by Robert Gandt
Before Spam Parker.
Maxwell sighed and laid the photograph back on the stack. He wished again that he had stood firm and insisted that Devo’s name be removed from the flight schedule that night. Of course, it would have given DeLancey the final ammunition he needed to relieve Devo of his duties as executive officer. Devo would be disgraced but alive.
Then it would be Devo cleaning out this room, Maxwell thought. He would gather his effects and quietly disappear from the Reagan, transferred to some meaningless billet back in the states. Devo would hate it, and after a few weeks he would put in for early retirement. Then he would then drink himself into an early grave.
The thought made Maxwell even gloomier. One way or the other, Devo Davis had been a doomed man.
He returned to the task of packing Devo’s effects. He filled the wooden container with clothes from the drawers. He placed all Devo’s personal papers in a manila envelope and sealed it. Then he removed the contents of Devo’s safe — five bottles of vodka, one a quarter full, and a half-empty flask of brandy. Devo’s nightcap stock.
He poured the liquor into the sink, rinsed the insides of the bottles, then slipped the empties into a plastic bag. After nightfall, the bottles would join their owner in the dark waters of the Persian Gulf.
Maxwell picked up the photo again. Claire was wearing the scarf he had given her. She looked happy, as if she was in love.
Maxwell decided that he would keep the photo. Devo would approve.
<>
In his room, Maxwell put on the new Berlioz CD he bought in Dubai. He placed the photo from Devo’s room on his desk, next to the one of Debbie. He sat at the desk, letting the music wash over him, and he thought about the shambles that had become his life. A numbing sadness settled over him like a shroud.
Everything he loved had turned to dust. He had lost Debbie. His once-brilliant career was probably at a dead end. His father, whom he admired above all men, had walked out of his life after his resignation from NASA. His best friend lay at the bottom of the Persian Gulf.
He had nothing of value left. Nothing that mattered.
Debbie smiled at him from the photograph on the desk, and he felt the hole in his heart opening wider. Maxwell closed his eyes, fighting back the tears.
For the thousandth time he remembered that day on the cape.
<>
It was one of those dazzling Florida afternoons. From the gantry tower Maxwell could see eastward far beyond the beach, all the way to the rim of the Gulf Stream. The air was crisp, the horizon as sharp as a pencil line.
She waved at him as she boarded the orbital vehicle. Like the other six crew members, Debbie was wearing the orange pressure suit with the mission patch and wings on the left breast, the American flag emblazoned on the shoulder.
It was a dress rehearsal for the actual launch in two days. They would take their stations and run through the check lists, do a power-up and test of the command and control consoles, and then simulate a count down to ignition. It was a routine procedure they did before every launch.
Debbie Sutter loved being an astronaut. Though she wasn’t a pilot, she intended to be someday. Eight years of college, med school, then the four years of internship — there’d been no time for flight training. She’d been a cardiologist when she made the cut for astronaut training. She was assigned as a human factors specialist, and for the ten-day mission of the space shuttle Intrepid, her job was to study and quantify the effects of prolonged weightlessness on cognition, memory, and sleep patterns.
They had been in the vehicle for nearly an hour. The boarding hatch of the shuttle was closed and sealed so the vehicle could be pressurized, just as it would be for the real launch.
Maxwell watched from the gantry observation room. On the monitor he could see views of the command cabin, where the shuttle commander and the pilot sat. In the cabin he could see the mission specialist stations. Debbie was in her reclining launch seat, facing a console with instruments and a panel of labeled switches.
All the astronauts were wearing the sealed pressure helmets. Their suits were plugged into the onboard oxygen system, and they communicated via the ship’s closed-circuit interphone.
As the pilot read off the checklist, another astronaut would perform the required action, then acknowledge.
“Crew compartment hatch 212 closed,” called out Jeff Beamish, the pilot.
“Hatch 212 closed,” confirmed Anton Vevrey, a payload specialist.
“ER loop automatic control.”
“ER loop automatic,” replied another astronaut.
