"Plot?" I reply.
He makes a face. "David, haven't you figured it out? You're an astronaut. Aren't you supposed to be a genius?"
"I chose a line of work where my job is to sit on a million pounds of explosives and press a button to light them. How smart do you think I am?"
"Peterson and Bennet were working with the Chinese. This whole thing was an attempt to steal a Russian decoder. It's espionage that went way out of control." He whistles. "I thought you might have figured that out by now."
He can see the shocked reaction on my face.
Peterson and Bennet, spies? All this time I've been working for the bad guys?
43
Red Agents
"Let me back up a bit. I can see the look all over your face. Peterson and Bennet weren't sleeper agents doing dead drops and knowingly conspiring with the enemy. It's a bit more subtle than that. Something I see all the time." Vaughn moves his chair back and sets his feet on the conference room table, like he's some kind of Texas wildcatter showing his disdain for the establishment.
"It starts like this; you're at a conference; for Peterson it was an aerospace technology transfer symposium in New Orleans two years ago. Someone approaches you from a company, in this case it was a Canadian firm — secretly owned by the Chinese. They say they're a satellite communications and security company. You Google them and find out they're real, holding patents and employing people from Stanford and the like. They tell you they'd love to get you to work for them. They talk about IPOs, huge growth and how you'd be a perfect fit.
"In Peterson's case, she politely declines and says she's happy at NASA. But they stay in contact. This company's liaison was a friendly woman who happened to be in Houston and a few other places where Peterson was working and they struck up a friendship. Coffee, shopping, wine tasting, all that chick stuff.
"Meanwhile, this woman has been recruiting Bennet. Now he's a harder nut to crack. We're talking Bennet, right? All men have their weaknesses — their ego. I don't need to get into details but we end up with two astronauts and this woman — actually a trained Chinese Army intelligence officer in bed together. Figuratively and literally.
"So here we have two heroes compromised. But outright blackmail isn't going to work on people who offer to put their lives on the line as part of the job. Another person approaches them and says he's going to go to the press with what happened. It's a fait accompli. Nobody asks for a shakedown. Nobody offers them a deal — at least not overtly.
"Peterson and Bennet get a call from their little red friend, who they still think is just some recruiter for a Canadian tech company. She asks about some quantum entanglement processor the Russians have. She alludes to the idea the NSA or the NRO is interested in this and that there could be a fat contract for her company and two jobs for astronauts who might be soon out of work.
"Bennet being Bennet and not doing anything half-assed, and also having no love for the Russians — you know he lost a friend to an undisclosed recon mission? He found out later NKVD captured him and held the man for over a year torturing him for information about avionics. Anyhow, let's just say he doesn't care for Russians whether they're capitalists or communists. He sees the mission as a matter of freelance national security. Anyhow, David, those are the broad strokes."
I try to reconcile this with what I know about Bennet and Peterson. "So… you're saying this is because they had some three-way with a Canadian chick?"
"Do you know how many times I get called in because somebody stuck their dick where they weren't supposed to?" He rolls his eyes. "Here's a fun fact, we're in the same state as two high school students who have no idea their father is a top Chinese official. Their mother was an operative of ours. We play the game too. But I like to think we're the good guys."
He takes a drink and shakes his head. "Peterson and Bennet thought they were the good guys too." He points the top of his bottle at me. "And then there's you. You weren't doing this out of financial gain or trying to cover up some sex thing. Were you?" He raises an eyebrow.
"No… Jesus, I had no idea what the hell was going on."
He waves his hand in the air. "I know that, David. The problem is that my bosses don't quite see it that way. The Russians are calling for your head. They're demanding that when you're found you get extradited back to Russia. Russian television is calling you a terrorist. Actually, so is our media after the stunt with the airplane. Wow. That was some Jason Bourne-level shit."
I feebly try to explain. "There was a shoot out. A Russian kill team was trying to… um, kill me."
"Oh, we know. That's because you took a decryption wafer they use to communicate with their nuclear subs, airplanes and everything else that underlies their defenses. That one chip compromises their entire military. Of course they were trying to kill you. Here's the upside for you. As mad as they are, you're lucky that you have something we really, really want. We can make all of this — or a lot of this at least — go away. That wafer is your get out of jail free card."
Everything he's saying is what I want to hear. But there's something making me anxious I can't quite put my finger on.
Someone knocks on the door. A man dressed in a black polo shirt like Vaughn pokes his head inside the door. A little younger, fresh-faced, he's got the same ex-military bearing that Vaughn possesses.
"Hey Vaughnster, we need you in ComStak in twenty. Director is screaming for you-know-who." He throws me a glance and grins. "When we clear up this shitshow, how about you come work for us? These assholes could learn a thing or two."
"I'll be there in a second, Cardwell. We taking the jet to Vegas tonight? There's a new steak place at Aria I'm dying to try." He looks to me. "You want to go?"
I'm confused. "Vegas? Tonight?"
"Yeah. We won't have all this cleared up. But I think I can appease the folks at Langley and get the FBI off all our backs. We'll have some agency issue a statement that you're in US custody and that'll call off the dogs."
"And then we go get steaks in Vegas?" I ask.
"Unless you have a better place in mind."
It was Cardwell poking his head in the door that finally put the last piece in place for me.
When I was a kid my parents brought me along to some housing development pitch on the edge of a grassy lot in a trailer a lot like this. I watched a man with a casual, friendly demeanor tell my parents all about the development and how it was a great investment opportunity.
One of his co-workers even poked his head in with a friendly word and a comment about time running out. While they didn't offer us a trip to Vegas to eat at a steak restaurant — instead it was an investor's barbecue they were holding in a few weeks.
Mom and dad's weak credit didn't bother them. The man was all about "handshake deals" and "trust." Dad wanted to do it, but mom pulled him out before he could commit.
As we drove off in our beat up minivan, I remember mom saying something that always stuck with me, "You can't cheat an honest man."
The housing development was a scam. After they collected their deposits and skipped town, the lot they'd only been leasing month-to-month became an overgrown field.
This man, Vaughn, is trying to work me. I just don't know his angle.
I'm sure he could make a jet materialize and get us a table at the fanciest restaurant in Vegas if he had to. But right now, he's going to try to get me to turn over the McGuffin for just a beer.