“Well, if she’s not been found anywhere, I guess that’s news enough,” I try to bait him, and it won’t work, never does.
It’s like getting blood from a stone, my NASA educator mother has been saying about Dick for as long as I’ve been around.
00:00:00:00:0
“I HAVE other important information,” he informs me, snowflakes flurrying madly around my truck like one of those wintry paperweights shaken up.
The bottom line, Dick isn’t calling about my sister. He won’t discuss her, is going to make me wonder and suffer, which is unfair and unkind if not as cold as the weather. I’d like to give him a piece of my mind but never have and won’t start now.
No matter how well I know him, it wouldn’t be a good idea to disrespect a 4-star general, the commander of the US Space Force. Not if I care about what might be left of my future.
“We have a much better sight picture of the events leading to the destruction of the cargo resupply rocket today at 0200 hours,” he says. “The upshot is that rogue commands from one of our communication satellites caused the damage.”
“Our own technologies turned against us, what I’m always worrying about,” I reply. “I’m assuming we don’t think this is an accident, some sort of malfunction with the satellite in question.”
“Absolutely not for reasons you’ll hear more about later,” Dick says. “Whoever’s behind it knew that as the countdown neared zero and we detected an off-nominal command, we’d have no choice but to hit the kill switch.”
“Making me wonder if that was the point. To make us blow up our own rocket,” I reply, and it would be just like Neva Rong to pull a stunt like that. “What will be released officially?” and before Dick can answer, another familiar voice floats up from the telephonic vacuum, wishing me a good morning.
“Be careful driving, looks like Hampton’s getting hammered,” Connor Lacrosse says in his quiet voice with no discernible accent. “As for what’s released, there will be no comment from NASA, Space Force, the White House.”
We’ve never met that I’m aware of, and I don’t know much about him. Everybody calls him Conn, appropriately for someone from Connecticut (allegedly) who rather much lives a lie (as do all spies). He’s CIA or at least that’s how he identifies himself, both of us members of the US Secret Service’s multijurisdictional Electronic Crimes Task Force.
“Any statement eventually made won’t be detailed,” he informs me as I turn up the defrost, using my sleeve to wipe condensation off the windshield. “The media’s going to town as you can imagine. Conspiracy theories abound, including that there may have been a spy satellite squirreled away in the payload,” and I pick up a siren, other noises in the distant background.
“What port are you hailing from on this lovely Wednesday morning?” I may as well ask him point blank.
“Stuck here like everybody else who was present when the rocket blew to smithereens. No one’s allowed on or off Wallops,” he says, and I know darn well the CIA wouldn’t still be there for that reason.
They don’t take orders from NASA or the local authorities. If Conn wanted off the island, he wouldn’t be there.
“A total mess, no room in any of the B&Bs or hotels,” he describes what I’ve been following on live news and security video feeds. “Thousands of visitors are sleeping in their cars, bundled up in blankets inside tents and other facilities. Local restaurants and other businesses have opened up to take people in.”
He tells me I wouldn’t want to be on Fantasy Island right now, and it always feels as if he’s picking on me. But it’s hard to know when our encounters are only over the phone.
“Here’s what else we know so far, Calli,” Dick takes over. “A cell phone signal was sent from inside the VIP room at 0159 hours today, a call made to a number that may have triggered whatever caused the satellite to issue bad commands resulting in mayhem. A fake temporary phone number,” he emphasizes.
“One that as expected no longer was in service by the time we tried it approximately an hour after the explosion,” Conn adds.
“How many people were in the VIP room watching the launch when a burner phone supposedly wreaked havoc with one of our satellites?” I inquire, and I know of one person who was present for sure, someone quite skilled at playing ruthless games and creating chaos.
“There were 32 of us,” Conn goes on to confirm that Neva Rong was among them.
A guest at this morning’s launch, she was sitting right there when the rocket detonated into a ball of fire, destroying food, clothing, experiments, equipment, Christmas goodies bound for the International Space Station. At the same time the robotic arm failed during an extravehicular activity (EVA, or spacewalk), and NASA lost all communication with our orbiting astronauts.
“Mostly, we’re talking about students, teachers,” Conn describes who else was inside the VIP room. “And the host and film crew for that show I can’t stomach, The Mason Dixon Line. Also, a handful of reporters.”
“Like I’m always saying,” Dick’s voice again, “what keeps me awake at night is kids with no concept of consequences. It’s all a game until the sky is falling and everybody’s dead.”
“The 20-buck burner in question was in the backpack of a ninth grader watching the launch,” Conn informs me. “He made zero attempt to hide it. Why not tuck it out of sight or better yet dispose of it?”
“Sounds to me like someone wanted us to find it,” I decide, and that someone probably isn’t the ninth grader involved.
I have a furious feeling the culprit is Neva Rong herself, and framing an innocent person is diabolical if that’s what she’s done. To do it to a kid is just plain evil, and I’m following the Southwest Branch Back River now, rivers of snow flowing over pavement, drifting deep enough to hide ditches, guardrails and other hazards.
“What do we know about this ninth grader?” I’m crawling along at less than 8 kilometers per hour (5 mph), unsure where the pavement ends and the shoulder begins.
“Local to Hampton, lives with his grandmother. Parents deceased, no siblings, age 10,” Conn says, giving me a bad feeling.
“One of those who tests out of everything, IQ off the charts,” Dick adds, and my feeling gets worse. “Has skipped quite a few grades with more to come like some people I know,” alluding to Carme and me.