Act of God (6 page)

"Jesus, I hate bagels," Ciano said.

Then why the hell did you order them?" Sam demanded, almost at the end of his tether. Laine laid a restraining hand on his arm.

"All in good time," Ciano said. He launched into anotherr technical discussion with Laine, in German. Sam stared into his drink, wishing for the good old days, when people just shot at you and you could shoot back. The food arrived and Ciano attacked his ribs wolfishly. By that time, it was time for another round of drinks. Ciano sat back, satisfied, sipping his third Wild Turkey, his bagel still untouched.

"Okay," Ciano finally said. "We got 'em to the comet, and we know how they're gonna get back. The question is why? You remember what Tarkovsky was supposed to speak about?"

Sam thought back. It was something that meant nothing to him, so he couldn't remember the title of the scheduled talk.

"It was something about the Tunguska event," Laine said. "It was—" her voice trailed off and she turned decidedly pale. Sam was alarmed. It was unlike Laine to lose her self-possession. "Ice!" she half-whispered at last.

"The light dawns," Ciano said. He looked sharply at Sam. "You know about the Tunguska event?" Sam shook his head. "Okay, lemme give you a rundown," Ciano said. "It was something happened in Siberia way back before the Revolution, a big blast that laid down hundreds of square kilometers of forest but didn't kill anybody because there was nobody there."

Sam's professional hackles stood up at the words, "big blast," and something about it shook a memory loose. "Hold it. I think I read or heard something about it, years ago. No remains, right? No crater or meteorites?"

"Exactly," Ciano confirmed. "Now, I got a lot of friends who'll swear that what caused the blast was a UFO blowing up, or some kind of natural atomic explosion, or a whole lot of other explanations."

"Why an atomic explosion?" Sam asked.

Ciano grinned triumphantly. "Where the blast went off, the trees were still standing at the center. That's a torus effect, just like you get with an aerial atomic blast." He grabbed up his bagel and held it out. "That's a torus, a bagel, a donut, an inner tube. It means that the released energy is largely confined within this closed, tubular matrix and stuff standing at the epicenter stays standing. Get it? That's what happened at Tunguska, and that's what Tarkovsky was gonna talk about tonight."

Sam knew that this was what he had been searching for. He also knew that he was going to have to let this displaced Hobbit go about telling him his own way. "Go on," Sam said.

"A few years ago," Ciano said, "Tarkovsky published a paper. For some reason, it never made it into the major astronomical journals. I guess he yanked it shortly afterward to polish it some. I've done that myself. Anyway, I ran across it in a little Japanese publication I subscribe to. The Japanese are great comet-watchers, you know. Most new comets are spotted by amateurs, and Japan is the preeminent country for amateur astronomers." Sam didn't know that, but he let it ride for the moment in hopes that Ciano would get to the point.

"Now, Tarkovsky's point was this: he thinks that the Tunguska blast was caused by a collision with a chunk of cometary ice!" He paused for effect. "See, ice accounts for a lot of the anomalies in the Tunguska business: There were no meteoric particles found. Ice wouldn't leave any. There was a hell of a blast. Ice would make just such a blast."

"Just a minute," Sam said, "bear with me. Why would ice make a blast like that?"

"Look," Ciano said, "suppose you had a chunk of ice about the size of," he looked around, then spread his arms to their widest extent, "about the size of this bar. And suppose you detached this hunk of ice from its parent comet, as must have happened many times in the past, and suppose you chucked this hunk of ice right down Earth's gravity well. Well, right there you got mass and velocity, plus you got the effect of the ice, which is just water, flashing to steam when it heats up, and the result is," he rummaged in his pockets and came up with a pen and a pocket calculator. He began punching the calculator and scribbling down figures on the tablecloth. "You got an ice cube that's ten meters by ten meters and it'd mass a thousand tons. If it fell from outer space at zero initial velocity, it'd pack energy about the same as that of a twenty kiloton bomb when it hit. Only it probly wouldn't hit, because one that small would produce an aerial blast, like the Tunguska event. See what I mean? And see why this guy Nekrasov wants control of the project?" He looked back and forth at them, "Because, when that chunk of ice comes in—" he threw himself back in his chair, flung both arms out extravagantly, and bellowed: "KABOOM!" Once again, heads swiveled.

