"True," Lamb acknowledged. "That is all we have."
Batson shook his head. "But for all we know that could have been in there forever. No one ever thought of doing any of those tests on the Rock prior to the messages. There is no sign of entryway or exit."
"We've got troops going over the exterior of the Rock and the surrounding area double-checking for that." Lamb replied. "We think it's possible the entry tunnel might be on the northwest side, which has been off limits for years to all but the Aborigines for religious purposes. Something might have been dug on that side and hidden."
"If you find no tunnel, how did it get in there?" Fran asked.
The question went unanswered.
"It gets back to the question of what 'it' is," Batson said. "It also has to be able to transmit through all that rock out into space with sufficient power to override your normal SATCOM traffic. I'm no expert on it, but I'd say we'd have a hell of a time rigging a transmitter to go through five hundred feet of solid rock."
"It's possible," Lamb answered. "We ran that problem through the computer. No one ever thought of doing it through rock before-no reason to-but if it was necessary, and you have a very strong power source, then you could transmit through rock on certain microwave frequencies."
"But where's the power source, then?" Fran asked. "There are too many problems without answers here. She liked working with hard data-here there was no data, just pieces of a puzzle. Except the entire puzzle seemed to be a solid sheet of blackness that they were fumbling with in the dark, trying to connect each piece at a time to another one simply by feel.
"I think this could all be an elaborate setup," Lamb said.
"Setup?" Hawkins repeated. "For what purpose?"
"This is about the bombs," Lamb said. "It's got to be. I think someone is trying to divert our attention from the one still out there. Like Major Hawkins said, our primary concern must-"
He paused as an excited Major Spurlock threw open the door. "Voyager 2 is off-line."
"What?" Lamb asked, confused.
"We just lost it in mid-transmission." He went over to the computer and punched in. "Here, look." The team gathered around and peered over his shoulder. He explained as he typed. "In 1990 the Voyager Planetary Mission was completed and the name was changed to the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM) and its priority was lowered."
Digits on the screen transformed themselves into readable data-readable, that is, to someone with a doctorate in astrophysics and experience watching Voyager data play across the screen.
"We give fifteen minutes of down link time to Voyager every twenty-four hour cycle," Spurlock continued. "We get it here, then burst it back into space to an INTELSAT V-F8 Communications Satellite in synchronous orbit above Australia. The satellite relays it to Vallejo Earth Station in California. The logical thing then would be for Vallejo to forward it directly to JPL-Jet Propulsion Labs, who's responsible for Voyager-just down the road, but that isn't what happens. Instead, Vallejo pulses the radio wave back into space to a CONTELASC ASC-l communications satellite, which relays it to the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland, which makes a copy of the transmission for their master data banks. Goddard then bounces the message to JPL in California using a GE AMERICOM SATCOM F2R satellite." Spurlock examined the screen. "Normally we don't even look at the data-just relay it. JPL called me just three minutes ago and told me that the data had ended early. I checked and this is what I found."
Data scrolled up and then abruptly ended. "I thought at first that the data had ended because the transmission was finished, but there was still eight minutes of dish time left when this break came and it always takes the full amount of time for all the data to get in."
"Could it be a computer malfunction?" Levy asked.
"I've checked that," Spurlock replied. "No."
"Maybe the damn thing's transmitter just broke," Lamb said.
"We can check on it," Spurlock said.
"How?" Hawkins asked.
Spurlock's fingers pounded the keys as his mind did the math.
<INITIATE WIDEBAND TRANSMISSION FOR BOUNCE BACK TO VOYAGER 2 DTG 210EC0210 ZULU. WILL MONITOR FOR RETURN DTG 21 DEC 1030 ZULU.
"It will take over eight hours before the radio signal I just sent will hit Voyager 2, bounce off the high-gain antenna dish, and return to Earth-basically just like a radar wave would work. A successful bounce back means that Voyager is still out there and the problem lies inside the probe somewhere."
"And if you get no bounce back?" Lamb asked.
"Then Voyager is gone," Spurlock answered.
A long silence filled the room.
"Hell of a coincidence," Hawkins finally muttered.
Lamb shook his head. "You all know as much as I know. I need you to give me some answers. It was your names and not mine transmitted by the Rock." He looked at his watch. "I've got some other things I need to attend to."
Lamb made his way to the door and the door swung shut behind them, leaving the team to ponder this additional piece of information.
Hawkins looked at the team members. "Anyone want to get some chow?"
Fran stood up and stretched out her shoulders. "I could use a little break."
Hawkins looked at Levy and Batson, but both indicated negatively. Together, Fran and he left the conference room and made their way to the small mess hall in the basement of the building.
"Sounds like you know Mr. Lamb from somewhere else," Fran commented.
"We've worked together before," Hawkins answered.
"You two go back a ways?"
"Five years," Hawkins acknowledged.
They entered the small cafeteria and Hawkins held off on any further conversation until they had their food and were sitting in a booth.
"You saw my folder. Over four years ago I was picked to form a new special-operations unit. A team that would do the jobs that Delta or any of those other high-speed units wouldn't be able to for practical and political reasons. We were answerable only to the President.
"My military career was finished the minute I went on that team, as were those of the other nineteen men and four women who joined."
"You have women on your team?" Fran was surprised.
"Yes. They passed the requirements and it's very useful on certain ops to have a woman. Throws the bad guys for a second or two, and sometimes that's all you need." He smiled. "Besides, women think differently in certain circumstances and sometimes that different perspective can be very useful.
"Anyway-since we wanted to be totally dedicated to doing the job, we all recognized that we had to stop thinking about the military being our career. Our career was Orion-that's what we were called. So I got Lamb to approve a half a million dollars being deposited in a special bank account for each team member. Twelve million dollars is pretty cheap when you consider the cost of a jet fighter. That allowed each of us to concentrate on the job and not worry about whether we would have a retirement someday or whether those with families would have their people taken care of."
"Sounds kind of mercenary," Fran commented.
"I suppose," Hawkins agreed. "However, it's also realistic. We no longer existed. We weren't army anymore. We weren't in any records anywhere, so we didn't even have to bother to come up with a cover story like they do in Delta. We had no monthly paycheck. No promotion boards. Nothing." He pointed at his uniform. "This is the first time I've had this on in three years. My rank of major is permanent.