by Ben Mezrich
Two percent of eight hundred and forty-two pounds. Thad did the math in his head. That meant there were seventeen pounds of moon rock in the return vault. Locked away in a safe designated as trash. Seventeen pounds, at 453 grams to a pound—that was 7,701 grams of moon rock. At $5 million a gram …
“Forty billion dollars,” Thad whispered, staring at the midget door.
“Forty what?” Cooper asked, distracted by the computer printouts. She had already moved on from the topic and was no longer interested in the midget door or the return samples. But Thad could think of nothing else.
It seemed like such an incredible waste. True, the Apollo samples were much more than their monetary value—they were national treasures, they were symbols of man’s greatest achievement—Thad’s opinion hadn’t changed since the day he’d listened to Everett Gibson give his lecture in the building next door. But this little door in the back of the vault, the thought of a safe where return samples were locked away, considered trash—it was just hard for him to ignore.
Just a few feet from where he was standing, there was a little door that led to a safe containing forty billion dollars’ worth of something NASA considered trash. Locked away, in the dark, where nobody could see it or touch it or even know that it existed. Forty billion dollars.
Thad shook his head, then finally pulled his eyes away from the midget door and joined Cooper and the tech as they began the long process of inventorying the lunar vault. But inside, his thoughts were still percolating. He had no idea where this mental process was going to lead him, but the knowledge he had just obtained wasn’t going to simply disappear. His mind didn’t work that way.
Unlike the scientists at NASA, he couldn’t simply file away what he’d just learned was behind a little door, in a safe marked trash.
14
Thad didn’t sleep well that night. By two in the morning, he was tossing and turning in his dorm room–style twin bed, trying to find a position that might just be comfortable enough to make his mind shut down. He wanted to believe that his inability to fall asleep was due to the ache in his muscles; the inventory job had been just as torturous as Cooper had warned, a full fourteen hours spent bending and sometimes crawling as they worked their way through the printouts of random samples. And that heavy vault door—Thad had strained muscles all across his back working it shut after they were done.
But Thad knew it wasn’t the physical labor that had set his thoughts on edge. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that miniature door—and what was inside. At one point during the inventory work, Cooper had led him through that little door to the safe. Inside that safe, those lunar samples looked exactly the same as any of the other rocks, because, to the naked eye, they were exactly the same. Maybe they had been exposed to air, dipped in liquids, maybe some scientist somewhere had applied pressure or heat—but that didn’t change what they were. Apollo moon rocks, national treasures, infinitely valuable.
Thad didn’t know why the thought was driving him so insane; hell, he’d been around valuable materials before. At NASA, every piece of equipment he worked with in the lab was worth more than his car, more than everything he had in his bank account. Money had never been that big a deal to him before, mainly because he’d never had any. He and Sonya were in debt, had always been in debt. At the moment, Thad owed about $6,000 on his credit cards, maybe another five in school loans. But it couldn’t be about that—how was today different from a week ago, or six months ago, or two years ago?
But today was different. His relationship with Sonya was in trouble, maybe even on its way toward ending. And here at NASA, he’d become this adventurous, impressive character—everyone knew who he was, everyone wanted to be around him. And yet he knew, deep down, that it was partially an act. It was a reinvention, because deep down he was this shy, messed-up kid who’d been kicked out of his house, who’d gotten married too young, who wanted to be an astronaut but probably would never have the chance.
Lying in his bed, in the middle of the night, it was the first time he’d really let the truth resonate inside of him. His chance of becoming an astronaut, of becoming a piece of human history like Everett Gibson—it was beyond improbable. The odds just weren’t in his favor. He had no connections, no fallback plan, no means to compete with the kids who could pay their way through life.
And yet he was living each day as if it was just a matter of time. He was swept up in the fantasy of being the first man on Mars—the same way he’d created the fantasy of who he now was, this adventurer, this James Bond type of character who could do anything, who would do anything. Fantasy was his true talent. Fantasy had always been his true talent, the cloak he’d wrapped himself in to protect him from the things he couldn’t control.
And now, suddenly, his fantasies had been given a new element to work with, and for reasons he could not entirely explain, that element was pushing him in a direction—just a nudge, at first, nothing more than a nudge. But it was palpable, nonetheless.
15
Gray on gray on gray. Thick and dark and ominous, like the intertwining ropes of an immense fishing net cast across the sky, swallowing up every inch of visible air, obscuring everything, even the muted glow of the nearly full moon.
Looking up at that angry sky, Thad knew he was about to get soaked. Still, he remained right where he was, flat on his back on the cool cement roof of the South Physics Building of the University of Utah, his head resting against a faded couch cushion as he watched the clouds block out the moon. It was a little after ten, and he had been lying like that on the roof of the building for a good two hours; he’d already ignored a half-dozen calls from Sonya on his cell phone, letting the annoying, electro-pop ring tone he had selected to represent the girl she was rapidly becoming reverberate off the walls of the domed observatory that rose up on the rooftop behind him. There was a time when Sonya would have accompanied him to the weekly Wednesday-night Star Party, which he had originated when he had resuscitated the comatose observatory—but tonight Sonya, as she had done the last few Wednesdays, had joined her model friends at a downtown dance club, leaving Thad alone with the gray-on-gray sky.
