3 November 2000
MAV 1
Athena I
Sol 519
There are a lot of things that are annoying about wearing a space suit. Itching is a common complaint. You want to scratch something, you’re out of luck. Sneezing is also pretty bad. And if you have troubles around your cochlea, there are all sorts of fun problems you can encounter if your ears start popping.
For most of these ailments, the best thing to do is try to think about something else. Fortunately, if you’re wearing a space suit, there should already be at least one serious task to invade your thoughts.
The one problem they never covered in training was confronting Cale Fletcher now.
You really shouldn’t cry in a space suit.
Your eyes are as inaccessible as the rest of your body. You can’t wipe away tears, and blinking isn’t as effective as you’d hope for. More than a minor annoyance, if you have tears in your eyes, it makes it harder to read gauges or look out a window.
Fortunately, in his last moments on Mars, Cale Fletcher had gravity on his side, so the tears rolled off his face, rather than fogging his vision. Thin twin streaks of water streamed down his temples as he sat in the Aurora, taking his last, blurred look at the orange sky over Ares Valles. The MAV’s countdown clock marked T- 00:00:28.
With a crack in his voice, he spoke into his helmet mic, “Houston, this is the MAV. Switching to internal power now. Just wanted to say thanks for everything. We’re ready to go.”
A sound unknown in the four-billion-year history of Mars screamed across the sunset, barely stifled by the thin wisps of carbon dioxide that Mars called an atmosphere. The fury of three powerful rocket engines sent humanity’s first ambassadors on a course for the blue miracle from whence they came.
10 December 2000
Expedition 31B
HAB 1 – Sagan Observatory
85° 4' 22.1" S 0° 6' 17.1" E
Despite all the international cooperation, it was still called the hundred-foot dish, not the thirty-meter one. Sagan Observatory now sported three radio telescopes, of which this was the middle size. The junior dish, a paltry sixty-six feet in diameter, was off to the west and the big brother, a gargantuan two-hundred-footer colloquially nicknamed “God’s Ear” was still under construction to the south.
A quarter of a mile away, the three HAB modules that had been set up as living quarters stood like sentinels, protecting the precious dishes and the fragile humans that used them.
Tucked into the shadow of a mountain, to silence the screaming transmission bands of Earth, the Sagan Observatory complex had bloomed since its inauguration. With the core members of the astronomy team keeping a constant vigil on the streams of data emerging from the telescopes, it was left to the two engineers to do the grunt work that kept this facility up and running.
Commander Charles Hunter, a leading candidate for the left-hand seat on Athena III, opened the panel on the fuse box that led from the antennae complex over to the burgeoning solar farm on the other side of the mountain. He plugged in his voltmeter and relayed the numbers back to Houston. His companion, IASA astronaut Lars Geertsema dragged a small cart behind them as they made their way around to check the next connection.
They switched back to their own private radio channel for the ten-minute trudge to the next cable junction. They’d already discussed American politics, ideal condiment placement on sandwiches, and the latest Hollywood gossip. Lars felt it was a good time to bring up a subject that had weighed on his mind.
“I got a c-mail from my old classmate at Munich yesterday,” Lars said.
“Oh yeah, how’s he doing?” Charles said.
“He’s still an ass, but that’s not the point,” Lars said.
Charles gave a quick laugh and listened.
“He’s at the research station in Collaroy now. And his colleagues have put together a small nightmare,” Lars said.
“I’m all ears,” Charles said.
“It’s a proposal to change the surface operations for the IASA Mars I flight,” Lars said.
“Change to what?”
“A redesign of the IHAB to a logistics conversion setting. Then they want to retask the surface operations to the aquifer and stake a claim before Athena II arrives,” Lars said.
Charles snorted, “That’s… ambitious. They want to exploit the use-doctrine and then stake a claim to the whole site?”
“I presume so,” Lars said.
“Icewar all over again. Sheesh,” Charles said, and then kicked a small rock away from the cable routing. “I doubt it’d go over well with the legal experts.”
“There are no lawyers on Mars,” Lars said.
“And may that forever be the case,” Charles said.
“The proposal is preposterous nonsense, and no one will approve it, but it gave me an idea of my own,” Lars said.
“I feel a whole new nightmare coming on,” Charles said.
“I think there’s a better way to do this,” Lars said.
“I mean, we could have taken the sand rail, but we’re supposed to go slow and look for any problems with the cable trunking,” Charles said.
“That’s not what I mean,” Lars said.
“I’m listening,” Charles said.
“Athena II is setting itself up for disappointment,” Lars said.
“Okay,” Charles said playing along for the sake of entertainment.
“Your Orion will put the crew down at the old Athena base and then they travail to the aquifer site and run operations from the rover,” Lars said.
“I think you mean traverse, not travail,” Charles said.
“No, I mean travail,” Lars said.
Charles shrugged in his suit as he corrected a twist in the cabling.
“I’m not sure what else you could do for it. Athena Base can’t really be moved. And the water is where it is. I’m sure it’ll be no picnic for the crew, but we have to get at that water,” Charles said.
“And so, after a strained trip to reach the site, dig, extract? That’ll take at least two weeks, more likely four.”
“It’s a big challenge,” Charles said.
“And then, you have your water, do you study it there with whatever you crammed in next to the drilling gear, or do you haul it over a hundred kilometers back to base and hope nothing happens along the way?”
“That’s going to be a field decision once they figure out how much water we’re talking about,” Charles said.
“Mars being a great place for improvisation,” Lars said.
Charles cocked his head slightly and kept silent.
“The Collaroy plan is pure nationalistic drivel, designed to frustrate American interests, but the engineering has some merits,” Lars said.
“I’m listening,” Charles said.
“Retasking the IHAB into a logistics hub. A dedicated outpost for the water site. Remove anything that isn’t vital to the water assignment and refocus the structure for this single purpose.”
“You’d pack it with tools and equipment and then what you’d have is a shirtsleeve-environment for a lab, but nothing sustainable long-term,” Charles said.
“The weight requirements won’t let you do everything. IHAB was supposed to be a thirty-sol surface base for three men on a flags and footprints trip. If I could rework it, it would operate as a field house for the water study, but that’s all.”
“What would your consumables budget be?”
“Zero,” Lars said. “We might be able to put in carbon-dioxide scrubbers or whatever is deemed most vital, but to do it right, we’d need almost all of the weight budget.”
“And run operations using Clifford as a Winnebago?” Charles said.
“I don’t know what Winnebagos are, but you must, so that’s fine.”
They came to the end of the cable and Charles approached the next junction box.
“It’s a little too… something,” he said, dismissively. “And no matter what those kids in Australia think, it’d take too long to work it up. Athena II is outbound in one year.”
Lars sighed, “You are going to get there first, yet we have the means to make the trip work.”
Charles looked through the faceplates at his crewmate.
“What would you have me do?”
18 December 2000
The White House
Washington, DC
38° 53′ 52″ N 77° 02′ 11″ W
The press gaggle was starting to wind down. A week before Christmas, most of the focus was ceremonial. Everything else was the inauguration.
There was a hand raised on the left.
“Bobbie, what do you have?”
“Krista, Senator-elect O’Shea went on GNN last night and claimed that he would be the new chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee when the Senate reconvenes. He then further claimed that he would end NASA’s international partnerships with IASA and other foreign entities. Does the White House have any comment?”
Ashley LaMaster gave a small smirk as she stood behind the podium. Unlike the junior senator from South Dakota, she’d been playing this game for a while.
“I think the Senator-elect will quickly discover that, as one of one hundred, he has considerably less power than he would prefer. President Powell is fully committed to the ongoing efforts of NASA to explore the universe by any methods that NASA deems worthy, up to, and including, those involving our international allies. At the White House, we believe that matters of science and engineering are best left to the actual scientists and engineers that this government employs. As long as they feel that cooperation is the best way to go, we will stand with them.”
Krista gave a brief pause for effect before going on.
“Who’s next?”
Another hand and a nod, “Krista, is the First Family still planning to be at Camp David for the holidays?”
19 February 2001
GNN NewsNight
“Good evening and welcome to NewsNight. Live from GNN World Headquarters in Philadelphia, I’m Nick Van Pelt. Let me catch you up on the events of the day.”
“Tonight’s top story: In a narrow vote of fifty-four to forty-three with one abstention, Senator Hillary Rodham of New York was confirmed as the new Secretary of State.
“Washington was stunned three weeks ago by the announcement from President Colin Powell of his choice for the nomination.
“Then-Senator Hillary Rodham ran on the ticket with presidential nominee Bill Bradley last year. The move is seen by some as a genuine desire on the part of the president to bring an air of bipartisanship for his second term. Others view it as rank compromise, designed to target the radicals in the president’s own party.
“Secretary Rodham, viewed by many as a fiery leftist and radical feminist, will take control of a State Department that is under pressure to act as a check on emerging Chinese interests, and to define America’s influence in the Middle East.
“On the international front, talks began today in Montreal at a summit between the American and international space agencies. Hosted by the Canadian Space Agency, which has long been an economic partner of both programs, the summit is convening to discuss several matters which have risen in urgency since the successful departure of the Athena I mission from the surface of Mars.”
