holding on to a cleat on the slanting deck.
Where’s Michael? She didn’t see him. Her panic lasted only an instant as a new
fear descended. Overhead, the Triton’s shredded winch cable let out an ominous
whipping noise as the braids unraveled. Then, there was a loud snap, and Rachel
felt the cable give way.
Momentarily weightless, Rachel hovered above her seat inside the cockpit as the
sub hurtled downward. The deck disappeared overhead, and the catwalks under the
Goya raced by. The soldier trapped in the claws went white with fear, staring at
Rachel as the sub accelerated downward.
The fall seemed endless.
When the sub crashed into the sea beneath the Goya, it plunged hard under the
surf, ramming Rachel down hard into her seat. Her spine compressed as the
illuminated ocean raced up over the dome. She felt a suffocating drag as the sub
slowed to a stop underwater and then raced back toward the surface, bobbing up
like a cork.
The sharks hit instantly. From her front-row seat, Rachel sat frozen in place as
the spectacle unfolded only a few feet away.
Delta-Two felt the shark’s oblong head crash into him with unimaginable force. A
razor sharp clamp tightened on his upper arm, slicing to the bone and locking
on. A flash of white-hot pain exploded as the shark torqued its powerful body
and shook its head violently, tearing Delta-Two’s arm off his body. Others
sharks moved in. Knives stabbing at his legs. Torso. Neck. Delta-Two had no
breath to scream in agony as the sharks ripped huge chunks of his body away. The
last thing he saw was a crescent-shaped mouth, tilting sideways, a gorge of
teeth clamping down across his face.
The world went black.
Inside the Triton, the thudding of heavy cartilaginous heads ramming into the
dome finally subsided. Rachel opened her eyes. The man was gone. The water
washing against the window was crimson.
Badly battered, Rachel huddled in her chair, knees pulled to her chest. She
could feel the sub moving. It was drifting on the current, scraping along the
length of the Goya’s lower dive deck. She could feel it moving in another
direction as well. Down.
Outside, the distinctive gurgling of water into the ballast tanks grew louder.
The ocean inched higher on the glass in front of her.
I’m sinking!
A jolt of terror shot through Rachel, and she was suddenly scrambling to her
feet. Reaching overhead, she grabbed the hatch mechanism. If she could climb up
on top of the sub, she still had time to jump onto the Goya’s dive deck. It was
only a few feet away.
I’ve got to get out!
The hatch mechanism was clearly marked which way to turn it to open. She heaved.
The hatch did not budge. She tried again. Nothing. The portal was jammed shut.
Bent. As the fear rose in her blood like the sea around her, Rachel heaved one
last time.
The hatch did not move.
The Triton sank a few inches deeper, bumping the Goya one last time before
drifting out from underneath the mangled hull…and into the open sea.
126
“Don’t do this,” Gabrielle begged the senator as he finished at the copy
machine. “You’re risking your daughter’s life!”
Sexton blocked out her voice, moving back to his desk now with ten identical
stacks of photocopies. Each stack contained copies of the pages Rachel had faxed
him, including her handwritten note claiming the meteorite was a fake and
accusing NASA and the White House of trying to kill her.
The most shocking media kits ever assembled, Sexton thought, as he began
carefully inserting each stack into its own large, white linen envelope. Each
envelope bore his name, office address, and senatorial seal. There would be no
doubt where this incredible information had originated. The political scandal of
the century, Sexton thought, and I will be the one to reveal it!
Gabrielle was still pleading for Rachel’s safety, but Sexton heard only silence.
As he assembled the envelopes, he was in his own private world. Every political
career has a defining moment. This is mine.
William Pickering’s phone message had warned that if Sexton went public,
Rachel’s life would be in danger. Unfortunately for Rachel, Sexton also knew if
he went public with proof of NASA’s fraud, that single act of boldness would
land him in the White House with more decisiveness and political drama than ever
before witnessed in American politics.
Life is filled with difficult decisions, he thought. And winners are those who
make them.
Gabrielle Ashe had seen this look in Sexton’s eyes before. Blind ambition. She
feared it. And with good reason, she now realized. Sexton was obviously prepared
to risk his daughter in order to be the first to announce the NASA fraud.
“Don’t you see you’ve already won?” Gabrielle demanded. “There’s no way Zach
Herney and NASA will survive this scandal. No matter who makes it public! No
matter when it comes out! Wait until you know Rachel is safe. Wait until you
talk to Pickering!”
Sexton was clearly no longer listening to her. Opening his desk drawer, he
pulled out a foil sheet on which were affixed dozens of nickel-sized,
self-adhesive wax seals with his initials on them. Gabrielle knew he usually
used these for formal invitations, but he apparently thought a crimson wax seal
would give each envelope an extra touch of drama. Peeling the circular seals off
the foil, Sexton pressed one onto the pleat of each envelope, sealing it like a
monogrammed epistle.
Gabrielle’s heart pulsed now with a new anger. She thought of the digitized
images of illegal checks in his computer. If she said anything, she knew he
would just delete the evidence. “Don’t do this,” she said, “or I’ll go public
about our affair.”
Sexton laughed out loud as he affixed the wax seals. “Really? And you think
they’ll believe you—a power-hungry aide denied a post in my administration and
looking for revenge at any cost? I denied our involvement once, and the world
believed me. I’ll simply deny it again.”
“The White House has photos,” Gabrielle declared.
Sexton did not even look up. “They don’t have photos. And even if they did,
they’re meaningless.” He affixed the final wax seal. “I have immunity. These
envelopes out-trump anything anyone could possibly throw at me.”
Gabrielle knew he was right. She felt utterly helpless as Sexton admired his
handiwork. On his desk sat ten elegant, white linen envelopes, each embossed
with his name and address and secured with a crimson wax seal bearing his
scripted initials. They looked like royal letters. Certainly kings had been
crowned on account of less potent information.
Sexton picked up the envelopes and prepared to leave. Gabrielle stepped over and
blocked his way. “You’re making a mistake. This can wait.”
Sexton’s eyes bored into her. “I made you, Gabrielle, and now I’ve unmade you.”
“That fax from Rachel will give you the presidency. You owe her.”
“I’ve given her plenty.”
“What if something happens to her!”
“Then she’ll cement my sympathy vote.”
Gabrielle could not believe the thought had even crossed his mind, much less his
lips. Disgusted, she reached for the phone. “I’m calling the White—”
Sexton spun and slapped her hard across the face.
Gabrielle staggered back, feeling her lip split open. She caught herself,
grabbing on to the desk, staring up in astonishment at the man she had once
worshiped.
Sexton gave her a long, hard look. “If you so much as think of crossing me on
this, I will make you regret it for the rest of your life.” He stood
unflinching, clutching the stack of sealed envelopes under his arm. A harsh
danger burned in his eyes.
When Gabrielle exited the office building into the cold night air, her lip was
still bleeding. She hailed a taxi and climbed in. Then, for the first time since
she had come to Washington, Gabrielle Ashe broke down and cried.
