The one small bookcase is crowded with thick security protocol and procedural manuals, and a Webster’s Dictionary left over from high school. That’s about it, but I still scratch out plenty by hand and keep a fat notebook full of graph paper for my calculations. The wall-mounted whiteboard is currently occupied by my protractor-perfect diagram of a recent motor vehicle accident in the technical library parking lot.
Inside the two locked filing cabinets are archived copies of my investigations, interview transcripts and equipment inventories going back to when I was a teenage intern. On a shelf is my collection of challenge coins. And next to it my only personal photograph, Carme taken in 2016 not long before I left Colorado Springs, helmet tucked under her arm, grinning next to a Pave Hawk attack helicopter in Syria.
No need to have a picture of our parents, would seem rather awkward since both of them work here. There’s nothing else in my office that would tell people much about me, and I don’t believe in revealing more than necessary. As little as possible is my mantra. Even if I didn’t feel that way, there’s no room for “I love me” clutter, and grabbing my backpack and gear bag, I walk out into the hallway, locking up.
Across from my door is another one with a fail-safe keypad of push buttons under glass, making it possible to get inside if there’s a power failure. Scanning the door open, I enter an area few people are allowed to access, and not simply because of the evidence stored. Tucked in a secure area in a back recess is our Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, SIPRNet, the Department of Defense’s means of safely exchanging sensitive and top secret information electronically and over the phone.
But what I care about as I walk in is the stainless steel refrigerator near the gun-cleaning room with its workbench, compressed air and lingering scent of Eau de Hoppe’s gun oil, as I like to joke. Retrieving the clear plastic evidence envelopes from my gear bag, I make sure they’re properly dated, labeled and initialed as I deliberate how best to store the swabs of what looks like blood.
Moisture and bacteria are the enemy of DNA, and it will be ruined if left in unbreathing polyethylene. I decide to transfer the swabs to individual small paper envelopes, sealing them inside a larger one that I secure in a locked drawer of the locked refrigerator. Making one last foot patrol around the department, including the restrooms, before returning to the lobby, and I look and listen.
Interrogating the app on my phone the same way Dick tracked me down, checking on any smartcard ID codes that might indicate someone has forgotten his badge or is still inside. Not a sign of anyone, only my code popping up for this locale. Setting the alarm, I walk back out into the frigid night, remote starting my truck in the lot.
00:00:00:00:0
IT’S half past 6, the wind blustery as I drive the short distance to Building 2101. The temperature continues to drop, and by this time tomorrow the nor’easter is supposed to roar in from Canada, creating blizzard conditions along the Eastern Shore from Maine to the Outer Banks.
Haze shrouds the moon and stars, the air moist and freezing cold, and I disagree with the weather forecast. I believe the snow is going to show up earlier. I somehow always know when it’s coming, and I wonder if we’re going to end up scrubbing the resupply launch at Wallops. Should the weather turn bad enough, it will be quite the ordeal lowering the rocket from its vertical position and tucking it back into bed.
The dark shapes of trees rock in the wind as I pull up on 2101, our new headquarters of curvy glass and metal cladding. Everyone around here refers to it as the Cruise Ship because that’s what it looks like, especially when lit up at night as it is right now, and I imagine Dick on the top floor with the center director and other distinguished guests. Possibly he’s in the same secure breakout room where I was briefing everyone earlier.
Keeping the engine running, I sit behind the wheel, parked by the bright entrance. Waiting behind tinted glass, watching people leave, contractors and NASA staff paying little mind to my big white police truck, assuming they notice. Because if I’m honest about it, there can be truth in stereotypes, and many NASA folks and those of their ilk live in a perpetual Far Side fog.
Pushing instead of pulling on doors. Crossing streets without looking both ways or in any direction. Oblivious to emergency lights, sirens and people wearing guns. Overloading circuits by plugging in too many devices and starting small fires. Not to mention the dings, scrapes, fender benders and misplaced vehicles, the wrecked and lost bicycles.
All perpetrated by the same magicians who flawlessly plan space missions, launch probes and telescopes to the sun and Saturn. And with surgical precision land rovers on such inconvenient heavenly bodies as Mars, Venus, the moon. With a few deep impacts on comets and asteroids like Eros and Itokawa.
I don’t include myself in this eccentric lot as I may notice odd minutiae that others don’t. And yes, I can be reclusive and OCD. I can be a lot of things I’m not necessarily proud of, but I have excellent situational awareness. A good example is the two black Suburbans with government plates that were behind me when I drove away from 1111 not so long ago.
The very sort of protection detail that I’d expect Dick to have, and yet here I sit, waiting to give him a ride that I know for a fact he doesn’t need. I send him a text, letting him know I’m out front waiting as I puzzle over what he really wants. Anxiously rubbing my thumb and index finger together, reliving what I felt at the time it happened. And then earlier today when Dick touched my hand the way he did, causing a jolt of fear and shame.
He doesn’t need my executive protection or a lift. The commander of Space Force could have his choice of government vehicles and military escorts until the cows come home, his safety and transportation not dependent on little ole me. My former boss isn’t impulsive or sentimental, and he must have something important, possibly confidential, in mind.
