by Al Macy
I got out my cell phone to call it in, but there was no signal, even when I held it against the porthole. I guess rust is a signal-killer. Worse, Pavarotti must have heard the phone, because he stopped in the middle of his cadenza.
He frowned and cocked his head. When he stood up to look around, I was already out the door. He raised the alarm, but it didn’t matter. I was across the deck, heading toward the side.
I pictured a vault over the railing, planting my hands on the top and tucking my legs under my body in a graceful movement. That was my plan, figuring I’d sail over the side of the ship and drop to the water feet first. It didn’t work out that way. One of my ankles hit the railing and my hands panicked. They tried to hold on, and I ended up tumbling and bouncing my way down the side of the rusty ship.
This was a small freighter, but it was still a long way down. I had time to think of my promise to Mary: no heroics. But staying on a drug-running ship wasn’t a good option. This had been one of those heat-of-the-moment times, and I thought I’d made a decent decision, considering.
I changed my mind when I hit the water. The heat-of-the-moment cooled off fast. Could it be any colder than this? The iciness made me gasp a bit—a bad thing when you’re underwater. But I had bigger problems. I was up-close-and-personal with a gazillion-ton freighter churning through the harbor. I’d thrash and swim my way out from the hull, only to be sucked back again. Would it pull me into the propellers? I tucked myself into a ball to keep my hands and face away from the razor-sharp barnacles.
After what seemed like hours but was probably just seconds, the swirling water dragged me under. Way under. The roar of the propellers got louder and louder. Please, no. At one point the rumble came from both sides. Did I pass between twin props? I popped out behind the vessel, scrabbled to the surface, and snatched breaths in between coughs.
Floating on my back, I looked up at the stern. Pavarotti threw a life ring, like a Frisbee, in my direction. Considerate of him. Perhaps I’d misjudged the guy. I swam over and clutched it like a drowning man. The Misty May—that was the name on the stern—sailed off into the distance.
Time to take stock. The sun had set, but I could still make out the pulp mill’s smokestack. The shore was less than a quarter of a mile away, but the ebbing tide was dragging me away from the mill. I left the life preserver and struck out with a pitiful ribs-still-not-healed sidestroke—more Betty White than Michael Phelps. I dragged myself onto the slimy rocks of the shore, shivering like a nervous Chihuahua on an iceberg.
I chose the non-heroic thing to do: call in my conclusions and let the U.S. Government do the rest. I pulled my cell phone out of my cargo pocket. Water drained out its corners. It was about as functional as a pet rock. It fell from my hands; I didn’t even have the energy to fling it angrily into the sea.
There were no other buildings within miles. If I wanted a cell phone, I’d have to find one in the pulp mill. I gave myself a pep talk and jogged along the shore toward it. I thought the physical activity would make me warmer. No such luck.
* * *
I arrived at the pulp mill’s largest building. The place seemed deserted, with grass growing up through the cement in the parking area. Moss covered the ancient smokestack towering above me. Was I wrong about this? I had seen lights, right?
“Hey.” The voice came from behind me. I spun around. It was dark, but I made out a small man, or teenager, and he had a bulge on the side of his belt. The good news was that he was laughing.
“What the hell happened to you? You had to go out on the dock, and you fell in, right? That dock is a piece of crap. They told us to stay away. Broker is going to have your ass.” He approached.
Do I have such a run-of-the-mill body that everyone thinks they know me? I kept my head down, hugged myself, and exaggerated my shivering. It was easy to play the part of someone who’d fallen into the water.
“Shit, buddy. Go down to the locker room and put on some dry clothes.” He gestured vaguely toward the north end of the building. On my way to the door he called out, “And hurry. The big event, whatever the hell that is, is about to happen.”
Bingo. Broker. Big event. This has to be the place. Find a cell phone, and I’ll be done.
Once in the building, I kept my head down and pretended it was perfectly normal to be sopping wet. I lucked upon a handwritten sign pointing to the locker room and squelched my way down the stairs.
The room was deserted. There were no uniforms, but I found a sweatshirt, a coverall, and a cap hanging on the wall. I changed quickly, going commando—how appropriate. The coverall was so large it looked as if Gollum had taken a job at the local Jiffy Lube. The embroidered patch read “Joe.”
