Velocity (16 page)

For the first time she can remember she feels completely powerless, like she’s stuck in knee-deep mud, unable to move. What makes it worse it that she has no idea what to do about it.

**

14

Judd was way off with the 30 per cent estimate.

He falls through the launch platform’s left rectangular hole with plenty of room to spare, then lands in the two metres of water still remaining in the flame trench from the sound suppression system. His back and legs feel numb from the impact and the wound on his hip throbs like a mother but he doesn’t care because he’s alive. Only now, as he floats in the water, does he realise how close, and how often, he came to buying the farm tonight.

The water seeps away and Judd peels himself off the cement. He looks up at the fat arc of white smoke left by the shuttle’s solid rockets, stark against the black sky. He follows it until it disappears into the star field.

Judd’s not a big fan of the men-crying thing. He thinks that you only get three cries in adult life so they had better be worth it. His first was in ‘89 when Kevin Costner played catch with the young version of his Dad at the end of
Field Of Dreams.
It was a movie during which many a dude shed a tear so Judd wasn’t embarrassed about it. The second time he Costnered was at the
Columbia
memorial service as he mourned his dead friend. Again, an appropriate response considering the situation. And now, at the thought of never seeing Rhonda again, he’s on the verge of Costnering for a third time. He can feel moisture at the corner of his eyes and it’s not from the flame trench. He breathes deeply, holds the emotion in check. This is not the time for waterworks.

He sets off at pace towards the VAB and pushes Rhonda from his mind by asking himself why someone would want to steal a space shuttle. If he can answer that question then maybe he can understand the hijackers’ plans and work out what he can do to get her back.

Do they think they can ransom
Atlantis
? If they do they’re in for a rude shock. The US government doesn’t negotiate with hijackers or terrorists. Ever. As pretty well everyone on the planet knows this, it doesn’t seem a likely reason.

Maybe the hijackers want to kidnap the astronauts and ransom their families? But why do it like this? Why not grab them on their way to pick up a carton of milk from the corner store?

Maybe the hijackers plan to sell the shuttle, perhaps to the Chinese, who have a manned space program that Judd expects to be moon-bound within a decade. This one seems like a very long bow. The Chinese space program uses
Apollo
-style disposable rockets, a system that has little in common with the shuttle. If, for some reason, the Chinese needed a piece of specific, shuttle-related knowledge they would surely employ one of their vast server farms to hack the information online, not physically steal a spacecraft.

Three minutes into his walk to the VAB and no closer to understanding the hijackers’ motivation, he’s splashed by the headlights of the KSC SWAT team’s box-shaped van. The van pulls up and expels a dozen young guys holding serious weaponry, the sort Judd wishes he’d had access to earlier that evening. The team stalk around manfully but seem to have no idea what’s going on. They keep looking up at the sky as if
Atlantis
might be hanging there, within easy reach. The team leader quickly recognises Judd and is very excited to meet a genuine astronaut. He then notices the wound on Judd’s hip and cannot be dissuaded from radioing an ambulance to transport him to hospital.

**

At Cape Canaveral Hospital Judd spends almost half an hour being treated for his injuries - a bruised back, burned skin and a surprisingly large gash on his hip that requires seven stitches.

While he’s being treated Will Thompkins calls to check that he’s okay and to organise a debrief once Judd’s discharged. It’s a short conversation during which Thompkins sounds both stressed and preoccupied. Straight after the hijack NASA’s Administrator Charlie Cunningham placed Thompkins in charge of the
Atlantis
recovery mission. It’s a big promotion for the midget Hasselhoff. His career is set - if NASA exists after this.

It’s pushing midnight by the time Judd exits the ER to find Will Thompkins in the foyer, deep in conversation on his BlackBerry. He points Judd to an empty office nearby and takes its only chair, sits on it back to front, and continues the phone call. Judd has always thought back to front was the coolest way to sit on a chair but seeing Thompkins do it makes it feel both try-hard and irritating. He vows never to sit that way again.

