Fade Out (44 page)

‘That was a dumb thing to do,' said Gilligan. He had just spent ten minutes picking up those particular pieces.

Neame slapped a hand to his forehead. ‘Jeez, I'm sorry, Steve. Hell, this whole thing's pointless.'

‘Not completely,' said Page. ‘Microscopic and chemical tests of the fragments will at least give some indication of what Friday was made of.'

‘That's where you're wrong, the process hasn't stopped.
Look –' Neame held up a small bag of powdered fragments, ‘– it's still decaying. It's even started to eat away the plastic bag.'

‘Has anybody got any ideas on what we can do?' asked Wedderkind.

‘What
can
we do?' said Neame. ‘We're screwed both ways. If we drive back to the lab too fast the fragments will shake to pieces. If we drive too slowly, there'll be nothing left by the time we get there.'

Connors turned to Page and Armenez. ‘I think it'd be a good idea if you got this batch over to the lab while these guys pick up the rest.'

Page was already in the jeep before Connors had finished speaking. Armenez helped Neame lay a second sheet of foam over the bagged fragments, then climbed aboard. Neame went back to help the others.

A fast drive across the plateau was normally a real boneshaker but with some prompt pathfinding by Page the ride back to the lab was almost as smooth as Sonja Henie on ice. Unfortunately, almost was not quite good enough. When Page and Armenez peeled back the top layer of plastic foam, there was nothing left. Friday's decaying fragments had gnawed through the plastic bags and had gouged out deep holes in the foam layer underneath before eating themselves out of existence.

The remaining consignment was conveyed with equal care and speed but, once again, only the plastic bags made it as far as the field lab. A microscopic analysis and tests on the bags, the pitted foam sheet, and the soil on to which Friday had fallen revealed nothing. No new chemical compounds, no mutant molecules, no alien organisms. Nothing that could tell them how he was made or how he moved or whether he had ever been, technically, alive.

Even in his manner of dying, Friday had still managed to outsmart them.

Connors left Wedderkind to commiserate with the research group. He found Allbright about to have lunch in his trailer and was invited to join him.

‘I'd like to thank you for straightening out that situation on the plateau.'

‘I wish we could have got there sooner,' said Allbright.

‘Yes…' Connors pressed his lips together. ‘Still – I don't think any of us anticipated this kind of reaction from anyone on the project.'

‘I should have.'

‘Perhaps,' said Connors. ‘I think we were lucky you managed to lay hands on three jeeploads of cadets so quickly.'

‘Yes…' Allbright's eyes didn't waver.

‘And we have at least learned one thing from this fiasco. When it came to the crunch, Friday was surprisingly vulnerable.'

It was this discovery that had spurred Connors into some fertile speculation. Crusoe and Friday had both demonstrated an uncanny ability to render useless most of Man's most sophisticated technology, yet Crusoe had been brought to the surface by good old-fashioned gelignite stuffed down a hole in the ground, and Friday had been run over by an automobile. In spite of the much-quoted idea of a telepathic link, neither Crusoe nor Friday appeared to have been forewarned of the roughnecks' intentions – or to have been able to turn them off the idea. Admittedly that was in line with Wedderkind's theory of a benign mental contact, which used suggestion, not coercion. And yet, and yet… The knowledge that Crusoe, if he had wanted to,
could
have immobilized the roughnecks' jeep with his force field slapped a big, complicated question mark over everything.

‘Do you think Crusoe might respond to the same treatment?' asked Allbright.

‘He might,' said Connors. ‘I imagine a lot would depend on how big a stick you hit him with. Lee Ryder suggested filling Crusoe's inner hatch with nitroglycerine, which would detonate when the spheres rotated but before the inner sphere had time to depressurize. Crusoe must have heard him, because after the time Spencer's oxygen supply ran out, the hatches never opened again.'

‘Do I gather from what you say that “brute force” is now an acceptable concept?'

‘It's never been unacceptable to me, General. I've always regarded its controlled application as one of the options open to us in this type of situation. However, I think Arnold and the others may have some trouble taking the idea on board. But there are ways around that.'

