Sex on the Moon (25 page)

36

Axel Emmermann didn’t truly understand the enormity of the situation—or the storm that was headed his way—until he saw the look on his fifteen-year-old son’s face. Sven had come through the door to Axel’s bedroom at a full run, and now he was just standing there, eyes wide, cheeks flushed, as he struggled to catch his breath. Christel was already out of bed and on her feet, rushing toward the boy to see if he’d somehow injured himself, but Axel waved her back, having a pretty good idea that Sven’s nearly catatonic state had something to do with the flurry of phone calls Axel had received via his cell phone the night before.

That, in itself, had been unusual, because he almost never used his cell phone, and he’d missed the first few calls trying to find the damn thing. When he’d finally discovered it in the bottom drawer of his dresser, it was still ringing; he’d been surprised to hear the familiar voice of the president of the Antwerp Mineral Club on the line.

His old friend had sounded as breathless as Sven now looked. The president himself had just gotten off his own phone, having received a panicked call from his elderly mother. The woman, deep into her eighties, had been a sort of mascot to the Antwerp Mineral Club for some time. Apparently, a journalist who had once written an amusing piece about her interest in rare rocks had tracked her down in the middle of the night. Because of her age, she had been pretty confused by the call, and had simply passed the journalist’s information to her son.

“Something crazy is going on,” the president had gasped, once he’d gotten Axel on the line. “There’s been some sort of major arrest in the United States, and it seems that it somehow involves our mineral club.”

Axel had nearly dropped the cell phone. He hadn’t heard anything from the FBI or Orb Robinson in over a week. He had dutifully passed the baton to the people who were supposed to know what to do with it, and even his wife had finally let the issue drop. The last thing he had expected was to hear about it again—via the eighty-year-old mother of the president of the Antwerp Mineral Club!

But apparently, the Belgian journalist had been eager to hunt her down because the FBI had issued a little press release. Buried deep within that release was the mention of a Belgian collector from the Antwerp Mineral Club. A reporter from Tampa, Florida, had contacted a colleague from Belgium—and the trail had led all the way back to Axel Emmermann.

The president of the club had guessed, correctly, that Axel hadn’t simply erased Orb Robinson’s e-mail as everyone else had done. He had taken it upon himself to do something about what they all had assumed was a hoax. After the president’s initial shock had worn off, he had become very excited at the prospect of all the coming press. Axel’s actions had put the Antwerp Mineral Club on the map.

Axel’s thoughts had been swirling as he’d hung up the phone, but he hadn’t even had time to inform Christel when the phone was ringing again. It was the
Tampa Herald
, a newspaper all the way on the other side of the world, calling him to talk about his role in bringing down Robinson. The reporter hadn’t gleaned much information yet—just that arrests had been made, and that the people arrested were connected to NASA. Nevertheless, the journalist treated Axel like a hero. And at the end of the conversation, the man warned Axel that this was probably just the beginning. A crime this big had never happened at NASA before. There was a good chance it would become an international story.

Looking at Sven’s face as the poor kid stood in the doorway to the bedroom, Axel had a feeling that the journalist had been correct.

“There’s something being erected outside my bedroom window,” Sven finally managed. “It looks like it might be some sort of spaceship.”

Axel looked at his wife, then quickly rushed out of the bedroom. He barreled down the hallway to his son’s room. Christel and Sven were right behind him, his wife holding on to the back of his shirt as they went. When he got to his son’s window, he yanked back the drapes—and Christel gasped behind him.

Rising up on his front lawn was a giant steel television antenna. Behind the antenna, there were at least two news trucks with satellite dishes affixed to their roofs. There were reporters everywhere, a few he even recognized from the local nightly news. Beyond the trucks, he could see his neighbors gathering outside on the street, even though it was barely five-thirty in the morning.

Axel turned and grinned at his wife. He didn’t need to say anything, because he could see from the expression on her face that she was equal parts stunned and proud.

Axel was now an
international
superhero.

