“Hoo-hoo-hoo!”
The pilot had obviously done this before, falling fast, setting down hard, and reversing the props furiously in a half-blind, screeching, gooney-bird skid.
“Hoo-ya!”
The chorus of pumped-up Spec Ops voices echoed across the cabin. Augie leaned closer to Bertrand.
“So, what exactly do they want you to do?”
“They want us to do what we do best,” Bertrand said, with a good-ol’-boy shrug. “And then get the hell out of Dodge.”
Augie nodded, smiling at the captain’s man-of-action style as the plane slid to a halt and everybody started grabbing up their gear. Bertrand stood and glanced over at his crew.
“Uh, Colonel, would you be kind enough to settle a small wager?”
“Which side is your money on?”
“Oh, hell. Any schoolboy knows that Colonel Augustus Julian Blake, USMC, was the last man to walk on the Moon, sir.”
“Your money is safe, Captain. And good luck.”
The Hercules lowered its cargo ramp with a servo-driven whine and an explosive bang, sending a blast of subzero Antarctic air down their necks.
“An honor to meet you, sir,” Bertrand said, saluting crisply and rejoining his men. Augie pulled up the fur-lined hood on his expedition parka.
“Jesus God Almighty.”
Outside, a heavily bundled ground crew on snowmobiles had already swarmed in to chock the wheels and refuel the aircraft with the engines running.
He swiftly pulled on insulated gloves and began working his way cautiously down the metal rampway, grimacing into the shocking slap of polar wind.
“Fuck me.”
Augie felt his eyeballs threatening to freeze. The dispatcher at San Pedro had said it would be about fifty below, making it minus ninety degrees Fahrenheit with the windchill factored in; the kind of cold that could slam through layers of arctic-rated gear like an amphetamine-crazed killer kicking in a cardboard door.
“Hey!”
Augie squinted and waved toward a snowmobile headlight emerging from the voracious dark that was McMurdo Station in February, then lost his balance on the icy ramp, grabbing a handrail with both hands.
“Colonel Blake!”
A hooded astronaut-trainee slid to a stop in a rooster tail of ice and quickly helped settle Augie on board the motorized sled.
“Let’s do it!”
Augie braced himself and held on for the short run over to the electric lights and blessed warmth of the NASA compound’s Quonset-style barracks. Peering back at the runway and its barrels of blazing fuel oil set alight every fifty feet, he could just make out Captain Bertrand overseeing the handling of pallets of aluminum containers, each stickered and stenciled with “Danger” symbols now illuminated by the oily fire.
He also saw the first contingent of scientists and engineers being evacuated as they struggled across the ice toward the cargo ramp. Most of them could make it under their own power, but some had been bundled up and were being carried to the plane on stretchers, like wounded soldiers rescued from a frozen battlefield.
In that moment, the flames of the runway fuel drums reminded him of torches flickering on the wall of Shakespeare’s tragic Scottish castle.
“Until Birnham Wood come to Dunsinane . . .”
Augie recited the line from Macbeth and shut his eyes against the cold wind, the moisture of his own breath freezing instantly on his face. Arriving at the metal-domed Quonsets, he was less concerned with the Bard of Avon than with assessing the damage in situ and getting his people out, safe and sound.
He would soon need to tell the media something as the evacuees arrived in New Zealand; a dramatic winter air rescue at the South Pole was certainly a newsworthy story. And what he told reporters would have to be only partially true and carefully crafted to explain why so many were “rotating out” of the science colony at once and why they were going into quarantine at an Auckland hospital. But first things first.
10
Goddard Space Flight Labs/Washington, D.C.
Behind the locked door of the Goddard workstation, what was either a brilliant fraud or the most important NASA satellite photograph in the history of space science was up again on Eklund’s screen.
The mainframe computer had automatically saved Angela’s TOLAS image. Not that it was going anywhere beyond this room. But they had to have it.
“We should dump it off the frame.”
“Done,” John said, copying to the hard drive.
