The Alpha Deception Page 4

  “The cloud,” realized the President.

  Sundowner nodded. “I had my suspicions after viewing the tape the very first time. But I wanted to put off my report until I had time to examine the evidence further—what did survive, as well as what didn’t. Steel, brick, and all other forms of inorganic matter in the town were themselves unaffected by the beam. Buildings composed of these materials collapsed, but only because the bonds holding the inorganic materials in place were carbon-based.”

  Lyman Scott felt his lips trembling and fought to still them. “What exactly would be needed to generate such a beam?”

  “Two things, essentially. One, the discovery of a subatomic particle that disrupts the carbon chain. Two, a power source capable of focusing those particles into a beam on the level that wiped out Hope Valley. Without the second discovery, the first is useless in terms of a large-scale weapon.”

  “The ultimate weapon,” Lyman Scott muttered. “Quick and absolute destruction.”

  “Not as absolute as it might have been,” continued Sundowner. “The death ray traveled across Hope Valley from west to east in a beam three miles across, starting roughly at one border of the town and finishing at the other.”

  “Are you saying, Mr. Sundowner,” raised Secretary of State Mercheson, “that the beam could just as easily have drawn a line of destruction straight across the entire country?”

  “Theoretically, yes.”

  “Satellite delivery, then,” from Kappel.

  “Whose satellite?” the President demanded. “Whose weapon? Somebody has it, and for some reason they wanted to demonstrate its potency to us without letting us know who they are.”

  CIA chief Stamp leaned forward, almost reluctantly. “I may have a lead, sir. Just past midnight Saturday, six hours before the destruction of Hope Valley, our Turkish station received a message on a closed channel warning that an American town was going to be … destroyed.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us this yesterday?”

  “The message was only just relayed to me. Our Turkish station delayed transmission because, as I said, the channel was closed. Should have been inactive and had been for months. Our security had been penetrated, forcing us to reroute.”

  “Get to the point.”

  “It was a Soviet penetration.”

  A few long moments of silence passed before Secretary of Defense Kappel’s voice sliced through the Tomb’s heavy air. “Wait a minute,” he shot out, “are you telling me that the Russians have a weapon that can melt people where they stand?”

  “Not at all,” said the man from the CIA. “But the fact remains they were the only ones who knew about the Turkish channel.”

  “Mr. President,” began Edmund Mercheson in a typically droll, Kissinger-like tone, “a single instance of penetration of a single channel is hardly sufficient basis to adopt an accusatory posture. My feeling is we are more likely facing an enemy seeking to utilize this penetration to make us think the Soviets are behind everything, so as to severely limit our field of responses.”

  “We’re severely limited in any case,” noted the President grimly.

  “But we have one option clearly open to us,” Kappel followed almost before Lyman Scott had finished speaking. “I’d advise bumping DEF-CON status up to two, three at the very least. We’ve been attacked.”

  “But,” argued Mercheson, “DEF-CON functions as a signal to no one else but the Soviets. It insinuates escalation, a tough atmosphere in which to initiate dialogue.”

  “I’d submit we’re already past that.”

  “Which may well be exactly what the true wielder of this particle beam wants,” said the man from State.

  “I’m inclined to see Ed’s side of things,” broke in Lyman Scott. “No offense, George,” he added, as if afraid of offending one of the last men whose trust he enjoyed. “But I can’t see the point of the Soviets advertising the existence of such a superweapon and warning us in advance through such roundabout means. Even stranger, utilizing a weapon in this manner would seem to me to negate its ultimate purpose. If they’ve got and plan to use it, why not just draw the line all the way across the country? Why stop at Hope Valley?”

  “Your point’s well taken, sir,” agreed Sundowner. “And the answer may lie in the reasons why we abandoned research aimed at developing this sort of weapon. The scientific limitations presented us were insurmountable… .”

  “But apparently overcome by somebody,” shot out Kappel.

  “Maybe not,” Sundowner continued. “There might be a very good reason why their deployment didn’t extend beyond Hope Valley and why they bothered to warn us in the first place. The power source required to generate a beam of this nature is immense. Maybe they’re only capable of effecting it on a small scale, so they risked a contained open demonstration complete with warning to make us think otherwise.”

  “Yes,” echoed Mercheson. “We’ve heard from them once. Under that scenario they’ve set us up to hear from them again, fully convinced of the efficacy of their threat.”

  “Blackmail,” realized Lyman Scott. “Hope Valley employed to hold us hostage to some sort of demands.”

  “And, Soviet or not,” began Stamp, “they would certainly be well aware of the problems facing Washington at present. We’re vulnerable, and our response is limited by that vulnerability.”

  “Words well chosen,” said the President, “but too minced. A nice gesture, Willie, but we’re all friends here. This administration isn’t just vulnerable, it’s under siege from all sides. We’re not just lame ducks, we’re sitting ducks for our enemies at home as well as abroad. Might be some, a few who once occupied these empty chairs, who’d welcome the whole business to finish the job of bringing us down.”

  “The Soviets would like nothing better,” reminded George Kappel. “It’s possible they’ve used this means to manufacture a crisis, destroy us from the inside without ever having to use their weapon again. Screens and inconsistencies thrown up in our path to force us to go in circles. They know our grip is tenuous. If we handle this situation poorly, we could face collapse.”

