The Krone Experiment (20 page)

And what was this common enemy? This motive
force within the Earth, that punched holes in ships, and frightened
men to death? What could be so omnipresent and yet so surgically
precise that death can come and go and leave scarce a trace?

Korolev wrote a word in heavy blunt pencil in
the margin of Isaacs’ letter: TUNGUS.

On the following Saturday the precious
morning slipped away, but Pat Danielson still wore her nightgown
and robe. She had worked late the night before, responding to the
crisis atmosphere that gripped the Agency, trying to monitor and
anticipate the Soviet response to the orbiting nuclear device. She
was due back by two in the afternoon. Now she kept that tension at
bay by methodically devouring the morning paper. The condominium
ads had caught her attention. After a brief stay with friends of
her father upon her arrival in Washington, she had moved into the
present high-rise apartment. She shared the rent with her roommate,
Janine Corliss, a secretary in the FDA, an amicable arrangement,
but looked forward to the independence and tax advantage of owning
her own dwelling and had nearly accumulated a down payment.

A key rattled in the lock and Janine came in
clutching a tennis racquet and a handful of mail, sweaty from an
early match with the young lawyer from down the hall. She threw the
mail on the coffee table and extracted one piece. She walked down
the hallway and into Pat’s room and tossed the letter on the stack
of discarded newspaper sections. “A letter for you.”

She bustled into her own room and then into
the shower. Danielson picked up the envelope and examined the
address written in a strong hand. She ran through her brief list of
friends, unable to place the writing. She opened the envelope and
looked at the terse message in surprise:

Pat,

Please meet me at the Olde English Pub,
87412 Wisconsin in Bethesda tomorrow (Sunday) at 3:00 p.m. Please
do not mention or show this note to anyone.

Bob Isaacs

Danielson read the message three times
quickly and then stared at it. They had ample opportunity every day
of the week, and then some lately, to discuss Agency business. She
had spent a half hour with Isaacs the previous Wednesday and their
interchange had been routine, although he had been more preoccupied
than usual. The message was so oddly clandestine; that wasn’t even
their branch of the Agency. That it represented the prelude to some
romantic entanglement seemed preposterous. Not that it couldn’t
happen, but there would have been some other clue. She thought back
to their conversation after the cancellation of Project QUAKER. The
question of her social life, or lack of it, had come up. Had she
sent him some kind of false signal? Had she misread him so badly?
He seemed straightforward and sincere, but how could you ever tell
what people were thinking?

Whatever its motivation, the request put her
on the spot. She realized after some reflection that she would keep
the appointment, but knowing she would have a few more hours off
tomorrow afternoon, she had accepted a rare date for a concert at
Wolf Trap. How did Isaacs know she wouldn’t be working? Easy enough
for him to check the roster, she supposed. Anyway she would have to
break the date. The easiest thing would be to claim that something
had come up at work, but especially if it were true, that would
violate the spirit of Isaacs’ request for discretion. Maybe Janine
would get sick, and she would have to stay home with her.

Janine came into Pat’s room dressed in her
robe and wringing her hair in a towel. Danielson recognized that to
ignore the note would be the best way to arouse her roommate’s
interest. She waved the letter by one corner and then tossed it
into the wastebasket.

“An insurance salesman, begging me to call
him and compare policies when my auto insurance comes due.
Apparently, a struggling independent who can’t afford his own
stationery.”

Janine shrugged.

“Well, he shows initiative. Maybe you should
call him up and check him out.”

Danielson grinned. She felt she had pulled
off her little lie, but her pulse pounded with the effort. She
recalled the polygraph test that had constituted part of her
screening for the Agency position, glad not to be hooked up to it
now.

Janine plopped down on Pat’s bed and began to
comb her hair.

Isaacs sat in the back of the bar where the
afternoon sun barely penetrated from the opaque plastic panels in
the front windows. He had debated the alternatives: to meet in a
crowded place where strangers would take no note, but where the
probability of a chance acquaintance was higher; or to pick a quiet
spot where the bartender and the few patrons might have some vague
memory of their presence, but their chances of being recognized
together were near zero. He opted for the latter.

