SpaceCorp (26 page)

“Can your little rocket defeat it?” Farahavi asked.

“It depends. We would have to hit the juncture between the LOX and LH
₂
tanks. If we hit one but not the other, we create an inconvenient leak and little else. But if we get both we get a colossal explosion—probably more than enough to bring down the entire station.”

“Can the warhead get through all that nanocellulose?” Shirazi asked.

“I’m not sure without empirical testing. I would be more confident if we had a bigger warhead.”

“How much bigger? Like five hundred kg, a thousand?” Farahavi asked.

“Like nuclear.”

“Why not aim for the rocket motors?” Shirazi asked. “They should be easily detectable with all the heat they put out.”

“True, but taking out a rocket motor would not bring down the station—they have four in each direction and we can bet they are widely separated.”

“It can’t be nuclear—the political fallout would be catastrophic,” Shirazi said. He stared at his drink on the table and cradled his chin in his hand. “I think we need to wake up one of our sleepers at SpaceCorp.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
F
OUR

July 2071

Virtual Meeting of the RSRD Party

“Oswald, we ‘bout ready with that dial-in?” Senator Pitstick said. He had been in his bedroom being examined by his private physician and the appointment had run a little long.

“Yeah, sir, five minutes now. We have Senator Kershaw from South Carolina, Congressman Robert Carroll from Alabama, Senator Wilson Pike from Georgia, Senator Joseph Young from Utah, Senator Packwood from Arizona in attendance, plus Reverend Screven for the Southern Baptists and Bishop Lorenzo Frost for the Fundamentalist Mormons.”

Oswald yielded Senator Pitstick’s desk chair so the senator could sit down. As his face came into view the other attendees who had been working on other things during the delay peered into their monitor cameras.

“I apologize for my tardiness, gentlemen,” Senator Pitstick said. “The Committee of Natural Causes is hereby in session.”

“Heard you nearly succumbed to a natural cause yourself, Senator,” Senator Kershaw from South Carolina said. “I do hope you’re feeling better.”

“Aw it wasn’t nothin’, but thank you for asking. Let’s get to business.”

“Ain’t but one piece of business, Senator,” Acting Congressman Robert Carroll from Alabama said. “Will the president deliver a state of the union address in public or not?”

“He’s not quite there yet but he will be,” Senator Pitstick said.

“How do you know?” Senator Kershaw asked. “I mean, we’ve had a lot of people sticking their necks way out, and I don’t have to tell you what will happen if this don’t come off.”

“I am well aware of that, Senator Kershaw. The president was about to say yes at our last meeting.”

“How do you know he was about to say yes?” Senator Packwood from Arizona asked.

“Why I was there—I could feel it!”

“Was that before or after you passed out on the couch, Senator?” Senator Young from Utah asked.

“Dammit! I didn’t pass out on no couch!”

“I withdraw the question, Senator,” Senator Young said. “I do not wish to see you get your Mississippi up and pass out again, but we do need something more concrete to base our actions on than your feelings.”

“As I said before, he was weakening when I was there the last time. I have two more things in mind to dig His Yankeeness out of that damn underground freezer he lives in. This meeting is now closed.”

“But Senator, what will you do?” Senator Wilson Pike from Georgia asked. “We have a right, nay, a
need
to know!”

“Watch your news feeds for the next couple weeks. Watch ‘em real close. You’ll see.”

Senator Pitstick arose from his desk and left the viewing area of his monitor cam. In the background, the other members of the meeting could hear him yelling for Oswald to switch ‘that damn thing off. I’m tired of putting up with them ass-holes!”

Oswald’s face appeared in the Senator’s viewing area. “I am so sorry, sirs, I must shut you off now.”

Three days later…

Senator Pitstick’s office in basement bunker in a Senate office building

The basement bunker under the Senate Office Building was cool but had faint smell of old urine. The smell notwithstanding, the room was quiet and Senator Pitstick could speak unheard with his senior staffer, Mickey Prescott.

