The Inner Circle (13 page)

Peter sighed and looked down at his watch. They were still scheduled to be here another hour. Marshall had been sure to have a nice long speech prepared for the occasion and had allowed plenty of time afterward for the ribbon cutting ceremony. Every chance for a photo op had to be taken as far as Marshall was concerned, and having a building named was just such an example. But if Peter could signal the president, maybe they could get out of there earlier. He could call Mae and have her cancel his late lunch with the Senate minority leader if the need came to that...

"Okay, Henry. We'll be able to meet you in about forty minutes. Do you know where President Marshall's....umm... alternate meeting place is at?"

Every U.S. president since JFK had secret, emergency meeting places, which were needed to deal with delicate situations, out of the spotlight of the White House. Marshall's had been set up just outside of D.C., in the basement of a pizza shop owned by his brother-in-law's son. The place had a rear entrance that was out of view of any person that was too interested for his or her own good. When Marshall had been informed by the previous President to have a place like this set up, he was surprised that such secrecy would ever be needed. He had established a place just in case and was sure glad he took the former President's advice, despite the constant complaining of the Secret Service. This was already the second time in a few months that the he required this meeting place.

"I know the place. I had to meet him there the night of the... the night of my…  problem."

"Okay," Mansfield said, thinking back to Wilson’s embarrassing cover-up. "Be there in forty minutes."

Mansfield made his way back toward the podium, where the president was at the ten-minute mark of his speech. He was discussing the importance of his law degree and how it helped him throughout many different stages during his lifetime. After a few more minutes of talking, Marshall finally glanced over in Mansfield’s direction. Peter held up a fist, the sign that he had to cut his speech short. With disappointment etched across his face, Marshall gave the return sign that he understood and wrapped up his speech within the next minute.

The Dean of Law thanked the President for his speech and they proceeded with the ribbon cutting. After posing for a few pictures, Marshall was whisked away from the huge crowd and he was soon sitting alone with Mansfield in the back of the presidential limo. He knew what the problem was before Peter even had to tell him.

"It's Wilson, isn't it?" he asked, the tone of his voice more disappointed and bitter than angry.

"Yes, sir."

"Damn, I knew we shouldn't have trusted him to do something on his own. We give him the easiest chore and he can't even do that right."

"I know, Mr. President. I'm sorry I even suggested that we pass along Armour to him. But he swears there is a major problem that we must know about right away."

Marshall sighed and stared out of the darkened windows, watching longingly as they pulled farther away from Georgetown.

"I was really enjoying myself out there, too. It was nice to give a speech for once and not have to talk about politics."

"Yes, sir. It was a great speech. You'll give those kids a lifetime memory they will never forget."

"That's what I was thinking,” Marshall agreed, clearly pleased with himself.

CHAPTER NINE

Once the presidential motorcade drove far enough away from Georgetown not to be noticed by reporters covering the library-opening story, the president's limo broke away from the police escort and made its way out of the city. Within twenty minutes, Marshall's limo was driving down an alley behind an old brick building. They approached another limousine that was parked right next to the building’s back door and they saw three men standing outside. The president recognized Wilson and Armour, but the third man – a short, timid-looking man with glasses – was unfamiliar to him.

The barrier between the back and front of the limousine rolled down and the head of Marshall's Secret Service team told the president to stay inside the car for a few minutes while they 'do their job.' Marshall agreed, although he thought the level of protection the Secret Service presented often seemed a bit extreme.

When they were cleared to exit the car, Marshall and Mansfield went directly to the door leading to the basement, barely acknowledging the brief greeting from the Secretary of Defense and the Chief of NASA. The wooden stairs creaked beneath Marshall's feet, and he wondered why the Secret Service wasn’t as concerned with the president falling through decaying steps as they were with assassins who patrolled random alleyways. Marshall's nephew waited in the basement and the two briefly shook hands before the pizza-shop owner left, assuring the president that nobody would find out he was there.

A single light bulb hung on a string from a ceiling, casting an eerie light on the darkened room. The smell of mildew hung heavy in the air and a single table – covered by a red, white and green tablecloth from the pizzeria – sat in the middle of the room. The room served as a storage space for countless bundles of unfolded pizza boxes that lined a complete wall from floor to ceiling.

Marshall sat down on one of the folding chairs around the table and was soon joined by the other men once a Secret Service agent got into position outside of the two doors that led to the basement.

"Mr. President," Armour began, "you made a very wise choice by meeting us today. I think Henry can attest to that."

Henry Wilson nodded and this was the first time Marshall took notice of how pale his Defense Secretary looked.

"I'll be the judge of that," Marshall said. "Now tell me, where’s the fire?"

"I'll cut right to the chase. According to calculations that Mr. Ackerman and I have come up with, a comet is on a direct path with the Earth."

Armour waited to see the reaction he would receive from President Marshall. When he'd told the Secretary of Defense less than an hour earlier, Wilson's mouth hung open and his eyes expressed true fear. The president, on the other hand, remained completely calm, as his face showed no signs of shock whatsoever. Instead, his eyes became furrowed, as Armour could almost see the wheels turning in his head. Mansfield immediately looked at the president when he heard the news and was the first one to respond.

