Code to Zero (2000) Read online

  The shock paralyzed him. He sat at his desk, staring through the window, while evening fell over the hickory trees in the back yard. How had he let his life go so wrong? He considered what he had learned about himself in the last thirty-six hours, from Elspeth, Billie, Anthony and Bern. 'Had he lost his way slowly and gradually, like a child wandering farther and farther from home? Or was there a turning point, a moment when he had made a bad decision, taken the wrong fork in the road? Was he a weak man, who had drifted into misfortune for lack of a purpose in life? Or did he have some crucial flaw in his character?

  He must be a poor judge of people, he thought He had remained close to Anthony, who had tried to kill him, yet had broken with Bern, who had been a faithful friend. He had quarrelled with Billie and married Elspeth, yet Billie had dropped everything to help him and Elspeth had deceived him.

  A large moth bumped into the closed window, and the noise startled Luke out of his reverie. He looked at his watch and was shocked to see that it was past seven. If he hoped to unravel the mystery of his life, he needed to start with the elusive file. It was not here, so it had to be at Redstone Arsenal. He would turn out the lights and lock up the house, then he would get the black car out of the garage and drive to the base.

  Time was pressing. The launch of the rocket was scheduled for ten-thirty. He had only three hours to find out whether there was a plot to sabotage it Nevertheless, he remained sitting at his desk, staring through the window into the darkened garden, seeing nothing.

  .

  7.30 P. M.

  One radio transmitter is powerful but short-lived - it will be dead in two weeks. The weaker signal from the second mil last two months.

  There were no lights on in Luke's house when Billie drove by. But what did that mean? There were three possibilities. One: the house was empty. Two: Anthony was sitting in the dark, waiting to shoot Luke. Three: Luke - was lying in a pool of blood, dead. The uncertainty made her crazy with fear.

  She had screwed up royally, maybe fatally. A few hours ago, she had been well placed to warn Luke and save him - then she had allowed herself to be diverted by a simple ruse. It had taken her hours to get back to Huntsville and find Luke's house. She had no idea whether either of her warning messages had reached him. She was furious with herself for being so incompetent, and terrified that Luke might have died because of her failure.

  She turned the next corner and pulled up. She breathed deeply and made herself think calmly. She had to find out who was in the house. But what if Anthony were there? She contemplated sneaking up, hoping to surprise him; but that was too dangerous. It was never a good idea to startle a man with a gun in his hand. She could go right up to the front door and ring the bell. Would he shoot her down in cold blood, just for being there? He might. And she did not have the right to risk her life carelessly - she had a child who needed her.

  On the passenger seat beside her was her attache case. She opened it and took out the Colt She disliked the heavy touch of the dark steel on the palm of her hand. The men she had worked with, in the war, had enjoyed handling guns. It gave a man sensual pleasure to close his fist around a pistol grip, spin the cylinder of a revolver, or fit the stock of a rifle into the hollow of his shoulder. She felt none of that To her, guns were brutal and cruel, made to tear and crush the flesh and bones of living, breathing people. They made her skin crawl.

  With the pistol in her lap, she turned the car around and returned to Luke's house.

  She screeched to a halt outside, threw the car door open, grabbed her gun and leaped out. Before anyone inside might have time to react, she jumped the low wall and ran across the lawn to the side of the house.

  She heard no sound from within.

  She ran around to the back, ducked past the door, and looked in at a window. The dim light of a distant street lamp enabled her to see that it was a simple casement with a single latch. The room seemed empty. She reversed her grip on the gun and smashed the glass, all the time waiting for the gunshot that would end her life. Nothing happened. She reached through the broken pane, undid the latch, and pulled open the window. She climbed in, holding the gun in her right hand, and flattened herself against a wall. She could make out vague shapes of furniture, a desk and some bookshelves. This was a little study. Her instinct told her she was alone. But she was terrified of stumbling over Luke's body in the dark.

