Away Saga

by Norman Oro

  Though stunned, Dr. Rys was just able to write down the address and tell Undersecretary Allen that he’d leave right away. After he hung up, however, he felt utterly overwhelmed. It was a struggle at first; however, it was imperative that he get going. Otherwise, who knew what other vulnerabilities in US-395 would be exploited? Other team members? Their families? He forcefully gathered himself, quickly walked out through the exit, climbed into his car and started driving towards the east end of town. The address he was given led him to a warehouse. Just when the shock of what had happened to Dr. Sharp and Dr. Bishop began wearing off, he was hit by another one. It seemed to have been repainted and there were now agents swarming into and out of it carrying boxes of documents, but yes, this was the building. This was where he’d stored the components for the Maytag several years earlier.

  He parked, took a breath, got out of his car and walked just past the entrance where he was intercepted by a lanky, stern-looking young man, who introduced himself as Special Agent Rosales. The warehouse was a hive of activity and the task force had set up several tables within it where agents were busily collecting and organizing documents they’d confiscated. Some agents passing through the area wore hazmat suits and carried Geiger counters. Dr. Rys showed his driver’s license to Agent Rosales and explained who he was. He received a curt nod of acknowledgement then was led up three flights of stairs and to a large metal door with the words “Applied Sciences, Inc.” spray-painted onto it in block lettering. Walking through the door, he saw a facility not unlike US-395’s. It was smaller, but still had the dimensions of a large auditorium. Similar to their facility, directly opposite the door was a rack of weapons; automatic assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols according to Agent Rosales. Unlike their building, however, there was no chamber. Instead there was what appeared to be a large particle accelerator just past the weapons rack. Agent Rosales explained that their nuclear engineers identified it as a synchrotron rated at over fifty billion electron volts. Astonished, Dr. Rys noted that it was fifty times as powerful as the accelerator at Caltech.

  Agent Rosales then led him to a machine that stood just a few feet away from the synchrotron. None of the task force’s engineers or scientists were able to identify it; and he asked Dr. Rys whether he knew what it was. Although it was much larger, had modifications that he didn’t fully understand and was nowhere near working order with many of its parts stripped away or badly damaged, Dr. Rys immediately recognized it. The machine was an Allen field generator, a bunny. It wasn’t one of his, though. And based on its intentional state of disrepair, it appeared that someone had hastily tried destroying it, but ran out of time. Undersecretary Allen had requested that he not speak about US-395 with the task force, so Dr. Rys explained that he did recognize the machine, but couldn’t go into further detail. Somewhat surprisingly, Agent Rosales said he understood and left it at that.

  Looking just past the generator, Dr. Rys saw a backstop that resembled the one in the Caltech synchrotron room, though this one was all metal and much thicker. As he walked towards it, he noticed that it was pitted many times over, sometimes with deep gashes burnt into its imposing exterior. Some of the marks almost went straight through what must’ve been at least three feet of metal, most probably steel. That was when he realized that the marks weren’t from the synchrotron. They were from the field generator. Whoever worked here had been calling down lightning and thunder. However, unlike his experiment years before, they’d been doing so intentionally. More troubling still, spattered across the backstop were what appeared to be traces of carbonized blood.

  Dr. Rys then asked Agent Rosales what else they’d found in the facility. He responded that the task force was still working its way up through the warehouse; and that the level they were on hadn’t been completely swept through yet. Dr. Rys then asked if he could look around. Agent Rosales nodded and gave him a pair of gloves to help avoid contaminating any physical evidence.

  Venturing to the left of the backstop, Dr. Rys found what appeared to be a storage room. It had corrugated walls and looked like a temporary shed. There was a sharp, lemon-like smell of disinfectant in the air that grew stronger as he neared it. He tried opening the door, but found it locked. After asking for some help, Agent Rosales came by with a set of keys and unlocked it. The door then swung open, releasing an overwhelming stench that caught them both off-guard. Dr. Rys immediately felt nauseous and even Agent Rosales had to take a few steps back before grabbing his handkerchief to cover his nose and mouth.

