The Trikon Deception

3 SEPTEMBER 1998 TRIKON STATION

The bar was empty at that time of the morning except for the two men sitting side by side at the far end, away from the windows. They were a strange pair: a short, round, heavyset bald man who exuded nervous energy and a long, lean, lanky, lantern-jawed guy with his elbows on the bar and his head drooping between his hands.

“I still can’t believe it,” said Ed Yablon. “I mean, I know it’s true—but in my gut I expect to see him come waltzing through that door and pull up a stool beside us.”

“Yeah,” muttered Zeke Tucker.

Yablon picked up his beer and drained it. Smacking the empty glass on the bar’s gleaming surface, he motioned for the bartender to fill it up again.

“I ought to be glad, in a way,” Yablon said. “The sonofabitch was nothing but trouble.”

“Yeah.”

“The biggest pain in the ass I ever had to work with.”

“Yeah.”

“You remember the time he snuck into the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport and… well, hell, Zeke—you were there with him, weren’t you?”

Tucker did not answer. Yablon saw that the photographer was softly, quietly sobbing as if his own father had just died.

After removing his space suit Freddy went directly to the command module to report on the transfer of O’Donnell to the observatory.

“How would you describe his behavior?” asked Dan.

“Din’ give me no trouble.”

“Lance?”

“Not so good with the flying armchair. I found him spinning aroun’ when I left the observatory.”

“Lance’s EVA skills are the least of our worries,” Dan said. “Better get some rest.”

Freddy shoved off, but not for the relative comfort of his sleep compartment. The commander’s suggestion did not countermand the direct order he had received from Welch. Safeguarding O’Donnell’s work was of paramount importance. O’Donnell himself could be replaced, or even neutralized, if the situation dictated. But if his work fell into the wrong hands, the result could be disastrous. According to Welch, Fabio Bianco had a general awareness of O’Donnell’s purpose on the station. His authority could be useful in preventing the other scientists from scavenging O’Donnell’s lab. Freddy had permission to use all available avenues to ensure Bianco’s cooperation.

Freddy found Bianco in ELM. Bianco floated with his arms folded and his eyes narrowed in concentration while a fellow Italian chattered about data displayed on a computer monitor. Freddy wanted to avoid entering ELM itself. Chakra Ramsanjawi had a history of complaining to Tighe about intruding crewmen, and Freddy could see the Indian lurking in his office at the far end of the module. Fortunately, Bianco’s attention wandered toward the hatch.

At first, Bianco ignored Freddy’s hand signals. When Freddy became more insistent, he broke away from the conversation. Freddy could read the reluctance in the old scientist’s eyes. Nothing a crewman said could possibly be of any interest to Bianco. Freddy decided on a direct approach.

“Mr. Welch says hello,” he whispered when Bianco was within hearing range.

“Who?”

“Mr. Welch. Hugh O’Donnell’s friend. You spoke to him before comin’ up here.” Freddy paused until recognition sharpened Bianco’s features. “We gotta talk.”

“Yes, we must. Excuse me.” Bianco sailed back to the Italian and spoke with emphatic hand gestures that obviously were instructions. Then he joined Bianco in the connecting tunnel. “Where shall we talk?”

“My compartment,” said Freddy.

Freddy’s compartment was completely bare of decoration except for a crucifix that floated at the end of a heavy gold chain clipped to the wall over his sleep restraint. Freddy motioned for Bianco to be silent, then turned up the volume of the stereo. The music had a Latin beat. Bianco winced.

“Mr. Welch very interested in O’Donnell’s lab,” said Freddy. He spoke directly into Bianco’s ear and carefully kept his voice below the music.

“I imagine he would be,” said Bianco.

“I was at your meetin’ this morning. You didn’ sound like you knew what to do with the lab.”

“That is correct. I still do not.”

“Is no one’s business what’s in there.”

“Perhaps not,” Bianco said. “It is difficult to tell without knowing exactly what it is.”

“Can’ say. Is very important. Sensitive,” said Freddy, placing equal stress on each syllable.

“Sensitive enough to commit murder over it?” Bianco’s eyes bored into Freddy.

Surprised at the meaning of the old man’s words, Freddy answered, “Hey, I din’ do it! I wanna find out who did.”

“Yes,” said Bianco. “Of course.”

The man was angry, Freddy saw. As if the murder had taken one of his own family.

