The nuclear submarine Charlotte had been stationed in the Arctic Ocean for five days now. Its presence here was highly classified.

A Los Angeles–class sub, the Charlotte was designed to “listen and not be heard.”

Its forty-two tons of turbine engines were suspended on springs to dampen any vibration they might cause. Despite its requirement for stealth, the LA-class sub had one of the largest footprints of any reconnaissance sub in the water. Stretching more than 360 feet from nose to stern, the hull, if placed on an NFL football field, would crush both goalposts and then some. Seven times the length of the U.S. Navy’s first Holland-class submarine, the Charlotte displaced 6,927 tons of water when fully submerged and could cruise at an astounding thirty-five knots. The vessel’s normal cruising depth was just below the thermocline, a natural temperature gradient that distorted sonar reflections from above and made the sub invisible to surface radar. With a crew of 148 and max dive depth of over fifteen hundred feet, the vessel represented the state-of-the-art submersible and was the oceanic workhorse of the United States Navy. Its evaporative electrolysis oxygenation system, two nuclear reactors, and engineered provisions gave it the ability to circumnavigate the globe twenty-one times without surfacing. Human waste from the crew, as on most cruise ships, was compressed into sixty-pound blocks and ejected into the ocean—the huge bricks of feces jokingly referred to as

“whale turds.”

The technician sitting at the oscillator screen in the sonar room was one of the best in the world. His mind was a dictionary of sounds and waveforms. He could distinguish between the sounds of several dozen Russian submarine propellers, hundreds of marine animals, and even pinpoint underwater volcanoes as far away as Japan.

At the moment, however, he was listening to a dull, repetitive echo. The sound, although easily distinguishable, was most unexpected.

“You aren’t going to believe what’s coming through my listening cans,” he said to his catalog assistant, handing over the headphones.

His assistant donned the headphones, an incredulous look crossing his face. “My God. It’s clear as day. What do we do?”

The sonar man was already on the phone to the captain.

When the submarine’s captain arrived in the sonar room, the technician piped a live sonar feed over a small set of speakers.

The captain listened, expressionless.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

THUD…THUD…THUD…

Slower. Slower. The pattern was becoming looser. More and more faint.

“What are the coordinates?” the captain demanded.

The technician cleared his throat. “Actually, sir, it’s coming from the surface, about three miles to our starboard.”

In the darkened hallway outside Senator Sexton’s den, Gabrielle Ashe’s legs were trembling. Not so much out of exhaustion from standing motionless, but from disillusionment over what she was listening to. The meeting in the next room was still going, but Gabrielle didn’t have to hear another word. The truth seemed painfully obvious.

Senator Sexton is taking bribes from private space agencies. Marjorie Tench had been telling the truth.

The revulsion Gabrielle felt spreading through her now was one of betrayal. She had believed in Sexton. She’d fought for him. How can he do this? Gabrielle had seen the senator lie publicly from time to time to protect his private life, but that was politics. This was breaking the law.

He’s not even elected yet, and he’s already selling out the White House!

Gabrielle knew she could no longer support the senator. Promising to deliver the NASA privatization bill could be done only with a contemptuous disregard for both the law and the democratic system. Even if the senator believed it would be in everyone’s best interest, to sell that decision flat out, in advance, slammed the door on the checks and balances of government, ignoring potentially persuasive arguments from Congress, advisers, voters, and lobbyists. Most important, guaranteeing the privatization of NASA, Sexton had paved the way for endless abuses of that advanced knowledge—insider trading the most common—blatantly favoring the wealthy, inside cadre at the expense of honest public investors. Feeling sick to her stomach, Gabrielle wondered what she should do. A telephone rang sharply behind her, shattering the silence of the hallway. Startled, Gabrielle turned. The sound was coming from the closet in the foyer—a cellphone in the pocket of one of the visitors’ coats.

“’Scuse me, friends,” a Texas drawl said in the den. “That’s me.”

Gabrielle could hear the man get up. He’s coming this way! Wheeling, she dashed back up the carpet the way she’d come. Halfway up the hall, she cut left, ducking into the darkened kitchen just as the Texan exited the den and turned up the hall. Gabrielle froze, motionless in the shadows.

The Texan strode by without noticing.

Over the sound of her pounding heart, Gabrielle could hear him rustling in the closet. Finally, he answered the ringing phone.

“Yeah?…When?…Really? We’ll switch it on. Thanks.” The man hung up and headed back toward the den, calling out as he went. “Hey! Turn on the television. Sounds like Zach Herney’s giving an urgent press conference tonight. Eight o’clock. All channels. Either we’re declaring war on China, or the International Space Station just fell into the ocean.”

“Now wouldn’t that be something to toast!” someone called out. Everyone laughed.

Gabrielle felt the kitchen spinning around her now. An eight P.M. press conference? Tench, it seemed, had not been bluffing after all. She had given Gabrielle until 8:00 P.M. to give her an affidavit admitting the affair. Distance yourself from the senator before it’s too late, Tench had told her. Gabrielle had assumed the deadline was so the White House could leak the information to tomorrow’s papers, but now it seemed the White House intended to go public with the allegations themselves.

An urgent press conference? The more Gabrielle considered it, though, the stranger it seemed. Herney is going live with this mess? Personally?

The television came on in the den. Blaring. The news announcer’s voice was bursting with excitement. “The White House has offered no clues as to the topic of tonight’s surprise presidential address, and speculation abounds. Some political analysts now think that following the President’s recent absence on the campaign trail, Zach Herney may be preparing to announce he will not be running for a second term.”

A hopeful cheer arose in the den.

Absurd, Gabrielle thought. With all the dirt the White House had on Sexton right now, there was no way in hell the President was throwing in the towel tonight. This press conference is about something else. Gabrielle had a sinking feeling she’d already been warned what it was.

With rising urgency, she checked her watch. Less than an hour. She had a decision to make, and she knew exactly to whom she needed to talk. Clutching the envelope of photos under her arm, she quietly exited the apartment. In the hallway, the bodyguard looked relieved. “I heard some cheering inside. Sounds like you were a hit.”

She smiled curtly and headed for the elevator.

Outside in the street, the settling night felt unusually bitter. Flagging a cab, she climbed in and tried to reassure herself she knew exactly what she was doing.

“ABC television studios,” she told the driver. “And hurry.”

