by Tom Grace
“I’ll be damned.”
He picked up the phone and two minutes later had a secure connection with Jackson Barnett in Langley.
“It’s Skye Aerospace,” Grin blurted out, “They did it.”
“Care to clarify that remark, Mr. Grinelli?”
“I found the weapon—well, not exactly found, because it comes and goes, and I haven’t figured quite how they pulled that off, but it’s Skye. They’re the ones who blasted Liberty and a bunch of other stuff, including that Chinese rocket back in June.”
“Slow down, Grin. Are you certain Skye Aerospace is responsible?”
“Absolutely. Everything fits. They have control over the entire process—rockets, satellites, launchpad—everything. I even found the rocket they put this thing up on. They hid it inside a dummy payload.”
“Is this all theory, or can you actually prove it?”
“If you’re asking if I have a picture of a killer satellite with the Skye logo on it blasting Liberty, the answer is no. But the data all point to them.”
Grin ran Barnett through a synopsis of his investigation and the chain of logic that had led to his conclusion.
“Circumstantial as it is, I detect no fault with your reasoning,” Barnett admitted. “The real trick is finding the smoking gun and placing it in the hands of Skye Aerospace. Are you familiar with NMD—Nuclear Missile Defense?”
“The latest version of Star Wars? Yeah, a little.”
“Skye has a piece of the research, as does every other major aerospace company in the U.S. As I recall, their expertise is in energy weapons, space-based lasers.”
“Are we actually building this stuff?”
“Some ground-based elements. No decisions have been made on anything that could be placed in orbit, largely due to the international political ramifications of such a deployment. The president rattles the saber well, and I applaud his efforts to continue the research on all fronts, but I don’t think even he is ready to weaponize space just yet.”
“So, if Skye put one in orbit, they did it on their own?”
“Exactly. I’m going to look into their research program, see what I can find. Nicely done.”
“Thanks. Any word from Nolan and Roxanne?”
Barnett paused. “I have received a report, unconfirmed at the moment, that the ship they were on has sunk with all hands.”
“Oh no.”
“The Chilean authorities are conducting a search of the area where the ship was last reported, but so far they’ve turned up nothing.”
CHAPTER FORTY
AUGUST 19
Eyes fluttering, Kilkenny’s head slowly began to droop. His body slackened, joints relaxing. Then he jerked up rigid, eyes wide open, panicked—his startle reflex kicking in again.
He had been experiencing microsleep for hours. The constant whirring drone of the thrusters and the darkness conspired like a nocturnal lullaby. His neck ached and he’d hit his forehead against the frame around the vision dome more than once. If it weren’t so cold, he’d stuff his fleece jersey up there to soften the blow. Standing inside the suit made sleep difficult, which was good because he needed to stay alert if he was to stay alive. A long nap might be welcome, but he might drift far enough off course during his slumber to put him permanently out to sea.
Kilkenny checked his watch—he was five minutes late for a visual check. The marathon run to shore had stretched past the twenty-four-hour mark and he’d been in the Hardsuit for nearly twenty-eight. The sandwich he’d brought from the ship’s galley was long gone, leaving him just a tin of cinnamon Altoids to subsist on.
Life support was still in good shape, enough oxygen to last another day, but the fuel cell was heading toward empty. He switched on the AD system and the darkness was replaced by the computer-generated landscape. He’d held his depth at two hundred feet—deep enough to avoid surface turbulence, but not so deep that denser water became a hindrance.
Below him, the ocean floor was rising steeply like the rocky foothills around a mountain—a welcome sign that he was nearing land. Ahead, he saw the jagged outline that had become his current reference point and he estimated it was under a half-mile away.
At this distance, the shape was more distinct and certain features became recognizable. He struggled against a welling excitement, but there it was. Smokestacks. Forward guns. It was the landmark Kilkenny had hoped to find.
