Shafer poured Bellarmine his fourth drink of the evening. “And nullifying the threat?” SecDef asked. “Say you magically identify it in the next few hours? Presumably you hit it with the Bomb?”
“We got those coming out of our ears,” said Noordhof.
“If my experience as Secretary of Defense has taught me anything, it’s this. There is no problem that can’t be solved with the use of enough high explosive.”
Noordhof said, “Sir, we need to know what we’re targeting. The Bomb is no good if we create a shower of fragments or a big dust ball heading for us.”
“I think I’ve found the solution to that,” said Judy, her voice betraying satisfaction. She put down her drink and walked over to the blackboard. She drew a string of dots joined by a straight line. Next to it she depicted an irregular shape with an arrow pointing towards the line. “We make a necklace from small atomic bombs, maybe neutron bombs. We fire the probe at Nemesis, as nearly head-on as we can. As the probe approaches it shoots off little neutron bombs in such a way that they’re strung out in a line. The line cuts in front of Nemesis like so, and we set the bombs off in sequence, each one bursting just as it reaches the asteroid, say a kilometre or two above its surface.”
“Nemesis has to run through a bomb alley,” said Shafer.
“Yes. They’re just toys, each one no more than a dozen Hiroshimas, so that each one gives a gentle push to Nemesis, not enough to break it up even if it’s made of snow. But the cumulative effect is a big push, the same as if we’d given the asteroid a single hefty punch. We’re going to explode the bombs directly in front of Nemesis, to brake its forward motion so as to let the Earth get past before the asteroid reaches our orbit. That’s more energy-efficient than a sideways deflection.”
McNally said, “In the frame of reference of Nemesis it’s just peacefully coasting along and suddenly bombs appear out of space and start exploding in its face. It’s simple.”
“All truly brilliant ideas are simple,” Shafer asserted. “And we can space the neutron bombs thousands of kilometres apart so they don’t interfere with each other.”
“Simple in principle but extremely difficult in practice,” she said. “I have a detailed design study under way at Sandia. One way or another, we’ll have something workable within the hundred-day guideline.”
Bellarmine clapped his hands together in satisfaction. “Well done, Doctor Whaler. McNally, what you have to do is deliver her atomic necklace. What do you have to say about that?”
It was McNally’s turn to use the blackboard. “Willy and I have identified a route. It’s extremely difficult.” He scribbled on the board with yellow chalk. “The Russians are due to launch a comet probe built by the French. It’s called the Vesta. We thought if we could get hold of it without arousing suspicion…”
“McNally, the Reds must have their antennae at full stretch. What in Christ’s name do you suppose they’ll think if we grab this probe from them?”
“Mister Secretary, we think we’ve found a way. The French have built a duplicate, for electronics testing and the like. We often do the same. It’s not up to full specification but it might do for the purpose. If we could get our hands on this duplicate probe along with the detailed plans we might configure it to deliver Judy’s necklace. We’ll need to bring over the French engineers under an oath of secrecy.”
“But Vesta is too heavy for anything but the Soviet booster,” objected Sacheverell.
“That was for a long interplanetary trip, soft landing on several comets as it went. Most of that weight is in the fuel tanks and the metal darts for penetrating surfaces. We’re going to strip all of that out along with the scientific instrumentation. We’ll use four Shuttles in two pairs, two carrying Judy’s atomic necklace and two carrying Vesta duplicates, the French one, and one we’ll knock up ourselves from their plans. Or we might use one Shuttle four times. We’ll have specialists on board to mate the necklace with its Vesta clone. Then we’ll launch from 200 miles up with inertial upper stages like the one we used for Galileo. It’s just about possible to get a dozen of Judy’s bombs up that way. But we’re talking very smart system development, navigational equipment and so on. We’re cannibalizing existing systems all the way. I have teams on it now. We might — I say might — do it inside the magic one hundred days.”
“I’ll ask the CIA Director to come up with some cover story for your launches,” Bellarmine promised.
“Point him in the direction of Venus probes,” suggested Shafer.
The SecDef put his glass on the floor and wandered back to the bay window, picking his way over books. A gust of young laughter came up from below. Someone was tuning up a guitar and a bonfire was getting started, pieces of drift-wood being thrown on to the flames, and faces flickering red around it. Someone had lit a cigarette and it was being passed around after each puff. Kids these days, Bellarmine thought.
Shafer said, “I hope you’re not too hungry, Mister Secretary. Royal Concubine takes an hour to prepare.”
Bellarmine came back, flopped on to the couch and leaned forward, resting his chin heavily on his hands. He said: “The sharp end is that we haven’t found Nemesis.”
The telephone rang. Shafer picked it up and said “Ollie!” The effect was like pulling the pin of a hand grenade. Everyone rose to their feet. The Great Dane, sensing atmosphere, leaped up.
The conversation was one-sided and carried on for some minutes, Shafer interspersing the occasional grunt. Finally he said, “Hold the line, Ollie.”
“What’s going on, Willy?” asked Noordhof.
Shafer spoke rapidly, his hand over the mouthpiece. “Webb’s phoning from a public box in the boondocks. Some guy was paid to bump him off. This hit man has the manuscript. He works out that it must have something valuable in it but can’t see what. So he makes a pact with Ollie. He lets Ollie go to see if he’ll come back for the book. If Ollie does, thereby risking his life, that proves to the killer that the manuscript is worth more than the contract price on Webb. The deal is that Ollie agrees to decipher the manuscript and the hit man then lets him go. The guy figures he can then sell the manuscript to his paymasters or blackmail them with its secret message.”
Bellarmine was aghast. “This is a highly dangerous situation.”
McNally said, “Ollie hasn’t a hope.”
Shafer’s hand was still over the mouthpiece. “He can kill Webb when he’s got the information out of him, collect his blood money and then proceed to the blackmail. Ollie knows this but he still has to go for the manuscript in the hope of getting away with it.”
Judy was looking agitated. “He’s going straight to his death. Tell him to pull out.”
Noordhof took the telephone from Shafer. “Webb. You have to make contact with the killer… use your initiative… of course he expects you to try… look, there’s no other way… Mister, get this: you have no choice in the matter.”
Bellarmine took a turn. “Webb, this is the Secretary of Defense. I’ll give it to you straight. The White House requires the identification of Nemesis within ten hours, failing which we shall proceed on the assumption that Nemesis will not be identified before impact.”
Bellarmine listened some more. His mouth opened in astonishment, and he turned, aghast. “He’s thinking of pulling out.”
“I’ll fix the yellow bastard,” said Noordhof angrily, but Shafer grabbed the soldier roughly by the arm and hauled him back.