The Cassandra Compact

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

“Looking Glass, this is Eyeball. Do you copy?”

“Eyeball, we read you five by five. What do you see?”

“Discovery has just broken cloud cover. Trim is good. Angle of descent good. Speed good. She looks to make a pinpoint landing.”

“Roger that, Eyeball. Maintain surveillance. Looking Glass out.”

The exchange between Eyeball, the lead air force chase plane that would escort the shuttle, and the control tower at Groome Lake was listened to intently by a number of people.

In the observation bunker, the president glanced briefly around the room. All eyes were on the monitors that showed Discovery cutting through the air. On another screen he saw Dr. Karl Bauer about to leave the decontamination area, called the prep room. The president took a deep breath. Soon… very soon.

Wearing a Level Four biohazard suit, Bauer entered the short corridor between the prep room and the massive, vaultlike door that would allow him to enter the cocoon. Reaching it, he glanced up at the wall-mounted camera and nodded. Slowly the door began to open, revealing a cavity cut into the concrete wall. One end of the cocoon was attached to the wall of the cavity, the edges sealed to the concrete. Bauer stepped into the cocoon and immediately the door began to close.

Ahead, he saw a long, blue-lighted tunnel. When the door was firmly closed and locked, he walked along a rubber-padded runway. The walls of the cocoon were constructed of heavy gauge, semitransparent plastic. Looking through them, Bauer could see the vague outlines of the vast holding area, lit up by giant floodlights. As he moved toward the cocoon's decontamination chamber, he heard a low rumble. More light poured into the bunker as the runway ramp was lowered.

“This is Bauer,” he said into his headset. “Do you copy?”

“We read you, sir,” a tech in the observation bunker replied.

“Has the shuttle landed?”

“It's almost on the ground, sir.”

“Good,” Bauer replied, and continued walking to the cocoon's decontamination chamber.

On the other side of the base, Smith was listening in on this exchange. He turned to Jack Riley. “Let's mount up.”

The team scrambled into two double deuces with canvas covers. Smith would have preferred to use the more nimble and speedy Humvees instead of the trucks, but given the team's bulky biohazard suits, space was a problem.

The hangar doors opened and the small convoy, with Riley in the lead Humvee, pulled out into the desert night. Rocking back and forth on a bench in the back of the truck, Smith tried to keep a small, Palm Pilot-type monitor as steady as he could. The shuttle was just three thousand feet above the desert floor. Its nose was angled up slightly and the landing gear was locked down. As hard as he tried, Smith couldn't keep his thoughts away from Megan. He knew that his first instinct would be to rush into the orbiter and search for her. But doing so would only jeopardize her life. He had to get to Reed first and neutralize him. Only then could he go after her.

Smith recalled Klein's objections when he had told him what he intended to do. The head of Covert-One shared Smith's concern for Megan, but he also knew the danger that Smith would be exposing himself to.

“There's no guarantee that you'll find her alive, Jon,” he'd said. “We need to know what we're dealing with before I send you in.”

“We'll know,” Smith had promised him grimly.

Riley's voice crackled over his headset. “Jon, look to the southeast.”

Smith glanced over the truck's tailgate and saw bright lights descending quickly. On either side were the winking collision lights of the shuttle's escort aircraft. He listened as Riley counted off the descent: “Five hundred feet… two hundred… touchdown.”

The convoy was on a runway parallel to the one the shuttle used. Smith saw the orbiter dip as the nose gear absorbed the weight. Then the parachutes popped open, slowing the craft.

“Here comes the cavalry,” he heard Riley say.

Three fire trucks and a HazMat vehicle fanned out behind the shuttle, staying fifty yards back.

Smith watched them roll by, then said, “Okay, Jack. Let's fall in.”

The double deuces slipped into gear and followed Riley's Humvee as it turned onto the taxiway, then the main runway.

“Step on it, Jack!” Smith said as he watched the shuttle reach the ramp that descended into the bunker.

Riley obliged. Gunning the deuce, he pulled up to the ramp just as the shuttle disappeared.

“Jon!”

But Smith had already jumped out and was running into the bunker. Two-thirds of the way down, he felt the ramp shudder and slowly rise. Moving as fast as he could, he reached the end only to discover that he was ten feet above the bunker floor. Smith took a deep breath and jumped, landing hard, then ducking and rolling. Lying on his back, he watched the ramp slowly rise, blot out the sky, then lock and seal.

Getting to his feet, he turned and saw the cocoon, a monstrous, white worm beneath the overhead lights. Inside it, a shadow paused in its movement and slowly turned toward him.

Dr. Karl Bauer had been watching the shuttle park, then turned his attention to the ramp. For an instant, he thought he saw something drop from the ramp, but dismissed the thought when he felt the ramp close with a shudder. The cavern was sealed.

“Control, this is Bauer.”

“This is control, Doctor,” a technician replied. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes. I am proceeding to mate the cocoon with the orbiter. When Dr. Reed is safely out, I will reseal the hatch. Is that understood?”

“We copy, Doctor. Good luck.”