Cumberland Bay was the only decent anchorage off of Robinson Crusoe Island. Jagged rocks and sheer cliffs dominated the rest of the coastline. When Sea Lion headed out a few days ago, Peretti pointed to a spot less than a half-mile from shore where the World War I German cruiser Dresden had come to rest. Out of fuel, she’d been cornered in the bay by three pursuing British warships and scuttled by her captain.
Kilkenny switched off the AD system, trying to squeeze the last few electrons from the fuel cell for the home stretch. He switched on the flashlight around his neck and left it on—it was time to do or die.
His eyes darted from his watch to the suit’s compass. The current was changing, turning west as it rounded the eastern half of the boomerang-shaped island. Kilkenny adjusted the thrusters to compensate.
Fifteen minutes—site check.
AD system back on, the Dresden was closer now, a massive hulk that filled the width of his field of view. He tipped the left thruster, pushing himself higher to clear the wreck. Slowly, the cruiser passed beneath him, her forward guns long silent. Ahead, he saw the floor of the bay rising up toward shore.
The image staggered like a movie jumping frames, and details started dropping out. Kilkenny switched the AD off. The pitch of the whirring sound made by the thrusters had dropped. The blades were slowing, losing power.
“Don’t you give up on me, baby! Not this close!”
The blades sputtered, hesitating.
Then they stopped.
“Damn it!”
Without the thrusters, Kilkenny could feel the current pulling on the Hardsuit. He clenched the dim flashlight in his teeth and began searching the waist of the suit. The emergency crank was folded flush into the HS5000’s forged aluminum skin. He extended the crank and tried to turn it. It wouldn’t budge.
As he pressed his weight onto the crank, the flashlight popped out of his mouth and bounced against his chest. Finally, the handle turned. Just a few degrees at first, then a few more. He was fighting against the six atmospheres of pressure surrounding him.
The crank turned slowly and Kilkenny’s arms burned, providing torque to the mechanism. Straining, he held his breath, his temples throbbing with his racing heartbeat.
It started with a low groan, then all at once—pffffft!
The seal broke and a rush of seawater burst in. Kilkenny was standing in the middle of a circular waterfall. The crank turned freely now and Kilkenny spun it for all he was worth. The gap in the waist widened and more water poured in, flooding the legs. Then the lower torso dropped free.
Kilkenny let go of the crank and braced himself inside the upper half of the suit, fighting to keep it level and protect the precious bubble of air trapped inside. Icy water surrounded him from midchest down—the cold sucked the breath from his lungs.
Relieved of more than half its weight, the buoyant upper torso shot toward the surface like a cork. The dark water turned deep blue, then green. Light filtered down, adding color.
As he broke the surface, the upper torso lunged up, then toppled backward. Kilkenny stripped off the breathing mask and swam free. Low waves rippled the surface, breaking close to shore. Only the Hardsuit’s chest and vision dome were visible now, the last bubbles of Kilkenny’s air escaping. It was the middle of the afternoon and he was just over a quarter-mile from shore.
Fighting the numbing cold, Kilkenny willed his body to move, each stroke a struggle. When he finally tumbled ashore, his eyes burned from the salt water and his mouth felt raw and briny. He pulled himself up and took a long look around.
Exhausted and shivering, Kilke
nny staggered along a gravel path. His joints were stiff from hours of standing and the cold, difficult swim ashore. Ahead he saw a small weathered home and, under the covered patio, an old man tinkering with a fishing reel. The man looked up as Kilkenny walked toward him.
“Buenos tardes, Salvador,” Kilkenny rasped. Then he lifted his fingers to his mouth, pantomiming a drink. “Rum?”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
0° N LATITUDE, 154° W LONGITUDE
AUGUST 19
“Captain, Argo reports they are in position and ballasting operation has commenced.”
“Thank you, Mr. Perez,” Captain Bob Werner replied. Werner was a thickset man, standing five-ten with a barrel-shaped body gradually going soft. His naturally blond beard and hair were bleached white from a lifetime at sea, his skin tan and leathery. From his chair on the bridge of Aequatus, Werner enjoyed a panoramic view of the sea around his ship. The seas were calm, the sky blue, and the sun high overhead.
