Blue Darker Than Black

by Mike Jenne

  Looking around, he seriously thought about tidying up the clutter and disarray. The trash can overflowed with garbage. Topped by a cast iron frying pan dripping with rancid grease, several weeks’ worth of dirty dishes were piled in the filthy sink. A foul stench emanated from the bathroom; the toilet regularly overflowed, and Yost had finally gotten tired of trying to repair it. Even though the place was in shambles, he dreaded the thought of vacating Kroll’s apartment. Yost’s hands shuddered as he realized that it would merely be a matter of time before the loan shark’s goons got the drop on him. With no other practical options to elude them, he would probably have to resort to residing in his van again.

  Gnashing his teeth and grimacing, he recognized that rather than wallow in misery, it was high time to take decisive action. He reached for a large plastic medicine bottle on the kitchen counter. His pain management needs allowed him to legally tap into a nearly endless supply of government issue codeine tablets. While he wasn’t particularly fond of the chronic constipation that came with the narcotic, he had grown accustomed to its soothing blanket of numbness. He popped open the bottle’s lid, gulped down two tablets, and chased them with a generous helping of Old Crow.

  As the pain in his leg dissipated slightly, he referred to an index card that bore an official address that he’d copied down from a book in the Dayton Public Library. He filled another glass with Old Crow and then slowly drafted a letter to the “Embassy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” in Washington, DC. Smiling, he glanced at the fragments of Argosy’s rejection letter. If those damned magazines weren’t interested in his UFO story, he mused, then the Russians surely would be, and probably would be willing to shell out considerably more compensation for his efforts.

  Wright Arms Apartments, Dayton, Ohio

  5:55 p.m., Tuesday, July 22, 1969

  Grinning, Ourecky closed the door behind him, went straightaway to the fridge, grabbed a cold bottle of Schlitz, popped off the cap with an opener, turned on the window-mounted air conditioner, switched on the television, kicked off his shoes, and then sprawled out on the couch. He had arrived home just in time for the evening news. The Apollo 11 astronauts were on their way home; they were set to reenter the atmosphere and splash down on Thursday.

  There was supposed to be a live telecast from Apollo 11 later this evening. The other big news item of the day concerned Senator Ted Kennedy—JFK’s brother—of Massachusetts; he had left the scene of an auto accident this past Friday in which a former RFK campaign staffer, Mary Jo Kopechne, was found drowned in his submerged car near a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island. Ourecky found it ironic that the senator’s tragic wreck had occurred in the very week that the greatest legacy of his brother—the late President John F. Kennedy—was coming to fruition.

  He glanced at the clock on the wall; Carson would be here in thirty minutes, and he mused whether he had time to snatch a quick shower. After the Apollo 11 broadcast, they were heading out to dinner at a steakhouse to celebrate their latest assignment. On September 9, slightly more than a month away, they were going back upstairs.

  In a whirlwind turn of events, he and Carson had gone from being summarily grounded to back-up crew status to finally being elevated to the prime crew for the September mission to intercept a Soviet radar surveillance satellite that threatened US and NATO fleets operating in the North Atlantic.

  The ever-cautious Tew had wanted to punt the Navy’s proposed mission to the next scheduled launch window—in December—but Admiral Tarbox was insistent that the Soviet satellite be disrupted at the earliest opportunity. Angry with Tew’s reluctance, the scrappy admiral swooped straight from Ohio to Washington, where he spent the weekend lobbying high-level officials. As of this afternoon, since they were woefully unprepared to fly on such short notice, Jackson and Sigler were pulled off the mission, and he and Carson were ordered to immediately start training in earnest. As Ourecky had heard it, the unequivocal order to fly in September had come directly from the White House. While he was sure that some fear and trepidation would eventually set in, Ourecky was ecstatic at this point.

  As he sipped his beer, the door started to open unexpectedly. “Drew?” he asked, sitting upright. Carson had developed an annoyingly bad habit of just popping in unannounced.

