The Rock (2 page)

The job had been exciting the first two months he'd been here--handling top-secret data and working with the codes--but the novelty had quickly been scrubbed away by the heat and stark living conditions. Spurlock was from a small town in Oklahoma, but even that place was lively compared to Alice Springs. He'd started his "short-timers" calendar last month, checking the day off each evening as he got off shift. Booze-readily available at the commissary-was the common cure at the base for the loneliness and isolation, but Spurlock had avoided that trap. He focused on his job, practicing his skill at encoding and decoding, trying to break some of the simpler codes used in the computer. He could often be found late at night, scrunched in front of his terminal, his fingers tentatively tapping out solutions.

He was in the process of realigning one of the dishes to pick up an INTELSAT that was just coming into range over the western horizon when his computer screen went crazy. A jumbled mass of letters and numbers filled the entire display. His attempts to clear were fruitless. He scooted his seat over to an empty console nearby and booted that computer up. Everything worked fine until he accessed Dish 4, the one he had been realigning.

"What's the matter?" Colonel Seymour, the station commander appeared over his shoulder. "Trouble?"

Spurlock worked the keyboard. "I don't know, sir. Could be the main drive. I get the same garbage on both screens when I access dish four."

Seymour checked the clock. "INTEL-SAT 3A is going to transmit in two minutes."

An abnormality--Spurlock was ready to see Seymour's head start spinning in circles. The Air Force didn't assign people to DSCC because they were highly adaptable to a rapidly changing environment. They were assigned because they could do routine and do it well.

As he watched, the figures on the screen began shifting in a hypnotic fashion, the numbers and the letters realigning, drifting from one place to another. He'd never seen anything like it.

"What the hell is going on?" Seymour demanded.

"I don't know, sir."

"Get that damn thing back on line. I'm going to have to file a report if we miss the burst from 3A."

Spurlock frowned as he watched the screen. "I don't think it's the computer, sir." He checked the status board. "Dish two's free for a half hour. I'm going to use it on 3A." He gave the proper commands and dish two powered up and turned, lowering toward the western horizon to catch the satellite.

"Shit," Spurlock muttered as the screen dissolved into the same shifting pattern. "Something's transmitting on very high power to the west. It's overpowering everything else."

"Air or ground transmitter?"

Spurlock played with the controls, moving the dish ever so slightly. "I think it's on the ground and stationary. I go a few degrees up and we lose it. Southwest of here." He checked the status board. "Are there any military operations going on out in the Gibson Desert? Maybe somebody failed to file their freqs with Control and they don't know they're screwing up our receiving."

Seymour shook his head. "As far as I know we've got nothing out there, and the Aussies haven't told us anything."

"Well, sir, there's a very high-power transmitter out there and until we get it off the air, we're not going to pick up anything in a twelve-degree arc from the horizon."

Seymour ran a hand through his thinning gray hair. "I'll get a helicopter up. If it's that strong they ought to pick it up pretty quickly and get it shut down. Contact Goddard and inform them of the situation." Seymour left the room.

Spurlock cleared the computer and accessed the direct satellite modem link to the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

There was a long pause-much too long. Spurlock grew worried and repeated his message. The reply was not what he had expected.

Before he could react, a new message from Maryland appeared.

Spurlock reflexively checked his screens.

THIS IS DSCC 14. WE ARE NOT TRANSMITTING. REPEAT. WE ARE NOT TRANSMITTING. ALL OUR RECEIVERS ARE ALSO OVERWHELMED BY THIS WHEN THEY ALIGN IN THE INDICATED DIRECTION.

< WHO IS SENDING, THEN? WE'VE GOT IT COMING DOWN OFF METEOR BURSTS ALL OVER THE PLANET AIMED AT SPECIFIC LOCATIONS. ARE YOU GUYS PLAYING A GAME?

< NEGATIVE, GSFC. WE ARE NOT, REPEAT, NOT TRANSMITTING.

