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  I park behind Dodd Hall, where with rare exception only high-ranking guests the likes of generals and admirals are privileged to stay, the Tudor-style building one of the oldest on base. I’ve escorted enough command staff and other VIPs to be familiar with the layout of the two floors, each with 4 large suites offering any amenity a guest might need. A full kitchen, laundry soap, ironing board, coffee maker, minibar, even a desk with a SIPRNet classified phone.

  It’s always quiet and private back here, and rarely are there many guests. Judging by the empty parking lot, Dick might be the only one tonight. But I’m not surprised and would expect as much. The weather prediction alone is enough to make most people cancel plans to visit Virginia’s Eastern Shore, and they have in droves with more to follow, no doubt.

  Should the storm gain strength, Governor Dixon will evacuate all low-lying areas at risk, including this peninsula. That possibility in addition to the furlough threat as politicians continue to duke it out, and who in their right mind would want to come here now? Yet none of it deflected Dick from showing up with virtually no notice, and as we sit inside my truck fogging up the windows, I have to ask myself why.

  If he has sensitive questions for me, he could send a classified communication. Or easiest and most practical, pick up that SIPRNet phone and call ours at police HQ. He knows how. We’ve communicated over SIPRNet countless times, and as I continue thinking back to his demeanor at the briefing, he was wary then too. I attributed his behavior to the situation, those present, and the fact that we’d not been face to face in three years.

  Not since I abruptly left his command in Colorado Springs about this time of year in 2016. But I also was preoccupied earlier today, making my case about cyber vulnerabilities and protection, hammering home my usual point that the best defense is the best defense. Which sounds like a misspeak or a typo but isn’t.

  I threw down the gauntlet, issuing a bold challenge to Dick and the NASA Langley, NASA Goddard and Wallops Island directors, in addition to the police chiefs, military officials, DC suits and everyone else present this afternoon. I told them that if I were the adversary, the first thing I’d do is find a way to hack into NASA. From there it would be dealer’s choice of what I’d penetrate and violate with the ultimate goal of neutralizing our national missile defense system while crippling the North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD.

  That would be my first strike at taking down democracy’s high-value assets, and I’d go on from there knocking out radar and satellites, ultimately rendering all defenses useless. This would leave America and our allies wide open for attack, I stated for a fact, and my Armageddon awareness, insights and strategies aren’t anything Dick hasn’t heard from me before. He seemed attentive enough but was plenty distracted, stealthily glancing down at his phone and answering messages.

  At no time was there any reason to think he wanted to talk to me or see me tonight. He didn’t mention he might ask me to drive him anywhere. And it wouldn’t have occurred to me in my wildest dreams that his coming to Langley unexpectedly on his way to DC during a major storm and furlough threat might be related to my sister or me. Or both. But now I have to wonder.

  “Maybe you’ll let me ask you a question,” I say to him as I turn on the defrost. “Just one, how about it?”

  “Depends on what it is.”

  I try to think of the best way to phrase it as it occurs to me to take off my shoulder harness, now that we’re not moving. I adjust the defrost fan a notch as the glass begins to clear.

  “I realize you’re here for meetings on your way to DC,” I begin cautiously. “I was pleased you wanted to attend my briefing, that you would take the time and be interested. Especially since we’ve not seen each other, only talked on the phone and emailed now and then since I left.”

  “You’ve always had an open invitation to visit us,” he says. “We’ve encouraged you and Carme to come skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, whatever. You’re always welcome.”

  “I’m sorry we haven’t . . . and thank you. But what I’m trying to say,” I continue awkwardly, “is I was looking forward to today, but then we saw each other and you didn’t seem particularly happy. Or friendly, to be honest. In addition, I’ve noticed a Secret Service detail cruising around, possibly following me, one of the vehicles a watchtower for electronic countermeasures, I’m pretty sure.”

  I wait for him to comment, and of course he doesn’t.

  “And that’s not typical around here unless the president, vice president, someone like that is visiting,” I go on. “And no one is. Except you. And normally even the commander of Space Force wouldn’t require a Secret Service protection detail that includes a signal jammer to neutralize such things as improvised explosive devices, including ones possibly delivered by drones. So, I’ll just go ahead and draw attention to the elephant in the room and ask what’s wrong. Because something is.”

  Pausing again, waiting for him to fill in the blanks, and he’s not going to help me out.

  “You brought up Houston and my sister,” I keep going because I must. “I get the sense there’s something on your mind, and I hope I’m not being presumptuous to say . . .”

  He holds up a hand to stop me, “I’m not going to explain myself to you.”

  “Yes, sir. I understand.” I can’t help but bristle.

  “For God’s sake don’t ‘sir’ me, Calli. We know each other too well for that.” Taking a deep breath, and loudly, slowly blowing out.

  “You haven’t been acting as if we know each other very well,” I tell him in no uncertain terms. “And I’m wondering what I did . . .”