Bianco said, “Mr. Welch told me he had a watchdog up here with O’Donnell. Are you the only one?”

Freddy nodded with a slight tilt of his head as if to say, At your service.

Bianco eyed him carefully—the stump, the well-muscled torso, the gold canine embedded in a grin that was tired, almost bored. Freddy certainly was capable of strong-arming him, but he had not made any threatening moves. He was polite, even deferential. It was obvious he sought cooperation rather than confrontation. And why not? With O’Donnell exiled to the station’s astronomical observatory, Freddy was alone in his mission.

“The toxic-waste project that my people are working on is very important,” said Bianco. “It does not qualify as a state secret; in fact, much of the world does not seem to care. In my official capacity, I can prevent the American team, or anyone else, from taking over that lab. But it would be at the expense of my project. I would like to know exactly why I am being so compliant with your Mr. Welch.”

Freddy considered the offer for a long moment.

“Hokay, Senor Bianco,” he finally said. “I tell you. You familiar with the work of a Professor Rothstein on tobacco plants?”

Bianco furrowed his brow as if sifting through his memory.

“About ten years ago,” prodded Freddy.

“Was that the antisense RNA treatment to prevent the production of nicotine in tobacco leaves?”

“You say that good,” said Freddy. “What O’Donnell doing is jus’ like that, only different.”

Kurt Jaeckle remained in his office for a long time after reading Carla Sue’s reply to his apology. He slipped out of the Mars module and peered into the wardroom. Only a few stragglers remained from lunch, but it was still too crowded for his present state of mind. Deciding to kill some time in his compartment, he made his way down the connecting tunnel.

As he passed the logistics module, he heard a hissing sound from within. Thinking it might be a gas leak, Jaeckle decided to investigate. It took a moment of peering down aisles formed by canisters and cylinders to find the source of the noise. It was not a gas leak. Lance Muncie floated in the fetal position, his hands cradling something that resembled a bouquet of yellow paper flowers. All around him, smaller bits of yellow tatters danced in eddies of air.

“She loves me, she loves me not. She loves me, she loves me not.” Lance was whispering harshly, a sibilant, strangling murmur hissing from between his teeth.

Jaeckle edged backwards. The sight of Muncie was terrifying. The man was totally insane. He wanted to get away as quickly and as quietly as possible.

Lance suddenly paused in his counting.

“I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay,” he whispered to himself. Then he attacked another paper flower. “He lives, he dies. He lives, he dies. He lives, he dies.”

Jaeckle’s knee banged against an empty cylinder; the clang echoed like a church bell. Muncie jerked upright. His eyes lit on Jaeckle and his face broke out in a maniacal grin.

“Speak of the devil,” he said.

The words turned Jaeckle’s bones to ice. His heart froze in his chest. Jaeckle spun and dove into the tunnel. He reached his compartment before he realized that his heart was thumping so hard he feared it would burst his rib cage.

Even with things falling apart around him, Dan Tighe stubbornly refused to abandon established station procedure. After learning from Freddy that O’Donnell had been installed in the observatory, he ensconced himself in the command and control center and in his patient, painstaking manner, checked and rechecked every system within the station’s operation—life support, station attitude, orbital configuration, fuel supply, and waste management. The atmospheric replenishment system would be low on oxygen in a few hours. Dan left a message for Freddy to replace the expended tank. As he completed his recheck, he sensed a presence. Lorraine Renoir hovered a few feet from him, holding two squeeze bottles of coffee.

He started to reach for one of them. “Thanks, Lorraine.” She pulled back slightly. “I hate to do it, Dan, but I’ve got to get a blood pressure reading on you.”

Tighe felt his shoulders sag. “Now?”

“Sooner or later.”

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s get it over with.”

She still withheld the coffee. “Afterward. Caffeine raises the pressure.”

“What the hell doesn’t?” Dan grumbled. He kicked free of the anchoring loops and followed her the length of the command module to her infirmary.

Lorraine quickly and efficiently wrapped the cuff around his left arm and took a reading. She glanced up into his eyes.

“Let’s try the other arm.”

“That bad, huh?” Somehow Dan didn’t care. Almost. As the doctor inflated the cuff again he told himself, Let them take the station away from me; it’ll be a relief. But he knew he did not truly believe that.

Lorraine smiled at him. “I don’t understand it.”

“What?”

Her smile widened. “Your pressure is down into the normal range.”

“You’re sure?” Dan blurted.

