“That would have been too simple.” He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. “He appears to have ingested something radio-opaque. We want to figure out what’s—”
“Radioactive?”
“Radio-opaque. It means X-rays can’t pass through it. Sometimes that’s radioactive. In this case, our top guesses were barium or thallium…” He trailed off, seeing our confusion. “We did an X-ray prior to surgery and his stomach is white. If he hasn’t had a procedure … Have you any idea how he might have ingested rat poison?”
The bottom dropped out of the hospital room as if gravity had cut off. I am not normally one to go speechless, but I couldn’t find my voice. Kenneth’s jaw dropped.
He regained speech first. “Are you saying that someone poisoned Dr. York?”
“Unless you have reason to think that he would have ingested something intentionally.” The doctor’s face twisted with discomfort. “Thallium, as a rodenticide, is readily accessible and radio-opaque. Would Dr. York have had reason to…?”
“No. Absolutely not.” I rubbed my brow trying to wrap my mind around this. “Can you tell anything about when?”
“Based on its progress through the gut, no more than three hours prior to his arrival.” He shook his head and looked grave. “I will tell you that it is the only time, in my career, that I have been grateful for a bleeding ulcer. If not for vomiting blood, I suspect he would have ignored all symptoms of poisoning as he did the ulcer, and even then I’m not sure which was going to kill him first.”
I had seen the ugly gauntness of Nathaniel. I knew what not eating could do, but surely if he’d been poisoned, that was the larger concern. “But it was just an ulcer.”
“Just an ulcer?” The doctor turned serious blue eyes on me. “Let us say that he had not been poisoned so we were dealing, in fact, with ‘just’ an ulcer. In Dr. York’s case, the ulcer had perforated his stomach, and had he not come in, we would have seen a severe infection of the abdominal cavity followed by peritonitis. We are fortunate that the perforation was new. Even so, he is now minus part of his stomach and still at risk of infection. So no, this was not ‘just an ulcer,’ this was an ulcer that had gone ignored and untreated for months.”
“I see.” When had we last invited Nathaniel over, aside from the poker nights? “And the poison?”
“We’re waiting on the tests to confirm, but I have pumped him full of Prussian blue.”
“The … the paint?” I didn’t paint myself, but I ran the gallery on the Moon and couldn’t quite make the connection.
“Ah. Close. The raw pigment. It will bind with whatever radio-opaque thing he’s swallowed. He will have absorbed some.” The doctor gave a helpless shrug. “We’ll have to see. He may be fine. It may have long-term effects on his health.”
“Thank you.” That was such an inadequate phrase. “May we see him?”
“Room 220. He’ll be groggy.” The doctor leaned into me. “And let me be very clear about the importance of keeping him calm.”
He was bordering on rude, and asking the impossible, but I nodded. “I shall do my best.”
Clutching my handbag, with Kenneth and bodyguard in tow, I headed for 220. Outside the room, I stopped and opened my purse. Some people will find it absurd that I put on a fresh coat of lipstick before going in to see Nathaniel. Here’s why I did. He needed to think that he had not inconvenienced anyone. If I looked well groomed, then it implied that I had not been sitting there for over five hours.
Beside me, Kenneth was straightening his tie for the same reason. He glanced at the bodyguard. “Wait here.”
Kenneth held the door for me and I went in. I’d thought that Nathaniel couldn’t look worse, but I was very wrong. He lay on the hospital bed under a thin white sheet that did nothing to hide how emaciated he’d become. The knobs of his knees made mounds under the sheet. Above the pale green hospital gown, his collarbones stuck out like brittle twigs.
His eyes were open at least. Nathaniel rolled his head to the side. “Sorry.”
“Pish. You did me a favor.” I walked to his side and smiled down at him. “I always have a devil of a time getting them to leave the house at a reasonable hour.”
“Made a mess of your carpet.”
“I hated that carpet.”
Kenneth put his hand on my shoulder. “She’s not lying. She’s been after me to recarpet for months.”
Nathaniel laughed and his face tightened with pain.
