Impact wf-3

by Douglas Preston

  "The file's back in the office. We forwarded the information to the state police already."

  Burr rolled his eyes in disgust at the bureaucracy. "We're a bit top-heavy these days. Could take a week for the file to rise to the surface--or you could help me out right now." A wink. "What say?"

  "Sure thing, Lieutenant. Glad to help."

  The office was just what Burr expected, a windowless cell smelling of Mennen. Wilson, the glorified door shaker, sat behind the desk, pulled open a drawer, and took out a file.

  "I need the usual," said Burr, "car, license plate, witnesses . . . whatever you got."

  "No witnesses, Lieutenant," said Wilson, his face firmly set as befitted the seriousness of the crime. "It was a white Ford F150 king cab pickup, 1985 model, Virginia license . . ." He reeled off the details in full-throated cop-speak, while Burr jotted it down.

  "We'll recover the vehicle; we always do," said Wilson. "Some kids on a joyride. No chop shop would be interested in an old-model pickup like that."

  "I have no doubt you will attain a successful conclusion, Officer," said Burr, rapping his gold pencil on the notebook and tucking it away. He held out his hand. "Don't bother contacting me, I'll keep in touch with you myself, by phone. When that pickup resurfaces, I'd sure like to know. Got a card?"

  Wilson passed him his card.

  "Much obliged, Officer." He hesitated. "Might be best--for diplomacy's sake, you understand--not to mention my visit to the D.C. or Virginia state police HQs. They don't like it when someone from UID makes an end run around their wall of bureaucracy." Again he flashed Wilson a knowing wink.

  "Sure thing," said Wilson, with a grin.

  Burr left the mall and got back into his Beetle. God, it was hot, especially after the frigid air in the mall. Ford and the girl had almost certainly gone to ground. Now he could do nothing except cool his ass waiting for the stolen vehicle to turn up. Slapping the steering wheel in frustration, Harry Burr muttered a low curse. This was one fucked-up situation. Maybe this time he would make an exception--and take pleasure in the kill.

  60

  A warm summer breeze was blowing off Great Salt Bay as Abbey darted up to the door to an old building in downtown Damariscotta, firescape looming above her, framed against a starry sky. She buzzed Jackie's apartment, giving the button a quatrain of long, insistent pushes. A moment later a muffled voice said, "What the fuck?"

  "It's me, Abbey. Let me in."

  The buzzer went off and Abbey pushed open the door and mounted the rickety stairs. They had ditched the stolen truck in the parking lot of a depressed mini-mall along Route 1, where it seemed unlikely to be noted, at least for a while, and had hiked two miles through the woods and on back roads to get to Damariscotta.

  She arrived at the apartment door. "Jackie?"

  She heard a querulous grunt. "Go away."

  "Wake up, it's important!"

  A groan. The sound of feet hitting the floor. The locks turned and Jackie opened the door. She stood squinting in a nightgown, her hair disheveled. "It's two in the frigging morning."

  Abbey pushed her way in and shut the door. "I need your help."

  Jackie stared at her. A sigh. "God, you in trouble again?"

  "Big time."

  "Why am I not surprised?"

  Round Pond Harbor lay black under the night sky, the water lapping around the oak pylons. Abbey paused at the top of the pier. She could see Marea II on its mooring about fifty yards off. It was three o'clock, dark as a tomb, Moon obscured by clouds, about half an hour before the lobstermen normally began arriving. Close enough to the normal hour that a boat firing up and heading out would not be noted as anything special.

  Jackie Spann and Wyman Ford stood on the dock behind her, Ford with his ubiquitous briefcase in hand. "Wait here. I'll bring the boat around to the floating dock, then you come down and get in fast."

  Abbey untied her father's dinghy, unshipped the oars. As she rowed out to the waiting boat, she hoped her father wasn't up yet. She had left a short note, but there was no way of knowing how he would react to her "borrowing" his boat again for some unspecified purpose--and then asking him to lie about it.

