Project Rescue

by Mark Kelly

  “I told Scott to tell you,” Mark said. “But he wouldn’t.”

  “That’s not true,” said Scott.

  “And what exactly happened in the cafeteria?” Mom asked.

  The twins looked at each other and came to the same conclusion. As a veteran police officer, Mom knew a thing or two about interrogating suspects. She was going to get the truth out of them sooner or later. So, taking turns, they told her what had happened with Michael.

  “We didn’t like his attitude,” Scott concluded. “He’s mean.”

  “And anyway, all we wanted was some privacy to talk at lunch,” said Mark. “That’s not a crime, is it?”

  “No,” said Mom, “not according to the penal code of West Orange, New Jersey. But it is a crime to threaten great bodily harm.”

  “Aw, we wouldn’t’ve hurt him really,” Scott said.

  “Not too bad, anyway,” Mark said.

  “And then,” said Mom, “there’s the matter of not fessing up to your dad and me right away. Honestly, I don’t know what’s gotten into you two lately. I realize you’re upset about the cosmonaut, but it started before that. Would either of you like to comment?”

  A long moment passed. Scott looked at a spot on the linoleum. Mark looked out the kitchen window to the empty street beyond.

  Mom sighed. “All right, then. I have spoken to your father—”

  Uh-oh, thought both boys.

  “—and he agrees with me that the best treatment for whatever’s ailing you is a stay with your grandpa during the school break.”

  The April afternoon had been gray and damp. Now it was as if bright sunshine filled the room.

  “For real?” said Mark.

  “When do we leave?” said Scott.

  “Dad’s and my work schedule is packed,” said Mom, “and Grandpa’s truck is in the shop. It looks like we’ll all have to put up with each other till at least Monday.”

  Mark saw this delay as a dark cloud over his sunshine. “I have an idea,” he said. “Can Barry come with us, do you think? He’s lazy, but even so, Grandpa likes him. If Barry came, then maybe Tommy could drive us.”

  Knowing the way Mom’s mind worked, Scott jumped in. “It’d be a favor to Barry, and his family, too,” he said. “Barry says they’re not getting along so well lately.”

  Mom shook her head and sighed. “What a shame after all they’ve been through. Let me give your grandfather a call.”

  Chapter 17

  * * *

  Mr. and Mrs. Leibovitz readily agreed to let Tommy drive the boys to Grandpa McAvoy’s house. They even lent him the family car, a roomy Chevrolet Caprice that had a plush interior, whitewall tires, and a factory-installed stereo tape deck.

  As Tommy steered the big car onto Highway 280 the next morning, Saturday, his passengers were feeling optimistic, their previous discouraged mood forgotten. They hadn’t said a word about it yet, but Barry, Mark, and Scott were all thinking more or less the same thing: At Greenwood Lake, a perfectly good rocket awaited, and so did a perfectly good launch facility.

  Weren’t they just begging to be put to use?

  Tommy tuned the car radio to a rock station. On the hour, the DJ read the weather forecast: “We’re looking at a high of fifty this afternoon, while tomorrow, Sunday, temps will hit a balmy sixty-three degrees. Monday we welcome back winter with a high of only forty-five under partly cloudy skies.”

  From the backseat, Scott piped up. “How cloudy is ‘partly cloudy,’ do you think?”

  Barry was riding shotgun. “I looked in the paper this morning,” he said. “If the ceiling stays at 2,000 feet like they predict, it’ll be decent launch weather.”

  Scott started to ask another question, but Tommy interrupted. “Wait, wait, wait—whoa!” He looked from Scott to Mark in the rearview mirror. “Are you talking about that cosmonaut guy? Are you crazy?”

  Scott grinned. “Crazy 8, that’s us.”

  “Project Blastoff seemed impossible too,” Mark said. “But we pulled that off. This time will be even better because we have experience. Plus we don’t have to build our own spaceship.”

  “There’s something else, too,” Barry added. “Project Blastoff was just a cool thing to do over the summer and a science fair project for Egg. Now a person’s life is at stake.”

  Tommy inhaled a long breath and let it out again. “Ye-e-a-a-ah,” he agreed, “but what about your lives?”

