“Clear. Ringo’s running free. It looks like he’s going to make the half mile journey pretty quickly.”
“Okay, get your press people out there and explain that we intentionally sent Ringo off on its own to explore the inside of the crater, nothing more. That ought to keep the dogs away until we can figure out how to recover the rover.”
The phone line went dead as Nathan turned his attention back to George’s video. The descending rover just went past its line of sight as it slipped and slid down the steep slope.
“Switch main viewer to Ringo so we can see what it sees.” Nathan turned to his left at the last telemetry station in the long row. “REMCOM, start getting a communications relay established between George, John, and Paul. We have to align them so we can continue to receive telemetry from the little guy once it hits bottom, because it’ll never be able to broadcast out of the damn hole.”
The remote control communications station began sending out signals interrupting the programming of the three remaining rovers. The scientists would introduce a “burp” in their existing program and send another order to span that gap. They would arrange the rovers around the edge of the crater to receive the telemetry signals from Ringo and then relay that signal to earth. It had never been done before, but that was the business they were in.
“Estimate thirty-five feet, plus or minus a foot, until Ringo hits bottom,” Communications called out. “Signal strength on telemetry is weak. Okay, signal lost at 0922 local time.”
“Come on people. Let’s get the rest of the Beatles in on this,” Nathan called out as he closed his eyes, hoping that Ringo didn’t go belly-up in the last thirty feet of its unscheduled walkabout.
“We have a patch through from Paul,” Communications said. “Okay, we now have video from Ringo … it stopped. It looks like—”
“The damn thing’s sideways—it’s hung up on something,” Nathan said angrily. He was trying his best not to take it out on his people.
On the monitor, the video streaming from Ringo showed the side of the crater. As they relayed a signal down into Shackleton from Paul, they ordered the camera to rotate 60 degrees. They wanted to see what they were hung up on before trying to extricate Ringo from its current 10 degree tilt position.
“Okay, at least we know it’s on the bottom and in one piece,” Nathan said as he stepped toward the large monitor, watching the area around the rover as it panned its view to accommodate its orders from Earth. “Goddamn big crater,” he mumbled as he looked at the darker than normal picture surrounding Ringo. “We must be in the lee of the crater’s northern wall.”
As the camera completed its 180-degree sweep, it stopped. Its lens was automatically trying to focus on something that would be oriented to its left side. It was obviously the obstacle that had arrested Ringo’s run down the slope.
“Okay, there it is,” Nathan said, as he tried to get a clear picture. “Is that all we have on focus?” he asked.
“Without the external lighting, that’s it,” REMCOM said as he turned in his seat and looked at the flight director.
“Well, the batteries be damned,” he said, looking at the remote communications specialist. “We have to get Ringo into the sunlight anyway to charge the damn thing. Turn on external lighting and see what we’re snagged on,” Nathan said in frustration, because he knew battery life was real life when you’re on the Moon.
“Relaying the order,” REMCOM called out.
As they waited for the delay in communications, Nathan sat on the edge of one of the consoles and rubbed his face. He hoped this would be the only glitch of the mission, but he knew when you were dealing with robots and remote technology, anything could go wrong, so he figured this whole endeavor could take years off his life.
As everyone in mission control in both Pasadena and Houston watched, and with the press yawning, displaying their boredom in both press rooms, Ringo turned on the powerful floodlights rigged to the top of its camera tower. The lens refocused and the picture suddenly turned to red and blue.
“Color? What in the hell is color doing on the Moon?” one of the technicians said as she stood up to get a better view.
Of all the photos from the Apollo program and countless views from the Moon, with the exception of anything man-made or views of the Earth, there was never anything of color to be broadcast from the lunar surface, just the white, grays, and blacks of its geology. But here was Ringo, the little remote designed for the search and testing of water deposits, sending out a full color image of something that had reached out and grabbed it on its way into the crater.
“Pull the view back by a foot,” Nathan ordered, as a sliver of recognition came into his mind. He stared intently at the color image
As the view pulled away from the object holding Ringo in place, more detail started to emerge. The colors were from what looked like some kind of material, possibly nylon in nature.
“Pan to the right,” Nathan ordered.
After a minute the camera view turned away from the colorful material, eventually settling on something white. Then it focused its high definition camera onto something jagged and dark.
“Damn it, what the hell is that?” Nathan asked, his heart beating faster. “Pan back another foot.”
A minute later the picture adjusted. That was when the first reaction was heard. Someone dropped a coffee cup and it shattered the stillness of the control room. The view on the screen was shocking to say the least. The jagged darkness the camera had picked up was the shattered remains of a sun visor attached to a white helmet, and the colorful material-looking pattern was an environmental suit, not unlike those every man and woman in the room had seen at one time or another in old footage of the Apollo program.
“Jesus Christ,” Nathan said as he felt his heart start to race.
As the camera focused on the white helmet with the shattered face shield, the bone-white structure of a grinning skull came into view, the eyeless sockets staring at the camera as the bright floodlights cast eerie shadows on the skeletal remains.
Suddenly the speakerphone came to life, making most in the control center jump.
