Any trouble finding the magician’s prop? she e-mailed the two men in the van.
Given the heightened alert the base was still under after her supposed escape two days earlier, she knew the guards manning the gate would conduct a thorough search of the van on the way out as well as in. But lithe magician’s assistants had been crammed into small, secret compartments in coffin-shaped boxes for decades. This was a simple illusion requiring a simple prop. And Desh and Griffin didn’t even need to saw the box in thirds while she was inside and pull the pieces apart. They just needed to ditch the carpeting somewhere it wouldn’t be found, wait an hour or so, and then leave.
No trouble at all, came the reply. When money isn’t an object, all things are possible.
There was a pause, and then another message appeared on Major McDonough’s computer. David says to tell you we’re one minute out, he loves you, and if you risk yourself like this again, he promises to kill you.
Kira laughed. She still couldn’t help but love David Desh. Now she just had to be sure she really knew him. And decide if she could trust him.
Part of her was tingling in anticipation of seeing him again. Of melting into his arms.
But another part was wary.
She and her husband needed to have a little talk.
PART TWO
“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
—J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb
upon seeing the first test detonation
(quoting from Hindu scripture)
29
Once the countries of the world agreed to cooperate, they needed to decide where they would gather. Olympic villages were considered from the past several Olympics, but no matter which country was proposed to host operations, scores of other countries were vehemently opposed.
It was quickly agreed that this project would be done under the charter of the United Nations, since all but a few of the world’s countries were members.
The United States argued that because it gave the most money to the United Nations, and the organization was headquartered in New York, the operation should be conducted on U.S. soil, perhaps near Area 51. This was a location the U.S. used to test advanced aircraft and weaponry and could be easily converted for the current purpose. Besides, since Area 51 had been rumored for decades to be the site at which the U.S. studied alien spacecraft, it seemed fitting to finally make the rumor true. A number of countries agreed to this proposal, but China and Russia were so adamantly opposed, and were able to get enough of their allies to rail against it as well, that the proposal fell though.
Finally, after hundreds of proposals got nowhere, one emerged that evolved into something the countries of the world reluctantly agreed upon. The alien craft would be studied in international waters, so it wasn’t on any nation’s home turf. And the effort would be located as distant as possible from the worlds’ major military powers. This ended up being in the South Atlantic, closest to Africa and South America, and nearly equidistant from North America, Europe, and Asia.
To provide the proper platform, the U.N. commandeered The Spectacle of the Sea, built in Finland, which was the latest leader in a race that had gone on for decades among luxury cruise lines to build ever more gargantuan ships. Spectacle could house twelve thousand passengers and crew. It was over five football fields in length and one in width. It was twenty-eight stories tall. It was an exercise in decadence and the amazing potential of human enterprise and engineering, costing well over two billion dollars to build.
The ship had several full sized basketball and volleyball courts on its upper deck, and a half mile running track. It boasted a grassy park, a football field in length, which sported a variety of different trees and other vegetation, as well as streams packed with freshwater fish. During cruises, over seventy-five tons of ice were produced to satisfy the needs of the ship’s twenty-seven cafes and restaurants and forty-six bars. Forty-two tanks stored the nearly one million gallons of freshwater used by passengers each day. The Spectacle of the Sea was home to eight swimming pools, two nightclubs, several huge auditoriums and three theaters.
It would barely be big enough.
Scientific equipment of every kind would be flown in. Pools would be drained and seats removed from theaters. Parks, restaurants, ballrooms, and spas would be pressed into service housing equipment, or would be converted into other needed facilities.
A large portion of the upper deck would become a makeshift airport for jets and helicopters alike, turning the ship into the world’s largest aircraft carrier. All air and sea approaches to the ship would be patrolled by a U.N. peacekeeping force, and only those craft that had been cleared by U.N. representatives at various staging areas on the West Coast of Africa, which meant their passengers and crew were on the approved list and they had been thoroughly screened for weapons, would be allowed through the gauntlet and onto the ship.
The effort would be managed by the winners of the last twenty-one Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, and medicine, awarded over the past seven years. These twenty-one could elect internal leadership as they saw fit, in much the same way that juries elected jury foremen. This central committee of Nobel Laureates would select up to two thousand additional scientists to join the cruise, without concern for nationality. The governments of each of the nearly two hundred countries represented would be allowed forty delegates in addition to these scientists—with no questions asked, although arms would not be allowed on board—and each would be assigned their own block of quarters, Olympic-village style. Along with these two thousand scientists and eight thousand delegates, two thousand members of the ship’s standard crew and staff would round out the on board population.
Every stateroom on board was already equipped with at least a thirty-inch screen for entertainment and for passengers to plan and book on-land excursions. Each screen would be tied into a ship-wide network, so that all delegates would be able to receive important feeds and schedules.
Getting this immense floating platform ready would require a heroic effort, but no one suggested it shouldn’t be done. Yes, the effort could be a bust. The alien craft could change course. It could hover above the Earth for a few minutes and then sail into the Sun. Perhaps it would reveal its secrets immediately, bringing the enlightenment and making the U.N. effort unnecessary.
If the craft didn’t land, or wasn’t retrievable, returning the cruise ship to its original condition, and reimbursing the company for its use, would set the governments of the world back about a hundred million dollars. On a global scale, this was rounding error, even if the world was still suffering from one of the harshest economic climates in recent memory.
A number of names had been suggested for the ship, since Spectacle of the Sea was somehow not a fitting moniker for the ark that would host an unprecedented worldwide collaboration to study an object that would forever change history. United Earth, Pax Humanity, The Spirit of Mankind, and The Tower of Babel were all considered. But in the end the biggest vote-getter was the Copernicus, after the man who many believed had ushered in modern science, creating the Copernican revolution with his heretical theory that the Earth was not the center of the universe. Not only was Earth not the center of the universe, in one fell swoop the incoming alien craft had made it clear it wasn’t even the center of life in the universe, or even intelligent life.