I pressed a hand to his in sympathy. “Sorry. I know the joys of abdominal surgery. No laughing.”
“Noted.” He slowly relaxed. “What was yours?”
“Lost a fencing match to a goose.” Or an emergency hysterectomy, but that was decades ago and I hated sympathy. “We promised the doctor we wouldn’t stay long. I just wanted to see for myself how you were doing before I wrote to Elma.”
“Don’t tell her.” Nathaniel grabbed my wrist. “Don’t.”
“Nathaniel … She’s your wife.”
“She’ll worry.”
“She’s not wrong to do so.” Just looking at his face, with his skull practically visible through his skin, I wondered how we’d all let him go so long. “I’ll start by letting her know that you’re okay.”
“No. Don’t tell her. At all.” His fingers pressed against my wrist with shocking strength. “Please. Please, promise me you won’t tell her.”
“I can’t … She’ll want to know. And I already called Hershel.”
Nathaniel groaned and screwed his eyes shut. “You don’t understand. Elma isn’t—I work very hard to not worry her. This will make her anxious and there’s nothing she can do. By the time she gets back, I’ll be fine.”
“You aren’t fine now.”
“For God’s sake. She’s got enough to worry about without thinking that I’m sick.” His hand was shaking and sweat beaded his brow.
“Nicole…” Kenneth stepped around me and rested a hand on Nathaniel’s shoulder. “We won’t tell her.”
“Kenneth—”
“We won’t tell her.” My husband stared at me and I swear he was as angry as I’d ever seen him. “Nicole, will you give us a minute.”
“I…” The doctor had told us to keep Nathaniel calm. “Yes, of course.” I tucked my handbag under my arm and walked out to the hall with my head held high. Kenneth was right that it was not the time for this conversation.
To be fair, I could understand Nathaniel’s hesitation. I knew about Elma’s anxiety, but he couldn’t keep this a secret from her forever. That wasn’t reasonable. And we were going to have to tell Clemons.
Poisoned. Hell.
In the hall, the bodyguard looked around as I stepped out and then went back to waiting. I leaned against the wall opposite the door and glared at it. Not tell his wife. Ha. Men and their desperate need to protect us. It became infuriating, even with people I liked.
The door opened and Kenneth stepped out, straightening his tie. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Get some rest.” His smile dropped when the door shut and all the worry lined his face again. “Olvirsson, will you arrange for security for Dr. York?”
“Yes, sir.”
I waited until the bodyguard had walked out of plausible earshot. “What did you tell Nathaniel?”
“That we wouldn’t tell Elma.”
“Kenneth. She has a right to know.”
My husband wheeled on me and spoke with quiet rage. “No. She does not. When you leave, we have to carry on the best we can. We worry. We wait. And if not telling her makes his waiting easier? If it reduces his worry? Then that is exactly what we are going to do. There isn’t a damn thing she can do from Mars so his right to make this decision about what is best for him is what we’re going to honor.”
I drew my head back. “Is that the way you act when I’m on the Moon?”
“Yes.” He stalked down the hallway after his bodyguard. “But you’ll go anyway.”
I hurried after him and damned him for making me trot to ca
tch up. “You would lie to me?”
“You don’t have a problem with it when it’s a lie you like.”
All the rage I had squashed came boiling up. “Kenneth Talbot Wargin. I promised I would never lie to you again and I expect the same courtesy in return.”
He stopped in the hall, flexing his fingers. “Did you eat today?”
“That is not—”
“Did you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, for crying out loud. You saw me eat breakfast at the Lindholms’. You saw me eat a sandwich at home tonight.”
“I saw you push your food around at the Lindholms’, and one bite does not count as eating a sandwich.” Kenneth stared at the far end of the hall. “What did you have for lunch?”
“I…” Damn him. “I didn’t have time. I went straight from the press conference to training and then to the flight surgeon and then talked to Clemons and then came home.”