  “You didn’t do anything, and sorry. I don’t mean to be impatient.” His jaw muscles clenching. “But I’m not here to give you news about your future, okay? I don’t want you thinking it or running down the field with something you might imagine that’s totally wrong. Or maybe isn’t wrong. But either way, it’s not up for discussion or debate at this time, and I’m sure you know what I’m getting at,” he says, and I do.

  He’s referring to Carme’s and my status with the astronaut selection committee.

  “I’m not going to give you information on that. It’s not why I’m here,” he says. “Let me say it again. It’s not why I’m here,” slowly and with emphasis.

  “Obviously, it wouldn’t require the Secret Service if you’re here simply to tell me whether Carme and I made the cut or not,” I remark. “Or if we should be contemplating other career paths for the future . . . ,” my voice trailing off because I simply can’t imagine it.

  Or maybe I won’t imagine it, refuse to, I think stubbornly. Maybe I won’t accept that I’ll never be an astronaut. Maybe there’s nothing else for me, and I take a deep quiet breath, willing myself not to get emotional.

  “I’m not telling you that, and please don’t bring it up again,” Dick is saying. “Period. End of message.”

  All this while he’s taking in everything around us as if he might be watching for someone while speaking in a way that makes me halfway wonder if we’re being monitored or recorded. But I’m not about to hint that such suspicions would cross my mind when I’m in my official NASA Protective Services vehicle having what I assume is a private and confidential conversation with a trusted mentor and family friend.

  “You don’t need to explain,” I hear myself saying to him as my uneasy thoughts collide. “But let’s get to the most important stuff first. How are Liz and the kids? I think about them often and hate how quickly time goes by. Hard to believe we’ve not all been in the same room in three years.” Anything to lighten the mood and soften him up.

  “Great,” he says, “everybody’s great. It looks like her cooking competition show is going to get renewed for another season.”

  “Yes, you mentioned that earlier, at the briefing. Fantastic news but I
’m not surprised, and I hope you’ll remember to pass along my congratulations.”

  “Makes it hard that she has to try out everything on me first,” he says distractedly.

  “Having tasted her sinful renderings, yes. That would be difficult,” I agree. “But you’re not the only one with the problem. My mom watches her, and guess what I end up eating?”

  “I need to start hitting the gym harder.” Pressing his hand against his washboard belly.

  “You and me both.” Knowing I haven’t had a washboard belly since I moved back home, and most of it is Liz Melville’s fault.

  Her Kitchen Combat pits first responders and the military against each other in a cooking war, and is one of many reasons why I’m not in better shape. No matter how much I run or lift weights, it’s no contest when my mother gets going in the kitchen with the deep fryer and dutch oven.

  “The collateral damage of Mom watching Liz’s show and trying out everything is I can’t always . . . ,” I almost say button my pants but catch myself, thank goodness.

  I don’t need to be talking to the commander of Space Force that way, especially under the circumstances. It’s not like he’s at the house, sitting on our front porch, or I’m hanging out with his family in Colorado back in the good ole days. Eating amazing food. Throwing back his lethal cocktails.

  “Anyway, how unfair that Carme and I are twins but don’t have the same metabolism,” I should be quiet and quit while I’m ahead. “She never gains an ounce, and all I have to do is look at a cookie or a Big Mac. Or Liz’s baked brie.”

  Silence, and it’s significant that Dick hasn’t asked a single question about my NASA parents, whom he’s known for years, going back to the Air Force Academy, when my sister and I were nothing but a dream. He’s not so much as asked how I’m doing, his attention fixed on what he perceives as his agenda, his mission.

  Shifting his position in his seat, he stares at me for a long moment, and I feel it coming.

  11

  “WHEN you were in Houston for your first-round interviews, it was after Carme had been there for hers,” he starts in, the headlights shining across the parking lot illuminating Dodd Hall’s brick-and-timber back entrance.

  “As you know better than anyone, the policy is to keep twins separated. We weren’t together, weren’t in the same groups. She was the last week of October. And I was the week after that, almost exactly a month ago,” I add, and it’s hard to believe that much time has passed.

  “I’m wondering what you might have heard about her.”

  “What I might have heard about Carme?” I’m instantly defensive.

  “If you heard any comments about her.”

  “I’ve not met the other candidates who were in her group, so I haven’t talked to anyone who . . .”

  “Might you have heard comments, gossip from anybody at Johnson Space Center?” he persists. “Maybe from someone who might have been involved in the interview process? Or witnessed it? Or overheard something?”

  I realize how quick I am to say no. To want to, at least. When the truthful answer isn’t that simple, and I have a bad feeling I might know what he’s fishing for.

  “Since you showed up exactly a week after she was there,” he pushes his point, “others might have mistaken you for her. Perhaps they made remarks. Maybe you overheard things about what Carme might have been observed doing or saying while she was there.”

  By now I have no doubt what he’s after, information about an incident involving my sister at the local watering hole, Woody’s. I heard about it from one of the bartenders when I showed up a week after Carme had been there and he thought I was her.

