The Rock Read online

  "I think this could all be an elaborate setup," Lamb said.

  "Setup?" Hawkins repeated. "For what purpose?"

  "This is about the bombs," Lamb said. "It's got to be. I think someone is trying to divert our attention from the one still out there. Like Major Hawkins said, our primary concern must-"

  He paused as an excited Major Spurlock threw open the door. "Voyager 2 is off-line."

  "What?" Lamb asked, confused.

  "We just lost it in mid-transmission." He went over to the computer and punched in. "Here, look." The team gathered around and peered over his shoulder. He explained as he typed. "In 1990 the Voyager Planetary Mission was completed and the name was changed to the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM) and its priority was lowered."

  Digits on the screen transformed themselves into readable data-readable, that is, to someone with a doctorate in astrophysics and experience watching Voyager data play across the screen.

  "We give fifteen minutes of down link time to Voyager every twenty-four hour cycle," Spurlock continued. "We get it here, then burst it back into space to an INTELSAT V-F8 Communications Satellite in synchronous orbit above Australia. The satellite relays it to Vallejo Earth Station in California. The logical thing then would be for Vallejo to forward it directly to JPL-Jet Propulsion Labs, who's responsible for Voyager-just down the road, but that isn't what happens. Instead, Vallejo pulses the radio wave back into space to a CONTELASC ASC-l communications satellite, which relays it to the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland, which makes a copy of the transmission for their master data banks. Goddard then bounces the message to JPL in California using a GE AMERICOM SATCOM F2R satellite." Spurlock examined the screen. "Normally we don't even look at the data-just relay it. JPL called me just three minutes ago and told me that the data had ended early. I checked and this is what I found."

  Data scrolled up and then abruptly ended. "I thought at first that the data had ended because the transmission was finished, but there was still eight minutes of dish time left when this break came and it always takes the full amount of time for all the data to get in."

  "Could it be a computer malfunction?" Levy asked.

  "I've checked that," Spurlock replied. "No."

  "Maybe the damn thing's transmitter just broke," Lamb said.

  "We can check on it," Spurlock said.

  "How?" Hawkins asked.

  Spurlock's fingers pounded the keys as his mind did the math.

 
  "It will take over eight hours before the radio signal I just sent will hit Voyager 2, bounce off the high-gain antenna dish, and return to Earth-basically just like a radar wave would work. A successful bounce back means that Voyager is still out there and the problem lies inside the probe somewhere."

  "And if you get no bounce back?" Lamb asked.

  "Then Voyager is gone," Spurlock answered.

  A long silence filled the room.

  "Hell of a coincidence," Hawkins finally muttered.

  Lamb shook his head. "You all know as much as I know. I need you to give me some answers. It was your names and not mine transmitted by the Rock." He looked at his watch. "I've got some other things I need to attend to."

  Lamb made his way to the door and the door swung shut behind them, leaving the team to ponder this additional piece of information.

  FIRST CONTACT DSCC 14, Australia

  21 DECEMBER 1995, 1200 LOCAL

  21 DECEMBER 1995, 0230 ZULU

  Hawkins looked at the team members. "Anyone want to get some chow?"

  Fran stood up and stretched out her shoulders. "I could use a little break."

  Hawkins looked at Levy and Batson, but both indicated negatively. Together, Fran and he left the conference room and made their way to the small mess hall in the basement of the building.

  "Sounds like you know Mr. Lamb from somewhere else," Fran commented.

  "We've worked together before," Hawkins answered.

  "You two go back a ways?"

  "Five years," Hawkins acknowledged.

  They entered the small cafeteria and Hawkins held off on any further conversation until they had their food and were sitting in a booth.

  "You saw my folder. Over four years ago I was picked to form a new special-operations unit. A team that would do the jobs that Delta or any of those other high-speed units wouldn't be able to for practical and political reasons. We were answerable only to the President.

  "My military career was finished the minute I went on that team, as were those of the other nineteen men and four women who joined."

  "You have women on your team?" Fran was surprised.

  "Yes. They passed the requirements and it's very useful on certain ops to have a woman. Throws the bad guys for a second or two, and sometimes that's all you need." He smiled. "Besides, women think differently in certain circumstances and sometimes that different perspective can be very useful.

  "Anyway-since we wanted to be totally dedicated to doing the job, we all recognized that we had to stop thinking about the military being our career. Our career was Orion-that's what we were called. So I got Lamb to approve a half a million dollars being deposited in a special bank account for each team member. Twelve million dollars is pretty cheap when you consider the cost of a jet fighter. That allowed each of us to concentrate on the job and not worry about whether we would have a retirement someday or whether those with families would have their people taken care of."

  "Sounds kind of mercenary," Fran commented.

  "I suppose," Hawkins agreed. "However, it's also realistic. We no longer existed. We weren't army anymore. We weren't in any records anywhere, so we didn't even have to bother to come up with a cover story like they do in Delta. We had no monthly paycheck. No promotion boards. Nothing." He pointed at his uniform. "This is the first time I've had this on in three years. My rank of major is permanent.

