Solar Weapon

by David Capps

  After going through all of the details and associated risks, Jake gave his consent.

  “Great. I’ll see you in the operating room in about half an hour, though I doubt you’ll remember being there.”

  Jake felt helpless and without control again. He wasn’t going to die from this, but would it be an injury in the line of duty that would force him into disability and retirement. He fought against the anxiety that rose within his chest as a nurse injected something into his IV line. Within seconds he relaxed and closed his eyes.

  * * *

  Jake woke up groggy. As soon as his mind cleared he pressed the nurse call button.

  “Agent Badger,” he said. “Is she?”

  “She’s down the hall.”

  “Take me to her.”

  “That’s not a good idea, you need your rest. She…”

  “Either you take me there or I crawl there. Decide.” He was in no mood for a debate.

  The nurse blinked several times and pursed her lips. “I’ll get a wheelchair.”

  As she wheeled him down the hall, Jake spotted two FBI agents at the doorway to his room, one at the nurse’s station and one at each end of the hall. Two agents, NSA he assumed, stood at the door to Agent Badger’s room.

  He felt panicked when he saw her. She was unconscious and on a breathing machine, its sound rhythmically pulsating. His fear of another devastating loss flooded back into his mind. His breathing rate increased.

  “It’s just a precaution,” the nurse said. “The less energy she has to put into breathing, the more she has available to fight the poison.”

  “Move me over next to her.”

  Now close to the bed, he reached out and held her hand. There was no response, but at least she felt warm. A few minutes later the doctor entered the room.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked.

  “Not as long as I can stay here. How long is she going to be…like this?”

  “Right now we are still flushing the toxin out of her system. Maybe tomorrow we can make a change. The blood tests will give us that answer.”

  Jake looked at the doctor, trying to force the question out of his mouth.

  “Normally, she would have a fifty-fifty chance of surviving, but with her small body size, the dose of toxin was large by comparison. Right now her chance of surviving is around thirty percent, but she impresses me as a fighter, so maybe she’ll make it.”

  She’s a fighter, alright, he thought. Briggs had told him she had killed six large men with her bare hands before she went down. She was hitting all twelve master meridian points, half second each target. Six large guys in three seconds: That had to be some kind of record.

  He sat there, next to her through the rest of the day, holding her hand. He didn’t look at the food the nurse brought in. He focused only on her. Later that evening, the nurse wheeled his bed in next to Honi’s. The nurse helped him into his bed. He spent the night holding her hand.

  In the morning, Dr. Rosen entered the room and pulled up a chair close to him.

  “How is she doing?”

  “They took her off breathing support early this morning. She’s breathing on her own.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “I can’t handle losing another one.”

  “You said you didn’t see her as a partner. She was with a different agency.”

  “Yeah,” Jake said quietly. “That changed the instant I saw her lying on the sidewalk, not moving. She…she just seemed so formidable, you know? I didn’t think anything could ever happen to her.”

  “And now?”

  “I keep thinking of how my father, and grandfathers, have sacrificed so much, and I see her lying there. I see her willingness to make whatever sacrifice is needed to do her job.”

  “Just like you?”

  Jake looked back at her.

  “You’re not the only one. I talk with hundreds of agents who struggle with the same feelings of dedication and sacrifice. You spoke of destiny before. I want you to know there is no such thing. You are not destined to die doing your job. I don’t believe she is either.

  “I also counsel Secret Service agents, who are trained to throw themselves in front of bullets to save our political leaders. The inner struggle between dedication, sacrifice and survival is extremely powerful. No one comes through that without having issues. It’s okay to be afraid of death, as long as you can still function and do your job. That’s why we have our sessions. I need to be sure you’re not frozen when the situation becomes critical.”

  “Yesterday, during the battle…I wasn’t afraid. It was only when I saw her…”

  “I know you’re not afraid of death for yourself. That’s not the issue that concerns me. I need to know that your fear of losing another partner isn’t going to get you killed.”

  A soft moan came from Honi. He jerked and stared at her. She moved slightly.

  “Nurse!” Jake screamed. “Nurse!”

  She’s back! Relief flooded through his body.

  Dr. Rosen reached across, gripped Jake’s arm. “We’ll talk more later this week.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Honi’s room was filled with doctors and nurses. Jake had been unceremoniously pushed to the side of the room. He saw Honi open her eyes for the first time since the battle two days ago. She looked around, her eyes locked on his. He tried to get a read on her state of mind, but her expression was a blank.

  Both Jake and Honi needed more tests run. After two hours of being poked, prodded and CAT-scanned, he was returned to his own room. The numbness, created by the bullet’s pressure on the nerve in his back, had left, leaving him in pain. This was the first time he’d actually been shot. The stiffness and soreness in his body made moving difficult. It seemed like everything hurt, but some places were in a lot more pain than others. I guess being shot isn’t supposed to be easy.

  At his request, a nurse pushed him in a wheel chair to visit Honi. Her boss, Ellington was talking with her when Jake entered. Ellington glanced at Jake and gave him a nod. He spoke quietly with Honi for a few minutes more and then left. The nurse wheeled Jake over next to Honi and then left the two of them alone.