As Michael Tolland lay on his side on the ice, he rested his head on an outstretched arm, which he could no longer feel. Although his eyelids felt heavy, he fought to keep them open. From this odd vantage point, Tolland took in the final images of his world—now just sea and ice—in a strange sideways tilt. It seemed a fitting end to a day in which nothing had been what it seemed. An eerie calm had begun to settle over the floating raft of ice. Rachel and Corky had both fallen silent, and the pounding had stopped. The farther from the glacier they floated, the calmer the wind became. Tolland heard his own body getting quieter too. With the tight skullcap over his ears, he could hear his own breathing amplified in his head. It was getting slower…shallower. His body was no longer able to fight off the compressing sensation that accompanied his own blood racing from his extremities like a crew abandoning ship, flowing instinctively to his vital organs in a last-ditch effort to keep him conscious.

A losing battle, he knew.

Strangely, there was no pain anymore. He had passed through that stage. The sensation now was that of having been inflated. Numbness. Floating. As the first of his reflexive operations—blinking—began to shut down, Tolland’s vision blurred. The aqueous humor that circulated between his cornea and lens was freezing repeatedly. Tolland gazed back toward the blur of the Milne Ice Shelf, now only a faint white form in the hazy moonlight.

He felt his soul admitting defeat. Teetering on the brink between presence and absence, he stared out at the ocean waves in the distance. The wind howled all around him.

It was then that Tolland began hallucinating. Strangely, in the final seconds before unconsciousness, he did not hallucinate rescue. He did not hallucinate warm and comforting thoughts. His final delusion was a terrifying one. A leviathan was rising from the water beside the iceberg, breaching the surface with an ominous hiss. Like some mythical sea monster, it came—sleek, black, and lethal, with water foaming around it. Tolland forced himself to blink his eyes. His vision cleared slightly. The beast was close, bumping up against the ice like a huge shark butting a small boat. Massive, it towered before him, its skin shimmering and wet.

As the hazy image went black, all that was left were the sounds. Metal on metal. Teeth gnashing at the ice. Coming closer. Dragging bodies away. Rachel…

Tolland felt himself being grabbed roughly.

And then everything went blank.

Gabrielle Ashe was at a full jog when she entered the third-floor production room of ABC News. Even so, she was moving slower than everyone else in the room. The intensity in production was at a fever pitch twenty-four hours a day, but at the moment the cubicle grid in front of her looked like the stock exchange on speed. Wild-eyed editors screamed to one another over the tops of their compartments, fax-waving reporters darted from cubicle to cubicle comparing notes, and frantic interns inhaled Snickers and Mountain Dew between errands. Gabrielle had come to ABC to see Yolanda Cole.

Usually Yolanda could be found in production’s high-rent district—the glasswalled private offices reserved for the decision makers who actually required some quiet to think. Tonight, however, Yolanda was out on the floor, in the thick of it. When she saw Gabrielle, she let out her usual shriek of exuberance.

“Gabs!” Yolanda was wearing a batik body-wrap and tortoiseshell glasses. As always, several pounds of garish costume jewelry were draped off her like tinsel. Yolanda waddled over, waving. “Hug!”

Yolanda Cole had been a content editor with ABC News in Washington for sixteen years. A freckle-faced Pole, Yolanda was a squat, balding woman whom everyone affectionately called “Mother.” Her matronly presence and good humor disguised a street-savvy ruthlessness for getting the story. Gabrielle had met Yolanda at a Women in Politics mentoring seminar she’d attended shortly after her arrival in Washington. They’d chatted about Gabrielle’s background, the challenges of being a woman in D.C., and finally about Elvis Presley—a passion they were surprised to discover they shared. Yolanda had taken Gabrielle under her wing and helped her make connections. Gabrielle still stopped by every month or so to say hello.

Gabrielle gave her a big hug, Yolanda’s enthusiasm already lifting her spirits. Yolanda stepped back and looked Gabrielle over. “You look like you aged a hundred years, girl! What happened to you?”

Gabrielle lowered her voice. “I’m in trouble, Yolanda.”

“That’s not the word on the street. Sounds like your man is on the rise.”

“Is there some place we can talk in private?”

“Bad timing, honey. The President is holding a press conference in about half an hour, and we still haven’t a clue what it’s all about. I’ve got to line up expert commentary, and I’m flying blind.”

“I know what the press conference is about.”

Yolanda lowered her glasses, looking skeptical. “Gabrielle, our correspondent inside the White House is in the dark on this one. You say Sexton’s campaign has advance knowledge?”

“No, I’m saying I have advance knowledge. Give me five minutes. I’ll tell you everything.”

Yolanda glanced down at the red White House envelope in Gabrielle’s hand.

“That’s a White House internal. Where’d you get that?”

“In a private meeting with Marjorie Tench this afternoon.”

Yolanda stared a long moment. “Follow me.”

Inside the privacy of Yolanda’s glass-walled cubicle, Gabrielle confided in her trusted friend, confessing to a one-night affair with Sexton and the fact that Tench had photographic evidence.

Yolanda smiled broadly and shook her head laughing. Apparently she had been in Washington journalism so long that nothing shocked her. “Oh, Gabs, I had a hunch you and Sexton had probably hooked up. Not surprising. He’s got a reputation, and you’re a pretty girl. Too bad about the photos. I wouldn’t worry about it, though.”

Don’t worry about it?

Gabrielle explained that Tench had accused Sexton of taking illegal bribes from space companies and that Gabrielle had just overheard a secret SFF meeting confirming that fact! Again Yolanda’s expression conveyed little surprise or concern—until Gabrielle told her what she was thinking of doing about it. Yolanda now looked troubled. “Gabrielle, if you want to hand over a legal document saying you slept with a U.S. senator and stood by while he lied about it, that’s your business. But I’m telling you, it’s a very bad move for you. You need to think long and hard about what it could mean for you.”

“You’re not listening. I don’t have that kind of time!”

“I am listening, and sweetheart, whether or not the clock is ticking, there are certain things you just do not do. You do not sell out a U.S. senator in a sex scandal. It’s suicide. I’m telling you, girl, if you take down a presidential candidate, you better get in your car and drive as far from D.C. as possible. You’ll be a marked woman. A lot of people spend a lot of money to put candidates at the top. There’s big finances and power at stake here—the kind of power people kill for.”

Gabrielle fell silent now.

