J. Wheeler - The Krone Experiment

He spun suddenly.

“It wasn’t, was it?”

“Whoa,” said Baris thoughtfully. “There’s no clue in any of the files here.” He pointed at the material on Isaacs’ desk. “But that’s pretty clean stuff. I just pulled it out of our library. Our job’s to know everything the bad guys are up to, not everything our team does, so maybe there’s an outside chance. Still, if I read this guy Krone right, he’s the kind who would tackle something like this on his own. Remember these were Krone Industries resources being squandered. Unless there was some heavy-duty laundering, there wasn’t much government funding. I’ll check more deeply, but I think we’re clean.”

“We’ve got no choice but to get the whole story on Krone and that lab as fast as possible,” said Isaacs, regaining his seat. “Bill, I want you to keep digging here. Track down everything you can going in and out of that lab that could be related to the manufacture of a black hole.

“Someone’s got to go out to the site, though, and under the circumstances, I think I’d better take that one on myself.

“I’ll call Pat and get her there too. And I might as well bring Runyan along. He knows Krone and is on top of the scientific aspects. I want you to get a team busy working up a reaction estimate. As things stand, how will the Soviets react if they’re informed of Krone’s lab? What will it take to keep them under control? Okay?”

“Right.”

“Any questions?”

“A procedural one. Before you go, have you told the Director yet?”

“I spent three hours with him last night. Trying to explain about the black hole. Left him numb. I’ll have to see him now and report on Krone and the message from Korolev. I guess we’ll see what kind of stuff he’s really made of.”

“Is he going to want to go to the President? Or expect us to draw up a national intelligence estimate to circulate? The black hole is one thing, and perhaps an emergency in itself, but potential Russian reaction is a key issue now.”

“We’re in a bind. We’ve been waiting to get all our facts straight before dumping something like a black hole in the President’s lap. Of course, until this morning we didn’t know that it was made here, nor that the Russians were on to us.

“There’s no time now for a formality like an NIE,” Isaacs continued. “We’ve got a real crisis. We must get the story from that lab and then pass it to the President directly. I think the DCI will see it that way, but that’s why I want you to get on that reaction estimate. We’ll want that as part of the package.”

Isaacs looked at his watch. “It’s 10:45 now, 8:45 in New Mexico. I should be able to catch something at Andrews that will get us out there by mid-afternoon, local time. It’ll take a few hours to check out the lab. I might make it back here by midnight.

“I’ll suggest to the DCI that he lay the groundwork for an emergency meeting of the National Security Council about then. And just hope the Russians don’t push the button for twelve hours.”

“All right,” said Baris, rising to leave. “I’ll get on it.” He strode quickly across the room and out the door.

“Kate?” Isaacs called, and she appeared in the doorway, attuned to the emergency atmosphere.

“Tell the DCI I’m on my way to see him. Top priority. Order a helicopter to Andrews Air Force Base. Forty-five minutes from now, maximum. Half hour better. Arrange for a flight out of Andrews for me and two agents. Call Boswank and get him to assign me two of his people. Call Danielson and Runyan in Arizona and arrange for a flight for them. Destination for all of us is Holloman Air Force Base near White Sands, New Mexico. Arrange ground transportation there. We’re headed for a laboratory about forty miles away, up in the mountains. Better yet, see if you can get another chopper to take us from Holloman to the lab. Here’s the name of the lab and of the guy in charge.” He scribbled on a memo pad and handed it to her. “I’ll want to talk to him when I get back from seeing the DCI. And call Phillips in La Jolla and talk to Gantt while you’re on the line to Arizona. I want Phillips here this evening prepared for an NSC meeting. They may want to get together in Pasadena to assemble the relevant information.”

“Yes, sir.” Kathleen finished making notations on her pad and bustled back into her office.

Isaacs steeled himself and then headed off to hand his boss the second shocking revelation in less than twelve hours.

Danielson awoke in her tent in the waxing Arizona heat with the smell of Runyan about her. Over breakfast she felt as if she were two people. One of her talked business with Gantt as if nothing had happened. Her other self was full of Runyan and jolted every time he seemed to give her a special knowing glance. Gantt displayed no reaction, just smiled discretely to himself.

The call from headquarters came as they were finishing breakfast and galvanized them into action. They barely had time to throw their things together before the whupping of the Marine helicopter from Yuma broke the desert stillness. At the Yuma Air Station Danielson chatted casually with Runyan for the benefit of the strangers around them and continued to shout her secret messages until the transport was warmed up, ready to ferry them east to New Mexico.

Back in the desert, the camp settled into busy routine. Late that morning, one of the Marines relaxed in front of his tent, waiting for lunch. He didn’t understand the technical functions of the camp and didn’t expect to. He was assigned his job and did it. Nevertheless, he thought it strange that the chief of the operation would take time out to squat, motionless, at the edge of the camp with his index finger thrust past the second knuckle into a small hole in the ground.

A faint rush of electromagnetic waves carried the orders from a Soviet ground station on the Kamchatka Peninsula. On the hunter-killer satellite a switch popped shut, releasing the latent energy in a battery and generating a healthy blue spark elsewhere in the circuit. The spark jostled and heated the fragile molecules of a volatile material. The heated matter expanded violently, its force focused by a tough surrounding casing. A detonation wave raced outward in a fury that shot in a narrow arc into space.

A few hundred yards away, a sleek white cylinder decorated with a small red, white, and blue emblem floated with deadly grace. It was directly in the path of the onrushing explosion. Then the onslaught was full upon it, the pressure soaring ferociously, the outer wall crumpling, the shock wave engulfing everything within. With the shock came heat, heat that triggered circuits in the cylinder.

In a repeat of the pattern played out only instants before, switches tripped, power surged, tiny sparks crackled and carefully designed chemical explosives imploded upon a finely machined, slightly warm sphere of metal, violently squeezing it.

The shock from the first explosion arrived at the same instant. The sphere was warped; the focus of its compression altered. It existed for a brief moment, teetering on the edge of consummation. Each part of it fed neutrons into the others. Deep in the dense nuclei of its atoms, reactions were triggered splitting the nuclei apart, releasing vastly more energy than the penetrating neutrons possessed and more of the catalyzing neutrons as well.

Then the moment passed. The wracking shock and the partial release of nuclear energy amplified the distortions of the sphere. The chain reaction damped, and the sphere of radioactive metal dissolved into harmless shards. In a heartbeat, the cylinder was gone.

Nearby, another cylinder, larger, ungainly, stirred into menacing wakefulness. Ports slid open in its sides. It rotated and slurred. Taking aim. Awaiting instructions.