Gravity (19 page)

The man paused and turned back. “I’m Dr. Isaac Roman, USAMRIID,” he said. “That orbiter is now a hot zone. The Army is assuming control.”

USAMRIID. Dr. Roman had pronounced it as one word, but Jack knew what the letters stood for. The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Why was the Army here? Since when had this turned into a military operation?

Jack squinted in the flying dust, his skull still ringing from the blow, and struggled to absorb this bewildering information. An eternity seemed to pass, a surreal progression of images in slow motion. Men in Racal suits striding toward the orbiter. The staring at him with expressionless eyes. The isolation tent in the wind like a living, breathing organism. He looked at the of soldiers, still holding the ground crew at bay. He looked at orbiter and saw the men in space suits carry the first stretcher of the tent. The body was sealed in a bag. The plastic had been stamped repeatedly with the bright red biohazard symbol, like blossoms strewn across a corpse.

The sight of that stretcher made Jack’s mind snap back into focus. He said, “Where are you taking the bodies?” Dr. Roman did not even turn to look at him, but directed the stretcher to a waiting chopper. Jack started to walk toward the orbiter, and once again found a soldier standing in front of him, rifle butt raised to deliver another blow.

“Hey!” came a shout from the ground crew. “You dare to hit him again and we’ve got thirty witnesses!” The soldier turned and stared at the angry NASA and United Space Alliance employees, who were now surging forward, voices raised in outrage.

“You think this is Nazi Germany?”

“—think you can beat up civilians now?”

“Who the hell are you guys?” The nervous soldiers tightened ranks as the ground crew continued to push forward, shouting, feet churning up dust.

A rifle shot exploded into the air. The crowd went dead still.

There is something terribly wrong here, thought Jack. Something we don’t understand. These soldiers were fully prepared to shoot. To kill.

The convoy leader understood this as well, because he blurted out in panic, “I’m in comm link with Houston! At this moment, a hundred men and women in Mission Control are listening!” Slowly the soldiers lowered their rifles and glanced toward their officer. A long silence passed, broken only by the wind and the scatter shot of sand pinging the choppers.

Dr. Roman appeared at Jack’s side. “You people don’t understand the situation,” he said.

“Explain it to us.”

“We are dealing with a serious biohazard. The White House Security Council has activated the Army’s Biological Rapid Response Team—a team created by an act of Congress, Dr. McCallum. We’re here on orders from the White House.”

“What biohazard?” Roman hesitated. He glanced toward the NASA ground crew, who stood in a tense huddle beyond the line of soldiers.

“What is the organism?” Jack said.

At last Roman met his gaze through the plastic face shield.

“That information is classified.”

“We’re the medical team, charged with the health of that flight crew. Why weren’t we told about this?”

“NASA doesn’t realize what it’s dealing with.”

“And how is it that you do?” The question, heavy with significance, went unanswered.

Another stretcher emerged from the tent. And whose body was that? Jack wondered. The faces of the four crew members flashed through his mind.

All dead now. He could not grasp that fact. He could not imagine those vibrant, healthy people reduced to shattered bones and ruptured organs.

“Where are you taking the bodies?” he asked.

“A Level Four facility for autopsy.”

“Who’s doing the autopsy?”

“I am.”

“As the crew’s flight surgeon, I should be present.”

“Why? Are you a pathologist?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t see how you could contribute anything useful.”

“How many dead pilots have you examined?” Jack shot back. “How many aircraft accidents have you investigated? Aerospace trauma is my training. My field of expertise. You might need me.”

“I don’t think so,” said Roman. And he walked away.

Stiff with rage, Jack crossed back to the NASA ground crew and said to Bloomfeld, “The Army’s in control of this site. They’re taking the bodies.”

“By what authority?”

“He says it comes straight from the White House. They’ve activated something called a Biological Rapid Response Team.”

“That’s an antiterrorist team,” said Bloomfeld. “I’ve heard about them.

They were created to deal with bioterrorism.” They watched a chopper lift off, carrying two of the bodies.

What the hell is really going on? Jack wondered. What are they hiding from us?

He turned to the convoy leader. “Can you patch me through to JSC?”

“Any one in particular?” Jack thought of whom he could trust, and who was high enough in the NASA bureaucracy to carry the battle to the very top.