“High normal, but normal.”

“I’ll be damned.” — “Let me try another reading.”

She puffed up the cuff once again and stared at the numbers. “I think you thrive on trouble, Dan.” She seemed delighted. “Or perhaps responsibility.”

“It’s really down?”

“Really.”

He grinned back at her. “Can I have my coffee now?”

They sipped and talked, and even though the conversation eventually turned to O’Donnell, Dan felt a quiet ease settling gently over them. My pressure’s down! He marveled at the news. Lorraine wouldn’t fake the readings, he knew. But she sure seemed happy about it.

For more than an hour they traded information they had gleaned from their independent conversations with O’Donnell. The twelve-year gap in his biography slowly shrank. But when it reached the three years starting in 1995 it would close no more.

“Maybe Weiss knew something about O’Donnell that O’Donnell didn’t want anyone else to know,” said Lorraine.

Dan’s eyes focused on infinity for a long moment. “Maybe.”

“You looked troubled, Dan. Is it because he’s your friend?”

“Friend, buddy, whatever. You spend time with a guy, you kid around with him. You want to think that he’s leveling with you and that you can read him. When you find out you’ve been wrong, well, maybe he’s been bullshitting you or maybe you just can’t read people. Either way, that can be a dangerous proposition up here.”

“Don’t feel bad about having misread him,” said Lorraine. “I did, too. Addicts are con artists. It’s part of their survival instinct. Even if they clean up, those other habits die hard.”

“I know something about addicts,” said Dan, forcing himself to brighten the somber mood. “My ex-wife was addicted to her career.”

Lorraine laughed. “And you weren’t?”

Dan grinned back at her, ruefully.

“You know,” she said, more seriously, “that’s the first time you’ve mentioned your ex-wife to me.”

“Someday I’ll tell you the rest of the story.”

“I’d like that.”

Before Dan could say anything more Kurt Jaeckle appeared in the infirmary doorway. Jaeckle looked more than grim; he looked scared.

“Has either of you seen Lance Muncie?” he asked.

Dan and Lorraine looked at each other.

Dan said, “He just completed transferring O’Donnell to the observatory along with Freddy Aviles.”

“I think he’s suffering from Orbital Dementia,” said Jaeckle. He described his encounter with Lance in the logistics module. The account was disturbing enough in itself, but Jaeckle’s narrative skills made it sound chilling. Throughout, Lorraine hovered close to Dan. At the mention of the tattered flowers, she nudged softly against his shoulder. Jaeckle concluded: “I’m certain he was referring to me.”

Dan scrutinized Jaeckle suspiciously. He knew that Jaeckle often blabbed to the other scientists that the station commander “had it in for” the Mars Project and had sent Russell Cramer Earthside as part of some convoluted personal vendetta. He also knew that Jaeckle and Lance were inextricably linked by Carla Sue Gamble. Lance had fought with O’Donnell. But he said he had been provoked and O’Donnell hadn’t contradicted him. Was this a poor attempt at payback by Jaeckle? Or was it a legitimate report?

“Lorraine?” he asked.

“No harm in examining him,” she replied.

Dan nodded abruptly, then looked at his wristwatch. “We all have jobs to do,” he said.

“Yes,” said Lorraine. “I’ve got to log in the results of the latest test I performed.”

Dan wanted to kiss her, right there in front of Jaeckle. Instead he settled for a grin. My pressure’s down, he said to himself again as he sailed toward his own office. And Lorraine’s just as happy about is as I am.

Lance responded without any hesitation to Lorraine’s suggestion that he come to the infirmary. That was a positive sign, she thought. Russell Cramer had routinely avoided her.

She studied Lance’s appearance between glances at his personnel file. The gash on his cheek and jaw was starting to scab. His blond hair was neatly tucked beneath a hairnet. His uniform was in good shape. He seemed slightly edgy, occasionally biting his lower lip or running his tongue along the outside of his front teeth. But everyone was a little edgy. Lance had better reasons than most.

“Have your stomach problems persisted?”

“Nope. Eating fine now,” said Lance. “Are you seeing me because you think something else is wrong?”

“I believe it’s a good idea to talk to everyone on the station,” said Lorraine. “I wanted to start with you because you’ve been at the center of these events.”

Lance rubbed his jaw with his knuckles. “I’ll say.”

“Do you feel troubled at all?”

“I’m troubled that a man got killed,” said Lance. “But you don’t mean that.”