  Moving slowly, she crossed the room and located the doorway. Her dark-accustomed eyes saw an empty hall. She stepped cautiously out, gun at the ready. She moved through the house in the gloom, dreading at every step that she would see Luke on the floor. All the rooms were empty.

  At the end of her search she stood in the largest bedroom, staring at the double bed where Luke slept with Elspeth, wondering what to do next. She felt tearfully grateful that Luke was not lying here dead. But where was he? Had he changed his plans, and decided not to come here? Or had the body been spirited away? Had Anthony somehow failed to kill him? Or had one of her warnings got through?

  One person who might have some answers was Marigold.

  Billie returned to Luke's study and turned on the light A medical encyclopedia lay on the desk, open at the page about female sterilization. Billie frowned in puzzlement, then put aside her questions. She called information and asked for a number for Marigold dark. After a moment the voice on the line gave her a Huntsville number.

  A man answered. 'She gone to singing practice,' he said.

  Billie guessed he was Marigold's husband. 'Miz Lucas is down to Florida, so Marigold conducting the choir till she come back.'

  Billie recalled that Elspeth had been conductor of the Radcliffe Choral Society, and later of an orchestra for black kids in Washington. It seemed she was doing something of that sort here in Huntsville, and Marigold was her deputy. 'I need to talk to Marigold real bad,' Billie said. 'Do you think it would be all right if I interrupted the choir for a minute?'

  'Guess so. They're at the Calvary Gospel Church on Mill Street'

  'Thank you, I sure appreciate it.'

  Billie went out to her car. She found Mill Street on the Hertz map and drove there. The church was a fine brick building in a poor neighbourhood. She heard the choir as soon as she opened the car door. When she stepped inside the church, the music washed over her like a tidal wave. The singers stood at the far end. There were only about thirty men and women, but they sounded like a hundred. The hymn went 'Everybody's gonna have a wonderful time up there -oh! Glory, hallelujah!' They clapped and swayed as they sang. A pianist played a rhythmic barrelhouse accompaniment, and a large woman with her back to Billie conducted vigorously.

  The pews were neat rows of wooden folding seats. She sat in the rear, conscious that hers was the only white face in the place. Despite her anxiety, the music tugged at her heartstrings. She had been born in Texas and, to her, these thrilling harmonies represented the soul of the South.

  She was impatient to question Marigold, but she felt sure she would get a better response by showing respect and waiting for the end of the song.

  They finished on a high chord, and the conductor immediately looked around. 'I wondered what happened to disturb your concentration,'- she said to the choir. 'Take a short break.'

  Billie walked up the aisle. 'I'm sorry to interrupt,' she said. 'Are you Marigold Clark?'

  'Yes,' she said warily. She was a woman of about fifty, wearing fancy spectacles. 'But I don't know you.'

  'We spoke on the phone earlier, I'm Billie Josephson.'

  'Oh, hi, Dr Josephson.'

  They walked a few steps away from the others. Billie said: 'Have you heard from Luke?'

  'Not since this morning. I expected him to show up at the base this afternoon, but he didn't Do you think he's all right?'

  'I don't know. I went to his house, but there was no one there. I'm afraid he might have been killed.'

  Marigold shook her head in bewilderment 'I've worked for the army twenty years and I never heard of anything like this.'


  'If he is alive, he's in great danger,' Billie said. She looked Marigold in the eye. 'Do you believe me?'

  Marigold hesitated for a long moment 'Yes, ma'am, I do,' she said at last 'Then you have to help me,' Billie told her.

  .

  9.30 P. M.

  The radio signal from the more powerful transmitter may be picked up by radio hams all over the world. The weaker signal from the second can be picked up only by specially equipped stations.

  Anthony was at Redstone Arsenal, sitting in his army Ford, peering through the darkness, anxiously watching the door of the Computation Laboratory. He was in the parking lot in front of the headquarters building, a couple of hundred yards away.

