The Rock (10 page)

"Yes, sir."

"So about the only thing we do know is that someone was meant to pick this up-someone who could decipher it," Lamb said.

"Yes, sir," Spurlock said.

Lamb pointed at the computer. "We need that message broken. I've got to know what's going on. I want you to make that your number-one priority-is that clear?"

"Yes, sir, it's clear," Spurlock answered. Levy didn't even bother to turn her head. She was already on a different plane of reality, working on the problem.

Lamb left the control, closely followed by Hawkins.

21 DECEMBER 1995, 1400 LOCAL

21 DECEMBER 1995, 0430 ZULU

''What have you got on Levy?" Hawkins asked Lamb in the security of the message center.

Lamb smoothed out the computer printouts and ran his finger down the lines. "Debra Lynn Levy. Born 1972, Brooklyn, New York. Her father worked for the Transit Authority as a subway mechanic. Mother worked as a secretary. No history of exceptional mental aptitude in the family. Then she was born. She began speaking at age fourteen months. Reading at two years. She was in a Head Start day care program and they referred her to Professor Allen Steinwatz at New York University, who was quite well known for his work with child prodigies.

"Steinwatz convinced the parents to allow him to accelerate her education. She graduated high school at nine. She attended MIT and graduated with a doctorate in quantum physics at fifteen. For the next seven years she worked as a researcher in the physics department there. She started teaching at seventeen but apparently there was some problem with students eight to ten years older than her taking her seriously."

"What about her personal life?" Hawkins asked.

Lamb shook his head. "Nothing. She works, teaches, and goes home. We've still got people doing some checking, but we have no record of any boyfriend-or girlfriend, for that matter."

Lamb folded over a page. "There was something interesting, though. A year ago she had a breakdown and was committed to a mental institution for two months."

"What was the cause of the problem?" Hawkins asked.

"We're having trouble getting the hospital records.

It's a very elite place in upstate New York." He looked at Hawkins. "Why the interest in Levy?"

Hawkins shook his head. "I don't know. There's something about her that makes me feel uneasy. I can't put a finger on it. Let's just call it a gut feeling."

That was good enough for Lamb. "I'll get the records."

"Any problems other than the breakdown?"

Lamb looked at the security folder on her. "No. Only the fact that she's young and has never been exposed to this type of situation before."

"What about this crater person-Pencak?"

"She's on the way. We picked her up three hours ago. Should be here late tonight or early tomorrow."

"What about her background?" Hawkins asked. Lamb frowned. "Not good. She's a class-one weirdo who also happens to do some brilliant work concerning strange geological formations." His face twisted, the muscles around his deformed cheek jumping. "We've got her listed in the computer as having made six trips to the former Soviet Union. First one in '59. Last one in '87."

Hawkins understood how Lamb felt about that. "What else?"

"Langley and the FBI had a folder on her. She had a Russian boyfriend for a while-they wrote back and forth quite a bit. A Felix Zigorski, an aerodynamics expert who was involved with their space program. It all seemed pretty innocent, but they wanted to keep an eye on her."

"Back up," Hawkins said. "Tell me about her from the start."

Lamb scanned the faxed printout. "Not much here. Born in Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1938. Her parents had a farm there. Both were killed in a car wreck when she was sixteen. She was banged up pretty bad and also severely burned. She was in the hospital for a while and then on her own-no known living relatives. Sold the farm and went to the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque. Undergraduate major was physics. Got a doctorate in geology. Then she went to Meteor Crater and has been there ever since. She teaches occasionally as adjunct faculty at various universities. Travels a bit. Writes articles for scientific journals."

"Personal life?"

"Nothing so far. Apparently she doesn't look too good. She lost an eye in the accident and was badly scarred."

Hawkins stretched out his back muscles. "I'm going to have to keep an eye on her."

"That you are." Lamb absently ran a hand over the reports on his desk. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine."

"How's your wife?"

"The same," Hawkins answered succinctly, his tone indicating that issue was not to be discussed.

Lamb switched the subject quickly. "I had security go through the team members' personal baggage and they found several bottles stashed in Batson's small carryon bag. I had them confiscated-this isn't the time or the place to put up with that stuff."

Hawkins shook his head. "Sounds like we've got a winning team here. Anything else I should know about?"

Lamb pressed a button on his desk and the door opened. Colonel Tolliver who'd been waiting outside walked in, his fatigues drenched with sweat. "Colonel Tolliver just flew in from the Rock. What's the tactical situation?"

Tolliver pulled out a rag and wiped sand from his forehead. "The Rock is secure. We're a hundred and eighty feet in and the drilling is going well."

"Strategic SITREP?" Lamb continued.

Tolliver frowned. "The Russian Task Force is making the Australians very nervous. My Aussie counterpart says he's getting a lot of pressure from his higher-ups to find out what the hell is going on. That's besides the flak about the drilling."

"What's the location of the task force?"

"They're in the Coral Sea still heading south. Intelligence believes they will go around the east coast of Australia and position themselves to the south in the Great Australian Bight, a thousand miles to the south of here.