“Perform cabin leak check.”
“Cabin leak check in progress.”
They went through the litany of pre-launch items, checking cabin pressurization, communications systems, flight controls, thrust-management parameters.
“Main engine controller bite check.”
“Main engine controller bite check okay.”
“Terminate liquid oxygen replenish.”
Maxwell heard Debbie’s voice give the response. “Liquid oxygen replenish is terminated.”
“Okay. Open the liquid oxygen drain valve.”
“Liquid oxygen drain — Aahhhhh!” Debbie’s voice stopped abruptly.
The hair on Sam Maxwell’s neck stood up. Every face in the observation room whirled to the monitor that watched the aft crew compartment. Thick black smoke was filling the compartment.
“Oh, shit!” Maxwell heard a controller say. “Fire in the crew compartment!”
A shrill, clanging alarm went off. On the wall over the door, a red light started flashing.
New voices came over the channel, all issuing desperate commands. “Depressurize! Close the liquid oxygen valve! Get the goddamn hatch open!”
Maxwell watched helplessly while they rushed to open the hatch. A cloud of bilious smoke gushed from the crew compartment. Paramedics rushed across the cantilevered gantry platform and boarded the vehicle. Within a minute they were dragging out orange-suited astronauts, yanking off helmets, slapping on oxygen masks.
The two pilots, Cutler and Beamish, were wobbly but okay. Nancy Rehman, an astrophysicist, came out on her own power, though she was shaking uncontrollably. The Japanese payload specialist, Nomuru, had breathed in smoke and was coughing badly. So was the Swiss mission specialist, Vevrey, but both revived when they were given oxygen.
The last to come out were the two astronauts in the aft crew compartment, Bud Feldman and Debbie Sutter. The paramedics hauled them out on gurneys.
Both were dead.
Two veteran astronauts who had been there in the gantry held Sam Maxwell’s arms, restraining him. “Go down below, Sam. Don’t stay here.”
Maxwell wouldn’t leave. He stood there transfixed while they removed her helmet.
She had died not from smoke inhalation, but from fire. The flames had entered her suit, torched her face and hair and her lungs. Her final seconds of life had been spent in excruciating pain.
They would have been married a year the next month. After Debbie’s rookie space flight, they were going to take a trip somewhere, maybe to the Bahamas. They would celebrate, rejoice, think about starting the family they planned to have someday. They had already become famous as the shuttle couple, the husband-and-wife astronauts, the high fliers. Newsweek did a piece on them. They appeared on CNN Live, the Good Morning, America show, and Oprah.
They wanted to interview Sam Maxwell again. They wanted him to explain for their viewers the depth of his grief. Give the public a look at his Tom Selleck good looks while he maybe shed a tear or two on camera.
Maxwell refused. He hung up when they called. He ignored them when they approached. When a Houston reporter pursued him across a parking lot, Maxwell seized him by the collar, shoved him over the hood of a Lexus and promised him if he saw him again, he would stuff his Nikon up his ass.
The inquiry into the tragedy went on for a month. In the final analysis, they declared it a freak accident. It had been a one-in-a-
million combination of circumstances — a tiny fracture in the liquid oxygen drain valve, a leak in the crew ventilation system, and a simultaneous spark from the faulty console switch activated by Debbie as she complied with the pre-launch checklist. There was nothing inherently wrong with the space shuttle.
An enraged Sam Maxwell refused to accept the findings. The director of NASA ordered him to take a thirty-day leave, clear his head, then report back for duty at the space center in Houston. Instead, Maxwell went home and drafted a letter of resignation.
<>
He opened his eyes and let them focus on the two photographs standing side by side on the desk. Debbie and Claire.
After a while Maxwell powered up the Compaq notebook on his desk. He logged onto the net and, a minute later, saw the flashing notice that he had mail waiting.
Subj: Port Visit
Date: 18 May
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Dear Sam,
You sure know how to get a girl worked up, don’t you? I should be exhausted after staying up all night. But I wasn’t the least bit tired the next day. To borrow from Shakespeare, perhaps the sweeter rest was ours.
