The Orion Protocol (15 page)

27

Miriam and Angela took their lunch on the run as they hurried back to their own turf and the PBS tower.

“Well, stature-wise, there’s Stephen Hawking. He’d see us. And Dr. Kaku at NYU. You like his take on multidimensional universe stuff.” Miriam licked cream cheese off the edge of an everything bagel as they walked.

“Hawking, I can see. Kaku is good, but I don’t know . . .” Angela tossed her empty yogurt cup into a green recycle bin and wished she’d had a bagel, too.

“What about what’s-his-name? Einstein Chair at Princeton.”

“Look, forget academic stature a second. Let’s talk about clout: senators, congressmen, people who can give us some actual political cover. Somebody like a John Glenn—”

“There is no one
like
John Glenn.” Miriam laughed.

“Well, there’s gotta be somebody on the House Committee . . .”

“Chairman Phillip Lowe.”

“You know him?”

Miriam gave up a half smile.

“I think the congressman’ll return my call.”

“Hold that thought.”

Pushing in the doors of the tower-building lobby, Angela changed trajectory, veering over to the reception desk. An intern looked up from sorting the mail.

“Ms. Browning? You got a package while I was at lunch.”

She held up an opened, eight-by-ten manila envelope with “ATT: Angela Browning c/o
Science Horizon
” neatly typed on a plain white label.

“There’s a cancel, but no return. You still want it?”

“Sure. What the heck.”

The receptionist handed it over and returned to her stacks of mail. Angela held up the anonymous envelope for her partner to see.

“No name. No return address. Deep Cosmo strikes again.”

“Ya think?”

Miriam watched closely as Angela tore it open. Inside was one item: a black-and-white photograph of two unidentified astronauts standing on the Moon. In the top margin eight words were scrawled in quotes. Angela read the caption.

“And good luck, Mr. Grotsky, wherever you are.”

They quit the reception desk, puzzling over the otherwise unremarkable Moon picture all the way to the elevators.

“This is it, Miriam. I can feel it. We’re in communication now. We’re having a dialogue. It’s like a puzzle and he wants us to put it together. So, who’s Grotsky? Right?” Angela punched the up button several times, her mind already at work on how to start tracking the man down.

Miriam nodded, more wary than her partner, but still intrigued.

“Exactly. Who the hell is Grotsky?”

28

February 3/the Blair House Mansion/Washington, D.C.

Blair House, the historic vice-presidential residence, was still impressive with its eighteenth-century Franklin crystal chandelier, appropriately electrified and blazing away in the atrium. A gift from the People of France, who had so adored the great American ambassador and scientist, the Franklin chandelier was holding elegant sway over the jointly hosted NASA and U.S. State Department revelry below.

Back from McMurdo Station via New Zealand, Colonel Augie Blake looked resplendent in his Marine dress whites. Though the Blair House bash swirling around him was officially in celebration of the latest module linkups on Space Station Alpha, Augie was inwardly hoisting his glass of Perrier to the successful evacuation of his kids from the South Pole. The program’s Extreme Environment trainees remained in quarantine at Auckland, suffering more from boredom and disappointment over their truncated mission than anything else.

“Thank you, God,” Augie said out loud.

Reflecting on how working a big old Washington party was a far less onerous duty when you didn’t have to fake feeling good, Augie looked happily around at the assembled elite roaming the glossy two-hundred-year-old parquetry. Canapés in hand, they were a noisy rainbow of polished players, military and civilian alike, representing the eleven nations who were contributing treasure and expertise for a share in the glory and high-orbit science harvest of the International Space Station.

But one face in particular separated itself from the glitterati and made Augie smile.

Turned out in a Givenchy dress she was unlikely to be allowed to write off, Ms. Angela Browning, of
Science Horizon
fame, looked quite stunning as she chatted up the C-SPAN crew covering the event.

Blake strained to eavesdrop, but whatever Angela was laughing about was drowned out by several rowdy broad-shouldered cosmonauts wolfing down Black Sea caviar appetizers at the bar with a pair of half-lit taiko-nauts from the People’s Republic of China.

“How you say? Fish egg!”

“Beluga!”

“Ah . . . smelt!”

“No, no, no . . . Beluga! Beluga!”

Augie moved to a better vantage point, away from the loud space pups, observing from afar the beautiful and apparently unescorted Ms. Browning.

In an adjoining room, a rising young soprano from the current Kennedy Center production of Donizetti’s
Lucia
could be heard singing the mad-scene aria. It was colorful and spirited, but not in any danger of putting Sutherland’s truly harrowing rendition into eclipse.

Turning away from the C-SPAN crew and negotiating her way through the crowd, Angela captured a glass of Blanc de Noirs from a passing tray and hovered for a moment near a cluster of tables packed with august members of the American astronaut pantheon: the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo alumni, in particular.

Then Colonel Augustus Julian “Augie” Blake was at her elbow.

“Ms. Browning.” Augie beamed in open admiration, offering his white-gloved hand with a courtly bow that would not have been out of place at a Savannah tea party before the War Between the States.

“Colonel Blake.” Angela blessed the enduring power of the
little black dress
, resisting the temptation to curtsy as Augie continued making a fuss.

“Ms. Browning, may I say that whoever cut that gorgeous shot of crepe de chine should be paying you
beaucoup
to wear it. You’re makin’ him look like a goddamned genius.”

Angela blushed down to the black pearl choker she had borrowed from Miriam for the occasion. Now she
did
feel like Scarlett O’Hara.

