Covert One 2 - The Cassandra Compact (31 page)

“But isn't that exactly why we can't risk bringing down the shuttle?” Gerald Simon asked. “I have to look at this from the state department's perspective. We know we have something lethal on that ship, but we're going to bring it down anyway? What kind of danger are we exposing ourselves--- and the rest of the world--- to?”

“Maybe no danger at all,” Bill Dodge responded. “This isn't an Andromeda-strain scenario, Gerry. Or some X-file about an extraterrestrial plague that somehow invaded the shuttle. Whatever killed those people came from earth. But here, it obviously didn't have the lethal capacity. Take away the microgravity environment and the damn thing dies.”

“You're willing to bet the country on that theory?” Simon retorted. “Or the planet?”

“I think you're overreacting, Gerry.”

“And I think your attitude is a little too cavalier!”

“Ladies and gentlemen!” The president's words silenced the room. “Debate, questions, comments, fine. But no arguing or backbiting. We don't have the time.”

“Does NASA have any reasonable expectation of determining what happened up there?” the national security adviser asked.

The president shook his head. “I asked Harry Landon that same question. The answer is no. Although the survivor, Dylan Reed, is a medical doctor, he doesn't have the time, facilities, or help to conduct any kind of meaningful investigation. We have a general description of the bodies' condition, but certainly not enough to determine the cause of death.”

He looked around the room. “There is one thing I can say for sure: Harry Landon does not believe that there's even a consideration of destroying the shuttle. Therefore, neither he nor anyone from NASA can be permitted into our discussions. Having said that, and since you've all had a chance to examine the facts as we know them, we need to take a preliminary vote. Bill, we'll start with you: salvage or abort?”

“Salvage.”

“Marti?”

“Abort.”

“Gerry?”

“Abort.”

As the president steepled his fingers, Bill Dodge spoke up.

“Sir, I can understand why my colleagues voted the way they did. But we can't lose sight of the fact that we have a survivor up there.”

“No one's losing sight of that, Bill,” Marti Nesbitt started to say.

“Let me finish, Marti. I believe I have a solution.” Dodge turned to the group. “As you're all aware, I wear a couple of hats, one of them being the codirector of the Space Security Division. Prior to his tragic accident, Frank Richardson shared that responsibility. Now we've anticipated that at some point in time, a biological incident--- if that's what occurred--- might take place onboard a manned or unmanned flight. We looked specifically at the shuttle and engineered a special facility for just such a contingency.”

“And where would this facility be?” Gerald Simon asked.

“At our flight-testing range at Groome Lake, sixty miles northeast of Las Vegas.”

“What are we talking about exactly?” the president asked.

Dodge produced a videocassette from his briefcase. “It's best you all see for yourselves.”

He inserted the tape into the VCR below the high-definition television monitor and pressed the play button. After a flurry of snow, an image of the desert came into sharp focus.

“Doesn't look like much of anything,” the national security adviser commented.

“Intentionally so,” Dodge replied. “We borrowed the idea from the Israelis. Given its terrain, Israel has few places to hide its strike aircraft. So they built a series of underground bunkers, with runways that don't look like runways--- and have a unique feature.”

On the screen, what appeared to be desert floor began to tilt down at a gradually increasing angle. Dodge froze the frame.

“This is where the runway appears to end. But underneath is a system of hydraulic jacks. The runway actually extends for another six hundred yards as it slopes into an underground bunker.”

The camera followed the dip in the runway. On either side, a string of lights came on. As the camera descended the ramp, a huge, concrete-lined bunker appeared out of the gloom.

“This is the containment chamber,” Dodge explained. "The walls are reinforced concrete, six feet thick. The air circulation is HEPA filtered, just like at the CDC hot zone labs.

“Once the shuttle is inside, the facility is sealed. A special team would be waiting for Dr. Reed when he comes out and would take him into a decontamination chamber. Another team takes samples from inside the craft to determine what, if anything, is in there.”

“And if they find something?” the secretary of state asked. “Something we may not want to keep around?”

“Then after the team has been extracted, this happens.”

On the screen, the image burst into flames.

“What we create is the equivalent to not one but three air-burst fuel bombs. The fire and the heat incinerate everything--- and I do mean everything.”

His presentation complete, Dodge removed the video.

“Questions, observations?” the president asked.

“Has this facility been tested, Bill?” Marti Nesbitt asked.

“We've never destroyed a shuttle, if that's what you mean. But the army has burned tanks to a crisp. The air force, entire Titan booster rockets. I can assure you, nothing survives in there.”

