Cyclops dp-8 Page 10

  Secretary of State Douglas Oates peered through his reading glasses at the last page of a thirty-page letter. He closely examined the structure of each paragraph, trying to read between the lines. At last he looked up at his deputy secretary, Victor Wykoff.

  "Looks genuine to me."

  "Our experts on the subject think so too," said Wykoff. "The semantics, the rambling flow, the disjointed sentences, all fit the usual pattern."

  "No denying it sounds like Fidel all right," Oates said quietly. "However, it's the tone of the letter that bothers me. You almost get the impression he's begging."

  "I don't think so. More like he's trying to stress utmost secrecy with a healthy dose of urgency thrown in."

  "The consequences of his proposal are staggering."

  "My staff has studied it from every angle," said Wykoff. "Castro has nothing to gain from creating a hoax."

  "You say he went through devious lengths to get the document into our hands."

  Wykoff nodded. "Crazy as it sounds, the two couriers, who delivered it to our field office in Miami, claim they sneaked from Cuba to the United States on board a blimp."

  <<12>>

  The barren mountains and the shadowy ridges on the moon's craters leaped out at Anastas Rykov as he peered through the twin lenses of a stereoscope. Beneath the eyes of the Soviet geophysicist the desolate lunar landscape unreeled in three dimensions and vivid color. Taken from thirty-four miles up, the details were strikingly sharp. Solitary pebbles, measuring less than one inch across, were visually distinct.

  Rykov lay face downward on a pad, studying the photographic montage that slowly rolled beneath to the stereoscope on two wide reels. The process was similar to a motion picture director editing film, only more comfortable. His hand rested on a small control unit that could stop the reels and magnify whatever area he was scrutinizing.

  The images had been received from sophisticated devices on a Russian spacecraft that had circumnavigated the moon. Mirrorlike scanners reflected the lunar surface into a prism that broke it down into spectrum wavelengths that were digitized into 263 different shades of gray, black beginning at 263 and fading to white at zero. Next, the spacecraft's computer converted them into a quiltwork of picture elements on high-density tape. After the data was retrieved from the orbiting spacecraft, it was printed in black-and-white on a negative by laser and filtered with blue, red, and green wavelengths. Then it was computer enhanced in color on two continuous sheets of photographic paper that were overlapped for stereoscopic interpretation.

  Rykov raised his glasses and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was 11:57 PM. He'd been analyzing the peaks and valleys of the moon with only a few catnaps for nine days and nights. He readjusted his glasses and ran both hands through a dense carpet of oily black hair, dully realizing he hadn't bathed or changed his clothes since beginning the project.

  He shook away the exhaustion and dutifully returned to his work, examining a small area on the far side of the moon that was volcanic in origin. Only two inches of the photo roll remained before it mysteriously ended. He had not been informed by his superiors of the reason for the sudden cutoff, but assumed it was a malfunction of the scanning gear.

  The surface was pockmarked and wrinkled, like pimpled skin under a strong magnifying glass, and appeared more beechnut brown than gray in color. The steady bombardment of meteorites through the ages had left crater gouged on crater, scar crossing scar.

  Rykov almost missed it. His eyes detected an unnatural oddity, but his tired mind nearly ignored the signal. Wearily he backed the image and magnified a grid on the edge of a steep ridge soaring from the floor of a small crater. Three tiny objects came into crisp focus.

  What he saw was unbelievable. Rykov pulled back from the stereoscope and took a deep breath, clearing the creeping fog from his brain. Then he looked again.

  They were still there, but one object was a rock. The other two were human figures.

  Rykov was transfixed by what he saw. Then the shock set in and his hands began to tremble and his stomach felt as though it had been twisted in a knot. Shaken, he climbed off the pad, walked over to a desk, and opened a small booklet containing private phone numbers of the Soviet Military Space Command. He misdialed twice before he connected with the correct number.

  A voice slurred from vodka answered. "What is it?"

  "General Maxim Yasenin?"

  "Yes, who's this?"

  "We've never met. My name is Anastas Rykov. I'm a geophysicist on the Cosmos Lunar Project."

