Legacy (10 page)

“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.

Today’s sermon was a special one that would air live that night on the evils of reach—the reach of mankind into God’s house, the universe. How mankind would now face the long overdue wrath of God. The image of the skeletal remains found on the Moon played like a stuck recording in his mind’s eye as he wrote furiously on his notepad. The contempt America was showing during the hard times this nation and the entire world were now facing was unforgivable. Now they were tempting God’s anger by sending out mechanicians to the otherworldly bodies when so much more was needed at home. This foolishness must end and the Reverend had the power to do just that.

A knock sounded at his oak door. He continued to write, finally using his right hand to swipe at the silver hair that ranged across his tanned and unlined forehead.

“Yes,” he said, still bent over his work.

The door opened and his first assistant, a striking woman, stuck her blond head inside. She watched the Reverend, marveling at the man’s concentration. He finally looked up at her and gave her a smile. He could see her face flush and her knees slightly bend. He knew the effect he had on women, not only here but in the outside world, and he used that influence and sexual intensity to his great advantage.

“Susan, what a pleasant distraction,” he said, finally laying his pencil to the side of his sermon. No one but he knew that her distraction was anything but pleasant. Beneath the blue eyes he thought about how pleasurable it would be to walk over to the doorway and slam the woman’s head between the door and the oak jamb.

“Sir, you have a call from Vice President Darby. He’s on line two.”

“How are you today, Susan?” he asked, placing his large hands behind his head and leaning back in his thronelike chair, seemingly unconcerned about getting a call from the vice president of the United States. His smile remained as she returned an even wider, girlish grin. She looked him over. His light blue shirt contrasted with his dark tan and set his pale blue eyes off like a light on a darkened night.

“I … I am just fine today, Reverend. Just fine.”

“And I must say you look just fine.” Rawlins stared at her, his eyes moving down her red dress to her chest and then back to her green eyes. “Ah, but business calls.” He had one last look and smile at his assistant and then he picked up the gold-plated phone. He punched in the correct number, maybe a little too hard in his anger at being interrupted.

“Harry, how are things this morning?”

“The president overruled my press blackout.”

“Ah, I told you it wouldn’t be as easy as you thought, didn’t I, Mr. Vice President?”

“Yes, Reverend, you did. But bragging about your insight will not stop the public from gaining knowledge about Operation Columbus.”

Rawlins sat straight up in the high-backed chair. He closed his eyes as he tried to compose himself. Then he opened them as the momentary tempest quickly and expertly subsided.

“Please don’t use that name on the phone, even if we have a secure line. I’ve told you about that numerous times.”

“I … I … am, uh, I apologize, Reverend. I am just frustrated. We have not only this headache, but the ongoing nausea inflicted by this Case Blue that’s just a wisp of a rumor.”

“I understand, Harry; you’re in a very stressful business. Politics is something I wouldn’t want to be in. We know this Case Blue is being handled by a department not in the norm of day-to-day business, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What is the NASA and JPL plan of action?”

“For right now they are officially off mission. They are reprogramming the remote rovers: one more will join the first inside of the crater and the other two will be used as communications relays.”

“Well, I must conclude that this little find
has
to be related to Columbus. I’ve never been a big believer in coincidence. The president knew there was something there and he hid it well by cutting NASA’s budget, sneaky bastard.” His anger was elevated once more, but Rawlins forced his rage back beneath the surface of his speaking voice. “I was hoping we had seen the end of it. I want to thank you for the instantaneous way you informed my office on this disturbing find on the Moon. Of course you will be rewarded in a suitable way, maybe far more than a monetary offering after the next four years is up.”

“I just wish the president would have kept his head in the sand and allowed me to do what he assigned me to do. I can still control things to a point.”