  Inside they saw a mound of animal carcasses that must have been at least four feet high. Some had limbs that were vaporized; others, their torsos; and in some cases, Dr. Rys honestly couldn’t tell. He just couldn’t tell what he was looking at in some cases. The stench was so overpowering that he found himself almost sprinting around Agent Rosales to close the entrance. Even after shutting the door, his stomach was still heaving violently and he doubled over, about to vomit. Just at the last second, his nausea mercifully relented, leaving him sitting on the floor dazed, his mouth dry and chalky. Questions then began flooding his mind, repeating themselves over and over: What is this place? Who are these people? What have they done?

  A few moments later, once Agent Rosales recovered, he walked over to Dr. Rys to see whether he was alright. He said that he was and slowly stood up. He then took another look at the backstop. Examining the cuts made into it, he saw what appeared to be embedded sensors. Walking to the right, he noticed thick bundles of wire connecting it to a large, windowed room that resembled US-395’s laboratory. Rather than being a simple protective barrier, the backstop apparently doubled as a type of sensor with telemetry recorded in the lab. Looking through the windows, he saw work benches much like the ones in their own auditorium. There were oscilloscopes, breadboards, electronic components, multimeters and other pieces of equipment at each station. However, he couldn’t see what was towards the back of the room. Finding the lab’s entrance locked, Dr. Rys sensed something peculiar. Fortunately when Agent Rosales opened the door this time, the only thing escaping through it was a cool, air-conditioned breeze.

  That sense of relief was short-lived, however, because after only a few steps, he saw at the far end of the lab a hulking metal sphere made familiar to him many years earlier. It was a nuclear warhead. Specifically, it was the physics package for an atomic bomb. He turned and went outside to notify Agent Rosales, who immediately radioed the task force’s nuclear weapons specialists. Dr. Rys then grabbed a Geiger counter from one of the lab benches and began sweeping the room. The lab was clean. He then walked to the device and knelt down beside it. It was an antique, a near-replica of what he helped to build as a young physicist on the Manhattan Project over fourteen years earlier. It was a sphere five feet in diameter, probably weighing in at around five tons that sat on an automated transport carriage similar to the ones they used in Los Alamos. Off to the right, he saw the bomb’s casing. He was puzzled to find that its design appeared to be Russian. Brushing that aside, he began examining the explosive charges that encased the plutonium core within the device to see whether it was armed. During his time on the Manhattan Project, he’d gotten to know this particular design like the proverbial back of his hand. He methodically followed the wiring, working his way over to the section of the warhead where he felt a trigger, if one existed, would most likely be. He found one. It was an everyday alarm clock. Jaws clenched, his heart suddenly racing, he noted that the clock’s hands indicated that only a half hour remained. Just then, Agent Rosales arrived in the room with the weapons specialists, all clad in hazmat suits.

  The head of the team introduced himself as Special Agent McCallister and asked Dr. Rys for any information he could provide. Concentrating, he calmly told the agent what he’d learned, and was relieved to hear that they’d been trained to defuse the explosives surrounding the device’s plutonium core. Leaving them to their work, he then asked Agent Rosales what contingencies were in place. The agent replied that a heavy transpo
rt helicopter, a Sikorsky CH-37, was on its way from Edwards, and should arrive on the roof in minutes. Dr. Rys quickly went to the auditorium’s freight elevator and confirmed that it went up to the roof. He then went back to the lab and asked Agent McCallister for an estimate of the device’s yield. Apparently, it was around sixty kilotons, enough to level most of Pueblo. With that, more numbers came tumbling into Dr. Rys’s mind, a cacophony of distances and rates. All those discordant facts and figures soon united to deliver a single message: There wasn’t enough time. If the weapons team didn’t succeed, there wouldn’t be enough time to escape the explosion or to send the weapon far enough away to render it harmless. Send.

