"We used to fish beyond Monhegan in the winter. Got caught in a few northeasters, no big deal."
She was trying to keep her voice steady but Abbey wasn't fooled. She thought of her own, overprotective father, who had never let her drive his boat. She felt sick with fear for him, shackled to the rail, out in this sea with that maniac. Her plan was crazy, in fact it wasn't even a plan. Surrender? And then what? Of course he would kill them all. That was his intention. What was she thinking, that she could talk him out of it? Should she make an emergency call to the Coast Guard? He'd hear it and kill her father if she did that. And even if he didn't, the Coast Guard would never go out in this weather.
She had to think of something.
And then, over channel 72, a voice grated out: "Daddy's awake. Want to say hello?"
80
The agents escorted Ford into the conference room. As soon as he came in, Lockwood leapt up from his position at the head of a large conference table, ringed by suits and uniforms, surrounded by flat-panel screens. By the dark and serious looks on their faces he knew they must be at least partially aware of what was going on.
"Good God, Wyman, we've been trying to reach you for hours! We've got an extraordinary situation on our hands. The president needs a recommendation by seven."
"I have some information for you of critical value," Ford said, laying the briefcase on the table and gazing around, assessing his audience. Lockwood was flanked by Gen. Mickelson, his grizzled hair roughly combed, his casual uniform rumpled, the athletic frame uncharacteristically tense. A contingency of NPF people occupied one side of the table, among which he recognized Chaudry and Derkweiler, along with an Asian woman with a badge that said Leung. A smattering of OSTP scientists and national security officials sat at the far end; conferenced in on flat-panel screens were the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the national security advisor Manfred, the head of NASA, and the director of national intelligence. The long cherry-wood table was littered with legal pads, paper, and laptops. Various secretaries and assistants sat in chairs along the walls, taking notes. The atmosphere was one of tension, verging on desperation.
Ford opened his briefcase and took out the fake hard drive, setting it down gently on the table like it was a piece of Baccarat crystal. Then he took out the large print of Voltaire33, the clearest one of the batch which he had blown up at Kinko's, and unrolled it. "This, ladies and gentlemen," he said. "This is an image taken by the Mars Mapping Orbiter back on March twenty-third."
He let a beat pass and he showed it around. "It depicts an object on the surface of Mars. I believe this object fired on the Earth in April, and fired at the Moon tonight."
Another moment of shocked stasis, and then the table erupted with talk, questions, expostulations. Ford waited for the hubbub to die down and said, "The image came from that classified hard drive there."
"Where on Mars is it?" the woman named Leung spoke up.
"It's all on the drive," said Ford. "Everything." He added, lying, "I don't know the exact coordinates offhand."
"Impossible!" cried Derkweiler. "We would have seen that in our general reviews long ago!"
"You didn't see it before because it was hidden in the shadow of a crater, almost invisible. The image here required enormous processing time and skill to tease it out of the darkness."
Chaudry rose from the table and, giving Ford a suspicious glance, reached out and picked up the drive. He turned it over in his mahogany hands, his black eyes examining it intensely, his California ponytail out of place among the suited Washington crowd.
"This isn't an NPF drive." He looked at Ford, his eyes narrowing. "Where'd you get this drive?"
"From the late Mark Corso," said Ford.
Chaudry paled slightly. "No one can copy or remove a drive like this from NPF. Our data encryption and security procedures are fail-safe."
"Is anything really impossible to a skillful computer technician? If you doubt it, check the serial number on the side."
Chaudry examined it further. "It does seem to be an NPF serial number. But this . . . this image of yours. I'd like to see the original. This could be Photoshopped for all we know."
"Proof of it is right there on the drive, in the original binary data from the MRO." Ford removed a piece of paper from his suit pocket and held it up to the group. "Problem is, the NPF password on this drive has been changed. I have the new password to unlock it--without which the drive is useless." He gave the paper a little shake. "Trust me, it's real."
