“Please. I think I’m going to need you.”
“What’s this about, Carl?”
“I can’t tell you. I don’t even know if I’ll get to use you, but I’d like to have you standing by.”
“You know what time it is? They don’t offer tours at night.”
“I’ll clear the way. Go to the East entrance.” Unruh hung up.
“Who’s that?” Alicia asked. Her voice was muffled by the pillow.
“White House calling. I’m invited to breakfast.”
“Sure.” She went back to sleep.
Which was almost what Hampstead did.
*
2247 HOURS LOCAL, SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
In the headquarters of Marine Visions Unlimited, one section of fluorescent lights burned in one corner of the office. There was only one office. Except for partitioned-off restrooms, a kitchenette, and a couple of storage areas, the open space was a jumble of surplus navy gray steel desks, black, gray and beige filing cabinets, and desk, straight, and easy chairs in a rainbow of woods, fabrics, and Naugahyde. There did not seem to be any logic involved in the placement of work areas. Charts, diagrams and schematics were pinned to the walls in every place possible. For lack of wall space, one blueprint was taped to a window. There were plenty of windows in the perimeter walls, probably all destined for blueprint draperies.
If a new person came on board, a desk and chair were located in some thrift shop and inserted somewhere on the floor. At last count, there were twenty-seven desks scattered around. They butted up to each other head-on, at right angles, and at oblique angles. From the suspended ceiling, cables drooped to computer terminals and telephones.
Nor was there a functional division within the office. Oceanographers, biologists, computer specialists, civil and structural engineers, environmental engineers, robotics experts and propulsion designers were scattered like birdshot. During daylight hours, when the place was thriving, people called across the room, telephoned each other, kept three and four different technical conversations going. In comparison, Babel was a city where everyone spoke the same language.
The whole place was symbolic of MVU’s organization.
Kaylene Thomas thought that it was very antinaval. She was accustomed to neatness. Everything in its place. A tool for every job readily to hand. It drove her batty.
MVU’s office was on the second floor of an ancient, red brick warehouse off Dickens Street in the Roseville area. The streets were all named, in alphabetical order, for writers and poets — Addison, Byron, Carleton, Dickens, Emerson, working up to Zola, then starting over with Alcott.
The street names offered the only order Thomas could see in the immediate vicinity.
The ground floor of the warehouse was not much better. It was the manufacturing facility for MVU robotic creations, and it was a jungle of machine and hand tools, computers and exotic machines for casting and forming custom-designed parts in stainless steel, bronze, arcane alloys and carbon-embedded plastics. If someone got a hot idea, the various parts of one project were shoved aside, and the hot idea evolved into another mess of copper, brass, fiberglass, and fiber-optic components spread over workbenches, the tops of lockers, and the concrete floor.
From her desk jammed against an outside wall, under a window that needed washing, Thomas could view the Commercial Basin below and to the north. There was not much activity tonight. MVU’s dockside building, a half block away, was dark. Lights on a dock across the basin illuminated a dozen men operating forklifts and cranes, loading a small freighter. Farther to the northeast, a steady stream of airliners launched themselves from San Diego International Airport, climbing westward toward the prevailing winds.
There was no wind tonight. One of the ceiling-mounted air conditioners chattered irregularly, but it always did.
If she leaned back and looked to her right, a window in the end wall gave her a view across the bay of the U.S. Naval Air Station on North Island, also launching a few aircraft, though they were probably more lethal than a Boeing 767. Throughout the bay, she could see the lights of freighters, pleasure craft, and several navy warships that were underway.
The night lights of the city all but washed out the stars in a clear sky.
Thomas’s computer terminal, on the left of her desk, was alive with numbers, and she was getting tired of them. They were all pessimistic numbers.
Kaylene Rae Thomas had a master’s degree in geology and had devoted her doctoral program to oceanography, halfway expected from the daughter of a U.S. Navy admiral, now retired. She had spent two years at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography before being lured away by Dane Brande.