“I need you to plan me a spontaneous demonstration, Mickey,” Senator Pitstick said. “Couple hundred thousand people. It’s gonna start at the Washington Monument, move across the Ellipse, and into the South Lawn.”

“Into the South Lawn? The roof snipers will open fire.”

“I’ll get ahold of the Secret Service. Tell them if they don’t shoot, the demonstrators won’t cross the driveway into the South Portico.”

“Okay, sir, then what?” Prescott was writing notes vigorously as the Senator paced around and spoke.

“Then they sit down. And they stay sat down until the president shows his face on the South Portico porch and addresses them in the flesh.”

“How long you figure that’ll take, sir?”

“Day, maybe two. He’s a stubborn old fuck. Make sure the press is there.” The senator sniffed the air. “Oh, and port-a-pots. Don’t forget port-a-pots… just not quite
enough
port-a-pots, if you take my meaning. Now, after the tension has gotten nice and high, I’m going to parade up to the White House—right up the front steps to the South Portico. Then I’m going to open up a folding chair facing the door and I’m going to sit there until he invites me in. That’s the part that’s going to make him crack. Not the people pissing on his front lawn, mind you. No sir, he don’t give a rip about the people long as he can hide deep down in that hole he calls a home. No sir, it’s the thought of
me
getting all that press,
me
sitting at the head of 200,000 people. That’s what going to break him…
me
!”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
F
IVE

0100 HRS Pacific, August 2071

Mack’s apartment, SpaceCorp Headquarters, Vandenberg Space Complex

Mack fumbled for the light switch in the closet, then moved the clothes hamper aside exposing a combination safe built into the wall. After three failed attempts with the combination, he stood up from his kneeling position and massaged the stinging nerves on the fronts of his knees.
So much for intelligent design. Of all the places that stupid nerve could have been routed, why run it across the front of the knee?
He strode into the bathroom and rinsed his face with cold water. After returning to the closet he sat on his buttocks this time and began again the tedious process of dialing the combination. This time he got it right on his first attempt.

Inside the safe attached to the ceiling with hook-and-loop tape close to the front where it wouldn’t be noticed was a small red notebook unmarked save for the 10-digit serial number on the front. He turned the page marked 17AUGUST, then placed a pencil inside to mark his place and closed the cover. He reached back in the safe and removed a rectangular case made of leather.
I hope this friggin’ thing has some juice.
It powered on when he flipped it open, then prompted him for his fingerprint. An index finger would have taken him to a normal display and the phone would have acted like any other smart phone on the market. A pinky print took him to the retina identification application.
Whoever designed this system must not have expected the user to be in a hurry.
Finally, he arrived at the phone book. There was only one name—Fred Jones—no number, just an obvious alias. He pushed the sensitive spot on the touch screen and waited sixty seconds for the dongle to finish its encryption sequence. At last, he could hear ringing on the other end of the line.

‘Fred’ picked up on the fourth ring, “Yeah?” His voice was raspy.

“Top of the morning to you too, Freddy!”

“Just a minute.” Fred returned with his own notebook. “Validate MIKE-FOXTROT-OSCAR-OSCAR-SIERRA.”

Mack scanned down the column for the letters M-F-O-O-S. One column over he found his validation code. “Okay, I have PAPA-QUEBEC-ALPHA-BRAVO-TANGO.”

“Validation correct. What’s up?”

“Can I get a job there making up codes? I’d be really good at it!”

“Mack, it’s 5-oh-goddamn-clock in the goddamn morning. Cut the fucking crap!”

“I think I just got a wake-up call.”

“What sort of wake-up call?”

“My computer started beeping really loud—woke me up. When I went over to check it out, there was a new picture on my computer screen. It replaced the old background image.”

“Describe it.”

“It appeared to be a rifle scope image with some elaborate military-looking cross hairs. They were framed on a person—a head shot.”

“Hmm. Seems a bit dramatic. Any recognizable background details? Something we could use to place the shooter?”

“No background—just head, neck, and shoulders. But the target was wearing a space suit—no helmet. From the lighting, I’d say it was outside. In fact, it was so bright I’d say it was out in the desert at Edwards, not here at Vandenberg.”