Now Ciano leaned forward across the table and said in a low, conspiratorial voice, "and the beauty of it is, it's one hundred percent clean. No radiation, no fallout, just one hell of a big bang." He sat back and took another big slug of Wild Turkey.

"It provides a great many answers," Laine said. "One of the great limitations on deep space travel has been the necessity of taking water along and recycling it. It's necessary for every biological function. The same with oxygen. With the ice in the comets, they will be able literally to mine all the water and oxygen they need,"

"Kinda opens up all sorts of possibilities, don't it?" Ciano said. "Lunar colonies, Martian colonies, asteroid settlement, all kindsa stuff. All the water and oxygen you need, plus fuel for your engines. Jeez—"

"Speculate on that later," Sam said. His demeanor was as impassive as usual but he was feeling a cold sweat. "Let's stick to Project Peter the Great and Nekrasov's probable plans. How soon can he put it into effect? What are our chances of preempting his project by instituting one of our own? What are the best defenses against such an attack?"

This time, it was Ciano holding out a hand to stem the rush of questions. "Wait a minute. In the first place, you got no proof that what I'm talking about is what's going on over there. I'm pretty sure I'm right, but that's a long way from having proof. Plus, there's still a lot of things to iron out, like just how are they gonna make the ion drive work?" He jabbed a forefinger into the tabletop with every point.

"Don't you think," Laine said, "that the evidence now at hand is sufficient to assume that the ion drive is now at Tarkovsky's disposal? Surely such a commitment of resources would not have been authorized otherwise."

"Sure," Ciano agreed. "We can be pretty sure of that. Now, how about convincing somebody else? I think Mr. Taggart here can tell you how cooperative his superiors are when they're handed something really outlandish. Tell them we have evidence that the Soviets are planning to chuck big ice cubes at us or somebody else, and you'd get shown the door quick."

"And for once I'd agree with them," Sam said. "This whole theory has one great big hole in it."

"What might that be, pray tell?" Ciano asked.

"Just what advantage is this iceberg bomb to The Soviets? They already have plenty of nuclear warheads, even after the accords are fully effected. No have we. If they attacked us with ice bombs or anything else that big, the result would be the same: nuclear retaliation. So why bother?"

"That's a very astute observation," Ciano admitted, immediately qualifying it with: "Especially considering its source."

"Perhaps," Laine hazarded, "they intend to make it look like a natural disaster, like the Tunguska event."

"That'd make sense," Ciano said.

But Sam was shaking his head. "It'd be a hell of a risk for them to take. Consider: A big explosion going off without warning like that, or a whole bunch of them, wouldn't it look just like an atomic attack for the first few minutes? They'd be taking the chance that we'd launch a counterattack as soon as the first explosion went off, even before we knew what we were being hit with."

Ciano sat with his chin against his deformed sternum, thinking. Then: "Suppose they play it up for months ahead of time? You know, 'Big Comet Headed This Way: Sov Scientists Issue Warning!' That kind of thing. First it's in all the tabloids that they sell at the supermarket checkout counters, then it makes the respectable papers and the scientific publications. By D-Day, everybody's ready for it, only, of course, there's no way to predict where it's gonna hit. When it does, well, it just happens to be the Western Hemisphere, with maybe a few not-so random hits on Soviet soil for verisimilitude. How's that sound?"

"Better," Sam said. "But, it's still a hell of a risk. After all, if we decide that we're being weakened militarily for any reason, we just might launch a preemptive strike to keep the Soviets from picking up all the marbles. They'd sure as hell do it if the situation were reversed. Furthermore, they have to take into account that we might penetrate their operation."

"Yeah, that's so," Ciano admitted. "Still, you gotta take into account the fact that there are some real nutso cases in important positions all over the world."

"Astute observation," Sam said, smiling, "considering the source."

