Deception Point

Chapter 73-76
73

Senator Sexton huddled alone on his couch feeling like a refugee. His Westbrooke Place apartment that had only an hour ago been filled with new friends and supporters now looked forsaken, scattered with the rubble of snifters and business cards, abandoned by men who had quite literally dashed out the door.

Now Sexton crouched in solitude before his television, wanting more than anything to turn it off and yet being unable to pull himself from the endless media analyses. This was Washington, and it didn't take long for the analysts to rush through their pseudoscientific and philosophical hyperbole and lock in on the ugly stuff-the politics. Like torture masters rubbing acid in Sexton's wounds, the newscasters were stating and restating the obvious.

"Hours ago, Sexton's campaign was soaring," one analyst said. "Now, with NASA's discovery, the senator's campaign has crashed back to earth."

Sexton winced, reaching for the Courvoisier and taking a hit right out of the bottle. Tonight, he knew, would be the longest and loneliest night of his life. He despised Marjorie Tench for setting him up. He despised Gabrielle Ashe for ever mentioning NASA in the first place. He despised the President for being so goddamned lucky. And he despised the world for laughing at him.

"Obviously, this is devastating for the senator," the analyst was saying. "The President and NASA have claimed an incalculable triumph with this discovery. News like this would revitalize the President's campaign regardless of Sexton's position on NASA, but with Sexton's admission today that he would go so far as to abolish NASA funding outright if need be... well, this presidential announcement is a one-two punch from which the senator will not recover."

I was tricked, Sexton said. The White House f*cking set me up.

The analyst was smiling now. "All of the credibility NASA has lost with Americans recently has just been restored in spades. There's a real feeling of national pride out there on the streets right now."

"As there should be. They love Zach Herney, and they were losing faith. You've got to admit, the President was lying down and took some pretty big hits recently, but he's come out of it smelling like a rose."

Sexton thought of the CNN debate that afternoon and hung his head, thinking he might be sick to his stomach. All of the NASA inertia he had so carefully built up over the last months had not only come to a screeching halt, but it had become an anchor around his neck. He looked like a fool. He'd been brazenly played by the White House. He was already dreading all the cartoons in tomorrow's paper. His name would be the punch line to every joke in the country. Obviously, there would be no more quiet SFF campaign funding. Everything had changed. All of the men who had been in his apartment had just seen their dreams go down the toilet. The privatization of space had just struck a brick wall.

Taking another hit of cognac, the senator stood up and walked unevenly to his desk. He gazed down at the unhooked phone receiver. Knowing it was an act of masochistic self-flagellation, he slowly replaced the phone receiver in its cradle and began counting the seconds.

One... two... The phone rang. He let the machine pick up.

"Senator Sexton, Judy Oliver from CNN. I'd like to give you an opportunity to react to the NASA discovery this evening. Please call me." She hung up.

Sexton started counting again. One... The phone started ringing. He ignored it, letting the machine get it. Another reporter.

Holding his bottle of Courvoisier, Sexton wandered toward the sliding door of his balcony. He pulled it aside and stepped out into the cool air. Leaning against the railing, he gazed out across town to the illuminated facade of the White House in the distance. The lights seemed to twinkle gleefully in the wind.

Bastards, he thought. For centuries we've been looking for proof of life in the heavens. Now we find it in the same f*cking year as my election? This wasn't propitious, this was goddamned clairvoyant. Every apartment window for as far as Sexton could see had a television on. Sexton wondered where Gabrielle Ashe was tonight. This was all her fault. She'd fed him NASA failure after NASA failure.

He raised the bottle to take another swig.

Goddamned Gabrielle... she's the reason I'm in this so deep.

Across town, standing amid the chaos of the ABC production room, Gabrielle Ashe felt numb. The President's announcement had come out of left field, leaving her suspended in a semicatatonic haze. She stood, lock-kneed in the center of the production room floor, staring up at one of the television monitors while pandemonium raged around her.

The initial seconds of the announcement had brought dead silence to the newsroom floor. It had lasted only moments before the place erupted into a deafening carnival of scrambling reporters. These people were professionals. They had no time for personal reflection. There would be time for that after the work was done. At the moment, the world wanted to know more, and ABC had to provide it. This story had everything-science, history, political drama-an emotional mother lode. Nobody in the media was sleeping tonight.

