Burnout: the mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281 (18 page)

Crash's memory drifted back to his very first meeting with the now-President…

* * * *

"… And we have a new member of the squadron, boys. Welcome Captain James Madison Monroe to the team," the squadron leader announced, indicating the thin, tow-headed pilot standing beside him.

"But you can call me, ‘Knife-edge,'" the new pilot grinned.

Jet groaned loudly as Crash grinned. "Not THE Knife-edge?"

"One and the same," Monroe grinned back.

"Did you really slalom through the bridge at--"

"Damn Viet Cong had already taken out my wingman. We had to get outta there some way. He was good, but his bird didn't maneuver so tight," Monroe explained, subdued. "I had to use every advantage I had."

"So he took out the target bridge with the enemy plane," the squadron commander finished, pride commingled with disapproval evident in his voice.

"Ya gotta do what ya gotta do," Monroe shrugged.

The other squadron members grinned. "You're gonna fit in here just fine, pal," Crash grabbed Monroe's hand and shook it with enthusiasm…

* * * *

… Crash moved to the front of the crowd awaiting the military personnel transport from Iraq. Behind him pressed a pretty little auburn haired mother of three, two of the three in tow, the third in her arms. "Can you see him?" the petite redhead anxiously queried Crash, as the returning soldiers began moving down the ramp of the olive drab transport aircraft. "Is he there?"

"Don't worry. The orders said Jim would be aboard," Crash replied, soothing. "He's a little banged up, but upright, from what I was told. Be patient, Marietta. Knowing Jim, he'll probably be one of the last off the plane."

"Sorry, Crash," Marietta Monroe apologized with a sheepish smile. "I just--"

"Shush, it's okay," Crash smiled back, raising his voice to be heard over an announcer reading off the names of the debarking passengers over a loudspeaker.

"Let's--"

"And here's the hero in the news, Colonel James Madison Monroe, who took out that suicide bomber before the bomber could take out the convoy!" the announcer's voice rang out. Applause rippled through the crowd, as a tall, tow-headed man, his left arm in a sling, strode confidently down the cargo ramp. "None of these brave men and women might've made it home if not for the Colonel!"

"Aw, hell," Monroe said loudly, and his voice carried in the sudden, respectful silence. "I just wanted to get home to my wife and kids, same as everybody else!"

Before the crowd could respond, Crash stepped to one side, calling, "Here they are, Jim! Over here!" He waved like a semaphore at the returning soldier.

The crowd erupted then, cheering and clapping, as Madison and his wife and children ran for each other. Crash watched with a tolerant, sympathetic grin as Jim swept Marietta up in a passionate embrace, his children hugging his legs and waist. When he released his wife at last, it was only to hug and kiss all three of his children. Together the family walked through the cheers and whistles to Crash, still standing by the fence.

Monroe clapped his good hand on Crash's shoulder. "Thanks, pal," he murmured softly, "for lookin' after ‘em while I was gone."

Crash shook his head, dismissing the gratitude. "No problem," he answered. "Glad to do it. Anytime."

"Nope, not again," Monroe answered in the tone of a man whose mind was made up. "My tour's up, and I'm retiring this time. Been thinking about taking up politics. Washington could use a little field experience, I think…"

* * * *

Crash tried to dart by, between the vehicles, but a swarm of Secret Servicemen blocked his way, courteous but irresistible as they pushed him back toward the store. Anders shot him a desperate, agonized glance, but Crash ignored it; his work was cut out for him to remain anonymous as camera crews emerged from vans, panning the crowd as the President moved along, shaking hands. Crash tried to step back, but the press of eager people behind him, appearing almost from nowhere, prevented that maneuver. Inexorably, the President approached.

"Hi, there," the familiar hand reached out to Crash, who kept his head bowed. "Doin' okay?"

Crash grunted an affirmative, shifted the bags, and shook the proffered hand.

"Hope I can count on your vote," the President continued.

Crash nodded, making another grunt. He held his breath.

The President continued on his way, followed by his bodyguards, and Crash breathed a sigh of relief: Evidently Jim, not expecting to see him here, hadn't recognized him. He sighed again, and looked up with a grin--

Straight into the lens of a television camera.

* * * *

The news monitor was depicting the President's campaign junket from a local network affiliate; the bored captain sat staring at it with a listless expression. On either side of him sat similarly bored junior officers, each following a different network feed. "Damn," one muttered, "how I do love watching grass grow."

