The only seats they could get were several rows apart in the crowded midsection of the red-eye flight. Jet lag and strain caught up with Danielson. She napped most of the way. Isaacs was trapped between a talkative matron and a young mother, squirmy babe in lap. He stared grimly ahead through the whole flight, trying in his fatigue to think.
*****
Chapter 9
Jorge Payro grabbed another piece of sheet metal off the palette behind him. He fed it carefully into the machine, checking the alignment, then stepped back and yanked the lever triggering the hydraulics. The press crumped down, folding edges, slicing off the extra metal. Jorge raised the lever, pulled the formed piece off the platform and worked around the edges with his file to remove the worst of the burrs. He placed the partially formed object on the conveyor belt. Somewhere down the line, after more cutting, stamping, drilling, painting, and fitting, the part would emerge as the top of a washing machine. Jorge turned for another flat sheet. While he worked he thought of his date for the futbol game that evening. One of the teams from Buenos Aires was coming to play Rosario. Rosario was good this year; they had a chance. Jorge was excited by the prospect of a victory. He was also excited by his own chances with Constanza. Particularly if they won, everyone’s passions would be running high.
He pulled another piece off the press and tackled it with his file. He put it on the conveyor, then did a double take, and yanked it off again. He held it before him and stared in amazement. There was a hole in it, about the size of his little finger. He had not noticed that when he picked up the sheet. He looked at the stack on the palette. No holes there. How could he have missed such a thing? He set the damaged part aside, picked up a fresh sheet, and maneuvered it into place. He pulled the lever. The press dropped a little, but then jammed, groaning.
Jorge slapped the lever off. He threw the switch that shut the machine down completely, raised his safety goggles up onto his forehead and stared. The upper jaw of the press was skew in its framework. Jorge stepped forward and craned his neck to look up at the underside. His eyes widened. There was a hole in the massive piece of steel. It was drilled through, just like the damaged part he had just removed. From somewhere higher up in the works of the machine, a steady stream of fluid seeped down. Jorge removed a glove, ran a finger through a drip and sniffed. Hydraulic fluid. This machine is in bad trouble, he thought to himself as he wiped his finger on his overalls. He pulled the sheet of metal from the press and was not completely surprised to find another hole in the bed of the machine. He ran a finger around its clean edge and bent to peer down. He couldn’t see but a fraction of a centimeter in, but he bet it was deep, maybe all the way to the floor. He stuck his little finger into the hole up past the first knuckle. He couldn’t imagine what could have caused such a thing.
Jorge pulled off his other glove, threw it next to the first, and went in search of his supervisor.
It was 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, July 4. Isaacs had not slept on the flight back from San Diego and then had spent an hour on the phone catching up on the Russian deployment of hunter-killer satellites and making arrangements for this morning’s meeting. He’d gotten three hours of troubled sleep and nursed a splitting headache.
Isaacs scanned the packed conference room. Twenty-three people were more than it held comfortably, but he had called for everyone in his crisis team to bring their aides. This would speed dissemination, give the young people exposure, and encourage them to participate directly. He did not want any bright ideas languishing in the face of an unprecedented confrontation with the Russians. He began as the last chair was filled.
“I’m sorry to have to call you in on a holiday. This may be the Soviets heavy-handed idea of irony, but they’re threatening us with some real fireworks.
“You know that the Soviets launched an operating laser and used it to destroy the FireEye satellite, which had recently been placed into orbit last April.” You don’t know why, though, he thought. He caught Pat Danielson’s eyes on him from where she sat in a rear corner looking remarkably alert despite their late flight. She returned his gaze steadily until he looked on around the room and continued. “The US appropriated that laser satellite with the shuttle, but the Soviets launched another. The US response was to put a small atomic device in orbit near the laser. The device is specially shielded with a reflective coating, difficult for the laser to penetrate. There are also heat sensing circuits that will trigger the device if the laser is used on it. The Soviets have been informed of this. We have promised to detonate the device if the laser is used.
“They have now made their countermove. They’ve surrounded the two satellites with a pack of six hunter-killer satellites. These contain only conventional explosives, but they’re powerful enough to neutralize our nuclear device. The concern is that the protective circuits will not respond to a blast wave. The Soviets are betting, or bluffing, that we are vulnerable to the hunter-killers.
“Our task is to anticipate the intelligence gathering operations that will be necessary to map out their tactical possibilities, and our appropriate responses. As of forty-five minutes ago, the Soviets had not tried to aim the laser, but they could force the issue at any moment.”
Isaacs signaled, the lights were dimmed, and a slide projected at the end of the room. The people sitting too near the screen shuffled their chairs around and craned their necks.
“This was taken from one of our KH-11 satellites from about 5,000 miles,” Isaacs continued. “The laser satellite is the cylinder at the tip of the yellow arrow. You can make out some details on it if you look closely, and, of course, the image can be reprocessed to bring them out. The small spot at the tip of the white arrow is our device.”
