They would think her responsible for Rogers’ threats, Vivian concluded. They would think she planned this, especially when they discovered she, too, had worked at Los Alamos.
APPROACH CONTROL FACILITY, WASHINGTON NATIONAL AIRPORT—4:15 P.M. EDT
Pete Cooke had programmed his handheld radio scanner to intercept the paired frequencies used by the air-to-ground Flitephone system. It had been a random choice made months ago while researching a story on corporate jets, but when he overheard the Washington Approach controller’s request for ScotAir 50 to call Miami on a Flitephone, he realized he could monitor both sides of the call. The opportunity was too much to pass up.
Pete stood toward the edge of the arrival lounge and listened through an earpiece until the call between the captain of the cargo aircraft and the FBI agent in Miami had concluded. He stood in thought for a moment. What could the FBI possibly be looking for?
The aircraft was still in a holding pattern somewhere overhead. The research project that had brought him to Washington could wait, he decided.
Pete walked as fast as he could through the heart of the terminal to the FAA’s Washington Approach facility. A voice interrogated him through a small intercom on the wall, identified him as a licensed pilot who wanted to visit the facility, and buzzed him in. A supervisor checked his ID and then led the way to the controller working ScotAir 50.
“He’s waiting for us to reopen the airport,” the controller explained as he adjusted the speaker over his head so Cooke could listen.
Pete held up his scanner. “I was listening when you gave him that phone number, and I locked in on the call.”
“You can do that?”
“It’s on the airwaves. It’s not private.”
The controller held up a finger and issued instructions to one of the flights under his control before turning back to his guest. “What was the call about?”
Pete filled him in. “He may be requesting a vector to Andrews in a few minutes. Whatever the FBI thinks he may have on board, it’s got their undivided attention.”
“Drugs, you think?”
Pete started to reply, but the controller was already back on microphone issuing more instructions to his flights. Drugs were an easy assumption, but why would the FBI alert the crew if they suspected the crew of smuggling? And why was the FBI involved instead of DEA?
No, he concluded, drugs didn’t make sense.
The controller let go of his microphone button and tried again.
“You think it’s drugs, then?”
Pete shook his head. “No. Something tells me it’s far more serious.”
FBI HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C.—4:15 P.M. EDT
A growing number of people had been filtering into a small conference room near the deputy director’s office since the FBI’s Miami agents had taken charge hours before. The news that the most likely target was a Boeing 727 now circling the Beltway jolted the collection of agents and staff personnel into a team, and with word of the call between the Miami agent in charge and the captain of the cargo aircraft, the FBI took control of the situation.
Assistant Director Tony DiStefano began a quick briefing to bring everyone up to date. Notepads, steno books, and telephone consoles were strewn everywhere, along with three portable notebook computers hooked up to phone lines.
“Okay, the Navy tells us they’ve got another neutron sniffer at Patuxent River Naval Air Station just south of here, and the reason that’s important is because we won’t know whether the nuclear material that set off the Miami machine is on board that 727 until we subject it to another neutron bombardment. A bunch of our FBI people happen to be at that naval air station right now, attending some sort of terrorist workshop. They couldn’t get conference space at Quantico, so all the experts will be there. Problem is, the Navy doesn’t have a cargo aircraft at Pax River that can fly the sniffer to Andrews. It’s about eight feet square and weighs over a ton, and they’re going to put it on a flatbed truck and rush it there with a light-and-siren escort. Should take about ninety minutes. George, you talked with Andrews?”
A silver-haired man toward the end of the table spoke up. “They’ll let them in the back gate. The parking place for the 727’s all arranged.”
“Sir, we’ve got other problems.” A woman in her mid-thirties was holding up a pencil for attention as she rested a telephone receiver on her shoulder.
“Go ahead, Donna,” the assistant director replied.
