“Mason and I go back a long way,” and it’s all Neva has to say to explain so many things.
Such as the two of them being together at Wallops right now when she’s making a bid to install a launch pad there. Such as her perhaps knowing about her sister’s death before the rest of us did, and is the one who told him. He in turn alerted the local affiliate that showed up at the scene. And if all of the above is true, that would be more than a little incriminating.
“Any indications that might make you think she was depressed, that something wasn’t right?” I’m asking Vera’s so-called bereft loved one the expected questions as my suspicions swirl faster and faster like a summer twister. “What about depression or life changes that were disruptive? Being relocated here to Virginia, for example. I’ve heard it suggested she wasn’t thrilled to be so far from home.”
“Of course, I didn’t see this coming.” Neva’s eyes like tiger eyes, her mouth pressed in a thin line. “I would never have allowed her to be relocated had she complained. And further, had she seemed depressed, moody, anything off-nominal, we would have whisked her back to Houston right away.”
−00:20:42:1 . . . Passing Wendy’s, getting closer . . .
“I’m just wondering what to expect from the medical examiner,” Neva’s voice as I monitor the NASA feeds.
The rocket shining white on the pad, everybody gathered and watching the clock. Including the CEO of Pandora Space Systems. She probably has the same view I do, looking up at the flat-screens everywhere, dozens of cameras trained on LP-0A. I imagine her in the VIP area at Mission Control, looking through glass, maybe over Rush’s shoulder.
I check the International Space Station live feed to see what’s going on with the EVA, and I can’t stand it that I’m running late. The two astronauts are in what’s known as depress operations, meaning all systems are a go, and they’re suited up, about to open the hatch for the spacewalk. The quantum node on its pallet has been removed from the cargo hold and is outside secured to the truss, awaiting the installation.
“. . . Just wondering how much is really necessary when it’s so obvious what happened . . . ,” Neva Rong’s voice goes on.
−00:19:52:1 . . .
The film crew Ken mentioned earlier is Mason Dixon, of course, and I keep wondering if Dick is there. Maybe close enough for Neva to touch.
“There will be a postmortem examination,” I inform her unhelpfully. “And then you can make arrangements with a funeral home . . .”
“That’s the thing. She needs to come home. To Houston. And while this is a delicate topic, but will she be viewable? How did she look, and how disfiguring is the autopsy? Because I’ve heard horror stories about people having all their organs, even their eyes removed. And limbs if need be. Of things gouged out of them . . .”
−00:18:22.2 . . . Passing Bojangle’s, reminded how freakin’ starving I am, and I’ve got to alert Fran that I’m coming.
“. . . Never been one to watch all those crime shows, and I’m afraid I really don’t know what to expect. But I understand some medical examiner’s offices have CT scanners these days . . .”
She knows about the sensors. And that explains the bleach.
Carme.
It and the missing container give the appearance of someone attempting to tamper with evidence, and that was the only point. To give the appearance. So we’d take a second look. And a third. And more looks to come, and driving with one hand, typing with the other, I send an urgent text to Fran:
Meet me at the main gate NOW.
“. . . Because I should think if one is carefully examined externally and scanned, then why cut the person open?” Neva Rong outrageously goes on, and I’m not going to answer that either.
“I suggest you call the death investigator,” and I give her the information for Joan, who won’t tell her jack squat.
Then I tell Dr. Rong I have to go, and it’s now 16 minutes out from launch with the EVA soon to go on. All those Iowa kids must be right there, and I can’t imagine her holding court like the evil queen in Snow White. Smiling and paying attention to people from the sticks, as she probably thinks of rural America, if she’s anything like her sister.
−00:16:03:1 . . .
00:00:00:00:0
ON Langley Boulevard now, opening the text that just landed.
10-23, Fran letting me know she’s waiting for me at the guard gate, and she must have been out in her car and in the area to get there that fast.
I can see her black Tahoe alone in the Badge and Pass Office parking lot, where I don’t need any fancy credentials to get in. I park next to her, driver’s door to driver’s door as usual.
“How did you manage to lose your frickin’ badge?” she says as our windows hum down.
“I didn’t lose it, and it would seem someone used it several hours ago to access the Durand Gate and may be on this campus,” I let her know instantly, but I’m not going to mention my sister.
“Not that same trick again! Are you kidding me?” Shaking her head, the cold wind ruffling her hair. “Well, I hope you don’t end up hanging from your closet door,” she adds unpleasantly.
“I just know that somebody used it to get through the guard gate, and it wasn’t me,” I turn up the heat as high as it will go, having no intention of telling her the rest of the story.
That my ID apparently has been used to access the AFB for the past three days. And it’s probably my fugitive twin sister doing it.
−00:13:00:1 . . .
“And Neva Rong clearly knows her sister’s dead,” I add. “She just called me. Neva did . . .”
“Yeah, I figured you didn’t mean Vera.” Always the smartass, lighting a cigarette.
“Wanting to know what the medical examiner is going to do to the body,” I explain. “And I didn’t like the way she was asking it or anything about her call. Out of the blue. Thanks to Mason Dixon, who gave her my number, the two of them at Wallops right now. The important point is I think Neva Rong knows about the sensors.”
