Dernov smirks, but after a moment he nods vaguely. “All right…”
Jan, Donna, and Commander Peters help load the men into the Soyuz capsule. Yegor closes the Soyuz’s hatch and Commander Peters closes the space station’s hatch. Dimitry opens a communication channel.
“You don’t really plan to blow up the space station, do you?” Dimitry asks, covering his mic.
“No, this stuff is for the AWX apparatus—although that plan’s pretty fluid. How long before GalactiTrek gets here?”
“Ninety minutes,” Donna says.
“By the way—” Jan looks at Donna and Commander Peters. “Thanks for your help—both of you. Jason, I’m not sure how that fight would have gone without your help. And Donna, you must really like tying up men, because I’ve never seen—”
“Hey, hey, hey, don’t you go starting rumors.”
“Jan,” Commander Peters says, “NASA won’t tell us a thing. But it’s obvious everyone believes your experiment has succeeded. It hasn’t, has it?”
“They believe it has, and that’s all that matters,” Jan tells him. “If either side gets their hands on it, the other side will retaliate in a major way.”
“That’s what you were saying.” Commander Peters looks at Donna.
“They’ll try to strike before there’s a sizable technology imbalance, right?” Donna says.
“That’s right,” Jan agrees.
“Meaning this could all very well lead to another world war,” Donna adds.
“Lead to?” Commander Peters wipes his brow. “I’m pretty sure we just fought the first battle. And God knows what’s going to happen when GalactiTrek gets here.” Commander Peters fixes his eyes on Jan. “You didn’t answer my question. Does it work?”
“The less you know, the safer you’ll be.”
“That’s probably true. But—does it work? It does, doesn’t it? Holy shit.” Commander Peters looks at Donna. “Right—again.”
“Told you.”
“I never said a word.” Jan shows them his palms.
“Excuse me,” Dimitry interrupts from the comm station. “Soyuz crew is strapped into descent module, hatch is good seal, but Roscosmos is not allowing them to depart.”
“Tell Yegor to disengage the hooks or I’ll shoot you and blow up the service module.” Jan pats his shoulder. “Just tell them that. It’ll make you look less like you’re aiding the enemy, and make their decision easier to swallow.”
“Now they are requesting time to plan their reentry,” Dimitry says a moment later.
Jan takes the headset from Dimitry. “Yegor, you have thirty seconds to disengage. Tell Roscosmos that you’re doing this to avoid a brick of C4 going off in your face. If this module goes, so do you.”
Yegor disengages the hooks, and the docking mechanism’s compressed springs push the Soyuz away. Three minutes and twenty meters after that, the Soyuz initiates its first separation burn, increasing its departure speed to two kilometers per hour.
“You realize they are already working on new plan,” Dimitry says.
“I’m sure of it,” Jan tells him, fully aware that until Yegor fires the main reentry rockets, they can always return. “Dimitry, please get me the front-end components and the backup drives, would you?”
“Of course. The AWX apparatus is already disassembled.”
“Good, that’ll save us some time.”
Moments later, Jan floats into the Leonardo module and inspects the disassembled AWX apparatus: six units, each unit fourteen inches square. He removes the “Your Move” index card that’s Velcroed to the side of the final processing unit and slips it into his thigh pocket. “Nicely done,” he tells Dimitry, referring to how neatly he sectioned off each unit. “I need to talk to Oren. Could you—”
“Yes, yes, I will load into Helios.”
“Thank you.”
Commander Peters and Donna travel with Jan to Helios’s hatchway.
“I don’t understand,” Commander Peters says. “You plan to blow your experiment up? How? In space?”
“Something like that.”
“Jan,” Donna says, “let us help. You’re going to need to do an EVA—”
“No, no, no, I can’t make you accomplices to that. Saving a fellow American from being kidnapped is one thing, but the AWX is technically now property of the U.S. government. Thanks for the offer, but I actually have a bigger problem to figure out: how to get home. Hopefully, Oren’ll have a solution for me.”
