Chapter 12

Bolden quickly realized that The Guardian Angel’s permanent surveillance could be performed as discreetly as it had in the days before he signed his contract. The biggest visible difference in his life was the wrist-watch-styled unit he wore, a portable version of the Device given to him by the colonel. Other than that and a few Guardian Angel quirks, Bolden’s daily routine looked roughly analogous to the routine of any well-tended billionaire.

Despite Folder’s advice, Bolden dove back into his business again. He started by paying visits to his companies. It was already an extensive portfolio before he went into seclusion, and since then the number had grown.

At best, a visit meant a rock-star reception from the locals, followed by hours of monotonous presentations. He eventually tired of these dog-and-pony shows, finally convincing himself that despite the global recession, his investments were doing amazingly well, even as the world around them came unglued.

The value of his assets had grown at an absurd rate, and to an anxious world, he seemed almost messianic: the investor who could do no wrong. His social secretary was the most over-worked woman in his private office, so he hired her an assistant. Bolden was invited everywhere, and created a sensation wherever he went.

But things turned out differently when, on an impulse, he decided to visit the terrestrial end of the Space Elevator. It proved to be impossible.

The Army was heavily guarding the artificial island located at the Equator, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The new island had already exceeded a hundred square kilometers and was still expanding. In the center, pointing straight towards the sky, stretched the Elevator’s cable. It consisted of a bunch of interwoven wires made of carbon nanotubes, anchored through extremely powerful electromagnetic fields, powered by the electrical current generated by the movement of the waves around its base.

Because there had been so many attempts to sabotage the Elevator throughout its history, access to the island was extremely limited and casual visitors were forbidden. Bolden was shocked that they turned down his request, and did what he always did when he was stumped. He called the colonel.

Folder arrived by helicopter and landed on the luxury yacht where Bolden waited just outside the circular restricted area established by the Navy. The press called the perimeter the Iron Circle, and it bristled with warships, submarines and aircraft.

“Listen, Folder, don’t you have a family?” yelled Bolden as he stepped out of the helicopter. “You came as soon as I called you.”

The colonel ignored the question and the remark. He leaned on the shoulder of one of the members of the staff who came to help him descend from the helicopter.

“You can’t get in!” Folder reported, also shouting, as soon as he touched the deck. “They won’t even hear of it!”

“The hell I can’t! I own shares in that project! They can’t keep me from visiting my own property!”

“They can and they will,” the colonel said. “They’re using the provisions of the National Security Act, citing new fighting in Kashmir. India and Pakistan have been trading artillery rounds all week, and everyone’s in a testy mood.”

“What? You’re kidding me! Kashmir?” Bolden asked. “We’re in the middle of the Pacific here.”

“It’s escalating. An Indian warship exchanged fire with a Pakistani warship yesterday. They damaged each other, and disengaged, but it’s spooked everybody inside the Iron Circle, The military has tamped down access to Elevator Island. Frankly, I think the only reason you haven’t been arrested or sunk is that you’re the project’s major investor. Might be bad for business to kill you.”

Bolden led Folder to one of the yacht’s luxurious cabins. They sat down in soft armchairs facing each and waited until a steward served them cold drinks.

“Forgive me, but I still don’t see how any of that amounts to a threat to national security,” Bolden said.

The colonel sipped his drink, looking around the cabin admiringly. An ingenious gyro-stabilization system kept the room from rolling or pitching, and the tinted windows pleasantly filtering the light while keeping out the noise of waves slapping the ship.

“If someone sabotaged the Cable, it would wrap around the Earth. The impact would be terrible.”

“Do I look like a saboteur?” Bolden laughed. “And even if I were, what’s the problem? The United States isn’t on the trajectory. And the cable would burn while it crashed through the atmosphere. I’ve seen several projections. The cable is practically impossible to sabotage.”

“The consequences can’t be assessed,” the colonel insisted. “Tons of materials would fall to Earth. We don’t really know what would happen to the cable. It’s just too big a variable risk.”

“But those scenarios are all for failure somewhere above, not from Elevator Island. That is where I want to go, not the geosynchronous station. If it were released from here, the risks are far less catastrophic.”

At a loss, Folder decided to play the honesty card.

“In fact, the greatest threat to national security is the economic collapse that would follow any destruction of the Cable. The Elevator is mostly paid for with American money, as you are well aware. Others have also contributed, that’s true, but only with a few tens of billions of dollars – something symbolic, for others to say there is also private capital invested in it, even though its only 1 percent of the funding. It’s Uncle Sam’s most expensive toy, it’s one of the only economic sectors that’s thriving at the moment, and if anything happened to it the results would tip this recession into a global depression that would make the Great Depression of the 1930s look like a summer vacation.”

Only Bolden wasn’t a man who gave up anything easily.

“But I’ve got billions of dollars riding on that elevator. If anyone has a right to inspect their operations, it’s me.”

“It’s one of the most carefully managed, carefully protected operations in human history!” Folder protested. “If you want evidence of that, look no farther than the fact that they won’t let you in!”

“Nonsense! Everything you’re telling me is a load of circuitous nonsense!”

The colonel stood up, poured himself another glass, and fiddled with the cabin’s communications console. Elevator Island appeared on one of the screens.

“The administration told me to extend their apologies to you for denying your request, and hand-delivered this recording. Watch carefully, Ian: for security reasons it can only be played once.”

The cabin’s portholes tinted over to reduce the glare, and a projector established a glowing holographic field in the center of the room. In a moment the elevator cable appeared in the field, as thick as the trunk of an old baobab, stretching tautly into the clear blue sky. Bolden associated it with the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.

Magnetic levitation trains, or Maglevs, prowled up and down the Cable like worms. The holographic field trembled as the image rose, its recording having been made from an ascending Maglev. Elevator Island grew smaller as the train gained altitude, and the docks and warehouses and cranes below merged into landscape. The recording went through a few rarefied clouds. For a while, it looked like the view from the porthole of an airplane, flying ten thousand meters above the earth.

The train left the atmosphere and the artificial island below faded into the endless blue-green shade of the Pacific Ocean. Folder cleared his throat. It sounded unusually loud in the yacht’s great cabin. The recording of the Maglev’s journey reached its first stop, at three hundred kilometers altitude, where space stations were orbit. The image shifted to the end of the journey, at thirty-six thousand kilometers altitude, on the terminal station located at the geosynchronous point. It was close to where the waste sent by Green Clean was piling up and to the unfinished Electromagnetic Catapult that was going to throw them all towards the Sun.

“You’re right,” said Folder without turning around. “If you were a simple human being, you couldn’t possibly sabotage the Elevator. But you are Ian Bolden, the man who cheated death. The military know about us, and about you.”

He took a sip from his glass and added some more ice.

“The Device was first designed for the Army. That’s where we recovered it. It was an abandoned military project. We took it over and adapted it for personal protection. But the Pentagon never just gives up an idea, particularly if someone else makes it work. We hand in reports periodically, and no doubt they have other ways of keeping on eye on us.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Think, Ian. They’re afraid of you. They don’t want someone with your risk factor to come anywhere near their precious elevator. They can deal with a single man, but there’s nothing in their arsenal that can counter the cosmic forces aligned against you, should a probability form while you tour their facility.”