“Definitely carved in later. Directly over the head side.”
“Hmm. So one of the astronauts did it. In that case, obverse or reverse, I doubt the side means anything. You’re reading too much into it, would be my semi-informed opinion.”
“How so?”
“Put yourself in the shoes of a 1960’s astronaut or mission support specialist. Space was very new. To be able to have a space-flown object of any kind was quite a bragging right, and potentially even valuable. So what they did was, everyone put in their dime to give to the capsule astronaut, Gus Grissom, on this particular mission if I’m not mistaken, and to make sure they’d get back their exact dime and not one that was substituted, they would carve their initials, maybe. Or if they feared being reprimanded for bringing a dime on without permission — space contraband, you know— and didn’t want to be identified, they would simply carve a symbol on it, so later on they could say, ‘Hey that one’s mine, the one with the triangle.’”
Bones shook his head and laughed quietly, muttering something about Streib.
“What made you think it was something more than that?”
Dane felt a tinge of embarrassment. “We spoke to a guy who said they might have some meaning, something about proving that the mission was a lie and a fake and how they never really went into space at all.”
“Ah, so you’ve had a run-in with a space conspiracy theorist!”
“Well, this person seemed like they could be knowledgeable…”
“Right up until the part about the dime symbols constituting a coded message?”
“I guess so. This individual also seemed to think that the Russians somehow could have been interested in the dimes, if they did carry a message, which I guess they don't.”
Letson's voice seemed to perk up. “Well, now actually there might be something to that aspect of it. That’s the thing about these conspiracy theorists. They tend to take two different issues and conflate them to create meaning that isn’t there.”
Dane frowned. “So you mean the Russians would be interested in the dimes?”
“What I mean is that the Russians would be interested in anything that proves the mission was faked in some way, or was somehow misrepresented, since it marked a pivotal moment in the early Cold War space race. But forget about the coins. There was a living, breathing person more than willing to talk. He was a backup astronaut for the Mercury-Redstone 4 mission who trained right alongside Grissom leading up to the launch. I forget the man’s name. But he later became an outspoken opponent of NASA and was sued at one point, I believe, for violating confidentiality clauses related to the Mercury program.”
Dane and Bones traded glances, recalling the documents they had signed.
Letson went on. “My point being that for anyone really interested, there’s no need to puzzle over some scratched up dimes, if you could even locate them all — the capsule sank in the deep ocean, I believe — when you have, or at least had for many years, one of the astronauts more than willing to tell his side of the story. In fact…” They heard Letson tapping on a computer keyboard. “Hold on, here it is…Yes. I saw a news piece a year or so ago about how this Mercury astronaut said he was taking a trip to Star City, Russia to meet with Soviet space officials there.”
“And what happened in that meeting?” Dane wanted to know.
“Nothing. The meeting never occurred. The guy was killed in a freak accident. It says here he was hit by a train, just a few days before he was to leave for Russia.”
“Who the hell gets hit by a train?” Bones said. “My cousin Elijah did, but he was drunk on really cheap moonshine…”
Dane waved him into silence. The gears of his mind were spinning fast. He recalled aloud how Streib told them that Grissom had been killed in a fire.
“That's also true,” Letson said. “But again, it doesn't mean it wasn't an accident. Fires and rocket launches unfortunately go hand in hand. But there is something else that is a bit unusual about this particular period of the NASA space program.”
“I'm all ears.”
Dane heard Letson clacking away on a keyboard before his voice returned. “There are some back page reports of a Mercury-era plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon.”
Dane was stunned for a moment but recovered quickly. “What's the point of bombing the little green men?”
“You got me. But the thinking at the time was that it would intimidate the Russians as some kind of display of space weapons power. But keep in mind that this operation is pretty much just hearsay and was probably never run.”
“Weird.” Dane ran a hand through his hair, mulling over this new information. “Well, I guess I’d better let you get back to your friends.”
“Are you kidding? I lied. I’m playing by myself. Besides, this is more fun. I might keep digging just for the heck of it.”
“In that case, I’ll let you get on with it. You can call me at this number if you learn anything interesting. Thanks for your help.”
“You can thank me with drinks and a good meal next time you’re in town.” In typical Jimmy fashion, he ended the call without saying goodbye.
Dane looked at Bones, who was flipping one of the dimes again and again.
“This,” Dane began, “is turning out to be one weird mission.”
Dane climbed back into the cockpit of Deep Black and ran through some diagnostic checks on the sub in preparation for another dive on Liberty Bell 7.
“What if Streib was lying about giving us a window to work alone down there, and he attacks us with ROVs?” Bones asked from his position at the moon pool crane.
In answer, Dane’s arm reached across the instrument console and the externally mounted missile pod swiveled in Bones’ direction.
“Five left,” Bones said, referencing the missile they used on Streib. He went to the same manipulator arm he’d grabbed the nuke with and fully examined it. Satisfied it was undamaged, he gave Dane a thumbs up and went to the crane.
“One way or another, we need to go back down there and grab that Cold War artifact,” Dane said, looking up from the cockpit. “Space Boy said his team plans to attempt to raise the capsule later this afternoon, so we need to use this window to snatch the thing.”
“Nothing else to do out here in the middle of the night,” Bones said. He lowered the sub to the water with the crane and climbed into the co-pilot seat.
“So the plan is to drop down on the wreck site and then cover the quarter mile to the capsule on the seafloor. If we do that, according to Streib, we’ll come up on the capsule shortly after their ROVs are called back to the ship for maintenance.”
“And if anyone from the expedition has figured out that we have a sub, they’ll think we’re just diving for the treasure ship,” Bones said.
Dane nodded in agreement. “Then we grab Little Fat Girl or whatever cutesy name somebody probably thought up for that A-bomb, and head for the hills.”
He pulled the hatch over them and Bones latched it in place.
Four hours later, as dawn approached three miles above, Dane and Bones reached the seafloor once again.
“This looks sort of familiar, “Dane said, staring out at the featureless mud flat. “Having some real de ja vu, here, how about you?”
“I would be, if it weren’t for this sonar reading I’m getting.” He tapped a small screen with some squiggly yellow lines on it.