Freeman was naturally curious, so the differences between Bolivia and his own homeland were extremely interesting to him. Alicia’s skills as a tour guide and her effort to involve him in her life had helped to distract him from the daily pressures he faced as the full impact of the Titicaca Effect began to unfold. But the pressures were getting worse.
It had been two days since his telephone conversation with Mark Roberts and President Truesdale, but he couldn’t seem to shake it off. He was still upset about the discussion he had heard regarding the possibility of a pre-emptive invasion of Bolivia, and the feeling was very uncomfortable. He was from a military family and had always accepted the chain of command without reservation, but now he was beginning to wonder if his country deserved his loyalty. It wasn’t helping his confused state of mind.
The two of them were at the La Tranquera restaurant, less than two blocks from the Radisson Hotel where Tyler was staying. Alicia knew that her new boyfriend loved a good steak, and this was one of the few in La Paz that served anything like the beef he was used to in the States. Bolivian restaurants served beef, of course, but it always seemed to be tough and stringy.
The setting was dark and romantic, another reason she had selected the place. Soft music played in the background. Tyler continued to stare at her, thinking that although she always looked beautiful to him, she was absolutely stunning in this setting. She wore a simple, low-cut black dress which showed off her slim figure to its best advantage, offset by a single strand of pearls around her neck. Her dark skin looked almost olive in the candlelight. She had been busy dissecting the small filet on her plate when she felt Freeman’s eyes on her. She looked up at him and gave him one of those mischievous smiles that seemed to melt his heart. She knew how he felt about her. That much was obvious from the look on his face. She also knew he was fighting the urge to give himself over to her completely. She guessed it had to do with fear of a new relationship, but she didn’t know for sure. She just knew that although they had only known each other for a month, she was falling in love with him.
“How is your steak, Tyler?” she asked.
Her question interrupted Freeman’s reverie. “It’s great, Alicia,” he answered. “I’ve been dying for a good steak. Only two blocks from my hotel, but I didn’t know this place existed.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about Bolivia,” she responded. “Perhaps someday you’ll have the time to let me show you the rest of my country, not just La Paz. How much longer will you be here? You haven’t said.”
“The way it looks now,” he said, “I could be here quite awhile. Even though Thad tells me he’ll soon be able to explain the effect, I don’t think that will be the end of it.”
Alicia reached across the table and took his hand. “I hope not,” she said softly. “I’d hate it if you left now. I want to get to know you better.” She smiled again.
Surprised—and surprisingly pleased—at the turn of the conversation, Freeman smiled back at her. “Uh, me too,” was all he could think of to say. He immediately wished he had come up with a more eloquent response.
Alicia still held his hand, her eyes glistening in the candlelight. “I want to tell you something, Tyler,” she said, still speaking softly. “I hope it’s all right. Spending these last few weeks with you has been wonderful. Maybe the best time in my life. I don’t want you to leave Bolivia. I don’t want you to leave me.” She studied his face carefully for a reaction.
Freeman squeezed her hand. He had known this moment was coming and had been afraid of it. But somehow it felt OK, and he was relieved. “Alicia, I feel the same way. You’re a very special person, and I’m glad I’m here. For the next few weeks or months, let’s just get to know each other and see where it takes us.”
Alicia, delighted at the response, released his hand and smiled broadly. “You’re not getting homesick?” she asked.
“Not really. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had much time to think about home until this afternoon. It dawned on me that today is Janey’s tenth birthday. I tried to call her three times but no one answered the phone.”
“Your daughter? How often do you talk to her?”
“Not as often as I should,” Freeman responded. “To tell you the truth, I have a lot of trouble connecting with her when I do talk to her. We just don’t seem to have anything in common.” He paused, then said, “Can we talk about something else?”
“I’m sorry, Tyler. I didn’t know it bothered you to talk about Janey.”
“Well, it does,” he responded irritably. “I guess I haven’t been much of a father to her.” He felt his mood turning dark. He really hadn’t meant to say anything about his daughter. It always seemed to bum him out whenever the subject came up.
Alicia concentrated on her salad, not knowing what else to say, and they both ate in awkward silence for a couple of minutes.
Finally, Freeman broke the mood. “I’m sorry, Alicia. Janey’s not your problem,” he said. “It’s just something I have to deal with.”
“It’s okay, Tyler,” she said. “But I want you to know that if you ever want to talk about it, I’ll listen. We all have problems, and sometimes it helps to share them. As long as we’re honest with each other, that’s all that matters.”
He smiled at her, his mood improving. “How about you? Is there anything about you I should know about? Any deep, dark secrets?”
She didn’t answer right away, and she seemed to avoid making eye contact with him as she toyed with her food. Freeman wondered if he had hit a nerve of some kind.
