Spin (Captain Chase)

  ABOUT THIS KINDLE EDITION

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  For Staci . . .

  STATEMENTS AS FACT

  As they were going along and talking, behold there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire which separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven.

  —2 Kings 2:11, circa 960–560 BC

  In the first place, the earth, when looked at from above, is like one of those balls which have leather coverings in twelve pieces, and is of divers colors, of which the colors which painters use on earth are only a sample.

  —Plato quoting Socrates, 360 BC

  For there is . . . a single vast immensity which we may freely call void . . . In it are an infinity of worlds of the same kind as our own.

  —Giordano Bruno, 1584

  With ships or sails built for heavenly breezes, some will venture into that great vastness.

  —Letter from Kepler to Galileo, 1596

  1

  BLASTING SNOW swirls in my headlights like a white tornado, the run-flats pushing through unplowed powder on Wednesday morning, December 4.

  Since driving away from NASA Langley Research Center two slow miles ago, it’s as if I’m the last person left on the planet. My hometown of Hampton, Virginia, is almost in a brownout as if we’re in the middle of a war, businesses and homes I pass empty and pitch dark. Streetlights are widely spaced smudges that illuminate nothing, and I can’t make out most traffic signs until I’m on top of them.

  The Dollar General store is off to my right, dense woods to my left, Anna’s Pizza & Italian Restaurant up ahead according to the GPS satellite map. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know where I am, visibility a car length when I’m lucky. At times I can’t tell which lane I’m in as gale-force gusts send supercans airborne and tumbling, ripping holiday lights and decorations from their moorings.

  On this stretch of North Armistead Avenue alone, a Santa on his sleigh took flight from a rooftop, crash-landing in the median strip while life-size figures from a nativity scene scraped across a church parking lot. An inflated Grinch was gone with the wind after snapping his tether, and just now an American flag still attached to its pole cartwheels by in front of my Silverado.

  Trash, leaves, branches, wreaths, all sorts of things are flying about as if I’m headed to Oz in a near whiteout. It would have made sense to stay put at work. Certainly, I know better than most the importance of sound judgment. I can cite chapter and verse about human factors that will hurt or kill you, such as being sleep deprived, preoccupied and somewhat traumatized while driving in a blizzard.

  But no way I was bunking down in the NASA firehouse or on the Air Force base after an all-nighter that included an exploding rocket, and almost losing an astronaut on a spacewalk. If that wasn’t enough, I was tackled by a posse that confused me with my identical twin sister, just to mention a few solar-flaring urgencies with more on the way.

  Assuming Neva Rong is the mastermind, we’ve seen nothing yet, the tech billionaire’s agenda universal dominance at any price or sacrifice. All to say I don’t anticipate a peaceful Christmastime, maybe nothing peaceful ever again, and what I need right now is to get away from work even if for a few hours.

  I’m desperate to take off my boots, tactical clothing and gun, to shower in my own bathroom. I intend to sit in my usual chair at the kitchen counter watching Mom whip up the latest treat. It’s time we have one of our private chats, nobody in our airspace to interfere or overhear (including Dad). I’m going to make her spill the beans (as we say in the Chase family).

  But not until I first sweep the house with one of my spectrum analyzers, going room to room, walking in circles holding up various mobile antennas like Ghostbusters. I’ll make sure there are no rogue transmissions, no surveillance devices, nothing that might indicate the invisible presence of uninvited cyber spooks.

  Once Mom and I are alone and relaxed in our cone of silence, she’ll come clean about my missing sister. I’ll get my answer about whether Carme had anything to do with this morning’s massive cyberattack on NASA, and if she’s guilty of other crimes including obstruction of justice and homicide. I can’t know for sure she’s a good egg or bad until I verify whose side she’s really on, and whether she’s been accessing our farm in the recent past, at times using Dad’s car.

  That’s assuming my other half hasn’t been killed or captured . . .

  “Focus! Focus! Focus . . . !” I shout, startling myself as the tires fishtail on black ice, slipping sideways, the glare of my headlights reflecting off billowing snow.

  Telling myself to pay attention, I’ve never seen this part of the world so barren as I make my way home during a federal government shutdown and a nor’easter. All nonessential federal employees have been furloughed (doesn’t include me). That on top of Governor Dixon declaring a state of emergency, evacuating coastal and other low-elevation areas, everyone ordered to stay off the roads.

  But I’m not everyone as I monitor ongoing operations and disasters in outer space and on the ground. Scanning various government apps on my phone clamped into a holder on the dash, I’m careful not to outrun what I can see. I’ve got the radio cranked up, P!nk rocking my NASA take-home pickup truck when the music abruptly stops.

  An incoming call rings through the speakers, a number with a 703 area code, the Central Intelligence Agency, their cybercrimes division, and adrenaline jolts me into high alert.

  “Captain Chase,” I answer hands-free.

