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Velocity - Novel
Velocity - Novel
Velocity - Novel
WORLAND
VELOCITY
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Worland, Steve
Velocity/Steve Worland
9781921901102 (pbk.)
A823.4
penguin.com.au
plane as a boy. Henri knows it was one of the first built, delivered
to the air force in September 1970, the last of the ‘A’ models to be
retired. It landed at the adjacent Davis-Monthan Air Force Base
earlier that afternoon, was towed to AMARC and left at this spot.
Tomorrow air-force personnel planned to dismantle and inspect it
to determine the life expectancy of the remaining fleet.
The Mack pulls up beside the Galaxy’s fuselage and is swal-
lowed by the left wing’s shadow. To the right is a small hangar. No
lights on, nobody at home. Protecting thousands of acres of decom-
missioned aircraft, many in pieces, none airworthy, was not a US
military priority. During the day there were dozens of employees
at AMARC, but at night only three soldiers guarded the sprawl-
ing complex without the aid of video surveillance. Even so, Henri
knows there’ll be plenty of security soon enough.
The Frenchman checks his vintage Rolex GMT-Master, a for-
tieth birthday present from his wife, then turns to Cobbin and
Gerhard. ‘Ten minutes.’
They nod, no need for words. They have painstakingly
rehearsed exactly what will happen next. They each slip on their
two-way radio headsets then climb out of the Mack.
At the front of the tanker Cobbin unspools a long, thick hose
that’s attached to a Masport pump. The nozzle at the other end
is large and unwieldy, specifically machined for one job. Gerhard
heaves the hose to his shoulder and lugs it towards an area low on
the Galaxy’s fuselage above the landing gear. He tugs open the fuel
cover, slides the nozzle on to the vent – and can’t get it on. Cobbin
watches him struggle with it, then finally lock it down.
Cobbin flicks a switch and the pump whirrs to life. Type A avi-
ation fuel sloshes up the pipe into the Galaxy’s tanks. The tanker
holds 34 000 litres of avgas and it will take no more than eight
he can see smoke blast from the exhaust stack as the diesel engine
cranks to life.
‘Remember it’s sensitive. Don’t stall.’
Gerhard doesn’t need Cobbin to remind him that the remote is
sensitive, he built the thing. He pushes the throttle lever forward.
The Mack rolls – then lurches to a stop. ‘Shit!’ It stalled.
Cobbin throws Gerhard a dark look. The Austrian ignores it,
wipes his forehead, presses the red button again. Black smoke bursts
from the Mack’s exhaust stack. He eases the throttle lever forward
again. The Mack rolls. Gerhard exhales, more relieved than happy.
He delicately moves the remote’s control wheel and feeds in more
throttle. The Mack speeds past the Galaxy.
The strange convoy turns south-west onto the taxiway and rolls
on through the cool night.
Henri must lean forward to see the taxiway through the Galaxy’s
windscreen. Directly in front of the Mack is the 70-metre-long,
six-metre-high motorised gate that separates the Boneyard from
Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. To the left of the gate is a small
guardhouse. Inside a soldier shouts into a telephone.
Henri speaks into his headset. ‘Do it.’
The Mack accelerates hard, strikes the centre of the gate even
harder. A section catapults right and spins into the night like a
deranged frisbee. Another section catches hold of the Mack’s grill
and jams there as the truck continues on its merry way. Yet another
section flips left and slams into the roof of the guardhouse.
The giant aircraft rolls through the new gap in the fence, the
stubby guardhouse passing under its left wing just as it was designed
to. Then the jet wash from the turbofans hit. The guardhouse, made
Gerhard strains his neck to keep his eyes on the Mack as he works
the remote. The truck leans into a wide turn and the slab of metal
fence slides off its nose and clatters to the tarmac. Then the Mack
slows and falls in behind the Galaxy. The pair trundle past the alert
pads and head towards the runway.
Henri turns to the right and locks eyes on a pair of taxiing
fighter jets on the far side of the airfield. They’re F-16 Fighting
Falcons from the 120th FIG. Each week they rotate from their home
in Great Falls, Montana, to Davis-Monthan. They can scramble
from their hangar in under five minutes to identify, intercept, and,
if necessary, destroy any airborne threat to the USA. As the Galaxy is
a very large threat they will not let it take off.
They’re too far away to fire yet but Henri knows they’ll soon
be in range. They’ll use the 20-millimetre Gatling guns first, hop-
ing to stop the Galaxy before it leaves the ground. If that fails they’ll
launch the wingtip-mounted AIM-9 Sidewinders and blow it out of
the sky.
Gerhard plays the remote, eyes glued to the Mack truck. It’s 150
metres behind the Galaxy. He steers it to the left to avoid the turbo-
fan’s jet wash as the jet rolls onto the runway’s threshold, its tarmac
scarred black by decades of tyre rubber.
Henri’s eyes stay fixed on the taxiing F-16s. Bobbling over the
uneven tarmac they pass behind a line of parked Hercules C-130s.
In thirty seconds they’ll clear the aircraft and have an unimpeded
shot at the Galaxy.
Gerhard stands by the open hatch and watches the mushroom cloud
shrink into the distance. The 100 kilograms of C-4 plastic explo-
sive strapped to the underside of the Mack’s tanker had worked as
planned, or almost as planned. The Mack was supposed to detonate
in the middle of the runway, but Gerhard didn’t quite get it there.
Still, no one would be following them from that runway tonight,
which was the point. He turns to Cobbin and grins. ‘So, I did okay?’
Henri leans back, closes his eyes, and his thoughts, as they so often
do, lead to his wife. On this mission he will push the envelope as far
as he can because he does not fear death. Death cannot be worse
than the pain he endures every day since she passed.
He knows he should he happy with this success but he isn’t.
He’s struck by the unease he always suffers when things go too well.
Where will the error occur? The error that derails the whole enter-
prise.
Le doute fou. That’s what she called it. Foolish doubt. With a
quiet word she could always dispel his concerns. If he concentrates
hard enough he can almost hear her say it.
The sea of glass LCD screens lights up the flight deck of space shut-
tle Discovery like it’s a Christmas tree, albeit the most expensive and
complicated Christmas tree ever devised.
A gloved hand holds the rotational controller, moves the joy-
stick firmly to the left. The hand belongs to Judd Bell. He wears a
flight suit, a helmet and his game face.
The Discovery cabin smoothly tilts right and maintains the steep
angle of its roll-reversal turn. Judd’s eyes flick to the console and find
one of those five LCD screens. Discovery is at a height of 180 000
feet, travelling at 13 350 kilometres an hour.
Judd looks out the windscreen. The view is breathtaking, the
pitch black of space fading into a dark-blue sky that brightens
before it touches the curvature of the Earth. He speaks into his hel-
met’s microphone: ‘Control, this is Discovery. Do you copy? Over.’
There’s no response.
Twelve minutes ago Judd kicked Discovery out of orbit and back
into the clutches of Earth’s gravity. The little shuttle slammed into
the upper atmosphere at a touch over 27 000 kilometres an hour, the
soft silica tiles glued to its underside and the carbon-carbon leading
wing edges doing a perfect job of deflecting the 1500 degrees Celsius
it generated on re-entry. That intense heat strips the electrons from
the air around the spacecraft and blocks all communication with
exercise. It’s not like bringing in a regular aircraft. You can’t abort,
throttle up, fly around and take another crack at it. The shuttle’s
engines are only operational at launch. After that, it’s a very heavy
glider that doesn’t glide very well because its swept-back delta wings
don’t generate much lift. When it’s gliding in to land it drops to the
ground at an angle seven times steeper than a commercial aircraft
of the same size. Even the northern flying squirrel does a better job
than that.
Landing is Judd’s least favourite part of the mission. The only
thing comparable is putting an F-14 Tomcat on the heaving deck of
a carrier in rough sea, something he’d done many times as a naval
aviator before he was recruited by NASA.
Judd looks through the windscreen as the sky lightens and the
first wisps of cloud slip past. His eyes move back to the LCDs and he
lies back the speed brake to 65 per cent.
Severson leans forward and hits two switches. ‘Air data probes
deployed.’
‘Thank you, Mr Severson. Four minutes to landing.’ The air
passing by outside is loud. Judd takes a breath, eases the shuttle out
of its right turn.
Through the windscreen he can see the shuttle landing facility
in the far distance, three kilometres of runway sitting in a Florida
swamp, glistening in the afternoon sun. Gators often strayed onto
the runway to catch a little shut-eye in the baking heat. There was
a dedicated team to move them along whenever a shuttle was due.
‘Control, this is Discovery. We are at TAEM interface. How are
the crosswinds at Kennedy?’
‘Crosswinds nominal. Everything looks fine.’
Judd leans, triggers a switch. ‘Control, we have acquired auto-
land, over.’
A door flies open, slams against the side of the motion-based crew
station, one of two shuttle mission simulators at Johnson Space
Center in Houston. Judd steps out and yanks off his helmet, his face
wet with sweat. He looks younger than his thirty-eight years, a light
crazing of lines around his eyes the only thing that distinguishes him
from the tall, dark-haired guy who watched Columbia break apart
eight years ago.
Judd clanks down the grey metal stairs to ground level. He’s
furious. With himself. With the sim that caught him out. With the
world. He wants to get away from here as fast as he can, away
from the scene of his latest, and greatest, failure. He strides past the
giant hydraulic rams that support the white, angular simulator. The
machine, built in 1977 for one hundred million dollars, was created
to test shuttle pilots in over 6000 malfunction and emergency sim-
ulations, and to do it with hyperaccurate cabin movement, sound
effects and visual representations. It was money well spent. Better to
buy the farm here than fly a shuttle into the ground for real and dig
a three-billion-dollar barbecue pit.
He realises, unhappily, that he is now, officially, that guy. Every-
one knows one: a guy who did the most interesting and meaningful
thing in his life when he was young. Judd is the one who flew into
orbit once but never did it again, the aerospace equivalent of a one-
hit wonder.
The harsh fluorescent lights get in his eyes as he moves along the
ground-floor corridor, kick-starting a pain behind his right temple
that he knows will become a migraine within the hour. He should
deal with it now, head it off with a tablet of Zomig, get out of the sti-
flingly hot, bright-orange flight suit and take a shower. He doesn’t.
He shoulders open the nearest exit and steps outside.
As he leans against the side of the building a light breeze makes
his head feel a little better, but the migraine is still coming. He unzips
the flight suit, reaches inside and pulls out a zippo and a Marlboro
softpack. There’s one crumpled cigarette inside. He slips it in his
mouth and flips open the lighter. He knows the cigarette will make
him feel better, but only for seven seconds. That initial draw of
smoke, mixed with the lingering aroma of zippo fluid, is heaven.
Then it’s all downhill. He’ll feel sweaty and nauseous and anxious
about dying of cancer, but those first seven seconds, well, they were
just the ticket.
‘You can’t smoke in a flight suit.’
Rhonda quietly eases open the front door, then just as quietly eases
it shut. The Ghost and The Darkness greet her and immediately
slump onto their sides in a plea for affection. She’d heard ragdoll
cats had a dog-like demeanour but she’s constantly amazed at how
gregarious they are. She kneels, tickles their bellies and does her best
cat-lady whisper: ‘Ooo, hello there, my little fatties.’ She checks they
have enough food and water in their bowls then turns to climb the
staircase.
‘Hey.’ Judd stands in the half-light on the landing above.
‘Hey. Didn’t wake you, did I?’
‘No, no. Couldn’t sleep.’
Couldn’t sleep. She knows that’s code for I want to talk. She lets
the words hang, unaddressed, then climbs the stairs. As she passes
by she leans in and gives him a kiss-hug. ‘I’m bushed, got a killer day
tomorrow. Up at four-thirty. I might sleep in the guestroom. I need
a solid five and you were a bit restless last night.’
‘Was I? Sorry ’bout that.’
She continues up the stairs.
‘Things didn’t go too well in the sim today.’
She stops, breathes out, turns to him with a sympathetic expres-
sion.
‘You know, it’s just, I can’t seem to get it right. I used to be really
good at this stuff . . .’ He trails off.
‘I want to hear all about it, sweetie, but I need to get some sleep.
Can we talk about it tomorrow?’ She stifles a yawn.
space was only possible in the realms of science fiction. That Judd
was chosen ahead of her to pilot the mission to the International
Space Station only fired her up, motivated her to do better. The com-
petition between them was cordial yet fierce and added a similar, not
unwelcome frisson to their bedroom. It was the best time of his life.
That all changed in 2003. One of the astronauts aboard
Columbia had started his NASA career at the same time as Judd.
The two had worked side by side for three years and bonded during
the shared experience of doing something only a handful of people
ever do. They were each other’s confidants and comrades and then
Columbia broke up and, just like that, Judd had lost his best friend.
Judd slides back into bed and stares at the ceiling. It wasn’t long
after the loss of Columbia that he first noticed Rhonda would peri-
odically drift away from him, become remote in mind and spirit, if
not body. It didn’t happen that often, and when it did she wasn’t
gone for long. He attributed it to the stress of work and didn’t worry
too much about it. She always found her way back to him.
But over the past few months her remoteness had become more
frequent and lasted longer. Whatever kept them connected – a
shared history, a shared ambition, a shared house, a shared bed –
it now stretched longer and thinner with each absence. As he rolls
over to find sleep he wonders how long it will be before it breaks.
‘You. Stay. Here. This is very important so let me repeat it so it’s per-
fectly clear. You. Sta-a-ay. Here.’ Corey Purchase sits in the doorless
cockpit of the small, beaten-up Huey OH-6A Loach helicopter and
stares at the passenger in the seat beside him. ‘Don’t give me that
face. I can’t have you in there making a scene, okay? Sta-a-ay here.
Are we clear?’
The recipient of the lecture is not a wilful child or a recalcitrant
teenager but a strikingly homely blue heeler named Spike. He’s a
large white dog who looks like he’s been splattered with navy-blue
paint but never hosed off. He barks.
‘Okay. Good.’ With a nod, Corey turns to exit the cockpit, then
stops. ‘I don’t need to tie you up, do I?’
A bark.
‘I’m not having this conversation now.’ He points at the animal.
‘Stay.’
The tall Australian pilot slides out of the day-glo-yellow, tear-
drop-shaped chopper and turns to a small, decrepit building at
the edge of a desert. A single-engined Beechcraft and an old Bell
Jet Ranger helicopter are parked in a sandblasted hangar nearby.
In the middle distance, two passenger jets, a Boeing 737 and an
Airbus A320, are parked beside a runway near a simple termi-
nal building. This dusty little aerodrome is Alice Springs Airport,
‘Woof.’
Les turns and fastens Roy with that pinched and unhappy
expression. Roy doesn’t meet his eyes, just studies his cards. Les
turns back to Corey. ‘Sorry ’bout that. Look, this is difficult. You
know I’m subcontracted by the operators.’
Corey nods a little too eagerly. ‘Yeah. Sure.’
‘So the problem is, if I hire pilots they don’t want then they don’t
hire me.’
‘It happened once. Once! Three years ago. Can’t they get past
it?’ The desperation finally shows.
‘Everyone remembers it, mate.’
‘I know, but jeez. Maybe you could talk to them? I guarantee it
won’t happen again.’
Roy pipes up. ‘No one wants the crazy dog guy flying them
around. It’s not that difficult to understand.’
Tub-o-lard Harry adds his two cents. ‘Maybe his dog could
explain it to him —’
‘Woof!’ This bark doesn’t come from Roy. They turn.
It’s Spike, standing by the open front door.
Mortified, Corey moves to him, his voice a low, hard whisper.
‘I told you to stay in the chopper. Get out!’
Spike barks.
‘I don’t need your help.’
‘I think you need a lot of help.’ Harry twirls his finger beside his
head in case anyone didn’t grasp the mental health inference.
Spike leaps over the reception desk in one muscular bound,
flies past Les and lands in front of the card table where Harry and
Roy sit. Teeth bared, a sinister growl emerges from deep within the
animal.
Harry and Roy leap from their chairs and take refuge behind
the table. ‘Get that mongrel out of here!’ Over the course of the
sentence Harry’s panicked voice rises an octave.
‘Spike!’
The dog turns, barks at Corey.
‘Get behind!’
Spike turns back to Harry and Roy and growls again.
‘Now!’
The blue heeler pivots, leaps the counter and takes up a position
behind his master. Suddenly it’s very quiet. Corey looks at Les, mor-
tified by the turn of events. ‘Sorry about that – I – please don’t let it
affect —’
‘You should probably leave, mate.’
Corey nods resignedly. ‘Yep. Probably should.’ He doesn’t want
to. He wants to stay and persuade Les to hire him. Unfortunately,
the pinched and unhappy expression tells him it’s not going to
happen.
Corey turns and heads for the exit. Spike growls at Harry and
Roy one last time then follows him through the door and outside
into the vivid afternoon light. They crunch across the red earth to
the day-glo-yellow Loach.
Spike barks.
‘Yes, I’m pissed off. I had it under control. I was guaranteeing
it would never happen again and then you turn up and it happened
again!’
He climbs into the chopper and Spike jumps in beside him.
Corey begins the process of firing up the turbine then stops, slumps
back in the seat and runs a hand through his short, mouse-blonde
hair. ‘Man.’
A bark.
‘Because I’m too pissed off to fly right now, is why.’ Corey
Kelvin banks the Galaxy over Moreton Bay. Through the windscreen
the main runway at Brisbane International Airport slides into view.
To Kelvin the word ‘international’ conjures images of a bus-
tling metro hub like O’Hare or Heathrow. But this place looks like
a hopped-up country-town aerodrome. The runway is empty and all
the lights are off. Henri’s man on the ground has monitored the air-
port’s aircraft movements for the last three months. From this Kelvin
knows the next flight is not due until six-fifteen a.m., almost three
hours from now. Until then they’ll have the place to themselves.
Kelvin drops the Galaxy towards the runway. ‘Make it short’ is
Henri’s sole command. It’s a smooth landing, as smooth as an air-
craft that weighs 181 500 kilograms empty can be. Kelvin quickly
pulls the jet up.
Henri points. ‘Left taxiway.’ Kelvin makes the turn, the Galaxy
moving at a fair clip, shuddering as it rolls across the imperfect
tarmac.
‘There.’ Henri points at a large hangar to the far left. The
Frenchman’s brusque economy with words is starting to annoy
Kelvin but he angles the jet towards it. He has no idea what’s inside
A howl and rumble cuts across the airport’s empty car park. Owen
glances at his watch, confused. The first jet to land each morning
is the FedEx DC-10 out of Honolulu and that’s not due for three
hours. He listens. This jet sounds different to the DC-10, its engine
note deeper, harsher somehow. He’s no expert but it doesn’t sound
like any jet he’s heard before. He decides to hoof it over to the pas-
senger terminal, which overlooks the runway, and take a peek.
Kelvin eases the Galaxy to a stop 30 metres from the hangar. Henri
turns to Dirk, Nico and Cobbin behind him. ‘You know what to
do.’ They nod, stand and move out. Henri’s eyes move to Kelvin.
‘Raise the visor and kneel.’ He nods and works the controls.
The sharp whine of hydraulics pierces the night as the visor, the
Galaxy’s nose section, unlocks from the fuselage and rises, like a
ghoul peeling off its face to reveal an empty skull behind.
Dirk Popanken, a towering, blond German in his late forties,
stands at the mouth of the aircraft’s cargo bay. Beside him is Nico
Trulli, same age but a short, dark-haired Italian.
They stare down at the lean figure of Claude Pascal, who
stands inside the open hangar as its roller door trundles open. The
Frenchman grins at the sight of his old friends.
Within seconds the Galaxy’s visor is fully open and the aircraft’s
nose gear retracts into the wheel well with a low moan. The front
of the aircraft kneels, tipping its gaping maw towards the tarmac.
It looks like the jet is curtsying. Nico works a hand controller and
the ramp in front of him extends, its servos complaining all the way.
The ramp gently touches the tarmac and locks in position, creates a
direct roadway into the belly of the aircraft.
Dirk and Nico trot down the ramp and the German greets
Claude with a clap on the shoulder. ‘Good to see you, Claude. How
are you?’
‘Well. Very well. So we’re speaking English?’
Dirk nods. ‘The commander prefers it.’ The multinational com-
position of Henri’s crew means English is the only language everyone
fully understands.
Nico loops an arm around the Frenchman. ‘Is everything set?’
‘Absolutely. This way.’ He turns, leads them towards the open
hangar. ‘How is the commander? Is he pleased with preparations?’
Nico smiles. ‘You worry about the old man too much. You only
have to remember one thing: if you’re alive then he’s happy with
your work.’
The anxious Claude doesn’t find it funny. ‘So, what’s the job?
Has he told you anything?’
‘All will become apparent in the fullness of time.’
Henri appears behind Claude, dressed in jeans and a black crew-
neck. He looks younger out of the flight suit.
‘Of course, Commander. I didn’t mean to —’
‘It’s fine, Claude. Where are they?’
‘This way.’ Claude turns, leads them into the brightly lit hangar,
where they see them, sitting on the cement floor.
Two Tigers.
The Tiger MBH is a state-of-the-art, two-crew, multi-role battle-
field helicopter. Its stealthy design incorporates a composite airframe
Owen sprints across the wide, unlit passenger terminal and pulls
up at the main window. He scans the runway with his mini Nikon
binoculars and searches for the aircraft that just landed. It doesn’t
take long to find. It’s a C-5 Galaxy, one of the largest jets to ever fly,
parked near a hangar at the far end of the airfield.
‘Christ.’ He knows immediately that it’s the one stolen from that
air-force base in America a few days ago. He’d seen the FAA bulletin
alerting airports worldwide to the big jet the Yanks had misplaced
and would kindly like returned. The tail number matches the one
quoted in the email.
Owen’s chest tightens, not because he’s scared but because he’s
excited. He realises that if he plays it right this can be the point of
difference that sets him apart from all the other applicants to the
detective training program.
His right hand moves to the holstered Glock pistol on his hip.
He touches its handle, mustering the courage to do what he must do
next. He turns and runs.
Cobbin stands under the Galaxy’s tail and surveys the airport, an
RPG-7 in the open canvas bag at his feet. The thirty-year-old Brit is
itching to use the grenade launcher. There’s just one problem. There’s
nothing to fire it at, no sign of anyone, anywhere. He was expecting
a security force of some type, but no. He waits with interest to see if
any turns up.
It’s quick and painless. They’re a tight fit but within five minutes all
three pallets, two containing the choppers and one their armaments,
are secured within the Galaxy’s hold.
Kelvin works on the pallet closest to the open nose of the Galaxy.
He throws a strap over the chopper’s tail section then shifts position
to tie it down on the opposite side. He squeezes between the fuse-
lage and the pallet, grabs the strap to thread it through the ring in
the floor and stops.
He’s alone. No one can see him. He turns, looks out the open
visor. This is his chance. Five steps and he’s out of the aircraft,
another forty and he’s in the hangar. He can then pass through the
building, make it to the road beyond and steal a car.
Except he doesn’t know the way through the building, or if
Owen’s feet slip on the polished floor as he sprints past the check-
in area. He overbalances, throws out an arm, stays upright, powers
on.
He has no misgivings about his course of action. Terrorists could
be on that plane, actual terrorists. At his airport. If he can single-
handedly pull off something heroic today, like taking them into
custody, or thwarting whatever they’re doing at the hangar on the
far side of the runway, then that will make his selection to the detec-
tive training program a formality. A formality!
He aims at the far side of the building and lifts his pace.
Owen sprints. His lungs burn and he feels like he’s about to be
sick. He hasn’t run this far in the decade since he left school.
He’s suckin’ in the big ones as he leaps down a flight of stairs and
lands at the bottom of a stairwell. He drags a keycard through the
reader, punches a four-digit code into its keypad and pushes the
door open.
The howl of the Galaxy’s turbofans echoes across the airport.
Owen looks through the chain-link security gate to his left and
sees the jet is on the move. It rolls towards the end of the runway,
lights blinking in the dark, illuminating its hulking outline.
Owen swipes his keycard through the security gate’s reader and
punches the four-digit code into its keypad. The gate has a triple-
lock security system. Swipe the keycard. Enter the code. Insert the
key and turn. He reaches for his keys . . .
‘Oh fuck!’
He lost them earlier. He grasps the chain-link in frustration,
watches the Galaxy leisurely roll away.
A moment later the whine of its turbofans twists into a high-
pitched roar. Through the locked gate Owen watches the jet sweep
past then lift into the black sky.
He’s in no rush to get on with the rest of the day. He knows that
a member of the public, some anal plane-spotter, will call one of the
local radio or television stations and report seeing the stolen Galaxy
arrive or depart the airport this morning. It might take until mid-
afternoon but his superiors will eventually realise that he somehow
let the jet land then take off without, at the very least, alerting any-
one. He’ll be unceremoniously fired. It’s not the point of difference
he was looking for, but it’ll make damn certain his application to the
detective training program is dead on arrival.
All this will happen because he lost his keys. It will never occur
to him that those lost keys are the only reason he’s still alive.
Henri watches the Galaxy disappear into the night. ‘Let’s go.’ The
four men move quickly. They wipe down the RPG-7s, deposit
them in a dumpster beside the hangar, navigate the airport build-
ing using the keycard and numeric codes in the envelope supplied
by Claude, then make their way to the white Citroën C4 parked on
the street outside.
Dirk drives as Henri leans back in the passenger seat and gazes
out the window at the streetlights that whip past overhead. It’s
hypnotic. The Tigers are safely ensconced in the Galaxy’s hold,
on their way to their destination, just as planned. Tonight has
gone well but it will only become more difficult from here. He must
stay the course. He must not falter. He owes his wife that much —
‘Commander?’ Dirk’s voice wrenches Henri back into the pre-
sent. ‘Is everything in order?’ The German gestures to the glove
box. Henri opens it and finds it stacked with documents. He picks
them out and flips through them, nods to Dirk. Claude has pro-
vided everything they need for their next journey.
The Citroën takes a right turn into Brisbane International
Three hours and forty minutes later Henri, Dirk, Nico and Cobbin
have checked in, passed through immigration and now relax in
the Qantas Club. From the leather sofas they watch the distant
Pacificspatiale hangar on the far side of the airport. Only now, long
after the fact, does there seem to be any activity around the hangar.
Aboard the 747 ten minutes later, Henri pulls down the window
shade beside his business-class seat, sets the GMT-Master his wife
gave him to the time of his destination, slips on an eye mask and set-
tles in. He has many hours to sleep, and dream of her.
Someone has to cook the meals and clean the house and wash the
clothes and pay the bills and feed the cats. Rhonda can’t do it, she’s
too busy preparing to command Atlantis, and there’s no spare cash
to hire someone. Astronauts don’t get paid that much. So the job
falls to Judd as he doesn’t, currently, have a mission to train for.
Sure, he works in the Astronaut Office part-time and has a role in
the White Room during launches, but that still leaves him with a
relaxed schedule.
Judd opens the lid to the washing machine and dumps in today’s
load of dirty clothes.
