“I’ve got intelligence training. I can pick up on certain things.”
“I know how people think. And I’m good at reading them, their body language.”
Rusakov nodded slowly. “And I’m sure that’s useful in some situations. But I can do things you may be … uncomfortable doing.”
Vail stared at her.
“The book is out on you, Karen.”
I didn’t realize there was a book.
“I’m not a fan of physical torture. If that’s ‘the book,’ then the book is right. It’s not happening. Not on my watch.”
Rusakov laughed. “Here’s the thing. You’re not in charge.”
“So tell me. What makes you so qualified that McNamara thinks you’re the better person for the job?”
“I was the first female Naval Special Warfare combat surgeon, part of SEAL Team 4 deployed to Afghanistan. Sometimes we took prisoners and needed to get at intel quickly. Lives were on the line. We didn’t have time to play games. And since some of the mujahideen were trained to resist harsh interrogation methods, we had to devise ways of getting at the information we needed.” She turned to the window and watched Lansford a moment. “I’m going in.”
“Like I said. No physical torture on my watch.” She tried to make it sound forceful. Intimidating. But clearly Alexandra Rusakov was not one to be pushed around.
“Think about it this way, Karen. Your friends are preparing to strap themselves into a metal capsule and get shot into the middle of freaking nowhere, hurtling through space traveling at insane speeds. With no rescue ships. Something goes wrong, they’ll be dead in a matter of seconds. If they lose oxygen, it’ll be a slow, emotionally and physically painful death.”
“We don’t know for sure that Jason Lansford has anything of value. And we don’t know for sure their lives are in jeopardy. Do we?”
Rusakov stared at her a long moment. “Do we know they’re not? Which is more acceptable to you? I’d rather make a mistake—and have it be nothing—than make a mistake and end up costing DeSantos and Uzi, Carson and Stroud their lives.”
Vail turned her back on Rusakov and stared at Lansford.
“So you’re willing to live with this? Could you look yourself in the mirror knowing you could’ve helped do something that saved their lives?”
Vail sighed heavily and leaned her forehead against the window. “No.”
“We’re on the same team here, Karen. It doesn’t really matter who gets the intel, does it?”
“That’s not the point. No, I don’t care. I mean, to be honest, yeah, I would’ve liked to have gotten him to talk. But the most important thing is that we get the info. Period.”
“Good. I agree. I’m going in there now.”
“I was trained to not even be present when torture is taking place.” Of course, this would not be the first time I had to look the other way. And she knew that, as a member of OPSIG, such conflicts would potentially arise from time to time. That did not mean she had to like it. But it did mean she had to accept it.
“You’re not carrying your badge and quite frankly, right now you’re not an FBI agent. Plus, you’re making assumptions about my methodology. We can talk about it more later. Right now, time is ticking. Take a breather. Go get a coffee, a breath of fresh air.” She patted Vail on the shoulder and walked out.
After watching Rusakov step into the room with Lansford, Vail pushed through the door into the hallway. A cup of coffee would do her good. That and a stiff drink.
26
Liftoff
The Hercules shook and rattled something fierce, and the noise in the cabin was loud, even with their helmets on. Despite their restraints they were tossed left and then right and left again.
And then an alarm blared.
Carson stared at his touch screen. “Uh, CAPCOM, we’ve got a master caution light here!”
“I see it,” Stroud said. “What the hell’s going on?”
The CAPCOM on duty, Bob Maddox, said calmly, “Abort? Do we need to engage the LAS?”
The launch abort system was designed to activate within milliseconds to blast the crew module away from a failing rocket toward a safe landing. Stroud’s right hand moved down against the LAS manual lever that—if pulled—would end the mission in the blink of an eye.
“No,” Stroud yelled. “No. It’s—I just can’t make sense of these readings.”
As a seasoned pilot, Stroud knew to trust his instruments, not his body. But the figures on his panel were so out of sync with what was supposed to be happening that he was at a loss as to what to do.
“Everything looks good on our end,” Maddox said. “What are you seeing?”
“Severe oscillation, two of five first stage engines have shut down. Imminent turbo pump structural failure. But—”
“Advanced health management shows temperatures, pressures, turbo pump speeds, and accelerometers all within normal tolerances,” Maddox said. “Your readings are incorrect. Engines are functioning normally.”
The massive rocket was still vibrating and shuddering violently—but Stroud knew that was not necessarily abnormal.
“No on abort,” Maddox said. “Repeat, no on abort. Confirm.”
“Roger, CAPCOM. No on abort.” Stroud moved his hand off the LAS handle and sighed relief.
Another three seconds later the ride smoothed out and they kept rising. Stroud muted the alarm and tried to ignore it. He wanted to shut his eyes and not look at the erroneous readings on his screen but all his training told him to never, ever do that out of fear of missing a key data point.
“Good job,” Uzi said.
Stroud groaned. “Bullshit. I got lucky. My hand was on the LAS lever. I was that close to fucking up this mission. Way too close.”
DeSantos looked up at Stroud. “Close only counts in horseshoes. Right now we’re still on course. All’s good. Take a breath. We’re on our way.”
