“And, for God’s sake, don’t be any more than a minute on either side of 8:21:07.”
“Got it.”
“Okay, so, you’ll be landing in British Columbia—possibly Alberta. Don’t forget, Helios has a survival kit—GPS, water, thermal blanket, food. It might be a hell of a hike out of those mountains—bears and shit.”
“I’d welcome a bear with open arms right about now,” Jan says.
“Yeah, well, seriously, be careful.”
“I’ll be fine.” Jan rests a hand on the pistol in his thigh pocket. “Thanks for everything, Oren.”
“Yes, yes, you’re welcome. Now go!”
Jan stuffs the paper with the Helios-related instructions in the side of the instrument panel and floats out through the hatchway. After the bomb is rigged and the prescribed adjustments are made to the space station’s attitude control system, he hesitates before floating back into Helios. He takes one last look around. He tosses his pencil and watches it spin end over end down the length of the Harmony and Destiny modules.
Farewell, old friend…
Moments later, he undocks Helios and thrusts away at an accelerated rate. Jan notes the time: 8:21:15. Shit—eight seconds late and he’s only at thirty-three meters.
He decides to risk the close proximity rather than the possibility of ending up in the Hudson Bay.
He brings up the nav screen and pushes the emergency return RET EL button; he shuts off the locator beacons, LB1 and LB2; and finally, taking a deep breath, he pushes the detonator button and the enter key.
The thrust of the emergency return rocket firing throws him hard against his shoulder harness as, out his starboard window, the space station bursts at its Node 1 core. It looks like a stricken bird, its solar panel wings folding in on themselves.
As Helios rotates, sunlight reflecting off the station’s twisting metal blinds him. Then, instantly, the carnage is gone. Nothing but the blackness of space.
Now, to either survive or die in a ball of flames.
Chapter 28
“Maintain lockdown,” Dr. Lee told the three unarmed guards as they exited through the window. “No one in or out for the next two hours. And, Joe—” He turned to Mr. Abrams. “Take Mr. O’Kelly into Hector’s office and see if there’s any way of mitigating this breach. Contact those news agencies and tell them it was a hoax or something. At least maybe we can stall them.”
“Hang on,” Lauren said. “George is our responsibility.”
“That’s right.” George positioned himself between Lauren and Ellis. “They have to protect me.”
“We won’t hurt him,” Dr. Lee assured her. “Why would we at this point?”
“I don’t know,” Lauren said. “Maybe if we had some idea of what was happening here.” She looked at Dr. Lee. There was a determination and strength in him that appealed to her. And hadn’t George violated her trust as well as his? “All right,” she said. “On your word.”
“On my word.” Dr. Lee nodded.
“You can’t hand me over to these thugs,” George protested.
“George, you brought this on yourself. Now you either go along with Mr. Abrams or I’ll have Ellis carry you.”
George looked at Ellis. “Fine. It’s too late, anyway—”
“George.” Dr. Lee glared at him. “Go.”
Mr. Abrams and George left briskly through the door.
Dr. Lee told Stephen to alert security to the heightened possibility of reporters. He then invited Lauren and Ellis to join him outside the building. The silver-haired man offered Lauren a hand climbing through the window.
She took it. Smiled.
“This is Nate, by the way—Nate Terrek,” Dr. Lee said, leading them toward the hillside where the snipers had been. Crossing a narrow road, they came to four picnic tables under a large oak.
“First, let me apologize for Houston.” Dr. Lee took a seat at one of the picnic tables, facing out. Lauren and Ellis sat at the table parallel to his, facing him. Nate sat beside Dr. Lee. “They had been instructed to detain you—that was all. I apologize for that.”
Lauren nodded, though she was a little confused by the apology. She had been the one who had killed two of his men, and Ellis had killed two more—or had at least permanently scrambled their brains.
“This,” Dr. Lee gestured around him, “is my prison.” He looked at Nate. “Our prison. It’s been twenty-three years on this mountain. A hell of a lot of work goes into maintaining a facility like this—while dead.”
