Collision

by William S. Cohen

  “NASA classifies more than one thousand four hundred near-Earth objects as potentially hazardous asteroids because they are large and because they follow orbits that pass close to the Earth’s orbit. Despite that ‘potentially hazardous’ label and despite our ability to keep increasingly close watch on those big hazards, no country on our threatened Earth has an official warning system.

  “We once had one, run by the U.S. Air Force. It was called the Space Surveillance System, which the Air Force described as a ‘fence’ of radar energy projected into space to detect objects intersecting that fence. I quote from the Air Force’s unclassified description of the system. ‘The operational advantage of the AFSSS is its ability to detect objects in an un-cued fashion, rather than tracking objects based on previous information.’

  “Well, it’s not tracking objects, because it has been shut down for budgetary reasons. To run it costs about fourteen million dollars a year. According to recent figures, the U.S. Air Force spends thirty-five million dollars a year on ‘civic outreach,’ such as the Thunderbirds flying team.”

  As the Thunderbirds whiz by in a clip superimposed over an image of the Impact Hazard Scale, Taylor continues: “Yes, there are copies of that Impact Hazard Scale hanging on astronomers’ walls. But you won’t find it in the Pentagon or in the White House. Neither the President nor any other leader in any other country knows what to do if an asteroid threatens to strike the Earth. And nobody knows the best way to get the public ready for a possible impact.”

  In a realistic animation, a close-encounter asteroid bears down on Earth. Taylor fades away, but his voice lingers:

  “Astronomers sometimes give asteroids names. They call this one Janus, after the two-faced Roman god, because of its odd, double-profile shape. It’s been out there for millions of years. But we did not discover Janus until 2009. Astronomers are not really sure about its orbit. We can try to keep watch on an asteroid long enough to figure out its orbit. But it can suddenly shift. If it swerves into a collision path to Earth, we can detect that, and all we can do is pray. It would be coming at us at seventy-five times the speed of sound. There would be a warning time measured in days. A lot of scientists worry about that today. But what they worry about the most is that they aren’t able to get any attention from any government on Earth.”

  The image freezes on screen and Taylor reappears, standing in front of the image. “There is, in fact, no government out there in space. If people want to mine Janus—or any other asteroids—all they have to do is figure a way to get there and start mining.

  “Janus is handy for mining. It is expected to pass closer to Earth than any asteroid recorded in human history. But if its orbit were to take it through a precise region in space, known as a gravitational keyhole, Janus could be on a collision course on its next visit, on the seventh of April in 2035. ‘The keyhole’ is a way of describing what happens when Earth’s gravity alters an asteroid’s orbit in such a way that the asteroid will collide with Earth at some future pass.”

  The show ends in a simulation of Janus’s two journeys. In the first, it passes so close that backyard astronomers can see it through ordinary telescopes. Its orbit, as scientists hypothesize, takes it through the gravitational keyhole. On its second pass, in 2035, it heads toward Earth.

  The simulation suddenly fades.

  On screen, Taylor stands before a huge photograph of felled and blackened trees—a Siberian forest leveled by an object that fell from the sky. “The unnamed asteroid that hurtled down here at Tunguska in 1908,” he solemnly says, “weighed 220 million pounds and entered Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of about 33,500 miles per hour. The air around it heated to a temperature of 44,500 degrees Fahrenheit, consuming the asteroid in a gigantic fireball and releasing energy equivalent to about 185 Hiroshima-size nuclear bombs.

  “There was no warning in 1908. For Janus we have a warning.”

  The red zone of the impact hazard scale reappears. “This was a warning that we must heed. We have enough time for all the nations of Earth to find a way to defend Earth.”

  *

  When the show ended, many people headed for Taylor to congratulate him. As they gathered, he looked beyond and saw Stephanie Sinclair-Hardy and Conrad LaSalle walking toward the exit. And a few paces behind them was Agent Sarsfield.

