McFarlane did not answer this. Instead, he calmly took a seat, crossed his legs, and bestowed a cool look on Glinn. “Glad to see you looking so well, Eli.”
“Thank you.”
Garza refused to sit. “I want to know how you found out.”
“I’ve had a long journey,” McFarlane replied. “It took me forty-eight hours of travel to get here. Do you think a cup of coffee might be managed? Two creams, two sugars. A buttered scone would also be lovely.” This request he directed, in a supercilious tone pitched for maximum offensiveness, at Garza.
Gideon stared at the man. Was this really Sam McFarlane, the meteorite hunter he’d heard so much about? But of course, it had to be: he recognized the face from the video footage they’d rescued from the Rolvaag. And yet the man looked different now—very different.
Glinn picked up his radio, murmured into it, and set it down again. “All taken care of. Now, Sam, please tell us how you heard about our effort and what you’re doing here.”
“Palmer Lloyd hired me.”
This was greeted with shocked silence.
“Oh, this is classic,” said Garza. “A defective, hired by a madman.”
Glinn held up a staying hand. “Go on.”
“A few days ago, I got a call from Lloyd. He invited me to visit him in that posh asylum of his, gave me plane fare.” He shook his head. “What an experience that was. But I’ll tell you one thing: the man isn’t mad. He’s as sane as anyone. He asked, begged me to come down here.”
“For what purpose?” Garza demanded.
“To save you all from yourselves.”
“And how do you intend to do that?” Glinn asked mildly.
“He said that you, Eli, were once again acting the egotist; that your judgment was clouded—and that you thought you had everything in hand, when in fact just the opposite was true. He said you were setting yourself up to fail again, and that you were going to take down a bunch of innocents with you. Just like last time.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“He said you were a man born to failure. That you instinctively seek it out.”
“I see,” said Glinn. Throughout this recitation, his expression had not changed. “And how are you going to bring about our salvation?”
“My job is to stop the stupid. To warn you when you’re about to fuck up. Lloyd tasked me with being your ‘interfering angel.’”
“How long are we going to listen to this horseshit?” said Garza. “You can interfere all you want—from the brig.”
Gideon listened, with no intention of opening his mouth and getting drawn into the argument. To him, this seemed like the last thing they needed—yet another variable in the equation. This McFarlane might be an entertaining son of a bitch, but he promised to be a disruptive presence.
A knock came at the door and a steward entered with a tray of coffee cups, a pot, cream and sugar—and buttered scones. He placed the tray on a table. Glinn thanked him and he left. As Glinn began preparing McFarlane’s coffee, he asked: “And how do you propose to become this ‘interfering angel’?”
McFarlane took the cup, drank deep. Glinn began pouring coffee for the rest.
“Put me on the team,” said McFarlane. “Give me total access. Allow me free run of the ship. And listen to what I say, for a change.”
Garza shook his head in wonder at the man’s effrontery.
“Agreed,” said Glinn.
Garza looked over sharply. “What?”
“Gideon, I’m going to put you in charge of briefing Dr. McFarlane.” Glinn turned. “Manuel, let’s put aside history and look to the future. And Sam, you would do well to change your tone, which is immature and unbecoming.”
Garza stared. “You’re really going to let this joker join the team? After all that’s happened? What’s his role?”
“Dr. McFarlane,” Glinn said, “is going to be our very own Cassandra.”
41
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, with the utmost care, wearing a radiation suit with an air supply, Gideon manipulated a small, overhead crane to maneuver the two assembled hemispheres of the nuclear device closer together. The plutonium pit was now in place, plated in twenty-four-karat gold, shining like a golden apple in the center of the layered implosion device. The two hemispheres looked like an exotic fruit, sliced down the middle. The device had been cleverly designed to slot together, with male and female plugs that fit with machined precision. The high-explosive lenses surrounding the core were also precisely machined. The shaped charges were in different colors—red for fast and white for slow—designed to focus the detonation wave into a contracting sphere so that it evenly compressed the core into a supercritical state.
The HMX explosive material gave off a faint chemical smell, a funky, plastic-like scent, that brought back memories of his years working on the Stockpile Stewardship program at the Los Alamos National Lab. Nuclear weapons aged in complex ways, and keeping the nation’s arsenal of nuclear weapons fresh and ready for use often meant disassembling bombs and replacing aging parts with new ones—a process not unlike what he was doing here.
Using two joysticks, he carefully worked the crane, making tiny adjustments, and finally was able to fit one hemisphere perfectly into the other, the cables and plugs slotting together, the machined HE parts sliding into place. He ran a quick electrical check and confirmed that all the electrical contacts had been made and were operating properly.
A double flange ran all the way around the stainless-steel outer shell, the holes lined up. He began inserting bolts through the holes cut into the flange and tightening them down.
He became aware of a presence behind him, and he straightened and turned. It was the new arrival, Sam McFarlane. Gideon felt a swell of annoyance at the interruption—and about how the man had crept up behind him. He had already spent an hour briefing him: what more did he want?
“This is a restricted area,” said Gideon.
McFarlane shrugged.
“You should be wearing a monkey suit.”
“Not necessary.”
Gideon stared. This was a really unwelcome visit. He should have locked the door. And then he remembered that he had; McFarlane must have procured a key.
“The HE is mildly toxic, and plutonium and polonium, in case you didn’t know, are poisonous in addition to being radioactive.”
“That concerns me not at all.”
“Well, then, is there something I can help you with?” he said, not trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
“I’m making the rounds. Trying to figure out how you plan to kill the thing. And you’re in charge of briefing me—remember?” He looked around. “So here it is—the heart of the matter. The nuke.”
Gideon nodded.
“What are the specs?”
“It’s an implosion device. Plutonium, of course.” He wondered how much McFarlane knew about nuclear device engineering.
“What’s the yield?”
“About a hundred kilotons.”
“Nobody’s ever detonated a nuclear device two miles underwater. Have you calculated just how that depth will affect the explosion?”
Gideon was a bit startled that the man had put his finger on the trickiest and most uncertain part of the whole operation. “It’s a complex computer simulation. The water pressure appears to enhance the shock wave effects, but damp down the blast effects. It will completely kill the radiation, however—water stops neutrons.”
“And how will you deliver it?”
Gideon hesitated. Some things were confidential, even on board the ship.
“Glinn gave me complete access to everything,” said McFarlane.
“We’ve got a special ROV under wraps in the hangar. It’ll deliver the weapon.”