Bahr’s face hardened for just a moment. Then he swung a chair over toward the director, smiling and calm, and looked into the older man’s tired face. “Mac, let’s get this thing straightened out right now. I don’t think you’ve thought this Wildwood incident out yet.” He sensed the reaction from Carmine and the others, felt their eyes on his back. “The thing that happened last night at Wildwood changes the whole nature of Project Frisco. We can’t back out now even if we wanted to. We’ve got to hang on if it kills us.”
McEwen shook his head again. “I . . . I don’t see . . . .”
“Mac, whoever stole that U-metal made a mistake last night. A very bad mistake.”
“Mistake?” said McEwen.
“There was nothing wrong with those exit monitors. They were working fine. You couldn’t get a radium-painted watch dial past them without tripping the alarm, and they were permanently sealed so they couldn’t have been disconnected.”
McEwen looked up. “Then you think Alexander was telling the truth?”
“Not necessarily,” Bahr insisted. “But some things have checked out, and there is one simple fact that we just can’t ignore. Whoever took that U-metal out of the plant had it so effectively shielded that it didn’t trigger the exit monitors.”
McEwen blinked. “Julian, that doesn’t make sense. The very minimum shielding for that stuff would be a foot-thick slab of lead. Nobody could have carried that out past the guards. They won’t even let you carry out a mechanical pencil.”
“But a man could get a property pass,” Bahr said softly.
“For a truck-load of U-metal and shielding?”
“Oh, no. But maybe for a briefcase.”
“You’re not making sense,” McEwen said. “Those slugs . . . .”
Bahr slammed his fist down on the desk. “Mac, it happened! Can’t you begin to see this now? It happened! Of course it doesn’t make sense; there’s no earthly way anyone could cram those slugs and shielding into a small package and waltz out the gate with them, but that is exactly the thing that happened; it must have happened.” His eyes were bright on the director’s face. “All right, we have to work with it, find out how it could have happened. Nothing yet in Project Frisco has made any sense, but now a pattern is beginning to take shape. Suppose a special shield was used . . . a very special shield, say, maybe just a monomolecular layer of neutrons packed in tight like the tiles in a mosaic . . . an invisible skin built into the wall of a briefcase, completely impermeable to any radiation . . . .”
“There isn’t any such shield,” McEwen said flatly. “If the Eastern Bloc were within five years of something like that BRINT would have told us long ago. And nobody in this country is working in nuclear physics. They don’t even dare talk about things like that any more for fear DEPCO will be down their throats.”
“What you are saying,” Bahr said quietly, “is that there is nothing known to Earth science that could be used as a shield like that.”
“Of course not. Nobody—” McEwen broke off, staring at him. Across the room the teletype had stopped, leaving a sudden void of silence in the room. Early morning traffic sounds came up from the street, muffled, a world away. “What do you mean?” McEwen said hoarsely after a long moment. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that we’ve been trying so hard to pin all these occurrences down to the Eastern Bloc that we’ve ignored what was staring us in the face,” Bahr said. “Nothing has fit together in any way we could see, but these things have been purposeful, just the same. Those thermite fires: all six burned in front of searchlight reflectors and beamed straight up. The high-frequency signals we’ve been trying to pin down—not messages, not traffic or Morse characters, just signals.”
Bahr stood up, his huge body filling the room. “What have we been looking for, Mac? A Chinese guerilla unit? A Russki intelligence team? Maybe even a BRINT unit checking our reaction speed? We’ve been looking for something we could recognize and classify, something we know. And we haven’t found it. But nothing that we know could have gotten those slugs out of the Wildwood Plant.”
For a long moment there was silence. McEwen’s face was grey. “Julian, if there were a remote possibility . . . .”
“I saw that explosion last night, Mac. I saw the thing before it exploded. And I know the panic it would start off if even a hint of it ever got out. That’s why we have to sit on this so tight that nobody even hears about the Wildwood raid until we know for sure what we’re dealing with. That U-metal would be worthless to any human agent, but to an Alien intelligence team, it might be a different story. We can’t guess what they might have wanted it for. Their idea of intelligence might be as different from ours as . . . as DIA from BRINT.”
