The Ganymede Project

by Susan Glinert Stevens

  Chandra stood, brushing his hands through his hair.

  “Unfortunately, Thought Tunneling Devices were useless until I had something to communicate with. After years of technology development—something I had a lot to do with—my wish came true.” He put his hand on the floor. A rat ran into his palm. He stroked it, lovingly. “Be careful what you wish.”

  “What will you do with me?”

  He rubbed a finger up and down her arm, feeling smooth, warm skin turn to the texture of gooseflesh.

  “Devil!” she shouted in Russian, backing to the end of her chain, as though touched by one of his animals.

  “We’re not communicating, Ms. Fontanova. I don’t speak Russian, but I get the gist.” He licked his lips, again. “What will I do with you?”

  * * *

  It was after midnight in Washington, D.C., when a black limousine pulled up to the diplomatic entrance of the White House. Nikolai Gallagan stepped out. A security escort accompanied him into the building. They walked briskly up some steps, then down a red-carpeted hallway, stopping next to an office door. The escort knocked.

  “C’mon in,” a voice answered.

  Gallagan and the escort entered into an empty reception area. A lamp on the desk was the only light in the room. Lights in an inner executive office burned brightly. They heard movement inside, then Billy popped out of the doorway.

  “Nikolai! Good to see you. Listen, can you wait for a minute? I’m on the phone. Kind of a crisis?” Billy looked at the escort. “Maybe Nikolai would like to see the new photo montage down the hall? I’ll come down ‘n get you just as soon as I’m done. Promise.”

  * * *

  The truck carrying Yuri awaited clearance at a security check point. The guard walked around it, looked inside, then waved it through.

  Beneath the chassis, hanging like a spider in a leather web, Yuri gripped wires and mounts, hoping his belt would hold. Bumps in the road jostled his feet, wedged in metal nooks, dropping them to the earthen road, where his heels dragged until he could reposition himself.

  The truck drove toward the Research Center, slowed as it approached the designated parking area, then finally stopped.

  Laughter exploded inside the cab as the truck cut its engine. Doors opened. The driver and patrolman exited, both in hysterics.

  “... and then he said ‘Tail wax!’“ the driver roared.

  Both men laughed again.

  “Whoa, Don’t do this to me. I can’t take this many jokes in one night. My funny bone gets hungry. Time to chow down.” The two men walked off together, continuing to joke and laugh.

  Yuri unstrapped himself from the bottom of the truck, crawled out and surveyed the area from a huge wheelwell.

  That’s the maintenance shed, he thought, looking ahead toward a small shack near a ravine.Maybe 100 yards—most of it in the open . He moved at a low, fast crouch across the ground, melting into the shadows on one side of the shed. He looked through a window, saw no one inside, and entered.

  The light was on. He quickly lowered a window shade to mask his movements. There was a blueprint of the Research Center mounted on the wall. His fingers traced the location of security sensors.

  In through the roof, then the utility tunnel, then sub-floor access space.

  He felt around the edges of the Plexiglas slab covering the map, then ripped it from the wall. The blueprint fell to the floor. He folded it and put it in his pocket, closing the door softly as he headed toward the Research Complex.

  He climbed an access ladder to the roof, where he scanned the facility blueprint again.Ventilation system’s the way in . He dropped into a large vertical metal vent.

  Now the hard part—avoiding detection. He pulled a metal grating away from its frame and poked his head through the hole.An administrative area. No safes. Probably no motion detectors. Blueprints show no video cameras .

  He jumped the short distance to the floor, waited, and listened. Silence.Not a creature was stirring ...

  He crawled on his belly, commando-style, toward the hallway entrance. Beyond the fire door, he could see the hatch to the utility tunnel. A silhouette passed in front of the windowed door. A worker with a badge put coins into a vending machine. Yuri heard the candy bar thump its way down the chute. He pressed against the wall, waited until the worker departed, then cautiously scurried across the corridor. He removed the hatch, stepped in, and closed it behind him.