  38

  The next day, Taylor decided that it was time for him to make the trek out to Goddard Space Flight Center to see if he could find out what Cole Perenchio had been working on and why he left NASA. Rather than hire a limo or taxi to take him to Goddard, Taylor was determined to drive his own car. To hell with Washington’s infamous traffic snarls. He wanted to get behind the wheel of what Darlene called his outrageously expensive midlife-crisis car, an Audi A8 L W12, and feel that he was in control. He simply couldn’t stand being at the mercy of other people—especially cabdrivers for whom English was the verbal equivalent of a Rubik’s Cube.

  Through someone he knew in Human Resources, he learned that Perenchio’s last assignment had been to a night shift at the Laser Ranging Facility. Taylor decided to talk his way into Goddard and go to the range at night in hope of finding someone who would tell him about Cole.

  After Molly left, he spent an hour at the Four-Eyed Monster, visited a vending machine for two packages of peanut-buttered crackers, and went down to the museum’s underground parking garage. He had gone scarcely a block before he ran into a snarl owing to a detour that herded traffic away from his chosen route.

  Pushed left and right by big orange detour signs, he wound up crawling north on Connecticut Avenue. Seething over the delay, he swung over to Wisconsin Avenue in the hope that there would be a breakthrough, but he found only another long line of cars and trucks puffing out exhaust fumes as far ahead as he could see.

  After sitting for almost twenty minutes at an intersection that had been blocked by a major fender bender, Taylor decided he had had enough. He resented the wasting of time, and frustration finally ignited his rage. Running a red light was no capital offense in his mind, and tonight he did just that without the slightest remorse.

  He shot through a light on Wisconsin Avenue, then through another one and found himself on a twisting suburban road. A sudden rain etched the darkness ahead. Unfamiliar with the Maryland roads, he peered through his sloshing windshield wipers and realized he was completely lost. A green light ahead changed to red and he shot through it. This ignored red light was at the south end of a single-lane Civil War–era stone bridge controlled by a traffic light at each end.

  Halfway across the bridge, Taylor, unaware there was only one lane, saw headlights coming toward him. He twisted the wheel to the right, mounted a low curb, and struck the stone wall of the bridge. The oncoming pickup truck braked, swerved, and slammed into Taylor’s prize Audi. Air bags popped all around Taylor, knocking his chest and head back violently. The driver in the other vehicle dialed 911.

  A dazed Taylor managed to open the front passenger door. He stumbled out, stunned and confused. As he stood in the chill rain, all the recent days flowed jaggedly through his mind—Hal, Cole, Sarsfield, murder, death, fear. The horn on the pickup truck blared nonstop. The driver, a young man wearing a camouflage jacket and cap, stepped out and glared at Taylor, adding to his confusion and stoking his paranoia. The pickup driver, cell phone in hand, stared vacantly at it in the glare of a single headlight.

  Two Montgomery County police officers arrived. When one approached Taylor, he pointed to the pickup driver and shouted, “He’s trying to kill me!” Taylor was still convinced that he had been on a two-lane road and been hit by a killer driver who had deliberately swung over from another lane.

  The officers helped the two drivers off the bridge, where an ambulance and police cars were parked, lights flashing. Both drivers were uninjured except for bruises caused by the air bags.

  “I am in danger, real danger!” Taylor insisted to the officer who was trying to question him.

  The other police officer bri
efly questioned the pickup driver, handcuffed him, and took him away.

  Taylor became more agitated. “See? See? He did it!” he yelled. “He tried to kill me!”

  A medic tried to soothe Taylor and finally convinced him to get into the ambulance, which took him to a hospital a short distance away.

  Two more police cars arrived to handle the jams caused by the ever-growing lines of cars at each end of the bridge.

  Taylor, his mind clearing, called Darlene from the hospital. As soon as she was sure he was not injured, she said, “You ran a red light, right?”

  “Right,” he replied. He did not tell her that while he was being questioned about the accident, those questions in the rain seemed to run into other questions at the Summerhouse with Cole’s body lying nearby. His bewilderment was so profound that the officer knew this was not a driver who had been drunk or reckless. This was a driver who had been confused by an unfamiliar road and a peculiar bridge, perhaps even by some of his own demons. And he had been hit by a driver who was high. The officer did not charge Taylor with running a red light.

