“I doubt that, sir,” returned Weston.
“Our receivers are copying all other satellite transmissions.”
“Then maybe Baker is in an improper orbit,” suggested Lindsay.
“That could account for us being unable to pick up her telemetry signals.”
Weston shook his head solemnly.
“GEODSS has a tight lock on her. Doc. I’ll bet that Baker’s altitude is precise to the foot.”
Maddox’s glance returned to the perspex screen, where the flashing blue dot was passing to the east of the Aral Sea.
“Sweet Jesus, can’t you guys do something?
She’s passing over Tyuratam now!”
Desperately attacking his keyboard, Weston appeared genuinely confused.
“I still don’t understand it. All systems continue to check out fine. There just doesn’t seem to be any logical reason for us not to receive those pictures.”
Lindsay nervously pulled his pipe from his mouth.
“Run a complete failure analysis through the computer, Andy. I’ll see if Sunnyvale can give us a hand.”
Captain Maddox watched as the director reached out and grabbed the yellow handset. When his glance returned to the perspex screen, it was most obvious that the flashing blue dot was well south of Tyuratam by now. Not knowing whom to pin the blame on, he could only be certain that, for the moment, the United States of America could no longer monitor the Soviet Union’s largest ICBM field. A painful spasm coursed through his abdomen as the seated technician commented dryly, “Initial computer failure check indicates three possible areas of fault. It shows a sixty-three-percent probability that the transmission difficulties are due to some sort of inherent mechanical failure. The various sub-systems are in the process of being cross-checked. We show a twenty-two-percent probability that the difficulties are due to a cosmic anomaly such as a sunspot. The National Observatory data banks at White Sands are being queried to investigate such a possibility.”
“And the third area of fault?” prompted the Air Force captain.
Clearing his voice, Weston continued.
“The computer indicates a fifteen-percent probability that Baker’s failure to transmit was due to intentional interference by a third party.”
“Jesus Christ, that would mean that the Russkies have figured out a way to jam our signals!” exclaimed Maddox.
“Easy now. Captain,” cautioned Lindsay, who had just hung up the telephone.
“This is all still supposition.
I just got off the horn with Sunnyvale and they’re presently giving Baker a try themselves. Their consensus is that most likely we’re facing some sort of mechanical glitch in the digital-reprocessing system.
The Agency is recommending that if Baker fails to respond within the next twenty-four hours, one of the two remaining Keyholes in our land-based inventory be immediately put into orbit.”
This time it was Weston who dared to question.
“And just how are we going to do that. Doc? With both the shuttle and Titan programs on hold, what are we going to use as a primary booster?”
Unable to answer his colleague, Lindsay could only offer him a solemn glance. Meanwhile, Captain Maddox reached over to activate a red telephone that would give him a direct line to the Consolidated Space Operations center in Colorado Springs. As the officer initiated his scrambled conversation, a massive boom of thunder sounded overhead.
Looking past the director, Weston focused his complete attention on this strange rumble. With the speed of a heartbeat, he found his thoughts returning to the strange dream he had experienced for the past three mornings. Oblivious to his current surroundings, his mind’s eye returned to the pine-laden valley. With remarkable detail, he recreated the single, thin trail that cut through the rolling hills and passed over a tumbling brook. It was at this point that another booming peal of deep thunder resonated from above, and once again Andrew’s sight was drawn upward to the clear blue sky. Waiting for him there was the massive, soaring condor, whose wisdom seemed so total. The struggle to survive at all costs was the secret this endangered creature had tried to communicate.
Andrew knew then that this message was to be applied to his own species, as the shadow of nuclear doom lay over the earth like an ever-present shroud of death.
Chapter Two
Fifty-seven miles to the northwest of Santa Barbara, California, a massive peninsula extends out into the Pacific. Isolated, except for a handful of small towns, this rugged piece of landscape is dominated by rolling, scrub-filled hills, deep, fertile valleys, and forests of oak, cypress, and pine. It was because of the absence of any significant human population that the Army had decided to base an artillery range here.
Camp Cooke, as it was called, had served its country well until 1956, when the Defense Department had decided that it would be an ideal spot to initiate the Air Force’s fledgling missile program. It wasn’t until 1958 that the base had been renamed Vandenberg, in honor of Hoyt S. Vandenberg, the second Air Force Chief of Staff. Occupying over 98,000 acres, it had become America’s third largest Air Force installation.
By 1985, over 1,550 missile launches had taken place here. About a third of these had been to send unmanned satellites into orbit. The majority of the other launches had been to test elements of the nation’s intercontinental ballistic missile force.
Although the area’s significant modern history goes back less than four decades, the peninsula’s ancient heritage is a rich one. For hundreds of centuries, the in rugged peninsula had been home to the Chumash, a highly advanced Indian people who had flourished there.
Vandenberg’s 154 square miles held a wealth of Chumash relics. Many of these sites had been initially discovered by Robert R. Baray, a Blackfoot Sioux who had been the great-grandson of the illustrious warrior Sitting Bull. As the first American Indian to attend West Point, Baray had served as the general staff engineer for planning and development at the base. It was under his auspices that the first Chumash remains had been catalogued.
Fortunately, the Government had continued making every effort to preserve those ancient sites that recorded the everyday lives of a people first documented by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542. This effort had included opening the highly classified area to trained archaeologists. It was in such a manner that Miriam Rodgers had received permission to dig there.
For the past month, Miriam and her team of university students had been perched on top of Tranquillon Ridge, located in Vandenberg’s southern sector.
There, they were in the process of excavating a particularly rich Chumash site. So far, the artifacts unearthed included several excellently preserved tule-willow baskets, dozens of slender, stone spear-points, arrowheads and bone-scrappers, and a magnificent Olivilla shell necklace. Because these objects had been all found within the confines of a single twenty by-thirty-foot rectangular square of rocky soil, it was supposed that the ridge had once held either a small village or a burial plot. To determine its exact purpose, a full-scale excavation was now in progress.
From a position on the hillside’s summit, Miriam watched her crew at work. Though the majority of the half-dozen men and women working below her were barely in their twenties, they worked more like dedicated professionals. Proud of their effort, she knew that she was very fortunate to have their services.
In an era of ever-decreasing research budgets, actual field work was becoming one of the most difficult areas to finance. Enormous liability insurance premiums and the high logistical costs of the digs themselves had put many a researcher’s dreams on permanent hold.
For three years now, Miriam had fought to put together this particular expedition. Even though there could be no question that the sites chosen were full of exciting promise, each of her quarterly budget requests had been curtly turned down. Ninety days before, when the clean had called her into his office and given her the go-ahead, she had hardly believed what she was hearing. Genuinely astounded by the news, Miriam had actually hugged the elderly, silver haired administrator and then kissed him firmly on the cheek. Blushing at this unexpected show of exuberance, the clean had regathered his decorum and, after explaining that her monetary request had been significantly paired down, had wished the thirty-six year-old senior researcher the best of luck.