Clink, clank, clunk. Something clatters into the machine’s
stainless-steel drum. He reaches in, snags it. It’s loose change. Six
coins. All quarters. They fell out of Rhonda’s jeans.
He continues to load the washing machine and doesn’t think
about the coins for another seven minutes.
Judd cuts his thumb as he chops up chicken for tonight’s din-
ner. At the sink he runs cold water over the gash and stares out at
the small back garden. The Ghost and The Darkness wrestle on the
grass, roll into the overgrown hedge, disappear from view.
Rhonda never wears jeans. Rarely, anyway. She doesn’t think them
appropriate for the office. They accentuate her hips too much. She
only wears them when she’s going out. When she wants to look good.
She wore them the day before yesterday. Saturday. She’d gone to
JSC for another meeting on the external tank’s foam-shedding saga,
the longest-running soap opera currently playing on the NASA
channel. The shuttle will be decommissioned and that problem will
not have been solved.
So she wore them on Saturday. Jeans were fine on a Saturday.
He continues to run his thumb under the cold water and doesn’t
think about the coins for another five minutes.
Judd has almost completed pruning the overgrown hedge in the
back garden. The Ghost and The Darkness rumble at his feet.
Why did she need six quarters? In all the years he’s known her
he’s never once seen her buy a chocolate bar or a bag of corn chips
or anything from a vending machine. She never eats junk food and
always carries her own water.
Why would she need six quarters?
He continues pruning and doesn’t think about the coins for
another three minutes.
Judd triggers the spray gun and waters the flowers. It rained earlier
but the flowers look like they could do with a little more hydration.
Rhonda never carries change in her pockets. It annoys her, coins
jamming into her thighs every time she sits down. And it’s not like
she doesn’t have a purse. She doesn’t need quarters for tollways and
she doesn’t need them for parking meters because everywhere she
parks is free, either at home or at JSC.
He can’t stop thinking about the damn quarters. What’s that
saying about idle minds? He can’t remember exactly but it has some-
thing to do with overthinking everything if you’re bored, and maybe
there’s something about the devil in there too.
The quarters were in her jeans. But she never wears jeans. Unless
she wants to look good . . .
‘No.’ He releases the spray gun’s trigger and stares at the rho-
dodendron in front of him, its petals bobbing under the weight of
water.
Judd drops the spray gun and strides into the house. His heart
thumps, his face suddenly flush and clammy. He finds his iPhone,
dials Rhonda’s number. Voicemail answers. He doesn’t leave a mes-
sage.
He grabs his wallet and keys, locks the front door behind him
and moves to the ’82 DeLorean parked in the driveway. It was fully
restored and upgraded by DMC Houston two years ago, and is
worth enduring every Doc Brown–Flux Capacitor–Marty McFly
joke. He slides inside but doesn’t feel better, the way he usually does
when he sits behind its wheel. Instead an icy sliver of dread turns
in his chest.
‘It can’t be.’
He starts the DeLorean to find out if it can.
Dusk.
Judd parks the DeLorean beside the curb. To his right is a park-
ing meter. It only takes quarters. This is the only street in Houston
he knows of that has yet to be upgraded to include a credit-card
payment system.
He still has Rhonda’s quarters in his pocket. They dig into his
thigh. He turns, looks across the quiet street at a parked Toyota
RAV4. Rhonda’s RAV4. There’s a parking ticket on its windscreen.
Guess she didn’t have enough quarters for the meter because she left
them in her jeans.
He’s not sure what to do next. He dials her number again,
glances at the time on his iPhone’s screen. 6.02 p.m. She told him
she’d be at JSC until seven. Yet there’s her RAV4 in the middle of a
leafy Houston suburb, nowhere near JSC.
Her phone goes to voicemail. Judd hangs up, opens the
DeLorean’s door and steps out. He takes four of Rhonda’s quarters
and slips them into the parking meter. It gives him half an hour. He
doesn’t think it’s going to take that long, whatever he’s about to do.
He walks towards the apartment block he’s been to just once
before. It was eight months ago and he was attending a forty-
sixth birthday party for Will Thompkins, short but good-looking
in a midget-Hasselhoff kind of way. He’s also an introspection-free
robo-exec with the easy charm and unblinking expedience perfectly
suited to the upper reaches of NASA management. He had been a
test pilot of some note and, oh yes, he’d piloted the shuttle. Twice.
He’s a frontrunner to take over the Astronaut Office, where crew
assignments are decided and careers are made and broken. His cur-
rent duties include managing the external tank’s foam-shedding
team. Rhonda’s been spending some time with him on that project.
Judd moves down a flight of wide steps to the apartment’s open
entrance. He pauses. Does he really want to do this? He can leave
now and go home. No one will be the wiser. Sure, Rhonda’s been
more distant that usual but that’s because she’s been busier than
usual. Or has she been more distant than usual because she’s been
getting busy with Thompkins?
He steps into the open walkway. It’s gloomy, the opaque saucer-
shaped lights overhead all but useless, the dark-grey astroturf still
wet from this morning’s rain. His heart thumps in his chest as he
devises a plan, tries to remember where he’s going.
He remembers. He moves down the walkway to the right, jumps
the waist-high barrier and drops into the garden below. He wades
through a row of big-leafed plants and reaches the corner of the
building. It has three levels with three apartments on each. The rear
balconies overlook a steep, grassy slope that drops away to a garden
30 metres below. An expansive view of downtown Houston is laid
out in front of them. Will Thompkins’ place is on the ground level,
third balcony along.
He moves past the first balcony. His feet skid on the narrow strip
of wet grass at the top of the slope. He grabs the balcony’s iron rail-
ing to stay balanced. One wrong step and he’ll slide straight down
the hill.
He takes baby steps, looks into the first apartment. The sliding
glass door is closed, the lights are off and nobody’s home. He edges
onwards, navigates the gap between balconies, reaches the second
apartment.
A tubby, middle-aged guy lies slumped on a sofa. He wears a
T-shirt but is naked from the waist down. He holds a Corona bottle
in one hand and a remote control in the other. The only light in the
room comes from the flicker of the television he watches.
Judd ducks down, inches along the balcony – and then he
hears it. Wafting towards him like pollen on a breeze. The Doobie
Brothers. Rhonda loves the Doobies. She always listens to seventies
West Coast yacht rock when she wants to relax. And unwind. And,
he remembers sourly, get busy.
Judd leaves the tubby guy behind and edges towards the third
and final balcony. ‘What A Fool Believes’ grows louder. He reaches
the last balcony and looks inside the apartment. The lights are low
and the glass doors are open. A long black leather sofa blocks his
view of the living room. He can’t see what’s happening but he can
hear faint voices over Michael McDonald.
A laugh. Her laugh. The laugh he fell in love with. The sound
jars. It’s strange to hear it when he isn’t the one making it happen.
The sun has almost set, throws a pale-orange sheen across the gar-
den and the unconscious Judson Bell. Rhonda kneels beside him,
lightly pats his face. ‘Judd.’ He doesn’t rouse. She pats him a little
harder. ‘Judd!’ Nothing.
Flabbergast finally gives way to anger. ‘Wake up!’ She tees off
and slaps him across the cheek. Judd’s eyes blink open. She won’t let
herself be worried about his concussion, or the likely contusion on
the back of his head from the Corona bottle, until she knows what’s
going on. ‘What are you doing here?’
He stares at her. ‘I – I needed to see you.’
Hope. Maybe this whole thing is just an innocent misunder-
standing. Maybe there’s been an emergency and he needed to find
her but her phone has been turned off and he didn’t know Will’s
number so he came to his home. It’s a long shot but it’s possible.
‘Why did you need to see me?’
Judd looks at her and says nothing. He can’t tell her he thought
she was having an affair with Will Thompkins but then he doesn’t
need to. She works it out on her own. He sees it happen, watches the
change, first in her eyes, then in her expression, as she processes
the truth.
She stands, turns and walks up the incline.
‘Rhonda —’
‘Don’t.’
‘But I —’
‘No.’ She doesn’t look back.
They haven’t spoken since ‘the night of the quarters’. That’s what
Judd’s been calling it. Rhonda moved out that evening and hadn’t
answered a call or replied to a text or email in the three days since.
Judd tilts the T-38 into a tight bank over the Indian River.
He’d picked up this ‘B’ variant at Ellington Field in Houston and
is minutes away from wheels down at Patrick Air Force Base, just
a stone’s throw from Cape Canaveral. He looks left, to Kennedy
Space Center, then launch pad 39A. On it stands Atlantis. The early-
afternoon sun glints off the white solid rocket boosters, burnishes
the rust-coloured external tank to a bright orange, illuminates the
stubby shuttle.
His eyes flick right, to the towering box that is the Vehicle
Assembly Building, big enough to fit four Empire State Buildings
inside. He remembers being in it on one particularly humid day,
watching as Discovery was joined to its external tank two months
before his flight. As impressive as the shuttle external tank mating
ritual was, the spacecraft hoisted high by a crane then gently wed-
ded to the ET, what he remembers most about that day were the
clouds that formed on the VAB’s ceiling, then the light mist that wet
his face as it rained inside the building. It was so big it formed its
own weather system.
The VAB is his destination today. It’s where he’ll see her again.
anomaly. He’s never done anything like it before. She didn’t care,
wasn’t interested in hearing his reasons, excuses or apologies and
instantly pulled the pin on a ten-year relationship.
‘Christ.’ It hits him. The ‘night of the quarters’ isn’t the reason
she moved out. It was the trigger, of course, but not the reason – he’s
sure of it. He just doesn’t know what the reason is.
He turns into the Kennedy car park, parks the Beemer as close
as he can to the VAB and tells himself to stop thinking about her.
He needs to concentrate on the job ahead.
The elevator opens and Judd steps into the hallway. A tap on his
shoulder. His chest tingles. Rhonda? He turns.
It’s Severson Burke. ‘Hey.’
‘Hey yourself.’
‘Could you look any more disappointed?’
‘What? Disappointed? Who?’
Severson studies Judd, left eyebrow arched. He knows all about
Judd’s excursion to Thompkins’ place. Judd had confessed all in a
late-night call.
‘Right, like you haven’t been thinking about her.’
‘Not for the last seven minutes, I haven’t.’
Severson fastens Judd with a steady gaze. ‘You’ve already
dropped the ball twice this week. Make sure it doesn’t happen
again.’
Judd knows Severson has good reason for not wanting any
trouble in the White Room tonight. The ex-astronaut, who had
graciously agreed to accompany Judd on his last simulator run, is
launch director for this test. That means it is his responsibility. The
last thing he needs is Judd’s personal issues gumming up the works.
Judd nods. ‘Of course.’ They walk on, reach Briefing Room
Three and enter.
Rhonda’s the first person Judd sees sitting at the large oval table.
She looks right through him, like he doesn’t exist. She’s in full ‘blank
mode’. Judd knows it well, has witnessed her use it on many a hap-
less individual in the past. Essentially, she blanks people she’s not
interested in interacting with and pretends they don’t exist. Though
it sounds like a strategy that wouldn’t even work in a kindergarten
playground, it proved to be a surprisingly successful tool for navi-
gating the byzantine NASA bureaucracy.
Judd finds a seat as far from her as possible. He works hard
to keep his eyes on Severson as the launch director addresses the
thirty-strong crowd from the head of the table. The only positive to
come out of ‘the night of the quarters’ is that Thompkins and the
tubby guy hadn’t filed any complaints against him. Judd guessed
that Rhonda had asked Thompkins to keep it quiet and Thompkins
had asked the tubby guy to do the same. Surely she didn’t want to go
through the embarrassment of an official hearing into his conduct
where she would be the star witness.
Not having a hearing won’t change anything for Judd, though.
When Thompkins surely, inevitably, took over the Astronaut Office,
Judd’s certain the guy who stalked his home won’t be at the top
of Thompkins’ list when he decides the next round of crew assign-
ments.
Judd steals a look at Rhonda, takes in the heart-shaped face, the
blonde hair flecked with golden highlights, the ski-jump nose with
the little bump at the top, the result of a mountain-biking accident
years ago. She’s as breathtaking as the day they met.
She turns and her eyes find Martie Burnett on the opposite side
of the room. The payload specialist for this mission, Martie is a tall
southerner with flowing auburn hair and a strong, chiselled face. She
looks thirty-five but is actually forty-four. Martie widens her eyes
to say ‘hey there’. She’s Rhonda’s best friend in the program and,
as Rhonda doesn’t have a life outside the program, that makes her
Rhonda’s best friend, full stop. Rhonda hasn’t told Martie about the
break up with Judd because she finds the whole thing not-wearing-
underpants-when-your-skirt-blows-up embarrassing. The fact that
the two women had first bonded by sharing NASA personnel gossip
didn’t help matters. She’ll tell Martie once the mission is completed,
including the truth about why she left. As annoyed as she was about
Judd coming to Thompkins’ home, that wasn’t why she moved out.
There was another reason, something that had been playing on her
mind for a while —
Stop it. She’s doing it again, thinking about the wrong stuff. She
pulls in a deep breath, blinks hard and forces herself to focus on the
job she must do tonight.
Henri grabs the handle and yanks the door open. He leans into the
roaring wind and looks down at the slate-grey clouds, illuminated by
a three-quarter moon. Through a break he can make out the Atlantic
ocean, twinkling 34000 feet below.
The icy wind doesn’t affect him. A matte-black helmet, a head-to-
toe triple-layer Nomex suit and thermal gloves keep out the cold. He
takes a deep breath from the oxygen mask strapped over his mouth
and nose, connected to a canister on his hip. He checks the backlit
screen of the small, circular GPS unit attached to his chest. They’re
almost in position.
He takes in his team. Dirk and Nico and Cobbin, then further
along the fuselage Tam and Gerald, all dressed as he is. He speaks into
a microphone located within the oxygen mask. ‘Big Bird, it’s time.’
Big Bird sits at the controls of the Canadian-built Twin Otter air-
craft. His response crackles in their helmet headsets: ‘Ready when
you are.’
Henri’s eyes flick to the GPS unit. He studies the information that
blinks and changes on the screen, then looks at his GMT-Master and
waits for the sweep hand to pass twelve, for ten p.m. exactly.
‘Go.’ Henri steps out of the aircraft and the others follow in quick
succession. The two-metre-wide, delta-shaped wings strapped to their
backs seize the air, wrench them to a horizontal position and catapult
Big Bird can’t be late. Folded uncomfortably into the tiny cockpit of
the Twin Otter, the six foot seven Robby Muller pulls the aircraft
into a steep descent.
Robby, or Big Bird to friends and neighbours because of his
predilection for yellow T-shirts, guns the twin Pratt & Whitney tur-
boprops. The German needs to get this aircraft on the ground and
swap it for something more practical asap. He can’t be late.
Kobi ‘Tam’ O’Shea tips his delta wing into a steep turn and finally
loses sight of Henri, Dirk, Nico and Cobbin.
One hundred metres to the left, the Japanese-Irishman sees
Gerald Sanchez, his partner for this evening. Tam glances at the
swamp below. He knows it’s infested with alligators, recalls reading
something about alligator attacks usually happening in waist-deep
water – or maybe that was sharks. Either way, he must be careful
when he touches down.
Tam tips into a dive and the swamp rushes up to meet him. His
eyes flick to the GPS unit. The green arrow has been replaced by a
white X. He’s on top of his target. He pulls his hands from the wing
controllers and pulls a lever on the wing’s leading edge. The wing
separates from the frame attached to his back and he freefalls. His
right hand grabs the cord at his chest and yanks hard. The chute
zips from its pack, licks the air like a dragon’s tongue, then explodes
open, seizes the air, stops him dead.
He takes control of the black ram-air chute and works the con-
trol lines. The carbon-fibre wing dangles below, connected via a
strap to the frame on his back. To the left he sees Gerald’s silhouette.
Chute open, he’s slightly higher and 200 metres away.
Tam pinpoints the only patch of grass in the vicinity, 20 metres
square, lighter in tone than the surrounding brush. He works the
control lines, hooks into a tight dive, feathers the chute then drops
to the ground.
The tall grass pads the landing. In a flash he’s up and out of the
chute’s harness and wing frame. The helmet’s off next. The gloves
are too thick to work with so he peels them off, pulls out a P7 Lenser
torch in the same motion, clicks it on.
He finds the carbon-fibre wing with the beam. Sequestered inside
the wing’s hollow structure are the tools he’ll need tonight. He picks
it up . . .
‘Christ!’ The pain in his right hand is bright and hot. He shines
the torch, finds two bloodied puncture wounds on his thumb, then
plays the beam across the ground to find what’s responsible. A thin
tail slides over the wing then disappears into the grass. He recognises
the markings. It has many names. Cottonmouth. Viper. Water moc-
casin. Call it what you will, only one thing matters: it’s an extremely
venomous snake. He can’t believe it. After worrying about alligators
on the way down he gets bitten by a snake as soon as he lands.
He hopes it wasn’t a cottonmouth. They aren’t the only snakes
in this area, he knows that much. Water snakes look just like their
cottonmouthed cousins but aren’t venomous. Failing that, he hopes
that if it was a cottonmouth then the bite was dry and no venom
was injected. Then he realises two things. He’s doing a lot of hoping
and the bite’s not feeling so great. It’s swelling fast and the pain is
intense. ‘Shit!’ He doesn’t have time for snake bite.
He needs to get it wrapped. Now. Tam carries a basic first-aid
kit but Gerald will need to apply the pressure bandage that slows
the toxin. Beyond that, professional medical assistance will have to
wait.
Leaves thrash and branches crack behind him. It’s Gerald,
touching down, a little off course but close enough. Tam turns to the
sound, aims the torch at the scrub. He can’t see anything through
the dense foliage. He glances at the GPS unit on his chest. They have
just under sixteen minutes to complete their mission.
He sets off towards his partner but doesn’t rush. That’ll just
increase his heart rate, accelerate the poison’s journey through his
system. He moves deliberately but quickly, the carbon-fibre wing
under his left arm, the torch held lightly in the bitten right hand.
‘Gerald?’ No answer.
Tam pushes through the scrub, plays the torch’s beam across the
tangled vegetation. Leaves rustle above. Tam points the torch up.
The beam splashes over Gerald. He’s hung up, high in a pine tree,
his eyes wide open in a surprised expression.
‘You won’t believe what happened —’ Tam stops and looks
closer. A branch has impaled Gerald through the chest. No won-
der he looks surprised. His right foot twitches, kicks a branch, then
stops. Suddenly getting bitten by a cottonmouth feels like the deal of
the century.
Nausea sweeps over Tam. He doesn’t know if it’s the snake’s
toxin working its dark magic or the dreadful realisation that his
partner is dead and he must complete tonight’s mission on his own.
Whatever the reason, he bends over and throws up.
He hasn’t got time to hurl, or cut down Gerald either. He must
get moving or this whole exercise will be for nothing. He straightens
and wipes his mouth. His body aches, his skin’s clammy and his legs
are weak. He ignores it and studies the GPS unit on his chest. The
green arrow points to the north-east. He has thirteen minutes and
forty-two seconds to complete the mission. He moves quickly, tries
to push the dreadful image of his dead partner from his mind.
One minute later the white X on the GPS unit tells him he’s
standing right on top it. He plays the flashlight’s beam across the
chopper rises a metre off the ground and hovers in place, its fuselage
glowing white from a light source within. With the shrill buzz of the
rotor blades it resembles a gigantic albino wasp, ready to strike.
Tam moves the joystick. The chopper flies towards the air vent,
then lurches past. ‘Come on!’ Tam’s trembling hand is vibrating the
joystick too much, making it difficult to control. He clenches his
hand to tame the shaking then moves the joystick again. The chop-
per hovers to a position above the air vent. He releases the joystick’s
trigger a fraction and the chopper drops into the shaft. He watches
it descend. It took him six months to develop but he has less than
eight minutes to use it.
Tam’s eyes move to the MacBook’s screen. It’s divided into six
separate windows. Each lipstick-sized cylinder attached to the chop-
per’s exterior is a video camera that transmits live images of its
surroundings, the glowing fuselage emitting enough light to illumi-
nate a metre around it. He squeezes the joystick’s trigger and the
chopper hovers in place, just above the bottom of the shaft. There’s
a thin, rectangular air vent in front of it.
The Japanese-Irishman wipes his forehead with his free hand
and drags off a sheet of sweat. His face is blanched white and his
body shivers. He grips the joystick hard to stop his hand shaking,
then eases it forward. The chopper flies into the vent, has five centi-
metres clearance on each side.
He glances at his GPS unit. The numbers are fuzzy. He blinks,
focuses. Seven minutes, thirty-six seconds. He’s behind schedule. He
turns back to the MacBook. To the chopper’s left is another lattice
grate. Tam pivots the chopper towards it then presses a button on
top of the joystick.
White foam shoots from the canister on the side of the chopper’s
fuselage. It looks like shaving cream, except you should never put it
on your face. The foam hits the grate and expands fast, doubles then
quadruples its size. Tam works the joystick, backs the chopper away
from the grate as fast as it will go.
He hears the muted explosion through the shaft beside him.
The six windows on the MacBook’s screen flash white then show a
mist of fine particles. The air clears and he edges the chopper back
towards the grate, except the grate is no longer there. Used for det-
onating unexploded mines, the nitromethane foam has done its
work. Tam had reconfigured its composition so it would combust
after being exposed to oxygen for ten seconds. He grips the joystick
hard and eases the chopper through the jagged opening. He glances
at his GPS unit. Four minutes, fifty-two seconds. He hasn’t got long.
Dirk feathers his delta wing, knocks off some speed, looks at his
GPS unit. The arrow is green and the clock reads four minutes and
forty-nine seconds.
He glances at Henri, 200 metres to the left. He can’t help but feel
a deep loyalty towards his commander. Henri had been the one who
turned Dirk’s life around, beginning on that morning two decades
ago when he recognised an ‘intriguing potential’ in the German.
There had been a time when Dirk was recognised every hour of
every day, stopped in the street for a photo, an autograph or a prop-
osition, or all three at once. Then it ceased. Abruptly. After he cut
down the oak.
He hasn’t thought about that tree for the longest time. It stood
in the centre of the driveway in front of his newly acquired castle,
a castle bought with earnings from an outrageously successful piece
of Europop ear candy called ‘Tango in Berlin’.
Dirk told everyone he wanted to cut down the tree because it
The cement room is lit by a dull yellow safety light positioned above
the only door, a solid-steel item locked from the opposite side.
Beyond the door lies a five-kilometre passageway with a locked and
guarded entry point. The now destroyed air vent was the sole means
of ventilation for the room, the only way to let heat out while mak-
ing sure none of those alligators or vipers found their way in.
The heat is generated by a large grey junction box that sits in
the centre of the room and hums with a deep vibrato. Out of the left
wall run three cables that terminate at the grey box. From the right
wall three similar cables enter the room and terminate at the box
too. From the middle of the box emerges a set of three large con-
duits. They disappear into the far wall.
Tam flies the chopper to a position above the large conduits then
releases the joystick’s trigger. The chopper’s blades stop and it drops
onto the central conduit. The suction-cap feet at the end of its metal
legs grab the PVC casing and hold fast. With a shaking forefinger
Tam types on the MacBook’s keyboard.
CUT
The underside of the chopper’s fuselage slides open and a tiny
circular saw flips out and spins to life. It slices into the cable’s PVC
casing and cuts an incision. The saw then pivots and cuts another
incision at a right angle to the first. A camera buried within the
chopper’s fuselage shows Tam what the saw is doing.
He reaches into the box that housed the joystick and pulls out
a right-hand glove. Five thin computer circuit ribbons sprout from
a matchbox-sized terminal at its wrist and connect to its fingers at
the first knuckle. A USB cable emerges from the rear of the termi-
nal. Tam pulls the glove onto his swollen right hand. It’s tight but
he ignores it, plugs the cable into the MacBook’s second USB port.
He glances at his GPS unit. Two minutes and fifteen seconds remain.
The saw pivots again, starts its third cut, parallel to the first,
then pivots again, cuts to the point where it started, a small square
now sliced into the conduit’s PVC cover. Tam then, with his unbitten
hand, pecks on the keyboard.
HAND
The saw slides into the belly of the chopper and out flips ‘Thing’,
named as such because Tam couldn’t think of anything better. It
resembles the skeleton of a small hand, except instead of bone the
fingers are titanium alloy, the muscles are microactuators and the
knuckles are bidirectional hinges. Each finger has a hook at its end
and its wrist pivots on a motorised ball joint.
Tam wiggles his fingers in the shaking glove. On the screen,
Thing’s fingers move in unison. He extends its index finger towards
the cut section of PVC and flips it away to expose a myriad of wires.
He studies them. There are dozens of different colours and sizes.
He needs to find the wire with yellow and red stripes. He works the
glove and Thing delves into the mass of spaghetti, pulls away wire
after wire. It’s all been for naught if Tam can’t find it.
‘There!’ Thing grabs it, pulls it towards the camera. It’s not yel-
low and red! It’s orange and purple. Tam releases the wire, glances
at the GPS unit. Forty-one seconds to go.
He continues the search. ‘Where the hell is it?’ There. He’s sure
this time. He works the trembling glove and Thing snags the wire.
It slides off. He grabs at it again, hooks it, lifts the wire towards the
camera. Yellow and red stripes. ‘Yes.’ He glances at the GPS unit.
Twenty-three seconds. His free hand pecks at the MacBook’s key-
board.
CUT
The saw flips out of the chopper’s belly and spins to life. Tam
moves the glove and Thing jams the wire against the saw, slices it
in two. Tam’s fingers work the glove and Thing pushes one end of
the wire towards one of four numbered slots on the underside of
the chopper. It’s difficult, his hand shakes so much. He’s practised it
a thousand times before but never after he’d been cottonmouthed.
He glances at the GPS unit. Ten seconds.
He guides the quivering wire into slot number one. One more
to go. His eyelids sag. He forces them open, works the glove. Thing
picks up the second piece of wire, pushes it towards slot number
two. It misses.
The White Room’s emergency lights cast a dull yellow pall that
makes everyone look like they’ve spent too long in the solarium.
Judd had been halfway through checking the seals on pilot Rick
Calvin’s flight suit when the lights, and everything that runs off
mains power, went bye-bye.
A beam of light plays across the White Room’s ceiling. The torch
is held by Sam ‘the Walrus’ Schulman, leader of the Closeout Crew,
the guy who runs the White Room. Sam does look like a walrus,
though it’s not his weight that draws the comparison so much as the
jowls and grey, drooping mustache.
Sam speaks into his headset’s microphone but can’t raise anyone
in the Launch Control Center. Not surprising. The communications
relay is powered off the pad and the pad has no power. Sam pulls his
headset to his neck and pushes a walkie-talkie to his ear. The subse-
quent conversation with Launch Control is short and sweet because
they don’t know what the problem is either.
Judd realises they could be in for a long night. All power and
communications run from the Launch Complex to the Launch
Control Center five and a half kilometres away along a series of
conduits buried deep underground. If the problem is in one of those
conduits they could be waiting here for hours doing sweet FA, then
be back tomorrow. On the other hand, if the glitch is localised in the
new Firing Room they might be able to locate the problem quickly
and get on with it.