“They already dug them out,” Fran holds up her hands, fingers splayed. “I talked to Joan a little while ago, and she said she tried what you said, using a wand like TSA has. And they were able to extract some sort of teeny-tiny square chips. About 20 of them from her fingers, wrists, ankles.”
−00:12:31:1 . . .
“Sensors, and we should look at them here,” I reply. “And I’ve got to get to MC. I’m already late.”
“Now I’ve got a question for you,” the tip of the cigarette glowing orange. “While Scottie and Butch were dealing with the evidence at HQ a little while ago, something weird was found inside the fridge . . .”
“I know, I know. I tucked the swabs in there from earlier. Despite your belief I shouldn’t have bothered . . .”
“Not those.” Fran taps an ash in the dark, her frozen breath laced with smoke blowing out in a plume. “A tube of blood labeled 1111-A, I kid you not.”
“What?” My mind goes blank.
“You heard what I said. A blood tube like they take in the doctor’s office. In the fridge next to the swabs you put in there. A label on it that says 1111-A. Maybe the blood that matches the drops you found on the steam pipe, huh?” She’s being funny and she’s not.
Carme.
“So, you want to tell me where that tube of blood came from? Maybe the dead lady from Fort Monroe?”
Vera Young was dead for hours by the time anyone checked on her. There was plenty of time for someone to stick a needle in her femoral artery and take a blood draw. Then drip several drops on the steam pipe in the Yellow Submarine tunnel, and I think of the alert on my phone at 3:38 in the afternoon while I was giving my briefing.
Carme.
Who’s a whiz at hackin
g into anything and altering parameters of pretty much whatever she wants. And she sure as heck knows how to get my attention.
“If you’ve got an explanation, I mean, I’m listening . . . ,” Fran fills the windy cold silence, smoking as I think.
−00:10:04:1 . . .
“Well?” she pushes.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know who the hell drew a tube of her blood at the scene, if that’s what the hell we’re talking about? Someone did that before we got there, for Chrissakes?” Taking a deep drag on the cigarette. “Jeez, Calli,” in a quieter tone. “What the frick’s going on?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s your sister?”
I shrug, don’t know. And she doesn’t say anything more, smoking in the dark, snow falling everywhere and blowing inside our trucks. Whatever I might know, Fran is quite clear that I’m not going to tell her. That it’s not the good old days anymore. It can’t be. Another hit on her cigarette, and she puts it out in a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup.
−00:09:31:1 . . .
“Here you go. Don’t lose it.” She hands me a generic smartcard so I can access doors.
Tells me to follow her Tahoe through the guard gate, where I sit behind her ruby-red brake lights, watching her talk to the female officer. Celeste. Both of us know her, and she glances several times in my direction. We wave at each other, friendly enough. But she stares hard at me as I drive through, studying my face as my phone rings again. This time Fran.
“You’re the one who came through the Durand Gate.” Her voice inside my truck.
“Excuse me?”
“Celeste says you came through about midnight. That a military cop named Crockett alerted her that there was something weird going on. Because he’d seen you earlier with General Melville in your police truck. And then you were in and out, most recently around midnight.”
“What was I supposedly driving?”
“A white Prius,” Fran’s pushy voice over speakerphone. “Which is what your dad has. That for sure wasn’t you, was it, Calli?”
“No. It for sure wasn’t me, Fran. At midnight I was getting showered and dressed.”
“Where’s your sister?”
“I don’t know,” and it’s true, because I don’t.
−00:07:51:0 . . .
We don’t pass a single car, the campus deserted. Only those of us who have to be here, and I peel off into the parking lot of Building 2101, the main building on the Langley campus, the second floor lit up. Fran keeps driving, and I promise her we’ll get into everything in greater detail later.
But it isn’t good enough.
“Calli? Where’s your sister?” she says in that tone she uses when she knows I have the answer but am not going to hand it over.
“I don’t know,” I reply, and technically it’s not a lie.
I can’t say where she is right now, and when we’re talking about Carme, all bets are off. The only thing that’s certain is you can expect the unexpected, and for once there’s no problem finding a parking spot close to the door.
“What should concern you at the moment is Neva Rong,” I reply, getting out of my truck, locking up. “The Pandora CEO who’s at Wallops this very minute. And I’m gonna lose you inside the building, Fran.”
I might not until I’m on the elevator, but I don’t want to stay on the phone with her a second longer, and I come close to hanging up on her, over and out. Because she won’t stop asking questions, even though she’s darn sure I’m not going to answer them. Feeling threatened by my connection to Carme, and I know that Fran wouldn’t put anything past her.
−00:06:22:1 . . .
Using my temporary smartcard, I open the front door, and my boots are loud on polished granite. Not a soul inside. Walking so fast I’m close to trotting, past the cafeteria and exchange, the lights low, outer doors locked, nobody home. Riding up alone to the second floor, looking a bit like a one-woman SWAT team in my field clothes and gear. Walking past the offices for senior management of the research and engineering directorates.
