Shadow Watch (1999)

by Tom - Power Plays 03 Clancy

  Nimec thought she looked uncharacteristically tired around the eyes.

  “Wonder who’d buy those old throwaways,” she said. “I don’t know,” he said. “You’ve got to keep in mind that everything in this part of the country has an afterlife, including inanimate objects.”

  “Sounds unholy.”

  He shrugged. “Some might call it Yankee frugality.”

  She gave him a wan smile, leaned forward, and turned on the radio, but the Boston all-news station she’d been able to pick up earlier in the ride had grown unintelligibly faint. After almost a minute of listening to static drift, she pushed the “Off” button and sat back.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Probably better for you.”

  She glanced over at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “We saw the newspaper headlines at the airport, heard the updates on the radio driving out of Portland,” Nimec said. “I’m no less anxious to hear about the Orion investigation than you or anyone else. But it gets to where you know there won’t be any developments for a while and are just letting the media beat you over the head with information that’s already been reported a thousand times over.”

  “I’m not prone to self-abuse, Pete.”

  “That wasn’t my meaning. But I can’t help thinking it might’ve been better for you to postpone this trip—”

  “We had an agreement. You show me yours, I show you mine.”

  “Nice way of putting it,” he said. “Still, you’ve had a rough couple of days.”

  Megan shook her head.

  “Rough is what happened to those shuttle astronauts. To Jim Rowland and his family. I just want to know the reason it happened,” she said. “I never understood, at least not fully, not viscerally, why it almost always becomes important for the loved ones of plane crash victims to learn the minute details of what went wrong with the aircraft ... whether it was engine failure, structural problems, pilot error, whatever. I thought sometimes that knowing wouldn’t change anything for them, wouldn’t bring anyone back. That it might be better if they were encouraged to try moving on and letting the investigators do their work.” She shook her head again. “What bothers me now is that I could’ve been so damned thick.”

  He sat very straight behind the wheel, his eyes on the road. “That won’t get you anywhere. It’s hard to put yourself in people’s shoes when such extreme circumstances are involved.”

  She didn’t say anything. Outside, the repetitive sequence of gas stations and ramshackle shops had been interrupted as they came up on Lake St. George State Park, its wooded campgrounds extending up the rugged granite hillside on their left, the smooth gray opacity of the lake spreading out to the right. Wet and heavy with snowmelt, the carpet of fallen leaves along its near bank seemed lasting and immovable, wholly resistant to the wind’s attempts to sweep it apart.

  “You obviously consider our appointment worth keeping,” she said finally. “Enough so you didn’t rush off to Florida.”

  He shrugged. “The FAA and a half-dozen other federal agencies are already on-site, and that’s not counting NASA’s in-house people. Gord’s also pushing his agency contacts to let UpLink send in a group of its own technical personnel as observers. But a launchpad accident is altogether outside my area of expertise. At the Cape I’d just be in the way. Here I can get something accomplished. We—”

  Nimec suddenly paused, clearing his throat. He had been about to say, We need to find a replacement for Max, and was grateful he’d caught himself before the words slipped out.

  Before his recent death, Max Blackburn had been Nimec’s second in command in UpLink’s security division, a role that had evolved into his becoming the designated troubleshooter at their international facilities, particularly in hot spots where his covert skills sometimes became indispensable. But there was a high price to be paid for Max’s eagerness—even overeagerness—to put himself at personal risk. Max had not died peacefully in his sleep. Far from it, he had gotten killed long before his time, killed in a way Nimec still found difficult to accept or even think about. And in his efforts to avoid thinking about it today, he’d almost forgotten the rumors that Blackburn and Megan had been briefly involved in an intimate relationship.

  Perhaps, then, the shuttle accident—terrible as it had been—wasn’t the only reason for her moodiness. No matter how delicately he tried to frame it, how convenient it was that neither of them had mentioned Blackburn’s name at any point on the way here, there was no hiding the fact that finding someone to take his place was the reason they had traveled to Maine. If Colonel Rowland’s shadow had been hanging over them since they’d left San Jose that morning, then so too had Max Blackburn’s.

