“Unlikely. Of course we don’t know for sure.” Bellarmine was trembling with anger.
“What’s the warning time for a night impact?”
“We think ten to forty minutes, sir,” said the Chief of Staffs.
“Better than two seconds. Nathan, Arnold, I want you guys to come up with a joint memorandum on the policy options facing us on the assumption that Nathan’s team fails to identify Nemesis or can’t find any way to stop it. I want it in time for the extraordinary NSC meeting on Friday midnight.”
The President stared into the fire for some moments. Then he seemed to come to a decision. “We must keep our options open. I’m prepared to go some way with you, Sam. Increase our state of alert. Let’s go to Orange.”
Bellarmine nodded his agreement. “Sam, upgrade to Defcon 3 worldwide.”
The President stood up, and the men followed him into the hallway. “Oh by the way, gentlemen. Merry Christmas.” He made his way towards the secret stairway at the East Hall which would take him to the third floor and the Family Quarters, an old man longing for rest. Cresak went back into the Green Room and sat down, staring into the leaping flames. Hooper went off, heading for the back exit. Bellarmine paced up and down the long corridor for ten minutes, feeling stunned. Then he too went towards the rear of the building.
The air was sharp and cold, and there was a bitter breeze. The grounds were white with a foot of freshly fallen snow. A pine tree, its coloured lights swaying in the breeze, stood on the central lawn. Hooper, wearing a long army coat and a white scarf, was standing on the steps of the North Portico, flapping his arms against his sides. A few Secret Service men hovered in the background; they looked frozen stiff.
“Was I hearing right in there, Mister Secretary?” asked Hooper, his breath misty in the freezing air.
“Give me a lift,” said Bellarmine grimly. “We have to talk.”
“Too damn right. Where you heading?”
“Virginia.”
“Big place. Defcon Three can wait awhile.”
Hooper pressed a button and a glass partition slid up, cutting them off from the army driver. The general lit up a small cigar and its tip glowed red in the dark.
“You have to smoke these disgusting things?” Bellarmine asked.
“Privilege of rank,” Hooper replied, exhaling a dense smoke cloud. “Anyway, these disgusting things just happen to be fine Havana cheroots. Heilbron gets his field people to bring them in from Cuba.”
They passed on to the Ellipse. A group of youths stood shivering, scarves round their necks and woollen hats pulled down almost to their eyes. Bellarmine just caught the words “Say No To Torture” on a placard as the beam of light from the car swept across it.
“A pacifist for a president, at a time like this,” said Hooper. Now the headlights were picking up the broad swathe of Constitution Avenue.
“What do you want — Rambo?”
“Rambo we could handle.” Hooper inhaled the cigar smoke. “Nathan, we can’t let it happen.”
“Meaning?”
“You know what I mean.”
The car was driving past the Vietnam War Memorial. Beyond it the rotunda of the Lincoln Memorial was lit up with a ghostly glow. Bellarmine began to feel his lungs outlined by cigar smoke. “Grant’s mother was a Quaker,” he said. “Can it be relevant?”
Hooper took another big draw. “No pacifist should hold the office of President.”
“Sam, talk like that is highly dangerous.”
“Uhuh.”
The car crossed the Woodrow Wilson Memorial bridge; little ice floes on the Potomac reflected orange in the street lights. Snow, compacted by earlier traffic, covered the Beltway. The driver pulled out to pass a truck and grit pattered briefly on the windscreen.
After twenty minutes, marked by a stunned silence and a rapidly increasing smoke density, a sign said Langley and the car turned off the highway. They drove along a tunnel of light. The CIA Headquarters was lit up by yellow spotlights. It reminded Bellarmine of a Soviet housing complex, all massive concrete blocks and narrow windows. The driver stopped near the main entrance.
Hooper repeated, grimly, “No pacifist has the right to hold the office of President.”
“So you said.” The driver opened the door and Bellarmine stepped out into the icy air. After Hooper’s smoke-filled car, the fragrance of the night was delicious. While the driver held the door, the Secretary of Defense turned back and leaned in to the car. “The question is: what are we going to do about it?”
Eagle Peak, Wednesday
Webb rummaged in a cardboard box in the dormitory cupboard, and found a woollen hat to match the multi-coloured jumper. He pulled the hat on and headed for the kitchen, intending to make a hot chocolate before facing the chilly outside air once more. Shafer was staggering into the kitchen with a rabbit-sized boulder, coated with snow. Noordhof opened the door of the microwave cooker, and Shafer heaved the boulder in, setting the timer for five minutes.
Webb rattled a saucepan on to the cooker and added milk. “It won’t work,” he said, looking for a tin of hot chocolate in a cupboard stuffed with the detritus of past visiting observers.
“Mark’s idea,” said Shafer. “He’s just shown me a Newsweek article by Broadbent from some months back. Mark can’t confirm without clearance, which would take time, but listen to what this guy says.” He picked up the opened magazine from a kitchen work surface:
“In the euphoria of the First Cold War thaw, and with the easing of security in government laboratories around the States, previously tight-lipped administrators appeared to confirm what many academic scientists outside the system had long claimed: that Star Wars was a spectacular, and highly expensive, failure. A year of investigative reporting by our team, however, has turned up a different story.
“Blah blah blah. The guy goes on to say there was an element of disinformation in the ‘Star Wars Failed’ stuff. He says the Army have an array of antennae not too far from Albuquerque. They call it the Beta maser, and it’s arguably in contravention of the ABM Treaty. You’ll note that Mark isn’t contradicting me. Broadbent even says that on one experimental run the Beta maser destroyed a warhead they’d launched from Mid-Pacific, the moment it appeared over the horizon. So if the Beta exists maybe it could do something to the asteroid, but Mark has the right to remain silent, which right you’ll notice he’s exercising.”
Noordhof said nothing, but he was looking pleased with himself.
“That is one impressive zap,” said Kowalski, looking up from a sheaf of papers. “Assuming there’s truth in the story, maybe it’s the answer to our prayers. Colonel, you must cut through the tape. Get us clearance for this stuff right away.”
“No need,” said Shafer. “We can work out what we need from the article. If these guys can really vaporize a warhead at say five thousand miles’ range, it means they penetrate the ablation shield and raise the missile’s internal temperature to a thousand degrees within two or three seconds. So let’s see how hot this rock gets in five minutes with a miserable kilowatt and use it to get its thermal conductivity.”
The milk was coming to the boil. Webb pummelled hard-caked chocolate powder in a tin. “It won’t work,” he repeated, stirring in the chocolate. Noordhof scowled.
The microwave oven pinged and Shafer put his hand on the rock. “Warm to the touch. It went in at zero Centigrade so it’s gone through thirty degrees in five minutes, say five or six degrees a minute.”
Webb took a sip at the hot chocolate and sighed happily. “I expect your rock is still cold inside.”