“We can’t attack Argentina for the sphere’s presence in their waters,” Godfrey continued, biting his tongue on the Nazi-harbouring rhetoric that was desperate to spill out, “just as we can’t attack Germany or Austria for what happened at Lake Toplitz in the 1930s and ’40s. We can’t pretend that certain things didn’t happen, of course, but we likewise can’t use those things to score points against countries whose modern institutions of government had nothing to do with any of it. But then… well… then you look at Richard Walker. Then you look at the IDA.”
The journalists and TV reporters facing Godfrey hung on his every word, even more so now that his attention had turned towards the role of the US government.
“And since we’re talking about government institutions, let’s focus on the fact that the IDA didn’t even exist until the late 1980s. Richard Walker and Hans Kloster shaped that agency with one goal: hiding the truth. But who signs the IDA’s cheques? Valerie Slater. She can claim that she was duped, just like the rest of us, but is that an acceptable response? Do the American people really deserve such incompetence? They’re the biggest victims in all of this! Their hard-earned tax dollars have funded this lie since 1988. Think of the hospitals and libraries that could have been built with that money.”
Godfrey paused to shake his head.
“Sickening, isn’t it?” he went on. “But that’s not why we’re all here. Obviously this is a crushing blow to Slater’s credibility and likely renders her position untenable, but that’s tomorrow’s argument. Right now I would like to respectfully offer some suggestions to our friends and allies in Argentina.”
John Cole somehow managed to keep a straight face as he nodded in agreement with Godfrey’s description of the Argentine government as their “friends and allies”, pretending he hadn’t personally lampooned their lack of trustworthiness less than a week earlier.
“The transparency we’ve seen coming out of Miramar today deserves great credit,” Godfrey stressed, “but there is a long way to go. My main concern is the integrity of the sphere; if anyone tries to force it open, they risk damaging the contents. And although we trust the Argentine government without reservation, they would do well to bear in mind that not everyone is so trusting. I therefore respectfully suggest that a wider team of international scientists and observers be invited to join the Norwegian contingent which has already invited itself to participate in non-invasive experimentation on the Kerguelen sphere.”
“Who?” someone shouted from near the front of the crowded media pack.
Godfrey was affronted by this interruption; it was the kind of thing the media did in Washington and Colorado, not London. But knowing that the world was watching and that this speech would go down in history, he chose to make a mental note of the interrupter’s identity and continue without drawing any further attention to the heckle.
“Now, I’m just here to start a dialogue, but I certainly feel that a British presence on the team would be justified given our unrelenting commitment to the truth from the moment that Dan McCarthy so bravely broke the story. I think China deserves a place, too,” he said, almost inflecting the sentence into a question as though he hadn’t planned this speech carefully and was thinking it up on the spot. “Beijing has been very dignified in its silence despite Lake Namtso falling within China’s borders. And, of course, the developments in Miramar will likely impact their exciting plans for space exploration.”
Several journalists noted this down and underlined it. With so much going on, the sphere’s knock-on effect on China’s lunar and Martian ambitions had slipped most of their minds.
“Russia, too,” Godfrey said, still presenting his thoughts as spontaneous. “Russia’s interest in this is as legitimate as anyone’s since Walker’s motives for maintaining the cover-up were rooted in his Cold War mentality of protecting that “well-earned national security advantage” he always talks about. Other than that, maybe France and somewhere in Africa? As I said, I’m just here to start a dialogue. But this global issue deserves a united front, and a truly international team drawn from Argentina, Norway, the United Kingdom, China and Russia is the best way to ensure that the scientific analysis of the sphere is beyond reproach and that this positive discovery does not become a source of division.”
William Godfrey’s statement ended with this call for a unified international response, which was noteworthy more for who it omitted than who it included.
As the day wore on, the only thing more conspicuous than Godfrey’s failure to suggest an American presence on the team was the continued absence of a response from President Slater. Even as other regional powers weighed in — generally in support of Godfrey’s suggestions — Slater was nowhere to be seen or heard.
Quote-hungry American reporters crowded the IDA building in Colorado Springs, but neither Richard Walker nor even Ben Gold were inside. ACN’s Maria Janzyck, reporting from outside the building, described the IDA as “a rudderless sinking ship, and perhaps not the only one.”
A less subtle reporter might have explicitly likened the IDA’s plight to that of Valerie Slater’s presidency, but Maria allowed her viewers to draw their own conclusions.
D minus 10
Municipal Hall
Miramar, Argentina
Word had been going round for several hours.
A huge crowd had gathered, more in hope than expectation.
Miguel Perez sat among them, invited and transported inland from the seafront by ADLTV.
“There’s no way it’s here,” a doubtful man muttered to his friend. “We’ve been here for four hours.”
Miguel, seated at the front of the crowd, heard the man and turned to reassure him. “They would not have brought an old man like me here for nothing,” he said. “And four hours? I watched the sea for seven days. Good things come to those who wait.”
The doubter recognised Miguel from ADLTV’s news coverage and drew new patience from his words. The government must have told the media and they must have told the old man, he thought. It really is here!
