Medusa's Child

SEVEN

The voice of the Washington Approach controller was terse.

"ScotAir Fifty, I've been handed a telephone number in Miami you're to call immediately. Do you have a phone aboard?"

Scott felt off-balance. He'd never heard an air traffic controller order a pilot to make an airborne call. He wished Doc was back in the cockpit.

Scott punched the transmit button. "Ah, roger, ScotAir Fifty does have a telephone. Who's requesting the call?"

"I don't know, ScotAir," the controller began, "but you need to call this number immediately. I'm told it's an emergency."

The controller relayed the number and Scott punched it into the Flitephone handset, his mind whirling through a variety of apocalyptic possibilities as a man answered on the other end, listened to the name ScotAir, and identified himself as an FBI agent. Scott felt himself shudder within.

"We've been trying to find you, ScotAir. You were in Miami this morning at the same time some undocumented hazardous material was shipped out. We think that material may be on board your aircraft."

The memory of Linda McCoy's pushiness in getting her two pallets aboard suddenly flooded Scott's mind, almost blocking the agent's words. They hadn't really verified her identity, had they? They hadn't even inspected her pallets, once he'd agreed to take them.

"We need you to land immediately," the agent said.

The visual memory of Mrs. Henry's single pallet also crossed his mind. He knew even less about her.

Scott realized the agent was still talking, and he wasn't paying attention.

''I'm sorry. Say again."

There was a pause in Miami. "I said we'll have the appropriate people ready to meet you to examine what you've got on board. You haven't unloaded anything since you left Miami, have you?"

Suddenly, for some reason, he felt guilty. All they'd done wrong was load someone else's pallet, and that was an innocent mistake. Yet the fact that an FBI agent was asking him questions at all was vaguely terrifying.

"No, sir," Scott answered. "It's all still aboard. But I need to know, are we in any danger, if what you're looking for is really here?"

Silence.

"Sir? Did you hear me?"

He could hear the phone being shifted from one hand to another in Miami, and at last the FBI agent's voice returned. "Ah, Captain, I doubt you're in any immediate danger, but I can't say for certain. If the… items… we're looking for are on board your airplane, it depends on how well they're, ah, packaged."

More links and connections raced through his head, none of them comforting: Miami… drug dealers… drug-making equipment… hazardous carcinogenic chemicals… What if we're carrying illegal drugs?

Scott heard his own voice as if it were disembodied. "Okay. Where do you want us to land? We're waiting to get into National, but right now it's closed."

There was a worrisome hesitation on the other end.

Scott could hear voices before the agent spoke into the handset again.

"Okay, stay in your holding pattern. What phone are you on?"

Scott passed the number of the aircraft's Flitephone.

"Keep the line open, Captain, and I'll call you back as soon as we've decided where to bring you down."

"You do realize there's a hurricane moving in here?" Scott asked.

"I… wait a minute," the agent began. Scott could hear someone talking in the background. "Okay, Captain, what did you say?"

"I said there's a hurricane moving into the D.C. area. Whatever we do, we're going to need to do it fast. One of my clients wants her cargo to go to National, but if it doesn't reopen soon, the winds are going to go out of limits."

"You've got just one shipment on board, right?"

"No, sir. We've got two. One's going to Denver, Colorado. The other was loaded by mistake this morning. We're delivering it to National."

More background discussion. Scott realized he'd flown beyond the end of the holding pattern. His right hand found the autopilot controller and began a right turn to reverse course. Even at ten thousand feet and two hundred forty knots of speed, the turbulence was getting worse, and the old 727 was bouncing around with an irritating consistency.

The agent's voice filled his ear again. Scott thought he detected fatigue. "Okay, Captain, we're going to need to inspect everything you've got aboard. Right now, we're considering bringing you down at Andrews Air Force Base. Hang tight until I've got final word. I'll call you right back."

The sound of the cockpit door being flung open was punctuated by the sound of the FBI agent disconnecting.

"Scott!" Doc Hazzard laid a large left hand on the younger pilot's shoulder, turning him partly around with a startling roughness. "Scott, we've got a problem." Linda McCoy stood in the doorway, he noticed, her face ashen. Mrs. Henry was nowhere to be seen.

"What?"

Doc flung himself in the copilot's seat and began strapping in. "Dr. McCoy will take you back there. I'll watch the bird. I don't know what to make of it."

"What, Doc? What the hell are you talking about?"

Doc Hazzard grabbed the yoke with his right hand and turned toward Scott.

"That warning horn? It was coming from Mrs. Henry's shipment. There's a metal container in that pallet. It looks like stainless steel. I opened an inspection hatch and found a TV screen inside with a message you've got to see. Scott, this thing may contain a bomb! And it's got an inertial navigation system in it that may be malfunctioning. It thinks it knows where it is, but it doesn't know precisely."

