The Rock

by Robert Doherty

  "Christ," the President muttered. "They're going to push this, Steve. I've been on their case concerning the bombs, telling them they need to be more open. Now we're holding something back from them. Do you think they might have something to do with all that's happened?"

  "I don't know, sir," Lamb answered honestly. "But it seems to me that they are reacting just as much as we are."

  "That could be part of a deception plan," the President noted.

  "Yes, sir, it could. Until we find out what's in the Rock, we won't know. We may be holding what we know back from them, but at the present moment I see no reason we should share anything with them," Lamb said. "This doesn't concern them."

  "What about the Aussies?"

  "They're not happy, sir, but they're going along so far."

  "All right. Keep me informed if anything comes up."

  The screen went dead. After a short pause Lamb flicked a switch on the console. The door to the shelter opened immediately and Hawkins walked in, a bundle of file folders crammed under one arm.

  "What's the latest on South Africa?" Lamb asked.

  "This is the most current satellite imagery of the site." The words flowed across the small room and sank into the special acoustic tile that lined the walls and ceiling, as the analyst laid the photos on the desk.

  Lamb flicked his gaze from the folder to the speaker. "I don't see anything."

  "That's because there's nothing to be seen," Hawkins said. "As far as can be determined, the explosion occurred over two miles underground."

  "Any fallout?"

  "No. It was all contained."

  Lamb swiveled his chair around to face the console. "Well, then, since the damage seems to be minimal, our main concern must be to find out who was behind this and where they got the bomb from. Which is what we've been trying to do now for a week. The question is, how did the bomb get to South Africa?"

  Hawkins sat down in a chair on the far side of the desk and rubbed his left temple. "We don't know that. All we know is that the underground yield and signature are similar to the AG35 Russian warhead. Our friends in the SVR are not being very cooperative, but as you know, they did give us enough information two weeks ago to confirm that two of those type warheads are unaccounted for in their arsenal holding area."

  "So where's the other one?" Lamb demanded.

  "It wasn't in Colombia," Hawkins snapped.

  Lamb gazed across the table. "I'm sorry about that. Faulty intelligence."

  "There's a little part of my mind," Hawkins said, "that wonders if maybe there wasn't any intelligence at all and you just used it as an excuse to take out that member of the Cartel."

  Lamb's eyes didn't waver from Hawkins's. "If I had wanted your team to take that asshole down, I'd have simply ordered you to do it-I wouldn't have had to make up a cover story. I think the intelligence may well have been a setup by the source who fed it to us, but that's in the past and we have a whole big mess right here we have to deal with.

  "We've got to get that other bomb tracked down. The President's talked to the Russian President to try and get some support from his people, but he's not having much luck. We were lucky with this one. The next one might end up in a city."

  Hawkins tapped the folder. "While you were talking to D.C. I went through the latest analysis on the explosion and found out we weren't lucky on this one."

  Lamb settled his eyes on Hawkins. "Go on."

  Hawkins tapped the satellite photo. "The damage is only apparently minimal. That bomb obliterated the Red Streak series of mines. It is-was-the richest deposit of gold and uranium ever found. The loss of that mine will cripple the South African government economically. "

  Lamb already knew that. "So what?"

  Hawkins opened a folder in front of him. "Your whiz people did a projection on the worldwide economic effect, and the results were extremely startling." Even as he said it, Hawkins wondered if Fran Volkers had had something to do with what he was looking at. Hawkins scanned the page that he himself had only just read. "There is a fifty-six-percent chance that the loss of that mine will trigger a global depression on the order of the crash of 1929-most likely worse, since it will come on top of the recession we've only just started to recover from."

  "WHAT!" Lamb leaned forward. "How can that be?"

  Hawkins slid a piece of paper across the table to his boss and tried to keep it as simple as possible. "I'm not an expert, but it's laid out pretty clearly there. As you can see, a large number of the world's countries still have a gold-based economy. Most of those nations are in the Third World. Over the past twenty years South Africa has been propping up many of those economies with gold that was not yet mined in exchange for various economic, military, and political concessions. Mandela hasn't changed that policy. Most of that gold is now lost inside what used to be the Red Streak mine.

  "Without the gold to back up their currencies many of those countries will slide into economic chaos within a year. The ripple effect will take another year or so to reach us and the other industrialized nations."

  Lamb quickly scanned the document, then looked up. "All right. If this projection is correct, what can we do to avoid the depression?"

  Hawkins slowly closed the folder. "According to the last page of the report there's not much we can do. We are barely able to maintain our own economy-there's little we could do to help others."

  Lamb flipped to the indicated page and read it. When he looked up, his eyes showed his despair. "If the projection on the first page is correct, this is like spitting in a fire. I'll get this thing reworked. I need some better suggestions before I go to the President with it. He'll tear my head off if that's all I give him." He stood, his body hunched over in weariness. "We've got to get that other bomb."

  Hawkins gestured around them, taking in the entire complex. "What about all this? Is there anything you didn't tell us in the briefing?"

  Lamb shook his head. "You know as much as I do. We assume it's related to the first explosion because of the down link to Vredefort Dome. We have no idea if there is any connection to the second bomb, but it's the only thing we've got."

