The Krone Experiment (24 page)

“All I want to do is to raise the
possibility. If we can rationally rule it out, or develop a
preferred alternative, then so be it.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” proclaimed Ted
Noldt. “If there were an intelligence at work, we should be able to
discern a purpose. What we’ve heard about here, holes drilled
through ships, is no benign attempt at communication. It’s
certainly not overwhelmingly destructive either, an overt act of
aggression. What could the purpose possibly be?”

“That’s just my point,” retorted Fletcher.
“You’re not asking a question of physics, but one of motivation. I
submit we’re unlikely to fathom any but the most transparent of
motives— as you said, peaceful communication or war. The true
possibilities are limited only by our imaginations. Suppose they’re
prospecting? Suppose we’re seeing the effect of some probe and our
existence here is totally immaterial to them? We could be like an
anthill that is accidentally in the way of a geologist’s test well
as he searches for oil. Your first reaction was to think they must
be for us or against us. Maybe they don’t give a damn.

“Or maybe it’s a test,” Fletcher continued,
trying to think of unorthodox possibilities. “Maybe we’re dealing
with a bunch of extraterrestrial behavioral psychologists who just
want to provoke us in a certain way and study our reactions.”
Fletcher looked from man to man, defensive, but determined to make
his point.

“How can we possibly know what their purpose
is? I certainly don’t.”

Ellison Gantt then spoke up. “I think Carl
feels backed into a corner. Let me take a different tack. I agree
with him that we should at least consider this possibility, and
that an attempt to fathom motives may be premature. Suppose we
assume for the moment that some influence is being beamed at us
from a fixed point in space. Is there any way to determine what
that influence is and where it’s coming from? Could it be something
with which we are basically familiar, like a laser or a particle
beam?”

“I can speak to that. In fact, I’d been
mulling over that very question,” said Vladimir Zicek, his speech
hissing with East European sibilants. “Any orthodox beam device
would have a different signature than what has been described here.
That is, one can imagine boring a hole from one side of the Earth
to the other with an exceedingly powerful beam, but one of the
characteristics of the present phenomenon is that for half the
cycle it goes from north to south, but on the other half it
proceeds in the opposite direction. No external beam can do that. A
beam must always propagate away from its source.”

“Hmmm, perhaps not a beam in that sense
then,” said Fletcher thoughtfully. “What if some focusing principle
is involved? A diffuse source of energy that is brought to a
concentrated focus along a certain path. Maybe the source of energy
isn’t along the line of the trajectory, but transverse to it.”

Fletcher lifted an imaginary rifle to his
shoulder and strafed back and forth a few times. Several of those
along his line of sight flinched involuntarily. Fletcher stopped
squinting through the sight.

“Maybe a neutrino beam?”

There were several loud voices raised in
simultaneous assent and dissent. A general hubbub ensued.

Wayne Phillips sensed that it was necessary
to assimilate all that they had heard and called for quiet.

“Perhaps this is a good time to take a break
for refreshments,” he said. “Let’s resume our deliberations in half
an hour.”

Against a rising background of chatter, the
group stood, filed into the hall and down the stairs to a room
where coffee, tea, and some cookies were set out.

Phillips escorted Isaacs and Danielson as
they queued up. He made a small ceremony of preparing a cup of
coffee for Danielson, ensuring she had the desired ingredients, a
couple of cookies, and a napkin. She thanked him and then moved off
by herself, motivated partly by a desire to be alone to contemplate
the afternoon’s developments and partly by a suspicion that Isaacs
and Phillips would appreciate a chance to converse privately. She
stood by a window looking over the parking lot and the playing
field beyond, cradling her cup and saucer and munching on the
cookies.

“That’s crazy,” she heard Leems’ voice rising
disdainfully over the chatter. “All the more reason to look to
satellites in orbit, one to fire one direction, and another to fire
a return shot in the opposite direction. That would solve Zicek’s
objection.”

A bit later she made out Runyan in a more
conversational tone.