‘What’s going on?’ Rhonda’s frustrated voice echoes out of the
shuttle’s flight deck, swirls through the open hatch and thumps
into the White Room. Inside Atlantis, she’s already strapped in,
as are Martie and Dean Steinhower, the second mission specialist.
‘I haven’t even got comms. Sam?’
‘Travelling.’ Sam starts towards the shuttle’s open hatch to
update her. He kneels, crawls through the hatch’s narrow circu-
lar aperture, head ducked, arse high. Not a dignified look. That’s
why the media were never allowed to photograph astronauts doing
it. On the pad the White Room covered it and on the runway the
Egress Vehicle did the same.
‘It’s getting stuffy in here.’ Rick says it to no one in particular.
‘I’m going to step outside, take a breath.’
Poor old Rick, a world without air-conditioning is a world he
can’t tolerate. Judd rolls his eyes. God forbid an emergency forced
him to land a shuttle somewhere unseasonable.
Judd pulls down a folding seat attached to the wall and takes a
load off. He sits with a sigh that says he has better things to do than
wait around. The frustration is, in fact, all studied. Truth is, he likes
being here because it means he’s close to the action.
Severson sits on the riser at the front of Firing Room Four in the
heart of the Launch Control Center, stares at the monitor in front of
him and tries his best to look cool. It’s not working.
He should know how to fix this problem, he’s in charge, after
all, but he doesn’t have a clue. The screen in the console gives him
nothing, no information about the state of the shuttle or its myriad
the way, or, more accurately, he has to make sure he’s seen to be
perfect every step of the way. He has to look cool, and make sure
his secret never goes public.
Severson flicks the switch on his comms box. ‘Jake, it’s the
launch director. How’s it going down there?’
A voice buzzes in his headset. ‘Still working it.’
‘What’s the time frame?’
‘We’ll get back to you.’
What Severson wants to say is: ‘Hurry up, dickhead! You’re
making me look bad!’ What he actually says is: ‘Sooner rather than
later, please.’ He knows it won’t go down as one of history’s great
inspirational radio communiqués, but he also knows that losing his
temper never looks cool.
‘Turn the lights back on but don’t show them video yet.’
The words are distant and soft, like they’re tumbling down a
long tunnel coated with molasses. Tam finds it relaxing, soothing.
His eyes flutter closed and his head nods forward . . .
‘Tam, Gerald! Do you read?’ The voice again. Louder. Insistent.
Familiar. Henri.
Tam’s eyes blink open and his unbitten hand moves across the
keyboard, types two letters.
ON
turns to the others. ‘Okay, we haven’t got all night. Let’s get ’em
on board.’ Speaking into the mic again, he says: ‘Rick, we need you
back here now.’
There’s no response. Sam breathes out, shakes his head, mum-
bles something that begins with ‘f’, tries again. ‘Rick? You there?’
No response. He turns to Judd. ‘Find him, please.’
Judd nods and steps through the White Room’s door onto the
crew access arm. Judd’s never been a huge fan of 48-year-old Rick
Calvin. When he moved to Houston after recruitment, the New
Jersey native adopted a southern twang and came over all evangeli-
cal to curry favour with a couple of influential people within the
program’s hierarchy who leaned that way, faith-wise. It wasn’t so
much the shameless act of stunt religiosity that annoyed Judd, but
that the strategy had worked so brilliantly. This was Rick’s third
flight aboard the shuttle.
‘Come on, Rick, time to work.’
He’s not there. The narrow crew access arm is dark and empty.
At the far end, where it connects to the Fixed Service Structure,
a shadow moves. Annoyed, Judd pads down the access arm, which
is covered overhead but open on both sides from waist height. ‘Tell
me, Rick, is your religion the one where Jesus and the Devil are
brothers? Or is it the one where everyone used to ride dinosaurs to
church?’
There’s no answer.
‘Rick, where are you, buddy?’ Judd turns the corner towards the
elevator. It’s open and Rick stands in front of it, right hand cover-
ing the left side of his chest like he’s pledging allegiance to the flag.
‘Be – be – be – ’
Judd stares at him. ‘What are you doing, man?’ Then he sees
blood smeared under Rick’s right hand. ‘What the hell —?’
The man cries out and the pistol is jarred from his hand. Judd
catches it and the man yanks his hand out of the elevator.
Judd bends, flips out Rick’s foot in one sharp movement and the
door clunks shut. He jams his thumb against the DOWN button
and the elevator descends.
‘Christ.’ Judd sucks air, arms tingling from adrenaline. He tries
to process the last twenty seconds. Rick Calvin is dead. Dead. A
blond man tried to kill him, a man he’s sure was once the lead singer
of the German pop group Big Arena.
The adrenaline eases and Judd notices the pain at his hip.
He inspects the bloodied wound where his comms box once hung.
It’s not so bad, more a graze with delusions of grandeur than any-
thing serious. Not like poor Rick Calvin. Shit.
How in hell did this happen? How did that guy get up there?
It doesn’t matter how, what matters is that he’s still up there. With
Rhonda. Any relief Judd feels at his escape vanishes. He must get to
her. Now.
He hits the STOP button. The elevator jolts to a halt. He hits the
UP button. The elevator rises. He studies the pistol in his hand, feels
its weight. Even though he’s never held a gun before he’s sure it gives
him the advantage.
A loud thud from the elevator’s roof. Judd looks up at the
ceiling. He’s not sure he still has the advantage.
Dirk watches the elevator rise. While researching this mission Dirk
had heard all the stories about astronaut Judson Bell. Apparently
when Columbia broke up he pussied out. Yet here he is, rising
towards the danger, doing the exact opposite of ‘pussied out’.
The last thing the German needs tonight is some guy running
around the Launch Complex screwing things up, so ten seconds ago
he wrenched open the shaft’s outer door, ripped the pin out of a frag
grenade and dropped it onto the roof of the descending elevator.
Problem solved.
Except the grenade landed on top of the elevator as it began to
rise. The fuse is set to twenty seconds. Dirk wanted it to be near the
ground floor when it detonated to minimise any chances of damag-
ing the shuttle. Now it’ll be right beside where he currently stands.
‘Scheisse.’ He lets the outer door slide shut and takes cover.
Judd jams the pistol into his suit pocket, braces his left foot on the
handrail that rings the elevator at waist level and drives himself
upwards, right fist extended.
He punches the hatch in the ceiling with everything he’s got.
It’s made of light alloy and flips open. He jams his foot down on the
handrail and launches himself through the hole, pulls himself onto
the roof.
A grenade lies on the roof in front of him, just as he thought.
He bats it away with his left hand and it thumps into the shaft’s
metal wall.
It detonates and the shaft flashes vivid orange. The explosion is
massive, amplified in the enclosed space. The elevator convulses and
its roof gives way. Judd’s ears ring as he grabs the cable in front of
him, cool and slick with grease.
A fireball rolls past as the elevator drops. Judd hangs in space,
35 metres above the ground – then he doesn’t. The cable is yanked
upwards, attached to the elevator via a pulley system at the top of
the shaft. Judd’s on an express ride to the roof.
He glances down as the burning elevator hits ground level and
The forced opening of the door becomes more urgent. Judd real-
ises he needs to get out of this shaft asap. His hands are under the
grille. He works his left hand around to the top, then does the same
with the right, carefully climbs it like it’s a very small ladder, makes
sure not to twist it and snap the hinges that secure it to the duct.
The pistol sags in his suit’s pocket, the weapon too heavy for the
flimsy material. It rolls out, thumps down the shaft. Instinctively
Judd turns to watch it fall.
Bad idea. The shift in weight twists the grille and the hinges snap.
Dirk hears the noise and jams his left knee into the gap, uses it
to bully the door open. Did the astronaut live through the explo-
sion? No one has recognised the German in three years. Before that,
maybe three people in the last decade had identified who he was.
But that astronaut knew him instantly.
Another reverberation echoes from the elevator shaft. It’s unmis-
takable. The astronaut’s alive. Dirk draws his backup Glock from
inside his jacket then pushes his head and arm through the gap and
looks down.
No astronaut. He’s sure he heard him. Then he takes in the ele-
vator’s smouldering wreckage below. It must have been the metal
shaft contracting after the heat of the explosion.
A sound behind him. He swivels, pistol raised.
It’s Henri. He glances at the dead body. ‘I heard an explosion.
Everything okay?’
Dirk nods, lowers the Glock. ‘There was trouble. It’s been dealt
with.’
‘It wasn’t the woman —’
‘No. Where are the others?’
Judd lies dead still. As the hinges gave way he caught the edge of the
air-conditioning duct with his hands. It was the chin-up from hell
but he pulled himself inside without, he hopes, being seen or heard.
He now waits and listens to the voices above him. There are two.
A German, he presumes Mister Tango in Berlin, and someone who
sounds French.
In movies air-conditioning ducts are spacious and clean and
well lit and Bruce Willis has no trouble quickly navigating them.
The reality is quite different. It’s cramped and dark and filled with
a thick layer of dust that’s easily disturbed and makes Judd’s nose
itch. It is, however, better than lying dead at the bottom of the
elevator shaft —
He sneezes. The voices above him stop abruptly. Christ! A god-
damn dust mite flew up his nose. He holds his breath and waits for a
volley of bullets to strafe the duct.
The voices resume. There’s no volley, no strafing. He exhales. He
knows the duct runs the length of the crew access arm all the way to
the White Room. If he can get there and find a way inside then he’ll
be right beside the shuttle – and Rhonda. He quietly eases himself
forward, moves as quickly as he can.
Henri and Dirk hear a sound and swing their pistols towards
the stairway beside the elevator shaft. Nico and Cobbin emerge,
weapons raised. They all grin, lower their pistols.
‘How’d it go?’
good hour away. She’s about to ask someone when she notices that
the bottom layer of her symphony, the hiss and gurgle, and the top
layer, the chit and chat, have both disappeared. Her headset is again
filled with a low static. ‘Launch Control, do you copy, over?’
No response.
‘Severson, do you copy?’
Nothing.
‘Sam? Can you hear me?’
He doesn’t respond. Rhonda turns to Martie Burnett and
Mission Specialist Dean Steinhower, both strapped into their seats
behind her. ‘You got white noise in the cans?’
Martie nods. ‘Must be the electricals again.’
Rhonda looks back at the beanie cap, which continues to retract
from the external tank. ‘Beanie’s on the move.’
‘We’re going to be here all night.’ Steinhower makes it clear he’s
anything but impressed with the latest stuff-up. ‘Anyone seen my
pen?’ Annoyed, he searches his flight suit’s pockets and then the sur-
rounding area for any sign of the ballpoint. ‘It’s silver. A Fisher. My
daughter gave it to me.’ Both Rhonda and Martie shake their heads.
Rhonda turns to the square opening in the flight deck’s floor
behind her. A ladder leads from it down to the mid-deck where the
hatch is located. She shouts into it: ‘Sam, we have no comms again.
And why’s the beanie moving?’
Someone scales the ladder to the flight deck. It’ll be Sam. She lets
him have it before she even sees him: ‘What on earth is going on —?’
A short, stout, balding man in his early fifties rises through the
opening. He is not Sam. Rhonda stares at him. ‘Who the hell are
you?’
‘If you speak again you die.’ The man has a French accent and
holds a silenced pistol in his right hand.
The video monitors in Firing Room Four blink out of grey hash and
all 180 people gasp as one.
Severson steps forward and studies the monitor. It shows a high,
wide-angle image of the crew access arm. Two men stand, wearing
black ski masks and holding silenced pistols. On their knees in front
of them are astronaut Nigel Dunderfield, Sam ‘the Walrus’ and tech-
nician Baz Kay. Their wrists and ankles are bound together with
thick zip ties and their mouths are taped shut. To Nigel’s left, lying
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, includ-
ing 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 astro-
naut has crawled along the horizontal duct, squeezed through the
Henri works his way across the flight deck like a kid scaling a jun-
gle 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 obvi-
ous: 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 stud-
ies 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.
She turns to Martie. Their eyes meet and Rhonda takes in her
friend’s face. It’s the drained visage of a person unaccustomed to
death, who has just witnessed a friend slaughtered before her eyes.
It is the polar opposite of Rhonda’s resolve.
Rhonda moves her left arm, shows her friend the tie. Martie
stares at her. Rhonda silently mouths the words: ‘Get ready —’
‘Henri, her left arm isn’t tied down properly.’
‘What?’ Nico turns, grabs the pistol from his backpack, studies
Rhonda’s arm. He’s mortified by the mistake.
Rhonda stares at Martie. It’s the second time she’s been flabber-
gasted this week. ‘You’re with them?’
‘I’m sorry, sweetheart.’ The apology sounds genuine.
‘Thank you, Ms Burnett.’ Nico unbuckles his belts, leans back,
yanks off the cable tie, straps it on properly, makes sure it’s secure.
A low clunk. Judd knows the sound. The fueling umbilical is being
untethered from the shuttle. He still doesn’t believe the shuttle can
be launched but now thinks this group just might try. Considering
the explosive power contained within the external tank and solid
rockets, it makes what he needs to do now all the more urgent.
The German turns around.
That’s the advantage Judd needs. He punches the mesh screen in
front of him, grabs the end of the vent with both hands and hauls
himself into the room head first, the sound of his body sliding along
the narrow metal duct nothing short of deafening. He drops and hits
the floor. His injured hip screams in protest but he blanks out the
pain, scrambles to his feet and charges the German.
The German thinks the sound is coming from the crew access
arm outside. He pivots towards the White Room’s door and com-
pletely turns his back to Judd.
Yes! Judd now has the element of surprise. And, even better,
a pistol is shoved into the German’s belt behind his back. If Judd can
get that gun this all ends now. He lunges towards it.
Tango in Berlin realises his mistake and pivots and Judd misses
the pistol. The consolation prize is that he hits Tango hard, drives
him into the far wall. They bounce off and thump to the floor.
Judd lands on top of the German, their faces so close he can
smell his breath, which is surprisingly fresh. Judd headbutts him.
Tango’s head flicks back and whacks the thin carpet. Judd scrambles
to his knees and wrenches at the German’s torso, to turn him over
and get the pistol.
Tango’s fist connects where Judd’s jaw meets his skull. The pain
is exquisite. Stunned, Judd keels over and slumps to the ground
without throwing out a hand to break his fall. If the situation wasn’t
so dire it’d be comical. His head hits the carpet with a dull noise.
The German finds his feet, drags the Glock from his belt and
swings it towards his attacker.
software package that allows him to control all the spacecraft’s sys-
tems from his MacBook without interference from Launch Control.
Unfortunately, taking control of some launch pad functions,
such as untethering the fuel umbilical and retracting the catwalk,
had proved to be impossible. The only way that can happen is
through the good graces of the man in charge of Launch Control.
Dirk aims his pistol at Judd Bell. He wasn’t dead after all, but he
soon will be. He won’t be able to expose Dirk’s true identity and the
German couldn’t be more relieved about that.
The astronaut flicks up his right foot. It hits the fleshy underside
of Dirk’s left hand and the pistol is knocked upwards.
‘Scheisse.’ Dirk’s so busy being relieved he takes too long to
pull the trigger. He re-aims, but the astronaut swings his foot again.
It has more power this time and kicks the weapon clean out of Dirk’s
hand. The Glock loops across the room and hits carpet a metre from
the door.
Dirk sprints for it but the astronaut swings his foot again, trips
him. Dirk thumps to the ground. He clambers to his feet but the
astronaut lands top of him, knees first, and drives him into the
ground. Pain shoots across Dirk’s back. He ignores it and looks up.
The pistol’s five metres away.
He swings a fist up and back, hits the astronaut in the face,
momentarily stuns him. Dirk pivots, loops an arm around his neck,
wrenches it tight.
embraced will soon disappear. Within the next year the kid will real-
ise he’s the smartest guy in the room, any room, every room. He will
know that his idea will always be the most insightful and perceptive.
But that is the future. Right now he’s young, naive and not com-
pletely sure of himself. So Severson will use that for all it’s worth.
Mitson will either save the shuttle, and by extension Severson’s arse,
or become the sacrificial lamb during the postmortem when blame
will need to be assigned and arses, specifically Severson’s, will need
to be covered.
‘Mr Burke.’ It’s the Frenchman again. ‘I would like you to retract
the crew access arm. You have ten seconds.’
That’s all it takes. Judd twists free and scrambles towards the
pistol. The German follows, hip-checks him and knocks him off
course. Judd slams into a wall and jars a helmet from its hanging
place. It thumps to the ground.
The German grabs the pistol, swings it towards Judd. The
astronaut freezes. He has nowhere to go; his back, literally and figu-
ratively, is against the wall.
The downside of attempting to be steely-eyed is what happens
when you fail to devise an ingenious solution to the life-or-death
problem. Most often somebody dies – and in this case that some-
body is Judd. He waits for the German to pull the trigger.
The White Room lurches as the crew access arm draws it away
from the shuttle. Surprised, the German’s eyes momentarily flick to
the floor. Judd instantly drops to one knee, swings an arm towards
the helmet that was knocked from the wall, snags it with his index
finger and releases it in one compact motion.
Tango’s eyes flick back to Judd but the helmet is already on the
way. It strikes the German flush on the left temple. He crumples to
the floor, out cold.
Judd takes it in. Maybe he is steely-eyed after all, or maybe he’s
just lucky. He wrenches the pistol from the German’s hand then
moves to the edge of the White Room as it pulls away from Atlantis.
Mitson works his keyboard and stares at his monitor. ‘It’s com-
ing.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
‘One minute.’
‘You said you could do this.’
‘I can.’
‘Then do it! It’s on your head, boy.’
Mitson nods, works his keyboard.
It’s on your head, boy? It was a touch melodramatic but at least
Severson made his point. Everyone in Firing Room Four now knows
that Mitson is working on a fix to the current problem. If he finds
one and disaster is averted then everyone will think Severson is some
kind of genius for delegating so laterally to the kid. If he doesn’t,
well, everyone will focus on why dear young Mitson, who was once
so full of promise, failed so miserably. It’s not perfect but it’s the
only plan Severson has.
The rush of hot air rocks Judd back on his heels. He throws out
his arms and grabs the end of the White Room to stay balanced.
He looks down. Directly below, the shuttle’s three main engines
are alight and bellow translucent blue flames. Below the flames the
sound suppression system automatically floods the pad with one
million litres of water to deaden the engine noise and stop the sound
waves reflecting off the cement and shaking the shuttle to pieces.
Even with the system at work the launch complex creaks and groans
like it is waking from a long sleep.
Judd’s first thought is to go. To leave. To be elsewhere. If the
shuttle launches he’s currently standing at the optimum position to
be chargrilled by its exhaust. He stays put. Atlantis isn’t going any-
where until the solid rockets ignite.
It’s a long shot but he thinks that if the hijackers see one of the
windscreen’s glass panels is cracked they won’t launch. Unfortunately
the first bullet he fired did nothing but leave a pockmark – a ‘bruise’
in NASA speak. The fused silica glass used in the panels is designed
to take one hell of a beating, from birdstrikes at launch to microme-
teor strikes during orbit so for anything to happen he’ll need to hit
the same spot again and hope for the best. He aims the pistol at the
left-side windscreen panel again and squeezes the trigger.
Rhonda appears behind the glass panel. He sees her too late. The
bullet slams into her face – but the glass doesn’t implode or shatter
or even crack. The bullet just leaves a second pockmark and drops
away. The one thing he needs to fail on the shuttle works flawlessly.
Rhonda’s face is both impassive and grim, then Tango’s buddy,
the French guy with the face Photoshop was invented for, appears
beside her. He pushes a pistol against her temple then gestures to
Judd with his free hand. The directive is condescending, dismissive
and absolutely clear. He wants him to drop the pistol.
Judd has no choice. He releases the weapon and it falls to floor.
The Frenchman smiles, shakes his head, and makes another gesture.
Judd does as he’s told and kicks the gun over the edge of the White
Room, watches it disappear into the fog of steam and exhaust that
billows up from the sound suppression system. He looks back at the
shuttle but it vanishes behind the rising cloud.
Judd is stricken. He has no idea of what to do next. He turns,
sees a tall guy enter the far end of the White Room. The guy pulls
off a black ski mask, helps the groggy German to his feet then passes
him a pistol. Together they stride towards Judd.
‘Oh shit.’ Judd looks around. Directly behind him is a 60-metre
drop to the howling engines below. He’s got nowhere to go and no
time to get there.
Dirk and Cobbin stride towards Judd Bell. The astronaut stands at the
end of the White Room, enveloped by clouds of steam and exhaust.
Cobbin shouts at the German over the shuttle’s roaring engines.
‘Get on with it. I don’t want to be anywhere near this thing when it
flies.’ Dirk doesn’t care what Cobbin wants. What Dirk wants is to
make sure this astronaut dies.
They walk on, just three metres away now. ‘Come on, shoot the
prick.’ Cobbin’s really starting to get on Dirk’s nerves. The German
ignores him, raises his pistol and aims it at the astronaut’s chest.
The astronaut steps backwards and drops over the edge.
Dirk runs forward, looks over. The guy is gone, lost in the steam
and exhaust. The German’s surprised and disappointed. Surprised
the astronaut took the easy way out after putting up such a valiant
fight earlier, disappointed he couldn’t finish the job personally.
Dirk nods to Cobbin. ‘Okay, let’s take cover.’
Judd holds onto a thin orange service truss on the underside of the
White Room. His biceps burn with the effort. Stepping off the edge
of the White Room, dropping out of Tango’s view and catching hold
of the truss had seemed like a good idea at the time but now he’s not
so sure. He doesn’t know how much longer he can hold on.
The sound of the shuttle’s main engines transforms, hardens.
They’re throttling up. It can only mean one of two things and nei-
ther is good. The shuttle’s going to launch or explode. Very soon.
Severson stares out the window at the shuttle. Will the Frenchman
do it? Did he really go to all this trouble to be a suicide bomber?
Wexford turns to him. ‘What do we do?’
Severson doesn’t know. He hoped Mitson’s fix would do the
trick. Quite clearly he had underestimated the Frenchman.
‘One hundred and nine per cent of rated power.’ Wexford’s voice
trembles.
The solid rocket boosters ignite and now this really is a going con-
cern.
‘Christalmighty!’ The blast of hot air hits Judd like a sledge-
hammer. He just manages to hold on to the service truss as the air
pressure swings him up and pins him against the underside of the
White Room, face first.
He knows there’s no way to switch the solid rockets off, or throt-
tle them back or turn them down. They will both burn their 450 000
kilograms of ammonium perchlorate fuel until it is all gone.
Atlantis lifts off.
Rhonda closes her eyes and realises there’s no way for her to enjoy
this moment. As much as she loves the launch phase, there’s nothing
to feel good about tonight. She can only think this means the end of
the shuttle program, or worse, the end of NASA.
beach in the middle of summer but he’s alive, for now at least.
He looks down at the flame trench below, tries to divine a way out
of this.
Severson watches Atlantis clear the tower and one part of him
wishes he’d let it explode. At least then it’d be over. But now, well,
this is just the beginning, isn’t it? This will just go on and on as they
search for the shuttle and try to retrieve the hostages and apprehend
the hijackers. It’ll be one long reminder that he was the guy who let
it fly.
Severson exhales. Maybe Atlantis will break up all on its own
because the Frenchman doesn’t know what he’s doing. He turns to
Wexford. ‘How’s it looking?’
The technician studies the monitor before him. ‘All systems
nominal. Perfect so far.’
Of course it is. Now what does he do? He’s worked too long
and hard to let his career end like this. He thumbs his comms box,
speaks into his headset: ‘Okay, we track it. I want to know where it
is every second. Alert everyone.’
Judd’s not sure how much longer he can hold on to this service
truss. He needs to get himself into the White Room. There are just
two impediments. No, three. First, he can’t think of a way to do it.
Second, even if he did his arms don’t seem to have much strength left
and third, he can hear footsteps above him. Are Tango in Berlin and
his buddy still up there?
A high-pitched whine and a low chunter echo across Launch Pad
39B. Judd looks up and sees a blue Jet Ranger helicopter thump
The Jet Ranger punches through the wall of steam and thunders
away from Launch Complex 39B. Big Bird is at the controls. Behind
him in the passenger compartment Dirk and Cobbin quickly assem-
ble something. They all wear headset microphones.
Dirk speaks into his: ‘What’s our ETA?’
Big Bird scans the ground below. ‘Five seconds.’
Dirk heaves a FGM-148 rocket launcher to his shoulder and
points it out the open door.
He pulls the trigger and the Javelin missile explodes out of the
launch tube and slams into a towering vertical antenna that grace-
fully collapses in a shower of sparks.
‘Reload.’ Cobbin jams another missile in place and Dirk fires.
This Javelin slams into a large antenna dish. It keels over and crushes
a second dish beside it.
‘One more.’ Cobbin reloads the launcher and Dirk fires again.
Another antenna dish explodes in a gigantic ball of fire.
The German takes in what remains of the Merritt Island
Spaceflight Tracking & Data Network station. Called MILA, it
is one kilometre from where Atlantis just launched and relays all
spacecraft communications to Mission Control in Houston. Or it
used to. It’s now a burning wreck and won’t be relaying anything to
anyone for a very long time.
It all goes away. The stress that has preoccupied Rhonda over the last
two years, the by-product of preparing to fly a two-week mission to
the International Space Station. It vanishes, like smoke on the wind.
way to relay information about the shuttle’s position. The only way
to locate it was to sweep the sky with ground-based dishes and hope
to pinpoint it, after which they could track it. The problem was that
a ground-based dish could only cover a small segment of the sky. So
NASA had asked the operators of every available dish on the planet,
from Spain to India, to scan the heavens and search for Atlantis.
They were even restarting retired dishes, like the one in Central
Australia, to widen the net.
‘It’s important we have eyes and ears down there. Technicians
from the Deep Space Network in Canberra will meet you on site.’
‘What about Scully-Powers? He’s Australian. Can’t he do it?’
‘He’ll be here. I’m putting together a working group to plot our
next move.’
‘What about the police? I’m pretty sure they’ll want to interview
me —’
‘This takes precedence. They can talk to you when you return.
I’ll take care of it.’ Thompkins pulls his face into a shape that resem-
bles a smile and stands.
They both know what just happened. The ‘night of the quarters’
has come back to bite Judd on the arse and this is his punishment,
sent to the far end of the earth to do a menial task.
Thompkins moves to the door. ‘You’ll be contacted at the bot-
tom of the hour with your itinerary. Call in once you arrive at the
dish.’ Judd nods and then Thompkins is gone.
High above the Pacific Judd sits in economy class of a Qantas 747-
400. Between the hospital and the airport he’d managed a quick trip
home to pick up his passport, pack a carry-on bag and offload The
Ghost and The Darkness, his elderly neighbour Kathleen reluctantly
taking the cats after he woke her from what appeared to be a deep
sleep.