“I, for one, like the idea,” Gerald Simon spoke up. “Equally important as getting Dr. Reed back is finding out what went wrong up there. If we have a chance of getting that information and we can destroy the craft if need be, then I'm prepared to change my vote.”

There were nods and murmurs of assent around the room.

“I need a few minutes to consider this,” the president said, getting to his feet. “I'm going to ask all of you to remain here. I won't be long.”

__________

In the next room, the president faced Smith and Klein. Pointing at the closed-circuit monitor, he said, “You saw and heard it all. What's your take?”

“Isn't it an interesting coincidence that there's a facility out at Groome Lake that's not only tailor-made for the current situation, but that no one's ever heard about, sir?” Klein said.

The president shook his head. “I never suspected that such a place existed. Dodge must have found some money in the `black' budget, where he doesn't have to worry about congressional oversight--- or anyone else's.”

“This place was built and designed for one purpose, Mr. President: to house the shuttle, remove the sample, and destroy the orbiter,” Smith said.

“I agree,” Klein added. “Bauer's operation has been moving ahead for years, Mr. President. Richardson would have needed at least that much time to create this facility. And Bauer wouldn't have gone into this project unless he had an accomplice he could trust absolutely. General Richardson's position on the chemical-biological treaty that you signed is a matter of public record. He fought you every step of the way.”

“And ultimately crossed the line between patriotism and treason,” Castilla said. He looked at the two men. “I've heard your plan. But I have to ask you again: do you recommend we let this thing land?”

__________

Three faces looked up expectantly as the president returned to the Oval Office.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience,” the president opened. “After careful consideration I've decided that the shuttle should be allowed to land at Groome Lake.”

There were assenting nods all around.

“Bill, I will expect to see complete details on this facility and the plans to deal with the orbiter and its contents.”

“You'll have them within the hour, sir,” the CIA director replied smartly. “I'd also like to remind everyone that Dr. Reed has specifically requested that Dr. Karl Bauer be present at the landing facility. I believe that to be a sound suggestion. Dr. Bauer is a world authority on chemical-biological incidents. In the past, he has worked closely with the Pentagon--- including the Groome Lake project--- and maintains a top-secret clearance. He would be invaluable as an observer and adviser.”

There were murmurs of agreement around the table.

“Then we're adjourned,” the president said. “Air Force One leaves for Nevada in two hours.”

___________________

CHAPTER

___________________

After sending Dylan Reed orders to change the schedule, Dr. Karl Bauer had immediately boarded his jet and winged east to his company's sprawling complex near the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Knowing that the shuttle could land only at the Groome Lake flight-test facility, Bauer had been careful to make his presence in California seem like a coincidence. The flight plan from Hawaii had been filed three days earlier; the staff in Pasadena had been told to expect him.

It was in his office, the windows overlooking the distant San Gabriel Mountains, that Bauer received his first call from Harry Landon. He professed total shock, then deep concern, when the mission director explained the nature of the emergency that had overtaken Discovery. He couldn't help but smile when Landon told him that Reed had specifically asked for him to be present at Groome Lake. Bauer replied that, of course, he would make himself available. He suggested that Landon contact General Richardson to confirm authorization for his presence.

Then the flight director, his voice breaking, told Bauer that Richardson and Price had been killed when the car they were in spun out of control. Bauer's shock was genuine. Thanking Landon, he immediately got on cnn.com and devoured the details. From all counts, Richardson and Price's deaths were just that--- an accident.

Which means that there are two less witnesses. Good.

As far as Bauer was concerned, both men had served their purpose. They had been especially helpful in removing that meddlesome Smith. What remained to be done Bauer could accomplish by himself.

Although he was far away from his principal facility in Hawaii, Bauer still had the resources to listen in on the NASA-Discovery transmissions. Built into his desk was a small but powerful communications console that was hooked up to his laptop computer. The screen displayed the shuttle's current range and trajectory; over the headset, Bauer heard real-time exchanges between Discovery and mission control. NASA was following the exact game plan he'd predicted. Checking the time, he thought that, barring complications, the orbiter would reenter the earth's atmosphere in a little over four hours from now.