“What’s the actual spatial separation there?” a voice asked.
“About two hundred meters,” Isaacs replied. “The effective range of the device is much greater, the proximity was chosen mainly for psychological effect. You’ll notice that our device is located along the long axis of the laser satellite; the laser fires out the side. The small dots at the tips of the six shorter yellow arrows are the hunter-killers.”
“That’s an odd configuration they’re in,” said Bill Baris from somewhere down the table. “Unless there is a funny projection effect, they seem to be in two groups of three and closer to the big laser satellite than to ours. Why would they do that? Won’t they do themselves as much or more damage as they do us?”
There was a silence for thirty seconds, then a sudden voice.
“Shaped charges! I’ll bet they’re shaped and specifically aimed away from the laser and toward our device.”
There were murmurs of agreement, then Baris again.
“We’ll need some close-up photos to see if the hunter- killers have distinguishing features and if there is a pattern in their orientation that suggests they are aimed. I bet we find they’re positioned so that any recoil will miss the laser. We’ll need ground intelligence concerning their manufacture.”
Another voice. “If we assume they’re shaped, we can work out the spread angle of the explosion from the positions they’ve been deployed in, assuming they’re all designed to hit us and none to damage the laser.”
Isaacs listened to this interchange with the satisfaction he always took when the ideas began to flow in one of these sessions. He had worked hard to assemble this crew and rarely failed to admire their performance. It was a good thing someone could think this morning. His mind was numb.
“How did we get in this fix?” someone inquired. “Surely we saw the hunter-killers converging?”
“The Soviets play good chess,” Isaacs responded. “They know how to use their pawns. They correctly anticipated our dilemma as they moved the first one up. We had promised to fire the nuke if the laser were used. But it’s a very different story to fire the first nuclear device in space in a generation when neither the laser nor even the hunter-killer is actually used, just repositioned. I think there was also a failure to realize that the heat s
ensitive circuits might not be triggered by an explosion until extensive physical damage was already done. In any case, once they had bluffed the first one into position, adding others wasn’t much different.”
“We could up the ante,” someone suggested. “Put up another nuke at a greater distance, but still in kill range. If the hunter-killers take out the first, we take out everything left with the second nuke. And we lay down an ultimatum. Use one or both nukes if any hunter-killers approach the second.”
Isaacs made a couple of personal notes to augment the record of the session, which would be transcribed and stored in computer memory. “The President may not want to escalate in that direction,” he replied. “Let’s see what else we can come up with.”
“What’s to keep the Russians from putting up their own nuke?”
“They may be trying to keep some lid on this in their own way,” answered Isaacs. “But that’s clearly one of their options.
Let’s come back to that and see if we can map out what would drive them to it.”
“How fast are those hunter-killers?” a new voice asked. “Can the nuke be scooted somewhere else before they can respond? For instance out of their range, but still within nuclear range?”
Another voice answered. “Tough to outrun an explosion.”
“Yeah, true,” the first voice answered thoughtfully, “but at least you would be putting the pressure on them to make the first overt move.”
“Maybe,” came the second voice, “but if you force them to blast the nuke, they may figure they’re already committed and start using the laser on everything else in orbit.”
Isaacs had the projector turned off and the lights back on. Around the room, people sat erect from the postures they had assumed to peer at the slide.
“Let’s talk some more about the options of the Soviets,” Isaacs requested. “What are they apt to do?”
“Well,” said Baris, “they could fire a charge over our bow, so to speak, if the charges are shaped and the explosion can be directed, just a little sabre rattling without changing the status quo. Or they could go for broke, zap us with a hunter- killer then use the laser with impunity. Or they could just fire the laser, betting that we won’t use the nuke even if the laser is actually used. Hunter-killers don’t do them much good then, but there is some chance any explosion would trigger the nuke, and they may not want to risk that.
“Come to think of it,” Baris wagged a finger, “maybe they would want to try exactly that, just go ahead and use the hunter-killers. If the nuke goes, they have us for using atomics in space. If we chicken out, they have free use of the laser and our vaunted nuclear threat comes to nothing. Just the kind of pitiful giant posture they like to trap us in.”
Baris scratched his head as he thought. “If that’s their most obvious move, then we just force them to it if we try to move the nuke out of range of the hunter-killers. That seems to me to be the question. Will they risk our wrath and perhaps a nuclear explosion by using the hunter-killers, or just sit tight? Do we use the nuke without direct provocation, or try to horse it out to a greater distance? Or do we just sit with them and sweat blood?” He stopped and looked around the room for a reply.
The discussion continued for an hour and a half. They continued to produce ideas, filtering out the unproductive ones, refining and developing the good ones. A priority list of intelligence targets was constructed and assignments handed out. Isaacs finally called a halt so that all could turn to their individual tasks.