“Thank you, Colonel. And it’s Monsieur Givenchy who deserves the couturier props. But you’re looking quite spiff tonight yourself.” She waved at the medals on his whites and sipped her bubbly. “No saber, though, I see.”

“No, no. Ribbon ceremonies and funerals aside, I’m afraid a close shave pretty well exhausts my repertoire with a blade.”

“Oh, I’ve heard about some of your close shaves.” Angela gave him a look, seeming to enjoy teasing him. “Not counting your infamous Moon landing.”

Augie attempted to demur.

“I’m afraid my reputation exceeds me.”

“I’m thinking about a certain May Day embassy party of legend and lore. You and Commander Deaver matching Stolis with the comrades?” She laughed, sliding a glance toward the cosmonaut cutups over at the bar. “In that, I’m afraid, it’s the Russians who have the Right Stuff.”

Augie took the jabs in good humor, just happy to be on the survivor’s side of a bad-boy past. Rumor had implicated both Blake and Jake Deaver in a May 1 commemoration-cum-drunken-brawl hosted at the then Soviet embassy in 1972. The debacle had reportedly featured call girls seen exiting via the windows in various states of dishabille, damaged priceless Russian art and antique furnishings, several cosmonauts with inexplicably self-inflicted wounds, and a morning-after flurry of official apologies and hefty reparations.

“May Day, May Day.” Augie laughed, holding up his Perrier water in surrender. “I can’t speak for old Flaky Jakey, but for myself I just take it one day at a time now, darlin’.”

Glancing across the crowded foyer, Augie caught the eye of the tuxedoed Representative Phillip Lowe, the powerful chairman of the House Committee on Space attending with his wife. He gave them a wink and a wave and they raised their champagne glasses in return, including Angela in the room-spanning toast.

She returned the salute and reminded herself to go say hi. Miriam had already set up a meeting in Lowe’s office, and trolling for other
potential big guns was Angela’s primary mission tonight. She turned back to Colonel Blake.

“And what about Commander Deaver?” she said, curious about the Apollo alum now that Augie had brought him up. “Is he here tonight?”

Angela was conscious of working the little black dress a bit, but with negligible shame.

“Jake?” Augie made a face. “Aw, this kind of soiree is not exactly Jake Deaver’s cup of herbal tea. Maybe if they were serving hashish brownies, and even then . . .”

Angela heard a certain edge creep into Augie’s voice.

“So, Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy still stay in touch?”

“That’s not really on either of our agendas,” Augie said, sounding sorry he’d brought it up. Angela was about to pursue it anyway, when she remembered the news story about the astronauts evacuated from the South Pole.

“Colonel, I understand you had some excitement down at McMurdo . . .”

“Not really . . .”

But Augie’s attention was distracted. Angela turned to see a knot of half-lit cosmonauts and taiko-nauts gesturing insistently, calling Blake over and including Angela in the invitation. Augie gave them all a wave as NASA Administrator Vernon Pierce appeared over at the bar, passing out vodka shooters to the whole space fraternity.

“Ah, well,” Augie said, reluctant but resigned.

“Duty calls?”

“Care to join me?”

Despite or maybe because of Augie’s valiant effort at evincing a Pagliacci hopefulness, Angela knew it was more good manners than a real invitation. And much as she might have been amused by the Asian space brothers and the hearty partyers of the former Evil Empire, she graciously declined.

“But thank you,” Angela said, offering her hand. “By the way, was there ever a cosmonaut by the name of Grotsky?”

“Grotsky?”

“Maybe back in the late ‘60’s, early ‘70’s.”

“No, I don’t believe I ever knew a cosmonaut by that name.” Augie made a show of searching his memory. “You might query the comrades . . .”

“No, no. I’m sure it was before their time.”

“Well, then,
dosvedonya
.” He kissed her hand with practiced gallantry and then leaned close, drawling into her ear. “You take care, now . . . y’hear?”

Augie flashed a kind of enigmatic smile and disappeared with his glass of Perrier into the big-shouldered crush of Russian and Asian uniforms.

Angela felt a mild frisson down to her noire Ferragamo heels.

You take care, now . . . y’hear?

What did he mean by that? She felt another shiver, a chill presentiment that could have been just paranoia. Then Angela shrugged, deciding in the spirit of Occam’s Razor that the simplest explanation was the best: Colonel Blake had been merely flirting with her, in his southern-gentleman style.

Accepting a Maryland crab cake from a swallowtail-coated server, Angela regrouped: there were people to meet, tables to work. But as she scanned the room, Augie’s comments about Jake Deaver suddenly came back to her.

Hashish brownies?
She laughed to herself, nibbling on the crab cake.

Colonel Augie Blake had been a hell-raiser back in the day, but he was much more of a NASA poster boy at this point. She had been toying with the idea of showing him the
Mars Observer
stuff, but her instincts now told her maybe not.

Commander Jake Deaver, however . . .

She tried to remember what she knew about him: dropping out of the space program, becoming a college professor out in Colorado. What did he teach?

Feeling eyes on her all-but-naked back, Angela glanced toward the tables reserved for Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo alumni and recognized one of several famous faces unabashedly appraising her from the inner circle of the most exclusive men’s club on Earth.

Commander Edgar Mitchell. Sixth man to walk on the Moon
.

The distinguished astronaut smiled at her. Angela smiled back. And
executing a graceful turn in the wildly successful little black dress, she carried her empty champagne glass over to where the silver-haired Commander Mitchell and his friends were already getting to their feet.

As men of that great generation were still wont to do in the presence of beauty.