“Get me Gordon Obie,” he said. “Flight Crew Operations.”

Gordon Obie walked into the video conference room prepared for bloody battle, but none of the officials sitting around the table suspected the depth of his rage. And no wonder, Obie was wearing usual poker face, and he didn’t say a word as he took his place at the table, next to a tearful and puffy-eyed Public Affairs Officer Gretchen Liu. Every one looked shell-shocked. They didn’t even notice Gordon’s entrance.

Also at the table was NASA administrator Leroy Cornell, JSC director Ken Blankenship, and a half dozen senior NASA officials, all of them grimly staring at the two video display screens. On the first screen was a Colonel Lawrence Harrison from USAMRIID, speaking from the Army base in Fort Detrick, Maryland. On the second monitor was a solemn, dark-haired man in civilian clothes, identified as

“Jared Profitt, White Security Council.” He did not look like a bureaucrat. With his mournful eyes and his gaunt, almost ascetic features, he looked like a medieval monk, unwillingly transported into a modern age of suits and ties.

Blankenship was talking, his comments directed at Colonel Harrison. “Not only did your soldiers prevent my people from doing their jobs, they threatened them at gunpoint. One of our flight surgeons was assaulted—knocked to the ground with a rifle butt. We have three dozen witnesses—”

“Dr. McCallum broke through our security cordon. He refused to halt as ordered,” Colonel Harrison responded. “We had a hot zone to protect.”

“So now the U.S. Army is prepared to attack, even shoot, civilians?”

“Ken, let’s try to look at it from USAMRIID’s point of view,” said Cornell, placing a calming hand on Blankenship’s arm. The diplomat’s touch, thought Gordon with distaste. Cornell might be NASA’s spokesman at the White House and their best asset when it came to cajoling Congress for money, but many at NASA had never really trusted him.

They could never trust any man who thought more like a politician than an engineer. “Protecting a hot zone is valid reason to apply force,” said Cornell. “Dr. McCallum did breach the security line.”

“And the results could have been disastrous,” said Harrison over the audio feed. “Our intelligence reports that Marburg virus may have been purposefully introduced to the space station. Marburg is a cousin of Ebola virus.”

“How would it get aboard?” said Blankenship. “Every experimental protocol is reviewed for safety. Every lab animal is healthy. We don’t send up biohazards.”

“That’s your agency line, of course. But you receive your experimental payloads from scientists all around the country. You screen their protocols, but you can’t examine every bacteria or culture as it arrives for launch. To keep biological materials alive, the payloads are loaded right onto the shuttle. What if one of those experiments was contaminated? Consider how easy it is to replace harmless culture with a dangerous organism like Marburg.”

“Are you saying this was a deliberate sabotage attempt on the station?” said Blankenship. “An act of bioterrorism?”

“That’s precisely what I’m saying. Let me describe what happens to you if you are infected with this particular virus. First your muscles begin to ache and you have a fever. The ache is so severe, agonizing, you can scarcely bear to be touched. An intramuscular injection makes you shriek in pain. Then your eyes turn red. Your belly begins to hurt, and you vomit, again and again. You begin to throw up blood. It comes up black at first, because of digestive processes. Then it comes faster and turns bright red, as rapid as gushing pump. Your liver swells, cracks. Your kidneys fail. internal organs are being destroyed, turning to foul, black mush. And suddenly, disastrously, your blood pressure crashes. And you’re dead.” Harrison paused. “That’s what we may be dealing with, gentlemen.”

“This is bullshit!” blurted Gordon Obie.

Every one at the table stared at him in astonishment. The Sphinx had spoken. On the rare occasions Obie did say anything at a meeting, it was usually in a monotone, his words used to convey data and information, not emotion. This outburst had shocked them all.

“May I ask who just spoke?” asked Colonel Harrison.

“I’m Gordon Obie, director of Flight Crew Operations.”

“Oh. The astronauts’ top dog.”

“You could call me that.”

“And why is this bullshit?”

“I don’t believe this is Marburg virus. I don’t know what it is, but I do know you’re not telling us the truth.” Colonel Harrison’s face froze into a rigid mask. He said nothing.

It was Jared Profitt who spoke. His voice sounded exactly as Gordon had expected, thin and reedy. He was not a bully like Harrison, but a man who preferred to appeal to one’s intellect and reason. “I understand your frustration, Mr. Obie,” Profitt said.

