Chapter 8

Nancy Wambaugh pedaled down the sidewalk on her bike. School was out for the day, and the crisp air and warm winter sun of late June felt good in her windblown hair. Sometimes the teacher made her do things in the first grade she didn't like, but she was delighted with the lesson she had learned today. Her daddy had taught her some time ago to recite, sag-song, where she lived — ' Newcastle , New South Wales , Australia.' When she was too young to be ashamed, she would put a little curtsy at the end, pleased at her father's big smile. She had always loved the image in her mind of a new castle , full of princesses and good things, but today she had learned a new grown-up thing about it. She had learned to spell it, and it made a little poem! As she pumped, she sang,

'N, E, W, C,'

Left foot, right foot, left foot, right.

'A, S, T, L, E,'

Left foot, right foot, left foot, right.

Wham!

Nancy landed on her right elbow and cheek, feet tangled painfully in the pedals of the bicycle. She sucked in her breath from the shock and then wailed as she looked at the blood that began to seep from the long scrape on her arm. She scrambled away from the bike and looked around, hurt and angry. She was sure her older brother, David, had bumped her off the bike with a pillow, that's what it had felt like when the bike tumbled, like when they had pillow fights and David knocked her down. She put her fingers to the sting on her face, and they came away bloody. She screamed louder.

Her cries drowned the hiss that rose above her head. The raucous whisper returned some distance away as Nancy ran towards home.

'MOMEEEE!

McMasters's head snapped up from the report he was reading at the sound of the intercom buzzer. 'Yes, what is it?'

'Alan Mirabeau, from the computer section, is here to see you.'

'Umm, ah, yes.' McMasters leaned back in his chair in anticipation. 'Send him in.' McMasters watched as the earnest young man peered around the door and then walked to his desk.

'Sir? You asked for me to monitor requests for certain files?'

'Indeed.'

'Well, a request did come this morning for some of the inactive files associated with Project QUAKER. Here's a list of the files that were requested.'

McMasters leaned forward to take the proffered sheet. 'The files were transferred out for about an hour, then written back in and deactivated again.'

Long enough to transfer their contents to any active files, McMasters mused. He glanced over the list. They meant nothing to him, and everything. 'Who requested this?' He knew, but he wanted to hear.

'It was a written request, sir. Signed by Mr Isaacs.'

Mirabeau was nervous. He had dreamed of a chance like this to interact with the upper echelons, but this was not what he had envisioned. He wanted terribly to please McMasters, but not at the expense of getting in trouble with Isaacs, another member of the ruling circle. He had not realized that McMasters's seemingly routine and innocuous request was going to put him in the position of spying on Isaacs. Every fibre of his being was attuned to sensing the desires of his superiors and satisfying them. He was in agony at the thought that he could not please one of these men without incurring the displeasure of the other.

'Can you put a trace on this material?' McMasters put a finger on the list in front of him.

'But it's been deactivated again,' Mirabeau protested, but then the light of understanding spread over his face, and his admiration for McMasters increased. 'Oh, I see. You think a copy was kept out.'

'Precisely,' McMasters replied.

The young man concentrated for a moment.

'The file names will have been changed, so a search for them would be pointless. There is no simple way to search for this material, but I can do a sampling of running jobs to search for particular combinations of data and instructions that occur in these files.'

'I want to know when this material is used, and by whom,' McMasters demanded.

'Yes, sir.'

'That's all.'

'Yes, sir.' The young man headed for the door.

'Oh, Mirabeau.'

'Sir,' he replied, swivelling quickly.

'Not a word of this to Isaacs, or his associates.'

The young man smiled with relief.

'No, sir, of course not, sir.' That solved his problem of divided allegiance. Now he was acting under direct orders. He gave a brief bow towards McMasters and then shut the door behind him.

Saturday morning Isaacs paced up and down in front of the check-in counter at Dunes. He felt unmoored, detached from the bearings that had given him stability for almost two decades of his career. He was desperate to get on with this quest, but awash with anxiety over the risks he was taking, risks he had convinced Pat Danielson to share. And now she was late. He stopped to look at his watch and glance down the passageway towards the main terminal. He fought down the urge, born of frustration, to blame her tardiness on her womanhood. She didn't deserve that. She was too good, too responsible. She'd have some good excuse. He clinched his fist on the handle of the slim briefcase he carried and resumed his pacing.

He prayed that some glimmer of understanding, some hint of where to turn next, would come from his hurried unauthorized rump meeting with Jason. He feared that it would prove nothing but a scamper out onto a limb, with McMasters grinning, sharpening his saw. He rethought the steps he had taken, the precautions. He had done everything practical to minimize the chance that McMasters would stumble on to his resurrection of Project QUAKER, but the old bird was canny, there was no way to be absolutely sure. He jumped when the hand grasped his arm. He turned to see Pat Danielson's flushed, excited face.

