The black Suburban hasn’t moved, no one getting in or out of it yet. Beyond it, engineers bolt the test model securely to its steel platform on the flatbed while a truck backs up to the hitch. Any minute the precious astro-cargo will be hauled away, moving at a cautious snail’s pace back to its hangar, and workers are headed to the parking lot.
“Who’s that?” Lex asks, impressed as Dick walks right by my Tahoe without a glance, on his way to the Suburban. “He’s got 4 stars on his uniform. Is that the commander of Space Force? George’s friend?”
“You never know who’s watching when you do something you might be sorry about,” I reply pointedly as I wonder what else my father has confided in him. “Yes, as it so happens, General Melville was in the control room when you made a run for it right there in front of him and everyone.” I shift the SUV into gear, and it’s time to get out of here.
“I’m pretty sure nobody likes me anymore.”
“In case you haven’t figured it out, you didn’t do yourself any favors when you decided to hijack the NASA campus, starting up machines and setting off sirens,” I continue to explain the error of his ways as I back up the Tahoe.
I let him know I don’t appreciate being tricked into thinking there might be a chemical leak, the lights turning off, and robots starting as I’m searching the building. Cranking up the wind tunnel fan while I was inside it isn’t something I’ll forget anytime soon, all of his hijinks illegal, I remind him.
“Seriously? Did you bother to consider the danger you posed to life and limb,” I drive us away from the Gantry. “You could have ruined experiments and extremely expensive equipment. Not to mention, hurt someone. Was it your intention to kill me inside the wind tunnel?”
“What I did was a reflex,” Lex says as if that’s good enough.
“An incredibly reckless and selfish one,” is my response as I watch Dick in my mirrors, climbing into the back of the Suburban, the door shutting.
“I’m sorry,” Lex says. “But I wanted to buy myself time. I realize it wasn’t smart and that I upset a lot of people.”
“Yes, it wasn’t smart. Yes, you’ve upset a lot of people. There are very good reasons why no one is supposed to be inside the wind tunnels while they’re running. And you’ve worked around them with my dad these past few months. You sure as heck know better.”
“I was impressed by how you handled the challenges,” and I can tell he means it but that’s not the point. “You turned off everything crazy fast. How did you do it?”
“We’re not here to talk about how I did anything,” as I drive through slush.
Thick woods are on either side in the gathering dark, and I’m constantly monitoring updates and other information crawling by in my lenses as ART keeps me up on the latest developments. It’s all over the news that the hearse stolen from the car show was bizarrely recovered at the morgue in Norfolk, probably left there as a prank, it’s rumored.
Police have no suspects or idea who’s responsible, and I’m betting Dylan made sure the OCME security system metadata has been altered. Otherwise, he’ll have a lot of explaining to do, and to give Neva credit, hers was an audacious plan that came very close to working. It was genius to steal a license plate from the very service handling her sister’s remains, Chamberlain & Sons Funeral Home and Crematorium.
The question is who removed tags from their fleet and put them on the getaway hearse, a driverless one. Even ART didn’t know which funeral home was handling Vera Young’s arrangements, and once again I place my money on Dylan. Obviously, Neva got to him, doing her usual thing of targeting someone on the inside to cooperate with her ploys and schemes.
Her MO is to go after low-hanging fruit first, her sister, for example. Vera wouldn’t have been hard to dominate, Dylan even easier, neither one of them the malevolent force the hitman was. Worried who else Neva has at her beck and call, I’m conflicted over whether I should leave Lex home alone with a grandmother who might be compromised.
But I remind myself his life was reasonably stable until recently it seems. I don’t want to toss him overboard into social services or the criminal justice system unless I’m sure that’s where he belongs.
00:00:00:00:0
“TELL ME what you did,” I say to him. “I want to know how you pulled off what you call ‘challenges’ and I call ‘cyberattacks.’”
“By creating an algorithm for accessing and activating numerous facilities and devices simultaneously,” he says, sounding quite sure of himself. “And it worked perfectly. Exactly like it was supposed to.”
“And you thought it was okay to do something like that?” I’m watching the Suburban in my mirrors, stewing over Dick pretending not to see me.
“It wasn’t supposed to be real. It was never meant to be played for real,” Lex replies. “It’s just a game.”
“What you did was no game,” I repeat in no uncertain terms, on Doolittle Road, passing the van pool, every vehicle piled with snow.
“It’s something I came up with while I’ve been here, kind of like Toy Story where everything’s alive,” Lex says brightly. “Only I call it Helmet Fire because the point is not only to animate everything you can but to keep adding one challenge after another, seeing how much your opponent can handle.”
“Also known as hacking, sabotage, trespassing, destruction of government property,” I rub his nose in reality. “The same thing you’re suspected of doing to the rocket, the Space Station.”
“You could take this same algorithm, sub out certain variables, and create a Helmet Fire game almost anywhere,” he goes on excitedly. “Imagine targeting a shopping mall, a casino, a manufacturing plant.”
