“What the hell are they doing?” he yelled at Freeman over the roar, who had no time to reply before the two men reached the second beam, the one that was tilted at a steep angle half in and half out of the effect. The half that was inside the effect was beginning to distort visibly in the atmospheric lensing.
“Shit! They’re trying to move the beam!” Freeman said.
The two soldiers ran to the far side of the sawhorse, inside the outer limit of the effect.
“No!” Stout shouted and waved his arms wildly at the two men, but the roar of the increasingly large water column drowned his voice out.
Both soldiers had stepped inside the effect at the same time. One was holding onto the sawhorse, which remained tied to the heavy wooden stake in the ground with the nylon rope. The other man was not holding onto anything. In a split second, both of the soldiers lost their footing. The one holding the sawhorse hung on for dear life as his feet came out from under him, his body parallel to ground. He screamed as the other soldier, with nothing to hold onto, was sucked into the effect, tumbling end over end until his body slammed into the water and he disappeared.
“Oh, my God!” Stout yelled. “He’ll never be able to hold on until this thing stops!”
Malloy shouted back, “You’re right! What can we do?”
“Grab a rope and follow me!” Freeman said as he sprinted down the hillside toward the waterspout. “Bring two or three men with you!”
Malloy signaled the three workers for help, grabbed a long rope that was coiled on the ground next to the viewing tent, and the four of them scrambled after Freeman. When they reached the edge of the eruption they had to rely on hand signals to communicate because of the roar of the water being sucked into the gigantic column of water. It was like standing next to Niagara Falls, except that by the time they reached the waterspout, the rains had begun, followed quickly by falling fish and gigantic toads. They were getting drenched, and they were in danger of getting knocked unconscious by the hail of marine life splatting on the rocky shore all around them.
Freeman could barely see the soldier, still desperately holding onto the anchored sawhorse, through the sheets of rain. He grabbed one end of the 100-foot rope that Malloy was carrying and tied it securely around his waist, then handed the other end to the foreman. “All four of you hold onto the rope!” he yelled into Malloy’s ear. “See if you can get a good foothold behind those boulders! I’m going in after him!”
Malloy nodded, then gestured to the three workmen who had followed him to grab the rope. They circled around behind some medium-size rocks that were buried in the shoreline, wedged their feet into the crevices where the rocks met the shore as best they could, and held tightly to the rope as if they were preparing for a game of tug-of-war.
As soon as Freeman saw that the men were in position, he rechecked the square knot he had tied to secure the rope around his waist, tried unsuccessfully to wipe the water from his eyes with his forearm, then edged gingerly toward the edge of the Titicaca Effect. He could feel his feet losing purchase with the ground as he neared the waterspout, until they finally slipped from beneath him and he fell headfirst into the effect.
He realized instantly that he had forgotten to tell Malloy to take up the slack in the rope. It snaked out behind him as he plummeted deeper into the effect, all the way past the soldier clinging to the sawhorse, until the full length of the rope played out and stopped his fall with a violent snap. He felt the sharp pain of multiple ribs breaking and fought desperately to stay conscious as the air was squeezed from his lungs and his body swung back and forth like a pendulum, spinning at the same time. Grasping the rope, he managed to pull himself parallel to the pull of the effect, which stopped his swinging motion and slowed the rotation. He was less than ten feet beyond the soldier, parallel to the ground, and the rope, now tight, was less than a foot from the top of the sawhorse.
Fighting back the searing pain, Freeman laboriously began pulling himself up the rope toward the soldier, hoping that if he could reach the sawhorse he might be able to anchor himself to it long enough to get a good grip on the soldier’s belt. With any luck, Malloy would then be able to see what he was doing and the four men could pull them both out of the effect to safety. He felt a tug on the rope. Malloy had figured out what he was doing, and the four men were now pulling him closer to the sawhorse. Grateful that he no longer had to pull against the force of the Titicaca Effect, he held on tightly as he neared the sawhorse. When he reached it, he grabbed it with his right hand, still clinging to the rope with his left. Every move he made hurt badly, but he steeled himself against the pain and began moving sideways toward the exhausted and terrified soldier.
He almost made it. Just as he reached for the soldier’s belt, the stake holding the sawhorse to the ground finally gave way. Both the sawhorse and the soldier were gone in an instant, sucked into the roaring maelstrom.
Freeman stared at his empty, outstretched hand in stunned disbelief. Two men were now gone, and there was no way they would ever be found alive, if they were found at all. Even worse, he still had to get out of the effect himself, and he knew he had just about used his last ounce of strength. The best he could hope for was to stay conscious long enough for Malloy and the workmen to free him. He felt another tug on the rope. Malloy must have seen what happened and they were pulling him to safety. Exhausted, he closed his eyes against the stinging rainfall and held on for dear life.