A minute later Thompkins finishes the call and Judd can see the strain on his face. ‘Sorry about that. Okay, I haven’t got long. What can you can tell me?’

‘I think I know one of the hijackers.’

Thompkins flinches in surprise. ‘What? You think or you know?’

‘I think I know.’

‘Who?’

‘It’s going to sound crazy. He was a German pop star in the mid-eighties.’

‘A German pop star in his mid-eighties?’

‘No, no, in
the
mid-eighties. A band called Big Arena, sang a song called ‘Tango in Berlin’. You remember it?’

Thompkins looks at him with an I-have-no-idea-what-you’re-talking-about-because-I-only-listen-to-Michael Bublé expression on his face. ‘Not really.’

‘Tango in Berlin, oh I want to tango in Berlin, we’ll drink your daddy’s gin, I’ll kiss your sun-kissed skin, the night we tango in Berlin.’ Judd raises both eyebrows. ‘Sound familiar?’

‘Maybe. Are you sure?’

‘He could be that guy or someone who looks just like him but when I said “Tango in Berlin” he seemed kind of surprised.’

‘Is that it?’

‘There was another guy, short, fifty-ish. I thought he was French.’

Thompkins nods. ‘Yeah, we’re aware of him. But not the German. Okay. Leave it with me. A full investigation will come later, but for now the priority is to recover
Atlantis
and the astronauts safely.’

‘Of course.’

‘I want you on board. Are you up for it?’

‘Whatever you need.’ This is exactly what Judd wants to hear. He wants to be involved.

‘I need you in Central Australia.’

‘What?’ It’s not what he’d expected to hear.

‘The Northern Territory. The Australians are kick-starting one of the old dishes we used during Skylab, to give us some coverage in that part of the Southern Hemisphere.’

With MILA down, the satellites that tracked
Atlantis
had no way to relay information about the shuttle’s position. The only way to locate it was to sweep the sky with ground-based dishes and hope to pinpoint it, after which they could track it. The problem was that a ground-based dish could only cover a small segment of the sky. So NASA had asked the operators of every available dish on the planet, from Spain to India, to scan the heavens and search for
Atlantis.
They were even restarting retired dishes, like the one in Central Australia, to widen the net.

‘It’s important we have eyes and ears down there. Technicians from the Deep Space Network in Canberra will meet you on site.’

‘What about Scully-Powers? He’s Australian. Can’t he do it?’

‘He’ll be here. I’m putting together a working group to plot our next move.’

‘What about the police? I’m pretty sure they’ll want to interview me —’

‘This takes precedence. They can talk to you when you return. I’ll take care of it.’ Thompkins pulls his face into a shape that resembles a smile and stands.

They both know what just happened. The ‘night of the quarters’ has come back to bite Judd on the arse and this is his punishment, sent to the far end of the earth to do a menial task.

Thompkins moves to the door. ‘You’ll be contacted at the bottom of the hour with your itinerary. Call in once you arrive at the dish.’ Judd nods and then Thompkins is gone.

**

High above the Pacific Judd sits in economy class of a Qantas 747-400. Between the hospital and the airport he’d managed a quick trip home to pick up his passport, pack a carry-on bag and offload The Ghost and The Darkness, his elderly neighbour Kathleen reluctantly taking the cats after he woke her from what appeared to be a deep sleep.

Now he involuntarily replays the night’s events. He realises how Rick Calvin’s warning on the crew access arm had, without doubt, saved his life. Judd had never been very pleasant to Rick and he can’t help but regret that now. He pushes the thought away, swipes open his iPhone and reads his itinerary, tries to fill his mind with details of the job ahead.

After landing in Sydney he flies directly to Alice Springs in the centre of Australia, where he’ll be met at the airport and choppered to the Kinabara dish. Once on site he’ll liaise with technicians from the Deep Space Network dishes in Canberra as they restart the installation.