The politics attached to verification of this Mars picture surged out in all directions in tsunami-style waves. Eklund noticed himself nervously clenching and unclenching his hands and then stuffed them into his pockets.
“The thing is . . .”
“We don’t know if it’s a fake or not,” Fisher said flatly.
“I don’t think we can know. Not one hundred percent . . .”
“Oh, man.” John made a face. “If this thing is real, I don’t even know what kind of scenario makes sense for why it exists at all. Plus, all by itself, it’s still just a fucking frame on a photo strip. It’s not scientific proof of anything.”
“I have an idea,” Eklund said, downing ginkgo tabs with his H2O.
“Go.” John propped black high-top tennies up on the computer table.
“How about bringing I-SAT to the party?”
“You mean the good stuff?”
“Just for us.”
Eklund knew there was an ethical conflict. It was probably even a crime.
“You can say no.”
During the day, John ran space-based analysis of the Pentagon’s Space Command Satellite Intelligence Data, or I-SAT. Both what he did and how he did it were military secrets, and using classified Department of Defense software for unauthorized civilian purposes could be viewed as a punishable offense.
But after a moment’s pause, Fisher’s sneakers hit the deck with a rubbery slap and he twisted back to face the computer.
“No, no, good idea. Going fractal on this shit could be interesting. Something quantifiable.” He gave Eklund a damn-the-torpedoes smile and attacked the keyboard. “All right. Let’s let the Big Dog hunt.”
Downloading the proprietary DOD program took only a few seconds for password recognition and soon the Cydonia desert Marscape was being rapidly overlaid with a 3-D numbered gridwork.
“Now it’s a battlefield. And we’re on a tall horse on high ground.”
“Napoleon would be green.” Eklund took over the keyboard.
“Okay, click on your targets.” Fisher pointed at the cluster of pyramids. “We flag whatever we want the computer to analyze. Then do a quick pass. The fractal algorithms make it ignore, based on geometry, things like hills, boulders, or whatever. The I-SAT only brackets potential military targets, meaning anything it thinks are man-made.”
“Things with geometry.”
“When it comes to geology, Mother Nature doesn’t do straight lines. Even on Mars.”
“What kind of accuracy?”
“About eighty percent.” John watched as Eklund marked up every geometrically shaped object on the Cydonia plain.
“I’ve seen it pick out five out of six tanks in the desert and then think an ammo dump is a big sand dune. But fuck it, the Bad Guys are still in deep shit. Imagine commanding this in a real-time fire fight.”
Fisher rubbed his tired eyes and stretched his arms.
“Monitoring the whole theater ops from space and feeding all your targeting data to artillery, aircraft, a fucking fleet of missile ships and submarines . . .”
“Okay.” Eklund indicated the overlay of Xs. John made final adjustments.
“Just making sure we’re asking it the right question. Ready?”
“Go.”
Fisher then stabbed a key and deciphered the instant data readout.
“Holy shit, Batman. We are target-rich.”
Eklund exhaled, not realizing he had been holding his breath, as John jotted quick notes on a
Post-it pad, checking the percentiles assigned to the Face, the pyramids, and dozens of other Xs flashing on the screen.
“These are high numbers for artificiality. Seriously high.”
“So, the Pentagon’s hottest I-SAT software, which we have never used, in analyzing this Mars Observer image, which we have never seen . . .”
Fisher gave Eklund a look.
“I-SAT says bomb the crap out of it,” he said, and then made the TOLAS photo and the proprietary DOD gridwork disappear.
Eklund stared back at his colleague.
“Be careful what you wish for, right?”
11
“Tricks of Light and Shadow. That’s cute.”
It was late. Angela took honeyed Earl Grey tea with her elbows up on Miriam’s beat-up old Provençal kitchen table as the two women powwowed around her producer/partner’s iBook. The purported Mars Observer image glowed eerily on the active matrix screen.
“Trouble is,” Miriam said, “it makes no sense, kiddo.”