It took less than a minute for Malloy and the workmen to pull him free of the effect. Unfortunately, when he crossed the event horizon he was more than ten feet off the ground. He fell headfirst and was knocked unconscious when he hit the rocky shore. Afraid to get too near the edge of the effect themselves, Malloy and the workmen, who had been joined by a distraught Thaddeus Stout, had no choice but to drag his limp body another ten feet across the rocks so they could reach him safely, which took some skin off his face. Freeman swam back into consciousness as they reached him and carried him back to the tent on a stretcher that another workman had brought down the hillside. He was bruised, battered, bleeding, and his broken ribs made every breath an ordeal, but his injuries weren’t life-threatening.
The rest of the event went exactly as it was supposed to. The other wooden beams deployed in Stout’s experiment stayed put, and the phenomenon stopped exactly on schedule. When the water column crashed back into the lake, it set up a wave front that slammed into the steep hillside before it receded. In another two minutes the rain stopped, and except for the fact that everything was wet from the rain and there were dead fish and toads everywhere, the scene looked pretty much the way it had three hours earlier. They could still hear the popping sound of the helicopter they had spotted before the eruption.
Freeman glanced up at the helicopter which had turned toward the shore and seemed to be leaving the area. “Well, at least the chopper stayed put,” he grimaced, pointing to the receding helicopter. Then shaking his head, he added, “What the hell were those two soldiers thinking? Why did they do that?”
“Let’s find out,” Malloy responded. He headed for another large tent further up the hillside where the general and his men had taken shelter from the rains. The workmen went with him, leaving Stout and Freeman alone.
Out of breath at the top of the hill, Malloy confronted Linares. “General, what happened? Why did those men run right up to the effect like that? You’ve all seen it before. Didn’t they know it was dangerous?”
“My soldiers were following my orders, and I was only trying to help!” Linares answered, looking stricken. “When I saw the beam fall off the sawhorse, I thought that we had balanced it incorrectly. I did not want our mistake to ruin Dr. Stout’s experiment.” He paused for a moment, obviously emotional at the loss of the two men under his command. “I did not know that it would pull them in like that. My God - what have I done?”
“We’ll need to report this,” Malloy said.
“Of course,” Linares replied. “I will do so immedia
tely.” He headed for the communications tent.
Back at the observation tent, Freeman had sat up, trying not to make any sudden movements that would make the pain worse. “Man, that hurts,” he said.
“I thought we’d lost you,” Stout replied. “I was ready to go in there after you myself. Try not to move around too much. You probably have a concussion in addition to those broken ribs.” He paused. “Tyler, I know you’re in pain, but I need to talk to you. Right now, while we’re alone.”
“What about?” Freeman grunted.
“I know what the effect is, Tyler,” Stout said. “I wanted to tell you without the general listening because it’s so bizarre I wanted you to have the option of deciding what to do with the information.” He paused, looking as if he were organizing his thoughts.
“Well?” Freeman said.
“Antigravity,” Stout answered. “It’s a reversal of the earth’s gravity. I not sure yet how it could possibly be happening, but that’s definitely what it is.”
“You’re kidding!” Freeman said, a look of genuine astonishment on his face.
“No, I’m not kidding,” Stout replied. “The results of my experiment prove it. I can show you on the video tape later. We set up six sawhorses and balanced heavy beams across them, with one end of the beam pointed toward the center of the effect. We secured the sawhorses to the ground, but the beams were free to move. The first sawhorse was inside the field that the effect creates, one was right on the line where it seems to begin, and the others were succeedingly more distant from the effect.
“The beam inside the effect got sucked into the water column and shot straight up. If we turn the video upside down, it will look exactly like it would look if it were falling, but in this case it was falling up instead of down. The beam that was right on the edge tilted away from the center, and looked like it was actually leaning against the effect. It stayed that way until the soldiers grabbed it and it got sucked into the effect with them. Lacking some kind of wind strong enough to pick up a heavy beam, there’s only one thing that could cause that kind of behavior. One end of the beam was lighter in weight when the effect was erupting.
“The next beam, the one closest to the effect but not actually in it, also tilted away, but only slightly. And it stayed that way until the effect stopped. That tells me that the reverse gravity field was still working a few yards away, but only very slightly. The others didn’t move at all, which verifies that it couldn’t have been the wind. The beams were too heavy.
“I can also explain why the water isn’t thrown all the way into space,” he added. “Since the effect is strongest at the center and diminishes at its edges, the water would have to stay in the exact center of the effect to go all the way into space. It’s not cohesive enough to do that, and even if it were it would have to be guided somehow. And the reason there’s very little wind is because air doesn’t weigh enough to be affected, except minimally. Thank God for that. If the air behaved the same way as heavy objects, this thing might eventually throw the atmosphere off the planet.” Stout stopped talking, a satisfied look on his face.
“Can we get a more scientific measurement of this thing? Is there such a thing as a gravity meter?” Freeman asked.
“Gravitometer,” Stout corrected. “Sure, there are ways to measure gravity. But it’s normally such a weak force that it would take a mountain of dense rock, tons of equipment and dozens of mountain climbers to set it up. No way to do that here.
