Part 1 (2/2)

This weapon prototype promised to be efficient and lethal at the same time. Peter had achieved phenomenal miniaturization by restructuring all of its hardware and algorithms in nanotechnology. There were gears in the weapon that could fit in the gut of a gnat, circuits visible only via electron microscopes, lenses formed from half a dozen atoms. And even more brilliantly, he had arrived at a wonderfully low power consumption by giving it uplink capability to a top secret satellite. It was the satellite that supplied the ma.s.sive energy stream needed, harvesting it directly from the solar wind by means of huge panels. If it worked there would be twenty-four such satellites in s.p.a.ce within four years, all geostationary, at least two accessible by ground control no matter where in the world it was located. With a thousand of these ground units in place, no rogue state or resurgent tyranny could stand up to the weapon's lethal force and the Army knew it. If it worked. If he could just stabilize the d.a.m.n thing. A directed energy weapon like this didn't shoot bullets or sh.e.l.ls, it shot particle beams. These were produced by accelerating negative ions to monstrous velocities, then stripping away their extra electron at the last nanosecond-creating a 30million-watt, 5-million-ampere beam of lithium ions that delivered 100 trillion watts per square centimeter directly to the target. Because of all that power, the Hammer was a little temperamental. But it had marvelous potential for clean lethality. Until recently Peter had loved it like a proud father. And if it works, I'll love it again, he thought ruefully, and stifled a reflexive groan-the pain in his belly seemed to be increasing with every tick of the clock. Peter gave the apparatus one last look, closed the access panel, and turned to Alex Davies, who was eyeing his every move with an unfathomable gaze. Had Alex caught a whiff of his uncertainty? If so, what in the h.e.l.l was there to do about it? ”Let's go to the bunker,” he said.

Blockhouse A, a full mile from the device and twice as far from the target animals, was a dark concrete pillbox, with firing control room walls ten feet thick. The roof, a full twenty-seven feet of reinforced concrete, had been designed in the 1940s to withstand the impact of a large rocket, such as a V-2, falling from an alt.i.tude of one hundred miles at a speed of two thousand miles per hour. The bunker, whose dank air had all the homely a.s.surance of a mausoleum, had been used for the Manhattan Project in 1945. Its flaking concrete was layered with graffiti, most of it written by young physicists who were now household names. If you're not part of the solution, Feynman had written in the 1960s, you're part of the precipitate. And a favorite of Peter's, from Einstein himself, written by some unknown hand, Relatively speaking, when does Munich stop at this train? A klaxon sounded.

The last observers were crowding in, including Peter's Army shadow, Colonel Henderson-Heartless Henderson to his friends as well as to his enemies, in which latter category Peter found himself almost by default. Henderson was a large-muscled, close-shaven man in his fifties. His teeth were invariably clamped around an unlit H. Upmann Corona Major, and he had humorless dark eyes that were perpetually narrowed, as though scanning a column of figures that didn't add up. Right now, he was gesturing at the monitor that showed the hillside of target animals, spinning out a scenario for a half dozen visiting bra.s.s. Peter sat biding his time. ”What we have here,” Henderson intoned, ”is an a.s.sault line of three hundred enemy troops-for argument's sake, Iraqis. They're about to sweep down and engulf an American outpost cut off from all support. Isn't that right, Dr. Jance?” ”It's your movie,” said Peter, without enthusiasm. Where the devil was Beatrice? ”And over here,” continued Henderson, moving to the next monitor, where the weapon glowed darkly in the blazing desert light. ”Here we have the Hammer. Cast of thousands, cost in billions- which oughta buy us a feel-good ending, don't you think, Doctor?” Peter avoided Henderson's look of baleful skepticism and shot a glance at the door-someone was entering. At the sight of Frederick Wolfe, Peter's heart did a little dance of disappointment. ”Glad you could make it, Freddy,” he said. ”Wouldn't have missed it for the world,” said Wolfe magisterially, lowering his long frame into a chair that had been reserved for him. He nodded toward Alex, who at his grandfather's entrance had s.h.i.+fted casually to a corner of the bunker. ”You sure you want Alex here, though? I've seen keyboards blow up at his touch.” Wolfe laughed alone, drawing pained looks from the other crew members. His habit of teasing Alex was unsettling to the rest of the crew, who universally liked the kid. Peter watched Wolfe give Alex a pat on the head, and then forgot about them as the door opened again and he saw the face he'd been longing to see-for years, it seemed suddenly, though in fact he and Beatrice had only been apart for a month. He held out his hand, and Beatrice squeezed it, tilting her face up to his for the lightest of kisses. ”Thought I'd have to go without you,” he said. ”Never,” she said, instantly appraising his anxiety and giving him the look she'd given him so many times before: You're wonderful no matter what happens. His heart soared, and the pain in his stomach subsided. ”We had a pleasant surprise at the Fountain Compound,” she said with a smile. ”A little breakthrough.” ”And it's good?” he asked politely. Over the last year or so, consumed with his own experiments and occasional misgivings, he had lost track of the direction his wife's research was taking. ”It's not bad. How are you feeling?”

