The Krone Experiment (22 page)

“How many people are we talking about
then?”

“Thirty some. But we’ll only see a small
group of individuals who may have some particular expertise to
bring to our problem.”

“So all these great brains spend their summer
vacations worrying about whatever problems are dished up to
them.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“And they always meet in the same place—this
Bishop’s School?”

“Generally, yes. The grounds of the school
are cloistered and secure. And, of course, La Jolla is a very
congenial place to be in the summer. I believe some members rent
houses in town, but most of them move right into the dorms. They’re
converted into combination living and working areas. I guess I see
the sense to it. You take a bunch of very bright people and make
them comfortable in an environment where they can concentrate and
interact without interruption. In any case, it seems to work. Jason
has a long record of developing significant ideas and cracking hard
problems.”

“I’m sure.” Danielson poked at the food on
her tray. “I find it an ironic mix, innocent little Episcopalian
school girls during the school year and great scientists weighing
the fate of mankind during summer vacation.”

“I suppose,” Isaacs replied.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Danielson
continued, “I’m curious as to how you could set up a meeting with
them so quickly. I would have thought there were all sorts of
channels to go through.”

“Normally you’re right,” Isaacs assented.
“Another piece of the tightrope we’re walking. I’ve dealt with them
before, through those official procedures. I took the chance of
calling Professor Phillips; he runs Jason now, a pleasant fellow, I
think you’ll like him. I hinted at the emergency and let him know
this was something informal, something I am doing on my own
recognizance, on a weekend like this. Of course, I couldn’t come
right out and tell him about McMasters’ prohibition. We’ll have to
trust his discretion. I’m pretty sure Phillips is okay. I don’t
know the others personally. We’ll just have to hope.”

He cast her a worried glance.

“Pat, I am concerned about this trip. I hate
exposing us, you in particular, but we need some help, some idea of
what’s going on.” He poked at his green beans then went on.
“Frankly, even without the risk, I always have mixed feelings with
these people. Individually and collectively they’re very bright.
They have an excellent track record for making progress on
seemingly intractable problems, like ours, and the fact that they
do serve on Jason gives us something in common, I suppose. But I
can’t help thinking they’re still academics. The fact that they
choose that sort of life, rather than committing themselves to the
front line like some of us are compelled to do, means we have a
different mindset. A basically different view of the world,
life.”

He shrugged.

“I think I understand,” Danielson said. “I
guess I’m pretty nervous meeting with them for another reason, but
it’s related. I’ve never had to do any Agency business in public,
outside of Langley, except for that liaison with the Cambridge
Research Lab, but that was just work. Now I’ve got to try to
explain what I’ve done, what I’ve been thinking, to professional
scientists, trained skeptics. It’s a little frightening.”

He looked her seriously in the eyes.

“You know your stuff,” he said confidently.
“Don’t worry on that account.”

A passing stewardess eyed their trays. They
concentrated once more on the food before them. After lunch,
Danielson extracted her case from beneath the seat in front of her
and reviewed her notes one more time.

At the San Diego airport Isaacs called ahead
to announce their arrival, then they picked up a rental car and got
on the freeway headed north, passing between steep hillocks on
either side. Only the tang in the air stream through a partially
opened window gave evidence of the nearby Pacific. They turned off
the freeway and headed uphill to the west. The crest brought a
panoramic view of a sweep of coastline to the right, broken in
mid-arc by the jut of Scripps pier. To the left, the town of La
Jolla snuggled around the hillside and down to the sea. In another
few minutes they turned into the gateway of the Bishop’s School for
Girls, nestled a short distance from the commercial center of La
Jolla.

As they got out of the car, Wayne Phillips
called to them. Isaacs and Phillips greeted one another with
refined congeniality. Phillips, a Harvard physicist, was, at 68,
the senior member and current head of Jason. Like many of his
generation he had nurtured his career both in physics and in
defense-related matters on the Manhattan Project during World War
II. A contributor to a wide variety of fields, he was best known
for his work on nuclear physics that had earned him a share of a
Nobel Prize.