“That’s right, Lance. I mean that you more than anyone are carrying images of what happened. You discovered the body and you were the victim of an attack. Will those images interfere with your work?”

“Nope,” said Lance.

“Would you want to return to Earth?”

“I have more’n two more months to go up here.”

“I realize that,” said Lorraine. “But this is very important now, Lance. Does the fact that Constellation will be here shortly put the idea in your head that you might want to return now?”

Lance emphatically shook his head.

“Thanks for stopping by, Lance. You’ll contact me if you want to talk?”

Lance nodded and left the office. Lorraine noted in his chart: Somewhat agitated, but not beyond the normal range indicated by recent events. Diagnosis—no signs of O.D. observed.

Lance hurried to Hab 2 and sealed himself in his compartment. His stomach and chest felt like an overloaded steam pipe. He buried his head in his sleep restraint. Once again, his angry words spewed forth in a hissing hot torrent.

Chakra Ramsanjawi’s plan was simple. Fabio Bianco believed in open cooperation and free exchange of data among the three arms of Trikon. It was a naive belief, but one that Bianco had espoused consistently since the creation of the consortium. Yet Bianco definitely had balked at Oyamo’s suggestion that O’Donnell’s data be shared by everyone. Ergo, Bianco was privy to the data. All Ramsanjawi needed to do was ask.

Of course, executing the plan was not so simple. Despite the great mutual respect that existed between the two men, Bianco was unlikely to answer Ramsanjawi’s questions willingly. Which was why Ramsanjawi had two syringes hidden beneath his kurta when he closed his office door. Drugging Bianco was a huge risk; the old man might collapse and die on him. Or worse yet, he might remember being interrogated. Ramsanjawi shrugged massively inside his kurta. Perhaps the old man will indeed die—after he has answered my questions. After all, he is already a physical wreck. Who would suspect anything more than the stresses he has encountered here in his very own haven of scientific research?

As Ramsanjawi pulled himself through ELM’s hatch, he noticed a disturbance in the shadows of the connecting tunnel. Stu Roberts was being shoved into the logistics module. His attacker was Freddy Aviles.

Ramsanjawi quickly scuttled along the floor. The interior of the logistics module was dimly lit, but he could see Roberts and Aviles silhouetted against a pair of area lights.

“You gave shit to Cramer, no? An’ you gave it to O’Donnell, no?”

“I didn’t,” blubbered Roberts.

“Don’ you fuckin’ lie to me, man.”

“I’m not lying!”

Ramsanjawi’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dimness. Freddy’s back was to the hatch. One hand grasped the handle of a receptacle while the other clenched a wad of Roberts’s shirt. Roberts faced Ramsanjawi, but his terror-stricken eyes were fastened on Aviles.

“Why you fuck up O’Donnell? Huh? You interested in what he doin’? Huh?”

Roberts tried to answer but his voice was cracked by Freddy’s fist pounding his chest.

Ramsanjawi decided that Bianco could wait; Aviles was the more pressing problem. Squirting a few drops from a syringe onto the material of his kurta, Ramsanjawi then clamped the syringe in his teeth and used both hands to sling himself through the hatch.

Roberts had no time to react; Freddy had no time to move. In one motion, Ramsanjawi pulled the syringe from his teeth and jammed the needle into Freddy’s rump. Freddy managed one solid punch to Ramsanjawi’s midsection. Ramsanjawi drew himself into a ball, bracing himself for another blow. But it never came. When he lifted his head, he saw Freddy tumbling slowly near the ceiling.

Roberts cautiously peeked out from behind a wall of canisters.

“What was that all about?” asked Ramsanjawi.

“I don’t know! He jumped me as I came out of the Whit.”

“Did you tell him anything?”

“No! Nothing! You got here just in time.”

“Then we are both fortunate,” said Ramsanjawi.

“What are you going to do with him?” Roberts asked. He touched Freddy’s neck as if testing for signs of life.

“That is my affair,” said Ramsanjawi. “Return to your compartment.”

Roberts moved slowly to the hatch, took a final look at Ramsanjawi and Freddy, then shot into the tunnel.

Ramsanjawi grabbed Freddy by the shirt and held his serene face to the light.

“Well, my abbreviated friend, we have much to discuss.”

Ramsanjawi used an empty canister to transport Freddy from the logistics module to ELM. It was near midnight, and he encountered no one during the short journey. He brought the canister into his office, sealed the accordion door, and popped the lid.