Spurlock paused and rechecked the other screens and the dish alignments. He tapped the keyboard.

A new message from Goddard Space Center.

Spurlock typed in another rebuttal with sweaty fingers.

The person on the other end seemed slightly mollified but more confused.

Spurlock turned and looked out of the large plate-glass windows at the eight dishes and then beyond that to the beginnings of the Simpson Desert that stretched westward for almost a thousand miles. As if drawn by a string his eyes looked upward at the pollution-free air.

Something out there in the desert was sending a message, but what? What had the capability to overwhelm their receivers here at DSCC 14 on the ground and at the same time bounce radio waves off the belt of meteors out in space and back to Earth? Spurlock knew that meteor burst was a capability that only the military used-it was the same as bouncing a message off a satellite except the military anticipated few satellites to be up there in case of an all-out conflict. Therefore in the late seventies they'd begun using the belt of meteors farther out in space for the bounce points. As far as Spurlock knew the Australians did not have the capability to do multiple messages with such power.

Spurlock slowly typed in his answer.

Spurlock leaned back in his seat and stared at the screen. Whatever was transmitting this was powerful and very quick. No human hand could be sending that data without the aid of a computer. The figures danced in front of him, continuously changing. There was something about parts of the message that seemed tantalizingly familiar.

Spurlock went to work. He copied a portion and slowed it down, reading the figures, trying to make some sense. He attempted a few simple transfiguration codes. None worked.

Some of it looked almost like mathematical equations, but none that he'd ever seen. Another part had what appeared to be a rhythm. That last word stuck in Spurlock's mind and he tried something different. He fed a portion of the data into a different program on his computer.

Turning the volume up he ran the program.

He almost dropped his coffee cup when classical music, played at an extremely rapid beat, piped out of his computer. Why was someone sending out classical music in digital form on a frequency reserved for space communication?

The music suddenly changed into a country-western beat played at breakneck speed. Then rock. Then back to classical. Then it turned to unintelligible garbage. .

Suddenly a mechanical voice spoke. It was speaking so quickly, he could understand none of what it was saying. Spurlock reran the tape, this time slowing it down so it was intelligible. The machine-generated voice rasped out of the computer.

"Dos vadanya. An yong haseo. Maasalama. Hello. . . ." Spurlock listened amazed as numerous languages, most of which he couldn't even identify, whispered greetings.

It struck him suddenly. He spun around and raced over to the bookcase on the far wall, his eyes flashing along the shelves until he found what he was looking for: the master data binder on Voyager 2. He ran his finger down the index and turned to the appropriate page.

There was no doubt about it-he was hearing the record that had been placed on Voyager 2 being played back in digital form at high speed. But why was it coming from land to the west?

He had no more time to puzzle over the problem as an extremely perturbed Colonel Seymour burst in the door and stormed over to the radio in the room. Spurlock started to explain what he had found, but Seymour cut him off.

"Listen to this crazy son-of-a-bitch!" the colonel exclaimed as he turned the set on. He picked up the mike and keyed it. "Rover Two, this is DSCC fourteen. Repeat your message, please. Over."

"DSCC, this is Rover Two. I say again. I have located the source of the interfering transmission. It is two hundred miles from your location directly along the azimuth you gave us. We are hovering directly above. Over."

Spurlock frowned. "Why haven't they shut it down?" Seymour hissed at him to be quiet. "Tell me again where the source is located. Over."

"Ayers Rock. Over."

Spurlock frowned. Ayers Rock was the most spectacular of the three great tours of Central Australia, rising out of the desert floor as if some giant had accidentally dropped it there. Spurlock had visited it on a tour after he'd first arrived on station.

"You must mean someone on Ayers Rock. Over." Seymour shook his head at the idiocy of the helicopter pilot as he released the send button.