The woman named Marjory Leung had risen from her seat. "Excuse me, did you say the late Mark Corso?"
"Yes. Mark Corso was murdered two days ago."
Leung swayed, like she might collapse. "Murdered?"
"That's right. And it seems his predecessor, Dr. Freeman, was also murdered--and not by a homeless man. Both he and Corso were killed by a professional--someone looking for that very drive on the table."
A deep silence settled over the room.
"So you see," said Ford, "we have a big job ahead of us. Because not only is the world apparently under attack, but someone on our side has betrayed us."
81
Burr handed the VHF mike to the lobsterman, placing it in his manacled hands. It didn't matter what he said now; Burr just wanted to remind the girl her father was alive and in desperate straits, keep her terrified, panicked, easier to handle.
"Dad? Dad? Are you okay?"
"Abbey! Get the hell off the water! Your boat can't take it! Go!"
"Dad." There was a choking silence. "We're out of fuel."
"Good God, Abbey, he's got a gun. Call the Coast Guard! Don't be fooled--"
Burr snatched back the mike. It was an obscure, unused channel and they were broadcasting at a quarter watt, a range that wouldn't reach the mainland, especially in this weather--but why take chances?
"You hear that?" he said into the mike. "Everything's going to be okay, you'll get your father back. I need you alive, I can't get the drive otherwise. Think about it--you're more useful to me alive than dead. We need to figure this out, but let's do it in a place where we're not going to drown. You hear me?"
"I hear you," Abbey said tersely.
He clicked off, thinking that they probably didn't believe it but what could they do? He was holding all the cards. Sure, they might have some stupid plan but it wasn't going to work.
The boat rose on a wave and lurched to starboard. Christ, he hadn't been paying attention. A rogue wave was approaching, a two-story wall of water, black as Guinness with a breaking crest. He turned the wheel toward the wave, the boat lifting fast. But he couldn't get it all the way around before the roaring crest slammed into the hull, knocking the boat sideways, and it fell back as ebony water burst over the gunwale, pushing the boat down and heeling it over.
The boat tipped into the trough, the water boiling out the scuppers, the deck tilting thirty degrees from the horizontal, while he clung to the wheel, speechless with fear. He tried to turn the wheel, but it was as if a huge weight was pushing back, pressing the boat down. He shoved the throttle forward but heard no answering rumble from the engine, just the creaking strain of thousands of pounds of water roaring over the boat. And then the wheel began to loosen up and the boat shuddered as the weight of the sea lessened, the water pouring off the bow and gunwales. Gradually it righted itself.
Burr had never been so frightened in his life. He looked at the chartplotter; they were halfway to Devil's Limb. Behind the reef they could at least get into the lee of this crazy sea. They were going six knots--how much longer would it take? Ten minutes. Ten more minutes of hell.
"Let me take the helm," said the fisherman. "You're going to sink this boat."
"Fuck off." Burr braced himself as another whitecapped comber came at them, the boat rising swiftly to meet the boiling mountain of water, which slammed into it, the pilothouse shuddering and groaning as if about to come apart at the seams. If it fried the electronics . . . he'd be helpless.
He clun
g to the wheel, the boat sinking precipitously down the backside into another bottomless trough of the wave, the water swirling around his feet and rushing for the scuppers.
"Unlock me," said Straw. "Otherwise we're both going to the bottom."
Burr fished in his pocket and pulled out the key. He stretched out his hand. "Unlock yourself, bring the cuffs."
Keeping one hand on the wheel, he pulled out his gun and watched as Straw unlocked his cuffs and came forward, holding the rail for stability.
The boat wallowed for a moment in the trough, eerily quiet, and began to mount up. It was turning broadside again.
"Gimme the helm!" Straw cried, seizing it.
Burr stepped back, pointing the gun at him. "Lock yourself to the wheel."