Of course I’ll be happy to meet you at your next port visit. Do you really think it might be Bahrain?
I don’t want you to think I’m worrying out of turn, but please be careful out there. With the political situation this tense, God only knows what could happen. For what it’s worth, I have a bad sense about your CO as well. I just don’t want anything to happen to my favorite boy fighter pilot.
I am proud of you, Sam Maxwell. You know you’ve always been my hero.
Love,
Claire
Through a blur of tears Maxwell read the note. A swarm of mixed feelings spilled over him. He gazed again at the photograph, at the smiling, happy girl with the new scarf.
He felt something tugging at him, dragging him out of his black mood. Admit it, Maxwell. You want to see her.
He went back to the computer and began typing a reply.
Chapter Sixteen
The Trailblazer
(Commonwealth News Service, 19 May, Baghdad
by Christopher Tyrwhitt)
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Eleven schoolchildren were reported killed during an early morning attack by United States warplanes against civilian targets in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. According to reliable sources, U.S. Navy F/A-18s from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan fired radar-guided missiles at the clearly marked Al-Humbhra school complex, destroying one building and killing or injuring more than a hundred Iraqi children.
Though officials of the United States State Department quickly issued a denial, claiming that the objective of the attack was an anti-aircraft missile site, photographic evidence from the site strongly suggests that the Al-Humbhra school was, in fact, the focus of the raid.
In a terse statement to his assembled cabinet, an angry Iraqi President Saddam Hussein declared that the cowardly American murderers of Iraqi children would be punished.
<>
Jabbar awoke bathed in sweat. He sat upright in his bed. His pulse was still racing from the vividness of the dream.
He could still see the rippled surface of the sea skimming beneath his jet, the high cloudless sky over the Gulf. And in the distance, that great, gray death slab on the horizon.
It looked so benign.
The MiG was flying at only a hundred feet above the sea at nearly twice the speed of sound. Somehow he had come this far without being killed by American jets. He didn’t know why. Surely their airborne sentry ship — the AWACS — would have detected him. At any second he expected to hear the shrill chirp of his Sirena radar-warning receiver announcing the threat of an air-to-air missile.
Jabbar had no illusions about his own survival. He knew his death had been pre-ordained when he locked gazes with the riflemen of the firing squad. But he would die like a warrior. Also mounted to his MiG was a cluster of air-to-air missiles. His final act as a fighter pilot would be to engage as many of his enemies as possible before he was blown out of the sky.
As the angular silhouette of the great ship swelled on the horizon, Jabbar’s finger went to the launch button on the control stick. Mounted beneath the right wing of the MiG was the Krait. Jabbar knew that even today the American navy had nothing that could intercept a low-flying, supersonic missile.
He knew what would happen when he pressed the button. The Krait would leap from beneath the MiG’s wing and streak toward the demon ship out there on the horizon. The missile would pierce the double-layered steel hull, not detonating until it had penetrated the vital organs of the warship. When the warhead exploded, the USS Reagan would erupt in a hellish mushroom of fire and molten steel. America’s most powerful warship — and its 5,000-person crew — would be vaporized.
Jabbar knew he should feel a hatred for the Reagan. From its deck had come the Hornet fighters that killed Captain Al-Fariz — the incident that ignited this new war. But Jabbar could also admit the truth: The goat-brained Al-Fariz had been ripe for killing anyway, blundering as he did into the forbidden territory.
Jabbar had often wondered why he too had not been shot down in the same engagement. Still burned into his memory like an indelible scar was that moment of terror, hearing the shriek of his Sirena, waiting for the Hornet pilot to kill him with another missile.
But the missile hadn’t come, and Jabbar didn’t know why. Did the American lose his nerve? Did he decide that shooting Al-Fariz was a mistake? Did he feel merciful?