Off the port side, the launch platform Argo straddled the equator—the combined effort of her DGPS and thrust control system kept her within ten meters of that imaginary line.
As the two vessels neared the equatorial launch site, the seventy-two-hour countdown clock was started. Technicians on both ships were now busy making final preparations for a launch in less than three days—at noon on Saturday. One of those preparations was the pumping of millions of gallons of seawater into the Argo’s pontoons and legs, lowering her stance in the water sixty-five feet to stabilize the platform during the launch.
In his twenty-year career in the navy, Werner had fired missiles from the ships under his command, but none had ever made it to space. The sheer scale of this operation impressed the hell out of him and was the main reason he had signed on for duty. In three days, he’d have one of the best seats on the world to watch a space launch.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The Sikorsky S-76C+ glided over the sparkling blue ocean, her twin Turbomeca Arriel 2S1 engines powering the helicopter along at a comfortable speed of 139 knots. The aerodynamically refined exterior of the craft glistened brilliant white in the late afternoon sun. Emblazoned on each side in navy-blue letters was the name SKYE Aerospace.
Based at Kiritimati, the former British colony discovered by Captain Cook in 1775 and centuries earlier by Polynesians, the helicopter’s primary function was the transport of VIPs to and from the company’s equatorial launch site without subjecting them to a weeklong voyage at sea. C. J. Skye recognized that most her guests viewed rocket launches like a New Year’s Eve party—they wanted to be there for the countdown, but not the days of preparation that preceded it.
Tao sat limply in her seat, her head resting against the window. She didn’t have the strength to lift it, or any other part of her body. Without the seatbelt, she would have slipped down to the floor. The lids of her eyes drooped low, and through the narrow slits her dilated pupils were unable to focus on anything.
How long …? She thought, trying to reestablish a timeline. How long … since I was captured?
More than a day had passed since the sinking of Sea Lion, and the careful application of drugs had kept her in this nightmarish state for much of that time. She remembered a boat. Then a plane—the jet engines whistled like teakettles. Now, she heard a dull thumping and a loud rush of air.
Still moving me … where?
Unger sat beside her, reading a book to pass the time. He’d been her constant companion, seeing to her needs, injecting the chemical cocktail that so disconnected her mind and body. He had not taken advantage of her in her present state, nor allowed the security men who accompanied Moug to Chile to do so either. It simply wasn’t sporting, and he had his orders. For now, Tao was baggage—something to be transported from one place to another as efficiently as possible.
Moug gazed out the window as the helicopter approached the launch site. Argo sat low in the water, the added weight of her ballast dampening out all motion from the light seas. Aequatus had taken up position alongside the launch platform and a rigid steel-truss bridge had been cantilevered over her side, spanning the gap between the two. From the air, the bridge looked like something only a Flying Wallenda would hazard.
The pilot circled the mated vessels, then approached the large octagonal pad on the bow of Aequatus. As soon as they landed and the engines began winding down, a pair of crouched crewmen ran out to meet the new arrivals.
“How is she?” Moug asked.
“Stable,” Unger replied. “Just on the edge of consciousness.”
“Good. Let’s get her aboard.”
Moug and Unger each took a side and maneuvered Tao out onto the helipad—between them, her feet rarely touched the deck. Entering the superstructure, they were met by Captain Werner.
“Do you need a doctor?” the captain asked.
“No,” Moug replied. “She just had a bit too much to drink in Kiritimati and it caught up with her on the ride out. You there.”
Moug motioned one of the security men over.
“Help Mr. Unger get our guest to a VIP stateroom.”
“Yes, sir,” the man replied as he took Tao’s arm.
Werner watched the pair carry the listless form down the passageway, his expression wavering between pity and disgust. As a young sailor, he’d come back to the ship from shore leave in a sorry state on more than one occasion, but it was something he quickly outgrew. A man was entitled to only so much libation during his life, and he’d drunk his personal quota by the age of thirty.