The usual NASA photographs everywhere, and outside Mission Control, a glass showcase filled with models of the Space Shuttle. The new Space Launch System super rocket. The James Webb Space Telescope with its sunshield coated in gold. Our Mission Control Center is modest compared to Johnson Space Center and Cape Canaveral, nobody paying any attention to me when I walk into the tan carpeted open area of workstations cheek to jowl, only about a third of them occupied.
−00:01:11:2 . . .
Computer displays glow with tightly packed acronyms, numbers and codes depending on which system is being monitored, the controllers facing a data wall displaying the rocket on LP-0A, and the EVA in progress outside the Space Station.
Commander Whitson with her high-tech drill Pistol-Grip Tool (PGT) on a swing arm at her waist, her checklist on her wrist, is tethered to the faux LEAR on its pallet and the robotic arm.
−00:00:50:0 . . . T-minus 50 seconds . . .
Moving through the vacuum toward the research platform on the most remote area of the truss, the Station as bright as polished silver, receding slowly. I listen to the countdown displayed big enough to see across the room, the live feed of the rocket quietly ticking away above it. Ken is at his console, busy on the comms, an array of displays monitoring every system and subsystem that he needs to know about.
In jeans and a sweater, he’s stubbly and his eyes look tired, a plate of fresh fruit salad and a pastry in easy reach.
−00:00:30:0 . . . T-minus 30 seconds . . .
We shoot each other a quick smile as I walk past, headed to my station, the payload deployment officer on my left, the instrument and communications officer on my right, two rows back from the food table. Everybody riveted to the data wall, and I sit down, putting on my headset to monitor Rush talking to EV1 and EV2, our astronauts outside in their big white spacesuits, their EMUs. As the countdown continues.
−00:00:10:0 . . . T-minus 10 seconds . . .
Typing in my password.
“. . . 5, 4, 3, 2 . . .”
When the robotic arm suddenly stops midflight. At 17 meters (56 feet) from the Station.
00:00:00:00 . . .
As the rocket explodes like a bomb on the pad in a towering eruption of rolling fire while the Station’s telecommunications go dead. The audio and video instantly knocked out. Leaving us blind, deaf and dumb in outer space and on the ground.
“Holy mother of . . . !” under my breath.
My fingers click-clicking on the keyboard, loading a NORAD special coordinate file for tracking objects in space. I can use the 3-meter parabolic antenna dish on top of our hangar to reconnect with the astronauts as long as that red tab is pulled on the node and the beacon turned on. As long as Commander Whitson remembers, we can complete the quantum network and talk. Sort of like tin can telephone again.
Entering commands to power on the servos so I can reposition the antenna dish’s 3-axis motors. Except the circuits don’t engage. Nothing happens.
35
THE EXPLOSION paints an orange afterglow on the black horizon that can be seen from as far away as Washington, DC, according to reports already on social media.
Emergency crews are putting out the fire, the island shrill with sirens, and pulsing with lights based on video feeds in Mission Control from a moment ago. The road leading on and off Wallops has been closed, leaving spectators with no way back to the mainland. Police cars and fire trucks everywhere.
In dramatic contrast to the barren planet I’m driving through at 0713 Greenwich Mean Time. Thirteen minutes past 2:00 a.m., and the Langley campus is so deserted one might think the mothership showed up and left some of us behind.
<
br /> “. . . It broke out the glass in a lot of the buildings, those closer to the pad,” Rush is saying over the phone through the speakers inside my truck. “It happened so fast, a lot of people are just standing around in a stupor. We’re fine where we are here in Mission Control except I’ve never felt anything like that. And hope I don’t again. I now understand the meaning of bone rattling.”
An off-nominal launch in addition to a robotic arm failure as the Space Station’s comms go dead, Rush summarizes. Just as he was in the middle of telling Peggy Whitson over Space to Ground 1 that she had a lot of kids from her hometown watching. Such an irony when everything awful happens at once.
“We got any idea how both strings of S-band plus both strings of Ku-band comms could have been knocked out?” I inquire, driving through blowing snow, the streets empty and white, the buildings dark and in lockdown.
“No clue,” Rush replies. “And not just one catastrophic failure but three of them almost simultaneously . . .”
“Sounds like that’s the point.”
“Whose point?”
“Whoever hacked into NASA, because that’s sure as shooting what we’re talking about,” I reply. “Taking out our rocket while targeting the robotic arm and the Space Station’s telecommunications during an extremely dangerous EVA involving a classified quantum node installation. Primary, secondary and tertiary attacks happening at the same time. Works like a charm. Just ask terrorists.”
“Then you believe it’s all connected. All from the same source of ugly.”
“You know what I say about coincidences.”
“You’re not getting an argument from me,” he agrees.
“What was Neva Rong doing during all this?” rolling past the massive white metal spheres that generate velocity in the wind tunnels. “You know, the VIP guest sitting under your nose whose NASA contractor sister’s badge was supposedly stolen before she was found suspiciously dead yesterday.”
Quantum Page 30