37

The holding cell was in Tampa, a bit of a drive via police caravan—lights flashing, sirens wailing—from Orlando, but it might as well have been on Mars; everything had become so surreal and foreign and confusing, and Thad had no choice but to just go with it, handcuffed and eventually shackled, a metal chain running between his wrists and his feet, fingerprinted and shoved along by a never-ending parade of police officers and FBI agents and people with badges he couldn’t even recognize. By the time he finally was led into the holding area, he’d been interrogated at least twice, but he had remained utterly silent—more the result of his stunned state of mind than from any sense of strategy. But the minute he saw Rebecca in the holding area, separated from him by the bars of their individual cells, his mind cleared, his senses sharpened. The world snapped into focus like a leather belt pulled tight, and he was able to zone out the dozens of strange and terrifying people staggering around the huge, open tank right next to his isolated cell—most of whom looked drunk and high and crazy, a few shirtless and even one completely naked, the smell of feces and sweat and fear so thick it made Thad want to gag. Instead, he focused on Rebecca, only Rebecca.

Her face was as white as the lightest part of the moon, and there were tears streaking down her cheeks. She was curled up in a neat ball, right up against the bars, so close that Thad could almost reach out and touch her. She saw him, but she didn’t even unfurl herself; she remained a little fetal ball, her shoulders rocking with each sob.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said, mustering enough strength to make his voice steady. “I promise, you’re not going to take any of the blame for this. Just tell them you don’t know anything.”

“I already told them everything!” she half wailed, and Thad was momentarily taken aback by the viciousness in her voice. She was beyond terrified, desperate, and devastated. “And they made me call my parents.”

“It doesn’t matter what you told them,” Thad said, not sure whether it was true, but trying to regain control, even in the most uncontrollable situation. “I’m going to take the blame for everything. You tell them you were afraid, that I forced you to do this, that you didn’t know anything about the moon rocks. I need you on the outside. I need you free, so that I can talk to you, so that you can be my lifeline.”

And he meant it. He knew that he was going to prison. The only way he’d be able to survive was if she was outside, free, living her life, and communicating with him. He believed that he could get through anything, as long as he could talk to her once in a while, hear her voice, tell her he loved her.

“But my dad—he’s coming to get me. And he says I can never talk to you again.”

This hit Thad harder than anything else so far. He shook his head.

“No, we have to stay in communication.”

“They told me we could get thirty years. Thad, I can’t go to jail for thirty years.”

Thad lowered himself to the floor, his head against the bars. He wished he could reach out and touch her. But she was too far away.
Thirty years?
It was probably bullshit. It had to be bullshit. What they’d done—it was a prank, a mental game that had gone a little too far. Shit, the cops were just trying to scare her. And they’d done a good job.

“You’re not going to jail; I’m going to tell them that it was all my idea.”

She raised her head from her hands, and the sobs seemed to subside a bit. Maybe his words had finally gotten through to her.

“But my dad—”

“For now, just do what he says. After a little bit, when you’re out of here, we’ll find a way—”

But he never had a chance to finish, because suddenly there were uniformed officers at Rebecca’s cell, and they were telling her to get up and follow them. She threw one terrified final look at Thad, and then her head was down, almost to her chest, she was moving quickly in the direction that the police officers had indicated—and a moment later she was gone, and Thad was alone. He breathed deeply, trying to catch one last whiff of her floral perfume in the air, even the tiniest molecule of her passing to keep him from completely coming apart—but there was nothing there but the fetid stench of that Floridian purgatory.

It was his turn to curl up into a fetal ball, his mind going numb.

…

“One phone call. You have five minutes.”

Thad stood in front of the pay phone as the uniformed officer stepped away, giving him a few feet of privacy. The bulky hunk of metal and plastic hanging from the wall seemed so utterly anachronistic, and Thad couldn’t help but remind himself that just two days ago he had been listening to voices through a bone-conducting receiver, and now here he was, standing in front of an ancient-looking pay phone, the sound of drunken gangbangers and transients echoing all around him.

