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  "Animals survive," Fran replied. "Humans live."

  "Animals don't build nuclear bombs and lose them," Don retorted. "What do you really think is going to happen if that second bomb is exploded?"

  "It depends on where it goes off," Fran said.

  "Regardless of where it goes off," Don persisted. "What do you think will happen?"

  Fran looked at him. "I think we're going to be in even deeper shit than we know we are in now. There are a lot of variables and therefore a lot of outcomes, but over ninety percent of them are bad. And that's the only number I'm concerned with."

  Don nodded. "Well, listen, Fran. I may have had my head up my ass for the past fifteen years working for the government-I did what they told me to do and took their money and didn't think much about it. I didn't think much about anything. Hold it"-he held up a hand as Fran started to interrupt-"let me finish." He pointed at the Wall. "But the events of the past forty-eight hours have opened my eyes. I'm not sure what's going on here, but I do accept that I have a responsibility beyond my own little world."

  Pencak had been so quiet that it took both of them by surprise when she spoke. "Very good, but even now you still refuse to accept the possibility that the unacceptable may have to be accepted." Pencak's words hung in the air for a long moment.

  "I can accept the unacceptable if I know what it is. This is all so-" Batson's words were cut off as the Wall suddenly glowed brightly and Hawkins and Debra stumbled through. They looked no different than if they had just gone through a revolving door. Hawkins had his hand on Debra's shoulder and was holding her, as they both blinked in the glare of the high-power lights pointing at the wall.

  The lieutenant was yelling into his com-link as Fran, Batson, and Pencak gathered around the two travelers. "Are you all right?" Fran asked as the two tried to get their bearings.

  "We're fine," Hawkins answered, looking back over his shoulder at the portal.

  "What happened?" Batson asked.

  "We met the creators of all this," Debra said, gesturing around at the chamber. The way she said it told Fran right away that she wasn't talking about the Russians.

  Hawkins held up a hand as they were barraged with questions. "We'll tell you everything, but I want to do it only once. We don't have much time."

  "We don't have much time for what?" Fran asked.

  In reply Hawkins pointed at the hole. "Let's go up. We need to brief Lamb so he can relay it to the President."

  22 DECEMBER 1995, 2307 LOCAL

  22 DECEMBER 1995, 1337 ZULU

  Fran listened in amazement as Hawkins gave a detailed account of what had happened to Debra and himself from the moment they went through the wall to the time they returned. Debra occasionally added a comment or small fact, but it was obvious to Fran that Hawkins was well versed in giving such reports. She imagined he had to do this after every mission he went on-she was also sure, though, that he'd never experienced anything like what he had just gone through.

  When he told of the twenty-four-hour time limit, Lamb was shaking his head. Fran didn't know what to make of it all. Not having gone through herself, she thought it all sounded very distant and outrageous. Hawkins's dry and factual accounting of the events didn't lend them an air of credibility. They sounded like stories from a supermarket checkout tabloid rather than an army officer's after-action report.

  "Did you see the Russians go back through their portal?" was Lamb's first question.

  "No," Hawkins said. "We were let off the craft at our portal first. It lifted and headed toward where I presume the Russians' portal was-near the opposite wall."

  "So for all you know, the Russians might still be there," Lamb said.

  A look of frustration flashed across Hawkins's face. "That is a very slight possibility. I'm sure they would be in as much of a rush to get back to their superiors and report what happened as we were."

  "Unless they set this whole thing up," Lamb returned.

  Hawkins leaned forward. "They didn't set this up. There's no way they could have set it up." He pointed out the door of the tent toward the mine shaft. "How do you explain the portal? How were we transported? There's never even been a hint that Russia possesses such a capability. And where were we transported to?"

  "That's what I'd like to know," Lamb said. "They said you weren't on Earth, but if these aliens could transport people that easily, how come they didn't come here?"

  "Would you have come here if you were the one in control like they are?" Hawkins countered.