Staring through the plastic, Smith saw Bauer's form become more and more vague as the scientist moved through the cocoon. Careful not to allow Bauer to see him, he started to make his way to the shuttle when he noticed a perfectly round break in the concrete. Then he picked out another one. Then many more. Places where the cement had been cored for the gas lines that would feed the flames.

On the flight deck, Dylan Reed had remained strapped in the pilot's chair until a light on the console indicated that the orbiter's systems had shut down completely. The descent had been nerve-racking. At the Cape, Reed had been shown computer simulations of how, in the event of an emergency, NASA computers would bring down the craft ― and park it on a dime if need be. He recalled smiling and saying how wonderful that was. Privately, he'd thought: Right. A few hundred gallons of residual, high-octane fuel onboard a hurtling, ten-year-old craft built by the lowest bidder. Yet by some miracle, both the computers and the orbiter had done their job.

Reed unstrapped himself, got out of the chair, and made his way down the ladder to mid-deck. He glanced briefly at the door that opened on the tunnel to the Spacelab. He wondered if Megan Olson had somehow survived. It didn't matter. She would never see anything familiar again.

During reentry, Reed had kept the communications channels switched off. He didn't think he could bear listening to Harry Landon's whiny questions and expressions of concern. Nor did he want to be distracted from what lay ahead. Positioning himself in front of the exit hatch, he punched in the alphanumeric code that shot back the bolts. But the hatch still had to be opened from the outside.

Reed glanced down at the pants pocket in which he'd placed the vial of variola. Suddenly, he wanted very much to be rid of it.

Come on! he thought impatiently.

He felt the orbiter shift slightly. Then a second time. He imagined he could hear the hiss of air as the cocoon mated itself to the shuttle. Anxiously he looked at the overhead display panel. A green light appeared, indicating that the mating was complete.

Reed was changing frequencies on his suit radio when, without warning, the hatch opened and retracted and he found himself looking straight at the masked face of Dr. Karl Bauer.

“You!” he cried.

The original plan had called for Bauer to wait for Reed on the quarantined side of the decontamination chamber. But with Richardson and Price out of the picture, Bauer had decided to improve upon his scheme. Working the levers on the pedestal-mounted control panel, he raised the cocoon so that its open end mated with the shuttle. Once the seals were in place, he took a moment to slip into his new role, then opened the hatch. He almost smiled when he saw Reed's startled expression.

“What are you doing here?” Reed demanded. “What's wrong?”

Bauer motioned him to step back so that he could enter.

“Richardson is dead,” he said bluntly. “So is Price.”

“Dead? But how could ―?”

Bauer began to mix in the lies. "The president knows. about the virus.

Even through his protective faceplate, Bauer saw how badly Reed paled. “That's impossible!”

“It's true,” Bauer replied. “Now listen to me. There's still a way out for us. Are you listening?”

Reed's helmet bobbed as he nodded.

“Good. Now give me the sample.”

“But how will we ―?”

“Get it out? Me. Listen, Dylan. I haven't a clue as to how much Castilla and his people really know about Richardson and Price. Maybe they've already connected you to them. But we can't afford to take the chance that they have. If you're searched, it's all over. But they wouldn't dare lay a finger on me.”

“What's going to happen to me?” Reed demanded, his voice panicky.

“Nothing. You have my word on that. By the time this is over, you'll be the hero, the only survivor of a mission gone tragically wrong. Now give me the sample.”

Carefully Reed reached into his pocket and handed over the vial. He jumped back as Bauer calmly opened it and poured out the fatal contents on a stainless-steel counter.

“Are you crazy?” he screamed. “That's all we have!”

“I didn't say that we wouldn't take a sample,” Bauer replied.

He pulled out a swab and a tiny, ceramic capsule, the size of a vitamin capsule. Bending over the puddle he had just created, he brushed the swab in the fluids, broke off the tip, and sealed it in the capsule. Reed watched, puzzled. He couldn't quite snare the purpose of the capsule.

“You're going to carry it out like that?” he asked. “What about the decontamination process?”

“The ceramic will protect the sample,” Bauer replied. “After all, that's what the plates on the underbelly of this craft are made of, to preserve the shuttle from the heat of reentry. Don't worry, Dylan. It's all part of my new plan.”

Something didn't sound quite right to Reed. “So what do I―”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of the scalpel that cut open his suit, slicing all the way to flesh.

“No!” he cried, staggering back.

“Witnesses aren't part of the new plan,” Bauer said. “If I let you come out, the interrogators would tear you apart. And because you are fundamentally a weak man, you would talk. But if you don't survive, then I get to write the final chapter of Discovery's history, sad as it will be.”

Bauer simply sidestepped when Reed made a desperate attempt to grab him. Reed fell and rolled over, then began shaking violently. His body was seized by convulsions that made his spine bend like a bow. Keeping a safe distance, Bauer watched, fascinated, as his creation went about its deadly business. He couldn't take his eyes off Reed for more than a few seconds, not even when he began to arm the autodestruct sequence.