"Let's take a look at the skimmer," Pencak said, ending the speculation. "Whether real or not, we still have to get that bomb." They crowded aboard the elevator and rode to the surface in silence.
After riding the elevator up, they walked out into the cavern and up the ramp into the craft. The door to the front part of the craft was now open. The front cabin held two seats, oriented forward. Hawkins sat in one of the seats while Tuskin took the other. The rest of the party gathered behind them. There were two large video displays in front of the seats showing the view directly in front with smaller blocked areas along the side of the screens displaying the view below and to the sides and rear.
The control panel was a model of simplicity. Between the two seats was a video
screen that showed what must be the map for the immediate vicinity of the planet's surface.
"That must be the Tunguska portal," Hawkins said, pointing at a dot that was flashing on the screen. His finger slid across the screen to a small rectangle highlighted in red, enclosed by a larger black square. "This red must be the skimmer and the black the building or whatever it is we're in."
"Why no writing?" Fran wondered.
"They must have so many different languages in the Coalition that they've simplified all their control systems to accommodate logical symbolic reasoning," Levy answered.
"I think we can handle this," Hawkins said. He turned in his seat to the other members of the team. "Colonel Tuskin knows where the Russian general who sold the two bombs is being held. We plan to go there, snatch him, and then make him talk. We don't know what the Russian interrogators have gotten out of him, but whatever it is, they haven't been willing to share it."
"I do not think we need everyone to do this," Tuskin said. "I think a small element would be much more efficient than a large one."
"We have only the two suits," Hawkins added. "We'll do this. You all try to find out all you can here. We'll be back as soon as possible."
"First, you need to take care of the marines," Pencak noted.
Hawkins nodded. "I'll do that." He hopped out the door. Ten minutes went by before he returned. "They've gone back," he assured them.
After a last farewell Pencak, Fran, and Debra trooped off the skimmer. In the cockpit Hawkins looked at Tuskin, who nodded. He leaned forward and poised his finger above a glowing green button that had an arrow pointing up. "It could be the ejection-seat button, you know," Hawkins remarked.
Tuskin shrugged. "We all have to go sometimes."
"Typical Russian attitude," Hawkins remarked, and then pressed the up arrow. The skimmer lifted and, when he let go, held its altitude. He pushed the forward button and they were on their way toward the opening hangar doors. On the screen in front the entrance to the hangar flashed by and they were over a desert heading toward the black sheen that was the portal leading to Tunguska.
THE PRESIDENT
"Sir, we've got an incident at Tunguska!" Lamb looked up as the intelligence analyst dashed into his tent, satellite photos fresh off the fax gripped in his hand.
"What kind of incident?"
"We're not sure, sir," the agent said as he slid the first photo onto the desktop. "We've been taking shots of the site with a thirty-second lapse between frames. This is two minutes ago." The image was no different from what they'd been seeing for the past two days.
"This is a minute and thirty seconds ago." The photo showed the tarp that had covered the pit in Tunguska torn asunder. There were several black spots that looked like ink smudges in the air along with a long streak of red coming out of an armored vehicle parked a hundred meters from the pit.
"What happened?"
The agent shook his head. "I'm not sure, sir."
"Can you at least tell me what the black spots and this red line are?" Lamb asked, exasperated.
"The black spots are antiaircraft fire-old stuff, thirty-seven-millimeter cannon, airburst. We spotted several of that type of weapon dug in around the site after the Orion team was compromised. The red line is tracers coming from a ZSU 23-4. It fires almost a thousand rounds a minute, so the tracers appear as a continuous line."
"Are they being attacked?"
The analyst slapped down another photo. "This is one minute ago." The tarp was still torn, but the guns were silent. "Whatever happened, happened fast and is over now."
"Were they attacked?" Lamb repeated his question. "Was the pit bombed and that's why the tarps are torn?"
The analyst considered his reply for a long second. "No, sir, I don't think so. Looking at the way the cloth is torn and the way that fire is distributed, I think something came out from under the tarps and went up into the air."
"What!" Lamb exclaimed. He looked at the photos and then at his agent. "What do you mean, something came out of the pit?"
"That's the only thing that fits the facts, sir. And it was something the Russians didn't expect. Their guns were oriented against an outside attack. I think this caught them by surprise."
"What came out? How come we don't have a shot of it?"
The analyst spread several other photos on the desktop. "I had the focal radius reduced to increase our coverage of the area, but we have nothing. Whatever came out was damn fast and is long gone from the area."
"Something came out of their Wall," Lamb said aloud, his mind trying to grasp the implications, "something they didn't know about, and they shot at it." He looked at his analyst. "They probably think we sent something through."
The analyst was about to answer when the FM radio speaker on Lamb's desk came alive with the excited voice of Captain Tomkins. "Mr. Lamb! The marines are back! They're back, sir!"
Lamb slammed his hand down on the send button. "You hold them right there in the chamber. I'll be down immediately. I want you to be careful-something else might come out of the Wall."
Lamb leapt to his feet and was out of the tent in three quick strides. The ride down the hole was a long one for him as he tried assimilating this latest piece of news. When he emerged in the chamber he could see nine of the ten marines standing there with dazed looks on their face. The tenth was lying down, a white bandage conspicuous on his leg.
"What happened?" Lamb demanded, facing Lieutenant King.
In response the lieutenant simply shook his head, his eyes unfocused. Lamb shifted his gaze to the senior NCO.
Sergeant Johnson met the look evenly. "Private Pritchett needs medical attention, sir." Lamb waved curtly at Tomkins. "Send the wounded man up."
Johnson relaxed slightly into a position of parade rest. "We went through and stepped into a room. It was all white, no windows, and what had looked like a door at the far end, except there was no handle on it. I don't know what the walls were made of, but it was some sort of metal-something I've never seen before. The LT tried shooting through the door and the rounds just bounced off. Pritchett got hit by a ricochet." Johnson backtracked slightly. "The Wall we had come through had disappeared just after the last man was in. So we couldn't send anybody back to report as ordered and we couldn't go anywhere.
"We stayed in there until all of a sudden the door just swished open and that Army major— Hawkins-he came in. Except he was all geared up in this high-speed stuff." Johnson shook his head at the memory. "I've never seen nothing like it, sir. He had some sort of body suit on that shimmered like that Wall." He jerked a thumb at the other end of the chamber. "And he had this weapon like nothing that I've ever heard of or seen."