  Luke was in the lab, searching for his file folder. Anthony knew he would not find it there, just as he had known Luke would not find it at his home - because he had already searched there. But Anthony was no longer able to anticipate Luke's movements. He could only wait until Luke decided where to go next, then try to follow him.

  However, time was on his side. Every minute that passed made Luke less dangerous. The rocket would be launched in one hour. Could Luke ruin everything in an hour? Anthony knew only that over the last two days his old friend had proved again and again that he should not be underestimated.

  As he was thinking this, the door to the lab opened, spilling yellow light into the night, and a figure emerged and approached the black Chrysler parked at the curb. As Anthony had expected, Luke was empty-handed. He got in and drove off.

  Anthony's heartbeat quickened.. He started his engine, switched on his headlights, and followed.

  The road went south in a dead-straight line. After about a mile, Luke slowed hi front of a long one-storey building and pulled into its parking lot. Anthony drove past, accelerating hi to the night. A quarter of a mile down the road, out of sight of Luke, he turned around. When he came back, Luke's car was still there, but Luke had gone. .

  Anthony pulled into the parking lot and killed his engine.

  Luke had felt sure he would find the folder in the Computation Lab, where his office was. That was why he had spent so long there. He had looked at every file in his own room, then in the main office where the secretaries sat And he had found nothing.

  But there was one more possibility. Marigold had said that he also went to the Engineering Building on Monday. There must have been a reason for that. Anyway, it was his last hope. If the file were not here, he did not know where else to look. And anyway, he would by then have run out of time. In a few minutes, the rocket would either be launched - or be sabotaged.

  Engineering had an atmosphere quite different from that of the Computation Lab. Computation was spotlessly clean, as it had to be for the sake of the massive computers that calculated thrust and speed and trajectories. Engineering was scruffy by comparison, smelling of oil and rubber.

  He hurried along a corridor. The walls were painted dark green below waist level and light green above. Most of the doors had nameplates beginning 'Dr', so he presumed they were the offices of, scientists but, to his frustration, none said 'Dr Claude Lucas'. Most likely he did not have a second office, but maybe he had a desk here.

  At the end of the corridor he came upon a large open room with half a dozen steel tables. On the far side, an open door led into a laboratory with granite bench tops above green metal drawers and, beyond the benches, a big double door that looked as if it led to a loading bay outside.

  Along the wall to Luke's immediate left was a row of lockers, each with a name plate. One was his. Maybe he had stashed the file here.

  He took out his key ring and found a likely key. It worked, and he opened the door. Inside he saw a hard hat on a high shelf. Below that, hanging from a hook, was a set of blue overalls. On the floor stood a pair of black rubber boots that looked like his size.

  There, beside the boots, was a buff-coloured army file folder. This had to be what he was looking for.

  The folder contained some papers. When he took them out, he could see immediately that they were blueprints for parts of a rocket His heart hammering in his chest, Luke moved quickly to one of the steel tables and spread the papers out under a lamp. After a few moments' rapid study, he knew without doubt that the drawings showed the Jupiter C rocket's self-destruct mechanism.

  He was horrified.

  Every rocket had a self-destruct mechanism so that, if it should veer off course and threaten human life, it could be blown up in mid-air. In the main stage of the Jupiter rocket, a Primacord igniter rope ran the length of the missile. A firing cap was attached to its top end, and two wires stuck out of the cap. If a voltage was applied across the wires, Luke could see from the drawings, the cap would ignite the Primacord, which would rip the tank, causing the fuel to burn and be dispersed, and destroying the rocket The explosion was triggered by a coded radio signal. The blueprints showed twin plugs, one for the transmitter on the ground and the other for the receiver in the satellite. One turned the radio signal into a complex code; the other received the signal and, if the code was correct, applied the voltage across the twin wires. A separate diagram, not a blueprint but a hastily drawn sketch, showed exactly how the plugs were wired, so that anyone having the diagram could duplicate the signal.

