There was very little conversation as Douglas Freeman and his reunited team were heloed back to Sandpoint, where, as Freeman was tersely issuing instructions for the transfer of Tony Ruth’s remains back to Arlington, a major delivered the Ziploc bag. The general held it up against the gunmetal sky, examining it carefully for any sign of booby traps, though the fact that it had been forwarded to him by army rangers without anything untoward happening was reasonably good assurance that it hadn’t been rigged. Still, this was the post-9/11 world, and there could be anthrax or some other equally lethal powder in the manila envelope inside the Ziploc. It didn’t take much to kill you. The general walked downwind, away from his team, the black melted plastic bits sliding back and forth in the bag like popcorn. He carefully removed the envelope from the bag, slipped out his twelve-inch Cold Steel blade from its scabbard and, holding the envelope downwind at arm’s length, slit it and waited. No powder. Next, he carefully opened the yellow, folded, letter-sized sheet of paper: “AMERICANS SUCK.”
The general, the sole passenger aboard the DOD’s West Coast Learjet en route back to Monterey, was handed an encoded e-mail by the copilot. It was from DARPA’s General Charles at the Pentagon, and confirmed what Freeman had feared most, that the black blobs of plastic in the Ziploc bag had once been a computer disk. The sickening implication was that the terrorists must have downloaded and transmitted the super-cavitation data via hilltop line-of-sight modem — and that with apparently no copies at DARPA ALPHA, America now had no record of the data, shifting the balance of power dramatically, and terrifyingly, from the West to the terrorists.
The general’s concomitant fear was that already the precious data was being fed into the brains of computer-controlled lathes that could turn the requisite hard carbon and steel composites into weaponry and ammunition with hitherto undreamed-of accuracy and destructive power.
Eleanor Prenty handled the news networks with typical aplomb. She allowed Marte Price to interview her on this evening’s
“What kind of material?” asked Marte Price.
“Personnel files.”
The look of incredulity from Marte Price was seen by millions of viewers. “Secretary Prenty, are you telling me that—” She glanced down at her notes. “—ten, no,
Prenty’s Washington-honed expression gave away nothing.
CHAPTER NINE
“So!” the President growled at Eleanor Prenty, who was standing respectfully behind him on the Oval Office’s carpet as the chief executive of the United States, hands clasped behind him, gazed out through the bulletproof glass into the Rose Garden. “The hard drive’s been destroyed and the
“Mr. President,” said Eleanor, in what was almost certainly the understatement of her career, “I know it looks bad.” She paused. “It
“For God’s sake, Eleanor, speak English!”
“Sorry, sir. That’s computer precision lathing equipment that would be needed to tool up for the extraordinarily small tolerances required to produce the super-cavitation hardware. I’ve alerted every one of our embassies, consulates, cultural, and trade liaison offices to keep their eyes peeled for any shipments of such ultra- high-quality equipment to any big or small-arms manufacturers throughout the world. And for all we know, Roberta Juarez—” She saw that the president was trying to put a name to a face and explained, “She was one of the senior scientists working on this super-cavitation stuff.”
“Yes,” replied the president. “I remember now.”
“She was the one,” continued Eleanor, “who alerted us to the fact that the floppy backup disk had a battery transmitter in its hub before she died. Another of the dead scientists had a note in his hand with ‘RAM’ and ‘SCARUND’ written on it.”
“My God, you think that’s that sarin — nerve gas?”
“No,” said Eleanor, “but, given it was presumably the last thing he wrote, we presume it’s the name of the terrorist leader or that of one of the other terrorists.”
“Huh! Probably the one who left Freeman that note.” The president turned around to face her. “That must have hurt. Filthy insult like that.”
“I’m sure it did,” said Eleanor. “It upset me.” She took a sheet of paper from her briefcase. “This is the forensics report on the envelope and the discarded shoulder-fired rocket launcher the terrorists used to down the Chinook.”
“What have we got?” the president asked glumly. His reelection desk calendar reminded him that tomorrow he was to give a progress report on the war against terrorism.
