Impact wf-3 Page 12

  On the far side of the slab, Abbey halted, staring. "Oh my God."

  In front of her was a fresh crater, five feet in diameter.

  28

  Ford followed the soldiers down the trail and found the mining camp a scene of chaos, the dust rising, soldiers fleeing and miners milling about, shocked and confused, unable to comprehend what was happening. Others, including entire families, were running, hobbling, or limping away into the forest, some carrying or helping along their sick.

  Looking about for Khon, he finally spied the familiar round figure jogging down from the edge of the forest, carrying a pack. He caught up to Ford, heaving, his face coated with sweat. "Mr. Mandrake! Greetings."

  "Nice work, Khon." Ford unzipped the pack, pulled out a handheld RadMeter. He switched it on, took a reading. "Forty millirems per hour. Not bad."

  Khon looked at the bloodstains on Ford's shirt. "What'd they do to you?"

  "You were a little late with the fireworks, my friend. Almost too late."

  "I had a bit of trouble stealing the dynamite from the shed. I only had time to reach the closest hill."

  "How'd you handle the soldier who came to inspect?"

  "I figured they might do that. I divided the charge and set a second one as a booby trap. Poor fellow."

  "Clever." Ford pulled a digital camera and GPS out of the pack. He tossed the GPS to Khon. "You mark waypoints. I'm taking pictures."

  "Right, boss."

  Ford approached the mouth of the mine shaft, holding out the RadMeter. It was a clearly an impact crater, layers of ejecta sprayed out in a radial pattern, all brecciated rock and shatter cones.

  "Eighty millirems," Ford said. "It's still fairly low up here. We can stand an hour of this at least before we have to worry."

  He cautiously peered into the pit. The crater sloped inward ever steeper, turning into a vertical shaft of about ten feet in diameter with walls of fused glasslike material. Lights were strung on wires attached to the sides of the shaft, with two sets of bamboo ladders going down to what appeared to be a gem-bearing layer. The generator powering the electricity was still running in a nearby shed. A massive scaffolding of bamboo above the pit supported a winch and cargo net for raising and lowering equipment.

  Ford stared into the hole, increasingly mystified. It was an incredibly deep crater--bottomless, it seemed--as if the impactor had just kept right on going. He took some pictures of the shaft, then finished up with a panoramic set of pictures all around, three hundred and sixty degrees. He took a set of readings from the RadMeter at fixed distances.

  Khon soon returned with the GPS. "All done."

  The camp was now almost completely deserted, except dead bodies scattered about.

  "Let's blow up this pop stand before our friends realize they've been conned," said Ford. "Because if we don't, they'll be back. And this will start over again." He felt sick with anger looking at the dead bodies strewn about. Some were not even dead, trying to crawl away.

  Ford and Khon busted open the doors of the dynamite shed and loaded crates of dynamite onto the abandoned mule cart, along with detonators, timers, and wire. They hauled the dynamite to the mine and stacked the crates onto the cargo net, spread on the ground. Ford plugged each crate with a detonator and wired them all to a timer and a backup.

  Ford set the timer. "Thirty minutes."

  Working the electric winch, they lifted the net, swung it out over the mouth of the pit, and lowered it down about a hundred feet, playing out the detonator wires as it went. They rested the improvised bomb on the bamboo platform. Ford disabled the motorized winch by knocking off the terminal with a metal bar and ripping out some wires.

  "Twenty-five minutes," Ford said, checking his watch. "Let's get the hell out of here."

  They jogged toward the wall of jungle and kept going, soon picking up the old trail they had come in on. As they ran, they passed ragged groups of slow-moving villagers. Nobody paid any attention to them. The soldiers had vanished.

  "It's close," said Ford, feeling an almost unbearable knot in his stomach. He had never in his life experienced a more hellish scene of human misery, cruelty, and exploitation. What was it in the Cambodian national character that allowed a genuinely kind, gentle, and considerate people, of strong Buddhist faith, to descend to these depths?

  They paused, resting on a boulder in the dry streambed. The explosion came right on schedule.

