Holdout

by Jeffrey Kluger

  “HIJACK IN SPACE,” read the headline on CNN, with a smaller “Rogue astronaut seizes station” underneath.

  The characteristically buttoned-up Associated Press was more reserved: “Crisis in Orbit; Station Commandeered.”

  The New York Times held its fire too: “Space Station Evacuated; Lone Astronaut Disobeys Orders, Remains Behind.”

  The New York Post let fly: “CARJACKED!”

  But it was London’s Guardian that was the most succinct of all: “WHY?” it read, above a picture of Beckwith taken at a preflight press conference in Baikonur. The picture happened to catch her glancing to the side in the middle of a blink, which left her looking either nuts, drunk, or shifty. She suspected they went through a lot of pictures before they found that one. Still, the newspaper’s question was reasonable—and it was one she knew she’d have to answer soon.

  Finally she attempted to log onto her own web page. NASA encouraged astronauts to make liberal use of social media, but Beckwith had always thought it a waste of time. Still, to keep the public affairs people happy, she had allowed a NASA intern to build her a page, which she updated only occasionally. Most days she had no more than a few dozen visitors at any one time. Today, she was inundated: More than a hundred thousand people had visited the site in the first ninety minutes after the accident. That figure was climbing, in real time, as she watched.

  She scrolled a bit more, then had a thought. She opened her search engine and typed a few words into it. The results appeared, and she smiled her winning, infectious, almost-laughing smile. The phrase “I would prefer not to” was burning down the internet.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The first thing on Vasily Zhirov’s mind when his Soyuz spacecraft thumped down on the ground in the plains of Kazakhstan was getting back out of Kazakhstan as fast as he could. The second thing was avoiding the dumplings they were going to make him eat before he left.

  Getting out of Kazakhstan fast would allow him to get to Moscow fast—and Moscow was where Zhirov needed to be. One of his crewmates was injured, another had mutinied, his space station was broken, and his mission was over—or at least Roscosmos would say it was over. But Zhirov had other ideas. He had signed on to serve for a full six months, and only seven weeks had passed since launch day. If he had to command his mission from a control room in Moscow, he would, but he still had to get to Moscow.

  The dumplings, however, would have to come first.

  Zhirov and Lebedev had hit the ground outside the city of Zhezkazgan, the southernmost point of a triangle on the Kazakh Steppe within which most returning Soyuz crews landed. Just what the welcoming city would be for any returning Soyuz depended principally on the angle of reentry and the weather on the ground. The cloud ceiling today was barely four hundred feet in Arkalyk, the westernmost point of the triangle, and it was even lower in Karaganda, the easternmost point. So Zhezkazgan it was.

  There were no people more enthusiastic than the Zhezkazganis when cosmonauts fell out of the sky near their city. And there was no cosmonaut who excited them more than Zhirov. By pure chance, the reentry variables had lined up to send him to the city on the last three of his space station missions, and now he was coming for a fourth.

  In short order, Zhirov and Lebedev would be choppered in to the Zhezkazgan airport, where they would be greeted by a little ceremony. There would be speeches by local officials and a presentation of Russian nesting dolls—hand-painted with the cosmonauts’ likenesses. Local girls dressed in traditional green-and-yellow costumes would stand decoratively in attendance during all of that. Then they would step forward to offer the cosmonauts trays of food—nuts and dates and especially sweet fried dumplings. It all would be pleasant enough except that people coming back from months in zero-g typically have a hard enough time fighting just to stay on their feet and hold down whatever the last thing was that they’d eaten in space. The mere thought of nuts, dates, and dumplings would be enough to make them lose both battles.

  All returning cosmonauts might get the local greeting, but none of them would be watched as closely as Zhirov to make sure he was feeling the local love. Even after an emergency reentry like today’s, Russia—always sensitive to its delicate relations with Kazakhstan—would expect him to play the grateful hero at least briefly. Lebedev would be spared the ceremony.

