“So what’s the deal? What’s this pact?”
“You come on board, and I give you funding to follow your dreams, your intellectual curiosity. I know this means a lot to you. In fact, I know it means everything to you. Solving problems. The riddles of the universe. That sort of thing.”
“But there’s a catch?”
“Yeah. The catch is... once you get in, you can’t get out. Once I give you information—even information about yourself, the rules of the project govern you. We protect information. There are very severe... penalties.”
“I could just walk away. Right now.”
Billy chuckled and shook his head. “No, you couldn’t.”
Chandra bit into the cookie, eyes fixed.
Billy’s face darkened. “We wouldn’t let you.”
“I see.”
“Anyway, why would you do it? We’d be giving you what you want. Think of it Richard. Unlimited resources. Just follow your dreams.”
“Or you’ll invoke severe penalties. That’s the deal?”
“Nobody gets out, Richard. Not even me.”
“Got any more cookies?”
Stanton smiled, looking at the empty jar. “Sure.” He pulled out a bag of ginger snaps from a drawer and put them on the desktop. Then he slit the bag with a letter opener. “Just for you. Anything you want.”
Chandra sat on the edge of the desk. “So what’s the problem? Why do you need my help?”
“Let’s just say that a potential adversary has some very sophisticated technology. We’re trying to reverse engineer it. We have people who are smart in very narrow areas, but we don’t have anyone who can understand all of the pieces—all of the interactions. The big picture. Know what I mean?”
“That’s where I come in?”
“Yeah.”
“And I can have my own lab?”
“Of course.”
“And all I need to do is—”
“Solve the puzzle.”
“I see. And the puzzle—”
“Is really about you.”
“Why am I here? Where am I going? How do I function?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, then. I accept. It’s the scientific equivalent of contemplating my own navel.”
“Great,” Billy said, with a laugh. “I just need to read you in on some pretty classified information. Remember, once you’re in... You can’t... “ He stopped. “Let me tell you about Operation Majority.”
Richard smiled, bit a ginger snap, and said casually, “I already know about Operation Majority.”
Billy gaped, then felt his throat clutch. He started coughing—a dry, hacking cough that lingered as the only response to Richard’s statement.
Richard laughed. “What? You think I’m stupid?”
Billy stared in amazement, suppressing another cough.
“Give me your hand, Billy. We need to shake on this deal.”
Billy reached out. In a brief moment—the wink of a coal-black eye—Richard stabbed Billy’s hand with the letter opener. “Ow!” he yelled, backing away, dripping blood.
Richard stalked him, eyes burning, gripping the blade. “Don’t move, Billy. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Billy backed against a safe, hemmed in, eyes flitting, looking for an escape route. Chandra moved his hand close to Billy’s face, then sliced open the palm. He dropped the letter opener with aclank .
“Give me your hand again, Billy.”
Billy cowered against the safe.
“I said, give me your hand!” He grabbed Billy’s bleeding hand and squeezed. “Now we’re blood brothers. Now our pact is sealed. Now our fate is intertwined. Isn’t this how it’s done?”
8. THE NORTH
June 1981
North is a compass point, but also a state of mind—a viewpoint in which the world is predictable, peaceful, frozen. Just as Earth’s poles can switch in an instant, so, too, can mental poles shift—to a world that is risky, fluid and terrifying.
Yuri thought about this when they put the Aqua Man submersible through its paces under the Arctic ice pack. From a depth of sixty feet, the world seemed two-toned. On the surface there was the all-encompassing whiteness. Below the surface, there was a pervasive darkness, and the groan of ice shifting and splitting. Formlessness warred with structure. Slithering cracks threatened to spill one world into the next.
In the ambiguities of this nether realm, they practiced their mission, guiding Aqua Man to precise coordinates in murky water. Only the Inertial Navigation System, the INS, could verify their position. Only a box of electronics could keep score. The team became good at this kind of navigation, entrusting their lives to technology, and to the engineers who fashioned it.
In June, 1981, Monico and Nathan said the team had practiced enough. They were ready.