Jabbar was sure that he would never know the facts, only that an American fighter pilot had spared his life. And now Jabbar had been ordered by Saddam Hussein to launch a nuclear-tipped missile against the American aircraft carrier.
It was insane, thought Jabbar. Saddam was a maniac. But like many maniacs, this one possessed a demented genius for retribution. Jabbar knew that other missiles — launched simultaneously from surface vehicles — would be en route to targets in Israel, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. The cities were even more defenseless against the Krait than the American fleet. The much vaunted Patriot missile had been a great joke during the Gulf War, doing more damage to the territory it was defending that to the incoming Scud. Even its successor, the Revere, was ineffective against the lethal Krait.
It would be a slaughter. A very ugly slaughter, because for most of the intended targets the Krait warheads transported Anthrax toxin and Sarin gas. Saddam did not wish his enemies a merciful death.
The Middle East would become a biological and nuclear wasteland.
Jabbar sat upright in his darkened room, wet with perspiration. Outside, the dawn had not yet come to Baghdad. Saddam’s war was still only a bad dream.
He still had time. He had to do something.
<>
“Listen carefully,” the man said.
Tyrwhitt listened. They sat at adjoining tables in the sprawling al-Amarz coffee house. Swarms of passersby jostled each other, shuffling past the tables and the harried waiters.
The man’s features were now familiar to him — the hawk-like nose, the intense brown eyes that drilled into him like lasers. No question, he was the colonel from the reception at the Ministry of Information. Tyrwhitt wondered again about him. What motivated the man? What did he do in the Iraqi military? Why was he taking such a terrible risk?
“Latifyah,” said the informant in a low voice. “It is the assembly plant as well as the Krait missile propellant factory. Each building is fortified with a minimum of a meter of concrete. The complex has not only anti-aircraft and SAM defenses, it is within the protective umbrella of the Al-Taqqadum fighter interceptor base. Now pay very close attention. I will give you the current air defense order of battle.”
He stopped and peered at Tyrwhitt with his piercing brown eyes. “Are you sure you can remember this?”
Tyrwhitt sighed and gave him a withering look. “As I told you before, I remembe
r everything.”
He caught the Iraqi’s humorless smile. Obviously he didn’t believe it. But it happened to be true. Even after half a dozen scotches, Tyrwhitt still possessed his computer-like ability to retain reams of arcane data. It was the single attribute that made him an effective journalist. And spy.
The Iraqi went on in his rapid, guttural English. He related details about the state of Iraq’s air defense radar, the disposition of its surface-to-air missile batteries, the timetable for the launch of the Kraits.
Tyrwhitt nodded, absorbing the information. He noticed that as the Iraqi spoke, his eyes were in constant motion, scanning the crowded shop.
Abruptly he stopped. He drew the folds of his kaffiyeh around his face. Tyrwhitt could see only the intense dark eyes. “We are in danger here. You must leave immediately.”
He nodded toward the far end of the coffee house. Two brown-suited men were walking through the open-walled entrance. They had the unmistakable look of the Bazrum.
Tyrwhitt rose, turning his back to the entrance. “Will we meet again?”
“I don’t know. It is very dangerous for us now. Go quickly.”
Tyrwhitt inserted himself into the throng of passing people. Assuming the standard hunch-shouldered posture of the Iraqi male, he shuffled toward the far end of the coffee house. He didn’t look back.
<>
Tyrwhitt pulled the old Halliburton suitcase down from the shelf in the closet. He tossed in three clean shirts and enough underwear and socks for three days.
He stopped and peered out the window. It was still only three-thirty in the afternoon. He was in good shape to catch the six o’clock Middle East Airlines flight to Bahrain. It was one of only three daily commercial flights leaving the country. Even though the UN sanctions had been eased in the past year, air travel from Iraq was still a bitch.
It had been a close thing back in the coffee house, he reflected. The Bazrum agents had spotted him, which he now realized was what the informant intended. In their eagerness to trail Tyrwhitt they had failed to notice the Iraqi colonel, still huddled at his table with his face cloaked in his kaffiyeh.
