“Ask security to have him check some mug shots of embassy personnel. Make sure one of Colonel Grigor Zamyatin is among them.”
“Yes, sir.” Kathleen rang off.
What could Zamyatin want? Isaacs asked himself. Why would anyone else in the Soviet embassy hand-deliver a note to him? He put these questions aside and picked up the pile of material Baris had brought in.
“Let me see some of that,” Baris requested. “I only took time to skim it.” He riffled through the pile of folders looking for some specific ones; then they settled down to read. Isaacs paused occasionally to make notes on a pad. Ten minutes passed in silence broken only by the shuffle of paper in the folders. Then the intercom buzzed again.
“Sir, Sergeant Ruiz, the guard, identified Colonel Zamyatin. He, Colonel Zamyatin that is, was very adamant that you get the note quickly and personally.”
“Where is it then?”
“Sergeant Ruiz said someone from the bomb squad picked it up.”
“The bomb squad!”
“Well, yes, I suppose they were concerned about letter bombs, that sort of thing.”
“Letter bombs are anonymous. Not likely that the Colonel would drop by in his official limo to deliver one. Tell them to get that note up here. On the double!”
“Yes, sir!”
Isaacs waved his arms at the ceiling in a gesture of desperation. “What a world,” he exclaimed.
“So what kind of picture do we have here?” he asked rhetorically, addressing Baris. “Krone Industries set up this lab to do research on contract to Los Alamos. They’ve done work on particle beams and lasers, particularly using them to implode material to high density and temperatures, just as Zicek said. That could be directly relevant.”
“It’s not just Krone Industries,” said Baris. “I’ve been reading quarterly reports the lab submitted to Los Alamos. Krone himself is chief man on the spot, devoting himself one hundred percent to the effort.
“And not just his time,” Baris continued. “Out of curiosity, I got a list of the companies in Krone Industries and looked up their financial reports.” He hefted one of the folders he had selected. “That lab is not just running on its consulting contract with Los Alamos. Every one of these companies under Krone’s thumb has diverted significant portions of their resources to the lab. There’s an immense effort going on there. Far more than required by the government contract.”
Isaacs leaned back in his chair to digest this information and looked up at a rap on the door. Kathleen opened it and ushered in an energetic young man with close-cropped hair. In his hand he clutched a mangled envelope.
“Mark Burley, sir. From counteractivity. This is the note delivered to you half an hour ago. We processed it as quickly as we could.” He handed over the envelope.
Isaacs took it and raised a sceptical eyebrow. The envelope was crudely ripped open and both the envelope and the portion of the enclosed note, which was exposed through the ragged flap, were wrinkled.
“You opened it?”
“Yes, sir,” Burley replied with deep sincerity. “We determined it was not a letter bomb by certain physical tests, but we wanted to check the contents for contaminants. Contact poisons. If we’d had time we could’ve opened it so you’d never have noticed.” A small, proud smile came and went quickly. “As it was, we did the most thorough job we could, in the shortest time.”
“I’m sure you did.” If Burley noticed Isaacs’ facetious tone, he gave no sign.
“Thank you, Mr. Burley. I appreciate the fast work.”
“Anytime, sir. That’s our job.” The young man spun smartly on his heel and marched out. Isaacs exchanged an amused, wry smile with Baris.
“Boy Scout. Place is crawling with them,” said Baris.
Isaacs’ smile faded as he extracted and read the hand- scrawled note. It was very brief.
I know. I have to tell them. You must hurry.
Korolev
Isaacs had briefed Baris on his interchange with Korolev. He handed the piece of rough, light brown Russian paper to Baris.
“Know?” he asked. “Know what?”
“I’m afraid damn near everything we do,” Isaacs replied. He thumbed the intercom.
“Yes?”
“Kathleen, get me Martinelli.”
Isaacs put a hand on the phone in anticipation and looked at Baris.
