Deception Point

Chapter 104-107
104

Tolland paced the hydrolab, waiting with Rachel and Corky for Xavia's return. The news about the chondrules was almost as discomforting as Rachel's news about her attempted contact with Pickering.

The director didn't answer.

And someone tried to pulse-snitch the Goya's location.

"Relax," Tolland told everyone. "We're safe. The Coast Guard pilot is watching the radar. He can give us plenty of warning if anyone is headed our way."

Rachel nodded in agreement, although she still looked on edge.

"Mike, what the hell is this?" Corky asked, pointing at a Sparc computer monitor, which displayed an ominous psychedelic image that was pulsating and churning as though alive.

"Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler," Tolland said. "It's a cross section of the currents and temperature gradients of the ocean underneath the ship."

Rachel stared. "That's what we're anchored on top of?"

Tolland had to admit, the image looked frightening. At the surface, the water appeared as a swirling bluish green, but tracing downward, the colors slowly shifted to a menacing red-orange as the temperatures heated up. Near the bottom, over a mile down, hovering above the ocean floor, a blood-red, cyclone vortex raged.

"That's the megaplume," Tolland said.

Corky grunted. "Looks like an underwater tornado."

"Same principle. Oceans are usually colder and more dense near the bottom, but here the dynamics are reversed. The deepwater is heated and lighter, so it rises toward the surface. Meanwhile, the surface water is heavier, so it races downward in a huge spiral to fill the void. You get these drainlike currents in the ocean. Enormous whirlpools."

"What's that big bump on the seafloor?" Corky pointed at the flat expanse of ocean floor, where a large dome-shaped mound rose up like a bubble. Directly above it swirled the vortex.

"That mound is a magma dome," Tolland said. "It's where lava is pushing up beneath the ocean floor."

Corky nodded. "Like a huge zit."

"In a manner of speaking."

"And if it pops?"

Tolland frowned, recalling the famous 1986 megaplume event off the Juan de Fuca Ridge, where thousands of tons of twelve hundred degrees Celsius magma spewed up into the ocean all at once, magnifying the plume's intensity almost instantly. Surface currents amplified as the vortex expanded rapidly upward. What happened next was something Tolland had no intention of sharing with Corky and Rachel this evening.

"Atlantic magma domes don't pop," Tolland said. "The cold water circulating over the mound continually cools and hardens the earth's crust, keeping the magma safely under a thick layer of rock. Eventually the lava underneath cools, and the spiral disappears. Megaplumes are generally not dangerous."

Corky pointed toward a tattered magazine sitting near the computer. "So you're saying Scientific American publishes fiction?"

Tolland saw the cover, and winced. Someone had apparently pulled it from the Goya's archive of old science magazines: Scientific American, February 1999. The cover showed an artist's rendering of a supertanker swirling out of control in an enormous funnel of ocean. The heading read: MEGAPLUMES-GIANT KILLERS FROM THE DEEP?

Tolland laughed it off. "Totally irrelevant. That article is talking about megaplumes in earthquake zones. It was a popular Bermuda Triangle hypothesis a few years back, explaining ship disappearances. Technically speaking, if there's some sort of cataclysmic geologic event on the ocean floor, which is unheard of around here, the dome could rupture, and the vortex could get big enough to... well, you know... "

"No, we don't know," Corky said.

Tolland shrugged. "Rise to the surface."

"Terrific. So glad you had us aboard."

Xavia entered carrying some papers. "Admiring the megaplume?"

"Oh, yes," Corky said sarcastically. "Mike was just telling us how if that little mound ruptures, we all go spiraling around in a big drain."

"Drain?" Xavia gave a cold laugh. "More like getting flushed down the world's largest toilet."

Outside on the deck of the Goya, the Coast Guard helicopter pilot vigilantly watched the EMS radar screen. As a rescue pilot he had seen his share of fear in people's eyes; Rachel Sexton had definitely been afraid when she asked him to keep an eye out for unexpected visitors to the Goya.

What kind of visitors is she expecting? he wondered.

From all the pilot could see, the sea and air for ten miles in all directions contained nothing that looked out of the ordinary. A fishing boat eight miles off. An occasional aircraft slicing across an edge of their radar field and then disappearing again toward some unknown destination.

The pilot sighed, gazing out now at the ocean rushing all around the ship. The sensation was a ghostly one-that of sailing full speed despite being anchored.

He returned his eyes to the radar screen and watched. Vigilant.

105

Onboard the Goya, Tolland had now introduced Xavia and Rachel. The ship's geologist was looking increasingly baffled by the distinguished entourage standing before her in the hydrolab. In addition, Rachel's eagerness to run the tests and get off the ship as fast as possible was clearly making Xavia uneasy.