“It’s not a game, you’re not targeting anything, and I’m concerned you don’t understand how serious this is,” I warn him. “You hacked into NASA for crummy sake.”
“No, I didn’t,” Lex replies with another one of his shrugs. “Vera’s the one who hacked into NASA because she showed me how. It’s on the thumb drive she gave me. A backdoor way to get around certain cyber security measures should you want to gain root access to facilities on campus. Including doors and hatches.”
“And you didn’t think it suspicious she’d be in possession of something like that?”
“I guess a little. But it was so awesome.”
“You didn’t wonder why she’d share it with you?”
“I should have shown it to George,” Lex admits dismally. “I should have told you or someone, and I shouldn’t have written the algorithm.”
“You got that straight.”
“But I didn’t plan on ever executing it for real,” he keeps saying that. “I just wanted the possibility.”
“You were quick on the trigger, suggesting you’d thought about it a lot.”
“I got scared when I saw the photographs,” he’s looking out the window again. “I wanted to get away, and when you came into the wind tunnel after me, the only thing I could think of was to set off a bunch of stuff, diverting your attention so I could escape.”
“When I drop you off at home, I’m going to want the thumb drive,” I reply, passing Building 1119-A, metal-sided with a huge retractable bay door.
One of our newer hangars, it’s obviously where the test model is headed, several cars in the parking lot.
“I wish I’d never taken it now,” Lex says, and I can tell that Vera Young has hurt as much as angered him.
I can imagine him basking in her attention, falling for her promises hook, line and sinker. She was a senior scientist at Pandora, the sister of Neva Rong, and of course he was going to feel special and flattered.
“She was nice to me so she could spy, wasn’t she?” he mutters, disappointed. “That’s why she gave the thumb drive to me, and said all those things.”
“Very possibly that was Vera’s major agenda.”
“If people are nice from now on, I’m not going to trust them!”
“You said the man in the photographs was nice to you too,” I bring him back to the subject of the dead man in the Denali. “Did you know him?”
“He lives in my neighborhood. Or he did.”
“In your mobile home park?” and you could knock me over with a feather when Lex nods his head. “Do you know his name?”
“No.”
“He never introduced himself to you or your grandmother?”
“I never really talked to him, would see him sometimes when I was walking to get the bus,” Lex says. “Or if I rode my bike past his house and he was outside, he’d wave and say hi. Once I ran into him at the food pantry, except he acted as if he didn’t know me. Not everybody wants to be seen in there.”
“Which pantry?”
“The one at the Baptist church,” he replies as I think how convenient and callous.
Food banks are a perfect way for someone to stay anonymous. Most require no proof of identification, and no questions asked. A killer for hire walks out of a church with free groceries as he plans his next murder, and I decide it’s time to buzz Fran.
I place the call myself like I used to in my SIN-less days when I didn’t have ART. And the instant she answers, I tell her she’s on speakerphone.
“Lex is with me,” I add. “But then I suspect you know that.”
“I heard,” she says in a cold, disapproving tone.
On Langley Boulevard now, I can see the vacuum spheres at the scramjet facility several blocks ahead, ghostly in the dusk. The giant white metal orbs clustered like giant PONGs make me think of Ranger, and I glance in my mirrors as if I’ll spot the camouflaged mobile hotspot tailing us, assuming he is.
But not a sign, just the sun smoldering as it dips below the horizon. Light flashes gold off the glass windows of the institutional brick buildings, the black Suburban following at a distance.
“We’re a minute from HQ,” I let Fran know. “It would be great if someone could meet us in the parking lot with Lex’s coat so we don’t have to come inside. Where are you right now?”
“In my office where I’m staying,” her voice through my truck’s speakers.
ART connects me to cameras at headquarters, including the one built into the computer on Fran’s desk. No matter how many times I’ve told her to cover the lenses of her devices, she doesn’t always bother, and I imagine my artificial helper is shrewd enough to make sure he turns off her desktop activation light so she can’t tell anybody’s watching.
“. . . Don’t ask me to lift a finger to help him out,” her attractive face looms in the camera unbeknownst to her.
She’s combing her fingers through her dark hair, sitting in her ergonomic chair, paperwork and empty coffee cups everywhere. Craving a cigarette right about now, I can tell as I see her in my SPIES and PEEPS.
“. . . I don’t care if he freezes his little ass off after the crap he’s pulled,” her voice hard as nails for Lex’s benefit since she knows he’s riding shotgun.
Angry as she may be, I know she doesn’t mean it. She has her own precocious handful at home, 6-year-old Easton who keeps her hopping because the apple didn’t fall far. Fran may come across as not having a soft side or maternal bone but it couldn’t be further from the truth.
“. . . I never had lunch, and now I’ve got a bear of a headache. Thanks very much, Lex,” she goes on irritably.
I’m unpleasantly reminded it was eons ago when Dick gave me muffins and a protein drink. My stomach is so empty it might digest itself.