“Officials from NASA as well as the International Alliance for Space and Astronautics, composed primarily of European nations, as well as India and Japan, are discussing a potential augmentation of the Athena II mission which is scheduled to launch near the end of this year.
20 February 2001
John H. Chapman Space Centre
Longueuil, Quebec
45° 31′ 21″ N 73° 23′ 45″ W
As always, the Canadians were exceedingly polite.
Holding a conference of international leaders in the frigid winter of a city halfway to the North Pole at first seemed like an act of madness. But, gradually, the wisdom of the Canadians came to the fore. Montreal offers few distractions with snow on the ground and the street signs in English and French gave a pleasant sense of neutrality to the surroundings.
With climates and moods being icy, the delegations were forced, by pressure and temperature, to stay at the negotiating table. Compromise would bring relief both politically and personally.
Pierre Hidalgo longed for the tropics of French Guiana as he sat at the far end of the IASA delegation’s table. Truthfully, he didn’t know why he’d been selected for this assignment. He was an engineer. His time and energy were better spent elsewhere. If the bureaucrats needed a piece of information or an opinion about a plan, he was never far from a telephone. Being physically here was superfluous at best, and a waste of resources at worst.
He looked across the table at a bored American counterpart. He felt sympathy for the man. No doubt they were in the same situation. When the meeting broke up for lunch, he approached the wiry-haired American and sat down.
“I think we may be able to help each other,” Pierre said, “With the aid of a bit of light treason.”
The wide-eyed engineer looked up from a half-eaten turkey sandwich. He extended a hand to the Frenchman.
Pierre sat.
“Pierre Hidalgo, AISA Mars Hardware Director,” he said, by way of an introduction.
“Andre Rodman, Athena Resupply Coordinator,” the man replied.
“I thought you and I might be in similar circumstances,” Pierre said.
“How do you mean?”
“We seem to be the token engineers surrounded by bureaucrats,” Pierre said.
“There’s a scientific contingent back at our hotel, but I think you’re right,” Andre said.
“Do you favor the Geertsema proposal?” Pierre asked, looking askance at what the Canadians insisted on calling pasta.
“With some refinements, but yes. I think it’s the best way forward,” Andre said.
“Refinements to the engineering concerns, no doubt,” Pierre said.
“Yes. Now what’s this about light treason?” Andre said, looking around furtively.
“The bureaucrats have begun their dance. The Canadians were brilliant not to let this thought fester in darkness, but they made a critical error. Inviting high-level personnel has complicated this to no end. It needed to be people like you and I. Engineers pouring over blueprints and delta vectors, not politicians talking about money.”
“Are they talking about money?” Andre asked.
“Are they ever talking about anything else?” Pierre asked.
Andre blinked and cocked his head.
“So… what’s this about light treason?” Andre asked.
“Shed the veneer of secrecy. Let us be engineers and not card players. Let’s tell the truth for two minutes and see how far we get, shall we?”
Andre was still wary, “You start.”
“Tre bien. We have something you want. You have something we want. This is a simple matter of bartering, is it not?”
“It would be if we knew what your people wanted,” Andre said.
“Précisément,” Pierre said. “We have been having some difficulty with that answer ourselves.”
“It’s hard to present a bill for these kinds of services.”
“Indeed. And like so many streetwalkers we try to set prices for things which are beyond value.”
“Which things?” Andre asked.
“Pride, status, triumph. The ability to see one’s countrymen standing on another world.”
“That’s what you’re selling? I thought we were talking about an equipment module,” Andre said.
“We are not. To use our surface module would require us to scrub the Mars I mission. The centerpiece of the flight would be eliminated.”
“That was a pretty complex flight to begin with,” Andre said.
“The Tour de Mars,” Pierre said, with a bit of personal pride.
“Back in Houston, we call it the variety pack,” Andre said, with a wry grin.
“Eh?” Pierre said.
“A Phobos landing, a one-month stay on the surface, and you leave Buran behind as a poor-man’s space station. It’s like you’re trying to pack in three missions into one. Like the variety packs of kid’s cereal. You know? Fruit loops and Cocoa Puffs and… I mean, you know, right?”
“I assure you, I do not, but the flight plan is more than workable.”
Andre nodded, “But now we want your surface module. So… what’s a Mars mission worth?”
“I think the only answer to that question is: another Mars mission.”
“Finish the thought,” Andre prompted.
“We’ll never have the first man on Mars. But we can still be the first to Phobos.”
“IASA hardware, IASA crew, IASA plan,” Andre echoed.
“Yes. Orion would rendezvous with
Buran in Mars orbit…”
“Are you back to calling it
Buran? I thought you were going to change it to the
Schiaparelli,”
“Eh, we changed back last month. The Italians have had enough glory for now,” Pierre said.
“Sorry, go on,” Andre said.
“After the rendezvous, two of the three IASA astronauts…”
“Three?” Andre said.
“Fifty-fifty crew,” Pierre said.
Andre clucked his cheek. That was going to play hell with the astronaut corps.
“Two fly off in the Phobos lander. They land, perform their mission, and then return to Orion.”
“And then all six go down to the surface?” Andre said.
“Yes. A joint mission on the surface. Your rovers, our drills. All the flags…”
“And then everyone comes home together,” Andre said.
Pierre nodded.
“It’s a start,” Andre said. “You think you can get your bosses to go for that?”
Pierre gave a smirk, “Do you think you can get yours?”
22 February 2001
Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC
38° 53′ 35″ N 77° 0′ 19″ W
It had been a three-hour meeting to manage the shakeup to the Senate committee assignments. With Rodham gone and the governor of New York yet to name her replacement, there had been some chaos, which was not what you wanted in the first hundred days of a new presidential term.
“Okay, Tina, tell me where we are with this now,” Senator Gregg said, rubbing his eyes from the strain of the day.
“With Rodham out, Senator Tillinghouse wants her number two seat on Appropriations.”
Franklin Gregg turned to his colleague from Maryland, “And you’re okay with that?”
Senator Shearson nodded.
“Okay, so Tillinghouse moves to Appropriations, which leaves a seat on Finance and Senator Lebrant is moving there.”
“Which leaves an opening where?”
“Lebrant is abandoning the number two spot on Foreign Affairs.”
“And who’s getting that?”
“O’Shea, of South Dakota,” Tina said.
At the end of the table, Senator Reed put up a plaintive hand, “No. Oh, c’mon. You can’t put that moron on something important like Foreign Relations. This is what we spent January trying to avoid!”
“Would you rather have him on Judiciary?” Gregg asked.
“Hell, no!”
“We gotta give him something, Jim,” Gregg said.
“How about ethics?” Reed said, with a laugh.
“Be serious,” Gregg said.
“Who’s chairing Foreign Relations?”
“Senator Allen,” Tina said.
Reed shrugged, “Allen can keep him in check. Fine. Give O’Shea Foreign Relations. And someone send a fruit basket or something to Vince Allen’s office.”
13 May 2001
Private Residence
Dubois, WY
43° 32′ 9″N 109° 38′ 9″ W
He waited for Billy to get there. They opened the package together.
Inside was a stack of one hundred, $100 bills. They were bound in a simple rubber band. Nothing fancy.
At the bottom of the box was a map of the continental United States. It had been printed on a plain sheet of office paper. Six states in the northwest corner were circled.
Below the map was a spreadsheet containing a list of twelve addresses, locker numbers, and dates.
On the back were their final instructions.
1) Wait for the start date.
2) Randomize targets, times, and locations.
3) No more than two strikes per day.
4) Keep moving.
22 May 2001
GNN NewsNight
“Good evening and welcome to NewsNight. Live from GNN World Headquarters in Philadelphia, I’m Nick Van Pelt. Let me catch you up on the events of the day.”
“Tonight’s top story: The safe return of the Athena I crew. After a six-month return voyage from Mars, this morning the spacecraft
Orion rendezvoused with the Skydock Space Station in low Earth Orbit. The crew of Athena I will return to Earth tomorrow aboard the Clipper
Kitty Hawk.
The crew of Athena I is will be greeted at the Kennedy Space Center by Presidents Powell and McCain, the Italian Prime Minister, and assorted dignitaries from both the American and international space programs.
The spacecraft
Orion will undergo refueling and refurbishment at the Skydock station over the next few months before the launch of Athena II, which is scheduled to begin in November.
The crew of Athena I are to be guests of President Powell at the White House next week, where they will be presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. After that, they are expected to embark on a worldwide goodwill tour.
In Terra Haute, Indiana today, it was announced that convicted domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh has withdrawn his appeal. McVeigh’s execution date has been officially scheduled for the eleventh of September. Timothy McVeigh was tried and convicted in 1995 for masterminding the so-called Trinity bombings in Washington, Houston, and Oklahoma City. McVeigh’s execution will take place at the federal penitentiary in Indiana.
In Washington D.C. today, more revelations in the so-called Mesa Verde scandal. Senator Vince Allen of Nevada faced a fusillade of questions today; amidst allegations that he put pressure on officials at the Treasury Department to aid a bank in which his family had financial ties. The Senate Ethics Committee has announced a formal inquiry into these events which will begin meeting in two weeks’ time.
