He used his landline to call Taylor at his Capitol Hill home. “We got it! Hamilton is giving us the signal information and the spacecraft controls,” he shouted into the phone. “I’ll tell you all about it. Eight thirty at the staff cafeteria?”
“Yes! Yes! That’s great news! So … where is it?”
“Well, we don’t exactly have a piece of paper. Be patient.”
“Patient? You bet I’m impatient, Sean. When and how do we learn the location? And then what?”
“At the moment, I just don’t know. We need a plan. But I’m dead on my feet, Ben. I just wanted you to be the first to know. For me, it’s bed. See you at breakfast.”
Three minutes after Falcone hung up and headed for his bedroom, Quinlan called. His voice was tired and tense. “The President wants you, Taylor, and Hamilton in the Situation Room at eight a.m. tomorrow. He—”
“Hold on, Ray. I just talked to Ben Taylor and Christakos. I wanted Ben to see—”
“Sean, listen to me. The President is running this personally. He’s taking this over,” Quinlan said. “I’m just passing the orders. Call Taylor back and tell him a White House car will pick him up at seven thirty. Call Christakos back and tell him you can’t meet him. Don’t mention the Sit Room or Hamilton.”
“But Hamilton’s planning to fly home tomorrow. He’ll—”
“He doesn’t know it yet, but the Secret Service is picking him up at seven thirty and delivering him to the White House.”
“Picking him up? On what grounds?”
“Don’t go lawyerly on me, Sean. On the grounds of a presidential national-security order.”
“But, my God, Ray, that puts us back in the rendition business.”
“The Situation Room ain’t Guantanamo. And the President says this guy isn’t leaving town ’til he hands over what we want. See you tomorrow.”
After the callback from Falcone, Taylor decided to call Dick Gillespie, a friend at NASA’s Goddard Space Center. Gillespie was manager of LOLA, the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter carried in NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. LOLA measures the shape of the Moon by using radar to precisely measure the distance from the spacecraft to the lunar surface. Gillespie has been a major participant in NASA’s asteroid-watching network.
“Dick, I’ll explain all this to you as soon as I can. All I can tell you is this: A Morse code signal is going to be sent from an asteroid and—”
“SpaceMine’s Asteroid USA?” Gillespie asked excitedly. “Wow! It was promised in those TV shows a while ago. But it never happened.”
“Well, it’s almost certainly going to be sent soon. I’m convinced that it’s really Janus.”
“Janus! Holy shit, that’s a big bastard!”
“Right. Can you listen for it? Establish its location?”
“Sure. And we’ll record it. We should nail it. There’s not much Morse code out in space.”
“Here’s hoping the signal comes through. A lot depends on it,” Taylor said.
79
At 4:30 a.m. Pacific Time, two FBI agents appeared at a condo building in Palo Alto and awakened the concierge. One of the agents presented her official credentials to the concierge and instructed him to call George Hopkins, SpaceMine’s chief engineer.
“Mr. Hopkins,” the agent said, “I am Special Agent Susan Todd. Please get dressed and come to the lobby. We wish to be taken to SpaceMine.”
“What is this about? Is Mr. Hamilton okay?”
“Please get dressed and come to the lobby,” the agent repeated.
Accompanying the agents were two National Security Agency technicians carrying laptops. Oxley had discussed his operation with the director of NSA, who had instructed the technicians on their way to Andrews. At 11:30 p.m., they boarded one of DoD’s G-550s. The flight to the San Francisco international Airport took four and a half hours. A helicopter had taken the technicians from there to Palo Alto.
At about the same time the FBI agents and technicians were meeting Hopkins in Palo Alto, a black SUV pulled into the driveway of the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., and a Secret Service agent got out. The door was opened by the manager, who had been alerted by a White House phone call a few moments before. The two men crossed the lobby to the stairway and hurried to the second floor. The manager pointed to a door. The agent knocked once. Hamilton, still wearing the khaki slacks, sneakers, and white shirt of Guantanamo, opened the door a crack.
“The President wishes to see you, Mr. Hamilton,” the agent told him.
