Delta Green - страница 9

“That can’t happen,” Brackman said, trying not to let the heat of his temper carry over into his voice.

“I know, sir, and that’s what really pisses me. It did happen. And I’ve got four dead.”

“Goddamn it!”

“Sorry, sir.”

Brackman nudged the communications specialist’s shoulder. “Get Delta Blue on a secure frequency.”

Lieutenant Colonel Amelia Pearson was strapped into her office. It was probably the most efficient, technologically supported, and tiniest office ever designed. It was a four-by-four-by-seven-foot cubicle with padded walls and no windows. The door was a gray nylon curtain fastened to plastic balls sliding in tracks at the top and bottom. It was intended to provide the occupant with a psychological sense of privacy and an environment which enhanced concentration.

A computer and communications console with three cathode ray tube displays was recessed into one wall and served as the “desk.” It allowed for visual access to three documents simultaneously, or if she split the screens, to six documents. Additionally, she could tap into any of the radar or video monitoring systems.

There were four such offices in the command module located on Spoke One of Themis, the Space Command’s space station. Besides herself, they were assigned to the commander of Themis, Brigadier General James Overton; the deputy commander, Colonel Milt Avery; and the 1st Aerospace Squadron commander, Colonel Kevin McKenna. Pearson thought the expenditure for McKenna’s office had been wasted. He used his cubicle for sleeping as often as he used it for duty chores.

Across a roughly hexagonal-shaped corridor from the smaller cubicles was a much larger compartment staffed twenty-four hours a day by one of the three communications operators on board. The nooks and crannies left over were fitted with other compartments housing computer and electronics gear, safety equipment, and emergency environmental suits.

The entire module was forty feet in diameter and sixty feet long, and the command center, on the outboard end of the module, was twenty feet deep by almost the full diameter of forty feet. A four-foot diameter, round porthole provided a view of the earth and was the central focus point of the control room. Not much thought had been given to aesthetics. Conduit and ducting was a fiberglass and steel maze against the gray bulkheads. Consoles and black boxes were secured where they were functioned. Velcro tethers, rather than chairs, were placed in appropriate locations to keep the people operating consoles from floating away.

“Amy!” General Overton didn’t use the intercom system when people were within shouting distance.

“Coming, sir,” she called back, then saved the report she was writing to the mainframe computer’s laser disk storage.

Pearson released the strap holding her to the padded wall and pushed out into the corridor. Using one of the many grab bars spaced throughout the station, she deflected her flight toward the command center.

She had become so accustomed to the environment of Themis by now that the acrobatic methods of getting around were second nature. She had not planned on becoming a gymnast. With a doctorate in international affairs from the University of California at Los Angeles, she had also read at Trinity College before signing on with the Air Force. In her mid-thirties, Pearson was unmarried and intensely devoted to her career. The devotion did not interfere with the confidence and grace with which she traversed the corridors of either the Pentagon or Themis.

She was tiny at five-feet, four-inches and gave the impression of atomic particles on the move. McKenna sometimes called her hyperactive. Her dark red hair was cut somewhat longer than the Air Force cared for, and in zero-gravity, she kept it in place with a denim headband. She had pale green eyes that seemed constantly in search of clues, reasons, and solutions. The light blue, zippered jumpsuits favored by station personnel didn’t disguise much of her lush figure.

Floating into the command center, she found several technicians manning monitoring stations and Overton at the main console near the port. The view through the porthole was currently centered on the Caribbean Sea, glowing with hazy greens and blues. An eruption of Mauna Loa the week before had sprinkled ash in the atmosphere, resulting in a diminished clarity.