"Doc, for God's sake, slow down! Tell me that again. There's a huge container back there with some sort of message and you think it's a bomb?"

Doc shook his head as he scanned the instruments, trying to make sure he knew where they were. "You'll understand when you look at it."

"What's this about an inertial navigation system?"

Doc turned to him. "It thinks we're in the Pentagon. Rather, it thinks it's in the Pentagon."

"Well, we flew over the Pentagon before we started holding, but what does that have to do with…" The word "bomb" was beginning to sink in.

There was true panic in the copilot's eyes, Scott noticed. For eight months nothing had seemed to rattle Doc Hazzard. He was always steady as a rock. But now he was shaken.

"Doc, does Mrs. Henry know what's inside that pallet?"

Doc shook his head vigorously. "Not a clue. She says her husband was a government physicist. Whatever that is back there, he built it. I can't get anything else out of her, except that he's dead and left instructions for her to take it to the Pentagon. It's supposed to be a mockup of some sort. That's all she'll tell me, and she looks pretty scared." Linda McCoy's hand gripped his shoulder with surprising strength. "Captain, please follow me back. I'm really worried about this." Her voice carried a tense urgency as well, and Scott scrambled out of the seat to follow her through the cockpit door.

Vivian Henry had steadied herself against the turbulence by holding on to a small handrail above the windows, but she was aware of little more than the container before her. She'd recognized the look of alarm on the face of the young female scientist several minutes before, then had seen it consume the copilot as well. They seemed unable to tell her what they were seeing, so she'd stepped forward and looked for herself at the small screen inside her ex-husband's creation. All she could see on the screen was text, but in her head she could hear the familiar snarl of her deceased husband's voice reaching out for her again with the horrid clarity of a can't-get-away nightmare.

What does he mean, "detonation"?

Maybe it was a burglar alarm of sorts, she thought in a frantic search for a benign explanation. She looked at the screen again. He obviously meant those words to be threatening. Once the shipment was within the Pentagon complex, Rogers Henry had devised a plan to keep it there.

Perhaps that's it! The threat is just a ploy to make sure they really study the mockup.

Nothing would happen. Nothing would explode. Vivian knew Rogers had always been passionate about defending his country. He would never attack it.

Doc Hazzard and Dr. McCoy had disappeared toward the cockpit, leaving her alone with her husband's handiwork. For the first time a cold, haunting shroud of fear began to cover her mind with an unexpected sense of helplessness and resignation. The old feeling of being cornered by him in some other impossible position, her back against a wall—often with his hands around her throat—came back with chilling familiarity. So many times she had assumed she was about to die at his hands—so many times she was sure he would carry out his threats. Until she'd mustered up enough courage to leave him, she'd grown used to feeling helpless and being resigned to her fate.

But there were other people involved this time, she reminded herself.

Vivian Henry looked out the nearest window, trying to shake the feeling of impending doom. Rogers had stopped appearing in her nightmares some time ago, but the rancid, electric feeling of impending attack had returned. It was a feeling she knew all too well. For years she'd had nightmares about his stalking her, nightmares she relived night after night with the visceral presence of pure hate reflected in his eyes when they fastened on her. His pupils would become tiny little pinpoints, and she would be transfixed, unable to move, until she awoke in total confusion.

She stared, mesmerized, at the partly exposed metal canister, sensing her ex-husband at his most sadistic.

Linda McCoy reappeared with the captain, both of them with averted eyes and strained faces as they looked inside at the glowing TV screen. She heard the young captain inhale sharply.

They would think her responsible for Rogers' threats, Vivian concluded. They would think she planned this, especially when they discovered she, too, had worked at Los Alamos.

Pete Cooke had programmed his handheld radio scanner to intercept the paired frequencies used by the air-to-ground Flitephone system. It had been a random choice made months ago while researching a story on corporate jets, but when he overheard the Washington Approach controller's request for ScotAir 50 to call Miami on a Flitephone, he realized he could monitor both sides of the call. The opportunity was too much to pass up.

Pete stood toward the edge of the arrival lounge and listened through an earpiece until the call between the captain of the cargo aircraft and the FBI agent in Miami had concluded. He stood in thought for a moment. What could the FBI possibly be looking for?

The aircraft was still in a holding pattern somewhere overhead. The research project that had brought him to Washington could wait, he decided.

Pete walked as fast as he could through the heart of the terminal to the FAA's Washington Approach facility. A voice interrogated him through a small intercom on the wall, identified him as a licensed pilot who wanted to visit the facility, and buzzed him in. A supervisor checked his ID and then led the way to the controller working ScotAir 50.

"He's waiting for us to reopen the airport," the controller explained as he adjusted the speaker over his head so Cooke could listen.