“Tyler, the experiment was scientific enough. It’s antigravity, and we don’t need to measure it. It has the same force as gravity except in the opposite direction. Up, from the viewpoint of someone standing on the earth, rather than down.”
“How could this happen?” Freeman asked.
“Well, that’s the question. I’m working on it.”
“You’re working on it,” Freeman said. “That means you do know what it is.”
“The magnetism gives me a clue, but I need to do some more work to verify my theory. I need you to get some drilling equipment to the island. I want to take some core samples of the rock beneath the effect. If I find what I think I’m going to find, it will explain the effect’s periodicity, as well.”
“I’ll get it,” Freeman said. “I’m going back to La Paz this afternoon, assuming I live. And thanks, Thad. I knew you’d come through. I just have to decide what to do with this information.” He looked up the hillside, saw the general coming toward them, and said, “You’ve got the right idea. Keep this under your hat for now.”
Chapter 8: Washington
“I don’t give a damn what he promised the president of Bolivia! He had no right to make that promise in the first place. He was under orders to keep everything about the site a secret until we told him otherwise! I swear to God, I’d like to fire the sonofabitch, only now I can’t! Maldonado would go nuts!”
FAA Chief Mark Roberts was seated on one of two facing couches in front of the president’s desk in the oval office. He was fuming, and most of the other officials in the oval office, including the president of the United States, nodded in agreement. Seated next to Roberts was James Freitag, White House Chief of Staff, and on the other couch sat Ken Harris, the president’s Science Advisor and General Richard Whittington, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. President William Truesdale sat behind his expansive desk.
This was not the first time that Mark Roberts and Tyler Freeman had locked horns. The two men had a history of conflict over the right thing to do during an investigation. Freeman had a penchant for following hunches, a habit that drove Roberts to the point of distraction. While Freeman had been an Air Force pilot, used to making snap decisions when it counted and perfectly willing to bet his life on his own actions, Roberts was a bureaucrat of the first order of magnitude. He had never actually flown an aircraft - he was a lawyer, and a good one. His skill was the organization of complex processes and details, which made him a very good administrator. But to Freeman a bureaucrat was a bureaucrat. He viewed Mark Roberts as nothing more than a glorified clerk, and he treated him like one. Roberts did not appreciate it, but to fire Freeman would have been foolhardy. The man got results, and everyone knew it.
The situation was exacerbated by the fact that Roberts secretly harbored a desire to be exactly like Tyler Freeman. Harvard educated, the son of wealthy parents and possessed of a brilliant intellect capable of amassing and sorting through thousands of details to arrive at conclusions that would escape lesser individuals, he nevertheless secretly saw himself as a man of action and somewhat of an adventurer. Since his profession did not satisfy that need, he was in the habit of taking exotic vacations that tested his physical powers to the limit. Immediately after he graduated from law school, he had taken a year off to be an instructor for an outward bound program before starting work with a prestigious New York law firm. Now at the peak of his career, his job kept him desk bound and most of the people who worked with him had no idea that he was a frustrated field worker.
“Relax, Mark. What’s done is done. How much does Maldonado know, exactly?” The question came from the president.
“Everything, as far as I know, Mr. President. When Freeman told me that he had ‘brought the president up to speed’ about the Titicaca Effect, I reminded him that he had disobeyed orders. He just told me that the situation demanded it. The guy’s a loose cannon!”
“Did he say what the Bolivians think it is?” General Whittington asked.
“Yes. He said Maldonado thinks it’s a new energy source, maybe something renewable. That’s why he wants to control the situation. He’s afraid some foreign government will somehow steal it from them.”
“If you’re up on Bolivian history, it’s easy to see why he might think that,” the president said. “In the last couple of centuries, someone else, usually Americans, managed to keep all the profits while the country was stripped of its natural resources. I think if I were in Maldonado’s shoes, I’d be acting exactly the same way. Alberto Maldonado is
a visionary. He’s used to thinking about the future. That may be bothersome to us right now, but I admire the man. He’s helping his people.”
“Well, Maldonado doesn’t know everything,” Freitag interjected, “because Freeman doesn’t know everything, Mr. President. I got a call from NASA as I was on my way to this meeting. In this morning’s eruption, the Titicaca Effect brought down a satellite.”
President Truesdale, who had been leaning back in his chair, sat straight up, obviously startled. The others in the room turned to look at the Chief of Staff, varying degrees of surprise showing on their faces. “A satellite? What kind of satellite? Whose was it?” the president asked.
“It was ours,” Freitag answered. “More specifically, it belonged to the military. One of those we don’t talk about, because they’re not supposed to be there.
“A spy satellite?” Harris asked.
“No,” Freitag responded, looking at Truesdale for permission to continue. The president nodded his head affirmatively. “A weapon.”
General Whittington looked agitated. “We lost contact with Prometheus this morning. Please tell me that’s not it.”
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