Cosega Sphere (The Cosega Sequence Book 4) (16 page)

The Judge listened to every word of the conversation between Savina and her assistants. Whatever the brilliant physicist did next would determine everything. Not only did her actions relate to the Sphere the Foundation already had, it also affected the one they hoped to get from Gaines. The fate of the Phoenix Initiative, and indeed civilization itself, depended on the Foundation’s controlling both Spheres. Even with the one they had though, it might mean their plans could still have a chance to succeed, as long as the one that Gaines had wasn’t used against them.

“Don’t betray me, Savina,” he whispered to the air as the group arrived back at the lab.

In the time it took them to get through security, the Judge took a call from Stellard and learned of Gale Asher’s arrival in Honolulu. The Foundation had a team in Hawaii on their way to assist Taz at the airport, but Stellard agreed with the Judge. The chances of getting around the NSA, CIA, and FBI were not likely.

“Assuming they take Asher alive,” Stellard said, warming his hands on a hot mug, “having her daughter will be even more important. Taz wants to preserve her eyesight and keep her in place, but it’s risky not moving her.”

“I agree with Taz,” the Judge said. “We have no indication that the US government is sending anyone to the hospital. Now with Asher found, they may just leave it alone. They know Gaines isn’t there since he was in Hawaii yesterday.”

“Okay,” Stellard said. “We’ll continue with the conceal and wait strategy.”

“Good,” the Judge replied. “Now, I want you to prepare for a ‘Fort Knox.’”

“It will require enormous resources,” Stellard warned, not surprised to hear the Judge reference their code word for an assault on a US government installation. As soon as Stellard had learned Gale was at the airport in Honolulu and that one of the American agencies was going to arrest her, he knew the Judge would order a Fort Knox.

“You have a blank check,” the Judge said. “You know that. A thousand men, more, I don’t care what it costs. If the government has her, they’ll get the Sphere. That cannot happen. That is doomsday, you understand? I don’t care if we have to blow up an entire military base.”

“Roger.” Stellard knew that whatever was necessary meant just that. “It would help if you can find out where they’ll be taking her.”

“Wattington should be able to get that, but I’ll send out feelers. I assume they’ll put her on a plane the minute they get her. Maybe we can get that plane.”

“Not sure we’ll have time unless you just want her destroyed.”

The Judge thought about that for a moment. Once they transferred Asher, it would be extremely risky to get to her. It would be better to have her dead than to have the American government have her.

“Shoot her down.”

—O—

Back in the lab after lunch, Savina pulled her owl-like glasses down from the top of her head and began a desperate search for the Cosegans. She’d looked before, but now everything was different. She knew Gaines was alive, she knew there was another Sphere, and she knew her Sphere was much more than an object from an out-of-place, advanced civilization.

“I don’t know what it is,” she said as the familiar Sequence cycled through, “but it makes me think that Booker Lipton’s new UQP science isn’t so crazy after all. He didn’t attract all those scientists to study it just by throwing a pile of money around. He knows something, and he most likely got it from Gaines’ Sphere.”

“A buddy of mine’s worked in UQP for a few years now,” one of the assistants offered. “I know they’re big into observations and experiments with gravitational waves.”

“That makes sense,” Savina said. “Gravitational waves changed everything.”

“Booker’s got people spending fortunes on experiments with the waves. It’s like he’s trying to prove it’s possible to move great distances through the universe, even across time. Once they proved Einstein’s ‘invisible’ waves existed, they took it to an extreme. As you know, the waves occur whenever an object moves in space, like ripples through a pond.”

“Yeah, but the ripples are made of particles a million times smaller than the width of a hydrogen atom,” the other assistant countered. “They’re impossible to detect without LIGO.”

They all knew about LIGO, the advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, which had first detected and continued to track gravitational waves. While exciting and astounding proof of distortions in spacetime, which in itself had enormous implications on what the universe is, the waves were so minute it seemed more like an astronomical Rosetta Stone than anything that would have a practical application.

“The size isn’t the point,” the first assistant continued. “At least not to the people working on UQP. Apparently they want to ride those ripples at their peaks. My friend explained it as instead of swimming across an ocean, imagine surfing across it on a big wave. You’d get to the other side much faster and with far less effort and energy.”

“Wow!” Savina said, laughing in a moment of revelation. “Booker really thinks he can find a way to travel across time . . . and why not? Light does it.”

“And all the information in the Eysen sure has.”

Booker—through his own extensive surveillance network—learned of the meeting between Dabnowski and the Foundation too late. Prior to Cira’s hospitalization, there had been an orderly system to monitoring the movements of all the scientists involved in Sphere research, but in the past twenty-four hours, all those procedures had gone by the wayside. AX agents had been reassigned and technicians monitoring the scientists suddenly had their caseloads tripled. Booker had been shocked by the meeting and contacted Dabnowski himself.

“Do you have any idea what the Foundation is trying to
do
?” Booker asked after the preliminaries, which included Dabnowski admitting to the meeting.

