by Alton Gansky
“Five minutes to wheels down, Mr. Secretary.”
The announcement came over the headphones in the helmet that Burke wore. When he left Edwards, he did so not dressed in suit and tie, his everyday uniform, but in a jumpsuit, partially for his comfort, partially to conceal his identity. Back at the base, Air Force Two sat empty waiting for its passenger to return the next day — assuming all went well.
“Thank you, Captain ;
In a few minutes, he would be at one of the world’s first commercial spaceports — at least one of the first dedicated to passenger flight. His earlier visits showed him that it wasn’t much to look at, but it had everything necessary. It looked like little more than a local community airport. For Burke, the spaceport’s appearance didn’t matter, but what the spaceport held did. The thought made his pulse quicken.
Ganzi took another long draw of coffee from a thermos. The night was rubbing his patience thin. The last five months had passed with excruciatingly slow progress. Even now with months gone, he didn’t know the ultimate purpose of his work. Verducci insisted on the smallest possible team, and even that had taken Ganzi several weeks of debate to achieve. If Verducci had his way, he and Ganzi would be the only two working. Long hours extended over multiple weeks had taken a toll on both men. Finally, Verducci had allowed the addition of investigators. Ganzi was to keep them all in the dark about the true nature of their mission. This was easy for Ganzi. He was still in the dark himself.
He heard a sound outside and froze. He strained his ears to hear, then came three knocks, followed by two on the side of the van. Ganzi opened the back door and two men entered. Verducci and their employer.
Ganzi eyed the man closely. He was elderly with a white beard, wrinkled face, and eyeglasses that seemed too large for his face. His hair, longer than Ganzi expected to see on a man his age, was as white as sugar. Blue-gray eyes peered through the nearly black interior of the van. The man’s mouth hung in a deeply etched frown.
“Mr. Ganzi, this is your employer, Mr. Pistacchia. He has come to check our progress.”
Ganzi rose from his small chair in the back of the van and extended a hand to the old man. The hand felt dry and fragile like parchment, and Ganzi felt if he squeezed too hard, the hand might crumble to dust. “Pleased to meet you, sir.”
The old man nodded his head. He wore an expensivelooking herringbone sport jacket, a deep blue turtleneck shirt, pleated tan pants, and a pair of Nikes. By his clothes, he looked like a man who had everything a senior citizen could want. But his face said something else. If life were one hundred miles of bad road, then this man had hit every pothole.
Pistacchia directed his gaze to Verducci, who in turn looked at Ganzi. “Anything to report?”
Ganzi sat again and shook his head. “Nothing. They’ve been quiet as mice. No movement, no phone calls, no visitors.”
Verducci said something to Pistacchia in Italian. Pistacchia replied in a quiet, almost-impossible-to-hear voice. To Ganzi, Verducci said, “I will help Signor Pistacchia with check-in. I should be back in twenty or thirty minutes.”
Pistacchia offered no complaint when Verducci helped him from the van. The doors closed quietly and Ganzi was alone again in the darkness. He donned the headset that allowed him to listen to any conversation and noise coming from the Tuckers’ room, but his mind was elsewhere. There was something about the old man, something that seemed familiar. Even the name rang a bell.
Mysteries bothered Ganzi. It was what initially drew him to the PI business. Here he sat in the dark well after midnight with little to do but listen to the sound of nothing. His curiosity proved too much.
He pulled out a small laptop computer, set it on the makeshift plywood counter that served as his desk, and cracked open the lid. A few moments later, the computer located the wireless network owned by the hotel. Ganzi chose a room number from one of the occupied rooms and signed in. Several keystrokes later, the private detective was on the Internet. He tried several spellings of Pistacchia. After some research, he discovered that Pistacchia was an extremely wealthy Italian businessman. And not only that. He was the father of one of the astronauts who died on Tucker’s last mission: Vinny Pistacchia.
Ganzi had his connection — but what did it mean?