None of the lockers I pried open yielded a cell phone. Not surprising.
I put on the cap and pulled it low, preparing for my Oscar-winning performance as Joe the building maintenance guy. A rusty toolbox sat by the wall. I dumped its contents into the trash and carried it out the door and up the stairs. When it comes to disguises, never underestimate props.
Time to finish up and hitchhike to a warm hotel. My weeks in D.C. had given me a taste of the lifestyles of the rich and boring, and I was ready to transition to that. But first, I needed a phone.
Some people like to drop their pocket contents onto the nearest horizontal surface whenever they enter a room. That’s the kind of person I was looking for as I made my way down the hall. On my left, in a room with four desks, I found her. Her cell phone and keys sat on a corner of her workspace, to her right. She wore earbuds connected to an iPod and nodded her head to a slow beat.
I grabbed a stapler from a table by the door, tiptoed up behind her, and threw it to the left. It crashed to the floor. She gave a little yip and looked toward the sound. I grabbed the cell phone and continued on to another door. Smooth. The other door turned out to be a closet, so I did a smooth U-turn and went out the way I’d come in. Everyone was interested in where the flying stapler had come from, so I was home free.
I found an empty room, shut the door, and collapsed into a chair. The place smelled of cement dust and mold. I’d memorized Hallstrom’s cell number—never rely on having access to your speed-dial.
But coverage was spotty, ranging from “No Service” to one bar. He probably wouldn’t answer anyway, not recognizing the caller ID. So I punched in a text message: “911 this is jake weapon at abandoned pulp mill eureka ca.” Smart and concise, huh? I pushed “Send” and, after a delay, got “Message Sent.” Yay.
My work was done. No heroics required. In the hall, looking for an exit, I passed a huge room with gray cabinets stretched across the floor, each sprouting heavy-duty cabling from its top. I did a double take and stepped back to look. Big mistake.
The room was several stories tall. I poked my head in and looked up. Fog and the scent of low tide drifted in through a huge door in the roof. Just below the opening, graceful struts converged on a platform holding what looked like a THEL or Tactical High-Energy Laser. Yes, I’d done my homework. It actually just looked like the kind of huge spotlight associated with Hollywood. If I were to climb onto the roof, a well-placed brick might put it out of commission, but no heroics for me.
A small control room held racks of equipment and one small, nervous guy. He motioned me over. Oh, why had I stopped to look?
McClaren. Should I ignore him and keep going? Better not. I slouched my way into the control room. It was warm and filled with the scent of overheated electronics.
I examined the equipment. If I ran amok here, pulling out wires and knocking things over, I could put this thing out of commission. There would be no power beam, and the astronauts would be safe. But that would come under the heading of heroic. Plus, I’d be shot.
McClaren was short with a concave chest and wispy blond hair. He had the pale skin of someone raised in a basement condo on the dark side of the moon. And he never stopped moving. He flitted around the control room like a hummingbird on cocaine, his lab coat billowing out beh
ind him as he went.
I could kill or disable this mad scientist, but again, I’d end up as a dead hero. Plus, someone else might know which button to press.
I went over to him, but he kept bouncing around as if he’d forgotten I was there. It wasn’t that he was busy. He’d type something on a keyboard, squint at the screen, then jump up and move back a few feet to look at the monitor from a different angle.
“Y’all need something, sir?” Y’all? Where’d that come from? I guess I pictured Joe the maintenance man as a Texan.
“You don’t see it?” He jumped around more. I wanted to grab him in a bear hug. Stop moving!
“I’m sorry, no, sir.”
“Yeah, well,” he said as he zipped behind me, “that’s not surprising. You probably didn’t make it through junior high, did you?”
“Well, I—”
“Right here.” He slapped the surface of a table five times. “Can’t you see how inefficient that placement is? It makes no sense to have it way over here. Can’t you see that?”
“Yes, sir.” Okay, this guy was nutty as a squirrel with ADHD. “I’ll get my assistant, and we’ll move it for you right away.”