Slowly, almost feebly, McEwen fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a white box and took out a capsule. Bahr filled a paper cup at the cooler as McEwen, with hands visibly shaking, stuck the capsule in his mouth. He swallowed it after a couple of tries, and coughed weakly. “What do you think we should do, Julian?”
“First, sew up last night’s incident tight. That means blackout of all news stories, and indoctrination of the cities and towns where the power failed. Make up a cover story to give them, and make it good. BURINF can take care of that . .
With an obvious effort of will John McEwen straightened up. “If there’s a leak . . . if even a hint gets into circulation . . . it could be worse than the crash.”
“There won’t be a leak,” Bahr said confidently. He turned to Carmine. “Well keep everything to do with this incident and any new ones under top security . . . .But most important of all, don’t use the word aliens in any communications. Don’t hint at it, don’t joke about it, don’t say it, or write it, or think it. Because if there are aliens . . . .”
Carmine nodded and left the room, pad and pencil in hand. McEwen watched him go, and then looked at Julian Bahr, shaking his head with the slow, baffled uncertainty of an ineffectual parent.
With all the speed, force and precision of a guillotine blade, the blackout fell on the incident of the Wildwood Power Plant raid.
The coverup was fast, and skillful. Frank Carmine talked to BURINF, at Bahr’s orders and over McEwen’s signature and political support, and the greatest communications network in the world jerked as if it had been hit by a whip.
From somewhere in BURINF emerged a newscast story of a power-line failure between Wildwood and St. Louis, causing a power blackout the previous night. It was a clear, simple, convincing story, broadcast over a tightly controlled net to reach only St. Louis and its suburban centers, and it reassured everyone and explained everything, even though it was a complete and deliberate lie.
North of Wildwood, Road Washed Out signs went up on all wheel-strips leading within twenty miles of the crater, with DIA field units spread out in a wide perimeter around the site of the blast. ’Copter units maintained air coverage to keep unwanted small craft out of the area. Major Harvey Alexander’s absence was covered, and the cordon of young, serious-faced DIA men circulating in the plant area proper was convincingly explained as a team of auditors evaluating the plant operations to prevent another breakdown.
In the great Vanner-Elling calculators in Verdon Caverns, the key words “Wildwood,” “atomic,” “explosion,” “demolition,” “DIA,” “alien,” “mystery,” and scores of other journalistic leak-words were unobtrusively loaded into the electronic censors that tested every story, column, ad and byline for any contextual association with the Wildwood raid, with results screening continuously into the huge BURINF clearing house.
Likewise, an integrated check-system monitored the TV-casts, and thousands of concealed microphones in playgrounds, washrooms, cafeterias, bars and other strategic places—long the standard emotion-samplers and information-gatherers of the government Stability program—went on active to test the rate of occurrence of any of the key words.
And all this was done so swiftly, so silently, that even the TV stations, press rooms, and standard in
formation services did not suspect that a continental alert was on.
Which was why, when the leak came, it was so unexpected.
Station WDQM-TV in Jefferson City, Illinois, reported on a newsbreak flash that a local hunter in the bush had been wakened during the night by an explosion in the region of the Wildwood Power Plant. A forest ranger had also seen the blast, and noticed the concentration of helicopters in the area.
Bahr only caught the last few lines before the commercial, after a frantic signal came through from the local telecast monitor, but that was enough. Cursing, he ordered the story squelched, and the phone line to WDQM began buzzing. In New York an ace copywriter had a recording of the broadcast and Bahr’s personal instructions ringing in his ears began to create, out of nothing, a cover-lie. DIA ground cars intercepted the station’s TV field unit en route to the scene, and took the driver and technicians into custody for interrogation and indoctrination.