"Gabs?" Yolanda's voice was sympathetic. "Let's get you back into my office before someone realizes who you are and starts grilling you on what this means for Sexton's campaign."

Gabrielle felt herself guided through a haze into Yolanda's glass-walled office. Yolanda sat her down and handed her a glass of water. She tried to force a smile. "Look on the bright side, Gabs. Your candidate's campaign is f*cked, but at least you're not."

"Thanks. Terrific."

Yolanda's tone turned serious. "Gabrielle, I know you feel like shit. Your candidate just got hit by a Mack truck, and if you ask me, he's not getting up. At least not in time to turn this thing around. But at least nobody's splashing your picture all over the television. Seriously. This is good news. Herney won't need a sex scandal now. He's looking far too presidential right now to talk sex."

It seemed a small consolation to Gabrielle.

"As for Tench's allegations of Sexton's illegal campaign finance... " Yolanda shook her head. "I have my doubts. Granted, Herney is serious about no negative campaigning. And granted, a bribery investigation would be bad for the country. But is Herney really so patriotic that he would forgo a chance to crush his opposition, simply to protect national morale? My guess is Tench stretched the truth about Sexton's finances in an effort to scare. She gambled, hoping you'd jump ship and give the President a free sex scandal. And you've got to admit, Gabs, tonight would have been a hell of a night for Sexton's morals to come into question!"

Gabrielle nodded vaguely. A sex scandal would have been a one-two punch from which Sexton's career never would have recovered... ever.

"You outlasted her, Gabs. Marjorie Tench went fishing, but you didn't bite. You're home free. There'll be other elections."

Gabrielle nodded vaguely, unsure what to believe anymore.

"You've got to admit," Yolanda said, "the White House played Sexton brilliantly-luring him down the NASA path, getting him to commit, coaxing him to put all his eggs in the NASA basket."

Totally my fault, Gabrielle thought.

"And this announcement we just watched, my God, it was genius! The importance of the discovery entirely aside, the production values were brilliant. Live feeds from the Arctic? A Michael Tolland documentary? Good God, how can you compete? Zach Herney nailed it tonight. There's a reason the guy is President."

And will be for another four years...

"I've got to get back to work, Gabs," Yolanda said. "You sit right there as long as you want. Get your feet under you." Yolanda headed out the door. "Hon, I'll check back in a few minutes."

Alone now, Gabrielle sipped her water, but it tasted foul. Everything did. It's all my fault, she thought, trying to ease her conscience by reminding herself of all the glum NASA press conferences of the past year-the space station setbacks, the postponement of the X-33, all the failed Mars probes, continuous budget bailouts. Gabrielle wondered what she could have done differently.

Nothing, she told herself. You did everything right.

It had simply backfired.

74

The thundering navy SeaHawk chopper had been scrambled under a covert operation status out of Thule Air Force Base in northern Greenland. It stayed low, out of radar range, as it shot through the gale winds across seventy miles of open sea. Then, executing the bizarre orders they had been given, the pilots fought the wind and brought the craft to a hover above a pre-ordained set of coordinates on the empty ocean.

"Where's the rendezvous?" the copilot yelled, confused. They had been told to bring a chopper with a rescue winch, so he anticipated a search-and-retrieve operation. "You sure these are the right coordinates?" He scanned the choppy seas with a searchlight, but there was nothing below them except-

"Holy shit!" The pilot pulled back on the stick, jolting upward.

The black mountain of steel rose before them out of the waves without warning. A gargantuan unmarked submarine blew its ballast and rose on a cloud of bubbles.

The pilots exchanged uneasy laughs. "Guess that's them."

As ordered, the transaction proceeded under complete radio silence. The doublewide portal on the peak of the sail opened and a seaman flashed them signals with a strobe light. The chopper then moved over the sub and dropped a three-man rescue harness, essentially three rubberized loops on a retractable cable. Within sixty seconds, the three unknown "danglers" were swinging beneath the chopper, ascending slowly against the downdraft of the rotors.

When the copilot hauled them aboard-two men and a woman-the pilot flashed the sub the "all clear." Within seconds, the enormous vessel disappeared beneath the windswept sea, leaving no trace it had ever been there.

With the passengers safely aboard, the chopper pilot faced front, dipped the nose of the chopper, and accelerated south to complete his mission. The storm was closing fast, and these three strangers were to be brought safely back to Thule AFB for further jet transport. Where they were headed, the pilot had no idea. All he knew was that his orders had been from high up, and he was transporting very precious cargo.