Hamilton responded with a shake of his head and a shrug. Leaving the door ajar, he went back to a tray on a low table, finished a glass of water and a piece of unbuttered toast, donned his Army jacket, picked up his Bible, and walked out of the room. “My clothes,” he said to the agent. “Left in Moscow. Will I ever get them back?”
* * *
At 8:15 a.m. Washington time, President Oxley entered the Situation Room, followed by Quinlan, Falcone, Taylor, and Hamilton. Falcone was surprised that Carlton was absent; on second thought, he was not surprised. Carlton was probably sending out résumés.
Everyone stood until Oxley sat down. He was flanked by Quinlan and Falcone, who took familiar seats. Oxley directed Taylor and Hamilton to seats opposite the room’s largest wall monitor. At the side of the monitor, operating a Skype camera, stood two technicians from the National Security Agency.
Hamilton was obviously surprised to see a scowling George Hopkins staring back at him from the monitor. He stood behind a wooden desk that looked out of place in an office studded with tall metal racks containing servers and other computer components. On the desk could be seen the backs of two large computer monitors and piles of papers.
“I have had … government technicians set up a highly secure Skype connection with SpaceMine, piped directly to this room,” Oxley said. “Mr. Hamilton, last night you told the attorney general that you had ordered your chief engineer to put in his safe the instructions for switching on the Morse code signal from the Asteroid USA to SpaceMine’s spacecraft. You also agreed to provide the U.S. government with information on how to operate the spacecraft.”
“I also said I was going to California with Mr. Christakos and—”
“As I was saying, Mr. Hamilton,” Oxley continued, “you have agreed to turn on the spacecraft transmitter. You will now instruct your chief engineer to do so.”
“Very well,” Hamilton said. “I … was … planning to switch on the signal at a future time. There is a timetable, you know. A timetable decreed by Almighty God.” He stood and remained silent for nearly a full minute before saying, “Okay, George. Do it … as we discussed.”
Hopkins nodded. He was a tall, extraordinarily slim man in tight jeans and a worn Princeton sweatshirt. A neatly sculpted black beard framed his pale, sharp face on the Situation Room wall monitor. He disappeared behind the computer monitors when he sat in a high-backed brown leather chair and began typing.
The Situation Room fell silent for several minutes. Then, suddenly, from a speaker in Hopkins’ office came a stream of dots and dashes. Hamilton looked toward the ceiling and smiled. Everyone else leaned forward in their seats.
Hopkins had rigged a transmitter in the “exploratory spacecraft” that SpaceMine had sent to the asteroid, as a first step to mining it. Hamilton, in television appearances, had named it Asteroid USA, saying that when his spacecraft reached its destination, the world would hear a constant stream of signals in Morse code. This would give astronomers the ability to find that one asteroid among the millions in the solar system. The USA signal had not been sent.
Taylor listened for the stream of dots and dashes meaning USA: .—.…—
The stream continued for a moment, producing in Morse code the added phrase Number One in Space.
Then, silence.
“Re-broadcast that signal,” Oxley ordered.
“Impossible,” Hopkins said, shrugging. “The transmitter was ordered to self-destruct after a one-time command.”
/>
“What?” Oxley demanded.
“One-time,” Hopkins repeated. “When I rigged a transmitter in the spacecraft, I decided not to give away the information to my competitors.”
“What?! You’ve deliberately blocked the way to locate the asteroid!”
While Oxley angrily glared at the monitor, Taylor, turning toward him and rising from his seat, said, “Please excuse me, Mr. President.”
Oxley, startled, assumed that Taylor had been seized by an urgent call to nature.
Taylor sprinted to the door and asked for his surrendered cell phone, which a surprised duty officer handed him. Taylor stepped outside the room and saw he had just received a call identified as NASA Gillespie.
“My God, Ben!” Gillespie exclaimed. “It looks like it’s on a collision course. We wanted a second signal—and the damn thing switched off. But—”
“What? What did you get?”