  The utility tunnel was completely dark. His flashlight cut like a laser beam, illuminating massive, wall-mounted trays carrying coaxial cable. He had to hunch down as he walked, to avoid bumping against the low ceiling.

  He moved down a vertical cable chase, and at the bottom, found raised computer flooring.

  Near the ladder, a door with a window looked out into a hallway. He put his face to the glass, then backed away when he heard voices.

  Chandra! Yuri looked from the corner of the window.

  Richard Chandra and two security guards stopped a few feet down the hall, talked momentarily, then moved on. They entered into Area G, closing the door behind them.

  Can’t go in that way, Yuri thought, eyeing security cameras monitoring the hallway.Besides, it’s a vault. The door has a crypto lock .But the sub-floor —

  Yes, the subfloor—white tile above, darkness, closeness below.

  He teetered for a moment, picturing what he had to do.There will be a faint visibility, not total darkness. I’ll have to be quiet, ever so quiet. Like a mouse. If they hear me, they’ll pull away the tiles.

  Then, with a sigh, he muttered, “What the hell,” and lowered himself to his knees. He pointed the flashlight into the opening. There was a rectangular hole in the concrete wall below the raised flooring. Cables ran through it.

  He crawled in.

  The space below the floor was an ambiguous darkness, broken by cracks of light.

  He forced himself forward, slithering between steel supporting posts, over dirty cable bundles that formed the building’s nervous system, through the web, deeper and deeper.

  He crawled slowly through the tight space. There was a rectangular opening in a concrete wall just large enough to squeeze through. He drew his shoulders together, turned his head sideways and exhaled, inching in.

  Voices emanated beyond the opening. He thought he heard a rustling sound.

  * * *

  “Call off the alert,” Chandra said to the senior security officer. “Return the base to Condition Yellow. Notify the test crew that I want a stand down at the Malebolge site. In the morning tell them they have the day off—as a reward for excellent work.”

  “Yes, Sir,” the guard responded.

  “I’ll take care of the body.”

  The Guards departed.

  Chandra spoke loudly in the empty room. “Are you curious, Agent Sverdlov? Curious about Project Ganymede? Curious about Ms. Fontanova? Then listen to me...” He smiled slowly, gazing at the cages. “Listen—to me!”

  Rats in cages along one wall of Area G began to chatter, squeal and move. Their bodies banged loudly against steel wire. The computer screen, still operating, scrolled rapidly—each new line adding ‘C00001’ to the ‘ACCESSED BY’ column. Finally, Chandra had complete connectivity. Complete control. Then the racket subsided.

  “As you may have already guessed, Project Ganymede gave me a special ability. The TTDs in my brainconnect me. I control other bodies, other limbs, other jaws, other teeth.”

  He stared at the section of floor where Yuri hid. His upper lip curled to the top of his teeth.

  “I can see you, Yuri—with my other eyes.”

  In the crawl space, Yuri heard Chandra’s remarks. He also heard scuttling noises around him in every direction—first faint and distant, then bold and close. Something alive moved in the darkness under the floor—a tick of hate loose in a labyrinth, infecting all pathways.

  A furry body screeched. He felt hair in his face, then pain. There was a sound like teeth on bone.

  Yuri yelled.


  The rat was gone in an instant. His cheek gushed from the bite. He tried to stanch the flow of blood with his hand. He breathed rapidly, scanning the darkness with a pencil beam of light. Dozens of red eyes, naked tails and furry, dark bodies surrounded him. He looked around with growing panic, but found no clear exit path.

  From above came Chandra’s voice: “I can pump bullets through the floor, Yuri. I personally don’t like that option—too noisy. Alternatively, you can watch a very personal demonstration of my ability to control the animals... I prefer the latter option.”

  Yuri touched the floor panel above his head.

  “The only issue is whether you die here, or meet with Fontanova first. This can be hard, or it can be easy. Your choice.”