“Really? So that was a six-hour meeting with Clemons? Roughly?” Kenneth’s hands clenched into fists. “Don’t you dare chide me for lying to you when you’re on the Moon. And don’t you say a goddamned word to Elma York about Nathaniel.”
“You wouldn’t want someone to tell you, if I were in that shape? If I had actually stopped eating again, instead of just being busy because a goddamned rocket blew up today. You’re really saying you wouldn’t want to know?”
Kenneth shook his head. “What I’m saying is that Nathaniel York’s life is out of control. His choice about when and how to tell his wife is a choice that we are going to respect.”
“So … what. That’s okay now? So I can just lie to you when I’m on the Moon?”
Kenneth looked at me, finally, and my heart cracked in two. “Oh, baby. I love you, but I don’t expect you to tell me the truth. Not about food.”
SEVEN
BRAZIL HELPS USA WITH $322 MILLION CREDIT
BRASÍLIA, March 30, 1963—A $322,000,000 credit package to help the United States meet a critical balance of payments problem was announced today. Coupled with $398,000,000 to Canada announced Monday, it brought to more than $700,000,000 the amount of financial assistance extended in a determined effort to salvage political and economic stability for the North American nations affected most directly by the Meteor.
The acoustic tile over the entrance to the IAC’s conference room had a pattern of dots that looked like a horse. I know this because I had been slumped on a folding chair in the hall for a good hour while the FBI talked to Kenneth. Any hope that Nathaniel hadn’t been poisoned dropped out of orbit when Clemons sent us directly from the hospital to speak to them.
Even so, I was exhausted and the only thing keeping me awake was the fact that I sometimes drool when I fall asleep. That and the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about the fight with Kenneth. It takes me longer than I like to stop being defensive and masking that with anger. Most of my life, even as a pampered only child, I’ve had to push to be allowed in the room. There are boxes that people want to put me in and I resent it.
The fact that Kenneth keeps me, still, in the anorexia nervosa box infuriates me.
Because he’s right. Because there had been space in my schedule to eat. Because I had been just busy enough to justify skipping a meal. Because I’d been hospitalized twice for it over the course of our marriage. Because every time I came back from the Moon I felt heavy—which I know was just gravity but not all of me knew that and I had to fight to have an appetite.
I stood up and walked down the hall to the vending machine that was there for the night shift. No one was watching, so I let my stride shorten to keep from flexing my toes so much. The cafeteria was open, but even if I wanted to walk that far, I didn’t think the FBI would take well to me wandering off to a different building. The Radio Chef Speedy Weeny vending machine was a source of constant jokes among the women astronauts, but it was protein and calories. Food was fuel.
And … I was out of coins. Well, shit. I’d pumped them all into the pay phone for the call to Hershel Wexler.
The door opened and my husband came out. His tie was askew and a photographer would make hay with the state of his hair. I hurried back down the hall toward him, even though I wanted to linger by the Speedy Weeny so he could see that I was at least trying.
His shoulders were slumped, not enough that someone else would notice, but the fatigue weighed on him. It wasn’t just the hour or Nathaniel or the FBI. It was worry about me, too.
I stopped in front of him and straightened his tie, fussing with the knot so I wouldn’t have to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry.”
Kenneth caught my hands and raised them to his lips. “Me, too.”
“Mrs. Wargin?” Behind Kenneth, a painfully slender FBI agent pulled his gaze from my bandage to my eyes. He had cheekbones that made me both jealous of him and afraid of my jealousy. “I’m Agent Boone. We’re ready for you now.”
“Of course.” I squeezed Kenneth’s hands. “You go on. I’ll grab breakfast in the cafeteria before I come home.”
His eyes softened as he followed the unspoken parts of our conversation. “Thank you. And I … I need to go back to Topeka.”
The capital of Kansas. Kansas City had been the right place for him to be this morning, but he was governor and needed to get back to governing.
“Go.” I released his hands and stepped back. “I’ll see you at home tonight.”
I went into the conference room, which usually only held astronauts. The long, narrow room had only one other occupant, a generically attractive white man, whose only distinguishing feature was a fading scar across his forehead, just under his hairline. He sat at one end of the table scribbling on a notepad without looking up.
