Holdout: A Novel

by Jeffrey Kluger

  He reached to his belt without taking his eyes from Sonia, unclipped a microphone with a coiled wire attached to a transmitter, and murmured into it. He replaced the microphone, held his pose—and his gaze—and inside of thirty seconds, three more soldiers appeared at the doorway and edged their way inside. All of them were armed, and all were pointing their weapons.

  Sonia began to speak—and the look on her face made clear it would be a shout—but Mia spoke first. “There are more than a thousand people in this camp. How do you plan to transport them all?” she asked. Sonia looked at her, dumbfounded at her seeming surrender.

  “The young and strong ones will walk, in the care of the soldiers and with many stops for rest and food,” the big soldier said. “The old and the small will take the helicopters.” He tried the smile once more. “Don’t worry. Your babies shall fly.”

  Wordlessly, the newly arrived solders approached the back of the tent. They pointed their rifles toward the ground but tossed the beds aside and pulled and coaxed the cowering children forward as they wailed in protest. Sonia watched, her gaze fixed and furious, as she held fast to Oli, who buried his face in her shoulder. The soldiers exited the tent with the children and began moving toward the opening in the wall and the waiting helicopters. Only the big soldier remained behind. He turned to Sonia.

  “The boy,” he demanded, holding out his hands for Oli.

  “He is not going with you,” Sonia said. “He just lost his father, his grandmother.”

  “We will give him a home, and he will find a new family. He is coming.”

  “Then take me!” Sonia ordered.

  “You are not from the jungle.”

  “I am,” Sonia said. “I am his mother and came here with him.” She inclined her face, displaying her features and her color, so close to Oli’s own.

  “You are lying,” he said. He inclined his head to the white scrubs she was wearing with the SSA logo—the initials stylized into the shape of two wings—on the breast and pants leg. “You are a doctor.”

  He stepped forward, laid hands on Oli, and proceeded to pull him from her. Oli fought ferociously and screamed with an animal howl, as did Sonia. Mia turned away, tears filling her eyes. With one arm, the soldier restrained the small, thrashing woman, and with the other, he took the flailing little boy and succeeded in separating them. Sonia lunged toward him, but Mia pulled her back and held her fast. They both watched until the wailing Oli, held fast in the soldier’s arms, vanished beyond the opening in the wall.

  * * *

  • • •

  Fifty-six thousand people would be displaced in the jungle that night, with inevitable deaths, though those Lamentávels—in Bobo-deCorte’s decorous phrasing—would never be identified or properly counted. The number of fires would be counted: There were at least twenty-two of them, arranged in a lethal crescent from Rondônia, Amazonas, and Acre in the west and north, through Pernambuco and Bahia in the northeast and east, and down through Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul in the southeast. All of them were arrayed so as to push steadily west in a manner that would force anyone living in those parts of the jungle—and there were many, many people living in those parts of the jungle—to flee ahead of the fires’ advance. If the retreating tribes weren’t overtaken by the onrushing flames, they’d tumble directly into the arms of the refugee camps.

  The reaction of the world press to the night of burnings was almost unanimously furious—a degree of media blowback Bobo-deCorte had never experienced before. Whether it was because of the sheer scope of the burnings or because of the American astronaut calling so much attention to his Consolidation was impossible to know, but either way, the Brazilian president called a rare evening press conference to try to get ahead of the story.

  Mercenaries who had joined the Consolidation army from Colombia, Uruguay, and Paraguay were by his side, even though they represented nations that had formally rejected Bobo-deCorte’s policies. They did not speak tonight, though they did wear their countries’ flags on their sleeves along with the Consolidation flag, creating at least the illusion of a legitimate multinational alliance at work.

  The Brazilian president mostly stuck to his talking points, which meant that he mostly stuck to a tumble of lies: Yes, some fires had been tactically lit, but the overwhelming share of the burning was the result of a tragic convergence of three deadly factors—dry brush, poor rainfall, and “rolling lightning strikes,” relâmpagos rolando, a term that had no genuine meteorological meaning but that Bobo-deCorte repeated six times in his remarks because he liked the vaguely scientific way it sounded and was convinced the domestic press would pick up on it. The next day’s newspapers proved him right.

  “The American and European newspapers will say that the lightning was really soldiers and the strikes were really planned,” Bobo-deCorte said. “I invite the Americans and Europeans to camp out in our Amazon at this time of year in this kind of weather and see how they get by.”

  Bobo-deCorte also pointed out that the fires were contained quickly, “a sign of our soldiers doing the brave work of safeguarding our land.” But fast containment was also the sign of a fire that had been timed and lit with those same soldiers standing by to move in when a designated amount of land had been cleared. It escaped no one’s notice either—at least no one in the foreign ministries around the world that had been monitoring the activities in the jungle—that all of the fires occurred on land with rich soil and within reach of major rivers where the Brazilian government had been eyeballing sites for hydroelectric dams.

