Nathan cursed and slammed on the brakes, bringing the coupe to a screeching sideways stop. The three sedans arrived and also came to screaming halts, arrayed behind him to block any escape he might still be considering. There were guns everywhere, all pointed at him, and he still had no idea what this was all about.
A severe looking woman in a dark gray suit emerged from the back seat of one of the first sedans. She held up an ID, though it was impossible for Nathan to read from this distance. “Mr. Kelley, this is the Department of Homeland Security. Step out of the vehicle and come with us. We have some questions for you.”
He carefully opened the door and climbed out of the low-slung car, hands held high. No sooner was he out than there were three agents in black utilities on him, his arms held painfully against his back, his face and chest pressed hard against the hood of the car. They frisked him with brutal efficiency while others began rifling through the car and cracking the encryption on his suite. He heard the rapid clipping of heels on asphalt and the female agent, undoubtedly the leader of this merry band, was behind him, whispering in his ear. “Why were you running from us, Mr. Kelley?”
Nathan fought a losing battle to keep the pain out of his voice. “Why were you chasing me? I didn’t know who you people were until your trucks showed up! You didn’t exactly go out of your way to introduce yourselves.”
“Mr. Kelley, we often find introducing ourselves to someone like you merely an invitation to bullets or the destruction of evidence. My sincerest apologies for any discomfiture you may have experienced, but you’ll have to excuse us for learning from our bloody past.”
A fresh jab from the man holding his arms elicited a long groan. Nathan gritted his teeth to cut it off and said, “What do you mean, ‘Someone like me’?”
“Nuclear terrorists, Mr. Kelley. And one of our modern war heroes as well. How very sad.”
“What!?”
Nathan’s spluttering denials and protestations went unacknowledged. They dragged him from the hood of his car and walked him into the back of one of the tactical trucks. In a few more minutes, the access road had been cleared, and their convoy moved along the highway with both trucks, the three sedans, and Nathan’s BMW. They were gone before the first regular police arrived with an ambulance to check over the frazzled occupants of the old minivan.
In the well-appointed back seat of the truck, Nathan sat with two dour-faced agent/soldiers in black utilities. The female agent sat across from him on a rear-facing bench seat. They drove in silence for several miles until Nathan could stand it no longer, exactly as they had intended. “I’m not a terrorist, nuclear or otherwise.”
“That remains to be seen. I am Special Agent Stanton, Homeland Security. We’re acting on credible intelligence received concerning you and your employer’s recent activities.”
“Mr. Lee isn’t a terrorist either.”
“Which I am sure will be either confirmed or not in the very near future, but everything depends upon your cooperation. Do we have it?”
“You have it! Absolutely. Nothing would make me happier than to help you, especially given your kind and gracious offer to chauffeur our meeting.”
“You can lose the sarcasm, Mr. Kelley. Sarcasm ends this interview and gets you safely behind lock and key as an accessory in the illegal trafficking and use of nuclear materials.”
Nathan glared. “Belaying sarcasm, aye, ma’am.”
She glared back at him for several more miles in silence. Nathan used the opportunity to try to assess his situation. They had not arrested him yet. In fact, they had not even bound him, with the obvious exception of the two hulking guards on either side. That probably meant that though they suspected him of something, they did not have enough certainty or evidence to proceed with impunity. In fact, if they did arrest him, he could probably have it thrown out of court because of the manner of his arrest. Homeland Security might have become overcautious and extreme in their procedures over the years, but they were still ostensibly a law enforcement agency. Nathan tried not to repeat that to himself as a mantra.
This was a fishing expedition. Not only that, but it had all the classic trappings of a shakedown rather than a legitimate interrogation. These people were likely experienced at this sort of thing, and did not appear to be stupid. That meant that their method of snatching him could hardly be an accident. It was intentional, calculated, probably intended to intimidate him or cow him into a cooperative frame of mind. He was unsure of what that meant for him, but it did serve to relax him somewhat.