‘Several,' said Allbright. ‘What do you want me to do about Max's roughnecks?'

‘Where are they now?'

‘Under guard in one of the trailers.'

‘I'll call up McKenna and have them transferred. If they stay here, some of the research group may try and put litmus paper in their cornflakes.' Connors swore quietly to himself. ‘I don't understand how dummies like that could be recruited by the CIA.'

‘They all had good combat records,' said Allbright.

‘Yes, I know, but the point is they still fouled up.'

‘Maybe they did, but the net result is that we now only have one problem instead of two.'

‘I wish I felt so optimistic,' said Connors. ‘Crusoe could be full of those damn things, and the next one out may not be so cuddly.'

‘So what do you plan to do?'

Connors finished the piece of steak he had on his fork
before replying. ‘If we set aside the people killed in the air crashes, we've lost four men. One killed, three missing and presumed dead, another has lost half his face and all his fingers, and six more have just hammered their way out of the CIA pension fund. Okay… we can argue that our casualties are due to our own clumsiness. Crusoe isn't rampaging up and down the countryside dispensing death and disaster but it poses a threat all the same. There's the constant possibility of another prolonged period of fade-out. Arnold still maintains that the problems created by Crusoe stem purely from his self-protective posture. He may be right. There's still no percentage in it for us. Scientifically, Crusoe may be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but politically, militarily and economically, he is a total, unmitigated disaster.'

Allbright smiled. ‘I appreciate your concern. I was under the impression you might have been pleased to see some of the hawks humbled.'

‘There's one thing you should never forget, General. To get his half of the Nobel Peace Prize, Kissinger bombed Le Duc Tho all the way from Hanoi to Paris. It's no secret that I'm one hundred per cent behind the President's drive to remove the threat of a nuclear holocaust and see an end to all wars – but don't get me wrong. This nation must remain strong – but that strength is meaningless unless America also occupies the moral high-ground.' He grinned. ‘Until we reach that lofty position, I believe in carrying a lead-weighted olive branch.'

‘Okay, you're reclassified. What next?'

Connors pushed his plate away and draped an arm over the back of his chair. ‘I know, deep down, that this is the most fantastic thing that ever happened to any of us, but when you consider the problems it's landed us with, I mean, really – who needs it?'

Certainly not the Air Force. Which was probably why Allbright didn't say anything. He didn't need to.

Connors leaned forward on the table. ‘I'm flying back to Washington later today with a new batch of tapes. In my report to the President, I will recommend termination of the Crusoe Project.'

‘Immediately?'

‘I'm prepared to give Arnold's team another week. There's always the chance that they may come up with something.'

‘Does the research group know of this decision?'

‘Not yet. I'll break the news to them when it's official.'

‘And then?'

Connors smiled. ‘I imagine the ball will be in your court.'

‘I don't quite understand,' said Allbright.

‘Well, we just can't leave him here to become a tourist attraction,' said Connors. ‘We're going to have to blow him out of the ground. The problem is, we don't know what we're letting ourselves in for. It's impossible to predict how Crusoe will react to an attempt to destroy him – although he didn't exactly rush in to defend Friday. But if we go in, we have to get it right first time. We may only get one bite at this apple – so we can't piddle around with high explosives. It's going to have to be a nuke. Right?'

‘The situation may call for that type of response,' admitted Allbright.

‘It will,' said Connors. ‘And since SAC holds the major part of our nuclear arsenal, you'll be delivering the package.'

‘We would if the President ordered us to.'

‘General, the President has told me about Operation CAMPFIRE. I think you helped Mel Fraser set that up. You
weren't co-opted on to this project just to twiddle your thumbs on Crow Ridge.'

Allbright allowed himself a half smile. He got up from the table. ‘Would you like some whisky with that coffee?'

‘Do we have something to celebrate?'

Allbright took out two of his heavy cut-glass tumblers and held one up. ‘Beautiful, aren't they? French crystal. Present from my daughter.' He dropped in some ice, swamped it with rye and returned to the table.