Of course, there wouldn’t be any Star Party tonight. The clouds made sure of that. Nevertheless, Thad’s duty to the observatory—which he had personally rebuilt, lobbying the university for the funds and equipment, turning astronomy into one of the most thriving extracurriculars on campus—was still a good excuse to avoid a night wasted in some noisy, smoky club; no matter how bad the weather, there were always a few stragglers who would show up. It didn’t always dawn on people: if you couldn’t see the stars through the clouds with your naked eye, a Celestron eleven-inch mounted telescope wasn’t going to make any difference.
Although Thad been the one responsible for the growing popularity of the astronomy club, the structure of the observatory had been around for nearly fifty years. Built on the roof of the South Physics Building in 1976, it had been through a number of changes in the past few decades. Recent additions of a pair of high-tech telescopes, a few cameras, a spectrograph, and some shiny new mounts and housings had turned the place into a first-class stargazing facility. As soon as Thad had returned from his second tour at NASA, he’d gotten the Wednesday-night Star Parties going, and over the past few months they’d grown from a handful of moon-obsessed telescope freaks to a real social gathering, sometimes numbering in the dozens.
Thad was proud that he’d been able to bring aspects of his reinvented personality back to the university with him. But sadly, his new persona hadn’t helped him at all with his relationship problems. Sonya had also become more outgoing and social, but her new friends, and the kinds of places they liked to go—Thad didn’t have anything in common with her world at all. So he had simply stopped accompanying her to the casting calls, cocktail parties, and especially the nights out in the dance clubs.
Lying outside on the roof of the university building, the observatory rising up behind his back, staring out into that gray
-on-gray sky—here he could pretend he was back at NASA. Back in a world of science and fantasy.
Thad’s thoughts of NASA dissipated as the sound of a door opening and closing echoed across the desolate rooftop. He didn’t lift his head as he heard the approaching footsteps. From the way the stranger’s boots shuffled against the cement roof, he could tell that the person was either drunk or on his way to being so, which meant he was probably one of the Star Party regulars, either too soused or too stupid to realize that a cloudy sky looked like a cloudy sky, even through the most powerful telescope on Earth.
“Thanks for coming,” Thad said, without lifting his head from the couch cushion, “but this week’s Star Party is canceled, due to the lack of stars. Come back next week, and hopefully we’ll have something to look at.”
The steps didn’t even pause, shuffling closer until they were just a few yards away. Thad heard a grunt as someone lowered himself next to him on the roof, and then there was the sound of a lighter flicking on and off. A sickly-sweet, decidedly herbal puff of smoke floated past Thad’s face.
Thad had nothing against marijuana use, although he didn’t touch the stuff himself, but he was surprised that someone would smoke the illegal substance right out in the open, on the top of a university building. Any moment, a professor or a security guard could wander out—and in fact, often the astronomy TAs came for the Star Parties, although an astronomy TA would know better than to come up to an observatory on a cloudy night.
Curious, Thad raised his head to look at the visitor. The guy was sitting cross-legged, his back against the wall of the observatory, his arms crossed against his chest. He was wearing a wool cap pulled down low above his eyes. His jeans had holes in them, and he was wearing gloves with the fingers cut out. He looked kind of homeless, but where his face was lit up by the tiny marijuana cigarette, Thad could see that he was young, maybe even younger than himself. There were patches of facial hair on his jaw, and his cheeks had the ruddy complexion of a guy who spent a lot of time outdoors. Ringlets of brown hair stuck out from beneath the lip of his cap. He was staring past Thad, past the edge of the rooftop, at the rolling view of the south corner of the university’s campus.
“No worries, man,” the stranger said. “Happy to look at the clouds if I can’t see the stars.”
There was a hint of California surfer dude in the way the guy talked. Maybe it was the weed, but he seemed so relaxed, so completely devoid of tension. Thad didn’t think he’d ever felt the way that man looked. He’d always been so much more tightly wound, so infused with the energy that often came out as enthusiasm. He couldn’t imagine this guy ever being described as enthusiastic.
“I guess that’s a pretty good attitude.”
The guy took another hit off his joint, then let his head rest back against the observatory wall behind him.
“How big you think it is? I mean, like, does it really go on forever, like they say in the books? Because how the hell can something go on forever?”
Thad assumed the guy was talking about the sky or, more specifically, the universe. Compared with the kind of conversations Thad had gotten used to at NASA, it was pretty basic and a little juvenile—but it was science, and Thad liked nothing more than to talk science. Compared with a conversation about fashion or modeling at some neon-lit club, this was as close to the JSC as he was going to get. So he lay back against the cushion and started to talk.
