by James Barney
Krupnov’s face suddenly appeared on the screen again. “Gentlemen, it is not necessary to get bogged down in these details right now. Our technology will provide clean energy from a natural resource that, while it may not be renewable, is certainly abundant.” He swept his arms dramatically around the room he was sitting in, which happened to be the library of the Hillcrest mansion in Middleburg, Virginia. “We are talking about converting gravity into energy. As a side benefit, we will be harvesting gravity-free material from these reactors. The quantity will be quite small at first, but, as it accumulates, just imagine the possibilities. And, unlike with conventional nuclear power, we will no longer have to worry about radiation.” He paused and watched the Russian generals and the Chinese officials nodding enthusiastically. “The only price we must pay is the inconvenience of a few isolated ‘time pockets.’ Easily manageable, as Dr. Fulcher explained. And totally harmless.”
Dr. Fulcher checked his watch and interrupted. “Gentlemen, I believe our demonstration is nearly ready. Please sit back and watch the screen. We have remote cameras on board the reactor barge, and thanks to the Russian navy we have two helicopters in the vicinity that will provide aerial shots. Ah, here we are.”
As Fulcher spoke, the plasma screen switched to a four-way split screen, showing two live shots of the reactor vessel and two overhead shots of the mobile power station, floating by itself in the frozen White Sea.
“The demonstration will begin in approximately five minutes,” said Fulcher. “Gentlemen . . . prepare to witness history.”
32
BEAR ISLAND NAVAL STATION, BARENTS SEA
Petty Officer First Class Carlos Mendez poured himself another cup of coffee, the third one for the day. So much for cutting down, he thought. It was 4:20 P.M., and he was the only person awake in the small monitoring station that the U.S. Navy maintained on Bjømøya (Bear) Island, a sparsely populated Norwegian island in the Barents Sea. His supervisor, Senior Chief Petty Officer Lionel Brown, was asleep in an adjacent room. In another hour and forty minutes, he’d wake up the chief, and they’d switch places. Until then, he’d need at least one more cup of coffee to stay awake.
The Bear Island facility was one of the few remaining manned SOSUS outposts maintained by the U.S. Navy. For more than four decades, Bear Island had acted as an early warning station in the European Arctic region, notifying the U.S. military whenever Russian submarines came in and out of the White Sea. Mendez presumed this was a much more exciting job during the Cold War, when Soviet submarine activity was a frequent and menacing threat. Today, the Bear Island assignment was really just a twelve-month exercise in boredom and solitude.
But that was about to change.
Mendez twisted a rotary switch to channel 1 and inspected the low-frequency array, or LOFAR, display that appeared on the large screen on his control panel. He studied the grayish display for several seconds and then made a notation in his log indicating “NOI” or nothing of interest. Then he clicked the rotary switch to the next transducer in the four-hundred-mile underwater SOSUS array that stretched from the Svalbard Islands near the Arctic Circle to Tromsø at the northern tip of the Norwegian mainland. This process continued for several minutes.
As the LOFAR display for the fourteenth transducer in the array began cascading down his screen, Mendez immediately realized something was seriously wrong. Instead of a light gray color with a few random splotches of dark gray, the entire screen was filling with dark gray, with large splotches of black. What the hell?
Mendez knew this could not possibly be correct. An acoustic contact such as a surface ship or submarine would create thin vertical stripes of black or dark gray on the display, corresponding to discrete “tonals,” or sustained frequencies, caused by rotating equipment. But here, the entire screen was lighting up with what appeared to be low-frequency acoustic energy. If this display was accurate, that would mean some sort of massive event was occurring in the White Sea that was somehow producing a wide swath of intense, low-frequency energy. Mendez’s first thought was that it was an undersea earthquake.
He quickly rolled his chair to the far side of the room, where a seismograph was dutifully recording every terrestrial bump and tremor taking place in the Arctic region. He scanned the graph and shook his head. It was flat. So much for the earthquake theory.