Now he involuntarily replays the night’s events. He realises how
Rick Calvin’s warning on the crew access arm had, without doubt,
saved his life. Judd had never been very pleasant to Rick and he
can’t help but regret that now. He pushes the thought away, swipes
open his iPhone and reads his itinerary, tries to fill his mind with
details of the job ahead.
After landing in Sydney he flies directly to Alice Springs in the
centre of Australia, where he’ll be met at the airport and chop-
pered to the Kinabara dish. Once on site he’ll liaise with technicians
from the Deep Space Network dishes in Canberra as they restart the
installation.
Liaise. Christ. At least he’ll be doing something. Better than sit-
ting around in Houston waiting for the other shoe to drop. If this
trip Down Under, somehow, even in the smallest way, helps recover
Atlantis, then it’s worthwhile.
He looks out the window to his left, takes in the darkness that
envelops the aircraft. He’s never been a religious man, hasn’t been
to church since he was boy, but tonight he silently prays Rhonda is
okay.
Edgar drives the trowel into the ground, twists it hard, grabs the
weed, wrenches it from its dirt home and catches his forearm on the
rose’s thorns. ‘Damn bush!’
The five-man secret service security detail, positioned strategically
around the sprawling garden, spring into action and sweep towards
him.
Edgar sees them coming. ‘Stand down, for Chrissake! I’m just
weeding.’
The security detail stop, mutter into their wrist microphones then
return to their positions.
He watches them retreat. ‘Christ almighty, I’ve shot ducks with
more brains than you people.’ He studies the jagged line of thorn
pricks across his forearm then turns back to the flowerbed and won-
ders how in hell he ended up here, doing this. He used to be the most
powerful man on the planet. The. Most. Powerful. Bar none. For eight
glorious years. Now look at him, surrounded by these fools, weeding.
His wife won’t let him out of the compound. She instructed the
fools that if he slips the leash again they’ll be walking point at Gitmo
within the week. So they make sure he’s always within view, even if
he’s on the john. She doesn’t want a repeat of last week’s ‘incident’
with the Ukrainian maid, who had to be paid off with a sizeable
chunk of hush money.
His wife has restricted Edgar to home duties until she decides
to forgive him. Hence the weeding. The best way to get back into
her good graces, and win his freedom, is to garden. A lot. He really
wants to make that conference in Jakarta later this week. Of course
the fools will be there, they are always around, but at least he’ll be
out of this prison.
He knows the fools don’t like him. They pretend to, but they
don’t. Not really. Of course if he’s honest with himself, who does?
That’s the downside of lying, he realises. It doesn’t matter that
there’s a venerable tradition in American politics of lying to the
people – eventually the lie is uncovered and everyone hates you for
it. It pisses him off. Who cares if he told a couple of little white lies?
It was for the country’s own good!
He thrusts the trowel into the dirt again, more venom on it this
time, twists out another weed, makes sure not to snag his arm on
that damn bush.
What Edgar knows but is unwilling to admit, even to himself,
is that there were more than a couple of little white lies, many more,
and one of them was not little. Or white. Far from it. No, it was big.
And dark. Perhaps the biggest, darkest lie ever told.
The day-glo-yellow Loach screams into a high bank. Tail up, almost
vertical, the little chopper hangs in the dawn sky for what seems like
an eternity, tempting the laws of physics, then plunges into a steep
dive. It pulls up a metre off the desert and blasts rust-red dust from
the parched surface as it chases a galloping steer.
Chewing gum and grinning a crooked grin, Corey works the
controls and tips his beaten-up, doorless chopper into a series of
tight turns.
The Loach shushes through a twisty rock formation, close
enough to strike a match, right behind the steer. Spike expertly
balances on the seat, shifts his weight and props himself against
the side of the cabin with a paw when necessary, his claws the
reason for the seat’s scarred leather upholstery.
The steer clears the rock formation and sprints towards the
open desert.
‘You’re just gonna die out there, little fella.’ The turbine whines
as Corey yanks the Loach into a sharp climb, then drops it in front
of the animal, a metre off the deck. The steer stops dead.
It’s a stand-off.
The steer breaks left. Corey works the controls, blocks it. ‘Tape.’
Spike rummages in the pile of rubbish within the passenger’s foot
well and finds a grubby cassette tape with ‘BM’ scratched on the
case. He bites down on it then slots it into the tape deck under the
instrument panel. The tape deck autoplays and from the speaker
attached to the fuselage blares: ‘Copa – Copacabana —’
Startled, the steer instantly pivots and gallops back from where
it came. Corey grins. ‘Nothing gets past Barry Manilow.’ He works
the controls and the Loach climbs, follows the steer as it navigates
the rock formation then slots through a break in the fence and trots
back to a large herd of cattle. Corey kills the song and unhappily
studies the broken fence. ‘Gonna have to fix that today.’
He swings the Loach around and notices a glint on the horizon.
The dawn sun blinks off something distant, deep in the arid, unin-
habited no-man’s-land of the Northern Territory.
Spike barks.
‘I’m not blind, mate, I can see it.’ Corey sets the Loach in a hover,
slides his Randolphs to the top of his head, pulls a tarnished tele-
scope from the leather pouch attached to the side of his seat which
also houses his field knife, then pushes the telescope to his eye and
focuses. The glint is closer but no clearer.
‘Whatever it is, it’s miles out. Should we go have a look-see?’
Spike growls.
The dog’s right. Corey knows they don’t have time for it, there’s
too much to do today. Incredibly, after the mortifying scene at Les
Whittle’s the other day, Les felt bad and hired him for a job. It was
a one-off that wasn’t booked through the usual tourist operators so
Les could offer it without concern.
Corey decides to forget about the glint on the horizon. He
replaces the telescope in the pouch, slides his sunnies back on, works
the controls and guides the Loach towards a collection of large hay
bales. There’s a dozen and they need to be distributed across Clem
Alpine’s sprawling cattle station. The drought has bitten hard over
the last six months and the hay kept the cattle fed. Some of the rocky
terrain was impassable for wheeled vehicles so Corey moved the
feed with the Loach.
He glances at the horizon again. The glint is still there.
A bark.
Corey drags his eyes from the glint. ‘Yep, I’m on it.’
A five-centimetre-wide hole has been cut into the floor between
the Loach’s two front seats. Above the hole is mounted a large elec-
tric winch with a fat, sky-blue Dynamica rope wrapped around it.
At the end of the rope is a carabiner attached to a big hook. Corey
flicks a switch on the winch and the hook drops towards a hay bale,
wrapped in wire cord with a large loop at the top.
Corey’s eyes move to the glint on the horizon. It twinkles and
glistens. Curiosity gets the better of the pilot. He works the winch
and retracts the hook.
Spike growls.
‘But they might need our help.’ Corey knows that Spike knows
this is nothing but a lame excuse. Of course if someone needs help
they’ll assist in any way they can, but the real reason Corey wants to
fly out to no-man’s-land is that when he sees something shiny in the
distance he always thinks it’s treasure.
It’s been that way for as long as he can remember. He was the kid
who would traverse 50 metres of thorny thicket to discover if what
glittered was gold. It never was, of course. It was a discarded piece
of tin or a shard of glass reflecting the sun. Never the diamond he
hoped for, never the gold. Even so, he can’t help but think there will
come a day when it is a diamond or it is gold or something equally
valuable. This glinting object might be an abandoned car he can sal-
vage. He’s always wanted a ’67 Mustang. Or something that fell off
an aircraft that he can sell, like an engine of something. Or maybe
Seven marines dressed for combat stride across the airfield at the
naval air station in Pensacola, Florida. Bringing up the rear is
Severson Burke. He tugs at his collar, tight against his neck, and
grimly studies the Greyhound. It’s not a member of the canine fam-
ily but a stubby, twin-engined aircraft built by Northrop Grumman.
Its turboprops splutter to life.
Severson’s not happy and it’s that 24 carat prick Thompkins’
fault. He’d always considered Severson a rival so his first order of
business as head of the Atlantis recovery mission was to dispatch
him far from Houston, to be his ‘eyes in the Pacific’ as a ‘liaison’
officer attached to a marine unit. Severson would be miles from
the action and any chance of contributing to Atlantis’s recovery, or
at least being seen to contribute, before the investigation into the
hijacking began. The only job that was worse was the one Judd had
been given in Central Australia.
The marines stride up the Greyhound’s cargo ramp and enter the
aircraft. Severson stops at the entrance. His collar feels even tighter
than before. A prickly sweat breaks out across the back of his neck.
‘Major Burke?’
Severson turns to the approaching marine. Late twenties, blond,
stolid features and a foghorn voice that somehow mashes the inflec-
tion of southern gentry with the urban rhythms of Fiddy Cent.
‘Sorry I’m late, sir; needed to collect our orders. I’m Captain
Mike Disser and I couldn’t be happier that you’re joining us.’
Jesus Christ, this kid’s voice is loud. Severson nods dully. ‘Yes,
yes, good.’
‘It’s an honour to work with the first marine pilot to fly the space
shuttle, sir. You’re a legend in the corps.’
‘I am?’
‘I would not lie to you, sir.’
Severson’s sure of it. Disser turns to his seated squad and honks
over the roar of the Greyhound’s turboprops. ‘Hey, we got ourselves
a bonafide, genuine marine astronaut hero in the house. Give it up
for Severson Burke! This man’s been to space, ladies.’
The marines erupt in hoots and hollers, their faces abeam with
old-school pride. Suddenly Severson feels better. He holds up his
hands like a victorious politician half-heartedly tamping down an
enthusiastic crowd. ‘Please, please, you’re too kind. Really.’
The hoots and hollers morph into applause. Severson just loves
applause, it’s his favourite sound in the world. It rolls on, momen-
tarily drowning out the Greyhound’s engines. ‘Oh, come on, that’s
not necessary.’ He laps it up but knows they wouldn’t be clapping if
they knew the truth.
The applause slowly dies away. Disser takes a seat at the rear of
the cabin but Severson doesn’t move from the entrance. Everyone
stares at him. Disser points at the empty spot beside him. ‘Sir, it’d be
an honour it you’d park it here.’
Severson nods, takes a breath, nods again, takes another breath
then steps into the Greyhound and stiffly makes his way to the seat
beside Disser. He sits down, watches the Greyhound’s rear hatch
whine shut then whispers a private affirmation to himself: ‘I can do
this.’
The glint just up and disappeared on Corey. One second it was there
the next it was gone. He scans the horizon as the Loach skims across
the empty red desert, 30 metres off the ground. ‘See anything?’
Spike stares out the open doorway, silent. Corey can’t blame him
for being annoyed. They have a tonne of work to do and they’re
wasting the morning on this wild goose chase. He decides to take it
as far as the Curve then head back.
Just ahead is the large, jagged red-rock formation nicknamed
‘Dead Men’s Curve’. It is, unsurprisingly, curved, the ‘Dead Men’
portion of its name courtesy of a couple of nineteenth-century
explorers who brought along a large wooden dining table and six
chairs but forgot to pack enough water. Corey eases the Loach over
the Curve then pulls it into a steep turn to head back.
He sees the glint. It’s not gold. Or diamonds. On the other side
of the Curve hovers a black chopper, sunlight reflecting off its wind-
screen. It’s not just any old chopper either, it’s a serious piece of
military tech. A warbird.
‘What the hell is that?’
Spike sees it and barks.
‘I think you’re right.’ Corey angles the Loach behind the Curve.
Out of sight, they fly back the way they came.
Corey glances at the side-view mirror bolted to the Loach’s door
Spike growls.
‘Shhh!’ Corey holds Spike’s snout closed as he listens to the
thump of the black chopper’s rotor blades. They sit in the Loach’s
cockpit, in a large cavern within Dead Men’s Curve. Its wide rock
roof blocks any view from above.
The sound of the black chopper recedes. Corey releases the dog’s
snout, points to the mouth of the cavern. ‘Keep a lookout.’
Spike hops out of the cockpit and trots to the cavern mouth.
Corey slides out, moves to the Loach’s side hatch and unhappily
surveys a fuselage pockmarked with bullet holes and scorch marks.
‘Man, I just painted this.’
Using its homemade twist lock, he opens the hatch’s door, which
is loose on its hinges. ‘Gotta fix that.’ He peers into the engine com-
partment, locates a hydraulic line. There’s a hole in it the size of a
thumbnail. ‘Bugger.’
He turns to the dog, unhappy. ‘This is gonna take a while to
fix —’
Spike barks.
‘What? Why?’
Corey runs to him, follows the direction of his paw.
The black chopper has landed on clear ground about a hundred
metres away. Two men step out of it, both holding assault rifles.
Corey studies the men unhappily. ‘Who are these people?’
They move briskly towards Dead Man’s Curve, then see Corey
and Spike and start to run.
‘God!’ Corey points at the Loach’s cockpit. ‘In. Now.’
Spike bounds back into the Loach as Corey sprints to the open
hatch and finds the hole in the hydraulic line. He studies it for an
unhappy moment then pulls the chewing gum out of his mouth and
wraps it around the hole with a hopeful expression. He shuts the
hatch and climbs back into the cockpit.
Spike barks.
‘Yes I used gum! There wasn’t time for anything else. I’ve got a
plan, don’t worry.’
Corey grabs the rope attached to the winch, pulls it into the
cockpit and groans in frustration. The hook and carabiner at the
rope’s end have been shot off. He searches for another hook on the
cabin floor. There’re a few. He finds the biggest, threads the rope
through the eye in the end of its shank and whispers as he ties a
knot: ‘The weasel pops out of the hole and runs around the tree and
jumps into – into —’ He stops, has no idea what the weasel jumps
into.
Spike barks.
Corey examines the half-tied knot. ‘The hole? What hole?
‘There’s no hole.’ Corey wraps the rope around and around and
around the shank then tucks it under itself.
Spike barks.
‘It’ll hold.’ Corey cranks the Loach’s turbine. It coughs, then
dies. He whispers to the chopper, desperate. ‘Come on, baby.’ He
tries again. No joy. ‘Please-baby-please-baby-please.’ He tries again.
The turbine grinds and coughs and – screams to life. ‘Yes!’
The Loach lifts off, hovers to the mouth of the cavern —
The two men are right there. They raise their weapons.
‘Jeez!’ Corey wrenches the controls and the Loach’s shrieking
tail rotor sweeps towards them. They dive to the ground as Corey
powers up.
The Loach swoops towards the black chopper. Corey leans out
the open doorway, twirls the rope with the hook on its end like it’s
a lasso, throws it hard.
It catches hold of one of black chopper’s rotor blades. Corey
throttles the Loach and it rises fast. The rotor blade bends, then
bends some more, is about to snap.
The knot unravels, the hook drops off the rope and plonks
harmlessly to the desert. ‘Oh come on!’
Spike barks.
‘There was no hole!’ Corey glances in the side-view mirror.
The men find their feet, swing their weapons towards the Loach,
open fire.
The little chopper’s too quick. It passes over the Curve and out
of sight.
Corey takes a breath, doesn’t look at the dog. ‘Not a word.’
Spike barks anyway.
‘Yes, coming out here was a bad idea.’
The Loach arcs away from Dead Men’s Curve and thumps
towards the heat-soaked horizon.
Tail down and cargo-bay doors open, Atlantis orbits 150 miles above
Earth.
Rhonda stares at the view but doesn’t see it. The sense of power-
lessness she felt after the launch has now morphed into a white-hot
anger. She’s furious at being strapped into this chair, at being hand-
fed energy bars by her double-crossing ex-best friend, at having to
urinate into a funnel held in place by that same ex-friend. She’s furi-
ous at it all.
There is a way out of this situation, she knows it. She just can’t
work out what it is. She wishes she could speak to Judd, seek his
counsel. He always had a unique way of looking at things, always
gave her a fresh perspective.
God, she hopes he’s okay. The last time she saw him he was
standing at the end of the White Room with a gun in his hand. A gun.
How in hell did he end up with a gun?
She has thought about him a lot during the twenty hours since the
launch – random moments, like how, on their first date, she was sure
the mole on his cheek was a dirty smudge and tried to rub it off, or
how he put a bottle of Fiji water beside her bed every night, or how he
lowered the blinds in the morning so it wasn’t too bright, or how the
coffee machine was always ready to go if she had an early start. She
loved how he always made sure their home was ‘just right’.
She had trouble resolving that side of him, the man who had her
best interests at heart, who was funny and irreverent and insightful,
with the emotionally needy guy he frequently became.
When he was first recruited to NASA he’d been a breath of fresh
air compared to the crushingly earnest guys in the program. He was
dashing, confident, charismatic. She fell for him quickly and things
between them had been great for a long time. Then Columbia broke
apart and gradually everything changed. Judd’s confidence dimin-
ished and was replaced by doubt and fear. She watched him wrestle
with them, watched as they came to inform everything he did and,
eventually, undermine his career.
The less confident he felt, the more he sought reassurance from
her. She disliked that neediness and pulled away from him, hoped
he’d get the hint and snap out of it. He didn’t, and the distance
between them grew. Judd took that distance to mean she was hav-
ing an affair with Thompkins. Then, when he came to Thompkins’
home she used it as an excuse to leave. The truth was she left because
she didn’t have the energy to deal with his insecurities any longer.
But now she wonders if she couldn’t have been kinder, supported
him more. After all, he had always supported her. He’d given her
years of unwavering professional assistance and created a home she
could leave to do great things, safe in the knowledge she had a lov-
ing place to return to, a place that was ‘just right’.
‘Cosmos.’
Rhonda hears the word buried within the conversation the
Frenchman and the Italian are currently holding. Seated in front
of her they speak quietly, the cockpit’s white noise making it difficult
to hear them clearly.
Cosmos. Rhonda wonders if they’re having a philosophical dis-
cussion about the universe.
The Frenchman and the Italian had flown the shuttle to low
Earth orbit with surprising finesse, had performed almost as well as
a couple of genuine shuttle pilots she had worked with. It was not
unexpected considering they’d surely had access to a raft of classi-
fied training information through Martie.
Cosmos. Rhonda knows there’s another reason she should
remember that word, she just can’t recall what it is. Judd would
have known, he always remembered that kind of stuff. She’s about
to query the Frenchman about it then stops herself. If she’s going
to ask him a question it should be something she actually wants
answered. ‘What’s this about? Why are we here?’
The Frenchman turns to her. ‘I was wondering how long it would
take before you asked me that.’ He glances at his watch. ‘Longer
than I expected, I must say.’
‘Well, I’m happy to disappoint you.’
He studies her. She meets his gaze. ‘You going to answer the
question or what?’
He takes a moment, then nods. ‘You’ll find out soon enough
anyway. A decade ago my group received a call for a job. It was a
big one, paid more than anything we’d earned before.’
‘Your group earned doing what?’
‘Tasks others find – unpalatable.’
‘And that is, what?’
‘Coups, assassinations, hostage retrieval.’
‘You’re mercenaries.’
His head tilts slightly. ‘I prefer to say we provide a necessary ser-
vice and fill a large gap in the market.’
‘You’re mercenaries. Were you paid to steal my shuttle?’
He ignores her. ‘This particular job was badly organised from
the start. Not as slipshod as some of the African coups we’d worked
on, but not much better. The people who’d contracted us were poor
communicators, sent mixed signals and changed plans at the last
moment with little or no warning. We’d be set to do something and
then it’d be called off. It was worse than the left hand not knowing
what the right hand was doing. It was like the left hand didn’t know
there was a right hand —’
‘Are you anywhere near a point?’
‘It’s coming. As it turned out we were working for a govern-
ment. Not a big deal, we’d been contracted by governments many
times before. But this was different. It was the first time we had been
contracted by someone within your government.’
Rhonda shrugs. ‘So what?’
‘The job was in Pennsylvania. Shanksville, Pennsylvania.’
The name rings a bell. She knows it from somewhere but can’t
– she remembers. ‘Shanksville? You – you can’t be serious.’ She
searches his eyes for the crazy, or something that resembles it, any-
thing that will tell her this guy is not playing with the full deck.
‘You’re talking about Flight 93? United 93?’ It’s so ludicrous she
half laughs as she says it.
‘Yes, we hijacked the plane and staged the Pennsylvania crash
on 9/11, put on a light and sound show so everyone in the country
thought it crashed there.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Not at all.’
‘What happened to the plane if it didn’t crash in Shanksville?’
‘It landed in Cleveland.’
‘Come on. It crashed in Shanksville.’
‘And you think that because – why? You saw wreckage? You
heard an eyewitness account of the accident?’
‘Yes. Both.’
‘Then we did our job well, for you at least. Many people do not
believe it.’
‘If it didn’t crash then what happened to the passengers?’
‘The passengers were led into a disused hangar in Cleveland
Hopkins Airport and executed, by my team, after which the bodies
were loaded into a van, driven to an industrial furnace just outside
the city and burned. And your government paid me $40 million to
do it.’
She blinks away the absurdity of the statement. ‘You’re saying
that you were responsible for 9/11?’
‘No. Just Flight 93. And we didn’t know your government was
our contractor until almost two years later.’
She shakes her head. ‘Doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t they
just crash the plane and be done with it?’
‘They needed to be assured of at least one positive, uplifting
story from that day that they could control.’
‘What? What’s uplifting about that?’
‘Think about it. After 9/11, the passengers on board Flight
93 were heralded as the embodiment of American bravery in the
face of Islamic tyranny. They were the “flight that fought back”.
Everything they did, from their stoic cellphone calls to loved ones
through to “let’s roll”, their call to arms before they attempted to
subdue the hijackers – all faked by my people, by the way – created
a heroic legacy that was regularly conscripted over the following
years to help justify the war on terror and its countless breaches
of civil liberties.’
‘You’re delusional.’
‘Why would I lie to you?’
‘You don’t think you’re lying. I’m sure you believe every word
of it because you’re delusional.’
He studies her for a long moment. ‘Do you think Lee Harvey
Oswald shot JFK?’
‘What does that have to do with anything?’
‘Do you?’
She looks at him, takes a moment to answer. ‘No.’
‘When did you realise this?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Think about it. When?’
She shrugs. ‘I – the nineties. Early nineties. When that movie
came out.’
He nods. ‘JFK. So, thirty years after the fact. But ten years after,
if you’d said Oswald was innocent, everyone would have thought
you were crazy. Nowadays, if you think he’s guilty, everyone thinks
you’re crazy. Well, in twenty years no one will believe al-Qaeda had
anything to do with 9/11 either. But by then, who will care? It will
be like the truth about JFK, another distant curiosity lost in a sea of
tabloid nonsense.’
‘It’s just bullshit. Sorry, but it is.’
‘The money we were paid was laundered twice before it reached
us. As I said, it took two years to trace, but the trail ended inside
your government.’
She shakes her head, not buying a word of it. He regards her for
a moment. ‘There’s other supporting evidence, of course. No sen-
ior government figures flew on domestic airlines that day. The Twin
Towers collapsed too smoothly to be the result of aircraft impacts.
No aircraft wreckage was found at the Pentagon because it was hit
by a cruise missile, which even the secretary of defense at the time
accidentally referred to. When bin Laden was uncovered in Pakistan
they promptly murdered him so he couldn’t tell the world he had
nothing to do with 9/11. It goes on.’
snakes away from the airport to a dust cloud that rolls towards
him. In front of the dust cloud is a day-glo-yellow ute, the words
Blades of Corey roughly handpainted on its door.
It skids to a halt in front of Judd. It is, to be kind, a dented rust
bucket. A suntanned man leans out the driver’s window, shoots
Judd a crooked grin. ‘You the bloke going to Kinabara?’
‘Judd Bell. Yes.’
‘G’day, Corey Purchase. I’m taking you there. Nice to meet
you. Hop in.’
Judd picks up his bag, pulls the door open. It creaks then jud-
ders to a stop, half-open.
‘Sorry. It’s a little sticky. Let me send the boys from mainte-
nance over.’ The Australian swivels in his seat, jams both boots
onto the door and pushes hard. It grinds open. ‘There you go. No
worries.’
Judd slides in with his bag. The ute doesn’t look any better on
the inside. It’s a sea of rust and old food containers, the road vis-
ible through a sizeable hole in the passenger foot well. He shifts
and realises he’s sitting on something.
‘Sorry!’ Corey pulls a flattened sandwich from underneath
Judd. ‘Lunch.’ Then he notices Judd’s jacket, draped over his bag.
‘Lovin’ that.’
Judd looks at it. ‘Okay. Thanks.’
A dog pops up in the rear tray and barks loudly, startles Judd.
‘Christ almighty!’
‘That’s Spike. Don’t worry, he’s all mouth and trousers.’
Spike barks again.
‘Well, you are.’
Another bark.
‘Quiet from the peanut gallery.’
Judd’s eyes are shut as the breeze from the open passenger window
washes over him. It’s like standing in front of an open pizza oven
on full flame but he doesn’t care. The air might be hotter than July
but it’s dry and curiously refreshing. Even better, as it roars past
it does an excellent job of drowning out the Australian’s voice. In
the ten minutes they’ve been driving the guy has not shut up. Then
something he says cuts through the hot, loud air and forces Judd to
respond. ‘You what?’
‘Pulled a loop.’
‘In a helicopter?’
‘They’re a bit hard to do in a car.’
Judd looks at him. Pulling a loop in a chopper is the rarest of
feats, the sole domain of experienced test pilots in advanced military
hardware. ‘Right.’
Corey picks up his sceptical tone. ‘It’s true. And the black chop-
per did one too, followed me right over.’
Judd nods politely.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you believe it now?’ Corey rolls to his feet and pulls Judd
up. He unhappily takes in his burning house and his burning ute,
then gestures for Judd and Spike to follow. ‘This way.’
They move quickly. Judd’s eyes are locked on the distant glint.
‘Who is it?’
‘No idea.’
‘Why are they doing this?’
‘If you find out I’d like to know.’ Corey kicks away a chunk of
smouldering iron that lies against the Loach. ‘Everyone in.’
Judd stops. ‘I’m not getting in that thing.’
‘Suit yourself.’
Corey climbs into the pilot’s seat as Spike hops in the back.
Judd looks from the Loach to the distant glint then back at the
Loach. ‘Christ!’ He scrambles into the chopper.
‘Belt, headset on.’ Corey cranks the Loach to life. The turbine
coughs – and dies.
Judd pulls on an old headset and buckles up while keeping his
eyes locked on the glint. It grows larger quickly and he can see it is,
indeed, a black chopper. ‘It’s coming!’
‘I know!’ Corey tries again. The turbine coughs – and dies.
Judd’s eyes are glued to the black chopper. A puff of grey smoke
appears in front of it. ‘Grey smoke! I see grey smoke! Another mis-
sile!’
Spike barks.
‘I’m tryin’!’ The turbine coughs – and dies. ‘Please-baby-please-
baby-please.’
‘You said it’d fly!’
‘It will fly!’
The missile closes in.
The Loach screams to life. Corey grins his crooked grin and
throttles up. Blades roar, dust blasts and the Loach lifts off and
swings over to the burning ute. The flames engulf the chopper on all
sides. The missile alters course, follows them.
Judd looks at Corey, dumbfounded. ‘What the hell are you
doing?’
Corey wrenches the controls and the Loach shoots upwards.