  “No, dear. Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s just me, the woman you’re married to,” said Bea, pushing the door open with her shoulder and dropping her small suitcase just inside the living room. She was dressed in jeans, a tie-died T-shirt, and leather huarache sandals. She wore no makeup, no bra, her hair was tousled, and her eyes slightly bloodshot.

  “It’s Tuesday. I thought you were scheduled to fly until Thursday, like normal.”

  “It’s so nice to see you too, dear,” she said.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean it like that,” he replied, holding his beer as he stood up to hug her. “I’m just surprised that you’re home today.”

  “Oh my God. Beer? Scott, please pour that out,” she begged, nudging away his hand with the condensation-beaded Schlitz bottle. “I just can’t bear the smell of beer right now.”

  Slightly bemused, he went to the kitchen, emptied the beer in the sink, and ran water after it. She was already sitting on the couch, removing her sandals, when he returned to the living room. He sat down beside her and asked, “Bea, are you all right? You don’t look very good.”

  “I think you had better sit down, Scott. I have some news.”

  “Uh, dearest, I am sitting down.” She has news? he thought. Even though he couldn’t share it with her, he couldn’t possibly imagine any news being more momentous than the news he had received today. But it only took a moment for him to realize that he was mistaken.

  “Scott, I’m pregnant,” she exclaimed, with a worried expression on her face.

  Utterly stunned, he couldn’t speak for a moment. Finally, he regained his composure, hugged her, and exclaimed, “Wow! You’re pregnant! A baby! Bea, that’s great news. We need to call my parents tonight. They’ll be thrilled. And Drew’s coming over in a little bit. We’re going out to the Pine Club to … uh … have a steak. Hey, we’ll all go together and celebrate. This is great!”

  Her face suddenly turned pale; he wasn’t sure if her change of countenance was brought on by his mention of red meat, Drew Carson or both, but it was fairly obvious that his plans for the evening—and for the next few months—were subject to rapid change.

  She leaned away and put her hand on his forearm. “I’m happy, too, but it’s not necessarily good news. I was so sick yesterday that I couldn’t fly, so I laid over in Atlanta at Sally’s place. I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. I flew in this morning and went straight to the doctor.”

  “Why didn’t you call?” he asked.

  “I didn’t think it was serious and I didn’t know if you were back in town. At first, I thought it was a stomach bug, like the Posts and the Sikes had last week. Boy, was I ever wrong.”

  “But, Bea, it’s still great news.”

  “Scott, this baby is going to flip our lives completely upside down. We sure didn’t plan on it. We’ll need to move because this place is way too small for us and a little one. I’ll have to quit flying, at least until the baby arrives and maybe a long time after that. I may never be able to go back to flying. The scheduling office is already making arrangements for me to work as a gate clerk, but I don’t know how long I’ll be able to do that.”

  Her lower lip quivered. She leaned against his shoulder and started crying softly. “Scott, I’m just not ready for all this. I wish my mum was here so I could talk to her.”

  He held her and said, “Look, Bea, we’re okay for money, especially with this last promotion, so there’s no need for you to keep working. And I’m sure that we can qualify for quarters on base, a two-bedroom or maybe even a three-bedroom for later when …”

  Frowning, she looked up at him. “Please don’t say that. We need to take this one step at a time. And Scott, I really don’t want to move on bas
e. I grew up in absolutely wretched military quarters all over the world, and that’s not where I would choose to raise a child.”

  “Fine,” he said abruptly. “We’ll find a place in town. That’s not a problem.”

  She pulled the last Kleenex from the box on the coffee table, wiped her eyes and then blew her nose. “Scott, that’s not all. The doctor saw some things on my blood work that he wasn’t happy with, so they want to run more tests tomorrow. He said I have an iron deficiency and that there may be other possible complications. He said I might not even be able to carry this baby to term. In fact, I may never be able to have a baby.” She started sobbing again.

  There was a knock at the door. It opened, and Carson stepped in, bearing a bottle of scotch. “Hey, I saw Bea’s red VW roller skate outside,” he said. “I thought she wasn’t …”

  Ourecky anxiously shook his head.

  “Uh, I take it that this is not a good time?” asked Carson.