  Death by rats was not a preferred option. Yuri pushed up a section of flooring and emerged into Area G. Chandra covered him with a gun. Glass and blood still littered the floor from the previous fire fight.

  In front of Yuri was a body bag, partially open, showing the face of Ben Nightwalker.

  “Excellent choice,” Chandra said.

  * * *

  Gallagan looked at the photographic montage of past U.S. presidents. His escort sat on a couch in the waiting area. When Billy entered from the corridor, the escort rose to his feet.

  “Sorry for keepin’ you waitin’, Nikolai. Had to take an important call. ‘Course I know what you’ve got must be pretty important, too. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be over here this late... What’s up?”

  “We know about Operation Majority,” Gallagan said.

  “I see.”

  Stanton turned to the escort. “I’ll escort Mister Gallagan out when I’m done. We’d like to talk privately, please.”

  The escort nodded and left.

  Gallagan looked at the presidential montage.

  “The alien craft crashed at Roswell in this time frame,” he said, pointing to President Truman. “On his watch... Stalin was in power then. The Cold War started. Good people on both sides died to get information about powerful new weapon systems. Nuclear terror brought us to the brink of extinction.”

  Gallagan stared at Billy.

  “Now alien technology is about to start it all again. We don’t need another Cold War.”

  Billy nodded, then said softly: “Nope. We sure don’t.” He cleared his throat. What we have, here, Nikolai, is a bureaucracy tryin’ to out-trick itself. I’m sayin’ this off the record.”

  “Off the record,” Gallagan said, “we have one of your people and one of my people running for their lives—Ms. Fontanova, my Information Officer, and Agent Sverdlov, from your FBI. Call off the assassins, or we’ll give everything we have about Operation Majority to the press.”

  “Off the record, Operation Majority was a mistake. It was an elaborate deception designed to keep you and others guessin’ about our R&D efforts at Groom.”

  Gallagan squinted, caught off guard.

  “Nothin’ wrong with tryin’ to keep secrets a secret,” Billy continued. “But we’ve got an out-of-control bureaucrat who started takin’ the game too seriously.”

  “This game,” Gallagan said, “has already killed one of my people. Fontanova and Sverdlov may be next. To use the Americanism, I want you topull the plug .”

  Billy nodded. “I don’t want anybody else to get hurt. You seem to think highly of Ms. Fontanova—”

  “Yeltsin himself sent her here. Did you know that?”

  “Frankly, I didn’t. Agent Sverdlov is also one of our best. After your Ambassador said he wanted him on the investigation, I looked at his record. Spotless. Ex-Marine who distinguished himself in combat. A true patriot.”

  “Yes. A patriot. Do with him what you will. But if anything should happen to Fontanova, you will have a major diplomatic incident on your hands.”

  “Give me 24 hours, Nikolai. If they don’t show up in 24 hours, well... we’ll put everything we have on it. I’ll pull the plug now. I mean that, sincerely, Nikolai.”

  * * *

  Three intruders ransacked Yuri’s apartment. One of them pulled books from a shelf, looking for hidden notes. The second, Chisholm, disassembled Yuri’s computer, removing his disk drive. The third, Agent Stone, looked through Yuri’s desk, carefully reading and sorting papers.

  Chisholm walked to the desk and put down a piece of equipment.

  “I’ve replaced Sverdlov’s hard drive with an empty one. I’d like to take this back to the office and start looking at his files. A lot of them are encrypted.”

  “Do something for me first,” Stone said, removing papers from a coat pocket. “See if you can find a few appropriate places to put these.”

  Chisholm looked through the papers, flashed his eyebrows in surprise and whistled.

  “Evidence,” Stone said. “When Sverdlov doesn’t show up, we’ll have police search the apartment. They’ll discover he was working for the Russians. Anything that gets published about Operation Majority will seem like a fantastic Russian disinformation campaign. A cover-up to hide lies and spies. We’ll have plausible deniability.”

  * * *

  The phone in Billy’s office rang impatiently. The escort had gone. Billy heard the ring and led Gallagan through the hallway, back to his office. He picked up.