The missile slams into the burning ute and detonates. The shock
wave punches the underside of the Loach, drives it up and forward,
pitches it over the approaching black chopper.
Corey’s ecstatic. ‘See what I did? The missile was a heat-seeker!’
‘How’d you know that?’
‘I guessed.’
‘Guessed?’ Judd is horrified.
‘Correctly! Guessed correctly.’ The Australian taps his temple.
‘I’m always thinking!’ He glances in the side-view mirror and his
euphoria instantly transforms to disappointment as the black chop-
per completes a steep U-turn then pursues them. ‘Damn.’
Judd sees it too. ‘What did you expect?’
‘I was hoping they’d be discouraged.’
Judd notices the telescope in the pouch beside Corey’s seat.
He grabs it, aims it out the open door and pans it across the sky until
he locates the black chopper. He focuses on its occupants.
‘No!’ He yanks the telescope from his eye. ‘Can’t be.’
Dirk Popanken sits in the Tiger’s weapon officer’s seat behind and
above the pilot. His left hand triggers the binocular lens system built
into the fuselage below the rotor blades. The lens zooms, focuses
on the guy leaning out the doorway of the Loach helicopter and
the image is projected onto the perspex visor of the German’s Top
Hawk helmet.
He lets out a sharp laugh. It’s the astronaut, Judd Bell, alive
and well and in Central Australia. If Dirk wasn’t looking at him he
wouldn’t believe it. He’s got to hand it to the guy, he’s hard to kill.
Dirk’s earpiece crackles. ‘Are we close enough yet?’ It’s the other
German, Big Bird, the pilot who sits in front of Dirk. He’s being his
usual blunt self. Dirk hadn’t managed to destroy the little yellow
chopper with the missiles he’d already fired and Big Bird is unim-
pressed. The Top Hawk helmet is tricky to operate and it’s taking
Dirk a while to get the hang of its ‘look to aim, blink to shoot’ tar-
geting system.
‘Almost.’
‘Can you get it right this time?’
‘Consider it practice.’
‘It’s only practice if you improve. We only have so many missiles,
you know.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.’
‘Tango in Berlin.’ Judd can’t believe it, realises he should have goog-
led the guy’s real name back in Florida.
Corey glances at Judd. ‘“Tango in Berlin?” I love that song.’
‘Well, the guy who sang it is trying to kill you.’
‘What? But I bought his album. Are you sure?’
‘Pretty sure.’
Streaks of light erupt from the black chopper’s cannons and slice
towards the Loach. Corey sees them in the side-view mirror and
jolts the Loach into a steep, curling dive. ‘Hold on!’
‘Sweet Jesus!’ Judd grabs the doorframe, watches the red desert
‘He can’t see where he’s going!’ Judd’s so happy he shouts it.
He shuffles back to the cabin, swings inside, pulls on the headset.
‘The hatch came off, jammed on the chopper’s windscreen —’
‘I saw. Now can you tell me why the guy who sang “Tango in
Berlin” is trying to kill me?’
‘I don’t know why he’s trying to kill you but I know why he’s
trying to kill me.’
Corey’s confused. ‘Kill you? What?’
‘I’m an astronaut. From NASA. The guy in the chopper is one of
the crew who hijacked shuttle Atlantis off the pad at Cape Canaveral
two days ago.’
Corey stares at him. ‘Come on, I’m not an idiot.’
Spike barks.
‘That doesn’t count.’ Corey studies Judd. ‘A space shuttle was
hijacked?’
‘You haven’t seen the news?’
‘No.’
‘It’s been all over the TV.’
‘I don’t presently own a television.’
‘What about the radio?’
‘I listen to tapes.’
‘The internet?’
‘It’s so slow out here there’s no point.’
‘Well, it happened —’
The Loach’s turbine coughs. An alarm sounds. Corey scans the
instruments. ‘Gotta put down.’
‘What? Here? What if they come after us?’
‘We either land or crash. Personally I prefer to land.’ Corey scans
the horizon. ‘There. That’ll do.’
He aims the Loach at what appears to be a distant mountain
thinks he can talk to his dog doesn’t seem like a big deal. ‘So, how
long’s it going to take?’
The Australian’s head is buried in the hatch. ‘You’ll know when
I know.’
Judd tries not to let his frustration show. He takes in the flat
expanse of the crater then looks up and scans the bright-blue sky for
any sign of the black chopper. There’s no two ways about it – they’re
sitting ducks out here.
The wave looms over Disser. It’s the size of a three-storey apartment
block and compels him to make a deal, with the Lord or the Devil or
whoever the hell might be listening, to help him find a way off this
ocean.
He blinks, to clear the saltwater from his eyes and the fear from
his heart, and braces himself. ‘Hold on!’ The wave breaks over the
Zodiac and swamps the little boat, jamming it on its right side,
its pump-jet engine screaming as it’s yanked from the water. To stop
it capsizing Disser throws his weight against the boat’s left side,
as do the three other soaking-wet marines aboard.
The Zodiac balances on its side for a long moment, then thumps
back onto its hull. Disser’s relieved, but there’s no time to celebrate.
He raises his head, scans the ocean. He can’t locate Severson Burke,
but then he can’t see much of anything because these waves are just
too damn big.
‘There!’ Disser points into the wind. Severson is 30 metres away,
floating face down in the water. The marine driving the pump-
jet swings the Zodiac towards him. Thirty metres become two in
seconds. The marines reach down, haul him out of the water, lie him
on the Zodiac’s deck.
The marine at the engine pivots the Zodiac, sends it up the side of
He hears it. It’s faint at first, then grows louder. ‘Do you hear
that?’
Corey turns to him. ‘So now you want to talk —’
‘Do you hear it?’ Judd points at the sky.
Corey listens.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
Corey does. It’s the sound of rotor blades. ‘Damn.’
Judd nods at the Loach. ‘How long till it’s fixed?’
‘Too long.’
Spike barks.
Corey looks at him and shrugs. ‘There isn’t a plan.’
Judd meets Corey’s eyes, his expression grim. ‘Should we run?’
The Australian gestures to the wide expanse of nothingness that
surrounds them. ‘They kill us here, they kill us over there. There’s
nowhere to hide and running seems, I don’t know, undignified.’
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
The sound of the rotor blades reverberates within the cra-
ter’s bowl, magnifies. They examine the azure sky, await the dark
machine, await their fate.
Judd glances at his iPhone, wills it to have magically acquired
a signal. It has not. He turns to Corey. ‘Do you have any weapons
or – anything?’
The Australian shakes his head.
Judd takes it in with a nod. A moment passes. ‘Sorry I shouted
before.’
‘I was just being friendly. Making conversation.’
‘Of course.’ Judd studies the dusty ground beneath his feet.
‘I’m just a little stressed.’
‘These people are trying to kill me too you know.’
‘Sure, but I have —’
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
The sound of the rotors surrounds them.
‘You have what?’
Judd looks at him. ‘The woman I love is orbiting the Earth in the
hijacked space shuttle which, I’m pretty sure, is going to land out
here somewhere and I need to tell the authorities about it but I’m
stuck in the middle of a crater with a busted helicopter and I’ll be
dead before I can get to a place that has a working phone.’
Corey takes it in with a nod. ‘Okay, you’re excused. And I did
bang on a bit so, sorry about that —’ He stops abruptly.
‘What?’
The Australian points his index finger skyward. ‘It’s going away.’
Judd listens. It’s true. The sound retreats. ‘What happened?’
Corey lets out a short laugh. ‘It flew by.’
‘It flew by? It was so loud.’
‘Sound got caught in the crater, bounced around, amplified.’
Judd can’t contain his elation. He shuffles his feet as he clenches
his fists in triumph. It looks odd but has a certain groove to it.
‘It flew on by!’
‘And we ain’t gonna die!’ Corey laughs. ‘You’re dancing like
Barry Manilow.’
Judd stops. ‘What?’
‘Barry Manilow. You know, the stutter-step thing, when he sings
“Copacabana”.’ Corey imitates the Manilow trot, complete with
imaginary maracas. ‘I saw him do it on TV when I was a kid.’
‘I wasn’t doing that.’
‘Sure you were.’
Spike barks.
Corey nods at the dog. ‘He agrees.’
Judd’s mood turns. Nothing like being compared to a seventies
cabaret performer to kill the moment. Corey tries his best to walk it
back. ‘It’s not an insult. Manilow’s a big star in certain areas —’
‘How soon till we can get out of here?’
Corey moves back to the Loach. ‘I’m on it. Can you pass me
stuff from the toolbox?’
Judd nods as Corey slides his head into the Loach’s rear hatch.
‘Hairspray.’ His voice resonates.
Judd searches the toolbox, locates a rusting can of Taft, places
it in Corey’s outstretched hand. ‘I hope you’re only using dealer-
approved parts.’
‘Hey, if it works.’ Corey extends a hand. ‘Lighter.’
Judd passes over a disposable. He hears the lighter being flicked
to life then the roar of a flame. A stream of black smoke billows out
as the Australian coughs.
‘Hammer!’
Judd passes it over.
‘Thanks, Mandy.’ Corey proceeds to whack something hard.
‘Did you call me “Mandy”?’
‘It’s your nickname.’
‘Excuse me? Why would you call me “Mandy”?’
‘‘‘I Write The Songs” doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue. You
know, Barry Manilow’s song “Mandy” —’
‘Oh, Christ. Don’t call me that. Really.’
‘You don’t get to pick your nickname. I didn’t pick mine.’
Silence.
‘Do you want to know what it is?’
‘Not really —’
‘Blades.’ The Australian says it in a breathy, portentous voice
that reverberates in the hatch. ‘I know it’s better than Mandy, but
then I don’t dance like Barry Manilow.’
up there, well, I’ve never really believed in a god but that was the
closest I came.’
‘You’re not gonna cry again, are you?’
‘It was dust!’
Spike barks, lifts a paw, points out the windscreen. On the
ground in the far distance a cluster of lights blink and twinkle.
Judd focuses on it. ‘Is that the dish?’
Corey nods. ‘Sure is, Mandy, sure is.
she focuses on the monitor and moves the hand controller. She is
the centrepiece around which the mission was built. Hers was the
perfect confluence of skill and circumstance. If she had rebuffed
him when he first sought to recruit her then they wouldn’t be here
and none of this would be possible.
He takes a deep breath, forces himself to relax. He knows she’s
done this many times before. She’ll be fine.
‘Shit!’ Martie stares at the monitor and says it again. ‘Shit.’ The
effector grabbed the bolt. Then she tightened its hold to pull the
satellite towards the payload bay and the bolt snapped off, sending
the satellite into a slow spin.
She releases the broken bolt from the effector, sends it flipping
away, then searches for another spot to grab on. One that won’t
snap.
She doesn’t notice the longest of the satellite’s six antennae until
it rotates into view and slams into the Canadarm, sends a shock
wave through the shuttle. ‘Damn.’ The antenna lies across the
Canadarm as the satellite continues to rotate. The antenna bends.
Martie wills it to snap.
It doesn’t. The bent antenna springs back into shape and spins
the satellite in the opposite direction, drives it away from the shut-
tle. Fast.
If she doesn’t grab it now they won’t get it back. By the time
Nico can swing the shuttle around it’ll be so far away they won’t
have the fuel to retrieve it.
Martie searches the satellite, looks for another spot to grab on.
In six seconds it’ll be out of reach.
She jams the hand controller forward. The effector darts towards
the satellite, reaches the end of its range, clamps down on one of the
antennae as it swings past.
and will relay that information to the wider world, he’s also sure he
will tell that world he is one of the Atlantis hijackers when he does.
Dirk treasures the life he has built since he cut down the oak and
will not give it up without a fight.
Big Bird’s voice rattles in his headset. ‘We’re low on fuel, need to
head back.’
Dirk knows he should have dealt with Judd Bell when they
first met on the launch pad but he hesitated in the low light, didn’t
want to accidentally put a bullet through the Jacolby woman. So
the astronaut escaped into the elevator and lived. Then Dirk missed
him a further, what, how many times? Christ, it didn’t bear thinking
about. The problem is, he wants to eliminate the astronaut person-
ally, without involving the crew, but now he has no choice but to
enlist help.
‘All right, take us back.’
Big Bird pulls the Tiger into a steep bank as Dirk slides a satellite
phone out his jacket pocket, flips out the antenna, dials and pushes
it as close to his right ear as his helmet permits. The phone rings
then is answered by a distant male voice: ‘Yes.’
‘It’s Dirk. Can you hear me?’
‘Just.’
‘Okay, listen carefully.’
‘No problem.’ Doug holds out his hand for the bucket.
Corey doesn’t want to give it to him. ‘I can get it.’
‘Only authorised personnel allowed inside. Sorry.’
Corey won’t pass it over. Judd stops walking, sighs. ‘It’s his
lucky – bucket. I – ummm.’ He doesn’t know how to explain it any
better than that. He turns to Corey. ‘Just give it to him.’
Corey reluctantly hands it over. Doug takes it and turns to Judd.
‘Let’s get you that phone.’
‘Yes.’ They move towards the building.
Corey watches them go. ‘I’ll just wait here then.’ He turns,
wanders back to the Loach, Spike in tow. ‘It was like Mandy was
embarrassed by us.’
Spike barks.
‘Okay, by me.’ He points at the chopper. ‘Get in. We’re not stay-
ing long.’
From the chopper’s cockpit Corey sees a young woman exit the
building carrying his lucky bucket. ‘Here’s your water.’ She reaches
the Loach and puts the bucket down.
Corey steps out of the cockpit and sees her clearly. With her
blonde hair and angular features he thinks she’s particularly fetch-
ing, and when he thinks that he becomes a bit tongue-tied. ‘Hi. I’m
Corny, I mean Corley – Corey! I’m Corey.’
‘Petra Zellick.’
‘Nice to meet you.’ He grins his crooked grin except now it’s
a little goofy.
Judd follows Doug down the corridor. ‘Just the two of you here?’
‘Yep, expecting a couple of others tomorrow, hopefully some-
one with a bit more experience with these older systems. We’ve been
making it up as we go along. It was last upgraded in the mid-eighties
so the blokes who know ’em are mostly retired or, you know, dead.’
The beam of Doug’s torch hits a door. ‘It’s in there.’
He pushes the door open. ‘It’s recharging. This room seems to
have the only power outlet that works.’ They enter and Doug flicks
the switch on the wall. No light. ‘Shit, keep forgetting.’
The room has the sour smell of wet laundry left standing too
long. The torch reflects off a picture window that dominates the
far wall, throwing a pale glow over the large office. At one end a
long desk topped with a green-shaded banker’s lamp is surrounded
by half a dozen wood and vinyl chairs, circa early seventies.
Everything’s covered in a film of grey-red dust.
‘Where is it?’ Judd turns to Doug and the torch’s beam blasts
directly into his face.
‘Sorry!’
Judd turns away. Bright blotches swim across his vision. He
blinks to clear them then catches sight of the reflection in the picture
window. Doug’s right hand rises towards him. It holds a pistol.
‘Shit.’ Judd twists away as the pistol fires and the flash lights up
the room. The sound reverberates, shakes the picture window. Judd
dives, hits the ground, rolls under the table.
‘Your German friend sends his regards.’ The room flashes white
again and wood splinters blast into the side of Judd’s face.
‘— so that’s the thing, I’m always thinking. It’s Wednesday and I’m
already thinking about Thursday.’ Corey turns to Petra, unsure.
‘It is Wednesday, isn’t it?’
‘Monday.’ She jabs a nine-millimetre pistol into his ribs.
He looks from the gun to Petra, confused. ‘Does this mean you
don’t need a tour guide?’
She pulls the trigger as he twists away and hip-checks her.
She’s knocked sideways and the bullet slams into the dust. Corey
dive-rolls under the Loach as she finds her balance and swings the
weapon towards him.
He’s not there. She bends, looks under the Loach. No sign of him.
Pistol raised, finger tight on the trigger, she stalks around the chopper.
The Loach is not very big so it doesn’t take long to circumnavigate.
Doug crouches, points the torch and the pistol under the table.
There’s no one under there. Surprised, he stands, sweeps the torch
beam across the room —
It illuminates Judd as he slides across the dusty table, feet first. He
nails Doug in the gut and the Australian hits the floor hard. The pistol
jolts from his hand and clatters across the green linoleum.
They both scramble for it. Doug grabs Judd’s belt, yanks him
backwards, pulls himself towards the gun. Judd recovers, shoulders
him in the back, knocks him over, snags the weapon, aims it.
It’s not the pistol, it’s the torch! ‘Shit!’ He finds the switch, turns it
on, scans the floor for the weapon —
Doug kicks him in the back and Judd slams against the table,
drops the torch. Doug comes at him and Judd reaches out in the dark-
ness, for something, anything. His hand touches cool metal. He grabs
it, swings it around.
Smash! It connects with Doug’s temple and explodes in a shower
of glass. Doug flops to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Judd drops
the shattered banker’s lamp and searches for the pistol.
*
In the centre of the main room sits an ancient control desk covered
in a maze of worn buttons, tired dials and cloudy gauges. To the side
sits a MacBook Pro, connected to the desk via a cable.
Judd frantically searches for something while Spike growls at
Petra and Doug. Both gagged, they sit in chairs, back to back, in
the middle of the room, bound together by a rope which is wrapped
tightly around their chest, arms and legs. She’s still unconscious, he’s
halfway there. In front of them Corey stares at both ends of the
rope. Petra’s pistol is pushed into his belt at the front.
Spike barks.
‘Yeah, yeah.’ It prompts Corey to tie the ends of rope together.
He whispers: ‘The weasel pops out of the hole and runs around the
tree and jumps into – into —’ He stops, still has no idea what the
weasel jumps into.
Spike barks.
Corey stares at the half-tied knot. ‘Again with the hole. I can’t
see any hole.’
Judd turns from his search, clearly frustrated. ‘You still doing
that?’
‘Just deciding which knot to use.’
‘One that won’t come loose.’
‘Yep, that’s what I was – thinking.’ Corey stares at the half-tied
knot.
Judd grabs the rope from his hands. ‘You’re wasting time.’
‘Hey!’
Judd ties the knot so quickly Corey doesn’t see how it’s done.
‘How’d you do that?’
Judd ignores the question. ‘I need you to help me find the satel-
lite phone.’
‘What? No, we’re going.’
Judd exhales. ‘I’ll show you how to tie the knot if you help.’
‘Okay. Show me.’
Judd resumes the search. ‘After we find it.’
‘How do you know there’s a phone here?’
astronaut moves to the laptop and swipes a finger across its track-
pad. Its blank screen blinks to life, shows a circular black and green
radar grid overlaying a topographical map. The sweep refreshes the
screen every two seconds. Judd takes it in. ‘The dish is feeding it
real-time data.’
A small blip curves across the screen. Every time the sweep
passes over it, its position is updated. Judd studies it.
Corey moves beside him. ‘What’s that?’
‘The shuttle. It’s coming down now. It’ll land in fifteen minutes,
give or take.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘It’s performing an S-turn, to shed speed before landing.’
Corey takes it in, astonished. ‘That thing is, is —’
‘Moving at 13 000 kilometres an hour.’
The blip travels off the edge of the screen. Judd puts an index
finger on the point where it left the screen then drags it in a looping
journey that proscribes what he believes will be the shuttle’s flight
path as it completes Terminal Area Energy Management manoeu-
vres to slow it down, then curves around the Heading Alignment
Cylinder to pass Waypoint One, then Waypoint Two, until it lines
up with the runway. His finger stops at a point on the screen. ‘Here.
Where is this?’ Judd unfolds the map, spreads it out. ‘On the map.’
Corey studies the screen, then looks at the map, then the screen
again, tries his best to identify the topographical representations,
then looks back at the map again, jabs a position. ‘Here?’ He doesn’t
say it with a lot of conviction. The place has no name, it’s just a rust-
red smear on a map full of rust-red smears.
‘There’re no mountains or valleys or anything? It’s flat, right?’
‘As a pancake.’
‘How far away is it? In the chopper.’
Judd stares at Corey. ‘Why do you think? I’ve gotta see that she’s
okay.’
‘How are you going to see that? How are you going to see any-
thing —’
‘I don’t know. But I have to do something. I can’t just sit here.’
Judd can feel moisture at the corners of his eyes again. Christ. He
looks down, studies the green linoleum floor.
‘You crying again?’
‘No.’
Corey bends, looks him in the face. ‘The corners of your eyes are
wet! Come on, man, you’re embarrassing the dog. There’s no crying
for men in Australia. It’s frowned upon, makes the blokes not crying
uncomfortable. If you’re upset, keep it to yourself.’
Judd turns to him, eyes firm. ‘I need you to do this. Please.’
Corey looks at him.
‘Come on, there isn’t much time.’
‘I’m thinking!’ Corey takes a breath, then nods. ‘Okay. Jeez.’
He can’t believe he’s agreeing to it.
‘Thank you.’
The dog barks.
Corey glances at the animal. ‘Yeah, well, last time I checked
it was my chopper. Of course, you can always stay here and hang
with this pair if you’ve got a problem with it.’ He jabs a thumb at
Petra and Doug.
Spike barks.
‘Language, please.’
Judd sweeps the satellite phone, the bottles of water and the map
into the backpack. ‘What should we do about them?’
‘Dunno. What do you think?’
‘Fuck ’em.’
The Loach trails a ribbon of exhaust heat that makes the stars dance
and shimmer in its wake.
Behind the Loach’s controls Corey looks down at his new jacket,
which, just moments ago, belonged to one Judson Bell. The sleeves
are a bit short and it doesn’t go with his grubby blue T-shirt or dusty
jeans, but, as he’s blissfully unencumbered by notions of fashion, he
doesn’t care. It is the single nicest article of clothing he’s ever owned.
He flicks a piece of lint off the left lapel then looks to Judd beside
him. ‘Okay, this is the plan. We see where it lands then we call your
mates and tell them where it is, then we leave and fly far, far away
and let them handle it, then we land and you teach me how to tie
that knot. Okay?’
Satellite phone in hand, backpack at his feet, map open on his
knees, Judd nods, preoccupied, as he surveys the night sky. ‘How far
away are we?’
‘This is it.’
Judd glances at his watch, leans out the open door, looks up,
searches the black sky. He sees nothing. Frustrated, he looks back at
the map and his hands ‘go Rubik’. ‘Did I get it wrong?’
‘It’s okay, we’ll find it.’
Judd’s not so sure. ‘If I screwed up the calculations it could be a
hundred miles from here.’
Corey nods at the satellite phone. ‘Well, call your mates anyway,
tell ’em it’s in the Territory. That’s better than nothing —’
A low, fat noise sweeps across the sky.
The sound is very loud, but also soft and rounded, like a wave of
white noise. Judd scans the sky for its source.
There, above and to the left, 200 metres away, a dark wedge
shape blocks out the stars as it rips across the night sky, displacing
air and producing that wave of white noise.
Atlantis.
Corey sees it and grins. ‘Told you we’d find it.’
Judd watches the spacecraft as it pulls away and loses altitude
fast. ‘It’s about to land.’
Even though Rhonda knows most of the re-entry processes are auto-
mated, she’s still impressed. The Frenchman and his Italian sidekick
have expertly dragged the shuttle out of orbit, re-entered the atmos-
phere and flown it through TAEM without any issues.
She looks out the right-side windscreen at the flat blackness and
tries to divine where they’re about to land. How many hours ago
did they leave the Cape? How many hours have they been aloft?
What time would that make it here if it was the middle of the night?
She does the arithmetic and makes a couple of educated guesses.
She can’t imagine they’re anywhere in Europe. There’d be too
many people around to make it viable. Deepest darkest Russia is
a possibility, but why risk it when the weather could be harsh and
unpredictable?
There’s just one place that makes sense. Sparsely populated. No
man-eating animals roaming about. No militia. No mountains to
crash into. No forests to complicate a landing. No harsh weather
to speak of. Just a whole lot of flat desert. They’re about to land in
Central Australia, she’s sure of it.
She stares out the windscreen and realises that as interesting a
piece of information as that is, it doesn’t give her anything useful,
won’t help her stop the Frenchman. To do that she needs to come up
with a plan and she needs to do it fast.
time.’ He turns back to the horizon, studies the runway. ‘They sure
went to some trouble.’
‘You ever seen it before?’
‘No way. I was out this way a month ago and there was nothing
here. They built it from scratch. Recently.’
Judd looks down at the map, the instrument panel illuminating
it, and presses his finger into the position Corey determined back at
the dish. ‘Is this where it is?’
‘Spot on. Make the call.’ Judd nods as he flips out the satellite
phone’s antenna and works the keypad.
A mechanical whine cuts across the wind roar. They both look
over at Atlantis. Its landing gear lowers and locks in place. The wind
resistance instantly decelerates the spacecraft and it loses altitude.
‘Watch it! Don’t get too close.’
Too late. Before Corey can do anything the Loach is parallel
with Atlantis.
The Loach slows so abruptly that Spike slides forward and bonks
his head against the front seat. He aims a sharp bark at his mas-
ter, who doesn’t reply because a euphoric Judd’s already speaking:
‘I saw her! Through the window!’
‘Good. Now make the call.’
‘Doin’ it.’ Judd presses the sat phone’s TALK button.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
Claude works the Tiger’s controls, surveys the desert below, search-
es for the Loach. It took a hit and fell out of the sky like a grand
piano but now he can’t see where it landed.
He flicks on his helmet’s thermal imaging system and studies the
green-grey image of the desert 300 metres below. ‘See anything?’
The question is addressed to Cobbin, who sits behind him and
operates the weapons system. Cobbin’s voice buzzes in his headset:
‘Got it. Nine o’clock.’
Claude looks left, sees it. Two men and a dog sprint away from
the Loach. He wonders what in hell a dog is doing there. ‘Sooner we
deal with it the sooner we can get back.’
‘On it.’ Cobbin triggers the Tiger’s GIAT 30-millimetre chin-
mounted cannon and bullets slice across the desert towards the men
and the dog. They disappear behind a haze of dust – then Claude
picks them up as they tumble down an incline and hit the bottom of
a ravine, the dog barking all the way.
One of the men looks up, eyes shining in the infra-red spectrum.
Claude can see he has something in his hand, which he points at the
Tiger. ‘What’s that?’
Before Cobbin can answer there are three flashes. The Tiger
shudders and Claude’s eyes flick to the rotor blades above him as
they splinter and disintegrate.
A shard shatters the Tiger’s windscreen and slams into his chest.
Stunned, Claude stares at the chunk of fibre-plastic that protrudes
from his sternum. It’s the shape of a shark fin.
He realises he never tasted shark fin soup.
off the battery cover. The battery isn’t seated correctly. He clicks it
into place, snaps the cover back on and turns it over.
The LED screen glows. One bar of power remains on the scale.
Judd dials as he walks up the incline towards the Loach, gestures for
Corey to follow. ‘Come on, I need your telescope.’
brilliant, no doubt, but it’s now clear that none possess Aaron’s
practical ability, and he includes himself in that assessment.