  Much more worrisome to Zhirov throughout the entirety of the twenty-three-minute plunge to Earth was the matter of Walli Beckwith. It preoccupied him as he felt the gravity load of the high-speed reentry and as the parachutes deployed and jerked the spacecraft violently. It was only the sudden impact in the loose scrub and hard soil—which was always tooth-rattling even with the chutes and a small burst from braking rockets to slow the fall—that pulled back his focus.

  “Spacecraft is on the ground,” Zhirov announced into his mic. “Recovery team, please inform us of your status.”

  “Eight minutes out, Vasily,” came the response in Zhirov’s headset from the lead helicopter. Even through the rotor noise in the background, Zhirov could recognize the voice of the recovery team commander, Sergei Rozovsky.

  “Why eight?” Zhirov challenged.

  He knew even as he said it that it was not a fair question. On such short notice, it had been impossible to assemble the full complement of helicopters, spotting planes, and all-terrain vehicles that usually made up a recovery crew. Eight minutes out for a shorthanded team scrambling to a touchdown site was something of an achievement.

  “On our way,” was all Rozovsky said in response. Mi v pyti.

  “Understood,” Zhirov said. “Thank you.”

  Eight minutes later, to the second by Zhirov’s watch, he could hear the whup-whup-whupping of the chopper blades overhead and a moment later a hand banging on the side of the Soyuz. A ladder knocked against the spacecraft, and the hatch on the top of the module opened. Rozovsky’s face peered down at the cosmonauts. It was a round, genial, almost jolly face, and it was the first face returning cosmonauts had seen during sixty recoveries over the past fifteen years. When Russian media would ask Rozovsky how he had endured so long in such a punishing line of work, he would typically answer, “Mi vipolnyáem chërtovu rabótu”—more or less, We do the fucking job—which is why Russian media finally stopped asking the question.

  Today Rozovsky did not look jolly. He cast a practiced glance at Lebedev and his brow creased, and then he turned to Zhirov.

  “How are you, Vasily?” he called down into the spacecraft.

  “We are fit,” Zhirov responded. “Crew is five-three.”

  “You reported four-two.”

  “I was wrong. I am unhurt, and Yulian is improved. We are five-three. Announce it please.”

  “I will not,” Rozovsky said.

  “Sergei,” Zhirov said, “please do this for me.”

  Rozovsky paused, then nodded. “Crew is five-three!” he called over his shoulder. “Bring them out.”

  Rozovsky’s face vanished, and more recovery officers clambered up the side of the Soyuz. They lifted Lebedev out first, handing him carefully to personnel on the ground who loaded him onto a stretcher and hurried him to a waiting helicopter.

  Zhirov was next. After several months in orbit, he would usually accept the indignity of being extracted from the spacecraft, placed on a portable chair, and carried to the helicopter. But Zhirov had been aloft for just seven weeks and he’d abide no such coddling. He was lifted out, but he waved off the chair and began striding to the helicopter on his own. He lasted just four steps before the combination of gravity and the damage to his inner ear got the better of him and he staggered. He accepted the supporting arm of a recovery team aide but no more. They reached the helicopter and he climbed aboard.

  By the time the one-hour flight to the Zhezkazgan airport was over, Zhirov was feeling better—a little. Lebedev was lifted from the helicopter and carried to a Roscosmos hospital plane waiting on th
e tarmac just a few dozen yards from the helicopter. Zhirov hopped down to the ground, and the recovery aide began steering him to the plane as well.

  “This way first,” Zhirov said, pointing to the airport building. He called out to the crew carrying Lebedev: “Take him aboard. I will be back. Five minutes.” He hurried off with the aide at his side before he could hear any objections.

  When Zhirov entered the airport building, the welcoming ceremony crowd stampeded toward him. They surrounded him in a great crush, taking his picture, shaking his hand, hugging him when they got enough room. Zhirov smiled, accepting the greetings, until security guards parted the crowd and the local officials and costumed girls were shown through.