”Better,” he lied. ”Much better.”

”Peter?”

”I am. Not a spasm all day.” He kissed her again. Every good marriage, he was fond of saying, was based on fear. In his case, not the fear of losing Beatrice's love, which was unthinkable, but the fear of causing her worry or pain. ”What did you see?” he asked. ”One of the sheep?” ”A pig.”

”And it was promising?”

”Very. Listen, we'll talk later. I don't want to upstage you,” she said. As if I could, was the sweet unstated message in her clear gray eyes. He felt a lump in his throat. If ever the phrase ”for better or worse had concrete representation, it was in Beatrice's unflinching devotion to him and to his work. Fifty years they'd been married. As Peter sometimes quipped, for a couple who were both intensely engaged in scientific research, that alone should have rated them a plaque at the foot of their street. And whereas Peter's achievements had already been granted four pages in the Britannica, Beatrice's brilliance in neurobiology was known only to the inner circles of her own specialty. Peter ran his own project; Beatrice worked in anonymity for Frederick Wolfe. Not once-it never ceased to amaze him-had she ever complained. ”Break a leg,” she said, and kissed him again. ”All right, cut it out, you two,” said Wolfe from behind them. He flashed a jagged smile. ”Time to save the world for democracy,” Peter gave his crew the once-over. They were ready and focused. ”Uplink with the bird is achieved and locked,” said Cap Chu, his Peter-like lilt echoing dully off the concrete. ”We are zero minus thirty seconds and counting.” The place fell silent.

Peter scanned the instruments. Everything appeared on track. He wished deeply that he felt the same about his own systems-now the pain was lancing up from his gut and, at ten seconds, he definitely felt the room spinning, saw his hand going out to Beatrice. Then the weapon fired.

The sound of the pulse was audible even through ten feet of reinforced concrete-a deep, electrical throb that peaked with a thunderous clap of energy The on-range video screens burned to white. That's all right, thought Peter, as Beatrice's nails dug into his palm. That's to be expected, he said to himself, and Beatrice relaxed her grip. What was unexpected was the explosion that followed-a sharp, brutal blow against the bunker that sent all of them reeling. Every red light on the panels flashed, everything that wasn't nailed down toppled, and the blast wave that arrived a heartbeat later slapped clothing against flesh and left ears ringing. ”No one move until we have an all-clear!” shouted Chu, as he clawed his way back up to the control panel. The monitors were coming back up, and the multi-angled view of the target hillside they offered was the most eerie sight imaginable. Each station that had been occupied by an animal was now the site of a bonfire of tissue, bone and hair. There was nothing in sight that resembled life, not anywhere. Oscar Henderson let out a bellow of delight. ”You see that? G.o.d Almighty.”

Fighting for breath, Peter struggled to his feet. There were ragged cheers and feeble backslaps among a few of the bra.s.s, but for the most part an awed hush had descended on the bunker. n.o.body had expected a force like that. ”Holy s.h.i.+t,” Alex Davies was whispering-over and over, like a mantra. Beatrice, stunned into silence like the others, now stared at her husband, a nameless anxiety rising in her throat. Peter's face was ashen. ”Peter?”

”I'm fine.” He walked up to the monitor and surveyed the mayhem at ground zero. Cap Chu peered at him uncertainly, shaking his head. ”What was that audible explosion, Dr. Jance? I thought this was supposed to be a stealth kind of thing, no?” Peter took a deep, painful breath. He knew without looking. ”We had a camera on the weapon, didn't we?” Chu nodded and punched the switch.