  “We need to shore up our end of things,” Nimec resumed, choosing his words with care. “Those new robot sentries we’re using at the Brazilian ISS plant are fine and dandy, but well-trained manpower’s the foundation of any security operation. We need to beef up our force strength and tighten the organizational structure there. And that really ought to go double for the Russians in Kazakhstan.” He paused. “I only wish Starinov wasn’t under parliamentary heat to keep us out of the loop. You’d expect our saving his skin a few years ago would help on that front, but it’s actually worked against us. Seems his government has made proving it can look out for itself a point of nationalistic pride. Typical paranoid Russkie thinking, you ask me. Give them another two centuries and they still won’t have gotten over Napoleon taking Moscow.”

  “As if we’ll ever forget it was one of their politicians who ordered Times Square leveled at the turn of the millennium.”

  “Not to be compared. Pedachenko was a rogue and a traitor to his own country. And last I heard, Napoleon wasn’t an American—”

  Megan raised her hand. “Wait, Pete. We can get into all that later if you want. But there’s something you said a second ago ... were you implying that you suspect the shuttle explosion wasn’t an accident?”

  “No,” he said. “Nor do I see any cause to be suspicious. But I like to be ready.”

  “And you honestly feel Tom Ricci’s the best person to get things in shape?”

  Nimec paused again, no stranger to her skepticism in connection with Ricci.

  “I appreciate your reservations and agree he’s a long shot,” he said. “But you ought to keep an open mind. At least meet the guy before ruling him out as a candidate for the job.”

  She frowned. “Pete, I’m sure Ricci’s a good man, and if I wasn’t willing to give him a fair shake I wouldn’t be here. But if we’ve learned anything from Russia and Malaysia, it’s that UpLink’s global enterprises can put us smack in the middle of some incredibly volatile political situations. You and Vince Scull have both insisted we need to raise our security force to a higher level of performance so we can adequately respond next time we’re caught in the cross fire. I’m just agreeing with you, and proposing that someone with a less, shall we say, checkered background would be best qualified to implement the changes that have to be made.”

  Nimec furrowed his brow. He’d heard her argument before, and certainly acknowledged that it had a degree of merit. But ...

  But what? Was he simply being mulish insisting that Ricci had what it took to help restructure a world-spanning organization that was, as Megan had suggested, increasingly coming to resemble the military in style and scope?

  Surprised by his own doubts, Nimec gave the matter a rest and concentrated on his driving. The lake area behind him now, he made a left turn off Route 3 in the town of Belfast and got onto U.S.1 northbound, crossing the bridge that spanned the harbor inlet, then heading on along the coast. Here the roadside junk dealers were shuffled in with restaurants and summer resorts and had obvious upscale pretensions, their deliberately quaint shop fronts geared toward tourists rather than hardscrabble locals. Most had the word ANTIQUES hand-painted across their windows in ornate lettering. Many were closed for the winter. The motels, inns, and cottages were also battened d
own for the dregs of the season, their lawn signs wishing patrons a happy and joyful Christmas and inviting them back after Memorial Day.

  They continued north on the coastal highway, talking very little for some miles, catching frequent glimpses of Penobscot Bay behind and between the tourist traps on the right side of the road—its shoreline extending in belts of jumbled stone and harsh wind-carved ledges, giving intimations of a primal wildness that seemed dormant rather than lost, capable of hostile reassertion. There was a constant sense of nearness to the sea, the sky swirling with gulls, the water refracting enough pale sunlight to lift some of the cloud cover’s gravid heaviness.

  “It’s much different here from inland, isn’t it?” Megan said at length. “Still sort of forlorn, but, I don’t know...”

  “Beautifully forlorn,” Nimec said.

  “Something like that,” she said. “There’s a disconnection from the rest of the world that makes me understand why Ricci chose this place to hide out. If you’ll pardon my choice of words.”