The fisherman ignored him, struggling with the wheel and throttling up as the boat tipped up the face of the wave, steeper and steeper, and suddenly the wind was howling around them, the air full of water, all confusion and noise. The boat rammed through the crest and fell back down, righting itself and subsiding into the churning trough.
"I said lock your wrist to the wheel!" Burr fired a round through the roof to underscore the demand.
The fisherman locked his left wrist to the steeling wheel. Burr stepped over, tested it, making sure it was really locked, took the key and tossed it into the sea.
"You follow the course straight to the reef. Any tricks and I'll kill you. And then I'll kill your daughter."
The boat rose on another wave and a lightning bolt split the sky with a terrific roar, briefly illuminating a wilderness of water.
Burr braced himself as the next wave bore down on them. The fisherman said nothing, hanging grimly onto the wheel, his face set toward darkness.
82
In the silence, there was a faint squeaking of wheels and a duty officer came in pushing a cart, serving coffee all around.
"You said you were to make a recommendation to the president at seven," Ford said. "What are the options?"
Lockwood spread his hands. "Dr. Chaudry?"
Chaudry rubbed a hand over his finely sculpted cheek. "We've got half a dozen satellites orbiting Mars. We had planned to reassign all to a new mission--to locate the source of these attacks. But now you seem to have those coordinates."
"Yes," said Mickelson, "and with those coordinates we could use one or more of those satellites as a weapon, send it crashing into the alien weapon at high speed."
Chaudry shook his head. "That would be about as effective as throwing an egg at a tank."
"Option two," said Mickelson, ploughing ahead, "is to launch a nuke at it."
"The launch window wouldn't be for another six months minimum," said Chaudry, "and the travel time to Mars would be well over a year."
"The nuclear option is our only effective means of attack," said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs from a screen.
Chaudry turned to him. "Admiral, I doubt the alien weapon is going to sit there and allow itself to be nuked."
"May I remind you again that the operative word here is 'machine.' We don't know for a fact that it is a weapon," said Lockwood.
"It's a Goddamned weapon," said Mickelson. "Just look at it!"
Chaudry spoke quietly. "That artifact comes from a civilization of tremendous technological sophistication. I'm truly aghast that you people think we can kill it with a nuke. We're like a cockroach committee debating how to kill the exterminator. Any military option is futile--and exceedingly dangerous--and the sooner we recognize it the better."
A tense silence built. The conference room had grown hot. Ford took the opportunity to remove his jacket and casually draped it over the back of his chair. The bait, he thought. Now to hook the fish. Or the mole, as it were.
83
The Marea II crested another terrifying wave and Abbey caught a glimpse, through the lashing rain, of a smudge of whitewater ahead. The chartplotter placed them a few hundred yards from the first of the three great rocks.
"There! Ahead!"
"I see it," said Jackie calmly, easing the wheel over. "I'm heading into the lee."
The sea calmed as they entered the protected area of water behind the rocks. A huge swell still warped through, but the chop and wind dropped considerably. As the boat rose and fell, Abbey could see immense seas thundering along the base of the rocks, some of the curlers reaching twenty feet or more, rearing into the rock and exploding upward as if in slow motion, great spumes of atomized water.
"All right," said Jackie, as she brought the boat into a slow, tight circle. "What's the plan?"
"I--" Abbey hesitated. "We pretend to surrender. He'll take us aboard his boat and then we'll look for our opportunity."
Jackie stared. "You call that a plan?"
"What else can we do?"
"He's going to kill us, boom boom. And that's it. There won't be time to 'look for an opportunity.' And don't fool yourself, he ain't giving up your father. Abbey, I want to save your father but I don't want to throw away my own life. You understand?"
"I'm thinking," Abbey gasped.
Jackie brought the boat around in a slow circle, staying close to the lee shore. "Stop hyperventilating, he's going to be here any minute. Focus. You're smart. You can do it."
Abbey turned to the radar to see if she could get a fix on the approaching boat. She fiddled with the gain, trying to tune out the rain and sea return. The screen was a wash of static. Slowly, as she manipulated the various parameters, she began to get an image of the huge exposed reefs to starboard, big green blobs on the screen. And then she saw another blob, smaller, washing in and out--moving toward them.
