Transformers Dark of the Moon (3 page)

“Desperately,” she said.

He nodded, then put the phone to his ear and, just before he started talking, decided that perhaps boredom was underrated after all.

James E. Webb, a barrel-chested man whose hair had not started graying until after he became NASA administrator a mere two months earlier, glared at the phone on his desk as if it had tried to bite him.

Outside his office window, the White House was illuminated against the evening sky. He had been awed by it when he had first settled into the job in February. Now all he could do was stare at the building and think about how he was letting down the main man occupying it. Or perhaps (he hated to think, darkly) the main man had in fact been letting
him
down.

Shortly before taking office, Webb had had dinner with his immediate predecessor, Doctor Hugh Dryden. Dryden had only been an interim replacement, following Doctor T. Keith Glennan. Both of the men who had preceded Webb were scientists: Dryden’s field had been aeronautics, and Glennan was an engineer. Webb, by contrast, still wasn’t sure if he was the best fit for the position, since he was a former marine fighter pilot turned lawyer. He had been candid with Dryden, whom he respected, and wondered aloud whether he had the proper skill set for the job.

Dryden simply stared at him over the tops of his round spectacles and said, “Never doubt you’re the right man at the right time. Most of your job isn’t dealing with scientists. You’re dealing with politicians. This isn’t a job requiring scientific acumen. It needs a pit bull.”

It hadn’t taken Webb long to realize that Dryden had been absolutely right. Since taking office he had had to deal with one senator after the next, all of them small-minded men, united in only one thing: They were all positive that they had far better uses for government money than giving it to NASA. Not that they could agree on what that use was, although more often than not, they all felt it should be earmarked for programs in their home states. Most of the Republicans wanted to cut taxes and felt that a disproportionately large amount of the money that such cuts would require
should be taken from NASA’s budget. Most of the Democrats simply wanted to redirect the NASA budget into social programs, reasoning that America should be more interested in feeding and clothing children than in wandering around in the depths of space’s unforgiving vacuum. And then there was the idiot who he had just hung up with, a congressman so superstitious that he wanted to introduce a bill asserting that NASA could never put the number thirteen into any spaceflight mission because terrible things would happen as a result. Incredible, the notions that people staked their decisions upon.

And it wasn’t as if the president had been particularly helpful. Webb had to admit that that, at least, was understandable. He had come into office on a wave of expectations, brimming with youth and vigor. That was a hell of a lot to live up to, and on any given day he was probably being pulled in a hundred different directions at once—and NASA wasn’t necessarily a priority.

His office intercom rang, and he punched it. “Yes?”

“Doctor Moore’s people calling back.”

“Right, right.” Moore’s assistant had called him minutes earlier, when he’d been hip-deep wading through the superstitious foolishness of the congressman. Unfortunately, the “honorable gentleman” was someone who was in a position to choke off NASA’s money, and so Webb had to focus on what was important rather than whatever Moore was calling about. Webb had informed his secretary to tell them to call back in five minutes. He briefly considered blowing them off again, thinking that maybe once, just once, getting out of the office earlier than 9
P.M
. might be accomplished.

Instead, giving in to the inevitable, he said, “Put it through.” Moments later, the phone rang and he picked it up. “This is Webb,” he said briskly.

Moore was speaking quickly, so quickly that Webb had to tell him to slow down and repeat everything he’d said. Then, when he did so, Webb told him to say it a third time. He’d understood him the second time; he just wasn’t sure he believed it.

Webb’s secretary walked in with some letters for him to sign and stopped dead. Webb’s face was ashen. He was saying, “Are you sure? How long ago?”

Normally she wouldn’t have been able to hear a voice on the other side, but the caller, Doctor Moore, was speaking so loudly that it came through the receiver:
“Impact detected. We have impact confirmed. Contact at 2150 PST.”

Webb was scribbling something on a sheet of paper while Moore continued talking about all manner of specifics, which the secretary wasn’t entirely following. Then Webb gestured for the secretary to come over and tapped the piece of paper. She looked at it, and her eyes widened.

It read, “Get me McNamara.”

It was less than an hour after the agitated conversation in Webb’s office when a black limousine pulled up to the front of the White House. Credentials were quickly displayed, and the marine guarding the gate quickly waved the limo through.

Minutes later the limo discharged a man who couldn’t quite believe the insane direction this day had taken. He was wasp thin, with round glasses and short dark hair that was meticulously parted and slicked down.

At that particular point in time, if he had run into Bob Lovett—the man who had been the president’s first choice for the cabinet post that he now held—he would have been sure to thank Lovett with a brick upside the head. No one should have to deal with something this
strange. The fact that he could say with complete honesty, “ ‘Strange’ is my middle name,” didn’t make things better.

Robert Strange McNamara, the secretary of defense, hurried through the corridors of power of the White House, hastening toward the Oval Office. His boss had already settled in for the night with Jackie and the kids and hadn’t been thrilled at the prospect of an emergency meeting. He was even less thrilled when McNamara—with all due respect—had declined to go into detail as to what exactly was going on. On the off chance that the phone line was not secure, he didn’t need word of this leaking out.

It wasn’t as if McNamara didn’t have enough things on his mind. The situation in Indochina was deteriorating, the Soviets were making noise, plus there were very early indications—and he prayed that it was just rumors, nothing more—that the Cubans were up to something with missile bases. That would be just what they needed: missiles parked practically in their backyard. What a ready-made crisis that would be.

And yet, incredibly, all of that paled in comparison to what they were faced with now. It made worldly considerations seem positively mundane.

