by Saul Herzog
“No, sir. After emerging from the mothercraft, Cosmos 2543 proceeded to put itself on an orbital path startlingly close to KH-11.”
Everyone in the room knew what KH-11 was. A very sensitive, very valuable American satellite.
“How close?” Roth said.
“Let’s just say,” Harper told him, “it was close enough that the proximity sensors on KH-11, the ones intended solely for use during takeoff, were triggered.”
It was at that point that the NRO Director spoke up. “I’m sure no one in the capital needs to be reminded of the importance of the KH-class satellites.”
Roth shrugged. “You’d be surprised how much reminding tends to be necessary,” he said.
“Well then,” the director said, “remind them that we operate Keyhole for the Department of Defense. We use them to fly drones. To guide missiles. To communicate with units in the field.”
Roth nodded.
“KH is not just any class of satellite,” Harper reiterated for emphasis. “If aliens ever arrive, KH is what they’ll notice.”
KH or Keyhole/CRYSTAL-class, was not just the most valuable, but also the most technically advanced, object ever put into space. Its specifications remained classified, but Harper knew more than most.
There were four of them, each located at a constant polar orbit, spread evenly over the planet. In combination, they were what allowed the US military to observe the surface of the planet, anywhere, at any time, in higher resolution than what other nations could even imagine.
Each satellite was about the size of a school bus, and cost as much to build as the Hubble Space Telescope. In fact, they shared so many of the same components, from the same contractors, that it was a more or less open secret that they were basically military-purposed replicas of Hubble, but pointed downward rather than out to space.
The imagery was so clear that US intelligence agencies had been able to read the headlines of the New York Times from a satellite two-hundred-fifty kilometers above.
“I understand,” Levi Roth said, “That Cosmos 2543 is so close that the slightest adjustment to its orbit, or the release of some shrapnel, could utterly destroy KH-11.”
“For all we know,” the NRO Director said, “they’ve equipped it with an energy weapon.”
Harper didn’t think that was likely, but he didn’t say so. The Russian satellite was doing what it was doing for a reason. And that reason was not friendly.
“Sir,” he said, clearing his throat.
“Speak up, Harper,” Roth said. “You’re the reason we’re here.”
“It could hurt us, certainly. It could ram us, it could release debris into our path, but even if it does nothing at all, its position, and its ability to track our orbit this closely, is extremely dangerous. From where they are now, they can look at the positioning of our scopes and see where they’re pointed.”
“So they can see what we’re looking at?”
“Yes, sir. And that’s not all.”
“What else?” Roth said.
“They can listen in on the ultra-high-frequency channel.”
“That channel is encrypted,” the NRO Director said.
“Yes, sir,” Harper said. “Of course. But even just listening is a threat. It means it can be recorded, sent them back to earth, run through Russian decryption technologies.”
“Will they be able to crack the encryption?” Roth said.
“Not likely,” the NRO Director said, “at least in theory.”
“UHF is the secure protocol used by the CIA, the DoD, the NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and US Strategic Command,” Harper said. “Even if the Russians don’t decrypt them, this is a huge risk. They could try to corrupt them. Confuse our systems. Redirect guidance systems.”
“Launch missiles?” Roth said.
“This is all theoretical,” the NRO Director said, “but I agree with Harper, letting the Russians get within a million miles of those transmissions is an unacceptable breach.”
“If the president wanted to go to war,” Harper said, “the orders transmitted from Washington to our units in the field, to our nuclear subs, to our unmanned drones, to our guidance satellites, would all be sent by UHF.”
“What’s the bottom line on this?” Roth said to Harper.
“Bottom line,” Harper said, “is that Cosmos 2543 is the first time we have identified a direct threat to our warfighting ability from a foreign space weapon.”
“You don’t mean the first time ever,” Roth said.
“Yes, I do, sir,” Harper said. “This is it. This is the opening shot on a whole new front. This launch is Russia’s way of saying space is open for business.”
“And by business, you mean…”.
“I mean warfare, sir.”
“It wasn’t open for business already?”
“No, sir,” Harper said. “Not like this. This capability. This tracking of our orbit. It’s an entirely new threat, and we need to get ahead of it.”
“So let me get this very clear,” Roth said, “because I’m going to have to explain all this to a lot of very skeptical people. The Keyhole satellites are the most sensitive, most valuable communications machine ever built by the hands of man.”
“And Russia is now capable of ramming them out of the sky,” Harper said, finishing his sentence for him.
“If that doesn’t get their attention, I don’t know what will,” Roth said.
“You tell the people in Washington,” Harper said, “that the Russians can knock out our secure comms, military GPS systems, guidance systems, targeting platforms.”
“Basically anything with the word ‘smart’ in its name,” the NRO Director said.
“They could put us back to the nineteen-forties,” Harper said. “At least temporarily.”
Roth let out a long sigh.