Special Agent Stanton saw Nathan settle a bit from his earlier position atop pins and needles. It only seemed to infuriate her. No longer content to wait for his frightened, nervous babbling of what they wanted to know, especially since it did not seem to be working, she started in. “Who is Lee working for?”
“As far as I know, Mr. Lee only works for Mr. Lee.”
She smiled. “So Lee is taking it upon himself to become a nuclear power? He’s trying to acquire weapons grade and reactor grade fissile material for some perfectly legitimate reason?”
Nathan winced inwardly, hoping his poker face betrayed nothing to the Homeland Security agents. “Overseas procurement problems,” Lee had said. It had been nothing for Nathan to worry about—that is until he had been snatched up by the most paranoid, overreaching law enforcement/defense agency since Hoover’s FBI. Now, it might be considered Nathan’s problem.
“Ma’am, if something that outlandish were true, I’m sure that Mr. Lee would have a perfectly legitimate reason. As it’s not true, I think this discussion is probably unnecessary.”
“Oh, it is indeed true, Mr. Kelley. We’re not quite sure how involved you are, but since you’re the head of Windward’s Special Projects division, we would surmise that you are fully briefed.”
“Fully briefed on what exactly? Your wild speculations?”
She folded her hands demurely in her lap. “We have international data and voice intercepts of your employer attempting to procure nuclear material from several nations which are not on the best of terms with the United States. I would advise you to drop the false innocence and start digging your way out of this.”
Nathan tried to think of something. Repeated pleas of his virtue would fall on deaf ears here, and staying quiet would do no good, not when this whole operation seemed focused upon turning him into a babbling informant. Unfortunately, there was nothing for him to babble, even if he had been so inclined. He had not done anything, but Stanton and her underlings would never be satisfied with that. He had to give them something, and though Nathan’s thoughts turned at a furious rate, they uncovered nothing. Then he smiled.
There was no lie half so good as the truth.
“Okay. Though I knew nothing about the specifics of what he was up to, I do know that he has been looking for some way to power and arm a spaceship in order to defend the planet from a marauding alien force.” He paused, but she said nothing in return. “That’s probably what he was doing.”
Stanton frowned. “You’ll enjoy extra-territorial rendition, Mr. Kelley. Sun, tropical beaches, four by eight cells, no ACLU or UN interference ...”
“I’m being serious.”
“Spaceships and aliens? That is the polar opposite of serious and definitive proof that you doubt our own willingness to find the truth through whatever means necessary.”
“I’m not saying you have to believe it, and I’m not saying I believe it, even after seeing years’ worth of his evidence. But you do need to believe that Lee believes it.”
“So you’re honestly proposing that Lee is trying to acquire nuclear materials in order to hold off an alien invasion?”
Nathan folded his arms and nodded. “Yes, or at least that’s what he believes is happening. I know this isn’t the first time you’ve heard this. It’s been an internet rumor for years.”
“Yes, I’ve heard it before—the Deltan invasion, but I put it in the same category as Walt Disney’s head being frozen.
NASA debunked this whole thing almost ten years ago. It’s some sort of comet or something, right?”
“A rogue stellar fragment that coincidentally happens to be between us and Delta Pavonis, but yes, that’s what they say.”
“Very well, but this also raises the very likely possibility you’re telling me this in order to shield your real activities behind some innocuous absurdity.”
Nathan leaned forward. He felt his two guards tense up in response, but he ignored them. “I’m not lying to you, and I’m not a terrorist. You have nothing on me, because I haven’t done anything. All that you have on Mr. Lee is that he’s some harmless kook with too much money and not enough sense. No one is ever going to give him nuclear materials, and if he did actually manage to buy some, you’d be there to snatch us both up. We wouldn’t be having a pleasant conversation in the back of your über-truck.”
She nodded slightly, though to what part of Nathan’s comment, he could not tell. “And what is your part in all of this, Kelley?”
“I’m building his spaceship, but we don’t have our magic space drive yet.”
Stanton sneered. “I’m going to enjoy interrogating you away from prying eyes.”