127
The Triton fell…
Michael Tolland staggered to his feet on the inclined deck and peered over the
anchor spool at the frayed winch cable where the Triton used to hang. Wheeling
toward the stern, he scanned the water. The Triton was just now emerging from
under the Goya on the current. Relieved at least to see the sub intact, Tolland
eyed the hatch, wanting nothing more than to see it open up and Rachel climb out
unscathed. But the hatch remained closed. Tolland wondered if maybe she had been
knocked out by the violent fall.
Even from the deck, Tolland could see the Triton was riding exceptionally low in
the water—far below its normal diving trim waterline. It’s sinking. Tolland
could not imagine why, but the reason at the moment was immaterial.
I have to get Rachel out. Now.
As Tolland stood to dash for the edge of the deck, a shower of machine-gun fire
exploded above him, sparking off the heavy anchor spool overhead. He dropped
back to his knees. Shit! He peered around the spool only long enough to see
Pickering on the upper deck, taking aim like a sniper. The Delta soldier had
dropped his machine gun while climbing into the doomed helicopter and Pickering
had apparently recovered it. Now the director had scrambled to the high ground.
Trapped behind the spool, Tolland looked back toward the sinking Triton. Come
on, Rachel! Get out! He waited for the hatch to open. Nothing.
Looking back to the deck of the Goya, Tolland’s eyes measured the open area
between his position and the stern railing. Twenty feet. A long way without any
cover.
Tolland took a deep breath and made up his mind. Ripping off his shirt, he
hurled it to his right onto the open deck. While Pickering blew the shirt full
of holes, Tolland dashed left, down the inclined deck, banking toward the stern.
With a wild leap he launched himself over the railing, off the back of the ship.
Arcing high in the air, Tolland heard the bullets whizzing all around him and
knew a single graze would make him a shark feast the instant he hit the water.
Rachel Sexton felt like a wild animal trapped in a cage. She had tried the hatch
again and again with no luck. She could hear a tank somewhere beneath her
filling with water, and she sensed the sub gaining weight. The darkness of the
ocean was inching higher up the transparent dome, a black curtain rising in
reverse.
Through the lower half of the glass, Rachel could see the void of the ocean
beckoning like a tomb. The empty vastness beneath threatened to swallow her
whole. She grabbed the hatch mechanism and tried to twist it open one more time,
but it wouldn’t budge. Her lungs strained now, the dank stench of excess carbon
dioxide acrid in her nostrils. Through it all, one recurring thought haunted
her.
I’m going to die alone underwater.
She scanned the Triton’s control panels and levers for something that could
help, but all the indicators were black. No power. She was locked in a dead
steel crypt sinking toward the bottom of the sea.
The gurgling in the tanks seemed to be accelerating now, and the ocean rose to
within a few feet of the top of the glass. In the distance, across the endless
flat expanse, a band of crimson was inching across the horizon. Morning was on
its way. Rachel feared it would be the last light she ever saw. Closing her eyes
to block out her impending fate, Rachel felt the terrifying childhood images
rushing into her mind.
Falling through the ice. Sliding underwater.
Breathless. Unable to lift herself. Sinking.
Her mother calling for her. “Rachel! Rachel!”
A pounding on the outside of the sub jolted Rachel out of the delirium. Her eyes
snapped open.
“Rachel!” The voice was muffled. A ghostly face appeared against the glass,
upside down, dark hair swirling. She could barely make him out in the darkness.
“Michael!”
Tolland surfaced, exhaling in relief to see Rachel moving inside the sub. She’s
alive. Tolland swam with powerful strokes to the rear of the Triton and climbed
up onto the submerged engine platform. The ocean currents felt hot and leaden
around him as he positioned himself to grab the circular portal screw, staying
low and hoping he was out of range of Pickering’s gun.
The Triton’s hull was almost entirely underwater now, and Tolland knew if he
were going to open the hatch and pull Rachel out, he would have to hurry. He had
a ten-inch draw that was diminishing fast. Once the hatch was submerged, opening
it would send a torrent of seawater gushing into the Triton, trapping Rachel
inside and sending the sub into a free fall to the bottom.
“Now or never,” he gasped as he grabbed the hatch wheel and heaved it
counterclockwise. Nothing happened. He tried again, throwing all of his force
into it. Again, the hatch refused to turn.
He could hear Rachel inside, on the other side of the portal. Her voice was
stifled, but he sensed her terror. “I tried!” she shouted. “I couldn’t turn it!”
The water was lapping across the portal lid now. “Turn together!” he shouted to
her. “You’re clockwise in there!” He knew the dial was clearly marked. “Okay,
now!”
Tolland braced himself against the ballast air tanks and strained with all his
energy. He could hear Rachel below him doing the same. The dial turned a half
inch and ground to a dead stop.
Now Tolland saw it. The portal lid was not set evenly in the aperture. Like the
lid of a jar that had been placed on crooked and screwed down hard, it was
stuck. Although the rubber seal was properly set, the hatch-dogs were bent,
meaning the only way that door was opening was with a welding torch.
As the top of the sub sank below the surface, Tolland was filled with a sudden,
overwhelming dread. Rachel Sexton would not be escaping from the Triton.
Two thousand feet below, the crumpled fuselage of the bomb-laden Kiowa chopper
was sinking fast, a prisoner of gravity and the powerful drag of the deepwater
vortex. Inside the cockpit, Delta-One’s lifeless body was no longer
recognizable, disfigured by the crushing pressure of the deep.
As the aircraft spiraled downward, its Hellfire missiles still attached, the
glowing magma dome waited on the ocean floor like a red-hot landing pad. Beneath
its three-meter-thick crust, a head of boiling lava simmered at a thousand
degrees Celsius, a volcano waiting to explode.
128
Tolland stood knee-deep in water on the engine box of the sinking Triton and
searched his brain for some way to save Rachel.
Don’t let the sub sink!
He looked back toward the Goya, wondering if there were any way to get a winch
connected to the Triton to keep it near the surface. Impossible. It was fifty
yards away now, and Pickering was standing high on the bridge like a Roman
emperor with a prime seat at some bloody Colosseum spectacle.
Think! Tolland told himself. Why is the sub sinking?
The mechanics of sub buoyancy were painfully simple: ballast tanks pumped full
of either air or water adjusted the sub’s buoyancy to move it up or down in the
water.
Obviously, the ballast tanks were filling up.
But they shouldn’t be!
Every sub’s ballast tanks were equipped with holes both topside and underneath.
The lower openings, called “flooding holes,” always remained open, while the
holes on top, “vent valves,” could be opened and closed to let air escape so
water would flood in.
Maybe the Triton’s vent valves were open for some reason? Tolland could not
imagine why. He floundered across the submerged engine platform, his hands
groping one of the Triton’s ballast trim tanks. The vent valves were closed. But
as he felt the valves, his fingers found something else.
Bullet holes.
Shit! The Triton had been riddled with bullets when Rachel jumped in. Tolland
immediately dove down and swam beneath the sub, running his hand carefully
across the Triton’s more important ballast tank—the negative tank. The Brits
called this tank “the down express.” The Germans called it “putting on lead
shoes.” Either way, the meaning was clear. The negative tank, when filled, took
the sub down.