The bait had been his reputation for creativity and her directorship of Harbor One, a seabed laboratory that was only a seedling idea at the time. Five years later, as she neared her thirty-fourth birthday, Harbor One had been operational for two years and had spawned subcolonies. Experiments in resource mining, in food production, and in fish breeding were being conducted in their own self-contained modules located on the ocean floor within a mile of Harbor One. Nearing completion were three connected and oversized domes that would compete with Sea World, Universal Studios, and Knott’s Berry Farm for tourist dollars. She called it Disneyland West.
Brande called it revenue.
At her desk in Hoboville — another of her coined titles — with depressing numbers covering her computer screen, Thomas was busy doubting her future. She was afraid that the time was fast approaching when she should make a change.
She was still young enough, and had built enough of an academic reputation, to find a position with a decent university. Her looks were holding, though she expected to begin finding gray among the platinum blond daily. She kept her hair short, just below the level of her earlobes, for the sake of easy maintenance. Her eyes were those of her father, a pale, iridescent blue, and she suspected that tomorrow or the next day, if she kept reading numbers on computer screens, she would be wearing the admiral’s bifocals. At five-ten, she was tall, and her mostly active work kept her fit, perhaps a bit too lean. Colleagues kept telling her she needed to eat more. Her skin was pale as a result of so much time spent below the surface of the Pacific, and her complexion was not yet ravaged by weather or sun.
Brande never noticed. When she joined Marine Visions, she had halfway expected to find her attraction to its president reciprocal, but Dane kept his personal and professional lives separated. If he had a personal life. He seemed always to be at work on one project or another, and though she had never met a girlfriend, there were rumors of many.
Irrespective of the professional and nonsocial relationship between them, Dane Brande’s form of leadership was one of her problems. Everybody in MVU had a title, but no one apparently reported to anyone else. There was no hierarchy, no organizational structure. Brande was the chief, and that was it. People working on one project shifted to others without an explained reason. Graduate students from various universities were taken on for short stints to gain credit and experience. People were hired on the spur of the moment for specific projects, then were retained after the project was completed. Job descriptions changed daily.
Thomas was hired as Director of Harbor One. That was still her title, and she was still more or less in charge of the sealab, but over time, she had somehow assumed the responsibilities of chief fiscal officer. It was as if the administrative side of the company existed in a vacuum, and it had sucked her in. In a real company, she would be CFO or executive vice president or something. Any time someone wanted to know how much money they had, or when the federal research funds were due to expire, they asked her.
And, damn it, she always had the information handy. She was too organized for her own good.
She looked again at the computer screen. It displayed a summary of current fund balances, expected expenditures, and anticipated revenues for each of the dozen projects now in an active status.
She shuddered, picked up the phone, and dialed 6 to get into
the satellite communications channel that MVU leased at exorbitant monthly rates. That was a luxury that would have to go.
When she got the secondary dial tone, she dialed the number of the Gemini.
A gruff voice answered, “Gemini, Mason.”
“Greg, this is Kaylene Thomas. Is Dane around?”
“Hey, Kaylene. How you doing?”
“Fine. Dane?”
“Asleep. It’s after midnight here.”
“Get him up.”
“Geez…”
Five or six minutes of expensive satellite time went by before Brande reached the phone.
“I hope we don’t have another crisis, Rae.”
He was the only one in the world who called her “Rae.ˮ “Kaylene” just did not roll off his tongue quite right, he had once told her.
“Not if bankruptcy isn’t considered a crisis.”
“You’re doing the books, huh?”
“Who else would do them?” she asked. “I’m certainly not paid for it.”
“Give yourself a five-thousand-dollar raise,” he offered.
“Be happy to, if we had it. We don’t. Larry Emry wrote a check against the Titanium Exploration Fund, but we haven’t received the federal subsidy yet. I had to borrow from the operating account to cover it.”
“Good girl.”