“Well gentlemen,” he said, preparing to leave, “I’m going to take this back to Washington, but if this satellite does anything new, if it so much as beeps funny, or flashes its little lights in a way you don’t like, I need to know about it immediately.”
11
Lance crossed the border into the US at Brownsville, Texas.
The border patrol agent looked up from his passport and said, “Do I know you?”
Lance shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
The agent scanned the passport and said, “What were you doing in Mexico?”
“I was with a girl,” Lance said.
The agent raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you call it?”
“That’s what I call it,” Lance said.
“Well then,” the agent said, “Welcome home, mister… Smith.”
“Thanks,” Lance said.
He caught a flight from Corpus Christi to Missoula with a brief layover in Dallas. In Missoula, he rented a car and headed into the mountains.
Home was Deweyville, Montana, a town in the Rockies of about a thousand people that had changed little since the days when miners and frontiersmen founded it. It was in a deep mountain valley, nine miles south of the Canadian border, and was less touched by visitors and tourists than similar towns further south.
It was a good place for Lance to be.
Out of the way.
Off the beaten track.
Peaceful.
People hunted up there. They carried guns. They owned dogs and pickup trucks. It was remote enough that they could forget about the news, the politics, the economy, all the things that stressed and vexed the rest of the nation.
Driving into town, past the trapping store, the tobacco store, the old headquarters of the Farmers and Merchants Bank, Lance felt that he was home.
He drove through the town beneath a cold, blue sky and continued north along a road that wound upward into the mountains. About two miles out, perched on an outcrop of volcanic granite, high above the steep, forested valley, was his house. It had a large balcony wrapping the second floor and high, solid walls he’d built himself from hand-hewn logs.
&
nbsp; He pulled into the driveway and walked up the front steps. His dog was already scratching at the door, barking for him.
And then the door opened.
Samantha was standing there, wrapped in a towel.
“Lance,” she said, “you’re back.”
Lance stood on the porch awkwardly, as if it wasn’t his house, and she had to tell him to come in before he moved.
Samantha was his guest, and he hadn’t known if she’d still be there when he got back.
He was glad she was.
That in itself was a victory.
She’d been messing around with a bad crowd when he found her. He’d walked up to her in a bar, beat up her good-for-nothing, drug-dealing boyfriend, and brought her home more or less against her will.
“How was your… trip?” she said as he hung up his coat.
She knew he’d been doing something for the CIA.
The dog was very excited to see him, he’d never left her alone before, and he held out his hand for her to lick.
“Cold,” Lance said.
He looked at her. Her eyes were clear. There were no fresh track marks on her arms. The house was tidy. It was warm.
She’d been staying out of trouble.
“You should get dressed,” he said.
She looked down at the towel as if she’d forgotten she was wearing it.
“Right,” she said, turning to go upstairs.
Lance glanced around the room. She’d made herself at home. There was a yoga mat by the fireplace. There was a blanket strewn on the sofa next to the TV controller. One the island in the kitchen was a tabloid magazine with someone from the British royal family on the cover.
He filled the kettle and put it on the stove. When it whistled, he made coffee and sat at the counter drinking it. One entire side of the house was made of glass, and outside, an eagle floated on air currents above the valley as effortlessly as if it was weightless.
It felt good to be back.
It was good Sam was still there. That she was happy.
Lance barely knew her, but he’d spent a good portion of the past few years thinking about her. He’d served with her father, and he still remembered his last words. He’d just taken a bullet that was meant for Lance, he was dying in Lance’s arms, and struggling to utter each word, he said, “Watch out for my girl.”
Lance promised he would.
Sam was fourteen then, and Lance knew he’d waited too long to keep the promise.
Sam had sent her father away to serve in the army, and when he came home, it was in a pine box.
That was all she knew of war. All she knew of fathers.
And that was when she’d needed Lance to step in.
But he’d been doing other things.
Soon after her father’s funeral, her mother died in a car accident. She had a blood-alcohol level of point three. The coroner said it was the highest he’d seen. The other driver died too.
“Are you making coffee?” Sam called from upstairs.
“Yes,” he said, pouring her a cup.
She came downstairs in fresh clothes and wet hair, went to the refrigerator, and took out a homemade cobbler.
“I baked,” she said, placing it in front of Lance like a cat bringing home a fresh kill.
“You made this?” Lance said, scooping it into a bowl.
She nodded.
He offered her some, but she shook her head. Instead, she watched him eat.
“It’s good,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“Peach?”
“Yup.”
He finished it and poured more coffee.
“You seem different,” Sam said.
“In what way?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Just… you know.”
“Different,” he said.
“Different,” she said again.
Lance thought about it, then scooped another helping of cobbler.
12
By the time Agata got back to her apartment, she was utterly exhausted. She felt like she’d lived a lifetime since waking up the morning before, slightly hungover, next to the varsity swimmer.
