Lamb gave a thin-lipped smile. "Dr. Pencak visited the former Soviet Union six times. She had a relationship with this Felix Zigorski fellow she mentioned. A relationship that spanned twenty years with quite a bit of communication between the two."
Hawkins couldn't quite imagine Pencak having a "relationship" with anyone-at least not in the way that Lamb's tone of voice indicated. But he had to admit that the Earth bogeyman was a lot more credible than an alien one. "So you're saying this is a setup?"
"It's possible-in fact, likely," Lamb replied.
"Oh, come on, now!" Fran exploded. "Are we going to see the Soviet Union behind every tree? Hell, the country doesn't even exist anymore. Being paranoid is what's gotten us to the crappy state of affairs the world is in right now. Besides, the Rock-whatever is in the Rock-hasn't done anything threatening."
"It took out Voyager 2," Hawkins reminded her.
"All right." Fran ceded the point, then twisted it. "But how could the Russians have destroyed Voyager 2 and why?" She looked at Batson. "I don't agree that we have everything we need to know to figure this out. We need to get inside that chamber in the Rock. And even then I'm not sure we'll know what is going on."
"There's something else," Lamb said.
They all turned and looked as he laid out a large glossy photograph on the tabletop. "This is satellite imagery of Tunguska, taken less than ten hours ago."
They crowded around and peered down. Used to dealing with such enhanced photos Hawkins quickly made sense of what he was seeing. Large tarps were stretched over a piece of land in the middle of the pine trees that filled the photo. Snow covered the trees and earth but not the tarps, indicating they were recent additions. Fresh gouges in the snow showed where heavy equipment had torn new roads through the forest.
"You have thermal on this?" Hawkins asked.
In response Lamb slapped down another photo. In this one the forest was a mass of blue, but the area where the tarps were blazed bright red. "They've got heavy machinery under those tarps working very hard to be so hot," Hawkins explained to the others who were looking at him questioningly.
"Where is that exactly?" Fran asked.
"Dead center of where the Tunguska meteorite was supposed to have exploded." Lamb pointed at the normal-light photo. "If you look closely you can see old deadfall blown outward between some of the trees, just like Pencak described it. Also note the piles of freshly uprooted trees here, here, and here. And the pile of earth and snow here."
He put another photo down and looked at Hawkins. "We caught this at one point. What do you make of it?"
Hawkins leaned over and studied it. He could make out several vehicles-bulldozers, armored personal carriers, and dump trucks-parked around the tarp. Men were crouched on the sides of the vehicles away from the tarp. "They're blasting."
Lamb nodded. "Correct."
Fran was the first to verbalize what the others were realizing. "They've found their Rock!"
"And they're not wasting time digging through the frozen tundra," Batson commented. "They're blasting. They're trying to get to it as quickly as possible."
"We think they've already gotten to it," Lamb said. "Latest imagery shows the earth-moving equipment parked out from under the cover of the tarps. Thermals show numerous generators running underneath but no other equipment working."
"How large an area is covered?" Hawkins asked.
"Two hundred meters by a hundred and fifty."
Fran spoke slowly, sorting her thoughts out. "If the Russians are digging up something similar to what we have here in the Rock, then Pencak is right. The most likely source is extraterrestrial."
Lamb shook his head. "They certainly have found it quick enough. My analysts think they may have abandoned something out there and suddenly discovered a need for it."
"Oh, come on!" Fran shook her head. "You're grasping at straws so you can find a known enemy you can focus on."
Lamb eyed her coldly. "That's what I'm paid to do. Dr. Pencak says she was all over that area but they didn't find anything. Seems very convenient. Of course, the Russians were supervising the whole expedition, so maybe they steered them in the wrong direction. Or maybe she did see something and is lying."
"She also said that they didn't do any digging because of the frozen tundra," Batson noted.
Lamb stabbed a finger at the pictures. "They're digging now."
Hawkins held up a hand. "The critical question is, what have they found-or rediscovered?"
Lamb looked up and met Hawkins's eyes, and in that moment Hawkins knew what the other man was going to say next. He felt a churning anxiety begin in his stomach.
Lamb started picking up the folders. "We should know very soon what's under that cover."
"How?" Batson was perplexed.
"When did they go in?" Hawkins asked, his voice tight.
Lamb looked at his watch. "Four hours ago."
Hawkins quickly calculated in his mind. Several hours before dawn in Siberia. "How?"
"Combat Talon originating out of Pakistan. Low-level flight across western China. Over Mongolia and LALO almost on top of the target site."
Hawkins knew that was the only way to get in there without getting caught: low altitude, low-opening parachute-drop out of the Air Force's deep-penetration special-operations' modified C-130. "Did you get an initial entry report?"
Lamb nodded. "They're on the ground in the proper place and everyone is all right."
"Who?"
"Richman, Brown, and Lee."
Hawkins winced-he and Richman had been the two original forming members of Orion. He was also the acting commander, with Hawkins spinning his wheels out here in the desert. On top of that practical consideration, though, was a personal one: Lou Richman was his best friend, the man who had seen him through the accident and all those years sitting in the hospital at Mary's bedside.
"What are you two talking about?" Fran demanded.
Hawkins turned to look at her. "We should know very shortly what is under those tarps. Three men from my team jumped into Tunguska to take a look."
Fran blinked. "Into Siberia?"
Lamb tapped the satellite photos. "Despite all our technology there are some things that only a man on the ground can do. One of them is tell us what the Russians have dug up under that cover. I had recon teams forward-based as close as possible to all transmission reception sites as soon as we triangulated them. I ordered the Tunguska team in when we saw that the Russians were working there. I've also got teams on the ground in Germany, Arizona, and Argentina. The one for South Africa is on board a carrier task force in the South Atlantic."
"When is Richman's estimated TOT? Time on target," Hawkins added for the benefit of Fran, Batson, and Levy.
"They went in four klicks away. They estimated two hours to get a visual sighting on the target." Lamb glanced at his watch again. "Anytime now."
Hawkins turned and pointed to Levy. "Tell him what you found about the previous transmissions after nuclear blasts."
Lamb looked confused. "What previous transmissions?"
Levy succinctly went through the information. When she was done, Hawkins leaned forward, getting close to Lamb. "Now, if there were transmissions out of the Rock in 1945, that sort of casts doubts on your Russian theory, doesn't it?"
"It doesn't matter," Lamb said. "If the Russians have uncovered whatever is there, we need to know."
Tunguska
"This is fucked, boss man," Lee whispered to Richman. Lee had his slight frame crammed under a dead tree, his MPS submachine gun pointing out, taking security on that side. His night-vision goggles were hardly necessary, due to the reflected glow from the high-power lights under the tarp less than fifty meters away. Brown was to Richman's left, covering the other side.