Douglas Preston - Impact

To make a long story short, I saw the writing on the wall, so before I was fired I smuggled out this drive.

Someday I'll tell you all about it over a brace of martinis but that's not why I need your help now. My last week at NPF I did something really stupid, really compromising, and because of that I've got to park this drive with you. Just for a while, as a precaution, until things cool off. Do this for me, Mark, please. You're the only one I can trust.

Don't contact me, don't call, just sit tight. You'll hear from me sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I'd love to have your thoughts on the gamma ray data in here, if you get a chance to look at it.

Jason

And then, scrawled at the bottom almost as an afterthought, was the password to the drive.

For a moment Corso couldn't even think as he stared at the letter, until he realized it was rattling in his trembling hand.

This was a disaster. A catastrophe beyond belief. A breach of security that would stain everyone involved. This would fuck up everything. Not only was it highly illegal for the classified hard drive to be outside the building, but the fact that Freeman had even managed to smuggle it out would cause an uproar. Security of classified information had been drummed into them from day one. Zero tolerance. He remembered the scandal back at Los Alamos in the nineties when a single classified hard drive went missing. The news made the front page of The New York Times , the director was forced out, and dozens of scientists fired. It was a bloodbath.

He sat down, his head in his hands, clutching his hair. How did Freeman get it out? These drives had to be wrapped with a security seal every night, logged, and locked in a safe. They were encrypted up the wazoo and physically alarmed. Every use of the drive was recorded on the user's permanent security record. If the drive were moved more than a certain distance from its approved server, alarms would go off.

Freeman had somehow evaded all that.

Corso rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, tried to calm himself down. If he brought this to the attention of NPF, it would cause a scandal, cast a dark cloud over the whole Mars mission, and taint everyone--especially him. Freeman and he went back years. Freeman had brought him in, mentored him; he was known as Freeman's protege. He had tried to help Freeman during his free fall over the past few months.

But of course he had to do the right thing and report it. No choice. He had to.

Or did he? Was it better to do the right thing or the smart thing?

He began to understand why Freeman had sent it to him via media mail instead of by some other means. Untraceable. Nothing to sign for and no tracking number.

If Corso destroyed the drive and pretended he never received it, nobody would be the wiser. Eventually they might discover the drive was missing and that Freeman took it, but Freeman was dead and that's where it would end. They'd never trace the drive to him.

Corso began to feel calmer. This was a manageable problem. He would do the smart thing, destroy the drive, pretend he'd never gotten it. Tomorrow, he'd drive up into the mountains, go for a hike, bust it up into pieces, burn, scatter, and bury them.

He immediately felt a wash of relief. Clearly that was the correct way to handle this problem.

Standing up, he went into the kitchen and got himself a beer, took a frosty pull, came back into the living room. He stared at the drive, sitting on his coffee table. Freeman was excitable, a bit crazy, but he was also brilliant. What was this big thing, this gamma ray thing? Corso found his curiosity aroused.

Before he got rid of the drive, he'd just take a quick look at it--see what the hell Freeman was talking about.

6

At the wheel, Abbey guided the lobster boat toward the floating dock, tossed out a fender, and neatly brought it alongside. See that, Dad? she thought, I'm perfectly capable of piloting your boat . Her father had gone to California on his annual visit to his widowed older sister and would be gone for a week. She'd promised to take care of the boat, check up on it, look into the bilges every day.

That's what she planned to do--on the water.

She remembered those summers when she was thirteen, fourteen--when her mother was still alive--the mornings she had set off with her father to go lobstering. She worked as his "stern man," baiting the traps, measuring and sorting the lobsters, tossing back the shorts. It galled her that he had never let her take the wheel--ever. And then, after her mother died and she'd gone off to college, he'd hired a new stern man and refused to take her back on when she'd returned. "It wouldn't be fair to Jake," he said. "He's working for a living. You're going to college."

She shook off these thoughts. The pre-dawn ocean was as still as a mirror, and since it was a Sunday, when it was illegal to fish, there were no lobster boats out. The harbor was quiet, the town silent.

She threw a couple of dock lines to Jackie, who cleated the boat. Their supplies were piled on the dock: ice chests, a small propane tank, a couple of bottles of Jim Beam, two duffel bags, boxes of dry food, foul weather gear, sleeping bags, and pillows. They began stowing the gear in the cabin. As they worked, the sun rose over the sea horizon, throwing gold bullion across the water.

As Abbey exited the pilothouse, she heard the backfiring of a car engine and the grinding of gears from the pier above. A moment later a figure appeared at the top of the ramp.

"Oh no, look who's here," said Jackie.

Randall Worth came strolling down the ramp, wearing a tank top despite the fifty-degree temperature, showing off his crappy jailhouse tats. "Well lookee here. If it ain't Thelma and Louise."

He was tall and ropy with greasy hair to his shoulders, scabs on his face, stubble sprouting from his chin. He wore shitkicker leather motorcycle boots with dangling chains, even though he'd never been on a real motorcycle in his life. He grinned, showing two rows of brown, rotting teeth.

Abbey continued to load the boat, ignoring him. She had known him almost all her life and she still couldn't believe the self-induced catastrophe that had befallen the cheerful, dumb, freckled kid who was always the worst player at the Little League games but who never stopped trying. Maybe it was the inevitable nickname they coined from his last name, chanting it at the baseball games. Worthless . Worthless.

"Going on vacation?" Worth asked.

Abbey swung a duffle up on the gunwale and Jackie shoved it in the corner of the cockpit.

"You haven't visited me since I got out of Maine State. My feelings are hurt."

Abbey swung up the second duffel. They were almost done. She couldn't wait to get away from him.

"I'm talking to you."

"Jackie," said Abbey, "grab the other handle of the ice chest."

"Sure thing."

They lifted the ice chest and were about to heft it over the gunwhale when Worth stepped around, blocking them. "I said, I'm talking to you." He flexed his muscles, but the effect on his wasted body was ridiculous. Abbey put the chest down and stared at him. She felt a sudden, huge sadness.

"Oh, am I in your way?" said Worth, smirking.

Abbey crossed her arms and waited, looking away.

Worth stepped right up to her, leaning over, his face close to hers, the fetid B.O. smell enveloping her. He stretched his chapped lips in a crooked smile. "You think you're going to dump me?"

"I didn't dump you, because there never was a relationship to begin with," said Abbey.

"Oh yeah? Well, what did you call this?" He wiggled his hips obscenely, moving them in and out and moaning in falsetto, " Deeper, deeper. "