WHILE CIRCLING THE EARTH at 17,500 miles per hour, Patriot made translunar injection, a burn of their powerful rockets that blasted them out of orbit and up to a speed of 25,000 miles per hour, on a course for the Moon. It came off without a hitch or glitch—though they all admitted to having a white-knuckled grip on their armrests until confirmation from CAPCOM that they were, indeed, on the proper trajectory.
They would be coasting to the Moon now, slowing progressively as they crossed over into the Moon’s area of gravitational influence, approximately 210,000 miles from Earth. Patriot would then accelerate as they were pulled toward the Moon. By the time they reached it, they would be traveling about 5,000 miles per hour, which they would reduce to 3,000 by firing their engines so they could enter lunar orbit.
Stroud adjusted his headset. “Come again?”
Bob Maddox repeated his statement, even though he most certainly knew Stroud’s question was rhetorical. “Doesn’t look like anything was actually malfunctioning with Hercules. All systems check out healthy. We’ve analyzed telemetry and all the readings were textbook.”
“But the oscillation. The turbo pump speeds were cl—”
“I realize that,” Maddox said. “We can’t explain it, but we’re still analyzing the data. We’ve got an engineering team ready to work ’round the clock on—”
A few seconds of silence passed.
“Uh, CAPCOM,” Carson said, “can you repeat?”
“I said, we’ve got another team of engineers who are on their way in. We’ll get them to work on it too. We’ll have a report for you as soon as we’ve got some—”
“Some what?” Carson said. “CAPCOM, do you read?”
No response.
“Uh, we understand,” Stroud said in case they were transmitting. “Comms winked out a couple of times. If you read, Patriot is standing by, awaiting your analysis.”
Uzi looked at DeSantos and wondered if he was
thinking the same thing he was: sometimes these complex machines experienced failures.
And sometimes those failures caused a catastrophic cascade.
But in the black void of space, there were no ejector seats. No parachutes. And no “Brave” F-16s to guide them to safety.
27
Black Site
Alexandra Rusakov removed her blouse, revealing a body-hugging tank top, toned shoulders, and shapely arms.
“My name is Veronika,” she said. “You’re Jason.” She smiled, her head cocked at an angle that let her thick brunette hair fall across her face. It was a look she had practiced and knew exuded beauty.
But Lansford held his own and did not react. “I told the other woman, I have no information for her. I didn’t do whatever she thinks I did.”
Rusakov slinked to his side, let her left index finger trail along Lansford’s cheek.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t know who you were talking with before and I don’t care.” She stopped by his right side, in line with his shoulder, took his chin in her hand and tilted it up toward her eyes. “I think you’re kind of cute.”
He swallowed.
She moved in front of him. “Do you find me attractive?”
“I’m married.”
Rusakov nodded. “Where I come from, in Russia, that does not matter.” She ran her fire engine red fingernails through his brown hair. “Does it matter to you? Do you want me to stop?”
Lansford’s gaze dropped to Rusakov’s full cleavage.
She swung a muscular leg over Lansford’s lap and sat down.
“Do you need me to tell you that he’s aroused?” Terrence Jones, the polygraph examiner, asked in her ear. “Because he is. Shit, I am too. Oh sorry. I’ll shut up now.”
“What—what are you doing?” Lansford asked.
Her fingers were wrapped around his belt. “I think I’m loosening your buckle.” She laughed softly, then leaned forward and breathed in his right ear. Kissed his neck.
Lansford sucked in some breath. He stopped resisting, stopped moving. He was cooperating.
“Does this feel good?”
He did not speak.
Rusakov separated the belt buckle, deftly undid the button of his pants, and let her fingers trail down to his groin. Felt the firm erection. “Guess that’s a yes.” She leaned over to his left ear. “That’s it. I know it feels good.”
He swallowed. His breathing quickened.
“Tell me what I want to know and I’ll go further.”
He brought his gaze to hers, spoke at a near whisper. “That other woman—”
“Not a problem,” Rusakov said. “I locked the door when I came in. So tell me, Jason, what I need to know.”
“You do this first,” he said. “Then I’ll talk.”
“Promise?” She kissed his neck lightly, massaging his penis through his underwear.
“Yes, yes,” he said in a near-whisper. “I promise.”
She rubbed him, kissed his forehead, then his cheek, then lightly—very lightly—on the lips. She pulled back slightly.
“Take off the handcuffs.”
She giggled. “So much more fun with them on, Jason. Trust me. If you’ve never tried it …” She looked down, grabbed hold of the waistband and ripped it open with a sharp, forceful tug. Took his erection in her hand.
And he closed his eyes.
VAIL WALKED DOWN the hall, cup of burnt coffee in hand—there was no hard liquor in the break room, unfortunately—and an overwhelming sense of frustration threatening to make her hurl the drink at the wall.
Sometimes, no matter how hard you tried, you could not find the answers, could not get at the information you needed. Could not get where you needed to get in time to save a life. She knew it was part of the job—not just with OPSIG but with the Bureau.