His physique conceded something to age, but
Phillips’ rangy build still extended to nearly six feet. His thick
grey hair was balding, but not exceedingly so. The lock of hair in
the middle of his forehead gave the effect of a high rise widow’s
peak. His longish face displayed kindly blue eyes underscored by
pronounced bags. Phillips had come from a monied eastern family and
had been raised in style. Although he was among the most highly
respected of his colleagues, he had long been regarded as a pariah
by some members of his family for not devoting his life to the
disbursement of the extensive family trust funds.

Isaacs introduced Danielson to Phillips and
they chatted as they moved off down the walk and into a nearby
building. Danielson warmed immediately to the physicist’s courtly
manner, which belied his aggressive intellect.

They entered one of the dormitories. The
bulletin board in the foyer bore outdated reminders of the
school-term occupants. Freshly scattered around were announcements
of classes and various activities. In a lower corner, neatly
aligned but yellowed with age, was a detailed list of covenants
applicable to proper young school girls.

Phillips gestured for Isaacs and Danielson to
ascend the stairway that led from the foyer. At the top they paused
while Phillips caught up with them and led the way down a hall. At
midpoint he stopped, rapped once on the door, then turned the knob
and stepped back to usher them in.

The furnishings of the room they entered
looked all out of place. After a moment’s reflection, Danielson
realized that it was a regular dormitory room converted for the
summer into an office. The beds had been removed and replaced by a
large serviceable desk that stood against the left wall, littered
with papers and books. A comfortable old sofa had been shoehorned
in beneath the windows opposite, and along the right wall stood a
roller-footed portable blackboard. Next to the blackboard a
partially opened door revealed a compact lavatory. Extra chairs
were placed randomly, adding to the sense of clutter.

Two men sat on the sofa. Isaacs recognized
one as Ellison Gantt, the distinguished seismologist from Caltech
who had been instrumental in planning the large seismic array.
Gantt had receding grey hair and wore dark framed glasses. His
jowls and chin were beginning to sag. The two men rose and Phillips
introduced them. The other was Vladimir Zicek from Columbia, one of
the world’s experts on lasers. Danielson was unsure she would
recognize Gantt if she were to bump into him on the street later;
he looked like so many other grey, middle-aged men. In a coat and
tie he could have passed anywhere as a business executive. Zicek
was more distinctive. He was rather small in stature with sharp
features and hair combed straight back from his forehead. There was
a friendly twinkle in his eyes and his polite continental manner
appealed to her.

Phillips addressed Gantt.

“Ellison, you’re our host here today. Would
you mind assembling the others?”

“Of course. Let’s see—it’s Leems, Runyan,
Noldt, and Fletcher, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” acknowledged Phillips.

Gantt moved into the hallway. Phillips
offered Danielson a seat on the sofa, which she took. She realized
it put her in full direct view of each new arrival, and she watched
with amusement as they filed in over the next several minutes. Each
reacted with various degrees of surprise to find an attractive
female in the retinue.

Isaacs remained standing, fidgeting at the
delay, which would be barely excusable by regimented CIA standards.
They were all assembled in a few minutes, however. Isaacs conceded
even that was admirable for a bunch of prima donna college
professors.

Phillips courteously introduced each new
arrival and Isaacs checked them off against the files he had
studied. Carl Fletcher and Ted Noldt arrived together. They were
experts in high energy particle physics, Fletcher, a theorist from
Princeton, Noldt, an experimentalist from Stanford. They both were
in their middle thirties, friends from graduate school. Fletcher
was of medium height with shaggy brown hair. He had quick dark eyes
set in a square face with the gaunt, tanned cheeks of a
long-distance runner. Noldt was a bit taller, but blond and pudgy.
A crooked grin and glasses gave him the look of a good-humored
owl.

Harvey Leems, a solid-state physicist from
Berkeley, followed in a minute. Leems was tall and bald. His thick,
rimless glasses diminished his eyes and contributed to a sour look.
He greeted Isaacs and Danielson with a quick nod.