“My colleague, Agent Whitaker.” Boone gestured toward the seated man, who barely glanced up.
“Ah, yes. Good morning. Director Clemons mentioned the two of you yesterday.” During my briefing on Icarus, he had mentioned that they had begun by investigating the Cygnus Six conspirators. Which reminded me that I hadn’t had time to read Kenneth’s copy of that report last night because of Nathaniel, which meant I wouldn’t be able to ask intelligent questions today. “I’m not sure if he’s had time to let you know that I was read on the Icarus project.”
“I knew he was going to bring you on.” The thin man walked toward the coffee pots along the back wall. “Coffee?”
“Thank you. I hope the IAC is treating you well.” Clemons had said that the FBI was reluctant to share information, and here I had direct access to the agents in charge of the Icarus project. So it was time to get him into the pattern of saying yes to requests. To build rapport, I made an offer that I have never, ever made at the IAC. “Do you want me to make a fresh pot of coffee?”
He chuckled. “No, no … Director Clemons arranged for fresh coffee for us. Donuts, too, if you want one.”
“Thank you.” I didn’t, but I walked to the back of the room anyway. As he poured a cup of coffee for me, I got a paper plate for a donut. I know some astronauts who love the damn things. Powdered. Chocolate covered. Cream stuffed. I picked up one of the plain cake donuts. “May I take it you see a link between the Cygnus crash and the one this week?”
Behind me, Whitaker’s pencil hit the table with a snap. “Let’s clear something up. You are not an investigator. You were read on to be a courier, and this morning you’re here as a witness. Period.”
“Of course.” Oh, they definitely saw a link. Were they still trying to connect the NAACP, the way the trial lawyers prosecuting the Cygnus Six were, or was the FBI concentrating on the Earth First protesters? I turned to him using my patented charitable concern smile. It signals openness and empathy at the same time and is useful for everything from meeting orphans to soothing FBI agents. I hoped. “I’m happy to cooperate fully.”
Whitaker gave me a flat stare that offered nothing readable except that he was not impressed with me. He picked up his pencil and flipped back a page in his notes, drawing a line beneath a couple of words.
“With nothing but pure dark bitterness, like my soul.”
That got a laugh from Boone at least. “I take mine with three sugars, so I’m not sure what that says about the state of my soul.”
“Either you’re sweet, or you’re compensating for a bitterness as deep as mine. I’ll let you decide which.” I accepted the cup of coffee from him, allowing my fingers to brush his. It’s not quite flirtation, but physical contact, even minor, can increase a sense of rapport. They teach this in finishing school and it has served me well.
“He’s not sweet.” Whitaker didn’t look up from his page, but I had an internal moment of victory. I’d gotten him to engage, even a little.
Boone said, “Your mother thinks I am.”
“My mother is easily swayed by flowers. Bastard.”
“There’s a lady in the room.” Boone cleared his throat and offered me an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”
I laughed, throwing my head back to show off my throat. “Please. I’m a goddamned pilot. That’s a helluva lot milder than anything I’ve said in the cockpit.”
Whitaker looked up and the corner of his mouth twitched as if he had almost remembered how to smile. I affected not to notice and walked to sit in one of the chairs that was slightly out from the table. The other one that was askew had a view of the door, so was probably where Boone had been sitting. Which meant that the one I chose was probably where they had put Kenneth.
The cushion was still a bit warm. It’s funny the small things that can make your heart melt a little. “Now. How can I help?” I broke off a piece of donut. Crumbs clung to my fingertips.
Boone sat in the chair I’d marked as his and pulled a notepad from his jacket’s interior breast pocket. He flipped through to a page covered with spiky black ink. “Do you keep rat poison in your home?”
“I honestly don’t know.” So, it had been thallium. The donut was crumbling into pieces beneath my fingers. “That would be a question for our housekeeper.”
“And did she prepare the food last night?”
The Relentless Moon Page 6