“No, no, no. I just wanted you to see …” His voice faded as I rushed out of the room, down the hall, and smack into Mr. Weston Broker. He stood unmoving with his arms crossed. Two thugs with rifles stood by his side. He was still dressed for cocktail hour in head-to-toe venture-capitalist chic.
“So, we meet again,” I said. I know, that was his line, but I couldn’t resist. What’s wrong with me?
Broker had no time for me. He apparently wasn’t even going to explain his plans as if this were a James Bond movie. He walked off but called back to the thugs. “We’ll deal with this clown later. Tie him up in the boiler room. Kill him if he tries anything.”
These guards were no Tweedledums. One frisked me and took “my” cell phone and toolbox while the other kept his distance, covering me with his assault rifle. A crowbar wouldn’t even have helped. As we headed down the hall, a fire ax came into view near the stairs. I watched it as we approached.
“Go ahead. Make my day,” thug number one said, with a perfect Eastwood accent. It wouldn’t have worked anyway: Mama always said “don’t bring an ax to a gunfight.”
The thugs knew their knots, too. They paraded me into a basement chamber and tied me to a steampunky, rusty boiler. My hands were behind me. They left and locked the door. A lone bulb hung from the ceiling, and water dripped behind me.
An unpleasant thought made me stop breathing. The text message. Had I mentioned that I was actually in the pulp mill? Ah … no. Sheesh. In my defense, I hadn’t planned on sticking around, but still …
The briefing papers said the ISS would be in range at 11:48. I’d sent the text message around 10:45. Would Hallstrom have time to assemble and deploy a SEAL team? Probably not. Was there time to blow it up with a missile strike? Yes.
I twisted around to see my watch and pulled a neck muscle. Ow.
I could only see the first three digits on the watch: eleven-oh-something. I started rubbing my binding up and down against the boiler support. The knots were good, but the rope was not. It was polypropylene, which meant that I could build up enough frictional heat to make it fail. If I had enough time.
Between rubbings, I pulled against the rope until my shoulder sockets screamed at me. Was it stretching? Rub, pull, wiggle, repeat. Over and over. Finally, my wrists slick with sweat, I got just enough slack to wriggle one hand free.
I checked my watch. 11:34. If they bombed the place, it could happen at any second. I didn’t have time to break out. Searching for shelter, I opened a door near the bottom of the boiler and stuck my head in. It was a vertical boiler, shaped like a beer can with rounded ends. Tubes filled the interior, leaving no room for me.
But the tubes were rusty and crumbly. I pulled one, and it popped right out. In five minutes I had a Corby-sized nest carved out with a bed of rust flakes. I stuck my feet in with my hands on the floor as if doing push-ups, then walked my hands back, folded myself inside, and creaked the door closed.
I waited. Stupid idea? Maybe someone would come in and say, “Well, what the hell are you doing in there?” If my text hadn’t gotten through, perhaps the thugs would come back and think I’d escaped. But they’d figure it out unless I was vewy, vewy quiet and—
Boom! It was like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. The boiler flew sideways, crashed onto its side, bounced, and rolled. I was in a snow-globe of rust particles.
After brushing the rust bits off my face, I opened my jaw wide. Banging the wall of my capsule, I heard nothing. Yup, I was deaf. Deaf but alive. With the rush of adrenaline I started shaking. Would there be another explosion? I didn’t care. I wanted out. Plus, I had to pee. I took care of that by opening the coverall and peeing into the rust dust. Too much information?
The boiler was on its side, and the door, my escape hatch, was against the floor. I was in a beer-can coffin. I have a touch of claustrophobia, and the urge to straighten my legs was unbearable. Deep breathing helped. A little.
Of course it was pitch-black in there. I kept hearing the line from Tommy: “That deaf, dumb and blind kid, sure plays a mean pinball.” I was no pinball wizard, but all the adjectives fit. Especially “dumb.”
I started rocking the boiler. Had it been on a flat, level surface, that would have worked, but there must have been debris impeding the roll. Back and forth I rocked. Did it go a little further each time?
I took a break and must have fallen asleep. When I checked my watch, it was seven a.m. Back to work.