Bauer slipped off the headset, closed the laptop, and shut down the console. In a few hours, he would be in possession of a brand-new life form, an entity he had created and which, if ever released, would be the most fearful scourge ever to stalk the earth. The thought left him giddy. That no one--- at least for a very long time--- would associate him with the new virus was a matter of indifference. Bauer's mindset was that of an art collector who bought a masterpiece only to hide it away from the world. The joy, the thrill, the intoxication flowed not from the work's monetary value but from the fact that it was unique and that it was his. Like the collector, Bauer would be the only one who would gaze upon the new variola, test it, probe its secrets. And he already had a home for it in a special containment section of the laboratory on the Big Island.

__________

Six hundred miles west of the Mississippi, Air Force One continued to wing its way west.

The president and the working group from the Oval Office were in the upper-deck conference room going over the latest reports from mission control. As of the hour, Discovery was approaching the window through which it would reenter the earth's atmosphere. According to Harry Landon, all systems onboard the orbiter were green. Although Dylan Reed remained in the pilot's chair on the flight deck, the computers at mission control had taken command of Discovery.

Floating through the invisible speakers, Landon's voice filled the room. “Mr. President?”

“We're all here, Dr. Landon,” Castilla said into the speakerphone.

“We're ready top move through the window, sir. At this point I need to inform the range safety officer whether or not to open up the channel to the autodestruct package or to stand down.”

The president glanced around the room. “What are the implications if you open the channel?”

“That would allow for possible... malfunctions, Mr. President. But if the channel remains closed, there is no chance that the package can be activated.”.

“I'll see to it right now, Mr. Landon. You'll have the necessary authorization in a moment.”

Castilla left the conference room, passed through the Secret Service cabin, and entered the true heart of Air Force One--- its communications chamber. In an area the size of a galley kitchen, eight specialists monitored consoles and tended equipment that was light-years ahead of anything the public could imagine. Shielded from electromagnetic pulses, the machines could send and receive digitally encrypted messages to and from any U.S. facility, military or civilian, anywhere in the world.

One of the three techs on duty looked up. “Mr. President?”

“I need to send a message,” Castilla said quietly.

__________

Edwards Air Force Base lay seventy-five miles northeast of Los Angeles, on the fringe of the Mojave Desert. In addition to housing first-strike bombers and fighter aircraft, and serving as the usual landing zone for the shuttle, the base had another, much less public function: it was one of the nation's six staging areas for RAID teams that would be activated in the event of a chemical-biological incident.

Virtually unknown to the public, the Rapid Attack and Incursion Detail was similar to NEST, the body of specialists who hunted lost or stolen nuclear weapons. The contingent was housed in a squat, bunkerlike building in the western section of the airfield. In a nearby hangar were a C-130 and three Commanche helicopters that would ferry the team to the emergency site.

The Ready Room was a cinderblock-lined area the size of a basketball court. Along one wall were twelve cubicles, separated by curtains. In each was a Level Four biohazard suit, complete with a rebreather, a weapon, and ammunition. The eleven men who made up this incursion team were quietly checking their armaments. Like SWAT teams, they carried an array of weapons, ranging from assault rifles to shotguns to various sidearms. The only difference between them and SWAT was the lack of snipers. RAID's business was close-in work; responsibility for securing the perimeter with the long guns belonged either to the army or to a federal SWAT unit.

The twelfth man, Commander Jack Riley, was in his makeshift office at one end of the room. He looked over the shoulder of his commo officer, seated in front of a portable communications unit, then back at Smith.

“The shuttle's almost down, Jon,” he said. “We're starting to cut it kind of close.”

Smith nodded at the tall, rangy man with whom he had trained at USAMRIID and later served with in Desert Storm. “I know.”

Smith had been watching the clock too. He and Klein had left Washington for Groome Lake two hours before the president and the others had boarded Air Force One. Klein would go directly to the test site while Smith would hook up with RAID. En route to Edwards, the chief executive had spoken with Riley, apprising him of an emergency situation onboard the shuttle, but leaving out the details. He also told him that Jon Smith was on his way and that Riley and his team would take their orders from him.

“What about the Commanches?” Smith asked.

“The pilots are sitting in the cockpits,” Riley replied. “All they need are two minutes' notice.”

“Sir, we have incoming from Air Force One,” the commo officer said.

Riley picked up the phone, identified himself, and listened closely. “Understood, sir. Yes, he's right here.” He passed the phone to Smith.

“Yes?” Smith said.

“Jon, this is the president. We're about sixty minutes out from Groome Lake. What's the situation on your end?”

“Prepped and ready, sir. All we need are the plans for the chamber.”

“They're coming through right now. Call me when you and Riley have gone over them.”

By the time Smith hung up, the commo officer had the incoming faxes laid out on a worktable.