“CIA is yelling that we shouldn’t rule out foreign involvement … they’re sending several of their people over here from Langley. The Nuclear Regulatory Agency is lobbying the National Security Council staff to participate, and the FAA is about to start a turf war over who can order this airplane to land and where. Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is demanding a role in this. They say they have some nuclear terrorist experts as well.”
The FBI assistant director threw his head back and snorted before looking back at her. “Screw ’em! We’re in charge. We’re going to get that airplane on the ground, get the sniffer in, and find out whether they’re carrying nuclear material. If so, then and only then will we turn it over.”
A younger agent in shirtsleeves had been on the phone. He stood up now and held out the receiver.
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“I’ve got the Air Force’s Pentagon command post on the line. A Major General Goddard, I believe. He says he has the President’s authority to tell you to forget bringing that airplane anywhere close to Andrews with suspected nuclear material on board.”
ABOARD SCOTAIR 50—4:15 P.M. EDT
The cargo cabin of his 727 was too noisy, so Scott McKay ushered Vivian Henry and Linda McCoy back to the cockpit before trying to talk. With Linda standing beside him next to the engineer’s seat, he waited until Vivian Henry sat down sideways in the first observer’s chair. The leading edge of Hurricane Sigrid had already moved across the Beltway, and the ride at ten thousand feet was increasingly turbulent. Both Scott and Linda braced themselves against the continuous irritating motion.
“Mrs. Henry, this may be serious,” Scott began.
She nodded, her left arm resting on the back of the empty captain’s seat as she rubbed her temple.
“I know,” she said quietly.
“While you were back there …”
“Please call me Vivian,” she added.
“Okay. Vivian. While you were back there, an FBI agent called from Miami.” Scott glanced back at Linda. “Dr. McCoy, you don’t know this yet, either.”
“Linda,” she said.
“Okay. Vivian. Linda. We’re carrying cargo for both of you. Linda, I don’t know what’s inside yours. You do. Vivian, you say you do not know what’s inside yours, but there’s a frightening threat on that computer screen back there. The FBI tells me they’ve been searching all morning for a package of some sort which contains hazardous material that came through Miami while we were there. They seem to be convinced we’re carrying it.” Scott turned to Linda again, whose eyes had turned wide with concern. She straightened up as if challenged.
“Not in my stuff! There’s nothing in my cargo which could be called hazardous in any way. What are they looking for?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t specific. I don’t think he wanted to tell me over a radiotelephone, but I thought for a moment … until you came up about Vivian’s cargo … I thought, you know, Miami might equate to drugs and chemicals.”
“No way,” Linda said again. “I’ve had my things under my personal control since leaving McMurdo Sound.”
Scott turned to Vivian. “Vivian, I need you to tell me everything you can about what your husband might have built, and why you’re here in the first place. Why were you shipping this thing to Washington? What could it be? Why is the Pentagon mentioned?”
Vivian Henry met Scott McKay’s gaze and looked at him steadily as Linda McCoy’s voice echoed in his ear.
“Vivian, I was watching you back there. I got th
e feeling you don’t have a clue what’s in that container. Is that suspicion accurate?”
Vivian’s gaze shifted to Linda.
“I … thought it was … something else. I didn’t expect it to be powered or have a computer inside.”
The 727 hit a patch of moderate turbulence, the wild bouncing causing Scott to lean forward and search the sky ahead before standing up again and looking back at Vivian.
“Do you know what it is, though?” Scott pressed.
“I can only theorize,” she began, “that Rogers, my ex-husband, has created a dangerous, boorish plot—and put me right in the middle.”
Scott raised his hands in a gesture of puzzlement. “Plot? What do you mean, ‘plot’? Who was he? What was his specialty?”
Scott was aware of Doc on his right as the big copilot leaned to the left to hear the answer. Jerry Christian had swiveled his chair to the front and was sitting quietly forward, his hands clasped in front of him as he watched Vivian’s eyes, glancing only occasionally at the windscreen as the turbulence continued.
