Dark Side of the Moon

by Alan Jacobson

  “Cowboy?” DeSantos said. “What’s up? We’re a minute out.”

  “I—shit. It’s gone.”

  “What’s gone? Where are you?”

  “It’s not here,” Stroud said. After a pause, he said, “I’m in the Raptor. Main cabin.”

  Uzi steadied himself by grabbing the metal handle on the right side of his seat, and leaned forward to scan the control panel’s labels and switches. “Can this thing go any faster?”

  “Believe me,” DeSantos said, “if it could, I’d be putting pedal to the metal. So to speak.”

  “Almost there,” Carson said from the back stowage area.

  The Raptor got larger as they neared. DeSantos pulled up in front and Uzi got to the ladder first.

  “Coming up,” Carson said. “Wanna tell us what’s going on, Cowboy?”

  “Our food. All our food’s gone.”

  “What do you mean?” Uzi said as he reached the top of the ladder. “What do you mean by ‘gone’?”

  “I mean, it’s not here.”

  DeSantos, one rung behind Uzi, said, “How can that be? You had the Raptor in your sight the whole time, right?”

  “Yeah, of course. Well, there might’ve been a few minutes where I wasn’t watching. Twenty at most, but—”

  “Jesus Christ, Cowboy,” DeSantos huffed, his visor fogging.

  “It’s not like they put locks on these spacecraft,” Stroud said. “I mean, who thinks someone’s gonna go in and loot your food or equipment? You land on a planet, you’re the only ones there.” The frustration was evident in his voice.

  They got into the airlock and pressurized, then moved through the metal door and saw Stroud kneeling on all fours.

  “Asymmetrical warfare,” DeSantos said. “Simple, effective. Brilliant, actually.”

  Carson checked various compartments in the cabin. “But why steal our food? Why not destroy our engines—or even the whole ship?”

  “Because taking our food is easy. And it’s smart. It forces us to leave the Moon, but in and of itself it wouldn’t be deadly because we’ve got more supplies in our crew module. If they destroyed the Raptor, we’d be stranded—and our only way to survive would be to forcefully take the Russian ship. This is the least confrontational approach—but it accomplishes exactly what they want.”

  “Without food,” Uzi said, “we could survive by leaving—which is what the Russians want anyway. And they’d get it without starting a war.”

  DeSantos nodded. “We’d be angry and pissed off, but not desperate. Desperate soldiers have nothing to lose and would go after them with a vengeance. We’d be dying anyway, so why not try to take their ship—and their food? If we can’t, we die trying. Much more preferable to starving to death. Or we could merely leave and eat all the food we want in the Patriot.”

  “They outsmarted us.” Stroud pounded his fist into the bulkhead.

  “Yeah they did,” Carson said. “Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen again. We’re at war, gentlemen, and it’s a battle that won’t end well—either for them or for us. I’m gonna be a little selfish here, but I’d like it to be them.”

  “Sorry to be the one to point this out,” Uzi said, “but there’s a problem with the Russians’ thinking.”

  DeSantos turned to Uzi. “And what’s that?”

  “They thought we could survive by leaving.” Uzi leaned back against the bulkhead. “But we can’t. We don’t have any fuel.”

  “And that brings us back to the fact that we don’t have any food. And the red elephant in the cabin.” DeSantos turned slowly to Stroud. “You said the Raptor was out of your sight for twenty minutes? Where the hell were you?”

  “I didn’t find caesarium nearby so I went to one of the prioritized locations, not far from where the DOD believes Schmitt and Cernan found it. I was … looking around and exploring. I got too far away.”

  DeSantos’s voice rose an octave. “Looking around and exploring?”

  “Hey, we’ve got a limited number of hours here. I didn’t want to regret not spending a few minutes to take it in, experience the fact I was on the fucking Moon. C’mon, don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about.” He made eye contact with each of them but was not getting a sympathetic look in return. “I didn’t think it’d be a problem.”

  “You didn’t think,” DeSantos said. “That’s the problem. What the hell’s the matter with you? We have a mission. You’re a skilled operator. Our enemy’s now a few miles away. Don’t do shit like that again.”