The second reason they’ve failed to locate Atlantis is the Joint
Terrorism Task Force. Thompkins has been liaising with the team
of agents from the FBI, the CIA, the HLS and the NSA over the
last two days and what a collection they were. Set up in the con-
ference room next door, Dean Wyyer and his twelve-member team
have been bumping into walls, tripping over their feet and pull-
ing on doors clearly marked ‘push’ ever since they arrived. They’re
constantly under foot and incessantly ask Thompkins’ people self-
evident questions that only distract them from the job at hand.
The JTTF has been working here for days now and the team still
doesn’t know who took Atlantis. Thompkins finds this interesting
as it’s in stark contrast to the aftermath of 9/11, when the govern-
ment knew who was responsible for the hijackings within hours of
the towers falling.
Thompkins’ BlackBerry chirps. He looks at the screen. It’s a pri-
vate number. Ordinarily he would never answer a private number
but these aren’t ordinary times. He picks up. ‘Hello.’
‘Thompkins? Judd Bell.’
‘Judd? What’s going on —’
‘I know where Atlantis is.’
‘You what?’ Thompkins’ voice is so loud through the satel-
lite phone’s speaker that Spike’s ears prick up, and he’s sitting five
metres away. ‘How do you know this?’
‘’Cause I’m looking at it.’ Judd stares through the Australian’s
dented telescope at the distant runway, Atlantis large in the eye-
piece. ‘And Rhonda’s on board.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Where you sent me. The Northern Territory.’
‘Where exactly?’
Judd turns to Corey. ‘Where are we exactly? I need a name.’
‘Doesn’t have one.’
‘Where are we close to?’
He thinks about it. ‘Midway between Lake Mackay and Nyirripi.’
Spike barks.
Corey looks at him. ‘Sure, if you wanna split hairs.’ He turns
back to Judd. ‘A bit closer to Lake Mackay.’
Judd speaks into the sat phone. ‘It’s midway between Lake
Mackay and Nyirripi in the Northern Territory. If you have a spy
satellite overhead you won’t miss the runway they’ve built. It’s lit up
like the Vegas strip.’
‘Who’s the other voice?’
‘The chopper pilot who picked me up at the airport.’
‘He knows about this?’
‘How do you think I got out here? I’m in the middle of nowhere.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘There’s something else you need to know. They have choppers.’
‘What kind?’
‘Nasty black ones!’
Judd holds up a hand to silence the Australian. ‘Attack choppers.
European, from the look of it. I don’t know how many. At least one.’
‘Understood. Anything else?’
Judd pans the telescope, notices something behind a very large
tent set up near the runway. ‘Hold on.’ He focuses, tries to work out
what it is. It seems to be covered with tarpaulins.
‘Christ.’ He pulls the telescope from his eye. ‘They’re gonna fly
the shuttle out. There’s a jet, a big one, covered with tarps. I can
only see the side of one engine. Could be an old 747 – no, it’s a
Galaxy. Wasn’t there one stolen from an air-force base last week?’
Thompkins hangs up, takes a deep breath and nods to himself. This
is it, the end game. It’s not how he expected it to go but he’s well
prepared. He knows what to do and how to do it. He takes another
breath, momentarily widens his eyes to focus his nerves, then starts
for the door and dials his phone.
It rings and is answered by an older woman. ‘Administrator
Cunningham’s office.’
‘Barbara, it’s Will Thompkins. I need to see the boss right away.
We’ve found Atlantis.’
Rhonda doesn’t know much about the Loach’s fate after eavesdrop-
ping on the Frenchman’s last walkie exchange. What she does know
is that a ‘turnaround’ of some kind is on the agenda, which she
guesses has something to do with her shuttle.
She wants to be out of this chair before it happens. Unfortunately
her wrists are still tightly ziplocked to its frame and she’s surrounded
by people who want her to stay put. She needs a plan, she just hasn’t
been able to think of the right one yet.
When stumped for an answer to a particularly vexing question,
Rhonda finds that if she lets her mind wander to other matters a
solution usually presents itself. So she decides to do that and let her
subconscious go to work.
At that moment her ex-best friend Martie unlocks the shuttle’s
mid-deck hatch, or ‘front door’ as Judd nicknamed it. She remem-
bers that because it was one of the first things he said to her, right
before he suggested they go jogging to a movie.
Yes, jogging to a movie. When he asked her she laughed because
she thought it was a joke. It wasn’t – and that’s what they did on
their first date. She can’t remember which movie they saw but she
always remembers the route they ran to get to the cinema. She knew
the jogging component of the date had been nothing but a stunt to
win her favour, exercise being something everyone in the program
knew was her one addiction, but it worked. It became their thing,
the way they connected. Judd was so funny then. Often she had to
stop running because she was doubled over from one of his asides or
observations. For years they jogged every day. Until Columbia. She
missed it very much.
Martie steps back onto the flight deck and addresses Henri.
‘What should we do with her?’
‘She stays here. You watch her.’
Rhonda glares at the Frenchman as he stands. She tries her hard-
est not to look at the pistol jammed into his belt, pressed against
his protruding belly. She’s going to need that gun or one just like it.
That’s all it will take to end this, or at least put a big cat among the
Frenchman’s pigeons . . .
Mountain biking!
And just like that she has an escape plan. Good old subconscious
to the rescue again. And Judd, who made her think about how much
she loved exercise.
Rhonda loved mountain biking, as in biking on mountains, but
it was frowned upon by the NASA hierarchy because it was stupid-
dangerous. She did it anyway, until the day she hit a tree at 50 k’s
an hour and, luckily, dislocated her right shoulder instead of snap-
ping her neck. Not only did this bring her mountain-biking career to
an abrupt conclusion, but also, as she was in training for a mission
at the time, she had to keep using her injured arm as if everything
were just fine and dandy. As a result, it never healed correctly. Her
shoulder has only popped out once since, when she was pulling her-
self out of a bath, of all things, and it hurt like a bastard until she
worked out that if she jammed it into the bathroom wall at a very
specific angle it would pop back in. It was three minutes of agony
she hoped never to relive.
The plastic ties that hold her wrists to the chair are strapped
before her gloves. She’ll never be able to pull those through the ties
because they’re too bulky, but if she can flex her forearm and stretch
the tie she might be able to get a wrist free inside the suit, then pull it
down the sleeve, then dislocate her shoulder and slip her arm out of
the sleeve and move it to a position where she can unzip the suit and
get out of it, and the chair. Just thinking about it is exhausting but
it’s the only option going so she must give it a try.
Martie slides into the pilot’s chair, her back to Rhonda. The
Frenchman nods to the Italian and they exit the flight deck, move
down the ladder. As soon as they’re gone Rhonda starts flexing her
forearm against the plastic tie while making sure it doesn’t look like
she’s doing that.
She’s pleased the dislocated shoulder prompted her to give up
mountain biking for Pilates, something she was doing long before
it became fashionable, because it had greatly increased her arm’s
strength.
Henri and Nico climb down the aluminium ladder from the shuttle’s
hatch. The Frenchman steps onto the desert like he owns it and, in a
way, he does, at least for the next few hours.
Henri triggers his walkie, the message broadcast to the whole
crew. ‘Atlantis will be loaded and ready for wheels up by sunrise.’
On cue, a diesel engine barks to life. The enormous yellow Kato
mobile crane belches a cloud of black exhaust from its stack then
rolls from behind the Galaxy towards Atlantis.
Two hundred metres to the left, Dirk and Big Bird’s Tiger lifts off
in a blizzard of dust. The Frenchman turns and watches it skim the
desert until it outruns the glow of the runway lights and disappears.
Judd lies at the top of the ravine and focuses the telescope on the
black chopper. He really hopes it doesn’t fly towards him.
It flies directly towards him – then breaks left. Relieved, he pans
the telescope, focuses on the yellow mobile crane as it trundles
towards Atlantis. He pans the telescope again, focuses on the circus
tent. It’s being lowered. Behind it the tarps are being removed from
the big jet, which he can now confirm is a Galaxy.
Blue-white sparks arc from two positions high on the big jet’s
fuselage, one at the front, one at the rear. He immediately knows
they’re welding connection points for Atlantis to lock onto.
The jet will be gone before the cavalry arrives, he’s sure of it.
He’ll need to go over and retrieve Rhonda himself. There’s no choice.
She’s just there, just over there. The idea of sitting here and watch-
ing the jet leave is not an option. Of course he doesn’t know if they’ll
even take her with them but then he knows nothing at this point.
Actually, he knows this: Deke Slayton would go and get his wife.
Gordo Cooper would go and get his wife. Neil Armstrong would
go and get his wife. Those astronauts would work out a plan and
execute it, no matter the situation, no matter the odds, because they
were steely-eyed missile men.
‘I’m going over there.’
‘Are you crazy?’
In the Tiger, Dirk surveys the other chopper’s wreckage, Claude and
Cobbin’s remains visible inside the burnt-out cockpit. The German
finds it almost impossible to believe the Loach brought down a state-
of-the-art attack chopper. Claude must have screwed up and flown
it into the ground. It’s very disappointing, not only for the loss of
Claude and Cobbin, but because he was hoping they had solved his
Judd Bell problem. Unfortunately there’s no sign the yellow chopper
was destroyed.
So the Loach is still out there and now they’re a Tiger down.
From a tactical perspective it’s a concern. The choppers were an
insurance policy against a military or law enforcement attempt to
disrupt the mission. To make matters worse, Dirk just received word
that the Loach and its occupants, Judd Bell, a pilot and a dog, had
reached Kinabara Dish and managed, somehow, to subdue both the
operatives placed there and take their satellite phone. The German
grits his teeth in frustration.
Something rushes from behind a large boulder in the desert in
front of him. Dirk looks closer. It’s large but he can’t see it clearly.
Whatever it is, it’s moving like there’s no tomorrow, a day it will
not see if Dirk has anything to do with it. He aims the Top Hawk
and the targeting grid locks on. He blinks and bullets zip across the
desert.
It’s a kangaroo. It makes it to another rock and disappears. The
German’s genuinely happy the marsupial got away. It momentarily
lifts his mood, then the frustration floods back and all he wants is to
spend every second he has before departure searching for the astro-
naut.
‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.’ He says
it to himself and takes a breath, remembers this mission is for his
commander, the man who gave Dirk the life he is so hell bent on
protecting. Now that they’re a chopper down and the astronaut has
the satellite phone it’s even more important that Dirk get back to
base camp, make sure they depart on time and be prepared for any
threat that might present itself.
‘Okay, let’s get back.’
Big Bird grunts an affirmative and swings the Tiger around, aims
it towards the runway.
The sound of the black chopper retreats.
Judd’s head throbs. He needs to get up and get moving but the
smooth boulder against his face feels fantastic. It’s like a cool pil-
low on a balmy night. Just like the pillow in that hotel. What was it
called? The one in Hawaii. He can’t remember its name. It was pink.
It doesn’t matter. He needs to get up and get moving – The Royal
Hawaiian! That’s the name. His eyelids are heavy. He decides to
close them for a moment. He’s not going to sleep because he needs
to get moving, he’s just going to have a little rest, just for a minute.
Judd closes his eyes and passes out.
improved avionics and, most importantly, two Pratt & Whitney J58
engines with upgraded compressor inlets. The new inlets allowed
the engines to run much hotter and meant a top speed of low Mach
6, almost twice as fast as before. Incredibly, the Article’s increased
speed did not affect its fuel consumption. With the engine’s unique
turbofan within a ram-jet design, it became more fuel efficient the
faster it travelled.
So Thompkins would fly the Article over Atlantis’s position at
80 000 feet. Mahoney would take photographs and document the
area in minute detail, right down to the brand of footwear anyone in
the vicinity happened to be wearing. The digital images would then
be datalinked directly to the approaching marines and give them an
invaluable tactical advantage.
The Article taxis towards the runway’s threshold, its wings
vibrating over the uneven tarmac.
‘So where are we going, Horshack?’ Strapped in behind him,
RSO Mahoney’s voice buzzes in Thompkins’ headset. He uses the
nickname he gave Thompkins twenty years ago, when they first flew
together in the air force and discovered that they both loved watch-
ing reruns of Welcome Back, Kotter when they were kids.
‘Need to know, Epstein.’
‘That important, huh?’
‘Yep, that important.’
The Article’s flight plan was classified because Thompkins
couldn’t risk word getting out that they knew Atlantis’s position.
Only Administrator Cunningham and the marines had that infor-
mation.
‘I’ll tell you as soon as you need to know.’
‘Roger that.’
Thompkins and Mahoney had been inseparable during their time
in the air force. They did everything together, from sharing an apart-
ment to being each other’s wingman while out tomcattin’ the ladies.
That changed once they transferred to NASA to become the Article’s
primary flight team and Thompkins’ career moved to the fast track.
Over time, Thompkins found himself actively avoiding Mahoney
because his career so outstripped his old friend’s that he was embar-
rassed and didn’t how to act around him.
The Article turns onto Kennedy’s main runway. The tower grants
clearance and Thompkins takes a shallow breath. He’s flown this
beast a total of 532 hours, but the thrill of it never gets old, the thrill
of acceleration, instant, pure, unapologetic. ‘Ready back there?’
‘Punch it.’
Thompkins throttles the Pratt & Whitneys. It feels like he’s been
kicked in the back – by God.
The Article rips down the runway then slices into the azure sky.
Kelvin now knows why the runway’s so long, the same runway he
landed the Galaxy on when he first arrived in this desert four days
ago. He also knows why he’s helping bolt metalwork to the top of
the Galaxy. He knows, but still can’t quite believe it. So, as much
for confirmation as anything else, he turns from his position atop
the Galaxy’s fuselage and takes in the distinctive shape of the space
shuttle, lit by the muted glow of moon and runway light.
They actually stole a shuttle, and by ‘they’ he means ‘he’, because
‘he’ is a member of ‘they’ – a junior member, sure, but part of the
Frenchman’s crew nonetheless.
An oversized mobile crane is parked beside the spacecraft. It
was here when he landed, as was the large tent where the Tigers
were assembled, and where the Frenchman’s crew slept and ate.
The whole mission had been meticulously planned and generously
funded. Henri must have been planning it for years.
The crane’s boom towers high above the shuttle. From it hang
two pairs of fat chains that reach halfway to the ground, then attach
to two large loops that almost touch the desert. The loops are 15
metres long and a metre wide, constructed from a flat, flexible
material. Kelvin quickly realises they’re slings.
Two men grab each sling. One pair guide their sling under the
nose of the shuttle, pull it up to the landing gear. The other pair slot
their sling under the rear of the spacecraft and drag it to the trailing
edge of the wing.
‘How much longer?’
Kelvin turns to Nico. ‘It’s done.’
With a torch, the Italian examines the bolts and welds that
secure the metal structure to the top of the Galaxy’s fuselage. They
will allow the shuttle to be attached to the jet, piggyback-style.
It had been a relatively straightforward job. Kelvin had per-
formed the work with three members of Henri’s crew, who were
later joined by a man and a woman from the Kinabara Dish. They
both looked like they’d been in a nasty fight. Kelvin wondered if it
had been with each other.
So what did old Kelvy boy do now? There had been no oppor-
tunity to escape since he arrived. He’d been busy helping build an
auxiliary fuel tank in the Galaxy’s hold, then securing this metal-
work. And if he had escaped, well, what would he have done? He
was in the middle of an unforgiving desert, hundreds of kilometres
from civilisation. Henri’s men would’ve hunted him down within
the hour.
Now he wonders if he could, somehow, throw a spanner into the
Frenchman’s plans. He could be the guy who saw the error of his
ways and heroically thwarted the hijackers. The notion holds genu-
ine appeal to Kelvin. He likes the idea of being a hero. It was a lot
better than his memory being villainised through a fleeting associa-
tion with the Frenchman, even if he was paid a million.
Nico finishes his inspection. ‘Okay. I need the jet there.’ He points
at the port side of the shuttle. ‘The nose in that direction. Get it
parallel, close as you can. We’re going to load it now.’
Kelvin nods, moves to the ladder that leans against the side of
the aircraft, climbs to the desert below, his mind racing.
It floats above him, sharp grey angles stark against deep blue.
Thompkins studies the three-engined KC-10 aerial refueler. The
arse end of a tanker was a sight you quickly became familiar with
when you flew the Article. It may have been the fastest aircraft
ever built, but its appetite for avgas meant in-flight refuelling was
an integral part of its driver’s skill set. If Thompkins could fly it
directly to Central Australia he would be there in just on two hours.
Unfortunately that’s not possible. Central Australia is over 17 000
kilometres from Cape Canaveral but the range of the Article is 5300
kilometres.
He needs quick refuels today, and the previous three have
been just that, the aeronautical equivalent of wham-bam-thank-
you-ma’am. Unfortunately fourth time was not the charm. After
descending from 80 000 to 30 000 feet he’d wasted five minutes
tooling around the Pacific looking for this damn refueler because it
hadn’t been where it was supposed to be. Mahoney finally found it
on his scope with three minutes of gas in the tank. Due to a snafu
at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, the KC-10 had been set on
a track 30 kilometres east of where Thompkins had instructed it
to be.
Thompkins waits as the KC-10 disgorges fuel into the Article’s
tanks, which take up most of the aircraft’s fuselage. Not only does
avgas power the engines, but it also acts as their coolant, a unique
design feature only Kelly Johnson could have devised.
Thompkins’ eyes lock on the fuel gauge. Ninety-six per cent
and rising quickly. Hawaii is the last pitstop before the blast across
the Pacific to Central Australia so he needs the tanks full to the
brim. The fuel gauge touches 100 per cent.
‘Okay, we’re done.’ Thompkins disconnects the Article from
the boom, drops below the tanker and scans the gauges again, just
to be sure everything looks cool. It does. The single most impor-
tant factor when flying the Article is to make sure the engines don’t
run hot. If they did, a turbine blade could melt and that’d end the
trip real quick. Thompkins eases the throttle levers forward. The
jet leaves the KC-10 behind like a bad memory.
Mach 1. Thompkins’ gloved finger moves to the small wheel
on the instrument panel that adjusts the aircraft’s pitch. He rotates
the wheel 3 millimetres. Not much, but it will yield a 500-foot-per-
minute climb until the Article reaches a ceiling of 80 000 feet. He
can feel the aircraft’s nose rise slightly, just one-sixth of a degree in
real terms, but enough for the job.
Mach 2. He presses the throttle levers forward again. The
acceleration comes not as a jolt but a surge, harnessing the energy
of fifty locomotives, a power that builds and builds and keeps
building as the engines drink 100 000 square feet of air per second.
Mach 3. He’s going to push this thing harder than it’s ever been
pushed before. Mach 6.5 is his destination today, just on 8000
kilometres an hour. Faster than anyone has ever travelled in an
aircraft. He presses the throttle levers forward again. The surge
continues.
Mach 4. It is relentless, the ultimate rush. Nothing compares
to it. Unlike an astronaut who is strapped to a rocket with limited
Pistol in hand, Judd wipes sweat from his face and sprints towards
Atlantis, which now piggybacks the Galaxy.
A man runs at him, gun raised. Judd turns, fires, hits him in the
chest. To the left another man raises a rifle. Judd pivots, fires, drops
him to the desert.
Judd wipes sweat from his face. A Hummer is parked beneath
one of the Galaxy’s engines. He sprints to it, leaps onto its hood,
then its roof, jumps, grabs hold of the engine cowling and swings
himself into the turbine’s gaping maw. He scales the cowling then
drags himself onto the wing.
Atlantis is right in front of him. He wipes sweat from his fore-
head and sprints along the Galaxy’s wing towards it.
Bright flashes light up the night. A man fires at him from the
ground. Judd swivels, fires, hits him in the gut, then runs on, leaps,
grabs the trailing edge of the shuttle’s wing, heaves himself onto it.
He finds his feet, sprints towards the hatch.
It’s open. Judd reaches the front of the wing, leaps, grabs the
edge of the hatch, scrambles inside.
Tango in Berlin towers over him, aims his pistol. Judd’s too fast.
He fires and the bullet slams into the German’s forehead. Judd wipes
sweat from his face, scales the ladder to the flight deck.
Rhonda.
She’s strapped to her chair. She sees him, elated. ‘I knew you’d
come for me.’
He rips her free but there’s still sweat on his face. He wipes at it.
Then again. And again . . .
Judd wakes with a start, pulls his face from the sand. Ants. Big
ones. On his face. In his mouth. They bite! Sting! He claws them
from his skin, spits them out, shakes his head to remove the little
bastards.
He clears his eyes, looks at his PloProf, takes a moment to focus
on the watch. Christ. He’s been out for over two hours. His head
pounds with a dull ache. He ignores it, finds the telescope, puts it to
his eye. The first sunlight peeks over the horizon and casts a golden
hue across Atlantis and the Galaxy, makes the giant vehicles seem
small and inconsequential against the expansive landscape.
The tents are down and a tanker truck is parked near the Galaxy’s
undercarriage, filling it up. It’s about to leave.
Judd glances at his PloProf. Where are the marines? He thought
they wouldn’t make it in time and it looks like he was right. He
reaches for the sat phone. It’s half-buried in the sand nearby. He dusts
it off, works the keypad. The screen illuminates. A blinking LOW
BAT warning greets him. One quarter of a bar of power remains.
He dials. Waits.
Thompkins’ voicemail asks him to kindly leave a message. Judd
hangs up. Who else can he call? Who will know when the cavalry
will arrive?
He dials.
‘What?’ Judd yanks the satellite phone from his ear and stares at it
for a moment, as if that will somehow help him comprehend what
he just heard. ‘No. It’s in Central Australia. The Northern Territory.
It’s sitting on the back of a Galaxy that’s being fueled as we speak.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m staring at it! Why would you think it’s in North Africa?’
‘That was the intel. Came in a couple of hours ago. It’s in Tunisia.
Two marine units are on their way there.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘I’m in the Pacific on the USS George H. W. Bush with another
unit. Only reason we’re not going is Tunisia’s too far away.’
‘I don’t understand this.’
‘Who did you tell?’
‘Thompkins. Two hours ago. He told me the cavalry was on the
way.’
‘Well, they are, just not to you.’
‘You need to fix this. Now. Tell everyone. Atlantis is in the
Australian Northern Territory. It’s on a runway midway between –
have you got a pen?’
‘Um. No.’
‘Find one.’
Judd waits. He looks at the phone’s screen. LOW BATT blinks
back at him. One eighth of a bar of power left. ‘Hurry up, I got
a low battery.’
‘I’m looking.’
Judd hears clunking and shuffling.
‘Is Rhonda okay?’
‘Yes – I don’t know. Yet. Found a pen?’
‘Not yet. It’s a big ship, you’d think there’d be one some-
where —’
‘Just remember it.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Don’t try, do! It’s in the desert, midway between Lake Mackay
and Nyirripi in the Northern Territory. A bit closer to Lake Mackay.’
‘Lake Mackay. Nyirripi. Right.’
‘Tell everyone. They have attack helicopters. I don’t know how
many. They’re leaving soon. Once they’re in the air I don’t know
where they’re going. I need people here now.’
‘What are you gonna do?’
‘I’m gonna try to stop them.’
‘That doesn’t sound like a good idea —’
The satellite phone cuts out. Judd looks at its blank screen,
thumps it with the heel of his hand. No use. It’s as dead as disco.
He drops it to the ground.
His mind races. How did Thompkins get it so wrong?
He stands, his body stiff, his head still thumping. His eyes lock
on Atlantis and the Galaxy. Is Rhonda in one of them? And if she is,
is she okay? There’s only one way to find out.
He runs towards them.
and doesn’t keep him at arm’s length like everyone else. He’s had a
soft spot for the guy ever since Columbia, when Severson saw how
deeply the accident affected him. Severson respected Judd for that,
envied him almost, because it was something Severson didn’t feel
himself.
So yes, Judd Bell is his friend. Severson sits up in his bed. The
revelation comes as an unhappy surprise.
Atlantis and the Galaxy are further away than Judd realised. He
still has a fair way to go and isn’t exactly eating up the distance
even though he’s running as fast as he can.
He uses the time to plan. The way he sees it he has three options
to stop the Galaxy from taking off.
Option A is to shoot out the Galaxy’s tires. It seems like a good
idea, but an airliner’s tires are so hard and turn so fast during take-
off there’s a good chance the bullet will be deflected. For it to work
the pistol’s muzzle will need to be almost point blank with the rub-
ber, and because big jets like the Galaxy have so many tires he’ll
need to shoot out a few of them. It’ll be easier if the jet’s stationary,
but that means he needs to get to it before it starts moving.
Option B is to shoot out one of the Galaxy’s engines. Again, it
seems like a good idea, but it only seems that way. A turbofan is a
highly complicated piece of machinery and introducing a speeding
bullet to the operating mechanism could, literally, destroy it. That,
in turn, could destroy the Galaxy’s wing, which is full of fuel, so
then the whole jet would explode, which would, in turn, incinerate
the shuttle and everything on board, including Rhonda.
Option C is firing at the pilot in the Galaxy’s cockpit. Judd will
be shooting from the ground, a long way away from windscreen,
so he’ll need to be super accurate and he’s not sure the bullet would
The Harrier Jump Jet is the finest vertical take-off and landing
fighter jet ever built. The Pegasus engine nestled within this particu-
lar example howls eagerly as the aircraft sits on the deck of the USS
George H. W. Bush, its delta wings drooping languidly by its sides.
Eleven minutes is all it took. From the moment Severson lightly
rapped his knuckles on Disser’s door to sitting in this Harrier AV-8C,
a two-seater variant normally used for training.
Disser’s strapped into the pilot’s seat, his jaw set. Suited and hel-
meted he’s ready to take on the world. Severson’s strapped into the
trainee’s seat behind him. He’s also suited and helmeted, but that’s
where the similarity ends. His jaw is slack and he’s ready to go back
to bed.
That won’t be happening any time soon. The USS George H. W.
Bush is parked off Australia’s northern coast and Disser’s unit is the
closest option for a flyover to check Judd Bell’s intel about Atlantis’s
position. Even though marine units have already been dispatched to
Tunisia, Disser decided on a quick reconnaissance mission over the
area Judd Bell identified. As he expected, Severson has been forced
to come along for the ride. Disser told the astronaut that if he didn’t
he’d tweet his secret to the world and Severson’s positive the honk-
ing bastard would do it.
So they now await clearance for take-off. Severson’s face is pale
and his stomach tender. He can’t stop thinking about the attack
choppers Judd mentioned. He speaks into his helmet’s microphone:
‘Please, you’ve got to let me outta here.’
Disser’s voice honks in his earpiece. ‘You know the shuttle, sir,
I don’t. I will need your expertise if we find it.’
‘No, you won’t. You’re a smart guy. Just improvise. You’ll do
fine.’
‘One tweet, sir. That’s all it’ll take —’
‘I know! Jeez. Look, I just, I don’t have a good feeling about
this.’
‘The only thing you have a good feelin’ about is being a pussy,
sir. It’s time to man up and face your fear.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s not that time at all.’
‘I’m going to help you do it. You inspired me when I was a kid
so now it’s time I pay you back.’
