'That was Bill Bans. The Russians have made their next move. They've surrounded our nuclear satellite with a pack of hunter-killer satellites.'
'What will they do?'
'Not clear. Bans has called the crisis team for this afternoon to try to get the basic facts together. We'll meet again first thing tomorrow morning and try to anticipate them. If they hold off that long. Damn! McMasters will wonder where the hell I am.'
He drove in silence again for a while.
'That was a very good presentation you gave today,' he said, keeping his eyes on the road. 'You convinced them we've got a real problem. And thanks for coming to my defence when that bastard Leems got on my back.'
'This can't really be a Russian weapon, can it?' she asked. 'Sure doesn't smell right to me, but we should check satellite locations just as Leems said.'
Danielson began to contemplate how she could obtain and sort Soviet satellite positions. They were quiet the rest of the way to the airport.
There were problems getting their reservations changed. They spent an hour and a half in the terminal amid crowds that prevented any discussion of their mission. Danielson could tell Isaacs was tense and fretful. The visit with the Jason team had been intriguing, but inconclusive, and the move of the Russians had caught him up short. If he had been in Washington he would have assembled the crisis team, not left it to Saris. Danielson sympathized with the anxiety she knew Isaacs felt. CIA officials had a right in principle to their free time, but they had better be on the spot when an emergency cropped up, never mind off on another coast suborning Agency policy. Danielson felt exposed herself.
The only seats they could get were several rows apart in the crowded midsection of the red-eye flight. Jet lag and strain caught up with Danielson. She napped most of the way. Isaacs was trapped between a talkative matron and a young mother, squirmy babe in lap. He stared grimly ahead through the whole flight, trying in his fatigue to think.
Chapter 9
Jorge Payro grabbed another piece of sheet metal off the pallet behind him. He fed it carefully into the machine, checking the alignment, then stepped back and yanked the lever triggering the hydraulics. The press crumped down, folding edges, slicing off the extra metal. Jorge raised the lever, pulled the formed piece off the platform and worked around the edges with his file to remove the worst of the burrs. He placed the partially formed object on the conveyor belt. Somewhere down the line, after more cutting, stamping, drilling, painting, and fitting, the part would emerge as the top of a washing machine. Jorge turned for another flat sheet. While he worked he thought of his date for the futbol game that evening. One of the teams from Buenos Aires was coming to play Rosario. Rosario was good this year: they had a chance. Jorge was excited by the prospect of victory. He was also excited by his own chances with Constanza. Particularly if they won, everyone's passions would be running high.
He pulled another piece off the press and added it with his file. He put it on the conveyor, then did a double take, and yanked it off again. He held it before him and stared in amazement. There was a hole in it, about the size of his little finger. He had not noticed that when he picked up the sheet. He looked at the stack on the palette. No holes there. How could he have missed such a dung? He set the damaged part aside, picked up a fresh sheet, and manoeuvred it into place. He pulled the lever. The press dropped a little, but then jammed, groaning.
Jorge slapped the lever off. He threw the switch that shut the machine down completely, raised his safety goggles up onto his forehead and stared. The upper jaw of the press was skew in its framework. Jorge stepped forward and craned his neck to look up at the underside. His eyes widened. There was a hole in the massive piece of steel. It was drilled through, just like the damaged part he had just removed. From somewhere higher up in the works of the machine, a steady stream of fluid seeped down. Jorge removed a glove, ran a finger through a drip and sniffed. Hydraulic fluid. This machine is in bad trouble, he thought to himself as he wiped his finger on his overalls. He pulled the sheet of metal from the press and was not completely surprised to find another hole in the bed of the machine. He ran a finger around its clean edge and bent to peer down. He couldn't see-but a fraction of a centimetre in, but he bet it was deep, maybe all the way to the floor. He stuck his little finger into the hole up past the first knuckle. He couldn't imagine what could have caused such a thing.
Jorge pulled off his other glove, threw it next to the first, and went in search of his supervisor.
It was 7:30 A.m. Sunday morning, July 4. Isaacs had not slept on the flight back from Son Diego and then had spent an hour on the phone catching up on the Russian deployment of hunter-killer satellites and making arrangements for this morning's meeting. He'd got three hours of troubled sleep and nursed a splitting headache.
Isaacs scanned the packed conference room. Twenty— three people were more than it held comfortably, but he had cooed for everyone in his crisis team to bring their aides. This would speed dissemination, give the young people exposure, and encourage them to participate freely. He did not want any bright ideas languishing in the face of an unprecedented confrontation with the Russians. He began as the last chair was filled.
'I'm sorry to have to call you in on a holiday. This may be the Soviets' heavy-banded idea of irony, but they're threatening us with some real fireworks.
'You know that the Soviets launched an operating laser and used it to destroy the FireEye satellite which had recently been placed in orbit last April.' You don't know why, though, he thought. He caught Pat Danielson's eyes on him from where she sat in a rear corner looking remarkably alert despite their late flight. She returned his gaze steadily until he looked on around the room and continued. 'The US appropriated that laser satellite with the shuttle, but the Soviets launched another. The US response was to, put a small atomic device in orbit near the laser. The device is specially shielded with a reflective coating, difficult for the laser to penetrate. There are also heat sensing circuits that will trigger the device if the laser is used on it. The Soviets have been informed of this. We have promised to detonate the device if the laser is used.
'They have now made their countermove. They've surrounded the two satellites with a pack of six hunter-killer satellites. These contain only conventional explosives, but they're powerful enough to neutralize our nuclear device. The concern is that the protective circuits will not respond to a blast wave. The Soviets are betting, or Muffing, that we are vulnerable to the hunter-killers.
'Our task is to anticipate the intelligence gathering operations that will be necessary to map out their tactical possibilities, and our appropriate responses. As of forty-five minutes ago, the Soviets had not tried to aim the laser, but they could force the issue at any moment.'
Isaacs signalled, the lights were dimmed, and a slide projected at the end of the room. The people sitting too near the screen shuffled their chairs around and craned their necks.
'This was taken from one of our KH-ll satellites from about 5,000 miles,' Danielson continued. 'The laser satellite is the cylinder at the tip of the yellow arrow. You can make out some details on it if you look closely, and, of course, the image can be reprocessed to bring them out. The small spot at the tip of the white arrow is our device.'
'What's the actual spatial separation there?' a voice asked.
'About two hundred metres,' Isaacs replied. 'The effective range of the device is much greater, the proximity was chosen mainly for psychological effect. You'll notice that our device is located along the long axis of the laser satellite; the laser fires out the side. The small dots at the tips of the six shorter yellow arrows are the hunter-killers.'