Wormhole (45 page)

Heather’s mission would place her in the role of Inga Hedstrom, to become one of the Swiss security guards in the ATLAS cavern on G-Day. Dr. Stephenson had insisted that no military be assigned near the wormhole device through which the anomaly would be transported on G-Day, the military’s role being to ensure security of the entire site, preventing outside forces from disrupting construction or operations. Only a couple of guards would maintain watch within the cavern, typically two or three to a shift, and those would be provided by Paladin, a
Swiss private security firm. The inside guards were only there to do Dr. Stephenson’s bidding, including evicting unwanted personnel from the premises.

This would leave Heather with little to do on G-Day, exactly what Jack wanted. It put her in position to use her unique abilities to recognize unanticipated problems and to take immediate corrective action. While her position would be the least complicated, it would also be the most difficult to set up ahead of time.

Rising from his seat, Mark walked over to the coffeepot and refilled his mug. Rolling his neck, he felt it pop and crackle. Definitely too much sitting. But as he raised his cup to his lips, feeling the hot liquid flow over his tongue, he held no illusions. The butt-flattening had only just begun.

The stasis tendrils swarmed to complete the last of the repairs, each delicate line of force its own thread of execution within the massive neural net that was Raul. He was so close now to accomplishing something Dr. Stephenson had never imagined, bringing the Rho Ship back to full functionality.

Not that he intended to go anywhere in his starship. Although he could explore the solar system, he couldn’t get to the stars, not and survive the trip. The one advantage the Altreians’ subspace warp technology had over the power of the wormhole drive was the way it enabled the ship to travel to the stars with living occupants. While the subspace engine allowed faster-than-light travel, it was nowhere near as fast as making the distance between here and there cease to exist the way his wormhole drive did. Still, the whole dying thing limited that sort of travel to unmanned ships.

Raul knew what Stephenson was trying to accomplish. He knew what Stephenson had done when he’d used Raul to unknowingly facilitate the November Anomaly’s creation. He knew how Stephenson had used that to force the world to build his gateway. With access to the history of the Kasari Collective, Raul knew all about how things were supposed to work and what had gone wrong here on Earth.

Theoretically, the Rho Ship’s wormhole drive could connect to a gateway, forming a survivable transport portal. The real problem was the portal size. In such a configuration, the portal would have to be inside the ship, and the wormhole drive would have to be configured to operate with a reduced footprint. Where it normally ramped up and thrust the starship through a newly formed wormhole, it didn’t have to maintain that wormhole for very long. But a gateway needed to remain open for extended periods and had to be large enough to allow the transport of troops and heavy equipment. That kind of extended operation required a large matter disrupter facility and a massive portal, the kind Stephenson was building in Switzerland.

Raul’s neural network roamed the World Wide Web via worm fiber connections, just as it monitored satellite and radio frequency broadcasts. It had allowed him to learn the details of Dr. Stephenson’s plans. More importantly, it had led him to an inescapable conclusion about Heather and the Smythe twins. Stephenson didn’t know about their altered abilities. The Rho Project hadn’t had anything to do with that.

That left only one other possibility. They had found the Altreian ship long before the government had discovered its cave. Somehow, that ship had altered them. Everything the Altreians did had a purpose, and the only purpose Raul could see in enhancing these humans had been to turn them into soldiers, soldiers whose
only mission was to stop the Rho Ship from accomplishing its agenda. That now meant stopping Dr. Stephenson.

Raul knew enough about the Kasari Collective to know he didn’t want them on Earth. Not because he thought their assimilation of the human race would be harmful to the Earth’s population. The Kasari merely wanted to add to their numbers and resources. In doing so the human population would be augmented, illness eliminated, life spans extended for millennia, wars a thing of the past...at least internal wars. None of that bothered him. But if the Kasari came through, Raul would lose the special power he’d worked so hard to achieve.

If Stephenson hadn’t created the November Anomaly, Raul would have put a stop to his plans. But turning the Earth into a black hole wasn’t an option. So now he had the same problem Heather and her friends had.

Since Dr. Stephenson had to be allowed to succeed in creating his gateway in order to get rid of the anomaly, Heather and the Smythes would be irresistibly drawn to the November Anomaly Project. They would have to be on-site to have any chance of shutting down the gateway after the anomaly was transported, but before Stephenson could synchronize it with its sister Kasari gateway. On what Stephenson was calling G-Day, Heather would be inside the ATLAS cavern, close enough to Stephenson’s portal for Raul’s purpose.

And then he would never be alone again.

The cold rain that had blown in two days ago showed no sign of going away. Freddy pulled his black London Fog raincoat’s collar up, slammed the car door, and walked toward the quaint old house in western Annapolis. Mary Beth Kincaid had met Jonathon Riles while he was a midshipman at the Naval Academy and they’d fallen madly in love, getting married immediately after his graduation. Her father had been a navy captain and she’d married another one. It was no surprise to Freddy that she’d moved back to her old family home after Admiral Riles’s reported suicide. The house looked like something an old sea dog would be comfortable in.