75

When the Milne storm finally exploded, unleashing its full force on the NASA habisphere, the dome shuddered as if ready to lift off the ice and launch out to sea. The steel stabilizing cables pulled taut against their stakes, vibrating like huge guitar strings and letting out a doleful drone. The generators outside stuttered, causing the lights to flicker, threatening to plunge the huge room into total blackness.

NASA administrator Lawrence Ekstrom strode across the interior of the dome. He wished he were getting the hell out of here tonight, but that was not to be. He would remain another day, giving additional on-site press conferences in the morning and overseeing preparations to transport the meteorite back to Washington. He wanted nothing more at the moment than to get some sleep; the day's unexpected problems had taken a lot out of him.

Ekstrom's thoughts turned yet again to Wailee Ming, Rachel Sexton, Norah Mangor, Michael Tolland, and Corky Marlinson. Some of the NASA staff had begun noticing the civilians were missing.

Relax, Ekstrom told himself. Everything is under control.

He breathed deeply, reminding himself that everyone on the planet was excited about NASA and space right now. Extraterrestrial life hadn't been this exciting a topic since the famous "Roswell incident" back in 1947-the alleged crash of an alien spaceship in Roswell, New Mexico, which was now the shrine to millions of UFO-conspiracy theorists even today.

During Ekstrom's years working at the Pentagon, he had learned that the Roswell incident had been nothing more than a military accident during a classified operation called Project Mogul-the flight test of a spy balloon being designed to listen in on Russian atomic tests. A prototype, while being tested, had drifted off course and crashed in the New Mexico desert. Unfortunately, a civilian found the wreckage before the military did.

Unsuspecting rancher William Brazel had stumbled across a debris field of radical synthesized neoprene and lightweight metals unlike anything he'd ever seen, and he immediately called in the sheriff. Newspapers carried the story of the bizarre wreckage, and public interest grew fast. Fueled by the military's denial that the wreckage was theirs, reporters launched investigations, and the covert status of Project Mogul came into serious jeopardy. Just as it seemed the sensitive issue of a spy balloon was about to be revealed, something wonderful happened.

The media drew an unexpected conclusion. They decided the scraps of futuristic substance could only have come from an extraterrestrial source-creatures more scientifically advanced than humans. The military's denial of the incident obviously had to be one thing only-a cover-up of contact with aliens! Although baffled by this new hypothesis, the air force was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. They grabbed the alien story and ran with it; the world's suspicion that aliens were visiting New Mexico was far less a threat to national security than that of the Russians catching wind of Project Mogul.

To fuel the alien cover story, the intelligence community shrouded the Roswell incident in secrecy and began orchestrating "security leaks"-quiet murmurings of alien contacts, recovered spaceships, and even a mysterious "Hangar 18" at Dayton's Wright-Patterson Air Force Base where the government was keeping alien bodies on ice. The world bought the story, and Roswell fever swept the globe. From that moment on, whenever a civilian mistakenly spotted an advanced U.S. military aircraft, the intelligence community simply dusted off the old conspiracy.

That's not an aircraft, that's an alien spaceship!

Ekstrom was amazed to think this simple deception was still working today. Every time the media reported a sudden flurry of UFO sightings, Ekstrom had to laugh. Chances were some lucky civilian had caught a glimpse of one of the NRO's fifty-seven fast-moving, unmanned reconnaissance aircraft known as Global Hawks-oblong, remote-controlled aircraft that looked like nothing else in the sky.

Ekstrom found it pathetic that countless tourists still made pilgrimages to the New Mexico desert to scan the night skies with their video cameras. Occasionally one got lucky and captured "hard evidence" of a UFO-bright lights flitting around the sky with more maneuverability and speed than any aircraft humans had ever built. What these people failed to realize, of course, was that there existed a twelve-year lag between what the government could build and what the public knew about. These UFO-gazers were simply catching a glimpse of the next generation of U.S. aircraft being developed out at Area 51-many of which were the brainstorms of NASA engineers. Of course, intelligence officials never corrected the misconception; it was obviously preferable that the world read about another UFO sighting than to have people learn the U.S. military's true flight capabilities.

But everything has changed now, Ekstrom thought. In a few hours, the extraterrestrial myth would become a confirmed reality, forever.