Isaacs dawdled over his drink, feeling
alternatively morose, angry, and expectant. He recalled his attempt
at fatherly advice to Danielson and felt the sting of irony. This
was not the way to get ahead in the Agency. He smiled with relief
when the door opened, revealing her silhouetted in the doorway. He
was grateful that his confidence in this competent young woman had
not been misplaced. The thought also passed through his mind that
his goal could have been personal, rather than the business at
hand, and she would have responded the same.

Danielson stood for a moment as her eyes
adjusted from the sunlit afternoon. She instinctively peered toward
the darkest area of the room and saw Isaacs arise from the booth.
As she strode to greet him her senses were alert to his manner and
carriage. His smile was warm, but did not quite reach his eyes,
which looked troubled. He clasped her hand firmly, maintaining his
grip just a fraction longer than necessary before giving it a last
small pump and gesturing her into the seat.

“Thank you for coming,” he said.

Before she could respond the bartender had
rounded the bar and sauntered to their table. He glanced at
Danielson and raised an eyebrow toward Isaacs.

“Will you have a drink?”

“Well, it’s early, but it is hot out. I’ll
have a gin and tonic.”

The bartender nodded and lackadaisically
retraced his path.

“I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you,
springing this on you. I know you have precious little time off
these days.”

“I did have a date this afternoon.”

“I’m sorry. I tried to give you a day’s
notice. I’m afraid I haven’t played the dating game in quite a
while.”

Danielson raised an eyebrow. Was he playing
it now?

“I did try to pick a time when I thought
you’d just be relaxing at home.”

“I might have been, but this afternoon’s
concert happened to fit my schedule. Anyway, I told him my hay
fever had flared up, and I couldn’t face either sitting in the
grass sneezing or doping myself silly with antihistamines. I got a
rain check for next week at the Kennedy Center, safely inside and
air-conditioned. Now if I can just get the DCI to let me off—.”

Her voice trailed off, her real question left
floating in the air. Isaacs sensed her reserve and grinned
nervously as the bartender arrived with her drink. He put down a
fresh coaster, then promptly soaked it as he deposited the glass
too abruptly. Danielson started to take a sip, but the coaster
stuck to the bottom of the glass. She looked on with mild surprise
as Isaacs unpeeled the coaster, reached for the shaker, and shook
some salt on it. He gestured at the coaster. She placed her glass
down and then lifted it. The coaster stayed nicely in place on the
table. She took a sip, then raised her glass in an abbreviated
toast. Isaacs nodded his appreciation. After a moment a serious
look settled on his face.

“I need to talk to you about Operation
QUAKER.”

Danielson smiled wryly to herself. She had
been right; romance was a preposterous notion. Aloud she said, “I
find myself pondering it on occasion.” She glanced around the bar.
“Do we need to meet here to beat a dead horse?”

“Circumstances have changed. I think it’s
imperative that Operation QUAKER be revived.” Isaacs looked down
into his drink and then up at Danielson. “I need your help, but the
political roadblocks still exist so there are risks.” He smiled
briefly. “That’s the reason for this skullduggery today.”

He leaned forward and spoke intently.

“Let me explain what has happened.”

Isaacs described his relation with
Rutherford, the naval operation that had ensued, and its connection
to the Novorossiisk. He gave a brief, professional description of
the fate of the Stinson and her crew, but Danielson felt his pain.
She sensed that his personal loss spurred him on in this venture.
She asked herself how much of his renewed enthusiasm for Operation
QUAKER was a reaction to his grief, how much a need for retribution
against McMasters, and how much a cool objective decision that he
alone must shoulder the responsibility.

“If you’re right about the Stinson and the
Novorossiisk, then the whole situation we’re caught up in now,”
Danielson looked around and lowered her voice even further, “the
Russian satellite and our, uh, device, stems from whatever is
causing the seismic signal.”