  “I’ll call you later,” replied Ourecky. “Sorry, Drew. Hey, I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

  Carson nodded. “Do whatever you have to do, Scott. I’ll cover it with Virgil if you need to come in a little late tomorrow. We have a tight schedule, but I know that we can catch up.”

  Aboard Air Force One, arriving at Johnston Island

  4:58 p.m., Wednesday, July 23, 1969

  As the big jet rolled to a stop, Tew looked up from his note cards and glanced outside. A phalanx of khaki-clad, white-helmeted Army military police immediately assumed perimeter positions on the tarmac. Apollo 11 was scheduled to splash down tomorrow, and President Nixon was on his way to the aircraft carrier USS Hornet for the historic moment.

  By sheer coincidence, Johnston Island was the closest US-controlled landmass to the recovery site, so it was being used as an intermediate stopover. On the president’s return trip from the Hornet, Tew was slated to give him a quick tour of the Pacific Departure Facility launch site, if his hectic schedule permitted. The president had apparently expressed a tremendous interest in Blue Gemini after June’s successful mission.

  Given only a few days’ notice, Tew had hustled to join the flight in San Francisco this morning. Wolcott had remained at Wright-Patt so that they could get a jump on preparing Carson and Ourecky for September’s mission.

  While Tew bore misgivings about sending up the wayward pair again, especially so soon, he knew that they were the only ones capable of successfully pulling off the rapidly impending mission. He had also learned that the president, a former Navy man, was apparently swift to defer to the Navy’s position in any inter-service arguments; Tew’s suggestion of delaying the launch was quickly squelched, apparently soon after the Chief of Naval Operations visited the Oval Office for coffee and a quick conversation on Monday morning.

  Despite the opportunity to personally escort the new Commander-in-Chief through the Project’s launch facilities, Tew had an ulterior motive for the impromptu venture. Given the opening, he felt confident that he could thwart Tarbox’s plan. He was sure that he could convince the president that it was foolhardy to execute the Navy’s mission on such short notice, and that they should either revert the launch date back to December or abandon the flight altogether. After all, Blue Gemini’s charter was to intercept and interdict suspected Soviet nuclear weapons—Orbital Bombardment Systems—in space, and while the Gemini-I had proven effective at destroying other satellites, that wasn’t the intent.

  Tew had been ensconced in the rearmost compartment of the plane for the entire journey. He had seen the president one time during the flight, an encounter that lasted perhaps fifteen seconds, during which time Nixon casually mentioned that this would actually be his second visit to Johnston Island, since he had been on the atoll very briefly during his wartime service.

  As a set of boarding stairs was moved into position, the head of the Secret Service detail announced over the PA system: “Everyone, please remain in your seats until the official party has departed the plane and you are granted clearance to stand up.”

  Looking out his window, Tew watched as President Nixon, Secretary of State William Rogers, Henry Kissinger, Apollo 8 astronaut Frank Borman, and a small party descended the metal stairs, where they were greeted by Admiral John McCain, the base commander, and some officers that Tew didn’t recognize.

  Despite the blistering heat, Nixon wore a dark gray suit complete with tie. He waved to a group of spectators—a mix of military personnel and some civilian workers—and then went over to shake hands and speak to them. Less than ten minutes later, he boarded the Marine One helicopter and promptly departed the island.

  As the helicopter flew away, an aide tapped Tew’s shoulder. Looking like he was barely out of college, he was one of several personal aides on the flight. “General Tew?” he asked.

  “Yes?” replied Tew. His long-sleeved shirt was damp with perspiration. With the air conditioning switched off, the temperature inside the plane had already started to climb significantly, and he anticipated that it would be nearly unbearable in just a few minutes.

  “General, I need to pass on the president’s regrets. He had hoped to speak with you today, at least briefly. He’ll return for a few hours after the splashdown, and if his schedule permits, he’ll see your launch facility then. Until then, we’ve made arrangements for you to stay here on the island. There are VIP quarters, but there may not be any space available since most of the president’s party is remaining here tonight. They are putting up some overflow tents, though.”

  “Of course,” sniffed Tew, shaking his head as he loosened his tie. “But I’ll be able to escort the president to the launch facility tomorrow, right?”

