Dan Brown - Deception Point

“Although what?”

Tolland eyed her intensely. “How important do you think it is that we talk to Xavia before we talk to your boss?”

“If she has something to say about chondrules? I’d say it’s critical. Mike,” Rachel said, “at the moment, we’ve got all kinds of contradictory data. William Pickering is a man accustomed to having clear answers. When we meet him, I’d love to have something substantial for him to act on.”

“Then we should make a stop.”

Rachel did a double take. “On your ship?”

“It’s off the coast of New Jersey. Almost directly on our way to Washington. We can talk to Xavia, find out what she knows. Corky still has the meteorite sample, and if Xavia wants to run some geologic tests on it, the ship has a fairly well-equipped lab. I can’t imagine it would take us more than an hour to get some conclusive answers.”

Rachel felt a pulse of anxiety. The thought of having to face the ocean again so soon was unnerving. Conclusive answers, she told herself, tempted by the possibility. Pickering will definitely want answers.

Delta-One was glad to be back on solid ground.

The Aurora aircraft, despite running at only one-half power and taking a circuitous ocean route, had completed its journey in under two hours and afforded the Delta Force a healthy head start to take up position and prepare themselves for the additional kill the controller had requested.

Now, on a private military runway outside D.C., the Delta Force left the Aurora behind and boarded their new transport—a waiting OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter.

Yet again, the controller has arranged for the best, Delta-One thought.

The Kiowa Warrior, originally designed as a light observation helicopter, had been “expanded and improved” to create the military’s newest breed of attack helicopter. The Kiowa boasted infrared thermal imaging capability enabling its designator/laser range finder to provide autonomous designation for laser-guided precision weapons like Air-to-Air Stinger missiles and the AGM-1148 Hellfire Missile System. A high-speed digital signal processor provided simultaneous multitarget tracking of up to six targets. Few enemies had ever seen a Kiowa up close and survived to tell the tale.

Delta-One felt a familiar rush of power as he climbed into the Kiowa pilot’s seat and strapped himself in. He had trained on this craft and flown it in covert ops three times. Of course, never before had he been gunning for a prominent American official. The Kiowa, he had to admit, was the perfect aircraft for the job. Its Rolls-Royce Allison engine and twin semirigid blades were “silent running,” which essentially meant targets on the ground could not hear the chopper until it was directly over them. And because the aircraft was capable of flying blind without lights and was painted flat black with no reflective tail numbers, it was essentially invisible unless the target had radar.

Silent black helicopters.

The conspiracy theorists were going nuts over these. Some claimed the invasion of silent black helicopters was proof of “New World Order storm troopers” under the authority of the United Nations. Others claimed the choppers were silent alien probes. Still others who saw the Kiowas in tight formation at night were deceived into thinking they were looking at fixed running lights on a much larger craft—a single flying saucer that was apparently capable of vertical flight.

Wrong again. But the military loved the diversion.

During a recent covert mission, Delta-One had flown a Kiowa armed with the most secretive new U.S. military technology—an ingenious holographic weapon nicknamed S&M. Despite conjuring associations with sadomasochism, S&M stood for “smoke and mirrors”—holographic images “projected” into the sky over enemy territory. The Kiowa had used S&M technology to project holograms of U.S. aircraft over an enemy anti-aircraft installation. The panicked anti-aircraft gunners fired maniacally at the circling ghosts. When all of their ammunition was gone, the United States sent in the real thing.

As Delta-One and his men lifted off the runway, Delta-One could still hear the words of his controller. You have another mark. It seemed an egregious under-statement considering their new target’s identity. Delta-One reminded himself, however, that it was not his place to question. His team had been given an order, and they would carry it out in the exact method instructed—as shocking as that method was.

I hope to hell the controller is certain this is the right move.

As the Kiowa lifted off the runway, Delta-One headed southwest. He had seen the FDR Memorial twice, but tonight would be his first time from the air.

“This meteorite was originally discovered by a Canadian geologist?” Gabrielle Ashe stared in astonishment at the young programmer, Chris Harper. “And this Canadian is now dead ?”

Harper gave a grim nod.

“How long have you known this?” she demanded.

“A couple of weeks. After the administrator and Marjorie Tench forced me to perjure myself in the press conference, they knew I couldn’t go back on my word. They told me the truth about how the meteorite was really discovered.”

PODS is not responsible for finding the meteorite! Gabrielle had no idea where all of this information would lead, but clearly it was scandalous. Bad news for Tench. Great news for the senator.

“As I mentioned,” Harper said, looking somber now, “the true way the meteorite was discovered was through an intercepted radio transmission. Are you familiar with a program called INSPIRE? The Interactive NASA Space Physics Ionosphere Radio Experiment.”

Gabrielle had heard of it only vaguely.

“Essentially,” Harper said, “it’s a series of very low frequency radio receivers near the North Pole that listen to the sounds of the earth—plasma wave emissions from the northern lights, broadband pulses from lightning storms, that sort of thing.”

“Okay.”

“A few weeks ago, one of INSPIRE’s radio receivers picked up a stray transmission from Ellesmere Island. A Canadian geologist was calling for help at an exceptionally low frequency.” Harper paused. “In fact, the frequency was so low that nobody other than NASA’s VLF receivers could possibly have heard it. We assumed the Canadian was long-waving.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Broadcasting at the lowest possible frequency to get maximum distance on his transmission. He was in the middle of nowhere, remember; a standard frequency transmission probably would not have made it far enough to be heard.”

“What did his message say?”

“The transmission was short. The Canadian said he had been out doing ice soundings on the Milne Ice Shelf, had detected an ultradense anomaly buried in the ice, suspected it was a giant meteorite, and while taking measurements had become trapped in a storm. He gave his coordinates, asked for rescue from the storm, and signed off. The NASA listening post sent a plane from Thule to rescue him. They searched for hours and finally discovered him, miles off course, dead at the bottom of a crevasse with his sled and dogs. Apparently he tried to outrun the storm, got blinded, went off course, and fell into a crevasse.”

Gabrielle considered the information, intrigued. “So suddenly NASA knew about a meteorite that nobody else knew about?”

“Exactly. And ironically, if my software had been working properly, the PODS satellite would have spotted that same meteorite—a week before the Canadian did.”

The coincidence gave Gabrielle pause. “A meteorite buried for three hundred years was almost discovered twice in the same week?”