Don Pendleton - Starfire

“In other words,” Kurtzman said, “beware of those bearing free gifts.”

Brognola nodded, aware that Kurtzman and Price were apprised of the encounter in upstate Maryland. “The hacker problem is, of course, our situation to deal with, which, needless to say, we’re out of business if it hits the Washington Post. Now, from what I gather, you two think there are pieces of this whole sordid puzzle that want to fit and that want to tie together the hackers and a nuke slamming into the Australian out-back from space?”

Price cleared her throat. “Unfortunately we’re not sure of anything at this stage.”

“Okay, so we’re early in the game, but we’re in. Go ahead and give me what you do have. Good news–bad news, what we know and what we don’t.”

Kurtzman clicked on the wall monitor. “What you’re looking at, Hal, is about fifteen to twenty square miles of irradiated earth.”

Brognola peered at the image. The screen showed nothing other than an unusual white glow. He frowned at Kurtzman. “Aaron…”

“You see nothing, Hal, because that’s what our satellites see as the result of a fission blast more than twice the twenty-two-kilotons that was dropped on Nagasaki. In other words, until some of the heat dissipates our space probes are useless over this tract of Queensland. The good news—if it can be called that—is that there are maybe two human beings per square mile up to fifty to seventy or more square miles in the immediate affected area. My point—I’m thinking there was some method behind the madness of whoever did this, as far, that is, as containing immediate collateral damage.”

Brognola chomped on his cigar, trying like hell not to glower. He already knew that electromagnetic pulse had affected Australia as far as Sydney and other east coast cities. He knew that eighty-five percent of the country’s population lived along the coasts, which was the only other piece of questionable good news as far as the blast went. He knew prevailing winds would carry fallout and that radiation dosages could reach well beyond the lethal eight hundred. He knew Great Britain’s former penal colony was one riot away from declaring martial law, but that a cover story was already being handed to the press by the parliament, everything from a secret nuclear reactor meltdown to an asteroid, though it sounded to him nobody knew which direction to start dancing. He hoped Kurtzman was getting somewhere fast other than a show-and-tell of what he already knew.

“What I’m saying, Hal, and I’m not trying to be a wiseass, is that blank picture is about where we are, at least in regard to whoever is actually behind the incident. The list of countries we know of that have satellites is lengthy. Many of which have covert space programs.”

“Black ops.”

“Black ops. For some time, the NSA and CIA have believed that China and Russia are dabbling in everything from antigravity devices to reverse engineering of alien spacecraft. The ESA has fifteen members alone, and that doesn’t include our friends north of the border.”

“So, pick one—that’s what you’re trying to tell me?”

Price stepped in. “When you transcribed the CD to us from the chopper, it gave us a few nibbles to run with, but…”

Brognola stared at the dark look in Price’s eyes as she fell silent.

And there it was.

From the White House, around the world and back to Stony Man, it seemed everyone was at a loss to explain, or begin to find answers. What he knew for certain was the smoke screen to be thrown up between Washington, Great Britain and the prime minister of Australia may or may not hold back the world from collapsing into a tailspin of panic and anarchy.

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