Oath of Office

60

“Why?” Ghorbani asked. “What you do makes no sense.”

“On the contrary,” Kazem said. “It makes all the sense in the world.”

“But Reza,” Ghorbani said, trying a conciliatory tone, though Kazem knew full well the cleric would be happy to see him gutted at the moment. “If Tabrizi succeeds, then everyone will be harmed. Russia will be furious, but we have satellites as well — and we hope to have more, to eventually be on par with the West.”

“And we will be,” Kazem said. “In a matter of weeks instead of the decades that it would have otherwise taken.”

Ghorbani shook his head, curling his nose in a mixture of disgust and disbelief.

“You see,” Kazem pressed. “Iran depends on satellites for but a small portion of our military and civilian communications — and most of that to counter threats from the West. The United States is almost a hundred percent reliant on their eyes in the sky. Without their precious satellites, they will be blind. They will have no more will to stumble around in this portion of the world without their precious technology. I do not wish to serve as gas stations to the West as the Arabs do. We are better than that. This region has rightly belonged to a Persian Empire for seven thousand years. And this will return to us that history. All the so-called superpowers — Russia, China, the United States — will be rendered impotent. At worst, we will be given an equal playing field. At best, they will leave us alone.”

“The sooner I return to Tehran, the better,” the cleric said. “Or do you intend to throw me to my death as well?”

“That shouldn’t be necessary,” Kazem said. “But I’m afraid you must remain our guest for a few more hours. Mark my words, O Guide of Emulation. This will be a boon for us and a hellish nightmare for the West.”

“Your mind is gone,” Ghorbani said. “You are as insane as the fool Tabrizi.”

“We will soon see,” Kazem said.

“I need the best astrophysicist in the free world,” President Ryan said. “And if he or she happens to be on the East Coast, so much the better. I’d like them in my office as soon as humanly possible.”

Foley stood. “On it.”

“I may know a guy,” Scott Adler said, though this sort of thing was well outside his wheelhouse. “I play poker with some guys from the poli-sci department at Annapolis. A couple of months ago one of them brought an aeronautical engineering professor — a real probability genius who cleaned us all out. I’ll have to make some calls to get his name.”

Foley was already thumb-typing again. “Dr. Randal Van Orden?”

“That’s him,” Adler said. “If that son of a gun is half as good at rocket science as he is at poker, he’s your man.”

“His CV is incredible,” Foley said, perusing her phone. “Turned down a job at NASA to teach at the Naval Academy. He’s the go-to guy when anyone has a question about satellites. And get this, he’s written papers on both the Kessler and Tabrizi theories.”

Six minutes later, Ryan had him on speakerphone.

“Dr. Van Orden, Jack Ryan here. We’re dealing with a significant problem and would welcome your expertise. I wonder if you would be willing to come to my office?”

“Without question, Mr. President,” the scientist said, sounding addled.

“I assume you have a security clearance,” Ryan said.

“I do,” Van Orden said. “My periodic work with NASA requires me to maintain a TS.”

“Top Secret is a little low for this one,” Ryan said. “But I’ll read you in when you get here.”

“Might I ask what the problem is in reference to?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t go into too much on the phone,” Ryan said. “But it has to do with papers you’ve written, specifically on Kessler and Tabrizi.”

“I see,” Van Orden said. “In that case, I have a young protégé here in The Yard who you will want to talk with. He did a recent paper on Tabrizi that was the best I’ve ever read.”

“An associate professor?” Ryan asked.

“No, sir,” Van Orden said. “A Youngster.”

A “Youngster” in Naval Academy jargon was a sophomore. “Midshipman Alex Hardy is a student of mine, and I have to say, one of the brightest minds in the field of aerospace and astronautical engineering. He personally designed the key components for the guidance system on the satellite we’re sending up next fall.”

“That might be problematic,” Ryan said.

“I assure you,” Van Orden said, “if you need answers, he will have more than I do — or anyone else, for that matter.”

Ryan said, “We’ll read him in as well. This is a matter of some urgency. I’ll have a car there to pick you up in…” He looked as his watch, then motioned to Mary Pat to get someone on the way immediately. “Shall we say thirty minutes?”

“We’ll be ready, Mr. President.”