Vivian Henry took a deep breath. “Very well. Let me try to tell you what I do know, because right now, I’m … confused and mortified that I’m … that what I’ve done is worrying everyone. And now it seems maybe there’s good reason to worry. I’m … I’m beginning to get frightened.”
She looked at Linda, then back at Scott, her voice softer than before, her words filtering through a veil of embarrassment.
“My husband, Captain, was a government nuclear physicist—the one who discovered the theoretical existence of a phenomenon he named the Medusa Effect, a destructive continent-sized convulsion of electromagnetic energy.”
“The Medusa Effect?” Scott asked, turning to Jerry, then glancing at Doc.
Both shrugged.
Vivian nodded. “Rogers claimed it was the ultimate EMP, or electromagnetic pulse, and that it could destroy a modern society’s ability to communicate, compute, transmit electricity, or use electronic circuits of any sort.”
“I’ve heard of EMPs,” Jerry said.
“The Navy was always trying to make our electronics resistant to any EMP the Soviets might create,” Scott said.
“This was in the 1960’s,” she continued, falling silent for a few seconds as her eyes strayed to Doc’s, then down to the floor. She took another deep breath as her right hand came up to her chest. “I’m sorry, but I’m very upset about this.”
Linda McCoy gently placed her hand on Vivian’s shoulder.
“Please go on, Vivian. We need to know.”
Vivian looked at Linda and tried to smile. “Rogers was ahead of his time. He knew we would eventually become dependent on computers and computer codes, and that the United States had to develop Medusa first or risk being neutralized or blackmailed.”
“So,” Scott added, “what we’ve got aboard may be some sort of electromagnetic pulse generator?”
“Not exactly,” Vivian said. “It’s a mockup, but I suppose he wanted to be dramatic and embarrass me one last time.”
“Why would he want to do that?” Jerry asked.
Vivian’s eyes seemed to be looking through him as she weighed how much to say about the abusive genius who had been her husband and captor for so long.
“He … could be very cruel to me,” she said at last.
“Vivian, did this thing come from a government lab somewhere?”
She shook her head no.
“Then where?” Scott asked.
“From our garage. Let me explain. In 1977, they terminated his research program near Denver, dispersed his research team, and when he refused to give up trying to design Medusa, they labeled him psychologically unreliable and retired him. We moved to Florida, but he was single-minded. He kept researching on his own and built his own lab there in our garage. This mockup, I believe, was constructed there.”
“But what is it a mockup of?” Scott asked again.
“The object of his life’s work,” she said simply. “It’s a mockup of the apparatus which creates the Medusa Effect.”
“And he ordered you to bring it in person to the Pentagon?” Scott’s voice carried an incredulous tone. He glanced at Linda, who was staring quietly at the elegant woman in the jumpseat.
“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” she said without emotion. She looked toward the cockpit door and gestured in that direction.
“Vivian,” Scott prompted, “I still need an answer to the basic question. What kind of apparatus creates the Medusa Effect? A bomb? I mean, that thing is threatening to detonate. A bomb detonates.”
Vivian Henry looked up again.
“I don’t really know. It was a hopelessly complicated explanation I could never quite absorb. My background was nuclear engineering, but this is theoretical physics. Anyway, all I’m sure of is what’s supposed to trigger the whole process.”
“And that would be?”
She didn’t respond.
“Vivian?”
She looked up again sharply, took a deep breath, and exhaled before answering.
“To create a Medusa Wave, you first need a thermonuclear explosion.”
EIGHT
FBI HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C.—4:20 P.M. EDT
One of the sixteen men and women working telephones and computer terminals in the tense atmosphere of the conference room spoke a few words into a receiver and turned to the man in charge.
“I’ve got him. Line three, sir.”
Tony DiStefano, the assistant director of the FBI, flashed a thumbs-up sign and grabbed a telephone.
“ScotAir?”
“Yes?”
“You’re”—he consulted a hastily scribbled note—“Captain McKay? Scott McKay?”