“There’s so much we’re unable to tell you because of security concerns. But Marburg is not something we can be careless about.”

“If you already know it’s Marburg, then why are you excluding our flight surgeons from the autopsy? Are you afraid we’ll learn the truth?”

“Gordon,” Cornell said quietly, “why don’t we discuss this in private?” Gordon ignored him and said to the screen, “What disease are we really talking about? An infection? A toxin? Something loaded on board the shuttle in a military payload, perhaps?”

There was a silence. Then Harrison blustered, “There’s that NASA paranoia! Your agency likes to blame the military for everything that goes wrong.”

“Why do you refuse to allow my flight surgeon into the autopsy?”

“Are we speaking of Dr. McCallum?” asked Profitt.

“Yes. McCallum has training in aviation trauma and pathology. He is a flight surgeon as well as a former member of the astronaut corps. The fact you refuse to let him or any of our doctors view autopsies makes me wonder what you don’t want NASA to see.” Colonel Harrison glanced sideways, as though to look at someone else in the room. When he gazed back at the camera, his face was flushed and angry.

“This is absurd. You people just crashed a shuttle! You screw up the landing, kill your own crew, and then point an accusing finger at the U.S. Army?”

“The entire astronaut corps is up in arms about this,” said Gordon. “We want to know what really happened to our colleagues. We insist you allow one of our doctors to view the bodies.”

Leroy Cornell again tried to intercede. “Gordon, you can’t make unreasonable demands like this,” he said quietly. “They know what they’re doing.”

“So do I.”

“I’m going to ask you to back down now.” Gordon looked Cornell in the eye. Cornell was NASA’s representative to the White House, NASA’s voice in Congress.

Provoking him was career suicide.

He did it anyway. “I speak for the astronauts,” he said. “My people.” He turned to the video screen, his gaze fixed on the face of Colonel Harrison. “And we’re not above taking our concerns to the press. We don’t consider this move lightly—exposing confidential NASA matters. The astronaut corps has always been discreet. But if we’re forced to, we will demand a public inquiry.”

Gretchen Liu’s jaw dropped. “Gordon,” she whispered, “what the hell are you doing?”

“What I have to do.” The silence at the table stretched to a full minute.

Then, to everyone’s astonishment, Ken Blankenship said, “I side with our astronauts.”

“So do I,” said another voice.

“Me too—”

“—and me.”

Gordon looked around the table at his colleagues. Most of these people were engineers and operational managers whose names seldom turned up in the press. More often than not, they were in conflict with the astronauts, whom they considered flyboys with big egos. The astronauts got all the glory, but these men women, who performed the unseen and unglamorous jobs that made spaceflight a reality, were the heart and soul of NASA. And they were now united behind Gordon.

Leroy Cornell looked stricken, the leader abandoned by his own troops.

He was a proud man, and this was a humiliatingly public blow. He cleared his throat and slowly squared his shoulders.

Then he faced the video image of Colonel Harrison. “I have no choice but to support my astronauts as well,” he said. “I insist one of our flight surgeons be allowed to view the autopsies.” Colonel Harrison said nothing. It was Jared Profitt who made the final decision—Jared Profitt who was obviously the real man in charge. He turned to confer with someone standing offscreen.

Then he looked at the camera and nodded.

Both screens went blank. The video conference had ended.

“Well, you certainly thumbed your nose at the U.S. Army,” said Gretchen. “Did you see how pissed-off Harrison looked?” No, thought Gordon, remembering Colonel Harrison’s expression just before the image went blank. That wasn’t anger I saw on his face. It was fear.

The bodies had not been taken to USAMRIID headquarters in Fort Detrick, Maryland, as Jack had expected. They’d been transported barely sixty miles away from the White Sands landing strip to a windowless concrete-block building, much like the dozens of other anonymous government buildings that had sprung up in that dry desert valley. But this one had a distinguishing feature, a series of ventilation pipes jutting up from the roofline. Barbed wire atop the perimeter fence. As they drove through the military checkpoint, Jack heard the hum of high-voltage wires.

Flanked by his armed escort, Jack approached the front entrance—the only entrance, he realized. On the door was a chillingly familiar symbol, the bright red biohazard blossom. What this facility doing in the middle of nowhere? he wondered. Then scanned the featureless horizon, and his question was answered.