  The commander of Soviet military space missions made no attempt to hide his irritation over Rykov's intrusion on his privacy. "Why in hell are you calling me this time of night?"

  Rykov fully realized he was overstepping his bounds, but he didn't hesitate. "While analyzing pictures taken by Selenos 4, I've stumbled on something that defies belief. I thought you should be first to be informed."

  "Are you drunk, Rykov?"

  "No, General. Tired but Siberian sober."

  "Unless you are a complete fool, you must know you are in deep trouble for going over the heads of your superiors."

  "This is too important to share with anyone beneath your level of authority."

  "Sleep on it and you won't be so brash in the morning," said Yasenin. "I'll do you a favor and forget the whole matter. Goodnight."

  "Wait!" Rykov demanded, throwing caution aside. "If you dismiss my call, I will have no choice but to turn my discovery over to Vladimir Polevoi."

  Rykov's statement was greeted by an icy silence. Finally Yasenin said, "What makes you think the chief of state security would listen to a crazy man?"

  "When he checked my dossier, he would find I am a respected party member and a scientist who is far from lunacy."

  "Oh?" Yasenin asked, his irritation turning to curiosity. He decided to pin Rykov down. "All right. I'll hear you out. What's so vital to the interest of Mother Russia that it can't go through prescribed channels?"

  Rykov spoke very calmly. "I have proof that someone is on the moon."

  Forty-five minutes later, General Yasenin strode into the photo analysis laboratory of the Geophysical Space Center. Big, beefy, and red of face, he wore a rumpled uniform that was ablaze with decorations. The hair was smoke-gray, the eyes steady and hard. He walked quietly, his head thrust out as if stalking a prey.

  "You Rykov?" he asked without prelude.

  "Yes," Rykov said simply but firmly.

  They stared at each other a moment, neither making any attempt at shaking hands. Finally, Rykov cleared his throat and motioned toward the stereoscope.

  "This way, General," he said. "Please lie prone on the leather cushion and look through the eyepiece."

  As Yasenin positioned himself over the photo montage he asked, "What am I searching for?"

  "Focus on the small area I've circled," replied Rykov.

  The general adjusted the lenses to his vision and peered downward, his face impassive. After a full minute, he looked up strangely, then bent over the stereoscope again. At last he slowly rose and stared at Rykov, eyes stark in open astonishment.

  "This is not a photographic trick?" he asked dumbly.

  "No, General. What you see is real. Two human forms, wearing encapsulated suits, are aiming some sort of device at Selenos 4."

  Yasenin's mind could not accept what his eyes saw to be true. "It's not impossible. Where do they come from?"

  Rykov shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. If they're not United States astronauts, they can only be aliens."

  "I do not believe in supernatural fairy tales."

  "But how could the Americans launch men to the moon without the event leaking to the world news media or our intelligence people?"

  "Suppose they left men behind and stockpiled material during the Apollo program. Such an effort might be possible."

  "Their last known lunar landing was by Apollo 17 in 1972," Rykov recalled. "No human could survive the harsh lunar conditions for s
eventeen years without being resupplied."

  "I can think of no one else," Yasenin insisted.

  He returned to the stereoscope and intently studied the human forms standing in the crater. The sun's glare was coming from the right, throwing their shadows to the left. Their suits were white, and he could make out the dark green viewports on the helmets. They were of a design unfamiliar to him. Yasenin could clearly distinguish footprints leading into a pitch-black shadow cast by the crater's rim.

  "I know what you're looking for, General," said Rykov, "but I've already examined the landscape on the floor of the crater and cannot find any sign of their spacecraft."

  "Perhaps they climbed down from the top?"

  "That's a sheer drop of over a thousand feet."

  "I'm at a loss to explain any of this," Yasenin admitted quietly.

  "Please look closely at the device they're both holding and pointing at Selenos 4. It seems to be a large camera with an extremely long telephoto lens."

  "No," said Yasenin. "You're treading in my territory now. Not a camera but a weapon."

  "A laser?"