"What he said," another grumbled.

The captain chuckled, glancing down the row of observers momentarily before returning his attention to his own monitor. Onscreen, one of the locals in the handshake line glanced up, into the television camera. The captain froze, then gasped in recognition, reaching for the "hold screen" button.

"SHIT! Dammit!" he exclaimed, rousing the entire room. "Get Hotdog on the horn! Now!"

"What is it?" one asked, dialing a speed code on the internal phone.

"Stargazer was right! It's File 24601! He's still alive!" the captain barked, hitting "print screen."

* * * *

Moments later, a cell phone rang inside a black Jeep Cherokee. It was extracted from the inside pocket of a black suit coat, opened, and held to a face whose eyes were hidden behind dark aviator sunglasses. "Eraser."

"Eraser, Hotdog."

"Go, Hotdog."

"Your target is File 24601."

"24601 is erased," the black-suited agent declared with confidence.

"Negative," came the sharp reply. "24601 is active. Repeat, 24601 is active."

A surprised eyebrow rose coolly from behind the sunglasses. "Location?"

"Firebird. Big Dog."

"Objective?"

"Erase."

"Roger that." The agent closed the cell phone, replacing it in his pocket. His partner looked at him.

"24601 got away, then?"

"Looks like it, Ace," verified the first agent. "Figures. Wasn't like they sent the best, the first time."

"Nope. They got the second stringers."

"No, the third. But we'll fix that," Eraser said with grim satisfaction.

"Locus?"

"Big Dog."

"Shit. Connection?"

"None was mentioned," Eraser admitted. "Either he didn't connect, hasn't managed to yet, or they don't know."

The second agent, code named Ace, in the driver's seat, shook his head in concern, switching on the ignition. "My money is on ‘they don't know.' Let's get it in gear, then, before he has a chance."

"Hit the afterburners, Ace."

The black Jeep pulled into the road at speed.

Chapter 14

Anders found Murphy, with the groceries, in the men's room of the store, after the motorcade had departed some minutes later. "They saw you," he verified, worried.

Crash nodded, glancing around in suspicion. He put a finger to his lips, wary of bugs. Anders nodded his understanding. Then Crash had a thought, and dug around in one of the bags. Pulling out a notepad and pen, he began to write.

Got me on live TV

Have to move fast

Anders nodded, and wrote,
How?

Crash added,
I'll go across the street to that rent-a-car place. Get a one-way to…
he thought hard
, Nogales. Make it look like I'm running for the border. They didn't see you, did they?

No.

Good.

Use the excess cash I gave you if you need to,
Anders scribbled
. I'll follow and pick you up in Nogales. Then we'll head back north.

Copy
, Crash wrote.
Take the notebook with you. No evidence of our plan that way.

Anders nodded, taking the bags, then mimicked holding a cigarette lighter to the notebook's pages. Crash nodded agreement.

"Go," he whispered.

* * * *

Crash didn't bother too much to hide his identity at the rental car company. He did just enough to make it look to knowing observers like he might be struggling--and failing--to remain incognito. There was as yet no sign of pursuit, but Crash knew it wouldn't be long. So he intended to make a beeline for the interstate, in order to cruise as fast as he dared southward.

In about ten minutes, he was on his way south on Interstate 10 in a rented grey Taurus, headed for Tucson. In the rear-view mirror, he had seen Anders wait several minutes in the gas station lot, then pull out some distance behind him.

At Tucson, without pause, he switched from Interstate 10 to Interstate 19 and kept going, headed straight for Nogales.

Once in Nogales, he stayed on I-19 until it dumped him on West International Street. He followed this until he came to West Park, where he pulled into an alley and waited. And prayed--prayed with fervor--that Anders would find him first.

About fifteen minutes later, the Cheyenne pulled up across the street. A nonchalant Anders got out and wandered about, as if stretching his legs. Eventually he sauntered over near Crash's rental.

"Now what?" Anders asked the air.

"Go back in the van and get out one of my shirts," Crash instructed, staring straight ahead through the windshield. "Put it on over yours. Ooops, dropped my hat--" he tossed it out the window. "You might wanna wear that, too. Walk back down International and go across the border."

"What if they stop me?" Anders bent and retrieved the ball cap.

"You take your own ID."

"Got it."

"Once over, ditch the shirt and cap, and come back as yourself," Crash continued. "Meantime, I'll lay low in the Cheyenne. The rental stays here."