“At least the lights are back on,” Fran’s no-nonsense voice. “And the hissing sound inside that lab magically stopped just like everything else your dad’s pet intern managed to crash and burn around here,” she adds condescendingly, rather brutally, and Lex’s face has turned red, his eyes flashing.
“I didn’t damage anything!” he erupts in a furious stage whisper, and I press my finger to my lips, shaking my head, warning him to shush.
ART updates me nonstop in my lenses with news feeds, silently alerting me that Vera Young’s body was cremated a little while ago according to her daughter in California. In response, Neva Rong is threatening to sue the Commonwealth of Virginia for failing to conduct a thorough death investigation.
She claims officials deliberately destroyed evidence, falsified records, and are refusing to turn over Pandora’s proprietary property among other high crimes and misdemeanors. In addition, Mason Dixon is broadcasting live from Chamberlain & Sons Funeral Home and Crematorium, ART shows me.
“Where are you headed?” Fran asks.
“I’m taking Lex home,” I reply, and she won’t be happy.
“Excuse me? I assumed you were bringing him here,” Fran voices her disapproval even as Mason mentions me by name over the air, informing his internet audience that as usual I’m refusing to comment.
Since when does the buck stop with me? Certainly, he’s tried calling often enough at any hour he pleases, and it’s true that I do what I can to avoid him. But he’s never criticized me publicly, not like this, and it’s as if he’s issuing a challenge.
“. . . Repeated attempts to contact Captain Chase have been ignored, and I gotta tell you, folks, it’s not okay. As taxpayers we have a right to know what’s going on in the United States government whether it’s NASA or Space Force . . . ,” he says outrageously in my implanted earpiece.
21
I SEE FRAN in my lenses, pushing back her office chair, standing up, tired and rumpled in her uniform.
“Do you really think that’s the best thing for him . . . ?” she asks, gesturing impatiently as if I’m right in front of her.
“At this time, yes,” I reply, and I suppose squabbling with her remotely isn’t all that different from butting heads with ART.
“Well, I sure don’t,” she adds as if there’s a better choice.
There isn’t. Not as far as I’m concerned. We don’t have a lockup at NASA. We’re not in the business of warehousing prisoners of any age, and I’m not about to shuffle off Lex to Hampton’s youth detention center. I’m also not going to discuss this with Fran while he’s listening, and I take the call off speakerphone.
“Based on what I know so far,” I continue, “leaving him in his own environment is what makes sense,” and what I’m saying is I’m not prepared to charge him with anything at this stage of the investigation.
More than that, I’m letting Fran know there will be no argument. It’s my decision, and no one’s barging in and taking this kid away from me right now.
“I don’t think he should be unsupervised,” her negative voice in my ear.
“Hopefully he won’t be.”
“In case you didn’t know, his grandmother’s that crazy old bat who claimed to be struck by lightning a couple summers back. Do you remember?”
“I wasn’t on that particular call,” I reply blandly, not wanting Lex to know I’m talking about his situation at home as I feel him staring holes in me.
“All I can say is when I pulled up at their trailer this afternoon, the windows were covered with gift wrap paper,” Fran says. “And the grandmother didn’t come to the door. So, I don’t know how much supervising she’ll be doing. Probably, he shouldn’t be with someone like that, let’s be honest.”
“I think there’s a lot we don’t know,” I don’t want to go down that path, at least not yet. “When are you heading out?”
“Not for a while. I’ll feel better when everybody clears off campus.”
As she says it, ART shows me the ID badges on the same sitemap as before. In my lenses I see the same NASA personnel and private contractors
who were at the Gantry moments ago, only now a handful of them have relocated to the hangar where the test model is being hauled.
“It’s good if you’re not too far away because I may need your help in a little while,” I let Fran know. “I have a feeling we’re going to end up searching a mobile home near the speedway, and I need you to keep this between us.”
“I’m confused. His mobile home? Or one related to him?”
“Possibly relating to the unidentified man found in the Denali, the alleged suicide.”
“You think you know who he is?”
“I think I may have found where he lived. Lex is helping me,” I glance over at him as he listens intently, his face a road map of worry.
“And how is he helping? I didn’t realize he’s junior detective now,” Fran retorts sarcastically, and I tend to ignore how jealous she can get. “What are you talking about?”
“Not sure yet.”
“Are you telling me this kid has some sort of connection to the dude whose head was blown off?” she asks incredulously.
“That’s how it’s looking.”
“And I didn’t think this day could get any weirder.”
“For now, don’t share this with anyone,” I repeat. “Not Butch, Scottie, Celeste, not even the chief. No one.”
“How about we run the address? Let’s see what we can find out before anybody shows up. Having a clue what we might be walking into is always a good idea.”
“There’s no we,” I reply. “I don’t know the address yet but when I do? Nobody’s showing up there unless I say. I’ll get back to you when I have more,” and I end the call as Lex resumes fretting out loud about being killed in horrendous ways or rotting in the slammer.
Spin (Captain Chase) Page 17