As Tolland’s hand felt the sides of the tank, he encountered dozens of bullet
holes. He could feel the water rushing in. The Triton was preparing to dive,
whether Tolland liked it or not.
The sub was now three feet beneath the surface. Moving to the bow, Tolland
pressed his face against the glass and peered through the dome. Rachel was
banging on the glass and shouting. The fear in her voice made him feel
powerless. For an instant he was back in a cold hospital, watching the woman he
loved die and knowing there was nothing he could do. Hovering underwater in
front of the sinking sub, Tolland told himself he could not endure this again.
You’re a survivor, Celia had told him, but Tolland did not want to survive
alone…not again.
Tolland’s lungs ached for air and yet he stayed right there with her. Every time
Rachel pounded on the glass, Tolland heard air bubbles gurgling up and the sub
sank deeper. Rachel was yelling something about water coming in around the
window.
The viewing window was leaking.
A bullet hole in the window? It seemed doubtful. His lungs ready to burst,
Tolland prepared to surface. As he palmed upward across the huge acrylic window,
his fingers hit a piece of loose rubber caulking. A peripheral seal had
apparently been jarred in the fall. This was the reason the cockpit was leaking.
More bad news.
Clambering to the surface, Tolland sucked in three deep breaths, trying to clear
his thoughts. Water flowing into the cockpit would only accelerate the Triton’s
descent. The sub was already five feet underwater, and Tolland could barely
touch it with his feet. He could feel Rachel pounding desperately on the hull.
Tolland could think of only one thing to do. If he dove down to the Triton’s
engine box and located the high-pressure air cylinder, he could use it to blow
the negative ballast tank. Although blowing the damaged tank would be an
exercise in futility, it might keep the Triton near the surface for another
minute or so before the perforated tanks flooded again.
Then what?
With no other immediate option, Tolland prepared to dive. Pulling in an
exceptionally deep breath, he expanded his lungs well beyond their natural
state, almost to the point of pain. More lung capacity. More oxygen. Longer
dive. But as he felt his lungs expand, pressuring his rib cage, a strange
thought hit him.
What if he increased the pressure inside the sub? The viewing dome had a damaged
seal. Maybe if Tolland could increase the pressure inside the cockpit, he could
blow the entire viewing dome off the sub and get Rachel out.
He exhaled his breath, treading water on the surface a moment, trying to picture
the feasibility. It was perfectly logical, wasn’t it? After all, a submarine was
built to be strong in only one direction. They had to withstand enormous
pressure from the outside, but almost none from within.
Moreover, the Triton used uniform regulator valves to decrease the number of
spare parts the Goya had to carry. Tolland could simply unsnap the high pressure
cylinder’s charging hose and reroute it into an emergency ventilation supply
regulator on the port side of the sub! Pressurizing the cabin would cause Rachel
substantial physical pain, but it might just give her a way out.
Tolland inhaled and dove.
The sub was a good eight feet down now, and the currents and darkness made
orienting himself difficult. Once he found the pressurized tank, Tolland quickly
rerouted the hose and prepared to pump air into the cockpit. As he gripped the
stopcock, the reflective yellow paint on the side of the tank reminded him just
how dangerous this maneuver was: CAUTION: COMPRESSED AIR—3,000 PSI.
Three thousand pounds per square inch, Tolland thought. The hope was that the
Triton’s viewing dome would pop off the sub before the pressure in the cabin
crushed Rachel’s lungs. Tolland was essentially sticking a high-powered fire
hose into a water balloon and praying the balloon would break in a hurry.
He grabbed the stopcock and made up his mind. Suspended there on the back of the
sinking Triton, Tolland turned the stopcock, opening the valve. The hose went
rigid immediately, and Tolland could hear the air flooding the cockpit with
enormous force.
Inside the Triton, Rachel felt a sudden searing pain slice into her head. She
opened her mouth to scream, but the air forced itself into her lungs with such
painful pressure that she thought her chest would explode. Her eyes felt like
they were being rammed backward into her skull. A deafening rumble tore through
her eardrums, pushing her toward unconsciousness. Instinctively, she clenched
her eyes tight and pressed her hands over her ears. The pain was increasing now.
Rachel heard a pounding directly in front of her. She forced her eyes open just
long enough to see the watery silhouette of Michael Tolland in the darkness. His
face was against the glass. He was motioning for her to do something.
But what?
She could barely see him in the darkness. Her vision was blurred, her eyeballs
distorted from the pressure. Even so, she could tell the sub had sunk beyond the
last flickering fingers of the Goya’s underwater lights. Around her was only an
endless inky abyss.
Tolland spread himself against the window of the Triton and kept banging. His
chest burned for air, and he knew he would have to return to the surface in a
matter of seconds.
Push on the glass! he willed her. He could hear pressurized air escaping around
the glass, bubbling up. Somewhere, the seal was loose. Tolland’s hands groped
for an edge, something to get his fingers under. Nothing.
As his oxygen ran out, tunnel vision closed in, and he banged on the glass one
last time. He could not even see her anymore. It was too dark. With the last of
the air in his lungs, he yelled out underwater.
“Rachel…push…on…the…glass!”
His words came out as a bubbling, muted garble.
129
Inside the Triton, Rachel’s head felt like it was being compressed in some kind
of medieval torture vise. Half-standing, stooped beside the cockpit chair, she
could feel death closing in around her. Directly in front of her, the
hemispherical viewing dome was empty. Dark. The banging had stopped.
Tolland was gone. He had left her.
The hiss of pressurized air blasting in overhead reminded her of the deafening
katabatic wind on Milne. The floor of the sub had a foot of water on it now. Let
me out! Thousands of thoughts and memories began streaming through her mind like
flashes of violet light.
In the darkness, the sub began to list, and Rachel staggered, losing her
balance. Stumbling over the seat, she fell forward, colliding hard with the
inside of the hemispherical dome. A sharp pain erupted in her shoulder. She
landed in a heap against the window, and as she did, she felt an unexpected
sensation—a sudden decrease in the pressure inside the sub. The tightened drum
of Rachel’s ears loosened perceptibly, and she actually heard a gurgle of air
escape the sub.
It took her an instant to realize what had just happened. When she’d fallen
against the dome, her weight had somehow forced the bulbous sheet outward enough
for some of the internal pressure to be released around a seal. Obviously, the
dome glass was loose! Rachel suddenly realized what Tolland had been trying to
do by increasing the pressure inside.
He’s trying to blow out the window!
Overhead, the Triton’s pressure cylinder continued to pump. Even as she lay
there, she felt the pressure increasing again. This time she almost welcomed it,
although she felt the suffocating grip pushing her dangerously close to
unconsciousness. Scrambling to her feet, Rachel pressed outward with all her
force on the inside of the glass.
This time, there was no gurgle. The glass barely moved.
She threw her weight against the window again. Nothing. Her shoulder wound
ached, and she looked down at it. The blood was dry. She prepared to try again,
but she did not have time. Without warning, the crippled sub began to
tip—backward. As its heavy engine box overcame the flooded trim tanks, the
Triton rolled onto its back, sinking rear-first now.