  “Nothing wrong with it,” Nimec said. “That’s exactly what he’s been doing for the last eighteen months.”

  Nimec nodded toward a green and white road sign ahead of them that read:

  ROUTE 175—BLUE HILL, DEER ISLE, STONINGTON

  “Looks like we’re coming up to our turn,” he said. “Another forty minutes or so and you’ll be meeting my friend and former colleague for yourself.”

  As it happened, he was right about the turn but wrong about the length of time remaining on their trip, for only ten minutes later Megan Breen got her introduction to Tom Ricci ... as well as two local law-enforcement officers.

  It was by no means a pleasant encounter for any of them.

  Nor was it one Megan would soon forget.

  2:00 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time

  It always struck Nordstrum as fascinating that Roger Gordian, who had made opening up and changing the world through telecommunications a crusade, rarely opened himself up to the world, and possessed the most contained and unchanging nature of anyone he knew. But that sort of contradiction seemed a familiar story with men of towering accomplishment, as if by directing vast amounts of energy outward to achieve their broad public goals, they drained off reserves that most ordinary people applied to their private lives.

  Or maybe I’m getting carried away and Gord just likes his furniture, Nordstrum thought as he entered Gordian’s office.

  He paused inside the doorway, giving the room a bemused visual audit, comparing the way it looked now to how it had looked a decade ago, a year ago, or the previous autumn, when he’d last been inside it. Not to his surprise, everything was precisely the same—and in the same condition—as always. The place was a testament to careful upkeep, a paradigm of maintenance and preservation. Over the years, Gord’s desk had been refinished, his chair reupholstered, the pens on his blotter refilled, but heaven forbid that any of them ever might be replaced.

  “Alex, thanks for coming.” Gordian got up from behind his desk. “It’s been too long.”

  “Gord and Nord, together again for one outstanding SRO performance,” he said. “How are Ashley and the kids?”

  “Pretty good,” Gordian said. He hesitated. “Julia’s moved back home for a while. Personal reasons.”

  Nordstrum gave him a meaningful look.

  “Husband with her?”

  Gordian shook his head.

  “The dogs?”

  “Probably napping on my sofa as we speak,” Gordian said, and then motioned Nordstrum toward a chair.

  Slam, Nordstrum thought. End of subject.

  They sat facing each other across the desk. There was, to be sure, an aura of bedrock consistency and dependability here that Nordstrum, who had left his Czech homeland, a White House cabinet appointment, a D.C. town house, possessions, lovers, and most recently his multifaceted career behind with a lightness of foot equal to Fred Astaire sliding across a dance floor, found impressive and reassuring. It wasn’t as if time was standing still—Gord’s hair was a little grayer and thinner than it used to be, his once-petite secretary had filled out around the hips, and on the positive side, both had managed to stay reasonably in line with current fashions. But through tide and tempest, Gord’s office was Gord’s office.

  “So,” Gordian said. “How’s temporary retirement agreeing with you?”

  Nordstrum raised his eyebrows. “Temporary? You need to check your sources.”

  “Spoken like a true journalist,” Gordian said. “Alex, you’re under fifty and one of the most competent and knowledgeable men I know. I’d just guessed you would eventually want to get back to work.”

  “I won’t reject the compliments,” he said. “Fact is, though, that after the crypto brawl, and almost being hijacked aboard a nuclear submarine, and getting frozen so far out of the White House that its gardening staff fends me off with hedge clippers if I get too close, I don’t feel the urge to be anything but a couch potato.”

  Gordian sat there without comment for several moments, Mount Hamilton visible through the window behind him, thrusting high above San Jose’s urban development, extending the atmosphere of benign yet unassailable permanence beyond the confines of the room.

  “I know you were at the Cape for the shuttle launch,” Nordstrum said. “I’d tuned in to watch it on CNN.” He shook his head. “A god-awful tragedy.”

  Gordian nodded.