  She pulled hard. The splashing of the oars and the tapping of rigging against the masts of the sailboats at anchor were the only sounds in the quiet harbor. Even the gulls were sleeping. She arrived at the Marea II, boarded, and started the engine, the sudden rumble shattering the peace of the summer night. She was pretty sure no one would notice. Boat noise, even in the middle of the night, was a way of life in a working harbor.

  She eased it into the floating dock, not even bothering to bring it to a full halt as it drifted along. Jackie and Ford tossed in their supplies and hopped in, and she turned the wheel and headed out of the harbor, past the blinking light on the can marking the channel, into the sound.

  "So," said Jackie, settling down in a seat in the pilothouse and turning to Ford with a grin. "Who are you and what the hell's going on?"

  61

  Mabel Fortier left the Wand-o-Matic Laundromat with her laundry in a wire basket, wheeling it across the parking lot toward her car. At the far end of the parking lot she could see the usual group of scruffy kids that hung out there with their souped-up cars, talking on their cell phones, cursing, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, and throwing the butts on the ground.

  Once again Mabel tried to tell herself that these were nice boys letting off steam. She had even taught some of them in the first grade before she retired. They were such nice little kids then. What had happened? She shook her head; all teenagers smoked these days, and swearing today wasn't what it used to be in her time.

  Trying to keep these charitable thoughts in her mind, she stacked the laundry on the backseat, folded up the basket, and put it in her trunk. In the background she heard a fresh screech of tires as another car arrived at the teen gathering. She looked up and saw a metallic blue Camaro--the Hinton boy's car--tearing into the far end of the parking lot at a high rate of speed, announcing its arrival with a blaring horn. He was driving too fast, way too fast. The car made a turn with a squeal of rubber and then she heard a smack! and the grinding sound of metal against metal as bits of plastic went skittering across the macadam. The fool in the Camaro had taken the corner too sharply and clipped the back end of a white pickup truck parked in front of a row of vacant storefronts at the far end.

  She watched as the fellow driving the Camaro halted, got out, and bent down to examine the three-foot-long gouge in the side of his car. Didn't even bother to look at the damage to the pickup, with its taillight obliterated, the bumper pulled halfway off. She could hear his terrible curses all the way across the lot, answered by laughs and jeering from the crowd of youths. Then he got back in the Camaro and roared out of the parking lot with another screech of tires.

  Mabel Fortier stared, shocked. The boy had just left the scene of an accident. And now the other boys were climbing into their cars and leaving, all of them "beating a retreat" before the police arrived.

  It was outrageous. Outrageous. The Hinton boy had done thousands of dollars' worth of damage to somebody's vehicle and driven off, just like that.

  This was the last straw. They wouldn't get away with it. Enough was enough. Mabel Fortier took out her cell phone and grimly dialed the police.

  62

  Abbey awoke in the shack to the smell of bacon and eggs on the woodstove, the sun streaming in the windows, the lapping sound of water on the cobbled beach outside. As she came into the main room, Ford was at the kitchen table, hunched over the laptop connected to the NPF drive. She could see he was paging through the pictures.

  "About time!" Jackie cried from the stove. "It's the crack of noon." She pushed a coffee cup into her hands, prepared just the way she liked it, with tons of cream and sugar.

  "Come outside and have breakfast."

  With a glance at Ford, Abbey left the shack and walked over to a weather-beaten picnic table set up in front. A long unruly meadow slope
d down to a cobbled beach. Beyond lay a scattering of spruce-clad islands with a few openings among them showing distant views of the sea horizon.

  Jackie laid the breakfast in front of her and took a seat with her own cup of coffee.

  "Where's the Marea?" Abbey asked, tucking into the bacon and fried eggs. She was starving.

  "I moved her to the cove behind the island," Jackie said.

  Abbey drank her coffee, letting her mind wake up, staring out to sea. Their island, Little Green, was tucked amidst a swarm of thirty islands, separated from the mainland by the Muscle Ridge Channel. To the south lay Muscongus Bay and to the north Penobscot Bay. It was a perfect hiding place, tucked in the middle, invisible from both sea and land, and extremely well protected from the weather. As far as she knew, no one had noted their departure from Round Pond, no one knew where they were going. Not even her father. Here they were safe. But safe from what? That was the question.

