The Ganymede Project

by Susan Glinert Stevens

  It was at the end of Katrina Fontanova’s signals intercept session that Tanya noticed the problem. First, room power fluctuated erratically. Lights dimmed. Printers began vomiting vast quantities of paper. Then the strangest thing happened. The printers “talked” to Tanya.

  The sound they made was like an alien voice—like listening to someone who speaks though an artificial larynx because their throat is eaten away with cancer. It was the buzz, clatter and hiss of printers modulated into words by variations in paper output. The words were very distinct. They were heard by Katrina and Vladimir on the other side of the door, in the SIGINT Operations Center. They were heard by Sverdlov and Dugan in the FBI Surveillance Center as background clatter. But most of all, they were heard by Tanya Dubko through bone conduction as she serviced one of the printers. They froze her blood. They penetrated her brain. They lifted blond hairs from the back of her neck. The alien voice said, in English, “Majority... Murder... Majority... Murder...” Tanya knew that the system had been penetrated.

  * * *

  In the FBI Surveillance Center, Yuri heard a door burst open on the Russian end. He strained to translate Tanya’s excited chatter. “She says ‘Major Fontanova... Wait... Shut down... Overlord Condition.” He slammed his fist on the equipment rack and threw off his headset in disgust. “They found it.”

  * * *

  Indeed, they found it. And they found out that they had been found out. Secrecy and discovery were the Yin and Yang of spycraft. The Russian SIGINT team was gripped by ironic symmetries, like a flipped coin that lands on edge. The team huddled in a hush around the Man of the Hour—The Operations Security (OPSEC) Chief. He had an array of equipment on a table. Like a wizard with a magic wand, he passed a detector over a small capsule inside the earpiece of a headset. The needle swung. He nodded at the group.

  They found the bug.

  * * *

  Within the FBI Surveillance Center, Sverdlov and Dugan simply stared at each other. They knew that if the Russians could identify the source of the probe—and went public—they could be left twisting slowly in the wind.

  Plausible deniability.

  “Maybe it was the way we got the data out,” Ramos said. “Using the embassy’s own radiation shield to radiate a spread spectrum signal—that was high risk.”

  “But what was all that background noise about?” Yuri asked. “Something peculiar happened in the Russian Op Center.”

  “We’ve got some leverage,” Dugan said. “If they make a public stink, we’ve got the tapes showing they were spying on a classified U.S. project.”

  Ramos shook his head. “I know you guys are in a box, but we can’t use these tapes. They reveal sources and methods. In order to release this Top Secret material, you’d have to go higher than both the NSA and FBI directors. We’re talking Attorney General and DCI level.”

  Yuri crushed his Styrofoam cup. “We have to take the offensive. Expose them before they lodge an official complaint. We’ve still got a shot at surviving this.”

  “How’s that?” Dugan asked.

  “We go low tech. Gum shoe method.”

  * * *

  Reality for the Russians seemed to pirouette at the point of discovery. The spymistress unlocked the heavy outer door of the SIGINT Center. With Vladimir at her side, she stepped out.

  “That was my headset they bugged,” Katrina said. “I feel like I’ve been violated. Nikolai ordered U.S. origin equipment. He wanted only the best. Big mistake.”

  “What were the printers doing?”

  Katrina shrugged. “Maybe it was a glitch in their monitoring system.”

  “How could they pick up the signal? The room is shielded!”

  “They keep getting cleverer and cleverer. It could take us weeks to find the method of transmission.” Katrina put a hand on Vladimir’s shoulder. “They shut down the SIGINT Center for a while,” she said, “but we have other assets. I want you to task satellite coverage of the Malebolge site. Groom Dry Lake Base. The twenty second. Fourteen thirty hours.”

  She lit a cigarette. “We were lucky the cell phone check gave us one of their names. We need to find out more about this Doctor Richard Chandra.”

  26. PEEK-A-BOO

  15 April 1994

  Washington, D.C.

  Vladimir Fontanov, sporting a decadent-looking earring, a Red Sox shirt and expensive Nike shoes, pushed into the lobby of an auditorium near the Georgetown University campus, trying to lurk unseen.