  "But in and of itself," Hawkins asked, "what do you think we have here in the Rock?"

  "I have no idea. I hope the other members of your team can figure that out." He paused and then softened his voice. "I need your help with this, Hawk."

  Hawkins shrugged. "I'm here. I'll do my best."

  "I know you'll do your best. You always have." Lamb looked down at his desk for a second. "I heard what happened in Colombia. I was in the air on Looking Glass already heading here when I gave you the go and I received the after-action report on the secure line. Your men did a good surgical job."

  "If you consider putting a nine-millimeter round through the brain of a young woman a good surgical job," Hawkins said, bitterly, "then I suppose it was."

  "I heard about that too," Lamb said, his eyes fixed on his subordinate. "I also heard you were acting strangely in the exfiltration aircraft."

  Hawkins stood. "I'm fine." He turned on his heels and left the room, the door swinging securely shut behind him with a dull thud.

  21 DECEMBER 1995, 1000 LOCAL

  21 DECEMBER 1995, 0030 ZULU

  “What are you doing?" Hawkins asked, gazing over Levy's shoulder at the screen of the computer she was working at.

  "I'm looking at the original form of the message," Levy answered.

  "Looking at it for what? Haven't they already decoded it?"

  "They decoded it one-dimensionally," Levy said. "I'm checking to see if there might be another dimension to it."

  Hawkins blinked. "You've lost me."

  Levy removed her hands from the keyboard and swiveled her head to look at him. "This is an unknown communication. We don't know who or what sent it. Therefore we should not assume that simply because it has been deciphered one way, there might not be other ways to decipher it. There might be two dimensions to this message or even more."

  She c
losed her eyes briefly in thought. "To give you a simple example, a stop sign has three dimensions: the shape of the sign, the color, and the actual word STOP itself. Anyone of those by itself gives you a message if you know what you're looking for. In that case, it's the same information-but you can also send different information on different dimensions of the same original message. In this case," she said, turning back to the computer and tapping the screen, "the actual physical arrangement of the characters might be informative in and of itself."

  Hawkins looked at the arrangement of 0's and 1's. "Doesn't look like anything to me," he noted.

  "I agree," Levy said, "but it was something I wanted to check."

  Hawkins sat down and scooted his chair close to hers. "I looked at your record-as I'm sure you did mine, in the folder they gave you-and I'm quite impressed with your academic and intellectual achievements. If you were to speculate, what would you say we have here?"

  Levy fixed Hawkins with an intense gaze. "You qualified your question quite interestingly, Major. Should I accept the inverse of what you said and assume that you are not impressed with me outside of my intellectual achievements?"

  Hawkins returned her steady gaze. "Why should you assume something negative? I phrased it that way because I know nothing about you other than what was in the file and all that was in there was your academic and scientific record. So I assume nothing about you as a person."

  Levy broke the eye contact. "I'm sorry. I've never really learned much social tact."

  Hawkins softly laughed. "Hell, that's all right. They don't teach that stuff in school. I've been told I don't have too much tact either. My profession isn't noted for it." He paused. "Have you ever worked for the government before on a classified operation?"

  She shook her head. "I've done quite a bit of consulting work on various research projects, but never anything like this."

  Hawkins leaned back in his seat, feeling very uncomfortable. He was out of his element here. Even Levy's simple explanation of what she was doing had thrown him. He'd never considered a stop sign a three-dimensional message. Always before he'd used great innovation and expertise in his missions, but that was after someone else had given him the rules of engagement and the target. Here he had none. And not only that, but he had somehow automatically assumed the unofficial title of leader of the team. He wasn't sure if he had taken it, or if the others had handed it to him. But the other three all seemed to be immersed in something worthwhile-Batson looking at data on the Rock, Fran with her nose inches away from a computer screen, and Levy exploring the message. Hawkins felt somewhat useless.

  His wife, Mary, would have laughed at his being so uneasy, Hawkins thought. She was the only person he had ever allowed to penetrate the hard shell his upbringing in the foster home in New York City and his time in Special Operations had wrapped about his emotions. And the great thing was, Hawkins would have laughed along with her. In their first two years of marriage she had started changing him. But all that had ended four years earlier, and if anything Hawkins was even harder than he had been. He savagely twisted his mind away from thoughts of Mary and focused on the young woman sitting next to him.

  "So you have no idea why your name was on the list?"

  "I have no idea why there was even a list," Levy answered.

  "Fran and Don were on this Hermes project," Hawkins noted. "I work for the government. But you say you had no previous ties with the government." He shook his head. "It doesn't make sense."

  "But the government didn't send the message," she noted.

  "We can't be sure of that," Hawkins said. "We only have their information saying they didn't."

  Levy regarded Hawkins for a few seconds, then a slight smile graced her pale lips. "Very good, Major. I like that. I was just looking at a specific aspect of the problem, trying to view it from a different angle, but you are looking at the entire situation in a different light."

  Hawkins leaned forward. "Let's get back to the original question-what do you think we've got here in the Rock?"

  "I think we have a touchstone," Levy said.