Awake and alert, though still looking vaguely dragged out of bed, she loosened the antique silk kimono she had thrown on when Angela called. Midnight crises were not that unusual. Guiding Science Horizon through a five-year odyssey to its current award-winning plateau, replete with A-list guests and classy sponsorships, Miriam had honed her skills as a producer. These included the ability to sleep on planes, nap on office futons, and rise with her game on, whatever fresh hell presented itself.
“First off, if Mars Observer had found extraterrestrial monuments on Mars, it would be the greatest scientific discovery of the century. Why wouldn’t NASA plaster it all over the nightly goddamned news? They could write their own ticket for the space program. Slam dunk.”
“I know.” Angela sipped her tea.
“And number two, why the hell would NASA want to make its own two-billion-dollar satellite disappear? I think we need a second opinion.”
“Maybe it didn’t disappear, Miriam. That’s the point,” Angela said, rubbing her tired eyes.
“Aw, come on.”
“Look, this whistle-blower, whoever he is, seems to be telling us two things: there are anomalies on Mars the government doesn’t want the public to see, and NASA or the Pentagon is secretly using the Mars Observer satellite to study them. True or false, that’s what I think he’s trying to say.”
Miriam looked at her partner, surprised at what she saw.
“Angie?”
“I didn’t say I believed it.” Angela sounded defensive. “I don’t know what to believe. But you’re right about authentication. Who can we get?”
“Christ. I don’t know.”
Miriam made a face as if that was one round of phone calls she didn’t want to have to make. Angela raised her eyebrows.
“Hey, I’m agreeing with you. I’m saying let’s at least get some heavyweight backup about what we’re looking at here. Somebody with stature.”
“Yeah, somebody who’ll tell us it’s a hoax so we can all get a good night’s sleep.” Miriam added hot water to the teapot. “Why do I suddenly feel like I don’t have enough life insurance?”
“Hell, if this thing is not a hoax, I want bodyguards.”
“Fine. But I get Kevin Costner.”
“Fine.” Angela laughed, gazing out toward the dimly lit living-room walls at a Matisse nude and some of Steiglitz’s pictures of Georgia O’Keeffe posing with a huge and voluptuous calla lily. She loved how Miriam’s apartment reflected the conviction that being at home should feel as much as possible like a bohemian summer idyll on Martha’s Vineyard. But life, as the twenty-first century was getting up to speed, seemed determined to no longer be a picnic.
“Seriously, sweety darling.” Miriam poured for both of them from a nice piece of chinoiserie. “Let’s say it’s all true, and somewhere out there, some Cosmic Deep Throat has the goods on this huge scandal: ARTIFACTS ON MARS; NASA HIJACKS SATELLITE; SCIENCE CRIME OF THE CENTURY. And this Deep Cosmo has picked Science Horizon out of a hat to help him blow the whistle. Who says we have to play his game?”
“Deep Cosmo.” Angela giggled. “Yeah, fuck him. What if we don’t choose to be the chosen? We can Just Say No.”
“Yeah, really. We’re not exactly the first place one imagines turning to for Pulitzer Prize muckraking journalism.”
Angela looked stung.
“You know, hearing it phrased just that way? It makes me feel kind of like the Vanna White of science reporting.”
“Angie, come on. I didn’t mean . . . Hell, you know what I meant.”
Miriam felt bad. Angela made no secret of the fact that, five years in, she was growing restless with the preaching-to-the-choir limitations of PBS and was eager for Science Horizon to seek new horizons of its own. And tackling a Pulitzer-worthy science story was exactly what might break them out.
“I’m not saying we can’t do it, kiddo, I’m just saying it’s not exactly the kind of thing we’re really known for taking on.”
But Angela was still upset.
“No, come on. What is it? We do our homework, our due diligence, et cetera, we deliver on this story like we have on every other story for five years, why can’t we step up to prime time? Huh? You think PBS wouldn’t back us? You think it’s too controversial, too political, too Geraldo? What?”
Miriam felt stupid for triggering the argument, but the truth was, she was not yet convinced there was a story here. Much less one to go to the mattresses for.