Pete held up his scanner. "I was listening when you gave him that phone number, and I locked in on the call."

"You can do that?"

"It's on the airwaves. It's not private."

The controller held up a finger and issued instructions to one of the flights under his control before turning back to his guest. "What was the call about?"

Pete filled him in. "He may be requesting a vector to Andrews in a few minutes. Whatever the FBI thinks he may have on board, it's got their undivided attention."

"Drugs, you think?"

Pete started to reply, but the controller was already back on microphone issuing more instructions to his flights. Drugs were an easy assumption, but why would the FBI alert the crew if they suspected the crew of smuggling? And why was the FBI involved instead of DEA?

No, he concluded, drugs didn't make sense.

The controller let go of his microphone button and tried again.

"You think it's drugs, then?"

Pete shook his head. "No. Something tells me it's far more serious."

A growing number of people had been filtering into a small conference room near the deputy director's office since the FBI's Miami agents had taken charge hours before. The news that the most likely target was a Boeing 727 now circling the Beltway jolted the collection of agents and staff personnel into a team, and with word of the call between the Miami agent in charge and the captain of the cargo aircraft, the FBI took control of the situation.

Assistant Director Tony DiStefano began a quick briefing to bring everyone up to date. Notepads, steno books, and telephone consoles were strewn everywhere, along with three portable notebook computers hooked up to phone lines.

"Okay, the Navy tells us they've got another neutron sniffer at Patuxent River Naval Air Station just south of here, and the reason that's important is because we won't know whether the nuclear material that set off the Miami machine is on board that 727 until we subject it to another neutron bombardment. A bunch of our FBI people happen to be at that naval air station right now, attending some sort of terrorist workshop. They couldn't get conference space at Quantico, so all the experts will be there. Problem is, the Navy doesn't have a cargo aircraft at Pax River that can fly the sniffer to Andrews. It's about eight feet square and weighs over a ton, and they're going to put it on a flatbed truck and rush it there with a light-and-siren escort. Should take about ninety minutes. George, you talked with Andrews?"

A silver-haired man toward the end of the table spoke up. "They'll let them in the back gate. The parking place for the 727's all arranged."

"Sir, we've got other problems." A woman in her mid-thirties was holding up a pencil for attention as she rested a telephone receiver on her shoulder.

"Go ahead, Donna," the assistant director replied.

"CIA is yelling that we shouldn't rule out foreign involvement… they're sending several of their people over here from Langley. The Nuclear Regulatory Agency is lobbying the National Security Council staff to participate, and the FAA is about to start a turf war over who can order this airplane to land and where. Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is demanding a role in this. They say they have some nuclear terrorist experts as well."

The FBI assistant director threw his head back and snorted before looking back at her. "Screw 'em! We're in charge. We're going to get that airplane on the ground, get the sniffer in, and find out whether they're carrying nuclear material. If so, then and only then will we turn it over."

A younger agent in shirtsleeves had been on the phone. He stood up now and held out the receiver.

"Sir?"

"Yes?"

"I've got the Air Force's Pentagon command post on the line. A Major General Goddard, I believe. He says he has the President's authority to tell you to forget bringing that airplane anywhere close to Andrews with suspected nuclear material on board."

The cargo cabin of his 727 was too noisy, so Scott McKay ushered Vivian Henry and Linda McCoy back to the cockpit before trying to talk. With Linda standing beside him next to the engineer's seat, he waited until Vivian Henry sat down sideways in the first observer's chair. The leading edge of Hurricane Sigrid had already moved across the Beltway, and the ride at ten thousand feet was increasingly turbulent. Both Scott and Linda braced themselves against the continuous irritating motion.

"Mrs. Henry, this may be serious," Scott began.

She nodded, her left arm resting on the back of the empty captain's seat as she rubbed her temple.

"I know," she said quietly.

"While you were back there…"

"Please call me Vivian," she added.

"Okay. Vivian. While you were back there, an FBI agent called from Miami." Scott glanced back at Linda. "Dr. McCoy, you don't know this yet, either."

"Linda," she said.

"Okay. Vivian. Linda. We're carrying cargo for both of you. Linda, I don't know what's inside yours. You do. Vivian, you say you do not know what's inside yours, but there's a frightening threat on that computer screen back there. The FBI tells me they've been searching all morning for a package of some sort which contains hazardous material that came through Miami while we were there. They seem to be convinced we're carrying it." Scott turned to Linda again, whose eyes had turned wide with concern. She straightened up as if challenged.

"Not in my stuff! There's nothing in my cargo which could be called hazardous in any way. What are they looking for?"

"I don't know. He wasn't specific. I don't think he wanted to tell me over a radiotelephone, but I thought for a moment… until you came up about Vivian's cargo… I thought, you know, Miami might equate to drugs and chemicals."