  29

  Randall Worth cut the engine and drifted in the fog, staring at his radar. The bright blob on the screen, a few hundred yards due south, must be the Marea. Beyond it a smear of green represented Shark Island.

  Shark Island. Eight miles out to sea, no harbor, surrounded by reefs, impossible to land on except in a dead calm. A perfect treasure island. Why hadn't he thought of it himself?

  He dropped anchor, taking care not to rattle the chain. When it was set, he began loading up his backpack. In went a small portable toolbox, wire cutters, baling wire, duct tape, a knife, the RG .44 Mag, and a box of Winchester hollow-points.

  He settled back to wait, listening into the fog. The island was about four hundred yards off and the fog dampened any sound. He could hear nothing. He felt his heart pounding and he tried to ignore that crawling sensation under the surface of his skin, the crank bugs. Not yet, not now. He had to keep his head clear.

  Then he heard something: a faint shout. He leaned forward. The shout was followed by a faint but distinct series of whoops, then cheering. Cheering.

  He sat up, his heart pounding. Those were the sounds of triumph. They'd found it. Unfuckingbelievable. He grabbed the backpack, tossed it in the dinghy, leapt in after it, pushed off, and began rowing like hell for the Marea. There was almost no sea and the fog was a lucky break.

  After a few minutes, the outline of the Marea loomed up. He raised his oars and listened intently. Closer to the island, he could now hear their disembodied voices more distinctly, excited talk, the unmistakable sounds of digging, the clank of a shovel and the ring of a pick on stone. He pulled up to the stern of the Marea, tied off the dinghy, hauled in his pack, and hopped aboard.

  Standing in the wheel house, Worth made an effort to get his breathing under control, stop the trembling of his hands. That meth was really fucking him up, making him jumpy. After this he'd be set for life and then he'd quit. He wouldn't need it anymore. He could hear his heart banging away, feel the blood rushing through his ears. A bottle of Jim Beam stood on the console in the wheel house, and he seized it, taking a good swig, then another. Slowly he came down.

  Keeping his mind focused, he checked the battery switch and made sure it was off. Pulling the portable toolbox out of his pack, he took out a screwdriver and unscrewed the electrical panel, setting it aside. A mass of wires greeted his eyes, all neatly color coded and bundled.

  He knew exactly what he had to do.

  30

  By three o'clock that afternoon, Mark Corso was starting to breathe easier. When he'd arrived in his office that morning, the day after the disastrous staff meeting, he was relieved to find no pink slip on his desk. All day he had worked like crazy on the SHARAD data and now it was done. And very well done, he had to say so himself: the charts and everything neatly organized, bound, pouched, and slipcased, the images crisp and clear, cleaned of noise, and digitally processed.

  There had been no nasty visit from Derkweiler, no warning memo or call. He hadn't even seen the man. He had made a mistake with the periodicity but he was sure he'd made no mistake with the gamma ray data. It was real, he knew it was real, and just maybe Chaudry would think about it and realize it was worth investigating.

  Mark Corso tucked the package under his arm, swallowed hard, and set off down the hall toward Derkweiler's office. A quick knock, a "come in," and he eased open the door with trepidation. There was Derkweiler, sitting behind his desk, incipient sweat moons under his arms. "So it's you, Corso."

  "I've got the SHARAD data," Corso said, with as much cool dignity as he could
muster. He patted the folder under his arm and swallowed hard, speaking the lines he'd rehearsed to himself earlier. "I want to apologize for yesterday's presentation. I got carried away by the gamma ray data. I can assure you it won't happen again."

  Derkweiler was looking at him. Not exactly staring, but looking steadily, his eyes rimmed in red. He looked like he'd been up all night.

  "Mr. Corso. . . . Well, I'm sorry to have to say this to you." Derkweiler sighed, placed his hands on the desk. "Yesterday, I did the paperwork to . . . terminate your employment here. I'm very sorry."

  Thunderstruck, Corso could find no response.

  "We're a quasi-government bureaucracy and it takes a while for a termination to work its way through the system. I regret you've had to wait. But I think we both know this isn't going to work out." His gaze remained on Corso, steady and cool.

  "But Dr. Chaudry . . .?"