  “Really, sir, I wouldn’t absolutely count on it. I don’t know if you’ve been watching the news this week, but Japan is very upset with us because they just discovered that we’ve been storing chemical weapons on Okinawa without their permission. They were moved there during the Kennedy Administration, and there was an accidental release last week.”

  “I’m very aware of that, young man.”

  The aide shrugged. “Well, sir, the Japanese are adamant that those chemical munitions be moved out of Okinawa, and there’s a good chance that they will be coming here to Johnston Island. All of this just came up, and the president is supposed to receive a briefing on the options tomorrow. I’m guessing that will probably trump your sightseeing tour. Sorry, General.”

  As he watched the young aide stroll away to speak to someone else, Tew fumed. While the opportunity to fly on Air Force One was exhilarating, it looked unlikely that he would be able to brief Nixon tomorrow, and would lose over forty-eight hours of work as a result of this folly. And those were forty-eight hours that he could scarcely afford to squander at this critical time.

  So here he was—an Air Force major general, due to receive his third star in short order—and he was effectively treated as a faceless nobody. He would probably spend the night on a borrowed cot in a sweltering tent and then depart tomorrow on a cargo plane crowded with support personnel. It was absolutely amazing; he personally oversaw the third largest manned space program in the world, and yet he could not be any more anonymous.

  Filyovsky Park, Western Administrative Okrug, Moscow, USSR

  9:35 a.m., Sunday, July 27, 1969

  The morning air was cool, almost unseasonably so, and the sky sparkling clear. Climbing out of his sedan, Gregor Mikhailovich Yohzin mused that it was a truly excellent day for a jaunt in the park. A major general in the RSVN—Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces—Yohzin oversaw the initial testing of medium-range ballistic missile prototypes at the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome.

  Presently, he was in Moscow on a temporary assignment with the GRU, at their “Aquarium” headquarters near Khodinka Airport, writing summaries of NASA technical reports concerning the American Apollo lunar program. He was still compelled to juggle his normal RSVN chores and the brief stints working for the GRU. Between the two organizations, he spent roughly one week out of ever
y month in the capital city and three weeks at Kapustin Yar.

  Reflecting on the NASA reports, Yohzin sighed as he contemplated the gross disparities between the Americans and himself. He envied the Americans, particularly for the vast resources that were made available to them, as well as the tremendous intellectual freedom they were afforded. In contrast, he felt like Sisyphus, the Greeks’ mythic prototype of futility, compelled to roll an enormous boulder uphill, only to watch it roll back down again, over and over and over.

  If there was even the slightest benefit to his Sisyphean existence, it was that his workdays had a set pattern and structure. As a small child during the last gasps of the Russian Empire, Yohzin had experienced the turmoil and chaos of the Bolshevik Revolution; as a middle-aged man, he relished a calm, almost monotonous routine. Except when he was engaged in a unusually demanding test regimen, or when he was compelled to travel to Moscow to work with the GRU or participate in administrative busywork, his days at Kapustin Yar were just about as predictable as a worker’s at a textile factory or farming collective. Virtually every day at six o’clock, he returned home to his humble apartment. Once there, he would join his family for supper, then retire to his study for an hour of tranquil solitude, and then accompany his wife for their daily stroll through the central commons. Content in seeming dullness, his placid life could almost be measured out by a metronome.

  They lived in a town affectionately called Znamensk by its denizens but officially known as Kapustin Yar-1. The dreary settlement of apartment buildings lay in the center of the massive cosmodrome and had been purposely constructed to accommodate the personnel who worked there. An enormous number of military personnel, engineers, scientists, and their families called it home. They strived to make their lives there as normal as possible, despite the ever-present dangers in their midst. Like the top secret military facility that surrounded them, their little town appeared on no maps and was all but sealed to outsiders. It was a relatively comfortable existence, but Yohzin wished that his two sons could attend better schools. In his opinion, his boys weren’t being challenged academically, at least not to the extent that they should be, and they would suffer for this shortfall once they matriculated to their post-secondary education.