“It’s a date, then. I’ll try to bring some flowers.”
The convoy pulled off the highway and into a bank parking lot just outside Virginia Beach. The truck opened and Nathan was unceremoniously shoved out. Stanton leaned toward him from her seat. “It would be ill advised for Lee to continue with his proscribed activities, ludicrous reasoning or not. As a valued and trusted employee, and someone with a noose around his own neck as well, I would recommend you persuade him to cease and desist. This argument is no doubt being made to Mr. Lee himself by my California counterpart at this very moment, but it would not hurt to have you backing up our injunction. I do so hope that we will not be seeing each other again, Mr. Kelley.” The door slammed shut and the five Homeland Security vehicles sped off, leaving him alone in the parking lot with his beat-up BMW.
“Bye.” He walked over to his car and climbed in, one side of his mouth turned down in thought. His suite lay on the passenger seat, none the worse for wear. Nathan extended the screen and scrolled through files. Nothing seemed to be missing, but the access log did show a download of all contents, in spite of the heavy encryption he had bought for it. He grinned a bit, thinking of how confused Stanton would be when the files only confirmed everything Nathan had been saying.
Even if she believed he and Lee were not terrorists, they still would not be allowed access to nuclear materials. Windward as a company had already been denied any legitimate business in atomic energy or weapons development circles, so they could not get what they needed through the established channels. And now they were under surveillance, so they would not be able to get any through extra-legal means either. Lee’s plans now had two insurmountable obstacles: power and propulsion. And even if they somehow acquired a reactor and were able to remain out of jail, there would still be the impossibility of getting into space and out of the solar system.
Nathan was forced to acknowledge that what he had said to Stanton was indeed true: even after spending three years on this project, he was still unsure who to believe. Believe Gordon, his cronies, and their following of conspiracy bloggers that the approaching light was an invading hoard from Delta Pavonis, the Deltans? Or believe NASA and their explanation for the blue light, that it was a large, long period comet reflecting light along a fortuitous axis due to its shape and composition, and that it was neither as far away or moving as fast as Lee’s data seemed to suggest? Nathan thought NASA’s explanation involved a lot of coincidences and hand-waving, but every time he tried to put belief in Lee’s aliens, he seemed to feel the world dropping out from below him.
Nathan shook his head. It was his job to build a space combatant, not to believe in its purpose. He shut the screen on his suite and called up Lee’s home number. He heard it ring, followed by Gordon’s weary answer, “Hello?”
“Hey, Boss. It sounds like we need to have a talk.”
5: “BLUE LIGHT SPECIAL”
July 26, 2039; University of Texas at Arlington, Physics Department; Arlington, TX
The conical array was innocuous—nothing but a six inch diameter, six inch long, hollow, double layer cone of cerium-strontium-silver-sulfate superconducting nanowire mesh and frost covered cooling lines, surrounding a tightly spaced series of toroidal magnetic coils. The cone was held aloft by stout bracing within the accelerator’s target chamber, which lay directly in the path of UTA’s moderate energy electron linear accelerator. The LINAC, essentially a modified injector from the old, bitter days of the Superconducting Super Collider, looked equally cobbled together and home built. This was the sort of place where C average students did third-rate science for the biggest, most apathetic commuter school in East Texas. It was physics hell.
But it was Kristene Annalise Muñoz’s own slice of heaven.
She finished looking over the cone and all its various connections and then closed the door to the target chamber. The wheeze-pop of the vacuum pump started loud but quickly faded to background, and she smiled at her contraption. There were no telltale wisps of gas from the cooling lines. No leaks, everything had held. The chamber had been evacuated and they were ready. She turned to her fellow post-grad student, Leo Buchanan, with two thumbs up, sending both her iridescent purple pigtails flailing about. “Good to go!”
“What the hell does that mean? This isn’t fucking mission control. This is us blowing the last of our damn grant on your screwed up shit. We are anything but good to fucking go.”