“Good girl, hell. We’re going to be short of funds on payroll day.”
“I’ll skip my paycheck.”
“And we’ve got a million-two in notes coming due on the fifteenth of November,” she reminded him.
“I’ll bet we’re going to be short.”
“By seven hundred thousand. Damn it, Dane, our monthly outgo is now close to one-point-four million. Something’s got to go.”
“I can’t think of a thing that’s expendable,” he told her.
“I can.ˮ
“How about a garage sale?”
“Dane.”
“My grandma Bridget used to pronounce my name with that same kind of ice in it.”
“After you’d been a bad boy?”
“Usually, yes.”
“Aren’t you worried?” Thomas asked.
“Something will turn up. Maybe what we’ve got on the bottom here.”
Brande told her about the Grade’s find.
“There’s really gold? It’s an uncharted wreck?” Treasure
hunters in the Caribbean usually came up empty, having found wrecks that had already been picked clean.
“I think Dawson’s got himself a good one. We’ll know in the morning”
“Be careful,” Thomas said, feeling a dash of renewed hope collide with concern. The conflicting emotions were part of her tenure at MVU.
*
0352 HOURS LOCAL, WASHINGTON, DC
The President paced.
The rest of them sat around the table centered in the Situation Room. Unruh and his boss, DCI Mark Stebbins, sat together on one side of the well-worn table. Adm. Harley Wiggins, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, faced Unruh and sat with his elbows on the table, his chin resting on his laced knuckles. The National Security Advisor, Warren Amply, was sprawled back in his chair, on the very edge of putting his heels up on the table, Unruh thought. Robert Balcon, who was the White House chief of staff, had the luster in his eyes dimmed by lack of sleep.
Fortunately, it was still a small group. Decisions would come tougher when it expanded to include necessary agency people and legislative leaders. Necessary to someone other than Carl Unruh.
Unruh had just briefed everyone on the events at Plesetsk, replaying the video and audio tapes.
“The Soviets have placed nuclear reactors in space before,” the President said.
“That’s true, Mr. President,” Admiral Wiggins said. “They’ve got a thirty-year history in the field. Most of them are very tiny and very efficient, with a lifespan of around five years. They produce a great deal more electricity than solar panels.”
“We bought one of their reactors a couple years ago, didn’t we?” Balcon asked.
“Yes,” Wiggins said, “we did, for ten million dollars. It’s a Topaz Two, and we set it up out in Albuquerque to be studied by the university, Sandia, and Los Alamos people. The reports have been good, and NASA wants one of its own for a manned expedition to Mars.”
“What’s the output?” the President asked.
“Of the Topaz Two? I believe it’s close to ten thousand watts, Mr. President. This one, however, is not a Two. It’s much larger.”
Mark Stebbins said, “It’s designated the Topaz Four. We’ve been following the development for some time, and Carl has the details.”
Unruh sat up straight. “The Topaz Two is six feet by twelve feet in size, and it weighs about two thousand pounds. The fourth-generation model is fifteen feet in diameter and twenty-six feet long. It weighs in at two-and-a-half tons, and we think it can generate up to fifteen-point-five megawatts, based on theoretical extensions of the device we have in New Mexico. We are not certain about the fuel load. Because of its size, we’ve been tracking it ever since it left the manufacturing plant.ˮ
Unruh looked around the table. “We are not certain, either, about the sensitivity of the controls.”
“What about cooling?” the President asked. “It seems to me that cooling is a priority with reactors.”
“The small machines use a combination of freon and heat pumps,” Unruh said. “On the dark side of a satellite, it’s extremely cold, and heat exchangers are used. With the Topaz Four, we’re not sure of the technologies involved.”
“It could melt down?” the chief of staff asked.
Unruh shrugged his shoulders.
“Assuming that possibility, what is the consequence for the ocean waters?” the President asked.
“I think, sir, we’ll have to call in the experts on that,” Unruh said.
