The Mission

CHAPTER 17

Turcotte looked at the map as Yakov and Kenyon peered over his shoulder. “NSA picked up some SATCOM transmissions out of this. Earlier today someone piggybacked a GPS — ground positioning satellite — signal.”

“And?” Kenyon asked.

“And someone has to have very good gear to do that, and,” Turcotte continued looking at the map, “the NSA analyst thinks that the whole thing was designed for whoever broadcast the first signal to find something on the return piggyback.”

“Find what?” Kenyon asked.

“The satellite,” Yakov said.

Turcotte nodded toward Kenyon. “That would be your zero point.”

“No,” Yakov disagreed. “That would be the start of your vector. The zero point is The Mission.”

Duncan looked out the blast windows. The shuttle Endeavor and its launch pad dominated the view between his location and the Pacific Ocean beyond.

“NASA’s never done a dual launch.” Kopina had quietly appeared at her side. “Can they handle it?” Duncan asked.

Kopina nodded. “We prepared contingency plans for this exact occurrence.” “‘We’?”

“Space Command.” Kopina pointed at the shuttle. “Right now that’s the only way we can put people into space. At least in the States. And each shuttle can carry only eight personnel, ten if we disregard some safety requirements. Not exactly a large number. Of course, that’s considering only the crew compartment,” Kopina amended. “Rockwell has been working on a personnel payload pod to fit in the cargo bay, but it’s never been tested.

“Right now, the crew of each has ten people. Most from SEAL Team Six and two from NASA — pilot and copilot.”

“With those two shuttles launched, will we have any space capability?” Duncan asked, thinking about Turcotte’s theory that the shuttles had to be launched first, before the Black Death spread too far.

“There will be one remaining shuttle—Atlantis. It’s currently being refitted.”

Kopina had a model of the shuttle in her hand. “Just so you know a few basic terms that will help.” She tapped the shuttle on top of the large rockets. “This is the orbiter.” She touched the two rockets on the outside of the large center tank. “These are the two solid rocket boosters, which are called SRB. This big tank in the center is not a rocket, but rather carries fuel. Most people don’t know this, but each SRB is bolted to the launch platform by four bolts.

“At launch, the three space shuttle engines, these three nozzles here at the bottom, are ignited first. They’re fed fuel from the external tank so the orbiter can get into space with a full load. It’s a special liquid hydrogen fuel with liquid oxygen oxidizer. When feedback indicates all three are working properly — we’re talking the last six seconds in the countdown here — the SRBs are ignited.” She touched the bottom of the two rockets.

“But we still want to make sure everything’s working right. When it’s determined that there is sufficient thrust-to-weight ratio, initiators — small explosives — cut the eight hold-down bolts on the SRBs and the whole system is now free to go. That’s liftoff.

“Maximum dynamic pressure comes approximately sixty seconds after launch, but it never exceeds three g’s. Two minutes up, the SRBs are just about empty and they’re jettisoned from the external tank. They still have a little fuel left that keeps them going while a small side rocket pushes them away from the shuttle.”

Kopina pointed out to sea. “The SRBs are reusable and deploy a parachute. They come down over a hundred miles out to sea. By that time, the shuttle is moving pretty quickly. For the next six minutes, until eight minutes after launch, the orbiter engines fire. Then, just before reaching orbital velocity, the external tank is jettisoned. It is not reusable.”

“Where does it come down?” Duncan asked.

“Point of impact is the extreme South Pacific, but most of it breaks up coming back down. Two of the orbiter engines are then used to finalize thrust into orbit. Which can be anywhere from 115 to 250 miles up. The mothership and talon are at about 175 miles. Endeavor should be able to link up with the mothership without any problem. It’s not like they could fly by and not see it.”

“What’s in Endeavor’s cargo bay?” Duncan asked.

“Equipment to seal up the mothership and for beginning repairs on the talon.”

“The hole in the side of the mothership must be huge,” Duncan said. “How are they going to be able to seal it?”