"Administrator?" A NASA technician hurried across the ice behind him. "You have an emergency secure call in the PSC."

Ekstrom sighed, turning. What the hell could it be now? He headed for the communications trailer.

The technician hurried along beside him. "The guys manning the radar in the PSC were curious, sir... "

"Yeah?" Ekstrom's thoughts were still far away.

"The fat-body sub stationed off the coast here? We were wondering why you didn't mention it to us."

Ekstrom glanced up. "I'm sorry?"

"The submarine, sir? You could have at least told the guys on radar. Additional seaboard security is understandable, but it took our radar team off guard."

Ekstrom stopped short. "What submarine?"

The technician stopped now too, clearly not expecting the administrator's surprise. "She's not part of our operation?"

"No! Where is it?"

The technician swallowed hard. "About three miles out. We caught her on radar by chance. Only surfaced for a couple minutes. Pretty big blip. Had to be a fat-body. We figured you'd asked the navy to stand watch over this op without telling any of us."

Ekstrom stared. "I most certainly did not!"

Now the technician's voice wavered. "Well, sir, then I guess I should inform you that a sub just rendezvoused with an aircraft right off the coast here. Looked like a personnel change. Actually, we were all pretty impressed anyone would attempt a wet-dry vertical in this kind of wind."

Ekstrom felt his muscles stiffen. What the hell is a submarine doing directly off the coast of Ellesmere Island without my knowledge? "Did you see what direction the aircraft flew after rendezvous?"

"Back toward Thule air base. For connecting transport to the mainland, I assume."

Ekstrom said nothing the rest of the way to the PSC. When he entered the cramped darkness, the hoarse voice on the line had a familiar rasp.

"We've got a problem," Tench said, coughing as she spoke. "It's about Rachel Sexton."

76

Senator Sexton was not sure how long he had been staring into space when he heard the pounding. When he realized the throbbing in his ears was not from the alcohol but rather from someone at his apartment door, he got up from the couch, stowed the bottle of Courvoisier, and made his way to the foyer.

"Who is it?" Sexton yelled, in no mood for visitors.

His bodyguard's voice called in with the identity of Sexton's unexpected guest. Sexton sobered instantly. That was fast. Sexton had hoped not to have to have this conversation until morning.

Taking a deep breath and straightening his hair, Sexton opened the door. The face before him was all too familiar-tough and leathery despite the man's seventy-something years. Sexton had met with him only this morning in the white Ford Windstar minivan in a hotel parking garage. Was it only this morning? Sexton wondered. God, how things had changed since then.

"May I come in?" the dark-haired man asked.

Sexton stepped aside, allowing the head of the Space Frontier Foundation to pass.

"Did the meeting go well?" the man asked, as Sexton closed the door.

Did it go well? Sexton wondered if the man lived in a cocoon. "Things were terrific until the President came on television."

The old man nodded, looking displeased. "Yes. An incredible victory. It will hurt our cause greatly."

Hurt our cause? Here was an optimist. With NASA's triumph tonight, this guy would be dead and buried before the Space Frontier Foundation attained their goals of privatization.

"For years I have suspected proof was forthcoming," the old man said. "I did not know how or when, but sooner or later we had to know for sure."

Sexton was stunned. "You're not surprised?"

"The mathematics of the cosmos virtually requires other life-forms," the man said, moving toward Sexton's den. "I am not surprised that this discovery has been made. Intellectually, I am thrilled. Spiritually, I am in awe. Politically, I am deeply disturbed. The timing could not be worse."

Sexton wondered why the man had come. It sure as hell wasn't to cheer him up.

"As you know," the man said, "SFF member companies have spent millions trying to open the frontier of space to private citizens. Recently, much of that money has gone to your campaign."

Sexton felt suddenly defensive. "I had no control over tonight's fiasco. The White House baited me to attack NASA!"

"Yes. The President played the game well. And yet, all may not be lost." There was an odd glint of hope in the old man's eyes.

He's senile, Sexton decided. All was definitely lost. Every station on television right now was talking about the destruction of the Sexton campaign.

The old man showed himself into the den, sat on the couch, and fixed his tired eyes on the senator. "Do you recall," the man said, "the problems NASA initially had with the anomaly software onboard the PODS satellite?"

Sexton could not imagine where this was headed. What the hell difference does that make now? PODS found a goddamned meteorite with fossils!

