Turning to focus his glance on the guard gate, he saw two Air Force sedans in the process of stopping before the sentry. What caught Richard’s attention was the fact that they had been coming from the south. This meant that the road there had to be clear.
Jumping back into his car, he pulled out of the lot and approached the gate himself.
By the time he reached the sentry, the two sedans were well on their way northward. The uniformed guard met him with a salute and proceeded over to his open window.
“Sorry about the delay, Doctor, but I just got word that the road to Arguello is open now. Please drive carefully, and look out for any debris that has yet to be removed.”
Nodding in response, Richard was full of anticipation as he hit the accelerator and pulled onto Coast Road. It didn’t take him long to notice that this portion of thoroughfare had indeed been hard hit by the tsunami. Though the pavement was still intact, much of the road’s shoulder was covered with sand and other debris. Upon rounding Point Arguello, he viewed a tractor crew in the process of removing a huge boulder that had been apparently tossed up onto the shoulder from the surf below. No stranger to the wave’s awesome strength, Richard knew that they were very fortunate not to have lost the road itself.
Soon Slik 6 was passing on his left. Because it lay high on a surrounding hillside, the space shuttle’s launch site was well out of the tsunami’s reach.
Wondering if the Air Force were still going on with its ill-conceived plan to send it skyward, he crossed the railroad tracks and set his eyes on the metallic roof of the external-tank storage facility, shimmering in the distance.
As he parked and exited his car, he noticed the protective, eight-foot-high sand wall that had been hastily bulldozed up to protect the building. Part of this temporary wall had been washed away, yet it was evident that the main force of the wave had been focused on the north-facing beaches. Otherwise, the wall would have been completely decimated. It was only because the facility was built on a beach that faced the south that it had survived.
A pair of armed sentries stood at the building’s entrance, and Richard had to be cleared before being allowed inside. As was the case when he had last entered this massive structure, it proved to be completely empty except for a small knot of curious figures gathered at its center. His footsteps echoed off the concrete floor as he approached them. Only when he was approximately ten feet away did he recognize two of the seven individuals standing there.
The only non-uniformed figure in the bunch was David Downing, the young, bearded McDonnell Douglas engineer, who was dressed in a white shirt, red tie, and gray slacks. Beside him, in the process of leading the discussion, was Ensign Louis Marvin, of the DSRV Marlin. Richard had flown back from Hawaii with the skinny, balding officer, and had a genuine fondness for his warm sense of humor. The other men present were blue-suited Air Force officers of a much more senior rank.
As inconspicuously as possible, the Nose researcher made his way to this circle of figures and peered in between them to see what they surrounded. He did a double-take upon viewing the object that sat on the pallet before them.
The six-foot, six-inch piece of bullet-shaped cowling could only belong to a missile’s nose cone.
Formed of fire-scarred, white metal, it had the distinctive emblem of the U.S. Air Force imprinted on its base.
Not believing what he was seeing, Richard pushed his way through the circle of men. Seconds later, he was recognized.
“Dr. Fuller!” greeted the excited ensign.
“We did it. We found the Titan’s nose cone!”
Still totally speechless, Richard stared out at the piece of debris, while Marvin continued, “As I was just explaining, the amazing part of it all was that this discovery was totally by accident. If it weren’t for that tidal wave almost pulling us down to our deaths, we would have never chanced upon it. Isn’t that incredible?” Barely able to nod in recognition, Richard proceeded to the nose cone’s opposite side, while the ensign continued on with his blow-by-blow account of the fateful series of events that had led them deep into Arguello Canyon. As he knelt down to examine the nose cone’s surface more closely, he was joined by the other civilian present.
“Your expression says it all, Doctor,” whispered the bearded engineer.
“The really strange part was that the Titan’s payload was still snug inside the fairing when they brought it up. Although it’s damaged way beyond repair, just knowing that the Russians can’t get their hands on it is the best news of the day.”
“Talk about the hand of God protecting our country,” said Richard.
“It’s almost like some sort of miracle.”
“Good things happen to good people,” offered the engineer with a grin.
It was as Richard traced the portion of metal skirting that lay on the nose cone’s lower edge that he spotted a strange aperture cut into the fairing’s skin.
A bit smaller than a fist, the hole was certainly not part of the rocket’s original design.
Noticing Richard’s line of sight. Downing spoke out carefully.
“Interesting, isn’t it? I noticed it also, yet our Air Force friends are still too excited with the mere fact that this nose cone is here in the first place to give this orifice much attention. I’m not certain what in the world caused it, yet whatever it was, it must have been moving at an incredible velocity to pierce this multi-layered sandwich of steel as it has.”
Absorbing this observation, Richard suddenly shivered in awareness. His limbs trembled, and a cold sweat formed on his forehead, as his mind’s eye raced back to the past.
The time was over twelve months ago. The place, San Diego’s Duvalier Laboratories. He had been invited by the amiable Frenchman who owned the firm to witness a demonstration of an electromagnetic railgun. This novel weapon was a part of the nation’s Strategic Defense Initiative. It operated by accelerating a projectile to ultra-high speeds, using electric and magnetic energy instead of chemical means. In return, the velocities monitored were rated at an astounding 46,000 miles per hour.
On the day in question, he had seen the launcher fire a half-pound plastic projectile, and had watched it easily penetrate a two-inch-thick steel plate. The fist-sized hole it had left was almost exactly like the one he currently stood before. Of an even stranger coincidence was the test that had immediately preceded that launching. A four-inch-thick steel plate had been fired at. Because of an improperly packed bullet, the projectile had disintegrated upon striking its target. Left in its wake had been a circular pattern of pellet damage that seemed to match that found on the first section of cowling pulled from the Pacific earlier. Could an electromagnetic railgun be responsible for the Titan’s demise?
Remembering how Lansford had reacted when he had last brought up even the idea of sabotage, Richard struggled to keep his suspicions to himself. He knew he could voice them to only one person.
“Are you all right, Doctor?” questioned the engineer, who noticed Richard’s trembling limbs and vacant stare.
Brought back from his deep inner thought, the Nose researcher wiped his forehead and slowly stood. Louis Marvin was just describing the stone-paved road, and the strange monument it led to, when Richard excused himself. Escorting him to the building’s exit was David Downing.
“You think that hole was caused by an outside source, don’t you, Doctor?” probed the alert engineer.
Halting at the doorway, Richard solemnly looked him in the eye.
“What do you think, Mr. Downing?”
The engineer didn’t hesitate to express himself.
“I don’t know, but I’ll be damned if anyone’s going to tell me that the puncture was caused by a piece of the Titan. Though it is vaguely possible that an explosion could propel part of the rocket through the steel skin, the dynamics are all wrong. That nose cone was just too far from the boosters for such a thing to have happened.”