“At the very least Korolev knows everything we did when Pat and I first went to talk to Jason because of the synopsis I sent him. There’s a very good chance he followed the same line of reasoning as Runyan. As wild an idea as a black hole was, it has a certain inevitability in hindsight. Korolev didn’t have direct access to our physical evidence from Nagasaki and Dallas, but he had his own from the Novorossiisk.”
The phone buzzed and Isaacs jerked the receiver to his ear.
“Vince? I want to know about Soviet ship deployment. Particularly along thirty-two degrees forty-seven minutes, both north and south longitude.” He listened for a moment. “Anytime in the last six weeks. I’d rather have that now and fresh stuff when you can get it.” He listened again. “That’s just the ticket. Thanks, Vince.”
He hung up and looked intently at Baris. “We have to assume Korolev also guessed we were dealing with a black hole. I sent him my memo in late June. He’s had six weeks to ponder it and move to do something about it. I also tipped off Zamyatin to watch Nagasaki. We can also assume they have at least a rough idea what went on there. If they have penetrated the Japanese with any efficiency, they probably have the full report. Korolev could pick up quickly on the parallels between the holes drilled in Nagasaki, and those in the Novorossiisk. For that matter, they may know about Dallas.
“In any case,” Isaacs continued, “we lost three weeks sitting on our duffs waiting for Dallas to happen, three more before we got back to Jason, and Gantt got the real dope. That’s six weeks when Korolev could have been pushing for some monitoring program in Russia. The trajectory doesn’t pass through Russia, so they’d have to mobilize somewhere else. It makes most sense to me to use their Navy. We would have moved faster if ours hadn’t been so recalcitrant.
“I don’t know what their response time would be, but I certainly got the idea from Zamyatin that Korolev has clout at high levels in the Kremlin. If they put properly instrumented ships on the trajectory, they could learn everything we have.”
“I see what you mean,” Baris said. “If Korolev suspected a black hole, he’d have a gravimeter put on board to measure the mass.”
“Seems obvious enough,” Isaacs agreed. “Gantt considered a shipboard experiment, but elected to put his apparatus on dry land to make it as stable as possible. We know now it wouldn’t have made much difference. They’d have to be a bit careful, but an inertially mounted device, isolated from the worst pitching of the ship, would do the job.
“Accurate timing would be easy,” Isaacs continued. “With sonar monitors and some regular data acquisition they would know how long the thing hovered above sea level and could figure out the altitude to which it rose, just as we did.”
“So they’d look along the trajectory at that altitude, just as we did,” said Baris following the logic.
“And they would find this lab,” Isaacs slapped his palm on the stack of folders in front of them, “just as we did. I think that must be what Korolev’s note means. He’s found Krone’s lab, and, having raised a ruckus, he has to report his findings to the boys at the top.”
The phone rang and Isaacs jerked it up.
“Yes? Right.”
He reached for a pad and scribbled some numbers.
“Yes. Yes. Got that.” He listened, then spoke again. “How far is that? Yes, damn it, no question. They’re onto it. Sure, when they come in, but this is just what we needed. Thanks for the quick work. Great. Right.”
He hung up and relayed the message from Martinelli to Baris.
“There are five small flotillas in the Pacific, three along thirty-two degrees forty-seven minutes
north, two south. Each has a research vessel, a tender, and a destroyer. They’re spaced 1170 miles apart, sailing steadily westward, about 190 miles per day.”
“So they’re tracking it,” Baris summarized.
“They’re tracking it,” Isaacs confirmed.
“How long?” Baris inquired.
“Seven to ten days. Some got on station earlier.”
“That’s plenty of time to collect a good timing record,” said Baris.
“I think there’s no doubt now that Korolev has followed the same path that Runyan led us on,” Isaacs said. “We’ve got to get to that lab and find out what’s going on.”
“And damn quickly,” Baris said. “If you’ve got this right and Korolev reports to the top brass in the Kremlin that a black hole was made and released at a secret US government lab, oh, boy.” Baris leaned back in his chair. “Can you imagine what the chest-medal crowd will do with that? We’ll be right back to square one when they thought we’d zapped their carrier. Damned if they weren’t right!”