“We need a great deal of information, it seems to me,” the National Security Advisor said.
“And fast,” the President agreed. “You look like you have an answer, Warren.”
Amply said, “Call the Commonwealth President and ask him.”
It sounded like a good idea to Unruh.
“Well, hell, Warren. Make it simple.”
The chief of staff got up and went to the door, opened it, and asked for a technician to set up the direct telephone connection, which was governed by its own computers. He ordered someone in the hall to locate a translator.
“What time is it in Moscow?” the President asked.
Unruh checked his watch. 3:56.
“It’s a few minutes before eleven in the morning,” he said.
“Good. Heʼll have had his breakfast”
“He probably had it much earlier,” Stebbins said. “They have celebrations planned for the whole day.”
“That’s right. The first of September.”
“The New Order,” Amply said.
“Not everyone will turn out. There’s still a sizable population who would rather remember the Great Patriotic War,” Balcon said.
While they waited for the telephone connection, Unruh doodled on the yellow pad in front of him. He could not get away from drawing rockets.
The President said, “Harley, while we’re waiting, why don’t you call the Chief of Naval Operations and see what we’ve got operating in the area?”
Wiggins nodded. “Subsurface vessels, Mr. President?”
“I think that would be the best idea, don’t you?”
It took forty minutes for someone to track down the Commonwealth President and get him to the right phone. Unruh and the others listened to both sides of the conversation, which was channeled through overhead speakers.
It took ten minutes to get through the protocol, courtesies, and small talk, what with the delay of interpretation. The two leaders had met in person twice before, and knew all about each other’s families.
Finally, the President said, “We understand that you’ve had a mishap in your aerospace program.�
��
With barely a hesitation, the Commonwealth President responded, “A minor thing, yes. We both experience mechanical losses, do we not?”
“We also understand that the payload was a … Topaz Four,” the President said, giving away a secret and possibly jeopardizing a source or two.
Unruh flinched.
Stebbins cleared his throat.
“Was it?” the Russian asked. “I had not inquired.”
Unruh did not like the way this was going.
“The reason Iʼm calling, we’d like to know something about the reactor. Maybe we can be helpful in the recovery.”
“I believe, Mr. President, that we can take care of it ourselves.”
“But… ”
“Thank you for your concern.”
The speakers in the ceiling buzzed a dial tone.
Chapter Four
1127 HOURS LOCAL, MOSCOW
Janos Sodur, a lieutenant colonel, was the junior officer in the room, but he was the loudest, Dmitri Oberstev thought.
The next loudest, his volume squelched by the frog in his throat, was Vladimir Yevgeni, member of the Parliament and protector of aerospace programs, morality, and history.
If not the loudest, Yevgeni was at least the most persuasive.
He had just persuaded the President to, as the Americans termed it, stonewall the President of the United States.
Oberstev was very tired. He had been up most of the night, and the events of the day were not the kind that made his life easier. He had tried to sleep on Yevgeni’s comfortable Ilyushin 11-76 on the flight to Sheremetevo Airport, but Sodur’s incessant conjecture for Yevgeni’s benefit had denied him that.
They were in a borrowed minister’s office in the Council of Ministersʼ Building inside the Kremlin walls, having left their initial meeting in a conference room when the telephone call from the United States was announced. Almost everyone with sufficient rank had trailed after the President. Sodur did not have sufficient rank, but he had an adequate supply of both naïveté and gall.
Oberstev stood by a corner window, listening to the half-dozen conversations taking place. He gazed upward at the high ceiling. One floor up, on the fourth, Lenin’s apartment and study were preserved for visitors, of which there were none. Outside the windows, a light snow was falling, beginning to coat the ground between the Ministersʼ Building and the tall structure next to it, the Praesidium of the Supreme Soviet. From the corner office, Oberstev had a view of the Senate Tower in the wall. On the other side of it was the Lenin Mausoleum, facing Red Square.
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