Ciano went on, ignoring him. "So, we got two major possibilities: (A)," he held up one finger, "Nekrasov's crazy and thinks he can get away with it, which is entirely possible, or (B)," he held up another, "he figures he's got an angle that's gonna let him get away with it, which is also quite possible. Of the two, I favor hypothesis (B), which presupposes that there's some factor here that we're missing which, if we had it, would make sense of this whole mess, and that, my friends, is the greatest likelihood of all."

"We must have more data," Laine said, somewhat more succinctly.

"No kidding," Ciano said, He looked to Sam. "Well, Mr. G-Man, that's your field. You're the intelligence man, we're just intelligent."

"Since when did you take over this operation, Ciano?" Sam demanded.

"Nature abhors a vacuum," Ciano said, "and always tries to fill it with something. Human nature abhors a competence vacuum. Here I am to fill it. You need me, Taggart. Dr. Tammsalu here knows something about the project, and she knows some of the people involved. You have access to a lot of important classified data that you'd never understand. I can put that data together and make sense out of it."

Much as he hated to admit it, Sam figured that the arrogant little dwarf was probably right. He 'd already observed Ciano's ability to draw accurate conclusions from skimpy data.

"Won't they miss you back in Hawaii?" Sam asked.

"Naw, they're probably hoping my plane'll get hijacked to Antarctica or somewhere."

"What did we ever do to deserve the help of such a charming and popular scholar?" Sam mused.

"I don't know," Ciano said, seriously. "You musta been a real saint in some former life and all your good karma's come back to you in spades. I take it you got an expense account, right? You can establish me in some halfway decent digs handy to a facility with a good library, telex equipment and a really first-class computer setup. A good university would be better than a government facility. That way we can skip all the security crap."

"Anything else I can do for you?" Sam asked.

"I'll let you know. Leave me your phone number."

"Gentlemen," Laine said, just as Sam appeared ready to explode, "perhaps we should order a nightcap." Sam, somewhat defused by the interruption, ordered an Irish Coffee. Laine had another vodka and Ciano, predictably, another double Wild Turkey. The waiter looked at them strangely as he delivered the round.

"The Aral coast is a dull place," Laine said, as if somebody had asked. "A great tolerance for vodka is the natural result."

"Now," Ciano went on, "what we're looking for is changes in the priorities on this Peter the Great thing. If Nekrasov's going all-out on the comet project, other projects are gonna be cancelled or stripped of resources. Crucial materials are gonna be diverted from other projects. That's what's gonna provide us with our evidence."

"Speaking of security crap," Sam said, "you realize I could be committing a federal offense by smuggling any of this stuff out to you."

"I know you can do it," Ciano said. "Just put your low animal cunning to work. It's not like you're worried about keeping your job much longer, anyway."

Sam fumed. The little man was at it again. "Job, my ass. I could be looking at several years in a federal pen."

"Where's your sense of patriotic duty, Taggart?" Ciano chided. "You owe it to your country."

Sam slumped back in his chair, feeling very nearly defeated. "My God," he said, shaking his head. "It's going to be hard enough trying to sell my bosses on a Soviet comet attack. How the hell am I going to explain you?"

CHAPTER SIX

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The next morning Sam woke up with a mild hangover. He wondered what Laine and Ciano must be undergoing this morning. Double vodkas and Wild Turkey, for God's sake! He forced himself through his morning regimen of exercise, fortified with a handful of aspirin. He refused to let a self-inflicted infirmity be an excuse for slacking off. During the course of a very long, very hot shower, the fog began to dissipate.

At five after eight he phoned his boss' secretary and bullied her for an appointment later that morning. He immediately called up Laine and arranged to pick her up in time for the appointment. Then he pondered the wisdom of taking Ugo along as well. Was his boss really ready for something like Ciano? On the other hand, he needed an expert, an American expert, to back him up. He was going to be trying to put over a story so wild that his boss would never buy it on his word alone. Or so he told himself. But it was the mental image of Ciano confronting Caldwell that sold him in the end. He just had to see what it would be like. He called Ciano, then went out to lay in a substantial breakfast against the coming exertions.

