Collision (26 page)

“And crude, mean language in messages and tweets,” Darlene injected. “We're the fattest nation on the planet, and we don't seem to give a damn! There's no middle class any longer. Just the rich, super rich…”

“And the poor bastards at the bottom of the pyramid,” Falcone said. “All true. But at the moment, it does us little good to complain about it. We need to try to get back on what we came here for.”

“What's going to happen next back there?” Taylor asked, pointing a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the Capitol.

“You all saw what Collinsworth and Anderson were up to—belittle you, build up SpaceMine, give Hamilton a platform for spouting his private-enterprise gospel, and ignore worries about mining satellites,” Falcone replied. “You'll get another session on the hot seat this afternoon. And then will come Hamilton for the finale. If you think of this as reality television instead of a congressional hearing, you'll understand it better. It's staged for drama, not truth.”

“What about the opening statement?” Bancroft asked. “They suppressed the Air Force report. It's not classified. It has never been classified.”

“I know. I know,” Falcone said. “There's nothing we can do about it right now. In a while we can petition the White House for a declassification order. Eventually, we'll get that report made public. It will take time. Right now we've got the hearing to deal with.”

“But how could Collinsworth say it's classified?… That's a lie.”

“I've seen it done before, Sam,” Falcone said. “A powerful congressman decides to bag something that is not classified. He takes it to a friendly intelligence bigfoot and gets it provisionally classified.”

“He can do that?” Bancroft asked. “I thought only the President can classify and declassify. Or am I being naive?”

“No, under the law, you're absolutely right. The law says only the President can classify and declassify. But he can also deputize the job. And so some secrets are artificially classified without the President's notice.”

“But Ben needs to get it out, needs to tell the public. Can't we get President Oxley to simply order it declassified?”

Falcone reflected on his dealings with Oxley. The President was single-minded in the pursuit of his own agenda. He was not inclined to take any risks, not even for friends.

“He could,” Falcone replied. “But he won't. Not at this point at least. He's trying to make a budget deal with Congress, and crossing Collinsworth would be a deal-breaker. Think how it would look to the press.”

“You're ahead of me. I'm just a flyboy. Tell me how it would look.”

“The CIA has classified a report that an astrophysicist wants to release so that the information can be used by our enemies against us. And, by the way, few people know what in hell it is that an astrophysicist does, other than he's some egghead who is trying to discover the origins of our planet and deny that it was God's handiwork. And—”

“Come on, Sean. That would be bullshit.”

“Sure. But lots of times news
is
bullshit, and with the CIA and Collinsworth in the story, it's big news. And there's more. This particular atheist is involved in a murder that's being investigated by the FBI.… So you tell me, what do you think Oxley will do?” Falcone turned to Taylor. “Okay, Ben. It's back into the Colosseum.”

 

47

Senator Frank Anderson of
Oklahoma, chair of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, was a slight man in a rumpled brown suit, checkered shirt, and yellow and black bowtie. He sat at Collinsworth's right. As soon as the room settled down for the afternoon session, he took up his part in the script that he and Collinsworth had laid out days before over a two-martini lunch at the Monocle.

A member of Anderson's staff led Taylor to the witness chair and reminded him that he was still under oath. Then Anderson rapped the gavel and said, “I believe you realize, Mr. Taylor, that, although you describe yourself as assistant director of the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, you no longer are actively carrying out your duties.”

Falcone turned first to Taylor and then toward Anderson. Falcone was angry but not surprised. Anderson was part of the tag team.

“In point of fact, Senator,” Taylor said calmly, “I am on administrative leave, which is a temporary leave from a job assignment, with pay and benefits intact.”

“So, Doctor, does that mean you are ill?” Anderson asked with a mean grin.

“I am very well, thank you, Senator. My status is a personnel matter. And I am obviously able to carry out the assignment I have today, which is to testify about asteroids.”