He doesn’t waste his energy on just anyone, and I rub lightly round and around, feeling the scar, the healed flap that’s partially numb. While I wait for him.
00:00:00:00:0
SITTING down on the white tile floor, slippery with blood, out of breath, my heart pounding through my chest. Having made a god-awful gory mess as I wait for him to come.
Better he gets here before the others, imperative that he does. Has to be just us. As bad as it is, it must be just us. No one else can see me in such a state, can discover the darker side. At least he already knows I’m flawed. That I don’t predict and prevent everything correctly. If at all.
Hurry!
Haven’t always seen the bad thing coming. And look what’s happened from day one.
Please hurry!
Three strikes, you’re out. He’ll be hard on me. Not as hard as those under him would be. Can’t live it down. Always so careful. Known for it. Annoyingly, ferociously careful. Waiting for him, the flesh pale and bloodless where the blade went in.
Dead.
Numbly imagining the consequences. And how I’m going to explain it. As I detect footsteps in the corridor, brisk with heavy purpose. Recognizing the sound of him headed this way.
“Sorry, sorry.” Unlocking the door.
There’s no excuse. Don’t know what else to say. Except I didn’t mean to ruin everything.
“. . . It’s okay, Calli . . .”
“. . . Was trying to clean the mess . . . Should have been more careful . . .”
“Okay, easy, Calli. Easy. I’m going to help you up . . .” Dick’s voice coming from above.
“So stupid, so stupid . . .”
“Easy does it. Easy . . .”
Lifting me effortlessly, bright-red blood all over his uniform shirt and the tops of his boots.
8
CHECKING the time. As usual I’m early.
I told him 10 minutes and it’s been 8, and while I wait, I send Rush Delgato a tex
t:
How are things looking?
As far as I know, all is a go for the EVA at 2:00 a.m., an activity that won’t be affected by our weather on the ground, doesn’t matter if the rocket launch is scrubbed. They’re not related, just happening at once, and I’d feel better if Rush could keep in closer contact, as we’ve not communicated since early yesterday. Let’s just see where he is. Or isn’t. And I reopen the app on my phone that tracks people by the chip in their smartcard.
If he’s on campus, I’ll know. And he knows I’ll know. I’m always kidding that he can run but he can’t escape the long arm of the law. Hmmmm. When I enter his badge number in the search field, it comes back empty handed. It would seem he’s not here right now and hasn’t accessed any of Langley’s 200-plus facilities today. So, unless he’s wandering around outside in the Arctic blast, he’s likely not on campus.
I type another text:
Happy BDay almost. Don’t be depressed. Old dogs can still learn . . .
Changing my mind, deleting the part about depression and old dogs. He probably won’t think it’s funny, might ignore me more than he already is. Tomorrow my sister’s boyfriend turns 40, and the last time Carme and I were together, she mentioned Rush wasn’t happy about what was coming up and best not to pick on him too much. “Even if he deserves it,” she quipped. So, I’ll be careful what I say. But I have a little something to give him at the launch, a birthday surprise I found while trying on boots at Oak Tactical last month while running errands for Mom in Williamsburg and Toano.
Totally up his alley, a pen made of an aerospace composite that writes in all conditions (upside down, underwater, in microgravity), equipped with a carbide-tip glass breaker. Only in an homage to Rush’s lagniappe Louisiana roots, I threw in a little something extra. Doing what NASA does best, transforming the wheel instead of reinventing it, and I’m still debating whether to tell him about the cool sensors I implanted.
Some in the pen itself. Others spun into the engineering-grade of polylactide I used to 3-D print a gently magnetized carbon nanotube sheath, black with a non-reflective matte finish. A hip and handy way to park his new patent-worthy writing tool while working around anything ferrous down here in Flatland. Or perhaps up there one day in the weightlessness of outer space. In either place, no Velcro required, and I open my door as Dick appears in 2101’s steely glass entrance.
Busy typing one handed on his phone, he pushes his way through the door, long legged and wide shouldered in air force camouflage. The 4 embroidered stars on the front of his shirt are the only sign of his formidable rank, his tan desert boots skipping briskly down the steps as nimble as a cat, his breath steaming out in the cold.
A tactical backpack slung over a shoulder, he follows the walkway toward my truck, where I stand sentry, politely waiting, not hurrying to greet him. Making no friendly move whatsoever. Certainly not a hug. Not even saying hi as I open the passenger’s door. He’s the commander of Space Force, and I’m treating him accordingly, his demeanor this day making me stand on ceremony and be wary. As if we’d never met.
“Good evening, sir.” Willing my right hand to stay down by my side, the impulse to salute as I did during my air force days overwhelming like a phantom pain.
Nodding at me, he pockets his phone, the fixed smile on his strong clean-shaven face more tense than cheerful, the set of his jaw hard. Carrying his APECS camo parka instead of bothering to put it on, and he’ll tell you he runs hotter than most. Especially when he’s unhappy.
“Hmmm and uh-oh.” Something’s up, all right.
