The Inner Circle (36 page)

"I don't understand, sir," Wilson had said. "I wanted to be at NASA when the probe launched to make sure everything went as planned."

If the president had just looked Henry in the eye and said his next sentence, the Defense Secretary would not have had a problem with taking a vacation. Marshall didn't though, instead glancing over at Peter Mansfield, who – Wilson could have sworn – nodded his head.

"No, I think it’s best if we all give the appearance that this is just another normal space launch. If we all showed up to watch it, I'm afraid it might draw the media’s attention," the President told him.

There was little doubt in Wilson's mind that the decision had been made by Mansfield but was delivered by the president. What could Wilson do, though? Being part of the 'Inner Circle' required certain sacrifices and the last thing the group needed now was dissension on his part. Besides, Wilson thought the vacation could be a needed break from the hectic Washington life he'd been living. No more budget meetings, no more annoying lunches with probing reporters, no more stress...

At least that had been the plan. But ever since Henry got to his beach house, his life was filled with just as much stress as if he’d still been in D.C., though most of it was self-imposed and caused by concern about the probe launch. It hadn’t helped that his wife – who it felt like he'd seen only occasionally the past few years – continuously nagged him about one thing or another. ‘Why did you have to start smoking again? Why do you need a cigarette every half-hour? Why aren't you eating properly? Why do you want to sit in front of the TV and watch the news all day? Shouldn't you be out exercising now instead?’ He wanted to yell at her to just leave him alone, but he knew this would only lead to fighting and more stress.

Then came the announcement on the morning of the launch that the probe was actually doubling as a prototype for a manned, deep space mission.
How the hell did that get out to the press?
The crazy science teacher was still locked up in the mental ward, so Henry knew it could not be him. That only left the president, Armour or Mansfield, all of whom were too high profile for their betrayal to elude detection from the 'Inner Circle.' If Wilson had to pick the culprit from these three, he figured it would be Mansfield, a man who he'd come to hate recently. Yet in reality, he did not think that any of the three – including the snake-in-the-grass Chief of Staff – would ever say anything about the probe.

Wilson had taken his wife's advice and gone down to the beach instead of watching the launch. If something bad was going to happen, it would happen whether he watched or not, and spending time with his wife would at least get her off his back for now. Besides, he thought that looking at some young women parading around in tiny bikinis would help take his mind off the comet, at least for a short while.

Once he got to the beach though, he realized that nothing could prevent his thoughts from wandering back to the probe. For the next few hours, he stared straight ahead at the ocean, constantly thinking about the probe while trying to ignore his wife's questioning glares. After what felt like at least an hour, Henry looked back down at his watch to see that it was only ten minutes since he last checked the time.

"You have somewhere to be?" his wife asked. "Can't you just learn to relax and enjoy yourself?"

The sound of her voice had the same effect on his ears as fingernails scratching down a chalkboard. He could not take it any longer and although he knew that by doing so he would just receive more scathing words, Henry had to have a cigarette.

"You promised you were going to leave them at the house," Molly whined when her husband lit the cigarette. Henry was through trying to appease her and decided to take out the second clumpy object he'd been hiding in the pocket of his bathing suit.

"I brought this, too," he said, dropping his cell phone on top of the cigarette pack on the sand next to him. She shot him an annoyed look, but the first breath of smoke to hit his lungs calmed the millions of tense pinches that had taken control of his nerves. "I'm sorry, but today is the big probe launch and my people need to be able to reach me if there's a problem."

"What probe launch?" she asked, her annoyance with him still clearly evident in the tone of her voice.

"Didn't you watch the news this morning?"

"No, I'm on vacation. I do what normal people do on vacation. I forget about the world around me and try to relax."

"I'm sorry if I have one of the most important jobs in America," Henry said, truly beginning to get angry.

"You think I don't know that? You think I don't suffer the same way you do, all of those lonely days and nights while you're off doing God knows what? All I'm saying is we’re on vacation now, we finally have some alone time together and you’re worrying about some silly little probe instead of making me happy. If something goes wrong with NASA, who cares? It's not the end of the world."

No sooner had Molly finished talking when Henry's cell phone began to ring. He looked at the caller ID and saw that it was his top aide.

"You better not even think about picking that up," his wife warned.

"It's Ted, I told him to call if there was an emergency," he said as he picked up his phone and pushed the SPEAK button.

"Is something wrong, Ted?" Henry asked.

Molly could not believe that her thirty-five-year marriage had reached the point where her husband couldn’t go a whole week without worrying about work. Did she really play that small a role in his life? Now that he would not need a publicly happy marriage to make a run at the presidency, did Henry not even care if he made her happy? The anger that was building up inside of her had now reached the surface and she was going to give Henry a piece of her mind.

She heard Ted's garbled voice speak one sentence and saw the color drain from out of Henry's face. He whispered one word into the phone.

"No."

Molly watched as Henry dropped the phone and his lit cigarette in the sand, stood up from his beach chair and start to sprint the two hundred yards toward their house, without saying a single word to her about what had happened.

What is going on with him?

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Henry had not run this far, this fast, for as long as he could remember, and his years of smoking made breathing difficult. His breaths were coming in shallow gasps, but he paid little attention to his oxygen-deprived lungs. Listening to the television was more important right now than anything else in his life.

"Apparently, the first attempt by America to send a manned-capable deep space vehicle into space has failed before it had much of a chance," the anchorman said. "Once again, we will replay the news conference from minutes ago, where well-known former astronaut and current NASA Chief James Armour announced the loss of the probe."