  The plan worked. In Moscow, his attire would attract attention. But in Georgetown, he could be invisible—a ghost.

  He was not just any ghost, but a ghost searching for another invisible person—a shadow. Where does a ghost find a shadow? Answer: attached to the feet of the person who is shadowed.

  He moved past a few casually dressed people gathered around a refreshment table, bored by the pontification inside the auditorium. He maintained a bland, ghostly smile, artfully blending with ennui as he approached a poster announcing the seminar. It read:

  Department of Physics Presents:

  Broken Paradigms—Physics in Transition

  • The Anthropic Principle—Reality or Illusion?

  • Age of the Universe—Ambiguities in Time

  • Faster than Light Communications

  The sign identified featured speakers.

  He ran a finger down the agenda to the last item. Beside it was Richard Chandra’s name and photograph. Amplified voices issued from beyond the double doors.

  He looked in.

  * * *

  “This kind of certainty can’t be based on any evidence I’ve seen!” A balding, rotund debater pressed his point. He was like a prize fighter with a microphone. He pummeled his opponent with data and opinions.

  Richard Chandra, the featured speaker, blocked the punch. “Your criticism is circular,” Chandra shot back. “By ‘evidence’ you mean some facts that cause you to believe. You don’t and won’t believe, so in your mind, there is no evidence.”

  Chandra and his antagonist glared at each other from opposite sides of a podium table, unmindful of thirty to forty other spectators. Each looked for an opening—a weak defense against damaging information. The scientific discussion degenerated. They forgot form. They forgot footwork. They forgot ‘duck-weave-parry-thrust.’ They just hit. They began to talk at once.

  “I only said, Doctor Chandra...”

  “Listen to me.”

  “... that there are a variety of alternative

  explanations...”

  “Listen to me!”

  “... for the data and you have chosen the most speculative!”

  “Asshole!”

  Katrina Fontanova, seated at the end of a row in the audience, rubbed her eyes in disbelief at the painful exchange. She was there for information, but invective seemed to be the primary output of this verbal blood sport. She shook her head, stood up and walked slowly toward the exit.

  When the ‘Asshole’ comment temporarily silenced his opponent, Chandra took the offensive, nostrils flaring. “If we excite calcium atoms, each atom gives off two photons. These photon pairs are quantum linked by a faster-than-light process.”

  Katrina turned at the comment. Here was actual

  information—something she could use.

  “If we carried one photon to Bernard’s Star and left the other one on Earth, we could force polarization in one photon and induce polarization in the other.”

  Between Chandra’s words, Katrina caught a glimpse of Yuri Sverdlov rising tentatively near the edge of the room.

  Yuri saw Katrina, looked away, then sat down again—trying hard not to be noticed.

  Except for the false intention movement, he could be just another invisible spectator. But she had his picture. The embassy had his dossier. She knew he was a shadow, tracking her.

  Clumsy, she thought.Stupid .Like some GRU goon . Her mind focused again on the debate.

  “We could create a binary channel,” Chandra continued. “Ver
tically polarize forone ; horizontally polarize forzero .”

  “Look,” his opponent responded, “in order to send faster-than-light messages that way, you’d have to measure the polarization of a single photon. Are you saying you can do that?”

  “Yes,” Chandra replied.

  “How?”

  “Do you think I’m going to reveal that kind of patentable secret at this forum? Not likely!”

  Katrina shrugged and walked out the double door. Chandra had turned off the information spigot—no need to waste more time here.

  She saw Vladimir, hands casually tucked into his carefully ironed Dockers pants. She paid him a furtive glance, a shadowy smile, nodding toward the room where Yuri Sverdlov was rising from his seat. He nodded back, as if reading her mind, and blended—like a Georgetown preppy—into the woodwork.

  Her thoughts were still woollified by quantum physics. What she really needed was coffee—the acidified, grab-your-throat, lightning-in-a-cup expresso stuff that leaked in mud-like glops from a special container on the refreshment table.

  She poured a steaming cup of brew.