Thad had no idea how long he had been in the holding cell before the officer had come to get him for his legally sanctioned call. He had considered telling the man just to leave him alone; the phone call wasn’t going to do Thad much good, because he only knew one phone number, and the person on the other end of that number wasn’t going to be very helpful.

The minute Sonya’s voice echoed over the line, he knew that his prediction was correct. She was furious. He was in jail, calling her collect—and her fury only grew as he gave her the details of his situation. Not only had he gone through with this heist, but also he had done it with Rebecca, a girl he had known for less than a month. In the course of the short phone call, Thad realized that Sonya still had strong feelings for him—that somehow, even though they had barely spoken over the past few months, she had still harbored the thought that someday they would work things out.

Thad had put an end to that. The robbery, even jail time—these were things Sonya could have gotten past. But that he had done this with a girl other than herself—that was unforgivable.

He tried to talk past her anger—because he needed her help. He had been told by one of the federal courthouse officials that he was going to be given a signature bond, which meant that any adult in the country who didn’t have a criminal record could go to any courthouse and sign him out, to await his trial. It didn’t need to be a brother, it didn’t need to be a parent, it didn’t even need to be an angry ex. Just a signature from any adult, and he would be free until they were ready to try him for the crime.

“If you won’t do it,” he pleaded into the phone, “if your parents won’t let you or if you just can’t because you need to move on—I understand. But please, reach out to the people who know me, to anybody you can think of. Maybe someone at NASA, maybe someone from school—”

But Sonya shut him down with one of the harshest things he had heard since his parents had disowned him.

“There isn’t anybody. Nobody is going to take responsibility for you now. Don’t you realize what you’ve done?”

Thad stood there, frozen, trying to think of something to say—when the call cut off.

Thad wanted to call her back, if only to tell her that he was sorry for everything. But even if the police officer hadn’t already started prodding him back toward the holding cell, he doubted that Sonya would have accepted the call.

Thad realized that nobody was going to come get him. Even such a simple thing as signing a piece of paper—nobody was going to come for him. Rebecca couldn’t because of her father. Sonya wouldn’t because she was angry, maybe because she was scared—of what her family would do, of what it would mean to her prospects of moving away from a failed relationship. And beyond them, there was no one else. Thad didn’t have parents anymore. And his friends—at NASA he was now a pariah. The other co-ops would avoid him like the plague. The esteemed scientists—he had been an amusement to them, a promising kid who told adventure stories for their entertainment, but that was all.

He was alone; he was in the system. And no one on Earth was going to help him now.

…

They called it the Submarine.

The county jail on Orient Road in Tampa was the most miserable place Thad had ever seen. Just hours after his phone call to Sonya, he was led down a stairwell, through an endless parade of iron doors and barred windows, into a long cement hallway, bordered on both sides by tiny metal windows covered with steel, all of it painted an unnerving shade of blue. He was handcuffed and shackled and wearing a belly chain, shuffling along with his head down, prodded from behind on both sides by uniformed officers. He was doing his best to keep his mind completely blank, because any thoughts that could erupt in a place like this would do him no good. He had to become an empty shell, because he knew that he was going to be here a long time.

About a quarter of the way down the hallway, the guards stopped, and one of them stuck a huge metal key—about four inches long, like something out of a medieval dungeon—into a panel, unlocking a steel door. There were four pump levers on one side of the door, and it took two guards to turn them, forcing the heavy slab of steel to slide open, inch by inch. They paused when there was just enough room for Thad to be shoved inside; first they unlocked his handcuffs, undid his shackles; then one of the guards gave him a sarcastic little pat on the back. Once he was through, the door was slammed shut behind him.