  “Not something I’ll ever forget,” he said. “The sense of loss ... of personal grief in that control room can’t be described.”

  Nordstrum looked at him. “I’ve been assuming,” he said, “that Orion’s why you got in touch.”

  Gordian met his gaze and slowly nodded again. “I was conflicted about it,” he said. “While I respect your wish to stay free of involvement, I could use your advice. A great deal.”

  “Every time I think I’m out of it they pull me back in,” Nordstrum said.

  Gordian gave him a thin smile. “Thanks for sparing me the full Pacino impression.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  There was another pause. Gordian steepled his fingers on the desk, looked down at them, then looked up at Nordstrum.

  “You wrote an analysis of the Challenger disaster for Time magazine back in the eighties, before we knew each other,” he said. “I never forgot it.”

  “And I never knew you read it,” Nordstrum said. His brow creased. “That was my first major piece. If recollection serves, we met a month or two after its publication.”

  “At a Washington cocktail party thrown by one of our mutual acquaintances,” Gordian said.

  “Coincidence?”

  Nordstrum waited.

  Gordian didn’t respond.

  Nordstrum sighed, giving up.

  “After Challenger went down, the media struck up the tune that NASA and the space program were finished,” he said. “I remember hearing this constant rattle about how an entire generation of children had suffered permanent emotional scarring from having viewed the explosion on television, and innumerable comparisons between that event and JFK’s assassination, and predictions that we would never be able to recover or muster the will to go into space again.”

  “You very strongly attacked that notion.”

  “Yes, for a whole list of reasons,” Nordstrum said. “It allows a terrible accident to be packaged as a neat blend of pop psyche and sensationalism for the nightly news and the Oprah show. It completely discounts human resiliency and says we’re compelled to act as we do by external forces that are beyond our control. Maybe worst of all, it assumes failure to be a given, and then relieves us of responsibility by promoting a linear fiction, a simplistic cause-and-effect explanation for that failure. ‘Don’t blame me, blame my psychological deficits.’ In my opinion, nothing could be more misleading and demoralizing.”

  Gordian looked at him. “You see why I miss having you around, Alex,” he said.

  Nordstrum smiled a little.

  “Lay a soapbox at
my feet and that’s what you get,” he said after a moment. “At any rate, the central point of my article was that blaming Challenger for the loss of public confidence in NASA was getting causes and symptoms totally mixed up. We all grieved for the astronauts who died aboard that spacecraft, but the agency’s tarnished reputation after the accident didn’t result from a national trauma. It was a consequence of institutional problems that had been developing and compounding for quite a while, and the ugly blame game that erupted when the Rogers Commission, and later the Augustine Report, brought them to light.”

  “Concluding that NASA’s internal bureaucracy had gotten so large there was a total disintegration of authority and decision-making procedures,” Gordian said. “Each manager had become lord of his own kingdom, and their feuding had broken down vital lines of communication.”

  “That’s the short version, yes. But it misses too much that’s really disturbing. Information about the O-ring weakness and other potential launch hazards was suppressed—consciously, actively suppressed—because those managers were looking out for their own competitive interests to the exclusion of everything else. Funding needs, political pressures, and production deadlines drove agency officials to lower the bar on safety practices. A lot of people were worried about the launch, yet nobody wanted to be the one to stand up and make the decision to scrub. It wasn’t that they intended to put the astronauts at increased risk, it was that they’d succumbed to a kind of organizational group-think that conditioned them to see the risks as being less serious than they clearly were. With every launch, they became more like problem gamblers, telling themselves their luck would hold and everything would work out okay. They made their mistakes with their eyes wide open.”

  Gordian had been watching Nordstrum quietly as he spoke. Now he crossed his arms on the desktop and leaned forward over them.

  “Alex, it isn’t the same with Orion,” he said. “The space agency is a different entity these days. More cohesive and goal-oriented. More transparent in its internal operations. Its standards have been restored. I never would’ve committed UpLink’s resources to ISS if that hadn’t been demonstrated to me.”