On screen, a BREAKING NEWS banner had a caption that read: MANNED PROBE PROTOTYPE DESTROYED MINUTES AFTER ENTERING SPACE. These words seemed to punch Wilson in the nose, as he reread them countless times, praying that each time, new words would appear saying the probe had been successful.

How could this have happened?

The only small bit of consolation Wilson could take from this news was that the probe reached space before exploding, thus avoiding a nuclear blast from transpiring over American soil. Coverage of James Armour at a press conference soon filled the television screen.

"The probe launch seemed to be doomed from the beginning," he said, as the flashes of numerous cameras played across Armour's face. The NASA chief's face looked completely stricken and Wilson was one of only three people to know the underlying reason for his utter bereavement. "As William Newton stated earlier, there was a power problem with the main thrusters as the probe was launched. Our computers lost the ability to send commands to the probe at the same time and we didn’t even think the probe would break free of the Earth's atmosphere. An unknown energy source was diverted to the thrusters at the most opportune moment though, and we all thought we'd caught a lucky break."

Peterson had to have done something to get the probe into space
, Wilson thought, as still found it difficult to breathe
. But did he do too much and blow the damn probe up?

"About an hour ago, nearly thirty minutes after the probe reached space, we lost all communications with the numerous systems on board. After attempting and failing to reconnect to the ship, we went to the telescopes and found that there was nothing in space where the probe was supposed to be. The only solution that makes sense is that too much power was diverted to the thrusters, which must have overloaded and exploded."

This explanation seemed logical enough, but Wilson wondered if there were tests or investigations that would be done which would discover that the explosion had been caused by a nuclear weapon.

Can they trace this back to me? There's no reason they wouldn't be able to. All that would have to be done is to check the movements of the most recent nuclear weapon transfers. I signed off on the last one.

Too many shocking events were happening in too short a time for Wilson's brain to process everything logically. The Earth's only chance at being saved had been destroyed and he had all but okayed the events that led to the probe's destruction. The comet secret would have to come out now, there was no way the 'Inner Circle' could hide it anymore.

He ripped the cellophane off an unopened pack of cigarettes sitting on the coffee table, the hand holding his lighter shaking as he tried to light it.

"I told you I don't want you smoking inside," Molly whined, having come into the room without Henry hearing. "It's going to make everything smell and I don't –"

"Will you just shut up already?" Henry yelled.

The last thing Henry wanted to hear at this moment was his wife's complaints about his smoking. He took a long drag on the cigarette, hoping the smoke would calm down his raspy breathing.

"How dare you speak to me like that," Molly yelled back. "After everything you've put me through, you have the nerve to raise your voice to me..."

She continued to yell at Henry, who tuned her voice out. He had more important things to think about now, especially as breathing became more and more difficult. His lungs did not feel as though they were working correctly. As he tried to inhale a deep breath, he found that less and less air was making its way down his air pipe.

His head began to spin with the lack of oxygen when he realized just how badly his chest had started hurting. He assumed the fluttering sensation in his chest had been from his run to the house, but now it was growing worse and he was not sure what was happening to him.

Henry dropped the cigarette to the ground and touched his forehead, which felt like it was on fire, sweat pouring down his entire face.

"Pick that cigarette off the ground right now," his wife yelled. Molly was still too angry with her husband to realize anything was wrong and it wasn't until he stumbled backwards that she knew there was a problem.

Henry felt like a beaten-up boxer who did not know to go down. Something was happening, something very bad, but all Henry could think about was the probe being destroyed.

How could this have happened? We’re all doomed.

"What's wrong?" Molly said, stepping towards Henry. "Henry, what's wrong?"

Molly stood frozen – not knowing what to do – as her husband took a few staggered steps. He was holding his chest and Molly saw a pale, clammy look on his face that she had never seen in all their years of marriage.

"Clement," he wheezed.

Before Molly could ask him what that meant, he fell to the side, crashing through – and shattering – a glass table next to the couch. Molly screamed and ran to his side.

"Henry! Open your eyes, open your eyes," she said, lightly slapping the side of his face. Molly wished she knew CPR or some sort of emergency procedure, but since they’d never had any children, she never bothered to learn.

She stood up and ran over to the phone, dialing 9-1-1 while yelling words of encouragement to her husband. Before she had the chance to talk to anyone, though, she was put on hold. Nervous energy coursed throughout her body, as a mixture of fear and fright made her time on hold seem never-ending.

She looked across the room at Henry, who was not moving or showing any signs of life. Molly knew that by the time she spoke to the operator and help arrived, it was likely to be too late. The look on Henry's face the instant prior to his crashing through the end table confirmed her worst fears.

While she impatiently waited on hold, Molly noted that the only noise in the room came from the TV, where a picture of space filled the newscast.

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George Marshall was nervous. Although his presidential campaign a few years before required that he speak countless times to millions of Americans, he began to find the task of public speaking very nerve-wracking. He loved being the center of attention and receiving as much observance from the media as possible, but having his picture on the front page of a newspaper was much easier than speaking live to nearly 300 million people. Besides the annual State of the Union Address, this was going to be his first live address to the American people, most of who would undoubtedly be annoyed for having their favorite television programming interrupted. He had invited the top news people in the country to the press conference, as he was about to make the most important speech of his life. This was going to be front-page, lead-story material, and he had to be very convincing if he expected Phase Two to proceed successfully.