The Krone Experiment (41 page)
“Sir, I can’t comment on specific personnel.
If you have a message, I’ll take it.”
Zamyatin smiled slightly at this expected,
but cumbersome subterfuge. No one knew who worked at the CIA except
every spy in the world, and anyone else who cared to check. He
reached into his jacket pocket and extracted the sealed envelope
with Isaacs’ name carefully handwritten across it. He extended it
to the guard, but kept his grip as Ruiz reached for it. Zamyatin
locked eyes with him.
“This is extremely urgent. It must be
delivered to Mr. Isaacs, and no one else.”
“I’ll see that it is put into the proper
channels,” Ruiz said noncommittally, but his voice rang with
sincerity.
Zamyatin would have preferred to deliver the
envelope personally to Isaacs, but this was the most he expected.
He was confident Isaacs would have it within the hour. He released
his grip on the envelope, and the window swished shut. Ruiz stepped
back as the limousine backed up, performed a U-turn and accelerated
out of the entry drive toward the Washington Parkway. He stepped
back into the gate house, placed the envelope gingerly on a shelf,
and grabbed the phone.
“Ralph? This is Steve at the east gate. Damn
car full of Russians, embassy types, just dropped off an envelope
they say has to be delivered to Mr. Isaacs. I think you’d better
send somebody from the bomb squad down here. Right. You bet your
ass I won’t!” He punched the button disconnecting the phone and
cradled the receiver on his shoulder while he flipped through the
directory and ran his finger down the page until he came to the
Office of the Deputy Director of Scientific Intelligence. Then he
dialed again.
Bill Baris left the document section with as
much material as he could conveniently carry in both hands. He
walked rapidly down the corridor, intent on his destination. Baris
was in his late forties, sharp-featured with thinning blond curls.
He rarely stopped to ponder the fact that he was good at what he
did. He just continued to do what felt right. This felt right, he
thought of the material in his hands. Isaacs had nailed it.
He passed through Kathleen Huddleston’s
office giving a nod to her and barged into Isaacs’ with a
familiarity born of long comfortable association.
“Here you are, Bob.” He deposited the files
on Isaacs’ desk.
“What have you got?” Isaacs inquired.
“It’s a private lab, about two years old.
Strictly devoted to weapons research subcontracted from the Los
Alamos National Laboratory.”
There was something very familiar about that
description. Isaacs couldn’t quite place it.
“Who runs it?” he asked.
“Guy name of Krone.”
“Paul Krone!” Isaacs slammed his fist on his
desk, remembering Zicek talking about Krone in La Jolla, suggesting
he be brought in. Looks like he was already in, Isaacs thought
grimly.
“Sir?” Kathleen spoke over the intercom.
“Yes! What is it.” Isaacs was more abrupt
than he intended.
“Sir, I just got a call from the guard at the
front gate. Apparently a car from the Soviet embassy dropped off a
note they insisted be delivered to you. It’s being processed
through security.”
Isaacs’ mind raced through the
possibilities.
“From the embassy, you say. Did the guard
recognize anyone?”
“Not specifically. The car was an embassy
limousine. There was a chauffeur and some official in the back seat
who handed over the note and did all the talking.”
Isaacs had a vivid mental image of looking
out through his rear window and seeing nothing but the grill and
long hood of Zamyatin’s limousine.
“Ask security to have him check some mug
shots of embassy personnel. Make sure one of Colonel Grigor
Zamyatin is among them.”
“Yes, sir.” Kathleen rang off.
What could Zamyatin want? Isaacs asked
himself. Why would anyone else in the Soviet embassy hand-deliver a
note to him? He put these questions aside and picked up the pile of
material Baris had brought in.
“Let me see some of that,” Baris requested.
“I only took time to skim it.” He riffled through the pile of
folders looking for some specific ones; then they settled down to
read. Isaacs paused occasionally to make notes on a pad. Ten
minutes passed in silence broken only by the shuffle of paper in
the folders. Then the intercom buzzed again.
“Sir, Sergeant Ruiz, the guard, identified
Colonel Zamyatin. He, Colonel Zamyatin that is, was very adamant
that you get the note quickly and personally.”
“Where is it then?”
“Sergeant Ruiz said someone from the bomb
squad picked it up.”
“The bomb squad!”
“Well, yes, I suppose they were concerned
about letter bombs, that sort of thing.”
“Letter bombs are anonymous. Not likely that
the Colonel would drop by in his official limo to deliver one. Tell
them to get that note up here. On the double!”
“Yes, sir!”
Isaacs waved his arms at the ceiling in a
gesture of desperation. “What a world,” he exclaimed.
“So what kind of picture do we have here?” he
asked rhetorically, addressing Baris. “Krone Industries set up this
lab to do research on contract to Los Alamos. They’ve done work on
particle beams and lasers, particularly using them to implode
material to high density and temperatures, just as Zicek said. That
could be directly relevant.”
