“Jesus,” Hillenkoetter breathed. Then a wave of heat hit him, easily a hundred and twenty degrees, if not more, and his coffee cup went over the side of the ship as he squinted and grabbed a railing, eyes still on the growing mushroom cloud that now dominated the sky.
A few seconds later, the rumble of explosion grew, rolling across the water and, ultimately, erupting into Hillenkoetter’s ears — a wrenching, furious cacophony that sounded as though God had reached down and torn a hole in the very Earth.
But it wasn’t God.
“Detonation successful,” came the voice over the loudspeakers.
No shit. The new levitated core was impressive. That much destruction… it was beautiful and horrible all at once, and the only thing that made him feel better was knowing that a man like Truman had the key to it. Well… and that Hillenkoetter himself doled out the information that would determine whether Truman turned the key or not.
And Hillenkoetter was damned sure that, no matter what, such a weapon would never be used again on real people, so long as he could do anything at all about it.
The heat washed past him, the rumbling subsiding and the light cast by nuclear fission gone mad dimming just in time for the sun to begin peeking over the horizon. Hillenkoetter wished he hadn’t dropped his coffee into the goddamn Pacific. But… he had better check in first.
The CIA director went inside the ship, took a left, then a right, then went down the ladder toward the hold where the MAJESTIC-12 scientists had set up. He opened the hatch and found Schreiber and his two assistants poring over their machines and clipboards.
There was no bright light in the room, trapped between the two electromagnets. There was nothing out of the ordinary at all.
“Didn’t work, I take it?” Hillenkoetter asked.
Schreiber looked up and smiled; Hillenkoetter found that seeing an actual grin on the man’s face was unsettling in the extreme. “It did not work, Admiral, but I think we have made progress, yes?” The other two scientists — both American, thank God — nodded vigorously. “Yes, we have made progress. The readings have been most useful.”
“Useful for what?”
Schreiber turned fully toward the CIA director. “We have determined how the radiation signatures of an actual nuclear explosion compare to that of the anomaly we have previously studied. Many of those signatures are the same, but there are differences — and it is in those differences we may find answers.”
“And your initial impressions?” Hillenkoetter asked. He’d have to brief the President, after all.
Schreiber paused a moment, as if gauging his words. “It is too soon to say, but I will ask this: What is the difference between this test and the explosion at Hiroshima, at the most basic level?”
Hillenkoetter hated riddles this early, but one answer immediately sprang to mind. “Nobody died here.”
Schreiber’s creepy smile grew a little wider. “Exactly, Admiral! Nobody died here. And taking into account all of the technical differences between the two bombs, I wonder if we shall find that to be the only notable difference.”
Hillenkoetter took a moment to process all that, then simply nodded and left.
Screw another cup of coffee. He was going to pull rank and raid Spike’s liquor cabinet.
17
Can someone explain exactly what it means to ‘permanently deny’ us if we’re captured?” Ellis demanded as they reviewed operation planning for what seemed the millionth time. “Maybe I’m not the brightest bulb, but it sure sounds like you’re authorized to put us down.”
Danny smiled at this, leaning back in his chair. “Well, yes, Ellis, that’s exactly what I’m authorized to do. In fact, each of you are authorized to do that to each other, should one of you be compromised or captured and there isn’t a reasonable expectation of escape.”
Cal really couldn’t help but shake his head. Now, he didn’t want to hurt anybody, especially the folks he’d spent weeks getting to know, working with, sweating with, living through strange times with. That even included Ellis, the idiot cracker who still didn’t quite understand how deep the mud was here. But while Cal swore to the Almighty he’d never harm Ellis again… there wasn’t enough spiritual fortitude in the entire world for him to resist enjoying the man’s discomfort.
He made a mental note to reread that passage from Ephesians again. At the rate he was going, he’d have to write it down and keep it in his pocket just in case.
“Commander Wallace, sir, I admit I got a problem with that,” Cal said, wresting his attention away from Ellis. “These are good people here. They’re my fellow Americans, my fellow Variants. Some of us have gotten close as kin. And even those of us that ain’t, well… I don’t want to kill anybody. Period.”
Danny’s smile faded and he nodded gravely at Cal. “And if we all do our jobs, it won’t come to that. You’ve all been reviewing the ops plan daily for the past few weeks now, and you know what we expect you to do if things take a turn. This is last-resort stuff, and it’s an expectation that will accompany every assignment you folks carry out. You don’t want to kill someone, and I truly respect that, Mr. Hooks — I’ve been in the military all my life, and I’ve never killed anyone. I don’t want to start, either. So, let’s be sure that we’re so well trained and well prepared that we exhaust every single avenue before that happens.”
Cal nodded, deep in thought. He thought about protesting yet again but remained silent. He knew, just as sure as he knew his own name or his child’s face, that he would not take a life — not even with a gun to his head. At least, he hoped not. He knew men came back from the war different from the men they’d left as, even as they went to church and prayed for salvation and the strength to follow His Word.
Cal knew from day one this was going to be hard, but was only now considering just how hard it was going to get.
If nothing else, at least they got to leave Area 51. They were at Fort Dix, in New Jersey, in a for-real room — no government plywood held together with wire. That was something, wasn’t it?
“Now, let’s bring in Mrs. Stevens and we’ll get you equipped,” Danny said. “Mrs. Stevens?”
A moment later, a motherly white woman entered the conference room — Cal put her age in the early thirties or so, with blond, coiffed hair and a very prim, proper, floral-print dress. Pearls and low heels. But she cradled a clipboard with a thick sheaf of paper in one hand and carried a large duffel in the other.
“Good morning, everyone,” she said in a soothing voice that sounded like one of the women on the radio selling soap or makeup. “I’m Mrs. Stevens, and I’ll be your quartermaster for…” At this, she looked on her clipboard. “Operation OUTREACH.”
Cal traded a look with Frank, seated next to him; the Army veteran looked outright amused. Ellis’s scowl got just a little deeper, while Miss Maggie — well, it was tough to get much out of Miss Maggie these days beyond a sort of bemused calm. Calm, sure, but with some edge behind it, too. Of all the Variants Cal worked with, he worried over her the most these days.
Mrs. Stevens dropped the duffel on the table in front of her as she referred again to her checklist. “So, I see you’ve been training with Mr. Mulholland — what a nice man he is! Mr. Stevens and I saw him in New York on our honeymoon. Just lovely. Anyhoo, you should all be trained up on how to deploy these fun little items.”
“Wait a second,” Frank interjected. “You’re here for what, exactly?”
Mrs. Stevens opened her mouth to reply, but Danny beat her to it. “Mrs. Stevens is part of our engineering team, Frank. She invented this stuff.”