Mendez slid back to his console and switched to the next transducer in the SOSUS array, which was located twenty miles south of the previous one he’d checked. The result was the same. As before, the screen began filling in with dark gray and splotches of black. “Jesus,” he whispered. I need to wake up the chief.
Before he could get to his feet, Mendez heard the distinct beeping of an urgent “FLASH” message. He swiveled at his console and read the incoming message on his computer screen. It was an automated error message from USNO, the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.
Like GPS satellites in space, the underwater SOSUS array had to be frequently synchronized with an ultraprecise time signal generated by an array of forty-four atomic clocks, known collectively as the “master clock.” These clocks were located at the U.S. Naval Observatory at Thirty-fourth Street and Massachusetts Avenue in northwest Washington, D.C., also the home of the vice president of the United States. The forty-four atomic clocks were strategically distributed among twenty shock-resistant and environmentally controlled “clock vaults” at the secure facility to ensure continuity in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.
Mendez studied the message, which consisted of a single line of alphanumeric symbols:
NSS4 ER02 10120913.15.220011Z CD –2.913553E6
What the hell? Mendez could not believe what he was seeing. “Yo, Chief!” he yelled in the direction of the bunk room.
Thirty seconds later, a groggy Senior Chief Brown came stumbling out of the bunk room, rubbing his eyes. “What’s going on?”
Mendez pointed at the display screen on his console, which was still dark gray with splotches of black.
“Whoa,” said Brown.
As they both watched, the top of the display suddenly began transitioning back to a normal, light gray color. This color quickly cascaded down the screen until the display was back to normal thirty seconds later.
“What the hell was that?” asked Brown.
“I don’t know. All the arrays went dark gray like that about two minutes ago. Something big must have happened.”
“Earthquake?”
Mendez shook his head. “Seismo’s flat. And check this out.” He pointed to the automated FLASH error message on the screen, which had been generated a minute before by USNO.
Senior Chief Brown leaned down and carefully studied the message. “Holy shit,” he said when he reached the part of the message that read “CD –2.913553E6.” “That’s almost . . . thirty seconds,” he said.
“Yeah. But is that really possible?” asked Mendez. “I mean, is there any way our clocks suddenly slowed down thirty seconds compared to the master clock?”
“I don’t think so,” said Brown. “Get the USNO watch officer on the phone right away.”
33
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
Don’t you ever sleep?” asked Ana Thorne as she entered the DTAI workroom at 5:15 A.M.
“It’s overrated,” deadpanned Califano without looking up from his computer. His fingers were typing furiously on the keyboard.
“Anything interesting?”
Califano finished typing and finally gave in to the urge to check out Ana in her yoga pants. “Yeah, I found a few things.”
“Like what?”
Califano swiveled back toward his screen and cracked his knuckles. Ana walked up close behind him and leaned over his shoulder. “First of all,” said Califano, “we got the DNA analysis back from that carjacking incident in Maryland.”
“The one at the cabin near the Savage River?”
“Uh-huh, about twenty-five miles south of Frostburg. The FBI found cigarette butts in the cabin next do
or. Doc McCreary asked them to run an expedited DNA analysis on the saliva residue and compare it to that hair you found on the bathroom floor in Frostburg.”
“And . . . ?”
Califano clicked his mouse, and a detailed forensic DNA report immediately appeared on the screen, including a chart of twenty-two genetic markers and comparative scores for two samples labeled SPECIMEN 1 and SPECIMEN 2.
“Uh, help me out here,” said Ana.
Califano pointed to the conclusion at the very bottom of the report, which said: “Likelihood of match: 99.99%.”
“So that’s our guy then. Wait. It is a guy’s DNA, right?”
Califano nodded and pointed to the AMEL genetic marker in the middle of the chart, indicating “XY” for both specimens. “Yep, it’s a guy.”
“And we’ve got an APB out for his vehicle?”