  39

  Philip Dake, who had been in the audience during Taylor’s show at the museum, filed a story about the show for the Post’s Style section, calling it “a fascinating and sobering look at the big lumps of rock that hang over Earth.” Dake praised Taylor for “warning us Earthlings that we must be careful when we treasure-hunt in space.”

  Three days after Dake’s story appeared, he called Falcone on his private line. Without any preliminaries, Dake said, “Sean, there’s a Grudge Report in the works on Ben Taylor—and you’re mentioned.”

  “About the asteroid show?” Falcone asked. “Another one? I meant to call you to thank…”

  “This is a long and rotten story,” Dake answered. “A real tough one, goddamn it. A hatchet job, aimed mostly at Ben Taylor. Full of innuendos. Amateur stuff. No sources, of course.”

  “When does it hit the Internet?” Falcone asked.

  “I’m told that Grudge will put it out around eleven tonight. Will you be home? I’d like to see your reaction.”

  “Sure. You still a wino?” Falcone joked. Dake owned an interest in a Virginia wine firm.

  “You still pour fifty-year-old brandy?” Dake said, anger gone. “See you around eleven.”

  *

  Falcone and Dake sat on a couch in Falcone’s home office. On a remote control he connected his computer to a television wall screen. Before them was the Grudge Report, which Falcone’s TiVo was recording while they watched it. THE THREE BLACK MUSKETEERS ran across the top of the screen. Below were three photographs with these captions:

  Next came a full screen presented as if it was in a report appearing in a newspaper or magazine:

  Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988: Benjamin Franklin Taylor is working on his PhD thesis, “Formation of Galaxies and Clusters of Galaxies,” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cole Perenchio is in his senior year at MIT and is top scorer for the MIT Engineers basketball team. Harold Davidson, a graduate of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, is in his first year at Harvard Law School. When black students at U of M take over a university building to protest campus racism, Davidson goes to Amherst and runs into Taylor and Perenchio, who made the 90-mile trip to Amherst to show solidarity with fellow African-American students. They all get arrested for trespassing, call themselves the Three Black Musketeers, and vow lifelong friendship.

  Washington, D. C., now: Harold Davidson and Cole Perenchio are dead. Benjamin Franklin Taylor, who found Perenchio’s body and was briefly held by Capitol Hill police, is a “person of interest” to the FBI—while also being considered for appointment by President Oxley as his Science Advisor.

  “Jesus!” Falcone exclaimed. He froze the image and, rising from the couch, pointed at the wall as if it was warning about something dangerous or loathsome. “Where the hell did this come from?”

  “Scroll down. Scroll down, Sean,” Dake said calmly, a snifter of brandy warming in his hand.

  Falcone unfroze the image and slowly scrolled farther down the story.

  Davidson was one of four people shot to death on October 4 in the mass shooting at the Sullivan & Ford Building. Taylor was reportedly out of town on that day. Late the next night, Taylor called police to report finding a body in the “Summerhouse,” a small 19th-century structure on Capitol grounds. The shelter has long been known as a rendezvous for gay trysts. The body was identified as Cole Perenchio, who at one time worked with Taylor at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

  “Gay trysts! God damn! They’re practically accusing him of killing his gay lover! How the hell does this crap get on the Internet?”

  “Keep viewing and scrolling,” Dake said. “When you’re finished, I’ll give you my theory.”

  Falcone gripped the remote and scrolled down. The story went on to say that Taylor had been taken to Capitol Police headquarters and questioned by Detective Willard Seymour and released by Deputy Chief Walter Barnett.

  Falcone began reading out loud: “‘Until now, Taylor’s questioning by police—and his designation as “a person of interest”—have not been revealed. The Grudge Report discovered this possible cover-up from interviews with law-enforcement personnel. Coincidentally, attorney Sean Falcone, hero of the Sullivan and Ford shooting, is representing Taylor. Law-enforcement sources suggested that Falcone, former national security advisor to President Oxley, may have called on powerful friends to keep information about Taylor secret.’”

