It seemed clear to Smith that, as a group, Earthpeace thrived on both confrontation and sympathetic media attention. That sympathy had reached its peak when, in 1985, French agents had sunk the first Radiant Grappler in the harbor at Auckland, New Zealand, while it was on its way to protest nuclear testing in French Polynesia.
Earthpeace representatives screamed bloody murder, and as a result of this blessing in disguise, donations to the group had risen along with its public profile. The infusion of cash allowed them the opportunity to hire more high-profile spokesmen. One of these mouthpieces was none other than Bryce Edmund Babcock.
At the time, Babcock was between positions. He had been governor of Arizona for a number of years, but had recently left office to pursue other career opportunities.
Everyone knew that Babcock had an eye on the Oval Office. With his days as governor behind him, it was important for him to find a position that kept him in the public eye. Earthpeace came with its offer at just the right time. The joining together of the two-term governor and the environmental organization had been a perfect fit.
Babcock was a firm believer in the rights of the state over those of the individual. If you had an endangered rat in your cornfield, you plowed somewhere else. If you had a slug living on the basement walls of your waterfront home, you vacated the premises to the invertebrate. If you had a slimy, mosquito-filled puddle in your backyard, it was an untouchable wetland.
The former governor and presidential hopeful relished his Earthpeace power. When he shook an admonishing finger in the Northwest, hundreds of lumberjacks were thrown out of work. When he frowned in New England, generations of fishermen were forced to scuttle their boats along with their livelihoods. Men who tilled the soil or toiled at sea shuddered and swore when they heard his name.
When the 1988 presidential race came along, there was no question that Bryce Babcock would throw his hat in the ring. The two years he'd put in at Earthpeace had been but a stepping-stone to the ultimate position of power to all environmentalists. The presidency of the United States.
Bryce Babcock ran. Bryce Babcock lost.
His showings in Iowa and New Hampshire had been pathetic. In both contests, he limped in as an also-ran.
The loss was devastating to Babcock, as well as to the rank and file of Earthpeace.
The timing couldn't have been worse for Earthpeace. The group's influence had waned in the years following the sinking of the Grappler. The public had begun to view its rolls as a bunch of hempworshiping loons. And on top of everything else, the world had maddeningly started to adopt the organization's message.
The whaling industry was dead in most parts of the world. Toxic dumping was nearly extinct. A moratorium on atomic testing was accepted by almost every nation on Earth. The Russians and Americans had even begun to roll back their nuclear stockpiles.
The fact of the matter was, Earthpeace needed a sympathizer like Babcock to win the presidency in order to boost its waning celebrity. When he lost, the group lost, too.
It was touch and go for a few years after the former governor's primary loss. Fortunately for Babcock and Earthpeace, all politics were cyclical. The party that had gone on to beat Babcock's in 1988 found itself on the outside looking in in 1992. With his impeccable liberal environmental credentials, Babcock was tapped by the new President to head up the Department of the Interior.
During the two terms of the current President, Babcock made his allegiance to Earthpeace clear in both attitude and policy.
Since Babcock's ties to Earthpeace had remained strong throughout his tenure as a cabinet secretary, Smith had decided to try a more private search. In perusing the interior head's e-mail, the CURE director had found a note from the Treasury secretary, under whose auspices the Secret Service fell. In it was mention of the former President's horseback-riding accident.
A red flag instantly went up for Smith.
The note had been sent before the event had become public knowledge. A follow-up letter from Babcock to the Treasury secretary very casually questioned the whereabouts of the old President, including hospital and room number.
Certain of the link now, Smith had checked the rest of Babcock's outgoing e-mail. Sure enough, the information had been forwarded to the Earthpeace cell in San Francisco.
Babcock was involved.
Further checking revealed that the interior secretary had purchased a plane ticket to Panama more than a month before. His arrival time coincided with the passage of the Radiant Grappler through the canal.
But surely Babcock could not have known about the ex-President's accident a month before it happened. There had to be yet another explanation for his trip.
Smith had uncovered the reason, once more, in Babcock's e-mail.
Dr. Ree Hop Doe. When Smith saw the name, he blinked in shock. The name was infamous in intelligence circles-should have been despised throughout the country.
Doe was a naturalized American citizen of Taiwanese birth. A scientist at Los Alamos National Scientific Laboratory, he had been indicted on charges that he had betrayed his adopted country by selling decades' worth of nuclear secrets to the Chinese. Thanks to Doe, the People's Republic of China had leaped a generation ahead in its offensive nuclear capability.
Doe was currently out on bond and awaiting trial. But his legal difficulties had not prevented him from corresponding with the secretary of the interior. And when he saw the topic of their hundreds of e-mail notes, Smith's very marrow froze.
The neutrino bomb.
Three of the most frightening words the CURE director had ever read. Mentioned dozens of times by both men.
When first he saw those words, Smith's mind reeled. So shocked was he, his ulcer medications were all but forgotten.
Although he knew of the preliminary research on the beta decay-causing neutrino bomb, the details since then were few and sketchy. Part of the military buildup of the 1980s, it was thought that the project hadn't progressed beyond the drawing board before the cutbacks at the end of that decade put an end to the research. Apparently, this was not the case. And this realization was almost more than Smith could comprehend.
Outbreak of peace.
No. It was impossible. They would have to be insane....
With shaking hands, Smith quickly called up the latest image of the Radiant Grappler II. He had taken over and automatically programmed the satellite so the Spacetrack system would continue to track the vessel. At the moment, it was well past Crete. Nearing Cyprus.
An outbreak of peace. In the Middle East. The neutrino bomb.
And as his heart thudded a concert of fear in his chest, Smith knew it to be true. To the very core of his rock-ribbed New England soul.
And if the CURE director's worst fear was realized, Bryce Babcock's scheme would have awesome global ramifications.
FROM THE BRIDGE of the USS Ronald Reagan, Admiral Jason Harris watched the British Lynx glide a perfect line of descent for the aircraft carrier's flight deck.
Rotor blades swished with blinding ferocity as the helicopter set down.
Before rubber touched deck, Admiral Harris was already off the bridge and clomping down the steep metal companionway to greet the helicopter. As he climbed to the lower level, he wore a deeply unhappy expression on his ruddy face.
A barrel-chested man in his late sixties, the admiral was a no-nonsense type who didn't cotton to the sort of shenanigans that were going on around his boat today.
The worst thing that could possibly happen in a military man's life had taken place. Admiral Hams was being given orders by civilians. His superior had spilled the beans when he called to inform Harris that a British helicopter out of Gibraltar would be bringing aboard two passengers.