Theodore Caldwell's office was neat and understated, with dark paneling and heavy furniture. Most people would take it for a banker's office. Caldwell sat behind a teakwood desk, complete with a leather-cornered green blotter and a massive brass pen stand. Otherwise, the desktop was utterly bare. At least, Sam reflected, Caldwell wasn't the type who tried to make you think that you were stealing his valuable time from terribly important business.

Caldwell himself was a tall, slightly jowly man. Once upon a time he had been an athlete, but the years and a sedentary job had taken their toll. His hair, what was left of it, was gray and short. He wore the anonymous, conservatively-cut suit that constituted a uniform in Washington.

Sam made introductions. Laine Caldwell already knew and, to his credit, he didn't turn a hair when he saw Ciano. Sam suspected that somebody downstairs had tipped him about what to expect. Sam wasted no time on pleasantries. As soon as Ciano's professional credentials were established, he outlined their findings and suspicions, with emphasis on the discussion of the night before, giving full credit to Ciano's insights. To his relief, Ciano interrupted no more than a dozen times. Sam took this to be evidence that Ciano was suffering from last night's overindulgence. He was having a slow morning. At least, the little man's interruptions were for the purpose of setting him straight on technical points, colorfully interspersed with Low Brooklynese and an occasional sentence or even entire paragraph in impeccable English.

Laine maintained a discreet silence throughout all this. Caldwell said very little, merely sitting back in his chair and giving the impression of full attention and interest. Sam knew this to be part of his bureaucrat's pose. For all he knew, Caldwell wasn't hearing a word. For about fifteen seconds alter Sam's wrap-up, Caldwell remained silent.

"I must admit," Caldwell said at last, "that this is the craziest story that's come across my desk in a long time. Maybe in my whole career." He thought for a while. "Before we can take any kind of action on your report, we will have to have additional expert opinions. If there's anything to your theory, it'll have to go to the National Security Council, and they're not about to act on the unsubstantiated word of three . . . people."

"Whaddya need additional expert opinions for?" demanded Ciano in his inimitable manner. "You got my view, and believe me, that's the one that counts. You go asking my esteemed colleagues, and what are you gonna get? You're gonna get a hundred opinions from a hundred semi-morons with framed degrees on their walls and not an original thought to split among 'em."

Only slightly taken aback, Caldwell continued smoothly. "I understand what you are saying, Dr. Ciano, but I must first convince my superiors of the severity of the crisis before the matter may be brought before the decision makers." He paused for emphasis. "As Sam can tell you, the National Security Council means the President. Now, I may be convinced," Sam caught the weaseling "may" and wondered whether the others had, "but that won't matter as far as the NSC is concerned. Also, they'll be most displeased if we alarm the President without cause. We need a panel of expert advisers. We should probably consult with the National Academy of Sciences to form a panel."

This time it was Sam's turn for an outburst, causing Ciano to shut up before he could get a word out. "Damn it, we don't have time for that. They've stolen a march on us as it is. If we go appointing panels and instituting studies and turning them over to evaluating committees we'll be so far behind we'll never catch up! We know damn well how fast the Soviets can move when they commit themselves to a course of action like this. They did it nearly half a century ago with their A-bomb project." Sam got out of his chair and began to pace frenetically, forcing Caldwell to keep turning his head to follow his subordinate, "And don't give me that crap about the Rosenbergs selling them the secrets; they were ready to test their first device before they got word one from the Rosenbergs. They did it again with Sputnik in '57 and by God they're going to get away with it a third time with this Peter the Great business!" By now he was slapping the surface of Caldwell's polished desk.

"Tell him, Rev!" Ciano cheered.