  An infant with the largest eyes peeked from behind a mother’s shoulder. The world was big and mysterious to this newcomer. It watched Katrina’s every move. Katrina smiled. The infant smiled. They played peek-a-boo.

  Katrina disengaged when she saw Yuri exit the auditorium. He watched Katrina. Behind him, Vladimir crossed his arms, watching Yuri. The debate inside the auditorium raged.

  “How do you reconcile with quantum theory’s most puzzling feature?” the debater asked. “A world that isnot observed is very different from a world thatis observed?”

  “Gentlemen,” came the voice of the moderator, “we’re running out of time. If you have other questions of Doctor Chandra, please get with him one-on-one.”

  Katrina glanced toward the auditorium.

  Yuri was aware of Katrina’s position, but carefully avoided eye contact. He pretended to read the sign announcing next week’s lecture. It said:

  NEXT WEEK: Tellus Foundation Presents

  Environmental Crimes at Groom Dry Lake Base

  —A Government Cover-Up?—

  Katrina’s voice came from behind: “I thought your government’s job was to protect all of humankind. How can they do that and have criminals running the show? Coffee?”

  Her voice startled him. Yuri’s eyes locked on to Katrina’s for the first time. “What?” he asked, squinting in disbelief.

  Katrina smiled, and thought,Peek-a-boo !

  “Next week’s seminar,” she said. “You were reading the poster. Maybe you were thinking of something else. Coffee?”

  Yuri instinctively accepted the offered cup.

  “Sometimes you have to stir it up,” she said.

  Someone nudged him from behind. The coffee spilled.

  “Oh, no!” Katrina said. “Vladimir, you have soiled the gentleman’s coat.” She began to wipe his coat with paper towels from the coffee bar.

  Yuri turned, to see his ‘nudger.’

  “I’m very sorry,” she said. “Vladimir is sorry, too, aren’t you, Vladimir?”

  “I’m so clumsy!” Vladimir said. “I apologize, Mister...”

  “Jones.”

  “Ah, Mister Jones... Indiana? Then this wallet you dropped is not yours?”

  Yuri spun around again. Katrina had fingered his wallet.

  “Strange,” she continued. “The ID picture looks just like you. But it says,Agent Yuri Sverdlov, FBI . A coincidence! We both have Russian names.”

  She pulled close to him and whispered softly in his ear, “Do you know Bubba?”

  Yuri grasped the wallet, stammering. “I, uh... Bubba and I go way back. Fritzkovsky. Bubba Fritzkovsky.”

  She smiled and released his wallet. Yuri returned it to his coat. She glimpsed a gun and holster.Peek-a-boo , she thought. “Let’s get some fresh coffee and find a place to sit, Mister Jones. I want to know all about you. And I want to catch up on Mr. Bubba.”

  “I’m sorry but I really have to leave. Anyway, the Bubba you know is probably not the same one. Mine’s Polish. I think you have me confused with someone else. Really.”

  Vladimir grabbed Yuri around the shoulders, herding him toward a table. “There you are wrong, Mister Jones. We have us all confused with someone else.”

  “I like the earring and the hairdo,” Yuri responded.

  “Do not trifle with him. That is a very touchy subject with Vladimir, Mr. Jones. He can go wild. Crazy. If we all sit down, he will be less confrontational.”

  Vladimir’s face grew stern. Other people in the lobby began to stare.

  Yuri smiled.Be polite , he thought.Be nice—even to the enemy .

  “How can I refuse such a gracious invitation?”

  The game of spy-versus-spy played out in subtle subterfuge, disingenuous discussion and elusive elocution. They traded small talk at a table in the lobby.

  “I grew up speaking Russian,” Yuri said. When I joined the Marines, I had a job as interpreter and translator. My Russian’s pretty good.” He stirred the coffee. “So what brings you to this seminar? Are you a student, Ms. Fontanova?”

  She laughed, wagging a finger. “Ah, Mister Jones. You are showing off. I didn’t introduce myself yet. Hi, I’m Katrina Fontanova. I’m a clerk at the Russian Embassy.”

