Pulses, p.3
Pulses, page 3
Nevertheless, he would eventually have to file a report. The interest already generated by Redleaf's repeated requests for pulse soundings had ensured that the headquarters would know the very day when things had started to go wrong. The clock was running.
“I'm seeing plenty of patterns here,” Tony was saying, “but I'm beginning to think most of 'em are a result of receiving so many channels at one time. My quick program change only set up a series of algorithms for the computer to follow to organize the data. It'll sort out the patterns using the various parameters.” Tony squinted through his glasses at the print out. His upper lip lifted slightly, exposing his teeth. “We've got it all on tape though. I'll need a little time to rewrite the program to look at this stuff right.”
“Do it,” Luke said rather abruptly.
Both men looked at him curiously.
“You know something we don't, sir?”
“No. But I've got to do something with this information pretty soon. And when I do, I'm not too sure if the help we're going to get from the headquarters is the kind we need.”
Redleaf nodded. “You can be pretty sure of that, sir. When they do finally get off their butts and come down to assist you, they usually assist the shit out of you. Captain, we need to get moving.”
“What do you think I've been doing, sarge, playing possum? Why don't you get started on your direction finding work? I've got enough here to keep me busy the rest of the morning. I don't want a bunch of headquarters assholes down here messing around any more than the rest of you do.”
“Keep this in mind as you work,” Luke said, “we need to know the effect these pulses are having on our interpretation of the signals we've been decoding from the Russian crossing, both now and in the past. We may have been deluding ourselves about how accurate our assessments have been.” Tony winced. “If the Russians have spoofed us, we'll need to know how badly. Then we'd better be ready to put a fix on the problem. Short of that ... well, I don't think I need to spell it out for you.”
Redleaf paled slightly as he picked up his tool kit and headed for the door.
Chapter 4
Tony was already in the dinner line when Luke entered the chow hall. He fell in at the end of the line and engaged in some small talk with some of the younger enlisted troops who worked in the site's power generating plant. As he neared the end of the line, Redleaf came in and crossed directly to the table where Tony was already halfway through his meal. Luke joined them. “Any luck?” he asked glancing at Redleaf.
“Yes and no. I got the direction finding equipment set up and checked out, but the other transmitter's no longer on line.”
Tony stopped his fork in mid-flight. “I just came from the ops room. The guys over there have been making tapes of the sounding checks just like you suggested. They taped for ten minutes every hour all day, and they say the extra pulses are still coming in just like they did early this morning.” He slid the suspended fork home while he studied Redleaf. Between chews he said, “Your DF must be broken.”
“Did you check the DF on any known sources to verify it?” Luke asked.
“Yes, sir. Of course.” Redleaf said with a puzzled expression. “I got good bearings on the homing beacon over on the coast. I know the signal strength of the pulses is low, but I'm using the sounder receiver to boost the gain. I should be able to pick up the signals without any problems.”
“Well, all's not lost guys. I have a pretty good idea what to look for on those tapes the boys have been making all morning.” Tony tipped his plate about 45 degrees and spooned the last residue of gravy from the porcelain surface. “I'm willing to bet we'll see a pattern in the pulses, but it won't give us much of a clue about who's sending these things. Or why.” He put his plate back level on the table and began pressing his fingers down on stray pieces of bread crumbs surrounding his place. “Matter of fact, I think we've already seen all we're going to see,” he said as he licked the bread flakes from his fingertips.
“You're not giving up are you?” Redleaf asked a little surprised.
“Nope. We've still got to find out what's afoot here. I'm just saying, from what I've seen on the printout we got this morning, there aren't going to be any answers coming from any patterns in the signals. There aren't any codes to be deciphered.” He shrugged. “Sorry guys. That's just my opinion. Could be wrong. But probably not.”
“I almost hope you're right, Tony,” Luke said. “If we had a simple explanation it would save a lot of time and trouble trying to explain to the OHR staff back in their paneled offices why we're getting bogus signals that can only be produced by a piece of gear that's still classified top secret.”
Redleaf was drumming the table top with his fingers. “That still doesn't explain why I didn't pick up the signal this morning.” He sat up straight for a moment. “There's more here than meets the eye as they say.”
“Tell you what, Sergeant Redleaf. I've got to run down to the power plant after we finish here. First, though, let's take a look at your DF equipment. Maybe there's something obvious wrong that a novice like me can spot.”
“You're welcome to look, sir. It wouldn't be the first time I couldn't get something to work because I forgot to plug it in.”
***
In the early evening light, Luke surveyed the area as Sergeant Redleaf worked at the equipment. They occupied a small rise that afforded a clear view of the surrounding desert. Dunes spilled one upon another until they disappeared into a silvery phantom lake filling the void where the earth joined the sky. The sand appeared almost white under the intense afternoon sky as it threw the sun’s rays back into the dry air. The blast of heat caught Luke on his face and arms but sweat never materialized. The arid wind blowing out of the thousand-mile-wide cauldron of sand carried it away before it could form on his skin. To the south, an hour’s flight away, lay the beginnings of the great African veldt. To the west and north pastel mountain ranges shimmered on the horizon. It was a near total isolation; ideal for ferreting out the wisps of radio energy that crisscrossed the earth's continents.