From all reports, Mary Beth was a strong woman, volunteering all her free time for community charities. Strong, but heartbroken. Her old friends said she’d lost her zest for life, isolating herself in the old house when not at work. Neighbors checked in
on her, but it was clear she wanted to be by herself, to be left alone with her grand piano and her grief.

Walking up the three steps, he stepped onto the open front porch and raised the brass knocker. The haunting notes of “Greensleeves” drifted out, making him reluctant to interrupt her playing, but his damned reporter’s nose had led him here, and maybe, just maybe, he could help this wounded lady find some peace.

As the song ended, he finally brought the knocker down in three sharp raps. The woman who opened the door little resembled the one in the picture he’d seen of Admiral and Mrs. Riles. It was a photo taken when Admiral Riles had just been appointed director of the National Security Agency. In that picture, the laugh lines around her sparkling blue eyes were the only lines on her face, a face framed by blonde hair elegantly highlighted with the first streaks of gray.

No hint of blonde remained in her hair and her cheeks looked tugged down by the weight of the world. Perhaps it was the reflection of the dark clouds behind him, but her eyes seemed to have dulled to gray.

“Mrs. Riles?”

“Yes. How may I help you?”

“I don’t know exactly. I’m hoping you can tell me.”

She studied him for several seconds. Then, with a questioning look, she opened the door.

“Please come in. I was about to pour myself some tea. Would you like some?”

“That would be nice,” Freddy said, removing his raincoat and hanging it on the coat rack.

“One lump or two?”

“Black...er, plain is fine.”

Freddy moved to the mantle, studying the photos in their frames, neatly arranged from left to right in chronological order. Mary and Jon, arm in arm at a Naval Academy formal, cutting
their wedding cake, a kiss at a promotion party, the two of them standing on the deck of the
USS Ronald Reagan
, and finally the same photo Freddy had found online.

The tinkle of fine china behind him caused him to turn to see Mary Beth setting two cups and saucers on the coffee table.

“We were a lovely couple, wouldn’t you say?”

“I would.”

Freddy felt out of his element. It wasn’t the old sea captain’s house that was messing with his head. It was this old woman. Mary Beth carried an aura of pain and grace that sapped his wit, leaving him little better than a muttering simpleton.

“Please, come and have a seat beside me.” She patted a spot on the sofa.

Freddy maneuvered around the low table, his bad leg making the turn awkward. Mary Beth noticed.

“How’d you lose it?”

“A bad encounter with an industrial saw.”

“Sorry to hear it. Losing a part of yourself is hard.”

Picking up the teapot, Mary Beth poured, first his, then hers, her hand surprisingly steady. Freddy reached out, pinching the tiny handle between forefinger and thumb, feeling as if he would snap it off before the cup reached his lips.

“Well, Mister...”

“Hagerman. Freddy Hagerman.”

“Well, Mr. Hagerman, if you’d be so kind, I’d like to hear why you came to see me.”

Freddy took a sip, burned his lip, and set the cup back on its saucer. For once he wished he were better at this tact shit.

“Mrs. Riles, I came to talk about your husband.”

Her face showed no change.

“Go on.”

“I’m an investigative reporter for the
New York Post
. There’s really no way to say this other than to come right out with it, so here goes. I have good reason to believe your husband didn’t commit suicide.”

Again, he detected no change in Mary Beth’s expression.

“I believe Jonathan was murdered by a group of people bent on stopping his investigation into the Rho Project.”

Her eyes were definitely blue now. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know.”

For a moment Freddy was speechless. “You knew? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

The laugh bubbled off Mary Beth’s lips but didn’t make it to her eyes.

“Oh, I told them all. Told the investigators. Told his superiors. Told everyone. But I’m a grieving widow, an old woman, blinded by love for my dead husband, unwilling to see anything bad in him, clueless to the goings-on in the real world of men and politics. I finally quit banging my head on that wall. But you know something, Mr. Hagerman? No matter what they say, it didn’t feel better when I stopped.”

“So will you help me?”

“I don’t know how.”

“Do you know a man named Jack Gregory?”

For the first time since he’d met her, a genuine smile graced Mary Beth’s lips.

“Let me tell you something, Freddy. Jonny always said I was the best natural judge of character he’d ever seen.”

There it was again, that nice smile.

“It was the reason I invited you in.”

She reached for her cup, took a small sip, dabbed her lips with the back of her hand.

“Jack Gregory is a young god. Jonny would have given his life for him. So would I.”

“I think he did.”

Setting her cup back in its saucer, Mary Beth locked her eyes with Freddy’s.

“Then I’m happy.”

“Jack’s not.”

Her left eyebrow rose a quarter of an inch.

“Tell me about it.”

For the next half hour Freddy related the abridged version of what Jack Gregory had told him that night in the Maryland hotel. When he finished, Mary Beth Riles dabbed the corners of her eyes with a kerchief.

“So my Jonny was trying to save the world.”

“And Jack still is.”

“One thing about Jonny. He always had a backup plan. You up for helping me look through his old things?”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Rising to her feet, Mary Beth held her hand out to Freddy.

“Then let’s go save our saviors.”