Douglas Preston - Impact

"Not at the starting line?" Derkweiler almost hopped out of his seat. "Their Hu Jintao satellite is a few weeks from Mars orbit!"

"We've had orbiters around Mars for decades, we've landed probes, we've been exploring the surface with rovers--"

Derkweiler waved him silent. "I'm talking about the long-range picture. The Chinese have leapfrogged the Moon and are going straight to Mars. Don't underestimate what they can do--especially with the U.S. dithering around with its space program."

Corso nodded agreeably.

"And here you are messing around with gamma rays. What do stray gamma rays have to do with the Mars mission?"

"There's a gamma ray detector on the MMO," Corso said. "Analysis of that data is part of my job description."

"That detector was stuck on at the last minute," Derkweiler said, "by Dr. Freeman, over my objections, for no discernable reason. Gamma rays were Dr. Freeman's little hobby horse. Look--I don't fault you. You're trying to straighten out the mess Freeman left behind and you haven't learned the priorities. May I therefore suggest that you stick to the mission--the SHARAD mapping data?"

Struggling to maintain his best ass-kissing smile, Corso picked up the gamma ray plots and slid them back into the manila envelope. He would get along with Derkweiler come hell or high water. "I'll get to work on that right away," he said crisply.

"Excellent. Your first presentation as senior staff is in a week--I want you to do well. First impressions and all. You understand?"

"I do. Thank you."

"Don't thank me. It's my job to be a pain in the ass." Another chuckle.

"Right."

As Corso turned to go, Derkweiler said, "One other thing."

He turned.

"You'll probably be interested in this." He tossed over a stapled sheaf of papers that landed on the desk in front of Corso. "That's the final police report on Dr. Freeman's murder. It was a robbery--looks like Dr. Freeman came home at the wrong time. Bunch of stuff stolen, a Rolex, jewelry, computers . . . I thought you might like to see it. I know you were close to him."

"Thank you." Corso took it.

He walked back to his office, slipped behind his desk, and shoved Freeman's old gamma ray plots into a drawer and slammed it. Freeman had been right, Derkweiler was the boss from hell. Still, the gamma ray anomalies that he'd seen on Freeman's hard drive--and that he'd followed up on at work--were startling. More than startling. Freeman was right: it could be a major discovery, potentially explosive. The more he thought about the implications, the more frightened he became. He just had to keep his head down, work up the data, and present it in a cool, objective manner. Derkweiler might not like it, but what counted was the opinion of the mission director, Charles Chaudry, who was everything Derkweiler was not.

He took up the report on Freeman's death and flipped through it. It was written in cop-speak, using phrases like "the perpetrator committed aggression on the victim with a piano-wire garrote" and "the perpetrator searched the premises and effected rapid egress from the scene of the homicide on foot." As he read, he felt his sorrow and horror at Freeman's murder mingling with a feeling of relief at the random nature of the crime. And they'd caught the guy--a drug addict looking for money. The usual sad and senseless story. He closed the report with a shiver of mortality. He had been shocked that only about twenty people had come to Freeman's funeral, and that he was the only one from NPF. It had been one of the saddest experiences of his life.

Shucking off these morbid thoughts, Corso turned his attention to his workstation and pulled up the SHARAD data, the shallow-ground-penetrating radar which the MMO was using to map the subsurface features of Mars. He worked on it uninterrupted until the close of day, processing the data and fine-tuning the resulting imagery. He still had the hard drive back at his apartment and he could continue to work on the gamma ray data at home. Despite two security audits, still no one realized the hard drive was missing; Freeman had somehow bypassed all security checks and procedures. If the missing drive ever were noted, Corso had a plan to get rid of it immediately. But until then, it was exceedingly useful to have it at home, where he could work on it uninterrupted until late in the night.

This discovery, he reflected, was going to make his career.

9

Wyman Ford entered his suite in the Royal Orchid and stood gratefully in the blast of air-conditioning coming from a vent in the ceiling in the middle of the room. Through the giant picture window covering one end of the room, he could see the longtail boats coming and going on the Chao Phraya River. At noon, the sun was at its zenith and a brown pall lay over the burning city, the color washed out of everything. Even by Bangkok standards it was a scorcher.

The last time he had been in Bangkok was four years ago, with his wife, just before she was murdered. They had stayed at the Mandarin Oriental, in a wildly extravagant suite, with strategically placed mirrors--he stamped down hard on the memory, forcing his thoughts into another channel. His eye roved the cityscape below and settled on the spires of the Temple of the Dawn, which in the dead, polluted air looked like a cluster of gilded toothpicks rising from a sea of brown.

With a long sigh, he went to the hotel safe, unlocked it, and withdrew his laptop and an unusual USB card reader. When the computer had booted up, he took the original business card, the one he had retrieved from Boonmee, and inserted it into the reader. A window opened on his computer screen, and he downloaded the contents of the microchip embedded in the thick paper of the card. He packaged it as an audio file and e-mailed it to Washington.

Fifteen minutes later his account chimed and he downloaded the return e-mail.

Call to cell phone number: 855-0369-67985

Location of receiving phone: Sisophon, Cambodia

Registered owner of receiving phone: Prum Forgang

Transcription of conversation (translated from Thai):

A: Hello?

B: This is Boonmee Adirake. Much health and prosperity to you, Prum Forgang.

A: I am honored to receive your call, Boonmee Adirake.

B: I have an American looking to buy ten thousand carats of honey stones.

A: You know very well I can't get that much.

B: Let me explain. This man was carrying a colored topaz, not even in a lead box. He knows nothing. He has rich backers and it's a one-time deal. He's an idiot. We could sell him anything.

A: What do you suggest?

B: An assortment of raw, low-grade honey stones, mixed in with enhanced topaz or heat-treated citrine.

A: That I can do.

B: I need them within twenty-four hours. The man is in a hurry.

A: Good for you that he is in a hurry. And?

B: I will get the highest possible price and you will get forty percent of it.

A: Forty percent? My dear friend! Why this lack of fairness? I'm the one supplying the goods at my own expense. Make it fifty.

B: Forty-five. I found the customer.

A: Forty-five is a most awkward number. I'm hurt you would nickel and dime me like some cheap hustler and not an old and trusted associate.

B: You're the one arguing over five percent.

A: I have four children to think about, Adirake, and a wife who is like a bird with her beak open all the time. No, I will not do it for forty-five. I insist on fifty.

B: By the testicles of Yaksha! All right, I will make it fifty--this time. Forty for the next deal.

A: Accepted. You will of course look carefully into the background of this American before you deal with him. And you will get a suitable down payment.

B: You can be sure I will.

A: Excellent. I'll assemble the shipment and send it off by my courier this evening. You'll have it tomorrow morning.