He’d left her a little note on the counter, which she glanced at briefly.
Last night was amazing.
She threw it in the garbage and stumbled into the bedroom, where she collapsed onto the bed fully-clothed. She was asleep in seconds.
When she woke, it was the middle of the night.
She reached instinctively for her phone and looked at the screen. It was three AM.
She felt a cool breeze pass over her and realized a window must be open. That was strange. It was a modern building with climate control, and she rarely used the windows at all.
It must have been the swimmer, she thought, then froze.
Her thoughts crystalized.
A sound had woken her.
A window was open.
A Russian soldier had just tried to kill her in the forest.
Her instincts kicked in, and she rolled to her left, falling off the side of the bed as the distinctive chirp of suppressed pistol fire filled the room. Three bullets hit her mattress, and a fourth hit the wall behind the bed.
As the gunman entered the room, Agata rolled under the bed. She’d never been the type to keep a gun down there, but she did have a cheap Ikea toolset, and as the gunman came closer, she pulled out the hammer and slammed it right into his knee.
He yelped in pain and stumbled backward.
Agata climbed out from under the bed and hit him again. He was wearing body armor, but she kept pummeling him in a frenzy of panic until he doubled over in pain. She raised the hammer above her head and was about to bring it down on the back of the man’s skull when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
The look on her own face frightened her.
She took a breath and then pushed the injured man onto the bed, where he writhed in pain, clutching his leg.
He was dressed in black, with a jacket and leather gloves, and Agata bent down to the ground and picked up his gun.
She pointed it at him.
“Who are you?” she said.
“Go fuck yourself.”
She’d been expecting Russian, but he spoke Latvian. He had a Riga accent. She looked at him more closely.
“Who sent you?” she said.
“No one sent me.”
Her hand was trembling, and she didn’t have time for playing his games. She stepped forward and slammed the hammer down on his thigh. She could feel the flesh give way beneath it, and the way he howled almost made her pity him.
“Who the fuck sent you? I’ll pound you to a pulp, I swear to God.”
She took another step toward him, brandishing the hammer.
“I work for the Police Special Branch,” he said.
“The police?”
He nodded, clutching his leg pitifully.
“Latvian police?”
“Yes,” he grunted.
Agata couldn’t believe it. “Bullshit,” she said, waving the hammer.
He reached for the zipper on his jacket, and she pointed the gun. “Don’t move.”
“I’ve got ID,” he said. “I work for the Special Branch. It’s the truth.”
“The police don’t send assassins in the middle of the night to kill other cops.”
The man looked at her sadly and nodded his head. “Yes, they do,” he said.
He moved his hand very slowly to his jacket, opened the zip, and pulled out a leather badge. He threw it to her, and she caught it.
It was as he’d said. Special Branch.
He was telling the truth.
“Why?” she stammered.
“Why do you think?”
“Because…”.
“Because of what you saw.”
“What I saw? I reported it directly to…”.
She couldn’t say it. He’d sold her out. Betrayed her.
“Alfreds Kuzis,” the man said.
“I…” Agata stammered, “I don’t understand.”
“What you saw. It has to remain secret.”
“But Kuzis. He’s on our side. It’s his job to protect us.”
“There are winners and losers in everything. Even in an invasion. It was like that last time the Russians came, and it will be like that this time too.”
“There’s not going to be a this time.”
The man shook his head.
“What do you think is going to happen after the Russians move in? It’s going to be the biggest free-for-all since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Someone’s going to win big. Someone’s going to be top dog.”
“And Kuzis thinks it’s going to be him?”
The man was losing a lot of blood. In a few more minutes, he’d be unconscious.
“Hey,” Agata said, snapping her fingers. “How high does this go?”
The man looked in her eyes, then down at her chest.
She followed his gaze and saw a red laser dot. She leaped aside, and in the same instant, the window shattered as a bullet from a high-powered sniper rifle slammed into the wall, right where she’d just been standing.
She didn’t waste another second.
Keeping as low as she could, she scrambled through the apartment, grabbing her coat and purse as bullets continued to fly through the bedroom window.
She made it to the door and opened it without thinking.
Thankfully, the corridor was clear.
The elevator was to her right, but instead, she went left, letting herself into the emergency stairwell.
She dashed down five flights of stairs and, when she got to the ground floor, looked through the small window in the fire door to the lobby. Two armed men with earpieces were standing by the elevator. One of them raised his hand to his ear, then looked directly at Agata.
She stared right back at him, the thin glass of the window the only thing separating them.
He raised his gun and fired three shots.
Agata leaped down the next flight of stairs and was in the basement by the time the guards reached the door above. She sprinted for her car, desperately searching for the key in her purse as she ran.
Her fingers found the key, and she pressed the button. The car flashed and the doors unlocked with a loud chirp that echoed through the underground lot. She opened the door and got into the driver’s seat right as the two men from the lobby burst out into the lot.