“ good idea, Carl, couldn’t hurt to have
astronomers look in that direction. Very deep photographs taken
with telescopes on Mauna Kea and in Chile. Who knows what we might
see. Maybe I’ll call some friends, see what they can do.”

Runyan, speaking to Carl Fletcher and Ted
Noldt, lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level.

“In fact, the first step is to make sure I
have the precise coordinates.”

He winked at them and crossed over toward
where Danielson was standing, his thongs flapping on the floor.
Fletcher leaned over to whisper to Noldt.

“Doesn’t take him long, does it?”

Noldt smiled into his coffee and shook his
head.

As Runyan approached her, Danielson finished
her last cookie and wiped her fingers awkwardly on the napkin that
she held under the saucer. The gesture attracted Runyan’s eyes to
her waist where she held the cup. Out of habit, his gaze continued
down her legs and then back past her breasts to her face, which was
in profile to him. Taking pleasure from the innocent voyeurism, he
stopped at arm’s length from her.

“A pretty little problem you’ve posed for us
here.”

Danielson turned, a reflex smile of
recognition brightening her face. She took a sip of cooling coffee
and glanced out the window before replying.

“I thought we were on to something
significant from the beginning, but I have to confess I don’t know
what to make of some of the ideas we just heard.” She faced him
again. “Beams from outer space. Could that possibly be true?”

“What do you think?”

She laughed lightly, chiding herself.

“I suppose that somewhere in the back of my
mind that possibility had been flitting around since I first
discovered the fixed orientation in space. I’ve been refusing to
recognize it because it seemed so outrageous. Now it’s been dragged
out into the open. It still seems outrageous, but not
unthinkable.”

“I suspect most of us feel the same way,” he
returned her laugh and laid two fingers on her forearm, a small
intimate gesture. “But we’re taking a break here. Tell me about
yourself. How did you get into the intelligence game?”

Danielson looked down at his hand. The
fingers were those of a craftsman, large and gnarled, ungainly to
look at, but capable of deft, intricate movement. She raised her
eyes to his face and enjoyed the way his grey-green eyes reflected
a sense of humor and well-being.

“Not much to tell—” she began.

While Runyan entertained Danielson with small
talk, Isaacs and Phillips discussed the developments of the
afternoon and their options for the remainder of the day. Isaacs
was not pleased by any of the ideas he had heard. Phillips
suggested gently that they should allow the brainstorming to
continue until they either ran out of ideas or found one on which
there was some consensus. They were interrupted by a woman who
announced a phone call for Isaacs. He raised his eyebrows at
Phillips and followed the woman out.

He returned several minutes later and headed
for Danielson, his face grim. He interrupted Runyan in the middle
of a funny story, and addressed Danielson.

“There’s an emergency,” he said brusquely.
“We’ve got to get back to Washington.”

As Danielson looked at Runyan with
uncertainty, Isaacs turned to Phillips.

“I’m very sorry, but we must go. Something
has come up. I’m grateful for your time today.”

“We’re happy to be of service, of course.
Your problem has intrigued us, and I’m sure we’ll continue to
discuss it.”

“I hope you will. I’ll be in touch as soon as
I can.”

Isaacs hustled Danielson around as they
gathered up their things and escorted her to the car.

He drove quickly in great concentration for
several minutes until he was sure of his course. Then he glanced at
her.

“That was Bill Baris. The Russians have made
their next move. They’ve surrounded our nuclear satellite with a
pack of hunter-killer satellites.”

“What will they do?”

“Not clear. Baris has called the crisis team
for this afternoon to try to get the basic facts together. We’ll
meet again first thing tomorrow morning and try to anticipate them.
If they hold off that long. Damn! McMasters will wonder where the
hell I am.”

He drove in silence again for a while.

“That was a very good presentation you gave
today,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “You convinced them
we’ve got a real problem. And thanks for coming to my defense when
that bastard Leems got on my back.”

“This can’t really be a Russian weapon, can
it?” she asked.

“Sure doesn’t smell right to me, but we
should check satellite locations just as Leems said.”