“Personally,” Yolanda said, “I think Tench was leaning on you in hopes you’d panic and do something dumb—like bail out and confess to the affair.” Yolanda pointed to the red envelope in Gabrielle’s hands. “Those shots of you and Sexton don’t mean squat unless you or Sexton admit they’re accurate. The White House knows if they leak those photos, Sexton will just claim they’re phony and throw them back in the president’s face.”

“I thought of that, but still the campaign finance bribery issue is—”

“Honey, think about it. If the White House hasn’t gone public yet with bribery allegations, they probably don’t intend to. The President is pretty serious about no negative campaigning. My guess is he decided to save an aerospace industry scandal and sent Tench after you with a bluff in hopes he might scare you out of hiding on the sex thing. Make you stab your candidate in the back.”

Gabrielle considered it. Yolanda was making sense, and yet something still felt odd. Gabrielle pointed through the glass at the bustling news room. “Yolanda, you guys are gearing up for a big presidential press conference. If the President is not going public about bribery or sex, what’s it all about?”

Yolanda looked stunned. “Hold on. You think this press conference is about you and Sexton?”

“Or the bribery. Or both. Tench told me I had until eight tonight to sign a confession or else the President was going to announce—”

Yolanda’s laughter shook the entire glass cubicle. “Oh please! Wait! You’re killing me!”

Gabrielle was in no mood for joking. “What!”

“Gabs, listen,” Yolanda managed, between laughs, “trust me on this. I’ve been dealing with the White House for sixteen years, and there’s no way Zach Herney has called together the global media to tell them he suspects Senator Sexton is accepting shady campaign financing or sleeping with you. That’s the kind of information you leak. Presidents don’t gain popularity by interrupting regularly scheduled programming to bitch and moan about sex or alleged infractions of cloudy campaign finance laws.”

“Cloudy?” Gabrielle snapped. “Flat out selling your decision on a space bill for millions in ad money is hardly a cloudy issue!”

“Are you sure that’s what he is doing?” Yolanda’s tone hardened now. “Are you sure enough to drop your skirt on national TV? Think about it. It takes a lot of alliances to get anything done these days, and campaign finance is complex stuff. Maybe Sexton’s meeting was perfectly legal.”

“He’s breaking the law,” Gabrielle said. Isn’t he?

“Or so Marjorie Tench would have you believe. Candidates accept behind-thescenes donations all the time from big corporations. It may not be pretty, but it’s not necessarily illegal. In fact, most legal issues deal not with where the money comes from but how the candidate chooses to spend it.”

Gabrielle hesitated, feeling uncertain now.

“Gabs, the White House played you this afternoon. They tried to turn you against your candidate, and so far you’ve called their bluff. If I were looking for someone to trust, I think I’d stick with Sexton before jumping ship to someone like Marjorie Tench.”

Yolanda’s phone rang. She answered, nodding, uh-huh-ing, taking notes.

“Interesting,” she finally said. “I’ll be right there. Thanks.”

Yolanda hung up and turned with an arched brow. “Gabs, sounds like you’re off the hook. Just as I predicted.”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t have a specific yet, but I can tell you this much—the president’s press conference has nothing to do with sex scandals or campaign finance.”

Gabrielle felt a flash of hope and wanted badly to believe her. “How do you know that?”

“Someone on the inside just leaked that the press conference is NASA-related.”

Gabrielle sat up suddenly. “NASA?”

Yolanda winked. “This could be your lucky night. My bet is President Herney is feeling so much pressure from Senator Sexton that he’s decided the White House has no choice but to pull the plug on the International Space Station. That explains all the global media coverage.”

A press conference killing the space station? Gabrielle could not imagine. Yolanda stood up. “That Tench attack this afternoon? It was probably just a lastditch effort to get a foothold over Sexton before the President had to go public with the bad news. Nothing like a sex scandal to take the attention away from another presidential flop. Anyhow, Gabs, I’ve got work to do. My advice to you—get yourself a cup of coffee, sit right here, turn on my television, and ride this out like the rest of us. We’ve got twenty minutes until show time, and I’m telling you, there is no way the President is going Dumpster-diving tonight. He’s got the whole world watching. Whatever he has to say carries some serious weight.” She gave a reassuring wink. “Now give me the envelope.”

“What?”

Yolanda held out a demanding hand. “These pictures are getting locked in my desk until this is over. I want to be sure you don’t do something idiotic.”

Reluctantly, Gabrielle handed over the envelope.

Yolanda locked the photos carefully in a desk drawer and pocketed the keys.

“You’ll thank me, Gabs. I swear it.” She playfully ruffled Gabrielle’s hair on her way out. “Sit tight. I think good news is on the way.”

Gabrielle sat alone in the glass cubicle and tried to let Yolanda’s upbeat attitude lift her mood. All Gabrielle could think of, though, was the self-satisfied smirk on the face of Marjorie Tench this afternoon. Gabrielle could not imagine what the President was about to tell the world, but it was definitely not going to be good news for Senator Sexton.

Rachel Sexton felt like she was being burned alive.

It’s raining fire!

She tried to open her eyes, but all she could make out were foggy shapes and blinding lights. It was raining all around her. Scalding hot rain. Pounding down on her bare skin. She was lying on her side and could feel hot tiles beneath her body. She curled more tightly into the fetal position, trying to protect herself from the scalding liquid falling from above. She smelled chemicals. Chlorine, maybe. She tried to crawl away, but she could not. Powerful hands pressed down on her shoulders, holding her down.

Let me go! I’m burning!

Instinctively, she again fought to escape, and again she was rebuffed, the strong hands clamping down. “Stay where you are,” a man’s voice said. The accent was American. Professional. “It will be over soon.”

What will be over? Rachel wondered. The pain? My life? She tried to focus her vision. The lights in this place were harsh. She sensed the room was small. Cramped. Low ceilings.

“I’m burning!” Rachel’s scream was a whisper.

“You’re fine,” the voice said. “This water is lukewarm. Trust me.”

Rachel realized she was mostly undressed, wearing only her soaked underwear. No embarrassment registered; her mind was filled with too many other questions. The memories were coming back now in a torrent. The ice shelf. The GPR. The attack. Who? Where am I? She tried to put the pieces together, but her mind felt torpid, like a set of clogged gears. From out of the muddled confusion came a single thought: Michael and Corky…where are they?