“Well, I did say we should be honest with each other,” she finally answered. “You know, your meeting with President Maldonado was a setup,” she said, trying her best to sound nonchalant. She knew she could no longer keep this secret from him.
Startled, Freeman simply looked at her as if he hadn’t understood what she said. “What do you mean, a setup?” he asked.
“He only invited me to the dinner party so he could meet you,” she responded. “I got a call to meet him at the presidential palace early that morning. I don’t mind telling you, I was scared to death.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He told me that he was having difficulty finding out what the Titicaca Effect really was, and he wanted me to invite you to the party so he could talk to you directly about it. I tried to refuse him, Tyler, really I did. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I didn’t know what else to do but agree.”
Freeman frowned. “Well, you could have told me.” He didn’t like to be manipulated.
“No, I couldn’t. I promised the president I wouldn’t. Besides, I didn’t know you that well at the time.” Her eyes glistened as she fought back the urge to cry. “Tyler, I don’t want this to come between us. I just didn’t know what else to do. He’s the president! How could I turn him down? I’m really sorry.”
“Is there anything else I should know?”
“Yes,” she answered, steeling herself for the reaction she expected to get. “I’m supposed to tell him anything you might tell me in confidence about the Titicaca Effect. He gave me a private phone number to use.”
“You’re spying on me?” It was obvious from the look on his face that he was upset. “Dammit, Alicia, I thought we had something special going! Now you tell me you’re only with me because it’s an assignment. Shit! I guess this was too good to be true.”
No longer able to control her emotions, tears started trickling down Alicia’s face. “That’s not true, Tyler! I love you!” She stopped short, immediately regretting what she had just said. The evening was turning into a disaster.
“Well, you have a hell of a way of showing it,” he fumed.
“Tyler,” she began to respond, but he held up a hand to interrupt her.
“Don’t say anything else, Alicia. Just give me a minute to think about this.”
She dabbed at the tears on her face with her napkin. “All right. I’ll just go to the ladies room for a minute. Please d
on’t leave while I’m gone.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he responded sullenly.
She pulled her chair back, then stood and walked toward the back of the restaurant, still crying.
Freeman went over the conversation they had just had in his mind as he waited for her return. After a couple of minutes, his anger began to subside. She has a point, he thought. What else was she supposed to do? He had met Maldonado, and it was easy enough to understand why couldn’t refuse him. He was the president, for God’s sake. After a few more minutes of thinking about the conversation, his attitude turned completely around. She was right, and he was wrong. He should apologize.
Then, his mind finally registered the fact that she had told him that she was in love with him. The thought not only didn’t scare him, he was overjoyed. Somebody had to say it first, he thought. This is great! He spotted Alicia coming back to the table. She was no longer crying, but her eyes were red and she still looked very upset. He stood and pulled her chair back for her. When he sat down, she said nothing. She just looked at him expectantly, waiting to let him talk first.
“Just so you know, I love you too,” he said.
Stunned, she was momentarily speechless. That was the last thing she expected to hear. Finally, she managed to stammer, “You do?”
“Yes, I do,” he answered. He reached across the table and took her hand. “So, you’ve been spying on me and you lied to me. Is that any way to begin a relationship?”
“No, it’s not,” she said, beaming. Her eyes were glistening again, but this time it was from the joy she felt at the turn their conversation had taken. “And for the record, I haven’t actually spied on you. I’ve never called the number he gave me.”
“Because I haven’t told you anything worth passing on. Listen, Alicia, I’m not mad at you for this. I don’t blame you. What else were you supposed to do when he asked? I’d have done the same thing.” He paused long enough to quickly assimilate an idea that had just occurred to him. “What if I gave you some information to pass along to President Maldonado? Would you do it?”
“Why?” she answered. “You know the president now, and you told me yourself that he asked you to contact him if you learned anything new. Why not just call him yourself?”
“Because I’m under orders from my superiors at the FAA not to talk to him. They countermanded my agreement to keep President Maldonado informed, something they’ve never done before. I don’t mind telling you, it pisses me off. I always figured being in charge meant that I could make my own decisions without having some bureaucrat who’s never been in the field overruling me! I guess I was wrong. Did you know that the CIA is in this now? They’re probably watching you.”
“The Central Intelligence Agency? Watching me? Why?”
“Because the government of the United States of America is probably very concerned that you and I might have the discussion we’re about to have, that’s why.’
“I never answered your question,” she interrupted. “Yes, I’ll pass along any information you want me to.”
“Good. But don’t call him from your office, or even from your apartment. Find another phone that you never use to make the call.”
“You think my phones are bugged?” Alicia was astonished. “Tyler, what’s going on?”