“That’s my reading.”

Danielson leaned back in the booth, her mind
swimming, trying to assimilate all that Isaacs had said. “This
damage,” she mumbled, almost to herself, “how could the seismic
signals I was tracking possibly sink a ship?” She looked directly
at Isaacs. “What could this thing be?”

Isaacs shrugged his shoulders and looked
pained.

“I’ve asked myself that over and over. I
don’t have a single rational suggestion. Only a profound vague
fear.”

“Could it be a Russian weapon of some kind?
But why would they use it on their own ship? An accident? And why
would they blame us? Bluster to cover up?”

Isaacs shook his head again in worried
fashion. “My instincts tell me the Soviets aren’t behind this. They
really don’t understand what happened to the Novorossiisk.
Everything else has followed naturally, god forbid.”

“Then who?”

“Who? What? No answers.”

Danielson was silent for a moment,
thinking.

“What is the Navy doing about it? It was
their destroyer that was lost.”

“The Navy is continuing its surveillance, but
sporadically and from a great distance. Of course, they’re on full
alert as well, so the energies of any of their brass who could make
some constructive decisions are focused on what they see as the
immediate problem—trying to monitor everything in the world that
floats and flies a red star.

“There’s a self-defeating dichotomy in their
approach. They don’t really know what happened to the Stinson and
won’t officially admit any direct connection to its mission. And
yet, they’re afraid there was some direct cause and won’t commit
any ships or equipment to close surveillance. As it stands, they
aren’t learning anything new, not even establishing in their own
minds that this thing is definitely dangerous.”

“But you think it is.”

“I’m convinced of it.”

“What you suggest is so totally inexplicable,
maybe coincidence is the only reasonable explanation after
all.”

“There’s the slimmest chance that I’m
overreacting to some outrageous coincidences. But I think the
situation must be resolved one way or another. I’m certainly
convinced that the present hiatus is unacceptable. Someone must
take steps to determine what is really happening here.”

“Can’t you go back to McMasters and appeal to
him to reopen the file on its merits?”

“I tried that. I drafted a long memo setting
out the case. It only succeeded in getting him more angry. He
suspects I had some role in the Navy’s interest, but can’t prove
it. In any case, he’s clever enough to turn it around on me. He
made an issue of the fact that there is no proof that the loss of
the Stinson was not coincidence and that the Novorossiisk was not,
after all, sunk, and hence that there is still no evidence that
anything important is going on, much less for a connection between
the two. I sent him the memo, what, eleven days ago, the day before
the second laser was launched and we started this whole new loop.
So he also gave me a healthy dose of ‘Don’t you know there’s a war
on?’, ignoring my argument that the issues are one and the same. He
also maintains that since the Navy now has some official interest
in the phenomenon, there is no reason for the Agency to duplicate
the effort.”

Danielson toyed with a small puddle of
spilled tonic on the table, tracing a random pattern with her
finger. She looked up.

“AFTAC is still collecting the seismic
data—and sonar data from the undersea network, from what you
say.”

“That’s right,” confirmed Isaacs, “but the
Cambridge Research Lab stopped analyzing this particular signal,
once we terminated our official interest in it. The AFTAC sonar
data would help to pin down accurate positions, but since I didn’t
have enough sense to make the connection, there’s been no analysis
of it whatsoever. By rights the Navy should at least be studying
the AFTAC sonar data, but from what I can tell, they’re not.”

“So all the data are piling up,” Danielson
summarized, “but no one is looking at them.”

“True. And we can’t get at it. None of this
is official Agency business, so a special request through channels
is necessary— and McMasters has that approach effectively
blocked.”

Danielson concentrated. “There are the data
we gathered before the halt came. But that’s all in the inactive
file. I didn’t save anything out.”

Isaacs punched a finger into the table. “I
think we must start there. I’ll have to camouflage my request, but
I can get some of that retrieved without it necessarily coming to
McMasters’ attention. Particularly if you can give me an idea of
the few things, data tapes and such, that would be of greatest
use.