Take your time, Xavia, Tolland willed her. We need to know everything.

Xavia was talking now, her voice stiff. "In your documentary, Mike, you said those little metallic inclusions in the rock could form only in space."

Tolland already felt a tremor of apprehension. Chondrules form only in space. That's what NASA told me.

"But according to these notes," Xavia said, holding up the pages, "that's not entirely true."

Corky glared. "Of course it's true!"

Xavia scowled at Corky and waved the notes. "Last year a young geologist named Lee Pollock out of Drew University was using a new breed of marine robot to do Pacific deepwater crust sampling in the Mariana Trench and pulled up a loose rock that contained a geologic feature he had never seen before. The feature was quite similar in appearance to chondrules. He called them 'plagioclase stress inclusions'-tiny bubbles of metal that apparently had been rehomogenized during deep ocean pressurization events. Dr. Pollock was amazed to find metallic bubbles in an ocean rock, and he formulated a unique theory to explain their presence."

Corky grumbled. "I suppose he would have to."

Xavia ignored him. "Dr. Pollock asserted that the rock formed in an ultradeep oceanic environment where extreme pressure metamorphosed a pre-existing rock, permitting some of the disparate metals to fuse."

Tolland considered it. The Mariana Trench was seven miles down, one of the last truly unexplored regions on the planet. Only a handful of robotic probes had ever ventured that deep, and most had collapsed well before they reached the bottom. The water pressure in the trench was enormous-an astounding eighteen thousand pounds per square inch, as opposed to a mere twenty-four pounds on the ocean's surface. Oceanographers still had very little understanding of the geologic forces at the deepest ocean floor. "So, this guy Pollock thinks the Mariana Trench can make rocks with chondrulelike features?"

"It's an extremely obscure theory," Xavia said. "In fact, it's never even been formally published. I only happened to stumble across Pollock's personal notes on the Web by chance last month when I was doing research on fluid-rock interactions for our upcoming megaplume show. Otherwise, I never would have heard of it."

"The theory has never been published," Corky said, "because it's ridiculous. You need heat to form chondrules. There's no way water pressure could rearrange the crystalline structure of a rock."

"Pressure," Xavia fired back, "happens to be the single biggest contributor to geologic change on our planet. A little something called a metamorphic rock? Geology 101?"

Corky scowled.

Tolland realized Xavia had a point. Although heat did play a role in some of earth's metamorphic geology, most metamorphic rocks were formed by extreme pressure. Incredibly, rocks deep in the earth's crust were under so much pressure that they acted more like thick molasses than solid rock, becoming elastic and undergoing chemical changes as they did. Nonetheless, Dr. Pollock's theory still seemed like a stretch.

"Xavia," Tolland said. "I've never heard of water pressure alone chemically altering a rock. You're the geologist, what's your take?"

"Well," she said, flipping through her notes, "it sounds like water pressure isn't the only factor." Xavia found a passage and read Pollock's notes verbatim. "'Oceanic crust in the Mariana Trench, already under enormous hydrostatic pressurization, can find itself further compressed by tectonic forces from the region's subduction zones.'"

Of course, Tolland thought. The Mariana Trench, in addition to being crushed under seven miles of water, was a subduction zone-the compression line where the Pacific and Indian plates moved toward one another and collided. Combined pressures in the trench could be enormous, and because the area was so remote and dangerous to study, if there were chondrules down there, chances of anyone knowing about it were very slim.

Xavia kept reading. "'Combined hydrostatic and tectonic pressures could potentially force crust into an elastic or semiliquid state, allowing lighter elements to fuse into chondrulelike structures thought to occur only in space.'"

Corky rolled his eyes. "Impossible."

Tolland glanced at Corky. "Is there any alternative explanation for the chondrules in the rock Dr. Pollock found?"

"Easy," Corky said. "Pollock found an actual meteorite. Meteorites fall into the ocean all the time. Pollock would not have suspected it was a meteorite because the fusion crust would have eroded away from years under the water, making it look like a normal rock." Corky turned to Xavia. "I don't suppose Pollock had the brains to measure the nickel content, did he?"

"Actually, yes," Xavia fired back, flipping through the notes again. "Pollock writes: 'I was surprised to find the nickel content of the specimen falling within a midrange value not usually associated with terrestrial rocks.'"

Tolland and Rachel exchanged startled looks.

Xavia continued reading. "'Although the quantity of nickel does not fall within the normally acceptable midrange window for meteoritic origin, it is surprisingly close.'"

Rachel looked troubled. "How close? Is there any way this ocean rock could be mistaken for a meteorite?"