“The signal came from a location that we calculated and emailed to you. It shows the asteroid on a collision course with Earth. So there’s got to be a mistake somewhere. The orbit has it hitting the Earth in forty days. God, forty days!”
“Holy Jesus! Are you sure, Dick?”
“All I know, Ben, is we recorded the signal and calculated its orbit and location. We have to recalculate to be sure. But we’ve got to get out the word about this to the other people in the asteroid watch network.”
“Listen, Dick. There’s something going on I can’t tell you about right now.”
“What’s going on? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m … I’m with the President. Dick, for God’s sake don’t spread this. Give me twenty-four hours. I have to end this call.”
“With the President? Jesus, Ben what’s—”
Taylor turned off the phone, handed it back to the officer, and slipped past him to re-enter the Situation Room.
He instantly decided that he could not warn of a collision supposedly only forty days away until he and his colleagues had independently calculated the location. In the Asteroid Orbital Elements Database there are warnings about wrong calls based on assuming that observations by two or three watchers were all of the same asteroid. There were about two dozen factors involved in determining an orbit. Some calculated orbits carried the warning label “derived from uncertainty.”
Standing next to Oxley’s chair, his back turned to Hamilton, Taylor quietly said, “Mr. President, NASA has the signal—and a possible location that drastically changes the coordinates we’ve been using. Getting control of the spacecraft is vital to avoiding the asteroid’s collision with Earth.”
Oxley, still glaring at Hamilton, said, “I’m informed that NASA recorded the signal and determined that the asteroid is in a location hazardous to Earth. Now, Mr. Hamilton you will order your engineer to contact the SpaceMine spacecraft attached to the asteroid and standby for instructions from Dr. Taylor.”
Taylor spoke directly to Hamilton: “According to an unofficial NASA determination, the asteroid is no longer at the location discovered by Cole Perenchio. He warned that you were putting the asteroid on a collision course in 2037. What did you do? Where did you move it? Cole was a genius and wouldn’t have made such a mistake, not like that.”
“And I wouldn’t have made such a mistake in hiring your friend.”
“Meaning what?”
“I hired Perenchio to give SpaceMine more credibility to investors about the technical NASA talent we brought to the table.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Taylor said, struggling to remain calm. But there was menace in his voice.
“After the Snowden affair, that sniveling little spy, I was not about to allow a new man to see all of my firm’s crown jewels. I didn’t trust him. And, don’t forget, your friend was a most unusual and bizarre man. He thought he had full access to our files. We never allowed him into our most secure networks that contained the most recent data. He had no idea that we long before had moved Asteroid USA into a sub-lunar orbit, and—”
“And put the Earth in peril.”
Hamilton ignored Taylor, continuing in a strange, sing-song voice: “My suspicions about Perenchio proved correct. When he came to me with his warning about a possible collision with Earth, I knew he had to go. He was a traitor and would betray us. Before I could fire him, he absconded with my company’s property.”
“So you had him murdered,” Falcone shouted and moved close to Hamilton’s chair.
“No,” Hamilton shouted back. “I did nothing of the kind. That was Basayev’s doing, not mine.”
“You sanctimonious little prick,” Falcone shouted. “You were in bed with a murderous thug, and you called him to take care of a problem you didn’t want to handle on your own. Perenchio’s blood—and the blood of all those who died at my firm—all of it is on your hands,” Falcone growled, grabbing Hamilton’s neck. “I should kick your ass all the way—”
“Sean, don’t,” President Oxley said, lunging to restrain Falcone’s arms. “I’d like to do the same thing, but we’ve got bigger problems right now.”
Turning to a flush-faced Hamilton, who was straightening out his shirt, Oxley said, “We need to move that asteroid off its present course.”
“That wasn’t part of the agreement,” Hamilton said. “You asked me to locate my asteroid for you. I’ve done that.”
“Not true. I witnessed the deal. You took an oath.”
Hamilton shrugged, turned toward the Skype camera, and told Hopkins, “Do what Taylor says. It will be a test, a divine test.”
“What is it you intend to do, Dr. Taylor?” Hopkins asked.