“It’s not just Krone Industries,” said Baris.
“I’ve been reading quarterly reports the lab submitted to Los
Alamos. Krone himself is chief man on the spot, devoting himself
one hundred percent to the effort.
“And not just his time,” Baris continued.
“Out of curiosity, I got a list of the companies in Krone
Industries and looked up their financial reports.” He hefted one of
the folders he had selected. “That lab is not just running on its
consulting contract with Los Alamos. Every one of these companies
under Krone’s thumb has diverted significant portions of their
resources to the lab. There’s an immense effort going on there. Far
more than required by the government contract.”
Isaacs leaned back in his chair to digest
this information and looked up at a rap on the door. Kathleen
opened it and ushered in an energetic young man with close-cropped
hair. In his hand he clutched a mangled envelope.
“Mark Burley, sir. From counteractivity. This
is the note delivered to you half an hour ago. We processed it as
quickly as we could.” He handed over the envelope.
Isaacs took it and raised a sceptical
eyebrow. The envelope was crudely ripped open and both the envelope
and the portion of the enclosed note, which was exposed through the
ragged flap, were wrinkled.
“You opened it?”
“Yes, sir,” Burley replied with deep
sincerity. “We determined it was not a letter bomb by certain
physical tests, but we wanted to check the contents for
contaminants. Contact poisons. If we’d had time we could’ve opened
it so you’d never have noticed.” A small, proud smile came and went
quickly. “As it was, we did the most thorough job we could, in the
shortest time.”
“I’m sure you did.” If Burley noticed Isaacs’
facetious tone, he gave no sign.
“Thank you, Mr. Burley. I appreciate the fast
work.”
“Anytime, sir. That’s our job.” The young man
spun smartly on his heel and marched out. Isaacs exchanged an
amused, wry smile with Baris.
“Boy Scout. Place is crawling with them,”
said Baris.
Isaacs’ smile faded as he extracted and read
the hand- scrawled note. It was very brief.
I know. I have to tell them. You must
hurry.
Korolev
Isaacs had briefed Baris on his interchange
with Korolev. He handed the piece of rough, light brown Russian
paper to Baris.
“Know?” he asked. “Know what?”
“I’m afraid damn near everything we do,”
Isaacs replied. He thumbed the intercom.
“Yes?”
“Kathleen, get me Martinelli.”
Isaacs put a hand on the phone in
anticipation and looked at Baris.
“At the very least Korolev knows everything
we did when Pat and I first went to talk to Jason because of the
synopsis I sent him. There’s a very good chance he followed the
same line of reasoning as Runyan. As wild an idea as a black hole
was, it has a certain inevitability in hindsight. Korolev didn’t
have direct access to our physical evidence from Nagasaki and
Dallas, but he had his own from the Novorossiisk.”
The phone buzzed and Isaacs jerked the
receiver to his ear.
“Vince? I want to know about Soviet ship
deployment. Particularly along thirty-two degrees forty-seven
minutes, both north and south longitude.” He listened for a moment.
“Anytime in the last six weeks. I’d rather have that now and fresh
stuff when you can get it.” He listened again. “That’s just the
ticket. Thanks, Vince.”
He hung up and looked intently at Baris. “We
have to assume Korolev also guessed we were dealing with a black
hole. I sent him my memo in late June. He’s had six weeks to ponder
it and move to do something about it. I also tipped off Zamyatin to
watch Nagasaki. We can also assume they have at least a rough idea
what went on there. If they have penetrated the Japanese with any
efficiency, they probably have the full report. Korolev could pick
up quickly on the parallels between the holes drilled in Nagasaki,
and those in the Novorossiisk. For that matter, they may know about
Dallas.
“In any case,” Isaacs continued, “we lost
three weeks sitting on our duffs waiting for Dallas to happen,
three more before we got back to Jason, and Gantt got the real
dope. That’s six weeks when Korolev could have been pushing for
some monitoring program in Russia. The trajectory doesn’t pass
through Russia, so they’d have to mobilize somewhere else. It makes
most sense to me to use their Navy. We would have moved faster if
ours hadn’t been so recalcitrant.
“I don’t know what their response time would
be, but I certainly got the idea from Zamyatin that Korolev has
clout at high levels in the Kremlin. If they put properly
instrumented ships on the trajectory, they could learn everything
we have.”
“I see what you mean,” Baris said. “If
Korolev suspected a black hole, he’d have a gravimeter put on board
to measure the mass.”
“Seems obvious enough,” Isaacs agreed. “Gantt
considered a shipboard experiment, but elected to put his apparatus
on dry land to make it as stable as possible. We know now it
wouldn’t have made much difference. They’d have to be a bit
careful, but an inertially mounted device, isolated from the worst
pitching of the ship, would do the job.
“Accurate timing would be easy,” Isaacs
continued. “With sonar monitors and some regular data acquisition
they would know how long the thing hovered above sea level and
could figure out the altitude to which it rose, just as we
did.”