“They’ve got high-tech material that can stretch and seal in the vacuum of space,” Osebold said. “The big advantage they have is they’ll be working off of a good base, the mothership itself. Plus they’re working in space. The key is to make the bay able to take an atmosphere.

“Columbia is also carrying material to help make the bay livable. That makes just about sixty tons of material,” Osebold said. “But Columbia is also carrying extra fuel, as we’re afraid it’s going to have a harder time linking up with the talon than Endeavor will have with the mothership. Also, Columbia, after it links up, is going to have to tow the talon to the mothership.”

“Do you guys think this is going to work?” Duncan asked.

“It’s a long shot,” Kopina said. “They’ll need a couple of breaks to succeed. First make both linkups before the shuttles run out of fuel. Then being able to repair the mothership. Then…” She paused. “Well, you get the idea.”

The speaker gave the latest orders. “T-minus one hour and thirty-five minutes. Verify all systems ready for crew module closeout. Perform air-to-ground voice checks.”

“Is that necessary?” Duncan asked.

Kopina smiled. “The speaker? No. Ops has several different channels to the shuttle and the ground crew that they do all the real work on. But it’s sort of a NASA tradition to do a speaker countdown. And, you never know, it’s a redundancy that just might be important.”

“Close crew compartment hatch.”

“That’s it. They’re in,” Kopina said.

Lexina blinked. The first thing she felt was the air in her lungs. It was stale and there was a foul edge to it, but it felt wonderful. She opened her eyes. She was lying on a black metal floor. She sat up and looked about. The room she was in was twenty feet wide and round. The top was the hatch that she had come in through. Light came from a series of blue, glowing tubes spaced vertically every five feet. To her left, she made out the outline of a door, with a hexagonal panel next to it.

As she stood to go to it, she noticed something. There was the faintest trace of a jagged line going around the entire circumference of the tube. It took her a second, but then she realized what she was looking at — the tube had gone farther, probably much farther, when the top of the mountain had been here. The line was what was left after this place had been blasted. Whoever had come later and added the air lock had put it right on the end.

She thought of the power that had been involved in taking off the top of the mountain. She shook that thought away and went to the panel. There was much to do. She went to the side door and entered a code into the panel.

In Vilhena, Norward tried to conquer his fear as he lit a cigarette. He was a doctor first and foremost, and he had seen much pain and suffering in his time, but nothing like this. And never before had he worked knowing he would be on the other end, a patient, very soon. He was taking a short break, sitting behind the infirmary.

He had used Sister Angelina as an interpreter and questioned the few patients who could still speak. He had a good idea now of the timeline of the disease.

Finishing the cigarette, he went back inside. A figure was shuffling down the hallway, a body in her arms.

“Sister Angelina!” Norward moved forward to help.

“I have been trying to move the dead to A wing,” Angelina said. Her white robe was caked with blood and other material that Norward didn’t want to identify. She lowered the body to the floor and pulled the dead nun’s habit over her face. She knelt and crossed herself, her lips moving in prayer.

Norward moved past her and looked into the main ward. There were bodies on all the beds, some on the floor where death spasms had thrown them. He could smell the odor of death. He forced himself to look. They were all bled out. Blood had exploded out of every orifice of the body, including their eyes and ears. That was the virus looking for a new host, having finished with this one. He forced himself to look more closely. The blisters in the black streaks had broken open on all of them. There was no one left alive other than he and the nun.

Norward turned. Sister Angelina was still kneeling, praying. She didn’t even look up as Norward walked past, out the door into the street. A thunderstorm seemed to be forming on the horizon, and a strong gust of wind blew down the empty street, carrying a few leaves and pieces of paper with it. Vilhena was dead.

Norward headed toward the boat he and Turcotte had visited. He remembered the gun that the man had used. It was still there.

“We have another message,” Faulkener said, holding out the message flimsy. Toland put a poncho over his head and used his red lens flashlight to see the letters. Quickly he decoded it.

“Wake up, sleeping beauty,” Toland ordered Faulkener. “We’re moving now.”