  "What about Richman?" Batson wanted to know. "If you have to go through one Wall or portal to get here, and another to get to Tunguska, how did he get directly from Tunguska to here?"

  "The Coalition said they had Richman for those eight hours," Hawkins explained.

  "You said you were in some sort of large building-maybe underground. Why do you think it wasn't here on Earth?" Lamb demanded.

  "It didn't feel like Earth," Hawkins said. "I know that sounds strange but the air, the building, the machinery, which I didn't recognize-the whole thing just felt very different, like nothing I've ever experienced before."

  "Why did they hide from you?" Lamb asked.

  "For all I know they weren't hiding," Hawkins said, his voice taking on an edge. "They probably weren't even on the same planet as us. It looked like a transmission. Maybe those points of light were members of the Coalition."

  Fran spoke for the first time, trying to get the conversation back on a productive track. "What is it exactly that they want from us?"

  "They didn't say they wanted anything," Debra said.

  "Then why the twenty-four-hour time limit?" Fran asked.

  "They gave us twenty-four hours because we asked for it-or to be more precise, Colonel Tuskin asked for it. I got the feeling that they were going to shut the system down in twenty-four hours anyway and were just letting us know that. We wanted a chance to come back and tell our leaders what the situation is. If any move is going to be made, then we need to be the ones to make it and then present it to the Coalition."

  Lamb threw his hands up in the air. "This is the craziest thing I've ever heard. I can't go to the President with this. He'll think I'm insane. We have no evidence other than your story."

  “If you don't go to the President with this immediately, then you might be dooming this planet," Hawkins returned hotly. “If he won't believe what he's told, then ask him to get on a plane and fly here." He pointed down. "There's hard evidence right below our feet. The President can make it in less than four hours aboard the X-27"-referring to the Air Force's super-secret spy plane capable of traveling at eight times the speed of sound. "He can go through with us and see for himself. If you wait too long, the portals will shut down and we'll never know if I was right or wrong."

  Lamb looked at Hawkins incredulously. "How did you know about the X-27?" he demanded. "You weren't cleared for that!"

  "I know a lot of things I'm not cleared for," Hawkins replied ominously. "I know if you decide to get off your ass and tell the President exactly what's going on and recommend he come here, that we can do something positive for once. Let's use our resources for good."

  "There's no way he'll come here," Lamb argued.

  "Well, he has to do something!" Levy blurted.

  Batson tried mediating. "I don't understand why the aliens-if that's what they are-have to do anything. Why can't they just leave things alone? If this story is true, then things have gone all right for a very long time."

  Hawkins shook his head. "The loss of their relay station under Vredefort Dome has apparently reduced the capability of their defense system below an acceptable level."

  "Why can't they just fix it, then?" Batson asked. "If they can send you back and forth so easily, why don't they send someone through with a toolbox and fix the damn things? I'm sure the sites can be guarded from here on out from another incident like the one that happened in South Africa."

  "You don't understand this from their perspective," Levy said.
"We're a minor irritant to the Coalition. It's as if we put a radar site for our nuclear early warning system on some island in the Pacific in the middle of a war. And there's a bunch of monkeys on that island that threw coconuts over the fence around the radar. And finally one day one of those coconuts breaks the radar. What would our reaction be?"

  "We'd wipe out the monkeys," Hawkins answered succinctly. He turned to Lamb. "I think Debra's point is valid. We should be thankful that they even bothered to talk to us. The twenty-four hours is their time line and they probably feel they don't have to explain their agenda to us. What we have to do is give them a proposal to make it worth their while to either fix the system here or extend their perimeter."

  "I think it's much more likely that both of you were the victim of some sort of mind-control technique." Lamb looked at Hawkins and Levy. "Maybe these memories were implanted in your brains or were part of a computer simulation. Maybe you didn't go farther than three feet on the other side of that Wall." He pointed at the small red mark on the back of Hawkins's hand. "You were probably drugged and all this was implanted in your memory. We've had some success working with mind-altering substances and computer simulations that can do that."