Ryan’s hand hovered above the phone. “And Dr. Van Orden, I realize that you and Midshipman Hardy will have scheduled classes, exams and whatnot. I’ll square this with the superintendent. You may tell others with an immediate need to know that you’ve been summoned to the White House, but as far as anyone else is concerned, the purpose of your visit is classified.”

There was no denying it; Randal Van Orden kept a messy workspace. Circuit boards, rolls of soldering wire, plastic boxes of delicate heat-shielding material leaned against an ancient oscilloscope. Stacks of dog-eared papers, some decorated with rings from countless cans of Diet Coke, occupied every place on the desk where there wasn’t an electronic component or scientific instrument. Van Orden’s thoughts did not come in a linear manner, unlike most engineers he knew. The answers to whatever problem he happened to be working on at the moment appeared like tiny thought bubbles in the cluttered workspace of his mind. But if he needed to work out the load limits of a particular rocket or the right mixture of powdered metal in solid fuel engine — the answers were always there in the bubbles. Just as the soldering gun was where he needed it to be on the table. There was, indeed, a method to his mess.

It did, however, take him a moment to find his cell phone, tucked in the side pocket of the heavy-duty Saddleback Leather briefcase that his wife said looked professorial.

Van Orden himself had never been in the military, but he had a military bearing nonetheless. The midshipmen in his classes were supposed to be professional and squared away. “Locked on” they called it. They were highly intelligent and driven people who deserved the best instruction possible. Dr. Van Orden believed he had a responsibility to be as locked on as it was possible for a man in his early sixties to be. His barber near his home in Crownsville kept his dark hair neatly tapered and groomed. Skinny ties, white shirts, and black frame glasses gave him the look of a man who’d stepped out of the sixties. In truth, he would have been more comfortable in a pullover golf shirt and khaki shorts, but his wife dressed him, using her philosophy that he couldn’t be young anymore, so he should go for the coolest old. For an aeronautical engineer, that was NASA mission control in 1969.

He scrolled through his recent calls until he found Midshipman Hardy’s number. He’d never had a student with such promise. The young man had such a grasp and recall of numbers that a casual observer might consider him a quirky savant. But that was not the case. The men and women who gained admittance to the United States Naval Academy had to be well rounded as well as smart.

He got no answer on the phone. Not surprising, Hardy could be in class, or in one of the places in The Yard where reception was iffy. He felt a pang of regret at having mentioned the midshipman at all, but if the President’s questions were important enough to call an academic like him to the White House, then Hardy’s knowledge might be invaluable. He checked his watch. He’d just have to go and find him the old-fashioned way.

Van Orden’s office was located downstairs in the aeronautical engineering section of Rickover Hall, at the northern corner of the campus along land reclaimed from the Severn River. He poked his head outside the door to find a pink-faced plebe wearing the white Dixie cup hat and Cracker Jack suit that was synonymous with enlisted Navy personnel. The freshman midshipman had obviously lost a bet with an upperclassman, and now stood “lifeguard duty” next to the water fountain outside Van Orden’s office.

“Do you know Midshipman Hardy?” Van Orden asked. He had an abrupt baritone voice that caused the freshman to stand up straighter.

“I do, Dr. Van Orden,” the young lifeguard said, coming to attention. “The last I saw him he was going to Dahlgren Hall to make a phone call.”

“Thank you,” Van Orden said, moving as he spoke. He didn’t want to keep the President’s car waiting.

He walked quickly, carrying his sport coat so as not to sweat through his shirt in the warm spring weather. Dahlgren Hall was located diagonally across The Yard, at the far south corner, almost at the front gate — about as far as away as possible and still be on Academy grounds. Van Orden passed Michelson Hall, and the plaque marking the spot where Albert Michelson had measured the speed of light in 1879. He cut across the grass, almost running as he passed the Mexican War Midshipmen’s Monument in the center of the courtyard, aiming for Dahlgren Hall. It made sense Hardy would relax there. He had a girlfriend back in Idaho and the upper deck of Dahlgren was one of the few places midshipmen could get a little privacy to make phone calls.

Unlike other military academies in the United States, Annapolis was an open campus, with visitors simply showing ID and clearing security like that of an airport. The grounds were crowded with sightseers who gave Van Orden sideways looks for not utilizing the sidewalks. He ignored them, entering Dahlgren Hall to the smell of french fries coming from the Drydock Restaurant, and bounded up the stairs. There were several midshipmen in the blue-carpeted lounge area. Unfortunately, none of them were Hardy.