Rachel fell onto her back against the cockpit’s rear wall. Half submerged in
sloshing water, she stared straight up at the leaking dome, hovering over her
like a giant skylight.
Outside was only night…and thousands of tons of ocean pressing down.
Rachel willed herself to get up, but her body felt dead and heavy. Again her
mind reeled backward in time to the icy grip of a frozen river.
“Fight, Rachel!” her mother was shouting, reaching down to pull her out of the
water. “Grab on!”
Rachel closed her eyes. I’m sinking. Her skates felt like lead weights, dragging
her down. She could see her mother lying spread-eagle on the ice to disperse her
own weight, reaching out.
“Kick, Rachel! Kick with your feet!”
Rachel kicked as best as she could. Her body rose slightly in the icy hole. A
spark of hope. Her mother grabbed on.
“Yes!” her mother shouted. “Help me lift you! Kick with your feet!”
With her mother pulling from above, Rachel used the last of her energy to kick
with her skates. It was just enough, and her mother dragged Rachel up to safety.
She dragged the soaking Rachel all the way to the snowy bank before collapsing
in tears.
Now, inside the growing humidity and heat of the sub, Rachel opened her eyes to
the blackness around her. She heard her mother whispering from the grave, her
voice clear even here in the sinking Triton.
Kick with your feet.
Rachel looked up at the dome overhead. Mustering the last of her courage, Rachel
clambered up onto the cockpit chair, which was oriented almost horizontally now,
like a dental chair. Lying on her back, Rachel bent her knees, pulled her legs
back as far as she could, aimed her feet upward, and exploded forward. With a
wild scream of desperation and force, she drove her feet into the center of the
acrylic dome. Spikes of pain shot into her shins, sending her brain reeling. Her
ears thundered suddenly, and she felt the pressure equalize with a violent rush.
The seal on the left side of the dome gave way, and the huge lens partially
dislodged, swinging open like a barn door.
A torrent of water crashed into the sub and drove Rachel back into her chair.
The ocean thundered in around her, swirling up under her back, lifting her now
off the chair, tossing her upside down like a sock in a washing machine. Rachel
groped blindly for something to hold on to, but she was spinning wildly. As the
cockpit filled, she could feel the sub begin a rapid free fall for the bottom.
Her body rammed upward in the cockpit, and she felt herself pinned. A rush of
bubbles erupted around her, twisting her, dragging her to the left and upward. A
flap of hard acrylic smashed into her hip.
All at once she was free.
Twisting and tumbling into the endless warmth and watery blackness, Rachel felt
her lungs already aching for air. Get to the surface! She looked for light but
saw nothing. Her world looked the same in all directions. Blackness. No gravity.
No sense of up or down.
In that terrifying instant, Rachel realized she had no idea which way to swim.
Thousands of feet beneath her, the sinking Kiowa chopper crumpled beneath the
relentlessly increasing pressure. The fifteen high-explosive, antitank AGM-114
Hellfire missiles still aboard strained against the compression, their copper
liner cones and spring-detonation heads inching perilously inward.
A hundred feet above the ocean floor, the powerful shaft of the megaplume
grabbed the remains of the chopper and sucked it downward, hurling it against
the red-hot crust of the magma dome. Like a box of matches igniting in series,
the Hellfire missiles exploded, tearing a gaping hole through the top of the
magma dome.
Having surfaced for air, and then dove again in desperation, Michael Tolland was
suspended fifteen feet underwater scanning the blackness when the Hellfire
missiles exploded. The white flash billowed upward, illuminating an astonishing
image—a freeze-frame he would remember forever.
Rachel Sexton hung ten feet below him like a tangled marionette in the water.
Beneath her, the Triton sub fell away fast, its dome hanging loose. The sharks
in the area scattered for the open sea, clearly sensing the danger this area was
about to unleash.
Tolland’s exhilaration at seeing Rachel out of the sub was instantly vanquished
by the realization of what was about to follow. Memorizing her position as the
light disappeared, Tolland dove hard, clawing his way toward her.
Thousands of feet down, the shattered crust of the magma dome exploded apart,
and the underwater volcano erupted, spewing twelve-hundred-degree-Celsius magma
up into the sea. The scorching lava vaporized all the water it touched, sending
a massive pillar of steam rocketing toward the surface up the central axis of
the megaplume. Driven by the same kinematic properties of fluid dynamics that
powered tornadoes, the steam’s vertical transfer of energy was counterbalanced
by an anticyclonic vorticity spiral that circled the shaft, carrying energy in
the opposite direction.
Spiraling around this column of rising gas, the ocean currents started
intensifying, twisting downward. The fleeing steam created an enormous vacuum
that sucked millions of gallons of seawater downward into contact with the
magma. As the new water hit bottom, it too turned into steam and needed a way to
escape, joining the growing column of exhaust steam and shooting upward, pulling
more water in beneath it. As more water rushed in to take its place, the vortex
intensified. The hydrothermal plume elongated, and the towering whirlpool grew
stronger with every passing second, its upper rim moving steadily toward the
surface.
An oceanic black hole had just been born.
Rachel felt like a child in a womb. Hot, wet darkness all engulfing her. Her
thoughts were muddled in the inky warmth. Breathe. She fought the reflex. The
flash of light she had seen could only have come from the surface, and yet it
seemed so far away. An illusion. Get to the surface. Weakly, Rachel began
swimming in the direction where she had seen the light. She saw more light
now…an eerie red glow in the distance. Daylight? She swam harder.
A hand caught her by the ankle.
Rachel half-screamed underwater, almost exhaling the last of her air.
The hand pulled her backward, twisting her, pointing her back in the opposite
direction. Rachel felt a familiar hand grasp hers. Michael Tolland was there,
pulling her along with him the other way.
Rachel’s mind said he was taking her down. Her heart said he knew what he was
doing.
Kick with your feet, her mother’s voice whispered.
Rachel kicked as hard as she could.
130
Even as Tolland and Rachel broke the surface, he knew it was over. The magma
dome erupted. As soon as the top of the vortex reached the surface, the giant
underwater tornado would begin pulling everything down. Strangely, the world
above the surface was not the quiet dawn he had left only moments ago. The noise
was deafening. Wind slashed at him as if some kind of storm had hit while he was
underwater.
Tolland felt delirious from lack of oxygen. He tried to support Rachel in the
water, but she was being pulled from his arms. The current! Tolland tried to
hold on, but the invisible force pulled harder, threatening to tear her from
him. Suddenly, his grip slipped, and Rachel’s body slid through his arms—but
upward.
Bewildered, Tolland watched Rachel’s body rise out of the water.
Overhead, the Coast Guard Osprey tilt-rotor airplane hovered and winched Rachel
in. Twenty minutes ago, the Coast Guard had gotten a report of an explosion out
at sea. Having lost track of the Dolphin helicopter that was supposed to be in
the area, they feared an accident. They typed the chopper’s last known
coordinates into their navigation system and hoped for the best.