Before Anderson could respond, Taylor continued to speak: “Natural disasters—such as volcanoes and tornadoes and earthquakes—are difficult to predict, but we know a lot about them. That knowledge leads us toward understanding them and developing ideas about how to predict the seemingly unpredictable. That is what we need about asteroids and other near-Earth objects. We've—”

“Hold on there, Mr. Taylor. I haven't asked a question.”

“I'm simply responding to what the hearing was supposed to be about—‘activities regarding asteroids.' I tried this morning to read—”

“And you were warned that the material you were attempting to reveal is classified. Now, I—”

Taylor, acting as if he had not noticed Anderson's sputtering, continued to speak, rapidly and emotionally: “With increasing regularity, we are discovering asteroids and comets with unusual orbits that take them close to Earth. We have made a start on gaining knowledge—scientific knowledge—about asteroids. Today, with what we know, we can say that the possible collision of an asteroid with Earth is the one potential catastrophic natural disaster that we believe we can do something about. I call it defense of the Earth. That is—”

“
Collision.
That is exactly what I am talking about,” Anderson said, his voice rising. “You seem to automatically connect the word ‘asteroid' with the word ‘collision.'”

“I beg to differ, Senator. In lectures I have given and, indeed, in testimony three years ago before your committee, I—”

“At which time I was not the chairman, and—”

“Yes, but you were a
member.
And I said then, and as I say again this afternoon, NASA has done an excellent job in finding and tracking asteroids and near-Earth objects. Today, we know the location and orbits of about ten thousand NEOs, as they are labeled. About one thousand of them are about one-half mile in diameter, or larger. The unofficial, unscientific name for them is ‘civilization killers,' and—”

Anderson, banging down his gavel, loudly proclaimed, “The witness is flouting this committee! ‘Killers'! I instruct you, Mr. Taylor, not to test our patience any longer. You will confine yourself to answering statements, not issuing manifestos.”

Falcone whispered to Taylor, then glared at Anderson. Taylor leaned back in his chair, his face expressionless.

As a florid-faced Anderson looked as if he was about to speak, Senator Lawrence bent her head toward her microphone and said, “Mr. Chairman, a point of order.”

The camera swung to her, drawn as much by her words as by her telegenic face, which could shift in a moment from serene to appalled, from cover-girl pretty to dragon-lady fury.

Anderson, without looking at Lawrence, said, “And what may that point of order be, under Senate rules?”

“Mr. Chairman, according to the call for this hearing, witnesses were to begin their testimony by reading initial statements,” she began, her voice primly stern. “Since Senator Collinsworth this morning unilaterally decreed the opening statement classified, I believe, as a matter of fairness, that
Doctor
Taylor should be allowed to tell us what he, as an expert witness, believes to be a matter of national security.”

Anderson, with a glance and a nod toward Collinsworth, said, “With all due respect, Senator Lawrence, we have a lot of ground to cover, and I believe that our needs would be best served through an ordinary question-and-answer procedure.”

Anderson turned to look directly at Taylor and said, “You have testified that you are on administrative leave in regards to your position at the Air and Space Museum. I would like to ask you about a television show that you produced with taxpayers' money. Would you please state the title of the show?”

“The title is ‘An Asteroid Closely Watched,' Senator. I am a coproducer with
NOVA
. And I would like to note that almost the entire budget for shows like this comes from viewers' contributions.”

“Forgetting for a moment the annual congressional appropriation for public television, Doctor, is it not true that the show is in fact
not
going to be broadcast? That it has been essentially scrapped?”

Falcone and Taylor both looked stunned, as did Darlene and Bancroft. Falcone turned and whispered, “Jesus! What the hell is this?”

“I am unaware of any change, Senator,” Taylor said, looking puzzled.

“Well, I am,” Anderson said, holding up a sheet of paper. “I have here a joint statement from Stephanie Sinclair-Hardy, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and Conrad LaSalle, chairman of the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, announcing that your show, ‘An Asteroid Closely Watched,' has been indefinitely postponed.”