“Pasadena, this is Houston, do you realize that whatever this is, it’s being shown to the press, cut the feed to your press center, now!”
“You got it, Hugh,” Nathan said as he started shouting out orders.
In the press room a floor down in the JPL building, the members of the media stood dumbfounded as they watched the remote video of the skeleton, buried up to its waist in the lunar dust of Shackleton Crater. The image went from living color to a slow fade to black.
EVENT GROUP COMPLEX, NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA
Dr. Niles Compton stood only five foot eight inches, but every man and woman in the massive hallway of the underground complex watching him cut the ribbon for the new vault section on Level 75 saw him as a much larger man. His reputation as the no-nonsense leader of the department was legendary. With his thick glasses pushed onto his forehead and his white sleeves rolled to the elbow, Niles looked the part of a harried and very tired accountant. As his predecessor, Senator Garrison Lee, once told him, when in this position of responsibility the director of the Event Group needed to relax and smell the roses; otherwise, what was the point in holding and storing the most prized antiquities in the history of the world and the knowledge that went with them. So today Niles took time out from his normal duties overseeing the blackest department in the federal government to be present at a ceremony to open a new set of storage vaults, and the excavation that housed them almost two miles beneath the sands of Nellis Air Force Base, just outside Las Vegas, Nevada.
He smiled for the first time that morning as his deputy director, Virginia Pollock, handed him an ordinary pair of office scissors. He looked past the tall head of the Nuclear Sciences Division and at the other sixteen department heads and tried desperately to smile. Then he nodded toward the men and women from the Army Corps of Engineers attached to Department 5656. He quic
kly reached out and cut the yellow ribbon that had been strung across the security arch leading to the new but empty vaults beyond.
“Now, let’s get busy and fill some of these up before certain people in the federal government catch on to us and fire everyone.”
The men and women of the Event Group laughed as Niles handed the pair of scissors back to Virginia. Then he turned abruptly to a thin man with a pair of horn-rimmed glasses similar to his own. He had the same harried look as Niles, but his smile was genuine while the director’s was not. Pete Golding was the head of the Computer Sciences Division of the Group and held the same position Compton himself had many years before.
“What did Europa say about the images?” he asked Pete quietly, while taking him by the arm and walking him away from the milling men and women.
“We dissected that image from here to St. Petersburg, and all Europa had to say was the environmental suit was not of any known design. Not ours, the Russians, nor the People’s Republic.”
“You mean we have a Cray computer system worth two and half billion dollars and all it can do is agree with what we already know?”
Pete looked hurt and taken aback. He knew it wasn’t just the images sent from Shackleton Crater that stunned and shocked everyone at the Group; it was the condition of Senator Garrison Lee that was weighing heavily on the director’s mind. Pete took a deep breath and looked down at the man that he admired above all others.
“Niles, Europa only has an image from NASA to analyze. We need more data; she’s not a miracle worker.” Pete wanted to add at least not all of the time, because in his eyes and everyone else’s, Europa was indeed just that: a miracle worker.
Niles pulled his glasses down from his forehead and before he put them on, he half smiled at Pete without really looking at him. “I know, Pete.” He finally placed his glasses back on and nodded for Virginia to join them. As she walked up, the three moved off toward the elevators.
“Virginia, get our ex-NASA people assembled and give them to Pete, they’re pretty much spread out among all the departments, so you’ll have to dig them up. I want to know if someone has been hiding something they shouldn’t have, or if we have a moon that was far more crowded back in the day than we realized.”
“Has the president asked us to check into this?” Pete asked.
Virginia nodded and smiled, anticipating the answer that Niles was about to offer. The air-cushioned, glass-enclosed elevator arrived and they stepped inside.
“No, but he will soon enough, that is if I know him like I believe I do.” Niles thought for a moment and then turned to look at Golding. “Pete, I hate to ask this but—”
“You want Europa to break into NASA’s and JPL’s secure computer systems,” Pete said, anticipating the order from Niles as Virginia had a moment before.
“Yes. I don’t know why NASA went dark on us and the rest of the world, but it bothers me that this may be kept secret. And in case my old friend the president wants to keep this thing close to the vest, I want to be prepared when it blows up in his face. And it will. He never was any good at keeping things under wraps. Besides, lately he has far too much on his mind, things you and I would never be able to fathom.” Niles looked up at the two closest and brightest friends he had. “This is big, I feel it.”
As the elevator traveled at over a hundred miles an hour up to the office level of the complex, the sexy Marilyn Monroe–style voice of Europa came over the small computer terminal beside the twin doors. “Director Compton, you have a communication request from Range Rider.”
Range Rider was the day’s code name for the most powerful man in the world, the president of the United States.
“Speak of the devil,” Niles said as he punched a small LED screen on the panel. “Europa, I’ll take it in my office.”
“Yes, Director Compton.”
As the elevator hissed to a stop a mile and a half higher than they had been a few moments before, Niles stepped off on Level 7 and looked back.
“Best guesses on what’s happening on the Moon in an hour. Virginia, give Security a heads-up. We may have to cancel Colonel Collins’s plans for dinner at the senator’s house.”