  She mopped up the last of her eggs with a piece of bread and refilled her coffee from the pot sitting on the table. The ocean was calm, an easy swell falling on the rocks and withdrawing in a regular cadence. Seagulls cried overhead and a distant lobster boat chugged among the islands.

  Ford came out, holding a coffee cup, and eased his lanky frame down.

  "Morning!" said Jackie, giving him a big grin. "Sleep well, Mr. Ford?"

  "Never better." He took a long sip of his coffee and stared out to sea.

  Abbey said, "I see you've been looking over those images of Deimos."

  "Yes."

  "What do you think?"

  Ford didn't answer right away, gazing at her steadily with pale blue eyes. He spoke slowly, in a low voice. "I think this is an extraordinary discovery."

  Abbey nodded.

  "It's unquestionably alien and quite likely the source of those stray gamma rays. It must be old to have gotten so pitted and worn."

  "I told you it was real."

  He shook his head slowly. "This is the answer to one of the deepest mysteries in the cosmos. By finding that alien construction, now we know we're not alone. My mind is just reeling."

  Abbey stared at him. "You don't get it, do you?"

  "What do you mean?"

  She shook her head. " 'Alien construction', my ass. That's a weapon. And it just fired on the Earth."

  63

  "A . . . weapon," Ford repeated slowly.

  Abbey glanced over at Jackie, who had been listening in silence.

  "Exactly."

  Ford passed his hand over his curly hair. "And what makes you think this?"

  " 'When you have eliminated the impossible--.' "

  "I know the quote," said Ford.

  "Elementary, my dear Watson. A: the thing looks like a gun. B: it fired a miniature black hole that went through the Earth."

  Ford leaned back. "That doesn't quite fit the facts. Even if it did 'fire' that thing and intended to destroy the Earth, it failed. And it hasn't tried again. If it's a weapon, it seems to have given up."

  "How do you know it gave up? Maybe there's another shot coming."

  Ford shook his head. "So these aggressive aliens . . . are they around somewhere? Living inside Deimos?"

  Abbey snorted. "The aliens are long gone."

  "Gone? How do you know?"

  "Look at the picture. The thing's a derelict, all drifted up with dust and pitted. Nobody's taking care of it. Maybe the aliens left the weapon and split."

  "What for?"

  "Who knows? Not long before that thing took a potshot at us, the MMO made a close pass of Deimos, hitting it with radar and taking pictures. Maybe that woke it up. Maybe the aliens passed by here millions of years ago, saw a habitable planet and left a weapon to take care of any future technological civilizations that might challenge them. Hell, there could be thousands, millions of these weapons seeded throughout the galaxy."

  "I hope you won't be offended if I express a candid opinion on your theories."

  Abbey crossed her arms and waited.

  "Great Twilight Zone plots."

  "You think about it," Abbey said, "and see if you don't come to the same conclusion."

  Ford sighed. "I will. But here's something you'll find interesting: according to my government sources, it wasn't a miniature black hole. It was a chunk of strange matter, or more precisely, an object known as a strangelet."

  "What the heck's that?"

  "A form of superdense matter," said Ford, "a bunch of particles called quarks all jammed together into a degenerate state . . . They think some apparent neutron stars might actually be strange stars or quark stars--made out of strange matter instead. You ever read Kurt Vonnegut?"

  "Oh yeah," said Abbey, "I love his books."

  "Remember that substance he called Ice-nine, from the story Cat's Cradle? It was a special kind of ice that when it came in contact with normal water, it converted it to ice at room temperature."

  "I remember that."

  "Strange matter is like that. When it comes in contact with normal matter, it starts converting it, gobbling it up, turning it into strange matter. Problem is, strange matter is so dense that whatever it touches gets crushed into almost nothing. If the Earth turned into strange matter, it would crush down to the size of an orange."

  "Ouch."