“Here we go, sir.”
Sergeant Redleaf had the DF antenna in the search mode. It scanned blindly around on its mast looking for any whiff of radio energy on channel 46. Redleaf counted off the seconds before the hourly check. As he reached the bottom of his countdown, the antenna swung sharply around to the north northeast where it locked on the Pacific signal. For about a minute it drifted several degrees to either side of its original fix as the signal strength waxed and waned with the slow variations in the Asian environment. At the end of the pulse stream, the antenna broke lock and drifted for a while. Then it reversed and locked onto a westward signal. Then another unlock followed by a return to same reading. The antenna was unquestionably picking up the pulses from the other transmitter. In the direction of the signal lay only an unending vista of oven-hot sand leading all the way to the Atlantic.
Redleaf squinted into the distance. “I that explains why I didn't pick them up this morning? They were in transit.”
“I'm definitely not liking what we’re seeing here.”
“You mean them being out there in the desert somewhere?”
“Yeah. If they can move to the west of us that fast, they're probably in the same country that means whoever it is has the blessing of the Chad government. That's not supposed to be happening.” Luke continued to study the distant horizon. “Can you get a DF unit mounted in the back of a vehicle?”
“You want to triangulate them?”
“Yeah. Can you do it?”
“I can mount the DF equipment in the back of one of the trucks, but it won't do us much good without the sounder receiver to amplify the signal. I can try, though.”
“One other thing. If that bogus transmitter responds automatically to the Pacific signal on channel 46 ...” Luke paused for a second.
“I see what you're thinking, major. Won't it also respond to a signal we send on channel 46?”
“Better than that. It might respond to any burst of energy in the HF range. If it does, we can coax it into transmitting when we want, and maybe on any frequency we want. That would be a help. Not having to wait for the hourly check.”
“I like it.” Redleaf thought for a moment. “Why not? It wouldn't take long to tie one of the site radios to the DF unit to boost the signal. We could transmit an HF pulse and try to get a bearing on any reply later this evening maybe.”
“Do it then,” Luke said. “I've got to move along. Why don't we get together for a beer after supper and go over our findings with the Captain before we make our next move? Maybe something will gel by then.”
Redleaf watched Dawson cross the scorching sandstone mesa for a few seconds then straightened and replaced the dust cover on the DF receiver.
Chapter 5
Luke stepped out of the shower onto the still warm tiles of the bathroom floor. The dryness of the desert air sent a sudden chill through him as the dampness evaporated from his body. He entered his small living area and drew back the curtains on the double windows facing outward to the late afternoon desert. Pools of shadow spread out behind the dunes. The sun, so intense during the day, now cast gentle orange tints onto the thin cirrus clouds clustered near the horizon. In the evening light, the desert was a rich drapery of golds and browns with violet folds of mountains in the distance. Luminous scimitars of orange capped the dunes for several moments until the sun dropped below the horizon.
Luke pulled on some faded jeans and a tan shirt and began hunting for his belt when the bathroom door latch clicked. He turned quickly, expecting to see the wind swinging the door on its hinges. His eyes narrowed for a moment. Something in the room had changed. The window. Outside, a swirl of gray pervaded where seconds before the colored sands and desert sky had added their glow to the somber room. The bathroom door cracked open allowing a shaft of yellow light to fall across the tile.
“I have something for you,” a small voice said as the boy stepped into the room with him. He was about four and wore a blue bathing suit with a pullover polo shirt. Scuffed Buster Brown shoes on sockless feet tracked water in from the still damp bath. Luke remembered wearing shirts like that when he was a kid. He remembered the shoes too. The boy smiled brightly and held out his hand.
Dawson was momentarily speechless. He looked back through the door into the bath. Everything seemed normal.
“Everyone is going to die.”
“What?”
The boy held a black rod out toward Luke.
“This can stop it. It's for you.”
Involuntarily, Luke reached for the rod. It was cold, its smooth surface almost liquid. When the boy released his end Luke puzzled at the lightness of the thing. Aluminum, he thought. Hollow.
Now the boy stood looking past him. Luke turned stiffly to see the National Geographic star map tacked to the wall at the other end of the room.
“You know what that is?”
The boy nodded.
“Who are you?” But Luke already knew the answer.
“Luke Dawson. Luke Selkirk Dawson.” The boy smiled again. “I have to go now.” He started toward the bathroom.
“Wait.” The towhead turned toward him with the familiar sideways squint he had seen in the family album. “Where did you come from?”
“In there,” he said pointing toward the open bathroom door. “In Illinois.”
“What is it that's going to happen? Why is everyone going to die?”
“I don't know.”
“A war?”
The boy shrugged. “I guess so.”
“A nuclear war?”
“I don't know what that is. Maybe.”
“When does this happen?”
“A hundred days. You have a hundred days to stop it.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Pulses.” The boy struggled over the word and uttered it almost explosively. “The pulses. I have to go.”