Rachel tried to focus her bleary vision but saw only the men standing over her. They were all dressed in the same blue jumpsuits. She wanted to speak, but her mouth refused to formulate a single word. The burning sensation in her skin was now giving way to sudden deep waves of aching that rolled through the muscles like seismic tremors.

“Let it happen,” the man over her said. “The blood needs to flow back into your musculature.” He spoke like a doctor. “Try to move your limbs as much as you can.”

The pain racking Rachel’s body felt as if every muscle was being beaten with a hammer. She lay there on the tile, her chest contracting, and she could barely breathe.

“Move your legs and arms,” the man insisted. “No matter what it feels like.”

Rachel tried. Each movement felt like a knife being thrust into her joints. The jets of water grew hotter again. The scalding was back. The crushing pain went on. At the precise instant she thought she could not withstand another moment, Rachel felt someone giving her an injection. The pain seemed to subside quickly, less and less violent, releasing. The tremors slowed. She felt herself breathing again. A new sensation was spreading through her body now, the eerie bite of pins and needles. Everywhere—stabbing—sharper and sharper. Millions of tiny needlepoint jabs, intensifying whenever she moved. She tried to hold motionless, but the water jets continued to buffet her. The man above her was holding her arms, moving them.

God that hurts! Rachel was too weak to fight. Tears of exhaustion and pain poured down her face. She shut her eyes hard, blocking out the world. Finally, the pins and needles began to dissipate. The rain from above stopped. When Rachel opened her eyes, her vision was clearer.

It was then that she saw them.

Corky and Tolland lay nearby, quivering, half-naked and soaked. From the looks of anguish on their faces, Rachel sensed that they had just endured similar experiences. Michael Tolland’s brown eyes were bloodshot and glassy. When he saw Rachel, he managed a weak smile, his blue lips trembling. Rachel tried to sit up, to take in their bizarre surroundings. The three of them were lying in a trembling twist of half-naked limbs on the floor of a tiny shower room.

Strong arms lifted her.

Rachel felt the powerful strangers drying her body and wrapping her in blankets. She was being placed on a medical bed of some sort and vigorously massaged on her arms, legs, and feet. Another injection in her arm.

“Adrenaline,” someone said.

Rachel felt the drug coursing through her veins like a life force, invigorating her muscles. Although she still felt an icy hollowness tight like a drum in her gut, Rachel sensed the blood slowly returning to her limbs.

Back from the dead.

She tried to focus her vision. Tolland and Corky were lying nearby, shivering in blankets as the men massaged their bodies and gave them injections as well. Rachel had no doubt that this mysterious assemblage of men had just saved their lives. Many of them were soaking wet, apparently having jumped into the showers fully clothed to help. Who they were or how they had gotten to Rachel and the others in time was beyond her. It made no difference at the moment. We’re alive.

“Where…are we?” Rachel managed, the simple act of trying to speak bringing on a crashing headache.

The man massaging her replied, “You’re on the medical deck of a Los Angeles class—”

“On deck!” someone called out.

Rachel sensed a sudden commotion all around her, and she tried to sit up. One of the men in blue helped, propping her up, and pulling the blankets up around her. Rachel rubbed her eyes and saw someone striding into the room. The newcomer was a powerful African-American man. Handsome and authoritative. His uniform was khaki. “At ease,” he declared, moving toward Rachel, stopping over her and gazing down at her with strong black eyes. “Harold Brown,” he said, his voice deep and commanding. “Captain of the U.S.S. Charlotte. And you are?”

U.S.S. Charlotte, Rachel thought. The name seemed vaguely familiar. “Sexton…,”

she replied. “I’m Rachel Sexton.”

The man looked puzzled. He stepped closer, studying her more carefully. “I’ll be damned. So you are.”

Rachel felt lost. He knows me? Rachel was certain she did not recognize the man, although as her eyes dropped from his face to the patch on his chest, she saw the familiar emblem of an eagle clutching an anchor surrounded by the words U.S. NAVY.

It now registered why she knew the name Charlotte.

“Welcome aboard, Ms. Sexton,” the captain said. “You’ve gisted a number of this ship’s recon reports. I know who you are.”

“But what are you doing in these waters?” she stammered. His face hardened somewhat. “Frankly, Ms. Sexton, I was about to ask you the same question.”

Tolland sat up slowly now, opening his mouth to speak. Rachel silenced him with a firm shake of her head. Not here. Not now. She had no doubt the first thing Tolland and Corky would want to talk about was the meteorite and the attack, but this was certainly not a topic to discuss in front of a Navy submarine crew. In the world of intelligence, regardless of crisis, CLEARANCE remained king; the meteorite situation remained highly classified.

“I need to speak to NRO director William Pickering,” she told the captain. “In private, and immediately.”

The captain arched his eyebrows, apparently unaccustomed to taking orders on his own ship.

“I have classified information I need to share.”

The captain studied her a long moment. “Let’s get your body temperature back, and then I’ll put you in contact with the NRO director.”

“It’s urgent, sir. I—” Rachel stopped short. Her eyes had just seen a clock on the wall over the pharmaceutical closet.

19:51 HOURS.

Rachel blinked, staring. “Is…is that clock right?”

“You’re on a navy vessel, ma’am. Our clocks are accurate.”

“And is that…Eastern time?”

“7:51 P.M. Eastern Standard. We’re out of Norfolk.”

My God! she thought, stunned. It’s only 7:51P.M.? Rachel had the impression hours had passed since she passed out. It was not even past eight o’clock? The President has not yet gone public about the meteorite! I still have time to stop him!

She immediately slid down off the bed, wrapping the blanket around her. Her legs felt shaky. “I need to speak to the President right away.”

The captain looked confused. “The president of what?”

“Of the United States!”

“I thought you wanted William Pickering.”

“I don’t have time. I need the President.”

The captain did not move, his huge frame blocking her way. “My understanding is that the President is about to give a very important live press conference. I doubt he’s taking personal phone calls.”

Rachel stood as straight as she could on her wobbly legs and fixed her eyes on the captain. “Sir, you do not have the clearance for me to explain the situation, but the President is about to make a terrible mistake. I have information he desperately needs to hear. Now. You need to trust me.”

The captain stared at her a long moment. Frowning, he checked the clock again.

“Nine minutes? I can’t get you a secure connection to the White House in that short a time. All I could offer is a radiophone. Unsecured. And we’d have to go to antenna depth, which will take a few—”

“Do it! Now!”