  “We’ll be extra careful,” said Mark.

  “We promise,” said Barry. “Oh, and don’t say anything to Mom and Dad, okay?”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” Tommy said. “I don’t think Mom and Dad are speaking to me.”

  For a few miles, they all listened to the radio, looked out the windows, and thought their own thoughts. Finally, Tommy spoke again. “Not that I’m necessarily on board with this idea, but let’s say someone we know was to fly to the cosmonaut’s rescue—who would it be?”

  The three boys all answered at once, “Me!”

  Tommy laughed. “Hope you’ve got a nice, big spacecraft. You’ll need room to bring back your Russian passenger too.”

  Scott knew discussing who got to fly would only end in an argument, an argument he wanted to put off as long as possible. So he changed the subject. “I’ve been wondering something. The Soviets launch from someplace called the Baikonur Cosmodrome, right? Where is that, anyway?”

  As usual, Mark was ready with the answer. But Tommy was even faster. “It’s in a region of the Soviet Union called the Kazakh Republic. It’s mostly desert, the middle of nowhere.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” said Mark.

  “How do you get there?” Scott asked.

  Mark looked at his brother. “Are you planning a field trip?”

  Scott shook his head no. “I’m just thinking it would be good if we had somebody on the ground there, somebody to coordinate our mission with the Russians. They could show us blueprints of the Salyut, get us in radio contact with Major Ilyushin, pinpoint the orbit of the Salyut, that kind of stuff.”

  “Heck, no problem, then,” said Mark. “All we need is somebody who totally understands the math, science, and engineering, and also talks Russian.”

  The twins saw Barry and Tommy exchange glances, then Barry said, “Actually, I speak a little Russian.”

  “No way,” said Mark.

  “Our grandparents emigrated from Russia,” Tommy explained. “Before she died, our grandma taught Barry. She tried to teach me, too, but I was a lousy student.”

  “Say something in Russian, Barry!” Scott said.

  “Uh . . .” Barry thought for a minute. “Poyadyte ikru, poshalusta.”

  Mark nodded. “Yeah, that’s Russian, all right.”

  “How do you know?” Scott asked.

  “’Cause I didn’t understand it, and I don’t understand Russian,” Mark said. “What did you say, anyway, Barry?”

  “ ‘Pass the caviar, please,’ ” Barry said.

  “Yuck!” said Mark. “Isn’t caviar made of fish eggs or something?”

  Barry shrugged. “All I know is Grandma told me Russians like it.”

  “I’m not sure that sentence will be useful when you’re talking about rockets,” Scott said.

  “It’s better than you can do,” Barry said. “And anyway, it’s not like I could really go. I’ve got some money saved, but not enough for a plane ticket.”

  “Plus you’d have to have a passport,” Mark said.

  “That I’ve got covered,” Barry said. “My family went to France last year, remember? My passport’s still good.”

  “Actually,” Tommy said, “you don’t want to go to Kazakhstan anyway. That’s where the launch site is, but the control center is closer to Moscow. I think the base is called Star City.”

  Announcing that they needed gas, Tommy steered the car off of the highway and into a service station, where an attendant filled the tank.

  “Fifty-seven cents a gallon!” Tommy said. �
�I can’t believe it’s so expensive.”

  “While we’re here, let’s take a restroom break, okay?” Tommy said.

  The boys piled out of the car. A few minutes later, Scott looked around and saw Tommy a short distance away, smoking a cigarette. “I didn’t know your brother smoked,” he said to Barry.

  “Usually only when he’s nervous about something,” Barry said.

  “What’s he got to be nervous about?” Scott asked.

  Barry shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought he was feeling pretty good today. He’s glad to be out of the house.”

  Back on the highway, Barry asked his brother if everything was okay. Tommy nodded, but the twins could see in the mirror that he was frowning. Finally, Tommy said, “I’m thinking about something is all. Look, are you guys serious about this deal—this rescue deal?”

  “Yes,” Mark said. Scott and Barry nodded.

  “And, Barry”—Tommy looked at his brother—“would you really go to the Soviet Union if you could?”