An Air Force C5A moved the mini-sub and entire SOF team to the operational staging area at Holy Loch, Scotland, where they mated Aqua Man with theColby , a nuclear submarine. At Holy Loch, they planned the final details of the mission.
Under cover of darkness, they steamed from Holy Loch, traveling submerged into deep waters on the eastward side of Kolbeinsy Ridge, one of the northern protrusions of the Mid-Atlantic ridge system. They skirted the ridge, maneuvering through the Jan Mayen fracture zone, a system of geologic transform faults. The rugged underwater topography, with steep-walled valleys, provided excellent cover as they moved northward.
North of the Arctic Circle, along the Mohns Ridge, the Colby turned eastward in a beeline toward the Kola Gulf, entrance to a fjord-like inlet of the Berents Sea.
As they closed on the Kola Peninsula, deep water, maps of the Soviet sensor nets and a sizable portion of luck allowed the Colby to penetrate undetected close to the mouth of the fjord. In cold, turbid water off the coast, Yuri’s three-man team prepared for a night launch.
* * *
“Set condition 1SQ,” the loudspeaker squawked.
Yuri’s adrenaline level peaked. ‘1SQ’ was code for launch of the Special Operations Force.
Lieutenant Commander Alan Monico, team leader, gave the Colby’s Bosun a final thumbs-up.
The pressure door closed with a sharpclang that faded to a reverberating rumble inside the modified missile tube. The locking handle spun around, sealing the compartment.
Yuri listened intently to Monico’s instructions. “Remember. We check each other’s gear, then we check the submersible. We see anything that’s not right, we abort. Okay?”
They nodded.
Monico tapped the pressure door, then pulled his mask snug. There was a brief, low whine followed by a loud rush of water. As the chamber filled, Yuri cross-checked his gear with McGahn. Then they both checked Monico.
Seawater boiled upward around Aqua Man, pointed vertically toward the sea hatch.
It’s like a rocket, Yuri thought—a spaceship ready for blast off.
His gloved hand slid over the sub’s clean, dull-black exterior—a function of the non-metallic, carbon-based composite that comprised both the hull and structural members.
He huddled with the others around the base, individually testing their breathing apparatus, a German-made, closed-cycle Draeger system. There were no bubbles. A small tank added pure oxygen to exhaled carbon dioxide, re-cycling their own breath.
Hydraulics lifted Aqua Man and the divers outside the Colby’s pressure hull. Red flood lights illuminated the work area as they gently guided the mini-sub to a horizontal mooring position and unsealed the Open Water Diver Access Hatch, dubbed “The Well.” It allowed divers to move freely between the underwater world and Aqua Man’s air-filled interior.
Yuri and Monico climbed aboard.
Monico moved to the pilot’s seat, shucking his mask and vest. “System’s check, Sverdlov,” he said. “By the numbers.” They both went through the checklist, noting only a minor problem with a pump. When they replaced a fuse, it worked perfectly.
McGahn climbed through the Well, dripped water for a moment as he u
nhooked quick release straps, then pulled off his mask. “She looks fine on the outside, Skipper,” he said. “Had to stow some loose crap.”
“Seal the Well for running,” Monico said. “I’ll bring us up to one atmosphere.”
Yuri closed the hatch, then felt his ears pop as air pressure dropped
—a move necessary to avoid the bends on this type of mission. He looked at Monico. “Pressure door’s tight. We’re ready to go, Sir.”
“Roger that, sailor. Hold onto your jock straps, gentlemen.” Monico detached from the mooring point, steered a lazy turn into the fjord, then surged forward on quiet electric motors through dark, sub-Arctic waters.
As they moved through the inlet, Monico carefully bypassed navigable channels seeded with Soviet sonobuoys. A navigation error meant certain detection and probable capture or death. The ring laser INS provided continuing position read-outs on the console.
The Phase Two penetration was blissfully uneventful. They glided unseen through shallow waters to the perimeter of the Russian base, adjusted to neutral buoyancy and stopped dead in the water, just short of gates that controlled surface and underwater access to the harbor, and beyond it, the Soviet submarine pens.
