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.
70
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