  Dr. Rys asked Agent McCallister for his assessment regarding the odds of disarming the weapon. Speaking honestly, he wasn’t familiar with the design. It was like an American had tried to build a fake Russian nuke, so he placed the odds at 50/50. Dr. Rys then asked how much more time he’d need. Agent McCallister estimated needing at least another ten minutes. At that, Dr. Rys laid out his plan. When he was done, Agent McCallister nodded in agreement. The weapons team then started wheeling the device out of the laboratory into the freight elevator. Along the way, Dr. Rys asked Agent Rosales if the phone lines were secure. They were. Calling Undersecretary Allen to explain the situation, Dr. Rys received approval immediately. He then called the US-395 auditorium to tell Guy Pool to open all of the doors leading to the sending room and confirmed with him that the new, high-powered radio beacon was in it. Hanging up, he joined the team on its way to the freight elevator.

  Flight

  The ride to the roof seemed to last for hours. Once they arrived, Dr. Rys and the weapons team found themselves engulfed in a thunderous vortex of shadow and wind. As the transport helicopter landed, its crew disembarked and rigged a set of massive chains all around the physics package and the automated transport carriage that held it. When they were done, Dr. Rys and the agents joined the crew as they returned to the chopper. Despite its own formidable size, the CH-37 groaned under the strain of lifting the five ton physics package into the air. The transport helicopter eventually succeeded and began the two minute journey across town. Since they left the lab, Dr. Rys and Agent McCallister had been continuously talking. It was a review session for Dr. Rys. As he recited what he remembered about the shaped charges around the bomb’s plutonium core, Agent McCallister nodded in assent. Once Dr. Rys was done, it was the agent’s turn to go over the weapon’s triggering mechanism, and its idiosyncrasies. Dr. Rys listened intently, absorbing the information like a sponge. As they neared the roof of the post office, he saw a car in the parking lot he’d hoped wouldn’t be there. It was his son’s pickup truck.

  After the Sikorsky landed and the crew unchained the physics package, Dr. Rys and the agents guided it to the freight elevator. It was the same elevator the engineers had used to build the Maytag room years earlier and led directly to the auditorium. Dr. Rys spun a ten-number combination into a dial set beside it, causing its massive doors to open. It was just large enough to accommodate everyone, as well as the device. The journey down seemed interminable. Once they reached the auditorium, Dr. Rys quickly spun another ten-number combination into a dial beside the door. The elevator opened to reveal his entire team waiting for him on the other side. He asked them to gather in the administrative room then escorted the weapons team and the physics package through the chamber to the sending room. Leaving them to their work, he walked swiftly to the admin room; and told everyone what had happened and what he planned to do. He looked at his watch when he finished and saw that he had less than ten minutes left. Dr. Rys then went to the lab to get his multimeter and wire-clippers. Along the way, he exchanged a few heated words with Pedro, who followed him and refused to leave his side. After exiting the lab, he began walking back to the sending room. As he neared the weapon, Dr. Rys shoved his son back repeatedly, yelling at him to leave the chamber. Pedro stayed beside him.

  Looking back, all anyone remembered seeing was Dr. Rys and Pedro standing next to the weapons team; them explaining work they did on sections of the device; Dr. Rys nodding then pointing out from the chamber towards the Maytag desk, giving someone his keys; and then him kneeling, holding a multimeter, directing Pedro to the other side of the warhead with a pair of wire-clippers in hand. After that, the weapons specialists filed out of the sending room and closed the door behind them. Once Agent McCallister reached the Maytag’s controls, he inserted Dr. Rys’s key and turned it. Then, lifting its protective cover, he flipped the left switch on the control box; after that, he lifted its counterpart’s protective cover and then flipped the right one.

  Aftermath

  That afternoon, Undersecretary Allen received briefings from task force agents and US-395 staff. Knowing that there was no other way gave him little comfort. He spoke with President Eisenhower and before the end of the day, all federal installations, domestic and overseas, were listening around the clock for US-395’s beacon. Each day, photos from government reconnaissance aircraft were pored over for signs of the physics package, disarmed or otherwise. As for Dr. Rys’s team, once the task force had gathered and reviewed all of the evidence, everyone’s name appeared on at least one of the lists they’d uncovered. Bugs and phone taps were found in all of their homes and apartments. To those who had access to the investigation’s findings, it was the most unsettling case of third-party espionage in memory. The government offered everyone a new identity, a generous relocation allowance and federal protection. As shaken as they were, most accepted. President Eisenhower ultimately decided to treat it as a national security matter rather than a criminal investigation; and subsequently released most of the people arrested in the raids. In return they agreed to work for the government to root out the web of technology theft and arms trafficking they’d once abetted.