A dim red glow appeared twenty meters down the main tunnel. Che Lu put her hand on Lo Fa’s thin shoulder; she knew he was brave but also superstitious.

The red glow changed shape from a circle, stretching and narrowing, touching the floor. The form of a person began to coalesce, but a strangely shaped person. The legs and arms were too long, the body slightly short. The large head was covered with red hair. The skin was pure white. The ears had long lobes that almost touched the shoulders. The eyes were bright red with scarlet, elongated pupils.

The figure was not solid. Che Lu could see through to the corridor behind it. As it had the last time she saw it, the figure raised its right arm, the six-fingered hand spread wide.

A deep, guttural sound echoed up the tunnel. The language was singsong. “Do you understand it?” Che Lu asked.

Elek had watched as silently as the rest. “Why should I tell you?”

Che Lu shrugged. “Because we’re all here together. Because I am curious?”

“No, old woman,” Elek said, “I do not understand the language. It is the language of the Airlia. Only another Airlia could understand what it is saying.” The figure had spoken for almost a minute, before fading.

“What it says is not important,” Elek said. “What is important is this…” She paused and walked forward a few steps, then threw a jacket down the tunnel. There was a flash of light and the jacket settled to the floor in two pieces.

“Damn!” Croteau exclaimed from his position at the rear.

“And there is worse beyond the beam,” Elek said. “What is important,” Elek repeated, “is that all the defenses are still in place. We must have the key!”

Duncan grabbed the phone and pressed the on button before the first ring was finished.

“Duncan.”

“Dr. Duncan, my name is Lexina. I am a member of the organization you know as STAAR.”

Duncan felt her pulse quicken, and she sat up straight in the seat. “What do you want?”

“I am not your enemy,” Lexina said.

Duncan remembered the two STAAR representatives and how they had tried to stop Turcotte from taking off in the mothership. “Why should I believe you?”

“You can believe whatever you wish,” Lexina said. “But your wishes and your beliefs don’t concern me. What is essential is your cooperation.”

“What do you want?”

“How much of the dig at Dulce has been uncovered?”

“You should know better than me,” Duncan said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lexina said.

There was a pause, and Duncan let the silence ride. She saw no need to confirm that or give up any information.

“I need something,” Lexina finally said.

“Exactly what do you need?”

“Don’t play games,” Lexina said. “We don’t have much time.”

“You’re the one playing,” Duncan said. “Your organization has been playing for a long time. I want to know who exactly you are before this conversation goes any further.”

“We’re The Ones Who Wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“We wait.”

“Oh, that clears everything up.”

“I assure you, our goals are the same.”

“I don’t think so,” Duncan said.

“I need the key.”

Duncan frowned. “What is it the key to?”

“That is why I need it,” Lexina said. “You have no idea what you have. If you have it.”

“This conversation is going nowhere,” Duncan said.

There was a long pause. “You don’t have it, do you?”

Duncan wasn’t sure how to answer that. “We know that you aren’t human.”

“You know nothing. I need the key. It would be in your interest to give it to me if you have it. There are enemies everywhere, and they will want the key too. I will call back.”

The phone went dead. Duncan thought for a few moments, then she placed another call.

Turcotte opened up a footlocker bolted to the floor of the bouncer. There were four MP-5 submachine guns inside. He tossed one to Yakov, then one to Kenyon, who almost dropped it.

“What am I going to do with this?” Kenyon asked.

Turcotte was leaning between the two pilot seats, showing them where he wanted to go. He ignored Kenyon.

The bouncer began moving to the west.

“The objective is a hundred kilometers away,” Turcotte announced. “ETA in six minutes.”

“What do you think is out there?” Kenyon asked. He was holding the gun as if it were as toxic as the samples he’d just finished dealing with.

“Somebody’s out there in the middle of all this death,” Turcotte said. “Using SATCOM and looking for something. I don’t have a clue whether that somebody has anything to do with this disease, but it’s a bit too much of a coincidence.”