"Now," Sam went on, somewhat calmer, "if the Soviets are going to outstrip us in space exploration, that's between their scientific establishment and ours, and it's not this bureau's concern. But this comet business is going to be used as an offensive weapon and that means national security and that means us! They're moving on it fast, and the reason they can do that is because they aren't appointing any goddamn committees! Nekrasov pulls the strings and Tarkovsky directs the project and that's it. Now, if we can't come up with something as streamlined as that, we're finished. We've lost before we've started." Actually, the Soviet structure was not as simple as all that and Sam knew it perfectly well but he chose to overlook it to make his point.

Caldwell sat through Sam's mini-tirade with the unperturbed air of a man whose job involves listening a great deal and saying very little. He was far from inept, otherwise he would never have been able to maneuver himself into his current position. If Taggart's report turned out to be as hysterical as it sounded, his reputation could be ruined for having taken it seriously. Conversely, if it should prove to be true, and if he had not acted promptly and decisively, he would be finished as well. He was, however, an expert at survival in this bureaucratic jungle. With a repressed shudder, he remembered the notorious Army Ordnance general who had staked his professional reputation on the belief that an atomic bomb was an impossibility. Ice bombs sounded absurd, but he wouldn't risk his reputation on the likelihood that he might be wrong. He'd pass that on to someone else.

"Sam, I'm setting up a task group on Project Peter the Great. You're going to head it. Even if it is a committee, it can't move too slowly with you at its head, now can it?"

"That depends on who's on it," Sam answered suspiciously. He sensed a trap.

"For one, Dr. Tammsalu, if she's willing." Laine nodded quickly. "Good. Then you are hereby assigned, at a salary commensurate with your training. Your appointment will, of course, be subject to further security clearance. This will also eliminate the need for you to find a suitable research position right away. Dr. Ciano, we would like to have you as a consultant to this task group."

"Well, OK," Ciano said with poor grace. Clearly, he thought he should head the group, but he would take a consulting position if that was all he could get.

"As you say, Sam," Caldwell went on, "this is a matter of utmost urgency. How soon can you get back to me with your panel report? You'll be given access to funds adequate to cover all related expenses, and I'm assigning five people to your task group, under your direction." Sam was ready for that. He had gotten most of what he wanted, after a fashion. Now he was going to have to do something for Caldwell. He took the list of names Caldwell had scribbled. As he had expected, all but one were from the UFO department. He was to keep them out of Caldwell's hair for the duration.

"Expect to hear from me in about a week. I should have our blue ribbon panel organized by then."

"Fine," he glanced at his watch. "Well, Drs. Tammsalu and Ciano, I won't detain you further. I hope we can contain this situation before it presents a national danger." As they got up to leave, he said: "Sam, may I speak to you in private? Our friends can wait in the anteroom. It'll only take a few minutes."

When the others had left Caldwell turned to Sam, his bland bureaucratic expression gone, replaced by the severe face of a superior about to give a subordinate a dressing-down. "Where the hell did you find this guy Ciano?"

"I didn't," Sam replied. "He found me."

"Christ, Sam, can you imagine taking him in front of the NSC or God help us, the Joint Chiefs?"

"He can't help the way he looks," Sam said. "Hell, even the way he acts isn't as crazy as some pretty highly-placed people you and I know."

"I know that," Caldwell said, impatiently. "When I was a kid at Princeton, I used to see Einstein sometimes, though I never took his classes. That old coot was a pretty bizarre sight, by early fifties standards. But at least his reputation was already made before he even came to this country. But this guy! Not only is he a screwball, he's just a kid. Will anybody take him seriously?"

"He's brilliant," Sam said. "Take it from me. He's not only an expert in his field, he's intuitive as all hell. I've never seen anybody who could pick up a few disparate facts and come to a correct conclusion like this guy. He's like those Intelligence wild men they used in World War Two to break the Japanese code, or crack the Ultra device."

"Yeah, I know," Caldwell said. "But why couldn't he be a nice, clean-cut Prussian like von Braun? Well, the hell with that. The other problem we have is you."

"Me?" Sam asked, innocently.