  Hawkins stood. "It was no computer simulation and it was no mind game. This is real. That damn chamber down there is real and that portal is real. Richman going through in Tunguska and coming out here is real. Voyager getting destroyed is real. The transmission is real. And we know for damn sure that second bomb out there is real!"

  Lamb stood, looking anything but convinced. "I'll relay this to the President. We'll see what he wants to do." He left the shelter, leaving the team members to consider each other. Fran was surprised when Pencak broke the silence.

  "There will be no action." She looked at Hawkins. "You know that, don't you?"

  Hawkins reluctantly nodded. Fran felt her stomach churn with anxiety. When she'd first heard Hawkins and Debra tell their story she'd felt a breath of hope that her calculations might be overturned. Now she realized that hope was premature. In fact, if an adequate response wasn't presented in twenty-four hours, things could be even worse with a non-Earth threat added on top of all the man-made ones. The portals closing would simply be the exclamation point on Hawkins and Levy's story-with no chance to change the ending other than wait for the threat from the Swarm that might not materialize for generations or might appear in a day. Fran didn't think there would be anyone left in a few generations to face that threat anyway.

  "Tell me about the place you were in," Batson said.

  Hawkins described the cavern and machinery as best he could, the rest of the team listening raptly.

  "Did you see any sign of life other than the Russians?"

  "No."

  "What about lighting?" Batson asked.

  "As far as I can remember, there was just the distant light source," Hawkins said.

  "We cast faint shadows in only one direction," Levy recollected.

  "I think we were at a military base," Hawkins said. "There was the craft that picked us up and the other two in the hangar and they definitely had something that looked like a weapon system on the front. The room we were briefed in was very far underground, which indicates a desire for protection."

  "I think we were on a planet close by," Debra said. "Perhaps one in the perimeter they showed us, near Earth. The amount of time you say we were gone corresponds to the amount of time we spent on the other side. So however we got there, the travel was relatively instantaneous."

  "It was probably a staging area for the Space Forces they told us about," Hawkins suggested.

  "All that's well and good," Pencak threw in, "but it doesn't help us with the immediate problem."

  "Let's hold up here a second," Fran said. She walked across the tent to the easel where Hawkins had done his line diagrams in previous meetings. She flipped back through until she found what she was looking for. She ran her finger up the line diagram until it rested on NUCLEAR BLAST VREDEFORT DOME. "This is the event that started everything-if we're to take all that happened to Hawkins and Debra at face value." She held up a hand to forestall Hawkins's angry reply. "Listen-I'm going along with all this. This Speaker said that the fact that a nuclear weapon was still missing was one of the factors they considered when looking at the human race for eligibility to join the Coalition."

  "A significant factor," Hawkins corrected.

  "All right," Fran said. "Even better, a significant factor. That's understandable, because the other bomb is the one that started this whole mess. Well, wouldn't it be a sign of good faith if that one missing bomb was tracked down and brought under control?"

  Hawkins nodded slowly, thinking about it. "Yes. I think that might make an impact on their consideration of the options."

  "At the very least it might influence them to give us more time to get the politicians to support more positive steps," Pencak noted. "They might keep the portals open awhile longer. I think recovering that bomb would be an excellent first move."

  "That's all well and good," Hawkins said. "Except for the fact that I was part of the U.S.'s team to track that bomb down and we didn't have much of an idea of where it is."

  "But maybe the Russians do," Pencak said. "Maybe this Colonel Tuskin might have a good idea."

  "Except he's on the other side of the world right now," Batson said. "And he's probably getting the same chilly reception there from his superiors that you received from Lamb."

  22 DECEMBER 1995, 2323 LOCAL

  22 DECEMBER 1995, 1353 ZULU

  Despite having worked with the president for over eighteen years-from his early days as a governor-Lamb was uncertain what the expression on the man's face in the video monitor meant He'd just relayed Hawkins's story as briefly and as factually as he could and the President had listened without comment until now.

