The Sign (6 page)

His BlackBerry nudged him out of his reverie. The ring tag told him who it was, and a quick glance at the screen before picking up the call confirmed it.

The Bullet got straight to the point, as was his norm. They’d already spoken twice that evening.

“I got a call from our friend at Meade.”

“And?”

“He got a hit. A phone call, between two of the peripherals on the watch list.”

Drucker mulled the news for a beat. The Bullet, aka Brad Maddox, had initially suggested using one of his contacts inside the National Security Agency to—quietly—monitor for unexpected trouble. Although Drucker had thought the risk of exposure outweighed the unlikely benefits, it now looked like Maddox had made the right call. Which was why Maddox was in charge of the project’s security.

“You’ve heard the recording?” Drucker asked.

“Yes.”

“Is it anything to worry about?”

“I think it might be. The call itself was too brief to read either way, but its timing raises some concerns.”

Drucker winced. “Who are the peripherals?”

“One of them’s a techie, an engineer here in Boston. Vince Bellinger. He was Danny Sherwood’s college roommate. They were tight. Best buddies. The other’s Sherwood’s brother, Matt.”

A flash of concern flitted across Drucker’s eyes. “And there’s no history there?”

“Last communication we have between them goes back almost two years.”

Drucker thought about it for a moment. Two years ago, they had a natural reason to chat. The timing of this new call, though, was indeed troublesome. “I take it you’ve got it under control.”

Maddox couldn’t have sounded more detached if he’d been sedated. “Just bringing you up to speed.”

“Good. Let’s hope it’s a coincidence.”

“Not something I believe in,” Maddox affirmed.

“Me neither, sadly,” Drucker replied. Then, almost as an afterthought, he asked, “And the girl?”

“Just waiting to be plucked.”

“You’re going to need to handle that one with even more discretion,” Drucker cautioned. “She’s key.”

“She won’t be a problem,” the Bullet assured him. “My boys are ready. Just say the word.”

“It’s imminent. Keep me posted on the roommate,” Drucker added before hanging up.

He stared at his phone for a moment, then shrugged and tucked it back into his suit’s inside breast pocket. He looked out at the streaks of red and white light gliding past his wet window, and played out the next moves in his mind.

It was a good start, no question.

But the hardest part was yet to come.

Amundsen Sea, Antarctica

G
racie watched the screen fade to a fuzzy gray and shook her head. The adrenaline rush was petering out, and she now felt exhausted, battered by a hurricane of exuberance, confusion, and unease. Yet another cup of the ship’s surprisingly decent coffee beckoned.

“Let’s see it again,” one of the scientists told Dalton.

Dalton glanced over at Gracie, who shrugged, got up, and headed over to the corner bar for her caffeine fix. Her throat felt dry and hoarse, and she’d lost all sense of time. The continuous, seemingly never-ending daylight didn’t help.

They’d stayed out on deck, scanning the skies, for about an hour after the apparition had vanished before heading inside for some warmth. Some crew members stayed out on watch, in case it reappeared, while Gracie and the others had crowded into the officers’ and scientists’ lounge—which sounded a lot more grand than it was—and watched the footage from both of Dalton’s cameras on a big plasma screen. Several viewings and countless cups of coffee later, they still weren’t anywhere remotely close to explaining what they’d witnessed.

The comfort zone of ascribing it to some spectacular weather phenomenon was quickly dispelled. The obvious candidates—aurora australis southern lights, fogbows, and green flashes—didn’t fit the bill. One possibility that did generate a brief debate was something called “diamond dust.” Gracie had never heard of it. Simmons had explained that it was a phenomenon that involved ice crystals that formed from the condensation of atmospheric water vapor. When these crystals caught the sunlight at a particular angle as they drifted down to earth, they generated a brilliant, sparkling effect, sometimes in the form of a halo. Which might have explained the first part of the apparition, at a stretch, and a pretty big one at that. But it didn’t even begin to explain the dazzling symbol that it had turned into.

