The Rock Page 2

  "Let's go." He grabbed Lona's arm and they sprinted back the way they had come so many hours earlier. To the truck where the two waiting men threw questions at them. Could that small earthquake have been it? That's all? Where was the cloud?

  Nabaktu ordered them silent and they sped away down toward Soweto Township to hide among the hundreds of thousands huddled there in the cheap shacks.

  And below the dome, two miles down, the rocks took hours to cool and congeal; microscopic bits of foreign matter that had once been men joining the minerals and stone.

  Deep Space Communication Center,

  Site 14, Vicinity Alice Springs, Australia

  17 DECEMBER 1995, 1330 LOCAL

  17 DECEMBER 1995, 0400 ZULU

  The sun bakes the sandy surface around Alice Springs, the intense heat causing the light to wave and bend. The only humans native to the Australian Outback-the Aborigines-did so through hundreds of generations of adaptation to their harsh environment. Life for them was finding water and food.

  Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest continent, equal in size to the continental United States. The Aborigines are estimated to have been there for more than thirty thousand years. For all those years they were completely isolated from the rest of the world. The ancient Egyptian empires, Rome, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Industrial Age-all came and went and the Aborigines remained the same until the coming of the white man.

  When the first Aborigines arrived in Australia, the center of the continent was fertile, containing lush jungles and swamps. The present Red Center was born approximately ten to twenty thousand years earlier when the world's climate changed and the land dried up. As many plant and animal species died and were blown away by the harsh weather and terrain, the Aborigines adapted and survived.

  The white man was an extreme latecomer to Australia when Captain Cook landed at Botany Bay in 1770. It took another hundred years before the first white men managed to cross the Red Center, going from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north. In the process of accomplishing this, many white men lost their lives, wandering through the deserts in desperate search of water and relief from the brutal sun.

  The overland telegraph line was built in the late nineteenth century from Darwin to Adelaide, and midway across the continent the town of Alice Springs was born to serve as a telegraph station on that line. A thousand miles from the seacoast and five hundred miles from the nearest town, Alice Springs is perhaps the most isolated town in the world. Because of that isolation, in the late 1950s, the United States, in cooperation with the Australian government, established Deep Space Communication Center (DSCC 14) sixty miles outside Alice Springs. The lack of interference from other radio emitters common in the civilized world made it an ideal spot to place the large receivers.

  This afternoon in 1995 eight large dishes pointing in various attitudes were spaced evenly across the sand, the sun reflecting off the metal struts and webs of steel that reached up to the sky. Thick loops of cable ran from the base of each to a junction box set in the lee of a large, modern three-story building. In that building all the incoming data that the dishes picked up were fed into a bank of computer screens, one for each dish.

  Inside the air-conditioned comfort of the DSCC control building, Major Mark Spurlock, U.S. Air Force, watched his monitors with the bored gaze of one who'd been here much too long. Spurlock's primary task was receiving classified data from the network of spy satellites that the U.S. had blanketing the planet as they passed overhead, encoding and passing on the data to the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland, on the other side of the world.

  The job had been exciting the first two months he'd been here-handling top-secret data and working with the codes-but the novelty had quickly been scrubbed away by the heat and stark living conditions. Spurlock was from a small town in Oklahoma, but even that place was lively compared to Alice Springs. He'd started his "short-timers" calendar last month, checking the day off each evening as he got off shift. Booze-readily available at the commissary-was the common cure at the base for the loneliness and isolation, but Spurlock had avoided that trap. He focused on his job, practicing his skill at encoding and decoding, trying to break some of the simpler codes used in the computer. He could often be found late at night, scrunched in front of his terminal, his fingers tentatively tapping out solutions.

  He was in the process of realigning one of the dishes to pick up an INTELSAT that was just coming into range over the western horizon when his computer screen went crazy. A jumbled mass of letters and numbers filled the entire display. His attempts to clear were fruitless. He scooted his seat over to an empty console nearby and booted that computer up. Everything worked fine until he accessed Dish 4, the one he had been realigning.

  "What's the matter?" Colonel Seymour, the station commander appeared over his shoulder. "Trouble?"

  Spurlock worked the keyboard. "I don't know, sir. Could be the main drive. I get the same garbage on both screens when I access dish four."

  Seymour checked the clock. "INTEL-SAT 3A is going to transmit in two minutes."

  An abnormality-Spurlock was ready to see Seymour's head start spinning in circles. The Air Force didn't assign people to DSCC because they were highly adaptable to a rapidly changing environment. They were assigned because they could do routine and do it well.

  As he watched, the figures on the screen began shifting in a hypnotic fashion, the numbers and the letters realigning, drifting from one place to another. He'd never seen anything like it.

  "What the hell is going on?" Seymour demanded.

  "I don't know, sir."

  "Get that damn thing back on line. I'm going to have to file a report if we miss the burst from 3A."