Liaise.
Christ. At least he’ll be doing something. Better than sitting around in Houston waiting for the other shoe to drop. If this trip Down Under, somehow, even in the smallest way, helps recover
Atlantis,
then it’s worthwhile.

He looks out the window to his left, takes in the darkness that envelops the aircraft. He’s never been a religious man, hasn’t been to church since he was boy, but tonight he silently prays Rhonda is okay.

**

15

Edgar drives the trowel into the ground, twists it hard, grabs the weed, wrenches it from its dirt home and catches his forearm on the rose’s thorns. ‘Damn bush!’

The five-man secret service security detail, positioned strategically around the sprawling garden, spring into action and sweep towards him.

Edgar sees them coming. ‘Stand down, for Chrissake! I’m just weeding.’

The security detail stop, mutter into their wrist microphones then return to their positions.

He watches them retreat. ‘Christ almighty, I’ve shot
ducks
with more brains than you people.’ He studies the jagged line of thorn pricks across his forearm then turns back to the flowerbed and wonders how in hell he ended up
here,
doing
this.
He used to be the most powerful man on the planet. The. Most. Powerful. Bar none. For eight glorious years. Now look at him, surrounded by these fools, weeding.

His wife won’t let him out of the compound. She instructed the fools that if he slips the leash again they’ll be walking point at Gitmo within the week. So they make sure he’s always within view, even if he’s on the john. She doesn’t want a repeat of last week’s ‘incident’ with the Ukrainian maid, who had to be paid off with a sizeable chunk of hush money.

His wife has restricted Edgar to home duties until she decides to forgive him. Hence the weeding. The best way to get back into her good graces, and win his freedom, is to garden. A lot. He really wants to make that conference in Jakarta later this week. Of course the fools will be there, they are
always
around, but at least he’ll be out of this prison.

He knows the fools don’t like him. They pretend to, but they don’t. Not really. Of course if he’s honest with himself, who does? That’s the downside of lying, he realises. It doesn’t matter that there’s a venerable tradition in American politics of lying to the people - eventually the lie is uncovered and everyone hates you for it. It pisses him off. Who cares if he told a couple of little white lies? It was for the country’s own good!

He thrusts the trowel into the dirt again, more venom on it this time, twists out another weed, makes sure not to snag his arm on that damn bush.

What Edgar knows but is unwilling to admit, even to himself, is that there were more than a couple of little white lies, many more, and one of them was not little. Or white. Far from it. No, it was big. And dark. Perhaps the biggest, darkest lie ever told.

**

16

The day-glo-yellow Loach screams into a high bank. Tail up, almost vertical, the little chopper hangs in the dawn sky for what seems like an eternity, tempting the laws of physics, then plunges into a steep dive. It pulls up a metre off the desert and blasts rust-red dust from the parched surface as it chases a galloping steer.

Chewing gum and grinning a crooked grin, Corey works the controls and tips his beaten-up, doorless chopper into a series of tight turns.

The Loach shushes through a twisty rock formation, close enough to strike a match, right behind the steer. Spike expertly balances on the seat, shifts his weight and props himself against the side of the cabin with a paw when necessary, his claws the reason for the seat’s scarred leather upholstery.

The steer clears the rock formation and sprints towards the open desert.

‘You’re just gonna die out there, little fella.’ The turbine whines as Corey yanks the Loach into a sharp climb, then drops it in front of the animal, a metre off the deck. The steer stops dead.

It’s a stand-off.

The steer breaks left. Corey works the controls, blocks it. ‘Tape.’ Spike rummages in the pile of rubbish within the passenger’s foot well and finds a grubby cassette tape with ‘BM’ scratched on the case. He bites down on it then slots it into the tape deck under the instrument panel. The tape deck autoplays and from the speaker attached to the fuselage blares:
‘Copa - Copacabana
—’