Looking around the lounge, Gracie could see that the discussion was purely academic. Despite the heated debates and arguments, they were just grasping at straws, skirting the obvious. From the strained faces around her, from the wavering voices and the nervy eyes, it was clear that not one of those assembled really believed that this was a natural weather phenomenon. And this wasn’t a simple group of layfolk prone to flights of imagination. They were all highly qualified scientists, experts in their fields, and more than familiar with the unique conditions out there. And they’d all been seriously shaken up by what they’d seen. All of which meant one of two things. If it wasn’t natural, it was either man-made—or supernatural.

The first was easier to deal with.

Dalton frowned as he turned away from the footage. “Well if it isn’t a freak of nature, then maybe it’s some goofballs messing with us.”

“You think it could be a prank?” Gracie asked.

“Well, yeah. Remember those
UFO
sightings in New York a few years back?” Dalton continued. “They had half the city convinced. Turns out it was a bunch of guys flying some ultralights in formation.”

“On the other hand, no one’s been able to explain the lights over Phoenix back in 1997,” another scientist, a geophysicist with a thick goatee by the name of Theo Dinnick, countered. The sighting in question, a major event witnessed by hundreds of independent and highly credible people, remained unexplained to this day.

“You’re forgetting this was in broad daylight,” Gracie remarked.

Simmons, the paleoclimatologist with the binoculars, nodded dubiously. “If it’s a prank, I want to meet the guys behind it and find out how the hell they pulled it off, ’cause it sure isn’t something I can explain.”

Gracie glanced around the room. Her eyes settled on Musgrave, the glaciologist who’d become testy on deck, and his wife. They were both sitting back, not participating. They were clearly discomfited by the conversation, giving each other the occasional glance. Musgrave seemed really irritated, and finally stood up.

“For God’s sake, people. Let’s be serious here,” he announced. “You saw it. We all saw it. You really think something that magnificent, something that . . .
sublime
. . . you really believe it could just be a vulgar prank?”

“What do you think it is?” Simmons asked.

“Isn’t it obvious? It’s a sign.”

“A sign?”

“A sign,” he repeated. “From God.”

A leaden silence greeted his words.

“Why God? Why not aliens?” Dalton finally asked.

Musgrave flashed him an icy scowl.

Dalton didn’t flinch. “Seriously. ’Cause that’s the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Musgrave wasn’t making any effort to mask his contempt.

“Why is that ridiculous?” Dalton insisted. “You’re saying it’s supernatural, aren’t you? You’re happy to entertain the notion that it’s ‘God’”—Dalton made some air quotes with his fingers—“whatever that means, but not that it’s extraterrestrial, that it’s coming from some intelligent life form from beyond our planet? Why is that any more ridiculous than what you’re suggesting?”

“Maybe it’s a warning,” Musgrave’s wife suggested.

“What?” Simmons sounded incredulous.

“Maybe it’s a warning. It appeared here, now, over this ice shelf. During the breakup. It can’t be random. There’s got to be a reason for it. Maybe it’s trying to tell us something.”

“I’ll tell you what it’s telling me, it’s telling me we should get the hell out of here before it shows up again. It’s bad news.” Dalton again.

“Goddammit,” Musgrave blurted, “either take this seriously or—”

“All right, calm down.” Gracie cut off Musgrave before turning to Dalton and flashing him a castigating glance. “We’re all on edge here.”

Dalton nodded and leaned back, taking in a deep breath.

“I’ve got to say, I agree with him,” Simmons added, gesturing at Dalton. “I mean, we’re all scientists—and even if lasers or holograms or whatever the hell it could have been aren’t within our areas of expertise, I’m guessing we’re all pretty convinced that what we saw out there is, as far as any of us can tell,
way
beyond any technological capability we know of. Now, the fact that I can’t explain it excites me and scares me in equal measure. ’Cause if it’s not some kind of laser show, if it didn’t come from
DARPA
or some Japanese lab or from Silicon Valley—
if it didn’t originate on this planet
. . . then it’s either, as Greg says, God—or, as our friend here was saying, extraterrestrial. And frankly, either one would be just extraordinary, and I don’t see that the difference really matters right now.”

“You don’t see the difference?” Musgrave was incensed.