Rock-a-bye boiler, repeated thirty times, and I was able to kick the door open, hinge side uppermost. The boiler rocked back, and the half-open door propped it up. Could I slither out?
I stuck my head out and froze. What was that noise? A wonderful noise: the barking of a dog. I decided then and there that I loved dogs. Especially rescue dogs. I yelled. Would it be loud enough? Unlikely. I popped my head back into my beer can and, with the light from my watch, found a heavy piece of metal. I banged it against the boiler’s wall. My hearing had come back, and my efforts resulted in healthy, resonant booms.
Eventually the rescuers knocked back from above. Saved.
After another hour, they dug their way down to the room and I yelled to let them know where I was. They crashed around and then rolled the boiler over and opened the door. They shined their lights on me, and one of them said, “Well, what the hell are you doing in there?”
The rescuers pulled me out, and I hugged them until they told me I wasn’t their type. Rust dust covered every part of me. The rescue dog, a huge German shepherd, was exuberant. I guess I was his reward for the search. I hugged him, too.
They stretchered me onto a Coastguard helicopter. As we lifted off, headed to the hospital (again), I craned my stiff neck to watch the pile of rubble recede. That could have been my grave.
CHAPTER FOUR
December 23, 2011
Hallstrom had received my text, which dovetailed with other intelligence he’d received, and the Air Force blasted the pulp mill to a, well, to a pulp. There wasn’t time for anything less dramatic. I viewed the gun camera footage. How did I survive that?
The strike took out the death-ray device that would have finished off the ISS. It had also killed the terrorists, Broker and McClaren.
Two weeks later, I was the guest of honor in the White House Situation Room. Together with the president, Secretary Clinton, Hallstrom and others, we watched the unfolding of the plan NASA had cobbled together to get the astronauts back to Earth.
It was risky but simple: NASA, together with the SpaceX corporation, would retrieve the astronauts with an unmanned cargo capsule.
SpaceX modified their Dragon automated cargo vehicle, adding seats, handholds, and communications. When Dragon arrived at the ISS, Canadarm, the station’s big mechanical arm, grappled it and pulled it close. The plan was to have the astronauts pop out
of the ISS, hop into the Dragon, and zip back home to their loved ones.
I had expected a few hours of reality entertainment, followed by a brief celebratory cocktail party and dinner with Mary at the five-star Bourbon Steak restaurant.
The station’s airlock hatch opened. A fixed camera gave us a great view. The hatch was on the left of the screen, and the Dragon was on the right, ten feet away. The hatch reminded me of the door on my rusty boiler, only larger. Commander Ray Shepard drifted out first, followed by Catherine Pettit. All they had to do was float over to the capsule, unhook their tethers, and hop in. It would have been a cakewalk of a spacewalk, but it wasn’t, because the space station started spinning.
McGraw stiffened. “This is not good.”
Slowly at first, the curved surface of the earth moved down. For a minute the background was black, and then Earth reappeared at the top of the screen.
McGraw pinched the skin at his throat. “As long as the spin doesn’t accelerate, we’ll be okay.”
But it did accelerate.
Houston’s transmission filled the room. “Station, a faulty attitude-control thruster is firing and we can’t shut it down. The spin is going to get worse, so we need you to get to Dragon immediately.”
“Copy, Houston,” Ray said.
Soon Earth and the blackness of space alternated every five seconds, and a wave of queasiness radiated up from my stomach. Oh, no. Not again.
Catherine missed a handhold near the airlock. Ray tried to grab her, but failed. Centrifugal force threw her out to the limit of her safety tether. She smashed into a radiator assembly on the way.
With the combination of fixed cameras and helmet cams I was right there with them. Catherine was at the end of her tether, like a child on a swing carousel at a carnival. I no longer wanted to grow up to be an astronaut.
Houston said, “Stand by, Catherine, we are moving Dragon toward you now.”
The Canadarm, with Dragon on the end, extended. Ray released his grip on the ISS and was flung out toward Dragon. He hit the capsule hard and held on. Ray and the Dragon were now between the ISS and Catherine, with her tether taut in front of Ray.