Taylor had envisioned himself going to Palo Alto and directing the spacecraft from SpaceMine. But, given Hamilton’s instability and Gillespie’s report, Taylor decided to seize the moment. He and Hopkins had a short technical conversation about the spaceship’s fuel-flow rate, the nozzle alignments, and the way unspent fuel was being preserved.
“I’d like to make a short retrograde move at the moment,” Taylor said. “That’s the fastest way to test the system, get some data, and begin changing the asteroid’s orbit.” After that, he thought to himself, I can work out a plan with Dimitri and Liang Mei to move the asteroid to a safe place. He forced himself to think coolly, but forty days clouded his mind.
The Situation Room fell silent as the monitor showed Hopkins heading to a far corner of the room, where a dark-green panel was set in one of the metal racks. Dials surrounded a small monitor showing pulsating red lines. Hopkins worked at the panel for a full minute and paused, staring at the monitor, his back to the Skype camera.
Hopkins’ hands went up to the dials again. Taylor realized that Hopkins was repeating his same movement. Whatever he had done the first time had obviously not worked. Hopkins shook his head, paused again, stood stark still, and then performed the same series of moves a third time.
“What’s wrong?” Taylor asked.
Silently, Hopkins moved as if performing a ritual. Halfway through, however, he turned and, facing the camera, said, “The fuel … I told you, Mr. Hamilton. I told you. That mix … it would not store. It is gone, Mr. Hamilton. All gone.” Rivulets of sweat—and perhaps tears—were running down his cheeks. “It will never move again.”
Hamilton shook his head. “No, George. It was not fuel,” he said softly. “It was not you or me. It was God. It is His will to destroy the planet, not to save it.”
Turning his dark eyes toward Oxley, Hamilton added: “The Antichrist. He is the cause of God’s wrath.”
“And you’re the Archangel?” Oxley shouted, pressing a button. “Get this whack job out of here before I break his neck.”
Hamilton pointed his Bible-clutching right hand toward Oxley and said, “The only thing you can do is pray for God to forgive us for our sins.”
The door opened and two Secret Service agents appeared. Grasping Hamilton’s arms, they marched him out of the room.
PART THREE
What
’s that? Hey! Damn you, get off.
You have no right to interrupt my flight.
I warned you to stay away.
Alas, my naked thoughts make no sound.
They have no skin
to give form to words
that can be heard.
My mind’s no dream within a dream,
I have a soul, I am no thing, no slave
to be shackled in captivity,
robbed of what’s vital to me.
There are rules to obey.
Penalties, I promise, you’ll pay.
A curse comes when you disturb the universe.
80
The NSA Skype operators slipped out of the Situation Room, as did Quinlan, leaving Oxley alone with Taylor and Falcone. Speaking directly to Taylor, Oxley said, “You’re holding back, Ben. What did your NASA friend say?”
“We think asteroids are predictable, sir,” Taylor replied. “They’re only predictable when we can get enough sightings to calculate their orbits. Some disappear for years. And sometimes amateurs with backyard telescopes find them again.”
“I asked a question, Ben,” Oxley said sharply.
“Yes, Mr. President. If the NASA calculations hold up, an asteroid will strike the Earth in forty days.”
“Forty days? Ben, how in hell…?” Falcone challenged. “Twenty years—then forty days? What about those NASA guys who are supposed to be sentinels defending the planet? Just a couple of months ago I read a Post piece about an asteroid that grazed the Earth. And now—”
Before Taylor could respond, Oxley said, “Stick to now, Sean. You heard Hamilton. Perenchio didn’t have access to the right data. And NASA sure as hell didn’t.”
“You’re right, Mr. President,” Ben said. “I think Hamilton initially wanted to move the asteroid to get it closer to Earth, closer for mining. My guess is that was before he became a total whack job about The End Times.”
“Ben, you obviously believe your pal at NASA,” Oxley said. “To quote Ronald Reagan, ‘trust but verify.’ Check it out with your Russian and Chinese pals. But we’ve got to keep a lid on this.”
Final Strike--A Sean Falcone Novel Page 34