TWENTY-THREE
James Donnelly rolled to his side and pulled the covers up under his ear. By his count, this was the fifteenth time he had done so. It wasn’t the bed. SpaceVentures had gone out of their way to provide the most comfortable of beds. The “barracks” rooms were small, but he had expected that of modular buildings.
As a ten-year veteran of field reporting, Donnelly had hunkered down with Marines in Iraq, slept in the tiny confined bunks on a fast-attack submarine, and even dozed in the damp forest of the Northwest while following a group of trackers searching for Bigfoot. Sleep came easy then.
Tonight, however, on the eve of his first flight into space, sleep evaded him. His mind raced through scenarios and a hundred sound bites rattled in his brain. James Donnelly had been hand-selected by Ted Roos to be the pool reporter for this monumental event. Unlike the other passengers, Donnelly had not been required to pay for his seat; he only had to report everything he experienced.
He flopped onto his back and stared into the dark of the room. From the distance arose the aching howl of a pack of coyotes. Their yelps and manic cries sounded demonic in his ears — just one more thing to keep him awake.
Two a.m. It was no use. Donnelly threw back the covers, swung his feet out, and sat on the edge of his bed. Dressed in only a white cotton T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts, he let the ebony of the lightless room enfold him. He wondered if the space that he would soon fly through would be as black.
He reached for the pull-cord on the lamp next to the bed and gave it a tug. The darkness fled. He ran a hand across the stubble on his chin and pushed his fingers through his black hair. He had just passed his fortieth birthday, but this morning he was feeling much older.
Donnelly stood and stretched his back. He was weary from traveling all day. His trip began with a flight from New York City to Los Angeles, then a commuter flight to Ontario, California. From there, a driver provided by Ted Roos had driven him into the high desert. Delays in flight and delays on the ground had left him longing for sleep, but it appeared he was to be denied that simple wish.
Feeling a little claustrophobic, he dressed quickly, slipping into a pair of jeans, tennis shoes, and a leather bomber jacket. A minute later, he stepped from the room into the desert’s biting cold.
When he arrived in the high desert the wind had been gusting, pushing dust and sand into the air, but now only a gentle breeze wafted from the south. Stars bejeweled the night sky, dimmed only slightly by the half-moon. Another light snatched his attention: the dim yellow glow of a Coleman lantern. In its glow sat a man in a thick coat, jeans, and high-top basketball shoes. The shoes were untied.
“Can’t sleep?” The voice rode on a heavy Japanese accent.
“Not a wink.” Donnelly looked across the short distance that separated him from the man in the folding chair. “What about you?”
“I gave up trying. Jet lag. It is daytime where I live.” Although English was not Daki Abe’s first language, he spoke it with flair and confidence, and Donnelly was impressed. “I’ve been conducting business.”
“Beats fighting the bed all night.” Donnelly glanced around and found a second folding chair. He pulled it to the Coleman lantern and sat a few feet from Daki. The Japanese man was thin but well proportioned. Donnelly knew him to be in his early thirties, but his Asian face and longish hair made him look younger. Lining his jaw was a thin beard, and an even thinner mustache hung just below his nose.
Donnelly had done his homework, including a background check on every passenger. Daki had made billions in various forms of technology and manufacturing. Fortune had listed him as one of the wealthiest men in the world, and Donnelly had heard more than one person quip that Daki could buy all
of Japan and perhaps half of China.
“Can I ask you a question, Mr. Abe?”
“Only if you call me Daki.”
“Have you invested money or resources in SpaceVentures?”
Daki looked heavenward, then said, “I would’ve thought a reporter like you would have done a background search.”
“I did, but there are some things about your life that are unpublished.”
“As it should be, James, as it should be.” Donnelly watched the man study the stars for a moment and wondered if he should prompt him with another question. Instead, he held his tongue. A few moments later, Daki returned his gaze to Earth and said, “I gave both money and proprietary technology to Mr. Roos to help him in this endeavor.”