  “Calli?” to my surprise. “It’s Dick,” and I wasn’t expecting him. “How are you doing in this weather? You holding up all right?” General Richard Melville’s familiar voice surrounds me.

  “Fortunately, it’s too cold for the snow to stick all that much. But ice and wind are a bear,” I reply, not particularly friendly or answering what he asked.

  I’m in no mood for pleasantries or his personal solicitations, which are nothing more than a deflection, if not disingenuous. What I need if I’m to go on with my life are hard cold facts, the truth for once. He’s told me virtually nothing since my sister fled from the Langley hangar rooftop where she’d been hiding inside the radome.

  She vanished almost before my very eyes some 5 hours ago, and it doesn’t appear she jumped or fell. There’s no evidence she’s dead. Her body hasn’t been found. At least Dick shared that much when we were together on the second floor of Building 2101. Cheek to jowl inside Mission Control, and he showed me the photographs on his phone . . .

  The peculiar footwear pattern in snow . . .

  The tracks leading to the rooftop’s edge . . .

  The blank white ground some 30 meters (98 feet) below . . .

  “Have you heard anything? Are there updates since we were together last?” I ask bluntly, having no idea who else is on the line since Dick can’t bother to tell me. “Has Carme made contact? Provable contact? Regardless of what she has or hasn’t done, do we know if she’s okay? Is she safe? And why are you calling me from a CIA number?”

  “I’m bringing you into a discussion in progress,” his deep voice inside my truck sounds typically calm and matter of fact. “And I’m sorry but I have nothing to add about your sister at this time.”

  “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 b
lood 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.

  “He was at Wallops with other students involved in science projects that were in the rocket’s payload,” Conn explains. “In his case, a minisatellite, a CubeSat that makes orbit inspections of larger spacecraft,” and there’s no doubt they’re talking about Lex.

  An intern at Langley, he’s part of a special science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) initiative. Dad tucked him under his wing recently, an old habit that rarely ends well, bringing people home he shouldn’t.

  “I’m wondering if you’ve heard your father mention Lexell Anderson,” Conn verifies my suspicion.

  “Lexell with two l ’s as in the comet,” I confirm, my mood plummeting further.

  “What comet?”

  “One that passed closer to Earth than any other in history, and is now lost,” I reply. “Lexell’s comet hasn’t been seen in centuries. And I hope this kid isn’t lost, too, that he’s not a bad seed. Goes by Lex, extremely gifted, getting academic credit for a fall internship at NASA, someone whose future could be ruined by an accusation of hacking into the government.”

  “Cybercriminals start young these days,” Dick beats his same drum but he has other reasons for treating a 10-year-old like the enemy.

  Lex is paying for those who’ve come before him, any stray who’s followed my father home. A kind and giving soul, he doesn’t see the bad in anyone, and has an affinity for gifted misfits and loners.

  “What does Lex say?” On West Mercury Boulevard now, I almost can make out the KFC, my mouth watering as I think about their fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy.

  “He claims what you’d expect, that he’d never seen the phone
before,” Conn’s voice over speakerphone.

  “Where was it?” I ask, driving past the Superior Pawn & Gun, the huge Guns sign on the roof unlit and ghostly in the storm.

  “In the outside pocket of his backpack.”

  “Where someone easily could plant it,” I point out as music booms through my truck’s speakers.

  We’ve been disconnected, the cell signal dropped, and there’s no point in trying them back. If they have something further to say, they’ll reach out. Not to mention, all I’d get is some CIA operator who won’t know what I’m talking about (supposedly), and I’m surprised by the convenience store up ahead glowing like a welcome station. All others I’ve passed are closed because of the evacuation and terrible weather.

  The Hampton Hop-In is deserted, the gas pumps empty, snowflakes frantic in floodlights. The pearl-white Jeep Cherokee alone in the parking lot is the same one I noticed when I was heading to Mission Control after midnight. The same clerk is inside the store, only he’s not at the counter as he was when I saw him earlier. Now he’s oddly seated in a folding chair that’s been moved near the glass front door.

  “What are you looking at?” I mutter under my breath without moving my lips, a trick Carme and I learned as kids, talking like ventriloquists.

  2

  MIDDLE AGED I’m guessing, gray hair, a big belly and yellowish-tinted glasses, he’s huddled with his jacket on, watching my headlights slowly approach in the wintry mess.

  A backpack is on the floor by his feet, and it didn’t escape my notice the first time I drove past that the pearl-white SUV is backed in, and there’s no front license plate. Meaning, the tag number isn’t easily visible, and I can’t run it to get the lowdown.

  There’s damage to the underside of the right front bumper, and I don’t like that I’ve never seen the Jeep or the clerk before last night. I duck into the family-owned Hop-In at all hours as it’s on the way home, and I’m always stopping for something. Snacks, coffee, and what I wouldn’t give for one of their cheeseburgers slathered with onions, extreme stress never killing my appetite the way I wish.