Jan enters Helios, floats down in front of the instrument panel, and puts on his headset. “JLA Flight? Oren, this is Jan, are you there?”
“Yes, Jan,” Oren responds, sounding pleasantly surprised. “What’s your status?”
“I have the AWX, the Russians have been dispatched—though they’re still only a stone’s throw away—and GalactiTrek is about an hour out. But the big question remains: How do I get back?”
“Sorry, Jan, I still have no solution for that. But not for a lack of racking my brain.”
“Any word from Nate?”
“No, none.”
“Well, I’m out of time. If I wait any longer, I’m going to be dealing with GalactiTrek and the Russians. Any idea? Even a crazy one?”
“Not really. The only thing that might be possible is some kind of remote water landing. But without our own recovery team, we’d actually be counting on the Navy to find you.”
“I could fly you back in Soyuz capsule.” Dimitry floats into Helios with two silver cases, one the size of a normal briefcase, the other about a foot thick.
“Thanks, Dimitry, but I don’t think your recovery team would overlook me as a stowaway.”
“Is perhaps beginning of solution, no?” Dimitry pats Jan’s shoulder and moves into the cargo area. “I will tie all components down and bring you a space suit.”
“A space suit?”
“For your EVA.”
Jan nods his appreciation, then turns back to the instrument panel and sighs. “Oren, I’m beginning to think Monty Hall might have a gun to his head.”
“That is possible,” Oren replies grimly.
“Hang on, Oren.” Jan waits for Dimitry to leave on his next trip back to the Leonardo before continuing. “Okay, the new plan is this: I’ll depart the space station and blow up Helios in the upper atmosphere. Then, someday, perhaps, in some burnt-up piece of space wreckage, Monty Hall will find the crystal. Loop closed.”
“You did say blow up Helios, right?”
“Yes. Everything. Unless you have another idea.”
Oren doesn’t say a word.
“You there?” Jan asks.
“I’m here,” Oren says solemnly. “And I agree. It’s the only option.”
Chapter 24
Lauren, Ellis, and George had touched down at Asheville Regional Airport six hours after leaving the Forensic Aviation and Reconstruction Lab at Sea-Tac, then had rented an auto-cab and driven up to Blue Vista Estates, where both Stephen Lee and Lisa Lee had their homes. By 7:00 A.M., Lauren, apologizing for the early hour, had called Stephen Lee to arrange another meeting—this one to include his mother. Reluctantly, he had agreed. They were to meet at his mother’s house at 7:30.
Now Lauren, Ellis, and George’s auto-cab approached the Blue Vista Estates front gate as the two vehicles that had been following them pulled off the road.
Stephen Lee, parked on the other side of the estate’s twenty-foot wrought iron fence, waved to one of the guards. The gate opened. Ellis switched the auto-cab to manual operation and followed Stephen into the community.
“Beautiful homes,” Lauren told Stephen as she got out of the car in his mother’s driveway. The mansions all had a log cabin-ish motif. “And that’s some serious security you’ve got there, by the way. We couldn’t help but notice.”
“One can never be too safe,” Stephen replied as he led them up the slate walkway to his mother’s wraparound porch.
“Those guards were pretty heavily armed,” Ellis said.
> “And I understand they shoot to kill.” Stephen turned and faced Ellis on the steps. “I’m kidding. I’m sure they just shoot to maim.” He slapped Ellis on the shoulder, and for a second Lauren was absolutely certain Ellis was going to kill him right there.
Ellis just stared at the man.
“Shall we?” Lauren suggested, indicating the front door.
“Don’t let him push your buttons,” George told Ellis quietly as Stephen rang the bell. “He’d love nothing more than to lure you into a fight and kill half the day with the local police.”
“We need to win this one with our heads, not our fists,” Lauren added.
“Did you see me hit him?” Ellis muttered, looking at each of them.
Stephen opened the door, and a little boy and girl came running into the foyer. He picked them up and introduced them as Nathan and Kaitlin, his children, seven and five years old, respectively.
