Temple refilled her water. “Go on, quickly. Get to the good stuff.”
She stared at her glass, the swirling liquid. “Since the beginning of the lunar program, there have been miscalculations, problems and… unusual missteps. The first few missions overshot the moon as mission control discovered to their surprise that they had miscalculated the moon’s gravitational pull, expecting a much greater mass, given the moon’s size. After adjusting again, early landings struck harder and faster than planned—and created a metallic ringing upon impact. And speaking of landing, the original craft and crew were prepared to be caught in a deep sea of dust, as should have been the case, given the moon’s extreme age, its lack of atmosphere and its direct exposure to dust-producing solar rays. But there was relatively little dust, less than an inch.”
Diana pushed a button and all the main screens went black, then started up with a presentation. “What I’m about to show you,” she said, “are photographs captured by the early Apollo missions. There are a lot of these pictures, and they tend to be overwhelming after a while. None of these have been seen before by anyone outside of NASA—and only there to a select few.” She tapped a key on her laptop and the screens went black as she talked. “From the beginning,” she said, “there have always existed two space programs.”
10.
Liberty Island
After breezing through the shortened security checkpoint, where the crowd impatiently waited out the rain, Caleb bypassed the museum entrance and opted for the stairs up to the top of the fort section and base. He ran through puddles, his face turned against the driving rain. Before the entrance, he glanced up at the dizzying height of the pedestal, and again had a flashback to Alexandria, a vision two thousand years old, with Roman galleys assailing the structure’s base under churning storm clouds, a brazier of fire lit high above, and the huge mirror blasting a light through the gloom.
Inside, he emerged directly into the center of the structure, with metal mesh floors and a steep staircase bending around the central shaft supporting Liberty’s frame. He had a moment of vertigo and had to grab a railing.
“Tough climb,” said one of the park attendants, sitting at this ground level station and working on the newspaper’s crossword section. He was in his sixties with a gray mustache and spindly fingers. “Take the elevator if you like, gets you to her feet at least. Then you still gotta climb. You have crown access?”
Caleb flashed him his pass. “Yeah, I think I will travel in style as long as I can. But first, tell me. What do you know about the cornerstone?”
“Masonic dedication, all that Dan Brown stuff? Why, you think there’s some secret treasure stashed inside there?”
Caleb choked on a laugh. “Um, actually I’m a professor at Columbia. Just thought I’d do some research for a history class.”
“Yeah, it’s down there at the base. Hard to get to, especially in a storm.”
“And the box?”
“Sealed up good, from what I heard. But I’m sure there’s a way into it. I’d have to check with the director. Don’t get much questions about it, actually.”
“Is he here? The director?”
“At the administration office you passed on the way off the ferry. You should’ve probably set up an appointment.”
“Yeah, this was kind of last minute.” Caleb stood there, dripping, trying to decide what to do.
“So, you wanna go up, get your money’s worth? Least it’s not too stifling hot up there like normally. Usually a couple people fainting every day. Keeps me busy.”
Caleb started for the elevator, deciding to at least check out the crown while he had the chance. And he didn’t know how close Nina was. She might not have recognized him in his tourist disguise, but she would know where he was going. “Oh,” he called back. “One more thing. What’s below the base?”
“Under the old fort, you mean?”
“Yeah, ever been down there? I’m wondering about how far down it goes.”
“Just a storage level. Nothing else I’ve seen anyways or heard about. Why, you think maybe there’s some Nazi base down there or a secret government lab?”
“No, sorry.”
“Maybe the lair for the true shadow government!” The attendant was really playing it up, and becoming annoying.
Caleb wiped the rainwater from his face. “You really need to get out more.”
The guard shrugged. “A lot of time for thought in here. Time to wonder about all sorts of things.”
“Wondering’s not a bad pastime.” Caleb entered the elevator and let the attendant send it on its way.
“See you on the way down,” the guard called. “Unless the government assassins get you first and make it look like an accident!”
During the ascent, as Caleb marveled at the precision of the supporting interior structure of Batholdi’s design, he had a moment to think. He tried to find a way to refine the search, but kept coming back to the one thing that had stifled him before.
Find out what Patton had done with it.
He knew the general had secured it from among the treasures found defended by the Nazis in Nuremburg, knew that he had recognized it as something special, something powerful. And after researching it, he’d petitioned Eisenhower to keep it as a tool for America, but had his request denied. It was ordered back to Vienna to be displayed at its national museum. That was a request Patton refused, and secretly had a replica made of the lance, and that copy substituted in its place while the original found its way here. Somewhere…
Where? That’s when the visions broke down and he couldn’t find the right questions to probe. He had been asking what Patton had done with it, and that only led to visions of a ferry not unlike the one he had just taken, to Liberty Island where Patton remained on the boat, just nodding confidently at the results of his efforts.
Where was it? Caleb probed again, thinking. It had to have been handed off to someone he trusted. Someone who had access to the Statue. An administrator, an attendant, a worker… An engineer? Caleb thought again of the men he had seen working on the torch. Still, it seemed more likely that the cornerstone and secret box contained the prize, but not only was that too obvious, but discovery was too likely. If anyone decided to open it up for study, the anomalous weapon would cry out for explanation.
That tended to rule out the cornerstone, which left the crown or the torch, or some secret passageway to an underground complex, something unknown to the conspiracy-minded security guard downstairs.
The elevator finally slowed, then the doors opened and he emerged at the top of the monument’s base. Looking up at the winding staircase shaped like a double helix, he got dizzy all over again. Now comes the hard part. He really wished he knew if it was up there, or if this was all a waste of time. Time he didn’t have.
He looked down. People were starting to climb, a few who had braved the drenching rain. He lingered for a moment, and was about to turn away when he saw a flash of red, way down there.
She’s coming.
Before taking the stairs, Caleb glanced out the side exit to the viewing balcony. The day had turned a dismal shade of gray, with sheets of silvery rain pelting the platform, dripping down the exit’s frame and flooding in rivulets to overflowing drainage vents.