The White House telephone switchboard was located on the lower level of the East Wing. Three switchboard operators were always on duty. At the moment, only two were seated at the controls. The third operator was at a full sprint toward the Briefing Room. In her hand, she carried a cordless phone. She’d tried to patch the call through to the Oval Office, but the President was already en route to the press conference. She’d tried to call his aides on their cellulars, but before televised briefings, all cellular phones in and around the Briefing Room were turned off so as not to interrupt the proceedings.

Running a cordless phone directly to the President at a time like this seemed questionable at best, and yet when the White House’s NRO liaison called claiming she had emergency information that the President must get before going live, the operator had little doubt she needed to jump. The question now was whether she would get there in time.

In a small medical office onboard the U.S.S. Charlotte, Rachel Sexton clutched a phone receiver to her ear and waited to talk to the President. Tolland and Corky sat nearby, still looking shaken. Corky had five stitches and a deep bruise on his cheekbone. All three of them had been helped into Thinsulate thermal underwear, heavy navy flight suits, oversized wool socks, and deck boots. With a hot cup of stale coffee in her hand, Rachel was starting to feel almost human again.

“What’s the holdup?” Tolland pressed. “It’s seven fifty-six!”

Rachel could not imagine. She had successfully reached one of the White House operators, explained who she was and that this was an emergency. The operator seemed sympathetic, had placed Rachel on hold, and was now, supposedly, making it her top priority to patch Rachel through to the President. Four minutes, Rachel thought. Hurry up!

Closing her eyes, Rachel tried to gather her thoughts. It had been one hell of a day. I’m on a nuclear submarine, she said to herself, knowing she was damned lucky to be anywhere at all. According to the submarine captain, the Charlotte had been on a routine patrol in the Bering Sea two days ago and had picked up anomalous underwater sounds coming from the Milne Ice Shelf—drilling, jet noise, lots of encrypted radio traffic. They had been redirected and told to lie quietly and listen. An hour or so ago, they’d heard an explosion in the ice shelf and moved in to check it out. That was when they heard Rachel’s SOS call.

“Three minutes left!” Tolland sounded anxious now as he monitored the clock. Rachel was definitely getting nervous now. What was taking so long? Why hadn’t the President taken her call? If Zach Herney went public with the data as it stood—

Rachel forced the thought from her mind and shook the receiver. Pick up!

As the White House operator dashed toward the stage entrance of the Briefing Room, she was met with a gathering throng of staff members. Everyone here was talking excitedly, making final preparations. She could see the President twenty yards away waiting at the entrance. The makeup people were still primping.

“Coming through!” the operator said, trying to get through the crowd. “Call for the President. Excuse me. Coming through!”

“Live in two minutes!” a media coordinator called out.

Clutching the phone, the operator shoved her way toward the President. “Call for the President!” she panted. “Coming through!”

A towering roadblock stepped into her path. Marjorie Tench. The senior adviser’s long face grimaced down in disapproval. “What’s going on?”

“I have an emergency!” The operator was breathless. “…phone call for the President.”

Tench looked incredulous. “Not now, you don’t!”

“It’s from Rachel Sexton. She says it’s urgent.”

The scowl that darkened Tench’s face appeared to be more one of puzzlement than anger. Tench eyed the cordless phone. “That’s a house line. That’s not secure.”

“No, ma’am. But the incoming call is open anyway.

She’s on a radiophone. She needs to speak to the President right away.”

“Live in ninety seconds!”

Tench’s cold eyes stared, and she held out a spider-like hand. “Give me the phone.”

The operator’s heart was pounding now. “Ms. Sexton wants to speak to President Herney directly. She told me to postpone the press conference until she’d talked to him. I assured—”

Tench stepped toward the operator now, her voice a seething whisper. “Let me tell you how this works. You do not take orders from the daughter of the President’s opponent, you take them from me. I can assure you, this is as close as you are getting to the President until I find out what the hell is going on.”

The operator looked toward the President, who was now surrounded by microphone technicians, stylists, and several staff members talking him through final revisions of his speech.

“Sixty seconds!” the television supervisor yelled.

Onboard the Charlotte, Rachel Sexton was pacing wildly in the tight space when she finally heard a click on the telephone line.

A raspy voice came on. “Hello?”

“President Herney?” Rachel blurted.

“Marjorie Tench,” the voice corrected. “I am the President’s senior adviser. Whoever this is, I must warn you that prank calls against the White House are in violation of—”

For Christ’s sake! “This is not a prank! This is Rachel Sexton. I’m your NRO

liaison and—”

“I am aware of who Rachel Sexton is, ma’am. And I am doubtful that you are she. You’ve called the White House on an unsecured line telling me to interrupt a major presidential broadcast. That is hardly proper MO for someone with—”

“Listen,” Rachel fumed, “I briefed your whole staff a couple of hours ago on a meteorite. You sat in the front row. You watched my briefing on a television sitting on the President’s desk! Any questions?”

Tench fell silent a moment. “Ms. Sexton, what is the meaning of this?”

“The meaning is that you have to stop the President! His meteorite data is all wrong! We’ve just learned the meteorite was inserted from beneath the ice shelf. I don’t know by whom, and I don’t know why! But things are not what they seem up here! The President is about to endorse some seriously errant data, and I strongly advise—”

“Wait one goddamned minute!” Tench lowered her voice. “Do you realize what you are saying?”

“Yes! I suspect the NASA administrator has orchestrated some kind of large-scale fraud, and President Herney is about to get caught in the middle. You’ve at least got to postpone ten minutes so I can explain to him what’s been going on up here. Someone tried to kill me, for God’s sake!”

Tench’s voice turned to ice. “Ms. Sexton, let me give you a word of warning. If you are having second thoughts about your role in helping the White House in this campaign, you should have thought of that long before you personally endorsed that meteorite data for the President.”

“What!” Is she even listening?

“I’m revolted by your display. Using an unsecured line is a cheap stunt. Implying the meteorite data has been faked? What kind of intelligence official uses a radiophone to call the White House and talk about classified information?

Obviously you are hoping someone intercepts this message.”

“Norah Mangor was killed over this! Dr. Ming is also dead. You’ve got to warn—”

“Stop right there! I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I will remind you—and anyone else who happens to be intercepting this phone call—that the White House possesses videotaped depositions from NASA’s top scientists, several renowned civilian scientists, and yourself, Ms. Sexton, all endorsing the meteorite data as accurate. Why you are suddenly changing your story, I can only imagine. Whatever the reason, consider yourself relieved of your White House post as of this instant, and if you try to taint this discovery with any more absurd allegations of foul play, I assure you the White House and NASA will sue you for defamation so fast you won’t have a chance to pack a suitcase before you go to jail.”