  “I’m the mission commander,” Stroud said firmly, jamming a finger into the instrument panel. “You don’t have the right to talk to me like that.”

  DeSantos snorted. “After the poor judgment you just showed, you deserve to be talked to like that. And if I could, I’d relieve you of command. We’re all dependent on one another. This is a team. You put the team at risk for no good reason.”

  “So you still haven’t even found any caesarium?” Carson asked.

  “No. I’ve got two dozen other potential sites to check. It takes a lot longer because I have to drill manually.”

  “I may have a solution to our food problem,” Uzi said, staring out the window to his left. “Well, not a solution, but something that’ll keep us on the surface until we can complete our mission.”

  DeSantos tore his gaze away from Stroud. “Go.”

  “Those Apollo 17 food packs we found. They’re dehydrated and—”

  “They’re decades old,” Carson said. “I mean, they were made shelf-stable and some of it was treated with gamma radiation to sterilize it before it was packaged. But still, I’m sure they didn’t give any thought to it lasting for so long.”

  “Hopefully they still have enough calories to sustain us for three days. Rationed, obviously.”

  DeSantos looked at Stroud. “Your screw up may end up killing us. We have no fuel to lift off and no food.”

  “I told you w—”

  “Shut up. Just shut up.” DeSantos clenched his jaw. “I don’t see a choice. Let’s go take a look at those food packets.”

  “From what I remember,” Uzi said, “they mixed the contents of the packet with water and they had their meals. They also had hard nutrition bars. Chemically stabilized to last a long time. Not decades, but … maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

  “Can’t wait.” Carson grabbed his helmet. “Look, we’re in a bad way here. Uzi’s got a reasonable solution. We’ll make the best of it, make it work. Right?”

  They all made eye contact and nodded, except for Stroud—who kept his gaze on his feet.

  “Cowboy, you stay here, keep watch over the Raptor,” DeSantos said. “You think you can handle that?”

  “You’re not in charge here.”

  “Tough. Consider it a mutiny. I’m giving the orders now.”

  Stroud looked at Carson, who turned away. Uzi, however, was staring Stroud down.

  “Fine. I’ll stay behind. Go. You’re wasting time.”

  After pressurizing the airlock and donning their helmets, they descended the ladder and headed to the rover.

  “UV exposure of the packing materials will be a problem,” Uzi said. “We’re talking direct exposure to the sun’s mostly unfiltered ultraviolet rays. My biggest concern is that the radiation could cause the packaging material to fail. Then you’ve got the temperature swings. Heat, then cold, then heat, then cold … and so on, for a really long time.”

  “Let’s go look,” Carson said. “No sense in guessing. We’ll have an answer inside of thirty minutes.”

  DESANTOS PARKED THE ROVER a dozen feet from the landing pod of the Apollo 17 descent stage. Lying in a heap was the collection of discarded equipment they had seen before, including a couple of the large, rectangular-shaped portable life support system backpacks.

  They got out an
d circled the graveyard, then knelt down carefully in their bulky suits. Carson started with the eighty-four-pound PLSS backpack and lifted it up—fairly easy in the Moon’s one-sixth gravity—and examined it. “Jack Schmitt’s PLSS from 1972. How cool is that?”

  “Hey, over here.” DeSantos lifted a thick panel and unceremoniously tossed it aside. “A whole bunch of those high-density food bars. They’re labeled.”

  Uzi knelt beside him and helped sift through tightly wrapped plastic laminate packs. “Tubed ham sandwich spread. Oh, that sounds … just. Plain. Gross.”

  “We can’t afford to get sick,” DeSantos said, “so we’ll stay away from meat and dairy products if possible. My guess is those are the most likely to have gone bad. What else we got?”

  “Strawberry cubes,” Carson said. “That should be fairly safe.”

  “And date fruit cake,” Uzi said, “which should also be good to eat. Well, not good. But edible. Uh, we’ll pass on the beef sandwiches and—” He held up a cloudy, white/grayish bag—“I’m not even sure what this is.” He turned it over. “Oh yuck. Butterscotch pudding.”

