Back to the Moon

  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.”

  “Yeah,” Grant said, clinging to the ladder. “Tell me another one, Carl. Then how come it didn’t blow up when I took it outside into the cargo bay?”

  “I don’t know, Colonel. That’s just what I heard.” Puckett took Grant’s gloved hand. “Your country still needs you.”

  “I gave it my best shot,” Grant said. “I can’t do anything more.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  Puckett helped Grant to a waiting limo. Behind them the crew of Endeavour started to make the traditional walkaround but then said to hell with it and got into their air-conditioned van and slumped into their seats.

  Grant let her head loll on the headrest, listening with her eyes closed as Puckett told her about the new plan. She finally opened one eye. “I thought you were my security, not my boss.”

  “I’m not your boss, just a conveyor of a message. This comes straight from the top. The very top.”

  Grant shook her head. She didn’t have the strength to probe further. “This scheme is nuts. It’ll never work.”

  “The President of the United States wants it,” Puckett said. It never hurt to drop a big name. Actually, he had no idea what the President might want about anything at the moment and didn’t care.

  “Why?” Grant sighed.

  “While you were in space we found out what the hijackers are up to.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “They have nuclear weapons on board. They’re going to swing around the moon, then make a suicide run on Washington.” It was the best Puckett could come up with.

  Grant opened one eye. “Do they have a cause?” she asked dubiously.

  “Radical right-wing religious nuts.”

  Grant laughed. “That’s horseshit.”

  “It’s what I was told but I could have heard it wrong. Maybe it was left-wing atheists. What difference does it make? They’ve got a nuke and plan on using it.”

  “How’d they get a nuclear weapon on board, Carl? The lightest one I heard of weighs at least a half ton.”

  “Ground crew put it there. They were part of the plot.”

  “Radical right-wing atheist pad rats?” Grant laughed, shaking her head. “That I would like to see.” She subsided and became thoughtful. “Have you talked to the Russians?”

  “They’re waiting for you with open arms. You’re money in the bank to them.”

  “How do I get there?”

  “Private jet all the way. Everything you need is aboard—clothes, toiletries, money, everything.”

  “Whose jet?” Grant asked suspiciously.

  “Charter outfit. They’re expensive but they know the way.”

  “You’re certain this comes straight from the President?”

  “He told me to tell you that if you pull this off, NASA is going to right to the top of his priority list in the budget next year.”

  The limousine braked. Spotlights lit up a huge Boeing 747. Grant gaped at it. “Jesus Christ! How many people are going with me?”

  “Just you,” Puckett said. “As soon you’re aboard, you’re off.”

  “But this airplane can hold three hundred passengers!”

  “We didn’t have time to shop around. It’s a little roomy, but you can stretch out anywhere you like and rest.”

  Grant shook her head and tiredly dragged one foot after the other up the waiting steps. Puckett waited until the jet had roared off the runway, disappearing into the night. Then he called for his leased helicopter. He’d been told there was a man who knew how to kill anybody in space, even as far away as the moon.

  ON THE WAY TO THE MOON

  Columbia

  For the first time since they had gone into space, the crew of Columbia relaxed. While some men slept, Penny sat in the cockpit, strapped into the commander’s seat, one leg tucked under the other, and worked on her log:

  What choice do I have but accept this journey? Medaris has lied to me every step of the way, and probably will continue. I don’t blame Virgil. He has his reason, his little girl. He explained to me how Jack had covered all her medical expenses and the bonus of a million dollars stashed in a Grand Cayman bank would see them through all the doctors that followed....

  That explains Virgil. But I keep wondering about Jack. Virgil told me all about this helium-3 business. I don’t believe this is all there is to it. I know something about Medaris after all we’ve been through together. There’s always something going on with that man, something he never says. What could it be? I’m determined to find out.

  Jack used the time to study the stars with his binoculars and to simply contemplate all that had happened.

  “Medaris?”

  “What, High Eagle?” Jack asked harshly, pulled from his dreams of space.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Thinking.”

  “About what?”

  He considered telling her the truth, but for some reason he just couldn’t. “Right now I’m looking at the sensor reports. With Houston off-line, somebody has to do it.”

  She hung from an overhead handrail, looking doubtful. “You know, sometimes it would be nice if you just came around and talked a little to me. Virgil and I have run out of things to talk about.”

  “Is that so? What would you and I talk about?”