“Who is she? I wasn’t aware we were having any visitors during this launch.”
“A last-minute addition,” Moug replied. “A guest of Miss Skye. You remember those environmentalists, the ones always complaining about how we’re sonically polluting the ocean with our launches and damaging the hearing of whales?”
“She’s one of them?”
Moug nodded. “Miss Skye thought having one aboard to see what it is we really do might calm them down. From the looks of this young lady, I have my doubts.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
LOS ANGELES
Barnett and Grin greeted Kilkenny as he stepped off the Air Force Learjet that had retrieved him from Chile. He was dressed in whatever clothes Delmar and his neighbors could find to replace the sodden fleece he swam ashore in. It was a mismatched lot, but Kilkenny was glad to be warm and dry and was thankful for the islanders’ generosity.
“Jesus, Nolan,” Grin said as he threw his arms around Kilkenny. “You look like roadkill, but it’s good to see you again.”
“Thanks.”
Grin eased back. “I’m sorry about Roxanne, man. I know you two were tight.”
“Yeah. And somebody’s going to pay for that.”
“Indeed,” Barnett said, extending his hand. “Welcome back, Nolan.”
Kilkenny nodded and shook Barnett’s hand. “When we last spoke, you said something about a lead.”
“Grin has forwarded a very interesting theory, one in which, tonight, I hope to find some substance.”
They left the airport in a black Ford Expedition—both the vehicle and the driver were government issue. A thin coil of wired descended from the man’s right ear into the starched white collar of his shirt.
The sun was just slipping below the horizon as they headed north along the Pacific Coast Highway toward Santa Monica. During the drive, Grin quickly outlined the results of his research. Traffic moved steadily for a Friday night in Los Angeles and, thirty minutes later, the SUV pulled up in front of a small house with redwood siding in the steep hills overlooking the lights of the city.
A tan Saab was parked in the carport. Behind it, Kilkenny saw a second SUV identical to one he’d just arrived in. It, too, bore government plates.
“I got three coming in,” the driver said into a microphone concealed in a shirt cuff.
A man in a dark suit opened the front door as they approached. Inside stood another, keeping watch over a nervous looking man seated on the denim c
ouch.
The man was in his late thirties, Kilkenny guessed, dressed in a golf shirt and khaki shorts. Except for a slight paunch growing around his midsection, the man was thin. He wore glasses with gold wire frames and his graying Afro showed signs it was in full retreat.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Barnett said to the two agents. “I don’t believe Mr. Rainey will give us any trouble. If you’ll wait outside.”
The senior of the pair nodded and the two agents exited the home.
“Are you guys Secret Service or something?” Rainey’s voice quivered slightly as he spoke.
“Or something,” Barnett replied in a friendly tone as he showed Rainey his credentials. He then introduced Kilkenny and Grin.
Rainey eyed Kilkenny and Grin’s less-than-conventional wardrobe. “They CIA, too?”
“Let’s just say they have an informal relationship with the agency.”
“I haven’t done nothing,” Rainey protested.
“And no accusations have been made. For the moment, all we want to do is ask you some questions.”
“Shouldn’t I have a lawyer?”
“That is your privilege, but the presence of someone lacking the appropriate security clearance for the information that we wish to discuss could pose something of a problem.”
As Barnett spoke, Kilkenny looked around the room. His mother would have said the place lacked a woman’s touch, which was a polite way of saying Rainey was a man who lived alone and his environs reflected it. Much of the furniture was the kind you bought in a box and assembled yourself. A set of golf clubs stood in the corner of the living room, along with a pair of soft spikes. The toppled stack of magazines beside a leather recliner dealt primarily with electronics, science, and aerospace engineering—not a Redbook or People in the bunch.
There wasn’t much in the way of family photos on the walls. On the mantle stood an old portrait of a man proudly wearing the uniform of a marine gunnery sergeant with his wife and toddler son. Beside the portrait was a framed wooden box that contained a folded American flag.