  Carson chuckled. “Yeah, a few decades ago. Now, it’s … maybe the first microbes on the Moon in a millennium.”

  “I think we’ll be safe from microbes if we stick to sealed packages,” Uzi said.

  “Just kidding,” Carson said. “NASA never found organisms of any kind on the Moon. And the food was packed and sealed to ensure it was free of bacteria and viruses. We should be okay.”

  Uzi examined a couple of clear bags. “Dehydrated peas. Yum. And … this one’s cocoa.” He held it up in front of his helmet. “Looks like they’ve got some kind of a spring-loaded valve in the corner. You add water, shake, and then stick a straw in. Worth a try.”

  Carson held up another pack. “I’ve got a chocolate bar. And brownies. Boy, the Apollo astronauts liked their sweets.”

  “Graham crackers look to be intact,” DeSantos said. “Sealed. And probably pretty stable.” He discarded pouches marked “beef and gravy,” “white bread,” and “scrambled eggs.”

  “Surprised how much this stuff looks to be in decent condition,” Carson said.

  “That thick metal thing landed on top of some of the food,” Uzi said. “At Intel we had to deal with thermal radiation, heat generation, and energy loss. Thermal radiation is the least efficient form of heat transfer, and objects heat up more slowly in a vacuum than in an atmosphere. Some of these food packs were protected by the reflective metal and constant shade, so it wasn’t exposed to the damaging heat. It just stayed frozen. Stuff that wasn’t underneath probably doesn’t have any nutrients left, even if it is palatable, which I doubt.”

  “None of it looks palatable,” Carson said.

  “Survival 101,” DeSantos said. “Eat to sustain, not for enjoyment.”

  “That’s the point.” Carson laughed. “Survival’s the key. You willing to put that stuff in your body?”

  Uzi opened his suit’s Velcro pouches and started stuffing the food packs inside. “If we were in the jungle, we’d be eating grasshoppers and deer and insects and nuts and snakes and anything else we could find. This is no different. We have a mission to execute and we’re not leaving here until we’ve done just that. Between the malware and the food, the Russians complicated that mission by a factor of a thousand.”

  DeSantos scooped some nutrition bars and slipped them into his pockets. “Let’s get to it. I’m starving.”

  “I lost my appetite,” Carson said. “But I’ll get it down. Somehow.”

  “As soon as we re-dock with Patriot we’ll be fine,” Uzi said. “We just have to survive until then. This should supply the minimum number of calories we need. Good news is we’re all gonna lose weight, which will help with liftoff.”

  DeSantos gathered up the remaining packs. “We can market it when we get home. Call it the Moon Survival Diet. What do you think?”

  Uzi stood up and gave DeSantos a look. “Don’t quit your day job.”

  59

  Potomac, Maryland

  With Bill Tait out of the country, they went to the next best source for information, Dirk Patrone. They arrived at his home an hour later—though calling this a home was a gross understatement. Although Patrone’s mansion, unlike DeSantos’s, did not sit on a park-size plot of land, it was still impressive, with two tall brick chimneys jutting skyward, rising above the sharply sloped gray tile roof. A smaller guest house sat to the east.

  “Looks like a castle,” Vail said, peering out the windshield as they approached along the gravel driveway. She looked down at her phone as the real estate webpage loaded. “Whoa. Only cost $7 million. Guess the mercenary-for-hire business pays well.”

  “I can tell you it does.”

  Vail cocked her head. “Personal experience?”

  “No comment.”

  Probably best that I don’t know. Vail drew her fingers apart and zoomed in on the screen. “Got a floorplan. It’ll have to do on short notice. Besides, we’re just going to talk to the guy, not invade.” Vail flashed back to her last case, where she and a bunch of cops on her task force visited a home—and were met with a barrage of fully automatic assault rifle fire.

  “Send the address to Hot Rod, just in case.”

  Just in case … what?

  “I don’t expect any trouble,” Rusakov said. “This guy’s got too much at stake to come out aggressively. He’s got a good life—and unless we have hard evidence of criminal activity, we’re no threat to him. And if we had hard evidence, we’d be showing up with a warrant and a tactical unit.”