  It turned out that one of those arrested was a brilliant and well-respected physicist from Cambridge University, Dr. Richard Angstrom, who’d actually taught one of US-395’s scientists, Dr. Kevin Sharp. Along with most of those caught in the raid, he had strong ties to the military in the United States and in the United Kingdom dating back to World War II. Ironically, he’d once been instrumental in developing the radar technology that proved to be so decisive in the Battle of Britain. Using Dr. Rys’s field generator designs, Dr. Angstrom was on the verge of building a particle beam weapon that White House scientists estimated could’ve sliced through a platoon of soldiers at a mile’s distance. According to his testimony, to prime the market for their device, they’d intended to teleport and then detonate a nuclear bomb designed to leave forensic evidence identical to a Soviet atomic weapon's. By doing so, they hoped to ignite an anti-Soviet fervor and stoke demand for their technology. Not knowing where the weapon would detonate and the possibility of triggering a nuclear war didn’t matter. As long as fingers pointed at the Kremlin at the end of the day, the United States would be roused and they stood to make a profit. Their plan was literally insane. After reading through Dr. Angstrom’s testimony, President Eisenhower was furious and ordered a review of how the government, particularly the military, did business with its suppliers.

  As for Dr. Rys and his son, the president was optimistic that they’d eventually be found. None of the intelligence services had detected the detonation of an atomic weapon; and apparently it was possible that atmospheric conditions accounted for why they hadn’t picked up the beacon yet. Dr. Rys’s team, on the other hand, was in a shambles. After being debriefed, most on the project went their separate ways. Many accepted the government’s offer of a new identity and ultimately found work in academia. By the end of summer, only a skeleton crew remained. Guy Pool, Dr. Gidsen and Dr. Marshall took shifts at the short-wave receiver, spending hours listening for the beacon. Given the project’s status and their own personal wealth, Dr. Marshall and Guy Pool stopped taking a salary beginning in September. Even as fall turned into winter, they still expected to hear the signal, believing that the project’s resumption was p
erhaps just a few weeks away. However, as 1959 drew to a close, that optimism slowly faded. A few weeks into the new year, President Eisenhower made the difficult decision to call off the interagency search for Dr. Rys and his son. To avert further abuse of Allen field technology, the administration then began its push to put the genie back into the bottle. In addition to cracking down on the development of the technology, purchases of the materials needed to build a field generator were heavily monitored. Finally, the president ordered that US-395 itself be shut down, its auditorium sealed and its existence almost completely purged from government records.

  Although federal resources dedicated to their search had been scaled back drastically, the administration hadn’t given up on finding Dr. Rys and his son. President Eisenhower was personally convinced they’d disarmed the weapon and in light of what they’d done, giving up simply wasn’t an option. Without revealing anything about US-395, he authorized the creation of a new group within the National Security Agency dedicated to listening for the signal. He had it called the incident management division and had one of the NSA’s most promising young field agents, a hot-shot just out of the Air Force Academy named Jack Prentice, assigned to oversee its handful of analysts. Hearing the signal would set into motion a chain of events that would culminate in the president being briefed about US-395 in order to bring it to a close. As far as where that briefing would take place, he felt that keeping the field generator technology confidential was the main priority. With that in mind, the president ordered the construction of a new building in the underground city that had just been built to house essential government personnel in the event of a nuclear war. The building would have a room dedicated to delivering the US-395 briefing, which he’d record himself. He wanted everything automated using the latest technology to minimize the chance of any security leaks. To keep the briefing room from ever being inadvertently discovered, he ordered its entrance walled over and the building that housed it kept vacant.