  It was brilliant, Luke realized. The saboteurs had no need of explosives or timing devices - they could use what was already built in. They did not need access to the rocket: Once they had the code, they did not even have to get inside Cape Canaveral. The radio signal could be broadcast from a transmitter miles away.

  The last sheet was a photocopy of an envelope addressed to Theo Packman at the Vanguard Motel. Had Luke prevented the original being mailed? He could not be sure. Standard counter intelligence procedure was to leave a spy network in place and use it for disinformation. But if Luke had confiscated the original, the sender would have mailed another set of blueprints. Either way, Theo Packman was now somewhere in Cocoa Beach with a radio transmitter, ready to blow up the rocket seconds after it took off.

  But now Luke could prevent that He glanced at the electric clock on the wall. It was ten-fifteen. He had time to call Cape Canaveral and have the launch postponed. He snatched up the phone on the desk.

  A voice said: 'Put it down, Luke.'

  Luke turned slowly, phone in hand. Anthony stood in the doorway in his camel-hair coat, with two black eyes and a swollen lip, holding a gun with a silencer, pointing it at Luke.

  Slowly and reluctantly, Luke cradled the phone. 'You were in the car behind me,' he said.

  'I figured you were in too much of a rush to check.'

  Luke stared at the man whom he had so misjudged. Was there some sign he should have noticed, some feature that should have warned him he was dealing with a traitor? Anthony had a pleasantly ugly face that suggested considerable force of character, but not duplicity. 'How long have you been working for Moscow?' Luke asked him. 'Since the war?'

  'Longer. Since Harvard.'

  'Why?'

  Anthony's lips twisted into a strange smile. 'For a better world.'

  Once upon a time, Luke knew, a lot of sensible people had believed in the Soviet system. But he also knew their faith had been undermined by the realities of life under Stalin. You still believe that?' he said incredulously.

  'Sort of. It's still the best hope, despite all that has happened.'

  Maybe it was. Luke had no way of judging. But that was not the real issue. For him, it was Anthony's personal betrayal that was so hard to understand. 'We've been friends for two decades,' he said. 'But you shot at me last night'

  Yes.'

  'Would you kill your oldest friend? For this cause that you only half believe in?'

  Yes, and so would you. In the war, we both put lives at risk, our own and other people's, because it was right'

  'I don't think we lied to one another, let alone shot at one another.'

  'We would have, if necessary.'

  'I don't think so.'

  'Listen. If I don't kill you
now, you'll try to stop me escaping - won't you?'

  Luke was scared, but he angrily told the truth. 'Hell, yes.'

  'Even though you know that if I'm caught, I'll finish up in the electric chair.'

  'I guess so ... yes.'

  'So you're willing to kill your friend, too.'

  Luke was taken aback. Surely he could not be classified with Anthony? 'I might bring you to justice. That's not murder.'

  'I'd be just as dead, though.'

  Luke nodded slowly. 'I guess you would.'

  Anthony raised the gun with a steady hand, aiming at Luke's heart Luke dropped behind the steel table.

  The silenced gun coughed, and there was a metallic clang as the bullet hit the top of the table. It was cheap furniture, and the steel of which it was made was thin, but it had been enough to deflect the shot Luke rolled under the table. He guessed Anthony was now running across the room, trying to get another shot at him. He raised himself so that his back was against the underside of the table. Grabbing the two legs at one end of the table he heaved, standing upright at the same time. The table came up off the floor and teetered forward. As it toppled, Luke blindly ran with it, hoping to collide with Anthony. The table crashed to the floor.

  But Anthony was not beneath it Luke tripped and tumbled onto the inverted table. He fell on his hands and knees, and banged his head on a steel leg. He rolled sideways and came up into a sitting position, hurt and dazed. He looked up to see Anthony facing him, framed by the doorway that led into the lab, braced with his feet apart, aiming his gun two-handed. He had dodged Luke's clumsy charge and got behind him. Luke was now, literally, a sitting target, and the end of his life was a second away.