“To LA?” Keene could only stare bemusedly.
“Intriguing, isn’t it?” Cavan agreed. “And it gets more so. Who do you think is on the same flight also? Our friend Tyndam from Cambridge. I doubt very much if they’re eloping together. I doubt if he’d be her type. I can only assume that they’re joining the rest of the party.” Cavan waited, expressionless, for Keene to figure the rest out.
Fey and Tyndam were flying to California that night. And, interestingly, Beckerson was also flying to California, practically at the same time, nominally on official duties. Perhaps Cavan’s suspicion had been correct after all, and Beckerson was part of it! . . . But if that were so, then the whole business at Andrews had to be a diversion. Nothing was going to happen there.
“Hixson and this guy with him have been set up,” Keene murmured. “They’re not going to be collected at all. They’re sacrificial—to keep us busy watching.”
“You’re getting there, Landen,” Cavan said. “So the real action will be in California. The question is where. There’s only one place I can think of. And with Queal and his connections through Air Force Intelligence, it all fits.”
Keene stared back at the sparse frame and features watching patiently from the screen. The aim, surely, was still to get aboard and probably seize control of the Osiris. They already had the hostages to get them past the defenses. The only other thing needed was a vessel to get them up there. As Cavan had said, if they were on their way to southern California, there was only one answer.
“My God!” Keene breathed. “It’s got to be Vandenberg. While everyone’s waiting for something to happen at Andrews, they’ve been quietly getting a shuttle organized there. Queal would have the contacts to arrange it.”
“Full marks,” Cavan said.
“Have you talked to Hayer?”
“Yes, but he’s not sure how to deal with it. If somebody like Beckerson is involved, how do we know who can be trusted? If the commander there is in on it too and we tip him off so that he warns the others away, the Kronians will never leave at all because Idorf is on limited time. The only way we’ll get those people back is by letting the thing go through as if we know nothing and grabbing them when they appear. And there’s only one person anywhere close who can move soon enough without drawing the wrong kind of attention. And that’s you, Landen.”
32
Red sulfurous dust and blinding vapors, mixed into a choking haze with the exhausts from thousands of vehicles, swirled through the headlight beams of the traffic groping its way along Interstate 5 North out of Glendale. Sheila, the technician driving the JPL shuttle bus, craned forward in her seat to keep sight, through the arc smeared by the laboring windshield wiper, of the flashing red and blue lights of the police escort leading them on the inside lane that was supposed to be reserved for official use. Outside in the murk, police, military, and volunteers in hooded capes and chemical warfare garb yelled, cursed, and waved flashlamps to direct the lines, hauled breakdowns clear, and kept interlopers out of the official lane, while fifteen million people tried to squeeze through the four main routes inland from the Los Angeles basin.
Keene, clad like the others in a military combat jacket, woollen comforter cap, and hooded smock that some JPL high-up’s talking to the local National Guard commander had procured, and packing underneath it a hip-holstered .45 automatic, sat behind the Guard captain occupying the front passenger seat. Charlie, Colby Greene, and John were wedged in the other seats, along with an armed trooper, and two more troopers were at the back, inside the rear door. The bus itself looked as if it was equipped for a safari, with boxes of supplies, extra weapons, jerrycans of gasoline and water piled inside, and a layer of sandbags lashed to the roof as a protection against falling rocks. It had been decided earlier in the day to have all the Lab’s trucks and buses preequipped for evacuation at short notice. Keene, Charlie, and Colby would be flying on to Vandenberg, 160 miles north on the coast, with a hastily organized Marine Corps detachment that they were to meet. John had come along to keep Sheila company and would return to JPL with the bus and its Guard escort afterward.