'Bob — Mr Isaacs.'

His irritation at her faded with the relief of her arrival and the infectious sparkle in her eyes.

'Right the first time.'

'Bob.' She touched his arm again, still animated. 'I'm sorry I'm late, but I've found something. I got up early to look over my calculations and then lost track of time.'

'We've got a couple of minutes. Let's — Here.'

Isaacs looked around, then took her carry-on bag and led her to a vacant waiting area. As they sat, he inquired in a low voice, 'What have you got?'

'A prediction, I guess,' she almost whispered, leaning towards him. 'I've been running my programs since Wednesday, checking the position and phase of the signal. I can guess with fair accuracy where the signal will come to the surface each cycle.

'The question that has been preying on me is the sinking of the Stinson. That means something destructive can happen when the signal comes to the surface. So I asked myself, why aren't there reports of some destruction on land?'

'I wondered the same thing,' Isaacs remarked. 'One possibility is that much of the path falls along areas of relatively low population density. Maybe most of the time no one notices. Another factor is that we don't really know what to expect. Sporadic reports of strange events could easily be overlooked in the undeveloped countries, even here in the United States.'

'Exactly,' nodded Danielson. 'But occasionally the phenomenon should surface in a region of high population density. That would increase the probability of someone noticing something.'

Isaacs raised a quizzical eyebrow.

'Four days from now, it should come up in Nagasaki about 11:13 in the morning local time,' said Danielson flatly. 'That's 9:13 Wednesday evening, our time. And nineteen days later, July 26, it will surface in Dallas about midnight.'

Isaacs leaned back and looked at her.

'How well can you pinpoint the location?'

'There are uncertainties in the period and location from the seismic data alone, but those are big, sprawling cities. I am reasonably sure there will be a surfacing somewhere within their boundaries.'

Isaacs turned to look out of the window, staring past the aeroplanes arrayed on the tarmac.

'Would it help you to have some of the Navy data?'

'Yes, sir, even just one or two recent high precision locations would allow me to calibrate my curves. We might be able to pin down the site within.' She paused to think. 'Well, maybe a few hundred metres to a kilometre.'

'I may be able to get that,' said Isaacs intently, returning his gaze to her. 'It's very short notice, but I may also be able to get some satellite time to monitor the area in Nagasaki.' He mulled the chances of contacting an agent in Nagasaki who could make an on-the-spot observation, without tipping his hand to others in the Agency.

'Okay, Pat, that's good work. When we get back, I'll try to get some of the Navy information so you can refine your estimates.'

'Aren't you going to have to tell McMasters, to issue a warning to Nagasaki ?'

'We're still on shaky ground here. I'm hoping we can gain enough information on the Nagasaki event that we can go above board in time for Dallas. And with luck, this trip to Jason may give us some insight into the whole mess.'

Danielson looked uncertain, but then their flight was called and they had to queue up to board.

During lunch on the plane, Danielson queried Isaacs about the nature of the group with whom they would meet.

'These people who serve on Jason — how are they selected?'

Isaacs paused to swallow a bite of gravy-swathed grey meat.

'Well, they operate under the auspices of the Secretary of Defence as you know. They're quite autonomous though and select their own members. The idea is, I suppose, that they themselves are the best judges of whatever arcane talent is required to participate in a general-purpose think tank. They receive the standard security clearance, but the hard part is getting elected — a single no-vote eliminates a prospective member.'

'They don't have any particular framing at defence work?'

'No, they're just required to be the very best in their chosen area of science.'

'How many people are we talking about then?'

'Thirty some. But we'll only see a small group of individuals who may have some particular expertise to bring to our problem.'

'So all these great brains spend their summer vacations worrying about whatever problems are dished up to them.'

'That's about the size of it.'

'And they always meet in the same place — this Bishop's School?'

'Generally, yes. The grounds of the school are cloistered and secure. And, of course, La Jolla is a very congenial place to be in the summer. I believe some members rent houses in town, but most of them move right into the dorms. They're converted into combination living and working areas. I guess I see the sense to it. You take a bunch of very bright people and make them comfortable in an environment where they can concentrate and interact without interruption. In any case, it seems to work. Jason has a long record of developing significant ideas and cracking hard problems.'

'I'm sure.' Danielson poked at the food on her tray. 'I find it an ironic mix, innocent little Episcopalian school girls during the school year and great scientists weighing the fate of mankind during summer vacation.'

'I suppose,' Isaacs replied.

'If you don't mind me asking,' Danielson continued, 'I'm curious as to how you could set up a meeting with them so quickly. I would have thought there were all sorts of channels to go through.'

