The Orion Plan by Mark Alpert Page B

spacecraft shrunk before reentry?”
    Instead of answering, he put the document back in his briefcase. “I’m sorry, Dr. Pooley, but we need to come to an agreement before I can discuss this any further.” He bent over and picked up the contract from the floor. Then he reached into the jacket of his uniform and pulled out a pen. “Will you work with us?”
    She scowled at him. The bastard had planned this. He’d given her just enough information to sink his hooks into her. He’d probably done some research on her beforehand, talking to her bosses and colleagues at NASA. He knew she wouldn’t be able to stand the uncertainty.
    Sarah snatched the contract and pen from him. She flipped to the last page and signed it. Then she flung the papers at him and reached into his briefcase to grab the trajectory analysis.
    Hanson smiled. “You can keep that copy. Just don’t let it out of your sight.”
    She didn’t respond. She was too busy studying the data. There were pages and pages of radar readings showing the position of the object during the last few minutes of its flight. The analysis also included a diagram of the probe’s trajectory before it reached the Earth. This plot, based on the Sky Survey observations, started at a point beyond the moon’s orbit and made a graceful curve toward the planet.
    Sarah bit her lip as she stared at it. Hanson was right. Besides the United States, there were only two countries that could’ve launched such a complex spacecraft: Russia and China. And China was only barely capable of it.
    She jabbed her finger at the trajectory diagram. “I bet it’s the Russians. You remember the Ikon, the interplanetary spacecraft they launched a few years ago? That whopping big thing with the nuclear-powered propulsion system? They put it in orbit around the sun, and after six months of testing they said they lost contact with it. But maybe they were lying. Maybe they found another use for it.”
    Sarah gathered from the look on Hanson’s face that he’d also considered this possibility. He stepped closer, standing with his shoulder touching hers, so they could look at the document together. “Our best guess is that the spacecraft’s real purpose was to provide a demonstration. The Russians are returning to the intimidation tactics they used during the cold war. They want to show us they can attack any of our cities with a weapon that’s too fast to be stopped by our missile defenses.”
    â€œYou mean a kinetic-energy bombardment? The speed of the projectile provides the destructive power?”
    Hanson nodded. “The Pentagon studied a similar system ten years ago, a satellite that could hurl tungsten rods at the Earth’s surface. They called it ‘Rods from God.’ We’d heard rumors that the Russians were working on the same technology, but now it looks like they made a few improvements. Their system is less vulnerable because it doesn’t use an orbital platform.”
    Sarah looked again at the trajectory diagram. “Yes, it’s coming from deep space, so you couldn’t destroy it in advance with an antisatellite weapon.”
    â€œExactly. There’s no defense against it. If there’s a standoff anywhere in the world—the Middle East, Ukraine, wherever—they could obliterate any of our command centers or sink any of our aircraft carriers.” He pointed at the analysis in Sarah’s hands. “And the Russians wanted us to know they could hit any city on the globe. Here, go to page twenty-seven.”
    Sarah turned the pages until she reached a second diagram. This one showed the probe at twenty minutes before reentry, when it was still thirty thousand miles from the Earth. At this point, according to the Air Force’s analysis, the object’s trajectory branched off into two curving paths. Now Sarah realized what Hanson had meant when he’d said the