About a half mile from the illuminated Goya, they saw a field of burning
wreckage drifting on the current. It looked like a speedboat. Nearby, a man was
in the water, waving his arms wildly. They winched him in. He was stark
naked—all except for one leg, which was covered with duct tape.
Exhausted, Tolland looked up at the underbelly of the thundering tilt-rotor
airplane. Deafening gusts pounded down off its horizontal propellers. As Rachel
rose on a cable, numerous sets of hands pulled her into the fuselage. As Tolland
watched her dragged to safety, his eyes spotted a familiar man crouched
half-naked in the doorway.
Corky? Tolland’s heart soared. You’re alive!
Immediately, the harness fell from the sky again. It landed ten feet away.
Tolland wanted to swim for it, but he could already feel the sucking sensation
of the plume. The relentless grip of the sea wrapped around him, refusing to let
go.
The current pulled him under. He fought toward the surface, but the exhaustion
was overwhelming. You’re a survivor, someone was saying. He kicked his legs,
clawing toward the surface. When he broke through into the pounding wind, the
harness was still out of reach. The current strained to drag him under. Looking
up into the torrent of swirling wind and noise, Tolland saw Rachel. She was
staring down, her eyes willing him up toward her.
It took Tolland four powerful strokes to reach the harness. With his last ounce
of strength, he slid his arm and head up into the loop and collapsed.
All at once the ocean was falling away beneath him.
Tolland looked down just as the gaping vortex opened. The megaplume had finally
reached the surface.
• • •
William Pickering stood on the bridge of the Goya and watched in dumbstruck awe
as the spectacle unfolded all around him. Off the starboard of the Goya’s stern,
a huge basinlike depression was forming on the surface of the sea. The whirlpool
was hundreds of yards across and expanding fast. The ocean spiraled into it,
racing with an eerie smoothness over the lip. All around him now, a guttural
moan reverberated out of the depths. Pickering’s mind was blank as he watched
the hole expanding toward him like the gaping mouth of some epic god hungry for
sacrifice.
I’m dreaming, Pickering thought.
Suddenly, with an explosive hiss that shattered the windows of the Goya’s
bridge, a towering plume of steam erupted skyward out of the vortex. A colossal
geyser climbed overhead, thundering, its apex disappearing into the darkened
sky.
Instantly, the funnel walls steepened, the perimeter expanding faster now,
chewing across the ocean toward him. The stern of the Goya swung hard toward the
expanding cavity. Pickering lost his balance and fell to his knees. Like a child
before God, he gazed downward into the growing abyss.
His final thoughts were for his daughter, Diana. He prayed she had not known
fear like this when she died.
The concussion wave from the escaping steam hurled the Osprey sideways. Tolland
and Rachel held each other as the pilots recovered, banking low over the doomed
Goya. Looking out, they could see William Pickering—the Quaker—kneeling in his
black coat and tie at the upper railing of the doomed ship.
As the stern fishtailed out over the brink of the massive twister, the anchor
cable finally snapped. With its bow proudly in the air, the Goya slipped
backward over the watery ledge, sucked down the steep spiraling wall of water.
Her lights were still glowing as she disappeared beneath the sea.
131
The Washington morning was clear and crisp.
A breeze sent eddies of leaves skittering around the base of the Washington
Monument. The world’s largest obelisk usually awoke to its own peaceful image in
the reflecting pool, but today the morning brought with it a chaos of jostling
reporters, all crowding around the monument’s base in anticipation.
Senator Sedgewick Sexton felt larger than Washington itself as he stepped from
his limousine and strode like a lion toward the press area awaiting him at the
base of the monument. He had invited the nation’s ten largest media networks
here and promised them the scandal of the decade.
Nothing brings out the vultures like the smell of death, Sexton thought.
In his hand, Sexton clutched the stack of white linen envelopes, each elegantly
wax-embossed with his monogrammed seal. If information was power, then Sexton
was carrying a nuclear warhead.
He felt intoxicated as he approached the podium, pleased to see his improvised
stage included two “fameframes”—large, free-standing partitions that flanked his
podium like navy-blue curtains—an old Ronald Reagan trick to ensure he stood out
against any backdrop.
Sexton entered stage right, striding out from behind the partition like an actor
out of the wings. The reporters quickly took their seats in the several rows of
folding chairs facing his podium. To the east, the sun was just breaking over
the Capitol dome, shooting rays of pink and gold down on Sexton like rays from
heaven.
A perfect day to become the most powerful man in the world.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” Sexton said, laying the envelopes on the
lectern before him. “I will make this as short and painless as possible. The
information I am about to share with you is, frankly, quite disturbing. These
envelopes contain proof of a deceit at the highest levels of government. I am
ashamed to say that the President called me half an hour ago and begged me—yes,
begged me—not to go public with this evidence.” He shook his head with dismay.
“And yet, I am a man who believes in the truth. No matter how painful.”
Sexton paused, holding up the envelopes, tempting the seated crowd. The
reporters’ eyes followed the envelopes back and forth, a pack of dogs salivating
over some unknown delicacy.
The President had called Sexton a half hour ago and explained everything. Herney
had talked to Rachel, who was safely aboard a plane somewhere. Incredibly, it
seemed the White House and NASA were innocent bystanders in this fiasco, a plot
masterminded by William Pickering.
Not that it matters, Sexton thought. Zach Herney is still going down hard.
Sexton wished he could be a fly on the wall of the White House right now to see
the President’s face when he realized Sexton was going public. Sexton had agreed
to meet Herney at the White House right now to discuss how best to tell the
nation the truth about the meteorite. Herney was probably standing in front of a
television at this very moment in dumbfounded shock, realizing that there was
nothing the White House could do to stop the hand of fate.
“My friends,” Sexton said, letting his eyes connect with the crowd. “I have
weighed this heavily. I have considered honoring the President’s desire to keep
this data secret, but I must do what is in my heart.” Sexton sighed, hanging his
head like a man trapped by history. “The truth is the truth. I will not presume
to color your interpretation of these facts in any way. I will simply give you
the data at face value.”
In the distance, Sexton heard the beating of huge helicopter rotors. For a
moment, he wondered if maybe the President were flying over from the White House
in a panic, hoping to halt the press conference. That would be the icing on the
cake, Sexton thought mirthfully. How guilty would Herney appear THEN?
“I do not take pleasure in doing this,” Sexton continued, sensing his timing was
perfect. “But I feel it is my duty to let the American people know they have
been lied to.”
The aircraft thundered in, touching down on the esplanade to their right. When
Sexton glanced over, he was surprised to see it was not the presidential
helicopter after all, but rather a large Osprey tilt-rotor airplane.
The fuselage read: UNITED STATES COAST GUARD.
Baffled, Sexton watched as the cabin door opened and a woman emerged. She wore
an orange Coast Guard parka and looked disheveled, like she’d been through a
war. She strode toward the press area. For a moment, Sexton didn’t recognize
her. Then it hit him.
Rachel? He gaped in shock. What the hell is SHE doing here?
A murmur of confusion went through the crowd.
Pasting a broad smile on his face, Sexton turned back to the press and raised an
apologetic finger. “If you could give me just one minute? I’m terribly sorry.”