There was nothing but snow on the screen. ”What?” said Colonel Henderson, as Peter bulled past him for the door. Outside, the temperature had shot up from its normal desert, blast-furnace intensity to something primal and terrifying. On the target hill, the fires were guttering out, hundreds of black plumes drifting into a single dark stratum. Peter forced himself to look where the weapon had been. There was a crater of twisted metal and intense flame. Nothing more. He turned and saw Henderson puffing up toward him. ”Well,” Peter muttered gruffly, ”we might be able to sell it to the Polish army, Aim it at your enemy and blow your own head off.” ”But you're close, dammit!” Henderson said with huge enthusiasm. ”I mean, look at the targets.” He stared raptly at a smoking hillside that moments before had been teeming with animals. ”You know what went wrong?”

”The weapon exploded,” said Peter.

Henderson was doggedly upbeat. ”But you do know why?” ”Yes, I know why,” said Peter angrily. ”Because we rushed. Because we didn't test adequately, Because if we had pushed forward the deadline as we should have, it would have put us three million over budget. You refused. I thought we might get lucky. I guess not.” Henderson looked at the smoking pit where the weapon had stood. ”We have another one where that came from, don't we?” ”Halfbuilt. Funding was stopped by your office, I believe.” Henderson's thickfeatured face twisted into a grin. ”That was before you atomized a full division at a kilometer and a half.” He threw a large arm around Peter's bony shoulder. ”If you think you've got an idea how to fix it, then by G.o.d you'll start up again on that second unit tomorrow morning.” ”Only one problem with that,” said Peter. ”We're broke.” ”I'll see to it you get your money, don't worry. All it takes is a phone call.” Chuckling happily to himself, Henderson strode away, pa.s.sing Beatrice, who was standing in the bunker doorway, ”You oughta be d.a.m.n proud of your hubby,” Henderson told her as he went in. ”Oh, I am,” said Beatrice, and gamely held out her arms to her husband, smiling as if Peter had just run a touchdown. She said something, and Peter tried his d.a.m.nedest to hear what it was, but everything was being sucked into a black vortex deep inside his head, and the rus.h.i.+ng sound drowned out every single word. The next moment he fell as if pole-axed. 3 ST. MAURICE, SWITZERLAND.

”Lizzy, I don't like seeing you like this. And I can't believe it's not affecting your work.” ”The agency's happy-n.o.body's complaining,” said Elizabeth, staring out over the water as the fall breeze riffled its surface. Winter was in the offing, and the poplars that framed the view of Lake Geneva had wrapped themselves in blood reds and rich gold-parchment like leaves lofted over the table of the sidewalk cafe' where Elizabeth Parker and Annie Rodino sat having a late lunch. ”I do like your hair though,” said Annie. ”Do you? It's sort of betwixt.” She dabbed at it obligingly. It was longer than it had been in months, and slowly recovering its natural blond color after a Lancomemandated foray into piano-key black. Had Hans ever seen her with black hair? She couldn't remember- all she could think of was the fact that she hadn't heard from him in two weeks, but had been having a weird feeling all afternoon that he was going to call and apologize. But he hadn't. ”This guy's bad for you,” Annie declared. She was four inches shorter than Elizabeth and ten pounds heavier, with curly auburn hair, freckles and plump little hands that were constantly in motion, Elizabeth nodded. ”I know. Except sometimes I think he's the best thing that ever happened. too.” ”You are not thinking straight.”

”Granted,” said Elizabeth tactfully. She knew Annie, her closest friend, liked to think of her as the vulnerable one and tortured one. show you. You're making excuses for him, and you deserve so much more. You're a wonderful, bright, attractive, generous human being-” ”Easy, my bulls.h.i.+t meter is redlining.”

”You are. You've got an old soul and you're letting it be corrupted.” Elizabeth made a face. ”This New Age streak in you sets my teeth on edge. If I have a choice here, I'll take your psychobabble over this stuff.” ”I'll take that as a sign I've touched the truth,” Annie said happily. ”I think you've lived beforeyou were born wise. That's why this Hans thing doesn't make any sense, even to you.” Elizabeth threw up her hands in exasperation. ”Okay, if you insist on talking gobbledygook, then if I'm an old soul, so is Hans, okay? It's probably why we connected. Great s.e.x and old soul hood-a match made in heaven.” ”You're crazy.