“May I ask how much money?”
“You may, but you will not receive an answer. Such things are not ready to be discussed. I’m sure you understand.”
Donnelly gazed into the dark of the desert. In the distance, he could see the lights of Victorville. As easily as one man might ask another where the best restaurant in town was, Donnelly inquired, “Would it be fair to say that you’re a partner with Mr. Roos?”
“I and a few others have a vested interest in the success of this endeavor. It is the same in your country. Sir Richard Branson has invested heavily in a spaceport not that far from here and is building a permanent spaceport in your New Mexico. Jeff Bezos has done the same for a spaceport in Texas. Those of us who believe in space travel for the masses are not separated by national boundaries or ethnic differences.”
“So if space travel catches on, do you plan on building a spaceport in Japan?”
Daki frowned. “Please forgive me, James, but like you I’ve been traveling all day. Perhaps we can do an interview another time.”
“Of course, of course. I apologize. I’ve been a reporter so long now I don’t know how not to be. I hope you can forgive me.”
A new sound interrupted their conversation. For a moment, Donnelly thought he was hearing thunder, then he recognized the noise. Pounding through the desert air was the thump-thump-thump from the rotors of a military helicopter.
“I wondered when he would get here.” Donnelly rose and scanned the sky. Daki joined him. It took nearly a minute before Donnelly could see a small white light moving through the sky, headed their direction. He pointed. “There it is.”
“He’s coming by helicopter? I would have thought that he would have arrived in a big jet like the president.”
“No, they’re trying to keep this under wraps. Military helicopters fly around here all the time, so no one’s going to notice.”
Across the fifty feet that separated the temporary housing from the hangars and administration building of SpaceVentures, a door opened, casting a long rectangular patch of light on the concrete plaza. A single, silhouetted figure appeared in the doorframe. Even at this distance and in the pale moonlight, Donnelly recognized the form of Ted Roos. He watched as Roos pulled his coat tight around him and then made his way to where they stood.
“And then there were three.” Roos spoke loudly, a timbre of glee in his voice.
What once had been a single light in the dark sky had become two, and Donnelly realized that he was hearing more than one aircraft. “Two helicopters? How many people are they bringing?”
“Not many,” Roos said. “They fly with two helicopters for a reason. First, it’s impossible to tell which helicopter the secretary of state is on, thus adding another layer of security, and two, one will do a flyover to make sure the ground is safe.”
Daki asked, “Safe from what?”
“Vehicles, debris, terrorists, you name it.”
The lights began to separate and it looked to Donnelly like one was holding its position while the other moved ahead. A moment later, he corrected himself —the two choppers were going in different directions, one to the east and one to the west. Two minutes later, the thundering cacophony of the noisy aircraft rained down on the men. Donnelly could feel the force of the rotors in his bones. As a helicopter flew overhead, a light, which seemed to Donnelly to be as bright as the sun, illuminated the area. Roos waved. The noise lessened as the helicopter moved away.
“I wish I could invite you to go with me, gentlemen, but I must insist that you stay here. The Secret Service has some unusual requests. They are a touchy bunch.”
“But we get to meet him?” Daki seemed disappointed not to be able to go with Roos.
“Not tonight. The Secret Service will escort him to his room and stand guard all night. You get to meet him tomorrow morning at breakfast.”
“I guess that is to be expected.” Donnelly sat down again and blinked weary eyes. “I’m surprised that he’s going with us at all. It’s not every day that you get someone that high up in the government to risk their lives for something like this.”
Roos looked shocked. “Risk his life? I don’t see much risk in this. I have every confidence that all will go well.”
“I don’t want to be rude,” Donnelly said, “but the best I can tell, you’re not riding with us.”
The dark made reading the nuances of expression impossible, but Donnelly was certain he saw disappointment in Roos’s eyes.