Anders nodded ever so slightly, then moseyed back to the RV. A few moments later, he emerged in one of Crash's long-sleeved western shirts with the baseball cap pulled down so far it covered almost all of his telltale blond hair, thereby becoming nearly a dead ringer for Crash, at least from a distance. He wended his way back to International on foot, where he picked up a purposeful, determined stride, and very soon disappeared from sight.

Crash slouched as low in the seat as he could get, keeping a wary eye out, for about ten minutes. Then he casually exited the automobile, meandered in the general direction of the Cheyenne, which was "coincidentally" parked beside a blank brick wall, and, to all outside appearances, vanished.

* * * *

Inside the RV, Crash found a small pile of black ash in a pan on the stove; he checked the notebook beside it. "Good ol' Mike," he grinned, "he even got the imprinted pages underneath. Damn, he reads too many spy novels." Then he remembered that Anders had been engaged by the Australian government, and had probably been given some very specific instructions. "Well, then again, maybe not." He rinsed away what was left of the evidence in the kitchen sink, watching the dissolving, blackened bits spiral down the drain into the RV's waste water container. Then he hurried back to the small bedroom and out of sight.

In the tiny bathroom, he found a little gift from Anders: A bottle of hair color. Crash raised a considering eyebrow, staring at the hair product, then nodded in approval. He picked up the box containing the bottle, reading the instructions; then he locked the bathroom door, peeled off his shirt, and opened the package.

* * * *

Some time later, Anders returned to the Cheyenne Mountain. He sat in the driver's seat, closed the door, and called softly, "Crash?"

"Present and accounted for, sir," the quiet response wafted from the back.

"Alone?"

"Alone. Very much so. Get moving."

Anders started the vehicle and pulled out. "Gonna follow the bus route back," he said.

"Good. I'll stay back here awhile and work, then."

"Suits me."

* * * *

Some time later, Blake dared to find his way back to the shaft leading up, and began to climb it. After over twenty minutes of climbing, he realized just how long the shaft was. He looked up, wondering if that dark circular object in the distance was indeed the top of the shaft. Then Blake made the mistake of looking down.

"OooOOoo, shit," he whispered in disorientation, paling and pressing against the ladder, clutching the rungs hard as he struggled against vertigo. He stared fixedly at the rungs in his hands, fighting hard to calm himself, before beginning to climb once again.

At last, he reached the top. There, he found that the circular structure he'd noted some distance below was indeed a hatch. Beside the hatch, there was a keypad suspiciously like the one in his room, the one he'd learned to use to manipulate the surveillance sensors there.

"Hm," Blake murmured, studying the hatch, noting the electronics contacts on the latch and hinges. "Well, what the bloody blazes. Either it'll work, or it won't. Maybe this is my way out of this hell hole."

He punched in the code Baker had taught him. There was a low beep, then a soft hiss. A crack of brilliant light shone around the rim of the circular hatch. Blake pushed it open, then blinked, eyes watering profusely, as a blast of heated air struck him full in the face. Once he'd adapted to the bright sunshine and heat, the scientist surveyed his surroundings.

Outside, beige sand and scree stretched on for miles. A few stunted shrubs, mostly sagebrush with the odd cactus or tumbleweed intermingled, grew in the sand, in scattered random clumps. In the distance, at the end of the sand, stark brown, craggy mountains rose high.

He was squarely in the middle of Death Valley. The phrase,
hell on earth,
popped into his mind.
"Maybe this is my way out of this hell hole,"
returned to his thoughts.

"Or … maybe not," Blake muttered, bitterly disappointed.

* * * *

"Hey, Duke," a security guard called, staring at the one red light among a myriad of green ones on his console. "We got a maintenance request in for anything around Hatch Delta Three?"

Duke picked up a clipboard and leafed through it. "Not that I can see, Jake," he remarked, bored. "Then again, you know Maintenance. Molasses in January in Mynot is faster than their paperwork. If it ever comes through at all, that is. Huge ‘if,' that."

"Yeah," Jake commented in disgust. "Probably routed to the wrong security station anyway."

"Uh-huh," Duke agreed. "You'd think, an outfit like this, they could at least get the internal routing working right. This place is just too damn big, especially considering all the various… ‘ethnic groups,' if ya get my drift. The right hand doesn't have a clue in hell what the left hand's doing, probably seventy-five or eighty percent of the time, I swear. If an octopus even HAS left and right hands."