Major League Baseball has announced the formation of two expansion teams which will begin play next spring. The newly formed Charlotte Knights will play in the National League’s Eastern division. In the West, the Oregon Orcas will play in the American League. An expansion draft will take place this November, where the two teams will select designated players from existing teams.
We’ll be taking a short break, but when we come back, we’ll have an update on recovery efforts in Singapore and a look at some of the challenges facing commercial aviation this summer. And before we wrap up tonight, we’ll show you some footage of the new construction out at Moonbase. Be sure to stick around for that.
23 May 2001
Roberto Clemente Bridge
Pittsburgh, PA
40° 26′ 44″ N 80° 0′ 12″W
They had waited for rush hour to be done. Easier not to deal with a sunrise and the traffic had died down by ten o’clock. He wiped the crumbs from breakfast off his shirt and then checked his rifle one more time.
The low rumble from the engine had lulled him to sleep last night in the drive in from Altoona. Now he was wide awake and taking in everything around him. The engine noise, the burgundy upholstery of the back seat. The smell of oil and the cold feeling of the brass in his hand.
When his driver stopped on the side of the bridge, he slid open the passenger side door just a bit and took aim.
Coming down the sidewalk towards him was a young couple. They might have been in love. They might have been work colleagues. He didn’t care. They would do.
The man was taller, with a thick head of brown hair. He wore a polo, slacks, and a wedding ring. The polo went from a light blue to a dark red in the crack of a single shot.
The woman three feet away was too stunned to scream. She saw her companion drop like a sack of potatoes and didn’t have the awareness to understand that the danger had only just begun. In the second that it took her to realize that this was no ordinary day, he’d loaded another round. He was too far away to hear anything she might have said, (or screamed). But as he saw her open her mouth, he squeezed the trigger again.
He slid the door of the van shut, tapped the side twice and his driver pulled back into traffic. Anyone watching from the other lane would have just noticed a van pulled over for less than sixty seconds. Nothing noteworthy.
An hour later, they were headed for Ohio. The two spent casings were dumped in filling station trashcans twenty miles away from each other. This van would never pass through Pittsburgh again.
23 May 2001
Albertsons Grocery
Garland, TX
32° 54' 45" N 96° 38' 20" W
He took the plastic plug off the hole that had been cut into the back door. The aged Chrysler became noticeably hotter now that the humid Texas air was intermixing with the air-conditioned interior. He worried that the scope might fog up, but it did not.
Taking aim at the storefront, he could see customers through the tinted plexiglass façade. He debated taking the shot through the windows but decided against it. There was plenty of time.
A young mother with two little ones in tow caught his eye as she emerged from the store. He liked her blonde hair. He liked the way her sundress fluttered in the low breeze.
She pushed a shopping cart, loaded down with groceries. He had a clear line of sight, despite the long distance across the parking lot.
His homemade silencer muffled the sound. Not a quiet puff, but something that could easily be mistaken for a backfire, or a mechanical issue with the van. Ten seconds after he pulled the trigger, the plug was back over the hole.
He calmly said to his driver, “Let’s go.”
23 May 2001
Pit Stop Express
Modesto, CA
37° 38' 21" N 120° 59' 49" W
Luis Castanetto checked the battery charger and frowned. Despite all the advances that the 90’s had brought in electric vehicle technology, you still had to wait at least five minutes to get a full charge. He looked up at the solar roof of the filling station and winced.
Part of him missed the old days when he’d driven a gas guzzler and could stop and go in less time. Still, his Toyota Photon hadn’t let him down in more than seven years. Carol had been hounding him to look at one of the new Dodge Bolts, but he wasn’t ready to trade up. She hated his car and its loud, neon green coat of paint. But it was the first major purchase he’d made as an adult, and he was loathe to part company with it.
He shrugged and squeegeed his windshield. Certain things would never change. The battery indicator ticked past 83%. He looked over at the station’s central building. There was a McDonalds. He debated it but decided that he wasn’t really hungry.
Most filling stations had expanded their food offerings when electric cars began to eat into the gasoline business. The shift away from petroleum was slow, but inexorable, and owners of filling stations had decided to take advantage of the fact that charging took a little longer. If you had customers who were going to be stuck, might as well try to sell them some food while they waited.
He had to get to the bank before five, and Carol had stuck a grocery list in his pocket this morning before he left for work. She needed things for the barbeque this weekend and he wasn’t about to disappoint her.
Somewhere between pondering the ratios of hamburgers to hot dogs and how many two-liters were needed for ten neighbors, the bullet tore through Luis Castanetto’s throat.
23 May 2001
Chili’s Grill and Bar
Rome, GA
34° 15' 25'' N 85° 9' 53” W
Glenn Davidson was on top of the world.
He’d scored eighteen points tonight and grabbed five rebounds. His team, The Basket Cases, had dominated their opponents, Milo’s Minutemen. The final score of 45-38 had cemented their spot in the championship game next week. The seven of them had decided that the only thing that could improve the night was baby back ribs and a couple of margaritas. Thus, Chili’s had been their next stop.
Driving a flotilla of cars, they invaded the parking lot and waved to each other as they stepped out. Glenn spotted an elderly couple emerging from the restaurant’s front door.
“Is Cici still coming?” he asked Jason. Cici was Jason’s cousin and Glenn was feeling triumphant enough to think this might be the night to make his move.
“I called her from the car,” Jason said. He wasn’t opposed to his cousin dating a friend of his, but he was resolved to keep an eye on the situation.
A loud crack echoed through the parking lot. Glenn turned, not quite sure what was happening.
For a moment, everything froze.
“What was that?” Jason asked.
“I don’t…” Glenn said, before being cut off by a loud scream.
He turned to see the elderly woman kneeling on the ground next to, he presumed, her husband. She had a hand to her mouth and was looking down at his body on the asphalt.
“Oh God,” Glenn said, rushing over to the stricken woman and her companion.
A second crack echoed through the night.
23 May 2001
Boeing Ballpark
Seattle, WA
47° 35′ 43″ N 122° 19′ 53″W
The white van looked like nothing in particular. That was the beauty of it. Some other idiots would have tried to dress it up to make it look like plumbers, or florists, or something else. But people might remember that sort of thing. Even if you swapped out the graphic on the side from time to time, there were always tell-tale signs.
A plain white van was as anonymous as the wind, and as ubiquitous as a fountain pen. You could find this van on half the streets in America.
Billy knelt on the floorboard next to him, looking out with a pair of binoculars. He wasn’t looking for targets. He was looking for cops.
The baseball game ended about a half hour ago. They’d listened to it on the radio. The Pilots beat the Senators 7-2. People were still trickling out of the ballpark. Now, instead of a big crowd, they came in clusters of two, or three, or seven. Enough to get some notice, but not enough to be dangerous.
He had an idea that amused him. The fat security guard standing to the left of the gate was a stationary target. Amidst a flurry of motion, the mustachioed man held a constant position. To top it off, his bright fluorescent safety vest just screamed for attention.
The black cap that he wore tumbled to the pavement with a dusting of blood and viscera. The sound of the shot was lost amongst the bustle of traffic.
25 May 2001
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington, D.C.
38° 53′ 43″ N 77° 1′ 30 ″W
Derek Hayes tapped his coffee mug on the end of the formica table and called the little meeting to order. The seven special agents gathered around him began to shuffle papers, sip coffee, and end their low volume conversations.
“Okay fellas, I’m not gonna keep you for long, just give me the rundown of the week in your regions. Mike, you want to start us off with the Northeast?”
“Yeah. We are still tracing the bills from the bank robbery in Buffalo. Cincinnati field office had a hit on someone dropping a hundred at a gas station just over the Kentucky border. Steve Finch still thinks it’s that guy who came out of Monroe last winter, but that’s just a hunch at this point.”
“Okay, anything else?”
“Yeah, we had some attempted jury tampering in Newark on the Rossalto case. It’s being handled by the local office. And there was a bizarre thing in Pittsburgh the other day. A random shooting. Sniper-style.”
“Weird, but not exactly at our level. That’s a local crime.”
“It would be, except the same thing happened in Harrisburg yesterday morning. Two shots, two victims. Same caliber gun. Seems to be random. We can’t find any linkage between the victims and no witness had anything useful.”
“That’s odd,” said Nancy Forest, from the other side of the table.
“Nancy?” Derek prompted.
“We had something similar. Seattle, two days ago. A security guard hit by a sniper bullet. And then yesterday there were two more victims in Spokane. Ballistics look the same in both shootings. Field office said it looked like local crimes.”
At the end of the table, Margaret Jamison raised her hand.
“Maggie?” Derek asked.
“Huntsville and Jackson, the last two days. Random.”
Around the table, each member of his team nodded and listed off a pair of crimes.
“Okay. I think we may have something here,” Derek said.
The group began to compare notes and Derek tore a fresh sheet from his legal pad. His weekend plans were now officially shot.
28 May 2001
Horton Cinema 14
Jacksonville, FL
30° 19' 56'' N 81° 39' 20'' W
Ben Rickler swung his ’94 Ford Dynamo around the traffic circle and entered the lot. He was in a particularly good mood. His Jaguars had beaten the Oakland Blitz 31-17 on a perfect Florida afternoon. That win would undoubtedly get them into the USFL Playoffs and, if they continued their win streak, they’d likely get promoted to play with the big boys this fall.