  “Gentlemen,” said the President strongly, “if this government is out of control, I’ll accept responsibility. But I won’t, can’t, sit here and admit we’ve lost.”

  “That’s not what I was saying, sir,” insisted Kappel.

  “But it comes down to that, doesn’t it?”

  “Maybe we should hope it does,” put forth Sundowner suddenly, “because under that scenario we would at least be granted time to formulate a response. If we could negate the weapon, we can negate the threat.”

  “Ever so simple, assuming we had such a response.”

  “I believe we do, potentially anyway: Bugzapper.”

  “I thought we had determined its activation to be technologically infeasible,” said Kappel after a brief pause.

  “Not anymore,” the scientist told him.

  Upon taking over as head of the Toy Factory four years before, Sundowner had inherited the remains of the Strategic Defense Initiative, better known as the Star Wars system. Problems both financial and technological had already stripped the program bare. What had originally been envisioned as a seven-layer defensive shield against all incoming missile attacks had been peeled away one layer at a time until all that remained was a ground-based laser system which utilized mirrors in space and had tested out as being woefully inadequate against anything but a small-scale strike—hardly a layer at all.

  For years Sundowner had maintained his own theories and finally had the chance to set them to work. He called his program “Bugzapper” after those deadly bright lights that fry any insect that wanders too close. His system functioned on the same general basis. Sundowner envisioned a fleet of three or four dozen satellites poised in geosynchronistic orbits over the United States, attached to each other by invisible energy fields. Any object that attempted to penetrate such a field would suffer the same fate that awaited the nagging mosquito on a summer evenin
g. In effect, an impenetrable shield would be erected over the nation, rendering it invincible to any major attack—a shield without the complexities of Star Wars.

  “The major problem with Bugzapper from the beginning,” Sundowner was saying, “was that for the shield to be effective, the energy fields erected between the various satellites had to be constantly active. The power drain would thus be enormous. And since the satellites would have to possess the capacity to recharge themselves in outer space, solar energy was the only possibility. But it was impossible until recently to find a sufficient power storage capability.”

  “Don’t tell me,” quipped George Kappel. “You’ve discovered a way to lay cable connecting your satellites with the sun itself.”

  “Not exactly,” said Sundowner, “but close enough.”

  The red phone buzzed twice and the President leaned forward over the table and lifted the receiver.

  “Yes?” he said, holding it to his ear. His lower lip dropped as he listened attentively, his face seeming to grow progressively paler. “And that’s it?” he asked at the end. “I see… . No, we’ll handle it from here… . Yes, tell them to keep monitoring.” Lyman Scott turned to the men before him, still clutching the receiver to his ear. “We’ve been contacted in Turkey again; same channel, same code.”

  “Sir?” one of them raised, speaking for all, hoping to learn the contents of the communiqué just received.

  But the President simply looked toward Sundowner. “Lay your cable, Ryan. And lay it fast.”

  The two figures sat alone in the rearmost row of the Bangkok movie house, the light cast by the celluloid images barely reaching them.

  “I am instructed to require your name and status before any further discussion can take place,” said the smaller of the two.

  “My name is Katlov and my status is renegade,” said the other softly, turning enough so a patch over his left eye was visible in the darkness. The rest of his features were indistinguishable.

  “Strange for a renegade to seek out a KGB station chief.”

  On the screen an American western, dubbed in Thai, was nearing its climax.

  “To me you are simply a messenger, Station Chief.”

  The KGB man grunted. “I am a busy man.”

  “And a small one.”

  “Get to the point.”

  “You will deliver a message for me to Moscow.”

  “Really?”

  “You will tell them that I can give them Raskowski.”

  The KGB man’s mouth dropped.

  “You will tell them I have no time for games or delays. The world has no time. I will meet their emissary here.”

  “This is my station,” the KGB man said defensively.

  “There are terms you will not be able to meet.”

  “But—”

  “I won’t have this!” Katlov snapped. “I will give you the key we used for the Turkish channel. That will be all the proof they require. It will show I am what I claim to be.”

  “I know nothing of such a channel’s significance.”

  “They will know, you fool! You will relay to them my instructions. You will stress the importance of immediate action and that I alone hold the means to end this madness.”

  “What madness?” the station chief asked, pensive now.

  Katlov made a motion to rise. The KGB man restrained him gently.

  “Please. I’ll … do as you say.”

  Katlov settled back in his chair.

  Chapter 5

  NEW YORK’S FAMED DIAMOND district occupies only one block, West 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. From across the street, at first glance, Earnst’s Gem Parlor looked small and unassuming, its narrow shape squeezed between a pair of larger and more openly aggressive merchants. But at second glance, McCracken reckoned from his position fronting the jar-filled window of Kaplan’s Delicatessen, it stood a cut above the others in class as well as clientele. The fact that it need not stack its front windows with rows of diamonds revealed this, as did a front entrance cubicle complete with armed guard.