But the move was not fast enough. Even while the cover-story was being written, Station BCQN in Canada, on a network that was not under DIA censorship, called WDQM for details. Someone at the station blundered and said the story had been killed. Fifteen minutes later, in a scheduled newscast, the Canadian station opened the dike.
“A mysterious explosion last night in the vicinity of the Wildwood, Illinois, Atomic Power Project, has become the subject of a furious DIA censorship move,” the announcer said. “Earlier this evening Station WDQM-TV reported two eye-witness accounts of the strange blast, which occurred shortly after midnight, but further details have been totally suppressed. In spite of the censorship move, however, an amateur radio group TBX-57HC3 picked up some police-frequency radio chatter last night, tentatively identified as originating in the blast area. TBX has been able to provide us with a tape recording of this chatter, which we have edited somewhat in preparation for this rebroadcast.”
Bahr was on the phone personally before the first sentence of the newscast was finished. He listened as the call went through to make sure it was going to be as bad as it sounded. Finally he was connected with the manager of the BCQN station.
“This is Julian Bahr, Assistant Director DIA, speaking for the director,” he said. “We’ve just caught the beginning of your broadcast, and you seem to have some misinformation about the situation here at Wildwood.”
“Really?” the manager’s voice said languidly.
“We’ll be glad to give you a complete picture of the situation in another half hour, but we’d like to request that you . . . er . . . hold off on that broadcast,” Bahr said. “It might cause some . . . er . . . confusion to have different interpretations of the event in circulation.”
“Yes, I should think it would,” the manager said.
“Then you’ll cancel the broadcast?”
“Oh, I’m really afraid that would be out of the question, Mr. Bahr.” The voice was infinitely regretful, but quite firm.
Bahr caught the remark from the radio about the tape recording, and realized instantly that TBX was a cover code for one of the Canadian intercepts for BRINT. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand.
“BRINT picked up our ’copter chatter last night,” hp said, looking at McEwen’s white face.
“They’ve got to kill it,” McEwen said hoarsely.
Bahr uncovered the mouthpiece. “We would appreciate it very much if you could hold that broadcast, somehow,” he said, throwing up the lure. There was no time to lose.
“Er . . . do you think we could get a reporting team into the area?” That meant, of course, a BRINT intelligence team.
“I doubt it,” Bahr countered, curious to see just how eager BRINT was. “We’ll give you a complete report.”
“I’m not sure that would be completely satisfactory.”
They were eager. Very eager.
“Well, but the Wildwood plant is a highly classified government project,” Bahr said, “and our security people are naturally leery about commercial news agencies which aren’t subject to our security regulations nosing around . . . not that I doubt your discretion . . . .”
“Of course, I understand the problem you have with security,” the manager said, warming to the bargain. In the background Bahr could hear the first fragments of ’copter—chatter coming through—his own voice, directing the Unit Seven ’copters toward the strike area. “Still, we do have an obligation to our public to verify newscasts as thoroughly as we can.” Meaning that BRINT knew something was in the wind but hadn’t pinned it down yet. Bahr cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to McEwen and Carmine.
“BRINT wants in. Badly. They must have flushed Project Frisco and—”
He never finished the sentence. Quite suddenly McEwen clutched at his chest and moaned, his eyes bulging. His breath went ragged, his face turning blue.
“The chief!”
McEwen coughed, a strangled sound. Then his arms dropped and his body slumped back, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.
“Get a doctor!” Bahr roared, slamming the phone down, the Canadian broadcast forgotten. “For Christ sake get a doctor!” He lifted McEwen onto the desk, stripped off his own jacket and put it over the director’s chest, felt quickly for a pulse.
A doctor arrived in a few minutes, but it was too late. McEwen was dead, diagnosis coronary occlusion precipitated by overwork and sudden shock.
As the white-coated ambulance attendant carried the stretcher out, Frank Carmine put a hand on Bahr’s shoulder. “Well, Julian,” he said, “it looks like it’s up to you, now.”
