Breakthrough (23 page)

Clay’s mouth suddenly fell open, and Keister dropped his notebook.  They were both speechless.

“You see,” Palin continued, “letting one of us perish is like allowing your only true relative in the universe to disappear.”

32

Clay sat staring out the window as the Gulfstream III neared Andrews Air Force Base.  It was late afternoon and the sun was casting an eastern shadow across the Virginia landscape.  As the aircraft banked right, Clay could see Washington D
.C. in the distance.  His favorite landmark from the air, the Washington Monument, was easy to see.  Even though few passengers did, Clay reached over and buckled his seatbelt as they began to descend.   Gulfsteams were small and comfortable commercial jets used by the military, and passengers never bothered with most of the safety precautions.  However, after having run training maneuvers through many different types, most SEALs were intimately familiar with all aspects of an aircraft, where the strongest parts of the structure were, the weakest, which areas failed first during impact, and a host of other details.  Most Special Forces graduates he knew were sticklers for safety, especially while riding in things over which they had no control.

Clay lay back against the headrest.  “Chaotic” was the best word he could think of to describe the last several hours since he had spoken with Palin.  When they returned to the conference room, things had changed drastically.  The President and his cabinet were in private meetings for over three hours.  When finished, Clay noticed that several high ranking Generals had joined them. 
Langford had already sent Caesare and Borger back to D.C. to continue analyzing the data.  Both doctors were gone and only Lawrence, the man from the DOE, remained.  Finally after a short discussion, Langford sent him back too.

After landing, Clay had a car issued to him and headed west on Suitland Parkway.  The sun was close to setting and the drive was slow as everyone headed home in rush hour traffic.  Crossing the bridge to South Capitol Street, the traffic lightened a little until 395 where it slowed again.  He made his way over the 14
th
Street Bridge and pulled into the emptying parking lot of the Pentagon.  He had barely landed when Caesare called and asked if he could swing by Borger’s office before his own.  Clay walked briskly through an entrance and down a flight of stairs. 

When he walked in, Caesare and Borger were both sitting in the middle of the room talking to each other. 

“Hi Clay!”  Uncharacteristically, Borger jumped up from the chair and ushered Clay in.  He motioned to a chair for Clay, while he shut the door behind him.  “Thanks for coming.”

Clay nodded and sat down heavily.  “Everything okay?” Caesare asked.

Clay shrugged.  “I guess it depends on your definition of okay.”  He ran his fingers through his hair.  “Things got interesting when I got back upstairs.”

“Yeah,” Caesare said, “we got shipped out of there in a hurry.  Must have been some conversation you had with
ole’ Palin.”

“You could say that.”  He looked at Borger who was examining the walls.  “What’s with him?”

“I don’t know.”  Caesare said looking back at him.  “He just scanned the room for bugs.  He wants to talk to us about something important but wanted to wait for you.”

Clay watched Borger curiously.  After he was finished, he came back and sat in front of Clay and Caesare.  “Okay, we’re clean,” he said, adjusting himself in the chair.  He began immediately.  “Look, I need to talk to you guys about something.” 

They both nodded.

“I think we have a problem, a very big problem.”  Clay could not remember seeing Borger this excited.  “I think that guy Lawrence in our meeting at JAX is wrong.  And I mean really wrong.  When the President asked if there was any downside to destroying the ring and he said ‘no’, well I think there is.  You see, we know this ring is a portal and if it is operating on the same fundamental theories as we believe it would operate-”

“We?” Clay asked.

Borger shook his head.  “Not we as in us, we as in our physicists.  Anyway, if it works the same way, which I believe it does, then the other end of that tunnel is literally bound to this end.  They are both exactly the same size, they’re turning at the same speed, and powered by the same energy…which means that space and time would see them as
one
gateway.”

“So…” Caesare said slowly.  “if you destroyed one…”

“Then you would destroy them both!” Borger replied excitedly.  “Why that guy would say the ring was self-contained makes no sense.  How on earth could he believe that?  Either he is seriously incompetent or he is lying for some reason that makes no sense.”