“So they’d look along the trajectory at that
altitude, just as we did,” said Baris following the logic.
“And they would find this lab,” Isaacs
slapped his palm on the stack of folders in front of them, “just as
we did. I think that must be what Korolev’s note means. He’s found
Krone’s lab, and, having raised a ruckus, he has to report his
findings to the boys at the top.”
The phone rang and Isaacs jerked it up.
“Yes? Right.”
He reached for a pad and scribbled some
numbers.
“Yes. Yes. Got that.” He listened, then spoke
again. “How far is that? Yes, damn it, no question. They’re onto
it. Sure, when they come in, but this is just what we needed.
Thanks for the quick work. Great. Right.”
He hung up and relayed the message from
Martinelli to Baris.
“There are five small flotillas in the
Pacific, three along thirty-two degrees forty-seven minutes north,
two south. Each has a research vessel, a tender, and a destroyer.
They’re spaced 1170 miles apart, sailing steadily westward, about
190 miles per day.”
“So they’re tracking it,” Baris
summarized.
“They’re tracking it,” Isaacs confirmed.
“How long?” Baris inquired.
“Seven to ten days. Some got on station
earlier.”
“That’s plenty of time to collect a good
timing record,” said Baris.
“I think there’s no doubt now that Korolev
has followed the same path that Runyan led us on,” Isaacs said.
“We’ve got to get to that lab and find out what’s going on.”
“And damn quickly,” Baris said. “If you’ve
got this right and Korolev reports to the top brass in the Kremlin
that a black hole was made and released at a secret US government
lab, oh, boy.” Baris leaned back in his chair. “Can you imagine
what the chest-medal crowd will do with that? We’ll be right back
to square one when they thought we’d zapped their carrier. Damned
if they weren’t right!”
Isaacs stood up and moved to the window. He
clasped his hands behind his back and stared out over the trees,
rocking up on his toes. He could feel the mid-August heat, which
smothered the tree tops.
“We’ve got a powder keg already up there in
orbit,” Isaacs mused. “I don’t know whether we can possibly move
quickly enough to neutralize this situation. We’ve got to hope we
can find an explanation that will satisfy the Soviets that this
wasn’t an intentional, government sanctioned plan.”
He spun suddenly.
“It wasn’t, was it?”
“Whoa,” said Baris thoughtfully. “There’s no
clue in any of the files here.” He pointed at the material on
Isaacs’ desk. “But that’s pretty clean stuff. I just pulled it out
of our library. Our job’s to know everything the bad guys are up
to, not everything our team does, so maybe there’s an outside
chance. Still, if I read this guy Krone right, he’s the kind who
would tackle something like this on his own. Remember these were
Krone Industries resources being squandered. Unless there was some
heavy-duty laundering, there wasn’t much government funding. I’ll
check more deeply, but I think we’re clean.”
“We’ve got no choice but to get the whole
story on Krone and that lab as fast as possible,” said Isaacs,
regaining his seat. “Bill, I want you to keep digging here. Track
down everything you can going in and out of that lab that could be
related to the manufacture of a black hole.
“Someone’s got to go out to the site, though,
and under the circumstances, I think I’d better take that one on
myself.
“I’ll call Pat and get her there too. And I
might as well bring Runyan along. He knows Krone and is on top of
the scientific aspects. I want you to get a team busy working up a
reaction estimate. As things stand, how will the Soviets react if
they’re informed of Krone’s lab? What will it take to keep them
under control? Okay?”
“Right.”
“Any questions?”
“A procedural one. Before you go, have you
told the Director yet?”
“I spent three hours with him last night.
Trying to explain about the black hole. Left him numb. I’ll have to
see him now and report on Krone and the message from Korolev. I
guess we’ll see what kind of stuff he’s really made of.”
“Is he going to want to go to the President?
Or expect us to draw up a national intelligence estimate to
circulate? The black hole is one thing, and perhaps an emergency in
itself, but potential Russian reaction is a key issue now.”
“We’re in a bind. We’ve been waiting to get
all our facts straight before dumping something like a black hole
in the President’s lap. Of course, until this morning we didn’t
know that it was made here, nor that the Russians were on to
us.
“There’s no time now for a formality like an
NIE,” Isaacs continued. “We’ve got a real crisis. We must get the
story from that lab and then pass it to the President directly. I
think the DCI will see it that way, but that’s why I want you to
get on that reaction estimate. We’ll want that as part of the
package.”
Isaacs looked at his watch. “It’s 10:45 now,
8:45 in New Mexico. I should be able to catch something at Andrews
that will get us out there by mid-afternoon, local time. It’ll take
a few hours to check out the lab. I might make it back here by
midnight.
“I’ll suggest to the DCI that he lay the
groundwork for an emergency meeting of the National Security
Council about then. And just hope the Russians don’t push the
button for twelve hours.”