Gantt returned lugging a slide projector and
screen, which he proceeded to arrange. Last to arrive was Alexander
Runyan, an astrophysicist from Minnesota. Runyan’s rawboned frame
ran three inches over six feet. Danielson watched him come through
the door and stop to be introduced to Isaacs. He was wearing a
T-shirt that showed a slight paunch, cutoffs, and flip-flop thongs.
He moved slowly, almost shambled, but Danielson sensed in him an
energy that could be quickly galvanized. A dark beard going
salt-and-pepper, particularly at the sideburns, covered a face she
thought might be handsome if she could see it all. He turned toward
her then, gave a look of surprise and delight and whipped off the
glasses he’d been wearing. He stepped across the room and
introduced himself, shaking Danielson’s hand and giving her a warm
smile. His eyes were light grey or green, hidden in a perpetual sun
squint that melded easily into his smile. He squeezed between
Danielson and Zicek on the sofa. There was an exchange of knowing
looks among the scientists. If there were an attractive woman in
the crowd, Runyan would be at her side pouring on the charm.

Phillips moved to the small, clear area
before the projection screen that Gantt had placed in front of the
lavatory door.

“Gentlemen,” he began, “we are pleased to
welcome Mr. Isaacs and Dr. Danielson from the Central Intelligence
Agency. They have an interesting problem to set before us. It’s not
on our formal agenda, but I’ve promised Mr. Isaacs we’ll lend what
insight we can. They’ll present us with some details and then lead
a general discussion to explore the nature of the situation. Mr.
Isaacs.”

“Thank you, Professor Phillips,” Isaacs
began, looking around the room. “I want to thank you all for giving
up your Saturday afternoon on such short notice. As you will see,
we are dealing with a problem so foreign to our experience, that
any hint of how to proceed will be most useful.”

Isaacs spent ten minutes giving a general but
concise review of the surveillance role of the CIA and the parallel
operation in AFTAC with particular stress on the capabilities of
the Large Seismic Array and the undersea acoustic monitors. He also
described the role of the Office of Scientific Intelligence in
guiding and interpreting the surveillance missions. He then turned
the floor over to Danielson.

Although nervous, Danielson had maintained
her demeanor while watching the group file in. Butterflies struck
in earnest, however, as she listened to Isaacs. She was intent on
giving a professional presentation. She knew intellectually that
she was well versed in her subject, but her emotional reaction was
tainted by the knowledge that she, as a woman and an engineer, was
about to stand up before an audience of male physicists considered
the best in their fields.

As she stepped around next to the projector,
she was vividly aware that the all male group was equally conscious
of her sex. Her voice broke slightly as she began, and she spoke
her first few introductory sentences at a low volume that scarcely
carried over the faint traffic noise from the window.

“A little louder for those of us who are hard
of hearing, please Dr. Danielson.”

The admonition came from Phillips, but it was
delivered with a warm supportive smile. Danielson heartened and her
tone strengthened. She turned on the first slide, which drew her
attention away from the audience and to her subject matter. Soon
she was caught up in the precise intricate web of analysis that,
through her deep involvement, was an extension of her own
personality.

Danielson’s reading of her small audience was
largely accurate. Before she began to speak and establish some
grounds for an intellectual bond, the instinctive response was to
react to her as a female. Not a man in the room failed to run a
glance from her softly curled hair down to trim ankles and back and
say to himself, “not your standard CIA type” or variations on that
theme. There was a communal embarrassment and the reinforcement of
some prejudice as she began so softly, but by and large they were a
sophisticated and open-minded group prepared to relate on an
intellectual level. Once Danielson got involved in her subject, she
commanded their attention, and a growing respect. When she reached
her major point, that the seismic signal kept sidereal time, time
with the stars, there was a muffled commotion of gestures and
excitedly whispered comments that told Danielson that she had
established the desired rapport with her audience.