Danielson began to contemplate how she could
obtain and sort Soviet satellite positions. They were quiet the
rest of the way to the airport.

There were problems getting their
reservations changed. They spent an hour and a half in the terminal
amid crowds that prevented any discussion of their mission.
Danielson could tell Isaacs was tense and fretful. The visit with
the Jason team had been intriguing, but inconclusive, and the move
of the Russians had caught him up short. If he had been in
Washington he would have assembled the crisis team, not left it to
Baris. Danielson sympathized with the anxiety she knew Isaacs felt.
CIA officials had a right in principle to their free time, but they
had better be on the spot when an emergency cropped up, never mind
off on another coast suborning Agency policy. Danielson felt
exposed herself.

The only seats they could get were several
rows apart in the crowded midsection of the red-eye flight. Jet lag
and strain caught up with Danielson. She napped most of the way.
Isaacs was trapped between a talkative matron and a young mother,
squirmy babe in lap. He stared grimly ahead through the whole
flight, trying in his fatigue to think.

*****

Chapter 9

Jorge Payro grabbed another piece of sheet
metal off the palette behind him. He fed it carefully into the
machine, checking the alignment, then stepped back and yanked the
lever triggering the hydraulics. The press crumped down, folding
edges, slicing off the extra metal. Jorge raised the lever, pulled
the formed piece off the platform and worked around the edges with
his file to remove the worst of the burrs. He placed the partially
formed object on the conveyor belt. Somewhere down the line, after
more cutting, stamping, drilling, painting, and fitting, the part
would emerge as the top of a washing machine. Jorge turned for
another flat sheet. While he worked he thought of his date for the
futbol game that evening. One of the teams from Buenos Aires was
coming to play Rosario. Rosario was good this year; they had a
chance. Jorge was excited by the prospect of a victory. He was also
excited by his own chances with Constanza. Particularly if they
won, everyone’s passions would be running high.

He pulled another piece off the press and
tackled it with his file. He put it on the conveyor, then did a
double take, and yanked it off again. He held it before him and
stared in amazement. There was a hole in it, about the size of his
little finger. He had not noticed that when he picked up the sheet.
He looked at the stack on the palette. No holes there. How could he
have missed such a thing? He set the damaged part aside, picked up
a fresh sheet, and maneuvered it into place. He pulled the lever.
The press dropped a little, but then jammed, groaning.

Jorge slapped the lever off. He threw the
switch that shut the machine down completely, raised his safety
goggles up onto his forehead and stared. The upper jaw of the press
was skew in its framework. Jorge stepped forward and craned his
neck to look up at the underside. His eyes widened. There was a
hole in the massive piece of steel. It was drilled through, just
like the damaged part he had just removed. From somewhere higher up
in the works of the machine, a steady stream of fluid seeped down.
Jorge removed a glove, ran a finger through a drip and sniffed.
Hydraulic fluid. This machine is in bad trouble, he thought to
himself as he wiped his finger on his overalls. He pulled the sheet
of metal from the press and was not completely surprised to find
another hole in the bed of the machine. He ran a finger around its
clean edge and bent to peer down. He couldn’t see but a fraction of
a centimeter in, but he bet it was deep, maybe all the way to the
floor. He stuck his little finger into the hole up past the first
knuckle. He couldn’t imagine what could have caused such a
thing.

Jorge pulled off his other glove, threw it
next to the first, and went in search of his supervisor.

It was 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, July 4.
Isaacs had not slept on the flight back from San Diego and then had
spent an hour on the phone catching up on the Russian deployment of
hunter-killer satellites and making arrangements for this morning’s
meeting. He’d gotten three hours of troubled sleep and nursed a
splitting headache.

Isaacs scanned the packed conference room.
Twenty-three people were more than it held comfortably, but he had
called for everyone in his crisis team to bring their aides. This
would speed dissemination, give the young people exposure, and
encourage them to participate directly. He did not want any bright
ideas languishing in the face of an unprecedented confrontation
with the Russians. He began as the last chair was filled.