Connors raised his glass. TO CAMPFIRE …'

Allbright swallowed half of his rye, then set his glass carefully down on the table. ‘What do you know about Commissar?'

‘Nothing,' said Connors. ‘Is it something you think I should know about?'

‘I think it would help.' Allbright refuelled with another shot of rye. ‘During the last, three-week fade-out, which began the day Crusoe landed – '

‘That's history,' said Connors.

‘Well, during those three weeks, the SR-71s of SAC's 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing flew photographic missions over Russia and China every day.'

Built by Lockheed, and flown in secret for three years, the SR-71 Blackbird was a space-age replacement for the U-2 spy plane of the Eisenhower era. Two huge turbojets rammed the Blackbird along at well over two thousand miles an hour at eighty thousand feet. Without radar, there was no Russian plane that could get near it.

‘Wasn't that a little provocative?'

Allbright shrugged. ‘Their radar was out along with ours. They had no way of spotting us.'

‘Except when the fade-out ended. You had no way of knowing when that was going to be.'

‘It was a calculated risk. We overflew from north to south so as to cut down the time we were in their air
space. With our reconnaissance satellites out of action, we had to know what they were doing, just in case they had not been entirely honest with you.'

‘And did you discover anything of interest?'

‘Yes,' said Allbright. ‘In the set of pictures taken on the thirty-first of August.'

‘The day Crusoe surfaced – and the fade-out began to lift… Oh, Christ, don't tell me the Russians have got one of these things too.'

Allbright nodded. ‘Confirmation came through on Monday. Same size, same shape. Code name Commissar.'

‘Jesus…' Connors was hit by a wave of depression. ‘Where has it landed?'

‘Kazakhstan. Southwest of Lake Balkash.'

‘That must be almost bang in the middle of Asia,' said Connors, trying to visualize the map.

‘It is. The Sinkiang Province of China is just to the east, Afghanistan to the south. What's even more interesting is that the landing site is on almost the same latitude as Crow Ridge and on the reciprocal longitude. They both lie on a great circle route passing through the poles.'

‘And there's absolutely no doubt about this?'

‘None at all. And they know it's there, too. The pictures show three big transport helicopters, a couple of small Mi-2s and eleven military vehicles including four large trucks with camouflage netting.'

Okay, thought Connors, so we didn't tell the Russians about Crusoe. They had still double-crossed us. Fraser was right not to trust them… ‘Why weren't we told about this on Monday?' he asked.

‘You'll have to take that up with the Defense Department. I've put my job on the line by telling you, but right now it's already at risk – along with yours.'

‘Yes…' Fraser probably wanted to keep Commissar a secret because he was still having nightmares about
Wedderkind getting together with other scientists and forming some kind of international pressure group. Connors could picture Samuels over at the Defense Intelligence Agency, beavering around, making sure every possible contact was wired for sound. ‘I appreciate you sticking your neck out. What made you decide to tell me?'

‘Your decision to terminate the project,' said Allbright. ‘I had a feeling you'd come down on the right side of the fence.'

Yes, thought Connors. But in face of this latest jolt, which side was that? And what was the best thing to do now – push ahead and take out Crusoe, or come clean with the Russians and set up some joint plan of action? Connors emptied his glass and held it out to Allbright. ‘Mind if I go around again?'

Allbright took the glass and refilled it.

‘Whoever found that picture of the spacecraft must have been pretty surprised.'

Allbright shook his head. ‘The photo interpreter didn't realize what she was looking at. She thought it was a geodesic dome erected to cover something else. We didn't tell her what it really was.'

‘I wish you hadn't told
me
,' said Connors. He raised his glass to Allbright and took a stiff shot. It blunted his sharp attack of nervous digestion.

‘To Commissar,' said Allbright. ‘It's not every day we find a spacecraft.'

‘No,' said Connors. ‘Just every three weeks.'

Allbright greeted this with a quiet smile. ‘There's something else I think I should tell you. When the President told me who I'd be working with, I asked a friend in the Pentagon to get me some background material on you. They also threw in your flying training
record. I was impressed. You could have been quite a hot shot. The Navy lost a good man.'