As Niles walked to his office doors and opened them, his eyes flashed to the ten-foot portrait of Abraham Lincoln, a thing that usually gave him a chuckle over what old Abe had accidentally started with the Event Group those many years ago. Today, however, with the thing on the Moon and the condition of his mentor, Garrison Lee, he just wished Lincoln was in charge of Department 5656 instead of him.
Niles walked to his overly large desk and tossed a pile of papers to his left. Then he hit a button. A small screen embedded in the back center of his desk rose from the polished wood. As he stood with his fists planted on the desk, his eyes looked into the lens on top of the monitor. The screen flashed blue, and then the seal of the president flashed on. Soon after, the man himself came into view.
“Niles,” the president said.
“Mr. President.” Compton greeted his old college roommate, who was the polar opposite of him in the area of politics.
“All right, I can see you’re in a mood, but for the record, the vice president acted without my express authorization this afternoon.”
“It’s nice that you have such a handle on what your people are doing. I mean, with people running around with their fingers hovering over red buttons and all.”
“All right, knock it off, smartass. I’ve changed the damn blackout orders. We fully intend on sharing information with the concerned parties of the world, and that does mean the general populace, at least for the immediate future. Now a warning, baldy. This new order could change at any moment if something else is found up there more mysterious than our thin friend in the red and blue space suit. To tell you the truth, and with all joking aside, this little discovery is a little unnerving, considering our recent past with visitors from out there.”
Niles didn’t say anything. He just watched his old friend.
“Okay, listen, you warned me about people keeping secrets back when I first took office. Do you guys out there have anything on someone reaching the Moon before or after us?”
“Well, I know that under Senator Lee this department was represented well on almost every Moon landing from Apollo 11 to 17. We had complete and trustworthy information on the Russian program, and we know they were nowhere near the surface of the Moon with a manned mission before or since.”
“What do you mean your department was represented well on the Apollo missions?”
Niles had to smile for the briefest of moments. “Old Buzz Aldrin was Garrison Lee’s man, as were many others, on those rickety spacecraft and in Houston.”
“Goddamn old spook, was there anything he wasn’t privy to?”
“Evidently there was, because we’re in the dark on this one. If he knew something about what was found on the Moon, he would have told us.”
“Do you think you can dig something up? I don’t want to step on toes in a program I just cut to the bone. I’m not that popular at the moment in Houston and Pasadena, and God forbid my car breaks down in South Florida.”
“Look, if this blows up, people will speculate that we were onto something up there, and your cover story about water surveys will be out the damn window.”
“I know, but what can we do. Find out what you can—that’s why those robots are there.”
Niles relaxed and nodded his head. “We’ll try and get something. I have Pete extending Europa’s mission statement once again and we’ll have—” Compton stopped when he saw the president hold up his hand.
“I don’t want to know, Niles. Golding and his damn partner in crime are not what a man in my position should know about. It makes me an accessory.” The president paused. “By the way, how is Lee doing?”
Niles looked at this friend, then said, “He’s dying.”
FAITH MINISTRIES, INC., LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Rev. Samuel K. Rawlins had pitched his tent in
what was known to a few of his closest followers as hostile territory. For the largest, most famous, and most profitable televangelist in the world to live in the very heart of the evil he preached against to over 600 million viewers worldwide every Sunday, Wednesday, and Saturday was an insane move. Nobody joked about this around the Reverend. Los Angeles was changing and Rawlins knew where the money was and forever would be.
Named one of the four wealthiest men in the world, Rawlins reserved one side of himself for the millions upon millions of his followers, and another for business associates. It was said that once you did business with Samuel Kenton Rawlins, you would rather sign a contract with Satan himself.
Today he wasn’t at one of the four television studios he owned; he was at home in the palatial estate on Mulholland Drive that he had torn down a total of sixteen mansions to build. Most said he liked slumming it because he could have built his private home over any scenic beach in California, instead of the dry hills overlooking the city. But those that knew him best thought he just liked looking out over Los Angeles and marveling, just as Alexander the Great once had: “Is this all there is?”
The large and ornate study overlooked two of the four swimming pools on the estate. As Rawlins, all six foot eight inches of him, sat at his desk he watched the security guards standing at their posts. His dark eyes moved with every step of one of the uniformed guards and didn’t stop looking even when the man became motionless to gaze out onto the hillside above the thirty-three-bedroom mansion. He finally looked away and went back to his sermon for the following Sunday morning at his Church of the True Faith in Long Beach. The three-block-long glass and steel tower would house 27,000 worshippers and another one billion would hear his words worldwide.
He was concentrating heavily, allowing his silver hair to fall across his tanned and unlined forehead. He had four assistants in his outer office who were prepared to offer their services, but the Reverend Rawlins liked to pen his own work in his own hand. The assistants would have plenty of time to copy and distribute the sermon to any one of the six publishing houses he owned from California to New York. The Reverend would also sell the handwritten sermons at auction at the end of the year. Everything was money to Rawlins—to a point.
Legacy: An Event Group Thriller Page 7