  Spurlock frowned as he watched the screen. "I don't think it's the computer, sir." He checked the status board. "Dish two's free for a half hour. I'm going to use it on 3A." He gave the proper commands and dish two powered up and turned, lowering toward the western horizon to catch the satellite.

  "Shit," Spurlock muttered as the screen dissolved into the same shifting pattern. "Something's transmitting on very high power to the west. It's overpowering everything else."

  "Air or ground transmitter?"

  Spurlock played with the controls, moving the dish ever so slightly. "I think it's on the ground and stationary. I go a few degrees up and we lose it. Southwest of here." He checked the status board. "Are there any military operations going on out in the Gibson Desert? Maybe somebody failed to file their freqs with Control and they don't know they're screwing up our receiving."

  Seymour shook his head. "As far as I know we've got nothing out there, and the Aussies haven't told us anything."

  "Well, sir, there's a very high-power transmitter out there and until we get it off the air, we're not going to pick up anything in a twelve-degree arc from the horizon."

  Seymour ran a hand through his thinning gray hair. "I'll get a helicopter up. If it's that strong they ought to pick it up pretty quickly and get it shut down. Contact Goddard and inform them of the situation." Seymour left the room.

  Spurlock cleared the computer and accessed the direct satellite modem link to the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

 
  There was a long pause-much too long. Spurlock grew worried and repeated his message. The reply was not what he had expected.

 
  Before he could react, a new message from Maryland appeared.

 
  Spurlock reflexively checked his screens.

  THIS IS DSCC 14. WE ARE NOT TRANSMITTING. REPEAT. WE
ARE NOT TRANSMITTING. ALL OUR RECEIVERS ARE ALSO OVERWHELMED BY THIS WHEN THEY ALIGN IN THE INDICATED DIRECTION.

  < WHO IS SENDING, THEN? WE'VE GOT IT COMING DOWN OFF METEOR BURSTS ALL OVER THE PLANET AIMED AT SPECIFIC LOCATIONS. ARE YOU GUYS PLAYING A GAME?

  < NEGATIVE, GSFC. WE ARE NOT, REPEAT, NOT TRANSMITTING.

  Spurlock paused and rechecked the other screens and the dish alignments. He tapped the keyboard.

 
  A new message from Goddard Space Center.

 
  Spurlock typed in another rebuttal with sweaty fingers.

 
  The person on the other end seemed slightly mollified but more confused.

 
  Spurlock turned and looked out of the large plate-glass windows at the eight dishes and then beyond that to the beginnings of the Simpson Desert that stretched westward for almost a thousand miles. As if drawn by a string his eyes looked upward at the pollution-free air.

  Something out there in the desert was sending a message, but what? What had the capability to overwhelm their receivers here at DSCC 14 on the ground and at the same time bounce radio waves off the belt of meteors out in space and back to Earth? Spurlock knew that meteor burst was a capability that only the military used-it was the same as bouncing a message off a satellite except the military anticipated few satellites to be up there in case of an all-out conflict. Therefore in the late seventies they'd begun using the belt of meteors farther out in space for the bounce points. As far as Spurlock knew the Australians did not have the capability to do multiple messages with such power.

  Spurlock slowly typed in his answer.

 
  Spurlock leaned back in his seat and stared at the screen. Whatever was transmitting this was powerful and very quick. No human hand could be sending that data without the aid of a computer. The figures danced in front of him, continuously changing. There was something about parts of the message that seemed tantalizingly familiar.

  Spurlock went to work. He copied a portion and slowed it down, reading the figures, trying to make some sense. He attempted a few simple transfiguration codes. None worked.

  Some of it looked almost like mathematical equations, but none that he'd ever seen. Another part had what appeared to be a rhythm. That last word stuck in Spurlock's mind and he tried something different. He fed a portion of the data into a different program on his computer.

  Turning the volume up he ran the program.

  He almost dropped his coffee cup when classical music, played at an extremely rapid beat, piped out of his computer. Why was someone sending out classical music in digital form on a frequency reserved for space communication?

  The music suddenly changed into a country-western beat played at breakneck speed. Then rock. Then back to classical. Then it turned to unintelligible garbage.

  Suddenly a mechanical voice spoke. It was speaking so quickly, he could understand none of what it was saying. Spurlock reran the tape, this time slowing it down so it was intelligible. The machine-generated voice rasped out of the computer.

  "Dos vadanya. An yong haseo. Maasalama. Hello… " Spurlock listened amazed as numerous languages, most of which he couldn't even identify, whispered greetings.

  It struck him suddenly. He spun around and raced over to the bookcase on the far wall, his eyes flashing along the shelves until he found what he was looking for: the master data binder on Voyager 2. He ran his finger down the index and turned to the appropriate page.

  There was no doubt about it-he was hearing the record that had been placed on Voyager 2 being played back in digital form at high speed. But why was it coming from land to the west?