The deal he’d made with Samantha was, in exchange for her joining him at the football game, she got to pick the evening’s entertainment. So, now they were heading to the new movie theater to take in the new Peter Jackson film.
“I still don’t understand why they had to split this into three movies,” Ben said.
“They needed to take their time. It’s a complex story and it deserves to be told right,” Samantha said as Ben searched for a space in the lot.
“It doesn’t seem
that complex,” Ben said, goading his girlfriend a bit.
“It’s one of the greatest stories of all time!” Samantha said, not for the first time in their relationship.
Ben laughed, “Just don’t say that around my mother.”
“I don’t say anything around your mother,” Samantha said, with a sardonic smirk.
“So… Childhood’s End Part II,” Ben said, spotting a space at the end of a long row.
“Aren’t you excited?” Samantha asked, “You’re finally going to get to see what the Overlords look like!”
“This had better be worth waiting the last six months,” Ben said.
“It will be,” Samantha said.
“I still don’t see how they got away with this. December, I go see the first one, and then it ends with them saying these guys won’t show themselves for fifty years,” Ben said.
“Exactly, and now Part II picks up fifty years later,” Samantha said.
“Just seems like a way to make me buy three tickets for one movie,” Ben said. He put the car in park and opened the door.
“Would you rather watch a six-hour movie in one sitting?” Samantha asked.
“God, no,” Ben said.
“By the time Part III comes out this Christmas, you’ll be begging me to go on opening night,” Samantha said.
“We’ll see,” Ben said.
“C’mon,” Samantha said.
She turned to face the façade of the theater.
“What’s with the drop cloths?” she asked, pointing to the tarps that hung over the entrance.
“I don’t know,” Ben said, walking through the lot to the box office.
There was a hefty line of people waiting for tickets. Two columns of moviegoers stretched out along the sidewalk. The scent of plastic wafted over them from stationary fans that had been set up.
“Strange, the tarps cut off the breeze, so they put out fans?” Samantha asked.
“I suppose,” Ben said. He tapped the shoulder of the man in front of them in line.
“Sir,” Ben asked, “Do you know what the reason is for…” and he trailed off, waving a hand at the tarps that cut off their view of the parking lot.
The balding man nodded, “I think they did it for those sniper attacks.”
Samantha nodded glumly, “Right, but was there something new on that?”
“Two more shot in Sarasota, this morning,” the man said.
31 May 2001
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington, D.C.
38° 53′ 43″ N 77° 1′ 30 ″W
The pins in the maps were color coordinated. Six distinct colors had been selected.
The leading theory was that five different teams were doing these murders. There were definitive clusters in Texas and California, marked respectively with blue and green pins. A line of red pins trailed from Pennsylvania to Illinois which seemed to indicate another team. A meandering trail in white scattered itself from Georgia, into Florida and out again. In purple, a rough spiral was forming through the Pacific Northwest. It had started in Seattle, but seemed to be spreading slowly out in random directions.
Even more disturbing were the light smatter of yellow pins that had begun to populate the map. They appeared in disparate areas of the country, with no clustering or pattern whatsoever. Those marked rifle shootings which may or may not even be related.
Derek stared at the map on the far wall, then looked down at his team.
“Okay, so, eleven more yesterday. That takes our total up to one-hundred-and-twelve. Let’s talk for a bit about motive and methodology. I think we need to give local police a better idea of what to look for. Nancy, you want to start us out?”
Nancy nodded and slid forward in her chair.
“Best guess is that these are teams of two. Snipers usually work with a spotter. None of these shots have required military-level accuracy, but I think we can assume that a background in hunting is likely. I’m betting that we’ll see some military records here, likely with discipline issues. Maybe a few dishonorable discharges. I don’t think we should be looking at ex-military snipers per se though.”
“Basic profile?” Derek asked.
“White males, twenty-five to early thirties. The pool of victims doesn’t necessarily imply racist motivations, but they are killing minorities at a slightly higher rate than you’d get from truly random murders. I think a history of violence, especially towards women, again, victimology. Victim pool has a considerable number of attractive white women, often killed in the company of men. That indicates a frustration. The coordination and timing means that there has to be some centralized organizing force. Someone said ‘go’.”
Nancy continued, “Logistically, you don’t need much to do this. The guns and ammo are nothing special. Survivalist types would have no trouble living out of a van for weeks at a time. Sleeping bags, gas, money for food.”
“How about a cache somewhere that we could stakeout?”
“Sure, but where?” Nancy said.
Derek shrugged, “Mike, you still on your book theory?”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “There are a lot of parallels to Ross’s book. The big thing is that the victims here are random citizens and not ATF agents.”
“Assuming you’re right, what would that tell us?”
“This is right-wing paramilitary,” Mike said.
“Take me there,” Derek said.
“This book was written by a gun nut whose fantasy was to get any gun control laws repealed by systematically killing ATF agents until the President relented because they couldn’t be stopped. It’s filled with utter dog-shit prose about the ATF and its views of women are somewhere between misogynist and medieval.”
“Right. What was your term?” Derek said.
“Loser porn,” Mike said.
“Okay, assuming that’s true, what can we do with it?” Derek asked.
“Well, the whole point was a leaderless movement can’t be stopped by taking out the leader. According to the book, that was McVeigh’s trouble. After the Trinity bombings, we cracked down on the crazies and we got most of them. I think we’re dealing with the ones that got away. They scattered, waited, and now they’re back.”
“Back for what though? We haven’t gotten demands,” Derek said.
“Well, I’m betting their demands are so ridiculous that they want to ratchet up the body count before negotiating. I think their big goal might be for Powell to go on TV and beg them to stop, or for him to resign, maybe both. Maybe the abolition of the ATF and the FBI, the Democratic Party, whoever they’re pissed at this week. Trinity didn’t start a revolution, and that drives them crazy. I think they know this is a lost cause. They can’t be expecting people to revolt against Washington anymore. They might honestly just be in this to kill as many people as possible.”
Mike continued, “I think, for these guys, it’s the final phase of their fight. The whole country has been on a political slide from right to left since the Civil Rights Movement. Look at it from a generational perspective. Over the last twenty years Republicans shifted towards the middle. The Dems shifted further left. There’s no political party remaining that represents right-wing nutjobs anymore. There’s no grassroots movement for them to ignite. All that’s left is the fringe of the fringe. And there’s only so long that you can post on hate group message boards before you decide to go do something. They always thought America was theirs. It’s dawning on them that it’s not. So they want to burn it down.”
Derek let that thought settle over the room and then looked at his impassioned subordinate, “Okay, that’s colorful, but how do we adapt that into a strategy?”
“Response teams at major gathering places. Stadiums, airports, malls,” Mike said.
“About half of these victims are at gas stations and fast-food places,” Margaret said.
“We’re going to have to be lucky,” Mike said.
“I’m not so sure,” Margaret said, chiming in.
“Speak on it, Maggie,” Derek said.
“Two thoughts come to mind. The supply cache thing is interesting. We can’t be sure they’re getting resupplied, but we could offer them something.”
“Bait?”
“We post on some of the message boards that we’re inspired, we want to help, we’re leaving… I dunno… two grand at a payphone in C. Or a can of gas, or a box of ammo. Whatever. The point is, we leave something and see if anyone takes the bait.”
“They’d see that coming a mile away,” Derek said.
“Probably, but it’s low risk,” Margaret said.
“What’s your other idea?” Derek asked.
“SuperCop,” Margaret said.
Derek raised an eyebrow, “I beg your pardon?”
“We use the media to hype our investigation. Have a central person for them to focus on. Someone they see as a rival, a foil. A SuperCop to show how serious we take this. Maybe it encourages them to make contact.”
“Or shoot the guy,” Derek said.
“At the least, we might see a change in their patterns,” Margaret said.
Derek pondered for a moment, “That’s something.”
“I’d like to volunteer,” Mike said.
“Getting a little ahead of ourselves here,” Derek said. “Let me kick it around upstairs. I like it, but I want to talk it over some more.”
The group collectively acknowledged that plan and Derek dismissed the team. He made sure to pull Mike aside after the others filed out.
“Are you getting too close to this?” Derek asked.
“I’m not. I just want to get these guys,” Mike said.
“Don’t grip it too tight,” Derek said.
“Why not?” Mike asked.
“This is how qualified agents get sidelined. You get too deep, you get ulcers, or worse,” Derek said.
“Yeah, I read Douglas’s book. That won’t happen to me,” Mike said.
“Volunteering to make yourself a target isn’t convincing me of that,” Derek said.
“It’s a good risk,” Mike said.
“Let me ask you something. Assuming we take these guys alive…” Derek said.
“We won’t,” Mike said.
“Assuming we did, what would you like to see happen?” Derek asked.
“I think arrest, trial, sentencing is still the order of the day,” Mike said.
“Just you and me,” Derek said, giving Mike some cover.
Mike thought for a moment, “They’re rabid dogs. We should act accordingly.”
“You should call in sick tomorrow,” Derek said.
“Why?”
“You need some perspective here. We’re trying to catch snipers. You’re trying to catch Satan,” Derek said.