  "Anyway-at first things went well. We ran four real-world operations our first year. All successful. No losses. Then came the new administration. I briefed the President on our team and our mission. However, it seemed like the new administration had different ideas about what we were to be used for. The President appointed Lamb as our liaison and tried slipping in some questionable missions and I had to call him on it."

  "What kind of questionable missions?"

  Hawkins shrugged. "It doesn't matter. Suffice it to say they were based in the U.S. and involved eliminating certain persons. You've got to remember that everything we were doing was illegal-both in the United States and outside of it. It got kind of hard to see the lines sometimes, because there really weren't any lines. So we basically had to believe the information that Lamb was feeding us. He and I went round and round sometimes about how much my people needed to know. He believed in the minimum and I believed in the maximum. On top of that, I don't believe all the minimum information he gave us was legitimate. I couldn't exactly go check on all of it. That's not to say that whatever we did wasn't in the ultimate good interests of the United States. I believe it all was, but it's just that in the intelligence arena there's a lot of manipulation going on-getting people to do mission A for reasons that are actually connected to mission B-if that makes any sense.

  "And that brings us to the present situation. I think we're getting the minimum information. And I'm not sure how much of the minimum is true. I'm not even sure if my name really was on the message or if the message is real."

  Fran smiled. "Games within games, eh?"

  Hawkins's face was dead serious. "That's the gray world you're in now. I've lived in it for many years. The number-one rule: Trust no one. Believe nothing you're told."

  "Even what you tell me?" Fran asked.

  "Yeah. Even what I tell you, if you're smart." Hawkins ran a hand through his hair. "The last thing my team was working on was trying to track down those two missing nuclear weapons. T
hey disappeared from a Soviet stockpile in what is now Kazakhstan. We got that through a HUMINT-human intelligence-source sixteen days ago. Apparently the bombs have been missing for about three weeks now. We believe a former Russian general sold them to the highest bidder. Of course, the damn Russians, or whatever the hell you call them now, didn't bother announcing the news. How the bombs got out of the country and where they went we don't know. One of those bombs is now accounted for."

  Fran nodded. "Vredefort Dome."

  "Right. We thought we had a line on the other one in Colombia-a drug kingpin who certainly had the money to buy one and the smuggling capability to get it from Russia to South America."

  "But why would he want a nuclear bomb?"

  Hawkins shook his head. "I don't know. Lamb wouldn't tell me that. I had to guess. Why would anyone want a bomb? The ultimate power, I suppose. Blackmail. Whatever. Lots of people would like one. Turns out he didn't buy one, though. We went in and extracted him. He knew nothing about it." Hawkins shrugged. "At least we took him out of the drug network, although some other scumbag will take his place."

  "Four years is a long time to be doing that sort of work," Fran commented.

  Hawkins shrugged. "It's all I have."

  Fran pointed at the ring on his left hand. "What about your wife? Do you have kids?" As soon as she said it, she could sense the shift in Hawkins. The hard planes of his face coalesced into a mask.

  "We had no children and my wife doesn't need me much now."

  Fran was confused. "Are you divorced?"

  "No." There was a long, awkward silence.

  Fran decided not to pursue that subject any further. "What do you think the connection with the bombs is?" This was getting very close to her computer printouts. They hadn't even told her about the other bomb still out there, just about the blast at Vredefort Dome. That other bomb on the loose would have made the results even worse-if it was possible to contemplate worse than what the numbers had shown.

  "I don't know. As Debra said-the Vredefort explosion came before the transmission. I think the South African radicals got one bomb and used it in the best possible way they could. I don't think they could have afforded the other one. We just picked up some Intel after I got here that Libya might have the other one. I don't know. My team is still on the trail. That's the only thing that makes me think that something very important is happening-they pulled me off my team to come here. And the fact that Lamb is here. He doesn't like wasting his time on wild goose chases."

  Fran thought about what her computer had predicted. "I told you my job is statistical projection. Well, I did a run after the explosion at Vredefort Dome. Fed in all the economic and political data available-although they didn't tell me there was another bomb still out there. Not that it could have turned out much worse than it did."

  "I know," Hawkins said. "I just looked at the projections."

  Fran pushed the plate of food aside, uneaten. "The weird thing is that this whole incident with Ayers Rock is what I'd call a wild card. There's no way anyone could have predicted this. It really skews the data."

  "Is that good or bad?" Hawkins asked, thinking about the spreadsheets and summaries he had just talked about with Lamb.

  "I don't know. The original future courses and their probabilities were pretty grim, so any change may be for the better. There was a fifty-nine percent chance of-"

  They both looked up in surprise as an agitated Debra Levy appeared at their table with Don Batson in tow and interrupted. "There's been another transmission!"

  They followed Debra through the hallways to the main control room of the communications center. The room had been cleared except for members of the team, Major Spurlock, and Lamb. Spurlock was typing away at a computer keyboard, his attention focused on the screen in front of him.

  "This one is different," he said. "It's on a shifting frequency, and the content that I can get isn't in the same format."