  The Zhezkazgan mayor made a short speech and presented Zhirov with the nesting doll. There had not been enough time to hand-paint one with his face, and while there was indeed a cosmonaut on the front, Zhirov could not make out who it was exactly. It resembled Neil Armstrong, the American. He beamed at the doll and thanked the mayor.

  The three costumed girls then stepped forward. They smiled shy smiles. The eyes of two of them glistened with tears. Each held a tray of the sweet fried dumplings. Zhirov plucked and ate one from each tray and closed his eyes briefly as he did, with the look of a man focusing on the fineness of the flavor. When he was done, he smiled warmly at the girls—all of whose eyes were now teary—took another moment to admire his nesting doll, and then waved and turned and walked unsteadily back out the door.

  When he got back to the hospital plane, he climbed aboard and took a seat next to Rozovsky. A doctor approached to examine him, but he waved her off.

  “Later please,” he said, and turned back to Rozovsky. “Are there assets at the airport?”

  “Assets?” Rozovsky responded.

  “In Moscow. Transportation.”

  “Yes. There will be an ambulance to take you and Yuli directly to the hospital.”

  “Yuli will go alone,” Zhirov said. “I am going to Mission Control, and I will need a government car.”

  “You can’t do that,” Rozovsky said. “You’re hurt.”

  “You may send the doctor with me if you want,” Zhirov said. “I would also like a change of clothes, and by the time we arrive I will perhaps be able to drink tea and eat a meal.”

  “Be sensible, Vasily.”

  “I am being sensible,” Zhirov said. “I am in command of a spacecraft and I have a crew member on board. I believe I know what she is trying to do, but I have no idea how she plans to do it.”

  With that, Zhirov closed his eyes and reclined his seat. It was nearly 1,800 miles to Moscow, and he could use the three-hour nap.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  August 22

  The president of the United States could not quite decide on his feelings toward Walli Beckwith. She was a nuisance and a criminal, but also an opportunity and a gift. His administration had been in office for more than a year and a half now and had been awfully slow breaking from the gate. There had been few meaningful legislative achievements and no significant foreign policy deals. A small-bore national emergency—one that could not remotely be blamed on the president but could be seen as being quickly and decisively resolved by him—might be a restorative thing right about now, especially given his claimed management acumen, which had been at the heart of his campaign for the White House. It was not an empty boast.

  He had come to office after one term as governor of Oklahoma, but he had achieved his greatest successes in private industry, having made his fortune in agribusiness. That was how he had come to know Joe Star and how he knew at least four of his top cabinet appointees, who worked variously in ranching, livestock trading, and meat processing. The media immediately dubbed them the Cattlemen’s Cabinet, which was either a compliment or not depending on which news outlet was using the term. The president chose to take it as a tribute to his administration’s rugged cowboy competence, but that would be a hard image to maintain if the cattlemen could not ride herd on a single rogue spacewoman.

  The message he sent to his cabinet in a round of calls in the first hours of the emergency was thus a simple one: Settle this fast. The one person he didn’t phone directly was his attorney general, outsourcing that call to one of his aides, and his reason was simple: He simply couldn’t abide her. She was the one woman among the cattlemen and, in fact, had nothing to do with cattle. Instead, she was a career prosecutor—and a lethally good one, having served three terms as New York County district attorney. For her first campaign, she ran under her full name, Constance T. Polk. She had grown up in a stern family and was given a parochial school education, both of which taught her discipline, a steely integrity, and a tidy formality.

  In her first term in office, she hit hard and hit fast, bringing down a whole pack of Wall Street bad guys, including one whose dodgy hedge fund had actually, theatrically, bankrupted a private orphanage. Polk was a savvy enough politician to know she had been handed about as Dickensian a story line as any DA could hope for and was not surprised when the New York Post soon dubbed her “Killer Connie.” The Daily News began publishing a running tally of all the people she’d put on trial—calling them “Connie’s Cons.” By the time she ran for reelection, her campaign materials needed to read simply “Connie!” She won 81 percent of the vote that time and ran unopposed for her third term. There was not a defendant on the planet who liked facing off against her.