  “Science Advisor.”

  A filtered voice came through the phone. “Billy, this is Stone. We’re done. Everything’s in place.”

  “Great,” Billy said. “Thanks.”

  He hung up, then looked at Gallagan.

  “Some unfinished business. Now, where were we?”

  * * *

  Deke dreamed. He floated up to the ceiling and watched two thugs hammer his body. He seemed to be tied to his body by some sort of umbilical cord. He was a helium-filled thought balloon, and his body still held the string. “That’s nice,” he thought.

  Then it seemed that the string got shorter. Something pulled at the string, reeling him in. He felt pain again. When he finally opened his eyes, two faces from hell crowded his view.

  “He’s coming around,” one of them said. “Prop him up. See if he’d like a drink of water.”

  Oh,Deke thought,now we’re playing nicey-nice. That’s nice. He really did feel better after he sipped water. The glass reddened with his blood.

  “Feel better?” one of them asked.

  He nodded, “Yeah.”

  “Good. Can you tell us where the other classified files are

  that you’ve hidden?”

  Deke nodded again, “Yeah.”

  “Great. I think we’re communicating. Can you just show us? I realize talking is kind of a problem now. But listen—you gotta talk or my partner ‘ll kill you.”

  Deke pointed to the computer. They lifted him into the seat. At first he felt faint, but it passed. It was important to communicate.

  “Online.” he said.

  “You’ve hidden the files online?”

  Deke nodded.

  “Think you can show us the way?”

  Deke nodded again, then turned to the keyboard. He couldn’t use his right hand at all, so he hit the return key with the left hand. There was a dial tone, then the FSK ‘music’ of digital dialing. There was the noisy hash of a modem connecting, then silence.

  On the screen they saw a spinning icon and a window labeled “Out Basket.”

  “What’s that?” Thug One asked.

  “Connection protocol,” Deke managed to say.

  They watched the spinning icon some more.

  “Sure takes a long time,” Thug Two said.

  “System’s slow,” Deke said, through broken teeth.

  Finally, there was a beep. A window popped up with the notice:143 messages sent . Deke laughed.

  “What messages?” Thug One asked.

  Deke still laughed.

  “Bastard!”

  Thug One pointed his gun and pulled the trigger.POP ! Deke slumped over the keyboard. The world dissolved to black.

  56. MALEBOLGE

  24 July 1
994

  Midnight approached and the blackness of night lapped against the shoreline of Groom Dry Lake Base. A patrol truck sped toward the Malebolge test site, headlights probing the dirt road. In the covered cargo bed, Yuri and Katrina sat side-by-side, handcuffed, arms intertwined. Both were exhausted. Katrina still wore the hospital gown.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “We were going to help each other. Now—”

  “It’s not over ‘till it’s over.”

  Her laugh rang with hollow tension. “Yogi Berra?”

  She rested her head on his shoulder, trying to relax in an impossible position. The body bag shrouding the corpse of Ben Nightwalker pushed snug against her feet.

  The truck slowed to a stop. The engine cut off. A door opened and closed.

  “Yuri,” Katrina whispered, as Chandra’s footsteps moved toward the back of the truck, “I’m sure he doesn’t speak Russian.”

  A flashlight beamed in their faces. Katrina saw the metallic glint of a gun. She felt an adrenaline rush.

  They exited the truck in a clumsy embrace. Chandra made them sit on the ground. The desert grated against Katrina’s feet and legs. A slight breeze cooled her body. She responded with a shiver.

  Chandra hit a light switch and Malebolge became a stage.

  Katrina watched as Chandra’s powerful body shoved Nightwalker’s corpse against the upright frame on the target pad. The body locked in place with aclang . Chandra looked into Nightwalker’s dead eyes, grinned, then turned.

  He tossed a set of keys. They landed near Yuri and Katrina, who clutched at them awkwardly with cuffed hands and intertwined arms.