The helicopter appeared out of the haze with her landing light illuminated. She came straight for the ship and barely slowed as she neared. “I’m coming in hot,” the pilot said over the radio. One hundred yards, eighty, sixty, forty, twenty before the pilot slowed. Once he was just above the deck one-third of the way down the ship he saw the men with flashlights. Then he saw the open spot on the deck and dropped the helicopter down. As soon as the skids touched, a quartet of deckhands bent over at the waist ran out and secured the skids with chains. The rotor blade had not yet stopped when a single man carrying a valise climbed out and was led over to the door inside. Gant had come down to meet him and opened the door.
“Come on inside out of the weather,” Gant said as the man entered the ship. “I’m Commander Timothy Gant.”
The man was tall and lanky with a slightly pockmarked face and a hook nose. “Dr. Jack Berg,” the man said, “Central Intelligence Agency.”
“The prisoners have yet to disclose anything,” Gant said, leading the doctor down the passageway toward the brig.
“Don’t worry,” Berg said quietly, “that’s what I’m here for.”
FINDING A TECHNICIAN to fix the saw during the holiday had not been an easy task. Finally, Dwyer had just gone into the isolation room wearing a contamination suit and done it himself. Luckily, the problem had turned out to be simple—a belt that drove the saw blade had slipped and Dwyer had merely needed to tighten the pulley with a wrench. After testing his repairs inside the room and finding that the saw worked fine, Dwyer exited through the isolation lock, washed his contamination suit under the chemical bath, then removed the suit, hung it on a hook, and exited back into the control area.
The technician who was monitoring the gauges looked up as he entered.
“No leaks,” he said, “and it looks like you got the saw fixed.”
Dwyer nodded, then pushed the button to start the saw again. As soon as the blade was spinning, he walked over to the joystick control and lowered it down to the sample taken from the Arizona crater. The blade bit into the lemon-sized metal chunk and sparks began to fly in the air like the flickering tendrils from a Fourth of July sparkler.
Dwyer was halfway through the chunk when the alarm sounded.
“Negative pressure,” the technician shouted.
“Add air,” Dwyer shouted.
The technician turned a dial and stared at the gauges on the wall. “We’re still sinking,” he yelled.
Inside the isolation room, vortices like that from a small tornado began forming. Several of the samples began to lift in the air and swirl about as if weightless, while the wrench Dwyer had left inside was sucked off the bench and danced in the air near the saw. It was like a giant drain had been opened and the air in the room was being sucked into nothingness.
“Full air,” Dwyer shouted.
The technician spun the air control valve to full on. Still the negative pressure grew.
The inner layer of thick glass windows began to spider web. If they went, there was only one more layer of glass between Dwyer and the technician and certain death. The Kevlar gloves that poked through the wall were completely sucked in on themselves. Dwyer quickly slammed round metal plates over the arm openings then flipped down the hatches that held them in place. The workbench in the room was bolted to the floor with one-inch- diameter bolts. One of them sprung loose and shot toward the center of the bench. The workbench started to rock as the other bolts began to work loose.
“Sir,” the technician shouted, “we’re going to lose it. I’m at full positive pressure and the vacuum is growing.”
Dwyer stared into the room. He was seconds away from a maelstrom. Then it hit him like a fist. Taking a step over to the board, he flipped on the laser. The laser lit up and the firing end began to wildly spin. Smoke filled the room as it gyrated around then touched down on the sample. Wherever the laser touched, it burned.
“The pressure is dropping,” the technician yelled a second later.
“Back off the incoming air,” Dwyer ordered.
The objects in the room began to settle as the pressure was restored. A few minutes later, things were back to normal. Dwyer shut down the laser and stared into the room.
“Sir,” the technician said a moment later, “would you mind telling me what just happened?”
“I think,” Dwyer said, “there is something in those samples that likes the taste of our atmosphere.”
“Good God,” the technician said quietly.
“Luckily for us,” Dwyer said, “we just found both the disease and the cure.”
“There is more of that out there?” the technician said warily.
“A hundred pounds.”
SOON THE PILGRIMS would begin pouring into Saudi Arabia on chartered planes, buses from Jordan and ships crossing the Red Sea from Africa. Saud Al-Sheik still had a thousand details to attend to, foremost of which was arranging delivery of the prayer rugs. He had been promised that the new owner of the mill would call him tomorrow. So he called the Saudi National Airline and arranged for transportation space on a 747 cargo plane in two days’ time.
If the prayer rugs did not get here on time, not even his family connections could spare him from the wrath he would face. He stared around the warehouse in Mecca. Pallets of food and bottled water stretched to the ceiling. A forklift truck drove in and lifted the first container of tents from the floor to load into the truck for delivery to the stadium.
Tomorrow the first of the tents would be erected.
From then on, things would move very fast.
Making a note to make sure the poles, stakes and guidelines were taken, Al-Sheik walked toward the door to make sure the driver loaded the truck properly.
JEFF PORTE GATHERED up the items he