He heaved the weary, good-natured sigh. “Family first.”
A few of the reporters laughed.
With his daughter bearing down fast from his right, Sexton had no doubt this
father-daughter reunion would best be held in private. Unfortunately, privacy
was scarce at the moment. Sexton’s eyes darted to the large partition on his
right.
Still smiling calmly, Sexton waved to his daughter and stepped away from the
microphone. Moving toward her at an angle, he maneuvered such that Rachel had to
pass behind the partition to get to him. Sexton met her halfway, hidden from the
eyes and ears of the press.
“Honey?” he said, smiling and opening his arms as Rachel came toward him. “What
a surprise!”
Rachel walked up and slapped his face.
Alone with her father now, ensconced behind the partition, Rachel glared with
loathing. She had slapped him hard, but he barely flinched. With chilling
control, his phony smile melted away, mutating into an admonishing glower.
His voice turned to a demonic whisper. “You should not be here.”
Rachel saw wrath in his eyes and for the first time in her life felt unafraid.
“I turned to you for help, and you sold me out! I was almost killed!”
“You’re obviously fine.” His tone was almost disappointed.
“NASA is innocent!” she said. “The President told you that! What are you doing
here?” Rachel’s short flight to Washington aboard the Coast Guard Osprey had
been punctuated by a flurry of phone calls between herself, the White House, her
father, and even a distraught Gabrielle Ashe. “You promised Zach Herney you were
going to the White House!”
“I am.” He smirked. “On election day.”
Rachel felt sickened to think this man was her father. “What you’re about to do
is madness.”
“Oh?” Sexton chuckled. He turned and motioned behind him to the podium, which
was visible at the end of the partition. On the podium, a stack of white
envelopes sat waiting. “Those envelopes contain information you sent me, Rachel.
You. The President’s blood is on your hands.”
“I faxed you that information when I needed your help! When I thought the
President and NASA were guilty!”
“Considering the evidence, NASA certainly appears guilty.”
“But they are not! They deserve a chance to admit their own mistakes. You’ve
already won this election. Zach Herney is finished! You know that. Let the man
retain some dignity.”
Sexton groaned. “So naïve. It’s not about winning the election, Rachel, it’s
about power. It’s about decisive victory, acts of greatness, crushing
opposition, and con-trolling the forces in Washington so you can get something
done.”
“At what cost?”
“Don’t be so self-righteous. I’m simply presenting the evidence. The people can
draw their own conclusions as to who is guilty.”
“You know how this will look.”
He shrugged. “Maybe NASA’s time has come.”
Senator Sexton sensed the press was getting restless beyond the partition, and
he had no intention of standing here all morning and being lectured by his
daughter. His moment of glory was waiting.
“We’re through here,” he said. “I have a press conference to give.”
“I’m asking you as your daughter,” Rachel pleaded. “Don’t do this. Think about
what you’re about to do. There’s a better way.”
“Not for me.”
A howl of feedback echoed out of the PA system behind him, and Sexton wheeled to
see a late-arriving female reporter, huddled over his podium, attempting to
attach a network microphone to one of the goose-neck clips.
Why can’t these idiots arrive on time? Sexton fumed.
In her haste, the reporter knocked Sexton’s stack of envelopes to the ground.
Goddamn it! Sexton marched over, cursing his daughter for distracting him. When
he arrived, the woman was on her hands and knees, collecting the envelopes off
the ground. Sexton couldn’t see her face, but she was obviously
“network”—wearing a full-length cashmere coat, matching scarf, and low-slung
mohair beret with an ABC press pass clipped to it.
Stupid bitch, Sexton thought. “I’ll take those,” he snapped, holding out his
hand for the envelopes.
The woman scraped up the last of the envelopes and handed them up to Sexton
without looking up. “Sorry…,” she muttered, obviously embarrassed. Hunkering low
in shame, she scurried off into the crowd.
Sexton quickly counted the envelopes. Ten. Good. Nobody was going to steal his
thunder today. Regrouping, he adjusted the microphones and gave a joking smile
to the crowd. “I guess I’d better hand these out before someone gets hurt!”
The crowd laughed, looking eager.
Sexton sensed his daughter nearby, standing just off-stage behind the partition.
“Don’t do this,” Rachel said to him. “You’ll regret it.”
Sexton ignored her.
“I’m asking you to trust me,” Rachel said, her voice growing louder. “It’s a
mistake.”
Sexton picked up his envelopes, straightening the edges.
“Dad,” Rachel said, intense and pleading now. “This is your last chance to do
what’s right.”
Do what’s right? Sexton covered the microphone and turned as if clearing his
throat. He glanced discreetly over at his daughter. “You’re just like your
mother—idealistic and small. Women simply do not understand the true nature of
power.”
Sedgewick Sexton had already forgotten his daughter by the time he turned back
toward the jostling media. Head held high, he walked around the podium and
handed the stack of envelopes into the hands of the waiting press. He watched
the envelopes disseminate rapidly through the crowd. He could hear the seals
being broken, the envelopes being torn apart like Christmas presents.
A sudden hush came over the crowd.
In the silence, Sexton could hear the defining moment of his career.
The meteorite is a fraud. And I am the man who revealed it.
Sexton knew it would take the press a moment to understand the true implications
of what they were looking at: GPR images of an insertion shaft in the ice; a
living ocean species almost identical to the NASA fossils; evidence of
chondrules that formed on earth. It all led to one shocking conclusion.
“Sir?” one reporter stammered, sounding stunned as he looked in his envelope.
“Is this for real?”
Sexton gave a somber sigh. “Yes, I’m afraid it’s very real indeed.”
Murmurs of confusion now spread through the crowd.
“I’ll give everyone a moment to look through these pages,” Sexton said, “and
then I’ll take questions and attempt to shed some light on what you’re looking
at.”
“Senator?” another reporter asked, sounding utterly bewildered. “Are these
images authentic?…Unretouched?”
“One hundred percent,” Sexton said, speaking more firmly now. “I would not
present the evidence to you otherwise.”
The confusion in the crowd seemed to deepen, and Sexton thought he even heard
some laughter—not at all the reaction he had expected. He was starting to fear
he had overestimated the media’s ability to connect the obvious dots.
“Um, senator?” someone said, sounding oddly amused. “For the record, you stand
behind the authenticity of these images?”
Sexton was getting frustrated. “My friends, I will say this one last time, the
evidence in your hands is one-hundred-percent accurate. And if anyone can prove
otherwise, I’ll eat my hat!”
Sexton waited for the laugh, but it never came.
Dead silence. Blank stares.
The reporter who had just spoken walked toward Sexton, shuffling through his
photocopies as he came forward. “You’re right, senator. This is scandalous
data.” The reporter paused, scratching his head. “So I guess we’re puzzled as to
why you’ve decided to share it with us like this, especially after denying it so
vehemently earlier.”
Sexton had no idea what the man was talking about. The reporter handed him the
photocopies. Sexton looked at the pages—and for a moment, his mind went totally
blank.
No words came.
He was staring at unfamiliar photographs. Black-and-white images. Two people.