“Yes. Who’re you?”
DiStefano identified himself and the fact that FBI headquarters in Washington had taken over control of the crisis.
“Okay,” the pilot said. “What do you want us to do? Since you’re in D.C., you know the winds are getting pretty high.”
“We know, Captain, but we’re going to bring you down at Patuxent River Naval Air Station. You know the place?”
The mention of the Navy’s flight test center some fifty miles southeast of the Beltway on Chesapeake Bay was startling. “I know it well, but why Pax River?” Scott asked. It would be even closer to the oncoming hurricane.
“Because,” the FBI official replied, “that’s the only place close enough that has the equipment to examine your cargo.”
Tony DiStefano braced for the question he knew would crackle through the pilot’s mind. A few seconds of silence passed before the captain replied.
“Ah, Director DiStefano, was it?”
“Yes, but that’s Assistant Director. I’m under the Deputy Director.”
“Okay,” Scott began. “Your man in Miami said you were looking for hazardous material. Now you want us to fly closer to that hurricane because you’ve got special equipment at Pax River. What kind of equipment, Mr. DiStefano? What is it, exactly, that you think we’ve got on board?”
“Captain, I’d rather not …”
“No, dammit! I need to know what I’m dealing with up here. I haven’t checked the winds at Pax River, but they’ve got to be scary by now. Before I go try to land there, I want a straight answer. What on earth do you think we’ve got on board this airplane?”
In the cockpit of ScotAir 50 Scott McKay realized he was holding his breath. Dr. Linda McCoy was standing beside him, trying to listen.
Somehow the FBI already believed that the contents of Vivian Henry’s cargo were dangerous, but how dangerous? If Vivian’s cargo was really nothing more than a mockup being used in an elaborate hoax as she believed, why was the FBI involved?
Or could the contraband be in Linda’s cargo without her knowledge? After all, her stuff came in from South America.
When the call began, Linda McCoy pointed to the handset and Scott kept the receiver turned slightly so she could press her ear against the edge of i
t and hear, too, her face occasionally touching his as they stood in the small aisle way behind the flight engineer’s seat trying to brace themselves against the continuous turbulence. Somehow the feeling of her hair on the side of his face—the nearness of her—was comforting.
Scott realized he was shaking slightly inside. The suspicion that he was dealing with something far beyond his control was making it difficult to stay focused. He would have to tell DiStefano about the container and the screen and the warning messages, but first he needed to know precisely what it was that had spooked the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States.
Tony DiStefano’s staff was used to his progressive signals of internal upheaval, from the rhythmic patting of his bald head to the rubbing of his brow. For the last few seconds he’d progressed to furiously rubbing his eyes as he tried to decide how much to tell the captain.
If I want this guy’s complete cooperation, I’ve got to be straight with him.
DiStefano took a deep breath, steadied himself, and picked up the receiver again.
“Captain, based on some very sophisticated detection equipment at Miami and what it recorded this morning when you left, we believe there’s something in your airplane that may be extremely dangerous, ah, nuclear material.”
DiStefano could hear another voice, a female voice, murmur something in the background before the captain replied.
“Uh, Mr. DiStefano, when you say nuclear material, do you mean something like plutonium?”
DiStefano glanced at his resident nuclear expert, an agent who had been directed to listen in on another extension. The man nodded.
“Yes, Captain, that’s exactly the category we’re talking about. Are you familiar with such material?”
“Only as a layman.”
Tony DiStefano motioned to the agent to get a pen and pick up the extension. “Captain, by the way, can you give me the full names of everyone on board, including your two passengers?”
Scott passed all five names. They were entered in the FBI’s computer system immediately and several other agents shot out of the room in pursuit of background information. DiStefano cleared his throat and repositioned the phone to his ear. “Okay, please head for Pax River as fast as you can. You’ll be met on the ramp there by one of our people and a Navy captain. Cooperate fully with them.”
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