“Uh-huh. A 2012 forest-green Range Rover Sport with Maryland tags YRT 886. We’ve got every local, state, and federal law enforcement agency in the area looking for it right now. And there’s something else, too.”
“Hmm?”
“Remember I told you I found a cigarette butt near the mine entrance in Thurmond? Well, I had Steve run it over to the FBI last night, and they did the same DNA analysis on it as they did on the cigarettes from the cabin.”
“They matched?”
Califano nodded. “Ninety-nine percent. So whoever this dude is, he definitely came out of that mine.”
“I figured as much.”
Just then, Admiral Armstrong barged into the room without even a perfunctory knock. He had his cell phone pressed to his ear, and he appeared to be in the middle of an intense conversation. “Yes, sir,” he said subserviently. “Yes, sir. We’re on it.” He paused for a moment and appeared to be getting an earful from the other end. “I understand, Mr. President. Yes, sir.”
Admiral Armstrong terminated his call and immediately turned to Thorne and Califano. “We’ve got problems.”
“What’s going on?” Califano asked.
Armstrong pointed to Califano’s computer. “Get me into NSASI and I’ll show you.”
Califano quickly manipulated his mouse and tapped on his keyboard until an NSA dialogue box suddenly appeared on the screen. He paused for a moment and then typed in a very long password, all from memory. A moment later, a window appeared on the screen that was prominently marked across the top with the words RESTRICTED NSASI DATA. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Ana immediately recognized NSASI as the acronym for National Security Agency Satellite Intelligence. “Um, I don’t think I’m cleared for this,” she said.
“You are now,” said Admiral Armstrong. “Michael, can you put it on the big screen?”
Califano pressed a button on his keyboard and then swiveled around and turned on the projector. Seconds later, the NSASI main page appeared on the screen at the front of the room.
Moments later, Bill McCreary entered the room, out of breath and harried. “I just got your message,” he said to Armstrong. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll show you in a second.” Armstrong retrieved a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to Califano. “Call this up.”
Califano quickly navigated through a series of screens, typing in information here and there until, finally, a sharp photographic image appeared. He enlarged it and carefully centered it on the screen. Everyone in the room stared at it for a few seconds, trying to figure out what it was.
“This is satellite imagery from about three hours ago,” said Armstrong. “The area we’re looking at here is in the White Sea, about ninety miles northwest of Severodvinsk, in northern Russia. Hit Play, please.”
Califano clicked a virtual button on the screen, and the satellite imagery suddenly began moving.
“What’s that black line in the middle?” asked Ana.
“The white stuff you see here is ice,” said Armstrong, indicating with his finger. “Right now, the White Sea is mostly frozen in the north, and that black line you see is an icebreaker pushing its way through the sheet ice. And you see that thing behind it?”
“Yeah,” said Ana.
“That’s a barge that’s being towed out to sea.”
“What kind of barge?” asked McCreary.
“The name of the vessel is the Georgy Flyorov. It’s one of two floating power stations currently being built in Severodvinsk. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about them.”
“What’s it doing out in the middle of the White Sea?” Ana asked.
“You’ll see in a minute. Michael, can you speed it up a bit?”
Califano clicked another button on the screen and the video of the icebreaker suddenly sped up. In the time-lapse video, the icebreaker quickly punched a long path through the ice, maneuvered in circles several times to create a large swath of open water, then retreated south along the path it had just cleared, leaving the Georgy Flyorov floating all alone in a circle of open water in the White Sea.
“Okay, right here,” said Armstrong. “Go back to normal speed.”
Califano complied, and the video resumed as before.
Ana shrugged after a pause. “I don’t see anything happening.”
“Just wait,” said Armstrong. His eyes were fixated on the image. “It’s coming . . . now.”
As everyone in the room watched in astonishment, a bright flash suddenly enveloped the barge, causing it to disappear from view.
“What the hell,” McCreary whispered.
“Keep watching,” said Armstrong. A second later, the bright flash was gone. And so was the Georgy Flyorov.
“Did it sink?” asked Ana, her eyebrows scrunched tightly together.