Before Luke could recover, the bathroom door clicked shut. When he opened it, the boy was gone. Only a small wet foot print showed on a piece of dry tile. Outside the window, the evening sky flickered dimly. When Luke looked back toward the floor the foot print had vanished. He opened his right hand. The black rod was gone too.
Luke shook his head. Déjà vu, he thought. Strong too. Or too much desert.
Stepping back into the bathroom, he splashed cold water on his face from the sink and studied himself in the mirror for the first time in a long while. Getting gaunt, he thought. Dehydration. He pulled the plug in the sink and stood with one hand on the cold porcelain watching the water swirl down the drain.
“Damn.” He shook the water off his hands and reached for a towel. “I've been out in the sun too long. And not watching my water intake either.” The black rod, or rather the lack of it, though, proved it was all some temporary overload. It had never happened to him before. He hoped it never happened again. Luke stopped at the door to pull on his boots and stepped out into the warm wind. The indigo of the distant hills was spreading into the sky allowing Venus and Mercury to spark to life just above the dusky sunset clouds.
He set out along the fifty yards to the small open-air canteen. A flat corrugated tin roof ran from a stone barbecue pit at one end to a homemade bar area at the other. A concrete floor held a dozen heavy metal tables, bolted to the floor to keep them in place during sandstorms. Wooden lawn chairs bought with profits from the small bar operation provided seating throughout the canteen area. The bar had been open for about thirty minutes. Several small groups of GIs were already enjoying the evening with guitar and harmonica music provided by the ever-present musicians found at remote places all over the earth. Redleaf sat at a table near the barbecue pit sorting through a cardboard box he held in his lap. He looked up with a smile as Luke slid into the chair next to him.
“Evening, major.”
“Care package?” Luke asked, nodding toward the box.
“No. Just some odds and ends I've collected over the years.” Redleaf lifted another sheaf of papers out and laid it on the table. “One time I saved an article on cosmic echoes. I thought it might be in here somewhere.”
“The bounce-back the early radio operators used to get from their signals. I've heard of that. You think this might be cosmic echo?”
“Maybe. There hasn't been much published on it since the early days. For a while there was a theory about HF energy being trapped in the Van Allen belts and ducted in a big loop out several million miles and back. But there's not that much interest in HF anymore. That's why I saved a clipping I cut out several years ago.” He finished rummaging through the box. The table in front of him was covered with odds and ends. “Guess I didn't put it in here.” Redleaf shoved the box onto the table. “I'll re-sort this stuff later. How about a beer?”
“Let me,” Tony said as he came sauntering in from behind them. Tony continued on to the bar where he dropped some money in the coffee can that served as a cash register. He leaned way over into the cooler digging the beers off the bottom where they would be coldest. One never knew when the last load of hot beer had been dumped into the box.
Luke popped the cap and took a long swallow. A sense of well-being overtook him as the cold liquid found its way into his bloodstream. The experience with the mental overload seemed insignificant now. Too much activity in the desert often did more than that, even to the natives.
“Jeeze, that hits the spot,” Tony said. Tony's tightly stretched pullover shirt and high-water brown pants threatened with rupture along several seams somehow fit in with the old pair of car tire sandals flapping against his soles. “How'd you do with your DF shot this afternoon?” he asked Redleaf. “The Major tells me you picked something up, but it’s coming from a different direction now.”
“Yeah. Looks like we’re not going to be able to get a permanent fix on it.” Redleaf took a swallow from his beer. “I'm working on a little different approach now. I'm going to try to use a decoy pulse to get the other transmitter to broadcast at our convenience instead of waiting around for the hourly sounding. I'll do that tonight. How about you. Any luck?”
“Nah. Nothing different since lunch. Got the program ready to load tonight, though.” Tony finished his beer and headed back to the bar for another round.
“I'll pass on this one,” Luke called after him. “I guess we don't have that much to go on.. When I call out a satellite scan of that area tomorrow, I think I'll request a support team with some equipment to do the job right. We can't sit on it any longer. Not without some definite answers.”
Redleaf nodded. “I agree. And I'm sure the local government isn't going to let us get away with much anyway.”
“That's another reason I'm looking for outside help. The political situation is something I have no authority to get involved in. The Libyans have the local government here in enough of a crunch. They're suspicious of everyone right now. Anything we do off this site can have serious repercussions for the future of the OHR project.”
Tony returned with three more beers in spite of Luke's pass. The conversation died out for a time as the guitar and harmonica began to seep into their consciousness. The air still held the day's warmth and Luke found the second beer a welcome relief. Tony hummed along for a while then grew restless. Finally he broke the reverie by asking Redleaf where he was from.
“Chicago. East side.”
“Chicago? I thought you were an Indian.”
“I am. There are Indians in Chicago too. My dad was a high welder. He worked on the skyscrapers.”
“Yeah, I've heard of that. Indians working on skyscrapers and high bridges. Things like that.” Tony took a long draught of his beer. “What kind of Indian are you anyway?” he asked with evident curiosity.
