Impact

As the Marea II moved farther out into the open ocean, the wind increased to a roar and the seas rose up in monstrous hills and valleys, the foaming crests of the combers like dim gray ridges coming at them. Abbey let Jackie remain at the wheel, grateful for her seamanship. Jackie had a trick of riding up each wave at a thirty-degree angle, gradually increasing speed, and giving the boat a turn and a goose to bust through the breaking water on top, then throttling down as they sank into the trough. It scared the hell out of her but Jackie seemed to pull it off, again and again.

'Oh shit,' said Jackie, peering ahead. A line of white came rumbling toward them, higher than the others, so high it looked like something detached from the sea, a freakish low cloud. The boat sank down into the preceding trough with stomach-churning speed, falling into an eerie silence as they entered the lee of the approaching wave. Then the boat began to rise, tipping up as the face of the wave loomed above them, striped with foam.

'Ease off!' Abbey cried, losing her nerve.

Jackie ignored her, pushing the rpms up to three thousand, turning the boat more diagonally to the wave as it surged up the face. The comber suddenly appeared above them, hissing loudly, a tumbling wall of water, and the boat's prow slammed into it as Jackie gave the wheel a sudden turn. Seawater broke over the bow with a roar and raced across the deck, slamming into the pilothouse windows and jetting off into space; the boat gave a shudder, hesitated as if about to be pushed under, and broke free with a roar, tipping forward and suddenly descending. Jackie instantly throttled back almost to idle and let gravity take the boat down into the next trough.

'There's another ahead,' said Abbey. 'Even bigger.'

'I see it,' murmured Jackie. She gunned the engine and climbed the face, busting through the breaking top, the entire boat groaning from the stress, before sinking back down. They fought through the massive series of waves, one after another, mountains of water on a march to nowhere. Each time Abbey felt sure they were going under; but each time the boat shed the water and righted before plunging down to start the terrifying process all over again.

'Jesus, you learn that working on your dad's boat?'

'We used to fish beyond Monhegan in the winter. Got caught in a few northeasters, no big deal.'

She was trying to keep her voice steady but Abbey wasn't fooled. She thought of her own, overprotective father, who had never let her drive his boat. She felt sick with fear for him, shackled to the rail, out in this sea with that maniac. Her plan was crazy, in fact it wasn't even a plan. Surrender? And then what? Of course he would kill them all. That was his intention. What was she thinking, that she could talk him out of it? Should she make an emergency call to the Coast Guard? He'd hear it and kill her father if she did that. And even if he didn't, the Coast Guard would never go out in this weather.

She had to think of something.

And then, over channel 72, a voice grated out: 'Daddy's awake. Want to say hello?'

80

The agents escorted Ford into the conference room. As soon as he came in, Lockwood leapt up from his position at the head of a large conference table, ringed by suits and uniforms, surrounded by flat-panel screens. By the dark and serious looks on their faces he knew they must be at least partially aware of what was going on.

'Good God, Wyman, we've been trying to reach you for hours! We've got an extraordinary situation on our hands. The president needs a recommendation by seven.'

'I have some information for you of critical value,' Ford said, laying the briefcase on the table and gazing around, assessing his audience. Lockwood was flanked by Gen. Mickelson, his grizzled hair roughly combed, his casual uniform rumpled, the athletic frame uncharacteristically tense. A contingency of NPF people occupied one side of the table, among which he recognized Chaudry and Derkweiler, along with an Asian woman with a badge that said Leung. A smattering of OSTP scientists and national security officials sat at the far end; conferenced in on flat-panel screens were the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the national security advisor Manfred, the head of NASA, and the director of national intelligence. The long cherry-wood table was littered with legal pads, paper, and laptops. Various secretaries and assistants sat in chairs along the walls, taking notes. The atmosphere was one of tension, verging on desperation.

Ford opened his briefcase and took out the fake hard drive, setting it down gently on the table like it was a piece of Baccarat crystal. Then he took out the large print of Voltaire33, the clearest one of the batch which he had blown up at Kinko's, and unrolled it. 'This, ladies and gentlemen,' he said. 'This is an image taken by the Mars Mapping Orbiter back on March twenty-third.'

He let a beat pass and he showed it around. 'It depicts an object on the surface of Mars. I believe this object fired on the Earth in April, and fired at the Moon tonight.'

Another moment of shocked stasis, and then the table erupted with talk, questions, expostulations. Ford waited for the hubbub to die down and said, 'The image came from that classified hard drive there.'

'Where on Mars is it?' the woman named Leung spoke up.

'It's all on the drive,' said Ford. 'Everything.' He added, lying, 'I don't know the exact coordinates offhand.'

'Impossible!' cried Derkweiler. 'We would have seen that in our general reviews long ago!'

'You didn't see it before because it was hidden in the shadow of a crater, almost invisible. The image here required enormous processing time and skill to tease it out of the darkness.'

Chaudry rose from the table and, giving Ford a suspicious glance, reached out and picked up the drive. He turned it over in his mahogany hands, his black eyes examining it intensely, his California ponytail out of place among the suited Washington crowd.

'This isn't an NPF drive.' He looked at Ford, his eyes narrowing. 'Where'd you get this drive?'

'From the late Mark Corso,' said Ford.

Chaudry paled slightly. 'No one can copy or remove a drive like this from NPF. Our data encryption and security procedures are fail-safe.'

'Is anything really impossible to a skillful computer technician? If you doubt it, check the serial number on the side.'

Chaudry examined it further. 'It does seem to be an NPF serial number. But this . . . this image of yours. I'd like to see the original. This could be Photoshopped for all we know.'

'Proof of it is right there on the drive, in the original binary data from the MRO.' Ford removed a piece of paper from his suit pocket and held it up to the group. 'Problem is, the NPF password on this drive has been changed. I have the new password to unlock it--without which the drive is useless.' He gave the paper a little shake. 'Trust me, it's real.'

The woman named Marjory Leung had risen from her seat. 'Excuse me, did you say the late Mark Corso?'

'Yes. Mark Corso was murdered two days ago.'

Leung swayed, like she might collapse. 'Murdered?'

'That's right. And it seems his predecessor, Dr. Freeman, was also murdered--and not by a homeless man. Both he and Corso were killed by a professional--someone looking for that very drive on the table.'

A deep silence settled over the room.

'So you see,' said Ford, 'we have a big job ahead of us. Because not only is the world apparently under attack, but someone on our side has betrayed us.'