Just then the door to the conference room opened and Gunther Reinholt, the Oregon’s aging propulsion engineer, poked his head inside.
“Mr. Chairman,” he said, “there’s a call you need to take.”
Cabrillo nodded and rose from the head of the table, then followed Reinholt into the hall. “Who’s calling?” he asked.
“The president, sir,” Reinholt said, leading Cabrillo toward the control room.
Cabrillo said nothing—there was really nothing to say. Reaching the control room, he opened the door, made his way over to the secure telephone and lifted the receiver.
“This is Juan Cabrillo.”
“Please hold for the President of the United States,” the operator said.
A second or two later a voice with a twang came on the line. “Mr. Cabrillo,” he said, “good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon to you, sir,” Cabrillo answered.
“I have Mr. Overholt here with me—he’s already briefed me. Could you explain the current situation?”
Cabrillo gave the president a quick recap.
“I could scramble some planes out of England and take out the ship with a Harpoon missile,” the president said when Cabrillo had finished, “but then the nuke is still out there, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” Cabrillo agreed.
“We can’t land troop transports at the Faeroe airport,” the president continued. “I checked and the airport is too small. That means our only shot is to helicopter in a team, and my estimates are that to prepare and deploy a force up there would take six hours.”
“We estimate we have three and a half to four hours tops, sir,” Cabrillo said.
“I checked with the navy,” the president said. “They have nothing in the area.”
“Mr. President,” Cabrillo said, “we have a locator placed on the meteorite. Until it is combined with the nuclear device, it is of limited threat. If you give us permission, we believe we can follow the meteorite to the location where it is to be mated with the nuke and recover both at the same time.”
“That’s a risky strategy,” the president said.
The president turned to Overholt.
“Juan,” Overholt said, “what are the chances your team can pull this off?”
“Good,” Cabrillo said quickly, “but there is a wild card.”
“What’s the wild card?” the president asked.
“We don’t know for sure who we’re up against. If the people that have the meteorite are a faction of the Hammadi Group, I think we can take them.”
The president paused before speaking. “Okay,” he said at last, “I say we go ahead as planned.”
“Very good, sir,” Cabrillo said.
“Now,” the president said, “we have uncovered an entirely separate problem pertaining to the meteorite. I have a scientist here who will explain.”
For the next few minutes, Dwyer explained his theory.
Cabrillo felt a cold chill rising on his back. Armageddon was close at hand.
“That raises the stakes, Mr. President,” Cabrillo offered, “but the other side must be unaware of the possibility of a released virus. We just learned it was possible ourselves. The fact is that they would be ensuring their own destruction. The only scenario that makes sense is using the meteorite to construct a dirty bomb.”
“That’s all true,” the president agreed, “and we’ve been hard-pressed to come up with a scenario where the molecules would be penetrated. They need to break the meteorite down somehow for that to happen. Still, the threat exists—and the consequences could be dire and permanent.”