"No way," Linda said again. "I've had my things under my personal control since leaving McMurdo Sound."

Scott turned to Vivian. "Vivian, I need you to tell me everything you can about what your husband might have built, and why you're here in the first place. Why were you shipping this thing to Washington? What could it be? Why is the Pentagon mentioned?"

Vivian Henry met Scott McKay's gaze and looked at him steadily as Linda McCoy's voice echoed in his ear.

"Vivian, I was watching you back there. I got the feeling you don't have a clue what's in that container. Is that suspicion accurate?"

Vivian's gaze shifted to Linda.

"I… thought it was… something else. I didn't expect it to be powered or have a computer inside."

The 727 hit a patch of moderate turbulence, the wild bouncing causing Scott to lean forward and search the sky ahead before standing up again and looking back at Vivian.

"Do you know what it is, though?" Scott pressed.

"I can only theorize," she began, "that Rogers, my ex-husband, has created a dangerous, boorish plot—and put me right in the middle."

Scott raised his hands in a gesture of puzzlement. "Plot? What do you mean, 'plot'? Who was he? What was his specialty?"

Scott was aware of Doc on his right as the big copilot leaned to the left to hear the answer. Jerry Christian had swiveled his chair to the front and was sitting quietly forward, his hands clasped in front of him as he watched Vivian's eyes, glancing only occasionally at the windscreen as the turbulence continued.

Vivian Henry took a deep breath. "Very well. Let me try to tell you what I do know, because right now, I'm… confused and mortified that I'm… that what I've done is worrying everyone. And now it seems maybe there's good reason to worry. I'm… I'm beginning to get frightened."

She looked at Linda, then back at Scott, her voice softer than before, her words filtering through a veil of embarrassment.

"My husband, Captain, was a government nuclear physicist—the one who discovered the theoretical existence of a phenomenon he named the Medusa Effect, a destructive continent-sized convulsion of electromagnetic energy."

"The Medusa Effect?" Scott asked, turning to Jerry, then glancing at Doc.

Both shrugged.

Vivian nodded. "Rogers claimed it was the ultimate EMP, or electromagnetic pulse, and that it could destroy a modern society's ability to communicate, compute, transmit electricity, or use electronic circuits of any sort."

"I've heard of EMPs," Jerry said.

"The Navy was always trying to make our electronics resistant to any EMP the Soviets might create," Scott said.

"This was in the 1960's," she continued, falling silent for a few seconds as her eyes strayed to Doc's, then down to the floor. She took another deep breath as her right hand came up to her chest. "I'm sorry, but I'm very upset about this."

Linda McCoy gently placed her hand on Vivian's shoulder.

"Please go on, Vivian. We need to know."

Vivian looked at Linda and tried to smile. "Rogers was ahead of his time. He knew we would eventually become dependent on computers and computer codes, and that the United States had to develop Medusa first or risk being neutralized or blackmailed."

"So," Scott added, "what we've got aboard may be some sort of electromagnetic pulse generator?"

"Not exactly," Vivian said. "It's a mockup, but I suppose he wanted to be dramatic and embarrass me one last time."

"Why would he want to do that?" Jerry asked.

Vivian's eyes seemed to be looking through him as she weighed how much to say about the abusive genius who had been her husband and captor for so long.

"He… could be very cruel to me," she said at last.

"Vivian, did this thing come from a government lab somewhere?"

She shook her head no.

"Then where?" Scott asked.

"From our garage. Let me explain. In 1977, they terminated his research program near Denver, dispersed his research team, and when he refused to give up trying to design Medusa, they labeled him psychologically unreliable and retired him. We moved to Florida, but he was single-minded. He kept researching on his own and built his own lab there in our garage. This mockup, I believe, was constructed there."

"But what is it a mockup of?" Scott asked again.

"The object of his life's work," she said simply. "It's a mockup of the apparatus which creates the Medusa Effect."

"And he ordered you to bring it in person to the Pentagon?" Scott's voice carried an incredulous tone. He glanced at Linda, who was staring quietly at the elegant woman in the jumpseat.

"It's a bit more complicated than that," she said without emotion. She looked toward the cockpit door and gestured in that direction.

"Vivian," Scott prompted, "I still need an answer to the basic question. What kind of apparatus creates the Medusa Effect? A bomb? I mean, that thing is threatening to detonate. A bomb detonates."

Vivian Henry looked up again.

"I don't really know. It was a hopelessly complicated explanation I could never quite absorb. My background was nuclear engineering, but this is theoretical physics. Anyway, all I'm sure of is what's supposed to trigger the whole process."

"And that would be?"

She didn't respond.

"Vivian?"

She looked up again sharply, took a deep breath, and exhaled before answering.

"To create a Medusa Wave, you first need a thermonuclear explosion."