“Ten a day. Every day so far. These guys aren’t taking a day off, and neither am I,” Mike said.
“Okay, but next time, I’m not asking,” Derek said.
14 June 2001
Johnson Space Center
Houston, TX
29° 33’ 47” N 95° 05’ 28” W
All things considered; Judy Resnik was starting to like her new office. Here at the top of the Ziggurat, she could see streams of tourists padding around the rocket garden. Beyond them, she had a decent view of the campus.
Gene Krantz had decided to call it a career after Athena I had come back home. His last act as director was welcoming back Fletcher and his crew on the runway at Kennedy. The combination celebration and retirement party was, by far, the greatest party in the history of NASA. Behind her desk, Resnik kept a photo of herself, Krantz, and the crew standing next to a forty-foot red cake made to look like the plains surrounding Athena Base.
He’d announced the decision early enough that President Powell had ample time to decide how to fill the vacancy. There had been a bit of a question whether the director should be a former astronaut or a former flight director. Irwin James had the advantage of being both, but Resnik had gotten the nod on her own merits.
“Are they cancelling the deal?” she asked.
“No, they wanted to make that clear,” Irwin said. “The work is continuing, and they expect to be ready to launch on schedule. But they want to redefine the water rights.”
“We’ve already got a deal in place. There’s ink on paper,” she said. “Serious people put on suits and signed things.”
“I’m just the messenger, Judy,” Irwin said.
“They’re doing this because they know we won’t put up a fight,” she sighed. “The plans are already moving. We can’t back out entirely without unravelling half a year of planning. It’s just this side of blackmail.”
“Yeah, but I think we should agree,” Irwin said.
“Oh, we’ve got to give them whatever they’re asking for. But I’m just saying this is low-down and dirty. It’s unprofessional and uncooperative, but more than that, it’s unprofessional.”
“You said that already,” Irwin said.
“Worth saying it twice,” Judy said.
“Come in for a landing, Judy,” Irwin said.
“Yeah, yeah. Give the Eurotrash whatever they want. Eighty percent is fine. But just for this site. Next aquifer belongs to us.”
“I think I can get them down to seventy-five percent,” Irwin said.
“Give it your best shot,” Judy said, slumping back into her desk chair.
Irwin looked over from the couch by the window, “I’m sorry about this,” he said.
She waved her hand dismissively “Eh, it’s fine. I made you Deputy Director for a reason. Nothing you can do about people going back on their word.”
“You think we’ll catch hell for it?” Irwin asked.
“Over a hole on Mars and an underground aquifer that may or may not have any serious amount of water? Hell, no,” Judy said.
17 June 2001
El Perro Fumando
Las Cruces, NM
32° 18′ 52″ N 106° 46′ 44″ W
“This is Reed. I’m first on the scene. There’s a crowd. Requesting backup units.”
“Roger, Deputy. Backup is being routed to you. Use caution.”
Deputy Lambert Reed emerged from his patrol unit and looked around. It was a bad night for David to call in sick, but what could you do? He shut the door to his brown Crown Victoria and began to push through the gathered crowd.
After the onlookers scattered like a multi-colored Red Sea, he got a sense of the situation.
He was looking at the remnants of a good old-fashioned bar fight. The parking lot of El Perro Fumando had seen several in its more than twenty years of operations. What made this one unusual was the nature of the 911 call that had alerted the local authorities.
Two drunken idiots fighting was fairly standard for a Saturday night. That one was laid out on the pavement wasn’t all that noteworthy. The victor, a burly man in his mid-thirties, stood victorious, and a little drunk, towering over a scrawny loser. The champ had ten inches and fifty pounds on his victim, and he’d used both well, by the looks of the man on the ground.
The champ now stood with one foot on the ground and the other on his opponent’s chest. It was a gesture of ego, not prudence. The man wasn’t getting up for a while. He’d been knocked out cold. The champ was gesticulating wildly and yelling. It took a moment for Lambert to realize that he was yelling about the van.
“Sir? Sir? You want to take your foot off that man for me?” Lambert said to the champ.
Behind this little tableau of victor and vanquished, a white van was parked with its rear doors open. The interior was dimly lit, but inside, the deputy could see a chair bolted to the floor, facing the rear. That was odd. By the chair were several boxes of ammunition. That was suspicious.
As he got the attention of the larger man, he began to gather the details of the incident. Luckily, he was able to avoid the haze of beer breath by the account of a relatively sober bystander.
“Officer, this guy,” the sober man gestured to the laid-out twenty-something on the pavement, “was inside and talking a little crazy. He said something that didn’t sit well with Big Jack and they took it outside. Big Jack had him reeling and he went to open the van. Big Jack took him down, we saw what was inside. That’s when we called you.”
“I bagged a terr-rist,” Big Jack drunkenly said, delivering a kick to the fallen man’s ribs.
Lambert Reed quickly pulled Jack off of his victim and ordered everyone back.
“Stand away, sir,” Lambert said. He moved the man aside and keyed his radio. “Dispatch, this is Reed, at the scene. I need backup and forensics. Possible hit on a murder suspect. Repeat, possible on a murder suspect.”
He didn’t wait to listen to an acknowledgement.
“Okay, anybody who doesn’t want to get arrested, go back inside, right now!” he yelled to the crowd. Big Jack turned to go. Lambert put a hand on his arm, “Not you.” He gestured for his sober witness to come back over.
“You know this guy?” he said, already knowing the answer.
“Yeah, Big Jack is my foreman,” the witness said. “Is that guy really a terrorist?” he asked, indicating the man on the ground.
“Who the hell knows?” Lambert said. He leaned over the fallen man and gave a few pats to his cheek, trying to bring him around. While the man started to stir, he looked for signs of a weapon and found none.
“What’s gonna happen now?” his witness asked.
Groggily, the fight’s loser began to come around.
Lambert turned to his witness and pointed to the open van, “I’m not sure what this is. Until I am, nobody’s going anywhere.”
The young witness’s eyes went wide, “You really think…”
He was cut off by a groan from the suspect. Lambert helped the man to sit up, leaning him against a black Honda parked by the van.
“What…”
Before the suspect could utter a second word, his forehead exploded in a puff of red mist. Lambert was stunned for only a second, then his training kicked in.
“What the…?” his witness said.
Lambert turned and shoved a shoulder into his witness, tackling him behind a Corolla. He keyed his radio again, “Dispatch! Shots fired. I think they came from the Shop-N-Go. All units converge. It’s the snipers!”
21 June 2001
GNN Newsnight
Tamara O’Neil looked grim as the studio lights came up around her. Over her shoulder, the map of the United States lit up and new flecks of red adorned areas in Tennessee, Wyoming, and Alabama.
“Good evening. Six new deaths reported today spread over three states. Victims of the so-called Black Summer Shootings. The total number of citizens killed as a result of the Black Summer Attacks has now risen to two-hundred-and-fourteen, with another seventy-three wounded.
Local, state and FBI officials are still searching for known associates of Joshua Carrington and Wade Pringle, who were believed to be the snipers for the Texas cell. Carrington was killed over the weekend by his partner, Pringle. Shortly after shooting Carrington, Pringle himself was killed in a firefight with police officers outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico. FBI officials are continuing the hunt for the remaining cells.
Across Texas and the Sun Belt, citizens are beginning to feel some relief. The pattern of shootings, typically eight per day, has taken a toll on businesses and law enforcement across the country. The neutralization of the Texas cell and the leads generated from it will hopefully lead to the apprehension of the remaining cells which are believed to still be operating in the Northwest, Midwest, Southern Virginia, and California.
Later in this broadcast, we’ll take you to Rolla, Missouri, where we have interviewed some family members of Wade Pringle. And we’ll also speak with men who served with Carrington during his brief stint in the United States Coast Guard.
In other news, Senator Vince Allen, amidst accusations of corruption and undue influence, has announced his resignation from the Senate today. Allen, a moderate conservative from Nevada, was a three-term Senator. The allegations that he improperly assisted ventures of the Mesa Verde Bank and Trust have led to investigations in the Senate and the Justice Department. Nevada’s Governor Reed is expected to name a successor to the office sometime next week.
30 June 2001
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington, D.C.
38° 53′ 43″ N 77° 1′ 30 ″W
Derek looked over the whiteboard for the three-hundred-and-twelfth time.
“So, New Mexico made them change tactics, right?”
“Yeah, had to.”
“So, you’re two guys travelling in a van or a truck or something. You need to change your configuration. You can’t bring on another guy and you can’t go your ways.”
“Or can you?” Maggie asked.
“Snipers work better in pairs. And we know they aren’t splitting because we aren’t seeing an increase in locations.”
“So, instead of two guys in a van, you buy an old beat-up car or something. Something innocuous. Something inconspicuous…”
“Something cheap,” Maggie said.
“Something very cheap,” Derek echoed. You tell one guy to keep the van, the other follows in the beater. You still drive around, maybe start staying in different spots. Meet up at prearranged times, locations…”
“We need to trace used car sales in the west.”
“They’d go classifieds. Avoid paperwork. Look at classifieds for used car ads in the cities that have been hit in the last week. SuperCop isn’t working and the supply drops got bupkis. Every motel in the country has been looking for two guys travelling together.”