"Negative. I mean Ayers Rock. I've got my skids less than ten feet above the top of this damn thing and that signal is coming out of solid rock directly below me. The needle is off the gauge on my receiver. I don't know what is going on, but something inside the rock itself is sending you a message. Over."

THE PLAYERS 

HAWKINS Bogota, Colombia

19 DECEMBER 1995, 0200 LOCAL

19 DECEMBER 1995, 0700 ZULU

The night was deathly still, the sounds of cars rumbling along the highway a kilometer to the east barely audible. The two-story mansion was set well away from the other buildings on the winding road, a sign of the money and power of the man who owned it. A concrete wall with a locked gate surrounded the spacious grounds. A light flickered in the doorway of the building inside-the guard there lighting a cigarette.

Squatting just inside the wall, Hawkins scanned the building carefully, listening to the muted hiss of the radio in his ear as his team members reported in.

"Puma ready. Out."

"Tiger ready. Out."

"Leopard ready. Out."

Hawkins's mind was calculating. Jaguar had thirty seconds. Then he would give the go with or without that element's participation.

"Jaguar ready. Out."

Hawkins stood, his tall, rangy build clad in black fatigues covered by a combat harness bristling with killing devices. His face was obscured by a black balaclava and the stubby snout of AN/PVS7 night vision goggles. The silenced MP5-SD submachine gun was intimately comfortable in his left hand. The stock of the weapon was collapsed and the thick metal tube of the suppressor followed in short arcs wherever his eyes went. He spoke into his boom mike as calmly as if he were reporting the weather. "Angel, this is Cheetah. Ready to roll. Over."

"Cheetah, this is Angel. You have final clearance. Go. Out."

Hawkins's face was expressionless beneath the cloth covering it. "Break. Mother, what is your status? Over."

The muted sound of helicopter blades sounded in the background of the transmission.

"Holding at eight klicks. All clear. Ready. Over."

"Mother, start final approach. The party's starting. Break. All elements, this is Cheetah. Start in ten, on my count." Hawkins moved forward, the three other men of his cell moving in perfect coordination with his vector toward the front door. He was taking the most dangerous way in-it was the way the commander should go.

"Five," he whispered. In the green glow of his night-vision goggles he could clearly see the muted glow of the door guard's cigarette as if it were a brightly lit flashlight. The man was turned sideways to their approach, ignorant of the coming storm.

"Three." He brought up his submachine gun. "Two. One."

His burst of 9mm subsonic bullets splattered the guard against the door, the gun giving off only the muted sound of the bolt working. One of his men leaned over the body and placed explosives just above the lock. They stepped back and ducked. The blast was brief and then they were sprinting in. The power went off as Hawkins charged through the door, and everything inside went dark. Through his night-vision goggles Hawkins could clearly see the confusion as the guards blindly reacted.

Hawkins fired a sustained burst at a group of men to his right, sending them tumbling. His three men fanned out as they proceeded to clear the first floor. He stayed off the radio, listening to the progress of his other teams. Puma had already secured the field in back for Mother. Tiger and Leopard were working the second floor from opposite ends, having rappelled from the roof into the hallway windows. Jaguar was watching for any outside interference, providing sniper support after having cut the power. He could see what his team-Cheetah-was doing.

"Tiger. Two down B-four." Hawkins knew that meant that Tiger element had killed two people in the room they had designated as B4. He heard the crump of explosions as more doors were blown in. No sound of firing yet. That was good--his men were all silenced, so that meant no return fire. They were three quarters of the way through the first floor when the deep-throated roar of automatic rifle fire split the silence-the first opposition.

A laconic voice came over the radio. "Ah, Jaguar, this is Leopard. We got us one in B-seven. We took the door down but he's stitching the wall here and I'm holding for a sec on going in. Do you have anything in there? Over."

"This is Leopard. Negative on NVG. Going thermal." There was a short pause. "Roger, Leopard, we got him. One hot." Hawkins tilted his head slightly as a deep shot sounded from outside the building. There was no way to silence the fifty-caliber sniper rifle-not if it was going to shoot through walls.