"That's it," she said. "They're here. Back the boat in that channel between the two rocks."
"You crazy? That's a narrow channel with surf on both sides!"
"Give me the helm then."
"No. I'll do it."
"Get the boat in there so he can't see us on his radar."
Jackie stared at her, face pale. "And then?"
"We need weapons." Abbey threw open the cabin door and scrambled down the shuddering steps--hanging onto the rails. With a hideous feeling of deja vu, she threw open the cabin, hauled out the toolbox, and removed a small pair of marine bolt cutters, standard onboard equipment for dealing with frozen bolts, clamps, and rods. She also took out a fish knife and a long Phillips-head screwdriver. She came back up and slammed the tools on the dash.
Abbey grabbed Jackie by both shoulders and leaned into her face. "You want a plan? Here it is. Ram. Board. Kill him. Cut Dad free."
"We ram them and we're both gonna sink."
"Not if you hit them broadside, aft of the pilothouse. The skeg'll just ride up on the gunwale, I'll jump off, and then you reverse like hell and pull back off before the boat breaks its spine. The Marea II's built like a brick shit house."
"Ram, board, and kill? He's armed! What've we got--a fish knife?"
"You got a better plan?"
"No."
"Then we go with what we've got."
The green blob on the radar screen was creeping closer. Abbey glanced out at the dark water and could see a glimmer of light.
"He's got his spotlights on! Get going!"
Jackie throttled the boat up and moved it behind the rock, backing and turning furiously, fighting the wind, sea, and a powerful current running between the rocks. The roaring noise of the surf was deafening, the wind blowing tatters of spume over their boat. Jackie struggled to keep the boat in the middle of the channel, beyond the rearing breakers that thundered into the spires of rock.
"How am I going to know when to come out and ram him?"
"He'll enter the lee," said Abbey, "just like we did. He'll be looking for us, shining the light around. A slow target. When he doesn't see us he'll call. That's our signal. Wait for him to get broadside, then you come out full-speed ahead and t-bone him. Here, take a knife."
Jackie took the long fish knife and stuck it into her belt.
Abbey stuck a long thin screwdriver i
n one pocket and pushed the boltcutters through a belt loop. "I'll be at the bow rail, ready to jump on board."
The sea pushed the boat toward the rocks and Jackie struggled to control it, reversing, trying to keep it out of the sucking surf. "It isn't going to work--"
"Don't say it."
84
The clocks in the room approached 3 A.M. as the discussion crawled along, going nowhere. From the flat-panel at the end of the room, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs finally said a few words, addressing them to Chaudry. His voice was mild, courteous. "If you wish to take the military option off the table, Dr. Chaudry, what do you propose to replace it with?"
Chaudry stared at him. "Study. Research. Now that we know where it is--assuming that image is of the thing responsible for the strangelet missiles--we can redirect all our moveable satellite resources toward it. We just need to get the coordinates off that disk."
"And then?" the chairman asked.
"We attempt communication."
"And what, exactly, would we say?"
"Explain that we want peace--that we're a peaceful people. We aren't a threat to them."
"A peaceful people?" Mickelson said, with a snort. "Let's hope that 'machine' has been sound asleep over the past few bloody centuries."
"That may in fact be the problem," said Chaudry, "the reason it's threatening us. Because of our aggressive behavior. Who knows how long it's been monitoring us, listening in on all our radio and television broadcasts which have been pouring into space for the past century. Its computers would decipher them, of course. Anyone looking at all our news broadcasts over the past hundred years would take a dim view of humanity."
"How the hell would it know English?" Mickelson asked.
"If it was built to keep tabs on intelligent life," said Chaudry, "it's probably got exceedingly powerful artificial intelligence capabilities; one would assume it could decipher any language."
"How old is it? When was it built?"
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