Van Orden checked his watch again. Twelve minutes wasted.

He approached the nearest midshipman, a tall Nordic woman who looked as if she could be an Olympic runner but for her summer white service dress uniform. The fouled anchor and two diagonal strips on her shoulder boards said she was a midshipman second class — a year ahead of Hardy. She was reading, but closed her book and stood when she realized he wanted to speak to her.

“How can I help you, sir?” Her nametag identified her as Midshipman Larson.

“I’m looking for Alex Hardy. Sandy hair, about five-ten—”

“He was here about half an hour ago,” Larson said. “I believe he went down to the wind tunnels.”

Van Orden groaned. “Thank you,” he said, spinning to begin his jog back across campus to the basement of the building where he’d started, just down from his office.

He found Hardy six minutes later, standing beside one of the boxlike wind tunnels in the basement of Rickover Hall, holding a model of a hand with a piece of steel rod sticking through the palm, working with a group of four other midshipmen — who looked nearly identical in their short hair and summer whites. The project was for one of Van Orden’s physics classes — the effects of ejecting from a jet aircraft at various speeds and attitudes of flight. The sign on the wall behind them read: “Rocket Science: It Ain’t Brain Surgery.”

Van Orden plugged his ears, thankful for the scant moment to catch his breath. Hardy looked up when he saw movement and Van Orden waved him over.

Hardy removed his hearing protection. “What can I do for you, Doctor?”

Van Orden looked toward the hallway, mouth closed, shaking his head and indicating they should step out of earshot.

“You and I have been summoned to the White House,” he said. There was no time to beat around the bush.

“The White House?”

“Correct,” Van Orden said. “A car is picking us up in”—he looked at his watch—“less than fifteen minutes.”

“All right…” Hardy hesitated. “I mean, sir, I still have classes this afternoon.”

“Did you hear what I said?” Van Orden said, his deep voice booming down the hallway until he regained his composure. He began to walk and Hardy followed. “By White House, I mean the Commander in Chief. I believe that will count as an excused absence.”

Hardy trotted to keep up. “How do they even know who I am?”

“I told them,” Van Orden said. “Come. I’ll explain on the way.”

A man in a dark suit and sunglasses rounded the corner of Dahlgren Hall as Van Orden and Hardy passed the Submarine Monument on their way to the front gate. He gave a slight nod.

“Dr. Van Orden?”

“Yes.”

“Special Agent Marsh,” the man said. “I’m your ride.” He raised a wrist to his lips, then spoke into a mic on his sleeve. “Marsh to CROWN, I have them both.”

Hardy balked when they reached the statue of Billy the Goat. “That’s Lieutenant Commander Gill, my English lit professor,” he said, nodding to a naval officer walking toward them from Lejeune Hall. “He’s also my company officer.”

“Going somewhere, Mr. Hardy?” the officer asked.

“Yes, sir,” Hardy said.

“As a matter of fact, we both are,” Van Orden said.

“Funny,” Gill said. “I didn’t see a missed-class chit for you in my inbox.”

“I’ve not completed one, sir.”

“I suggest you make time,” the officer said, professional but unyielding.

The Secret Service agent stepped in. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to excuse us, sir. Midshipman Hardy is expected at an important meeting.”

Gill grimaced, unconvinced. “I have no idea who you are. And who’s so important as to rate a disruption of Academy SOP?”

“The President, sir,” Special Agent Marsh said.

“The president of what?”

“The United States, sir,” Marsh said.

“The President? What’s this all about, Hardy?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, sir,” Marsh said, displaying the five-pointed star on his credentials. “Now, if you will please excuse us. The superintendent has the information you are cleared for.”

“I kind of feel sorry for him,” Hardy said when he slid into the backseat of a black Crown Victoria parked in the No Parking area on Randall Street in front of the gate. “He was just doing his job.”

“That makes two of us.” Marsh shot him a glance in the rearview mirror, smiling. “But you have to admit, this will go down as Yard legend.”

Hardy was pressed backward into the leather seat as the agent activated his lights and sirens and punched the accelerator to get them to the White House. For the first time since getting the news, Van Orden saw him act like the excited twenty-year-old that he was instead of a stoic midshipman. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “This is dope.”