Chapter Four
Libby Allison, make-up pencil in hand, was trying ineffectually to smooth her dark red hair and paint her mouth back into shape as the small private elevator shot up from the lobby of the New York DEPEX building to DIA headquarters on the eightieth floor.
Julian was up there, she was certain of that, even though his office front-runner had denied it when she tried to contact him earlier. She should have known there was trouble in the wind when Julian didn’t call her when he got back into town last night. She had tried to call him after midnight, and had gotten Frank Carmine instead, pleasantly apologetic but pleasantly firm. No, nothing wrong, just a dozen top-level conferences since he’d gotten back to New York. He’d be in touch with her, she shouldn’t worry . . . .
But, of course, he hadn’t. Instead, there was a visit from Adams that morning in her office at DEPCO. Little, weasel-faced Adams, with his warm professional smile and his cold eyes watching her. Libby shuddered. Everything in her years of psychologist’s training screamed out whenever Adams came near her, and she had wished for the thousandth time that somehow somebody in the whole great, sprawling social-and-psychological Stability Control organization that was DEPCO would break down just once and say exactly what he was thinking in plain unadorned English instead of skirting and backing and filling and muddying up the already muddy waters with psychiatric jargon and fuzzy, suspicious, defensive little ideas.
Not that Adams had mentioned Julian, of course. Not a word about Julian. No request to review her case-work on him, no suggestion that a machine-analysis of her reports on him might be in order . . . nothing as straightforward as that from the DEPCO Director. Instead, a lot of smooth, innocent DEPCO jargon about the threat that an aggressive, unstable, ambitious personality in a position of responsibility presented to the smooth functioning of a Truly Stable Society (she could quote Vanner and Larchmont page and verse); some “thoughts” on her sworn duties as a Department of Control psychotherapist to help identify and weed out such unstable personalities before they could constitute a threat; some very vague and veiled and thoroughly nasty remarks to the effect that fornication and psychotherapy were not precisely synonymous and that the former could not really serve as an adequate substitute for the latter, no matter what the non-professional relationship of the therapist and the patient.
Adams hadn’t said a single word about Julian, but it was there; he had been talking about Julian every inch of the way, and
he knew it, and she knew it, and he knew that she knew it.
She hadn’t slapped his face, but she had wanted to, and he knew that, too. There was no voiced threat when he had left her, only the least tangible of implications, and yet Libby knew beyond any shadow of doubt that something had happened last night, something bad, and that Adams knew about it, and hence DEPCO, and that neither Adams nor DEPCO liked it.
The elevator stopped, and Libby stepped across to the DIA reception desk. “I have an appointment to see Mr. Bahr,” she told the girl.
“Do you have a pass?”
“I have an appointment.”
“I’m sorry, Miss. Mr. Bahr has canceled all appointments. You’d need a special authorization.”
So there was something in the wind . . . all that commotion on the Foreign and Eastern news nets about an explosion at Wildwood. “Let me speak to him, then.” She picked up the desk phone, started to dial Julian’s extension.
“I’m sorry, Miss.” The receptionist gave Libby an innocent stare. “Mr. Bahr gave orders not to be interrupted.”
Libby reached into her handbag and set her white DEPCO card on the desk under the girl’s nose. “If I have to get a force-order to talk to him,” she said icily, “Mr. Bahr is going to be very unhappy about it.” She was surprised, and then irritated that Bahr had forgotten their appointment. No, not forgotten . . . his memory was very good. He had ignored it. A moment later the receptionist answered the switchboard, flushed, and nodded to Libby.
“Hello, Julian? Libby.” He answered something, quite abrupt. “But I can’t,” she protested. “Not over the phone. And it’s too hot down there anyway.” She pulled the receiver away from her ear and glanced angrily at the ceiling as the invective grated over the wire, quite audible ten feet away. “All right,” she said finally. “I know you don’t give a damn. On the other hand, I do. We don’t just skip appointments . . .” She put in the knife. “It looks very bad on a Stability Report, you know . . . .”
The Invaders Are Comming! Page 5