The building was here precisely because it was in the middle of nowhere.

He was escorted through the door and into a series of stark corridors heading deeper into the heart of the building. He saw and women in Army uniforms, others in lab coats. All lighting was artificial, and the faces appeared bluish and sickly.

The guards stopped outside a door labeled

“Men’s Lockers.”

“Go in,” he was told. “Follow the written instructions to the letter. Then go through the next door. They’re waiting for you.

Jack entered the room. Inside were lockers, a laundry cart containing various sizes of green surgical scrub suits, a shelf paper caps, a sink, and a mirror. A list of instructions was on the wall, starting with “Remove ALL street clothes, including underwear.” He took off his clothes, left them in an unsecured locker, and dressed in a scrub suit.

Then he pushed through the next door, labeled with the universal biohazard symbol, into an ultraviolet-lit room. There he paused, wondering what to do next.

A voice over the intercom said, “There’s a shelf of socks beside you. Put on a pair and walk through the door.” He did.

A woman in a scrub suit was waiting for him in the next room.

She was brusque, unsmiling, as she told him to don sterile gloves.

Then she angrily ripped off strips of tape and sealed his sleeves pant cuffs. The Army may have resigned themselves to Jack’s visit, but they weren’t going to make it a friendly one. She slipped an audio headset over his head, then gave him a “Snoopy” hat, like swimming cap, to hold the equipment in place.

“Now suit up,” she barked.

Time for the space suit. This one was blue, with the gloves already attached. As his hostile assistant lowered the hood over his head, Jack felt a dart of anxiety about the woman. In her anger, could she sabotage the process, see to it that he wasn’t completely sealed off from contamination.

She closed the seal on his chest, hooked him up to a wall hose, and he felt the whoosh of air blow into his suit. It was too late to worry about what could go wrong. He was ready to cross into the hot area.

The woman unplugged his hose and pointed to the next door. He stepped through, into the air lock. The door slammed shut behind him.

A man in a space suit was waiting for him. He did not speak, but gestured to Jack to follow him through the far door.

They stepped through and walked down a hallway to the autopsy room.

Inside was a stainless steel table with a body on it, still sealed in its bag. Two men in space suits were already standing on either side of the body.

One of the men was Dr. Roman. He turned and saw Jack.

“Don’t touch anything. Don’t interfere. You’re only here to observe, Dr. McCallum, so stay the hell out of our way.” Nice welcome.

The space-suited escort plugged a wall hose into Jack’s suit, and once again air hissed into his helmet. If not for the audio headset, he’d be unable to hear anything the other three men said.

Dr. Roman and his two associates opened the body bag.

Jack felt his breath catch, his throat constrict. The corpse was Jill Hewitt’s. Her helmet had been removed, but she was still wearing the orange launch-and-entry suit, embroidered with her name.

Even without that identification, he would have known it was Jill, because of her hair. It was a silky chestnut, cut in a bob and with the first hints of gray. Her face was strangely intact. Her eyes were half open.

Both sclerae were a bright and shocking red.

Roman and his colleagues unzipped the LES and stripped the corpse. The fabric was fire-retardant, too tough to cut through.

They had to peel it off. They worked efficiently, their comments matter-of-fact and without even a hint of emotion. When they had removed her clothing, she looked like a broken doll. Both her hands were deformed by fractures, reduced to masses of crushed bone. Her legs, too, were broken and akilter, the shins bent at impossible angles. The tips of two broken ribs penetrated her wall, and black bruises marked the strap lines of her seat restraint.

Jack felt his breaths coming too fast, and he had to quell his rising horror. He had witnessed many autopsies, on bodies in much worse shape.

He had seen aviators burned into little more than charred twigs, skulls exploded from the pressure of cooking brains.

He had seen a corpse whose face had been sliced off from walking into a chopper’s tail rotor. He had seen a Navy pilot’s spine in half and folded backward from ejecting through a closed canopy.

This was far, far worse because he knew the deceased. He remembered her as a living, breathing woman. His horror was mingled with rage, because these three men viewed Jill’s exposed body with such cold dispassion. She was a slab of meat on the table, nothing more. They ignored her injuries, her grotesquely positioned limbs. The cause of death was only of secondary concern to them.