“It’s playing hell with business trips,” Mike said. “My brother’s firm has started sending a secretary out on every client visit to another city, just to avoid suspicion.”
“Wonder how the wives feel about that,” Derek mused.
“Our snipers aren’t staying in motels anymore,” Maggie said. “That ended in the first week or so.”
“Campgrounds?” Derek asked.
“Safer than sleeping on the side of the road,” Maggie said. “But you can just as easily pull into a twenty-four-hour pharmacy and sack out without drawing much attention.”
Derek nodded, “Anyone else pissed that these guys probably get a good night’s sleep, and we don’t?”
A wry laugh passed through the overtired task force.
“Can I kick it around one more time, please?” Mike asked.
“I really wish you wouldn’t.”
“We found an eight-page list of demands on Pringle’s body. You really think it’s not worth sharing with the public?” Mike said.
“It’s a laundry list of grievances. And half of them are so specific to Pringle that I don’t think it’d be relevant to any of the other teams. Or the Big Boss. Whoever that is.”
Mike read off the list, “Repealing all gun control laws, releasing McVeigh, release of all classified documents pertaining to the Kennedy family, that’s a fun one.”
“A national abortion ban,” Maggie chimed in, “These guys think that, if you shoot enough people, you can be the Supreme Court.”
“It’s amazing they aren’t trying to reinstate the three-fifths compromise.”
“That was probably on page nine,” Derek said.
“Right after ending birthright citizenship,” Mike said.
Derek sighed and rubbed his forehead, “Look, if I admit that you were right about the Ross book, will you let this one out of your teeth?”
“With Unabomber, we got him by showing the public how crazy he was and someone recognized the brand of crazy.”
“Unabomber was one guy,” Maggie said.
“I’m just saying…” Mike said.
“We know who wrote that bullshit manifest, Mike. The guy whose corpse we found it on.” Derek said.
“That’s an assumption!” Mike said.
“Not much of one,” Derek said.
“You tell the public to be on the lookout for anyone who believes this same crap and you’re going to get fifty-thousand tips about racist uncles.”
“I’m very okay with that outcome,” Mike said.
A phone rang before Derek could respond. Maggie picked it up first. She listened for a moment and then started scribbling on a legal pad.
She mouthed to the rest of the room, “Rapid City.”
Derek sighed and turned back to Mike, “Keep your eye on the ball. And get me the damned classifieds for Rapid City.”
Derek turned back to the whiteboard, “They’re running out of time.”
13 July 2001
The White House
Washington, DC
38° 53′ 52″ N 77° 02′ 11″ W
“Good evening, my fellow citizens. This government, as promised, has brought an end to the reign of terror begun by those among us who would use violence as a tool against their neighbors. The men of the so-called Black Summer attacks were determined, like those who had come before, to change the soul of America by targeting innocent civilians, in the hope that they could break American resolve with bullets and blood.
Yesterday evening, the last of the sniper cells was stopped after a brief confrontation with police outside of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The terrorists chose to end their own lives in cowardice, rather than face the unflinching power of American justice.
The vigilant and unwavering pursuit by law enforcement at every level serves as a shining example of America’s dedication to freedom and security.
I know the terrible losses that we have faced as a nation over the past two months have left deep scars on all of us as citizens. But we can and must take strength in each other. Over the bonds that make us one nation. We will continue to reach for truth and justice and we will reject those who would impose their will through mayhem.
16 July 2001
Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC
38° 53′ 35″ N 77° 0′ 19″ W
“Well, Bob, you finally got the gavel. Now what are you going to do with it?”
That was the question from Senator Lebrant. With Allen gone, Robert O’Shea now commanded the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. He considered his priorities.
Like any first-term Senator, his goal was to get a second term. But that was a ways off.
He had spent his first six months in Washington confounded by the weak-willed moderates in his own party. The milquetoast fatcats lacked the stomach for true partisan fighting. They were content to collect big checks from donors and not make waves. With enough campaign contributions, you didn’t need to actually do any work to get reelected.
O’Shea wasn’t a good fundraiser, but he had a loud voice and his microphone had suddenly gotten much bigger.
He listened to his staffers rattling off various headlines from the major papers and searched, in vain, for an issue that he could use to create some havoc. Havoc meant headlines. Headlines meant attention. Attention meant money. Money meant votes.
“Scott, anything in the
Reflector?”
“Uh, I did have one. Hang on,” O’Shea looked on, amused, as his junior staffer flipped through newsprint and post-it notes. The kid would never be good in front of a camera, but he was a dynamite researcher.
“What have you got, Scott?” O’Shea asked.
“They did a renegotiation of the Athena agreement. IASA and NASA announced that they had redesignated some of the resources in light of changes to the mission specs.”
“What?” O’Shea asked, totally confounded.
“The co-op agreement between NASA and IASA, about the Athena II mission. That’s the thing where NASA is using the international hardware in exchange for a fifty-fifty split of the water that’s found at the aquifer,” Scott said.
“They changed the agreement?” O’Shea asked.
“Yeah. There’s a change. Now the Euros get a claim on eighty percent of the water. Something about the extra costs assumed because their mission module is having to be rushed.”
“So, we’re paying them, we’re taking their astronauts, we’re giving them everything they wanted, and now they want more?”
“Looks like,” Scott said.
“Oh, ho, ho! Scotty, my boy, this is it! This is the wedge! We can hang Resnik and tie her to the President and run rampant talking about how they’re selling out America’s future on Mars to a bunch of international twerps. Hard earned American tax dollars paying for Mars water that we give to the French.”
“It’s got potential,” said Sherry, O’Shea’s communications director.
“Oh, it’s got all kinds of potential. We could have protests like the damned Boston Tea Party. Empty water bottles piled up in front of Johnson Space Center. Screaming in the streets about risking brave Americans to make alien Perrier. It’s perfect!”
28 July 2001
Polignano a Mare
Apulia, Italy
40° 59′ 46″ N 17° 13′ 13″ E
The light of sunset faded quickly. The beach faced East, out over the Adriatic. The arrayed spectrum of golden hues was lost over the town. The next light that would bathe the sands was that of dawn, which was in no great hurry to arrive.
Sergio had watched Cale make a fire with some interest. The tourists that flocked to this place enjoyed cafes, museums, and, of course, the shoreline, but they would likely not anticipate the first man on Mars to be seen, half-drunk, and struggling with a book of matches.
Sally found the whole thing rather amusing but seemed too tired to truly enjoy the comedy. They were now halfway through a global tour that would add one more orbit of the Earth to their long resumes. This time, they’d circle the globe at a more pedestrian altitude. There seemed to be no end to the queue of prime ministers, presidents, mayors, and magistrates who all wanted a photo with the only four people to walk on three worlds.
When their tour had inevitably brought them back to Sergio’s homeland, he’d insisted on a long weekend at the coastal town that he’d grown to love in his younger days. The public relations office had quietly carved out the needed time, pushing a photo-op in Cairo back a few days. It was a small price to pay to avoid a mutiny, or worse, an astronaut with bloodshot eyes.
Cale had taken quite a liking to the Adriatic. He’d spent the afternoon practicing his Italian with charmed shopkeepers and young boys playing by the fountains. Sally had joined them for this late-night excursion to the cliffs. They each lamented that Cynthia had flown back to Texas to spend time with her family. Cale pitied her, Sally envied her.
“Oh, here he goes again,” Sergio said to Sally, watching Cale down the last of the bottle of red that he’d brought along. Sergio had been with him when he purchased the wine this afternoon. He thought this might be the only drink that Cale Fletcher had paid for in this millennium.
For all his charms, Cale could sometimes get quite philosophical and sentimental when he’d had one too many. A state not unlike melancholy sometimes accompanied his intoxication. Such was not the case tonight. The Mediterranean was a wonderful place for revelry.
In the searing firelight, the first man on Mars looked out over the seas that had once tormented his favorite hero of old. He smiled at the stars that called to his soul and pondered the infinite and his place within it.
Sally turned from Sergio as Cale let out a grand laugh and shouted to the wind.
“Do you see, you gods of sea and sky? I got to Mars! I, Cale Fletcher! A mortal man, of flesh, and blood, and bone, and mind!”
Sally laughed, “Hey, come on down from there, Odysseus. You slip and fall, and they’ll have our asses.”
Sergio playfully smacked Cale on the arm as he sat back down by the fire, “Don’t you remember how that story goes? He has a very bad time of it after he says that. Poseidon makes an example of him.”
“I know, that’s why I waited ‘til I was back on Earth to say it,” Cale said, frowning at the empty wine bottle.
“You think this is Ithaca?” Sally said.
“I think I’m not leaving,” Cale said.
“Very true. Get used to this gravity, boys. You’ll have it the rest of your life,” she said, toasting alone to their implied grounded status.
“I thought you’d try to go back up,” Sergio said, addressing Cale.
“I thought he was too busy trying to bang Uma Thurman,” Sally said, with a smirk.
“I did not try to sleep with Uma Thurman!” Cale said, with a certain degree of sincerity.
“Wasn’t there a lunch date when we went to New York?” Sergio said.