Directly ahead was what was called the dayroom, to the left the bedroom. Thad took it all in with quick flicks of his eyes. In the bedroom he saw eight bunk beds, basically steel plates bolted together, attached to industrial-looking iron frames, two rows of four. Standing between the bedroom and the dayroom, he saw two steel toilet seats—no lids, just the toilets themselves, standing there in the middle of the open area in full view of everyone—and a single shower off in one corner. On the far end of the room, opposite the hallway he had just walked down, was what they called the catwalk. It was just a bunch of bars separating the dayroom and bedroom from another long hallway, where guards took turns walking first one direction, then the other. There would be no privacy of any kind.

As Thad took a little step into the dayroom, his stomach tightened into knots. In the middle of the room stood a couple of metal picnic tables, with bolted-down benches. There were two pay phones against one wall, both currently occupied, and beyond them, affixed to a joint a few inches from the ceiling, a television set. There was a knob on the TV, but even from that distance he could see that there were only two numbers on the knob, two stations available. At the moment, the television was on, and Thad recognized a children’s show—something called
Teletubbies
.

At the picnic table farthest from Thad, a group of three African American men in bright orange prison overalls were intently watching the show, every now and then bursting out in a concert of what sounded like truly crazed laughter. The men looked just like Thad would’ve expected—angry, tattooed, overly muscled, and terrifying.

At the other picnic table, there were two white men; one was huge, maybe three hundred pounds, his gut hanging out over his orange pants. The other was half his size, with a goatee and an enormous tattoo running up the left side of his neck. There was a deck of cards on the table in front of them, and the larger man was in the process of throwing down a card. A low number came out, and this seemed to be a good thing, because the man laughed and clapped his hands against the table. Then the smaller man took the next card, threw it on the table—showing a king. The man snarled, then leaped off his bench, got down on the floor, and did ten push-ups.

As Thad watched the two tables of men, his entire body started to shake. He couldn’t believe that this was now his life. Three days ago, he had been diving in the NBL, he had been hanging out with astronauts, shooting the breeze with some of the smartest men in the world. And now he was in hell.

Before he could take another step into the room, one of the black men from the
Teletubbies
table crossed toward him—swaggering like his feet weighed a hundred pounds each. He had muscles everywhere, and there was a hardness in his face that sent chills into Thad’s bones.

He stopped a few feet in front of Thad, looking him over. Then he grinned, his teeth a peculiar shade of yellow.

“My name is Graveyard. Graveyard Serious.”

He gave Thad a hard punch to the shoulder. Thad did his best not to flinch. The man turned and headed back to his
Teletubbies
.

Thad stood there, waiting, but nobody else acknowledged him—so he quietly crossed into the bedroom and made his way to what appeared to be an empty steel bunk. As he lowered himself onto the bunk, he realized that it was a solid sheet of metal, with tiny holes drilled into it that were supposed to make it the littlest bit flexible. No mattress, no sheet. There was, however, a pillowcase—to remind Thad that he didn’t have a pillow.

He lay down on the bunk, wrapping the pillowcase over his eyes. He could still see the bright lights, even through the material of the pillowcase, and there was a loud buzzing coming from the fluorescent panels. He knew he’d never be able to fall asleep. Instead, he tightly shut his eyes and started to cry.

…

“Houston, we have a problem. Houston, we have a problem.”

Thad’s eyes tore open as the words reverberated through his ears, and he jerked himself up into a sitting position—nearly slamming his head on the steel bunk above him. It took him a minute to recognize his surroundings—to realize that it hadn’t all been a dream, that he wasn’t lying in his apartment back at NASA or curled up next to Rebecca in the parking lot of a Baptist church. He was on the bottom bunk in a jail cell, wearing an orange jumpsuit, with an empty pillowcase wrapped around his eyes. There were at least seven other men in the room with him, in various phases of sleep—even though the place was still lit up as bright as day by the ever-buzzing fluorescent ceiling panels.

“Houston, we have a problem.”

It took Thad another moment to realize that the words were not in his head, that they were actually reverberating around the entire cell—through the entire county jail, actually—via the guards’ intercom system.