The room was silent as the hydraulics shut down. The experiment had worked. As some of the professors and techs smiled and patted Sarah and Professor Gallup on the back, they saw that Sarah in her triumph was not smiling at all. She slowly removed her headphones and looked at the engineering model. She turned to Virginia.
'We may be in serious trouble,' she said as she turned from Virginia to the monitor that would pass her image on to Niles in Washington and Harlan Walters in Hawaii.
'But, Sarah, it worked. That proves that--'
'Dr. Compton, please listen closely to what Sarah has to say. I just thought the same thing myself,' Walters cut in.
'Director, the experiment was a success, yes, but it proves one thing: if these incidents were created by human manipulation, we are sitting on a time bomb.'
'How do you mean?' Compton asked.
'When the plates move, even if it's only measured in mere feet, it would be enough to cause a fault line to fracture, creating an earthquake. If the wave is increased and the plate crumbles, by, say, a mile or maybe two, the main reaction of any fault that the assault is directed at may not just take out the desired targeted area, but continue on down the line. Another, even worse reaction could be thousands of miles away on the other side of the plate. Do you see what I mean? Because the actual tectonic plates aren't elastic in the least, they will pull at another point, affecting every fault line along the way.'
'God,' Niles said. 'Virginia, get a copy of the experiment over to me double quick.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Dr. Compton, someone out there may be playing with a doomsday weapon that could crush an entire continent.
'Or open up a hole in the earth's crust large enough to swallow an ocean or a continent that may not have been an intended target,' Walters added bleakly.
Second Lieutenant Will Mendenhall yawned as sat at his desk inside the security center on level three. He'd been virtually sleepless since the return flight from Virginia.
He yawned again as he was filling out the new duty rosters for the expanded staff brought in from field operations. The colonel was uptight about their little secret in the desert, now known to the man on the phone the night before.
The door opened and Lance Corporal Donny Sikes stuck his head in.
'Sir, field-unit three is reporting a helicopter flying over the north range.'
Mendenhall looked up and wondered how an unauthorized aircraft had entered the restricted area without the Nellis air police being all over it.
'Have you monitored anything on the radio from base security?'
'There was nothing on the airwaves, sir. No authorization and no order to vacate the airspace.'
'Is the air force asleep up there?' Will asked as he stood and made his way into the command center.
The lance corporal went to the large bank of monitors and gestured at the correct screen. Mendenhall watched as a large helicopter circled the old World War II hangar that the Event Group used for clandestine entry of large loads into the secret main facility.
'Europa has identified the craft as an executive-style Sikorsky S-76. The number on the tail boom is 4907653, listed as corporate 310 out of Virginia. Privately owned, and the listed owner of title is Carmichael Rothman of Rothman Industries.'
'I'll be damned; the chickens have come home to roost.'
'Sir?' the lance corporal asked, confused.
'What ground-security team is the closest?'
'Three, sir; they have the craft covered, three Stingers are currently tracking the inbound. With the mood the colonel's in, I thought it better to err on the side of covering our asses.'
'Good. Now get onto to Nellis base security and ask why they allowed a civilian aircraft onto the northern firing range, and find out why that same craft is in a no-fly zone.'
Yes, sir.'
Mendenhall watched as the helicopter started to settle onto the scrub of desert three hundred feet from the hangar. Gate one was a kill zone for Event security, but Mendenhall was not one to order the death of people just for being stupid, or cowardly. Instead, he watched as the large helicopter landed. As the rotors slowed to an acceptable speed, a door opened and a set of steps automatically lowered. Then a woman appeared and she was holding the arm of a man who looked unsteady on his feet. Mendenhall visually confirmed the identities of the two people and then quickly took the field radio from the desk at his side.
'Team three, observation only, safe your weapons. I repeat, safe your weapons.'
'Roger, weapons safe, observation only at this time.'
Will relaxed when team three confirmed that they were nowhere in sight because they were invisible against the terrain of the high desert. Dug in and deadly, as their training dictated.
As the elderly couple walked away from their transport, the large Sikorsky started spooling up, kicking up sand and scrub as it went. Carmichael Rothman held on to his hat and Martha Laughlin bowed her head as the helicopter lifted off and peeled away to the north.
Mendenhall was amazed as he saw that the man and woman were just standing there looking at the hangar and not moving. They seemed to be looking at the hidden camera just inside the old structure. Just standing and waiting.
He reached out, picked up the phone, and punched in the clean-room section, where he knew his superiors were.
'Collins.'
'Colonel, you'll never guess who appeared out of nowhere at gate one. You have to see this.'
'Pipe it down, Will.'
Mendenhall tapped a few commands into the duty sergeant's keyboard and the live video feed wound its way to Jack in the Europa clean room.
'Got it. Fill me in, Lieutenant.'
Mendenhall described everything they had on the helicopter and security situation, and as he did so, he watched the old couple on the screen. They still had not moved and they did not speak to each other. They were just waiting, just as if they knew that the Group was watching them.
'Bring them in with all due courtesy and take them to the holding room,' Jack said. 'I'll be right up. Inform Captain Everett to meet me there. And, Lieutenant, no one talks to them, and they talk to no one, clear?'
'Yes, sir, we'll put them on ice,' Mendenhall answered, and then he said to himself, 'Before they decide to split again.'
Martha Laughlin and Carmichael Rothman sat in a small white room. The hoods that had been placed on their heads upon entering gate one had been an inconvenience, but they had endured it without complaint. Two large marines in blue jumpsuits removed their coats after they had walked through a body scan hidden in the seemingly simple doorway. The weapons search was conducted without the usual full-strip search.
The special room they were taken to was stun equipped, meaning that they would be gassed at a moment's notice if they were deemed hostile during their interview. As they sat and waited, another man dressed in blue overalls, this one with a U.S. Army insignia, brought in two glasses of water for the two visitors. Rothman used his water to wash down two morphine tablets that security had allowed to keep.
The door opened after ten minutes and Everett followed by Collins stepped in. They both wore the same blue jumpsuits as the other military men and women, with their officer's rank being the only difference.
Jack looked into their eyes, one face at a time, and then he punched a button on the tabletop.
'For the record, your names are Carmichael Rothman and Martha Laughlin, correct?'
'Correct,' Rothman and Martha said simultaneously.
'And I assume you know you have entered a restricted area of a United States government reservation--am I correct on that point also?'
'You are.'
'Can you tell us how you received permission to enter restricted airspace?'
'Not officially, no, I cannot.'