  "A touchstone?"

  "Did you ever see the movie 2001?" Levy asked.

  Hawkins nodded.

  "The stone they uncovered on the moon-that was a touchstone. It's a term used in scientific circles to describe an artifact planted by a more advanced race on a planet where there is a probability of intelligent life developing. To make sure it is activated at the proper time, it is located in such a place that a certain level of civilization is required in order to be able to uncover it."

  "You think that's what we're uncovering?" Hawkins could see that this conversation had gained Fran's interest, and she moved her chair over to listen.

  "It may be," Levy said. "However, it has always been assumed that a touchstone has to be physically uncovered. In this case the touchstone may have already been 'uncovered,' so to speak."

  "What do you mean?" Fran asked.

  "I mean that either the nuclear explosion under Vredefort Dome or the arrival of Voyager at a certain distance away from the sun might have activated the touchstone in the Rock and caused it to transmit-that's if my theory about it being a touchstone is correct."

  "And if it is," Hawkins asked, "what should we do?"

  "We," Levy said, emphasizing the word, "might not be able to do anything. Unlike the story in 2001, it is more likely that a touchstone is a warning for the more advanced race that set it up than a beacon for the less advanced one that sets it off."

  "So we may have hit a trip wire," Hawkins said.

  "Yes," Levy acknowledged. "And we have no idea who's heard it go off and what their reaction might be."

  THE RUSSIAN

  Vicinity Chernobyl, Ukraine

  21 DECEMBER 1995, 0600 LOCAL

  21 DECEMBER 1995, 0100 ZULU

  The land was empty of animal life. Trees still struggled to grow, but it was obvious even they were losing the war to live. Vast splotches of dead vegetation pockmarked the area as far as the eye could see. Just off the crumbling tar road, where the Zil135 ten-ton truck was parked, a large splatter of hastily poured concrete lay barren of the blown snow that was whipping through the area. There was nothing to indicate that the concrete marked the resting place of eighteen men.

  In the distance the cooling towers the men had given up their lives to cover stood under dozens of feet of concrete-concrete that had been flown in underneath the men's helicopters while the radiation had penetrated up through the thin skin of the aircraft and killed them with the slow death.

  The Russian had spent eight days getting here. It was a detour he would never have allowed himself on an assigned mission, but this was different. This was personal.

  He didn't consciously feel the cold wind whistling in from the Ural Mountains to the east. He was a hard man, his face leathery from years out in the weather. The mouth was set in lines that had known no laughter for many years.

  His gray eyes pondered the concrete. They hadn't even put a marker up. Of course, the reasoning was, why put a marker up when no one could come here and see it anyway? The Russian knew he was the first person in years to stand here. And by doing so he had effectively condemned himself to the same slow death by radiation. That bothered him little-in fact, it gave him a feeling of connection with the men under the concrete, one of them in particular.

  "For you, Gregori, I do this." His words were grabbed by the wind and spirited away among the sickly pine trees.

  He saluted the grave and then turned to his truck. It was going to be a hard trip-about three days using back roads, he estimated-and he needed to start. As he clambered into the cab he glanced at the gauge on the instrument on the passenger seat. The rad count told him that he should survive and be reasonably functional for those three days. After that nothing would matter anyway.

  Securely fastened in the cargo bay rode a large crate, the twin to the one that had exploded in South Africa. The Russian threw the truck into gear, and with a lu
rch it lumbered down the abandoned road, nose pointed southeast, away from Chernobyl.

  METEOR CRATER

  PENCAK Meteor Crater, Arizona

  20 DECEMBER 1995, 1600 LOCAL

  21 DECEMBER 1995, 0100 ZULU

  The sun highlighted the desert to the west in a purplish haze. The old woman stood on the top of the rim, with the class gathered below her, their breath puffing out into the chill air. She was nothing more than a silhouette to them, but that was enough to display her deformities. Her right shoulder was hunched down as if she were permanently trying to squeeze her body through a narrow opening. That arm ended in a withered stalk instead of a hand. As she turned her gaze, the right side of her face absorbed the dying light across a series of slashes and wrinkles, as if the skin had been burned badly a long time ago and healed poorly. Where the right eye had been, there was simply the same scarred skin in the socket.

  The class was looking up at her because she stood on the lip of the crater, the bowl before her, filling the horizon. Her voice was gravelly, as if her throat had also been afflicted by whatever disaster had befallen her. "Meteor Crater used to be called by several names, Coon Butte being the most popular. While it was known to the Indians of the area for generations, it first attracted the attention of the white man in the 1880s when it was thought there might be silver here. Although unfounded, the rumor interested A. E. Foote, a geologist from Philadelphia. He made the first scientific study of the crater in 1891."

  She gestured with her dead hand as she spoke. "The far rim is twelve hundred meters away. It's roughly one hundred seventy-five meters from the surface level to the bottom, but, as you can see, the rim I am standing on adds another forty-five meters in height from the plain." The hand stabbed down and eighteen pairs of eyes followed. "There is no standing water in the bottom, but flat-lying sediments found there contain small shells, which indicates that a lake once filled the crater.