  “If this was lightning,” huffed the British foreign secretary, “it was lightning with a degree in civil engineering.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was easy to tell that the little community in the quiet pocket of Mesa, Arizona, was a space community, provided you knew what you were looking for—though most people didn’t. Still, the clues were everywhere.

  There were the little white fins somebody had quietly installed at the bottom of a few of the light posts—blunt-cut like the ones on the old Mercury-Redstone. There were the license plates with similar-looking gibberish that read “PICKRN1” or “PICKER3” or “PRING2,” all in homage to William Pickering, the New Zealand–born engineer who was the first director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena in the days when the Jet Propulsion Laboratory started leaving mere jet propulsion behind and began launching rockets toward the planets. Pickering had hired most of the people in the little community when they were young engineers, and long after his death, they honored him still.

  Most tellingly, there were the distinctive doorbells that the residents had designed for their homes, which played tunes like no other doorbells in the world: Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, the Bulgarian folk song “Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin.” Every one of those songs made perfect sense—if you knew what you were listening for, though most people didn’t—because every one of them and twenty-three more were etched into the celebrated golden records carried aboard the two Voyager spacecraft, which the people who lived in the neighborhood had once helped build and launch. Now, more than forty years later, the Voyagers were at the edge of the solar system, their records ready to be played by any alien species that might find them and want to learn more about the civilization that launched them.

  The two agents from the Department of Homeland Security who rang the bell at the fifth house on the third street in the little community got a fine song too: Louis Armstrong’s “Melancholy Blues,” which was also etched into the records.

  “If they’re nice aliens,” one NASA engineer had told the press before the launch, “they deserve a little Louie.”

  The older of the two agents, Agent Hadley, smiled. The younger of the two, Agent Littrow, actually bounced in time to the tune. Hadley waited just a few seconds before ringing the bell again—too few seconds for anyone in the house to have a fair chance of resp
onding—and midway through the second chiming of the song, the door opened.

  “Enough,” said the man who answered. “I wasn’t standing here hoping you’d show up.”

  The man appeared to be in his late seventies or early eighties; he was an inch or two over six feet and carried that height with a certain stubborn defiance. He’d been a tall man his entire life, and he wasn’t going to surrender that now to age and gravity.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Agent Hadley said, gesturing to the doorbell. “It’s the song.”

  The man waved it off. “It happens all the time,” he said. “I told my wife we should have taken the Hungarian one, but she likes Louie.” He regarded the men on his step with passing interest; they were guests he had expected but hadn’t been especially eager to see. “I assume you’re from the government?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Hadley. “Homeland Security. I’m Agent Hadley; this is Agent Littrow.” Both men produced their badges, and the man examined them and nodded his approval. They put them away.

  “And you’re Dr. Beckwith?” Hadley asked.

  “I’m one of them, yes.”

  “Dr. Virgil Beckwith?”

  “I am. Dr. Mae Beckwith is here too.”

  He opened the door wider, and a woman his age stepped forward and shook the agents’ hands.

  “You should come in off the step,” she said to them.

  “I’ll wait out here, ma’am,” Littrow said, casting a glance up and down the street and adjusting an earpiece connected to a little coil of wire that ran down the left side of his neck.

  Mae smiled. “You think my daughter is going to pull up in her car?”

  “No, ma’am,” Littrow answered.

  Hadley intervened. “It’s just protocol,” he said. “Someone watches the street. I know it seems silly, but it’s department rules.”

  The Beckwiths looked at each other, an agreement passed between them, and Virgil opened the door the rest of the way. Hadley stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He looked around, taking in the living room.

  A television mounted on the far wall was turned to the news, but the sound was muted. The screen was filled with a scene of a protest on the Arizona State University campus, in support of Beckwith and against the Consolidation. “Walli Watch: Day Ten,” said the slug in the upper-right corner of the screen. There was a countdown clock next to it that at that moment read eighteen days, thirteen hours, eleven minutes, and sixteen seconds until the moment at 9:00 a.m. eastern time on September 18 when Congress would take up the legislation mandating intervention in the Amazon.

  “I can change it if you like,” Virgil said, “but it’s on all the local channels.”

  “No need,” Hadley said. He felt a slight chill, looked up, and for the first time noticed an array of eight rotary fans, two per wall, evenly spaced, all mounted just below the ceiling molding and pointed down toward the room. They were connected by a webwork of cables, which ran to a control panel near the television. It was just under ninety degrees outdoors; it felt twenty degrees cooler inside, but Hadley could neither feel nor smell the sharp edge of refrigeration that came with air-conditioning. He looked curiously at Virgil.

  “Mae’s handiwork,” he said.

  “I don’t care for the air conditioner,” she said. “We keep one running in the bedroom—this is Arizona, after all—but if you know how to handle your air, that’s all you need.”

  Hadley glanced toward a hallway at the end of which was an open door leading to a bedroom. Four more fans lined the hallway walls near the ceiling, connected to more cables. He glanced at the control panel near the television.

  “May I?” he asked.

