“Did it happen that night?” Ray asked. “The break-in?”
She shook her head. “I just don’t know, Mr. Chambers. It might have. Or maybe it was a day or two later.”
“Audrey,” said Ray, “did he ever find the briefcase?”
“Oh, yes. It turned out he left it in the hotel restaurant.”
“I assume you returned it to Cohen.”
“As far as I know. Larry would have taken care of that.”
“Audrey, thank you.”
Cunningham had a line into Ray. “Ask her if she has any idea what was in the briefcase.”
He relayed the question.
Audrey nodded. “I don’t remember any specifics, but he was a teacher, and I think it had something to do with his classes. But I don’t know. Again, it’s a long time ago. He seemed really flustered. But this guy was always like that. Larry said how he was brilliant, but you couldn’t prove it by me.”
—
“Ray, how did Blackstone know where to look for the descent modules?”
Ray looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“He seems to have known exactly where to go.” It was apparently a question that hadn’t occurred to the chief of staff. “The back side of the Moon has a surface area of about seven million square miles. Blackstone was looking for a couple of pieces of metal that blended with the ground. How could he have possibly known where to find them?”
Ray sucked on his upper lip and shook his head. “I have no idea. He must have gotten lucky.”
“Sure he did. I think we should ask him.”
“You know how he is, Mr. President. He won’t tell us.”
“I think he will. We’ll have to put up with the gloating, though. I’ll tell you what. Put a call through to Jerry. Tell him I want to talk to him.”
—
Jerry looked nervous. The smart, friendly, easygoing guy who’d been such an asset on the campaign trail a few years back had gone missing. And Cunningham understood why: He’d gone over to the enemy. It was hard to understand how that could have happened. He knew Jerry had received plenty of job offers. Good ones. Cunningham had arranged a few of them. But Blackstone had undoubtedly outbid everybody. Had taken Jerry for the sole reason that his presence would embarrass the president. What a son of a bitch he was. And he wasn’t really sure which of the two men he was thinking of at that moment.
“How you been, Jerry?” he asked, keeping the anger out of his voice.
“I’m fine, Mr. President.” He looked off to the side, but Cunningham doubted anyone else was present. Jerry took a deep breath. Then the eyes came back. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“Congratulations on the Myshko flight.”
“Thank you. I’ll pass them on.”
“I’m sure you will.” Cunningham was seated on the sofa in his study. “How’s the new job working out?”
“I’m enjoying it, Mr. President. It keeps me in the space program.”
“Yes. Very good. I was sorry we lost you.”
“I was sorry to go.”
“Well, I guess these things happen.” Jerry’s eyes were locked on him now. He was probably expecting an offer to draw him away from Blackstone. “It looks as if you and he were right all the time.”
Jerry managed a nervous smile.
Cunningham made no effort to put him at ease. “Got a question for you, Jerry.”
“Yes, sir?”
“How did your boss know where the descent stages would be? How’d he know where to look?”
Jerry needed a moment to decide whether he was free to speak. He apparently decided he was. Or maybe he couldn’t resist putting a needle into the president. “It wasn’t really that difficult,” he said.
Cunningham listened while Jerry laid it all out. Rumors of a “Cassandra Project.” Photos from satellites and probes, both Russian and American, that had been doctored. He was about to add something, but he thought better of it and broke off. Held up his hands. “That’s about it, Mr. President.”
“The Russians were part of the cover-up?”
“Yes, sir. They must have been.”
“You’re sure about that? Absolutely positive?”
“I’ve seen the photos, sir.”
“That sounds as if you put some of this together.”
Again, the hesitation. “Yes, Mr. President. I guess I did.”
And Cunningham knew what he’d been about to say. He hadn’t been able to get anyone at NASA to believe him.
The president shook his head. What a bunch of damned idiots they’d been. Or maybe not. The story had simply been too wild to take seriously. “Thanks, Jerry,” he said.
—
Restoring good relations with the Russians had been one of Cunningham’s core goals. And, at least on a personal level, the two countries had come a long way. There were still people in power in Moscow who disliked and thoroughly distrusted the United States. Just as there were angry voices in D.C.
But Dmitri Alexandrov, the Russian president, had been at the White House five months earlier. The meeting had gone well. They’d conducted a joint press conference in which they tried to make the case for getting rid of what remained of Cold War animosity. Alexandrov’s support, against unhappy opposition at home, in joining the coalition to create a world free of nuclear weapons, had been enormously helpful in winning friends in the U.S. The problem was that too many people still thought that the White House, in getting rid of its atomic capabilities, was handing the world over to its rivals.
He checked the time. It was late in Moscow, but Alexandrov was not inclined to retire early. He picked up the red phone and pushed the button. It took a few minutes.
“Yes, George,” said Alexandrov. The call was strictly audio. “You are calling about the Moon shot, no doubt?” Much of his education had taken place in London, and he spoke with an accent that was a mixture of British and Russian.
“How’d you guess, Dmitri?”
“It is all over the newscasts. What else could it be?” He smiled. “I should mention that taking a call on the red phone is not as alarming as it must have been in the old days.”
“It’s a better world, my friend.”
“Yes. Thanks to you. So what did happen with the Moon flights? I trust there’s no emergency.”
“No. Everything is fine.”
“I am glad to hear it. And I am very curious. Your country put two vehicles on the Moon in 1959, prior to Apollo XI, and told no one. Why did that happen? There was such intense competition at the time—”
“Dmitri, I was hoping you might be able to tell me.”
He laughed. Then realized it was not a joke. “Why would you think that?”
“Photos from that era were doctored to hide the landings.”
“So how does that involve us?”
“Russian photos, Dmitri. Yours as well as ours.”
“Surely, George, you are joking.”
“I have it on the best authority.”
There was a long silence at the other end. Finally: “If I even try to look into it, I will be laughed at. Nobody would ever take me seriously again.”
“I know. I have the same problem. I just thought you should be aware.”
—
“So let me get this straight, love,” said Lyra. “You think Nixon set up the Watergate break-in because an anthropology professor left his briefcase in the Watergate restaurant?”
“Yes.”
“And this is because the briefcase had a connection with two Moon flights that we did in secret?”
Cunningham just looked at her.
“And all this happened three years after the flights in question?”
“That’s what it looks like,” he said.
“Okay. Can you tell me what this Cohen could possibly have been carrying around that was that valuable?”
“I don’t know, Lyra. That’s what we’ve been trying to find out.”
“Why do you think there was something in the briefcase?”