'Normally you're right,' Isaacs assented. 'Another piece of the tightrope we're walking. I've dealt with them before, through those official procedures. I took the chance of calling Professor Plumps: he runs Jason now, a pleasant fellow, I think you'll like him. I hinted at the emergency and let him know this was something informal, something I am doing on my own recognizance, on a weekend like this. Of course, I couldn't come right out and tell him about McMasters's prohibition. We'll have to trust his discretion. I'm pretty sure Phillips is okay. I don't know the others personally. We'll just have to hope.'

He cast her a worried glance.

'Pat, I am concerned about this trip. I hate exposing us, you in particular, but we need some help, some idea of what's going on.' He poked at his green beans then went on. 'Frankly, even without the risk, I always have mixed feelings with these people. Individually and collectively they're very bright. They have an excellent track record for making progress on seemingly intractable problems, like ours, and the fact that they do serve on Jason gives us something in common, I suppose. But I can't help thinking they're still academics. The fact that they choose that sort of life, rather than committing themselves to the front line like some of us are compelled to do, means we have a different mindset. A basically different view of the world, life.'

He shrugged.

'I think I understand,' Danielson said. 'I guess I'm pretty nervous meeting with them for another reason, but it's related. I've never had to do any Agency business in public, outside of Langley, except for that liaison with the Cambridge Research Lab, but that was just work. Now I've got to try to explain what I've done, what I've been thinking, to professional scientists, framed sceptics. It's a little frightening.'

He looked her seriously in the eyes.

'You know your stuff,' he said confidently. 'Don't worry on that account.'

A passing stewardess eyed their trays. They concentrated once more on the food before them. After-lunch, Danielson extracted her case from beneath the seat in front of her and reviewed her notes one more time.

At the Son Diego airport Isaacs called ahead to announce their arrival, then they picked up a rental car and got on the freeway headed north, passing between steep hillocks on either side. Only the tang in the airstream through a partially opened window gave evidence of the nearby Pacific. They turned off the freeway and headed uphill to the west. The crest brought a panoramic view of a sweep of coastline to the right, broken in mid-arc by the jut of Scripps pier. To the left the town of La Jolla snuggled around the hillside and down to the sea. In another few minutes they turned into the gateway of the Bishop's School for Girls, nestled a short distance from the commercial centre of La Jolla.

As they got out of the car, Wayne Plumps called to them. Isaacs and Plumps greeted one another with refined congeniality. Plumps, a Harvard physicist, was, at 68, the senior member and current head of Jason. Like many atlas generation he had nurtured his career both in physics and in defence-related matters on the Manhattan Project during World War 11. A contributor to a wide variety of fields, he was best known for his work on nuclear physics which had earned him a share of a Nobel Prize.

His physique conceded something to age, but Phillips's rangy build still extended to nearly six feet. His thick grey hair was balding, but not exceedingly so. The lock of hair in the middle of his forehead gave the effect of a high rise widow's peak. His longish face displayed kindly blue eyes underscored by pronounced bags. Plumps had come from a monied eastern family and had been raised in style. Although he was among the most highly respected of his colleagues, he had long been regarded as a pariah by some members of his family for not devoting his life to the disbursement of the extensive family trust funds.

Isaacs introduced Danielson to Phillips and they chatted as they moved off down the walk and into a nearby building. Danielson warmed immediately to the physicist's courtly manner which belied his aggressive intellect.

They entered one of the dormitories. The bulletin board in the foyer bore outdated reminders of the school-term occupants. Freshly scattered around were announcements of classes and various activities. In a lower corner, neatly aligned but yellowed with age, was a detailed list of covenants applicable to proper young school girls.

Plumps gestured for Isaacs and Danielson to ascend the stairway which led from the foyer. At the top they paused while Plumps caught up with them and led the way down a hall. At midpoint he stopped, rapped once on the door, then turned the knob and stepped back to usher them in.

The furnishings of the room they entered looked all out of place. After a moment's reflection, Danielson realized that it was a regular dormitory room converted for the summer into an office. The beds had been removed and replaced by a large serviceable desk which stood against the left wall, littered with papers and books. A comfortable old sofa had been shoehorned in beneath the windows opposite, and along the right wall stood a roller-footed portable blackboard. Next to the blackboard a partially opened door revealed a compact lavatory. Extra chairs were placed randomly, adding to the sense of clutter.

Two men sat on the sofa. Isaacs recognized one as Ellison Gantt, the distinguished seismologist from Caltech who had been instrumental in planning the large seismic array. Gantt had receding grey hair and wore dark-framed glasses. His jowls and chin were beginning to sag. The two men rose and Phillips introduced them. The other was Vladimir Zicek from Columbia , one of the world's experts on lasers. Danielson was unsure she would recognize Gantt if she were to bump into him on the street later: he looked like so many other grey, middle-aged men. In a coat and tie he could have passed anywhere as a business executive. Zicek was more distinctive. He was rather small in stature with sharp features and hair combed straight back from his forehead. There was a friendly twinkle in his eyes and his polite continental manner appealed to her. Phillips addressed Gantt.