Moments later, Dr. Lisa Lee—or just Lisa, as she insisted—joined them. Lisa was soft-spoken, youthful, and pretty—and quite a pushover when it came to her grandchildren. They wanted to show their guests their grandma’s garden, and, after only two pleads, they were granted permission.
The garden was a greenhouse accessible through a fifty-foot walkway attached to the house. It was quite impressive, though incredibly hot and humid.
“I told you it was a rainforest,” Nathan said, looking up at Lauren.
“And you were right. Lisa, how on earth do you work out here?” Lauren asked.
“You get used to it. I’ve always had a green thumb, and I’ve found these exotic plants to be quite challenging.”
“Challenging?” Stephen laughed. “She’s built a completely self-contained ecosystem out here—a Brazilian rainforest in a bubble.”
Lauren looked around the enclosure, and, for a moment, could imagine this “bubble” on Mars.
“All right,” Stephen said, tousling his son’s hair. “We adults need to get back to the house before we melt.”
Inside the living room, Stephen instructed his children to go play while the adults talked. Unlike with their grandmother, they gave him no argument. They simply nodded, muttered “yes, sir,” and left.
“Their mom’s on a business trip and they have the day off from school,” Lisa explained, offering her guests seats around a coffee table, where tea, coffee, and cookies had been set out. “Help yourselves,” she told them.
George poured coffee and took a cookie. Lauren partook in neither. Ellis didn’t even sit down. He stood by the front window a few feet away and kept an eye on the street.
Lauren began by apologizing for the short notice and thanked Lisa for letting them meet at her wonderful home.
“I thought I had answered all your questions,” Stephen said, his eyes on Ellis, then on Lauren. “I told you, you’re looking in the wrong direction. We have no interest in the components you found in Helios. It’s not our area of expertise, and even if it were, we would never chance contacting my father. We went through this. Did you look into the Iceland Group?”
“Yes.” Lauren picked up a picture from the table next to her. It was of Lisa and some other women in front of an A-frame lodge up in the mountains somewhere. There was something familiar about it, but Lauren couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “But we keep coming back to the same place.” She set the picture down. “Lisa, did Stephen tell you that the Helios components were stolen?”
“He did. But we certainly had nothing to do with that.”
“George here has them believing the Intervention Theory,” Stephen explained.
“Ah…” Lisa nodded. “That nonsense started many years ago.”
“Could you tell us about it?” Lauren asked. “From your point of view? What did you know about your husband’s experiment? Do you think he was successful?”
“I had little communication with him leading up to the space station’s explosion, but, yes, I always assumed that he was. Why else would he have done what he did? He simply had no choice but to destroy that which the military would turn into a weapon.”
“What did you do after the… explosion?” Lauren asked.
“I decided to stay in China as long as I could. The media was making my husband out to be a terrorist, and I didn’t want Stephen exposed to that kind of nonsense.”
“How long did you stay?”
“Eight years. The Chinese government was quite sympathetic. After eight years, however, I was getting awfully homesick. By then the ISS II was nearly complete and Hollywood and the media had reinvented my husband as a kind of antihero.”
“And what can you tell us about the Iceland Group?”
“I thought you were going to investigate them?” Stephen said.
“We did,” Ellis replied from the window.
“Have you ever had any dealings with the Iceland Group?” Lauren asked Lisa.
“I’ve read a few articles by Dr. Carrols, but that’s about it. They get forwarded to me every once in a while because someone spots my husband referenced in them. Look, I understand that you’d like to solve this ancient mystery, but why not try looking inward? Why not investigate your own organization? They were the ones who covered everything up in the first place. Isn’t it possible that they could be the ones behind your Los Alamos robbery?”
Lauren didn’t respond. As with Stephen, Lisa wasn’t offering much to work with. Lauren glanced at the clock above the fireplace. Maybe that was their new strategy. Let the clock run out. No more kidnappings or threats. Just keep the inquisitive agents stonewalled until three this afternoon, and then it’s all over.
