Home > Spin (Captain Chase #2)(4)

Spin (Captain Chase #2)(4)
Author: Patricia Cornwell

     Or we’re making sure that’s the appearance we give, and it wouldn’t be the first time there were surprises in a payload headed into orbit. Propaganda’s nothing new, either, and I wonder what other secrets Dick might be keeping from me as I monitor the live video playing silently on my phone’s display in a chiaroscuro of glare and deep shadows . . .

     Emergency crews in bright-orange chemical suits and respirators wade through a toxic stew of sooty water and debris inside the massive crater where the launch pad used to be . . .

     They poke and snag with long-handled probes and hooks like space travelers on a hostile planet . . .

     As covered dump trucks haul off mangled burnt metal, and blackened soggy fire-retardant Nomex cargo containers . . .

     The video playing on my phone is interrupted by an incoming call, the home landline this time. It’s the same number we’ve always had, the last 4 digits 1-9-9-1, the year Carme and I were born.

     “Calli, this is your mother on Space to Ground 1,” her mellow voice with its gentle southern cadence affectionately imitates what she heard me say earlier over the radio in Mission Control.

 

          More accurately, it’s what I almost said to the astronauts during a spacewalk. My NASA parents showed up while I was going through diagnostic procedures, checking out the top secret quantum node installed after the Space Station was sabotaged.

     “How’s it going?” Mom asks. “It must be awful out.”

     “Really, really slow. I should be there in 20 minutes hopefully,” I reply. “All good at home? You and Dad safe and sound?”

     “I can’t speak for George. As for me, I’m nice and cozy drinking cinnamon tea in front of the fire, waiting for you. Pondering what you might want to eat when you get here. Maybe waffles?” and what she’s telling me is that Dad’s not home.

     The last time I saw or communicated with my NASA-employed parents was several hours ago when they showed up to check on me and the disasters going on. Then they headed back to the farm. Or that’s what I was led to believe when they left with Dick, who I’m betting has conscripted my eccentric genius father (as usual) to assist in something.

     I’m not sure what because I don’t believe it’s to hunt down Carme. Dad wouldn’t help with that even if he could. Whatever he’s doing, I’m betting he’s with the same Secret Service cybercrimes detail from earlier when I spotted him inside the NASA Langley aviation hangar. He’s with Dick, in other words, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Dad was on that CIA call a little while ago.

 

          “Where are you?” Mom asks. “A waypoint, dear.”

     “I’m coming up on Walgreens,” I add that I can’t see the pharmacy, just snow everywhere.

     “I thought you should know Mason Dixon has been filming nonstop at Wallops ever since the explosion,” she gets to the reason for calling. “They’re filming inside the flight facility, right there in the VIP room, talking about everything on the air.”

     “Who is besides Mason?”

     “Take three guesses and the first two don’t count,” and she means Neva Rong. “Even more outrageous, she’s talking about her sister’s death yesterday, her so-called suicide. She’s implying that Vera Young was of keen interest to their aerospace competitors, especially to the Chinese, obviously insinuating that they may have taken her out.”

     “Predictable,” I reply. “If all else fails, blame it on a spook, a spy, especially a Chinese one.”

     “When we know who the real culprit is,” Mom says like a hanging judge. “Well, pay attention to your driving, dear, and don’t forget I love you,” ending the call.


00:00:00:00:0


I PASS family landmarks that I can barely make out in the storm . . .

 

          The Century Lanes Bowling Center with its game arcade and big video screens, a special family treat on Saturdays and birthdays . . .

     The Plaza Roller Rink where my sister was a speed demon on wheels, wiping out, skinning her knees and losing ball bearings . . .

     I’m aware of icy flakes click-click-clicking against my windshield, what I imagine it sounds like when a swarm of miniscule debris or micrometeorites hits your spaceship. Not that I’ve been flying the genuine article through the ether yet, only mock-ups, test models and full-motion simulators that I can see and feel in my sleep.

     “Jeez Louise!” as I fiddle with the radio. “Do I freakin’ have to . . . ?” tuning in The Mason Dixon Line, I catch the show’s self-absorbed host in the midst of gushing about his new favorite rocket scientist.

     “. . . Dr. Rong is the CEO of Pandora Space Systems, a giant in the field,” Mason says over the air. “And for those just joining us, we’re off the coast of Virginia on Wallops Island at NASA’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, filming live from MARS. As in M-A-R-S . . .”

     “NASA and their acronyms,” Neva’s sultry voice invades my truck.

     “They have acronyms for acronyms,” Mason quips with one of his signature giddyap tongue clicks. “And Dr. Rong, I bet you have a few acronyms at Pandora.”

     “We’ve got a book of them.”

     “Fire off one of your favs.”

     “How about an F-L-U-B?” she says without pause.

 

          “A flub?”

     “As in ‘Finding Little Utilized Benefit,’ which applies to so many things, Mason. Sadly, people most of all. I can say that with authority since I run a company with more than 10,000 employees, and exponentially more private contractors, researchers and interns from all over the world.”

     “Speaking of flubs. How about when you have to blow up your own rocket? Because oops! Something went bonkers. They’re estimating the loss at about 200 mil,” Mason’s most cited source is they, never saying who, and I’ve reached Bloxoms Corner.

     Across the street is the garden center with its marquee where the locals post personal greetings and announcements for all the world to see. I can’t make out anything but vague shapes in the milky turbulence as I creep onward.

     “. . . The loss could be substantially more depending on what was in the payload,” Neva says in her vaguely British accent, supposedly left over from living in England the years she attended Cambridge. “And they’re not going to tell us if a multibillion-dollar spacecraft or spy satellite was a casualty.”

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