“Angie, listen. As a producer, I’m concerned about getting it right, and so are you. Things like public perception of professionalism and the kind of respect that we have nurtured for Science Horizon. You know what the struggle has been. Not just as a woman journalist . . .”
“In the science community.”
“Our lovely little Emmy Award notwithstanding, we go out on a limb making wild pronouncements that we can’t prove? We lose credibility, we lose support, we lose access, we can lose sponsorship. We can lose everything, kiddo. Even if we’re righteously right. But this thing came to you. So it’s your call.”
One thing Angela loved about Miriam: she pulled rank sometimes and they had had their conflicts over the years, but bottom line, there was complete mutual respect and appreciation, which meant a lot and had allowed them to weather a lot.
“Well, I just need to know, Miriam, if it’s a fake or if it’s for real,” she said. “And whatever we have to do to determine that, I say we do it.”
“Agreed.”
“After that, I don’t know. I’m too burnt to think.”
Angela closed the clamshell of the iBook and retrieved her disk. Miriam gave her friend a hug and walked her to the door arm in arm.
“Then let’s not think about it anymore, Miz Scarlett.” She drawled it out as though they were two tendrilled belles of the Old South strolling out under the colonnade for a breath of breeze off the bayou. “We can think about it tomorrow.”
“Yes, tomorrow,” Angela said, picking up the faux fiddle-de-dee riff. “For tomorrow . . . is another day.”
She then stomped downstairs in her Nikes and out into the street.
PART
II
We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military/industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We should take nothing for granted.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
12
January 29/Dunsinane/Antarctica
The fact was, thousands of years of accumulated ice at both poles had begun melting into the sea. The ozone layer protecting the Earth from damaging UV radiation was breaking down so dramatically that a huge hole had formed above the Southern Hemisphere. This hole in the ozone now let in enough solar radiation that incidents of skin cancer were soaring throughout the region and school kids from Australia to Chile were no longer allowed outside on the playgrounds without wearing hats.
North American energy and car-building leaders howled t
hat power plants and the internal combustion engine were not to blame, finding it easier to engineer the U.S. pull-out from the Kyoto Protocols than to develop nonpolluting vehicles and renewable clean fuels.
In any case, such highly paid lobbying and verbal obfuscation were moot as far as the Arctic Circle was concerned: for the first time in recorded human history there was open navigable water all across Santa’s northernmost domain.
And whether the temperature was rising from industrial pollution or all the hot air sent aloft from attorneys, the situation at the South Pole, too, was degrading more rapidly than even Greenpeace and the Sierra Club had feared.
The bad news was, the Ross Ice Shelf had joined the massive Larsen B and Larsen C Shelves in cracking off from the continent and subsiding into the Antarctic Ocean about ten years sooner than the National Science Foundation’s worst-case scenarios of the ‘90’s had envisioned.
That there was good news at all from this was totally unexpected: a scientific treasure of inestimable value had been uncovered in the collapsing polar ice and picked up by one of NASA’s Earth Sciences LEO satellites.
The find, code-named Dunsinane, was stunning: a frozen forest of temperate climate trees suddenly visible in the glacier like a portal in time, a pristine biosphere preserved for millennia and offering science nothing less than a firsthand look at the world of 10,000 B.C.E. Not to mention a first-rate mystery: How does a forest get to the South Pole? Within days, the National Science Foundation was galvanized into action.
All science done in Antarctica must be done according to rules enunciated in a United Nations agreement protecting the entire continent from exploitation and pollution: the Antarctic belongs to all mankind and is held in sacred trust. Thus, all junk, all refuse, including every ounce of human waste generated by the three thousand people in the science town of McMurdo, was flown out each spring in over forty-five lift sorties and recycled in California.
On the last airlift before all flights were shut down for the winter, foundation scientists quietly brought in a nuclear-powered ice drill designed to tunnel down through the glacier to the prehistoric forest waiting beneath the ice. After weeks of building out the dig site in the perpetual dark and testing the drill in various extremes of temperature and conditions, the excited waiting was over and they had begun tunneling carefully down to the trees.
The Orion Protocol Page 6