Xavia shook her head. "I'm not a chemical petrologist, but as I understand it, there are numerous chemical differences between the rock Pollock found and actual meteorites."

"What are those differences?" Tolland pressed.

Xavia turned her attention to a graph in her notes. "According to this, one difference is in the chemical structure of the chondrules themselves. It looks like the titanium/zirconium ratios differ. The titanium/ zirconium ratio in the chondrules of the ocean sample showed ultradepleted zirconium." She looked up. "Only two parts per million."

"Two ppm?" Corky blurted. "Meteorites have thousands of times that!"

"Exactly," Xavia replied. "Which is why Pollock thinks his sample's chondrules are not from space."

Tolland leaned over and whispered to Corky, "Did NASA happen to measure the titanium/zirconium ratio in the Milne rock?"

"Of course not," Corky sputtered. "Nobody would ever measure that. It's like looking at a car and measuring the tires' rubber content to confirm you're looking at a car!"

Tolland heaved a sigh and looked back at Xavia. "If we give you a rock sample with chondrules in it, can you run a test to determine whether these inclusions are meteoric chondrules or... one of Pollock's deep ocean compression things?"

Xavia shrugged. "I suppose. The electron microprobe's accuracy should be close enough. What's this all about, anyway?"

Tolland turned to Corky. "Give it to her."

Corky reluctantly pulled the meteorite sample from his pocket and held it out for Xavia.

Xavia's brow furrowed as she took the stone disk. She eyed the fusion crust and then the fossil embedded in the rock. "My God!" she said, her head rocketing upward. "This isn't part of...?"

"Yeah," Tolland said. "Unfortunately it is."

106

Alone in her office, Gabrielle Ashe stood at the window, wondering what to do next. Less than an hour ago, she had left NASA feeling full of excitement to share Chris Harper's PODS fraud with the senator.

Now, she wasn't so sure.

According to Yolanda, two independent ABC reporters suspected Sexton of taking SFF bribes. Furthermore, Gabrielle had just learned that Sexton actually knew she had snuck into his apartment during the SFF meeting, and yet he had said nothing to her about it?

Gabrielle sighed. Her taxi had long since departed, and although she would call another in a few minutes, she knew there was something she had to do first.

Am I really going to try this?

Gabrielle frowned, knowing she didn't have a choice. She no longer knew whom to trust.

Stepping out of her office, she made her way back into the secretarial lobby and into a wide hallway on the opposite side. At the far end she could see the massive oak doors of Sexton's office flanked by two flags-Old Glory on the right and the Delaware flag on the left. His doors, like those of most senate offices in the building, were steel reinforced and secured by conventional keys, an electronic key pad entry, and an alarm system.

She knew if she could get inside, even if for only a few minutes, all the answers would be revealed. Moving now toward the heavily secured doors, Gabrielle had no illusions of getting through them. She had other plans.

Ten feet from Sexton's office, Gabrielle turned sharply to the right and entered the ladies' room. The fluorescents came on automatically, reflecting harshly off the white tile. As her eyes adjusted, Gabrielle paused, seeing herself in the mirror. As usual, her features looked softer than she'd hoped. Delicate almost. She always felt stronger than she looked.

Are you sure you are ready to do this?

Gabrielle knew Sexton was eagerly awaiting her arrival for a complete rundown on the PODS situation. Unfortunately, she also now realized that Sexton had deftly manipulated her tonight. Gabrielle Ashe did not like being managed. The senator had kept things from her tonight. The question was how much. The answers, she knew, lay inside his office-just on the other side of this restroom wall.

"Five minutes," Gabrielle said aloud, mustering her resolve.

Moving toward the bathroom's supply closet, she reached up and ran a hand over the door frame. A key clattered to the floor. The cleaning crews at Philip A. Hart were federal employees and seemed to evaporate every time there was a strike of any sort, leaving this bathroom without toilet paper and tampons for weeks at a time. The women of Sexton's office, tired of being caught with their pants down, had taken matters into their own hands and secured a supply room key for "emergencies."

Tonight qualifies, she thought.

She opened the closet.

The interior was cramped, packed with cleansers, mops, and shelves of paper supplies. A month ago, Gabrielle had been searching for paper towels when she'd made an unusual discovery. Unable to reach the paper off the top shelf, she'd used the end of a broom to coax a roll to fall. In the process, she'd knocked out a ceiling tile. When she climbed up to replace the tile, she was surprised to hear Senator Sexton's voice.

Crystal clear.

From the echo, she realized the senator was talking to himself while in his office's private bathroom, which apparently was separated from this supply closet by nothing more than removable, fiberboard ceiling tiles.