"Leopard, this is Jaguar. Room clear. Over."

"Roger. Going into B-seven.”

Hawkins' assistant team leader came out of the last room on the first floor with a thumbs-up. All clear down here. Hawkins spoke into his radio for the first time. "Mother, this is Cheetah. Status? Over."

"This is Mother. On schedule. Two miles out. Over."

Hawkins turned and ran for the stairs. Tiger was outside B11. Their target was inside that room. "Jaguar, this is Cheetah. What have you got on thermals in B-eleven? Over."

"Still just two hot. Looks like they're hiding near the bed. Over."

A new voice cut in. "This is Tiger. Going in. Over."

As Hawkins turned on the second-floor landing, he was momentarily blinded as the blast taking out the door to that room overloaded his goggles.

"We got him!" An exultant voice came over the radio.

Hawkins ran into B11. Two of his men had cuffed and blindfolded their target: a fat, naked, blubbering old man. Hawkins looked at the second occupant of the room-a young woman. She lay there on the bed, covers pulled up to her neck, her eyes fearfully dashing from one dark masked figure to another.

"Get him out of here!" Hawkins brusquely ordered. Two of his men lifted the man off his feet and hustled him out the doorway, heading for the pickup zone.

"All elements. This is Cheetah. Pull back. Pull back. Over."

Hawkins swung the boom mike away from his lips and took a deep breath. Tiger team leader hustled his men out of the room and then came over to Hawkins. He didn't ask the obvious. He looked from the woman to Hawkins and then back to the woman, who was slowly sliding toward the far side of the bed, away from the invaders. "I'll take care of it, boss."

Hawkins flicked the selector switch on his MP5 and answered Tiger team leader's suggestion with one round through the middle of the woman's forehead, spraying brain and blood over the headboard. Hawkins stepped forward and ripped aside the sheet, uncovering a small derringer in the woman's right hand.

Hawkins briefly looked at Tiger team leader and shook his head. The two turned and ran for the stairs and out the back door.

The MH-53 Pave Low helicopter settled onto the lawn exactly on schedule and the members of Orion loaded smoothly, throwing their bound target in first. The back ramp closed as the bird lifted and they were winging for the coast, an Air Force escort of Stealth fighters flying cover overhead. The helicopter pilot kept them down in the treetops, using his terrain-following radar to keep off the Colombian Armed Forces radar screens. They would be back on board the carrier before anyone in the country even had an inkling of what had happened.

Hawkins walked to the center of the cargo bay where the old man lay, the red night lights on the ceiling reflecting off the pale skin. He'd fouled himself already, shitting all over his pudgy thighs. Hawkins slid up his night-vision goggles and slowly pulled his black balaclava down, exposing chiseled features and slate-gray eyes. He knelt down next to the man and stared. He knew the professional interrogators were waiting on board the carrier and they would extract everything from the man's memory, but he'd paid a high price to get this man and he'd been on the hunt now for two weeks. He wanted to know. His executive officer-Richman-who'd been Tiger team leader on the assault, knelt next to him.

"Did you buy one?"

The man looked at him in confusion. "What?" he replied in Spanish.

Hawkins shifted to that language and spoke just barely above the whine of the engines. "Did you buy one of the nuclear bombs?"

"What nuclear bombs?" The old man shook his head. "What are you talking about?"

Hawkins peered intently into the old man's eyes and felt a sinking sensation. His instincts told him the man was telling the truth. All this for nothing. He looked at Richman, who grimaced and shouted in his team leader's ears, "Another dry well."

Hawkins wearily nodded, the adrenaline of the mission rapidly dissipating.

Richman squeezed his arm. "Sorry about the girl. She was in bed with the man when we went in. I didn't see the gun."