“Wait a second,” Baldrick said.

Toland went down to one knee, Sterling at the ready. Baldrick flipped open the lid on the case. He pulled out the GPR into which he had programmed the location of whatever it was he was looking for. “That way,” Baldrick said. “Four hundred meters.”

Toland didn’t have to say a word. He stood, the other men deploying around in a wedge. They were in steep terrain, with small clusters of trees every hundred meters or so rising above the thick undergrowth. By Toland’s pace count they had moved three hundred meters when he saw something silhouetted on the top of a ridge ahead.

Toland twisted the focus on his goggles. A tree, twisted and shattered by some powerful force, was leaning to the right.

Baldrick checked the GPR one more time. “Wait here for me.”

“We should go with you to the top of the ridge,” Toland said. “If there’s someone—”

“I said wait here,” Baldrick said. He picked another case and took it with him.

Toland gestured and the other two men went to earth, facing out, weapons at the ready. Toland watched as Baldrick walked up the ridge and past the broken tree. As soon as the doctor was out of sight, Toland followed.

As he came up to the tree, Toland crouched low. He slowly peeked over a broken bough. The terrain dropped off on the other side, but Toland’s attention was focused on the gouge in the grassy slope. Starting from the tree and going downslope, the dirt was torn as if a large tank had ripped through. Baldrick was at a large piece of crumpled metal at the end of the gouge, opening the third case.

Toland heard the screech of metal as Baldrick leaned into the wreckage. A downed aircraft? Toland wondered. Perhaps Baldrick was here for its black box, or maybe classified equipment or something else that had been on board.

Toland turned and worked his way back down the slope considering the possibilities.

“What’s happening?” Faulkener asked.

“There’s a plane or chopper crashed on the other side of the ridge,” Toland said, his mind working.

“Must be pretty damn important to be worth this much,” Faulkener said. Toland looked upslope. Baldrick had appeared, moving quickly toward them. “Let’s get moving,” Baldrick said.

“Change in plans,” Toland said. “Last message I got from The Mission said to call in for air evacuation as soon as you recovered what you were supposed to.” “Well, I got it,” Baldrick said. “So call.”

Toland’s head snapped up like that of a bird dog on the scent. “Something’s coming.” He scanned the sky, then, in a flash of lightning, spotted the bouncer passing by to the south, heading for where they had been.

Toland stuck the muzzle of his Sterling in Baldrick’s stomach. “Maybe you already called someone and we’re getting double-crossed here?”

“I don’t have a radio!” Baldrick said calmly.

“You have that SATCOM thing you used to get this position,” Toland said. “I left it here,” Baldrick pointed out.

“Then who’s on the alien craft?” Toland asked.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s setting down to the south of here,” Faulkener noted. “Where we were stopped last.”

Toland removed the gun from Baldrick’s stomach. “Someone picked up our satellite transmission.”

“How can they do that?” Faulkener asked.

“I don’t know how,” Toland said, “but it’s the only thing that makes sense.” He took a deep breath and cleared his head. “All right. Here’s the plan. We call on the SATCOM. If someone’s intercepting, that means they get a fix on us here, but we start moving right away. In the message we designate a linkup point.” Toland studied his map. “Here. Eight klicks north.” He knew the spot. It was an abandoned dirt strip that had been used occasionally by drug smugglers before the American crackdown on air traffic.

“What if they decode the message?” Faulkener asked.

“I don’t think anyone can break a one-time pad,” Toland said, not even really aware of where he was for the moment as his brain worked. “No, I think we’re just getting the signal picked up. Get the rig set up.”

Toland blinked as Faulkener threw his ruck down and scrambled to pull out the radio. He focused on Baldrick. “What did you get out of that aircraft?” Baldrick was adjusting his pack straps. “What are you talking about?” “What did you just get? What did we come here for?”

“That’s not—”

Toland drew his knife and slashed, the blade cutting across Baldrick’s right cheek, a thin line of blood following the cut.

“Why did you do that?” Baldrick was calm, staring at the other man.