“Looks like Intel knew their stuff,” Monico said, dropping anchor and stabilizing the craft. He quietly thanked the anonymous human intelligence source responsible for pinpointing the gates.
Monico carefully increased interior air pressure, balancing it against the pressure of external water. This allowed Yuri to re-open the hatch, exposing the Well to the sea’s liquid membrane.
Monico powered down, leaving just a few systems on ‘standby.’
Yuri strapped on a full-face mask and fins, then plunged through the opening, experiencing an initial temperature shock, and with it, a slight disorientation. Up and down directions were blurred by a combination of icy water and darkness. He gripped a handhold on the sub’s hull, then swam to his gear—sealight, camera and beacon. As he waited for Monico and McGahn, he adjusted to neutral buoyancy. He floated, “weightless” near his two companions.
We can do this, he thought.Find the mini-subs. Photograph them. Get scrapings from the hull. Piece of cake .
He helped McGahn fasten mooring lines to the sub, then moved with the team in a single file to the bottom, leaving the Well’s hatch open in case they needed a fast re-entry, putting their faith in on-board servo systems to keep the sea at bay.
A large, dark form shot between the swimmers.
Yuri tapped Monico, the lead swimmer. He gave the hand signal for “fish” and pointed excitedly.
The three-man team formed a circle, flashlights slicing the darkness. Four large forms flashed by again. This time, they could see the animals clearly—harbor seals. The animals were highly territorial. If they felt threatened, they could be a dangerous nuisance.
Monico cocked a speargun.
The animals made another quick pass, then disappeared.
When the seals didn’t return, the swimmers gathered in a circle, inspected each other’s gear, then signaled “okay.”
As they swam toward the sea gate, they trailed a lifeline behind them.
Yuri moored an acoustic beacon near the gate, built to emit a 180 KHz signal. Sea water absorbed the signal beyond 100 meters, minimizing the risk of detection. On the return trip, compass navigation would get them close. Direction finding on the beacon, using a Digital Range Meter, would guide them the last 100 meters.
They tied the lifeline to the sea fence. If they could find the beacon, the line would get them back to Aqua Man.
The sea gate dissolved into inky blackness beyond the range of their lights. It was an enormous metal frame structure wrapped in steel cable. The sheer size of the gate, and Russian engineering, guaranteed an imperfect fit between the gate and the fence. They found a hole big enough to swim through.
Yuri hoped the next phase of the mission would go as smoothly.
* * *
Vladimir Fontanov reached for a telephone next to a blinking red light on his battalion command post console.
“Central,” he said. The handset blasted white noise into his ear, with intermittent fragments of human speech. He picked out the words ‘tracking’, ‘airborne’ and ‘jamming.’ He swiveled in his chair, calling out to an open, hatch-like metal door. “Captain!”
There was no reply. Vladimir thought for a moment about leaving his post to search for the Captain.Where could he be ?What could he be doing ?
There were only six modular shelters in the complex of trailers and antennas. Most of the wheeled shelters were stuffed with electronics, communications or backup power generators needed to launch SA-6 surface-to-air missiles. Four of the shelters were physically connected, to allow shirtsleeve operation and freedom of movement, even during the extreme cold of Siberian winter.
The dull monotony of ‘scope watching’ had transformed unexpectedly into chaos, and nothing in Vladimir’s tech manuals told him what to do.
At a nearby acquisition and tracking scope, Vladimir’s teammate, Corporal Ivan Birger—young, thin and tow-headed—raised his voice. “I’m being jammed.”
Vladimir put the phone down and waited. Muffled sounds issued from beyond the doorway, but still no captain.
“I can’t see anything, here,” Birger called in a nervous, squeaky voice. “Why can’t I see anything?”
Three more lights lit on Vladimir’s console. He picked up one of the phones. “Central.”
“This is unit Six-One-Alpha. We have *** sphere moving over position *** and *** jamming. Over.”
The Americans, Vladimir thought.They’re over Archangelsk and jamming—again . “Give me a bearing from your position.”
“*** -er, we have bear- ***”
“Captain!” Vladimir yelled.