Hawkins ran a hand across his brow. "It doesn't matter." He went forward in the cargo bay, away from the other members of his team. He slumped down on the cargo web seat against the side of the aircraft. He peeled off his thin black gloves and the glint of gold on his left hand caught his eye. With his right hand he twisted the ring, feeling it cut into the flesh beneath. His eyes remembered the fear in the woman's eyes in the room. He didn't know who she was or why she was there. He had spotted the derringer a second before he fired, but he had no way of knowing for sure if she had intended to use it. It had been reflex-the killing reflex that had been drummed into him for years.

Hawkins felt a black void open in his chest—a void he'd felt often in the past four years. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out all the memories, but failed. Unthinking, his right hand left the ring and stole down to his right hip and unsnapped the cover on his pistol holster. He pulled the Beretta 9mm out and instinctively flipped off the safety.

A tap on the shoulder startled him.

"Sir, we've got a message for you on SATCOM." A commo man stood there, holding out the headset for a satellite radio, looking curiously at the pistol in his commander's hand. Hawkins followed the man's gaze and blinked. He awkwardly put the gun back in its holster and took the headset. "Hawkins here."

"Hawk, this is General Lowry. We've got an F-14 waiting on board the carrier all fueled and waiting for you. As soon as you get on board you go to that bird."

Hawkins shook his head to clear it. "What about debrief?"

"Don't worry about debrief. Richman will handle it. Something's come up."

Hawkins felt the trepidation of another mission. "You have a line on the other nuke?"

"No." There was a slight pause. "You get on that Tomcat and you go wherever it takes you. That's all I've got."

"Can you give me an idea where it's taking me, sir?"

There was a long pause. "From what I understand, you're going to Australia."

"Australia? Why?"

"To tell you the truth, Hawk, I don't know what's going on. This is coming from the very top. Just do what you're ordered to. Out."

The radio went dead. Hawkins ripped the headset off and slammed it against the floor, ignoring the looks of his team members. He pressed his fists against his temples, trying to block out all the faces, and one face in particular-a woman still alive, at least physically, lying on another bed, covered with a white sheet up to her neck, her large eyes staring aimlessly straight ahead.

BATSON Socorro, New Mexico

19 DECEMBER 1995, 0015 LOCAL

19 DECEMBER 1995, 0715 ZULU

The five men at the table to the left of the band's stage had begun verbally grading the women going to the bathroom over thirty minutes before. Their scale ranged from negative ten to a seven for a mini-skirted young girl. Don Batson had ignored their raucous laughter. In the drunken glow of seven beers he was much more interested in the woman seated next to him. Linda was one of his graduate assistants and their relationship had recently become much more than professional.

Don looked much younger than he actually was, an almost indistinguishable sprinkling of gray in his black hair, a hint to his thirty-eight years. Black steel-rimmed glasses framed a remarkably unlined face and covered dark eyes that blearily took in his surroundings. Only in the light of day could the redness in his nose and sprinkling of burst blood vessels in his cheeks be spotted. He kept his body in good shape at the university gym and sweated out" the alcohol every day. Don Batson took everything life had to offer him with eager arms. At the present moment one of those arms was occupied with Nancy's thigh, squeezing the smooth flesh in anticipation of a night's pleasure.

Peter, one of Don's third-year undergraduate students at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, had just finished describing his experiences the previous summer during an internship with a mining consortium in Colorado. As the humorous story drew to a close, Don finished his mug of beer and then leaned forward.

"I've got a small problem that I want you to solve." The younger students groaned with mock horror while Nancy smiled, used to Don's favorite game-setting up problems that required innovative solutions. He looked at her. "I don't want you answering either-you've heard it before."

Sure he had their attention, he continued above the muted clatter of the bar. "You have a half-inch diameter, two-foot-long steel tube welded onto a steel deck, the tube standing perpendicular. The top is open. You also have a hanger, a pair of pliers, a four-foot piece of string, and a piece of eight-and-a-half-by-eleven typing paper.