"I want a squad of your men detached to my direct command as of now. Have the officer in charge report to Captain Tomkins at the mine shaft."
"Yes, sir."
"That's all." Lamb waited until the marine was gone and then turned to Hawkins. "We've picked up some new information on Pencak," Lamb pulled a manila envelope out of his briefcase and handed it to Hawkins. "That's the dossier on Felix Zigorski-the Russian scientist she was involved with."
Hawkins pulled a sheaf of papers out and glanced at the cover sheet. "She volunteered that he worked with the cosmonaut program." He scanned down. "There's nothing that significant here. Looks like he was legitimate as a scientist, although that doesn't rule out his doing covert work for the old KGB."
Lamb pointed at the envelope. "There's a picture of Zigorski in there. I suggest you take a look at it."
Hawkins reached in and pulled out an eight-by-ten glossy. He stared at the figure in the picture and then looked up at Lamb. "What the hell happened to him?"
"He was in a tank in the Great Patriotic War," Lamb said, using the Russian term for World War II. "It got hit during the battle of Kursk and burned up. They pulled Zigorski out and somehow he survived."
Hawkins looked at the photo again, noting the man's deformities. Zigorski's skin in the picture was bright red and looked freshly boiled. He was missing his right arm and was seated in a wheelchair. It was hard to tell from the picture what state his legs were in. "Well, I can certainly see now the attraction he held for Pencak," he said sarcastically. "But is there any indication that he and Pencak might have been part of some plan that has anything to do with what's going on now? We know they were both at Tunguska. Is there any record of either of them ever coming here to Australia?"
"No."
Hawkins tossed the picture and dossier down. "What about Batson? How were his last psych and security evals for Hermes?"
"Good to go on both."
"His last polygraph?"
"Clean."
"He's clean?" Hawkins asked, surprised. "Your people gave an alcoholic a clean bill of health?"
"It wasn't that bad last time he was checked," Lamb said.
Hawkins changed the subject, realizing it was fruitless to talk about something he could do nothing about. "Anything more from Tunguska?"
Lamb shook his head. "Nothing. We checked the imagery from the time you went through to when you came back and there doesn't appear to be any unusual activity."
"What about the Russians going through?"
"We couldn't see what was going on under the tarps. There are more troops in the area now. At least a regiment of armored infantry. They're also flying Hinds around the clock in aerial surveillance. We couldn't get another team in to look under the tarps without compromise."
Lamb paused and stared at Hawkins. "Give it to me straight, Hawk. Do you think you might have been mentally manipulated-that you really didn't travel anywhere and this was all implanted in your mind?"
Hawkins sat back in his chair and thought. He remembered the prick of something going into the back of his hand and the coppery taste in his mouth-what had been the purpose of that? Also the way the voice had sounded, as if it were inside his head, and not coming from the outside. But he had been able to converse with the others in the room.
"I have to admit it's possible," Hawkins conceded. "But I don't think so. I think this is for real. I also don't see any reason it shouldn't be for real. Who on Earth has anything to gain by doing this? Plus, I think we have a lot to lose if we don't accept that this is real."
Lamb shook his head of those thoughts and leaned back in his chair. "What about the other bomb?"
"Nothing. If Qaddafi has it, he's keeping damn quiet about it, and so are all our assets over there. My Orion teams have nothing. What's the status on Libya?" he asked.
"The President is still holding off having the Seventh Fleet cross the thirty-third parallel. The Russians are still keeping quiet about whoever sold the bombs."
Hawkins stood. "What's the next step?"
Lamb waved a hand at him, dismissing him. "Let me think about it."
Hawkins stepped out of the medical shelter into the warm night air and looked up at the stars, wondering if one of those was where he had been. Richman was doing well; the shoulder wound was clean and he hadn't lost much blood. Hawkins had pumped him for information concerning the missing eight hours and what he had seen at Tunguska, but had learned nothing new. Richman had no memory of a large enclosed space filled with machinery.
"Makes you feel kind of small, doesn't it?" Fran appeared out of the darkness into the glow of the arc lights from the perimeter security.
"What does?"
"All those stars, all so far away."
"Yeah, I suppose." Hawkins nodded his head in the direction of the shaft building. "Are they still down there arguing?"
"Yes. I think Don is in over his head-he's got to put a lot of energy into simply staying straight. Pencak insists it's aliens and your story confirmed what she believed earlier. I'm not sure where Levy's head is at."
Hawkins peered at her in the dark. "Do you believe me?"
She didn't hesitate. "I've thought about it and I've decided that I want to believe you very badly. And if I want to, then I'm going to."
Not exactly the most supportive answer Hawkins had ever heard. "What do you think we should do?"
Fran stared out into the desert. "Lamb's talked to the President. I saw him a few minutes ago talking with Tomkins. They're working on sending the remote camera through with a SATCOM link. If it comes out anywhere on the planet, they ought to be able to keep contact with it."
"It won't work," Hawkins declared.
"I know it won't. But he has to try. He didn't say anything, but I got the idea the President wasn't too impressed."
Hawkins stepped away from the tent and walked over to where triple rolls of concertina wire surrounded the compound. The edge of the Rock was less than fifty feet away, dropping abruptly off to the ground. He could make out the silhouette of a marine right near the edge, highlighted against the moonlit night sky.
"I knew he wouldn't be impressed. We really didn't give him too much to work with, because the aliens didn't give us too much to work with. Pencak's idea is the only reasonable thing I've heard since I came back."
"Going after the other bomb?" Fran asked. "But you said that there are people already on that. What can we do?"
Hawkins sought her eyes out in the dark. "There's something I left out of my briefing to Lamb. When we re-boarded the skimmer to return to our respective portals and go through, I talked to Colonel Tuskin. I told him that I didn't think we would get a good response to what we had seen and heard. At least not a timely one."
"What did he say?"
"He agreed."
A small smile played across Fran's face. "So what plan did you two come up with?"
"How do you know we came up with anything?"
"Because you told me yourself not to trust anyone, and I think you would have been calculating five steps ahead from the minute you came out of that chamber after hearing what the aliens had to say. And you would have known what would happen when you got back-as you just said you did. And I think you would have come up with an alternate plan."
Hawkins squatted down and touched the pitted surface of the Rock with his palms. He then peeled the camouflage cover from his watch and looked at the reflective surface. "We agreed that if we didn't get a positive response, we would go back through, eight hours after our return."
"And do what?"
"Get the bomb ourselves."
Fran sat down next to him. "But how are you going to do that?"