  McCracken and T.C. had taken Eastern’s nine A.M. shuttle from Boston. She had insisted on accompanying him and he had reluctantly agreed only after she promised to do nothing but remain in her room at the Waldorf and wait for his call. The cab dropped them both off at the hotel, and Blaine walked the short distance to Earnst’s.

  He should have used the opportunity to check for tails but he was distracted by thoughts still lingering from the night before. T.C. had left him at the Copley Plaza just past one A.M. but called as soon as she got back to her crumbling townhouse, and they talked for another hour. Blaine didn’t know which he regretted more: the fact that she wasn’t lying beside him then or that she had broken off their relationship all those years before. He slept fitfully, dreaming of her, and hating it once he awoke because only in dreams could he bring her as near to him as he wished.

  With those thoughts chasing him again, Blaine dashed across the street through westbound traffic. Seventy West 47th was embroidered in plated gold over the entrance. McCracken stepped through the first door and faced the uniformed security officer squeezed behind a counter.

  “Good morning, sir,” the guard said cheerfully. “I’ll need an I.D. card to hold while you’re inside.”

  Blaine produced one of his many driver’s licenses and handed it over. The guard fumbled beneath his counter, finally locating the entry button. There was an ear-scratching buzz, and Blaine watched the inner glass door snap electronically open. He passed inside and found himself within the long, narrow, and elegantly appointed confines of Earnst’s. A crystal chandelier cast shimmering light over the whole quiet scene, reflecting off the many glass counters and display cases. Instead of standard stools behind the various counters, Earnst’s were covered in rich velour that matched the color of the carpeting.

  McCracken ambled past a series of display cases and was surprised not to see any hidden wires strung through the glass. Then he realized that it was not here but on the upper levels of the store that gems of greater value were kept and traded. Access to these was limited, and strictly by appointment.

  “Can I help you?” a clerk asked him as he stood before a case layered with diamond sapphire necklaces.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Earnst. He’s expecting me. Tell him it’s Blaine McCracken.”

  “One moment.”

  The clerk turned and disappeared up a set of stairs situated behind one of the counters. A minute later he returned with an older man by his side.

  Erich Earnst must have been closer to eighty than seventy. His thinning white hair was wild, and his flesh was grayish. He walked with a slight limp. Blaine moved forward to greet him.

  “Mr. McCracken,” the old man said gratefully, extending his hand. “I’m so glad you’ve come. Please, let’s go upstairs.”

  Blaine freed himself from the old man’s surprisingly strong handshake, aware that the rapid shifting of Earnst’s eyes was due more to fear than age. T.C. had said her grandfather was in danger and that was good enough for him. Given the vast sums Earnst dealt with every day, anything was possible. Blaine owed it to T.C. to follow every lead.

  “We’ll talk in my office,” Erich Earnst said as they moved behind the counter to the staircase he had just descended.

  Blaine followed the older man up the stairs. At the top they had to turn right and directly before them rose a high security steel-and-glass door. Earnst slid an electronic entry card into a slot and the door snapped open.

  Obviously in a hurry now, Earnst stepped through and made sure the door caught behind them.

  “This way,” he beckoned, and Blaine moved with him down the hall into a beautiful office, furnished in the same colors as the display area downstairs. The old man closed the door and limped to his desk.

  “My granddaughter has told me quite a lot about you, Mr. McCracken,” he said. “Please sit down. Excuse me for being so nervous, but I haven’t slept well in a month now.”


  Blaine sat down opposite Earnst in one of a pair of red velvet chairs facing the neat desk.

  “A month ago,” McCracken noted. “Was that when it started?”

  “Yes. The feeling of being watched is well known to me. You develop a sense for such things when you spend years running for your life.”’

  “I can understand that. It’s why I’m here.”

  “The others didn’t believe. The police … ach. I tell them and they listen, but they think I’m crazy.”

  McCracken leaned forward. “Mr. Earnst, you said you were being watched. Does that mean followed as well?”

  “No. I don’t go anywhere, so there would be no reason to follow me. I come here and I go home. Nothing else. I’m watched all day long. Nights sometimes, too.”

  “And it started one month ago.”

  “Yes.”

  “Does anything else about that time stand out in your mind?”

  Earnst didn’t have to think. “No. The robbery had happened two weeks earlier.”

  “T.C. didn’t mention anything about a robbery.”

  “I’m not sure I mentioned it to her. There was nothing worth worrying her about. Only a few items were taken.”

  “Specifically?”

  “Ruby-red crystals sent to me by a supplier in Greece.”

  “Rubies?”

  “Only in color. I’d never seen anything like them. I thought they might be quite valuable and agreed to take them on consignment.” The old man’s stare turned distant. “Strange crystals they were, jagged and irregular. Unfinished. There was only one customer who showed any interest in them at all. Why is this important?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Tell me about this customer.”

  Earnst pushed himself up from the chair and limped behind his desk where he extracted an appointment book from the top drawer. Flipping through it, he quickly came upon the day in question.

  “Lydia Brandywine made me show her all five of the crystals. Said she was searching for something exotic and totally different. I showed her plenty of gems that afternoon, I remember now, but the crystals were the only items that interested her. She made an appointment to choose a setting but the crystals were stolen a few days later.”