“It was coffee, and it was with Selma Hayek, thank you very much,” Cale said.
“Thank
you very much,” Sally said, laughing. “Did you at least get her number?”
“Told her I’d call her when we got back from the tour,” Cale said.
“Nice,” Sally said, reclining in the grass and downing the last of her glass.
“Pete Conrad wants me to come fly for him,” Cale said.
“That’d be fun. You can go from the greatest adventure in the history of the world to a taxi driver, taking rich idiots to low Earth orbit,” Sally said.
“Mopping up million-dollar vomit,” Cale said, grimacing.
“That’s no fun,” Sergio said.
“I told Conrad I’d think about it. It might not be Mars, but it’s still got wings,” Cale said.
“I figured you’d go back to Clemson and teach,” Sally said.
Cale shrugged, “They made an offer too. I asked if they’d let me coach the football team.” Fletcher laughed at the thought.
“I’m a little surprised they didn’t say yes,” Sally said.
“What about you, Sally May?” Cale asked.
“San Diego, Tam, and a house with no front windows,” Sally said, nodding idly.
“Serge? What’s next for you?”
Sergio pondered his bottle, “A few lectures and then IASA says they’ll let me have my pick of assignments.”
“Cale,” Sally said, sitting up, looking at her best friend with serious eyes, “What
are you going to do when we get back home?”
Fletcher sighed and looked out at the night, not able to see the line between water and sky.
“Doesn’t matter. What could possibly live up to the hype?”
3 August 2001
Guiana Space Center
Kourou, French Guiana
5° 13′ 20″ N 52° 46′ 25″ W
The tropical depression had complicated things a bit. You could look out on the northern horizon and see ominous clouds blotting out the pre-dawn twilight. If the storm had swung south, the schedule would have gotten more than dicey.
Standing on the mainland shore, Pierre Hidalgo silently thanked the weather gods as his creation brought an early dawn to the sleepy tropical island.
After a decade of research, engineering, negotiation, and compromise, he was finally sending a ship to Mars. He watched the ship that had once been called
Buran pierce the sky with a column of flame.
It had cost him so much. A marriage, a mistress, any chance at offspring of his own, but this was his ship, his mission. And though the form of both had altered severely from his first dreams, Pierre found a beauty in this moment that made his heart both ache and soar.
Stripped of her wings and denied the glory of a crew, she was flung into the heavens on the back of her oldest friend, the Energia. The mighty Soviet snowstorm was now a tool of those who saw communism as nothing more than an ill-conceived folly.
She would achieve mighty things, hidden from the eyes of men. In her titanium womb she carried two ships that would stretch the reach of her new masters. One a trailblazing spacecraft that would touch a virgin world and carry men to study its secrets. The other, a lumbering beast of burden that would draw water from a wellspring that had known only silence and dust for eons.
After she had watched her children depart, she would retire and gaze upon a rusted world that had taunted men for as long as there had been men. And in her rest, she would still be of service.
Skirting a tempest, the blizzard rose to meet her long-denied fate. As she passed, for the final time, through blue skies, she eagerly sank into the infinite black and sought out the red world of war, over which she would find peace.
22 August 2001
Johnson Space Center
Houston, TX
29° 33’ 47” N 95° 05’ 28” W
“Is this a joke? I gotta say, if it’s a joke, it’s both funny and well-executed. I mean, the paperwork, the news reports. Is that an embossed seal on that folder?” Resnik asked.
“It’s not a joke, Judy,” Irwin James said.
“I really think it is,” Judy said.
“You can’t treat this like it’s funny,” Irwin said.
“Oh, give me another way to treat it,” Judy said.
“This isn’t gonna play well on GNN,” Irwin said.
“Oh please. They’re impeaching me!?! I didn’t even know you could impeach a NASA director! I serve at the pleasure of the president. If I blow it, doesn’t
he get to fire me?”
“You’re still a federal official and when they put the impeachment clause in the Constitution, NASA wasn’t a thing,” Irwin said.
“So, I’ve been grandfathered in?” Judy asked.
“Kinda. It’s hard to say exactly,” Irwin said.
“They’re seriously impeaching me because I made a deal with IASA?”
“Okay, let me stop you right there. They haven’t impeached you. They are investigating
whether to impeach you. It’s a joint investigation committee. To be impeached requires a majority vote of the entire House of Representatives…” Irwin said.
“Which they won’t win,” Judy said.
“Of course not. There aren’t 218 crazy congressmen. There’s probably thirty true nutjobs.”
“Then why bother?” Judy said.
“So they can haul you up on TV and say bad things about NASA. You’re not important to them, you’re just convenient.”
“A stick to poke Powell with?” Judy asked.
Irwin nodded, “They get to rake one of his people over the coals, after the Black Summer crap, and smear a Democrat before they get into next year’s election cycle. And in the meantime, they get practice for when they want to go after Rodham next spring.”
“So I’m the warm-up bag?” Judy asked.
“Stick, bag, let’s stick to one metaphor here, shall we?”
“What happens now?”
“They’ve appointed an investigation committee. They don’t usually do this, but it’s a joint committee. Senate and House. Technically that’s allowed, but it’s unusual. The House has to vote, but the committee has got a couple of Senators on it.”
“O’Shea,” Judy said.
“He set this whole thing up. It’s his baby. He’s been the one tossing bottles of water at the Air and Space Museum all month,” Irwin said.
“How’d he arrange all this?”
“Does it matter?”
“Humor me,” Judy said.
“He called in favors from his old House buddies. He spent ten years there. That’s a lot of favors.”
“All this for little old me?” Judy said, rolling her eyes, “Has he even seen this office?”
“It’s the first phase of his own little legislative war. None of Powell’s priorities can move if Congress is too busy investigating anyone he’s appointed.”
“So, how do we deal with this?” Judy asked.
“Well, the good thing is, you haven’t actually done anything wrong,” Irwin said.
“Thanks. I knew that already,” Judy said.
“They’re going to say this was an error in judgement,” Irwin said.
“Which is crap,” Judy said.
“They’ll just keep saying it so the networks use it for B-roll,” Irwin said.
“So what do we say?” Judy asked.
“We hit ‘em with a two-by-four,” Irwin said.
“Please tell me that’s a literal thing and not another metaphor,” Judy said.
“Almost…” Irwin said, with a smile.
11 September 2001
U.S. Capitol
Washington, DC
38° 53′ 23″ N 77° 0′ 32″ W
Cale Fletcher had been fully briefed.
He’d be called upon by one of the President’s allies on the committee. They certainly couldn’t claim that he wasn’t a relevant witness, but he’d been told that there might be a few bits of political cross-speak before they got around to swearing him in.
That was fortuitous. It gave the news channels time to get the chyrons just perfect.
For a Tuesday morning, this was a chance for some good ratings. An American hero, called to testify in the Capitol. Sworn testimony about our future in space. Plenty of people were tuning in at homes and offices around the country.
On the way in he gave a wave to Ryan West, who was covering the story for GNN. West, an old space-hound from the eighties, had been GNN’s go-to newsman for anything having to do with NASA.
They had a moment to speak, away from the cameras, before Fletcher went in.
“Commander, so good to see you again,” West said, offering a hand.
Fletcher shook it and clapped the newsman on the shoulder, “Ryan, glad to see you. I suspect this will take all day, but I’ll make sure to call on you at the gaggle after.”
“Much appreciated. Do you think we could set something up this evening for you to talk to Keith by remote?”
“I’m fine with that but ask the press office folks. I’m sure they’ll love it but I want them to say it first.”
“No problem at all. Good luck in there today,” West said. He pulled Fletcher close enough that they couldn’t be overheard, “O’Shea’s a clown. Go take his lunch money.”
Cale winked and smiled, “Oh, I’m just gonna talk a little bit. It’s what I do best.”
At half-past nine, they called him in. The room hushed as Fletcher made his way down the long aisle. A pair of attorneys flanked him as he took his seat. He cut a striking figure in a three-button suit and wingtips. The NASA pin on his label was a nice touch.
Senator Harrison, a Democrat from Hawaii, led the questioning with a few softball inquiries about the Athena mission and his shared history with Director Resnik. Fletcher flashed his trademark grin, and his South Carolina drawl lent folksy charm to his answers. Of the major networks, only CBS chose to air that portion of the hearing. The rest were using the time to comment on the likely questions from Senator O’Shea.
If there was a way to strut while sitting down, O’Shea seemed to find it as the cameras angled in his direction.
“Commander Fletcher, hello and welcome. I question the wisdom of your testimony on this matter. Despite your success and your obvious popularity, you are an astronaut, not a mission planner or an administrator, is that not correct?”
“Senator, as best I can tell, this hearing has been convened because you disagree with Judy Resnik about NASA’s direction in establishing a base on Mars. Now, I’ve led construction projects at four different bases on three different worlds. If you’d like to see proof of my handiwork, I’d be happy to give you a tour of the Mars Mission Research Lab out in the Nevada desert. Or perhaps you’d prefer to see the interior of Dome One at Moonbase? If not that, then I can show you around the Sagan Observatory. I don’t wish to appear haughty, but I don’t think there would be much risk of perjury to say that I’m something of an expert on how to establish a foothold on another planet.”