“I assume this”—Lauren glanced up the hill at the modern, glass-walled buildings—”has nothing to do with reclaiming precious metals.”
“No, it does not. But the reclamation business has been a very useful front for us. It justifies our considerable security, and it allows us to ship in virtually any type of equipment, since anything can be shipped here as scrap.”
“And the retreat?”
“That allows us to move people in and out, to and from anywhere in the world.”
“Scientists?” Lauren asked.
“Sure. Scientists, specialists, anyone whose brains we need to pick.”
“So, not everyone’s in on the big secret?”
“Very few.”
Lauren looked down the road to the east. In a fenced-in parking lot there were twenty or so white trucks with Accel-X Industries logos on them.
“I just hope Mr. O’Kelly hasn’t compromised our efforts,” Dr. Lee said.
“You mean in relation to the probability curve?” Ellis asked.
“That’s right.” Dr. Lee scratched the scar on his cheek.
“So, can we assume that all this has to do with a message you received thirty years ago?” Lauren asked.
“You can,” Dr. Lee told her.
“And what exactly was in that message?” Ellis asked.
“Oh…” He looked at his watch. “I think we can wait another ninety minutes before getting into that.”
“When the countdown’s complete, we promise we’ll give you a complete tour.” Nate smiled.
“Just to be clear, though,” Lauren said. “You aren’t planning to destroy the world, are you?”
“No, we are not.”
Lauren wondered how he had gotten that scar. Thirty years on the run, plotting, scheming…
“So, how did you get here?” Ellis stretched his arms. No doubt his entire body was bruised from the fight. “I mean, back from the space station.”
“Yes,” Lauren said. “You can at least tell us that much.”
“Sure he can.” Nate patted Dr. Lee on the shoulder. “Tell them how you had me helicopter you off a ship in the Pacific, fly you across the country—all so you could deliver a bag of Chinese food.”
“All right, but let me tell it, so it doesn’t sound so ridiculous.”
Dr. Lee proceeded to tell them about the Message, its offers of proof (including the one that required him to deliver a bag of Chinese food), and about his and Nate’s race to get to JLA’s launch facility.
Nate interrupted to add a few details about how they took out two F-16s along the way, and Dr. Lee interrupted Nate to explain the Monty Hall Effect. They covered the launch, Dr. Lee’s ordeal aboard the space station, and how Nate had managed to fly from the spaceport to White Sands to blow up NASA’s telemetry hub.
“Quite a day in the history of space exploration, let me tell you,” Nate said. “The space station blew up, three Soyuz capsules landed in Kazakhstan, and GalactiTrek splashed down in the Pacific. And,” he pointed up, “all over British Columbia all anyone was talking about was the huge, fiery streak they saw in the sky that night.”
“Not knowing where you were going to land…” Lauren said. “That had to be pretty scary.”
“It was,” Dr. Lee told her. “I was tossed all over the place. The main chutes blew off and the thrusters kicked in, and bam, I came down in a snowbank.”
“Missing that mountain was pretty fortunate,” Ellis said.
“And the la
ke,” Lauren added.
“Luckiest man I ever met,” Nate said.
“Luck’s just a matter of opinion,” Dr. Lee told them. “I didn’t hit the mountain or the lake, but I also didn’t land anywhere near a road or a town or even a hunting cabin.”
“So what happened?” Lauren asked.
“Using a flashlight, all I could see out my port and starboard windows was snow. Then Helios shifted, and I started to sink. It was still three hours before dawn, but I knew I had to get out of there.
“I retrieved the survival kit and organized the AWX hardware. I had planned to take everything with me, but when I opened the hatch and looked out at that desolate, moonlit lake, I realized this was the perfect place to leave the crystal. Helios would be the perfect time capsule.
“That had always been a problem for me: where to leave the crystal so the Senders would find it. At one point, I had considered creating a JLA space museum where the crystal, among other artifacts, could be displayed and hopefully happened upon by one of the Senders one day. But when things got crazy and I thought that the crystal might not even make it back to Earth, I just stopped worrying about it. I figured fate would take care of it for me. And it did. So I left it there inside Helios, making it as conspicuous as possible.”