"One of the dish antennas on the Gagarin is oriented directly toward our location. The other tracks the sky above Australia in a sweep pattern. We're picking up a lot of secure SATCOM traffic between the Task Force flagship and Moscow."

"How long before they're in position?"

"Thirty-six hours."

"Think they picked up the second transmission?" Lamb asked.

Tolliver shrugged. "We were on top of the Rock and didn't pick it up because we weren't up in that band width. Depends if the Russians were-we have no way of knowing."

Something had been in the back of Hawkins's mind. "Is there any activity at the site in Siberia?"

Lamb reached behind him and pulled out some papers. "Yes. Our eye in the sky is picking up extensive military maneuvers being carried out there. They're looking for something."

"Their Rock," Hawkins mused out loud. "What else?"

"Langley is concerned that the Russians will try to infiltrate the project here."

Hawkins nodded. He knew that. He was worried about it, too, and having Levy here already and bringing in Pencak didn't thrill him. He looked at Tolliver. "Remind your men that we're looking for more than direct military action. It's more likely that any action that occurs will be covert. They're to check everyone and take nothing for granted. It's possible we've already been infiltrated."

"Yes, sir." Tolliver paused. "Of course, you know that the most likely source of a compromise is one of the outsiders that have been called in."

Lamb fixed the marine with a cold stare. "I know that."

He dismissed Tolliver and then looked back at Hawkins. "Things are not going well in the big picture. There's already political instability in several Third World countries. The governments are keeping the loss of the gold reserves quiet, but some of those leaders are already scrambling to cover their own position-never mind worry about the welfare of their people. It looks like there will be at least four new governments before the end of the year."

He let out a deep breath and again changed the subject. "Anything from your people on the bomb search?"

"They're pursuing two possibilities," Hawkins replied, "One is Libya."

"He certainly had the money to buy a bomb," Lamb noted. "And it fits with some other Intel I've been getting. Qaddafi's suddenly begun making noises again about his line of death in the Gulf of Sidra. The President is thinking about using the Sixth Fleet to push him on it. Intel believes that Qaddafi wants to draw the fleet in and then have a small boat--or more likely a submarine--with the bomb on board try to get near one of the carriers and detonate it."

Hawkins frowned. "Why is the President reacting, then?"

"That's his job. All I know is that a carrier task force is cruising the thirty-third parallel waiting on the President's word to cross." Lamb sounded frustrated. "I'm sort of out of the loop here, sitting on my ass in the middle of Australia." He shook his head. "What's Orion's status on Libya?"

"They've infiltrated two small recon teams. Nothing yet, according to the last transmission."

"What's the other lead?"

Hawkins picked a slim file folder marked TOP SECRET/Q CLEARANCE. "They picked up a smuggler who disclosed under questioning that he delivered something to an Arab. A check of his cargo hold picked up slight traces of radioactivity. That and the smuggler's description of the package makes it possible it was one of the bombs. He transported his cargo from a point on the northern shore of the Black Sea down to the Mediterranean and cross loaded offshore of Syria to the Arab."

"Do they have a line on the Arab?"

"Not yet, but they're pushing it hard."

"Could it have gone to Qaddafi?"

"Possible. Or it could be someone else-that is, if it was one of the bombs. It could even have been the South African bomb on its way down there."

Lamb rubbed his forehead wearily. It could be anyone in that cesspool known as the Middle East. The Syrians would love to use one on the Israelis. The Lebanese against each other. The Jordanians against just about anyone. "All right. Let me know right away if you break anything out on that second transmission."

Hawkins didn't move. "You've been deploying some of my people in Orion about, without consulting me."

"Yes, I have. We're both out of the loop here. We have to be prepared for some contingencies, and your people are the best ones trained for action if we need it.

Hawkins nodded and left the van, accepting the fact but intensely disliking that he had to accept it. He had a feeling they no longer were in control of much of anything-this whole business seemed to be an exercise in reaction, which was not a mode of operations that he preferred.

21 DECEMBER 1995, 1950 LOCAL

21 DECEMBER 1995, 1020 ZULU

When Hawkins got back to the control center, Fran and Don were gathered in front of the computer, peering over Spurlock's shoulders, awaiting the answer to their eight-hour question on Voyager. Levy did not appear to have moved from her position in front of the other computer. On Spurlock's screen the messages from the computer slowly scrolled up as the seconds went by.

Spurlock looked at the digital readout on the upper left-hand corner of the screen. It slowly clicked off the seconds, winding down. "Five seconds," he muttered unnecessarily.

The last digit flickered into a zero and then stopped. Spurlock blinked and looked at the screen.

He grabbed the keyboard and furiously typed out a message.

The reply was brief and to the point.

His fingers slammed the keys again.

Spurlock wasn't going to give up.

There was a ten-second pause during which Spurlock's fingers gouged the arms of his chair.

Spurlock let his fingers slide off the keyboard and turned to the others. "Voyager 2 is gone."

"Gone?" Fran repeated.

"It's no longer out there."