“Looks like an industrial incinerator,” Riley murmured.

Smith agreed. The blueprints showed a rectangular area one hundred forty feet long, forty feet wide, and sixty feet high. All four walls were constructed of specially reinforced concrete. A part of the ceiling was actually a ramp that would close and seal when the shuttle was inside. At first glance, it might have looked like a parking or storage area. But on closer examination, Smith saw what Riley had alluded to--- the walls were studded with pipes that, according to the blueprints, were connected to gas lines. Smith could only imagine the kind of inferno they would create when lighted.

“We're taking it as an article of faith that the shuttle is clean on the outside, right?” Riley said. “Nothing could have gotten out?”

Smith shook his head. “Even if it could, the heat from reentry would scour the orbiter's skin clean. No, it's the interior that's the hot zone.”

“Our kind of playground,” Riley said.

“Yeah, except this time we might have to take it away from somebody else,” Smith said.

Riley pulled him aside. “Jon, this operation hasn't been going exactly by the numbers. First the president calls and tells me to break out the team. All he says is that we're going to some place in Nevada. That turns out to be some spook base at Groome Lake where the shuttle's going to make an emergency landing because it encountered a biochem hazard. Now it looks like you intend to incinerate the damn thing.”

      Smith walked Riley out of earshot of the rest of the team. A moment later, one of the RAID members nudged his buddy.

      “Look at Riley. He looks like he's about to toss his cookies.”

      In fact, Jack Riley was wishing that he'd never asked Smith what was onboard the orbiter.

__________

      Megan Olson accepted the fact that she had run out of options. The nest of wires had defeated her. None of the combinations she'd tried worked. The air-lock door remained frozen.

      Standing back from the door, Megan listened to the chatter between Reed and mission control. The shuttle was only minutes from entering the atmospheric window through which it would return to earth. She had exactly that long to decide.

      Megan forced herself to look at the explosive bolts set in each corner of the door. During her training, her instructors had pointed them out to her, saying that they were really a redundancy. The shuttle crew was never meant to use them. They were there in case a NASA ground team had to enter the shuttle during an emergency evacuation after the orbiter had landed.

After it lands, the instructors had emphasized. And only if entry through the main hatches was, for one reason or another, impossible. They had cautioned her that the bolts were on a timer that would give the ground team enough time to take cover.

“These things create a controlled explosion,” she recalled the instructors saying. “You don't want to be within fifty feet when they blow. ”

Megan estimated that at best she was fourteen, maybe fifteen feet from the air-lock door.

If you're going to do it, do it now!

From her training and her rides onboard the Vomit Comet, Megan knew that the descent through the earth's atmosphere would be even more jarring than the liftoff. She recalled Carter saying that it was like riding a Brahman bull at a rodeo. Everything and everyone had to be strapped down securely. If she remained in the air lock, she would be hurled against the walls until she was unconscious--- or worse. Her EMU would undoubtedly tear, so even if she survived reentry, what Reed had loosed in the ship would eat her up. But there were alternatives. She had to give herself a chance to get to the Spacelab, find Reed's monstrosity, and destroy it before the shuttle was too close to the earth.

Megan felt a calm descend over her, even though her heart was pounding like a jackhammer. She fixed her attention on the hexagonal bolts, painted red with a yellow dot in the center. Pushing off the wall, she floated across the floor. When she reached the bottom right bolt, she pressed the yellow dot. A tiny control panel slid forward. The LCD blinked at her: ARM/DISARM. Carefully, because the EMU suit glove made her fingers clumsy, she pressed ARM.

Shit!

The timer immediately set itself for sixty seconds, a shorter time span than Megan had anticipated. She slithered to the next bolt and quickly set it. Pushing off the floor, she anchored herself and activated the top two bolts. When she was finished, she had twenty seconds left.

She took two steps, and then floated as far away from the door as was possible. Even though she had pulled down her visor, she could still see the four pulsing lights in the center of the bolts. She knew she should have her back to the air lock, or at least stand sideways, so that the explosions wouldn't catch her in the face. But as the seconds counted down, all she could do was stare at the winking lights.

__________

Two levels above, on the flight deck, Dylan Reed was getting the final signals from Harry Landon at mission control.

“You're right on target,” Landon said. “Reentry looks good.”

“I can't see the counter,” Reed said. “How much time to commo blackout?”

“Fifteen seconds.”

A communications blackout was a natural occurrence during reentry. The interruption lasted about three minutes and was still, even after all the manned flights, the most nerve-racking interval of the entire mission.