Elizabeth grinned, perfectly willing at the moment to accept that appraisal. ”Isn't love supposed to be a little crazy? ”A little. Let's say you're on the t.i.tanic and you have a gin and tonic in your hand. The ice in the drink is a little. The ice in the iceberg coming at you dead ahead is not a little. See the difference?” Elizabeth said nothing. Then a cell phone rang out at the table. Both women reached for their bags. ”It's mine,” said Elizabeth, adding hopefully, ”it's Hans.” She flipped open her cellular. Right away she could hear he was in his car-and he was apologizing profusely, before she could get a word in. ”I've been h.e.l.lishly busy,” he was saying. ”Next week, I promise. We'll go up in the Learjet again. You loved that. Or out to the pistol range. ”No,” said Elizabeth, with a look at Annie, who was giving her the sternest of looks. ”What do you mean, no?”

”I'm not going to see you again,” said Elizabeth. Delighted, Annie pumped her fist in the air. ”What do you mean?”

”I don't know what I mean.” It was the truth-she had spoken without thinking, and what had come out had sounded horribly final and wrong. ”You're worried about me. Don't be.”

But in saying this, his words had just the opposite effect of what he intended. She immediately found herself worried big-time, wondering what it was he was worried about. ”It's Yvette,” he said, before she could ask aloud. ”What about Yvette?”

”I think maybe she's having me followed. Hey, if you're listening in,” he said loudly, ”I'm on to you people.” And then he added, quickly, ”I'm kidding, Elizabeth.” ”Are you? It didn't sound like it.”

”I didn't mean to burden you with this. It's just stupid paranoia.” She felt a chill sweep through her, and she found herself saying, ”Hans, I think I'm the burden here. Take care, okay?” ”Elizabeth? I am sorry.

”Goodbye, Hans,” she said, and snapped the phone shut. Annie touched her hand, almost shyly, almost as if she didn't really mean for Elizabeth to have gone through with it. ”You okay?”

Elizabeth nodded. She looked around as her heart sank. The crowd at the cafe' had thinned. It was near dusk and a mist was rising from the lake. Gulls and ducks splashed in for landings near moored boats and the last ferry was tying up at the quay. All at once Elizabeth wanted to be home. ”You did the right thing,” said Annie.

”I know,” she lied.

”You keep telling yourself that, okay?”

”Okay.”

”Promise?”

”I promise,” said Elizabeth. For the moment, she meant it and believed it. Fiercely. How long her resolve would last, though-years, months or minutesshe hadn't the faintest idea.

WHITE SANDS-THE FOUNTAIN COMPOUND.

Outside the faceless sprawl of government buildings, a layer of snow lay on the mesquite bushes. The guards were zipping up their parkas and hunkering closer to the fires dancing out of the empty fifty-five... gallon drums scattered around the perimeter. There was more security today than the Fountain Compound had ever seen, and more vehicles-Humvees, Avis and Hertz four-wheel-drives, even a mud encrusted Lincoln Town Car, as well as an Army Cobra helicopter, its plexigla.s.s blister shrouded in protective canvas. Inside the largest Fountain building, in the largest of the briefing rooms, Frederick Wolfe was holding court in lab whites, his spidery silhouette drifting in the twilight of flickering video images. Before him sat a half-dozen scientists of high rank and even higher clearance, and as many military officers, none of whom, save for Oscar Henderson, was in uniform. ”As we all know,” Wolfe was saying, in a voice so calm, so devoid of emotion that it sent a chill through the room, ”nothing can be achieved without the ability to reunify a severed spinal column. That's always been the barrier, impenetrable, unscalable. That's square one of what we need to accomplishreversal of a complete transection of the human spine.” He directed his laser-pointer toward a high-resolution video screen, which showed an anesthetized white rat in clinical close-up. A quick incision laid open its shaved back, revealing the spine from tail to shoulders. Surgical scissors slipped beneath the white thread of nerve and bone, and the spine was unceremoniously snipped in two. Several of the men, including the battlehardened, flinched audibly. Henderson's deep-set eyes lit up in antic.i.p.ation. Nearby, Beatrice Jance watched from the shadows, every muscle frozen. She neither looked away nor winced, despite the pitiful spurt of blood and fluid. In her five decades as a neuroscientist, she had seen far worse. What shone in Beatrice's eyes was different from the visiting officers' revulsion or Henderson's unseemly rapture. It was of such preternatural intensity that under more ordinary circ.u.mstances and in a lighted room it would have turned every head. But no one was looking at Beatrice; all eyes were on the screen. ”Admittedly, our methods were crude at first,” Wolfe went on. ”But the fact is that any attempt at reconnection until quite recently was both crude and in vain.

