Back to the Moon (30 page)

Koszelak scrolled down the screen. “Here it is. MEC of Cedar Key, Florida.”

“Is there anywhere I could view films of the
Apollo 17
expedition, Professor?”

“Sure,” Koszelak said. “Right here on my computer.”

Koszelak called it up. “Anything in particular?”

“When they were at Shorty Crater. Look for anything peculiar, different. I'm not sure exactly what.”

Shirley watched Schmitt struggling with the sample tube, saw Cernan come back with a capped pipelike thing in his hands. He used it to drive the tube.

“That's odd, never noticed that,” Koszelak said. “He's not using a hammer.”

Cernan dropped the pipe. “Wait, can you back that up?” Shirley asked, excited. “And can you zoom in with your software?”

“Sure can.” Koszelak backed the video up, zoomed in on the pipe, which, on closer inspection, seemed to be a kind of canister with screwed-on caps on both ends.

“Even closer,” Shirley breathed.
“There!”

She could see clearly the initials “K.S.” on the canister.
Katrina Suttner.

“I don't recognize it and I thought I knew every tool they carried up there. What is it, Miss Grafton?”

Shirley was digging into her purse, going after her tissues. She was crying again. At this rate she was going to have to carry a box of tissues with her everywhere she went. “It's a time machine, Professor.” She sniffed. “A very bright little girl built a time machine for the man she knew someday she'd love.”

Shirley thanked Koszelak profusely and left the center. She knew everything now or thought she did. She was heading back to Washington. Her boss, the vice president of the United States, needed to know everything too.

JSC-1

Fannin, Texas

Texas State highway 59 was a straight shot from Houston to Laredo on the Mexican border. It was a four-lane until it hit the little town of Fannin where it turned into a narrow two-lane. It was the perfect spot for a speed trap. A County Mountie clocked the red Porsche at over one hundred miles per hour, set his blue and reds flashing, and gave chase. The patrolman got close enough to read the Porsche's license tag. JSC-1. He called it in, kept following. The high-performance car went even faster, the driver obviously not drunk. His turns around the curves just outside the state park were taken too smoothly for that. He was just in one big hurry. No matter how hard the patrolman tried, he couldn't keep up. The Porsche finally went completely out of sight. The County Mountie grimly followed, then saw the skid marks going off the road, the crushed grass and splintered small trees. In a river upside down, wheels still spinning, was the Porsche. “Holy...” The patrolman gasped. The Porsche was on fire, even half submerged. It suddenly exploded, a big gout of orange gasoline-fed flame causing a mushroom like a small atomic bomb. He didn't realize he was screaming into his mike until the lady on the other end asked him to please “tone it down, boy.”

The trooper hurried down the bank. The Porsche had settled onto the shallow bottom. He sat down on a rock, put his hands to his face, tried to tell himself it hadn't been his fault. Then, hearing sirens in the distance, he gathered up his courage, waded into the water. A briefcase, charred but otherwise in good shape, floated out of the broken window of the smashed little car. He picked it up, held it while he looked inside the Porsche for the remains of the driver. He kept looking. There was no sign of him. He waded back to shore, opened the briefcase. It was filled with papers, official-looking documents. He heard people coming. He snapped the case shut. Somebody else could look into the damned thing.

Something white caught his eye in the gathering darkness. He waded over to it, sucked in a breath. There, lying facedown along the creek bank, was the body of the driver. JSC-1, whoever he was. “You dumb son of a bitch,” the trooper said.

CECIL DOES THE MEDIA

Marymount Hotel, Washington, D.C.