  "Nothing so advanced. Strikes me as a hand-held surface-to-air missile system of American manufacture. A Lariat type 40, I should say. Homes in with a guidance beam, ten-mile range on earth, probably much more in the moon's rarefied atmosphere. Became operational with NATO forces about six years ago. So much for your alien theory."

  Rykov was awed. "Every ounce of weight is precious in space flight. Why carry something so heavy and useless as a rocket launcher?"

  "The men in the crater found a purpose. They used it against Selenos 4."

  Rykov thought a moment. "That would explain why the scanners stopped operating a minute later. They were damaged

  "By a hit from a rocket," Yasenin finished.

  "We were fortunate the scanners finally relayed the digitized data before it crashed."

  "A pity the crew were not so lucky."

  Rykov stared at the general, not sure he'd heard right. "Selenos 4 was unmanned."

  Yasenin pulled a slim gold case from his coat, selected a cigarette, and lit it with a lighter embedded in the top. Then he slid the case back into a breast pocket.

  "Yes, of course, Selenos 4 was unmanned."

  "But you said

  Yasenin smiled coldly. "I said nothing."

  The message was clear. Rykov valued his position too much to pursue the subject. He simply nodded.

  "Do you wish a report on what we've seen here tonight?" Rykov asked.

  "The original, no copies, on my desk by ten o'clock tomorrow. And, Rykov, consider this a state secret of the highest priority."

  "I will confide in no one but you, General."

  "Good man. There may be party honor in this for you."

  Rykov wasn't going to hold his breath waiting for the award, yet he could not suppress a glow of pride in his work.

  Yasenin returned to the stereoscope, drawn to the image of the intruders on the moon. "So the fabled star wars have begun," he murmured to himself. "And the Americans have launched the first blow."

  <<13>>

  Pitt rejected any thought of lunch, and opened one of several granola bars he kept in his desk. Fumbling with the wrapper, held over a wastebasket to catch the crumbs, he kept his concentration locked on a large nautical chart spread across the desk. The chart's tendency to curl was held down by a memo pad and two books on historic shipwrecks that were opened to chapters on the Cyclops. The chart covered a large area of the Old Bahama Channel, flanked on the south by the Archipelago de Camaguey, a group of scattered islands off the coast of Cuba, and the shallow waters of the Great Bahama Bank to the north. The upper left corner of the chart took in the Cay Sal Bank, whose southeastern tip included the Anguilla Cays.

  He sat back and took a bite out of the granola bar. Then he bent over the chart again, sharpened a pencil, and picked up a pair of dividers. Setting the needle tips of the dividers on the scale printed on the bottom of the chart, he measured off twenty nautical miles and carefully marked the distance from the tip of the Anguilla Cays with a penciled dot. Next, he described a short arc another fifty miles to the southeast. He labeled the top dot Crogan Castle and the lower arc Cyclops with a question mark.

  Somewhere above the arc is where the Cyclops sank, he reasoned. A logical assumption given the fact of the lumber freighter's position at the time of her distress signal and the Cyclops' distance as given in her reply.

  The only problem was that Raymond LeBaron's piece of the puzzle didn't fit.

  From his experience in searching for shipwrecks, Pitt was convinced LeBaron had performed the same exercise a hundred times, only delving deeper into currents, known weather conditions at the time of the loss, and the projected speed of the Navy collier. But one conclusion always came out the same. The Cyclops should have gone down in the middle of the channel under 260 fathoms of water, over 1,500 feet to the bottom. Far too deep to be visible to anything other than a fish.

  Pitt relaxed in his chair and stared at the markings on the chart. Unless LeBaron dredged up information nobody else knew about, what was he searching for? Certainly not the Cyclops, and certainly not from a blimp. A side-scan survey from a surface craft or a deepdiving submersible would have been better suited for the job.

  In addition, the prime search area was only twenty miles off Cuba. Hardly a comfortable place to cruise around in a slow-flying gas bag. Castro's gunboats would have declared open season on such an easy target.

  He was sitting lost in contemplation, nibbling on the granola bar, trying to see a probability in Raymond LeBaron's scheme that he had missed, when his desk speaker beeped. He pressed the Talk switch.

  "Yes?"

  "Sandecker. Can you come up to my office?"

