Volta replaced the map with an aerial photo of what appeared to be a volcano rising from a plain. Daniel interrupted: ‘It might save us time and explanation if you want to hear how I think I can steal the Diamond, whatever the defenses.’
‘I think it would be more efficient if I describe the security and you listen, judging its effects on your approach. You’ll have to know it anyway. Tell me when your plan is compromised, if it is.’ He pointed at the volcanic cone. ‘This is Sunrise Mountain, a cinder cone as you no doubt see, and though it appears taller, its elevation is five hundred forty-five feet – which would hardly qualify as a knoll around here, but then we aren’t surrounded by alkali flats.’ His pencil moved to a dark rectangular speck at the base of the mountain. ‘This is where the bad news begins. That speck you see is the entrance to a horizontal shaft that runs to the center of the mountain. It’s approximately seven hundred yards long, with a five-degree declination from entrance to center. At the end of the shaft is a large vault. The Diamond is in the vault.
‘What sort of lock?’
‘We’ll get to that. First, let’s go down the shaft, which has four separate checkpoints, each manned by a marine machine-gun crew. The guns are in concrete bunkers built into the tunnel. The watch changes every six hours, but the old shift stays in place until the new one occupies its positions, so the changing of the guards, traditionally a vulnerable moment in all security arrangements, is well covered.’
‘I’m beginning to see what was meant by “formidable defenses,” but none of that affects my plan.’
‘Keep looking.’ Volta slid a diagram of the shaft over the aerial photo. ‘There are four alarm systems in the tunnel, one at each checkpoint, each on an independent circuit, each monitored at Holloman Air Force Base twenty miles to the south, where, at any alarm, a squadron of F-15s and an entire company of marines in helicopter transports can be airborne within fifteen minutes – the jets perhaps sooner.’
Daniel said, ‘I don’t like that at all – not that it hurts my plan.’
‘Just on general principles then?’
‘Right. Especially the principle that a mistake could really be punished.’
Volta nodded. ‘Also, the airspace above Tularosa Valley is under routine radar surveillance from the air base, but only above five hundred feet, so a small plane or helicopter could come in under it, though again the margin for error is substantially narrowed.
‘Back to the shaft for a moment. It has tracks for electric carts to carry people and supplies. There’s been a lot of activity lately, technicians shuttling back and forth with equipment, and we’re concerned our information may already be outdated. I’m sure you understand the difficulty of close scrutiny, since there’s no concealed vantage point on the flats. So let me tell you for the first time now what you will hear from me a hundred times more: If you encounter anything that is different than expected, don’t try to improvise. Retreat; report; and we’ll revise the plan.’
‘Assuming mine wouldn’t work. I still haven’t heard anything that would prevent it.’
‘Well, we haven’t got to the bad part yet: the vault. It was custom built for the CIA by Seabrook Security. It’s a perfect cube, thirteen feet on a side, each wall composed of a two-foot slab of stainless steel.’
‘Great,’ Daniel said. ‘It’ll give me more room to work in.’
‘There’s more,’ Volta cautioned. ‘Each wall, except the door and the floor, is wired on the outside with an electrical sensor grid that can detect a pressure change of five hundred pounds per square inch and a temperature change of thirty degrees Centigrade. The door and floor are sensitive to changes inside the vault of five pounds p.s.i. and ten degrees Centigrade. Makes it difficult to blast or drill your way in. The grids are independently wired to each checkpoint, air base security, and a nearby CIA installation – and of course it’s a doubled system, sounding when it is broached as well as when it’s shut down by any other means than a coded sequence, which changes every day.’ Volta smiled at Daniel. ‘And how does your plan look now?’
‘Fucked,’ Daniel said disgustedly.
‘I’d have to infer you were planning to stay in the vault with the Diamond long enough that it would vanish with you.’
‘You got it. I figured I’d just walk into the vault and hang around for the thirty to forty hours you said it takes to capture an object in my force field, or whatever you call it. I guess you’d already considered that possibility.’
‘It crossed my mind, yes, but I rejected it even before I learned of the pressure-sensitive floor.’
‘Why?’
‘You risk yourself too much. Suppose you were in the vault when they came – as they often do – to take the Diamond to the CIA lab nearby?’
‘I’d vanish.’
‘And how long can you vanish for?’
‘Well, you saw me do twenty minutes, and I think I could do more.’
‘What if they stayed an hour? You’d be forced to reappear.’
‘But,’ Daniel countered, ‘not necessarily in the vault. I could go right out through the mountain, reappear, wait till they were gone, and vanish back into the vault.’
‘You might be spotted outside, since there’s virtually no cover. Besides, you’d have to break field congruence with the Diamond, forcing you to start over. It could be months before you had forty uninterrupted hours with the Diamond, and I assure you you’d be exhausted long before then. All assuming, of course, that forty hours would be sufficient to enmesh the Diamond in your force field. That forty-hour figure, as well as my purely speculative notions of intimate force fields and their powers, are based on my limited experience with ordinary objects. The Diamond, clearly, is not an ordinary object. You might well be taken into its field – a glowing six-pound spherical diamond likely exerts a considerable force.
‘Six pounds!’
Volta raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, you can check my calculations, but thirty thousand carats at two hundred milligrams per carat is roughly six pounds, or about the size of a bowling ball.’
Daniel said carefully, ‘This glowing – do you know the source?’
‘None of our people has seen it, and the information they’ve been able to gather is extremely sketchy. All we know is that light emanates from the Diamond. Very few people have actually seen it so far, and I gather they’re still having a difficult time believing it. Even the spooks are spooked. They seem to be divided into two equal factions. One faction thinks it’s some weird KGB espionage ploy. The second faction of U.S. Intelligence, if you’ll excuse the oxymoron, thinks the Diamond is from outer space, likely placed here as some monitoring device, though there’s some sentiment that it’s an artifact from a lost civilization, Atlantis being the leading candidate. In short, they know what the Diamond is made of, but they don’t know what it is, what it means, or how it can be real.
‘There’ve been some hard swallows and weak smiles in the intelligence hierarchy the last few weeks. Nobody is eager to assume responsibility. You know how bureaucracies function – their most compelling concerns are always “Who else knows?” and “How can we cover our asses?” Which right now works to our advantage, though we should act soon.’
‘How soon?’
Volta smiled. ‘I think the Hour of the Wolf on April Fools’ Day would be both propitious and appropriate.’
‘Not to mention whimsical.’
‘Appropriate,’ Volta repeated firmly. ‘But you’re entitled to your opinion, however misguided.’