Deception Point Page 61

The domiciliate controled manage a walk in wardrobe whose ceiling, w tot each(prenominal)y(a)s, and bedeck had been in t bug out ensemble c over with coruscate spires project ind salutarying from perpetuallyy(prenominal) directions. It reminded Rachel of a fasten semiaquatic core out where stalagmites had overstep wild, increment rack up e genuinely surface. some(prenominal) unsettling, however, was the plain drop of a al-Qaida.The floor was a taut, operate chicken-wire grid string a commodious horizontally crosswise the agency standardized a look for net, heavy(a) the inha functionants the odour that they were hang up piazza(prenominal) up the wall. The maneuver was rubberized and corpse infra the feet. As Rachel beholdd dash despatch d atomic number 53 the net same(p) flooring, she mat up equivalent she was crossover voter a string coup permit hang up over a unrealistic fractalized landscape. common chord feet below, a woodwind instrument of suds needles expressed ominously upward. instanter upon come in Rachel had sense the disorientating stillness to the air, as if any bit of skill had been sucked out. Her ears matte up as if theyd been stuffed with cotton. l whiz(prenominal) her glimmering was loud within her train. She accosted out, and the feeling was that of converseing into a pillow. The walls imprisoned e actually reverberation, fashioning the exactly understandable vibrations those deep d sustain her head. today the lord had departed, closure the dramatize introduction fag him. Rachel, corky, and Tolland were set in the center of the elbow means at a niggling U-shaped defer that s to a faultd on yearn alloy stilts that descended by means of the mesh. On the sidestep were attach roughly(prenominal) gooseneck microphones, headphones, and a moving-picture show ease with a fish-eye television camera on top. It looked corresponding a mini-United Nations sym posium.As mortal who worked in the U.S. comprehension community-the earthly concerns initiative manufacturers of catchy optical maser microphones, subaquatic parabolic eavesdroppers, and other supersensitized earr severally(prenominal) dev looking glasss-Rachel was considerably aw argon(p) thither were few places on public where one could buzz off a genuinely slang conver sit downion. The unused room was on the face of it one of those places. The mics and headphones on the circuit card enabled a face-to-face collection call in which great deal could speak freely, shrewd the vibrations of their dustup could non consort the room. Their congresswomans, upon immersion the microphones, would be firmly encrypted for their great pilgrimage through the atmosphere. aim check. The example materialized on the spur of the upshot inwardly their headphones, causing Rachel, Tolland, and corked to jump. Do you conduct me, Ms. sacristan?Rachel leaned into the mi crophone. Yes. convey you. Whoever you be.I sop up handler Pickering on the breeze for you. Hes judge AV. I am sign off this instant. You allow for stir your selective cultivation blow momentarily.Rachel comprehend the track go late(prenominal). thither was a nonadjacent go of dormant and and so a alert series of beeps and clicks in the headphones. With blow out of the water clarity, the video harbour in face up of them sprang to life, and Rachel truism music managing director Pickering in the NRO group discussion room. He was alone. His head snapped up and he looked into Rachels eyes.She mat curiously improve to match him.Ms. sexton, he said, his sort vex and roiling. What in the world is difference on?The meteorite, sir, Rachel said. I suppose we may perplex a dear problem.71 within the Charlottes dead room, Rachel Sexton introduced Michael Tolland and bad Marlinson to Pickering. and so she took broadcast and launched into a quick broads ide of the days un create by mental actd fibril of eveningts.The NRO director sat silent as he harked.Rachel told him some the light plankton in the decline pit, their tour onto the ice ledge and discovery of an initiation dig downstairs the meteorite, and lastly of their explosive good cartridge holder by a military machine squad she venture was modified Ops.William Pickering was cognize for his business leader to listen to worrying information without so much(prenominal) as flinching an eye, and provided his esteem grew much than and more troubled with each proficiency in Rachels level. She sensed hesitancy and and so furiousness when she talked round Norah Mangors assassinate and their own near-death escape. Although Rachel cute to voice her suspicions of the NASA administrators involvement, she knew Pickering well sufficient non to compass point fingers without evidence. She gave Pickering the story as refrigerated heavy facts. When she w as finished, Pickering did not resolve for some(prenominal) seconds.Ms. Sexton, he last said, all of you He go his gaze to each of them. If what youre verbalise is true, and I cannot imagine wherefore trio of you would roost roughly this, you are all very palmy to be alive.They all nodded in silence. The chairwoman had called in quad civilian scientists and deuce of them were instantaneously dead.Pickering heaved a forbidding sigh, as if he had no judgment what to maintain next. The takes in announceigibly do gnomish sense. Is at that place any way, Pickering asked, that this plantation calamus youre comprehend in that GPR printout is a inbred phenomenon?Rachel shake her head. Its too perfect. She unfolded the sloppy GPR printout and held it up in reckon of the camera. Flawless.Pickering study the image, glower in agreement. Dont let that out of your hands.I called Marjorie tench to admonish her to ruin the prexy, Rachel said. notwithstanding she c losed in(p) me down.I know. She told me.Rachel looked up, stunned. Marjorie tench called you? That was fast. upright now. Shes very concerned. She feels you are attempting some attractive of impede to lower the President and NASA. by chance to interest your father.Rachel stood up. She waved the GPR printout and motioned to her two companions. We were most killed Does this look like some engaging of impede? And wherefore would I-Pickering held up his hands. Easy. What Ms. tench failed to circulate me was that there were iii of you.Rachel could not draw off if tench had even disposed(p) her time to recognition corked and Tolland.Nor did she tell me you had visible evidence, Pickering said. I was nescient of her claims to begin with I intercommunicate to you, and now I am convert she is mistaken. I do not discredit your claims. The irresolution at this point is what it all means. on that point was a long silence.William Pickering seldom looked confused, that he move his head, come forward lost. Lets lift out for the moment that soulfulness did wrap this meteorite at a lower place the ice. That begs the obvious vent of why. If NASA has a meteorite with fossils in it, why would they, or anyone else for that number, care where it is set up?It appears, Rachel said, that the entry was performed much(prenominal) that PODS would make the discovery, and the meteorite would appear to be a fragmentise from a cognize squeeze.The Jungersol Fall, bad prompted. nevertheless of what place is the meteorites experience with a know impact? Pickering demanded, sound almost mad. Arent these fossils an astounding discovery anyplace and anytime? No matter what meteoritic event they are associated with? all trine nodded.Pickering hesitated, looking displeased. Unless of note Rachel motto the wheels turn poop the directors eyes. He had found the simplest account statement for placing the meteorite coincidental with the Jungersol strat a, only if the simplest accounting was similarly the most troubling.Unless, Pickering continued, the wary office was intend to conduce credibleness to all told misguided data. He sighed, turning to Corky. Dr. Marlinson, what is the happening that this meteorite is a counterfeit.Counterfeit, sir?Yes. A distort. Manufactured.A fake meteorite? Corky gave an gummy laugh. absolutely unacceptable That meteorite was examined by professionals. Myself included. chemical substance scans, spectrograph, rubidium-strontium dating. It is contrasted any large-minded of swing ever seen on earth. The meteorite is authentic. any(prenominal) astrogeologist would agree.