Caesare cleared his throat.  “Well I wouldn’t rule out the incompetent part.  After all he does work for the government.”

Clay squinted and looked at Caesare.  “You work for the government.”

Caesare raised his hands and shrugged.  “Need I say more?”

Clay turned back to Borger.  “So what happens if they destroy the ring, if they are bound to each other?”

“Well this is where it gets theoretical.  But the physics involved are solid.  And remember that the amount of energy involved here is pretty much unimaginable given today’s standards.”  Borger stopped and exhaled trying to slow down.  “Destroying these rings, with the energy involved, could be really bad.”

Clay and Caesare both leaned forward.  “How bad?”

Borger nodded but spoke carefully.  “Like really
really
bad, for both planets.”

“Oh boy.” mumbled Caesare.

“This is serious!” said Borger.  “It’s why I wanted to talk to you right away.”

Clay sat thinking.  “How sure are you?  I mean what kind of chances are we talking about?”

“I don’t know.”  Borger said shaking his head.  He wheeled himself backward and tapped his keyboard displaying a screen full of complex mathematical calculations.  “Only a physicist could talk to you about the odds.  I don’t know what the exact numbers are, but they’re real.  In fact, it almost doesn’t matter what the odds are.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, I’m a history buff.  Remember the atomic bomb we dropped on Hiroshima?  Did you know that the physicists that created it, led by Robert Oppenheimer, actually calculated and acknowledged that there was a
one in three million
chance that the fission process might not stop when it was supposed to and could go on to melt down the entire Earth?”

“Is that true?” Clay asked.

“Yes it is.”  Borger scooted his chair back to Clay and Caesare.  “My point is, that they
knew
there was a one in three million chance of destroying the entire planet…and they tested it anyway!  Obviously that didn’t happen, but they still took the chance.  They put everyone’s life on the line on the presumption that they were right.”  He looked back at the screen.  “I don’t know what the odds are with destroying those rings, but I can tell you they are a whole hell of a lot lower than that!  This time I would guess the odds are somewhere around one in five.  And this time, it’s possible that we could destroy two planets!”

“Jesus Christ.” Caesare said putting his hands over his face.  “This just gets better and better.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”  Clay said.

Caesare dropped his hands and looked forlornly at Clay.  “What?”

Clay sighed and proceeded to tell them about his conversation with Palin.  When he was done, they both had the same look as he and Keister had.  He waited for them to digest it before continuing.  “And it gets worse.  Langford was in on those closed door meetings afterwards.  When he came out, he pulled me aside and explained that they had been discussing two things, first and foremost was the details of the submarine attack which we all know about.  The rest of the meeting however, was about Plan B.”

“Plan B?” Borger asked.

Caesare frowned.  “There is always a Plan B.  The backup plan.  In fact, there is probably a backup plan to the backup plan.  Let me guess, Stevas?”

Clay nodded.  “Stevas is no dummy.  He’s an ass and a war monger, but he is not stupid.  He knows that there must be a backup plan, and that’s what they were working out.”

Caesare studied Clay.  “So do you know what this backup plan is?”

“
Langford told me that if the sub attack fails then they plan to nuke it.”

“Jesus.”  Caesare moaned and put his hand over his face again.  “Those subs have all the nukes they could need.”

“No.”  Clay shook his head.  “That’s not how they plan to do it.  That was the original idea but they have another angle.  They plan to send it in…on the back of one of those dolphins.”

“The talking dolphins?” Borger asked.

“Yes.”  Clay said.  “Apparently Stevas is now a believer.  They know where the ring is, they’ve been there before, and if Palin’s people are looking at the subs they probably aren’t going to be looking too closely at the fish swimming in and out.”  Clay looked back and forth at them.  “Remote detonation.”

The room was silent.  No one spoke.

“And that’s not all.”  Clay finally said.

Caesare moaned again.  “For the love of God!”

Clay spoke deliberately.  “Langford wants us to do it.”

They both looked confused.  “He wants us to do what?”

“He wants us to steal the dolphins and the equipment.”