  "Dr. Chaudry and I are in full agreement on this."

  Again, Corso tried to swallow. Physically, he couldn't seem to get himself going. He was like the tin woodsman, all frozen up.

  "Well," said Derkweiler, giving the table a final pat. "That's all. You've got until the end of the day. I'm terribly sorry but I think it'll be for the best."

  "But . . . do you still want the SHARAD data?" Corso said, before realizing just how inane he sounded.

  A look of irritation crossed Derkweiler's features as he reached out and took the folder. "I guess you didn't hear what I said at the meeting: that I'd prepare the SHARAD data myself. I was up all night doing it." He extended his arm over the wastebasket and dropped the folder in. "I don't need it or want it now."

  Corso felt himself flushing deeply at the gratuitous gesture. Derkweiler continued staring at him. "Is there something else, or are we done here?"

  Corso turned stiffly and walked out.

  "Please shut the door behind you."

  Corso shut the door and stood in the hall, trembling. His shock and disbelief turned to a feeling of physical sickness, and then to anger. This was wrong. This was unjust. Throwing his work in the wastebasket . . . That was unwarranted. He couldn't let this happen.

  He turned back and opened the door--and caught Derkweiler in the act of bending over the wastebasket, fishing his packet out of the trash.

  That did it. Corso found his mouth opening, words coming up almost as if someone else were saying them. "You . . . you fat-ass piece of shit."

  "Excuse me?"

  "You heard me." Who was speaking here? What was he even saying? Corso had never been so angry in his life.

  Derkweiler reddened and let the folder drop back into the trash, and then he leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, exposing the full extent of his underarm wetness. "Going out with a bang, I see. Anything else you want to add?"

  "In fact, there is. I'm amazed to find you here at NPF at all, let alone in a supervisory position. You are mediocrity incarnate. You and Chaudry both. I handed you evidence that something dangerous, possibly catastrophic, might be occurring on or near Mars. It's staring you in the face and you don't see it. You're no different from the Inquisition that convicted Galileo."

  "Ah, so now you're Galileo?" A cold hard smile creased Derkweiler's face, suddenly disappearing. "Well, Corso, now that you've vented, please go straight to your office and remain there. You've got fifteen minutes to clear out your desk. At that time, security will escort you from the premises. Understood?"

  He swiveled his chair around and turned his fat back to Corso and began typing on his computer keyboard.

  Fifteen minutes later Corso was heading out the front lobby of NPF, escorted by two security guards. He carried a small cardboard box of his meager possessions: his framed diplomas from Brown and MIT, a geode paperweight, and a picture of his mother.

  As he stepped into the hot sunlight, walking into a sea of shining cars in the gigantic parking lot, Mark Corso had a revelation. He halted, almost dropping his box. He recalled a small, seemingly insignificant fact: Deimos, one of the tiny moons of Mars, orbited the planet every thirty hours. That explained the periodicity anomaly.

  The gamma ray source was not on Mars--it was on Deimos.

  31

  The fog turned to a drizzle as Abbey feverishly cleared rocks from the crater, prying them out with a pick and tossing them over the rim. The meteorite had punched through about a foot of soil into the bedrock below, spewing out dirt and leaving behind a fractured mass of stones and mud. She was surprised at how small the crater was, only about three feet deep and five feet wide. The rain was now drizzling steadily and the bottom of the crater was turning into a churned-up mess, a pool of muck mingled with broken rocks.

  Abbey pried out a particularly large fragment and rolled it up to the crater's rim, Jackie grabbing it and dragging it out.

  "There are a lot of damn rocks in here," said Jackie. "How're we going to know which is the meteorite?"

  "Believe me, you'll know. It's made of metal--nickel iron."

  "What if it's too heavy to lift?"

  Abbey pried another rock out of the bottom, hefted it, dumped it over the rim. "We'll figure out something. The paper said it was a hundred pounds."

  "The paper said that it might be as small as a hundred pounds."

  "The bigger the better." Abbey cleared some smaller rocks and tossed out a few shovelfuls of viscous mud. As they worked, the drizzle became a steady rain. Even with her slicker she was soon soaked. Cold mud kept slopping over the tops of her boots until her feet were slushing and sucking with every movement.