  "Five minutes, Admiral."

  "Try for two."

  Admiral James Sandecker was the director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency. A man in his late fifties, he was of short stature, his body thin and stringy but hard as armor plating. The straight hair and Vandyke beard were blaze red. A fitness freak, he adhered to a strict exercise regimen. His naval career was distinguished more by hard-nosed efficiency than sea combat tactics. And though he wasn't popular in Washington social circles, politicians respected him for his integrity and organizational ability.

  The admiral greeted Pitt's entry into his office with nothing more than a curt nod, then gestured to a woman sitting in a leather chair across the room.

  "Dirk, I understand you've met Mrs. Jessie LeBaron."

  She looked up and smiled, but it was an ingratiating smile. Pitt bowed slightly and pressed her hand.

  "Sorry," he said indifferently. "I'd rather forget I know Mrs. LeBaron."

  Sandecker's eyebrows pinched together. "Am I missing something?"

  "My fault," said Jessie, staring into Pitt's eyes but seeing only green ice. "I was very rude to Mr. Pitt last night. I hope he accepts my apology and forgives my bad manners."

  "You needn't act so formal, Mrs. LeBaron. Since we're old pals, I won't throw a tantrum if you call me Dirk. As to forgiving you, how much is it going to cost me?"

  "My intent was to hire you," she replied, ignoring the gibe.

  He gave Sandecker a bemused look. "Strange, I had this funny idea I worked for NUMA."

  "Admiral Sandecker has kindly consented to release you for a few days, providing, of course, you're agreeable," she added.

  "To do what?"

  "To look for my husband."

  "No deal."

  "May I ask why?"

  "I have other projects."

  "You won't work for me because I'm a woman. Is that it?"

  "Sex has no bearing on my decision. Let's just say I don't work for someone I can't respect."

  There was an embarrassed silence. Pitt looked at the admiral. The lips were turned down in a grimace, but the eyes fairly twinkled. The old bastard was enjoying this, he thought.

  "You've misjudged me, Dirk." Jessie's face was
flushed in confusion, but her eyes were hard as crystal.

  "Please." Sandecker raised both hands. "Let's call a truce. I suggest you two get together some evening and have it out over dinner."

  Pitt and Jessie stared at each other for a long moment. Then Pitt's mouth slowly spread in a wide infectious smile. "I'm willing, providing I pay."

  Despite herself Jessie had to smile too. "Allow me some self-respect. Let's split the bill?"

  "Done."

  "Now we can get on with the business at hand," Sandecker said in his no-nonsense way. "Before you arrived, Dirk, we were discussing theories on Mr. LeBaron's disappearance."

  Pitt looked at Jessie. "There is no doubt in your mind that the bodies in the blimp were not those of Mr. LeBaron and his crew?"

  Jessie shook her head. "None."

  "I saw them. There wasn't much left to identify."

  "The corpse lying in the morgue was more muscular than Raymond," explained Jessie. "Also, he'd been wearing an imitation of a Cartier wristwatch. One of those cheap replicas made in Taiwan. I'd given my husband an expensive original on our first anniversary."

  "I've made a few calls on my own," added Sandecker. "The Miami coroner backed Jessie's judgment. Physical characteristics of the bodies in the morgue didn't match the three men who took off in the Prosperteer."

  Pitt looked from Sandecker to Jessie LeBaron, realizing he was getting involved in something he had wished to avoid-- the emotional entanglements complicating any project that depended on solid research, practical engineering, and razor-sharp organization.

  "Bodies and clothes switched," said Pitt. "Personal jewelry replaced with fakes. Any thoughts on a motive, Mrs. LeBaron?"

  "I don't know what to think."

  "Did you know that between the time the blimp vanished and when it reappeared in Key Biscayne the gas bags inside the hull would have had to be reinflated with helium?"

  She opened her purse, took out a Kleenex, and daintily dabbed at her nose, to give her something to do with her hands. "After the police released the Prosperteer, my husband's crew chief inspected every inch of her. I have his report, if you care to see it. You're very perceptive. He found that the gas bags had been refilled. Not with helium, but with hydrogen."