  Something about the way Tommy asked that question made Mark’s heart bump. It was one thing to contemplate going up in space. They had done that before—or at least Scott had. But going to the Soviet Union? For real? And the way Tommy had asked the question, Mark could tell he wasn’t just fooling around.

  For several moments it was quiet. Then Barry took a breath and said, “Da.”

  Scott and Mark looked at each other. Huh? In the mirror, they saw Tommy grin.

  “That’s Russian for ‘yes,’ ” he said. “Even I got that far with Grandma’s lessons. Look, Barry, I’ve got an air force buddy from Vietnam who owes me a favor, and the U.S. military has bases all over the world. He won’t be able to fly you direct to the Soviet Union, but I bet he can get you close.”

  Chapter 18

  * * *

  At Grandpa Joe’s house, a welcoming committee awaited. The rest of the Crazy 8 crew was there and so was Egg’s mom, Mrs. O’Malley. She shook hands with Tommy and greeted Barry and the twins with a big smile. Scott and Mark smiled back, but their emotions were all mixed up. Mrs. O’Malley was the mother of their good friend, after all, and usually they liked her fine. Now, though, they saw her as the major obstacle between them and their plan to rescue Ilya Ilyushin.

  It was too early for lunch, but Grandpa had bought doughnuts. Happy as they all were to see one another, the conversation between bites was quieter than usual. Finally Mrs. O’Malley brought up the topic on all their minds. “Look, I know you’re unhappy that NASA isn’t sending you to bring back the stranded cosmonaut—”

  “Us or anyone else, either,” Egg said.

  Mrs. O’Malley looked at her daughter and sighed. “We’ve been through this already, Jenny. There are political and international considerations that you kids can’t possibly understand.”

  Egg said, “We understand one thing, Mom. That poor man is stuck and is going to die, and no one will help him. That’s wrong.”

  “Now, Jenny,” Grandpa started to say, “your mother—”

  But Mrs. O’Malley interrupted. “It’s okay, Joe. The truth is I am disappointed too. I think NASA and our government have made the wrong call here. But something you learn as you get older is to accept life’s disappointments and move on.”

  Scott thought this over before filing it under another of his mental categories: Advice to Consider . . . Just As Soon As I Get Old.

  Grandpa looked at his watch. “I’ve got to pick up my truck from Lisa’s dad’s shop,” he said, “and Peggy here, Mrs. O’Malley, has generously offered to drive me. Tommy, will you still be here when we get back?”

  Tommy looked at Barry, then the twins. “Uh . . . it depends,” he said finally. “I might be meeting up with an old air force buddy.”

  “Bring him over! The more the merrier,” Grandpa said. “We’ll be back as soon as we can. In the meantime, kids, remember: Don’t blow anything up.”

  This made everybody smile. During the time they were working on the Crazy 8 spacecraft, practically every grown-up who heard about it gave them that same warning. After a while, it had become a joke.

  Mark waited until he heard the car start before making his announcement: “Barry’s going to Moscow.”

  Egg nodded. “Good. Have you worked out the logistics?”

  “Thanks to my brother here,” Barry said. “It looks like I can fly from McGuire Air Force Base to the U.S. Army airfield in Stuttgart, West Germany. After that it’s a short flight to Bern, Switzerland, and a straight shot to Moscow.”

  “That doesn’t sound very easy,” said Scott, “or safe, either.”

  “On the other hand, it’s probably safer than launching in a rocket ship,” Mark pointed out.

  One by one, the kids wiped the doughnut crumbs from their lips and took seats. Lisa pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. “McGuire is the base near Trenton, right?” she asked.

  “That’s the one,” said Barry.

  Still on his feet, Tommy looked from one kid to another. “Wait a second,” he said. “How come Jenny knew right away what Mark was talking about? Do you all have some kind of telepathic communications link or something?”

  Howard raised his eyebrows. “There is no such thing as a telepathic communications link, so how could we have one?”

  “Aw, come on. You know what I mean,” said Tommy.

  Howard shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

  “It’s not telepathy, Tommy,” Egg said. “It’s just we worked together so much last year that each of us can kind of predict what the others are thinking.”

  Lisa said, “Like, I bet Scott and Mark and Barry spent every day at lunch this week trying to come up with plans for rescuing Ilya Ilyushin.”