  "Get the bucket and rope out of the dinghy."

  Jackie disappeared in the mist, returning five minutes later. Abbey tied the rope to the bucket handle and scooped up mud, which Jackie hauled out and dumped, handing it back for another load.

  Abbey grunted as she hoisted up another bucket of mud. She took the shovel and began probing down into the muck with it, the tip clinking on rock. "That's bedrock, right there." More probing. "The meteorite's got to be down there, right among those busted-up rocks."

  "So how big is it?"

  Abbey thought for a moment, did a mental calculation. What was the specific gravity of iron? Seven and change. "A hundred-pound meteorite," she said, "would be about ten, twelve inches in diameter."

  "That all?"

  "That's plenty big enough." Abbey inserted the tip of the pick between two broken rocks and pried them apart with a sucking sound of mud, and wrestled them up the slope. She was getting coated with mud and the rain was trickling down her neck, but she didn't care. She was about to make the discovery of a lifetime.

  Randy Worth screwed the Marea's engine panel back on and wiped off his greasy fingerprints. He shifted position and shined the light down into the engine compartment--everything looked normal, no sign of his work. He set the hatch back in place and dogged it down tight, again wiping it clean of greasy marks.

  The tools went back into the backpack, which he zipped up and slung over his shoulder. He stood up and looked around, his eye traveling over every surface, seeking any inadvertent sign of his presence. All clean. He checked the engine settings, circuit breakers, and battery dial to make sure they were all in the position he had found them.

  He ducked out of the pilothouse and listened toward the island. The rain was now drumming on the roof and pecking the surrounding ocean, but he could still hear the sounds of digging, the ring of iron against rock, the babble of excited conversation. It sounded like they'd be at it for a while yet.

  He moved to the stern, untied his dinghy, and climbed in. His skin itched, his scalp crawled, and something funny was going on behind his eyeballs. Crank was what he needed, and fast. He'd worked hard--he'd earned it. He pulled hard with the oars, so hard that one jumped out of its oarlock. With a curse, his hands trembling, he refitted it and rowed on. Soon the Marea had disappeared in the mist and a few minutes later his own scow loomed up, streaked with rust and oil.

  He climbed into his boat and retreated int
o the cuddy, where he fumbled around for the stash and pipe. He took out a rock with trembling fingers, tried to put it in the bowl, dropped it, swore, hunted it down, managed to get it in, and fired it up.

  Oh motherfuck, that was good. He lay back with a groan, feeling his cock go hard with the rush, his thoughts turning to what he would do to those bitches when he got them.

  Abbey continued shoveling mud into the bucket and prying out rocks, gradually clearing out the bottom of the crater where the bedrock had fractured. The rain continued, getting harder, and she could begin to hear surf on the invisible rocks below. A swell was making--they had better finish soon.

  She pried out an exceptionally big rock and Jackie climbed down to help her manhandle it out of the hole. She probed some more with the shovel, then got on her hands and knees and felt about in the chilly muck with her hands. "It really busted things up down here. But I think we're getting close."

  "You look a fright," said Jackie, with a laugh.

  "You don't look like a debutante at the cotillion either."

  More rocks, more mud came out of the hole. She stopped to feel around the muck with her hands.

  "Abbey, we're not finding any meteorite."

  "It's here. It's got to be."

  She got on her knees and scooped mud off the granite bedrock below. The rain began washing the bedrock clean. Abbey could see, with mounting excitement, a radiative pattern of cracks in the bedrock, but the mud kept flowing in. "It's got to be right here," she said loudly, as if to make it so. She scooped more mud and rocks into the bucket.

  "It wasn't one of the rocks we tossed out, was it?" Jackie asked.

  "I told you, it's nickel iron!"

  "Whoa, just asking."

  Exasperated, her heart sinking, Abbey felt all over the bottom of the depression. Perhaps the meteorite was wedged so firmly it felt like part of the bedrock. She scooped as much of the mud and gravel up with her hands as she could, filling the bucket a few more times.