Freeman looked around the room, making sure that none of the other diners could hear him, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “We know what the Titicaca Effect is, Alicia. You’ve seen the reports on CNN and from the rest of the news media that have descended on the lake. There’s all sorts of conjecture, but none of them have it right. President Maldonado told me he thinks it’s some kind of renewable energy source. He doesn’t want any other country to get control of it, because Bolivia needs whatever resources it can find.”
Freeman paused, taking a deep breath before continuing. The situation he found himself in was extremely uncomfortable. The last thing he wanted to do was disobey the orders of his own government, but an instinctive sense of fair play was overriding that concern. He plunged on. “Here’s what I want you to tell him. The Titicaca Effect is an antigravity field.”
“Antigravity? Are you serious?” Alicia whispered.
“Dead serious. Thad is doing some tests to verify a theory that should explain why it suddenly appeared over the lake, and he’ll let me know when he’s done with that. But he says he already has enough information to prove that it’s here to stay. Do you know what that means?”
“No,” Alicia answered. “What?”
“It means that potentially, Bolivia controls a new gateway to space. With some development, the Titicaca Effect can be used to place objects—really big objects—into earth orbit at extremely low cost. Maybe beyond earth orbit, we don’t know yet. Maldonado is right about it being a resource, but it’s much more than energy. It could be the answer to making space travel as commonplace as catching an airplane, except that there will only be one spaceport, and it’ll be in Bolivia. The economic implications alone are staggering. It could be worth billions, maybe trillions of dollars.
“You want me to tell him that?”
“Yes,” Freeman nodded. “This may be the biggest scientific discovery of all time, the beginning of the next chapter in human history. It belongs to Bolivia and he has a right to know about it.”
“Won’t you get into trouble if I tell him all this?” Alicia had a worried look on her face.
“Probably,” Freeman answered. “But tell him anyway. I was told not to talk to the president of Bolivia about this. I haven’t.”
“That will be small consolation when you get fired.”
“There’s more,” he said, still keeping his voice low. “Tell him that the CIA is involved, and that the U.S. Navy is moving part of the Pacific fleet to the waters off Chile. Tell him I know for a fact that the Pentagon is working on contingency plans for taking over the site. That doesn’t mean they’ll do it, but they could.”
“My God, Tyler, are you sure?” Alicia looked alarmed.
“I’m certain,” Freeman answered, “and I don’t like it one damn bit.”
Chapter 10: Planning an Invasion
“Colonel, there are armed Bolivian soldiers on the island. How are we going to do this without collateral damage?” The question came from General Richard Whittington, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was in a tactical planning room at the Pentagon, surrounded by the other Joint Chiefs and additional military personnel, including Colonel Tom Yancey, who had been given the responsibility of developing a contingency plan for what was now being called Operation Titicaca.
“Well, general, we believe that the Bolivians are not very well trained, and that they will not resist our forces if we appear to be overwhelming,” the Colonel replied. “We know there are only 42 soldiers, and that they’ve been there long enough to get bored and relax their guard. We also know which tents are theirs and which ones are being used by the FAA contingent on the island. So if we do this, it will be a silent night landing. They only post two guards at night, and they should be easy enough to take out without bloodshed. We’ll know exactly where they’re posted.”
“How good is your intelligence?” Whittington asked.
“It’s excellent, general. Two of the replacement FAA workers on the island are CIA operatives.”
“How will you get the troops to the lake?” The question came from Admiral James Fodor.
“We’re going to parachute them in, along with the boats, to a spot on the shore a few miles south of Chaguaya. It’s almost due east of the Island of the Moon, on the opposite side from the Island of the Sun. It’s mostly unpopulated, except for a few Indian families. Even if they hear us, they have no phones or other means of communication to warn anyone. We’ll use the motors until we’re within two miles of the island, then row the rest of the way. We’ll circle around to the western side of the island which is on the opposite side from the Titicaca Effect, then come up over the ridge to surprise the guards. Then we
’ll wake the rest of the troops and disarm them. Piece of cake.” Yancey was using a large aerial photograph of the Island of the Moon to illustrate the invasion path, taken the day before by an Air Force high-altitude surveillance aircraft. There was enough detail so that the tents and machinery on the island were faintly discernible. Normally, the photos would have been taken from a spy satellite providing much greater resolution, but on NASA’s advice the military had already rerouted all such satellites so that they would not orbit over the island, at least until the Titicaca Effect was better understood.
“Within minutes after we’ve taken the Island of the Moon,” he continued, “a second force will land on the Island of the Sun and essentially do the same thing. There are only about 25 Bolivian troops there, according to our best information. We have operatives there as well.”
The Titicaca Effect Page 9