"Can we be a hundred percent sure about this?" the Chief of Staff asked. "Isn't there any way your calculations could be off enough to where the comet will miss us? I don't mean to insult you, Mr. Ackerman, but you are just a middle school science teacher. Couldn't the numbers be wrong?"

Mansfield had a background check done on Earl Ackerman as soon as the President told him about Armour’s companion he was bringing to the White House.

"Of course the numbers could be wrong," Earl said, his voice sounding tiny and frightened while in the presence of such important people. "But we ran the tests several times to check the orbital path of Comet Clement. We continued to track it for a few hours this morning, just to make sure everything was as we originally figured it. Every calculation we did ended with the path of the comet leading directly to Earth."

"Where on Earth will the comet strike?" the President asked gravely.

"Someone in Brazil, sir," Earl answered.

"How much time to we have?"

"Just less than twelve years, Mr. President," Armour responded.

"Twelve years?" Marshall asked incredulously, relieved to hear some kind of good news. "You had to drag me away from my speech for something that won't happen for another twelve years?"

Armour knew that the president was like the majority of the people in the world when it came to knowledge about comets.

"Sir, twelve years is not as much time as you might think. If we are going to do something to stop the comet, we must start immediately. If we allow it to hit the Earth, every man, woman and child will probably die – if not right away – then within a year's time."

This thought proved sobering to Marshall, although he still did not understand the immediate importance of action.

"I appreciate how deadly a comet strike could possibly be, but I still don't know why we have to worry about it
already
. We still have plenty of time to assemble some of the world's best minds to come up with a solution to the problem. I mean, all we have to do is wait about eleven and then send up some nuclear weapons to blow it out of the sky."

Armour turned to the science teacher to give the president some instruction.

"Mr. President, waiting until the last minute to fire nuclear weapons at a two and a half kilometer comet would be like throwing sand at a speeding bullet. The most you could hope for would be that the nukes scratched the surface."

"So we do what they did in that one movie. You send up a rocket ship, drill some holes into the comet, drop in the nukes and destroy it from the inside."

Earl could not help but chuckle at how ridiculous this scenario was, as any person who knew the slightest bit about comets knew a plan like this would never work.

"I'm sorry for laughing, sir. But that idea is about as far-fetched as they come. First of all, it would be nearly impossible to even attempt something like that. Let's just say that there would be better odds of Galileo himself rising from the dead and stopping the comet with a slingshot. And say that a miracle was to happen and this did work, the results would be just as devastating. The comet wouldn't just magically vaporize. It would break into millions of smaller projectiles which would still strike Earth, causing just as much damage as if the comet had been left intact."

President Marshall was finally beginning to understand the dire circumstances that were sure to come from such an impact.

"Then what are our other options?"

"Not options, plural, sir. Option, singular, and a theoretical one that might not work at that. A bit like placing all of your eggs in one basket. But there is no other choice."

"What the hell is it already?" Mansfield growled, his tense anger surprising every person in the room.

"Deflection."

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"Deflection? Go into space, grab your driver from the bag full of space clubs and knock the ball out of the way?" the President asked.

"Something like that," Earl answered. "But, to continue the golf analogy, it would be more like going into space and creating enough wind to blow the ball off course."

"Can we not speak in metaphors, please? I would just like to understand how the hell we would go about deflecting a speeding comet," Mansfield said, finally speaking after growing increasingly agitated.

"The idea would involve the use of atomic weaponry," Earl started. "Unfortunately, there are no other weapons that humankind has ever produced that would be strong enough to do what we wanted. In order for a comet to be deflected, explosives would have to be set off at a relatively close distance from the comet, but not too close. An atomic explosion causes a shockwave, and this shockwave is what's needed to push the comet off course. If the atomic weapon is placed too close to the comet, the energy from the blast will be concentrated on destroying the comet, something that we know can not be done. So the weapon needs to be far enough away to work up the correct amount of energy needed to produce the a shockwave powerful enough to push the comet off course."

"What happens if the atomic weapon is placed too far from the comet?" the President asked.

"Then the proper amount of energy will not reach the comet and there won't be enough force to push it a significant distance."

"That sounds like a feasible enough plan," the President said, optimism returning to his mind. "Complicated, sure, but with the technology we have today, I don't see how we could fail to make it work, especially with twelve years of time to prepare."

He looked at Earl, Armour and Wilson, and could see in their faces that there was something else about the plan that he didn’t know.

"What am I missing?"

"It's the twelve years, sir," chimed in Armour. "In order for this plan to have a chance of working, we will need at least ten years."

"And like I said," Earl continued, "the chances of it working are only about fifty-fifty at best. From the quick numbers I calculated on the plane ride to D.C., figuring approximately two years for preparation time, I figured that it will take around four and a half years just for a space vehicle to reach the comet.

"Also, the deflection process is a very slow one. If we can generate a big enough shockwave at the precise location, we will only be able to change the comet's course very slightly. If all goes as planned, the comet will be thrown off course at about the pace of one or two centimeters per hour. Moving at this pace for the five and a half years would have the comet missing Earth by less than a hundred miles. That obviously does not leave us with much room for error."

"And you're sure that's the only course of action available to us?" the president asked.

"Unless there is a way to move the Earth – or move every person off of the Earth – then this is the only way."

Marshall turned to Mansfield and discreetly made a fist with his hand.