  "What's worse, the process is unstable. The Earth would then explode with a force so great that it would rip the outer layers off the sun and disrupt the solar system. It might even convert the sun to strange matter, resulting in a truly immense explosion. What's odd is that a tiny strangelet could blow right through the Earth pretty much unnoticed, as long as it was going fast enough. It wouldn't convert much matter and just continue merrily on its way, the Earth none the worse. If it were going slower and got caught inside the Earth, well, good-bye solar system."

  "Why didn't it blow a bigger exit hole, cause a volcano or some kind of eruption?"

  "Good question. A strangelet wouldn't build up a shockwave because it's absorbing all the matter it touches. It gobbles up matter as it goes along, leaving a tunnel in a vacuum which would immediately be sealed up behind by geologic pressure as it passed through. The only evidence of its passage would be a small entrance hole, a larger exit hole, and an unusual seismic signature."

  Abbey whistled. "All this just reinforces my theory. A strangelet would be the ultimate weapon--think about it."

  He rose, setting down the cup. "I don't know how much they know of this in Washington but I've got to get down there with that drive. I'll have to leave you here. I don't dare put you in protective custody at the CIA or even the local police, because I don't know who's after us. There's a possibility we're dealing with a rogue agency in our own government."

  "But what about you? You go to Washington, they might just send you to Guantanamo or something."

  "I've no choice. Because I think you may be right--that thing could be a weapon. The fate of the Earth might be at stake."

  Abbey nodded.

  "This island's as safe as any place for you now. Just lie low and I'll be back in contact with you in five days or less. You'll be okay?"

  "Don't worry, we'll be fine."

  He turned and grasped her arms. "You'll take me to the mainland this evening, at dusk, when the boat is less likely to be spotted." He paused, murmured, "A weapon . . . that's exactly what it is."

  64

  Harry Burr parked his New Beetle in front of the Wand-o-Matic Laundromat and stepped out of the car. It was one of those shabby mini-malls with a dozen storefronts, half of them empty, no security, a hangout for teen punks. A good place to ditch a stolen car; no security, few shoppers, and lots of empty storefronts. It might have been weeks before someone finally noticed. It was Ford's bad luck--and Burr's good--that some dumb-ass kid doing donuts had clipped the truck.

  He strolled around the parking lot, getting a feel for the place. The white pickup was gone, of course, hauled off. The question was, where had Ford and the girl gone from here? Thanks to the Web he had a
pretty good idea of where to find out. The girl was from these parts and her father lived nearby. Burr figured he was as good a place as any to start.

  He gave a little laugh and lit up an American Spirit, inhaling deeply. Things seemed to be falling his way after all.

  He finished the cigarette and tossed it on the ground, got back in the Beetle. The town of Round Pond--what a jerkwater name!--could be found about twelve miles down the road, according to his GPS. He was pretty sure good old George Straw could tell him something useful about his daughter's whereabouts.

  The road to Round Pond wound this way and that through woods and past farms until a few glimpses of a harbor appeared on the right, along with a bunch of old white houses. As he pulled into a small farmhouse set back from the harbor, the GPS informed him, in a clipped British accent, that he had arrived at his destination. He parked behind a red pickup truck. Shoving the Desert Eagle into a briefcase, he exited the car and went up on the porch, rang the doorbell.

  He heard heavy footfalls and soon the door opened. You could tell this was country, he thought, when the dumb-asses opened the door without even bothering to check who it was. Burr was surprised to find a white man standing at the door, a truculent-looking fellow with a weatherbeaten face and pale blue eyes, dressed in a checked shirt, suspenders, and jeans. Girl must've been adopted--or maybe it was a mixed marriage.

  "What can I do for you?" he said, in a friendly way.

  He held up his shield. "Mr. George Straw?"

  "Yes?"

  "My name is Lieutenant Moore of D.C. police, homicide division. I wonder if I could take up a minute of your time."

  The face shut down. "What's it about, Officer?"

  Burr liked that "officer" bit. It showed the man had respect for the law.

  "It's about your daughter, Abbey."

  The shut-down look vanished and Straw's face betrayed the fear of a father for his child. Good. "What about my daughter? Is she okay?"