“Mrs. Guilloux, listen to me!” the man screamed while holding her by the shoulders. “It’s all right! Cameron is fine! We’ve come to take you to him. He’s safe in Washington, and soon you’ll join him.”
Marie’s vision was blurry. She thought her mind was playing tricks on her, making her believe what she so desperately wished would be true. She fought against believing her ears, but then she heard it again.
“Please, listen to me! Cameron is safe, and so are you now! Calm down and let us take care of you. Please, Mrs. Guilloux.”
Marie couldn’t fight it anymore. The CIA man had won.
As her tense body relaxed, the man’s face slowly came into focus — the face of a stranger, but the eyes showed compassion and warmth, and Marie needed that to take her away from this insanity.
“Everything is going to be all right, Mrs. Guilloux.”
She rested her head on his shoulder and silently wept.
Although it was his third time inside the Oval Office, Pruett felt a knot in his stomach as he faced a sleepy President and a very irritable Defense Secretary, the Secretary of State, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Director of the CIA, currently on leave hunting in the mountains, could not be reached in time for the meeting. Cameron sat on a sofa next to the Defense Secretary. Pruett knew his title alone didn’t give him enough pull to get these government officials together in a room on such short notice. It was the respect Pruett had earned for his performance during previous crises that had gotten the President out of bed. Pruett knew the President had a high regard for his opinion.
The President sat against the edge of his oak desk across from the sofas. He was dressed casually, a pair of light gray slacks and a white polo shirt. Pruett stood on the side in front of a small corkboard supported by a tripod.
“Gentleman,” the President began. “I want to apologize for getting you out of bed at this hour, Tom called me an hour ago with some very disturbing information concerning the future NASA. With that, I leave it with you, Tom.”
Pruett exhaled. It never got any easier. Twice in his life he had stood before the leaders of the nation, and twice his ulcer had numbed his entire chest and nearly clouded his senses. He felt the heartburn intensifying and clenched his teeth, but quickly managed to force a relaxed face as all the eyes in the room shifted in his direction.
“Thank you, Mr. President. Gentleman, all of you are aware by now of the problem NASA’s Lightning is facing in space. First, one of the main engines failed during the lift-off stage, and then—”
“We can read, Tom,” Carlton Stice, the Defense Secretary, suddenly said. He waved the confidential memo that Pruett had hand-delivered to the President. It detailed the current condition of the orbiter.
“Please bear with me, sir.”
“Go on, Tom,” said the President.
In spite of his digestive problem, Pruett smiled inwardly. Coming from this President, that meant don’t fucking interrupt him again until he’s finished!
“Thank you, sir. Less than an hour later the OMS engines, the Orbital Maneuvering System engines, failed during a maneuver that was meant to put Lightning in a higher, safer orbit. Fortunately, the engines didn’t fail until after Lightning had achieved enough speed to reach an orbit somewhere between its previous orbit and the desired orbit. The cause of the malfunctions cannot be truly determined until Lightning gets back down and NASA scientists get a chance to take the engines apart and inspect them. Gentleman, I stand here before you with the statement that Lightning’s problems were not due to a malfunction, but to sabotage.” There was an immediate reaction from those listening. The Secretary of Defense talked briefly to the Chairman of the Joint Chief’s while the Secretary of State closed his eyes and rubbed his large forehead.
Stice then addressed Pruett. “Tom, how do you know this?”
“From one of my operatives, Mr. Secretary. Cameron Stone.”
Pruett looked at Cameron and then at each of the others in the room. They all stared at him, the President included. Pruett cleared his throat and started speaking, telling the story right from the beginning: Claude Guilloux’s mysterious auto accident, Marie Guilloux’s revelation about the destruction of the Soviet spacecraft, the shooting at the hotel, the information conveyed to Cameron by the Athena scientists, the shooting at the warehouse, and the subsequent incidents involving the CIA directly. Pruett told it all as best he could. He finished with a brief description of Athena’s launching facility in French Guiana.
The room was quiet.
“How, Tom? How can you buy into such an idea without concrete proof?” asked Stice.
Pruett didn’t finch, but stared the Defense Secretary in the eye. Although the heartburn was nearly numbing his senses, he managed to put it behind him, cleared his throat, and addressed the group. “Gentlemen, I have provided you with evidence that tends to corroborate Mr. Stone’s testimony. I’ll admit that I can’t give you incontrovertible proof, but the reality of things in the intelligence field is that oftentimes we don’t get such proof. We generally start with a series of facts. From there we must build theories and test them against the facts until we find the one theory that matches best. We then adopt it and hope the future facts continue to fit it. In this case, I have to admit that I was hesitant at first, but after our people at NASA informed me of the problems Lightning was facing… well, gentlemen, it became apparent that something was seriously wrong. At this point we can do one of two things. We could close our eyes and ignore it, and hope that NASA will be able to handle it, or we can accept the situation for what it is and do something about it. That is your choice, gentleman. I’m merely presenting the information to you.”
More silence. Pruett noted Stice staring at the floor. He had slammed the door on the Defense Secretary.
“Is this place in French Guiana near a beach?” asked the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
“What do you have in mind?” asked the President before Pruett got a chance to point to the map of French Guiana pinned to the corkboard.
“I would just like to explore all our options, Mr. President.”
The President nodded and looked at Pruett, who stepped to the side of the board and pointed to the coastal city.
“Yes it is, sir. It’s near Devil’s Island, approximately forty miles from Cayenne, the capital.”
“Can we confirm deployment of the rocket?”
Pruett smiled and pulled out two satellite photographs. “These were taken exactly an hour ago during a KH-11 pass. This is the launch complex.” He pointed to a structure in the right side of the photo. “And this in the center is the rocket itself. My analyst has confirmed it as an Athena V rocket, capable of putting payloads into geosynchronous orbit. Very powerful rocket, sir. And extremely reliable too. It’s scheduled to be launched at exactly 11:35 P.M. local time, 10:35 P.M. our time.” Pruett checked his watch.
“Exactly sixteen hours and fifteen minutes from now.”
“God almighty,” the Chairman of the Joint Chief’s said.
“We have to move right away, Mr. President. If Tom’s information here is as good as it has been in the past, we must act immediately.”
“What if it’s not?” asked Stice. “All Tom’s got is conjecture. There’s no physical evidence, only Stone’s testimony. No offense intended, Stone.”
Cameron frowned. “None taken. But I would like to point out, sir, that Marie Guilloux, who happens to be on her way here from Paris, will back my story. She’s a scientist herself, and she was also there when the other Athena scientists were killed.”