  Mae smiled agreeably, and he approached the panel and turned one of its three knobs. The fans throughout the house nodded in response. The other knobs moved them in two other axes and a series of sliding switches controlled the speed of their blades. A thermometer on the panel read seventy-one degrees.

  “Her PhD was in airflow and wind resistance,” said Virgil. Hadley tipped his head to Mae in respect, and she nodded her thanks.

  “But you didn’t come here to talk about engineering,” she said. She motioned Hadley to sit. He motioned for them to go first, and the Drs. Beckwith pulled up two straight-back chairs from the nearby dining table—the only two straight-back chairs—and sat. Hadley had no alternative but to settle into a settee facing the chairs. He sank several inches into the cushions and was left looking up at his hosts. He admired their execution.

  “Ma’am, sir,” he said, looking from one Dr. Beckwith to the other, “your daughter is in a great deal of trouble, as you surely know.”

  “We do,” said Virgil.

  “She faces prosecution in twenty-five countries,” Hadley said.

  “Only ten have agreed so far,” Mae corrected. “The news keeps a tally.”

  “I would think that was more than enough,” Hadley said.

  “You would,” said Mae. “Belka might hold out for the entire twenty-five.”

  “I wouldn’t joke about this, Dr. Beckwith,” Hadley said, dropping the “ma’am.”

  “I’m not joking,” said Mae. “I know my daughter’s character, and I would think you would make it your business to know it too.”

  “Did she tell you what she was planning before she left the United States?”

  “No, she didn’t,” Virgil answered.

  “Did you travel to Baikonur for the launch?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “Did you see her while you were there?”

  “Families are allowed to visit in the days before launch, but through glass. The medical isolation,” Virgil said.

  “Did she discuss her plans with you then?” Hadley asked.

  Virgil sighed. “No,” he said. “We neither aided nor abetted our daughter on foreign or domestic soil. I understand you are required to raise all this legal business, but we have an attorney and you should move on to any other matter you’d like to raise.”

  Hadley did not. “Did she discuss her plans with your granddaughter?” he asked and glanced away for a moment to summon up the name. “Sonia Bravo-Beckwith?”

  “Yes, that is her name,” Virgil said. “No, I have no reason to think Sonia and Belka talked about any of this. As your research surely also shows you, our granddaughter is facing her own kind of danger.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hadley said. “She is in a perilous spot, and our thoughts are with your family.”

  Virgil nodded wordlessly. Hadley pressed on.

  “Have you spoken to your daughter since she’s been in space?”

  “Yes, we have,” Mae answered, “and we have emailed as well. I am certain you know that already, since NASA would surely be tracking any downlinks.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hadley said. “But the government only knows the calls are placed. We’re not allowed to listen in without a warrant.”

  “Have you gotten one?” Mae said.

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss that.”

  “Which I assume means you have.”

  Hadley did not respond to that. “Would your daughter listen to you if you advised her to reconsider her actions?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure that’s in her nature,” Mae said.

  “Would you be willing to try if the government asked you to?”

  “I’m not sure that’s in her nature,” Virgil said, inclining his head toward Mae.

  Hadley shifted directions.

  “Has your daughter ever been married?” he asked.

  “No, she hasn’t,” Mae said. “Surely you know that already too.”

  “Is there a particular reason she’s remained single?”

  “She’s never seen the need for a husband, I imagine.”

  “Are there any men in her life currently?”

  “T
hat’s not a question a stranger asks a mother,” Mae said.

  “Any women then?”

  “Nor is that.”

  Hadley looked away, then reached into his breast pocket and removed a folded piece of paper. He grew formal again.

  “Ma’am, sir,” he began, “when did you retire from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory?”

  “Twelve years ago,” Virgil said.

  Hadley unfolded the paper and scanned it. “And you both worked there for . . .”

  “Forty-four years,” Virgil said.

  “You have government pensions.”

  “Yes, we do,” Virgil said. “And I suspect that sheet of paper tells you how much those pensions pay us.”

  “It does,” Hadley said. “It also tells me that now and then you supplement your income with outside consulting work.”

  “We do. It’s not uncommon for government engineers after retirement.”

  Hadley handed Virgil the paper. “Is that a list of all of the companies you’ve done work for in the past twelve years?” he asked.

  Mae and Virgil scanned the list. “That looks like all of them,” Virgil said. “They are all American companies, doing private business, and we shared no classified government information with any of them.”

  “No, no,” Hadley said apologetically. “Of course you didn’t. I am not suggesting that.”

  He let the emphasis on his final word hang, and Mae appeared impatient. “Finish your thought, Agent Hadley,” she said.

  “The mere fact that you’ve complied with all government rules doesn’t mean that the Department of Homeland Security would not need confirmation,” Hadley said. “That would require reviewing all of the projects you’ve worked on for all of the companies that have retained you.”

  “The companies would not like that,” Mae said.

  “Private firms do like to avoid trouble,” Hadley said. “The risk does exist that if it all became too difficult for them, they would choose not to retain you in the future.”