Naked. Arms and legs intertwined. For an instant, Sexton had no idea what he was
looking at. Then it registered. A cannonball to the gut.
In horror, Sexton’s head snapped up to the crowd. They were laughing now. Half
of them were already phoning in the story to their news desks.
Sexton felt a tap on his shoulder.
In a daze, he wheeled.
Rachel was standing there. “We tried to stop you,” she said. “We gave you every
chance.” A woman stood beside her.
Sexton was trembling as his eyes moved to the woman at Rachel’s side. She was
the reporter in the cashmere coat and mohair beret—the woman who had knocked
over his envelopes. Sexton saw her face, and his blood turned to ice.
Gabrielle’s dark eyes seemed to bore right through him as she reached down and
opened her coat to reveal a stack of white envelopes tucked neatly beneath her
arm.
132
The Oval Office was dark, lit only by the soft glow of the brass lamp on
President Herney’s desk. Gabrielle Ashe held her chin high as she stood before
the President. Outside the window behind him, dusk was gathering on the west
lawn.
“I hear you’re leaving us,” Herney said, sounding disappointed.
Gabrielle nodded. Although the President had graciously offered her indefinite
sanctuary inside the White House away from the press, Gabrielle preferred not to
ride out this particular storm by hiding out in the eye. She wanted to be as far
away as possible. At least for a while.
Herney gazed across his desk at her, looking impressed. “The choice you made
this morning, Gabrielle…” He paused, as if at a loss for words. His eyes were
simple and clear—nothing compared to the deep, enigmatic pools that had once
drawn Gabrielle to Sedgewick Sexton. And yet, even in the backdrop of this
powerful place, Gabrielle saw true kindness in his gaze, an honor and dignity
she would not soon forget.
“I did it for me, too,” Gabrielle finally said.
Herney nodded. “I owe you my thanks all the same.” He stood, motioning for her
to follow him into the hall. “I was actually hoping you’d stick around long
enough that I could offer you a post on my budgeting staff.”
Gabrielle gave him a dubious look. “Stop spending and start mending?”
He chuckled. “Something like that.”
“I think we both know, sir, that I’m more of a liability to you at the moment
than an asset.”
Herney shrugged. “Give it a few months. It will all blow over. Plenty of great
men and women have endured similar situations and gone on to greatness.” He
winked. “A few of them were even U.S. presidents.”
Gabrielle knew he was right. Unemployed for only hours, Gabrielle had already
turned down two other job offers today—one from Yolanda Cole at ABC, and the
other from St. Martin’s Press, who had offered her an obscene advance if she
would publish a tell-all biography. No thanks.
As Gabrielle and the President moved down the hallway, Gabrielle thought of the
pictures of herself that were now being splashed across televisions.
The damage to the country could have been worse, she told herself. Much worse.
Gabrielle, after going to ABC to retrieve the photos and borrow Yolanda Cole’s
press pass, had snuck back to Sexton’s office to assemble the duplicate
envelopes. While inside, she had also printed copies of the donation checks in
Sexton’s computer. After the confrontation at the Washington Monument, Gabrielle
had handed copies of the checks to the dumbstruck Senator Sexton and made her
demands. Give the President a chance to announce his meteorite mistake, or the
rest of this data goes public too. Senator Sexton took one look at the stack of
financial evidence, locked himself in his limousine, and drove off. He had not
been heard from since.
Now, as the President and Gabrielle arrived at the backstage door of the
Briefing Room, Gabrielle could hear the waiting throngs beyond. For the second
time in twenty-four hours, the world was assembled to hear a special
presidential broadcast.
“What are you going to tell them?” Gabrielle asked.
Herney sighed, his expression remarkably calm. “Over the years, I’ve learned one
thing over and over…” He put a hand on her shoulder and smiled. “There’s just no
substitute for the truth.”
Gabrielle was filled with an unexpected pride as she watched him stride toward
the stage. Zach Herney was on his way to admit the biggest mistake of his life,
and oddly, he had never looked more presidential.
133
When Rachel awoke, the room was dark.
A clock glowed 10:14 P.M. The bed was not her own. For several moments, she lay
motionless, wondering where she was. Slowly, it all started coming back…the
megaplume…this morning at the Washington Monument…the President’s invitation to
stay at the White House.
I’m at the White House, Rachel realized. I slept here all day.
The Coast Guard chopper, at the President’s command, had transported an
exhausted Michael Tolland, Corky Marlinson, and Rachel Sexton from the
Washington Monument to the White House, where they had been fed a sumptuous
breakfast, been seen to by doctors, and been offered any of the building’s
fourteen bedrooms in which to recuperate.
All of them had accepted.
Rachel could not believe she had slept this long. Turning on the television, she
was stunned to see that President Herney had already completed his press
conference. Rachel and the others had offered to stand beside him when he
announced the meteorite disappointment to the world. We all made the mistake
together. But Herney had insisted on shouldering the burden alone.
“Sadly,” one political analyst on TV was saying, “it seems NASA has discovered
no signs of life from space after all. This marks the second time this decade
that NASA has incorrectly classified a meteorite as showing signs of
extraterrestrial life. This time, however, a number of highly respected
civilians were also among those fooled.”
“Normally,” a second analyst chimed in, “I would have to say that a deception of
the magnitude the President described this evening would be devastating for his
career…and yet, considering the developments this morning at the Washington
Monument, I would have to say Zach Herney’s chances of taking the presidency
look better than ever.”
The first analyst nodded. “So, no life in space, but no life in Senator Sexton’s
campaign either. And now, as new information surfaces suggesting deep financial
troubles plaguing the senator—”
A knock on the door drew Rachel’s attention.
Michael, she hoped, quickly turning off the television. She hadn’t seen him
since breakfast. On their arrival at the White House, Rachel had wanted nothing
more than to fall asleep in his arms. Although she could tell Michael felt the
same, Corky had intervened, parking himself on Tolland’s bed and exuberantly
telling and retelling his story about urinating on himself and saving the day.
Finally, utterly exhausted, Rachel and Tolland had given up, heading for
separate bedrooms to sleep.
Now, walking toward the door, Rachel checked herself in the mirror, amused to
see how ridiculously she was dressed. All she had found to wear to bed was an
old Penn State football jersey in the dresser. It draped down to her knees like
a nightshirt.
The knocking continued.
Rachel opened the door, disappointed to see a female U.S. Secret Service agent.
She was fit and cute, wearing a blue blazer. “Ms. Sexton, the gentleman in the
Lincoln Bedroom heard your television. He asked me to tell you that as long as
you’re already awake…” She paused, arching her eyebrows, clearly no stranger to
night games on the upper floors of the White House.
Rachel blushed, her skin tingling. “Thanks.”
The agent led Rachel down the impeccably appointed hallway to a plain-looking
doorway nearby.
“The Lincoln Bedroom,” the agent said. “And as I am always supposed to say
outside this door, ‘Sleep well, and beware of ghosts.’”