“They’re trying to keep the Sphere away from the government.”

“So am I.”

“But Mr. Lipton, with all due respect, you’re a profiteer, and—”

“I have funded the research and paid your salary!” Booker cried, incensed. “The only reason you know what you know about the Sphere, have even
seen
the Sphere, is because of me.”

“But you’re after the technology. You want to find ways to make the next great gadget, the next billion-dollar market, a way to crush another competitor. The Foundation does actual good in the world.”

Booker knew people believed that. The Foundation had teams of public relations people making them look like angels on Earth when, in fact, he considered them as close to evil as any group he’d ever known. He’d said many times that even though he generally despised the CIA and NSA, those agencies were far more trustworthy and upstanding than the Foundation. Booker, on the other hand, was seen much as Dabnowski had described, even worse, depending on whom you talked to.

“While it’s true, I have few advocates, Dr. Dabnowski, I can assure you that dealing with the Foundation will accomplish the exact opposite of what you’re attempting to achieve.”

“I’m glad I don’t trust you, because that would be most unfortunate, if it were true. And if you’re thinking of having some of your thugs or friends at the NSA pick me up, it’s too late. I’ve already turned over my research to the Foundation.”

“For such a brilliant man, Dabnowski, you’re a fool,” Booker said, trying to contain his anger. At the same time, he worked an INU and ordered an AX agent to pick up Dabnowski immediately. He knew the Foundation would have already ordered Dabnowski’s assassination or abduction, and wanted to save the man, and his knowledge, if possible. “Whom did you meet with at the Foundation?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because you have made a colossal mistake, and this is your last chance to minimize the damage you’ve done. I should also remind you that you signed a non-disclosure agreement which is binding, and will ruin you, should I decide to enforce it.”

“You know this is about more than one man’s career. I’ve already decided it’s worth my job, my future, even my life, if it comes to that. History may never know my sacrifice, but I’ve done what I
know
is right. The future of all of us is more important than the life of one of us.”

Booker knew AX would get it out of him, and he also had other ways of finding the information. There weren’t that many Foundation agents in Hawaii, and Booker had access to NSA tracking systems. It might take a few hours, but he’d find out. The problem was that with so much at stake, a few hours could mean everything.

The monitors in Booker’s office were filled with images of urgency; Gale Asher on the Gulfstream, taxiing toward the runway, Rip Gaines on El Perdido, the hospital in Fiji, his link to the security cameras still live. Others showed BLAX and AX operatives in various parts of the world, yet with all that activity, Dabnowski troubled him most at the moment.

He muted the call and gave the order to pick up the astrophysicist. Once the Foundation realized what Dabnowski really knew, they would grab him. If not them, then the NSA would find him once they caught up in the game, which shouldn’t take long after their raid on the university. The world had largely ignored Booker’s Universe Quantum Physics project, but if the government got enough of the scientists to talk, UQP was about to become the hottest topic in the intelligence community.

The global balance of power had been fairly lopsided for decades. The US had the edge in all areas of technology, health and medicine, space, weapons, and more. For the past seventy-five years, the US owed almost all of that “good fortune” to HITE, but everything HITE had ever accumulated paled next to the Eysen-Sphere. It was the reason they never stopped looking, and now, with what the UQP team had discovered, the stakes were even higher.

Booker watched Rip struggle in the skyroom, trying to understand the unfathomable object, and imagined what it would have been like for those in earlier times, like Clastier, Malachy, and the others who had encountered Spheres.

“It’s all we’ve ever sought,” Booker whispered to himself. “
Understanding
… answers to all the great questions . . . and yet we may destroy ourselves before we uncover that which can save us.”

Rathmore watched the plane carrying Gale turn onto the runway at the Honolulu International Airport. He knew his options: block the runway and storm the plane, have the plane fired upon and destroyed, or let it takeoff.

“Ninety seconds,” the team at the runway announced.

“Let her go and we’ll get Gaines,” the Conductor urged again.

“Where is she going to go?” Murik asked Rathmore rhetorically. “Is that Gulfstream going to outrun an F/A-18 Hornet?”

“Sixty seconds.”

“We have her on satellite. We’ll know every turn the pilot makes and our Navy MONSTER just put eight Hornets in the air.”

Rathmore looked at the live feed from the runway. On another screen, several men, who had been on the plane from Fiji with Gale, were involved in a shoot-out with federal agents that had spilled onto the main concourse. It wasn’t a matter that particularly concerned him. That was definitely within the Conductor’s domain, but he did want at least one of the men alive. He was certain they worked for Booker Lipton, and he hadn’t had many opportunities to question AX agents.

“Thirty seconds.”

Murik looked at Rathmore. The team had to start moving if they were going to safely block the runway. The Gulfstream had been cleared by the tower and was accelerating.

