“Greg, this is Kaylene Thomas. Is Dane around?”
“Hey, Kaylene. How you doing?”
“Fine. Dane?”
“Asleep. It’s after midnight here.”
“Get him up.”
“Geez…”
Five or six minutes of expensive satellite time went by before Brande reached the phone.
“I hope we don’t have another crisis, Rae.”
He was the only one in the world who called her “Rae.ˮ “Kaylene” just did not roll off his tongue quite right, he had once told her.
“Not if bankruptcy isn’t considered a crisis.”
“You’re doing the books, huh?”
“Who else would do them?” she asked. “I’m certainly not paid for it.”
“Give yourself a five-thousand-dollar raise,” he offered.
“Be happy to, if we had it. We don’t. Larry Emry wrote a check against the Titanium Exploration Fund, but we haven’t received the federal subsidy yet. I had to borrow from the operating account to cover it.”
“Good girl.”
“Good girl, hell. We’re going to be short of funds on payroll day.”
“I’ll skip my paycheck.”
“And we’ve got a million-two in notes coming due on the fifteenth of November,” she reminded him.
“I’ll bet we’re going to be short.”
“By seven hundred thousand. Damn it, Dane, our monthly outgo is now close to one-point-four million. Something’s got to go.”
“I can’t think of a thing that’s expendable,” he told her.
“I can.ˮ
“How about a garage sale?”
“Dane.”
“My grandma Bridget used to pronounce my name with that same kind of ice in it.”
“After you’d been a bad boy?”
“Usually, yes.”
“Aren’t you worried?” Thomas asked.
“Something will turn up. Maybe what we’ve got on the bottom here.”
Brande told her about the Grade’s find.
“There’s really gold? It’s an uncharted wreck?” Treasure
hunters in the Caribbean usually came up empty, having found wrecks that had already been picked clean.
“I think Dawson’s got himself a good one. We’ll know in the morning”
“Be careful,” Thomas said, feeling a dash of renewed hope collide with concern. The conflicting emotions were part of her tenure at MVU.
The President paced.
The rest of them sat around the table centered in the Situation Room. Unruh and his boss, DCI Mark Stebbins, sat together on one side of the well-worn table. Adm. Harley Wiggins, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, faced Unruh and sat with his elbows on the table, his chin resting on his laced knuckles. The National Security Advisor, Warren Amply, was sprawled back in his chair, on the very edge of putting his heels up on the table, Unruh thought. Robert Balcon, who was the White House chief of staff, had the luster in his eyes dimmed by lack of sleep.
Fortunately, it was still a small group. Decisions would come tougher when it expanded to include necessary agency people and legislative leaders. Necessary to someone other than Carl Unruh.
Unruh had just briefed everyone on the events at Plesetsk, replaying the video and audio tapes.
“The Soviets have placed nuclear reactors in space before,” the President said.
“That’s true, Mr. President,” Admiral Wiggins said. “They’ve got a thirty-year history in the field. Most of them are very tiny and very efficient, with a lifespan of around five years. They produce a great deal more electricity than solar panels.”
“We bought one of their reactors a couple years ago, didn’t we?” Balcon asked.
“Yes,” Wiggins said, “we did, for ten million dollars. It’s a Topaz Two, and we set it up out in Albuquerque to be studied by the university, Sandia, and Los Alamos people. The reports have been good, and NASA wants one of its own for a manned expedition to Mars.”
“What’s the output?” the President asked.
“Of the Topaz Two? I believe it’s close to ten thousand watts, Mr. President. This one, however, is not a Two. It’s much larger.”
Mark Stebbins said, “It’s designated the Topaz Four. We’ve been following the development for some time, and Carl has the details.”
Unruh sat up straight. “The Topaz Two is six feet by twelve feet in size, and it weighs about two thousand pounds. The fourth-generation model is fifteen feet in diameter and twenty-six feet long. It weighs in at two-and-a-half tons, and we think it can generate up to fifteen-point-five megawatts, based on theoretical extensions of the device we have in New Mexico. We are not certain about the fuel load. Because of its size, we’ve been tracking it ever since it left the manufacturing plant.ˮ
Unruh looked around the table. “We are not certain, either, about the sensitivity of the controls.”
“What about cooling?” the President asked. “It seems to me that cooling is a priority with reactors.”
“The small machines use a combination of freon and heat pumps,” Unruh said. “On the dark side of a satellite, it’s extremely cold, and heat exchangers are used. With the Topaz Four, we’re not sure of the technologies involved.”
“It could melt down?” the chief of staff asked.
Unruh shrugged his shoulders.
“Assuming that possibility, what is the consequence for the ocean waters?” the President asked.
“I think, sir, we’ll have to call in the experts on that,” Unruh said.
“We need a great deal of information, it seems to me,” the National Security Advisor said.
“And fast,” the President agreed. “You look like you have an answer, Warren.”
Amply said, “Call the Commonwealth President and ask him.”
It sounded like a good idea to Unruh.
“Well, hell, Warren. Make it simple.”
The chief of staff got up and went to the door, opened it, and asked for a technician to set up the direct telephone connection, which was governed by its own computers. He ordered someone in the hall to locate a translator.
“What time is it in Moscow?” the President asked.
Unruh checked his watch. 3:56.
“It’s a few minutes before eleven in the morning,” he said.
“Good. Heʼll have had his breakfast”
“He probably had it much earlier,” Stebbins said. “They have celebrations planned for the whole day.”
“That’s right. The first of September.”
“The New Order,” Amply said.
“Not everyone will turn out. There’s still a sizable population who would rather remember the Great Patriotic War,” Balcon said.
While they waited for the telephone connection, Unruh doodled on the yellow pad in front of him. He could not get away from drawing rockets.
The President said, “Harley, while we’re waiting, why don’t you call the Chief of Naval Operations and see what we’ve got operating in the area?”
Wiggins nodded. “Subsurface vessels, Mr. President?”
“I think that would be the best idea, don’t you?”
It took forty minutes for someone to track down the Commonwealth President and get him to the right phone. Unruh and the others listened to both sides of the conversation, which was channeled through overhead speakers.
It took ten minutes to get through the protocol, courtesies, and small talk, what with the delay of interpretation. The two leaders had met in person twice before, and knew all about each other’s families.
Finally, the President said, “We understand that you’ve had a mishap in your aerospace program.”
With barely a hesitation, the Commonwealth President responded, “A minor thing, yes. We both experience mechanical losses, do we not?”