"Exactly. That little outburst you put on just now." Caldwell gazed at him with icy eyes. "I can put up with it, because I'm used to your little idiosyncrasies and you've done some good work in the past. You've earned a little latitude. Also, those other people in the room were nothing, this time. But," he paused and rapped out the rest in a deadly monotone, "if you pull that in front of any of my superiors, you'll be out on your can looking for work as a security guard." For once, Sam kept his mouth shut. "That's all, Sam. On the off-chance that you're actually onto something I look forward to hearing from you." Sam left. The ball was in his court now. He found his two companions in the anteroom and took them out of the building. Half an hour later, they held a war council over lunch in the restaurant of a nearby Holiday Inn. Sam was silent on the trip to the restaurant and so, for a change, was Ugo.

"What kinda yoyos did your boss saddle us with?" Ugo asked after they had ordered.

"Not as bad as I'd feared," Sam said. Laine noted that all his choleric temper of earlier in the day had disappeared. She wondered if it had all been an act to bully concessions out of his superior. "Of the five, four are on the outs with the organization. One for inefficiency, one for a drinking problem, but the other two because they're mavericks like me. Old-time hardliners being kept on the back burner."

"What are hardliners?" Laine asked.

"Actually, it's a matter of government policy," Sam explained. "Or rather style. In the fifties and most of the sixties, we played hardball with the Soviets; lots of confrontation and saber-rattling in public, rough games for people like me. The seventies and a lot of the eighties were a softline period; detente, arms talks, but little brushfire conflicts in the Third World. Then there was a period of really rough hardballing. That was when I got a lot of action. Now, we're back in a softline mode again. With the new arms accords apparently working and everybody backing down from armed confrontation, I thought it was going to stick. Now it looks like rough times again. The reason I'm still around at all, and these two men, Pearson and Camargo, are still on the Company payroll, is that we've been kept in reserve against a return to the bad old days."

"So we got a lush, a screwup and two cowboys," Ciano said. "Who's number five?"

Surprisingly, Sam grinned broadly. "That one was a big shock. Number five is Fred Schuster."

"Who's he?" Ciano asked.

"Fred's a she. Frederike Schuster. She's been a top operative for years, and she's in no trouble I ever heard of. That makes me wonder why she was assigned to us."

"Perhaps," Laine suggested, "since Mr. Caldwell gave you four misfits, he gave you this Frederike as compensation."

"Don't count on it," Sam cautioned. "If Caldwell assigned her to me, he's got some ulterior motive." He looked at Ciano with an odd cast of eye. "You'll like her, Ugo. She's your kind of person."

"I don't like the sound of that," Ciano said. Sam would say no more on the subject.

"What do we do now?" Laine asked as their orders arrived. "Won't it take several months to assemble this blue ribbon panel?"

"Why bother with a panel?" Ciano said. "Don't we got enough to take to the President as it is?"

"Look, Ugo," Sam said. "You don't just walk up to the President of the United States and say you want to talk about ice. Presidents are a shy breed and they're surrounded by people whose specialty is keeping people from seeing them." He sighed. Ciano's impatience and detachment from reality were going to be a problem. "Believe it or not, right now our most direct line to the White House is through my boss. It's going to take the Russians time to put this project together. They're going to have to strip other programs, train people, rearrange budgets, all kinds of things. They'll be moving fast, but with any luck we'll have time to set up."

The waitress came back with drinks and salads and Sam continued outlining his plan of action. "If we're going to be taken seriously, we'll have to have evidence, lots of it. We'll need an impressive array of experts." Before Ciano could start his obvious outburst, Sam said: "I know what you're about to say, so keep it to yourself. We have to have them. Here's my plan for getting them: The top people are mostly so busy they're not going to be willing to just drop everything and hop on the first flight to Washington, right?" Ugo and Laine nodded agreement. "But Caldwell didn't say that the panel had to be locked up in one place to debate the matter. The answer is, we go to them. You two get to pick the names for the panel. They'll have to be nationally known, at least within the scientific community," With a pointed look at Ciano he added: "With good reputations among their peers." Ciano just sat and glared, while simultaneously wolfing down salad like a starving vegetarian. "We'll visit each one individually," Sam continued, "and try to persuade them of the gravity and urgency of the situation.