This time, he heard a body crash to the metal floor. More sounds, then unsteady footsteps. The captain, sans shirt or shoes, belt unhinged, fly open, staggered into the entryway. He rubbed a bleeding forehead. “What? Tell me what?”
“The Americans are over Archangelsk. They’re jamming us.”
The captain waved his hand and shook his head, as if wishing the problem would go away. “Tell someone in authority,” he said.
Lights inside the shelter dimmed, flickered, then returned to normal.
“Evgeny,” a female voice called. “Come back here. Won’t you? What happened to the lights?”
“Yes,” he said. “Tell someone in authority. That will do it.” He turned, steadied himself, and wobbled out of the shelter.
I did tell someone in authority, Vladimir thought. He dropped the phones and raced to the outside door of the metal shelter, unlatched it and opened it to the night.
Beyond a small growth of pine forest, outlined by the yellow-white haze of runway lights, lay the airfield. Hovering above it, in a spectacle that defied all logic, was a pulsing fireball that released slowly expanding translucent spheres of orange light.
Vladimir’s first thought was,Bastards ! Then,Why ? Then,My God !
He watched in awe as a huge “Bear-G” reconnaissance aircraft tipped its giant wings in a steep bank around the field, circling the fireball, apparently unable or unwilling to land. It leveled off, then headed out, away from the field, lost beyond the hedge of pine trees.
Vladimir left the door open, then raced back to the console and dialed the tower.
“This is Battery Two Central,” Vladimir said, when they answered. “Is the field operational?”
A tense, high-pitched voice responded. “Radar Approach Control equipment and scanner radar are both inoperative. Repeat, both inoperative —due to high frequency jamming from an unknown source. Backup systems are also inoperative. We have no power—a total blackout. I’m surprised this voice line is working—nothing else seems to.” A sigh issued from the speaker. “It’s happening again, isn’t it? Like a few months ago.”
“Can you verify—The object appears to be directly over the field.”
&n
bsp; “Affirmative.”
“If we can get a missile off, should we do it?”
The voice on the phone paused for a moment. “I can’t see anybody on the field from here. I think they’re afraid to go out. I’ll sound the warning to clear the area. We don’t need power for that. We can crank it mechanically.”
Through the open door, Vladimir heard the wail of the air defense siren.
“When we see your plume,” the tense voice continued, “we’ll duck and cover here in the tower. You could damage equipment or aircraft, but I don’t see any other—Shit! He’s not going to do that, is he?”
Heavy vibrations shook Vladimir’s metal shelter, toppling a half-filled tea cup, as a low-flying turboprop aircraft roared directly overhead. Vladimir dropped the phone and raced to the doorway to see the giant Tu-95 “Bear-G” flying 200 feet off the deck, ventral turret sluing toward the fireball.Crazy ! Vladimir thought.He has only the gun for defense .
At the treeline, the Bear began to climb—slowly at first, then rapidly. When it was over the field and slightly above the fireball, it unleashed a stream of 23 mm rounds, interspersed with tracers—to no effect.
Vladimir watched the Bear recede.Well, at least that other thing doesn’t shoot back.
The Bear angled to the northwest, banked steeply, then headed back, straight for the object, firing more rounds and tracers.
Then the aircraft buffeted as it hit one of the expanding orange spheres. Engines abruptly silenced. It glided in toward the SA-6 site, static electricity crackling and popping along the giant wings, four turboprop engines frozen at dead stop.
“What’s going on?”
Vladimir turned to see the Captain propping himself up in the threshold, pale and shaken.No time for explanations .
Outside, the falling aircraft loomed larger and larger. One wing tipped into a power line. The aircraft see-sawed, exploded, then hit the ground in a trail of fire that rolled toward Vladimir’s shelter.
“Down!” he yelled.
He slammed the metal door and scampered behind the console just as the shockwave hit, bouncing him inches off the heaving floor, slamming the captain head-first into an equipment rack. Shrapnel pinged against the outer walls. Dirt and stones dropped from above.
The Ganymede Project Page 5