“You mean by putting it in the lap of a scarecrow?” Lauren said.
“Hopefully that didn’t scare you too much,” Nate joked.
“Actually, I thought it was you, Dr. Lee—your frozen body,” Lauren said.
“Oh. That’s—well, sorry about that. I thought discovering the spaceman would have been humorous. Here’s this spaceman presenting you with a silver case. I even buried the AWX apparatus about fifty yards away so all the focus would be on the silver case. And, of course, I took great care to leave no evidence of my having been there. I actually expected Helios to be found within days—months at the most. Who would have guessed it would take nearly thirty years—and mere days before the ‘reveal date’? How and why the Senders were able to put their side of things together so quickly is beyond me.”
“They were already in the middle of an experiment when Helios—” Lauren stopped. Dr. Lee had put his hand up. “You don’t want to know?”
“You can tell us all about it in an hour,” he told her. “We’ve come this far. Thirty years of discipline is a hard thing to break.”
“I’m sorry,” Nate interjected, looking from Lauren to Ellis, “but are you two a couple?”
“Are we a what?” Ellis asked.
“Him and me?” Lauren said. “We’re just partners.”
“Oh, sure you are—you’re blushing.” Nate chuckled. To Ellis he said, “So that’s why you were so mad at Stevie. He was being flirtatious with your lady, right?”
“I’m afraid my son in some ways takes after his uncle more than me,” Dr. Lee said. “I apologize for any inappropriate behavior.”
“He was a perfect gentleman,” Lauren assured him. “And, honestly, we’re just partners.”
“I don’t think so,” Nate said.
Lauren was about to respond, but Dr. Lee halted her.
“Nate, in his old age, has become something of a matchmaker. He’s now…” He looked at Nate. “Five and oh?”
“Six,” Nate said.
“That’s the annoying part. He’s actually pretty good at it.”
“So…” Ellis said. “You made it out of the woods?”
“Yes, barely. Took three weeks. Incredibly difficult terrain. Bears and—”
“That’s how he got his beauty mark.” Nate pointed at the scar on Dr. Lee’s cheek.
“From a bear?” Lauren asked.
“No, no, I fell about thirty feet into a crevasse. No broken bones, fortunately. Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You see, the way I’ve always figured it, once I left the crystal inside Helios, the Monty Hall Effect was over. My survivability had no more statistical advantage. As long as my body wasn’t discovered, the Senders would simply find the crystal and assume I had gone off to fulfill their request.”
“What about your wife?” Lauren asked. “She thought you were dead?”
“I had believed so. But, as it turns out, Nate here, after being arrested in New Mexico, managed to convince one of the agents to help him place a call.”
Lauren glanced at Nate. No doubt a female agent.
“I didn’t know for sure if Jan was alive,” Nate said, “but I had to let Lisa know that it was at least a good possibility.”
“So,” Dr. Lee continued, “I finally made it to a highway and hitchhiked my way to Anchorage. From there I took a freighter to Shanghai and a high-speed rail to Shandong Province, where I met Lisa and Stephen. We stayed in Shanghai for seven years, getting this all set up—”
“And getting Oren and me out of legal hot water,” Nate interjected.
“Where’s Oren now?” Ellis asked.
“In China,” Nate said. “He’s married to Jan’s—Dr. Lee’s—sister.”
“What about Dimitry?”
“He worked with us for nearly fourteen years before pancreatic cancer got him,” Dr. Lee said. “A lot of good people sacrificed an awful lot for this effort. I just hope our friend Mr. O’Kelly didn’t screw everything up. Imagine the Senders reading just before they’re about to send the Message: ‘Space Station Bomber Found in North Carolina Woods.’”
“But you know the Message gets sent,” Ellis said.
“You even met one of the key players—thirty years ago,” Lauren added.