He gestured toward his grandson, Alex, seated at a bank of cornputers and image generators linked to the screen. Alex punched his keyboard and the picture switched to a microscopic shot of the severed spine, the cut end tipped toward the camera. ”Even a small mammal's spine is composed of an immensely delicate and complicated network of bone, fluid, membrane and nerve bundles. Worse, once cut, the spine tends to self-destruct around the breach, compounding the problem. It's as if nature is programmed to finish the job and put the individual down permanently, to save an unnecessary burden on the species.” The observers watched-each according to his own threshold of queasiness-while a series of shots showed increasingly complex attempts to rejoin the severed ends of various lab animals' spines. It was a wretched parade of suture and wire splices that invariably rendered the creatures twitching and incapacitated. Henderson's eves never left the monitors. Something big was in the air, and he was waiting for It with unabashed attention. ”But then,” announced Wolfe, pausing for effect, ”we had a breakthrough. Building on work begun in Sweden at the Karolinska Inst.i.tute, we were able to remove a full quarter inch from the spines of our rats, then use nerve fibers from their chests to bridge the gap.” ”Why nerves from the chest?” one of the officers asked, in a voice so faint Henderson had to repeat the question. ”Any place but from the spine, actually, would have worked as well,” replied Wolfe. ”It's just that the chest fibers were longer. The essential point is, only' spinal nerve fibers selfdestruct when injured. Those from other parts of the body tend to grow back. For instance. If an arm is cleanly severed, it can be sewn back on and the nerves will regenerate. But until we postulated it,” he went on, letting his eyes Come to rest on Beatrice, ”no one had dreamed of using nonspinal nerve fibers to rebind a severed spine. When we tried it, we found the fibers did indeed bridge the cut in the spine. Not always, and not perfectly, but they definitely did so with a remarkable amount of regularity, and for the first time in medical history we were getting movement from animals in their hindquarters after their spines had been severed. Alex?” Alex punched more keys.

”Subsequently we moved up to rabbits,” said Wolfe, ”hoping the larger operating areas would make our attempts easier... A murmur of disappointment rose from the front row. The screen was showing only a procession of dead animals. ”All ended up nonviable,” said Wolfe, relis.h.i.+ng the emotional effect his chalk-talk, carefully planned and even more carefully rehea.r.s.ed, was having on these military yahoos. ”The increased complexity of their neurology actually worked against us.” Henderson noisily cleared his throat. ”If you can't do a b.l.o.o.d.y rabbit, how can you expect us to fund a project that-” He broke off, silenced by Wolfe's pointing finger, indicating the screen. There was something new there now. One rabbit had finally managed to struggle to its feet. The hapless creature wasn't really hopping, but it wasn't dragging itself either. It sort of lumbered, like a little furry Frankenstein. ”Eventually, after much trial and error,” Wolfe continued, his voice rising just perceptibly, ”we finally were successful in these more complex animals, to the extent that there was not only a lack of mortality but partial recovery as well.” He smiled thinly. ”We don't usually name our animals, but we called this one Duracell.” From the labcoats, predictably, came a small burst of laughter, but Henderson didn't crack a smile, and the rest of the bra.s.s followed his lead. ”Obviously;” said Wolfe, somewhat hurriedly, ”we had to move on to something even more complex.” At this, Alex keyed his control panel and the screen bloomed with the sight of the lively pig Beatrice had witnessed trying to make its escape. There was a lariat around its neck now held by the grinning wrangler, Perkins. ”We found working on larger animals brought us a certain advantage,” Wolfe declared. ”Despite the fact that the spinal architecture of pigs is an order of magnitude m

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