Isaacs stood up and moved to the window. He clasped his hands behind his back and stared out over the trees, rocking up on his toes. He could feel the mid-August heat, which smothered the tree tops.
“We’ve got a powder keg already up there in orbit,” Isaacs mused. “I don’t know whether we can possibly move quickly enough to neutralize this situation. We’ve got to hope we can find an explanation that will satisfy the Soviets that this wasn’t an intentional, government sanctioned plan.”
He spun suddenly.
“It wasn’t, was it?”
“Whoa,” said Baris thoughtfully. “There’s no clue in any of the files here.” He pointed at the material on Isaacs’ desk. “But that’s pretty clean stuff. I just pulled it out of our library. Our job’s to know everything the bad guys are up to, not everything our team does, so maybe there’s an outside chance. Still, if I read this guy Krone right, he’s the kind who would tackle something like this on his own. Remember these were Krone Industries resources being squandered. Unless there was some heavy-duty laundering, there wasn’t much government funding. I’ll check more deeply, but I think we’re clean.”
“We’ve got no choice but to get the whole story on Krone and that lab as fast as possible,” said Isaacs, regaining his seat. “Bill, I want you to keep digging here. Track down everything you can going in and out of that lab that could be related to the manufacture of a black hole.
“Someone’s got to go out to the site, though, and under the circumstances, I think I’d better take that one on myself.
“I’ll call Pat and get her there too. And I might as well bring Runyan along. He knows Krone and is on top of the scientific aspects. I want you to get a team busy working up a reaction estimate. As things stand, how will the Soviets react if they’re informed of Krone’s lab? What will it take to keep them under control? Okay?”
“Right.”
“Any questions?”
“A procedural one. Before you go, have you told the Director yet?”
“I spent three hours with him last night. Trying to explain about the black hole. Left him numb. I’ll have to see him now and report on Krone and the message from Korolev. I guess we’ll see what kind of stuff he’s really made of.”
“Is he going to want to go to the President? Or expect us to draw up a national intelligence estimate to circulate? The black hole is one thing, and perhaps an emergency in itself, but potential Russian reaction is a key issue now.”
“We’re in a bind. We’ve been waiting to get all our facts straight before dumping something like a black hole in the President’s lap. Of course, until this morning we didn’t know that it was made here, nor that the Russians were on to us.
“There’s no time now for a formality like an NIE,” Isaacs continued. “We’ve got a real crisis. We must get the story from that lab and then pass it to the President directly. I think the DCI will see it that way, but that’s why I want you to get on that reaction estimate. We’ll want that as part of the package.”
Isaacs looked at his watch. “It’s 10:45 now, 8:45 in New Mexico. I should be able to catch something at Andrews that will get us out there by mid-afternoon, local time. It’ll take a few hours to check out the lab. I might make it back here by midnight.
“I’ll suggest to the DCI that he lay the groundwork for an emergency meeting of the National Security Council about then. And just hope the Russians don’t push the button for twelve hours.”
“All right,” said Baris, rising to leave. “I’ll get on it.” He strode quickly across the room and out the door.
“Kate?” Isaacs called, and she appeared in the doorway, attuned to the emergency atmosphere.
“Tell the DCI I’m on my way to see him. Top priority. Order a helicopter to Andrews Air Force Base. Forty-five minutes from now, maximum. Half hour better. Arrange for a flight out of Andrews for me and two agents. Call Boswank and get him to assign me two of his people. Call Danielson and Runyan in Arizona and arrange for a flight for them. Destination for all of us is Holloman Air Force Base near White Sands, New Mexico. Arrange ground transportation there. We’re headed for a laboratory about forty miles away, up in the mountains. Better yet, see if you can get another chopper to take us from Holloman to the lab. Here’s the name of the lab and of the guy in charge.” He scribbled on a memo pad and handed it to her. “I’ll want to talk to him when I get back from seeing the DCI. And call Phillips in La Jolla and talk to Gantt while you’re on the line to Arizona. I want Phillips here this evening prepared for an NSC meeting. They may want to get together in Pasadena to assemble the relevant information.”
