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“If the Corporation had been hired to launch this operation,” Overholt asked, “how would you go about it?”
“You mean if an evil twin to the Corporation existed and we wanted to kill as many people as possible?” Cabrillo asked. “We would want to introduce the radioactivity in the iridium to the largest possible population.”
“So you’d need a delivery system of some sort?” the president asked.
“Correct, Mr. President,” Cabrillo said.
“Then if we have the British seal off their airspace, the threat of aerial dispersal is eliminated,” the president noted. “Then we just have the bomb to deal with.”
“We will need increased security at the underground stations and public areas as well,” Cabrillo added, “in case their plan is to dust public areas with radioactive dust. Maybe they have somehow dismantled the nuke and ground up the core, and their plan is to combine it with the iridium in a powdered form to poison the populace.”
“Then the British will need to watch their mail and package delivery apparatus as well,” the president added. “What else?”
The four men were silent as they thought.
“Let’s pray you can recover the meteorite and the bomb together,” the president said, “and protect England from ruin. Any other outcome is too horrible to consider.”
The call ended, and Cabrillo started walking back to the conference room.
What he had no way of knowing was that while Great Britain was a target for one operation, the other target was three time zones away to the east.
Cabrillo opened the door and entered the conference room.
“I just got off the telephone with the president,” Cabrillo said as he made his way to the head of the table. “We have the resources of the United States government behind us.”
The group waited for Cabrillo to continue.
“There’s one other thing,” he continued. “A CIA scientist has advanced a theory that there might be traces of gases from deep space inside the molecules of the meteorite. These gases may have suspended in them a virus or pathogen that could prove deadly. No matter what, once we recover the meteorite it’s not to be disturbed.”
Julia Huxley spoke. As medical officer, she was tasked with the crew’s safety. “What about exposure to the exterior of the meteorite?” she asked. “You were right next to the orb.”
“The scientist said that if a virus was on the exterior it would have burned up upon entering the atmosphere. The problem could arise if the meteorite was drilled, for example. If the molecules have arranged themselves in a certain manner, they may have produced pockets larger than molecule size that contain the gases.”
“How large might these pockets be?” Huxley asked.
“It’s only a theory,” Cabrillo said, “but the meteorite could be a hollow sphere much like a chocolate Easter egg. Or, there might be clusters of gas like naturally occurring geodes have, where there are pockets of crystal in various sizes. No one knows until it is recovered and studied.”
“Any idea as to the type of virus?” Huxley asked. “Maybe I can prepare a serum.”
“None,” Cabrillo said carefully, “but if it’s from space and it’s released on Earth, it couldn’t be good.”
The room was so quiet you could hear a buzzing fly.
Cabrillo stared at Hanley.
“Adams is almost ready to leave,” Hanley said, “and our Challenger 604 will be arriving in Aberdeen shortly.”
“Where’s Truitt?”
Richard “Dick” Truitt was the Corporation’s vice president of operations.
“He was aboard the emir’s plane,” Hanley said. “He returned the emir safely to Qatar. I ordered our Gulfstream in Dubai to fly to Qatar and pick him up. They should have already left and are probably somewhere over Africa.”
“Send him to London,” Cabrillo ordered. “Keep him and the Gulfstream on standby.”
Hanley nodded.
“I want all of you to continue planning the assault of our mystery ship,” Cabrillo said. “If all goes according to plan, we can wrap this up in the next twelve hours. As usual, Hanley is in charge while I’m gone.”