“Okay,” Rathmore finally said. “Let them fly.” He stood up and addressed the entire room in a loud, bursting shout. “Do. Not. Lose. This. Plane!” He then made eye contact with some of the younger techs and continued his rant. “Loose lips sink ships! That means no one outside this room is to know we have Gale Asher. No one!” Rathmore had become concerned, over the course of the past twelve hours, that the NSA had a leak. “Let me remind you that this is a Scorch and Burn, meaning a violation of clearance carries a mandatory death sentence.”

While the room buzzed with tense and determined activity, Rathmore’s thoughts turned to his prisoner down the hall, former FBI Special Agent Dixon Barbeau. Rathmore had read every file relating to the Eysen case. At the very beginning of the investigation into Gaines’ theft of the artifacts, Barbeau had made a critical decision to let a key witness go in the hopes that he would lead them to Gaines. It had not worked. The witness was later killed, and Gaines had never been caught.

Rathmore closed his eyes and said a quick prayer. He needed to have another conversation with Barbeau, but something nagged at him. Something in how Barbeau was so sure of himself, so damned self-righteous, but that would have to wait. He didn’t plan to leave the situation room until Gale Asher’s plane landed.

“Sir, King is on the line, looking for an update,” a technician said.

Rathmore looked at Murik.

“You have to tell him,” Murik said slowly.

Rathmore took the call. A few minutes later, he turned back to Murik. “King’s got the Unit moving toward the flight path.”

“Let’s hope he’s not the leech.”

“He’s not,” Rathmore said.

“We just got the report back on the tail number of the Gulfstream,” another analyst announced, as they all watched the plane soar into the sky. “It belongs to Buchta Broadcasting, a media company that owns a slew of radio and television stations in the southwest, including, are you ready for this, the one where Gaines’ father works.”

“So Booker owns everything,” Rathmore said, disgusted. “Arrest Gaines’ father. Pick up Asher’s parents too. In fact, get every relative either one of them might have spoken with during the past seven years. Boom. Boom. Boom.” He clapped his hands in exclamation.

—O—

The Conductor reported that the scientists were slow in providing information about the Sphere research and UQP. “We’ve still got nothing useful from the drives. Our experts are now saying it could take weeks, even months, to crack the encryptions.”

“That may be optimistic,” Murik said. “I talked to one source who said it could be years, if
ever
. Booker’s companies are all protected by insanely complex firewalls that have never been hacked, and ever since Gaines discovered the Eysen-Sphere, encryption has advanced rapidly.”

“It’s one of my areas of expertise,” Rathmore said. “I think we can crack it.”

“What about CryptFast, a firm suspected to be controlled by Booker?” Murik asked. CryptFast had begun selling software five years earlier. It came with a million-dollar guarantee if it was to ever be hacked. “I’ll take that check. Might even buy you a new personality, Claude.”

“Marketing gimmick,” Rathmore said, ignoring Murik’s weak attempt at humor while nervously watching the Gulfstream flying out over the Pacific Ocean.

“No one’s beat it. They even host an annual contest where they up the guarantee to ten million.”

“Publicity stunt,” Rathmore snapped. “The NSA could get through it easily, but you know we’re prohibited by law from taking part. None of our technicians could privately try such a stunt either or they’d face prosecution.”

“I don’t know,” Murik said, staring into his INU, his fingers manipulating data like a concert pianist. “Booker isn’t some software startup company.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. Even if they crack the university drives in a week, that’s too late to help us right now,” Rathmore said. “What are the scientists saying? That’s where our information is going to come from.”

“The biggest news is that there are at least one thousand scientists on Booker’s payroll.”

“More than a
thousand
?” Rathmore repeated. “What the hell is Booker doing? It only took a few hundred to design and build the first atomic bomb.”

“If I recall my history correctly,” the Conductor began, “the Manhattan Project, which produced the bomb, took about five years and cost two billion dollars, even translating that into today’s dollars, that’s twenty-some billion. Booker has had seven years, and could spend twenty billion each year without even noticing.” 

“What the hell is he working on?” Rathmore asked again. “The Sphere has already made Booker rich beyond measure with his INU technology, but there’s a lot more to it . . . Those damned scientists know. We’ll arrest them all if we have to. I’m authorizing enhanced interrogation methods.”

“On
scientists
?” Murik asked. “We’re going to torture scientists? Maybe we should round up some of Gaines’ daughter’s preschool classmates and see how they do with water boarding.”

“We need to know what they know
now
,” Rathmore retorted. “You CIA boys invented this stuff. I would think you’d be leading the charge.”

“They aren’t all here,” the Conductor said. “They’re at universities, labs, and companies around the world. And something else . . . ”

“What?” Murik asked, still ignoring Rathmore.

“They’re afraid,” the Conductor said. “Terrified, actually.”

“Of what?” Rathmore asked.

“I don’t know yet. They’re too scared to tell us.”

“Sir!” the Vax analyst shouted in alarm. “We’ve got data moving on Asher. Waves of it leaving our network!”