Without warning or announcement, the door of the grand building then swung open. Juan Silva, the familiar Coast Guard turned spokesman, emerged and walked to the top of the steps. The crowd was so much larger and more excited than on previous occasions that two large speakers and a microphone were necessary for Juan to be heard. Two men positioned the speakers and Juan raised the microphone to his mouth.
“I promised three days ago that the sphere would be found,” Juan said. The crowd cheered. “Now, would any of you like to see it?”
A smile spread across Miguel’s face. An ADLTV camera focused tightly on him.
As the crowd exploded into a cacophony of anticipation, several dozen heavily armed guards assembled in a line between the building and the local police who were already keeping the crowd back.
Miguel rose to his feet and shifted his chair to a position from which no guards obscured his view of Juan Silva and the building’s door.
And then, evoking pallbearers carrying a deceased head of state, four stern-looking men in full military regalia emerged from the building. Each held the corner of a large box-like object which was covered by several Argentine flags, draped rather than folded and entirely covering whatever was underneath. The four men slowly pushed the object on a wheeled board. The crowd hushed.
When the men neared the top of the steps, they left the object there and stepped back.
“With thanks to Dan McCarthy,” Juan Silva said, holding out a hand towards the object. He paused while the crowd rapturously cheered the mere mention of Dan’s name. Given that the public had been very fond of Dan even before seeing the footage of him chanting Ar-gen-ti-na with his brother and the staff at Timo Fiore’s radio observatory, Juan had expected such a reaction. “And without further ado…”
Juan walked round to the back of the object and placed his hands on the flags covering it. Like a magician with a tablecloth, he then smoothly pulled the front-facing flag from the
object, revealing what was underneath.
And there it was, still surrounded by the well-worn green netting and still inside the shark-cage. Juan briskly removed the three other flags and turned to face the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen: the Kerguelen sphere.”
There was neither silence nor commotion. No one, least of all Juan, knew quite what to say or do.
The men, women and children in the crowd looked up in awe at this sphere from another world; this gift from another race; this proof of an impossible truth.
After fifteen seconds or so of reality setting in, during which time no one tried to breach the security cordon, Juan Silva began to speak again. He made clear that he was now speaking in an official capacity before announcing that the Argentine government had accepted Norway’s offer of scientific assistance.
“As well as these Norwegian scientists,” Juan said, preparing to reveal what had been diplomatically agreed upon in frantic but relatively cordial negotiations over the past few hours, “we will also welcome observers from London, Paris, Beijing, Moscow and Brasilia. It has been agreed that preliminary analysis will begin tomorrow morning, when the international team assembles.”
As had been the case with William Godfrey earlier in the day, a certain capital city that Juan left out raised more eyebrows than any of the ones he included.
“I promised three days ago that the sphere would be found,” Juan said, tapping the side of the shark-cage as he repeated his opening line, “and I promised that it would be opened. We are halfway there, my friends. We are halfway there.”
D minus 9
Lake Maggiore
Ispra, Italy
The calmness that greeted Dan on his return to Timo’s lakeside villa was a far cry from what he could have expected in Birchwood.
Even the long drive had been peaceful; the group left Trento before any news crews had time to gather in the wake of the celebratory footage, so no one knew exactly where Dan was.
Timo’s neighbours at the lake were as tight-lipped about Dan’s presence as the observatory’s staff. These neighbours were all extremely wealthy, if not quite to Timo’s level, and placed a high value on their privacy and seclusion. They knew by now that Dan was staying there, but none had any problem with it as long as he didn’t bring unwanted media attention their way.
Timo joined the group inside until the early hours of the morning, quietly toasting the sphere’s discovery and the formation of an inclusive international team to oversee the scientific experiments which would soon commence. Timo invited his driver — a full-time employee of many years — to join them inside, but the man, old-fashioned and set in his role, politely declined.
Most of the night passed with Timo and the brothers lounging under the stars while Emma sat inside paying close attention to every little reaction and comment on Blitz News.
The whole group had seen clips of Godfrey’s relatively restrained reaction, as well as the incredible footage of the Argentine Coast Guard proudly displaying the sphere outside a government building in Miramar. Emma was astounded by the nonchalance of that move and could only assume it was a calculated jab at the US government, intended to hammer home just how powerless President Slater and Richard Walker were to suppress the truth any longer.
That the sphere’s surprising public appearance came in the middle of a weekday afternoon seemed to have no effect on the size of the crowd. The same was true in Birchwood, where outside reporters and local citizens flooded the area around the drive-in to shoot their segments and watch the latest developments on the big screen; for even though Dan McCarthy was halfway across the world, that derelict drive-in where he had first broken his silence remained the American epicentre of the biggest news story anyone could remember.
The recent crowds in Miramar and Birchwood, however, were still nothing compared to the biblical swarm that descended on Miramar’s seafront immediately after Miguel Perez spotted the sphere being raised out of the water. So many people rushed to get their own look at the convoy protecting the huge ship as it carried its precious load to shore that local police were forced to erect roadblocks and temporary fencing to control the number of people accessing the already crowded seafront.