As they conversed, Thad learned a lot about the laid-back kid. His name was Gordon, and he was also a student at the university. He had taken a little time off here and there, but now he seemed to be on track with his studies, trying to make it through the spring semester without getting lost somewhere along the way. What Thad liked most about Gordon was that he seemed extremely curious about the big questions in life. About the size of the universe, about how many stars there really were, about the possibilities of life on other planets. Surprisingly, at the same time, Gordon was very religious, and it became clear almost immediately that he had grown up in a Mormon environment very similar to Thad’s. Halfway into the conversation, Gordon mentioned something about losing a wife and kid to the Mormon Church, which Thad didn’t press him on; crazy, that at their ages they had both already been married, but that was Utah. Somehow, Gordon had remained close to his mother and uncle, and had also retained much of the Mormon teachings. Interspersed with his questions about science, he often quoted Mormon Scripture. The possibility of life on other planets seemed to conflict him, but that didn’t keep him from trying to dig deep into the idea.
Thad liked the guy, and also thought there was something very bold and exciting about him; he had the balls to just sit out there on the roof smoking pot, talking about aliens—yet deep down he was still this well-mannered Mormon kid. Adding to the conflict in his personality, somewhere in the conversation Gordon mentioned that he had a bit of a criminal record, something small and insignificant, but there nonetheless. Things had been bad for him for a while, but now he was back at school and he was doing well. He wanted to hang out with people who were going to be good for him—and he really liked hearing that Thad was a triple major—obviously someone who worked hard and was moving in the right direction.
By the time midnight rolled around, the half-dozen calls from Sonya had become more than ten, and Thad knew it was time to get moving. He and Gordon agreed to keep in touch, whatever that might mean. Not a formal thing—just an agreement that if they ran into each other on the street, they would maybe meet for lunch.
As they headed toward the elevator that would take them off the roof, a light rain began to fall; Gordon didn’t seem to notice, maybe because he was on to his second joint by then, or maybe because his hat was pulled down so low he couldn’t feel the drops. But Thad was shivering as the dampness worked its way into his bones. Something about Gordon had inspired a thought: the two of them might never become friends—but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t have an impact on each other’s life.
Sometimes, Thad knew, as a scientist, it was the molecules that only briefly touched that caused the biggest reactions.
…
Thad ran into Gordon a handful of times over the next few weeks. Twice at one of the campus dining halls, when Thad was just on his way out and Gordon on his way in. Once, crossing in front of the geology building, Thad walking with a couple of girls from one of his science classes and Gordon just sitting there, on a bench, smoking another joint. And then a third time, on the steps of the main library. Gordon was drinking something out of a thermos, still wearing his wool hat and cutoff gloves, and Thad paused in front of him, coming to a sudden decision.
Thad hadn’t intended on bringing up the topic—but seeing Gordon on the library steps, right in the bright light of day, he decided maybe it was time to put words around the thoughts streaming through his head. Throw it out there, see where it landed. But not here, in the middle of the campus.
“You doing anything right now?” he asked.
Gordon looked at him like he was crazy.
“Solving world hunger. Why?”
Thad grinned, and beckoned Gordon to follow him.
…
Twenty minutes later, Gordon was still following as Thad strolled through a deserted wing of the University of Utah’s Museum of Natural History mineral collection, pointing out the various crystals and unique fossils that lined the lit-up glass cabinets that ran along the walls. It was a pretty good collection, and Thad had spent numerous hours wandering through the museum, alone and with Sonya. At various points in his time at Utah, he had worked cataloging these very minerals and fossils, carting them up and down from the basement storage areas of the museum—and yes, he had borrowed a few to display in his apartment, but nothing as valuable as the specimens in front of them now, specimens like the imprints of a brontosaurus foot off to their left, or the shiny green jade deposit encased in brightly lit cubes straight ahead.
Thad was surprised to hear that Gordon had been in the museum before as
well; in fact, just the summer before, Gordon had donated a rare angel wing calcite crystal to the university, which was now tagged with the note Gordon had written himself: In Memory of Kelen McWhorter—a sister who had died in a car accident five years earlier. Thad had heard of the crystal, and he told Gordon that he believed it was worth a fair amount of money. Which kind of led, naturally, into what Thad had brought Gordon to the museum to discuss. And that’s all it would be, in Thad’s mind, two college kids having a conversation. Nothing anywhere near as dangerous or illegal as lighting up a joint. Just a conversation, words, the expression of a little fantasy that had been building in Thad’s mind.
“I’ve been thinking about something,” Thad started, “and I wanted to get your opinion.”
“People don’t usually come to me for advice,” Gordon responded, peering into a case that contained fossilized insects from the Jurassic period.
“Okay, not advice, really. I’m just trying to figure something out. See, I think I might be able to get my hands on something valuable.”
“Like dinosaur fossils?” Gordon pointed, grinning. Thad laughed.
“Even more valuable. And I’m trying to figure out if maybe it would be possible to find a buyer. Like, on the Internet or something.”
“World is made up of buyers and sellers. You got something to sell, there’s usually someone out there who’s willing to buy. And the Internet—you can find a buyer on the Internet for anything, if you look hard enough.”
It was the kind of answer Thad had expected from Gordon. Thad’s thinking was, since Gordon obviously knew something about drugs, and had already pointed out that he had a little criminal record, maybe he knew people in the underworld. Maybe he had some weird connection into some underground market somewhere.
“So if I did have something valuable, you think you’d be able to find someone to buy it?”