"If you remember," the man said. "The onboard software did not function properly at first. You made a big deal of it in the press."

"As I should have!" Sexton said, sitting down opposite the man. "It was another NASA failure!"

The man nodded. "I agree. But shortly after that, NASA held a press conference announcing they had come up with a work-around-some sort of patch for the software."

Sexton hadn't actually seen the press conference, but he'd heard it was short, flat, and hardly newsworthy-the PODS project leader giving a dull technical description of how NASA had overcome a minor glitch in PODS's anomaly-detection software and gotten everything up and running.

"I have been watching PODS with interest ever since it failed," the man said. He produced a videocassette and walked to Sexton's television, putting the video in the VCR. "This should interest you."

The video began to play. It showed the NASA press room at headquarters in Washington. A well-dressed man was taking the podium and greeting the audience. The subtitle beneath the podium read:

CHRIS HARPER, Section Manager

Polar Orbiting Density Scanner Satellite (PODS)

Chris Harper was tall, refined, and spoke with the quiet dignity of a European American who still clung proudly to his roots. His accent was erudite and polished. He was addressing the press with confidence, giving them some bad news about PODS.

"Although the PODS satellite is in orbit and functioning well, we have a minor setback with the onboard computers. A minor programming error for which I take full responsibility. Specifically, the FIR filter has a faulty voxel index, which means the PODS's anomaly-detection software is not functioning properly. We're working on a fix."

The crowd sighed, apparently accustomed to NASA letdowns. "What does that mean for the current effectiveness of the satellite?" someone asked.

Harper took it like a pro. Confident and matter-of-fact. "Imagine a perfect set of eyes without a functioning brain. Essentially the PODS satellite is seeing twenty-twenty, but it has no idea what it's looking at. The purpose of the PODS mission is to look for melt pockets in the polar ice cap, but without the computer to analyze the density data PODS receives from its scanners, PODS cannot discern where the points of interest are. We should have the situation remedied after the next shuttle mission can make an adjustment to the onboard computer."

A groan of disappointment rose in the room.

The old man glanced over at Sexton. "He presents bad news pretty well, doesn't he?"

"He's from NASA," Sexton grumbled. "That's what they do."

The VCR tape went blank for an instant and then switched to another NASA press conference.

"This second press conference," the old man said to Sexton, "was given only a few weeks ago. Quite late at night. Few people saw it. This time Dr. Harper is announcing good news."

The footage launched. This time Chris Harper looked disheveled and uneasy. "I am pleased to announce," Harper said, sounding anything but pleased, "that NASA has found a work-around for the PODS satellite's software problem." He fumbled through an explanation of the work-around-something about redirecting the raw data from PODS and sending it through computers here on earth rather than relying on the onboard PODS computer. Everyone seemed impressed. It all sounded quite feasible and exciting. When Harper was done, the room gave him an enthusiastic round of applause.

"So we can expect data soon?" someone in the audience asked.

Harper nodded, sweating. "A couple of weeks."

More applause. Hands shot up around the room.

"That's all I have for you now," Harper said, looking ill as he packed up his papers. "PODS is up and running. We'll have data soon." He practically ran off the stage.

Sexton scowled. He had to admit, this was odd. Why did Chris Harper look so comfortable giving bad news and so uncomfortable giving good news? It should have been in reverse. Sexton hadn't actually seen this press conference when it aired, although he'd read about the software fix. The fix, at the time, seemed an inconsequential NASA salvage; the public perception remained unimpressed-PODS was just another NASA project that had malfunctioned and was being awkwardly patched together with a less than ideal solution.

The old man turned off the television. "NASA claimed Dr. Harper was not feeling well that night." He paused. "I happen to think Harper was lying."

Lying? Sexton stared, his fuzzy thoughts unable to piece together any logical rationale for why Harper would have lied about the software. Still, Sexton had told enough lies in his life to recognize a poor liar when he saw one. He had to admit, Dr. Harper sure looked suspicious.

"Perhaps you don't realize?" the old man said. "This little announcement you just heard Chris Harper give is the single most important press conference in NASA history." He paused. "That convenient software fix he just described is what allowed PODS to find the meteorite."

Sexton puzzled. And you think he was lying about it? "But, if Harper was lying, and the PODS software isn't really working, then how the hell did NASA find the meteorite?"

The old man smiled. "Exactly."