She sidled up next to him and batted her eyes. “Awwww, doesn’t Weo wike me anymore?” She topped it off with a devastatingly cute pouting of her lower lip.
Leo shoved her over with an elbow, but he could not stop the embarrassed grin that cast off his glowering frown. They were, in many ways, antagonists toward one another, but they both knew he carried a small torch for his oddly hued lab-mate, piercings, ink, and all.
Kris straightened up, smiled back, and moved over to her computer. “Besides, you can’t blame me for being the only one to come up with an idea that actually works when our wacko benefactors threaten to pull the plug.”
“Works, my ass. You’ve got dubious science backed up by crappy engineering, Kris. The only things that we’re going to get out of running your rig are some smoked magnets. That and a zero balance on the piss-poor pittance Windward let us keep.”
“And I suppose we would have been better off running your simulations? Again?” She shook her head and began her program. A loud hum issued from the LINAC as its magnetic fields built slowly.
“Yes, we would. Gravity wave propulsion is about as mature a science you can get in this field, and I’ve got the simulation data to back my ideas up. I’m doing real fucking physics, not tinkering like some garage inventor. I’m following in the footsteps of established trailblazers, not just throwing ideas at a wall to see if anything sticks. I’ve got a friggin’ heritage to uphold! After all, my father was with NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Group.”
Kris keyed in the parameters for the next phase of her program. The cone shook briefly, silently in her target chamber. “Please! He was a grad student attached to it for like two months before it was disbanded! Just don’t bring up your father again. If I have to hear about him at BPPG, or NASA, or JPL one more time, I’m gonna spew.”
“Screw you, chica. I’m not the one with daddy issues.”
She pointed a finger at him, and the look in her eyes froze Leo. “Do not even think about continuing what you were about to say. You will regret it. Your unborn great-grandchildren will regret it.” Kristene was a kooky, happy-go-lucky sort of genius, but there were two things that were absolutely off limits in regards to her. The first was any criticism of the way she chose to decorate the canvas of her form, whether that be her ever-changing hair color, her nose or brow ring, or the colorful tattoos crawling up her left arm.
The second was the subject of her father, an abusive loser who had done only one good thing her entire life—abandoning Kris and her mother when the young girl was only ten years old. Kris hid the damage he had done to her, but the damage was still there.
Leo closed his gaping mouth. “I’m just saying that Windward would probably be more appreciative of some established, cutting-edge science. If we’d spent the money on my sims, we could have shown Dr. Hastings my gravity shield effect, we could have shown him my grav wave impeller, and the next generations of the Alcubierre warp drive, whatever.”
“Yes, Leo. Your sims are very pretty, but they also require these huge, impractical, and impossible to achieve energy densities. Face it, the only easy way to generate useful grav waves is by shaking a neutron star, and we’re fresh out of those. Now if you could come up with some sort of big bang in a box, your fancy sims might be workable, but without a suitable power source you just have some elegant theoretical physics. Thing is, Windward doesn’t want theories. They want an engine—and three guesses why, if you believe the internet about Gordon Lee. But they gave us a grant to build an engine, and K-Mart is the only shot we have left.”
Leo shook his head and turned to check the bank of gauges and oscilloscopes supporting Kristene’s experiment. “‘K-Mart’. That has to be the worst fucking name for an experiment in the history of science. Why not just call it a photon drive so everybody knows what a dead-end it is?”
She pouted. “It’s clever. It’s all about the ‘blue-light special’.”
He tapped a coolant pressure gauge and then turned back to her. “Yeah, yeah. Anyways, you’re probably right. I wouldn’t expect some soulless corporation like Windward to have anything approaching the sort of vision you need to appreciate my level of science. I mean, Hastings is all right, but with this sort of company it’s usually just bottom-line bastards like that Kelley guy.”
The cone began to glow with a soft cerulean light, and Kristene nodded. “I don’t care if what’s-his-name’s got a vision, or a soul, or anything else. As long as he’s got a checkbook and a job for me after school, I’m good.”
A Sword Into Darkness Page 6