He approached the main entrance to the Oval Office and was waved in by the Secret Service. McNamara had been running, but now he stopped and chose to take a few moments to try to restore his breathing to normal. The brown leather briefcase he was carrying had been thumping against his leg as he ran; he was probably going to have one hell of a bruise in the morning.

He rapped briskly twice on the door and stepped in. Kennedy was looking out the window, apparently deep in thought. Without even turning, he said, “Good evening, Mr. Secretary.”

“Good evening, Mr. President.”

Allowing slightly less formality, the president said, “Working late, Bob?”

“Just came from Webb’s office, actually.”

“Let me guess: He’s giving us heat because of the Russians.”

“Well … that does continue to be an issue.”

Kennedy sighed. “He’s tired of NASA being so far behind. Don’t think that I’m unsympathetic. And don’t think that I haven’t been hearing about it, Bob. People are steaming over Yuri Gagarin. Everyone’s bellowing about national pride, and yet no one actually wants to loosen the purse strings to make it happen. We’re in a race, Bob. Although”—he shook his head—“the people who
are
worried are concerned to an insane degree. You have no idea how many of them have told me they think that the Russians are going to get to the moon and set up gigantic guns so that they can shoot at us. Can you imagine that? Weapons on the moon.”

“I can imagine it pretty well, actually, and that’s the reason for my coming in, Mr. President.” He crossed the room and settled the briefcase on a table. Reflexively he glanced under the desk to make sure the president’s son wasn’t hiding under it again. The last thing he needed was to have a child discussing this with his little friends. He opened the briefcase and pulled out a file folder, holding it up. “Designation top secret. We believe a UFO spacecraft has collided with the moon.”

Slowly Kennedy swiveled around in his chair to face the secretary of defense. Kennedy was far too good a poker player to permit incredulity to play across his face. He allowed, in this case, a slightly raised eyebrow as he looked at the report McNamara was spreading across his desk. “A UFO.”

“Yes, sir.”

“At first glance, my assumption would be that that notion is insane.”

“Then with all respect, Mr. President, I would suggest that, in this instance, there’s more than meets the eye.”

He laid out the information for Kennedy, walking the president through the specifics. He did so in exactly the way Webb had done with him and made it clear that Webb was available to come in and discuss matters further. Fortunately, the scientists who had made the discovery had been comprehensive in breaking down their research for digestion by nonscientists.

McNamara had initially been concerned that Kennedy would simply dismiss the notion out of hand. Certainly there had been men who had occupied that office who would have done exactly that. Hell, Nixon would have laughed him out of the Oval, so thank God
that
election had turned out the way that it had.

Instead, after initial skepticism, Kennedy had taken in everything McNamara was telling him. The secretary could even see the beginnings of quiet excitement in Kennedy’s bearing. The more he heard, the more evidence that was presented to him, the more galvanized he became.

Yet when McNamara concluded his case … when he finally stopped talking … Kennedy didn’t respond immediately. Instead he sat there for a time, steepling his fingers, and he seemed to be staring inward. McNamara could practically hear the wheels turning inside JFK’s head.

Finally he said, “Tell NASA to move heaven and earth. I want a manned mission.” To himself as much as to McNamara, he added, “We need to get Bobby in here. We need to sell this to Congress.”

“ ‘This’?” The word concerned McNamara. “Are you
intending to tell Congress …?” His hand drifted toward the top-secret material.

Kennedy snorted, and his Boston accent became even broader. “I tell Congress, and the only thing they’ll launch is investigations into the sanity of everyone involved—including me. Hell, they’ll probably claim the Pope put me up to it. No, we’re going to have to sell this thing without telling people what we’re actually selling. We may also want to confer with Dave Bell on this. The OMB is definitely going to want to weigh in, and the sooner we get Bell on board, the better. But we minimize this thing, Bob. ‘Need to know’ is our watchword. Well … watchwords.
Nobody
can know that
this
is the impetus for what I’m going to be proposing. Not even Lyndon.”

“Have you considered, sir,” McNamara pointed out, “that Lyndon—or even someone else—may be sitting in that chair when it actually happens? It could take twenty years …”

“We don’t have twenty years. And if we did, and someone else is in this office when it happens, then I’ll wait until the men are approaching the moon and I’ll tell the president myself.” He stared at the papers atop the desk. “This is not an easy endeavor we’re discussing, Bob. This undertaking … it’s on par with the effort that went into the building of the Panama Canal. Or the Manhattan Project.”

“Yes, sir. On the other hand, for all we know, whatever’s landed on the moon could wind up making the A-bomb look like a firecracker.”

Kennedy nodded with a smile that was anything but mirthful. “Which brings us back to weapons on the moon. Suddenly seems a little less paranoid than I would have thought.”

“Yes, sir,” said McNamara, who had been thinking exactly the same thing.

On May 25, 1961, before a special joint session of Congress, President John F. Kennedy gave what he considered to be the single most important speech of his presidency, if not his life. Only a handful of people truly understood the subtext of what he was discussing, and they were sworn to secrecy under threat of treason.

One of them was Aaron Brooks. He sat with his arm draped around Carla Spencer, who nestled against him on the couch, listening attentively.

“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar spacecraft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations—explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon—if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”

Neither of them dared say aloud what was going through their minds, because they had had hammered into them, by no less than Director Webb himself, the necessity of keeping silent about the impetus for what they were hearing. Let the rest of the world believe that this was in response to the Russians. But Brooks and his people, they knew better.

Still, the matter could be addressed without actually being addressed.