Chapter 40
After a brief trip to the infirmary at the Groom Lake base, Arnold Moore returned to Yucca Mountain, riding shotgun in an air force Humvee as it rumbled toward the gaping entrance of the massive tunnel.
Off to the right lay the giant tunnel boring machine. It looked like a Saturn V booster lying on its side. The hundred-ton machine had single-handedly carved, gouged, and concreted the tunnels that penetrated Yucca Mountain. And then, too big to move without taking it apart, the machine had been parked and shrink-wrapped by the entrance in case it was needed to do further work.
The Humvee rolled past it and through the huge blast doors that fronted the tunnel. The environment went from blazing Nevada daylight to utter darkness, only partially illuminated by the lights in the walls and the Humvee’s high beams.
“You ever get used to this?” Moore asked, looking around.
“After a while,” the driver said. “We check the mountain three times a day. And we’re always here when science guys like you drop in. Not usually with this much firepower, though.”
Moore guessed he was referring to the machine-gun-toting Humvees that had been stationed near the entrance, the squads of armed men, and the hourly Black Hawk reconnaissance sorties.
Moore turned his attention to the tunnel ahead of him. The entrance section was a triple bore, meaning it was three times as wide as the individual tunnels. It ran that way for about two hundred yards before the main tunnel narrowed into what was essentially a two-lane road, walled by rock and concrete. Moore once again found himself growing claustrophobic in the long, narrow cavern.
“What happens if the walls cave in?”
He hadn’t meant the question seriously, but the driver answered anyway.
“There are a series of escape vents that go up to the surface. You have to climb a couple hundred feet of ladder but they pop you out topside.”
“Huh,” Moore grunted, not knowing which was worse: getting quickly crushed in a cave-in or climbing a hundred feet of ladder. “No elevator?”
The driver shook his head, and the Humvee continued on for just over a mile until the double-wide lab began to loom in the headlights.
The main shaft continued for another four miles. Concerns about whether they were deep enough in had already been raised. The truth was they were now in the central part of the “test” tunnel, which had been home to numerous experiments over the years, most of which were designed to tell if there was any chance of instability, seismic activity, or groundwater issues that might make the site unsuitable as a depository.
Because of that history, cables for power and data were already hardwired into place ready for the NRI/CIA teams to hook into. Going deeper meant extending the infrastructure, something they didn’t really have time for.
As a contingency, a rocket sled of sorts was being set up. The motor powering it had been liberated from a Sidewinder missile. In the event the stone appeared to be going supercritical, it would be attached as a payload and fired into the deepest heart of the mountain. A three-second journey into oblivion.
Moore jumped out of his taxi, climbed up the two steps of the trailer, and entered the makeshift lab. He was ready to launch into battle, but a more immediate problem had grabbed everyone’s attention.
The UN meeting was going badly, and the men inside the trailer were watching it all in high definition via satellite. Nation after nation stood up and took the dais to denounce the United States. Unlike the old days, when only a few enemy nations could be counted on for such outbursts, many friendly nations were demanding to know what had happened in the desert, statements that further emboldened the leaders of the lynch mob.
Unlike British parliament, where a statement was made and a rebuttal allowed, the current system in the UN permitted representatives to grab the floor and make uninterrupted speeches one after another. The U.S. ambassador could only sit there, lamely making notes and holding a hand to the translation headphones on his ear.
In general, Moore believed in the UN process, but this was turning out to be a circus.
To make matters worse, the president was also watching, albeit from the Oval Office in Washington. In a teleconference type of situation Moore could see him on one screen while watching the UN debate on the other. Mercifully, Stecker had temporarily gone back to Langley and, at least for the day, was nowhere to be found.
“How bad is it?” Moore asked.
Nathanial Ahiga had taken a break from the reams of data to watch.
“If I was a man who liked to gamble,” Ahiga said, “I wouldn’t double down.”
Moore listened to the feed. The Chinese delegate was claiming that some new American superweapon had destroyed one of their “communications” satellites, an act they considered dangerous and illegal, in other words a precursor to war. No explanation as to why a Chinese “communications” satellite would be orbiting over U.S. territory was offered, and everyone involved knew it was a spy satellite, of course, but that made its destruction no less dangerous.
“Is this true?” Moore asked
The president spoke. “Intel confirms the Chinese air force trying desperately to reestablish contact with one of their information-gathering satellites this morning.”
“Damn,” Moore said.
“It gets worse,” the president said. “The Russians say they’ve lost a satellite, too.”