(1) TRACES OF THIOKOL TX-657 REDUCED-SMOKE SOLID FUEL WITH DISTINCTIVE SULFUR CONTENT, AS SUSPECTED BY GENERAL FREEMAN WHO WITNESSED THE MANPAD LAUNCH. SPECTROMETER ANALYSIS OF SULFUR LOCATION SPECIFIC.
(2) ELECTRON MICROSCOPE AND SPECTROMETER ANALYSES OF BROWN ENVELOPE, WHICH IS CHINESE, AND YELLOW PAPER NOTE ADDRESSED TO GENERAL FREEMAN AND PLACED INSIDE TRANSPARENT PLASTIC ZIPLOC BAG REVEAL PULP ACID USED TO MANUFACTURE PAPER NORTHEASTERN CHINA. ALSO YELLOW PAPER IS 21 CM ?29.7 CM, A STANDARD CHINESE SHEET, WHILE OURS IS 21.5 CM ? 27.9 CM. SEVERAL MICROSCOPIC GRAINS OF SOIL DETRITUS FOUND IN DISCARDED U.S. UNIFORMS ON CANADA SIDE OF IDAHO-CANADA BORDER REVEAL LOCALIZED IDAHO — BRITISH COLUMBIA DEPOSITS. GRAINS OF SOIL AND GRASSES FROM BOOTS’ SOLES AND INTERIORS WERE ALSO SPECTROMETERED AND REVEALED SOIL INDIGENOUS NOT ONLY TO PACIFIC NORTHWEST BUT TO AREAS OF NORTHEASTERN CHINA AND RUSSIAN FAR EAST IN LAND ADJACENT TO AND INCLUDING LARGE WILD BIRD SANCTUARY IN AND AROUND LAKE KHANKA. DEPOSITS OF CRUSHED BIRD EGGSHELL AND DISPROPORTIONATE AMOUNT OF GUANO WERE FOUND DEEP IN THE SOLES OF SOME OF THE BOOTS, THE GUANO’S COMPOSITION POINTING TO TANCHO AND SEVERAL SPECIES THAT NORMALLY CLUSTER NEAR OR ON LARGE BODIES OF FRESH WATER, SUCH AS LAKE KHANKA. INSIDE THE BOOTS SEVERAL MICROSCOPIC SPECKS OF ANT REMAINS DETECTED, ALSO INDIGENOUS TO LAKE KHANKA AREA.
“So, Eleanor,” asked the president, “what’s your take on this soil stuff? A wild bird sanctuary? You think any of this has anything to do with the attack on DARPA ALPHA?”
Eleanor shrugged. “CIA has used soil forensics to locate terrorist training areas in the past. The director of national intel is more interested in how we can stop the manufacture of DARPA ALPHA’s hypersonic technology. As I did, he’s also alerted the State Department, which has sent an Immediate/Urgent Defcon 3 to all U.S. embassies’ military attaches to be on the lookout for the movement of any high-precision computer-slaved lathing equipment needed to tool up for everything from torpedo and artillery nose cones to small-arms 7.62 mm rounds. CIA and DARPA ALPHA’s General Charles concur that in two months at the latest, one damned terrorist with a rifle will be able to take out anything, from an M1 Abrams tank to our billion-dollar Joint Strike Fighters to any commercial aircraft or any other vehicle.”
The president unleashed a train of obscenities, several of which Eleanor hadn’t heard since 9/11.
“Let’s pray, Eleanor, that someone somewhere can get a handle on this. Do we have current SATPIX of this Lake—” He looked down at the DHS report. “—Khanka?”
“CIA courier is bringing over a package.” She glanced at her watch. It was almost time for the next press briefing. Right now she wanted to quit the White House, get out from all the pressure, go home, and be with her daughter Jennifer, go shopping, play Scrabble. No, that would take too much energy. Why not go to bed — pull the covers up, go into a cave, do anything but face a hostile Washington press corps? She imagined that this was how Condi Rice must have felt when confronted by the European press scrums, whose members had relentlessly pushed for details about the CIA’s POW “rendition” policy, in which Al Qaeda suspects were spirited away to secret prisons