  "Christ, Steve. What am I supposed to do? Do you believe this stuff?"

  Lamb had been asking himself the same question ever since he'd listened to Hawkins. "No, sir, I don't But I don't think we should dismiss this outright. Something is going on here-something that is very significant There's a possibility that the Coalition story could be true, a possibility we can't afford to ignore. Even if it isn't true, we're dealing with some very advanced technology and if someone on Earth is behind it, we need to find out damn fast who it is. The most obvious answer is the Russians, but if they are, I don't understand what they're doing. None of it makes much sense."

  The President's face drew in tight, a look that Lamb was familiar with-he was upset. "Then call me when you make some sense out of it, Steve, but don't dump all this nonsense on my desk and expect me to sort it out. That's your job! I've got half a dozen major crises and God knows how many minor ones that I'm dealing with-ones that I know are real. Am I supposed to call Pamarov over this? And have him throw what happened with the Orion team at Tunguska in my face? Am I supposed to go to Congress with it? And what exactly am I to tell them? What are we supposed to do? If these things shut down in twenty-four hours, maybe that's all for the best."

  Lamb was silent. The President glared at the screen for a few seconds, trying to regain his temper. When he spoke again, the anger was gone, replaced by a deep weariness. "When you figure things out, Steve, you give me a call with some recommendations. If you think it's such a priority, then you work that much harder to solve it."

  The screen went blank. Lamb turned off his communications set and sat still for almost five minutes. Then he pushed a button on his desk. "Come in."

  Colonel Tolliver and Major Hawkins entered the communications shelter. Lamb looked at Tolliver first. "Report."

  The Marine colonel worked from farthest threat in. "The Navy's got aerial and electronic surveillance of the Russian fleet off the coast. The Russians are holding in place. We've alerted the Australian authorities to be on the lookout for Russian agents. No reports from them of anyone suspicious. Our outer and inner perimeters are secure."

  "I want a squad of your m
en detached to my direct command as of now. Have the officer in charge report to Captain Tomkins at the mine shaft."

  "Yes, sir."

  "That's all." Lamb waited until the marine was gone and then turned to Hawkins. "We've picked up some new information on Pencak," Lamb pulled a manila envelope out of his briefcase and handed it to Hawkins. "That's the dossier on Felix Zigorski-the Russian scientist she was involved with."

  Hawkins pulled a sheaf of papers out and glanced at the cover sheet. "She volunteered that he worked with the cosmonaut program." He scanned down. "There's nothing that significant here. Looks like he was legitimate as a scientist, although that doesn't rule out his doing covert work for the old KGB."

  Lamb pointed at the envelope. "There's a picture of Zigorski in there. I suggest you take a look at it."

  Hawkins reached in and pulled out an eight-by-ten glossy. He stared at the figure in the picture and then looked up at Lamb. "What the hell happened to him?"

  "He was in a tank in the Great Patriotic War," Lamb said, using the Russian term for World War II. "It got hit during the battle of Kursk and burned up. They pulled Zigorski out and somehow he survived."

  Hawkins looked at the photo again, noting the man's deformities. Zigorski's skin in the picture was bright red and looked freshly boiled. He was missing his right arm and was seated in a wheelchair. It was hard to tell from the picture what state his legs were in. "Well, I can certainly see now the attraction he held for Pencak," he said sarcastically. "But is there any indication that he and Pencak might have been part of some plan that has anything to do with what's going on now? We know they were both at Tunguska. Is there any record of either of them ever coming here to Australia?"

  "No."

  Hawkins tossed the picture and dossier down. "What about Batson? How were his last psych and security evals for Hermes?"

  "Good to go on both."

  "His last polygraph?"

  "Clean."

  "He's clean?" Hawkins asked, surprised. "Your people gave an alcoholic a clean bill of health?"

  "It wasn't that bad last time he was checked," Lamb said.