The next day, Monday, Isaacs finally found some time to pursue his personal agenda. He’d promised Danielson more data to refine her predictions of the upcoming event in Nagasaki. Now he looked across the desk at the young Navy lieutenant. Philip Szkada had been placed in nominal charge of the Navy’s surveillance of the strange sonar signal. Although the day was officially a part of the three-day holiday weekend, he had agreed to meet Isaacs in Rutherford’s old office.
“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Isaacs,” said Szkada. “I guess the last time was when you came to visit Captain Rutherford just before—just before—.” His face took on a heavy pinched look. “It’s still difficult to believe he’s gone. By all rights I should have made that trip, but he insisted on going himself.”
He was silent for a moment, then met Isaacs’ gaze.
“What can I do for you today?”
“You know that Avery Rutherford was a good friend of mine. I’m interested in his death for both personal and professional reasons. When we spoke over the phone at the time, you indicated uncertainty as to whether the ship’s sinking was related to its surveillance mission, but that the surveillance program was downgraded afterwards. I was hoping to learn more about the circumstances and the mission.”
“There’s not too much to say. In fact, under the shock of the moment, I may have said too much. From reports of the survivors and some scattered physical evidence, it appears that the ship’s turbine exploded. There’s no firm reason to conclude that the fate of the ship was related to her mission.”
He paused and made a tent of his fingers. He cleared his throat before continuing.
“The mission itself is a confidential Navy investigation. With all respect, sir, I’m not sure you have a need to know.”
Isaacs expected and admired that response. He would have demanded it of his own subordinates. He could not accept it, however. He turned the tack back to the personal issue.
“You said you should have been on the ship. Avery wasn’t the sort to pull rank unnecessarily.”
“No, sir, he wasn’t. But in this case I had worked out the ideas that were the basis of the mission. I expected to go.”
“Avery had nothing to do with the planning? Strange then that he should have involved himself in that way.”
“Well, of course, we discussed the mission. Some information had been kicking around and I managed to make sense of it.”
“Avery had no role in that?”
“Not really. Some things just fell into place for me after one of our discussions.”
Szkada paused and looked thoughtful.
“He did ask me some leading questions. With the pleasure of seeing it fit together, I didn’t give much thought to the actual process that brought me to the conclusion.”
He looked up toward the far wall over Isaacs’ right shoulder. Isaacs remained silent, reading the workings of his face. He saw the frown lines disappear, to be replaced by arched eyebrows and a look of mild surprise. After a moment another idea hit him and he leaned forward and locked eyes with Isaacs.
“He fed me the idea, didn’t he?”
He pointed an index finger at Isaacs.
“And you gave it to him!”
Isaacs admired this perspicacity, even if somewhat belated. No wonder Rutherford had spoken highly of him.
“Lieutenant, I sent my best friend to his death. I want to know what killed him.”
“Mr. Isaacs, I really can’t help you. I presume you already know what the mission was.”
Isaacs wanted to make it easy for him.
“You’re monitoring a sonar signal that moves on a trajectory that is fixed with respect to the stars.”
Even having deduced Isaacs was aware of the mission, the frank statement startled Szkada. Isaacs continued.
“We have some seismic data showing the same behavior. In case you’re curious,” he smiled, “the idea of the fixed trajectory actually came from one of my people, a counterpart of yours in the Agency.”
“You must know all I do then,” Szkada commented. “I don’t have the authority to push for a full investigation here, so we’re just in a monitoring mode. We’ve learned nothing new. Perhaps we could collaborate,” Szkada suggested, “with an official request from the Agency.”
Isaacs cut him off with a raised hand.
“Lieutenant, we have a similar problem. Our mission has been officially shelved, partly because my superior knows that your superiors are nominally continuing the investi
gation. I want to say that I am here unofficially today.
“Let me ask you,” Isaacs looked intently at the young officer, “do you think the ship’s destruction was related to its mission?”
“I think we should be doing a lot more to find out.”
“I believe I have a way to open this case up. I’ll handle it in the Agency and if it doesn’t work out, I don’t want you involved. Your data is intrinsically more accurate than ours. I can’t ask you through channels, but if you could give me the most precise values you have for recent sonar data, times, and locations, I may be able to exploit them in a way that is satisfactory to us both.”
Szkada contemplated the man across from him for some time.
“I’ll show you the numbers we have. You copy what you want on your own paper in your own handwriting. And good luck.”
Isaacs nodded his acceptance of these terms and reached in his portfolio for paper and pen. Enough time, he thought, to get this data to Danielson before the crisis team reconvenes. He could sense the presence of the hunter-killer satellites orbiting, Damoclean, overhead. For the moment, at least, the thread still held the sword aloft. He knew Danielson was stealing moments from the hectic press of other duties to analyze the positions of Soviet satellites to check for any correlation with the seismic signal. He wondered whether she were having any luck with that. He needed to see Martinelli to arrange surveillance of Nagasaki, only two short days away, but that would probably have to wait until tomorrow.
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