‘But I don’t want you to pay me back —’
Both their headsets buzz as Flight Control grants them clear-
ance. Disser barks an acknowledgment then opens the Harrier’s
throttle. The Pegasus engine runs up.
‘Hold on, sir, it’s time to jump off this boat.’
Severson grips the side of his seat and jams his eyes shut as the
Harrier leaps off the deck then banks hard over the methylene blue
ocean and howls away.
Edgar has been gardening like a mofo but his wife has yet to decide
if he can leave this godforsaken compound and take that trip to
Jakarta. He’s meant to fly out this afternoon but it’s not looking
good. The Ukrainian maid incident has really bitten him on the arse,
and not in the way he likes.
The idea that he’ll have to stick around for his sister-in-law’s
birthday party, which his wife is throwing tomorrow, is too depress-
ing for words. He could always try to slip away but he knows he
won’t get far. The fools from the secret service are everywhere, mon-
itoring his every move – there’s one sitting at the far end of the room
right now, staring at him.
Edgar slumps onto the sofa and flicks on the television. This is
what his life has become: gardening and Fox News. Christ. Shepard
Smith is filing an update on the shuttle hijacking from Florida.
It would seem that nobody has the first clue where it is or who the
hijackers are. What a mind-boggling screw-up it is. If Edgar was still
in charge someone would be getting their arse good and kicked over
this right now.
The old man closes his eyes and leans back, remembers when
pretty much all he did was kick arse and take names. Man, those
were the days.
Henri hasn’t watched a sunrise for the longest time. He once took
solace in its natural grace. It recharged him, momentarily erased his
troubles, prompted him to think about his place in the universe and
how insignificant it was.
That was before his wife died, when such flights of fancy didn’t
seem frivolous, when he was happy but didn’t know it, when the
troubles that seemed so important were, in retrospect, trivial. He no
longer thinks of his place in the universe as insignificant; quite the
opposite, in fact.
The Frenchman glances at his GMT-Master then looks up at
Atlantis, piggybacking the Galaxy, and triggers his walkie. ‘Wheels
up in five minutes. Everyone, please take your positions. Nico and
Dirk, report to me at the ladder.’
He takes in the sunrise for a final moment. Though he’d expected
some collateral damage on this mission, the loss of Claude and
Cobbin, and Gerald and Tam during the launch, has left him with a
deep melancholy. He takes a breath, won’t, can’t let it affect the final
part of the operation, the most important part.
The Frenchman turns, takes in Dirk and Nico as they approach,
illuminated by the golden light.
‘You are now the crew’s leader.’
Dirk nods to Henri but doesn’t smile. It doesn’t feel right. You
don’t smile when you get a job this way. ‘Thank you, sir.’ He starts to
say something else then stops himself, looks down, studies the fine red
dust that coats his boots.
The Frenchman sees it. ‘What?’
Dirk looks up. ‘Is there any way to change your mind?’
Nico chimes in. ‘Yes, sir, there must be another way —’
‘No.’ Henri regards them both for a moment. ‘This is my final
mission. Nothing has changed.’ He fixes his gaze on Nico. ‘You are
now second in command. I expect you to support Dirk just as you
have supported me.’
‘Of course, Commander.’
‘You know where to find the video. Post it everywhere. And ensure
the families of our fallen comrades are generously compensated.’
Another nod. Henri takes a moment, his gaze moving between the
German and the Italian. ‘I thank you for supporting me and risking
your lives to make this mission possible. I appreciate it more than you
will ever know. I’m proud of you both, as if you were my sons. I wish
you nothing but luck.’
He holds a hand out to Dirk. The German ignores it and steps for-
ward, embraces the Frenchman. Henri hugs him back, surprised.
‘Godspeed, Commander.’ Dirk breaks off and now it’s Nico’s
turn. He hugs the Frenchman, his face grim. ‘I’ll miss you, sir.’
Henri releases him. ‘Okay, you know what happens now. Get to
it.’
With a nod Dirk and Nico move off. Dirk doesn’t look back. The
Frenchman has turned his life around, taught him everything he knew.
Now the German has both the skills and the confidence to command
a seventy-million-dollar-a-year business that employs twenty expert
mercenaries and operates in every corner of the globe. Dirk fears that
if he looks back he’ll show emotion and he doesn’t want anyone to
see that, especially Henri. Instead he turns to Nico. ‘See you at the
rendezvous. We leave as soon as he arrives.’
Nico clearly has no such qualms about showing emotion. His
eyes are wet. ‘Yes, Commander.’ Dirk holds out his hand and they
exchange a fist-bump.
Nico moves to the nose of the Galaxy, climbs the ladder and dis-
appears into the front hatch. Dirk walks to the edge of the runway
where his Tiger awaits, rotors turning.
Henri watches them go then triggers his walkie and speaks. ‘Dirk
is now leader of this crew. Nico is his 2IC. I expect them to be sup-
ported just as you have supported me. I wish you all the best. Good
luck.’
Henri won’t allow himself to dwell on the emotion of leaving the
men he has commanded for over two decades. There is too much to
do. He moves to the ladder that leans against Atlantis’s open hatch
and climbs towards the shuttle.
The plastic tie around Rhonda’s right wrist is loose but not yet loose
enough. Martie has only turned around twice since they were left
alone and each time Rhonda stopped flexing before her ex-friend saw
what she was doing.
Someone climbs the ladder. Rhonda stops flexing and turns to the
Frenchman as he steps onto the flight deck. He moves to Martie, lays
a hand on her shoulder, leans down and whispers something in her
ear.
Martie stands and hugs him, long and tight, then quickly exits
the flight deck with her head bowed. Rhonda glimpses Martie’s face
as she turns to climb down the ladder and sees her eyes are wet with
tears.
Thompkins yanks the D-ring handle between his legs and it all
happens. The Article’s canopy flips off, the ejector seat rockets fire
and he is catapulted out of the aircraft.
‘Ohmigod!’ It takes everything he’s got not to black out as the
wall of air smacks into him. Then the man/seat separator separates
man from seat and Thompkins freefalls.
A big jolt. A parachute flaps open from his harness and he slows.
Then the chute detaches. ‘What the hell?’ He looks up. The chute
disappears into the orange sky above.
He can’t believe it. After everything, the chute fails! He looks
down. The ground rushes towards him.
Another jolt, much harder than the first. ‘Sonofabitch! A glori-
ous 10-metre canopy flaps open above him. This is the first time he’s
ejected from an Article and he’d forgotten a key fact from his train-
ing: the first chute was just a drogue to slow him down before the
main chute opened.
He breathes for the first time since he pulled the D-ring, then
turns and searches for the Article.
He finds it, a distant black smear against a lightening sky. It lists
to the left then gently rolls over until it is tail down. In that position
it hits the desert with a bright flash followed by a dull thud.
What he’s doing suddenly feels real. Watching the destruction of
that magnificent aircraft, the last of its breed, makes him profoundly
sad, almost as much as the death of Mahoney.
He looks down, takes in the shuttle perched atop the Galaxy.
A black chopper, blades turning, waits nearby. He angles the chute
away from them, doesn’t want a gust of wind to blow him into a
turbofan or rotor blade.
The ground comes up quickly. He assumes the landing position,
hits hard, rolls onto his side then to standing. It’s surprisingly graceful.
He looks over at Atlantis and the Galaxy. They’re a good kilo-
metre away. The chute billows around him. He works the clips,
detaches it from the harness.
Whack! A fist slams into his face.
‘Where is she?!’
Judd throws another punch, hits Thompkins in the jaw, stuns
him. He stumbles backwards, falls into his chute.
‘Where is she?!’ Judd drops onto him, pins him to the ground
with knees on his chest, clamps both hands around his neck.
Thompkins gasps for breath. ‘Where’s who?’
‘Rhonda!’ Judd vibrates with anger. ‘Is she on board Atlantis?’
‘I don’t know what you’re —’
‘Tell me!’ Judd squeezes harder.
‘— talking about —’
Judd loosens his grip. If he kills him he has nothing. No informa-
tion, no options, nothing.
Thompkins drives a knee upwards, knocks Judd aside, reaches
inside his flight-suit pocket, grabs a Glock pistol, points the
weapon —
It’s wrenched from his hand. He looks up through the swirling
dust, focuses on his assailant.
It’s Judd Bell. Thompkins is genuinely shocked he’s alive.
Instantly he has second thoughts about sending him out here, though
he’s not sure what else he could’ve done. During the launch Judd
had seen both Dirk and Henri’s faces. Thompkins couldn’t have him
reporting that information to the authorities so he sent him directly
to the Northern Territory, to be eliminated when he arrived at the
Kinabara Dish.
Thompkins plays it straight. ‘Judd? What are you doing?’
‘Wrong answer.’ Judd’s fist shoots out like a piston, cracks
Thompkins’ nose.
‘Stop it!’
‘Where is she? Is she alive?!’
‘I’m on your side.’
‘Liar. You sent the marines to Tunisia.’
Thompkins is, once again, shocked. How does he know this?
Judd drives the pistol under his chin.
‘I’m just here to help.’
‘Bullshit.’
A noise. They turn, see a black chopper skim the desert towards
them.
‘They coming to get you?’
Thompkins plays dumb. ‘Who? I don’t know what you’re talk-
ing about —’
‘Get up!’ Judd drags Thompkins to his feet, the pistol pushed
against his chest.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m gonna trade your sorry arse.’
The Tiger chunters towards the two men standing in the middle of
the desert. One is Thompkins, Dirk knows that. He saw him eject,
saw the parachute open, saw him land. The other guy is a bit of
a mystery. Then he looks closer and realises it’s no mystery at all.
Dirk couldn’t be happier. After days spent trying to kill the astro-
naut, Judd Bell has come to him.
‘What are we doing?’ Big Bird’s voice buzzes in Dirk’s headset.
‘Put it down, fifty meters away.’
The Tiger settles onto the desert in a swirl of dust. Dirk draws
his pistol, cracks open the cockpit and climbs down. Buffeted by
rotor wash, he approaches Thompkins and Judd Bell, stops 20
metres away.
‘Are they alive?’ The astronaut shouts over the rasp of the Tiger’s
turbine.
‘Who?’
‘The women.’
‘Ms Jacolby is safely strapped into the shuttle as we speak. Ms
Burnett is in the Galaxy.’
Judd points the pistol at Thompkins’ neck. ‘You want this guy
alive then you release them both, now.’
‘I don’t think Ms Burnett would like that. She’s with us, and has
been for a number of years.’
Judd recoils. ‘Bullshit.’
‘It’s true. As for Ms Jacolby, I’m afraid we can’t spare her. She
still has an important role to play.’
‘Hand them over or he dies.’
Dirk waves his pistol at Thompkins. ‘You seem to be under the
impression that his death would somehow concern me.’ Dirk’s eyes
move to Thompkins. ‘How did you get yourself into this situation?’
‘Do it. It’s an easy trade.’ Thompkins’ voice is edged with panic.
Judd pushes the gun hard into his neck. ‘Don’t know what I’m
talking about, huh?’
in a movie years ago, Rambo III, when Sylvester Stallone was the
biggest movie star in the world.
Judd pushes his hand into his shirt pocket, pulls out the Marlboro
soft pack. He upends the pack and the zippo and cigarette drop onto
his chest. He brushes the cigarette away, knowing that if he survives
this he has given up smoking. If the last couple of days have taught
him anything it’s that there are altogether too many other ways to
die prematurely so he must eliminate one, even if he will always miss
those seven seconds.
With his right hand he picks up the zippo – Deke Slayton’s zippo.
With his left arm he reaches across the dusty ground and pulls the
Glock pistol towards him. Just moving the arm a few inches sends
a jolt of pain through his chest. He feels lightheaded again. He
breathes in, wills it to pass, then stops as he realises he may want to
feel lightheaded considering what comes next.
He lifts the pistol to his chest as he flips open the lighter’s cover,
flicks the flint wheel.
It doesn’t ignite. ‘Come on!’ He tries again. Nothing. He doesn’t
know why it would suddenly work now. ‘Please.’ He tries one more
time, slams his thumb down on the flint wheel.
The wick bursts into flame, flickers, steadies. ‘Thank you, Deke!’
He pushes the end of the pistol’s muzzle into the flame and holds it
there. Lets it heat. Moments pass. The flame wavers. He keeps the
pistol in place. The flame stutters out. He swaps the gun between his
left and right hand and drives the superhot muzzle into the bullet’s
entry wound.
Pain. Purple pain. Against his every instinct he holds the gun
against the wound. He breathes as deeply as he can, unsure what’s
worse, the sizzling sound of his flesh cooking or the sharp smell it pro-
duces. Either way he needs to stop the bleeding and cauterising the
Kelvin throttles up. He’s going to need every inch of the runway
to get this double-decker monstrosity into the sky. Not only is the
Galaxy carrying Atlantis, but it also has a full load of fuel in its
wings and the new reservoir tank in the hold, plus a full complement
of passengers. It’s a heavy package, perhaps the heaviest Galaxy to
ever fly.
He sees something on the runway. ‘What the hell is that?’
The Galaxy thunders towards Judd, 300 metres and closing. He’s
directly in the path of the fuselage so he takes ten steps to the left.
Two hundred metres and closing. He aims the pistol at the front
tyres, tracks with them as he starts to run, the shriek of turbofans
deafening. One hundred metres and closing. The desert shakes
under his feet as he squeezes the trigger . . .
The Galaxy is upon him. He sprints. The nearest of the four
front tyres is 10 metres away but it’s impossible to get closer because
the fuselage is so large. He fires at it.
The bullet hits its mark – and has no discernible effect. He can’t
keep up with the front tyres so he turns, aims at a rear tyre, fires.
Again, the bullet does nothing. This is not working. This will not
stop the jet from taking off.
He looks at the turbofan above. Maybe shooting that will. He
aims the pistol, squeezes the trigger – and stops. The engine could
explode, detonate the fuel in the wing and destroy Atlantis. Or it
could flame out and stop the Galaxy from taking off.
He doesn’t know what to do.
Then he does.
He fires.
Nothing happens.
Judd falls behind the Galaxy, tries to stay close to the fuselage
to avoid the jet wash, but that doesn’t work either. The wall of dust
slams into him, slaps him to the dirt.
The Galaxy thunders away.
He’s lost her.
Just audible above the roar of the engines is a noise. Drums,
rhythmic and African, then percussion, like someone’s tapping a
bottle with a stick.
Judd tries to place the sound as it grows louder. A bass joins in,
then strings and horns fill out the song as a familiar voice cuts across
the landscape.
‘Her name was Lola . . .’
Judd searches for the source of the music, glimpses a blur of yellow
in the sky, focuses on it.
The Loach. Corey came back! Then below the chopper Judd
sees the cattle, hundreds and hundreds of cattle. They swarm onto
the runway in front of the Galaxy. Judd lets out a sharp, delighted
laugh, pulls himself up and runs on.
plan. He’ll pretend to stop the jet, but plough into the herd. The
landing gear will be destroyed and they’ll crash. In the ensuing pan-
demonium he’ll slip away, alert the relevant authorities and then:
hero time!
And if, for some reason, he can’t slip away, at least it looked like
he was trying to avoid the accident. No one can blame him if there’s
a herd of cattle in the middle of the runway.
Corey turns down the volume, watches the Galaxy race towards the
livestock. He had only flown as far as Clem Alpine’s cattle station
before the guilt of leaving Judd kicked in. Then he had the bright
idea of ‘borrowing’ Clem’s cattle for a few hours. Clem would be
pissed off when he found out, but then Clem was always pissed off
about something. Moving the herd across the desert had taken the
rest of the night.
Suddenly Corey feels real concern for the herd. He knows
they’re just beef, destined for McDonald’s or the supermarket, but
he still doesn’t want to see them hurt. It’s not their fault these people
stole a space shuttle.
Kelvin can’t do it. He can’t bring himself to plough into the cattle
because he doesn’t know if he’ll survive it. He may have only six
months to live but that’s better than six seconds. So he forgets about
being a hero and decides to take the money.
He throttles up, and feels a slight hesitation through the levers.
Decades of experience tells him there’s a problem with the Galaxy’s
inboard portside engine. It could be any number of issues. Usually
he’d throttle back, abort take-off and send the jet over to the boys
The Galaxy’s rear wheels miss the cattle by less than a metre.
Stricken, Judd watches the jet lumber into the sky. He has failed
Rhonda and the hollow pain in his heart is worse than anything he
can remember, including that terrible February day in 2003.
Rotor blades echo behind him. He turns, takes in the black
chopper as it skims the desert towards him, 500 metres away and
closing fast.
He doesn’t know if killing Tango in Berlin will make him feel
better but he’s willing to give it a try. He raises the pistol, aims it
at the dark shape and the German he knows is inside. ‘Come on,
motherfucker. Come and get me.’
Dust swirls and a shadow falls over Judd. He looks up as the Loach
drops from the sky, thumps onto the desert beside him.
Corey furiously waves him in. Stunned, Judd doesn’t have to be
asked twice. Three steps and he’s in the cockpit. He turns, sees a
missile blast away from the black chopper, fly straight for the Loach.
Corey watches the missile as he kicks the Loach off the desert. ‘Grab
something!’ He tips the chopper hard left.
‘Christ!’ Judd hasn’t strapped in yet. He grasps the doorframe to
stop himself being ejected from the cockpit, then is jolted back inside
as the Loach breaks right and ascends quickly. The missile follows.
Corey sees it in the side-view mirror. ‘We got Tango in Berlin to
thank for that?’
Judd nods. ‘Who else?’
‘This bloke’s making a career out of pissing me off.’
The missile closes fast. ‘Hold on!’ Corey tips the Loach into a
dizzyingly steep dive. The missile follows.
A metre off the deck the Loach pulls up sharply – and the missile
doesn’t. It slams into the desert and the explosion is massive. A wall
of red dust billows into the sky. The Australian swings the Loach in
a tight arc back towards it.
Judd buckles up, pulls on the headset. Corey glances at him.
‘You okay?’
Judd nods though it’s clear he isn’t. He glances across at the
Galaxy as it lifts Atlantis into the dawn sky. ‘Didn’t get to Rhonda.’
‘Sorry, mate. Wish the cattle had worked better.’
‘No, that was great.’
‘Least I could do after leaving. Feel terrible about that.’
‘Forget it.’ Judd sees they’re approaching the wall of dust. ‘What
are we doing?’
Corey has his eyes locked on the black chopper in the side-view
mirror. ‘Dealing with this guy once and for all.’
‘How?’
‘I got a plan.’ Corey reaches behind him, grabs something from
the back seat, drops it in Judd’s lap.
Judd stares at it, dumbfounded. ‘That’s the plan?’
Corey grins his crooked grin. ‘I’m always thinking.’
Big Bird angles the Tiger around the edge of the dust cloud, searches
for the Loach. ‘Where is it?’
Dirk can’t see it, then he can. ‘Up there!’ He points at the yellow
chopper 100 metres above, 200 metres away and flying towards
them – upside down.
The Loach passes over the apex of a loop. Everything that was on
the floor hits the ceiling. Corey and Judd hang in their harnesses.
‘Jesus!’ Judd holds on for dear life.
‘Told you I could pull a loop!’ Corey locks eyes on the black
chopper directly below. ‘Now!’
On his command Judd throws the lucky bucket, chunks of jag-
ged rock wedged inside, out the open doorway. It drops towards the
black chopper in a graceful arc.
The bucket doesn’t hit the Tiger’s rotor blades but strikes its wind-
screen and jars it from its frame. The air pressure jams it into the
cabin and it slams Big Bird in the head. He’s wearing a helmet but
the impact is significant.
Dazed, he fights to keep control of the chopper as it spirals to the
desert below. Behind him Dirk says: ‘Are you —?’
The Tiger lands hard and he doesn’t finish the sentence.
‘The dog.’
‘That’s a terrible plan.’
‘No, no, your dog.’ Judd points at the desert far below.
Corey follows Judd’s finger. In the distance Spike gallops after
the Loach, barking all the way. ‘Sorry, mate, you can’t come along
on this one.’
There’s a definite tinge of sadness in his voice.
Rhonda flexes her arm. She ignores the deep pain in her wrist
because the plastic tie is now very loose. Within the suit’s sleeve she
pulls on her wrist. It slips under the tie. Hallelujah! Her arm is free.
She draws it down the sleeve and prepares to execute the most
difficult part of the plan. She needs to get her arm out of the sleeve
and position it in front of her chest so she can unzip the front of the
flight suit. There’s only one way she can do it.
Straighten, tense, roll. Hold her arm straight, tense it and roll it
clockwise while pushing down at the shoulder. There will be a snap,
her shoulder will pop out of its socket and there will be great pain.
Purple pain, Judd called it. She had spent years making sure it didn’t
happen accidentally but now must do it on purpose.
She takes a breath, reminds herself that the pain will be worth it,
that in a moment she’ll be out of this chair and the Frenchman will
be out like a light. She doesn’t want to kill him, in spite of every-
thing he’s done. No, she wants to knock him unconscious so she can
watch him fry in court.
Before any of that can happen she must distract him. If she can
get him talking he won’t hear what she’s doing behind him. It’s a
great theory, just as long as he doesn’t turn and look at her as he
speaks. She’ll just have to hope he doesn’t because she doesn’t have
another option.
‘If there’s any chance she is I have to try. I couldn’t live with
myself if I didn’t.’
Corey can’t argue with that. He’d told Judd that he didn’t want
to be ‘caged’ but in truth the women he dated thought he was crazy
as soon as he spoke to the dog. So from painful personal experience
the Australian knows how hard it is to find ‘the one’ and won’t stand
in the way of Judd being reunited with the woman he loves. ‘Okay.’
‘Thank you.’ Judd unlocks the lever on the winch and pulls out
the blue Dynamica rope, roughly measures it as he goes, gets it all
out so he can see the end tied around the axle. He tugs on it, makes
sure it’s secure. ‘Okay, we got a bit over thirty metres.’ He looks at
Corey. ‘You ready?’
‘Not at all, but let’s do it anyway.’
We.
Something cold and awful turns over in Rhonda’s stomach. She’s
not sure what’s worse, that her shuttle will be used as a weapon of
mass destruction or that she’ll be aboard. ‘What do you need me
for?’
‘You will be my conduit.’
‘I still don’t know what that means.’
‘You will soon enough.’
She takes a breath, frustrated. ‘At least tell me what the target is.’
‘A house. In McLean, Virginia. Edgar’s house, to be precise.’
‘Who the hell is Edgar?’
‘It’s a nickname, after the puppeteer and ventriloquist Edgar
Bergen. He had a show on American television many years ago.’
‘So who is it?’
‘The man who once controlled your government. A man who
now spends his time surrounded by secret service agents tending the
rose bushes in his garden, in McLean, Virginia.’
‘I don’t know who you’re talking about —’
‘He’s the man who conceived, funded and managed 9/11. Your
last vice-president.’
Atlantis is close. Judd balances on the Loach’s left skid, one hand
clasped to its front strut, the other to the doorframe, a hook held in
each. Shirt pasted flat against his chest, he bows his head against the
blast of freezing air.
He turns and nods at Corey in the Loach’s cockpit. The little yel-
low chopper dips towards the expanse of white thermal tiles on the
top of the shuttle’s fuselage.
Ten. Six. One metre away. The twin viewports in the roof of
Atlantis’s flight deck are right in front of Judd. He leans to look
inside, can’t see anything through the reflection off the glass. He
shifts position to get a better angle, tries again.
Rhonda. She sits in the second row of the flight deck. Alive. The
relief is overwhelming. Judd wants her to look up, to see him, to
know he’s there. She doesn’t. There’s no way she can hear the chop-
per so there’s no reason to look up.
He nods at Corey, who gives him a thumbs up and moves the
Loach lower. The skids kiss Atlantis’s soft thermal-tile skin and Judd
swings the left hook down.
It slams into a tile, slices down until nothing but its shank pro-
trudes. He pulls on it. It seems to be wedged in tight. ‘Seems’ will
have to do. The moment of truth has arrived. He has no reserva-
tions. Seeing Rhonda has only strengthened his resolve.
Judd lets go of the doorframe and drives the second hook deep
into the shuttle’s thermal-tile skin, a foot to the right of the first. He
pulls on it. It’s tight. He grips both hooks as hard as he can then rolls
onto the shuttle’s fuselage.
The air instantly catches his chest, pushes him up. His head
whacks the underside of the Loach. The hooks squirm in the tiles.
Judd uses all his strength to lever himself downwards, his cauterised
wound aching from the effort.
Both hooks rip free and Judd is swept backwards —
He slams both hooks down as hard as he can, drives them deep
into the tiles. He stops dead and his arms jolt. It feels like his shoul-
ders will pop their sockets. He pulls himself flat then raises his head,
sees the viewports are now three metres away. Three metres!
He twists the right hook from the tile, slams it down at an angle.
It bounces off. ‘Come on!’ He swings again, angles it. It cuts into the
tile. He drags himself forward. He yanks the left hook free, lunges
forward, drives it down. It slices into the tile and he wrenches him-
self forward again.
‘And why use my shuttle? Why not just fire a missile at his
house and be done with it?’
‘Because it must be a grand gesture so people take notice. And
what grander gesture is there than destroying the space program,
one of the few institutions your country still has pride in?’
‘I gotta tell you this “grand gesture” will be lost on pretty much
everyone but you.’
‘No, it won’t, because you will tell the world the truth. You
will be my conduit.’ He reaches into the backpack that sits on the
chair beside him and extracts a small Sony camcorder.
Rhonda looks at it. ‘You’re going to film me?’
He nods. ‘Then upload it to the net with the satellite phone.
It will be online before we reach our target.’
‘I won’t do it.’
‘Oh, I think you will.’ He pulls a satellite phone from the back-
pack.
She glares at him. ‘I won’t.’
‘Then I will instruct my men to visit your parents when this is
over. They live in that little Michigan town near the Canadian bor-
der, don’t they? Port Huron. Seventeen Baker Street, Port Huron,
if I’m not mistaken. Sky-blue house, one garage.’
Rhonda flinches.
‘You will tell the world the truth, including where all the files
detailing Edgar’s conspiracy can be found. And they will listen to
NASA’s golden girl, the one who would have been first on Mars.’
‘They’ll know you forced me.’
‘Of course, but they will still hear the truth.’ Henri turns back
to the controls.
Rhonda doesn’t know if she believes Henri’s stories of the 9/11 con-
spiracy but she’s certain of one thing – Martie Burnett did. She had
lost her mother when the second plane hit the World Trade Center.
Martie might have been one of the smartest women at NASA but
she was also deeply Mississippi, southern, where ‘an eye for an
eye’ was an accepted form of Old Testament–style justice. Over
the years she had sometimes spoken, in vague terms, about taking
revenge on those who had killed her mother. Rhonda now under-
stood why.
The ‘get him talking thing’ hadn’t worked as Rhonda planned.
The Frenchman had talked but he’d also looked at her the whole
time. He now stares out the windscreen, seemingly lost in thought.
She needs to get him speaking again but not about anything that
will make him turn around. She goes with a technical question that,
she hopes, doesn’t warrant eye contact. ‘How do you expect to fly
this thing through US airspace without getting shot down?’