“I would if I could.” Roos tapped his chest with a finger. “Bad heart. I couldn’t pass the physical. If I could, Mr. Donnelly, I’d be sitting in your seat.”
One hundred yards away the helicopters landed, coming to rest on the runway from which Donnelly and the others would take flight tomorrow. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I must look after our new guest.”
“Tell him if he wants to play cards, he knows where to find us.” Donnelly gave a little salute to Roos, who returned it and walked toward the grounded helicopters.
TWENTY-FOUR
At precisely 6:00 a.m., a black Lincoln Continental pulled into the parking lot of the hotel and sounded its horn. Tuck didn’t need a reminder. He had peered through the drapes every five minutes for the last hour and a half. By his count, he slept all of three hours — he felt it was more than he needed. Adrenaline coursed through his veins and his heart rate was running slightly higher than normal. He felt this way before every flight.
“My ride is here.” He let the drapes fall together again and turned to face his family, who had joined him in the hotel suite. Myra had ordered up room ser vice for the family. Normally, Gary and Penny would complain about the early hour, wanting to stay in bed until high noon. This morning was different. With NASA, he left days before, but since this time he would not be in space for weeks or even days, there was no need for isolation. If he were about to catch a cold or the flu, it wouldn’t matter just as long as he was ready to fly in a few hours.
They had assembled around the table in the suite eating scrambled eggs and toast, drinking orange juice and coffee. The conversation had been light, jokes told, but tension filled the room. Everyone knew the dangers of space flight. Although neither Gary nor Penny said anything, Tuck read the fear on their faces and heard it in their muted words.
“I’ve got to go.” He took Myra in his arms, gave her a kiss, and pulled her tight. He then drew each child in individually, hugging them for long moments, and kissed each on top of their heads. Finally, he embraced his father in a hug that lasted long seconds. Before the two could part, another pair of arms reached around them — they belonged to Myra — then another smaller pair of arms, then another. Another tradition played out.
It had not been asked for, but it came anyway. The long embrace led to bowed heads, and while each one clung to those closest, Benjamin Tucker Sr. began to pray.
“Our heavenly Father, for all things in life, for all the good things we experience, for the love that we share, and for this day, we give You thanks. We ask Your blessing on my son as he undertakes a great task. We pray that You would grant him wisdom and skill, knowledge and understanding, and safe passage through Your space. We pray for his copilot, we pray for his passengers, and we do so knowing that You are wit
h them every second of the journey. And for those of us whose feet are fixed to the ground, whose faces stare skyward, we ask for confidence in Your providence. We as a family ask all of this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
The hug lingered and Tuck could hear Myra sniff and knew she was close to tears. The sound came with the softest echo from Penny. Tuck expected this; it was the same every time. He also learned not to dismiss it. The tears were ribbons of love and of concern — and they also reminded him that the greatest courage was not expressed by those flying in space but by those who waited behind.
Tuck hugged each one again and then moved toward the door. “I’ll see you all in about four hours. Don’t forget to bring sunscreen and your sunglasses. It may be February and it may be cold, but that’s still a desert sun overhead.”
“We will,” Myra said. “You know you don’t need to worry about us.”
Tuck opened the door and started across the threshold, then came to a sudden stop. He turned and looked into the moist eyes of his family. “Dad, Myra, I want you to know I’ve been listening to all that you’ve been saying. Last night . . .” He paused, lowered his head for a moment, then raised it again. “Last night I did some serious thinking . . . and some serious praying. Me and God, well, we straightened things out.”
Benjamin started to say something, but it caught in his throat. Myra didn’t bother trying; she just walked to him and gave him another hug and a long kiss. “Thanks for telling us.”
Tuck wanted to say more, wanted to explain things to the kids, but he knew the words wouldn’t come —not now. Maybe later. Tuck closed the door behind him, walked to the exterior stairs of the hotel, and made his way to the ground level. He didn’t look back. He knew he couldn’t. When he arrived at the car, the driver had the back door open, and Tuck slipped in.