  “I’ll buy that.”

  They got out of the car and walked up to the eight-foot-tall cherry wood door. Rusakov knocked and a moment later a man appeared, about thirty-five and wearing a sport coat and an open collared dress shirt.

  “Mr. Patrone?” Vail asked. She held up Department of Defense creds. “I’m Kathryn Vega. This is my partner. We’re hoping you can help us out with an investigation.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. Just a few minutes. If you don’t mind.”

  “Um, okay.” He shrugged. “Why don’t you come in?” He stepped aside and they entered the residence, which featured slate floors and expensive art on the walls—Vail estimated the frames alone ran thousands of dollars apiece. There were even a couple of well-known paintings she remembered studying as part of her art history major.

  He took them into a sitting room that had floor-to-ceiling windows across the entire twenty foot wall. It provided a view of the guest house and a massive hill in the yard—probably artificial—that was meticulously landscaped with a dry creek, footbridge, outdoor kitchen, and fire pit.

  “Beautiful home,” Vail said. “Sorry, didn’t mean to insult you by calling it a home.”

  “It is a home. A home is what you make of it, right? But if you’re referring to the structure, thank you. A friend of mine, who’s an architect, designed it to my specs.”

  They took a seat on the buttery soft tan leather sofas. Vail took the angle facing the windows because she could not take her eyes off the view. And that guest house. Something about it. But what? “Just love the landscaping.”

  “Thanks,” Patrone said. “But you didn’t come here to compliment me on my choice of architecture and design.”

  “True,” Rusakov said. “We’re looking for some help with a case involving Lukas DeSantos. Do you know him?”

  “Never met him. But I know of him. Everyone in this industry does. Hell, even if you’re not in the industry you’ve probably come across his name at some point in the media. I think I heard something about him getting some kind of medal from the president in a couple of weeks.”

  Hmm. Cynthia Meyers said Lukas had talked with him. They had an argument. Why’s he lying? “You sure you never met him? Never had a chat with him?”

  “Neve
r.”

  “How about your boss, Bill Tait? Doesn’t he know General DeSantos?”

  “Bill served under him. The general provided seed money for his business. Why?”

  “We’ve been told you guys do a significant amount of work with Russia.”

  Patrone nodded thoughtfully. No surprise, no concern registered.

  “The Russians contract with Tait for a variety of things, sometimes when diplomats need added protection or if they’ve got a dignitary or celebrity.”

  “And what’s your position with the company?” Rusakov asked.

  “Enforcement.”

  He said it without flinching. To Dirk Patrone, enforcement was a euphemism for murder. Or just a more politically correct term?

  He laughed. “It pays well.”

  Vail laughed too—and tried to make it sound genuine.

  While Rusakov continued questioning Patrone, Vail’s gaze kept coming back to the guest house just beyond the large wall of windows. All its windows were locked down, the shades were drawn, and the shutters were closed. Why?

  “Just curious,” Vail said. “That guest house. You rent it out?”

  “Rent it out?” Patrone chortled, as if that were a ridiculous question—which, of course, it was.

  “No, it’s for friends and family, when they visit.”

  “Is it decked out like the main house?”

  “Pretty much, yeah. The decorator and art broker did both structures at the same time.”

  “You know—that would—I’d love to see it. I’m a student of art and I couldn’t help but admire the Degas and Cézanne in your living room.”

  Patrone narrowed his eyes and cocked his head to the side. “You want to see my guest house?”

  “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

  “It’s a mess. My brother and his kids stayed there last week and I haven’t had time to get the cleaners in.”

  Vail waved a hand. “I just want to see the artwork. I’m not going to pass judgment on your cleanliness.”

  Patrone chortled—a bit unevenly for Vail’s liking. Then he got serious. “I agreed to answer some question on your case, but I don’t think I’m obligated to give you a tour of my residences.” He stood up. “Now, I guess we’re done. But I do thank you for all the lovely compliments on my home and my taste in art.”