Toland stepped forward and slammed a knee into Baldrick’s chest, pinning him to the ground. He pressed the point into the skin under Baldrick’s right eye. “What crashed over there?”

“I can’t—”

The point of the knife edged forward until it was a scant millimeter from Baldrick’s eye. “I’ll take one eye, then the other. Nothing in Skeleton’s orders about you keeping your eyes,” Toland said. “Just get you and your cargo back. What crashed?”

“It was a satellite,” Baldrick said.

“A satellite?” Toland frowned. “What did you get out of it?”

“Film,” Baldrick said.

“Film of what?”

“The Amazon rain forest,” Baldrick said. “The satellite wasn’t supposed to come down so soon.”

“That’s worth millions?” Toland didn’t wait for an answer. “Bullshit.”

“This type of photo is worth a lot.” Baldrick spoke quickly, eye still focused on the knife so close by. “The camera used special imaging. With thermal and spectral imaging the specialists can determine areas under the rain forest that have a high likelihood of holding diamonds, particularly alluvial flood areas.”

“It’s set,” Faulkener reported.

Toland sheathed his knife and pulled out his onetime pad. He quickly began transcribing. He finished the message and punched it into the SATCOM and burst it out.

“Where did you say for the transportation to meet us?” Baldrick asked. Toland laughed. “I don’t think that’s information you need. You just stick with us. We’ll get you there.”

“Both launches are go so far,” Kopina said.

Duncan checked the red digits on the large clock, then returned her attention to the Endeavor. She thought of the crew, strapped to their seats, essentially sitting on top of a tower of high-explosive fuel.

“T-minus nine minutes. The count has resumed. GLS auto sequence has been initiated.”

Five thousand meters to the south of Toland and his small patrol, Turcotte looked around, weapon at the ready. The bouncer was sitting a short distance away, silently floating.

“What do you think?” Yakov asked, looking about in the dark at the rolling terrain around them.

“They were here,” Turcotte said, pointing at where the grass was pressed down. “Maybe three, four men.”

“So where’d they go?” Yakov asked.

“They could have gone in any direction,” Turcotte said. “We need help. Let’s get back on the bouncer.”

“T-minus one minute.”

The shuttle on the pad directly in front of Duncan, three miles away, was mirrored in the TV screen in the observation room, with a view of Columbia on the pad at Cape Kennedy.

“T-minus fifty seconds. Ground power removal.”

“If they have an abort now, there is an escape mechanism built in,” Kopina said. “You can’t see them, but there are seven twelve-hundred-foot-long wires from the top to the ground. Each has a basket big enough to carry three people.

“The wires come down right next to bunkers,” Kopina said. “The theory is you get out of the orbiter, into the basket, ride the wire down, jump out of the basket and into the bunker.”

“T-minus thirty-one seconds. Go for auto sequence. Start SRB APUs.” Duncan could see gas venting out of the bottom of the shuttle.

“T-minus twenty-one seconds. SRB Gimbal Test. Activate sound suppression water. Perform SRB AFT MDMS lockout. Verify LH2 high-point bleed valve closed. Terminate MPS helium fill.”

More gas venting, lines falling off the shuttle from the tower.

“T-minus ten seconds. Go for main engine start! Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.”

“Engine three on the shuttle has started,” Kopina said as a loud roar rumbled by them.

“Five.”

The roar grew louder as the second main engine kicked in.

“Four.”

The third main engine on the shuttle now ignited. But still gravity held the shuttle in its grip.

“Three.

“Two.

“One. SRB ignition.”

The ground shook as if the hand of God had come down and was waking up all nearby.

“The bolts have been cut,” Kopina said. “It’s free.”

Rising on a plume of fire, Endeavor lifted off the launch pad. On the other side of the country, Columbia was climbing into the sky at the same rate.

“How long until linkup?” Duncan asked.

“Three hours for Alpha with the mothership. A half hour later for Bravo at the talon.”

Duncan watched the tower of fire go higher and higher.