Now, back in the closet tonight for far more than toilet paper, Gabrielle kicked off her shoes, climbed up the shelves, popped out the fiberboard ceiling tile, and pulled herself up. So much for national security, she thought, wondering how many state and federal laws she was about to break.

Lowering herself through the ceiling of Sexton's private restroom, Gabrielle placed her stockinged feet on his cold, porcelain sink and then dropped to the floor. Holding her breath, she exited into Sexton's private office.

His oriental carpets felt soft and warm.

107

Thirty miles away, a black Kiowa gunship chopper tore over the scrub pine treetops of northern Delaware. Delta-One checked the coordinates locked in the auto navigation system.

Although Rachel's shipboard transmission device and Pickering's cellphone were encrypted to protect the contents of their communication, intercepting content had not been the goal when the Delta Force pulse-snitched Rachel's call from sea. Intercepting the caller's position had been the goal. Global Positioning Systems and computerized triangulation made pinpointing transmission coordinates a significantly easier task than decrypting the actual content of the call.

Delta-One was always amused to think that most cellphone users had no idea that every time they made a call, a government listening post, if so inclined, could detect their position to within ten feet anywhere on earth-a small hitch the cellphone companies failed to advertise. Tonight, once the Delta Force had gained access to the reception frequencies of William Pickering's cellular phone, they could easily trace the coordinates of his incoming calls.

Flying now on a direct course toward their target, Delta-One closed to within twenty miles. "Umbrella primed?" he asked, turning to Delta-Two, who was manning the radar and weapons system.

"Affirmative. Awaiting five-mile range."

Five miles, Delta-One thought. He had to fly this bird well within his target's radar scopes to get within range to use the Kiowa's weapons systems. He had little doubt that someone onboard the Goya was nervously watching the skies, and because the Delta Force's current task was to eliminate the target without giving them a chance to radio for help, Delta-One now had to advance on his prey without alarming them.

At fifteen miles out, still safely out of radar range, Delta-One abruptly turned the Kiowa thirty-five degrees off course to the west. He climbed to three thousand feet-small airplane range-and adjusted his speed to 110 knots.

On the deck of the Goya, the Coast Guard helicopter's radar scope beeped once as a new contact entered the ten-mile perimeter. The pilot sat up, studying the screen. The contact appeared to be a small cargo plane headed west up the coast.

Probably for Newark.

Although this plane's current trajectory would bring it within four miles of the Goya, the flight path obviously was a matter of chance. Nonetheless, being vigilant, the Coast Guard pilot watched the blinking dot trace a slow-moving 110-knot line across the right side of his scope. At its closest point, the plane was about four miles west. As expected, the plane kept moving-heading away from them now.

4.1 miles. 4.2 miles.

The pilot exhaled, relaxing.

And then the strangest thing happened.

"Umbrella now engaged," Delta-Two called out, giving the thumbs-up from his weapons control seat on the port side of the Kiowa gunship. "Barrage, modulated noise, and cover pulse are all activated and locked."

Delta-One took his cue and banked hard to the right, putting the craft on a direct course with the Goya. This maneuver would be invisible to the ship's radar.

"Sure beats bales of tinfoil!" Delta-Two called out.

Delta-One agreed. Radar jamming had been invented in WWII when a savvy British airman began throwing bales of hay wrapped in tinfoil out of his plane while on bombing runs. The Germans' radar spotted so many reflective contacts they had no idea what to shoot. The techniques had been improved on substantially since then.

The Kiowa's onboard "umbrella" radar-jamming system was one of the military's most deadly electronic combat weapons. By broadcasting an umbrella of background noise into the atmosphere above a given set of surface coordinates, the Kiowa could erase the eyes, ears, and voice of their target. Moments ago, all radar screens aboard the Goya had most certainly gone blank. By the time the crew realized they needed to call for help, they would be unable to transmit. On a ship, all communications were radio-or microwave-based-no solid phone lines. If the Kiowa got close enough, all of the Goya's communications systems would stop functioning, their carrier signals blotted out by the invisible cloud of thermal noise broadcast in front of the Kiowa like a blinding headlight.

Perfect isolation, Delta-One thought. They have no defenses.

Their targets had made a fortunate and cunning escape from the Milne Ice Shelf, but it would not be repeated. In choosing to leave shore, Rachel Sexton and Michael Tolland had chosen poorly. It would be the last bad decision they ever made.

Inside the White House, Zach Herney felt dazed as he sat up in bed holding the telephone receiver. "Now? Ekstrom wants to speak to me now?" Herney squinted again at the bedside clock. 3:17 A.M.

"Yes, Mr. President," the communications officer said. "He says it's an emergency."