  “We sure did,” said Mark.

  “Egg, Howard, and I did the same thing. And now”—Lisa held up her pen—“it’s time to write down what we’ve got figured out so far. Only we have to hurry so we get it done while the grown-ups are out of the way.”

  Tommy smiled. “At least you didn’t include me with the ‘grown-ups,’ ” he said, “and I guess I’ve got an urgent phone call to make.”

  Scott told him there was a phone in Grandpa’s bedroom; Tommy left to make the call. Mark looked around the table. “All right, let’s do this. Assuming Tommy’s buddy comes through, there’s still a hole in Barry’s plan. Where is Star City exactly, anyway?”

  “That’s top secret,” said Mark.

  “I have an idea,” said Egg. “Did you happen to hear John Glenn on the news yesterday?”

  Mark and Scott nodded. Barry said, “He mentioned some kind of back-channel communications with the Soviet space agency, right?”

  Egg smiled. “Yeah, he did. And guess what? I’ve got my own back-channel communications—with Senator Glenn’s office.”

  A goofy thought entered Scott’s head. “You’re not the ‘little girl’ he talked about on TV, the one who wrote to him?”

  Egg looked embarrassed. Lisa laughed. Even Howard cracked a smile.

  “I was pretty insulted,” Egg said. “I am a perfectly normal-size preteen. But the important part is that after the letter, a lady on his staff called me back. She recognized my name from news stories about Crazy 8. She said the senator wants to help the cosmonaut too, and he might be willing to help us. We just have to keep his name out of it. He’s interested in the vice presidential nomination, and he doesn’t want controversy.”

  Scott’s eyes were wide. “You’re saying we’ve got John Glenn on our side?”

  “We can’t miss!” said Barry.

  “Egg, you’ve got to call the lady as soon as Tommy is done with the phone,” Mark said. “See if John Glenn’s Russian connections can help us with Barry’s travel.”

  Egg looked at Mark. “Excuse me? Was that a request?”

  “My brother means well,” Scott said. “But sometimes his ‘leadership potential’ looks like plain old bossiness. Maybe we should start calling him ‘bossy-pants.’ ”

  “We don’t h
ave time to fool around,” said Mark. “And I don’t need a nickname,” he added.

  “So I’m the only one who gets a nickname around here?” Egg asked.

  “Yes, because you deserve it and you are an egghead,” said Mark.

  “And we mean that as a compliment,” Scott added.

  * * *

  Before Grandpa Joe and Mrs. O’Malley returned, the Crazy 8 crew made a plan for their rescue mission, outlined job responsibilities, and thoroughly busted Grandpa’s budget for long-distance telephone calls.

  “It’s okay,” Mark reassured everybody. “He won’t get the phone bill till this is all over, and by then we’ll be heroes—provided the whole thing works out.”

  “What if it doesn’t work out?” Howard asked.

  “You mean like if something bad happens to Ilya Ilyushin when we’re trying to rescue him, and the Soviet Union gets mad and starts a war?” Scott said.

  Howard nodded. “Like that.”

  “In that case, we’ll have more important things to worry about than Grandpa’s phone bill,” said Scott.

  By now the kids and Tommy were standing by the front door. Barry had his duffel bag over his shoulder. Packed for a week at Greenwood Lake, it would also serve for a week in the Soviet Union.

  “I hope there’s a Laundromat,” Egg said.

  Barry said, “One that takes nickels instead of, uh—”

  “Rubles,” Mark said.

  “How did you know that?” Scott asked his brother.

  Mark shrugged. “I know everything.”

  The lady in John Glenn’s office had told Egg she would get right to work on the Russia part of the trip. Egg had given her Tommy’s buddy’s number. The lady was going to phone him when she had the details worked out. Now there was no time to waste, and everyone knew it.

  Even so, they put off saying good-bye.

  “Total flying time—Germany to Switzerland to Moscow—is about twenty hours,” Tommy said. “I don’t know for sure how long it will take to get to Star City, but an hour or longer.”

  “So you’ll be there Sunday sometime?” Mark said. “And so we can launch on Monday.”