Cecil picked up both
The Washington Post
and the
Washington Times
on the morning of the fourth day of
Columbia
's flight and found himself splashed all over the front pages of both. Someone, “a well-placed source in the Justice Department,” had leaked both his name and information about MEC's contract. Whoever had done it had also told the newspapers where the department had stashed him. His telephone started to ring and it rang all day. Most of the reporters were hostile, asserting in their questions that Jack Medaris was a man bitter about his treatment by NASA, and that his taking of
Columbia
and the kidnapping of Penny High Eagle was a clear act of revenge and terrorism. Cecil tried to explain, didn't feel as if he was getting anywhere, and decided he needed to go on television and tell the world the truth.
The truth will set you free,
he remembered one of his law professors saying.
Yeah, or twenty to life,
a smart-aleck law student beside him had whispered. It didn't matter. Cecil didn't figure he had much to lose by going public, and trying to build some sympathy for Jack before the government spun him into a traitor. When they called, he accepted an interview with Larry King. Then he started shaking in fear.
Please don't let me make a mess of it,
he prayed.

That night Cecil was still nervous as he sat down at the famous but simple set. Then the interviewer appeared, shaking Cecil's hand, telling him what was about to happen was going to be great fun, and to relax.

When the show started, Cecil heard the announcements over the tiny speaker in his right ear and then King spoke, introducing him as “the lawyer for the individuals who have stolen our shuttle—Mr. Cecil Velocci.” And then, “Mr. Velocci is from the small town of Cedar Key, Florida, and was first retained by a group of men and women he knew as MEC. How did this all come about, Mr. Velocci?”

Cecil told his story, of the team that had come to make themselves part of Cedar Key. Since Jack had not left instructions otherwise, he even told of the rocket engine that ran on “dreams.” As he talked, he felt himself begin to relax. It was a good story he was telling and it needed to be told.

“What charges have been filed against your clients?” King demanded.

“Well, the list I've heard is a long one,” Cecil answered, facing the camera with the red light with no coaxing, “but as of tonight, no charges have been officially made and I frankly don't believe any will be forthcoming.” Cecil tapped the contract he had laid on the table. “This is another case of one hand of the government not knowing what the other hand is doing. The Department of Transportation entered into a legal contract with MEC and the company is simply doing its job.”

“Stealing the shuttle was its job?” King growled.

“
Columbia
was not stolen. My clients are simply utilizing it for a commercial enterprise per the contract.”

“What about Captain Cassidy's death?” King slashed. “That was murder!”

“Captain Cassidy was part of the MEC team. There was an accident at launch. He should be considered a hero by this country.”

“All right. How about Dr. High Eagle?” King snapped. “She was kidnapped, right?”

“Larry, that's a misrepresentation. Dr. High Eagle is part of the crew.”

King frowned. “The reports I heard said the other astronauts were in the elevator when
Columbia
was launched. They thought they were going to be aboard. How do you explain that?”

Cecil took on a quizzical look, as if the question's implication was beyond his imagination. “Well, it was my understanding that the launch was a little... busy. I suppose, in regards to the other crew members in the elevator, some sort of mistake must have been made.”

“Some mistake,” King replied dourly. “Now, what I want to know—”

“I do have one announcement to make tonight, Larry,” Cecil interrupted politely. He had received a phone call earlier in the day from Sally Littleton, still rolling along in the MEC eighteen-wheeler undetected in the Midwest. “
Columbia
has left low earth orbit.”

“You mean she's come down?” King asked, his voice dropping to a growl. “Where?”

“The MEC team is now entering into the second phase of its contract with the Department of Transportation. It will be conducting tests in the vicinity of the moon.”

King gripped the set table as if about to fall off his chair. “They're taking the shuttle to the moon? Can they do that?”

“They're on their way, Larry.”

“Whew!” King gasped and then, despite himself, he grinned. “You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen! Now, that's an announcement! We'll take a break and be right back!”

What King had said at the beginning proved to be absolutely correct. The interview was fun. It was entirely Cecil's show. He repeated all the accolades Medaris had told him about the bountiful moon, including the presence of helium-3 and its potential as an energy source that would last for centuries. He didn't say that was the purpose of the flight, to pick some of the stuff up. He thought it best to hold that card close to his chest. Afterward King told him that his staff had never seen the telephones light up so quick. Space fans from all over the world tried desperately to get through. A caller from Brazil summed it up.

