Breaking Point by Tom Clancy Read Free Book Online Page B

rows, on a gravel pad of some thirty-three acres. Each tower consists of a pair of dipole antennas that run either in the 2.8-to-7 MHz, or the 7-to-10 MHz range. Each transmitter can generate some ten thousand watts of radio-frequency power, and the combined raw output of the three hundred and sixty transmitters is thus three point six million watts. When focused on a single spot in the sky, this is effectively multiplied a thousandfold, to three point six billion watts."
    "Better than the old pirate Mexican radio stations," Michaels said, smiling.
    "By a factor of about seventy thousand," Morrison said, returning the smile.
    "So it's a very powerful system. And ... ?"
    "And there are several things we've learned along the way. Research has been primarily in four areas: communications, such as with extremely low frequency waves, or ELF, for such things as contacting submarines in the depths; tomography--the ability to see great distances underground--and even the possibility of some rudimentary weather control. There have also been some experiments with pulse generation, EMP, to knock out enemy missile guidance systems, that sort of thing."
    "Interesting."
    "Yes, it is. And as a by-product of the ELF research, the possibility of affecting and altering biorhythms of plant and animal life has been ... explored."
    Michaels frowned. "You want to clarify that last part for me?"
    "We've known for a long time that long-term radiowave exposure can affect people. Increased rates of cancer under power lines and the like. Civilized people live in a virtual bath of non-ionizing low-frequency waves-- everything electrical produces them. At HAARP, certain areas of research involving the 0.5-to-40Hz frequencies, the same ones that the human brain uses, have been experimented with."
    "Meaning?"
    "Meaning that the Navy and Air Force are very interested in the possibility that HAARP could give them a nondestructive weapon technology."
    Michaels leaned back in his chair. "What, are we talking about mind control?"
    "It is a possibility, though not yet feasible."
    This really was interesting. "It's been a while since my last physics class, Dr. Morrison, but the difference between hertz radio waves and megahertz is considerable, isn't it? How is it that a transmitter that produces frequencies in the--what was it? 2.8-to-10 MHz range--will do anything in the 0.5-to-40 Hz range?"
    Morrison gave him a smile as might a professor discovering a bright student who has picked up something the rest of the class missed. "Ah, very good, Commander. You are correct. A hertz is one cycle per second, a megahertz is a million cycles per second. So in order for such high-frequency broadcast energy to be, ah, stepped down by this magnitude requires a considerable change in the length of the broadcasting antenna. Generally speaking, an antenna must be as long as the wavelength it transmits. So 30 MHz waves would require a ten-meter antenna, and 30 Hz waves would need about a thousand-kilometer antenna."
    "I wouldn't think there are a lot of thousand-kilometer antennas lying around," Michaels said. He kept his voice dry.
    "You'd be surprised. An antenna needn't be made of steel girders--you can make one out of coils of wire, or transmitters linked electronically, or several other ways. For our purposes, we use the sky itself.
    "The Earth is essentially a giant magnet, surrounded by incoming cosmic and solar radiation. A certain number of these solar winds spiral in and down at the magnetic poles, in what is known as the electrojet. This is what causes the aurora--the northern and southern lights. With HAARP, we can, in effect, turn the length of the electrojet into a kind of antenna, and by certain electronic manipulations, make it as long as we want, within limits, of course."
    "I see. And this means you can generate frequencies that might affect human mental processes with a lot of broadcast power behind them, over a long distance."
    "It does."
    "Are you here as a