“Did you do anything to it?”

“Yeah, as soon as I touched the mouse, it brought up a text message. I’m to collect engineering drawings of the new station—not the whole thing—just the hub. They want details of how the LH
₂
and LOX tanks are mounted. The message persisted for about two minutes, then disappeared, including the background.”

“What else have you done so far?”

“I wrote down what I could remember and called you.”

“You weren’t able to get a screen image?”

“Nope. My mouse and keyboard were unresponsive while the message was active.”

“Did it say anything about a deadline or when they would contact you again?”

“No.”

“Okay, my guess is that eventually they’ll call back with instructions for a dead drop or something. They’ll want acknowledgement from you that you have everything first—they won’t risk exposing themselves with a dead drop unless you tell them you’re ready. So I want you to stall them a bit. Say the drawings are encrypted and you can’t access them without revealing yourself... some bullshit story you think they’ll buy. But reassure them you will have what they want in a week. Meanwhile, can you send us the engineering drawings they’re asking for? We have some folks here that might be able to figure out their intentions.”

“Okay, that’s easy enough. We don’t keep our drawings encrypted at all.”

Fred moaned. “Fucking civilians...”

“We’ve been in build-mode for months. Drawings are accessible to anyone involved with the build, but those computers are not on the Internet, just a local net.”

“Okay, just come up with something to stall the bad guys, but don’t under any circumstances give them those drawings unless I tell you to.”

“Okay.”

“Oh, one more thing, did you recognize the person in the scope shot?”

“It was Monica.”

Three days later

CIA Headquarters, Langley, VA

The CIA had had a no-smoking policy in effect for over seventy years, yet somehow this room always seemed like there was still smoking going on. You couldn’t see it or smell it but everyone you asked would nod and agree they could feel it, “It’s the intensity. Yeah, that’s got to be it.”

‘Fred Jones’ whose real name was Arnie sat in a middle seat around the giant board room table. Across from him sat an engineer named Ralph Knapp, middle-aged, scary thin fellow—he used suspenders to keep his pants up. One end of the table was occupied by Bill Pearl, Arnie’s direct supervisor. Next to him sat Frank Halm, Bill’s direct supervisor. The other end of the table held two fellows from tactical ops and guy from the FBI. The CIA types went out of their way to make sure that the FBI visitor felt privileged to be let in on this
foreign
espionage operation. Whenever he would bring up the FBI’s jurisdiction over
domestic
spying, the rest of the room would look at him condescendingly and after a pregnant pause one of the senior CIA types would say, “As soon as it becomes a domestic matter, we will honor your jurisdiction.”

“But California makes it a domestic—”

“Mr. Knapp,” Frank asked a little louder than was necessary, “you have some findings for us?’

“Yes, sir. My team thinks they’re trying to find a weak point that they can target on the space station.”

“Target with what?” Arnie asked.

“Well, the obvious weapon is the
Shahab-7
that they used on the Centaur Second Stage shoot-down. It’s big—1500 kg warhead. A hit anywhere on the hub with a warhead that size would be catastrophic. The LH
₂
and LOX tanks would surely be ruptured and the conflagration would create a mini-nova in the middle of the space station. The whole thing would be destroyed.”

Frank leaned back in his chair and rested his chin in his hand. “1500 kg... that seems like overkill. With a warhead that big, why would they need such a precise aim point? Why tip their hand asking for engineering drawings? They could accomplish everything they want just aiming center-of-mass.”

“Are you sure it’s a single 1500 kg warhead?” Bill asked. “Maybe they’re anticipating we have a surprise for them and decided to have a salvo of warheads, each 200 or 300 kg in size and attacking from different aspects.”

“What’s the latency time for the laser?” Frank asked.

“It used to be about three minutes,” Arnie said. “But I’m not sure anymore. Byerly told me the SpaceCorp engineers came up with some new kind of ultra-capacitor scheme that’s charged from the reactors.”