“Mistair Velocci, it is so good... I don't know how to tell you... it is so good. We need this world to go into space. It is back to the moon! Thank you! Thank you and your brave team!”

After the show the excitement wasn't over. Cecil had to slip into the back of the hotel to escape the reporters and TV cameras. Once in his room, he found a message from Trooper Buck of Cedar Key to call him. Buck answered. “Saw you on Larry King. Gone Hollywood, Cecil. I'm impressed.”

“How are things on the island, Buck? I'm homesick.”

“Pretty damn quiet with you and Jack out of my hair. Say, Cecil, do me a favor. Go find yourself a phone booth—not in the hotel, someplace about a mile away at random, call me at Fred's house, okay?”

Fred was actually Buck's girlfriend, Felicia Wales. Cecil did as he was told. “I'm here. What's up?”

“Old son,” Buck drawled, “got a little surprise for you. Jack told me to wait a few days and then tell you. It seems he pulled the patch off one of the perps that burned his place. It was an outfit named Puckett Security Services. He asked me to look it up. I did, tracked it down to Washington, D.C. Turns out it's run by a real heavy, Carl Puckett, who does nasty little chores for a lot of powerful outfits. For instance, an odd little bunch of players who call themselves the January Group. I told Jack, he said to hand it over to the FBI. And you know what? I did, to Mr. Mark Hennessey, the FBI Director, himself. Mark and I were in the same class at the academy.”

Cecil was confused. “Why didn't Jack tell me this?”

“Aw, you know Jack. He likes to keep the whole story to himself, just hands out whatever part to the rest of us country boys he thinks we need. I didn't know anything about this moon business, for instance. And God almighty, hijacking a shuttle to do it. I hope you can keep the boy out of prison.”

Cecil had been thinking while Buck had been rambling. “If you told Hennessey, then...
Hawthorne!
”

“Oh, yeah. The attorney general knows too. And you can bet she's been working overtime trying to figure out the connection between Puckett, Jack, the January Group, and God knows who else. She's been playing you like a fiddle, old son, trying to figure out what's really going down.”

“I guess that's why she didn't put me under the Washington Monument,” Cecil said, abashedly.

“What was that?” Buck laughed. “Didn't quite get that one.”

“Nothing, Buck. I was just thinking out loud.”

“You gonna be home soon?”

“We can only hope,” Cecil said, shaking his head. “We can only hope.”

MET 5 DAYS AND COUNTING . . .

THE RUSSIAN GAMBIT

Runway 92, Edwards Air Force Base

Carl Puckett watched
Endeavour
make a night landing on the runway on the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base, California. The low propellant readouts on the shuttle had caused SMC to decide to bring Grant and her crew in at Edwards rather than the Cape. It would cost NASA over a million dollars to remove the undeployed Space Station node and then carry
Endeavour
to the Cape perched atop a special Boeing 747, but the weather at the Cape was too dicey for a shuttle with just enough RCS to do anything but come straight in.

The NASA technicians of the Dryden Flight Research Facility working around the shuttle seemed to be moving in slow motion. Puckett, festooned with clearance badges, chafed at the delay. As soon as the shuttle had cooled and the ground crews had finished safing the vehicle, he headed out across the runway. He was surprised at the size of
Endeavour.
She was a big mother! He had to stop and just admire the spacecraft for a moment. Then he got going. Speed was all important. He climbed up the steps and scrambled through the hatch and into the cabin. There, he found Tanya Brown climbing down from the flight deck. He recognized her from a photograph that had been supplied to him. “Where's Colonel Grant?” he demanded.

Brown tilted her head. Puckett could tell she wanted to ask who the hell he was but she didn't. “Behind me.”

Grant came slowly down the rungs like an old woman. “Colonel Grant, I'm Carl Puckett,” he said. “Puckett Security Systems. I've been hired to look after you.” He flashed his badges.

“You're too late,” she said, her voice shaky. “You should have been up there when they tried to kill me in space.”

“I heard that was your opinion. Frank Bonner told me a tiger team is looking into it. Their first response is that it looks like a failure of the canister in a vacuum.”