McCreary was shaking his head slowly back and forth. He knew what was happening.
“Keep watching,” said Armstrong.
About ninety seconds later the barge suddenly reappeared on the screen.
“Holy crap,” said Califano.
“I don’t get it,” said Ana incredulously. “One second it’s gone, then it reappears?”
McCreary was still shaking his head. “They’ve got it,” he said quietly. Everyone turned to look at him.
“They’ve got what?” asked Ana.
“Whatever material Dr. Holzberg was using for his experiments in Thurmond. They’ve got some of it, too.”
“But how?”
“I don’t know,” said McCreary. “But this is bad. Very, very bad. The long-term effects of this could be . . .” His voice trailed off as he resumed shaking his head slowly back and forth.
Meanwhile, Admiral Armstrong leaned over Califano’s shoulder and typed in some information on the keyboard. Suddenly another window from the NSASI database appeared on the large screen. “This might give you some idea. This is from the Air Force Second Space Operations Squadron in Colorado. They’re the guys who control the GPS constellation and do all the maintenance and adjustments on the satellites. This is a top-secret message that was sent about two hours ago to all military users of the GPS system.” The message on the screen was written in military broadcast format:
FROM: Commander, 2SOPS (USAF)
TO: All GPSMIL subscribers
INFO: DHS, NASA, DARPA, NSA
TOP SECRET NOFORN
MSGID/GPSALERT/COM2SOPS//
GENTEXT/CRITICAL GPS EVENT AFFECTING ACCURACY
1. At 1113Z today, all GPS clocks experienced an unexpected error ranging from +1 to +12 microseconds.
2. The cause of the error is unknown and is currently under investigation.
3. The problem was corrected at 1149Z with an interim clock adjustment.
4. Civilian gps accuracy was not affected. However, military GPS accuracy may have been affected between 1113Z and 1149Z. All subscribers are advised to review GPS-derived data from this period.//
“Does that mean the clocks on the GPS satellites suddenly sped up relative to the earth?” Ana asked.
“That’s one possibility,” said Armstrong. “The other is that time on earth suddenly sl
owed down.”
There was silence in the room for several seconds, which was eventually broken by a knock on the door. The door opened slowly and Steve Goodwin entered tentatively with a piece of paper. “Sorry to bother you. I thought you’d want to have this immediately.”
McCreary grabbed the paper from Goodwin and quickly skimmed it. Suddenly, his eyes got wide. “Shit,” he whispered, glancing at his watch. “This was five minutes ago.” He looked at Califano and Thorne. “You two have to go. Right now!”
Part Three
O sacred, wise, and wisdom-giving plant,
Mother of science, now I feel thy power
Within me clear, not only to discern
Things in their causes, but to trace the ways
Of highest agents, deemed however wise.
Queen of this universe, do not believe
Those rigid threats of death; ye shall not die:
How should ye? By the fruit? It gives you life
To knowledge.
John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IX
34
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Malachi slowed down the stolen Range Rover as he reached the 1600 block of Constitution Avenue in northwest D.C. Something had caught his attention—a giant flaming sword ensconced in a granite monument about twenty yards off the road. He quickly pulled over and parked. It was just past 6:00 A.M. on Sunday morning, and this usually crowded area of the city was uncharacteristically empty. It was too cold and too early for the tourists.
Malachi sat for a long while in the idling vehicle, transfixed by the flaming sword and the large expanse of grass behind it. Yes, this all seemed so familiar to him now. He’d been here before.
With her.
With his gaze still fixed on the flaming sword, Malachi alighted from the Range Rover and donned his black leather coat. It was a cold, damp morning with dark clouds gathering low to the ground. He buttoned his coat to the top and flipped up his collar against the wind. As an afterthought, he patted his right pocket and felt the hard outline of his pistol. He might need this today. With his other hand, he felt a hard lump in his left coat pocket—the object he’d retrieved from the Thurmond lab. The purpose of his mission.