‘The trick is to be in US airspace for as short a period as pos-
sible. We’re going to fly over the North Pole, approach across
Canada’s Eastern Territories . . .’ He doesn’t turn around.
It’s time to straighten, tense, roll. She draws her right arm as
far down the flight suit’s sleeve as it will go, straightens it at the
shoulder, tenses it and rolls it backwards. The pain is just as she
imagined. She reminds herself not to scream and waits for the arm
and shoulder to bid each other adieu.
It doesn’t happen. She stops tensing and draws in a rough
breath, lets the pain subside. The Frenchman continues talking. She
straightens her right arm again, tenses it, rolls it backwards.
It pops out of its socket.
The pain is imperious. Her arm is now at what seems like a
45-degree angle to her shoulder. She bites her bottom lip to stop any
sound involuntarily escaping her throat and works fast. Within the
suit she drags her right arm back, then up, and bends her hand back
to clear the top of the sleeve.
Her wrist gets caught on it because there’s no power in the move-
ment. She pushes again. Bright slivers of pain dance before her eyes.
It flips past the top of the sleeve and drops in front of her stom-
ach. She breathes out, feels perspiration tickle her forehead.
The Frenchman continues: ‘We didn’t have any trouble when we
took the Galaxy so I’m not expecting any this time . . .’
Rhonda gives herself three seconds to let the pain subside. One.
Two. Three. It doesn’t subside, not even a little. She lifts her hand,
searches for the suit’s zipper. Her fingers brush the metal teeth. She
pushes her arm upwards.
Grunting. She hears grunting, then realises it’s her. She holds
her breath and reaches for the zipper. Her forefinger touches it.
It’s large, made of alloy. She hooks the nail over the top of it, pulls
down. Another jolt of bright, shining pain. The zipper pull doesn’t
budge. She bites her lip harder, tries again. The zipper creeps down
the teeth, then gains momentum, slides to her belly.
She pushes her right arm out of the suit. Yes, she’s half-free. Pain
pulses through the right side of her body as she wrenches at her left
with her right hand. It doesn’t do any good because her dislocated
arm has no strength. She scans the cabin, searches for something,
anything to cut the plastic tie.
A glint, to the right. She leans to get a better look. Something’s
jammed into the crevice between the seat and back of the chair
beside her. What is that?
A Fisher space pen. Steinhower’s Fisher space pen, the one his
daughter gave him. Just its clicker is visible. He’d misplaced it before
he was killed. It seems like a year ago but it’s only been a day and a
half. She reaches for it.
Her chair creaks. Her eyes flick to the Frenchman. He doesn’t
turn, just keeps talking: ‘. . . and your country’s air defences are still
shamefully porous . . .’
Her shoulder screams. She ignores it. It’s only pain. She stretches
her fingers, touches the pen’s pocket clip, coaxes it from the cush-
ions, slumps back into her chair, studies it. She’s never been so happy
to hold a writing implement in her life. She thumbs the clicker and
the ballpoint nib extends.
‘What are you doing?’
Henri stares at her, his expression dark as thunder.
Rhonda slashes at the plastic tie that binds her left arm with the
pen. It doesn’t cut it. The pen is not a knife. She changes tack, rams
the pen between her arm and the tie, twists it upwards, grunts as she
does it, stretches it.
It snaps.
She’s free.
The Frenchman stands and pivots, drags the Glock out of the
backpack, swings it towards Rhonda.
She’s not in her chair. Where is she? The cabin’s not that big —
Silver flashes from behind the pilot’s chair, slices into his
shoulder. ‘Ahhh!’
Rhonda had aimed for his throat but the pen is in her left hand
so her accuracy sucks. She tries again, slashes the pen in the oppo-
site direction. Henri throws up his left hand, blocks it. She drives the
pen down, towards his chest.
‘Fuck!’ It slams into the Frenchman’s sternum, stops dead. She
pulls it back, stabs again.
Henri knocks her arm away, aims the pistol at her, finger tight on
the trigger. ‘Stop!’ He doesn’t fire. He needs her.
The pen flicks up, hits his chin, cuts deep, drags across his cheek,
the pain hot and sour. He wrenches his head away and it slices down
his neck towards his carotid artery. He pulls the trigger.
The bullet hits Rhonda in the left shoulder, spins her around. She
drops to the floor, lands on her right shoulder, jams it back into its
socket. She realises, unhappily, that she brought a ballpoint to a gun
fight.
‘I told you to stop.’ Henri stands over her, wipes at the long,
stinging wound that arcs across his face and neck. He studies her
wound, realises he needs to act quickly. He slides the pistol into his
belt line, reaches into the backpack, pulls out the camcorder, opens
its screen —
Rhonda flicks up her right foot, nails him in the groin. Henri is
instantly wracked with pain and involuntarily doubles over.
Rhonda pushes up with her newly relocated arm and thrusts out
her hand, shoves the space pen deep into the soft skin of his throat.
Arterial blood gushes and soaks the collar of his shirt as he drops
to his knees. He balances there for a moment, with, she is certain,
a flabbergasted expression, then slumps to the floor behind the co-
pilot’s chair.
Rhonda stares at his motionless figure in disbelief. There’s no
time to process what just happened because there’s too much to do.
She needs to fire the explosive bolts that attach Atlantis to the
Galaxy and fly it free. Then she must land it, preferably beside a
hospital because she’s not feeling too great.
She pulls herself up – then her head swims and she slumps back
to the floor, eyelids heavy. She wants to take a nap. No, she needs to
take a nap, right now, except she knows that if she falls asleep she
will never wake.
She pushes herself up – but doesn’t even rise an inch. When her
head hits the floor her eyes are already shut.
Judd drags himself up to the twin viewports and peers in. Rhonda
lies on the floor of the flight deck, her shoulder a bloodied mess.
What the hell happened?! A minute ago she was fine. His stomach
turns over. He needs to get inside now.
Instant white-out. He can’t see anything, then the cloud passes
and he looks inside again. A body is slumped behind the pilot’s chair.
It’s the French guy from the launch. He’s dead, no doubt.
Judd lets go of the right hook, pulls the pistol from his belt. The
freezing air buffets him, pushes him off the side of the fuselage. His
cauterised wound screams. He grabs the right hook again, stabilises
himself, presses the weapon’s muzzle onto the right viewport’s glass
panel and pulls the trigger.
The panel doesn’t shatter or break. The bullet just buries itself
in the silica-impregnated glass. He grits his teeth and fires into the
same spot again. Same thing happens. He pulls the trigger again.
Click. No more bullets.
‘Christ.’ He releases the weapon and it’s swept away in the air-
stream. He grabs the right hook, twists it out of its tile and swings
it at the glass panel. It bounces off. He swings again. It bounces off.
He is going to get inside, no matter what. He swings again.
Corey watches Judd slam the hook against the viewport like a man
possessed. He can’t get in. Sparkling blue catches the Australian’s
eye. An ocean glimmers on the horizon. He thinks it’s the Gulf of
Carpentaria, but he’s not certain. It’s not far away, a couple of min-
utes’ flying time at most.
He glances at the Loach’s instrument panel. Altitude is 7500
feet. The Galaxy’s gaining height as it burns fuel and lightens its
load. That’s not what worries Corey. It’s the acceleration. Within a
minute the jet will reach the Loach’s maximum speed and he will no
longer be able to keep up. His eyes flick back to Judd. He continues
to smash the hook into the viewport. He’s got sixty seconds to get
inside or Corey’s going to have to drag him off.
‘No!’ Rhonda forces her eyes open. She takes in the viewports above
her. A blur, then something hits one of the glass panels. Then again.
She blinks.
A face appears behind the glass.
‘Judd?’ It’s not possible. She must be hallucinating – then their
eyes meet and she knows it’s him. He came for her.
With her last remaining shred of energy she reaches out with
her good arm, drags the pistol from the Frenchman’s belt, points it
towards the viewport and fires.
His face numb from the freezing wind, Judd watches the bul-
let bury itself in the viewport’s panel. He swings the hook and hits
the point of impact with everything he’s got. The hook bounces off
without effect.
She fires again. Another pockmark. Judd swings the hook, hits
the glass. It bounces off. A small crack snakes its way across the
panel. This isn’t going to work —
The glass explodes out of the viewport, whacks his face on the
way past. A torrent of dust follows, momentarily blinds him. He
doesn’t care. He blinks away the grit, pushes his head over the hole
and looks in.
Yes, the Frenchman is dead and Rhonda isn’t far behind. Her
eyes are glassy and a pool of dark-red blood frames her pale face.
Her right hand drops the gun and applies pressure to what looks
like a bullet wound on her left shoulder. It’s one hell of a mess, a lot
more serious than the one he cauterised earlier. She moves her head,
focuses on him, smiles. It’s weak but it’s a smile. He returns it, pulls
himself into the open viewport.
The rope round his waist is wrenched tight and he’s dragged out.
‘No!’ He flips the hooks down, catches the viewport’s edge.
The Loach drops back as the Galaxy accelerates and there’s
nothing Corey can do about it. He tries to squeeze more power out
of the little chopper but it’s not working. It’s time to cut Judd free.
Corey pulls the knife from its pouch on the side of his seat and saws
at the rope.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
The familiar sound cuts across the soundscape. Corey glances in
the side-view mirror. ‘Oh come on!’ In the distance the black chop-
per rises into view. He’s very disappointed. The lucky bucket didn’t
work after all.
It was only a temporary fix but then they wouldn’t be in the air
for long. They were to escort the Galaxy as far as the coast then
abandon the Tiger and head for the rendezvous point in Berlin. That
was the plan, anyway, but then this little yellow chopper turned up
again and threw a spanner in the works.
If Dirk wasn’t looking at it he wouldn’t believe it. A rope runs
from the Loach’s cabin to the front of the shuttle, where it’s tied
around a man’s waist. It’s the astronaut. Judd Bell is somehow
attached to the shuttle’s fuselage.
Dirk could finish him now, open up the Tiger’s cannons and
blow him off there. He doesn’t. He’d risk sending live rounds into
the flight deck where Henri is. His eyes move to the rope tied around
the astronaut’s waist and he instantly knows what to do: take out
that yellow chopper and he takes out the astronaut.
The rope around Judd’s waist goes light. He looks back, watches
the Loach tumble away. Its cockpit misses the shuttle’s engine pod
by centimetres then its tail boom swings around and slams into the
Galaxy’s tail, shears it off at the base.
‘No!’ He is racked with grief. Corey only came along because
Judd asked him to.
Horrified, Dirk watches the Loach and the Galaxy tail tumble
towards the Tiger.
‘What did you do?’ Big Bird’s voice rattles in his headset as he tips
the chopper into a steep, diving bank to avoid the wall of wreckage.
The rope around Judd’s waist twangs tight, cuts into his hip, almost
wrenches his hands off the hooks. He looks over his left shoulder.
Corey!
He’s holding the end of the rope with both hands, slapping
against the shuttle’s fuselage like a ribbon in a breeze. Judd’s so
delighted he laughs out loud.
The Galaxy’s turbofans spool up, then down, then up again, sounds
like a braying animal. Judd realises the pilot is using thrust vector-
ing, increasing engine power on one wing, then the other, to keep
the jet stable. It is the option of last resort and means Judd must get
Atlantis free of the Galaxy now.
He pushes his head over the viewport as the shuttle lurches and
tilts down. It’s good and bad. Good because Judd slides straight into
the cabin, bad because Atlantis and the Galaxy now head towards
the ocean.
Judd lands on his chest and a volt of pain shoots through his
cauterised wound. He ignores it, finds his feet as the rope around
his waist wrenches him back towards the viewport. He turns to
Rhonda. ‘Can you get us off this thing?’
She can barely shake her head. Her white face is a stark contrast
to the pool of dark blood she lies in. She’s dying. Judd knows it as
clearly as he’s known anything in his life. He wants to go to her, help
her, but the rope is so tight he can barely move. He turns, grabs it,
braces a foot against the side of the cabin and pulls hard.
Corey slides through the viewport and Judd breaks his fall as he
thumps to the floor. ‘You okay?’
The Australian finds his feet, nods. ‘The lucky bucket didn’t
work. Tango in Berlin’s chopper’s back there.’
‘Right. Christ.’ Judd nods at the viewport. ‘Keep your eye on
Judd doesn’t watch. He has other things on his plate, like trying to
work out where to land this spacecraft.
He tips Atlantis into a steep right turn, can see the Australian
coast in the distance but knows they won’t make it. The shuttle
has no engines, so there’s no way to throttle up and fly it back to
land, and it’s not much of a glider either, which, of course, is Teddy
Kennedy’s fault.
Where can he land it? He searches the ocean. An island would
be good. Even a reef would be better than open water, but that’s all
he can see.
He glances at the altimeter. Two thousand, seven hundred feet
and dropping like a stone. He turns to Rhonda beside him. She
stares, her eyes unfocused.
‘You need to hold on.’
She can barely nod.
*
‘Got it!’ Disser grins, tips the Harrier into a hard right bank.
Behind him Severson’s eyes are squeezed shut, his face drained of
colour. His voice is little more than a whisper. ‘Great.’
Disser holds the Harrier in the bank, searches the sky for the air-
craft that launched the missile.
‘There!’ Disser pinpoints a black chopper. He drags the target-
ing sight towards it but he’s too slow. The black chopper’s cannons
blaze.
Bullets rip into the Harrier’s fuselage. Severson’s eyes spring
open. ‘Oh Jesus!’ A bullet ricochets around the cabin. He prays it
doesn’t hit him.
Dirk flicks the switch from cannons to missiles and aims the Top
Hawk helmet at Atlantis for the last time. The tone beeps as the tar-
geting grid skips across the sky. It locks on and the tone turns solid,
like the ECG of a flatlining patient.
He blinks.
The black chopper explodes in a vivid fireball.
‘Atlantis, you are cleared for landing.’ The radar operator’s voice
buzzes in Judd’s headset.
‘Copy that.’ Judd works the controller, tips Atlantis into a steep
bank, lines it up with the distant carrier and the runway that cuts
diagonally across its deck.
There’s no technology to help him. No autoland system, no
laser guidance, and that 180-metre runway’s a whole lot shorter
than the 3000 metres the shuttle usually lands on. Most impor-
tantly he must forget about the hash he made of his last landing in
the simulator and use what he’s learned since then.
He stops, thinks. What has he learned?
He turns to Corey. ‘You said something, when we looked at
the stars, about flying. It was – insightful.’ The Australian stares
at him blankly. Judd’s hands go Rubik as he tries to recall what
it was. ‘Something about believing you can trust the machine or,
I can’t remember exactly —’
‘I believe I can and I trust the machine won’t break.’
‘Yes! That’s it. Thank you.’ Judd turns back to the windscreen,
locks eyes on the carrier and whispers to himself: ‘I believe I can
and I trust the machine won’t break.’ Saying it makes him feel
better.
Corey holds Rhonda’s wrist. ‘Her pulse is weak.’
Judd nods, speaks into his headset: ‘USS George Bush, do you
copy?’
The operator’s voice buzzes in his ears: ‘We read, Atlantis.’
‘We request immediate medical assistance once on deck. There’s
an astronaut on board with a serious bullet wound to the right
shoulder. Lost a lot of blood. Blood type is O negative.’
‘Copy that.’
‘We’ll be on deck within ninety seconds. Is the barrier net in
place?’
‘We’re working on it.’
‘Copy that.’
What they’re working on is raising the overrun barrier net. A
large net slung across the runway, it’s only used in emergencies.
Efficient crews can have it up and ready in three minutes, though
Judd hasn’t given them that much time. Of course it might not
matter. The barrier net is designed to catch relatively light jets, not
100-tonne spacecraft.
Judd needs to slow Atlantis down as soon as it hits the runway,
otherwise it’ll just roll off the end and drop into the ocean, barrier
net or not. His options are limited. He can deploy the drogue para-
chute in the tail. It’ll help, but won’t be enough. He can open the tail
rudder’s air brake. Again, it’ll do some good but won’t get the job
done. He can apply the wheel brakes. They’ll do their bit too, but
won’t make that much difference. Even together these things won’t
stop a shuttle in 180 metres. He needs something else.
Work it backwards.
He uses his crazy Grandpa Bernie’s theory and thinks about
what comes before the end of the carrier’s runway.
The arrestor cables. Three cables that lie across the runway and
catch hold of a landing jet’s tail hook.
words, but it’s the first time she’s ever reassured him and it means
more than she will ever know. He nods, then turns back to the wind-
screen.
He tightens his grip on the controller and focuses on the carrier.
The runway looms before him, sways left. He corrects for it then
reaches up, flicks a switch on the panel above. The landing gear low-
ers and locks with a clunk below him. It bleeds a little speed but not
enough. They’re still travelling too fast. He pulls up Atlantis’s nose,
washes off some of its velocity, then drops the nose and lets it run.
‘— and into the hole!’ Corey pulls the rope tight and knots it
around the base of the chair. ‘Done!’
Judd eyes are locked on the ship. ‘Get to the viewport.’
Corey moves to it. ‘Then?’
‘When you see the drogue, throw the hook over the back of the
wing.’
‘Okay!’ A moment. ‘What’s a drogue?’
‘Big parachute. You’ll know it when you see it.’
Corey nods and scales the rear instrument panel, pushes through
the viewport.
The carrier is close. Judd works the controller, caresses Atlantis
onwards, whispers his new mantra: ‘I believe I can and I trust the
machine won’t break.’
His eyes flick to the end of the runway. A group of men works
on either side but the barrier net isn’t up. He can’t worry about that
now. He needs to get this thing down.
The carrier sways right. Judd finesses the controller, corrects the
spacecraft’s trajectory, pulls up the nose, washes off some speed,
then lets it run. It’s the only way to fly it that works. ‘I think I’ve
nutted this out.’ He glances at Rhonda. Her eyes are closed and her
head has rolled to the side. He takes it in, stricken. ‘Hold on, baby,
Atlantis jolts – and races onwards. It’s slower, but not that
much. Corey pivots in the viewport, looks down the runway to the
surging ocean beyond.
Judd watches the end of the runway speed towards him, just 25
metres away. Men still work on either side but the barrier net’s not
up. ‘Better get ready to swim —’
The barrier net flies up. It’s only six metres high but it’s there.
Atlantis’s front landing gear ploughs into it and the spacecraft shud-
ders and slows – but keeps moving. The net stretches and Atlantis
reaches the edge of the deck. Judd can see nothing but the roiling sea
before him.
The front landing gear drops over the side of the ship and the
shuttle’s underside slams into the edge of the deck. Thermal tiles
grind and tear as it slides towards the water below.
The net stretches. Atlantis shudders – then stops.
‘Out! Now!’ Corey jumps down from the viewport as Judd piv-
ots out of his chair and undoes Rhonda’s belts. ‘Grab her shoulders!’
Corey does it as Judd takes her legs and leads him down the lad-
der to mid-deck. He goes to work on the front door, unlocks the
hatch faster than he’s ever done it before, swings it open.
The hatch is just two metres off the deck. Directly to the right
is an abrupt drop to the roaring ocean. To the left two sailors look
up at him, stunned expressions on their faces. Judd shouts at them:
‘We need doctors now!’
One shouts back: ‘They’re on the way.’
‘Quick! Get close!’ The sailors move forward as Judd picks
up Rhonda’s legs. Her face is bleached white; there’s blood every-
where. Judd eases her through the hatch and the sailors take hold
of her, turn, run her towards a gurney that’s being hustled across
the tarmac by a three-member medical team.
Judd floats in the shuttle’s mid-deck. His eyes slowly open. It’s dark
and murky and he can’t see a damn thing. The water is freezing.
Something presses down on him from above. He touches it,
thinks it’s the mid-deck’s rear wall but can’t be sure. Whatever it is,
the spacecraft is sinking, and it’s taking him down with it.
Corey drags Judd through the shuttle’s hatch. Light glints far
above. It’s not gold or diamonds or treasure but something even
more valuable, the ocean’s surface.
He kicks hard, wills himself towards it. This is not how he
imagined his first swim in the Pacific would go. He hopes the
surface is close because his lungs are burning and his head feels
light . . .
He explodes out of the water, gasps air, drags the unconscious
American to the surface. A wave swamps them, drives them into
the hull of the carrier. It hurts more than he thought it would. He
pushes his hand under Judd’s head to keep his face above water,
scans the ocean. He’s not sure how long he can keep him afloat.
A Zodiac inflatable skid-thumps over the swell towards them.
Corey’s thrilled to see it. ‘Thank you, US Navy!’
The boat swings around and hands reach down, drag them
onto the deck. Corey moves to Judd, clears his mouth, listens to
his chest. His heart has stopped. He pumps his chest. No response.
A sailor leans over Judd, performs mouth-to-mouth.
‘Breathe! Come on!’ Corey pumps Judd’s chest but it’s not
working. He’s not responding —
A cough, and water gushes from Judd’s mouth and he gulps
air. His eyes blink open and find Corey, his voice a croak: ‘Thanks,
Blades.’
Corey grins his crooked grin. ‘No worries, Mandy.’
One minute.
According to the doctor, when Rhonda hit the gurney she was
one minute from death’s door. She’d be pushing up daisies if not for
the exemplary work of the USS George H. W. Bush’s medical crew.
And Judd. He landed a space shuttle on an aircraft carrier for her.
She lies in bed in the ship’s infirmary. Her newly relocated shoul-
der is numb, as is the bullet wound, but she’s not thinking about her
injuries. She’s spent the time since she came out of surgery think-
ing about Judd, how he’d put his life on the line to rescue her. She
thought she knew him so well but he had surprised her more than
she thought possible.
The infirmary’s door swings open. It’s Judd. He wears a fresh
flight suit but looks like he’s passed through the gates of hell,
his face scarred and bruised, his left arm in a sling. Then he smiles
and she sees his eyes are bright and, it seems to Rhonda, full of joy.
‘How are you?’
He gingerly sits in the chair beside her bed. ‘Cracked ribs,
stitches. You?’
‘Better.’ She studies him. ‘Thanks to you.’ Tears fill her eyes.
Surprised, she brushes them away with an embarrassed smile. ‘Oh
man, I’m Costnering. Haven’t cried in front of anyone since I was
seven.’
A bark.
‘Finders keepers? No, it’s mine!’
Corey grabs at it but Spike scrambles out of reach. ‘Give me
that!’ Corey quickly realises he’s never going to catch him and gives
up. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, get in the chopper.’
Spike saunters towards the Sea Stallion. Corey’s right behind
him. ‘You know that’s mine.’
They climb into the giant chopper and ten seconds later it lifts
off in a blast of red dust.
It’s a perfect Houston dusk, the breeze warm, the sky burnt orange.
Spike barks.
‘Don’t know, mate.’ Weighed down with shopping bags, Corey
scans the busy streetscape. Though he’s been living in Houston for
the last three months he’s never been to this part of town before.
‘He said around here somewhere.’
Spike barks again.
‘Where?’
Corey turns, sees Judd approach along the footpath. ‘There you
are. ’Sup, Mandy?’
Judd smiles. ‘Hey guys.’
Corey grins his crooked grin. ‘See what I did there? I said “sup”.
Learned that today. How’d it sound?’
‘Pretty good, actually.’
‘Picked it up it from the guy who sold me this.’ Corey gestures
to the Cincinnati baseball cap emblazoned with a ‘C’ that sits on
his head. ‘I’m thinking about wearing it at an angle.’
‘Nice.’ Judd pats Spike on the head then takes a couple of bags
from Corey to lighten his load. ‘Get everything you need?’
‘Reckon so.’ Corey’s been stocking up for his impending jour-
ney. If his experiences with the hijackers in the Northern Territory
had taught him anything, it was that life could be short, bloody
short. So, with some folding stuff in his pocket from the Loach’s
insurance payout, he’s decided to hit the road with Spike and hitch
around the States for a year, ‘to see what all the fuss is about’.
It’ll be hard to leave Houston. He really likes the place. Rhonda
is great value and Judd has become a good mate. That he’d decided
to find the whole talking-to-the-dog thing charming rather than off-
putting means a lot to the Australian. And the guestroom at their
house was deluxe. Spike even liked hanging out with The Ghost
and The Darkness. But that wasn’t enough reason to stay. Corey
had never travelled, had never even been out of Australia before,
so he wanted to grab this opportunity and have an experience to
remember. These were meant to be the best years of his life, after
all.
‘Hey Corey!’ A convertible Mustang rolls past and a young cou-
ple twirl their hands above their heads as if they’re about to rope
a steer. It’s been a common occurrence since Corey arrived for the
debrief after the hijacking. A sailor on the USS George W Bush had
used his iPhone to film the Atlantis landing and the most striking
part of the footage was Corey standing up through the viewport,
swinging the rope above his head like a lasso. With over fifty mil-
lion views on YouTube the video had gone viral, and with it Corey
E. Purchase.
‘Hey there!’ Corey excitedly twirls his hand above his head in
response, then turns to Judd, amazed. ‘I have no idea who those
people are.’
Judd grins. The Australian had taken his sudden fame in stride.
They all had. The ‘Atlantis Four’, as Judd, Rhonda, Corey and
Severson were now known, had become the biggest news story of
the year. Instead of being a negative episode for NASA, the hijack-
ing was spun as an upbeat, feel-good tale about three astronauts,
an Australian and a dog who had prevented the shuttle from being
‘Hey Corey, hey Spike.’ She lays a kiss on Judd then shoots him
a wide grin.
‘You look happy.’
‘I am.’ It’s taken a while but she’s back to feeling her old self.
Her experience since the hijacking had been quite different to
Judd’s, any post-traumatic stress he’d felt had been offset by hav-
ing shared the journey with Corey, and as the Australian loved to
talk, they had talked it out at length. But Rhonda had no one who
directly understood what she’d been through and she found it hard
to explain to Judd, even considering how supportive he’d been dur-
ing her recuperation.
She’d thought about the Frenchman quite a bit. In spite of the
circumstances she still had difficulty coming to terms with his fate
and was surprised by how it weighed on her. She also wondered if
the 9/11 conspiracy, which the Frenchman had been so sure of, was
real or imagined. Of course the truth had died with the hijackers,
and Edgar, who had a heart attack while gardening a day after the
hijacking ended, but it would still cross her mind from time to time.
Judd takes her hand and they move towards the cinema. ‘So
why are we happy?’
‘I just heard.’
He stops, looks at her, shocked. ‘It’s on?’
‘It’s on. Official announcement’s tomorrow.’
‘And?’
‘We’re in! First group.’
‘Oh, man.’ They embrace, euphoric.
Corey watches, confused. ‘What’s on?’
‘Mars!’ Judd turns to him. ‘We’re going to Mars.’
‘Well that’s bloody fantastic!’
It sure is. As a result of the hijacking the shuttle program had
rattles into the car’s roof. He ducks, mind racing. The whole world
thinks he’s a steely-eyed missile man so this would be the perfect
time to devise an ingenious solution and prove it to himself.
His hands go Rubik and he turns to the others. ‘Okay. I’ve got
a plan.’