  He had no more time to puzzle over the problem as an extremely perturbed Colonel Seymour burst in the door and stormed over to the radio in the room. Spurlock started to explain what he had found, but Seymour cut him off.

  "Listen to this crazy son-of-a-bitch!" the colonel exclaimed as he turned the set on. He picked up the mike and keyed it. "Rover Two, this is DSCC fourteen. Repeat your message, please. Over."

  "DSCC, this is Rover Two. I say again. I have located the source of the interfering transmission. It is two hundred miles from your location directly along the azimuth you gave us. We are hovering directly above. Over."

  Spurlock frowned. "Why haven't they shut it down?" Seymour hissed at him to be quiet. "Tell me again where the source is located. Over."

  "Ayers Rock. Over."

  Spurlock frowned. Ayers Rock was the most spectacular of the three great tours of Central Australia, rising out of the desert floor as if some giant had accidentally dropped it there. Spurlock had visited it on a tour after he'd first arrived on station.

  "You must mean someone on Ayers Rock. Over." Seymour shook his head at the idiocy of the helicopter pilot as he released the send button.

  "Negative. I mean Ayers Rock. I've got my skids less than ten feet above the top of this damn thing and that signal is coming out of solid rock directly below me. The needle is off the gauge on my receiver. I don't know what is going on, but something inside the rock itself is sending you a message. Over."

  THE PLAYERS

  HAWKINS Bogota, Colombia

  19 DECEMBER 1995, 0200 LOCAL

  19 DECEMBER 1995, 0700 ZULU

  The night was deathly still, the sounds of cars rumbling along the highway a kilometer to the east barely audible. The two-story mansion was set well away from the other buildings on the winding road, a sign of the money and power of the man who owned it. A concrete wall with a locked gate surrounded the spacious grounds. A light flickered in the doorway of the building inside-the guard there lighting a cigarette.

  Squatting just inside the wall, Hawkins scanned the building carefully, listening to the muted hiss of the radio in his ear as his team members reported in.

  "Puma ready. Out."

  "Tiger ready. Out."

  "Leopard ready. Out."

  Hawkins's mind was calculating. Jaguar had thirty seconds. Then he would give the go with or without that element's participation.

  "Jaguar ready. Out."

  Hawkins stood, his tall, rangy build clad in black fatigues covered by a combat harness bristling with killing devices. His face was obscured by a black balaclava and the stubby snout of AN/PVS7 night vision goggles. The silenced MP5-SD submachine gun was intimately comfortable in his left hand. The stock of the weapon was collapsed and the thick metal tube of the suppressor followed in short arcs wherever his eyes went. He spoke into his boom mike as calmly as if he were reporting the weather. "Angel, this is Cheetah. Ready to roll. Over."

  "Cheetah, this is Angel. You have final clearance. Go. Out."

  Hawkins's face was expressionless beneath the cloth covering it. "Break. Mother, what is your status? Over."

  The muted sound of helicopter blades sounded in the background of the transmission.

  "Holding at eight klicks. All clear. Ready. Over."

  "Mother, start final approach. The party's starting. Break. All elements, this is Cheetah. Start in ten, on my count." Hawkins moved forward, the three other men of his cell moving in perfect coordination with his vector toward the front door. He was taking the most dangerous way in-it was the way the commander should go.

  "Five," he whispered. In the green glow of his night-vision goggles he could clearly see the muted glow of
the door guard's cigarette as if it were a brightly lit flashlight. The man was turned sideways to their approach, ignorant of the coming storm.

  "Three." He brought up his submachine gun. "Two. One."

  His burst of 9mm subsonic bullets splattered the guard against the door, the gun giving off only the muted sound of the bolt working. One of his men leaned over the body and placed explosives just above the lock. They stepped back and ducked. The blast was brief and then they were sprinting in. The power went off as Hawkins charged through the door, and everything inside went dark. Through his night-vision goggles Hawkins could clearly see the confusion as the guards blindly reacted.

  Hawkins fired a sustained burst at a group of men to his right, sending them tumbling. His three men fanned out as they proceeded to clear the first floor. He stayed off the radio, listening to the progress of his other teams. Puma had already secured the field in back for Mother. Tiger and Leopard were working the second floor from opposite ends, having rappelled from the roof into the hallway windows. Jaguar was watching for any outside interference, providing sniper support after having cut the power. He could see what his team-Cheetah-was doing.

  "Tiger. Two down B-four." Hawkins knew that meant that Tiger element had killed two people in the room they had designated as B4. He heard the crump of explosions as more doors were blown in. No sound of firing yet. That was good-his men were all silenced, so that meant no return fire. They were three quarters of the way through the first floor when the deep-throated roar of automatic rifle fire split the silence-the first opposition.

  A laconic voice came over the radio. "Ah, Jaguar, this is Leopard. We got us one in B-seven. We took the door down but he's stitching the wall here and I'm holding for a sec on going in. Do you have anything in there? Over."