  “As you’re aware from personal experience,” I’m explaining to Dick, “we’re not easy to tell apart even if you know us well.”

  “Witness when I first got into your truck,” he says.

  “Except that’s not why you called me Carme,” I won’t give him an easy pass. “That was just another one of your tests.”

  “What happened, according to the bartender at Woody’s?” And of course he would know about it.

  “From what I understand, it was Halloween night, and Carme showed up as J-Lo,” I launch in. “Our favorite cliché, right? In the old days, we’d go out together, both of us as J-Lo. Anyway, I show up in Houston a week after my sister’s interviews not knowing anything about what happened Halloween night. Let’s just say I got quite the reception when I walked in.”

  “Because the people there, or some of them at any rate, thought you were Carme,” Dick infers, or maybe he knows.

  “Trust me, it wasn’t positive, not hardly. Not that I’m unaccustomed to people mixing us up,” I make the understatement of the century. “But I was blown away by the confusion and upset caused until everyone understood that I have an identical twin.”

  “The incident involving Carme occurred on Halloween night, that’s correct,” Dick confirms. “She and the candidates in her group had dressed in costume for happy hour as part of a team-building exercise.”

  “I heard a story about her having to tell some woman to eff off after a confrontation in the parking lot.” I feel my mood darkening by degrees as what I’ve dreaded begins to creep closer.

  What did you do? My silent voice bounces off the inside of my skull. What did you do!

  “What else did you hear?” Dick is asking.

  “Only that she made a scene over ‘some local redneck dude’ who wouldn’t leave her alone. And I quote.”

  “Where did you hear that? Who are you quoting?”

  “The devil herself, Carme.” I smile despite it all. “I asked her about it after both of us were back in Virginia and before she left again,” I reply as if there’s nothing disturbing about her behavior, as if I might even find it amusing.

  When I absolutely don’t. I’m unnerved in ways I can’t begin to explain, and was when I heard her bizarre account the first time.

  “I see,” Dick says. “Then you really know only what she told you.”

  “That’s correct,” and I don’t like that he’s implying the obvious. “I realize there are two sides to every story,” I go ahead and say it.

  Giving him a chance to comment, and he doesn’t.

  “I’m passing along what was conveyed to me,” I add, “and that’s all.”

  I wait, and he volunteers nothing.

  “It sounds like it’s not all,” I then say dismally.

  “It wouldn’t appear so.” He looks at me, his somber face set in deep shadows as we sit in my truck.

  The defrost is going, the surrounding area what I call gently lit and secluded. A nice way of saying much too dark and deserted, no one around but us. It’s always private and isolated when tucked back here, but tonight it’s starkly vacant like a moonscape. Every place I go seems like that, with people leaving and businesses shutting down.

  Chaotic politics and an approaching whopper of a storm, either one bad enough on its own, and it’s as if the world is about to end. Or already did and nobody told me. I can’t remember feeling this desolate. Not since we found out Mom was sick and I had to leave Dick’s command, had to give up the military when it wasn’t what I’d planned since day one in my goal-directed life.

  “Are you aware of what happened to that so-called local dude?” Dick asks. “And what your sister might have said about him? And whether they might have had a history?”

  “No.”

  “Had they ever met before that night, according to her?”

  “I’m not aware of much. She and I talked about this only once,” is my response.

  “Do you know anything at all about him?”

  “I don’t.”

  “I’m wondering if Carme might have mentioned w
hether he had a Texas accent, for example.” Dick’s voice is clipped like the soft snaps of a whip. Just enough to smart.

  “I have no clue. She didn’t say.”

  “How about any accent, including a British one?” he asks, and I shake my head no. “Then she didn’t fill you in beyond calling him a local redneck.”

  “Pretty much,” I remark, and whatever’s coming next can’t be good after a windup like that.

  “His name was Noah Bishop,” Dick informs me. “And he wasn’t local to Houston or Texas. Not native to the US either, as you might have gathered.”

  “Was?”

  “As in past tense,” he says.

  “In other words, dead.”

  “I’m afraid that’s the suspicion, although thus far unconfirmed. Noah or his remains aren’t to be found anywhere, it seems. As if he vanished without a trace.”

  “Including an electronic trace?” I suggest, and Dick’s not going to touch it. “Who is he? Or was?” I ask.

  “A 36-year-old aeronautical engineer with one of the aerospace giants.”

  “Which one?”

  “PSS,” Dick says to my amazement.

  00:00:00:00:0

  PANDORA SPACE SYSTEMS is one of the more voracious competitors for government contracts. I might go so far as to call it predatory, especially when it comes to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

  DARPA’s focus is emergent military technologies, and what that boils down to is Pandora (as most of us refer to it) is involved in projects as off grid and cloaked in secrecy as they get. But more to the point, the multibillion-dollar aerospace company is where Vera Young was employed, working as a contractor with a team of researchers out of NASA Langley’s Building 1110.