Eventually, well past midnight in Ispra, Emma took a break from the news, changed into one of the short and T-shirt combos she usually wore to bed, and stepped out into the Italian moonlight. She saw Timo looking out over the lake with a glass of champagne in his hand; Clark floating around the pool, fully clothed, on an inflatable bed with a can of beer in its cup-holder; and Dan fast asleep on a sun-lounger with too many plastic shot-glasses scattered on the ground beside him.
“What did you give him?” she asked.
“Sambuca,” Clark said. “Timo said it’s the best stuff you can get.”
“It is,” Timo confirmed without turning away from the lake.
Emma counted the shot-glasses. She could only see six, and she knew that Clark wouldn’t let Dan drink himself into any real trouble. “We should probably get him inside. It’s pretty late.”
“How late?” Timo asked.
“Tomorrow.”
“Shit!” Timo quickly finished his champagne. “Christophe has been waiting in the car since seven. I’ll be back in the morning for Lugano, okay?”
“Right,” Emma said, pretending she hadn’t forgotten about their scheduled media appearances in Switzerland.
“Help me out before you go,” Clark said, trying to use his hands to inch his way towards the edge of the pool without getting wet.
Timo waved as he walked away from the terrace towards the house. “I would, but I’m already on my way.”
“Emma?” Clark begged. “Help me out?”
“Help yourself out. I don’t want to get wet,” she replied as Timo bode her farewell with his usual double cheek-kiss at the edge of the pool.
“Do it!” Clark said. “Timo, do it!”
Emma looked at Clark. “Do what?” Still confused, she turned back to Timo. She saw a boyish grin spread across his face. “No. Timo… no. Don’t even think about—”
“Yes!” Clark yelled. It was the last thing Emma heard before the splash.
She gasped in mid air at the initial shock of being thrown in, and then again when the freezing water hit her skin. “Timoooo!” she screamed. He was already gone.
“He’s gone,” Clark said.
Emma wiped the water from under her eyes and around her T-shirt’s neckline. “I’m actually going to kill him. Forget the pool… when he comes back tomorrow, I’m going to throw him in that fucking lake.”
Clark laughed at her uncharacteristically blue outburst.
“And you,” Emma said, homing in on Clark’s inflatable bed. “You look awfully relaxed for a dry man surrounded by water.”
“I was joking when I told him to do it,” Clark said, as though pleading for his life rather than trying to get out of a harmless soaking.
Emma gave an exaggerated shrug.
“My phone’s in my pocket,” Clark said, increasingly desperate.
“Your phone’s beside the TV.”
“My wallet is in my—”
“And since you lied…”
“Listen, Emma, seriously: I can’t swim.”
She looked down at herself, dismissively signalling to Clark that the water barely reached her chest. “Jaws 3,” she said, inching towards him. “The Revenge.”
Emma then disappeared under the water before pushing up under one side of Clark’s inflatable bed and sending him tumbling in to join her.
“How?!” Clark howled at the moon. “How can it be so cold?”
Clark’s reaction — forcing water from his face and arms with his hands while shaking his head like a wet dog — cheered Emma up to no end. He saw her laughing and fired a wave-like splash her way. She tried to get him back but had to move a lot closer to reach him with her own attempts.
A splash finally hit Clark in the face. Only four or five feet from Emma, he wiped his eyes and
looked at her. His dumb grin faded. His eyes focused on hers.
“No way,” Emma said, sensing the moment’s direction of travel and waving her hand in front of her face to break Clark’s gaze and change course. “Nothing personal.”
“What’s nothing personal?” Clark asked. “Wait. You didn’t think I was…?”
“Exactly. No one thought anything. I’ll keep an eye on Dan while you get changed. Okay?”
Clark agreed and went inside without saying anything. He didn’t know what to think about the awkward moment that had just come and gone. He couldn’t blame Emma for being on-guard — someone who looked like her had to get drunken looks from idiots like him all the time — but he really hadn’t meant anything by it. He never would; not with someone who was so close to Dan, even if she was the complete package.
But one quality of Emma’s that Clark shared was her ability to put things in the past and leave them there, as evidenced by their huge bust-up on the night Clark came home having had no bearing on anything that had happened since. He therefore felt confident that the crossed wires from a few minutes ago would be forgotten by the time he went back to carry Dan inside.
Sure enough, they were.
Emma was still in the water, wisely deciding it was better to stay submerged than climb out and have the night air sting her wet skin. Clark put a towel on the ground beside her.
“Thanks,” she said, climbing out to get it.
“No problem, lover.”
Emma laughed. “Are you trying to get pulled back in?”
Clark kicked some of Dan’s empty shot-glasses towards her in reply then picked Dan up in a fireman’s carry and took him inside.
“Are you going to bed?” Emma asked.
“It’s like four in the afternoon,” Clark said on his way round the pool, refusing to bow to the tyranny of time zones. “I’ll probably just watch the news until I fall asleep.”
Not Alone Page 42