“Yes, yes—that’s the most likely thing that happens. But that’s just it. I want it to remain the most likely thing that happens.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better,” Lauren told him, “that kid, the one you delivered the Chinese food to, Tyler Cipriani—well, not so much a kid anymore—he’s definitely one of the Senders.” Lauren looked at Dr. Lee, who was shaking his head. “Oh, come on, what difference could it make now?”
“She’s right.” Nate stood up. “I think it’s about time we showed them the real Accel-X. We’ll swing by and pick up George—give him something worthwhile to blab about.”
“I’m sure he’d love an exclusive,” Lauren said, “but he’s under contract with me.”
“Yes, for your documentary,” Dr. Lee said. “Stevie told me about it. Don’t worry, you’ll get first dibs. But there’s nothing exclusive about this initial announcement. The second the ‘Send’ deadline passes, a barrage of press releases and media packages will go out. The Senders requested that, assuming I was able to pull off their task, I make a big splash about it. They wanted to know right away.”
“You know,” Lauren said as they started up the hill toward the glass buildings, “I don’t think I’d worry about George’s communication breach. Even if he had reached every news outlet in the world, it wouldn’t matter.”
“Why’s that?” Dr. Lee asked.
“Because you aren’t the only ones to have built a wall.”
Chapter 29
Iceland Station — one hour later
Dr. Cipriani stared out the observation room’s window at a desert of white.
Beyond the orange telltales that led out to the station’s makeshift runway, a snow devil came to life. It skipped over the powdery dunes, turned, and flew apart. Interesting creature, the snow devil: ice for cells, wind for blood, and a soul of angular momentum. Its soul now gone off to live in other things.
“Dr. Cipriani? Sir?”
“I know. Tell Dr. Carrols I’ll be along in a minute. And, Sue?”
“Yes, Dr. Cipriani?”
He looked at her.
“Sorry. I keep forgetting—Tyler.” She hurried off.
He turned to the window.
Why was this decision so hard to make? He had calculated the risk versus reward a thousand times, and the opportunity here was just screaming at him.
First, Helios shows up just days before the Iceland Group is about to send the Message back to one of its Receiv
er groups, three years in isolation. Then, during a conference call with Iceland’s scientific board, two members half-jokingly boast that they could quite easily pull off ‘obtaining’ the crystal from Los Alamos.
And then, the coup de grâce. Later that night in Iceland Station’s kitchen, he and Dr. Jane Carrols had a conversation he’d never forget. She asked him where he was when he first heard about the Space Station Bombing.
Oddly enough, he wasn’t sure. Back then, he had been so wrapped up in other things going on in his life. “I can tell you where I was a few days before the bombing,” he told her. “My future wife and I had gotten caught in a rainstorm in Mystic, Connecticut—one of those disastrous trips that turns out to be perfect—”
“Mystic, Connecticut?” Jane’s eyes went wide. “How many days before the bombing?”
“Three—I guess. Why?”
“Well, according to some accounts, about three days before the bombing, Dr. Lee traveled to Mystic, Connecticut for purposes unknown. I wonder if your paths crossed.”
Tyler stared into his coffee. A coincidence? It had to be. But, what if it wasn’t? Wait a minute…
Holy shit!
He jumped up from the table. “He’s the delivery man.”
Jane looked at him as if he had gone insane.
“Or at least he could be,” he added.
Tyler had always had an uneasy feeling about that encounter. Such an insignificant event, and so many years ago, and yet, he could still remember that freaked-out delivery man in the pouring rain.
Pacing the floor, he detailed the event for Jane.
“So let’s think about this,” he said. “If Dr. Lee was the Receiver of the Message, and given his entrepreneurial and scientific talents—and a three-decade edge over our Receiver group—the advantage would be enormous, agreed?”
“Of course.” Dr. Carrols set her coffee down.
“But why would he sacrifice three decades of his life at the request of an anonymous message? Unlike our Receiver group, he’d need proof of who we are. And he knew me. I mean, I had never met the man, but he had already been actively trying to recruit me for years.”
“So you’re thinking that we set up the encounter?”
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