  “I don’t know. You always lie to me, so it’s hard to tell.”

  “Did you interrupt me just to pick a fight?”

  “No. I’m trying to talk to you. You’ve kidnapped me and forced me to go to the moon, so the least you could do is try to be halfway nice.”

  “I am being nice. I’m just trying to work right now.”

  “I think you just don’t want to talk.”

  Jack shrugged. “Okay, High Eagle.” He opened his arms. “Talk.”

  “You first,” she said. Then, at Jack’s expression of disbelief, “What?”

  “You said you wanted to talk, I said okay, then you said me first. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “That’s it, Medaris,” Penny said. “I’m never talking to you again.” She headed for the hatch.

  “Fine,” he said. He put his binoculars to his eyes. “Works for me.”

  THE END OF A DREAM

  SMC

  Sam was called out of Shuttle Mission Control by John Lakey. There were three men with him. They were dressed in black fatigues with PUCKETT SECURITY SERVICES shoulder patches. “What now, John? I’m a little busy.”

  “These are our contractor guards, Sam. They’re new and so are my orders. Your team is disbanded. You are to leave the center until further notice.”

  Sam flicked an eye on the guards. They were big and burly, pro linebacker quality. “John, the last time I heard, you weren’t center director. Where is Bonner, anyway?”

  Lakey acted as if he hadn’t heard him. “The first thing we must do, Sam, is to make a transition in Shuttle Mission Control. I’ve called in more controllers.”

  “John, anybody you call hasn’t been properly trained. We know Columbia. She’s our shuttle.”

  “No, it ain’t,” one of the guards growled. “It belongs to the hijackers.”

  Sam ignored the guard, kept speaking directly to Lakey. “Columbia is still an American spacecraft, John. You’re an astronaut, you know that. We have to be ready to assist her.”

  Lakey looked distressed, bobbed his head. “I’m sorry, Sam. You’re not getting any downlink anyway.”

  “Get off this center, Mr. Tate,” one of the guards said, “and take your people with you, or we’ll throw you off. That’s our
orders. Don’t make us do something all of us might regret.”

  Sam turned away. “I’m going to give Bonner a call.”

  “Bonner’s dead!” Lakey blurted, his voice cracking. “I just got a call from headquarters. Car wreck. Just outside Farley. Something else, too, Sam. They found papers on him. He’s been draining JSC director contingency accounts for years, shipping it down to a bank in Central America. Looks like he was sending a ton of money to Russia, too, probably getting a big kickback. He must have been heading for Mexico. It’s a mess, Sam. Congressional investigators are going to be in here like bees to honey.”

  Sam frowned at Lakey’s nervous deluge of information. “It don’t change the fact we got a spacecraft up there, John. Somebody has to be here in case they call.”

  One of the guards took a menacing step forward. “Time to go, Mr. Tate,” he said, his big lip curling down.

  “For Christ’s sake, Sam, do what the man says.”

  Sam considered running to the SMC door and locking it behind him, but then he relented. He went back inside and looked over his brood. He felt a million years old. “Folks, I have an announcement....”

  Tate’s Turds looked up at their leader, their fresh young faces open and curious. For the first time in his life he was at a loss for words. He struggled for something to say that would make a difference but he couldn’t do it. He had to say aloud what in his heart he believed. “It’s over for us,” he said. “It’s all over.” And he wasn’t just talking about the SMC. It was America’s future in space. Sam Tate, the best Flight director the agency ever had, was certain NASA was dead as a hammer.

  Starbuck

  Carl Puckett directed his limo driver to park in front of the Jetfire Arcade in San Jose, California, just off El Camino Real, the main drag. The store manager mulled over Puckett’s request and then jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Over there,” he said, chomping on an unlit cigar. “White coveralls.”

  Puckett made his way through the din and turmoil of a hundred teens and preteens sitting at computer-driven games, thoroughly engrossed, their hands tight around joysticks or splaying reflexively at guide balls. A plump Oriental in a white jumpsuit sat at the controls of a large blue game-box. Puckett looked over his shoulder. On the monitor was a starship weaving through a belt of careening asteroids and alien warships. The man, an unjolly, intense Buddha, gripped two joysticks, occasionally jumping down to a guide ball in the center. The starship turned and rolled, darting this way and that as lasers slashed at it and massive planetoids crashed across the screen. A trio of preteens were watching admiringly to one side.