But intellectually knowing something and being able to turn off the emotional spigot were two different things.
Vail entered the observation room and set her cup down next to Jones. She looked up at the two-way mirror and saw Rusakov bent forward in her chair.
“What the hell is she doing?”
Jones muted his microphone. “She’s giving him a h—”
“Are you kidding me?” Vail was out the door in the next half second.
LANSFORD MOANED. His body tensed, then relaxed. Rusakov tilted her head, still holding his penis in her right hand, cradling his testicles in her left.
“Now. Jason. Tell me what I want to know.”
Lansford, eyes still closed, reclining in the chair, shoulders relaxed, did not answer. Finally, he said in a low voice, “They’ll kill me. And my wife.”
“And how will your wife feel when I tell her what you just told me to do to you?”
Lansford opened his eyes. “She won’t believe you.”
“Oh, Jason,” she said mockingly. “But she will. We’ll show her the video.”
His eyes widened. “Video?”
“Tell me what I want to know or we’ll bring her in right now.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Trust me, Jason, you don’t want to ever say that to me. You’ll be sorry every time. Because I’ll do whatever is necessary. Whatever is necessary.”
“She’ll understand,” Lansford said. “Show her the video, see if I care.”
Rusakov squeezed his testicles with a grip as strong as a metal clamp.
“Ahh!” His eyes bulged as he instinctively tried to pull away. “That hurts. Stop!”
VAIL GRABBED THE KNOB AND TWISTED. It was locked.
“Open up. Al—Veronika!” Vail jiggled it again, more forcefully. “Veronika. Let me in!”
Vail heard the scrape of metal on metal and she pulled the heavy door toward her. She gave Rusakov an angry look. “Go clean yourself up.”
Rusakov looked down at her soiled top, then left the room.
Vail took a deep breath. Remember where you are. Focus. “Jason, you’ve gotta work with me here. Give me something I can use. There are people who … who aren’t bound by the morals I’m bound by, who’ll do things that—that you don’t want done.”
Lansford lifted his head, the tension of pain still evident on his face. “Really? Good cop, bad cop? Is that what we’re doing now?”
Vail pulled out her handcuff key and unlocked him, then gestured toward his privates. “Put yourself away, please.”
He looked up at her as he sorted himself out. “Tissues?”
“Nope.” She waited a minute for him to finish, then refastened his restraints. “This is not bad cop, good cop. This is not an act. What I said is true. You don’t want to see what these people are capable of. Tell us what we want to know and it stops here.”
“Not gonna happen.”
Well at least he’s no longer denying that he knows something. “I’m going to get something to eat. You want anything?”
“No.”
“Take the time to think long and hard about what I just said. I’ve given you every chance to save yourself a whole lot of pain and heartache. And I mean that quite literally.”
28
Deep Space
Patriot, this is mission control.”
Eisenbach’s voice.
“Go ahead, this is Digger.”
“Discussed your issues and we’ve identified some readings that we need to check on our end. We’d like you to run a diagnostic on the flight software. We’re running simulations as well to see if we can repeat the problems you’ve had. But we feel it’s important for you to …”
They waited, but Eisenbach did not continue.
“Repeat, mission control,” Stroud said. “Important for us to what? Over.”
Silence.
“Here we go again.” Carson turned to Stroud. “Anything?”
<
br /> Stroud shook his head as he tapped on his screen and opened the communication suite.
“How big a deal is this?” DeSantos asked.
“Hard to know. If mission control tells us they’re running simulations and wants us to do a diagnostic,” Stroud said, “it could be significant. Something didn’t look right or they had a failed simulation. Or combined with what we’ve been experiencing, they could be … they’re just trying to cover all the bases.”
“Could it be related to the problem we had at launch?”
Stroud exhaled forcibly through his lips. “I don’t think we know enough yet to say either way.”
“If it is all related,” Uzi said, “it could be a cascade of system failures.”
That got DeSantos’s attention and brought him back to their recent F-18 flight—which did not end well. “Does that happen in spacecraft?”
Carson glanced down at DeSantos. “Because of the reliance on computerized flight systems, electronics, and computer chips, Orion’s got a lot of similarities to a modern-day fighter jet. Lots of differences too, but—”
“It’s definitely a concern,” Stroud said. “But we’ve got redundancies. NASA loves its backup systems, and for good reason. Remember, we’ve got a second flight computer if this one fails. We’re gonna be fine.”
“So now what?” DeSantos asked.
“We do what mission control asked,” Stroud said. “Digger, see if you can restore comms.”
“Roger that.”
“Uzi, run the diagnostics while I try to get a message to Vandy.”
“On it,” Uzi said as he began working the touch screen in front of him.
A moment later, Stroud cursed under his breath. “Nothing’s getting through. It’s like we’re enveloped in interference.”
“Add it to the list,” DeSantos said.
Uzi continued to work his console. “Hopefully we’ll start reducing that list. Maybe it’s just a few separate glitches. But if not … better we know sooner rather than later.”
29
Dark Side of the Moon Page 16