Rachel opened her mouth to speak, but no words came.

“Zach Herney has been generous to you,” Tench snapped, “and frankly this smacks of a cheap Sexton publicity stunt. Drop it right now, or we’ll press charges. I swear it.”

The line went dead.

Rachel’s mouth was still hanging open when the captain knocked on the door.

“Ms. Sexton?” the captain said, peering in. “We’re picking up a faint signal from Canadian National Radio. President Zach Herney has just begun his press conference.”

Standing at the podium in the White House Briefing Room, Zach Herney felt the heat of the media lights and knew the world was watching. The targeted blitz performed by the White House Press Office had created a contagion of media buzz. Those who did not hear about the address via television, radio, or on-line news invariably heard about it from neighbors, coworkers, and family. By 8:00

P.M., anyone not living in a cave was speculating about the topic of the President’s address. In bars and living rooms over the globe, millions leaned toward their televisions in apprehensive wonder.

It was during moments like these—facing the world—that Zach Herney truly felt the weight of his office. Anyone who said power was not addictive had never really experienced it. As he began his address, however, Herney sensed something was amiss. He was not a man prone to stage fright, and so the tingle of apprehension now tightening in his core startled him.

It’s the magnitude of the audience, he told himself. And yet he knew something else. Instinct. Something he had seen.

It had been such a little thing, and yet…

He told himself to forget it. It was nothing. And yet it stuck. Tench.

Moments ago, as Herney was preparing to take the stage, he had seen Marjorie Tench in the yellow hallway, talking on a cordless phone. This was strange in itself, but it was made more so by the White House operator standing beside her, her face white with apprehension. Herney could not hear Tench’s phone conversation, but he could see it was contentious. Tench was arguing with a vehemence and anger the President had seldom seen—even from Tench. He paused a moment and caught her eye, inquisitive.

Tench gave him the thumbs-up. Herney had never seen Tench give anyone the thumbs-up. It was the last image in Herney’s mind as he was cued onto the stage.

On the blue rug in the press area inside the NASA habisphere on Ellesmere Island, Administrator Lawrence Ekstrom was seated at the center of the long symposium table, flanked by top NASA officials and scientists. On a large monitor facing them the President’s opening statement was being piped in live. The remainder of the NASA crew was huddled around other monitors, teeming with excitement as their commander-in-chief launched into his press conference.

“Good evening,” Herney was saying, sounding uncharacteristically stiff. “To my fellow countrymen, and to our friends around the world…”

Ekstrom gazed at the huge charred mass of rock displayed prominently in front of him. His eyes moved to a standby monitor, where he watched himself, flanked by his most austere personnel, against a backdrop of a huge American flag and NASA logo. The dramatic lighting made the setting look like some kind of neomodern painting—the twelve apostles at the last supper. Zach Herney had turned this whole thing into a political sideshow. Herney had no choice. Ekstrom still felt like a televangelist, packaging God for the masses. In about five minutes the President would introduce Ekstrom and his NASA staff. Then, in a dramatic satellite linkup from the top of the world, NASA would join the President in sharing this news with the world. After a brief account of how the discovery was made, what it meant for space science, and some mutual backpatting, NASA and the President would hand duty off to celebrity scientist Michael Tolland, whose documentary would roll for just under fifteen minutes. Afterward, with credibility and enthusiasm at its peak, Ekstrom and the President would say their good-nights, promising more information to come in the days ahead via endless NASA press conferences.

As Ekstrom sat and waited for his cue, he felt a cavernous shame settling inside him. He’d known he would feel it. He’d been expecting it. He’d told lies…endorsed untruths.

Somehow, though, the lies seemed inconsequential now. Ekstrom had a bigger weight on his mind.

In the chaos of the ABC production room, Gabrielle Ashe stood shoulder to shoulder with dozens of strangers, all necks craned toward the bank of television monitors suspended from the ceiling. A hush fell as the moment arrived. Gabrielle closed her eyes, praying that when she opened them she would not be looking at images of her own naked body.

The air inside Senator Sexton’s den was alive with excitement. All of his visitors were standing now, their eyes glued to the large-screen television. Zach Herney stood before the world, and incredibly, his greeting had been awkward. He seemed momentarily uncertain.

He looks shaky, Sexton thought. He never looks shaky.

“Look at him,” somebody whispered. “It has to be bad news.”

The space station? Sexton wondered.

Herney looked directly into the camera and took a deep breath. “My friends, I have puzzled for many days now over how best to make this announcement…”

Three easy words, Senator Sexton willed him. We blew it. Herney spoke for a moment about how unfortunate it was that NASA had become such an issue in this election and how, that being the case, he felt he needed to preface the timing of his impending statement with an apology.

“I would have preferred any other moment in history to make this announcement,”

he said. “The political charge in the air tends to make doubters out of dreamers, and yet as your President, I have no choice but to share with you what I have recently learned.” He smiled. “It seems the magic of the cosmos is something which does not work on any human schedule…not even that of a president.”

Everyone in Sexton’s den seemed to recoil in unison. What?

“Two weeks ago,” Herney said, “NASA’s new Polar Orbiting Density Scanner passed over the Milne Ice Shelf on Ellesmere Island, a remote landmass located above the Eightieth Parallel in the high Arctic Ocean.”

Sexton and the others exchanged confused looks.

“This NASA satellite,” Herney continued, “detected a large, high-density rock buried two hundred feet under the ice.” Herney smiled now for the first time, finding his stride. “On receiving the data, NASA immediately suspected PODS

had found a meteorite.”

“A meteorite?” Sexton sputtered, standing. “This is news?”

“NASA sent a team up to the ice shelf to take core samples. It was then that NASA made…” He paused.

“Frankly, they made the scientific discovery of the century.”

Sexton took an incredulous step toward the television. No…. His guests shifted uneasily.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Herney announced, “several hours ago, NASA pulled from the Arctic ice an eight-ton meteorite, which contains…” The President paused again, giving the whole world time to lean forward. “A meteorite which contains fossils of a life-form. Dozens of them. Unequivocal proof of extraterrestrial life.”

