"There's a man lying in a coma in Walter Reed Hospital at this moment," said Hawk harshly. He spoke into the microphone on his desk in Washington and his voice was scrambled into meaningless vibrations along the airwaves that were translated into normal human sounds by a complex series of microscopic relays in the car radio. They arrived in Nick's ear as Hawk's voice — and with no loss of harshness along the way. "He's been there for three days. The doctors aren't sure they can save him, or if they can, whether his mind will ever be the same again. He was the captain of the second reserve team — Colonel Glenn Eglund. Someone tried to murder him at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston where he and his teammates were training for the project."
Hawk sketched in the details as Nick sent the silver 350 GT hurtling through the night. Colonel Eglund had been in the sealed prototype of the Apollo capsule, testing the life support system. Someone had apparently adjusted the controls from outside, stepping up the nitrogen content. This had mixed with the astronaut's own perspiration inside his space suit to form deadly, intoxicating Amine gas.
"Eglund had obviously seen something," said Hawk, "or in some way knew too much. What, we don't know. He was unconscious when found, and has never regained consciousness. But we hope to find out. That's why you're to take his place, N3. Eglund is approximately your age, your size, has your general physique. Poindexter's skill with makeup will take care of the rest."
"What about the girl?" Nick asked. "Candy Sweet."
"Let her stay where she is for the moment. By the way, N3, what's your impression of her?"
"She can be very professional at times, a damned fool at others."
"Yes — like her father," replied Hawk, and Nick could feel the ice in his tone. "I never approved of the society element in the upper echelons of the CIA, but that was before I had any say about it. Dickinson Sweet should have had more sense than to let his daughter get mixed up in a thing like this. That's another reason I flew down to Palm Beach personally — I wanted to have a chat with the girl before she contacted you." He paused. "That foray into the back of the Bali Hai that you mentioned earlier — in my opinion it was pointless and risky. Do you think you can keep her from upsetting any more apple carts?"
Nick said he could, adding, "One good thing came out of it, though. An interesting snapshot of Dr. Sun. There's also a man in it. I'll have Poindexter send it on for identification."
"Hmm." Hank's voice was non-committal. "Dr. Sun is in Houston now with the other astronauts. She doesn't know, of course, that you're subbing for Eglund. The only person outside AXE who does know is General Hewlett McAlester, the overall chief of NASA Security. He helped arrange the masquerade."
"I still have my doubts about bringing it off," said Nick. "After all, the astronauts in the team have been training together for months. They know each other intimately."
"Fortunately we have the Amine poisoning working for us," Hawk's voice rasped in his ear. "One of the chief symptoms is a weakening of the memory function. So if you don't remember all your colleagues and duties, it will seem quite natural." He paused. "Besides, I doubt that you'll have to keep the charade up for more than a day. Whoever made that first attempt on Eglund's life will try again. And he — or she — won't waste much time about it."
Chapter 5
She was even more beautiful than the pornographic photo had suggested. Beautiful in a chiseled, almost inhuman way which Nick found unnerving. Her hair was black — black as an arctic midnight — matching her eyes even to the glints and highlights that shone there. Her mouth was full, luscious, accented by the inherited cheekbones of her forebears — those on her father's side, at least. Nick remembered the dossier he'd studied on the flight to Houston. Her mother was English.
She hadn't seen him yet. She was walking along the neutral-smelling white corridor of the Manned Spacecraft Center, talking with a colleague.
Her body was good. The crisp white smock she wore over her street clothes couldn't hide that. She was a shapely, full-breasted woman who walked with a deliberate stance that thrust her beauty forward provocatively, each lithe step outlining the youthful swelling of her thighs.
Quickly N3 reviewed the salient facts: Joy Han Sun, M.D., Ph.D.; born in Shanghai during Japanese occupation; British mother, Chinese businessman father; educated at Mansfield College in Kowloon, then at M.I.T. in Massachusetts; became U.S. citizen; a specialist in aerospace medicine; worked first for General Kinetics (at GKI's Miami Medical Institute), then for the U.S. Air Force at Brooks Field, San Antonio; finally for NASA itself, dividing her time between the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston and Cape Kennedy.
"Dr. Sun, may we see you a moment?"
It was the tall, anvil-shouldered man at Nick's side who spoke. Major Duane F. Sollitz, Security Chief for the Apollo Project. Nick had been handed over to him for re-processing by General McAlester;
She turned toward them, a faint smile still on her lips from the previous conversation. Her gaze brushed past Major Sollitz and came to an abrupt halt at Nick's face — the face on which Poindexter of Editing had labored for almost two hours that morning.
She was good. She didn't scream or run down the hall or do anything silly. And the widening of her eyes was barely perceptible, but to Nick's trained eye the effect was no less dramatic than if she had. "I didn't expect you back this soon, Colonel." Her voice was low, its timbre remarkable clear. The accent was British. They shook hands, European style. "How do you feel?"
"Still a bit disoriented." He spoke with a pronounced Kansas twang — the result of sitting three hours with a tape-recording of Eglund's voice plugged into his ear.
"That's to be expected, Colonel."
He watched the pulse beating in her slim throat. She didn't look away from him but the smile was gone and her dark eyes were strangely bright.
Major Sollitz glanced at his watch. "He's all yours, Dr. Sun," he said in clipped, precise tones. "I'm running late for the o-nine-hundred meeting. Let me know if any problems crop up." He turned abruptly on his heel and marched off. There were no waste motions with Sollitz. A ramrod-stiff veteran of the Flying Tigers and a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines, he was almost a caricature of militarism run rampant.
General McAlester had been worried about sneaking Nick past him. "He's sharp," he'd said while visiting Nick in Eglund's Lawndale Road apartment that morning. "Very sharp. So don't relax around him for even a second. Because if he tumbles to the fact that you're not Eglund, he'll push the alarm button and blow your cover higher than the Washington Monument." But when Nick had reported to the Major's office, it had gone off like a charm. Sollitz had been so surprised to see him that he'd put him through only the most perfunctory of security checks.
"Follow me, please," said Dr. Sun.
Nick fell in behind her, automatically noting the smooth, limber movement of her hips, the length of her long, firm legs. The opposition, he decided, was getting better and better looking.
Opposition she was, though. No doubt about it. And maybe a killer, too. He remembered Hawk's phrase: "He, or she, will try again." And so far it all pointed to "she." The person who'd tried to kill Eglund had to be, (first,) someone with access to the Medical Research Section and (second,) someone with scientific training, particularly in the chemistry of extra-terrestrial life support. Someone who knew that a certain quantity of extra nitrogen would mix with the ammonia from human sweat to form deadly Amine gas. Dr. Sun, Medical Research Chief of Project Apollo, had the access and the training, and her special field was maintaining human life in outer space.
She opened the door of a small anteroom and stood aside, motioning to Nick. "Take off your clothes, please. I'll be right with you."