“Any other questions?” Lisa placed her hands on the arms of her chair.
“Just one.” Lauren picked up the picture she had looked at earlier. “Where was this taken?”
“Oh, that’s just me and some friends,” Lisa replied.
“Yes, but where? I see this A-frame building in a lot of your pictures.”
“It’s called the Blue Ridge Artisan Retreat,” Lisa said. “A lovely place.”
“It must be. You obviously go there quite a bit.” Lauren picked up another picture. She wasn’t going to ask if they owned the place. Of course they did. And no doubt under layers of shell corporations.
“It’s a great getaway,” Lisa said.
“It’s not open to the public, though,” Stephen interjected. “Private membership only. It’s gated.”
“I bet,” Ellis snapped from the window.
“What does one do at an artisan retreat?” Lauren asked Lisa.
“Oh my, they have workshops on everything from watercoloring to glass-blowing to 3D graphic design. It’s quite fun, and challenging. And there’re people there from all over the world.”
“All right.” Stephen stood up. “I think you’ve taken enough of my mother’s time. If you want, we can continue this conversation at my office. Or…”—he smiled—”perhaps you and I, Special Agent Madison, could discuss this over dinner? We could even talk about that screenplay of yours.”
“Stephen. You’re shameless.” Lisa put her hands to her cheeks and laughed. “What can I say. He’s never been what you’d call bashful.”
“Yes, he must have been quite the troublemaker growing up,” Lauren said.
“You have no idea,” Lisa replied.
“Well,” Lauren told Stephen, “perhaps we should wait until after the investigation—so we can see how that screenplay ends.” She thanked them both and, along with her unusually reticent partners, left.
As they got back in the car, two security cars pulled up—their escorts. On the porch, Stephen Lee hung up his cell phone and went inside.
“Jackass…” Ellis muttered. He turned the car around.
“That Blue Ridge Artisan Retreat”—Lauren stared at her tablet—”is right next door to Accel-X Industries. I knew I had seen that A-frame building before. It’s in these historical street map photos of Accel-X Industries. The companies are on different streets and are in two different towns
hips, but they share the same property line. What are the odds of that?”
“A fancy retreat located next to an industrial facility?” Ellis looked at her. “How could they have pulled off the zoning for that?”
“Two different towns, millions of dollars…” She shrugged. “And they are pretty far from civilization.”
“Why, though?” George leaned over the seatback. “Why would they need the retreat?”
“If Accel-X needed to house scientists for years…” Lauren gestured at the mansions beyond the windshield. “You think any of these people would really want to live in a log cabin?”
“Good point,” George said. “And what about that rainforest?”
“What about it?” Ellis asked.
“You didn’t think that was weird?”
“It was weird. But why do you think it’s weird?” Ellis asked.
“Because it’s exactly what you’d need on a long-range space mission—a self-contained ecosystem.”
Ellis frowned.
“And what about those kids?” Lauren said. “Couldn’t they be tiny astronauts for those missions?”
Ellis laughed.
“Hilarious.” George sat back.
They followed the security vehicles to the front gate.
“And there’s our other escorts.” Ellis nodded at the two sedans parked on the other side of the iron fence.
“Well, we now have less than seven hours.” Lauren looked at her HoloWatch. “Accel-X and the retreat are about thirty miles to the right. Personally, I say we tear this Wall—”
Ellis turned right.
Chapter 25
Twenty-five minutes later, Lauren, Ellis, and George pulled onto a heavily wooded drive that, according to Lauren’s HoloWatch’s map, led up to the Blue Ridge Artisan Retreat.
“I don’t see any industrial traffic,” Ellis said as two limos passed them, going in the opposite direction.
“Accel-X isn’t on this road. The properties line up, but you’d have to go all the way around the mountain to get to Accel-X’s entrance.” Lauren looked down the rocky slope below her window. She spotted a fawn by a stream. Cool.
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