Taylor did not respond. Falcone leaned into the microphone and said, “Dr. Taylor has no knowledge of this cancellation, Senator. May we see the document?”

“You are interrupting this hearing, counselor. If you persist in such interruptions, you risk the possibility of being held in contempt of Congress,” Anderson said. He paused. An aide handed him a note. He glanced at it, and said, “I've just been advised that the majority leader has scheduled six consecutive votes that begin in five minutes. Accordingly, this hearing will now stand in recess until nine a.m. tomorrow. And, counselor, your client will not be recalled. But he must remain under subpoena to this committee.”

 

48

As soon as the
hearing ended, Falcone led Ben, Darlene, and Sam Bancroft to a side door into an anteroom. One of its walls was lined with chairs, which Falcone arranged in a cicle. Darlene smiled, remembering how, in the third grade, Miss Templeton arranged the chairs in fours.

“Tomorrow is your call, Ben,” Falcone said when all four were seated. “There's no real need for you to be here. It's going to be another act in the senators' circus. They'll be giving Hamilton a televised platform to tell the world what he has to say about asteroids.”

Falcone turned to Bancroft. “It was gutsy for you to show up in uniform today. But please take my advice and don't appear tomorrow. There's no need for backup then.”

“It's a free country,” Bancroft said. “It sounds like it will be a good show, and I want to be there.”

Through the closed door they could hear the scuffles and muffled sounds of the hearing room closing down for the day. Taylor looked at Bancroft and nodded. “I agree with Sean. But, like you said, it's a free country.”

Darlene leaned forward and touched her father's folded hands. “And what about you?” she asked.

“I wouldn't miss it for a million dollars,” Taylor said.

“Great. I give good advice and nobody takes it,” Falcone said. “I'll meet you at the entrance tomorrow morning. As for you two”—he nodded to Darlene and Sam—“I suppose you're both as stubborn as he is.” He stood, adding, “You've seen enough of me today. I'm off to clean out my office. Then home for a tall drink and a long night's sleep. See you all tomorrow.”

Falcone kissed Darlene, patted Ben on the shoulder, shook hands with Bancroft, and left via the door to the marble hallway.

The Taylors and Bancroft sat in silence for nearly a minute. Then, as she had been doing since childhood, Darlene asked a question that seemed to come from nowhere. “Dad,” she said, “how come you know Sean so well?”

“Well,” Taylor said, “we met when I was at Goddard and he was a senator on the Science Committee. I filled him in on NASA projects. He was always hungry for solid information. That's how we met. I mean it could have been one of those Washington things where people become, you know, contacts for each other's business. But, somehow, right from the beginning, we had a friendship.”

“You mean you both just hit it off? That's
it
?” She sounded exasperated.

“I've never thought about how we became close friends. I guess, when I look back now, it was Vietnam. He never told me about what had happened to him there. But I read about it one day, and he became a real hero to me, and, I guess, that was part of it. Being a hero.” He looked toward Bancroft, who remained a witness to what had suddenly become a father-daughter dialogue.

“Vietnam,” Darlene said. “It's not part of our generation. But heroes? Show me the hero and I'll—”

“I know,” Taylor interrupted, smiling. ‘write you a tragedy.'”

“Hey, I thought you had your head stuck in physics books! You know Fitzgerald?” Darlene asked.

“MIT did have some English courses, you know. And an art and literature journal. I wrote an essay for it contrasting the writings of Stephen Vincent Ben
é
t and Fitzgerald.” He smiled at her dumbfounded response. “You've always underestimated me.”

He looked at her, his smile waning, and said, “Sean … Yeah, Fitzgerald would understand Sean Falcone. There's tragedy in him. And heroism seems to come easy to him—Vietnam, taking on that gunman.”

“And, Dad, the way he quit today. You know: Bam! He makes a decision in a second. I had a psychology prof who lectured us once about what we know from hero studies.”