On cue, a brilliant image illuminated on the screen behind the President—a perfectly delineated fossil of an enormous buglike creature embedded in a charred rock.

In Sexton’s den, six entrepreneurs jumped up in wide-eyed horror. Sexton stood frozen in place.

“My friends,” the President said, “the fossil behind me is 190 million years old. It was discovered in a fragment of a meteorite called the Jungersol Fall which hit the Arctic Ocean almost three centuries ago. NASA’s exciting new PODS satellite discovered this meteorite fragment buried in an ice shelf. NASA and this administration have taken enormous care over the past two weeks to confirm every aspect of this momentous discovery before making it public. In the next half hour you will be hearing from numerous NASA and civilian scientists, as well as viewing a short documentary prepared by a familiar face whom I’m sure you all will recognize. Before I go any further, though, I absolutely must welcome, live via satellite from above the Arctic Circle, the man whose leadership, vision, and hard work is solely responsible for this historic moment. It is with great honor that I present NASA administrator Lawrence Ekstrom.”

Herney turned to the screen on perfect cue.

The image of the meteorite dramatically dissolved into a regal-looking panel of NASA scientists seated at a long table, flanked by the dominant frame of Lawrence Ekstrom.

“Thank you, Mr. President.” Ekstrom’s air was stern and proud as he stood up and looked directly into the camera. “It gives me great pride to share with all of you, this—NASA’s finest hour.”

Ekstrom spoke passionately about NASA and the discovery. With a fanfare of patriotism and triumph, he segued flawlessly to a documentary hosted by civilian science–celebrity Michael Tolland.

As he watched, Senator Sexton fell to his knees in front of the television, his fingers clutching at his silver mane. No! God, no!

Marjorie Tench was livid as she broke away from the jovial chaos outside the Briefing Room and marched back to her private corner in the West Wing. She was in no mood for celebration. The phone call from Rachel Sexton had been most unexpected.

Most disappointing.

Tench slammed her office door, stalked to her desk, and dialed the White House operator. “William Pickering. NRO.”

Tench lit a cigarette and paced the room as she waited for the operator to track down Pickering. Normally, he might have gone home for the night, but with the White House’s big windup into tonight’s press conference, Tench guessed Pickering had been in his office all evening, glued to his television screen, wondering what could possibly be going on in the world about which the NRO

director did not have prior knowledge.

Tench cursed herself for not trusting her instincts when the President said he wanted to send Rachel Sexton to Milne. Tench had been wary, feeling it was an unnecessary risk. But the President had been convincing, persuading Tench that the White House staff had grown cynical over the past weeks and would be suspect of the NASA discovery if the news came from in-house. As Herney had promised, Rachel Sexton’s endorsement had squelched suspicions, prevented any skeptical in-house debate, and forced the White House staff to move forward with a unified front. Invaluable, Tench had to admit. And yet now Rachel Sexton had changed her tune.

The bitch called me on an unsecured line.

Rachel Sexton was obviously intent on destroying the credibility of this discovery, and Tench’s only solace was knowing the President had captured Rachel’s earlier briefing on videotape. Thank God. At least Herney had thought to obtain that small insurance. Tench was starting to fear they were going to need it. At the moment, however, Tench was trying to stem the bleeding in other ways. Rachel Sexton was a smart woman, and if she truly intended to go head-to-head with the White House and NASA, she would need to recruit some powerful allies. Her first logical choice would be William Pickering. Tench already knew how Pickering felt about NASA. She needed to get to Pickering before Rachel did.

“Ms. Tench?” the transparent voice on the line said. “William Pickering, here. To what do I owe this honor?”

Tench could hear the television in the background—NASA commentary. She could already sense in his tone that he was still reeling from the press conference.

“Do you have a minute, director?”

“I expected you’d be busy celebrating. Quite a night for you. Looks like NASA and the President are back in the fight.”

Tench heard stark amazement in his voice, combined with a tinge of acrimony—the latter no doubt on account of the man’s legendary distaste for hearing breaking news at the same time as the rest of the world.

“I apologize,” Tench said, trying to build an immediate bridge, “that the White House and NASA were forced to keep you unapprised.”

“You are aware,” Pickering said, “that the NRO detected NASA activity up there a couple weeks ago and ran an inquiry.”

Tench frowned. He’s pissed. “Yes, I know. And yet—”

“NASA told us it was nothing. They said they were running some kind of extreme environment training exercises. Testing equipment, that sort of thing.” Pickering paused. “We bought the lie.”

“Let’s not call it a lie,” Tench said. “More of a necessary misdirection. Considering the magnitude of the discovery, I trust you understand NASA’s need to keep this quiet.”

“From the public, perhaps.”

Pouting was not in the repertoire of men like William Pickering, and Tench sensed this was as close as he would get. “I only have a minute,” Tench said, working to retain her dominant position, “but I thought I should call and warn you.”

“Warn me?” Pickering waxed wry momentarily. “Has Zach Herney decided to appoint a new, NASA-friendly NRO director?”

“Of course not. The President understands your criticisms of NASA are simply issues of security, and he is working to plug those holes. I’m actually calling about one of your employees.” She paused. “Rachel Sexton. Have you heard from her this evening?”

“No. I sent her to the White House this morning at the President’s request. You’ve obviously kept her busy. She has yet to check in.”

Tench was relieved to have gotten to Pickering first. She took a drag on her cigarette and spoke as calmly as possible. “I suspect you may be getting a call from Ms. Sexton sometime soon.”

“Good. I’ve been expecting one. I’ve got to tell you, when the President’s press conference began, I was concerned Zach Herney might have convinced Ms. Sexton to participate publicly. I’m pleased to see he resisted.”

“Zach Herney is a decent person,” Tench said, “which is more than I can say for Rachel Sexton.”

There was a long pause on the line. “I hope I misunderstood that.”

Tench sighed heavily. “No, sir, I’m afraid you did not. I’d prefer not to talk specifics on the phone, but Rachel Sexton, it seems, has decided she wants to undermine the credibility of this NASA announcement. I have no idea why, but after she reviewed and endorsed NASA’s data earlier this afternoon, she has suddenly pulled an about-face and is spouting some of the most improbable allegations imaginable of NASA treachery and fraud.”

Pickering sounded intense now. “Excuse me?”

“Troubling, yes. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Ms. Sexton contacted me two minutes before the press conference and warned me to cancel the whole thing.”

