Another body. One of the shuttle crew.
Christ, it’s Rhonda.
No, Steinhower. It’s Steinhower. Severson is horrified. The poor bastard. Steinhower could be an annoying whiner but no one deserves that — a bullet in the chest, from the look of it. The short guy deposits the body next to Calvin’s.
Severson rubs at his face, horrified by what’s happening, any thought of being cool a distant memory.
The short man takes the comms box and headset from Steinhower’s body, pulls them on, triggers the switch and talks directly into the security camera. ‘Mr Burke, I am now the commander of Atlantis and its remaining crew.’
‘Who the hell is this?’ Severson tries to invest the question with authority. It doesn’t work. His voice cracks and flutters like a nervous fourteen-year-old who’s thrown caution to the wind and asked out the prom queen in front of her quarterback boyfriend.
‘I’m sure you remember the Challenger fiasco in 1986 and the Columbia disaster in 2003. They will seem like minor footnotes in the history of this space program unless you obey my every word.’
Severson’s sure the accent is French. The man gestures to the hostages kneeling on the catwalk. ‘Do not speak unless you are answering a question. For each command you disobey one of these men will die. Is this clear?’
‘Yes.’
‘Allow no security or SWAT personnel to approach pad 39A. Is this understood?’
‘Look, I don’t know what you expect will happen —’
The Frenchman fires his pistol into Nigel Dunderfield’s temple. The young man slumps to the ground.
‘I said do not speak unless you are answering a question. Now, once again, allow no security personnel to approach pad 39A. Is this understood?’
‘Yes.’
‘Stand by for further instructions.’
Severson stares at the monitor, stunned, his face blanched. His first thought is for the dead men and the remaining crew. His second thought is for how he’s worked too long and hard to let his career end like this. He must fix this, and quickly.
The launch team murmur, in shock. Someone sobs. Every eye in the room is on Severson as they await their director’s guidance. Severson’s hand moves to his comms box switch, the other moves to his headset microphone. He wants to rally the troops, to outline a course of action, to lead. He opens his mouth to speak — but doesn’t say a word. He’s got nothing.
12
Shooting that man was not something Henri enjoyed, but the launch director needed to understand that dissent would not be tolerated. Henri believed the message had now been clearly received.
With Dirk in tow Henri leaves Cobbin with the hostages and quickly enters the White Room. He pulls off the ski mask, swings off his backpack and takes out a black flight suit. It’s similar to the orange Advanced Crew Escape Suit NASA astronauts wear, including a ventilation and cooling system and integrated pressure bladders to stop blood pooling in the legs during high-G-force manoeuvres.
Henri swaps his Nomex suit for the flight suit and deposits the pistol in his backpack. As planned, Rick Calvin’s helmet and gloves hang on the White Room’s wall, awaiting their late owner. Henri twists them onto the suit’s locking rings then flips up the helmet’s visor. The whole procedure takes less than ninety seconds.
Backpack in hand, Henri slides through the shuttle’s circular entry hatch. Once inside he turns to Dirk. ‘See you soon.’
‘Happy trails, Commander.’ They clasp hands and share a grin, then Henri disappears into the belly of Atlantis.
Judd watches the German seal up the shuttle’s hatch. The astronaut has crawled along the horizontal duct, squeezed through the air-conditioning junction then up the long vertical duct that runs parallel to the White Room’s inner wall.
He lies on a short horizontal section of duct that ends at a mesh screen that pulls air out of the White Room. His legs dangle down the vertical shaft as he peers through the vent, placed high on the White Room’s wall, opposite where the German seals the hatch. Judd’s surprised the man knows how to do it, it’s a complicated process, but of more interest to him is why. Why is he sealing the hatch?
Ockham’s Razor. The principle, devised by a fourteenth-century Franciscan friar named William of Ockham, postulated that, all things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually correct. And the simplest explanation is that this group is trying to hijack the shuttle.
Judd doesn’t believe it can be done. It’s not even something NASA considers a serious possibility. Someone blowing up the shuttle, yes, that’s a possibility; a ground-to-air missile would do the trick. Or someone taking astronauts hostage, yes, that’s a possibility. But someone stealing a space shuttle off the pad? Launching it into orbit? That was Hollywood nonsense.
The shuttle is the most complicated vehicle ever built. You need years of training to understand its myriad systems. Even an astronaut who understood the ship would need someone in Launch Control willing to push the right button at the right time. So Judd’s certain there must be another reason the German’s sealing the hatch. He just doesn’t know what it is.
And where’s Rhonda? The simplest explanation is that she’s still inside the shuttle. From where Judd lies he can’t see anyone except the German. He doesn’t even know how many buddies Tango brought to this party, apart from the older guy with the French accent who’s now inside the spacecraft. Simply, he knows nothing so he needs to stop wasting time and find out.
He takes a deep breath, readies himself for the trip down the duct, then through the vent and into the White Room where he will tackle the German, knock him out and, if all goes well, end this thing.
Ready. Set. He doesn’t go. He needs the element of surprise, the only advantage on offer tonight. He must wait until the German turns his back.
Henri works his way across the flight deck like a kid scaling a jungle gym then settles into the commander’s chair. He glances at his female hostages, both strapped into the seats behind him. Helmets on, their wrists are ziplocked to the seat’s alloy frames with thick cable ties. They do not speak. They have seen firsthand the penalty for that transgression.
Martie Burnett’s head is bowed and she stares at the ventilation hose attached to her flightsuit’s waist. Her body language is obvious: she is cowed. Not so Rhonda Jacolby in the chair to her left. As he expected, her eyes are locked on him. She takes him in, weighs him up, searches him out. She seeks a weakness. An oversight. An opening. A way to regain control of her ship. He finds her defiance admirable, if misguided.
Henri buckles in and turns to Nico beside him. The Italian studies the MacBook Pro clamped to the side of the instrument panel. Its Thunderbolt port is linked via cable to an open panel beside the LCD screens in front of him. ‘How long?’
Nico works the MacBook’s keyboard, reads its screen: ‘One minute.’
If they launch this shuttle the manned space program will cease to exist. Rhonda’s sure of it. First Challenger then Columbia then strike number three, this colossal screw-up. They’ll pull the plug on the whole damn thing. She can’t let that happen. This is her ship so it is her responsibility.
She strains against the fat plastic cable tie that encircles her left wrist. It doesn’t budge. She tries the same with her right arm. It moves, opens. She tilts her head, studies it. The cable tie has been placed on the wrong way around, so the teeth aren’t engaged with the locking mechanism. When the guy with the Italian accent strapped it down he did it wrong. If she pulls on it her arm will come free. She doesn’t get excited, just thinks about what to do next. She saw the Italian place his pistol in the backpack that rests beside him, which is, at a stretch, within her reach. If she can get her hand on that gun, fire it if needed, then this ends here. She knows it’s easier thought than done but she can’t see another option. She must try.