Moore cursed under his breath, wondering what the hell kind of luck had spy satellites from the world’s other superpowers in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then again, Nellis Air Force Base, the airfield at Groom Lake, and Area 51 were among the most heavily scrutinized sections of U.S. real estate. Maybe he should have been surprised that they only had two.
“Any military activity?”
“Selective but heavy mobilizations and unit dispersions,” the president told him. “Accompanied by stepped-up activity at all military ports.”
Of course, Moore thought. Taking out spy satellites was something that all military doctrine considered a necessary precursor to war. In response the Russians and Chinese were acting both paranoid and yet with perfect logic, mobilizing their units and dispersing them to remote locations as a precaution. If it had been the other way around, the United States would have done the same thing.
He rubbed his temples, the stress level bringing on a migraine. He wondered if he should have checked himself back into the infirmary.
“What have we done in response?”
“I had no choice but to raise our own alert status,” the president said. “We’ve gone to Defense Condition Four and the Joint Chiefs are likely to suggest DefCon Three if the Russians and Chinese continue with their activities.”
Moore exhaled, exasperated. “Well, that ought to confirm their worst fears,” he grumbled.
“Excuse me?” the president said.
“We should be talking to them, Mr. President, not moving tanks and aircraft into launch positions. Escalation leads to more escalation; it’s the predictable result of itself.”
The president grew instantly angry. “You are out of line, Arnold. And you’re missing the damn point as well. This mess is half of your making. So far I’ve backed you up, but you’re not getting anywhere and my patience has limits. Limits which are going to run out in about three days.”
“Mr. President—”
President Henderson cut him off. “You insist these things are supposed to save us from something. So far all they’ve done is endanger us. We need a strategy for dealing with them, and you’d better goddamned well get me one or you’ll leave me no choice.”
Moore heard the threat in the president’s words, a warning that he had pushed the boundaries of their friendship too far. This wasn’t a simple argument between policy wonks; it was the president and the commander in chief he was talking to. Moore reminded himself of this and of the fact that at a word the president could order the Brazil stone destroyed.
“I apologize, Mr. President,” Moore said, adding, “I’m very tired. What story are we going with?”
The president turned to him and shrugged. “Give me one,” he said. “What can we tell them?”
Moore paused. He couldn’t think; it was as if his mind didn’t work anymore. He couldn’t fathom any type of explanation that would make much sense. He looked down. The floor of the trailer was uncarpeted, to prevent static buildup that could affect delicate instruments. Fatigued to the point of exhaustion, the cool, metal floor looked inviting and Moore wondered what the president would think if he stepped off his chair and lay down to take a nap. Probably, it would just confirm that he’d lost it.
He looked toward the science section of the laboratory. He’d had a sense, since first viewing the stone, that it was important somehow, vitally important. Had his conviction brought him too far? There were reasons, he had to keep reminding himself, to question his own judgment.
Despite two years of study, the thing was still beyond their understanding. It presented itself as an object of great power, and had at least temporarily linked itself to the second stone, boosting that power tenfold. Did that mean three stones would have a hundred times the power and four stones a thousand? If that was the case they were now talking about the equivalent energy release of several hundred nuclear warheads simultaneously.
As far as they could tell there was no radiation, no explosive component, nothing beyond the massive electromagnetic wave, but how could they be sure? The stone had surprised them once already. Maybe he was the one that had it wrong; maybe the stone should be destroyed before things got out of hand.
“Tell them the truth,” he suggested.
The president just looked at him.
“Share the data with the whole world, instead of keeping it secret. With a lack of information, they’re being forced to make their own conclusions, usually based mostly on fear.”
Onscreen the president looked surprised and then glanced off to the side, exchanging words with someone outside the frame. Moore guessed it was his chief of staff.
“I’ll take that under advisement,” he said finally.
“Maybe they’ll understand,” Moore added, feeling suddenly proud of himself. “Hell, they might even have a few ideas as to what we should do about it.”
An aide came up to the president. A folder was placed in front of him. A few words whispered in his ear. The feed was muted but the look on his face became increasingly strained. He turned back to the screen, to Moore.
“We have another problem,” he said. “The Russians have just shot down a pair of Chinese spy planes.”
Moore turned his attention back to the UN screen, cringing at this latest development. The Chinese ambassador had apparently gotten the word and was already railing at the Russian delegation, and worse yet, he was threatening retaliation.
Things were beginning to spiral out of control.