In the back of the room, Ryan West whispered one thought into the line to his field producer.
“Game on.”
11 September 2001
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
Air Traffic Control
38° 51′ 8″ N 77° 2′ 16″ W
“American 587, you’re deviating from course. Please correct, over.”
Five seconds went by. The green dot with its associated designations continued moving over an incorrect course on the black circular screen. The white line swept over the glass and the dot continued its slow turn.
“American 587, you are off-course and executing an unscheduled turn. Please return to your base course immediately, over.”
Two seconds of silence went by.
“American 587, do you copy?”
Nothing.
Kenneth Thompson pulled his microphone down a bit, turned, and looked for his supervisor.
“Larry, I’ve got a problem here.”
Larry took three steps over to his station, “What’s the trouble?”
“American 587 is off course and not responding to hails. I’m getting nothing from her on the radio.”
Larry peered over his shoulder to look at the screen, “When did this start?”
“About thirty seconds ago,” Kenneth said.
“No response on the radio?”
“Nada,” Kenneth said.
“Anything weird beforehand?”
Kenneth shook his head. He then took a beat to direct Delta 232 to a new heading to put her on the way to Chicago.
Larry bit his lip and frowned, “Where’s her turn taking her?”
“She’s passing through triple-zero, about to start coming East. It’s like she’s heading back here. Could there be an onboard issue? Something mechanical and she’s trying to return?”
“Maybe. Likely, actually. It would explain a few things,” Larry said.
“Declare an emergency?” Kenneth asked.
“I…” he hesitated. Then hated himself for hesitating. That was a bad trait in this line of work, “What’s their transponder designation?”
“It’s…” Kenneth checked his screen again. “It’s changing!” he said, surprised to see the numbers altering as he watched.
“What did it land on?”
“7500,” Kenneth said.
Larry’s blood ran cold. It took Kenneth a beat. He’d never seen that setting before.
“Distress- hijacking,” Kenneth said.
“Keep an eye on her. I need to make a call,” Larry said, moving to step away. He called out, “Declare an emergency. Get everything away from her.”
Kenneth started to direct the planes on his screen to new headings, giving American 587 a wide berth in the sky.
After 587 was clear from other traffic, he pulled up her transponder designator again.
It had changed.
“Larry,” he said, in a tone as loud as his training would allow, “She’s reading 7600 now!”
Radio failure. That was the transponder reading to let everyone know you weren’t receiving anymore.
Larry saw the number settle and winced. It was one thing to get bad news. It was another to get conflicting news. Radio failure would indicate a problem and likely a return to Reagan, but without verifying with the pilots on board, he had to assume that the hijacking was still a valid call.
11 September 2001
U.S. Capitol
Washington, DC
38° 53′ 23″ N 77° 0′ 32″ W
“Commander Fletcher, when your Athena I crew located the underground aquifer, who decided that the best course was to take no further action?”
“That question’s premise isn’t entirely accurate, Senator. We took many further actions. The location itself was marked and one of our rovers is there, at this very moment, studying the local area. Furthermore, we sent our findings to Houston for analysis and Cyn and Serge took four more sweeps of the area with ground-penetrating radar before they returned to Athena Base.”
“Commander, I think you take my meaning. Why was there no effort made to extract the water before you returned to Earth?”
Fletcher’s trademark smirk returned, “Where would you have had me put it, Senator? NASA built us a good rover, but it wouldn’t work so well if I flooded the cabin with three feet of Mars water.”
Cale paused to let the laughter from the gallery die down.
“Leaving that aside, the greater problem is one of tools and resources. If I told you, Senator, that, three hundred feet below your microphone, there was a two-ton gold nugget, would you go after it right now with the contents of your briefcase, or would you retreat and see about getting a better tool to do the job?”
“Athena I was, primarily, a scouting mission. Our job wasn’t to conquer Mars, but to explore it. We were there to establish a foothold, a place where further exploration could extend from. The Athena crews that will follow will have a ready-made base from which they’ll be able to work and live and, hopefully, that will allow them to discover far greater wonders than this aquifer.”
O’Shea tried a different thrust, “Could the return of Athena I not have been delayed for a few days or weeks to allow you and your crew time to further explore the area?”
Fletcher gave an amused smile which the cameras noted well, “Very simply: no.”
“No?”
“To properly explain that answer Senator, I’m afraid I’d have to give you a rudimentary understanding of orbital mechanics as pertains to Hohmann transfers. I have no wish to burden your record or your colleagues with a lecture on that subject. It took me weeks to fully grasp the concept back in Clemson. I understand they even teach such matters at that Godawful school in Raleigh. The one with the wolves and the placekicker who never seems to miss.”
“You’re grandstanding, Commander,” the Senator admonished.
“One of my many faults,” Fletcher responded, spreading his hands wide.
11 September 2001
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
Air Traffic Control
38° 51′ 8″ N 77° 2′ 16″ W
“Where is she?”
“She’s stopped her turn.”
“Where?”
“Her course is…”
“Where?!” Larry said.
“She crossed back into Maryland two minutes ago,” Kenneth said.
Larry went back to the phone on the wall, “Her transponder code changed, but we still need to assume…”
A pause on the line, then Larry continued, “Seventy-six hundred would not indicate a hijacking, no. But seventy-five…”
“Larry…” Kenneth said.
Larry waved him off, “I’m on with the FBI,” he said.
“You need to see this…”
Larry dropped the phone and moved back to Kenneth’s screen. The young controller’s finger was pointing to the radar indicator for American 587. It had increased speed and decreased altitude.
Larry tried to process the numbers as fast as he could.
“No response?”
“Nothing,” Kenneth said.
They watched for a moment. The transponder code began to shift again. The number stopped as the two men stared, wide-eyed, at the screen.
“Larry… it’s 7700,” Kenneth said.
“Seventy-seven… flying to heaven. Oh, God.”
11 September 2001
U.S. Capitol
Washington, DC
38° 53′ 23″ N 77° 0′ 32″ W
Fletcher was in his element. You could see it in the look on his face. He bowled right over O’Shea’s attempts to cut him off.
“If you put me back on Ares Vallis right now, with all the right equipment and a good pack of solar cells, I could, with some difficulty, pull that water out of the ground. Assuming there’s enough of it there in the first place, I could fill a tank with it.”
“What you would then have, Senator, is a tank of very sandy water. Water that would be very expensive and precious, to be sure. But certainly less fit to drink than the bottle that your committee has been good enough to provide for me today.”
“To be safe for consumption, that water would have to be filtered and likely boiled, but to do so would be a horrible crime as, first and foremost, it would need to be studied to make sure there were no lifeforms within. Bacteria, as any kid in an eighth-grade science class will tell you, thrive in ground water and I can think of no more horrifying legacy for our years of exploration than to say that the first time we found extraterrestrial life, we boiled it to get a better pot of coffee.”
O’Shea took the beat to try a different line of attack, “Commander Fletcher, would you agree that, potable or not, a tank of water would be a valuable asset for whatever colonist possessed it?”
“Senator, no one could compel me to say that you can’t use a tank of water to build a colony on another world. You can use a shovel to build a colony on another world. In fact, you do. You can use a pack of sausage biscuits to build a colony on another world. In fact, you do. But to put this in some perspective, pound for pound, I’d much rather have a backhoe, or a smelter, or big box of potting soil and some tomato seeds.”
“Indeed, while Mars itself already has half the ingredients of water readily available, I was, in all my travels there, never able to find any trace of a tomato plant or a good sausage biscuit outside the confines of Athena Base.”
“My own read on the situation is that, in terms of colonization, this water is far less important than a nuclear reactor and far more important than, say, vitamins.”
Fletcher let the laughter of the crowd wash over O’Shea like a rolling wave.
11 September 2001
American Airlines 587
Altitude: 8,000 ft
39° 5′ 1″ N 77° 8′ 54″ W
“We’re returning to the airport. Everyone stay calm please,” he said.
The few passengers who weren’t terrified at the sight of blood in the first-class cabin were mollified by the idea that this was a hijacking. They’d heard of such things in other countries. Hostages were exchanged for fuel, or money, or some other demand. The fact that the hijackers were white was something of a novelty, but the knives and threats kept everyone in their seats.
The months of sniping had instilled plenty of terror but hadn’t changed anything of significance. The revolution was stubbornly inert. McVeigh hadn’t started it with the Trinity bombs, perhaps it was foolish to think that more could have been done with a few bullets spread out over seven states.
What was about to happen would be too difficult to ignore.
The view ahead was utterly familiar to him. He’d seen it from his Cessna. He’d poured over maps and photographs. He’d studied every nuance of the heart of darkness he would now stab.
The lazy turn over the Potomac brought him into alignment. Ahead, he could see the new bridge they’d put up after McVeigh’s crew had brought the other to ruin.
“Nothing can stop us now,” he said, more to himself than to his four armed brethren back in the main cabin.
As he passed over the obelisk, he put the plane into a dive. It’s final descent. His nose perfectly aligned with the dome. Atop its rounded peak, there was a statue in honor of Freedom. He sneered at the thought of its placement.
America would be set free. Today.
The wide wingtips of the 757 cut cleanly through the columns. The fireball consumed the ancient marble.