Freddy groaned as he spilled out, his arms unfolding like the wings of an injured bird. After a few minutes, his groans sharpened and his movements strengthened. Ramsanjawi readied the second syringe. This one did not contain a tranquilizer. It contained sodium Pentothal—truth serum.

Ramsanjawi rolled up Freddy’s sleeve and injected the serum into his arm. Freddy faded for a moment, then regained consciousness. His eyes were glazed and his speech was slurred and halting, but he accurately answered Ramsanjawi’s preliminary questions. Then Ramsanjawi turned to more important matters.

“What do you know about Cramer?” — “He din’t have Orbital Dementia… Drugs made him crazy.”

“And O’Donnell?”

“Drugs make him crazy, too. Differen’ drugs.”

“And you think that Roberts gave them the drugs.”

“Roberts friend of Cramer. Make sense.”

“But who gave the drugs to Roberts?”

“Don’ know.”

“Why are you interested in Roberts’s interest in O’Donnell?”

“My job… Protect O’Donnell. Protect his work.”

“So you killed Aaron Weiss.”

“No.”

“Who did?”

“Don’ know.”

“What is O’Donnell working on?”

“Impor’ant stuff.”

“Not part of Trikon’s work?”

“More impor’ant.”

“What?”

“Can’ say.”

“But you can tell me.”

Freddy paused. His features twisted as his better judgment struggled unsuccessfully against the sodium pentothal.

“Bug… to use against… cocaine.”

“The product or the plants themselves?”

“Plants.”

“Bah. That has been tried. It was unsuccessful.”

“Not this one.”

“And I suppose you know how it works.”

“Not me. O’Donnell.”

“O’Donnell is not here, Aviles.”

Freddy hovered weightlessly, silent, slack-jawed, while Ramsanjawi thought furiously.

At last he said, “O’Donnell has his own computer, does he not?”

“Yeah.”

“And all his data is stored in it?”

“It was.”

“Was? What do you mean?”

“Crashed his files.”

“You what?”

“So nobody could copy,” Freddy muttered.

Ramsanjawi wanted to slap him. Then he realized, “You made a copy, didn’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Where is it?”

Freddy’s hand flopped against his chest. “Here.”

Ramsanjawi removed a diskette from an inside pocket of Freddy’s shirt and loaded it into his computer. There had been several attempts to destroy cocaine production at its source—chemicals, herbicides, even insects specifically crossbred to feed only on coca leaves. None of these plans had worked, and to Ramsanjawi’s knowledge the United States government had ceased trying.

O’Donnell’s attempt proved to be different.

Ramsanjawi perused the computer files and immediately grasped the thrust of the project: the development of a genetic sequence that would block the production of a specific enzyme necessary for cells of the coca leaf to manufacture cocaine. O’Donnell had not quite perfected the sequence. But he was close. Very close.

Ramsanjawi stored the data in his computer and returned the diskette to the pocket in Freddy’s shirt. He prepared another dose of tranquilizer to keep Freddy asleep through the rest of the night. Freddy might remember this encounter; he might not. It mattered little to Ramsanjawi. The plan that was coming together in his head would be executed quickly.

Ramsanjawi placed Freddy in his sleep compartment and returned to his office. In less than an hour of reviewing the data, he knew exactly how to apply O’Donnell’s groundwork. With just a few basic alterations to the genetic sequence and to the RNA messenger molecule O’Donnell had developed, he would possess a unique commodity. Sir Derek was welcome to the toxic-waste superbug. The ability to destroy the world’s coca supply would be far more valuable.

Then a new insight flashed into his mind. How much would the drug cartel pay for this information? And the techniques for guarding against it? Ramsanjawi felt himself glowing like the sun. Or better yet, I could use this technique to alter ordinary plants and make them produce cocaine! How much would the cartel pay for the ability to insert the coca-producing enzyme into ordinary plants? Chakra laughed aloud. Cocaine-yielding potatoes! Spinach! Watermelons!

He pictured himself living like a maharajah in a splendid villa on the Riviera. Who needs Oxford, and its airs of shabby gentility? With this kind of money I can buy all the respect I want.

Chuckling happily, Ramsanjawi shut down his computer and prepared himself for a long night of designing. Perhaps Lady Elizabeth had been correct after all. Good things happened to those who waited. And his long wait was finally over.