  “How do you feel?” Jake asked.

  She grimaced. “Worst headache ever.” She looked him in the eye. “Ellington told me what you did.”

  “Look, Agent Badger, I didn’t do anything but my job. I…”

  She reached out and touched his arm. “You stood side-by-side with me and fought with everything you had. When I was down, you called in help, immediately. I am so tired of men thinking they have to protect me because of my size, or because I’m a woman. You fought beside me as an equal, you treated me with respect. You didn’t act as if I were fragile.”

  “Agent Badger, fragile didn’t ever enter my mind,” Jake said, hoping it sounded believable.

  “Nor should it. Which is why you should call me Honi. You’ve earned that right.”

  “Agent Ba…”

  She held up a finger to stop him.

  “Honi.”

  She smiled.

  “I’m just glad you’re alive.”

  “I’m glad we’re both alive. Now we have to get out of here so we can figure out what’s going on and who’s behind this mess.”

  Jake smiled. “I’d like that.” He felt so relieved that she was back to her precocious self.

  “You better do more than like it. Briggs referred to you as his puzzle master. Ellington told me to feed you all of the intel I can get my hands on. From there you’re supposed to sort everything out and put it into its proper place, like pieces in a jig-saw puzzle.”

  “Yeah, about that.” He showed her the watch that ran backwards. “This may be more complicated than we think. According to the man, who died giving this to me, we have 29 days, 11 hours, 6 minutes and…18 seconds before we all die.”

  “From what?”

  Jake shrugged. “I don’t know. The guy died before he could tell me.”

  “Do you belie
ve him?”

  He looked at the watch again. “It came from a vice-president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. His tox screen was clean, so the guy wasn’t delusional as far as I can determine. He said we were all going to die.”

  “All? Does all mean everybody in the city, the country, or worst-case, the planet?”

  “I’m thinking everyone in the country. I can’t imagine how everybody on the Earth would die.”

  “So you think this is a real threat?”

  “In my experience people at that level of authority aren’t plagued by superstition or fantasy, they tend to be very reality-based. Plus, his statement qualifies as a type of death-bed confession, so I believe he is credible. I think the threat is real, until I can prove otherwise.”

  “And what exactly do you think the threat is?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  * * *

  Late the following morning Jake and Honi were allowed to leave the hospital under the condition that they didn’t do anything physically strenuous or dangerous for at least the next 48 hours. Honi complained about feeling weak and fatigued. Jake was still stiff and sore.

  “You up for a science trip?” Jake asked.

  “To see what?”

  “I’m not sure. Something new that Dr. Spencer said we should see.”

  “Oh, that. Maybe a side trip would do us some good.”

  They took a cab to George Washington University.

  “Where can I find Dr. Harold Franklin?” Jake asked a student as they entered the Engineering Building.

  “Basement, Lab 5.”

  Jake knocked on the frosted glass window in the door, but didn’t get a response. He opened the door slowly and looked around. A small man who looked to be about thirty stood furiously writing numbers on a pull-down chalkboard. The man wore a white lab coat smudged with blue and yellow chalk.

  “Hello,” Jake said in a loud voice. “Are you Dr. Franklin?”

  The man turned quickly and looked at them. “Yes. What class are you in? You don’t look familiar to me.”

  Jake chuckled. “We’re not in any class. Dr. Spencer referred us to you. Something about a new development?”

  “Oh,” Dr. Franklin replied. “I’m afraid I can’t talk about that. It’s classified.”

  Jake and Honi showed him their IDs. “Call your project manager at the Pentagon,” she said.

  “How did you know he…” Dr. Franklin glanced at her ID again. “NSA. Of course you would know.” After a short phone conversation Dr. Franklin opened a steel door to a secure room. There were no windows and the room was covered, walls, ceiling and floor with copper mesh.

  “Faraday shield,” Honi said.

  “Most people wouldn’t know what that was,” Dr. Franklin replied. “How did you…?”

  “I work inside three of them. But ours are built into the walls and floors.”

  “Of course they are.”

  Honi turned to Jake. “Faraday shields stop all electronic signals from entering or leaving the enclosed area. That’s why your cell phone wouldn’t work inside the NSA building day before yesterday.”

  “Okay,” Jake replied. He turned to Dr. Franklin. “What’s this new development?”

  “It’s called Project HAICS. The actual device is in Arizona, being loaded onto a rocket. By next week it will be in orbit. This is a scale model of the antenna.”

  Jake frowned as he looked at it. “I’m thinking this part is the antenna?” He pointed to a central straight rod.

  “Partially,” Dr. Franklin replied. “This entire assembly is the transmitting antenna. The receiving antenna is a three mile long wire that will point down toward the earth.”

  The antenna was exotic and strange. It had a single rod pointing out from the center. Around that were 24 curved rods that extended from a ring near the base of the main box in a tulip shape. Outside of that was a gold mesh spaced evenly from the tulip-shaped rods.

  “I’ve seen parabolic antennas before,” Jake said. “But this can’t be anything like that.”