Rachel nodded. The legends of ghosts in the Lincoln Bedroom were as old as the
White House itself. It was said that Winston Churchill had seen Lincoln’s ghost
here, as had countless others, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Amy Carter, actor
Richard Dreyfuss, and decades of maids and butlers. President Reagan’s dog was
said to bark outside this door for hours at a time.
The thoughts of historical spirits suddenly made Rachel realize what a sacred
place this room was. She felt suddenly embarrassed, standing there in her long
football jersey, bare-legged, like some college coed sneaking into a boy’s room.
“Is this kosher?” she whispered to the agent. “I mean this is the Lincoln
Bedroom.”
The agent winked. “Our policy on this floor is ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’”
Rachel smiled. “Thanks.” She reached for the door-knob, already feeling the
anticipation of what lay beyond.
“Rachel!” The nasal voice carried down the hallway like a buzz saw.
Rachel and the agent turned. Corky Marlinson was hobbling toward them on
crutches, his leg now professionally bandaged. “I couldn’t sleep either!”
Rachel slumped, sensing her romantic tryst about to disintegrate.
Corky’s eyes inspected the cute Secret Service agent. He flashed her a broad
smile. “I love women in uniform.”
The agent pulled aside her blazer to reveal a lethal-looking sidearm.
Corky backed off. “Point taken.” He turned to Rachel. “Is Mike awake, too? You
going in?” Corky looked eager to join the party.
Rachel groaned. “Actually, Corky…”
“Dr. Marlinson,” the Secret Service agent intervened, pulling a note from her
blazer. “According to this note, which was given to me by Mr. Tolland, I have
explicit orders to escort you down to the kitchen, have our chef make you
anything you want, and ask you to explain to me in vivid detail how you saved
yourself from certain death by…” the agent hesitated, grimacing as she read the
note again. “…by urinating on yourself?”
Apparently, the agent had said the magic words. Corky dropped his crutches on
the spot and put an arm around the woman’s shoulders for support, and said, “To
the kitchen, love!”
As the indisposed agent helped Corky hobble off down the hall, Rachel had no
doubt Corky Marlinson was in heaven. “The urine is the key,” she heard him
saying, “because those damned telencephalon olfactory lobes can smell
everything!”
The Lincoln Bedroom was dark when Rachel entered. She was surprised to see the
bed empty and untouched. Michael Tolland was nowhere to be seen.
An antique oil lamp burned near the bed, and in the soft radiance, she could
barely make out the Brussels carpet…the famous carved rosewood bed…the portrait
of Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd…even the desk where Lincoln signed the Emancipation
Proclamation.
As Rachel closed the door behind her, she felt a clammy draft on her bare legs.
Where is he? Across the room, a window was open, the white organza curtains
billowing. She walked over to close the window, and an eerie whisper murmured
from the closet.
“Maaaarrrrrrrry…”
Rachel wheeled.
“Maaaaaarrrrrrrry?” the voice whispered again. “Is that you?…Mary Todd
Liiiiiincoln?”
Rachel quickly closed the window and turned back toward the closet. Her heart
was racing, although she knew it was foolish. “Mike, I know that’s you.”
“Noooooo…” the voice continued. “I am not Mike…I am…Aaaaabe.”
Rachel put her hands on her hips. “Oh, really? Honest Abe?”
A muffled laugh. “Moderately honest Abe…yes.”
Rachel was laughing now too.
“Be afraaaaaaid,” the voice from the closet moaned. “Be veeeeeery afraid.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Please be afraid…” the voice moaned. “In the human species, the emotions of
fear and sexual arousal are closely linked.”
Rachel burst out laughing. “Is this your idea of a turn-on?”
“Forgiiiive me…” the voice moaned. “It’s been yeeeeeeears since I’ve been with a
woman.”
“Evidently,” Rachel said, yanking the door open.
Michael Tolland stood before her with his roguish, lopsided grin. He looked
irresistible wearing a pair of navy blue satin pajamas. Rachel did a double take
when she saw the presidential seal emblazoned on his chest.
“Presidential pajamas?”
He shrugged. “They were in the drawer.”
“And all I had was this football jersey?”
“You should have chosen the Lincoln Bedroom.”
“You should have offered!”
“I heard the mattress was bad. Antique horsehair.” Tolland winked, motioning to
a gift-wrapped package on a marble-topped table. “This’ll make it up to you.”
Rachel was touched. “For me?”
“I had one of the presidential aides go out and find this for you. Just arrived.
Don’t shake it.”
She carefully opened the package, extracting the heavy contents. Inside was a
large crystal bowl in which were swimming two ugly orange goldfish. Rachel
stared in confused disappointment. “You’re joking, right?”
“Helostoma temmincki,” Tolland said proudly.
“You bought me fish?”
“Rare Chinese kissing fish. Very romantic.”
“Fish are not romantic, Mike.”
“Tell that to these guys. They’ll kiss for hours.”
“Is this supposed to be another turn-on?”
“I’m rusty on the romance. Can you grade me on effort?”
“For future reference, Mike, fish are definitely not a turn-on. Try flowers.”
Tolland pulled a bouquet of white lilies from behind his back. “I tried for red
roses,” he said, “but I almost got shot sneaking into the Rose Garden.”
As Tolland pulled Rachel’s body against his and inhaled the soft fragrance of
her hair, he felt years of quiet isolation dissolving inside him. He kissed her
deeply, feeling her body rise against him. The white lilies fell to their feet,
and barriers Tolland had never known he’d built were suddenly melting away.
The ghosts are gone.
He felt Rachel inching him toward the bed now, her whisper soft in his ear. “You
don’t really think fish are romantic, do you?”
“I do,” he said, kissing her again. “You should see the jellyfish mating ritual.
Incredibly erotic.”
Rachel maneuvered him onto his back on the horsehair mattress, easing her
slender body down on top of his.
“And seahorses…,” Tolland said, breathless as he savored her touch through the
thin satin of his pajamas. “Seahorses perform…an unbelievably sensual dance of
love.”
“Enough fish talk,” she whispered, unbuttoning his pajamas. “What can you tell
me about the mating rituals of advanced primates?”
Tolland sighed. “I’m afraid I don’t really do primates.”
Rachel shed her football jersey. “Well, nature boy, I suggest you learn fast.”
Epilogue
The NASA transport jet banked high over the Atlantic.
Onboard, Administrator Lawrence Ekstrom took a last look at the huge charred
rock in the cargo hold. Back to the sea, he thought. Where they found you.
On Ekstrom’s command, the pilot opened the cargo doors and released the rock.
They watched as the mammoth stone plummeted downward behind the plane, arcing
across the sunlit ocean sky and disappearing beneath the waves in a pillar of
silver spray.
The giant stone sank fast.
Underwater, at three hundred feet, barely enough light remained to reveal its
tumbling silhouette. Passing five hundred feet, the rock plunged into total
darkness.
Racing down.
Deeper.
It fell for almost twelve minutes.
Then, like a meteorite striking the dark side of the moon, the rock crashed into
a vast plain of mud on the ocean floor, kicking up a cloud of silt. As the dust
settled, one of the ocean’s thousands of unknown species swam over to inspect
the odd newcomer.
Unimpressed, the creature moved on.