There were several loud voices raised in simultaneous assent and dissent. A general hubbub ensued.
Wayne Phillips sensed that it was necessary to assimilate all that they had heard and called for quiet.
“Perhaps this is a good time to take a break for refreshments,” he said. “Let’s resume our deliberations in half an hour.”
Against a rising background of chatter, the group stood, filed into the hall and down the stairs to a room where coffee, tea, and some cookies were set out.
Phillips escorted Isaacs and Danielson as they queued up. He made a small ceremony of preparing a cup of coffee for Danielson, ensuring she had the desired ingredients, a couple of cookies, and a napkin. She thanked him and then moved off by herself, motivated partly by a desire to be alone to contemplate the afternoon’s developments and partly by a suspicion that Isaacs and Phillips would appreciate a chance to converse privately. She stood by a window looking over the parking lot and the playing field beyond, cradling her cup and saucer and munching on the cookies.
“That’s crazy,” she heard Leems’ voice rising disdainfully over the chatter. “All the more reason to look to satellites in orbit, one to fire one direction, and another to fire a return shot in the opposite direction. That would solve Zicek’s objection.”
A bit later she made out Runyan in a more conversational tone.
“ good idea, Carl, couldn’t hurt to have astronomers look in that direction. Very deep photographs taken with telescopes on Mauna Kea and in Chile. Who knows what we might see. Maybe I’ll call some friends, see what they can do.”
Runyan, speaking to Carl Fletcher and Ted Noldt, lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level.
“In fact, the first step is to make sure I have the precise coordinates.”
He winked at them and crossed over toward where Danielson was standing, his thongs flapping on the floor. Fletcher leaned over to whisper to Noldt.
“Doesn’t take him long, does it?”
Noldt smiled into his coffee and shook his head.
As Runyan approached her, Danielson finished her last cookie and wiped her fingers awkwardly on the napkin that she held under the saucer. The gesture attracted Runyan’s eyes to her waist where she held the cup. Out of habit, his gaze continued down her legs and then back past her breasts to her face, which was in profile to him. Taking pleasure from the innocent voyeurism, he stopped at arm’s length from her.
“A pretty little problem you’ve posed for us here.”
Danielson turned, a reflex smile of recognition brightening her face. She took a sip of cooling coffee and glanced out the window before replying.
“I thought we were on to something significant from the beginning, but I have to confess I don’t know what to make of some of the ideas we just heard.” She faced him again. “Beams from outer space. Could that possibly be true?”
“What do you think?”
She laughed lightly, chiding herself.
“I suppose that somewhere in the back of my mind that possibility had been flitting around since I first discovered the fixed orientation in space. I’ve been refusing to recognize it because it seemed so outrageous. Now it’s been dragged out into the open. It still seems outrageous, but not unthinkable.”
“I suspect most of us feel the same way,” he returned her laugh and laid two fingers on her forearm, a small intimate gesture. “But we’re taking a break here. Tell me about yourself. How did you get into the intelligence game?”
Danielson looked down at his hand. The fingers were those of a craftsman, large and gnarled, ungainly to look at, but capable of deft, intricate movement. She raised her eyes to his face and enjoyed the way his grey-green eyes reflected a sense of humor and well-being.
“Not much to tell—” she began.
While Runyan entertained Danielson with small talk, Isaacs and Phillips discussed the developments of the afternoon and their options for the remainder of the day. Isaacs was not pleased by any of the ideas he had heard. Phillips suggested gently that they should allow the brainstorming to continue until they either ran out of ideas or found one on which there was some consensus. They were interrupted by a woman who announced a phone call for Isaacs. He raised his eyebrows at Phillips and followed the woman out.
He returned several minutes later and headed for Danielson, his face grim. He interrupted Runyan in the middle of a funny story, and addressed Danielson.
“There’s an emergency,” he said brusquely. “We’ve got to get back to Washington.”
As Danielson looked at Runyan with uncertainty, Isaacs turned to Phillips.
“I’m very sorry, but we must go. Something has come up. I’m grateful for your time today.”
“We’re happy to be of service, of course. Your problem has intrigued us, and I’m sure we’ll continue to discuss it.”
“I hope you will. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”
Isaacs hustled Danielson around as they gathered up their things and escorted her to the car.
He drove quickly in great concentration for several minutes until he was sure of his course. Then he glanced at her.
“That was Bill Baris. The Russians have made their next move. They’ve surrounded our nuclear satellite with a pack of hunter-killer satellites.”
“What will they do?”
“Not clear. Baris has called the crisis team for this afternoon to try to get the basic facts together. We’ll meet again first thing tomorrow morning and try to anticipate them. If they hold off that long. Damn! McMasters will wonder where the hell I am.”
He drove in silence again for a while.
“That was a very good presentation you gave today,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “You convinced them we’ve got a real problem. And thanks for coming to my defense when that bastard Leems got on my back.”
“This can’t really be a Russian weapon, can it?” she asked.
“Sure doesn’t smell right to me, but we should check satellite locations just as Leems said.”
Danielson began to contemplate how she could obtain and sort Soviet satellite positions. They were quiet the rest of the way to the airport.
There were problems getting their reservations changed. They spent an hour and a half in the terminal amid crowds that prevented any discussion of their mission. Danielson could tell Isaacs was tense and fretful. The visit with the Jason team had been intriguing, but inconclusive, and the move of the Russians had caught him up short. If he had been in Washington he would have assembled the crisis team, not left it to Baris. Danielson sympathized with the anxiety she knew Isaacs felt. CIA officials had a right in principle to their free time, but they had better be on the spot when an emergency cropped up, never mind off on another coast suborning Agency policy. Danielson felt exposed herself.
The only seats they could get were several rows apart in the crowded midsection of the red-eye flight. Jet lag and strain caught up with Danielson. She napped most of the way. Isaacs was trapped between a talkative matron and a young mother, squirmy babe in lap. He stared grimly ahead through the whole flight, trying in his fatigue to think.
Chapter 9
Jorge Payro grabbed another piece of sheet metal off the palette behind him. He fed it carefully into the machine, checking the alignment, then stepped back and yanked the lever triggering the hydraulics. The press crumped down, folding edges, slicing off the extra metal. Jorge raised the lever, pulled the formed piece off the platform and worked around the edges with his file to remove the worst of the burrs. He placed the partially formed object on the conveyor belt. Somewhere down the line, after more cutting, stamping, drilling, painting, and fitting, the part would emerge as the top of a washing machine. Jorge turned for another flat sheet. While he worked he