  “It isn’t. In a regular antenna, you have one active element and sometimes a reflector. The HAICS unit has 25 active elements, or antennas, plus the mesh you see is the reflector.”

  “But that will reflect the radio signal back on itself,” Jake said. “Why?”

  Dr. Franklin smiled. “That is what I call the ‘watermelon seed effect.’”

  “So, what does it do?” Honi asked. “What is HAICS?”

  “I developed this system for Project SETI.”

  “The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence?”

  “Yes. Advanced civilizations have to be able to communicate over vast distances. Ordinary radio waves are way too slow to be of any practical value in deep space. So I started with the premise that such an interstellar communication system must already exist. I just needed to figure out how the existing system actually worked.”

  “And this is…” Honi said.

  “Project HAICS, the Hyper-Accelerated Interstellar Communications System.”

  “But that would mean the radio waves would have to travel faster than the speed of light,” Jake said. “And we know they don’t.”

  “Until now,” Dr. Franklin said. He touched the center rod. “The increasing radio wave leaves the central rod, propagated out at right angles to the antenna. Sideways, if you will. The same thing happens from each of the 24 curved antennas, but with the opposite electrical polarity. The mesh is more than one tenth of a wavelength away from the curved antenna, so the signal is reflected and focused inward, rather than outward. The result is that the electromagnetic wave from the center antenna is the same polarity as the field from the curved antennas. So, as you noted, the signal is reflected back onto itself. You can’t destroy the electromagnetic field, but you can compress and concentrate it. As we do that, the signal is concentrated into a torus. But it has to go somewhere, doesn’t it?”

  “A torus?”

  Dr. Franklin gave Jake a frustrated look. “A three dimensional shape, similar to an inflated inner tube. Essentially donut-shaped.”

  “Ah. Because of the curved antennas, the force isn’t applied evenly, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t. Instead of moving perpendicular to the central, main rod, like it normally would, the electromagnetic wave is forced to move parallel to it, and is accelerated beyond the speed of light in the process. It’s like squeezing a watermelon seed between your fingers, at some point the sideward force of your fingers results in a linear acceleration and forward movement of the seed. Same thing happens here.”

  “So the signal is ejected at a speed faster than the speed of light?” Jake asked.

  “By a factor of a thousand. This is the radio version of a laser beam.”

  “Doesn’t that make the signal really stretched out?”

  “Yes, it does. What you end up with is a signal with a very high frequency, but an extremely long wavelength.”

  “And everything we have known about radio waves…”

  “The higher the frequency is, the shorter the wavelength will be. Every radio we have ever made has matched the antenna to the wavelength, and the radio transmitter and receiver to the frequency.”

  “So if this Interstellar Communications System really is in use, we would have to match a very long receiving antenna to a high frequency receiver. Otherwise we wouldn’t hear anything?”

  “Which is what I did three years ago,” Dr. Franklin said. “Extreme Low Frequency antenna matched to a High Frequency receiver.”

  “And?” Honi asked.

  Dr. Franklin grinned. “There’s a lot of interstellar radio traffic out there. We’re still working on deciphering it, but sometime next week, we’ll be able to say ‘HI’ to our galactic neighbors.”

  “If you don’t know what the others are saying, how are you going to say ‘HI’?” Honi asked.

  “PI. The ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference. The one universal constant everyone has got to k
now.”

  “Three point one-four-one five nine, etcetera?” Honi asked.

  “Sent in pulses, yes.”

  “So there’s really life out there?”

  “The galaxy is teeming with intelligent life. It’s time we joined our neighbors in the interstellar community.”

  * * *

  “Well,” Honi said on their way out of the Engineering Building. “That was at least entertaining. I just don’t see how it’s relevant to our investigation.”

  “It probably isn’t. After both of us being in the hospital, I just thought we could use a small break. In most crimes we have a limited set of people involved—family, friends, neighbors and business associates. That small set of players limits the possibilities and defines what’s relevant and what isn’t. In a criminal investigation with international connections, like this one has, it’s like solving a large jig-saw puzzle, but with several non-related puzzles thrown into one large pile of pieces. We can’t tell what’s actually relevant and what isn’t, until we get closer to the end of the investigation.”

  “So in this investigation we have a vehicular homicide, international money laundering, and a connection to illegal gun-running, terrorists, the murder of a federal customs agent and the attempted murder of both of us,” Honi said.

  “Plus the sudden and unexplained cooperation of competing criminal cartels, a connection to Asian gold and fraudulent gold bearer bonds that runs back to early World War Two, not to mention the strange watch. Add to that the apparent large-scale involvement of several of the world’s central banks in criminal activity and financing terrorism, and we have more information than we can wrap our arms around.”

  “So how do we sort it all out?”

  “My basic premise is that a piece of information is relevant until I can prove it isn’t.”

  “But doesn’t that make the investigation overly complex?”

  “Sometimes, but if I disregard a critical piece of evidence early on in the process just because I may think it’s not relevant, I may never solve the case.”

  “And you always solve your cases?”

  “Pretty much, yeah, I do.”

  “Okay, so what’s next?”