“Yes, sir.” Kathleen finished making notations on her pad and bustled back into her office.
Isaacs steeled himself and then headed off to hand his boss the second shocking revelation in less than twelve hours.
Danielson awoke in her tent in the waxing Arizona heat with the smell of Runyan about her. Over breakfast she felt as if she were two people. One of her talked business with Gantt as if nothing had happened. Her other self was full of Runyan and jolted every time he seemed to give her a special knowing glance. Gantt displayed no reaction, just smiled discretely to himself.
The call from headquarters came as they were finishing breakfast and galvanized them into action. They barely had time to throw their things together before the whupping of the Marine helicopter from Yuma broke the desert stillness. At the Yuma Air Station Danielson chatted casually with Runyan for the benefit of the strangers around them and continued to shout her secret messages until the transport was warmed up, ready to ferry them east to New Mexico.
Back in the desert, the camp settled into busy routine. Late that morning, one of the Marines relaxed in front of his tent, waiting for lunch. He didn’t understand the technical functions of the camp and didn’t expect to. He was assigned his job and did it. Nevertheless, he thought it strange that the chief of the operation would take time out to squat, motionless, at the edge of the camp with his index finger thrust past the second knuckle into a small hole in the ground.
*****
Chapter 16
A faint rush of electromagnetic waves carried the orders from a Soviet ground station on the Kamchatka Peninsula. On the hunter-killer satellite a switch popped shut, releasing the latent energy in a battery and generating a healthy blue spark elsewhere in the circuit. The spark jostled and heated the fragile molecules of a volatile material. The heated matter expanded violently, its force focused by a tough surrounding casing. A detonation wave raced outward in a fury that shot in a narrow arc into space.
A few hundred yards away, a sleek white cylinder decorated with a small red, white, and blue emblem floated with deadly grace. It was directly in the path of the onrushing explosion. Then the onslaught was full upon it, the pressure soaring ferociously, the outer wall crumpling, the shock wave engulfing everything within. With the shock came heat, heat that triggered circuits in the cylinder.
In a
repeat of the pattern played out only instants before, switches tripped, power surged, tiny sparks crackled and carefully designed chemical explosives imploded upon a finely machined, slightly warm sphere of metal, violently squeezing it.
The shock from the first explosion arrived at the same instant. The sphere was warped; the focus of its compression altered. It existed for a brief moment, teetering on the edge of consummation. Each part of it fed neutrons into the others. Deep in the dense nuclei of its atoms, reactions were triggered splitting the nuclei apart, releasing vastly more energy than the penetrating neutrons possessed and more of the catalyzing neutrons as well.
Then the moment passed. The wracking shock and the partial release of nuclear energy amplified the distortions of the sphere. The chain reaction damped, and the sphere of radioactive metal dissolved into harmless shards. In a heartbeat, the cylinder was gone.
Nearby, another cylinder, larger, ungainly, stirred into menacing wakefulness. Ports slid open in its sides. It rotated and slurred. Taking aim. Awaiting instructions.
By shading his eyes from the midday Sun, Isaacs could make out the town of Alamagordo as the military transport continued its descent toward Holloman Air Force Base. He glanced around at his companions, Pat Danielson and Alex Runyan whom they had picked up on a quick stop at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, and the two Agency men. Although the need was remote, they could provide security backup. The hollow feeling in his gut reflected his anticipation of the significance of this venture. They were headed for the source, the key to the myriad tangled events. He thought back to the simple anomalous seismic signal he had toyed with while on leave last March, over four months ago. His thoughts strayed to Runyan’s voracious beast rifling through the Earth and to the paranoiac escalation threatened by the note from Korolev.
The Krone Experiment Page 32