“I don’t want to get into a big theological debate with you, Greg, but—”

“—but you obviously don’t believe in God, even if you’re presented with a miracle, so any debate is pointless.”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” Simmons insisted calmly. “Look, you’re saying this is God, you’re saying our maker has, for some reason, chosen this day, this location, this event—and this method—to appear to us, here, today—”

Gracie interrupted, saying, “Do we know if anything like this has happened elsewhere? Has anyone checked the news?”

Finch said, “I just got off the phone with the news desk. There are no other reports of any other sightings.”

“Okay, so if He’s chosen to show up here and now,” Simmons continued, “then I’ve got to think He must have a damn good reason.”

“Half the West Antarctic ice shelf is slipping into the sea. You need more of a reason?” Musgrave’s wife said, irritably.

“Why do you think we’re here?” Musgrave added. “Why are we all here?” His eyes darted around the room feverishly before settling on the British scientist. “Justin,” he asked him, “why are you here?”

“England’s at the same latitude as Alaska,” the man replied. “The only thing that makes it livable is the Gulf Stream. Take that away—which is what happens if the ice melts—and that movie, the one with Manhattan swamped with ice and snow? That’ll be London. Along with most of Europe, for that matter.”

“Exactly,” Musgrave insisted. “We’re all here because we’re worried. All the signs are telling us that we’ve got one hell of a problem, and maybe this—this
miracle
is telling us we’ve got to do something about it.”

Gracie and Finch exchanged dubious glances.

“Okay, well,” Simmons conceded, “all I’m saying is, if that’s the reason, if it’s a warning, then . . . why couldn’t it be coming from a more advanced intelligence?”

“I agree with that young man,” Dinnick said with a slight, disarming grin, pointing at Dalton. “It’s just as ludicrous.”

Musgrave’s wife was clearly roiled. “It’s pointless to discuss this with either of you. You’re not open to the possibility.”

“On the contrary, I’m open to
all
possibilities,” Dinnick countered. “And if we’re talking about some entity making contact with us,” nodding toward Simmons, “maybe to warn us, which, granted, could justify the here and now of it . . . Well, if you accept the notion of a creator, of creationism, of intelligent design . . . why couldn’t that intelligent designer be from a more advanced race?”

Musgrave was incensed. “God isn’t something you find in a science fiction book,” he retorted. “You don’t even have a basic understanding of what faith means, do you?”

“There’s no difference. It’s all unknowable as far as our current capabilities are concerned, isn’t it?” Dinnick pressed.

“Believe what you will. I’m out of here.” He stormed off.

Musgrave’s wife got up. She looked at the faces around her with a mixture of anger, scorn, and pity. “I think we all know what we saw out there,” she said, before following her husband out.

An uncomfortable silence smothered the room.

“Man. That guy’s clearly never heard of Scientology,” Dalton quipped, raising a few nervous chuckles.

“I’ve got to say,” the British scientist finally offered, “while I was out there, looking at it . . . there was something rather . . .
divine
about it.”

He looked around for endorsement. A couple of other scientists nodded.

The honesty of his simple words suddenly struck Gracie, their simple, brutal significance sinking in and chilling her more fiercely than any wind she’d felt out on the ice. Listening to the arguments flying around the room, she’d been swept up by the semantics and all but lost track of the fundamental enormity of what they’d all been arguing about. What had happened, what they’d witnessed out there . . . it was beyond explanation. It was beyond reason. It would have been beyond belief if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes.

But she had.

Her mind drifted away with the possibilities.
Could it be?
she wondered. Had they just witnessed a watershed moment in the history of mankind, something for which “before” and “after” attributes might be used from here on?

Her innate skepticism, the skepticism of a hardened realist, dragged her back from the swirl of dreamy conjecture with a resounding
No
.

Impossible.

And yet . . . she couldn’t ignore the feeling that she’d been in the presence of something transcendent. She’d never felt that way before.

She suppressed a shiver and glanced uncertainly at Finch. “What did they say?” she asked, away from the others.

Finch said, “They’re getting everyone they can think of to check it out. But they’re getting calls from broadcasters all over the world wanting to know what’s going on. Ogilvy wants us to send him a high-res clip pronto,” he added pointedly, referring to Hal Ogilvy, the network’s global news director and a board member of the parent firm.