  “And I am her assistant,” Vladimir said.

  “A Russian file clerk and her assistant, who attend physics seminars in English?”

  “We come to watch,” Katrina winked. “A hobby, eh Mister Jones?”

  In the background, the seminar broke up and denizens of the auditorium emigrated into the lobby.

  At the table, Katrina bobbed her head as though watching a tennis match. “I know that you know that I know.”

  Richard Chandra exited the auditorium. Katrina tracked him with her eyes but spoke to Yuri. “You seem like a nice enough person, Mister Sverdlov. Leave us alone. The Cold War is over.”

  “We all have a job to do.”

  “We are doing nothing illegal. Stay if you like and meet a new friend.” She waved at Chandra. From her point of view, this had been a game of ‘cat and mouse’, played with two cats. Now they had a mouse.

  Chandra saw her, hesitated, then moved to the table.

  “Yes?” he asked. “Do I know you?”

  She held out a hand. “No you don’t. I’m a fan. I was intrigued by your lecture, Doctor Chandra, despite—or perhaps because—of the conflict.”

  Chandra’s lip curled in a sneer. “He was an ignorant ass.”

  “He simply said what everyone else was thinking. Not all minds work the way yours does.”

  Chandra sneered again, offended by the comment. He turned to leave, but she drew him back.

  “I believe you, Doctor Chandra. I was probably the only person in the room who did. Here, sit down. I got some coffee for you.” She smiled a pleasant smile and cleared a place at the table. “Sometimes you have to stir it up.”

  He looked at her with deep distrust.

  “I understand the physics of what you propose. We have a similar project.”

  Chandra was visibly shaken, like a priest who hears the unspeakable spoken. Yet, this very violation of protocol attracted him. There was information that needed to be mined from this Russian-accented woman. He probed. “I’ve seen you in the audience at other lectures.”

  “I’m flattered you noticed.”

  “You obviously know who I am. Who are you?”

  Katrina removed a business card from her purse. She placed it on the table.

  Sverdlov put his own spin on it.

  “She’s a file clerk at the Russian Embassy, and this is her assistant.” He glanced theatrically at the card. “Wait. This says she’s the Chief Information Officer.” He feigned surprise and a look of betrayal aimed at Katrina. “I’m shocked.”

  “A private joke,” Katrina said.

  Chandra was not amused. “Look, I’d love to talk physics with
representatives from the Russian Embassy. But it’s late. I’ve got to go. If you’re a member of my fan club, then we’ll meet again. I like to keep track of my fans... Ms. Fontanova,” he said, looking at her card.

  “Maybe we can meet next week. Right here.” She eyed Sverdlov. “I want to hear more about governmental crimes at Groom Dry Lake Base.” Then she looked at Chandra. “Don’t you, Doctor Chandra?”

  “Yes, but I have another engagement.” He stood, shook hands with everyone at the table, then walked confidently back toward the auditorium.

  Chandra inspected the poster announcing next week’s seminar. He frowned at the flyer. Below a picture of the speaker was the name,John Anderson . He penned a circle around the photo of a jolly-looking, heavyset, Black-American face, folded the flyer and tucked it in a coat pocket. He raised Katrina’s business card in the air and nodded.

  She saw Chandra’s gesture from across the room and waved back. She projected her voice so that he could hear plainly: “If you change your mind... Next week! We’ll find out what’s happening at Groom!”

  Peek-a-boo, she thought.

  27. DESERT MAJIC

  Groom Dry Lake Base, Nevada

  22 April, 1420 Hours

  Richard Chandra stepped with long strides across flat ground, pushing the corrigated soles of dust-colored boots into a thin icing of sand stippled with the tracks of small animals. It was a fine day for a test—eighty-degree weather and clear, blue skies. Perfect. He tipped the brim of a bush hat, shading his eyes from the sun, felt its warmth, then caught Whit Constantine’s gaze. One hundred yards away, Constantine, the Test Director, gave him a nod and a thumbs up.

  Chandra smiled as he stepped up into an air conditioned test van, eased into the Weapons Director’s chair, and began preparations.