"Don't I know it," Jake grumbled. "Biggest pain in the ass I ever saw. Well… you want I should track down the damn paperwork?"

"Hell, no," Duke exclaimed, his annoyance growing over the situation. "Last time I tried that, it was way more trouble than it was worth. You'd have thought I was the one not following regulations. I'm not touchin' it this time. I learned my lesson. My momma didn't raise no fool."

"Okay, suits me," Jake agreed. "I didn't really want the extra hassle anyway."

"Ain't like we volunteered for this tour," Duke pointed out sourly.

"Amen, brother."

* * * *

"Gettin' late, Mike--or early, depending on your point of view," Crash's quiet voice came from behind the driver as they returned to the Phoenix area the next morning. "Let me drive awhile."

"Sure you want to?" Anders asked, concerned. "They might recognize--" he broke off as he glanced back, then started to chuckle. "I done good."

"Yup. They're not gonna recognize me, not at first glance, at any rate," Crash remarked dryly. "You did a damn good job picking the color. It's almost the exact same shade as my brother Jimmy."

Anders laughed aloud, pulling the RV to the road shoulder. "Well, red hair was about as different from your usual look as I could come up with."

"Yup," the flame-haired man said, taking Anders' place in the driver's seat. "I even dabbed a little on my eyebrows, to make ‘em match. Stunk like hell, though."

"I bet," Anders agreed, grinning as he stretched a bit.

"Why don't you get some sleep?" Crash offered.

"I will. But I had an idea," Anders noted, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, toward the computer on the dressing table. "I just want to see if any of my astronomical imaging software can do anything with your telemetry data first."

A scarlet eyebrow rose. "There's an idea. How long will it take?"

"Dunno. May not work at all. I'll set it running, then collapse."

"Roger that, old buddy."

* * * *

The two black-clothed men stood in an alleyway in the dawn-lit Mexican village of Heroica Nogales. A black Jeep Cherokee was parked nearby. One of them held a western shirt and baseball cap, extracted from a trash bin in the alley. Eyes hidden behind dark aviator style sunglasses, their expressions were nevertheless furious.

"Damn," one of them said. His tone was dangerous in its deceptive softness.

They threw the garments into the back of the Jeep as they climbed in, then pushed further into Mexico.

* * * *

"Vegas!" Anders exclaimed, as they crossed the city limits after a meandering journey. "City of ‘You Can Do Anything For A Price.'"

"Yup," Crash agreed from the driver's seat, "including hide most anything in plain sight."

"Lucky for you." Anders threw Crash a meaningful glance.

"Cuts both ways, Mike. I've gotta be careful." Crash returned the glance with a grim look.

"Make that ‘we,' Crash." Anders was pointed.

"We," Crash agreed, though reluctantly.

"Where exactly are we headed?" Mike wondered.

"McCarran Airport."

"Hah!" Anders exclaimed again, triumphant. "I knew it! The Janet flights!"

"Janet? Who, or what, the hell is that?" A frowning Crash threw Mike a puzzled look.

"The secret flights in and out of Area 51. That's what they call ‘em," Anders informed him rather smugly.

"Oh. Yeah." Crash paused, disgusted. "Some secret."

Anders chuckled. "Yeah. What's the plan?"

"Find one. Get on it. Get inside. Look around."

"Riiiiight," Anders drawled in total disbelief. "Simple and straightforward. Like bloody hell."

"‘Bout like," Crash agreed, navigating the interstate spur to the airport. "We're gonna start by scoping the place out."

* * * *

"Where the hell are you going, Crash?" Anders asked as Crash parked the RV. "This is the freight area."

"You were never in the military, were you, Mike?" Crash asked in response.

"No," Anders stared at him. "But what does that have to do with the blasted price of tea in London?"

"Trust me." Crash opened the door and exited the RV, and Anders followed.

The two silent men stood beside the Cheyenne, as Crash turned a knowledgeable eye on the nearby hangars in the airport, scrutinizing each one in turn. "Mmm…" he mumbled to himself, as Anders simply gazed about in bemusement. "Uh-huh," Crash muttered. "Bingo."

"What?"

Crash glanced away in order to appear like a casual onlooker. "C-130 at one o'clock," he murmured, "in front of the Air Train Freight hangar."

"I see it. So?" Anders shrugged.

"No other C-130s in the area. And no activity around the hangar."

"Again--so?"

"A C-130 is a military transport," Crash explained, "and it's mid-morning--no Janet flights."