“On what grounds?”

“Absurd ones, frankly. She said she’d found serious flaws in the data.”

Pickering’s long silence was more wary than Tench would have liked. “Flaws?”

he finally said.

“Ridiculous, really, after two full weeks of NASA experimentation and—”

“I find it very hard to believe someone like Rachel Sexton would have told you to postpone the President’s press conference unless she had a damn good reason.”

Pickering sounded troubled. “Maybe you should have listened to her.”

“Oh, please!” Tench blurted, coughing. “You saw the press conference. The meteorite data was confirmed and reconfirmed by countless specialists. Including civilians. Doesn’t it seem suspicious to you that Rachel Sexton—the daughter of the only man whom this announcement hurts—is suddenly changing her tune?”

“It seems suspicious, Ms. Tench, only because I happen to know that Ms. Sexton and her father are barely civil to one another. I cannot imagine why Rachel Sexton would, after years of service to the President, suddenly decide to switch camps and tell lies to support her father.”

“Ambition, perhaps? I really don’t know. Maybe the opportunity to be first daughter…” Tench let it hang.

Pickering’s tone hardened instantly. “Thin ice, Ms. Tench. Very thin.”

Tench scowled. What the hell did she expect? She was accusing a prominent member of Pickering’s staff of treason against the President. The man was going to be defensive.

“Put her on,” Pickering demanded. “I’d like to speak to Ms. Sexton myself.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Tench replied. “She’s not at the White House.”

“Where is she?”

“The President sent her to Milne this morning to examine the data firsthand. She has yet to return.”

Pickering sounded livid now. “I was never informed—”

“I do not have time for hurt pride, director. I have simply called as a courtesy. I wanted to warn you that Rachel Sexton has decided to pursue her own agenda with respect to tonight’s announcement. She will be looking for allies. If she contacts you, you would be wise to know that the White House is in possession of a video taken earlier today in which she endorsed this meteorite data in its entirety in front of the President, his cabinet, and his entire staff. If now, for whatever motives she might have, Rachel Sexton attempts to besmirch the good name of Zach Herney or of NASA, then I swear to you the White House will see to it she falls hard and far.” Tench waited a moment, to be sure her meaning had settled in.

“I expect you to repay the courtesy of this call by informing me immediately if Rachel Sexton contacts you. She is attacking the President directly, and the White House intends to detain her for questioning before she does any serious damage. I will be waiting for your call, director. That’s all. Good night.”

Marjorie Tench hung up, certain that William Pickering had never been talked to like that in his life. At least now he knew she was serious.

• • •

On the top floor of the NRO, William Pickering stood at his window and stared into the Virginia night. The call from Marjorie Tench had been deeply troubling. He chewed at his lip as he tried to assemble the pieces in his mind.

“Director?” his secretary said, knocking quietly. “You have another phone call.”

“Not now,” Pickering said absently.

“It’s Rachel Sexton.”

Pickering wheeled. Tench was apparently a fortune-teller. “Okay. Patch her through, right away.”

“Actually, sir, it’s an encrypted AV stream. Do you want to take it in the conference room?”

An AV stream? “Where is she calling from?”

The secretary told him.

Pickering stared. Bewildered, he hurried down the hall toward the conference room. This was something he had to see.

The Charlotte’s “dead room”—designed after a similar structure at Bell Laboratories—was what was formally known as an anechoic chamber. An acoustical clean room containing no parallel or reflective surfaces, it absorbed sound with 99.4 percent efficiency. Because of the acoustically conductive nature of metal and water, conversations onboard submarines were always vulnerable to interception by nearby eavesdroppers or parasitic suction mics attached to the outer hull. The dead room was, in effect, a tiny chamber inside the submarine from which absolutely no sound could escape. All conversations inside this insulated box were entirely secure.

The chamber looked like a walk-in closet whose ceiling, walls, and floor had been completely covered with foam spires jutting inward from all directions. It reminded Rachel of a cramped underwater cave where stalagmites had run wild, growing off every surface. Most unsettling, however, was the apparent lack of a floor.

The floor was a taut, meshed chicken-wire grid strung horizontally across the room like a fishing net, giving the inhabitants the feeling that they were suspended midway up the wall. The mesh was rubberized and stiff beneath the feet. As Rachel gazed down through the webbed flooring, she felt like she was crossing a string bridge suspended over a surrealistic fractalized landscape. Three feet below, a forest of foam needles pointed ominously upward.

Instantly upon entering Rachel had sensed the disorientating lifelessness to the air, as if every bit of energy had been sucked out. Her ears felt as if they’d been stuffed with cotton. Only her breath was audible inside her head. She called out, and the effect was that of speaking into a pillow. The walls absorbed every reverberation, making the only perceivable vibrations those inside her head. Now the captain had departed, closing the padded door behind him. Rachel, Corky, and Tolland were seated in the center of the room at a small U-shaped table that stood on long metal stilts that descended through the mesh. On the table were affixed several gooseneck microphones, headphones, and a video console with a fish-eye camera on top. It looked like a mini–United Nations symposium. As someone who worked in the U.S. intelligence community—the world’s foremost manufacturers of hard laser microphones, underwater parabolic eavesdroppers, and other hypersensitive listening devices—Rachel was well aware there were few places on earth where one could have a truly secure conversation. The dead room was apparently one of those places. The mics and headphones on the table enabled a face-to-face “conference call” in which people could speak freely, knowing the vibrations of their words could not escape the room. Their voices, upon entering the microphones, would be heavily encrypted for their long journey through the atmosphere.

“Level check.” The voice materialized suddenly inside their headphones, causing Rachel, Tolland, and Corky to jump. “Do you read me, Ms. Sexton?”

Rachel leaned into the microphone. “Yes. Thank you.” Whoever you are.

“I have Director Pickering on the line for you. He’s accepting AV. I am signing off now. You will have your data stream momentarily.”

Rachel heard the line go dead. There was a distant whirr of static and then a rapid series of beeps and clicks in the headphones. With startling clarity, the video screen in front of them sprang to life, and Rachel saw Director Pickering in the NRO conference room. He was alone. His head snapped up and he looked into Rachel’s eyes.

She felt oddly relieved to see him.

“Ms. Sexton,” he said, his expression perplexed and troubled. “What in the world is going on?”

“The meteorite, sir,” Rachel said. “I think we may have a serious problem.”