  There was a lot about Polk that chafed the president—her confidence, which to him looked like cockiness; her frankness, which to him read as abrasiveness. It didn’t help either that at least a few of the president’s business associates had been swept up in Polk’s various investigations. But there had been the predictable clamor for at least one woman in the cabinet, she was popular with voters, and his chief political adviser had lobbied hard for her, so he’d chosen her.

  When he did not call her directly after Beckwith’s act of space theft, she called him. When he didn’t respond, she called again forty minutes later, then again thirty minutes after that. Finally he agreed to come to the phone.

  “Lieutenant Commander Beckwith is breaking the law,” she announced with no preamble.

  “I don’t doubt it,” the president responded.

  “She’s breaking a lot of laws, actually.”

  “How many?”

  “That will take some work to determine,” Polk answered. “But they’re not just American laws. A great many nations have jurisdiction in near-Earth space, and she has taken actions that may open her to criminal liability around the world.”

  “And?”

  “And she needs to know that,” Polk responded. “I would like your authority to speak to her directly.”

  “That’s up to NASA.”

  “Sir, you direct NASA.”

  “And NASA directs the space station.”

  “How satisfied are you,” she asked pointedly, “with how they’ve handled that responsibility today?”

  The president sighed. This was how all of his calls with Polk seemed to go. “Connie,” he said at last, “Lieutenant Commander Beckwith just stole the space station and defied direct orders to come home. I’m not sure reading her the law will make any difference.”

  “Sir,” Polk said, “it will if I’m the one to read it to her.”

  * * *

  • • •

  On her first full day in command of the International Space Station, Beckwith decided to let herself sleep in—or at least try to. The station’s workday typically began at 8:30 a.m.; crew members got up at 7:30, but Beckwith usually set the alarm on her watch for 7:00 since it always took her a bit of time to get her internal motor up to working speed. Today she treated herself to setting no alarm at all. It did her little good. She awoke at barely 6:00—which meant a longer-than-usual day and one, she suspected, with very little to do. That suspicion was confirmed.

  Th
e astronauts’ daily schedule was always uploaded the night before onto tablets they could carry with them throughout the day. The sequence of experiments, maintenance chores, meals, and exercise periods was broken down into fifteen-minute increments and written out across the screen like a day’s TV listings. A red indicator marched across the screen in real time. If your completed tasks kept up with or outpaced the indicator, you were having a productive day. If you fell behind, the ground would know. The lead instructor on the first day of training for Beckwith’s incoming astronaut class took pains to disabuse the eager young plebes of whatever glamorous image they had of their new positions.

  “Your job in space will be chasing the red line,” he said. “Nothing less, and often nothing more.”

  Today, when Beckwith logged onto her tablet, there was no red line, no schedule, nothing.

  “Houston, station,” she radioed down. “I’m getting a negative reading on the activity log.”

  “Copy that, station,” the Capcom replied.

  It was not Jasper this time, which was just as well. Beckwith had been more troubled than she’d expected by his deliberate chill. But the current Capcom seemed no more warmly inclined.

  “Please upload at your convenience,” she said.

  “Flight director has no orders for you at this time,” the Capcom said. “We will forgo the day’s schedule.”

  Beckwith frowned. Houston really did want nothing to do with her, but she was pleased to realize that that didn’t rattle her. She didn’t know if Zhirov believed her when she mentioned the matter of honor to him, but she had meant it. Before she ever laminated her What Would Wally Do? card, she had laminated the Naval Academy honor code. She couldn’t help it. She loved the code. The first-year students were required to commit it to memory, and Beckwith did, but she wanted to keep the card with her all the same.

  “It’s eighty-five words, Beckwith,” her first-year roommate had said to her. “Remember it and then forget it.”