The Orion Protocol Read Online Free PDF Page B

Angela hung up the phone, studied the Pyramids-on-Mars for a long moment, then shut down her computer. She squeezed her Beanie moose doll and tucked the mystery CD into an overstuffed shoulder bag her chiropractor had warned her about. She then followed the coffee smell to the kitchen.
    But the Mars photo still nagged at her.
    So, if it’s not from Goddard Space, then who sent it?
    Angela thought about people she’d worked with, those who had access to sophisticated computer graphics hardware: cameramen, other producers, political consultants, people at video production houses. Mostly they just edited news stories or created campaign ads. Nothing like this.
    No, no, it’s just a sophomore prank.
    “Beware of geeks bearing gifts.” In the cramped office kitchen space Angela laughed, pulling together a tray and a pair of mugs. But pouring out two black coffees, she couldn’t help feeling a little creeped out. It was not like she was being stalked , exactly. Or like she was in any personal danger. Still, it was weird.
    TOLAS. Tricks of Light and Shadow .
    Like it or not, her curious/critical mind, the reporter part of herself, had become fully engaged. And she knew she couldn’t let it go until she had tracked down whatever she could about the who, what, where, when, and why behind this unsolicited disk. Sometimes being the relentless Angela Browning was no picnic.
    Oh, God, you’re not really going to drag your tired Vassar-girl ass all the way out to Goddard tonight? You’re insane .
    Balancing her tray, Angela slipped back into the editing bay, and set the coffees on the console.
    “It’s hot. You ready?”
    “God bless you.” Miriam moaned, rolled back from the keyboard, and doctored her cup with pink sweetener. “You got voice-over copy?”
    Angela took out her notes. Without looking at the spectacular Antarctic glacier collapsing in freeze-frame on the Avid, she palmed her stopwatch and timed herself as she read.
    “ ‘The Greenhouse Paradox: Is Global Warming Triggering a New Ice Age? Sunday, on Science Horizon . ’ 9.5 seconds.”
    “Triggering?” Miriam said, tasting her coffee.
    Manufacturing? Creating? Leading to? Bringing on?
    “Give me a minute.”
    Angela planted herself back into her high-tech chair. Reworking the copy, she thought about the mystery disk in her bag again and was sorry she’d straightened up her damned mail pile. It was going to be an even longer night than she’d imagined.

5
    Auckland, New Zealand
    On the LC-130 Hercules from San Pedro, California, through a refuel at Auckland, and then on toward McMurdo Station, Colonel Augie Blake had slept like the dead, his inveterate snoring drowned in the thrum of the great cargo plane’s Pratt & Whitney engines.
    Awake now, he remembered to take salt tabs and downed two with some bottled water from his flight bag.
    He’d survived a palpable cardiovascular event back in Houston; he knew that. But Augie consciously pushed it aside, relegating the event and what it might mean to the dank mental storm cellar where most of Augie’s personal bad news got stored. Especially things he’d decided he couldn’t do that much about, in this lifetime. Of course, there was nothing he could do about this latest bit of bad news, at least not right now. Nothing except think about it.
    And all thinking about it would accomplish would be to set him brooding over things like his father dying of heart disease when he was two years younger than Augie was now. So, he had chosen not to think about it.
    His married sister, Emily Blake Warren, a veteran nurse-practitioner in D.C., had made that do-the-math point about their father last year when Augie had confessed to mild, recurring dizzy spells. She had lobbied hard at the time for a cardiologist she knew at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, but Augie balked.
    What are they going to do? Fuck with my diet? Tell me to get more exerciseand take baby aspirin? Counsel me to retire if I want to live? Tell me