33

Kathryn leaned her seat back and tried to get comfortable as they pulled away from the gate.  This plane was large and comfortable compared to the last two she had been on.  It was amazing what a little heat and lack of a pressurized flight
suit could do to improve someone’s experience.  She felt like a new person after being fed and getting a few undisturbed hours of sleep.

She closed her eyes and thought about what lay ahead of her, the flight back to the Falklands, the explanation to her team, and a frantic attempt to prevent a catastrophe.  The long flight was the least of her worries.  If anything it was a blessing that would give her time to figure out how to tell her team that some of them had to go back.

She thought back to the meeting with the President and his cabinet.  At least they listened to her this time, although it may have had something to do with her essentially telling them all to go to hell.  But it also got a commitment from the President to give her whatever resources she needed, so maybe it was not all bad.  In addition to the money, he ordered his Chief of Staff Mason to make available whoever Kathryn needed with no exceptions.   Her first order of business was to contact a number of international experts that she would need in addition to her own team.  The second priority was to locate some of the best demolition teams in the country.  Something Mason and his staff were working on.  Next was to procure the supplies needed, and finally they had to do it all quietly. 
Yes
, she thought,
she had a lot to work through
.  A long flight was just what she needed.

She opened a backpack and retrieved a laptop computer provided by one of the administrative assistants at JAX.  She placed it on the table in front of her and turned it on.  As she leaned her seat forward again, the door behind her opened and a steward approached with a phone.

“Ms. Lokke?” he asked.

“Yes?”

He handed her the phone.  “You have a call.”

She gave him a surprised look and glanced through the window at the dark tarmac passing under them.  “Now?”

He simply nodded and left.

She held the phone to her ear.  “Hello?”

“Is this Ms. Lokke?”

“Speaking.”

“Ms. Lokke, my name is John Clay.  I don’t know if you remember me, but we met this morning in the conference room.”

“I remember you,” she replied.  “Weren’t you the one that asked me the causality question?”

She could not hear Clay smile on the other end.  “Yes, I did.  You have a very good memory.  Listen Ms. Lokke, I know this may not be an ideal time but I have something important to ask you.”

“Okay.”

“This is going to sound like a strange question,” Clay said, “but could other outside factors contribute to a collapse of the ice shelf?”

She frowned.  “What kind of outside factors?”

“Say, for example, vibrations or shock waves?”

Kathryn thought for a moment.  “I suppose it would have to depend on what kind of shock waves and how strong they were.”

“Well, as you probably know the government sometimes conducts underwater detonations of weapons for testing purposes.” Clay said.

“Shock waves or vibrations do travel well
underwater, but I suspect those kinds of detonations would be too small to have much of an effect.  The ice shelf is very far away.  Unless of course one of your tests were carried out very close to it.”

“I see.” said Clay.  “And what if the magnitude
were much greater, say a nuclear detonation?”

Kathryn’s eyes opened wide.  “Are you telling me that you have a nuclear test planned?  Where?!”

“The mid-Atlantic,” answered Clay.

“Yes! That would be very dangerous.  It’s a straight shot down the Atlantic right to the Ronne!”

“I was afraid of that.”

“Mr. Clay, listen to me.” Kathryn pressed the phone to her ear as the plane’s engines grew louder in preparation for takeoff.  “If you guys are planning a nuclear test in the Atlantic, you must stop immediately!  Do you understand?”

“Yes ma’am I do.”

Clay thanked Kathryn and ended the call.  He was quiet for a long moment before turning to Caesare and
Borger who were listening, “So…how bad do you guys want your pensions?”

Caesare shrugged.  “Well if there ends up being no place to spend it...”

They both looked at Borger who shook his head.  “Don’t look at me, I’m a contractor.”

Clay walked forward and sat down in front of them.  He sat thinking and then turned to Borger.  “Will, do you have any hacking skills?”

He nodded.  “In my last job, I was a White Hat.”

“What’s a White Hat?” Caesare asked.

“People that hack computers for nefarious purposes are called Black Hats.”  He grinned.  “White Hats are the guys who catch them.”