  "Let me see," Levy said. Spurlock relinquished his chair and Levy sat down. Her fingers flew over the keyboard while the other members watched. After a few minutes she sat up in the chair. "He's right. It's different in more than one way." She stared intently at the screen, ignoring the rest of the people in the room.

  "But we know it came from the Rock, right?" Lamb asked.

  "Yes, sir." Spurlock pointed out the large windows at the dishes. "We've kept dish four dedicated at minimum attitude in the Rock's azimuth. It picked this message up."

  "Was it directed up like the first one?" Hawkins asked.

  Spurlock sat at another console, leaving the one he had been at to Levy, who was working again. "This one went out with a lot less power. If we hadn't been watching for it, we never would have caught it. This was more a broadband transmission at low power in all directions. I don't think it was specifically directed at anyone spot."

  "What about down links?" Lamb asked. "Was it trying to communicate with the other locations like the first one?"

  "No, sir. Like I said, this one was just sort of put out there-we have no idea where it was directed to. It most certainly was not a meteor burst transmission like the first. In fact, it might not necessarily be a coherent transmission."

  "What does that mean?" Fran asked.

  "I mean it might just be a microwave burst of energy, not necessarily a message." Spurlock shook his head. "I don't know… I've never seen anything like this. If it was a transmission, I'm not sure what kind of transmission it was."

  Lamb was exasperated. "You'd better start explaining this a hell of lot better than you are, mister, because right now you aren't making a damn bit of sense."

  Levy's voice cut in. "I think I know what has happened. At 0246 hours Zulu, or Greenwich mean, dish four picked up a microwave transmission from the vicinity of the Rock. It was monitoring a wide band width centered on the frequency of the original transmission, but scooting up and down the frequencies on a fixed rotation every twenty seconds to make sure it didn't miss anything going out on those. The transmission it picked up was not directional. The transmission lasted a total of approximately twenty-three seconds, as best as can be estimated."

  Lamb leaned forward. "What do you mean 'as best as can be estimated'?"

  Levy was staring at the computer screen. "The transmission was picked up initially at fourteen twenty megahertz. The computer locked on and when the frequency started shifting, the computer shifted with it. The frequency started shifting up in the spectrum, then blanked out for two seconds, then was picked up at sixteen sixty-two megahertz, then again blanked out for two seconds on the way back down. The dish picked it up again, shifting back down the spectrum until it disappeared at fourteen twenty."

  "Cut to the chase," Lamb said. "What was the content of the transmission?"

  "I don't know right now," Levy said. "Part was in standard binary, but Major Spurlock's and my own analyses have currently detected no discernible code."

  "Who sent it?" Lamb asked. "The same transmitter that sent the first one?"

  "Most likely, but that can't be guaranteed," Levy said.

  "I contacted Colonel Tolliver's people out with the advance party at the Rock," Spurlock said. "The marines assure me that no one out there transmitted. Their equipment did not pick it up because they're operating lower down in the band."

  Spurlock removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose nervously. "This transmission is very strange-unlike anything I've ever seen or can find a record of. The latest military radios use frequency-skipping to maintain security. This message skipped around in frequency, but it also did something else, something quite unusual, during those times when it totally disappeared from the spectrum. I don't think the transmission stopped there-I think it skipped into a form that we could not monitor. We also don't know to whom the message was transmitted. The power level was not particularly high, but by skipping off the atmosphere it could be picked up by a receiver that was expecting it, pretty much anywhere in the world."

  "If whatever i
s in the Rock wanted to communicate with us," Hawkins said, "it could have done that like it did with the first message-using the information off the Voyager plate. If this transmission was sent in a way that we wouldn't even have picked up if we weren't specifically listening, and in a format we can't decode, that makes me think we weren't the designated receiver for it. Someone or something else is the intended receiver, and they did get it. The question is, who and where?"

  Lamb sat still for a few seconds, distilling the confusing information. "So basically what you're telling me is that we have something in the Rock transmitting an unknown message, using means we are not sure of, to a party we don't know the identity of. Is that correct?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "So about the only thing we do know is that someone was meant to pick this up-someone who could decipher it," Lamb said.

  "Yes, sir," Spurlock said.

  Lamb pointed at the computer. "We need that message broken. I've got to know what's going on. I want you to make that your number-one priority-is that clear?"

  "Yes, sir, it's clear," Spurlock answered. Levy didn't even bother to turn her head. She was already on a different plane of reality, working on the problem.

  Lamb left the control, closely followed by Hawkins.

  21 DECEMBER 1995, 1400 LOCAL

  21 DECEMBER 1995, 0430 ZULU

  ''What have you got on Levy?" Hawkins asked Lamb in the security of the message center.

  Lamb smoothed out the computer printouts and ran his finger down the lines. "Debra Lynn Levy. Born 1972, Brooklyn, New York. Her father worked for the Transit Authority as a subway mechanic. Mother worked as a secretary. No history of exceptional mental aptitude in the family. Then she was born. She began speaking at age fourteen months. Reading at two years. She was in a Head Start day care program and they referred her to Professor Allen Steinwatz at New York University, who was quite well known for his work with child prodigies.