“Thanks for doing this, Carme.” Calling me the wrong name as he climbs in, and I’m never happy when anyone does it.
Least of all, him. I feel slapped and belittled, but he’d never know it. Besides, it doesn’t matter what I feel. I can keep it tucked inside just fine.
“You mean Calli.” I slide behind the wheel, easygoing as I shut my door, my eyes watering from the cold. “You know how insulted Carme gets if anyone thinks I’m her.”
“I sure do. My apologies to both of you,” he makes matters worse. “It’s been one hell of a long day.”
Setting his backpack on the floor between his feet, he grabs his shoulder harness. Pulling it across his chest, trying to find the buckle, stabbing for it in the blackout.
“Sorry for how dark it is.” I lean close enough to detect the vague woodsy scent of his aftershave.
Close enough for him to smell my hair. That’s assuming I wear a scent of any sort, and I don’t. Not even the White Musk cologne and lotions that Carme has me pick up for her at the Body Shop, remnants of her fragrance all over the place. In medicine cabinets, on the kitchen desk, and in the converted barn, where our bedrooms, offices and the workshop are.
“Excuse me, don’t mean to crowd you . . .” Suddenly self-conscious, getting heated up and awkward as I lean against him, fumbling with the shoulder harness, neither of us able to see what we’re doing. “You know how I am about interior lights inside vehicles.” Guiding the metal tongue, locking it in with a sharp click. “I prefer not making myself a more visible target than I already am.” Resettling behind the wheel, the space between us cool and empty again.
He refolds his parka in his lap, and it doesn’t escape my notice that he keeps his right hand tucked under it.
“What were you saying uh-oh about?” he inquires.
“Oh, don’t mind me. You know how I mutter and mumble. But I have to say that you don’t look very happy, and I’m worried you found my briefing frustrating. Because I know I did,” I reply, hoping his frosty mood is about that and nothing worse. “If you want me to be perfectly honest.”
“I always want you to be perfectly honest.” Staring straight ahead, the glow of streetlights illuminating his square jaw, hawkish profile and short silver hair.
What my mom calls his Dick Tracy handsomeness. Which is ironic when you find out that his name is Dick and he has a daughter named Tracy.
“That’s really all I ask, really all anyone can ask,” he says, and for the first time since I’ve known him, it crosses my mind that he’s questioning my integrity.
Maybe that’s why his behavior toward me has been so off today, it occurs to me, and I’m stunned.
“You know how I feel about telling the truth, the whole truth,” he says, sitting tightly coiled as if about to spring into action.
But overwhelmingly what I sense is his displeasure and disappointment. As if I’ve betrayed him somehow. Done something wrong. And he doesn’t know me anymore.
“It’s one thing I can always count on when dealing with you, whether I like it or not. You tell the truth, naked and unvarnished,” he adds.
“Except when I can’t.” Finding a break in traffic, I pull back out on the main drag. “At times I can’t, depending on what I’ve been entrusted with, same as you. Even if nothing that might concern me is anywhere near your level.”
“At times you can’t,” he repeats. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you say that to me.”
“I’ve never had to keep secrets from you under any circumstances I can think of.” Headed to the closest gate that will take us onto the air force base.
“Including now?”
“You see? You’re questioning me, and I have to say with all due respect that I’m unclear why the subject of my honesty has come up. And of all times, now. You know better than most how I feel about coincidences.” As I hope with all my might that whatever’s going on with him has nothing to do with Johnson Space Center.
Because I’m back to that worry again, only with a vengeance this time.
00:00:00:00:0
“YOU SURE?” He stares at me in the dark.
“Am I sure of what?” I can’t get warm, and yet I’m sweating through the armpits of my shirt.
“Perfectly honest about what?” I can feel his eyes looking me over carefully. “What might I know that would be off limits to you, necessitating my being deceptive or outright lying?”
“Nothing, I sure as hell hope.” He looks back out the windshield at the dark campus, squinting in the glare of oncoming headlights. “It’s critically important we trust each other now more than ever. Just remember what you and I have always talked about. Which is what?” he quizzes me again.
“It could be a lot of . . .”
“What do we always say, dammit? About communication?” he cuts in.
“That it’s all there is between us and the great abyss.”
“Which is why our adversaries want us blind, deaf and dumb, and guided by lies,” he adds, reminding me of how much I miss working for him.
Remembering all the what-if scenarios we’d mull over and explore as everyday normal. Like what if fake news precipitated an attack, causing massive casualties? Or if wandering “friendly” satellites with robotic arms were programmed clandestinely to go on the offensive in the nanoblink of a command? Or if a swarm of killer drones was deployed from the nose of a rocket? It could be any manner of technologies that might disable or hijack our own satellites and other spacecraft in near-Earth orbit and beyond. Rendering us helpless in ways more damaging than any bomb.
“Blind, deaf and dumb, yes indeed,” I agree with him wholeheartedly.
Because he’s singing my song. And I’m singing his. This is the mission we partnered in. To defend our defenses. To predict and prevent an unwanted event before the thought takes form.
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