  Falcone sat down and pounded the arm of the couch. “‘Coincidentally’? What the hell does that mean? That Ben is in trouble and needs a lawyer? And how the hell does Grudge know that I’m Ben’s attorney?”

  “Keep on reading and scrolling,” Dake said.

  Falcone did, silently fuming:

  Taylor’s nomination as Presidential Science Adviser—officially, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy—had been a well-kept White House secret. Falcone, who still maintains ties with the Oxley White House, allegedly put Taylor’s name forward. When Taylor had his encounter with police, Falcone and his powerful friends are believed to have managed to convince police to keep Taylor’s case unpublicized.

  However, FBI agents, doing a confidential background check on Taylor, learned of the alleged Capitol Hill cover-up, questioned Taylor and made him “a person of interest.” Word of this reached the White House, where, a spokesman said yesterday, Taylor’s nomination is “under review.”

  Falcone kept scrolling down and reading silently. He was barely able to keep from exploding.

  Two paragraphs were devoted to the time when Perenchio and Taylor worked together at Goddard, quoting an unnamed former NASA employee as saying, “Cole was an engineer and Ben was a scientist. Scientists like Ben told us what they want, and engineers like Cole worked until the scientists were happy. Sure, there would be disagreements between an engineer and a scientist. But those two guys, they got along okay most of the time.”

  The story concluded with a description of Taylor’s “sensational and fear-inducing” show, noting that Falcone was in the audience. He resumed reading aloud:

  “‘PBS officials told the Grudge Report that they are “discussing the scheduled NOVA broadcast of Taylor’s show.”’”

  “And you know what that means,” Falcone said. “No show. And I’ll bet that Smithsonian officials are discussing Ben’s museum job. Jesus! This is character assassination.”

  Falcone picked up his snifter for his first swallow. “I’ve got to call Ben,” he said. “But first tell me your theory.”

  “First of all,” Dake said, “there’s no indication of sources or of its provenance. It probably went through a hell of a lot of writers and edits—and undoubtedly a few lawyers. Also, I get the feeling that there was someone powerful hovering over this, pushing for information, exploiting sources.”

  “And who could that be?” Falcone asked.

  “Somebody
who is very pissed off at Taylor. My guess is that it starts with the Capitol Hill Police. Note that you get the name of the cop who questioned Taylor and brought him in. What’s his name?”

  “Willard Seymour.”

  “Yeah. Seymour. And then you get the name of the high-ranking cop who let him go. My bet is that Seymour had what could be a big-publicity pinch and the perp gets snatched away.”

  “That’s good for a start,” Falcone said. “But the ‘person of interest’ had to come from the FBI. That bothers me a lot.”

  “Why?”

  “I knew about it, Taylor of course knew about it, and the FBI knew about it. The FBI has to be the source that gave the Grudge that ‘person of interest’ label. Nobody else—unless Taylor told somebody, which doesn’t make sense.”

  “Okay,” Dake said. “So the FBI leaked something. For God’s sake how long have you been in this town? When the FBI wants something known, it leaks it.”

  “Yeah. You’re talking about more or less authorized leaks, the kind you get sometimes,” Falcone said. “But I think this is deeper, bigger. Take a look at the span of the story—a mass shooting, three black guys, FBI, and the White House. It’s a hatchet-job story. Somebody obviously is out to get him.”

  “I think I know who,” Dake said.

  “Who?” Falcone asked. He stood, pressed a button, and the screen went blank.

  “Come on, Sean. It’s got to be Hamilton. And get this: For a little while when the Three Black Musketeers were in Cambridge, Hamilton was, too. Funny the story didn’t mention it.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I never kid about stories. For about two years, while Ben and Cole were in MIT and Harold Davidson was in Harvard Law School, Hamilton was in the Harvard Business School. The business boys and girls—many boys, few girls—divide into sections for studying. Hamilton’s was called Section X, composed of very wealthy students who were there mostly to study how to manage their family fortunes. I doubt if he spent much time making friends at MIT or Harvard Law. The Section X students stuck together, went on spring-break trips together, like to Dubai or Hong Kong.”